The same is true for the written statements on the domestic ... Mobilisation, Militarization and Peasant War, in Russia ...... a considerable run of 1,600 copies.
1
Stalin’s Mass Repression and the Cold War Paradigm
by
Marc Junge
2 Copyright 2016 Marc Junge All rights reserved. This book may not be reprodueced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form without written permission from the author. Cover illustration: Marc Junge. Mechanism of State power. 2016. Finished photograph.
3 To my friend and teacher Rolf Binner
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his teacher. —Leonardo da Vinci
4 Contents
Preface Abbreviations and Glossary
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 The War Threat and the Beginning and Ending of the Great Terror 1. The War Threat as a Parenthesis 2. Using the War Threat to Secure Collectivisation 3. The Timing of the Great Terror 4. Pre-War Situation: Perceived vs. Real War Threat 5. The Western Siberian Troika as a Model for the Kulak Troika? 6. The Underestimated War Threat
CHAPTER 2 Goal-Oriented Repression vs. Stochastic Repression 1. Questioning the Uniqueness of Auschwitz 2. Assembly-Line Judiciary Organised by the State Bureaucracy 3. Repressions from a Position of Strength 4. Regionalization of Repressive Power 5. Individual Guilt vs. Social Group-Justice 6. Modernity and Ambivalence
CHAPTER 3
5 Repression along Nationality Lines 1. Ethnicization of Enemy Identification 2. Contextualisation of the Ethnic Component 3. Administrative Consolidation: Mingrelians, Svans and Batsbii 4. Administrative Exclusion: The Laz 5. Social Status and Repression: Abkhazians, Ossetians and Adzharians 6. “Soviet” Nationalities: Armenians and Azerbaijanis 7. High Status “Soviet” Nationalities: Russians, Ukrainians and Jews 8. “Foreign” Nationalities: Kurds, Yezidis, Greeks and Iranians 9. Nationalities from Bordering States: The Turks 10. “Enemy” Nationality: The Germans 11. Stalinist Nation Building: Doing Away with the National Circus 12. Deadly Interaction 13. Mass Repressions and Deportations 14. Ancestry instead of Citizenship 15. Racist or Genocidal?
CHAPTER 4 Repression of the Social Body 1. The State of the Sources 2. Social Deviance as a Topic of Research 3. Socially Close Elements 4. Crime in Theory and Propaganda 5. The Practice of Fighting Criminality 6. Statistics 7. Regional Centres of the Combat against Crime
6 8. Categories of Criminals 9. The Moscow Central Command 10. The Mid-Level Operations 11. The Rayon and District Level 12. The Implementation of the Guidelines through the District NKVD 13. The Investigative Documents 14. Hooligans 15. Minor Criminal Repeat Offenders 16. Affected Domains of the National Economy 17. The Processing of the Investigative Documents by the Militsiya 18. The Kulak Troika as an Extended Arm of the Police Troika 19. The Choice
Conclusions
Bibliography
7 Preface
Many thanks to Bernd Bonwetsch (Department of Eastern European History, University of Bochum, Emeritus) and Lynne Viola (Department of History, Toronto State University) for their critical reading of, comments on and improvements to the entire book. My thanks to Jürgen Zarusky (Institute for Contemporary History, Munich) and Lesley Rimmel (Department of History, Oklahoma State University) and Michael Ellman (Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Emeritus) for their critical reading and expansion of Chapter One. Many thanks to the participants in the blind review for their helpful comments on this chapter, too. Andrei Savin (Russian Academy in Novosibirsk), Oliver Reisner (Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia) and Bernd Bonwetsch annotated Chapter Three. I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for their support of the project Stalinism in the Soviet Provinces 1937-1938. The Volkswagen Stiftung has sponsored the project Mass Repression in Soviet Georgia. Out of these two projects this book came into being. Translation from German to English: John R. te Velde (Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Oklahoma State University). Timothy K. Blauvelt, Associate Professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia, edited Chapters One and Two and parts of Chapter Two; Daniel C. Geist edited Chapter Four, the Introduction and Conclusion and parts of Chapter Three. Gordon Marshall proofread the whole book. Bernd Bonwetsch (University of Bochum) co-authored Chapter One. The co-authors of Chapter Three are Daniel Müller (University of Dortmund), Wolfgang Feurstein (Glatten, Germany) and Ivan Dzhukha (Gelendzhik, Russia). Chapter Four was written with Rolf Binner. In the main text, I have followed a standard English transliteration system for Russian words, with the exception of some well-known names. In the footnotes, I use the international
8 scientific transliteration.
9 Abbreviations and Glossary of Frequently Used Terms
AIMG Archive of the Interior Ministry of Georgia AIC GUVD KemO Archiv Informacionnogo Centra Gostudarstvennogo Upravleniia Vnutrennikh Del Kemerovskoi Oblasti (Archive of the Information Centre of the State Administration of Internal Affairs of the Kemerovo region). Cheka Acronym for the Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution and Sabotage. The political police during the revolutionary war years 1917-1922 Chekist A member of the Cheka was called a ‘Chekist’. The term is also often used to refer to the Soviet secret police that existed throughout the Soviet period Dvoika A commission-of-two, which was composed of the federal, regional or local state prosecutor and the current head of the NKVD Oblast’ Government administrative unit, larger than a region (raion), smaller than a district (krai) OGPU Chief Administration for State Security. Political administration, 1934-1941 under the Commissariat of Internal Affairs GULAG Chief Administration for Camps ITK Corrective Labour Colony ITL Corrective Labour Camp ITR Corrective Labour work Kulak “Rich” peasant Militsiya Shortened name for civil police NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Russian Republic, 19181930; All Union Commissariat of Internal Affairs, 1934-1946 OGA SBU Otraslevyi gosudarstvennyi archiv Sluzhby bezobpasnosti Ukrainy (Branch of the State Archive of the State Security Service of the Ukraine)
10 OGPU United (Combined) State Political Administration. Political police, 1922-1934 RSFSR Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic Stochastic repressions Random and arbitrary repressions Troika Kulak Troika and National Troika: A committee-of-three formed in the capital and in all large administrative units of the USSR, presided over by the respective head of the secret service, the NKVD. Members were the corresponding prosecutors and party secretaries Troika Police Troika: The chairman was usually the local, regional or federal head of the NKVD or his representative, the other members being the corresponding state prosecutor and the leader of the administration of the civil police (militsiya), as well as the leader of the responsible departments of the police URKM District – or oblast’-level civil police administration UNKVD District – or oblast’-level NKVD administration
11 Introduction
What you call “spirit of the ages” Is after all the spirit of those sages In which the mirrored age itself reveals. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I
In 1937 and 1938, mass repression swept the Soviet Union, resulting in the convictions of more than 1.6 million people in less than two years by extrajudicial agencies alone. Among these were around 800,000 persons who fell victim to the largest action, or mass operation, designated the Kulak Operation in “Chekist” jargon. Half of the victims of the Kulak Operation were sentenced to death and immediately executed, while the other half were sent to labour camps for up to ten years. The Kulak Operation was based on the infamous “Order No. 00447” of July 30, 1937, issued by the people’s commissar N. I. Ezhov against “‘kulaks,’, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements.” NKVD Order No. 00447 was approved by Stalin and other members of the Politburo. The sentencing board was the so-called Kulak Troika, a committee of three formed in the capital and in all large administrative units of the USSR, presided over by the provincial head of the secret service, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD).1 The other members were the chief prosecutor and party secretary of the region in question. Another 350,000 persons were convicted in the same period in the wave of so-called National Operations against people of foreign ethnicity living in the Soviet Union, among them Poles, Germans, Iranians, Turks and Greeks. Approximately 80% were sentenced to
1 oblast’ = Government administrative unit, larger than a region, raion, smaller than a district, krai.
12 death. The sentencing board was the so-called Dvoika. From September 17, 1938, onwards the Dvoika was replaced by the so-called National Troika, formed on the basis of Order No. 00606. The Dvoika, a committee of two, was composed of the federal, regional or local state prosecutor and the current head of the NKVD. The most important formal difference between the Dvoika and troiki (Kulak Troika and National Troika) was that the Dvoika was not permitted to carry out a sentence without prior permission from the so-called Great Dvoika in Moscow, composed of N. Ezhov, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, and A. Vyshinskii, state prosecutor of the USSR. In order to get this permission, so-called albums (albomy), in all likelihood accompanied by their documents for investigation, were sent to Moscow. They contained, like the Troika presentment for each suspect, a brief indictment and the planned sentence drawn up on its basis, which was then confirmed in Moscow. The largest National Operation, also approved by the Politburo, occurred on August 9, 1937, and was directed by Order No. 00485 against the Soviet Poles: “On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and the Polish Military Organisation.”2 There were additional victims, often overlooked today, who were convicted by socalled Police Troikas (militseiskie troiki). The chairman was usually the local, regional or federal head of the NKVD or his representative, the other members being the corresponding state prosecutor and the leader of the administration of the civil police (militsiya), as well as the leader of the responsible department of the police, whose documents were supposed to be
N. Ochotin, A. Roginskij, Iz istorii “nemeckoj operacii” NKVD 1937-1938, in I. L. Šerbatova (ed.), Nakazannyj narod. Repressii protiv Rossijskich nemcev (Moscow, 1999), pp. 35-74; N. V. Petrov, A. B. Roginskij, ‘Pol’skaja operacija NKVD 1937-1938 gg.’, in A. E. Gur’janova (ed.), Repressii protiv poljakov i pol’skich graždan (Moscow, 1997), pp. 22-43; I. Džucha, Grečeskaja operacija. Istorija repressii protiv grekov v SSSR (Sankt-Peterburg, 2006); T. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca, 2001); V. Dönninghaus, Minderheiten in Bedrängnis. Sowjetische Politik gegenüber Deutschen, Polen und anderen Diaspora-Nationalitäten 1917-1938 (Munich, 2009); N. Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides (Princeton, Oxford, 2010); Je. Bednarek, V. V’jatrovyč, S. Kokin (Redakcijna kolegija), Pol’šča ta Ukrajina u trydcjatych – sorokovych rokach XX stolittja. Nevidomi dokumenty z archiviv special’nych služb, vol. 8, book 2: Velykyj teror. Pol’s’ka Operacija 1937-1938 (Waršava, Kijiv, 2010). 2
13 presented at the Police Troika’s meeting. The secretary of the Police Troika, also present at the procedure, came either from the administration of the state security administration (UGB) or the civil police. Their extrajudicial judgements affected, from August 1937 until November 1938, hundreds of thousands of people – according to expert estimates, approximately 450,000. They were placed in labour and correctional camps for up to five years for minor offences or acts of social deviance.3 Until 1991, when archives began to open in the former Soviet Union, however, there was only rudimentary and fragmentary information on these immense operations, which were ordered by the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Politburo, and carried out under its control. The decision-making process in the Politburo, the planning of the actions by secret police and militsiya, and their comprehensive implementation happened under strict rules of secrecy, so that no official document with any trace of the actions could be found before the demise of the Soviet Union. In the memoirs of witnesses of the period, fragmentary information on parts of the operations can sometimes be found. The Troiki are often mentioned in memoir literature: "Most prisoners were sentenced [1937-38], in their own absence, by NKVD judicial comittees – either the so-called Troika, a committee of three which met in the provincial cities, or by a 'special NKVD council' in Moscow."4 A Soviet defence attorney, who appeared in November 1939 in a trial before the military tribunal of the Kalinin Military District against two 3
G. T. Rittersporn, Extra-Judicial Repression and the Courts: Their Relationship in the 1930s, in P. H. Solomon (ed.), Reforming Justice in Russia, 1864-1996. Power, Culture, and the Limits of Legal Order (New York, 1997), pp. 207-227; M. Junge, Social’no-technologičeskij aspekt prikaza Nr. 00447, in M. Junge, R. Binner, S. Kokin (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga na blago naroda”. “Kulackаja“ operacija“ v Ukrainskoj SSR 1937-1941. V 2-tomach, vol. 2: Vtoroj ėtap repressij. Zaveršenie Bol’šogo terrora i vosstanovlenie “socialističeskoj zakonnosti“ (Moscow, 2010), pp. 209-244; N. Vert, S. V. Mironenko (eds.), Istorija Stalinskogo GULAGa. Konec 1920-ch-pervaja polovina 1950-ch godov, vol. 1, Massovye repressii v SSSR (Moscow, 2004), pp. 259-260; V. Danilov, M. Kudjukina, R. Manning (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni. Kollektivizacija i raskulačivanie. Dokumenty i materialy v 5 tt. 1927–1939, vol. 5, book 2. 1938-1939 (Moscow, 2006), pp. 556-557. 4 F. Beck, W. Godin, Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confession (New York, 1951), p. 75.
14 investigation directors of the State Security Service, reports his futile investigations in the legal records, government ordinances and juridical literature to find even one line on the legal basis and the function of the Troiki.5 Although the existence of the Troiki, the central terrorist agents of Stalinism, was known for half a century, the meagre state of knowledge remained nearly unchanged until 1989.6 For this reason every attempt to “write about the captivating story of this body”7 met with the greatest difficulties. It appeared as if these “execution commissions” had also been removed along with the people – no GULAG memoirs written prior to 1991 by surviving victims convicted by the Troiki are known to us.8 The documents of these mass persecutions became available only after the archival revolution. These, however, are almost exclusively perpetrator documents. Of the victims of the extrajudicial bodies, only a very few short recollections have come to light, in part because of the passage of time; most of these are printed in the so-called “remembrance books of victims of political repressions” (knigi pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii). Historical research has focused on the mass persecutions, which indeed were
B. G. Men'šagin, Vospominanija. Smolensk…Katyn'…Vladimirskaja tjurma… (Paris, 1988), pp. 60-63. 6 Ž. Rossi, Spravočnik po GULagu. Istoričeskij slovar' sovetskich penitentarnych institucij i terminov, svjazannych c prinuditel'nym trudom (London, 1987), p. 412. 7 A. Solschenizyn, Der Archipel GULAG, vol. 1 (Reinbek, 1983), p. 267. Even Solzhenitsyn has to pay tribute to the self-described anonymity of the troiki, for he allows their history even before 1937 to turn into that of the “OSOs”, of the so-called Special Councel, another extrajudicial body. 8 An absolute exception in the recollection literature can be identified in the publications of Abdurakhman G. Avtorkhanov. This author, born 1908, studied from 1933 to 1937 at the Institute of the Red Professorship in Moscow, worked in the regional committee of the VKP(b) of the autonomous Soviet Republic of the Chechens and Ingushetians and led its party publishing company. Between 1937 and 1942 he was arrested twice and released. In 1943 he was deported to Germany where he remained after 1945 and worked for the Munich Institute for Research on the USSR. A. Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party. A Study in the Technology of Power (Munich, 1959), pp. 219-221; A. Avtorchanov, Memuary (Frankfurt, 1984), pp. 546-547. 5
15 conducted in remarkable haste, without pause or hesitation.9 The thorough quest for sources has only begun. Moreover, most recent scholarship tends to position the mass persecutions within frames of understanding that are long familiar to researchers and which generally serve to reaffirm the existing narrative on Stalinism.10 The secret orders concerning mass murder and labour camp sentences have served in the end as a capstone to confirm the longstanding view of the system: that is, that Stalinism was supposedly a “totalitarian polity”.11 Whence arises this disposition in the historiography on the Soviet Union, especially regarding the mass persecutions, to let the process of perception be bent on the resistance of the new documents? The historiography on Stalinism has, for decades, been contained within the narrow straightjacket of the totalitarian model.12 Compared to those who have conducted research on National Socialism, historians of the Stalin era have had to struggle with source and methodology problems, resulting in an asymmetry between these two fields of research and making the work on Stalinism especially susceptible to the weaknesses of ideological and dogmatic thinking.13 Closely associated with this ideological and dogmatic approach is the transparent politicising and trivialising of the totalitarian model during the “Cold War” by Western political scientists, that is, its use as an anti-communist instrument of political integration for Western democracies.14 Our attention, however, will here be directed on the particular effect that the secretiveness of the Khrushchev era had on research in this field. During the 9
In the diagnosis of this phenomenon and in the following, the theoretical deliberations of Käte Meyer-Drawe on learning provided assistance. K. Meyer-Drawe, Diskurse des Lernens (Munich, 2008). 10 Cf. on this the detailed presentation of the research in chapter 1. 11 Cf. the presentation of the research in chapters 2 and 3. 12 See I. Kershaw, Das Wesen des Nationalsozialismus. Faschismus, Totalitarismus oder einzigartiges Phänomen, in Kershaw, Geschichtsinterpretationen und Kontroversen im Überblick (Hamburg, 1999), pp. 39-79; I. Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems & Perspectives of Interpretation (Oxford, 2000). 13 The discussion in Germany of the influence of the traditionally high susceptibility of Eastern European history to state claims on political and ideological service to the phenomenon of dogmatic thinking is being consciously ignored here. 14 Kershaw, Das Wesen des Nationalsozialismus, p. 64.
16 Khrushchev years, a very different kind of ideological and dogmatic thinking, stemming from an artificially generated source asymmetry, came to the fore and exerted a sustained influence on Stalinist research. On the basis of the highly selective release of, and privileged access to, sources on Stalin’s crimes that the Soviet state permitted in the 1960s under Khrushchev and then again starting in 1986 under Gorbachev, a meaningful comparison between National Socialism and Stalinism, a primary goal of the totalitarian model, was simply an impossibility. The selective choice of sources, as for instance in the release during the 1960s of documents that focused only on Stalin’s crimes, such as his signature on the arrest warrants against loyal persons in the military, administration or party or his role in coercive collectivization, was intended by Stalin’s heirs to distract from their own responsibility and at the same time to portray the party and ultimately the society as a whole as a victim of the dictator’s deformed personality and an NKVD enslaved to him. A side effect, however, was that the few released sources, and the numerous second-hand public pronouncements in the West about still-secret sources, were referenced for a comparison of Stalinism and National Socialism. In other words, the research on Stalinism was, in its classification, categorisation and evaluation, especially of the violence and terror of the 1930s, dependent upon sources and a self-portrayal filtered by Stalinist political elites and states.15 The research on National Socialism, by contrast, had much earlier, despite all its own difficulties,16 relied on a broader corpus of sources. Up to the present day, little has changed with regard to sources on Stalin’s repression. In the Gorbachev era, materials on the persecutions were again made available Dietrich Beyrau stated generally and without mentioning the reasons: “In the past, one used to get the impression that analyses of the Soviet system somehow reproduced something of the backwardness of the analysed object itself. Yet despite all the catching up that has been done, there remains a discrepancy in results, interests, questions, and approaches.” D. Beyrau, Nazis and Stalinists. Mutual Interaction or Tandem Development?, Kritika (2010), No. 4, vol. 11, pp. 807-817, here: p. 808. 16 For example, a large number of documents of the SS and the police were destroyed. Also the documents of the administrative staff of the concentration camps suffered great losses. Important holdings, for example the greater part of Goebbels’ diaries, were just recently made available by Russian archives. Also, the extensive NS-document archive of the Stasi has been accessible since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Noted by Jürgen Zarusky.) 15
17 only selectively, contributing for instance to the “forgotten rehabilitation” of Trotsky during this time. Only with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting “archival revolution” was a somewhat wider opening of the archive doors allowed. For at least a good ten years, numerous editions of documents were made accessible. In some former Soviet states like Ukraine and Georgia, there was in fact far-reaching free access to relevant sources. The main problem, however, is that trained personnel are often lacking both nationally and internationally. Nationally, that is, within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, historical research on the Soviet past is often either seen as undesirable or starkly subordinate to nation building, or it is simply unattractive because it is underpaid. In the West, by contrast, after the “victory” in the Cold War the potential was thwarted by the elimination of a large number of positions in Eastern European history departments. To make matters worse, important documents in Russia (for instance the interrogation files of persecuted individuals) have been available to only a very few researchers; since the Archive Law of 2006, many of these documents have disappeared again in the process of reclassification (or resecretization).17 The transfer of materials on mass persecutions from the archives of the Federal Secret Service of the Russian Federation (FSB RF) to state archives is proceeding very sluggishly, at best. Additionally, sources officially made public often can not be used because for years they have been in the hands of commissions for the evaluation and release of documents (rassekrechivanie). Access to local secret service and police archives is in the meantime completely blocked for international researchers. Individual foreigners are still working in the central archive of the FSB in Moscow. A few national historians have privileged entry not only to the local and national archive of the FSB. In the archive of the
The text of the law: Položenie o porjadke dostupa k materialam, chranjaščimsja v gosudarstvennych archivach i archivach gosudarstvennych organov RF, prekraščennych ugolovnych i administrativnych del v otnošenii lic, podvergšichsja političeskim repressijam, a takže fil’tracionno-proveročnych del – utverždeno prikazom Ministerstva kul’tury i massovych kommunikacii RF, Ministerstva vnutrennich del RF i Federal’noj služby bezopasnosti RF, 25.07.2006, Rossijskaja gazeta, Federal’nyj vypusk, 4178 (22.05.2014). 17
18 President of the Russian Federation (that is, the archives of the Politburo), meanwhile, only exclusively hand-picked Russian historians are permitted access. Moreover, research on the perpetrators of the Great Terror in the Russian Federation is practically impossible, since the appropriate sources are not being released, even after the end of the mandated 75-year embargo. In addition to the extreme source asymmetry between National Socialist and Stalinist research, there is also an asymmetry in methodology. The totalitarian model, as a way toward the evaluation of the respective systems and their techniques of control, has undergone a process of depolitisization and scientification. This has occurred in a very one-sided fashion, however. Its theoretical and empirical strength lies to a high degree in its discussion of National Socialism (and fascism), not Stalinism. The major reason for the asymmetry in the discussion stems from the asymmetrical availability of relevant sources. This double asymmetry, according to our central thesis, has had grave consequences for the research on Stalinism: It has, first, resulted in the conceptual domination of works on National Socialism and the creation of preset categories for understanding state repression that are based mainly on the German example. These categories, which are listed in table 1 under the rubric “National Socialism”, have served to dominate analysis in the research on Stalinism. In this way, the apparent advantage of the model – that of making possible a comparative political, social and economic description of National Socialism and Stalinism on the basis of certain analytical criteria (e.g. one-party system, legitimation of rule by plebiscite, inflexibility toward alternative positions) in practice is revealed as a decisive disadvantage. In the face of the source asymmetry, the research on Stalinism suffers from the fundamental fact that most of
19 the comparative analytical criteria are tendentiously, nonspecifically and historically weakly tied to time and place.18 The second consequence is dogmatic thinking. Prejudices and clichés characteristic of the West about Soviet persecution policies seeped first into the Western, then also into the post-Soviet Eastern European historiography. Ironically, this process was greatly faciliatted by the politically motivated Soviet (and post-Soviet) process of document selection, if not in fact made possible by it. Thus, in the case of research on Stalinism, the chief disadvantages of the totalitarianism model (that is, the potential combination of dogmatic thinking and nonscientific analysis) remain “troubling”.19 The third consequence is that researchers of Stalinism have tended to accept highly problematic conclusions about the causes and nature of violence and terror in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, as summarized in the following table under the rubric “Stalinism”. In fact, this is particularly the case for key topics such as policies of mass persecution, the cause of the radicalization of both systems, the persecution of ethnic groups, and nationality policy.
Table 1 Conclusions of Stalinism research with respect to the persecutions of the 1930s
Topic
National Socialism
Stalinism
Persecutions
Mass scale
Mass scale
Persecutions
Goal-oriented
Stochastic (random and arbitrary repressions)
D. Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism. Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953 (New Haven/London, 2009), p. 16 ff. 19 See Kershaw, Das Wesen des Nationalsozialismus, pp. 39-79; Shearer, Policing, p. 16 ff. 18
20 Persecutions
Racial judiciary
Class- or social groupjustice20
Radicalisation
Correlation between
Threat of war
war, ideology and
determined the
functionary elites
beginning and extent of the persecutions21
Genocidal
Genocidal22
Nationality policy and
Discursive and
Structural racism23
purges of nationalities
structural racism
Mass Terror
Final Solution
Jewish persecutions (National Socialism) persecutions in the framework of National Operations (Stalinism)
Final Solution24
20
T. Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York, 2010). O. Chlewnjuk, Das Politbüro. Mechanismen der Macht in der Sowjetunion der dreißiger Jahre (Hamburg, 1998), p. 250, 256, 259; O. Chlewnjuk, The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938, in J. Cooper, M. Perrie, E. A. Rees (eds.), Soviet History, 1917-53. Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies (London, 1995), p. 158-176; O. Khlevniuk, Reasons for the Great Terror. The Foreign Political Aspect, in S. Pons, A. Romano (eds.), Russia in the Age of Wars 1914 -1945 (Milan, 1998), pp. 159-169; Hiroaki Kuromiya, review of: R. Binner, B. Bonwetsch, M. Junge (eds.), Stalinismus in der sowjetischen Provinz 1937-1938. Die Massenaktion aufgrund des operativen Befehls Nr. 00447 (Berlin, 2010), H-Soz-u-Kult, 18. 5. 2010. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2010-2-130 (6/23/2011); Shearer, 21
Policing, p. 16 f.
N. Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides (Princeton/Oxford 2010), pp. 120; Jörg Baberowski, Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Ordnung durch Terror. Gewaltexzesse und Vernichtung im nationalsozialistischen und im stalinistischen Imperium (Berlin, 2006), pp. 17, 79; J. Baberowski, A. Doering-Manteuffel, The Quest for Order and the Pursuit of Terror. National Socialist Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union as Multi-ethnic Empires, in M. Geyer, Sh. Fitzpatrick (eds.), Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazism compared (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 180-230, here 213; H. Kuromiya, Accounting for the Great Terror, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2005), vol. 53, pp. 86-101, here 90 ff. 23 E. D. Weitz, Racial Politics without the Concept of Race. Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 1-29. 22
21
The fourth and last consequence is the great resilience of these conclusions, listed above. Source deficits and model dominance, combined with the synergetic importation of ideology, make it difficult to separate oneself from already pronounced judgements. This results in the highly selective use - even, in some cases, the dismissal - of empirical material, which is then forced into the confines of analysis presumed by these categorisations. In order to escape the vicious circle of this model and source asymmetry and the synergetic ideological assumption of the (implicit) comparison of Stalinism and National Socialism, the present book relies instead on fundamental, positivistic methods. On a broad empirical basis as categorically and judgementally neutral as possible, the comparison of National Socialism and Stalinism has been isolated and the conclusions of the comparative research on violence and terror in Stalinism have been placed under examination, specifically in regard to the mass persecutions of 1937-1938. This approach is not new and, in pursuing it, the author does not deny that a historian is embedded in her/his time period, place of residence and work environment. For the reader, the result may be strenuous - the content largely comprises extensive investigations instead of catchy theses and pithy “truths”. As compensation, there is only the open end of slow-paced argumentation. Circuitous paths, not shortcuts, have been taken, many questions posed and
“The mass terror [1937-1938] […] was an attempt to release society from its enemies. It was a Soviet variant of the ‘Final solution’.” J. Baberowski, Der rote Terror. Die Geschichte des Stalinismus (Munich, 2004), p. 188. Karl Schlögel speaks of a “premonition of final solution to the social question – ‘A once-and-for-all conclusion to the remains of the adversarial classes’.” K. Schlögel, Terror und Traum. Moskau 1937 (Berlin, 2008), p. 643. According to Jansen and Petrov, Stalin was set on a course to a “final solution”. M. Jansen, N. Petrov, Stalin’s loyal Executioner. People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov 1895-1940 (Stanford, 2002), pp. 79, 105-108. 24
22 few answers given and, last but not least, the “inspiration” of theory and model formation has been subjected to strict regimentation. Four categories of dogmatic thinking are subject to particular critique. In the research literature the external danger, that is, the war threat, is seen as the central motive for sparking mass repression in the Soviet Union in August 1937. Chapter One places this apparently immovable truth on the examination table. The counterthesis states that the war threat played a subordinate role at the beginning and that internal causes were much more in the foreground. Interestingly, however, the war threat appears to be the deciding reason for breaking off the Terror in November 1938. In the research on National Socialism there is a consensus that the war was the leadership’s decisive motive in the shift from persecution to the complete annihilation of the Jewish, Roma and Sinti populations, as well as of criminals and “asocial” elements. In other words, the argument is that in the case of National Socialism, war served to brutalize and make possible the conditions for the Holocaust - that is, the threat of war or the potential invasion of the Soviet Union was the primary determinant in the initiation and extent of the persecutions. In the Soviet case, we must be more nuanced in our assessments of the effect of the war threat. Chapter Two turns directly to internal conditions in the Soviet Union. The central focus is the question of whether it is indeed possible to construct a sharp contrast between the “goal-oriented persecution” of National Socialism and the random and arbitrary repressions, characterized as “stochastic repression”, that occurred in the Soviet Union during the Great Terror. The research literature has, through hasty classification and evaluations with weak empirical footing, paved the way for the efforts to elevate the mass persecutions in the Soviet Union to the level of Auschwitz. The third chapter come to grips with an important aspect of the evaluation of the persecutions during the Great Terror, namely the assertion that the persecutions led, in close association with the threat of war, to an “ethnicisation of viewpoint”. In the prevailing
23 scholarly view this ethnicised perspective “mutated” into a seemingly objective criterion for persecution to the point that it eventually entailed structural racism, upon which claims of “genocide” have been made. In these first two chapters, we can see, in striking fashion, how the scholarly analysis of National Socialism was effectively transferred to the analysis of Stalinism. The fourth and last chapter falls outside of the preceding schema; on the basis of a detailed analysis of the persecution of criminals and “socially harmful elements” in the framework of the mass operations, it is shown that reactive, social persecution, social engineering and prophylaxis, accompanied by a discursive turn with respect to criminals and “asocial elements”, were of great significance in the arrests, trials sentencing of members of these groups. There is indirect evidence that, in the late 1930s, the nominal pursuit of class or social-group justice was one factor among many in the mass operations and - contrary to assertions in the research literature - in no way served as the fulcrum of enemy identification in the capture and repression of social deviants.
24 Chapter 1
The War Threat and the Beginning and Ending of the Great Terror
Recursions and excursions break the flow of the argumentation, disturbing it quite deliberately, to make room for thoughtfulness, a digression, a kind of protest against the normalcy of the effective. —Käte Meyer-Drawe, Diskurse des Lernens. 2008
What induced the Soviet leadership in 1937 to extend the terror, begun in 1936, from members of the elite to the population at large in the form of mass operations, thus transforming the “terror” into the Great Terror?25 What were the motives behind this excessive use of force? In contrast to the bulk of the research, the present chapter will propose a change of perspective. Of interest here is the controversial motive for the mass operations in particular, whereby the emphasis lies on the largest of these, the Kulak Operation. The
Contrary to Robert Conquest’s elite-centred conception of the Great Terror in the period 1936-38, we find the terms “great terror”, “great purge” or “mass repression” (or better “mass repressions”, to avoid emphasizing the reactionary aspect), to be appropriate only for the period of the mass operations from summer 1937 until November 1938. At the same time, we do not deny that in 1936 the repression of the elites intensified. This did not develop a mass character, however, until the extremely intensified arrests in the year 1937-38 (cf. for instance the so-called Stalinist Lists, Stalinskie spiski). The term “Great Terror” is used here, despite David Shearer’s justified critique of its tendentious, apologetic and emotional connotations, in order to emphasize the special situation in 1937-38. The designation “great purge” for this period, suggested by Shearer, also prevalent among his contemporaries, is because of its closeness to the term “party purgings” (partijnaja čistka), which signifies the exclusion of “party corpses” and suspect members, provides no true alternative. D. Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism: Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953 (New Haven, London, 2009), p. 286. 25
25 National Operations and the actions of the Police Troika can only be tangentially included in our considerations, since they are not well researched. Our principal thesis is that the terror of the years 1936-1938, including the Great Terror in 1937-38, cannot be examined as a unified undertaking; rather, it must be seen as a conglomeration of several separate, though interacting, repression measures with diverse functions. To this point research suggests that a unified or comprehensive motive cannot be identified. Consequently, we fundamentally doubt that the motives for the repression of the elites, which can more convincingly be connected to the perceived threat of war, can be carried over to the mass repressions. For an explanation of the beginning of the Kulak Operation in the summer of 1937, we focus on the social and economic environment, its dimensions and how they impacted on the thinking of those who, literally, arbitrarily wielded the death sentence on so many. Domestic factors are thus favoured: the ideologically and economically based stabilization of the Kolkhoz system (directed against the Kulaks and individual peasants) and the connected desire to enforce a homogeneous and cleansed society on the path to communism (directed against hooliganism, criminals, the marginalized, camp detainees, religious societies, socialist revolutionaries, and “old regime elites”) as a form of social engineering.
Soviet state violence was not simply repressive. It was employed as a tool for fashioning an idealized image of a better, purer society.26 The content of this specific totalitarian terror is never simply negative – for example the defeat of the enemies of the regime – but rather serves positively the realization of
26
P. Holquist, State Violence as Technique: The Logic of Violence in Soviet Totalitarianism, in D. L. Hoffmann (ed.), Stalinism. The Essential Readings (Bodmin, Cornwall, 2003), pp. 129-156.
26 the given totalitarian fiction – construction of a classless society or a community of people or a race-based society. 27
In this respect the Kulak Operation is regarded as political preventive measures to secure the domain of power (against socialist revolutionaries, former members of the czar’s army and other czarist office holders, Kulaks, Cossacks, and religious societies). The few groups of victims of the “Kulak Action” comprised, as “old regime elites” (byvshie liudi)28 and as those who had lost the right to vote (lishentsy)29, the category of the so-called “remains of the crushed classes of exploiters” (ostatki razbitykh ekspluatatorskikh klassov), against whom a further form of class warfare was waged in 1937-38, even if officially there was no class antagonism in the Soviet Union.30 According to Stalin’s much quoted dictum, these groups attempted, through brutal and reprehensible methods, to thwart the development of Soviet society into a classless ideal. They were held responsible for all of the grievances, mistakes and deficits of Soviet society. “Our achievements would be immeasurably greater, had not numerous enemies hindered us” commented Izvestiia in a lead article of November 10, 1937. From this perspective it was only logical that party organisations demanded the annihilation of these enemies of the people, “since this is the most important prerequisite for our continued progress toward full
27
H. Arendt, Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1955), pp. 666-667. 28 T. M. Smirnova, Social′nyj portret ′byvšich′ v Sovetskoj Rossii. Po materialam registracii ′lic byvšego buržuaznogo i činovnogo sostojanija′ osen′ju 1919 goda v Moskve i Pertograde, Social′naja Istorija. Ežegodnik (2000), pp. 87-126. 29 N. Moine, Peut-on être pauvre sans être un prolétaire? La privation des droits civiques dans un quartier de Moscou au tournant des années 1920-1930, Le Mouvement Social (2001), vol. 196, pp. 89-114. 30 N. Rabič, Gnilaja i opasnaja teorija prevraščenija klassovych vragov v ručnych, Bol′ševik (1937), No. 7, pp. 46-57.
27 communism.”31 Even the ideology fed on and legitimized mass terror.32 On the other hand, mass repressions can be understood as an ad hoc reaction to the broad-based, swelling social and economic crisis, especially in the countryside. At the same time, they were a means to compensate for the very limited capacities of the regime for the “normal” regulation of state activities in the economy and society.33 This approach is in direct contrast to the mainstream in the research literature which sees in the external danger, specifically the threat of war, the universal key for explaining the Great Terror.34 The danger in the Far East presented by Japan, and in the West by NationalSocialist Germany and, connected to this, the fear of the emergence of a “fifth column”35 within the country itself, is considered to be the causal factor for the “larger political strategy of the purging”36 in 1936-1938. By contrast, in this chapter we ask whether the threat of imminent war was indeed the deciding factor for the start of the mass repressions and for their lethality. Was not the threat of war to a greater extent underestimated by the leadership, even N. S. Abdin, Polititičeskie repressii v Chakasii, in Političeskie repressii v Chakasii i drugich regionach Sibiri (1920-1950-e gody). Materialy Mežregional’noi naučnopraktičeskoj konferencii, prochodivšej 20 dekabrja 2000 v Abakane (Abakan, 2001), p. 15. 32 The present investigation provides no arguments for the thesis that the terror of the years 1937-38 was unleashed in order to cover the labour demand of the Gulag economy. Alone the immense number of death sentences issued by the troikas (49.3%) as well as the fact that among the executed the age group 20-50 was extremely high – the statistics of those shot in November and December 1937 in the district of Leningrad indicate 70-73% – speak a clear language. Leningradskij martirolog 1937-1938, vol. 3: Nojabr’ 1937 g. (Sankt-Peterburg, 1998), p. 587; Vol. 4. 1937 g. (Sankt-Peterburg, 1999), p. 686. 33 Benno Ennker assigns the Great Terror to the context of a massive state formation beginning in the mid-1930s in which the transition from class enemy to enemy of the people to enemy of the state became manifest. Cf. his lecture at the conference “Kulturen der Gerechtigkeit“ [Cultures of Justice] in Bochum, Germany, June 8 – 10, 2011: Benno Ennker, Stalin. Eine gerechte Herrschaft? Volk und Führer in den Verfassungsdiskursen 1935-1938. [Stalin. A just reign? People and dictator in the constitutional discourses 1935-1938.] 34 Cf. e. g. Geoffrey Roberts formulation ″No fascist threat, no terror″, G. Roberts, The Fascist Threat and Soviet Politics in the 1930s, in S. Pons, A. Romano (eds.), Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914-45 (Milan, 2000), p. 158. 35 The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War. As his army approached Madrid, a message was broadcast that the four columns of his forces outside the city would be supported by a "fifth column" of his supporters inside the city, intent on undermining the Republican government from within. 36 David Shearer, University of Newark, Delaware. 31
28 though, in general, it had officially become part and parcel of the first two decades of Soviet historiography and propaganda? Beyond this, we ask whether the threat of war, which in the official propaganda played a prominent role in repeated waves since 1927, had not in summer 1937 in essence only been asserted, staged and exploited in order to legitimize and enforce comprehensive domestic political measures. Was the threat of war taken less seriously – possibly even much less so – than was officially stated? With respect to historiography, the question remains as to whether the fixation on and the existence of the threat of war, noted here as the most important factor, was an understandable yet unjustified rationalization, or was it rather a trivialization and justification for the mass repressions of this time? With respect to the Politburo members V. Molotov and L. Kaganovich, held up in the literature as crowning witnesses for the central significance of the threat of war, we ask whether their after-the-fact appeal to the threat of war – their statements originate in the 1960s and 1970s – is but an ex post facto justification for the mass repressions with the aid of the Second World War, which unexpectedly targeted the leadership, at least in respect to the time period. Above all, the question is critical, because the collective term “fifth column”, used by Molotov and Kaganovich to designate dangerous domestic opposition in case of war, also then includes the mass repression of minor criminals and other members of marginal groups, which in turn would suggest that the regime was unable to distinguish between political and military threats and undesirable social elements on the margins. With respect to those who focus on the primacy of external and internal threats as the trigger for mass exterminations. Why did the political leadership in 1937 subject the entire country to repressions that extended to the removal of a large part of the political leadership and a purge of the army, and then in November 1938, after the Munich conference (in September 29 – 30) when the “war threat” became much more real than in 1937, order an end to the mass repressions?
29 1. The War Threat as a Parenthesis The extreme use of force by the Soviet state in the years 1937-1938 was implemented, in sharp contrast to the large and small show trials, under conditions of strict secrecy; for this reason they constitute a relatively new field of research. Not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did information gradually begin to come to light out of the archives about the activities of the extrajudicial bodies.37 On the basis of these materials the two greatest mass operations could at least be reconstructed, even if “white spots” continue to dominate the picture, especially in the case of the National Operations and, even more clearly, the effect of the Police Troika, the information, at least in respect to the Kulak Operation, appears so far to be secure enough that tentative conclusions can be drawn. The initial state of affairs is that up until the 1990s the large and small show trials of the years 1936-38 dominated the scientific and popular interpretations of the repressions. In this, the old and new elite of the Bolshevik and Soviet state stood almost completely alone at the centre of attention. Robert Conquest tied his influential concept of the Great Terror solely to this state and party repression.38 With the discovery in 1991 of documents on the mass operations, it quickly became clear that in summer 1937, parallel to the repression of the elites, comprehensive repressive measures were undertaken above all against the common Soviet population, to such a degree in fact that only at this point does the designation of the terror as “great” appear to be appropriate. The first inevitable fixation on the show trials, however, had consequences for the discussion of the motives, even after the discovery of mass repression. For a long time this
37
On the rudimentary stream of information to the opening of the archive specifically in reference to the Order No. 00447, cf. M. Junge, R. Binner, Kak terror stal “Bol‘šim“. Sekretnyj prikaz Nr. 00447 i technologija ego ispolnenija, So special’nym razdelom A. Stepanova o provedenii “kulackoj“ operacii v Tatarii. S bibliografiej pri učastii T. Martina (Moscow, 2003), pp. 10-12. XXX lang 38 R. Conquest, The Great Terror, 1934-1938 (London, 1968); A. Antonow-Owssejenko, Stalin. Porträt einer Tyrannei (Munich, 1984); R. Medvedev, Let History Judge. The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (Oxford, 1989).
30 remained centred around the elites. Things were decided from the top down, from the show trials to the mass operations, and these became subordinate to the repression of the elites as a marginal incident.39 The resilience of this interpretational model must also be traced back to the general framework of the discussion; it has its source in the continuing force of the classical model of totalitarianism.40 Violence was seen as a constitutive part of Bolshevik political culture and ideology.41 Even more recent culture- and ideology-theoretic approaches portray the use of violence as a fundamental aspect of the Bolshevik mentality and culture. Bolshevik political culture was, especially in its Stalinist version, destructive. Research has drawn parallels to National Socialism and the European context. Often this is combined with theories of modernity that focus as a central theme on the massive intervention of the state in social processes since the First World War.42 The current debate on the topic of violence and mass repressions challenges this firmly entrenched interpretational paradigm. To delve into more detail, the historian David Shearer
39
For example, Arch Getty has mechanically transferred his extensive knowledge of the course of other Stalinist campaigns over to the implementation of Operation No. 00447. J. A. Getty, Afraid of their Shadows: The Bolshevik Recourse to Terror, 1932-1938, in M. Hildermeier (ed.), Stalinismus vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Neue Wege der Forschung (Munich, 1998), pp. 169-181; J. A. Getty, O. V. Naumov (eds.) The Road to Terror. Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, 1999); J. A. Getty, “Excesses are not permitted“. Mass Terror and Stalinist Governance in the Late 1930s, Russian Review (2002), No. 1, pp. 113-139. For a discussion of his position see: M. Junge, R. Binner, Kak terror stal “Bol‘šim”. Sekretnyj prikaz Nr. 00447 i technologija ego izpolnenija (Moscow, 2003), pp. 210-212. 40 Cf. the introduction. 41 For a survey of this argument, see G. Boffa, The Stalin Phenomenon (Ithaca, 1992). 42 J. Baberowski, Der Rote Terror. Die Geschichte des Stalinismus (Munich, 2004); idem, Zivilisation der Gewalt. Die kulturellen Ursprünge des Stalinismus (Berlin, 2005), pp. 97101; P. Holquist, State Violence as Technique. The Logic of Violence in Soviet Totalitarianism, in D. L. Hoffmann (ed.), Stalinism. The Essential Readings (Oxford, 2003), pp. 129-156; H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1973); N. Naimark, Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 2001); A. Weiner, Nature, Nurture, and Memory in a Socialist Utopia. Delineating the Soviet SocioEthnic Body in the Age of Socialism, American Historical Review (1999), vol. 104, pp. 11141155. Cf. the characterization of the corresponding theories of interpretation presented by Shearer, Policing, pp. 16-17.
31 adequately describes the various prevalent approaches to explaining Stalinist mass repression as the last offshoot of the theory of totalitarianism, since it is only tenuously connected to place and time.43 In order to historically classify the growing violence, we now propose to shift the centre of attention to the mass operations and to explain why the extrajudicial mass repressions began precisely on July 2, 1937. Recent research has advanced the interpretation that the “Great Purge” of 1936-1938 in general was a reaction to the assumed threat of war, and was conceived of as a preventive measure against the formation of a fifth column in the case of war.44 Explaining the mass repressions of the “Great Purge” in this way rarely allows the researcher to distinguish between the largely publicised repressions of the old and new elites as “enemies of the people” through “normal” courts on the one hand, and the completely non-publicised annihilation of nameless citizens in the course of the “mass operations”, as they were called internally, during 1937-1938 on the other. Outstanding advocates of this research position are the historians Oleg Khlevniuk, Hiroaki Kuromiya and David Shearer himself. Khlevniuk first assumed as one of the two fundamental goals of the terror the removal of a potential fifth column because of an impending war, as did Isaac Deutscher decades ago in his Stalin biography. 45 The second goal was, in Khlevniuk’s words, a cadre revolution. As contemporary confirmation of his thesis, the author cites statements from 1937 about the perception of a “pre-war situation” made by
43
Shearer, Policing, pp. 16-17. A counterposition focussing on Stalin’s personality is taken by Norman Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides (Princeton,Oxford, 2010), p. 120. “But the arrests and mass killing during the purges were less driven by the real threats to Soviet security, than by Stalin’s xenophobia and paranoia. Without Stalin, the genocidaire, it is hard to imagine the Great Terror.” 45 I. Deutscher, Stalin. A political biography (New York, 1949). According to Oleg Chlevnjuk, Stalin drew two conclusions from the Spanish Civil War, which he followed closely, according to the account of the Soviet representative in Spain: 1) the war in Europe is no longer remote; 2) a weak central power, internal decline, betrayal, espionage and sabotage had contributed to many defeats of the Republicans. Stalin had attempted to avoid these mistakes with his own policies. O. Khlevniuk, Reasons for the Great Terror. The Foreign Political Aspect, in S. Pons, A. Romano (eds.), Russia in the Age of Wars 1914 -1945 (Milano, 1998), pp. 159-169; R. Radosh, M. R. Habeck, G. Sevostianov (eds.), Spain Betrayed. The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (New Haven, 2001). 44
32 Nikolai Bukharin who had been ousted by Stalin, by the writer M. Sholokhov, and by the American ambassador to Moscow, Joseph Davis. Also quoted in support of his interpretation are Stalin’s statements at the February-March plenary session of the VKP(b) in 1937 on the danger of a fifth column, which in the case of war could undertake acts of sabotage. Additional and seemingly authentic sources for Khlevniuk are the statements of the former Politburo members L. M. Kaganovich and V. M. Molotov, which, it must be added once again, were made in the early 1960s and 1970s, decades after the events concerned and in light of the “sacred character”46 of the “Great Patriotic War”. It is interesting that Khlevniuk adopts the interpretations of Molotov and Kaganovich, of course without their apologetic intent. Molotov and Kaganovich viewed the physical removal of the “Rightists” and Trotskyists and the repression of potentially unreliable and shaky cadres as a prophylactic and, in the final analysis, as a successful measure for preventing the formation of a fifth column in case of war. Khlevniuk describes it not as fact, but more hypothetically: the political leadership had supposedly feared that resentful cadres relieved of duty would turn against the Soviet Union in case of war. The threat of war supposedly evoked portentous memories amongst the leading elites of the civil war, when their power seemed to hang by a thread. Common to these assessments is that they understand the term “fifth column” as a political catchphrase of which (potentially) political opponents became suspect, and in case of war were likely to mutate into instigators of political and military sabotage in their own country and, for ideological reasons, would cooperate with enemy states. Khlevniuk did not, however, seek to explain the high level of violence through the threat of war, but rather, in keeping with cultural-theoretical tradition, through the use of terror as an instrument of power, which, in his words, induced a spiral of violence. Early arbitrary measures led to resistance and hatred, which in turn had to be answered with ever
46
M. Ellman, has been a professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam. Now he is an emeritus professor.
33 more horrible forms of repression.47 Hiroaki Kuromiya’s position is clear, at least at first glance:
In fact, the Kulak Operation [Order No. 00447] was merely part of the larger effort of Stalin to prepare the country politically for war. He meant to purge the country of all people who might potentially impede the country's war efforts.48
Above all the Japanese and German threat created the background for the Great Terror. As a key date, Kuromiya points to November 1936 when the Anti-Comintern Pact, which targeted the Soviet Union, was signed by Japan and Germany. The concrete realisation of the mass terror, and specifically the “mass operation” under Order No. 00447, emerged, in the author’s view, out of the West-Siberian Troika, which had been installed to confront the Russian General Military Union (ROVS), potential allies of a possible Japanese invasion of Siberia through the Chinese province of Xinjiang.49 The same fear of the “combination of Stalin’s internal and external enemies” is seen by Michael Ellmann as the cause for the mass
47
O. Chlewnjuk, Das Politbüro. Mechanismen der Macht in der Sowjetunion der dreißiger Jahre (Hamburg, 1998), pp. 250, 256, 259; O. Chlevnjuk, The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938, in J. Cooper, M. Perrie, E. A. Rees (eds.), Soviet History, 1917-53, Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies (London, 1995), pp. 158-176; O. Khlevniuk, Reasons for the Great Terror. The Foreign Political Aspect, Annali della Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (1998), vol. 34, pp. 159-169. 48 H. Kuromiya, Review of Binner, R., Bonwetsch B., Junge M. (eds.), Stalinismus in der sowjetischen Provinz 1937-1938. Die Massenaktion aufgrund des operativen Befehls Nr. 00447. (Berlin, 2010), H-Soz-u-Kult, 5/18/2010. http://hsozkult.geschichte.huberlin.de/rezensionen/2010-2-130 (6/23/2010). 49 H. Kuromiya, The Great Terror and “Ethnic Cleansing”. The Asian Nexus. Paper prepared for the conference “Stalin and Stalinism” in Hamburg 29-30 October 2009, pp. 8, 12. The Politburo had on June 28, 1937 agreed to the establishment of a troika – with full power of the death penalty – “for the speedy handling of documents on the resistance organizations among the expelled Kulaks” in the West Siberian area. Postanovlenie Politbjuro CK VKP(b) “O vskrytoj v Zapadnoj Sibiri kontrrevoljucionnoj organizacii sredi vyslannych kulakov”. 28. 7. 1937, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, p. 258.
34 repression by Order No. 00447.50 Indeed, the Politburo had given approval on June 28, 1937 for the installation of a Troika, equipped with full authority, including the death penalty, “for the accelerated handling of the documents on subversive organisations among the expatriated Kulaks” in the West Siberian region, though it must be added that this “general Russian military alliance” and its purported activities were pure fiction.51 But when Kuromiya comes to the investigation of the substance of the often supposed fear of the Japanese threat against the Soviet Union from the Far East and the German threat from the west, he rather unexpectedly focuses not on the actual fear, but rather on the legitimizing motives. According to his findings, Stalin supposedly used the Japanese (and German) threat in order to legitimise the Great Terror.52 Stalin, moreover, is portrayed as a political leader who “was confident of his strength” and used the absolutely real, but not mortal, danger posed by Japan in spring and summer 1937 to mask the offensive as a defensive measure for a massive strengthening of the influence of the Soviet Union in Xinjiang and the People’s Republic of Mongolia, and then to “sell” this to the international public as humanitarian aid.53 Moreover, Kuromiya points to the very successful infiltration by the Soviet Secret Service of highly important Japanese, German and Polish secret service operations against the Soviet Union.54 Pointing to the war threat and to the condemnation of espionage activities in the press could therefore also be interpreted as a diversionary manoeuvre in order to conceal their own goals. In his book Policing Stalin’s Socialism, David Shearer again takes as a point of departure the threat of war motive put forward by Molotov and Kaganovich as the central 50
M. Ellman, Regional influences on the Formulation and Implementation of NKVD Order 00447, Europe-Asia Studies (2010), vol. 62, pp. 917-918. 51 Postanovlenie Politbjuro CK VKP(b) “O vskrytoj v Zapadnoj Sibiri kontrrevoljucionnoj organizacii sredi vyslannych kulakov“. 28. 7. 1937, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, p. 258. 52 Kuromiya, The Great Terror and “Ethnic Cleansing”. Abstract. 53 Kuromiya, The Great Terror and “Ethnic Cleansing”, pp. 10, 15. 54 H. Kuromiya, A. Peplonki, Stalin und die Spionage, Transit. Europäische Revue (2009), vol. 38, pp. 20-33.
35 reason for starting the Great Terror. For him, the war threat is the "larger political strategy of the purging" which, however, not only determined the beginning, but also the intensity of the purge. However, his reasoning is not limited to the necessity of eliminating supposedly unreliable members of the elites. While continuing to stress, from the vantage point of modernity theory, that the “Stalinist leaders” used violence and repression in order to enforce revolutionary goals, he puts the increasing violence into historical context, characterizing it as a reaction to a sequence of crises, beginning, he claims, with collectivisation, understood as a state-instigated revolutionary war which, to the astonishment of the leaders, mutated into a long-term “social war”. In combination with the presence of the threat of war at the end of the decade, this finally resulted in the familiar emergency measures. What is original in this argumentation is, firstly, a strong emphasis on the social components of the threat scenario; and secondly, the balancing of the weight of ideological dispositions and cultural habits among the élites with the specific personality of Stalin. This makes room for a different rationality in the starting of mass repression55 Shearer goes so far as to consider the attempt of the Stalin regime to gain social control over the Soviet people to be of higher priority and a more pervasive motivation than political goals. In doing this, he places the focus on the internal development of the Soviet Union from the end of the collectivisation turmoil up to the start of the terror, contradicting the usual characterization of this period as a pause in the Bolshevik transformation of society. Pointing to Stalin’s programmatic speech at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee in 1933, he claims the appearance not only an intensification, but of a new form of class struggle. Instead of political and ideological opposition, the class struggle now took on the form of an economic crime (e.g. speculation, corruption and theft of state property), social deviance (e.g. hooliganism, homelessness, prowling around of children and youth), and bandit activities. These now 55
Shearer, Policing, pp. 16-17.
36 qualified as the greatest threat to political security of the state, its economic stability and socialist order. The ideological reinterpretation of deviance and of social and economic problems, or, in other words, the politicisation of social disorder and crime, went hand-inhand with the administrative and operative subordination of the civil police (militsiya) to the political police. The civil police was restructured, that is militarized, and increasingly armed, manned and professionalized, while the political police was placed in full social control of society. Simultaneously, the entire police force was, through the introduction of the passport system, residency permit laws, and direct social repression through the introduction of the Police Troika and ethnic and social border area purges, entrusted with the task of defining who was to be classified as “socially reliable” or “socially foreign”. Especially in the cities, in the railway system and in the border areas, mass social control and repression in the sense of “social engineering” and “ethnic cleansing” were systematized, normally through the use of administrative methods and extrajudicial agencies. Police repression and the state’s use of violence became finally a form of “social governance”, a constitutive element of the behaviour of the state. According to Shearer, mass repressions of social categories and contingents already by the early 1930s became a “categorical imperative” of the Stalinist state. Other characteristics of this period were the transition from the policy of revolutionary expansion of state power to its validation; centralization, bureaucratisation and, not least important, absolute concealment of control over social violence. As a result, the place and function of mass repression changed. At the beginning of the 1930s the countryside was mostly affected, by the middle of the 1930s it was the cities, and by 1937/1938 the focus was again on the countryside.56 The change to social control and repression was, however, not only a “discursive turn,” but rather a conscious reaction to a very real danger. Shearer even speaks of the consequences of collectivisation and industrialisation as a “social war” and of social disorder 56
Shearer, Policing, pp. 12-13.
37 of “biblical proportions”.57 The judicial system was supposedly completely overwhelmed; the civil and political police forces did not consider themselves to be in a position to control unreliable political and economic decision makers. According to Shearer, mass repression of 1937/1938 was meant o free the country once and for all of socially dangerous elements. The timing and scale of state violence, however, were determined not by long-term strategies, but by the international environment: the imminence of war.58 With that, Shearer has brought the “threat of war” into the proper perspective. The circle has closed.
2. Using the War Threat to Secure Collectivization The conclusions from our own investigations into the implementation of the Kulak Operation in the Ukraine, Georgia, the Tver’ and Sverdlovsk districts (oblasti) and in the West Siberian region, suggest that the “great and courageous political idea of general purges”59, as the tortured Nikolai Bukharin called it60, is to be seen completely in the sense of Shearer (and also Ellman): to solve all of the stalled social and economic problems at once, quickly and if at all possible, for ever, and with that to bring the de-Kulakization to a successful and irreversible close. More mundanely, in 1937 the social repression that had been briefly neglected by N. I. Ezhov was taken up again.61 The threat of war, that actually somehow always existed – one need only think of the German-Polish understanding of 1934 – has the effect of concrete
57
Shearer, Policing, p. 5. Shearer, Policing, pp. 14-15. 59 “Bol’šoj i smeloj političeskoj idei general’noj čistki” (Nikolai Bukharin). Cf. the letter of N. I. Bukharin to I. V. Stalin dated Dec. 10, 1937, Istočnik (1993), vol. 0, pp. 23-25. 60 “[…] bol’šoj i smeloj političeskoj idei general’noj čistki“ (Nikolai Bukharin). Cf. the letter of N. I. Bukharin to I. V. Stalin of Dec. 10, 1937, Mittelweg (1993), No. 5, vol. 36, pp. 69-71. As a contemporary Bukharin had not only emphasized the threat of war, but also foreign and domestic factors: “a) in connection with the pre-war period, and b) in connection with the transition to a democracy […]“. Ibidem. 61 On the neglect of social repression by Ezhov cf. P. Hagenloh, Stalin's police. Public order and mass repression in the USSR, 1926 – 1941 (Washington DC, 2009), pp. 235, 242. This partial rehabilitation of G. Yagoda’s police strategy accompanied the extraordinary role of Yagoda’s right-hand man, N. I. Bel’skii in the preparation for the implementation of the mass repressions. 58
38 argumentation for the repressive activities of the Kulaks, with the Police Troika more likely just added in. It is much more obvious and completely appropriate to see this act of repression at the peak of domestic political disinformation as an attempt to gain an upper hand over the problem, indeed of the crisis, with a full use of force and a total lack of scruples, since implementing their own concepts of societal development by other means was not manageable, or not sufficiently rapid. Only with the National Operations (against the Poles, Germans, Greeks, etc.) and with the repression of the elites can one no longer merely exclude the possibility that the concept of a potential external threat that could join forces with an internal opposition played a significant and possibly even a decisive role. But in the case of the repression of the elites one can not with any more certainty exclude that the threat of war, as claimed to prevail already since 1927 and in the summer of 1937, was staged and exploited in order to enforce and legitimize comprehensive domestic measures. This holds true even more so for the repression on the level of the most insignificant criminals and undesirables. One could at this point, as suggested by Michael Elman, formulate the compromise thesis that the decision of the Moscow leadership to take action, resulting in outright mass murder in 1937, came about only through the combination of an increased awareness of the war threat, rising domestic problems, and the intent to be domestically active again and not merely to reactively intervene. However, empirical evidence is lacking for precisely the assumption that a growing awareness of a war threat was one of the central motives for starting the mass repressions. The same is true for the written statements on the domestic political motivation of the political leadership to initiate the mass operations. For this reason, the conclusions drawn earlier and supported by documented events on the periphery were highlighted, and the concrete preparation and execution of mass repression was tied to the motives behind them, even though this is methodologically difficult. As already with Shearer, this advances a step toward the rehabilitation of the approach of the revisionists. The one-
39 sided focus on Stalin and the central command in Moscow gives way to the social-historical, economic and political context of mass terror. A centre-periphery-conflict, however, is still not discussed.62 Stalin remains “the Terror’s director general”.63 He appears only on the margins, however, because of his vague, indirect interventions in the mass operations.64 Receiving much greater emphasis is the idea that the centre, without the periphery or interaction with it, was incapable of action, at least in the case of the Union-wide systematic repressions. The result of our research is that we cannot conclude from the Ukrainian sources that the leadership saw a threatening connection between the internal and external dangers or feared possible military developments, and therefore unleashed mass repression. From the documents consulted, one must draw the conclusion that the state only conditionally respected the principles of a constitutional state, that it promoted a barely concealed radical “social engineering” for the enforcement of an ideologically founded concept of a society without “enemies”, without social misconduct, and that it additionally sought to protect itself with all its might against a self-induced social, mental and economic crisis. The perception of a true war danger was, at least until January 1938, far removed from real actions against domestic enemies. There are far clearer indications of the exploitation of the war threat for the enforcement and justification of domestic measures, a phenomenon that also applies to the 62
For a discussion of the position of the revisionists in respect to the mass repressions, see M. Junge, R. Binner, Kak terror stal „Bol‘šim“, pp. 209-212. 63 This formulation is from R. C. Tucker, Stalin in Power. The Revolution from Above, 19281941 (New York, 1990), pp. 444. 64 The research of Vladimir Chaustovs und Lennart Samuelsons in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation have confirmed that Stalin, in regard to the mass operations, in contrast with his comprehensive and detailed participation in the actions against the elites, intervened solely on two occasions, at the beginning of 1938 with the intensified execution of the “Kulak Operation“ on the railway system and on the former political competitors of the Bolsheviks (socialist-revolutionaries, anarchists, Mensheviks, etc.). Generally the mass operations were left up to the local party and NKVD leadership. Stalin presumably did not get involved in its activities but rather “limited himself to the general instructions on the raising of the limits and spurred on the enthusiasm of the NKVD”. V. Chaustov, L. Samuel’son, Stalin, NKVD i repressii 1936-1938 g. (Moscow, 2009), pp. 6, 273274, 281-282, 286, 328.
40 implementation of collectivization and industrialization at the end of the 1920s.65 This is documented especially by “written reports” (dokladnye zapis’ki) of the Ukrainian NKVD on the course of the mass repressions ( Order No. 00447 and the National Operations) and the repression of the elites, completed in the individual regions or in the centre of the Republic.66 Not one of these reports was exclusively or primarily focused on the danger from abroad – on the war danger, the security of the borders with Poland, the influence of Germany on ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union, espionage, the security of the war industry, and so forth. Instead of the threat from beyond the borders, the repressions were linked with domestic issues, such as problems in agriculture and industry and nationalism.
65
A. Romano, Permanent War Scare. Mobilisation, Militarization and Peasant War, in Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914-1945 (Milan, 2000), pp. 103-113; N. S. Simonov, Strengthen the Defence of the Land of Soviets. The 1927 “War Alarm” and its Consequences, Europe-Asia Studies (1996), No. 8, vol. 48, pp. 1355-1364; Manfred von Boetticher, Industrialisierungspolitik und Verteidigungskonzeption der UdSSR 1926-1930. Herausbildung des Stalinismus und äußere Bedrohung“ (Düsseldorf, 1979); J. Sontag, The Soviet War Scare of 1926-1927’, Russian Review (1975), No. 1, vol. 34, pp. 66-77; D. R. Stone, Hammer and rifle. The militarization of the Soviet Union 1926-1933 (Kansas, 2000); A. G. Meyer, The War Scare of 1927, Soviet Union/Union Sovietique (1978), vol. 5, pp. 1-25; Sh. Fitzpatrick, The Foreign Thread During the First Five Year plan, Soviet Union/Union Sovietique (1978), No. 1, vol. 5, pp. 26-35; D. Geyer (ed.), Sowjetunion. Außenpolitik 19171955 (Köln,Wien, 1972); A. Ulam, Expension and Coexistence. The History of the Soviet Foreign Policy 1921-1929 (New York, 1968); cf. also the commentary of S. A. Krasil’nikov and N. G. Ochotin: Stenogramma zaključitel’nogo zasedanija seminara’, in Sudebnye političeskie processy v SSSR i kommunističeskich stranach Evropy. Sravnitel’nyj analiz mechanizmov i praktik provedenija (Novosibirsk, 2010), pp. 220-221; J. Harris, Encircled by Enemies: Stalin’s Perceptions of the Capitalist World, 1918-1941, The Journal of Strategic Studies (2007), No. 3, vol. 30, pp. 531-541. 66 Cf. chapter 3 “Otčety Ukrainskoj SSR za 1937 g.” and chapter 4 “Otčety oblastnych upravlenii NKVD USSR i Moldavskoj ASSR za 1937 g.”, in M. Junge, R. Binner, S. Kokin (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga na blago naroda”. “Kulackаja“ operacija“ v Ukrainskoj SSR 1937-1941. V 2-tomach, vol. 1: 1937. Podgotovka prikaza Nr. 00447. Pervyj etap “Kulackoj operacii” (Moscow, 2010), pp. 270-526. On the exploitative use of external threats by the NKVD and its link with presumed nationalistic forces and then the connection with massive economic and social problems in the countryside in the district of Vinnica, cf. Dokladnaja zapiska intruktorov sel’skochozjajstvennogo otdela CK VKP(b) zavedujuščemu otdelom Ja. A. Jakovlevu o rezul’tatach proverki kolchozov Vinnickoj oblasti i vyjavlennych faktach vreditel’stva [ne pozdnee 29 sentjabrja 1937 g.], in L. S. Gatagova, L. P. Košeleva, L. A. Rogovaja, Dž. Kadio (eds.), CK VKP(b) i nacional’nyj vopros, book 2: 1933-1945 (Moscow, 2009), pp. 285-293.
41 Additionally, the repression quota of social “offenders” (cases handled by the Police Troika and the “criminal” contingent of Order No. 00447), gathered for the first time for the Khar’kov region, indicates not only the great extent of social repression, but also strengthens the thesis emphasizing a domestically motivated repression strategy.67 The Great Terror was not only perceived in the Soviet Union and the rest of the world as a political repression; it was also a practically ignored radical “removal” (iz”iatie), as it was called, of populations deemed socially alien. The purge of the elites was accompanied by a purge of the nizovka, the little people. That may have to do with the perception of a threat of war; a direct connection, however, is not compelling. If this connection prevailed in the decision in Moscow, then it was forgotten at least in the actual implementation of the mass operations. In addition, the comprehensive delegation of authority from the centre to the corresponding judicial courts of the republics and areas contributed to this. Precisely this delegation of the repression to the lower level would seem to preclude a close correlation between the perception of an external threat and the decision to undertake domestic mass repressions.
3. The Timing of the Great Terror In answering the question of why the mass repressions began precisely in the summer of 1937, one should also not over-interpret the threat of war. A possible historicization of the launch dates it from July 2, 1937, based on a fundamental consideration of the manner in which the stalled economic and social problems were handled, problems that had appeared very clearly as a consequence of the total restructuring of the economic and social system and that had not only brought about starvation68 but had also become a smouldering and
Chapter 4.2. “Kulackaja i milicejskaja trojka“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2 (Moscow, 2010), pp. 214-219. 68 The famine of 1931-34, which was not confined to Ukraine, is comprehensively documented by R. Pyrig (ed.), Golodomor 1932-1933 rokiv v Ukrajini. Dokumenty i materialy (Kijiv, 2007). 67
42 permanent crisis hardly noticed on the outside.69 The productivity of society for the purposes of the state was paralyzed.70 The economic system was too reliant on intensive personnel and state controls and extremely subject to corruption, hindering it from taking flight in the near future. The problems were not solved from the end of the 1920s on, but were rather ignored or spoken of vaguely, delayed and temporarily set aside. Not until the mid-1930s, and then finally the late-1930s, did they return like a boomerang, each time with greater intensity. The work of the Police Troika in Ukraine serves as a mirror for the growing dynamic of this interplay between the appearance of crises and political repression. Not until October 1934 did work begin at the republic level on a Police Troika, and then from May in all 12 regions of Ukraine. The republican troika wavered between the broader application of mild and moderate punishments and the isolated imposition of very severe punishments – they were allowed to impose the death penalty for only a few months. In the process of the implementation of the NKVD’s Order No. 00192 on May 25, 1935, Police Troikas began in 69
The literature on economic history takes as a point of departure the removal of the chaos brought about by the first five year plan in the second one, on the basis of clearly euphemized and selective key data of the official statistics. Alec Nove, An economic history of the USSR 1917 – 1991 (London, 1990), p. 159-272. About current research: R. W. Davies, The Economic History of the Soviet Union Reconsidered, in Kritika (2010), No. 1, vol. 11, pp. 145-159. In our paper we are not arguing for a profound economic crisis in 1937-1938 but a countrywide accumulation of “little” social and economic problems, which are by their comprehensive and interactive character as serious as some large, highly-visible problems. Thus, the use of the term “crisis” is justified. For example the internal review of the economic conditions, especially in agriculture, indicate in contrast to the official statistics a less optimistic picture. Cf. on this the following note. 70 In this way the high political levels of the Georgian SSR, the office of the ZK of the KP(b), assigned to the incessant conditions in for example the MTS, the collective farms and in trade, had to counter them in any case with authoritative, in the end blunt weapons cf. O rabote Tbilsojuzunivermaga. Priloženie k protokolu Nr. 19, punkt 74 bjuro CK KP(b) Gruzii, 07.08.1937 g., Archive of the Interior Ministry of Georgia (AIMG), Department 2, fund 14, index 11, file 93, page 49-53; O sostojanii MTS Gruzii i o merach po ozdorovleniju ich raboty. Priloženie k protokolu Nr. 22, punkt 30 bjuro CK KP(b) Gruzii, 20.08.1937 g., ibidem, fund 14, index 11, file 93, page 43-46; O merach bor’by s rastratami i chiščenijami v sisteme potrebkooperaсii i gostorgovli. Priloženie k protokolu Nr. 24, punkt 2 bjuro CK KP(b) Gruzii, 02.09.1937 g., ibidem, fund 14, index 101, page 32-39; Narkom zemledelija GSSR Beridze sekretarju CK KP(b) Gruzii L. Beriju o faktach antipartijnogo rukovodstva kolchozami so storony rukovodjaščich rabotnikov i o provale sel’sko-chozjajstvennych rabot v rjade kolchozov gorijskogo rajona, 13.07.1937, ibidem, fund 14, index 332, file 332, page 223.
43 the respective regions of Ukraine in parallel, under the control of the republican troika, to issue only moderately severe penalties, an even then very systematically. From July 1937 Order No. 00447 was also in preparation. This meant for Ukraine, the systematic introduction of longer camp punishments, up to the death penalty for repeat criminals of the socially divergent and minor sort.71 Across the Soviet Union, “Crisis Management” consisted of a first limited and then a systematic search for sacrificial lambs, of purges within the party, and of sharper controls and repressions of certain groups of the population. A liberalization as in 1921 with the introduction of the NEP, was no longer seriously considered after the defeat of the Rightists around Bukharin. Much more likely was that the demands of society would increase new problems would be created, which would then have to be dealt with.72 In addition, the party and state hierarchies expanded and competing positions among the power elites were eliminated, including an increase in misjudgements as well as a changed perception of enemies of the state. Not least, the personal role of Stalin is of central importance. All of these became more concentrated in the 1930s, turning into a dynamic of scrupulous, active bureaucratic intervention with ever tougher means of punishment, to the point of mass exterminations, implemented by a compliant and restructured police and secret service apparatus. In this respect one cannot presume that the situations at the beginning of the 1930s and in the mid-1930s were the same, but rather that a mishmash existed which favoured a radicalization of policies. Concerning the exact starting point, the Ukrainian findings suggest that the decision in early July 1937 to begin mass repressions against the Kulaks and criminals was thought of explicitly as a supplement to and expansion of the classic instrument of social repression, the Police Troika, effective throughout the Soviet
71
Cf. the records of the various Troiki in the Ukraine from the mid-thirties on: State Archive Branch of the State Security Service of the Ukraine, fund 6, index 4. 72 The best examples are the numerous anti-speculation ordinances. Even on July 19, 1937 a severe anti-speculative directive was again issued with the № 1285/227s that was supposed to undermine the shadow economy. I. V. Govorov, S. B. Kokuev, Tenevaja ekonomika, Voprosy istorii (2008), vol. 12, p. 25.
44 Union. The activities of the extra-judicial body of the Police Troika had obviously not borne fruit to the extent expected, even though greater, targeted actions against criminals and marginalised people had been triggered through this Troika.73 Typically proceeding simultaneously with the decree of July 2, 1937 against Kulaks and criminals, Bel’skii, the acting people’s Commissar of Internal Affairs responsible for the Police Troika, suddenly declared the militsiya as no longer adequate as a federal-level instrument of the Ukrainian NKVD, as it was not allowed to use the death sentence.74 The Police Troika was downgraded in Ukraine to a local (oblast’) level agency of the civil police, under the control of the regional (oblast’) political police. In sum, for Ukraine the repression of criminals within the framework of the Kulak Troika appears to have been a measure that accompanied the broad purging of the republic by the Police Troika and the courts of “social alienated” or “socially hostile elements”, that is, of persons who had dropped out of Soviet society, or more precisely, been forced out. In the case of the Kulak Troika in the Khar’kov district, this becomes clear through the pre-eminent significance given to the conviction of persons who pursued no “work useful to society”.75 In general, the Kulak Troika was to social purging what the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR was for the prosecution of the elites, i.e. for “political crimes”; in fact, it was the sentencing board that could impose the harshest punishments. First among these was the death sentence.
73
On the basis of investigative documents and protocols of the Police Troika one must first prove whether the carrying out of punishments by the Police Troika became more intense after April, when that the subversive activities sufficed and a violation of the law no longer was necessary in order to arrest and convict a person. 74 Direktiva Nr. 345 zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR L. N. Bel’skogo i zamestitelja prokurora SSSR G. M. Leplevskogo narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskogo i prokuroru USSR G. A. Železnogorskomu o likvidacii trojki pri NKVD USSR, 02.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 224-225. 75 Cf. the diagram No. 13 “Svedenija o meste iz-jatija ugolovnikov”, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, p. 548.
