Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
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Enemies of the people...
On December 29, 1953, at the instigation of Nikita Khrushchev, the offense of "Enemy of the people" ...
... is removed from the constitution of the Soviet Union!
Immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, the victorious Bolsheviks had been using the term “enemy of the people” – meaning at that time “imperialists”, “landowners”, “bankers” and “their allies”, the “Cossack generals” and the opposition parties of the the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and the "Constitutional Democrats" (KD, the so-called "Cadets").
These groups were particularly subject to state arbitrariness – even to the point of murder.
Since 1936, Article 131 - "Enemy of the People" - was included in the Constitution of the Soviet Union...
...as well - as paragraph 58 - in the Criminal Code of the USSR...:
Because of this article, tens of thousands of people were murdered:
At least 445,000 "kulaks" (wealthier peasants), 41,898 people of German origin, 111,091 Poles (because they were Poles), 30,992 Japanese and at least 16,573 Latvians.
In addition, a number of so-called "Burshui's" (bourgeois) and "ex-persons", which was never determined (and is still to be determined!), by which were meant people who had been of bourgeois origin and/or had been top performers in the tsarist regime.
Here is the first page of a 1940 list of the names of 346 persons to be shot as "enemies of the people." Number 12 is the writer Isaak Babel - das folgende Bild zeigt den berühmten Autos auf einem KGB-Foto, das nach Verhören im Folterkeller des Gefängnisses "Lubjanka" in Moskau gemacht wurde. Die Folterspuren in Babels Gesicht sind deutlich zu sehen!
Stalin confirms the list with a "for that" and his signature...:
About three times as many ended up in prison camps (the GuLag), usually for five or ten years, with "ten years" being the usual standard sentence for "58ers".
Being a child or other relative of an “enemy of the people” also meant lifelong stigmatization until the great wave of rehabilitation under Khrushchev! The way to a better school education, to the universities and demanding work remained reliably blocked.
Two heads of the NKVD/KGB secret service became - sometimes history is fair! – also shot as “enemies of the people” – the "bloody dwarf" Nikolay Jeschow…
... an on April 10, 1939, and - as the last "enemy of the people" ever – Lavrenty Beria…
... Stalin's executioner, December 23, 1953.
After that, the “enemy of the people” article was abolished. The USSR Constitution and Criminal Code offered plenty of other opportunities to deprive unpopular people of their liberty and life...
On December 29, 1953, at the instigation of Nikita Khrushchev, the offense of "Enemy of the people" ...
... is removed from the constitution of the Soviet Union!
Immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, the victorious Bolsheviks had been using the term “enemy of the people” – meaning at that time “imperialists”, “landowners”, “bankers” and “their allies”, the “Cossack generals” and the opposition parties of the the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and the "Constitutional Democrats" (KD, the so-called "Cadets").
These groups were particularly subject to state arbitrariness – even to the point of murder.
Since 1936, Article 131 - "Enemy of the People" - was included in the Constitution of the Soviet Union...
...as well - as paragraph 58 - in the Criminal Code of the USSR...:
Because of this article, tens of thousands of people were murdered:
At least 445,000 "kulaks" (wealthier peasants), 41,898 people of German origin, 111,091 Poles (because they were Poles), 30,992 Japanese and at least 16,573 Latvians.
In addition, a number of so-called "Burshui's" (bourgeois) and "ex-persons", which was never determined (and is still to be determined!), by which were meant people who had been of bourgeois origin and/or had been top performers in the tsarist regime.
Here is the first page of a 1940 list of the names of 346 persons to be shot as "enemies of the people." Number 12 is the writer Isaak Babel - das folgende Bild zeigt den berühmten Autos auf einem KGB-Foto, das nach Verhören im Folterkeller des Gefängnisses "Lubjanka" in Moskau gemacht wurde. Die Folterspuren in Babels Gesicht sind deutlich zu sehen!
Stalin confirms the list with a "for that" and his signature...:
About three times as many ended up in prison camps (the GuLag), usually for five or ten years, with "ten years" being the usual standard sentence for "58ers".
Being a child or other relative of an “enemy of the people” also meant lifelong stigmatization until the great wave of rehabilitation under Khrushchev! The way to a better school education, to the universities and demanding work remained reliably blocked.
Two heads of the NKVD/KGB secret service became - sometimes history is fair! – also shot as “enemies of the people” – the "bloody dwarf" Nikolay Jeschow…
... an on April 10, 1939, and - as the last "enemy of the people" ever – Lavrenty Beria…
... Stalin's executioner, December 23, 1953.
After that, the “enemy of the people” article was abolished. The USSR Constitution and Criminal Code offered plenty of other opportunities to deprive unpopular people of their liberty and life...
