NKVD command no.00447

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NKVD command no.00447

The NKVD Order No. 00447. (Actually Operative Command of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR no. 00447 "On the operation to repression former kulak , criminal and other anti-Soviet elements" , just as " Kulakenoperation called") was one of the 30 July 1937 Top secret order issued by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) . From August 1937 to November 1938, a total of 800,000 to 820,000 people were arrested on this basis, of whom at least 350,000 - possibly up to 445,000 - were shot, the rest were sent to the Gulag camps. In the process, the quotas that were initially set and differed by region - 233,700 people were to be arrested, 59,200 of whom were to be shot - were exceeded several times. This was the largest of the mass operations of the Great Terror .

The secret order was not published until 1992. The sources found since then for its preparation and implementation reveal that the leadership of the Soviet Union or its Communist Party directly ordered and directed the arrests and mass murder .

At the same time, the previous image that the Great Terror primarily hit social elites had to be revised. Because unlike the public show trials , but just like the less extensive “ national operations ”, the “kulak operation” was directed against simple citizens of the Soviet Union, including farmers, village clergy, people classified as anti-social or criminal and former members of opposition parties. They were convicted not by regular courts , but by troikas - extrajudicial organs that used pseudo-legal procedures.

background

Developments within the Soviet Union

Since the end of the New Economic Policy (1927) and the associated comprehensive plans to change Soviet society, the administrative and police repression of those groups of people who were viewed by the Soviet state and party leadership as social outsiders and enemies increased. The forced collectivization (from 1928) and the deculakization (from 1929) generated local mass protests, unrest and revolts as well as widespread hunger (→  Holodomor , 1932/33). The changes in the agricultural order and the forced industrialization of the Soviet Union led to massive internal migration . At least 23 million people moved from the countryside to the cities between 1926 and 1939, exacerbating the precarious supply situation there. The crime increased considerably.

The party and administration reacted to the social upheaval that had arisen by introducing domestic passes for the urban population. In this way, unwanted “elements” were banned from urban centers and forcibly moved to so-called special or work settlements in inhospitable areas. In particular, people who regarded the Soviet party and state cadres as kulaks made up the majority of the persecuted group of people. From the point of view of the state and police leadership, however, the persecution measures remained incomplete: According to the police, around a third of all ex-kulaks deported at the time , i.e. 600,000 to 700,000 people, fled the exile regions. “Deculacized” farmers had not only fled the regions and special settlements. The "kulak exile" was also only attractive to a minority of those people whose exile period - usually five years - had expired. In three out of four cases they wanted to return to their region of origin or looked for work in the emerging Soviet industry. Flight and emigration threatened to jeopardize the "successes" of the deculakization, which is why they were one of Stalin's primary concerns. According to Nikolai Jeschow , head of the NKVD since autumn 1936, the unpopular group of kulaks endangered the continued existence of the Soviet model of society through various acts of anti-Soviet sabotage .

The general, free, equal and secret elections for the Supreme Soviet scheduled for December 1937 by Josef Stalin worried many leading functionaries . First and foremost, they accused the persecuted church representatives and "kulaks" of joining forces with other "enemies" of Soviet power in order to gain influence over politics in the Soviet Union through election campaigns and the elections themselves. The Stalin Constitution of December 1936 granted the many hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised and persecuted extensive rights on paper. Many local officials feared that the balance of power could develop to the detriment of the Bolsheviks .

Foreign policy factors and conspiracy fears

In addition to this internal social and domestic political constellation, there were also foreign policy factors. The Soviet leadership feared being attacked by aggressively acting foreign powers - especially the German Empire , the Polish Republic and the Japanese Empire . Soviet propaganda carried these fears and assertions into the country: enemies of the people , spies , conspirators , saboteurs and vermin are at work everywhere , weakening the Soviet Union from within. The leadership circle around Stalin was worried that in the event of an attack by foreign powers, the supposed enemies in the interior, led by ex-party members with organizational experience and foreign experts living in the Soviet Union, could initiate insurrection movements that endanger the system . The mass base of the rebellions could be the hundreds of thousands that the Soviet regime had harassed in the past: ex-kulaks, believers, deportees, criminals, socially conspicuous and others. In order to counter this danger preventively, the leaders of the party and the NKVD finally organized the show trials - here the people were presented with scapegoats for the many problems of Soviet economic and everyday life - and above all the secret mass operations of the Great Terror. This was to prevent an anti-Soviet “ fifth column ” from being formed in the event of war .

preparation

Stalin's letter of July 3, 1937

On July 3, 1937, Stalin sent Nikolai Yezhov as well as the regional party leadership and NKVD representatives a resolution that had been taken the day before in the Politburo . This planned to start a nationwide persecution campaign against former kulaks and "criminals". The letter required extensive preparatory measures from the local authorities within five days:

  • Measured by the degree of their dangerousness, the target persons of the campaign should be divided into two categories and registered at regional level. The “most hostile” kulaks and criminals were to be treated as “Category 1” - they were to be sentenced to death and shot. The “less active, but nonetheless hostile” people - they were grouped under “Category 2” - were to be deported .
  • Special courts, so-called troikas, should be set up to judge the target persons. As a rule, they were composed of the regional NKVD representative, the regional party secretary and the public prosecutor of the affected area.
  • Both the number of people listed in "Category 1" or "Category 2" and the composition of the troikas by name should be reported to the management in Moscow within the set deadline.

The structure of the campaign was thus similar to that on which the deculakization had been based. On February 1, 1930, Genrich Jagoda , Yezhov's predecessor in the office of chief of the secret service , had signed OGPU order No. 44/21. This divided the kulaks to be persecuted into three categories and provided for differently defined repression for the persons classified accordingly - persons in “Category 1” could be shot if they showed signs of continued resistance . The troika instrument was also used here.

Rewind

The party and NKVD representatives sent the requested information to the party's Moscow headquarters and the Ministry of the Interior in July 1937. In doing so, they often exceeded the deadline set for them by a considerable amount and expressly only provided preliminary, roughly estimated figures for the two categories of persecution. In the course of July, some regions corrected their numbers - in some cases very significantly - upwards. The highest number of people to be shot and deported was reported by the First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Party Committee, Nikita Khrushchev . On July 10, 1937 he put 41,305 "criminal and kulak elements". He counted 8,500 people to be shot (category 1), 32,805 people were to be banished.

Along with the response letters, Moscow also received requests to expand the target group for the persecution. Corresponding proposals were aimed at prison inmates, members of “ nationalist ” or “ counterrevolutionary ” organizations, White Guards , terrorists , special settlers or labor settlers, “pests”, arsonists or “alumni”, remigrants or “smugglers”. Permission to persecute clergy was also specifically asked. The Politburo generally complied with all special requests and accordingly expanded the title of the NKVD command to include “other anti-Soviet elements”.

Preparatory conferences

Around July 13, 1937, the leadership of the NKVD ordered the heads of the regional NKVD offices to hold a central conference. It took place on July 16 in Moscow and served to coordinate the upcoming mass operation and to clarify open questions. A shorthand or minutes of this conference have not survived. However, testimony from attendees and preparatory materials for this session suggest that conference attendees have been advised that they do not believe the figures for Category 1 and Category 2 in circulation so far as final. However , it is questionable whether the delegates were given permission to torture . The expansion of the target group initially specified by Stalin may also have been an issue.