45 4. Pre-War Situation: Perceived vs. Real War Threat In the case of Order No. 00447, the change toward considering the general state of affairs as a “pre-war situation” is, in its lack of ambiguity, not apparent until the beginning of 1938; it was influenced massively in Ukraine through the initiative of the Moscow Central Command, specifically of the USSR NKVD. This led to a shift of emphasis to the National Operations, and not the least to the intensification of repression in the railway system due to Stalin’s open attacks, and to the repression of political “enemies”. As for Order № 00447, this meant for Ukraine the transition to death quotas, severe repression of “other counter-revolutionary elements” and – as an administrative reflex – an immediate transformation in the tone of reports of the regional UNKVD. Interestingly, in this phase of more pronounced preparation for a possible war, the social purging on the western border was ratcheted back, and the broad repression of elites practically ceased.76 Without further consideration, crime and social deviance can not be simply redefined as a potential for uprising and subsumed under the slogan of “potential fifth column”. Archive materials from Soviet Georgia – a republic bordering on Turkey – provide evidence that it was not until spring/summer 1938 that there was a very gradual internal agreement on foreign policy topics among party cadres, especially in the primary party organisations of the NKVD. The first lectures on the international situation were held in the summer; at the end of November the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, M. M. Litvinov, even appeared in Tbilisi, but he only spoke about the threat from England.77 Significantly, and by contrast, nothing can be found about the foreign threat in the report of the Georgian NKVD primary party organisation for the period of May 1937 to May 1938. The issues of the upcoming elections to the Supreme Soviet and of domestic enemies, above all
76
Also on the eastern border in Siberia, in the district Novosibirsk and in the Altaj region, the repression of criminals and social deviants appears to have gone down in 1938. 77 AIMG, Department 2, fund 1075, index 1, file 195-204.
46 Trotskyists, predominate.78 A noticeable reflection on the real international situation did not take place in either Georgia or Ukraine until late 1938 or early1939.79 The question arises of whether the growing perception of a war threat in fact contributed to the cessation of the Great Terror in November 1938, perhaps as a reaction to the Munich treaty that sealed the end of the Czechoslovak Republic and evoked the threat of a common military turn to the East on the part of Germany and Poland, one tolerated by the Western European powers.
5. The Western Siberian Troika as a Model for the Kulak Troika? In the research literature the Troika of the western Siberian region, formed in June 1937, is portrayed as a pattern or model for the Troika of the Kulak Operation, implemented USSRwide in July 1937. A counterargument to this is that the order to form Troikas throughout the Soviet Union and to establish repression lists was directed first of all exclusively at kulaks and criminals. The target group of the Western Siberian Troika was, however – of course only fictionally – the Russian General Military Union (ROVS) and its sympathizers. Although many kulaks were also affected by this Troika in Western Siberia, no criminals were targeted along with former members of the White Army. The Troika of the Western Siberian Region is better seen as a targeted single measure taken in a particular region or area that occurred again and again before and after the mass exterminations in the Soviet Union.80 Correspondingly, even the alleged members of the ROVS in Siberia were “calculated” separately; they no longer fell under the quotas of Order No. 00447. Shearer’s argument that the Western Siberian Troika was a model extends back to its direct linkage with a development that began 78
Protocol No. 1 zakrytoj partorganizacii Nr. 18 NKVD GSSR, 23.05.1938, AIMG, Department 2, fund 1075, index 1, file 200, page 6-12. 79 V. Danilenko, S. Kokin (eds.), Radijansk’ki organy deržavnoji bezpeky u 1939-červni 1941 r. Dokumenty GDA SB Ukrajiny (Kijiv, 2009). 80 It was not without a purpose that the members of the ROVS in Siberia were not counted separately until October 1937 and were not included in the quotas (limity) of Order No. 00447.
47 on July 7, 1937, that in the repression contingent of the Union-wide Kulak Troikas more and more target groups were drawn, demonstrating similarities to the victims of the Western Siberian Troika that were grouped together in the Order № 00447 under the term “other antiSoviet elements”. Admittedly this extension happened upon the broad initiative of the regions and areas and not upon the initiative of Stalin or the NKVD control centre in Moscow, which was only influenced by Robert Eiche, the first party secretary of the Western Siberian Region and his NKVD chief S. N. Mironov.81 The original intent to limit mass action to Kulaks illegally returning from the camps and places of exile and to criminals can be better interpreted as an additional indication that the political control centre in Moscow had now shifted its focus to a rapid, comprehensive and conclusive removal of social problems and economic difficulties in the countryside. In this way, an additional important finding has come from materials in the Ukraine, Georgia, the Tver’ and Sverdlovsk districts and in the Western Siberian region, that Order No. 00447 transferred social repression onto the surrounding area, that is, into the countryside. The NKVD internal statistics lead to the conclusion that the operation must be characterized as an about-face away from securing the regime’s cities and towards the social and economic stabilisation of the countryside. With this the so-called socially hostile or dangerous elements were particularly hard hit, that is those social groups that up to that point had been subject to repression only in the urban milieu.82
6. The Underestimated War Threat From the perspective of the mass operations, the greatest problem concerning the “war threat” as a universal explanation is that concrete, empirical evidence for the connection between a
81
Also with Arch Getty the installation of the West Siberian Troika plays a central role. Cf. the discussion of his position in M. Junge, R. Binner, Kak terror stal “Bol‘šim“, pp. 211. 82 See also Shearer, Policing, pp. 288, 309, 302, 311. Not until the second phase of the order can a reverse trend be detected, which, however, at first had to be reinforced.
48 “war threat” and the beginning of the Kulak Operation cannot be found. The same is true to a great extent of the repressions that climaxed in November/December 1937. The dynamic and the radicalisation of the mass repression, by contrast, can be unproblematically traced back to the interaction between the centre and the periphery83, while the state of the sources is more complicated with respect to the beginning of the mass operations. Fundamentally, the weak connection between the war threat and the largest mass operation, the Kulak Operation, is in our interpretation a clear and significant indication that the regime greatly underestimated the war threat. That the regime in 1936 increasingly engaged in securing its borders and building up armaments does not compellingly contradict this.84 Likewise, it can be disputed that Stalin and the NKVD were impressed by the decisive resistance of the Spanish and international anarchists and social revolutionaries against the communists loyal to the Soviet Union taking a leadership role, a resistance that was at its peak in the spring of 1937.85 However, it would go too far to use the political catch phrase “fifth column” as a point of departure for the initial spark that set off the systematic social and political repressions of the Great Terror, particularly since this connection was not established by Molotov and Kaganovich until decades after the events. The term “fifth column” was, incidentally, not used at the time of the event, even if it may have captured the facts. Customary terms such as anti-Soviet elements, enemies of the people, enemy agents, socially dangerous elements, and so forth were used instead the war threat was, in the perception of the regime, in the end only one of several factors. The disparity between the objective threat and the perceived threat is critical: The general thinking in 1937 appears to have been that M. Jungle i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 137-156; M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Stalinizm v sovetskoj provincii, pp. 43-60. 84 R. T. Manning, The Soviet economic crisis of 1936-1940 and the Great Purges, in J. A. Getty, R. T. Manning (eds.), Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 132134; V. Chaustov, L. Samuel’son, Stalin, NKVD i repressii, pp. 49-52; M. Harrison, The Dictator and Defense, in Mark Harrison (ed.), Guns and Rubles. The Defense Industry in the Stalinist State (New Haven, 2008), pp. 1-30. 85 A. Shubin speaks in this connection of “civil war in a civil war”. A. V. Šubin, Anarchistskij social’nyj eksperiment. Ukraina i Ispanija 1917-1939 (Moscow, 1998), pp. 213-225. 83
49 sufficient time was available for implementing an extensive action supported by the use of violence for “solving” social and economic problems. This argumentation is supported by the fact that until January 1938 even the repressions in the framework of the National Operations and the repressions of the elites can not be clearly traced back to the war threat as a central motive. Thus, the reports of the local judicial bodies show that even in the charges against members of the elites, domestic factors have at least an equal significance. The divergence between the strongly rhetorical-medial presence of an external danger and the lack of preparation in 1937 of a broad cadre (in Georgia and Ukraine) for a serious external danger through internal training and preparation, as actually occurred from mid-1938 on, suggests that the war threat was not taken seriously in 1937. The regime had perhaps been too insistent since 1927 on using the war threat as an argument for legitimizing domestic and for insuring the success of foreign measures (e. g. new spheres of influence in Xinjiang and in Outer Mongolia), so that the true danger was understood only conditionally or with time. The overestimation of the regime’s own strengths and possibilities was also encouraged in foreign policy by the successes of the Soviet espionage networks in Germany, Poland and Japan, as well as the successful hermetic partitioning of the country.86 Moreover, the Soviet Union had, between October 1936 and fall 1937, hoped to decide the outcome of the Spanish Civil War in favour of the Republicans with the help of weapon deliveries and military advisors.87 The international situation, above all the Japanese military activities in Asia and the Spanish Civil War, in which the Germans decisively participated, appears to have raised the pressure to provide a quick solution to the social and economic problems only indirectly. Not until January 1938 does the shift in emphasis to the National Operations and the intensified action against the so-called “counter-revolutionary elements” under the Kulak
V. Chaustov, L. Samuel’son, Stalin, NKVD i repressii, pp. 38-49. D. Kowalsky, Stalin and the Spanish Civil war, in http://www.gutenberge.org/kod01/frames/fkodimg.html (published 2005, used 12/28/2011). See especially his conclusion. 86 87
50 Operation with Stalin’s direct intervention (increased repression against those working in the railway system and against Mensheviks and social revolutionaries) speak for a growing awareness of the external danger, which in turn is reflected in the reports of the local NKVD to the Moscow Central Command. The simultaneous reversal of the broad repression of functionaries and party elites and the social repression, also in January 1938, is seen in this context as a necessary stabilisation measure of their own clientele. After all, the final cessation of all mass operations on November 17, 1938 can be placed in the context of the Munich Conference in September 1938 and thus the fact that the danger of Germany’s turn against the Soviet Union could no longer be ignored, all the more so since again and again suggestions in this regard were being sent from Berlin to Warsaw. Neither in Berlin nor in Moscow did it go unnoticed that Poland, with the annexation of the Olza Region in October 1938, had become a de facto ally of Germany in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia. At this point the Politburo turned its full attention to an isolationist foreign policy conducted with ever higher degrees of risk, which reached its climax in the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. The Great Terror was halted at the end of 1938. Yet the Soviet regime was unable to perceive the real danger of war or to react adequately to that threat, a situation that, with the surprise attack by Germany in June 1941, was ultimately to threaten the existence of the Soviet Union, if only briefly.88 A much more convincing central motive for the decision to use mass murder and arrests of the common people in the Soviet Union than a fixation on the external threat are multi-factorial approaches that consider the transition from “class enemy” to enemy of the state, to class-based disconnected “enemies of the people” as a source of domestic threat and generally the changed understanding of class conflict and criminal classes on the part of the state and state security, and the study of the inner logic of the system in forming and
88
On this new documents in B. Bonwetsch, S. Kudrjashov (eds.), SSSR-Germanija: 19331941, Vestnik Archiva Prezidenta Rossijskoj Federacii (Moscow, 2009).
51 engineering society. Further empirical research is required on the crises in the economy and society in the 1930s as a basis for these changes.89 One could more deeply discuss the interconnectedness of the different waves of repression, especially collectivisation, with the events of the late 1930s.90 After all, the exchange between the individual mass operations and the “normal” court system during the Great Terror is uncharted territory.91 David Shearer must be credited as the pioneer of a synthesis approach to the socialeconomic situation and to a revised understanding of the threat proceeding from the state and its social system, even though he, recoiling from his own pioneering results, continues to place the threat of war too prominently in the forefront.92
89
About the socio-economic crisis as a major factor in the decision to engage in mass murder see Sheila Fitzpatrick’s works since the late eighties. Sh. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, Oxford 1999). The works of Elena Osokina from the mid-1990s are also useful in this connection. E. Osokina, Za fasadom "stalinskogo izobilija". Raspredelenie i rynok v snabženii naselenija v gody industrializacii, 1927 – 1941 (Moscow, 1999). See also Fitzpatrick’s differentiating between “class enemies” and “enemies of the people”; certainly her article on “Ascribing Class. The construction of mass identity in Soviet Russia”, Journal of Modern History (1993), vol. 65, pp. 745-770. 90 Early works, based on a small number of sources: M. Lewin, Who was the Soviet Kulak?, in M. Lewin (ed.) The Making of the Soviet System. Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia (London, 1985), pp. 121-141; Sh. Fitzpatrick, The impact of the Great Purges on Soviet elites: A case study from Moscow and Leningrad Telephone directories of the 1930s, in J. A. Getty, R. T. Manning (eds.), Stalinist terror. New perspectives (New York, 1993), pp. 247-260. 91 A first attempt cf. M. Junge, G. Kldiašvili, Regionalizacja karatel’nych polnomočij, in M. Junge, B. Bonwetsch (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok v Gruzii, v 2 tomach, vol. 1: Bol’šoj terror v malenkoj kavkazskoj respublike (Moscow, 2015), pp. 117-168. 92 Shearer, Policing, pp. 15, 19-63, 311. See also P. Hagenloh, Stalin’s Police, and the consideration for the change in the criminal discourse in the case of M. Junge, R. Binner, see chapter 4; M. Junge, Delo ugolovnikov, in G. D. Ždanova, V. N. Razgon, M. Junge, R. Binner (eds.), Massovye repressii v Altajskom kraje 1937-1938 (Moscow, 2010), pp. 214-274.
52 Chapter 2
Goal-Oriented Repression vs. Stochastic Repression
For the I that wants to remain plausible for itself and others, conjures claims of truth and falsehood with the truth criteria of others in view, even when these have no absolute standards for plausibility, but only those which now and here seem sufficient for him and others. Therewith plurality is accepted. —Kurt Flasch, Warum ich kein Christ bin. 2013
A very resilient category describing the essence of mass repression is all-encompassing arbitrariness. The term was introduced by CPSU Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev in his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 as a formulary explanation for the mass repressions in the 1930s. The arbitrariness of Stalin and of his instrumentalised NKVD formed the core:
The arbitrariness of one individual person encouraged others to act arbitrarily and enabled them. Mass repression and deportation of many thousands of people and executions without court trial and without normal investigations called forth a situation of insecurity and fear, even of hopelessness […] fabricated charges against Communists, false convictions, outrageous violations of socialist law and order, as innocent people died of its consequences […]. The arbitrariness of Stalin came to light
53 not only in decisions about domestic questions of the country, but also in the area of international relations.93
The hierarchical fixation on Stalin and the NKVD as well as the characterization of the Party as the sole victim of the repressions has been decidedly rejected by scholarly research. The topos of arbitrariness, on the other hand, has proven to be resilient. It experienced a true renaissance in wake of the discovery of new documents on the repressions and terror in Moscow in the early 1990s. Related terms such as “mindless chaos”, “excess in excess”, “state of emergency”, “running amok”, “apocalyptic theatre”, “lust for murder” and “Bacchanal of terror” gripped the research literature. Materials on the mass operations were especially referenced. It is remarkable that in many publications on the terror, the mass repressions in their entirety, that is, not only the newly discovered repressions of broad segments of the regular Soviet population (mass operations), but also the repressions of the elites (the big show trials, small local show trials, the convictions of the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR, and the Special Councel) were included. The classic statement on the estimation of the arrests and convictions during the mass operations stems from J. Arch Getty94:
Like a psychotic mass killer who begins shooting in all directions, the Stalinist centre had little idea who would be killed. It opened fire on vague targets, giving local officials license to kill whomever they saw fit. The opposite of controlled, planned, directed fire, the mass operations were more like blind shooting into a crowd.95
93
See http://www.geheimrede.de.vu/ (12/15/2011) from which the quotes have been selected. University of California, Los Angeles, USA. 95 J. Arch Getty, “Excesses are not permitted”. Mass Terror and Stalinist Governance in the Late 1930s, Russian Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 113-138, here 135. 94
54
The American specialist on Germany Charles Maier decisively posited in the European journal Transit an opposition between the “targeted” terror of National Socialism and the “stochastic” terror of the Soviet communists. For him these are the definitive features of each system.96 A new development in the research literature is to designate the terror no longer in the literal sense as blind rage, arbitrary and indiscriminate, but rather to ascribe to its initiators certain rational goals and intentions, which may not explain concrete actions in individual cases, but instead relates to the structure of society.97 Central to this, as an allusion to the thoughts of Zygmunt Bauman, are concepts such as “the establishment of clarity” in the ethnic, political and social sense, that is, in the words of Jörg Baberowski and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, “Order through terror”.98 In Baberowski’s latest publication, however, this concept of homogenisation as a central determining factor for the Terror is suddenly abandoned, and in its place state-external spaces are proffered in which the Terror was able to spread unhindered. Precisely the absence of the Modern in the form of the state now becomes the deciding leitmotiv.99 In sum, it holds that the use of unrestrained violence turned from a means into a purpose, and then into an end unto itself.100 In the conclusion the Great Terror is still
96
Charles S. Maier, Heißes und kaltes Gedächtnis. Zur politischen Halbwertzeit des faschistischen und kommunistischen Gedächtnisses, Transit (2001/02), vol. 22, pp. 153-165. 97 R. Binner, M. Junge, “S ėtoj publikoj ceremonit’sja ne sleduet“. Die Zielgruppen des Befehls 00447 und der “Große Terror“ aus der Sicht des Befehls 00447, Cahiers du Monde russe (2002), No. 1, vol. 43, pp. 181-228. 98 Baberowski, Ordnung durch Terror. Dietrich Beyrau in contrast diagnoses the establishment of social hierarchies in an imperialist or neotraditional society, fixating on status or class. Beyrau, Nazis and Stalinists, p. 814. 99 J. Baberowski, Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt (Munich, 2012). My deepest appreciation to Benno Ennker for discussion and the decisive suggestions and formulations with respect to this section. 100 On Stalinism as a history of violence see also: St. Plaggenborg, Stalinismus als Gewaltgeschichte, in Plaggenborg (ed.), Stalinismus. Neue Forschungen und Konzepte (Berlin, 1998), pp. 71-112; on the classification of terror in Stalinism: Bernd Bonwetsch, Der
55 nevertheless characterized as an extended wave of unrestrained state violence, or as a “murderous Bacchanalia” that could not be controlled and finally, especially at the level of actual arrests and investigations, spun out of control, as concluded for instance by Bernd Bonwetsch, with emphasis on precisely this aspect.101 The insufficient, and in the end completely derailed, control is paraphrased thus through a topos borrowed from Moshe Lewin:
The policies of Moscow consisted essentially of ‘opening the locks’. They couldn’t contain the raging flood that resulted, however.102
Similarly, authors such as Baberowski and Doering-Manteuffel speak of a “dynamic of unlimited use of violence” that led to the terror becoming an end unto itself, while the original motive sank into oblivion.103 The historian David Shearer, backed with the considerations expressed by the Russian historians Viktor Danilov and Leonid Naumov, have suggested a definite time period for the derailment the greatest mass operation, the Kulak Operation, as particularly they claim that, at the start of 1937, there was a quiet conversation on the contingent guidelines (i.e. the limits)
Stalinismus der Sowjetunion der dreißiger Jahre. Zur Deformation einer Gesellschaft, in H. Weber, U. Mählert (eds.), Verbrechen im Namen der Idee. Terror im Kommunismus 19361938 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 11-41. 101 B. Bonwetsch, Der “Große Terror“ – 70 Jahre danach, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte (2008), No. 1, vol. 9, pp. 123-245, here 126, 136; K. Holm, Bacchanal des Tötens. Stalins Terror in der Provinz. Eine Moskauer Tagung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2006), No. 248, p. 44. Also in the Memorial theses the mass repressions are designated as a “Bacchanal of Terror”. See I. Scherbakowa, Das Jahr 1937 und die Gegenwart. Thesen von “Memorial“, Russlandanalysen (2007), vol. 133, pp. 6-11. In “Der rote Terror“ Baberowski traces in detail this conception for explaining the Great Terror. For Karl Schlögel the mass operations are an allusion to A. Nove “Exzess im Exzess”. Schlögel, Terror und Traum, p. 639. 102 Bonwetsch, Der “Große Terror“, p. 139. 103 Baberowski, Ordnung durch Terror, p. 12.
56 towards minimal numbers for fulfillment.104 Shearer saw this intended change as the cause of an entire system of uncontrollable consequences: The lists of arrests after October 1937 were no longer based on registered NKVD materials and arrests were no longer carried out individually, but rather in en masse and “arbitrarily”, sometimes without and sometimes with justification rendered after the fact. In the preparation of the documents, “in many cases” the arrestees were in fact shot or sent to prison camps before the documents were actually filled out, because this procedure was simply a formal, bureaucratic necessity. Many persecuted persons never saw an investigating official; an accusation of guilt had only little significance; the falsification of accusations was “customary” and it was practiced “in mass numbers”. Dozens, even hundreds of arrestees were combined into groups and convicted under a single, unifying charge.105 Baberowski sought the reasons for the character of the Terror and its apparent extent beyond all bounds not only in the “ideological orientation of the power holders”, but rather also in the archaic mental predisposition of the majority of Bolsheviks and of Stalin himself. The village traditions of violence are traceable, but also the experiences of excessive violence in the civil war and finally the mafia-like structures of a feudal state built on personal alliances.106 A key role was played by Stalin. The psychological portrait appears as follows: the “criminal energy” of Stalin, his “archaic notions of friendship, loyalty and betrayal”, his “evil nature” and his Georgian past,
104
Naumov and Danilov deny especially the existence of any real control or directing function on the part of the central mechanism for the distribution of limits, i.e. for the distribution of repression quotas imposed by the Moscow central command to the local NKVD within the framework of the Order № 00447. They are not to be understood, they say, as an upper limit but rather as a minimum. V. P. Danilov, Sovetskaja derevnja v gody “Bol’šogo terrora“, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, p. 45; L. Naumov, Stalin i NKVD (Moscow, 2007), p. 326, 355; Shearer, Policing, pp. 344, 350352, 358, 364. 105 Shearer, Policing, pp. 287, 299, 351-359. 106 Baberowski, Der rote Terror, pp. 15, 52, 86, 163-166.
57 in which “violence structured the relations between people” (blood vengeance feuds, gang violence and “ritualistic” battles) are highlighted.107 In post-Soviet Russian research and in the analyses of the human rights organisation “Memorial” in Moscow, the coupling of arbitrariness and the role of the victim stand in the foreground in direct relation to the 1960s and 1980s. In 2007, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the repressions, the theses formulated by “Memorial” make this clear: One speaks of a “nearly mythically inconceivable occurrence”; for the greater part of the population the “logic of the arrests” was “baffling and inexplicable” and could not be grasped by “common sense”. Everything is described as a giant lottery. The possibility of arrest derived mainly from belonging to an “arbitrary segment of the population” that was mentioned in one of the operative orders, or from “contacts – occupational, familial or friendship-based – with persons who had already been arrested”. The year 1937 stands, according to this research, for the “falsifications of charges to an extent unknown in world history”. “Arbitrary” and “fantastical charges” of counter revolutionary conspiracy, espionage, preparation of terrorist attacks, and diversion, were brought. The investigative procedures represented a “renaissance of the norms of the medieval inquisition: judgements without the presence of the accused, show trials, the absence of a defence attorney and the de facto combination of the roles of inquisitor, prosecutor, judge and executioner in a single agency. The admission of guilt was the “main form of evidence”, and torture was used extensively.108 These statements characterise the state violence of the years 1937-38 as nearly indiscriminate arbitrariness and blind coincidence. This is the way it appears to other researchers, such as Alexander Vatlin of Moscow State University (MGU), who concentrates on the regional aspect, or the “local” perpetrators:
107 108
Op. cit., pp. 16, 73, 140, 205. Scherbakowa, Das Jahr 1937, pp. 6-11.
58 Precisely here [on rayon level in the area around Moscow] the absurdity of the Stalinist repressions reaches their absolute peak, and the questionnaire principle and the arbitrariness of blind coincidence triumphed.109
1. Questioning the Uniqueness of Auschwitz Such interpretations are widespread in both Western and East European research. They prepared the ground for the subsequent, highly dogmatic interpretation of the Great Terror by the German historian Stefan Plaggenborg. Plaggenborg accepted the current model of fixing blame on the regime for having fundamentally rational goals and intentions, but only up to the beginning of the Great Terror of 1937. For the mass repressions beginning from that time, however, he claims, based on newly discovered documents on the mass repressions, that the usability of the modernity theory of Zygmunt Bauman as applied to the Soviet Union is questionable in its entirety, and that the very foundations of established sociological theory must be revised.110 In his modification of Bauman’s much belaboured gardener image of the modern state, the author asserts that in Stalinism the gardener “not only pulled weeds, but also mowed down his best plants and tore out his own breeds, that is, for Soviet socialism the radical oppression and indiscriminate destruction of representatives of all classes, including the workers and the
109
A. Vatlin, Sledstvennye dela 1937–1938 gg, in L. A. Golovkova, K. F. Ljubimova, L. I. Gromova (eds.), Butovskij poligon. 1937-1938 gg. Kniga pamjati žertv političeskich repressij (Moscow, 2004), pp. 184-218, here 183. 110 His concept is based on the consideration of the history of mentalities. See St. Plaggenborg, Weltkrieg, Klassenkrieg. Mentalitätsgeschichtliche Versuche über die Gewalt in Sowjetrussland, Historische Anthropologie (1995), vol. 3, pp. 493-505; St. Plaggenborg, Revolutionskultur. Menschenbilder und kulturelle Praxis in Sowjetrussland zwischen Oktoberrevolution und Stalinismus (Köln, 1996); St. Plaggenborg, Stalinismus als Gewaltgeschichte, pp. 71-112. The essence of his concept is reflected in the following statement on the roots of terror: “If the theories on the rationale for historical dispositions must fail and practices of the agents over longer periods of time are made to hold, especially the emergence of disolution […] and the violence with the founding of the early Soviet Union”. Experiment Moderne. Der sowjetische Weg (Frankfurt a.M., New York, 2006), p. 156.
59 Stalinist elites, was typical”.111 This dissolves the difference between “alien” and “one’s own” or between inclusion and exclusion, on which sociological theory supposedly rests. In order to also prove, in a functional sense, a random and non-predetermined structural void, Plaggenborg assumes that the category of instrumental or purposely rational action freed from morals, employed by Bauman as a condition on the use of destructive force under modernity, likewise does not apply to the Soviet Union. In the USSR the technology that enabled action on a grand scale was only in the process of being developed, and one would have sought in vain a “meticulous division of labour”. The central place of science was also not to be found there.112 As a climax, a “systemic integrated momentum” is attributed to the use of violence in Stalinism, in clear contradistinction to the theory of totalitarianism, and for Bauman its instrumental character is paramount. “Violence was a form of Bolshevik communication that moderated between individual domains and integrated them, regardless of whether these ‘domains’ were individuals, groups or institutions”.113 More simply stated, “ever-present” violence in Stalinism became the glue holding Soviet society together. In the end, Plaggenborg elevates Stalinism, with his consideration that it made an important contribution to understanding the problem of “Modernity and Barbarism”, to a level on par with the assessments of National Socialism presented by Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner, Ulrich Herbert and Detlev Peukert, who especially describe the Holocaust as a regression to Plaggenborg, Experiment, p. 153. “Their common denominator [of the stigmatized enemies] consisted of the fact that they corresponded to a diffuse social and ideological definition.” – “In the years 1937-38 no one could calculate who would become a victim of the repressions (Op. cit. p. 151). “The exclusion was drawn according to determinations of differences not conclusively identifiable up to the present day which – this point one knows at the least – could be temporary. In the sense of order this procedure makes no sense.” (Op. cit., p. 153). Further similar quotes cf. op. cit., pp. 151-154, 333. Also the apparent allencompassing application of torture without any recognizable meaning or purpose except for the extortion of absurd confessions fits seamlessly into this interpretation. Op. cit., pp. 164165, 166, 168, 170. 112 Op. cit., p. 333. 113 Op. cit., pp. 336-337. Echoes of this concept can also be found in Baberowski, Der Rote Terror, p. 98. 111
60 pre-modern conditions. Taking such a “systemic” line of argumentation further, embedded as it is in the diagnosis of an unholy alliance of the modern and the barbaric, the result might once again, if unintentionally, put into question the uniqueness of Auschwitz, though this time not through the assertion of an “excessive, over-wrought National-Socialist imitation” of an “Asian-Bolshevik practice of annihilation”114 as argued by Ernst Nolte; but rather through the parallel construction of a qualitative, or at the very least deformed, regime with its own specific characteristics.
2. Assembly-line Judiciary Organised by the State Bureaucracy It cannot be disputed that coincidence and arbitrariness were essential features of the events of 1937-38. But one should not fail to recognize that in the research the fundamental tendency prevails – already through a shortage of sources – to draw conclusions about the character of all proceedings directly from the perceptions of the persecuted elites and the official narratives of the show trials.115 In the case of Karl Schlögel, this finds expression in the judgements on all of those persecuted during the Great Terror: “The few who were persecuted and killed knew why they had been selected.”116 With a closer look, however, stark breaks and contradictions become evident in the evaluation of the “mass operations” in some of the studies previously described of the conclusion comes from the work of Aleksandr Valtins that the impetus for mass arrests came not exactly from the “arbitrariness of blind coincidence”. His precise description of the implementation of mass repressions, and specifically the selection of the victims and the participation of various agencies and organisations, shows that arbitrariness and games of chance to a certain extent had a method to them. Vatlin establishes that there was no time for bureaucratic work under the conditions of the precipitous procedure (shturmovshchina) during 114
Hans-Ulrich Wehler, a German sociologist. For example as done by Bonwetsch, Der “Große Terror“. 116 Schlögel, Terror und Traum, p. 21 115
61 the summer of 1937. Not until the institutions of state and party took part in the selection of the future victims was it possible to establish the mass scale and all-encompassing character of this action. One had to fall back on lists of insubordinate co-workers in factories and institutions, as well as cases handled by party committees. Even information from the central directory files of the information office were included in the retrieval of victims’ identities.117 In the end, Vatlin determines correctly that there were a few groups in the population who “unconditionally” became victims.118 From Vatlin’s portrayal of select cases, it also becomes clear that, along with social and political origins, specific incidents (such as accidents, criticism, contact with foreigners, refusal to purchase state bonds, and denunciations) also influenced the selection of the victims.119 Likewise, those for whom coincidence and arbitrariness were decisive in the repressions of 1937-38, such as the “Memorial” researchers, for instance, are aware that despite the “apparent aimlessness” there were certain completely obvious “high-risk groups” who were especially persecuted, as Karl Schlögel points out.120 For Nikita Okhotin and Arsenii Roginskii of the “Memorial”, this means the following in their study of the “German Operation”:
Of course the mass reprisals of 1937-1938 were unprecedented not only in respect to their dimensions, but also their brutality. They had, however, their own logic, structure
117
Vatlin, Sledstvennye dela, p. 184. It must be pointed out, however, that the so-called address offices (adresnye stoly) of the authorities, all the way to the Sel’sovet level of the smallest administrative units of the Soviet state, not only had access to names and addresses, but also collected as much comprehensive data and information as possible on the registered persons. Iz protokola doprosa obvinjaemogo Saltymakova T. K. [g. Barnaul]. 29. 12. 1939, in G. Ždanova, V. Razgon, M. Junge, R. Binner (eds.), Massovye repressii v Altajskom kraje 1937-1938 (Moscow, 2010). 118 A. Vatlin, Tatort Kunzewo. Opfer und Täter des Stalinschen Terrors 1937/1938 (Berlin, 2003), p. 107. 119 Op. cit. p. 116, 120ff, 126, 138ff; Vatlin, Sledstvennye dela, p. 196. 120 Schlögel, Terror und Traum, pp. 627-628.
62 and rules which, regardless of the numerous violations, guaranteed a great measure of direction to the process of the reprisals.121
All of these characterisations encompass essential aspects of the reality of the repression. Nonetheless, the relationship among coincidence, arbitrariness, planning and predictability in the framework of the Great Terror is not explained to the degree made possible and even necessary and by the new sources. The facts of the construction and execution of the greatest mass operations of the Great Terror, the Kulak Operation, do not confirm the central theses of this previous research. For instance, the selection and conviction of the victims cannot be viewed as random and arbitrary. On the contrary, the regime, with its nearly 800,000 convictions, endeavoured to remove from society those whose loyalty to the Stalinist party and state was suspect in the years 1937-38 through a calculated, bureaucratically structured procedure.
3. Repressions from a Position of Strength Arrests took place, as a rule, on the basis of registration files kept by the secret police and the regular police. In exceptional cases information from co-workers and “denunciations” sent to the police were used. Of greater significant were statements by persons who already found themselves in the millwork of the penal system, as revealed by group records. Not until the operation was in process did the branches of the penal system resort to local information in the hands of beneficiaries or dependents of the system, for instance on the collective farms or in factories.122
121
N. Ochotin, A. Roginskij, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Operation des NKWD 1937-1938, Jahrbuch für historische Kommunismusforschung (2000/2001), pp. 89-125, here 121. 122 R. Binner, B. Bonwetsch, M. Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft. Die andere Geschichte des Großen Terrors (Berlin, 2009), pp. 125 ff.
63 After an arrest, an investigative record was established for practically every person, and the information was made complete with details of the structure of the penal branch (camp, prison, etc.). Then an evaluation of the person from the village or city Soviet was added, and several witnesses were consulted. After all of this, every record includes the order for arrest, a justification for the arrest, one or two protocols from the interrogation, as well as a written charge.123 The conviction was decided by an extrajudicial committee, the so-called Troika. The committee chairmanship was held by the head of the secret police of the corresponding republic, region or area, and the other members were the corresponding party secretary and the state prosecutor. A secretary and the official who presented the cases, a socalled dokladchik (reporter) from the ranks of the secret police or militsiya, were also present. The Troika could impose five, eight or ten-year prison sentences or the death penalty. Acquittals or referrals to courts or other extrajudicial bodies also occurred, although relatively rarely. With regard to the discussions on the admissibility of the term “Final Solution”, one can conclude that in the case of the Stalinist repression eradication was not the only target.124 From this perspective alone the murder of Jews by Germany stands out, by comparison, as a unique crime, which by no means suggests a downplaying on the part of the scholars of the atrocities of the Stalinist crimes. The whole procedure, from arrest to conviction, was organized into minute tasks. Investigation and conviction resembled a perhaps very simplified court proceeding in which the valid determinations, including the determination of guilt, were formally adhered to. The operation was accompanied by a multitude of directives, circulars and referrals.
123
Several example records are printed in Binner/Bonwetsch/Junge, Massenmord, pp. 357404; M. Junge, R. Binner, S. Kokin (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga na blago naroda”. “Kulackаja“ operacija“ v Ukrainskoj SSR 1937-1941. V 2-tomach, vol. 2: Vtoroj ėtap repressij. Zaveršenie Bol’šogo terrora i vosstanovlenie “socialističeskoj zakonnosti“ (Moscow, 2010), pp. 245-354; Ždanova i.a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 53-326. 124 See Margareta Mommsen, Symposium on the “Massenverfolgungen im Großen Terror“ of the Stalin era, on June 12, 2010 in Bonn, H-Soz-u-Kult. Tagungsberichte.
64 The procedure can also not be described as arbitrary with regard to the details. The most frequently mentioned references in the literature are to arrests based on classic denunciations, and the frequent use of torture and wholesale falsification of investigative records. An analysis of the sources demonstrates, however, that on the basis of the investigative records of the Kulak Operation, classic denunciations appeared only seldomly. Similarly, “initiative denunciations” are found in the investigative record only in exceptional cases.125 Also one cannot speak of a broad falsification of the investigative record. The secret police and the police more frequently operated rather on the basis of the materials they gathered, which they of course they interpreted in the desired way, manipulated and bent around to their liking and often additionally classified according to the fictitious or “unreal narrative spread by the mass media of an acute threat against the Soviet Union from saboteurs, spies and political conspiracies”.126 Finally, the broad use of torture in this operation for extracting confessions was superfluous, since very little value was given to the extracted confession, although one cannot exclude the possibility that falsification and torture were used, beginning with the interrogation of the captives in a standing position, inhumane conditions in massively overcrowded detention facilities, and the use of supposed evident from artificially combined and constantly sprouting counterrevolutionary organisations and groups.127 For an arrestee to be moved along through the process, the written materials of the penal branches, a few statements of witnesses and the evaluation of the village or city Soviet, however, were sufficient during the operation conducted under Order № 00447.
M. Junge, R. Binner, Spravki sel’soveta kak faktor v osuždenii krest‘jan, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Stalinizm v sovetskoj provincii, pp. 613-623. 126 For the additional quote many thanks to Jürgen Zarusky. 127 Supporting evidence: Ždanova i. a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 470-472, 501-512. On the conditions in the investigative prisons, op. cit. pp. 462-468. With the conviction of the elites, however, confession played a central role and correspondingly the use of torture was more widespread. 125
65 The effective bureaucratisation and consequent minimisation of arbitrariness, chaos and also “archaic” elements, also is also reflected in a comparison with other repression actions implemented earlier or later, and especially with the de-Kulakisation campaign of the early 1930s: The technology of the implementation and the choice of target groups in the Kulak action indicates great adherence to the procedure of the Troikas during deKulakization; yet, the operation under Order № 00447 occurred in a comparatively more controlled, bureaucratic and hierarchical manner and under the clear authority of a compliant and restructured police and secret service apparatus. A sharp separation was made in this case between those who carried out the operation – the NKVD, including the militsiya – and those who served as informants, witnesses for the prosecution, and as facilitators for the investigation, such as village and city soviets, beneficiaries of the collective farm system, and Party functionaries. Meanwhile, the Party and its organisations and committees, who created the necessary climate for such an operation, were excluded. In answer to the question of whether the operations initially exhibited such characteristics, and then after October 1937 spun out of control and eventually resulted in arbitrariness, one can say that the extreme and systematic irregularities in the arrests and convictions of victims noted especially by Shearer cannot be confirmed. After an intensive examination of the investigative records in Ukraine, Georgia, the Kalinin (Tver’) and Kemerovo districts and the Altaj region, one must see the irregularities as an exception to the rule and as isolated incidents.128 Likewise, in group trials only a manageable number of persons were jointly prosecuted. The documents for Ukraine especially provide evidence that this included a significant number of people registered in the NKVD and militsia watchlists.129 According to the Soviet concepts of justice of the time, as questionable as they
128
Cf. the investigative records quoted in note 40. Svedenija o količestve kontrrevoljucionnogo ėlementa, sostojavšego na operativnom učete v organach UGB NKVD USSR, po sostojaniju na 1 fevralja 1938 g. 1. 2. 1938 g, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 53-55. 129
66 might objectively have been, there was always some basis for a case to be brought against them. The lack of sound evidence increased, and even intensified, as a problem for the judicial system branches because their procedural work had to be suspended almost completely due to the shortage of time. A “solution” was found not in the falsification and circumvention of prescribed bureaucratic procedures, but rather in the progressive diluting of the criteria for arrest and conviction, while at the same time fundamentally holding to the formal procedural rules. Investigations in the Altaj region additionally demonstrate the increasing flexibility of the mechanisms for “unmasking enemies”, so that arrests did not target exclusively those whose names were contained in the registration files. The circle of people subject to arrest expanded considerably: firstly through the use of statements by victims provided some bases for accusations of interpretably deviant, “anti-Soviet” behaviour, and secondly via sources of information from other agencies and officials such as village or city soviets or party activists. The frequent appearance of village soviet members, collective farm chairmen and other activists as witnesses might be characterised as a typically Stalinist, state organized and directed, mechanism of denunciation. The same is true of many evaluations from village soviets, especially from those who demonstrated a high level of personal involvement.130 Nevertheless, this development did not depart from the framework established under Order № 00447. It was still, despite everything, a task-specific, thoroughly bureaucratised process which, as it transpired, was tolerated and promoted by the central authorities in Moscow. One cannot speak of a reversal towards arbitrariness and lack of control or toward a loss of legitimacy from some particular date in the operation in the case of the NKVD coworkers or others directly or indirectly involved, the co-perpetrators and co-operators.
M. Junge, G. Ždanova, Provedenie karatel’noj akcii v Soltonskom rajone Altajskogo kraja, in Ždanova i. a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 570-636. 130
67 In contrast to David Shearer’s basic proposition that the distribution of upper limits on arrests and convictions of enemies expanded after October 1937 to a minimal target that had to be fulfilled, meaning that after this exceeding the limit was tolerated or desired, our research shows that such “limits” have proven to be absolutely binding control figures for the direction of the operation.131
4. Regionalization of Repressive Power A powerful dynamic indisputably emerged during the mass repressions following Order № 00447 (the Kulak Operation) that influenced subordinates in their realisation of the order and effected how they “interpreted” the conceptual design of the central authorities in Moscow in their own judgement and how they adjusted it to their local conditions and requirements. However, because the vast scale of the geographical periphery and the installation of the “Troika” as an extrajudicial body was part of the conceptual design of the Moscow central authorities to enable maximal flexibility, one cannot say on this basis that the operation in this case went out of control. It is much more appropriate to suggest a “controlled or calculated independence” gained by the local subordinates. That Moscow, despite the freedoms allowed to the regional NKVD branches, in no way lost control is made clear by the multi-purpose guidance instruments for directing, rewarding, encouraging, punishing, calibrating, and finally for halting the operation: the dismissal and transfer of Troika members, the precisely defined mechanism for approving any increase in quotas (upper limits) and accountability in the form of regular memoranda (dokladnye zapiski) and finally, on the rayon level, the obligatory creation of investigative records as control instruments of the state for “proper” repressions. The fact that the mass repressions ended precisely on November 17, 1938 as ordered also speaks against the idea of any derailment.132
131 132
Binner/Bonwetsch/Junge, Massenmord, pp. 139-152. Op. cit., pp. 451-550.
68 Concerning the perpetrators, the police (militsiya) and state security had, under the umbrella of the NKVD, attained the status of an agency unifying the functions of prosecutor, judge, and executioner. The public prosecutor was de facto disengaged from the mass operations as a professional judicial oversight authority. During the Troika sessions, the toothless participation of the district attorney remained loosely intact. Oversight over the investigative and sentencing proceedings took place only within the NKVD in a hierarchical form, whereby the processing of a given case according to strict task assignments exacerbated the internal possibilities for control. The conclusion of the paperwork was the determination of the judgement by the Troika secretary, which as a rule took place before the actual meeting of the Troika, of course in agreement with his supervisors. Because of time constraints, he had to rely entirely on a short summary of the case, often consisting only a of few lines, which had in turn been written in accordance with the record by the court reporter (dokladchik) from the militsiya or the secret service. At the actual Troika meeting, the members approved in one motion, through their signatures on the prepared Troika protocol, the judgements, as has been mentioned earlier, this could include hundreds, sometimes thousands of people without ever seeing the accused or taking any time to look at their case files. Reconsiderations of the judgements were not possible, and the corpses of those condemned to death were hastily buried in mass graves, whereby the family members were informed in response to their inquiries that their husbands or sons were in prison camps “without the right of correspondence”. Not even the most streamlined standards of judicial procedure were applied, and the conscious transfer of collateral damage to the dependents was a firm component of the process. The processing of convictions via a specific extrajudicial punitive body brought clearly to the fore the traditional authoritarian predelictions of the militsiya and the secret service, and their interpretations of reality. They were concerned not with a critical or legally sound view of a case, but rather with a conclusiveness that did not require further scrutiny.
69 This uncontrolled predominance of the intentions of the representatives of the criminal prosecutorial bodies had direct consequences for the selection of who was arrested. An arrest could be made without a concrete criminal act being recorded.133 Additionally, all offenses from before the start of the Great Terror that previously had not been even loosely pursued or “atoned for” within the framework of legal ordinances were now reactivated and punished with the upmost severity as extreme violations of loyalty. It was of secondary importance whether certain punishments had already been served and the offenses, though numerous, might have been negligible. Repeat offenders, habitual criminal activity or constant social conspicuousness, as well as repeated statements of resentment and verbal provocations, drew particular attention.
5. Individual Guilt vs. Collective Social Justice The question of whether the principle of individual guilt or rather of a concept class or social group justice predominated must be evaluated separately. Is arbitrariness reflected in deindividualisation through categorisation? David Shearer states there was a dichotomy between the selective or individual repression strategy of the party or state bodies and institutions, and the campaign style of the mass operations against “complete social groups of the population” based on category. In his view, many victims of the mass repressions were not arrested and condemned because of specific crimes, but rather because they belonged to a suspect social group.134 The Ukrainian evidence, especially the statistics from the Khar’kov Troika protocols, appear to confirm that the formal criterion of membership in a discriminated group designated one for elimination. The arrestees were assigned to precise social categories, as the central Moscow statistics have previously demonstrated. Upon closer inspection, however, it was vexing that the categorisation in the various regions and areas was undertaken in a highly
133 134
M. Junge, Delo ugolovnikov, in Ždanova i. a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 214-274. Shearer, Policing, pp. 286-287, 290, 296, 365.
70 diverse manner, and also that some arrestees were released, even if only a few. Moreover, parallel statistics were kept on previous convictions as well as on current social status (employment position).135 Finally, the investigative records of Order № 00447, published by us, confirm the significance of “individual guilt”.136 No matter how outrageous the accusations of guilt and the body of evidence often were, with primarily socially motivated prosecutions the assessment of the loyalty of each individual was an obligatory component of the formal basis for conviction, often supported by the most recent incidents of misconduct. From a target group oriented viewpoint, it becomes evident that with some groups, as was always true after the October revolution, “social origin”, to the extent that it was a burden under Soviet conditions, for some could imply “inherent suspicion” and thus increased the penalty; for others, however, it did not. Thus, for clergyman social origin or belonging to a social class played a-determining role in arrest and conviction. From the perspective of clergymen and religious communities, the Troika might even be considered something resembling a genocidal institution, as it strived for the systematic, physical annihilation of a specific segment of the population.137 In addition, an oppositional political past generated extreme suspicion and intensification of the penalty. The classification as “Kulak” proved indeed to be a basis for arrest and punishment, but remarkably it did not automatically lead in itself, in the action designated internally as the Kulak Operation, to a harsh degree of sentencing. Conversely, a favourable social origin in the eyes of the Bolsheviks did not protect negligent or otherwise conspicuous workers, to say nothing of criminals or members of marginal groups, from the most severe punishment. This is the most convincing evidence
M. Junge, B. Bonwetsch, R. Binner, Roždenie prikaza Nr. 00447, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1: pp. 23-127, M. Junge, B. Bonwetsch, R. Binner, Pervyj ėtap “kulackoj operacii“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 129-271. 136 Cf. above the corresponding n. 40 on the publication of investigative records in the various document editions of the project. 137 R. Binner, M. Junge, Vernichtung der orthodoxen Geistlichen in der Sowjetunion in den massenoperationen des Großen Terror 1937-1938, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2004), vol. 52, Nr. 4, pp. 515-533, here 533. 135
71 that both behaviour and social position played a role. Further distinction must be made between reasons for arrest and the conviction strategy. For someone to be convicted, apparently in order to create a more solid case, a combination of reasons was presented, because all of them were ultimately specious: absenteeism at work, social origin, social position, political and ideological insubordination, as well as social deviance. Depending on the target group and the relevant stage of the implementation of the order, not all the criteria were necessary or weighted the same, however. Information about the reasons for arrest is by contrast extremely sparse in the records of the investigated regions. Therefore, on this point it remains contestable how “objective” and “subjective” reasons for prosecution related to one another. That is to say if belonging to a certain persecuted category or social group, or rather if individual behaviour was more worthy of repression according to Soviet standards. One must pay particular attention to the fact that individual victim groups were disproportionately arrested and severely punished (such as clergymen, members of formerly competitive socialist parties, “whites”, and former insurgents), while others by contrast much more seldomly persecuted (Kulaks, peasants, criminals). This suggests that there was a differentiation among the entities involved in repression according to hierarchical criteria, in which class membership alone does not always form the basis for arrest and conviction. In sum, it appears to be the case that a target-oriented selection took place at the various levels of the local NKVD, with the transformation of the arrest cases into conviction cases or with the transfer to a conviction list; this could also lead, even if only rarely, to the release of an arrested person.138 In the end, the social categorisation of the victims emerged as an organic component of an allencompassing system of control for the supervision of local cadres by the central authorities
Cf. on this the Char’kover troika statistics, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 530-614. 138
72 in Moscow; categorisation that harmonized seamlessly with the bureaucratic process of extrajudicial arrest and conviction. The deciding difference between a mass operation, such as the Kulak Operation, and the contemporaneous and largely public repression of the elites lies primarily in the great difference in the amount of effort that the regime and its agencies expended in proving each individual case of a purported counter-revolutionary crime, and to the level of repression – either individual cases or mass operations – the victims were assigned. The further removed the alleged “perpetrator” was from the structures of power and its privileges, the less effort was expended for proving the case, and the more rigorous the avoidance of any form of publicity. The large variations in actual treatment within a structurally similar system for arrest and the presentation of evidence and variations in conviction for the elites and for the “small fish” is the critical factor, rather than the dichotomy in the principle of repression. The impression that the social origin of the victims of the mass operation under Order № 00447 (the Kulak Operation) alone served as the basis for repression originated as a consequence of the rehabilitation processes begun after Stalin’s death. The exclusion of the significance of the individual accusation of guilt in the rehabilitation processes and the partial “de-Stalinisation” after 1953 helped to confirm the thesis that the mass repressions had to do with criminal violations on the part of the Stalinist leadership against the socialist system of law and order, and that therefore rehabilitation was only about re-establishing this system. It was a non-issue that – whether out of reason of state, or out of ignorance –the mass convictions of the 1930s also corresponded fully with the sense of justice of the time, and that there was much more a fundamental absence of legal protection for Soviet citizens in face of politically defined and, depending on location, extensive demands on their loyalty. From the perspective of the time transpired, the fact that during the Kulak Operation there was a dramatic reduction in the criteria for arrest and conviction, an intensification of use of actors from outside of the militsia and secret police, a progressive acceleration and
73 simplification of the preparation of investigative records, and an ever more extensive collation of individuals into groups must together be considered a clear intensification of the crime. Objective attributes generated by the state played an ever greater roll.139 In addition, the practice of punishment became radicalized through the administrative tightening of laws. From December 1937 on, for instance, the Troikas automatically convicted all prison camp fugitives to death on the basis of a new circular.140
6. Modernity and Ambivalence The Stalinist violence in the Great Terror, especially in its manifestation in the mass operation under Order № 00447 (the Kulak Operation), must be considered a modern campaign of destruction. The difference between inclusion and exclusion was in no way nullified. The victim groups are much more clearly identifiable, while the dissolution of the original classbound, official Soviet definition of the enemy must be kept in mind. Not the class enemy, but rather the enemy of the people, free of any class ties, was now “removed” from society on the basis of extremely elevated criteria of loyalty, as was repeatedly indicated in bureaucratic correspondence. The extent and the shallowness of the crimes are particularly manifested in the scrupulousness of the functional application of violence, both for enforcing ideological ideals (social engineering, the stabilisation of the collective farm system) and also as an ad hoc reaction to the widely intensifying social and economic crisis. At the same time, the terror was a means to compensate for the very limited capacities of the regime for a “normal” regulation
139
Binner/Bonwetsch/Junge, Massenmord, p. 303. M. I. Ryžov, representative of the Domestic People’s Commissioner of the USSR, to all camps of the GULAGs on the discussion of escape attempts from the camps (corresponding to Order № 409). 12/17/1937, in Op. cit., p. 240. 140
74 of the state functions in the economy and society.141 Despite its bureaucratised, dispassionate basic structure, the directive and control elements of the party-state were in part flexible to the point of becoming unrecognisable, and they allowed much room for careerism, sadism, group infighting and an importation of archaic behaviour from the world of the village, which in turn was shaped by the critically important experiences of violence during the Russian civil war. Finally, as David Shearer has warned, in the case of the Soviet Union a certain degree of scepticism should be maintained as to whether the comprehensively generated bureaucratic documentary material can be held up as a true account of the actual occurrences.
“Soviet organs were mostly concerned with ‘creating order’ in a society that was difficult to control, whereas on the German side, the intent to discipline predominated over punishment”. Beyrau, Nazis and Stalinists, p. 813. 141
75 Chapter 3
Repression along Nationality Lines
Individuals, institutions and nations engender condensed pictures of their past. What is beautiful in these is that they can be outwitted. With documents in hand they can be criticized and corrected. —Kurt Flasch, In Richtung Wahrheit. 2014
After discussing the beginning and the end of the mass repression and the supposed allencompassing arbitrariness of the Great Terror, we will pose the question of whether the Great Terror had, in addition to political and social components, also ethnic and racist or possibly even genocidal ones. The latter notion in particular is strongly linked to the war threat thesis. Therefore we will take a look at Soviet Georgia, a markedly multi-ethnic society. Support for such an assertion might be found in the fact that in Georgia during the Great Terror the number of victims was particularly high in Abkhazia, and that Abkhazians were disproportionately persecuted. Today such a perception of this history has a certain explosiveness about it in view of the grave inter-ethnic problems of the Caucasus region. In 1993 Abkhazia achieved de facto independence from Georgia, which was recognized by Russia in 2008; only a few other, rather exotic, states have followed suit so far. The segregation is being legitimized in Abkhazia and elsewhere with reference to the Great Terror: the former prime minister of Abkhazia, Sergei Shamba, has pointed out that Abkhazia
76 suffered the most in 1937-38.142 What might conversely speak against the ethnic component of the Great Terror in Georgia is that in the other area that also achieved de facto independence (in this case in 1991) and was recognized as independent by Russia in 2008, namely South Ossetia, proportionately far fewer Ossetians were persecuted in comparison to ethnic Georgians as a whole. Of concern is also the fact that the mistrust between the population groups has older causes, with roots going back at least to the time of the Mensheviks reign in Georgia from 1918-21. During this period there were conflicts in Abkhazia as well as in the Ossetian regions around Tskhinvali which took on an ethnic character in that Georgian troops, taken to be occupiers, fought against Abkhazians and Ossetians who in turn allied themselves with North Caucasian troops of the Russian Armies of the “Whites” or “Reds”. Finally, it appears that at least in the case of Abkhazia the decision makers of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia threw fuel in the fire of the ethnic conflicts in 1937-38 through systematic repressions.143 The connection between repression and the cohabitation of ethnic groups in Georgia concerns not only the titular nationality, the Georgians, but also the lesser-titular nationalities144, the (South) Ossetians, Abkhazians and Adzharians who claimed their “own” autonomous socialist republics or regions in Georgia, as well as the Laz, Mingrelians, Svans and Batsbii with their ambivalent identities and their particular cultural self-concept. Furthermore, Turks and Kurds lived in compact settlement regions in the southwest of
142
At the time of the statement S. Shamba was Minister of the Interior for Abkhazia. http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1200511.html (15.09.2013). 143 G. A. Dzidzarija (ed.), Bor’ba za sovetskuju vlast’ v Abchazii. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov 1917-1921 (Sukhumi, 1957); B. Sagarija, T. A. Ačugba (eds.), Abchazija: dokumenty svidetel’stvujut 1937-1953. Sbornik materialov (Sukhumi, 1992). 144 With “lesser-titular” we designate the titular nationalities of autonomous entities that were subordinate to the union republics; in Georgia these were the Abkhazians, Adzharians and the Ossetians.
77 Georgia, until 1829 above all in Ottoman Pashalyk Akhaltsikhe, and in smaller numbers spread out in Adzharia. Bordering on Akhaltsikhe in the east, Armenians also settled in compact groups, and bordering on the southeast of Georgia there live Azerbaijanis. In the northeast of Georgia lived smaller East-Caucasian minorities: on the border of Chechnya the Kists (kisty, kistiny), a Muslim subgroup of the Chechens und Ingushetians; on the border of Dagestan, Avars as well as members of smaller Dagestanian groups. Closed settlements also existed from the 19th century of Greeks, Germans, Jews, Aramaeans (Assyrians, Aysors), as well as Russians and Ukrainians, many of them members of religious groups such as the Molokans (molokane) or Dukhobors (dukhobory, dukhobortsy). From the turn of the century until 1924 newcomers arrived above all from the Ottoman Empire or Turkey, many as refugees. It is notable that a substantial portion of these newcomers did not want to acquire Soviet citizenship or were not able to, but rather kept the status of foreigners (inostrantsy). This is true above all for the Greeks, but also for a portion of the Turks, Armenians and Laz. The designation “Iranian” (irantsy) in the Soviet legal documents refers, as a rule, to migrants from Persia/Iran, the vast majority of which are ethnic Azerbaijanis. There are two ideal types for the interpreting the repression of nationalities in the Great Terror. One is the complete individualisation of the reasons for repression: it must be explained on the basis of the personal features of the persecuted or of the persecutors in the secret service, police or party apparatus. An “ethnic” component would accordingly be sought only on the level of personal animosities and prejudices, for example on the assumption that the party head of Georgia, Lavrentii Beria, having risen out of the ranks of the secret service apparatus, harboured resentments against the Armenians, or more concretely that he despised the Abkhazian local party chief Nestor Lakoba for being Abkhazian. This logic of individualisation is hardly explicitly present in the research literature, though certainly apologetically active in the background.
78 A different ideal type is much more dominant in the research literature, one that sees the core criterion for repression in the nationality rather than in the individual. This is accentuated by the fact that the so-called National Operations of the Great Terror, that is, the German, Polish, Iranian operations, etc. are placed in the same category with the deportations carried out at least nominally on a national basis; these began 1932, escalated in 1937, then reached a climax in 1941-44 in the Second World War with the deportations of whole nationalities and ethnic groups, lasting until roughly 1952.145 Viewed in this way, the repression of nationalities in the Great Terror appears determined primarily by fear of war, espionage activities and because of foreign policy considerations, and was directed against “enemy nationalities”, that is, diaspora nationalities with “homeland connections” to a foreign country (in 1937-38 these were, with the exception of Mongolia, “capitalistic” by definition). The ethnicity component arises in this explanation out of the threat of war and is directed against all groups that are allochthonously “foreign”. Thus, it concerns the connection to a foreign country rather than foreign ethnicity; it is not about inorodtsy, members of minorities in one’s own country, such as the many minorities limited to the Soviet Union in the Volga region or Siberia, but rather about inostrantsy, or inopoddannye, citizens of other states or persons with connections to a foreign country. Nationality becomes an objective marking used to filter out collectives for the allencompassing repressions. The “enemy nations” in 1932-37 and the following years are in this way identical to the “punished peoples” in the literature on the deportations of 1941-52.146 This argumentation has much going for it, but at the same time it is somewhat tautological in the sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This can be tested with a region like 145
This is especially clear in G. Simon, Der Kommunismus und die nationale Frage, Osteuropa (2013), No. 5-6, vol. 63, pp. 108-124, here p. 115. 146 For comprehensive research on this topic as exemplary early work see A. M. Nekrich, The punished peoples. The deportation and fate of Soviet minorities at the end of the Second World War (New York, 1978); more recent research compiled by N. Bugaj, A. M. Gonov, Kavkaz: Narody v ešelonach. 20-60-e gody (Moscow, 1998); J. O. Pohl, Ethnic cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949 (Westport CT, 1999).
79 Georgia, where there are additional ethnic conflict lines in the form of “Soviet homeland” and “capitalistic foreign land”. An expanded source corpus will provide the opportunity for this test. No longer will only the National Operations, as usual, be taken into consideration, but also the other mass operations such as the Kulak Operation and the repressions carried out by the Police Troika. Furthermore, via the aforementioned “enemy nations”, we also include other nationalities that do not correspond with the schema, that is, nationalities native to the Soviet Union: the Russians themselves, the Georgians as titular nationality, the titular nationalities of the neighbouring republics (Armenians, Azerbaijanis), the lesser-titular Abkhazians and Ossetians, as well as further non-titular nationalities. Our approach is to consider the repression of Soviet-external diaspora nationalities in the mass operations of the Great Terror - of the Germans, Poles, Turks, Greeks or Iranians - together with the repression of the nationalities represented in Georgia., This will clarify the extent and direction of the repression of individual groups in the Great Terror as such. We will then compare them and deliver plausible evidence and, as far as possible, explanations for distinct departures in the motives that led to their repression. In the conclusion we will discuss whether there were continuities or breeches in the resettlements of entire ethnic groups in Georgia beginning in 1941. A further, newer methodological approach is the connecting of the mass repressions of the Great Terror with the general policies on nationalities. We shift away from the previous focus, the exclusive consideration of “ethnic cleansing” of imperial enemy nations and the perspective of Moscow defined against the backdrop of foreign policy or threat of war, which we consider to be too narrow and one-dimensional, toward a view of the diverse interests of the center on one hand and of the perpetrators in the Georgian periphery on the other. We seek to complement the Moscow-centered perspective with a view that shifts the periphery and also shows the Tbilisi perspective and the interaction between Tbilisi and the provinces.
80 1. Ethnicization of Enemy Identification The shift in focus to the connection among repression and ethnicity and nationality147 brings up the thesis of Jörg Baberowski148 on the ethnicization of enemy-directed rhetoric used by the Bolsheviks, a thesis that he developed based on his research on Azerbaijan: “The Bolshevik leaders perceived their environment as an arena of inter-ethnic conflicts”.149 According to Baberowski, ethnic categories become one of the most important components of the Stalinist image of the enemy.150 He traces this back to a paradigm shift, starting in the summer of 1937, which called for the enemy to be categorized only according to objective criteria,151 and states that during the Great Terror “ethnic cleansing occupied the centre of the Stalinist terror”.152 In light of the research into Order No. 00447, he diluted his theory of the dominance of ethnic cleansing, in as much as he applied it only to the year 1938: “One could also say that 1937 was the year of social cleansing; 1938, the year of ethnic cleansing”.153
147
The term nationality is used in the following for the most part synonymously with the term ethnos (ethnic group), since here the primordial aspect of “ethnic group” usually plays no role; for this term the self-identification of the individuals concerned is decisive; these can only with great difficulty be reconstructed for 1937. With the term nationality are usually designated the objects of state policy. 148 Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany. 149 Baberowski, Ordnung durch Terror, pp.17, 79; Baberowski, Der Rote Terror. 150 J. Zarusky, review of: Jörg Baberowski, Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Ordnung durch Terror. Gewaltexzesse und Vernichtung im nationalsozialistischen und im stalinistischen Imperium (Berlin, 2006), in H-Soz-u-Kult, 13/03/2007, http://hsoCCult.geschichte.huberlin.de/rezensionen/2007-1-170 (10/11/2013) Also for Timethy Snyder (Yale University) the “Polish Operation” in the Great Terror is an ethnically motivated killing action. Correspondingly, the thesis of the ethnicisation of Stalinist repression pervades like a red thread his comparison of National Socialism and Stalinism. T. Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York, 2010). 151 Baberowski i. a., The Quest for Order, pp. 213. An overview of the discussion is provided by Ch. Mick, Die Ethnisierung des Stalinismus, in J. Baberowski, Moderne Zeiten? Krieg, Revolution und Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert (Bonn, 2006), pp. 145-173. 152 Baberowski, Ordnung durch Terror, p. 59; J. Baberowski, Der Feind ist überall. Stalinismus im Kaukasus (Munich/Stuttgart, 2003). 153 Baberowski i. a., The Quest for Order, pp. 180-230, here 216.
81 The works of Terry Martin154 have also proven to be especially influential; they illustrate how the Soviet Union, beginning in 1923-24, undertook a policy of promoting and categorising nationalities. He draws comparisons to the U.S. policy of positive discrimination of minorities, affirmative action; the focal point of this promotion, he states, was ethnic territorialisation, that is, the allocation of autonomous territories. From 1929-32 on (depending on the region) this policy was retracted and the autonomous territories were markedly reduced. With individual groups stigmatised through foreign policy as “enemy nations” (Germans, Koreans, Poles, Finns, Kurds, Iranians), this was converted into a policy of collective punishment through deportation. The mass repressions in the Great Terror, by contrast, play almost no role in Martin’s studies. Only in one half-sentence he formulates: “[…] the Great Terror had evolved into an ethnic terror”.155 Baberowski simply takes up Martin’s thesis and extends it into an explanatory model. A broader perspective on categorisation has been presented by Francine Hirsch156. She focuses intensively, like Martin, on the central level; the protagonists in the republics appear as accomplices or, those like the Ukrainian Mykola Skrypnyk who represent their own interests, as victims of the centrally driven policy on nationalities. A fusion of a policy on nationalities and the Great Terror, however, did not occur. The most important sources for nationality issues in the 1930s in her view are not the deportations and National Operations, but rather the passport legislation, official statements on nationalities policy and the censuses of 1937 and 1939.157
154
Harvard University, USA. T. Martin, The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing, Journal of Modern History (1998), No. 4, vol. 70, pp. 813-861, here p. 858. 156 University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. 157 T. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca, 2001); F. Hirsch, Empire of nations. Ethnographic knowledge & the making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, 2005). 155
82 A similar position, though directed only toward the personality of Stalin and thus enriched with terms such as “xenophobia” and “genocide”, is taken by Norman Naimark158:
But the arrests and mass killing during the purges were less driven by the real threats to Soviet security, than by Stalin’s xenophobia and paranoia. Without Stalin, the genocidist, it is hard to imagine the Great terror.159
The American historian of Germany, Eric Weitz160 had already in 2002, based on his consequent interpretation of American studies of the Soviet Union (of T. Martin, F. Hirsch, A. Weiner, Y. Slezkine and P. Holquist), proposed the thesis that the Stalinist leadership had at times promoted a de facto racist policy. But even he only touches on the Great Terror and, like Terry Martin, primarily addresses the deportations of entire ethnic groups.161 Baberowski’s reasoning seems first of all entirely plausible, mainly because he establishes a connection to the growing threat of war. Behind such a background, the repression of the German and Polish populations, for instance, and also the repression of people of Japanese, Turkish, Greek or Iranian descent, appears inconsequential. Hiroaki Kuromiya162 also points out that:
158
Standfort University, USA. N. Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides (Princeton /Oxford, 2010), p. 120. 160 University of Minnesota, USA. 161 E. D. Weitz, Racial Politics without the Concept of Race. Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 1-29, here 6. For discussion of this thesis, see F. Hirsch, Race without the Practice of Racial Politics, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 44-53; A. Leimon, Without a “Concept”? Race as Discursive Practice, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 54-61; A. Weiner, Nothing but Certainty, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 44-53; E. D. Weitz, On Certainties and Ambivalencies. Reply to my Critics, Slavic Review (2002), No. 1, vol. 61, pp. 62-65. Because of this debate, Weitz formulates his thesis more cautiously a year later that in the Soviet Union nationality and class membership carried equal weight as features of categorisation during repressions. He considered his thesis, that with the Soviet nationalities policy a “racial logic” can be recognized, however, to be in need of further discussion, or even to be very controversial. E. D. Weitz, Century of Genocide. Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton, 2003), p. 84. 162 University of Indiana, USA. 159
83
Because of the threat from the west, non-Russian ethnic groups on the western borderlands, like their counterparts in the Far East, became politically suspect. […] Ethnic Germans appeared to be the most threatening because of their ethnicity and their suspected ties to Nazi Germany.163
Following the same logic, Paul Gregory164 makes this approach more precise, and in doing so excludes racist motives:
Stalin’s repression of ethnic minorities had little to do with ethnic animosity or prejudice, but had a more practical bent. […] In a nation surrounded by capitalist enemies, citizens could easily be infected with anti-Bolshevik ideas. Within the borders of the Soviet Union, the party’s monopoly over print and propaganda could shield Soviet citizens from anti-Soviet ideas, but those with relatives abroad or ethnic population living in border regions would be most subject to foreign influence.165
It thus appears a logical consequence that the authors put the National Operations on the same level as the resettlement of entire population groups before and after the Great Terror.166 Baberowski, however, goes one step further. He states in consequential terms what Kuromiya and Gregory merely hint at: Between 1937 and 1938 there was a systematic repression of ethnic groups that was not restricted to the border regions:
163
H. Kuromiya, Accounting for the Great Terror, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2005), No. 53, pp. 86-101, here 90-91. 164 University of Houston, USA. 165 P. R. Gregory, Terror by Quota. State security from Lenin to Stalin. An archival study (New Haven /London, 2009), p. 265. 166 Gregory, Terror by Quota, p. 259; Baberowski i. a., The Quest for Order, p. 212.
84 […] in 1937 it was no longer relevant whether an ethnic minority lived in a border region or in the very centre of the Soviet Union.167
As already mentioned, this change is traced back to a paradigm shift: “Enemies of the regime came to be defined by objective characteristics”.168 Victor Dönninghaus169 expands this position in the direction of Eric Weitz’s thesis of de facto racism:
The fact that the idea that every nation has their genetic roots [emphasis in the original] grew ever stronger within the party elite and especially with Stalin contributing substantially to the development of the concept that there are ‘enemy nations’ with a priori determined negative characteristics.170
The Russian historian Andrei Savin171 reacted sceptically to these suggestions. On the basis of an analysis of investigatory documents of victims of the mass repressions in the Great Terror (Kulak Troika and National Troika) in the Altaj region and the Omsk district, he came to the conclusion that the division of the time of the Great Terror into one year (1937) of social and one (1938) of ethnic cleansing “is a speculatively logical construct for which […] no confirmation can be found in the sources”. In the best case we can speak of a “tendency toward the ethnicization of the penal policy” of Stalinism, which however did not suppress the traditional social, class-based forms and political motives of the repressions.172 He does not
167
Baberowski i. a., The Quest for Order, p. 213. Ibidem. 169 Nord-Ost Institut Lüneburg, Germany. 170 V. Dönninghaus, Minderheiten in Bedrängnis. Sowjetische Politik gegenüber Deutschen, Polen und anderen Diaspora-Nationalitäten 1917-1938 (Munich, 2009), p. 594. 171 University of Akademgodorok Novosibirsk, Russia. 172 A. I. Savin, Mennonity kak celevaja gruppa repressij konca 1920-ch – 1930-ch godov, in A. I. Savin (ed.), Ėtnokonfessija v sovetskom gosudarstve. Mennonity Sibiri v 1920 – 1930-e gody. Emigracija i repressii (Novosibirsk, 2009), pp. 7-55, here p. 61; A. Savin, Ėtnizacija 168
85 see genocidal or racist aspects. Finally, it must be noted that in the Georgian research a debate over the possible connection between terror and ethnicity is completely lacking. It can be assumed that such a reference or even an investigation of a connection would run counter to the rationale of the post-Soviet, as well as the Soviet Georgian historical record, as if one were harbouring the fear of delivering arguments for the “other” historical record of the minorities. Our critique of the mainstream ties in with Savin’s view: The apparently inseparable conflation of war threat and ethnicity into an objective criterion for the explanation of the Great Terror marginalizes every other parameter of the arrest and prosecution of the victims of Stalinism. Moreover, the theses are not empirically supported. Individual areas in which such an explanation suffices are unacceptably generalised to an all-encompassing narrative. The suspicion persists that, especially with the thesis of ethnicity transforming itself into an objective criterion, a direct transfer of research theses to national-socialist Germany has occurred that is derived from the repression of the Jewish population and of the Roma and Sinti. Thus, Baberowski emphasizes in his latest publication that, on the one hand, minorities under the Bolsheviks always saw themselves exposed to more severe repression if they came under suspicion of disloyalty, and on the other hand, with reference to the implementation of the operations against diaspora nationalities, to allow that during the Great Terror the Chekists proceeded according to address cards. Hence it suggests that they looked for Polish, German or Iranian family or given names and then arrested all with such names. As this suggestion rests only on a single statement of a perpetrator who was arrested after November 1938 for “violation of socialist legal code”, the author was perhaps tempted to overemphasize the ethnicity criterion for searching out enemies a similar (biological)
stalinizma. „Nacional’nye“ i „kulackaja“ operacii. Sravnitel’nyj aspekt, Rossija XXI (2012), No. 3, pp. 40-61.
86 absolutist character to that of the National Socialists with their policy based on race.173 In addition, one notices a strong fixation on the Moscow Centre.
2. Contextualisation of the Ethnic Component It is fundamentally difficult to empirically test Baberowski’s thesis that during the Great Terror ethnic cleansing was a central element of the Stalinist Terror and transformed itself into an objective criterion. Very little is known about the mechanism of enemy identification in practice. With regard to the sources, two approaches have been attempted in the research literature: Baberowski and Dönninghaus drew on statements of the leadership and perpetrators. The disadvantage of this is that such statements are extremely rare and can be neutralised through statements that assert the exact opposite. Evgenii Kodin, however, has provided statistics for the western region of the Soviet Union that prove that diaspora nations whose ethnic homeland lay outside the Soviet Union, such as the Germans, Poles, and Finns, were significantly more subject to repression, compared to titular nations. His findings are non-specific, however: In the entire period of 1917-1937, the diaspora nations consistently suffered harsh repressions, even if they were the most severe in 1937-38.174 Whether a paradigm change or an ethnicization of viewpoint on the part of the leadership can already be detected in the deflection of the repression curve must be tested, particularly since the repression curve after 1938 levels off again significantly. In order to reach our goal of overcoming a viewpoint limited by loaded words such as “ethnic cleansing” and “growing threat of war” and of taking into account the diverse interests
173
J. Baberowski, Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt (Munich, 2012), p. 345, 352. 174 E. V. Kodin, Ėlektronnaja baza dannych žertv političeskich repressij Smolenskoj oblasti kak istoričeskij istočnik, in E. V. Kodin (Red.), Istorija stalinizma. Repressirovannaja rossijskaja provincija. Materialy meždunarodnoj naučnoj konferencii. Smolensk, 9-11 oktjabrja 2009 g. (Moscow, 2011), pp. 41-52.
