One of our recent genealogy research projects involved translating a Soviet criminal file from 1938. It was a striking discovery for our customer and for us, too, and a case study of how the totalitarian system operated.
Have you ever heard of the Soviet “troikas”? During the Stalinist purges, they were secret, three-person tribunals that bypassed the standard legal system to deliver instant verdicts. Without a trial, jury, or defense lawyers, these three officials could sentence a citizen to imprisonment, exile, or death in a matter of minutes.
Our customer’s grandfather, whose family history we studied, was the chief sanitary inspector of Zhytomyr Province. He was arrested in 1938, accused of “active anti-revolutionary activity aimed at overthrowing Soviet power,” and shot alongside 80 other individuals. They were all framed as members of a fabricated “military-officer, pro-tsarist insurgent organization in the city of Zhytomyr, preparing for an armed uprising in the rear of the Red Army to provide assistance to foreign interventionists in the event of a war by capitalist states.”
This decision was delivered by a troika in 1939.
One of many telling details of this file is the inventory list of items “seized for submission to the Zhytomyr Oblast Department of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR” which shows exactly what was taken:
- 7. 20 gold roubles (four 5-rouble coins)
- 8. Rings: two with diamonds and one wedding ring (3 items in total)
- 9. Gold cufflinks (2 items)
- 10. Gold pocket watch with a chain, No. 20285
- 11. Ladies’ watch with a bracelet, No. 8469
- 12. A gold tooth crown
Long after the grandfather’s execution, after WWII, his widow applied to have these personal items returned. These items, of course, disappeared long ago, but they decided to “reimburse” her with a cash payout equal to a two-month salary allowance of a provincial sanitary inspector. That was the price they put on a person’s entire life and belongings.
Interestingly, the file also includes documents from a later period when the activities of the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) were officially investigated. It contains explicit testimony from Viatkin Grigoriy Matveyevich, the former Head of the NKVD Directorate for Zhytomyr Oblast in 1938. This is what he admitted under investigation:
“…By the time of my arrival in Zhytomyr Oblast, for the year 1937 and part of 1938, more than 20,000 people had been repressed, and no fewer than 3,000 to 4,000 individuals were held in prisons. These cases were conducted in a hostile manner; alongside kulaks and political bandits, innocent people were repressed. Although I issued an instruction to arrest individuals only with my authorization, in practice, this was not observed. Following this, mass beatings of the arrested individuals commenced at the locations, as a result of which statements regarding the existence of insurgent detachments were obtained…”
When you read a confession like that from the officer himself, it becomes very clear what was really behind the forced “confession” in the grandfather’s interrogation record:
- Question: “Be candid in your testimony, your denial is in vain; the investigation possesses detailed data regarding your relations with Lebedev and the anti-Soviet activity being conducted. I am asking you: do you intend to give a candid testimony?
- Answer: “Yes, I have decided to give a candid testimony. And also to be sincere before the investigation. I sought to conceal the truth from the investigation. I was not candid in my testimony… proceeding from my hostility towards the Soviet regime. Therefore, I waged a struggle against the investigation throughout the entire period of my detention. By this statement, I confirm my participation in the counter-revolutionary activity (…)”
More evidence provided by Viatkin reveals the calculated, assembly-line nature of this system:
“On the second day after my arrival in Zhytomyr, I convened the Troika, and within a few days, reviewed the cases of approximately 4,000 people who appeared in the files as spies, saboteurs, members of military organizations and unions (…). The vast majority of these people were sentenced to death by shooting and were executed.”
“…The greatest of my crimes is that, while doubting the correctness of the charges brought by the provincial offices against the arrested individuals, (…) I nonetheless reviewed their cases, and around 4,000 people were shot pursuant to the sentences of the Troika, despite my lack of confidence in the guilt of a significant portion of them.”
Living and working here in Ukraine today, I know that those “viatkins” are trying to return. That’s just another reason to keep fighting.
Source: the State Archive of Zhytomyr Province, Records Group 5013, Series 2, Files 1084, 1085, 1087, 1088.
Feel free to get in touch if you need help with your family research in Ukraine. Check out our virtual tour offer. We will be happy to help you learn more about your roots. The day when we can do our heritage tours of Ukraine will come, too.
Andriy