The worst punishment for anyone who commits a crime is the death penalty. Indeed, in a long deprivation of freedom, a person’s hope for the mercy of fate comes through. And the condemned is given the opportunity to die naturally. While the rest of life, spent in the daily expectation of death, turns a person inside out. If death were better than life sentences, then prisons would regularly broadcast news about the suicides of convicts. Even taking into account security measures.
The criminal begins to fully realize the essence of his last sentence only days after the transfer to the death row. A vague excruciating wait lasts for months. At all times during this period, the convict hoped for pardon. And not so often.
In the Russian Federation, the death penalty is currently prohibited. She has been under moratorium since the last death sentence on September 2, 1996. However, as a punishment measure, execution in the USSR was organized throughout the country's history for crimes of special gravity.
Execution after imperial times
In tsarist times, execution was carried out by hanging or execution. With the Bolsheviks coming to power, only the second was applied - it was faster and more convenient for mass executions in the USSR. Until the 1920s, there were no laws in the country that would regulate this. Therefore, the variations of this action was a whole mass. The sentence of execution in the USSR of those times was handed down and carried out, including in public. So they shot the tsarist ministers in 1918. The execution of the terrorist Fanny Kaplan was carried out in the Kremlin without subsequent burial. Her body was burned in an iron barrel right on the spot.
How were the executions in the USSR?
The state killed its citizens only for committing particularly serious crimes. In the country there were special firing squads involved in the execution of executions. Most often it was about 15 people, including performers, a doctor, a supervising prosecutor. The doctor stated death, the prosecutor made sure that the convict was executed. He was convinced that the performers did not kill another person, having released the offender for a fabulous amount. All duties were strictly divided into this narrow circle of people.
The shooting of people in the USSR was carried out by necessarily physically strong and morally stable males. They executed several people at a time, which allowed executions to be carried out at a lower frequency. In the USSR, the technology of execution was not intricate. After the issuance of a service weapon to each performer, instruction was given. Then they were divided in half. The first took the convicts out of the cell and organized the movement to the final destination. The second was already in place.
There was an instruction when attacking a convoy of suicide bombers, the first thing to shoot the convicts. However, such cases have never been reported. So she never came in handy.
Upon arrival at the final destination, the criminals were put in a special cell. In the adjacent room were the prosecutor with the squad leader. They laid out before them the personal file of the convict.
Suicide bombers were brought into the room strictly one at a time. Their personal data were clarified, their reconciliation with the data from the personal file. An important point was to make sure that the right person was executed. The prosecutor then announced that the requests for clemency were rejected and the time for the verdict arrived.
Further, the convict was transferred to the immediate place where the death penalty was brought into action. There they put an impenetrable blindfold over his eyes and led him into a room in which there was a ready-made performer with service weapons. On both sides the suicide bomber was holding his hands, sitting on his knees. And a shot rang out. The doctor stated death. Burial acts were collected, and the body in the bag was buried in a secret place.
Mysteries
The technologies of this process were hidden with particular care from the citizens of the country. During the Civil War, the announcements only spoke of counter-revolutionaries for intimidation. It was never allowed to receive documents about the execution by relatives. The highest degree of execution in the USSR of an early period was announced only verbally.
According to the 1927 documents, no executions were announced for banditry at all. Even after writing appeals, relatives could not get any information about these people.
Mass executions
The mystery of the execution of triples in the 1930s was always shrouded in mystery. Since 1937, mass executions in the USSR, also called mass operations, were carried out in an atmosphere of complete secrecy. Even those who were convicted in a pair were never sentenced so that people would not have a chance to resist. The fact that they were brought to execution, they realized only when they were in place. In the earliest period, convicts were not sentenced at all.
