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Mask of Sorrow monument in the Russian Far Eastern city of Magadan, in memory of the Gulag prisoners that died in the Dalstroi labor camps

Soviet political repressions was a de facto and de jure system of prosecution of people who were or perceived to be enemies of the Soviet system. From the beginning its theoretical basis were the theory of Marxism about the class struggle and the resulting notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its legal basis was formalized into the Article 58 in the code of RSFSR and similar articles for other Soviet republics.

The term "repression", "terror", and other strong words were normal working terms with respect to the internal politics of the early Soviet state, reflecting the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed apply ruthless force to suppress the resistance of the social classes which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of proletariat. This phraseology was gradually abolished after destalinization, but the system of persecution for political views and activities remained until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The numerous victims of extrajudicial punishment were called the enemies of the people. The punishment by the state included summary executions, torture, sending innocent people to Gulag, involuntary settlement, and stripping of citizen's rights. Usually, all members of a family, including children, were punished as "traitor of Motherland family members". The repressions have been conducted by Cheka, OGPU and NKVD in several consecutive waves known as Red Terror, Collectivisation, Great Purge, Doctor's Plot, and others. The secret police forces conducted massacres of prisoners at numerous occasions. The repressions were practiced in Soviet republics and at the territories "liberated" by Soviet Army during World War II, including Baltic States and Eastern Europe ^[1].

State repression led to uprisings, which were brutally suppressed by military force, like the Tambov rebellion, Kronstadt rebellion, or Vorkuta Uprising. During Tambov rebellion, Bolshevik military forces widely used chemical weapons against villages with civilian population and rebels.^[2] Most prominent citizens of villages were often taken as hostages and executed if the resistance fighters did not surrender. ^[3]

Loss of life

According to the Guiness Book of Records, 66.7 million people were killed in the Soviet Union by state persecution from October 1917 through 1959 - under Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushev ^[4]. However the exact number of victims may never be known and remains a matter of debates among historians. The result depends on the period of time and the criteria and methods used for the estimates. For example, the number of victims under Joseph Stalin's regime vary from 8 to 61 million ^[5] ^[6] ^[7] ^[8] ^[9] ^[10]

Ethnic cleansing and genocide

Entire nations have been collectively punished by the Soviet Government for alleged collaboration with the enemy during World War II. At least nine of distinct ethnic-linguistic groups, including ethnic Germans, ethnic Greeks, ethnic Poles, Crimean Tatars, Balkars, Chechens, and Kalmyks, were deported to remote unpopulated areas of Siberia and Kazakhstan. The ethnicity-targeted population transfers in the Soviet Union led to millions of deaths due to the inflicted hardships.^[11]Koreans and Romanians were also deported. Mass operations of the NKVD were needed to deport hundreds of thousands of people.

The deaths of millions of people during the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 was caused intentionally by confiscating all food and blocking the migration of starving population by the Soviet government. ^[11]. The overall number of peasants who died in 1930–1937 from hunger and [[repressions during collectivisation (including in Kavkaz and Kazakhstan) was at least 14.5 million.^[11] More than a million of people died earlier during other droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR.

Red Terror

Russian Civil War

Collectivization

Great Terror

Population transfers

World War II and aftermath

From 1941 on, Stalin was willing to strike back against the invading Axis forces at all costs and led the war with extreme brutality, including against his own soldiers.^[12]^[13] The Red Army took much higher casualties than any other military force during World War II, in part because of high manpower attrition and inadequate time for training.^[14] Faced with badly equipped infantry units barely capable of standing up against machine guns, tanks and artillery, the tactics of Soviet commanders were often based on mass infantry attacks, inflicting heavy losses on their own troops. This tactic was also used for clearing minefields, which were ‘attacked’ by waves of infantry soldiers in order to clear them.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[12] In accordance with the orders of Soviet High Command, retreating soldiers or even soldiers who hesitated to advance faced being shot by rearguard SMERSH units: Stalin’s order No 270 of August 16, 1941, states that in case of retreat or surrender, all officers involved were to be shot on the spot and all enlisted men threatened with total annihilation as well as possible reprisals against their families.^[13].^[18]^[12]

Post-Stalin era (1953-1991)

After Stalin's death, the suppression of dissent was dramatically reduced and took new forms. The internal critics of the system were convicted for anti-Soviet agitation, Anti-Soviet slander, or as "social parasites". Others were labeled as mentally ill, having sluggishly progressing schizophrenia and incarcerated in "psikhushkas", i.e. mental hospitals used by the Soviet authorities as prisons^[19]. A number of notable dissidents, incuding Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Bukovsky, and Andrei Sakharov, were sent to internal or external exile.

