Beria's personal archive. The political testament of the genius of power. The case of Beria in the light of recently declassified documents Where are the archives of Beria
09/21/2018
One thing is clear: if the party elite went to murder, somehow this person was very dangerous to her. Yes, he had all the powers given by Stalin. But is it possible? Yes, and it's dangerous.
In addition, HE saw who killed Stalin, poisoned Borjomi with rat poison or arsenic. That's why Khrushchev was removed, he did not even expect that this would happen quickly, otherwise he would have resisted, the NKVD was behind him. G.T.
And not with terrible plans to throw her off the throne - Beria made it clear that he was not going to do this.
Of course, he was potentially dangerous - but we don't get killed for that. At least that's not how they kill, openly and frankly. The normal Soviet move in the struggle for power was worked out as early as 1937 - to move, remove, and then arrest and falsify the case in the usual manner. By the way, this openness and frankness also contains a mystery - after all, it was possible to wait and remove it quietly and imperceptibly. It looks like the killers were in a hurry...
They were afraid that the truth would be revealed, how Stalin died !!! G.T.
Khrushchev, in his revelations to foreign interlocutors, is cunning in some ways. He presents the decision on the immediate execution of Beria as a collegial verdict of all members of the Politburo.
“After a comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons of both options, we came to the conclusion: Beria must be shot immediately” ...
"We!" So now we will believe that nine people, middle-aged, indecisive and rather cowardly, will stamp such a decision - to shoot one of the first persons of the state without trial or investigation. Yes, never in their lives will these people, who have worked meekly under a strong leader all their lives, take on such a responsibility! They will drown the issue in discussions and in the end, even if there are grounds, everything will end with deportation somewhere in Baku or Tyumen to the post of director of the plant - let him seize power there if he can.
So it was, and there is convincing evidence of this.
The Secretary of the Central Committee, Malenkov, in the process of preparing the meeting of the Presidium, wrote a draft of its work.
(Medvedev and his parents - MENDELS were relatives, one of the couple, Malenkov. Who claims to be the MONARSIAN THRONE !! G.T.
This draft has been published, and it clearly shows what was to be discussed at this meeting. In order to prevent the possibility of abuse of power, Beria was supposed to be deprived of the post of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and, possibly, if the discussion goes on the right track, to release him also from the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, appointing him Minister of the Oil Industry as a last resort.
And that's it. There was no talk of any arrest, and even more so of any execution without trial. And it is difficult even to imagine, with all the tension of imagination, what could happen for the Presidium, contrary to the prepared scenario, to make such a decision impromptu. It couldn't be. And if it couldn't, then it didn't. And the fact that this did not happen, that this issue was not considered at the Presidium at all, is evidenced by the fact that the draft was found in Malenkov's archive - otherwise it would have been submitted for processing the decision and then destroyed.
So there was no "we". Beria was first killed, and then the Presidium was confronted with a fact, and he had to get out, covering up the killers.
But who exactly? TOGO who saw the murderers of Stalin! Khrushchev!
And here it is very easy to guess.
Firstly, it is easy to calculate the number of the second - the performer. The fact is that - and no one denies this - that day the army was widely involved in the events. In the incident with Beria, as Khrushchev himself admits, the air defense commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel General Moskalenko and the Air Force Chief of Staff, Major General Batitsky, were directly involved, and Marshal Zhukov himself does not seem to refuse.
But, more importantly, for some reason, apparently, to stage the fight against "parts of Beria", troops were brought into the capital. And then a very important name comes up - a person who could ensure contact with the military and the participation of the army in the events - Minister of Defense Bulganin.
It is not difficult to calculate the number one. Who most of all poured dirt on Beria, completely losing self-control and presenting him at the same time as a fiend?
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. By the way, not only Bulganin, but also Moskalenko and Batitsky were people from his team.
Bulganin and Khrushchev - somewhere we have already met this combination. Where? Yes, at Stalin's dacha, on that fateful Sunday, March 1, 1953.
Compromising evidence?
There is one mystery in the events that took place after Stalin's death - the fate of his papers.
The archive of Stalin as such does not exist - all his documents are gone. On March 7, some special group, according to Svetlana, “on the orders of Beria” (but this is not a fact) removed all the furniture from the Near Dacha. Later, the furniture was returned to the dacha, but without papers. All the documents from the Kremlin office and even from the leader's safe have also disappeared. Where they are and what happened to them is still unknown.
Naturally, it is believed that Beria, as a super-powerful chief of the special services, took possession of the archives, especially since the guards were subordinate to the MGB department. Yes, but the guards were subordinate to state security while the guarded was alive.
Interestingly, to whom was the Kuntsevo dacha subordinated after Stalin's death? Also the department of the Ministry of State Security or, perhaps, this empty shell was disposed of by some government AHO - the administrative and economic department? According to another version, the entire elite of that time took part in the seizure of the archive, preoccupied with the liquidation of the dossiers that Stalin collected on them.
Beria, of course, was also afraid that compromising information on him, located in these archives, would be made public. It is also hard to believe - with so many accomplices, someone for so many years would certainly let it slip.
Who knew nothing about the fate of the archive, so it is Malenkov. Why - more on that later. There are two options left: either Khrushchev or Beria. If we assume that the archive fell into the hands of Khrushchev, then his fate, most likely, is sad. There could have been a lot of compromising evidence on Nikita Sergeevich - one participation in Yezhov's repressions was worth something! Neither he nor his associates had time to look for all these “dossiers” among the mountains of papers, it was easier to burn everything in bulk. But if Beria was the first to succeed, then here the situation is completely different.
He had nothing to be afraid of some mysterious "documents" in the Stalinist archive, which, if made public, could destroy him - there was hardly anything on him, even if by the efforts of the entire jurisprudence of the USSR, despite the fact that it was very necessary, they could not dig up material for one more or less decent shooting case.
But he was vitally interested in compromising evidence on Stalin's former associates - both for future possible occasions and to ensure his own security.
Indirectly, the fact that the archive most likely fell into the hands of Beria is evidenced by his son Sergo. After the murder of his father, he was arrested, and one day he was summoned for interrogation, and in the investigator's office he saw Malenkov. This was not the first visit of a distinguished guest, once he had already come and persuaded Sergo to testify against his father, but did not persuade him. However, this time he came for something else.
“Maybe you can help with something else? - he said it in a very human way. - Have you heard anything about the personal archives of Joseph Vissarionovich?
-I have no idea, I answer. “We never talked about it at home.
- Well, how about it ... Your father also had archives, didn't he?
I don't know either, never heard of it.
- How did you not hear it? - here Malenkov could not restrain himself. - He must have archives, must!
He's obviously very upset."
That is, not only the archives of Stalin disappeared, but also the archives of Beria, and Malenkov knew nothing about their fate. Of course, theoretically, Khrushchev could have seized and liquidated them, but to do it in such a way that no one saw, heard or recognized anything? Doubtful. The archives of Stalin were still all right, but it was completely impossible to secretly destroy the archives of Beria. Yes, and Khrushchev was not such a person to carry out such an operation and not spill the beans.
So, most likely, Beria still took possession of Stalin's archive. I repeat once again that it did not make sense for him to destroy him, and even more so to destroy his own archive, and there are nine chances out of ten that he hid all the papers somewhere. But where?
Chesterton in one of the stories about Father Brown wrote: “Where does a smart person hide a leaf? In the woods". Exactly. Where were the relics of the great Russian saint Alexander Svirsky hidden? In the anatomical museum. And if you need to hide the archive, where does a smart person hide it? Naturally, in the archive!
It is only in novels that our archives are ordered, systematized and catalogued. Reality looks a little different. I once had a conversation with a man who had been in the archives of the Radio House. He was shocked by what he saw there, told how he sorted through boxes with records that were not listed in any catalogs, but simply piled up in a heap - there were recordings of performances, next to which were vaunted Gergiev's productions - like a donkey next to an Arabian horse . This is one example.
Another example can be found in the newspapers, which from time to time report a sensational discovery in one of the archives, where they found something absolutely amazing. How are these discoveries made? It's very simple: some curious intern looks into the chest, into which no one has ever put his nose before him, and finds it. And what about the story of the rarest antique vases that disappeared peacefully for decades in the basement of the Hermitage? So the easiest way to hide an archive of any size is to dump it in one of the storerooms of another archive, where it will lie in complete secrecy and safety until some curious intern looks into it and asks: a what kind of dusty bags are in the corner. And, opening one of the bags, he will pick up a paper with the inscription: “To my archive. I.St.”
But still, they don’t kill for possessing compromising evidence either. On the contrary, it becomes especially dangerous, because the possibility is not ruled out that in the secret safe of a faithful person are the most important papers in an envelope with the inscription: “In case of my death. L. Beria. No, something absolutely extraordinary had to happen for such rather cowardly people as Khrushchev and his company to decide on a murder, and even such a hasty one. What could it be?
The answer came by chance.
Deciding to cite Ignatiev's biography in this book, I came across the following phrase there: on June 25, in a note to Malenkov, Beria suggested arresting Ignatiev, but did not have time. There may be a mistake in the date, because on June 26 G.T. was “arrested” (he was immediately killed, at home and carried out on a stretcher). Beria himself, but, on the other hand, perhaps a few days earlier he had spoken about this with someone orally, or a secret spy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed Khrushchev. It was also clear that the new people's commissar was not going to leave the old one alone. On April 6, "for political blindness and idleness," Ignatiev was removed from the post of secretary of the Central Committee, and on April 28 he was removed from the Central Committee. At the suggestion of Beria, the CPC was instructed to consider the issue of Ignatiev's party responsibility. But all this was not that, all this is not terrible. And then information came that Beria was asking Malenkov for permission for this arrest.
For the conspirators, this was not a danger, it was death!
It is not difficult to guess that at the Lubyanka the former chief of the Stalinist guard would have been split like a nut and squeezed like a lemon. What would happen next is not difficult to predict if you remember how Beria kissed the hand of the dying Stalin. None of the conspirators would have met the new year 1954 alive, they would have been killed in Beria’s Lubyanka cellars, spitting on legality for the sake of such an occasion, personally slaughtered with boots.
This is what usually happens with “brilliant impromptu”. What to do? Remove Ignatiev? Dangerous: where is the guarantee that a reliable person does not have a description of the night at Stalin's dacha in a safe place, and maybe many other things. He knew who he was dealing with. So what to do?
But this is the motive! Because of this, Beria really could have been killed, moreover, they should have been killed, and exactly the way it was done. For there was nothing to arrest him for, and because of the dead Beria, as Khrushchev rightly noted, hardly anyone would raise a fuss: what's done is done, you can't return the dead. Especially if you imagine everything as if he offered armed resistance during the arrest. Well, then let propaganda work to present him as a monster and a supervillain, so that grateful descendants can say: "It could be a crime, but it was not a mistake."
E. Prudnikova
Source http://taynikrus.ru/zagadki-istorii/ubijstvo-berii-za-chto/
The execution of the “bloody” Stalinist Commissar 65 years ago was staged. Khrushchev and Malenkov hid their former colleague in South America, researchers say.
According to the official version, Lavrenty Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and on December 23 the same year, by a court verdict, he was shot in an underground bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District.
However, there is a lot of darkness in this story. There is a document about the death of Beria. It was signed by three officials - Colonel General Batitsky, Prosecutor General of the USSR Rudenko and General of the Army Moskalenko. The document is titled: “Act. 1953, December 23 days.
The document raises no doubts about its authenticity, unless, of course, it is compared with other similar documents. Now there is such an opportunity. And, as the archives testify, the official data of those years too often diverge from reality. Therefore, the attention of historians is attracted by other versions about the fate of Beria, living in the form of rumors. Two of them are especially sensational.
The first suggests that Beria somehow managed to avoid the trap prepared against him during the conspiracy of former associates, or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America. And so he was able to stay alive.
The second rumor says that during the arrest of Beria, the marshal and his guards resisted and were killed. They even name the author of the fatal shot, namely Khrushchev. There are those who say that the pre-trial execution took place in the already mentioned bunker almost immediately after Beria's arrest in the Kremlin.
