Unknown 37
Conversation with the doctor historical Sci. Yuri Nikolaevich Zhukov, a well-known expert on the "Stalin era"
This year is painted with a mournful mark - 75 years ago, a huge number of our fellow citizens fell under the rink of "mass Stalinist repression." Hundreds of thousands of people in 1937 – 1938 were slain as “enemies of the people”. In print, on TV, on the Internet a lot of materials dedicated to this. Is it possible to forget? Not. You can not forgive arbitrariness. Many do not question that this happened only because the head of the USSR was dictator Joseph Stalin, who acted solely for the sake of strengthening personal power and reprisals against competitors.
Figures are cited, the fates of specific people are recalled, but often they do not take into account the circumstances in which the repressions took place, what preceded them, and what processes inside and outside the country influenced the course of events. Are all the dots above “i” placed? How objective, it seems, are indisputable conclusions?
To take into account various factors, to understand the background of the phenomenon in its entirety, does not mean to justify the unrighteous. But it’s never too late to try to come closer to the truth in order to clarify the estimates and draw the right conclusions. Such an approach is worthy of the history of our country, tragic, contradictory, but great. Do we realize its greatness or see mainly shameful sides? Are we good students? Famous historian Yuri Zhukov and literary newspaper columnist Vladimir Sukhomlinov talk about the events of that time.
- More than 30 years ago, I, a young journalist, talked with an old test pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, and talked about 37. He asked where he was then. Parubko, answered, was and lived in a village near Kiev. Songs returned to the village, famine left. "They drank much and enjoyed life." And you asked my question on the phone, how people perceived the second half of the thirties, said: “With joy!” Somehow it all does not fit ...
- This is normal! After all, we are still - a country in many ways mythologized history. Significant events sometimes fade into the background, catchy facts or politically beneficial to the authorities are exaggerated. A picture must be seen in all colors. Look here, what object of criticism today is the main one for any opposition, and also for people. Official. He is no longer a communist, not a Bolshevik. But everything, from the right to the left, including those who sit in the Kremlin, agree that the official is a disaster for the country. And so, when in 1937 – 1938 years, officials began to be arrested, and the blow fell primarily on them ...
- Almost 500 thousands of officials of all levels (especially party members) were removed from work and suffered punishment.
- Yes, yes ... And everyone was delighted. After all, they linked two things together. Hitting, in modern jargon, officials and the published Constitution of the year 1936, which is called Stalin's. I kept the archives in the hands of drafts, I saw: several articles, the most important ones, were written by Stalin personally. And so people got the Basic Law and the news that they remove and imprison those who stood above them and were tormented. And people sang.
The former Constitution (developed in 1923 year) included two parts. The preamble said: the world is divided into two hostile camps - socialism and imperialism. They will inevitably and soon meet in a fight, and it is clear who will win. The World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will arise. The main part is also in the spirit of 17 – 18's. According to the law, a significant part of the population (it changed every year) was included in the lists of so-called deprived people, people deprived of voting rights. Firstly, by their social origin - children of landowners, gendarmes, aristocrats by blood. In addition - the Nepmen, fists ...
The new Constitution did not even hint at the division of the world into two warring camps. Secondly, the game was only mentioned in the 126 article. Chapter 10, which dealt with the rights and obligations of citizens. In particular, their right to create public organizations, the core of which or most of them may be the same social organization - the Communist Party. 126-I article. Remember the Brezhnev Constitution ...
- 6-I article.
- Yes. Further. Electoral system. Previously, some had, others did not have the right to elect and be elected. There was also inequality. The worker's voice was equal to the three voices of the peasants: the dictatorship of the proletariat was formally - purely formally implemented. This has been canceled. The elections themselves. According to the 1923 Constitution, they were three-staged (which made freedom of choice difficult) and unopposed.
What did the Constitution of 1936 propose and the electoral law passed in July of 1937?
The first. No disenfranchised. Except for those who are deprived of this right by the court. Universal suffrage. Direct voting. Each person votes for a specific candidate for the Supreme Soviet, which both Stalin and Molotov openly called parliament. Elections secret, alternative. By law, it was established that in one place - at least 2 – 3 of the candidate. And this is the provision of the law and led to what people then called Yezhovshchina, and today they incorrectly call mass repression.
- Why suddenly - wrong?
- The word "repression" means "punishment, punitive measure." It not only applies to political opponents, but also provides for the conviction of a person for murder, violence, banditry, robbery, bribery, theft. And now the term is used to bring under it all those arrested, including criminals, Vlasovites, those who served in SS units during the war, Bandera ... All in one pile. He killed, raped - you are also repressed, the victim of Stalin's terror. Very tricky move.
In the course of the figures that gave Solzhenitsyn, Acceleration, Antonov-Ovseenko. The last in the book “The Portrait of a Tyrant” reports that the number of repressed people made up only 1935 to 1940 a year almost 19 million people.
- As far as I know, the real numbers are different. Although they are huge. About 800 thousand people were sentenced to death.
- Yes, that much, but from 1921 to 1953 a year. Of these, 681 692 people - in 1937 – 1938.
- The big city of our fellow citizens shot. Including innocent.
- Solzhenitsyn called absolutely fantastic numbers. During the years of Soviet power, he believed, 110 had been repressed by millions of people. Western Sovietologists in the Cold War years used the number 50 – 60 million. When the restructuring began, they reduced it to 20 millions.
Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, works at our institute. As part of a small group, he checked and rechecked in the archives for several years what the real numbers of repression were. In particular, on the 58 th article. We came to specific results. In the West, they immediately screamed. They were told: please, here are the archives! We arrived, checked, were forced to agree. Here is what.
1935 year - in total, 58 thousands were arrested and convicted under 267-th article, 1229 people were sentenced to capital punishment, 36-thousand and 274 people, respectively, were sentenced to death. And then a surge. In 1118, over 37 thousands were arrested and convicted under 58, over 790 thousands were shot, in 353 thousands over 38 thousands and more than 554 thousands were shot. Then - a decline. In 328, about 39 thousands were convicted and 64 people were sentenced to death, in 2552 thousands were sentenced to 40 thousands, and the highest measure was 72 people.
For the entire period from 1921 to 1953, 4 060 306 people were convicted, out of which 2 634 397 people entered camps and prisons. It remains to understand what, how, why? And why especially 1937 – 1938 years give such terrible things?