87 of the Moscow Centre, on the one hand, and of the Georgian periphery on the other, we propose a broader approach to investigating the role of ethnicity in the repressions of 1937-38. This approach is based essentially in five areas: 1. In the consideration of repression not only of the diaspora nationalities, but also of as many nationalities as possible, including the Georgian titular nationalities. 2. In the expansion of the documentary basis for all mass operations of the Great Terror. 3. In the exemplary combination of statistical repression data of individual nationalities with an ethno-cultural, political, geographic, economic and social profile of each group affected. 4. In the testing of the statistical materials on the ethnic component of the repressions in light of the brief annotations available in the Troika protocols for each actual individual about the reasons and circumstances of the convictions. 5. Finally, in embedding the repression of nationalities in USSR-wide and regional policies on nationalities. Given the complexity of its ethnic structure and the good access to sources, the Georgian Soviet Republic appears particularly well-suited for this study. Our approach to the analysis of the materials consists of five overlapping steps: In the first step the ethnic categorisation of the victims will be investigated on the basis of the Georgian databases on the Kulak Operation, National Troika and the Police Troika, as well as the statistical data on the Dvoika convictions.175 Attainable is a division according to: - Titular nationality (Georgians); - Lesser-titular nationalities (Abkhazians and Ossetians). The third minority nationality of the Adzharians cannot be included because the database or the documents on repression do not classify the Adzharians separately, in contrast to the Ossetians and Abkhazians: the
175
The authors thank Eka Kuchalashvili, Giorgi Lominashvili and Giorgi Meckhovrishvili for the establishment of tables on the repressions in the framework of the Mass Operations, indeed with respect to ethnicity and on the social profile of the nationalities.
88 Adzharians were as a general rule subsumed under the Georgians, even though – the term “Adzharian” (adzharets) sporadically appears; - Nationalities that did not belong to a nation-state outside of Georgia; - Nationalities of other republics and autonomous areas within the Soviet Union; - Nationalities with a concentration outside of the Soviet Union, whether they were “Staatsvölker” (peoples belonging to a state, here: Turks, Germans) or not (Kurds, Assyrians).176 It is necessary at this point, in order to guarantee a comprehensive picture, to drawn upon additional material on nationalities of states outside of the Soviet Union, and specifically on foreign subjects living in the USSR and ethnic diaspora minorities whose country of origin lay outside Soviet borders. This concerns especially the results of the study of Levan Avalashvili on the repression of diaspora nations in Georgia, in which he analyses information from the second large-scale Georgian database on operations against diaspora nationalities (the National Troika) and from conviction statistics of the Dvoika.177 On average, the quota with entries of nationalities, excluding the Dvoika, is 94% (Kulak Troika 98%, National Troika 94%, Stalinist Lists 81%, Police Troika 98%). With the Dvoika one cannot make distinctions according to nationalities, only according to operations against diaspora nationalities, that is, the number of ethnic Greeks in the “Greek Operation”, for example, tends to be lower than the number of persons who were convicted, since not exclusively Greeks were convicted during the operation, but also other nationalities: Out of a total of 569 convictions during the “Greek Operation” in Georgia, 548 were Greeks and 21 (or
Table 43: “Stepen‘ repressii po nacional’nosti v otnošenii količestva naselenija (“stalinskie spiski“) v Gruzinskoj SSR s 31 maja 1937 g. po 11 oktjabja 1938 g.“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok v Gruzii, vol. 2: dokumenty i statistika (Moscow, 2015). 177 L. Avališvili, Nacional'nye operacii v Gruzii, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 176
89 4%) were members of other nationalities.178 With the “Turkish Line” of the National Troika an extraordinarily high percentage of 50% of non-Turks indicates clearly that the national line relates to geographic origin in Turkey, rather than the Turkish ethnicity.179 It must be noted, however, that the determination of nationalities does not rest exclusively on the entries in the documents. In the case of missing nationality, it was determined solely on the basis of the name and other criteria, with notations in the database made by assistants in the Archive of the Interior Ministry of Georgia who entered the data.180 Georgianized names of other, non-Georgian nationalities were always listed as “Georgian”. Thus it appears that the portion of Georgians among the persecuted is higher than it actually was, and the portion of minorities lower. This disparity cannot be quantified, but it suggests at least that the proportional repression of minorities, as it is indicated in the database, represents a minimum level that, depending on the nationality, must presumably be raised upon closer examination of all repression documents of approximately 25,000 persons in a population of at least 3 million.181 As a second step, the role of ethnic designation at the time of conviction was determined with the help of the frequency and degree of repression of a certain nationality: in practice it must be determined the number of persecuted individuals of a nationality in
178
An average value for all or even only further operations against diaspora nations can not be calculated, since only for the “Greek Operation” and the “German Operation” are the necessary data available. Thanks to Ivan Dzhukha for the corresponding data. We go forward under the assumption that with the Dvoika as well as the National Operations the convictions of other ethnic groups not named in the orders had as a rule a statistically insignificant weight. On significant departures, however, cf. the Turks. 179 By means of the National Troika 178 cases ended in convictions according to the Turkish Line (po turkam). A Sample of 18 persons (every 10th) showed that 7 persons (38.9%) were from Lazistan, that is, potential Laz, 1 was Abkhazian (5.6%), 1 Azerbaijani (5.6%) and 1 Kurd (5.6%). 180 Not until the data bank on the Police Troika was set up was this noted as an extra. The nationality was added accordingly with 225 persons (10.2%) out of a total of 2204 cases; however, the difference between obviously Georgian-ized and non-Georgian-ized names was not noted again. 181 To what extent this can be (statistically) relevant is discussed, when necessary, in connection with the repression of the individual nationalities (cf. the relevant sections).
90 relation to their portion of the entire population and the degree of repression, that is, the number of death sentences against the entire number of convictions of a certain ethnic group. Thus, with very small groups that consisted primarily of immigrants, there was a marked surplus of adult men (compared to women and children) as a main target group of repression. For the larger groups this can be ignored. Long-term camp sentences meant for the rest almost certainly also an indirect death sentence; yet a qualitative difference existed between immediate execution and sentencing to the camps, even if this was to be served under barbaric conditions. As control material, the results of the repressions of the elite in the framework of judgements of the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR were consulted. The individual mass operations were compared with respect to the number and degree of repression in order to preserve the differences between the mass operations with respect to “enemy identification” and conviction criteria. With these calculations of “repression coefficients” for collectives, which sometimes may seem macabre, it is not subject to the kind of debate that come up in many individual cases, such as concerning the role of personal antipathy of the perpetrator or individual features of the victims. In mass files, however – because of the physical destruction of most investigative documents – these things cannot be reconstructed. The statistically very noticeable differences in the amount of repression and the degree of repression between the individual ethnic groups demands a plausible explanation, for which individual factors are not sufficient. In this regard various collective explanatory models are investigated comparatively, but not individually. The statistical abnormalities are so striking that explanatory models are obviously needed that attribute a great deal of weight to ethnic membership. The data directed toward the degree of repression are then in a third step combined with data on repression and separate items that clarify the position and significance of the individual nationalities with respect to ethno-cultural, political, geographic, economic and
91 social elements, whereby the database coupled with the repression rests, with the exception of the Greeks and the Germans, “only” on the Kulak Operation, since such information is not available for the majority of the operations against the diaspora nations (National Troika) and the Police Troika. As a fourth step it appears necessary to use as a control factor, in a purely statistical approach, to return to the actual convicted persons and groups of individuals. Every case is organized according to nationality, or with larger groups every fifth, tenth, or in the case of very large case numbers, every 20th case according to individual and group-specific features.182 This approach is intended to establish at greater depth the motives for arrests and convictions of groups as well as of individual persons. The new weighting of interests and contexts, especially of their regional and specifically Georgian components, are finally flanked in a fifth step involving the incorporation of the repression of nationalities into the Soviet-wide and regional nationality policies. Nationality policies mean identity policies, languages and educational policies, as well as resettlement measures. Identity policies concern the modification of categorisation and naming of nationalities. Thus, older, ethnographic-descriptive approaches are replaced by ethnic engineering and nation-building, which had as a consequence the limitation of the nationalities catalogue, included as well in the investigative documents. Language and education policies, such as the decision to effectively implement certain languages in newspapers, media and education, and which writing systems, whether on the basis of Latin, Cyrillic or Georgian, should be used for this, is equally an important aspect of nationalities policy. In the end, the policy on nationalities is reflected also in the resettlement measures that did not have the “push” character of the mass operations (and deportations), but rather a “pull” character, such as the question of increasing settlements in less populated regions; thus,
182
On the questions about the material specific to the individual nationalities, cf. the sections in which each nationality is handled.
92 after the forced mass resettlements of 1864, 1866-7 and 1877-8 into only sparsely populated Abkhazia, by 1937 colonists from the partly land-poor Western Georgia, among them especially Mingrelians, were settled in targeted, mass movements. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mingrelians and Svans had already settled here in limited numbers, as did also other groups, such as Greeks, Armenians and even Germans, Moldavians and Estonians; after a lengthy interruption, an intensified settlement extremely focussed on Mingrelians was carried out. This last step of our study serves to show that in 1937-38 even tendencies of the general policy on nationalities were pursued by means of terror.
3. Administrative Consolidation: Mingrelians, Svans and Batsbii Georgians constituted the largest group of those convicted during the Mass Operations. Repression was spread mainly via the Kulak Troika. It convicted 12,460 Georgians alone out of a total of 21,078 arrested in Georgia. A total of 24 persons from this group (out of 495 arrested), by contrast, were convicted through the National Troika. The portion of Georgians among those convicted under the Kulak Operation was 59%. Viewing the years 1937 and 1938 separately, there were 61% Georgians in 1937, while in 1938 their portion of those convicted sank by 10 points to 52%.183 This difference could point to the intensified repression of other ethnic groups, which would seem at first to fit Baberowski’s thesis based on the ethnicization of Stalinism. If we draw on information regarding the degree of repression in the Kulak Operation, that is, the numbers that provide the proportion of Georgians repressed relative to the
997 800:15413=61%; 312 400:5665=52%. Table 34 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka") po nacional'nosti s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Table 3 "Količestvo prigovorov trojki pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka") po mesjacam s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 183
93 population, this percentage is 0.63%.184 This corresponds almost exactly with the average degree of repression of all population groups or nationalities that were persecuted under the Kulak Operation, which was 0.60%.185 Also with the degree of repression relative to the population, the Georgians stand at 0.30% of death sentences, compared to the total of 0.31% for all nationalities. 186 The ratio between the general number of convicts and the death sentences is noticeable. Georgians were sentenced to death at the rate of 45%. For the other nationalities that percentage is almost 13 points higher, at 58%.187 It would be sensible to differentiate those convicted who were identified as “Georgians” (gruziny) according to subgroups. Were the Mingrelians, to whom the NKVD-leader Beria belonged, persecuted with a similar intensity to that of other Georgians, or were there significant differences? A systematic investigation, also for the Svans and other groups, on the basis of data at the district level could provide insights. With the conviction statistics on the Georgians, we must note that the designation “Georgian” is in need of clarification. The repression bureaucracy had summarized under the rubric “Georgian”, contrary to the conventions valid up until that time, not only the historic geographic or tribal subgroups of Kartlians, Kakhetians, Tush, Pshavians, Khevsurians, Ingiloans, Meskhians as well as Imeretians, Gurians, Rachians und Lechkhumians, but also Mingrelians, Svans and Batsbii (russ. batsbiitsy, earlier Tsova-Tushi) and often Adzharians. In the case of the Georgians in the narrow sense, the most of the regional groups correspond to dialects of the standard Georgian language. The differences are of little contemporary significance, unless religion (Islam, Judaism) has erected a strong barrier. The Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka") 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 185 Table 2 "Prigovory trojki pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka") v zasedanijach meždu 11 avgusta 1937 g. i 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 186 The statistical levelling can be traced back to the relatively high number of Georgians. 187 There were 12,460 Georgians (of these 5,559 death sentences) and 8,623 other nationalities (of these 4,990 death sentences) convicted. 184
94 Georgian core group are the Kartlians, to whom the Kakhetians have become very close. There are more small Georgian groups in the north east, such as the mountain tribes of the Pshavians, Khevsurians und Tush, who through isolation have preserved many of their own characteristics. Similarly, there are additional groups among the Christians in western Georgians along with the Imeretians centered in Kutaisi, such as the Gurians on the west coast between Mingrelia and Adzharia. The differences are in ultimately of little significance. That is not true for the three zones in which Georgians to a significant extent have become Muslim. The Georgians on the coast around present-day Batumi became islamicized and diverged in culture from the Christian Georgians; they are today’s Adzharians. The neighbouring Meskhians have also become Islamic and indeed Turkified to a large extent; and to the east of the Georgian settlement area, in contemporary Azerbaijan, a part of the Kakhetians also became Muslim (the Ingiloans).188 While in the process of modernisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Christian groups grew closer and became increasingly blended into the Kartlian-Kakhetian core of the Georgian nation, this is not true of the Islamic groups, despite the attempts to be reconverted to christianity on the part of the Tsarist authorities. They migrated away from the Georgian core toward Turkish (Adzharian, Meskhian) or Azerbaijani identities. Of the four Kartvelian languages, Svan is most distant from the others (Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz). By contrast, Mingrelian and Laz are very similar – so similar that mutual comprehension on the simplest level is possible and occasionally a “Zanian” (russ. zanskii) language is used for communication within the Mingrelian and Laz dialect groups, an
188
O. Reisner, Integrationsversuche der muslimischen Adscharer in die georgische Nationalbewegung, in R. Motika, M. Ursinus (eds.), Caucasia between the Ottoman empire and Iran, 1555-1914 (Wiesbaden, 2000), pp. 207-222.
95 approach that in Georgian linguistics, however, is in part misused when both languages are passed off as “dialects” not of each other, but of the Georgian language (sic!).189 The Batsbii were historically called Tsova-Tush (tsova-tushi). Historically they were a Nakh people related to Chechens, living on the south slope of the Caucasus mountain range. They were Christianised (as opposed to the Kists, who remained Muslim). Their language (batsbiiskii) diverged strongly from its Chechen origins. The Batsbii formed a close bond with the Georgian mountain tribe of the Tush (tushi) and were seen as a clan-element of this tribe, despite the language differences. Through interaction with the Tush and other Georgians, the males were mostly bilingual, speaking Batsbian and the Tush dialect of Georgian. With what reasoning Georgia’s repressive bureaucracy legitimized the inclusion of Mingrelians, Svans and Bats, is not apparent in the documents available. This process tied in seamlessly with the general policy of reducing the number of nationality categories. Through the combination of related languages, including Mingrelian, Svan and Laz, and culturally assimilated groups like the Batsbii were also absorbed. This policy, in fact, tied into a practice from the 19th century. In the 1880s Mingrelian was declared a dialect of Georgian, and Russian attempts to introduce Mingrelians as a language of instruction in schools were prevented.190 The very manner in which these subgroups were included already makes a statement. The repressional bureaucracy had certainly not omitted them with ambivalent cultural identity, most obviously not without the assistance of Beria and against the fundamental recommendation of the “Commission of the Academy of Sciences for Research on the Tribal 189
G. A. Klimov, Einführung in die kaukasische Sprachwissenschaft (Hamburg, 1994), pp. 88-143. 190 P. Ç'araia, Megruli dialekt'is natesaobrivi damok'idebuleba kartultan [The linguistically genetic relationship of the Mingrelian dialect to Georgian], Moambe (1895 ), No. X u. XII, and No. I and II (1896 ); W. Feurstein, Der sprachliche Reichtum der Kolchis. Untersuchungen zur südkaukasischen Sprache und Kultur der Mingrelier und Lasen (Freudenstadt, 2007), pp. 51-60, 168. On the methods of the repression of the minorities in Turkey and Georgia, cf. W. Feurstein, Mingrelisch, Lazisch, Swanisch. Alte Sprachen und Kulturen der Kolchis vor dem baldigen Untergang (Munich, 1992), pp. 285-328.
96 Composition of the Population of the USSR” in Moscow. However, the classification of the approximately 300,000 Mingrelians as a subgroup in a republic with only somewhat more than 3 million residents rendered them unrecognisable in comparison with other significant population groups. This is not directly related to the repressions of 1937-38, but it must be taken into consideration when analysing the statistics.
4. Administrative Exclusion: The Laz It is irritating at first glance that, in addition to the Adzharians, Mingrelians and Svans, a fourth ethnic group with an ambivalent identity that also belongs in the category of the Georgians regularly appears separately in the Troika documents, that is, the Laz. They were the most problematic of all of the southern Caucasian or Kartvelian groups, since the dividing elements were clearer. The Adzharians were Muslim, their language, however, was Georgian. Mingrelian and Svan are separate languages from Georgian, but these groups were orthodox Christians and thus more open to the influence of Georgian language (as Georgian was the language of the church and school). The Laz, however, united both dividing elements: They spoke Georgian191 poorly and were simultaneously Muslim. A third factor here is the anomalous territory (cf. below Stalin’s nationality definition): Lazistan, the land of the Laz, was located following the Turkish-Soviet border regulation of 1922 largely, excepting the eastern half of the town of Sarpi on the border, on Turkish territory, where at the time approximately 150,000 Laz lived. The Laz in Georgia were a diaspora community, which distinguished them from the remaining Kartvelians groups. A further reason for the separate designation of Laz in the Troika protocols could, however, be traced back to their energetic resistance to violations of their cultural uniqueness, as articulated by the activist Iskander Teimurazovich Tsitashi. A protest that he penned on the
We don’t actually know what they spoke. The Laz living in Georgia probably did speak Georgian, those in Turkey probably not. 191
97 eve of the Great Terror conveys the impression of the arguments of an intellectual who felt a close bond with the Laz employed against the Georgian attempts at homogenisation, or inversely, the type of accusations Beria and the Georgian elites used in their defence against the nationality policy and the means to which the Georgian leadership resorted to curtail efforts at autonomy. Even before the 25th of July 1937192, the poet and publicist Tsitashi, a former member of the Komsomol and a member of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, directed a letter to the Chairman of the Executive Committee in Moscow, G. M. Dimitrov, in which he complained about Georgian chauvinism towards the Laz. Tsitashi claimed to be the head of the Laz national revolutionary movement, and to have developed a literary language and to have written the first books and created fictional works. He supposedly trained the first cadres of the “People’s Liberation Front”.193 Tsitashi consistently described the situation for the Laz in Georgia negatively. According to his notations, “the Georgian nationalist world has begun to hinder our affairs in every way possible”.194 Georgian “nationalistic scholars” – sometimes called “chauvinistic and bourgeois” by the author – maintain that the Laz are a Georgian tribe and that the Laz
192
The letter of Iskender is dated earlier than July 1937, since the author refers in it to the fact that he is on a business trip in Leningrad until the 25th of July 1937 and therefore would be available there for an answer. 193 Information from the published articles about Tsitashi by the historian Labadze that appeared in the boulevard newspaper “Gza” is used only as an exception, since the author with only one exception provides no sources or secondary literature. Moreover, the articles serve all too obviously to portray Tsitashi merely as an accessory of Lakobas in his struggle against the unity of the Georgian nation. M. Labadze, Rogor çaişala St’alinis “avt’onomizatsiis“ gegma [How Stalin’s plan for automization failed], Gza (30.05.2013), No. 22, pp. 52-55; Gza (06.06.2013), No. 23, pp. 47-49. For supplying the publication we thank Irfan Çağatay. Labadze originates from Zestafoni (Imeretien) and is employed at the University of Kutaissi in Laz Studies. 194 I.T. Citaši, general’nomu sekretarju ispolkoma Kominterna G. M. Dimitrovu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ne pozže 25 ijulja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
98 language is a dialect of the Zanian language that itself is the same as Georgian.195 Tsitashi clarifies his contraposition xby arguing that classifying Laz as a dialect of the Zanian language is “hypothetical” and considering all Kartvelian languages to be the same as Georgian is “mythical”. To provide support for his doubting position, he includes a scientific evaluation with his letter, most likely written by the “N. Ya. Marr Institute for Language and Thought” of the Academy of Science in Leningrad. This evaluation argues that Laz is a separate and equal language, contrary to the hierarchical concept of Georgian “Nationalistic Scholars”, without especially elevating Georgian or even using it as a synonym for the Kartvelian language family as a whole.196 Tsitashi makes a further accusation, primarily directed at Georgian historians, which is that, contrary to historical facts, they categorize Laz history as Georgian. This is also refuted by the evaluation included with the letter that spells out the independent development of the Laz up to the 4th century C.E. 197 The most explosive aspect of Tsitashi’s letter is his linking of the tendencies toward linguistic and historical conflation of the Laz with the USSR-wide hunt for inner-party dissenters. He continued on with an open attack on the current and previous nationalities policy of the Georgian Communist Party and the republican state structures, which he describes as “Georgianization”: The Georgian nationalistic historians and especially the linguists took advantage of the fact “that in the party (in Georgia) there still exist nationalistic nests (various nationalistic dissenters, hidden Mensheviks, Trotskyists) who have started a A. I. Kiziria, Zanskij jazyk, in E. A. Bokarev, K. V. Lomtatidze, Ju. D. Dešeriev, G. B. Murkelinskij, M. A. Kumachov, S. M. Chajdakov, A. K. Šagirov (eds.), Jazyki narodov SSSR, vol. 4: Iberijsko-kavkazskie jazyki (Moscow, 1967), pp. 62-[76]. The attack of Tsitashis could be in reference to the Georgian linguisti Arnolʼd Chikobava, who introduced the term “zanuri” (zanisch) to linguistics. He is accused of having Tsitashi denounced in the NKVD and to be responsible for his death. This information comes from a conversation of Feurstein with the since deceased Zurab Sarshveladze at the Sulkhan Saba University in Tiflis. 196 Spravka Instituta jazyka i myšlenija N. Ja. Marra Akademii nauk ob istoričeskich i jazykovych kornjach Lazov. Ne pozže 25 ijulja 1937 goda., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 197 Ibidem. 195
99 campaign against the Laz written language and the Laz schools.” Without the participation of the Laz themselves, a Georgian commission decided to do away with the Latin writing system for the language in favour of a Georgian script and to provide school instruction in the Laz language only on a transitional basis until the Georgian language was mastered. This decision of the commission was revised by the Central Executive Committee of Georgia so that instead of instruction in Laz in all four grades of elementary school, it would be allowed in only the first two grades, and instruction thereafter continued either in Georgian, Russian or Turkish.198 Tsitashi described the prior history of the population and nationalities policy of the Georgian leadership for the Laz, if only indirectly in extensive portions, as a mixture of general failure and an intentional strategy of foot dragging on the integration of the Laz into the party and the Soviet state.199 If one follows Tsitashi’s analysis, very promising developments in Georgia itself were to a large degree thwarted. Population policy represents the starting point. Thus from 1928 onwards young Laz Communist cadres were developed whose activities extended into the Laz areas of Turkey because of the porous borders. On both sides of the border they supported the movement of social and national liberation. They supposedly were able to build on steps undertaken in the whole Laz area from 1926 onwards towards a revolutionary national movement and Communist influence from the side of the Soviet Union had supposedly grown. 198
In Sarpi Georgian was taught already by the end of 1937. In Abkhazia Russian was at the forefront. Laz poems were written from 1941 on in the Georgian alphabet. The conclusive transition to the Georgian language probably did not occur until after 1945 in connection with the Georgianization of Laz first and last names. 199 Tsitashi points to the fact that the majority of the Laz population numbering approximately 4000 persons speak Laz and neither writings of the party nor state documents such as the constitution and law texts are available to them in their language. The same is true for books and school books. I.T. Citaši, general’nomu sekretarju ispolkoma Kominterna G. M. Dimitrovu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ne pozže 25 ijulja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. This measure stands in contrast to what took place in Mingrelian, where in vast areas a Mingrelian press could be found; the preliminary and final draft of the Georgian constitution, for example, was also published in the Mingrelian language.
100 At the end of 1929 the Laz-language newspaper “Mkhita Murutskhi” (Red Star) went into publication in Sukhumi in Abkhazia200, using a Latin-based script and therefore readable for the Laz in Turkey where a Latin-based writing system was also being introduced. The publisher and head editor was the 25-year old Tsitashi himself. The newspaper, comprised of only four pages of print, ran only until December 1929 with a minute circulation of 100 copies. It had to be cancelled after only two issues after a protest by Turkish President Mustafa Kemal, and the chief editor had to leave Georgia.201 Especially critical in Tsitashi’s view was that the Georgian party organisation was silent when mass emigration from Lazika to Turkey began – according to Tsitashi, approximately six to seven thousand Laz emigrated by 1937. –in the party instead should have reacted in an organised fashion to the offers and pressure from Turkey for preventing this. 202
200
Sukhumi is the Georgian writing system; the Ottoman-Turkish and Turkish are called Sukhum (appreviated from Sukhum-kale, Fortress Sukhum); the city was also called the same in Russian from 1878-1936, since then with the adoption of the Georgian writing system also Sukhumi. 201 Most Soviet newspapers of that time were only 4 or 8 pages. On the Laz-language publications at the time of cultural autonomy Feurstein, Der sprachliche Reichtum der Kolchis, p. 211-233. The Turkish prohibition on the Laz newspaper “Red Star” did not appear with the signature of Atatürk until February 26, 1930, that is, more than two months after the appearance of the second and last issue. Ibidem, p. 211. 202 According to Tsitashis approximately four thousand Laz remained in Georgia after the emigration wave. I. T. Citaši, general’nomu sekretarju ispolkoma Kominterna G. M. Dimitrovu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ne pozže 25 ijulja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. Most likely Tsitashis’ number of Laz living in Georgia is too high. Cf. also Tsitashis’ letter to Stalin on the emigration of the Laz: I. T. Citaši, sekretarju CK VKP(b) I.V. Stalinu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ranee 11 fevralja 1935 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. In this source numbers on the size of the Laz group are given only for those in Abkhazia. In the „Literaturnaja ėnciklopedija“, Moscow, 1932 Tsitashi mentions a number of 2000 Laz in Abkhazia. To these must be added the Laz from Sarpi and a few families in Adzharian villages and in Batumi, also a few families in Anaklija (Mingrelia), so that more likely we must speak of 3000 Laz living in Georgia. 4000 Laz would be the upper limit. In a letter to Stalin 5000 Laz were mentioned for the years 1928/29, whereby it is not clear what the Russian word “zdes” (here) is in reference to, whether only to Abkhazia or to all of Georgia. From 1930 to the beginning of 1935, 95 families (!) returned to Turkey, that is, circa 500 to 600 persons. Tsitashi speaks in this connection of “departure” (vyekhalo). Yet, he deals almost exclusively with the returnees, that is, with Laz migrant workers. The customary stay for work outside of the homeland developing over the years (called in Laz tekhni, Turkish gurbetçilik) is the equivalent of a centuries-old Laz tradition.
101 For Tsitashi, nationality policy within Georgia from 1937 was a failure as well, beginning with language policy. Though the first Laz schoolbook was printed in Georgia in 1932 in Abkhazia, and the Laz schools transitioned “spontaneously” from Turkish to the Laz language, these initiatives were halted despite the official support of the policy by the People’s Commissariat for Education (Narkompros) of the Republic through the Georgian Party Central Committee.203 Narkompros took a great deal of time to approve the new schoolbooks, and their printing was hindered by serious financial shortages. When finally in 1936 an additional textbook, also in the Latin script, was ready, it could not be released as now suddenly textbooks had to be in the Georgian script. Moreover, the department for culture and propaganda (kultprop) of the local committee prohibited any discussion of the issue. According to Tsitashi’s perception, despite the low numbers of returning Laz, the party should have created “all-encompassing conditions for a rebirth of Laz culture, language, literature and economic prosperity” and not to help Kemal Pasha and the Turks, to liquidate the Laz. 204 Tsitashi characterized the Georgian policy towards the Laz as outrageous. His four letters of complaint were never answered by the Georgian Central Committee 205 A letter of complaint to Stalin was also ineffective, since the members of the commission put in place by
The Laz were sought out as carpenters and sailors, a smaller group for their tobacco cultivation. The main reason for their return may be identified in the forced collectivisation. 203 1932 Tsitashi had published the first textbook for the Laz language and with that the first Laz book. I. Chitaşi, Çquni çhara. Albonişi Supara. Ve Chitaşi’nin diğer yazilari. Laz Kültür Derneği Yayinlari (Istanbul, 2012) p. 9. It was a new edition of the textbook with introduction by Wolfgang Feurstein. 204 D. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik in Transkaukasien 1920–1953 (Berlin, 2008), p. 197. 205 Along with Tsitashi’s letter to Stalin, two other letters can at least be dated and the addressee named, as well as two evaluations from December 9, 1934 to the member of the office of the CP, the Georgian F. I. Makharadze and the Member of the CK of the CP of Georgia Oragvelidze. Cf. on this letter and numerous others to the highest Georgian (1934 to the CK of the CP(b) of Georgia and personally to Beria), Abkhazian and Caucasian (1933 to the Transcaucasian Region (kraevoi komitet) Committee of the party and accordingly to F. I. Makharadze) committees of the party. I. T. Citaši, sekretarju CK VKP(b) I.V. Stalinu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ranee 11 fevralja 1935 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
102 the Georgian Central Committee were denounced first as former Mensheviks, and then as Trotskyists.206 To embellish his description of the general proceedings, Tsitashi depicted how he was persecuted by the Georgian secret police because of his social and ethnic origins. He complains that he was “morally murdered”, as he felt compelled to give up everything and leave Georgia. As a way out of this misguided situation, Tsitashi proposed a dual strategy: To return, with the help of the Comintern, to a border-transcending policy towards the Laz in to make use of contacts with the Communist party of Turkey and to exert pressure via the central Moscow party structure on the Georgian Central Committee to deal with the Laz living in Georgia. Tsitashi letter is characterized by complete disillusionment. As a last desperate attempt, the help of the Comintern, an explicitly internationally oriented organisation, is sought for exerting pressure on the centre in Moscow to deal with the Laz problem in Georgia and Turkey. In this sense, Moscow is intentionally kept free from any form of criticism. On the contrary, the author concentrates completely on portraying Moscow as deceived and disappointed by the Georgian leadership. This is entirely plausible, for in fact in Georgia the local party and authorities thwarted the centrally prescribed policy.207 The Georgian
206
Already in 1933 Tsitashi achieved with his letter to the Transcaucasian Region Committee of the party and accordingly to F. I. Makharadze the implementation of a commission “On Work among the Laz” which did not assume their work, however, until most likely the end of 1934, beginning of 1935. On the 11th of February 1935 the area committee of the party of Abkhazia then confirmed an appraisal (doklad) of this committee implemented by the CK of the CP(b) of Georgia. I. T. Citaši, sekretarju CK VKP(b) I.V. Stalinu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ranee 11 fevralja 1935 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. Cf. especially the last footnote on the corresponding document. The text of the insertion, in which is located what had been confirmed, has so far not been found. It is likely that Tsitashi’s letter to Stalin accelerated the work of the commission. 207 Terry Martin understandably distinguishes between “soft-line” and “hard-line” institutions, by which cultural institutions were “soft-line” and e.g. the control commission and of course the security agencies were “hard-line”. Instructions from “soft-line” institutions were often
103 leadership merely outwardly supported the official nationalities policy of protecting and promoting minorities according. One could, with respect to Moscow, prove beyond doubt that the Laz consistently insisted on the agenda of the party and state and its commissions.208 It must have been expressly bothersome that an activist over the years continuously called attention, both locally and in Moscow, to the fact that of the Georgian leadership was conducting an informally directed nationalistic policy aimed at the Georgianization of their territory. Thus,Tsitashi, at the beginning of 1935, described the handling of Laz as a permanent disaster in a letter to Stalin. The apportionment of land to the Laz, who at the start of collectivisation could no longer rent land to grow tobacco, was said to have been torpedoed by the Georgian central government, even though the Abkhazian party committee and the central executive committee had voted in 1930 to allocate this land. The Georgian authorities granted the Laz only a much too small, swampy coastal strip and very little equipment, monetary resources and medicinal supplies for drainage. Also the incorporation of Laz craftsmen into the socialist production collectives was allegedly unsatisfactory and done and without regard to ethnic differences.209 Tsitashi fails to mention that the closing of his Laz newspaper resulted from intervention by Turkey rather than because of the Georgian leadership. Characteristically, the newspaper had appeared in Abkhazia rather than in Batumi in Adzharia, which is closer to Lazistan. Obviously the Abkhazian authorities, as with the land distribution issue, had promoted the publishing of the newspaper against the will of the central Georgian authorities in Tbilisi, to gain allies for the tug-of-war over the maintenance of their own autonomy. In fact, the Troika
only implemented pro forma or not at all; Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 234235. 208 This becomes clear indirectly from a letter of Tsitashi to Stalin. I. T. Citaši, sekretarju CK VKP(b) I. V. Stalinu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ranee 11 fevralja 1935 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 209 Ibidem.
104 protocols refer to Laz and Turkish activists cooperating with the Abkhazian leadership around Lakoba. Promptly, the centrally managed Georgian secret police (OGPU) harassed Tsitashi, and after the closing of the newspaper, he was forced to abandon Abkhazia and Georgia for Moscow.210 A possible explanation for Tsitashi’s overestimation of the Turkish influence on the Soviet Union is that this was a mechanism to gain protection from Moscow. Tsitashi perhaps lacked sufficient information to exclude the possibility that foreign policy interests – from Moscow – in fact gave the impetus for the closing of the newspaper. Portraying himself to Moscow as a victim was reasonable from Tsitashi’s perspective as he desperately needed support, but it was short-sighted and held little promise of success, since Moscow was not entirely opposed to mass and voluntary remigration of Laz out of the Soviet Union. Thus, in Tsitashi’s letter there is a complete lack of understanding of the Soviet policy of resistance against Islam, which reached its climax from 1927 on in the khudzhum (storm) campaign for the de-veiling of Muslim women.211 Interestingly, the father of Mukhamed Vanilishi, Tsitashi’s close associate, was the mullah of the Turkish-Georgian border town of Maradidi (Maradit). Turkey, which Tsitashi uses as an example of a failed nationalities policy, despite the secularisation policy of Mustafa Kemal, appeared to the Muslim Las to have been more attractive than the Soviet Union, as it had been during the “long” 19th century and up to 191418 for the “Muhajir”, the Muslim refugees who fled to Ottoman Turkey. The one-sided border security policy of the Soviet Union was likewise not a topic of discussion; it had increasingly impeded the minor border traffic by making the ordinary unregistered, and thus illegal, border It is possible that the publication of the “Red Star” at the end of 1929 had not yet been blessed by the highest authority on the Georgian side. Supporting an unauthorized push forward on the part of Tsitashi is that in comparison a Mingrelian-language publication was not allowed until the beginning of March 1930, that is, almost five months later than the “Red Star”. Also the noticeably low printing volume of only 100 copies and the lack of any announcements about the Laz in Turkey point in this direction. 211 E.g. D. Northrop, Hujum. Unveiling campaigns and local responses, Uzbekistan 1927, in Donald J. Raleigh (ed.) Provincial landscapes. Local dimensions of Soviet power, 1917-1953 (Pittsburgh, 2001), pp. 125-145. 210
105 crossings into a crime. Only cryptically does Tsitashi mention in his letter to Stalin in 1935 that the Laz had doubly felt the squeeze of the forced collectivisation of agriculture decreed by Moscow. The officially continued existence in theory of the possibility to rent land became in practice ever more difficult, since there were ever fewer individual farmers. They were left out of the distribution of land and were gradually incorporated into the collective farms and state enterprises. The actual reason for Tsitashi’s loyalty to Moscow was probably that he did not want to criticise his ally, but also because of his own role as “patron saint” of the Laz, which he perhaps took on as an assignment from Moscow. The suspicion that Tsitashi had originally been specially charged with the Laz question in order to strengthen Moscow’s foreign policy interests on the Turkish border surfaces already in his opaque biography. Tsitashi himself might not even have been an ethnic Laz. In the Troika protocol (see below), no nationality is indicated, and the place of birth is giving as the city Findikli (Fındıklı in Turkish and Vize in Laz), in the distant eastern part of the Turkish province of Rize. Not only the Georgian secret police had its doubts about Tsitashi’s Laz nationality when they questioned him in the 1930s and finally indicated no nationality in the 1938 Troika protocol; witnesses from the time report unanimously that Tsitashi did not have a perfect command of the Laz language and spoke little Turkish, unusual for a Laz intellectual. He was often perceived by other Laz as a Russian, Jew or German, and Mukhamed Vanilishi, the “second man” of the Laz cultural autonomy, and several others stated that Iskender Tsitashi’s real name was Aleksandr Tsvetkov.212 The fact that he translated N. Gogol suggests that he was socialized in Russian,
The surname “Iskender”, as also the surname of the father of Tsitashi, “Tejmuraz”, is uncustomary among the Laz. The family name “Tsitashi” is not onomastically verifiable. The surnames “Iskender” and “Termuraz” are, however, regularly in use among the Azerbaijanis. According to Labadze – unfortunately without a reference – Iskender Tsitashi was born in Gelendzhik (District of Krasnodar) and his father was a Laz with origins in Atina (western Lazistan), his mother, however, a Russian Cosack. Supposedly the son never became acquainted with the father. Tsitashi is said to have assumed the name of his mother. M. 212
106 and does not appear plausible for a Laz intellectual of that time. In addition, he had direct contact with high-ranking educational institutions already in his youth that led him to the Academy of Sciences and the training facilities for minorities in Leningrad, with the universities in Moscow and in Tbilisi, and with the Academy of Sciences in Baku. The form of denunciation that he brought against the Laz in his letter to Stalin in 1935, which possibly resulted in the repression of Laz families, is seems unlikely behaviour for an actual Laz. He referred to some Laz as “agents in Soviet garb”, an unusually sharp denunciation, which was reserved for Beria, the Georgian Party, and finally Stalin, and would have made Tsitashi unpopular in the Laz community and elicited reactions had it been divulged. During his long absence in Leningrad, Moscow, Tbilisi and Baku, Tsitashi might have made use of Laz denunciations in order to gain access to information.213 Evidence of a biography heavily influenced politically by the Bolsheviks. His early entrance into the Komsomol at the age of 19 in 1923, in which he remained until 1934, and his steep career advancement in the ethnographic and linguistically oriented sciences suggest that his biography and career advancement were heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. He came and went freely at the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, often travelled to Moscow, and was active in Tbilisi as a professor of the Caucasian languages department. In Baku he then assumed, beginning in the autumn of 1937, the position as department chairman for a section of the Azerbaijani Academy of the Sciences, where he had presumably maintained contact. Political endorsement from Moscow, and the support of Nikolai Marr, the leading personality of Soviet linguistics until the latter’s death in 1934, certainly stood behind this remarkable career advancement.
Labadze, Rogor çaişala St’alinis „avt’onomizatsiis“ gegma [How Stalin’s Plan for Atomisation Failed], Gza (30.05.2013), No. 22, pp. 52-55. 213 With respect to the socialisation of Tsitashi, for researching this topic interviews and inquiries conducted by W. Feurstein from the beginning of the 1990s were used as sources. On Tsitashi see Feurstein, Der sprachliche Reichtum der Kolchis, pp. 202-211.
107 Thus Tsitashi’s strong affinity for the Laz could have come about directly through his obvious interest in languages and ethnic groups, combined with a revolutionary political will to transmit the Soviet concept of society and nationalities policy towards the bordering states. Overall, however, Tsitashi overestimated his real potential to have influence in Georgia and among the central bodies in Moscow and Turkey. This had already begun with the exaggeration of his successes. After Ataturk’s dismantling of the Lazistan district in 1926, it is difficult, contrary to Tsitashi’s assertions, to speak of an increasing Communist influence among the Laz in Turkey. Even the publication of the Red Star newspaper in 1929, with its limited number of issues, seems to have been only a trial run, as it hardly did justice to the number of Laz in Georgia and even less so to those in Turkey. In addition, the first Latin alphabet for Laz created by Laz from Turkey was in no way easy to understand. This situation did not improve until it was revised around 1930. The fact that Red Star attracted some attention in Turkey is undisputed. Its distribution there was forbidden in 1930, a prohibition signed by Ataturk personally. The afore-mentioned Mukhamed Vanilishi, a Laz from the village of Sarpi and a co-editor of Red Star who was responsible for its distribution and was active as the liaison in Turkey, was later in 1937 in fact sentenced to death in absentia in Turkey because of Laz propaganda. 214 In Georgia the newspaper was never banned. Finally, the scope of the first textbook in the Laz language in 1932 remained limited. With 675 copies, it had a bigger print run than Red Star, and in its lessons it cleverly combined national concepts with political and ideological propaganda. It was not distributed in Turkey, however, only in Georgia. It correspondingly made reference only to the lives of the Laz in Georgia. Turkish Lazistan was not mentioned at all.215 A cross-border Soviet policy, such as proposed by Tsitashi in 1937, was not initiated, at least at that time, in favour
214
The information is based on an interview of Feurstein with Zurab (Cemal) Vanilishi, the son of Vanilishis, in Sarpi in June, 2013. 215 For a discussion of the first Laz school book, see Feurstein, Der sprachliche Reichtum der Kolchis, pp. 220-226.
108 of the tacit mutual agreement of the two states not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs. With regard to Tsitashi’s influence within Georgia, the lack of a reply to four of his letters of complaint to the party and government of the Georgian SSR, bemoaned by Tsitashi himself, speaks for itself. Tsitashi also exaggerates the actual effect of the Georgian government’s policy on the realisation of Laz cultural autonomy. In fact, from 1932 to 1937 a total of six Laz textbooks were compiled, of which at least five appeared in print. 1,575 copies of a Laz mathematics text were printed, for which the request for permission to print was placed on 16 September 1933 and was granted two months later on 16 November 1933. The primer Alboni appeared in a considerable run of 1,600 copies. For the last Laz reader Okitxuşeni Supara Part II (1000 copies printed) the request for permission to print was placed on 25 February 1937 and was granted after about five months on 31 July 1937. There appears not to have been any significant delay in the publishing of Laz textbooks, and they were done on the printing press of the Abkhazian ASSR in Sukhumi. Despite the presumed money shortage, the printing of textbooks reached such a high level that the Laz schools were well supplied beyond the years required. Part I of the reader Okitxuşeni Supara, however, apparently never received permission to be published. Tsitashi’s letters are significant because they show an intellectual who identifies himself through his engagement with the Laz and clearly articulates their problems and the nationalities policy in wide areas of Georgia. The impact of the letters was undermined by the author’s ideological blinders, especially when he attributed nationalistic currents in Georgia to the work of Trotskyites and Mensheviks and denounced some Laz as saboteurs, criminals and tools of Turkey. Finally, his blind trust in Moscow led him to tout a solution that had long since lost its relevance. The deadly consequences of Tsitashi’s protest letter of 1937 demonstrate how mistaken his was in his aim of influencing Georgian nationalities policy by appealing to
109 Moscow. Dimitrov, as the leader of the Comintern, owed Tsitashi an answer and directed the letter to the secretary of the Party Central Committee and to the first secretary of the Leningrad district and city committee, A. A. Zhdanov, leaving to him the decision on further measures.216 The matter remained unresolved for nearly a half year until Zhdanov notified Beria about it at the end of December.217 The Georgian party secretary in turn reacted more harshly to the first steps toward a Laz cultural consciousness among the intellectuals than the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II had in the 19th century. The sultan only arrested Faik Efendishi, the head of this movement, and, if one accepts Tsitashi’s story, placed him on a pillar in inclement weather and burned all of his books, manuscripts and materials in front of him.218 Beria by contrast gave his political representative, K. Charkviani, and his secret police boss S. Goglidze the following order, written by hand on Tsitashi’s 1937 letter: “Arrest the author as a spy”.219 This was in reality a death sentence.220 On 21 June 1938 Tsitashi was sentenced to death by the Troika of the NKVD of the Georgian SSR for espionage and subversive activities on behalf of Turkey, in particular among the Laz population. The sentence was carried out in secret, and the protocol read as follows:
General‘nyj sekretar‘ Ispolkoma Kominterna G. M. Dimitrov sekretarju CK VKP(b) A. A. Ždanovu o položenii lazov v Gruzinskoj SSR ot 8 avgusta 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 217 Vtoroj sekretar‘ leningradskogo obkoma A. A. Kuznecov pervomu sekretarju KP(b) Gruzii L. P. Berija o zapiske I. T. Citaši o položenii lazov v Gruzinskoj SSR i pis’me general‘nogo sekretarja Kominterna G. M. Dimitrova ot 23 dekabrja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 218 Tsitashi is not historically completely correct here. The information about Faik Efendişi, a Laz from Chopa (today Hopa), comes from the Georgian-Russian linguistic Nikolai Marr, who on the occasion of a trip to Lazistan in 1908 reported that Faik Efendişi had developed an alphabet for Laz; his writings were reported to be confiscated and the author stuck in prison. His historical classification (“at the time of Abdul Hamids II”) also creates problems, since the Sultan ruled between 1876 and 1909, but Faik Efendişi had developed the Laz alphabet on the basis of the Arabic writing system already in 1870. The burning of his books, while he was standing on a pillar, thus corresponds completely with Tsitashi’s ever expanding imagination. 219 Ibidem. 220 Information on the time and place of Tsitashi’s arrest are missing. 216
110 As conveyed by investigative materials, the accused held to be an active member of a counter-revolutionary insurrectional espionage and terrorist sabotage organisation active among the Laz population. As a member of this organisation the accused carried out sabotage and vile espionage activities for the benefit of the Turkish secret service. He declared himself guilty.221
In the eyes of the organs of repression Tsitashi was described in the Troika protocol of another convicted Laz as a “Turkish, bourgeois nationalist and a member of the counterrevolutionary ‘Lakoba Organisation’”.222 With Tsitashi sentenced extra-judicially to death, the Laz, who espoused their own cultural autonomy, had lost their most effective voice. At the same time, Tsitashi’s fate drives home his cynical thoughts about the motives for the poor handling and mass remigration of the Laz. For the Georgian government and party it was advantageous to weaken the Laz ethnic identity in the Abkhazian region, where Georgians were underrepresented. With this they gained – and extensively utilized– the possibility to build settlements for groups such as the Mingrelians, who were “more easily” incorporated into the Georgian nation.223 They undermined, moreover, the Abkhazian settlement policy, that with the support of the Laz and other ethnic groups such as the Greeks and Armenians (see below), was intended as a counterbalance to the influence of the central state and party in Tbilisi. Whether there was a method to the elimination of the activist Tsitashi, as the intended physical destruction of someone who insisted on some or any form of autonomy rather than the incorporation of their ethnicity into the Georgian nation, is not at all clear. In fact, the Cf. Zasedanie № 117 zasedenija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 21 ijunja 1937 g., Archive of the Interior Ministry of Georgia (AIMG), Department 1, fund 8, file 38465, page 71. 222 Cf. Kopamali ogly Ali Bajramovich. Protokol № 15 zasedenija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 29.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38468, page 16. 223 B. E. Sagarija, T. A. Ačugba (eds.), Abchazija: dokumenty svidetel’stvujut 1937-1953. Sbornik materialov (Sukhumi, 1992). This volume contains actual lists with settlers’ places of origin, overwhelmingly from Mingrelian. 221
111 symbolic figure of the Mingrelian cultural autonomy, Isaak Eftimovich Zhvania, had already been arrested on 21 October 1937, sentenced to death on 28 December and executed by firing squad two days later224, but it cannot be established on the basis of the brief summary in his investigative documents in the Troika protocol that this was specifically connected to his Mingrelian activities. The justification for his arrest and execution was merely his membership in a Trotskyite organisation led by the former Georgian Council of the Peoples Commission (Sovnarkom) chairman German Mgaloblishvili.225 If we draw comparisons between the repression of Georgians and Laz in the Kulak Troika, then Tsitashi’s harsh sentence does not stand out as unusual, at least among the Laz. The relative percentage of Laz persecuted was equal to that of the mainstream Georgian population (0.68% to 0,63%), but the frequency of the death sentence in comparison to the total number of Laz convicted was extremely high: 85% compared to 45% in the case of the Georgians, that is, nearly double.226 The peak of the repression of the Laz occurred in 1938 with 81% of sentences (56% for the Georgians) for the year (as compared to 19% in the previous year). However, in 1937 all of the Laz convicted were executed (5 out of 5), while in 1938“only” 82% (18 of 22) were. Obviously all of the limits put in place by Moscow had been exceeded. This confirms the
224
Born on 1. January 1891 and reared in Rayon Chkhorotsku in the village Ledzhike in Georgia, since 1931 a member of the VKP(b), Zhvanja had since 1930 sought to introduce Mingrelian instruction in the schools, published several primers for learning Mingrelian and was active as head editor of the Mingrelian-language newspaper Qazaqishi Gazeti (“Peasant Newspaper”, printings of up to 20,000 copies). At the time of his arrest he was deputy leader of the CIK of Adzharia. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, pp. 192-195; T. Blauvelt, The ‘Mingrelian Question’: Institutional Resources and the Limits of Soviet Nationality Policy, in Europe-Asia Studies (2014), No. 6, vol. 66, pp. 993-1013. 225 His sentencing proceeded on 28 Dec 1937 through the Troika. Two days later, on 30 December, he was executed. Cf. Protocol № 76 zasedenija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 28.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37433, p. 29. 226 Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR („kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. Also, with a significantly increased portion of men in the Laz population, conditioned by their being new settlers and migrant workers, the high degree of repression remains the same and significant, since overall (almost) only men were persecuted, which applies to Jews, Germans, Georgians, etc. For this reason the portion of the persecuted (men) who were executed remains untouched by this.
112 additional repression of Laz via the National Troika in the same year. An additional 25 were repressed (0.63% as percentage of their population share), of which “only” one person (4%) was sentenced to death. To these 25 persons, however, must be added the 40% of the 178 Turks convicted by the National Troika, who according to origin or name were judged to be Laz, that is, about 71 additional persons, in total about 96.227 Drawn together from Kulak Troika and National Troika, the degree of repression relative to the total population for 1938 alone is the staggeringly high 3%, and even excluding the 71 presumed Laz in the National Troika that number is a still a very high 1.3%.228 As concerns the death sentence, this means at least 0.45% were given relative to the total population, or 40% relative to the number of Laz who were convicted (for 1937-1938 calculated together,1.3% relative to the total population were persecuted, 0.45% relative to the total population received the death penalty, 45% of those convicted). Although the persecution values should not be over-rated on the basis of their limited scope in pure numbers – “only” ca. 123 persons were persecuted – they nevertheless indicate a trend and are a further reason to at least reflect on the estimation of Tsitashi and, in a comprehensive sense, on the possible ethnic component of the persecutions. An example to support the assumption that in Georgia, in 1937, not only inconvenient persons were eliminated but also that the structures of Laz cultural autonomy were affected. For instance, we can take the locking up of two teachers and activists, specially trained in Leningrad for the implementation of Laz cultural autonomy in schools for minorities. Khasan Khelimishi was thrown into a Siberian camp for ten years by the Troika, even though he had lost a leg in an accident. Shevket Chapanishi, who likewise attended the teacher training in Leningrad, also received ten years of camp arrest. After the ten years had passed, the arrest of Chapanishi, as with so many others, was lengthened without any notification of the reasons. 227
On the basis of the place of origin and birth of these Turks from Lazistan, it is presumed that they could also be ethnic Laz. 228 27+25+71=123x100/4000=3%; 27+25=52 x100/4000=1,3%.
113 He wasn’t released until after Stalin’s death.229 Also in the Laz work group, the Great Terror claimed two further victims besides the initiator Tsitashi. Akif Sherifovich Tant ogly was sentenced to death on 28 April 1938. He was responsible for the Laz matters in Adzharia from his post in Batumi, a possible indication that the repression against the Laz did not extend to the Abkhazians. The second victim was Ali Abbas ogly Bairamov (Bairami), who had already been sentenced to death on 3 Dec 1937 by the Kulak Troika. The Turkish citizen and teacher at the Laz school in Ochemchiri Mustafa-ogly, Khusein Omerovich Kar, was expelled from the National Troika because he; “sought the Turkish counsel in Batumi in 1930 and handed him a photo of the Laz conference and a collective declaration of the rayon Laz from Ochemchiri [with the request] that the consulate should take measures against the organisation of a kolkhoz among the Laz”.230 Despite the apparently completely plausible hypothesis that the reason for the aboveaverage repression of the Laz could be found in a well organised and formulated resistance against a levelling of the differences between Laz and Georgians in comparison with Adzharians, Mingrelians, Svans and Bats, serious doubts are appropriate. If we contrast e. g. the case of Tsitashi with the activities of the second great pioneer for Laz cultural autonomy, Mukhamed Vanilishi, then the ambivalence and complexity of the possible reasons for repression become clear. His operation for the Laz had a different character than Tsitashi’s. Vanilishi did, in fact, like Tsitashi, take part in the “Red Star” and the Laz schoolbook, had staged Laz plays in the school yard of his village already in 1928 and was a member of the Laz group that probably met regularly in Sukhumi until 1937 with members of the Abkhazian area committee of the Georgian CP in order to discuss the situation of the Laz. Moreover, he worked as the representative of the cultural appointee of the Adzharian government in Batumi
229
The notations refer to personal conversations of Feurstein with Shevket Chapanishi in Abkhazia in the summer of 1992. 230 Protokol № 25 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 01.10.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38469, page 20.
114 from about 1930 until his retirement. After the mass deportation of 100,000 Muslims out of Southwest Georgia (Adzharians and Meskhians, that is, out of the Ottoman districts of Georgia until 1878 and 1829 respectively) to central Asia in November 1944, Vanilishi in fact attempted finally to write a letter to Beria in order to assist the Laz who were part of the deportation. Instead of following the truly confrontational approach used by Tsitashi, Vanilishi addressed Beria, of Mingrelian origin, as “an outstanding representative of the Georgian, in particular of the Laz people” and portrayed the relocation of the Laz as erroneously (oshibochno) executed. Vanilishi achieved in fact the return of a series of families and the restitution of possessions. 231 He supposedly also spoke out for the Laz who were deported from 1949 to 1951, even though they had Soviet papers. 232 The clearly congenial relationship of Beria to Vanilishi goes back to the time when the latter worked as an interpreter for Beria in Gonio. Beria warned Vanilishi of the Laz in Abkhazia who were suspected of illegal activities, above all of smuggling. As a sign of his personal affection, Beria handed Vanilishi a revolver sometime after 1930. A fundamental critique of the nationalities policy or the deportations was not to be found in Vanilishi’s work but rather a punctual way of proceeding, packed with diplomatic language; a clear contrast to the often critical and thus possibly deadly style of Tsitashi’s. Vanilishi had obviously recognized in time that the future for the Laz under the aegis of Beria could only be found in an aggressive self-inclusion in the Georgian nation.233
Pis’mo člena respublikanskogo Adžarskogo pravitel’stva pisatelja M. Vanliši na imja L. I. Berija. 25.04.1945 g., in N. F. Bugaj (ed.), Iosif Stalin – Lavrentiju Berii: „Ich nado deportirovat’“. Dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii (Moscow, 1992), pp. 162-163. The investigations set in motion herafter and reports, Ibidem, pp. 163-165. 232 Communication of the son of Mukhamed Vanilishi, Zurab (Cemal) Vanilishi in Sarpi. 233 From his three-page unpublished “Recollections” from the beginning of 1990 it becomes apparent that Vanilishi until the end did not give up the idea of Laz cultural autonomy. The manuscript of the recollections is located in the family archive of Zurab (Cemal) Vanilishi. 231
115 The lack of certainty on whether the repressions of the Great Terror were to be primarily directed against the undermining of Laz cultural autonomy is increased, if one considers more closely the prosecution documents of the mentioned members of the Laz work group Tant and Bajramov. In the sentencing protocol of the Kulak Troika Tant ogly appears not as a Laz but as an Abkhazian, and the reasons for the conviction, resulting in execution by firing squad, are cryptic. A direct connection to the Laz matter is missing: 1. Member of an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary Trotskyist spy organisation in the harbour of Batumi, 2. As an anti-Soviet personality, he engaged in anti-Soviet agitation”.234 Also Bajramov is held to be not a Laz but rather a Turk in the Kulak Troika protocol.235 He is accused of being a member of the “right-wing aberration” in the party and to have planned a terrorist attack on Beria.236 Doubt about the accuracy of the hypothesis is fed by the information of the actual conviction cases of the Kulak Troika and the National Troika against the Laz. Very obviously the main reason for the repression by the committees, to prohibit any illegal border crossings and contact between the Laz on either side of the outer border of the Soviet Union and to bring to conclusion the measures in place since the early thirties for a house cleaning by way of the eviction of Laz. Of the 27 Laz convicted by the Kulak Troika, fifteen, that is 63%, were convicted of active espionage for Turkey, repeated border crossing and contacts with the Turkish consulate. Most of them were thus sentenced to death because a combination of crimes was uncovered.
Protokol № 110 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 28.04.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38460, page 167. 235 This question is here turok or tiurok? Plausible for Laz activists would be turok but Bairamov sounds Azerbaijani. 236 Protokol № 58 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 03.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37418, page 50. http://www.memoriali.ge/BOOK.pdf, S. 362, S. 424 (viewed 24 Aug 2013). 234
116 The peasant Ali Mukhamedovich Demural ogly, born and residing in Gonio in the rayon Batumi and member of the kolkhoz, was a Laz and citizen of the USSR, politically neutral and poorly educated. In the past he had already been convicted of smuggling. On 14 April 1938 the Kulak Troika accused him of “using a personal identification for an easier border crossing, regularly and repeatedly entering Turkey und delivering the foreign secret service information of espionage character”.237 Death by firing squad was the sentence. By way of the National Troika similar, if less severe, cases were processed, as the substantially lighter penalty itself indicates. 238 Moreover, 28% (7 out of 25 persons) were citizens of Turkey, which as a rule decidedly reduced the penalty. 239 The counts of the indictments with the National Troika were 100% illegal border crossing, minor espionage activity and contacts with the consulate. Only now and then did internal policy reasons for repression have any bearing, though with the Kulak Troika somewhat more frequently. Nevertheless, 28% of the indictments were made exclusively for internal policy reasons, such as contacts of Laz with the Trockist Lakoba, Laz-Turkish nationalistic activities and agitation against the collectivisation. The doubts about the hypothesis on the especially resistive actions of the Laz are, however, appropriate above all because the document basis on resistance and dissent on the part of all Georgian nationalities is especially sketchy and in need of an intensive reworking for gaining access to more reliable results in this area. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the case of Tsitashi brings awareness to an important peculiarity of Laz in comparison to Adzharians, Mingrelians, Svans and Batsbii. For the clarification of the very high degree of repression (death sentence) in the case of the Laz in the context of the Kulak Troika and the high number of convictions with the National Troika, Protokol № 106 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 14.04.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38456, p. 74. 238 One death sentence, ten cases of ten years, five transfers to court, three resettlements to Kazakstan and finally seven expulsions to Turkey. 239 In the case of the Kulak Troika only one person was a Turkish citizen. 237
117 two mutually supportive factors can be cited as causative. The Laz were held first of all to be allies of N. Lakobas, who had attempted to win them over as allies for his struggle against the erosion of Abkhazian autonomy. The second, no less important, factor was that the Laz not only settled in Georgia or in other bordering Soviet republics; rather, the largest group lived in Turkey, above all in the immediate border region of Georgia, in Lazistan. 240 Similar to the Turks, whose degree of repression was equally high in Georgia, but due to the lack of the first factor did not nearly reach the level of the Laz (see below), the Laz were handled – especially from 1938 on – as a diaspora nationality, evidenced by the unusually high conviction numbers of the National Troika.241 Moreover, Tsitashi’s letter of 1937 provides, in combination with the indicated titular homogenisation on the part of the Adzharians, Mengrelians, Svans and Batsbii, at least a sufficient early suspicion that in Georgia not exclusively border security measures were undertaken as the actual conviction cases suggest; but rather that there was, beyond this, a close connection between repression and nation building in this republic. In order to strengthen this further, we will now trace the repression of the three lesser-titular nations of Georgia the Abkhazians, Ossetians and the Adzharians. The important difference in comparison to the Laz is that, for these population groups, the Soviet Union was the country
I. T. Citaši, general’nomu sekretarju ispolkoma Kominterna G. M. Dimitrovu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ne pozže 25 ijulja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. In the official census of Turkey in 1945 only 45,000 Laz speakers were counted, but this number is generally held to be too low; it encompasses only a part of the monolingual Laz-speaking population, that is, the number of the recorded bilingual speakers would have to be added. For the year 1980 the number of Laz who, on the basis of Turkish statistics (up to 1965) and the exact knowledge of Laz villages, still had some kind of connection to their language could be estimated to be ca. 250,000. The Laz registered through the census had to be multiplied by a factor of 2.5 in order to gain a more or less realistic measurement. 241 Amounts: Laz: 0.63%, Turks 0.22%, Germans 0.24%, Georgians 0.002%; death sentence: Laz 0.025%, Turks 0.035%, Germans 0.1%, Georgians 0.00019%. Table 40 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("nacional'naja trojka") s 25 sentjabrja 1938 g. po 23 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 240
118 of origin.242 Border securement or threat of war might therefore have played a small role for their repression, even if the Abkhazians and Adzharians can be accused of having a certain sympathy for Turkey. This is because Ottoman and Turkish troops (1877, 1918) repeatedly landed in Abkhazia to support uprisings and the majority of the Abkhazians also emigrated in 1810-64 to the Ottoman Empire. In 1937 in Turkey a large Abkhazian group still existed, which is today extensively assimilated. Abkhazia ended up toward the end of the 16th century under Ottoman influence and the Abkhazians became largely if superficially Islamic until Abkhazia was annexed in several steps by Russia in 1810-1864, during which time the Abkhazians generated bitter resistance. With this and with uprisings in 1866-1867 and 1877-1878, the great majority of the Muslim Abkhazians were driven out by the Russian conquerors and left the country as muhajir (refugees) and emigrated to the Ottoman Empire so that today an Abkhazian diaspora can be found in Turkey and Syria.243 Many thousands of Abkhazians died while fleeing or as a consequence of inadequate supplies as well as through epidemics in the Ottoman ports of disembarkation. Some Abkhazians had moved to the north side of the Caucasus in the 16th and 17th century, where they form today’s Abazinian nationality in the Russian Federation.244 The groups remaining in Abkhazia, who after the exile of the elites were mostly more weakly positioned, they encountered strong Russian and Georgian pressure and were in part 242
A comparison of North and South Ossetia is not possible, since for North Ossetia no data on repressions are available. 243 Today an Abkhazian diaspora is living above all in Turkey as well as in Syria where by 1967 they settled predominantly on the Golan Heights. On the Abkhazian Exil see: G. A. Dzidzarija Machadžirstvo i problemy istorii Abchazii XIX stoletija (Sukhumi 2nd printing, 1982). In the course of the Syrian Civil War 2011-13 several hundred persons of Abkhazian origin were repatriated from Syria back to Abkhazia. 244 The reader’s attention is directed to the example given by K. V. Lomtatidze, Abazinskij jazyk, in Bokarev, E. A. u.a. (eds.), Jazyki narodov SSSR. Vol. IV. Iberijsko-kavkazskie jazyki (Moscow, 1967), pp. 123-[144]. In recent Georgian historiography the direction of migration is reversed (migration of Abkhazians not out of but to Abkhazia); this position is, however, internationally an isolated case. Ignoring completely the related historical and linguistic questions, the major significant that is granted to the precedence of one’s own ancestors on disputed territories, while at the same time delegitimizing competing claims as such “late comers” (here as well as e. g. in Berg-Karabach), appears fundamentally questionable.
119 converted to the (Christian) Orthodox church, to the extent they had not been Christian already, since Abkhazia had been Christianized long before being islamicized. A high level of immigration into the as-yet thinly populated country resulted. In addition large numbers of Mingrelians, Western Georgians245 and Svans, many Armenians, Greeks, Russians and Ukrainians arrived. Even a few Estonian, German and Moldavian villages were set up. Abkhazian belongs to the Northwest or West Caucasian language family, together with only two other languages, Circassian and the meanwhile extinct Ubykh.246 The Abkhazians247, as a result of the civil war in which they had in part fought against the Georgian Mensheviks, had a strong position in Moscow, especially through the good connections of the Abkhazian party head Nestor Lakoba. Even though in the 1920s Abkhazians made up only half of the population of Abkhazia, and declined further through Mingrelianization processes, under the Christian Abkhazians in the region bordering Mingrelia248, most leading posts were reserved for Abkhazians so that the Abkhazians quickly
With “West Georgian” is meant here the carrier groups of West Georgian dialects (Imeretins, Gurians, etc.). In Georgian historiography this designation has been extended in a geographic sense also to e. g. the Mingrelians, in certain cases Svanians, Adzharians, whom we consider separately here in keeping with our presentation. 246 G. A. Dzidzarija, Mahadžirstvo i problemy istorii Abhazii XIX stoletija (Sukhumi, 1982). 247 T. R. Blauvelt, Resistance and Accommodation in the Stalinist Periphery. A Peasant Uprising in Abkhazia, Ab Imperio (2012), vol. 13, pp. 78-108, here 108, distinguishes between Abkhazians in an ethnic sense and Abkhaz as residents of the Abkhazian ASSR, Russian “abchaz”, plural “abchazy” versus “abchazec”, plural “abchazcy”, Engl. (also adjectival) “Abkhaz” versus “Abkhazian”, that is, an Abkhazian village in the ethnic sense: an “Abkhaz village”, an Abkhazian kolkhoz, in the sense of: a kolkhoz in Abkhazian. This distinction is on the one hand very useful and meaningful; however, it doesn’t correspond to the analysed sources; here “abchazec” refers expressly to an ethnic Abkhazian; the terms are synonymous and do not have exactly the differences in meaning like Russians (russkie) vs. Russländer (rossiiane). 248 The number of Abkhazians comes to 83,794 in a population of 174,126 (48.1%) according to the “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” (1926, the numbers clearly from the Georgian census of 1922/23); the portion of Georgians (including the Mingrelians) was indicated as 32,000. In the census of Dec. 17 1926 the number of Abkhazians, by contrast, was calculated as only 55,918 (with four foreigners 27.1%, that is, a good fourth), that of the Georgians (including Mingrelians, etc.) as 67,494 (in each case only Soviet citizens). The number of Abkhazians had thus dropped by 28,000, that of the Georgians had increased by 35,000. Here one can detect the statistical reassessment of ca. 30,000 Christian residents of Gal’skii uezd, as indicated also by the regional data. Yet in 1897 58,697 Abkhazian speaking residents in the 245
120 had access to a comparatively large group of party cadres. The Republic gained a special status in that it from 1921 on was officially governed as a Soviet Socialist Republic, even if it could not de facto fulfil this status and only through the Georgian SSR became a part of the Trans-Caucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, for which reason they also are specified in the constitution of the USSR as an “autonomous” republic together with Adzaria. This anomaly or ambivalence – a SSR as a member state of another SSR – was partly corrected in 1925 in a first scaling back in that Abkhazia in its first constitution obtained the status of a “Contract SSR” (Dogovornaja SSR, DSSR), that is, it became an SSR with a special contractual relationship to Georgia; yet, the status of Abkhazia as the sole DSSR of the USSR, was also, like the previous one, unique Soviet-wide. Not until 1931 was Abkhazia demoted to an Autonomous SSR (ASSR). The distinguished status of Abkhazia from 1921-31 was not only symbolic but also offered formally better opportunities to appeal to Moscow and to make political decisions independently, or at least not in subservience to Georgia. Soviet, but also post-Soviet, Georgian historiography and that influenced by Georgia, have often portrayed the history of the status of Abkhazia in abbreviated form, in that Abkhazia since 1921 has been designated as an ASSR. The Soviet historiography did not want to fundamentally acknowledge a special status, and certainly did not like to dwell on status downgrades, accepting only upgrades (a similarly distorted portrayal occurred also with the history of the Karelo-Finnish SSR 1940-1955), while the Georgian historiography, taking the bait of nationalistic temptations, did not want to provide the Abkhazians any “arguments” supporting demands for independence.249
Sukhumskii okrug had made up 55.3% of the population of 106,179. In the “family lists” of 1886 the Samurzakanians had in fact been reported separately as a subgroup of the Abkhazians: 30,640 Samurzakaner, 28,323 (other) Abkhazians vs. 3,558 Mingrelians and 577 Georgians in a population of 68,773. 249 St. Lak’oba, History: 1917-1989, in G. Hewitt (ed.), The Abkhazians (Richmond, 1999), pp. 89-101.
121 The Abkhazians are, like the Turks, Greeks, Laz, Germans, etc. a diaspora nationality in the sense that the majority lived outside the Soviet Union in 1937, predominantly in Turkey, with only smaller groups in the French mandated territory of Syria. However, they are distinguishable from other such groups in that their homeland lay in Soviet territory, while the majority living outside came into existence through emigration, above all in the 19th century, and not the reverse. The situation of the Ossetians was different in several respects. The most important settlement areas of the Ossetians lie north of the Caucasus chain (North Ossetia); far in the northwest of this area there are Muslim Ossetians, the Digors; otherwise the Ossetians are traditionally orthodox Christians. This is true first and foremost for the groups in Georgia, among whom there are practically no Muslims. The Ossetians located on the South of the main chain of the Caucasus were dispersed somewhat; in the Autonomous Oblast’ of South Ossetia created in 1921 they made up two thirds of the population (70,000 of 100,000), with one third Georgians. Many Ossetians, however, lived outside South Ossetia among Georgians in a lessening concentration. Ossetian is an Indo-European language of the Iranian branch; the Ossetians are the remnants of the notable medieval Alanians or Alans. The Ossetians in Georgia were traditionally peasants; their dwellings were located in especially backward, mountainous areas without larger cities. The city of Tskhinvali, new capital of South Ossetia had, prior to 1921, not even been the seat of a district government let alone the capital. The few educated people in the small cities here were Georgians, Armenians and Jews; the language of the church was Georgian. The Ossetian population was poorly educated with hardly any elites and was markedly underrepresented in the Communist Party. The Ossetians had also, like the Abkhazians, fought against the Georgian Mensheviks to a significant degree. A starting point for the consideration of the repression of the Abkhazians and Ossetians might be represented by the thesis of the former prime minister of Abkhazia, Sergei
122 Shamba, that Abkhazia had suffered the most during the “Period of Repressions under Stalin and Beria” in Georgia. As especially burdensome measures he sees the poisoning of the chairman of the Central Executive Committee, Nestor Lakoba, in 1936, the Georgianization of the Latin Abkhazian alphabet in May 1937, and finally the numerically disproportionate purging of ethnic Abkhazians from the republic’s elite in November 1937.250 This statement is not confirmed, however, by the information on the repression of the elites, whom the minister of the former Abkhazian ASSR neglects but rather, as already discussed regarding the Laz, with the help of the data base on the Kulak Troika as well as the Police Troika. The National Troika stands out, since no repressions of Abkhazians occurred via this board. This is indeed plausible because the Abkhazians of Turkey do not generally live in the east, on the Georgian border, but were and are, rather, concentrated primarily in the far west, in Greater Istanbul, that is, there was no “minor border traffic” to be apprehended as with the Laz. 251 The corresponding numbers from the autonomous region of South Ossetia serve as comparative data. In addition, the data on the repression of the titular nationality of Georgians are evaluated along with these. Only at the end are the repressions of the elites included again, albeit diverging from Sergei Shamba, based primarily on the results of the investigation of the repressions in Georgia with the assistance of the Stalinist Lists originating in the Military Collegium of the High Court of the USSR and the High Court of the Georgian Republic. The largest portion of the repression of the lesser-titular nations of the Abkhazians and Ossetians in 1937-1938 occurred via the Kulak Troika. Absolute numbers are 895 persons, including 554 Abkhazians, significantly more than half (62%). The lesser-titular proportion of the total number of the persecuted in Georgia is 4.2% (2.6% Abkhazian, 1.8% Ossetian) for
250
http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1200511.html (15.09.2013). Here one must take into consideration that the state leadership councils, public offices and the party were disproportionately occupied by Abkhazians. 251 The same is true about the Ossetians.
123 the years 1937-1938, including 3.8% (2.4% Abkhazians, 1.4% Ossetians) for 1937. For the year 1938 the number of the persecuted climbs, just as with the Laz, but in contrast to the Georgians. In fact in relation to the total number of persecuted, for the year concerned, the number rose by almost a third to 5.5% comprising 3.2% Abkhazian and 2.3% Ossetian. This shows us that the portion of the Ossetians persecuted rose at the same rate. Especially noteworthy is the raw number of repressions. Here the fact that the Abkhazians in relation to their portion of the population of 55,405 persons (in all of Georgia) were disproportionately subjected to repression stands out.252 The 1% degree of repression was a good third higher than that of the Georgians (0.63%) (ratio 1:0,6). In addition, with respect to severity of the punishment, a higher degree of repression must be noted. The percentage of death sentences with the Abkhazians, with a 0.57% degree of repression, comes to over 50% of all convicted Abkhazians in the framework of the Kulak Operations.253 Considered only in relation to the convicted Georgians, the degree of repression with the death sentence is likewise almost 100% higher (0.30%:0.57%). If we now compare the years 1937 and 1938, we can determine that Abkhazians in comparison to Georgians were numerically very severely subjected to repressions already in 1937 and were additionally punished especially severely. For 1938 the disproportionately high punishment of Abkhazians continued, though the degree of punishment of the Georgians caught up with the high degree of punishment of the Abkhazians: Also with them the use of the death sentence skyrocketed.254
252
One must also keep in mind that with the census of 1937 the Mingrelianised Abkhazians were recorded as Mingrelians and since this statistical category no longer existed, they were counted as Georgians. Because this also applies to the repression statistics, it is not relevant here. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 102. 253 The extremely high degree of Laz repression of 85% death sentences is not, however, reached by the Abkhazians (57%). 254 Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
124 It is vexing that the degree of repression of the Abkhazians diverges diametrically from that of the Ossetians, even though both were lesser-titular nationalities (titular nationality of an ASSR and an Autonomous Oblast’, respectively). As already confirmed above, the absolute number of the persecuted Ossetians was always lower than that of the Abkhazians. If one now calculates the degree of repression for the Ossetians, that is, the number of persecuted in relation to the portion of the population, then the difference becomes especially clear. In all of Georgia there were 143,604 Ossetians, according to the census of 1937.255 Thus, their degree of repression amounts to “only” 0.24%. That is a bit lower even than 1/4 of the degree of repression of the Abkhazians (0.24% : 1% = 0.2:1). Amazingly, the Ossetians were convicted much less in toto not only in comparison to the Abkhazians, but also in comparison to the titular nation, the Georgians, in fact in a proportion of 0.4 : 1 (0.24% : 0.63%). Regarding the percentage of executions, however, the Ossetians were nearly on one level with the Georgians and Abkhazians: Nearly half the convicted received the death sentence (0.24% convictions, 0.13% death sentence in relation to the portion of the population), whereby it must be maintained that in absolute numbers the death sentence played a more minor role with the Ossetians than with the Abkhazians.256 However, what were the reasons for the dissimilar treatment of the lesser-titular nations? Was it a “religion bonus” in the case of the Ossetians? The working hypothesis states that, along with the ethnic designation, the divergent political and social status of a particular ethnic group above all played a decisive role in the repressions. Stated differently: low-status nationalities were persecuted less, high-status ones significantly more. This thesis is considered with respect to past (social origin, sotsial’noe proizkhozhdenie) as well as current
255
In the autonomous region of Ossetia, with a majority population of Ossetians, lived 87,358 persons. V. B. Žiromskaja, J. A. Poljakov (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1937 goda. Obščie itogi. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 2007), p. 46. 256 Here only the relation of total convictions with the death sentence of one group is compared with the corresponding data of another group, that is, diverging from the previous section, the absolute numbers are not compared with each other. Ibidem.
