Whenever we recall the time of the Great Terror, we talk about its victims as a general rule, but actually “forget” about those, who tortured and executed them...
Today, Aleksei Babiy is visiting the editorial department of the “Today’s Newspaper”. He was born in the Chita Region in 1954 and finished the State University in Krasnoyarsk in 1976. Chairman of the Krasnoyarsk “Memorial” Organization.
- Aleksei Alekseevich, not only once I have been reflecting about the fact that each innocent victim of repressions was lured on to destruction by an informer and executioner. We are always talking about the victims, perpetuate their names in the Book of Memory, but why do we observe secrecy about their hangmen?
- There is a rather popular phrase: half of the country was concerned with locking people up, the other half was serving their sentences. Yes, there was, in fact, mass demoralization among the people. The people were even incited and stimulated by the authorities to inform against others; however, we can by no means say that half of the country took part in this. They would usually question and torture an “enemy”, until he would tell them who belonged to his circle of acquaintances and friends and they were able to issue a long list with the names of potential “enemies”. Of course, there were denunciations, but not always. It happened very often that defamers let themselves be guided by utterly mean mercantile impulses: some hoped to solve their housing problem, others wanted to make their career or just intended to settle their account with somebody else.
As for the executioners – unfortunately, we have not yet been able to expose on our website (www.memorial.krsk.ru) an index of names of all those who arrested, interrogated and tortured confessions. The first two volumes of the “Book of Mermory” in commemoration of the victims of political repressions, published on 2004 and 2005, mention the names of NKVD officials who took part in the repressions; however, such names disappeared from the pages - as from the third volume.
And, what is even worse - as of 2006 outsiders are not admitted to the archives anymore, and members of the “Memorial” Organization count among these outsiders, too. The prohibition of access is based on a special MVD / FSB order. Solely relatives may receive an access authorization and the permission to access the corresponding records, as well. But they are by far not shown everything available
- An interesting turn of the politics of glasnost. It means that exactly 70 years after the period of the Great Terror you have no right to acquaint yourselves with the archival dossiers of the year 1937?
- Exactly, we do not have the right. Now outsiders only have the possibility to get a permission to work in the archives after a 75 years’ term of expiration. Therefore, our right of access is presently limited to the years until 1932; we will only be able to have a look at the 1937 dossiers in five years’ time.
- Just to revert to our conversation about executioners once again, I would like to ask the question: who is responsible for the nondisclosure of these names?
- The State pursues this policy. When they passed the Law about Monetisation, they also amended the Act of Rehabilitation of victims of political repressions. Among others, the sentence about the publication of the names of persons, who faked files, applied illegal interrogation methods and committed crimes against justice, completely disappeared. Later, the rulers began to eliminate and omit the family names of NKVD officials from documents to be puiblished. This is a serious and painful matter. We team up in a very constructive way; without our partnership with them, not a single volume of the Book of Memory” would have been published, and it is just these civil servants which we owe the restoration of the resputable names of thousands of victims of political repressions to. Well, with regard to those who realized the repressions, our opinions differ. We are told: “Why hurt and insult the veterans?”. Or they refer us to the Law of privacy protection. And this is how they justify the deeds of their precursors: “What do you want, after all? Those people just acted their part. If they had defied their duty they would have been executed themselves”.
- But finding the hangmen not guilty means that we justify the repressions!
- That’s just the point! We do not publish these names, in order to call somebody to account. The evaluation of the past is important for our presence. Today’s special security services either consider themselves as people who are to continue former NKVD traditions, or they condemn them without any ifs and buts. The rulers and their officials do not make an easy job; many times they mull over various kinds of problems, rack their brains, before they finally act against their conscience. By the way, during the years of repressions it would happen from time to time that chekists committed suicide, for they simply refused to take part in all this lawlessness any longer.
- A brave step, for they preferred to punish themselves instead of others – those, who were completely innocent.
- There are people we may be proud of. Just to give an example: the head of the Taseevsk District Department of the NKVD Administration, Vasiliy Yegorovich Spiridonov, who, when the 1937 repressions were peaking out, refused to falsify the dossiers of innocent people; he was shot dead as a consequence of his refusal.
