Title: Вертикаль терору: діяльність Уманської міжрайонної оперативно-слідчої групи НКВС у 1937-1938 роках
Abstract: “Great social purge” initiated by Joseph Stalin in the middle of the 1930s was scaled for the entire USSR and was planned to address even remote locations of the Soviet state. In 1937-1938, temporary chekist bodies of the NKVD (MROSG NKVD Ukrainian SSR) played a considerable role in effective providing of the ‘terror chain’. In Uman region, this efficient instrument for mass operations emerged in the end of spring in 1937. The MROSG NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR in Uman, covering 12 districts of Kyiv region, was headed by Isai Babych, Solomon Borysov-Lenderman, Oleksandr Tomin, and Vasyl Kozachenko.
In the beginning, the group comprised 10-12 representatives of the regional apparatus and the local district department of the NKVD; however, as there developed a tendency for mass arrest, the number ofpeople active in the judicial scrutiny grew up to 100 people. During the entire period of activity (Spring 1937 - May 1939) executive investigators prepared the so-called ‘album lists’, namely the cases to be reviewed by the UNKVD in Kyiv region, Special Council, and Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court.
In the first decade of September in 1937, the Uman investigated group repressed 983 people under the order No. 00447 (“kurkul operation”), including 659people by the 1st category anf332people by the 2nd category (489 ‘kurkuls’; 269 criminals; 225 ‘contrrevolutionary elements’).
In addition to gross violations in investigative work, there are records of numerous cases of looting in the activities of the Uman interdistrict operational-investigative group. Based on the archival documents, one can argue that some members of the Uman NKVD department considered participation in executions of the “enemies of the people” as the source of additional income.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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