Letter from R.I.Eikhe to I.V.Stalin. How the Stalinists broke the "Great Terror"
Khrushchev's secret report, read out at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, with sweeping criticism of Stalin, had an ever-increasing resonance as its content became widely known. Louder and more often than others, Khrushchev's fables were savored by the bourgeois media and are still savoring! Winston Churchill in 1964, at the celebration of his 90th birthday, said: “Unfortunately, now there is a person who has done harm to the country of the Soviets 1000 times more than I have. This is Nikita Khrushchev, let's clap for him!
Stalin's faithful comrades-in-arms, his disciples, Marxist-Leninists, Stalin's marshals bit their tongues, hearing a false report, and many partycrats who rose under Stalin had a hand in compiling it. Take, for example, the same Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Suslov, Shepilov. Molotov, Kaganovich, Malenkov, Voroshilov and other members of the Central Committee did not object to such a report, they knew about it in advance, and made adjustments. Certain fears were expressed, but there was no serious resistance, because all the blame for political mistakes was placed on the evil dictator Stalin, and the "holy" members of the Central Committee and the secretaries of the republics washed their hands.
The report acknowledged the repressions of 1937-1938. unlawful, carried out in circumvention of revolutionary legality, so many cases of the convicts required revision. The leaders of the CPSU were the first to pull out their own relatives who were involved in counter-revolutionary crimes from the camps. Khrushchev and the company needed dedicated people who could be relied upon in their politics, such were ideological enemies, careerists, money-grubbers and other counter-revolutionary elements who were freed and restored to their rights and positions.
Were innocent people repressed under Stalin? Of course there were, and this was recognized even under Stalin, by Stalin himself. However, the enemy did not sleep. The aforementioned Churchill said that, thanks to Stalin's tough policy before the war, during the war there was no "fifth column" in the USSR on which Hitler could rely. Did Stalin want to imprison and shoot innocent Soviet people, of course not, but far from "Stalins" worked in the security agencies on the ground. Already in 1939, cases were reviewed and prisoners were released by mistake or false denunciation. Stalin personally apologized to prominent military figures, scientists and party workers for the excesses they had committed. But Khrushchev's step was not aimed at finding and releasing the innocent, it was just a screen for strengthening his own power, for exalting his own cult of personality and for searching for the conductors of anti-Stalinist reforms.
Repressions against the "Old Bolsheviks" and the delegates of the XVII Congress; details of reprisals against prominent party members (Eikhe); demand for large-scale repression; Yezhovshchina; mass falsification of cases aimed at fulfilling the "plans" for those convicted and executed.
Khrushchev:
The arbitrariness of Stalin in relation to the party, to its Central Committee, was especially manifested after the 17th Party Congress, held in 1934.
The Central Committee, having at its disposal numerous facts testifying to gross arbitrariness in relation to party cadres, singled out a party commission of the Presidium of the Central Committee9, which was instructed to carefully investigate the question of how mass repressions were possible against the majority of members and candidates of the Central Committee of the party, elected by the 17th Congress VKP(b).
The commission got acquainted with a large number of materials in the archives of the NKVD, with other documents, and established numerous facts of falsified cases against the communists, false accusations, flagrant violations of socialist legality, as a result of which innocent people died. It turns out that many party, Soviet, economic workers, who were declared "enemies" in 1937-1938, in reality were never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., that they, in essence, always remained honest communists, but were slandered, and sometimes, unable to withstand the brutal tortures, they slandered themselves (under the dictation of forgery investigators) all sorts of grave and incredible accusations. The commission submitted to the Presidium of the Central Committee a large documentary material on mass repressions against delegates to the 17th Party Congress and members of the Central Committee elected by this congress. This material was considered by the Presidium of the Central Committee.
It has been established that out of 139 members and candidate members of the Central Committee of the Party elected at the 17th Party Congress, 98 people, that is, 70 percent, were arrested and shot (mainly in 1937-1938). (Noise of indignation in the hall.)
What was the composition of the delegates of the 17th Congress? It is known that 80 percent of the participants in the 17th Congress with the right to vote joined the party during the years of the revolutionary underground and the civil war, that is, until 1920 inclusive. In terms of social status, the bulk of the delegates to the congress were workers (60 percent of the delegates with the right to vote).
Therefore, it was absolutely inconceivable that a congress of such composition would elect a Central Committee in which the majority would turn out to be enemies of the party. Only as a result of the fact that honest communists were slandered and accusations against them were falsified, that monstrous violations of revolutionary legality were committed, 70 percent of the members and candidates of the Central Committee elected by the 17th Congress were declared enemies of the party and people.
Such a fate befell not only the members of the Central Committee, but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of the 1966 congress delegates with a decisive and deliberative vote, significantly more than half - 1108 people - were arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes. This fact alone shows how absurd, wild, and contrary to common sense were the charges of counter-revolutionary crimes brought against, as it now turns out, the majority of the participants in the 17th Party Congress. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)
It must be recalled that the 17th Party Congress went down in history as a congress of victors. Active participants in the construction of our socialist state were elected delegates to the congress, many of them waged a selfless struggle for the cause of the party in the pre-revolutionary years in the underground and on the fronts of the civil war, they bravely fought enemies, more than once looked into the eyes of death and did not flinch. How can one believe that such people, in the period after the political defeat of the Zinovievists, Trotskyists and Rights, after the great victories of socialist construction, turned out to be "double-dealers" and went over to the camp of the enemies of socialism?
This happened as a result of the abuse of power on the part of Stalin, who began to use mass terror against party cadres.
Why did mass repressions against activists intensify more and more after the 17th Party Congress? Because by that time Stalin had so exalted himself above the party and the people that he no longer took any account of either the Central Committee or the party. If before the 17th Congress he still recognized the opinion of the collective, then after the complete political defeat of the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, when as a result of this struggle and the victories of socialism the party was united, the people were united, Stalin more and more ceased to reckon with the members of the Central Committee of the party and even with members of the Politburo. Stalin believed that he could now manage all the affairs himself, and he needed the rest as extras, he kept all the others in such a position that they had only to listen and praise him.
After the villainous murder of S. M. Kirov, mass repressions and gross violations of socialist legality began. On the evening of December 1, 1934, on the initiative of Stalin (without the decision of the Politburo - this was formalized by a poll only 2 days later), the secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee Yenukidze10 signed the following resolution11:
"1) The investigative authorities - to deal with those accused of preparing or committing terrorist acts in an expedited manner;
2) Judicial bodies - not to delay the execution of sentences of capital punishment because of the petitions of criminals of this category for pardon, since the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider it possible to accept such petitions for consideration;
3) To the bodies of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs - to carry out the sentence of capital punishment against criminals of the above categories immediately after the pronouncement of court verdicts.
This decision served as the basis for mass violations of socialist legality. In many falsified investigative cases, the defendants were accused of "preparing" terrorist acts, and this deprived the accused of any opportunity to check their cases even when they retracted their forced "confessions" in court and convincingly denied the charges against them.
It should be said that the circumstances connected with the murder of Comrade Kirov are still fraught with many incomprehensible and mysterious things and require the most thorough investigation. There is reason to believe that the murderer of Kirov, Nikolaev12, was helped by someone from the people who were obliged to protect Kirov. A month and a half before the murder, Nikolaev was arrested for suspicious behavior, but was released and not even searched. It is extremely suspicious that when the Chekist attached to Kirov was taken for interrogation on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car "accident", and none of the persons accompanying him were injured. After the assassination of Kirov, the leaders of the Leningrad NKVD were removed from work and subjected to very mild punishments, but in 1937 they were shot. One might think that they were shot in order to cover up the traces of the organizers of the murder of Kirov. (Movement in the hall.)
Mass repressions intensified sharply from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and Zhdanov13 from Sochi dated September 25, 1936, addressed to Kaganovich14, Molotov15 and other members of the Politburo, which stated the following:
"We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent to appoint comrade Yezhov16 to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Yagoda17 was clearly not up to his task in exposing the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. The OGPU was 4 years late in this matter. All party workers and most regional representatives say this NKVD. By the way, it should be noted that Stalin did not meet with party workers and therefore could not know their opinion.
This Stalinist attitude that "the NKVD was 4 years late" with the use of mass repressions, that it was necessary to quickly "catch up" for lost time, directly pushed the NKVD workers to mass arrests and executions.
It should be noted that this attitude was also imposed on the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1937. The resolution of the Plenum on Yezhov's report "Lessons of sabotage, sabotage and espionage by Japanese-German-Trotskyist agents" stated:
"The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks believes that all the facts revealed during the investigation into the cases of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center and its supporters in the field show that the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was at least 4 years late in exposing these worst enemies of the people."
Mass repressions were carried out at that time under the flag of the struggle against the Trotskyists. Did the Trotskyists really pose such a danger to our party and the Soviet state at that time? It should be recalled that in 1927, on the eve of the 15th Party Congress, only 4,000 people voted for the Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition, while 724,000 voted for the party line. In the 10 years that passed from the 15th Party Congress to the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee, Trotskyism was completely defeated, many former Trotskyists abandoned their former views and worked in various sectors of socialist construction. It is clear that there were no grounds for mass terror in the country under the conditions of the victory of socialism.