Which of these versions to believe? Especially in light of the fact that no one has ever seen the ashes of Beria, and no one knows where he is buried. Not so long ago, two versions were confirmed at once that Beria still survived.
Marshal's trap
As the well-known researcher of Soviet history Nikolai Zenkovich notes, Khrushchev liked to tell his foreign interlocutors how the action against Beria was carried out. The plot, with some changes, is basically the same.
According to one of Khrushchev's stories, Beria's end was like this. Khrushchev first convinced G. M. Malenkov and N. A. Bulganin, and then the rest of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, that if Beria was not liquidated in June 1953, then he would send all members of the Presidium to prison. Everyone probably thought so, although everyone was afraid to say it out loud. Khrushchev was not afraid. Only the technique of carrying out the operation against Beria was difficult. The normal procedure - an open discussion of the accusation against the marshal in the Presidium of the Central Committee or at the plenum of the party - fell away. There was a danger that as soon as Beria found out about the accusations against him, he would immediately carry out a coup d'état and shoot all his rival comrades-in-arms. According to one, very common, version, Beria intended to arrest the entire Presidium of the Central Committee at the Bolshoi Theater, at the premiere of Yuri Shaporin's opera The Decembrists.
The action was allegedly scheduled for June 27th. Although, as N. Zenkovich notes, these rumors could be spread in order to convince the public that the villain Beria himself was plotting against the leadership of the USSR, and the “core” of the Central Committee of the party had no choice but a preemptive strike.
Thus, in the fight against Beria, the conspirators had only one way: to deceive and lure him into a trap. According to one version, the operation against Beria was timed to coincide with the beginning of the summer army maneuvers (interestingly, there is no mention of maneuvers in the memoirs of the military themselves). Several Siberian divisions were also to take part in the exercises of the Moscow Military District (MVO) (just in case, if Beria's supporters were in the Moscow divisions). At a meeting of the Council of Ministers held on June 26, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the chief of the General Staff reported on the progress of the maneuvers. A group of military men was also present in the hall, headed by Marshal Zhukov (he had already been transferred from Sverdlovsk to Moscow and held the post of Deputy Minister of Defense) and the commander of the Moscow Military District, General K. S. Moskalenko.
Malenkov declared the joint meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers open. And then he turned to Zhukov, so that he "on behalf of the Soviet government" detained Beria. Zhukov commanded Beria: "Hands up!" Moskalenko and other generals drew their weapons to prevent provocation from Beria.
Then the generals took Beria into custody and took him to the next room, next to Malenkov's office. At the suggestion of Khrushchev, he was immediately dismissed from his post as Prosecutor General of the USSR and Rudenko, Khrushchev's man, was appointed in his place.
Then the Presidium of the Central Committee discussed the future fate of Beria: what to do with him next and what to do with him? There were two solutions: to keep Beria under arrest and conduct an investigation, or to immediately shoot him, and then retroactively formalize the death sentence in a legal manner. It was dangerous to make the first decision: the entire state security apparatus and internal troops stood behind Beria, and he could easily be released. To make the second decision - to immediately shoot Beria - there were no legal grounds.
After discussing both options, they came to the conclusion: Beria still needs to be shot immediately in order to exclude the possibility of a riot. The executor of this sentence - in the same next room - in Khrushchev's stories was once General Moskalenko, in another - Mikoyan, and in the third - even Khrushchev himself (he added: further investigation of the Beria case, they say, fully confirmed that he was shot correctly) .
Where is Beria buried?
Russian researchers N. Zenkovich and S. Gribanov collected many documents about the fate of Beria after his arrest. But especially valuable evidence on this score was found in the archives by the Hero of the Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of the Union of Writers of the USSR Vladimir Karpov. Studying the life of Marshal G. Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute whether Zhukov participated in the arrest of Beria. In the secret handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found, it is directly stated: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So, the statement of Beria's son Sergo, they say, Zhukov had nothing to do with the arrest of his father, is not true!
In the opinion of historians, Karpov's find is also important because it refutes the rumor about Nikita Khrushchev's heroic shot during the arrest of the all-powerful Minister of the Interior.
What happened after the arrest, Zhukov did not personally see and therefore wrote what he learned from other people's words, namely: “After the trial, Beria was shot by those who guarded him. During the execution, Beria behaved very badly, like the very last coward, wept hysterically, knelt down, and, finally, got all dirty. In a word, he lived ugly and died even more ugly. Note: Zhukov was told so, but he himself did not see it.
And here is what the military journalist S. Gribanov managed to learn from the “real” “author” of the bullet for Beria, the then Colonel General P.F. Batitsky: “We took Beria up the stairs to the dungeon. That's where I shot him."
Everything would be fine, researcher Nikolai Dobryukha notes, if other witnesses to the execution, and even General Batitsky himself, said the same thing everywhere. Although, inconsistencies could also occur due to negligence or literary fantasies of researchers. One of them, for example, the son of the revolutionary Antonov-Ovseenko, wrote that, they say, Beria was executed in the bunker of the MVO headquarters, in the presence of Prosecutor General Rudenko, who read out the verdict. The marshal was shot by General Batitsky. After examining the body by a doctor, "Beria's body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium."
Everything would be fine, the researchers notice, only where are the documents confirming the execution and burning of Beria? It remains a mystery, for example, that, as follows from the act of execution dated 12/23/1953, for some reason the doctor required in such cases was not present at the death of Beria. And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not match. No one saw another act - cremation, as well as the body of the executed one. Of course, with the exception of the three who signed the act. So, the question arises: “Was it Beria who was shot?”
These discrepancies could have been ignored if Beria's son Sergo had not insisted that Shvernik, a member of that very court, told him personally: "I was a member of the tribunal in the case of your father, but I never saw him." Even more doubts were raised in Sergo by the confessions of a member of the court, the former secretary of the Central Committee Mikhailov, who stated more frankly: “A completely different person was sitting in the courtroom.” But then he explained this: either instead of Beria, an actor was put in the dock, or did the marshal himself change beyond recognition during his arrest? It is possible, some researchers suggest, that Beria could have twins. ((A man with a mustache from Argentina
And now about the South American trace of the post-execution biography of Lavrenty Beria.
In 1958, Beria's son Sergo and wife Nina Teimurazovna lived in Sverdlovsk under their wife's maiden name, Gegechkori (immediately after her husband's arrest, Nina Teimurazovna ended up in Butyrka prison). Once, in her mailbox, Nina Teimurazovna found a photograph in which Lavrenty Beria was depicted with some lady on May Square in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. The picture was taken against the backdrop of the presidential palace. As N. Zenkovich describes, when Nina Teimurazovna saw the photograph, she said: “This is her husband.”
In the mailbox, along with the picture, there was also a mysterious message: "In Anaklia, on the Black Sea coast, a man with very important information about his father will be waiting for you." Nina Teimurazovna invented a disease for herself, received a sick leave and flew to Georgia to meet with an unknown bearer of news. However, no one came to the meeting. Probably, the anonymous person wanted to see Beria's son, Sergo.
The story of the mysterious picture did not end there. Many decades later, an archival documentary filming of one of the squares of Buenos Aires fell into the hands of Russian documentary filmmakers. On it, against the background of the monument, surrounded by idle passers-by, a walking man in a light raincoat and a dark hat is clearly visible. The moment he passes right in front of where the cameraman is, he momentarily turns his head towards the camera and looks straight into the lens. At the same time, his face, mustache and pince-nez on his nose are clearly visible. The first reaction of everyone who saw these shots was almost the same: “This man looks like Beria!”
To make sure that the footage of the newsreel is not a skilful forgery, filmmakers turned to specialists. After a thorough examination of the film, video editing experts stated that there were no traces of artificial editing of frames and images - the shooting was real.
The film was then shown to experts, who compared the physical appearance of the man filmed in Argentina with that of Beria, so that they could draw a conclusion about their possible resemblance, or vice versa. With the help of computer analysis, experts studied the face of the mysterious “Argentinean” and Lavrenty Beria and concluded with a probability of more than 90% that this is one and the same person.
To avoid a possible mistake, if a man from Argentina could turn out to be a double or just a person very similar to Beria, the film was also given to experts in psychodynamics to study. Based on a special technique that allows, on the basis of a person’s normal movements, to identify his mental characteristics and, on this basis, to determine the psychotype of a person as a whole, experts, comparing the frames of the Argentinean shooting with the shots of Beria’s lifetime shooting, came to the conclusion that they depict the same person . It is simply impossible to fake such skillfully movements, even if desired, experts say.
It turns out that the allegedly shot Beria, in fact, after his official death, remained alive for a long time and lived safely in Argentina? Who and for what purpose filmed Beria in Buenos Aires (if it really was him) remains a mystery. Although, there is by no means an accidental coincidence of the place and time of shooting and the fact that, passing by the operator, the man turned his head and “looked” directly into the camera lens. This gives reason to assume that the shooting was carried out intentionally.
For what purpose could this be done? Probably to remind in this way about the existence of Beria to those who continued to rule the Soviet country at that time. But why then, one wonders, did the leadership of the USSR need to create the greatest hoax with the execution of Beria, as well as release him alive to South America? Most likely, the version looks like here that many of Stalin's and Beria's associates, who after the death of the leader at the helm of the USSR, were themselves afraid that Beria, having for many years had enormous opportunities to collect compromising evidence on the entire Soviet elite, would not expose their old ones, " bloody" "sins" before the people, starting with participation in mass repressions. On the other hand, it was also impossible to leave Beria inside the country: many had a fear of his former power too great. Apparently, this is why Stalin's heirs and Beria's former comrades-in-arms agreed on a "neutral" option: save the marshal's life, but send him to live as a private person away from the USSR, as was previously done with Leon Trotsky.
Is it not for this reason that Malenkov was silent about the events of those years? Even his son Andrei lamented that even after a third of a century, his father preferred to avoid talking about what happened to Beria?
So where is the grave of the "bloody" marshal?
Prepared by Oleg Lobanov
based on the materials of "Soviet Belarus", Zenkovich N. A. "Assassination and staging: from Lenin to Yeltsin", Sergo Beria. "Evening Moscow" "My father is Lavrenty Beria", , TRC "Russia"
1. Introduction
1.1. Currently, there are two versions regarding the execution of Polish prisoners of war: the Soviet version and the version of Goebbels. The Soviet version claims that the Poles were shot by the Germans in the fall of 1941. The version is based on the data of the Burdenko commission, on numerous consistent facts and reliable documents. In 1943, Goebbels accused the Soviet authorities of having shot the Poles in the spring of 1940. The version is based, apart from conflicting “facts” and dubious “evidence”, mainly on two documents that mysteriously appeared in 1992: Beria’s Note to Stalin and the Politburo Decree of March 5, 1940.
Among the Russian and Ukrainian researchers who confirmed the Soviet version with their work, it is necessary to indicate Yuri Ignatievich Mukhin, Dmitry Evgenievich Dobrov, Vladislav Nikolaevich Shved, Sergei Emilievich Strygin, Arsen Benikovich Martirosyan, Yuri Maksimovich Slobodkin, Volodymyr Brovko, Parmen Posokhov (a pseudonym). A great contribution to substantiating the Soviet version was made by Viktor Ivanovich Ilyukhin, who received from an unknown (yet) person unique information about how the “Note” and “Resolution” were forged and published this important information.
On November 26, 2010, the State Duma adopted a statement "On the Katyn tragedy and its victims." The deputies of the State Duma recognized that "the mass extermination of Polish citizens on the territory of the USSR during the 2nd World War was an act of arbitrariness of the totalitarian state, which also subjected hundreds of thousands of Soviet people to repressions for political and religious beliefs, on social and other grounds."
After the statements of the Duma and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, the version about the responsibility of the NKVD and the top Soviet leadership for the execution of Polish officers in the spring of 1940 became official.
It must be understood that confirmation or refutation of a hypothesis or theory is the business of researchers and only researchers, but not politicians.