- Of course, it still worries.
- For starters: who is to blame? They say: Stalin. Yes, as the leader of the country, he bears the main responsibility. But how it all happened.
June 1937 of the year. There should be a congress of Soviets. Before him was a plenum of the Central Committee of the party, where they discussed the electoral law. In front of him, from the first secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the Union republics, telegrams regularly came in asking for permission to arrest engineers and plant managers.
Every time Stalin replied shortly, categorically: I did not allow. And after the plenum began to agree. With what? With that, what our "democrats" diligently forget about today.
Immediately after the plenum, which supported the new electoral law with alternative candidates, encrypted telegrams came to Moscow. The secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the national communist parties requested the so-called limits. The number of those whom they can be arrested and shot or sent to places not so remote. The “victim of the Stalinist regime” Eiche was most zealous in those days — the first secretary of the West Siberian regional committee of the party. He asked for the rights to shoot 10800 man. In second place is Khrushchev, who headed the Moscow Regional Committee: “only” 8500 people. In third place is the first secretary of the Azov-Black Sea Regional Committee (today it is the Don and the North Caucasus) Evdokimov: 6644 to shoot and almost 7 thousand to send to the camps. They sent bloodthirsty applications and other secretaries. But with smaller numbers. One and a half, two thousand ...
Six months later, when Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, one of his first dispatches to Moscow was a request to let him shoot 20 000 people. But after all there already walked the first time.
- What are they motivated the requests?
- One: just the NKVD, they wrote, opened the armed underground organization, it is preparing an uprising. It means that in these conditions it is impossible to hold alternative elections. Until these allegedly conspiratorial organizations are liquidated.
It is also curious what happened at the plenum itself when discussing the electoral law. No one directly opposed, but for some reason, almost all of the most “bloodthirsty” one after another went on the eve of the plenum to Stalin in the office. One by one, two by three, three ... After these visits, Stalin capitulated.
Why? You can understand. By that time, he was aware that Yezhov, the Commissar of Internal Affairs, did not actually obey him.
- In this it is impossible to believe!
- Why? As the former first secretary of the regional committee, Yezhov was at one with the others. This meant: if Stalin refuses to support their demands, someone from the Central Committee will rise to the podium, say: “Dear comrades! All the recent acts of Stalin proved that he was a revisionist, an opportunist, changed the cause of October Revolution, the precepts of Lenin, betrayed our Revolution. " And they would bring not one, ten examples.
- So, Stalin or chickened out for fear of losing power, or just playing his game. What else to explain? But I interrupted you ...
- So here are the examples. 34 year, September. The USSR enters the League of Nations, which was previously characterized by our propaganda as an instrument of imperialism. In May, the 35 of the USSR signed agreements with France and Czechoslovakia on joint defense in the event of German aggression.
In January 1935, there are reports of a revision of the Constitution. And soon in the “group of comrades” they already knew what changes were coming.
In July, the Seventh, the last, Congress of the Comintern, its leader Georgy Dimitrov, is going to meet 1935, stating that henceforth the Communists, if they want to come to power, must achieve this not through revolutions, but in a democratic way. At the elections. He proposes to create popular fronts: the communists together with the socialists, the democrats. Such a turn in terms of hard stone Bolsheviks is a crime. Communists de go to a deal with the enemies of communism - the Social Democrats.
- The rigid scheme collapses: communism-imperialism.
- Well yes. Go ahead. 36 year Borodin’s comic opera Bogatyrs with the new libretto by Demian Poor is being removed from the stage of the Tairov Chamber Theater. The decision about the reasons is published. They explain, they say, Poor mockingly described the heroes of the epic Russian epic, blackened the positive phenomenon of our history - the Baptism of Russia. And then there is the competition for a history textbook, which was forgotten in 17, the restoration of historical faculties closed in 18. In 1934, the title Hero of the Soviet Union was introduced. This is in defiance of the ultra-left. A year later, the Cossack units are recreated ... And this is not all. Russia was returned to Russia ...
At the end of 1935, Stalin gave an interview to an American journalist, Howard. He said that soon there will be a new Constitution, a new electoral system and a fierce struggle between candidates, since they will be put forward not only by the party, but by any public organization, even a group of people.
Immediately there was talk among the members of the Central Committee: is that what the priests can put forward? They are answered: why not? And fists? Not fists - the people, they are cramming them. All this partocracy scared.
Most of the first secretaries understood that they had broken a lot of firewood. First, giant excesses during collectivization. Second: serious mistakes at the beginning of the first five-year plan.
Many party secretaries were semi-literate people. Well, if behind the shoulders of the parish school, who is Russian, and heders, if a Jew. How could such people control the construction of industry giants? They tried to lead, not really understanding. Therefore, there was growing discontent on the part of the peasants, workers, engineers, they all felt it on themselves.
- The engineering building was being formed, a lot was changing, it was difficult to conceal the awl in the bag.
- And local leaders were afraid that, if there were alternative elections, one or two more candidates would appear next to them. You can fail. Instead of passing to the deputies of the Supreme Council, it means that to wait in Moscow, in the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), they will say: “Comrade, the people did not support you. Come on, sweetie, look for a job that is on the shoulder, or go learn. ” In those years, Stalin said more than once that for some reason a person, having fallen into a high position, believes that he knows everything, although in fact he knows nothing. It was a direct hint, partokraty alert.
And they rallied like any corporation, forcing Stalin to give up on alternative elections in 37, and, in fact, they discredited him.
The repressions tried to stop 1938 in February at the next plenum. Malenkov, then the head of the personnel department of the Central Committee, spoke out in open criticism of those who were especially zealous. I turned to Postyshev (I used to work in Ukraine, at that moment - the first secretary of the Kuybyshev regional committee) and asked: have you already transferred all Soviet, Komsomol, party apparatus to the region, how long can you? Postyshev replied: “I planted, planted and will plant. This is my duty. ” Malenkov addressed Bagirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan: how can you sign documents on arrests and executions, where there are not even names, but only figures to be arrested and shot? He was silent.
Stalin had to urgently remove Yezhov, whose hands carried out rampant repression.
- Then they said: hedgehogs. That, they say, what!
- They called from Tbilisi to Beria, who had just been elected secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the Party, was appointed head of the Main State Security Directorate - the punitive component of the NKVD. But Beria could not cope with Yezhov. At the end of November, 1938, Ezhov, was invited to Stalin. Voroshilov and Molotov were present in the office. As far as can be judged, more than one hour Yezhov was forced to leave the post.