In Stalin's report at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, "On the Shortcomings of Party Work and Measures to Eliminate Trotskyist and Other Double Dealers," an attempt was made to theoretically substantiate the policy of mass repression under the pretext that, as we move forward towards socialism, the class struggle must supposedly become more and more and become more aggravated. At the same time, Stalin argued that this is how history teaches, this is how Lenin teaches.
In fact, Lenin pointed out that the use of revolutionary violence is caused by the need to crush the resistance of the exploiting classes, and these instructions of Lenin referred to the period when the exploiting classes existed and were strong. As soon as the political situation in the country improved, as soon as Rostov was taken by the Red Army in January 1920 and the main victory over Denikin was won, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky to abolish mass terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin substantiated this important political event of the Soviet power in the following way in his report at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 2, 1920:
"Terror was imposed on us by the terrorism of the Entente, when the world-powerful powers fell upon us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out for two days if these attempts by officers and Whites had not been answered in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente.And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty and by this showed that we treat our own program in the same way as promised. We say that the use of violence is caused by the task of suppressing the exploiters, suppressing the landowners and capitalists; when this is allowed, we refuse all exceptional measures. We have proved this in practice "(Soch., vol. 30, pp. 303-304) .
Stalin retreated from these direct and clear program instructions from Lenin. After all the exploiting classes in our country had already been liquidated and there were no serious grounds for the mass application of exceptional measures, for mass terror, Stalin oriented the party, oriented the organs of the NKVD towards mass terror.
This terror was actually directed not against the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes, but against honest cadres of the party and the Soviet state, who were presented with false, slanderous, senseless accusations of "double-dealing", "espionage", "sabotage", preparation of some fictitious "assassination attempts" etc.
At the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee (1937), in the speeches of a number of members of the Central Committee, doubts were essentially expressed about the correctness of the outlined course towards mass repressions under the pretext of fighting "double-dealers".
These doubts were most clearly expressed in the speech of Comrade. Postysheva18. He said:
“I reasoned: such steep years of struggle have passed, rotten members of the party broke down or went to the enemies, healthy ones fought for the cause of the party. These are the years of industrialization, collectivization. camp of the enemy (Karpov is an employee of the Central Committee of the Party of Ukraine, whom Postyshev knew well.) But according to the testimony allegedly, Karpov was recruited by the Trotskyists since 1934. I personally think that in 1934 a healthy member of the party, who went a long way of a fierce struggle against enemies for the cause of the party, for socialism, to fall into the camp of enemies is unbelievable. I don’t believe this ... I can’t imagine how it is possible to go through difficult years with the party and then go to the Trotskyists in 1934. It’s strange ...” (Movement in the room.)
Using Stalin's attitude that the closer to socialism, the more enemies there will be, using the resolution of the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee on Yezhov's report, provocateurs who made their way into the state security organs, as well as unscrupulous careerists, began to cover up mass terror against party cadres in the name of the party and the Soviet state, against ordinary Soviet citizens. Suffice it to say that the number of those arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes increased in 1937 in comparison with 1936 by more than ten times!
It is known what gross arbitrariness was also committed against the leading workers of the Party. The Party Rules, adopted by the 17th Congress, proceeded from Lenin's instructions from the period of the 10th Party Congress and said that the condition for applying to members of the Central Committee, candidates for membership of the Central Committee and members of the Party Control Commission such an extreme measure as expulsion from the Party "should be the convening of the Plenum of the Central Committee with by inviting all candidates for membership in the Central Committee and all members of the Party Control Commission," that only on the condition that such a general meeting of responsible leaders of the party, by a two-thirds vote, recognize this as necessary, could a member or candidate of the Central Committee be expelled from the party.
Most of the members and candidates of the Central Committee, elected by the 17th Congress and arrested in 1937-1938, were illegally expelled from the party, in gross violation of the Party Rules, since the issue of their exclusion was not raised for discussion by the Plenum of the Central Committee.
Now that some of these alleged "spies" and "saboteurs" have been investigated, it has been established that these cases are fraudulent. Confessions of many arrested people accused of hostile activities were obtained through cruel, inhuman torture.
At the same time, according to the members of the Politburo of that time, Stalin did not send them the statements of a number of slandered politicians when they retracted their testimony at the trial of the Military Collegium and asked for an objective investigation of their case. And there were many such statements, and Stalin, undoubtedly, was acquainted with them.
The Central Committee considers it necessary to report to the congress about a number of falsified "cases" against members of the Central Committee of the Party elected at the 17th Party Congress.
An example of vile provocation, malicious falsification and criminal violations of revolutionary legality is the case of Comrade Eikhe, a former candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, one of the prominent figures in the Party and the Soviet state,20 a member of the Party since 1905. (Movement in the hall.)
Tov. Eikhe was arrested on April 29, 1938 on the basis of slanderous materials without the sanction of the USSR prosecutor, which was received only 15 months after his arrest.
The investigation into the Eikhe case was carried out in an atmosphere of gross distortions of Soviet legality, arbitrariness and falsification.
Eikhe, under torture, was forced to sign interrogation protocols drawn up in advance by investigators, in which accusations of anti-Soviet activities were raised against him and a number of prominent party and Soviet workers.
On October 1, 1939, Eikhe filed a statement addressed to Stalin, in which he categorically denied his guilt and asked to deal with his case. In a statement, he wrote:
"There is no more bitter torment than to be in prison under the regime for which you have always fought."
The second statement of Eikhe, sent by him to Stalin on October 27, 1939, has been preserved, in which he convincingly, based on facts, refutes the slanderous accusations brought against him, shows that these provocative accusations are, on the one hand, the work of real Trotskyists, whose arrest he sanctioned, as the first secretary of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the Party, gave, and who conspired to take revenge on him, and on the other hand, the result of a dirty falsification of fictitious materials by investigators.
Eikhe wrote in his statement:
“On October 25 of this year, I was announced that the investigation of my case was over and given the opportunity to familiarize myself with the investigative material. If I were guilty, even in a hundredth of at least one of the crimes against me, I would not dare to turn to you with this death statement, but I did not commit any of the crimes accused of me and I never had a shadow of meanness in my soul. I have never told you a half word of lies in my life and now, being with both feet in the grave, I am not lying to you either. My whole case is a model of provocation, slander and violation of the elementary foundations of revolutionary legality...
The testimonies available in my investigative file that expose me are not only absurd, but on a number of points contain slander on the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, since the correct decisions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars taken not on my initiative and without my participation are portrayed as sabotage acts counter-revolutionary organization carried out at my suggestion...
Now I turn to the most shameful page of my life and to my really grievous guilt before the Party and before you. This is about my confessions in counter-revolutionary activities ... The situation was as follows: unable to withstand the tortures that Ushakov and Nikolaev21 used on me, especially the first one, who cleverly took advantage of the fact that after the fracture my spine was still poorly overgrown and caused me unbearable pain, they forced me to slander myself and other people.
Most of my testimony was prompted or dictated by Ushakov, and the rest I copied from memory the NKVD materials on Western Siberia, attributing all these facts given in the NKVD materials to myself. If something didn’t stick in the legend created by Ushakov and signed by me, then I was forced to sign another version. So it was with Rukhimovich,22 who was first enrolled in a reserve center, and then, without even telling me anything, was deleted, it was the same with the chairman of a reserve center allegedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I recorded myself, but then I was offered to record Mezhlauk23, and many other moments...
I ask and beg you to instruct me to investigate my case, and this is not in order to be spared, but in order to expose the heinous provocation that, like a snake, has entangled many people, in particular because of my cowardice and criminal slander. I never cheated on you and the party. I know that I am dying because of the vile, vile work of the enemies of the Party and the people, who created a provocation against me.
It would seem that such an important statement should have been necessarily discussed in the Central Committee. But this did not happen, the application was sent to Beria, and the brutal reprisal against the slandered candidate for membership in the Politburot. Eihe continued.
On February 2, 1940, Eikhe was put on trial. In court, Eikhe pleaded not guilty and stated the following:
“In all my supposed testimonies, there is not a single letter that I named, with the exception of the signatures at the bottom of the protocols, which were signed by force. The testimonies were given under pressure from the investigator, who from the very beginning of my arrest began to beat me. After that, I began to write all sorts of nonsense ... The main thing for me is to tell the court, the party and Stalin that I am not guilty. I have never been a participant in a conspiracy. I will die with faith in the correctness of the party's policy, as I believed in it throughout my work. " (The Eikhe case, volume 1.)
On February 4, Eikhe was shot. (Noise of indignation in the hall.) It is now indisputably established that the case of Eikhe was falsified, and he was posthumously rehabilitated.
