Human life is priceless. There is no excuse for killing the innocent man - whether it is one man or millions of them. But researcher can't limit himself with moral estimation of historic events and facts. He has to recreate the real image of our past, especially if its aspects become the subject for political speculations. All above refers to the problem of political repressions in USSR to the full extent. Subject of this article is the analysis of this problem.
n the beginning of 1989 Presidium of the Academy of Science of USSR (AS USSR) has decided to create the commission within History department of AS USSR, headed by corresponding member of AS USSR Yu.A. Polyakov to define human losses of repressions. As members of this commission we were one of the first historians, who got access to secret statistical reports of GPU-NKVD-MVD-KGB, which were stored under special custody in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution, of supreme bodies of power and government of USSR (TsGAOR USSR), which is now called the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). We would like to present final results of our research to the readers of “Russia XXI” magazine.
Real Statistics
In the beginning of 1954 MVD USSR has prepared the reference for N.S. Khrushchev about amount of convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes, or by Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code and corresponding articles of other Soviet Republics in a period of 1921-1953 (document was signed by three persons - Procurator General of USSR R.A. Rudenko, Minister of internal affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov and Attorney General of the USSR K.P. Gorshenin). Reference was printed on 5 pages, developed by order of N.S. Khrushchev and dated by 1st of February 1954.
According to the data of MVD USSR, in the period of 1921 to the beginning of 1954 GPU tribunals and NKVD troikas, Special Council of the NKVD, Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals convicted 3 777 380 persons, where 642 980 were sentenced to extreme penalty, 2 369 220 - to camps and jails for the period of 25 years and less, 765 180 - to exile and deportation. It was noted that about 2.9 million persons among all were sentenced by GPU tribunals, NKVD troikas and Special Council of the NKVD (non-judicial bodies), and 877 000 - by courts, military tribunals, Special Council and Military Collegium. It is told in the document that currently there are 467 946 convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes in camps and jails, and 62 462 persons are exiled after completion of sentence by the direction of MGB and USSR Prosecutor’s office.
It was noted that Special Council of the NKVD has sentenced 442 531 persons, where 10 101 were sentenced to extreme penalty, 360 921 - to imprisonment, 67 539 - to exile and deportation (within country borders), 3970 - to other punishments (compensation of imprisonment time, deportation abroad, compulsory treatment). Special Council of the NKVD was created on the basis of the direction by Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR from 5th of November 1934 and was liquidated on the 1st of September 1953. The great majority of all convicted by the Special Council of the NKVD were accused in counter-revolutionary crimes [1].
Original variant of the reference from December 1953 (amount of currently imprisoned for counter-revolutionary crimes was equal to 474 950) included geography of distribution of 400 296 imprisoned: in Komi Autonomos Republic - 95 899 (and except for that 10 121 in Pechorlag), in Kazakh SSR - 57 989 (where 56 423 - in Karaganda district), in Khabarovsk district - 52 742, in Irkutsk district - 47 053, in Krasnoyarsk disctrict - 33 233, in Mordovia - 17 104, in Molotov disctrict - 15 832, in Omsk disctrict -15 422, in Sverdlovk disctrict -14 453, in Kemerovo disctrict - 8403, in Gorky disctrict - 8210, in Bashkiria Autonomos Republic - 7854, in Kirov disctrict - 6344, in Kuibyshev disctrict - 4936 and in Yaroslavl disctrict - 4701. Other 74 654 political prisoners were located in another regions (Magadan disctrict, Primorsky disctrict, Yakut Autonomos Republic etc.). Convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and sentenced to exile or deportation lived in Krasnoyarsk disctrict - 30 575, in Kazakh SSR - 12 465, on the Far North - 10 276, in Komi Autonomos Republic - 3880, in Novosibirsk district - 3850, in other regions - 1416 [2].