1.2. System analysis is a method of studying an object as a system (a whole set of interrelated elements). In a purposeful study, the first step is the division (separation) of the system into subsystems (the stage of system analysis). Each of the subsystems is then considered as a system. Analysis is the operation of dividing a thing, phenomenon, property, relationship between objects (objects) or a historical document into its constituent parts, performed in the process of cognition and practical activity.
In the system analysis of historical documents, the following main operations can be distinguished:
1. Analysis of historical information.
2. Linguistic analysis.
3. Logical analysis.
3. Legal analysis.
4. Psychological analysis.
5. Geographical analysis.
6. Political analysis.
7. Analysis of statistical data.
8. Analysis from the point of view of office work.
The purpose of a systematic analysis of historical documents is to explore these documents as fully as possible.
The main goal of the system analysis in this study is to identify factual, linguistic, logical and legal errors in Beria's Note to Stalin.
2 . Object of analysis
Memorandum of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Berii I.V. Stalin with a proposal to instruct the NKVD of the USSR to consider in a special order cases against Polish citizens held in prisoner-of-war camps of the NKVD of the USSR and prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. March 1940
Script. RGASPI. F.17. Op.166. D.621. L.130-133.
3. Linguistic analysis
3.1. Concept analysis"former officer of the Polish army". An officer is a person of command and command staff in the armed forces, as well as in the police and the police. Officers have military ranks assigned to them. . Thus, the content of the concept of "officer" includes two features: 1) the officer is in the position of commander or chief; 2) the officer has a military rank. Which of these features is the essential feature? To find out, consider the terms "reserve officer" and "retired officer". The reserve of the armed forces is those who are registered for military service, who have served active military service or have been released from it for various reasons, but are fit for service in wartime. . Therefore, a reserve officer is a person with an officer's rank who is not in active military service, but fit to serve in wartime. Resignation is one of the types of dismissal of officers. The use of the concepts of "reserve officer" and "retired officer" indicates that the essential feature of the concept of "officer" is a military rank, not a position.
The expression "there are no former officers" is "winged". An officer becomes a "former" officer only if he is deprived of his military (officer) rank in accordance with the procedure established by law.
In general, the concept of "former officer of the Polish army" is an inaccurate term. Either this person is a former officer because he was deprived of his officer rank, or because by the end of September 1939 the Polish army was defeated, or both. Prisoners of war - Polish officers were not deprived of military ranks in 1939 - 1940, therefore the exact term (for that time): "officer of the former Polish army."
In the documents of the NKVD regarding Polish prisoners of war, the word “former” was used, which is associated with the words “officers”, “gendarmes”, “landlords” and other words denoting the composition of prisoners of war, for example: “former Polish officers”, “officers of the former Polish army”, "former officers", "former gendarmes" and so on.
Apparently, the chiefs of the NKVD understood that the term "former Polish officers" was inaccurate, but sometimes used it.
In the "Note" the word "former" occurs 12 times. Let's denote this number with the letter n: n = 12. The word "officers" occurs in the "Note" 8 times; other words: policemen - 6, gendarmes - 5, officials - 5, landowners - 5, scouts - 4, manufacturers - 2, jailers - 2, spies - 2, saboteurs - 1, workers - 1, general - 1, colonels - 1 , lieutenant colonels - 1, majors - 1, captains - 1, lieutenant - 1, second lieutenant - 1, cornet - 1 time. In total, these words occur 48 times. Let us denote the total number of mentions of these words in the text by the letter m; m = 48.
The word "prisoner of war", given the context, is a common synonym for the phrases: "former officer", "former policeman" and so on. In this sense, the word "prisoners of war" occurs twice. Let us denote the total number of mentions of this word by the letter f;. f = 2. In this case, the word “prisoners of war” is not taken into account if it is included in the phrase “prisoner of war camps”.
The relative "frequency" with which certain words occur in the text are features of the style of the author of the text. In the "Note" the word "former" is often used: the ratio n / m is 12/48 (0.25) and rarely the word "prisoners of war": the ratio n / f is 12/2, that is, equal to 6.
Let's compare the text of the "Notes" with the texts of documents, the authors (or co-authors) of which, no doubt, are Beria and other officers. These documents are written on the same topic (about prisoners of war), three documents were sent to the same person - Stalin.
Document : Beria's message to Stalin about Polish and Czech prisoners of war, November 2, 1939. In this document, the word "former" occurs only three times: in the phrases "officers of the former Polish army", "former Polish officers" and "former Polish military": n = 3. Other words: the word "generals" occurs 6 times, colonels - 4, lieutenant colonels - 4, majors - 2, captains - 4, lieutenants - 2, second lieutenants - 2 times, Polish military - 1 time. The total number of references in the text to these words (including the word "officers") is 27 (m = 27). The word "prisoners of war" occurs 10 times. Results: ratio n/m = 3/27 = 0.11 (approximately); ratio n/f = 3/10 = 0.3.
Document : Beria's message to Stalin about the acceptance of interned Polish soldiers from Lithuania. In this document, the word "former" is not mentioned at all (n = 0), the word "officers" is mentioned 2 times, "officials" - 2 times, "policemen" - 2 times. In total, these words occur 6 times (m = 6). Result: ratio n:m = 0:6.
Document : Note by L.P. Beria and L.Z. Mekhlisa I.V. Stalin on the issue of prisoners of war. In this document, the word "former" is not mentioned at all (n = 0), the word "officers" occurs 4 times, the word "general" occurs - 2 times, lieutenant colonels - 2, policemen - 2, gendarmes - 2, jailers - 2, officials - 2, scouts - 2, counterintelligence officers - 2 times. Together, these words (including the word "officer") occur 20 times (m = 20). The word "prisoners of war" in the combination "prisoners of war officers" occurs 3 times and once - independently, but in a semantic connection with the word "officers". Results: ratio n/m = 0/20 = 0; ratio n/f = 0/4 = 0.
Document : Order No. 001177 L.P. Beria.
This order does not contain the word "former" (n = 0). The word "officers" occurs 2 times; other words: general - 2 times, colonels - 1, lieutenant colonels - 1, officials - 3, scouts - 2, counterintelligence officers - 2, policemen - 2, gendarmes - 2, jailers - 2 times. In total, these words occur 19 times. Let us denote the total number of references in the text of these words by the letter m, m = 19. The word “prisoners of war”, which is in a semantic connection with the word “officers”, occurs 5 times: f = 5. If the word “prisoners of war” referred only to soldiers, then it was not taken into account. Results: ratio n/m = 0/19 = 0; ratio n/f = 0/5 = 0.
Document : Order of the UPV of the NKVD of the USSR of February 22, 1940 on the implementation of the directive of L.P. Beria.
In this document, the word "former" is not mentioned at all (n = 0), the word "officers" occurs 3 times, jailers - 3, officials - 1, scouts - 3, employees - 1, censors - 1, provocateurs - 3, siegemen - 3, landlords - 3, court workers - 3 times, merchants and large owners - 3 times. Together, these words (including the word "officers") occur 27 times (m = 27). The word "prisoners of war" in semantic connection with the word "officers" occurs 2 times: f = 2. Results: ratio n: m = 0: 27 = 0; ratio n/f = 0/2 = 0.
In this document, the word "former" is mentioned 2 times (n = 2), the word "officers" occurs 1 time, policemen - 1, gendarmes - 1, open police agents - 1, secret police agents - 1, landowners - 1, manufacturers - 1, officials - 1 time. In total, these words occur 9 times (m = 9). The word "prisoners of war" in a semantic connection with the word "officers" occurs 5 times: f = 5. Results: ratio n: m = 2: 9 = 0.22 (approximately); ratio n/f = 2/5 = 0.4. The data obtained (with the addition of ) are summarized in the table.
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"A note" |
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*This document refers to Polish officers interned in Lithuania. Therefore, it did not make sense to count how many times the word "prisoners of war" occurs.
The table shows that in the "Note" the ratio n / m is 0.25. In selected NKVD documents, including Beria's messages to Stalin, the ratio n/m ranges from 0 to 0.22. The n/f ratio in the "Note" is 6, while in the selected NKVD documents this ratio ranges from 0 to 0.4.
The data obtained show that the author of the "Notes" preferred the word "former", while the NKVD officers, including Beria, used the term "prisoners of war" more often. There is a popular expression among regular officers and retired officers: "Former officers do not exist."
The author of the Note used the phrases "former officers" (twice), "former Polish officers" (twice), "former officers of the Polish army" (once), once the phrase "former officers of the former Polish army, but never used the term: "officers of the former Polish army". Beria and his subordinates in relation to Polish officers and sub-officers (not only prisoners of war), as a rule, used the term "officers of the former Polish army", see, for example.
3.2. Phrase analysis: "Former Officers of the Former Polish Army".
This phrase contains a linguistic error - pleonasm. Pleonasm - (from the Greek pleonasmos - excess), verbosity, the use of words that are unnecessary for semantic completeness. The word "former" before the word "officers" is an extra word. That's right: "officers of the former Polish army."
Pleonasm is a mistake in business and scientific texts. In artistic and journalistic texts, pleonasm can be used to enhance the emotional impact. Example: "People! Maria Godunova and her son Theodore poisoned themselves with poison. We saw their dead bodies"(A. S. Pushkin," Boris Godunov ").
3.3. Judgment analysis:
Accursed - irreconcilable, hated (about the enemy). . Therefore, cursed and hated are synonyms. Let's replace the word "sworn" with the word "hated" and we get: "They are all hated enemies of the Soviet government, full of hatred for the Soviet system." This judgment contains a linguistic error - a tautology (the repetition of the same or similar words). Features of the language of official documents are the brevity of the presentation of the material; accuracy and certainty of formulations, unambiguity and uniformity of terms.
Expressive expressions (such as "sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, full of hatred for the Soviet system") can be used in journalistic works, at meetings and rallies, but not in memos. Expression is the basis of journalistic style. But in orders, memos, instructions, expressive expressions turn out to be completely inappropriate. You can not mix the journalistic style with the official business style. Violation of the stylistic norm gives rise to a normative-style, or simply stylistic error. In this case, we are talking about the form of a normative-style error - an inter-style error. This term is understood as errors based on the violation of inter-style boundaries, on the penetration of elements of one functional style into the system of another style. .
3.4. Phrase analysis: « Cases of 14,700 former Polish officers, officials, landlords, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siegemen and jailers who are in prisoner of war camps.
The phrase contains three extra words: "o", "man", "former". First, it should be noted that lawyers do not use the preposition "o" after the word "case". Secondly, it is clear that the officers and others mentioned in the text are people and therefore "man" is an extra word. Thirdly, it is obvious: if the officers are kept in a prisoner of war camp, then these are “former” officers, but only in the sense that they no longer occupy the corresponding positions. As already indicated, an officer becomes a "former" only if he was deprived of his officer rank in the prescribed manner. Polish officers were not stripped of their military ranks and therefore were not, strictly speaking, "former". It is also obvious that if officials and others are in the camps, then they are also former. The words "located in prisoner of war camps" are best placed at the end of the phrase, since it is clear from the context that the logical stress falls on "the cases of 14,700 officers (and others)". That's right: "the files of 14,700 Polish officers, officials, landlords, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siegemen and jailers who are in prisoner of war camps."
We will proceed from the fact that one extra word in the expression is one linguistic error (pleonasm). Therefore, the phrase in question contains three errors.
3.5. Phrase analysis: “The cases of 11,000 people arrested and in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, members of various counter] r [revolutionary] espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufacturers, former Polish officers, officials and defectors”
The phrase contains extra words: “about”, “arrested”, “and”, “in”, “quantity”, “person”, “former”.
The use of the phrases “cases of those who are” and “cases of those arrested” indicates that the “Note” was not written by a lawyer. Lawyers do not use the prepositions "about" or "about" after the word "case". For example, “Petrov's case”, not “Petrov's case”; “the Ivanov case, not the Ivanov case.”
