On denunciation, repression and the phenomenon of 1937
Didn't get quiet story with a denunciation of a military doctor and popularizer of tactical medicine Yuri Yevich, who was complained about by some "vigilant citizens" who attended his lecture on Sakhalin, how did it become known that a certain lady in uniform wrote a denunciation of the former commander of the DPR militia, FSB colonel in the reserve Igor Strelkov (Girkin). Apparently, also for "discrediting the army." These are far from the only cases of writing slander of this type, they are widely known only for the reason that Yevich and Strelkov are quite well-known personalities.
At the same time, it is obvious that the military operation in Ukraine is not going well, to put it mildly, and it is obvious that someone is to blame for this. Hence the search for some "internal enemies", which, as recently rightly noted colleague Roman Skomorokhov, at the suggestion of the media, abstract liberals, bloggers, foreign agents, etc. are appointed, who, in fact, interfere with the course of the SVO. It is with them that it is proposed to “end”.
In this context, one can often hear the phrase “we need a new 1937” from indignant citizens, especially those who adhere to “leftist” views. At the same time, “1937” evokes different associations for different people, and those who call for a “repeat” often have a rather vague idea of what really happened then. There are those who believe that the brutal repressions of 1937-1938 saved the USSR from "secret enemies" and even "strengthened the Red Army." At the same time, the main thing is overlooked - the actual representatives of the military and political leadership among the executed were only a few tens of thousands, while hundreds of thousands were executed during these years. That is, the overwhelming majority of victims of repression were ordinary Soviet citizens.
About the phenomenon of 1937, about why, instead of searching for the real culprits of the current situation, we see a completely different struggle with those who criticize the course of the NWO, we will talk in this material.
Whistleblowing and repression in 1937–1938
Prologue to the "Great Terror" of 1937-1938. events began after the assassination of S. M. Kirov on December 1, 1934, when the entire Soviet Union was actually placed in a state of emergency. In the winter of 1935, the arrests of former oppositionists and opponents of the Soviet regime began, show trials began, simultaneously with this party and state apparatus, a powerful propaganda campaign was launched, aimed at ensuring that the search and extermination of "enemies of the people" were considered the patriotic duty of every citizen. The repressions of 1937 were sanctioned at the highest level of the party and state [1].
Without going into historical details, it should be noted that a typical phenomenon of that time was a general denunciation. The denunciation letters of the "vigilant citizens" reflected their idea of what kind of people should be destroyed or isolated. Everything that distinguished a person from the "worker-peasant mass" was considered as a sign of hostility. This also manifested itself during social events, meetings, conferences. Let's take a few concrete examples.
In September 1937, a city reporting and election conference of the Komsomol organization was held in Novosibirsk. Most of the meetings were devoted to an analysis of the subversive activities of former comrades who allegedly destroyed the normal work of the Komsomol organization. In the speech of one of the participants, the following arguments were cited as evidence of the hostile activities of the members of the city committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, Maryin and Titkov: “I have no data, facts, but it is felt that Titkov and Maryin are not our people. They felt secrecy when they were being watched, it was clear with what a sly and malicious smile they listened to the speeches of the leading workers of the region. [1].
As historians note, the chairmen of the collective farm audit commissions became frequent victims of denunciation, revealing the facts of the theft of financial or material resources by the collective farm leadership. In this case, the chairman of the collective farm, by his appeal to the NKVD, forestalled the appeal to the judicial-investigative bodies of the chairman of the audit commission. And ordinary collective farmers denounced their fellow villagers to the NKVD because of domestic conflicts, as well as their economic managers - collective farm chairmen, and especially often the foremen, their immediate production supervisors, who often punished them with fines for being late and absenteeism , marriage during sowing and harvesting, improper care of livestock, etc. [2].
Characteristic in this regard is the testimony of the former foreman of the collective farm. Schmidt of the Topchikhinsky district of A. Z. Koltovskikh, convicted on November 23, 1937 by a troika on charges of sabotage to a 10-year camp imprisonment. In his complaint to the Supreme Prosecutor of the USSR with a request for a review of the case, dated August 12, 1939, he wrote that he was arrested on the denunciation of two collective farmers who were repeatedly dismissed by the collective farm board as undisciplined [3].
At the end of 1937, at school No. 22 in Chelyabinsk, physical education teacher Korotkov was expelled from the candidates for membership of the CPSU (b) due to the arrest of his wife's parents by the NKVD and for "insincere admission of his mistakes", which, in fact, boiled down to one thing: Korotkov "did not tell who are the wife's parents. And the teacher of literature and the Russian language of the Chelyabinsk secondary school No. 1 named after F. Engels, G. I. Tsyrlina, was accused of not informing her husband [4].
There were also much more comical cases of suspicion and hypervigilance, such as, for example, what happened in 1935 at the Omsk Agricultural Institute. Komsomol member Ovchinnikov inadvertently told fellow students that he had a dream in which he ruled the country, and Zinoviev and Kamenev were his assistants. Fellow students, apparently recalling the methods of Freudian psychoanalysis, suspected that Ovchinnikov's insidious plans were reflected in such a "counter-revolutionary" dream. As a result, the vigilant comrades decided to expose him as an enemy of the people and expel him from the Komsomol [1].
