The execution of the “bloody” Stalinist People's Commissar 65 years ago was staged. Khrushchev and Malenkov hid their former comrade-in-arms in South America, researchers say.
According to the official version, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and in the same year on December 23, 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 Army General Moskalenko. The document has the title: “Act. 1953, December 23 days.”
The document does not raise doubts about its authenticity, unless, of course, it is compared with other, similar documents. Now such an opportunity has arisen. And, as the archives show, official data from those years too often diverges from reality. Therefore, the attention of historians is also attracted by other versions about the fate of Beria, living in the form of rumors. Two of them are especially sensational.
The first assumes that Beria somehow managed to avoid the trap prepared against him during the conspiracy of his former comrades, or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America. And thus he was able to stay alive.
The second rumor says that during the arrest of Beria, the marshal and his guard 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 should you believe? Especially in light of the fact that no one has ever seen Beria’s ashes, and no one knows where he is buried. Not long ago, two versions were confirmed that Beria had survived after all.
Marshal's Trap
As noted by a famous researcher Soviet history Nikolai Zenkovich, Khrushchev loved 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 convinced first G.M. Malenkov and N.A. Bulganin, and then the rest of the members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, that if Beria was not eliminated in June 1953, 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. The only thing that was difficult was the technique of carrying out the operation against Beria. The normal procedure - open discussion of the accusations against the marshal in the Presidium of the Central Committee or at the party plenum - was no longer necessary. There was a danger that as soon as Beria found out about the accusations against him, he would immediately carry out a coup d’etat and shoot all his rival comrades-in-arms. According to one very widespread 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 27. Although, as N. Zenkovich notes, these rumors could have been spread with the aim of convincing the public that the villain Beria himself was preparing a conspiracy against the leadership of the USSR, and the “core” of the Party Central Committee had no choice but a preemptive strike.
Thus, in the fight against Beria, the conspirators had only one option left: 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 army’s summer maneuvers (interestingly, there is no mention of the maneuvers in the memoirs of the military themselves). Several Siberian divisions were also supposed to participate in the exercises of the Moscow Military District (MVO) (just in case there were supporters of Beria 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 led by Marshal Zhukov (he had already been transferred from Sverdlovsk to Moscow and served as Deputy Minister of Defense) and the commander of the Moscow Military District, General K. S. Moskalenko, was also present in the hall.
Malenkov declared the joint meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers open. And he immediately turned to Zhukov so that he “on behalf of the Soviet government” would detain Beria. Zhukov commanded Beria: “Hands up!” Moskalenko and other generals drew their weapons to prevent provocation from Beria.
The generals then took Beria into custody and took him to the next room, next to Malenkov’s office. At Khrushchev’s suggestion, they immediately relieved him of his post as Prosecutor General of the USSR and appointed Rudenko, Khrushchev’s man, in his place.
Then the Presidium of the Central Committee discussed the issue of future fate Beria: what to do with it next and where to put it? There were two solutions: keep Beria under arrest and conduct an investigation, or immediately shoot him, and then retroactively formalize the death sentence legally. Making the first decision was dangerous: Beria had the entire state security apparatus and internal troops behind him, and he could easily be released. There were no legal grounds to make the second decision - to immediately shoot Beria.
After discussing both options, we came to the conclusion: Beria still needs to be shot immediately to eliminate the possibility of a riot. The executor of this sentence is in the same next room– in Khrushchev’s stories, General Moskalenko spoke once, Mikoyan on another, and even Khrushchev himself on the third (he added: further investigation into 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 matter was discovered in the archives by Hero Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of the USSR Writers' Union Vladimir Karpov. Studying the life of Marshal G. Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute over whether Zhukov participated in the arrest of Beria. The secret, handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found say directly: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So, the statement of Beria’s son Sergo that Zhukov had nothing to do with his father’s arrest is untrue!
In the opinion of historians, Karpov’s find is also important because it refutes the rumor about Nikita Khrushchev’s heroic shot during the detention of the all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs.
Zhukov personally did not see what happened after the arrest and therefore wrote what he learned from hearsay, namely: “After the trial, Beria was shot by the same people who guarded him. During the execution, Beria behaved very poorly, like the very last coward, cried hysterically, knelt down and, finally, soiled himself all over. In a word, he lived disgustingly and died even more disgustingly.” Note: this is what Zhukov was told, but he himself did not see it.
And here’s what military journalist S. Gribanov managed to learn from the “real” “author” of the bullet for Beria, then Colonel General P. F. Batitsky: “We took Beria down the stairs to the dungeon. That’s when I shot him.”
Everything would be fine, notes researcher Nikolai Dobryukha, if other witnesses to the execution, and General Batitsky himself, said the same thing everywhere. Although, inconsistencies could also occur due to negligence or the literary fantasies of researchers. One of whom, for example, the son of the revolutionary Antonov-Ovseenko, wrote that they allegedly executed Beria in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters, in the presence of Prosecutor General Rudenko, who read out the verdict. The marshal was shot by General Batitsky. After the doctor examined the body, “Beria’s body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium.”
Everything would be fine, the researchers note, but where are the documents confirming the execution and burning of Beria? What remains a mystery, for example, is that, as follows from the execution act dated December 23, 1953, for some reason the obligatory doctor in such cases was not present at Beria’s death. And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not coincide. No one saw another act - cremation, as well as the body of the person shot. Of course, with the exception of those 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 same court, told him personally: “I was part 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, former Secretary of the Central Committee Mikhailov, who stated more frankly: “A completely different person was sitting in the courtroom.” But then he explained: either an actor was put in the dock instead of Beria, or the marshal himself changed beyond recognition during the arrest? It is possible, some researchers suggest, that Beria could have doubles. ((A man with a mustache from Argentina
And now about the South American trace of the post-execution biography of Lavrentiy Beria.
In 1958, Beria's son Sergo and wife Nina Teymurazovna lived in Sverdlovsk under the wife's maiden name - Gegechkori (immediately after her husband's arrest, Nina Teymurazovna ended up in Butyrka prison). One day, in her mailbox, Nina Teymurazovna discovered a photograph in which Lavrentiy Beria was depicted with some lady on May Square in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. The photo was taken against the background presidential palace. As N. Zenkovich describes, after seeing the photo, Nina Teymurazovna said: “This is the husband.”
In the mailbox, along with the photo, there was also a mysterious message: “In Anaklia, on the shores of the Black Sea, a person with very important information about your father will be waiting for you.” Nina Teymurazovna invented an illness for herself, received sick leave and flew to Georgia to meet with the unknown bearer of the news. However, no one came to the meeting. Probably, the anonymous person wanted to see Beria’s son, Sergo.
The story of the mysterious photo did not end there. Many decades later, archival documentary footage 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 idly walking passers-by, a walking man in a light raincoat and a dark hat is clearly visible. At the moment when he passes directly in front of the camera operator, 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 footage was almost the same: “This man looks like Beria!”
To make sure that the newsreels were not a skillful fake, the 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 filming was real.
Then the film was shown to specialists who compared the external data of the person filmed in Argentina with the data of Beria, so that they could give an opinion on their possible similarity, or vice versa. Using computer analysis, experts studied the face of the mysterious “Argentine” and Lavrentiy Beria and concluded with a probability of more than 90% that this is the same person.
To avoid a possible mistake, in the event that the man from Argentina could turn out to be a double or simply a person very similar to Beria, the film was also given to psychodynamic specialists to study. Based on a special technique that makes it possible to identify it based on normal human movements mental characteristics and on this basis to determine the psychotype of a person as a whole, experts, having compared the footage of the Argentine shooting with the footage of Beria’s lifetime, came to the conclusion that they depict the same person. It is simply impossible to fake movements so skillfully, even if desired, experts say.
It turns out that Beria, who was allegedly shot, in fact, after his official death, for a long time remained alive and living 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 a coincidence of the place and time of the shooting and the fact that, while passing by the operator, the man turned his head and “looked” straight into the camera lens. This gives reason to assume that the shooting was done intentionally.
