Stalin’s Terror Revisited

Studies in Russian and East European History and Society

Series Editors: R. W. Davies, E. A. Rees, M. J. Ilicˇ and J. R. Smith at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham

Recent titles include: Lynne Attwood CREATING THE NEW SOVIET WOMAN Edwin Bacon and Mark Sandle (editors) BREZHNEV RECONSIDERED John Barber and Andrei Dzeniskevich (editors) LIFE AND DEATH IN BESIEGED LENINGRAD, 1941–44 John Barber and Mark Harrison (editors) THE SOVIET DEFENCE-INDUSTRY COMPLEX FROM STALIN TO KHRUSHCHEV Vincent Barnett KONDRATIEV AND THE DYNAMICS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT R. W. Davies SOVIET HISTORY IN THE YELTSIN ERA Linda Edmondson (editor) GENDER IN RUSSIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE James Hughes IN A RUSSIAN PROVINCE Melanie Ilic STALIN’S TERROR REVISITED (editor) WOMEN WORKERS IN THE SOVIET INTERWAR ECONOMY WOMEN IN THE STALIN ERA (editor) Melanie Ilic, Susan E. Reid and Lynne Attwood (editors) WOMEN IN THE KHRUSHCHEV ERA Peter Kirkow ’S PROVINCES Maureen Perrie THE CULT OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE IN STALIN’S RUSSIA E. A. Rees (editor) DECISION-MAKING IN THE STALINIST COMMAND ECONOMY CENTRE-LOCAL RELATIONS IN THE STALINIST STATE, 1928–1941 THE NATURE OF STALIN’S DICTATORSHIP The , 1924–1953 Lennart Samuelson PLANS FOR STALIN’S WAR MACHINE Tukhachevskii and Military-, 1925–1941 Vera Tolz RUSSIAN ACADEMICIANS AND THE REVOLUTION Derek Watson MOLOTOV A Biography J. N. Westwood SOVIET RAILWAYS TO RUSSIAN RAILWAYS Stephen G. Wheatcroft (editor) CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Galina M. Yemelianova RUSSIA AND ISLAM A Historical Survey

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Edited by Melanie Ilic © Editorial matter selection, introduction, chapter 5 Melanie Ilic 2006; all remaining chapters © respective authors 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-4705-5

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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St Martin’s Press LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-52407-5 ISBN 978-0-230-59733-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230597334

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ilic, Melanie, 1962– Stalin’s terror revisited / edited by Melanie Ilic. p. cm. ––(Studies in Russian and East European history and society) Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Stalin, Joseph, 1879–1953. 2. Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza––Purges. 3. State-sponsored terrorism–– . 4. Soviet Union––Politics and government––1936–1953. I. Title. II. Studies in Russian and East European history and society (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)) DK267.I42 2006 947.084'2––dc22 2005058646

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Contents

List of Tables and Figures vi Acknowledgements viii Notes on Contributors x Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1 Melanie Ilic

1 The Soviet Economy and the Launching of the Great Terror 11 R. W. Davies 2 Economic Officials in the Great Terror, 1936–38 38 Oleg Khlevnyuk 3 Soviet Trade Unions and the Great Terror 68 Junbae Jo 4 The Soviet Penal System and the Great Terror 90 Christopher Joyce 5 The Forgotten Five per cent: Women, Political Repression and the Purges 116 Melanie Ilic 6 The Great Terror in the Ukraine, 1936–38 140 Valerii Vasiliev 7 Remembering the Victims of Political Repression: The Purges in Mordoviya 163 Melanie Ilic and Christopher Joyce 8 Recycled Victims: The Great Terror in the Komi ASSR 191 Christopher Joyce

Select Bibliography 221 Index 230 List of Tables and Figures

Tables

1.1 Quarterly increase in industrial production 13 1.2 Rate of growth of industrial production by major products and product groups: first six months of 1936 as compared with first six months of 1935 14 1.3 Index numbers for food products sold on the urban kolkhoz markets, June 1936 17 1.4 Quarterly increase in industrial production, 1936 (in 1926/27 prices as percentage of same period in 1935) 18 2.1 Number of employees of Soviet and economic agencies included in the Central Committee nomenklatura at the beginning of 1939 by date of appointment 57 2.2 Experts with higher education employed in soviet and economic bodies included in the nomenklatura at the beginning of 1939 59 4.1 Number of inmates in Soviet prisons 93 4.2 Prison population in Turkmen SSR, January–July 1938 94 4.3 Purge of the penal administration (selected cases) 99 4.4 Number of prisoners sent from prisons to ITL and ITK 101 4.5 Soviet penal population (July 1937–January 1940) 102 4.6 Utilisation of labour reserves in ITL (%) 104 4.7 Planned expenditure to fulfil Order No. 00447 in the first half of 1938 110 4.8 Number of deaths in ITL, ITK and prisons 111 6.1 ‘Limits’ in the Ukraine 148 7.1 1929–33: summary of dates of sentencing 169 7.2 1929–33: summary of social status of purge victims 171 7.3 1929–33: summary of sentences 173 7.4 Ethnic variations in rates of collectivisation in MASSR (percentage of households collectivised) 174 7.5 Summary of ‘limits’ in Mordoviya ASSR 175 7.6 1937–38: summary of age distribution 176 7.7 1937–38: summary of social status of purge victims 179 7.8 1937–38: summary of dates of sentencing 179