A candidate member of the Politburotov completely retracted his forced testimony at the trial. Rudzutak24, party member since 1905, who spent 10 years in tsarist hard labor. The minutes of the court session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court recorded the following statement by Rudzutak:
"... His only request to the court is to bring to the attention of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks that in the organs of the NKVD there is an abscess that has not yet been uprooted, which artificially creates cases, forcing innocent people to plead guilty. there are no circumstances of the accusation and no opportunity is given to prove one's innocence in those crimes that are put forward by various testimonies of various persons. he is given the opportunity to write all this for the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. He assures the court that he personally never had any bad thought against the policy of our Party, since he always fully shared all the Party’s policy, which was carried out in all areas of economic and cultural development ".
This statement of Rudzutak was ignored, although Rudzutak, as is known, was at one time the chairman of the Central Control Commission, which was created, according to Lenin's idea, to fight for the unity of the party. The chairman of this highly authoritative party organ fell victim to brutal arbitrariness: he was not even summoned to the Politburo of the Central Committee, Stalin did not want to talk to him. He was convicted within 20 minutes and shot. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)
A thorough check carried out in 1955 established that the case against Rudzutak was falsified and he was convicted on the basis of slanderous materials. Rudzutak was posthumously rehabilitated.
How artificially - by provocative methods - various "anti-Soviet centers" and "blocs" were created by former NKVD workers, is evident from the testimony of Comrade Rosenblum, a party member since 1906, who was arrested by the Leningrad Department of the NKVD in 1937.
When checking the case of Komarov25 in 1955, Rosenblum reported the following fact: when he, Rosenblum, was arrested in 1937, he was subjected to severe torture, during which false testimony was extorted from him both on himself and on other persons. Then he was brought to the office of Zakovsky,26 who offered him release on the condition that he testify falsely in court on the "case of the Leningrad sabotage, espionage, sabotage, terrorist center" fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD. (Movement in the hall.) With incredible cynicism, Zakovsky revealed the vile "mechanics" of the artificial creation of fake "anti-Soviet conspiracies."
“For clarity,” Rosenblum said, “Zakovsky unfolded in front of me several options for the proposed schemes of this center and its branches ...
After familiarizing me with these schemes, Zakovsky said that the NKVD was preparing a file on this center, and the process would be open.
The head of the center will be put on trial, 4-5 people: Chudov27, Ugarov28, Smorodin29, Pozern30, Shaposhnikova31 (this is Chudov's wife) and others, and from each branch 2-3 people ...
The case of the Leningrad Center must be presented in a solid manner. This is where witnesses matter. Here plays an important role and social position (in the past, of course), and the party experience of the witness.
You yourself, - said Zakovsky, - will not have to invent anything. The NKVD will compile for you a ready summary for each branch separately, your job is to memorize it, remember well all the questions and answers that may be asked in court. This case will be prepared for 4-5 months, or even six months. All this time you will prepare so as not to let the investigation and yourself down. Your further fate will depend on the course and outcome of the trial. If you drift off and start to fake - blame yourself. If you endure, you will keep the head (head), we will feed and clothe ourselves to death at the state expense. "(Material of the verification of the Komarov case, p.
These are the vile deeds that were going on at that time! (Movement in the hall.)
The falsification of investigation cases was even more widely practiced in the regions. The NKVD Directorate for the Sverdlovsk Region "discovered" the so-called "Ural insurgent headquarters - an organ of a bloc of rightists, Trotskyists, Social Revolutionaries, churchmen", - allegedly led by the secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee and a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Kabakov32, a member of the party since 1914. Based on the materials of the investigative cases of that time, it turns out that in almost all territories, regions and republics there were supposedly widely branched "Right-Trotskyist espionage-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage organizations and centers" and, as a rule, these "organizations" and "centers" why some were headed by the first secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees or the Central Committee of the national communist parties. (Movement in the hall.)
As a result of this monstrous falsification of such "cases", as a result of the fact that they believed various slanderous "testimonies" and forced slanders of themselves and others, many thousands of honest, innocent Communists perished. In the same way, "cases" were fabricated against prominent party and state figures - Kosior33, Chubar34, Postyshev, Kosarev35 and others.
In those years, unjustified repressions were carried out on a massive scale, as a result of which the party suffered heavy losses in personnel.
There was a vicious practice when the NKVD compiled lists of persons whose cases were subject to consideration at the Military Collegium, and the punishment was determined in advance. These lists were sent by Yezhov personally to Stalin to authorize the proposed penalties. In 1937-1938, 383 such lists were sent to Stalin for many thousands of party, Soviet, Komsomol, military and economic workers, and his sanction was obtained.
A significant part of these cases are now being reviewed and a large number of them are dismissed as unfounded and falsified. Suffice it to say that from 1954 to the present, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has already rehabilitated 7,679 people, and many of them have been rehabilitated posthumously.
The mass arrests of Party, Soviet, economic and military workers have inflicted enormous damage on our country and the cause of socialist construction.
Mass repressions had a negative effect on the moral and political state of the party, gave rise to uncertainty, contributed to the spread of painful suspicion, and sowed mutual distrust among the communists. All sorts of slanderers and careerists became active.
The resolutions of the January Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 made a certain improvement in the party organizations36. But widespread repression continued into 1938.
And only because our party has great moral and political strength, it was able to cope with the difficult events of 1937-1938, to survive these events, to grow new cadres. But there is no doubt that our progress towards socialism and preparation for the defense of the country would have been carried out more successfully if it were not for the huge losses in personnel that we suffered as a result of massive, unjustified and unjust repressions in 1937-1938.
We accuse Yezhov of the perversions of 1937, and we rightly accuse him. But it is necessary to answer such questions: how could Yezhov himself, without the knowledge of Stalin, arrest, for example, Kosior? Was there an exchange of views or a decision of the Politburo on this issue? No, it wasn't, just as it wasn't in relation to other similar cases. How could Yezhov decide such important issues as the fate of prominent party leaders? No, it would be naive to consider this the work of Yezhov alone. It is clear that such cases were decided by Stalin, without his instructions, without his sanction, Yezhov could not do anything.
We have now sorted out and rehabilitated Kosior, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Kosarev and others. On what basis were they arrested and convicted? The study of the materials showed that there were no grounds for this. They were arrested, like many others, without the permission of the prosecutor. Yes, in those conditions, no sanction was required; what else could be a sanction when everything was allowed by Stalin. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions on arrests on his own initiative. This should be said so that there is complete clarity for the Congress delegates, so that you can give a correct assessment and draw the appropriate conclusions.
The facts show that many abuses were committed at the direction of Stalin, regardless of any norms of Party and Soviet legality. Stalin was a very suspicious person, with morbid suspicion, as we were convinced while working with him. He could look at a person and say: "something your eyes are running around today," or: "why do you often turn away today, do not look directly into your eyes." Painful suspicion led him to a sweeping distrust, including in relation to prominent party figures whom he had known for many years. Everywhere and everywhere he saw "enemies", "double-dealers", "spies".
Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness, suppressed a person morally and physically. A situation was created in which a person could not show his will.
When Stalin said that such and such should be arrested, one should have taken it on faith that he was an "enemy of the people." And the gang of Beria, who was in charge of the state security organs, climbed out of their skin to prove the guilt of the arrested persons, the correctness of the materials they fabricated. And what evidence was put into play? Confessions of the arrested. And the investigators got these "confessions". But how can you get a confession from a person in crimes that he never committed? Only one way - the use of physical methods of influence, through torture, deprivation of consciousness, deprivation of reason, deprivation of human dignity. This is how imaginary "confessions" were obtained.
When the wave of mass repressions began to weaken in 1939, when the leaders of local party organizations began to blame the NKVD workers for using physical force on those arrested, Stalin sent an encrypted telegram on January 10, 1939 to the secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties, the people's commissars of internal affairs, and the heads of departments NKVD. This telegram said:
"The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks explains that the use of physical force in the practice of the NKVD has been allowed since 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks ... It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use physical force against representatives of the socialist proletariat and, moreover, use it in the most The question is why socialist intelligence should be more humane in regard to inveterate agents of the bourgeoisie, sworn enemies of the working class and collective farmers. non-disarming enemies of the people, as an absolutely correct and expedient method.
Thus, the most gross violations of socialist legality, torture and torment, which led, as was shown above, to slander and self-slander of innocent people, were sanctioned by Stalin on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Recently, just a few days before this congress, we summoned to a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee and interrogated investigator Rhodes,37 who at one time conducted an investigation and interrogated Kosior, Chubar and Kosarev. This is a worthless person, with a chicken outlook, in a moral sense, literally a degenerate. And such a person determined the fate of well-known party leaders, and determined the policy in these matters, because, proving their "criminality", he thereby provided material for major political conclusions.
The question is, how could such a person himself, with his mind, conduct an investigation in such a way as to prove the guilt of such people as Kosior and others. No, he couldn't do much without appropriate instructions. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he told us this: "I was told that Kosior and Chubar are enemies of the people, so I, as an investigator, had to extract from them a confession that they are enemies." (Noise of indignation in the hall).