The word "arrested" is superfluous here, since the scope of the concept "being in prisons" is included in the scope of the concept "arrested". Not everyone who is arrested can be in prison, but everyone who is (detained) in prison is in custody and, therefore, is arrested. That's right: "The files of 11,000 members of various k[countr]r[revolutionary] espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufacturers, Polish officers, officials and defectors who are in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus."
Beria, unlike the author of the Note, knew the language of law and did not make mistakes like: "the case of Petrov" or "the case of Ivanov." In the order on shortcomings in the investigative work of the NKVD bodies dated November 9, 1939, Beria used the following expressions: “the Zubik-Zubkovsky case”, “investigation file No. 203308 of the NKVD of the Kalinin region on charges of S. M. Stroilov”, “investigation file No. on the charges of Bursiyan, Tanoyan and others”, “the decision to terminate the Pavlov case”, “on the cases of Golubev Ya.F. and Vechtomov A.M.”, “investigation file of the special department of the KOVO No. 132762 on charges of B.P. Marushevsky”, “investigation case on charges of Fischer”, “case on charges of Leurd M.E”.
It is excluded that later, in 1940, Beria suddenly forgot legal terminology and began to use expressions: "affairs about arrested" or "affairs about 14,700 people of former Polish officers who are in prisoner of war camps.
"Extract from the Protocol No. 13 of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on March 5, 1940" contains extra words (in bold): "affairs about in POW camps 14,700 Human former Polish officers ... " and "affairs about arrested and in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus in the amount of 11,000 Human members of various k[countr]r[revolutionary] espionage and sabotage organizations...».
If you believe that Beria wrote the "Note", then you have to believe that not only Beria, but also members of the Politburo showed legal and linguistic illiteracy. Among the members of the Politburo were people who read legal documents many times, since at that time there was a Politburo commission on judicial affairs that regularly considered decisions of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
3.6. Fragment analysis:"II. Consideration of cases shall be carried out without summoning the arrested and without bringing charges, a resolution on the completion of the investigation and an indictment in the following order:
a) for persons in prisoner of war camps - according to certificates submitted by the Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs of the NKVD of the USSR,
b) for persons arrested - according to certificates from the cases submitted by the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR and the NKVD of the BSSR.
3.7. Analysis of the "Notes" as a whole. Briefly, the essence of the "Notes" can be expressed by the judgment: "Based on the fact that all prisoners of war are inveterate enemies of the Soviet regime, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary to apply capital punishment to them."
Let's turn to the documents. From Beria's special message to Stalin about the eviction of osadniks from western Ukraine and Belarus:
"02.12.1939
№ 5332/b
In December 1920, the former Polish government issued a decree on planting so-called osadniks in the border areas with the USSR.
The osadniks were selected exclusively from former Polish military personnel, were allocated land in an amount of up to 25 hectares, received agricultural implements and settled along the border of Soviet Belarus and Ukraine. Surrounded by attention and care, placed in good material conditions, the settlers were the backbone of the former government of Poland and Polish intelligence.
The bodies of the NKVD recorded 3998 families of settlers in Western Belarus and 9436 in Western Ukraine, and a total of 13,434 families. Of this number, the NKVD arrested 350 people.
In view of the fact that the osadniks represent fertile ground for all kinds of anti-Soviet actions and the vast majority, by virtue of their property status, are unconditionally enemies of the Soviet government, we consider it necessary to evict them, together with their families, from the areas they occupy.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this document. First, Beria did not use expressive expressions like "hardened, incorrigible enemies", he wrote briefly and precisely: “by virtue of their property status are undoubtedly enemies of the Soviet power". Secondly, Beria did not say « all osadniki", he said « in the vast majority» . Thirdly, despite the fact that the settlers “are the backbone of Polish intelligence”, "represent fertile ground for all sorts of anti-Soviet actions" and are "Unconditionally enemies of Soviet power", Beria offered to evict them. Evict, not shoot!
3.8. findings
1. "Note" contains many errors, that is, its author had a low linguistic culture.
4. Logical analysis
4.1. Judgment analysis: "All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, full of hatred for the Soviet system."
Let us prove that not all officers were enemies of the Soviet regime.
Argument 1. As a first argument, we will cite excerpts from the report of the UPV of the NKVD of the USSR on the state of prisoner-of-war camps and the maintenance of prisoners of war:
« The political and moral state of officers and policemen is depressed. Among the officers, a stratification began into personnel and reserve officers, who among themselves have different views and attitudes towards the war and the Soviet Union.
“Colonel Malinovsky said in a conversation: “The mood of the officers is depressed. We built Poland for 20 years and lost it in 20 days. I don’t want to go to Germany and I will ask for the hospitality of the Soviet Union until the end of the war between Germany and France.”
“Reserve officers are engineers, doctors, agronomists, teachers, accountants, scolding the government elite of the former Polish state, England and France, who dragged them into the war, but did not provide assistance. These officers express a desire to go to work as soon as possible, and many of them wish to remain in the USSR.”
Argument 2. On February 20, 1940, Soprunenko and Nekhoroshev turned to Beria with the initiative to let some of the prisoners of war go home: “From among the reserve officers, residents of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR - agronomists, doctors, engineers and technicians, teachers who do not have compromising materials, let go home. According to preliminary data, 400-500 people can be released from this category.”
So the judgment is: “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, full of hatred for the Soviet system” is false. Here, a logical error was made “from the separative sense to the collective sense”. The essence of this error (, p. 425) lies in the fact that what is asserted about the whole is true only about the parts of this whole.
4.2. Judgment analysis: BUT. "All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, full of hatred for the Soviet system." B. Prisoners of war officers and police, while in the camps, are anti-Soviet agitation.
Let us prove that from the judgments BUT and B a meaningless proposition follows: "Sworn enemies are conducting anti-Soviet agitation among sworn enemies." Proof. Consider the concept of "propaganda". “Agitation (from the Latin agitatio - setting in motion), one of the means of political influence on the masses, a weapon in the struggle of classes and their parties; agitation is expressed in the dissemination of some idea or slogan that induces the masses to active action. . The concept of "agitation" includes the concept of "masses" as an object of agitation. Without the "masses" there is not, and cannot be, agitation. If all prisoners of war were sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, then whom could they agitate? After all, the communication of prisoners of war with camp personnel was strictly regulated and limited, and, in addition, the communication of prisoners of war with camp personnel was hindered by a language barrier.
Therefore, from the two propositions BUT and B follows the judgment: "Sworn enemies are conducting anti-Soviet agitation among sworn enemies." This is a nonsensical argument.
Judgment: “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, full of hatred for the Soviet system” is false, and the judgment "Prisoners of war officers and police, while in the camps, are conducting anti-Soviet agitation"- true. The fact is that the composition of the prisoners of war was heterogeneous and among the prisoners of war there were both opponents of the Soviet government (the majority), who conducted anti-Soviet agitation, and supporters. Agitation for Soviet power was carried out among prisoners of war by specially trained political workers.
4.3. Judgment analysis: "Prisoner-of-war officers and policemen, while in the camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work."
A false judgment follows from this judgment: "Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work in the Polish Army."
Proof. In the judgment: “Prisoner-of-war officers and policemen, while in the camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work” judgment is included: “Prisoner-of-war officers, while in the camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work”. From the phrase "trying to continue" it follows that the Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work before they were placed in the camps, and in the camps it "continue". Where and when could Polish officers carry out this work? Before the war the officers served in the Polish army. With the introduction of Soviet troops into the territories of Belarus and Ukraine, occupied by Poland in 1920, Polish officers participated (and even then not all) in short-term hostilities (for one or two weeks), then surrendered, spent several days in reception centers for prisoners of war and then ended up in a prisoner of war camp. Therefore, before being captured, officers could lead "counterrevolutionary work" only in the Polish army. In the USSR, the concept of "counter-revolutionary work" meant the struggle against the revolution of 1917 for the restoration of the pre-revolutionary order. Thus, a false proposition follows from the original proposition: "Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work in the Polish Army."
4.4. Judgment analysis:"Each of them is only waiting for release in order to be able to actively engage in the struggle against Soviet power."
The expression "each of them" is equivalent in meaning to "all of them". This judgment is false. To refute a general proposition, it is enough to give one example that contradicts this proposition. Let us give two examples of the fact that not all officers were waiting for release in order to fight the Soviet regime.
Example 1 Some officers were waiting to be released to meet with relatives. Some of them were so upset by the separation that they committed suicide. For example, on December 7, the Head of the NKVD USSR Directorate for Prisoners of War Major Soprunenko and the Commissar of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War and Regimental Commissar Nekhoroshev sent a message to Beria that “On December 2, 1939, prisoner of war Zakharsky Bazily Antonovich committed suicide (hanged himself) in the Kozelsky camp. Zakharsky B.A., born in 1898, until 1919 a worker-fitter, from 1919 until recently served in the Polish army, military rank - cornet. For the entire time spent in the camps, Zakharsky B.A. was in a depressed state, thought a lot and really missed the family that remained in Grodno.
Example 2 Some officers were waiting for release to fight for the liberation of Poland. From the report of Soprunenko and Nekhoroshev: “The officers are mostly patriotic, declaring: “When we return home, we will fight against Hitler. Poland has not yet perished.”
Hence the judgment: “Each of them is just waiting for release in order to be able to actively join the struggle against Soviet power” is false. Here the author of the "Notes" made a logical error "from the separative sense to the collective sense." The essence of this error (, p. 425) lies in the fact that what is asserted about the whole is true only about the parts of this whole.
4.5. Judgment analysis:“Among the detained defectors and violators of the state border, a significant number of persons were also identified who are members of counter-revolutionary espionage and rebel organizations.”
Before analyzing this text, it is necessary to read an excerpt from Order No. 21/3847 dated March 2, 1940 of the Main Directorate of Escort Troops of the NKVD of the USSR: "People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Comrade. Beria ordered the people's commissars of internal affairs of the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR - convicted by the Special Meeting of the NKVD, defectors from the former territory of Poland to be sent to the Sevvostlag NKVD (Vladivostok) to serve their sentences. The organization of the dispatch of convicts is entrusted to the prison departments and departments of the correctional labor colonies of the NKVD. The escort of these prisoners is entrusted to the escort troops in echelons of 1000-1500 people under reinforced escort. There will be 6-8 echelons in total".
The order clearly states: “Beria ordered [...] defectors from the former territory of Poland to be sent to depart term of punishment to the Sevvostlag NKVD". Beria could not almost at the same time give the order to transport defectors "to serve a sentence" and go to Stalin with a "request" to shoot them. The author of the Note either did not know about Order No. 21/3847 or ignored it.
4.6. Judgment analysis:“In the prison camps there are a total (not counting the soldiers and non-commissioned officers) 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, policemen, gendarmes, jailers, siegemen and scouts, over 97% by nationality are Poles.”
“In the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there are a total of 18,632 arrested persons (of which 10,685 are Poles)”
“Based on the fact that they are all inveterate, incorrigible enemies of the Soviet regime, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary:
I. Suggest to the NKVD of the USSR:
1) cases of 14,700 former Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siegemen and jailers who are in prisoner of war camps,
2) as well as cases of 11,000 members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufacturers, former Polish officers, officials and defectors arrested and in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus in the amount of 11,000 people -
- to be considered in a special order, with the application of capital punishment to them - execution.
Comment by Yu.I. Mukhina: “An official has respect for numbers in his blood, he reports them, this is the basis of his punishment and gratitude. He will never round a figure without very strong reasons. Journalist, writer, historian - these please, these can easily round up 4.5 thousand arrested officers of the Red Army "in about 50 thousand killed." An official will not do this, and especially in this case. Look: Beria “writes” that he has 14,736 officers and others in the prisoner-of-war camps, and only 14,700 proposes to be shot; he has 18,632 enemies in prisons, and he proposes to shoot only 11,000. To bring such a letter to Stalin is to immediately run into the question: “Lavrenty! And what are you going to do with the remaining 36 officers and 7632 enemies? Salt? Maintain them at your own expense? And how will Beria explain to the administrations of the camps and prisons exactly who should be selected to consider cases at the “troika”?
