Seascapes of the Crimea. Beautiful places in Crimea through the eyes of tourists (20 photos)

CHAPTER 13 Challenge to Malyarov. Press conference August 21, 1973. Newspaper campaign. Speeches by Turchin, Shragin and Litvinov. Chukovskaya's article, Solzhenitsyn's article. Statement by Maksimov, Galich and Sakharov in defense of Pablo Neruda. Statements by Lucy and Barabanov on August 16

"Criminal Investigator Inspector" Once film director Shulamith Tsybulnik (one of the most famous directors of Ukraine, whom Dovzhenkovites called Mother Teresa of Ukrainian cinema) invited Leonid Fedorovich to star in a small episode in her film "Inspector

The history of the Great Patriotic War is replete with examples of mass heroism at the front and in the rear, in besieged Leningrad and in partisan detachments. The war became truly Patriotic, for the people saw a direct and terrible threat to their very existence. The patriotic impulse united the country in a way that was neither before nor after: "The enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours" - they were sure of this. But there were other sentiments as well. The percentage of people with such attitudes, identified by the authorities, is surprisingly small. And yet these people were. Let's try to understand them.

In a society living under the yoke of totalitarianism, war sharply worsens the psychological climate. Fear for one's life and the lives of one's loved ones, a desperate situation as a result of defeats, hunger, deprivation - all this provokes dissatisfaction with the authorities, all the previous repressive policies that brought the country to the brink of death.

Many moods, especially the reaction to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - retreat, losses, blood - are vividly reflected in one very specific historical source. This source - documents of the supervisory proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office under Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR - anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. Unique documents are stored in the State Archives Russian Federation and contain over 21 thousand cases of individuals and groups of persons convicted under this article in the war and post-war years. They contain evidence of a people's groan, a cry that escaped in a moment of despair. It is hardly worth blaming these people for lack of patriotism, for weakness. Their life, difficult even in peacetime, becomes as if lived in vain during the war, because everything they did, in their opinion, did not protect against enemy attacks, terrible defeats and gigantic losses.

True, the researcher has to solve a difficult problem: how much can one trust the facts contained in these documents? What actually happened, and what was "attributed" by informers and investigators? Let us read the documents with this difficulty in mind.

Before the researcher of a previously inaccessible source passes a gallery of faces - people of various ages, nationalities, social status.

Let us take a look at the affairs of the first stage of the war. Who and for what were condemned during this period?

Overwhelmingly, about fifty percent of a thousand cases (from June 1941 to November 1942) are illiterate people who have lived all their lives in the outback, engaged in hard physical labor: collective farmers, workers on the railway, loaders, housewives, often living from hand to mouth , crushed by excessive taxation, government loans, frightened by the rapid advance of the German troops.

Here is the case against a group of Russian Cossacks, collective farmers in the village of Airtau, North Kazakhstan region. In September 1941, they escorted their neighbor Yegorov to the Red Army and said at the send-off: “If I were you, I would never go to defend Soviet power. You understand that it will not exist for a long time - all the same, the USSR will be defeated by Germany, after that there will be another government, they will elect a tsar and we will build our private, free life.

And Yegorov, drunk, began to shout that “the communists are sitting behind our backs, and they are driving us like sheep to protect us. But we still will not defend the Soviet government: it has given us nothing.”

The porter said the same thing. railway from the Kuibyshev region Tumasov I.M. among their colleagues, and collective farmers from the village of Borodino, Zyryanovsky district, East Kazakhstan region: “This is what we have come to, the Germans are squeezing us like flies, this is all due to the fact that we ... are sitting with hungry stomachs, intimidated by the published laws, what a trifle they judge that the people have no interest in defending their homeland from this life, anyway, it will not get worse there, only in vain they will kill the people.

In second place among the convicts is the intelligentsia: engineers, doctors, teachers, creative intelligentsia, university professors, scientists. They make up approximately twenty percent of the total number of those convicted under Article 58-10. It is quite clear that education, culture, experience of intellectual work made it possible to make broader generalizations, and some expressed them. The main conclusion: "There has never been such exploitation as we have anywhere ... Every specialist is a candidate for prison, because such is the policy of the Soviet government." That is the reason for the defeat.