For what purpose could this be done? Probably in this way to remind those who continued to govern the Soviet country at that time about the existence of Beria. 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 in South America? The most likely version here is that many of the comrades of Stalin and Beria, who stood at the helm of the USSR after the death of the leader, were themselves afraid that Beria, having for many years had enormous opportunities to collect incriminating evidence on the entire Soviet elite, would 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 people had too much fear of his former power. Apparently, this is why Stalin’s heirs and Beria’s former comrades-in-arms agreed on a “neutral” option: saving the marshal’s life, but sending him to live as a private citizen away from the USSR, as was previously done with Leon Trotsky.
Is this the reason why 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 materials from “Soviet Belarus”, Zenkovich N. A. “Attempts and stagings: from Lenin to Yeltsin”, Sergo Beria. “Evening Moscow” “My father is Lavrentiy Beria”, TRC “Russia”
09/21/2018
One thing is clear: if the party elite committed murder, in some way this person was very dangerous to them. Yes, he had all the powers given by Stalin. Is that really possible? Yes, and dangerous.
In addition, HE saw who killed Stalin, poisoned Borjomi with rat poison or arsenic. That’s why KHRUSHCHEV was removed, he didn’t even expect that this would happen in a row, otherwise he would have resisted, the NKVD was behind him. G.T.
And not with terrible plans to throw her off her beloved throne - Beria made it clear that he was not going to do this.
Of course, he was potentially dangerous - but they don’t kill us for that. At least they don’t kill like that, openly and openly. The normal Soviet move in the struggle for power was worked out back in 1937 - 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 unnoticed. It looks like the killers were in a hurry...
They were afraid that the truth would be revealed about how Stalin died!!! G.T.
Khrushchev, in his revelations to foreign interlocutors, is disingenuous in some ways. He presents the decision to immediately execute 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 should be shot immediately”...
"We!" So now we will believe that nine people, middle-aged, indecisive and rather cowardly, will rubber-stamp such a decision - to shoot without trial one of the top officials of the state. Never in their lives will these people, who have worked meekly all their lives under a strong leader, take on such responsibility! They will drown the issue in discussions and in the end, even if there are grounds, it will all end with deportation somewhere to Baku or Tyumen to the post of director of a plant - let him seize power there if he can.
So it was, and there is convincing evidence of this.
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 - MENDELI were relatives, one of the couple, Malenkov. Who lays claim to the MONARIAL THRONE!! G.T.
This draft has been published, and it makes it very clear what was to be discussed at this meeting. 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, perhaps, if the discussion goes according to in the right direction, also relieve him from the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, appointing him as Minister oil industry as a last resort.
That's all. There was no talk of any arrest, much less any execution without trial. And it is difficult to even imagine, with all the strain of imagination, what could have happened so that the Presidium, contrary to the prepared scenario, would impromptu make such a decision. This couldn't happen. And if it couldn’t, it means it didn’t exist. And the fact that this did not happen, that this issue was not considered at all by the Presidium, is evidenced by the fact that the draft was found in Malenkov’s archive - otherwise it would have been handed over for formalization of the decision and then destroyed.
So there was no "we". Beria was first killed, and then the Presidium was presented with a fait accompli, and he had to get out of it by covering up the killers.
But who exactly? THE ONE who saw Stalin's murderers! Khrushchev!
But here it is very easy to guess.
Firstly, it is easy to calculate the number two - the performer. The fact is that - and no one denies this - the army was widely involved in the events that day. In the incident with Beria, as Khrushchev himself admits, the commander of the air defense of the Moscow Military District, Colonel General Moskalenko and the chief of staff of the Air Force, Major General Batitsky, were directly involved, and Marshal Zhukov himself does not seem to refuse.
But, more importantly, for some reason, apparently, to stage a fight against “Beria’s units,” troops were brought into the capital. And then it comes out very important name- 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 number one. Who poured dirt on Beria the most, completely losing self-control and presenting him as a fiend of hell?
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. By the way, not only Bulganin, but also Moskalenko and Batitsky were people from his team.
Bulganin and Khrushchev - we have already met this combination somewhere. 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.
Stalin's archive as such does not exist - all his documents have disappeared. On March 7, some special group, as Svetlana claims, “on the orders of Beria” (but this is not a fact) removed all the furniture from Nizhnyaya Dacha. Later, the furniture was returned to the dacha, but without the papers. All documents from the Kremlin office and even from the leader’s safe also disappeared. Where they are and what happened to them is still unknown.
Naturally, it is believed that Beria, as the super-powerful chief of the special services, took possession of the archives, especially since the security was subordinate to the MGB department. Yes, but the guards were subordinate to state security while the person being protected was alive.
I wonder who the Kuntsevo dacha was in charge of after Stalin’s death? Also the MGB department or, perhaps, this empty shell was managed by some government administrative and economic department? According to another version, the entire leadership of that time took part in the seizure of the archive, concerned about the liquidation of the dossiers that Stalin collected on them.
Beria, naturally, was also afraid that incriminating evidence against him, located in these archives, would be made public. It’s also hard to believe - with so many accomplices, someone would certainly have let it slip after so many years.
Who knew nothing about the fate of the archive was Malenkov. Why - more on this a little later. There are two options left: either Khrushchev or Beria. If we assume that the archive fell into the hands of Khrushchev, then its fate is most likely sad. There could have been a lot of compromising evidence on Nikita Sergeevich - participation in Yezhov’s repressions alone was worth it! Neither he nor his comrades 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 the situation here is completely different.
He had nothing to fear from some mysterious “documents” in the Stalinist archive, which, if made public, could destroy him - there was hardly anything there for him, even if through the efforts of the entire jurisprudence of the USSR, despite the fact that it was very necessary, they couldn’t dig up material for one more or less decent sub-execution case.
But he was vitally interested in compromising information on Stalin’s former comrades - both for future possible opportunities and to ensure his own safety.
Indirectly, his son Sergo testifies that the archive most likely fell into the hands of Beria. After the murder of his father, he was arrested, and one day he was called in for questioning, and in the investigator’s office he saw Malenkov. This was not the first visit of the distinguished guest; he had already come once and persuaded Sergo to testify against his father, but was not persuaded. However, this time he came for something different.
“Maybe you can help with something else? - he said it somehow very humanly. -Have you heard anything about the personal archives of Joseph Vissarionovich?
-“I have no idea,” I answer. - We never talked about this at home.
- Well, of course... Your father also had archives, huh?
- I don’t know either, I’ve never heard of it.
- How did you not hear?! - here Malenkov could no longer restrain himself. - He must have archives, he must!
He was obviously very upset."
That is, not only Stalin’s archives disappeared, but also Beria’s archives, and Malenkov knew nothing about their fate. Of course, theoretically, Khrushchev could have confiscated and liquidated them, but to do it in such a way that no one would see, hear or know anything? Doubtful. Stalin's archives were all right, but Beria's archives were completely impossible to secretly destroy. And Khrushchev was not the kind of person to carry out such an operation and not spill the beans.
So, most likely, Beria took possession of Stalin’s archive. I repeat once again that it made no sense for him to destroy it, much less destroy his own archive, and there are nine chances out of ten that he hid all the papers somewhere. But where?
Chesterton wrote in one of his stories about Father Brown: “Where does a smart man hide a leaf? In the forest". Exactly. Where were the relics of the great Russian saint Alexander of Svirsky hidden? In the anatomical museum. And if you need to hide an archive, where does a smart person hide it? Naturally, in the archive!
It is only in novels that our archives are organized, systematized and catalogued. The reality looks a little different. I once had to talk with a person who had been in the archives of the Radio House. He was shocked by what he saw there, he told how he sorted through boxes of records that were not listed in any catalogs, but simply dumped in a heap - there were recordings of performances, next to which Gergiev’s vaunted productions were like a donkey next to an Arabian horse . This is one example.