References

^ Anton Antonov-Ovseenko Beria (Russian) Moscow, AST, 1999. Russian text online
^ B.V.Sennikov. Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia, Publisher: Posev, 2004, ISBN 5-85824-152-2 Full text in Russian
^ Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07608-7
^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future], 1994. ISBN 0-374-18104-7, page 107.
^ Ponton, G. (1994) The Soviet Era.
^ Tsaplin, V.V. (1989) Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody.
^ Nove, Alec. Victims of Stalinism: How Many?, in Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (edited by J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning), Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-521-44670-8.
^ Bibliography: Courtois et al. The Black Book of Communism
^ Davies, Norman. Europe: A History, Harper Perennial, 1998. ISBN 0-06-097468-0.
^ Bibliography: Rummel.
^ ^a ^b ^c Robert Conquest (1986) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505180-7.
^ ^a ^b ^c Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939-1945, London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-5712-1808-3
^ ^a ^b Not-So-Friendly Fire, Queen’s University, Canada Cite error: The named reference "Not so friendly" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
^ CSI Report No. 11: Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk
^ David Glantz, Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941 (2001) ISBN 0-7524-1979-X
^ David Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (1998) ISBN 0-7006-0879-6
^ Review of "Stumbling Colossus"
^ Order No 270 in Russian language on hrono.ru
^ The Soviet Case: Prelude to a Global Consensus on Psychiatry and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 2005