In the end of 1953 MVD USSR prepared one more reference. It was based on statistical reports of 1 special division of MVD USSR and included amount of convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and other especially dangerous state crimes for the period from 1st of January 1921 to 1st of July 1953 - 4 060 306 persons (letter No. 26/K with this information under the signature of S.N. Kruglov was sent to G.M. Malenkov and N.S. Khrushchev on 5th of January 1954) [3] .
This number included 3 777 380 convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and 282 926 - for other especially dangerous state crimes. Last ones were convicted not by Article 58 but by other equal articles, first of all by sections 2 and 3 of Article 59 (highly dangerous banditism) and 193-24 (military espionage). For example, some basmachs were convicted by Article 59, not 58.
Amount of convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and other especially dangerous state crimes in 1921-1953 (first semester) [4].
1 - YEARS 2 - Total convicted (persons) 3 - Extreme penalty 4 - Camps, settlements, jails 5 - Exile and deportation 6 - Other
It should be noted that terms “arrested” and “convicted” are not equal. Total amount of convicted doesn't include those who has died, escaped or was freed during preliminary hearing. It doesn't also include those arrested, who were determined innocent by any judicial or non-judicial body (it means that hearing phase was completed, but it was non-guilty verdict).
Up to the end of 1980s this information was secret in USSR. For the first time the real statistics about convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes was published in September 1989 in the article of V.F. Nekrasov in “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper. Then it was described in more details in articles by A.N. Dougin (newspaper “Na Boevom Postu”, December 1989), by V.N. Zemskov and D.N. Nokhotovich (“Argumenty i Fakty”, February 1990) and in other publications by V.N. Zemskov and A.N. Dougin. Amount of convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and other especially dangerous state crimes was for the first time published in 1990 in one of the articles by the member of Political Bureau of CC CPSU A.N. Yakovlev in “Izvestiya” newspaper. More detailed statistics with yearly dynamics was published in 1992 by V.P. Popov in “Otechestvennye Arkhivy” magazine [5] . We pay special attention to these publications because they include the real statistics of political repressions. Now they seem to be a drop in a bucket of other numerous publications with inaccurate numbers (usually multiply amplified).
“Democratic” Statistics
Public reaction to publication of real statistics of political repressions was different. There were a lot of opinions that this is the fake. Popular publicist A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko focused the attention on the fact that the documents were signed by such interested parties as Rudenko, Kruglov and Gorshenin and convinced the readers of “Liternaturnaya Gazeta”: “Disinformation mechanism worked fine for all times. And during Khrushchev too… So, less than 4 millions in 32 years. It is clear who needs such criminal references”.[6]
Despite of confidence of A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko in disinformation character of this statistics, we are ready to claim that he is mistaken. This is the real statistics which is collected from corresponding source documents for 1921-1953 stored in 1st special division. This special division was in structure of GPU, NKVD, MGB (from 1953 and up to now - in MVD) and dealt with collection of complete information about amount of convicted by all judicial and non-judicial bodies. So 1st special division - that is not the source of disinformation, but the place where all complete and real data was collected.
Two following aspects should be considered while researching the problem of authencity of source data of corrective labor institutions (CLI). 1) its administration was not interested in decreasing the prisoners' number in reports, since it would cause the reduction in supplies plan for camps, prisons and CLIs; nutrition degradation would be accompanied with increased mortality and failure of Gulag production program. 2) Increasing of prisoners' number wasn't interesting for institutions too, since it would cause corresponding (i.e. unreal) increase in production tasks from planning bodies. And it was a real trouble if you don't fulfill the plan at that time. We believe that as a result the statistical data are pretty accurate. Moreover, we should also note “Stakhanov's” type of thinking of punitive bodies then - the more ‘enemies of the people’ they have found and jailed, the better their work was considered. So they couldn't even consider decreasing the population.