Another example can be found in newspapers which from time to time report sensational discovery in one of the archives where they found something absolutely amazing. How are these finds made? It’s very simple: some curious trainee looks into a chest that no one has poked their nose into before, and finds it. And what about the story of the missing rare antique vases that stood peacefully in the basement of the Hermitage for decades? So the easiest way to hide an archive of any size is to dump it in one of the storage rooms of another archive, where it will lie in complete secret and safety until some curious trainee looks into it and wonders what kind of dusty bags are lying in the corner. And, opening one of the bags, he picks up a paper with the inscription: “To my archive. I.St.”
But still, people don’t kill for possessing incriminating evidence either. On the contrary, this becomes especially dangerous, because the possibility cannot be ruled out that in a secret safe of a faithful person there are the most important papers in an envelope with the inscription: “In case of my death. L. Beria." No, something completely extraordinary had to happen for such rather cowardly people as Khrushchev and his company to decide to kill, and even so quickly. What could it be?
The answer came by chance.
Having decided to give Ignatiev’s biography in this book, I came across the following phrase: On June 25, in a note to Malenkov, Beria proposed arresting Ignatiev, but did not have time. There may be an error in the date, because on June 26 G.T. was “arrested” (he was immediately killed at home and was carried out on a stretcher). Beria himself, but, on the other hand, perhaps he spoke about this verbally with someone a few days before, or a secret spy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported to 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 roteness,” 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 CCP was instructed to consider the issue of Ignatiev’s party responsibility. But all this was not the same, all this was not scary. And then information arrived that Beria was asking Malenkov for permission for this arrest.
For the conspirators, this was not danger, it was death!
It is not difficult to guess that at Lubyanka the former head of Stalin’s security would have been cracked like a nut and squeezed like a lemon. What would have happened next is not difficult to predict if you remember how Beria kissed the hand of the dying Stalin. Not a single one of the conspirators would have met the New Year, 1954, alive; Beria, not caring about the legality for such an occasion, would have personally killed them with his boots in the Lubyanka basements.
This is what usually happens with “genius impromptu”. What to do? Remove Ignatiev? Dangerous: where is the guarantee that he doesn’t have a description of the night at Stalin’s dacha, and maybe even much more, in a safe place with a reliable person? He knew who he was dealing with. So what to do?
But this is the motive! Because of this, Beria could really 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 make a fuss: what’s done is done, you can’t bring back a dead man. Moreover, if you imagine everything as if he offered armed resistance during arrest. Well, then let propaganda work to present him as a monster and a supervillain, so that grateful descendants can say: “It may have been a crime, but it was not a mistake.”
E. Prudnikova
Source http://taynikrus.ru/zagadki-istorii/ubijstvo-berii-za-chto/
For the “secret” classification to actually appear, the state needs compelling reasons. Most of these cases are state secrets. But many personal archives of famous people become secret at the request of 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 matter of classifying information occurred in 1918, when the Main Directorate of Archives was organized under the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. The brochure “Save the Archives” published by Bonch-Bruevich was distributed through ROSTA Windows to all government agencies, where there was, in particular, a provision on the secrecy of certain information. And in 1938, management of all archival affairs passed to the NKVD of the USSR, which classified a huge amount of information, numbering tens of thousands of files, as secret. Since 1946, this department received the name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and 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 has not been fully declassified royal family, most of which was initially classified by the Bolshevik leadership, and after the 90s, part of the archival documents was made widely public. It is noteworthy that the work of the archive itself was strictly confidential. And one could guess about its activities only from indirect documents of employees: certificates, passes, payroll records, personal files of employees - this is what remains of the work of the secret Soviet archive. But the correspondence between Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna has not been fully disclosed. Palace materials concerning the relationship between the court and ministries and departments during the First World War are also not available.
KGB Archives
Most KGB archives are classified on the grounds that the operational investigative activities of many agents can still cause damage to counterintelligence work and reveal the methodology of its work. Some successful cases in the field of terrorism, espionage, and smuggling have also been mothballed. This also applies to cases related to intelligence and operational work in the Gulag camps.
Stalin's affairs
1,700 files compiled in the 11th inventory of the Stalin Foundation were transferred from the archive of the President of the Russian Federation to the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, of which about 200 cases were classified as secret. The cases of Yezhov and Beria are of considerable interest, but they were published only in parts, and there is still no complete information on the cases of “executed enemies of the people.”
Confirmation that many more documents remain to be declassified is the fact that in 2015, at four meetings of the Interdepartmental Expert Commission on the Declassification of Documents under the Governor of St. Petersburg, 4,420 cases for the years 1919-1991 were completely declassified. Party archives are also “secret”. Of considerable interest to researchers are the resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars, the resolutions of the Council of Ministers, and the decisions of the Politburo. But most of the party archives are classified.
New archives and new secrets
The main task of the Presidential Archive established in 1991 Russian Federation was a consolidation of documents from the former archive of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, and then the subsequent period during the reign of Boris Yeltsin. The Presidential Archives contains 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 Soviet leader Nikolai Ryzhkov, Vladimir Vysotsky and Marina Vladi are closed to the general public. Do not think that documents are classified as “secret” only with the help of government officials. For example, the personal fund of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stored in the Russian state archive literature and art, is in secret storage because the heir, the writer’s wife Natalya Dmitrievna, personally decides whether or not to make the documents public. She motivated her decision by the fact that documents often contain poems by Solzhenitsyn that are not particularly good, and she would not want others to know about this.
In order to make public the materials of the investigative case in 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 Rosarkhiv, Andrei Artizov, said in one of his interviews: “We declassify documents in accordance with our national interests. There is a declassification plan. To make a decision on declassification, three or four experts with knowledge are needed foreign languages, historical context, legislation on state secrets.”
Special Commission on Declassification
In order to declassify materials, a special commission was created in each archive. Usually - from three people who decided on what basis to give or not give wide publicity to this or that document. Secret materials are of unconditional interest to a wide range of people, but historians warn: working with archives is a delicate matter and requires certain knowledge. This is especially true for secret archival materials. Not many have access to them - thousands of documents from time to time Russian Empire and the Soviet Union are classified for various reasons.
Rescued diaries and personal notes. The most complete edition of Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich
Personal Archive Beria. Political testament genius of power
My archive Manuscripts are birch bark, Stones are drafts. Large letters On the river bank. I don't need paper, Instead of it - forests. They are not afraid of moisture: Tears, rain, dew. The tree holds the lines: A yellow steep tree, Filled with light juice of Sticky hot tears. That's reliable
PERSONAL ACCOUNT I have seen the best minds of my generation - killed by madness, exhausted, hysterical and naked... Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" A psycho is a person who has just realized what is going on around him. William S. Burroughs That: Year of the Monkey. The last day before the new year, 1968
Personal search Search. They found poems and a prison diary. They drag me back to the psychiatric department. Two police officers take me into an empty cell and order me to strip naked. And the cell door is open into the corridor, where the prisoners, orderlies and guards stand. - Close the door! - I beg
Excerpts from the article by M. A. Fonvizin “On obedience to the highest authority, and what authority should be obeyed” (1823) ACCESSION OF NAPOLEONHAPPY HEIR French Revolution, Napoleon, gradually achieving higher power, changed the modest title of consul into a magnificent title
Myth No. 117. Stalin had a passion for power, he usurped power in the party and state and established a regime of personal power in the Soviet Union. These myths have been circulating since the very day when, at the suggestion of Lenin, on April 3, 1922, Stalin was elected general secretary of the party.