Commentary by D.M. Dobrova: “The question arises, in what way are the numbers 14,700 and 11,000 obtained, if previously there are 14,736 and 18,632 (of which 10,685 are Poles)? What was the reason for rounding or perhaps some other action? How do the given numbers follow from each other? But the connection is indicated in the text: “Based on the fact that they are all”, i.e. 14,736 people and 18,632 (of which 10,685 Poles) “are inveterate, incorrigible enemies of the Soviet regime, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary” to consider the cases of 14,700 and 11,000 people in a special order. Excuse me, if all of them were inveterate enemies of the Soviet regime, then wouldn’t it be logical to offer for consideration the cases of all of them, and not just those elected according to an unknown rule?
Maybe after all there is a “rule” according to which you can choose 14,700 out of 14,736 and 11,000 out of 18,632? For this assumption, let us consider the judgments of the author of the note (we denote him by the letter N) regarding the prisoners of war:
1. "Each inveterate, incorrigible enemy of Soviet power must be shot."
2. "There are 14,736 inveterate, incorrigible enemies of the Soviet regime in the camps".
3. "It is necessary to shoot 14,700 enemies."
"It is necessary to shoot 14,736 enemies."
Obviously, proposition 3 contradicts propositions 1 and 2. An error is made here: a logical contradiction: "It is necessary to shoot 14,736 enemies"; "It is necessary to shoot not 14,736 enemies, but 14,700 enemies." The author of the "Note" contradicts himself. Suppose he rounded up the number 14736 and got 14700, but at the same time "amnestied" 36 enemies.
But maybe 14700 are Poles, and 36 are all the rest? Let's calculate the number of Poles among the prisoners of war. The "note" states that the proportion of Poles among the prisoners of war is 97%, therefore, among 14736 prisoners of war there were 14736 x 0.97 = 14293.92, that is, 14294 Poles. It turns out that N offered to shoot 14,700 enemies, and of these, only 14,294 were Poles. But in order to bring the number 14294 to 14700, it is necessary to shoot 406 non-Poles out of 442 (14,736 - 14,294 = 442) non-Poles; or, in other words, exclude 36 people from the "hit list". But in this case, the author of the "Note" had to indicate on what grounds 36 non-Poles out of 442 non-Poles should be excluded from the "hit list".
From this passage follows the statement: “There are 18,632 arrested people in the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus,” all of them are inveterate, incorrigible enemies of the Soviet regime, of which 11,000 are subject to capital punishment - execution.” Let us analyze the judgments of the author of the Notes:
one. " Every inveterate, incorrigible enemy of Soviet power must be shot.”
2. "There are 18,632 inveterate, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power in prisons."
3. "It is necessary to shoot 11,000 enemies."
But from propositions 1 and 2 follows proposition 4:
"It is necessary to shoot 18,632 enemies."
It is obvious that judgment 3 contradicts judgments 1 and 2. An error is made here: "logical contradiction": "It is necessary to shoot 18,632 enemies"; "It is necessary to shoot not 18,632 enemies, but 11,000 enemies."
Let's try to figure out where the 11,000 "enemies" came from. Suppose N put forward another condition: to be “worthy” of capital punishment (CMN), one must not only be an inveterate and incorrigible enemy, but also be a Pole. N indicates that among the 18,632 enemies, only 10,685 are Poles. But then N had to indicate that it was necessary to shoot 10,685 Poles. Suppose that N simply rounded 10685 up to 11,000. But in this mathematical operation, he added 315 more non-Poles to be shot, but did not specify a "rule" by which to choose 315 non-Poles out of 7947 non-Poles.
Thus, the principle of selection for "execution" by nationality as an "unknown rule" also does not work.
The expressions: “It is necessary to shoot 14,700 enemies (out of 14,736 enemies)” and “It is necessary to shoot 11,000 enemies (out of 18,632)” allow for many interpretations, that is, they contain a logical error - "polypoly". This term was introduced in the article. Polybolia is a logical fallacy, which consists in the fact that a grammatical expression has many interpretations (meanings), and it is not clear from the context which interpretation (what meaning) is meant in the grammatical expression.
There is a well-known error in logic "amphiboly". Amphibolia (from the Greek word amphibolia) is a logical error, which consists in the fact that a grammatical expression (a set of several words) allows its double interpretation. (, p. 34).
Consider the false information that is contained in the "Note" in an explicit and implicit form: 1. Soviet legislation in 1940 allowed shooting without a corresponding decision of the court or military tribunal. 2. Soviet leaders could, at their whim, order to shoot anyone and in any number without initiating a criminal case and investigation, for example, according to certificates submitted by the Directorate for Prisoners of War. 3. Soviet leaders, including Stalin, hated the Poles.
If we proceed from the assumption that the purpose of the "Note" is to introduce this false information, then it becomes clear that the author of the "Note" intentionally made logical errors: “There are 14,736 enemies in the camps, 14,294 of them are Poles, but 14,700 enemies need to be shot”; “There are 18,632 enemies in prisons, 10,685 of them are Poles, but 11,000 enemies need to be shot. In other words, to Beria and the members of the Politburo, the author of the "Notes" ascribes, to put it in everyday language, nonsense. But who is capable of "carrying" nonsense? - Crazy maniacs. Thus, the author of the Note creates a myth that Beria, Stalin, as well as other members of the Politburo, could not think logically, they thought chaotically, that is, they were crazy, and bloodthirsty at that. And since they were bloodthirsty maniacs, then there is nothing to be surprised that they gave the order to shoot the Poles, although the Poles were potential allies in the war with Germany, if any (we are talking about the spring of 1940). There is no reason to be surprised at the irrational hatred for the Poles, and there is nothing to be surprised at the fact that several hundred non-Poles were shot together with the Poles.
4.7. Judgment analysis:“To propose to the NKVD of the USSR: the cases of members of various counter] r [revolutionary] espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufacturers, former Polish officers, officials and defectors, who are in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, should be considered in a special order, with application to him the highest measure of punishment - execution.
It should be noted that the author of the note proposed to shoot only those "sworn enemies" who were in "prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus". But by the beginning of March 1940, part of the prisoners of war were in the Smolensk prison, which Beria could not help but know.
Document : Cipher telegram of the deputy head of the UNKVD of the USSR for the Smolensk region F.K. Ilyina V.N. Merkulov about the delivery of prisoners of war from the Kozelsky camp to the Smolensk prison.
“03/03/1940. Smolensk. No. 9447. Sov. secret. NKVD USSR. Encryption input. No. 9447. Received on March 3, 1940. From Smolensk.
Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs comrade. Merkulov
[In] accordance [with] your instructions [in] the Kozelsk camp of the NKVD, prisoners of war were selected and delivered [to] the Smolensk prison. I ask for instructions [about] the procedure for their registration and investigation. Ilyin.
4.8. findings
1. The note contains many logical errors.
2. "Note" contains false information.
5. Psychological analysis
5.1. The myth that Beria was an executioner, thirsting for the blood of innocents, has been introduced into the minds of many people. There are many documents that refute this myth. I will bring one of them.
Document : Special message L.P. Berii I.V. Stalin on the restriction of the rights of a special meeting in connection with the end of the war.
Top secret
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - to Comrade I.V. STALIN
By a resolution of the State Defense Committee of November 17, 1941, in connection with the tense situation in the country, the Special Conference under the NKVD of the USSR was granted the right to issue a penalty up to execution.
In connection with the end of the war, the NKVD of the USSR considers it appropriate to cancel the said decision of the State Defense Committee, leaving behind the Special Conference under the NKVD of the USSR, in accordance with the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1937, the right to apply a penalty of up to 8 years in prison with confiscation property where necessary.
Presenting at the same time a draft resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, I ask for your decision.
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. BERIA.
5.2. Briefly, the thought of the author of the “Notes” can be stated as follows: “A large number of sworn enemies of the Soviet regime are currently kept in the prisoner-of-war camps of the NKVD of the USSR and in the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, and therefore they must be urgently shot.”
Document. This document dated January 5, 1940 states that the NKVD developed an addition to the questionnaire for each prisoner of war, in which it was necessary to indicate the following information: 1) about the last position of a prisoner of war in the former Polish army; 2) about foreign languages that the prisoner of war knows (except for his native language); 3) the place and time of the prisoner of war's stay in the USSR and the occupation during his stay in the Soviet Union; 4) about all relatives and acquaintances of the prisoner of war living in the USSR; 5) about the stay of a prisoner of war abroad (outside the former Poland) with the obligatory indication of where exactly, from what time and for what time and what he did there.
So, if you believe the supporters of the version of Goebbels, then you have to believe that the heads of the NKVD could not shoot 14,700 prisoners of war without first finding out what position each prisoner of war held in the former Polish army, what foreign languages he knew, whether he had been abroad (outside the former Poland), including in the USSR and where exactly, what he did - and so on.
Document. From the political report of the head of the Starobelsky camp A. Berezhkov and the camp commissioner Kirshin on the organization of political and educational work among prisoners of war.
“02/08/1940. Starobelsk. Owls. secret. No. 11-3. Commissar of the Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR for Prisoners of War Comrade Nekhoroshev. .
I report that the political mass work among the prisoners of war was built on the basis of your instructions. All political mass work was carried out according to the plan drawn up for the month of January. The main forms of work were the demonstration of films, periodic information from newspapers and magazines, answers to questions from prisoners of war, control over the implementation of military regulations in the camp and orders from the camp management. Provision of prisoners of war with books, newspapers and radio services. Carrying out daily control over the provision of prisoners of war with all the necessary allowances according to established standards.
In January, the following work was carried out: 1. 39,081 prisoners of war were served by political mass work; 2. All political mass work among the prisoners of war was built according to a plan, in the implementation of which the leading place is occupied by the party and Komsomol organizations. Of the measures of party political work outlined in the plan, the following has been accomplished:
Discussions were held on the following topics: 1) The USSR is the most democratic country in the world. 2) Fraternal union of the peoples of the USSR. The implementation of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy.3) About the events in Finland.4) About the events in Western Europe.5) About the features of the modern imperialist war.
Readings and explanations of the material read from newspapers and magazines were carried out: 1. Results of 1939 and tasks of 19402. The scientific significance of the drift "Sedovtsev" .3. About the Soviet-Japanese agreement.4. About the state structure in the USSR. 5. 15 years of the Turkmen SSR.6. Results of the implementation of two five-year plans in the USSR.7. Bourgeois and socialist democracy.8. The struggle of the Chinese people against the Japanese invaders.
The following films were shown for prisoners of war: 1. Peter I - series 1. 2. Peter I - series 2.
Equipped in the courtyard of the camp photo showcases on the topics: 1. life and work of I.V. Stalin; 2. achievements of physical culture in the USSR; 3. 16 years without Lenin along the Leninist path under the leadership of Comrade Stalin.
Library work. The library has 6615 different books and brochures, receives 700 copies of various newspapers and 62 copies of magazines, the library systematically serves 1470 readers. Every day 200-250 people are covered by the reading room. The demand from prisoners of war for the magazines Sputnik Agitator, Bolshevik, Party Construction, and Ogonyok especially increased. 1,000 prisoners of war were registered as readers of magazines in the month of January. There is a great demand for literature on the national question, especially many prisoners of war who read the works of Comrade Stalin, Questions of Leninism, Marxism and the National Question.
Organized radio service for prisoners of war. 52 radio points were installed to serve the prisoners of war, 52 radio points were provided with loudspeakers, of which 2 loudspeakers were located in the camp courtyard. POWs are served by radio daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. the latest news from Moscow; b) lectures and reports for correspondence students and students of the “Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks”; c) operas and concerts transmitted from Moscow and Kyiv.
Provision of cultural equipment. Acquired and issued for use by prisoners of war cult property: 1. chess - 60 games ; 2. checkers - 140 games; 3. dominoes - 112 games. In addition, the prisoners of war themselves made 15 games of chess and 20 games of dominoes. In January, preparations began for a new chess tournament among prisoners of war. chess tournament. 114 prisoners of war, participants of the tournament, have already signed up for the chess tournament in hostels.
