The number of people repressed under Stalin. Stalin's "repressions": what are the real numbers and who made Stalin the murderer of his people? The beginning of revolutionary activity

If the “red terror” of the Civil War in Russia can still somehow be explained by the struggle for power, the reaction to the “white terror”, revenge for centuries of slavery and other reasons, then the repressions of the 1930s cannot be explained. One gets the impression that their only reason was that the authorities wanted to make the people fear themselves. And I must say that she succeeded.

The sword of Damocles hung over everyone. And no one, including the most prominent dignitaries of the state, could feel calm. This sword knew no mercy and cut off heads quietly but inexorably.

In Russia, before the 1917 revolution, official executions of death sentences were publicly announced. Starting in the 1930s, this became a state secret. At night, shots were heard in the basements and courtyards of prisons, muffled by the running engines of cars or simply by thick brick walls.

The condemned were usually killed one at a time. After handcuffing the condemned man, he was led into the basement, where he was shot. Later, the soundproof basements of NKVD prisons began to be equipped with a special path, along which the convict would receive a bullet in the back of the head, and an automatic device for washing away blood.

Sometimes mass executions “in nature” were practiced. This is how, for example, they dealt with Polish officers in Katyn. They shot them in uniforms with medals attached. Hands were usually tied with wire or braided cord. Sometimes they put a noose around the neck, and the free end of the rope was tightened on the hands. If a person tried to move his hands, the noose around his neck tightened. The Poles were taken out in batches into the forest in “craters” and finished off with shots to the back of the head. The executions were led by state security major V.M., sent from Moscow. Blokhin, who brought with him a whole suitcase of Walters. Soviet pistols could not withstand mass executions - they overheated.

Other methods of execution were also used in the 1930s. In 1937, in the bowels of the NKVD, the method of execution by hanging, which had seemingly been worked out for centuries, was improved. To make the death of class enemies more painful, a piano string and a rubber hose were used instead of a rope. People died for three hours, convulsively gasping for air all this time.

The NKVD was also looking for new methods of killing, it is no coincidence that in the USSR earlier Nazi Germany and the United States came up with a “gas chamber” - a gas chamber. Its inventor is said to be the head of the Administration of the NKVD in Moscow, I.D. Berg. The Soviet gas chamber was located in a van with a sealed body and an exhaust pipe located inside the body. The van had the words “Bread” on it.

And, finally, the most painful and long-lasting method of execution in the USSR was slow death in labor camps, where hunger, cold and hard work slowly but surely drove a person into a coffin.

Special departments of the Gulag united many ITL in different regions of the country: Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Dalstroy NKVD/MVD USSR, Solovetsky ITL (USLON), White Sea-Baltic ITL and the NKVD plant, Vorkuta ITL, Norilsk ITL, etc. The most difficult conditions and severe punishments were applied for the slightest violation of the regime.

The filling of the camps with labor was also facilitated by the tightening of criminal penalties. In 1936, the maximum prison term in the USSR was increased from 10 to 25 years.

The list of “execution” articles in the Criminal Code has also expanded. According to the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated August 7, 1932, it became possible to shoot for theft of state and public property. And on June 9, 1935, the USSR passed a law establishing the death penalty for escaping across the border; relatives of defectors were declared criminals. This was already a purely political issue. In fact, the authorities made it clear that no one would escape from her, and if he did, it would be difficult for his loved ones.

True, this threat did not affect the majority of the population in any way: the peasant, in order to straighten his passport to travel abroad, had to go through many authorities. And most people simply did not have the money to cross the border illegally.

On December 1, 1934, the secretary of the Central Committee and the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Sergei Kirov, was killed in Smolny by former party instructor Leonid Nikolaev.

Stalin used the murder of Kirov as a reason to begin large-scale repressions. By resolution of the Central Committee, abbreviated legal proceedings were introduced in cases of terrorist acts. Death sentences began to be churned out as if on an assembly line.

The flywheel of repression began to unwind when Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda (real name Enoch Gershonovich Yagoda) was appointed head of the NKVD. Thanks to his relationship with one of the leaders of the revolution, Sverdlov, Yagoda ended up working in the Cheka. Leon Trotsky, who knew Yagoda well during his work in the Cheka, wrote about him: “Very precise, overly respectful and completely impersonal. Thin, with a sallow complexion (he suffered from tuberculosis), with a short-cropped mustache, in a military jacket, he gave the impression of a zealous nonentity.”

However, Yagoda made a completely different impression on most people. He seemed big and terrible to them. No wonder Genrikh Georgievich became the record holder for landings. If before him, in 1933. There were 334 thousand people in places of deprivation of liberty, then already under him in 1934. - 510 thousand, in 1935 - 991 thousand, and in 1936 already 1296 thousand. And, perhaps, Yagoda was the first to actively introduce the principle of “beat your own so that strangers will be afraid” into the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was under him that large-scale repressions against his own employees began. In 1935, 13,715 police officers were brought to criminal responsibility, and in 1936 - 4,568, in 1937 - 8,905. Of these, 5,284, 2,621 and 3,057 people were convicted, respectively.

Ironically, Genrikh Yagoda himself did not escape arrest and trial. They say that during a search of Yagoda’s apartment, they found more than 3 thousand pornographic photographs featuring the wives of prominent figures in the party, science, culture and army, not counting nude compositions of ballerinas, athletes and ordinary citizens of the USSR. But they accused him not of collecting pornography, but of a huge number of other conceivable and inconceivable sins. Yagoda, wanting to bargain for his life, repented of everything. The fact that he was one of the leaders of the right-wing Trotskyist underground, which set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power and restoring capitalism, in complicity in the murder of S.M. Kirova, V.R. Menzhinsky, V.V. Kuibysheva, A.M. Gorky and his son M.A. Peshkov, in the attempt on the life of the new People's Commissar of the NKVD Yezhov, in helping foreign spies and much more.

Yagoda’s main task was to deal with opportunists. And although these opportunists were, as a rule, old Bolsheviks, people of authority in the party, their former comrades-in-arms let them go “to waste” without any regrets.

No matter how scary it may sound, for many people sentenced to death on political charges, execution became a kind of retribution from above for their participation in the “Red Terror.” As during the French Revolution, the revolutionaries were executed first, and then they were executed.

In this regard, the most significant was the execution of old Bolsheviks and Lenin’s comrades - Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev. Actually, they were not Zinoviev and Kamenev, their real names were Radomyslsky and Rosenfeld, respectively, but they went down in history under pseudonyms. Zinoviev and Kamenev had previously been distinguished by their independent position in relation to the leader’s opinion. For example, back in October 1917 they protested against the armed uprising of the Bolsheviks. However, independent judgments in relation to Stalin's opinion became fatal for them. First, in 1934, in the case of the “Moscow Center,” Zinoviev received 10 years of imprisonment, and Kamenev - 15. But already in 1936, in the case of the “Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center,” they both again came under investigation. At first, Zinoviev and Kamenev did not want to confess to the crimes they were accused of, including the attempt on Stalin’s life. Joseph Vissarionovich was very angry about this, he shouted to the leaders of the NKVD:

Tell them that no matter what they do, they will not stop the course of history. The only thing they can do is die or save their own skin. Work on them until they crawl to you on their belly with confessions in their teeth!

In the end, Zinoviev and Kamenev made a deal with Stalin. They admitted guilt in exchange for a promise that they would not be shot and their families would not be repressed. However, this did not help them. They were both sentenced to death and executed on August 25, 1936.

Perhaps the relatives of many of those executed before them considered the death of Zinoviev and Kamenev to be just retribution. It is known that Zinoviev actively contributed to the “Red Terror” in Petrograd. Not without his participation, graduates of the Alexander Lyceum were subjected to mass repression. Just because they used to get together and express unflattering opinions about the new government in their circle.

And Kamenev supported this very terror. “Our terror was forced, it is not the terror of the Cheka, but of the working class,” he said in his speech on December 31, 1919.

And then the shooting of their comrades began. On October 5, 1936, the veteran of the revolution, the leader of the Zinovievites, G. Fedorov, was shot.

In parallel with the Zinovievites, the “organs” continued to finish off the Trotskyists:

On October 4, 1936, Russian revolutionary Yuri Gaven was executed. However, he also lived and worked under a pseudonym. His real name is Dauman. The Latvian teacher Dauman himself sent a bunch of people to the next world. Here, for example, is how he wrote about himself: “I consider it necessary to remind you that I used mass red terror at a time when it was not yet officially recognized by the party. So, for example, in January 1918, using the power of the pred. Sevast. Military-Revol. Committee, ordered the execution of more than six hundred counter-revolutionary officers.”

Before the revolution, Gaven-Dauman spent almost 8 years in hard labor. But after the victory of Soviet power, he was included in the nomenklatura. From November 1921 he was chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, from 1924 - a member of the Presidium of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, in 1931-1933. - Director of a Soviet oil trading company in Germany. But at the same time, he also maintained contact between Lev Sedy and Trotsky and opposition groups. For this he was arrested and executed on charges of counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities and terrorism.

And then it turned out that the main fighter against opportunists, Genrikh Yagoda, was himself an opportunist. No Minister of the Interior has ever faced so many charges before him. And Yagoda, wanting to bargain for his life, repented of all conceivable and unimaginable sins: of being one of the leaders of the right-wing Trotskyist underground, which set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power and restoring capitalism, of complicity in the murder of S.M. Kirova, V.R. Menzhinsky, V.V. Kuibyshev, A.M. Gorky and his son M.A. Peshkov, in helping foreign spies and much more. For example, Yagoda was also charged with an attempt on the life of Nikolai Yezhov, who replaced him as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. According to the investigation, the former People's Commissar allegedly ordered the walls and curtains of his successor's office to be sprayed with a potent poison, which slowly evaporated at room temperature. Such sophisticated villainy outweighed sincere repentance. The court sentenced Yagoda to death.

In his last word, he said: “The fact that I and my co-defendants are sitting here in the dock and answering is a triumph, a victory.” Soviet people over counter-revolution." And when he was led to execution on March 15, 1938, he sang “The Internationale”.

According to the customs of that time, all the closest relatives of the exnarkom were repressed over the years. His wife Ida Leonidovna, the niece of Yakov Sverdlov, died in custody. And son Heinrich left the camp under the amnesty of 1953.

However, what happened under Yagoda seemed like “berries” in comparison with the “iron gloves” of Nikolai Yezhov. Under him, “Stalinist” repressions reached their peak. Yezhov was the head of the NKVD from September 1936 to December 1938. Here are the statistics of death sentences only in these years:

1937 - 353.074

1938 - 328.618

During the period 1937 - 1938, 681,692 death sentences were issued (about 1000 sentences per day!). The “hedgehog gloves” spared no one. 325 of Yagoda’s closest associates and himself were shot and imprisoned. Members of the USSR Central Executive Committee, cultural figures, “clergymen,” and ordinary workers were sent to the camps, regardless of their titles and ranks. Criminals got it too. In August 1937, the camps received an order from N.I. Yezhov, in accordance with which it was necessary to prepare and consider in the “troikas” cases against persons who “are conducting active anti-Soviet, subversive and other criminal activities at this time.” The blow also fell on the leaders of the thieves' community. In all NKVD camps, more than 30 thousand people, crime bosses and leaders of criminal groups, were shot.

And here is just a small list of the most famous executions during the period of Yezhov’s People’s Commissariat:

On March 13, 1937, Russian revolutionary, first Soviet People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs Nikolai Glebov-Avilov was shot;

On May 25, 1937, the Russian revolutionary, the first People's Commissar of Railways, the first historian of the Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Nevsky, was shot;

On June 11, 1937, in the Ishim prison, in the Omsk region, a mass execution of priests was carried out, led by Bishop Seraphim of Dmitrov. At the site of their death, the only monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Russia was subsequently erected;

And in Moscow on the same day, June 11, 1937, a closed trial of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and 7 other senior Soviet military leaders accused of high treason took place. TASS reported that all defendants admitted their guilt. The final speech of prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky lasted only 20 minutes and ended with a demand for the death penalty. The sentence was carried out four hours after it was pronounced;

On September 2, 1937, the Russian revolutionary, People's Commissar of Labor of the first Council of People's Commissars Alexander Shlyapnikov was shot;

On October 3, 1937, Russian economist and author of agricultural reform projects Alexander Chayanov was shot in the case of the Labor Peasant Party;

On the same day, the former leader of the Social Revolutionaries, the head of Komuch, Vladimir Volsky, was shot;

On October 8, 1937, Old Believer and poet Sergei Klychkov was shot. In 1905, he took part in revolutionary events, and then wrote poetry in revolutionary themes. Participation in the revolutionary movement for the Old Believer Klychkov resulted in his being falsely accused and shot in 1937. Rehabilitated in 1956;

On October 9, 1937, Russian revolutionary Nadezhda Bryullova-Shaskolskaya, author of the national program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, was shot in Tashkent;

On October 30, 1937, the firing squads received a heavy load. On this day, the following were executed: the former secretary of the Central Executive Committee and Stalin's comrade-in-arms - A. Enukidze, as well as 13 other members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, former confidants of Kirov, Bolshevik veterans Chudov and Kodatsky, the first People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR, organizer of Soviet statistics Vladimir Milyutin ;

On November 20, 1937, one of the leaders of the Russian clergy, former Metropolitan Kirill, was shot;

On November 27, 1937, E. Quiring (head of the Bolshevik faction in the State Duma), Y. Khanetsky (Lenin’s comrade-in-arms in emigration), N. Kubyak (Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), S. Andreev (leader of the Komsomol of Ukraine) were shot;

On December 10, 1937, former speaker of the Second State Duma of Russia Fyodor Golovin was shot in the Moscow region;

In 1938, revolutionary Anastasia Bitsenko was shot (in 1905 she killed General V. Sakharov, for which she was sentenced by the tsarist court to execution, commuted to hard labor);

On March 2, 1938, an open trial of Bukharin, Rykov and others began in Moscow. The case was considered in an open court session of the Military Collegium Supreme Court THE USSR. 18 people, i.e. Almost everyone involved in the case was sentenced to death. Sentenced to imprisonment D.D. Pletneva, Kh.G. Rakovsky and S.A. In September 1941, Bessonov was also shot in absentia among the prisoners of the Oryol prison;

On March 15, 1938, the death sentence was carried out on the leaders of the mythical “right-Trotskyist bloc” Rykov and Bukharin, accused of “gross aiding foreign intelligence services, sabotage and sabotage,” called “enemies of the people” (from an editorial in Izvestia dated March 12, 1938 , entitled “Shoot like filthy dogs!”);

On the same day, March 15, 1938, the first People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR A.I. was shot. Rykov and 15 other accused.

Before the revolution, Alexey Ivanovich Rykov was not the last person among the revolutionaries. Member of the RSDLP since 1905. All Moscow spies had a certificate about him: “Alexey Ivanovich Rykov, aka Vlasov, aka Sukhoruchenko Mikhail Alekseevich, surveillance nickname “Glukhar”.” During tsarist times, Alexey Ivanovich was repeatedly arrested, exiled, and escaped from exile.

Rykov held the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs for only 9 days - from November 8 to November 16, 1917. But during this time he managed to establish a workers’ militia. On November 16, he resigned as minister and resigned from the government in protest. He, you see, wanted the government to be uniformly socialist, but it was created as a purely concrete Bolshevik one. Of all the subsequent people's commissars and ministers, none of them parted with their positions as a sign of protest.

On July 28 and 29, 1938, executions were carried out on communists of Latvian origin - old revolutionaries: Army Commander Vatsetis, candidate member of the Central Committee Unshlikht, Chairman of the State Planning Committee Mezhlauk and others. On the same days, Army Commander Dybenko, Chairman of Soyuzkino Shumyatsky and former People's Commissar of Agriculture Yakovlev were executed together.

The curious metamorphoses with the anarchist Pavel Dybenko are worthy of special mention. From a simple sailor he became an army commander. From a red commander to People's Commissar of the Timber Industry. From an opponent of the death penalty - an executioner. And, finally, from a defender of the revolution to an “enemy of the people” and an American spy. On the eve of the death sentence, despairing of explaining to investigators the absurdity of the charges brought against him, Pavel Efimovich wrote to Stalin that he could not be an American spy due to the fact that he did not speak the American language. But Dybenko did not convince either Stalin or the court with this argument. A 17-minute trial was enough for the latter to condemn the legendary commander to death.

However, Dybenko left a holiday as a legacy for the Soviet people. The Day of the Soviet Army and Navy, now known as Defender of the Fatherland Day, was established after Red Army troops under the command of Pavel Dybenko stopped the German offensive near Narva on February 23, 1918.

On July 29, 1938, in addition to Dybenko, the head of the Central Control Commission Rudzutak and the old revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Comintern Osip Pyatnitsky were also executed

On August 1, 1938, the Russian revolutionary, one of the founders of the first Soviets in Russia and the leaders of the 1917 revolution, Andrei Bubnov, was shot;

On August 19, 1938, the former Minister of War of the Provisional Government, General Alexander Verkhovsky, was shot;

On August 29, 1938, the former leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries Boris Kamkov (real name Katz), who became one of the organizers of the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion of 1918, was executed. For the rebellion, he was given 3 years of captivity, and then given the opportunity to work in household work. Under Yezhov, they remembered him and shot him;

On September 1, 1938, a prominent revolutionary and candidate member of the Politburo V. Ossinsky was sentenced to death by a military board at a secret meeting and shot on the same day;

On September 17, 1938, Nikolai Kondratyev, a former member of the Provisional Government, economist, author of the first Soviet five-year plan, was shot;

On September 20, 1938, Soviet diplomat and former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lev Karakhan was shot;

On October 3, 1938, the former leader of the left Socialist Revolutionaries, People's Commissar of the first Soviet Council of People's Commissars Vladimir Algasov, as well as the former leader of the right Socialist Revolutionaries of Russia Mikhail Gendelman were shot;

Finally, “there was a hole in the old woman.” On April 10, 1939, the “sinister dwarf” NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov was arrested. They say that during a search they found several flattened revolver bullets wrapped in pieces of paper with the inscriptions “Zinoviev”, “Kamenev”, “Smirnov”. By that time, the bullet for Yezhov had already been cast, but had not yet been signed.

Yezhov was charged with a whole bunch of charges:

1. He was the leader of an anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization in the troops and bodies of the NKVD.

2. Betrayed his homeland by carrying out espionage work in favor of Polish, German, Japanese and British intelligence services.

3. In an effort to seize power in the USSR, he prepared an armed uprising and the commission of terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and government.

4. Engaged in subversive, sabotage work in the Soviet and party apparatus.

5. For adventurist and careerist purposes, he created a case of imaginary “mercury poisoning”, organized the murder of a number of people he disliked, who could expose his treacherous work.

For such crimes there could only be one sentence. And on February 2, 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by V.V. Ulrikha sentenced the former People's Commissar of the NKVD Yezhov to death.

True N.I. Yezhov rejected at trial all the accusations against him about anti-party activities, espionage, etc., which he admitted during the preliminary investigation.

At the same time, Yezhov stated that “there are also crimes for which I can be shot. I cleared out 14 thousand security officers. But my huge fault is that I didn’t clean them enough. Everywhere I cleaned out security officers. The only places I didn’t clean them were in Moscow, Leningrad and the North Caucasus. I considered them honest, but in reality it turned out that under my wing I was sheltering saboteurs, saboteurs, spies and other types of enemies of the people.”

On February 4, 1940, Nikolai Yezhov, the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was shot. During his leadership of the NKVD (from 1936 to 1938), more than 1.5 million people were subjected to unjustified repression.

Lavrentiy Beria, who replaced Yezhov as head of the NKVD, began his career promisingly. In 1938 he signed the resolution “On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigation.” In accordance with it, mass arrests and evictions were prohibited, arrests were ordered to be made only by court order or with the sanction of the prosecutor, and judicial “troikas” were liquidated. As a result, many innocent people were soon released from prisons and camps. On the contrary, law enforcement officers were put on trial for groundless mass arrests. As a result, the flywheel of repression slowed down its speed hundreds of times. In 1939, only 2,552 death sentences were handed down, and in 1940, even fewer - 1,649.

However, politics and war had their say. Repression began to gain momentum again.

Here are some of the most famous executions of the pre-war and war years:

On November 30, 1939, the leader of the Hungarian revolution, Bela Kun, was executed in the USSR, accused of spying for Germany and England. He came to Russia in 1916 as a prisoner of war, and then joined the RSDLP(b). After the revolution of 1917, he distinguished himself in repressions against Russians. Then he went to Hungary to make a revolution there. After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he returned to the USSR, where he met his death.

On February 2, 1940, Russian theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold was executed. His case can serve as an example of the speed of Soviet justice. On January 28, for his birthday, Meyerhold received a copy of the indictment in Butyrka prison. On February 1, in the basement of the Military College, I heard the verdict. And on February 2 this sentence was carried out. Together with Meyerhold, Boyarsky-Shimshelevich and Mikhail Koltsov were shot.

« They put me on the floor face down, beat me on my heels and back with a tourniquet; When I was sitting on a chair, they beat me on my legs with the same rubber. The following days, when these areas of the legs were filled with profuse internal hemorrhages, these red-blue-yellow bruises were again beaten with this tourniquet, and the pain was such that it seemed as if boiling water had been poured onto the sore sensitive areas (I screamed and cried in pain) . They beat me in the face with their hands... The investigator kept repeating, threatening: “If you don’t write, we’ll beat you again, we’ll leave your head and right hand untouched, and we’ll turn the rest into a piece of a shapeless, bloody body.” And I signed everything until November 16, 1939».

On September 11, 1941 the following were shot: former head Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine H. Rakovsky, leading Russian doctor D. Pletnev, accused of the murder of M. Gorky, as well as Russian revolutionaries, leaders of the left Socialist Revolutionaries Maria Spiridonova and Ilya Mayorov

On September 15, 1941, Eva Broydo, the leader of the Menshevik anti-Soviet underground, was shot in the Oryol prison.

On October 28, 1941, by order of L. Beria, revolutionary F. Goloshchekin, one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family, was shot

After the war, in the wake of victorious euphoria, Stalin and Beria announced to the people the abolition of the death penalty. This act of mercy against the background of the current reputation of these political figures looks like something fantastic, but it was actually carried out. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 26, 1947, the abolition of the death penalty was proclaimed. This Decree established that for crimes punishable under current laws death penalty; in peacetime, imprisonment in a forced labor camp for a period of 25 years is applied.

