1937: Big terror

Of the events of 1937, 12 out of 15 experts and readers chose mass repressions in the USSR, known in the literature as a "big terror". Their beginning dates back to January 23, when a lawsuit was opened in the Moscow House of Unions against the "participants of the Trotskyist Parallel Center."

From the newspaper "Pravda" dated January 24, 1937:

"Yesterday in Moscow, an open trial began on charges of a group of supporters of Trotsky - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and others in the grave crimes, including treason, espionage and sabotage in the interests of foreign states."

The party leadership had previously found "enemies of the people." But for the first time they were accused not of "anti -party activities", but of sabotage and espionage. On January 30, 13 out of 47 accused were sentenced to execution.

From the poem of a tenth grader
Eve Nerubina in the newspaper Izvestia
dated February 1, 1937:

"Three times despicable, vile reptiles,
They dared someone to threaten death.
No, you will not wait for more mercy.
The court is one for you - like dogs, shoot! "

From the order of the People's Commissar of the Interior Yezhov of July 30, 1937:

"I order from August 5 in all republics, edges and regions to start the operation to repress former fists, active anti -Soviet elements and criminals ... All the repressed are divided into two categories. All the most hostiles of the above elements are the first category. They are subject to immediate arrest in the three - shooting - shooting."

It was planned to shoot 73 thousand "enemies of the people." On the ground, the "social medal" immediately unfolded for the re -completion of this plan.

From the speech of N. Khrushchev at the Moscow Party Conference on June 5:

"Let the enemies know that, no matter how deeply they sit in their burrows, we expose and destroy them, the eighth of the enemies of all to the last in powder and dispel their dust in the wind so that there are no traces from these damned traitors."

From the newspaper Izvestia on August 21, 1937:

"One morning, the trace of K. Romayuk noticed a suspicious person near the railway line and immediately informed about him to the NKVD bodies. The man turned out to be a fabric agent of Polish intelligence, sent to commit a sabotage on the railway. Romanyuk was grateful; it should be noted that over the past two years, he exposed 16 saboteurs and fans of a socialist socialist property ".

From the encrypted telegram of the Central Committee to the regional committees of the party dated January 10, 1939:

"The Central Committee of the All -Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks explains that the use of physical impact in the practice of the NKVD has been allowed since 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee. It is known that all bourgeois intelligence has been using physical impact in relation to representatives of the proletariat ... It is asked why socialist intelligence should be more humane?"

Recognitions obtained by torture and deceit should have convinced the world of the correctness of the Stalinist theory of "growing class struggle."

For two years, the "Great Terror" (1937 - 1938) only under political articles were shot 68,1692 people, millions were in camps. On December 9, 1938, Yezhov was removed from his post and soon executed. With his successor to Beria, mass repressions were declining.

Stakhanov watch executioners

Victor Topolyansky

1937 - only a symbol of "Great Terror." It can be considered the beginning of the December 1934 (murder of Kirov), the final - the end of the Ezhovschina. After that, the repressions did not stop, simply became less obvious. 1937 - a symbol also because after the twentieth congress it was about this year that they started talking about the period of the most severe beating of old party cadres, bashfully silent about subsequent repressions. There was no family in the Soviet Union that would not affect the “thirty -seventh”. In 1992, when the archives closed before became available, it turned out that for each city, the district, the region at that time, a serving was allocated at that time, prescribing on which articles what categories of people should be planted. The archives also have numerous requests from places to allow to overfulfill these plans and arrest more “active Trotskyists”. So from below, spontaneously arose the Stakhanov movement of the executioners.

In our family they put an uncle - aunt's husband. He was a major engineer of the design bureau of Tupolev, which fell into the zone in full force. In the 35th year, he, the only one of our relatives, received a separate apartment on Plyushchiya - two adjacent rooms and a tiny kitchen, on which we barely fit with his brother. Uncle was arrested in the beginning of the 37th and sent to the construction of the Moscow-Volga channel, where he quickly reached complete exhaustion. Then he, the semi -healer, was thrown out of the camp so as not to bury at the breech. Arriving in Moscow, he died very quickly.

The “big terror” of the thirty -seventh was practically no different from the “red”, which practiced in the eighteenth. Instead of the promised world, the idea of a permanent revolution was proclaimed to the peoples - a civil war provoked by a leader. Now, in 1937, those who, together with Lenin established Soviet power, were sent to concentration camps. They had to give way to the Stalinist nomenclature.

For a normal person, these repressions were meaningless, but if you follow the logic of absurdity, they are justified. The Bolsheviks created the logic of affect relying not on the mind, but on emotions. In combination with their creed, where each Christian commandment is interpreted exactly the opposite (do not “honor your father”, but “kill your father” or at least “report”), she explained the need for repression. If the end justifies the means, then - the revolution requires victims. You can not reckon with their number and not think about what is happening. Bring to a friend. Renounce parents. In this system turned inside out, an evil ascosis system becomes Bolshevik good. This is the psychological roots of the "large terror."

The 37th year can be considered peak in the creation of Soviet civilization. A year earlier, Stalin announced that socialism in the USSR was built. However, instead of the promised earthly paradise, the system of ancient Egyptian slavery was created. In the peak season, the new Homo Sovetikus matured. The human mental system has changed. Even the one who happily escaped repression, lived in constant expectation of a disaster, under the oppression of fear. Somehow I came across a record of Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, almost the only person with whom Lenin was on "you". It says: “In 1937, when I expected the arrest, just in case I destroyed Lenin’s note ...” It turns out, and he, just like everyone else, was waiting for an arrest. After this wild psychological tension, even the Great Patriotic War was perceived by many with relief.