If you believe the “Goebbels”, then you have to believe that the NKVD officers prepared prisoners of war for execution by very original methods: they organized chess tournaments, lectured on the history of the CPSU (b), discussed with them the scientific significance of the drift of the Sedovtsev, told them about the struggle the Chinese people against the Japanese invaders, and so on and so forth.
In fact, no one was going to shoot Polish prisoners of war. They were prepared for life in Soviet society. Many prisoners of war were residents of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and BSSR and, therefore, became citizens of the USSR after the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 29, 1939 "On the acquisition of USSR citizenship by residents of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and BSSR." .
5.2. findings
1. The addition to the questionnaire for each Polish prisoner of war, developed by the NKVD, contradicts Goebbels' version.
2. The large political and cultural work carried out by the NKVD with Polish prisoners of war in January-February 1940 contradicts Goebbels' version.
3. Beria did not plan the execution of the officers of the former Polish army (a consequence of paragraphs 1 and 2).
6. Legal analysis
6.1. Judgment analysis:“The consideration of cases and the adoption of a decision are to be entrusted to the troika, consisting of comrades. Beria(corrected: Kobulova) , Merkulov and Bashtakov (head of the 1st special department of the NKVD of the USSR).
6.2. Preliminary information: In the legal analysis of the Notes, it should be taken into account that the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on November 17, 1938 canceled judicial troikas, and the Special Meeting of the NKVD did not have the right to sentence to death.
“2805/b Top secret. State Defense Committee comrade. TO STALIN:
In the republican, regional and regional bodies of the NKVD, prisoners sentenced by the military tribunals of the districts and local judicial bodies to capital punishment are kept in custody for several months, pending the approval of the sentences by the highest judicial instances.
According to the current procedure, the verdicts of the military tribunals of the districts, as well as the supreme courts of the union, autonomous republics and territorial, regional courts, enter into legal force only after their approval by the Military Collegium and the Criminal Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR - respectively.
However, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the USSR in essence are not final, since they are considered by the commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which also submits its opinion for approval by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and only after that the final decision is made on the case, which again descends to the Supreme Court, and this latter is sent for execution by the NKVD of the USSR.
The exceptions are areas declared under martial law, and areas of military operations, where by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 27 VI. - 41, the military councils of the fronts, in especially exceptional cases caused by the deployment of hostilities, were given the right to approve sentences of military tribunals with capital punishment with immediate execution of sentences.
At present, 10,645 prisoners sentenced to capital punishment have accumulated in the prisons of the NKVD of the republics, territories and regions, awaiting the approval of sentences in their cases by the highest judicial instances.
Based on wartime conditions, the NKVD of the USSR considers it appropriate:
1. To allow the NKVD of the USSR, in respect of all prisoners sentenced to capital punishment, now held in prisons pending the approval of sentences by higher judicial authorities, to carry out the sentences of the military tribunals of the districts and republican, regional, regional judicial bodies.
Grant to the Special Conference of the NKVD of the USSR the right, with the participation of the prosecutor of the USSR, on cases of counter-revolutionary crimes and especially dangerous crimes against the order of government of the USSR provided for by Art. 58-1a, 58-1b, 58-1c, 58-1d, 58-2, 58-3, 58-4, 58-5, 58-6, 58-7, 58-8, 58-9, 58- 10, 58-11, 58-12, 58-13, 58-14, 59-2, 59-3, 59-3a, 59-3b, 59-4, 59-7, 59-8, 59-9, 59-10, 59-12, 59-13 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, to impose appropriate penalties up to and including execution. The decision of the Special Meeting shall be considered final. I ask for your decision. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Union of the USSR L. Beria "
This practice of approving death sentences was established after the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of November 17, 1938 No. 81
"On Arrests, Prosecutor's Supervision and Investigation".
Consequently, in 1940, sentences to death by the military tribunals of the districts, as well as the supreme courts of the union, autonomous republics and regional, regional courts, entered into force only after their approval by the Military Collegium and the Criminal Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The decisions of the Supreme Court of the USSR were essentially not final, since they were later considered by the commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The commission submitted its conclusion for approval by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and only after that the final decision was made on the case. This decision was sent to the Supreme Court, and this latter was sent for execution by the NKVD of the USSR.
We see that the sentence of the court to the death penalty, before entering into legal force, went a long way through the instances.
Let's assume that the "Note" is not a fabricated document and the head of the Main Economic Directorate of the NKVD B.Z. Kobulov, 1st Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR V.N. Merkulov and head of the 1st special department of the NKVD L.F. Bashtakov actually signed the death warrants and sent them to camps and prisons. However, not a single head of the prison and not a single head of the camp would take responsibility for the execution if the papers for the execution were not properly executed. The bosses would not have violated the instructions, since the violation of instructions in Stalin's time was followed by harsh and inevitable punishment. Moreover, the papers signed by the "troika" would have been reported to the authorities as a malicious violation of the law.
6.2. findings
1. According to the legislation in force in the USSR in 1940 , The “troika” consisting of Kobulov, Merkulov and Bashtakov did not have the right to sentence to any punishment, including execution, which Beria and the Politburo members could not have been unaware of.
7. Analysis from the point of view of office work
First of all, the number (794/B) is indicated, but the exact date of the "Notes" is not indicated: "_" March 1940. This is a violation of business rules.
Secondly, the "Note" gives the exact numbers of prisoners in prisons and camps, but does not indicate the date, for example : BUT.“In the prison camps there are a total (not counting the soldiers and non-commissioned officers) 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, policemen, gendarmes, jailers, siegemen and scouts, over 97% by nationality are Poles.”B."In the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there are a total of 18,632 arrested persons (of which 10,685 are Poles)."
In a note intended for Stalin, Beria wrote: « For the month of September 1941 389,382 people were previously arrested and deported to the rear areas of the USSR from the Western regions of Ukraine and Belarus (from the territory of former Poland). Therefore, it can be expected that if Beria were the author of the Note, he would have written: « For February of this year in the prisoner of war camps there are a total (not counting the soldiers and non-commissioned officers) 14,736 former officers ... ".
findings
1. "Note" contains violations of the rules of office work.
8. Analysis of statistical data
8.1. For the entire time of its existence, the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR sentenced 10,101 people to capital punishment. .
Firstly, the NKVD, namely the Special Council under the NKVD, had the right to sentence to death only in the period from 1941 to 1945, but not in 1940. The Special Council had the right to impose punishments in the form of imprisonment in forced labor camps for no more than 8 years. Secondly, during the four years of the war, the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR sentenced 10,101 criminals to capital punishment.
8.2. In 1940, 1,649 criminals were sentenced to capital punishment for counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes.
Table. The number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes from 1936 to 1942 (, p. 434).
|
higher |
camps, colonies |
others |
Total |
||
The table shows that in 1940, 1,649 people were sentenced to capital punishment for counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes. (, 434 pages).
According to Oleg Borisovich Mozokhin, in 1940, 1863 people were sentenced to death. . Apparently, this number includes not only those convicted of counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes. But in the "Note of Beria to Stalin" and in the "Politburo Resolution of March 5, 1940" it is said about the execution of 25,700 people.
Judicial statisticians can probably "lose" 1,649 (or 1,863) death row inmates out of 25,700, but cannot lose 25,700 out of 1,649 (or 1,863) CMN inmates.
8.3. findings
1. In the judicial statistics of the USSR, there is no data on the execution in 1940 of 14,700 prisoners of war officers of the former Polish army.
2. The so-called "Decree of the Politburo on the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, policemen, siegemen and others" is a false document (consequence from paragraph 1).
9. NKVD officers did not shoot POW officers of the former Polish Army
In March 1940, a decision was made to transfer officers of the former Polish Army, who had incriminating materials, from prisoner of war camps to forced labor camps. Prepared investigative cases for most of the prisoners of war. Many officers were members of Polish bourgeois organizations. It can be assumed that the Special Council condemned them mainly under Article 58 - 4: “Providing in any way assistance to that part of the international bourgeoisie, which, not recognizing the equality of the communist system that is replacing the capitalist system, seeks to overthrow it, as well as to social groups and organizations that are under the influence or directly organized by this bourgeoisie, in the implementation activities hostile to the USSR, entails imprisonment for a term of not less than three years with confiscation of all or part of property with an increase, under especially aggravating circumstances, up to the highest measure of social protection - execution or declaring an enemy of workers with deprivation of citizenship of the USSR and exile from the borders of the USSR forever with confiscation of property. .
Not all prisoners of war were convicted. These prisoners of war were transferred to the Yukhnovsky camp, according to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Merkulov dated April 22, 1940. In total, 395 people were sent to this camp: 205 from Kozelsk, 112 from Ostashkov, and 78 from Starobelsk.
Document. May 25, 1940. Moscow. Certificate of the UPV of the NKVD of the USSR on the number of Polish prisoners of war sent from special camps to the UNKVD of three regions and to the Yukhnovsky camp
Owls. secret
about sending prisoners of war
I. Ostashkov camp
Sent: 1) In the UNKVD in the Kalinin region 6287 people.
2) In the Yukhnovsky camp 112 people.
Total: 6399 people
II. Kozelsky camp
Sent: 1) In the UNKVD in the Smolensk region 4404 people.
2) In the Yukhnovsky camp 205 people.
Total: 4609 people
III. Starobelsky camp
Sent: 1) In the UNKVD in the Kharkiv region 3896 people.
2) In the Yukhnovsky camp 78 people.
Total: 3974 people
Total sent: 1) 14587 people to the UNKVD.
2) In Yukhnovsky 395 people.
Head of the Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR for Prisoners of War Captain of State Security (Soprunenko)
Head of the 2nd Department of the Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR for Prisoners of War Lieutenant of State Security (Maklyarsky)
Thus, at the end of May 1940, 14,587 prisoners of war were sent to the forced labor camps of the Gulag, and probably also to prisons.
In the documents, they began to appear no longer as "prisoners of war", but as "arrested" or "prisoners". Now the Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG) began to deal with them. Since that time, no information about the “former” prisoners of war could be found in the Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees, since it was not there. This was used by the supporters of the version of Goebbels.
In the work of V.N. Zemskov at number 5, there is a table that indicates the national composition of the GULAG camp prisoners in 1939-1941 (as of January 1 of each year):
|
Nationality |
||||||
|
Ukrainians |
||||||
|
Belarusians |
||||||
|
Azerbaijanis |
no information |
|||||
|
Turkmens |
||||||
|
Poles |
||||||
|
no information |
||||||
The table shows that the number of camp prisoners - Poles on January 1, 1940 was equal to 16133, and on January 1, 1941 increased to 29457, that is, by 13324 people.
According to O.B. Mozokhin, in the period from 1939 to 1941, Poles were convicted: in 1939 - 11,604, in 1940 - 31,681, and in 1941 - 6415. .
These data do not contradict the assertion that the Polish prisoners of war were not shot, but were convicted and sent to the Gulag.
General conclusions
1. It has been proven that the so-called “Note from Beria to Stalin with a proposal to shoot Polish officers, gendarmes, policemen, siegemen and others” is a fake document.
2. It has been proved that the so-called “Politburo resolution on the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, policemen, siegemen and others” is a false document (consequence from paragraph 1).
Anatoly Vladimirovich Krasnyansky, Senior Researcher, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov
Information sources
Sergei Ivanovich Ozhegov. Dictionary of the Russian language. About 50,000 words. Edition 5, stereotypical. State publishing house of foreign and national dictionaries. Moscow. 1963.
A.N. Without teeth. Introduction to literary editing. Tutorial. St. Petersburg. 1997.
N.I. Kondakov. Logical dictionary-reference book. Second, revised and enlarged edition. Publishing house "Science".