In August 1937, a decision was made to execute ten criminals. At the same time, it was decided to carry out the action without announcing this. In the Supreme Court, the words “death penalty” were disguised as “a sentence will be announced to you.” Some of the accused were told that the verdict would be announced in the cell. Sentences to the NKVD
A special procedure was carried out during the execution of NKVD workers in the USSR, even if they had already resigned. There was a special order for them, there were no documents on the investigation, no sentences. Without a court, by decision of Stalin and his close associates, the victim was transferred to the military collegium of the Armed Forces with a note of execution. Everything was extremely secret, so the notes were made by hand. The basis for the execution was a note in the certificate in the case, indicating the volume and the sheet. Later, when studying the Stalinist volumes, it became clear that the number of each volume and sheet coincides with the number of the volume and sheet of the list with the names of the prisoners.
What was announced to relatives?
The fate of the sentenced under the article on the shooting in the USSR to his relatives was declared by the wording “10 years of the camp without the right of correspondence”. In 1940, this was harshly criticized by Zakharov for the fact that such a method discredits the prosecutor's office. Many relatives made requests to the camps, and then replied that their relative was not listed with them. Then they came to the prosecutor’s office with scandals, seeking confessions from the NKVD about the execution of their subsequent deception.
Who attended the execution?
Usually the prosecutor, judge and doctor were absent when the execution was carried out without trial. But with a court decision on execution, the presence of a prosecutor was mandatory. They had to monitor the killing of prominent figures. So, sometimes they were entrusted with the task of monitoring whether he would make a confession before the death of the disclosure of state secrets. The presence of a NKVD officer was not uncommon.
In the Tatar Republic since 1937, convicts were photographed and without fail happened after the execution with a photo. However, in many documents of that era there are no photos, and they themselves are confused.
Violations
The law established humane conditions for the enforcement of sentences. However, evidence remains of how the shooting in the USSR actually happened. Although the doctor established the fact of death by law, in practice this was often carried out by performers. Numerous information has been preserved that, despite the strict regulation of the procedure with the aim of killing the prisoner instantly, the survivability of those killed was often manifested. In the absence of a doctor, still alive people who seemed to be killed only at first glance were sometimes buried at the execution site. For example, Yakovlev’s letters describing the execution of those who refused military service contain a description of a truly terrible execution. Then 14 Baptists rushed to the ground while they were still wounded, they were buried alive, one escaped and confirmed this personally.
In a document of 1935 on the execution of Ovotov, information was preserved that the convict died only 3 minutes after the shot. There was a regulation to shoot from a certain angle so that death was instant. However, the shots might not have led to a painless death.
Terminology
Those involved in executions used evasive names for this action. This was not suitable for wide publicity among the population, it happened in an atmosphere of secrecy. The executions were called "capital punishment or social protection." Among the Chekists, the names of the military massacres were "exchange", "departure to the headquarters of Kolchak", "start up at the expense". And since the 1920s, executions have been dubbed the cynical term for conspiratorial purposes - “wedding.” Probably, the name was chosen because of the analogy with the expression "marry death." At times, performers allowed themselves ornate names such as "transfer to a state of non-existence."
Since the 30s, executions have been called both departures in the first category, and ten years without the right of correspondence, and special operations. The explanations, written by the performers themselves, were full of phrases “I brought the verdict”, which sounded so veiled and evasive. The main words have always been omitted. The same was manifested in the ranks of the SS. Words like murders and executions were always masked there. Instead, the use of the expressions "special promotions", "cleansing", "exclusion", "relocation" was popular.
Features of the procedure
In different periods of the existence of the Soviet state, the procedure for enforcing a sentence was very different, passing through military regimes, tightening and softening the dictatorship. The most bloody were 1935-1937, when death sentences became very common. More than 600,000 people were executed at that time. The execution was carried out on the day the sentence was announced, immediately. There were no sentiments, rituals, there was no right to the last requests and the last meals, which were accepted even in the Middle Ages.
The sentenced was taken to the basement and quickly fulfilled the foregone conclusion.