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+[[Image:Magadan, 09.06 019.jpg|220px|right|thumb|
-{{seealso|Category:Victims of Soviet repressions}}
+''Mask of Sorrow'' monument in the Russian Far Eastern city of [[Magadan]], in memory of the [[Gulag]] prisoners that died in the [[Dalstroi]] [[labor camps]]]]
+'''Soviet political repressions''' was a ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' system of prosecution of people who were or perceived to be enemies of the [[Soviet system]]. From the beginning its theoretical basis were the theory of [[Marxism]] about the [[class struggle]] and the resulting notion of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]. Its legal basis was formalized into the [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58 ]] in the code of [[RSFSR]] and similar articles for other [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republic]]s.
+The term "[[repression]]", "[[terror]]", and other strong words were normal working terms with respect to the internal politics of the early Soviet state, reflecting the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed apply ruthless force to suppress the resistance of the [[social class]]es which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of [[proletariat]]. This phraseology was gradually abolished after [[destalinization]], but the system of persecution for political views and activities remained until the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]].
-<!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: [[Image:Magadan, 09.06 019.jpg|220px|right|thumb|
-''Mask of Sorrow'' monument in the Russian Far Eastern city of [[Magadan]], in memory of the [[Gulag]] prisoners that died in the [[Dalstroi]] [[labor camps]]]] -->
+The numerous victims of [[extrajudicial punishment]] were called the [[Enemy of the people|enemies of the people]]. The punishment by the state included [[summary execution]]s, [[torture]], sending innocent people to [[Gulag]], [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union|involuntary settlement]], and [[Lishenets|stripping of citizen's rights]]. Usually, all members of a family, including children, were punished as "[[NKVD Order № 00486|traitor of Motherland family members]]". The repressions have been conducted by [[Cheka]], [[OGPU]] and [[NKVD]] in several consecutive waves known as [[Red Terror]], [[Collectivisation in the USSR|Collectivisation]], [[Great Purge]], [[Doctor's Plot]], and others. The [[secret police]] forces conducted [[NKVD prisoner massacres|massacres of prisoners]] at numerous occasions.  The repressions were practiced in [[Soviet republics]] and at the territories "liberated" by [[Soviet Army]] during [[World War II]], including [[Baltic States]] and [[Eastern Europe]] <ref>[[Anton Antonov-Ovseenko]] ''[[Beria]]'' (Russian) Moscow, AST, 1999. [http://fictionbook.ru/author/antonov_ovseenko_anton/beriya/antonov_ovseenko_beriya.html Russian text online] </ref>.
-[[Image:GulagMemorial.jpg|thumb|The Gulag Memorial in [[St Petersburg]] is made of a boulder from the [[Solovki camp]] — the first prison camp in the Gulag system. People gather here every year on the [[Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions|Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Repression]] (October 30)]]
-Throughout the [[Soviet history]] millions of people became victims of
-'''Soviet political repression''', which in various degrees was an instrument of the internal [[politics of the Soviet Union|politics of the Soviet Russia and Soviet Union]] since the first days after the [[October Revolution]]. Culminating during the [[Great Purge]], it still existed during the "[[Khrushchev Thaw]]," followed by increased persecution of [[Soviet dissidents]] during [[Brezhnev stagnation]], and didn't cease to exist even during [[Gorbachev]]'s [[perestroika]]. Its heritage still  influences the life of the  modern [[Russia]].
-[[Image:Soviet leaders timeline.jpg|center|Soviet leaders]]
+State repression led to uprisings, which were brutally suppressed by military force, like the [[Tambov rebellion]], [[Kronstadt rebellion]], or [[Vorkuta Uprising]]. During Tambov rebellion, [[Bolshevik]] military forces widely used [[chemical weapons]] against villages with civilian population and rebels.<ref name="Tambov"> [http://gulag.ipvnews.org/article20061017.php B.V.Sennikov. ''Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia''], Publisher: Posev, [[2004]], ISBN 5-85824-152-2 [http://www.rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 Full text in Russian] </ref> Most prominent citizens of  villages were often taken as [[hostages]] and executed if the resistance fighters did not surrender. <ref>Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). ''The [[Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. [[Harvard University Press]]. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 </ref>
-==Origins and early Soviet times==
+==Loss of life==
-{{Repression in the Soviet Union}}
