8. Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992), 123–4; details in I. V. Pavlova, Mekhanizm vlasti i stroitel’stvo stalinskogo sotsializma (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo SO RAN, 2001), 151–64, 196–207 (in Russian).
9. Memoirs by I. V. Kovalev, Commissar for Railroads, in G. Kumanev, Govoryat stalinskie narkomy (Smolensk: Rusich, 2005), 279 (in Russian). On March 10, 1934, the Polutburo appointed Poskrebyshev head of the Special Sector (Decision P3/55/35).
10. Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, ‘Zagadka smerti Stalina,’ Novyi Mir, no. 5 (1991), 194–233 (in Russian).
11. ‘Pravyashchaya Partiya ostavalas’ podpol’noi,’ Istochnik, no. 5/6 (1993), 88–95 (in Russian).
12. Stalin’s speech at the Central Committee’s Plenum on March 3, 1937, page 14 in ‘Materialy fevral’sko-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP(b) 1937 goda,’ Voprosy istorii, no. 3 (1995), 3–15 (in Russian).
13. Kaganovich’s speech at the 17th Party Congress, 1934, quoted in I. V. Pavlova, Stalinizm: stanovlenie mekhanizma vlasti (Novosibirsk: Sibirskii khronograf, 1999), 175 (in Russian).
14. Mar’yamov, Kremlevskii tsenzor, 48–49.
15. Yakov Butovsky et al., in Noveishaya istoriya otechestvennogo kino. 1986–2000. Kino i kontekst. T. 6 (St. Petersburg: Seans, 2004) (in Russian).
16. Literature on the re-evaluation of this data is vast, and growing. See, for instance, Mark Solonin, 22 iyunya, ili Kogda nachalas’ Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina? (Moscow: Yauza, 2005) (in Russian); Anatolii Tsyganok, ‘K kakoi voine gotovilas’ Krasnaya armiya? Chast’ pervaya,’ Polit.ru, June 18, 2006 (in Russian), http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2006/06/16/whichwar.html, retrieved September 4, 2011.
17. Stalin’s editorial note to Timoshenko’s report, dated December 1940, quoted in Vladimir Lota, ‘Alta’ protiv ‘Barbarossy’ (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2004), 262 (in Russian).
18. Anastas Mikoyan, Tak bylo. Razmyshleniya o munuvshem (Moscow: Vagrius, 1999), 354 (in Russian).
19. A. I. Romanov, Nights Are Longest There: A Memoir of the Soviet Security Services, translated by Gerald Brooke (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 178.
20. N. A. Zen’kovich, Tainy kremlevskikh smertei (Moscow: Nadezhda, 1995), 383 (in Russian); Aleksei Teplyakov, ‘Sibir’: protsedura ispolneniya smertnykh prigovorov v 1920-kh—1930-kh godakh,’ Golosa Sibiri. Vypusk chetvertyi (Kemerovo: Kuzbassvuzizdat, 2006), 213–77 (in Russian).
21. Merkulov’s testimony in 1953 (APRF, Fond 3, Opis’ 24, Delo 472, L. 57), quoted in Nikita Petrov and Marc Jansen, ‘Stalinskii pitomets’—Nikolai Yezhov (Moscow: Rosspen, 2008), 184 (in Russian).
22. ‘The Hunter,’ Time, March 22, 1948.
23. All of them are mentioned in the text or figures. Biographies in N. V. Petrov and K. V. Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 1934–1941. Spravochnik (Moscow: Zven’ya 1999), 148–9, 167–8, 233–4, 289, 296–8, and 431–2 (in Russian).
24. Nikita Petrov, ‘Samyi obrazovannyi palach,’ Novaya gazeta. Pravda ‘GULAGa’, no. 12 (33), August 30, 2010 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag12/00.html, retrieved September 4, 2011.
25. Romanov, Nights Are Longest There, 55.
26. Politburo decision P64/82, dated September 1938. Document No. 345, in Lubyanka: Stalin i Glavnoe upravlenie gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti NKVD, 1937–1938, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 554–55 (Moscow: Materik, 2004) (in Russian).
27. Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet Struggle, 1941–1945 (London: Hodder Arnold, 2005), 67.
28. Politburo decision P67/52, dated January 11, 1938. Document No. 10 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD–NKGB–GUKR ‘SMERSH.’ 1939–1946, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 16–18 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2006) (in Russian).
29. Note on the NKVD personnel on January 1, 1940. Document No. 21, in A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, Lubyanka. VCheKa–OGPU–NKVD–NKGB–MGB–MVD–KGB. 1917–1960. Spravochnik (Moscow: Demokratiya, 1997), 258–60 (in Russian).
30. Biography of V. M. Bochkov (1900–1981) in Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 116.
31. Biography of A. N. Mikheev (1911–1941) in Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 306.
CHAPTER 3
Laws and Tribunals
The OO and later SMERSH cases were primarily based on Article 58 (and, in part, 59), the special section of the Russian Federation (RSFSR) Criminal Code adopted in December 1926, which described various ‘counter revolutionary’ or ‘state’ crimes.1 These were ‘political crimes’ that existed only in the Soviet legal system and were the only type that the NKVD investigated. Another unique character of the Soviet legal system was that not only a perpetrator of political crimes was punished, but also members of his/her family, especially if it was an OO/SMERSH case. The trials of OO/SMERSH cases were also unique. Military tribunals tried only cases of low-ranking servicemen, while high-ranking military officers were tried by the highest military tribunal, the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court or, if there was no real proof of the crime, by the NKVD Special Board which was an extra-judicial court consisting of the NKVD Commissar and his deputies.
Counter revolutionary Crimes
Article 58 begins with a definition of counter revolutionary crimes, unique to Soviet law:
1. Counter revolutionary Crimes
58.1. Shall be considered counter revolutionary any act directed to the overthrow, subversion, or weakening of the worker-peasant soviets or of governments elected by them on the basis of the Constitution of the USSR and constitutions of the union republics, as well as any act intended to subversion or weakening of the internal security of the USSR and of the basic economic, political, and national gains of the proletarian revolution.
By virtue of the international solidarity of the interests of all toiling masses, such actions are considered counter revolutionary also when directed against any other state of the toiling masses, albeit not a part of the USSR.2
Paragraph 58-2 states that ‘a military revolt or taking power by force’ is punished by death or by declaring the perpetrator ‘an enemy of working people’, depriving him of Soviet citizenship, and confiscating his property. Additionally, riots were punished by imprisonment or death under Article 59, paragraphs 2 and 3. Paragraph 58-6 covers espionage, ‘i.e., transmission, theft, and collection for the purpose of transmission of information that in content is a specially protected state secret to foreign states, to counter revolutionary organizations or to individuals’. Paragraph 58-8 states that ‘committing terrorist acts against representatives of the government or organizations of workers and peasants [in other words, the Communist Party], and participation in such acts’ is punishable by death. Paragraph 58-10 prohibits ‘propaganda and agitation aimed to overthrow, undermine or weaken the Soviet government’. This crime was punishable by death during wartime, and in 1941–42, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (as World War II is known in Russia), the number of sentences for ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ (96,741) reached almost 50 per cent of all convictions for ‘counterrevolutionary’ crimes (199,817).3 However, ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ in a written form was punished under Article 59-7.