The capital punishment was not in effect from March 26, 1947 to January 12, 1950. True, no one was going to liquidate the Gulag. After the war, the number of people convicted on political charges was:

1946 – 123,294 people

1947 – 78,810 people

1949 – 28,800 people

Although the number of death executions during the “Beria” period decreased noticeably, the NKVD organs carried out their task of supplying free labor to the camps regularly. In the third year of the leadership of the NKVD by Beria, in 1941, the number of prisoners in the USSR reached a record number - 1,976 thousand people. And by the time of his return after a short break to the post of head of the internal affairs bodies, in 1953 there were 2,526 thousand people. However, during this period, Lavrenty Pavlovich, it seems, began to wonder: was he overdoing it? And as a result, he launched the largest amnesty in the history of the country.

However, no amnesty could save him. Beria has already lost his trust. On June 26, 1953, Lavrenty Pavlovich was arrested. And on December 23 of this year, a verdict was read out to him, according to which he was accused of conspiracy to use internal affairs bodies against the Communist Party of the Soviet government, as well as many other crimes. And on the same day Beria was shot.

It should be noted that Beria was by no means alone in leading the post-war repressions. On April 14, 1943, the NKVD was divided into two law enforcement agencies - the NKGB of the USSR and the NKVD of the USSR, under the leadership of L.P., respectively. Beria and V.N. Merkulova. Moreover, in the post of head of the NKGB in January 1946, Beria was replaced by V.S. Abakumov, who led it until June 1951.

The death penalty in the USSR was reintroduced on January 12, 1950 by the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces “On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies, and subversive saboteurs,” and on April 30, 1954, the death penalty was also introduced for intentional murder.

One gets the impression that during the three years that the death penalty was absent in the country, the people “embraced”, and in order to drive them back into the framework of “permanent fear”, “Stalin’s falcons” began to practice certain actions aimed at creating an additional effect on others. In this regard, one story can be cited:

In September 1950, when the so-called “Leningrad case” was heard in the building of the House of Officers, all the accused were sentenced to death. Immediately after the verdict was announced, the historian writes, “the tall guards threw white shrouds over the condemned men, lifted them onto their shoulders and carried them to the exit across the entire hall. At that moment, the noise of a falling body and the clang of a weapon was heard: this was an unscripted fainting event with the young guard.

In 1954, in the same hall of the House of Officers, the former head of state security, Abakumov, was tried. Prosecutor Rudenko was told about the scene of the removal of the condemned from this hall, and he asked the defendant:

Why did you do this then?

For psychological impact on those present. “Everyone should have seen our power, the indestructible strength of our organs,” Abakumov answered.

In the USSR, executions were often carried out on the basis of party and professional affiliation, and in 1952 they began to be executed on the basis of nationality. On May 8, 1952, a trial began to accuse the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of cosmopolitanism, as if they openly sympathized with the West, admired its achievements, as well as their connections with foreign intelligence services. 13 defendants in this trial were shot in the basements of Lubyanka on the night of August 12, 1952. This night went down in history under the name “Night of the Murdered Poets”, since three poets were on the list of those executed: Peretz Markish, Itzik Fefer, David Bergelson. Moreover, the latter was shot exactly on the day he turned 68 years old. This is the congratulation received from the Soviet government. Among those executed were also diplomat Solomon Lozovsky and artist Veniamin Zuskin. All were buried in a common grave at the Donskoye Cemetery.

On the same day, in the city of Stalino, now Donetsk, an execution for professional reasons took place. A group of senior employees of the metallurgical complex, accused of sabotage, was shot.

At the beginning of 1952, Stalin’s personal physician Vinogradov advised the leader to engage less in politics and get more rest in order to take care of his failing health. And Stalin saw this recommendation as a secret plan to remove him from power. The leader assigned the Minister of State Security Ignatiev the task of finding the instigators of the doctors’ conspiracy. “If you don’t get recognition from the doctors, we’ll make you a cut shorter,” the leader joked gloomily.

Ignatiev correctly assessed that there was a large grain of truth in every leader’s joke, and therefore soon reported on the “deliberate mistreatment” of senior party leaders. Doctors Vinogradov, Egorov, Vasilenko, Buzalov, Etinger, Vovsi, Kogan and others were allegedly guilty of the deaths of Shcherbakov and Zhdanov.

On January 13, 1953, an article “Arrest of pest doctors” appeared in Pravda. Pravda claimed that “killer doctors, monsters in human form, turned out to be paid agents of foreign espionage.” Three of the accused doctors were Russian, six were Jews.

In early February 1953, members of the underground Israeli Zionist organization detonated a bomb at the door of the Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv in protest against the anti-Jewish campaign in the USSR. And although the criminals were punished by the Israeli court, the USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, and the spiral of anti-Semitic fever continued to rapidly unwind.

In February, another 37 people were arrested, again mostly doctors and members of their families. The press campaign caused real mass hysteria. People refused to take medicine from Jewish doctors or pharmacists for fear of being poisoned.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. A month after his death, on April 3, 1953, the arrested doctors were released. We can say that they were very lucky.

The ominous era of Stalinist repressions ended with the death of the leader. According to the report prepared for N.S. Khrushchev, the OGPU collegium, the NKVD troikas and the Special Conference for the period from 1921 to 1954, 3,777,380 people were sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes, including 642,980 to capital punishment, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years or less 2,369,220, into exile and deportation - 765,180 people.

By 1954, 467,946 people were kept in camps and prisons for prisoners convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and, in addition, 62,462 people were in exile after serving such sentences. For criminal offenses and gross violations of the law, 1,324 NKVD-MGB officers were sentenced to various penalties, including execution. 2,370 former employees involved in the repression were punished by party or administrative means. 68 generals were stripped of their military ranks, dismissed from service and convicted.

We can say that the last chord of Stalin's repressions was the repressions against their main characters.

After Stalin's death, Lavrentiy Beria seemed to have repentance. And he actively began to correct the excesses that had been made.

On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared, freeing 1,181,264 people. A number of high-profile political criminal cases were dropped or reviewed. The “doctors’ case” was closed, those arrested in connection with it were released; All those convicted in the “Leningrad” and “Mingrelian” criminal cases were rehabilitated. High-ranking military personnel imprisoned during trials in the late 1940s and early 1950s were released and reinstated, such as Air Chief Marshal A.A. Novikov, Marshal of Artillery N.D. Yakovlev and others. In total, investigative cases on 400 thousand people were closed. Finally, in order to prevent “excesses” in the future, Beria issued a secret order requiring the observance of “socialist legality” during the investigation and prohibiting torture during interrogations.

But nothing could save Lavrenty Pavlovich himself. Members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were, on the initiative of N.S. Khrushchev announced that Beria plans to carry out a coup d'etat and arrest the Presidium at the premiere of the opera “Decembrists”. On June 26, 1953, during a meeting of the Presidium, Beria was arrested by G.K. Zhukov, on behalf of Khrushchev, was tied up, taken out of the Kremlin by car and kept in custody in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Air Defense District.

Soon Beria appeared before a special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I.S. Koneva. He was accused of spying for Great Britain, striving for “the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.” And also in the elimination of persons who could expose him. For example, the old communist, party member since 1902 M.S. Kedrov, who had information about Beria’s criminal past. Despite the fact that Kedrov was acquitted by the Supreme Court of the USSR, he was not released from custody, but was shot on the personal orders of Lavrentiy Pavlovich. Beria was also accused of moral corruption, which consisted in the fact that he cohabited with many women and raped some. Thus, the indictment included the fact that on May 7, 1949, Lavrenty Pavlovich, having fraudulently lured a 16-year-old schoolgirl into his mansion, raped her, threatened her and her mother with physical destruction if they filed a complaint. For this bunch of crimes, Beria was sentenced to death.

The sentence was carried out on December 23, 1953 in the same bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters where Beria was kept after his arrest. Present at the execution were the commander of the Moscow Military District, Army General K.S. Moskalenko, First Deputy Commander of the Air Defense Forces, Colonel General P.F. Batitsky, Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko.

The very procedure of Beria’s execution was described by A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko as follows:

“They took off his tunic, leaving him with a white undershirt, tied his hands behind his hands with a rope and tied them to a hook driven into a wooden shield. This shield protected those present from bullet ricochets. Rudenko read out the verdict.

Beria: - Let me tell you...

Rudenko: -You already said everything. (To the military.) Put a towel in his mouth.

Moskalenno (to Yuferev): -You are our youngest, you shoot well. Let's.

Batitsky: - Comrade commander, allow me (takes out his “parabellum”). With this thing I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.

Rudenko: - I ask you to carry out the sentence.

Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, and Beria squinted the other one. Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of his forehead. The body hung on the ropes."

Later, Batitsky reported to Konev with a memo: “The sentence was carried out at 19.50 on December 23, 1953. Batitsky.”

On the same day, six of Beria’s associates were shot in the basements of Lubyanka: V.N. Merkulov (former Minister of State Security of the USSR), V.G. Dekanozov (former head of one of the departments of the NKVD of the USSR, then Minister of Internal Affairs Georgian SSR), B.Z. Kobulov (former Deputy Minister of State Security, then Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR), S.A. Goglidze (former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR, in Lately head of one of the departments of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs), P.Ya. Menshik (Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR), L.E. Vlodzimirsky (former head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs).

A brief report about the trial of Beria and his collaborators appeared in the Soviet press.

A year later, retribution overtook the former USSR Minister of State Security Viktor Semenovich Abakumov. He was shot on December 19, 1954.

They say that Abakumov was handsome, tall, and well built. He took care of himself: he wore a carefully tailored uniform and fashionable suits, smelled of exquisite cologne, played tennis, and was a master of sports in sambo. Like Beria, he had no need to rape women, they gave themselves to him with pleasure. For using safe houses for amorous meetings, he was even at one time transferred from state security to the penal system. In addition to women, Abakumov loved foxtrot, football and barbecue, which were brought to him from the Aragvi restaurant.

However, the life-loving Abakumov deprived many people of life and freedom. He was not such a zealous apologist for mass repressions as Yagoda and Yezhov, but he used them while still the head of the NKVD department for the Rostov region in the late 30s. Already as Minister of State Security, Viktor Semenovich distinguished himself, for example, by fabricating the “Leningrad case” in 1950-51, according to which numerous arrests and executions of Leningrad party and economic leaders were carried out.

During these years, Abakumov's influence increased sharply and he began to be seen as one of Beria's main rivals. However, Lavrenty Pavlovich turned out to be stronger at that time and managed to “overthrow” his competitor. On July 12, 1951, Abakumov was arrested on charges of concealing a “Zionist conspiracy” in the USSR MGB.

They say that even as Minister of State Security, Viktor Semenovich often personally conducted interrogations, during which he beat the defendants. After his arrest, he himself found himself “in their shoes.” Methods of physical pressure were actively used against him. They say that Abakumov endured torture and beatings very courageously and did not break down psychologically, but after them this once flourishing man remained disabled.

At the trial, he was accused of treason, sabotage, fabrication of criminal cases and a number of other crimes. Viktor Semenovich did not admit guilt, saying: “Stalin gave instructions, I carried them out.” However, the court still found that he was guilty of treason, sabotage, terrorist attacks, participation in a counter-revolutionary organization and sentenced him to death.

Together with Abakumov, his closest assistants were shot: the head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security, A.G. Leonov, Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR V.I. Komarov and M.T. Likhachev.

Monument to the victims of Stalin's repressions .

Moscow. Lyubyanskaya Square. The stone for the monument was taken from the territory of the Solovetsky camp special purpose. Established October 30, 1990

Repression is a punitive measure of punishment by government agencies in order to protect the state system and public order. Often repressions are carried out for political reasons against those who threaten society with their actions, speeches, and publications in the media.

During the reign of Stalin, mass repressions were carried out

(late 1920s to early 1950s)

Repression was seen as a necessary measure in the interests of the people and the construction of socialism in the USSR. This was noted in « Short course history of the CPSU (b)", which was republished in 1938-1952.

Goals:

Destruction of opponents and their supporters

Intimidation of the population

Shift responsibility for political failures to “enemies of the people”

Establishment of the autocratic rule of Stalin

The use of free prison labor in the construction of production facilities during the period of accelerated industrialization

There were repressions a consequence of the fight against the opposition, which began already in December 1917.

July 1918 - the end of the left Socialist Revolutionary bloc was put to an end, establishment of a one-party system.

September 1918 - implementation of the policy of “war communism”, the beginning of the “Red Terror”, tightening of the regime.

1921 - creation of revolutionary tribunals ® Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, VChK ® NKVD.

Creation of State Political Administration ( GPU). Chairman - F.E. Dzerzhinsky. November 1923 - GPU ® United GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Prev. - F.E. Dzerzhinsky, since 1926 - V.R. Menzhinsky.

August 1922 XIIRCP(b) conference- all anti-Bolshevik movements are recognized as anti-Soviet,” that is, anti-state, and therefore subject to destruction.

1922 - Resolution of the GPU on the expulsion from the country of a number of prominent scientists, writers, and specialists National economy. Berdyaev, Rozanov, Frank, Pitirim Sorokin - "philosophical ship"

Main events

1st period: 1920s

Competitors of Stalin I.V..(since 1922 - General Secretary)

Trotsky L.D..- People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs, Chairman of the RVS

Zinoviev G.E.– Head of the Leningrad party organization, chairman of the Comintern since 1919.

Kamenev L.B. - head of the Moscow party organization

Bukharin N.I.- editor of the newspaper Pravda, main party ideologist after the death of Lenin V.I.

All of them are members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Years	Processes
1923-1924	Fight with Trotskyist opposition	Trotsky and his supporters were against NEP, against forced industrialization. Opponents: Stalin I.V., Zinoviev G.B., Kamenev L.B. Result: Trotsky was removed from all posts.
1925-1927	Fight with "new opposition" - originated in 1925 (Kamenev + Zinoviev) AND "united opposition" - arose in 1926 (Kamenev + Zinoviev + Trotsky)	Zinoviev G.E., Kamenev L.B. They opposed the idea of ​​​​building socialism in one country, which was put forward by Stalin I.V. Results: for attempting to organize an alternative demonstration in November 1927, everyone was deprived of their posts and expelled from the party. Trotsky was exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928. And in 1929, outside the USSR.
1928-1929	Fight with "right opposition"	Bukharin N.I., Rykov A.I. They opposed the acceleration of industrialization and were in favor of maintaining the NEP. Results: expelled from the party and deprived of posts. A decision was made to expel from the party everyone who had ever supported the opposition.
Result: all power was concentrated in the hands of Stalin I.V. Causes: Skillful use of the position of Secretary General - nominating one’s supporters to positions Using differences and ambitions of competitors to your advantage

2nd period: 1930s

Year	Processes	Who is the repression directed against? Causes.
1929	« Shakhty case"	Engineers accused of sabotage and espionage in Donbass mines
1930	Case "industrial party"	Process on sabotage in industry
1930	Case "counter- revolutionary Socialist-Revolutionary-kulak group Chayanov-Kondratiev"	They were accused of sabotage in agriculture and industry.
1931	Case " Union Bureau"	The trial of former Mensheviks who were accused of sabotage in the field of planning economic activities in connection with foreign intelligence services.
1934	Murder of S.M. Kirov	Used for repression against opponents of Stalin
1936-1939	Mass repression	Peak - 1937-1938, "great terror"
	Process against "united Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition"	accused Zinoviev G.E. , Kamenev L.B. and Trotsky
	Process "anti-Soviet Trotskyist center"	Pyatakov G.L. Radek K.B.
1937, summer	Process "about a military conspiracy"	Tukhachevsky M.N. Yakir I.E.
	Process "right opposition"	Bukharin N.I. Rykov A.I.
1938. summer	Second process "about a military conspiracy"	Blucher V.K. Egorov A.I.
1938-1939	mass repressions in the army	Repressed: 40 thousand officers (40%), out of 5 marshals - 3. Out of 5 commanders - 3. Etc.
RESULT : the regime of unlimited power of Stalin I.V. was strengthened.

3rd period: post-war years

1946	persecuted cultural figures.	Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) “About the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”. A.A. Akhmatova was persecuted. and Zoshchenko M.M. They were sharply criticized by Zhdanov
1948	"Leningrad affair"	Voznesensky N.A. - Chairman of the State Planning Committee, Rodionov M.I. – Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, Kuznetsov A.A. - Secretary of the Party Central Committee, etc.
1948-1952	"The Case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee"	Mikhoels S.M. and etc. Stalin's anti-Semitic policies and the fight against cosmopolitanism.
1952	"The Doctors' Case"	A number of prominent Soviet doctors were accused of murdering a number of Soviet leaders.
Result: The personality cult of Stalin I.F. reached its apogee, that is, its highest point.

This is not a complete list of political trials, as a result of which many prominent scientists, political and military figures of the country were convicted.

Results of the policy of repression:

Conviction for political reasons, charges of “sabotage, espionage. Connections with foreign intelligence2 more allegedly. Human.

For many years, during the reign of Stalin I.V., a strict totalitarian regime was established, there was a violation of the Constitution, an encroachment on life, deprivation of the freedoms and rights of the people.

The emergence of fear in society, the fear of expressing one’s opinion.

Strengthening the autocratic rule of Stalin I.V.

Use of large free labor in construction industrial facilities etc. So the White Sea-Baltic Canal was built by GULAG prisoners (State Administration of Camps) in 1933

Stalin's repressions are one of the darkest and most terrible pages of Soviet history.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation – this is release, dismissal of charges, restoration of an honest name

The process of rehabilitation began already at the end of the 1930s, when Beria became the head of the NKVD instead of Yezhov. But it wasn't a large number of of people.

1953 - Beria, having come to power, conducts a large-scale amnesty. But the majority of the approximately 1 million 200 thousand people are convicted felons.

The next mass amnesty took place in 1954-1955. Approximately 88,200 thousand people were released - citizens convicted of collaborating with the occupiers during the Great Patriotic War.

Rehabilitation took place in 1954-1961 and 1962-1983.

Under Gorbachev M.S. rehabilitation resumed in the 1980s, with more than 844,700 people rehabilitated.

On October 18, 1991, the Law “ On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" Until 2004, over 630 thousand people were rehabilitated. Some repressed persons (for example, many leaders of the NKVD, persons involved in terrorism and committed non-political criminal offenses) were recognized as not subject to rehabilitation - in total, over 970 thousand applications for rehabilitation were considered.

September 9, 2009 novel Alexander Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago” made mandatory school curriculum in literature for high school students.

Monuments to the victims of Stalin's repressions

The crimes of rulers cannot be blamed on those over whom they rule; Governments are sometimes bandits, but peoples never are. V. Hugo.

After the villainous murder of S.M. Kirov, mass repressions began. On the evening of December 1, 1934, on the initiative of Stalin (without a decision of the Politburo - this was formalized by a poll only 2 days later), the following resolution was signed by the Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, Enukidze.

1) Investigative authorities - to conduct cases of those accused of preparing or committing terrorist acts in an expedited manner;

2) Judicial bodies - not to delay the execution of capital sentences due to petitions for pardon from criminals of this category, since the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider it possible to accept such petitions for consideration;

3) The bodies of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs - to carry out the sentence of capital punishment in relation to criminals of the above categories immediately after the pronouncement of court sentences.

This resolution served as the basis for massive violations of socialist legality. In many falsified investigative cases, the accused were accused of “preparation” of terrorist acts, and this deprived the accused of any opportunity to verify their cases, even when at trial they renounced their forced “confessions” and convincingly refuted the charges.

It should be said that the circumstances surrounding the murder of Kirov still conceal a lot of incomprehensible and mysterious things and require the most thorough investigation. There is reason to think that the killer of Kirov, Nikolaev, was helped by someone from the people responsible for protecting Kirov. A month and a half before the murder, Nikolaev was arrested for suspicious behavior, but was released and not even searched. It is extremely suspicious that when a security officer assigned to Kirov in December 1934 was taken for interrogation, he was killed in a car “accident”, and none of the persons accompanying him were injured. After the murder of Kirov, the leading employees of the Leningrad NKVD were removed from work and subjected to very mild punishments, but in 1937 they were shot. It can be noted that they were shot in order to cover up the traces of the organizers of Kirov’s murder.

Mass repressions intensified sharply from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and Zhdanov from Sochi dated September 25, 1936, addressed to Kaganovich, Molotov and other members of the Politburo, which stated the following:

“We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent to appoint Comrade Yezhov to the post of People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs. Yagoda clearly failed to rise to the occasion of his task in exposing the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. The OGPU was 4 years late in this matter. Party workers and the majority of regional representatives of the NKVD speak about this.” Khlevnyuk O.V., 1937: Stalin, the NKVD and Soviet society. - M.: Republic, 1992 - P.9..

It should be noted, by the way, that Stalin did not meet with party workers and therefore could not know their opinion. This Stalinist attitude that “the NKVD was 4 years late” with the use of mass repressions, that it was necessary to quickly “catch up” for lost time, directly pushed the NKVD workers to mass arrests and executions. Mass repressions were carried out at that time under the banner of the fight against Trotskyists.

In Stalin’s report at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyists and other double-dealers,” an attempt was made to theoretically substantiate the policy of mass repression under the pretext that “as we move forward towards socialism,” the class struggle should supposedly become more and more aggravated. At the same time, Stalin argued that this is what history teaches, and this is what Lenin teaches. In fact, Lenin pointed out that the use of revolutionary violence is caused by the need to suppress the resistance of the exploiting classes, and these instructions from Lenin related to the period when the exploiting classes existed and were strong. As soon as the political situation in the country improved, as soon as Rostov was taken by the Red Army in January 1920 and was won main victory over Denikin, Lenin gave instructions to Dzerzhinsky about the abolition of mass terror and the abolition of the death penalty. Lenin justified this important political event as follows: Soviet power in his report at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 2, 1920:

“Terror was imposed by the terrorism of the Entente, when all the peacefully powerful powers fell upon us in their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out even for two days if these attempts by the officers and White Guards had not been responded to in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente. And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty and thereby showed that we treat our own program as we promised. We say that the use of violence is caused by the task of suppressing the exploiters, suppressing the landowners and capitalists; When this is resolved, we will abandon all exceptional measures. We have proven this in practice."

Stalin retreated from these direct and clear program instructions from Lenin. After all the exploiting classes in our country had already been eliminated, and there were no serious grounds for the massive use of exceptional measures, for mass terror, Stalin oriented the party, oriented the NKVD organs towards mass terror.