+According to the [[Guiness Book of Records]], 66.7 million people were killed in the Soviet Union by state persecution from October 1917 through 1959 - under Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushev <ref name=Albats"> [[Yevgenia Albats]] and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. ''The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future''], 1994. ISBN 0-374-18104-7, page 107. </ref>. However the exact number of victims may never be known and remains a matter of debates among historians. The result depends on the period of time and the criteria and methods used for the estimates. For example, the number of victims under [[Stalinism|Joseph Stalin's regime]] vary from 8 to 61 million <ref name="Ponton"> Ponton, G. (1994) ''The Soviet Era.''</ref> <ref name="Tsaplin"> Tsaplin, V.V. (1989) ''Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody.''</ref> <ref name="NoveStalin"> Nove, Alec. ''Victims of Stalinism: How Many?'', in ''Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives'' (edited by [[J. Arch Getty]] and Roberta T. Manning), [[Cambridge University Press]], 1993. ISBN 0-521-44670-8.</ref> <ref name="Black"> Bibliography: Courtois et al. The Black Book of Communism </ref> <ref name="Davies"> Davies, Norman. ''Europe: A History'', Harper Perennial, 1998. ISBN 0-06-097468-0.</ref> <ref name="RummelStalin"> Bibliography: Rummel.</ref>
-Early on the theoretical basis of the repressions was the [[Marxist]] view at the [[class struggle]] and the resulting notion of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]. Its legal basis was formalized into the [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58 ]] in the code of [[RSFSR]] and similar articles for other [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republic]]s.
+==Ethnic cleansing and genocide ==
-The term "[[repression]]", "[[terror]]", and other strong words were normal working terms with respect to the internal politics of the early Soviet state, reflecting the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed apply ruthless force to suppress the resistance of the [[social class]]es which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of [[proletariat]]. This phraseology was gradually abolished after [[destalinization]], but the system of persecution for political views and activities remained until the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]].
+[[Image:Holodomor.jpg|thumb|right|250px|A victim of ''[[holodomor]]'' (Ukrainian famine, 1933)]]
+Entire nations have been collectively punished by the Soviet Government
-At times, the the victims were called the [[enemies of the people]]. Punishments by the state included [[summary execution]]s, [[torture]], sending innocent people to [[Gulag]], [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union|involuntary settlement]], and [[Lishenets|stripping of citizen's rights]]. Sometimes, all members of a family, including children, were punished as "[[NKVD Order № 00486|traitor of Motherland family members]]". Repression was conducted by the [[Cheka]], [[OGPU]] and [[NKVD]] in several consecutive waves known as [[Red Terror]], [[Collectivisation in the USSR|Collectivisation]], the [[Great Purge]]s, the [[Doctor's Plot]], and others. The [[secret police]] forces conducted [[NKVD prisoner massacres|massacres of prisoners]] on numerous occasions.  Repression was practiced in the [[Soviet republics]] and in the territories liberated by [[Soviet Army]] during [[World War II]], including [[Baltic States]] and [[Eastern Europe]] <ref>[[Anton Antonov-Ovseenko]] ''[[Beria]]'' (Russian) Moscow, AST, 1999. [http://fictionbook.ru/author/antonov_ovseenko_anton/beriya/antonov_ovseenko_beriya.html Russian text online] </ref>.
+for alleged collaboration with the enemy during [[World War II]]. At least nine of distinct ethnic-linguistic groups, including [[History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union|ethnic Germans]], ethnic [[Greeks]], [[Polish minority in the Soviet Union|ethnic Poles]], [[Crimean Tatars]], [[Balkars]], [[Chechen people|Chechen]]s, and [[Kalmyk deportations of 1944|Kalmyks]], were deported to remote unpopulated areas of [[Siberia]] and [[Kazakhstan]]. The [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union| ethnicity-targeted population transfers]] in the Soviet Union led to millions of deaths due to the inflicted hardships.<ref name="Conquest">[[Robert Conquest]] (1986) ''The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.'' [[Oxford University Press]]. ISBN 0-19-505180-7. </ref>[[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|Koreans]] and [[Deportation of Romanians in the Soviet Union|Romanians]] were also deported. [[Mass operations of the NKVD]] were needed to [[deport]] hundreds of thousands of people.
+The deaths of millions of people during the [[Soviet famine of 1932-1933]] was caused intentionally by confiscating all food and blocking the migration of starving population by the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]]. <ref name="Conquest"/>. The overall number of [[peasant]]s who died in 1930&ndash;1937 from [[hunger]] and [[repressions during [[Collectivisation in the USSR|collectivisation]] (including in [[Kavkaz]] and [[Kazakhstan]]) was at least 14.5 million.<ref name="Conquest"/> More than a million of people died earlier during other [[droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR]].