125 status (social position at the time of the arrest, sotsial’noe polozhenie). For testing this thesis, data is available for the Kulak Operation on social origin, e. g. Kulak, officer of the tsarist or White Army, member of the tsarist law enforcement body, or the nobility; also information on the social status at the time of the arrest, e. g. worker, salaried employee, peasant; and finally on the level of education: higher, mid-range, lower level of education and illiterates. However, the numbers are not complete: with the Abkhaz the information on social origin is available for 68% (371 persons) out of 548 persons convicted, that on social position for only 50% (274 persons). The level of education is indicated for 62% (339 persons). In the case of the Ossetians the state of the data on social origin is not as good, but nevertheless definitive enough: social origin 39% (148 persons), social position 51% (195 persons), level of education 57% (210 persons).257 Even the precarious state of the data in the Troika protocols on the social origin of the Ossetians can be interpreted to the effect that the social position of the Ossetians before the revolution was low, accordingly now in 1937 one could to a far lesser extent affix a negative label to them such as “Kulak”, “officer”, “nobleman”, “policeman” etc. than on the Abkhazians. Additionally, we assume that fundamentally the motivation of the NKVD employees who prepared the Troika protocol was low for transferring from the investigative documents to the Troika protocol neutral information on social origin, like “peasant origins” (iz krest’ian), which was not useful in strengthening the case against the accused. For this reason the database on the Kulak Operation, which is based almost exclusively on
Table 44 "Osuždenie Abchazcev trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Table 45 "Osuždenie Osetinov trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 257
126 information from the Troika protocols, is probably incomplete on this point.258 Conversely, the explicitly “negative” items of information on social origin, “Kulak”, “officer”, “nobleman”, “policeman”, etc. are handled as absolute numbers, since these were most certainly recorded in the Troika protocol for “tightening up” the charge. If we assume the latter premise of being able to use the negative origin as absolute numbers, we thus have secret service employees who recorded negative social roots for 27% (132 persons) of the accused Abkhaz, but only 11% (43 persons) of the Ossetians. Thus an entry of negative social roots was 2.5 times as likely in the Abkhaz cases. The notations on the severity of the punishment pronounced vis-à-vis those with negatively documented social origin increasingly show that with the Ossetians even those with negative attributes appeared less dangerous to the repression bodies than was the case with the Abkhazians. Thus, in the category “social origin” 68% (90 persons) out of 132 persons with critical origin from the Soviet perspective were sentenced to death, with the Ossetians it was more than 10 points lower at 56% (24 persons out of 43). That rather low status, that is, persons less threatened by the death sentence with negatively documented social origin, could be found among the Ossetians is also indicated by a breakdown of the numbers on “negative” social origin according to various subcategories. Thus, with the Ossetians, the relation of Kulaks sentenced to death, who were, viewed Soviet-wide, fundamentally less threatened by the death sentence, to former nobility, petite bourgeoisie, traders, officers, and members of tsarist penal bodies (karateli) – a highly endangered group – was 0.5 : 1, with the Abkhazians 0.3 : 1, however. The proportion of those among the condemned Abkhazians who in Tsarist times possessed a high social position was therefore significantly higher than with the Ossetians. With this one must keep in mind as with all comparisons of the degree of repression that the accused were
258
Because of the loss of the actual investigative documents due to the civil war in 1991, in Georgia, it was not possible to trace back whether the notations missing in the Troika protocol on social origin was nevertheless present in the investigative documents.
127 convicted by the same persons in the Troiki; thus, the differences in judgements can not be explained by the change of the participating “judges”. A problem with respect to the formulated working hypothesis (lower social status = less repression, higher social status = more severe repression) arises, however, out of the expanded statistics, specifically those on social status at the time of arrest and on level of education. The data can not at first glance be used for confirming the preceding results on social origin. The social status of the convicted Ossetians at the time of arrest was, on the contrary, even higher than that of the Abkhazians, even though they were less affected by the repressions. Of 195 Ossetians, for whom appropriate numbers are available, 80% are workers and salaried employees (2 + 154 persons) and only 20% (39 persons) are peasants, categorized as with lower social status due to their limited access to political, social and economic resources. With the Abkhazians, however, only 55% (6 + 146 persons) fall into the categories “worker” and “salaried employee”, despite their high degree of repression. Therefore the category “peasant” with 45% (122 persons) constitutes a very comprehensive victim group, in contrast to the Ossetian numbers. The same picture results with the level of education of the victims. 31% (29 + 40) Ossetians with a higher or mid-range level of education were convicted and 69% (134 + 16) with a lower level or no education at all. On the other hand, with the Abkhazians at 16% (22 + 34) only half as many persons proportionately had a high or mid-range level of education. The large majority of the convicted, with 84% (228 + 55) persons, had either a low level of education or were illiterate, that is, a considerable 15 percentage points more than in the case of the Ossetians. At closer inspection and with a broadening of our perspective, it is nevertheless possible to resolve the contradiction that with the Abkhazians, as a nationality disproportionately affected by repressions in terms of absolute numbers, and with the Ossetians, as a lower-than-average repressed ethnic group, the rule of thumb “lower social status = less repression, high social status = more severe repression” only functions with
128 respect to the past, that is, the social origin, but with the current social status the reverse holds true. First the direction of advance of the Kulak Operation should once again be brought to mind, even if this only one-sidedly allows the contradiction with respect to the Ossetians to appear less significant. The Kulak Operation placed the focal point Soviet-wide on the purging of the (potentially) non-loyal rural population and on the repression of the simple or under-privileged Soviet populace. Out of 11,048 convicted persons on whom pertinent data on social status is available, 27% (3,031 persons) were peasants, 5% (532 persons) were workers, and salaried employees 68% (7,485). 259 With the Ossetians, however, the rural population was less persecuted with 20% peasants (39 persons), significantly below the Georgian average, even if the actual number of the peasants, as indicated, could probably be somewhat higher than represented in the database. Therefore the percentage point of the convicted salaried employees at a high 79% was 11 points above the average rate. Workers were “only” persecuted at a rate of 1%, five times lower than the Georgian average rate. Unusual in exactly the opposite sense is the repression of the Abkhazian rural population. On this point the Georgian average rate did not, as with the Ossetians, fall above but rather far below that of the Abkhazians. In the category “peasant” as social status, there is a percentage rate of 45% (122 persons) recorded, that is, a rate of repression 18 points higher than the average for the Georgians. In comparison to the Ossetians, this even means an extreme overshoot of 25 points. Considering now the higher-status groups, the workers and salaried employees, we notice the picture is reversed, and this even though the Abkhazians, as already repeatedly emphasized, show a very high degree of repression according to the absolute numbers. Measured against the Georgian average, the repression of salaried
Table 9 "Količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 259
129 employees of Abkhazian nationality with 53% is 15 percentage points lower than the Georgian average and even 26 points less than the repressions against the Ossetian salaried employees. The repression degree with reference to social status still underscores the contradictory trend. Not only did the repression affect Ossetian peasants far less, as indicated, but those repressed were also less severely punished than the Abkhazians. The death sentence was pronounced on “only” 28% (11 persons); in contrast 45% (55 persons) of the Abkhazian peasants received the highest punishment, representing a significant excess of 17 points, even though they, too, can be considered a low status group. The Georgian average rate is “only” three death sentences. Among contradictory data, the Ossetian salaried employees were again more severely punished than the Abkhazian; in fact, the Ossetian rate of repression was, at 67% (103 persons) death sentences, 10 point lower than the Abkhazian (at 57%, 83 persons). Less clear is a comparison to the average rate. The number of convicted Abkhazian salaried employees remains “only” 4 points under the average rate for persecuted salaried employees in Georgia, with a rate of 61% (4,589 persons).
5. Social Status and Repression: Abkhazians, Ossetians and Adzharians With the following considerations on the way to the elimination of the stated contradiction, the specifics of Georgia come into focus. For this Caucasian republic a higher portion of persecuted elites was analysed in comparison to other previously investigated republics, regions and districts of the Soviet Union in the framework of the Kulak Operation.260 For both minority titular nations this delivers a direct explanation for the high degree of repression of salaried employees. However, the 10 or 11 percentage point discrepancy among “elites” (salaries employees) between repression of Abkhazians (lower) and Ossetians and Georgians
M. Junge, G. Kldiašvili, Regionalizacija karatel'nych polnomočij, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 260
130 (higher) still speak against the formulated working hypothesis.261 The reason for this is that the Abkhazian elites, especially the higher ones, had already been thinned out before the Kulak Operation, specifically, already from 1936 on they had suffered under repressions, as becomes clear from the Stalinist Lists. The lower number of persecuted Abkhazian party members (62 persons, 11%) in the framework of the Kulak Operation is direct proof of this connection. The comparatively low repression degree with the salaried employees confirms, once again, that the first wave of repressions had already swept over the higher Abkhazian elites before the Kulak Operation and thus, the remainder were less prominent and could not be punished as severely. The comparatively lower-status Ossetian elites, including the highest, had by contrast obviously not been caught in greater numbers by the mill wheel of terror until the Kulak Operation began. Confirmation can be found in the more than threefold number of repressed Ossetian party members (132 person, 35%) when seen vis-à-vis the Abkhazians in relation to the total number of the persecuted Ossetians. Theoretically, the Ossetian elites would have been subjected to especially hard repressions starting in the summer of 1937, because numerically a certain “catching up” was needed from the perspective of the repression bureaucracy. Nevertheless the numbers for the death sentence remain in mid-range, further proof in the eyes of the state repression bodies of the secondary significance of even the higher Ossetian elites in Georgia as a dangerous disturbance factor for titular harmonization or other state enforcement measures, such as the final enforcement of the collectivisation of agriculture and of industrialisation. A further empirically secured proof that the Abkhazian elites had suffered greatly before the Kulak Operation, that is, before summer 1937, even in comparison to the Georgian elites, while the Ossetian elites had suffered significantly less, is available in the investigations regarding the Stalinist Lists (Stalinskie spiski). From May 1937 until 4 October
261
The degree of repression comes to 68% with the Georgian salaried employees, 67% with the Ossetians, and 57% with the Abkhazians.
131 1937, 28 of 76 Abkhazians, but “only” 5 of 54 Ossetians were convicted on the basis of the Stalinist Lists or with the help of elite courts of the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR, by which these high-ranking accused were mainly convicted in this period in Georgia.262 Indirectly, the data of the Police Troika complement the contradictory picture. In crass contrast to the Kulak Troika, no overshoot of the 0.03% population average closely aligned with the value for the Georgians is to be noted in the case of the Abkhazians with an identical 0.03% degree of repression.263 From this we can conclude that social repression played a minor role in the case of Abkhazians (and Georgians). For the Ossetians, with a repression degree of 0.02%, this holds true just as well in absolute numbers.264 Nevertheless, it must be emphasized against the background of their very low repression figures in the Kulak Troika, that the numbers this time are definitely able to keep pace. Considered from this perspective, social repression thus appears with the Ossetians to have been more important than with the Abkhazians, which against the background of their overall lower social status in Georgia makes sense. One could even express it with a rule of thumb: With the Ossetians, with much lower absolute repression overall, the division of labour in the repression bodies was organised so that the Police Troika assumed the social repression and Kulak Troika that of persons with mid-range and higher political and social status.
262
In 1937/1938, 76 Abkhazian elites were convicted. A portion (28 persons) was convicted by the Military Council or other high Georgian courts by 4 October 1937, the other portion (48 persons) occurred from 4 October 1937 on with fews exceptions via the Kulak Troika. Even with the Kulak Troika the focal point was the repressions, with 25 persons (53 minus 28) in the year 1937. In 1938 “only” 19 Abkhazians were yet persecuted. With the Ossetians the picture is reversed. In 1937, 18 persons (23 minus 5), in 1938 in contrast, 32 persons. The corresponding were recorded with the help of the data base provided in the “Institute for Free Access to Information” on the convictions of the Stalinist Lists. Table № 37 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych na osnove stalinskich spiskov po nacional'nosti s maja 1937 g. po 17 nojabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 263 Always to be calculated in reference to the portion of the population in the ethnic group. 264 Table № 41 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("milicejskaja trojka“) s 1 avgusta 1937 g. po 22 nojabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
132 Expressed in terms of statistics, with the Ossetians uneducated “socially dangerous elements” who “are not pursuing any occupation useful to society”, beggars, unemployed, small-time criminals and cattle thieves, were convicted at the rate of 100% via the Police Troika. With the Kulak Troika, by contrast, 64% (25 of 39 persons) were educated, among them only one “common” criminal; the others were accused of “political” offences. But also with the uneducated only 50% (7 of 14 persons) are attributed to the criminal, gang-type of milieu; thus, among Ossetians whose cases were processed by the Kulak Troika up to 82% (32 persons) were accused not of social but rather of political crimes.265 Insofar as social repression was involved, rural areas were the particular target with both agencies (Police Troika and Kulak Troika). In the foreground was cattle theft; the Kulak Troika repressed six Ossetian cattle thieves alone. For social repression a typical case Ossetian case is the sentencing of Aleksei Georgievich Gogikhashvili to a five-year prison term in January 1938 by the Police Troika. He had lived in the settlement Mgebriani of the rayon Gori and was poorly educated (malogramotnyi). According to the documents available, it concerned a “repeat case of theft”, a “criminally declassed element” with prior convictions and arrest for cattle theft and rowdiness. His arrest occurred because he was classified as a “socially harmful element”.266 It is curious that 10% of the Ossetians convicted via the Police Troika were former Mensheviks. Moscow supposedly was given a small tip that the Ossetians did not always fight effectively on the side of Bolsheviks against the former Menshevik Republic of Georgia.267
265
Out of a total of 384 persons convicted by the Kulak Troika a sample of 39 persons, that is, for the years 1937 and 1938, every first person and then every 10th. 266 Protokol № 81/38 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 21.01.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 473, page 141. A sample of 7 persons was selected out of 33 convicted persons, that is, the first, then every 5th person, the No’s 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. 267 Four of 39 persons. On the sample of the Police Troika, cf. the preceding note. On the close alliance of the Ossetians with the Bolsheviks, see D. M. Lang, A Modern History of Georgia (London, 1962), pp. 228–229.
133 With the Abkhazians, it is puzzling why the numbers of the Police Troika are not, like those of the Kulak Troika, especially high, since with the Kulak Troika it was determined that especially the simple or broad masses of the Abkhazians were supposedly affected in the Great Terror, that is, social repression must have been in the foreground. However, in order to clarify the especially pronounced degree of repression of the Abkhazian peasants, of all things by the Kulak Troika, and the perplexingly low degree of repression of the Abkhazians by the Police Troika responsible for social repression, nationbuilding and nationalism theories must be carefully embedded in the following scenario. The high degree of repression in the category “peasant” can be understood as an indicator of a process of nation-building significantly more advanced in the case of the Abkhazians than in that of the Ossetians. Accordingly, the Abkhazians found themselves already in step three of a three-step model developed by Miroslav Hroch for creating a national identify for small populations; that is, the process had encompassed the broader Abkhazian population of the autonomous republic, i.e. the peasants.268 This process of creating a consciousness had been catalysed by incisive social, economic, and education-policy changes in the Republic of Abkhazia. Just recently in 1937 a massive colonisation had been initiated on the Abkhazian territory that was already climatically and infrastructurally (harbours, access to sea) favoured and endowed with fertile soils. The Georgian central state began in this year with the mass settlement of Mingrelians in Abkhazia.269 In Ossetia, which had only meagre soils and was comparatively overpopulated and far less developed, no comparable colonisation policy was promoted at the end of the thirties. 268
M. Hroch, Das Europa der Nationen. Die moderne Nationsbildung im europäischen Vergleich (Göttingen, 2005); M. Hroch, Social preconditions of national revival in Europe. A comparative analysis of the social composition of patriotic groups among the smaller European nations (Cambridge, 1985). Hobsbawm writes further: “the popular masses — workers, servants, peasants — are the last to be affected by it". E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1992), p. 12. 269 Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 199. To what extent tendencies of modernisation promoted the national consciousness in Abkhazia could not be determined, since it was unresearched.
134 In addition, in May 1937, just as with the Laz, the introduction of a Latin alphabet for the “newly written” languages, including all Caucasian languages except Georgian itself, was retracted and in its place the Georgian writing system was introduced for Abkhazian and Ossetian in Georgia. Remarkably, indeed absurdly, only the South Ossetians thus received the Georgian writing system. The North Ossetians not living on Georgian territory had to return to the Cyrillic alphabet. With the introduction of the Georgian writing system in the schools of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Georgian language was additionally strengthened at the expense of the native languages.270 Conflicts were inevitable and also found resonance, even if as rare exceptions, in the Kulak Troika. Thus, the deputy leader of the communal department of the State Soviet of Gori, Nikolai Ivanovich Siukaev, was accused as the former teacher in the settlement of Akhalsopeli of the rayon Gori, of inciting nationalism among Georgians and Ossetians in that he said to the Ossetian peasants: “Why should we Ossetians speak and write in the Georgian language, while they, the Georgians are our enemies”. Supposedly Siukaev forbade the whole population to speak and write in Georgian, advised the teachers to teach exclusively in the Ossetian language and forbade the whole population from assuming family names that sounded Georgian. He himself had provided an Ossetian pronunciation for family names. On 21 April 1938 the case was transferred to a Special councel of the Highest Court of Georgia, which probably saved the life of the accused.271 The language policy casts a clear light on the purposes and directions with nationbuilding with regard to the Abkhazians as well, as it provided one nationality (the Ossetians) with two writing systems, one Cyrillic according to the general framework of USSR policy, and the other Georgian according to the logic of Georgian nationalism.
270
For the Ossetian language the Latin writing system was introduced already in 1923. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 201. 271 Protokol № 108 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 21.04.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38456, p. 144.
135 The strategy of the central Georgia agencies to apply the brakes on the nation-building process with the Abkhazians is also recognisable through the consideration of the individual conviction cases.272 With the Kulak Troika, 13% (10 of 76) were declared directly guilty of nationalistic activities.273 The punishment of participants at the uprising of Gudauta in 1931 carried a lot of weight and places the struggle against Abkhazian autonomy in an already longer- existing context: On 11 February 1931 the status of Abkhazia had, as mentioned, been officially lowered from that of their own (D)SSR to one of an ASSR. In parallel, the collectivisation of agriculture in Abkhazia began, which had hardly been promoted up until then.274 In a massive reaction to the measures implemented by Tbilisi, which for economic as well as national reasons the maintenance of the Abkhazian way of life, for instance via financing schooling in lingual studies, cultural events, and (minimal) self-government, was refused. The uprising developed with a focus on Gudauta, where until today the centre of the Abkhazian national movement is located. The Georgian agencies showed great interest at this point in time in downplaying the ethnic reasons, that is, the Abkhazian-Georgian contrast, and in placing the economic reasons in the foreground, that is, the resistance to collectivisation.275
272
Out of a total of 554 Abkhazians convicted by the Kulak Troika a sample of 76 persons was drawn. For the year 1937 (374 persons) the first 13 and then every 10th person, that is, 50 persons total. For the year 1938 (180 persons) the first 10 and then every 10th person, that is, 26 persons. The total for 1937-38 was 76 persons. 273 Seven participants in the uprising of Gudauta of 1931 and 3 persons for nationalistic activities. 274 Blauvelt, Resistance and Accommodation, pp. 78-79, writes about the beginning of the intensified collectivisation in February 1931 according to personal communication of T. Blauvelt this is a typographical error; it should be 1930. T. Blauvelt states as well, “there is no reference to status in any of the documents of the period, public or secret, and yet it figures prominently in the interpretations of later Abkhaz historians.” In the published documents the status of Abkhazians is sometimes evident (S.S.R. or A.S.S.R. could not always be avoided), but even if one largely follows T. Blauvelt, the most knowledgeable person on the relevant documents, another equally plausible interpretation results, namely, that the status usually or whenever is not mentioned because it was back then already so controversial and for this reason is appeared to be the most clever way to excluded questions of status as much as possible. 275 This sudden crisis appears reasonable from the combination of information that Blauvelt gives with that of Tsitashi letter of 1935. Ibidem, p.100; I. T. Citaši, sekretarju CK VKP(b)
136 This was important from the Georgian perspective, since the Abkhazians in 1921, through an uprising from below, which took on a similar form and was in fact directed against Menshevist Georgia, benefited the invasion of the Red Army into Abkhazia. This model was to be forgotten. Instead of “the Abkhazians are fighting against Tbilisi and the Georgians” meme, now the watchword was to be “the Abkhazians are fighting against Moscow and the Russians”. 276 The documents of the mass repressions of 1937-38 directly provide documentary proof of this subliminal tactic. In the protocols of the Kulak Troika the attempt is made to portray the Abkhazians as spreading anti-Russian statements and as engaged in resistance not against Tbilisi but rather against Moscow; in fact, in 10% (8 of 76) of the cases, including indirect allusions. Four persons are convicted in this way as former Mensheviks.277 With four additional persons the Abkhazian, “anti-Russian” predispositions are mentioned directly; only one person (1.3%) makes “anti-Georgian” statements. All cases are positioned strongly in a class context. In this way the defendant Shmat Kablukhovich Leiba is quoted as saying: “Well, you as a Russian, what are your intentions here among us in Abkhazia!” Afterwards he supposedly emphasized, that the kolkhozes would be dissolved anyway by January 1, 1938.278 The case of Ezet Semenovich Gabdiia deserves more detailed description.279 He is described as follows: born in 1905 in the village Lykhny near Gudauta, Abkhazian, lacking any particular occupation, not a party member at the time of arrest, married, with lower education, former candidate of the VKP(b), excluded due to connections to “enemies of the I.V. Stalinu o položenii Lazov v Gruzii. Ranee 11 fevralja 1935 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 276 The course of the uprising of 1931 is portrayed vividly in Blauvelt’s text and can not be traced further here. 277 For example (Men’shevik): Protokol № 12 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 13.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 372, page 46. With this estimation we do not doubt that these persons indeed could have had contact with the Men’sheviki. 278 Protokol № 20 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 26.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 380, page 38. 279 Protokol № 90 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 16.02.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38444, vol. 2, page 38.
137 people”. It is emphasized that the defendant is a chauvinist, “for example, with respect to the Russians”, thus he supposedly said, “What bad people all those Russians are.” The “for example” may presumably conceal here that Gabdiia has potentially made particularly strong utterances against the Georgians, but the anti-Russian quote fits the plan better. Dzhigus Mektodovich Ashuba had supposedly gone to study in Moscow in 1934, but was said to have remained connected with “right-wing” counter-revolutionaries in Abkhazia. After his return in 1937 he had organized an office of this organisation for Abkhazia and developed a program of activities against the Soviet powers. At the time of his arrest he was an assistant in the department of mathematics at the Pedagogical Institute in Sukhumi.280 Aslan Reshitovich Kvachal-ipa, a functionary sent from Lakoba to the TsIK of Abkhazia, a “counter-revolutionary” with connections to Piatakov, Lakoba and others, is finally charged, and with that we also come to the horror story of the show trial: “With the shipment of mandarin oranges to Moscow in the year 1936, destined for the Kremlin, he tried to get rid of heavily poisoned mandarins.” 281 As designated, the mandarins are sent here to Moscow, to the Kremlin, not to Tbilisi. That the charges are hardly plausible is clear; in a true attempt at assassination the authorities would have moved with considerably greater speed, rather than taking a year. Medzhit Redzhebovich Bagapsh by contrast did make anti-Georgian statements: “Now Lakoba is dead, everything is lost, Georgia has grabbed everything with its hands, but is this Georgian the people” (a ved’ gruzin narod). “Then afterward he (according to the document) uttered an Abkhazian expression with chauvinistic content”. 282 That was linked immediately to his support for the “people’s enemy” Lakoba and to “trotskyist” statements. The
Protokol № 90 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 16.02.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38444, vol. 1, page 15. 281 Protokol № 32 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 14.10.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37392, page 65. 282 Protokol № 32 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 14.10.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37392, page 38. 280
138 Abkhazian-Georgian contrast is thus also present, but only in a form that places the Abkhazian resistance in a conceivably bad light for Moscow. Vis-à-vis Moscow, where the documents had to be sent for inspection from the central NKVD, it is meticulously emphasized as appropriate with the help of the repression documents with a citation quota of 17% (13 of 76 cases) that the death of the former Moscow informant Lakoba was no loss but rather the opposite: he was promoting a policy hostile to Georgia and Soviet power in close cooperation with Trotskyists and Rightists and even criminal elements. Tendencies of the Abkhazians and Lakoba for building an anti-Georgian block are indirectly identified and countered in that Abkhazian liaisons with the Turks and Laz are convicted in Abkhazia and with that the “Turkish” and “Laz” connection is crushed (3%, 2 of 76 cases).283 A further strategy for compromising the Abkhazians was to associate them exceptionally frequently, in comparison to other ethnic groups, with the criminal milieu or to charge them with connecting criminality and anti-Soviet political activity. An unusually high 14% (11 of 76) convicted by the Kulak Troika were simply “common” criminals who, because their cases were handled by the Kulak Troika, were illegally severely punished in relation to the charges. Of the eleven persons, nine were small-time criminals or “socially dangerous elements” who in the past and present had committed cattle theft and break-ins and maintained contact with criminal “elements” or who were accused of attempting to steal money. Four of these persons received ten years camp arrest, one eight years, and three were sentenced to death. Merely three of the eleven persons could be designated as serious criminals – if one is prepared at all to recognize the illegal, extra-judicial proceedings of the Kulak Troika, of these one had committed a gang-style robbery-murder and the other had
283
On Turkish contacts with the Laz, cf. Akhmed Alievich Delaver-ogly, which we will investigate further in connection with the Turks. Protokol № 15 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 29.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38468, page 20. Contacts of the Laz to the Turks were maintained by Khishba Filipp Domeevich, cf. Protokol № 90 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 16.02.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38444, vol. 2, page 128.
139 attempted to attack a bus, an airport and a kolkhoz. Two of them were sentenced to death, one to 10 years camp arrest. Judging from the documents, certainly many of these cases would more likely have been handled by the Police Troika rather than the Kulak Troika in the case of other nationalities; cattle theft among the Azerbaijanis (tiurki) was directed predominantly to the Police Troika and not the Kulak Troika. An additional 25% (19 of 76) of Abkhazians were especially charged with acts of robbery and cattle theft in connection with the misappropriation of kolkhoz possessions and anti-Soviet or anti-kolkhoz-agitation.284 Even with the Police Troika, by which only 18 Abkhazians were handled, political offenses played a role, in total with 11%, 2 of 18. This stands out as an exception, similarly to those Ossetians convicted as Men’sheviks vis-à-vis the other nationalities. Thus, if one finds in the customary formalisms regarding Palach Khdzhadzhivich Smyr (born 1888), that he was an independent farmer, Abkhazian, illiterate, with two prior convictions for cattle theft in 1934, then convicted in 1938 for a journey to Abkhazia without approval; he hadn’t upon return in 1937 been employed, but instead with cattle theft; then suddenly it is added that he maintained connections to enemies of the people. This, however, is a designation that is explicitly political and in reference to the group surrounding Nestor Lakoba in Abkhazia.285 The other social deviance (87.5%, 16 of 18) was directly induced numerous times through the passport laws and their interpretation which denied delinquent Abkhazians a stay in Abkhazia. Upon return from arrest or exile, they received no papers which would have legalised their
284
Tuiba Akakii Temurovich (airport robber); Krikoriia Petr Chanashevich, connected with bandits, anti-Soviet and anti-kolkhoz agitation and numerous similar shelved cases. Protokol № 12 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 13.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 372, page 21; 22. 285 Protokol № 98/55 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 05.07.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 357, page 120.
140 stay in Abkhazia. Since they – especially as for Abkhazians the alternatives were limited – nevertheless stayed in Abkhazia, they were removed once again via the Police Troika.286 Against the background of a pertinent language and colonisation policy, the repressions were hence implemented with both minority titular nations in very differentiated form for hollowing out their autonomy and more and more converting them into a merely symbolic one and to further promote the titular homogenisation of the Georgian State. With the Kulak Operation, these interests of the Georgian periphery could percolate down especially clearly as statistics, because inherent in the nature of the Order № 00447 (Kulak Operation) was that Moscow had largely handed over the repression competencies to the periphery; simultaneously the hurdles for the apprehension of individuals for loyalty infringements had been massively lowered and simplified. The esteimation on the part of the former prime minister of Abkhazia, S. Shamba, is therefore incomplete and, regarding at least the fixation on the party elites, represents the state of propaganda of the Khrushchev era. It was not the Abkhazian elites who suffered the most in the Great Terror, which began in the summer of 1937, but rather the simple Abkhazian population. They were also, in comparison to similar groups of other nationalities of the Georgian SSR, the most strongly affected by the repressions. This peculiarity is traced back to the advanced nation-building process with the Abkhazians that had progressed further than with the other nationalities living in Georgia in that it had already encompassed the simple peasant population. The repression apparatus reacted directly to this phenomenon, consciously or not, with the Kulak Operation. The more intensive nation-building processes with the Abkhazians are understood as a counter movement to the attack of the central authorities and the party of Georgia on Abkhazia, for it had aroused more than other regions the desires of the republic’s bodies because of its more favourable economic, demographic, geographic and climatic 286
With the Police Troika all 16 cases (100%) were more closely inspected.
141 conditions. Abkhazia was fertile and still largely unsettled after the mass exodus of the Abkhazians in the 19th century, far more attractive than the under-developed Ossetian mountainous region. Despite the parallels of battles between the established community and the Mensheviks in 1918-20, the contrast between Ossetians and Georgians was less stark, and the territorialisation tendency of the Ossetians hardly pronounced. A large portion of the Ossetians did not live in South Ossetia, a region newly created in 1920/21 thus without historical tradition, but rather around the outside of South Ossetia. Here they mixed with Georgians. In South Ossetia, on the other hand, the Ossetians formed the uncontested majority with 70%, so that here also no immediate defence reaction against a Georgian majority formation appeared necessary. Finally, the Ossetians (in Georgia) exclusively belonged to the Georgian church, while the Abkhazians, for the most part, were Muslim or religiously indifferent. The high absolute repression numbers and the repression intensity in the common population of the Abkhazians was influenced however by an additional factor. Since the Abkhazians had attained as a whole a higher social status than the Ossetians during the tsarist reign, the repression bodies were in a position to impute negative social origin to the average Abkhazian. If one considers by contrast the repression of the Abkhazian elites, it was less significant during the Great Terror, that is, from the summer of 1937 on. It was, as shown by the Stalinist Lists and other information on the repression of leading Abkhazian elites, already drawing to a close in 1936 and in the first half of 1937. The Ossetian elites, as a whole lower in status in the past and present, were, in contrast to this, not severely persecuted en masse until the Kulak Operation. For the analysis of the mass repressions with respect to the Abkhazians and Ossetians, not only the view to certain repression bodies, social origin and social status, but also the point in time or time period of the repression of a certain nationality or group played an
142 important role for the evaluation. Also political-historical circumstances must be taken into consideration. At least by these factors the initially presented thesis, that lower status nationalities were persecuted less and high status nationalities significantly more, must be expanded. The question still in view, whether there is a connection in the case of the Abkhazians between the high absolute repression figures plus the high degree of repression and foreign policy questions and the strategic position of the Republic; whether the repression bodies had Abkhazia’s location on the sea with its important harbours and its long tradition of maritime invasions in mind with their repressions, can clearly be answered with “no”. The Abkhazians were not accused because of their indirect external border but rather for internal reasons. Espionage, also relations extending into Turkey, had practically no importance. The third and final lesser-titular nationality in Georgia consists of the Adzharians. Their special position in the Georgian nation stands out, since it concerns a minority titular nation that – on the basis of stipulations in the peace treaties with Turkey in 1921 – in fact presented itself as an Autonomous Socialist Republic, and as late as early 1937 had also still been listed separately in census documents.287 From these census data it is clear that they were numerically a considerable population group, comprising 88,217 persons.288 These were almost without exception counted in Adzharia itself, as already in 1926, when 71,390 Adzharians had been counted in Adzharia and 562 in other regions of Georgia. A very substantial undercount in favour of the “real Georgians” in Batumi must also be assumed.289 There, 15,414 “real” (sobstvennye) Georgians were counted and only 2,046 Adzharians. Very likely the actually number ratios were the reverse, or at least the number of non-Adzharian This has to do with an “ethnic” group formation on the basis of an intergovernmental political agreement. They would have otherwise “incorporated” the dominant Georgians into their nation. Reisner, Integrationsversuche. 288 Cf. V. B. Žiromskaja i. a. (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1937 goda, p. 107. 289 Batumi is the Georgian writing system; the Ottoman-Turkish and Turkish system is called Batum; the city had the same name in Russian from 1878-1936; since then through the adoption of the Georgian writing system it also has the Russian name Batumi. 287
143 Georgians is much too high, and the number of Adzharians much too low.290 Given population growth we can therefore assume a total of at least 90,000-100,000 Adzharians in Adzharia for 1937, out of a total population of 128,839 persons (roughly 75%).291 In 1937 Georgian party leader L.P. Beria led a campaign to subsume the Adzharians into the Georgian nationality:
The Adzharians are united with the Georgian nation by a commonality (obshchnost‘) of language, territory, and economic life and culture. The Adzharians are Georgians, albeit with the one difference, that they in the past became Muslim.292
With that Beria cleverly paraphrased and made concrete Stalin’s notions of nationality put down on paper already in 1913:
A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.293
Zentral’noe statističeskoe upravlenie. Otdel peripisi (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1926 goda. Tom XIV. Zakavkzskaja Socialističeskaja Federativnaja Sovetskaja Respublika. Otdel I. Narodnost‘, rodnoj jazyk, vozrast, gramotnost‘ (Moscow,1929) p. 104 in the pagination for Georgia; see also Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 97. 291 V. B. Žiromskaja i. a. (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1937 goda, p. 46; Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 164, 168. 292 Pervyj sekretar‘ CK KP(b) Gruzii L. P. Berija sekretarju CK VKP(b) I. V. Stalinu ob ėtničeskoj klasifikacii narodov v Gruzii ot 05.01.1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. This concept of Beria is not new. Already at the beginning of the First World War the national Georgian side campaigned for the “Muslim Adkharian Brothers”. On this a conference was held in Batumi. M. Šamilišvili, Aç’ara da kartveli sazogado moghvac’eni [Adzharian and Georgian public persons], Macne. Enisa da lit’erat’uris seria (1990), No. 3, pp. 40 – 54. 293 I. V. Stalin, Marxism and the national question [1913], in I. V. Stalin, Works, vol. 2: 19071913 (Moscow, 1953), pp. 304, 307. 290
144 He was most concerned with strengthening the categorisation of Georgians advanced by the “Commission of the Academy of Sciences for Research on the Tribal Composition of the Population of the USSR”. This commission first convened in 1920 in Petrograd and from then on continued to debate nationality issues, based on an academically serious publication history.294 Now in 1937, brought back to life in the framework of the census, it functioned, like all other scientific institutions, according to Stalinist prescriptions, though it emphasized especially clearly their inclusive aspects.295 The contraposition to this form of interpretation had been formulated by the “Institute for Language and Thought” and the “Institute for Anthropology”, both were established as part of the Academy of the Sciences of the USSR. The Adzharians, here, were specifically set apart from the Georgians, which Beria, in contrast to Stalin, denounced as a “chauvinist mind-set”, that is, as a continuation of the tsaristimperial “divide and conquer” approach towards the Georgian nation. The inclusion of the Adzharians as Georgians, undertaken here by Beria, has a long tradition that extends back at least to Prince Vakhushti (17th century). However, in 1877/78 many Adzharians emigrated to the Ottoman Empire when Batumi and its hinterland were annexed by Russia, and also in late 1914/early 1915 the Ottomans quite successfully agitated among the Adzharians and Laz on the Russian side of the border to rise against Russia in cooperation with the advancing Ottoman army, in cooperation as well as competition with the Germans, who set up a “Georgian Legion” fighting on the Ottoman front. 296
294
Cf. e.g. the monograph including discussion of the Caucasus by the Iranist I. I. Zarubin, Spisok narodnostej Sojuza Sovetskich Socialističeskich Respublik, (Moscow/Leningrad, 1927). (= Trudy Komissii po izučeniju plemennogo sostava naselenija SSSR iso predel’nych stran; 13); A. V. Psjančin, Komissija po izučeniju plemennogo sostava naselenija: ot etnokartografii k perepisi naselenija (Ufa, 2010). 295 Cf. in detail the position of Stalin in which religion in fact plays no role: Stalin, Marxism and the national question, p. 303-313. 296 W. Bihl, Die Kaukasus-Politik der Mittelmächte. Teil I. Ihre Basis in der Orient-Politik und ihre Aktionen 1914-1917 (Vienna, 1975). In 1929 an Adzharian uprising occurred that was explicitly directed against the Georgians. In the manifest of the revolters is stated (in the words of Beria) that “nothing good is to be expected” from them (the Georgians), RGASPI, 157/1s/58, here the report of Beria from Batumi on the 22nd of March, 1929. The special
145 The “long shadow” of Beria, including his attempt to administratively include the Adzharians in the Georgian nation, extended to a more recent time, indeed to the present. During the analysis of the persecution of the Adzharians in the Great Terror of 1937/38 it became evident that the Adzharians had not been counted separately in the data base of the Interior Ministry of Georgia on the Kulak Operation. They were subsumed under the 13,102 persecuted Georgians, even when their nationality is expressly specified as “Adzharian” (adzharets) in the documents. Because a thorough investigation of the great numbers of convicted requires a lot of time, the repression of the Adzharians could only be captured through random samples. Our objective was to at least detect a certain trend. Thus, the first 451 “Georgians” were analyzed and among them 22 Adzharians were found. This number was then, if with great reservation, used to project the total number of Adzharians represented in the database as Georgians, with a resulting total of 750 Adzharians identified as having been persecuted (first category 600 persons, second category 150 persons).297 This would result, with respect to the Adzharian portion of the population, in a disproportionate repression degree of 1.87% (Georgians 0.63%), and in the case of the death sentence a very high 1.2% (Georgians 0.45%). A cautious assumption would be that the Adzharians were persecuted more severely than the Georgians.
6. “Soviet” Nationalities: Armenians and Azerbaijanis So far we have considered the persecution of the titular nationality (the Georgians) and the minor titular nationalities plus, in addition, the repression of the Laz. The difference between position of the Adzharians goes back, incidentally, to the peace agreement of 1921 with Turkey, when it granted the Soviets Nakhichevan’ and the area around Batumi, under the condition that there republics of their own be set up for the local, predominantly Muslim population. In Nakhichevan’ the Azerbaijanis were as a state people sufficient for this, but in Batumi /Adzharistan the (predominantly Christian) Georgian nation was not; here the (Muslim) subgroup of the Adzharians had to accordingly be upgraded. 297 Table 34 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po nacional'nosti s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
146 the minor titular nationalities and the Laz was that the majority of the Ossetians was living on Soviet (including Georgian) territory and that they, like the Abkhaz, were formally in possession of autonomy rights. The territory of the Laz, by contrast, was mainly located outside the Soviet Union, in Turkey, and only to a miniscule part inside Georgia. The Laz possessed no autonomy rights in either the Soviet Union or Turkey. The Abkhaz in turn were distinguished from the Ossetians in that their diaspora was mainly located outside the Soviet Union, if one disregards the Abazinians in the Northern Caucasus and the few Abkhaz in Adzharia, whereas with the Ossetians it was the other way around: Their majority was in Northern Ossetia and elsewhere in the Northern Caucasus, and only comparatively small groups were settled in Turkey and in the Near East. Despite the enumerated differences, Ossetians, Abkhaz and Laz were considered together, as they are all Caucasian nationalities, although distinct in religion and language/culture. All three potentially qualified as objects for ambitions of ethnic amalgamation harbored by the titular nationality, in the sense of a successive destruction or re-dedication of their special identities, be it individually or collectively. Now the view is turned towards parts of the population of Georgia who are ethnic diaspora minorities, whose center of gravity was inside the Soviet Union, but who were not suitable for an inclusion based on ethnic arguments. As a starting point, the purpose will be to examine what happens when the factor of a stifling of attempts at autonomy is missing as a motive for persecution and when border security and the threat of war can have played only a subordinate role.298 The component of border security is present here only latently, as the internal Soviet boundaries between Georgia on the one hand and Armenia/Azerbaijan on the other. Independent Georgia, had, in 1918, claimed the whole of Tiflis governorate (Tiflisskaia guberniia) and the District of Zakataly (Zakatal’skii okrug), but had been obliged to leave
298
The threat of war relates to the persecution of ethnic groups whose country of origin or center of gravity was considered as hostile, to the persecution of “enemy nations” (see below).
147 large parts in the Southeast to the Azerbaijanis, including the whole of Zakataly district, where i.e. a strong minority of Georgian Muslims was present, the Ingiloans (ingiloitsy). The neighboring territories, joined to Georgia but with a predominantly Azerbaijani population were thus a potential bone of contention between the brotherly republics. More pronounced still was the conflict with the Armenians. In December 1918, the Armenian army attacked the Georgian troops in the South of Tiflis governorate and at first achieved significant territorial gains. The offensive quickly lost steam, however, and under pressure from Britain a ceasefire was agreed.299 The differences between Armenians on the one hand and Ossetians, Abkhaz and Laz on the other, despite all caveats, appear relevant enough so as to promise to make visible the importance of other motives of persecution, first of all the effect of social status on the degree of repression. The starting hypothesis – already enhanced by one aspect –, that politically and socially as well as geographically underprivileged nationalities were generally less exposed to persecution in Georgia, is accordingly pursued further. First low-status, then similar-status Soviet nationalities will be examined. As presumably low-status nationalities Armenians and Azerbaijanis are at the center of the analysis. As Azerbaijanis, both so-called tiurki and Azerbaijanis properly so called are taken into account. The source base in the case of the Armenians consists of the Kulak Operation, the National Troika, the Police Troika and the Stalin Lists. No Armenians were sentenced by the Dvoika. Historically large parts of the central segment of Southern Georgia had been dominated by Armenians; in Southeast Georgia Azerbaijanis (tiurki) predominated. Some areas in the South of the former Tiflis governorate were conquered by Armenian troops in the aforementioned war, and later were incorporated into Armenia; but in some adjacent territories, remaining part of Georgia, the population almost homogenously consisted of
299
R. G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia. I. The first year, 1918-1919 (Berkeley etc., 1971).
148 Armenians. A second large group, in itself ca. one third of all Armenians in Georgia, was living in Tiflis. The city had been largely populated by Armenians in the 19th century, Armenians making up 74.3% of the population in 1801. Throughout the 19th century, the Armenians had numerically surpassed the Georgians, thus in 1864 (28, 488 vs. 14, 878), in 1876 (37,610 vs. 22,156) and still in 1897 (47,133 vs. 41,151). In the latter case it is important not to concentrate on the language data, as many Armenians were Georgian-speaking, but to focus on allegiance to the Armenian Apostolic church. Thus the 41,151 ‘Georgians’ included 3,798 members of the Armenian Apostolic and 44 of the Armenian Catholic church, clearly linguistically assimilated Armenians, meaning the figure for the Armenians has to be revised upward to 50,975 (32%) and that of the Georgians, accordingly, downward to 37,309 (23%). Only in the 1920s did the Georgians surpass the Armenians as the largest single group. Traditionally trades in Tiflis had been mainly in the hands of the Armenians. This dominance of the Armenian bourgeoisie was shown also in the composition of the municipal administration. Thus in 1893 the candidates’ list for the Tiflis magistrate contained 77 persons from the citizenry, including 58 Armenians, ten Russians, seven Georgians and two Germans.300 Therefore the Armenians had suffered particularly under the destruction of the wars from 1918 to 1921 and under Sovietization, as this meant a nationalization of trade. Similar urban groups of Armenians existed in all Georgian towns. Although Tiflis traditionally had been the cultural center for Armenians in all of Transcaucasia, despite the importance of both Erevan and Baku, the educational level of Armenians was comparatively high in other urban centers, too. In the party and the administrative apparatus those urban Armenians were comparatively well-represented, although less so in leading positions. Still, as late as 1929 the proportion of Armenians among party members in Georgia was 12.8%, which is slightly higher than their
300
D. Müller, Ethnische Gruppen in der Republik Georgien, in Zeitschrift für Türkeistudien (1995), No. 1, pp. 5-50, see 12-13.
149 percentage in the population overall, whereas with the exception of the Russians all other larger minorities were strongly underrepresented in the party, thus being politically marginalized to a significant degree.301 Finally, besides the Armenian farmers in Southern Georgia, the Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire have to be mentioned, most of whom had come by sea and had been settled in Abkhazia, compactly in Armenian villages. All things considered, the social and political status of the Armenians in Georgia with their high proportion in the population of 11.7% (395,796 persons), was significantly higher than that of the Ossetians, but did not surpass that of the Georgians, especially because they had been pushed back economically, geographically, and sociologically too. However they were privileged when compared to the Ossetians due to their high proportion of urban populace. The religious opposition between Armenian Apostolic Armenians and orthodox Georgians is not to be underestimated; in some regards that opposition was stronger than that between Christians and Muslims. Muslim Azerbaijanis did not represent significant competition for the Georgians, either numerically or indeed with regard to status and power in Tiflis, or in rural areas. But even with regard to religion their very different creed presented much less of a challenge than the similar, but “schismatic” interpretation of the Armenians, which dared to demand precedence over the Georgian state (Armenia was the first state with Christianity as its state religion, but they haggled over the rights of first birth of an alphabet).302 The lower social and political status of the Armenians compared to the Georgians, due to being discriminated as ‘strangers’, despite their numerical and formerly also economic standing, seemingly immediately found expression in the persecution coefficients. With them, the degree of repression in the context of the Kulak Troika was, 0.44% (1,722 persons
E. G. Kurcikidze (ed.), Kommunističeskaja Partija Gruzii v cifrach (1921-1970 gg.). Sbornik statističeskich materialov (Tbilisi, 1971), p. 45. 302 St. F. Jones, Georgian-Armenian relations in 1918 to 1920 and 1991 to 1994. A comparison, in R. G. Suny (ed.), Transcaucasia, nationalism, and social change. Essays in the history of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (Ann Arbour MI, 1996), pp. 441-460, see 441-442. 301
150 sentenced). The Armenians thus are found in the middle between Ossetians (0.24%) and Georgians (0.63%). Remarkably in the proportion of death penalties as a percentage of all sentences, the Armenians surpass the Georgians by more than ten points (Armenians 57%, Georgians 45%).303 In the context of the Kulak Troika 1,722 Armenians were persecuted in Georgia, of whom compared to the average for Georgia (26%) only few farmers (13%); more than three quarters (78%) of the persecuted were employees. Besides, the extremely high percentage of persecuted party members of 463 persons (26%) provides food for thought. One other important center of gravity of persecutions, with 230 persons (13%), was the fight against the Dashnaks.304 Not least, disproportionately many Armenian clerics and persons of religiousclerical background (iz religioznogo sosloviia) were exposed to the persecutions, in all 17 clerics and 11 with religious-clerical roots.305 All this, however, must not lead to the conclusion that the traditionally strong Armenian elite in Tiflis was the main target, on the contrary: looking at concrete sentencing protocols persons who had grown up on Tiflis in families long settled there were the exception rather than the rule, indeed, singular cases306 Armenians with a family background in Tiflis made up a mere 10.5% (ten out of 95 persons). Almost 18% (17 out of 95) were persons who had moved to Tiflis from smaller Georgian towns, from the countryside or from other parts of the Soviet Union. The other 71.5% (68 out of 95) were Armenians from Abkhazia (15 persons), from the
Table 38 "Stepen' repressij nacional'nostej iz zarubežnych stran v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("dvojka") 1937- 1938", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 304 The first Armenian republic had been totally under Dashnak domination. The organization Dashnaktsutyun admitted explicitly the use of terror as a means of destabilizing Russia and the Ottoman Empire. 305 Table 46 "Osuždenie Armjanin trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 306 Drawn from a total population of 1,722 was a sample of 95: Up until entry number 100 every tenth entry was checked, from there every 20th. 303
151 diaspora in towns and country (15 persons), Armenians living in the Armenian-dominated territory of Southern Georgia (region of Akhaltskikhe-Akhalkalaki (22 persons), and finally Armenians who had immigrated from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey or Iran or whose origin is unspecified (16 persons). If and when, however, persecution struck in Tiflis, then it hit not the underclass, but the remaining upper crust. Of the 10.5% Armenians persecuted via the Kulak Troika, 20% (two out of ten) were criminals, like the Tiflis-born recidivist Abram Khachaturovich Mukelyan, who was sentenced to death.307 This approach finds confirmation in the sentencing of Armenians via the Police Troika which, no distinction to the criminals pursued via the Kulak Troika, exclusively covered social deviance without any recognizable political implications. Almost all cases were brought in Tbilisi, only 9.7% (three out of 31 persons) recognizably originated elsewhere, in Zugdidi/Mingrelia and Ochemchiri/Abkhazia; in some of the other cases the location of the case remains unclear.308 The mass of sentencings via the Kulak Troika, however, the chosen vehicle for sentencing Armenians, were small-town and even rural Armenians far from Tbilisi, both from the “Armenian zone” in the South of Georgia and, overrepresented, from Abkhazia. Before this background it becomes clear why the level of education of Armenians sentenced by the Kulak Troika was, in all, below average. Of 1,016 Armenians for whom pertinent data are available, a high 70% (714 persons) had only low educational attainments, 5% were even illiterate. Only 25% had reached a medium or higher level.309 The persecutions are characterized by a typical pattern: A person lives in a village, belonging to a Dashnak organization and carrying out “Anti-Kolkhoz agitation”. It remains unclear which of the two reasons for prosecution – often combined in exactly this way – constituted the main cause for the persecution and which was only added to buttress the case. A
Protokol № 12 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 13.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 372, page 89. 308 Out of a total of 318 sentenced persons a sample of 31, i. e. one in ten, was chosen. 309 Table 46 "Osuždenie Armjanin", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 307
152 significant number of cases also represent a reckoning with “former people”, i.e. former functionaries under tsarism, but generally these are linked with present-day offenses. Thus Ervand Stepanovich Torosyan, born in the village of Khando in Akhalkalaki rayon, is prosecuted as a Dashnak and as a fraudster – he was accountant of the kolkhoz –, but also because of his past; he had been a cadet in Tashkent in 1917.310 In cases where elite members’ cases were channeled through the Kulak Troika, the accusation of “spying” crops up more often. Thus Akop Arutyunovich Kyurkchibashev, born in Akhaltsikhe and leading technician of the Georgian oil company “Gruzneft”, is indicted because of contact with “German spy Lorenz Kuhn”, simultaneously, and stereotypically, because of “wrecking” activity in his sphere of responsibility.311 The National Troika by contrast hardly plays a role, although it must be taken into account that Armenians were also persecuted via other “national lines” (po turkam, po irantsam). Thus in the “Armenian line” (po armianam) only seven persons were included, of whom in addition once can be identified as an Estonian; the other six are prosecuted because of crossing the border (Iran, Kharbin) or they had been in contact with the Iranian consulate, and in one case because of purported espionage for Germany. This concerns an Armenian born in the German rayon Liuksemburg. Characteristically not one of the six Armenians was shot; what we have here is a persecution of any foreign contacts rather than actual fear of espionage. If additionally the Stalin Lists are taken into account, thus the persecution of elites, the result is unspecific. The degree of repression, i.e. the ratio of proportion in the population to those persecuted, is here slightly lower for the Armenians than for the Georgians (Georgians 0.05%,
Protokol № 17 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 16.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 377, p. 16. Generally the Kulak Troika processed a noticeably high number of Armenian criminals, whereas these were channelled via the Police Troika in the case of most other nationalities. 311 Protokol № 45 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 13.11.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37405, page 70. 310
153 Armenians 0.04%).312 In the persecution of elite status differences between Georgians and Armenians thus played a minor role.313 The preferred repression of Armenians in small towns and in the countryside might indeed be seen as an example of targeted tendencies of homogenization on the periphery. Weakening them and thereby demoting them socially was achieved by their removal from the local party and administration and flanked by the destruction of their spiritual elite. One indicator is the severity of repression among Armenians (10 percentage points more death sentences than among Georgians). The relatively small total of persecutions among Armenians in the context of the Kulak Troika can in turn be explained by the strong differential between the urbanmetropolitan and the small-town and rural Armenian population. The “neglect” of Tbilisi can be explained by the fact that at this point in time a large-scale persecution of Armenians was no longer a necessity for the center in Tbilisi. In the metropolis Armenians had long been marginalized, including the church and the real and imagined Dashnaks. Though there was a significant number of persecutions in Tbilisi, most of the victims were Armenians not born in Tiflis, but having migrated there or been delegated their by Soviet institutions; or else habitual criminals, thus not the remainder of the traditional Armenian bourgeoisie. Included in this result, the persecution of the Armenians in Abkhazia in the course of the Kulak operation is of some interest. This included 16% (15 out of 95 persons) of all Armenians persecuted in Georgia, although the Armenians of Abkhazia made up only slightly
Тable № 34 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po nacional'nosti s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Table № 37 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych na osnove stalinskich spiskov po nacional'nosti s maja 1937 g. po oktjabr' 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. Regarding the Stalin Lists only the figures up to and including December 1937 were taken into account to reduce to a minimum any overlap with the Kulak Troika and thus a double count, as the Kulak Troika began sentencing contingents of the military collegium in mid-October 1937. 313 The Georgian Stalin Lists include mainly intellectuals, party cadres and specialist staff among the persecuted Armenians. 312
154 above 10% of the Armenian population in Georgia. In the documents on the persecution of these Armenians, mainly refugees from the Ottoman Empire, there is understandably no mention of espionage or relationships with Turkey. Rather it can be assumed that the repression bureaucracy directed centrally from Tbilisi was also aiming to fight the Armenians settled in Abkhazia as potential allies of the Abkhaz in opposition to the numerical dominance of Georgians/Mingrelians there. Interestingly, some tendencies of cooperation are to be perceived until today, although of course this cannot be offhandedly projected into the past. Armenian volunteer units did participated in the war of 1992/93 on the Abkhaz side314, and today the Armenians form the largest minority by far in Abkhazia.315 Unlike the Georgians, then, they were not obliged to flee the country. The numbers of repressed Armenians in the South of Georgia speak, via an examination of individual cases, of another type of territorial conflict. Somewhat less than a quarter (22 out of 95 persons) of all persecuted Armenians in Georgia were repressed here (Kulak operation). Here in particular the documents of persecution include the accusation of having supported the Armenian-nationalist Dashnaks, namely, in four fifths of the cases (18 of 22 persons; in all Georgia, only 13%). With the Armenians of Abkhazia, the fight against nationalism was of far less importance. Here, Dashnak connections are mentioned in “only” a third of cases (five out of 15 persons), which is still higher than the average for Georgia, but still much lower than in Southern Georgia. The main aim of the persecution of the Armenians thus was to bear down upon their integration in Georgian society. Subsidiary to this aim internal and, with regard to the brother
314
Regarding the Armenian participation in the war in Abkhazia in 1992-93 on the Abkhaz side cf. from a Georgian perspective B. Arveladze, T. Mibčuani, Armjanskij batalʹon imeni Bagramjana i ėtnočistka Gruzin v Abchazii (Tiflis, 2009); from an Abkhazians perspective see Ch. Takmaz, Armjane v otečestvennoj vojne naroda Abchazii (Krasnodar/Soči, 2012). 315 N. Trier, H. Lohm, D. Szakonzi, Under Siege. Inter-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia (London, 2010) pp. 125-127, depicts the “delicate balance” after the war. Without idealizing the situation they describe the strong loyalty of the Armenian population towards the Abkhaz leadership.
155 republics, external territorial and border disputes also came into effect, especially in Abkhazia and in the territories of Southern Georgia compactly settled by Armenians. Now in order to be able to evaluate the repression of the Azerbaijanis in the “Great Terror” and to calculate the degree of repression for them, it is imperative to overcome some difficulties. The Muslim and Turkish populations in the area of what later became Georgia were in tsarist times most commonly designated as “Tatars” (tatary), from 1918 on, by contrast, most commonly as “Turks” (tiurki), with a wider connotation in the sense of “Turkic-descended people”. Only small minorities were designated as Turks (turki, without the ‘i’). In 1937 this population then mutated into “Azerbaijanis”; however, this newer usage for quite some time was not uniform. In the Troika protocols of 1937-38, some of the relevant persons – ethnographically speaking, modern Azerbaijanis – are indeed persecuted as Azerbaijanis (azerbaidzhantsy), but others still as tiurki. In 1944, in the course of the great deportation out of Georgia, the Turkic-speaking people deported from Southwest Georgia were reclassified again, for obvious opportunistic reasons, and uniformly depicted as turki (Turks), which ethnographically indeed fits this group best. In fact, the two groups, Azerbaijanis and Turks, are distinct in many respects. The Turks lived mostly in Southwest Georgia in areas that until 1829 (Meskhetia) or 1878 (Adzharia) had belonged to the Ottoman Empire. They were Sunnis, spoke the Turkish language and were closely allied through kinship with the population immediately across the border in Turkey. In 1944 this population was almost completely deported to Central Asia. The Azerbaijanis bordering on the east, in contrast, lived in areas that had been annexed by Russia not from the Ottoman Empire, but from Persia, in 1801 and 1813 (treaty of Gulistan). The vast majority were Shiites, spoke Turkic dialects which would now be classified as Azerbaijani (quite distinct from Turkish) and were not oriented towards Turkey. In 1944 this population was not deported.
156 It is possible and necessary to filter out the Turks, not only from the population statistics, but also from the repression documents, in order to be able to calculate the repression coefficient, whereby both must be placed in relation to the other. In the census of 1937 (reference day 6 January) the number of tiurki in Georgia was recorded as 178,038, the number of turki as 9,387. These figures do not represent an ethnographical reality (there were far more Turks and fewer Azerbaijanis); but the sum, 187,425, can serve as a basic population total for the calculation of repression numbers. For the actual distribution of Turks and Azerbaijanis, however, we must tap into the census of 1926, as for 1937 the numbers by district are not available. In 1926, 49,170 tiurki were counted in the administrative district (uezd) of Akhaltsikhe, an additional 6,940 in the district of Akhalkalaki 6,940. By 1937, and thus during the Great Terror, these two districts had been split into the regions Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigeni and Bogdanovka. The Muslim population of this territory, part of the Ottoman Empire until 1829, consisted almost exclusively of Sunni Turks, not Shiite Azerbaijanis. To the east, this region bordered the uezd of Borchalo. Here the Muslim population was and is religiously mixed; in 1886, in the latest statistics in which the distinction between Shiite and Sunnis is found, there were 16,640 Shiites and 16,551 Sunnis in the uezd, that is, both groups were practically identical in size.316 Without a doubt, sympathy towards Sunnidominated Turkey might be assumed in a substantial portion of the Sunni population in Borchalo. Nevertheless, it makes sense to exclude this population from consideration as Turks: The relevant zone had not been annexed from the Ottoman Empire, but from Persia; the Muslim inhabitants were separated from the Turks in Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki by a broad band of non-Muslim, mostly Armenian, inhabitants. Finally, as already mentioned, the
Zakavkazskij statističeskij komitet (ed.) Svod statističeskich dannych o naselenii Zakavkazskogo kraja, izvlečennych iz posemejnych spiskov 1886 g. (Tiflis, 1893). 316
157 Muslims from this formerly Persian zone were not deported in 1944, but allowed to stay in place, including the Sunnis. In consequence, persons prosecuted as tiurki or azerbaidzhantsy in the Troika protocols, but with either birthplace or residence (sometimes both are listed, sometimes only one) in the regions Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigeni, Aspindza and Bogdanovka (Meskhetia, annexed from the Ottoman Empire in 1829), or in Adzharia (annexed from the Ottoman Empire in 1878), or indeed in Turkey itself, were classified as Turks. Persons prosecuted as tiurki or azerbaidzhantsy but with a birthplace or residence elsewhere in Georgia, or in Armenia or Azerbaijan or Iran, or with no specified birthplace or residence, have been classified as Azerbaijanis. In 1926, a total of four categories of “Turks” were counted in Georgia: 137,921 tiurki and 3,810 tiurki osmanskie with Soviet citizenship as well as 531 tiurki and 1,463 tiurki osmanskie without Soviet citizenship, in total 143,725.317 Ethnographically and for the purpose of this study, all 5,273 tiurki osmanskie can be regarded as Turks, as can the 56,110 (49,170 + 6,940) tiurki in the uezdy Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki, all together 63,383 out of the total of 143,725 (= 44%). The remaining 80,342 (56%) must be viewed as Azerbaijanis, of whom, however, a significant minority (mainly in Borchalo) are Sunnis who cannot be filtered out in a meaningful way. If we now transfer these percentages recorded on the basis of numbers from 1926 in a proportionate way to the sum of 1937 (187,425), then an arithmetical value of approximately 82,500 Turks and 105,000 Azerbaijanis results. There are still further uncertain areas that, however, have been determined to play no role after a review of pertinent Troika protocols. Thus in Georgia in 1926 alone, 12,768 “Georgians with Turkish or rather Turkic (tiurkskii) as a native language” were counted, and an additional 1,154 Kartvelians, mostly Georgians and Laz, with Ottoman Turkish (turetsko-
317
Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenija 1926 godа, book. XIV, p. 39 [Georgia].
158 osmanskii) as a native language.318 One may also note that most persons persecuted as Iranians (irantsy) were ethnically Azerbaijanis. Both groups do not, however, create additional problems in clarifying the numbers of repressed Turks and Azerbaijanis. From pertinent Troika protocols it can be deduced that a significant number of “Turkish-speaking” Georgians were indeed repressed as Georgians, and thus need not concern us; and that the ethnic Azerbaijanis from Iran were indeed repressed as Iranians, and thus also need not concern us. What the Azerbaijanis, despite all differences, had in common with the Turks was their low level of integration into modern Soviet society, their low social status. Of all 137,921 persons counted as tiurki with Soviet citizenship in 1926, only 6.7% (9,285), for example, could read (gramotnye), and of these only 1,953 in their own language. The total of 137,921 of course includes everyone, including very small children. A realistic illiteracy rate, including only persons of school age or older, would thus be somewhat lower, but still in the vicinity of 90%, even after five years of schooling under the Soviet regime. In the case of both Azerbaijanis and Turks, one is dealing with a very predominantly rural, neglected and marginalized population, peasants and shepherds in a subsistence economy. Up to the time of collectivization, many of the Azerbaijanis were farm labourers on farms and manors owned by Germans or Georgians. Marginal urban portions of the population were located only in Tbilisi (approximately 5,000, largely Azerbaijanis) and in Batumi (both, but mostly Turks). But even here both groups belonged to the lower class, working as unskilled occupations, not unlike the local Kurds and Yezidis, with only a very thin layer of bourgeoisie.319 Their portion of the salaried employees and political cadres was correspondingly slight. If one nevertheless decides to calculate the repression degree of the Azerbaijanis in order to determine whether with them the social status in comparison to the Armenians once more clearly influences
318 319
Ibidem, p. 31 [Georgia]. Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenija 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 16 [Georgia].
159 results, one encounters the same problem with the repression documents as with the census.320 On the one hand, the designation of the nationality was changed from tiurki to azerbaidzhantsy”, in fact, in the context of the implementation of the Stalinist constitution on 5 December 1936; however, it took some time until this change was adopted everywhere. In the repression documents of 1937-38, the designation is likewise handled non-uniformly; tiurki (officially no longer in existence) and azerbaidzhantsy appear interchangeably, the latter with 1,250 persons.321 With the National Troika the “error quota” was in fact 66%: 18 of 29 Azerbaijanis were Turks (i.e., people from the designated former Ottoman territories in the West).322 In the Police Troika documents, by contrast, not a single person came from the named regions! In that sense, the National Troika focused on Turks, and the Police Troika on Azerbaijanis. The total number of persecuted Azerbaijanis comes to approximately 1,250 persons, of Turks to approximately 367. The Azerbaijanis as a whole were thus persecuted in relation to their portion of the population at just a third higher (1.19% vs. 0.44%) than the Turks or turki. Regarding the severity of the punishment, i. e. death penalty vs. imprisonment, the difference (0.67% vs. 0.27%) is just as clear. The very noticeable differences in terms of quantity and ‘quality’ (severity) of the punishment between Azerbaijanis and Turks merit special consideration, most of all because these two ethnic groups had approximately the same social status in Soviet society, thus the repression bodies must have had other reasons for the milder punishment of the Turks.
320
For a corresponding calculation of the Turks, see the diaspora nationalities below. Table 34 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po nacional'nosti s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. In the census with the reference data of 6 January 1937, however, only tiurki appeared. V. B. Žiromskaja i. a. (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1937 goda, p. 107. 322 Of the 29 convicted Azerbaijanis 18 were born in region Akhaltsikhe. One person of these was sentenced to death. 321
160 Especially interesting with Azerbaijanis and Turks is that beyond the policy of deception evident in the census, during the actual repressions within the group designated as tiurki, a very precise distinction was made between tiurki and turki. Especially the sectarian differences (Sunni/Shiite) corresponded to patterns of ‘offences’ that elicited different reactions from the NKVD. The Sunnis had close relations with Turkey. In the Kulak Troika the Sunnis are severely persecuted, mostly for forming illegal gangs (bandy), illegal border crossing, emigration to Turkey, ‘human trafficking’, that is, escort emigrants out of the Soviet Union. The Sunnis indeed identified themselves more strongly with Turkey, up to the point of emigration. This does not apply to the Shiites. Their resistance activity such as propaganda against collectivisation, cattle thievery, ‘sabotage work’ was directed inward rather that outward. Remarkably, the Shiite Azerbaijanis were persecuted to a much higher degree than the Sunni Turks, and significantly more often put to death, both populations being of nearly equal size. With a closer inspection of rayon Borchalo (present-day Marneuli), one recognizes that the offences with which the Sunnis even there are charged closely corresponded to those of the Turks. In this way numerous persons from the village of Arukhlo in Liuksemburg rayon are charged in two group trials. The charged individuals supposedly formed a gang and, among other things, went in search of the bride of the ‘bandit’ Kiarim Kurban ogly who had fled to Turkey, and escorted her along to Turkey, as well as a Turkish military-grade rifle with cartridges.323 The indictments in the not-too-distant village Fakhralo present a very different picture. This village was inhabited by Shiites and also suffered many victims of repression. But here agitation against the kolkhoz stood in the foreground, not contact with individuals beyond the border.
Protokol № 11 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 09.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 371, page 63ff. 323
161 The findings for the Police Troika are diametrically opposed to those for the Kulak Troika. Thus, via the Kulak Troika, which on the whole is the much more significant of the two, the Turks from the Southwest of Georgia were primarily persecuted, mostly for illegal and often armed border crossings, while in the Police Troika almost exclusively Azerbaijanis were subjected to repression, in fact, urban petty criminals and homeless people from Tbilisi as well as cattle thieves from the rural Southeast of Georgia. Via the Police Troika, 105 Azerbaijanis (0.1%) were persecuted, but only a single Turk (0.001%). Judging from the numbers of the Police Troika, it appears that the social status of the Azerbaijanis was lower than that of the Turks; or rather, that the Azerbaijanis possessed a minor, but significant dispossessed urban underclass in Tbilisi, whereas the Turks had no correspondent urban underclass. Cattle thievery, on the other hand, quickly gained ‘political overtones’ close to the border and became a case for the ‘Kulak Troika’. The patterns of repression thus are very different, and a distinction between Turks and Azerbaijanis appears meaningful, despite the methodological difficulties involved. If now, in conclusion, an internal comparison between the “Soviet” titular nationalities only on the basis of the Kulak Troika, then it becomes apparent that the Azerbaijanis were more often and than the Armenians, and more severely, too. The degree of repression in reference to the number of persecuted Azerbaijanis comes to 1.19%, that of the Armenians “only” to 0.44%. Regarding death sentences, the resulting values are 0.67% for the Azerbaijanis and 0.25% for the Armenians. The proportion between Azerbaijanis and Armenians is thus 1:0.4 (quantity) and also 1:0.4 (severity of the penalty).324 Here it is striking that with the Armenians, only a certain segment of the population was persecuted, while the Azerbaijanis, on the other hand, on the basis of their prevailing socially low status, were now, in the course of the Great Terror, persecuted broadly and severely for the first time, Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 324
162 in contrast to the Armenians. The few lower-ranking elites, like persons occupying leadership posts on the lower level, or simple party members, having reached the few low-level rungs of the social ladder available to Azerbaijanis in Georgia, were now purged via the Kulak Troika. Consulting the Stalinist Lists, the difference in status between Armenians and Azerbaijanis becomes clearly apparent. The latter are not included at all, whereas the Armenians, if not particularly prominently. Their degree of repression in terms of quantity (0.08%) and severity (0.07%) is practically even with that of the Georgians, our reference value. It is worthwhile to undertake a comparison of the low status ethnic groups with another of equally low status, namely the Ossetians. It is surprising that the Azerbaijanis, in quantity as well as in severity, were persecuted more severely and intensively than the Ossetians: in quantity 4 times as hard, in severity (death sentence) even almost 5 times as hard (1.19%:0.24% and 0.67%:0.13%).325 Here several factors play a role. The most important distinction between Ossetians and Azerbaijanis is that in the case of the Azerbaijanis social persecution was practiced to such an extent and with such severity. This meant in their case the persecution of (gang-type) criminality in particular and its intended sympathizers as well as “socially dangerous elements,” the homeless, and the unemployed. In order to convict these en masse via the Kulak Troika, their sentences were almost always amplified by adducing a political offense, such as the spreading of anti-Soviet propaganda, for the purpose of exaggerating their criminal resume. Noticeable is also the high quotient of persecuted individual farmers. Their influence in this predominantly rural area was obviously supposed to be broken. Also similar to the Ossetians is that in the case of the Azerbaijanis the few lowly “elites” present were thinned out significantly. Through pin-pointed, intensive persecution the already thin Soviet elite class, consisting mainly of low-level social climbers, was weakened. The few tiurki who in the Soviet system had advance a little up the social ladder were 325
Ibidem.
163 repressed intensely. Of 1,250 convicted persons, 111 (9%) were connected to the party. Of them, 74, that is 67%, were murdered. If one considers the convicted salaried employees separately, then of the 154 convicts from this class 97, that is 63% (of the peasants only 4 of 142, i.e. 3%) were sent to their death. There was a significant overlap as of the salaried employees 41% (63 persons) were party members. In addition to the state and party elites, the religious elites of the Azerbaijanis were also severely persecuted, even if not as systematically as in the case of the Turks. The Kulak Troika convicted 18 Mullas, of these 61% (11 persons) were sentenced to death, which for clergymen, groups disproportionately threatened with death, is a comparatively “low” quota. Upon consideration of the individual conviction cases, it is however also apparent that with the Azerbaijanis, just as with the Armenians, a below-the-surface sibling conflict over territories created a fallout between Georgia and Azerbaijan. The 31 Mussavatists and “Tadzhi”-Party loyalists, i.e. followers of nationalistic Azerbaijani groupings, can be almost exclusively located among the Azerbaijanis settled on the Georgian side of the GeorgianAzerbaijani border.326 Regarding the Ossetians, the factor of Caucasian competition and fear of border corrections to the detriment of Georgia was either completely eliminated or it did not carry through to the Troika protocols. The intent of the disproportionate persecution of the Azerbaijanis, who in numbers and severity were treated with a harshness comparable to that the Abkhazians suffered, could only have been to prevent the articulation of interests, be they religious, cultural, social or political. The desired side-effect was the repression of the tiurki from political and social participation in Georgia. The Georgians, even if unintentional, could be counted as the profiteers.
