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DOI: 10.12731/2218-7405-2013-7-53
THE APPROACHES TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY
OF REPRESSIONS
Sniegirov V.A., Oreshkin M.V.
The purpose of this work is to search for a rational and pragmatic component in the study of processes, which bring the society to repressions.
The methodology of this work is based on known historical and sociological propositions and on the philosophy of archetype as well.
The results of the study permit developing the researches correctly, which relate to the study of repressions in the society.
The field of application - scientific researches.
ПОДХОДЫ К ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ СОЦИОЛОГИИ РЕПРЕССИЙ
Снегирев В.А., Орешкин М.В.
Цель работы состоит в поиске рациональной прагматической составляющей исследования процессов, приводящих общество к репрессиям. Методология работы основывается на известных исторических и социологических положениях, а также на философии архетипа. Результаты исследования позволяют корректно выстраивать исследования, связанные с изучением репрессий в социуме. Область применения - научные исследования.
Foreword. Repressions belong to currently occurring and recurrent historical phenomena or processes. There is an opinion that the mass repressions are a natural instrument of social dynamics to be used every time when it is necessary and that the mass repressions are always resorted to when the anarchy has to be done away with. "The anarchy appears as a result of degradation of the society, more specifically - of degradation of the state authority, or after defeat in the war. Repressions are natural continuation of the civil war or they are used for its prevention. Repressions are used to have done with a putsch or with terror, which are the signs of anarchy in a country. „.If there is a need for repressions they should be resorted to in proper time. In the same way, repressions should not be abused and, when the goal has been achieved and the authority and order reestablished, the repressions have to be ceased. It is useful to compare repressions with a remedy for the society. If there is no other way of treatment, a remedy should be applied. The remedy is taken in a certain period and dose" [1].
The review of foreign and domestic publications. Repressions concerning certain groups selected by belonging to some confession or by sex - first of all concerning women - were very common in West Europe [2], which was associated in the Renaissance time with the activities of the Inquisition. The ideology and the religion were in indissoluble connection at that time. Therefore, the repressions have their own archetype appearing in dependence on stages of society development when it is necessary and when there are prerequisites sufficient for it. However, as the ideology and the religion separated out and the political life originated in that form as we have it now, the archetype of repressions changed too and the repressions themselves, besides their religious background, acquired ideological (including class-oriented) and political nature. Moreover, racial antagonisms and contradictions should be taken into account, which always contained germs of possible repressions.
The same concerns the possibility of ripening of repressions out of confrontations of different religious confessions. This is just a very incomplete overview of the bifurcational points generating persecution and repressions.
In the first half of the 20th century the repressions acquired, first of all and at least, a foreign-policy and racial ground. Thus fascist Germany first of all subjected people to repressions by their racial origin on the occupied territories. Those were Jews, Gypsies as well as Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians not belonging to the contingent "to be destroyed without fail" but actually being that contingent [3]. Generally, the fascist genocide killed 10,7 million persons on the occupied territory of the former USSR as per the data of V. Zemskov (1995).
Those were class, i.e. political repressions that prevailed inside of the USSR comparing to racial repressions. They were based, as well as the technical achievements of the Soviet civilization, by the way, on appropriate institutional matrixes, as per the definition of N. Romanovskiy (2003) [4]. However, we just consider them to be the archetype [the archetypes] of this civilization, and not only of the Soviet civilization but of the civilization of this region as such, i.e. the internal component of the ecosystem on Eurasian continent. Of course, all these statements can be disputed. But the fact that any society is a component of various ecosystems is both logical and definitially indisputable. Being itself the issue of a separate research, it allows us to penetrate more deeply into the core of the considered problem.
Problem definition: the purpose of this work is to search for a rational and pragmatic component in the study of processes, which bring the society to repressions.
Basic researches. When telling about the repressions in USSR as such, it has to be mentioned that the information about repressions is either pragmatically grounded or mythical or semi-mythical and can only be comprehended through the myth itself, according to the opinion of the great philosopher. Especially as because A. Losev thought that all the science is entirely mythological as it operates with averaged and generalized conceptual categories, abstract postulates and particular assumptions.
Nevertheless, he provided a rather unambiguous definition of the myth: "The myth is a miraculous personal history given in words". However, as already mentioned, the mythology has its own logic of development and can only be understood from itself
Just that is why we are interested, in the first place, in the pragmatic and rationalistic approach based, first of all, on fixed and documented facts. In view of the above mentioned we can see that the repressions, which really took place, can be assessed as follows:
For example, V. Luneyev (2005), operating with the archive data and his own estimates, came to the number of persons repressed between 1918 and 1958 equal to 40 million including the nations repressed after the Great Patriotic War [6]. We think that these estimates are fully mythical and can be hardly based on reality.