I managed to find options for his "renunciation". They are written on different paper. One is an ordinary white sheet, the other is in a ruler, the third is in a cell ... They were given what was at hand to fix. At first, Yezhov was ready to give up everything, except for the People's Commissariat. Did not work. Beria was appointed to the post of People's Commissar.
Soon more than a million people left the camps. Remember the story of Rokossovsky, there are many. In areas where there were the most odious repressions, they were arrested by enscadeers who falsified cases, tried them, and opened the courts. Messages - in the local press. This was not the case when rehabilitation was under Khrushchev. At the same time, Beria was purging the NKVD. You can take any reference book on personnel - they have been published a few. In the NKVD at the top and middle levels there were most semi-literate Jews. Almost all clean. And on the light, and in the camps. New ones are being recruited either with a higher education or with an incomplete one - from the third, fourth year, mostly Russians. Then began a sharp decline in arrests.
“Just a decline.” They were not stopped.
“At the same time, when we are talking about the 58 article, we should not forget one thing. Colleague Galina Ivanov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, managed to make an interesting discovery from the point of view of understanding of that time. Both before the war and after it, professional criminals, by their rules, should not have worked. And did not work. But every six months, a traveling court called in the camps, tried cases of violations by prisoners of the regime. And those who refused to work were tried for sabotage. And sabotage is the same 58 article. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that not only the political enemies of the "Stalin Group" or those attributed to it, but also the outlaw criminals passed through it. And, of course, real spies, saboteurs, and there were a lot of them.
It should be noted that in May 1937, the process of the so-called conspiracy of NGOs, this is the Commissariat of Defense.
There is a perception that almost the entire command staff of the army was repressed and fleet. Researcher O.F. Souvenir published a book with data (up to a single person) about soldiers arrested in 1935–1939: full name, date of birth, rank, position when arrested, sentence. Thick book. It turned out that 75 percent of repressed NGOs are commissars, military experts, military commissaries, military doctors, and military engineers. So this is a legend, as if they destroyed the entire command.
They say that it would be if Tukhachevsky, Yakir and so on would remain. Let us ask the question: “What kind of battles with foreign armies were won by our our marshals and generals?”
- Lost the Polish campaign.
- Everything! Nowhere else fought. As you know, any civil war is very different from wars between countries.
There is a curious detail in the “NGO case”. When Stalin was reporting on the Military-Political Conspiracy at the Military Council, he focused on the fact that the conspiracy in the NPO is the end of the case that received the name Tangle in 1935.
- I think not everyone knows what is behind this.
- At the end of 34, Stalin’s brother-in-law of his first wife, Svanidze, who worked in the financial sphere, wrote a note to Stalin, indicated that there was a conspiracy against his centrist group. Who entered it? Stalin himself, Molotov — the head of government, Ordzhonikidze — who led the creation of heavy industry, Voroshilov — the people's commissar of defense; Litvinov — the people's commissar for foreign affairs, who pursued an active policy of rapprochement with Western democracies; after the assassination of Kirov, who freed about 35 thousands of peasants who suffered because of the so-called three spikelets. The group also included Zhdanov, who replaced Kirov in Leningrad, and two very important people from the Central Committee: Stetsky, head of the Agitation and Propaganda Department, and Yakovlev (Epstein), the creator of the most popular publications, Peasant Newspaper and Poor Notes, talented journalist. He, like Stetsky, is a member
constitutional commission, and most importantly - the author of the electoral law.
After the aforementioned plenum of the 37 year, in which the parocrats only formally supported the electoral law, Stetsky and Yakovlev were arrested and executed. They are not remembered, and over Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Yakir, others cry.
- It turns out that Stalin even had to sacrifice them.
- It turns out. There was a fierce struggle. Here is a hero for all Bukharin. And when he was invited to the Central Committee for a serious conversation, he began by providing a list of his own students, whom he gave to the slaughter. That is, as soon as he felt that he might be ill, he hurried to hand in others instead of himself.
- I heard the definition: the 37 year is a feast of vengeance against the Leninist guard, and 34-th and 35-th - preparation for it.
- So a poet who thinks in images can speak. And here it is easier. Even after the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and many others did not seriously think that socialism would win in backward Russia. They looked hopefully at the industrialized United States, Germany, Britain, France. After all, tsarist Russia in terms of industrial development was after tiny Belgium. They forget about it. Like, ah-oh, what was Russia! But in World War I weapon we bought from the English, the French, the Japanese, the Americans.
The Bolshevik leadership hoped (what Zinoviev wrote most vividly in Pravda) only for the revolution in Germany. They say that when Russia unites with it, it will be able to build socialism.
Meanwhile, Stalin wrote Zinoviev in the summer of 1923 of the year: even if the German Communist Party power falls from the sky, it will not keep it. Stalin was the only person in the leadership who did not believe in the world revolution. Considered: our main concern is Soviet Russia.
What's next? The revolution did not take place in Germany. We take NEP. A few months later the country howled. Enterprises are closing, millions of unemployed, and those workers who have retained their jobs receive 10 – 20 percent of what they received before the revolution. Peasants replaced the surplus with a food tax, but it was such that the peasants could not pay it. Banditry is increasing: political, criminal. There is an unprecedented - economic: the poor, to pay taxes and feed their families, attack trains. Gangs arise even among students: to learn and not die of hunger, you need money. They are mined by robbing the Nepmen. That's what poured NEP. He corrupted the party, Soviet cadres. Bribery is everywhere. For any service, the chairman of the village council, the policeman take a bribe. Factory directors repair their own apartments at the expense of enterprises, buy luxury. And so with 1921 on 1928 year.
Trotsky and his right hand in the field of economics Preobrazhensky conceived to transfer the flames of revolution to Asia, and to train cadres in our eastern republics, urgently building factories there for the "breeding" of the local proletariat.
Stalin proposed another option: the construction of socialism in one single country. At the same time, he never said when socialism would be built. He said - building, and a few years later clarified: you need to create industry in 10 years. Heavy industry. Otherwise they will destroy us. This was pronounced in February 1931 of the year. Stalin did not make much of a mistake. Through the 10 years and 4 of the month Germany attacked the USSR.