STUDENT OF GENIUS AND TEACHER OF GENIUS What is high mathematical talent? Where does a child get a craving specifically for the world of numbers, formulas, parabolas, hyperbolas? Innate or nurtured? Alexis Clairaut, at the age of twelve, wrote a scientific work devoted to the study
The vertical division of power and the regional horizontal power The vertical division of power, in other words, between the Federation and the constituent entities of the Federation, has become a real achievement of Russian democracy, our greatest democratic breakthrough. In accordance with
PERSONAL TABLE At first, the conversation quickly and cheerfully floats along a wide, deep river. And suddenly, somehow imperceptibly, he is carried into a narrow, dull, motionless backwater. “So, after the day off, let’s get to work.” There is no need to put it off, the matter is worth it. - Please follow me
Personal Epilogue Each of us has favorite memories. So be it, I will share my memories of Grace. Saturday, the afternoon before the last Christmas of her life. All morning she baked butter cookies in the shape of stars, Christmas trees, Santa Clauses and
Cardinal Richelieu Political Testament, Or Principles of Government Dedication to the King Sovereign! When Your Majesty was pleased to involve me in the management of your affairs, I set myself the goal of remembering everything that could depend on my
Personal question When Gibson was working in Turkey, in the company of his brother Archie, he met his friend, a correspondent for one of the English newspapers, and the young man’s girlfriend. She turned out to be from Chisinau, which then belonged to Romania, but to everyone she was Russian
Archive Newspaper clipping from my mother’s archive My mother, until her last day, was characterized by distrust of official history. In violation of the Main Commandment of Orwell's Ministry of History, she kept newspaper clippings, typewritten manuscripts, and copied by hand.
Personal magnetism Thoughts flash and disappear in the brain like sparks from a fire. They are replaced by hundreds, thousands of thousands of new information, images, facts, ideas. In most cases, regardless of our consciousness, colossal work of the brain is going on. And somewhere in the recesses of the mind they are deposited,
Archive During his lifetime, Vysotsky himself had no time to put his manuscripts in order. Priceless autographs lay in disarray in the drawers of the desk and on the bookshelves. On the day of Vysotsky’s death - July 25, 1980 - the first person to take care of the archive was Yu. Lyubimov. He
ARCHIVE From the notes of Gaira Veselaya In 1956, having received a message about my father’s rehabilitation, Zayara and I first went to Pokrovka to visit Uncle Vasya, he still lived there with his wife and children. Grandfather and grandmother have already died; grandfather during the war, grandmother in 1948. I waited until the last days
Decline of a genius. The authorities offer a choice: medicine or prison? By 1950, Turing had become an outcast, a kind of Trotsky of the computer revolution. Around the same time, work on Enigma also paid off: “I created a small program on a Manchester computer using only
1. Introduction
1.1. Currently, there are two versions regarding the execution of Polish prisoners of war: the Soviet version and the Goebbels version. The Soviet version claims that the Poles were shot by the Germans in the fall of 1941. The version is based on data from the Burdenko Commission, on numerous consistent facts and reliable documents. In 1943, Goebbels accused the Soviet authorities of shooting Poles in the spring of 1940. The version rests, apart from contradictory “facts” and dubious “evidence,” mainly on two documents that mysteriously appeared in 1992: “Beria’s Note to Stalin” and “Politburo Resolution of March 5, 1940.”
Among the Russian and Ukrainian researchers who confirmed the Soviet version with their works, it is necessary to indicate Yuri Ignatievich Mukhin, Dmitry Evgenievich Dobrov, Vladislav Nikolaevich Shved, Sergei Emilievich Strygin, Arsen Benikovich Martirosyan, Yuri Maksimovich Slobodkin, Volodimir Brovko, Parmen Posokhov (pseudonym). A major contribution to the substantiation of 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.” Deputies of the State Duma admitted that “the mass extermination of Polish citizens on the territory of the USSR during the 2nd World War was an act of arbitrariness of a totalitarian state, which also subjected hundreds of thousands to repression Soviet people for political and religious beliefs, on social and other grounds.”
After statements by the Duma and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, the version about the responsibility of the NKVD and the top Soviet leadership for the execution Polish officers in the spring of 1940 it became official.
It is necessary to understand that confirmation or refutation of a hypothesis or theory is the business of researchers and only researchers, but not of politicians.
1.2. System analysis is a method of studying an object as a system (an integral set of interconnected elements). In a targeted study, the first step is to split (divide) the system into subsystems (system analysis stage). 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 component parts, performed in the process of cognition and practical activity.
In the systematic 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 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 by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria I.V. Stalin with a proposal to instruct the NKVD of the USSR to consider in a special manner the cases of Polish citizens held in prison 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 Polish army officer". An officer is a person of command and control in armed forces ah, and also in the police and police. Officers have military ranks assigned to them. . Thus, the content of the concept “officer” includes two characteristics: 1) the officer is in the position of commander or superior; 2) the officer has a military rank. Which of these features is an essential feature? To find out, consider the concepts of “reserve officer” and “retired officer.” The reserve of the armed forces are those registered for military service who have served their active duty. military service or exempted from it for various reasons, but fit for service in wartime. . Consequently, a reserve officer is a person who has an officer rank, who is not on active military service, but is fit for service in wartime. Resignation is one of the types of dismissal of officers. The use of the concepts “reserve officer” and “retired officer” indicates that the essential feature of the concept “officer” is military rank, and not position.
The expression “there are no former officers” is a catchphrase. An officer becomes a “former” only if he is deprived of his military (officer) rank in accordance with the procedure established by law.
In general, the concept of “former Polish Army officer” is an imprecise 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 them in 1939 - 1940 military ranks, therefore the exact term (for that time): “officer of the former Polish army.”
In NKVD documents regarding Polish prisoners of war, the word “former” was used, which is associated with the words “officers”, “gendarmes”, “landowners” 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, NKVD chiefs realized that the term "former Polish officers" was imprecise, but sometimes used it.
In the Note, the word “former” appears 12 times. Let's denote this number by the letter n: n = 12. The word “officers” appears 8 times in the “Note”; other words: policemen - 6, gendarmes - 5, officials - 5, landowners - 5, intelligence officers - 4, factory owners - 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. Collectively, these words appear 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”, taking into account the context, is a general synonym for the phrases: “former officer”, “former policeman” and so on. In this understanding, the word “prisoners of war” appears twice. Let's denote total number mentions of this word with 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 a text are features of the style of the author of the text. In the “Note” the word “former” is often used: the n/m ratio is 12/48 (0.25) and rarely the word “prisoners of war”: the n/f ratio is 12/2, that is, equal to 6.
Let us compare the text of the “Note” with the texts of documents, the authors (or co-authors) of which, without a doubt, are Beria and other officers. These documents were written on the same topic (about prisoners of war), three documents were sent to the same person - Stalin.
Document: Message from Beria to Stalin about Polish and Czech prisoners of war, November 2, 1939. In this document, the word “former” appears 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” appears 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 mentions in the text of these words (including the word “officers”) is 27 (m = 27). The word "prisoners of war" appears 10 times. Results: n/m ratio = 3/27 = 0.11 (approx); ratio n/f = 3/10 = 0.3.
Document: Beria's message to Stalin about the acceptance of Polish military internees 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 from 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” appears 4 times, the word “general” appears 2 times, lieutenant colonels - 2, policemen - 2, gendarmes - 2, jailers - 2, officials - 2, intelligence officers - 2, counterintelligence officers - 2 times. Collectively, 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” appears 2 times; other words: general - 2 times, colonels - 1, lieutenant colonels - 1, officials - 3, intelligence officers - 2, counterintelligence agents - 2, police officers - 2, gendarmes - 2, jailers - 2 times. Collectively, these words appear 19 times. Let us denote the total number of mentions in the text of these words by the letter m, m = 19. The word “prisoners of war”, which is in semantic connection with the word “officers”, occurs 5 times: f = 5. If the word “prisoners of war” applied 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 NKVD of the USSR dated 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” appears 3 times, jailers - 3, officials - 1, intelligence officers - 3, employees - 1, censors - 1, provocateurs - 3, besiegers - 3, landowners - 3, court officials - 3 times, traders and large owners - 3 times. Collectively, 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” appears 1 time, policemen - 1, gendarmes - 1, public police agents - 1, secret police agents - 1, landowners - 1, factory owners - 1, officials - 1 time. In total, these words occur 9 times (m = 9). The word “prisoners of war” in 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.
|
A source of information |
|||||
|
"A note" |
|||||
*This document refers to Polish officers interned in Lithuania. Therefore, it made no sense to count how many times the word “prisoners of war” appeared.