-State repression led to resistnace, which were brutally suppressed by military force, such as the [[Tambov rebellion]], [[Kronstadt rebellion]], and [[Vorkuta Uprising]]. During the Tambov rebellion, [[Bolshevik]] military forces used [[chemical weapons]] against villages with civilian population and rebels.<ref name="Tambov"> [http://gulag.ipvnews.org/article20061017.php B.V.Sennikov. ''Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia''], Publisher: Posev, 2004, ISBN 5-85824-152-2 [http://www.rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 Full text in Russian] </ref> Prominent citizens of  villages were often taken as [[hostages]] and executed if the resistance fighters did not surrender. <ref>Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). ''The [[Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. [[Harvard University Press]]. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 </ref>
 ==Red Terror==
 {{main|Red Terror}}
+==Russian Civil War==
-Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and [[execution]]s conducted by the [[Bolshevik]] government. The Red Terror was officially announced on [[September 2]], [[1918]] by [[Yakov Sverdlov]] and ended in about October 1918. However [[Sergei Melgunov]] applies this term to repressions for the whole period of the [[Russian Civil War]], 1918-1922.<ref name="Melgunov">[[Sergei Melgunov|Serge Petrovich Melgunov]], ''Red Terror in Russia'', Hyperion Pr (1975), ISBN 0-883-55187-X</ref><ref name="Black"/>
+{{main|Russian Civil War}}
 ==Collectivization==
 {{main|Collectivization in the USSR}}
-Collectivization in the [[Soviet Union]] was a policy, pursued between 1928 and 1933, to consolidate individual land and labour into [[collective farm]]s ({{lang-ru|колхо́з}}, ''[[kolkhoz]]'', plural ''kolkhozy''). <!--and into state farms ({{lang-ru|совхо́з}}, ''[[sovkhoz]]'').--> The Soviet leaders were confident that the replacement of individual peasant farms by kolkhozy would immediately increase food supplies for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports generally. Collectivization was thus regarded as the solution to the crisis in agricultural distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that had developed since 1927 and was becoming more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program.<ref>Davies, R.W., ''The Soviet Collective Farms, 1929-1930,'' Macmillan, London (1980), p. 1.</ref> As peasantry, with exception of the poorest part, resisted the collectivization policy, the Soviet government resorted to the harsh measures to force the farmers to collectivize. In his conversation with [[Winston Churchill]] Stalin gave his estimate of the number of "[[kulak]]s" who were repressed for resisting [[collectivization]] as 10 million, including those forcibly deported.<ref>Valentin Berezhkov, "Kak ya stal perevodchikom Stalina", Moscow, DEM, 1993, ISBN 5-85207-044-0. p. 317</ref><ref>Stanislav Kulchytsky, [http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/nn/show/420/36833/  "How many of us perished in Holodomor in 1933"], ''[[Zerkalo Nedeli]]'', November 23-29, 2002.</ref>
 ==Great Terror==
 {{main|Great Terror}}
+==Population transfers==
-The Great Purge ({{lang-ru|Большая чистка}}, [[Romanization of Russian|transliterated]] ''Bolshaya chistka'') was a series of campaigns of [[political repression]] and [[persecution]] in the [[Soviet Union]] orchestrated by [[Joseph Stalin]] in 1937-1938.<ref name="Figes">[[Orlando Figes]] ''The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia'', 2007, ISBN 0-08050-7461-9, pages 227-315.</ref><ref name="Social Catastrophe">Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. By Robert Gellately. 2007. Knopf. 720 pages ISBN 1400040051</ref> It involved the [[purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], repression of [[kulaks|peasants]], deportations of [[ethnic minorities]], and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and killings.<ref name="Figes"/> Estimates of the number of deaths associated with the Great Purge run from the official figure of 681,692 to nearly 2 million.
-==Democide, ethnic cleansing, and population transfers==
 {{main|Population transfer in the Soviet Union}}
+==World War II and aftermath==
-In Soviet Union, political repressions targeted not only individual persons, but also whole ethnic, social, religious, and other categories of population.
+From 1941 on, [[Stalin]] was willing to strike back against the [[Eastern Front (World War II)#Operation Barbarossa: Summer 1941|invading Axis forces]] at all costs and led the war with extreme brutality, including against his own soldiers.<ref name="Merridale, Ivan's War"> Catherine Merridale, ''Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939-1945'', London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-5712-1808-3</ref><ref name="Not so friendly">[http://www.rmc.ca/academic/conference/iuscanada/papers/goette_sovietpaper.pdf ''Not-So-Friendly Fire''], Queen’s University, Canada</ref> The Red Army took much higher casualties than any other military force during World War II, in part because of high manpower attrition and inadequate time for training.<ref>[http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/glantz2/glantz2.asp CSI Report No. 11]: Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk</ref> Faced with badly equipped [[infantry]] units barely capable of standing up against [[machine guns]], [[tanks]] and [[artillery]], the tactics of Soviet commanders were often based on mass infantry attacks, inflicting heavy losses on their own troops. This tactic was also used for clearing minefields, which were ‘attacked’ by waves of infantry soldiers in order to clear them.<ref>David Glantz, Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941 (2001) ISBN 0-7524-1979-X </ref><ref>David Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (1998) ISBN 0-7006-0879-6</ref><ref>[http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewsw63.htm Review of "Stumbling Colossus"] </ref><ref name="Merridale, Ivan's War"> Catherine Merridale, ''Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939-1945'', London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-5712-1808-3</ref> In accordance with the orders of Soviet High Command, retreating soldiers or even soldiers who hesitated to advance faced being shot by rearguard [[SMERSH]] units:
+[[Order № 270|Stalin’s order No 270]] of August 16, 1941, states that in case of retreat or surrender, all officers involved were to be shot on the spot and all enlisted men threatened with total annihilation as well as possible reprisals against their families.<ref name="Not so friendly"> [http://www.rmc.ca/academic/conference/iuscanada/papers/goette_sovietpaper.pdf ''Not-So-Friendly Fire''], Queen’s University, Canada</ref>.<ref>[http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/194_dok/19410816.html Order No 270 in Russian language on hrono.ru] </ref><ref name="Merridale, Ivan's War"> Catherine Merridale, ''Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939-1945'', London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-5712-1808-3</ref>
-Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "[[anti-Soviet]]" categories of population, often classified as "[[enemies of workers]]", deportations of nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to fill the [[ethnic cleansing|ethnically cleansed]] territories. In most cases their destinations were underpopulated remote areas, see [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union]].
-Entire nations and ethnic groups have been collectively punished by the Soviet Government  for alleged collaboration with the enemy during [[World War II]]. At least nine of distinct ethnic-linguistic groups, including [[History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union|ethnic Germans]], ethnic [[Greeks]], [[Polish minority in the Soviet Union|ethnic Poles]], [[Crimean Tatars]], [[Balkars]], [[Chechen people|Chechen]]s, and [[Kalmyk deportations of 1944|Kalmyks]], were deported to remote unpopulated areas of [[Siberia]] (see [[sybirak]]) and [[Kazakhstan]]. [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union]] led to millions of deaths due to the inflicted hardships.<ref name="Conquest">[[Robert Conquest]] (1986) ''The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.'' [[Oxford University Press]]. ISBN 0-19-505180-7. </ref>[[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|Koreans]] and [[Deportation of Romanians in the Soviet Union|Romanians]] were also deported. [[Mass operations of the NKVD]] were needed to [[deport]] hundreds of thousands of people.
-The [[Soviet famine of 1932-1933]] was severely aggravated by the actions of the [[government of the Soviet Union]], such as confiscation of food no meet the planned delivery amounts with disregard of the circumstances, blocking the migration of starving population, and the suppression of the information about the famine, which prevented any organization of relief. This had lead to deaths of millions of people in the affected area.<ref name="Conquest"/>. The overall number of the 1932-1933 famine victims Soviet-wide is estimated as 6-7 million<ref name=Tragediya>С. Уиткрофт ([[Stephen G. Wheatcroft)]], [http://lj.streamclub.ru/history/tragedy.html#add2 "О демографических свидетельствах трагедии советской деревни в 1931—1933 гг."] (On demographic evidence of the tragedy of the Soviet village in 1931-1833), "Трагедия советской деревни: Коллективизация и раскулачивание 1927-1939 гг.: Документы и материалы. Том 3. Конец 1930-1933 гг.", Российская политическая энциклопедия, 2001, ISBN 5-8243-0225-1, с. 885, Приложение № 2</ref> or 6-8 million.<ref name="britannica famine"> "[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/612921/Ukraine Ukraine]",  [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], 2008.</ref>
-==Gulag==
-{{main|Gulag}}
-''[[Gulag: A History]]'', by [[Anne Applebaum]],<ref>[http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780767900560 Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum]</ref> explains: "It was the branch of the [[NKVD|State Security]] that operated the penal system of [[Labor camp|forced labour camps]] and associated detention and transit camps and prisons. While these camps housed criminals of all types, the Gulag system has become primarily known as a place for [[political prisoners]] and as a mechanism for repressing political opposition to the [[Soviet Union|Soviet state]].”
-==Repressions in Baltic countries==
-{{main|Occupation_of_Baltic_States#Soviet_terror}}
-The [[Baltic countries]] of [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]] and [[Lithuania]] were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 as the result of the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact|German-Soviet Pact]] and its [[s:Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact#Secret Additional Protocol|Secret Additional Protocol]].<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-37317/Latvia The Soviet occupation and incorporation] at [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]</ref>