The principal differences were the group of Stalin and the hard stone Bolsheviks. It does not matter, they are left, like Trotsky and Zinoviev, right, like Rykov and Bukharin. Everyone relied on the revolution in Europe ... So the essence is not in retribution, but in a bitter struggle to determine the course of development of the country.
- You want to say that the period, which in the eyes of many is presented as the time of the Stalinist repressions, - on the other hand, was not an attempt to build democracy for many reasons?
- New Constitution to this and had to lead. Stalin understood that for a man of that time, democracy is something unattainable. After all, it is impossible to demand knowledge of higher mathematics from a first-grader. The 1936 Constitution of the Year was for growth. Here is a village. The street committee, the residents of 10 – 20 houses, elect those responsible for the condition of the street. Themselves. No they decree. Behind this is the desire to learn to worry about what is behind your fence, what order there is. And then further, further ... People were gradually being drawn into self-government. That is why, under the Soviet regime, a rigid vertical of power was gradually eliminated.
Yes, a paradox, but we lost all of this as a result of the pseudo-democratic reforms of the beginning of 90's. It is necessary to realize: we have lost the foundations of democracy. Today they say: we are returning the election of heads of administrations, mayors, elections in the ruling party ... But this was, guys, we had it all.
Stalin, starting political reforms in 1935, expressed an important thought: "We must free the party from economic activity." But then I made a reservation, it will not be soon. Malenkov spoke about the same thing at the 18th party conference in February 1941. And then there was January 1944 of the year. Before the plenum of the Central Committee, the only one during the war years, the Politburo met. Considered the draft resolution, signed by Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov. In it, if the five-page text is briefly stated, it was said: the party committees of the region, region, district, city take to their work the most intelligent and talented, but there is no use for that. They give orders on all matters of life, and if something goes wrong, the Soviet authorities are responsible - the performers. Therefore, it was proposed in the project that it is necessary to limit the activities of the party committees only by agitation and propaganda, participation in the selection of personnel. Everything else is the work of the Soviet authorities. The Politburo rejected the proposal, although it was the meaning of reforming the party.
Earlier, in the 1937 year, when discussing the electoral law, Stalin threw the phrase: "Fortunately or unfortunately, we have only one party." Obviously, he returned to the idea for a long time that it was necessary to deduce state authorities from the party’s every minute control. And, if possible, create a competitor to the existing party. Stalin died without achieving it.
- By the way, in connection with his death, the focus is usually shifted to events such as the arrest and execution of Beria. Is this the most significant?
- After Stalin’s death, the head of the USSR government, Malenkov, one of his closest associates, abolished all privileges for the party nomenclature. For example, the monthly issuance of money ("envelopes"), the sum of which is two or three, or even five times higher than the salary and was not taken into account even when paying party fees, Lechsanupr, sanatoriums, personal machines, "turntables". And he raised the salaries of government employees in 2 – 3 times. Party workers on the generally accepted scale of values (and in their own eyes) have become much lower than state employees.
The offensive on the rights of the party nomenclature hidden from prying eyes lasted three months. Party cadres united, began to complain about the infringement of "rights" to the Secretary of the Central Committee Khrushchev. We asked to leave at least something that others do not have.
He achieved the cancellation of the decision, all the "losses" to the nomenclature were more than returned. And Khrushchev at the September plenum of the Central Committee was unanimously elected first secretary. Although at the March plenum, it was decided to cancel this position, to switch to collective leadership.
Soon Malenkov was sent to work outside the Urals. It began - if we talk about the system of internal power structure - a bloodless, compromise period, when the party nomenclature (moving in zigzags from Soviet to party organs and back) became more and more self-reliant. And lost the ability to feel the time, no longer develop the country. The consequence is stagnation, degradation of power, which led to the events of 1991 and 1993.
- So, the mentioned decisions of Malenkov are unrealized aspirations of Stalin?
- There are many reasons to think so.
- In response - the actual revenge of the then party nomenclature.
- Of course. Assessing those years, it can be argued that Stalin sought to create an economy - a powerful one, and achieved this. We became one of the two superpowers, even after his death, but he laid the foundations.
He sought to limit the power of officials, tried to start teaching democracy to the people, so that even through generations, it would enter into its blood and flesh. All this was rejected by Khrushchev. And then Brezhnev, judging even by the article of the Constitution that the party is mentioned. As a result, the party and state apparatus merged with the morals of the partytocracy: to lead, but not to answer for anything. Remember, in the film “Volga-Volga”, Byvalov says to the water carrier: “I will scream and you will answer.” It was this system that collapsed, as if, in fact, it was not just preserved, but strengthened a hundred times. Before there were levers of control. Say, if something is wrong where you live, and this is on the conscience of state bodies, you could complain to the district committee, they reacted there. There were the Soviet Control Committee, the People’s Control Committee. This was a means of controlling officials.
As a result of the counter-revolution of 1991 – 1993, the officials took off all kinds of possible controls, unleashed. Now we have a system that had matured since ancient times: we recall the works of Pushkin and Gogol, Sukhovo-Kobylin and Saltykov-Shchedrin ... They tried to break the system, but it survived, flourished with a double color.
- When you say “tried to break,” do you mean 34 and 35 years or 37?
- The 37 and 38 years is the resistance of the partycracy. Succeeded. Fight against her by the State Defense Committee in 41. It was possible at the time of the war. 44-th - complete failure, repeated in 53-m. Yeltsin, as it seemed to everyone, succeeded ...
- Not understood! Is Yeltsin plus for us, for the country or minus?
- Under the guise of breaking the bureaucratic system, he destroyed all methods of control over the officials. They became completely out of control. And a vivid expression is our system of power, in which officials, albeit by one vote, but have an advantage in parliaments and carry out any laws only in their own favor.
Well, if we return to the 37 year, I would like to remind the readers: then for every arrested person there were at least two denunciations. That's it.
- To inform, not to inform - a personal choice. And to pass a sentence is completely different ...
Yury Nikolaevich Zhukov (born 22, January 1938) - Soviet Russian historian, doctor of historical sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences. After graduating from the Historical Archives Institute, he worked as a journalist in the press agency "News". In 1976, he defended his Ph.D. thesis, in 1992, he completed his doctoral thesis, supervised the creation of the encyclopedias “Moscow”, “Civil War and foreign intervention in the USSR”. He is the author of six monographs, hundreds of scientific articles on the history of the USSR of the 1917 – 1954 period. Known scientific and scientific works of Stalin and the "Stalin era."
