Agnessa: A Gulag Memoir

Appendix A

      Appendix A Stenographic  report  of  the  meeting  of  the  heads  of  operational  points,   operational  municipal  and  regional  branches  of  the  UNKVD  of  the  Western   Siberian  Region,  conducted  by  the  head  of  the  administration  of  the  NKVD   of  the  Western  Siberian  Region,  commissar  of  State  Security  3rd  rank.   S.  M.  MIRONOV1     July  25,  1937     […]  Until  we  have  conducted  the  entire  operation,  this  operation  and  its   results   are   a   state   secret.   When   I   acquaint   you   with   the   entire   plan,   all   the   figures  that  you  will  hear  today,  to  the  extent  possible,  must  remain  buried  in   your  head  until  you  have  expunged  them.  The  individual  who  is  responsible   for   the   minutest   divulgence   of   the   general   figures   will   be   subjected   to   a   military  tribunal.  Because  the  figures  are  somewhat  unusual  for  the  region,  I   consider   it   necessary   to   acquaint   you   with   them   so   that   you   can   orient   yourselves  to  the  scope  of  the  operation.   […]   After   I   have   acquainted   you   with   the   order   and   the   plan   for   the   region   as   a   whole,   don’t   hesitate   to   ask   questions.   We   wish   to   resolve   all   misunderstandings   now,   because   after   the   meeting   we   must   adjourn   the   meeting  so  that  you  can  catch  your  trains.   […]  If  you  have  secret  interrogations  of  witnesses  and  orders  for  arrest,   then  the  plan  begins  with  that.   This  order  does  not  have  to  be  checked  by  the  procurator.2  We  will  send   the   procurator   only   the   list   of   arrestees   […].   You   will   give   the   lists   to   the   procurator   after   the   operation   is   over   without   indicating   which   of   them   belongs  to  the  first  and  second  categories.3  In  the  lists  you  are  to  indicate  only                                                                                                                               1  First  published  in  V.  N.  Uimanov  and  Iu.  A.  Petrukhin,  comps.,  Bol’  liudskaia:  Kniga   pamiati   tomichei,   repressirovannykh   v   30–40e   i   nachale   50-­‐‑kh   [Humanity’s   pain:   To   the   memory  of  the  citizens  of  Tomsk,  repressed  in  the  1930s,  1940s,  and  beginning  of  the   1950s]  (Tomsk:  Upravlenie  KGB  SSSR  po  Tomskoi  oblasti,  1999),  5:  102–03m,  110–11.   See  facsimile  reproduction  on  p.  216.   2  ”The  procurator,  like  the  Soviet  court,  conducts  the  struggle  against  […]  enemies  of   the  Soviet  Power,  spies,  saboteurs  and  other  agents  of  the  foreign  bourgeoisie.”  From   Uchebnik  “Sovetskoi  Konstitutsii”  [“Soviet  Constitution”  manual]  (Moscow,  1951).     3  In  1937  the  Politburo  issued  the  infamous  Operational  Order  No.  00447.  It  divided   arrestees   into   two   categories.   The   first   category   consisted   of   active   “enemies   of   the   people,”  who  were  to  be  arrested  and  shot.  The  second  category  described  people  who   were  active  but  less  hostile.  They  were  subject  to  sentences  of  eight  to  ten  years  in  the   216 AGNESSA   Page  1  of  the  “Stenographic  report  of  the  meeting  of  the  heads  of     operational  points,  operational  municipal  and  regional    branches   of  the  UNKVD  of  the  Western  Siberian  Region…”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Gulags   or   prisons.   For   the   entire   text   of   the   order,   see   J.   Arch   Getty   and   Oleg   V.   Naumov,  The  Road  to  Terror:  Stalin  and  the  Self-­‐‑Destruction  of  the  Bolsheviks,  1932–1939   (New  Haven:  Yale  University  Press,  1999),  473–80.   APPENDIX A 217 whether   the   arrestee   is   a   kulak   or   a   criminal,   the   code   by   which   he   was   arrested,  and  the  date  of  the  arrest.  In  the  beginning  we  are  concerned  only   with  the  first  category—cull  out  the  most  active.   We  can  now  detain  prisoners  in  the  KPZ  [Pretrial  Detention  Facility]  for   two  months  […].   Do   not   schedule   face-­‐‑to-­‐‑face   confrontations   with   the   arrestees.   It   is   sufficient   to   interrogate   2–3   witnesses.   As   for   group   cases,   in   exceptional   circumstances   you   may   conduct   face-­‐‑to-­‐‑face   meetings   if   some   among   them   will  not  confess  […].   The  limit  on  the  first  operation  is  11,000  people.  That  is,  you  must  arrest   11,000   people   by   July   28.   Or,   arrest   12,000,   indeed   even   13,000   and   even   15,000.  In  fact,  this  number  is  not  fixed.  You  may  even  arrest  20,000  in  the  first   category  with  the  proviso  that  later  you  can  pick  out  from  among  them  those   who  belong  in  the  second  category.  The  limit  on   the  first  category  is  10,800   persons,  but  from  among  them  the  more  interesting  must  be  culled  […].   You  must  pull  out  and  crush  everything  in  the  organized  underground.   The   task   before   you   is   to   uncover   the   organized   underground   […].   This   business  is  not  diminishing.  On  the  contrary,  the  struggle  with  the  organized   counter-­‐‑revolution   expands   and   expands   […].   We   must   not   allow   our   attention  to  weaken,  and  some  part  of  the  apparatus—if  it  discovers  cases  of   organized...