vi Tables and Figures vii

7.9 1937–38: summary of sentences 180 7.10 1937–38: summary of selected cases by prosecuting body and sentence 181 7.11 Summary of executions in Mordoviya ASSR, 1918–51 182 7.12 Summary social profile of those executed in Mordoviya 183 7.13 Women: summary of social status, including execution victims 185 8.1 prisoners and special settlers in Komi 194 8.2 ‘Limits’ in Komi ASSR and selected regions 197 8.3 Proportion of men and women amongst the local population and purge victims 204 8.4 Social status of Great Terror victims in Komi ASSR 205 8.5 Age distribution of Komi population and purge victims 206 8.6 Nationality breakdown of Komi population and purge victims 207 8.7 Number of days between arrest and sentence 211 8.8 Age distribution of those executed or imprisoned 213 8.9 Social status of those executed or imprisoned 214 8.10 Length of time between arrest and sentence: proportion of cases 214 8.11 Length of imprisonments 215

Figures

8.1 Arrests and sentences in Komi ASSR, 1930–53 203 8.2 Breakdown of sentences during 1937–38, Komi ASSR 209 8.3 Purge victims, 1937–38, Komi ASSR 210 Acknowledgements

This book is the outcome of a project undertaken at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), the University of Birmingham, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): grant no. R 000239543, ‘Terror, War Preparations and Soviet Economic Development’; award holders Prof. R. W. Davies and Dr M. Ilič. As part of this project, a workshop was held at CREES in August 2004 to discuss preliminary drafts of the chapters presented in this book. In addition to the contributors to this volume, the editor would like to thank the following scholars for their participation at the workshop: John Barber, Simon Ertz, Yoram Gorlizki, Mark Harrison, Kevin McDermott, Chris Read, Arfon Rees, Lennart Samuelson, Derek Watson, Steve Wheatcroft and Elizabeth White. Melanie Ilič and Bob Davis would also like to thank Marea Arries and Tricia Carr (CREES) for their administrative support and assistance during the project. Preliminary drafts of chapters were presented at a variety of other fora, and the contributors would like to thank the people who participated at these events, which include: the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) annual conference (Cambridge, 2004), the CREES annual conference (Windsor, 2003), and the regular meetings of the SIPS seminar (CREES). Melanie Ilič and Christopher Joyce made a poster presentation on the use of electronic media for the study of Soviet political repression to the Digital Resources in the Humanities conference (Cheltenham, 2003). Melanie Ilič presented her findings at a roundtable on ‘Recent Research on the Great Terror: New Perspectives’ at the VII ICCEES World Congress in Berlin, 2005. Thanks are also due to Steve Wheatcroft, Marc Junge and Kevin McDermott for their participation at this panel. Melanie Ilič’s participation at the ICCEES World Congress was funded by the British Academy Overseas Conference Awards and the University of Gloucestershire. The editor would like to thank Christopher Joyce for his translation and Bob Davies for his editorial guidance on the chapter by Valerii Vasiliev, and Steve Wheatcroft for his translation of and John Westwood for his editorial guidance on the chapter by Oleg Khlevnyuk. The editor would also like to thank Joshua Andy for providing administrative support and John Westwood for compiling the index. Thanks are also due to Tracey

viii Acknowledgements ix

Day for her copy-editing of the final script and Ray Addicott of Chase Publishing Services. Junbae Jo thanks Dr Kayoung Ko for support and assistance during his research trips to . Christopher Joyce acknowledges the assistance provided by Dina Nikolaevna in his research conducted at the GARF Spetsfond. Notes on Contributors

Robert W. Davies is Emeritus Professor and former director of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the University of Birmingham. He has published extensively on the economic history of the Soviet Union. In addition to the five publications included in his multi-volume book series, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia, his recent works include Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era (1997), and (with O. V. Khlevniuk and E. A. Rees, comps and eds) The Stalin–Kaganovich Correspondence, 1931–36 (2003).