Http://slovari.yandex.ru/~books/TSB/Agitation/ ]
Oleg Borisovich Mozokhin. Statistics of the repressive activities of the security agencies of the USSR.
lost-empire.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=255&Itemid=9
KatynArticleTo all
Additional Information
1. Materials containing evidence: "Beria's note to Stalin" - a fake document ", published in the following journals:
"Historical Sciences", 2012, No. 1, pp. 70 - 85.
"Modern Humanitarian Research", 2012, No. 1, pp. 20 - 35.
"Issues of the Humanities", 2012, No. 2, pp. 123 - 142.
Magazine with an article System analysis "Notes of Beria to Stalin (“Modern Humanitarian Studies”, No. 2) will be published at the end of April this year.
Vladimir Tolts: He was shot on Western Christmas Eve. December 23, 1953. Although Sergei Lavrentievich, his son, assured me and many other journalists and historians that his father had been killed back in June. He, son, repeated this in his memoirs. But now, thanks to the hundreds of documents published on the Beria case, it is clear that this, like many other things composed by his son, is very far from reality.
Finding myself in the early 1980s in the West, where Christmas was celebrated everywhere and, in comparison with the current politically correct times, much more magnificently, I wondered why in the USSR, an atheistic state, the execution was timed to coincide with the eve of the Christmas holidays in the West? Did you want foreign public attention, focused on the upcoming celebrations, not particularly attracted to her? Or is it just a coincidence? Or one more thing: how did they form a “company” of his accomplices, who were executed on the same day? After all, many others were already sentenced next year? ... And this is only part of the questions that we will try to find answers to today - exactly 59 years after the execution on Christmas Eve 1953 of one of the Soviet leaders Lavrenty Beria and six of his entourage ....
So, executions at Christmas. 59 years later.
Now, it seems, it is clear to everyone who is interested in the past why Beria was so afraid of his fellow party members of the Areopagus. And why, if he was really as powerful as they imagined, he, after the death of Stalin, managed to be destroyed first. Even 16 years ago, discussing these issues in one of the Freedom programs, the researcher of the history of state power in the USSR, Professor Rudolf Pikhoya, explained to me:
Rudolf Pihoya:
Why were they afraid of him? - I think that they were afraid of him not only because he exercised this total control - we can judge the degree of this total control by the way he was arrested. This total control at that moment, obviously, he could no longer exercise.
Another thing - for what reasons? Beria had a very serious shortcoming for a party and statesman of the Soviet Union - he had a lot of ideas at that moment.
He interferes in domestic politics. He is actively involved in foreign policy, he climbs into interethnic relations ...
And in this sense, it becomes uncomfortable for everyone.
Secondly, well, do not discount the fact that he is the head of this colossal information system, which was called the Ministry of Internal Affairs, plus the MGB. Beria did not forget that he instructed his archival department to collect materials on the activities of Malenkov, including activities related to repression. Beria was feared because he, having information, could really blow up the then Presidium of the Central Committee.
Why was he arrested in the first place? Because in this "circle of friends" called the Presidium of the Central Committee, relations were always quite tense, and this strip of endless crises that went on from 1953, ended in the end with the October Plenum of 1964, testified that it was always a "terrarium friends."
But Beria in this situation was the weakest link among the entire top party and state leadership. This may sound somewhat unexpected, but I want to draw your attention to the fact that Beria moved to the Ministry of the Interior 8 years after he worked in this department. After 1945, he returned in 1953. People changed, the situation changed, he no longer had the control mechanism that was before.
In addition, Beria united the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security. Formally, this strengthened the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security, but it brought in all the contradictions that had accumulated over the years of independent existence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security. By that time, these departments had existed independently for 10 years and, let's say, they lived very difficultly among themselves, and at times they were simply in open confrontation. That is, his trench - his Ministry of the Interior was not too deep and not too protected. In addition, Beria, of course, did not have support in the party apparatus, they were afraid of him in the state apparatus. All these circumstances made Beria very vulnerable as a figure.
Vladimir Tolts:
Now, when we have access to many of the documents that once only the former chief archivist of Russia, Professor Rudolf Pikhoya, could see, we can try to clarify: the point is not that the “Beria trench” - the united Ministry of Internal Affairs, turned out to be weakened by internal contradictions between the Chekists and the cops among themselves. Judging by the documents, the arrest of Beria turned out to be a brilliant military operation, as a result of which the army outplayed the emvedeshniks. However, as it is now clear from the declassified materials of the investigation, the latter did not show any resistance, and rather soon, and without any tortures that were customary for them, of which many of them were masters, they began to hand over their arrested boss “to the fullest”. And if the power was behind them, they would just as zealously crack down on those who decided on the Anti-Beria plot. So the military operation was not in vain!
Despite the considerable distance, the tank regiments of the Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya divisions were able to quickly and secretly reach the capital and take key positions there before the divisions of the internal troops reacted. (Actually, they did not react.) Air support was organized just in case. Luckily, she didn't need to... The commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel General Artemiev, who was at the command and staff exercises in Kalinin, was promptly removed and replaced by General Moskalenko, loyal to the conspirators. The neutralization of the Kremlin guard and other organizational substitutions went just as quickly and smoothly - Beria's ministerial office was taken by his deputy Kruglov, and the dismissed Prosecutor General Safonov was replaced by Rudenko, who immediately took up investigative actions and legitimized the anti-Beria plot.
It has long been known that not everything went so smoothly. - Although the arrested Beria was quickly and without problems taken out of the Kremlin, the original place of his imprisonment - Aleshkinsky barracks - was recognized as unsafe and vulnerable. I had to move the prisoner to the MVO guardhouse ...
Far less known and analyzed are the problems of formulating charges, the course and tactics of the investigation, determining the circle of accomplices and their arrests and conducting a trial ....
June 26, 1953. PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME SOVIET OF THE USSR.
DECREE“On the criminal anti-state actions of L.P. Beria"
In view of the fact that the criminal anti-state actions of L.P. Beria, aimed at undermining the Soviet state in the interests of foreign capital, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, having considered the report of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on this issue, decides:
1. Deprive L.P. Beria of the powers of the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
2. Remove L.P. Beria from the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and from the post of Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
3. Deprive L.P. Beria of all the titles assigned to him, as well as orders, medals and other honorary awards.
4. The case of the criminal actions of L.P. Beria to submit to the Supreme Court of the USSR.
Vladimir Tolts: So - to transfer to the court before the investigation. (The criminal case, as we now know, was initiated only on June 30).
From the protocol No. 12 of the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of June 29, 1953
1. Entrust the investigation into the case of Beria to the Prosecutor General of the USSR.
2. To oblige Comrade Rudenko to select the appropriate investigative apparatus within a day, reporting on the personal composition to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and immediately begin, taking into account the instructions given at the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, to identify and investigate the facts of hostile anti-party and anti-state activities of Beria through his entourage ( Kobulov B., Kobulov A., Meshik, Sarkisov, Goglidze, Sharia and others), as well as to investigate issues related to the removal of comrade Strokach
Vladimir Tolts:
Timofey Strokach, the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, who was reduced by Beria after Stalin's death to the post of head of the Lviv regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, already scribbled on the 30th in the name of Malenkov that Beria and his henchmen were collecting compromising evidence on the party nomenclature, and Amayak Kobulov, whose name surfaced in the protocol of the Presidium The Central Committee (he was shot almost a year later than Beria) allegedly even said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs would no longer be dependent on party organs.
Well, before the start of the investigation, Lavrenty Pavlovich himself managed to roll out several letters to his former comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Molotov, begging for mercy, repenting, stressing his merits ... In response, yesterday's comrades ordered to take away his pencil, paper and pince-nez ...
But the Kremlin had no time for his prison messages. It was necessary to urgently neutralize the people closest to Beria who could organize resistance. During the day, already on June 27, they arrested the 1st Deputy Beria Bogdan Kobulov and the former 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the Union (he headed the 3rd department in the Beria "big Ministry of Internal Affairs") Sergei Goglidze, the 30th Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and Georgia Pavel Meshik and Vladimir Dekanozov. The other two of those shot on Christmas Day 1953 - the head of the investigative unit of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs Lev Vlodzimirsky (he was arrested only on June 17) and the Minister of State Control Vsevolod Merkulov, who ended up in Butyrka on September 18, were much more limited in terms of their ability to organize resistance to Beria's Kremlin opponents, That's why they weren't arrested right away. Although the former Minister of State Security of the USSR Merkulov was among those listed here, the person closest to Beria. - The co-author of an essay signed with the name of Beria and the author of a pamphlet that praised Lavrenty is the only accomplice who addressed Beria as "you". That, however, did not prevent Vsevolod Nikolaevich from signing up to speak at the plenum of the Central Committee that opened on July 2 on the Beria case. He was not allowed to speak. But another long-time comrade of Beria, Mir Jafar Baghirov, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, spoke and branded, as expected (“ Beria is a chameleon, the worst enemy of our Party. I couldn't figure it out." But this did not prevent him from being shot as Beria's accomplice. True, already in 1956.
In general, at this plenum, all yesterday's comrades and colleagues spoke quite amicably. But since the investigation had not yet begun, they operated on emotions rather than facts.
Vladimir Tolts:
Some authors claim that among Beria's closest collaborators of the post-war period, there was still one person who categorically refused to support the choir of his "friends" - accusers at the Plenum. This is the "father" of the Soviet atomic bomb, Academician Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov.
Immediately after Beria was imprisoned, arrests began of those who became accused in the near-Beria trials and were convicted and sentenced later. 3 days after Beria's arrest, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Solomon Milshtein, who was previously a big shot in the Gulag system, was arrested (He was shot in October 1954.) On June 27, Deputy Minister of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs Konstantin Savitsky was arrested, on August 12 - Deputy Head of the Investigation Department for the Department of Internal Affairs of the Beria "big" Ministry of Internal Affairs Georgy Paramonov, September 25 - former Minister of State Security of Armenia Nikita Krimyan. All of them, together with Alexander Khazan, who was arrested in the same case, were investigators of the Georgian NKVD before the war, who tortured more than a dozen people there under the leadership of Beria. All of them gave extensive evidence against him, his accomplices and each other. All of them were executed after the trial in Tbilisi in November 1955...
Another group of those arrested, whose testimony was regarded by the newly appointed prosecutor Rudenko as extremely important for the upcoming interrogations of Beria, was previously arrested in the "Mingrelian case", but after the death of Stalin, completely rehabilitated and becoming Beria's assistant in the Council of Ministers, Pyotr Sharia (sentenced in September 1954 to 10 years in the Vladimir prison), head of the department in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia Stepan Mamulov (15 years in Vladimirka), Boris Ludwigov - head of the Beria secretariat in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (15 years in Vladimirka, but pardoned and released in 1965), Grigory Ordyntsev - head of the Beria secretariat in the Council of Ministers (in 1954 sentenced to 8 years of exile, released in 1959) and Beria's personal secretary, Colonel Fyodor Mukhanov, who was arrested for "misreporting".
And in the summer of 1953, the arrests of the “special contingent” followed - former illegal immigrants engaged in espionage and terrorist actions abroad. Among them, first of all, the leaders of the operation to assassinate Trotsky Naum Eitingon and Pavel Sudoplatov should be mentioned. Eitingon had already been arrested in 1951 in the "case of a Zionist conspiracy in the MGB", but after Stalin's death he was released, rehabilitated, and Beria appointed him head of a department in the new Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1957 he was given 12 years. He was released only in 1963. Sudoplatov was arrested on August 21, 1953, and he left the Vladimir prison, where he feigned insanity, exactly 15 years later, on August 21, 1968, on the day when Soviet tanks entered Czechoslovakia.
From the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of September 12, 1958:
A special laboratory created to carry out experiments to test the effects of poisons on a living person worked under the supervision of Sudoplatov and his deputy Eitingon from 1942 to 1946, who demanded from the laboratory workers poisons only tested on humans. After the liquidation of the special laboratory, on behalf of Sudoplatov, a new drug with poison was tested several times on living people.
