the report on the results of the operational work of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR for the period from October 1, 1936 to July 1, 1938

Explanatory note of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR A.I. Uspensky to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Yezhov to the report on the results of the operational work of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR for the period from October 1, 1936 to July 1, 1938

Archive: Regional State Administration of the SBU. F. 16. On. 31 (1951). D. 74. L. 172-191. Original. typewritten document

September 3, 1938

TO THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THE USSR

TO THE GENERAL COMMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY

TOV. Ezhov N.I.

EXPLANATORY NOTE TO THE REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF THE OPERATIONAL WORK OF THE NKVD OF THE Ukrainian SSR

for the period from October 1, 1936 to July 1, 1938

The operational activities of the NKVD organs in Ukraine must be divided into three periods.

The first period covers the end of 1936 and the first half of 1937.

At that time, the leadership of the NKVD in Ukraine had an enemy of the people, BALITSKY.

They did everything to keep the main cadres of anti-Soviet formations in Ukraine from defeat.

BALITSKY organized an undisguised resistance to the implementation of operational orders of the NKVD of the USSR.

Here are a few key indicators that characterize the operational work of this period.

Throughout Ukraine, in the first half of 1937, only 6,572 investigative files were opened and 10,901 people were arrested. And in the corresponding period of 1938, 89,025 people were arrested.

In the first half of 1937, arrests were made mainly for minor crimes, and due to this, the cadres of serious anti-Soviet formations were not affected.

Of the 10,901 repressed, 2,491 people were arrested for criminal malfeasance. 1040 people were arrested for anti-Soviet agitation. 5022 people were arrested as loners.

During this half-year, 1,471 lone Trotskyists were arrested. Not a single Trotskyist organization was opened.

According to the Trotskyists, only those people were arrested whose guilt was established not by the NKVD, but by grassroots party organizations that demanded their arrest. And these arrests were made only because it was already impossible not to arrest.

Naturally, in this situation, the Trotskyist underground in the Ukraine, in all its links, turned out to be completely undefeated.

Work to combat foreign intelligence agencies and the anti-Soviet activities of Ukrainian anti-Soviet nationalist formations was also carried out.

During the first half of 1937, only 706 people were seized from organizations and groups inspired by foreign intelligence agencies.

According to Ukrainian nationalist formations, in all regions of Ukraine and the center, 851 people were arrested.

During the first six months of 1937, 989 people were arrested by the Donetsk NKVD, 1,097 by Kharkov, 828 by Odessa, 419 by Chernigov, and 94 by the NKVD of the MASSR.

Quite characteristic are the data on sentencing in cases carried out in the first half of 1937.

Of the total number of 10,091 people arrested, only 264 people were sentenced to capital punishment, which is 3.4%; in the first half of 1938, out of those convicted, 38,190 people were sentenced to capital punishment - 37,158 people, which is 97.2%.

A significant number of those arrested were sentenced to short terms: over 400 people were acquitted.

As a result of anti-Soviet activities and sabotage in the operational work organized by the enemy of the people, BALITSKY, in Ukraine, the operational strike was withdrawn from the main centers of anti-Soviet formations, and the work of the NKVD apparatus was essentially put to idle.

The second period of work of the NKVD of Ukraine is fundamentally no different from the first and refers to the second half of 1937.

As is well known, the traitor LEPLEVSKY was the successor of BALITSKY's treacherous activities in the NKVD organs in Ukraine.

The latter, unable to continue the open sabotage of the struggle against the counter-revolution, chose a different tactic for his anti-Soviet activities in the NKVD.

This tactic was characterized by mass, indiscriminate, unjustified arrests, with a stake on the fact that the operation did not affect the organizing centers of anti-Soviet formations in Ukraine.

Creating a big buzz around mass arrests and the outward appearance of an active struggle against counter-revolution, LEPLEVSKY stubbornly held back the defeat of the leading centers of Ukrainian anti-Soviet formations.

As a result of such tactics in the second half of 1937, the number of those arrested, in comparison with the first half of the year, increases sharply.

148,872 people were arrested.

An analysis of the operation in the second half of 1937 shows that the main emphasis was again placed on the ordinary anti-Soviet element and singles.

Of those arrested in the second half of the year, 148,872 people were arrested in single cases - 40,318 people. This is 25 % of all those arrested.

