"Big Terror" - the numbers, the facts (part of 2)
Order of the NKVD from 30.07.1937 № 00447
Main article: NKVD Order No. 00447
I. CONTINGENTS TO BE REPRESSED.
1. Former fists who returned after serving their sentences and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive activities.
2. Former kulaks who fled from camps or labor settlements, as well as kulaks hiding from dispossession that are engaged in anti-Soviet activities.
3. Former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who consisted of insurgent, fascist, terrorist and gangster formations, who served their sentences, hid from reprisals or escaped from prison, and resumed their anti-Soviet criminal activities.
4. Members of anti-Soviet parties (Social Revolutionaries, cargo masters, mussavatists, ittihadists and dashnaks), former whites, gendarmes, officials, punishers, gangsters, bandit supporters, smugglers, re-emigrants, hiding from repression, fleeing from jails and continuing active anti-Soviet activities.
5. The most hostile and active participants of the Cossack-White Guard insurgent organizations, fascist, terrorist and espionage and sabotage counter-revolutionary formations exposed by the investigative and proven intelligence materials.
Elements of this category that are currently held in custody are subject to repression, the investigation of which has been completed, but the cases have not yet been considered by the judicial authorities.
6. The most active anti-Soviet elements from the former kulaks, punishers, gangsters, whites, sectarian activists, churchmen and others, who are now kept in prisons, camps, labor settlements and colonies, and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there.
7. Criminal offenders (bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, professional smugglers, recidivist scammers, skokonokrady), leading criminal activity and related to the criminal environment.
Elements of this category that are currently in custody are also subject to repression, the investigation of which has been completed, but cases have not yet been considered by the judicial authorities.
8. Criminal elements in camps and labor settlements and their criminal activities.
9. All the above-mentioned contingents that are currently in the village - on collective farms, state farms, agricultural enterprises and in the city - on industrial and commercial enterprises, transport, in Soviet institutions and on construction are subject to repression.
Ii. ABOUT MEASURES OF PUNISHMENT REPRESSED AND NUMBER OF SUBJECT TO BE REPRESSED. 1. All repressed fists, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements are divided into two categories: a) the first category includes all the most hostile elements listed above. They are subject to immediate arrest and on consideration of their cases in threes - SHOOTING.
b) all other less active, but still hostile elements belong to the second category. They are subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps for a period from 8 to 10 years, and the most malicious and socially dangerous ones are imprisoned for the same periods in prisons as defined by the troika.
Help 1 special department of the NKVD of the USSR on the number of prisoners arrested and convicted during the period from October 1 1936 to November 1 1938.
Not earlier than November 1 1938 *
Totals
Deputy 1 Chief of the Special Department of the NKVD of the USSR, Captain of State Security Zubkin
Head of 5 Division Senior Lieutenant of State Security Kremnev
Interesting data is provided in one of the 1936-38 Summary tables, reflecting the situation on 1 in July 1938 (excluding the DCC):
(TsA FSB RF. F. 3. Op. 5. D. 572. L. 74)
And now what is interesting is that the kulaks in Russia were "dispossessed" since 1918, and the kulaks of pre-revolutionary (usurers) and the kulaks of the Soviet (strong owners who did not want to go to the collective farms!) Should be distinguished. Many of the former have changed their jobs long ago and were quite loyal to the new government. Oh yeah, it was a struggle against the "fifth column". But ... did she give the result? No, because more than 1 million Soviet citizens, and mostly CALLING AGE, one way or another went over to the side of the Nazis and fought along with them.
Decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) No. P65 / 116 from 17 in November 1938
116. About arrests, prosecution supervision and investigation.
(Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)).
Make the following decision (see attachment).
[Application]
People's Commissars of Internal Affairs of the Union and autonomous republics, heads of the NKVD krays and oblasts, heads of district, city and district departments of the NKVD.
Prosecutors of the Union and autonomous republics, territories and regions, district, city and district prosecutors.
The secretaries of the Central Committee of the national communist parties, regional committees, regional committees, regional committees, city committees and district committees of the CPSU (b).
ABOUT ARRESTS, PROSECUTOR'S SUPERVISION AND CONDUCTING CONSEQUENCES.
Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
SNK of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) note that during 1937-38, under the leadership of the party, the NKVD bodies did a great job of smashing the enemies of the people and clearing the USSR of numerous spy, terrorist, sabotage and sabotage personnel from Trotskyists, Bukharinites Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists, White Guards, fugitive kulaks and criminals, who were a serious support of foreign intelligence services in the USSR and, in particular, intelligence services of Japan, Germany, Poland, England and France.