Further preparatory conferences were held at the regional level until the end of July. For the West Siberian region, for example, at a corresponding meeting in Novosibirsk on July 25, 1937, it was stipulated that the strictest confidentiality obligations were to be observed, how simplifications could be achieved in police investigative practice and the speed at which arrests were to be made. Those present were also advised to choose remote shooting and burial sites. The participants at the meeting in Novosibirsk welcomed the statements about the upcoming mass operation with “stormy approval”.

Michail Frinowski as coordinator

The leading role in the coordination of all preparations, in the drafting and later also in the implementation of the NKVD order No. 00447 was played by Michail Frinowski , Yezhov's deputy. He informed the members of the Politburo about the progress of the planning and received appropriate instructions from this body. Stalin received him three times in July 1937 in his study. Frinowski submitted his draft order to Jeschow on July 30th, who signed the order. Frinowski then sent the order - a 15 or 19 page long typescript - to the head of Stalin's office, Alexander Poskrjobyshev , with a request to forward it to the Politburo. This committee approved the order on July 31, 1937 without changes. On the same day it went to all NKVD leaders in the republics , regions and territories of the USSR.

Operational precursors

Not only the OGPU order No. 44/21 of 1930, but also two repression campaigns of limited scope that had just begun at that time provided structural models for the kulak operation:

The decision of the Politburo of June 28, 1937 "On the exposure of a counter-revolutionary organization in preparation for an uprising among the expelled kulaks in Western Siberia" is a direct harbinger of the kulak order, also because it was planned to use troikas again. The measure was directed against suspected members and supporters of an imagined "Russian General Military Association" (ROVS) in Western Siberia, which was accused of a far-reaching military conspiracy, allegedly led by generals of the White Army from the Russian civil war . A troika had the task of determining the fate of the alleged conspirators. In addition to Robert Eiche , who acted as party secretary of the West Siberian Area Committee, she also included the head of the NKVD West Siberia and the responsible public prosecutor.

On July 25, 1937, Yezhov also signed the secret NKVD order No. 00439 , an order with the official title: "Operation to take repression measures against German citizens suspected of espionage against the USSR". This so-called " German Operation ", a measure of repression against Germans and Soviet citizens of German origin, aimed ostensibly to track down alleged spies of the Nazi regime and to render them harmless.

Content of the command

target group

In the introduction of the order, Yezhov expressed that all persons who were traditional enemies of the communist rulers should be finally eliminated. He wrote that "this whole band of anti-Soviet elements can be broken down without the slightest sparing." Their "vile, corrosive doings" should be put to an end "once and for all". The target group included

  • Former kulaks who have returned from exile after the deadline or who have fled,
  • Members of previous insurgency organizations,
  • former White Guards,
  • former members of non-Bolshevik parties,
  • former members of tsarist punitive organs,
  • former officials of the tsarist empire .

"Socially harmful elements" and "those that are dangerous to the community" supplemented these "alumni". That included

  • repeat offenders,
  • so-called bandits,
  • Professional smuggler,
  • Speculators,
  • Robber,
  • Cattle and horse thieves,
  • Followers of " sects " and church members,
  • other allegedly “ counter-revolutionary ” people who were said to have been active in camps against the Soviet Union.

Quotas and penalties

Opposite revealed the plans to reduce the specified command numbers for categories 1 and 2. A total of 59 republics, regions and territories had reported together 263,076 former kulaks and criminals: 85,511 were for shooting provided and 181562 should be banned. However, the order envisaged a reduction in the number of victims by around 29,000: 59,200 people were in category 1, 174,500 in category 2. The cuts mainly affected territorial units that had reported a total of more than 4,000 people.

The order made it clear that the quoted quotas were only guidelines. At the same time, he forbade unauthorized exceeding of the figures - exceeding the quotas required the approval of the Lubyanka .

Another important change from initial considerations was the level of punishment for those who were classified under Category 2. Stalin's circular of July 3, 1937 provided for deportation to work settlements. The command text, however, announced a sentence of eight to ten years in a camp .

The order also made provisions for the treatment of family members of the persecuted.

Troikas

Troikas were “the terrorist authority par excellence in the history of Soviet mass repression, from the civil war to the Katyn murders ”. The order determined their composition for the individual republics, regions and areas.

The troikas of the "kulak operation" formed the "operational backbone of mass terror" and not only had the same task as the quick courts of the deculakization period, but also in some cases the same members, for example Stanislaw Redens , Yefim Evdokimov , Leonid Sakowski , Vasily Karuzki , Boris Bak , Solomon Bak or Robert Eiche .

The representative of the NKVD presided over it, the members were the local party secretary and the public prosecutor. NKVD staff, in particular the "rapporteur" and the "troika secretary", compiled the material that was before the troikas for decision. This shows the primacy of the NKVD over the representatives of the public prosecutor's office and the party.

The fluctuation among the Troika members was very high at times. Even before the order was carried out, the Politburo dismissed a number of members and appointed new ones. On July 23 and 28, 1937, the complete troikas of the Saratov , Omsk and Ivanovo areas were exchanged. By August 20, 1937, the Politburo ordered personnel changes for 17 other troikas. There were also changes in personnel during the implementation: on November 2, 1937, 15 new Troika chairmen were appointed. Dismissed Troika members became victims of persecution themselves. The total number of members is estimated at around 350 people.

The Moscow center of the NKVD and the party, with its sovereignty over the composition of the troikas, had a means of controlling, radicalizing or even slowing down the work of the local express courts.

examination

The central role in the investigations into those arrested was played by the NKVD heads of the operational sectors, into which all republics, regions and territories were divided. This NKVD cadre checked the compilation of arrest lists, issued the arrest warrant , checked the preliminary investigation and forwarded the completed investigation file with the indictment - often no more than one page of text - to the Troika.

The investigation has been "shortened and simplified". The most elementary standards of constitutional procedures did not come into play: Legal counsel was not provided and a comparison did not take place. Experts were not interviewed and evidence was not systematically obtained or checked. The troika never saw the defendants. Convicts could not appeal . Confessions of the prisoners did not play a central role - in contrast to the trials against members of the Soviet elite.

Time frames and priorities

Different starting times were planned for the persecution. It should generally begin on August 5, 1937, in the Central Asian republics the start was set on August 10, in Eastern Siberia , Krasnoyarsk and in the Far Eastern region the start was scheduled for August 15. The total foreseen duration of the action was four months.

Initially, the campaign should target “Category 1” (death penalty) people. The order stipulated that Yezhov would once again issue separate instructions before proceeding against persons in "Category 2" (camp detention), at least Yezhov had to agree to the start of persecution measures against this group of persons in advance. This provision expressed the practical concern of the terror planners about bottlenecks in camps and prisons: In July 1937 it was not foreseeable when sufficient capacities would be created to accommodate all persons to be deported under Category 2. In some territories, the troikas initially convicted people who had been detained for a long period of time, which was noticeably high. In this way, they literally made room for newcomers. This procedure was permitted by a special command section.