-The repressions followed with the mass [[deportations]] carried out by the Soviets. [[Order № 001223]], ''"On the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia"'', contained detailed instructions for procedures and protocols to observe in the deportation of Baltic nationals. Public tribunals were also set up to punish "traitors to the people": those who had fallen short of the "political duty" of voting their countries into the USSR. In the first year of Soviet occupation, from June 1940 to June 1941, the number confirmed executed, conscripted, or deported is estimated at a minimum of 124,467: 59,732 in Estonia, 34,250 in Latvia, and 30,485 in Lithuania.<ref>Dunsdorfs, Edgars. ''The Baltic Dilemma''. Speller & Sons, New York. 1975</ref> This included 8 former heads of state and 38 ministers from Estonia, 3 former heads of state and 15 ministers from Latvia, and the then president, 5 prime ministers and 24 other ministers from Lithuania.<ref>Küng, Andres. ''Communism and Crimes against Humanity in the Baltic States''. 1999 [http://www.rel.ee/eng/communism_crimes.htm]</ref>
 ==Post-Stalin era (1953-1991)==
-After Stalin's death, the suppression of dissent was dramatically reduced and took new forms. The internal critics of the system were convicted for [[anti-Soviet agitation]], [[Anti-Soviet slander]], or as [[Parasitism (social offense)|"social parasites"]].  Others were labeled as mentally ill, having [[sluggishly progressing schizophrenia]] and incarcerated in "[[psikhushka]]s", i.e. [[mental hospital]]s used by the Soviet authorities as prisons<ref name="Psyche"> [http://hrw.org/reports/2002/china02/china0802-02.htm#P397_91143 The Soviet Case: Prelude to a Global Consensus on Psychiatry and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 2005]</ref>. A number of notable dissidents, including [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], [[Vladimir Bukovsky]], and [[Andrei Sakharov]], were sent to internal or external exile.
+After Stalin's death, the suppression of dissent was dramatically reduced and took new forms. The internal critics of the system were convicted for [[anti-Soviet agitation]], [[Anti-Soviet slander]], or as [[Parasitism (social offense)|"social parasites"]].  Others were labeled as mentally ill, having [[sluggishly progressing schizophrenia]] and incarcerated in "[[psikhushka]]s", i.e. [[mental hospital]]s used by the Soviet authorities as prisons<ref name="Psyche"> [http://hrw.org/reports/2002/china02/china0802-02.htm#P397_91143 The Soviet Case: Prelude to a Global Consensus on Psychiatry and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 2005]</ref>. A number of notable dissidents, incuding [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], [[Vladimir Bukovsky]], and [[Andrei Sakharov]], were sent to internal or external exile.
-==Loss of life==
+==References==
+{{reflist}}
-The exact number of victims may never be known and remains a matter of debate among historians. The published results vary depending on the time when the estimate was made, on the criteria and methods used for the estimates, and sources available for estimates. Some historians attempt to make separate estimates for different periods of the Soviet history. For example, the number of victims under [[Stalinism|Joseph Stalin's regime]] vary from 8 to 61 million <ref name="Ponton">Ponton, G. (1994) ''The Soviet Era.''</ref> <ref name="Tsaplin">Tsaplin, V.V. (1989) ''Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody.''</ref> <ref name="NoveStalin">Nove, Alec. ''Victims of Stalinism: How Many?'', in ''Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives'' (edited by [[J. Arch Getty]] and Roberta T. Manning), [[Cambridge University Press]], 1993. ISBN 0-521-44670-8.</ref> <ref name="Black">Bibliography: Courtois et al. The Black Book of Communism </ref> <ref name="Davies">Davies, Norman. ''Europe: A History'', Harper Perennial, 1998. ISBN 0-06-097468-0.</ref> <ref name="RummelStalin">Bibliography: Rummel.</ref>
-== Remembering the victims ==
-{{main|Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions}}
-Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, День памяти жертв политических репрессий - [[October 30]], since 1991, in former Soviet republics (except for Ukraine, which has its own  annual Day of Remembrance for the victims of political repressions by the Soviet regime on third Sunday of May). Members of the [[Memorial (society)|Memorial society]] take active part in meetings.
 ==See also==
@@ Line 75: / Line 51: @@
 *[[Soviet law]]
+===For other articles on the topic see: ===
 *[[:Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
 *[[:Category:Victims of Soviet repressions]]
 *[[:Category:Gulag]]
 *[[:Category:Forced migration in the Soviet Union]]
+*[[:Category:Soviet and Russian intelligence agencies]]
 *[[:Category:Law enforcement in the Soviet Union]]
 *[[:Category:NKVD]]
@@ Line 88: / Line 66: @@
 *[[:Category:Prisons in Russia]]
+[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
-==References==
+[[Category:Soviet state]]
-{{reflist}}
+[[Category:Soviet Union]]
+{{Soviet-stub}}
-[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union| ]]