Thus, it should be noted that denunciations were an integral part of the great repressions of 1937-1938, and these same repressions primarily affected ordinary citizens.
About modern denunciations and those who want to "repeat" 1937
Of course, speaking about today, we can state that at the moment there are no such large-scale repressions in Russia. However, the practice of denunciation, especially after the adoption of the law on discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, really blooms with new colors, and is somewhat reminiscent of 1937.
After all, in addition to the above-mentioned denunciations of Yevich and Strelkov, there are other cases of denunciations. For example, a woman publicly boasts that she is a “professional scammer” and her goal is to “create an atmosphere of fear” and “wean people from contacting foreign media agents.” There are also comic cases. Recently, a pensioner from the Moscow region wrote a slander to the police after seeing the colors of the flag of Ukraine on the schoolgirl's clothes.
“A 65-year-old resident of Podolsk wrote a denunciation, outraged by the choice of clothing made by a schoolgirl. The girl was walking down the street in blue and yellow clothes. An elderly man decided to contact the authorities as soon as he saw a girl returning from school No. 33 located on Teplichnaya Street. He called the police and soon several employees of the department arrived at the scene. It is known that at the time of the arrival of the security forces, the student had already left the educational institution, ”
- пишет Newspaper.Ru.
If you think in this way, then in this case, you should ban, for example, the Rostov football club, whose symbols also have yellow and blue colors. Most likely, this grandfather simply became a "victim of television." After all, they often talk about the need to revive SMERSH, to punish all the villains (again, abstract liberals and “enemies of the people”), that Stalinist repressions are needed, and about the ubiquitous agents of the West and Ukraine.
Why they demand repression on television is understandable - there it is necessary to redirect popular indignation in the right direction, to those who criticize the NWO. Moreover, unfortunately, in most cases, journalists on TV do not care what kind of criticism it is - patriotic or liberal-pro-Western, because both of them "discredit the army." They just follow instructions from above, do their job. But as for ordinary citizens who make such appeals, for the most part they do not quite understand that in which case repressions will affect them and those who criticize first of all. Therefore, as one proverb says, be afraid of your desires, they can be fulfilled.
As the course of the special military operation shows, personnel changes in Russia are really necessary, but so far not even a single general has been punished for making the wrong decision, and through whose fault both people and military equipment were lost. In the material "Key problems of SVO and ways to solve them”, I have already noted that the main problems of the military operation in Ukraine are incompetence and impunity. Since then, nothing has changed, no one has been held accountable.
Why? But because here we are faced with the principles of Lawrence Peter. Following them, almost any modern hierarchy is created not to eliminate incompetence, nor to identify and reward competence. Whatever goals she originally set, once the hierarchy is established, her own existence becomes her goal.
“Ordinary incompetence, as we have already seen, is not a reason for dismissal, it is only a barrier to promotion. Overcompetence often leads to dismissal because it undermines the hierarchy and thus violates the first commandment of any hierarchical system - the hierarchy must be preserved at all costs [5]”,
Peter writes.
That is, for a hierarchical system, an overly bright and overly competent employee is often more dangerous than a gray and incompetent one, since it is easier to control him. In fact, this is exactly what we are seeing at the moment. The power vertical believes that the main thing in the current conditions is the preservation of its stability, and all other factors are secondary. Therefore, the general, who made a mistake and lost people and equipment, remains in his place, since he is a “proven cadre” and loyal to the authorities, but a person who criticizes him risks being ostracized or jailed for discrediting.
What this will ultimately lead to and how productive such a policy is, at the moment it is difficult to say. But it can be stated that with such incompetent generals who do not learn from their mistakes and are not afraid to be punished, it is quite difficult to count on anything other than maintaining the current status quo. However, even this task is far from being as simple as it seems, and there are risks that the continuation of such a policy may lead to new sensitive defeats.
Использованная литература:
[1]. Isaev V. I. “To identify and destroy”: Siberian Komsomol members in search of “enemies of the people” / V. I. Isaev // ECO. All-Russian Economic Journal - Moscow, 2010, No. 3. - P. 157–172.
[2]. The Great Terror in the Altai Territory 1937–1938 Implementation of the order of the NKVD No. 00447: Collective monograph / N. N. Ablazhey, I. A. Gridunova, G. D. Zhdanova, A. A. Kolesnikov, N. V. Kudenko, V. N. Razgon, A. I. Savin , A. G. Teplyakov, M. Junge, E. R. Yusupova. Barnaul: Azbuka, 2014. - 255 p.
[3]. Complaint of A. Z. Koltovskikh to the Supreme Prosecutor of the USSR dated August 12, 1939 // OSD GAAK. F. R-2. Op. 7. D. 4127. L. 334–335.
[4]. Problems of the history of mass political repressions in the USSR. To the 70th Anniversary of the All-Union Population Census of 1939: Proceedings of the VI International Scientific Conference. – Krasnodar: Ecoinvest, 2010.
[5]. Peter L. D. The Peter Principle, or Why Things Always Go Wrong. / Aut. foreword R. Hall. - Ed .: Potpourri, 2003.
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