Engineers of the Chkalovsky regional department of public utilities, analyzing the situation on the fronts in the first months of the war, came to a disappointing conclusion: “That our people are dying at the front, they said and wrote that our army is strong, the borders are dressed in concrete, locked up, and we will to beat the enemy on his own territory, but in reality the opposite. Our troops are retreating, and the Germans are seizing city after city from us, they are already approaching Moscow”, “When a pig is fired, it has no time for piglets.”

At the same time, a criminal case was initiated against the famous pianist Heinrich Neuhaus. He was accused of sympathizing with the Germans. The atmosphere thickened, and only thanks to the efforts of some government officials, admirers of his outstanding talent, the case was "slowed down" and then completely closed.

The attitude towards politics in the country and its army of Lieutenant General K.P. Pyadyshev, formerly an officer in the tsarist army, commander of the Luga task force and deputy. Commander of the Leningrad Military District (LVO). In letters to his wife (this is the result of the perusal of the mail by the NKVD!), he wrote that he felt his complete helplessness, as a commander and a professional, he could not take the initiative under the yoke of rigid political dogmas. “You can’t contribute anything of your own, envious people, intriguers and scoundrels are all around, just looking at your work as their own, cashing in on your honesty and decency, and they drag you into the party. Dirty scoundrels." About a trip to Western Belarus, he wrote to his wife: “Of course, there is no trace of Poland left ... Everything there now is like ours. Lines, fights, empty shops. There are only portraits, ties and cabbages”; “I receive your letter, seized with dirty paws, opened and roughly sealed. So, our miners are watching, they just forget to wash their hands. Miserable, poor people. They are looking in the wrong place”; "Now it is not difficult to become a divisional commander - catch only spies and enemies of the people, and nothing else is needed." Analyzing the actions of our troops during the Soviet-Finnish war, on the issue of breaking through the Mannerheim line, he said: “I had little faith in the success of the breakthrough, the training of our command staff is very weak, many do not even know how to use maps, do not know how to command their units, do not have any authority among Red Army soldiers. The Red Army soldiers are very poorly trained, many Red Army soldiers do not want to fight the enemy, this explains the presence of desertion, a large concentration of Red Army soldiers in the rear. Our troops do not know how to conduct street battles, and the infantry is not capable of a long attack. She immediately ran out of breath and stopped after a little forward movement. And here is the disappointing conclusion to which he comes: "To be an officer now is to completely lose one's appearance, to turn into a lackey of the communists, this is beneath one's dignity."

The file contains a petition of Marshal Vasilevsky and the commander of the artillery of the Red Army, Marshal of Artillery Voronov, to the Chief Prosecutor of the USSR Bochkov dated June 25, 1943 with a request for the speedy release of Pyadyshev as a valuable military leader.

About ten percent of the total - cases of citizens of skilled labor who have professional education. These are foremen in production, accountants, drivers, managers of medium-sized enterprises, etc.

According to the railroad worker Mlynarsky, “our army is retreating from the German one only because it is bad for us to live, therefore our army does not want to fight. You yourself know what kind of laws we have, you can’t leave one place of work for another, and if you leave, they will be judged, and the only thing left for the people is to cut out their tongues, since you can’t say anything. ”

About four percent are students and student groups. Moreover, this youth was born in the early twenties, already under Soviet rule, and therefore was brought up in pioneer and Komsomol organizations on "communist ideals." And what? Young people's attempts to analyze the situation, to understand the reasons for the defeat in the war, hunger and poverty led to statements that the Constitution exists only on paper, that the words of the song "Man passes as a master" are lies.

Here is the case of the students of Moscow State University, who worked out the program of the "neo-Cadet party". Youthful maximalism, the desire to change the cruel reality and find a way to do it, led to such statements: "... The Germans will help the Russian people to recreate the Russian national state on the basis of a new political system such as a constitutional monarchy ... Because of this and for this, it is necessary for the Germans to help." And one more thing: the war between the USSR and Germany is lost, the Soviet people are not interested in the victory of the Soviet Union, the name of the war “Patriotic” does not correspond to the actual state of affairs, since the masses of the people do not sympathize with the war.

