"Excesses are not permitted": Mass terror and stalinist governance in the late 1930s

Russian Review

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 113-138

  Arch Getty, J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33749838104     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9434.00208     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. On the Stalinist judicial system see Peter Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin (New York, 1996)
2. Gábor Tamás Rittersporn, Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications: Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR, 1933-1953 (New York, 1991)
3. and idem, "Soviet Officialdom and Political Evolution: Judiciary Apparatus and Penal Policy in the 1930s," Theory and Society 2 (1984)
4. See also "O vnesudebnykh organakh," Izvestiia TsK KPSS, no. 19 (1989): 80-82
5. TsA FSB collection of documents, and published in A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, GULAG (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei), 1917-1960 (Moscow, 2000), 433. Although many people who were not kulaks fell victim to this operation, we shall here retain the title "kulak operation." This was the contemporary usage in party and police documents and serves to distinguish it from other mass terror campaigns. Other "mass operations" in 1937-38 targeted persons of non-Soviet citizenship or national heritage including Poles, Germans, Latvians, Koreans, Chinese, and others, accounting for an additional 335,513 sentences (including 247,157 executions). For space considerations, and because these "national operations" had different targets, causes, and procedures, they are not treated here
6. For information on them see Terry Martin, "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing," Journal of Modern History 70 (December 1998): 22
7. A. E. Gur'ianov, ed., Repressii protiv poliakov i pol'skikh grazhdan (Moscow, 1997), 33
8. and I. L. Shcherbakova, ed., Nakazannyi narod: Repressii protiv rossiiskikh nemtsev (Moscow, 1999), 44
9. In the course of this research, we have located the famous 1939 Stalin directive on "physical methods" of interrogation mentioned by Khrushchev in his 1956 Secret Speech (see I. V. Kurilov, N. N. Mikhailov, and V. P. Naumov, eds., Reabilitatsiia: Politicheskie protsessy 30-50-kh godov [Moscow, 1991], 40)
10. Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism: New Directions (London, 2000), 258
11. See J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: the Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (New York, 1985), 202-3, for a similar observation
12. For examples of Western studies that have emphasized a Stalin-focused, planned, and centralized terror see Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, rev. ed. (New York, 1973)
13. O. V. Khlevniuk, 1937-i: Stalin, NKVD i sovetskoe obshchestvo (Moscow, 1992)
14. and David J. Nordlander, "Origins of a Gulag capital: Magadan and Stalinist control in the early 1930s," Slavic Review 57 (Winter 1998)
15. For views stressing lack of planning and limits on central control see J. Arch Getty and Roberta Thompson Manning, eds., Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (New York, 1993)
16. Robert Weinberg, "Purge and Politics in the Periphery: Birobidzhan in 1937," Slavic Review 52 (Spring 1993)
17. Roberta T. Manning, "Government in the Soviet Countryside in the Stalinist Thirties: The Case of Belyi Raion in 1937," Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, 301
18. and Robert Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941 (New Haven, 1996)
19. O. Khlevniuk, "The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938," in Soviet History, 1917-53: Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies, ed. Julian Cooper, Maureen Perrie, and E. A. Rees (London, 1995), 165
20. See also O. V. Khlevniuk, "Les mechanismes de la 'Grande Terreur': des années 1937-1938 au Turkmenistan," Cahiers du Monde Russe 39, no. 1-2 (1998)
21. Paul Hagenloh, "'Socially Harmful Elements' and the Great Terror," in Stalinism: New Directions, 286-308
22. David Shearer, "Crime and Social Disorder in Stalin's Russia - A Reassessment of the Great Retreat and the Origins of Mass Repression," Cahiers du Monde Russe 39, no. 1-2 (1998)
23. Thurston, Life and Terror, 62
24. Roberta T. Manning, "Massovaia operatsiia protiv 'kulakov i prestupnykh' elementov: Apogei Velikoi Chistki na Smolenshchine," in Stalinizm v rossiiskoi provintsii: Smolenskie arkhivnye dokumenty v prochtenii zarubezhnykh i rossiiskikh istorikov, ed. E. V. Kodin (Smolensk, 1999), 230-54
25. Roberta T. Manning, "The Great Purges in a Rural District: Belyi Raion," in Stalinist Terror, 168-97
26. idem, "The Omnipresent Conspiracy: On Soviet Imagery of Politics and Social Relations in the 1930s," in Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath - Essays in Honour of Moshe Lewin, ed. Nicholas Lampert and G. T. Rittersporn (London, 1992)
27. Merle Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (Cambridge, MA, 1958), 450
28. O. Khlevniuk, "Stalinism and the Stalin Period after the 'Archival Revolution,'" Kritika 2 (Spring 2001): 325
29. A. V. Afanasev, ed., Oni ne molchali (Moscow, 1991)
30. Solomon, Criminal Justice, chap. 7
31. For a discussion of similar centralizing trends in many fields that also came at the expense of local prerogatives see J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, 1999), pt. 1
32. The phrase "campaign justice" is from Solomon, Criminal Justice, chap. 3
33. A partial English translation appears in Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 473-80
34. A. I. Akulov, "Tsirkuliar," 31 March 1932, TsA FSB, f. 100, op. 1, por. 1, l. 88
35. "Instruktsiia vsem partiino-sovetskim rabotnikam i vsem organam OGPU i procuratury," RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 922, ll. 50-55
36. "O troikakh OGPU," 7 May 1933, ibid., l. 16
37. On differences between Iagoda and Vyshinskii see S. Davies, "The Crime of 'Anti-Soviet Agitation' in the Soviet Union in the 1930's," Cahiers du Monde Russe 39, no. 1-2 (1998)
38. and Shearer, "Crime and Social Disorder."