The table shows that in the “Note” the n/m ratio is 0.25. In selected NKVD documents, including Beria's messages to Stalin, the n/m ratio 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 “Note” preferred the word “former,” while NKVD officers, including Beria, more often used the term “prisoners of war.” There is a popular expression among career officers and retired officers: “There are no former officers.”
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, as a rule, used the term “officers of the former Polish army” in relation to Polish officers and sub-officers (not only prisoners of war), see, for example.
3.2. Analysis of the phrase: "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. Correct: “officers of the former Polish army.”
Pleonasm is a mistake in business and scientific texts. In literary and journalistic texts, pleonasm can be used to enhance the emotional impact. Example: "People! Maria Godunova and her son Theodore poisoned themselves. We saw their dead bodies"(A.S. Pushkin, "Boris Godunov").
3.3. Judgment Analysis:
Sworn - irreconcilable, hateful (about an enemy). . Therefore, sworn and hated are synonyms. Let us replace the word “sworn” with the word “hated” and we get: “They are all hated enemies Soviet power, filled with hatred of the Soviet system." This judgment contains a linguistic error - tautology (repetition of the same or similar words in meaning). Features of the language of official documents are the brevity of the presentation of the material; accuracy and certainty of wording, unambiguity and uniformity of terms.
Expressive expressions (such as “sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, filled with hatred of the Soviet system”) can be used in journalistic works, at meetings and rallies, but not in official memos. Expression is the basis of journalistic style. But in orders, memos, and instructions, expressive expressions are completely inappropriate. You cannot mix journalistic style with official business style. Violation of a style norm gives rise to a normative-style, or simply style error. In this case, we are talking about a type of normative-style error - an inter-style error. This term refers to 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. Analysis of the phrase: « Cases of 14,700 former Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siege guards and jailers in prisoner-of-war camps.”
The phrase contains three extra words: “about”, “man”, “former”. First, it should be noted that lawyers do not use the preposition “about” after the word “case”. Secondly, it is clear that the officers and others mentioned in the text are people and therefore “man” is a superfluous word. Thirdly, it is obvious: if officers are kept in a prisoner of war camp, then these are “former” officers, but only in the sense that they no longer hold the corresponding positions. As already indicated, an officer becomes a “former” only if he is 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. It is better to put the words “in prisoner of war camps” at the end of the phrase, since it is clear from the context that the logical emphasis falls on “the affairs of 14,700 officers (and others).” That's right: “the cases of 14,700 Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siege officers and jailers located in prisoner-of-war camps.”
We will proceed from the fact that one extra word in an expression is one linguistic error (pleonasm). Consequently, the phrase in question contains three errors.
3.5. Analysis of the phrase: “Cases about 11,000 members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, factory owners, former Polish officers, officials and defectors, arrested and in prison in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus.”
The phrase contains extra words: “about”, “arrested”, “and”, “in”, “quantity”, “person”, “former”.
The use of the phrases “cases about those in custody” and “cases about 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 “those in prison” is included in the scope of the concept “arrested”. Not all those arrested may be in prison, but everyone who is (held) in prison is in custody and, therefore, is under arrest. Correct: “The cases of 11,000 members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, factory owners, 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 legal language and did not make mistakes like: “the case about Petrov” or “the case about Ivanov.” In the order on shortcomings in the investigative work of the NKVD authorities dated November 9, 1939, Beria used the following expressions: “the Zubik-Zubkovsky case”, “investigative case No. 203308 of the NKVD of the Kalinin region on charges of S. M. Stroilov”, “investigative case No. 19727 of the NKVD of the Armenian SSR on the charges of Bursiyan, Tanoyan and others”, “a resolution to terminate the Pavlov case”, “in the cases of Golubev Ya.F. and Vechtomov A.M.,” “investigative case of the special department of KOVO No. 132762 on the charge of B.P. Marushevsky,” “investigation case on the charge of Fischer,” “case on the charge of M. E. Leurd.”
It is impossible that later, in 1940, Beria suddenly forgot legal terminology and began to use the expressions: "affairs about arrested" or "affairs O There are 14,700 former Polish officers in prisoner-of-war camps.”
“Extract from the minutes 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 O in prisoner of war 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 counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations...».
If you believe that the “Note” was written by Beria, then you will have to believe that not only Beria, but also members of the Politburo showed legal and linguistic illiteracy. Among the members of the Politburo there were people who had read many times juristic documents, since at that time there was a Politburo commission on judicial affairs, which regularly reviewed decisions of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
3.6. Fragment analysis:"II. The consideration of cases should be carried out without summoning those arrested and without filing charges, a resolution to complete 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 “Note” as a whole. Briefly, the essence of the “Note” can be expressed in the following judgment: “Based on the fact that all prisoners of war are inveterate enemies of Soviet power, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary to apply capital punishment to them.”
Let's look at the documents. From Beria’s special message to Stalin about the eviction of settlers from western Ukraine and Belarus:
"02.12.1939
№ 5332/b
In December 1920, the former Polish government issued a decree on the planting of so-called osadniks in the areas bordering the USSR.
The settlers were selected exclusively from former Polish military personnel, were allocated land of up to 25 hectares, received agricultural equipment and settled along the border of Soviet Belarus and Ukraine. Surrounded by attention and care, placed in good material conditions, the siege soldiers were the support of the former Polish government and Polish intelligence.
The NKVD authorities registered 3,998 families of sedatives in Western Belarus and 9,436 in Western Ukraine, for a total of 13,434 families. Of this number, NKVD authorities arrested 350 people.
In view of the fact that the settlers represent fertile ground for all kinds of anti-Soviet actions and in the overwhelming majority, due to their property status, are undoubtedly enemies of Soviet power, we consider it necessary to evict them together with their families from the areas they occupy.”
Several conclusions can be drawn from this document. Firstly, Beria did not use expressive expressions like "inveterate, incorrigible enemies", he wrote briefly and precisely: “by virtue of their property status they are undoubtedly enemies of Soviet power". Secondly, Beria did not say « All siegemen", He said « overwhelmingly» . Thirdly, despite the fact that the settlers “are the mainstay of Polish intelligence”, “represent fertile ground for all kinds of anti-Soviet actions” and are "certainly enemies of Soviet power", Beria proposed to evict them. Evict, not shoot!
3.8. conclusions
1. The “note” contains many errors, that is, its author had low linguistic culture.
4. Logical analysis
4.1. Judgment Analysis: “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, filled with hatred of the Soviet system.”
Let us prove that not all officers were enemies of the Soviet regime.
Argument 1. As a first argument, we present excerpts from the report of the UPV 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 police is depressed. “A stratification has begun among the officers 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 spent 20 years building Poland and lost it in 20 days. I don’t want to go to Germany and will ask for the hospitality of the Soviet Union until the end of the war between Germany and France.”
“Reserve officers - engineers, doctors, agronomists, teachers, accountants - scold the government leadership of the former Polish state, England and France, who dragged them into the war and did not provide assistance. These officers express a desire to go to work as soon as possible, and many of them want to stay in the USSR.”
Argument 2. On February 20, 1940, Soprunenko and Nekhoroshev turned to Beria with the initiative to release some of the prisoners of war to their homes: “From among the reserve officers, residents of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and BSSR - agronomists, doctors, engineers and technicians, teachers, who do not have incriminating materials, will be sent home. According to preliminary data, 400-500 people from this category may be released.”
Thus the proposition: “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, filled with hatred of the Soviet system” is false. A logical mistake was made here “from the divisive meaning to the collective meaning.” The essence of this error (, p. 425) is that something is asserted about the whole that is true only regarding the parts of this whole.
4.2. Analysis of judgments: A. “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, filled with hatred of the Soviet system.” B. Prisoners of war officers and police, while in camps, conduct anti-Soviet agitation.