Funding and use of camp inmates

On July 31, 1937, the Politburo instructed the Council of People's Commissars to allocate 75 million rubles from its reserve fund to the NKVD for the mass operation. 25 million rubles of this was earmarked for the cost of rail transport of Category 2 prisoners. 10 million rubles were used to build more camps. The prisoners were to be deployed on already existing large Gulag construction sites, set up new camps or work in the timber industry .

implementation

Implementing provisions

Operational Order No. 00447 set the framework for the persecution campaign. A series of written implementation provisions specified it. For example, Yezhov laid down the rules according to which Gulag prisoners were to be shot. While NKVD Order No. 00447 had given a total of 10,000 Gulag inmates, the number of shootings in the Gulag system at the end of the campaign in November 1938 amounted to 30,178 people.

Execution orders also regulated the executions in special prisons ("political isolators") - those people who were considered the "bitterest enemies of Soviet power" were held there. Here, too, the number of executions and the duration of the measure exceeded the plan.

Not only Moscow formulated implementing provisions: It is known that the Ukrainian People's Commissar for Interior, Israil Leplewski , also set specific accents with his instructions. For example, he demanded to strike in particular where rail accidents had accumulated, because he suspected sabotage and conspiracies there. He also focused the terror on the church and "sects".

Phases

According to the orders, the kulak operation was to end in early December 1937. This date was postponed again to the end of December 1937 in early December. In retrospect, however, the turn of the year did not mark the end of the campaign, but only marked the end of the first phase.

After the execution numbers had soared at the end of the previous year, at the beginning of 1938 there was a certain uncertainty in the Troikas as to how to proceed. There were also voices within the NKVD to end the arbitrariness associated with meeting the quotas. Such opinions were quickly suppressed by reprimands, peer pressure and disciplinary proceedings. Several cadres within the prosecution also sought to gain control of the Troika judgment practices. Such isolated initiatives also occurred because the public prosecutor's office received complaints about the judgments of the Troikas and Dwoikas against party cadres and members of the nomenklatura . The uncertainty caused the Soviet General Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky to write a circular instructing the prosecutor to only examine such judgments in exceptional cases.

As early as January 8, 1938, Frinowski demanded in a circular that the future direction of the kulak campaign should be concentrated on the railroad, where there was a lot of “pest work”. In fact, at the beginning of 1938, it was not the end of the operation, but the beginning of its second phase. A Politburo resolution of January 31, 1938 officially initiated the second phase of the kulak operation. Depending on the region, it should last until April 1, 1938 at the latest. The resolution suggested by Stalin assigned new victim contingents to selected territories: 48,000 people were to be shot (category 1), 9,200 more expected imprisonment (category 2). The campaign radicalized in the new year. In some areas, almost without exception, death sentences were passed. For example, from January 1 to August 1, 1938 , the Troikas of Ukraine and the Troika of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic sentenced 830 people to camp imprisonment, and 36,393 people received the death penalty.

One factor that made the terror campaign particularly severe in Ukraine was the change in political leadership and in the NKVD: Khrushchev took over the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine on January 27, 1938 , and Alexander Uspensky became People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. "Anti-Soviet elements" were also persecuted particularly heavily in the Far Eastern region. On July 27, 1938, Frinowski, who visited this area on business, asked for the quotas to be increased; his letter provided for 15,000 more shootings and 5,000 more prison sentences. The Politburo in Moscow approved both four days later.

In the second phase of the execution of the order from January to November 1938, the perpetrators concentrated their efforts on the "other anti-Soviet elements"; their proportion of those persecuted increased significantly, while the proportion of “criminals” fell considerably. The international situation, which is increasingly perceived as a real threat, was reflected in a significantly intensified search for and identification of "internal enemies" who could be of service to foreign powers. Former Social Revolutionaries stood out among the now increasingly repressed target groups . Stalin himself wrote to Jeschow on January 17, 1938, urging him to continue persecuting her.

Assembly line justice, competition and quota increases

The troikas did assembly line work. Troika minutes repeatedly show how many charges were decided per session: on October 9, 1937, for example, the Leningrad Troika passed 658 death sentences relating to prisoners in the special prisons on the Solovetsky Islands . The Troika for the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic passed 256 death sentences on October 28, 1937, and 202 on January 6, 1938. On November 20, 1937, the Troika of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic processed 705 indictments, in 629 cases it ruled on the death penalty . On the same day, the Krasnodar Troika sentenced 1,252 people. The Omsk Troika passed 1,301 sentences on October 10, 1937, of which 937 were death sentences; on March 15, 1938 there were 1,014, of which 354 were death sentences.

At a very early stage of the kulak operation, the local rulers asked for an increase in the quotas allocated to them. A major reason for these requests was the endeavor of new Troika chairmen to be “more true to the line” and more radical than their deposed predecessors. In addition, many troikas viewed the repression campaign as a competition for higher target and success numbers. In Omsk, the troika chairman, who had been newly enthroned on July 28, 1937, in his letter of August 1, 1937 to the Lubyanka, demanded an increase in quotas. He justified this with the " Stakhanov work " that had meanwhile been carried out , which had led to the arrest of 3008 people, all of whom were intended for executions.

colored scan of the telegram with signatures
On April 26, 1938, the Irkutsk representatives of the party and the NKVD asked the Central Committee in Moscow by telegram to increase the quota of people to be shot under NKVD order No. 00447 by 4,000. This request was granted on April 29, 1938 by the Politburo. (For more see picture description.)

In the course of the kulak operation, a literal flood of requests broke through the Moscow party headquarters and, above all, the Lubyanka to raise the upper limits - sometimes drastically. Frequently, local rulers - such as the Ukrainian People's Commissar for Home Affairs - sent such requests several times, asking for a further increase. Moscow complied with these requests almost entirely. So far, no case is known of local rulers daring to stay below the upper limits set in NKVD Order No. 00447, although this order expressly provided for such a possibility. Similar to the planning requirements in the Soviet economic system, the quotas for the arrests by the NKVD officials in the province were met or exceeded.

Whether the increase in the upper limits came about solely on the initiative “from below” or whether initiatives by the party and NKVD headquarters also played a role is an open question. On October 15, 1937, the Politburo decided to increase the number of people to be persecuted by 120,000; 63,000 of them were to be executed and 57,000 were to be detained in a camp. To what extent this decision represented a reaction to previously articulated regional wishes is open.

Regional differences

The order was carried out differently from region to region. The subordinate NKVD actors used the possibilities that were open to them within the specified enemy categories. Typically, the perpetrators on the ground directed the campaign particularly against those who they considered to be the relevant problem group. Whenever possible, they used the kulak operation as an opportunity to get rid of these groups.

In Perm Rajon , for example, the "special settlers" who had previously been forcibly settled in this area were hit particularly hard: every third convict there belonged to this group. In Western Siberia , the simultaneous fight against the ROVS played a major role. In the Donetsk region , the campaign was primarily directed against marginalized groups. In the Kiev area, on the other hand, members of religious communities and secessionists from the Russian Orthodox Church were particularly affected.

In the rural Altai region , alleged “troublemakers” in collective farms and sovkhozes were targeted by the NKVD. The proximity to the border and the memory of the Sorokino peasant uprising also played a role in the execution of the order: at the beginning of 1921, around 5,000 to 10,000 peasants took part in that anti-communist rebellion. Anyone who was said to have participated in this peasant uprising in the Altai region had to expect a significant increase in penalties. In this region, 46 percent of all those convicted under NKVD order No. 00447 were executed, including 70 percent of those who were accused of participating in the Sorokino peasant uprising. The fight against crime was a priority in Leningrad and the Yaroslavl Oblast .

