Russian activist group names 40,000 secret police under Stalin, reviving horror of the past
The archive, culled from the records of Stalin’s security forces (the NKVD) for the first time names those who carried out some 700,000 executions from 1935 to 1939 during ‘The Great Terror’
A Russian human rights group has published a database containing personal information about nearly 40,000 members of the notorious security force that carried out Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s purges, shedding light on an ugly stretch of history the Kremlin would prefer to remain hidden.
The archive, culled from the records of Stalin’s security forces (the NKVD) and posted on the website of Memorial, the human rights group, for the first time names those who carried out some 700,000 executions from 1935 to 1939 during “The Great Terror”. Russian President Vladimir Putin has in recent years revised Stalin’s legacy, emphasising the dictator’s role in defeating Nazi Germany in the second world war and turning the Soviet Union into a world power.
Until now, if anyone mentions the victims, it’s as though they were killed by a natural disaster like an earthquake or a tidal wave
The details of the purges, in which Communist Party leaders and rank-and-file citizens were summarily tried and convicted, usually on trumped-up charges, have been erased from school textbooks and public discourse.
“Until now, if anyone mentions the victims, it’s as though they were killed by a natural disaster like an earthquake or a tidal wave,” Yan Rachinsky of Memorial told The Washington Post on Thursday. “They were victims of crimes and those crimes were committed by people.”
The Kremlin had a much less enthusiastic response.
“I will leave this issue without comment. The issue is very sensitive,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