From 1929 to 1953 alone, 19.5-2.2 million Soviet citizens became victims of Stalin's repressions. Of these, at least a third were sentenced to death or died in camps and exile. After the war, society in socio-political terms was not just “mothballed”, but acquired some new gloomy features of a bureaucratic, police nature. Stalin managed to combine the incongruous - to support in every possible way the external enthusiasm, the asceticism of people who believed that those same shining peaks were just around the corner, just beyond the nearest pass. And then there is the constant threat of individual or mass terror.

CONCLUSION

Stalin dictatorship repression

Because this period was too huge for a more detailed consideration, I highlighted the most prominent errors and shortcomings.

It should be noted that in Stalin’s activities, along with positive aspects There were theoretical and political errors. Some traits of his character negatively affected the structure of our country. If in the first years of work without Lenin, Stalin took into account critical remarks addressed to him, then started later to deviate from the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, to overestimate their own merits in the successes of the party and the people. Gradually, the personality cult of Stalin developed, which entailed gross violations of socialist legality and caused serious harm to the activities of the party and the cause of communist construction.

Stalin loved secrets. Big and small. But most of all he adored the secrets of power. There were a lot of them. They were often creepy. His biggest secret was that he managed to become a symbol of socialism. Much positive that was born in society became a reality, primarily not thanks to, but in spite of Stalin.

The constant “secret” of influencing public consciousness was maintaining continuous tension in society. Stalin knew another “secret” of managing public consciousness: it is important to introduce myths, cliches, and legends into it, which are based not so much on rational knowledge as on faith. People were taught to believe in the absolute values ​​of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Ritual meetings, manifestations, oaths made them part of the worldview. Confidence based on truth was replaced by faith. People believed in socialism, in the “leader”, in the fact that our society is the most perfect and advanced, in the sinlessness of power.

Stalin's life demonstrates that the lack of harmony between politics and morality always ultimately leads to collapse. The historical pendulum of events in our country raised Stalin to the highest point and lowered him to the lowest. A person who believes only in the power of violence can only move from one crime to another.

63) Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

The Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1945) - a war between the USSR, Germany and its allies within World War II wars on the territory of the USSR and Germany. Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941 with the expectation of a short military company, however, the war dragged on for several years and ended in the complete defeat of Germany. The Great Patriotic War became the final stage of the Second World War.

Causes of the Great Patriotic War

After the defeat in First World War During the war, Germany was left in a difficult situation - the political situation was unstable, the economy was in a deep crisis. Around this time he came to power Hitler, who, thanks to his reforms in the economy, was able to quickly bring Germany out of the crisis and thereby win the trust of the authorities and the people. Having become the head of the country, Hitler began to pursue his policy, which was based on the idea of ​​​​the superiority of the Germans over other races and peoples. Hitler not only wanted to take revenge for losing the First World War, but also to subjugate the whole world to his will. The result of his claims was a German attack on the Czech Republic and Poland, and then, within the framework of the outbreak of World War II, on other European countries.

Until 1941, there was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, but Hitler violated it by attacking the USSR. In order to conquer the Soviet Union, the German command developed a plan for a rapid attack that was supposed to bring victory within two months. Having seized the territories and wealth of the USSR, Hitler could enter into open confrontation with the United States for the right to world political domination.

The attack was swift, but did not bring the desired results - the Russian army offered stronger resistance than the Germans expected, and the war dragged on for many years.

Main periods of the Great Patriotic War

First period (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) During the year after the German attack on the USSR, german army was able to conquer significant territories, which included Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. After this, the troops moved inland with the goal of capturing Moscow and Leningrad, however, despite the failures of Russian soldiers at the beginning of the war, the Germans failed to take the capital. Leningrad was besieged, but the Germans were not allowed into the city. The battles for Moscow, Leningrad and Novgorod continued until 1942.

The period of radical change (1942 - 1943) The middle period of the war is so called due to the fact that it was at this time that Soviet troops were able to take the advantage in the war into their own hands and launch a counter-offensive. The German and Allied armies gradually began to retreat back to the western border, many foreign legions were defeated and destroyed. Thanks to the fact that the entire industry of the USSR at that time worked for military needs, the Soviet army managed to significantly increase its weapons and provide worthy resistance. The USSR army turned from a defender into an attacker.

The final period of the war (1943 - 1945). During this period, the USSR began to recapture the lands occupied by the Germans and move towards Germany. Leningrad was liberated Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia, Poland, and then into German territory. Berlin was taken on May 8, and German troops announced unconditional surrender. Hitler hanged himself after learning that the war was lost. War is over.

The main battles of the Great Patriotic War

Results and significance of the Great Patriotic War

Despite the fact that the main goal of the Great Patriotic War was defensive, in the end, Soviet troops went on the offensive and not only liberated their territories, but also destroyed the German army, took Berlin and stopped Hitler’s victorious march across Europe. The Great Patriotic War became the last stage of the Second World War.

Unfortunately, despite the victory, this war turned out to be ruinous for the USSR - the country's economy after the war was in a deep crisis, since industry worked exclusively for the military sector, most of the population was killed, and those who remained were starving.

However, for the USSR, victory in this war meant that the Union was now becoming a world superpower, which had the right to dictate its terms in the political arena.

64) Post-war reconstruction and further development of the national economy of the USSR

Difficulties of post-war reconstruction. In the first post-war years, the main task was to restore the destroyed national economy. The war caused enormous damage to the USSR economy: 1,710 cities and towns, more than 70 thousand villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises, 65 thousand km were destroyed railway tracks, 98 thousand collective farms, 1876 state farms, 2890 MTS, 27 million Soviet citizens died.

The United States, according to the Marshall Plan, provided European countries with enormous financial assistance in economic recovery: from 1948 to 1951. European countries received $12.4 billion from the United States. The United States also offered financial assistance to the Soviet Union, but subject to their control over the spending of the funds provided. The Soviet government rejected this assistance under such conditions. The Soviet Union restored its economy using its own resources.

Already at the end of May 1945, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer part of the defense enterprises to the production of consumer goods. On June 23, 1945, the session of the Supreme Council adopted the Law on the demobilization of 13-age army personnel. Those demobilized were provided with a set of clothes and shoes, a one-time cash allowance, and local authorities had to find them jobs within a month. There have been changes in the structure of government bodies. In 1945, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was abolished. All economic management functions were concentrated in the hands of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR). At enterprises and institutions, normal work was resumed: the 8-hour working day and annual paid leave were restored. The state budget was revised, and allocations for the development of civilian sectors of the economy increased. The State Planning Committee prepared a 4-year plan for the restoration of the national economy for 1946-1950.

Restoration and development of industry.

In the industrial field, three major problems had to be solved:

demilitarize the economy;

restore destroyed enterprises;

carry out new construction.

The demilitarization of the economy was largely completed in 1946-1947. Some people's commissariats of the military industry (tank, mortar weapons, ammunition) were abolished. Instead, ministries of civil production (agricultural, transport engineering, etc.) were created. The difficulties of the transition of industry from military to peaceful production were quickly overcome, and already in October 1947, industrial output reached the average monthly level of 1940, and in 1948, the pre-war level of industrial output was exceeded by 18%, and in heavy industry by 30%.

The most important place in the restoration of industry was given to power plants as the energy basis of industrial areas. Huge funds were spent on the restoration of the largest power plant in Europe - the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. The colossal destruction was eliminated in a short time. Already in March 1947, the station produced its first current, and in 1950 it began operating at full capacity.

Among the priority recovery industries were the coal and metallurgical industries, primarily the Donbass mines and the country's metallurgical giants - Zaporizhstal and Azovstal. Already in 1950, coal production in the Donbass exceeded the level of 1940. The Donbass again became the most important coal basin in the country.

The construction of new industrial enterprises throughout the country has gained significant momentum. In total, during the years of the first post-war five-year plan, 6,200 large enterprises were built and those destroyed during the war were restored.

In the post-war period, the state paid special attention to the development of the defense industry, primarily the creation of atomic weapons. In 1948, a plutonium production reactor was built in the Chelyabinsk region, and by the fall of 1949, a reactor was created in the USSR atomic weapons. 4 years later (summer 1953), the first hydrogen bomb was tested in the USSR. At the end of the 40s. The USSR began to use nuclear energy to produce electricity: the construction of nuclear power plants began. The world's first nuclear power plant - Obninsk (near Moscow) came into operation in 1954.

In general, industry was restored by 1947. In general, the five-year plan for industrial output was fulfilled greatly in excess: instead of the planned growth of 48%, the volume of industrial output in 1950 exceeded the 1940 level by 73%.

Agriculture. The war caused particularly heavy damage to agriculture. Crop areas were greatly reduced, and the number of cattle was extremely low. The situation was complicated by a drought unprecedented in the last 50 years in 1946 in Ukraine, Moldova, the Lower Volga region, and the North Caucasus. In 1946, the average yield was 4.6 centners per hectare. The famine caused a massive exodus of population to the cities. In February 1947, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considered the issue “On measures to boost agriculture in the post-war period.” The resolution outlined a program for the restoration and further development of agriculture.

During the years of the first five-year plan, 536 thousand tractors, 93 thousand grain combines, 845 thousand tractor plows, seeders, cultivators, and other agricultural equipment were sent to the villages. The number of machine operators in MTS on collective and state farms reached 1.4 million people. in 1950. Extensive work was carried out on rural electrification: in 1950, the capacity of rural power plants and electrical installations was three times greater than in 1940; 76% of state farms and 15% of collective farms used electricity.

In order to strengthen collective farms in the early 1950s. the consolidation of farms was carried out through the voluntary merger of small collective farms into larger ones. Instead of 254 thousand small collective farms in 1950, 93 thousand enlarged farms were created. This contributed to the improvement of agricultural production and more efficient use of technology.

At the same time, in the fall of 1946, the state launched a broad campaign against gardening and vegetable farming under the banner of squandering public lands and collective farm property. Personal subsidiary plots were cut back and heavily taxed. It got to the point of absurdity: every fruit tree was taxed. In the late 40s - early 50s. dispossession of personal farms and the creation of new collective farms were carried out in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic republics, and Right Bank Moldova, annexed in 1939-1940. to the USSR. Mass collectivization was carried out in these areas.

Despite the measures taken, the situation in agriculture remained difficult. Agriculture could not meet the country's needs for food and agricultural raw materials. The socio-economic situation of the rural population also remained difficult. Payment for labor was purely symbolic; collective farmers were not entitled to pensions, they did not have passports, and they were not allowed to leave the village without permission from the authorities.

The 4th Five-Year Plan for agricultural development was not fulfilled. Feed, grain, and meat and dairy industries remained constant problems in agriculture. However, the level of agricultural production in 1950 reached pre-war levels. In 1947, the card system for food and industrial goods and monetary reform were abolished.

Socio-political and cultural life. In the post-war period, restoring the economy and establishing a peaceful life required enormous spiritual effort from the entire society. Meanwhile, the creative and scientific intelligentsia, by their nature gravitating towards expanding their creative contacts, hoped for the liberalization of life, the weakening of strict party-state control, and pinned hopes on the development and strengthening of cultural contacts with the United States and Western countries.

But the international situation changed dramatically immediately after the war. Instead of cooperation in the relations between the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, confrontation began. The intelligentsia still hoped for expanded cooperation with the West. The leadership of the USSR set a course for “tightening the screws” in relation to the intelligentsia. In 1946-1948. Several resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks were adopted on cultural issues. In March 1946, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”, in which the work of writers M. Zoshchenko and A. Akhmatova was criticized. At the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, where the issue of these magazines was discussed, JV Stalin said that a magazine in the USSR is not a “private enterprise”, it does not have the right to adapt to the tastes of people “who do not want to recognize our system.” The work of other theater, film, and music figures was subjected to the same criticism.

In 1949, a broad campaign against cosmopolitanism and “adulation to the West” began in society. “Rootless cosmopolitans” were discovered in many cities, and the disclosure of creative pseudonyms became widespread.

The authorities began to explain the difficulties of post-war development and disruptions in certain types of production by the “sabotage” of the technical intelligentsia. Thus, “sabotage” was discovered in the production of aviation equipment (“The Case of Shakhurin, Novikov, etc.), the automobile industry (“On hostile elements at the ZIS”), and in the Moscow healthcare system (“On the situation in the MGB and sabotage in the medical field” The "doctors' case" (1952-1953) received great attention. A group of famous doctors, most of whom were Jewish, were accused of poisoning and hastening the death of people close to I.V. Stalin - A.A. Zhdanov, A.S. Shcherbakov, as well as, even before the war, M. Gorky and others. After the death of I.V. Stalin, most of them were released. In the "Leningrad case" (1949-1950), a number of leaders of the Leningrad party organization was accused of creating an anti-party group and carrying out sabotage work.Among them were A.A. Kuznetsov - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, M.N. Rodionov - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR.

In 1952 it took place XIX Congress CPSU (b), which was last attended by I.V. Stalin. At the congress, it was decided to rename the CPSU (b) to the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

On March 5, 1953, I.V. died. Stalin, whose death was greeted differently by the Soviet people.

65)Socio-political and cultural life

Post-war ideological campaigns and repression

During the war and immediately after it, the intelligentsia, primarily scientific and creative, hoped for the liberalization of public life and the weakening of strict party-state control. However, the international situation changed dramatically soon after the war. Started cold war. Instead of cooperation, confrontation arose. The leadership of the USSR set a course for immediately “tightening the screws” in relation to the intelligentsia, which had somewhat weakened in the last years of the war. In 1946-1948. Several resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks were adopted on cultural issues. We started with the Leningraders. The March 1946 resolution “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” subjected the work of M. Zoshchenko and A. Akhmatova to merciless criticism. At the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, where this issue was discussed, I.V. Stalin stated that the magazine in the USSR “is not a private enterprise”; it does not have the right to adapt to the tastes of people “who do not want to recognize our system.” The country's main ideologist at that time, A.A. Zhdanov, speaking in Leningrad to explain the resolution, called Zoshchenko a “vulgarity,” a “non-Soviet writer.” After the defeat of the Leningrad writers, they took up theater, cinema, and music. Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Party “On the repertoire of drama theaters and measures to improve it”, “On the film “Big Life””, “On Muradeli’s opera “The Great Friendship””, etc. were adopted accordingly.

Science was also subjected to ideological destruction. The development of agriculture was negatively affected by the position of a group of scientific administrators led by Academician T.D. Lysenko, who took a monopoly position in the management of agricultural science. Its position was enshrined in the decisions of the notorious session of the VASKhNIL (Academy of Agricultural Sciences), held in August 1948. The session dealt a strong blow to genetics, the key science of modern natural science. Lysenko's views were recognized as the only correct ones in biology. They were called the “Michurin doctrine.” Classical genetics was recognized as a reactionary direction in biological science.

Attacks also began against the core of theoretical physics of the 20th century - quantum theory and the theory of relativity. The latter was declared "reactionary Einsteinianism." Cybernetics was called a reactionary pseudoscience. Philosophers argued that the US imperialists needed it to spark a third world war.

Spiritual terror was accompanied by physical terror, as evidenced by the “Leningrad Affair” (1949-1951) and the “Doctors’ Affair” (1952-1953). Formally, the “Leningrad affair” began in January 1949 after an anonymous letter was received by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks about the rigging of the election results for the secretaries of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Party Committee. It ended with the dismissal of more than 2 thousand leaders who had ever worked in Leningrad, and the execution of over 200 of them. They were accused of trying to destroy the USSR, pitting Russia against the Union, and Leningrad against Moscow.

In recent years, two opposing courses have been closely intertwined in Soviet society: a course towards actually strengthening the repressive role of the state and a course towards formal democratization of the political system. The latter manifested itself in the following forms. In the fall of 1945, immediately after the defeat of militaristic Japan, the state of emergency in the USSR was ended and the State Defense Committee, an extra-constitutional body of power that concentrated dictatorial powers in its hands, was abolished. In 1946-1948. re-elections of councils at all levels were held and the deputy corps, formed back in 1937-1939, was renewed. The first session of the USSR Supreme Council of the new, second convocation took place in March 1946. It approved the 4th five-year plan and adopted a law transforming the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Finally, in 1949-1952. Congresses of public and socio-political organizations of the USSR resumed after a long break. Thus, in 1949, the X Congress of Trade Unions and the XI Congress of the Komsomol took place (17 and 13 years after the previous ones, respectively). And in 1952, the 19th Party Congress took place, the last congress at which I.V. Stalin was present. The congress decided to rename the CPSU (b) to the CPSU.

Death of Stalin. Power struggle

On March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin died. Millions Soviet people mourned this death, other millions associated hopes for a better life with this event. Both were separated not only by different feelings, but often by the barbed wire of numerous concentration camps. By this time, according to N.S. Khrushchev, there were about 10 million people in concentration camps and exile. With the death of Stalin, a complex, heroic and bloody page of history ended Soviet society. A few years later, remembering his front-line ally and political enemy, W. Churchill called Stalin an eastern tyrant and a great politician who “took Russia with bast shoes and left it with atomic weapons.”

After the funeral of I.V. Stalin (he was buried in the mausoleum next to V.I. Lenin), the top leadership of the state redistributed responsibilities: K.E. Voroshilov was elected head of state, G.M. Malenkov was approved as head of government, and N. A. Bulganin, Minister of the united Ministry of Internal Affairs (which included the Ministry of State Security) - L. P. Beria. The post of party leader remained vacant. In fact, all power in the country was concentrated in the hands of Beria and Malenkov.

On Beria’s initiative, the “case of doctors” of the Kremlin hospital, accused of seeking to kill the leaders of the party, state, and international communist movement, was discontinued. He insisted on depriving the Party Central Committee of the right to manage the country’s economy, limiting it only to political activities.

In the summer of 1953, having returned from Berlin, where he led the suppression of the anti-Soviet uprising, and proposed to abandon support for the GDR, agreeing to its unification with the Federal Republic of Germany, Beria was arrested. The initiators of this extremely dangerous action were the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev and the Minister of Defense N.A. Bulganin. The capture group of the all-powerful Beria, consisting of generals and officers of the Moscow air defense district, was led by Bulganin’s deputy, Marshal G.K. Zhukov. In December 1953, a closed trial and execution of Beria and his closest associates took place. They were accused of organizing mass repressions during Stalin's life and preparing a coup after his death. In the history of the Soviet state, this was the last major trial of “enemies of the people” involving persons of such high rank.

66) Complication of the international situation. The collapse of the anti-Hitler coalition

After the defeat of Germany and Japan, the geopolitical situation in the world began to change dramatically. Two centers of attraction and confrontation arose - the USSR and the USA, around which military-political blocs began to be created and plans were developed new war. The USSR emerged from the Second World War as a universally recognized great power that played a key role in the defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism. In the United Nations Security Council, created in 1945, the USSR became one of the five permanent members along with the USA, Great Britain, France and China. The results of World War II predetermined the course of world development for decades. There have been huge changes in the world. The defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism meant the victory of humanism, universal values, and the strengthening of the positions of democratic, peace-loving forces in different regions of the globe. During the Nuremberg trials (1945-1946), the essence of German fascism and its plans to destroy entire states and peoples were exposed against the main Nazi war criminals; for the first time in history, aggression was recognized as the gravest crime against humanity.

Changes in the post-war world were contradictory. The anti-Hitler coalition quickly disintegrated, and the common anti-fascist front was replaced by the Cold War. The anti-colonial, national liberation movement faced powerful confrontation with the forces of neo-colonialism. The objectively mature process of democratization was under powerful pressure from Soviet totalitarianism and American hegemonism.

The international situation in the post-war period was determined by the beginning cold war.

Causes of the Cold War

After the bloodiest war in human history, World War II, ended, where the USSR became the winner, the preconditions were created for the emergence of a new confrontation between the West and the East, between the USSR and the USA. The main reasons for the emergence of this confrontation, known as the “Cold War,” were the ideological contradictions between the capitalist model of society characteristic of the United States and the socialist one that existed in the USSR. Each of the two superpowers wanted to see itself at the head of the entire world community and organize life according to its ideological principles. In addition, after the Second World War, the Soviet Union established its dominance in the countries of Eastern Europe, where communist ideology reigned. As a result, the United States, along with Great Britain, was frightened by the possibility that the USSR could become a world leader and establish its dominance in both the political and economic spheres of life. At the same time, for the United States of America, one of the main tasks becomes clear attention to the policy of the USSR in the countries Western Europe in order to prevent socialist revolutions in this territory. America did not like communist ideology at all, and it was the Soviet Union that stood in its way to world domination. After all, America became rich during the Second World War, it needed somewhere to sell its manufactured products, so the countries of Western Europe, destroyed during hostilities, needed to be restored, which was what was offered to them by the US government. But on condition that the communist rulers in these countries will be removed from power. In short, the Cold War was a new kind of competition for world domination.

Beginning of the Cold War

The beginning of the Cold War was marked by a speech by the English ruler Churchill, delivered in Fulton in March 1946. The US government's primary goal was to achieve complete military superiority of the Americans over the Russians. The United States began to implement its policy already in 1947 by introducing a whole system of restrictive and prohibitive measures for the USSR in the financial and trade spheres. In short, America wanted to defeat the Soviet Union economically.

Progress of the Cold War

The most culminating moments of the confrontation were 1949-50, when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, the war with Korea occurred, and at the same time the first atomic bomb of Soviet origin was tested. And with the victory of Mao Zedong, fairly strong diplomatic relations between the USSR and China were established; they were united by a common hostile attitude towards America and its policies. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 proved that the military power of the two world superpowers, the USSR and the USA, is so great that if there is a threat of a new war, there will be no losing side, and it is worth thinking about what will happen to ordinary people and the planet as a whole. As a result, from the beginning of the 1970s, the Cold War entered the stage of settling relations. A crisis broke out in the USA due to high material costs, but the USSR did not tempt fate, but made concessions. A nuclear arms reduction treaty called START II was concluded. The year 1979 once again proved that the Cold War was not over yet: the Soviet government sent troops into Afghanistan, whose inhabitants offered fierce resistance to the Russian army. And only in April 1989 the last Russian soldier left this unconquered country.