In the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic there have been no arrests under NKVD Order No. 00447. This region was left out of the order because the responsible NKVD chief had credibly demonstrated that no kulaks and spies were active in his area of ​​responsibility. Arrests in Yakutia were the result of national operations.

Reporting

The order stipulated that reports from the republics, regions and territories were to be made every five days on the progress of activities - summarized by telex and detailed by mail. The heads of the local NKVD organs were responsible for this. The headquarters in Moscow emphasized these reports and prepared them into overviews. 36 central collective reports have been handed down for the entire implementation period.

Moscow not only asked for numbers, but also for assessments of how the local population reacted to the repression. In addition, Jeschow asked for information on whether "counter-revolutionary groups" and weapons could be used in the course of the campaign. This query showed his interest in exposing conspiracies and organized crime or organized resistance.

Yezhov instructed the NKVD organs in the republics, regions and territories to conduct a summary account. Initially, December 15, 1937 was the deadline for submission, but this date was postponed to January 15, 1938 at short notice. The central statistics of the campaign showed the following figures as of December 31, 1937: 555,641 people had been arrested by then. 553,362 of them were sentenced, of which 239,252 were sentenced to death. 314,110 people received prison sentences. 14,600 prisoners who were in the gulag or in prisons before the kulak operation began, had been executed.

Investigation and filing

Each arrest was based on an arrest warrant. In many cases, this was based on lists that had been drawn up beforehand, often in great haste. In searches, polluting materials were found comparatively rarely. Local officials - in the country usually the chairman of the village council or his secretary, in the city often the caretaker - often countersigned the conduct of the search.

The questioning of the arrested was aimed at the social conditions of the arrested and his political past. Questions about the criminal past and immediate relatives were also of interest.

In many cases, the NKVD checked the information provided by the arrested person by commissioning the city or village soviet to provide an expert opinion on him. Statements about social origin, political past and attitudes as well as work ethic were particularly important here. If available, the investigators also consulted previous materials about the arrested person, primarily police or secret service files.

As a rule, witness statements can also be found in the investigation files. It was often the beneficiaries of the system, such as kolkhoz chairmen or party members, who made themselves available as witnesses, informants or informers .

The NKVD officials used the information available to compile the indictment. The reporter - an NKVD employee of the militia or the secret service - prepared a short version of it, the so-called Troika protocol, which was presented to the Troika.

If the convicts were shot, the investigation file also contains documents attesting to the execution. Provided that representatives of the authorities dealt with the question of rehabilitation of the convicted person in the following years or decades, the investigation files also contain - usually brief - notes on this.

The analysis of the investigation files shows that the kulak operation was by no means an arbitrary act, more or less random violence, but rather a bureaucratically organized campaign. This should promote the implementation of the socialist society of Stalinist character. In the investigation files, the planned state-terrorist measure for the final cleansing of the Soviet society of those "elements" that did not want to identify with the state goals is reflected.

Control instruments

The local rulers of the NKVD were freed from classic control mechanisms. The public prosecutor's office or the country’s official courts did not have to be called in, nor did Moscow have to seek confirmation before the execution of the sentence, unlike in the case of the “national operations” of the Great Terror.

At no time did the campaign slip away from the center of the party and the NKVD. Their levers were the reporting system, the sovereignty over the composition of the troikas and the decision-making power over raising upper limits.

graduation

Ezhov's disempowerment

From August 1938, there were increasing signs that the Great Terror and with it the "Kulak Operation" were drawing to a close. Lavrenti Beria took over the position of deputy of Yezhov on August 22nd. In addition, on October 8, 1938, a commission consisting of Jeschow, Beria, Wyschinski, Georgi Malenkow and Nikolai Rytschkow was constituted , which drafted a draft resolution with which arrests, the supervision of the public prosecutor and the investigation procedure should be reorganized. Little by little, confidants of Beria took over management functions of the NKVD.

On November 15, 1938, the Politburo approved the directive drafted by the Commission. It stipulated that from November 16, 1938 until further notice, all negotiations of criminal matters by the Troikas, the military tribunals and the military college of the Supreme Court of the USSR should be suspended. This resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Party, signed by Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov , is dated November 17. It went to all local heads of the NKVD, the party secretaries and the senior public prosecutors of all territorial divisions of the Soviet Union. The terror ended as it began: with a decision by the Politburo.

It is not known how this U-turn and with it the end of the terror under NKVD order no. 00447 came about.

Beria took over the leadership of the NKVD on November 25, 1938. Yezhov was blamed for excesses in the wake of the Great Terror, arrested on April 10, 1939, and executed on February 4, 1940.

Criticism of mistakes and distortions

In the November directive, Stalin and Molotov first highlighted the “successes” of the repression campaigns. However, they then denounced “the most serious mistakes and distortions”. According to Stalin and Molotov, "enemies" had managed to penetrate the NKVD and the prosecutor's office and remove these institutions from the party's control.

As a result, the decision of November 17, 1938 not only stopped the Great Terror, it also made the NKVD a scapegoat.

Victim record

In the run-up to his secret speech on the XX. CPSU party congress (1956) had state and party leader Nikita Khrushchev compile statistics on all victims of Stalinism. She listed more than 1.5 million arrests in the wake of the Great Terror, of which more than 680,000 resulted in executions. These figures, however, do not include all the victims of that year-long "arrest and murder campaign", as deaths from torture or during pre-trial detention were just as neglected as unauthorized, unauthorized excesses of quotas, for example for the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic .

Today's Russian historians estimate that almost 820,000 people were arrested in the "kulak operation" alone, of which 437,000 to 445,000 were shot. Others give around 800,000 people arrested and around 350,000 to 400,000 shot dead.

The proportion of executions in the "kulak operation" was 50.4 percent of all sentences passed on the basis of the NKVD order No. 00447, while in the "national operations" over 70 percent of the convicts were regularly - sometimes significantly - executed .

The Gulag prisons, camps and special settlements were often overcrowded due to the simultaneous or rapidly successive acts of terrorism and persecution. The number of inmates grew from 786,595 on July 1, 1937 to 1,126,500 on February 1, 1938 to 1,317,195 on January 1, 1939. As a result, the already inhumane living conditions of the Gulags deteriorated even further. In 1937, according to official Soviet statistics, 33,499 prisoners died there, a year later 126,585. During the deportations and transports between Gulag bases, 38,000 more people died in 1938 than in 1937. According to the statistics at the time, the rate of those unable to work due to illness, disability or emaciation was more than nine percent in 1938 , i.e. over 100,000 people. In 1939 around 150,000 inmates were unable to work, not including disabled people.

Prosecution and rehabilitation

Purge of the NKVD

Yezhov's successor Beria "cleaned up" the NKVD and in 1939 forced over 7,000 employees (over 22 percent of all) to quit their duties. From the end of 1938 to the end of 1939 he had a total of 1,364 NKVD members arrested and, in addition, almost all NKVD leaders at republic and regional administration level were replaced. Particularly higher-ranking NKVD cadres were shot.

