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 STALINISM 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 RUSSIA’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 Politburo, 1924–1953 Lennart Samuelson PLANS FOR STALIN’S WAR MACHINE Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 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 Studies in Russian and East European History and Society Series Standing Order ISBN 978 - 0- 333- 71239- 9 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Stalin’s Terror Revisited 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 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world 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 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 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––Soviet Union . 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 Gulag 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).