End and results of the Cold War

In 1988-89, the process of “perestroika” began in the USSR, the Berlin Wall fell, and the socialist camp soon collapsed. And the USSR did not even lay claim to any influence in third world countries. By 1990, the Cold War was over. It was she who contributed to the strengthening of the totalitarian regime in the USSR. The arms race also led to scientific discoveries: nuclear physics began to develop more intensively, and space research acquired a wider scope.

Consequences of the Cold War

The 20th century has ended, more than ten years have passed in the new millennium. The Soviet Union no longer exists, and the Western countries have also changed... But as soon as the once weak Russia rose from its knees, gained strength and confidence on the world stage, the “ghost of communism” again appeared in the United States and its allies. And we can only hope that politicians in leading countries will not return to the Cold War policy, since everyone will ultimately suffer from it...

67) socio-economic development of the USSR in the mid-1950s the first half of the 1960s

The most important problem of this period was insufficient agricultural production. The industry had low productivity, insufficient mechanization, and collective farmers had no incentive to work. The government began to take measures to reorganize agriculture. In August 1953, with the adoption of a new budget, subsidies for the production of goods in the food industry increased. At the September Plenum of the Central Committee in 1953, a decision was made to increase purchase prices, write off collective farm debts and reduce taxes. The February Plenum of the Central Committee decided to begin agricultural production in the semi-arid zone in the east of the country - the Volga region, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Altai and the Lower Urals. To this end, in 1954, 300 thousand volunteers set off to develop virgin lands. It was planned to put 42 million hectares of arable land into circulation and by the end of 1960 to increase grain production by 40%. Initially low yields fell over time, the land was depleted and funds were needed for land reclamation, agronomic measures, infrastructure development, etc. The soil was dying from erosion and weeds. Nevertheless, due to the development of huge areas, it was possible to increase the gross yield of grain crops. Over three years, agricultural production increased by 25%. After N.S. Khrushchev’s visit to the United States, the Plenum of the Central Committee in 1955 decided to make corn a major crop. 18 million hectares were planted in areas not suitable for this production. The next stage of agricultural reorganization began in May 1957, when Khrushchev put forward the slogan “Catch up and overtake America!” . In 1957, MTS was dissolved. As a result, collective farms received equipment, but were left without a repair base. This led to a reduction in the fleet of agricultural machinery and the withdrawal of significant funds from collective farms. The second reform aimed to consolidate collective farms and create associations that would promote the industrialization of agriculture. Farm managers sought to fulfill their obligations to the state by infringing on the interests of ordinary collective farmers (homestead plots were reduced, private livestock was forcibly taken to collective farms). Much attention was paid to the development of heavy industry and defense. As a result, the situation in the production of consumer goods was lost, and a deficit was created in this area. In 1954, the 11th Trade Union Congress revealed serious shortcomings in the management of industry and the situation of workers. Production meetings were revived, control over overtime work and incentive measures was strengthened. Administration representatives teamed up with specialists. In 1957, to facilitate interaction between industries, industrial ministries were replaced by economic councils. However, the “administrative fever” did not produce positive results; the rate of economic development of the country was declining. In general, the standard of living in the country has increased. To achieve this, the state has taken a number of measures. Wages increased regularly. A law on pensions was adopted, the working week was shortened, and the duration of maternity leave was increased. The practice of imposing purchases of compulsory government loans has ceased. All types of tuition fees have been cancelled. Mass housing construction began. At the turn of the 50-60s. Serious miscalculations were made in agricultural policy and economics. The manufacturing sector was destructured by ill-considered reforms and storming. Since 1963, the government was forced to make regular purchases of grain abroad. They tried to correct the crisis situation by withdrawing funds from the population by increasing retail prices and reducing tariff rates in production. This led to social tension and spontaneous protests by workers (for example in Novocherkassk, 1962)

68)20 Congress of the CPSU and Khrushchev’s report

The 20th Congress of the CPSU took place in 1956, February 14–25. At this Congress, the assessments that had previously been given to Stalin's policies were revised. Stalin’s personality cult is also condemned. One of the speakers was Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. The report, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” was presented on February 25 at a closed morning meeting. It criticized the political repressions of the 1930s, as well as the 1950s, and placed all the blame for the events of those years on Stalin personally.

The report “On the cult of personality and its consequences” made a strong impression on the audience. The delegations of France and Italy, as well as the delegations of communist states, were familiarized with it. It should be noted that the report was received controversially.

The English translation was published in the summer of 1956 in the USA. Citizens of the USSR were able to familiarize themselves with it only in 1989. But, due to the fact that rumors about the report made on the last day of the congress nevertheless leaked outside the Kremlin offices, a decree was issued on June 30 “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences,” which explained the position of the Central Committee.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU and Khrushchev’s report led to a split public opinion. Some of the country's citizens perceived it as a symbol of the beginning of democratic changes. The other part reacted negatively. This could not help but alarm the ruling elite and, ultimately, led to the cessation of discussion of the problem of Stalinist repressions.

Perestroika" in the social and political life of the USSR

The concept of “perestroika” can be defined as an attempt to preserve administrative-command socialism, giving it elements of democracy and market relations, without affecting the fundamental foundations of the political system. Perestroika had serious prerequisites. Stagnation in the economy, the growing scientific and technological lag behind the West, and failures in the social sphere have awakened in millions of people and some leaders the awareness of the need for change. Its other prerequisite was a political crisis, expressed in the gradual disintegration of the state apparatus, in its unreasonableness to ensure economic progress, in the open merging of part of the party-state nomenklatura with businessmen of the shadow economy and crime, which led to the formation of stable mafia groups in the mid-80s, especially in the union republics. Apathy and stagnation in the spiritual sphere of society pushed for change. It was obvious that without change it was impossible to increase the activity of the people.

Reforming the political system.

a) Change of leadership of the CPSU and the “personnel revolution” of M.S. Gorbachev.

March 11, 1985 The extraordinary Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee elected 54-year-old Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev as General Secretary of the party, whose life path did not differ from the path of his predecessors.

The very fact of renewal and especially rejuvenation of the party leadership was a very significant event. To replace the frail elders in the Politburo, a group of relatively young leaders began to form, albeit with traditional experience in apparatus Komsomol-party work.

At the plenum of the Central Committee in April 1985. The task of achieving a qualitatively new state of Soviet society was put forward. This event is considered to be the starting point of perestroika:

The first stage - from April 1985. until the end of 1986

The second stage - from January 1987. to April 1988

The third stage - from April 1988. to March 1990

The fourth stage - from March 1990. to August 1991

Despite the conventionality of such periodization, it allows us to trace the dynamics of the perestroika process, the main stages of the political struggle, and participation in the socio-political life of the broad masses of the people.

The reforms began with personnel renewal of the “top of power” and management. Correlating with the traditions of the political leadership of the party and the state, the mentality of specific people included in this leadership, M. Gorbachev began personnel changes. He drew personnel from the party nomenklatura. The process of personnel changes proceeded relatively without conflict, which was facilitated by the age composition of the Politburo under which M.S. Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. In March 1986, when this Politburo was formed, there were only four people in it from the previous composition of the same body, elected five years earlier. Almost every second member of the previous Politburo by the spring of 1986. died, the rest were sent to a “well-deserved rest.” The process of personnel renewal at the top of the government was completed in 1988. By the beginning of 1987 70% of Politburo members were replaced. E.K. came to it as the second person in the secretariat. Ligachev, N.I. Ryzhkov, a specialist with higher technical education, was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers; Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee B.N. was invited from the Urals to Moscow. Yeltsin, who soon became the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee.

Throughout 1986 60% of the secretaries of regional party organizations were replaced, 40% of the members of the CPSU Central Committee who received their posts under L.I. Brezhnev, at the level of city and district committees, the personnel composition was updated by 70%.

By 1992 only M. Gorbachev was the next link between the old and new nomenklatura at the pinnacle of power.

b) The policy of democratization and openness in the light of the decisions of the XIX All-Union Conference.

In 1988 (June-July) at the XIX All-Union Conference of the CPSU, for the first time in the years of Soviet power, the question of the need for a deep reform of the political system was raised. The unusual preparations for this forum by previous standards, the relatively democratic nature of the elections of its delegates, and widespread support for the course of reforming society contributed to the growth of faith in the party’s ability to lead the transformation. Almost all prominent reformers (the so-called foreman of perestroika) were then members of the CPSU, and some of those who were not (A.A. Sobchak, S.V. Stankevich, etc.) joined it.

The conference decisions included:

creation of the rule of law

development of parliamentarism within the Soviets

stopping the substitution of economic and government bodies by the CPSU.

All these transformations had to be carried out in the presence of three mandatory elements:

Democratization

Glasnost

Pluralism of opinions.

The rule of law, as part of the reform of the legal system, should be built on the rule of law, the actions of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities (but under the control of the fourth force - the CPSU). Hence the fundamental principle of the new state - “everything that is not prohibited by law is permitted.”

In December 1988 The Supreme Soviet of the USSR introduced changes to the current Constitution of the country. The highest authority was the Congress of People's Deputies, from which a permanent parliament was formed - the Supreme Council, consisting of two chambers (the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities).

The policy of glasnost played an important role in implementing reforms and involving broad layers of workers in the political life. It began in revealing the truth about the crimes of the Stalinist period, without exposing which it was impossible to break the totalitarian regime.

A special manifestation of democracy in Soviet society was not only the opportunity to express one’s opinion, the publication of previously banned literature, the return of citizenship to former Soviet dissidents and human rights activists, but also the representation of religious freedom.

Political pluralism also affected the CPSU, where as many as five directions emerged, but on the whole the party still followed its General Secretary.

c) Formation of a multi-party system and attempts to reform the CPSU.

Liberal parties were the first to appear during the years of perestroika (Democratic Union, Christian Democratic Union of Russia, Russian Christian Democratic Party, Islamic Renaissance Party, Democratic Party, Liberal Democratic Party, etc.).

For a long time, political forces of the socialist direction were represented only by the CPSU and the platforms operating within its framework (Democratic Platform, Marxist Platform, etc.). But in May 1989 The creation of a Social Democratic Association was proclaimed, and on its basis, in May 1990, the Social Democratic Party of Russia. In 1991 the People's Party of Free Russia, the Socialist Workers' Party, the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, the Russian Communist Workers' Party, etc. are formed.

National-patriotic parties and movements are being formed. In May 1990 was legalized and has been in force since 1924. Orthodox Russian-monarchical order-union. Back in 1987 The national-patriotic front “Memory” was formed, and in 1991. - Russian All-People's Union.

Socialist-oriented parties found themselves in a truly crisis state during the perestroika period. For them, the main problem was defending their ideological and theoretical foundations. Not everyone managed to do this.

The collapse of the CPSU began, on the ruins of which in the fall of 1991. - winter 1992 Up to a dozen different communist parties emerged. It is interesting that after the collapse of the CPSU, a deep crisis also struck the liberals. Most liberal parties were focused on a long and uncompromising struggle against the regime of the ruling party. But when the CPSU collapsed, they were not ready to offer own programs to overcome the crisis that has hit the country. Some of them went into opposition to the government, which had adopted a course of radical market reforms. Others expressed support for the reform, but did not provide practical support to the government. Therefore, with the beginning of the implementation of the government program for the transition to a market, a new regrouping of political forces began. In any case, at the center of the political struggle during the perestroika period were parties of a communist orientation and parties of a liberal orientation. If supporters of the former called for the preferential development of public, state ownership and collectivist forms of social relations, then the liberals advocated the privatization of property, a system of full-fledged parliamentary democracy, and a real transition to a market economy.

d) Reform of government bodies.

Innovations in the economic sphere occurred simultaneously with the decentralization of its management.

Over the course of five years, several reductions and transformations of management structures were made. So, in November 1985 Six agricultural departments were liquidated and the USSR State Agricultural Industry was established. In April 1989 it was abolished, and part of its functions was taken over by the State Commission of the USSR Council of Ministers for Food and Procurement. In 1991 it was liquidated and on its basis the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR was formed. In August 1986 The USSR Ministry of Construction was “rationed” - four ministries were created on its basis, in charge of construction in different regions of the USSR. In 1989 they were abolished.

The results of the first two years of economic reforms turned out to be bad.

From this moment the second stage of economic reforms begins (1987-1990). It is characterized by the collapse of the planned economy, the enterprise received fairly broad independence and was freed from the petty tutelage of higher departments (union and republican ministries, Gosplan, Gossnab of the USSR).

In 1990 New economic entities are beginning to emerge. The process of transforming some ministries into joint-stock companies is gaining momentum. Not only state-owned enterprises, but also individuals become shareholders. At the same time, the network of some state banks was abolished and a system of commercial banks was formed. On the basis of the Gossnab divisions, the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange is being formed, and many profitable industries are being privatized.

However, dissatisfaction with these transformations was brewing in society, because No administrative changes in management have eliminated the shortage of food products.

To compensate for the decline in authority, it was decided to introduce the post of President. The first President of the USSR in March 1990. M.S. Gorbachev was elected. But the mechanical introduction of the presidency while maintaining the Soviets, which combined legislative and executive functions, led not to the separation of the branches of power, but to their conflict.

Attitude to religion

In the context of democratic reforms, changes occurred in the relationship between church and state. Several meetings took place with M.S. Gorbachev with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Pimen and representatives of other religious faiths. In 1988 Anniversary celebrations took place in connection with the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. New religious communities were registered, religious educational institutions were opened, and the circulation of published religious literature increased.

The religious buildings that had previously been taken from them were returned to the believers. The authorities gave permission for the construction of new churches. Church leaders were given the opportunity, along with all citizens, to participate in public life. Several prominent church hierarchs were elected deputies to the country's Supreme Council.

New legislation was developed and approved. Its appearance was preceded by a discussion on the pages of periodicals on the question of how state-church relations should be built. The new law “On Freedom of Conscience” consolidated the course towards liberalizing the state’s attitude towards religion.

National relations and interethnic processes.

a) Exacerbation of interethnic conflicts.

With the beginning of perestroika, interethnic relations in the USSR sharply worsened.

In the union republics, the national movement rose to full growth, and parties were formed that advocated secession from the USSR. Initially, they spoke out under the slogans of the struggle for perestroika, reforms and the interests of the people. Their demands concerned issues of culture, language, democracy and freedom. But gradually national forces set a course towards achieving sovereignty and independence.

The traditional reluctance of the Union Center to take into account the interests and needs of national republics and regions led to the growth of militant nationalism and separatist tendencies.

b) “Parade of sovereignties.”

In the period 1989-1990. a “parade of sovereignties” began among the union republics, which tried to independently find a way out of the deepening crisis.

In the republics, elections of their own government bodies took place, taking a decisive course towards self-determination and independence; statements from the Center followed about the supremacy of republican laws over the union ones; laws were adopted on the state language, the creation of their own armies, their own currency. This unconstitutional and spontaneous declaration of independence from the Center in the context of the incompetence of the Union authorities in the national question only increased internal instability and undermined the foundations of the Soviet Union, which ultimately led to its collapse.

c) Formation of the independent policy of the RSFSR (spring 1990-summer 1991)

In May 1990 contrary to the efforts of the central authorities and the leadership of the CPSU, B.N. Yeltsin, who opposed the inconsistent leadership of the country for the radicalization of reforms and the abolition of the privileges of the nomenklatura, was elected chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. One of the first steps of the new leadership of the largest republic of the Union was the adoption on June 12, 1990. declaration of sovereignty, which declared the priority of republican legislation over union legislation. To strengthen his position, Yeltsin achieved a decision to hold presidential elections in Russia. The elections took place on June 12, 1991.

Thus, B.N. became the first president of Russia. Yeltsin.

d) Federal policy of Russia.

The special role of Russia, its government and personally the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin's involvement in the August-September events was beyond doubt. B. Yeltsin demonstratively hurried to take advantage of this. Decrees were issued to transfer one sector of the economy after another under the jurisdiction of Russia. The Russian leadership did not hide its primary task - as quickly as possible “to dismantle the remnants of unitary imperial structures and create mobile and cheap inter-republican structures.” Under the new federal agreement, a structure for Russia was proposed in which it would consist of large regional territories, national republics with their own parliaments, laws, and governments.

At the federal level, a bicameral parliament, a President, a federal government and departments were envisaged. The model assumed a combination of unitary federal leadership with independent, very high degree members of the federation. At the end of 1991 By decision of the session of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, the republic was renamed. From now on, the RSFSR began to be called the Russian Federation with the addition in brackets - (Russia).

Political crisis of August 1991 and its consequences.

Scheduled for August 20, 1991. the signing of the Union Treaty could not but push supporters of the preservation of the former USSR to take decisive action. The catalyst for the plans of the conservative part of the Union leadership to preserve the USSR by any means was the decree of the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin on departition, according to which the activities of any parties were prohibited in state institutions of the RSFSR. This dealt a blow to the monopoly position of the CPSU. The ousting of the party nomenklatura from power structures and its replacement with new people from Yeltsin’s entourage began.

In the absence of USSR President M.S. Gorbachev, who was vacationing in Crimea, on August 19, 1991. some representatives of the top leadership of the USSR attempted to disrupt the upcoming signing of a new Union Treaty. The State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) was formed. It included: Vice-President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev, USSR Prime Minister V.S. Pavlov, Defense Minister D.T. Yazov, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov, Minister of Internal Affairs B.K. Pugo et al.

Vice-President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev issued a decree on assuming the post of President of the USSR due to the “illness” of M.S. Gorbachev. The State Emergency Committee announced the introduction of a state of emergency in certain regions of the country, the disbandment of those power structures that were formed contrary to the current Constitution of the USSR of 1977, suspended the activities of political parties and movements opposition to the CPSU, banned rallies and demonstrations for the period of the emergency, and established control over the media . Troops were sent to Moscow.

The resistance to the actions of the State Emergency Committee was led by Russian leaders: President B.N. Yeltsin, head of government I.S. Silantiev, First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR A.V. Rutskoi, who, in the event of a coup victory, would lose their power in the republic.

The actions of the State Emergency Committee were declared as an illegal anti-constitutional coup (however, the structures on whose behalf the functionaries of the RSFSR acted were not represented in the 1977 USSR Constitution) and its decisions were also declared illegal. At Yeltsin’s call, thousands of Muscovites took up defensive positions around the Russian Government building. The troops brought into the capital did not take any action. The elite units of the KGB refrained from any decisive action in favor of the putschists. There was also tragic bloodshed, for which some units of the troops were to blame, whose commanders decided to move to defend the White House without coordinating their actions with the leaders of its defense. The putschists were at a loss, not expecting such a turn of events. They were soon arrested.

“Liberation” of USSR President M.S. Gorbachev from his “imprisonment” at the dacha in Foros allowed us to believe that his career as a politician was over. His influence as President of the USSR fell sharply, which led to the rapid abolition of central power structures. Soon after the plot failed, eight Soviet republics declared their independence. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, previously recognized by the international community, were recognized by the USSR as independent sovereign states.

The August-September events were immediately assessed from two fundamentally different positions.

One, which became official, was that the events of August 19-21 were a putsch, an unconstitutional attempt to seize power by reactionary forces that opposed the democratic renewal of society and for a return to a totalitarian system. According to this point of view, the President of the USSR was indeed forcibly isolated in Foros, the usurpers of power intended to behead the Russian leadership and were ready to shed people's blood. The putsch failed due to the active opposition of the Russian government, which led the popular resistance.

According to the second position, events are sharply divided into two stages:

the first is August 19-21: a failed “palace” coup with an attempt to give it a soft constitutional form, undertaken by the “Soviet leadership” with the tacit semi-consent of the President of the USSR. His isolation in Foros was purely conditional. He was, as it were, temporarily taken out of the game so that emergency measures would not compromise his “democratic image” in the eyes of the world community. If the enterprise of the “Gekachepists” is successful, he could well return to the presidency (as G.I. Yanaev spoke about at the press conference). It is precisely the reliance on soft constitutional forms that explains many of the troubles in the actions or inactions of the State Emergency Committee. That’s why they first declared a state of emergency, and then brought in troops (and not the other way around, which is what serious putschists do), because they weren’t going to use them except as intimidation, and that’s why they didn’t arrest B.N. Yeltsin and other Russian leaders.

At this first stage, they were immediately defeated, running into unexpected sharp resistance from Yeltsin, who did not accept the proposed “rules of the game”, declaring the top of the legitimate union government to be conspirators and usurpers. He escalated and won easily. At this stage of the “palace coup” the Democrats won;

in September the second stage began. It is already characterized as a genuine coup d'etat, because what happened at the V Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, which led to a change in the socio-political system, gave impetus to the collapse of the USSR.

So, in the August-September events, in the protracted confrontation between Russia and the Union, Russia won. The union began to rapidly “fall apart”. The CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR, whose activities were suspended, resignedly left the political scene. There have not yet been any disagreements in the winning camp: President B.N. Yeltsin and Vice-President A.V. Rutskoy, acting. Chairman of the Supreme Council R.I. Khasbulatov stood side by side at all celebrations, shoulder to shoulder. This was their common victory. Their joint triumph, the finest hour of Russia's democratic leaders.

Legitimization of the collapse of the USSR and its assessment.

After the signing of the Economic Community Treaty (October 18, 1991), the discussion on the issue of political union became more active.

The position of the Russian parliament, especially its chairman R.I. Khasbulatova, became more and more definite. It was based on the principle of maintaining a single Russian state: There should be no independent states on the territory of the RSFSR.

The fundamental provisions of the future statehood were decided by a narrow circle of leaders:

On November 14, a meeting of the State Council was held in Novo-Ogarevo, at which the leaders of seven sovereign states spoke out in favor of a single confederal democratic state. The state - the Union of sovereign states - was preserved as a subject of international law. However, the intended initialing of the text did not take place;

December 8 in a secluded residence near Minsk, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the leaders of three republics met: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. They signed an agreement according to which the USSR, as a “subject of international law,” was declared to have “ceased to exist.” The creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States was announced.

The model of government chosen in Minsk left no room for the Center and did not provide for any union governing bodies at all.

The Bialowieza Agreements produced the effect of a bomb exploding. As M.S. put it. Gorbachev, the three leaders of the republics “met in the forest and “closed” the Soviet Union.”

The theme of the “conspiratorial” nature of the action was subsequently described by the former Chairman of the Council of the Union of the USSR Armed Forces K.D. Lubenchenko: “a brilliant secret and unexpected political operation was completed, just like in wartime.”