Beria rehabilitated some victims of the Yezhov era. At the same time, the fight against “pests”, “conspirators” and “enemies” continued under his direction, using the same methods that other NKVD employees were accused of. However, the extent of the persecution declined because the guidelines of the political leadership around Stalin had changed. In addition, there were no more mass operations.

Many Troika members were repressed themselves. Sufficient biographical data could be determined in 169 cases up to 2009. 47 NKVD representatives, 67 party members and two representatives of the public prosecutor's office were sentenced to death.

Rehabilitation of Victims

Discussions about the rehabilitation of victims of terrorism began during Stalin's lifetime in the years 1939 to 1941, without this term having appeared in the official pronouncements and documents. The question of whether there should be revision procedures and how they should be designed was discussed . Corresponding orders and circulars stipulated that the decision as to whether a judgment should be revised had to be made by the previous NKVD perpetrators. The prosecution held back and intervened in only a few proceedings. From November 1938 to 1941 the decision on appeals for revision was increasingly centralized. Individual requests were hardly processed in a differentiated manner due to the lack of time and overload of the responsible departments. When people were released from custody, they continued to be targeted by the "organs".

Revision proceedings rarely resulted in the development of new evidence. Often only other “witnesses” were questioned by the NKVD. Their statements were mostly seen as confirmation of the file situation. Identified formal errors in the original arrest and investigation proceedings did not automatically lead to the annulment of the relevant judgment. Overall, judgments and releases from prison remained a rare exception.

Immediately after Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, Beria ordered relief from the overcrowded and uneconomical gulag camps. On March 27, 1953, 1.2 million prisoners were released. “Political” prisoners were not given amnesty , but those who were supposed to no longer pose a threat to society and whose detention was based on violations of general legal provisions of the Soviet Union. After Beria's arrest on June 26, 1953, the new leadership around Khrushchev continued this policy. Special committees examined the files of those convicted of “counterrevolutionary crimes”. Members of these committees were high officials of the secret service and members of the public prosecutor's office - both perpetrator institutions of the “national operations” and the kulak operation. The appraisers looked through around 237,000 files from people who were imprisoned on the basis of Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federal Socialist Soviet Republic (RSFSR) - this corresponded to a rate of 45 percent of all detainees who were persecuted on the basis of this regulation. 53 percent of all assessed judgments were confirmed. 43 percent of all sentences were reduced, so that those affected were released from custody. Four percent of all judgments were overturned.

In the second half of 1955 there were amnesties that also affected the "political". At the end of 1955, the total number of all Gulag prisoners, not only due to the Great Terror, but also to further persecution and arrest campaigns, including the massive camp penalties imposed on voluntarily and involuntarily repatriated Soviet citizens after the end of the Second World War , was around 2, 5 million (1950), below a million for the first time in 20 years. Shortly before the beginning of the XX. At the CPSU party congress, the number of political prisoners was around 110,000. At the end of the party congress, a commission re-examined the judgments made on the basis of Article 58. By the end of 1956, around 100,000 people had been released from the Gulag. In early 1957, only about 15,000 people were imprisoned under Article 58. This means that 20 years after its end, the last imprisoned victims of the Great Terror were free again. The authorities had previously systematically extended their sentences through "extensions". Up until the 1980s, relatives of people who were executed during the Great Terror were always given false information on request that the person in question had died in the labor camp. The true date and place of death were not communicated to the relatives until after 1989.

Even during and after perestroika , the authorities did not generally overturn the judgments made during the months of the Great Terror as injustices. According to the Russian Rehabilitation Act of October 18, 1991, there is only the possibility of rehabilitation for prisoners who have been convicted of “political crimes”. Convictions for “criminal” acts usually remain final. At best, the severe sentence is classified as an injustice. The enormous expansion of the definition of crime in the 1930s is not taken into account.

Research, meaning, commemoration

Publication and Research

The Russian daily Trud first published the order, with minor omissions, on June 4, 1992. Further documents on the mass operations of the Great Terror appeared in the Russian weekly newspaper Moskowskije Novosti on July 21, 1992. At this point, preparations were underway for a comprehensive indictment against the CPSU . Until then, the mass operations were all completely secret. Even during his secret speech in 1956, Khrushchev, who was one of the perpetrators of the kulak operation, did not mention it at all.

Research into mass operations has greatly changed the picture of Stalinist violence. Robert Conquest's 1968 study of the Great Terror and the work of the so-called revisionists that responded to it concentrated - because all documents on the mass operations were Soviet state secrets - on the persecution of members of the elite. However, it was only the "tip of the iceberg".

Even the incomplete and temporary opening of some archives made it possible to open up important documents on mass terror and also on the kulak operation. Source editions are now available in various languages. As the most comprehensive mass operation of the Great Terror, the kulak operation is no longer a secret; rather, it is mentioned in many accounts of the history of Stalinism and the history of the Soviet Union .

The sum of the sources now known about the kulak operation is unusually high. There are also those who expressly identify the leadership of the state and party as the author of criminal prosecution and mass murder .

Planning and centrality

The finds and the interpretation of the new sources made it difficult for “revisionist” positions, which Stalin and his closest followers believed in a weak position. The documents showed that the leadership of the CPSU, especially Stalin, started, directed, and ended the campaigns. The determination of the terrorist targets and victim groups was also not arbitrary and coincidental, but resulted from systematic considerations. The implementation of the terror campaigns also followed clear bureaucratic guidelines.

Final answers to the historiographical issue of who set the tone in the interaction between the center and the periphery have not yet been formulated. The thesis of a dominance of the periphery in the Great Terror is increasingly on the defensive. Research on the implementation of NKVD order No. 00447 in the Soviet province showed that Moscow's influence remained decisive, although the Politburo and the Lubyanka gave the local persecuting organs considerable leeway. If it can be assumed that the kulak operation will become independent, one must speak of a “controlled or calculated independence”.

Historical classification

A number of researchers view the "kulak operation" as part of a violent policy that reacted to the consequences of the radical restructuring of Soviet society deliberately brought about by the Bolsheviks. In the first half of the 1930s, this large-scale reconstruction included forced industrialization, forced collectivization and deculakization, and campaigns to clean up the cities with the help of inland passes. The Great Terror reacted to the unintended consequences of this "second revolution". It was a matter of freeing the young Soviet society from its blatant contradictions by means of violent campaigns. The rulers tried to realize the dream of a homogeneous social and national order by force in order to produce the new Soviet man from the annihilation of the old man. In this sense, the violence of the Great Terror, to which NKVD Order No. 00447 contributed a substantial part, is sometimes understood as a project of social engineering .

For the American historian J. Arch Getty , the command, which he calls “one of the most chilling documents in modern history”, has an epoch-making significance. The American economic historian Paul R. Gregory describes it as the most brutal government decision of the 20th century. In clear language and without euphemisms , as they were typical for mass crimes of the National Socialists , this document formulates the logic and procedure of the mass crimes of Stalin, without attempting to hide the deadly intentions behind them.