This he could achieve only through prolonged torture, which he did, receiving detailed instructions from Beria. It should be said that at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Rhodes cynically stated: "I believed that I was fulfilling the instructions of the party." This is how Stalin's instruction to apply methods of physical coercion to prisoners was carried out in practice.
These and many similar facts testify to the fact that all norms for the correct party solution of problems were eliminated, everything was subordinated to the arbitrariness of one person.
To be continued...
Robert Eikhe, "Siberian ice rink". He repressed the most number of citizens, not catching up only with N. Khrushchev and A. Zhdanov. In fact, it was on him - Zhdanova that Eikhe relied. He actively supported the reprisals, while being in the shadows
Eikhe was very upset by the fact that the non-party and the worst thing - the kulaks and the White Guards - now received equal rights with party members
Under Lavrenty Beria, many cases were reviewed and the leaders who contributed to the repressions were punished. Moreover, the investigation dragged on right up to 1941
Eikhe, back in 1933, demanded permission from the Politburo of the Central Committee for the execution of 6,000 kulaks, but he was denied this.
Eikhe at the plenum of the Central Committee at the beginning of 1936 will repeat his petition. Eikhe spoke out against former party comrades
Eikhe delivered fiery speeches, denouncing enemies everywhere:
“Before the Party public, before all the working people of the country, they swear allegiance to the Party, they swear that there are no disagreements, that they are fully aware of their mistakes,
And behind their backs, in their accursed underground, they inflame their cadres with malice, hatred against the leadership of the party, they are working out methods of how to harm the party, they are working out everything that could put a spoke in the wheels of the party ... ".
"In this struggle, there is no mercy for anyone whom we expose, whom we expose. There can be no mercy for these fragments, these traitors, these traitors to the Party and the working class, traitors to our socialist homeland."
"It is necessary to put an end to these reptiles, wherever they hide, the party and the working class will crush this reptile...".
Eikhe expressed his opinion and reproached the party, and in particular Stalin, for treating enemies too softly:
“The facts uncovered by the investigation revealed the bestial face of the Trotskyists before the whole world ...
Here, Comrade Stalin, several separate echelons of Trotskyists were sent into exile - I have not heard anything more vile than what the Trotskyists being sent to Kolyma said. They shouted to the Red Army: "The Japanese and the Nazis will cut you, and we will help them."
Why the hell, comrades, send such people into exile. They need to be shot.
Comrade Stalin, we are acting too softly.”
Stalin again refused to support the frantic secretary ...
Only in 1937 - having teamed up with 30 more secretaries and several members of the Politburo, Eikhe achieved his goal.
COUNTING ENEMIES
Eikhe's initial targets were non-partisan citizens who enjoyed an active life position and former members of the party
Many of them were nominated as candidates in alternative elections. It was about the heads of collective farms, cooperatives, labor collectives and other public organizations
Once Eikhe even made a scrupulous calculation of such "reptiles" and in March 1937. shared this peculiar statistics with the plenum of the Central Committee:
“We have a lot of people expelled from the party over the years ... If we take the West Siberian Territory, now we have 44 thousand party members and candidates, and 93 thousand people who have been expelled and left since 1926. As you can see, twice as many as party members. This creates a difficult situation for a number of enterprises.”
After that, terror became unsystematic
TERRIBLE IMPACT
On the very first day, the first sentences against 157 people were approved. members of the so-called
"Monarchist-Socialist-Revolutionary Organization (ROVS) of former officers which included Lieutenant Colonel I.P. Maksimov, Staff Captain K. L. Loginov, Staff Captain Prince A. A. Gagarin and others."
For a month, the troika intensively issued mass verdicts, an average of 50 people at one meeting, and by August 1, 1937, the total number of those sentenced amounted to 980 people.
The order of sentencing was gradually developed in the course of the procedure itself. How many cases could be presented at one meeting? How to pronounce sentences on persons who do not admit their guilt?
How in general to achieve the maximum acceleration of the work of the troika with an increasing flow of cases? - such questions arose already during the first meetings of the NKVD troika of the WGW.
According to the testimony of one of the NKVD workers, the difficulties of the first days forced important adjustments to be made to the work of the troika in Novosibirsk.
After several meetings, the head of the UNKVD, Mironov, and his deputy, Maltsev, categorically demanded that they stop submitting the cases of “unconfessed kulaks” to the troika.
For several sessions, the cases of those who "unconfessed" were removed from consideration and sent "for additional investigation", and the speakers were strictly instructed not to present such cases. Following this, it was forbidden to present the cases of “loners” to the troika.
As Chekist Lev Maslov testified during interrogation in 1941:
“After a short time, cases against local groups were also not allowed to the troika, and the peripheral bodies that presented such investigative cases were accused of inactivity, of unwillingness to fight the counter-revolution.”
Local workers of the NKVD were required to submit cases only for an "organized counter-revolution" with a large number of participants.
Lev Maslov noted:
“The members of the troika liked such investigative cases, and no one was interested in the fact that the cases were presented as fabricated
According to the agenda, which was prepared in the secretariat, as a speaker at the troika, I had to read out the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and briefly past of the arrested person. This was enough for the members of the troika to make a decision on the punishment of the arrested person, without listening to the corpus delicti of the crime committed by him.
Troikas usually met at night. During the night, at least 100–200 cases were considered; most of those arrested were sentenced to death"
EIHE AS INVESTIGATOR
Eikhe in other cases interrogated personally. And, it seems, he was a master of his craft. Once he greatly helped the Chekists
He joined the interrogations of the former Red partisan and the hero of the struggle against the White Cossacks - Shevelev-Lubkov.
Eikhe admonished Shevelev in a comradely manner: confess, they say, to Trotskyism and other sins. And here is luck: Shevelev writes testimony, slandering himself.
He also writes a certain confession addressed to Eikhe, it contains the following words:
“I am ashamed that I deceived Comrade Eikhe, I did not have the courage, looking into his face, to say that I am a scoundrel. I ask you to tell him my apology and convey that I decided to tell the whole truth and I only hope that he will save me and that I will come in handy in the next war, then I will prove that I have not completely died for the Soviet regime.
Eikhe did not save Shevelev. What for? After all, Eikhe joined the interrogations solely in order to induce Shevelev to self-incrimination.
As a result, Shevelev-Lubkov was shot.
DESTRUCTION OF WORK COLLECTIVES, THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND WRITERS
Members of the Zapsibzoloto trust with all its mining departments were repressed, its members were convicted and shot
All cooperatives and private artels were destroyed. Their members were convicted and for the most part shot again.
Repressions also took place against cultural figures of the region.
The Union of Writers of the Siberian Territory was also repressed - in the same Novosibirsk, all six of its members were arrested.
HOT WINTER 1937
The collection of protocols of the ZSK troika really reflects the systematic and some unusually painstaking "work" carried out in the depths of the NKVD to select and systematize the victims.
Some protocols methodically decide the fate of 150 or 200 people at once; others are dedicated to just one or two or three arrested people.
Sentencing statistics show that until the end of November 1937, the pace of the mass operation in Western Siberia (Novosibirsk region) with the participation of the NKVD troika had a uniform dynamics - approximately 6,500 convicts per month.
But since December 1937, the situation has changed dramatically due to the fact that the leadership of the NKVD planned to urgently end the campaign on order No. 00447.
The scale of the "work" of the troika is significantly increasing this month; the numbers of individual protocols are becoming unprecedented:
"only in one day - December 25 - sentences were approved in relation to 1,359 people, of which 1,313 people were subject to execution."
This was more than the NKVD troika in the Omsk region sentenced for the entire month. And on December 28, the activity of the troika turned into fantastic forms: during that day, sentences were approved against 2,021 people, of which 1,687 people. - to be shot.
The total result of the last month of 1937 amounted to 9,520 convicts, of which 8,245 were convicted. sentenced to VMN.
From protocol No. 46 of October 13, 1937, the ZSK troika became known as the troika for the Novosibirsk region (in connection with the abolition of the region and the formation of the region). But her new status entailed minor changes.
Although the troika reoriented itself to a narrower territory (without areas that had ceded to the Altai Territory), it continued to operate in the same composition (Maltsev - since August 1937, Eikhe, Barkov) and with the same intensity, without interrupting the numbering of their protocols.
From the second half of October 1937, part of the materials of the former NKVD troika of the ZSK (separated areas) began to enter the new NKVD department for the Altai Territory
On October 30, the first meeting of the NKVD troika in the Altai Territory took place, which received a limit from the Politburo for the execution of 4,000 people. and condemnation of 4,500 people.
From July 1937 to March 1938, NKVD troikas in the regions of Siberia sentenced tens of thousands of those arrested
The data of the protocols of the NKVD Troika of the Novosibirsk Region allow us to trace the features of each phase of the largest operations of 1937-1938. - "kulak" and "ROVS"
EIHE LEAVING AND ITS REPLACEMENT
Eikhe was one of the first to be transferred to the Commissariat of Agriculture and this was the beginning of his end.