Melanie Ilicˇ is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Gloucestershire, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the University of Birmingham. She is author of Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy: From ‘Protection’ to ‘Equality’ (1999), editor of Women in the Stalin Era (2001), and co-editor (with S. E. Reid and L. Attwood) of Women in the Khrushchev Era (2004).

Junbae Jo obtained a BA at Seoul National University in South Korea and has completed a Master’s degree at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the University of Birmingham, on Soviet Trade Unions, 1928–30. He is currently working on a PhD at CREES on Soviet Trade Unions during Stalinist Industrialisation, 1928–37.

Christopher Joyce is a former Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the University of Birmingham. He completed his PhD on The Gulag: 1930–1960. He is author of ‘The Gulag in Karelia, 1929–1941’, in P. R. Gregory and V. Lazarev (eds), The Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag (2003). He is a professional singer and also teaches Russian song repertoire.

Oleg Khlevnyuk is a full-time Researcher based at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) in Moscow. He has published in a number of languages on a variety of aspects of the history of the Stalin era. Recent publications in English include (with Y. Gorlizki) Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (2004), and The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (2004).

x Notes on Contributors xi

Valerii Vasiliev is a full-time Researcher at the Academy of Sciences in Kiev. He specialises in the history of Ukraine in the Soviet period. His publications include (with L. Viola) Kollektivitzatsiya i krest’yanskoe soprotivlenie na Ukraine (noyabr’ 1929–mart 1930gg.) (1997), and (with Yu. Shapoval) Komandiri velikogo golodu: poizdki V. Molotova i L. Kaganovicha v Ukraini ta na Pivnichii Kavkaz, 1932–1933rr. (2001). Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations

AKhU Administrativno-khozyaistvennoe upravlenie; Administrative-Economic Administration (of the NKVD) aktiv Communist Party activist (K)AO (Komi) autonomous oblast’ (M)ASSR/(K)ASSR (Mordoviya) (Komi) Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Bolshevichki women Borot’bist (member of) Ukrainian Nationalist and Socialist Party Bund Jewish social democratic organisation Chrezvychainaya Komissiya; Extraordinary Commission (political police) (later GPU or OGPU) chetvyerka four-person committee(s) ChSIR chleny semei izmennikov rodiny; family members of an enemy of the motherland Comintern Dashnak (member of the) Armenian Nationalist Party dekulakisation expropriation of the Detsist Democratic Centralist Donbass Donetskii ugol’nyi bassein (Donets coal basin) FZMK fabrichno-zavodskie i mestnye komitety; factory trade union committees gorkom city committee of the Communist Party Gosbank Gosudarstvennyi Bank; State Bank State Planning Commission GTU Glavnoe tyuremnoe upravlenie; Main Prison Administration (of the NKVD) GUGB Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti; Main Administration of State Security guberniya provinces

xii Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations xiii

Gulag Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei; (Main Administration of) Labour Camps GUMZ Glavnoe upravlenie mest zaklucheniya; Main Administration of Places of Imprisonment GUShOSDOR Glavnoe upravlenie shosseinykh dorog; Main Administration for Roads inogorodnie residents from other towns ispolkom ispolnitel’nyi komitet; executive committee (of the soviet) ITK ispravitel’no-trudovaya koloniya; corrective- labour colony ITL ispravitel’no-trudovaya lager’; corrective-labour camp ITR inzhenerno-tekhnichskie rabotniki; engineering and technical personnel ITS inzhenerno-tekhnicheskaya sektsiya; engineering and technical sections of the trade unions Kharbintsy Harbin re-emigrants kolkhoz(y) kollektivnoe khozyaistvo; collective farm(s) kolkhozniki collective farm workers kolkhoznitsa woman collective farm worker (member of the) Communist Party youth section Komzag Komitet po zagotovkam sel’sko- khozyaistvennykh produktov; Committee for State Procurement krai territory kraikom/kraikomy territorial committee(s) of the Communist Party rich peasant kustar artisan Mensheviks minority (non-Bolshevik) faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party MOPR International Organisation for Rendering Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution MTS Mashino-traktornaya stantsiya; Machine- Tractor Station narkom(y) (see also PC) Narodnyi Komissar; People’s Commissar(s) Narodniki Populists (of the 1860s and 1870s Russian revolutionary movement) xiv Stalin’s Terror Revisited