At the same time, the NKVD bodies did a great job also in defeating the espionage and sabotage agents of foreign intelligence services, transferred to the USSR in large numbers because of the cordon under the guise of so-called political emigrants and defectors from Poles, Romanians, Finns, Germans, Latvians, Estonians, Harbinites and so on . Clearing the country of subversive rebel and espionage personnel played a positive role in ensuring the continued success of socialist construction.
However, one should not think that the matter of cleaning the USSR from spies, pests, terrorists and saboteurs is over. The task now is to continue and continue the merciless struggle against all the enemies of the USSR to organize this struggle using more sophisticated and reliable methods.
This collection of materials is also on the GARF website.
This is all the more necessary because the mass operations to crush and uproot enemy elements carried out by the NKVD in 1937-1938, while simplified investigation and trial, could not but lead to a number of major flaws and distortions in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office . Moreover, the enemies of the people and the spies of foreign intelligence services, who had penetrated into the NKVD, both in the center and in the field (highlighted by the author!), While continuing to conduct their subversive work, tried in every way to confuse investigative and undercover affairs, deliberately distorted Soviet laws, carried out mass and unjustified arrests, while at the same time saving from the defeat of his accomplices, especially those seated in the NKVD.
The main shortcomings revealed recently in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office are the following:
First, the NKVD workers completely abandoned the intelligence work, preferring to act in a simpler way, through the practice of mass arrests, without worrying about the completeness and high quality of the investigation. The workers of the NKVD became so unaccustomed to the painstaking, systematic intelligence work, and so entered into the taste of a simplified procedure for the production of cases, that until very recently they were raising questions about granting them so-called "limits" for making mass arrests. This led to the fact that the already weak intelligence work was even more lagging behind and, worst of all, many drug addicts lost taste (highlighted by the author!) For intelligence activities playing a crucial role in the work of the KGB.
This, finally, led to the fact that, in the absence of properly organized intelligence work, the investigation, as a rule, could not fully expose the arrested spies and saboteurs of foreign intelligence services and completely uncover all their criminal connections.
Such an underestimation of the significance of the agency work and the unacceptably frivolous attitude towards arrests is all the more intolerable because the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.) In their resolutions of 8 in May 1933 of the year, 17 of June of 1935 of the year and, finally, of 3 of March of 1937, gave categorical instructions on the need properly organize undercover work, limit arrests and improve the investigation.
Secondly, the biggest flaw in the work of the NKVD is a deeply ingrained simplified investigation procedure, in which, as a rule, the investigator confines himself to receiving a confession of guilt from the accused and does not care at all about supporting this confession with necessary documentary data (testimony of witnesses, acts of examination, physical evidence and so on.) Often the arrested person is not interrogated within a month after the arrest, sometimes more. During interrogations of arrested interrogation protocols are not always maintained. Often there are cases when the testimony of the arrested person is recorded by the investigator in the form of notes, and then, after a long time (decade, month or even more), a general protocol is drawn up, and the requirement of the article 138 of the CPC on the verbatim, if possible, recording the testimony of the arrested . Very often, an interrogation report is not drawn up until the arrested person confesses to the crimes he has committed. There are frequent cases when the testimony of the accused, which refutes these or other data, is not recorded in the interrogation protocol.
Investigative cases are executed carelessly, drafts are added to the case, the corrected and crossed out pencil records of the testimony are unknown, the testimony is not signed by the interrogated and not certified by the investigator, the not signed and not approved indictments are included, etc. The Prosecutor’s Office does not accept necessary measures to eliminate these shortcomings, reducing, as a rule, their participation in the investigation to a simple registration and stamping of investigative materials. The bodies of the Prosecutor’s Office not only do not eliminate violations of revolutionary law, but in fact legitimize these violations.
This kind of irresponsible attitude towards the investigative arbitrariness and gross violations of the procedural rules established by law were often skillfully used by those who sneaked into the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office — both in the center and in the provinces — enemies of the people. They deliberately perverted Soviet laws, committed forgeries, falsified investigative documents, criminalized and arrested on trifling grounds and even without any grounds, created “cases” against innocent people for provocative purposes, and at the same time took all measures to in order to shelter and save from defeat their accomplices in the criminal anti-Soviet activities. Such facts took place both in the central apparatus of the NKVD and in the field.
All these marked in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office completely intolerable flaws were possible only because the enemies of the people who had penetrated into the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office tried to tear the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office from the party organs, to ease themselves and his associates the possibility of continuing their anti-Soviet, subversive activities.