In his place, under the patronage of A. Zhdanov, Ivan Alekseev was appointed .... an extremely cruel person
Ivan Alekseev, who successfully cleared the city on the Neva, promised that he would achieve no less success in Siberia.
As a result, he repressed no less than Eikhe himself
It is interesting that Alekseev was the first party member to be awarded the Order of Lenin only for his party activities.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PARTY BRANCH OF THE TERRITORY
After the arrests of non-party citizens, members of labor collectives, they set about the party branches of the region
Terror was not just massive - it was continuous.
In Novosibirsk, the Chekists were proud of the fact that by April 1938 they had arrested three members of the district and regional leadership.
After the removal of Eikhe, dozens of party leaders who worked with him were arrested.
New people took their place. But they lasted only a month and were arrested. On charges of "counter-revolutionary" crimes
New leaders took their place - who previously held very insignificant posts in the secretariat and the district committee ... but they did not last long either
Just 2 weeks later, security officers came for them and took them to the dungeons of the local NKVD ... thus, about 400 local leaders were arrested
By that time, Siberia, reorganized into the Novosibirsk region, was left without civilian control.
In November 1938, the entire leadership of the NKVD of the region was removed from their posts and later shot.
In 1940, only two of the former leadership of the NKVD remained alive: the former heads of the Krasnoyarsk NKVD K.A. Pavlov and F.A. Leonyuk, who now worked in the Gulag system.
RESULTS OF TERRIBLE PURGERY
The results of the purges were:
1. Destruction of non-partisan candidates
2.Destruction of the leadership of the collective farms of the region
3. Complete destruction of labor collectives, private enterprises
4.Partial destruction of the regional prosecutor's office
5.Partial destruction of the pariah leadership of the region
And as a result, the disorganization of the administration of the region .... in fact, the West Siberian region was deprived of state and party government for some time
THE END OF THE FORMER OWNER OF THE TERRITORY
On April 29, 1938, Eikhe was arrested. Before his arrest, he lived on Serafimovich Street in Moscow, in house number 2, in apartment 234.
According to his unsent letters, it is clear that he was tortured. And his former friends, Yezhov and Ushakov-Ushmirsky, tortured him.
Eikhe wrote:
“The situation was like this, unable to withstand the tortures that Ushakov and Nikolaev applied to me, especially the first, who deftly used the fact that my spine was still poorly overgrown after the fracture, and caused me unbearable pain, forced me to slander myself and other people ... " .
But the letters, as expected, were not released from prison ....
True, the main initiators of the purges - Zhdanov and Khrushchev came out unscathed. And do not forget that while the executioners are called innocently repressed by the evil Stalin, you honor their memory
Latvian. Born in the family of a farm laborer in the estate of Avotyn, Doblensky district, Courland province (now Latvia). In 1904 he graduated from the Doblena two-class elementary school. In 1906 he moved to Mitava, where he worked as an apprentice in the Weinberg locksmith and blacksmith workshop. In 1905 he joined the Social Democracy of the Latvian Territory (SDLK). In August 1907 he was arrested, after spending two months in prison, was released due to lack of evidence. In the same year he was elected to the regional committee of the Mitava organization, and in 1908 he was elected a member of the Mitav Committee of the Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLK). In February, with 18 comrades, he was arrested at an illegal meeting, after a six-month imprisonment he was released under police supervision.
At the end of 1908 he emigrated to Great Britain. He was a stoker on a steamer on long voyages, worked in Scotland at a coal mine, at a zinc smelter in West Hartlepool.
In 1911, having learned that the old cases concerning him had been liquidated or transferred to the court of justice, and if he returned to Russia, he no longer faced a long prison term, he returned to Riga. He was a member of the IV regional committee in Riga. He was a member of the Hammer trade union, the Education society and the Product cooperative society. Since 1914, a member of the Central Committee of the SDLK.
In 1915 he was exiled to the Cherevyansky volost of the Kansky district of the Yenisei province. He fled to Irkutsk, then lived under a false name in the Achinsk district, working at a butter factory in the village of Krutoyarka.
Revolution and Civil War
After the February Revolution, the Central Committee of Latvia was summoned to Riga. In 1917 he was elected a member of the Presidium of the Riga Council, during the German occupation he carried out underground work. In January 1918 he was arrested by the Germans, but already in July he fled to Moscow.
In 1919 - People's Commissar for Food of Soviet Latvia. Since 1919, Deputy Chelyabinsk Provincial Food Commissar, Deputy Chairman of the Chelyabinsk Gubernia Executive Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Committee of the RCP (b).
In 1921 he was a delegate to the III Congress of the Comintern. Until 1924 - at a responsible job in the People's Commissariat of Food of the RSFSR, chairman of the Siberian Food Committee.
In Siberia
Since 1924 - Deputy Chairman of Sibrevkom, since December 4, 1925 - Chairman of the Siberian Regional Executive Committee. Since 1925 a candidate member of the Central Committee, since July 1930 a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, since February 1935 a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. From 1929 - 1st Secretary of the Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, from 1930 - of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Organizer of collectivization and dispossession. He was a member of the commission "to develop measures against the kulaks", formed by the Politburo on January 15, 1930, headed by V. M. Molotov. On January 30, 1930, the Politburo, having finalized the draft of the Molotov commission, adopted a resolution "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization."
In a telegram to Stalin dated March 7, 1933, Eikhe proposed "to accept, arrange 500 thousand special settlers in the Narym, Tara north."
Member of the Troika of the NKVD of the USSR
He led the purge of the party and economic apparatus, which caused an unprecedented wave of arrests. He supervised the deployment of mass repressions in Siberia. He was one of the three who delivered thousands of death sentences out of court.
In 1930, the troika of the OGPU of Western Siberia, which included Eikhe and Zakovsky, condemned 16,553 people, including 4,762 to be shot, 8,576 to be sent to camps, 1,456 to exile, 1,759 to exile.
Eikhe sought to personally direct the work of the Siberian Chekists, intervened in the affairs of the NKVD, in some cases came to the office and was present at interrogations.
In 1937, a troika led by Eikhe repressed 34,872 people on trumped-up cases of the White Guard-Monarchist Organization of the ROVS, the Siberian branch of the Labor Peasant Party, the Church-Monarchist Insurgent Organization, and others.
At the December 1936 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, at which N. I. Yezhov reported on "anti-Soviet Trotskyist and right-wing organizations", Eikhe sharply opposed his former party comrades:
People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR
In 1937, Eikhe was appointed People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR and elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Career decline and death
On April 29, 1938, Eikhe was arrested and charged with creating a "Latvian fascist organization". During the investigation, he was tortured. In January 1954, the former head of the 1st Special Department of the NKVD, L.F. Bashtakov, testified as follows:
Rehabilitation
The Eikhe case was mentioned by N. S. Khrushchev in the report “On the cult of personality and its consequences” as an example of falsification. At the same time, the investigative case of Eikhe, like the vast majority of cases of top leaders repressed in 1937-1938, has been classified until now (2007).
He was rehabilitated by the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on March 14, 1956 and reinstated in the party on March 22, 1956 of the Communist Party of China under the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Awards
- Order of Lenin (March 15, 1935).
Memory
- In October? In 1933, the first sound cinema was solemnly opened in the city of Prokopyevsk and named after the secretary of the regional committee Robert Eikhe, but after his arrest as an “enemy of the people”, the cinema was named after Nikolai Ostrovsky.
- From 1933 to 1938, a district and a station bore the name of Eikhe in Novosibirsk. After Eikhe was repressed, the station was renamed Inskaya, and the district - Pervomaisky.
- One of the streets in the Pervomaisky district of Novosibirsk is named after Eikhe.
Khrushchev: “The Central Committee considers it necessary to report to the congress about a number of falsified “cases” against members of the Central Committee of the Party elected at the 17th Party Congress.
An example of vile provocation, malicious falsification and criminal violations of revolutionary legality is the case of the former candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, one of the prominent figures in the party and the Soviet state, Comrade Eikhe, a member of the party since 1905. ( Movement in the hall)».
Khrushchev then cites a number of documents relating to the Eikhe case, among them a fragment of a letter from Eikhe to Stalin dated October 27, 1939. Such a letter itself (actually a statement-complaint) really exists. The letter refers to the illegal methods of investigation that Eikhe experienced on himself. We have no reason to doubt the veracity of Eikhe's allegations that the interrogators subjected him to beatings in order to force him to confess to acts he never committed. But at the same time there is no reason to believe everything written there "just a word."
The report of Pospelov's commission also cites Eikhe's letter. But no proof of the truth of the statements made there, or evidence to support his innocence, is given there. The whole "investigation" done by the commission is summed up with the phrase that brooks no objection: "At present, the falsification of the Eikhe case has been indisputably established."
This is a good time to recall some of the truths that are or should be considered as capital.