Тable 10 "Količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 31 dekabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 326
164 7. High Status “Soviet” Nationalities: Russians, Ukrainians and Jews The only groups that had gained the same or similar social and political status as the Georgians in Georgia were the Russians and Ukrainians. The latter consisted of a large number of industrial workers as well as members of the military and security agencies: In the census of 1926, 10,747 male in comparison to only 3,609 female Ukrainians were counted; in many administrative districts the gender ratios were even more imbalanced. 327 This leads to the conclusion that there was a large portion of single men, plausible if one assumes their employment in military/security agencies and industrial operations. These male-dominated patterns may have persisted in 1937, in the course of aggressive expansion of extractive and other heavy industries well as the security apparatus, in Georgia as well as elsewhere. Regarding the Russians, the situation was largely similar, with a preponderance of men, with the clear exception of the rural settlements of sect members (sektanty) such as Molokane [‘Milk People’] and Dukhobory [‘Fighters of the Spirit’]. These groups had been exiled from Central and Southern Russia to Transcaucasia in the 19th century as punishment for their perceived apostasy from the state church and their pacifist refusal to serve in the military. These latter were not high-status groups; rather, they were only tolerated and remained disadvantaged as “sectarians”. However, they often contributed through their economic diligence to the establishment of large agricultural operations on a near-industrial scale (dairies, cheese factories). In the Soviet era they were once again marginalized, again because of their religious convictions and their general impassive attitudes (e.g.pacifism), and now additionally as class enemies because of their economic success. The non-‘sectarian’ (largely urban, with the most heavy concentration in Tbilisi itself) Russians were thus overrepresented in Georgia’s party apparatus (9% of all party members were Russian in 1929).
327
Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenija 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 15 [Georgia].
165 Both the degree of repression (Ukrainians 0.73%, Russians 0.69%) and the frequency of the death sentence (Ukrainians 0.35%, Russians 0.36%) for both Eastern Slavic groups are only slighly above the benchmark figures for the Georgians.328 We must stress, then, that Russians and Ukrainians, considering the repression numbers, obviously possessed no special status as the dominant ethnic group in the Soviet state (quantitatively and historically) that would have shown up in lower repression numbers. Here we point, however, to the proportionally high portion of ‘sectarians’ Eastern Slavic population. It seems possible that here various aspects cancelled each other out. High-status Russian elites in the cities could have been mildly persecuted, whereas the ‘sectarians’ in the countryside, presenting many open flanks for attack, could have been hit much more severely. In this case investigations extending to the Troika protocols on the Russians and Ukrainians would be necessary. The repression of the Jewish population in Georgia presents itself as a special case. The Jewish population was concentrated in the cities of Georgia, not only in Tbilisi, but very significantly also in mid-size and smaller cities (much like in the former Pale of Settlement). They can be divided into Georgian Jews (evrei gruzinskie), who had resided in Transcaucasia already for centuries before the Russian annexation of Georgia, and had thoroughly assimilated to Georgian culture, speaking Georgian as their native language and having no knowledge whatsoever of Yiddish; and European Jews (Ashkenazim) who spoke Russian and in part also still Yiddish. In the smaller cities the Georgian Jews predominated; the Ashkenazim were more strongly represented in Tbilisi, which however also housed many Georgian Jews. In the census of 1926, 20,897 persons were categorised as Georgian Jews. 9,262 persons were designated simply as Jews, that is, as Eastern European Jews.329 Moreover, there were smaller groups of ‘Mountain Jews’ (evrei gorskie), a community that Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 329 Further groups of oriental Jews were in turn recorded separately, but they are numerically insignificant in Georgia. 328
166 spoke Tat, an Iranian language, and had its homes mainly in Azerbaijan and Dagestan; ‘Central-Asian Jews’ (evrei sredneaziatskie) who spoke Tadzhik and had their home mainly in Southern Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan, etc. In 1937 these distinctions were abolished; an in-between category like the evrei gruzinskie, ‘Georgians and Jews’ was now no longer desirable. It seems from the figures that at least 10,000 Georgian Jews were reclassified as Georgians in 1937, and the rest as Jews. Compared with the non-Jewish population of Georgia, the Jewish population was educated above average and was nearly completely urban, with a focal point not in Tbilisi but rather, as already stressed, in mid-size and smaller cities. Like elsewhere, they predominantly occupied petit-bourgeois occupations (craftsmen, artisans, traders); and while many were religious (especially among the evrei gruzinskie), they were also strongly represented in the party structures (mainly Ashkenazim, one may assume). The educational level of the Ashkenazim was higher than that of the Georgian Jews. It is unclear which of the two groups were persecuted to which degree, as Georgian and other Jews are not generally distinguished in the repression statistics of the NKVD for the years 1937-1938. Names, of course, would provide a clue (Georgian vs. Yiddish). In the context of the Kulak Troika Jews (all combined) show a repression coefficient of 0.58%, indeed below that of Russians and Ukrainians, but still nearly equal to the ratio of the Georgians. Very noticeable, however, is the frequent use of the death sentence in relation to their proportion of the population (0.41%). Almost 70% of persecuted Jews were handed the death sentence, compared to around 48% for Georgians, Russians, Ukrainians or Ossetians. The convictions via the National Troika played practically no role in the case of the Jews, with only five persons (0.007%) convicted. Germans, by contrast, were persecuted via this particular board, to a degree of of 0.1%, thus they were 14.3 times more likely to come before this tribunal. Yet, exactly like the Germans, a high percentage of those who did get
167 there were sentenced to death, in fact two out of the five, 40% (Germans 42%).330 Regarding the Dvoika, no data are available on the Jews that passed through there. Summing up these data, it seems clear that the Jews were no “enemy nationality”. The overall high social status of the Jews in Georgia can also be measured by examining the convictions via the Stalinist Lists. On the basis of these lists, 93 Jews were convicted from May 1937 to November 1938, which corresponds to the highest value in reference to their portion of the population of 0.31% (Germans 0.34%, Georgians 0.08%, Abkhazians 0.14%).331 Of these 93, 21 persons were convicted from May to 4 October 1937 via the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR (part of the Stalinist Lists). It is in stark contrast to this strong elite representation that very many Jews, in fact 85 persons, were also handled via the Police Troika, which took care of deviance on the other extreme of the social scale. The Jews were represented near the top and near the bottom of Soviet Georgian society, unlike e. g. the Germans, who largely lacked an underclass (and certainly an urban underclass) which corresponds to a repression rate of 0.29% via the Police Troika for the Jews, nearly ten times higher than for the Germans (0.03%).332 A closer examination of social origins and social status of the Jews sentenced by the Kulak Troika results in the finding that of the 173 persons hardly any were persecuted as farmers or “kulaks”, in total only 6 persons. That is not surprising, as in Georgia, like elsewhere, Jews were for historical reasons (legal and factual restrictions and landownership) very much underrepresented in rural areas, and particularly among peasants and landowners. By contrast, (former) merchants and petit-bourgeois as well as persons who had worked in the Table 40 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("nacional'naja" trojka) s 25 sentjabrja 1938 g. po 23 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 331 Table 43 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("Stalinskie spiski") s 31 maja 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 332 Тable 41 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("milicejskaja" trojka) s 1 avgusta 1937 g. po 22 nojabrja1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 330
168 Tsarist security apparatus were severely hit (a combined 32 persons). The educational level of the Jews concerned was very high: Over 50% had completed secondary or even higher (tertiary) education.333 Only one illiterate could be found among them. Having a political past played no role, on the other hand; indeed, nearly one-third (52 of 173) were former members of the VKP(b). The death rate of 83% (43 persons of 52) among these is staggering, as is the concentration of the repression on salaried employees (95% of all victims, strongly overlapping with party members) and their extermination at the rate of more than three quarters (76% death sentences) must be emphasized.334 The (comparatively) high educational level achieved by the Jews convicted via the Kulak Troika and their presence in the government and party apparatus can be traced back above all to the fact that many of them (40%, 72 of 173) must be attributed to the Military Collegium contingent that in Georgia was handled by the Kulak Troika, in contravention of the rules. This also serves to explain the very high percentage of death sentences.335 Equally noticeable is that for the persecution of the Jews, 1938 was the major year (95 convictions against 83 in 1937), whereas in general, the repression numbers of the Kulak Troika, dropped off sharply in 1938. This again seems closely connected to the particularly elevated Jewish contingent passing through the Military Collegium as part of the Kulak Troika in 1938.336 A typical such “case” of the Military Collegium was the leader of the building yard (stroitel’nyi trest) of the city council of Tbilisi. A party member since 1931, highly educated,
Of 113 Jews, 31 had access to a high and 33 to a mid-level education. Table 47 "Osuždenie Evreev trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR („kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 334 Of 129 persons, on whom corresponding data were available, 123 worked in the service sector and two were labourers. Ebda. 335 A sample of 33 persons (out of 173 total) was selected: the first ten from 1937 and 1938 and then every tenth person. 336 On the close connection between the Kulak Troika and the Military Council of the Highest Court of the USSR, cf. M. Junge, G. Kldiašvili, Regionalizacija karatel’nych polnomočij in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. Also the rule violations become clear here. 333
169 Isak Matveevich Shenderov (clearly an Ashkenazi Jew) was sentenced to death on 9 November 1937 for membership in the “Counterrevolutionary Terrorist Sabotage and Espionage Organisation of the Right [Aberration] in Georgia” and for “performance of sabotage work at large construction projects of Tbilisi Construction”.337 The actual Kulak Troika contingent of Jews, excluding the very untypical Military Collegium cases, was less educated and mostly politically neutral. Even “speculators” and other criminals, not accused of offences of a political nature, were found among them sporadically. Such cases typically were handled by the Police Troika in the case of other ethnic groups, but not in the case of the Jews, presumably because they came from small cities, where the Kulak Troika was generally used, the Police Troika often concentrating on Tbilisi. Representative of this is the politically unaffiliated accountant of the municipal residential administration of Sukhumi, originating from petit-bourgeois circumstances, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Mekkler (another Ashkenazi Jew, fairly assimilated according to his and his father’s given name, even if one assumes he changed it). He caught the attention of the NKVD of Abkhazia by the fact that he, as an earlier employee of the police department of Sukhumi, was “connected with V. LAKOBA, member of the counterrevolutionary, trotskyist espionage and insurgence organization and on its instruction purloined a letter from a desk and delivered it to V. LAKOBA.” In addition, Mekkler was accused of “abuse of authority and embezzlement of money while working in the police department”. The sale of a service weapon for 250 rubles was discovered and the provision of money “that was acquired through schemes, to the counterrevolutionary, V. LAKOBA”. Moreover he supposedly covered up the sabotage activities of V. LAKOBA. As usual, the sentence of the Kulak Troika on 9 November 1937 was made out succinctly as “death by firing squad”.338
Protokol № 43 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 09.11.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37403, page 38. 338 Protokol № 49 zasedanija trojkipri NKVD GSSR ot 19.11.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37409, page 44. 337
170 The reasons for convictions of Jews by the Kulak Troika mostly consist of innerSoviet, political matters. Such cases make up some 82% (27 of 33) of all cases. Among the very few cases processed by the National Troika, espionage again played a central role, in favor of Poland and Turkey (3 of 5 cases), but in rather tragic irony, also in favor of fascist Germany (2 cases). In the Kulak Troika, too, 2 of the 5 cases with a foreign policy background or connection again insinuate a link with Nazi Germany. In the case of the Jews, the close connection between social status and intensity of repression was already very obvious, but can be supported even further, above all because it became possible, through the consideration of the conviction in each individual case, to distinguish in the end between Georgian Jews and others, almost exclusively of Eastern European origins. The Ashkenazi Jews, nearly always endowed with at least a secondary education, often even a higher education, are typically persecuted via the Stalinist Lists and the Kulak Troika, which, as shown, were numerically dominated by the elite group of the Jewish Military Collegium contingent. The same is true for the National Troika. By contrast, the few explicitly Georgian Jews convicted by the Kulak Troika (including the Military Collegium) were almost always less educated and very often connected with the usual criminal milieu, or stood out as notorious itinerants, transients, beggars and unemployed. Correspondingly, the picture was inversed in the documents of the Police Troika. Here, the Georgian Jews are dominant, and Ashkenazim are rare. Typical of the Jewish Police Troika contingent is the uneducated (malogramotnyi) Georgian Jew Zebo Eloevich Kosashvili from Kutaisi. His file at the Georgian police was rather thick: in 1921 theft, in 1935 first conviction by the Troika of the NKVD – that is, through the Police Troika – as a “socially destructive element”, then again theft, finally once again arrest for gambling, and connections with (other) repeat offenders and habitual criminals. He was sentenced to five years in a labor
171 camp, despite an extremely thin evidence base and the fact that he had long since served his terms of punishment for his earlier offences.339 Expressed in numbers, out of 21 Jews convicted in the external sessions of the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR from May to 4 October 1937 (Stalinist Lists without Kulak Troika), only two were Georgian Jews. In the Kulak Troika their portion climbed to a still low 15% (27 of 173 persons), but in the Police Troika they actually dominated at 62% (53 of 85 persons). In the National Troika, the Georgian Jews do not appear at all. All in all, a total of 82 Georgian Jews came before the various boards.340 The other Jews were persecuted 2.5 times as frequently (207 persons), and that despite being a numerically somewhat smaller group.341 In 1926, twice as many evrei gruzinskie had been counted as other evrei; in proportion, then, their repression was thus in fact five times as severe. The population numbers thus point to a two-way division of the repression goals that were strictly oriented in the repression documents around the social position of Georgian and Eastern European Jews. Of the Ashkenazim, especially those were punished who had reached positions at or near the top of the social and political ladder. Of the Georgian Jews, it was mainly those lowest on the social scale and déclassé (those once higher on the social scale) elements who were targeted. Expressed differently, the persecution showed, on the one hand, a clear emphasis on the “purging” of party and state of Eastern Jews in the sense of political and administrative titular homogenization. The “unparalleled advance” of these Jews in state and party was thus halted and reversed in Georgia already in the Great Terror through a “Dekorenizatsiia” (G. Simon), as this group bore the brunt of repression, more than two
Protokol № 103/60 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 18.08.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 359, p. 34. 340 2+9+18+53=82. 341 19+84+77+5+22=207. 339
172 thirds (72%, or 200 persons) of cases.342 On the other hand, the mid-size and small cities of Georgia were purged disproportionately of Georgian Jews who had had little or no access to education, and became noted for any form of deviance. It must be emphasized that the Police Troika, in which the cases of the Georgian Jews dominate, affected the Jews represented here almost nine times as frequently as ethnic Georgians (0.26% : 0.03%).343 Their stereotypical reputation as gamblers, speculators and thieves had marked them, which is clearly reflected in the Troika protocols in that such accusations are adduced as reasons for conviction. Together with the Yezidis, who were persecuted by the Police Troika nearly ten times as frequently as Georgians (0.38% : 0.04%), this result has substantial influence on the thesis already extended by the factors “point in time and space of time” (time-differentiated repression of the Ossetians and Abkhazians) and “geography” (prioritarian purging of contested and vulnerable territory like Abkhazia, and of urban spaces as potential trouble hotspots), that low- status nationalities were persecuted less, high-status nationalities significantly more. This must not only be expanded on, but also modified to the effect that low-status nationalities, or lower-status subgroups of a nationality, were always also quantifiably persecuted in a severe fashion if there was a combination of geographic and sociological and ethnic-cultural as well as social factors. In the case of the Yezidis (see next section) and Georgian Jews, “geography” must be primarily applied to repression in cities, which in turn, in combination with data gleaned from the Ossetians case, leads to the
342
Persecuted through the Stalinist Lists were (21 persons), the Kulak Troika (173), the National Troika (5) and the Police Troika (85), in total 289 Jews. Simon dates the phenomenon of the dekornizacija as not beginning until after the Second World War. G. Simon, Der Kommunismus und die nationale Frage, Osteuropa (2013), No. 5-6, vol. 63, pp. 107-124, here p. 114; G. Simon, Juden in der Sowjetunion. Von der Emanzipation in den 1920 Jahren zur Verfolgung in der späten Stalinzeit, in A. Engel-Braunschmidt, E. Hübner (ed.), Jüdische Welten in Osteuropa (Frankfurt a. M., 2005), pp. 85-100. 343 Таble 41 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("milicejskaja" trojka) s 1 avgusta 1937 g. po 22 nojabrja1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
173 conclusion that urban social problems typically attracted more attention in Georgia than rural problems.
8. “Foreign” Nationalities: Kurds, Yezidis, Greeks and Iranians The repression of ethnic diaspora minorities, i.e. those whose main settlement areas lay outside of the Soviet Union, regardless of citizenship, can be calculated and compared for five nationalities: Kurds, Greeks, Turks, Germans and Iranians; the Yezidis constitute a special group. In the analysis, parallels within this group of foreign nationalities will first not be focussed on, with certain exceptions. Rather, the fate of the Kurds, Greeks, Turks, Germans and Iranians will be not only compared with that of Armenians, Ossetians and Abkhazians, but also of Georgians and Laz, although these are “Soviet” nationalities (Armenians), lessertitular nationalities in Georgia (Ossetians, Abkhazians), the titular nationality (Georgians) and a group with an ambiguous relationship to the titular group (Laz). This will serve the purpose of not neglecting inner-Georgian repression motives and similarities in the quantity and quality (severity) of repression. Only after examining these inner-Soviet parallels will we come to a comparison between the members of the diaspora groups themselves. The Kurds are an ethnic group whose traditional homeland, is located outside of Georgia and also outside of the Soviet Union (the presence of Kurds in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and also Turkmenistan, represents only a small fraction of all Kurds, and only in Armenia and Nakhichevan is there anything like contiguity of Kurdish populations between the Soviet Union and Turkey), like in the Laz case. Like the Laz, they did not have their ‘own’ (Kurdish) state. However, their areas of compact settlement mainly lay geographically farther away than those of the Laz (and Turks). Like with the Armenians, the Kurds in Georgia were divided into urban and rural populations, but unlike the Armenians, not along social lines, but rather along religious ones. As pictured appropriately in the census of 1926, the Kurds actually form two quite distinct groups. The Muslim (in Georgia practically exclusively Sunni) ‘Kurds’
174 (kurdy) in the narrow sense and the non-Muslim ‘Yezidis’ (iezidy, later spelling ezidy).344 7,955 Kurds and 2,262 Yezidis with Soviet citizenship were recorded in Georgia in 1926, and an additional 141 Kurds and 39 Yezidis with a foreign (largely Turkish) citizenship; in total thus 10,397 persons, of whom 2,301 (22%) were Yezidis, the remainder (78%) Sunnis.345 The Sunni Kurds in Georgia were living in exactly the same area as the Turks: in the areas which had belonged to the Ottoman Empire until 1829 (Meskhetia around Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki) or 1878 (Adzharia, i.e. Batumi and its hinterland). Some were living in separate Kurdish villages, others interspersed with Turks. These Kurds were peasants, often engaged in animal husbandry, occasionally practising transhumance (which for outsiders gives the impression of “nomadism”, moving between pastures but having a permanent home in the valleys). The Kurds were generally illiterate, but the ‘high culture’ traditionally available to them was that of Islam and of Ottoman Turkish, so that the few that could read were literate in Turkish, and Turkish was widely used besides Kurdish.346 The Yezidis speak Kurdish, indeed the same variant, Kurmanji, as the Sunni Kurds present in Georgia, Armenia and the East of Turkey. But the Yezidis’ religion is clearly nonIslamic, despite later Islamic influences. Because of the special role that the devil plays in their religion, they have often been designated by Muslims as devil-worshippers (Turkish şeytanperest) and repeatedly been persecuted brutally, often indeed by other (Sunni) Kurds. In 344
On the religion of the Yezidis, representative is J. S. Guest, Survival Among the Kurds. A History of the Yezidis (London/New York, 1993). 345 Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, pp. 232-233. In the Transcaucasus and specifically Georgia there was according to evidence of the very thorough tsarist ethnographic research practically no Alevitians (only one very small group in Karabakh in Azerbaijan). Isolated Alevitian migrants, e. g. in Batumi would undoubtedly have been subsumed under kurdy in 1926. 346 In the matter of reading ability it remains unclear whether the persons had command of Ottoman (modified Arabic) or Latin writing of the Turkish language. Theoretically they would have been able to read Kurdish as well with knowledge of these writing systems; there were, however, in the Soviet Union up until 1929/30 no Kurdish books with the exception of a reading primer printed in 1921 in Armenia for Yezidis that, however, used the Armenian alphabet, which Muslim Kurds did not have in their command. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 211ff; J. S. Guest, Survival Among the Kurds. A History of the Yezidis (London/New York, 1993).
175 the bloody battles between Armenians on the one hand and Turks/Azerbaijanis on the other in 1918, Yezidi irregular cavalry fought on the Armenian side, and Sunni Kurdish (and, in Karabakh, Shiite Kurdish) irregular cavalry, on the Turkish/Azerbaijani side.347 The Yezidis had only begun to arrive on Georgian territory in the 19th century, and in large numbers as refugees during persecutions of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, 1896/97 and 1915-18 in particular. They had sought refuge mainly in the most multicultural cities, foremost in Tbilisi and, in much lower numbers, in Batumi. In contrast to the urban Armenians these recent arrivals were almost all indigent and uneducated, indeed illiterate. They mostly occupied the lowliest occupations, as carriers of goods or water, as door guards, rag pickers and street sweepers. Yezidi elites consisted of few traditional tribal and religious leaders.348 Because of their religious isolation and prolonged experience of repression, the Yezidis were a group both tightly knit and withdrawn, their private lives and families sealed off from the outside world. Because of their lowly, ‘proletarian’, social standing, the Yezidis on the one hand must have appeared suitable for indoctrination and mobilization by the Bolsheviks.349 On the other hand, however, they were religious and possessed deep-seated loyalties founded on tribal or clan structures. The Yezidis remained among themselves, with only limited interaction with Armenians and Georgians; a strict endogamy prevailed, that is, marriage occurred only among Yezidis. Separate repression data are available for (Sunni) Kurds and Yezidis.350 A difficulty is presented by a lack of record on the respective proportion of both groups in the population. In
347
Guest, Survival Among the Kurds, p. 197. Ezidian elites resided above all in Armenia, for example Arab Šamilov, a (Ezidian-) Kurdish shepherd, who also with the help of his autobiography: Kurdish Shepherd (kurdskii pastukh) advanced to become an exemplary Kurd in Armenia and all of Transcaucasus and was active in the writers guild and in the party until he was arrested in 1938. 349 Partrabota sredi ezidov. Iz besedy s instruktorom CK KPA tov. Šamilovym, Zarja Vostoka (Tbilisi, 24.06.1925 ), p. 3; A. Šamilov, Kurdy Zakavkazʼja, Revoljucija i nacionalʼnosti (1930), No 15-16, pp. 86-89. 350 Table 34 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po nacional'nosti s 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. 348
176 the census of 1937, only a total number of 12,601 Kurds can be found, Yezidis being no longer (unlike in 1926) distinguished from other, generally Muslim, Kurds. As a backstop, one can use the data for 1926.351 If one assumes that proportion in 1937 as it was then (see above), namely, with ca 3:1 (Sunni Kurds: Yezidis), this results in numerical values of 9,451 Sunni Kurds and 3,150 Yezidis in the total of 12,601.352 These numbers, of course not to be interpreted as exact ones, can be corroborated with the help of the fact that in 1944, in the course of the deportation of the Turks, Kurds and Khemshins out of Southwest Georgia (the former Ottoman territory), the number of deported Kurds is indicated with 8,694 in the documents of the NKVD.353 Since a smaller portion of the Sunni Kurds had in the course of the collectivization, among other things, fled to Turkey, others had migrated to Tbilisi (as shown in additional NKVD documents) and yet others were serving in the Red Army or, indeed, had already fallen in battle. The numbers; 9,451 Muslim Kurds for 1937 in all Georgia, mainly Meskhetia and Adzharia; 8,694 deported from Meskhetia and Adzharia in 1944, seem to be in accord as much as can be expected. The clearly low-status Sunni Kurds, exactly like the Ossetians and in complete conformity with the initial hypothesis, were subjected to a ‘minor’ amount of repression at 0.32% (Ossetians 0.24%). The percentage of death sentences, in fact, is as low as 0.13% (Ossetians also 0.13%), that is, more than one third of the total number of those convicted were executed, compared to half the persecuted Ossetians.354 Moreover, in contrast to the
(eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR („kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 351 For the year 1926 it is assumed there were ca. 10,000 Kurds in Georgia, among them 8,000 Sunnis and 2,000 Yezidis. Müller, Sowjetische Nationalitätenpolitik, p. 221. 352 3/4 to 1/4, that is, 9,451 : 3,150 = 12,601 Kurds in total. 353 N. F. Bugaj, T. M. Broev, R. M. Broev, Sovetskie kurdy. Vremja peremen (Moscow, 1993), p. 71. 354 Table 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
177 Abkhazians, nothing is known of numerically significant repressions prior to the summer of 1937 among the hardly noticeable elites of the Sunni Kurds. In the course of the activities of the Kulak Troika, a total of 30 Kurds were convicted in 1937-38. Nine of these alone originated from one mid-sized village, Nakalakevi in Aspindza rayon; a further nine from other villages of the rayon, that is, in total 18 victims came from Aspindza (60%). Five persons, among them atypically three women, lived in Akhaltsikhe rayon (17%).355 The typical accusations have to do with Turkey. Thus, many victims were accused of having family ties to ‘bandits beyond the border’ (zakordonnye bandity) in Turkey or of themselves being ‘gang members’ having illegally crossed the border multiple times, and sometimes apprehended while trying to do so this again. This applies to no fewer than 14 persons (47%), among them the three women, all of whom were executed. A further group consists of persons associated with the Islamic clergyman (Mullah) Bastanzhiev.356 According to the accusations, he had formed a counter-revolutionary organization in and around Nakalakevi, with the goal of preparing an armed uprising. Besides him and his son, several dozen other persons had belonged to this organisation according to the indictment; only five, however, appear in the protocols. These five had served as soldiers or gendarmes during the Ottoman occupation of Aspindza, in 1918; they were thus clearly held to be particularly dangerous. In total, seven persons in the narrow sense thus belonged to the Bastanzhiev group, of whom four were shot. The remaining five persons, other than the 14 bandits/’border violators’ and the 7-person Bastanzhiev group, represent part of the leadership personnel of the Kurdish community. Among them, the chairman of the Nakalakevi kolkhoz is convicted,
The repression of women was the absolute exception. Cf. on this the section “rod” [Gender] in the chapter “Kachestvennyj analiz massovykh operatsii” [Qualitative Analysis of the Mass Operations], in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 356 Father Bastanzhiev Molla Šavket Ibragim ogly, son Akhmed Šavket ogly. Cf. Protokol № 66 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 14.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37427, vol. 2, pp. 119-120. 355
178 who supposedly not only performed sabotage work for a counterrevolutionary organisation, but is also accused of maintaining contacts with the Dashnaks; with him, the chairman of the Nakalakevi village Soviet is punished. Both received ten years in a prison camp.357 Two other Kurds are convicted because of alleged anti-Soviet agitation. One Kurd finally presents an exception to these patterns: He supposedly had been involved in murders in 1925 and 1933 far removed from the Turkish border, and also led a band of thieves. By way of the National Troika six Kurds were convicted for border violations and disloyal behaviour with respect to the economic measures of the Soviet power. There was no “Kurdish line” or “operation”; the corresponding protocols bear the notation po turkam, i.e. they are part of the “Turkish Line”. In fact, all six persons had come from Turkey illegally, had crossed the border illegally multiple times, pleaded for an exit permit to Turkey and all the while agitated against the collectivization and the Soviet power as well. The accused were sentenced to penal servitude in five cases; the sixth Kurd, explicitly accused of espionage, was shot.358 In the documents of the Police Troika, four persons were designated as “Kurds”. In fact, however, three of them were Yezidis, as is obvious from their names and their places of birth in Yezidi villages of Armenia; the fourth person could also have been a Yezidi. It thus appears appropriate to count these persons among the Yezidis and to treat them in that context (see below).
Mustafa Geidar ogly, chairman of the kolkhoz. Protokol № 69 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 21.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37427, vol. 2, p. 47; Bagirov Chavush Bagirovich, chairman of the village Soviet. Protokol № 78 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 29.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37435, vol. 2, p. 146. 358 Kiamal Sefo ogly (shot), Khaso ogly Omer ogly Achmed Bukavazandi. Protokol № 1 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 25.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38467, page 13, 60. Ali ogly Meirali Bukavazandi (born in 1875), Ali ogly Meirali ogly Ismail Bukavazandi (born in 1906), Khusein ogly Bakhri ogly Surmani Bukavazandi, Amo ogly Akhmed ogly Khasan ogly Ali Uliamazy. Protokol № 26 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 01.10.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38469, p. 47. 357
179 Overall it appears that for the (Sunni) Kurds the pattern corresponds exactly to that for the Turks. In the Kurdish villages along the border, family ties to Turkey existed, as well as with Turks in the villages; especially in the course of collectivization, numerous persons crossed the border illegally, some returning later, others keeping in touch with relatives who then also attempted to emigrate or agitated for emigration. Some persons had also served in armed Ottoman organisations, army or gendarmerie, in 1918. Both future ambitions and past deeds were systematically pursued in 1937-38. Simultaneously, members of what elites there were –low-ranking Soviet functionaries such as kolkhoz and Sel’sovet chairmen – were targeted as well. For the Yezidis, however, the hypothesis of a lower degree of repression in the case of low-status nationalities cannot be verified. The degree of repression in reference to the portion of the population at 0.73% is more than twice as high as that of the Sunni Kurds (0.25%) or the Ossetians (0.24%). The degree of repression with respect to the number of those persecuted is significantly above that for the Georgians (0.73% vs. 0.63%). These numbers are underscored by the information on the use of the death sentence. In relation to the portion of the population, the Yezidis suffered 0.51% executions, at almost the same level as the Abkhazians (0.57%). In the relation of the death sentence to labor camp terms and to the total number of convicted Yezidis, the number climbs to a very high 1:0.4 or 70%, higher even than for the Abkhazians 1:0.8 and 57%. Noticeably, too, the repression of the Yezidis peaked only in 1938, with a repression degree of 0.67% (1937-1938 together 0.73%). If in 1937 the NKVD had convicted a total of only 2 Yezidis, both to camp arrest, in the following year the number of convicts jumped to 21 persons and the use of the death sentence became the rule. For the Sunni Kurds, by contrast, the repressions are distributed evenly over the years 1937 and 1938 (1937 = 0.13%, 1938 = 0.13%, combined 0.26%). In the course of the repression of the Yezidis, one must distinguish between two aspects, which then again had certain points in common, but are first of all clearly distinct
180 ‘ideal types’. The Yezidis belonged to the urban lower class in Tbilisi (much like today, incidentally) and Batumi. For this reason, one would expect a rather extensive repression via the Police Troika, and this did indeed occur: 12 persons (0.38%) were convicted as Yezidis by the Police Troika, all in Tbilisi. The accusations had to do with typical patterns of urban crime and deviance in general: theft, gambling, residence and passport offences, in part also breakins and robberies. The actual repression of the Yezidis via the Police Troika is in fact even higher, since the four persons repressed by the Police Troika as “Kurds” were, as noted, in fact also. With three of them this must clearly be assumed, as shown by a place of origin in Yezidi villages of Armenia, and Yezidi names; with the fourth, the probability is high. This recording of Yezidis as Kurds is due to the ambiguity of the word “Kurd”, since the Yezidis as a category, though indeed appearing in the documents, had already officially been done away with as a religious group, so that Yezidis in the documents can appear as Kurds or Yezidis; Muslim Kurds, by contrast, can appear only as Kurds, not as Yezidis. In reality then, 16 Yezidis (0.51%) were convicted via the Police Troika, the 12 designated in the documents as Yezidis and four designated as Kurds. Now the (only) two cases of the Kulak Troika in 1937 belong in precisely this context of the repression of criminals, generally channelled via the Police Troika. The two individuals charged, Khalilov and Dukaev, had numerous prior criminal convictions (thieves, repeat offenders). They were arrested on 28 September 1937 in the train station of Tbilisi in the course of boarding a train, and on Dukaev a “Browning” with seven cartridges was found. Obviously it was this weapon in Dukaev’s possession which resulted in this double case (Khalilov/Dukaev) being handled not by the Police Troika, but by the Kulak Troika, with its higher maximal sentence limits; both received ten years servitude in a labor camp.359 The two cases thus belong in the context of ‘common’ crime just like the Police Troika cases, since there is no political reference of any kind in the protocols.
181 The Yezidi cases processed in 1938 via the Kulak Troika present a very different picture. The focal point consists of a group proceeding against 15 accused which took place on 14 March 1938. 14 of the accused were shot, and the remaining person was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp.360 This proceeding concerned (the most active) members of a supposed “counterrevolutionary Dashnak terrorist organisation”. The leader of this group was said to be Safo Amoev (born 1866), a former sheikh, thus a religious leader of the Yezidis. Like all other accused individuals, he was not born within the boundaries of the later Georgia: eight were born within the 1937 borders of Armenia, seven in the 1937 borders of Turkey. The accused obviously are the leaders of the corresponding group; along with the former sheikh, former Beks were convicted with Rashid Ismailovich und Seid Ismailovich Tafurov, who both were brothers-in-law of the Yezid leader Dzhakhangir-bek (in the Troika protocol: Dzhaangir Bek) and had fought together with him. This cavalry leader had, in 1918, led 700 Yezidi horsemen engaged on the Armenian side against the Ottomans in the battle of Sardarabad. With Dzhalil Nadoev yet another fighter of the Armenian Army 1918-21 was convicted. Kochakh Lazgievich Saiadov, finally, was a secret agent of the NKVD who had supposedly concealed the existence of the organization and his connection to it from the NKVD in Tbilisi. Another defendant, Davrish Dzhafarovich Mstoev, was the leader of a brigade of load carriers, while Samed Broevich Rasoev had been the former director of the city sanitation department in the Kirovskii rayon of the city of Tbilisi. Yet another defendant, a son of a Bek was a candidate for the VKP(b), while yet another originated from a Bek family, and still two others had also belonged to the party. With another one, Gusni Sloevich Shaveshov, the examination comes full circle as a possible transition into criminality seems possible.
Khalilov, Afo Samedovich und Dukaev, Isa Akhoevich. Protokol № 67 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 15.12.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37425, p. 47. 360 This group proceeding can be found in: Protokol № 101 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 14.03.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38453, pp. 1-6. 359
182 Shaveshov, who belonged to the exposed organisation, had already in 1936 been excluded from the VKP(b) because of an attempted robbery and complicity in a murder; a possible political motivation remains unclear. With Ali Kataevich Usoev, a link to the ‘espionagemania’ of the time is possible since he, as a load carrier in Batumi in 1925-28, and had been in contact with the Italian consul there; but this detail probably served the purpose of solidifying the case (like the former violent deeds of Shaveshov). Two additional cases in fact clearly belong with these fifteen. They were handled on the following day, on 15 March 1938. The concerned persons were also members of the same organisation, one being additionally involved in murders, the other accused of smuggling and other misdeeds committed in 1924-27.361 Overall it is evident with these cases how systematically Yezidi elites of the city of Tbilisi got caught up in this round of persecution. Old elites (sheikhs and Beks, fighters on the Armenian side) shade into new social climbers (leaders of load carriers and street sweepers, party members). Tellingly, the only person who was not sentenced to death actually belonged to neither category. On 27 April 1938, two cases followed in Batumi, the (much less significant) secondary centre of the Yezidis in Georgia. 362 The accused, Usoev and Amirov, both born in Kars, were accused by the NKVD of Adzharia of belonging to the illegal counterrevolutionary organisation Khoybun and to be in their service for the acquisition of weapons. This pan-Kurdish organisation (Kurdish: Xoybûn), having originated in the French mandated territory of Syria-Lebanon, founded with the help of Kurds from Turkey, by the mid-1930s had gained a certain influence in wide areas of Kurdistan. Its members included Ihsan Nuri Pasha, who in 1931 initiated the Ararat uprising, which was crushed by Turkish troops, plus the air force, with some Iranian and Soviet support. Further accusations were
Protokol № 102 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 15.03.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38454, pp. 1, 4. 362 Protokol № 111 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 27.04.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38461, page 32. 361
183 made against the two, for instance, of agitation against the kolkhoz and in vague terms against the “leadership” (rukovodstvo). Both persons were quite educated; Usoev was descended from a family in the clergy (another sheikh?), whereas Amirov was a former candidate of the party; both were salaried employees, arguably rather rare among Yezidis. The judgement pronounced was a relatively ‘mild’ ten years camp, despite a quite pronounced ‘foreign’ connection, despite connection to “reactionary” Kurds of the uprisings of 1925 (the Şeyh Sait uprising, heartily condemned by the USSR as supposedly inspired by the British) and 1931, and despite the involvement of firearms. It seems evident here in the severity (or lack thereof) of the sentences meted out that, from a Georgian perspective, the pro-Armenian nationalism of the Yezidi group in Tbilisi was more dangerous than the pro-Kurdish nationalism of the Yezidi cell in Batumi. On 23 May, two additional members of the organisation in Tbilisi, were sentenced ten years in a labor camp each, among them a former party member.363 The repression numbers and the severity of the punishment indicate that now, those Yezidi elites who had managed in the past to transform themselves seamlessly from old (Oriental) elites into new (Soviet) elites, were being comprehensively gotten rid of. The extremely clandestine and isolated structure of Yezidi society, oriented solely inwards in loyalty towards their own clan and religious leaders, no longer suited the Soviet worldview. It is unsurprising that a secret agent supposed to spy on the group was executed for failing to expose its ‘misdeeds’ in the desired fashion. Even after 1918 religious emissaries (qawwāl) from the key Yezidi shrine in Lalish (in the British mandated territory of Iraq) managed to scrape through somehow to Transcaucasia in order to collect donations for the sacred sites. Such border-crossing practitioners were at least as suspect as the connections of the Catholic hierarchy to the outside, or as a Protestant missionary and aid activities for their brethren in
Protokol № 114 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 23.05.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38463, pp. 19, 33. 363
184 Georgia.364 The localization of these structures, impenetrable to the Soviets but linked to coreligionists far away, in the large urban underground milieu of Tbilisi certainly further engendered mistrust by the authorities. The Greek population of Georgia is a distinct entity in itself from the Kurds and the other diaspora groups investigated so far in that they had, in Greece, their own state outside the Soviet Union. However ‘their’ state did not border the Soviet Union, and the Greeks settled in Georgia did not originate from its territory: Rather, they were groups who at various times in the 19th century had come from Ottoman Anatolia, more particularly the ‘Pontos’ part of the Black Sea region. It may be pointed out that the Greeks, 87,385 according to the Census results of 1937, made up 2.6% of the population of Georgia. According to the classifications used in the Troika protocols, they were thus the sixth-largest minority, behind only Armenians (395,796), Russians (275,892), Ossetians (143,604), Azerbaijanis (105,000) and Adzharians (88,217). They just outnumbered the Turks (ca. 82,500), but were also significantly more numerous than the minor-titular Abkhazians, who made up only 1.6% (55,409 persons) of the population. The sources of Greek settlement in Georgia go back to antiquity, but a continuity of the 20th-century Greek population dating back that far can not be established, indeed not even back to late medieval immigration which occurred in Byzantine and post-Byzantine (after the fall of Constantinople in 1453) times. The connections between Greekdom in Byzantine and later Ottoman Anatolia, on the one hand, and Christian Georgia on the other, are welldocumented for the Middle Ages and the early modern era. Greek cultural influence on the Georgian was quite intense church as well. The existing Greek settlements in Georgia are, however, of more recent origins. The focal points of settlement encountered in Georgia in 1937 date back to migration from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. A significant Greek population arrived in Tsalka in Southern Georgia (not far from Tbilisi) as a 364
Guest, Survival Among the Kurds, pp. 132-140.
185 consequence of the Peace of Adrianople (1829) which ended the Russo-Ottoman War. These Greeks were orthodox Christians, since generally the membership in the Orthodox Church was a deciding criterion for “being Greek”. Linguistically, however, there were, alongside Greek-speaking groups, above all Pontos Greeks, also those who spoke exclusively Turkish and who were designated as Urum (from the Ottoman Turkish “Rum” = Roman, as the Byzantines had been called as the heirs to the Roman Empire in its Hellenic Eastern half). In the latter 19th century a new immigration by sea occurred, of individuals, families and larger groups, a development that in the course of the war accelerated with the Greek invasion of Asia Minor in 1919 and ended with the “Greek-Turkish Population Exchange” in 1923/24. While most Greeks left for Greece, those stranded in the East, furthest away from Greece, turned across the Black Sea to Soviet Georgia, culminating in 1921-24 in a great wave of escape when numerous ships brought Greek (= Orthodox) refugees to ports in Abkhazia, Guria, Mingrelia and Adzharia.365 The Census of 1926 revealed two interesting differentiations in the Greek population. A first dividing line is the linguistic separation in Greek- and Turkish- speaking groups becomes evident. Thus, in 1926, 54,051 Greeks were counted as Soviet citizens in Georgia, of whom 28,061 indicated Greek (grecheskii) as their native language (52%), but 23,005 (43%) Turkish (tiurkskii), in addition some 800 listed Armenian, 700 Russian, and 500 Georgian!366 Here again it is clear that with tiurkskii Turkish is intended, and not Azerbaijani, that is, actually turetsko-osmanskii should have been indicated, which did not seem opportune, for some reason, as we have established already for the counting of the masses of Turks as tiurki, with the Azerbaijanis, against ethnographic reality.
365
On the Greeks in Georgia see e.g. D. Müller, Ethnische Gruppen in der Republik Georgien, Zeitschrift für Türkeistudien (1995), No. 1, pp. 5-50, here 22-23; R. Wixman, The peoples of the USSR. An ethnographic handbook (London, 1984). 366 Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 15 (pagination for Georgia).
186 The second dividing line, criss-crossing the first, is citizenship status. For along with the 54,051 Soviet Greeks, 12,184 foreign Greeks were counted, the absolute majority of all 22,287 foreigners (of all nationalities) in Georgia.367 In Abkhazia alone, besides 14,045 Greek Soviet citizens, 10,802 Greek foreigners were counted, meaning that 43% of all Greeks there were foreign nationals!368 In Adzharia, the situation was not quite as extreme, but there were 5,547 Soviet citizens and 1,205 foreigners among Greeks there.369 Interestingly, the foreign Greeks were registered mostly as Greek-speaking.370 So the Greek refugees still had foreign citizenship, though it is unclear to what extent that also represented their personal choice, or rather Soviet and/or Georgian and/or even Abkhazian policy. In 1919 the Pontos Greeks had vehemently insisted on their own state at the Paris peace conference, since the Greek occupation of Western Anatolia, for all its neo-Byzantine dreams of the ‘Megali Idea’ (Great Idea), could not realistically hope to extend all the way to them, and they may have wanted to still keep all their options open. Although they came from the Ottoman Empire, their citizenship was indicated, incidentally, with a very clear majority as “Greek”. This corresponds to the principles of the population exchange that took place in 1923/24. Even stranded on the other (Eastern) side of Turkey, they were still seen as insolubly linked to the modern Greek state. The social status of the Greeks was low. They were in large part peasants, or rural dwellers in any case. For example in the 1926 census; in the city of Tbilisi, only 1,402 Greeks were counted, and these were predominantly destitute refugees on the margins of society. This low social status arguably shows in their degree of repression, as is clear in all three mass Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda,book XIV, p. 39 (pagination for Georgia); also 38 (citizenships). 368 Ibidem, p. 21, 39 (pagination for Georgia). 369 Ibidem, p. 25, 39 (pagination for Georgia). 370 Ibidem, p. 21, 40 (pagination for Georgia). A more precise correlation is not available. There were 41,170 native speakers of Greek counted, of these (see above) only 28,061 were Soviet Greeks. That is, 13,109 Greek speakers were missing who are of course very likely to have coincided strongly with the 12,184 foreign Greeks (the difference can in part be allocated to Greek-speaking Armenians, just as there were Armenian-speaking Greeks). 367
187 operations. The degree of repression in the Kulak Operation at 0.18% (157 convictions) was lower than for Sunni Kurds (0.32%) and Ossetians (0.24%). The use of the death sentence at 46% (72 persons) was not as low as with the comparable Kurdish group (40%), but still far below the Ossetian rate (55%). The convictions by the Police Troika, with 17 persons, are even less numerous, the degree of repression at 0.02% was equal to the very low rate of the Ossetians and below that of the Georgians (0.04%). This stands in stark contrast to the highest Police Troika repression rates, those for Yezidis and Jews, who were respectively 25.5 times (0.02%:0.51%) and 14.5 times (0.02%:0.29%) more likely to be persecuted via this board. If we now, however, add the repression of the Greeks by the Dvoika and the National Troika to the picture, then this notably changes the perception. In the Dvoika, the number of convictions at 588 persons was almost four times as high as in the Kulak Troika, in fact it reaches a remarkable 0.67% in relation to the Greek population. The degree of repression is thus even higher than that of the Georgians (0.63%) in the framework of the Kulak Operation. The picture is put into perspective, however, by the very low percentage of 0.1% Greeks who were sentenced to death in relation to their portion of the population, and of ‘only’ 16% in relation to the number of Greeks convicted by the Dvoika. Finally the convictions via the operations on the repression of diaspora nationalities (National Troika) in September and October 1938 must be added. Via this channel, an additional 38 persons were persecuted.371 The rate of death sentences was even lower here than via the Dvoika, ‘only’ five of the 38 cases, that is 13.1% (Dvoika 16%, Kulak Troika 46%). Thus only 19% of the Greeks covered here where persecuted by the Kulak Troika, which normally dominates, but a huge 76% via the penal boards of the National Orders (Dvoika and National Troika). A combined 0.91% Greeks in relation to their portion of the population were convicted, a quite large percentage, but ‘only’ 0.19% (degree of repression) of these were sentenced to death, or 21% in relation to the Table 35 "Obscene količestvo osuždennych trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("nacional'naja trojka") po nacional'nosti s 25 sentjabrja 1938 g. po 23 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 371
188 absolute number of the Greeks convicted in the mass operations. The total number of all convicted is nevertheless clearly an elevated figure which in relation to the degree of repression approaches that of the Abkhazians (1%), whereas the portion of death sentences, amounts to ‘only’ a fifth of the convicted. (Abkhazians 57%, Greeks 21%). The question is why the Greeks, even though they presented no social, economic, or religious competition and also were not particularly present in the cities, were still in consideration of all mass operations, so severely affected by this repression in terms of quantity, with 800 convictions372. An obvious starting point in any search for an explanation would undoubtedly be the “foreign connection”. The Greeks had their “own” (capitalist) state; besides, they had come from the Ottoman Empire, from areas that did not, in 1937, belong to Greece, but rather to Turkey, and which also were not all that far distant from Georgia: from the perspective of Georgia roughly behind Lazistan, that is, behind the region of the Laz, and in addition located on the sea as well. Both states, Greece and Turkey, were close allies of Great Britain, the world’s foremost sea power, a power which had repeatedly threatened Russian, then Soviet interests by way of the Black Sea; thus in full manifestation in the Crimean War (1853-56), latently during agitation in Britain to support the Circassians against Russia (1863-64) and the subsequent Ottoman landings on the Black Sea coast in the war of 1877/78, but then above all in the Russian Civil War, when the British had held Batumi for a long period as part of the general ‘encirclement’ by interventionist Entente and White armies. Greek ships and seamen had routinely been involved in these fleets. Besides, the Greeks showed a mobility quite suspicious in this age of spy-mania, for foreign-policy as well as for social reasons, as seafaring people as well as ‘socially alien’ merchants and traders. Of course one must not forget that, in contravention to this argument, Greeks had traditionally looked
372
The number is relatively exact, since on the one hand the number of the convicted Greeks is estimated to be 4% higher because overall, with 4.3% (Kulak Troika 2.8%, National Troika 5.7%) of the convicted the nationality is not indicated, but on the other hand with the convictions via the Dvoika, 21 non-Greeks (3.7%) can be identified.
189 upon coreligionist Russia as its protector and savior, a friendly disposition which had traditionally been reciprocated by the Russians, if often in a paternalistic and overbearing manner. The mass repression of the Greeks, in total of 626 persons,373 carried out directly via the Dvoika and the National Troika, provides support for this line of reasoning. Thus we find that the leader of the People’s Commissioner’s Office for Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Ezhov did on 11 December 1937 issue a special directive for the repression of the Greeks, Order № 50215, which closely resembles the blueprint for all the operations against diaspora nationalities, the “Polish Order” № 00485 of 11 August 1937.374 Foreign-policy arguments predominate as in all other orders, circulars and directives against diaspora nationalities. The Greeks were considered in the directive to be an extended arm of German, Japanese and British espionage. Sweepingly the directive declared:
In order to suppress the activities of Greek espionage in the territory of the USSR, I order: 1) on 15 December to carry out […] the arrest of all Greeks who are suspected of espionage, sabotage, anti-Soviet insurrectional and nationalistic activities.375
In six sub-points various groups and especially sensitive locations were specified where suspicious Greeks were supposed to be arrested first. Any Greek who had in the past become conspicuous was to be arrested, regardless of Soviet or other citizenship. This included Greeks who were found in the files of the NKVD, whose social past was suspect and who could be accused of nationalistic leanings, especially among de-Kulakized individuals and persons who had dodged de-Kulakization. Locations important the national defence, like 373
588+38=626. The directive is published in parts: Direktiva narodnogo komissara vnutrennich del SSSR № 50215 „Ob operacii po arestam grekov“ ot 11 dekabrja 1937 g., in I. G. Džuha, Grečeskaja operacija- Istorija repressij protiv grekov v SSSR (St. Petersburg, 2006), pp. 51-52. 375 Ibidem. 374
190 factories, harbours, power stations and transport facilities, and of course the army, the fleet and the troops of the NKVD itself were to be purged of Greeks. On the basis of the thesis developed in the process of the entire research project on the repressions in Georgia,376 that mass, systematic repression directed by state bureaucracies inevitably results in the dispersal of repression power and authority to the periphery, regional motives and interests should, however, also be taken into consideration in the case of the Greeks. Despite the preponderance of Dvoika and National Troika, at least 19.4%, that is 1/5, of the Greeks convicted, were sentenced by the Kulak Troika. In addition, this contingent was punished most severely, although in this (Kulak) operation foreign policy aspects played a minor role. The repressions in the framework of the Kulak Operation systematically decimated the few Greek elites and their participation in Georgian society. One third of the persecuted were former party members, of whom up to 60% received the death sentence. Salaried employees, that is, persons who had worked for the Soviet state, constituted 55% of these. A high 34% of the persecuted had mid-level or higher education. This is all the more remarkable as only few Greeks had had access to a good education.377 Of these better-educated victims of the repression, 66% were sent to their death.378 Dvoika and National Troika, on the other hand, were hardly used by the repression bureaucracy for the repression of the elites. Indeed the low incidence of the death penalty in
M. Junge, G. Kldiašvili, Regionalizacija karatel'nych polnomočij, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 377 Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 15 (pagination for Georgia): Of the 54,051 Greeks with Soviet citizenship 14,214 could read (gramotnye). This reading ability pertained to Greek or Turkish, however, thus it per se hardly opened opportunities for advancement in Soviet Georgia, where the authorities used Russian and Georgian in their operations. 378 Таble № 48 "Osuždenie Grekov trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 376
191 the Dvoika and National Troika cases, thus deemed ‘not particularly dangerous’, is a first hint at potential internal, Georgia-related reasons for the repression. Across the Soviet Union, the portion of death sentences handed out by these extra-judicial councils was no less than 70%, but the Greek operation in the framework of the Dvoika, reached 95%379, which is in stark contrast to the figures for Greeks in Georgia at 15% (Dvoika 16%, National Troika 13%).380 In Georgia, then, only a few suspected spies and “especially dangerous elements” were convicted, via the Dvoika and the National Troika, in general and in particular among Greeks; or rather, it proved particularly difficult to justify the imposition of the death penalty in the cases of the Greeks concerned: Their social status and their political position were just too low, and the social origins did not generate enough additional material either. In the end, simply put, the individual ‘offences’ were just not sufficient for sentencing a high percentage of Greeks to death. In the final analysis, a deep-seated Georgian-Greek conflict was absent, be it territorial, religious, or social. Only 29% (4 of 14) of the Greek cases of the National Troika included accusations of espionage or foreign contacts.381 Such cases were always interwoven with the narrative of the Greeks as a seafaring people and their work in port cities. The Treasurer for the Poti Water Supply System, a Greek with little education (‘literate’), was accused by the city branch of the NKVD in the port city of Poti of having being recruited “by the captain Titos Panagopulo of the Greek ship ‘Dionis’ with the intent to carry out counter-revolutionary espionage……in that he handed over to the latter information of an espionage nature”. On 29 September 1938,
379
This information is based on the investigations of Ivan Dzhukha. Table 39 "Stepen' repressij nacional'nostej iz zarubežnych stran v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("dvojka") 1937- 1938", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Table 40 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("nacional'naja trojka") s 25 sentjabrja 1938 g. po 23 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 381 With an overall distribution via the National Troika of 38 persons, a sample of 14 persons was taken (the first ten and then every fifth). 380
192 the death sentence was issued through the National Troika. 382 However, all other supposed spies received 10 years ‘only’. Among them was even one person designated as a Greek nationalist who “had systematically stirred up counter-revolutionary fascist nationalistic agitation among the Greeks, in which he called on the Greeks not to accept Soviet citizenship, and which had praised the living conditions in fascist states and slanderously judged laws of the USSR and of the Soviet government”. The person concerned was the carpenter Fom Khristoforovich Samvaridi, who was uneducated and had no prior criminal record. With this case; the contrast between the severe accusation of counter-revolutionary fascist nationalistic agitation, and the offence presented as evidence, bccame quite clear. It simply pointed to a critical attitude of the part of the defendent.383 In the protocols of 3 of the 14 cases (21%) (3 of 14), external aspects in the broadest sense played a role in conjunction with internal one, as already with the supposed spies: thus, for example, accusations of contacts and cooperation with the Greek consulate, one instance of contacting a Greek sister abroad in Turkey, and also the issuing of a certificate of Greek descent by a Greek kolkhoz chairman for the Greek embassy in Moscow. Only with considerable effort could a suspicious past be dug up for 2 of 14 cases (14%), among these a craftsman who had owned his own house and workshop. The other defendant, a teamster for the printing press Soiuzpechat’, was only the son of a large property owner and Kulak. Ksandopolo had become conspicuous in that he had systematically stirred up counter-revolutionary agitation and, in fact, after the publication of the bill of indictment in the case of the counter-revolutionary organisation led by N. Lakoba, had distributed among
Protokol № 11 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 25.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38468, p. 1. 383 Protokol № 11 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 25.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38468, p. 4. 382
193 the populace old newspapers with the portrait of N. Lakoba.384 Both accused were handed a verdict of ‘only’ eight years of camp arrest. Purely internal political and social questions without any outward reference point constituted the most important area of conflict, 7 of 14 cases (50%). On 9 October 1938, the worker and railroad platform inspector at the Tbilisi train station, a non-party member, Aleksandr Dem’ianovich Konstantinov, received eight years camp arrest for having – “as one of the elements ill-disposed toward the Soviet power” – systematically led counterrevolutionary agitation among workers, salaried employees and members of the kolkhoz over the difficult conditions of workers in the USSR and having “shamefully defamed the party and government”.385 The core of the accusations against this group of persons can be identified, fitting for a rural group, as “activity against the construction of the kolkhozes” through agitation, fraud and mismanagement. Important reasons for conviction, however, also included complaints against the arrest of clergy, and also connections with the wrong groups in the party, such as the “right” and “left” deviations. The Kulak Troika was thus used almost exclusively as a penal organ to pursue innerSoviet deviance in the case of the Greeks, such interior reasons encompassing 26 of 32 cases (81%). 5 of 32 (16%) of the cases were characterized by foreign-linked offences like visits to the consulate and contact with relatives abroad, but more often with a pronounced internal (3 of 5 cases) and less often with a pronounced external (2 of 5) tendency. In only 3% of the cases does a foreign link seem to provide the determining element for the repression, but
Protokol № 24 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 29.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38469, p. 15. 385 Protokol № 35 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 09.10.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38470, p. 3. 384
194 overlapping with internal and visa-related reasons.386 A ‘real’ spy is not to be found among the victims. This general impression, that in Georgia the conviction of Greeks via the Dvoika, National Troika and also the Kulak Troika occurred mainly to make up the numbers for internal purposes, is confirmed by data on the social origin and the social status of those convicted via the National Troika. A mere 13% of these accused were party members; salaried employees constituted 87%, although the level of education of the convicted was low for two thirds (68%). From this we can conclude that the main target group of the National Troika consisted of salaried employees with a rather low level of education who were not party members. They were filtered out of the state apparatus and were put in camps for 8-10 years. It is even possible to apply this to the convictions of the Dvoika as well.387 Data on the repression of the Greek elites underscore the lowly social and political status of the Greeks. Thus, in terms of absolute numbers, only 32 Greeks can be found in the Stalinist Lists. This corresponds to a repression degree of 0.04%. This corresponds to the coefficient for the low-status Ossetians, but reaches only half the ratio for the Armenians (0.08%), and only a third of the ratio for the Abkhazians (0.14%).388 Against the background of these numbers, the primary ‘disposal’ of Greeks via the Dvoika also no longer excludes regional, internal policy motives for the repression. It appears quite possible that the Georgian repression bureaucracy, on the basis of Directive № 50125, used the label “Greek” to shower this ethnic group with mass arrests and convictions without being constrained by limits; targeting a group which, viewed formally, did in fact constitute a 386
A sample was drawn from the National Troika of 14 (see above) and from the Kulak Troika of 32 persons. In 1937, from 118 persons, the first 10 and then every 10th person = 19 persons were sampled; for 1938, 13 cases out of 39. 387 Таble № 48 "Osuždenie grekov trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 388 Table 37 "Obščee količestvo osuždennych na osnove Stalinskich spiskov po nacional'nosti s maja 1937 g. po 17 nojabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2.
195 foreign diaspora nation. Of course, such internal arguments do not preclude the ‘foreign’ and ‘alien’ aspects either. The coastal location of Abkhazia and Adzharia, the intervention- and espionage-related paranoia that can be traced back to the Crimean War and other interventions via the Black Sea in 1877/78, 1914/15 and above all 1918/21, may have played into this, even if only as an illusory legitimization for this persecution.389 The Greeks, with their double connection to the outside world – to the Greek state, of which more than 10,000 were considered to be citizens, as well as to the Turkish state, from the Black Sea coast of which they had come –, doubtlessly appeared to be a potential ‘fifth column’ in case of an invasion to be orchestrated by the British through the Straits and via the Black Sea; however, it can hardly be estimated to what extent these threats were perceived as real or just served as a pretence.390 It must, however, be emphasized once more that the foreign policy aspect was reflected only sporadically in the accusations listed painstakingly in the Troika protocols. A genuinely internal policy reason for the great number of repressed Greeks could be connected with their strong distribution in Abkhazia and Adzharia. Without a doubt the Greeks, who on the basis of their foreign language(s) and their large numbers, did not appear readily includable in the Georgian nation despite their Orthodox religion. But they were a factor objectively complicating the wholesale Georgianization of Abkhazia, together with the Abkhazians, the Armenians and other groups. The sluggish naturalization of the refugees from the Ottoman Empire was concentrated in Abkhazia and Adzharia. Outside of these two territories only 177 Greeks foreigners were counted by 1926.391 The lines of conflict with respect to the insufficient will of the Greeks to become Soviet citizens have been indicated already in discussing the National Troika and the Kulak Troika. Also interesting is that the I. G. Džucha, Grečeskaja operacija. Istorija repressij protiv grekov v SSSR (Sankt Peterburg, 2006). 390 After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a large part of the Greeks from Georgia emigrated to Greece (as from other Republics like Russia and the Ukraine as well); of these the most by far were from Abkhazia, who were evacuated the same way their ancestors had come one turn of a century earlier, by sea. 391 Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 39 (pagination for Georgia). 389
196 statistics provide evidence that two thirds of the cases processed by the National Troika and the Kulak Troika were indeed cases of the Abkhazian or Adzharian NKVD.392 Two protocols of the Special Counsel of 2 and 15 July 1938 found in the FSB Archive in Moscow provide additional evidence for the concentration of mass repressions against Greeks of Georgia precisely in Abkhazia and Adzharia. Via these protocols 390 Greeks were convicted in July 1938 who – and this is the important point – not only nearly all had been domiciled in Abkhazia and Adzharia, but are also those with few exceptions among those who had earlier been sentenced to labor camps by the Big Dvoika.393 The handling of their case by the Special Counsel (osoboe soveshchanie) probably served, on the one hand, to confirm and with that legitimize the decision of the Big Dvoika by the official judicial body, and on the other hand to conceal and obscure the decision of the Dvoika as such. It remains unclear, however, why the judgements of the Special Counsel affected only the 2nd category (those not sentenced to death). At the least it appears the distribution of the convicted persons to the individual camps was also organized in this way. The perception arises that the Greeks in Abkhazia and Adzharia in any case were more “interesting” than the large groups in the vicinity of Tbilisi (Tbiliiskii uezd as of 1926), with the comparatively old settlement focus of Greeks, Tsalka, where 24,601 Greeks had been counted in 1926.394 Whoever wants to make an argument for foreign policy considerations (‘threat of war’, ‘fifth column’) can, it is true, point out that Tsalka lies in the Soviet interior and that these Greeks; like the Volga Germans, had been living in Russia for generations, whereas the Greeks of Abkhazia and Adzharia were both largely newcomers from the outside
392
Here we drew once again from the sample of 14 (National Troika) and 32 (Kulak Troika) (for more precise information, see above). 393 By the Dvoika 409 persons in Georgia were sentenced to camp inprisonment. Cf. the chapter “Nacional’nye operacii v Gruzii”, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1; Prikaz № 50215 “Grečeskaja operacija”, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; I. G. Džucha, “Stojal pozadi Parfenon, ležal vperedi Magadan”. Istorija repressij protiv grekov v SSSR. Greki na Kolyme (Moscow, 2010). 394 Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 84 (pagination for Georgia).
197 and were additionally established on a coastline historically threatened by invasion. But then again, whoever wants to make an argument for internal policy considerations, can determine that both coastal territories and above all Abkhazia were important for the ethnic and spatial rounding out of the Georgian nation, which applies much less to Tsalka, the status of which within Georgia was not in doubt in 1937/38. On the basis of the investigated Troika protocols, which could be seen as an indicator for the local perception of the internal and external situation, the latter interpretation is probably more plausible. An additional group, the survey of which has caused considerable difficulties, are the Iranians. Eastern Georgia (the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and its dependencies) had with brief interruptions (e. g. in the collapse of the Safawids in 1722, when Ottomans and Russians under Peter the Great invaded Eastern Transcaucasia), belonged to Persia in the 18th century, like the territories that went into the makeup of modern Azerbaijan and Armenia. As late as 1795, a Persian army had ransacked and completely destroyed Tbilisi and in doing so punished the King of Kartli for his seeking help from Russia in the Treaty of Georgievsk, 1783. In 1801, de iure and de facto annexation by Russia followed, which however Persia did not accept. Only after two further wars (ended by the peace treaties of Goldestan in 1813 and Turkmanchay in 1828, respectively), in which Eastern Transcaucasia was finally lost by Persia, was the Northern border of Persia stabilized permanently (only minor changes where to follow in the 20th century). Despite this stabilization of the border in 1828, Russia was able, in the course of the 19th century, to spread its influence and de facto control even further southward, in competition with Great Britain, which advanced from the South via the Persian Gulf (in what was called “The Great Game”). North Persia was indeed occupied by Russian troops (although not formally annexed) which also repeatedly staged penal expeditions far into the interior of the country and transformed all of Persia into a type of half-colony. Weakness after the Russo-Japanese war and the first Russian Revolution led the tsarist Regime to agree a de
198 facto partitioning of Persia in zones of influence in 1907, the North being the Russian sphere, a smaller South a British sphere (including a buffer towards British India), and a neutral zone in the middle in a development to be repeated in 1941-46. In tsarist Russia a mocking rhyme represented hapless Persia’s inferior position: “Chickens aren’t birds and Persia is not a foreign country” (Kuritsa ne ptitsa, Persiia ne zagranitsa). In the First World War, Persia’s official neutrality was violated by British, Russian and Ottoman troops (aided by German emissaries) with impunity, leading to huge losses of life among the civilian populace, mostly from famine induced by large-scale grain requisitions of the invaders. After the war, in 1921, the “Socialist Soviet Republic of Iran” came into being in Northern Persia, often designated incorrectly according to its core area in the province of Gilan as the “Soviet Republic of Gilan”. It fought a guerilla war against the Iranian government supported by British expeditionary forces. Irregular troops and “volunteers” consisting of Azerbaijanis, Armenians and Georgians from Sovietized Transcaucasia supported this Republic, as did Soviet arms shipments. 395 After the defeat by the newly emerging Pahlavi Dynasty, thousands of supporters fled to the Soviet Union; in 1945/46 this history was to repeat itself to a remarkable degree.396 In the early 1930s, Persia/Iran was an important point of escape for persons who wanted to escape from the Soviet Union, both West of the Caspian in the Caucasus (on the border with Azerbaijan and Armenia) and East of the Caspian in Central Asia (on the border of Persia with Turkmen).397 In the interwar period (1921-1941) Iran came under British influence after the collapse of the Russian counterweight. British firms controlled the newly discovered giant oil reserves.
395
C. Chaqueri, The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 1920-1921. Birth of the Trauma (Pittsburgh, PA/London, 1995). 396 William Jr. Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic of 1946 (London, 1963); S. L. McFarland, A Peripheral View of the Origins of the Cold War: The Crises in Iran, 1941-47, Diplomatic History (1980), 4, № 3, pp. 333-351. 397 Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic; McFarland, A Peripheral View of the Origins, pp. 333351.
199 Attempts to bring Germans and Americans in as a new counterweights to replace the Russians met with only limited success. “Persia” and “Iran” are synonyms; in 1937 the Pahlavi regime in Teheran issued a law according to which the sole official designation was supposed to be “Iran”. The designations “Persians” (persy, persiiane) and “Iranians” (irantsy) can still refer to both the nationality/citizenship (like rossiiane) or to the ethnicity (like russkie) linked to the Farsi (Persian) language. However, the overwhelming majority of the people originating from Persia/Iran in Transcaucasia, including Georgia, consisted, in the 19th as in the 20th century of Azerbaijanis (often called Turks in Iran as well!), with considerable minorities of Christian Armenians and Aramaen-speaking “Assyrians” (assiriitsy, aisory). Actual Persians in the ethnic sense, speakers of Farsi, were actually rather rare. In 1926, 2,220 “Persians” (persy) with Soviet citizenship were counted in Georgia, of these, however, 1,476 were male and 744 female, that is, this group showed the excess of single men typical for immigrant groups (like the Ukrainians mentioned above). For 1,763 of these persons, Persian (persidskii) was indicated as the native language.398 An additional 1,635 persons were counted as Persians with foreign (presumably all but universally Iranian) citizenship, again mostly males (1,069 vs. 566). All citizens of Persia, of all nationalities, numbered 3,043 (1,978 males plus 1,065 females). Thus some 1,408 (3,0431,635) were not ethnic Persians, but Persian citizens. Not included in these 5,263 persons (3,043 Persian citizens + 2,220 Persians with Soviet citizenship), and difficult to estimate, would be Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Assyrians or even Kurds who immigrated from Iran but had assumed Soviet citizenship. The number of naturalized Azerbaijanis (tiurki) might have been quite considerable. For 1937 and 1939 no comparatively detailed data are available. As the situation (collectivization) was pushing people to leave the Soviet Union, and as the low number of functional families (single men) must have meant a low fertility of the group as 398
Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book. XIV, p. 16 (pagination for Georgia).
200 such, one may reasonably assume that the number of Iranians may have declined somewhat between 1926 and 1937-38.399 Finally, a look at the language is worthwhile: Persian was named as the native language by a total of 3,129 persons (2,139 vs 990).400 That is, most people counted as connected with Iran were Persian-speaking; whereas the actual connection with Persia must have counted several, perhaps many, thousands more, mainly Azerbaijanis. Against this background must be seen the completely exceptional, staggeringly high repression numbers for the Iranians (irantsy) and Persians (persy) in 1937-38: convicted mainly via the Dvoika, the degree of repression here, concerning a grouping numbering merely 4,000-5,000 persons, comes to 9.8% (445 persons), compared to a value for the Germans of 0.5%.401 Via the Kulak Troika and the National Troika, by contrast, “only” 11 and 6 persons, respectively, were convicted, and 4 more via the Police Troika. Thus the degree of repression for all mass operations together climbs only minimally, from 9.8% to 10.2%; the height of the repressions occurred in 1937. Overall the degree of repression endured by the Iranians surpasses the rates for all other groups, even for harshly persecuted ones like the Germans (all three mass operations affected 2.15%, thus 4.8 times higher in the Irannian case), Abkhazians (1%) and Greeks (0.91%).402 It is quite astonishing that in stark contrast to all other nationalities, few of the numerous convicted Iranians/Persians was sentenced to death: 41 of 445 defendants by the National Troika, 3 of 11 by the Kulak Troika, thus “only” 9.5% (degree of repression 0.9%). In the case of the Germans, by contrast, 44%
Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book. XIV, pp. 38-39 (pagination for Georgia). Ibidem, p. 42 (pagination for Georgia). 401 V. B. Žiromskaja i. a. (eds.), Vsesojuznaja perepis‘ naselenija 1937 goda, p. 107. The total of ca. 4,000-5,000 Iranians was estimated on the basis of census data from 1926. 402 Cf. contemporary reports, e. g. G. S. Agabekov, G. P. U. Zapiski čekista (Berlin, 1930); R. Forbes, Conflict. Angora to Afghanistan (London, 1931). Also in the course of collectivization, especially violent fights occurred in the areas bordering Iran, during which Iran functioned as an area for retreat for the mutinous peasants. Arguably not least for this reason, the border zone along Iran was especially targeted by deportations (into the interior) in 1937. 399 400
201 were sentenced to death. Consistent with, only three Iranians were handled by the elite court, the Military Collegium (Stalinist List).403 A possible explanation for the unusually high repression figures in relation to the portion of the population of the Iranians/Persians in Georgia must thus come from the fact that the basis for the calculation of the numbers is not correct. In fact, it is not clarified how high the number of “Iranians” was in 1937, and which groups in the census of 1937 were designated as Iranians. It seems certain that the Georgian repression bureaucracy counted all persons originating from Iran as Iranians, regardless of their ethnicity. Thus, of the eleven Iranians convicted by of the Kulak Troika, no less than nine can be identified as Azerbaijani by names and birthplaces, one as an Armenian born in Georgia, and only one additional person can only be identified as a Muslim, a more precise classification being impossible; generally the same applies for the National Troika (in total 6 persons: four Azerbaijanis and two non-classifiable Muslim persons, thus possibly Persian), and for the Police Troika (in total 4 persons, all of them Azerbaijanis). Moreover, the so-called “Iranian Order” (see below) explicitly included and demanded the arrest of Armenians from Iran. The unusually high degree of repression thus appears to have come about at least in part as a result of differences in the classification of Iranians/Persians in the censuses of 1926 and 1937 (where a narrow definition led to very low numbers of Iranians/Persians) and by the repression bureaucracy (much higher, focusing on origin). A second factor is the
Таble 38 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nostjam, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("kulackaja trojka“) 11 avgusta 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Таble 39 "Stepen' repressij nacional'nostej iz zarubežnych stran v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("dvojka") 19371938", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Таble 40 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("nacional'naja" trojka) s 25 sentjabrja 1938 g. po 23 Oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Таble 43 "Stepen' repressij po nacional'nosti, v sootnošenii s količestvom naselenija Gruzinskoj SSR ("Stalinskie spiski") s 31 maja 1937 g. po 11 oktjabrja 1938 g.", in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 403
202 predominance of men in the group. As the victims of the ‘Great Terror’ overwhelmingly were grown-up men, the dearth of women and children in this group explains a higher calculated rate of repression regarding the whole population (incidentally, this second reason would also apply to groups like the Ukrainians). Beyond the uncertain reference figures, we can, however, still safely assume that the Iranian/Persians were severely persecuted. Even with a total Iranian population of 10,000 or even 15,000 persons and upon consideration of the low percentage of females and children, the repression quota would still be very high, even if not quite as exorbitant as before. The repression boards in Georgia had access just, as the case of the Greeks, to a special order and directive from the Moscow Central Command specifically targeting this group. The Iranian Order No. 202 of 29 January 1938 constituted the most important directive.404 This was ostensibly aimed, again, at repressing the influence of British, Japanese, and German espionage through the arrest of the Iranians living in the Soviet Union, with and without Soviet citizenship. Emphasized yet again were the security of the borders and the purging of operations and branches of the administration of the Soviet Union important for war. The technical implementation of the arrests and distributions were supposed to proceed, as with the Greek Order, according to the blueprint provided by the Polish Order № 00485. In order to describe the line of attack of Moscow’s Iranian Order as well as the Greek Order in more detail, we can refer on telegrams of the People’s Commissar of the Interior N. I. Ezhov of December 1937. In these it becomes clear that the central secret service agencies started two campaigns at the end of the year: all persons who were living without papers, that is illegally, in the Soviet Union, as well as persons who had “bought” a foreign passport in order to no longer be considered a Soviet citizen, were to be tracked down.405 The campaign
Protokol № 37 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 17.10.37, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38470, p. 59. 405 Šifrovka N. I. Ežova Narkomam Vnutrennich Del respublik, načal’nikam UNKVD, načal’nikam DTO GUGB O licach bez sovetskogo graždanstva i nikakich nacional’nych 404
203 led to numerous orders and directives not only against Iranians and Greeks, but also against many other diaspora nationalities like Finns, Estonians, Rumanians, Chinese, Bulgarians and Macedonians, thus expanding the earlier orders against diaspora nationalities referring to Germans, Poles and “Kharbinians”. 406 The repression categories and areas listed in these older National Orders, or rather nationality orders, were transferred in toto to the new directives and expanded the originally prescribed spectrum of target groups.407 Specifically for Georgia, however, the foreign policy dimension of the Iranians’ persecution appears in a different light. As in the case of the Greeks, Union-level reasons like the prevention of the infiltration of British and Turkish (let alone Japanese and German) influence into Soviet territory via Iran could have served only as a legitimizing pretext for moving against these groups. An indication of this make-belief character of spying accusations was the very low percentage of death sentences. On the spot, it seems, the Iranians/Persians were not deemed to be especially dangerous, keeping in mind that Georgia did not even share a border with Iran. In reality, the immigration from Persia had been above all driven by extreme poverty and lack of perspective; people had wanted to improve their miserable lives as surplus agricultural workers in Northern Iran (particularly Iranian Azerbaijan) by working as unskilled workers in the Transcaucasian industry, above all in Baku, but also as wage-earners and servants in agriculture. Only a small portion of these migrants drifted to Georgia, above all to Tbilisi – in 1926, 765 of the Persians who were Soviet citizens plus 681 Persian citizens. Remarkably large is the percentage of those who
dokumentov“ ot 17 dekabrja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2; Šifrovka N. I. Ežova Narkomam Vnutrennich Del respublik, načal’nikam UNKVD, načal’nikam 3 i 7 otdelov GUGB NKVD SSSR o licach kotorye preobritajucja den’gi inostrannye pasporta“ ot 17 dekabrja 1937 g.“ in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 406 Direktiva NKVD SSSR № 202 „Ob arestach irancev i iranskich armjan“ narkomam Vnutrennich Del respublik, načal’nikam UNKVD, načal’nikam DTO GUGB NKVD, načal’nikam 3,4,5,6 i 11 otdelov GUGB NKVD SSSR“ ot 29 janvarja 1938 goda., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 407 Ibidem.
