Фото: kulturologia.ru.

“Minors starting from the age of 12, caught in theft, violence, bodily harm, mutilation, murder or attempted murder, are to be brought to criminal court with the application of all criminal punishment measures.” (1935. From a resolution of the Politburo after Stalin’s correction.)

“1935 became a special year in the fight against juvenile delinquency. By the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on May 31, 1935, the Department of Labor Colonies was created within the NKVD system, with the task of organizing reception-distributors, isolators, and labor colonies for homeless and criminal minors,” writes Dr. V. Zemskov, a doctor of historical sciences. “Within 4.5 years (from mid-1935 to early 1940), the reception-distributors of the GULAG passed through 952,834 teenagers, who were directed to children’s institutions of the People’s Commissariats, Health Commissariat and NKVD, as well as to the labor colonies of the GULAG. During this period, 155,506 teenagers from 12 to 18 years old passed through the labor colonies, of which 68,927 were prosecuted.” There were also bright moments. “Among the non-prosecuted underage wards, it was allowed to create pioneering squads and Komsomol organizations. As of March 1, 1940, there were 4,126 pioneers and 1,075 Komsomol members.”

Measures became more and more severe. A month before, on March 19, 1935, Voroshilov sent a famous letter to Stalin, Molotov, and Kalinin, in which he said: “I am sending a clipping from the newspaper ‘Rabochaya Moskva’ No. 61 dated March 15, 1935, illustrating, on the one hand, the monstrous forms that hooliganism of teenagers in Moscow takes, and on the other hand, the almost benign attitude of the judicial authorities towards these facts (mitigation of sentences by half, etc.). Comrade Vul (head of the militia department in Moscow and Moscow region; later arrested and shot ― P.G.), with whom I spoke on the phone about this, reported that this case is not only not unique, but that he has registered up to 3000 malicious teenage hooligans, about 800 of whom are undisputed bandits capable of anything. On average, he arrests up to 100 hooligans and homeless children a day, not knowing where to put them (no one wants to take them). Just yesterday, a 9-year-old boy stabbed the 13-year-old son of the deputy prosecutor of Moscow, Comrade Koblenetz (later arrested and shot ― P.G.). Not only Vul, but also Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Yagoda state that they have no way to accommodate homeless children due to the lack of orphanages, and consequently, to combat this problem. I think that the Central Committee should instruct the NKVD to organize the accommodation not only of homeless children but also of unattended children immediately and thereby secure the capital from the ever-growing ‘childish’ hooliganism.”

Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, April 7, 1935, No. 3/598 “On measures to combat juvenile delinquency.” Most likely, under the influence of this appeal by Molotov (undoubtedly coordinating the issue with Stalin), a new Prosecutor of the USSR Vyshinsky was tasked to prepare a draft resolution on combating juvenile delinquency. On March 29, Vyshinsky submitted a draft resolution to Molotov, which was then submitted for consideration by the Politburo. The prosecutor coped with the task remarkably quickly ― in 10 days. Stalin showed great interest in the project and made a significant amendment of a fundamental nature to it. Vyshinsky’s version (after all, a lawyer) differed in a certain moderation and circumvolution of formulations. Its first point read: “Regarding minors caught in systematic theft, violence, bodily harm, mutilation, etc., to apply, at the discretion of the court, both measures of medical-pedagogical influence and measures of criminal punishment.” Such formulations did not suit Stalin, and he made changes to the text after which the resolution sounded quite in a cannibalistic manner. This version was approved by the Politburo and published in newspapers on April 8, 1935.

Photo: homsk.com. On April 20, the Politburo approved a secret explanation to the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office that among the measures of criminal punishment provided by law for minors from the age of 12, “the highest measure of criminal punishment (execution) also applies.” Accordingly, the old provisions of the Criminal Code prohibiting the use of the death penalty for persons under 18 were abolished. Romain Rolland, a trusted friend of the USSR, was invited to Moscow and received by Stalin. During the conversation, the writer told the general secretary that he saw in him the embodiment of a “new humanism,” but he was uneasy about the law on the execution of minors. After listening to a twenty-minute monologue by the guest, Stalin asked for permission to respond. “We had to adopt this repressive law, threatening child criminals and especially their instigators with the death penalty. In fact, we do not apply this law. I hope it will not be applied. Naturally, we cannot publicly admit this: the necessary effect will be lost, the effect of intimidation.” It is interesting how one can achieve the “intimidation effect” with a secret document? But the French writer was satisfied with the explanation: it turns out that children are not executed, but rather frightened… Sadly, as usual, Stalin lied: not only were they “frightened” by savage laws. Of course, some part (perhaps a large one) of these minors received a bullet to the back of the head not for mythical (“counter-revolutionary”) crimes but for quite specific, criminal offenses: there were millions of homeless children wandering the country, providing themselves with food only through criminal means. But then one must ask: where did millions of juvenile delinquents suddenly come from in the country of “victorious socialism”? What happened to their parents, whose numbers also must have been in the millions? Who deprived these millions of children of everything ― parents, homes, a piece of bread? Was it not the country ― with collectivization, wiping out the peasantry, industrialization, the Holodomor, and the “law of three spikelets”? And could you correct the situation with “nine grams” of lead in the most unruly head?