Let us prove that from the judgments A And B follows a meaningless judgment: “Sworn enemies are conducting anti-Soviet agitation among sworn enemies.” Proof. Let's consider the concept of “campaign”. “Agitation (from the Latin agitatio - setting in motion), one of the means of political influence on the masses, a weapon of struggle between classes and their parties; agitation is expressed in the dissemination of an idea or slogan that encourages the masses to take active action.” . The concept of “agitation” includes the concept of “mass” as the object of agitation. Without the “masses” there is and cannot be agitation. If all prisoners of war were sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, then who could they agitate? After all, communication between prisoners of war and camp staff was strictly regulated and limited, and, in addition, communication between prisoners of war and camp staff was hampered by the language barrier.
Therefore, from the two judgments A And B follows the judgment: “Sworn enemies are conducting anti-Soviet agitation among sworn enemies.” This is a meaningless proposition.
Judgment: “All of them are sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, filled with hatred of the Soviet system” is false and the proposition “Prisoners of war officers and police, while in camps, are conducting anti-Soviet agitation”- true. The fact is that the composition of prisoners of war was heterogeneous and among the prisoners of war there were both opponents of the Soviet regime (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: “Prisoners of war officers and police, while in the camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work.”
From this judgment follows a false proposition: “Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work in the Polish army.”
Proof. The composition of the judgment: “Prisoners of war officers and police, while in the camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work” includes the following judgment: “Prisoners of war officers, while in camps, are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work”. From the phrase "trying to continue" it follows that Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work before being placed in the camps, and in the camps they "continue" Where and when could Polish officers carry out this work? Before the war, officers served in the Polish Army. When inserted Soviet troops on the territory of Belarus and Ukraine, occupied by Poland in 1920, Polish officers participated (and not all of them) 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. Consequently, before being captured, officers could conduct "counter-revolutionary work" only in the Polish army. In the USSR, the concept of “counter-revolutionary work” meant the struggle against the 1917 revolution for the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders. Thus, a false proposition follows from the original judgment: “Polish officers carried out counter-revolutionary work in the Polish army.”
4.4. Judgment Analysis:“Each of them is just waiting for liberation in order to be able to actively join the fight against Soviet power.”
The expression "each of them" is equivalent in meaning to "all of them." This proposition is false. To refute a general judgment, it is enough to give one example that contradicts this judgment. Let us give two examples of the fact that not all officers waited for liberation in order to fight the Soviet regime.
Example 1. Some officers waited until release to meet with relatives. Some of them were so worried about the separation that they committed suicide. For example, on December 7, the Head of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs, Major Soprunenko and the Commissioner of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs and Regimental Commissar Nekhoroshev sent Beria a message that “On December 2, 1939, in the Kozelsky camp, prisoner of war Basiliy Antonovich Zakharsky committed suicide (hanged himself). Zakharsky B. A., born in 1898, until 1919 a mechanic worker, from 1919 until recently he served in the Polish army, military rank - cornet. During his entire stay in the camps, Zakharsky B.A. I was in a depressed state, thought a lot and really missed my family who remained in Grodno.”
Example 2. Some officers waited until liberation to fight for the liberation of Poland. From the report of Soprunenko and Nekhoroshev: “The officers are mostly patriotic, saying: “When we return home, we will fight Hitler. Poland has not yet perished.”
Therefore, the proposition: “Each of them is just waiting for liberation in order to be able to actively join the fight against Soviet power.” is false. Here the author of the “Note” made a logical mistake “from the divisive meaning to the collective meaning.” The essence of this error (, p. 425) is that something is asserted about the whole that is true only regarding the parts of this whole.
4.5. Judgment Analysis:“Among the detained defectors and state border violators, a significant number of persons who are members of counter-revolutionary espionage and rebel organizations have also been identified.”
Before analyzing this text, it is necessary to read an excerpt from order No. 21/3847 of March 2, 1940 of the Main Directorate of Convoy Troops of the NKVD of the USSR: "People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Union SSR comrade. Beria ordered the People's Commissars of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR and BSSR - those convicted by the Special Meeting of the NKVD, defectors from the former territory of Poland - to be sent to serve their sentences in the Sevvostlag of the NKVD (Vladivostok). The organization of the dispatch of convicts is entrusted to the prison departments and departments of correctional labor colonies of the NKVD. The escort of these prisoners is entrusted to escort troops in echelons of 1000-1500 people under reinforced escort. There will be 6-8 echelons in total".
The order states clearly: “Beria ordered [...] defectors from the former territory of Poland to be sent for departure term of punishment to Sevvostlag NKVD". Beria could not give the order to transport defectors at almost the same time "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. Analysis of judgments:“In the prisoner of war camps there are a total of (not counting soldiers and non-commissioned officers) 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, policemen, gendarmes, jailers, siege guards and intelligence officers, over 97% of whom are Poles by nationality.”
“In the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there are a total of 18,632 arrested (of which 10,685 are Poles)”
“Based on the fact that they are all inveterate, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary:
I. Suggest to the NKVD of the USSR:
1) files on 14,700 former Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, siege guards and jailers in prisoner-of-war camps,
2) as well as cases of 11,000 members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, factory owners, former Polish officers, officials and defectors arrested and in prison in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus -
- be considered in a special manner, 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 with them, this is the basis of his punishment and gratitude. He will never round up a figure without very strong reasons. Journalist, writer, historian - these are welcome, these can easily round up the 4.5 thousand arrested Red Army officers “to about 50 thousand killed.” An official will not do that, especially in such a case. Look: Beria “writes” that he has 14,736 officers and others in prisoner-of-war camps, but proposes to shoot only 14,700; 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! What are you going to do with the remaining 36 officers and 7632 enemies? Salt? Are you going to support them at your own expense?” And how will Beria explain to the administrations of camps and prisons who exactly should be selected to consider cases at the “troika”?”
Comment by D.M. Dobrova: “The question arises, how were the numbers 14,700 and 11,000 obtained, if previously there were 14,736 and 18,632 (of which 10,685 were Poles)? For what reason was rounding or perhaps another action performed? How do the given numbers follow from each other? But the connection is indicated in the text: “Based on the fact that all of them,” i.e. 14,736 people and 18,632 (of which 10,685 are Poles), “are inveterate, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power, the NKVD of the USSR considers it necessary” to consider the cases of 14,700 and 11,000 people in a special manner. Excuse me, if all of them were inveterate enemies of the Soviet regime, then wouldn’t it be logical to propose the cases of all of them, and not just those elected by an unknown rule, for consideration?”
Maybe there is still a “rule” by which you can choose 14,700 from 14,736 and 11,000 from 18,632? For this assumption, consider the judgments of the author of the note (denoted by the letter N) regarding prisoners of war:
1. “Every inveterate, incorrigible enemy of Soviet power must be shot.”
2. “There are 14,736 inveterate, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power in the camps”.
3. “14,700 enemies must be shot.”
“14,736 enemies need to be shot.”
It is obvious that judgment 3 contradicts judgments 1 and 2. A mistake has been 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 the number 14736 and got 14700, but at the same time “amnestied” 36 enemies.
But maybe 14,700 are Poles, and 36 are everyone else? Let's calculate the number of Poles among prisoners of war. The “note” states that the share of Poles among prisoners of war is 97%, therefore, among 14,736 prisoners of war there were 14,736 x 0.97 = 14,293.92, that is, 14,294 Poles. It turns out that N proposed to shoot 14,700 enemies, and of these only 14,294 were Poles. But to bring the number 14294 to 14700, it is necessary to shoot 406 non-Poles out of 442 (14,736 - 14294 = 442) non-Poles; or, in other words, remove 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 following judgment: “There are 18,632 arrested in the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus,” all of them are inveterate, incorrigible enemies of the Soviet government, of which 11,000 are subject to capital punishment - execution.” Let us analyze the judgments of the author of the “Note”:
1. " Every inveterate, incorrigible enemy of Soviet power must be shot.”
2. “There are 18,632 inveterate, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power in prison.”
3. “It is necessary to shoot 11,000 enemies.”