There was a great public reaction on article of R.A. Medvedev in “Moskovskie Novosti” (November 1988) with statistics of Stalinism victims [7] . According to his calculations, about 40 million were repressed in the period of 1927-1953, including dispossessed, departed, died of starvation in 1933 etc. In 1989-1991 this number was one of the most popular in propaganda of Stalin crimes and became one of the most-mentioned. Actually it is impossible to get such a number (40 million) even if you interpret “repression victim” term in the broadest way. According to R.A. Medvedev, these 40 million included 10 million dispossessed in 1929-1933 (really there were about 4 million), almost 2 million Poles, departed in 1939-1940 (really - about 380 000) - and so on about almost all components of this incredible number. According to R.A. Medvedev, there were 5-7 million repressed in 1937-1938 (really - 1.5 million), and 10 million in 1941-1946 - that is absolutely fantastical, even if you include departed Germans, Kalmyks, Crimea Tatars, Chechens, Ingushs, etc. here.
We have often heard that Medvedev's calculations can be true, since he considers repressed in wide extent. That's why we want to analyze his calculations in details - we want to show that his statistics is not authentic whether you consider the problem in extended or narrow sense. In all ways his statistics is not authentic and there is not a single number in his calculations, which can be even imagined real.
Anyhow, even 40 million seems to become insufficient for “growing demand” of certain political parties to spatter our history of Soviet period. Now researches of western Cold-war era sovietologists are used. According to them there were about 50-60 million died in USSR due to terror and repressions. As in Medvedev's case, these numbers are extremely overestimated; difference in 10-20 million is explained by starting date for research - 1927 by Medvedev and 1917 by western sovietologists. Moreover, Medvedev noted, that he doesn't consider repressed as died, that most of dispossessed stayed alive, that minority of repressed in 1937-1938 was shot. But his western colleagues claim that 50-60 million were physically eliminated and died after terror, repressions, starvation, collectivization etc. We have doubts in scientific fairness of these authors. That is the question of their good job under the order by political bodies and intelligence forces in order to deface their opponent in Cold war, descending to sincere aspersion.
Of course, it doesn't mean that there were no western sovietologists who tried to research Soviet history in neutral and fair way. Great scientists and experts in Soviet history S. Wheatcroft (Australia), R. Davis (England), G. Rittersporn (France) and others criticized the researches of most of sovietologists and proved that real number of victims of repressions, collectivization, starvation etc. in USSR was much less.
But the works of these scientists with much more fair estimation of repressions victims were hushed up in our country. Propaganda included only fake and multiply overestimated repressions statistic [8].
Pretty soon these mythical 50-60 million extinguished Medvedev's 40 million in mass consciousness. That's why lots of people literally couldn't believe their ears when KGB Chairman V.A. Kryuchkov told the real statistic of political repressions on TV. Reporter A. Milchakov wrote his impressions from Kryuchkov's speech in “Vechernyaya Moskva” in 1990: “…And then he has told, that tens of millions are out of the question. I don't know whether he did it meaningly. But I know last popular researches and I trust them, so I'd like readers of “Vechernyaya Moskva” to read Solzhenitsyn's “The Gulag Archipelago”, check the researches of our popular scientist and theorist of literature I. Vinogradov, published in “Moskovskiy Komsomolets”. He declares 50-60 million. I'd like to pay attention to the researches of American sovietologists, which confirm this number. And I really believe it”. [9] .
Comments are needless. There are doubts in documentarily confirmed information and endless trust to opposite data.
And that is not the limit of fooling the masses. In June 1991 “Komsomolskaya Pravda” published the interview of A.I. Solzhenitsyn to Spanish TV of 1976. It is told there: “Indirect calculation by professor Kurganov has shown that only internal war of Soviet regime against its nation in the period from 1917 to 1959 - starvation, collectivization, exile of peasants to death, jails, camps, shootings - caused the losses in the amount of 66 million (including Civil War)… According to his calculations, insolent and careless way of command during World War II lead to 44 million losses! Therefore, we have lost 110 million men because of socialistic regime!” .
Victor Zemskov. Political repressions in USSR (1917-1990)
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