The cases of the mobilized Red Army soldiers are interesting. The Red Army soldier of the 15th reserve tank regiment stationed in Moscow, Badaev S.M., in a conversation with the soldiers of the regiment said: “The war is not waged by peoples, but by individuals, and I don’t care who will be in power - Stalin or Hitler. The working class loses nothing but fetters from this. For the worker, it makes no difference what kind of power there will be, because he will work anyway. Other Red Army soldiers also have statements about the senselessness of building defensive lines and conducting military operations against the Germans: “We have nothing to fear, the Nazis do not bomb the front line workers and civilians, but, on the contrary, they drop sugar and cookies from airplanes”; "The population is hostile to the Red Army, waiting for the arrival of the Nazis."

Over seven percent were convicts held in prisons, camps and colonies. All of them were united by one thing - the hope of Hitler's victory and, in connection with this, release from prison.

A group of prisoners from Ust-Kamenogorsk Prison No. 17, who were taken out of Leningrad, argued that the defeat of the USSR was the result of the fact that since the beginning of 1930 the Soviet government had been ruining peasants and workers, throwing them into prisons and camps. "The Germans are successful in military operations on the fronts against the Soviet government, this is very good, they will teach the Soviet government how to treat the people."

The hope for a German victory was also cherished by the special settlers. It is not surprising that the cases brought against them are full of such statements: "Germany will break the USSR, because Hitler is not such a fool"; "If Hitler comes, he will live well"; “They will soon deal with those who sent them, yet we have a big betrayal in the army, they are selling the people.”

An interesting national composition of people who believed that the victory of Germany would bring relief to the fate of his own people.

The most surprising thing is that most of these people are Slavs - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. And often in their statements there is pain and resentment towards the hard lot of their peoples, and it is characteristic - the constant desire to find the culprit, most often - a Jew. “... We have traitors in the command at the front ..., the Jews sit on the neck of the workers, they don’t want to work, they also don’t want to fight ..., there are no food anymore, we are sitting hungry”; "Russia can only be defended by Russians and Ukrainians, and the rest of the peoples, especially the Georgians, as they sat on the neck of the Russians, will continue to sit." “Jews and Georgians are in power, so life has become bad. If it were not for Stalin, then life would be better, as before.

Representatives of many peoples who inhabited the multinational Soviet Union considered themselves oppressed and hoped that the fascist regime would bring them liberation and sovereignty.

A group of Azerbaijanis from Baku believed that in Azerbaijan there is a dominance of Russians, and as a result of this, Azerbaijanis cannot raise their culture: “Russians are afraid of the unification of Muslims and therefore, in different ways, they try to erase their national image from all Mohammedans.” The farm manager from the village of Sarynamak in the Kulyab region in September 1941 said at school: “German troops respect Muslims, but Russians are killed. As soon as Moscow is finally occupied, then quickly the German troops will be here, and then a Muslim state will be established here, then we will live well in the old way.

Anti-Soviet, frankly nationalist sentiments were also among the people living in the territories annexed to the USSR in 1939-1940. Thus, representatives of the Baltic peoples complained that in the USSR they were treated like cattle. Forcibly resettled beyond the Urals, deprived of their homeland, people hoped for the defeat of the Soviet Union as the only opportunity to return home, to their former way of life. “Soviet power really mocks people. When they brought us here, they didn’t give us not only bread, but also water, but they brought us here and starve us.”

Many inhabitants of Bessarabia and Western Ukraine regardless of nationality, they said that it was better to live under bourgeois governments, that “the Soviet government did not liberate Bessarabia, but enslaved it worse”, that “... it would be better if they killed me than I came to the USSR, since it’s bad to work here”, and “I began to study Russian under blows from the butt in the back.”