This year is painted with a mournful mark - 75 years ago, a huge number of our fellow citizens fell under the rink of "mass Stalinist repression." Hundreds of thousands of people in 1937 – 1938 were slain as “enemies of the people”. In print, on TV, on the Internet a lot of materials dedicated to this. Is it possible to forget? Not. You can not forgive arbitrariness. Many do not question that this happened only because the head of the USSR was dictator Joseph Stalin, who acted solely for the sake of strengthening personal power and reprisals against competitors.
Figures are cited, the fates of specific people are recalled, but often they do not take into account the circumstances in which the repressions took place, what preceded them, and what processes inside and outside the country influenced the course of events. Are all the dots above “i” placed? How objective, it seems, are indisputable conclusions?
To take into account various factors, to understand the background of the phenomenon in its entirety, does not mean to justify the unrighteous. But it’s never too late to try to come closer to the truth in order to clarify the estimates and draw the right conclusions. Such an approach is worthy of the history of our country, tragic, contradictory, but great. Do we realize its greatness or see mainly shameful sides? Are we good students? Famous historian Yuri Zhukov and literary newspaper columnist Vladimir Sukhomlinov talk about the events of that time.
- More than 30 years ago, I, a young journalist, talked with an old test pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, and talked about 37. He asked where he was then. Parubko, answered, was and lived in a village near Kiev. Songs returned to the village, famine left. "They drank much and enjoyed life." And you asked my question on the phone, how people perceived the second half of the thirties, said: “With joy!” Somehow it all does not fit ...
- This is normal! After all, we are still - a country in many ways mythologized history. Significant events sometimes fade into the background, catchy facts or politically beneficial to the authorities are exaggerated. A picture must be seen in all colors. Look here, what object of criticism today is the main one for any opposition, and also for people. Official. He is no longer a communist, not a Bolshevik. But everything, from the right to the left, including those who sit in the Kremlin, agree that the official is a disaster for the country. And so, when in 1937 – 1938 years, officials began to be arrested, and the blow fell primarily on them ...
- Almost 500 thousands of officials of all levels (especially party members) were removed from work and suffered punishment.
- Yes, yes ... And everyone was delighted. After all, they linked two things together. Hitting, in modern jargon, officials and the published Constitution of the year 1936, which is called Stalin's. I kept the archives in the hands of drafts, I saw: several articles, the most important ones, were written by Stalin personally. And so people got the Basic Law and the news that they remove and imprison those who stood above them and were tormented. And people sang.
The former Constitution (developed in 1923 year) included two parts. The preamble said: the world is divided into two hostile camps - socialism and imperialism. They will inevitably and soon meet in a fight, and it is clear who will win. The World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will arise. The main part is also in the spirit of 17 – 18's. According to the law, a significant part of the population (it changed every year) was included in the lists of so-called deprived people, people deprived of voting rights. Firstly, by their social origin - children of landowners, gendarmes, aristocrats by blood. In addition - the Nepmen, fists ...
The new Constitution did not even hint at the division of the world into two warring camps. Secondly, the game was only mentioned in the 126 article. Chapter 10, which dealt with the rights and obligations of citizens. In particular, their right to create public organizations, the core of which or most of them may be the same social organization - the Communist Party. 126-I article. Remember the Brezhnev Constitution ...
- 6-I article.
- Yes. Further. Electoral system. Previously, some had, others did not have the right to elect and be elected. There was also inequality. The worker's voice was equal to the three voices of the peasants: the dictatorship of the proletariat was formally - purely formally implemented. This has been canceled. The elections themselves. According to the 1923 Constitution, they were three-staged (which made freedom of choice difficult) and unopposed.
What did the Constitution of 1936 propose and the electoral law passed in July of 1937?
The first. No disenfranchised. Except for those who are deprived of this right by the court. Universal suffrage. Direct voting. Each person votes for a specific candidate for the Supreme Soviet, which both Stalin and Molotov openly called parliament. Elections secret, alternative. By law, it was established that in one place - at least 2 – 3 of the candidate. And this is the provision of the law and led to what people then called Yezhovshchina, and today they incorrectly call mass repression.
- Why suddenly - wrong?
- The word "repression" means "punishment, punitive measure." It not only applies to political opponents, but also provides for the conviction of a person for murder, violence, banditry, robbery, bribery, theft. And now the term is used to bring under it all those arrested, including criminals, Vlasovites, those who served in SS units during the war, Bandera ... All in one pile. He killed, raped - you are also repressed, the victim of Stalin's terror. Very tricky move.
In the course of the figures that gave Solzhenitsyn, Acceleration, Antonov-Ovseenko. The last in the book “The Portrait of a Tyrant” reports that the number of repressed people made up only 1935 to 1940 a year almost 19 million people.
- As far as I know, the real numbers are different. Although they are huge. About 800 thousand people were sentenced to death.
- Yes, that much, but from 1921 to 1953 a year. Of these, 681 692 people - in 1937 – 1938.
- The big city of our fellow citizens shot. Including innocent.
- Solzhenitsyn called absolutely fantastic numbers. During the years of Soviet power, he believed, 110 had been repressed by millions of people. Western Sovietologists in the Cold War years used the number 50 – 60 million. When the restructuring began, they reduced it to 20 millions.
Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, works at our institute. As part of a small group, he checked and rechecked in the archives for several years what the real numbers of repression were. In particular, on the 58 th article. We came to specific results. In the West, they immediately screamed. They were told: please, here are the archives! We arrived, checked, were forced to agree. Here is what.
1935 year - in total, 58 thousands were arrested and convicted under 267-th article, 1229 people were sentenced to capital punishment, 36-thousand and 274 people, respectively, were sentenced to death. And then a surge. In 1118, over 37 thousands were arrested and convicted under 58, over 790 thousands were shot, in 353 thousands over 38 thousands and more than 554 thousands were shot. Then - a decline. In 328, about 39 thousands were convicted and 64 people were sentenced to death, in 2552 thousands were sentenced to 40 thousands, and the highest measure was 72 people.
For the entire period from 1921 to 1953, 4 060 306 people were convicted, out of which 2 634 397 people entered camps and prisons. It remains to understand what, how, why? And why especially 1937 – 1938 years give such terrible things?
- Of course, it still worries.
