The Voices of the Dead

Title: The Voices of the Dead – Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s

Author: Hiroaki Kuromiya

Publisher: Yale University Press 2007 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-300-12389-0

Pages: 267

Hiroaki Kuromiya is Professor of History, Indiana University. His works are centred on Stalin and Russia of his times. This book is based on the Great Terror, unleashed by Stalin in 1937-38 when the Soviet state was preparing for an inevitable war against Germany and Poland on the western front and against Japan in the east. Unflinching loyalty to the Bolshevik regime was a prerequisite for peaceful stay in Stalin’s empire. Even casual and joking references of the communist leaders were valid grounds for years of incarceration or outright death, particularly if the victim happened to belong to vulnerable sections of society like ethnic foreigners, refugees, erstwhile nobles in Tsarist regime and old enemies who fought the communists during civil war in the aftermath of Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Usually, the accused were taken into custody without warrants, or if at all there was one, it might have been made out after the acutal arrest. Interrogation was brutal, habitually involving third degree methods and mental torture. Confessions were forcefully evicted from the suspects under duress, witnesses were brought it who always toed the police line, judgements were passed by a group of two or three men (dvoika or troika) who were extra-judicial personnel, usually police officials themselves or communist party officials. Capital punishment was awarded to even the slightest provocation to authoritarian rule of the party, the condemned were shot within a week and interred in mass graves. Kuromiya purports to provide voices to the hapless victims, who were otherwise swept off the face of the earth, without any voices being heard in the public sphere.

Stalin (ruled from 1924-1953) was one of the cruellest, blood thirsty tyrant ever reigned over mankind. Propped up on power by an ideology which never tolerated dissent and ordered animal-like subordination to a handful of masters, he made life hell for people who wavered an iota from the path prescribed by communist party cadres.  People were rounded up on mere suspicion, outrageous charges levelled against, confessions obtained and summarily shot. Every communist regime in the world boasts of a larger than lifelike secret police organization, modelled on Stalin’s NKVD. The dictators of the party feel threatened if they could not eavesdrop on the communications of their citizens. Hitler, another mass murderer on the mould of Stalin created Gestapo, which was mild when compared to NKVD! Gestapo had one officer for every 10,000 persons in the population, while NKVD had one official for every 500 people. These officers spied on the people, reporting constantly on the inputs of informers and agent provocateurs. Suspects were rounded up at night, most of whom never saw the light of day thereafter.

Stalin’s pogroms began in 1930 through forced collectivization of farms. As part of de-Kulakisation, rich farmers (kulaks) were evicted out of their homesteads and sent to work in distant collective farms. Even moderately wealthy people were clubbed together as belonging to Kulaks, wiping off any trace of public sympathy. The widespread upset in agriculture and pseudo-scientific methods adopted in plant genetics resulted in a great famine in 1933-34, in which seven million people were deemed to have died. As World War II neared, Stalin grew suspicious of the loyalties of ethnic Poles, Germans, Japanese and Koreans. They were the prime targets of the Great Terror initiative (1937-38). Even Russians couldn’t escape the wrath of the regime. A total of one million people were murdered by the communist regime.

Although people following any means of livelihood was liable for suspicion, those who were associated with foreign diplomats and consulates naturally came under mistrust. Women who fell in love with diplomats were forced to confess or accuse their lovers. Even police informers or agent provocateurs didn’t have a secure life cut out for them. Often, they were accused of collusion by not providing sufficient information to the secret police in time. They were expected to furnish incriminating accusations (evidence was not necessary, the police could see to it that it was fabricated just before conviction) against their friends, neighbours, colleagues and even spouses. Stalin didn’t see family as a cherished institution. People who didn’t report on the misdeeds of their spouses were equally liable for punishment. Moreover, if the spouse was indicted, partners were expected to legally obtain divorce from them! Citizens who criticised the regime were charged with counter-revolutionary activity and marked as enemy of the people. Kuromiya brings out numerous instances when the victims were exonerated (often posthumously) when reviews were conducted after Stalin’s death and after the communist regime was toppled in the 1990s. Though it was no solace for relatives (if at all they were alive) to know that their kin had been rehabilitated by the regime, it helped to wipe them clear of the malignant charges levelled against the entire family by a vindictive autocrat.

Family and religion, which were traditional pillars of social life were anathema to Stalin. He sought to destroy them and substitute the state in their places. The state, particularly the workers, were portrayed as a single family, doing away with the need of having any other kin of the blood. Stalin openly approved of destroying families, if any one of its members moved against the state, as he said, “And we shall destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts – yes, his thoughts – threatens the unity of the socialist state. To the complete destruction of all enemies, themselves and their kin!” (p.198). The state terror frequently exceeded rational limits. Leon Trotsky was a great revolutionary leader, of the calibre of Lenin himself and deemed as the second in command during October Revolution. He fell out with Stalin in the power struggle after Lenin’s death and was expelled from Russia in 1929. He was assassinated by secret agents in Mexico in 1940. People sharing the surname of Trotsky was suspect thereafter of harbouring counter-revolutionary ideas! The word Trotskyite became practically a swear word in Russian. Kuromiya gives out an example in detail.

The book attempts a noble cause of providing voice to the dead. As the victims were ordinary citizens, their cries of pain, of agony, of despair were never heard. Kuromiya has succeeded in presenting the cases of those poor victims forcefully before the world, leaving us with no other option other than to bestow our deep felt regards to a group of people who lived their lives just like us, who joked just like us, who loved and quarrelled just like us, but were unfortunate enough to live under an autocrat and a dubious ideology which was hastily offloaded to the scrap bins of history whenever the people had had half-a-chance.

On a downbeat note, the book is concentrated on Ukraine and all the instances happened in Kiev, its capital city. The author claims that it was because Ukraine opened up its archives unlike some other former Russian republics. Many of the victims mentioned are women, Kuromiya justifying that women were least likely to be radicals! However, this seems to be an attempt to achieve sentimental overtones for the narrative. Though it may sound cruel, all chapters seem to be made out in the same mould and narrative often becomes monotonous. Any how, the book is a must read for us, who want to see how life was lived in Stalin’s Russia.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star