Many (but by no means all!) Soviet Germans hoped for the victory of fascist Germany, especially after they were evicted to Kazakhstan and Siberia, sent for mobilization as part of labor columns to enterprises in the mining and metalworking industries, to the fisheries of the Far East and North. They were sure that "the resettlement of Germans in Kazakhstan, of course, is designed to destroy the German population in the Soviet Union," otherwise why would it be undertaken.

And in the village of Kok-Yangak, Kirghiz SSR, in September 1941, a leaflet was discovered: “Comrades! We, workers and employees, Russians and Muslims, are deceived from year to year, day by day they promised us happiness, freedom of speech and the land of the landlords, and as a result they took away the last land and freedom ... Stalin made us worse than slaves!

Down with Stalin, his henchmen, down with the war! Rally proletarian. Long live Hitler, let the commune fail, the death of the Kremlin with Stalin!” The leaflet was pinned to the fence on one of the streets of the village by the son of one of the accused - an exiled German.

The vast majority of cases against persons convicted by the Special Conference under Article 58-10 in 1941-1942 reveal the attitude of population groups to the most significant and pressing issues.

The most important of them, of course, are the war with Germany, the retreat of the Red Army, the helplessness and mediocrity of the command, and huge human losses. The inevitable refrain in many documents with resentment repeats the words: “How is it that they sang “we don’t want an inch of foreign land, but we won’t give up even an inch of ours”, and now we are surrendering our cities to the enemy?”.

The defeat of the Red Army was primarily blamed on the Communists and the Soviet government. The educated part of the population, analyzing the strategic mistakes of the CPSU (b) and the short-sightedness of the government, came to the following conclusions: “Now all our leaders are a bunch of people who are ready to sell anything and everything for their personal lives. After all, there is no one to lead the life of the country.

All the best forces are destroyed, shot and imprisoned! After all, we don’t represent any seriousness for Germany from a military point of view ... Our rear is also no good. The peasantry is tired of the collective farms, the peasantry wants their land, their property, and not to work for who knows. The workers are tired of slavery, poverty, malnutrition. It is clear that neither one nor the other will provide assistance ... ". "The victory of the Germans is necessary, since the Soviet government has reached a dead end and its existence on the suppression of the personal freedom of a person is mass spiritual terror." People expressed confidence that "the mass of the people is now opposed to the Soviet government."

The illiterate part of the population, feeling deeply deceived, expressed its sentiments in a more primitive, but no less frank form. “The Germans took us by surprise. And why? Because our commanders, instead of going into battle, began to run away with their wives”; “…Oh, you communist bastards. The time will come when I will be the first to shoot you.”

Even the servicemen themselves said that "... as soon as I get to the front, I will agitate the Red Army for going over to the side of Germany and fighting against the Soviet Union, since there is still no sense from it, except for hunger."

What can we say about the children of repressed parents: “What good did I see from the Soviet government, except for the arrest of my father? For what and whom am I going to protect now? No, I'd rather do it like this": here he raised his hands up.

From the front, despite the censorship, there were rumors and news about the physical condition and supply of our army. It is not uncommon for the Red Army soldiers themselves to say that “dogs are fed better than Red Army soldiers. I'd rather be tied to a post and fed like dogs." “Gifts and food go to the command staff, and the soldiers are starving. The command staff gets drunk and leads a depraved life. Sons of bitches, drank Russia away! Fools sit in the NKVD, they don’t understand anything.” It is not surprising that jokes were circulated among the population about a cow, to which “the Germans put two white loaves on their horns and let them in, writing that she received all this from them without a queue.”

The food crisis, the introduction of the rationing system, the loss of crops - all the hardships of the war that fell on the civilian population against the backdrop of the most severe defeats of the Red Army, caused the strongest condemnation of the policy of the Soviet state. The population considered the creation of collective farms and the sale of grain abroad to be the main economic and political mistake of the communists. “Stalin gave joy to children in such a way that they have nothing to buy”; “We have been fighting for 6 months, but already cards have been introduced and there is nothing to eat”, “All the hungry are sitting, I myself am hungry. Tomorrow I’ll slaughter a cow, and then I’ll slaughter my wife too ... That’s what they brought to, and they shouted about equality, where is it, when some are fed up, while others die of hunger.