The slowdown occurred when Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to power. Sentenced received the right to write complaints, requests for clemency. They appeared at this time. Sentenced persons were placed in a special-purpose cell, but the convicted person did not know the date of execution of the sentence until the last. This was announced on the day when he was taken to a room in which everything was already ready for execution. There, the rejection of requests for pardon was announced, and execution was carried out. And then we were not talking about the last meals and other rituals. The sentenced ate the same as all the other convicts, and did not know that this meal would be their last. The conditions of detention, despite the norms established by law, were in reality frankly bad.
Inmates of that era, eyewitnesses of executions in prisons of the USSR recalled that their food could be rotten, with worms. Everywhere there have been numerous violations of humane norms established by law. And those sentenced to be shot in the USSR could not receive transfers from relatives who would be able to at least somehow brighten up their last days on this Earth.
The only mercy from the firing squad was the tradition of giving a person a cigarette or a cigarette the last time a person smoked before being shot. According to rumors, sometimes the performers soldered the convict tea with sugar.
Mass executions
Remained in history and cases of massacres in the country. So, the loud execution of a demonstration in the USSR took place in 1962 in Novocherkassk. Then, the Soviet authorities shot 26 workers, gathered in the thousands of demonstrators at a spontaneous rally because of higher prices and lower wages. 87 people were injured, the dead were buried secretly in cemeteries of different cities. About a hundred demonstrators were convicted, some were sentenced to death. Like much in the USSR, the execution of workers was carefully concealed. Separate pages of that story are still classified.
This shooting of a demonstration in the USSR is considered a real crime, but no one was punished for it. The authorities did not make a single attempt to disperse the crowd with either water or batons. In response to legitimate demands to improve the depressing, miserable situation of tens of thousands of workers, the authorities fired machine guns, having made one of the most massive known executions of workers in the USSR.
This was only one of the most sensational cases, in spite of all attempts to keep secret, mass executions of that era.
The shooting of women in the USSR
Of course, cruel sentences extended to the beautiful half of humanity as well. There was no ban on the execution of women except for pregnant women, and even then not in all periods. From 1962 to 1989, more than 24,000 people were executed, almost all of them males. The most widely publicized were 3 shootings of women in the USSR of that period. This is the execution of the Tonka machine gunner, who personally shot the Soviet partisans in the Great Patriotic War, the speculator Borodkina, the poisoner Inyutina. Many cases were classified.
The execution of minors in the USSR was also practiced. But here it is important to note that it was the Soviet power that made the law with respect to children more humane than that existing in tsarist times. So, during the time of Peter I, children were executed from the age of 7. Until the Bolsheviks came to power, the prosecution of children continued. Since 1918, juvenile commissions were established and child executions were prohibited. They made decisions on measures against children. Usually these were attempts not to imprison them, but to re-educate.
In the 1930s, the state experienced a heated criminal situation, and cases of sabotage of foreign states became more frequent. There has been an increase in the number of crimes committed by minor citizens. Then in 1935 a capital punishment for those under the age of majority was introduced. The shooting of children in the USSR was thus again legalized.
However, the only such documented case was the shooting of a teenager of 15 years in the USSR during the time of Khrushchev, in 1964. Then a guy who grew up in a boarding school, previously caught stealing and petty hooliganism, brutally killed a woman with her young child. With the intention of taking pornographic pictures for the purpose of their further sale, he stole the equipment necessary for this and photographed the corpse, placing it in obscene poses. Then the crime scene was set on fire and fled, and was caught three days later.
The teenager until the last thought that he did not face death, collaborated with the investigation. However, under the influence of cynicism that accompanied his actions, the Presidium of the Armed Forces issued a regulation permitting the use of execution for juvenile delinquents.
Despite the widespread outrage caused by this decision, the Soviet authorities remained quite humane regarding juvenile delinquents. The priority was still the decision to re-educate adolescents. Sentences of this category of citizens were really few. Indeed, in the USA, for example, until 1988, executions of teenagers were widely practiced. There are cases of death sentences for persons aged 13 years.