204 went to Batumi, the second cauldron of proletarian, industrial modernity in Georgia (Kutaisi, the second-largest city, was much more traditional in many ways, and thus attracted far fewer immigrants). The Persian/Iran community in Batumi was almost as large as that of Tbilisi, 743 Persian citizens and ca. 546 Persian foreigners,408 although Batumi was much smaller and also further away from the Iranian border. Presumably, this is a result of it being the Western terminus of the railway line to/from Baku’s oilfields, where many tens of thousands of Persian laborers had worked. In any case, in 1937 there may have been some 1,500 Iranians in Tbilisi and another 1,300 in Batumi, where they, with few exceptions, belonged to the urban underclass, possibly more or less on a par with the Yezidis. A consideration of individual cases of convictions permits the recognition of the fact that the authorities, even within the framework of the Kulak operation, were most concerned with border violators or persons from bordering villages, in fact to such an extent that only a difference in degree can be established between those convicted via the Kulak Troika and those via the National Troika. Three of eleven persons convicted by the Kulak Troika, but four of six convicted by the National Troika, had illegally crossed the border in one direction or the other. In this fashion, Mamed Gasan Mamed ogly Mamedov is convicted because he crossed the Iranian-Soviet border illegally in 1934, likewise Ali Gusein ogly Abbas. In addition, supposedly cell-like group of kolkhoz opponents originating from Iranian Azerbaijan is culled from the village of Garta, near Akhalkalaki on the Turkish border. Badut Bagir ogly Gadzhiev, born in 1901 in Tbilisi, according to his nationality an “Iranian” (but obviously Azerbaijani as seen by the “ogly” extension of the father’s name), originally an Iranian subject, had travelled from the USSR to Iran to relatives on a visa in 1933, where he had been arrested by Iranian police and questioned about his GPU contacts, but had subsequently been released through the aid of his brother. He received a visa for Vsesojuznaja perepis’ 1926 goda, book XIV, p. 18, 39, 105 (pagination for Georgia). In the case of the foreigners, no data for Batumi itself is given, but rather their numbers in the urban settlements of Adzharia. 408
205 Turkey (Istanbul) with transit through the USSR, but stayed behind in Tbilisi and took Soviet citizenship there in 1935. He turned to the NKVD on his own accord and expressed the desire to work for the NKVD. According to the arraignment, he was connected with Ismail Ali Zade, an “Iranian Agent”, as well as with diverse enemies of the people. In this story the suspicion of secret service activities does indeed exist, and Gadzhiev was consequently one of the few accused who were put to death.409 Such a case could just as easily have been channeled to the National Troika: In a quite similar situation Gadzhi Mamed ogly Gadzhiev received ten years camp arrest from the National Troika. He had received an exit visa for Iran in 1933, but had returned illegally in to Georgia in the same year, where he put himself in touch with the Iranian consul in Tbilisi; according to the arraignment, he was supposed to spy for the Iranian secret service.410 In the Kulak as well as in the National Troika such accusations show up repeatedly: current or previous Iranian citizenship; crossing into the USSR, legally or (more often) illegally; trips to Iran (including illegally); contacts with Iranian consular agencies in the USSR; contacts with the police or the secret service in Iran. Simultaneously, existing Iranian networks were smashed; in this way a member of the “sect” of the “Bab” – an obvious reference to the Baha’i – is persecuted via the National Troika. He had supposedly agitated against the kolkhoz, as did a former manufacturer and leader of a charitable Persian organisation in Tbilisi. The four Iranians persecuted via the Police Troika were, by contrast, “common” criminals. The repression of Iranians/Persians thus signifies the implementation of regional Georgian interests, as originally envisaged and supported by Moscow in Order 202, and the execution of order and population policy measures for the disciplining of groups previously
Protokol № 114 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 23.05.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38463, p. 6. 410 Protokol № 114 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 23.05.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38463, p. 6. 409
206 tolerated, but now more and more driven into illegality. In addition, the prophylactic prevention of every influence of the regional power, Iran, on Georgia specifically, the territory of which had in large part belonged to the Persian empire for centuries, shimmered through as a motivation. In this way, the possibility of sticking population groups originating from Iran in a labor camp was used in Georgia at the slightest sign of a wavering in loyalty, and with this new opportunity a prosecutor improved his profile with Moscow in that he allegedly engaged in border security and nurtured the phobia towards Great Britain.
9. Nationalities from Bordering States: Turks Presenting itself somewhat differently for the Georgian agencies was the security problem of a nationality like the Turks, whose ethnic bonds led directly into a bordering country. The Turkish population in Georgia was quite large, with some 82,500 persons (as calculated above by updating the tiurki counted in 1926 in the Turkish-populated regions of Georgia to conform to the rise of population as shown in the 1937 census). They were thus, at 2.4% of the population, almost as numerous as the Greeks (2.6%), and grouped densely in the area of South-western Georgia bordering Turkey, mainly in Meskhetia (rayons Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikhe, Adigeni, Aspindza and Bogdanovka, with some also in Adzharia and Abkhazia). Like Greeks (but also Laz and Kurds) they were a nationality with a center of gravity outside Soviet territory.411 As argued above, a separation of Turks and Azerbaijanis is largely feasible despite the fact that both groups are not distinguished meaningfully in the protocols. In the case of the Turks, very often no nationality is mentioned in the Troika protocols; nationality can be assumed because of the combination of a. Names: Turkish names, often with a Sunni Muslim connotation,
V. G. (Bugar Garadžan ogly) Kerimli, Tjurki v Gruzii. O kul’turnych kontaktach Azerbajdžanskogo i Gruzinskogo narodov (konec XIX – načalo XX vv.) (Baku, 2011). 411
207 b. Place of birth or place of residence: e.g. lived in the formerly Ottoman part of Georgia, and c. The content of the indictments: had cross-border contacts with Turkey. In that sense, the persons in question connected to Adzharia (Ottoman territory until 1878) as well as the rayons Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigeni, Aspindza and Bogdanovka (Ottoman until 1829) are regarded as Turks. The entire remainder of Georgia, correspondingly, is allocated to the Azerbaijanis. This is true for the population (share of the population), but also for the repression documents in which almost always either birthplace or place of residence (rarely both) are indicated. The degree of repression of the Turks sentenced by the Kulak Troika is 0.44% (367 persons), thus twice as high as that of the Greeks (0.18%), but significantly below the level of the Georgians (0.63%), and far removed from the staggering figures for the Abkhazians (1%) and the Germans (1.4%). The imposition of the death sentence at 60% (Georgians 45%, Greeks 46%) is higher, however. Since there were no convictions of Turks in the framework of the Dvoika, the numbers of the National Troika and the Stalinist Lists must be added here. In the case of the National Troika, the degree of repression reached a very high 0.24% in relation to the Turkish share of the population with the conviction of 196 persons, which in turn explains the low number of persons convicted via the Kulak Troika in the year 1938. Obviously the repression bureaucracy had only begun in the summer of 1938 to shift the mass of the Turks to this limit-free repression agency. Whether a special directive on the Turks was given in 1938, as with the Greeks and Iranians, is to date not known. It appears – remarkably – that there was no such Turkish Order. Practically no Turks (just one person) were handled by the Police Troika. Social repression, which in Georgia was concentrated intensely on Tbilisi, obviously played a marginal role in this pastorally situated South-western Georgian space. When crime did occur, and was perpetrated as a rule while with arms and mounted on horseback, this automatically
208 took on a political colouring and was handled via the Kulak Troika with its higher penal framework. The Kulak Troika remained in terms of quality (percentage of death sentences) the preferred level of conviction for the Turks. This is evident in the low degree of repression via the National Troika of 0.036% and 15%, that is, one of six cases processed by the National Troika resulted in a death sentence; in the framework of the Kulak Troika this, as mentioned, reaches 60%. Border violations, passport offences and simple contacts with the consulate were pursued via the National Troika, often including offences supposedly perpetrated by stateless persons or Turkish subject. The Kulak Troika convicted essentially armed bands of smugglers and human traffickers or escape agents, including occasional cases where there was an explicit link with espionage. In this way Kamo Mamed ogly is said to have crossed the border into Turkey in 1933 with 30 armed peasants, where he was enlisted by the secret service as a spy and sent back to Georgia.412 Devrish Radzhab ogly, by contrast, bought up “deficient goods” (defitsitnye tovary) and sent them to “the group of foreign gangs” (zakbandgruppa) of Dursun Uzeir ogly.413 In the files of the Kulak Troika, practically no cases can be found of Turks that do not include a reference to Turkey, which is perhaps not all that surprising in this border region. Repeatedly one finds references in the documents to alleged support of Turkish gangs, by concealing them, by providing them with food or supplying them with horses. With the exception of a few hangers-on, nearly all those convicted were shot. Even in cases where “only” agitation was perpetrated, these are not commonplace “anti-Soviet” or “anti-kolkhoz” statements. To mention an admittedly extreme example: the accused Turk Nur Akhmed ogly
Kamo Mamed ogly. Protokol № 1 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 11.08.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37362, p. 91. 413 Devrish Radzhab ogly. Protokol № 1 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 11.08.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37362, p. 104. 412
209 from Akhaltsikhe rayon allegedly agitated for the annexation of the entire area up to Baku by Turkey. For that he received a sentence appearing almost ‘mild’ in this context, ten years in a penal camp.414 In the case of the Turks, the repression of elites in the typical sense (salaried employees, party members, educated persons) played no role: they were practically completely absent. This is supported by the very few convictions of members of this ethnic group via the Stalinist Lists. On the basis of these lists of elites, only four Turks were convicted. That amounts to a repression degree of “only” 0.004% (Greeks 0.04%, that is, tenfold). However, all four Turks were sentenced to death. If we add up all the Turks convicted in the mass operations by the various Troikas, the number comes to 541.415 The repression degree is 0.66% and thus no higher than that of the Georgians (0.67%) and thus below average. 250 persons were condemned to death, thus 46% of the convicted. Thus the repression degree (death sentences in relation to the share of the population) of the Turks is a comparatively low 0.30%. However, the risk for the individual Turk hauled before one of the Troikas of being executed was more than twice as high as for Greeks (Turks 46%; Greeks 21%) – and this, even though the social and political status of the Turks was quite as low as that of the Greeks, if anything even lower, with a population consisting almost exclusively of peasants and including an extreme proportion of illiterates. If one looks at the social status of the Turks in detail, differences in this sense emerge compared to the Greeks. Thus, in the framework of the Kulak Operation in reference to all of Georgia, of 177 Turks on whom pertinent data on social status are available, 81% (144 persons) were described as peasants, whereas the corresponding figure for the Greeks is only half that, 42% (46 persons). Of the peasants among the Turks nearly 60% (85 persons), thus Nuri Akhmed ogly. Protokol № 1 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 11.08.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37362, p. 114. 415 728 (Kulak Troika) + 196 (National Troika) + 1 (Police Troika) = 925. 414
210 more than half, were sentenced to death, in dramatic contrast to the Greeks (24%, or 11 persons). Salaried employees were found in very small numbers among the Turks, only 19% (33 persons). They were handed the death sentence even more frequently than the peasants, at 79% (26 persons). Among the Greeks, the salaried employees predominated with 55% (60 persons). Compared to the Turks, the rate of death sentences for them was significantly lower, at 65%. The data on social origin conform to these data. Of 181 Turks, nearly 80% (143 persons) had peasant roots416, of the Greeks only 64% (55 of 86). ‘Kulaks’ were found at the rate of 15% (27 of 181) among the Turks, but of 24% (21 of 55) among the Greeks. Thus, compared to the Greeks, the anomalous417 conviction practice must be taken not of that the persecuted Turks, despite their significantly lower social status and social origin, nevertheless suffered noticeably more than the Greeks with respect to both numbers and severity of punishment. Since the settlement areas of the Turks were of no particular economic interest, one way to explain this aberration, as already indicated by the investigation of individual case documents, could be the location of the Turkish villages on the border of Turkey. In the Great Terror, border security without resettlement meant that the very low-status ethnic group affected must be disciplined as a whole to the point where the smallest wavering in loyalty from the system is radically punished. The statistics and the individual cases even permit the far-reaching conclusion that the Georgian periphery, ultimately in the shadow zone of border security policies of the thirties being pushed by the Moscow Central Command, especially disciplined the Turks, even though this was not appropriate for their actual (low) social status and the Turks were not nearly as dangerous as may appear on the basis of the Troika protocols. Moreover, the motif of the war threat and the potential of this population for forming a fifth column, played at best only a secondary role, as indicated by the very low repression figures in comparison with, for instance, the Germans. With the Turks, Georgia 416
Table No. 50. Recall the working hypothesis that we set forth: lower social status equals less extensive and severe persecution. 417
211 substituted their own national interests. The Turkish share of the population was weakened, even though it exhibited neither socially (no crime) nor politically (nearly no members of former political parties and groups and hardly any Kulaks and other persons with questionable origin) any kind of conspicuousness, and an excessive strengthening of the border régime was undertaken, an indication that the centuries-long militant confrontations with the Ottoman Empire, could have determined the perceptions of the repression agencies. However, not to be neglected is a factor that might be indirectly connected with the securing of the border: the suppression of the religious and cultural “threat”. Thus, a further exceptional focal point in the repressions of the Turks was the systematic extermination or camp internment of their religious elite. Thirty-two mullahs got caught up in the repression machinery; and 25 of them (78%), i.e. nearly four-fifths, were sentenced to death. In the case of the Greeks “only” two clergymen were affected; however, they both received the death sentence. The Sunni clergy in Georgia traditionally came from Turkey. In this a strong ideological as well as ethnic aspect is evident. Admittedly, the Georgian and Armenian clergy were similarly affected. The articulation of religious and cultural interests was no longer desirable. The repression of the Turks did not yet mean resettlement but rather, first and foremost, the securing of the border and the weakening of the possibilities for religious articulation of an ethnic group. This was indeed limited to this form of border security and cultural exclusion only. In 1944 the spatial exclusion through deportation followed, though now under the direction of Moscow. The difference in the amount and degree of repression that existed vis-à-vis the Greeks, despite the even lower social status of the Turks, can be traced back to the “coreligionist bonus” of the Greeks, to their settlement distant from the border and to their weak links with Greece. By contrast, the Turks had a true alternative with Turkey nearby.
212 10. “Enemy” Nationality: The Germans Among the persecuted nationalities with foreign ethnic roots, the Germans are again a special case because with Germany, even more so than with Japan (which, of course, had hardly any nationals or ethnic brethren in Georgia anyway), we are dealing with the most important “enemy nation” of the Soviet Union.418 War threat and fear of a ‘Fifth column’ within the country in case of war are obvious factors, and indeed had formed a familiar pattern since before the First World War. In fact, while Georgia may seem far away from the western border of the Soviet Empire, this was not the case. Shortly before the end of the war, in the very autumn of 1918, nearly 20,000 German soldiers had landed in Georgia, in a manoeuvre undertaken perhaps in equal measure to thwart the Ottoman Turkish ‘allies’ and the British in the quest for Baku oil and Chaitra manga ore.419 With the aggressive and militantly antiCommunist and anti-Soviet posture of the Hitler regime and its rearmament policies in open breach of the peace treaties from 1935 on, the fear of a German invasion had again gained in plausibility. Unsurprisingly, the Moscow Politburo had distributed special orders and circulars with which the repression of Germans in the Soviet Union was initiated and directed in the Great Terror, much like those directed against Poles, “Kharbinians”, Greeks, Iranians and other diaspora nationalities.420 As early as 25 July 1937, Order № 00439 of the NKVD of the USSR had gone out demanding the arrest of Germans with German passports who worked in industries important to the war and in the railroad service, and to record in lists those Soviet citizens with German 418
The repressions of the Poles and Iranians can not be included here since the data material is insufficient (Poles) and with the Iranians it appears unclear. 419 W. Baumgart, Das “Kaspi-Unternehmen” - Größenwahn Ludendorffs oder Routineplanung des deutschen Generalstabs? Ein kritischer Rückblick auf die deutsche militärische Intervention im Kaukasus 1918. Teil 1-2, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (1970), No. 18, pp. 47-126, 231-278; Also W. Bihl, Die Kaukasus-Politik der Mittelmächte. Teil 2. Die Zeit der versuchten kaukasischen Staatlichkeit. 1917-1918 (Vienna u.a., 1992) 420 Operativnyj prikaz narodnogo komissara vnutrennich del SSSR № 00593 “Ob operacii po repressirovaniju byvšich služaščich Kitajsko-Vostočnoj železnoj dorogi i reemigrantov iz Man‘čžou-Go (charbincy)” ot 20.09.1937, in Leningradskij martirolog, 1937-1938, vol. 3 (Sankt Peterburg, 1998), pp. 583-585.
213 nationality working in these industries. However, the conviction of “Empire Germans” was not supposed to proceed via extra-judicial bodies, but rather through the Military Collegium of the High Court of the USSR and the Special Counsel.421 Germans with a German passport were also affected by Circular № 68 “About Foreigners”, which severely complicated the lengthening of a visa, in order “to weaken the activity of this espionage and sabotage herd”.422 The bulk of the repressions of the Germans, with and without passport, was however only initiated on the basis and according to the scheme of the Polish Order № 00485 and via the Order № 00447, that is, with the help of mass operations and extra-judicial bodies.423 In the orders, circulars and directives related to the National Operations, foreign policy argumentation dominated as a basis for arrest and conviction; in the context of Order № 00447, however, motives of internal policy dominated. Germans had originally come to Georgia mainly from the South (Württemberg, Baden, and other South German principalities), as years of crop failures after the Napoleonic Wars culminated in the ‘year without a summer’ (1816), which was felt across the globe and resulting in widespread famine. Many Pietist Protestant Württembergians indicated the signs (Napoleon as the Antichrist, natural disasters) as proof that the end was near and decided to move to Mount Ararat for the inevitable flood. Accepted by Russia in the Volga German tradition of 1762/63, they came as far as Tiflis, being barred from Ararat, then still in Muslim lands. They formed a number of villages, close to Tbilisi in one case (Neu-Tiflis), but mostly in the South East, towards modern Azerbaijan, where the chain of settlement extended further. Operativnyj prikaz narodnogo komissara vnutrennich del SSSR № 00439 “Ob operacii po repressirovaniju germanskijch poddannych, podozrevavšichsja špionaže protiv SSSR” ot 25.07.1937, in Leningradskij martirolog, 1937-1938, vol. 2 (Sankt Peterburg, 1998), pp. 452453. 422 Cirkuljar NKVD SSSR № 68 “Ob inostrancach” ot 16.08.1937, in I. L. Ščerbatova (ed.), Nakazannyj narod. Repressii protiv rossijskich nemcev (Moscow, 1999), p. 46. 423 Operativnyj prikaz narodnogo komissara vnutrennich del SSSR № 00485 “Ob operacii po repressirovaniju členov ‘POV’, voennoplennych pol’skoj armii, perebežčikov iz Pol’ši, politemigrantov i politobmennych iz Pol’ši, byvšich členov PPS I drugich pol’skich političeskich partij” ot 11.08.1937, in Leningradskij martirolog, 1937-1938, vol. 2: Oktjabr‘ 1937 g. (Sankt Peterburg, 1998), pp. 454-456. 421
214 Four large such colonies were Alexanderdorf, Katharinenfeld, Marienfeld and Petersdorf, named after members of the Romanov dynasty. Overflow from these settlements, with new arrivals, later set up the settlements of Lindau, Gnadenberg and Neudorf in Abkhazia when the Russian authority worked to resettle its empty spaces after the conquest of Abkhazia and the eviction and flight of large portions of the Muslim population into the Ottoman Empire. In the factories and harbors of Georgia, in 1937, specialists from Germany worked alongside Germans with a Soviet passport.424 In the tsarist era, the German peasant colonists had prospered; they often employed locals, Georgians, “Tatars” (Azerbaijanis) and Armenians, as servants and agricultural workers. After the upheaval of the war and War Communism, the Germans were at the forefront of the state vintner’s collective “Concordia” in the era of the “New Economic Policy”. This cooperative encompassed the large former German possessions and the German vintner’s collectives in Georgia and Azerbaijan; in 1928 the collective had more than 2,000 members. Thanks to this vintner’s collective, many still private German small businesses worked together. In 1928, already weakened through the prevention of free trade, the collectivization of agriculture put a final end to the collective.425 Large kolkhozes, which no longer took any special consideration of ownership, were now the only alternative for the former German colonists like for everybody else. In 1937, all German churches were closed in Georgia; and in 1938, Russian and Georgian were finally introduced in the schools
424
A. Songhulaschwili, Die Deutschen in Georgien (Tiflis, 1997). The “Concordia” was under strict observation since the 1920s, cf. A. Savin, W. Hedeler, Die Deutschen in der UdSSR - eine “fünfte Kolonne?”. Die sowjetisch-deutschen Beziehungen Mitte der 1920er Jahre aus der Sicht der OGPU, Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (IWK) (2006) No. 2-3, vol. 42, p. 305-324 (321); A. I. Savin, Mennonity kak celevaja gruppa repressij konca 1920-ch – 1930-ch godov, in A. I. Savin (ed.), Ėtnokonfessija v sovetskom gosudarstve. Mennonity Sibiri v 1920 – 1930-e gody. Emigracija i repressii (Novosibirsk, 2009), p. 11. 425
215 as the languages of instruction and German was declared a foreign language, to be taught as a subject at best.426 Toward the end of the 1930s, the number of Soviet Germans in Georgia amounted to approximately 24,140 persons. With the repression of 330 Germans in Georgia in the framework of the Kulak Operation, this group suffered the highest degree of repression of 1.4%, leaving aside the Iranians, where the population data which must form the basis of calculations are very uncertain; figures are higher by nearly a 1/3 (28%) even when compared with the Abkhazians (1%). Regarding the imposition of the death sentence, however, the Germans are in the middle, at 57% in relation to the total number of convicted. By comparison, the Turks were sentenced to death at a rate of 60%, Jews and Yezidis at a rate of 70% and Laz even at 85%. Already in 1937, the degree of repression of the Germans reached a very high 1.04%. Like the Abkhazians, the Germans were thus hit hard early, already in 1937, unlike many other groups and e. g. the Georgians themselves. In 1937, a somewhat larger portion of the persecuted Germans were sentenced to death than among the Abkhazians (52%), namely 53%. In 1938, the degree of repression was, with 0.33%, significantly lower but still on a part with the Abkhazians (0.32%) and twice as high as for the Georgians (0.15%). Regarding death sentences, the percentage climbed – completely in keeping with a general trend – to 70%. However, the distribution of Germans in the framework of the Dvoika and the National Troika must be taken into consideration for a concluding evaluation, as with the Greeks, unlike in the Abkhazian and Ossetian whose persecution was not affected by these organs. Indeed an additional 119 Germans (repression degree 0.5%) were convicted via the Dvoika, of them 13 to death, that is, 11% (Greeks 16%) in relation to the total number of 426
In 1938, Russian became a required subject in all non-Russian schools. G. Simon, Der Kommunismus und die nationale Frage, Osteuropa (2013), No. 5-6, vol. 63, p. 11. In particular on Katharinenfeld, Allmendinger writes: “In 1938 Russian was introduced as the required language of instruction. That was the end of the German schools.” E. Allmendinger, Katharinenfeld, ein deutsches Dorf im Kaukasus [1818-1941] (Neustadt, 1989), p. 117.
216 those convicted. The degree of repression thus lay 1/4 below that of the Greeks (0.67). The convictions through the National Troika number 57, a repression degree of 0.043% which corresponds roughly to that of the Greeks. Diametrically opposed to the general trend in the use of the death sentence in the framework of the National Troika in Georgia, nearly half of the total number of convicted Germans were sentenced to death, that is, 24 persons or 42% (Greeks 13%; Russians 22%; Poles 32%). This compares with the Police Troika, which convicted few Germans, in total eight persons, three of them to three years and five to five years. The degree of repression comes to 0.03%, which corresponds exactly to the rate for the Georgians, our reference value. If, in conclusion, one adds up all convictions by the Kulak Troika (330 persons total, 188 death sentences), Dvoika (119/13), National Troika (57/24) and Police Troika (8/0) of r a total of 518/228, then we actually reach a massive degree of repression of 2.1% (all convictions) and of 0.93% (death sentences, i.e. 44% of all convictions). Furthermore Germans were, finally, also convicted via the Stalinist Lists. Just as with the mass operations, here the degree of repression was again very high in comparison to nearly all other nationalities; it came to 0.34%. The degree of repression for the Jews is the only to come close, at 0.31%. The value for the Georgians amounted to only a quarter (0.08%). Substantially more than half below the value for the Germans was the degree of the repression of Abkhazians (0.14%), Russians (0.13%) and Ukrainians (0.1%). A comparison of the death sentence ratios has little demonstrative value, since it is consistently high with all persons and thus nationalities who were processed via the Stalinist Lists. With the Germans everything appears in that respect to be clear. The large number of persecuted as well as the severity of the repression, the latter being especially noticeable with the National Troika, and not least the low numbers of the Police Troika; all of these elements speak for the exclusivity of the foreign policy motive in the direction of repression against this
217 pronounced “enemy nationality”. This is confirmed once again by the unmistakeably elevated number of convictions via the Stalinist Lists. Yet it is necessary to have a closer look. The Germans were not convicted noticeably often and severely via the Dvoika, that is, the council that convicted diaspora nationalities, until early summer 1938; neither in terms of quantity or quality (severity). In contrast, the imposition of the death sentence lay significantly below that for the Greeks. The Germans, when all mass operations are considered together, were processed at the rate of 65% (2/3) via the Kulak Troika, a special board for whom local motives played an important role. For the Greeks, by contrast, the rate was only 19%, significantly less than a third; with the Turks, in turn, it was 62%, that is, a rate comparable to that with the Germans. Not until the summer of 1938 does the foreign political situation, that is, the surging war danger in the wake of the Sudeten Crisis culminating in May-September, appear to have had a strong influence on the conviction of Germans. The percentage of death sentences imposed by the National Troika, which had been installed with the Order № 00606 on 17 September 1938 as a successor council for the Dvoika, directly took on an extreme value singling out the Germans among all the diaspora nationalities.427 In parallel, as with communicating tubes, the level of repression of Germans via the Kulak Troika declined significantly. In the framework of the Kulak Operation, even data on social origin and on social status of the persecuted Germans looks unclear. On the one hand the rubric on social origin of the convicted Germans points to a significant, presumed, collaboration potential. Of 155 persons out of the 330 total convicted Germans on whom appropriate data is available, nearly 99 persons or 2/3 (64%) had a “Kulak” past, that is, they belonged to the great losers of collectivization. With certain caveats the same can be assumed about 45 persons who had a
Prikaz № 00606 narodnogo komissara vnutrennich del Sojuza SSR za 1938 god ob obrazovanii Osobych troek dlja rassmotrenija del na arestovannyh v porjadke prikazov NKVD SSSR № 00485 i dr.“ 17 sentjabrja 1938 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 427
218 peasant origin. This picture is contradicted, however, by the information on social status. A noticeably large number of workers and salaried employees were persecuted. Of 195 persons, 31 were workers, i.e. 16%, which for the Kulak Operation is very high. Nearly 2/3 (127 persons) were salaried employees (65%), only 37 were peasants (19%). Thus, in the vast majority of cases we are dealing with persons of relatively high status who are personnel who were integrated into the system. This is confirmed by the number of party members among the salaried employees (35 persons) or more than 1/4 (27.5%). Of all 330 Germans persecuted under the Kulak Operation, no less than 60 were party members (18%). Data on level of education attained, furthermore, provide additional information supporting the assumption that with the Germans as a whole, we are dealing with a group of high social and political status in Georgia.428 Finally, among the Germans convicted in Georgia, only very few had a foreign (German) passport. The markedly high numbers of persecuted Germans thus does not preclude the existence of other than foreign policy motives. Evidence for such ‘other’ motives can be found in the analysis of the actual conviction cases in the protocols of the various Troikas (Kulak Troika, National Troika and Police Troika). The NKVD of the Lyuksemburg rayon (named after Rosa Luxemburg) of the Georgian SSR held against Otto Genrikhovich Kechik, of peasant origin, little education and no party membership, his earlier arrest by the GPU (as it then was) for “anti-Soviet chattering”. Kechik, responsible for the Shipment department in the district committee, was charged because, supposedly “upon direction of the counter-revolutionary trotskyist fascist underground”, had been “forming a counter-revolutionary fascist-terrorist-insurrectionist group among the Germans, was systematically stirring up agitation among the members of the
Table 51 “Osuždenie Nemcev trojkoj pri NKVD Gruzinskoj SSR (“kulackaja trojka”) po social'nomu proischoždeniju, po političeskomu položeniju i proischoždeniju, po religii, po social'nomu položeniju i po obrazovaniju s 11 avgusta 1937 po 11 oktjabrja 1938 gg.”, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 2. 428
219 group” and “had been preparing terrorist activities against the rayon leadership”. On 16 September 1937, the Kulak Troika ordered Kechik to be shot.429 The NKVD of Akhaltsikhe rayon designated the craftsman-carpenter Egor Khristoforovich Gofman [Hoffmann], originating from a wealthy farmer family, as a “speculator”. Also included were accusations of “misappropriation of socialist property”, “participation in gangs of the Whites” and, finally, the conducting of “counter-revolutionary, fascist agitation” among members of the military in the city of Akhaltsikhe. On 10 October 1937 Gofman was sentenced by the Kulak Troika to ten years in a labor camp on the basis of Article 58-10 of the StGB of the Georgian SSR.430 The National Troika charged the independent farmer Gottlob Davidovich Resh [Resch], literate, lacking prior convictions, from the village of Val’dgeim (Waldheim) of Bashkichet rayon, with having been, since 1935, “an active member of a counterrevolutionary fascist organisation under the leadership of the German spy Morits Gerbrandt”. Resh was sentenced to death.431 Shoemaker Michail Petrovich Chalov, literate, aka Fedor Petrovich Raush [Rausch], also capable of both writing and reading, was shot. The accusation was that he had been engaged in “speculation” past and present, had absconded from a labor camp, and had engaged in “counter-revolutionary agitation”.432 Against Elza Al’bertovna Fekus, the Police Troika on 22 August 1938 issued a sentence of three years in a work-rehabilitation camp. The Special Department of the Administration of the Worker and Peasant Police of the Georgian SSR simply concluded that
Protokol № 16 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 16.09.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 371, p. 69. 430 Protokol № 29 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 10.10.1937, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 37389, p. 117 431 Protokol № 36 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 09.10.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38470, p. 40. 432 Protokol № 17 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 29.09.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 38468, p. 54. 429
220 she was a “socially dangerous element”, and homeless and unemployed, she had been arrested twice, once because of contact with thieves and the second time because she broke the promise, confirmed with her signature, of leaving the city of Batumi. She had been living in Batumi illegally, without passport or registration, since 15 July 1938. Not engaged in “societally beneficial work”, she kept herself busy, according to the Troika protocol, with break-ins, and had contacts with thieves. Once arrested, she began to lash about and to pepper the officials of the Worker and Farmer Police with foul language during the interrogation.433 Analyzing reasons adduced in the protocols of Germans repressed by the Kulak Troika, “only” 19 out of 50 cases studied (38%) included foreign policy reasons like espionage, sabotage in favour of an enemy nation or singing “hymns to fascist Germany and capitalism” clearly determining the conviction. With 16% (8 of 50), internal policy reasons certainly played an important role, and with a further 16% (8 of 50) the foreign policy aspect was only secondary, while for the final 30% (15 of 50), foreign policy arguments are completely absent in favor of internal policy reasons like Trotskyism, speculation, sabotage, embezzlement, counter-revolutionary agitation and membership in the “right-wing” aberration of the Communist Party.434 The reasons for conviction with the National Troika were, in the case of the Germans, very strongly determined, as expected, by foreign policy topics. For 46% (9 of 19 persons) the accusation revolved around contacts with the hostile outside world. For another 32% (6 of 19), this formed the chief accusation. Only for 11% (2 of 19) did internal Soviet policy aspects move to the foreground, and only for the final 11% (2 of 19) were such interior
Protokol № 105/62 zasedanija trojki pri NKVD GSSR ot 22.08.1938, AIMG, Department 1, fund 8, file 359, p. 134. 434 Only one person was convicted of a border violation. Repeated theft and break-ins played a role only as a rare exception with the Germans, which in turn confirms their high social status. With the Kulak Troika, a sample of 48 persons total was drawn from 330 convicted persons, or every 10th and as control material the first 20 listed Germans. Doublings of two persons (50-2=48) that occurred this way were calculated out. 433
221 motives the only ones expressed.435 In contrast, the judgements of the Police Troika were based exclusively on reasons of social deviance without any foreign, or even any political, connection (100%).436 If we now consider the results in a synopsis, then the decidedly bloody dynamic of the repression of the Germans, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, resulted from the interplay and coming together of foreign and internal policy interests, of local and central interests and motives. Regarding the Germans, a relatively high social status, a suspect social origin and a noticeably high average level of education, paired with a high degree of participation in the local power structures, when viewed from a local perspective, turned into their doom. The Germans presented serious competition for the titular nationality; they were well-educated, well-represented in the state and party apparatus and in industry, as well as in small businesses. The opportunity to move against the Germans became significantly less complicated for the repression bodies through their stigmatisation as an “enemy nationality”, or potential danger to the state as a whole. In this sense, the Moscow Central Command provided ideological and practical help and cover with its central propaganda machine and special orders concerning the Germans. Because of this interplay of internal and foreign factors, the traditionally positive image of the Germans in Georgia could not prevent their elimination as a group competing politically and socially.
11. Stalinist Nation Building: Doing Away with the National Circus The history of Georgia has many distinctive features. One of them, with respect to the nationalities living there, is a continuous process of national homogenisation or, as it was 435
With one person border violation played a role along with foreign and internal policy issues. With the National Troika, out of a total of 57 convicted persons 19 persons or every 5th and the first ten convicted were taken into consideration. The doubling of two persons that occurred this way was calculated out. 436 All eight convicted persons were included in the analysis.
222 expressed euphemistically, “national consolidation.” This had an effect on the execution of the mass actions of the Great Terror ordered by Moscow across the USSR— in the case of Georgia, one can distinguish between groups that appeared to be assimilable into the Georgian nation, and those that were not. Here the criteria identified by Stalin in his 1913 text “Marxism and the National Question”437—i.e. common language, culture, history and territory—play a large role. Assimilation and exclusion appear as two sides of one coin in forming the Georgian nation—inwardly uniform and outwardly clearly delineated. The goal of the government in Georgia was to level out all distinguishable ethnic identities within the Kartvelian groups or, at least, to downgrade them to regional identities. This meant systematically squeezing the non-Georgian Kartvelian (Mingrelian, Svan, Laz) and the non-Kartvelian (Bats, Udi) languages out of the public sphere by administrative means, letting them disappear from the schools and media and, through their functional loss in the course of modernisation, gradually from daily use as well. It also meant suppressing academically sound studies that had clearly shown that these languages are not “dialects” of Georgian but rather separate languages that are mutually incomprehensible.438 The oral use of these languages was not, however, explicitly forbidden. In particular, Islam as the basis of a special identity for the Adzharians, Laz and Meskhians was repressed far in excess of the general struggle against religion, with the goal of assimilation. Whoever appeared unassimilable due to Turkization, such as the Laz or heavily Turkified Adzharians and Meskhians, was inversely threatened with exclusion. The Ossetians and Abkhazians, lacking their own traditional “high culture” and not necessarily Muslim, were also targeted for assimilation according to this scheme, but should that fail they were then threatened with exclusion.
437
Stalin, Marxism and the national question, pp. 302-313. Sporadically linguistic special publications still appear that deal with the more minor Kartvelian languages. 438
223 The policy with respect to the diaspora nationalities, separate from the policy of homogenization, was equally directed toward reduction, but not in the sense of an assimilationist policy. Thus, Armenians and Azerbaijanis were not targeted for linguistic for assimilation but rather retained much of their settlement areas (in the southwest and southeast of Georgia) as well as their own schools in Tbilisi, unless they already spoke Georgian, as was true of most of the Armenians residing in the capital. The remaining groups were regarded as relatively insignificant and could either (as with European minorities) attend Russian or, depending on location, Georgian, Armenian or Azerbaijani schools.439 The Georgian repression bureaucracy followed exactly the mandated path of homogenization, using means prescribed, or at least allowed, by the mass operations orders. The apportionment of repression victims according to nationality revealed the fundamental intent of further levelling the ethnic and cultural diversity of the republic and, with that, ending the “National Circus”440 of recent years. Certain ethnic groups did not find their way into the documents of the extra-judicial and judicial penal bodies. As a result, significant linguistic cultural differences between ethnic groups – still recorded in the census documents of 1926 – fell away, so, for instance, Mingrelians and Svans were being counted simply as Georgians in the 1937 census. With the exception of the Laz and Adzharians, all ethnic groups still listed at least as a subgroup of the “Georgian” category in 1926 had vanished by mid-1937.441 In the case of the Adzharians, the approach pursued by the central authorities in
439
The Armenians of Tbilisi, although fluent in Georgia, also became very Russian-language oriented, often actually the representatives of Russian culture. (Thanks to Tim Blauvelt). 440 The description of Stalinist nationality policy using the derogatory term ‘National Circus’ is not of our own invention, but was used by a contemporary writer; regrettably, we can no longer locate the source in question. We have opted to use the expression regardless, as it seems very fitting. 441 It should be emphasized that already the listing of the affected nationalities in 1926 as only a Georgian subgroup and not as a self-sufficient ethnic group must probably be traced back to strong nationalist Georgian influences, since this practice represents an absolute exception Soviet-wide. This census was very detailed and included even the smallest differences. All group were listed separately, even if they were “only” distinguishable by their religion: (Muslim) Tatars were number 48 in the nationalities list for the census, (Christian) Tatars (the
224 Tbilisi remains unclear. It probably consisted of a mixture of administrative attempts at assimilation and targeted persecution policies to weaken and subordinate this minority titular nationality. Of course, all of this can be seen as a re-implementation of an older policy. Since the 1880s, Georgian nationalists and the church had bitterly resisted Russian attempts to implement Mingrelian or Abkhazian writing systems. Mingrelian publications appeared in limited numbers until 1937.442 Through this administrative assimilation of entire ethnicities, Georgia, proceeding largely on its own initiative, was well on its way to fulfilling the fourth and last Stalinist criterion of what constitutes a nation: commonality of culture (obshchnost’ kul’tury).443 This process was supported by long-term measures along the lines drawn by Stalin to promote the development of a common “specific spiritual complexion”, “psychological make-up”, “peculiarities of national culture”, and “national character”, which found its clearest expression in the unification of the linguistic patchwork quilt that had characterized Georgian territory.444 With the other groups that were held more or less to be assimilable, the Abkhaz and Ossetians, their Latin alphabets were replaced across the board with Georgian-based ones and instruction in the Georgian language was strongly upgraded in their schools at the expense of their native tongues. In this way the first criterion in the Stalinist definition of a nation, the
Mescerjaki) the number 49; Buddhist Kalmykians 54 and Muslim Sart-Kalmykians 57; Muslim Kurds 154 and Yezidis 155. There was only one exception: the Georgians (№ 105) received the subgroup “105a Adzharians, 105b Mingrelians, 105c Laz, 105d Svans” (in the Russian original 105a/b/v/g). These absolutely illogical exceptions show (identically carried over to the languages, where absurdly the “Kartvelian language” (sic!) is treated as one language with the subgroups Mingrelian, Laz, Svanian, and “actual Georgian” (sobstvenno gruzinskii), while elsewhere they are consistently distinguished in detail) that the basis of the local inclusion/ assimilation policy was strong at the latest at this point in time in the local apparatus. 442 Blauvelt, The ‚Mingrelian Question‘, p. 1018. 443 Stalin, Marxism and the national question, p. 307. 444 Ibidem, pp. 306-307.
225 “commonality of language”, was more than satisfied. According to Stalin, “a national community is inconceivable without a common language”. 445 It was obviously no problem for the political and administrative centre of Georgia in Tbilisi that the chancellery language in 1937-1938, as the repression documents make clear, remained Russian with the corresponding Cyrillic alphabet. Indeed, Stalin had stated that “the integrity of Russia and Austria is not affected by the fact that there are a number of different languages within their borders. We are referring, of course, to the spoken languages of the people and not to the official governmental languages”. 446 The repression statistics organized according to nationality, however, reflect not only the administrative aspects of the local policy but also their bloody side, especially with respect to the ethnic groups who resisted assimilation, who stood in the way of “unification” or Georgianization. The repression documents concerning the specially designated nationalities within Georgia reveal that the republic’s administration also pursued homogenisation by force, employing repressive measures to disempower and subordinate ethnic groups for the benefit of both the political and state centre in Tbilisi and citizens of the titular nationality. The most important example of such a procedure was the one undertaken against the Abkhazians. From 1936 on their elite was severely weakened; then, in the mass operations, the entire populace, had their turn: many peasants, but also salaried employees and mid-range party cadres. The highest priority was the reversal of Abkhazians’ progressive nation-building efforts that began against the backdrop of the struggles from 1918-1921 and the drive to create their own Union Republic in 1921-31, supported through strong connections with Moscow and the North Caucasus. These connections had to be severed and the settlement and nationality policy of this autonomous republic, which threatened the hegemony of the Georgian political and administrative Centre, had to be thwarted. The repression of the
445 446
Ibidem, p. 304. Ibidem, p. 304.
226 Abkhazians, thus, is a prime example of the coercive implementation of the second and third Stalinist criteria for a nation—“common territory” and an “internal economic bond”.447 The cultural, political and physical penetration and colonisation of Abkhazian territory had already been forced through by central Georgian policies of settlement, land distribution, and allocation of economic and technical resources.448 That this policy of repression of minorities was rooted not in an ethnicization of the Georgian bureaucracy’s perspective, but rather concerned the “punishment” of inadequate loyalty and the unwillingness to adapt to and integrate with the Georgian nation, was confirmed by the repression policy toward the Laz. The Laz, even though they were as close to the Georgians as the administratively assimilated Mingrelians, Svans and Bats and were no longer listed in the primary census documents of 1937, were nonetheless specially categorized, exactly like the Abkhazians. The severity and nature of the punishments to which they were subjected was also notable. As a standard explanation for the special treatment of the Laz, one could cite their lacking a “common culture” with majority Georgians. They were Sunni Muslim by faith and their language, despite common historical roots, was complete unintelligible to Georgian speakers. Moreover, the Laz had the appearance of a diaspora nationality, since the great majority lived in Turkey. It also weighed heavily that the Laz had taken up common cause with the Abkhazians, or rather were said to have: The Abkhazian CP in attempting to pursue its own settlement and cultural policy, had advocated Laz interests, in view of the unusual fact that the only pure Laz village on Georgian (or, indeed, Soviet) soil was located in Adzharia. In Moscow and Tbilisi the money and space arrangements had been made for the Laz in Sukhumi to have a Laz newspaper, funding for Laz schoolbooks had been provided, and in Abkhazia a strip of coastal land had been allocated for a Laz kolkhoz.
447 448
Ibidem, p. 305. Ibidem, p. 306.
227 For the central government in Tbilisi it was an additional thorn in their side that the Laz, taking advantage of both direct contacts letters of complaint to Moscow, continually belied Tbilisi’ assertions that they were practicing a prudent nationality policy. The Laz revealed that the Georgian central government and party, since the beginning of collectivisation, had been using their new authority over economic, technical (machines), administrative (land distribution) and political decisions and allocations to delay and thwart the promotion of the Laz through the ASSR of Abkhazia.449 The seemingly nationality-neutral collectivisation effort thus already served as an economic instrument of control in the Georgian quest for national homogenisation. In addition, Tbilisi also “tolerated”—i.e., encouraged—the emigration of a significant number of Laz, mostly migrant workers, to Turkey. The imperial policy of Moscow concerning the Soviet Union’s porous borders, still in place at the end of the 1920s, which aimed to convince the Laz in Turkey, with the help of the Georgian Laz, of the superiority of the Soviet societal model and its supposedly exemplary nationality policy, was thus reversed and undermined. A further indication that the central government in Tbilisi was interested in access to Abkhazian (and Adzharian) territory for the Georgian nation-building process is provided by the repression of the Greeks. Intuitively, the proximity of the Greeks’ most heavy concentrations in Georgia to the maritime border of the Soviet Union, and thus the ‘war threat’ leitmotif, may be invoked. But it does not appear possible to quantitatively explain the severity of the repression using just this argument. Social reasons were also not the primary motivation as the Greeks were a socially underprivileged ethnic group without a high rate of crime. It was much more crucial that they for the most part settled in Abkhazia and there, as an only partially assimilable ethnicity, hindered the establishment of a Georgian majority in the territory. The close connection between territory and the repression of a given ethnic 449
On the boycott policy of the central government in Tiflis vis-à-vis the Mingrelian efforts to transform their territory into an autonomous region, see Blauvelt, The ‚Mingrelian Question‘, pp. 1010-1012.
228 group is especially clear in the case of the Greeks, because those who settled outside Abkhazia were far less affected by repression. The correlation between repression and geography is also evidenced—in a negative sense—by the treatment of another major ethnic group, the Ossetians. They were spared heavy persecution, both quantitatively and qualitatively, only because their territory was not significant in terms of strategic location or natural resources, while at the same time their social, political and economic status was very low and, unlike in Abkhazia, there was no rival patronage network in South Ossetia. Cultural differences were also not pivotal, as the Ossetians were almost without exception orthodox Christians. Nevertheless, national homogenisation was also imposed on the Ossetians, while the repression apparatus thinned out the few Ossetian social climbers (salaried employees and party members) and thereby cemented the low status of the ethnic group. In the case of minority ethnicities in Georgia, territorial questions largely recede to the background. Instead, their exceptional social and political status played the decisive role. Jewish citizens were severely persecuted, obviously because their high status—especially in the cities, where they were concentrated—was supposed to be reduced. The repression efforts focused on the Ashkenazi (immigrated) Jews, rather than the Georgian Jews, who were regarded as assimiliable. Latent anti-Semitism could well have facilitated this process. By contrast, there was hardly any noticeable repression of Russians or Ukrainians. The enforcement of the Tbilisi administration’s cultural, social, territorial and economic hegemony over minority nationalities and other Georgian subgroups, which significantly strengthened the dominance of ethnic Georgians, readily extended to the repression of internal and external diaspora nationalities. They did not have to become Georgians, according to the administrative policy, but their political and economic position was supposed to be weakened. The Armenians, who in the large Georgian cities, above all in Tbilisi, had been stripped of their traditional dominance, were struggling for survival in the
229 provinces. Low-status Kurdish Yezidis were targeted on the basis of their alleged control over small business sectors in the cities of Tbilisi and Batumi and their supposed cultural and religious allegiance to their homeland, even though as refugees they had fully broken from the Ottoman Empire and could not be designated as members of an “enemy nation”. The already socially and politically disadvantaged Azerbaijanis, Muslim Kurds and Turks suffered further persecution as what remained of their elites became a target. The once important cultural, economic and political position of the German diaspora was broken as the Germans were, similarly to the Jews, not only severely persecuted en masse, but also as their “disloyal” elites were selectively sentenced to long-term camp detentions or death. The Georgian central authority (party and state) in Tbilisi did not in any way work “secretively” against the policy of the Moscow central command. The prioritizing of titular nationalities with the simultaneous marginalising of lesser nationalities and other subordinate ethnic groups was Stalinist nationality policy in the entire Soviet Union.450 The path undertaken with the founding of the Soviet Union, “to eliminate the languages, cultures, and separate ethno-historical identities of hundreds of clans and tribes by consolidating them into new nationalities,” was now, through the promotion of ethnic homogenisation within the constituent republics substantially accelerating the progress „into a Soviet ‘post-national’ whole”.451 This policy built up steam at the beginning of the thirties, as illustrated by the example of the Ukraine: in 1934, 17 Polish village Soviets were transformed into Ukrainian. O. Reisner, Between State and Nation. The Debate about “Ethnicity” in Georgian Citizens’ ID Cards, in F. Companjen, L. Marácz, L. Versteegh (ed.), Exploring the Caucasus in the 21th Century. Essays on Culture, History and Politics in a Dynamic Context (Amsterdam, 2010), p. 164; Y. Slezkine, The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist state Promoted Ethnic Particularism, Soviet Review (1994), 53, p. 448; S. G. Simonsen, Inheriting the Soviet Policy Toolbox. Russia’s Dilemma over Ascriptive Nationality, Europe-Asia Studies (1999), 51, p. 1070ff; Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire; L. S. Gatagova, L. P. Košeleva, L. A. Rogovaja, Dž. Kadio (ed.) CK VKP (b) i nacional’nyj vopros, vol. 2: 19331945 (Moscow, 2009). 451 This assessment of Stalinist nationality policy was developed against the background of Francine Hirsch’s clever critique of Eric Weitz’s thesis on “Racial Politics” of the Soviet Union. F. Hirsch, Race without the Practice of Racial Politics, Slavic Review (2002), No. 61, p. 42. 450
230 Many German village Soviets met the same fate. The reconfiguration and expansion of administrative units to bring the Polish or German portion of the population under the 50% mark was essential to this Ukrainization process. On 16 February 1938 the Politburo of the CC of CP(b) of Ukraine ordered the “Transformation of the national rayon and village Soviets of the Ukraine into regular rayons and village Soviets”.452 The final dissolution of all national administrative units proceeded then through a declaration of the Politburo of the Ukrainian CC of the CP(b) titled “On the Liquidation and Transformation of National Units” of 7 April 1939.453 By the end of the year, all the remaining Polish rayons in the republic had been redesignated as Ukrainian. The educational policy was similar to the one in Georgia, with the difference that along with Ukrainian, Russian language instruction was also introduced in many of the schools of the former national rayons.454 A certain flexibility existed—the formerly recognized nationalities were integrated into whatever authorized nationality and language was the closest, which might be Russian, the language of the respective republic’s titular nationality, or, in a few cases, another nationality. As evidenced by, for instance, the complaints of Iskender Tsitashi about the treatment of Laz in Georgia, the most important consequence of this policy was that Moscow, beginning in 1937 and increasingly in 1938, pulled back from arbitrating conflicts between titular and subordinate nationalities. This was now a matter for the individual republics. A complicated balancing of forces was replaced by a hierarchical system of jurisdictions that clearly gave
O reorganizacii nacional’nych rajonov i sel’sovetov USSR v obyčnst rajony i sel’sovety. 16.02.1938, in L. S. Gatagova, L. P. Košeleva, L. A. Rogovaja, Dž. Kadio (ed.) CK VKP (b) i nacional’nyj vopros, vol. 2 (Moscow, 2009), p. 377-379. 453 B. V. Čirko, Die Liquidierung des Systems der nationalen Rayons der Ukraine in den Jahren 1934-1939, in A. Eisfeld, V. Herdt, B. Meissner (ed.), Deutsche in Rußland und der Sowjetunion 1914-1941 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 272-276; Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, pp. 98-124, 291-308. This decree rested on the decision of 20 February 1939, cf. О likvidacii i preobrazovanii iskustvenno sozdannych nacional’nych rajonov i sel’sovotov ot 20.02.1939, in Gatagova, L. S./Košeleva, L. P./Rogovaja, L. A./Kadio, Dž. (ed.), CK VKG (b) i nacional’nyj vopros, Teil 2: 1933 – 1945, Moscow, 2009, p. 451 – 459. 454 E. Borisenok, Fenomen sovetskoj ukrainizacii 1920-1930-e gody (Moscow, 2006), pp. 229-232. 452
231 preference to the titular nationalities. The complaints lodged by Tsitashi and other “brakemen” – those trying to block or impede the streamlining of decision-making in the field of nationality policies, where most prerogatives had been assigned to the Union Republics, i. e. to Tbilisi – were no longer processed in Moscow but rather forwarded to the “competent” authorities in Tbilisi, who were responsible for convicting and executing Tsitashi. Tbilisi decided for Georgia, Baku for Azerbaijan, Erevan for Armenia, without any involvement by Moscow, as long as the central directives were satisfied. This shift in policy also affected historical research and other social sciences. From 1937 on, ethnographic expeditions from Moscow and Leningrad depended on the approval of the destination republic. Regional scholars, such as Kurdologists from Armenia who wanted to seek out Kurds in Azerbaijan, could no longer in practice conduct research in “foreign” territory. The authority of the republics over the historical interpretation their territory meant that, from this point in time on, it was no longer possible for scholars to publish, for instance, in Armenia about the Armenian Berg-Karabakhs, or in (Russian) North Ossetia about (Georgian) South Ossetia.455 The coexistence and intermingling of cultures within the large republics was no longer seen as desirable. In 1938, the regionalisation of the Soviet nationalities policy reached its climax in parallel with the regionalisation of persecution activities under the Great Terror. With this development, which had begun with the initiation of mass collectivisation, local nation building in the Stalinist mould became the driving force of the mass repressions in Georgia. Thus, from the beginning of the Great Terror, the formula “Socialist on the exterior, national in its core” applied to Georgia.456 Nation building on the basis of the idea of multi-nationality and/or socialism must be seen as having failed.
455
V. A. Shnirelman, Who gets the past? Competition for ancestors among non-Russian intellectuals in Russia (Washington, D. C., 1996); also by V. A. Shnirelman, The value of the past. Myths, identity and politics in Transcaucasia (Osaka, 2001); V. A. Šnirel’man, Mnogolikaja Klio. Boi za istoriju na postsovetskom prostranstve (Berlin, 2010). 456 The Stalin quotation is the other way around: National in form, socialist in content – with “content”, in Terry Martin’s view, meaning actual power.
232 12. Deadly Interaction The specifically Georgian interests are indispensable for understanding the mass repressions in the republic; however, they explain only a part of their deadly dynamic, especially in the case of the diaspora nationalities. The interaction between the local strategy and the central Moscow viewpoint requires special attention understanding this interaction is required for a full explanation of the statistically very noticeable differences in the extent and nature of the repression of the various diaspora nationalities and between them and the other nationalities in the region. From this perspective the repression of the Turks, despite their low social and political status, and their economically unattractive and overpopulated settlement area in Meskhetia and the Adzharian back country, must be seen against the backdrop of the border security measures conducted Soviet-wide by Moscow, with particular intensity since 1929. The Georgian government took those measures as legitimizing the persecution of the Turks living by the Turkish border. The Georgian government could thus simultaneously do Moscow a favour and inconspicuously pursue its local interests by increasing the pressure on the Georgian-speaking Meskhians to either accept assimilation or suffer the same treatment as the “excluded ones”. That the persecuting organs mainly thought about the Turks in terms of local issues was indicated by the fact that only a few Turks were processed by the Dvoika and National Troika, which were more likely associated with international policy. While there was little pretence that border security was at issue in the case of the Greeks, whose basic status was similar to that of the Turks, this hardly meant that they were subject to less repression. On the contrary, internal Georgian interests meant the opposite was true. The local Georgian repression bureaucracy, through a marginalisation of the Greek diaspora nationality, utilized the National Orders to conduct a higher priority attack on Adzharia and Abkhazia.
233 Since the Greek communities in Georgia originated in the Ottoman Empire or Turkey, one must always take into consideration with the Greeks, just as with the Turks, the Soviet aim fend off Turkish demands through settlement policy and “purgings” of all sorts along the Soviet periphery. After all, parts of Georgia had until 1829 (or even, in the case of Batumi, 1878) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, and some of them had been briefly threatened or indeed reoccupied by Ottoman troops in 1914/15 and 1918. In 1945, the Soviet Union started a massive campaign in the press and through diplomatic channels to demand huge swathes of Eastern Turkey for Soviet Georgia and Soviet Armenia, respectively, demands largely based on their supposed current (in 1945) and historical settlement by Georgians and Armenians. These Anti-Turkish claims and threats, additionally including ominous Soviet demands for pro-Soviet changes in the ‘Straits Regime’ (determining access of warships through the Turkish-controlled Dardanelles and Bosporus into the Black Sea), as set down in the Montreux Convention of 1936, together with parallel Soviet threats to the security of Turkey’s neighbours to the West (Greek Civil War since 1944) and East (Soviet occupation of Northern Iran and initial refusal to withdraw after the stipulated grace period after the end of World War II), lies at the origins of the cold war and the founding of NATO.457 Despite the internal and supposed foreign policy considerations, the Greeks of Georgia were not repressed to the same extent as were the Germans. The Greeks had in contrast to the Germans a low social status, and with their repression, again, the rationale of international vigilance was shown as pretence in Georgia; in reality, internal policy was implemented. With the Germans and probably also with the Poles, however, an amalgamation of central Moscow and local Tbilisi policies was brought to bear. In the case of Germany, we are clearly and justifiably dealing with the enemy nation (along with Japan and, less than justifiably,
457
B. R. Kuniholm, The origins of the Cold War in the Near East. Great power conflict and diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece (Princeton, NJ 1980), pp. 286-288; G. Dimitrov, Dnevnik. 9 mart 1933-6 fevruari 1949 (Sofija, 1997), p. 203; F. I. Čuev, Sto sorok besed s Molotovym. Iz dnevnika F. Čueva (Moscow, 1991), p. 14.
234 “England”). The Germans in Georgia were associated with the German enemy through the central propaganda machine, especially intensively from the summer of 1938 on because of the Sudetenland crisis. There is also the significant fact that the Germans locally offered an inviting target due to their (formerly) high social, political and economic status and their Moscow contacts. In this respect they stood in the way of the Stalinist nation-building efforts of the Georgian central government. Not until this interplay of broad, Soviet-wide factors with the specifically Georgian occurred did the situation lead to an unusually deadly level of repression.
13. Mass Repressions and Deportations Drawing a line of continuity between the repressions of the Great Terror and the complete or partial deportation of nationalities is no easy task, even though the nearly complete resettlement of, for instance, the Germans from Georgia to Kazakhstan was the climax of the action taken against this ethnic group in Georgia. 458 The same is true of the deportation of Turkish and Kurdish populations from Adzharia and Meskhetia to Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan and Uzbekistan, which was fully executed by the end of 1944. The process of resettling entire peoples stands in contrast to the varied nature of the mass repressions and their Soviet-wide enforcement, which was not limited to border areas or members of “enemy nations”. The procedure for the implementation of the deportations can be fundamentally distinguished from that of the mass repressions. The deportations proceeded administratively, without the participation of judges, special courts (Special Counsel) or extrajudicial bodies (Troikas, Dvoikas). The affected group was additionally resettled as a collective category —that is, deportations were, in contrast to the repression operations, not
458
Immunised against the official justification for the resettlement of a threatening collaboration with the Germans, were only the Germans who were married to a Georgian. They were allowed to stay in Georgia, which was the general practice with all deportations of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.
235 actions directed against individual persons based on accusations of personal deviance, but targeted entire groups.459 The most important difference, however, was that the deportations were implemented under orders from Moscow (party, government and secret service; in times of war through the state defence committee) and with the organisational “know-how” of central commissions and the central NKVD. The central resettlement policy and “population adjustments”— that is, ethnic cleansing—were conducted in combination with border security measures and as preventive steps taken against the “fifth column”.460 Local interests and influences played a subordinate role, if any. The deportations were a partial, centrally administered intervention and not comparable to systematic repressions accompanied by a handover of repression responsibilities to the periphery. The deportations are therefore neither the logical consequence of the local nationalities policy of the Great Terror in Georgia, nor were they organized in a fashion similar to the terror operations. They must, particularly in Georgia, be seen in the context of Moscow’s central population policy and, above all, of the Second World War.461 The war was simultaneously cause and motive. The fact that through the deportations space was created in Georgia for the expansion of the titular nation, and other “loyal” ethnic groups, was only a side effect—though certainly a welcome one. This was demonstrated by the fact that the minorities were barred from returning to their homeland both after the rehabilitation in 1956 and after Georgian independence in 1991.
14. Ancestry Instead of Citizenship In Georgia, the Great Terror, in contrast to the deportations, involved not the (partial) physical exclusion of nationalities but rather the systematic, coercive disciplining and marginalisation of nationalities based on allegations of an inadequate individual compliance with a system P. Poljan, Deportacii i etničnost’, in N. L. Pobol’, P. Poljan (ed.), Stalinskie deportacii 1928-1953 (Moscow, 2005), pp. 5-6. 460 Ibidem, pp. 8-9. 461 Even if experiences out of the Great Terror and the Second World War might have flowed with others into the deportations between 1949-1952. 459
236 The coexistence of ethnic groups in Georgia was already careering out of a fragile balance due to collectivization, but not until the Great Terror was it completely undermined. The national differentiation during the repressions of 1937-38 must thus be understood as the radical part of a long-term ethnic homogenisation policy adopted by the party and state elites of the central Georgian government. In reference to the Soviet Union as a whole, the thesis of the German historian and political scientist Gerhard Simon, that nation building was deprioritized by Stalin in 1933 and its expansion did no begin again until 1950, seems to be belied by the Georgian case.462 In Georgia, nation building and, paradoxically, nationalism were amplified by the Great Terror; as a result of Moscow’s short-sighted central policy, unsustainable ethic-national structures were created around the Soviet periphery that would ultimately contribute to the breakdown of the empire. As the policy’s progenitor, Stalin, the former People’s Commissar for the Nationalities, was literally the grave digger for the Soviet Union both specifically and as the model for a new type of multiethnic state.463 For Georgia itself, as well, the consequences of the local policy of assimilation or exclusion and repression of minorities were dramatic. In the thirties – if we draw upon older analyses of Georgian nationalism extending back into the 19th century and, depending on interpretation, even further – not only was the cornerstone laid for the secession of the Abkhazians and Ossetians but also for the source of the “essentialist ethnic-cultural definition of the Georgian nation”.464 This has had after-effects that continue to endanger the unity and well-being of the country. It is tied to the conception in Georgia of “Kartveloba”—“Georgiadom”—which holds Georgian ancestry (ethnic Georgian, Mingrelian, Svans, Laz) in higher 462
G. Simon, Der Kommunismus und die nationale Frage, Osteuropa (2013), No. 5-6, vol. 63, pp. 118-119. Until 2001 Simon was the leading scientist and director in the Bundesinstitut für internationale und ostwissenschaftliche Studien in Cologne (BIOst). 463 As Tim Blauvelt points (personal communication), “even without the argument that the Georgian authorities used the terror for ethnic consolidation, Soviet nationality policy in and of itself (particularly as it continued after the war) had this paradoxical effect of brewing nationalism among titulars in some union republics to the boiling point.” This is a valid observation that actionally holds for non-titular groups as well. 464 Reisner, Between State and Nation, p. 163.
237 esteem than citizenship in the Georgian state (whether as a Soviet republic or an independent country).465 This notion of “Kartveloba” could readily be designated, per Eric Weitz’s definition, as “latently racist”.466
15. Racist or Genocidal? We have referred to theses like the “ethnicization of the view” (referencing the view of the Soviet centers of power, beginning with Stalin himself), a thesis culminating in the view that “ethnos” became an “objective criterion” for repression (theses largely developed and popularized by German scholar Jörg Baberowski), and indeed into claims of deliberate “genocide” (Norman Naimark), or “structural racism” (Eric D. Weitz). In light of the various motives and forms of ethnic discrimination in the mass operations of the years 1937-38 described here, such theses must be reconsidered. These arguments have several weak points with respect to the mass repressions in the Great Terror. These weak points begin already with the fact that it was left open whether these statements related first and foremost to the repressions carried out through the Dvoikas and the National Troikas, or whether the theses’ logic should apply to numerous other repressions, of Poles, Japanese, Germans, Greeks, etc. carried out by the Kulak Troika and the Police Troika, that is, for all mass operations or even for the entirety of the repressions during the Great Terror, including the elites.
O. Reisner, Zur Geschichte des Begriffs „eri“ in der modernen georgischen Historiographie, Georgica (2012), 35, pp. 62-77. 466 “[…] biological or genetic naturalism is not the only means of naturalizing human behaviour and social affinities […] culture can also function as a way of locking individuals and groups a priori into a genealogy, into a determination that is immutable and intangible in origin […] [The perspective] naturalizes not racial belonging but racial conduct”. Ètiennne Balibar quoted from Weitz, Racial Politics without the Concept of Race, p. 8. If not “racist”, then at least “ethno-nationalist”. 465
238 Or has this language, in particular the term “genocide,” only been imprecisely applied to the repressions on the basis that there were doubtless significant ethnic aspects to the Stalinist policies of violence and murder? A limitation of the theses to only the National Operations would mean that, according to a purely quantitative comparison, these operations would have had to constitute the most extensive repression operations, surpassing those of the Kulak Operation and the repressions in the framework of the Police Troikas. This, however, is not the case. Across the Soviet Union the repression activities of the Kulak Troikas were in fact most extensive, directly affecting approximately 800,000 persons, followed by the Police Troikas, with approximately 450,000 convictions, and then the National Operations, with “only” approximately 350,000 victims. One indication that the thesis of an ethnic purging of “enemy nations” as the main line of attack of Stalinist terror related mainly, in fact, to the National Operations and was indeed meant in a quantitative respect, is shown by the history of its weakening, when in the summer of 1938 the National Troika finally gained predominance. However, even its application to only “half” of the Great Terror or only to the year 1938 also does not work. In both Georgia and the Ukraine, the National Operations did admittedly push the Kulak Operation out of first place in terms of the number of people convicted in 1938, but only as a result of the suspension in September of that year of the Dvoika’s operations in favour of those of the National Troika, thus for a grand total of two months!467 In 1937 the Kulak Troika was clearly the primary agent of repression in Georgia with 15,413 convictions (including 6,738 death penalties). By September 1938, 20,816 persons had
467
The Dvoika convicted 61,683 persons in the Ukraine between August 1937 and 31 August 1938, the National Troika another 28,000 person, resulting in the total of 89,683 persons. Under the Order № 00447 121,994 persons were convicted in the Ukraine. Cf. Svodnye dannye ob arestovannych i osuždennych organami NKVD USSR za period s 1 oktjabrja 1936 po 1 ijulja 1938 g. 31.08.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga na blago naroda”, vol. 2, pp. 149-154.
239 been convicted by the Georgian Kulak Troika; of these, 10,293, or nearly half (49%), were sentenced to death.468 To the National Operations, “only” a fraction (7.8%) of this amount fell victim; the Dvoika, by contrast, convicted 1,624 persons from the end of December 1937 until 17 September 1938, of whom “only” 248 (15%) were sentenced to death.469 From 17 September on, when the conviction responsibilities for the National Operations were withdrawn from the Dvoika and handed over to the National Troika, the numbers shot up and surpassed by 88% the convictions of the simultaneously operating Kulak Troika, which in this time frame punished 262 persons. The Kulak Troika, however, sentenced a very high proportion of those— 241 persons, or 92%—to death. The National Troika in Georgia, however, convicted relatively few persons to death, in comparison with the Ukraine and the Soviet Union as a whole. Soviet-wide, a total of 93,137 person were convicted from 17 September until 1 November 1938 via the National Operations, according to the Moscow Central Command’s often outdated and thus imprecise statistics; of these, 63,921 (69%) received the death sentence.470 In Georgia, by contrast, the rate of National Troika convictions resulting in death sentences was “only” 24%.471 In this regard, the National Troika, even in 1938, handed out fewer death sentences than the Kulak Operations both in Georgia and the Ukraine.
468
21078-243-19=20816 (1. Kat. 10534-223-18=10293). 2119-272-223=1.624 (1. Kat. 431-47-68=248) See Table "Statističeskie itogi "nacional'nych operacij" v Gruzii 1937-1938" in L. Avališvili, Nacional'nye operacii v Gruzii", in M. Junge i.a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 470 Spravka NKVD SSSR o količestve osždennych za vremja s 1 oktjabrja 1936 g. po 1 nojabrja 1938. Ne ranee 1 nojabrja 1938, in V. Danilov, M. Kudjukina, R. Manning (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni. Kollektivizacija i raskulačivanie. Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow, 2006), vol. 5: 1937-1939, book 2: 1938-1939, p. 305. The Dvoikas convicted 235,122 persons in the time period 25 July 1937 to 17 September 1938 235,122, of these 172,830 (73.5%) were sentenced to death. Cf. ibidem. 471 L. Avališvili, Nacional'nye operacii v Gruzii, in M. Junge i.a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1; M. Junge, Kačestvennyj analiz massovych operacii, in M. Junge i.a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1; M. Junge, G. Kldiašvili, Regionalizacija karatel'nych polnomočij, in M. Junge i.a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1; M. Junge, Količestvennyj analiz massovych operacii, in M. Junge i.a. (eds.), Bol’ševistskij porjadok, vol. 1. 469
240 To support the argument that identification of enemy targets was ethnicized, at least with the mass repressions in 1937, arrest practices could be cited. In the Ukraine, in particular, more people were in fact arrested via the National Operations that year than via the Kulak Operation—69,817 versus 61,425. However, it is striking that in Moscow itself more than half of those arrested in Ukraine through the National Operations were actually assigned by the central NKVD apparatus in Moscow to the Kulak Troika and sentenced by the Kulak Troika, decreasing the number of those sentenced in the National Operations to 38,632, less than the half the 83,122 persons sentenced via the Kulak Troika.472 Does all this really mean that operations in the periphery tended to arrest people on the basis of ethnicity, in contrast to a Moscow Central Command that was not interested in targeting convictions on an ethnic basis? Or, in fact, did the border republics arrest people under the aegis of the National Operations only because these were free of limits, that is, they allowed repression without any numerical restrictions? These questions point to the most important result of our empirical study, that the decisive flaw in the thesis of the “ethnicization of the view” stems from the fact that its perspective is limited to Moscow, which grossly neglects the local viewpoint. As a result, there is insufficient grounding for the claimed ethnic relevance of the repression figures, as the empirical analysis of the repressions in Georgia has shown. With the devolution of authority to the governments of the constituent republics, and the consequent diminution of the control imposed by the central NKVD, long-standing ethnic stereotypes (e.g., Georgian Jew = gambler, speculator and thief; Ossetian = cattle thief; Yezid = criminal and outcast) undoubtedly did play a greater role in local decision-making, including that involved in repression operations. The effect of those stereotypes, and related prejudices, did not unfold,
38058+574=38632. Cf. Statističeskij otčet načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza ob operativno-sledsvennoj rabote organov NKVD USSR za period s 1 ijulja 1937 g. po 4 janvarja 1938 g. ot 04.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga na blago naroda”, vol. 1, pp. 328-333. 472
241 however, until broad-based structural changes combined with potential or real political, social, cultural and territorial competition between titular and minority ethnicities. The broader factors that played into were, first, the Soviet-wide penal policy mandated by Moscow, in particular the substantially lowered bar for what could be prosecuted as an individual violation of loyalty; second, the general nationalities policy; and, finally, the Soviet Union’s geopolitical interests. There were multiple motivations for repression, and a dichotomy between “internal” and “external” does not exist. Over the course of the implementation of the mass repressions, the ethnic criterion indisputably grew in importance; however, a paradigm shift toward the dominance of this criterion—as occurred in Germany with the absolute, putatively biologized treatment of the Jewish population, as well as of the Sinti and Roma—take place. The impetus of ideological enlightenment always remained dominant. Deindividualised, group repression independent of specific suspicion—that is, the criterion of pure belongingness as a basis for conviction—was the exception and not the rule.473 Therefore, despite the horrifying extent of the criminal state-sponsored violence, there is scant evidence of racist motivation—indications of a racist repression policy are simply not verifiable. Evidence of fundamental xenophobia is also lacking. It is inaccurate to speak of “genocide” or even “ethnic cleansing” in reference to the mass repressions.
473
Genocidal elements are indicated only in the repression of clerics. R. Binner, M. Junge, Vernichtung der orthodoxen Geistlichen in der Sowjetunion in den massenoperationen des Großen Terror 1937-1938, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2004), No. 4, vol. 52, pp. 515-533. See also chapter 3.
242 Chapter 4
Repression of the Social Body
There exists the danger of getting lost, of floundering because of all the restless circumspection. —Käte Meyer-Drawe, Diskurse des Lernens. 2008.