At the same time, such author as I. Pykhalov [7] gives the following information: "for the whole period of Stalin&s rule, the number of persons imprisoned at the same point of time never exceeded 2 million 760 thousand (not counting, of course, the German, Japanese and other war prisoners)". So numbers about "tens of millions of GULAG prisoners" are absolutely out of question. As we can see from the cited document [the certificate of the February 1st 1954 provided to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party comrade N. Khrushchev by the Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, the Minister of internal affairs S. Kruglov and the Minister of justice K. Gorshenin], totally for the period from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, 642980 persons were sentenced to death, 2369220 persons to prison and 765180 persons to exile. We should also remember that not all the sentences were executed. For instance, from the July 15th 1939 till the April 20th 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to death for disorganization of the life and manufacture in the prison camp. However, for a part of these people the death penalty was reduced to the imprisonment for the period from 10 to 15 years. In 1934 there were 3849 prisoners in camps for which the death penalty was reduced to
imprisonment; this number was 5671 in 1935, 7303 in 1936, 6239 in 1937, 5926 in 1938, 3425 in 1939 and 4037 in 1940 accordingly".
Now let us consider some phenomena concerning the repressions of those years which took place in Ukraine. Such official document of Bolsheviks& Communist Party of Ukraine - Communist Party of Ukraine as the collection of statistical data [8] published for the 27th congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine containing the data on pages 11-13 about the number of members of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1918 till 1986 shows that the reference years in change of the number of party members are 1922, 1923, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1941 and 1945.
As we can see in Table 1, the number of party members dropped before the war in 1922, 1923, 1934, 1935 and 1938 years, which directly related to the purges in the party and subsequent repressions taking place in those periods.
Jumping number of members of the Communist Party of Ukraine (abstract since 1918 and for further years as of the January 1st
of the year in question)
Years Number of party Candidates for Total number of
members party membership communists
Beginning from 1946 and till 1986 the number of members was solely growing and the years of steep dropping relate to repressive measures. This can be traced very well in the official party documents.
The works of V. Nikolskiy (2003), the leading Donbas scientist in research of repressions in Ukraine in the period of Soviet government, show the time distribution of the number of arrests in different periods (Table 2) [9].
The time distribution of arrests in Ukraine
Periods Arrested persons % of the total
Totally: 970301 100
So we can see from Table 2 that the repressions can be observed right up to 1961. Generally, as per V. Nikolskiy, the repressive activities of the state security authorities can be seen not only in extreme years but also took place in all the years and periods. The increase, reduction or stabilization of repressions was the specific reaction of these authorities to changes in the domestic and foreign policy of the state.
Thus it has been determined that a number of factors should be clarified for objective study of repressions. First of all, these are the time and the place of repressive activities. The basic incentives and reasons of repressions along with their religious, racial, political, class-oriented and other background should be determined as well. In view of the above mentioned, the main archetype of actual events has to be found. The selected materials have to be analyzed to find the reference points and the points of bifurcation, including those ones where we can observe a transition from one type of repressions to other type. The general orientation of repressions and their
eventual final aim should be defined as well. It is impossible to determine the true sense and meaning of repressions without such approaches. Myth-making of all kinds, even well-intentioned, only complicates the research and brings it to a deadlock. Myth-making impedes determination of the true regularities based on the pragmatic approach and drives the study of the problem outside the scientific cognition. All emotional and nonrational approaches should be excluded as well.
References
Список литературы
DATA ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sniegirov Vitalii Andreevich, graduate student, junior researcher
Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University
Oreshkin Mykhailo Vilevich, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, senior scientist, director
Institute of Global Researches Lugansk, Ukraine gerzog_lug@mail. ru
ДАННЫЕ ОБ АВТОРАХ
Снегирев Виталий Андреевич, аспирант, м.н.с.
Восточноукраинский национальный университет имени Владимира Даля квартал Молодежный, 20-А, г. Луганск, 91034, Украина gerzog_lug@mail. ru
Орешкин Михаил Вильевич, доктор сельскохозяйственных наук, старший
научный сотрудник, директор
Институт Глобальных Исследований
г. Луганск, Украина
gerzog_lug@mail. ru