Recollections of performers
According to the recollections of the participants of the firing squad, the Soviet methods of execution were nevertheless cruel. Especially unworked at first. Cases of appeals from them to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on this subject are documented. The execution was carried out at night, after 12 hours. There were practically no substitutes for the performers, although according to the law they had to be changed in order to distract the performer from the horror experienced. So, one of the participants in the firing squad testified in our time that after killing 35 convicts in 3 years, he was never replaced by anyone.
Although the prisoners were not told where they were being taken, they usually understood what was happening. Even full of inner strength in the face of death, they screamed farewell words, chanted slogans. There were those who saddled in an instant. One of the most terrible memories of the participant in the execution - as a person who understands where they brought him, refuses to cross the threshold of the last room in his life. Someone tearfully begged not to kill, breaking free, clinging to the threshold. That is why people were not told where they were being taken.
Usually it was a closed cabinet with a small window. Someone who did not have the will and character fell right away, going into the room. There were deaths from a broken heart minutes before the immediate execution. Someone resisted - they were knocked down and twisted. They shot point blank at the back of the head slightly to the left to get into a vital organ, and the convict died immediately. Understanding where he was brought, the condemned could ask for the last request. But, of course, there was never a fulfillment of unrealistic wishes like a feast. Maximum - relied on a cigarette.
While waiting for execution, suicide bombers could not communicate with the outside world, they were forbidden to take them for walks, they only relied on the toilet once a day.
The charter for the performers included a clause according to which, after each execution, they were supposed to receive 250 grams of alcohol. They also relied on a salary supplement, which was substantial at the time.
Typically, performers were paid about two hundred rubles a month. For the entire existence of the Soviet state since 1960, not one of the executioners quit according to his decision. There were no cases of suicide in their ranks. The selection for this role was thorough.
Reminiscences of eyewitnesses about the tricks used by the executioners to soften the blow to the convict have been preserved. So, he was informed that they were leading him to write a request for clemency. This had to be done in another room with the deputies. Then the condemned man walked briskly into the room, and when he entered, he found only the performer. He immediately shot into the area of the left ear according to the instructions. After the fall of the condemned, a control second shot was fired.
About the occupation of the performers themselves knew no more than a few persons included in the leadership. On trips to perform "secret tasks", officers took other people's names. When traveling to other cities for execution, they immediately returned after the implementation of the sentence. Before the beginning of the “execution”, each executor without fail familiarized himself with the case of the convicted person, then read the conviction. Such a procedure was envisaged with the aim of excluding any torment of conscience from the officers. Each of the firing squad realized that it was saving society from the most dangerous people, leaving them alive, he would have untied his hands for further atrocities.
Participants of the execution in the USSR often drank too much. There have been cases of their getting to psychiatric hospitals. Sometimes sentences accumulated, and dozens of people had to be shot.
Violations
With the publication of the Order of Executions in 1924, it becomes clearer what violations could have occurred during the execution of the sentence. So, the document prohibited publicity, the publicity of execution. No painful methods of killing were allowed; there was a ban on removing details of clothes and shoes from the body. It was forbidden to give out the body to anyone. Burial was carried out in the absence of rituals and signs of the grave. There were special cemeteries on which those sentenced were buried under number plates.
In what year was the shooting canceled in the USSR
The last executed execution sentence was the execution of Sergei Golovkin, the killer of more than a dozen people. That was in August 1996. Then a moratorium on the death penalty was introduced, and since then they have not been practiced on the territory of the Russian Federation. However, discussions about the return of this procedure continue to erupt periodically in the country.
However, the administration of justice has undergone many changes since the days of the Soviet Union. More opportunities for corruption appeared than in that era. Execution of the death penalty can simply turn into a means of reprisal of enemies above each other. There are many cases of miscarriage of justice.
Despite the fact that tens of years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet state, the topic of mass executions, execution of death sentences is still full of secrets and mysteries. Many direct participants died, much remained under the heading "Top Secret" to this day. Nevertheless, eyewitness accounts can be used to trace how the execution of criminals actually took place. And, it should be noted, in comparison with other civilized states, humane considerations in the actions of the authorities are clearly visible. Contrary to popular belief today about the inhumanity of the authorities of the USSR.