If we add to this that out of the total number of those arrested - 40,000 people were arrested for minor crimes, official, criminal, etc., then it becomes completely clear that the apparatus of the NKVD of Ukraine, as before, as in the case of BALITSKY, continued to work with the former direction of operational strike, designed to preserve the main cadres of anti-Soviet formations.

If right-wing Trotskyist and nationalist organizations were uncovered during this period, then this was done on the basis of materials from the NKVD of the USSR and with the direct participation of your deputies comrade FRINOVSKII and comrade. BELSKY, who traveled to Ukraine on your instructions.

LEPLEVSKY thwarted all the work on the further defeat of these organizations, doing everything in order to lubricate the affairs and not give them a proper turn.

A radical change in the operational activities of the NKVD in Ukraine occurred on the basis of your direct instructions to defeat the anti-Soviet underground, given by you during your visit to Ukraine in 1938 and under the leadership of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U comrade Khrushchev.

On the basis of these instructions, first of all, the NKVD apparatus was purged of members of the anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization and spies of foreign intelligence agencies planted in the apparatus by BALITSKY and LEPLEVSKY.

In 1938, 261 traitors, members of the right-wing Trotskyist organization, other anti-Soviet formations and spies of foreign intelligence agencies were arrested in the apparatus of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR. As part of the arrested, a significant number of employees who held responsible leadership positions in operational work.

At the same time, the main emphasis in the work was taken on the complete defeat of the anti-Soviet formations of the right-wing Trotskyist and nationalist organizations, as well as on the opening of the most important organizing centers of other organizations from the Ukrainian anti-Soviet underground.

As a result, in 1938, Stanislav KOSIOR, the enemy of the people, was exposed as the main leader of all anti-Soviet forces in Ukraine, who, being deeply conspiratorial, for a number of years organized and directed the anti-Soviet activities of all enemy formations.

KOSIOR, being associated with the right-wing Trotskyist center in Moscow, headed the Ukrainian right-wing Trotskyist center and at the same time directed the work of all counter-revolutionary formations of bourgeois nationalists, military-fascist conspirators, socialist-revolutionaries and Mensheviks, up to the White Guard-monarchist officer underground.

This work was carried out by the KOSIOR in full contact and on direct instructions from the Polish and German headquarters, fulfilling their main task - to prepare the defeat of the Soviet Union and create conditions for the capture of Soviet Ukraine by the Germans and Poles.

Having made his way into the leadership of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, the KOSIOR made extensive use of his position to balance the forces of the anti-Soviet underground, in such a way as to place members of the organization at the key points of the party, Soviet and economic apparatus, providing them with appropriate reserve personnel in case of failure.

After the arrest of KOSIOR, we began a deep destruction of the Trotskyist underground in the Ukraine. A new leading core of the right-wing Trotskyist underground, created by KOSIOR - consisting of TYAGNIBEDA, MARCHAK, Trofim CHUBAR, SUKHOMLIN, Kazimir KOSIOR - was opened after the defeat of the top of the right-wing Trotskyist organization in 1937.

Eleven regional Pravo-Trotskyist centers, 136 regional Pravo-Trotskyist organizations, and 149 kulak-insurgent detachments created in the regions by Pravo-Trotskyist organizations were opened.

In 1938, 2,852 members of the right-wing Trotskyist organization (without rank and file) were confiscated , including a significant number of people who had slipped into the party and Soviet apparatus, both in the central bodies of Ukraine and in the regions.

The leadership of the insurgent lower ranks and the recruitment of personnel was carried out by an organization of former partisans, acting under the leadership of the right-wing Trotskyist organization. The activities of the anti-Soviet partisan organization proceeded under the leadership of the All-Ukrainian anti-Soviet partisan headquarters. This headquarters was headed by the former chairman of the all-Ukrainian partisan commission VOYTSEKHOVSKY.

1,200 people of the leadership of the anti-Soviet right-wing Trotskyist partisan organization were arrested.

In the course of the investigation, it was established that the Right-Trotskyist organization carried out anti-Soviet work in direct contact with the Socialist-Revolutionary-Rovsov underground, headed by the Central Committee of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries in Ukraine, which was first discovered in Ukraine, acting under the leadership of the former member of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party KARELIN, according to the directives of the allied Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign Socialist-Revolutionary centers.

The Central Committee of the Social Revolutionaries was directly connected with the headquarters of the ROVS, led by Major Generals SOROKIN and IVANOV, who were arrested by us, and Colonel KUDRYAVTSEV.