39. In August 1937, USSR Procurator Vyshinskii suspended procuratorial approval for arrests in the mass operations, making them legally possible (A. F. Stepanov, Rasstrel po limitu: Iz istorii politicheskikh repressii v TASSR v gody "ezhovshchiny" [Kazan, 1999], 10)
40. "Instruktsiia vsem partiino-sovetskim rabotnikam i vsem organam OGPU i procuratury," 8 May 1933, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 922, ll. 50
41. Lynne Viola, "The Campaign to Eliminate the Kulak as a Class, Winter 1929-1930: A Reevaluation of the Legislation," Slavic Review 45 (Fall 1986), was the first to document the inclination of local leaders to use force in the countryside regardless of Moscow's current policy
42. "Ob organizatsii Soiuznogo narkomata vnutrennykh del" (Politburo resolution), ibid., d. 939, l. 2
43. Stalin participated personally in the drafting of these regulations (Politburo resolution of 1 April 1934, ibid., d. 943, l. 10)
44. See Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 9401, op. 1, d. 4157, ll. 201-3, 205
45. "Tsirkuliar," 23 December 1935, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 974, ll. 12, 108
46. See Martin, "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing," 848-49
47. Vyshinskii letter to Stalin and Molotov, 13 May 1935, RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 886, ll. 29-31
48. "O kolichestve osuzhdennykh po delam organov NKVD za 1930-1936 gody," GARF, f. 9401, op. 1, d. 4157, ll. 201-5
49. For analysis of these data see J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, and V. N. Zemskov, "Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence," American Historical Review 98 (October 1993)
50. Ezhov's speech to the February-March 1937 Central Committee Plenum, 2 March 1937, in Voprosy istorii, 1994, no. 10:15
51. For other examples see Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda, and Dissent, 1934-1941 (New York, 1997), chap. 6
52. J. Arch Getty, "State and Society Under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s," Slavic Review 50 (Spring 1991)
53. See J. A. Getty, "Afraid of Their Shadows: The Bolshevik Recourse to Terror, 1932-1938," in Stalinismus vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg Neue Wege der Forschung, ed. Manfred Hildermeier and Elisabeth Mueller-Luckner (Munich, 1998)
54. and Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999), chap. 7
55. On rumors in Stalinist society see L. Viola, "The Peasant Nightmare - Visions of Apocalypse in the Soviet Countryside," Journal of Modern History 62 (December 1990)
56. and Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, 166-83
57. V. P. Danilov and Roberta T. Manning, eds., Tragediia sovetskoi derevnii, vol. 5, (Moscow, forthcoming 2002)
58. "Dokladt. Zhdanova," Voprosy istorii, 1993, no. 5:3-23
59. See Steven Merritt, "The Great Purges in the Soviet Far East, 1937-1938" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Riverside, 2000)
60. Iurii A. Poliakov, Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1937 g. (Moscow, 1991), 106-15
61. Voprosi istorii, 1993, no. 6:15 (Khataevich)
62. See Getty, "State and Society," 18-36
63. "Polozhenie o vyborakh Verkhovnyi Sovet SSSR," Pravda, 2 July 1937
64. "Ob antisovetskikh elementakh," Politburo resolution of 2 July 1937, Trud, 4 June 1992
65. Stepanov, Rasstrel po limitu, 14
66. Mikhail Shreider, NKVD iznutri: Zapiski chekista (Moscow, 1995), 42. Shreider's account is secondhand and is probably not entirely accurate. He reports that Omsk NKVD chief Salyn' openly protested the setting of target figures, to which Ezhov reacted by arresting him at the meeting itself. In fact, Salyn' was not removed from office for several days and not arrested for several weeks
67. See N. V. Petrov and K. V. Skorkin, eds., Kto rukovodil NKVD, 1934-1941: Spravochnik (Moscow, 1999), 373-37
68. Most often they appear in the literature as "quotas." See, for example, Khlevniuk, "Objectives," 162-63