If someone was beaten, tortured, it does not mean that the person is innocent. Just because someone was forced to give false testimony under torture does not mean that he is innocent of other crimes. Finally, if someone claims that he was beaten, tortured, intimidated, etc., in order to extract false evidence, it does not mean that such statements about torture are true, i.e. that this man was really tortured and that the confessions obtained in this way are indeed false. Of course, the very fact of such testimony does not mean at all that we are dealing with a lie.
In a word, it is impossible to use its surrogate instead of historical evidence. A letter to Eikhe alone is not enough to establish the truth of anything, including whether he was actually tortured or not.
For example: in one of the fragments of the court transcript of 1940, Yezhov states that he was subjected to savage torture in order to obtain false testimony from him. Nevertheless, Ezhov's guilt in falsifying confessions, beatings and torture, fabrication of cases and the physical destruction of many innocent people is beyond doubt.
But the letter to Stalin is only part of the truth about Eikhe. We do not know it in its entirety, since Khrushchev and his successors in the CPSU, and after him Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, considered it inappropriate to make public the materials of the Eikhe case, or at least open access to them for researchers.
There is reliable evidence that it was Eikhe who paved the way for other first secretaries and began to seek (at first only for himself) extraordinary repressive powers with the right to shoot thousands of people and send even more of them to the Gulag. In other words, Eikhe actually unleashed those very mass repressions, speaking of which Khrushchev expressed his indignation to the delegates of the 20th Congress. It is here that it should be said that one of the scenarios for the development of events (consistent, we note, both with the research of Yuri Zhukov and with Frinovsky's recently published statement) was that Yezhov, who worked in close connection with the first secretaries, was able to go for the arrest and execution of Stalin, if he suddenly refuses to satisfy the demands made by the secretaries.
In early 2006, a chubby collection of documents came out of the press, in which, among other things, materials from the archival and investigative files of Yezhov and his deputy for the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs M. P. Frinovsky were published (one document from each case), in which both of them confess in participation in the right-wing conspiracy, which also included N.I. Bukharin, A.I. Rykov and Yezhov's predecessor as head of the NKVD, G. G. Yagoda. Thus, Frinovsky, in a statement addressed to L.P. Beria dated April 11, 1939, names E. G. Evdokimov and Yezhov, as well as Yagoda, among the main right-wing conspirators. He specifically mentions Eikhe, who once came to Evdokimov, and in one more place of his statement he writes about Eikhe's meeting with Evdokimov and Yezhov. Recall: Evdokimov was very close to Yezhov; together with the latter, he was accused, convicted and executed in February 1940. It is obvious that Frinovsky suspected Eikhe of participating in a conspiratorial group of the right together with Yezhov, Evdokimov and others, where, we note, he himself was a member. Otherwise, the author of the statement simply had no reason to mention Eikhe in this connection. But Frinovsky no longer gives any details about the latter.
Yury Zhukov's hypothesis best explains the known facts even without the publication of Frinovsky's statement. But the latter adds a number of important details: Frinovsky confirms in it the presence of a large-scale conspiracy of the right that extends throughout the Soviet Union. Thus, Yevdokimov, who described the contours of this conspiracy to Frinovsky in 1934, noted that by that time the right had already recruited a large number of leading workers throughout the USSR. It was these people who were put on trial and executed, according to Khrushchev, on charges trumped up by Stalin. Frinovsky's statement helps to understand that in this case one cannot speak of falsification.
Evdokimov stressed that it was now necessary to start recruiting party members and lower-ranking Soviet workers, as well as collective farmers, in order to control the growing insurgency, which, according to the calculations of the right, was to become an organized movement and play its role in the commission of state coup.
From the documents that ended up at the disposal of Jansen and Petrov, and then were again classified, it follows that Eikhe interfered in the affairs of the NKVD, demanding the arrest of persons against whom the "authorities" had no evidence. In turn, Yezhov ordered his subordinates not to interfere with Eikhe, but to cooperate with him. All this information corresponds to what Frinovsky's statement says about his own work and the work of Yezhov: about beating innocent people, fabricating false accusations against them for the sole purpose of hiding their own conspiratorial plans under the guise of fighting fictitious conspiracies.
Zhukov believes that the goal of Eikhe and other first secretaries was to disrupt the alternative, competitive elections scheduled for December 1937 at any cost to the Supreme Soviet, including through statements about the existence of extremely dangerous opposition conspiracies. It doesn't matter whether they themselves believed it or not, but at the October (1937) Plenum of the Central Committee they managed to put pressure on Stalin and Molotov and force them to abandon the idea of alternativeness and competitiveness.
Stalin was also under pressure from the other side. One of his closest collaborators in the work on the Constitution and the problems of elections, Ya. A. Yakovlev, was unexpectedly arrested on October 12, 1937. In a confession made public only in 2004, Yakovlev admitted that he had been in the Trotskyist underground since the time when Lenin died, and, through the mediation of a German spy, kept in touch with Trotsky. Given the avalanche of evidence that proves the existence real and extremely dangerous conspiracies with the participation of high-ranking officials in the Soviet government, in the party and in the Armed Forces, Stalin and the Politburo could not ignore the insistent demands of the first secretaries to start an all-out war against the danger threatening the country and all of them.
Interestingly, Eikhe was convicted and shot almost at the same time as Yezhov and all his henchmen. The question arises: could it not be that the basis true charges brought against Eikhe at the trial, was his secret collusion with the former chief of the NKVD with the aim of slandering, possibly, torturing and destroying many innocent people? As the aircraft designer A. S. Yakovlev pointed out in his memoirs, Stalin said that Yezhov was shot because he "destroyed many innocents." According to other documents, which are probably taken from Yezhov's case, he was sentenced for participation in an anti-government conspiracy and for preparing "terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and government." It is possible that Eikhe was put on trial for the same crimes.
The full letter to Eikhe Stalin dated October 27, 1939 was attached to the report of the Pospelov commission. It follows from the text of the letter that Eikhe was accused both of organizing a conspiracy and of closely collaborating with Yezhov. A source previously available to Yanson and Petrov suggests that Eikhe was very strongly associated with Yezhov's mass repressions.
Eikhe's statements from a letter to Stalin about bullying and torture, which were used to extract evidence from him, are most likely credible, because. among his tormentors, he names Z. M. Ushakov and N. G. Nikolaev-Zhurid. It is known from independent sources that both of the mentioned NKVD investigators participated in the beating of those under investigation and, in fact, it was precisely for this that they suffered a well-deserved punishment under Beria.
Nikolaev-Zhurid was arrested on October 25, 1939. The same October, a letter from Eikhe to Stalin is dated. According to the verdict of the court, Nikolaev-Zhurid was shot on February 4, 1940, i.e. on the same day as Yezhov and Eikhe. The same applies to Ushakov.
What has been said means that Yezhov and his henchmen tried to shift the blame on each other and thereby try to avoid responsibility. And this coincides with the way Yezhov’s activities are presented in Frinovsky’s note, which describes in detail the episode with the demand for the urgent execution of Zakovsky in order to hide the ends in the water and prevent Beria from interrogating him and, possibly, finding out exactly what role Yezhov played in carrying out illegal mass repressions and about his active participation in the conspiracy of the right.
Eikhe was arrested on April 29, 1938, i.e. long before Beria joined the NKVD, and therefore even before Yezhov could be frightened by Beria's interrogations of Eikhe. Judging by what is known from the documents that came into the possession of Jansen and Petrov, there was some kind of quarrel between Eikhe and Yezhov. We know from Frinovsky and other sources that Yezhov and his henchmen used to torture those who were arrested by them in order, regardless of their true guilt, to force them to make incriminating confessions against themselves.
Alas, we are still unaware of other documents from the Eikhe case, including the materials of his trial in February 1940, as well as the testimony of witnesses, expert reports, material evidence, the indictment and the verdict in his case. One can be sure that the Eikhe archival and investigative file itself exists, or at least existed in Khrushchev's time, since there is a link to it in the appendix to the report of the Pospelov commission.
But of all the investigative materials, only one document has been declassified - a letter from Eikhe to Stalin. The rest of the case is still a secret behind seven seals. Moreover, both in Khrushchev's speech and in Pospelov's report, Eikhe's letter to Stalin was not fully quoted. In Eikhe, in particular, it is written: “To be beaten again for the arrested and exposed k.r. Yezhov, who ruined me , who had never committed anything criminal, I had no strength.
The highlighted text has been omitted from Pospelov's report, as well as the following words: "My testimony about the counter-revolutionary connection with Yezhov is the blackest stain on my conscience."
Eikhe was undoubtedly convinced that Yezhov was a counter-revolutionary (c.r.); in his initial testimony, Eikhe admitted that he was in counter-revolutionary ties with Yezhov, but subsequently retracted his previous testimony, blaming Yezhov, but not Beria, for all his troubles.