In Ukraine, 10 regional Rovsov-Socialist-Revolutionary headquarters, 452 rebel-sabotage detachments with 9995 participants, mostly serving in the White Army, were liquidated.

The Right-Trotsky Center was in contact with the Menshevik, Bundist and Zionist underground in Ukraine.

498 cadre members of the Menshevik organizations, 1279 members of the Zionist underground were arrested, the Bund committees in Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Vinnitsa and the MASSR were liquidated.

In 1938, the main cadres of the participants in the military-fascist conspiracy in Ukraine were liquidated, who completely survived after the opening of the leading center of this conspiracy in the person of YAKIR, DUBOVOY and AMELIN in 1937.

Groups of military-fascist conspirators among the command staff were liquidated in 11 corps, 25 divisions, 21 brigades and in 4 fortified areas of the KOVO and KhVO.

Arrested 2,209 conspirators in the Red Army.

Also, the liquidation of the cadres of the wide underground of the Ukrainian nationalist center was carried out, the leaders of which LYUBCHENKO, ZATONSKY, PORAIKO and KhVYLIA were arrested in 1937, but the cadres of this organization were deliberately not touched by LEPLEVSKY.

During the investigation, it was established that the Ukrainian anti-Soviet nationalist center included the underground Central Committee of the USD, UKP and UPSR, which we liquidated, through the so-called bloc of Ukrainian democratic parties created by them.

The nationalist center in all regions of Ukraine widely launched insurgent activity through the insurgent committees created by this center.

24,233 members of the nationalist underground were arrested.

With the arrest of KOSIOR, a widespread liquidation of the Polish military organization in Ukraine began.

The investigation established that the KOSIOR was the head of the “command of the main” (main commandant’s office) of the Polish military organization. Under his leadership, "okrengovy commandant" (district commandant's offices) were created, liquidated in Kamenetz-Podolsk, Vinnitsa, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Odessa and Kharkov.

These commandant's offices created boiuvkas (combat detachments) on the ground with the task of launching sabotage work in the rear of the Red Army during the war period.

"POV" organizations were also created in the headquarters of the KOVO and HVO and in 18 military formations.

In Ukraine, in 1938, 12,366 members of the POV were arrested.

During the reporting period, the NKVD of Ukraine eliminated a significant number of nationalist, fascist organizations created by emissaries of the Polish, German, Romanian and other intelligence services.

Members of these organizations were arrested through the Polish line - 18,192 people; German - 9137 people; Romanian - 2073; Latvian - 803; Japanese - 550 and Greek - 1978.

In Ukraine, 486 Polish fascist organizations, 201 German fascist organizations and 28 Romanian ones were liquidated.

As part of the members of these fascist organizations, a significant number of spies of Polish, German, Latvian and other foreign intelligence services associated with foreign consulates in Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov and their residents were arrested.

Illegal radio stations and technical points of German intelligence were discovered in Zaporozhye, Kharkov, Odessa and other points.

During the liquidation of these points, short-wave two-way transmitters, telegraph apparatuses, clock mechanisms for infernal machines, powerful transformers, mirror reflectors of high light-reflecting power, equipment for direction finding and explosions, secret writing laboratories, etc. were seized.

In the process of liquidating the anti-Soviet underground in Ukraine, mainly during the defeat of the rebel formations, a significant amount of weapons was discovered and confiscated.

In 76 secret warehouses, 39,606 units of military, rifled, firearms, 442,332 cartridges and 3,245 kilograms of explosives were seized.

Including seized: 21 machine guns, 4 grenade launchers, 10,131 rifles, 7,728 sawn-off shotguns, and 21,682 revolvers.

According to cases conducted in 1938, members of the organization were convicted (excluding those arrested in 1937, convicted in 1938) - 38,190.

Of the 38,190 people sentenced to capital punishment - 37,158 arrested.

It is under consideration by the NKVD of the USSR in accordance with order No. 00485 of 1937, cases for 28,822 arrested persons.

Under consideration of the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR cases on 1001 arrested.

Approved for consideration by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR cases involving 1180 arrested persons.

Listed by the special board and the Military Tribunal of cases for 4430 arrested.

Cases for referral to court hearings are ending for 22,452 arrested persons.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR

Commissar of State Security 3rd rank    Uspensky

September 3, 1938 No. 2488 / CH