The Supreme Councils of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus ratified the Belovezhskaya Agreements, thereby giving them a more legitimate character. In December, other republics joined the Commonwealth, except for the Baltic republics and Georgia (in 1994 it joined the CIS). At the end of 1991 the RSFSR was renamed into the Russian Federation (Russia).

December 25, 1991 M.S. Gorbachev resigned as president due to the disappearance of the state itself. This day was the last in the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The dramatic collapse of a huge and powerful state was commented on in different ways.

Some say that an inherently unitary power, which subordinated economically, spiritually, ethnically diverse republics, formally sovereign, but practically deprived of independence, to a single Center, in conditions when not all of them entered the Union voluntarily, was initially doomed to inevitable death.

Others, led to a sad outcome by the short-sighted, incompetent, ambitious and self-interested policy of primarily the country’s leading elite, the struggle for power among leaders, in parties and movements, during which the most important state and socio-economic interests and values ​​were sacrificed.

Thus, perestroika, conceived and implemented by part of the party and state leaders with the goal of democratic changes in all spheres of society, has ended. Its main result was the collapse of the once powerful multinational state and the end of the Soviet period in the history of the Fatherland.

69) The main tasks of the USSR in the international arena in 1956-1964. were: the speedy reduction of the military threat and the end of the Cold War, the expansion of international relations, the strengthening of the influence of the USSR in the world as a whole. This could only be achieved through the implementation of a flexible and dynamic foreign policy based on powerful economic and military potential (primarily nuclear). The reform course of the Soviet leadership led by Khrushchev was reflected in the new foreign policy doctrine promulgated from the rostrum of the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956. Its main provisions were: a return to the “Leninist principles of the policy of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems”, expansion of competition between the two social systems, the possibility of creating conditions for preventing wars in the modern era. The diversity of forms of transition of different countries to socialism and the variety of ways to build it were also recognized. In addition, the need was recognized, based on the principles of “proletarian internationalism,” to provide comprehensive assistance both to the countries of the socialist camp and to the world communist and national liberation movement. As the main direction in ensuring world peace, Khrushchev proposed creating a system of collective security in Europe and then in Asia, as well as proceeding with immediate disarmament. Wanting to demonstrate the seriousness of these intentions, the Soviet government made a unilateral reduction of the Armed Forces: from August 1955 it was decided to reduce them by 640 thousand people, and from May 1956 by another 1 million 200 thousand people. Other countries of the socialist camp carried out significant reductions in their armies. In 1957, the USSR submitted proposals to the UN to suspend nuclear weapons testing and undertake obligations to renounce the use of atomic and hydrogen weapons, as well as about the simultaneous reduction of the armed forces of the USSR, USA and China to 2.5 million, and then “to 1.5 million people. Finally, the USSR proposed to eliminate military bases on the territories of foreign states. In 1958, the Soviet government in unilaterally declared a moratorium on nuclear testing, the Axis appealed to the parliaments of all countries of the world to support this initiative.Western countries were skeptical of Soviet proposals and put forward conditions such as the development of confidence-building measures and control over the reduction of conventional and nuclear potentials of opposing military-political groups. Khrushchev’s speech at the UN General Assembly on the problem of general disarmament caused a great resonance in the world in the fall of 1959. In his speech, the leader of the Soviet state proposed a plan for the complete elimination of national armies and fleets, leaving states with only police forces. This first visit of the leader of the USSR to the USA sharply increased the authority and prestige of our country in the international arena and helped ease tensions in Soviet-American relations. Major reductions in the Armed Forces of the USSR, carried out in 1955-1960, made it possible to reduce the Soviet Army by almost 4 million people and increase its strength to 2.5 million. However, it was not possible to break the vicious circle of the arms race in the 1950s .

Caribbean crisis

The first image of Soviet missiles in Cuba obtained by the Americans.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is an extremely tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States regarding the Soviet Union's deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962. Cubans call it the “October Crisis” (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre); in the United States, the name “Cuban Missile Crisis” is common. Cuban missile crisis).

The crisis was preceded by the deployment of medium-range Jupiter missiles in Turkey in 1961 by the United States, which directly threatened cities in the western part of the Soviet Union, reaching as far as Moscow and major industrial centers.

The crisis began on October 14, 1962, when a US Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, during one of its regular overflights of Cuba, discovered Soviet R-12 medium-range missiles in the vicinity of the village of San Cristobal. By decision of US President John Kennedy, a special Executive Committee was created, which discussed possible ways solving the problem. For some time, the meetings of the executive committee were secret, but on October 22, Kennedy addressed the people, announcing the presence of Soviet “offensive weapons” in Cuba, which immediately caused panic in the United States. A “quarantine” (blockade) of Cuba was introduced.

At first, the Soviet side denied the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island, then it assured the Americans of the deterrent nature of the deployment of missiles in Cuba. On October 25, photographs of the missiles were shown at a meeting of the UN Security Council. The executive committee seriously discussed the use of force to solve the problem, and its supporters convinced Kennedy to begin a massive bombing of Cuba as soon as possible. However, another U-2 flyby showed that several missiles were already installed and ready to launch, and that such actions would inevitably lead to war.

Number and type of US nuclear warheads. 1945-2002.

US President John Kennedy proposed that the Soviet Union dismantle the installed missiles and turn around the ships still heading to Cuba in exchange for US guarantees not to attack Cuba or overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro (sometimes it is indicated that Kennedy also proposed to remove American missiles from Turkey, but this demand came from the Soviet leadership). Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev agreed, and on October 28, the dismantling of the missiles began. The last Soviet missile left Cuba a few weeks later, and the blockade of Cuba was lifted on November 20.

The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted 13 days. It had extremely important psychological and historical significance. For the first time in its history, humanity found itself on the verge of self-destruction. The resolution of the crisis marked a turning point in the Cold War and the beginning of international détente.

70) In the post-war period, the restructuring of Western capitalism on social and humanistic principles continued; after the defeat of fascism, the reformist-democratic tendency fully manifested itself. Leaders Western countries realized the need for constant corrective government intervention in the economic and social sphere. The growth of government spending on social purposes, government support for science and technology, capital construction, and infrastructure development maximized employment and effective consumer demand. The concepts of “welfare state”, “mass consumption society”, “high quality of life” have become dominant. The volume of industrial production of the capitalist world in 1948-1973 increased 4.5 times. Real wages from 1950 to 1970 in the USA increased by 1.5 times, in Great Britain - by 1.6 times, in Italy - by 2.1 times, in France - by 2.3 times, in Germany - by 2, 8 times. In the “golden” years of the 60s for Western countries, the share of unemployed fell to 2.5-3% of the economically active population. The growth rate of industrial output in the 1960s was 5.7%, compared with 4.9% in the 1950s and 3.9% in the interwar period. In the post-war period, many new, seemingly completely unexpected phenomena appeared. Thus, from the late 50s to the early 80s, growth rates in Germany and Japan ranged from 10 to 20%, that is, they were the highest among developed countries. The “Japanese” and “German miracles” had a lot in common. The most important was: minimizing military spending in these countries that lost the second world war; the use of traditional hard work, discipline and a high cultural and educational level; the development not of energy- and resource-intensive industries, but of the production of finished, complex products (cars, complex electronics, sophisticated technological lines, etc.); expedient redistribution of national income through a system of progressive taxation, in which the upper values ​​were up to 50-80%. Creation and development of international financial structures (World Bank, IMF, IBRD). The process of integration of states in different fields of activity in recent decades has been called globalization. A major result of the cooperation that developed between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War was the creation of the United Nations in 1945. By 2006, 192 states were members of the UN. The range of UN activities in the system of international economic relations is very wide and fully reflects the trends of internationalization and globalization of modern economic life. An important aspect of globalization is the increasing integration of world economies, facilitated by the ease of movement of goods and capital across national borders. The international monetary system is a set of monetary relations that have developed on the basis of economic life and the development of the world market. The main components of the world monetary system are: - a certain set of international means of payment, - a currency exchange regime, including exchange rates, convertibility conditions, - regulation of forms of international payments, - a network of international banking institutions that carry out international settlements and credit operations. In 1944, the International Monetary and Financial Conference was held in Bretton Woods (USA), at which it was decided to create the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both organizations have the status of specialized agencies of the UN. The IBRD began operating in 1946, and the IMF in 1947. The purpose of the IBRD is to assist member countries in obtaining long-term loans and credits, as well as guaranteeing private investment. In the first post-war years, the IBRD provided significant loans to Western European countries to restore their economies. Subsequently, the main focus of the IBRD's activities was developing countries. Since the late 80s, the IBRD began to provide loans to countries of Eastern Europe. The Russian Federation joined the IBRD in 1992. The IBRD issues bonds, which are bought by private banks, receiving over 9%. From the funds collected, the IBRD provides loans covering about 30% of the cost of the project, and the rest must be financed from internal or other sources. IBRD loans are provided for the development of energy, transport, communications and other infrastructure sectors for up to 20 years under high percent , determined by the level of interest rates on the loan capital market. If the bank's initial capital did not exceed $10 billion, then in 1995 it exceeded $176 billion. By mid-1998, IBRD loans to member countries reached $316 billion, including about $10 billion provided to the Russian Federation 181 countries are members of the IBRD. There are 182 countries that are members of the IMF. The Russian Federation has been a member of the IMF since 1992. The purpose of the IMF was proclaimed to promote the development of international trade and monetary cooperation by eliminating foreign exchange restrictions, as well as providing foreign currency loans to equalize balances of payments and establish norms for regulating exchange rates. The IMF's capital is close to $300 billion, with the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan having the greatest influence in accordance with the largest quotas. Quotas are set depending on the level of economic development of the country and its role in the global economy and trade. Since 1944, the Bretton Woods currency system has been in effect. It provided for the preservation of the functions of world money in gold while simultaneously using national monetary units, primarily the US dollar, as well as the English pound sterling, as international payment and reserve currencies. It was established that foreign government agencies and central banks were required to exchange reserve currencies for gold at the official rate of $35 per troy ounce – 31.1 g of gold. It provided for mutual equalization and exchange of currencies on the basis of currency parities agreed with the IMF in gold and US dollars. Deviation of market exchange rates was allowed by no more than 1%. The dollar found itself in a privileged position. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dates back to January 1, 1948. At its core, the GATT is a binding treaty between the governments of the participating countries. Initially there were 23 of these, and by 1994 their number had reached over 100. The goal of the GATT was to ensure a predictable international trading environment and trade liberalization in the interests of promoting economic development. GATT performed very important functions: establishing rules binding on governments in the field of international trade and related areas of economic relations; conducting trade negotiations; fulfilling the duties of an international “court” on trade matters. Thanks to the GATT, transparency, non-discrimination, and national treatment of taxes and duties on imported goods have become generally accepted in the system of international economic relations. By 1994, GATT member countries accounted for over 90% of world trade turnover. The average level of customs duties on goods under the GATT was reduced from 40% to 4%. Thanks to the GATT, regulation began in such important areas as trade in services, the results of creative activities, and foreign investment related to trade. Back in 1982, the USSR established contacts with the Secretariat (in Geneva) and the main countries participating in the agreement. On May 16, 1990, the USSR received observer status in the GATT. The Russian Federation began to participate in some of the working bodies of the GATT and in June 1993, the Director General of the GATT was handed a statement from the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to join this agreement. We have to talk about GATT in the past tense, since on January 1, 1995, by decision of the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed on the legal basis of GATT. Any organization that accepts the obligations of the entire package of documents underlying the WTO can become a member of the WTO. At the end of 1996, 130 states became members of the WTO and another 30 expressed interest in joining. An important role in the functioning of the complex system of international economic relations is played by structures created under the United Nations (UN). Among them are such specialized UN agencies as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Organization civil aviation (ICAO), International Labor Organization (ILO). Since 1968, the Commission on International Trade Law (UNISTRAL) began its work, the purpose of which is the harmonization and unification of international trade law. Within the framework of UNISTRAL, a number of international legal documents approved by the UN have been developed. By 2000, there were over 400 intergovernmental and about 3 thousand non-governmental international organizations in the world. International economic organizations can be characterized as organizations created at the interstate, intergovernmental, interministerial levels or created by business and public organizations to coordinate the activities of countries in different spheres of the world economy. The creation of international economic organizations was a product of the growing internationalization of economic life and the globalization of economic processes. Transformation of neocolonialism and economic globalization. Coordination of efforts in order to achieve specific results has become an important way of fighting for their place in the system of international economic relations for countries that have begun to free themselves from colonial dependence. In 1963, at the XVIII session of the UN General Assembly, developing countries jointly expressed their views on international economic problems for the first time. In 1964, the name Group of 77 appeared, as 77 states signed the corresponding declaration on trade and development at the UN Geneva Conference. The declaration spoke about general and special principles of international economic relations: about the sovereign equality of states, about accelerating economic growth and reducing the gap in income levels of different countries regardless of the political system, about increasing export revenues of third world countries, etc. Over time, the Group of 77 included 120 states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the European countries of Malta, Romania, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1974, at the initiative of the Group of 77, the VI Special Session of the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Program of Action to Establish a New Economic Order. Along with international organizations whose activities are of global importance, there are many regional organizations. In 1945, the League of Arab States (LAS) was formed. The members of this regional organization are 22 Arab states: Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Libya, etc. The Arab League coordinates the activities of its members in the political, economic, military and other spheres, and develops a unified policy for the Arab states on a number of common Arab problems. In the Middle East, Arab funds and development banks play a significant role, the purpose of which is to lend to developing oil importing countries. In 1971-1980, over 100 developing countries received subsidies, but ¾ of the funds were provided to Arab states.

In the post-war period, the restructuring of Western capitalism on social and humanistic principles continued; after the defeat of fascism, the reformist-democratic tendency fully manifested itself. Leaders of Western countries have realized the need for constant corrective government intervention in the economic and social sphere. The growth of government spending on social purposes, government support for science and technology, capital construction, and infrastructure development maximized employment and effective consumer demand. The concepts of “welfare state”, “mass consumption society”, “high quality of life” have become dominant. The volume of industrial production of the capitalist world in 1948-1973 increased 4.5 times. Real wages from 1950 to 1970 in the USA increased by 1.5 times, in Great Britain - by 1.6 times, in Italy - by 2.1 times, in France - by 2.3 times, in Germany - by 2, 8 times. In the “golden” years of the 60s for Western countries, the share of unemployed fell to 2.5-3% of the economically active population. The growth rate of industrial output in the 1960s was 5.7%, compared with 4.9% in the 1950s and 3.9% in the interwar period. In the post-war period, many new, seemingly completely unexpected phenomena appeared. Thus, from the late 50s to the early 80s, growth rates in Germany and Japan ranged from 10 to 20%, that is, they were the highest among developed countries. The “Japanese” and “German miracles” had a lot in common. The most important was: minimizing military spending in these countries that lost the Second World War; the use of traditional hard work, discipline and a high cultural and educational level; the development not of energy- and resource-intensive industries, but of the production of finished, complex products (cars, complex electronics, sophisticated technological lines, etc.); expedient redistribution of national income through a system of progressive taxation, in which the upper values ​​were up to 50-80%. Creation and development of international financial structures (World Bank, IMF, IBRD). The process of integration of states in different fields of activity in recent decades has been called globalization. A major result of the cooperation that developed between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War was the creation of the United Nations in 1945. By 2006, 192 states were members of the UN. The range of UN activities in the system of international economic relations is very wide and fully reflects the trends of internationalization and globalization of modern economic life. An important aspect of globalization is the increasing integration of world economies, facilitated by the ease of movement of goods and capital across national borders. The international monetary system is a set of monetary relations that have developed on the basis of economic life and the development of the world market. The main components of the world monetary system are: - a certain set of international means of payment, - a currency exchange regime, including exchange rates, convertibility conditions, - regulation of forms of international payments, - a network of international banking institutions that carry out international settlements and credit operations. In 1944, the International Monetary and Financial Conference was held in Bretton Woods (USA), at which it was decided to create the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both organizations have the status of specialized agencies of the UN. The IBRD began operating in 1946, and the IMF in 1947. The purpose of the IBRD is to assist member countries in obtaining long-term loans and credits, as well as guaranteeing private investment. In the first post-war years, the IBRD provided significant loans to Western European countries to restore their economies. Subsequently, the main focus of the IBRD's activities was developing countries. Since the late 80s, the IBRD began to provide loans to Eastern European countries. The Russian Federation joined the IBRD in 1992. The IBRD issues bonds, which are bought by private banks, receiving over 9%. From the funds collected, the IBRD provides loans covering about 30% of the cost of the project, and the rest must be financed from internal or other sources. IBRD loans are provided for the development of energy, transport, communications and other infrastructure sectors for a period of up to 20 years at a high interest rate, determined by the level of interest rates on the loan capital market. If the bank's initial capital did not exceed $10 billion, then in 1995 it exceeded $176 billion. By mid-1998, IBRD loans to member countries reached $316 billion, including about $10 billion provided to the Russian Federation 181 countries are members of the IBRD. There are 182 countries that are members of the IMF. The Russian Federation has been a member of the IMF since 1992. The purpose of the IMF was proclaimed to promote the development of international trade and monetary cooperation by eliminating foreign exchange restrictions, as well as providing foreign currency loans to equalize balances of payments and establish norms for regulating exchange rates. The IMF's capital is close to $300 billion, with the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan having the greatest influence in accordance with the largest quotas. Quotas are set depending on the level of economic development of the country and its role in the global economy and trade. Since 1944, the Bretton Woods currency system has been in effect. It provided for the preservation of the functions of world money in gold while simultaneously using national monetary units, primarily the US dollar, as well as the English pound sterling, as international payment and reserve currencies. It was established that foreign government agencies and central banks were required to exchange reserve currencies for gold at the official rate of $35 per troy ounce – 31.1 g of gold. It provided for mutual equalization and exchange of currencies on the basis of currency parities agreed with the IMF in gold and US dollars. Deviation of market exchange rates was allowed by no more than 1%. The dollar found itself in a privileged position. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dates back to January 1, 1948. At its core, the GATT is a binding treaty between the governments of the participating countries. Initially there were 23 of these, and by 1994 their number had reached over 100. The goal of the GATT was to ensure a predictable international trading environment and trade liberalization in the interests of promoting economic development. GATT performed very important functions: establishing rules binding on governments in the field of international trade and related areas of economic relations; conducting trade negotiations; fulfilling the duties of an international “court” on trade matters. Thanks to the GATT, transparency, non-discrimination, and national treatment of taxes and duties on imported goods have become generally accepted in the system of international economic relations. By 1994, GATT member countries accounted for over 90% of world trade turnover. The average level of customs duties on goods under the GATT was reduced from 40% to 4%. Thanks to the GATT, regulation began in such important areas as trade in services, the results of creative activities, and foreign investment related to trade. Back in 1982, the USSR established contacts with the Secretariat (in Geneva) and the main countries participating in the agreement. On May 16, 1990, the USSR received observer status in the GATT. The Russian Federation began to participate in some of the working bodies of the GATT and in June 1993, the Director General of the GATT was handed a statement from the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to join this agreement. We have to talk about GATT in the past tense, since on January 1, 1995, by decision of the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed on the legal basis of GATT. Any organization that accepts the obligations of the entire package of documents underlying the WTO can become a member of the WTO. At the end of 1996, 130 states became members of the WTO and another 30 expressed interest in joining. An important role in the functioning of the complex system of international economic relations is played by structures created under the United Nations (UN). Among them are such specialized UN agencies as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the International Labor Organization (ILO). Since 1968, the Commission on International Trade Law (UNISTRAL) began its work, the purpose of which is the harmonization and unification of international trade law. Within the framework of UNISTRAL, a number of international legal documents approved by the UN have been developed. By 2000, there were over 400 intergovernmental and about 3 thousand non-governmental international organizations in the world. International economic organizations can be characterized as organizations created at the interstate, intergovernmental, interministerial levels or created by business and public organizations to coordinate the activities of countries in different spheres of the world economy. The creation of international economic organizations was a product of the growing internationalization of economic life and the globalization of economic processes. Transformation of neocolonialism and economic globalization. Coordination of efforts in order to achieve specific results has become an important way of fighting for their place in the system of international economic relations for countries that have begun to free themselves from colonial dependence. In 1963, at the XVIII session of the UN General Assembly, developing countries jointly expressed their views on international economic problems for the first time. In 1964, the name Group of 77 appeared, as 77 states signed the corresponding declaration on trade and development at the UN Geneva Conference. The declaration spoke about general and special principles of international economic relations: about the sovereign equality of states, about accelerating economic growth and reducing the gap in income levels of different countries regardless of the political system, about increasing export revenues of third world countries, etc. Over time, the Group of 77 included 120 states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the European countries of Malta, Romania, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1974, at the initiative of the Group of 77, the VI Special Session of the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Program of Action to Establish a New Economic Order. Along with international organizations whose activities are of global importance, there are many regional organizations. In 1945, the League of Arab States (LAS) was formed. The members of this regional organization are 22 Arab states: Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Libya, etc. The Arab League coordinates the activities of its members in the political, economic, military and other spheres, and develops a unified policy for the Arab states on a number of common Arab problems. In the Middle East, Arab funds and development banks play a significant role, the purpose of which is to lend to developing oil importing countries. In 1971-1980, over 100 developing countries received subsidies, but ¾ of the funds were provided to Arab states.

Globalization is a process during which the world is transformed into a single global system. The issue of globalization became very relevant in the 1990s, although various aspects of this process have been seriously discussed by scientists since the 1960s and 1970s.

ECONOMIC CYCLE AND ECONOMIC CRISIS

Economic cycle(from the Greek circle) is a set of economic phenomena and processes that circulate over a period of time. The business cycle is the movement of the economy from one state to another. In all economic cycles, four phases can be distinguished: rise (expansion of production), peak (peak of business activity), decline (depression), bottom ( nadir activity).

Types of economic cycles:

A) short-term– a short-term deviation of market demand from the supply of goods and services. Arise due to overproduction (surplus) or underproduction (shortage) of goods on the market;

b) medium urgency– deviation associated with changes in demand for equipment and facilities. It lasts from 8 to 12 years. Medium-term economic cycles occur in all countries in the form of economic booms and economic downturns;

V) long-term– are associated with the transition from one technological method of production to another. They last about 60 years and are associated with the development of scientific and technological progress (STR).

The economic growth– favorable development of the economy: increasing production, consumption and investment (investing money in sectors of the economy). Demand for goods and services is growing. Inflation and unemployment are low.