People were especially oppressed by the forced requisitions of the state - targeted loans, increased taxation, attaching the producer to the ground or to the machine. According to the decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for unauthorized departure from work they were given from two to four months in prison, for absenteeism - up to six months of corrective labor with a deduction of 25 percent from the salary. Students of vocational, railway and FZO schools were sent to labor colonies for up to a year for violation of discipline and for unauthorized departure from a school (school). The expression "pay alimony to Stalin" has taken root among the workers, and "many have already experienced in their own skin" how it is to give a quarter of their earnings. “The devil knows why I pay 80 rubles a month, for being late for work. Stalin issued decrees that turn the workers into slavery, and not into free labor”; “They invented some kind of law, worse than serfdom, even die, but you can’t quit your job”; “In the Soviet Union, forced labor, you don’t want to work, but you are forced.”

The reluctance to participate in government loans, the transfer of one-day earnings to the defense fund, the collection of warm clothes was reflected in the words of many people whose statements were perceived as "anti-Soviet". “About two months of the war have passed, and ours are already begging like beggars, taking warm things from the people”; “If I had the strength, I would have shot the entire government for such an attitude towards people, they only know that they are collecting from the people, and nothing to the people.”

“Before collectivization, life was good, and there was a lot of everything, but with its arrival, everything went somewhere and life became worse.” "When there was Nikolashka, there were cereals and porridge." “The authorities are pulling ten skins, before the child is born, they are already taxing him. Previously, they lived well, and there was serfdom, but it cannot be compared with this serfdom.

Ordinary Soviet women, tired of the hardships of war, said: “The Soviet government has not given anything to the worker for twenty years. They fought for one month, and there is no bread, they put me on a starvation ration”; “The worker doesn't care what kind of power it will be - Hitler's or Soviet,” and they lived in absurd hopes. “As soon as the German army takes Moscow, the husband returns from prison, and the war will end…”

And the servicemen themselves, tired of the war, did not expect to wait for any of its ends: “The war with the Germans in 1942 will not end. Eh! Tired of suffering so much for everyone, if only there was something, but we don’t care, no matter what the father is.”

Comparing the two systems, people concluded: "It doesn't matter who wins, as long as the war ends soon."

Educated people allowed themselves such statements: “There is absolutely no democracy in the USSR. There are similarities between the systems of government in the USSR and Germany, since the communist party rules in the USSR, and the fascist party rules in Germany. There are many similarities between fascism and socialism. The Gestapo is there, the NKVD is here.”

Disbelief in the ability of the state to protect the interests of its citizens, a sense of helplessness in the face of impending danger led to the most incredible rumors spreading like wildfire among the population, and even plausible facts began to acquire terrifying and far from reality details. All this, together with the ideally sterile reports of the Soviet Information Bureau, led to panic and readiness to accept the victory of the Nazi invaders, because "there is nothing to hope for, you have to run, there is no need to build, anyway, everything will go to the Germans." "How long are we going to run? I run from Lvov, Smolensk. Soon we will have to flee from Moscow. They shot good sensible commanders - Tukhachevsky, Yakir, and now mediocre command. “There is complete anarchy in Moscow. All drug commissariats were evacuated. The army is absent, the grain is left in the fields, and the Red Army soldiers are already walking around and collecting pieces of bread. The young force in the country will be destroyed through the fault of our leaders. There is complete panic in Moscow, they are bombing ... The Communists send their families, and the civilian population, as they want.

The reports of the Soviet Information Bureau were a constant object of discontent among the population. People felt deeply deceived by the Soviet propaganda machine, which kept talking about the country's defense power, and now embellishes real events and sticks out the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories. In particular, the hushing up of the size of our losses and the speed of the advance of German troops to the east caused bewilderment. “Our affairs are bad, 374 aircraft were lost in three days, this is official, and if unofficial, much more; if Germany advances like this, then we have lost.”