In 1946, Karl S. Bader, the Generalstaatsanwalt (general state attorney) in Freiburg, Germany, wrote:
The point of departure for the question of how a social order established according to the rule of law must classify the criminals in concentration camps is and remains the fact that they also became the victims of National Socialism. To those previously convicted of crimes, even the common criminals, an injustice was done in and through the concentration camp.474
This courageous expression of advocacy for the “green” (criminal) and “black” (“asocial”) concentration camp prisoners was exceptional, and Bader remained for decades a solitary voice. Not until the 1980s did English —and, still somewhat later, German—historians accept the story of the “forgotten victims.” Those who had been prosecuted as “ordinary” offenders under Nazi rule were long held not to be worthy of historical note. In Russia, as well, among the victims of state repression, common criminals belonged until recently to the forgotten, 474 K. S. Bader, Der kriminelle KZ–Häftling. Ein kriminologisches Gegenwartsproblem, Gegenwart (1946), vol. 14/15, pp. 18-21.
243 often excluded even from “books of remembrance” (knigi pamiati). An exception is the Moscow and Leningrad “book of remembrance”, which includes lists “of those executed under Order № 00447 according to the legal code and various475 paragraphs of the book of legal code of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, since the crime almost never corresponded to the severity of the punishment.”476 In this chapter we will deal with the social component of mass repression. After considering the state of research in the field and the availability of sources, we ask how in the Soviet Union of the 1930s the original, socially utopic conception of criminals as an element socially close to the worker class (sotsial’no blizkii) could have changed to such an extent that in 1937 “hardened, incorrigible repeat offenders” (retsidivisty) were put en masse in camps or were immediately executed. The reasons must revolve around the political central command in Moscow and its possible motives for including criminals in the operative Order № 00447 of July 30, 1937, against “Kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements.” After looking at the central procedural requirements, we turn to the technical implementation of the order by the executive bodies at the local level. Which bodies took part and to what extent? How were the general assignments of the political leadership carried out? The research literature to date has focused almost exclusively on the municipal sphere; the perspective should be expanded to include the surrounding countryside. Through the close consideration of individual investigative documents, we seek to bring the practices of observation, apprehension, prosecution, and conviction of persons identified as criminals to the foreground. New light is thus shed on the role, the self-conception, and the motives of the individual perpetrators of mass repression, as well as on their victims. Our regional focus for these considerations is the
That is, according to paragraphs used for sentencing political and “normal” criminal offenders. 476 L. A. Golovkova i. a. (board of editors), Butovskij poligon. 1937-1938 gg. Kniga pamjati žertv političeskich repressij, vol. 6 (Moscow, 2002), pp. 195-274; A. Ja. Razumov (editor responsible), Leningradskij martirolog 1937–1938, vol. 5: 1937 g. (Sankt-Peterburg, 2002), pp. 214-500. 475
244 Ukraine.
1. The State of the Sources Research on the topic encounters great difficulties in Russia because the documents concerning criminal investigations and the Troika protocols,477 which are located mostly in the archives of the GUVD of the individual regions, are still not accessible. Despite this, we were able to view some of these materials in Kemerovo and Barnaul. In the Branch of the State Archive of the State Security Service of the Ukraine (Otraslevyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sluzhby bezopasnosti Ukrainy, OGA SBU), numerous documents central to the Kulak operation (statistics on the victims; directives of the Moscow Central Command, the Ukrainian People’s Commissar, and the regional leaders of the UNKVD; as well as reports on the Kulak operation in the Ukrainian areas completed by the area leaders of the UNKVD) could also be evaluated. Publicized materials on the Kulak operation, above all the reports of the GUGB of the NKVD on the number of arrested and convicted persons according to the operative Order № 00447 of the NKVD of the USSR from mid-August, the end of September 1937, the beginning of January, and the beginning of March 1938, proved invaluable.478
2. Social Deviance as a Topic of Research In Russia criminals and other social deviants are not generally thought of as among the groups victimized in the Great Terror. The former police chief of the Ivanovo district, M. P. Shreider, dismissed any such notion in his memoir, published in the 1970s: “In vain and unfounded is “Troika” signifies a committee of three. Correspondingly, the leader of the secret service, the party secretary and the local state attorneyship of the court as a rule sat on this committee. A secretary was also present. In the case of the troika, this was a special body external to the court. Such a troika existed about 1 ½ years in all 64 republics, regions and localities of the Soviet Union. 478 V. Danilov, R. Manning, N. Ochotin i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni. Kollektivizacija i raskulačivanie. Dokumenty i materialy v 5 tt. 1927–1939, vol. 5. 1937-1939, book 1. 1937 (Moscow, 2004); V. Danilov, M. Kudjukina, R. Manning i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5. 1937-1939, book 2. 1938-1939 (Moscow, 2006). 477
245 the opinion of some of today’s lawyers that there were breaches of socialist justice in 1937– 1938 with respect to the criminals (I am referring to the Order Ezhovs № 0047).”479 The merciless attacks on criminals have even effectively been praised: “While the Soviet people were, in the iron grip of Ežovs, locked up and unmercifully annihilated, in fact fewer and fewer criminal acts were being perpetrated.“480 In the “book of remembrance” (kniga pamiati) of the District of Tver’, the historian V. A. Smirnov writes:
One must recognize that the administration [of the NKVD of the Kalinin area] has carried out decisive measures for the “cleansing” of our region of criminal elements that were once brought to justice not only for banditry, armed robbery, murder, theft and other criminal acts.481
The Omsk historian V. M. Samosudov conveys the impression that the criminals had only accidentally gotten caught up among the political target groups of the Troikas’ mass repressions.482
M. P. Šrejder, Zapiski čekista-operativnika, Archiv NIPC “Memorial-Moskau“, pp. 95-96. We thank A. Tepljakov for this reference. 480 V. V. Luneev, Prestupnost’ XX veka. Mirovye, regional’nye i rossijskie tendencii (Moscow, 1997), pp. 58. Stanilav Kuz’min also speaks of a strict, yet in the end necessary and successful operation against criminals, especially in the camps. St. Kuz’min, Volki prestupnogo mira, Molodaja gvardija (1995), No. 7, pp. 273-274. 481 E. I. Kravcova (ed.), Kniga pamjati žertv političeskich repressij Kalininskoj oblasti. Martirolog 1937-1938, vol. 1 (Tver’, 2001), p. 27. A. Solzhenitsyn spread the rumor that in 1937 the “true goniffs, the pillars of the underworld” had all been shot. A. Solzhenitsyn, Der Archipel GULAG. 1918-1956. Versuch einer künstlerischen Bewältigung, Folgeband (Bern, 1974), p. 422. 482 V. M. Samosudov, Bol’šoj terror v Omskom Priirtyš’e 1937-1938 (Omsk, 1998), p. 67. 479
246 Public opinion on criminals has also been moulded by the camp literature.483 The French historian Gabor Rittersporn and the Russian philosopher Michael Ryklin have analyzed the influential literary works of A. Solzhenitsyn and V. Shalamov by focusing on their portrayal of criminals.484 Both authors describe professional criminals who, isolated from the mainstream social environment, form a secret order within the camp with a special code of honour and endogamous recruiting. Antisocial and prepared to fight, they harass the “politicals” in the camp.485 It is interesting that Ryklin, despite his reservations about the description of the criminal world as impenetrable and homogenous – which obscures the factor of collaboration with the regime – accepts the basic structure of the position taken by Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn, in particular the strict dichotomy between the criminal world (“professional crime”) and that of the “politicals”. He in fact strengthens the division,486 building on it his own thesis of the “affinity of the [Stalinist] regime with the world of criminals.”487 For this Ryklin first of all refers to Shalamov’s and Solzhenitsyn’s critiques of Soviet writers such as I. Babel, V. Kaverin, L. Leonov and I. Il’f und E. Petrov, who idealise and poeticise the criminals. He then contends that, out of this, the concept of the criminal as a “socially 483
For example, the corresponding works of A. Solzhenitsyns, L. Ginsburgs, L. Kopelevs und V. Shalamovs, which appeared since the end of the 1980s in large printings in the Russian Federation. 484 M. Ryklin, Der “verfluchte Orden“. Shalamov, Solzhenitsyn und die Kriminellen, Osteuropa (2007), No. 6, vol. 57, pp. 107-124; G. Rittersporn, From the GULAG of the memorial to the history of penal policy in the Soviet Union. 1933-1953, in G. Rittersporn (ed.), Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications. Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR. 1933-1953 (Chur, 1991), pp. 229-318. 485 Ryklin, Der “verfluchte Orden“, pp. 111-112. Cf. on this the following texts: V. Shalamov, Očerki prestupnogo mira, in V. Shalamov, Sobranie sočinenij v četyrech tomach, vol. 2. (Moscow, 1998); V. Shalamov, Žul’ničeskaja krov’, in V. Shalamov, Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1998); V. Shalamov, Rotes Kreuz, in V. Shalamov, Durch den Schnee. Erzählungen aus Kalyma, I. (Berlin, 2007); A. Solzhenitsyn, Die sozial nahen Elemente, in A. Solzhenitsyn, Der Archipel GULAG. 1918-1956. Versuch einer künstlerischen Bewältigung, Folgeband (Bern, 1974), pp. 408-427. See also S. 404. 486 Ryklin, Der “verfluchte Orden“, pp. 111-112; Solzhenitsyn, Der Archipel GULAG, pp. 231, 299-300, 408-427. 487 Ryklin, Der “verfluchte Orden“, pp. 117. On Solzhenitsyn’s position cf. Rittersporn, From the GULAG, pp. 231-232.
247 accepted element” by the working class that could be re-educated and reformed came into being. Ryklin further asserts that the “massive social upgrading of criminals was a constituent part of Soviet policy” and “the rapprochement of Soviet ideology with this milieu [of criminals] and its idealised exaggeration was no misunderstanding but was inherent in this ideology.”488 This approach has a decided weakness. The policy of “Perekovka” (reforging), hardly more than propaganda to begin with, was completely shut down in early 1937 with the closing of the camp newsletter of the same name. The “socially accepted” had long since mutated into the “socially hostile element.” Along with the dominant, almost hopelessly negative characterisation of the criminal world that is astonishingly similar to the Stalinist mode of thinking about criminality (see part 3, “Socially Close Elements”), depictions of criminals who, on the basis of their precise knowledge of the unwritten laws of everyday camp life, have helped the “politicals” to survive occur repeatedly in the camp literature. That the “criminals” were separated from the “politicals” on the basis of their presumed moralityy and socially reprehensible, behaviour, is not credible. The approach of Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, who see the system as working “to separate ordinary criminality from genuine opposition to the system as well as from other reasons for which people were subjected to penal repression”489 makes more sense. This perspective suggests the value of investigating whether and, if so, why and in what form the regime distinguished between political and non-political offenders. On the basis of state sources, the authors establish that an important function of the camp system was, along with fending off real and imagined opposition, to suppress social deviance.490 Scholarly attention is still just beginning to be paid to criminals during the Stalin era. In Russian, Saint Petersburg historian Vladimir Ivanov has published documentary material Ryklin, Der “verfluchte Orden“, pp. 113, 123. Similar is Solzhenitsyn, Die sozial nahen Elemente, pp. 408-427. 489 J. A. Getty, G. T. Rittersporn, V. N. Zemskov, Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years, American Historical Review (1993), No. 3, vol. 98, pp. 1033. 490 Ibidem, pp. 1034, 1035, 1044. 488
248 and statistical analyses, in particular on Order № 00447.491 He is not able to establish after the cessation of the Great Terror either a decline in the crime rate or to confirm that the worst criminals had been defeated.492 According to his research, the rate of recidivism among minor criminals appears to have risen.493 A critical eye should be cast on the position held by a few Anglo-American researchers494 who emphasize the political motives behind the repression of criminals and social deviants, that is, the criminals who were subsumed under the label of political enemies of the Bolsheviks.495 We wish to counterpose the thesis that, on the one hand, the repression of criminals and social deviants bears clear social-technological features and, on the other, the perception of crime and social deviance as fundamentally distinct from political crime can be traced back to the founding of the Soviet Union.
3. Socially Close Elements The leader of the German Social Democrats, August Bebel, envisioned in his 1879 text “Die 491
V. A. Ivanov, Organy gosudarstvennoj bezopasnosti i massovye repressii na SeveroZapade v 30-50-e Gody (Sankt-Peterburg, 1995); V. A. Ivanov, Missija ordena. Mechanizm massovych repressij v Sovetskoj Rossii v konce 20-ch - 40-ch gg.: Po materialam SeveroZapada RSFSR (Sankt-Peterburg, 1997), pp. 440. 492 Already Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov presume with respect to this contingent of Order № 00447: “some of whom were hardly more than notorious hooligans and yet were sometimes sent to the firing squad“. Getty/Rittersporn/Zemskov, Victims of the Soviet Penal system, pp. 1032; A. Tepljakov, “Massovye operacii“ v otnošenii deklassirovannych i ugolovnikov, in A. Tepljakov, “Mašina terrora”. OGPUNKVD Sibiri v 1929-1941 gg. (Moscow, 2009). 493 Cf. the contribution of V. A. Ivanov, Prestupniki kak celevaja gruppa operacii po prikazu Nr. 00447 v Leningradskoj oblasti, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), Stalinizm v sovetskoj provincii, pp. 519-535. 494 Peter Solomon had also at first not noticed that during the Great Terror criminals were included in the repressions measures. Thus, he writes in 1996 that during the Great Terror in 1937-1938 “the handling of ordinary criminality suffered“. P. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 230. 495 P. M. Hagenloh, “Socially Harmful Elements” and the Great Terror, in Sh. Fitzpatrick (eds.), Stalinism. New Directions (London, 1999), pp. 286-308; S. Yekelchyk, The Making of a “Proletarian Capital”. Patterns of Stalinist Social Policy in Kiev in the mid-1930s, EuropeAsia Studies (1998), No. 7, vol. 50, pp. 1229-1244; L. A. Rimmel, A microcosmos of terror, or class warfare in Leningrad. The March 1935 exile of “alien elements“, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2000), No. 4, vol. 48, pp. 528-551; D. R. Shearer, Crime and Social Disorder in Stalin’s Russia. A reassessment of the Great Retreat and the origins of mass repression, Cahiers du Monde russe (1998), No. 1-2, vol. 39, pp. 119-148.
249 Frau und der Sozialismus” (Women and Socialism), the utopia of a socialist society free of crime:
The thieves have disappeared because private property has disappeared and everyone in this new society can easily and comfortably satisfy his needs. […] Even bums and vagabonds don’t exist anymore; they are the product of a society that relies on private property and they cease to exist as soon as this is lacking. Murder? Why? No one can enrich himself at the expense of another, even murder out of hatred and revenge relies directly or indirectly on social status in society.496
In the “Catechism of the Revolutionary,” written most likely by Sergei Gennad’evich Nechaev in 1869, and celebrated during the Russian Revolution, one reads: “We must ally ourselves with the clever world of the robbers, the sole, authentic revolutionaries in Russia.”497 In 1934 Iosif Visarionovich Stalin had announced his call to socialism at the “Party Meeting of the Victors.” Three years later, in 1937, the mass repression of criminals and other socially deviant elements such as prostitutes, beggars, homeless, drunkards, rowdies and work shirkers began. This was carried out by the NKVD Troikas in the framework of Order № 00447. The following document includes an excerpt from the protocol of a Troika meeting on August 19, 1937, in the Dnepropetrovsk region of the Ukraine. The excerpt— a replica of the original—features a so-called criminal.
Document 2 Protocol № 13 of the UNKVD Troika in the District of Dnepropetrovsk, August 19, 1937. 496
A. Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus (Berlin, 1904). Quoted according to: M. Confino, Violence dans la violence. Le débat bakounine-nečaev (Paris, 1973), pp. 105. 497
250
Top Secret Copy 1 Chairman of the Troika: Leader of the NKVD administration, the head major of the State Security – Comrade Krivets Members of the Troika: Secretary of the district committee of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine – Comrade Margolin The State Prosecutor of the District – Comrade Tsvik Secretary of the Troika: Secretary of the NKVD Administration – Sergeant of the State Security Force – Comrade Yurovskii.
Heard
Decided
7. […]
BIRMANN Naum
8. File of the ОМЗ of the NKVD administration in the District of
Isaakovich
Dnepropetrovsk […] on the charge, BIRMANN Naum Isaakovich, born 1913. Charged, that he engaged in systematic cell banditry during his
– Execution by firing
imprisonment in Dnepropetrovsk;
squad
he beat up prisoners and robbed them. In 1937 he committed two break-ins and beat up a number of prisoners. Presenter (dokladchik) Comrade Kirkov 9. […]
251 Source: OGA SBU, f. 4 (Protokoly Doneckoj oblasti).
Under this protocol, 82 people were condemned either to death or 8–10 years in a corrective labour camp. Not all were criminals; those condemned also included Kulaks, priests, Whites, former Czarist civil servants—that is, the classic political enemies of the Bolsheviks. In this case, the defendant is a young man of 24 years who was born shortly before the 1917 Revolution, and thus had grown up in the early Soviet state. He was condemned once again while he was serving a prison sentence. The new charge was “systematic cell banditry,”— “systematic” being the key word. “Cell banditry” refers to offences against prison rules and order, such as resistant and violent behaviour against the supervisors, escape attempts, destruction of inventory, and stealing from other inmates. Additionally, the charged individual is characterised as a repeat thief and batterer. What is striking is how brief the charge is and how disproportionate the sentence. The defendant was convicted in absentia exclusively on the basis of this brief excerpt, which the reporter (dokladchik), Kirkov, indicated had been prepared for the Troika on the basis of investigative documents. The question arises: How does the utopian vision of a crime-free, socialist and classless society, like that of Bebel’s, mesh with the en masse killing of criminals and other social deviants in the Great Terror of 1937–1938? How was this justified in a country in which in the 1920s anti-bourgeois conceptions of criminals was seen as an element socially “close” to the working class? How did a socially acceptable element become a socially hostile element?
252 4. Crime in Theory and Propaganda In 1924 a 10,000-copy print run of an anthology with the title “Problems of Crime” appeared in Kiev.498 Alongside several relatively obscure Soviet authors, the volume includes such well-known names such as the Czech-Austrian socialist Karl Kautsky; the Italian socialist Enrico Ferri (who, two years later, would become a fascist); the Soviet lawyer and criminologist Michael Gernet; and the Dutch criminologist N. Bonger.499 The contributors are united in their rejection of the theory of the Italian doctor and anthropologist Cesare Lombroso that criminal tendencies have innate biological or psychological sources.500 Lombroso had gone so far as to describe the criminal personality as a relapse into an early developmental stage of humanity (atavism), sometimes physically recognisable in pale skin and hooked ears. Kautsky sums up Lombroso’s theory thus: “A wolf does not turn into a vegetarian when subjected to different living conditions.”501 Equally rejected by the contributors is the “free will” theory of the so-called classical school, which Fyodor Dostoevsky worked out graphically in his literary works. According to this theory, criminal characters always have a free choice at the moment of the crime, despite all the factors that might favour its commission.502 The contributors all discuss the sociological explanations for crime—especially the work of German and French scholars such as Franz von Liszt, Gustav Aschaffenburg, and 498
Ja. S. Rozanov (ed.), Problema prestupnosti (Kiev, 1924). In the case of the articles of the well-known authors, most are reprints of older, in part prerevolutionary works. 500 The student of Lombroso Ferri grants the biological factor a certain significance. E. Ferri, Prestuplenie kak social’noe javlenie, in Problema prestupnosti, pp. 17ff. 501 K. Kautskij, Lombroso i ego zaščitnik, in Problema prestupnosti, pp. 74. 502 H. J. Gerigk, Der Mörder Smerdjakow. Bemerkungen zu Dostojewskijs Typologie der kriminellen Persönlichkeit, in Dostoevsky Studies (1986) vol. 7, pp. 107. Dostoevsky is situated with this in a position influenced by the “classical school“ with the main representatives Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. These assume that criminal actions would be commited after consideration of the pros and cons on the basis of a free will decision. Other important philosophical concepts borrowing from Christian notions of for instance Solovev are not discussed in the anthology. A. Haardt, Kants Personalitätsprinzip als Grundlage der Rechtsphilosophie Vladimir Solov’evs, in B. Mojsisch u. a. (eds.), Die Aktualität der Philosophie Kants (Amsterdam, 2005), pp. 37-57. 499
253 Adolphe Quetelet—that take particular social and economic conditions to be the main cause of criminal behaviour. The contributors’ discussions of the sociological school are the most pointed. Their representatives are subjected to harsh critique; most of them refuse to understand, it is claimed, that crime is an unavoidable product of a capitalist society with its unequal distribution of property and its class antagonisms.503 Reforms in a capitalist society in the form of fine-tuned social policies are dismissed as useless. One of the Soviet contributors, M. Surskii, narrows it down: “We say, in a capitalist society itself lie the reasons for ‘the crime’; with partial reforms, the causes of the crime are not eliminated.”504 And in another passage: “The crime that the capitalist society gave birth to out of natural necessity cannot simply disappear until the foundations of the society are destroyed.”505 The socialist society is the one alternative available. In such a society, the theoretical and practical problems of crime and the criminal disappear. Despite this high ideological hurdle, a scholarly field of research into criminality nevertheless developed in the Soviet Union. In 1923 a commission of criminologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists and statisticians was formed under the leadership of V. L. Orleanskii, head of the administrative department of councillors. From then on every arrested person first in Moscow, then also in other large cities, was examined by experts.506 Along with gathering the usual information on such things as arrests, previous convictions, and personal data, psychiatric evaluations, including questions in particular on social milieu, were
M. Gernet, Sociologičeskaja škola nauki ugolovnogo prava i učenie ee storonnikov o social’nych faktorach prestupnosti, in Problema prestupnosti, pp. 203. 504 M. Surskij, Sociologičeskaja škola v ugolovnom prave, kak zaščitnica interesov gospodstvujuščich klassov, in Problema prestupnosti, pp. 123. 505 Surskij, Sociologičeskaja škola, pp. 118. 506 A comprehensive investigation was begun in Moscow. M. Gernet, Predislovie k rabote “prestupnyj mir Moskvy“, in M. Gernet, Izbrannye proizvedenija (Moscow, 1974), pp. 407. Anthropologists were hardly involved due to a personnel shortage. 503
254 conducted. Some individual criminals went through comprehensive examinations, involving evaluations of their domestic environments, in a specially set up psychiatric clinic.507 The way out of the strict ideological prescriptions that prevented searching for the causes of criminality within the socialist society, was to designate the new Soviet society as a transitional society, and in the research into crime, to prioritize micro-social and individualistic explanatory models, especially those rooted in the pre-revolutionary past.508 Statistics were assembled on the basis of a comprehensive card file system and results were presented. In 1929 the commission was absorbed by the Institute for the Research of Crime and Criminals, founded in 1925 by the People’s Commissioner for the Interior.509 With the assumption of scholarly research on crime by the secret service, public discussion of the causes of crime essentially ceased.510 The archives of this institute, which was probably dissolved in the mid-1930s, remain closed to researchers. In place of the public, scholarly research came propaganda. While utopian-ideological statements on criminality had previously been in the background, now they were disseminated ever more prominently. In August 1933 a group of writers including Aleksei Tolstoy, Maksim Gorky,511 Victor Shklovskii and Mariettta Shaginian visited the gigantic White Sea Canal construction
Gernet, Predislovie k rabote “prestupnyj mir Moskvy“, pp. 410. Ibidem, pp. 410, 437. 509 The institute has 4 sections: 1. the social-economic, 2. the penal section, 3. the biopsychological and 4. the criminal. The bio-psychological section according to Gernet took an interest above all in the mental capacity of the criminal, the penal section in the struggle against crime and the organisation of the imprisonment. In the fourth section disclosure techniques were the focus. M. Gernet, Izučenie prestupnosti v SSSR (Istoričestkij očerki), in M. Gernet, Izbrannye proizvedenija (Moscow, 1974), pp. 609. 510 In 1928 a reunion assembly took place for all who were involved in the organisation of the penal system. (Vsesojuznoe soveščanie penitencarnych dejatelej). In 1929 there was a discussion in the journal “Revoljucija i pravo“ on the researching of crime: Disput po voprosu ob izučenii prestupnosti, Revoljucija i pravo (1929), No. 3, pp. 47-49. Gernet, Izučenie prestupnosti v SSSR, pp. 611. 511 Gorky had organised the trip took part only in the final meeting, but he didn’t take the drive down to the canal. J. Bartels, Das Kollektivbuch “Belomorkanal“ als Beispiel für die 507 508
255 project. In only two years a canal longer than the Panama Canal was supposed to be built from the White Sea to the Baltic Sea under the most difficult climactic conditions. In a novel step, those employed were exclusively prisoners, who with dynamite and hand labour built the canal with a heavy loss of life.512 After the writers’ visit, an anthology appeared in which they presented their impressions of the project. 513 The writer Nikolai Pogodin additionally penned a drama and film screen play. In 1936 the film The Prisoners (zakliuchennye) premiered in Moscow.514 In all of these works, the penal system of the socialist society is enthusiastically celebrated for not carrying out revenge against detainees, but rather re-educating and remoulding them into socialist human beings. In his contribution to the anthology, Michail Zoshchenko takes a special interest in the detainees who “had been deeply drawn into a life of uselessness, theft, deceit, robbery and murder.”515 He posed the question of how such people might react if they were convinced of the possibility of socialist re-education in a country in which capitalism—which always entails crime—had been abolished. Zoshchenko singles out for discussion one of these detainees, comrade Rottenberg. This fellow supposedly approached him and declared, “The bourgeois professor Lombroso says that we criminals are already criminals at birth. What nonsense. […] My father – is an honest working man […] my mother an honest working woman.”516 Zoshchenko took it upon himself to present in polished form the autobiography Rottenberg had written in his own
Instrumentalisierung der Literatur im kulturellen Prozeß der 30er Jahre. Masch. schr. Magisterarbeit (Bochum, 1995), p. 206. 512 J. Klein, Belomorkanal. Literatur und Propaganda in der Stalinzeit, Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie (1995/96), vol. 55, pp. 53-98. On the number of victims, cf. I. Čuchin, Kanaloarmejcy. Istorija stroitel’stva Belomorkanala v dokumentach, cifrach, faktach, fotografijach, svidetel’stvach učastnikov i očevidcev (Petrozavodsk, 1990). 513 M. Gor’kij, L. Aberbach, S. Firin (editor responsible), Belomorsko-Baltijskij Kanal imeni Stalina. Istorija stroitel’stva. 1931-1934 gg. (Moscow, 1934). 514 Regie: Evgenij Červjakov. Mosfil’m 1936. 515 M. Zoščenko, Istorija odnoj perekovki, in M. Gor’kij i. a. (eds.), Belomorsko-Baltijskij Kanal imeni Stalina, pp. 493. 516 Ibidem, pp. 495.
256 hand.517 Moulded by the pre-revolutionary societal conditions into a gambler and gigolo, the hero, after innumerable gruesome prison and camp detentions both domestic and foreign, finally slips in 1932 into the clutches of the Beltbalt Camp for the construction of the White Sea Canal. As they enjoy tea and baked goods, camp pedagogues of the Secret Service (OGPU) sternly convince him to take up work and transform himself from a criminal into a useful member of Soviet society. First, the camp pedagogue:
Here [in the camp] it is hard. If this were paradise, then everybody would want to come here and commit crimes. […] We work for ourselves and not for capital. We would like the countryside to bloom. […].
Then the leader of the department:
We work so that the country is better off. When it is better off, you will also be better off. We work for the welfare of the people. […] So are you a counter-revolutionary? In my view you are socially close to us. Come over to us and we will care for you.518 If you work well, we will release you earlier, provide you with training that is better than what you do right now. It will make you so qualified that all doors will open up to you when you go out into a free world. [...] I [Rottenberg] thought: [...] they hang like barnacles on me. Want to make a worker out of a thief.
517
Ibidem, pp. 495-524. Cf. also other quotes on the topic: “But the state authorities have revealed the secret intrigues of your like-minded comrades and are taking a piece of this reality, a piece of the socialist plan – Belomorstroj is measuring out for you a tiny dose and will heal you, criminal, through the truth of socialism.“ [...] “The work of the detainee encompasses an enormous political significance: Don’t just complete your detention, also contribute to the establishment of a society in which there is no crime...“ in M. Gor’kij i. a. (eds.), Belomorsko-Baltijskij Kanal imeni Stalina, pp. 91-92, 95. 518
257
And then a little later:
[...] You started to tell me about the new state. […] I said then: Interesting, that there would be no more thieves. […] Thieves, you said, will of course no longer be around because no one will have to steal. […] A thief is the reverse side of capitalism. […] The next day I fulfilled 140 percent [of my job norm]. […] And then I reflected on my previous life […]. No, I am not embarrassed about being a thief. […] Life made me into that. […] That means, it’s not my fault. But that also means that I will make myself guilty if a new life begins and I steal again.519
According to Zoshchenko, Rottenberg became a foreman who motivated many other criminals with similar arguments, and led his brigade to fulfil 240% of its work quota.520
5. The Practice of Fighting Criminality A subcommittee of the Central Control Commission on penal policy of the new Soviet state recommended early in 1923 that criminals with roots in the work force be treated compassionately and that penal policy emphasize the education and correction of criminals.521 In a reply, the leader of the Extraordinary Commission of the infamous Cheka, Feliks Dzerzhinskii, had no sympathy for what he called this “liberal silver strangling wire.” Though he theoretically showed himself to be a good socialist in his statements that crime could be overcome only through the general improvement of the social and economic situation and the Zoščenko, Istorija odnoj perekovki, pp. 517-520. In the film “Zakliuchennye“ [The Detainee] the concept of Zoshchenko is graphically varied on the basis of the film screenplay by Pogodin. 521 The protocols of the commission could not up to now be located. A brief summary is in Pis’mo F. E. Dzeržinskogo v CKK RKP (b) o karatel’noj politike Sovetskogo gosudarstva, 17. 2. 1924, in N. V. Petrov (ed.), Istorija Stalinskogo GULAGa, vol. 2. Karatel’naja sistema. Struktura i kadry (Moscow, 2004), pp. 582-583. 519 520
258 strengthening of the sense of community and responsibility, his practical suggestions were characterized, however, by a more classically conservative position on crime. Dzerzhinskii was opposed to a “class bonus” for criminals. He understood punishment as protection for the power of the workers and peasants and not as a corrective exercise. The republic couldn’t have pity and spend large sums of money on criminals, who must be relegated to inaccessible locations. To counter crime, he advocated a “method of short, crushing blows”.522 Dzerzhinskii was able to enforce two of his central objectives. In the official guidelines that found their way into the penal code of 1922 and 1926 there was no special treatment for workers. Moreover, the protection of the new worker and peasant state was underscored by the replacement of the term “punishment” with the expression “Provision on societal protection”. Dzerzhinskii was not able to enforce his concept of unmerciful treatment of criminals, at least not to the extent he desired. The penal code attempted to provide a transparent, legal framework for fighting crime. Of particular importance were articles six and eight, which excluded a person’s past contact with criminals or criminal activities as irrelevant. The plan, at least on paper, mandated the re-education of prisoners in the prisons and camps. The severe treatment demanded by the Cheka boss was only applied to those involved in gang activity, which was widespread.523 Extrajudicial bodies of the Secret Police OGPU, the so-called Special Counsel (osoboe soveshchanie), assisted in the targeting of gang activity. The statistics on crime and other social deviance show a clear trend upward in the late 1920s. This changed markedly after 1929, during the early years of the collectivisation and industrialisation. The forced introduction of socialism, which in the countryside meant the disappropriation and deportation of the so-called Kulaks (large-scale farmers), the abolishment of private property, and the forced reorganisation of individual agricultural Pis’mo F. E. Dzeržinskogo, pp. 582-583. Admittedly it must be stated that little about the practice in the struggle against crime in the 1920s is known. 522 523
259 production into huge collectives, led to an explosive growth in crime and social deviance. Though usable statistics were no longer published, this is attested to by the fact that the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, Genrikh Yagoda, made fighting crime his top priority, even ahead of fighting the state’s political enemies. Blame for the misery caused by the socialist transformation was pushed off onto the class enemy, that is, the remainder of the “old” society, which at the moment of societal reconstruction supposedly again reared its head. In Soviet jurists’ discussions of legal theory, under what they perceived as the extreme conditions of collectivisation and industrialisation, the class enemy was not the only target to be attacked; a second category was also to be targeted: “the unmistakable declassed elements” (emphasis mine). Members of this group they were distinguished from those workers who had gotten off track, but could (forcibly) be re-educated. This new category was quite flexible.524 1. With it, even those without any connection to the class enemy could be targeted who couldn’t without further ado be linked up with the class enemy.525 2. This category did not exclude the socially “close” elements or criminals from the worker milieu. 3. Not only the hard core of criminals would be targeted under the “declassed” rubric, but also the rowdies, drunkards, prostitutes, etc. that is, the less extremely socially deviant. In 1930, preparation for the systematic punishment of individuals on the basis of degree of social deviance was still in the embryonic stage. Moreover, it did not carry over into the penal
524
Flexible adaptation of the law to the rapidly changing societal conditions was a central demand of Krylenkos. N. Krylenko, Proekt ugolovnogo kodeksa Sojuza SSR, in N. V. Krylenko, A. Ja. Vyšinskij, G. I. Volkov, A. S. Šljapnikov (eds.), Problemy ugolovnoj politiki, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1935), p. 11. 525 Above all the acting People’s Commissar for the judiciary G. I. Volkov establishes a close connection between the political enemies and the world of crime. G. I. Volkov, Klassovaja priroda prestuplenij i sovetskoe ugolovnoe pravo (Moscow, 1935). See also the authors citred there on p. 6, note 2.
260 code, contrary to the intent of the original planning. Nevertheless, the foundation was being laid for the newly conceived idea by, on the one hand, the mass spread of social deviance and, on the other, the increased demands for control and direction in society brought about by passport measures and other means of punishment, which, thus strengthened, found its way into the consciousness of the political and administrative leadership.526 The writer Michael Zoshchenko was among those who advocated the severe punishment of “obviously declassed elements” became acceptable also through. In the anthology on the construction of the White Sea Canal, described above, he argued that in the new socialist society all those who would not accept the stretched out hand of the regime made themselves consciously guilty.
6. Statistics How many so-called criminals were convicted across the Soviet Union under the framework of Order № 00447 is not known.527 An evaluation by the NKVD of in November 1938 reports for entire Soviet Union a total of 127,967 convicted criminals. Of these, 34.5% or 44,086 had Shearer, Crime and Social Disorder; Hagenloh, “Socially Harmful Elements”. Available to us up until now are numbers only for mid-August 1937 for 57 districts, then information for the end of September 1937, January and March 1938 for the whole Soviet Union as well as approximate numbers for July 1, 1938 and November 1, 1938 for all districts and regions: Svodka GUGB NKVD o količestve arestovannych i osuždennych na osnovannii operprikaza NKVD SSSR No. 00447 ot 30 ijulja 1937 g., ne ranee 15 avgusta 1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 344-348; Svodka No. 11 GUGB NKVD ob arestovannych i osuždennych na osnovanii operprikaza NKVD SSSR No. 00447 ot 30 ijulja 1937 g., ne ranee 30 sentjabrja 1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 369-374; Svodka No. 29 GUGB NKVD SSSR ob arestovannych i osuždennych na osnovanii operprikaza NKVD SSSR ot 30 ijulja 1937 g., ne ranee 1 janvarja 1938, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393; Svodka No. 33 GUGB NKVD o količestve arestovannych i osyždennych na osnovanii operprikaza NKVD SSSR No. 00447 ot 30 ijulja 1937 g., ne ranee 1 marta 1938 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 56-61; Iz svodki pervogo special‘nogo otdela NKVD SSSR “О količestve arestovannych i osuždennych organami NKVD SSSR za vremja s 1 oktjabrja 1936 g. po 1 ijulja 1938 g.“, ne ranee 1 ijulja 1938 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 156-163; Spravka NKVD SSSR o količestve arestovannych i osuždennych za vremja s 1 oktjabrja 1936 g. po 1 nojabrja 1938 g., ne ranee 1. 11. 1938, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 306. 526 527
261 been sentenced to death and 65.2% or 83,729 to camp detention.528 These comprise 16.7% of the 767,397 total persons convicted under Order № 00447. As these numbers were assembled by a special department of the NKVD, that is, by the NKVD apparatus of the Moscow Central Command, and must still be cross-checked with the more exact figures that came directly from the districts and regions, they must not be considered conclusive. Some trends are nevertheless clear.
August 1937 – December 1937 Among the total of 100,990 persons arrested in the 57 districts between August and December 1937, there were 23,838 criminals, that is, nearly a quarter, just two weeks after the beginning of the operation. This underscores that at the beginning of the implementation of the Order, criminals were, after the Kulaks (46,487 arrested), its second most important target group (counter-revolutionary elements—17,592; others or undetermined—13,073). Among those against whom judgements were issued in the initial phase (in August), the criminals were at the top both in terms of the length as well as the severity of their sentences. Of the 14,305 convicted, the plurality, 5,278 persons, were criminals (Kulaks—4,197; “other counterrevolutionary elements”—2,813; other or undetermined—2,017). Of these, 3,726 criminals were sentenced to death and 1,552 to camp detention (Kulaks—3,077 and 1,120, respectively; “counter-revolutionary elements”—1,981 and 832; other or undetermined—982 and 1,035). With respect to the absolute number of the then convicted individuals, the constellation in the total average remained nevertheless approximately the same until the end 528
By comparison, the relation of death penalty to camp detention with the Kulaks was 185,408:186,898 or nearly 1:1. The portion in the sentencing amounted to 48,6%. In the case of the “other conter-revolutionary elements“ the relation of death penalty to camp detention was in part 34.8% or 266,760, i.e. 1.4:1 or 157,304:109,456. Since in respect to the “other counter-revolutionary elements“ we completed an expanded calculation on the basis of the indicated, incomplete numbers of Okhotin und Roginskii, in this case the persons sentenced to camp detention are also included with those who were condemned to exile and prison. Spravka NKVD SSSR, 1. 11. 1938, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, p. 306.
262 of September 1937. The criminals remained behind the Kulaks in second position. However, they were far outpaced by the “other counter-revolutionary elements” and the Kulaks in terms of the level of punishment to which they were subjected.529 In January 1938 the picture shifts permanently. Of the 553,362 convicted persons in the framework of the Kulak Operation, the Kulaks, with 243,712 (44%), were in first place by second. Next came the “counter-revolutionary elements” (161,828; 29.2%), followed closely by the criminals with 111,993, or 20.2% of the total.530 In contrast to the other target groups, the sentencing trend among criminals shifted from death to camp detention, reaching an approximately 1:2 ratio (36,063:75,930). Among the other groups, the death sentence was applied much more frequently. Especially hard hit in 1937 were the “counter-revolutionary elements”. The ratio of death sentence to camp detention was nearly 1:1 (78,237:83,591), while for the Kulaks it was 1:1.3 (105,124:138,588). If one looks at just the Ukraine for comparison, the ratio of death sentences to camp detentions among criminals in 1937 of 1:3 (3,373:9,653) is still “more favourable” than in the Soviet Union as a whole.531 The combatting of criminals, viewed in its entirety, played a less important role in the Ukraine
529
Of the 143,339 sentenced, 67,962 were Kulaks, of these 40,676 to death, and 27,286 to camp detention. In the case of the criminals the relation was as follows: 39,140 sentenced (19,433:19,707). “Counter-revolutionary elements“: 33,766 (23,020:12,746). Svodka No. 11, ne ranee 30 sentjabrja 1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 369-374. 530 Lacking information: 35,829 persons. Ibidem. In the report of July 1938 the number 108,600 is given for sentenced criminals. Cf. Iz svodki pervogo special‘nogo otdela, ne ranee 1 ijulja 1938 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 156-163. 531 Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza o količestve osuždennych i ob ich iz-jatii iz otraslej narodnogo chozjajstva za period s načala operacii po 3 janvarja 1938 g., 03.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 321324. Slightly differing numbers are found in Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika otdela ugolovnogo rozyska URKM NKVD USSR Viganda o rabote organov milicii po iz-jatiju social’no vrednogo i ugolovnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 1 janvarja 1838 g., January 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 232-233. The number of sentenced criminals, 3,282:9,495, is somewhat lower.
263 than in the remainder of the Soviet Union. Of 82,122532 convicted persons, only one-seventh (13,026; 15.7%)533 were prosecuted as criminals. Equally in contrast with the Soviet-wide statistics, the Kulaks are not so clearly at the top in the Ukrainian repression statistics for 1937. The convictions of “counter-revolutionary elements,” with 29,545, and Kulaks, with 40,181, are relatively close. Additionally, the ratio of death sentences to camp detentions within the categories is about the same: 1:1.3 (12,518:17,027) for the “other counterrevolutionary elements”, and 1:1.5 (16,678:23,503) for the Kulaks. Thus, the “other counterrevolutionary elements” were in this case not significantly more severely punished than the Kulaks, but in a Soviet-wide comparison they were prosecuted more numerously.534
January 1938 – July 1938 Comparing 1937 with 1938, the following can be established for the whole Soviet Union: For 1938 the total number of convicted persons declined. According to the imprecise or underreported statistics of July 1, 1938, “just” 149,209 persons were convicted (550,720 or 553,362 in 1937).535 The portion of those convicted as criminals also fell sharply, declining from
Cf. also: Svedenija o količestve osuždennych oblastnymi trojkami NKVD USSR soglasno prikazu NKVD SSSR No. 00447, 02.02. 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 124. At this point in time the statistics of the total sentences for the Ukraine are: 83,122. In the earlier statistics of Munvez the number 83,122 is also indicated: Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza o količestve osuždennych i ob ich iz-jatii iz otraslej narodnogo chozjajstva za period s načala operacii po 3 janvarja 1938 g., 03.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 321-324. 533 Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza o količestve osuždennych i ob ich iz-jatii iz otraslej narodnogo chozjajstva za period s načala operacii po 3 janvarja 1938 g., 03.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), „Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 321324. Somewhat lower numbers (12. 777, 15,4%) are found in Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika otdela ugolovnogo rozyska URKM NKVD USSR Viganda o rabote organov milicii po izjatiju social’no vrednogo i ugolovnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 1 janvarja 1838 g., January 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 232-233. 534 Due to lack of materials directly from the Ukraine, we had to resort in the previous section to the incomplete Svodka from the Moscow Central Command. Cf. Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393. 535 Iz svodki pervogo special‘nogo otdela. Ne ranee 1 ijulja 1938 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, p. 157. The July report of 1938 differs from the January report in that it gives only one count of 550,720 sentenced persons for the 532
264 20.2% in 1937 to only 8.9% (13,263 persons). Meanwhile the percentage of those convicted as Kulaks rose from 44% to 50.8% (75,827). The portion of those convicted “other counterrevolutionary elements” grew even more, from 29.2% in 1937 to 40.3% (60,118).536 With respect to the severity of the penalty, totals are available Soviet-wide for 1938 only through March 1. Up until March 1, 11,046 criminals were convicted. The ratio of death sentences to camp detentions among criminals was 4,738:6,308. With a ratio of 1:1.3 they were significantly more severely punished than in 1937, but their treatment was still considerably “milder” than that of the other target groups. Among the “other counter-revolutionary elements” the death penalty was very frequently issued, in a ratio of 1:0.9 (25,179:22,886) (Kulaks—10,254:9,919). Also, in terms of total judgements, the “counter-revolutionary elements”, with more than twice as many death sentences (48,065), clearly replaced the Kulaks (20,173) at the top.537 For 1938, more precise totals from the Ukraine are available to us than is the case with the Soviet-wide statistics. These show that here the sentencing of criminals declined. From January 1 to July 1, 1938, of 33,829 persons convicted, “only” 1,074 (3%) were criminals; albeit, in a reversal of the trend of 1937, most of them (821, or 79.4%) were sentenced to death.538 The first half of 1938 fell within the framework of Order № 00447, for the Ukraine; an especially bloody period. The death sentence was suddenly disproportionately employed. The “counter-revolutionary elements” shifted to the top of the repression statistics by a large margin. Their portion doubled in relation to the Kulaks and amounted now to more than two year 1937. Cf. Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393. As already mentioned at the beginning, the number of persons who in the framework of the Order 00447 were also sentenced yet after July 1 is missing in some regions and districts. 536 Iz svodki pervogo special‘nogo otdela, ne ranee 1 ijulja 1938 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 157. 537 Svodka No. 33, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 56-61. 538 Svedenie o količestve arestovannych i osuždennych po NKVD (UNKVD) USSR vključaja dannye oblastej za vremja s 1. 1. 1938-1. 7. 1938, OGA SBU, fund 42, file 35 (Statističeskie otčety ob operativnoj raboty za 1937 g.), pp. 156-183.
265 thirds of those convicted. Of 21,943 “other counter-revolutionary elements”, 21,611, that is 98%, received the death penalty, while only 332 (2%) were sent to camp. Of 10,712 Kulaks convicted, 10,561 (98.6%) persons received the highest penalty, 151 (1.4%) camp detention.539
7. Regional Centres of the Combat against Crime In the Orenburg district, at first exclusively criminals were sentenced in the beginning phase, 294 to death and 18 to camp detention. In Yaroslavl’ only around 184 criminals were issued the death sentence.540 By September 13, 246 had already been shot to death, 38.7% of the 635 total death sentences issued to that point.541 In the first phase of the Order’s implementation, criminals were the number one group subjected to death sentences or assignment to camps in districts, such as those of Moscow, Yaroslavl’’ and Leningrad, the North District, and the Sverdlovsk and the West Siberian Region.542 In the Kiev District, criminals were the main target of arrests until the end of September. Of 9,554 totals arrests, 41.7% were criminals, 38.8% were Kulaks, and 19.5% were “other counter-revolutionary elements”.543 In the
539
Ibidem. For the year 1938 some regions not longer fit into the general scheme. In the District Jaroslavl’ the portion of criminals involved in the total number of sentences (3,258) climbed by several percentage points from 42.2% in 1937 to 46% (1,491) in 1938. This time lying in the Soviet-wiede trend of 1938, the relation shifted from death sentence to camp detention once more in favor of the death sentence, in fact to 1.3:1 (806:685). Doklad [No. 1] načal‘nika UNKVD Jaroslavskoj oblasti A. M. Eršova narkomu vnutrennich del N. I. Ežovu o vypolnenii prikazov 00485, 00447, 00429, 00593, 00486, 941-386 (1937 god), 14.01.1938 g., in M. Junge, G. Bordjugov, R. Binner, Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora. Istorija operacii po prikazu NKVD No. 00447 (Moscow, 2008), pp. 261-268. 540 The death sentence was also issued to 54 “other counter-revolutionary elements”. Svodka GUGB NKVD, ne ranee 15 avgusta 1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 344-348. 541 167 Kulaks and 222 “counter-revolutionary elements” were also executed. In the District of Jaroslavl’ only one person was up to this time not sentenced to death. Cf. the corresponding troika protocols in the archiv of the FSB of the District of Jaroslavl’. 542 Svodka GUGB NKVD, ne ranee 15 avgusta 1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 344-348. 543 Arrested were a total of 9,554 persons, of these 3,984 criminals, 3,707 Kulaks and 1,863 “counter-revolutionary elements”. Cf. Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD USSR Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del I. M. Leplevskomu o
266 Republic of Azerbaijan, special emphasis was placed immediately in the preparatory phase of the Order, during July 1937, on the repression of criminals and “family members of gangs”. 544 That same month, repressions were announced in the western districts545 and in the Western Siberian Region546 with the intention of targeting, above all, criminals. In the Marii-ASSR just as many criminals as Kulaks were convicted up until January 1, 1938. Furthermore, the portion of criminals among the arrested amounted to 40%. They were, however, less severely punished than the Kulaks and “counter-revolutionary elements”.547 A similar picture emerges from Chechnya-Ingushetia, though here the share of those convicted who were criminals was roughly on par with that of the “counterrevolutionary elements”. The sentencing of the Kulaks is only at the rate of 21.8%. Criminals were the number one group convicted in the Districts Kybyshev548 and Ivanovo549 districts,
predvoritel’nych itogach operacii po iz-jatiju konrrevoljucionnogo, kulackogo, ugolovnovo i pročego kontrrevoljucionnogo po sostojaniju na 5 oktjabrja, 07.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 438-443. 544 “Utverdit‘ namečennych [po Azerbajdžanskoj SSR] k rasstrelu kulakov 500, ugolovnikov 500 čel. i vysylke kulakov 1.300, ugolovnikov 1.700 čel. Razrešit’ rassmotrenie v trojke del kontrrevoljucionnych povstančeskich organizacij s primeneniem rasstrela k 500 čel., vysylki 750 čel. i vyselenie v lagerja NKVD 150 semejstv bandgrupp“. See: Postanovlenie Politbjuro ZK VKP(b) No. P 51/206 “Ob antisovetskich elementach“, 10.07.1937 g., in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 83. 545 The inquiry is from July 12, 1937. See: Telegramma UNKVD Zapadnoj oblasti N. I. Ežovu, 12.07.1937 g., in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 327. 546 Doklad predsedatelja trojki po Zapadnoj Sibiri S. N. Mironova N. I. Ežovu, 08.07.1937 g., Trud (1997), 2. 8., pp. 5. 547 Of 2,964 person 1,188 criminals, 1,178 Kulaks and 598 “counter-revolutionary elements” were convicted. The relation of death sentence to camp detention was: criminals (232:956), Kulaka (441:727), “counter-revolutionary elements” (218:380). Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393. 548 In the District Kybyshev, of 7,483 persons 3,332 criminals, 2,359 Kulaks and 1,792 “counter-revolutionary elements” were convicted. The relation of death sentence to camp detention was: criminals (932:2,400), Kulaks (1,022:1,337), “counter-revolutionary elements” (798:994). Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393. 549 In the District Ivanovo, of 5,920 persons 2,201 criminals, 1,921 Kulaks and 1,798 “counter-revolutionary elements” were convicted. The relation of death sentence to camp detention was: criminals (748:1453), Kulaks (1.244:677), “counter-revolutionary elements” (928:870). Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393.
267 far ahead of the Kulaks and “counter-revolutionary elements”. All records were broken in the Moscow District. Party secretary Nikita Khrushchev planned in July 1937 to convict 80.9% (33,436) criminals out of 41,305 persons who were to be included in the Kulak and criminal operation. Of the criminals, he classified 6,500 as first category and 26,936 as second category.550 By January 1, 1938, of 36,813 convicted persons, 56.3% were criminals; of these, 4,120 were sentenced to death and 16,597 to camp detention.551 Not quite as high as in Moscow, but yet far ahead of the Kulaks and the “counter-revolutionary elements” was the total for convictions of criminals in the district of Yaroslavl’’. Of 3,045 persons, 42.2% (1,285) criminals were convicted as criminals. Indeed, the rate at which criminal punishment was endorced in this region is striking. In no other region was the death penalty so often used for this target group. The ratio was nearly 1:1 (600:685).552 By the beginning of March 1938, the following regional centres for combatting crime can be made out on the basis of Report № 33553: convicted criminals: Belorussia: 8,027 (1st category 996/ 2nd category 7,031); portion of the sum total of convicted individuals: 36,5%, Mariisk SSR 1,225 (239/986) = 45.37% (criminals the largest victim group); ChechenoIngushia 2,794 (736/2,058): 41.3% (criminals largest victim group); Ivanovskaia oblast’: 2,201 (748/1,453): 37% (criminals the largest victim group); Kirov District, 1,366 (333/1,0333): 36.9%; Kuibysh District, 5,074 (1,270/3,804): 40,1% (criminals are the largest N. S. Chruščev an I. V. Stalin, 10.07.1937, in R. Binner/B. Bonwetsch/M. Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft, p. 72. These numbers were confirmed on the same day by the Politburo. See: Postanovlenie Politbjuro ZK VKP(b) No. P 51/206 “Ob antisovetskich elementach“, 10 ijulja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 83; Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 324-25. 551 Svodka No. 29, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 1, pp. 387-393. 552 Ibidem 553 Svodka No. 33, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 56-61. Indicated are in the following the republics, regions or districts in which the criminals in the final calculation lay ahead of one or the other basic categories. According to Okhotin/Roginskii this “svodka” is the last that registers an increase in the number of victims. The three later “svodkas” – the last No. 36, dated September 6, 1938 – do not register the change of the data in the regions and districts where the Kulak operation continued on after March 1, 1938. Cf. Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 552-553. 550
268 victim groups); Moscow District, 22,178 (5,170/17,008): 54.2% (criminals are the largest victim group); Smolensk District, 2,279 (626/1,653): 18.9%; and Tula District, 2,495 (653/1,842): 32,4%. In only a few regions was the portion of criminals involved in the sentencing relatively small, such as in the North Ossetian ASSR, 78 (15/63) 3.9% of the total convicted individuals; in the Komi ASSR, 31 (6/25) 10.4%; in the Vologda District, 167 (46/121) 4.8%; in the Tambov District, 40 (17/23) 1%; and in the Ordzhonikidze District, 185 (96/89) 1.7%. The numbers demonstrate that the criminals were one of the three most important target groups for the time period established for the implementation of Order № 00447, originally limited to four months, August to November 1937. Especially in the beginning phase, the local enforcers placed special emphasis on the annihilation of criminals. Over the course of the operation, the sentencing of criminals trends away from the death penalty toward camp detention. In 1938, during the extension phase of the Order, the repression of criminals played a secondary role, though never a completely marginal one. Large regional differences, which in part contradict the overall trends, can be seen.
8. Categories of Criminals In the statistics one generally sees the word ‘criminals’. But which categories of criminals were supposed to be convicted according to the directive from the Moscow Central Command with Order № 00447? How did the mid-level bodies (for example of the People’s Commissar of the Ukraine) and the district administration of the NKVD perceive the order and its intended execution? Members of which categories were in the end actually arrested and convicted? Were they serious criminals, murderers and possibly members of criminal gangs, for whom even in the penal code of the RSFSR of November 1936 the death sentence or a lengthy prison term was reserved?554 Were there gross deviations from the text of the Order and other instructions from the Moscow Central Command in the actual sentencing? Can 554
Ugolovnyj Kodeks RSFSR (Moscow, 1936).
269 members of the various categories all be designated without any reservation as criminals? What were the various regional points of emphasis?
9. The Moscow Central Command In point I.7. of Order № 00447 the word “criminal” appears. The circle of people mentioned here can be divided into three groups that of course overlap— those classified as belonging to organised crime or groups of active criminals (bandits and robbers), those designated recidivous thieves (vory retsidivisty), and finally those who had committed less severe criminal acts. The last group are characterised by such labels as “professional” smugglers and “recidivous” con men and are generally described as those “who engage in criminal acts and are connected to the criminal milieu […]”. Point I.8. of the Order aimed to suppress the growing rate of criminality in the camps and work settlements. Action was supposed to be taken against “criminal elements who are located in camps and work settlements and are involved there in criminal acts.” 555 To address the question of which criminal groups were targeted under Order № 00447, we return to our discussion of the practicse of the Soviet penal justice system. As was the case among many Western criminologists and police forces of the 1920s and 1930s, it was believed that a large portion of crimes could be traced back to a small, homogeneous, nonresocialisable group of offenders – defined as “professional criminals”, “repeat offenders” or “habitual offenders”. If this core criminal milieu could successfully be defeated, then the prospect for a substantial decrease in the crime rate would exist.556 In the Soviet Union of the 1920s there
555
The operative Order No. 00447, July 30, 1937, in R. Binner, B. Bonwetsch, M. Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft, pp. 106-120. 556 P. Wagner, Hitlers Kriminalisten. Die deutsche Kriminalpolizei und der Nationalsozialismus zwischen 1920 und 1960 (Munich, 2002); I. Baumann, Dem Verbrechen auf der Spur. Eine Geschichte der Kriminologie und Kriminalpolitik in Deutschland 18801980 (Göttingen, 2006).
270 was already a focus on the repeat offender type (ugolovnik-/prestupnik-retsidivist). A VCIK/SNK RSFSR resolution, “On the penal policy and the conditions of the prisons,” of July 19, 1927 stated: “One must recognize the necessity of carrying out strict measures exclusively against the class enemy and the declassed professional criminals and repeat offenders.”557 On July 14, 1935, Yagoda stated in a report, “On the mistakes in the performance of the judicial bodies,” for Stalin and Molotov: “It appears to me that it should be clear to all, including the co-workers of the courts, that the repeat offenders are first and foremost in need of isolation”.558 The position of his successor Ezhov on this question clarifies the latter’s oft-cited opinion on the framework of a discussion of April 9, 1937 on work provisions for the 60,000 prisoners released monthly from the Corrective Labour Camp (ispravitel’no-trudovoi lager’, ITL), Corrective Labour Colony (izpravitel’no-trudovaia kolonia, ITK), and prisons. The NKVD could provide at the most 6,000-7,000 ex-prisoners a place of employment because other state companies and agencies generally refused to employ former camp detainees. And even when they did, Ezhov continued, they refused to grant advance payments for food and did not make living quarters available, and labour unions and party organisations didn’t tend to such employees’ needs. Among the released prisoners, Ezhov identified a group of “unremedial repeat offenders” (neispravimykh retsidivistov) who refused work offered to them and, further, wanted to continue life as criminals. According to Ezhov, a disproportionate share of serious crimes (robbery, armed robbery, murder and burglary) were committed by these previous offenders after their release from custody. Considering criminal 557
Rezoljucija ob-edinennogo zasedanija prezidiuma VCIK i SNK RSFSR po dokladam Narodnogo kommissariata justicii i Narodnogo komissariata vnutrennich del o karatel’noj politike i sostojanii mest zaključenija, 19.07.1927, in N. Petrov i.a. (ed.), Istorija Stalinskogo GULAGa, vol. 2, pp. 612. 558 Dokladnaja zapiska narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR G. G. Jagody I. V. Stalinu, V. M. Molotovu o nedostatkach v rabote sudebnych organov, 14.07.1935, in N. Vert i.a. (eds.), Istorija Stalinskogo GULAGa, vol. 1, pp. 231. For more detailed information on Yagoda. D. Shearer, Elements Near and Alien. Passportization, Policing and Identity in the Stalinist State, 1932-1952, The Journal of Modern History (2004), vol. 76, pp. 860-862.
271 convictions in 1936, 45.3% of those for armed robbery, 46.7% of those for unarmed robbery, 30.5% of those for cattle thievery and 46.5% of those for break-ins were charged to their account. That same year, 42% of all arrested robbers, thieves and cattle thieves were repeat offenders, of whom the majority had just recently been released from camp. According to Ezhov, the particular significance of repeat offenders (sudimykh) was that they constituted the cadre of gangs dedicated to robbery and theft, and that many were mentally unstable. Along with a host of practical proposals for the integration of large numbers of released prisoners into the work world, Ezhov recommended that “recidvistyi” who had served out their criminal sentences, but had not proven to be re-socialisable in camp, not be released but rather sentenced by camp court or Police Troika to an additional three years imprisonment. Ezhov’s letter was agreed to by Vyshinskii up to the very final point. On the other hand, in July 7, 1937, Vyshinskii—affirming the sense of his March campaign in the Izvestiia in which criminals were allowed to publicly distance themselves from their deeds—distanced himself from Ezhov’s letter.559 Ezhov’s fixation on repeat offenders as the most dangerous criminal group was already reflected in the list of “contingents who are again subject to repression” under Order № 00447 (see above), but is even more clearly evident in Circular № 61 drafted by his deputy and the main person responsible for the planning and implementation of Operation № 00447, M. P. Frinovskii, on August 7, 1937, for dissemination to all leaders of the UNKVD and the URKM. In the circular, which gave detailed directions for combatting crime and, more generally, for implementing Order № 00447, once again specified what sorts of offenders should be targeted by the Troikas: 1. Felons who had committed armed and violent robbery; 2. Recidivous (habitual) criminals involved in cattle theft, street robbery, or the handling of stolen goods, as well as operators of gin palaces; 3. Recidivists and criminals who had 559
L. Sejnin, Javka s povinnoj, Izvestija (1937), 15. 3., pp. 4.
272 escaped from a prison; 4. Recidivists and other criminals without a permanent residence who were not performing any useful work, and who, even if not charged with a specific crime, maintained contact with the criminal subculture. Point 3 of the circular, which called for the transfer of charged persons from the Police Troika to the Kulak Troika, is an almost literal reproduction of paragraph 2 of Yagoda’s and Vyshinskii’s previously cited Police Troika instructions of May 9, 1935. Through this circular, some of the sentences that up until this point had been handled by the Police Troikas were transferred to the newly established Troikas of the mass operations; with this came a drastic intensification of sentences, as the Police Troikas could issue sentences of no more than five years. Frinovskii’s directive also recommended that the police implement constant raids (oblavy) in the rayons and conduct meticulous examinations of the personal belongings of captured persons so that not a single repeat offender could elude identification as a result of inattentiveness.560 The leader of the Moscow district UNKVD, S. F. Redens, brought the consequences of all this into focus in his report on the successes of the Kulak operation when he put the following words into the mouths of two Kolkhoz peasants from the Rjazan rayon:
Dmitriev (Village of Kanishchevo): These thieves can’t be reformed, they need to be liquidated. The bodies of the NKVD have recently assumed the actual purging of thieves from the villages. Krysanov (Village of Nedostoevo): In our village there are completely unremedial thieves like Aleksandrov, the brothers Zacharov, Mishin and others. These persons
560
The circular No. 61 was published for the first time in V. A. Ivanov, Organy gosudarstvennoj bezopasnosti, pp. 52-53. Cf. also: R. Binner i. a., Massenmord und Lagerhaft, pp. 184-186.
273 can’t live without committing a crime. They must be imprisoned for life or liquidated.561
10. The Mid-Level Operations The People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Ukraine, I. M. Leplevskii (1896-1938), placed emphasis, by contrast, on combatting organised crime. On July 10, 1937 he passed on by encrypted telegram the personal details of the former Kulaks and criminals registered in the Ukraine to Ezhov, commenting “that the data for the Donbass and the district of Dnepropetrovsk are much too low.”562 In response both regions submitted significantly higher repression numbers in the second half of July, of which only those for Dnepropetrovsk have yet been found in the archives: 1st Category: former Kulaks, 1,500 (previously 190), criminals, 1,000 (previously 44); 2nd Category: former Kulaks, 2,000 (1,752), criminals, 1,000 (219). Leplevskii also took part on August 15, 1937, in two Troika meetings in Odessa. Shortly before this he had sent all leaders of the Ukrainian UNKVD his evaluation of the first meetings of the three-man tribunals, writing that too many offenders had been convicted “on grounds of small crimes” who actually belonged in front of the Police Troika or the courts. It’s possible that he based his criticism on a report titled “The shortcomings observed during the work of the Troika in the district of Kiev”563 from the beginning of August, 1937 written by N. D. Sharov, the leader of the Kiev district UNKVD. Leplevskii’s directive is worded as follows:
Redens N. I. Ežovu, ne ranee 15.08.1937, in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 182. 562 Šifrotelegramma narkoma vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskogo narkomu vnutrennich del SSSR N. I. Ežovu o sostave trojki i o količestve kulakov i ugolovnikov, postavlennych na učet v oblastjach Ukrainy, 10.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 70-71. 563 Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova “O vyjavlennych ošibkach vo vremja raboty trojki“, 05.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 252-254. 561
274 To the Troika are supposed to be handed over the documents of actually active adversarial elements that terrorise the population, and of those who organise criminal bands in cities and in the countryside.564
In this declaration one is able to see the credo of his campaign against crime. His order of September 29, 1937 also points in this direction; in it he ordered the commencement of an operation whose goal was:
A decisive rooting out of armed robbery and armed break-ins in rural regions as well as in the cities and the fulfilment of a revolutionary orderliness.565 In this regard, it should be examined to what extent the militsiya performed their work adequately. If necessary, strict punishments were supposed to be issued. A whole range of reports on the implementation of the Operation in the Ukrainian districts during September and October are contained in the Kiev archive. Only two weeks after Leplevskii’s directive, his deputy has to admit in a telegram to the leader of GUGB and the militsiya that “armed and unarmed robbery had even increased in four districts”:
Obviously the operative measures of the bodies of the URKM are not capturing the cadres of criminals and bandits and taking care of the liquidation of band activity.566
Telegramma narkoma vnutrennych del USSR I. M. Leplevskogo načal’nikam oblastnych UNKVD USSR ob ustranenii nedočetov v rabote troek, 10.08.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp.184-185. 565 Direktiva narkoma vnutrennych del USSR I. M. Leplevskogo načal’nikam oblastnych NKVD USSR ob operativnych meroprijatijach po bor’be s vooružennymi grabežami v gorodach, 29.09.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 193-194. 566 Telegramma zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del USSR M. A. Stepanova načal’nikam oblastnych upravlenij NKVD USSR ob organizacii bor’by s banditizmom, 16.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 208-209. 564
275 Under Leplevskii’s successor, A. I. Uspenskii (1902-1938), whom Ezhov sent to the Ukraine on January 1, 1938, within the framework of the Kulak Operation, the campaign against crime no longer had the same significance as it had in 1937, as the statistics have already made clear. This was the result not of an autonomous decision by authorities in the Ukraine but rather of a directive from Moscow. Ezhov’s order “On the short-comings in the preparation and implementation of the Mass Operation” in the Ukraine, issued at the end of February or the beginning of March 1938, criticizes “the damaging chase after naked, quantitative indicators for the fulfilment and over-fulfilment of the ‘quotas’” and the arrests “of the wiped out anti-Soviet basis (nizovka)”; however, criminals are not mentioned in this context. A deciding factor might have been that Ezhov presented a new list of groups targeted for repression under the continued implementation of Order № 00447 in the Ukraine – on February 15 the Politburo had approved a new quota of 30,000 people to be sentenced, the largest contingent in the history of the Kulak Operation. The table’s 15 categories are to a great extent oriented around specifically Ukrainian conditions (former members of Ukrainian nationalist organisations, persons who maintained contact with the Ukrainian embassy, former members of political parties in the Ukraine, members of newly discovered Ukrainian resistance organisations, etc.). The list, most notably, does not include criminals.567 Uspenskii reacted to Ezhov’s new course for the Ukraine in a telegram of March 1, 1938 to A. A. Volkov (1898-1941), the leader of the District of Poltava:
N. I. Ežov “O nedočetach podgotovki i provedenija massovych operacij“ na Ukraine, End of Februar, beginning of March 1938, in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 300308. 567
276 Let the criminals for the most part run over the Police Troika. With the judicial Troika, deal only with active members of robbers bands and remember that there will be no additional quotas for the criminals.568
These directives probably also went out to the other leaders of the Ukrainian districts. In the process of the shift of the leading position in the struggle against crime from one authority to another, on March 27, 1938, an order, “On the accelerated handling of documents through the Troikas,” mandated that the work of the administrative Troikas (administrativnye troiki) called special courts (militseiskie troiki) be accelerated. In August 1938 Uspenskii issued a condemnation of the non-fulfilment of this directive and a similar one of July 22, 1938.569 Despite the far less important role of the fight against crime in 1938 in the Ukraine, the brutal disregard of the laws protecting those charged as criminals grew as a result of Uspenskii’s actions. Specifically to inform the Ukrainian People’s Commissar, a daily information source was drawn up by the Investigation Department (Otdel Ugolovnogo Rozyska, OUR) of the URKM NKVD USSR, providing news of spectacular criminal cases, the so-called “daily report on the most important criminal occurrences and events in the USSR”. This six- to eight-page comprehensive report, of which only three copies were produced – for the People’s Commissar, his deputy and the OUR – was sent daily from the leader of the Ukrainian militsiya to the People’s Commissariat. Every “Daily Report” described six to ten major criminal cases drawn from all districts of the Ukraine and frequently their successful closure by the militsiya. The brief sketches focused on the crimes
O. Lošic‘kij, “Laboratorija-2”. Poltava. Dokumental‘ni materiali pro masovi represii v 1937-1938 rr., Z archiviv VUČK-GPU-NKVD-KGB (2000), No. 2-4, pp. 129-178, here: p. 148. 569 Direktiva Nr. 714 narkoma vnutrennich del USSR A. I. Uspenskogo i prokurora USSR L. I. Jačenina načal’nikam oblastnych upravlenij NKVD USSR, oblastnym prokuroram USSR ob uskorennom rassmotrenii del ugolovno-deklassirovannych, social’no vrednych elemennov i narušitelej pasportnogo režima milicejskimi trojkami, 27.03.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 234-235. 568
277 of murder and armed robbery, especially those committed by bands of thieves, as well as other types of organised crime (e.g., groups of swindlers). The biographies of the perpetrators included their social status (sotspolozhenie), previous offences, and registrations. There were also details on the status of the proceedings – “measures for the investigation and arrest of criminals followed, the study of the case is being conducted, concluded, the documents on it up to the trial have been sent to the Special Troika”. The People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, I. A. Uspenskii, was not satisfied with just the reading of the “Daily Report”: In the margin or over the text of several reports of April to June 1938 one finds his hand-written directive: “Execution by firing squad of the Troika U.” The leader of his secretarial office, M. I. Bril’, in conclusion informed the NKVD head and chairman of the district Troika in which the crime had been committed of the “resolution of the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs”, repeated the case description from the “Daily Report” and typed on the left margin of the letter “Execution by firing squad of the Troika U”. Among those sentenced to death by Uspenskii’s decree—the majority of whom were members of bands of thieves—two were murderers, one was a 15-year-old thief, two were 17-year-old thieves, and four were visitors in dives. The transgression of a group of swindlers consisted of them going on a trip through the cities of the USSR “posing as coworkers of the NKVD, performing searches of several persons and in this way confiscating valuable goods and money”. The monstrosity of Uspenskii’s desktop justice becomes even more apparent when one observes that for all the cases (with one exception) included in the “Daily Reports” it is noted: “The investigation is in progress”.