Economic crisis– unfavorable economic development: a sharp decline in production and trade, the lowest point of development. Accompanied by unemployment and a decline in living standards.

Types of crises. By scale: general (covers the entire economy) and sectoral (covers individual industries: foreign exchange, stock exchange, credit, financial). By regularity: irregular and regular (frequently repeated). According to the level of supply and demand (crises of underproduction and overproduction).

In the 17th century It was believed that economic crises were an accident. The causes of the crisis were sought in violations in the field of money demand. The famous economist John Keynes saw the origins of the crisis in the weakness of the market mechanism. Marxism is about the contradictions of capitalism and the private capitalist form of appropriation. In modern economics there are internal causes of economic crises: imbalance of supply and demand (overproduction or underproduction), development of scientific and technological progress, high level inflation and unemployment, speculation in securities, government activities. External reasons: social cataclysms, wars, revolutions.

Economic depression- the most acute form of crisis, in which there is a very high level of unemployment and an almost complete stop in the production of goods and products. During the economic crisis and Great Depression in 1933, about 2 thousand people died of hunger in the United States.

Ways out of the crisis: gradual recovery of the economy from its own reserves and loans from foreign countries: reducing inflation and unemployment, increasing wages, strengthening the national currency, etc.

71) Socio-economic development of the USSR in the mid-60s - 80s

The main feature of the socio-economic life of the 60-80s was the constant search for new ways of development, which the party leadership could not finally decide on. In the 60s, the government still made attempts to preserve the reform impulses of the Khrushchev period, but starting from the 70s, this process finally stopped.

Industrial reform of 1965

The economic reform, which was adopted in 1965, became the largest transformation in the post-war period of the USSR. A. N. Kosygin was involved in the development of the reform, although the foundations were laid by the Khrushchev government.

The transformations affected industry, agriculture, construction and management. Changes occurred in the management of industry; the planned system was partially refuted; the assessment of the activities of enterprises became not the quantity of manufactured products, but the volume of their sales.

Financing of construction enterprises was carried out using interest-free lending. Results of the reform. Businesses that have migrated to the new system have seen significant improvements in productivity.

The fuel and energy complex became the core of the state's economy: the USSR took the world's leading position in the production of oil and gas. During the reform period, the military-industrial complex strengthened significantly.

In pursuit of parity with the United States, the Soviet state began mass production of ballistic missiles and intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The scientific and technical potential of the state has also increased. During this period, new sectors emerged in the Soviet industry: microelectronics, robotics and nuclear engineering.

Despite the visible economic growth, the leadership of the USSR failed to consolidate the results of the reform, and by the beginning of the 70s, production volumes began to fall steadily.

Agriculture

While industrial reform brought the expected results, attempts to transform the agricultural sector suffered a crushing failure at the very beginning. Most state and collective farms, despite financial support from the state, brought losses.

The rate of agricultural production was only 1% per year. Since the mid-60s, the government began to regularly purchase grain abroad. The crisis of the agricultural complex was never eliminated.

Social life

In the 60-80s, the Soviet state experienced increased urbanization. Villagers moved en masse to big cities, since work in production brought a stable income, unlike labor on the land.

By the beginning of 1980, the urban population was 62%, rural 12%, military personnel 16%. Until the mid-70s, the life of the Soviet people was characterized by social and economic stability; education, housing and medicine in the state were free.

The situation changed dramatically in 1976, when the production crisis first began to affect the life of society. The food problem worsened significantly; many necessary products were in short supply. The agricultural sector could not satisfy the food needs of the population.

Despite this, the country's leadership did not stop funding the space and military industries, which led to a socio-economic paradox: in a state that was a world leader in the production of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, it was not possible to easily buy milk and butter.

72) Socio-political development of the USSR in the mid-60s, mid-80s

In October 1964, N.S. Khrushchev was accused of “voluntarism” and “subjectivism”, removed from all posts and sent into retirement.

The ruling elite no longer wanted to tolerate Khrushchev’s reform actions, which were accompanied by personnel leapfrog. The people did not understand Khrushchev’s struggle for a “bright future” while current life was deteriorating.

L.I. was elected First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Brezhnev, A.N. was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Kosygin. With Brezhnev coming to power, the management of Soviet society passes to a “new” class (700 thousand people), a class of managers devoid of faith in social justice and many moral prohibitions. The nomenklatura surrounded itself with new privileges and material benefits, and its most corrupt members were associated with the “shadow economy.” The main source of enrichment for the ruling class in the 60s and early 80s were all sorts of abuses of office, bribes, and postscripts. By the mid-80s, the ruling elite was transforming from managers of “socialist” property into its real owners. An atmosphere of impunity and permissiveness is being created.

The domestic policy of the Brezhnev administration was conservative in nature (“neo-Stalinism”). From the second half of the 60s, criticism of the cult of Stalin was prohibited, the process of rehabilitation of the repressed stopped, and persecution of dissidents began. In the 1970s, dissent joined the dissident movement, the characteristic features of which were anti-communism and anti-Sovietism (academician A.D. Sakharov, writer A.I. Solzhenitsyn, musician M.A. Rostropovich).

In 1977, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, which legally enshrined the construction of “developed socialism.” The Constitution expanded the social rights of citizens: the right to work, free education, medical care, recreation, etc. The Constitution of the USSR for the first time officially established the special role of the CPSU in society. The political life of the country in the first half of the 1980s was characterized by frequent changes of top leadership: in November 1982, L.I. died. Brezhnev, in February 1984 Yu.V. Andropov, in March 1985 - K.U. Chernenko.

Since the end of 1964, the country's leadership has been trying to carry out economic reforms. The March Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee (1965) outlined measures for agriculture: establish a firm procurement plan for 6 years (1965 - 1970), increase purchase prices, introduce a 50% premium for above-plan products, increase investment in the countryside, cut taxes . The implementation of these measures led to a temporary acceleration of agricultural production. The essence of the economic reform in industry (September 1965) was the following: the transition to sectoral management, the transfer of enterprises to self-financing, the reduction of the number of planned indicators (instead of 30-9), the creation of incentive funds at enterprises. A.N. played an active role in the preparation and implementation of the reform. Kosygin (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR).

The economic reform of 1965 proved successful during the 8th Five-Year Plan (1966 - 1970), industrial production increased by 50%. 1,900 large enterprises were built (the Volzhsky Automobile Plant in Togliatti produced the first Zhiguli cars in 1970). Agricultural production increased by 20%.

By the early 1970s, the reform ceased to work. Market mechanisms for managing production were paralyzed by the command-administrative system. Agriculture again took a back seat. Economic reform, not supported by reform of the political system, was doomed.

Since the beginning of the 70s. the rate of decline in production increased. The economy continued to develop on an extensive basis, mainly in breadth (involving additional material and human resources in production). There were not enough workers in the newly built factories and factories due to the low birth rate. Labor productivity has fallen. The economy has become resistant to innovation. Only enterprises working for military orders were distinguished by high technology.

The country's economy was militarized. Military spending grew 2 times faster than national income. Of 25 billion rubles. total expenditures on science are 20 billion rubles. accounted for military-technical research.

Civilian industry suffered losses. By the beginning of the 80s, only 10% - 15% of enterprises were automated. During the 9th Five-Year Plan (1971 - 1975), economic growth stopped. The appearance of well-being of the national economy was ensured through the sale of natural resources - gas and oil. "Petrodollars" were spent on the development of the eastern regions of the country and the creation of gigantic territorial production complexes. Construction projects of the century were carried out (VAZ, KAMAZ). From 1974-1984 the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) was built - 3 thousand km.

Agriculture remained the weakest sector in the 70s and 80s. The old management system interfered with the independence of collective and state farm leaders. Purchase prices for agricultural products were low, and for agricultural machinery - high. The state was forced to import grain (1979 - 1084 - 40 million tons per year).

In the 70s, the campaign against the “second virgin lands” - the Non-Black Earth Region (29 regions and republics of Russia) - was widely launched. The main emphasis was on agro-industrial integration, i.e. unification of agriculture with the industries that serve it - industry, transport, trade. Mass liquidation of “unpromising villages” began (200 thousand). In 1982, a food program was developed designed to solve the food problem in the USSR by 1990.

Crisis phenomena gradually accumulated in the social sphere. The rise in the population's living standards stopped, there was a shortage and a hidden rise in prices. This became an economic prerequisite for the formation of the “shadow economy”.

From the mid-60s to the mid-80s, the political regime in the USSR “came to its senses” after the debunking of Stalin and other innovations of Khrushchev’s “thaw”; society’s readiness for change was limited by the rigid framework of the ideological paradigm of “building communism”, the political monopoly of the party- state structures, nomenklatura, which is a stronghold of conservatism, and the absence of influential social groups interested in dismantling totalitarianism.

Despite the official thesis about the rapprochement of social groups, in reality social relations became more complex. The differentiation in the quality and standard of living, real rights of the managerial system and the rest of the population increased.

The contradictory phenomena in Soviet society could not but affect the development of its spiritual sphere - education, science, culture.

Relations between government and society in the period from the mid-60s to the mid-80s led to the third wave of emigration.

All this reflected the presence, interweaving and confrontation of two directions in the spiritual life of Soviet society from the mid-60s to the mid-80s - official-protective and democratic.

During these years, the dissident movement arose, which will be discussed in this work.

The phenomenon of dissidence

The Brezhnev team quickly set a course to suppress dissent, and the boundaries of what was permitted narrowed, and what was fully tolerated and even recognized by the System under Khrushchev, from the late 60s could be classified as a political crime. Indicative in this regard is the example of the head of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the USSR N. Mesyats, who, having been appointed to the post in the October days of 1964 and called upon to ensure control over information programs, sincerely believed that it was enough to press a certain “button” and such control will be implemented.

The origins of the revival of the organized movement of dissidents can rightfully be considered the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the campaign of condemnation of the “cult of personality” that began immediately after it. The population of the country, party organizations and labor collectives, representatives not only of the intelligentsia, but also of the working class and peasantry took the new course so seriously that they did not notice how criticism of Stalinism smoothly flowed into criticism of the System itself. But the authorities were on alert. The persecution of dissidents (and in this case, of the consistent implementers of the decisions of the party congress) fell immediately.

And yet, the dissident movement in its classic version began in 1965 with the arrest of A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, who published one of their works “Walks with Pushkin” in the West. It was from this time that the authorities began a targeted fight against dissidence, thereby causing the growth of this movement. From this same time, the creation of a network of underground circles, wide in geography and representative in composition of participants, began, whose task was to change the existing political order.

The symbol of dissidence was the speech on August 25, 1968 against the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, which took place on Red Square. Eight people took part in it: student T. Baeva, linguist K. Babitsky, philologist L. Bogoraz, poet V. Delaunay, worker V. Dremlyuga, physicist P. Litvinov, art critic V. Fayenberg and poetess N. Gorbanevskaya. However, there were other, less overt forms of disagreement that made it possible to avoid administrative and even criminal prosecution: participation in a society for the protection of nature or religious heritage, the creation of various kinds of appeals to “future generations”, without a chance of publication then and discovered today, and finally, refusal from career - how many young intellectuals of the 70s chose to work as janitors or stokers. The poet and bard Yu. Kim recently wrote about the connection with his last performance, “Moscow Kitchens,” which was a great success, that the Brezhnev era remains in the memory of Moscow intellectuals as the years spent in the kitchen, talking “in their circle” on the topic of how to remake the world. Weren’t there some kind of “kitchens”, albeit of a different level, the university in Tartu, the department of Professor V. Yadov at Leningrad University, the Institute of Economics of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences and other places, official and unofficial, where jokes about the wretchedness of life and the stuttering of the Secretary General were interspersed disputes in which the future was anticipated?

Directions of the dissident movement

The first is civil movements (“politicians”). The largest among them was the human rights movement. His supporters stated: “The protection of human rights, his basic civil and political freedoms, open protection, by legal means, within the framework of existing laws, was the main pathos of the human rights movement... Repulsion from political activity, a suspicious attitude towards ideologically charged projects of social reconstruction, rejection of any forms organizations - this is the set of ideas that can be called a human rights position";

The second is religious movements (faithful and free Seventh-day Adventists, evangelical Christians - Baptists, Orthodox, Pentecostals and others);

Third - national movements (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Armenians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Germans and others).

Stages of the dissident movement

The movement participants themselves were the first to propose a periodization of the movement, in which they saw four main stages.

The first stage (1965 - 1972) can be called the period of formation.

These years were marked by:

- “letter campaign” in defense of human rights in the USSR; the creation of the first human rights circles and groups;

Organization of the first funds for material assistance to political prisoners;

Intensification of the positions of the Soviet intelligentsia not only in relation to events in our country, but also in other states (for example, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1971, etc.);

Public protest against the re-Stalinization of society; appealing not only to the authorities of the USSR, but also to the world community (including the international communist movement);

The creation of the first program documents of the liberal-Western (work by A.D. Sakharov “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”) and pochvennicheskoy (“Nobel Lecture” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn) directions;

The beginning of the publication of "Chronicles of Current Events";

The creation on May 28, 1969 of the country's first open public association - the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR;

The massive scope of the movement (according to the KGB for 1967 - 1971, 3,096 “groups of a politically harmful nature” were identified; 13,602 people included in their composition were prevented; the geography of the movement in these years for the first time outlined the entire country);

The movement covers essentially all social strata of the country's population, including workers, military personnel, state farm workers,

The efforts of the authorities in the fight against dissent during this period were mainly concentrated on:

On the organization of a special structure in the KGB (the Fifth Directorate), aimed at ensuring control over mental attitudes and “prevention” of dissidents;

Widespread use of the capabilities of psychiatric hospitals to combat dissent;

Changing Soviet legislation in the interests of combating dissidents;

Suppression of connections of dissidents with foreign countries.

The second stage (1973 - 1974) is usually considered a period of crisis for the movement. This condition is associated with the arrest, investigation and trial of P. Yakir and V. Krasin, during which they agreed to cooperate with the KGB. This resulted in new arrests of participants and some fading of the human rights movement. The authorities launched an offensive against samizdat. Numerous searches, arrests and trials took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Vilnius, Novosibirsk, Kyiv and other cities.

The third stage (1974 - 1975) is considered to be a period of broad international recognition of the dissident movement. This period saw the creation of the Soviet branch of the international organization Amnesty International; deportation from the country of A. Solzhenitsyn; awarding the Nobel Prize to A. Sakharov; resumption of publication of the Chronicle of Current Events.

The fourth stage (1976 - 1981) is called Helsinki. During this period, a group was created to promote the implementation of the Helsinki agreements in the USSR, headed by Yu. Orlov (Moscow Helsinki Group - MHG). The group saw the main content of its activities in the collection and analysis of materials available to it about violations of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords and informing the governments of the participating countries about them. Her work was painfully perceived by the authorities not only because it contributed to the growth of the human rights movement, but also because after the Helsinki Conference it became much more difficult to deal with dissidents using previous methods. It was also important that the MHG established connections with religious and national movements, primarily unrelated to each other, and began to perform some coordinating functions. At the end of 1976 - beginning of 1977. Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, and Helsinki groups were created on the basis of national movements. In 1977, a working commission was created under the MHG to investigate the use of psychiatry for political purposes.

Conclusion

So, the dissident movement is the most radical, visible and courageous expression of dissent.

The dissident movement in its classic version began in 1965 with the arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniele.

The dissident movement can be divided into three main directions:

1. civil movements;

2. religious movements;

3. national movements.

There are four stages of the dissident movement.

The most active forms of protest were characteristic mainly of three layers of society: the creative intelligentsia, believers and some national minorities.

The 70s were marked by:

A number of obvious successes of the KGB in the fight against all forms of dissidence;

The continuous decline in the international prestige of the USSR due to repression.

All these directions and forms of protest will receive recognition and flourish during the period of “glasnost”.

73) Foreign policy of the USSR in the mid-60s - 80s

In the mid-60s and early 80s, the USSR was in a state of confrontation with the capitalist West. Foreign policy during this period was of a contrasting nature: a thaw in international relations often turned into a new aggravation of contradictions.

USSR diplomacy in the mid-60s and early 80s should be considered in two main trends: political relations with the socialist camp and capitalist states.

Foreign policy of the Soviet Union with socialist countries

Diplomatic relations of the Soviet Union with the countries of the socialist camp were regulated by the so-called “Brezhnev Doctrine”, the meaning of which was the need to preserve the unity of the proletarian states by any means and consolidate the leading role of the USSR in the socialist world.

The Soviet army actively participated in the suppression of anti-socialist uprisings in Czechoslovakia (“Prague Spring”, 1968). An attempt was also made to intervene in the internal confrontation between communists and democrats in Poland, but the emerging socio-economic Soviet crisis forced the USSR government to abandon the use of the Prague experience.

In the early 70s, tension arose in Soviet-Chinese relations. The Chinese Communist Party began to claim leadership in the socialist camp, gradually displacing the USSR. After short military conflicts and the departure of Mao Zedong from the political arena, diplomatic relations of the Soviet state with the friendly republic of China were completely severed.

The USSR government failed to fully implement the “Brezhnev Doctrine”. The socialist republics, willingly entering into diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and taking advantage of the prerogatives provided by the powerful “mentor” in the foreign market, still actively defended their sovereignty and political independence.

The implementation of the world proletarian revolution was significantly delayed, and over time it completely lost its relevance.

USSR and the capitalist world

International relations between the parties to the Cold War were unstable. In the mid-60s, political and military parity was achieved between the USSR and the USA, which meant the potential threat of the outbreak of the Third World War.

However, during R. Nixon's official visit to Moscow in 1972, an agreement was signed between the states that limited the strategic possession of nuclear weapons by both countries, as well as their non-use in peacetime. This was the first step towards nuclear disarmament and significantly eased tensions between the powers.

Since 1973 international relationships The USSR and the countries of the capitalist West acquired stability and were based on friendly good neighborliness, without making political claims. Diplomatic relations with the West destabilized in 1979, when Soviet armed forces invaded Afghanistan on an international mission.

Beginning of the war in Afghanistan The motivation for helping the Afghan people build socialism was not based on compelling reasons and looked unconvincing in the eyes of Western democracy.

The Soviet government ignored Western warnings, which gave rise to a new stage in the Cold War. By the beginning of the 1980s, diplomatic relations were completely broken off, and the parties again returned to mutual threats of a nuclear attack.

On September 26, 1968, the Pravda newspaper published the so-called “Brezhnev Doctrine” on the “limited sovereignty” of socialist countries in the face of the danger hanging over the world socialist system... Doctrine was that the USSR could interfere in the internal affairs of the countries of Central-Eastern Europe, which were part of the socialist bloc in order to ensure the stability of the political course, built on the basis of real socialism and aimed at close cooperation with the USSR. The word “doctrine” never got used to the Soviet foreign policy lexicon in the military-political field, this word did not take root. There were decrees and declarations, the opinion of TASS or the Soviet government was expressed. The Brezhnev Doctrine was explained and fueled by ideological, political and economic factors. Soviet leaders, from Stalin to Andropov, intuitively understood the importance of geopolitics as a factor in the security of the Soviet Union. The main pillars of Soviet foreign policy under Brezhnev were the principles of peaceful coexistence and proletarian socialist internationalism. The foundations of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union were formed in the real world, where there was constantly a fierce struggle for military-political spheres of influence and economic interests. Everyone remembers that there were doctrines of US presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon. Theoretically, they were based on the principles of political realism, which were developed by perhaps the most famous American analysts Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan. Kennan, for example, launched the doctrine of containing communism, which in practice became the doctrine of rejecting communism. US Secretaries of State Kissinger and Christopher believed and still believe that in world politics there is a constant struggle for influence, power, initiative; the state achieves its goal by adapting or imposing its will on others. Either they adapt or they impose. The main conductor of the USSR's foreign policy was Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. He said that the world is socially bipolar, that there are fundamental differences between the two systems - capitalist and socialist. Along with cooperation within the framework of peaceful coexistence, there is a struggle that must be waged through peaceful means. Communist ideology, the economic and military power of the Soviet Union and its allies are the main means of maintaining the balance of power on the world stage. The nuclear arms race is the greatest threat to humanity. The race must be stopped and weapons banned. Objectively, the United States and NATO are interested in this. The Soviet Union has many allies and friends on the world stage, and we must support them. This is an axiom of any diplomacy. It's easy to lose friends, but hard to find. For the security of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was created, hence the support provided by the GDR. Everyone knows, for example, that the minister, when he flew to Germany, always stopped in the GDR. This was a deliberate policy.

74)Reasons for a new attempt to reform the political system of the USSR

By the beginning of the 80s, the Soviet economic system had exhausted its possibilities for development and had gone beyond the boundaries of its historical time. Having carried out industrialization and urbanization, the command economy was unable to further carry out deep transformations covering all aspects of society. First of all, it turned out to be unable, in radically changed conditions, to ensure the proper development of the productive forces, protect human rights, and maintain the international authority of the country. The USSR, with its gigantic reserves of raw materials, hardworking and selfless population, lagged further and further behind the West. The Soviet economy was unable to cope with the increasing demands for variety and quality of consumer goods. Industrial enterprises not interested in scientific and technological progress rejected up to 80% of new technical solutions and inventions. The growing inefficiency of the economy had a negative impact on the country's defense capability. In the early 80s, the USSR began to lose competitiveness in the only industry in which it successfully competed with the West - in the field of military technology.

The country's economic base no longer corresponded to its position as a great world power and was in urgent need of renewal. At the same time, the enormous growth in the education and awareness of the people during the post-war period, the emergence of a generation that did not know hunger and repression, formed a higher level of material and spiritual needs of people, and called into question the very principles underlying the Soviet totalitarian system. The very idea of ​​a planned economy collapsed. Increasingly, state plans were not implemented and were constantly being redrawn, and the proportions in the sectors of the national economy were violated. Achievements in the field of health, education, and culture were lost.

The spontaneous degeneration of the system changed the entire way of life of Soviet society: the rights of managers and enterprises were redistributed, departmentalism and social inequality increased.

The nature of production relations within enterprises changed, labor discipline began to decline, apathy and indifference, theft, disrespect for honest work, and envy of those who earn more became widespread. At the same time, non-economic coercion to work remained in the country. The Soviet man, alienated from the distribution of the produced product, turned into a performer, working not out of conscience, but out of compulsion. The ideological motivation for work developed in the post-revolutionary years weakened along with the belief in the imminent triumph of communist ideals.