About one and a half dozen cases from among the materials of the supervisory proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office concerned the dissemination of false information about the situation in Leningrad, although it was not at all false.

In the winter of 1942, evacuated from Leningrad L.V. Glebov on the collective farm spoke about life in the blockade, saying: “Leningrad is now starving, the inhabitants of Leningrad receive 125 grams of bread a day, dependents, and 250 grams of bread workers, corpses are lying around that no one cleans up, whole families are dying out”; "The inhabitants of Leningrad are forced to eat cats and dogs, a kilo of bread can buy a coat." And he was sentenced to ten years for spreading "false rumors" and anti-Soviet propaganda.

The reader is presented with an eerie picture. Frightened by the repressions, the people still could not help but express out loud what was painful, and these people paid for their revelations.

A unique archival source allows us to trace the tragic fate of the vast majority of those who spoke critically about the policy of the Soviet state and the course of the war. Most of them received five to ten years in labor camps and were disenfranchised for another five years after that. Some were repeatedly convicted in the next wave of repressions of 1948-1950 and sent into exile in the settlement. Those who, in addition to anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, were also involved in other parts of Article 58 - for espionage, sabotage, preparation of a terrorist act, cooperation with the invaders - were awaiting capital punishment. Moreover, it was carried out a few days after the decision was made by the Special Conference, and often after the consideration of the case and the annulment of the sentence, the decision was changed, and the sentence had already been carried out.

Only an insignificant part of all these people - fifteen percent - was subsequently rehabilitated, the rest were considered unreliable until the end of their days, convicted under one of the most terrible articles of the Stalinist Criminal Code. One would think that only wartime conditions dictated such a harsh measure of repression. But the article for dissent existed in the Criminal Code of the USSR since 1926 and passed from Stalin's time to the new Criminal Code, adopted already in 1961 by N. Khrushchev in almost unchanged form!

And before ending this sad review, I think it should be said that those who thought and spoke out loud differently than in the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau and the protocols of party meetings are hardly guilty. Guilty is the state policy, which brought its people to such bitterness that such a truly holy feeling as patriotism disappeared from some people and only the natural aspirations of a person took over - to see a light in a series of bleak and hungry days.

It was one of those states that left behind many unsolved mysteries and unsolved questions. As a totalitarian state with strict control over all spheres of life of ordinary citizens, the USSR had an appropriate constitution that defended with all its might the priorities that underlay communist power. In particular, a special case was political repression aimed at those who expressed any dissatisfaction with the existing government. Political repression gained grandiose scope under Joseph Stalin. For this, there was a special article 58. Until now, historians cannot come to unanimous conclusions regarding this issue. Therefore, it is worthwhile to figure out whether a citizen in the USSR, even for a simple anecdote about the leader, could end up in camps or even be shot.

Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR

All political convicts, regardless of the type of their crime, were held under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR. The article provided for punishment for counter-revolutionary activities. What did she represent? Counter-revolutionary activities meant actions that prevented the spread or implementation of certain revolutionary ideals and provisions that were supported by the communist government. The first paragraph stated that counter-revolutionary actions are any attempts to undermine or weaken Soviet power on the territory of the USSR, as well as attempts to weaken external power and political, military or economic gains. According to the concept of working people's solidarity, the same responsibility fell on those who committed crimes against a state that was not part of the USSR, but lived according to the proletarian system.

In fact, Article 58 in the time of Stalin was intended to bring to justice those who in one way or another denied or were opposed to Soviet power. In modern society, such people would be called extremists. It is necessary to consider in more detail all the points that Article 58 includes in order to understand what fell under the actions that it considered counter-revolutionary.

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 1a contains provisions concerning, namely, going over to the side of the enemy, issuing state secrets to the enemy, espionage, and flight abroad. For these crimes, the highest penalty was execution, and under extenuating circumstances - imprisonment for a period of 10 years with confiscation (full or partial) of property. A few words should be said about this. Since the USSR at that time was in a very hostile environment, it is not surprising that flight (namely, flight, and not leaving the country) was punished so severely, because in fact it was the same treason.