The majority of genocide researchers and Eastern Europe historians expressly refuse to speak of genocide with reference to the kulak operation and the Great Terror . The American historian Norman Naimark, however, suggests an expansion of the conventional genocide term that would be suitable to characterize several of the great violence campaigns in Soviet history - including the Great Terror with the kulak operation - as genocide. It has been clearly contradicted here. Naimark's colleague Ronald Grigor Suny calls the Great Terror a "political Holocaust ". The German historians of Eastern Europe Jörg Baberowski and Karl Schlögel see the violence of the mass operations of the Great Terror as an attempt to create "a Soviet variant of the 'final solution'" or the expression of the "idea of ​​a final solution to the social question " . This comparison with the historically later German final solution to the Jewish question has not remained without contradiction.

memory

The private memories of those affected of the Great Terror took a back seat to the collective experiences of the Soviet Union in World War II: The “ Great Patriotic War ” cost at least 20 million Soviet war dead. At the same time, the victory of the Red Army over fascism began the rise of the Soviet Union to a superpower .

After the collapse of the Soviet Union , memorial books for the victims of Stalinism were created in many places . The Moscow headquarters of the human rights organization Memorial has an extensive collection of these knigi pamiati . They also list the victims of NKVD Order No. 00447.

These books list the basic biographical data of the persecuted: place and date of birth, occupation, nationality and place of residence. The information also includes information about the arrest, the sentence, the institution of the judgment and the execution. Often the memorial books also contain data on the victim's social origin, education, party membership and criminal record.

In addition, a number of execution sites and mass graves of the Great Terror have been identified since the mid-1990s. In these places, such as the NKVD objects in Butowo or Kommunarka near Moscow, efforts are being made to commemorate the victims of mass terror.

Literature, web links and references

Studies on NKVD Order No. 00447

  • Rolf Binner, Marc Junge: How terror got “big”. In: Cahiers du monde russe , vol. 42 (2001) H, 2-4, pp. 557-613 ( PDF ; accessed on April 12, 2010).
  • Rolf Binner, Marc Junge: "S etoj publikoj ceremonit´sja ne sleduet". The target groups of command no. 00447 and the great terror from the perspective of command no. 00447. In: Cahiers du monde russe , vol. 43 (2002) H, 1, pp. 181–228 ( PDF ; accessed on April 12 2010).
  • Rolf Binner, Bernd Bonwetsch , Marc Junge: mass murder and imprisonment. The other story of the great terror (publications of the German Historical Institute Moscow, vol. 1), Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-05-004662-4 .
  • Rolf Binner, Bernd Bonwetsch, Marc Junge (eds.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province 1937–1938. The mass action due to operational order No. 00447 (publications of the German Historical Institute Moscow, vol. 2), Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-05-004685-3 .
  • Michal Ellman: Regional Influences on the Formulation and Implementation of NKVD Order 00447. In: Europe-Asia Studies , Vol. 62 (2010), H. 6, pp. 915-931.
  • Paul R. Gregory: Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives , Hoover Institution Press, Stanford / Calif. 2008, ISBN 978-0-8179-4812-2 , here pp. 43–61 (PDF; accessed on March 31, 2010; 137 kB).
  • Viktor Ivanov: The Criminals as a Target Group in the Leningrad Region , in: Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (Ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 217–233.
  • Evgenija Jusopova: Action against the participants in the Sorokino uprising in the Altaj , in: Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 91-109.
  • Andrej Suslov: Special settlers as victims of the "kulak operation" in the Perm Rayon of the Sverdlovsk region , in: Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 111-131.
  • Aleksej Tepljakov: The role of the NKVD of the West Siberian Region , in: Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 421–457.

further reading

  • Natal'ja Ablažej: The ROVS operation in the West Siberian region , in: Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 287–308.
  • Jörg Baberowski : The red terror. The history of Stalinism. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-421-05486-X .
  • Bernd Bonwetsch: The "Great Terror" - 70 years later. In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte , 9th year 2008, no. 1, pp. 123-145.
  • Oleg Vitalievich Khlevnyuk : The Politburo. Mechanisms of Political Power in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. From the Russ. by Ruth and Heinz Germany, Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-930908-38-7 .
  • Oleg Chlewnjuk: The Reasons for the "Great Terror": the Foreign-Political Aspect , in: Silvio Pons and Andrea Romano (Eds.): Russia in the Age of Wars 1914–1945 , Feltrinelli, Milano 2000, ISBN 88-07- 99055-5 , pp. 159-169.
  • Oleg V. Khlevniuk: The History of the Gulag. From Collectivization to the Great Terror . Translation by Vadim A. Staklo. With ed. Assistance and commentary by David J. Nordlander. Foreword by Robert Conquest , Yale Univ. Press, New Haven [et al. a.] 2004, ISBN 0-300-09284-9 .
  • Wladislaw Hedeler (Hrsg.): Stalinscher Terror 1934-41. A research balance sheet, Basisdruck, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86163-127-X .
  • Manfred Hildermeier : History of the Soviet Union 1917–1991. Origin and decline of the first socialist state , Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43588-2 .
  • Marc Jansen, Nikita Petrov : Stalin's loyal executioner. People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov , 1895–1940, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford / Calif. 2002, ISBN 0-8179-2902-9 , Free Preview .
  • Leonid Luks : History of Russia and the Soviet Union. From Lenin to Yeltsin , Pustet, Regensburg 2000, ISBN 3-7917-1687-5 .
  • Barry McLoughlin : "Destruction of the Foreign": The "Great Terror" in the USSR 1937/38. New Russian publications , in: Weber, Mählert (Ed.), Verbrechen im Namen der Idee , pp. 77–123 and pp. 303–312 (first publication in the Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism , 2001/2002, pp. 50–88).
  • Norman M. Naimark : Stalin and the Genocide . From the American by Kurt Baudisch. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-42201-4 .
  • Nikita Ochotin, Arsenij Roginskij : On the history of the "German operation" of the NKVD 1937–1938. In: Weber, Mählert (ed.), Verbrechen im Namen der Idee , pp. 143–189 and 316–319 (first publication in the Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung , 2000/2001, pp. 89–125).
  • Nikita Petrow : The cadre policy of the NKVD during the mass repressions 1936–39 ; in: Hedeler (Ed.), Stalinscher Terror 1934–41 , pp. 11–32.
  • Karl Schlögel : Terror and Dream. Moscow 1937 , Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23081-1 .
  • David R. Shearer: Policing Stalin's socialism. Repression and social order in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953 (The Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War) , Yale University Press, New Haven [u. a.] 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-14925-8 .
  • Lynne Viola : The Unknown Gulag. The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements , Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-518769-4 .
  • Hermann Weber , Ulrich Mählert (Ed.): Crimes in the name of the idea. Terror in Communism 1936–1938 , Aufbau-Taschenbuch, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7466-8152-8 .
  • Nicolas Werth : A state against its people. Violence, Oppression and Terror in the Soviet Union. In: Stéphane Courtois , Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin. Collaboration: Rémi Kauffer, Pierre Rigoulot, Pascal Fontaine, Yves Santamaria, Sylvain Boulouque: The Black Book of Communism . Oppression, crime and terror. With a chapter "The processing of the GDR" by Joachim Gauck and Ehrhard Neubert. Translated from the French by Irmela Arnsperger, Bertold Galli, Enrico Heinemann, Ursel Schäfer, Karin Schulte-Bersch, Thomas Woltermann. Piper. Munich / Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-492-04053-5 , pp. 51–295 and 898–911.
  • Nicolas Werth: Histoire d'un “pré-rapport secret”. Audaces et silences de la Commission Pospelov, January – February 1956 . In: Communisme (2001-07 / 12) n ° 67/68, pp. 9-38.
  • Nicolas Werth: Les “opérations de masse” de la “Grande Terreur” en URSS, 1937–1938 (Bulletin de l'Institut d'histoire du temps présent), 86 (2006) ( online access , accessed December 9, 2010).
  • Nicolas Werth: The importance of the “Great Terror” within the Stalinist repression. Attempting a balance sheet , in: Weber, Mählert (Ed.), Verbrechen im Namen der Idee , pp. 269–280 and pp. 336–339. (First publication in the Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung , 2006, pp. 247-257.)
  • Nicolas Werth: L'Ivrogne et la Marchande de fleurs. Autopsy d'un meurtre de masse, 1937–1938 , Tallandier, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-84734-573-5 .