However, the direct opposite could have happened as well. The name of A.S. Alekseev, head of the Minusinsk operative sector of the NKVD, who was a victim of repressions and later received his rehabilitation, was not included in the Book of Memory. He gained notoriety because of his downright cruelty. 1500 people were executed in just one year. Alekseev took part in the executions in person, and in view of the fact that not all victims died instantly, he gave the order to finish them off by means of crowbars. Thus, he managed to save rounds.
Alekseev was arrested in 1938. They accused him of anti-Soviet agitation and membership in an insurgent organization; however, they also mentioned the words “abuse of authority” and “ultra vires action”. He was deported to a camp. He was released three years later, and after another two years they closed his criminal record. It shall be understood that this name, of course, cannot be put on the same list with those who he had stroke dead by crowbars. We did not include him on the list of victims, although he was rehabilitated on section 58-2, 11 in 2002. The rehabilitation certificate said that he had neither been a member of any insurgent organization, nor that he had ever been engaged in anti-Soviet agitation.
- They often talk und write somehow lovingly about the head of the Norillag – Zavenyagin. Was he really such a kind person?
- Well, he assigned quite a number of experts working in brigades and doing hard labour to work for the Norillag administration instead. And what does hard labour mean? It means certain death. Compare him to other camp commandants – Garanin, head of the SVITL, who pretended to be the tsar and God of the Kolyma region. Intoxicated by alcohol, he got up with a hangover the next morning, ordered the prisoners to line up in file, and whenever somebody’s face did not suit him for some reason or other, he would blow his brains out without hesitation. Compared to Garanin, Zavenyagin is a nice person. Nonetheless thousands of individuals are lying beneath Schmidtikha Mountain in Norilsk – and they were all executed or died from hunger and cold. We must not erase this from our history.
- It is, in fact, a serious and sad matter to betray the people by keeping the names of the executioners secret, for that way it does not learn the absolute truth.
- Yes, and they are not only kept secret, but also celebrated as heroes. Not long ago, some Krasnoyarsk newspaper published an interview (a whole column) with a former female Chekist, in which the correspondant asked with ultimate reverence, what she had received the Red Banner Decoration for. She replied: this probably happened in connection with an affair, when my classmate Tugovikov, an out-and-out anti-Soviet, pleaded guilty. Having read this article, we combed our database through: Aleksei Prokopevich Tugovikov, chief of the radio transmitter in the settlement of Maklakovo, sentenced to a 10 years’ detention in a reformatory labour camp in 1943; rehabilitated in 1965 - in lack of elements of a crime and for want of evidence. 60 years later, she once again accuses this innocent man of being an enemy of the people. And until today they have not even made an excuse to him. May justice be restored through “Today’s Newspaper”.
We are not just talking about this old woman; nobody intends to deprive her of her decoration. We are talking about something different. Was it still conceivable and possible to publish something like this ten years ago? And President Putin, too, expressed himself approvingly with regard to teaching material used in schools, in which Stalin is described an effective manager and repressions are mentioned just casually – for this episode in the history of the country is entirely insignificant, after all. Recently, one of the deputees of the law-making assembly said: why be worried? Merely 1700 individuals suffered from repressions, after all. A barefaced, walloping lie! For this number is just reflecting the victims of execution of one year – the year 1937. And there are yet to mention all the prisoners, dispossessed and deportees. The State Administration of the Interior of Krasnoyarsk territory alone drew more than half a million rehabilitation certificates during the past years. The press, however, lapses into the other extreme every now and then – 100 million victims of repressions; but lately, they tend to reduce these figures again, and even observe secrecy regarding repressions at all… The tendency is clear!
- The people is talking about Josef Stalin, the great inspirator of these “victories”, with increasing awe. Why is that so?
- There is an explanation for this phenomenon. By the way, we also have en explanation for the fact that denouncers and executioners are being treated under the pledge of secrecy. But this might be a suitable subject for a conversation yet to come.
- I sincerely hope that we will be able to talk once again, unless unexpected events will hinder us from doing so…
- I hope so, too. So long!
Valentina MAISTRENKO
“Today’s newspaper”, 20.12.2007