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From INFO-RUSS-request@smarty.ece.jhu.edu Tue Nov 4 20:48:11 1997 Message-Id: <9711042026.AA14816@smarty.ece.jhu.edu> Errors-To: INFO-RUSS-request@smarty.ece.jhu.edu Sender: INFO-RUSS-request@smarty.ece.jhu.edu Precedence: bulk From: info-russ <info-russ@smarty.ece.jhu.edu> To: info-russ@smarty.ece.jhu.edu Date: Tus, 4 Nov 1997 14:05:10 +0100 Subject: INFO-RUSS: POLITICAL PRISONERS DAY
--------------------------------------------------------------------- This is INFO-RUSS broadcast (1200+ subscribers). Home page, information, and archives: http://psi.ece.jhu.edu/~kaplan/IRUSS/inforuss.html To post, or to subscribe/unsubscribe, mail to info-russ@smarty.ece.jhu.edu INFO-RUSS assumes no responsibility for the information/views of its users. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from RIA-Novosti which adopted it from Rossiiskiye Vesti, October 30 OCTOBER 30: POLITICAL PRISONERS DAY On October 30 Russia marks the Day of Memory of the Victims of Political Persecution Campaigns. We must admit that we lost the fervour with which we denounced the political butchers in the early 1990s, and the sympathy we felt for the victims of the Bolshevik regime. We tend to repeat the phrase which was popular in Brezhnev's time: "Persecution campaigns were evil, but not everything was plain black or white then." Why do we do this? Who is responsible for this drawback of public conscience? Our analyst, Anatoly GUBANOV, discusses this problem with famous scientist and politician Alexander YAKOVLEV, Chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Persecution Campaigns. Question: The attitude to persecution campaigns has changed in society and in some other terms. For example, on October 30 the staff of the State Duma decided to hold celebrations, with a concert and expensive gifts, to be given above all to those who were responsible for the storming of the city hall and the Ostankino TV centre. What kind of day of the victims of the Bolshevik regime is that? Answer: There is nothing new in this. I remember that in Soviet times, when the rehabilitation of the victims of political persecution campaigns was barely launched, acts of crawling sabotage were staged in the Politburo. Question: We are approaching the 80th celebration of the October revolution. What will happen on that day? Answer: Instead of commemorating victims and repenting sins, many people will "celebrate the red-letter day." Why? Because nobody has provided a clear-cut and unambiguous assessment of the past yet. I have spoken about this problem before. I understand that this is difficult to accept, but there was no revolution, not to mention a great socialist one. What happened then? The power was lying on the autumn sidewalk. Nobody governed the country. The army was ruined. The shop shelves were empty and the people held demonstrations and plundered bread and wine shops. A group of Bolsheviks entered the Smolny Palace. Antonov-Ovseyenko arrested the ministers of the Provisional Government. There was no resistance, just as there was no salvo from the Avrora cruiser. Some shots were fired, but only into the ceiling of the Smolny Palace. Later the storming of the palace was presented as something heroic, following the scenario used for the storming of the Bastille, which was not stormed since nobody resisted its occupation. At that time there were only seven prisoners in the Bastille - several crooks, two madmen and one pervert. They were guarded by a group of invalids. Question: Does your commission encounter any difficulties in its work? Can you answer this question honestly? Answer: Honestly? We submitted to the President two draft decrees on the children of the Gulag and activists of socialist and other similar parties, exterminated by the Bolsheviks. They have been shelved. Not long ago I met with Valentin Yumashev, head of the Presidential Administration, and asked him about the fate of these drafts. He showed certain interest in the problem, but it turned out that nobody had reported to him on it. I know that bureaucrats, taking cover behind the idea of accord and reconciliation, are prepared to gladly forget about any crimes of the past. Our bureaucrat is a very interesting person. He trims his sails to the wind: when there is no demand for something, he will do nothing. Besides, a bureaucrat has a natural liking for dictatorship. As a result, we get a terrible thing: dictatorship by bureaucrats. There are also problems with archives. The law is the law, but practical matters are something different. For example, our commission is still waiting for the Office of the Prosecutor General to provide the verdict on the case of Beria. They use different pretexts to bide their time. We will have to translate from English some so-called secret documents, since they have long been sold abroad. 