69. although the Russian version retains limity (O. V. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro: mekhanizmy politicheskoi vlasti v 1930-e gody [Moscow, 1996], 190-91)
70. Moskovskie novosti, 21 June 1992
71. V. M. Samosudov, Bol'shoi terror v Omskom Priirtysh'e, 1937-1938 (Omsk, 1998), consists largely of summaries and extracts from troika protocols
72. See, for example, the report to Ezhov: "Dokladnaia zapiska ob itogakh massovykh operatsii provedennykh po linii UGB Tatarskoi ASSR," January 1938, in Stepanov, Rasstrel po limitu, 86-117. Most of this report consists of descriptions of various enemy organizations
73. Calculated from Politburo protocols (special folders): RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, dd. 21-23
74. Samosudov, Bol'shoi terror, 160-61, 241
75. Nikolai Il'kevich, "Rasstreliany v Viaz'me: Novoe o M. N. Goretskom," Krai Smolenskii 1-2 (1994): 129-44
76. and Khlevniuk, "Les mechanismes," 204-6. Nikita Petrov believes that additional increase permissions were given orally or by telegrams and puts the excess shooting figure at about thirty thousand (personal communication). Such evidence is not currently available to researchers
77. See Khlevniuk, "Les mechanismes," 204
78. See Manning, "Massovaia operatsiia," 239-41
79. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 80
80. Khlevniuk, "Les mechanismes," 203
81. For another view, in which spontaneous excesses were part of a Stalin plan, see Khlevniuk, "Objectives," 167
82. Although the evidence on this point is only suggestive, Ezhov may have transformed "limits" into "quotas" for provinces and even districts within them. Molotov recalled that "Ezhov was accused because he began to name quantities [of arrests] by provinces, and in the provinces numbers by district. In some provinces they had to liquidate not less than two thousand, in some district not less than fifty people. ... That is what he was shot for. There was no monitoring over it." See Feliks Ivanovich Chuev and Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov, Sto sorok besed s Molotovym: Iz dnevnika F. Chueva (Moscow, 1991), 399
83. See, for example, the breakdowns for Omsk in Samosudov, Bol'shoi terror, 160-61, 241
84. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, 1998). Scott discussses Stalinist collectivization in these terms, arguing that it failed because as a "centralized high modernist solution" it could not encompass the complexities and peculiarities of agriculture and thus failed both to achieve the state's goal of scientifically advanced farming or to put food on the table (pp. 193-222). Scott notes that other goals such as space exploration, transportation planning, flood control, or aircraft manufacturing were more susceptible to centralized high modernist treatments. On the other hand, it is not at all clear that these efforts differed from collectivization in degree of complexity. Collectivization was different from them insofar as it was implemented by a quasimilitary and violent campaign that produced more chaos than centralization or legibility in the end. It may be that efforts to achieve standardization, centralization, control, or concerted national effort are doomed to failure if implemented by their antithesis, a wild and uncontrollable military offensive whose wounds and arbitrariness last forever
85. See Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 194-98
86. and Joseph Edward Davies, Mission to Moscow (New York, 1941)
87. Molotov made this point in his conversations with Feliks Chuev (Chuev and Molotov, Sto sorok besed, 390, 93, 413-14)
88. Getty, "Afraid of Their Shadows."
89. See G. T. Rittersporn, "New Horizons: Conceptualizing the Soviet 1930s," Kritika 2 (Spring 2001): 309-10, for a discussion of this point
90. Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (New York, 1998), xxviii
91. See Rittersporn, Stalinist Simplifications, for this argument in detail
92. Moshe Lewin, "Bureaucracy and the Stalinist State," in Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, ed. Lewin and Ian Kershaw (New York, 1997), 56, 65