Paragraph 1b contains the same provisions as in 1a, but already with regard to persons in military service. And there is no doubt that the same crimes committed by a person liable for military service are more serious, however, if these crimes have any gradation at all. So it is not surprising that the Criminal Code of the RSFSR punishes the military so severely.

Paragraph 1c establishes the responsibility of the families of military personnel who committed the crime. If family members knew about the impending crime, but did not report it to the authorities or contributed to its commission, then they are sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property. This clause can be considered one of the most inhumane in the entire article, but, as a study of the archives showed, only 0.6% of all political prisoners served their sentences under this clause, that is, it was rarely used. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR can generally be called inhumane, but due to the realities of the time, it seemed appropriate to the authorities.

Clause 1d provides for punishment for failure to report to the military about what was being prepared. For the military, then it was a direct duty, so it's not surprising that it was so severely punished. As regards civilians, there was paragraph 12, which provided for the same penalties. But with the system of that time, the now-seemingly cruel punishment looked quite logical, because at that time there were no liberal thoughts.

Point 2

Paragraph 2 provided for capital punishment - execution - for those who tried to overthrow Soviet power in the regions or union republics. Sometimes expulsion from the USSR with the deprivation of all rights and confiscation of property was used as a mild form of punishment. Such actions are strictly punished in a number of modern states.

Items 3, 4, 5

Paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 state that cooperation with a foreign state, aiding enemy spies, or other actions directed against the Soviet Union are subject to the same penalties as in paragraph 2.

Item 6

Paragraph 6 dealt with everything that was considered espionage, namely giving out to the enemy or important information that is not a secret but is not subject to disclosure. For this, they also relied on execution or expulsion from the country.

Items 7, 8, 9

Paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 establish the same penalties for committing sabotage or counter-revolutionary acts of terrorism on the territory of the USSR.

Perhaps the most infamous is paragraph 10. It addresses the problem of the so-called anti-Soviet agitation, the essence of which was that any calls, propaganda to overthrow the Soviet regime, possession of prohibited literature, public expression of discontent, and so on were punishable by imprisonment for at least 6 months. Indeed, in the Soviet state there was no such thing as freedom of speech. This paragraph, in a modified form, is also present in

Items 11 - 14

Paragraphs 11 to 14 contain provisions regarding bureaucratic crimes, anti-people actions during the Civil War (and later the Great Patriotic War), the preparation of terrorist attacks, and so on.

They called the one who was affected by this article an enemy of the people. Such people, as mentioned above, were shot, expelled from the country, were in prisons and camps. Many of those convicted under Article 58 were those who really deserved it, but there were also those who were unfairly accused of treason. At that time, the security authorities were little interested in the truth, so confessions from those who got into under this article were simply knocked out. There is a lot of evidence of this from that time. Those who served their sentences were kept under surveillance for a long time. They were forbidden to get a job, receive pensions, apartments, they were limited in the opportunities that an ordinary Soviet citizen had.

Article 58 in the time of Stalin was the most common document that allowed the repression of civilians and military. However, already under Khrushchev, a special commission was organized to investigate these crimes. Many of the unjustly convicted were rehabilitated, unfortunately, posthumously. Those who survived were given back their former rights and privileges.

Any state must protect its territorial integrity and constitutional rights. Article 58 of the USSR was just such a guarantor of protection. Of course, now such harsh penalties can be considered a flagrant violation of human rights, but at that time Article 58 seemed appropriate and really gave a fair punishment to those who plotted a crime against the Soviet regime.

• 58-1 . Definition of counterrevolutionary activity.
  “Any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening the power of the workers’ and peasants’ councils and ... governments of the USSR, union and autonomous republics or at undermining or weakening the external security of the USSR and the main economic, political and national gains of the proletarian revolution is recognized as counter-revolutionary.”

• 58-1a. Treason to the motherland: execution with confiscation of property, or 10 years with confiscation of property.