- For starters: who is to blame? They say: Stalin. Yes, as the leader of the country, he bears the main responsibility. But how it all happened.
June 1937 of the year. There should be a congress of Soviets. Before him was a plenum of the Central Committee of the party, where they discussed the electoral law. In front of him, from the first secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the Union republics, telegrams regularly came in asking for permission to arrest engineers and plant managers.
Every time Stalin replied shortly, categorically: I did not allow. And after the plenum began to agree. With what? With that, what our "democrats" diligently forget about today.
Immediately after the plenum, which supported the new electoral law with alternative candidates, encrypted telegrams came to Moscow. The secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the national communist parties requested the so-called limits. The number of those whom they can be arrested and shot or sent to places not so remote. The “victim of the Stalinist regime” Eiche was most zealous in those days — the first secretary of the West Siberian regional committee of the party. He asked for the rights to shoot 10800 man. In second place is Khrushchev, who headed the Moscow Regional Committee: “only” 8500 people. In third place is the first secretary of the Azov-Black Sea Regional Committee (today it is the Don and the North Caucasus) Evdokimov: 6644 to shoot and almost 7 thousand to send to the camps. They sent bloodthirsty applications and other secretaries. But with smaller numbers. One and a half, two thousand ...
Six months later, when Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, one of his first dispatches to Moscow was a request to let him shoot 20 000 people. But after all there already walked the first time.
- What are they motivated the requests?
- One: just the NKVD, they wrote, opened the armed underground organization, it is preparing an uprising. It means that in these conditions it is impossible to hold alternative elections. Until these allegedly conspiratorial organizations are liquidated.
It is also curious what happened at the plenum itself when discussing the electoral law. No one directly opposed, but for some reason, almost all of the most “bloodthirsty” one after another went on the eve of the plenum to Stalin in the office. One by one, two by three, three ... After these visits, Stalin capitulated.
Why? You can understand. By that time, he was aware that Yezhov, the Commissar of Internal Affairs, did not actually obey him.
- In this it is impossible to believe!
- Why? As the former first secretary of the regional committee, Yezhov was at one with the others. This meant: if Stalin refuses to support their demands, someone from the Central Committee will rise to the podium, say: “Dear comrades! All the recent acts of Stalin proved that he was a revisionist, an opportunist, changed the cause of October Revolution, the precepts of Lenin, betrayed our Revolution. " And they would bring not one, ten examples.
- So, Stalin or chickened out for fear of losing power, or just playing his game. What else to explain? But I interrupted you ...
- So here are the examples. 34 year, September. The USSR enters the League of Nations, which was previously characterized by our propaganda as an instrument of imperialism. In May, the 35 of the USSR signed agreements with France and Czechoslovakia on joint defense in the event of German aggression.
In January 1935, there are reports of a revision of the Constitution. And soon in the “group of comrades” they already knew what changes were coming.
In July, the Seventh, the last, Congress of the Comintern, its leader Georgy Dimitrov, is going to meet 1935, stating that henceforth the Communists, if they want to come to power, must achieve this not through revolutions, but in a democratic way. At the elections. He proposes to create popular fronts: the communists together with the socialists, the democrats. Such a turn in terms of hard stone Bolsheviks is a crime. Communists de go to a deal with the enemies of communism - the Social Democrats.
- The rigid scheme collapses: communism-imperialism.
- Well yes. Go ahead. 36 year Borodin’s comic opera Bogatyrs with the new libretto by Demian Poor is being removed from the stage of the Tairov Chamber Theater. The decision about the reasons is published. They explain, they say, Poor mockingly described the heroes of the epic Russian epic, blackened the positive phenomenon of our history - the Baptism of Russia. And then there is the competition for a history textbook, which was forgotten in 17, the restoration of historical faculties closed in 18. In 1934, the title Hero of the Soviet Union was introduced. This is in defiance of the ultra-left. A year later, the Cossack units are recreated ... And this is not all. Russia was returned to Russia ...
At the end of 1935, Stalin gave an interview to an American journalist, Howard. He said that soon there will be a new Constitution, a new electoral system and a fierce struggle between candidates, since they will be put forward not only by the party, but by any public organization, even a group of people.
Immediately there was talk among the members of the Central Committee: is that what the priests can put forward? They are answered: why not? And fists? Not fists - the people, they are cramming them. All this partocracy scared.
Most of the first secretaries understood that they had broken a lot of firewood. First, giant excesses during collectivization. Second: serious mistakes at the beginning of the first five-year plan.
Many party secretaries were semi-literate people. Well, if behind the shoulders of the parish school, who is Russian, and heders, if a Jew. How could such people control the construction of industry giants? They tried to lead, not really understanding. Therefore, there was growing discontent on the part of the peasants, workers, engineers, they all felt it on themselves.
- The engineering building was being formed, a lot was changing, it was difficult to conceal the awl in the bag.
- And local leaders were afraid that, if there were alternative elections, one or two more candidates would appear next to them. You can fail. Instead of passing to the deputies of the Supreme Council, it means that to wait in Moscow, in the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), they will say: “Comrade, the people did not support you. Come on, sweetie, look for a job that is on the shoulder, or go learn. ” In those years, Stalin said more than once that for some reason a person, having fallen into a high position, believes that he knows everything, although in fact he knows nothing. It was a direct hint, partokraty alert.
And they rallied like any corporation, forcing Stalin to give up on alternative elections in 37, and, in fact, they discredited him.
The repressions tried to stop 1938 in February at the next plenum. Malenkov, then the head of the personnel department of the Central Committee, spoke out in open criticism of those who were especially zealous. I turned to Postyshev (I used to work in Ukraine, at that moment - the first secretary of the Kuybyshev regional committee) and asked: have you already transferred all Soviet, Komsomol, party apparatus to the region, how long can you? Postyshev replied: “I planted, planted and will plant. This is my duty. ” Malenkov addressed Bagirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan: how can you sign documents on arrests and executions, where there are not even names, but only figures to be arrested and shot? He was silent.
Stalin had to urgently remove Yezhov, whose hands carried out rampant repression.
- Then they said: hedgehogs. That, they say, what!
- They called from Tbilisi to Beria, who had just been elected secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the Party, was appointed head of the Main State Security Directorate - the punitive component of the NKVD. But Beria could not cope with Yezhov. At the end of November, 1938, Ezhov, was invited to Stalin. Voroshilov and Molotov were present in the office. As far as can be judged, more than one hour Yezhov was forced to leave the post.