But from propositions 1 and 2 proposition 4 follows:
“18,632 enemies need to be shot.”
It is obvious that judgment 3 contradicts judgments 1 and 2. A mistake was 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 find out where 11,000 “enemies” came from. Suppose N put forward one more condition: in order to be “worthy” of capital punishment (CM), one must not only be an inveterate and incorrigible enemy, but also be a Pole. N indicates that among 18,632 enemies, only 10,685 are Poles. But then N had to indicate that it was necessary to shoot 10,685 Poles. Suppose N simply rounded 10685 to 11,000. But in this mathematical operation he added 315 more non-Poles to be shot, but did not specify the “rule” by which to choose 315 non-Poles from 7947 non-Poles.
Thus, the principle of selection for “execution” based on 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. Polyboly is a logical error, which consists in the fact that a grammatical expression has many interpretations (meanings), and it is not clear from the context which interpretation (which meaning) is implied in the grammatical expression.
There is a long-known error in logic "amphiboly". Amphiboly (from the Greek word amphibolia) is a logical error, which consists in the fact that a grammatical expression (a set of several words) allows for its double interpretation. (, p. 34).
Let's consider the false information contained in the “Note” in explicit and implicit form: 1. Soviet legislation in 1940 allowed execution without a corresponding decision of a court or military tribunal. 2. Soviet leaders could, at their whim, give the order to shoot anyone and in any number without initiating a criminal case or investigation, for example, according to certificates provided by the Office of Prisoners of War Affairs. 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 did logical errors: “There are 14,736 enemies in the camps, of which 14,294 are Poles, but 14,700 enemies need to be shot”; “There are 18,632 enemies in prisons, of which 10,685 are Poles, but 11,000 enemies need to be shot. In other words, the author of the “Note” attributes, to put it in everyday language, nonsense to Beria and the members of the Politburo. 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, thought chaotically, chaotically, that is, they were crazy, and bloodthirsty. And since they were bloodthirsty maniacs, it is not surprising that they gave the order to shoot the Poles, although the Poles were potential allies in the war with Germany, if one happened (we are talking about the spring of 1940). There is nothing to be surprised at the irrational hatred of the Poles, and there is nothing to be surprised at the fact that several hundred non-Poles were shot along with the Poles.
4.7. Judgment Analysis:“To propose to the NKVD of the USSR: the cases of members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, factory owners, former Polish officers, officials and defectors in prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus - to be considered in a special manner, with application to him the ultimate punishment - execution."
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact 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, some of the prisoners of war were in the Smolensk prison, which Beria could not have known about.
Document: Encrypted telegram from the Deputy Chief of the USSR NKVD Smolensk region F.K. Ilyina V.N. Merkulov about the delivery of prisoners of war from the Kozelsk camp to the Smolensk prison.
“03/03/1940. Smolensk No. 9447. Sov. secret. NKVD of the USSR. Input encryption 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 taken [to] Smolensk prison. I ask for instructions [on] the procedure for registering them and conducting the investigation. Ilyin."
4.8. conclusions
1. The note contains many logical errors.
2. The “note” contains false information.
5. Psychological analysis
5.1. The myth that Beria was an executioner thirsting for the blood of the innocent has been implanted in the minds of many people. There are many documents refuting this myth. I'll give you one of them.
Document: Special message by L.P. Beria I.V. Stalin on limiting 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 - 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 Meeting under the NKVD of the USSR was given the right to impose penalties up to execution.
In connection with the end of the war, the NKVD of the USSR considers it expedient to cancel this resolution of the State Defense Committee, leaving behind the Special Meeting of 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 penalties of up to 8 years of imprisonment with confiscation where necessary, property.
Presenting the 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 USSR L. BERIA.
5.2. Briefly, the idea of the author of the “Note” can be stated as follows: “In the prisoner of war camps of the NKVD of the USSR and in the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, people are currently being held a large number of sworn enemies of the Soviet regime 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 the following information had to be indicated: 1) about the last position of the prisoner of war in the former Polish army; 2) about foreign languages that the prisoner of war speaks (except native language); 3) about the place and time of the prisoner of war’s stay in the USSR and his occupation during his stay in the Soviet Union; 4) about all relatives and acquaintances of a prisoner of war living in the USSR; 5) about the stay of a prisoner of war abroad (outside former Poland) with the obligatory indication of where exactly, from what time and to what time and what he was doing there.
So, if you believe the supporters of Goebbels’ version, you will also 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 spoke, 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 commissar of the camp Kirshin on the organization of political and educational work among prisoners of war.
“02/08/1940. Starobelsk. Sov. secret. No. 11-3. To the Commissioner of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs, Comrade Nekhoroshev. .
I inform you that political mass work among 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 showing films, periodic information from newspapers and magazines, answering questions from prisoners of war, monitoring the implementation of internal regulations in the camp and orders from the camp leadership. Providing prisoners of war with books, newspapers and radio services. Carrying out day-to-day control over the provision of prisoners of war with all necessary allowances according to established standards.
In January, the following work was carried out: 1. 39,081 prisoners of war were served with political mass work; 2. all political and mass work among prisoners of war was built according to a plan, in the implementation of which the leading place was occupied by the party and Komsomol organizations. Of the party political activities planned according to the plan, the following has been completed:
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. 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.
Reading and explanation of the material read from newspapers and magazines was carried out: 1. Results of 1939 and tasks of 19402. Scientific significance of the Sedovtsev drift.3. On the Soviet-Japanese agreement.4. ABOUT state structure in 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 to prisoners of war: 1. Peter I - series 1. 2. Peter I - episode 2.
There are photo displays in the camp yard on the following topics: 1. life and work of I.V. Stalin; 2. achievements of physical education in the USSR;3. 16 years without Lenin along the Leninist path under the leadership of Comrade Stalin.
Library work. The library has 6,615 different books and brochures, receives 700 copies of various newspapers and 62 copies of magazines, and systematically serves 1,470 readers. The reading room reaches 200-250 people every day. The demand from prisoners of war for the magazines “Sputnik Agitatora”, “Bolshevik”, “Party Construction”, “Ogonyok” especially increased. Readers of the magazines were registered in the month of January - 1000 prisoners of war. There is a great demand for literature on the national question, especially many prisoners of war reading the works of Comrade Stalin “Questions of Leninism”, “Marxism and the National Question”.
Radio service for prisoners of war was organized. 52 radio points were installed to serve prisoners of war, 52 radio points were provided with loudspeakers, of which 2 loudspeakers were located in the courtyard of the camp. Prisoners of war were served by radio daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. at night. Prisoners of war listened in large groups - 30-50 people: a) 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 (Bolsheviks)”; c) operas and concerts broadcast from Moscow and Kyiv.
Providing cultural equipment. Cultural property acquired and issued to prisoners of war for use: 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. Currently, a chess tournament is organized in the hostels, taking into account the results of the game, after which a camp-wide one will be organized at the club chess tournament. Already 114 prisoners of war - tournament participants - have signed up for the chess tournament in the dormitories.”
If you believe the “Goebbels”, you will also have to believe that the NKVD employees prepared prisoners of war for execution using very original methods: they organized chess tournaments, gave lectures 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 Resolution 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. conclusions
1. The addition to the questionnaire for each Polish prisoner of war, developed by the NKVD, contradicts Goebbels’ version.
2. A lot of political and cultural work carried out by NKVD employees with Polish prisoners of war in January-February 1940 contradicts Goebbels’ version.
3. Beria did not plan to shoot the officers of the former Polish army (a consequence of points 1 and 2).
6. Legal analysis
6.1. Judgment Analysis:“The consideration of cases and the making of decisions shall be entrusted to the troika, consisting of Comrade T. Beria(corrected: Kobulova) , Merkulov and Bashtakov (head of the 1st special department of the NKVD of the USSR).”
6.2. Preliminary information: When analyzing the “Note” legally, 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 (Bolsheviks) abolished the judicial troikas on November 17, 1938, and the Special Meeting under the NKVD did not have the right to sentence people to death.