11. The Rayon and District Level M. P. Shreider (1902-1978) reports in his memoirs that, during 1937, he took part as a leader of the URKM in the Ivanovo District in the meetings of the Police Troika, where even serious crimes were punishable by at most 5 years to Corrective Labour Camp. In his opinion
278 “criminals received much too soft penalties”.570 Like Shreider, many Chekists and militsiya members might have thought this way, and thus saw in the “combat order of the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs” (Boevoi prikaz Narkoma Vnutrennykh Del)571 an instrument for the destruction of the counter-revolutionary underground and the criminal world (ugolovshchina). The leaders of the sub-departments of the NKVD of the West Siberian Region, for example, reacted with jubilant applause (shumnym odobreniem) on July 25, 1937, to the introduction of Order № 00447 by S. N. Mironov.572 M. A. Stepanov, deputy People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs in the Ukraine, declared to the leaders of the GUGB and the militsiya: “At the moment we have every opportunity to liquidate theft.”573 Freed from the state attorney’s oversight, effectively not bound by constitutional articles (e. g. Article 127) and the penal law book, and supported by the orders of the highest authorities of the party and state, who transferred decisions about life and death over to them, some leaders of the GUGB and the militsiya believed the goal “to once and for all liquidate crime” to be within their grasp.574 At the closed party meeting of the URKM party committee in the District of Doneck of September 3, 1937, the means to this end was laid out:
The necessity for extinguishing all criminals must be pressed into the consciousness of every employee of the oblast’ URKM.575
M. P. Šrejder, NKVD iznutri. Zapiski čekista (Moscow, 1995), pp. 74. Sobranie pervičnoj partorganizacii NKVD stancii Volnovacha Volnovachskogo rajona Doneckoj oblasti. Protokol No. 17, 29.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 98-99. 572 S. A. Papkov, Stalinskij terror v Sibiri. 1928-1941 (Novosibirsk, 1997), pp. 211. 573 Telegramma zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del USSR M. A. Stepanova načal’nikam oblastnych upravlenij NKVD USSR ob organizacii bor’by s banditizmom, 16.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 208-209. 574 Dokladnye zapiski i soobščenija o rabote UNKVD po Vinnickoj oblasti, OGA SBU, fund 16, index 31 (1951 g.), file 39, pp. 66-67. 575 Rezoljucija zakrytogo partsobranija partkomiteta URKM v Doneckoj oblasti. Vypiska iz Protokol No. 21, 03.09.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 251252. 570 571
279 12. The Implementation of the Guidelines through the District NKVD How in fact did the NKVD and the militsiya locally implement the guidelines from the Central Command and the mid-level bodies, and how did they pursue their own projections? In the Troika protocols that we have examined (Barnaul, Yaroslavl’, Kiev, Doneck, Odessa) convicted criminals’ prior convictions and arrests or registrations is indicated and therefore easy to identify. There is hardly a convicted criminal who did not have several previous convictions and arrests or registrations. The entry “without a defined occupation or work” (bez opredelennykh zanjatii, BOZ) or “occupied himself with work non-useful to society”, regarded by Troika members as a factor calling for lengthier sentences, since ill intent was presumed, are found in the sentences against criminals as well as those against former Kulaks and other counter-revolutionary elements. From August to December 1937 alone, 23,480 people were convicted with the notation “BOZ”.576 In January 1938, upon the order of Ezhov, the leaders of the district heads of the NKVD took stock of the repressions in the second half of the year 1937.577 The leader of the NKVD in the District of Yaroslavl’, A. M. Ershov, gave the impression in his report that he had held precisely to the text of the orders.578 In his report the Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza o količestve osuždennych i ob ich iz-jatii iz otraslej narodnogo chozjajstva za period s načala operacii po 3 janvarja 1938 g., 03.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 321324. 577 On November 4, 1937 the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs of the USSR, Leplevskii, issued a corresponding directive to all leaders of the district departments of the UNKVD in the Ukraine. Direktiva No. 49721 narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR N. I. Ežova vsem načalnikam UNKVD, NKVD kraev i oblastej “Ob usilenii repressij“ ot 3 nojabrja 1937 g., peredannaja načal’nikam oblupravlenij NKVD USSR narkomom vnutrennich del I. M. Leplevskim 4 nojabrja, 04.11.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 177-178. 578 Doklad [No. 1] načal‘nika UNKVD Jaroslavskoj oblasti A. M. Eršova narkomu vnutrennich del N. I. Ežovu o vypolnenii prikazov 00485, 00447, 00429, 00593, 00486, 941386 (1937 god), 14.01.1938 g., in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 261-268; UNKVD Jaroslavskoj oblasti A. M. Eršova ob itogach operacij, soglasno prikazov Narkoma Sojuza SSR – general’nogo komissara Gosodarstvennoj Bezopasnosti tov. Ežova za 00447, 00429, 00485, 00593, 00486, 941 i 38672, 14.01.1938 g., in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 269-273. 576
280 1,499 convicted “criminals” are divided into three different categories: first, 725 bandits who had committed robbery (bandity-grabiteli); second, 561 recidivous thieves (vory-retsidivisty); third, 213 bandits who had fled from camps. These numbers suggest that in Yaroslavl’ the main target was criminals acting as a group. In his summary of the focal point of Operation № 00447, the NKVD leader emphasized that it came down to segregation (iz-iatie) of the “truly predatory, band-like operating elements”. The sentencing to death of all 213 camp escapees and their designation as bandits support the view that in the interpretation of the Jaroslavl UNKVD head they were virtually as important a target group as the organised criminals.579 Not accidentally, the two categories were merged into a single number in Ershov’s second report. In contrast to the District of Yaroslavl’, recidivous thieves and recidivous petty criminals captured the attention of the coordinators of Order № 00447 in the District of Kiev. According to two reports written by the deputy leader of the Kiev UNKVD, I. Ya. Babich in January 1938, out of a total of 1,975 convicted criminals, the plurality were repeat offenders (48.8% or 964 convictions), followed by bandits (34.4% or 681), cattle thieves with (14.4% or 284), then 36 swindlers (aferisty) and finally 10 smugglers.580 In the District of Leningrad the ratio of criminal repeat offenders is even greater. According to statistics assembled by St. Petersburg historian V. A. Ivanov the of the 7,289 persons convicted as criminals, 4,016—55%—were repeat offenders to this number we can By contrast, “only” 6.1% (806 – 213): (7,25 + 5,61) of the organised criminals and petty criminal recidivists were sentenced to death. This comparative calculation was made on the basis of the number from the March evaluation of GUGB on Order 00447 (see above). They correspond to the numbers of Ershovs up to minor deviations. Cf. Svodka No. 33, in V. P. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, pp. 56-61. 580 Dokladnaja zapiska zamestitelja načal’nika UNKVD USSR po Kievskoj oblasti I. Ja. Babiča zamestitelju narkoma vnutrennich del USSR M. A. Stepanovu ob itogach operacii po iz-jatiju kontrrevoljucionnogo kulackogo, ugolovnogo i pročego kontrrevoljucionnnogo elementa, 05.01.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 463-471; Dokladnaja zapiska zamestitelja načal’nika UNKVD USSR po Kievskoj oblasti I. Ja. Babiča narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu o rezul’tatach operativno-sledsvennoj raboty upravlenija NKVD po Kievskoj oblasti za period s 1 ijunja 1937 g. po 8 janvarja 1938 g., 09.01.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 471-475. 579
281 add recidivist petty criminals listed separately by Ivanov, the robbers (grabiteli) who grabbed items from passers-by (grabiteli, sovershivshie ryvki) (69 persons), or stole clothing off drunks (123 persons), as well as 125 swindlers and hustlers, so that the portion of repeat offenders among all convicted criminals is in fact almost 60%. Another significant group of repeat offenders, always calculated separately, are the rowdies or hooligans (khuligany retsidivisty) who had appeared multiple times: 20.3% of total convictions or 1,551 persons. According to the Soviet definition these were also recidivist criminals. During 1937–1938, they were increasingly pursued by the Troikas of the NKVD.581 Those involved more or less organised and armed criminality follow in third place for the first time, comprising 16.8% of those convicted. This included 790 robbers, 224 bandits and armed robbers, 142 cattle thieves and 72 operators of dives or meeting places for criminals. For the first time in last place are 91 murderers and 86 anti-Soviet-oriented declassed elements (antisovechiki iz deklassirovannykh elementov). With respect to the District of Khar’kov, in the second half of 1937 the Kulak Troika convicted mainly minor repeat offenders.582 From the middle of September 1937 on, the number of convictions in the category of “thieves/repeat offenders” stadily increased, while convictions in the category of “bandits/robbers,” by contrast, declined.583 Available statistics about previous convictions support the argument that the Kulak Troikas took advantage of
In the District of Yroslavl’ the militsiya was ordered on August 13 to “undertake without delay the greatest of all efforts for the prevention and liquidation of the whole hooligan elements by arresting and bringing to trial their cases in front of the Troikas of the NKVD.” Prikaz upravlenija NKVD Jaroslavskoj oblasti o predanii sudu voennogo tribunala i naloženii disciplinarnych vzyskanij na rabotnikov milicii za bezdejatel’nost’ v bor’be s chuliganstvom, 13. 8. 1937, in Slušit’ otečestvu čest’ imeju. Dokumenty po istorii organov vnutrennich del Jaroslavskogo kraja v konce XVIII – načale XXI vv. (Jaroslavl’, 2002), pp. 351-352. 582 In the first meetings of the troika exclusively severe penalties were pronounced on the criminals. But then the situation changed completely in favor of issuing the labor camp as punishment. The death penalty was used only rarely. This tendency could be identified from the middle of September 1937 on. Diagram No. 10 “Količestvo osuždennych ugolovnikov po pervoj i vtoroj kategorijam“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 546. 583 Diagram No. 11a “Količestvo osuždennych ugolovnikov po pervoj i vtoroj kategorijam“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 546. 581
282 repeat-offender classification as a tool for the conviction of criminals. According to the data, in meetings of the Troika repeat offenders and persons who escaped from camps accounted for almost 100% of the overall number of convictions.584 It should be noted that criminals in the Kharkov oblast also became victims of the policies of the UNKVD leadership, which used the Kulak Troika to clear out prisons (there were no camps in the Ukraine). For this purpose, the law of the Kulak Troika was used to sentence to capital punishment those persons who, in the eyes of the prison administration, proved themselves incorrigible offenders of the prison regime.585 The kind of intolerable conditions that prevailed in overcrowded investigative detention centers, thus existed in prisons as well.586
13. The Investigative Documents The bare numbers in the reports of the UNKVD leaders are best examined in light of additional information and above all through other sources, since the reports tend to give clearer information on what arguments the given rayon or district NKVD used before the Moscow Central Command to legitimize the implementation of the mass operations in its area than on the actual constitution of the victims. As additional sources, we can consult the investigative documents of the convicted criminals. The goal is to further delegitimise the imposition of the severe camp punishments and the use of the death sentence. In the statistics compiled by Ivanov on the District of Leningrad the number of previous convictions is indicated (see table 2). Of 7,289 convicted criminals, 550, or 6.9%,
Diagram No. 14 “Svedenija o sudimostjach ugolovnikov“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, p. 549. Regarding the seriousness of the criminal category “horse thieves,” which remained relatively constant, though with a small number of cases, further research based on archival sources is required. 585 From 1936 on the prison regime was tightened up, that is, so that much more attention was paid to the good behaviour of the prisoners. 586 Diagram No. 14 “Svedenija o sudimostjach ugolovnikov“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 549. 584
283 had no previous conviction at all. A plurality of those convicted, 3,623, or 49.7%, had previously been convicted once or twice; 3,116, or 42.7%,had three or more previous convictions—of these, most (2,274) had less than five. Ivanov’s statistics, based on the materials of the implementing bodies, provide no information on the nature of the previous convictions, the severity of the sentences applied, or under which paragraph of the criminal code of the Russian Soviet Republic the prosecuting authority operated. This suggests that the simple fact that a person had a previous conviction, rather than different approaches at the local level, played the most important role in transferring a particular prosecution to the Troika.
Table 2 Characteristics of the criminal and “socially dangerous elements” in the District of Leningrad and of those convicted by the Special Troika of the UNKVD in the District of Leningrad between August 5 and December 31, 1937.
Bandits
Total
5 or more prior convictions
3-4 prior convictions
1-2 prior convictions
Number of prior convictions
No prior conviction
Colour (okraska)
48
122
39
15
224
25 164
55 439
9 137
2 50
91 790
and armed robbers
Murderers Robbers
284 Robbers who grabbed
14
46
6
3
69
s.thing from a passerStripping of an
22
75
20
6
123
Repeatedly captured
93
1862
1362
599
4016
thieves Cattle thieves Repeatedly captured
32 88
86 715
20 611
4 137
142 1551
10 8
36 63
20 37
6 17
72 125
46
24
13
3
86
550
3623
2274
842
7289
by intoxicated person
rowdies Visitors in a dive Swindlers and gamblers Persons with antiSoviet inclinations numbered among the Sum total elements declassed
Those who escaped from camps
Bandits
Former Kulaks
Declassed Elements
Colour (okraska)
10
and armed robbers
Murderers Robbers
5 18
— 7
285 Robbers who grabbed
10
—
s.thing from a passerStripping of an
13
—
Repeatedly captured
134
10
thieves Cattle thieves Repeatedly captured
8 47
— 6
2 11
— 4
by intoxicated person
rowdies Visitors in a dive Swindlers and gamblers Persons with anti-
25
Soviet inclinations numbered among the Sum total elements declassed
258
53
Source: Ivanov, Missija ordena, p. 440.
In the District of Khar’kov, “repeat offenders”, as already noted, were the most important target group among the criminals. This is expressly emphasized in a district report of the NKVD of January 1938: “Among those convicted by the Troika there is found a noticeably large number who were repressed already earlier and had served their term.” 587 Most of the 1,185 convicted criminals—992, or 83.7%—had served their term according to the law (see following table). Only 95 had fled prison or other internment. Fiftysix persons were transferred directly from various prisons to the Troika. The 42 persons who
Vypiska iz otčeta ob operativnoj rabote upravlenija NKVD po Char’kovskoj oblasti po sostojaniju na 10 janvarja 1938 g., 10.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 391-393. 587
286 had “dodged the repressions” are probably individuals who had not been previously convicted by the penal bodies.
Table 3 Excerpt from the Accountability Report on the operative work of the UNKVD, District of Khar’kov, January 10, 1938
Of these: Total Previously convicted and served term Previously convicted and fled from camps, prisons, exile and labour colonies and work settlements Dodged repressions
3332
Former Kulaks 1847
Criminals 992
Other counterrev. elements 493
1078
975
95
8
2358
2306
42
10
At the time of conviction in camps, work settlements, exile and labour colonies Sum total
65
1
56
8
6833
5129
1185
519
Source: Vypiska iz otčeta ob operativnoj rabote upravlenija NKVD po Char’kovskoj oblasti po sostojaniju na 10 janvarja 1938 g., 10.01.1938, in Junge/Binner/Kokin i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 391-393.
287 In seeking to evaluate which criminals were in fact convicted and for what reasons, we were able to view the investigative documents of convicts in only two districts, Barnaul and Kemerovo (formerly a part of the District Novosibirsk), in the respective archives of the information centre of the state administration for internal affairs (AIC GUVD). Since the militsiya archive stored only the documents of those who were not sentenced to death, while the documents of those executed were moved to the archive of the secret police, we had access only in rare instances to the documents of those subjected to the most severe sentence.588
14. Hooligans Andrej Ivanovich Khomiakov, an individual farmer,589 was sentenced to ten years internment to Corrective Labour Camp by the Troika in the District of Novosibirsk on November 21, 1937. In the bill of indictment he is charged as a “socially hostile element (social’no vrednyi element, SVE) on the basis of Paragraph 35 (passport violation, or illegal crossing the borders of the RSFSR or individual locations with the RSFSR) of the penal code of the RSFSR. The following was presented as evidence against him: in 1935 he fled from the village of Vasil’evka in the rayon Leninsk-Kuzneck, ducked out of the payment of taxes in the amount of 1,300 rubles, obtained fictitious approval certificates concerning his social origin and status, and used them to obtain a passport. He pursued “no socially useful work” until October 1937 and maintained contact with “criminal elements”. Moreover, “he occupied himself with excessive drinking and the robbing of drunkards”. To “obliterate his criminal trail” he took up
588
These documents have not been available until now. In the department “Spetsdokumentatsija“ of the archive administration in the Altaj region a few documents of criminals sentenced to death fell by accident into our hands. These documents were handed over by the FSB because these persons were also accused of counter-revolutionary agitation and therefore Article 58.10 was mentioned in the record. Generally a broader investigation of the documents was not possible because of the difficult archive situation. 589 Delo Chomjakova Andreja Ivanoviča, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 402.
288 work in October while continuing his criminal activity. Concerning his social origin, the bill of indictment indicated that he was descended from “Kulak peasants”. On the basis of the presented materials and the NKVD order USSR № 00192590 it was recommended that the documents in the crime department of the URKM in the NKVD be brought before the Police Troika. The bill of indictment was signed by the leader of the crime department, Shеpelev, and the state’s attorney of the city of Leninsk-Kuzneck, Maksimov. The leader of the city department of the militsiya of Leninsky-Kuzneck, Zh. N. Shamsutdinov, confirmed the bill of indictment.591 The documents then landed not in front of the Police Troika592, but rather in front of the Kulak Troika. The documents indicate that the defendant first caught the attention of the militsiya as a hooligan who met with suspicious persons in restaurants for drinking bouts and was possibly involved in robbing intoxicated people. The occasion for his arrest on October 16, 1937, was probably a mass fight in front of one of these restaurants.593 Since Khomiakov had not previously been convicted or even arrested for hooliganism, and as it could not definitively be shown that he had had serious contact with criminals or been involved in the robbing of drunks, the authorities attempted to pin other violations on him. For this an inspector of the city militsiya drove to Maiskii Sel’sovet, in which the village of Vasil’evka was located, where he examined the relocation approval certificates about his social origin and status of the Sel’sovet of 1935 discovered during the search of Khomiakov to determine his social origin, as well as the entry from the population register and the related possibility that he had obtained a passport in another location.594 On November 1, 1937, the inspector received an attestation from the current leader of the village 590 591
Order of the Police Troika for execution. See below on this. Delo Chomjakova Andreja Ivanoviča, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 402, page
8. 592 593
On the Police Troika, see below. Delo Chomjakova Andreja Ivanoviča, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 402, page
3. 594
The Spravka was filled out on September 5, 1935 by the Majskii Selsovet. Cf. Delo Chomjakova AndrejaIvanoviča, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 402, page 10 (envelope of a letter).
289 Soviet which indicated that no approval certificate had been issued for Khomiakov in 1935.595 As a consequence, the city militsiya decided on November 3 to also charge Khomiakov with tax evasion. After the militsiya inspector had received the attestation from the village Soviet, which in the eyes of the city militsiya unequivocally proved the charges of forgery and flight from tax debt, as well as illegal departure from place of residence and fraudulent acquisition of a passport, the rest was purely Chekist handwork. The defendant confessed to all the violations charged to him during his arraignment on November 3 by an employee of the city militsiya, Mezin. The fact, emphasized by the defendant afterwards, that he had used the proceeds from the sale of his property to pay his tax debts and that he received the certificate in 1935 from the head of the village Soviet and worked after his departure in various capacities—that is, he was in no way unemployed—did not appear to disturb either Mezin, who heard from no other witnesses, or the municipal state’s attorney, Odintsov, who confirmed the arraignment protocol. The department of criminal justice in which the bill of indictment was prepared also contributed its part. It took the “forged” certificates of the village Soviet as an opportunity to transform the defendant from a mid-level farmer into a Kulak. To now designate the documents as forgeries would twist the facts. The materials were interpreted in the end in the “correct” way in the bill of indictment, exactly as directed in Paragraph 35 of the penal code, which prescribed no more than five years of remedial work camp in most cases, so that the primary goal of sticking a hooligan in a camp for a much longer term could be achieved. That the intent was to be found precisely in this, and that everything else remained secondary even after the conclusion of the mass repressions, is indicated by Khomiakov’s rehabilitation proceedings that took place in 1941. Even though numerous interrogations of witnesses confirmed that the certificates said to have been issued the village Soviet of 1935 were in no way fictitious, that the Kulak origin was invented, and 595
Ibidem
290 that no illegal departure from the village had been proved, Khomiakov was neither rehabilitated nor released from camp.596 He was not officially rehabilitated until the end of 2001. The case of Nikolai Trofimovich Kochurin is somewhat different. Also sentenced to ten years of camp detention, at the meeting of the Novosibirsk Kulak Troika of November 13, 1937, he was charged in the bill of indictment according to penal code Paragraph 74, Section 2 and Paragraph 73, Section 1 (repeated hooliganism in serious cases or death threats).597 He had four prior convictions under Paragraph 74, including the refusal of “measures of social protection”,598 and arrests for inciting rows (debosh) or resistance to state administration, as well as a murder threat against the chairman of the kolkhoz, a charge supported by witness statements. The bill of indictment also indicates that he had been excluded from the kolkhoz by the kolkhoz assembly as a “socially dangerous hooligan”. On this basis and that of Circular 1534/s of the NKVD of the USSR, Kochurin had been transferred to the Criminal Law Department of the administration of the URKM of the UNKVD in the District of Novosibirsk in order to bring his case in front of the Kulak Troika. The bill of indictment does not mention that the four previous convictions resulted in minor sentences of three months and one of eight months in 1935.599 Moreover, the documents show clearly that the chairman of the kolkhoz, Evsiukov, in lockstep with the militsiya, the state attorney’s office, the chairman of the village Soviet, and the person in charge of the rayon executive committee, was determined to get rid of Kochurin. In 1935, Evsiukov had already seen to it that Kochurin was sentenced to eight months of Corrective Labour work (ispravitel’no trudovye raboty, ITR). Then Kochurin was denounced in the kolkhoz wall newspaper “For a Bolshevist Kolkhoz” under Delo Chomjakova Andreja Ivanoviča. Cf. the end of the record, the pages of which are not numbered consecutively. 597 Delo Nikolaja Trofimoviča Kočurina, 27. 10. 1937-31. 10. 1937, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 396, page 22. 598 Kochurin admits that he was released earlier from detention because of illness. Cf. AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 396, page 2. 599 Ibidem, not numbered. 596
291 the heading “intoxicated, drunk and his nose in tobacco smoke”.600 On September 24 and October 17, 1937, Evsiukov recorded in the police protocol that Kochurin, because of excessive consumption of alcohol, had gotten stuck in a river with a horse-drawn wagon loaded with several containers of fuel, thus jeopardising the fall sowing, since the tractor could not be used for what turned into several days. The murder threat is also described in detail by Evsiukov.601 On October 19, the state’s attorney and the authorised representative of the rayon executive committee recorded in the protocol that Kochurin had eluded arrest and threatened to shoot and make “minced meat” out of them.602 On October 27, his arrest was finally effected. All of the information included in the characterization (kharakteristika) of Kochurin in the report characteristics of the village Soviet chairman, Ludzish, of October 30, 1937 was carried over into the bill of indictment, in several cases, verbatim. It ends with the statement that Kochurin “is a dangerous person for society who terrorizes the population”.603 In further documents in the archive, including an excerpt from the kolkhoz assembly meeting604 and examinations of the witnesses, first of the kolkhoz chairman and then of the “simple kolchozniki,” emphasis is again placed on the “threat to the population.” However, the witness statements clearly show that Kochurin had for the most part merely resisted disciplinary action by kolkhoz authorities. Any actual “threat to the population” lay only in the fact that he wanted on his own initiative to bring to justice another kolkhoz hooligan (one of the witnesses) who had beaten up his son.
15. Minor Criminal Repeat Offenders Petr Mikhalovich Zimin was sentenced by the Kulak Troika of the Western Siberian Region on September 9, 1937, to eight years Corrective Labour Camp. In an excerpt from the Troika 600
Ibidem, page 19. Ibidem, page 18. 602 Ibidem, page 19-20. 603 Ibidem, page 6. 604 Ibidem, page 7. 601
292 protocol is found the only reason: “previously convicted” and “connected to the criminal world”.605 In the bill of indictment the previous conviction turned out to involve a sentence of less than one year. Beyond that Zimin had simply caught the attention of the criminal justice department of the city militsiya of Stalinsk through two registered convictions for theft. He was accused of not pursuing any “generally useful work” but instead “criminal activity” and of maintaining contact with the criminal world, selling stolen goods, and committing breakins since the beginning of 1937:
Stole together with a criminal released from the Sib camp a keg of honey beer on July 14, 1937 at the train station Temir Tau, was arrested and on August 28 released on condition that he not remove himself from Temir Tau up until the date of his court hearing. Found shelter in the Osinov mine.606 On September 4 he stole a money purse from the worker Anisimov, P. I.
The decision was made to transfer Zimin’s case to the Troika of the UNKVD in the Western Siberian Region and to charge him according to Paragraph 162, point “g” (theft of socialist property) and Paragraph 165, Section 1 (theft of an another’s property through use of force). As material evidence the statement of the robbed worker given at the militsiya office was added to the protocol; however, because he was drunk, he wasn’t able to give a description of the perpetrator and only presumed that it was Zimin. Another witness testified to having seen Zimin steal the shoes of “some” drunk. The case of the unemployed and homeless Zimin was closed within four days. Neither in 1940 nor in 2003 did the Novosibirsk district assistant state’s attorney, Danilan (serving under state’s attorney Zakharov), and then the Kemerovo Delo Petra Michajloviča Zimina, 5. 9. 1937-9. 9. 1937, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 490. 606 This formulation leaves open the question of whether Zimin had found work there. 605
293 state’s attorney, Filenko, respectively, see a reason to rehabilitate Zimin, even though the articles under which he was charged prescribed a sentence of at most two years in a remedial work camp. Danilin based his denial of rehabilitation directly on the charges, while Filenko asserted that the case did not fall under Article 3 and 5 of the Rehabilitation Law of the RSFSR of October 18, 1991, that is, it did not appear to be a politically motivated conviction. The case of Savelii Aleksandrovich Storozhenko, a noted thief, was transferred to the Troika primarily on the basis of his social origin.607 He was sentenced to eight years in Corrective Labour Camp on November 21, 1937 by the Troika of the District of Novosibirk. In the excerpt from the protocol is written: “Son of a Kulak, previously convicted.” He was accused of “systematic theft”. The bill of indictment presents Paragraph 35 and the designation “socially dangerous element” as the legal basis for the charge. The militsiya determined that Storozhenko was the son of a Kulak who had been arrested by the NKVD because of counter-revolutionary activity. In August he was alleged to have robbed Worker U. of 77 rubles. He was said to have been dismissed from his job on October 23, 1937, and subsequently engaged in begging and contact with thieves. In October he had stolen a coat from the coat rack of cafeteria № 5 and sold it at the market. At the hearing Storozhenko had “completely admitted his guilt”, and his case was transferred on the basis, as well, of the accounts of Witness U. and Witness M., about whom no information appears in the available records. On the basis of the evidence presented and Order № 00192,608 the investigative materials were handed over to the Police Troika via the URKM Criminal Justice Department of the NKVD in the District of Novosibirsk. The leader of the Criminal Justice Department, Shepelev, the state’s attorney, as well as the leader of the city militsiya of Leninsk-Kuzneck, Shamsutdinov, signed off on it. Again the record was instead handed over to the Kulak
607 608
Delo Savelego Aleksandroviča Storoženko, AIC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 3, file 403. Order for the establishment of the Police Troika in 1935.
294 Troika. The records make it clear that Storozhenko had worked as a fireman in a mine; his social origin as the son of a Kulak was raised in support of his dismissal because of excessive alcohol consumption. In the evaluation of the mine leadership, he was categorized as a “socially foreign element”. Storozhenko, together with U., had robbed a co-worker, whose testimony forms the basis for the bill of indictment, which additionally reports Storozhenkos’ criminal contacts in detail. In 1941 the deputy state’s attorney Knyr and his assistant Makeev, as well as the leader of the Department for Militsiya Supervision found nothing unusual about the record and the severity of the sentence. For them “the decision of the Troika was completely in accordance with the law”. In 1958 the state’s attorney’s office still found nothing to criticise in the handling of the case. On November 13, 2001, Storozhenko’s rehabilitation was denied yet again with the justification:
[…] Crimes of social character, not connected to political repression. V. P. Bukharina, State’s Attorney of the District of Kemerovo.
Clearly we can answer “no” to the question of whether most of the convicted criminals were involved in murder or other serious crimes. Only a few murderers can be found among them. As previously observed, in the District of Leningrad, among 7,289 criminals and “socially dangerous elements”, only 91 (1.2%) were murderers, according to Ivanov.609 The specific examination of 30 investigative documents in the Districts of Kemerovo and Barnaul has shown that often persons were investigated for murder who had already served their sentence for the very same murder or who could not be justifiably convicted.610
609
Ivanov, Missija ordena, pp. 440. Here along with the pure number material the investigative records of the affect persons must be investigated. 610
Although no official, large-scale campaigns were directed against them, it appears that minor criminal recidivists and those repeatedly identified hooligans (khuligany retsidivisty) were the central target groups of the Order, even ahead of the organized criminal world.
16. Affected Domains of the National Economy In the reports on the proceedings of Operation № 00447 for the second half of 1937 in the Ukraine, entries detailing criminals’ origins in the various domains of Soviet society can be found. One set of data from January 1938 covering the entire Ukraine underscores the connection between unemployment and criminality, and the danger of landing in front of the Troika. In addition it becomes clear that rural areas were equally hard hit as urban ones. Only a very tiny share of convicted criminals were employed in industries important to the war effort.
Table 4 Information on those convicted by the district Troikas of the UNKVD of the USSR from the
s
on
cti
nvi
co
tal the
To of
n
beginning of the Operation until January 3, 1938
tio
osi
295
Of these
Kulaks
15893 2010 16678 23503
Criminals 13026 3373 9653
Others 29545 12518 17027
Sum 83122 32715 50407
Others
40181
Persons without a specific job
Kulaks
In construction
In the Soviet Apparatus
In transportation
In the war industry
In industrial operations
In sovkhozes
In kolkhozes
Composition of the convictions
According to the 2nd category
According to the 1st category
296
Employment of those convicted
3536
82
1691
1072
756
9083
3879
Criminals
1720
91
728
9
105
95
145
8790
1219
Others
8103
629
3236
128
1966
3426
457
5607
4428
297 Sum
25716 2730
7490
219
3762
4593
1358
23480
9526
Source: Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza o količestve osuždennych i ob ich iz-jatii iz otraslej narodnogo chozjajstva za period s načala operacii po 3 janvarja 1938 g., 03.01.1938, in Junge/Binner/Kokin i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 321-324.
A comparison of this data, originally intended as part of a conclusive report, with a report by the leader of the UNKVD of the District of Kiev, N. D. Sharovs, to the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs of the USSR, I. M. Leplevskii, sent at the beginning of October 1937 is especially enlightening. In order to designate the domains of the “National Economy” that provided the “operative strike against Kulak, criminal and other counterrevolutionary elements”, Sharovs made the following notations (left-hand column under each heading):611
Table 5 Arrests and convictions in the individual domains of the national economy in the district of Kiev in the framework of Order № 00447 from August 1937 to December 1937
611
To be noted here is that we summarized in a table for a better comparison the corresponding information of Sharovs from the beginning of October and the end of December.
298 Kulaks Arrests October 4, 1937
Convictions December 26, 1937
Kolkhozes
1852
1692
Sovkhozes
272
257
Individual sector612
771
813
Industry
202
385
War industry613
10
Transportation614
153
Soviet apparatus
71
314
Construction
115
249
Escaped Kulaks without an occupation615
224
Criminals who eluded their arrest616
-
Unemployed (BOZ) Total
200
1513
3707
5386
Criminals Arrests October 4, 1937 Kolkhozes
Convictions December 26, 1937 763
269
Meant here are the “independent farmers” and the small tradesmen who traditionally were located above all in rural areas. 613 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 614 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 615 Meant here are Kulaks who fled from camps and worker settlements or returned to their original place of residence who had become delinquent or noticeable. This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 616 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 612
299 Sovkhozes
261
23
Individual sector617
602
207
Industry
337
101
War industry618
5
Transportation619
27
Soviet apparatus
139
46
Construction
246
41
Escaped Kulaks without an occupation620
475
Criminals who eluded their arrest621
722
Unemployed (BOZ)
439
1237
3984
1957
Total
Counter-rev. Elements Arrests October 4, 1937
Convictions December 26, 1937
Kolkhozes
612
655
Sovkhozes
97
117
449
821
Individual sector622
Meant here are the “independent farmers” and the small tradesmen who traditionally were located above all in rural areas. 618 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 619 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 620 Meant here are Kulaks who fled from camps and worker settlements or returned to their original place of residence who had become delinquent or noticeable. This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 621 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 622 Meant here are the “independent farmers” and the small tradesmen who traditionally were located above all in rural areas. 617
300 Industry
337
410
War industry623
37
Transportation624 Soviet apparatus Construction
136 166
729
86
99
Escaped Kulaks without an occupation625
-
Criminals who eluded their arrest626
-
Unemployed (BOZ) Total
116
884
1863
3888
Total
Kolkhozes
Arrests October 4, 1937 3227
Convictions December 26, 1937 2616
Sovkhozes
630
397
1822
1841
876
896
Individual sector627 Industry War industry628
57
This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 625 Meant here are Kulaks who fled from camps and worker settlements or returned to their original place of residence who had become delinquent or noticeable. This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 626 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 627 Meant here are the “independent farmers” and the small tradesmen who traditionally were located above all in rural areas. 628 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. 623 624
301 Transportation629
316
Soviet apparatus
376
1089
Construction
447
389
Escaped Kulaks without an occupation630
699
Criminals who eluded their arrest631
722
Unemployed (BOZ)
755
3635
9554
11231
Total
Source: Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD USSR Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del I. M. Leplevskomu o predvoritel’nych itogach operacii po iz-jatiju konrrevoljucionnogo, kulackogo, ugolovnovo i pročego kontrrevoljucionnogo po sostojaniju na 5 oktjabrja, 07.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 438-443; Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD USSR po Kievskoj oblasit N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del I. M. Leplevskomu ob operativno-sledstvennoj rabote za period s 1 ijulja po 25 dekabrja 1937 g., 27.12.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 457-460.
The table shows that in the District of Kiev the “operative strike” in 1937 was not directed toward urban criminals, but that the focus was instead on the countryside. In kolkhozes and sovkhozes a total of 1,024 persons were arrested. If the 475 criminals with This entry is missing in Sharovs’ October report. Meant here are Kulaks who fled from camps and worker settlements or returned to their original place of residence who had become delinquent or noticeable. This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 631 This entry is missing in Sharovs’ December report. 629 630
302 “Kulak” origins who fled from camps and Kulak settlements, and the 602 members of the “individual sector”—its independent farmers and small tradesman who settled mostly in rural areas—are added to that figure, then we have with a total of 2,101 persons, half of all those arrested as criminals. Furthermore, some share of the criminals who eluded arrest and the socalled “BOZ”, that is, persons without a particular occupation (jobless, unemployed), were from rural areas. In addition to this the group of criminals that encompasses 337 persons in industry, 139 persons in the Soviet apparatus and 246 persons in construction is also quite substantial, some of these were, again, drawn from the rural population. It is also noteworthy that criminals represent the plurality of those arrested through October 4: 41.7%, versus the Kulaks’ 38.8%, and the “other counter-revolutionary elements”’ 19.5%. We now encounter a peculiarity: in Sharovs’ statistics (see also table 17 below) the number of criminals convicted as of December 26, 1937, falls far short of the number of those arrested as of October 4, 1937, even though the later statistics encompass more than two additional months and releases were the exception. The number of criminals convicted is “only” 1,957 (compared to the 3,984 who had been arrested as of early October). At the same time the total number of those convicted was only 1,677 greater than the total of those arrested as early October (11,231 vs. 9,554).632 Obviously some calculation tricks were involved, possibly involving an attempt to conceal the high number of arrested criminals, some of whom, after their backgrounds were investigated, were shifted over into the rubrics
632
The separation of the District of Zhitomir from the District of Kiev on September 22, 1937 hardly bears any significance, since from October until inclusively December 1937 “only” 338 criminals (60 in category 1 and 278 in category 2) were convicted. Cf. Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika otdela ugolovnogo rozyska URKM NKVD USSR Viganda o rabote organov milicii po iz-jatiju social’no vrednogo i ugolovnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 1 janvarja 1838 g., January 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 232233.
303 of the Kulaks and “other counter-revolutionary elements”.633 This is also almost certainly the source of the shrinkage of figures noticeable in the December entries for the various economic realms in which criminals had been employed. This is especially apparent with the sovkhozes. Of 261 arrested individuals only 23 remained. It is only consistent that in comparison to the October report the number of convicted Kulaks swells disproportionately from 3,707 to 5,386 and those of the “other counter-revolutionary elements” from 1,863 to 3,888.634 The greatest growth by far within both categories is under the “BOZ” designation, which expands from 424635 to 1,513 persons among the Kulaks and from 116 to 884 among the “counterrevolutionary elements.” This is all the more astonishing as this category showed the lowest loss in the December report in the criminal category with 399 persons. The number thus drops from 1,636636 in October to 1,237 in December. In sum, it appears that around half of the persons arrested as criminals were subsequently relabelled. In the process of the investigative proceedings they were shifted into the categories of the political enemies of the Bolsheviks on the basis of their political and social backgrounds and past activities. For the head of the NKVD and his apparatus, this process yielded only “advantages”. As a consequence of such reclassification, persons could be more easily convicted and subjected to more serious penalties. On the other hand, these
633
Additionally, a transfer to the Police Troika could have occurred, since Sharov had criticized that the Kulak troika was handling too many small cases. Cf. Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova “O vyjavlennych ošibkach vo vremja raboty trojki“, 05.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 252-254. 634 The total number of convictions came to 11,231 persons. Cf. Dokladnaja zapiska rukovoditelja UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu o predvoritel’nych itogach operacii po iz-jatiju kontrrevoljucionnogo, kulackogo, ugolovnovo i pročego kontrrevoljucionnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 26 dekabrja 1937 g., 26.12.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 453457. To be considered is that the number of releases was generally increasingly small and therefore it can be assumed that between the beginning of October and December the already completed arrests were being “worked down” and “only” 1,677 persons were arrested yet. 635 Here the Kulaks under the rubric “escaped Kulaks without any employment” with the designation “BOZ” were included. 636 Here the rubrics “Escaped Kulaks without employment” (475) and the “criminals who eluded arrest” (722) were added to those with the “BOZ”. Cf. the table.
304 results call into question the thesis proposed at the beginning, that in the Ukraine the struggle against crime played a significantly smaller role than across the rest of the Soviet Union. Sharovs’ October report contains the following information on the various domains of Soviet society in the District of Kiev with which those arrested as criminals were identified. It is clear that among the criminals the so-called nizovka (lower level) was primarily affected—very few cases involving criminals from the Soviet apparatus were handled by the Troika. The main target were the unemployed, comprising 41% of those arrested, including the Kulak criminals who had fled from camps without employment as well as the criminals who had eluded arrest. The kolkhozes, together with the sovkhozes, are also well represented, with a combined share of 25.7%; reasons for the arrests of those in this category ranged from the stealing of socialist property, embezzlement, and corruption, to hooliganism, alcoholism, and disturbance of the peace and order. The individual sector share of 15.1% can probably be attributed in large part to the attempt to weaken the independent farmer and eliminate the spread of speculation in goods. In industry, construction, and the Soviet apparatus, whose combined portion of the total arrests amounted to 18.1%, the range of charges was very similar to that of those associated with the kolkhozes and sovkhozes. In the District of Leningrad the most important result echoed that of the District of Kiev, that it was, persons without work who caught the attention of the local authorities. Of 7,114 persons arrested as criminals in the Leningrad district, were unemployed 5,423, or 76.2%.637 Their share of the total number of arrests, that is, including the Kulaks, White Guard. Hence members of churches, and other counter-revolutionary elements, was still over 50%.638 In contrast to the District of Kiev, in the District of Leningrad those arrested as criminals who were employed in industry (540 persons), operations relevant to the war (29), 637
The total number of arrests came to 28,588 persons by December 31, 1937 according to Ivanov. 638 Ivanov, Missija ordena, p. 438.
305 and transportation (96) and construction (152) as well as in the Soviet apparatus (92), comprised a total of 909 persons, or 12.7%, the second largest cohort. Arrestees from the kolkhozes (384) and sovkhozes (81) came to 465 persons, or 6.6% of all criminals.639 For the District of Khar’kov we can turn to the following table, which additionally indicates to which authority the arrested criminals were sent—neighbouring UNKVD administrations, various courts, or militsiya Troikas.
Table 6 Excerpt from the Judicial System’s report on the operative work of the UNKVD of the USSR in the District of Khar’kov on January 10, 1938
KULAK OPERATION […] Total arrested– 11,148 persons Transferred to the district administration of the Poltava NKVD – 302 persons Transferred to various judicial authorities and the administrative Troika – 996 persons Convicted – 9850 persons Among them: according to category 1–3450 according to category 2 –6400 […]
Among them: Where selected
Total Former Kulaks
639
Criminals
Other counter-rev. elements
A comparison of whether now the rural or urban areas were more affected can not be prepared due to the missing entries or the insufficiently specified but especially large group of unemployed.
306 From kolkhozes
2617
2175
66
376
From sovkhozes
737
664
9
64
From industrial operations Among these: Heavy industry – 155 Light industry – 306 War industry – 41 From transportation
886
543
55
288
489
367
8
114
From the Soviet apparatus From construction
694
120
–
574
26
19
1
6
3478
1733
1103
642
Others
923
499
20
404
Total:
9850
6120
1262
2468
Lacking a particular job
Source: Vypiska iz otčeta ob operativnoj rabote upravlenija NKVD po Char’kovskoj oblasti po sostojaniju na 10 janvarja 1938 g., 10.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.),“Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 391-393.
17. The Processing of the Investigative Documents by the Militsiya In contrast to the early 1930s, in 1937-1938 the militsiya, in lockstep with the secret police, was directly involved with the mass repressions. In the District of Leningrad the leader of the URKM, Kirokozov, had his office in the central coordinating group of the district, which was under the leadership of the acting UNKVD head, V. N. Garin. The organisation and implementation of the operation against the criminal element in the City of Leningrad operative sector was transferred to the leader of the URKM of the City, Krasnosheev. In all operative sectors of the District of Leningrad the militsiya provided the acting leader and at
307 least one-fourth of the personnel.640 Like the NKVD, the militsiya also availed itself of the opportunity to finally prosecute those whom, “for reasons of insufficient evidence” or because of appeals from the Justice Department, they had not yet been “sufficiently” punished. The militsiya was now allowed to “prepare” its cases independently for the Troika. Militsiya employees, more precisely those in the department for criminal inquiry (Otdel Ugolovnogo Rozyska/OUR), were given responsibility for the arrest of criminals, the investigation of cases, the preparation of the investigative documents with bills of indictment, and their presentation before the Troika through the militsiya’s own court clerk (dokladchik). After the secret police, the militsiya thus became the most important player in the implementation of the Operation.641
18. The Kulak Troika as an Extended Arm of the Police Troika The social-technological aspect of the activities of the Kulak Troikas can be analysed in comparison with the activities of the Police Troikas. Beginning in January 1938, many criminal cases were transferred from Kulak Troikas to Police Troikas, which can be documented on the basis of the statistics that were included with the protocols of the Kulak Troika of the UNKVD in the District of Khar’kov.642 Of the 11,148 persons arrested whose cases were originally meant to be handled by the Kulak Troika, 996, or 8.9%, were handed over directly for sentencing to the Police Troika and the courts.643 Our investigations in the Kemerovo District also document instances of the
Operativnyj prikaz načal’nika Upravlenija NKVD po Leningradskoj oblasti L. M. Zakovskogo Nr. 00117, 01.08.1937, in M. Junge i. a., Vertikal’ Bol’šogo terrora, pp. 117. 641 The investigative documents discussed above were all prepared by the militsiya. On the role of the militsiya in the preparation of the troika protocols, cf. also the chapter “Mechanismus der Verurteilung. Die Trojkaprotokolle”, in R. Binner /B. Bonwetsch /M. Junge, Massenmord und Lagerhaft, pp. 405-407. 642 Diagram No. 12 “Peredača ugolovnych del trojki na osnoboe soveščanie i milicejskuju trojku“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 548. 643 Vypiska iz otčeta ob operativnoj rabote upravlenija NKVD USSR po Char’kovskoj oblasti po sostojaniju na 10 janvarja 1938 g., 10.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 391-393. Likewise one can reconstruct the number of criminals who were convicted by the Police Troika and separately by the courts in the District Kiev. On October 640
308 reverse exchange, from the Police Troika to the Kulak Troika.644 What were the criteria for the selection of cases for transfer to a Police or Kulak Troika? One may assume that criminals convicted by a Kulak Troika, in addition to their “socially hostile” activities, were also charged with political crimes—in particular, counterrevolutionary agitation. The problem is that, Police Troikas also convicted, along with petty criminals, those whom they charged with counter-revolutionary agitation, i.e., persons falling under the classification of political criminals. In the practices of Ukrainian oblast Troikas, as already established in the example of Kharkov Oblast, the other primary criterion for charging persons via the Kulak Troika was repeat-offender status. In Kharkov Oblast, the Kulak Troika predominantly prosecuted criminals and other social “deviants” who repeatedly caught the attention of the authorities and had already been convicted previously by courts and Police Troikas. The seriousness of the crime or the level of its organization played a secondary role. Crimes classified as political were considered evidence in the preparation of the case as well as to justify a capital sentence, but they were not necessary preconditions for the transfer of criminal cases to review by a Kulak Troika. Harsh, large-scale punishments of nonpolitical criminals were effected with the help of the Kulak Troikas, but the very purpose of the Police Troikas and courts was mass repression of “socially harmful elements” without any kind of political “tint”, and to a lesser degree, of repeat offenders and female violators of the law. At the beginning of the Great Terror the activity of Police Troikas in Kharkov oblast did not immediately intensify. Between January and July 1937, they convicted 1,697 persons 7, 1937 it came to the relation of 1:0.2 (2363 to 501). Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu o predvaritel’nych itogach operacii po iz-jatiju kontrrevoljucionnogo kulackogo, ugolovnogo i pročego kontrrevoljucionnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 5 oktjabrja 1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 438-443. 644 Diagram No. 12 “Peredača ugolovnych del trojki na osnoboe soveščanie i milicejskuju trojku“, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 548.
309 between August and the end of December 1937, however, they convicted almost five times as many: 8,227.645 In all, during 1937 the court issued sentences on 9,924 persons.646 Moreover, the police brought to trial 3,731 additional persons arrested as criminals.647 The largest groups comprised hooligans (1,436) and thieves (1,333).648 Armed robbery and robbery without the use of weapons resulted in the sentencing of only 299 persons (23.7%).649 Accordingly, the remaining convicts had committed only petty crimes. The Police Troika did not hear the worst cases, such as murders.650 Thus, in 1937 victims of the large scale social purge in Kharkov oblast, apart from those convicted by the Kulak Troika, reached 13,633 persons 651 By comparison: in 1936 the police arrested 11,880 persons in Kharkov oblast (it is not known how many of those were convicted).652 Figures from other Ukrainian oblasts testify to the fact that the large-scale social purge in Kharkov was not an exception. For example, in 1937 in Kiev oblast the Kulak Troika convicted 11,231 persons; of these, 1,957 were criminals (395 persons in the first category and 1,562 in the second) including bandits, robbers, thieves, repeat offenders, con artists, and horse thieves.653 At the same time, the oblast’s Police Troika convicted 4,753 persons as
645
Op. cit. Op. cit. 647 The numbers that were entered in the following evaluation are misleading, since the time period of July 1 to January 1 is indicated. In fact, the entries are for the whole year 1937. Vypiska iz kopii otčetnogo materiala “Ob operativnoj rabote URKM USSR po Char’kovskoj oblasti za vtoroe polugodie 1937 g.“, 10.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 412-413. 648 Op. cit. 649 Op. cit. 650 Arsonists – 12 persons and other crimes – 651 persons. Op. cit. 651 Op. cit.; Svedenija ob osuždennych trojkoj UNKVD USSR po Char’kovskoj oblasti. Priloženie k protokolam Nr. 1-35. 08.08.1937-30.12.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), „Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 559-597. 652 Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika URKM USSR Ja. Z. Kaminskogo narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu o količestve arestovannych po delam milicii, 21.09.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 226-227. 653 Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu ob opeativno-sledstdennoj rabote za period s 1 646
310 criminals, 4,126 in the city of Kiev alone.654 Thus, the Police Troika convicted almost two and a half times as many criminals as the oblast’s Kulak Troika. The Great Terror was not only a political purge—it was also a social purge. Victims of the social purge in Kharkov oblast made up almost half of all the victims of the repression. The NKVD arrested 18,368 persons classified as potential spies, saboteurs, rebels, and Kulak elements, i.e., as political enemies.655 From this number we subtract the above-mentioned 996 cases that were transferred to the Police Troikas and courts, as well as the 1,262 criminals convicted by the Kulak Troika, because their convictions were also acts of social purging. Thus, 16,110 persons were repressed within the specific framework of the political purge. The number of those convicted in the context of the social purge, according to rough calculations, was 14,895 (13,633 convicted by Police Troikas and courts, plus the 1,262 convicted by the Kulak Troika ). Thus, in Kharkov oblast the ratio of those repressed in political as opposed to social purges was 1:0.92. In the Ukraine, including the Moldavian ASSR, beginning in August 1937, the number of criminal convictions increased sharply in all oblasts, with the exception of Donets oblast, where the Police Troika had already begun to impose mass sentences in May 1937. In the Ukraine in 1937 Police Troikas convicted a total of 57,264 persons. The cases of yet another 9,495 persons were transferred by the police to Kulak Troikas. Thus, we can calculate the victims of social purges in the Ukraine to be 66,759 persons.656 In the framework of
ijunja po 25 dekabrja 1937 g., 27.12.1937 g., in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), „Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 457-460. 654 That is probably valid for the period of time from June 1 to December 27, 1937. Ibidem. 655 Dokladnaja zapiska ob operativnoj rabote upravlenija NKVD USSR po Char’kovskoj oblasti narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu, 12.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), „Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 414-417. 656 Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika otdela ugolovnogo rozyska URKM NKVD USSR Viganda o rabote organov milicii po iz-jatiju social’no vrednogo i ugolovnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 1 janvarja 1838 g., January 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 232-233.
311 political purges 73,627 persons were convicted (a ratio of 1:0.9).657 In the latter cases, of course, it was possible to also carry out a secret social purge. An indication of the connection between the Police Troikas and the Kulak Troikas is that the bills of indictment of most criminals convicted in the Kulak Troika framework in most districts, regions and republics, in April 1938, regularly cite the order founding the Police Troikas, № 00192 (see above under victims). However, the Kulak Troikas were under the direction not of the militsiya but rather the secret police and could impose punishments extending over five years, including the death sentence. Yet, the administrative fight against crime can, with the founding in 1937 of the Police Troikas, be considered as direct preparation for the inclusion of criminals under Order № 00447: in his report “On the Results of the Struggle of the Worker and Peasant Militsiya against Crime for the Year 1935” of March 17, 1936, G. G. Yagoda points to the spectacular successes of the militsiya in the fight against crime. In three central areas, crime is claimed to have been significantly reduced: armed and unarmed robbery by 45%; major and minor theft by 32% and 17%, respectively; and cattle theft by 55%. The People’s Commissar adds, however, that the struggle of the militsiya against theft in the non-regime cities is completely insufficient, and its operations against crime in the countryside have been only modestly successful. In general, he wrote, the implementation of the Order he had previously decreed was deficient.658 The order to which he referred, dated May 27, 1935, concerned the engagement of extra-judicial bodies (Troikas): “On the Treatment of Cases of Criminal and De-classed Elements and Intentional Violators of
As per our calculation: 83,122 – 9,495 = 73,627. Spravka načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza narodnomu komissaru vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu o količestve osuždennych trojkami po gorodu i derevne, 03.01.1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 319-320; Svedenija načal’nika 8-go otdela UGB NKVD USSR L. G. Munveza “Ob operativno-sledsvennoj rabote organov NKVD USSR za period s 1 ijulja 1937 g. po 10 janvarja 1938 g.“, not earlier than 11.01.1938, OGA SBU, fund 42, file 33, page 44-48. 658 Prikaz No. 0096 narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR G. G. Jagoda ob itogach bor’by organami milicii s prestupnost’ju za 1935 g., 17.03.1936, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 517-521. 657
312 Passport Regulations”. Though to this day the order has not been fully published, the rules concerning the Police Troikas’ constitution, assignment of tasks, authority to punish, and the misdemeanour cases for which they were responsible, usually handled by an administrative Troika called a “special court”, were widely known: The chairman of a Police Troika was the local leader of the UNKVD or his deputy. The other members were the leader of the administration of the militsiya and the leader of the relevant department of the militsiya, depending on the nature of the documents examined by the Troika, that is, the leader of the investigative department (Otdela Ugolovnogo Rozyska) or the leader of the passport department. The presence of the state’s attorney of the corresponding republic, region, or district at was required at the Troika’s meetings. The group of perpetrators whom the Troika was supposed to convict included: (1) persons with a prior conviction or arrest (privody) for criminal activities who additionally maintained contact with the criminal milieu; (2) persons with prior convictions and arrests who performed no socially useful work, had no permanent residence, and maintained contact with the criminal milieu; (3) professional beggars; and (4) persons who violated the rules of the passport system introduced on December 27, 1932.659 We should add that on July 23, 1936, Yagoda’s deputy, Ya. S. Agranov, also activated the court Troikas (sudebnye troiki) for a short time to combat speculation.660 Here is an excerpt from a bill of indictment that sheds light on the sort of charges brought against those convicted by the Police Troikas:
659
Instrukcija No. 00192 NKVD SSSR i Prokuratury SSSR trojkam NKVD po rassmotreniju del ob ugolovnych i deklassirovannych ėlementach i narušiteljach pasportnogo režima, 9. 5. 1935, in N. Vert i.a. (eds.), Istorija Stalinskogo GULAGa, vol. 1. Moskau 2004, pp. 259-260. 660 Prikaz [Nr. 00251] zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR Ja. A. Agranova ob usilenii bor’by so spekulaciej, 23.07.1936, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 521-524.
313 [XXX] is charged with no longer pursuing any socially useful activity since 1937, with having no permanent place of residence and with pursuing no specific activity, with wandering through the cities and worker settlements of Kuzbass, with living in train stations, bazaars and shops, with systematic pick-pocketing of money and documents, even from employed persons, maintaining the closest of contact with criminal elements. He leads a beggar’s life and carries no documents on his person that confirm his identity.661
In the investigative documents and judgements of the Police Troikas, various types of accused perpetrators are combined into one single criminal category, the “socially hostile” (sotsvrednyi) or, more rarely, “socially dangerous” element, either of which one would search for in vain in the penal code. The covers of the investigative documents often include the phrase “Record on the Charge [XXX] as SVE”, that is, as a socially damaging element, sometimes with the addition “according to paragraph 35 of the penal code”. The SVE designation is frequently found alongside the determination to open proceedings on the charge and in the decision to “incarcerate [XXX] as a socially dangerous element for three years in a labour camp”. This becomes a standard formulation in hearings in which the charged individual assumes the imposed identity: “I [XXX] completely admit to be guilty and belonging to a socially dangerous element.”662 The stigmatizing designation of “socially dangerous element” was not a new coinage of 1935; it had been firmly established in the vocabulary of the extra-judicial courts of the various Troikas since the late 1920s.663 The most severe punishment that a Police Troika could impose was five years detention in a camp. The instructions of Yagoda and Vyshinskii
661
Archiv IC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 4, file 167, page 8. Archiv IC GUVD KemO, fund 10, index 5, file 933. 663 A. Tepljakov, “Nepronicaemye nedra“: VČK-OGPU v Sibiri 1918-1929 gg. (Moscow, 2007), pp. 201-202. 662
314 of May 9, 1935, established that a charged person must be subpoenaed to the meeting of the Troika; that is, no conviction was supposed to be given in absentia as with the Kulak Troikas in 1937-1938. While the numbers for most types of crime show a marked trend downward in the “good years” 1934-1936, the number of socially hostile elements convicted by the Police Troikas climbed from 122,726 in 1935 to 141,318 in 1936. In 1937, in the Ukraine alone, 57,264 persons were convicted as socially hostile elements, and the pace of such convictions climbed even more dramatically after August 1937.664 According to the estimates of historians N. G. Okhotin and A. B. Roginskii, 420,000-450,000 people were convicted by Police Troikas—which they refer to as “minor” Troikas—in 1937-1938.665 In circular № 61 issued on August 7, 1937, Frinosvkii, the acting People’s Commissar, attempted to distinguish the Kulak Troikas’ and Police Troikas’ areas of competency. The Police Troikas were supposed to intensify their work “by a large amount”: “In this way the cases of non-party persons lacking a permanent residence and pursuing no useful work were to proceed”. Punishments such as: “the requirement of departure from the city and removing from the city”, which had been imposed by the Police Troikas en masse in the past but had proven to be ineffective, were to be discontinued. Furthermore Frinovskii demanded that Troikas of both kinds submit reports on their work six times a month.666 The Police Troikas probably existed until November 1938, that is, longer than the Kulak Troikas, so that, beginning in the spring of 1938, they were responsible for almost the full burden of the extra-judicial struggle against crime. Thus, it is not surprising that on May 21, 1938, Frinovskii in Order № 00319 criticized mistakes in the Police Troikas’ practices:
Spravka zamestitelja načal’nika otdela ugolovnogo rozyska URKM NKVD USSR Viganda o rabote organov milicii po iz-jatiju social’no vrednogo i ugolovnogo elementa po sostojaniju na 1 janvarja 1838 g., January 1938, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 232-233. 665 V. Danilov i. a. (eds.), Tragedija sovetskoj derevni, vol. 5, book 2, p. 557. 666 Cirkular No. 61 zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR M. P. Frinovskogo “Ob usilenii bor’by s grabiteljami i ugolovnikami-recidivistami“, 07.08.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp.161-162. 664
315 They had taken over cases of serious offenses of theft, obvious thieves, and other criminals and imposed only light sentences on them; moreover, hooligans apprehended repeatedly by the Police Troikas had been issued only monetary penalties (shtraf), demonstrating a failure to consider the fact “that evil-minded hooligans form the cadre from which thieves develop”. Frinovskii also ordered the Troikas not to take into consideration certain articles of the penal code in the writing of bills of indictment and their own protocols. From 1935 to 1937, Police Troika documents frequently include references to Article 35 of the penal code, under which a court could find that the continued presence of certain persons in a particular location was “socially dangerous”. After summer 1937 it was only supposed to be indicated “that the arrested person is being charged and sentenced as a socially hostile element in the framework of the current order”— according to Order № 00319, Article 35 was no longer to be referenced. In the “new instructions for the Troikas” (Articles 1-7) included with Order № 00319 and signed by Frinovskii and Vyshinskii, Article 5 required that the charged person be summoned to the Troika meeting. Article 7 ordered that operations should not be directed “in the style of a campaign or mass operation”: “With the handling of cases the Troikas are supposed to investigate precisely and attentively all circumstances of every case and to follow exactly the instructions of the ZK of the VKP(b) and of the SNK of the USSR of May 8, 1937”. The comparison of the Kulak Troikas with the Police Troikas makes it necessary to take a look back. The most unusual thing in Stalin’s letter of July 3, 1937 was that in the framework of a single operation it called for а massive strike against not only the traditional enemies of the Bolsheviks, but also ordinary criminals.667 Although criminals not mentioned as “among others,” constituted, with Kulaks, a secondary objective of the operations, severe forms of punishment, including the death sentence, were sanctioned for both. As for “other Vypiska iz protokola Nr. 51 zasedanija Politbjuro CK VKP (b) ob utverždenii direktivy “Ob antisovetskich elementach“, 02.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 60-61. 667
316 counter-revolutionary elements,” they were included only in the July 1937 operations. The inclusion of criminals in an operation together with the political enemies of the regime may be considered a consequence of a change in policy by the Moscow leadership that occurred early in the summer of 1937. At that point, the central authorities no longer considered the Police Troikas an effective tool to fight crime because they did not have the right to impose capital punishment. The decisive difference was that the Kulak Troikas imposed sentences under the supervision of the UNKVD. Police participation in cases handled by the Kulak Troikas consisted of conducting the investigations and preparing the summary bills of chargess. It should be noted that Stalin’s June 3, 1937 instructions regarding the selection of staff for new Troikas in the Ukraine ordered the liquidation of the republic’s central Police Troika. This court, which was chaired by the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, was liquidated in July 1937 with the following justification: “practice has shown that the existence of the Troika of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, so far as it is not able to carry out definitive decisions,668 is impractical, and moreover causes a unnecessary delay of cases, it offers nothing. We consider it expedient to the Troika of the NKVD in the Ukrainian SSR to liquidate it.”669 The People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR fulfilled the Moscow directive on 25 July 25, 1937, entrusting all responsibility for the work of Police Troikas to the chiefs of the URKM oblasts.670 State Security’s tight control over the work of the Police Troikas was thus weakened, and the Troikas became tied even more closely than before to the police systems in the individual 668 It is unclear whether the death sentence is meant here. 669 Direktiva Nr. 345 zamestitelja narkoma vnutrennich del SSSR L. N. Bel’skogo i zamestitelja prokurora SSSR G. M. Leplevskogo narkomu vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskomu i prokuroru USSR G. A. Železnogorskomu o likvidacii trojki pri NKVD USSR, 02.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 224-225. 670 Direktiva narkoma vnutrennich del USSR I. M. Leplevskogo načal’nike upravlenija RKM NKVD USSR o porjadke napravlenija protokolov trojki i oformlenija učetnych materialov na osužennych trojkami, 25.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 2, pp. 225-226.
317 oblasts of the Ukraine. As for the activities of Police Troikas at the level of krais and oblasts, relatively detailed information is available only for Altai oblast. Here, State Security continued to carry out supervisory duties though they were considerably diminished. During the first phase of the formation of the Altai krai, in autumn 1938, its Police Troika was under the leadership of I. I. Weinberg. Its other members were, as already mentioned, the heads of those departments relevant to the cases being heard. In Atlai krai this was, as a general rule, the head of the department of criminal investigation (OUR URKM NKVD), Ilyin, and the prosecutor, Malyshev. A representative of State Security, sub-lieutenant Mikhailov, had held the important post of Troika secretary until December 1937, when he was succeeded as representative of the police structure by police sergeant Skryl’. In mid-1938 security staff came to lead the Police Troika, while Weinberg was demoted and became an ordinary member of the Troika. In contrast to the instructions of 1935, the new chairman of the Troika was not the chief of the local UNKVD (in Altai krai this was Captain of State Security S. P. Popov), but the lowest ranking chief of the 4th Division, and assistant chief of the UNKVD in Altai krai, Senior Lieutenant of State Security E. P. Nikol’skii.671 Nevertheless, this appointment did serve to strengthen State Security’s functional oversight of the Troika. In general, the prosecution of criminals within the “Kulak operation” in the Ukraine accompanied large-scale purges carried out by Police Troikas and courts of “socially harmful” and “socially hostile elements,” that is, of persons who had fallen out of Soviet society or, more accurately, been displaced from it. In the case of the Kulak Troika of the UNKVD in Kharkov oblast, this became evident during the review of sentences issued to
N. Kudenko, V. Razgon, M. Junge, Milicejskaja trojka, in Ždanova i. a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 382-428. 671
318 persons not engaged in “socially useful work.”672 It should be noted that the Kulak Troikas, in the context of social purging, performed the same function as the Military Collegium of the High Court of USSR through which the elite and “political” criminals passed—that is, as a punitive authority established to pronounce generally severe sentences, including capital punishment. Thus, in Kharkov oblast of the 1,262 criminals tried by the Kulak Troika, it sentenced almost a third—392, or 31%—to death. Based on the fact that among criminals, and even those convicted by the Kulak Troika, none had committed a serious crime or been a member of organized criminal groups; one can state with certainty that the Police Troika also pronounced undeniably harsh sentences for acts that hardly warranted criminal prosecution or exhibited social deviance.673
19. The Choice The struggle against crime via the Kulak Troika yielded political injustice on three levels: laws were regularly ignored and violated; the proceedings through which judgements were reached were unfairly simplified and accelerated; and those proceedings were placed in the hands of the militsiya and the secret police, which were subject to oversight only by the political elites in the Moscow Central Command, whose attention was often directed elsewhere. Against the leadership’s intentions, the Troikas in practice were used by the militsiya to arrest minor criminal repeat offenders, hooligans, and supposedly recidivist unemployed and homeless individuals en masse, enabling quick and effortless convictions. A serious fight Šivrovka pervogo sekretarja Moldavskogo obkoma KP(b)U V. Z. Todresa v CK VKP(b) o sostave trojki i o količestve kulakov i ugolovnikov, postavlennych na učet, 11.07.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 71-72. 673 An analysis using samples of the protocols of the Police Troika in the archive of the militsiya of the GUVD in the District of Kemerovo and in the Altaj region confirmed this hypothesis. Protokol milicejskoj trojki. 10.12.1937, in Ždanova i. a. (eds.), Massovye repressii, pp. 394-428. 672
319 against crime could hardly take place under such assembly-line conditions. The leader of the Kiev District NKVD, Sharov, clearly expressed his dismay at the local Kulak Troika’s activities early in October 1937:
1. Cases of contingents are being brought before the Troika for a hearing that do not fall under the Order [№ 00447]: petty thieves and persons who commit violations unsystematically. […]. 5. No attention is given to criminals who do not originate from the region.674
With the rapid-fire sentencing of criminals, failure was pre-ordained. Crime could not be sustainably fought through such an approach, nor did it promote proper investigative techniques or the eradication of the root causes of criminal activity. As a consequence, in 1939 and the years following, the leadership felt compelled to take drastic measures to fight crime. It was as if the Terror had not even taken place. As previously mentioned, our work has also revealed that the threat of war played almost no role in the statistics and reports prepared by the District NKVD Leaders, not even concerning the potential struggle against rebel cadres in case of conflict. Indeed it is hardly possible to conceive of the convicted criminals—let alone the so-called socially hostile elements such as the beggars convicted by the Troikas—as participants in some sort of “fifth column”. The course of action against the criminals and other social deviants forms the side of the repressions in which motivations such as the protection of society and the cleansing of
Dokladnaja zapiska načal’nika UNKVD po Kievskoj oblasti N. D. Šarova “O vyjavlennych ošibkach vo vremja raboty trojki“, 05.10.1937, in M. Junge i. a. (eds.), “Čerez trupy vraga”, vol. 1, pp. 252-254. 674
320 “foreign elements” (chuzhye elementy) from it come clearly into focus.675 The investigative documents prepared by the militsiya and its close connections with the Police Troikas are importance evidence in this regard. The government appears to have been increasingly concerned with the fight against crime as a means of maintaining its legitimacy. 676 In the end, however, its campaign had little effect on organised crime, as had been planned, but rather above all on minor criminal repeat offenders and other less serious social deviants; of course, those who executed the campaign found it much easier to capture these “little fish,” such as drunkards, prostitutes, beggars, etc. The simultaneous effect of economic and political motives is evidenced in turn by the constitution of 1936: “Persons who assault the social and socialist property are enemies of the people (§ 131).” Only in sporadic cases were criminals convicted under Order № 00447 subjected to political charges such as terroristic intentions with respect to the leaders of the Party, threats against the Party, and counter-revolutionary agitation. When such charges were brought, it was primarily as a means to make the case set forth in the investigative documents air-tight. In the end, the mass convictions of “unremedial repeat offenders” were somehow supposed to be consolidated with the original social-utopian conception of criminals as a “socially accepted element” in the worker class. To clarify the specifics of the Soviet case, scholars have drawn
With other target groups of the Order № 00447, the social revolutionaries, Kosaks, Whites, Nobility and clergy, political reasons and the threat of war played by contrast a central role. With the Kulaks, on the other hand, social-technological, economic and political aspects weigh out equally, albeit without consideration of stark regional variability. For the inclusion of the Order № 00447 in the other mass persecutions (national orders) and the persecution against the Party and functionary elite (small proceedings, show trials, Special Counsel, war courts) it holds true in our opinion that with Order № 00447 social-technological reasons for conviction stood in the foreground. 676 The connection between crime fighting and the acceptance of a regime by the population has already been more closely examined only for National Socialism. R. Gellattely, Gestapo und Terror, in A. Lüdtke (ed.), Sicherheit und Wohlfahrt. Polizei, Gesellschaft und Herrschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a. M., 1992), pp. 371-392. 675
321 comparisons with the National Socialist policies on crime and socially deviant or asocial individuals.677 Both nation-states, the German and the Soviet, were characterized by a limitless social-political optimism about the radical reformation of society in the form of a community (Gemeinschaft). The goal was the complete release of society from social problems and conflicts. In practice, however, the protection of society – in Germany the Volksgemeinschaft –and the exclusion of “foreign elements” were prioritized. Deviation from the social norm, based on discipline and the obligation to work, could lead to removal to a camp and, after 1937, eventually to death.678 A policy of reintegration – here we include the Weimar Republic – developed from philanthropic approaches into the implementation of a re-education program through enforced work. In both Germany and the Soviet Union, the social and state sensitivity toward the violation of norms grew extreme. The result in both countries was programs of mass incarceration and annihilation. The primary target group of the crime policy in both systems ultimately comprised the minor criminal repeat offenders, those repeatedly identified as hooligans, and unemployed and homeless persons repeatedly characterized as criminal. Stress was placed on repeated acts, while the nature of the actual violations (as well as the severity of the punishments) were – especially in the Soviet Union – treated as secondary matters. The greatest difference between Germany and the Soviet Union in this regard lies in their respective modes of theoretical legitimisation. In Germany, the eugenic variant of racism lay at the basis of the “exclusion of the less valuable among the Germanblooded individuals”, supported by criminal-biological models that considered crime and
Here we refer to the following works: W. Ayaß, “Gemeinschaftsfremde“. Quellen zur Verfolgung von “Asozialen“ 1933-1945 (Koblenz, 1998), pp. XI; W. Ayaß, Asoziale im Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart, 1995); P. Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher. Konzeptionen und Praxis der Kriminalpolizei in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik und des Nationalsozialismus (Hamburg, 1996); N. Wachsmann, From Indefinite Confinement to Extermination. “Habitual Criminals“ in the Third Reich, in R. Gellattely, N. Stoltzfuss (eds.), Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princeton, Oxford, 2001), pp. 165-191. 678 Cf. the thoughts on socialist discipline in Krylenko, Proekt ugolovnogo kodeksa, pp. 6. 677
322 deviance as a genetically caused phenomenon and thus subject to racial „excision”.679 The Nazi regime’s introduction of war conditions facilitated the pursuit of this form of social disintegration on a mass scale. In the Soviet Union, by contrast, racist-biological models did not play a significant role.680 Here, the prerequisites for systematic murder were established within the narrow theoretical limits placed on the analysis of the causes of crime and social deviance. Sociological models were no longer valid for the socialist society. At first, rudimentary and infiltration theories were called upon, which saw the causes of crime and social deviance as rooted in the remainder of the old capitalist society (transitional society).681 In the face of the catastrophic social situation brought about by the vanguard of the worker class at the end of the 1920s (via collectivisation and industrialisation), the rudimentary and infiltration theories were increasingly championed (key term: class enemy). However, an explosive mix did not come about until an additional theoretic construct was added that required no biological justification: the responsibility for deviant behaviour was, precisely as in the classical conservative crime theory of free will or free decision-making, again attributed to the individual, the more so as the central sociological category of the blameless “victim of social conditions” had lost its validity in the socialist society. The deformed capitalist structures had been abolished. Individuals now had the choice to either integrate themselves into the new
Ayaß, “Gemeinschaftsfremde“, pp. XXI; Wagner, Volksgemeinschaft, pp. 403. A “Biologisation of social-political thinking“, a phenomenon that also characterized other European nations, is missing. Cf. e.g. Schweden: Th. Etzemüller, Totalität statt Totalitarismus? Europäische Themen, nationale Variationen, in Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2007), URL: http://www.europa.clio-online.de/2007/Article=256 (7/3/2007). The equation of the “ethnisation of Bolshevik enemy rhetoric“ (Jürgen Zarusky) with a biologisation of social thinking of Jörg Baberowski and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel in their book: Ordnung durch Terror, pp. 17f., 79, is not convincing because it lacks an empirical basis. More useful in this regard is Michel Foucault, Geschichte der Gouvernementalität, 2 Bde (Frankfurt a. M., 2004). 681 Cf. on this the thoughts of: S. Korzilius, “Asoziale“ und “Parasiten“ im Recht der SBZ/DDR. Randgruppen im Sozialismus zwischen Repression und Ausgrenzung (Köln/Weimar/ Wien, 2005), p. 705. 679 680
323 society or to place themselves outside of it.682 If they too often refused Soviet society’s offer of integration, as evidenced by repeated social deviance, the state availed itself of the right to lock up them up—as it did en masse with criminals and social deviants from 1935 on via the Police Troikas—an even to kill them—as it did en masse in 1937-1938 via the Kulak Troikas.683 The industrialisation of a certain mode of social-political thought had reached its zenith.
682
Membership in a community (Gemeinschaft) becomes an act consciously directed first and foremost by the individual. 683 Collective thinking enforced by the state in Soviet society, which placed the community above the individual, forms the basis the more so as, at least in the worker class, no solidarity with those designated by intellectuals as the “socially accepted elements“ was to be expected. Cf. M. Ignatieff, State, Civil Society and Total Institutions. A Critique of Recent Social Histories of Punishment, in St. Cohen, A. Scull (eds.), Social Control and the State (Worcester, 1986), pp. 75-105.
324 Conclusions
I don’t like it when people lie to me, but I am equally fed up with the truth. —Viktor Tsoi. Soviet Rock Star.
The answers turn out more laborious, less smart. —Käte Meyer-Drawe, Diskurse des Lernens. 2008
The objective of this book, again, has been to call into question four very firmly established paradigms for the explanation and interpretation of the Great Terror—war threat, genocide, arbitrariness and class or social group justice—and in so doing to take a step toward deideologising the view of the historian and finally to lay to rest the model of totalitarianism. The array of newly available sources in the Soviet archives, fuel the hope that the source asymmetry between National Socialism and Stalinism can in time be remedied. The new empirical and theoretical impulses that have already been inspired by the opening of the archives have the potential to finally replace the concept of totalitarianism with a less dogmatic and more complex understanding of the history of Stalinism and, via comparative studies, possibly of National Socialism, too. War threat: Accepting the war danger continually evoked by the leaders and elites of the Soviet Union as the main motive for the Great Terror is so enticing, since it appears to give an otherwise incomprehensible explanation for the Terror against the Soviet state’s own
325 population. There is a search for a plausible reason, a justification, even a “superstructure” for the actions that occurred. What remains to be examined is whether the construct of the external threat was exploited in so sweeping a manner that it affected the regime’s ability to perceive the real war danger of 1939/41 as an existential threat. Furthermore, the focus on the war threat has long misled historians who have sought to uncover the deep-seated goals of the Soviet state in its ruthless handling of its own people. Arbitrariness: Equally unconvincing have been the contrasting descriptions in the research literature of National Socialism as essentially planned, and Stalinism as fundamentally “stochastic.” The characterization of the assembly-line justice of the mass operations as “arbitrary” and the like is, upon close inspection, a judgement resting on dogmatic thinking that trivialises what actually happened. The most distinctive characteristic of the crime repression campaign was not its random and arbitrary enforcement, or the often archaic and anarchic violence it involved, or the derailment of the action into unabated extremism, but rather its quintessentially Stalinist manner of cold, bureaucratic banality and brutality. Genocide: Closely connected to the “war threat” paradigm, neither “genocide,” nor the euphemistic “ethnic cleansing,” nor “structural racism” accurately capture the essence of the repressions during the Great Terror. While the Central Command regarded ethnicity or nationality—more or less adversarial or dangerous, with the Germans as the embodiment of dangerousness— as a criterion for repression, it was just one criterion among many. Depending on the situation, the locality, and the particular point in time, equal or greater weight was placed on social, political, cultural, historical, economic, territorial and individual attributes in the decision whether to target and convict certain persons; in addition, all such decision took place within a framework where broader concerns such as foreign policy and regional political interests were sometimes more and sometimes less relevant. Class or social group justice: with respect to the social repression investigated last: it
326 became clear that it is not possible to diagnose the existence of a “class judiciary” in the Soviet Union that on the basis of its inherent absolutism points structurally to significant similarities to the “racial judiciary” of National Socialism. Rather, a close consideration of the convictions of socially deviant persons has clarified that the Stalinist judicial system established the evaluation of individual loyalty to the state and the political and social composition of the socialist society as the most important basis for its conviction practices regarding all groups. To offer a description of Stalin’s mass repression in the Great Terror, I would like in conclusion to evoke in the reader’s mind a picture that stands in the tradition of Zygmunt Bauman’s gardener image, a picture that draws on both Bauman’s modernity theory and David Shearer’s reaction model to social disorder: The gardener made his calculations in the absence of the garden and then, when he at last saw what had resulted from his design, attempted through extraordinary effort with the aid of specially forged, extremely sharp plowshares to quickly remove the unplanned consequences of the radical transformation of the garden’s flower beds, vegetable patches and useless cherry orchard into a collective farm and at the same time to ruthlessly enforce the restructuring of the garden.
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