• 58-1b. Treason by military personnel: execution with confiscation of property

• 58-1v. In the event of an escape or flight abroad by a serviceman, adult members of his family, if they contributed in any way to the impending or committed treason, or at least knew about it, but did not bring it to the attention of the authorities, are punished by imprisonment for a term of 5 to 10 years with the confiscation of all property.

The remaining adult family members of the traitor, who lived with him or were dependent on him at the time of the crime, are subject to deprivation of voting rights and exile to remote regions of Siberia for 5 years.

• 58-1g. Failure to report on military traitors: imprisonment for 10 years. Failure to report on other citizens (not military personnel) is prosecuted in accordance with Articles 58-12.

• 58-2 . Armed uprising or invasion with the aim of seizing power: shooting or declaring an enemy of workers with confiscation of property and deprivation of citizenship of the Union Republic and, thereby, citizenship of the USSR and expulsion from the USSR forever, with the admission, under extenuating circumstances, of demotion to imprisonment for a term not less than three years, with confiscation of all or part of the property.

• 58-3 . Contacts with a foreign state for "counter-revolutionary purposes" or its individual representatives, as well as assistance in any way to a foreign state that is at war with the USSR or is fighting against it by intervention or blockade, are punishable under Article 58-2.

• 58-4 . Providing assistance to the "international bourgeoisie", which does not recognize the equality of the communist system, seeking to overthrow it, as well as to public groups and organizations under the influence or directly organized by this bourgeoisie in carrying out activities hostile to the USSR: punishment is similar to Article 58-2

• 58-5 . Inducement of a foreign state or any public groups in it to a declaration of war, armed intervention in the affairs of the USSR, or other hostile actions, in particular: to blockade, to seize state property, break off diplomatic relations and other aggressive actions against the USSR: the punishment is similar Article 58-2

• 58-6 . Espionage: same as article 58-2.

• 58-7 . Undermining the state industry, transport, trade, money circulation or credit system, as well as cooperation, committed for counter-revolutionary purposes through the appropriate use of state institutions and enterprises, or obstruction of their normal activities, as well as the use of state institutions and enterprises or obstruction of their activities, committed in interests of former owners or interested capitalist organizations, i.e. industrial sabotage: punishment similar to Article 58-2

• 58-8 . Terrorist acts directed against representatives of the Soviet government or leaders of revolutionary workers' and peasants' organizations: punishment similar to Article 58-2

• 58-9 . Causing damage to the system of transport, water supply, communications and other structures or state and public property for counter-revolutionary purposes: punishment similar to Article 58-2

• 58-10 . Propaganda or agitation containing a call to overthrow, undermine or weaken Soviet power or to commit individual counter-revolutionary crimes (Art. 58-2 - 58-9), as well as the distribution or production or storage of literature of the same content, entail - imprisonment for a period not less than six months.
  The same actions during mass unrest or using the religious or national prejudices of the masses, or in a military situation, or in areas declared under martial law: punishment similar to Article 58-2.

• 58-11 . Any kind of organizational activity aimed at preparing or committing the crimes provided for in this Chapter is equated with committing such and is prosecuted by the Criminal Code under the relevant articles.

• 58-12 . Failure to report a reliably known, planned or committed counter-revolutionary crime: from 6 months in prison.

• 58-13 . Active struggle against the revolutionary movement, manifested in a responsible or secret (agency) position under the tsarist system or counter-revolutionary governments during the civil war: punishment similar to Article 58-2

• 58-14 . (added June 6, 1937) Counter-revolutionary sabotage, that is, the conscious failure by someone to perform certain duties or their deliberately negligent performance with the express purpose of weakening the power of the government and the activities of the state apparatus, entails imprisonment for a term not less than one year, with confiscation all or part of the property, with an increase, under especially aggravating circumstances, up to execution with confiscation.

Article changes

see also

Notes

Literature

• Russia. XX century. Article 58/10. Supervisory proceedings of the USSR prosecutor's office on cases of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda: an annotated catalogue. - M.: Int. Democracy Foundation, 1999. - ISBN 5-85646-041-3.

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Main article: Criminal law of the Russian Federation