“2805/b Top Secret. State Defense Committee comrade. TO STALIN:
The republican, regional and regional bodies of the NKVD hold in custody for several months prisoners sentenced to capital punishment by district military tribunals and local judicial authorities, awaiting approval of the sentences by the highest judicial authorities.
According to the current order, sentences of military tribunals of the districts, as well as the supreme courts of the union, autonomous republics and regional, 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 are not essentially final, since they are considered by a commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which also submits its conclusion for approval by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and only after that a final decision is made on the case, which again goes down to the Supreme Court, and the latter is sent to the NKVD of the USSR for execution.
The exceptions are areas declared under martial law and areas of military operations, where by decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR from 27 VI. - 41, the military councils of the fronts, in particularly exceptional cases caused by the deployment of military operations, were given the right to approve sentences of military tribunals with capital punishment with immediate execution.
Currently, 10,645 prisoners sentenced to capital punishment have accumulated in the NKVD prisons of the republics, territories and regions, awaiting approval of the sentences in their cases by the highest judicial authorities.
Based on wartime conditions, the NKVD of the USSR considers it appropriate:
1. To authorize the NKVD of the USSR to carry out sentences of military tribunals of districts and republican, regional, regional judicial bodies in relation to all prisoners sentenced to capital punishment, currently held in prisons awaiting approval of sentences by higher judicial authorities.
Grant the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR the right, with the participation of the prosecutor of the USSR, to deal with cases arising in the NKVD bodies regarding counter-revolutionary crimes and especially dangerous crimes against the order of government of the USSR, provided for in 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, 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 USSR L. Beria"
This practice of approving sentences to death penalty established after the Resolution 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, prosecutorial supervision and investigation.”
Consequently, in 1940, death sentences of military tribunals of the districts, as well as the supreme courts of the union, autonomous republics and regional and regional courts, entered into legal 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 then considered by a commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The commission submitted its conclusion to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for approval, and only after that a final decision was made on the case. This decision was sent to the Supreme Court, and the latter was sent to the NKVD of the USSR for execution.
We see that the court's sentence to death, before entering into legal force, went a long way through the authorities.
Let's assume that the "Note" is not a fabricated document and the head of the Chief economic management NKVD B.Z. Kobulov, 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR V.N. Merkulov and the head of the 1st special department of the NKVD L.F. The Bashtakovs actually signed death warrants and were sent to camps and prisons. However, not a single prison director and not a single camp director would take responsibility for the execution if the papers for the execution were not properly completed. The bosses would not violate the instructions, since violation of instructions during Stalin's time was followed by severe 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. conclusions
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 impose any punishment, including execution, which Beria and the members of the Politburo could not have been unaware of.
7. Analysis from an office management point of view
Firstly, the number (794/B) is indicated, but the exact date of the “Note” 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, e.g. : A.“In the prisoner of war camps there are a total of (not counting soldiers and non-commissioned officers) 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, policemen, gendarmes, jailers, siege guards and intelligence officers, over 97% of whom are Poles by nationality.”B.“In the prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there are a total of 18,632 arrested (of which 10,685 are Poles).”
In a certificate intended for Stalin, Beria wrote: « For the month of September 1941 389,382 people who were previously arrested and deported to the rear areas of the USSR from the Western regions of Ukraine and Belarus (from the territory of the former Poland) were taken into account.” Therefore, one can expect that if the author of the “Note” was Beria, he would have written: « For February of this year There are a total of 14,736 former officers (not counting soldiers and non-commissioned officers) in prisoner-of-war camps...”
conclusions
1. The “note” contains violations of the rules of office work.
8. Analysis of statistical data
8.1. Over the entire period of its existence, the Special Meeting under the NKVD of the USSR sentenced 10,101 people to capital punishment. .
Firstly, the NKVD, namely the Special Meeting under the NKVD, had the right to impose the death penalty only in the period from 1941 to 1945, but not in 1940. The Special Meeting 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).
|
highest |
camps, colonies |
other |
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 pp.).
According to Oleg Borisovich Mozokhin, in 1940, 1,863 people were sentenced to death. . Apparently, this number includes not only those convicted of counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes. But the “Note from Beria to Stalin” and the “Politburo Resolution of March 5, 1940” talk about the execution of 25,700 people.
Forensic statisticians can probably “lose” 1,649 (or 1,863) people sentenced to death among 25,700, but they cannot lose 25,700 among 1,649 (or 1,863) people sentenced to capital punishment.
8.3. conclusions
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 “Politburo Resolution on the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, policemen, siege officers and others” is a false document (a consequence of paragraph 1).
9. NKVD officers did not shoot prisoners of war 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 on them from prisoner of war camps to forced labor camps. We prepared investigative files for most of the prisoners of war. Many officers were members of Polish bourgeois organizations. It can be assumed that the Special Meeting 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, strives to overthrow it, as well as social groups and organizations influenced or directly organized by this bourgeoisie, in the implementation of activities hostile to the USSR, entails imprisonment for a term of at least three years with confiscation of all or part of the property with an increase, in especially aggravating circumstances, up to capital punishment social protection- shooting or declaring workers as enemies with deprivation of citizenship of the USSR and expulsion from 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. A total of 395 people were sent to this camp: from Kozelsk 205, from Ostashkov 112, from Starobelsk 78. .
Document. May 25, 1940. Moscow. Certificate from the UPV NKVD of the USSR on the number of Polish prisoners of war sent from special camps to the NKVD of three regions and to the Yukhnovsky camp
Sov. secret
about sending prisoners of war
I. Ostashkovsky camp
Sent: 1) 6287 people to the NKVD in the Kalinin region.
2) There are 112 people in the Yukhnovsky camp.
Total: 6399 people.
II. Kozelsky camp
Sent: 1) 4404 people to the NKVD in the Smolensk region.
2) There are 205 people in the Yukhnovsky camp.
Total: 4609 people.
III. Starobelsky camp
Sent: 1) 3896 people to the NKVD in the Kharkov region.
2) There are 78 people in the Yukhnovsky camp.
Total: 3974 people.
Total sent: 1) 14587 people to the NKVD.
2) In Yukhnovsky there are 395 people.
Head of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs, State Security Captain (Soprunenko)
Head of the 2nd Department of the USSR NKVD Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs, State Security Lieutenant (Maklyarsky)
Thus, at the end of May 1940, 14,587 prisoners of war were sent to the Gulag forced labor camps, and probably also to prisons.
In 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. From that time on, no information about “former” prisoners of war could be found in the Office for Prisoners of War and Internees, since it was not there. Supporters of Goebbels' version took advantage of this.
In the work of V.N. Zemskov, number 5, provides a table in which National composition camp prisoners of the Gulag 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 16,133, and on January 1, 1941 increased to 29,457, that is, by 13,324 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 - 6,415.
These data do not contradict the statement that 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, siege officers and others” is a false document.
2. It has been proven that the so-called “Politburo Resolution on the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, policemen, siege officers and others” is a false document (consequence from paragraph 1).
Anatoly Vladimirovich Krasnyansky, senior researcher at the 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. Saint Petersburg. 1997.
N.I. Kondakov. Logical dictionary-reference book. Second, corrected and expanded edition. Publishing house "Science".
Http://slovari.yandex.ru/~books/TSB/Agitation/ ]
Oleg Borisovich Mozokhin. Statistics of repressive activities of the USSR security agencies.
lost-empire.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=255&Itemid=9
KatynArticleEveryone
Additional Information
1. Materials containing evidence: “Beria’s Note to Stalin” is a false document,” published in the following magazines:
"Historical Sciences", 2012, No. 1, P.70 - 85.
"Modern Humanitarian Research", 2012, No. 1, pp. 20 - 35.
“Issues of the Humanities”, 2012, No. 2, pp. 123 - 142.
Magazine with article System analysis of “Beria’s Notes to Stalin” ("Modern Humanities Studies", No. 2) will be published at the end of April this year.