Children’s home of the Kargopol corrective labor camp. 1945. Photo from the archives of the State Archive of the Russian Federation. Four teenagers aged 16-17 are known by their last names, who were executed from December 19, 1937, to March 14, 1938, and buried in the Butovo polygon. Three of the executed ― Alexander Petrakov, Mikhail Tretyakov, and Ivan Belokashin ― were accused of entering a group of prisoners “hostile to the existing regime, systematically engaged in counter-revolutionary propaganda and robbing fellow inmates” while already in prison for criminal offenses. The fourth, Ukrainian Anatoly Plakushy, who was also serving a sentence for a criminal offense, was accused of “of his own initiative, from mischievous and hooligan motives, tattooing a tattoo on his left leg above the knee, depicting one of the leaders of the Communist Party. His act was accompanied by insulting expressions.” And they were shot. Voroshilov could be satisfied: none of the four managed to become a “bandit.” “…but the number of those convicted increased by one and a half times” The same year 1935. Order of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Yagoda: “All facts of mocking treatment of children are to be considered as manifestations of class hatred on the part of the enemies of the working people. Each such case is to be thoroughly investigated and those guilty are to be held accountable to the highest degree.” What correct words were invariably included in all orders, directives, instructions… But somehow it turned out that these wonderful documents were written (and had to follow the prescribed) invariably by the very people who needed to be re-educated. Thus, “unfortunately for the ‘strong and unbroken family,’ the most prominent advocates were repeatedly married individuals, and for ‘national pride and originality’ ― the owners of multimillion-dollar real estate worldwide. And there’s no reason to be surprised: the results always turned out to be far from what was expected and planned. 1939. The newly appointed People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Beria writes a secret note to Stalin and Molotov: “Since the issuance of the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on the elimination of child homelessness and neglect and the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on measures to combat juvenile delinquency, around 5 years have passed, but the number of neglected and convicted minors has increased; for example, minors aged 12 to 16 were convicted by the judicial authorities: In 1935 ― 6,725 individuals; In 1936 ― 15,031 individuals; In 1937 ― 17,234 individuals; In 1938 ― 20,166 individuals; In 1939 ― 13,286 individuals. The proportion of minors attracting criminal responsibility in relation to the total number of individuals brought to criminal responsibility by the militia in 1938 compared to 1936 almost tripled. The number of minors detained by the militia for neglect in 1936 was 156,000; in 1937 ― 159,000; in 1938 ― 175,000; in the first half of 1939 ― 91,000.”

A penknife theft leads to 6 years

In 2002, a bulky volume of documents “Children of the GULAG” was published, which, among other things, included orders from the ministers of internal affairs on checks of labor colonies. There were 40 labor colonies throughout the country, and nearly all of them were covered by the orders. Regarding the Ostashkovo colony in the Kalinin region: “Recently, a number of labor colonies have experienced mass unrest among residents, which resulted from the complete breakdown of work in these colonies, their failure to comply with the orders of the NKVD of the USSR and directives of the Central Recruitment Center for the proper organization of production, educational, and political-educational activities in the colonies. Regarding the Chepetskaya colony in the Kirov region: The prolonged detention of more than 100 colony residents who do not require the regime of the colony, who should be employed, returned to their families and common places of imprisonment. Medical care for residents is not organized, therefore, 30% of them are sick with scabies and eczema. The dormitories are unsanitary, as most residents do not have bedding. Colony residents are not provided with linens, clothes, shoes and are kept in unsanitary conditions, which has led to a widespread louse infestation and a number of typhus outbreaks among residents.” Needles to say, the result of these orders was often the removal of the heads of the labor colonies. I think among the officials of the labor colonies “affected” were not fewer than among the ministers themselves. So, “by 1937, there were already 63 colonies for children in the country, including seven closed-type ones, that is, natural prisons. During the first two years, labor children’s colonies produced products worth 310 million rubles. Since then, child labor has been seen as a source of cheap products and profit. Before 1939, the children’s colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Economic Administration of the NKVD of the USSR, and then they were transferred to the administration of the GULAG. Modern researcher Alla Gorchyova provides facts. For example, in the Buinskaya colony (Chuvashia) in 1943, children worked in slate quarries, and in the Buzuluk colony (Chkalov region) ― in remote areas during night shifts. They did not study, of course. Children in forest colonies were widely involved in logging. Even preschoolers, who were unable to fell a tree, trimmed branches and twigs and perished from hunger and countless diseases.” Photograph: kulturologia.ru. In the Nizhneudinski colony (Irkutsk region), 442 teenagers were brought to the taiga and thrown into barracks under subhuman and unsanitary conditions: without windows, linens — bedding and personal, washbasins, baths, restrooms. There were no tables or chairs inside the barracks. The question of heating was not even discussed. The barracks were overflowing with excrement.

Children died like flies from scabies, tuberculosis, dystrophy, pellagra ― these are everyday diseases widely spread in Soviet camps and colonies. It will be argued: there was a war, the whole country was strained to its limits, why should exceptions have been made for juvenile delinquents? First, not “the whole country,” not even in the Leningrad blockade did any (!) party functionaries die of hunger. I have had to write about Kremlin banquets organized by Stalin during the most difficult days, and these banquets invariably amazed foreign guests with their abundance, the richness of the menu, and the number of drunken hosts… But, of course, what can be compared to that. Secondly, not only during the war but even in the most peaceful days, the treatment of juvenile delinquents was, to put it mildly, far from ideal. Over the years, cruelty towards children did not diminish, they received sentences incomparable with their crimes. Sentences of 10, 15, 20 years in prison became a common practice. His mana pistol was taken for 6 years for children aged 10, and there were about 2,500 of them…403 children are sentenced to 10-15 years for minor offenses, and 11 of them are supposed to serve over 20 years. The examples provided by the chief made up a thick file. Children’s punishments, writes Dolgikh, are getting harsher. Before the war, for these offenses, they were sentenced to two-three years, but now it’s up to 25 years. The number of children sent to the colonies is increasing. During the war alone, over two million children passed through the reception-distributors. The majority of them were not criminals but victims. This material was released in the sixteenth issue of “Novaya Gazeta. Zhurnal.” You can buy it in the online store of our partners.