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The ideological campaign of Perestroika made thinnking about the repressions more difficult, using an overly simplifoed model of the phenomenon. Thus, much was said about how the trials were "fabricated." But no one [at the time of the repressions] understood the ritual accusations literally, and it is important to understand how they were interpreted. Tukhachevsky was accused of "organizing plots and espionage," but people thought to themselves that he was really being punished because he shot hostages in Tambovskaya Guberniya in 1921 and suggested using chemical weapons against peasants. When L.P. Beria was executed as an "English spy," noone was in amazement and the absurd accusation -- everyone believed that he was really being killed as a bloody-handed bandit who had cut short the lives of many innocent people (here, we are discussing the received wisdom about Beria, and not a reliable assessment of the actual state of affairs).
As is not surprising, theideologues of Perestroika themselves went down the road of mystification, departing from the principles of law: making up unfounded "lists" to be rehabilitated corresponding completely to to unfounded "lists" to be repressed. Here is an example of an absolutely absurd decision: the entire group condemned along with Bukharin was rehabilitated, as the accusation of espionage was fabricated. But nevertheless this was not done with Yagoda. He was, of course, nor a very nice person, but the accusation on the basis of which he was sentenced was just as _fabricated_ as Bukharin's.
As is always the case in a civil war, it was very difficult at the time of the repressions to define the "front line." It was impossible to know who to beat and for what. As, for instance, General Prosecutor of the USSR A.M. Rekunkov said in protest over the case of Bukharin and others, "former employees of the NKVD of the USSR, Yezhov, Frinovsky, Agranov and others, having participated directly in the given case and others, were condemned for illegal arrests and fabrication of evidence. Former Representative of the Narkom of Internal Affairs of the USSR Frinovsky, was condemned on February 3, 1940, for fabrication of criminal cases and mass repressions, in an announcement from..." and so forth.
In other words, the repressions were the result of a complicated, contradictory process in which various groups and currents collided. It was not at all a simple machine acting upon the push of a button in some cabinet. This was a battle, a savage operation in the fading Civil War. After all, the same employee of the NKVD who sent "former employees of the NKVD" to be shot "for making illegal arrests" might the very next day give an order to make an illegal arrest -- knowing full well what will threaten him the day after tomorrow.
In the mass repressions, it is necessary to distinguish between its two sides: a goal-directed one and an irrational one (the latter resembling "mass psychosis," logically inexplicable behavior in otherwise rational people and collectives). Politicians can influence the process on the first side, but on the second only to a certain extent, not completely. It is well known that the repressions of the 1930s took place at a time in which society as a whole was in a state of extremely strong emotional stress created by the turmoils of the 20th century (there are many signs of this). To use religious terminology, it is possible to say that in the first half of the 20th century many of those who had been directly forced into industrialization were in a position of _passion_. (CD -- that last sentence was hard to translate!!)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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