Nepmen private traders (during NEP in the 1920s) NKfin Narodnyi Komissariat Finansov; People’s Commissariat of Finance NKlegprom Narodnyi Komissariat Legkoi Promyshlennosti; People’s Commissariat of Light Industry NKles Narodnyi Komissariat Lesnoi Promyshlennosti; People’s Commissariat of the Timber Industry NKmash Narodnyi Komissariat Mashinostroeniya; People’s Commissariat of Engineering NKmestprom Narodnyi Komissariat Mestnoi Promyshlennosti; People’s Commissariat of Local Industry NKpishprom Narodnyi Komissariat Pishchevoi Promyshlennosti; People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry NKPS Narodnyi Komissariat Putei Soobshcheniya; People’s Commissariat of Ways of Communication i.e. of Transport NKsnab Narodnyi Komissariat Snabzhenie; People’s Commissariat of Supply NKsovkhoz Narodnyi Komissariat Zernovykh i Zhivotnovodcheskikh Sovkhozov; People’s Commissariat of Grain and Livestock-rearing State Farms NKsvyaz Narodnyi Komissariat Svyazi; People’s Commissariat of Communications NKTP Narodnyi Komissariat Tyazheloi Promyshlennosti; People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry NKVD Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del; People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs NKvneshtorg Narodnyi Komissariat Vneshnoi Torgovli; People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade NKvodtrans Narodnyi Komissariat Vodnogo Transporta; People’s Commissariat of Water Transport NKzag Narodnyi Komissariat Zagotovok; People’s Commissariat of Procurements NKzem Narodnyi Komissariat Zemledeliya; People’s Commissariat of Agriculture obkom/obkomy provincial committee(s) of the Communist Party Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations xv oblast’/oblasti province(s) oblispolkom provincial executive committee of the Communist Party OChO Operativno-chekistskii otdel; Operational Chekist Department (Third Department) (of the NKVD) OGPU Ob”edinnenoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie; Unified State Political Administration (political police) OIZ Obshchestvo izobretatelei; Society for Inventors OMZ Otdel mest zaklyucheniya; Department for Places of Imprisonment (of the NKVD) okrispolkom okrug executive committee of the Communist Party okrug administrative unit between region and district okruzhkom okrug committee Orgburo Organizatsionnoe byuro; Organisational Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party orgotdel organizatsionnyi otdel; organisational department ORPO Otdel rukovodyashchikh partiinykh organov; (Central Committee) Department of Leading Party Organisations Osoboe Soveshchanie Special Commission otdel/otdely department(s) otdeleniya section, department PC (see also Narkom) People’s Commissar politotdel/politotdely politicheskii otdel; political department(s) POV Pol’ska Organizatsiya Voiskova; Polish Military Organisation profgruporg profsoyuznoi gruppovoi organizator; organisers of trade union groups Prombank Promyshlennyi Bank; Industrial Bank pud measure of weight, equal to 36.1 British pounds raiispolkom district executive committee of the Communist Party raikom district committee of the Communist Party xvi Stalin’s Terror Revisited raion(y) district(s) raiotdel/raiotdely district department(s) of the Communist Party RSFSR Rossiiskaya sovetskaya federativnaya sotsialisticheskaya respublika; Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic RSDLP Russian Social Democratic Labour Party samookhrana prisoner guard SANO sanitarnyi otdel; medical department (of the Gulag) SBU Sluzhba bezopasnosti Ukrainy; Ukraninian security service sel’sovet/sel’sovety village council(s) serednyaki middle peasants, with an average income SEVLON Northern Camps of Special Significance SNK see Sovnarkom SOFIN Soyuz osvobozhdeniya finskikh narodnosti; Finnish Peoples’ Liberation Union sovkhoz sovetskoe khozyaistvo; state farm Sovnarkom (SNK) Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov; Council of People’s Commissars SR/SRs Socialist Revolutionary Stakhanovite highly productive worker stazh length of membership (of the Communist Party) troika/troiki three-person committee(s) TsBITS Tsentral’noe byuro inzherno-tekhnichekikh sektsii; Central Bureau of Engineering and Technical Sections Tsentrosoyuz Vsesoyuznyi tsentral’nyi soyuz potrebitel’skikh obshchestv; All-Union Central Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies TsIK Tsentral’nyi Ispolnitel’nyi Komitet; Central Executive Committee TsSVOIZ Tsentral’nyi sovet vse-soyuznogo obshchestva izobretatelei; Central Council of the All-Union Society for Inventors TsUNKhU Tsentral’noe upravlenie narodno- khozyaistvennogo ucheta; Central Administration of National Economic Records Ukapisty Ukrainian Left Social Democrats Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations xvii

UNKVD Regional Directorate of the NKVD UShOSStroilag Upravlenie shosseino-dorozhno-stroitel’nyi lager; Administration of the Road Construction Camp USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics VOKhR Voenizirovannaya okhrana; Militarised Guard VShPD Vysshaya shkola profdvizheniya; College of the Trade Union Movement VTsSPS Vsesoyuznyi tsentral’nyi sovet professional’nykh soyuzov; All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Zhenotdel Zhenskii otdel; Women’s Department of the Communist Party ZhIR zhen izmennikov rodiny; wives of enemies of the Motherland