Web links

Wikisource: NKVD Order No. 00447  - Sources and Full Texts (Russian)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the historical background of the command, see Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 3 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  2. ^ For example, Werth, Ein Staat gegen seine Volk , pp. 214 f .; Luks, History of Russia and the Soviet Union , p. 256.
  3. ↑ Schlögel, Terror und Traum , p. 81.
  4. ↑ For the introduction and meaning of these passports, see Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , pp. 243–284.
  5. ↑ Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 3 (accessed on August 24, 2010); Werth, Les "opérations de masse" , p. 11.
  6. ^ Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag , p. 157.
  7. ^ Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag , p. 155.
  8. ↑ See his introductory remarks in NKVD Order No. 00447.
  9. ↑ See J. Arch Getty, "Excesses Are Not Permitted". Mass Terror and Stalinist Governance in the Late 1930s , in: Russian Review , Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan. 2002), pp. 113-138, here pp. 122-127. See also Schlögel, Terror und Traum , p. 266 and Karl Schlögel, review of: Goldman, Wendy Z .: Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin. The Social Dynamics of Repression , Cambridge 2007, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, October 9, 2009 . Also Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 297.
  10. ↑ On the importance of foreign policy aspects, see Khlevniuk, Reasons for the "Great Terror" .
  11. ↑ On the rhetoric of an omnipresent conspiracy, see Gábor T. Rittersporn: The Omnipresent Conspiracy: On Soviet Imagery of Politics and Social Relations in the 1930s . In: Nick Lampert and Gábor T. Rittersporn (Eds.): Stalinism. Its nature and aftermath. Essays in honor of Moshe Lewin . ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY 1992, ISBN 0-87332-876-0 , pp. 101-120.
  12. ↑ See comprehensively Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , pp. 299-319.
  13. ↑ The relevant excerpt from Stalin's letter to Jeschow is reproduced in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 52 f. Explanations on this p. 17. See also Schlögel, Terror und Traum , p. 627.
  14. ↑ On this, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 3 (accessed on August 24, 2010). See also Werth, Ein Staat gegen seine Volk , pp. 165 f.
  15. ↑ Cf. Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 19–24.
  16. ↑ Khrushchev's report is printed in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 72. Commentary on this, p. 25.
  17. ↑ This refers to former functionaries of the tsarist empire, landowners and members of non-Bolshevik parties.
  18. ↑ For the wishes of the periphery, see Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 25–29.
  19. ↑ The invitation to the Ukrainian People's Commissar of the Interior was issued on July 13, 1937. See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 31, fn. 58. Whether other officials were also invited to travel to Moscow on July 13, is unclear.
  20. ↑ It was planned to hold this conference in two groups. The date for the second group and the corresponding records have not yet been determined (as of 2009).
  21. ↑ Excerpt from the corresponding conference stenogram in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 99-102.
  22. ↑ To emphasize the strictest confidentiality obligations at this meeting see Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 335 f. It is unclear why the perpetrators and those who knew about it were obliged to maintain strict confidentiality (see Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 337).
  23. ↑ For the preparatory meetings in Moscow and at the regional level, see Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 29–35; Baberowski, Der Rote Terror , p. 192.
  24. ↑ Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 337. Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 35. The later testimony of a meeting participant is referred to and cited here.
  25. ↑ The order can be found in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft in a complete German translation on pp. 106–120. There, on p. 36, the length of the command is given as 19 pages. A length of 15 pages is mentioned in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , p. 11.
  26. ↑ On the role of Frinowski cf. Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 36.
  27. ↑ Lynne Viola calls the kulak operation a "second deculakization". See the same, The Unknown Gulag , pp. 159-166.
  28. ↑ On this, Chlewnjuk, Das Politbüro , pp. 271 f.
  29. ↑ On the operation against the ROVS and its relationship to terror on the basis of the NKVD order No. 00447 see Natal'ja Ablažej, The ROVS Operation in the West Siberian Region . For the pioneering role of West Siberian party and NKVD cadres see also Aleksej Tepljakov, Die Rolle des NKVD der West Siberian Region , in particular p. 428. See also Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , pp. 299-302 and 332 f. See also Ellman, Regional Influences , p. 917 f.
  30. ↑ Jörg Baberowski: Civilization of violence. The cultural origins of Stalinism . In: Historische Zeitschrift , Volume 281, Issue 1 (August 2005), pp. 59–102, here p. 90.
  31. ↑ To this Ochotin, Roginskij, On the history of the "German operation" .
  32. ↑ Quoted from Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 108.
  33. ↑ See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 42 f. For possible reasons for reducing regional quotas, see Ellman, Regional Influences , p. 922.
  34. ↑ See section II.3 of the command.
  35. ↑ See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 43.
  36. ↑ See section II.4 of the command.
  37. ↑ Binner, Junge: How terror became “big” , p. 568.
  38. ↑ Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag , p. 162.
  39. ↑ Cf. Binner, Junge: How terror became “big” , p. 568.
  40. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge: Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 417.
  41. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge: Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 411–416.
  42. ↑ On this, Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge: Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 48 f. and 697. See also the comprehensive list of Troika members, ibid, pp. 683–697.
  43. ^ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge: Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 418.
  44. ↑ Binner, Junge, How Terror Was “Big” , p. 46.
  45. ↑ Section IV.1 of the command.
  46. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 420.
  47. ↑ Binner, Junge, How Terror Was “Big” , p. 46.
  48. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 49 and p. 405.
  49. ↑ On this, Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , p. 46.
  50. ↑ Binner, Junge, How Terror Was “Big” , p. 567.
  51. ↑ See section III.2 of the command.
  52. ↑ See sections I.5 and I.7 of the command. For the background, see Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 45 f. and Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 343.
  53. ↑ See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 50 and 121 f.
  54. ↑ On this, Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 132-139.
  55. ↑ Information on his person in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 795.
  56. ↑ On the situation at the turn of the year 1937/1938 see Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 289–291.
  57. ↑ Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 4 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  58. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 291–292. See also Ellman, Regional Influences , p. 923.
  59. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 299.
  60. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 299. Frinowski's letter is reproduced there (p. 347 f.).
  61. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 293–294.
  62. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 49 f. and p. 406 f.
  63. ^ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 141. It was about Grigori Fjodorowitsch Gorbatsch. On him see Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , pp. 347 f .; Biographical information in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 785.
  64. ↑ On this, Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 144–148.
  65. ↑ See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 141. For the possibility of falling below the limit mentioned in the order, see Section II.3.
  66. ↑ Naimark, Stalin and the Genocide , p. 113.