I managed to find options for his "renunciation". They are written on different paper. One is an ordinary white sheet, the other is in a ruler, the third is in a cell ... They were given what was at hand to fix. At first, Yezhov was ready to give up everything, except for the People's Commissariat. Did not work. Beria was appointed to the post of People's Commissar.
Soon more than a million people left the camps. Remember the story of Rokossovsky, there are many. In areas where there were the most odious repressions, they were arrested by enscadeers who falsified cases, tried them, and opened the courts. Messages - in the local press. This was not the case when rehabilitation was under Khrushchev. At the same time, Beria was purging the NKVD. You can take any reference book on personnel - they have been published a few. In the NKVD at the top and middle levels there were most semi-literate Jews. Almost all clean. And on the light, and in the camps. New ones are being recruited either with a higher education or with an incomplete one - from the third, fourth year, mostly Russians. Then began a sharp decline in arrests.
“Just a decline.” They were not stopped.
“At the same time, when we are talking about the 58 article, we should not forget one thing. Colleague Galina Ivanov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, managed to make an interesting discovery from the point of view of understanding of that time. Both before the war and after it, professional criminals, by their rules, should not have worked. And did not work. But every six months, a traveling court called in the camps, tried cases of violations by prisoners of the regime. And those who refused to work were tried for sabotage. And sabotage is the same 58 article. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that not only the political enemies of the "Stalin Group" or those attributed to it, but also the outlaw criminals passed through it. And, of course, real spies, saboteurs, and there were a lot of them.
It should be noted that in May 1937, the process of the so-called conspiracy of NGOs, this is the Commissariat of Defense.
There is a perception that almost the entire command staff of the army was repressed and fleet. Researcher O.F. Souvenir published a book with data (up to a single person) about soldiers arrested in 1935–1939: full name, date of birth, rank, position when arrested, sentence. Thick book. It turned out that 75 percent of repressed NGOs are commissars, military experts, military commissaries, military doctors, and military engineers. So this is a legend, as if they destroyed the entire command.
They say that it would be if Tukhachevsky, Yakir and so on would remain. Let us ask the question: “What kind of battles with foreign armies were won by our our marshals and generals?”
- Lost the Polish campaign.
- Everything! Nowhere else fought. As you know, any civil war is very different from wars between countries.
There is a curious detail in the “NGO case”. When Stalin was reporting on the Military-Political Conspiracy at the Military Council, he focused on the fact that the conspiracy in the NPO is the end of the case that received the name Tangle in 1935.
- I think not everyone knows what is behind this.
- At the end of 34, Stalin’s brother-in-law of his first wife, Svanidze, who worked in the financial sphere, wrote a note to Stalin, indicated that there was a conspiracy against his centrist group. Who entered it? Stalin himself, Molotov — the head of government, Ordzhonikidze — who led the creation of heavy industry, Voroshilov — the people's commissar of defense; Litvinov — the people's commissar for foreign affairs, who pursued an active policy of rapprochement with Western democracies; after the assassination of Kirov, who freed about 35 thousands of peasants who suffered because of the so-called three spikelets. The group also included Zhdanov, who replaced Kirov in Leningrad, and two very important people from the Central Committee: Stetsky, head of the Agitation and Propaganda Department, and Yakovlev (Epstein), the creator of the most popular publications, Peasant Newspaper and Poor Notes, talented journalist. He, like Stetsky, is a member
constitutional commission, and most importantly - the author of the electoral law.
After the aforementioned plenum of the 37 year, in which the parocrats only formally supported the electoral law, Stetsky and Yakovlev were arrested and executed. They are not remembered, and over Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Yakir, others cry.
- It turns out that Stalin even had to sacrifice them.
- It turns out. There was a fierce struggle. Here is a hero for all Bukharin. And when he was invited to the Central Committee for a serious conversation, he began by providing a list of his own students, whom he gave to the slaughter. That is, as soon as he felt that he might be ill, he hurried to hand in others instead of himself.
- I heard the definition: the 37 year is a feast of vengeance against the Leninist guard, and 34-th and 35-th - preparation for it.
- So a poet who thinks in images can speak. And here it is easier. Even after the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and many others did not seriously think that socialism would win in backward Russia. They looked hopefully at the industrialized United States, Germany, Britain, France. After all, tsarist Russia in terms of industrial development was after tiny Belgium. They forget about it. Like, ah-oh, what was Russia! But in World War I weapon we bought from the English, the French, the Japanese, the Americans.
The Bolshevik leadership hoped (what Zinoviev wrote most vividly in Pravda) only for the revolution in Germany. They say that when Russia unites with it, it will be able to build socialism.
Meanwhile, Stalin wrote Zinoviev in the summer of 1923 of the year: even if the German Communist Party power falls from the sky, it will not keep it. Stalin was the only person in the leadership who did not believe in the world revolution. Considered: our main concern is Soviet Russia.
What's next? The revolution did not take place in Germany. We take NEP. A few months later the country howled. Enterprises are closing, millions of unemployed, and those workers who have retained their jobs receive 10 – 20 percent of what they received before the revolution. Peasants replaced the surplus with a food tax, but it was such that the peasants could not pay it. Banditry is increasing: political, criminal. There is an unprecedented - economic: the poor, to pay taxes and feed their families, attack trains. Gangs arise even among students: to learn and not die of hunger, you need money. They are mined by robbing the Nepmen. That's what poured NEP. He corrupted the party, Soviet cadres. Bribery is everywhere. For any service, the chairman of the village council, the policeman take a bribe. Factory directors repair their own apartments at the expense of enterprises, buy luxury. And so with 1921 on 1928 year.
Trotsky and his right hand in the field of economics Preobrazhensky conceived to transfer the flames of revolution to Asia, and to train cadres in our eastern republics, urgently building factories there for the "breeding" of the local proletariat.
Stalin proposed another option: the construction of socialism in one single country. At the same time, he never said when socialism would be built. He said - building, and a few years later clarified: you need to create industry in 10 years. Heavy industry. Otherwise they will destroy us. This was pronounced in February 1931 of the year. Stalin did not make much of a mistake. Through the 10 years and 4 of the month Germany attacked the USSR.