However, ultimately, completely different forces determined the direction and nature of reform of the Soviet system. They were predetermined by the economic interests of the nomenklatura, the Soviet ruling class.

Thus, by the beginning of the 80s, the Soviet totalitarian system actually lost the support of a significant part of society.

In conditions of monopoly domination in society by one party, the CPSU, and the presence of a powerful repressive apparatus, changes could only begin “from above.” The country's top leaders were clearly aware that the economy needed reform, but none of the conservative majority of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee wanted to take responsibility for implementing these changes.

Even the most urgent problems were not resolved in a timely manner. Instead of taking any measures to improve the economy, new forms of “socialist competition” were proposed. Enormous funds were diverted to numerous “construction projects of the century,” like the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

75) Goals and stages of perestroika Perestroika is the general name for the totality of political and economic changes carried out in the USSR in 1986-1991. During perestroika (especially from the second half of 1989 - after the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR), the political confrontation between the forces advocating the socialist path of development and parties and movements linking the future of the country with the organization of life on the principles of capitalism, as well as on issues of the future, sharply intensified the appearance of the Soviet Union, the relationship between the union and republican bodies of state power and administration. By the mid-80s, the imminent need for change was clear to many in the country. Therefore, proposed in those conditions by M.S. Gorbachev’s “perestroika” found a lively response in all layers of Soviet society. In short, “perestroika” meant: the creation of an effective mechanism for accelerating the socio-economic development of society; comprehensive development of democracy, strengthening of discipline and order, respect for the value and dignity of the individual; refusal of command and administration, encouragement of innovation; a decisive turn towards science, the combination of scientific and technological achievements with economics, and much more. By the beginning of the 1990s, perestroika ended with an aggravation of the crisis in all spheres of society, the elimination of the power of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR. Stages of perestroika The first stage (March 1985 - January 1987) This period was characterized by the recognition of some shortcomings of the existing political-economic system of the USSR and attempts to correct them with several large administrative campaigns (the so-called “Acceleration”) - the anti-alcohol campaign, “the fight against unearned income ", introduction of state acceptance, demonstration of the fight against corruption. No radical steps had yet been taken during this period; outwardly, almost everything remained the same. At the same time, in 1985-86, the bulk of the old personnel of the Brezhnev conscription was replaced with a new team of managers. It was then that A. N. Yakovlev, E. K. Ligachev, N. I. Ryzhkov, B. N. Yeltsin, A. I. Lukyanov and other active participants in future events were introduced into the leadership of the country. Second stage (January 1987 - June 1989) An attempt to reform socialism in the spirit of democratic socialism. Characterized by the beginning of large-scale reforms in all spheres of life of Soviet society. A policy of openness is being proclaimed in public life - easing censorship in the media and lifting bans on what were previously considered taboos. In the economy, private entrepreneurship in the form of cooperatives is being legitimized, and joint ventures with foreign companies are beginning to be actively created. In international politics, the main doctrine is “New Thinking” - a course towards abandoning the class approach in diplomacy and improving relations with the West. Part of the population is overwhelmed by euphoria from the long-awaited changes and freedom unprecedented by Soviet standards. At the same time, during this period, general instability began to gradually increase in the country: the economic situation worsened, separatist sentiments appeared on the national outskirts, and the first interethnic clashes broke out. Third stage (June 1989-1991) The final stage, during this period there is a sharp destabilization of the political situation in the country: after the Congress, the confrontation between the communist regime and the new political forces that emerged as a result of the democratization of society begins. Difficulties in the economy are developing into a full-scale crisis. The chronic shortage of goods reaches its apogee: empty store shelves become a symbol of the turn of the 1980-1990s. Perestroika euphoria in society is replaced by disappointment, uncertainty about the future and mass anti-communist sentiments. Since 1990, the main idea is no longer “improving socialism”, but building democracy and a market economy of the capitalist type. “New thinking” in the international arena comes down to unilateral concessions to the West, as a result of which the USSR loses many of its positions and actually ceases to be a superpower, which just a few years ago controlled half the world. In Russia and other republics of the Union, separatist-minded forces come to power - the “parade of sovereignties” begins. The logical result of this development of events was the liquidation of the power of the CPSU and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

REASONS FOR PERESTROIKA

It's called perestroika The final stage history of the USSR, which began in 1985 with the reforms of the Soviet Union. However, the feeling of the need for change arose in Soviet society back in the era of “stagnation”. In his activities L.I. Brezhnev and his entourage relied primarily on the officials of the CPSU apparatus, who controlled literally everything in the country - from the queue for foreign intelligence to the production of children's toys. Similar system made it possible to carry out all sorts of illegal transactions and receive large bribes. This is exactly how the first large capitals, often of criminal origin, began to form in the USSR.

MASS REPRESSIONS OF THE 1920s AND EARLY 1950s in the USSR - coercive measures against large groups of the population, used by the Soviet government and the Communist Party in solving economic and political problems, to suppress dissent and protests against the authorities, non-economic forced labor.

For-tro-well-are all social, political, religious, and national. groups The proceedings were carried out both in co-ordination with the criminal law, and according to special regulations. on-sta-nov-le-ni-yam desks. and owls organization (ITL), exiles and exiles to distant regions of the country, deportations, deportations abroad. A large role in the development of M. r. syg-ra-whether the processes of the 1920s - in the 1950s. Osu-sche-st-v-la-li su-deb-ny-mi, and also outside-su-deb-ny-mi or-ga-na-mi (Kol-le-gi-ey GPU - OGPU , A special co-member under the OGPU - the NKVD of the USSR, through the "three", "double" - the NKVD committee and pro-ku-ra-tu-ry).

The question of the repressions of the thirties of the last century is of fundamental importance not only for understanding the history of Russian socialism and its essence as a social system, but also for assessing the role of Stalin in the history of Russia. This question plays a key role in the accusations not only of Stalinism, but, in fact, of the entire Soviet regime.

Today, the assessment of “Stalin’s terror” has become in our country a touchstone, a password, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Are you judging? Determined and irrevocable? - A democrat and a common man! Any doubts? - Stalinist!
Let's try to figure it out a simple question: Did Stalin organize the “Great Terror”? Maybe there are other reasons for terror that people in general prefer to remain silent about?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create a new type of ideological elite, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new “people’s” elite believed that through their revolutionary struggle they had fully earned the right to enjoy the benefits that the anti-people “elite” had simply by birthright.

In the noble mansions, the new nomenclature quickly became accustomed, and even the old servants remained in place, they only began to be called servants. This phenomenon was very widespread and was called “combarism”.

Even the right measures turned out to be ineffective, thanks to the massive sabotage of the new elite. I am inclined to include the introduction of the so-called “party maximum” as the right measures - a ban on party members receiving a salary greater than the salary of a highly qualified worker.

That is, a non-party director of a plant could receive a salary of 2,000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more. In this way, Lenin sought to avoid the influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard to quickly get into the bread-and-butter positions. However, this measure was half-hearted without simultaneously destroying the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way. V.I. Lenin strongly opposed the reckless growth in the number of party members, which is what the CPSU later did, starting with Khrushchev. In his work “The Infantile Disease of Leftism in Communism,” he wrote: “We are afraid of excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and scoundrels who deserve only to be shot inevitably try to attach themselves to the government party.”

It is clear that in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much purchased as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes uses what is distributed. Especially the clingy careerists and crooks.

In addition, the results of the first five-year plan showed that the old Bolshevik-Leninists, despite all their revolutionary merits, were unable to cope with the scale of the reconstructed economy. Not burdened with professional skills, poorly educated (from Yezhov’s autobiography: education - incomplete primary), washed with the blood of the Civil War, they could not “saddle” the complex production realities associated with the industrialization of the country. Therefore, the next step was to renovate the upper floors of the party.

Stalin announced this in his characteristic cautious manner at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (March 1934). In his Report, the Secretary General described a certain type of workers who interfere with the party and the country: “... These are people with well-known merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws were written not for them, but for fools.

These are the same people who do not consider it their duty to carry out the decisions of party bodies... What do they count on by violating party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet government will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of governing bodies with impunity...”

Formally, real local power belonged to the Soviets, since the party legally did not possess any powers of authority. But the party bosses were elected chairmen of the Soviets, and, in fact, appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on an uncontested basis, that is, they were not elections.

And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real, rather than nominal, Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils at all levels on an alternative basis.

Stalin tried to get rid of the regional party barons, as they say, in an amicable way, through elections, and truly alternative ones. Considering Soviet practice, this sounds quite unusual, but nevertheless it is so. He hoped that the majority of this public would not overcome the popular filter without support from above. Moreover, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in Russian history, secret alternative elections were to take place. By secret ballot.

Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheels even during the period when the draft constitution was being created, Stalin managed to bring the matter to an end. The regional party elite understood perfectly well: with the help of these new elections to the new Supreme Council, Stalin plans to carry out a peaceful rotation of the top of the ruling element. (By the way, the operational ORDER of the People's Commissar of the NKVD dated July 13, 1937 No. 00447, provided for repression only against 75 thousand people).

They understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance: during the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people with great pleasure would not only not have elected them, but would have also broken their heads.

Many high-ranking regional party secretaries had blood on their hands up to their elbows. During the period of collectivization, the regions had complete self-government. In one of the regions, Khataevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war during collectivization in his particular region.

As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him immediately if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, less “nice”? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections these bloodsuckers would have gone into the woods.

Stalin actually planned such a peaceful rotation operation, as he openly told American correspondent Howard Roy in March 1936. . He said that these elections would be a good whip in the hands of the people to change leadership cadres, and he just said so - “a whip.” Will yesterday’s “gods” of their counties tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in June 1936, directly aimed the party leadership at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov, in his extensive report, spoke absolutely unambiguously: “The new electoral system... will give a powerful impetus to improving the work of Soviet bodies, eliminating bureaucratic bodies, eliminating bureaucratic shortcomings and distortions in the work of our Soviet organizations.

And these shortcomings, as you know, are very significant. Our party bodies must be ready for the electoral struggle...” And he went on to say that these elections would be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because secret voting provides ample opportunities to reject candidates who are unwanted and disliked by the masses.

That party bodies are obliged to distinguish such criticism from HOSTILE ACTIVITY, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support and attention, because, to put it delicately, there are several times more of them than party members.

In Zhdanov’s report, the terms “intra-party democracy,” “democratic centralism,” and “democratic elections” were publicly voiced. And demands were put forward: to prohibit the “nomination” of candidates without elections, to prohibit voting by “list” at party meetings, to ensure “the unlimited right of party members to challenge nominated candidates and the unlimited right to criticize these candidates.”

The last phrase entirely referred to the elections of purely party bodies, where long ago there was not a shadow of democracy. But, as we see, the general elections to Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten.

Stalin and his people demand democracy! And if this is not democracy, then explain to me, what then is considered democracy?!

And how do the party dignitaries who gathered at the plenum react to Zhdanov’s report: the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of national communist parties? And they ignore all this! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of that same “Leninist old guard”, which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, and sits at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor.

Because the vaunted “Leninist Guard” is a bunch of petty satraps. They are accustomed to living in their estates as barons, with sole control over the life and death of people.

The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted. Despite Stalin's direct calls to discuss reforms seriously and in detail, the old guard with paranoid persistence turns to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror!

What the hell kind of reforms?! There are more pressing tasks: hit the hidden enemy, burn, catch, reveal! People's Commissars, first secretaries - everyone talks about the same thing: how passionately and on a large scale they identify the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights...

Stalin is losing patience. When the next speaker appears on the podium, without waiting for him to open his mouth, he ironically throws out: “Have you identified all the enemies or are there still some left?” The speaker, first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee Kabakov, (another future “innocent victim of Stalin’s terror”) misses the irony and habitually rattles on about the fact that the electoral activity of the masses, so you know, is “quite often used by hostile elements for counter-revolutionary work "

They are incurable!!! They simply don’t know any other way! They don't need reforms, secret ballots, or multiple candidates on the ballot. They foam at the mouth and defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only “boyar will”...

On the podium is Molotov. He says sensible, sensible things: it is necessary to identify real enemies and saboteurs, and not throw mud at all “captains of production” without exception. We must finally learn to distinguish the guilty from the innocent, we need to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, we need to evaluate people according to their business qualities and not put past mistakes in line.

And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to look for and catch enemies with all their ardor! Root deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovleva.

Molotov, unable to bear it, openly says: “In a number of cases, listening to the speakers, one could come to the conclusion that our resolutions and our reports went over the ears of the speakers...

Exactly! They didn’t just pass, they whistled... Most of those gathered in the hall know neither how to work nor how to reform. But they are excellent at catching and identifying enemies, they adore this activity, and cannot imagine life without it.

Don’t you think it’s strange that this “executioner” Stalin directly imposed democracy, and his future “innocent victims” ran away from this democracy like the devil from incense. Moreover, they demanded repression, and more.

In short, it was not the “tyrant Stalin”, but precisely the “cosmopolitan Leninist party guard” who ruled the roost at the June 1936 plenum, who buried all attempts at a democratic thaw. She did not give Stalin the opportunity to get rid of them, as they say, IN A GOOD WAY, through elections.

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR, nicknamed Stalin's, was adopted, which provided for a transition to real Soviet democracy. However, the party nomenklatura reared up and carried out a massive attack on the leader in order to convince him to postpone the holding of free elections until the fight against the counter-revolutionary element was completed.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), began to stir up passions, referring to recently discovered conspiracies of Trotskyists and the military: they say, as soon as such an opportunity is given, former white officers and nobles, hidden kulak underdogs, clergy and Trotskyist saboteurs will rush into politics .

They demanded not only to curtail any plans for democratization, but also to strengthen emergency measures, and even introduce special quotas for mass repressions in the regions - they say, in order to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded powers to repress these enemies, and it wrested these powers for itself.

And then the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, feared for their leadership positions, began repression, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to join city and regional committees. They understood that after a while they might end up in a camp. And this is at best...

During 1937, about 100 thousand people were expelled from the party (in the first half of the year 24 thousand and in the second - 76 thousand). About 65 thousand appeals accumulated in district and regional committees, which there was no one and no time to consider, since the party was engaged in the process of exposure and expulsion.

At the January plenum of the Central Committee of 1938, Malenkov, who made a report on this issue, said that in some areas the Party Control Commission reinstated from 50 to 75% of those expelled and convicted.

Moreover, at the June 1937 Plenum of the Central Committee, the nomenklatura, mainly from among the first secretaries, actually gave Stalin and the Politburo an ultimatum: either he approves the lists of those subject to repression submitted “from below,” or he himself will be removed.

The party nomenklatura at this plenum demanded powers for repression. And Stalin was forced to give them permission, but he acted very cunningly - he gave them a short period of time, five days. Of these five days, one day is Sunday. He expected that they would not make it in such a short time.

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took lists of previously imprisoned (and sometimes not imprisoned) former kulaks, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyist saboteurs, priests and simply ordinary citizens classified as class alien elements. Literally on the second day telegrams arrived from the localities: the first were Comrades Khrushchev and Eiche. Then Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eiche, who was justly shot in 1939 for all his cruelties, in 1954.

There was no longer any talk of ballot papers with several candidates at the Plenum: the reform plans boiled down solely to the fact that candidates for the elections would be nominated “jointly” by communists and non-party members. And from now on there will be only one candidate on each ballot - in order to repel the machinations. And in addition - another long-winded verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin also made another mistake. He sincerely believed that N.I. Ezhov was a man of his team. After all, they worked together in the Central Committee for so many years, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov was already a long time ago best friend Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist. For 1937 -38 Troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, shot 12,445 people, more than 90 thousand were repressed.

These are the numbers carved by the Memorial Society in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of... Stalinist (?!) repressions. Subsequently, when Evdokimov was shot, an audit found that in the Rostov region more than 18.5 thousand appeals lay motionless and had not been considered. And how many of them were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, and intellectuals were destroyed... Well, he was the only one.

Interesting in this regard are the memoirs of the famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “A strange confidence was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of the fascists, who, under the noses of our government, had found a way to destroy the Soviet people, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system.

I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same thing, but did not dare to mention it to anyone. And really, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us...”

But let's return to Nikolai Yezhov. By 1937, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G. Yagoda staffed the NKVD with scum, obvious traitors and those who replaced their work with hack work. N. Yezhov, who replaced him, followed the lead of the hacks and, while cleaning the country from the “fifth column”, in order to distinguish himself, turned a blind eye to the fact that the NKVD investigators opened hundreds of thousands of hacky cases against people for the most part completely innocent. (For example, generals A. Gorbatov and K. Rokossovsky were sent to prison.)

And the flywheel of the “Great Terror” began to spin, with its notorious extrajudicial threes and limits on capital punishment. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly crushed those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin’s merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to cleanse the highest echelons of power of all kinds of crap.

It was not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe who proposed creating extrajudicial killing bodies, the famous “troikas”, similar to the “Stolypin” ones, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo voted.

Well, the fact that a year later it was just such a troika that pushed Comrade Eikhe against the wall is, in my deep conviction, nothing but sad justice.

The party elite really joined in the massacre with gusto! In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, right down to noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, ate each other with gusto. Some sincerely believed that they were obliged to exterminate their enemies, while others were settling scores. So there is no need to chat about whether the NKVD beat the noble face of this or that “innocently injured figure” or not.

Let’s take a closer look at himself, at the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business, and in moral, and in purely human terms? What were they worth as people and specialists? JUST PLUG YOUR NOSE FIRST, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT.

The regional party nomenklatura has achieved the most important thing: after all, in conditions of mass terror, free elections are not possible. Stalin was never able to carry them through. The end of a short thaw. Stalin never pushed through his bloc of reforms. True, at that plenum he said remarkable words: “Party organizations will be freed from economic work, although this will not happen immediately. This takes time."

But let’s return to Yezhov again. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new person in the “authorities”, he started out well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Mikhail Frinovsky (former Deputy Head of the Special Department of the First cavalry army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun. Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.”

He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands. Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: - After all, we are everything. You need everyone, starting from the regional committee secretary, to follow you.” If the secretary of the regional committee was supposed to walk under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, was supposed to walk under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country.

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that the People's Commissariat of the NKVD had become mortally dangerous by that time, and it had to be “normalized.” But how? What, raise the troops, take all the security officers into the courtyards of the departments and line them up against the wall? There is no other way, because, as soon as they sensed danger, they would simply sweep away the government.

After all, the same NKVD was in charge of guarding the Kremlin, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After which a dozen “blood-washed” would be put in their place, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eiche at its head. THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR WOULD PERCEIVE THE ARRIVAL OF HITLER'S TROOPS AS HAPPINESS.

There was only one way out - to put your man in the NKVD. Moreover, a person of such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he could, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large choice of such people. Well, at least one was found. But what a one!

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, a former security officer, a talented manager, in no way a party windbag, a man of action. And how it appears! For four hours the “tyrant” Stalin and Malenkov are trying to persuade
Yezhov, so that he would take Lavrenty Pavlovich as First Deputy. Four hours!!!

Yezhov is being crushed slowly: Beria is slowly taking control of the People's Commissariat of State Security into his own hands, slowly placing loyal people in key positions, the same young, energetic, smart, businesslike, not at all similar to the previous snickering barons.

Elena Prudnikova, a journalist and writer who devoted several books to researching the activities of L.P. Beria and I.V. Stalin, said in one of the TV programs that Lenin, Stalin, Beria are three titans whom the Lord God in His great mercy sent Russia, because, apparently, he needed Russia. I hope that she is Russia - and in our time He will soon need it.

In general, the term “Stalinist repressions” is speculative, because Stalin did not initiate them. The unanimous opinion of one part of perestroika and current neoliberal ideologists that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating his opponents is easily explainable. These idiots simply judge others by themselves: given the opportunity, they will readily devour anyone they see as a danger.

It is not for nothing that Alexander Sytin - a political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a prominent neoliberal - in one of V. Solovyov’s recent TV programs, argued that in Russia it is necessary to create a DICTATORSHIP OF TEN PERCENT OF THE LIBERAL MINORITY, which will then definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow. He modestly kept silent about the cost of this approach.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that Stalin, who wanted to finally turn into the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to deal with everyone who doubted his genius in the slightest. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution.

They say that this is why almost the entire “Leninist Guard” innocently went under the ax, and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a never-existent conspiracy against Stalin. However, upon closer examination of these events, many questions arise that cast doubt on this version.

In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves did not like the “father of all Soviet peoples.”

For example, the West once published the memoirs of the former Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country in the late 30s, taking a huge amount of government dollars. Orlov, who knew well the “inner workings” of his native NKVD, directly wrote that a coup was being prepared in the Soviet Union.

Among the conspirators, according to him, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kyiv Military District, Jonah Yakir. Stalin became aware of the conspiracy, and took very tough retaliatory actions...

And in the 80s, the archives of Joseph Vissarionovich’s most important opponent, Leon Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union. Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, even to the point of organizing mass terrorist actions.

In the 90s, our archives already opened access to interrogation protocols of repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. Based on the nature of these materials and the abundance of facts and evidence contained in them, today’s independent experts have made three important conclusions.

Firstly, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. It was impossible to somehow stage-manage or falsify such testimony to please the “father of nations.” Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators.

Here is what the famous historian and publicist Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky, given by him after his arrest. The confessions of the conspiracy themselves are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on the general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other capabilities.

The question arises: could such testimony be invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the marshal’s case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky’s testimony?! No, this testimony, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense, which is what Tukhachevsky was.”

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators’ handwritten confessions, their handwriting indicated that their people wrote themselves, in fact voluntarily, without physical pressure from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that testimony was brutally extracted by the force of “Stalin’s executioners,” although this also happened.

Third. Western Sovietologists and the émigré public, without access to archival materials, were forced to virtually make up their own judgments about the scale of repression. At best, they were content with interviews with dissidents who had either been imprisoned in the past or cited stories of those who had been through the Gulag.

The highest bar in estimating the number of “victims of communism” was set by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who stated in an interview with Spanish television in 1976 that there were 110 million victims of political repression. The ceiling of 110 million voiced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial Society.

However, following the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is very close to the figure announced by V. Zemskov almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the opening of the archives, the West did not believe that the number of those repressed was significantly less than that indicated by the same R. Conquest or A. Solzhenitsyn. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 were convicted, of which 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment [ Political repression in USSR. http://actualhistory.ru/2008060101].

Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people due to 282,926 executed under Art. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and Art. 193 (military espionage). This included the Basmachi, Bandera, washed in blood, the Baltic “forest brothers” and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs. There is more human blood on them than water in the Volga. And they are also considered “innocent victims of Stalin’s repressions.”

(Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the sole leader of the USSR. AND HE RECEIVED FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, ARMY AND NKVD ONLY SINCE THE END OF 1938).

The given figures are scary at first glance. But only for the first one. Let's compare. On June 28, 1990, an interview with the Deputy Minister of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs appeared in central newspapers, where he said: “We are literally being overwhelmed by a wave of criminality. Over the past 30 years, 38 MILLION OF OUR FELLOW CITIZENS have been on trial, under investigation, in prisons and colonies. This is a terrible number! Every ninth..."

So. A crowd of Western journalists came to the USSR in 1990. The goal is to get acquainted with open archives. They studied the archives of the NKVD - they didn’t believe it. The archives of the People's Commissariat of Railways were requested. We got acquainted and it turned out that there were four million repressed people. They didn't believe it.

The archives of the People's Commissariat of Food were requested. We got acquainted - it turned out to be 4 million. We got acquainted with the clothing allowance of the camps. It turned out - 4 million repressed. Do you think that after this the Western media published batches of articles with the correct numbers of repressions? Nothing like that. They still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repression.

I would like to note that an analysis of the process called “mass repression” shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials of die-hard oppositionists, cases about the crimes of presumptuous regional owners and party officials who have “floated” from power.

But there are also many falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, cheating in the service, communal squabbles, literary rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergy who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles between artists, musicians and composers.

And there is also clinical psychiatry - the meanness of the investigators and the meanness of the informers (four million denunciations were written in 1937-38). But what we have not been able to discover are the cases concocted at the direction of the Kremlin. There are opposite examples - when, by the will of Stalin, someone was taken out from execution, or even completely released.

One more thing should be understood. The term “repression” is a medical term (suppression, blocking) and was introduced specifically to remove the question of guilt. He was imprisoned in the late 30s, which means he is innocent, since he was “repressed”. In addition, the term “repression” was put into circulation for its initial use with the aim of giving an appropriate moral coloring to the entire Stalinist period, without going into details.

The events of the 1930s showed that the main problem for the Soviet government was the party and state “apparatus,” which consisted to a large extent of unprincipled, illiterate and greedy co-workers, leading party chatterboxes attracted by the rich smell of revolutionary robbery.

Such an apparatus was extremely ineffective and uncontrollable, which was like death for the totalitarian Soviet state, in which everything depended on the apparatus.

It was from then on that Stalin made repression an important institution of government and a means of keeping the “apparatus” in check. Naturally, the apparatus became the main object of these repressions. Moreover, repression has become an important tool of state building. Stalin assumed that the corrupted Soviet apparatus could be transformed into an efficient bureaucracy only after SEVERAL STAGES of repression.

Neoliberals will say that this is what Stalin is all about, that he could not live without repression, without persecuting honest people. But this is what American intelligence officer John Scott reported to the US State Department about who was being repressed. He found these repressions in the Urals in 1937 [Where the people wanted. http://forum-msk.org/material/society/12153266.html].

“The director of a construction office, who was involved in the construction of new houses for the workers of the plant, was not satisfied with his salary, which amounted to a thousand rubles a month, and his two-room apartment. So he built himself a separate house. The house had five rooms, and he was able to furnish it well: he hung silk curtains, installed a piano, covered the floor with carpets, etc.

He then began driving around the city in a car at a time (this was in early 1937) when there were few private cars in the city. At the same time, his office completed the annual construction work plan by only about sixty percent. At meetings and in newspapers he was constantly asked questions about the reasons for his poor performance. He replied that there were no building materials, not enough labor, etc.

An investigation began, during which it became clear that the director was embezzling public funds and selling Construction Materials to nearby collective and state farms at speculative prices. It was also discovered that in the construction office there were people whom he specially paid in order to carry out his “business”.

An open trial took place, lasting several days, at which all these people were tried. They talked a lot about him in Magnitogorsk. In his indictment speech at the trial, the prosecutor spoke not about theft or bribery, but about sabotage.

The director was accused of sabotaging the construction of housing for workers. He was convicted under Article 58 after fully admitting his guilt, and then shot.”

And here is the reaction of the Soviet people to the purge of 1937 and their position at that time. “Often workers even rejoice when they arrest some “big bird,” a leader whom they for some reason dislike. Workers are also very free to express critical thoughts, both in meetings and in private conversations.

I have heard them use strong language when talking about bureaucracy and poor performance by individuals or organizations. ... in the Soviet Union the situation was somewhat different in that the NKVD, in its work to protect the country from the machinations of foreign agents, spies and the advance of the old bourgeoisie, counted on the support and assistance of the population and basically received it.”

Well, and: “...During the purges, thousands of bureaucrats trembled for their jobs. Officials and administrative employees, who previously came to work at ten o'clock and left at half past four and only shrugged their shoulders in response to complaints, difficulties and failures, now sat at work from sunrise to sunset, they began to worry about the successes and failures of those in charge. them enterprises, and they actually began to fight for the implementation of the plan, savings and good living conditions for their subordinates, although before this did not bother them at all.”

Readers interested in this issue know about the continuous groans of anti-Stalinists that during the years of the purge they died “ the best people", the smartest and most capable. Scott also hints at this all the time, but still, as it were, sums it up: “After the purges, the administrative apparatus of the management of the entire plant was almost one hundred percent young Soviet engineers.

There are practically no specialists left from among the prisoners and foreign specialists have virtually disappeared. However, by 1939, most departments, such as the Railroad Administration and the plant's coking plant, were performing better than ever before."

During the party purges and repressions, all the prominent party barons, drinking away Russia's gold reserves, bathing with prostitutes in champagne, seizing noble and merchant palaces for personal use, all the disheveled, drugged-up revolutionaries disappeared like smoke. And this is FAIR.

But cleaning out the snickering scoundrels from high offices is half the battle; it was also necessary to replace them worthy people. It is very interesting how this problem was solved in the NKVD. Firstly, a man was put at the head of the department, who was alien to commissarism, who had no connections with the capital’s party leadership, but was a proven professional in the field - Lavrenty Beria. The latter, secondly, mercilessly cleared out the security officers who had compromised themselves, and thirdly, carried out a radical reduction in staff, sending people who seemed to be not vile, but unfit for the profession, to retire or to work in other departments.

And finally, the Komsomol conscription to the NKVD was announced, when completely inexperienced guys came to the authorities to replace honored pensioners or executed scoundrels. But... the main criterion for their selection was an impeccable reputation. If in the characteristics from their place of study, work, place of residence, on the Komsomol or party line there were at least some hints of their unreliability, tendency to selfishness, laziness, then no one invited them to work in the NKVD.

So, here is a very important point that I would like to draw attention to - the team is not formed on the basis of past merits, professional data of applicants, personal acquaintance and ethnic background, and not even based on the desires of the applicants, but solely on the basis of their moral and psychological characteristics.

Professionalism is a gain, but in order to punish all kinds of bastards, a person must be completely clean. Well, yes, clean hands, a cool head and a warm heart - this is all about the youth of Beria’s call.

The fact is that it was at the end of the 30s that the NKVD became a truly effective intelligence service, and not only in the matter of internal cleansing. Soviet counterintelligence decisively outplayed German intelligence during the war - and this is a great merit of those very Beria Komsomol members who came to the authorities three years before the start of the war.

Purge 1937-1939 played a positive role: now not a single boss felt his impunity - there were no more untouchables. Fear did not add intelligence to the nomenklatura, but at least it warned it against outright meanness. Unfortunately, immediately after the end of the great purge, the world war that began in 1939 did not allow holding alternative elections.

And again, the issue of democratization was put on the agenda by Joseph Vissarionovich in 1952, shortly before his death. But after Stalin's death, Khrushchev returned the leadership of the entire country to the party, without answering for anything. And not only.

Almost immediately after Stalin’s death, a network of special distribution centers and special rations appeared, through which the new elite realized their advantageous position. But in addition to formal privileges, a system of informal privileges quickly formed. Which is very important.

Since we touched on the activities of our dear Nikita Sergeevich, let’s talk about it in a little more detail. With the light hand or language of Ilya Erenbu;rg, the period of Khrushchev’s reign was called the “thaw”. Let's see, what did Khrushchev do before the thaw, during the “Great Terror”?

The February-March plenum of the Central Committee of 1937 is underway. It is with him that the great terror is believed to have begun. Here is Nikita Sergeevich’s speech at this plenum: “...These scoundrels must be destroyed. By destroying a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, we are doing the work of millions. Therefore, it is necessary that the hand does not tremble, it is necessary to step over the corpses of enemies for the good of the people.”

But how did Khrushchev act as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee and Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks? In 1937-1938 out of 38 senior leaders of the Moscow City Committee, only three people survived, out of 146 party secretaries, 136 were repressed.

It’s impossible to understand where in the Moscow region in 1937 he managed to find 44,000 kulaks who fell under repression, of which about 20,000 were shot. In total for 1937-1938 only in Moscow and the Moscow region. he personally repressed 55,741 people and 165,565 people during the period of his bullying of Ukraine.

American historian William Taubman states that soon after Khrushchev’s arrival in Kyiv, all members of the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine were arrested. The entire Ukrainian government was removed, all party leaders of the regions and their deputies were dismissed. [William Taubman. Khrushchev. https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=148734&p=1].

In the summer of 1938, with the sanction of Khrushchev, a large group of leading officials of Soviet economic bodies was arrested, including deputy chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR, people's commissars, deputy people's commissars, and secretaries of regional party committees. All of them were sentenced to capital punishment and long prison terms. All leaders of the military districts of the Red Army were removed.

Of the 86 members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, elected in June 1938, only three survived a year later.

But perhaps, speaking at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev was worried that innocent ordinary people were shot? Yes, Khrushchev didn’t give a damn about the arrests and executions of ordinary people. His entire report at the 20th Congress was devoted to accusations against Stalin that he imprisoned and shot prominent Bolsheviks and marshals. That is, the elite.

Khrushchev in his report did not even remember the repressed ordinary people. Why should he worry about the people, “the women are still giving birth,” but Lapotnik Khrushchev felt so sorry for the cosmopolitan elite.

What were the motives for the appearance of the revealing report at the 20th Party Congress?

Firstly, without trampling his predecessor into the mud, it was unthinkable to hope for Khrushchev’s recognition as a leader after Stalin. No! Even after his death, Stalin remained a competitor for Khrushchev, who had to be humiliated and destroyed by any means. Kicking a dead lion, as it turns out, is a pleasure - it doesn't give back.

The second motive was Khrushchev’s desire to return the party to control economic activity states. To lead everyone, without being responsible for anything and obeying no one.

There is a third incentive. In fact, the so-called party elite was burdened by the fact that what they had acquired through “backbreaking labor” not only cannot be passed on to children, but is also not their property. And as I wanted. This is the main reason for the counter-revolution of 1991.

The fourth motive, and perhaps the most important, was the terrible fear of the remnants of the “Leninist Guard” for what they had done. After all, all of their hands, as Khrushchev himself put it, were up to the elbows in blood. Khrushchev and others like him wanted not only to rule the country, but also to have guarantees that they would never be dragged on the rack, no matter what they did while in leadership positions.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU gave them such guarantees in the form of an indulgence for remission of all sins, both past and future. The whole mystery of Khrushchev and his associates is not worth a damn: it is the Irrepressible ANIMAL FEAR SITTING IN THEIR SOULS AND THE PAINTING THIRST FOR POWER.

The first thing that strikes the de-Stalinizers is their complete disregard for the principles of historicism, which everyone seemed to have been taught in Soviet school. No historical figure can be assessed by the standards of our contemporary era. He must be judged by the standards of his era - and nothing else. In jurisprudence they say this: “law retroactive effect does not have." That is, the ban introduced this year cannot apply to last year’s actions.

Here, historicism of assessments is also necessary: ​​one cannot judge a person of one era by the standards of another era (especially that new era, which he created with his labor and genius). At the beginning of the 20th century, the horrors in the situation of the peasantry were so commonplace that many contemporaries practically did not notice them.

The famine did not begin with Stalin, it ended with Stalin. It seemed like forever - but the current liberal reforms are again dragging us into that swamp from which we seem to have already climbed out...

The principle of historicism also requires recognizing that Stalin had a completely different intensity of political struggle than in subsequent times. It is one thing to maintain the existence of the system (although Gorbachev failed to cope with this too), and another to create a new system on the ruins of a country destroyed by civil war. The resistance energy in the second case is several times greater than in the first.

You must understand that many of those executed under Stalin themselves were quite seriously planning to kill him, and if he had hesitated even for a minute, he himself would have received a bullet in the forehead.

The struggle for power in the era of Stalin had a completely different severity than now: it was the era of the revolutionary “Praetorian Guard” - accustomed to rebellion and ready to change emperors like gloves. Trotsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and a whole crowd of people who were as accustomed to murder as to peeling potatoes laid claim to supremacy.

For any terror, not only the ruler, but also his opponents, as well as society as a whole, are responsible to history. When the outstanding historian L. Gumilyov, already under Gorbachev, was asked if he held a grudge against Stalin, under whom he was imprisoned, he answered: “But it was not Stalin who imprisoned me, but his colleagues in the department”...

Well, God bless him with Khrushchev and the 20th Congress. Let's talk about what the liberal media constantly talk about, let's talk about Stalin's guilt.

Neoliberals accuse Stalin of executing about 700 thousand people over 30 years. The logic of anti-Stalinists is simple - all are victims of Stalinism. All 700 thousand. Those. at this time there could be no murderers, no bandits, no sadists, no molesters, no swindlers, no traitors, no saboteurs, etc. All victims for political reasons, all crystal honest and decent people.

Meanwhile, even the CIA analytical center Rand Corporation, based on demographic data and archival documents, calculated the number of people repressed during the Stalin era. This center claims that less than 700 thousand people were executed from 1921 to 1953. At the same time, no more than a quarter of the cases were sentenced under the political article 58. By the way, the same proportion was observed among prisoners in labor camps.

“Do you like it when your people are destroyed in the name of a great goal?” Stalin’s critics continue. I will answer. THE PEOPLE - NO, BUT BANDITS, THIEVES AND MORAL MORNERS - YES. But I no longer LIKE it when their own people are destroyed in the name of filling their pockets with dough, hiding behind beautiful liberal-democratic slogans.

Academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya, a big supporter of reforms who was part of President Yeltsin’s administration at that time, admitted a decade and a half later that in just three years of shock therapy in Russia, 8 million (!!!) middle-aged men alone died. Yes, Stalin stands aside and nervously smokes his pipe. Didn't finish it.

However, your words about Stalin’s non-involvement in reprisals against honest people do not convince, the anti-Stalinists continue. Even if we admit this, then in this case he was simply obliged, firstly, to honestly and openly admit to all the people the lawlessness committed against innocent people, secondly, to rehabilitate the unjustly victims and, thirdly, to take measures to prevent similar lawlessness in the future. None of this was done.
Again a lie. Dear. You simply don’t know the history of the USSR.

As for the first and second, the January plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 banned purges in the party, openly recognized the lawlessness committed against honest communists and non-party members, adopting a special resolution on this matter, published, by the way, in all central newspapers.

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, noting “provocations on an all-Union scale,” demanded: To expose careerists seeking to distinguish themselves... through repression. To expose a skillfully disguised enemy... seeking to kill our Bolshevik cadres through repressive measures, sowing uncertainty and excessive suspicion in our ranks.”

The harm caused by unjustified repressions was also openly discussed throughout the country at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) held in 1939. Immediately after the January plenum of the Central Committee in 1938, thousands of illegally repressed people, including prominent military leaders, began to return from places of detention. All of them were officially rehabilitated, and Stalin apologized to some of them personally.

Well, as for thirdly, I have already said that the NKVD apparatus suffered perhaps the most from the repressions, and a significant part was brought to justice precisely for abuse of official position, for reprisals against honest people.

What Stalin's opponents do not talk about is the rehabilitation of innocent victims. Immediately after the January Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938, they began to review criminal cases and release them from the camps. It was released: in 1938-39 - 330 thousand, in 1940 - 180 thousand, until June 1941 another 65 thousand people.

What anti-Stalinists are not talking about yet. About how they fought the consequences of the Great Terror. With the arrival of Beria L.P. to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD in November 1938, 7,372 operational employees, or 22.9% of their payroll, were dismissed from the state security agencies in 1939, of which 937 were imprisoned.

And since the end of 1938, the country's leadership succeeded in bringing to trial more than 63 thousand NKVD workers who committed falsifications and created far-fetched, fake counter-revolutionary cases, OF WHICH EIGHT THOUSAND WERE SHOOT.

I will give just one example from the article by Yu.I. Mukhina: “Minutes No. 17 of the Meeting of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Commission on Judicial Cases” More than 30 photographs are presented there. I will show a piece of one of them in the form of a table. .

In this article Mukhin Yu.I. writes: “I was told that this type of documents was never posted on the Internet due to the fact that free access to them was very quickly prohibited in the archive. But the document is interesting, and you can glean something interesting from it...”

There are a lot of interesting things. But most importantly, the article shows why the NKVD officers were shot after L.P. Beria came to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD. Read. The names of those executed are shaded in the photographs.

Top secret
P R O T O C O L No. 17
Meetings of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Commission on Judicial Cases
dated February 23, 1940
Chaired by Comrade M.I. Kalinin.
Present: t.t.: Shklyar M.F., Ponkratiev M.I., Merkulov V.N.

1.Listen
G... Sergei Ivanovich, M... Fedor Pavlovich, by a resolution of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow Military District dated December 14-15, 1939, were sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p. b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for making unfounded arrests of command and Red Army personnel, actively falsifying investigative cases, conducting them with provocative methods and creating fictitious K/R organizations, as a result of which a number of people were shot according to the fictitious ones they created materials.
Decided
Agrees with the use of execution against G... S.I. and M... F.P.

17. Listened
A... Fedor Afanasyevich, by a resolution of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Leningrad Military District dated July 19-25, 1939, was sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p.b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for the fact that, being an employee of the NKVD, he made massive illegal arrests of citizens, railway transport workers, falsified interrogation reports and created artificial criminal investigation cases, as a result of which over 230 people were sentenced to death and for various sentences of imprisonment for more than 100 people, and of the latter in given time 69 people were released.
Decided
Agree with the use of execution against A... F.A.

Have you read it? Well, how do you like it, dear Fyodor Afanasyevich? One (one!!!) investigator-falsifier brought 236 people to death. Was he the only one like that? How many such scoundrels were there? I gave the figure above. That Stalin personally set tasks for these Fedors and Sergei to exterminate innocent people?

By the way. These 8,000 executed NKVD investigators are also included in MEMORIAL’s lists as victims of “Stalinist repressions.”

What conclusions arise?
Conclusion N1. Judging the Stalin era only by repressions is the same as judging the activities of the head physician of a hospital only by the hospital morgue - there will always be corpses there. If we approach this yardstick, then every doctor is a bloody ghoul and a murderer, i.e. deliberately ignore the fact that a team of doctors has successfully cured and prolonged the lives of thousands of patients and blame them only for a small percentage of those who died due to some inevitable diagnostic errors or who died during difficult operations.

The authority of Jesus Christ is not comparable to Stalin's. But even in the teachings of Jesus, people only see what they want to see. Studying the history of world civilization one has to observe how wars, chauvinism, the “Aryan theory”, serfdom, and Jewish pogroms were justified by Christian teaching. This is not to mention executions “without shedding blood” - that is, the burning of heretics. How much blood was shed during the Crusades and religious wars? So, maybe because of this we should ban the teachings of our Creator? Just like today some idiots propose to ban communist ideology.

If we look at the graph of the mortality rate of the population of the USSR, no matter how hard we try, we cannot find traces of “cruel” repressions, and not because they did not exist, but because their scale is exaggerated. What is the purpose of this exaggeration and hype? The goal is to instill in Russians a guilt complex similar to the guilt complex of the Germans after their defeat in World War II. The “pay and repent” complex.

But the great ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius, who lived 500 years BC, even then said: “Beware of those who want to impute to you a feeling of guilt and repentance. For they desire power over you.”

Do we need this? Judge for yourself. When the first time Khrushchev stunned all the so-called. truth about Stalin’s repressions, the authority of the USSR in the world immediately collapsed to the delight of its enemies. There was a split in the world communist movement. We fell out with great China, AND TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LEFT THE COMMUNIST PARTIES.

Eurocommunism appeared, denying not only Stalinism, but also, scary, the Stalinist economy. The myth of the 20th Congress created distorted ideas about Stalin and his time, deceived and psychologically disarmed millions of people when the question of the fate of the country was being decided.

When Gorbachev did this for the second time, not only did the socialist bloc collapse, but our Motherland, the USSR, collapsed.

Now Putin’s team is doing this for the third time: again they are talking only about repressions and other “crimes” of the Stalinist regime. What this leads to is clearly visible in the “Zyuganov-Makarov” dialogue. They are told about development, new industrialization, and they immediately begin to turn the dial on repression. That is, they immediately cut off constructive dialogue, turning it into a quarrel, a civil war of meanings and ideas.

Conclusion N2. Why do they need this? To prevent the restoration of a strong and great Russia. After all, we live with the feeling that Mother Russia’s hem has been pulled up... and it’s a shame to look, and we can’t turn away, they don’t allow us. After all, it’s more convenient for them to rule a weak and fragmented country, where people will pull each other’s hair at the mention of the name Stalin or Lenin. This makes it easier for them to rob and deceive us. The policy of “divide and rule” is as old as time. Moreover, they can always leave Russia to where their stolen capital is stored and their children, wives and mistresses live.

Conclusion N3. Why do Russian patriots need this? It’s just that we and our children don’t have another country. Think about this first before you start cursing our history for repressions and other things. After all, we have nowhere to go and retreat. As our victorious ancestors said in similar cases: behind Moscow and beyond the Volga there is no land for us!

Only, after the return of socialism to Russia, taking into account all the advantages and disadvantages of the USSR, you need to be vigilant and remember Stalin’s warning that as the socialist state is built, the class struggle intensifies, i.e. there is a threat of degeneration.

And so it happened, and certain segments of the CPSU Central Committee, the Komsomol Central Committee and the KGB were among the first to degenerate. The Stalinist party inquisition was not completed properly.