  67. ↑ Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 4 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  68. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (Ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , p. 39.
  69. ↑ Andrej Suslov: Special settlers as victims , p. 118.
  70. ↑ Natal'ja Ablažej: The ROVS-operation in the West Siberian region.
  71. ↑ Jusopova, Action against the participants in the Sorokino uprising , pp. 92 f., 97 and 108 f.
  72. ↑ See Ivanov, The Criminals as a Target Group in the Leningrad Region.
  73. ^ Ellman, Regional Influences , p. 929.
  74. ↑ See section VII.3 of the command.
  75. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 129.
  76. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 129 f.
  77. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 130 f.
  78. ↑ Figures from Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 162.
  79. ^ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 359–361, Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , p. 334.
  80. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 361.
  81. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 362–363.
  82. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 363–365.
  83. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 367–369.
  84. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 369.
  85. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 374–375. On the Troika protocols and the role of the rapporteur in them, see ibid. Pp. 411–413.
  86. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 376.
  87. ^ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 358 and p. 419 f. On p. 358 there is the phrase “state terrorist rationality”. Ellman ( Regional Influences , p. 930) also speaks of "state terror".
  88. ↑ For the meaning of this regulation see Shearer, Policing Stalin's socialism , pp. 337–339.
  89. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 162–164; Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (Ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , p. 41 f.
  90. ↑ Chlewnjuk, Das Politbüro , p. 299 f.
  91. ↑ Printed in Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 479–483.
  92. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 451 f.
  93. ↑ Jansen, Petrov, Stalin's loyal executioner , pp. 181 and 189.
  94. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 452–454.
  95. ↑ On this in detail Werth, Histoire d'un “pré-rapport secret” .
  96. ↑ Werth, Histoire d'un “pré-rapport secret” , p. 10.
  97. ↑ Jürgen Zarusky: Stalinscher Terror 1934-41 (review) , in: sehepunkte 4 (2004), No. 2 of February 15, 2004 (accessed on December 15, 2010).
  98. ↑ Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 5 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  99. ↑ See e.g. B. Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (eds.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , p. 11 (indication: 400,000); Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 661 f. (Specification: 350,000).
  100. ^ Werth, L'Ivrogne , p. 245.
  101. ↑ All figures in Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag , pp. 178–180.
  102. ↑ Petrow: Die Kaderpolitik des NKVD , p. 31 f.
  103. ↑ McLoughlin: "Destruction of the Stranger," p. 114.
  104. ↑ Bonwetsch, Der "Große Terror" - 70 years later , p. 144.
  105. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge: Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 697 f. It also contains information on further arrests, prison sentences, acquittals and the suspension of proceedings, deaths and suicides in custody, and troika members who remained unmolested.
  106. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , pp. 551–557.
  107. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 560.
  108. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 562 f.
  109. ↑ Werth, The Importance of the “Great Terror” , p. 278 f.
  110. ↑ On this briefly Hildermeier, History of the Soviet Union 1917–1991 , p. 685 f.
  111. ↑ Binner, Junge, How Terror Was “Big” , p. 572; Werth, The Importance of the “Great Terror” , p. 279 f .; Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 405 f. This practice is described by way of example in Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag , p. 160.
  112. ↑ Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 563.
  113. ↑ Werth, Les “opérations de masse” , p. 6, fn. 2; Binner, Junge: How Terror Became “Big” , p. 559.
  114. ↑ Naimark, Stalin and the Genocide , p. 112.
  115. ↑ See, for example, J. Arch Getty, Oleg V. Naumov: The Road to Terror - Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939 , Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1999, ISBN 0-300-07772-6 ; Mark Junge, Rolf Binner: Kak terror stal bol'šim '. Secretnyj prikaz No. 00447 i technologija ego ispolnenija , Moskva 2003; Werth, Les “opérations de masse” ; Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, mass murder and imprisonment.
  116. ↑ See for example Baberowski, Der Rote Terror , p. 190; Luks, History of Russia and the Soviet Union , p. 316.
  117. Jump up ↑ Binner, Junge: How terror became “big” , p. 559; Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft , p. 10.
  118. ↑ See Binner, Junge, "S etoj publikoj ceremonit´sja ne sleduet" , pp. 209–218.
  119. ↑ See Binner, Bonwetsch, Junge (Ed.): Stalinism in the Soviet Province , pp. 41 and 51; Quotation there on p. 41. Michael Ellman (Regional Influences) also draws attention to the importance of the regional scope for design with the simultaneous supremacy of Moscow headquarters .
  120. ↑ See Jörg Baberowski: Der Rote Terror , p. 207.
  121. ↑ This position can often be found in Nicolas Werth, for example in The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , pp. 2, 3 and 8 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  122. ^ J. Arch Getty, Oleg V. Naumov: The Road to Terror - Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 , Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1999, ISBN 0-300-07772-6 , p 471.
  123. ^ Paul R. Gregory: Lenin's Brain , p. 44.
  124. ↑ See an overview: Boris Barth : Genozid. Genocide in the 20th Century. History, theories, controversies (Beck'sche Reihe 1672), Beck, Munich 2006. ISBN 3-406-52865-1 , pp. 136-148. With precise knowledge of the history of Soviet violence, Bernd Bonwetsch also argues negatively: The GULAG and the question of genocide , in: Jörg Baberowski (Ed.): Moderne Zeiten? War, Revolution and Violence in the 20th Century , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-36735-X , pp. 111–144.
  125. ^ Norman Naimark: Stalin and the Genocide , especially p. 113.
  126. ↑ See Jürgen Zarusky: Review by: Norman M. Naimark: Stalin und der Genozid, Frankfurt / M .: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010 , in: sehepunkte 11 (2011), No. 5 (accessed on May 15, 2011).
  127. ↑ Ronald Grigor Suny: Stalin and his Stalinism: Power and Authority in the Soviet Union, 1930–1953 , p. 24 (excerpt from Ronald Grigor Suny: Stalin and his Stalinism: Power and Authority in the Soviet Union, 1930–53 ), in: Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds.): Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison , Cambridge University Press, New York 1997 (PDF; accessed December 20, 2010; 126 kB).
  128. ↑ Jörg Baberowski, Der Rote Terror , p. 188.
  129. ↑ Karl Schlögel, Terror und Traum , p. 643.
  130. ↑ See e.g. B. Siegfried Prokop , review of: Jörg Baberowski: Der Rote Terror. The history of Stalinism , Munich 2003, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 12, 2004, p. 1151.
  131. ↑ See Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 6 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  132. ↑ On the knigi pamiati see Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 7 (accessed on August 24, 2010).
  133. ↑ On the mass executions at the Butowo shooting range, see François-Xavier Nérard: The Butovo Shooting Range . Article of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence ( PDF ; accessed May 16, 2010). See also Schlögel, Terror und Traum , pp. 603–626.
  134. ↑ Such sites can be found in Levaschowo (Левашово; Weblink ( Memento from July 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive )) near Leningrad, in Bykiwnja (Биківня; information from Memorial ( Memento from May 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )) near Kiev, im Karelian Sandarmoch (Сандармох; information about Sandarmoch ) or in Ukrainian Vinnytsia (Вінниця); see Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n ° 00447 (August 1937 - November 1938) , p. 4 (accessed August 24, 2010).
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