Khrushchev, on the contrary, tried to shift all the blame on Beria, and not on Yezhov. Since Eikhe denounced Yezhov, all references to him from the “closed report” by Khrushchev were thrown out. If Eikhe's statement that Yezhov was a counter-revolutionary got there, this would raise questions from the members of the Central Committee - questions, we note, extremely inconvenient for Khrushchev. The recently published materials of Yezhov's interrogation and Frinovsky's statement speak in detail about Yezhov's conspiratorial activities and the accusations he concocted against innocent people. Khrushchev and Pospelov covered up these crimes - and only in order to put all the blame on Stalin and Beria.
Of course, we would like to get to know the Eikhe case better and deeper, but what we find in the confessions of Frinovsky and Yezhov coincides exactly with other known facts.
Yezhov, Eikhe, Khrushchev and others: 1937
The involvement of the NKVD in the assassination of Kirov was seen as evidence of political subversion and corruption of the institution.
As a result, Yagoda was dismissed from the leadership of the bodies. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, head of the party control commission, seemed like a suitable candidate to take his place. Yezhov had experience in carrying out purges in the party and personified in his person an unconditional readiness to fulfill all the tasks assigned to him. During the investigation into the murder of Kirov, Yezhov collected all the documents and evidence proving the involvement of Zinoviev and Kamenev. He made sure that further investigations were launched into actual and potential enemies of the state. This man was, according to his contemporaries, a fanatic who knew no bounds in the performance of his tasks. Thus, in the 1930s, that is, in the face of rising fascism, contacts between fascists and Trotskyists, and the influence of Trotsky's supporters on development in the USSR, the potential dangers were taken extremely seriously by the party leadership. In particular, this concerned the increasing reports of resistance organizations and plans for a coup in the army. After the betrayal of Yagoda, which has now become obvious, Yezhov seemed to be the person who was able to cope with everything that had accumulated since then in the echelons of power.
But in September 1936, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, who received the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was forced to fight not only with health problems. He made a brilliant career in the party: in 1929, starting work as deputy chief executive in the People's Commissariat for Agriculture, he attracted attention for his participation in the collectivization of agriculture. A year later, he already worked in the personnel department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and in 1933, for his zeal, he was appointed chairman of the Central Commission for Party Purges. In 1934, he was no longer just one of the members of the Central Committee. The party leadership liked his devotion so much that during the treatment of Yezhov in Vienna, Stalin was seriously concerned about his health. As it turned out later, there were much more valid reasons to worry about the weaknesses of this person and the resulting problems. In February 1935, Yezhov became secretary of the Central Committee and chairman of the Party Control Commission, and on September 25, 1936, Stalin proposed putting this man in Yagoda's place, since he, having performed his duties for four years, not only lagged behind in development, but also made serious mistakes. oversights. Thus began a period that in later history will be given the superficial name of "Yezhovism."
The starting point for the further development of events was the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of July 02, 1937 "On anti-Soviet elements." It informed the secretaries of party organizations in the union republics and regions:
“It has been noted that most of the former kulaks and criminals, who were deported at one time from different regions to the northern and Siberian regions, and then returned to their regions after the expulsion period expired, are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes both on collective farms and state farms, as well as in transport and in some areas of industry.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks invites all secretaries of regional and regional organizations and all regional, regional and republican representatives of the NKVD to register all kulaks and criminals who have returned to their homeland, so that the most hostile of them are immediately arrested and shot in the order of administrative conduct of their cases through troikas, and the rest, less active, but still hostile elements would be rewritten and sent to the areas at the direction of the NKVD.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposes, within five days, to submit to the Central Committee the composition of the troikas, as well as the number of those to be shot, as well as the number of those to be deported.
Under these conditions, it was difficult to figure out who should be assigned to which category.
In their “Brief Chronicle of the Great Terror”, Okhotin and Roginsky indicated four stages with different main emphases in the persecution of actually or allegedly hostile groups. Between October 1936 and February 1937, the prosecutor's office was restructured and the party was purged of potential opposition elements. In the period from March to June 1937, the work of the investigating authorities was concentrated on finding "double agents" and foreign intelligence agents, purging the party elite and planning mass repressions against the social base of potential aggressors. Between July 1937 and October 1938, mass repressions were carried out against kulaks, nationalists, family members of traitors to the motherland, against the fascist military conspiracy in the Red Army and against sabotage in agriculture and other industries. With the “Beria thaw” that began in November 1938 and lasted until 1939, mass repressions were stopped, most of the extrajudicial “instances” established by Yezhov were curtailed. In the months that followed, mass releases of prisoners took place. At the same time, many of Yezhov's appointees were removed from their positions in the Ministry of the Interior and held accountable for violating socialist laws. But the fact that all this took place with the knowledge, tacit consent and support of the party and leadership, and that all members of the Politburo were involved in this process, was not voiced and condemned.
The fact that serious mistakes were made, and even in the central regions there were serious violations of the law and administrative crimes, is then, and is now used as an anti-communist argument.
On July 31, 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR issued Order No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements." The order determined the contingents subject to repression: former kulaks who remained in the countryside or settled in the cities, former members of the socialist parties, the priesthood, "former whites", etc., as well as "criminals", that is, people previously convicted of ordinary criminal articles of the Criminal Code... In addition, it was about everyone who participated in the uprisings or fascist, terrorist and other groups.
Members of anti-Soviet parties, former officers of the White Guard army, tsarist gendarmes and employees of the prison system, as well as bandits and remigrants, were registered, along with members of fascist, sabotage and espionage groups registered by the investigating authorities.
Those who were already imprisoned, the investigation of which was completed, but the trial has not yet passed, were also subjected to reprisals. The most active anti-Soviet elements were registered among former kulaks, bandits, violators, members of sects and parishioners of churches, as well as all other groups who were active in anti-Soviet activities. In addition, this included criminals (bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, smugglers, recidivist criminals, cattle thieves) and criminal elements who conducted criminal activities in the camps. The most hostile of the enumerated elements belonged to the first category. They were subject to immediate arrest and, after studying their case by the "troika", to execution. The second category included all other, less active, but still hostile elements. They were subject to arrest and, by decision of the Troika, received from 8 to 10 years in camps or prison.
Order No. 00447 established quantitative "limits" for the first (execution) and second (imprisonment in a camp) categories for each region of the USSR, and also fixed the personal composition of the "troikas": the chairman - the local head of the NKVD, the members - the local prosecutor and the first secretary of the regional, regional or republican committee of the CPSU (b).
The fact that there were “troikas” in Ukraine became known from the personal documents of Stanislav Kosior. About this, as well as about what part Kosior took in this, one can learn from his words at the XIII Congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine in May 1937. At it, he announced the complete collapse of the regional and city administration of the party in Kiev. But what happened after Kosior's resignation? And why is Khrushchev's name not mentioned either here or in the attached data of the Moscow Troika? What he was to do became known not least from his own recollections. According to the memoirs of N. S. Khrushchev, "Kaganovich said that Kosior ... as an organizer is weak, therefore he allowed licentiousness and weakening of the leadership." The fact that Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, being the first secretary of the Moscow party organization, together with the head of the administration of the Moscow department of the NKVD Redens and the deputy prosecutor of the Moscow, participated in the work of the Moscow Troika, is clear from his note to Stalin dated July 10, 1937. This document stated that 7,959 kulaks (in Moscow!) and 33,346 criminals were registered, 6,500 of whom were classified by Khrushchev in the first category and 26,936 in the second category. Thus, the number of those executed was even 1,500 more than the limit dictated by Yezhov! However, Yezhov's list of the Moscow Troika includes the names of Redens, Maslov and Volkov. Based on his research, Balayan comes to the conclusion that N. S. Khrushchev, as the first secretary of the regional and Moscow city party committee from 1936 to 1937 and as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1938, gave his personal consent to the arrest of a significant number of party and Soviet workers. Documents proving Khrushchev's participation in mass repressions in the Moscow region and Ukraine have been preserved in the KGB archives. In 1936-1937 alone, 55,741 people were repressed by his decree. During Khrushchev's tenure, which began in 1938, that number in Ukraine was 106,119.
However, this phase was far from over. In 1938-1940, the number of those repressed rose to 167,565 people. The intensification of repressive measures was justified by the NKVD by the fact that counter-revolutionary activity increased especially in connection with the arrival of Khrushchev to the post of first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. This man went down in history by declaring at the 20th Congress about Stalin's participation in "monstrous falsifications" that caused the death of "many thousands of honest, innocent communists", such as "Kosior, Chubar, Postyshev, Kosarev" and others . This is incomprehensible if one bears in mind that Khrushchev made a significant contribution to his liquidation after Kosior's resignation for his own benefit. This man used his crimes to come to power. In the same way, he continued the "purges" in the ranks of the Red Army. Syromyatnikov writes: “In the second half of 1956, from the Central Committee of the CPSU, the leadership of the KGB received a command to submit to the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU all investigative cases against persons whose arrest was sanctioned at various times by members of the Politburo, and later by the Presidium of the Central Committee ... Fake cases, where the name was highlighted Khrushchev, there were many; in 1956, not all of them were selected, so their search and seizure of individual documents took more than one year.