4Russia in Facts and Figures 5 In the first few years after the Bolsheviks came to power, they persecuted peasants who took part in anti-governmental action, workers who went on strikes, Cossacks, members of socialist parties and anarchist organisations, the clergy, and the seamen who took part in the 1921 Kronstadt "revolt." The authorities "neutralised" 16,000 rebel peasants, confiscated about 500 homesteads and burned down 250 peasant houses when crushing the revolt of the Tambov peasants in June 1921. Similar "measures" were taken when the Bolsheviks put out other revolts of peasants, which rocked the Don, Western Siberia, the Volga Region, Karelia and other regions of the country in 1918-22. in 1921 through 1953, the VChK, OGPU, NKVD and MVD agencies persecuted 4,060,306 people for political reasons. Their fate was sealed outside courts. As many as 799,455 were sentenced to capital punishment (shooting). The tidal wave of persecutions swept the country in 1937-38, when 1.3 million were sentenced to hard labour under the notorious Article 58 ("counterrevolutionary crimes"), and more than a half of them (682,000) were shot. At least 40 million were sentenced to different prison terms in 1923-53. As many as 2.6 million languished in prisons in 1950, and another 2.3 million lived in special settlements (data of the late 1940s). Persecution Campaigns in the Countryside Over 500,000 peasants were persecuted in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1930-31, a total of 1.8 million members of peasant families were herded into special camps guarded by special garrisons, without the right to leave them. In all, over 1 million peasant homesteads were recognised as belonging to kulaks (well-off peasants) during the collectivisation campaign, and nearly 5 million peasants were sent into exile. Persecution of the Clergy The year 1918 was marked by the execution of 3,000 clergymen. Another 500-odd were shot in 1928, and 2,500 in 1930. As many as 136,900 Orthodox clergymen were persecuted in 1937, 85,300 of whom were shot. In 1938-41, the church lost another 38,900 men, 36,400 of whom were executed. The persecution of the clergy continued well into the 1970s. By 1976, the number of dioceses in the country dropped to 7,038 (there were 48,000 in 1918). In all, about 200,000 clergymen suffered at the hands of Bolsheviks since the 1917 revolution. Persecution of the Military The trial of Tukhachevsky, Yakir and other military leaders in June 1937 marked the beginning of mass persecutions in the army, which affected over 40,000 servicemen. In all, the army was "cleansed" of 45% of commanders who were accused of political disloyalty. Those who had been unfortunate enough to be encircled or taken prisoner during the 1941-45 war, and repatriated Soviet citizens were severely persecuted during the war and in the first few years after it. In all, 994,000 servicemen were persecuted during the war, 157,000 of whom were shot. Ethnic Persecution Campaigns The forceful movement of whole ethnic groups began before the 1941-45 war. Poles, Kurds, Koreans, Buryats and other ethnic groups fell victim to them. Since the mid-1940s to 1961, a total of 3.5 million members of ethnic groups were persecuted. The Germans were forced to leave their homes in the Volga Region, Moscow and Moscow Region and other areas at gunpoint. The Ingush, Chechens, Kalmyks, Crimean Tartars and other ethnic groups were deported. In all, 14 ethnic groups were deported fully, and 48, partially. The slightest signs of anti-governmental sentiments were mercilessly crushed after the war, for example the workers' demonstrations in Novocherkassk in 1962, when the workers protested against price rises and simultaneous cuts in their wages. Dissidents were the main victims of persecution campaigns in the 1960s-1980s. In 1967 through 1971, the KGB "revealed" over 3,000 groups of "politically dangerous nature," with 13,500 members of these groups persecuted. Since the mid-1950s, the KGB widely used psychiatrists to combat dissent. According to the 1986 information, 5,329 dissidents were the inmates of the Kazan, Leningrad, Orel, Sychevka, Chernyakhovsk and Blagoveshchensk psychiatric clinics of the USSR Interior Ministry. The number of "mental cases" in the Leningrad hospital of the Interior Ministry went up from 324 to 1,181 in 1956-86. ========================================================