The principal differences were the group of Stalin and the hard stone Bolsheviks. It does not matter, they are left, like Trotsky and Zinoviev, right, like Rykov and Bukharin. Everyone relied on the revolution in Europe ... So the essence is not in retribution, but in a bitter struggle to determine the course of development of the country.
- You want to say that the period, which in the eyes of many is presented as the time of the Stalinist repressions, - on the other hand, was not an attempt to build democracy for many reasons?
- New Constitution to this and had to lead. Stalin understood that for a man of that time, democracy is something unattainable. After all, it is impossible to demand knowledge of higher mathematics from a first-grader. The 1936 Constitution of the Year was for growth. Here is a village. The street committee, the residents of 10 – 20 houses, elect those responsible for the condition of the street. Themselves. No they decree. Behind this is the desire to learn to worry about what is behind your fence, what order there is. And then further, further ... People were gradually being drawn into self-government. That is why, under the Soviet regime, a rigid vertical of power was gradually eliminated.
Yes, a paradox, but we lost all of this as a result of the pseudo-democratic reforms of the beginning of 90's. It is necessary to realize: we have lost the foundations of democracy. Today they say: we are returning the election of heads of administrations, mayors, elections in the ruling party ... But this was, guys, we had it all.
Stalin, starting political reforms in 1935, expressed an important thought: "We must free the party from economic activity." But then I made a reservation, it will not be soon. Malenkov spoke about the same thing at the 18th party conference in February 1941. And then there was January 1944 of the year. Before the plenum of the Central Committee, the only one during the war years, the Politburo met. Considered the draft resolution, signed by Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov. In it, if the five-page text is briefly stated, it was said: the party committees of the region, region, district, city take to their work the most intelligent and talented, but there is no use for that. They give orders on all matters of life, and if something goes wrong, the Soviet authorities are responsible - the performers. Therefore, it was proposed in the project that it is necessary to limit the activities of the party committees only by agitation and propaganda, participation in the selection of personnel. Everything else is the work of the Soviet authorities. The Politburo rejected the proposal, although it was the meaning of reforming the party.
Earlier, in the 1937 year, when discussing the electoral law, Stalin threw the phrase: "Fortunately or unfortunately, we have only one party." Obviously, he returned to the idea for a long time that it was necessary to deduce state authorities from the party’s every minute control. And, if possible, create a competitor to the existing party. Stalin died without achieving it.
- By the way, in connection with his death, the focus is usually shifted to events such as the arrest and execution of Beria. Is this the most significant?
- After Stalin’s death, the head of the USSR government, Malenkov, one of his closest associates, abolished all privileges for the party nomenclature. For example, the monthly issuance of money ("envelopes"), the sum of which is two or three, or even five times higher than the salary and was not taken into account even when paying party fees, Lechsanupr, sanatoriums, personal machines, "turntables". And he raised the salaries of government employees in 2 – 3 times. Party workers on the generally accepted scale of values (and in their own eyes) have become much lower than state employees.
The offensive on the rights of the party nomenclature hidden from prying eyes lasted three months. Party cadres united, began to complain about the infringement of "rights" to the Secretary of the Central Committee Khrushchev. We asked to leave at least something that others do not have.
He achieved the cancellation of the decision, all the "losses" to the nomenclature were more than returned. And Khrushchev at the September plenum of the Central Committee was unanimously elected first secretary. Although at the March plenum, it was decided to cancel this position, to switch to collective leadership.
Soon Malenkov was sent to work outside the Urals. It began - if we talk about the system of internal power structure - a bloodless, compromise period, when the party nomenclature (moving in zigzags from Soviet to party organs and back) became more and more self-reliant. And lost the ability to feel the time, no longer develop the country. The consequence is stagnation, degradation of power, which led to the events of 1991 and 1993.
- So, the mentioned decisions of Malenkov are unrealized aspirations of Stalin?
- There are many reasons to think so.
- In response - the actual revenge of the then party nomenclature.
- Of course. Assessing those years, it can be argued that Stalin sought to create an economy - a powerful one, and achieved this. We became one of the two superpowers, even after his death, but he laid the foundations.
He sought to limit the power of officials, tried to start teaching democracy to the people, so that even through generations, it would enter into its blood and flesh. All this was rejected by Khrushchev. And then Brezhnev, judging even by the article of the Constitution that the party is mentioned. As a result, the party and state apparatus merged with the morals of the partytocracy: to lead, but not to answer for anything. Remember, in the film “Volga-Volga”, Byvalov says to the water carrier: “I will scream and you will answer.” It was this system that collapsed, as if, in fact, it was not just preserved, but strengthened a hundred times. Before there were levers of control. Say, if something is wrong where you live, and this is on the conscience of state bodies, you could complain to the district committee, they reacted there. There were the Soviet Control Committee, the People’s Control Committee. This was a means of controlling officials.
As a result of the counter-revolution of 1991 – 1993, the officials took off all kinds of possible controls, unleashed. Now we have a system that had matured since ancient times: we recall the works of Pushkin and Gogol, Sukhovo-Kobylin and Saltykov-Shchedrin ... They tried to break the system, but it survived, flourished with a double color.
- When you say “tried to break,” do you mean 34 and 35 years or 37?
- The 37 and 38 years is the resistance of the partycracy. Succeeded. Fight against her by the State Defense Committee in 41. It was possible at the time of the war. 44-th - complete failure, repeated in 53-m. Yeltsin, as it seemed to everyone, succeeded ...
- Not understood! Is Yeltsin plus for us, for the country or minus?
- Under the guise of breaking the bureaucratic system, he destroyed all methods of control over the officials. They became completely out of control. And a vivid expression is our system of power, in which officials, albeit by one vote, but have an advantage in parliaments and carry out any laws only in their own favor.
Well, if we return to the 37 year, I would like to remind the readers: then for every arrested person there were at least two denunciations. That's it.
- To inform, not to inform - a personal choice. And to pass a sentence is completely different ...
Yury Nikolaevich Zhukov (born 22, January 1938) - Soviet Russian historian, doctor of historical sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences. After graduating from the Historical Archives Institute, he worked as a journalist in the press agency "News". In 1976, he defended his Ph.D. thesis, in 1992, he completed his doctoral thesis, supervised the creation of the encyclopedias “Moscow”, “Civil War and foreign intervention in the USSR”. He is the author of six monographs, hundreds of scientific articles on the history of the USSR of the 1917 – 1954 period. Known scientific and scientific works of Stalin and the "Stalin era."
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