In order to decisively eliminate the stated deficiencies and properly organize the investigative work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.) Decide:
1. To prohibit the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office from carrying out any mass arrest and eviction operations. In accordance with Art. 127 Constitution of the USSR, arrests are made only by order of the court or with the approval of the prosecutor. Eviction from the border is allowed in each individual case with the permission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on the special presentation of the relevant regional committee, regional committee or Central Committee of the national communist parties, coordinated with the NKVD of the USSR.
2. Eliminate the judicial trio, created in the order of the special orders of the NKVD of the USSR, as well as the troika at the regional, regional and republican Departments of the RK police. Henceforth, all cases in strict accordance with applicable laws on jurisdiction should be referred to the courts or the Special Meeting under the NKVD of the USSR.
3. When arresting, the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office are guided by the following:
a) approval for arrests to be carried out in strict accordance with the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of 17 June 1935;
b) when requesting arrest warrants from prosecutors - the NKVD bodies are obliged to submit a reasoned decision and all materials justifying the need for arrest;
c) the Prosecutor’s Office bodies are obliged to thoroughly and substantively check the validity of the decisions of the NKVD bodies on arrests, demanding, if necessary, additional investigative actions or submission of additional investigative materials;
d) the Prosecution authorities are obliged to prevent arrests without sufficient grounds.
To establish that for each wrong arrest, along with the employees of the NKVD, the prosecutor who gave the arrest warrant is responsible.
4. Oblige the NKVD authorities during the investigation to exactly comply with all requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In particular:
a) complete the investigation within the time limits established by law;
b) to interrogate those arrested no later than 24 hours after their arrest; after each interrogation, draw up a report immediately in accordance with the requirement of Article 138 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with exact indication of the time of the beginning and end of interrogation.
When reviewing the interrogation report, the prosecutor is obliged to write on the protocol on familiarization with the designation of the hour, day, month and year;
c) documents, correspondence and other items selected during the search should be sealed immediately at the search site, in accordance with Art. 184 UPK, making a detailed inventory of all sealed.
5. Oblige the prosecution authorities to strictly comply with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Codes for the implementation of prosecutorial oversight of the investigation carried out by the NKVD. In accordance with this, prosecutors must be obliged to systematically check that the investigating authorities comply with all the rules for conducting investigations established by law and immediately eliminate violations of these rules; take measures to ensure for the defendant the procedural rights granted to him by law, etc.
6. In connection with the growing role of prosecutorial oversight and the responsibility assigned to the Prosecution authorities for arrests and the investigation carried out by the NKVD bodies, it is necessary to recognize:
a) establish that all prosecutors supervising the investigation carried out by the NKVD bodies are approved by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) upon the presentation of the respective regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the national communist parties and the Prosecutor of the USSR;
b) to oblige the regional committees, regional committees and the Central Committee of the national communist parties to check and submit to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) nominations of all prosecutors supervising the investigation in the NKVD bodies for approval within the 2 month period;
c) oblige the Procurator of the USSR Comrade. Vyshinsky isolated from the staff of the central office of politically verified qualified prosecutors to oversee the investigation conducted by the central office of the NKVD of the USSR, and submit them to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) for a two-decade period.
7. To approve the activities of the NKVD of the USSR to streamline the investigative proceedings in the NKVD, as set out in the order of 23 in October 1938. In particular, to approve the decision of the NKVD to organize special investigative units in the operational departments. Attaching special importance to the proper organization of the investigative work of the NKVD bodies, oblige the NKVD of the USSR to ensure that investigators in the center and in the field have the best, most politically tested and who have recommended themselves to work as qualified party members. Establish that all investigators of the NKVD in the center and in the field are appointed only by order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
8. To oblige the NKVD of the USSR and the Procurator of the USSR to give their local authorities instructions on the exact execution of this resolution.
* * *
The SNK of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) draw the attention of all the workers of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office to the need to decisively address the above-mentioned deficiencies in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office and to the exceptional importance of organizing all investigative and prosecutorial work in new ways.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) warn all NKVD and Prosecutor’s Office workers that for the slightest violation of Soviet laws and Party and Government directives, every employee of the NKVD and the Prosecutor’s Office will be subject to harsh judicial responsibility, regardless of individuals.
Chairman of the board
People's Commissars of the USSR Secretary of the Central
Committee of the CPSU (b)
V. MOLOTOV I. STALIN
November 17 1938 years
No. P 4387
________________________________________
AP RF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 6, l. 85-87;
Yes, not the law is terrible. Terrible lawlessness, elevated to the rank of law! However, it is said: an injustice committed by one servant of the law is to a certain extent dishonorable by the law itself!
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