Trial Deficiency
"Chapter X: Article 111
In all courts of the U.S.S.R., cases are heard in public, unless otherwise provided by law, and the accused is guaranteed the right to be defended by counsel."Source: 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R., 1996
In all courts of the U.S.S.R., cases are heard in public, unless otherwise provided by law, and the accused is guaranteed the right to be defended by counsel."Source: 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R., 1996
"Brave souls who refused to confess to anything were executed in secret..." -Adam Hochschild, author, journalist, and lecturer
After the Show Trials, many citizens continued to be arrested. Troikas were the three people responsible for handing fair judgments in court. However, defendants were seldom "defended by a counsel" or allowed to appear in court if they even had a trial.
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Source: Video-Were Trials Held for Gulag Prisoners, 2014
Excess Torture
"In 1937, Stalin authorized the use of active physical torture."-Donald Rayfield, author and professor
"Sadism was such that the living envied the dead."
-Donald Rayfield, author and professor The methods the NKVD utilized for interrogation ranged from psychological deceptions to crushing men's genitals. |
"1937.... agents.... broke the nose of one accused man with a metal hook, poked out his eyes, and then dumped him under the floorboards.... They killed ... two citizens with a sledgehammer and buried them under the floorboards."
Source: The History of the Gulag, 2004
Source: The History of the Gulag, 2004
Some written confessions even had forensically verified blood smears on them, which validated that defendants were tortured into confessions. "A person that's beaten will give the kind of confession that the interrogating agents want, will admit that he is an English or an American spy or whatever we want. But it will never be possible to know the truth this way." -Lavrentii Beria, second in command of the NKVD |
Many defendants, though, refused to admit that they were tormented because they believed that everything being done to them was for the good of the Soviet Union and themselves. "If the question is raised whether we were tortured during interrogation, then I have to say that it wasn't me who was tortured, but the interrogators who were tortured by me since I caused them unnecessary work."
Source: Stalin and His Hangmen- The Tyrant and those who killed for Him, 2004 |
"Most NKVD men... hated the innocents who were slow to confess, for the interrogator who failed to secure a statement might follow his prisoner to the executioner." -Donald Rayfield, author and professor |
Most of the low rank NKVD was actually pressured into torturing the accused, and once an admission was obtained, the torture usually ceased. |
"The most humane [method] was the direct falsification of interrogation protocols; the investigators wrote and signed transcripts themselves without ever talking to the prisoners...Another widespread practice was adding testimony to previously signed protocols. Provocateurs and false witnesses ready to give any evidence were often used..."
- Oleg, Khlevniuk, author and researcher at the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow
- Oleg, Khlevniuk, author and researcher at the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow
Order No. 00486
Various "orders" and quotas were ordained by the NKVD after Stalin declared this in 1937 (see document).
"Another thing that had [a] major role in the spread of the purges was that the secret police had quotas to meet. That is, their bosses charged them with arresting a certain number of people, so they forced people to confess and incriminate acquaintances." -Kathleen Smith, author of Remembering Stalin's Victims and professor, Email Interview |
Order no. 00486, issued by the NKVD, stated that traitors' wives had to be sent to labor camps for 5-8 years, and children over fifteen who were "socially dangerous and capable of anti-Soviet actions" were to be sent to camps or orphanages. Source: The Unknown Gulag- The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements, 2007
"Innocent people were victimized because of what they might do."
Source: The Road to Terror- Stalin and the Self-Destruction of Bolsheviks, 1999