Obviously, different people used these events primarily to make a career for themselves. Therefore, the dispute over the question of whether such a threat really existed, whether it was done on the orders of Stalin, whose victims were Yagoda and Yezhov, or whether the intrigues of ambitious and cynical employees served as the basis for this, is of particular interest. Without a doubt, one can proceed from the fact that Trotsky, who was abroad and his followers in the country, made repeated attempts to hinder the development of the USSR by any means. Parallel to this were groups whose political influence waned as industrialization progressed. Ultimately, one cannot lose sight of the fact that even before Yagoda's resignation, even in the security agencies, tendencies towards independent work were noticeable. The assignment of special powers in tracing counter-revolutionary crimes was initially associated with high claims to the personal integrity of those who were entrusted with this task. Far from everyone, including those among senior officials, met the requirements of the fight against "smart terror". How this process began, it becomes clear from the message of the people's commissar for the military industry B.L. Vannikov, who himself became a victim of this kind of slanderous campaign in 1941. He saw how a campaign was launched in the main directorate of artillery against the director, who was "dissatisfied." One of the employees was instructed to fabricate "facts of criminal activity" and hand them over to the investigating authorities.
Since the Central Committee was informed about this, Stalin could take part in this. But Vannikov's demand to bring charges against the leading cadres of military enterprises only after rechecking by the Council of People's Commissars extended only to factories that produced artillery pieces.
Increasingly, the risk of responsibility was supplanted by blind adherence to discipline, anticipatory obedience, and cynical careerism.
Finally, it should not be overlooked that those who were responsible for making political decisions at the highest level had to sometimes make decisions without being able to assess all the information available in advance, succumbing to the temptation to simply use their official position. All this became the basis for the current situation. It is for this reason that the question remains unanswered whether there were plans for a coup, agreements with Trotskyist and foreign organizations associated with them, and specific actions for its implementation.
Given the falsification of sources, the answer to this question can most likely be found if the truth of the accusations of the legal proceedings of that time is questioned. The actual goals of the purge process begun after 1936 could not be achieved: the leaders of the party had to create a bureaucracy of power with an ever-increasing and ultimately decisive influence on economic and socio-political development. Its employees were not ready and did not want to give up their positions in the governing bodies of the Soviets and industry. The attempts of the central body to undermine the unlimited power of the first secretaries in the republics and regions in the new elections failed, because the local bodies concentrated in their hands all the threads of the system of mutual dependencies. The fact of the dominant influence of the secretaries of the regional party committee on the decisions of the Central Committee becomes obvious. In close cooperation with loyal NKVD officers, everything was done to consolidate this position.
Today it is believed that this was an underground struggle against the "cult of personality." But if you turn to reliable statistical sources, it becomes clear that everything is far from being so simple. This becomes obvious if we trace the change in the number of forcibly resettled kulaks between 1932 and 1940 and the number of those serving sentences between 1934 and 1940 in labor camps and Gulag colonies for committing counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous crimes against state security. .
The number of forcibly resettled kulaks decreased markedly in the years from 1934 to 1937. In 1934, 1.4% of the resettled were released again. In 1938, the highest point of this process was reached. Although a year later, a wave of releases began again.
But the number of forcibly resettled in 1938 was even lower than in previous and subsequent years. In 1939, compared with 1938, it again reached 106.9% and 113.7% in 1940!
This trend is not entirely consistent with the statistics on the number of prisoners in labor camps and colonies. These figures show that the number of prisoners in 1935 increased by 189% compared to the previous year. This trend continued in subsequent years. A characteristic feature is the increase in the number of prisoners in 1938. Then, compared to last year, this number was 157%, and compared to 1934 - 368.7%! The difference between 1938, 1939 (88.8%) and 1940 (88.2%) was immense. But compared with 1934, 327.7% or 325.3% was still significantly more than in 1937 (234.4%). The change in the ratio between corrective labor camps (ITL) and corrective labor colonies (ITK) observed in 1938 compared to the previous year is also striking: before and after, the part of those forcibly relocated to colonies compared to the number of prisoners in the Gulag was 31, 4% and 21.2%. In 1938, this figure more than doubled to 47%.
More noticeable was the change in the number of persons who received sentences for committing counter-revolutionary crimes. Having fallen to 12% in 1936 and 1937, this number increased by 177% in 1938, and in 1939, compared with 1937, it had already risen four times. The proportion of those convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes rose to 34.5%.
This trend is determined and emphasized not only by the number of those repressed, but also by the almost unimaginable tightening of penalties in 1937-1938. Especially serious is the change in the number of death sentences.
Compared to the halving of capital punishment sentences in the previous year, a climax was reached in 1937 with a 350-fold increase, which was repeated the following year. This ended in 1939: the number of death sentences was reduced to the level of previous years.
Yezhov's "great terror" was replaced by "Beria's thaw." But the proportion of those convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes - more than four hundred thousand - remained in labor camps and colonies at a level that in 1939, at the behest of Beria, more than doubled compared to previous years.
G. M. Malenkov at that time enjoyed special confidence as the head of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks responsible for personnel issues and one of Yezhov’s closest associates, not only thanks to information, but also thanks to his own influence. But in August 1938, he handed Stalin a note in which he claimed that Yezhov and his department were guilty of the destruction of thousands of Communist Party loyalists. This was the beginning of the end of the career of N. I. Yezhov: already in the same month, L. P. Beria was appointed his new deputy. On November 23, 1938, Yezhov wrote a letter of resignation from the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, in which he pleaded responsible for the sabotage activities of "enemies of the people" who had tricked into the NKVD. A day later, his request was granted. On November 17, 1938, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigation", which prohibited any mass arrest and deportation operations, as well as the activities of the "troikas" initiated by order of the NKVD.
April 10, 1939 Yezhov was arrested. The pretext was a gross neglect of one's official duties due to drunkenness. But a later hearing revealed facts that showed the man's motives in a different light. During his stay at a resort in Vienna, Yezhov was recruited by German intelligence. He was blackmailed by a certain “Doctor Engler”, who worked in the clinic where Yezhov was treated, forcing him to cooperate with German intelligence. This fact deserves special attention, because Yezhov denied all possible accusations, except for cooperation with German intelligence. Using this approach, we understand that in this process the verdict was given based on the evidence and the charges. In this context, K. Kolontaev raises the question of whether what happened in 1937 should be considered as a persecution of the old Bolsheviks or as a purge of corruption from the party apparatus. But he too easily comes to the conclusion that “the main blow was directed against the corrupt and decayed upper and middle strata of the Soviet bureaucracy, as well as against those personally honest, but incompetent functionaries who, due to their incompetence, hampered or even delayed the development of the industries entrusted to them. activities, but at the same time stubbornly did not want to leave their posts, referring to their past revolutionary merits (the category of the so-called “old Bolsheviks”).”
It remains unclear why, if (according to Kolontaev) "genuine political opponents of the Soviet state accounted for less than 10% of those accused for political reasons", the remaining 90% - "corrupt military and civil officials" were convicted "for various kinds of mythical political crimes."
The scale of the personal changes initiated as a result of these purges and repressions became clear when Stalin announced at the 18th Congress: “There are data in the Central Committee of the Party that show that during the reporting period the Party was able to nominate more than 500,000 people to leading positions in the state and party lines. young Bolsheviks, party and affiliated to the party, of which more than 20 percent are women ... At the 17th Party Congress, 1,874,488 party members were represented. If we compare these data with the data on the number of party members presented at the previous, the 16th Party Congress, it turns out that during the period from the 16th Party Congress to the 17th Congress, 600,000 new Party members arrived in the Party. The Party could not but feel that such a massive influx into the Party in the conditions of 1930-1933 was an unhealthy and undesirable expansion of its membership. The party knew that its ranks were not only honest and loyal, but also random people, but also careerists who sought to use the banner of the party for their own personal purposes.
Thus, a new wave of purges began. At the same time, it was noted that the purges were not without serious mistakes. “Unfortunately, there were more mistakes than one could have imagined... About 1,600,000 Party members are represented at the present, XVIII Congress, that is, 270,000 Party members less than at the XVII Congress. But there is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, this is for the better, for the Party is strengthened by the fact that it cleanses itself of filth. Our party is now somewhat smaller in terms of the number of its members, but it is better in terms of quality. From January 1939 to June 1941, 1,723,148 people were accepted into the party as candidates and 1,201,847 as party members. On January 1, 1941, the CPSU(b) had 3,872,465 members and candidates.
As a rule, this stage of the internal political development of the USSR is reduced mainly to repressions. But we must not forget that in these years there have been profound changes in economic development. This is especially evident on the basis of industrial development that has taken effect.
The assessment made in the annual report at the 18th Party Congress that Soviet industry ranks first in the world in terms of industrial output may be questioned. But within just five years, industry performance has more than doubled! This convincingly proves that the socialist sector, developing in accordance with the socialist planned economy, unequivocally surpassed the capitalist economy in terms of development rates.
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