Three Spaces of Repression: Soviet Violence during the Post-Stalin Era

For over 60 years, political science has debated whether the term "totalitarianism" is appropriate. However, in some situations, an authoritarian regime becomes so brutal that the word "totalitarian" better describes its essence, according to Stalinist scholar Robert C. Tucker. 

On the other hand, other political scientists call "totalitarianism" a metaphor rather than a scientific concept since, in their opinion, it is impossible to achieve total control over society. However, the concept of totalitarianism still seems logical. 

By analogy, we call heavy rain a downpour. Sometimes the downpour may cease and turn into rain, but you shouldn't go out anyway. 

This metaphor points to an essential dynamic in Soviet history. Although the regime's repressive nature eased after Stalin's death, violence did not disappear. Instead, it became indirect, hidden. Sometimes it could be felt in everyday life but not seen.

After Stalin's death, it was evident to the Soviet elite that the Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps, Labor Settlements, and Prisons (GULAG) was to be reduced. The reason was both ideological and economic. 

There were about 7,000 kilometres between the westernmost camp (Deliatyn, then in the Lviv region) and the easternmost camp (Egvekinot, Chukotka). The southernmost camp is located in Turkmenistan, near the Karakum desert, and the northernmost is on Kildin Island in the Barents Sea. Therefore, it was impossible to maintain the system any longer. 

It was due to both ideological and economic considerations. Although the forced labour of people made it possible to build grandiose projects, they often made no sense. 

GULAG historian Aleg Khlevniuk gives the following example: in 1937, the NKVD began sending prisoners from the Samara camp to build the Kuibyshev hydroelectric complex. In 1940, the project stopped. During this time, 40 thousand of prisoners visited the construction site. 

A total of 126 million rubles was spent on this project. In today's money, this is about half a billion dollars. In 1949, the construction of the hydroelectric power plant started anew. 

So after Stalin's death, the then-head of the USSR Ministry of Justice, Lavrenty Beria, initiated a giant amnesty that released about a million prisoners. He understood the camps like no one else, having headed this system for seven years under Stalin. 

Over the following years, the number of prisoners continued to decline due to amnesties, early releases, health releases, and rehabilitation of political prisoners, writes Princeton historian Jeffrey Hardy.  

These changes resulted in the number of political prisoners decreasing from 540,000 in 1953 to 10,000 in 1960. The GULAG was then disbanded. But these 10 thousand did not disappear. So where did the Soviet security forces send dissidents?

The "closure of the GULAG" was just a bureaucratic ruse. First, the camp system was decentralised, and now the republican interior ministries independently managed the camps on their territory.

Of course, the living conditions were less harsh than in Stalin's time. However, this does not change the fact that Vasyl Stus died in a camp founded in 1946. Dissident Oleksa Tykhyi also spent his last years there.

In total, from 1956 to 1987, at least 8,000 political sentences were passed through the prosecutor's office of the RSFSR. Moreover, this number includes only two articles: anti-Soviet propaganda and defamation of the Soviet system. The security forces could use non-political articles to put a dissident behind bars quietly.

The calculation of this number is complicated because not all dissidents ended up in camps. Instead, many faced another, no less brutal, form of repression: punitive psychiatry. 

This tool emerged in cooperation between Soviet security forces and psychiatrists. No one could have been able to fight against the construction of communism sincerely. A dissident could either be under foreign influence or mentally ill. 

When it was impossible to prove the former, psychiatrists came to the rescue: they conducted an "examination" to establish the person allegedly had a mental illness and therefore needed to be forcibly treated.

In the nineties, a commission of doctors examined psychiatric hospitals in five Russian cities. The lists of former patients included about 2000 people convicted of political offences. In the end, it is easy to see the scale of this phenomenon - just look at the "symptoms" that Soviet (and later Russian) psychiatrists attributed to "sluggish schizophrenia" of various types: panic attacks, fear of crowds, introspection, demonstrativeness, and gloomy moods. In other words, everyone can see themselves in this description. 

How did psychiatrists treat dissidents? It is how Major General Petro Hryhorenko of the Soviet army, who became disillusioned with the post-World War II regime and fell victim to punitive psychiatry, described it: "I was struck by the amount [of drugs] prescribed to be taken orally. It's literally a handful of pills to take at a time. Those who regularly take aminazin have discoloured palate and tongue, they lose their sense of taste, their mouths are constantly dry, their stomach burns, and they suffer from pain." 

If the detainees refused to take the drug, they were forced to inject it. One of Hryhorenko's roommates felt so sick from the "medicine" that after taking it, he "opened his mouth and could not close it for more than an hour. In addition, his breathing was disturbed, his eyes bulged, his face showed agony, and he was struggling with suffocation and spasms in his body with all his being".

The hardest thing to remember is those who were not there. From Stalin's death until 1989, there were almost no Crimean Tatars in Crimea. In 1956-1957, Khrushchev agreed to the return of deported peoples. However, this did not apply to the Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, or Meskhetian Turks. They were only allowed to choose their places of residence outside their homes rather than stay in special settlements. 

Later, the Germans were allowed to move to their homeland, but the Crimean Tatars had to fight for this right for another 30 years. Finally, they wrote petitions, held public protests, and tried to return to Crimea on their own. However, the Soviet elite continued to ignore these calls. 

Security forces on the peninsula persecuted returnees and forced them to leave Crimea. Meanwhile, in Central Asia and Siberia, generations who did not remember or had never seen their parents' homes grew up. As a result, half a million people could not exercise Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the right to restore their unlawfully violated fundamental rights.

The Soviet Union is not the only state that grossly violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of people. Therefore, the only question is how to deal with your past. 

During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated 125,000 Japanese to internment camps. However, in 1988, Ronald Reagan signed a law that contained an apology to the internees and provided compensation. 

Similar processes are taking place with the comprehension of violence against the indigenous population of North America and discrimination against blacks. However, these trends have not yet reached their logical conclusion. 

Instead, over the past 20 years, the Kremlin has been trying to erase traces of the history of the Gulag and post-Stalinist repression. Punitive psychology has also been justified, and its functionaries continue to call dissidents mentally ill. 

The fate of the Crimean Tatars is reflected in the T-shirt of Kremlin prisoner Servet Gaziev, which he wore to the reading of the Russian court's verdict: "Born in deportation, shall we die in deportation?"