Vladimir Tolts:
It is impossible not to mention another "grand master" of special operations - Yakov Serebryansky, who was arrested at the end of July 1953. Before that, he, a former Socialist-Revolutionary, who became famous for the daring kidnapping of the White Guard General Kutepov in Paris, was arrested twice - in 1921 and in 1941. But each time he was released and amnestied. The authorities needed specialists in secret murders!.. But this time it was not possible to get free: Yakov Isaakovich died in Butyrka during interrogation...
And also, at least briefly, about one group of arrested persons, whose interrogations began even before the first interrogation of Beria. These are his and other accused relatives. Only one list of relatives of those executed on December 23, 1953 includes 35 names and surnames Tam and an elderly mother, sister, husband of sister Beria, wives and children of the other six executed. All were not only interrogated, but also expelled from Georgia and the capitals. Of course, both the son and the wife of Lavrenty himself were arrested. On June 29, she wrote to her husband's former friends - Malenkov, Khrushchev, Voroshilov, Molotov, Kaganovich:
On the 26th of this month, my son [Sergei] was taken away with his family (two children 5 and 2.5 years old and a wife who is 7 months pregnant) and I don't know where they are. Nor do I know what happened to Lavrenty Beria, whose wife I [have been] for more than 30 years.<…>So please call me and talk to me for a few minutes. I can perhaps shed some light on some of the events compromising him. I can’t stay in this state and ignorance for a long time!
If Lavrenty Beria has already made an irreparable mistake, which has caused damage to the Soviet country, and his fate is sealed, give me the opportunity to share his fate, whatever it may be.
I ask you only one thing. Spare my son.
Vladimir Tolts:
Deprived of awards, scientific degrees and titles, admitting during interrogations that his dissertations were largely the fruit of the labors of prisoners from the Sharashka, Sergei Beria, after a year and a half in prison, was exiled to Sverdlovsk with his mother ...
***
The first interrogation of Lavrenty Beria took place only almost 2 weeks after his arrest. It was led by Prosecutor General Rudenko. Excerpts from the protocol:
“Question: You are under arrest for anti-Soviet conspiratorial activity against the Party and the Soviet state. Do you intend to tell the investigation about your criminal activities?
Beria: I categorically deny this.
Vladimir Tolts: Rudenko began from afar: from the service of Beria in the Musavatist counterintelligence, connected, as the investigation believed, with the British. Beria retorted:
The question of working in counterintelligence was raised by Kaminsky in 1937 in the Central Committee of the party, and this accusation against me was recognized as unfounded. This issue was also raised in 1938 in the Central Committee of the party, and this accusation was also not confirmed.<…>
Question: In his testimony, Sharia claims that lately Bonapartist, dictatorial habits have been noticeable on your part. Is this right?
Answer: This is absolutely not true! I can't explain why Sharia says that. I have no personal accounts with Sharia.
Vladimir Tolts: But something at this interrogation, as well as at the next, Beria gradually admitted. Mostly episodes and deeds that could not lead to "the death penalty" as a punishment.
Question: Do you recognize your criminal moral decay?
Answer: There is little. This is my fault.
Question: Do you know Sarkisov? Is this your confidant?
Answer: Yes.
Question: In his testimony, Sarkisov says that he mainly played the role of pimp. Is it so?
Answer: Did something. I will not deny this.
Vladimir Tolts:
And then in many interrogations, the same story with variations - “about a venereal disease”, about lovers at different stages of life, about “raped or not raped” ...
But there were worse things. At one of the interrogations, Beria was presented with the testimony of the head of the toxicological laboratory of the NKVD-MGB, Grigory Mairanovsky, who was arrested in 1951 in the case of the “Zionist conspiracy in the MGB” and in February 1953 was sentenced to ten years in prison for illegal possession of poisons and abuse of office:
During my experiments on the use of poisons, which I tested on those condemned to the Higher M[era] N[punishment]<…>, I came across the fact that some of the poisons can be used to detect the so-called "candor" in persons under investigation. These substances turned out to be chloral scopolamine and phenamine benzedrine (cola-s).
When using chloral scopolamine (CS), I noticed that, firstly, the doses indicated in the pharmacopoeia as lethal, in reality, are not. This has been verified by me many times on many subjects. In addition, I noticed a stunning effect on a person after using the CS, which lasts about an average of about a day. At the moment when complete stupor begins to pass and glimpses of consciousness begin to appear, then at the same time the inhibitory functions of the cerebral cortex are still absent. When conducting the reflexology method at this time (shocks, pinches, dousing with water), the subject can reveal a number of monosyllabic answers to short questions.
When using Cola-s, the subject develops a strong excited state of the cerebral cortex, prolonged insomnia for several days, depending on the dose. There is an irresistible need to speak out.
These data led me to the idea of using these substances during the investigation to obtain the so-called "frankness" from the persons under investigation ...
... For this purpose, the Fedotovs singled out five investigators, whose names I do not remember (one of them seemed to be Kozyrev), as well as three types of persons under investigation: those who confessed, those who did not confess, and those who partially confessed. It was over them that I conducted experiments together with the investigators. Briefly, the investigators informed me about the circumstances of the case and about those issues that were of interest to the investigation ...
Vladimir Tolts:
When these testimonies were read out by Beria, he was indignant:
"This is a monstrous crime, but this is the first time I hear about it."
Vladimir Tolts: He heard a lot during the investigation, and allegedly for the first time at the trial. About the falsification of investigation cases and the torture of those under investigation, in which his accomplices and himself took part, about secret murders and extrajudicial reprisals ... Well, a lot of absurd and unproven, too. For example, that he is an English spy. Or that he was trying to undermine Soviet agriculture. He denied many things. Another tried to blame on accomplices:
I recall that when speaking to me about the case of Meretskov, Vannikov and others, Merkulov presented it from the standpoint of his achievements, that he uncovered an underground government organized almost by Hitler. I believe that Merkulov is the main culprit in the fabrication of this case, and he must bear full responsibility for this.
Vladimir Tolts: This is from the protocol of interrogation of Beria dated October 7, 1953. By the way, it has not yet been published. As the archivists tell me, they probably haven't declassified it yet. However, Khrushchev told about the “secret” of the Meretskov case in his memoirs:
Beria, even during Stalin's lifetime, spoke about the history of Meretskov's arrest and credited his release. “I came to Comrade Stalin and said: “Comrade Stalin, Meretskov is sitting like an English spy. What kind of spy is he? He is an honest man. The war is on, and he is sitting. I could take the lead."<…>And so, - continues Beria, - Stalin said: "That's right, call Meretskov and talk to him." I called him and said: “Meretskov, you wrote nonsense, you are not a spy. You are an honest man, you are a Russian man.” Meretskov looks at me and answers: “I have said everything. I wrote in my own hand that I was an English spy. I can't add anything more."<…>[Beria:] "Go to the cell, sit still, think, sleep, I'll call you."<…>Then, on the second day, I called Meretskov and asked: “Well, what did you think?” He began to cry: “How could I be a spy? I am a Russian person, I love my people.” He was released from prison, dressed in a general's uniform, and he went to command at the front.
Vladimir Tolts:
But no "merits" could save Beria and his accomplices who had betrayed him. They were all doomed...
***
All serious newspapers wrote about their execution in the West. But at that time she attracted much less attention than reports of Beria's arrest. It's still Christmas. Not before that ... And besides, there were some news that fit much more into the usual “Christmas format”. For example, the visit of the British Queen to New Zealand and the grandiose railway accident that happened in that distant country. Yes, and the Russian-language newspapers on Western Christmas were busy with other things there. One of the news of those days was the birth of the heiress of the Russian Imperial House, Maria Vladimirovna ...
We do not have documents confirming the hypothesis that the execution of Beria was specifically timed to coincide with Christmas in order to reduce its resonance abroad. More like New Years. - Normal Soviet stereotype: finish the job by the holidays and report back. And mark it.
My now deceased colleague, who served in the British embassy in Moscow in the first half of the 1950s, told how she and her colleagues were struck by their hitherto unprecedented freedom, relaxedness and jubilation at the Kremlin receptions, starting with New Year's Eve 1954. The Kremlin was celebrating its victory and deliverance from fear. Few of the jubilant winners knew then that this was just the end of the first round. And in the following victims, many of the winners of Beria, who joyfully raised their glasses on New Year's Eve, a week after his execution, will fall.
In order for the label “secret” to actually appear, the state needs good reasons. Most of these cases are state secrets. But many personal archives of famous people become secret at the request of the heirs, who do not want their ancestors to appear in an unflattering light.
The most secret documents became in 1938
A radical change in the classification of information occurred in 1918, when the Main Directorate of Archives was organized under the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. The brochure “Keep the Archives” published by Bonch-Bruevich was distributed through the “Windows of ROSTA” to all state institutions, where, in particular, there was a provision on the secrecy of certain information. And in 1938, the management of all archival affairs was transferred to the NKVD of the USSR, which classified a huge amount of information, numbering tens of thousands of files, as classified. Since 1946, this department has received the name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, since 1995 - the FSB. Since 2016, all archives have been reassigned directly to the President of Russia.
Questions for the royal family
The so-called famous Novoromanovsky archive of the royal family has not been fully declassified, most of which was initially classified by the Bolshevik leadership, and after the 90s, part of the archival documents was widely publicized. It is noteworthy that the work of the archive itself was strictly confidential. And one could guess about his activities only from indirect documents of employees: certificates, passes, payroll records, personal files of employees - that's what was left of the work of the secret Soviet archive. But the correspondence between Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna has not been fully disclosed. Palace materials relating to the relationship between the court and the ministries and departments of the First World War are also not available.
KGB Archives
Most of the KGB archives are classified on the grounds that the operational-search activities of many agents can still cause damage to counterintelligence work, reveal the methodology of its work. Some of the successful cases in the field of terrorism, espionage, smuggling are also mothballed. This also applies to cases related to intelligence and operational work in the GULAG camps.
Stalin's affairs
From the archive of the President of the Russian Federation to the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, 1,700 files were transferred, formed in the 11th inventory of the Stalin Fund, of which about 200 files were classified as secret. Of considerable interest are the cases of Yezhov and Beria, but they were published only in parts, and there is still no complete information on the cases of “executed enemies of the people”.
A confirmation that many more documents are to be declassified is the fact that in 2015, at four meetings of the Interdepartmental Expert Commission on declassifying documents under the Governor of St. Party archives are also a "secret". Of considerable interest to researchers are the resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars or the resolutions of the Council of Ministers, the decisions of the Politburo. But most of the party archives are classified.
New archives and new secrets
The main task of the archive of the President of the Russian Federation, formed in 1991, was to combine documents from the former archive of the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, and then the subsequent period of the reign of Boris Yeltsin. The presidential archive has about 15 million different documents, but only a third of them, five million, are in the public domain today.
Secret personal archives of Vladi, Vysotsky, Solzhenitsyn
The personal funds of the Soviet leader Nikolai Ryzhkov, Vladimir Vysotsky and Marina Vlady are closed to the general public. Do not think that the documents appear classified "secret" only with the help of government officials. For example, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's personal fund, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, is kept secret because the heir - the wife of the writer Natalya Dmitrievna personally decides whether or not to make the documents public. She justified her decision by the fact that Solzhenitsyn's poems are often found in documents, which are not particularly good, and she would not want others to know about it.
In order to make public the materials of the investigation file, according to which Solzhenitsyn ended up in the Gulag, it was necessary to obtain the consent of two archives - the Ministry of Defense and the Lubyanka.
Plan for "secrets"
The head of the Russian Archive, Andrei Artizov, said in one of his interviews: “We are declassifying documents in accordance with our national interests. There is a declassification plan. To make a decision on declassification, three or four experts with knowledge of foreign languages, historical context, state secrets legislation are needed.”
Special commission on declassification
In order to declassify the materials, a special commission was created in each archive. Usually - from three people who decided on what basis to betray or not to give wide publicity to this or that document. Secret materials are of undoubted interest to a wide range of people, but historians warn that working with archives is a delicate matter and requires certain knowledge. This is especially true of secret archival materials. Not many people have access to them - thousands of documents from the times of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union are classified for various reasons.
