In the summer of 2018 marks the 65th anniversary of the 1953 amnesty, thanks to which more than a million prisoners were released in the Soviet Union. Historians argue that this event, despite the negative aspects, had positive consequences. The 1953 amnesty saved thousands of innocent prisoners. Myths and facts about the events of those years are presented in the article.
On the 1953 amnesty, most ordinary people have a common idea thanks to the film “Cold Summer 53rd”. This brilliant film, in which Anatoly Papanov played his last role, tells of the events that took place several months after the death of Stalin. But he probably gives a not entirely correct idea of the 1953 amnesty in the USSR. At least, so many modern researchers believe.
Background
At the end of the thirties, criminal legislation became much tougher. No changes were made to it until the death of Joseph Stalin. In accordance with a decree issued in June 1940, unauthorized departure to another enterprise without the permission of the chief threatened with imprisonment. For absenteeism or a twenty-minute delay, a person could also be behind bars. For petty hooliganism in those troubled times, they gave five years.
If the company produced defective products, the engineer or director could easily end up in the dock. There were false denunciations. One word could cost a person freedom. In addition, parole was abolished. That is, a ten-year-old convict could not even hope that he would be released ahead of time. More often it happened otherwise - after the first term, the second followed.
It is not surprising that by the beginning of 1953 a record was set for the number of prisoners in forced labor camps. 180 million people lived in the country. There were about two million people in the camps. For comparison: today in Russian prisons there are about 650 thousand criminals.
Myths
There are many legends about the 1953 amnesty since Soviet times. It concerned allegedly not political prisoners, victims of Stalinist repressions, but notorious criminals. Murderers, bandits, thieves in law were released, which was solely the fault of Beria, who allegedly sought to destabilize the situation in the country. In the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin, there was a sharp increase in crime.
Initially, the 1953 amnesty was called Voroshilov’s. However, it went down in history as an event held by Lavrenti Beria.
Why did the authorities suddenly need to release so many prisoners (over a million)? This event, or rather, what followed, Beria deliberately provoked. He needed a particularly strong surge of crime, because in such circumstances it was possible to establish a “hard hand” regime.
Main organizer
The decree on amnesty in 1953 was signed by Klim Voroshilov. Nevertheless, the initiator of this event was a man who was later accused of organizing reprisals. Beria drew up a report in the name of Georgy Malenkov. This document spoke about Soviet camps, which contain more than two and a half million people, among them about two hundred are dangerous state criminals, at the same time there are people convicted of petty crimes.
Lavrenty Beria not only became the main initiator of the 1953 amnesty, but also revised the law. And what followed after the signing of the decree? The consequences of the 1953 amnesty were positive for prisoners. The Gulag is half empty. However, a wave of robberies organized by former prisoners swept through the country.
Who came under the 1953 amnesty
In the Soviet Union, in Stalin's time, everyone could lose their freedom. And not only on espionage charges. Therefore, the camps organized in the 30s were crowded by the beginning of the 50s.
Who was to be released in 1953? First of all, minors and short-term prisoners were to be released. The 1953 amnesty guaranteed freedom to persons convicted under a whole series of articles for economic, official, military crimes. Pregnant women and women with children under the age of ten were supposed to leave the camps. The 1953 amnesty brought the long-awaited freedom to people who spent more than a decade in the camps. Men over 55 and women over 50 fell under it.
Prisoners who were sentenced to no more than five years were released from prisons. However, the amnesty did not apply to people who committed the so-called counter-revolutionary crimes and the theft of socialist property. She did not touch the accused of banditry and murder.
Amnestied Number
According to data from November 1953, about six thousand pregnant women, five thousand minors, more than forty thousand men over 55 left the camps. Prisoners suffering from serious illnesses were released. There were about forty thousand people. Among those sentenced to up to five years, more than 500 thousand people fell under the 1953 amnesty.
In addition, criminal cases were terminated. About four hundred thousand Soviet citizens passed the fate of the camp. It is worth saying that not one of the politicians conducted such a large-scale amnesty in the USSR. There was nothing like this in imperial times. True, before the revolution and arrests for political crimes there were many times less, and they were justified.
This amnesty was not criminal. Beria did not aim to release criminal authorities, murderers, and bandits from imprisonment. The text of the decree contains a phrase that clearly said: convicts of premeditated murder do not receive the right to freedom. However, many criminals were sentenced to milder sentences until 1953. This happened due to the lack of evidence. It is not a matter of the shortcomings of the work of Soviet law enforcement officers. As you know, even the legendary gangster Al Capone was convicted of only tax evasion.
The fate of political prisoners
As already mentioned, in those days a large number of criminals were released. At the same time, political criminals left the camp much later. Unfortunately, this is no longer a myth. Indeed, those convicted under article 58 were in the minority. However, there is a version that it was with the 1953 amnesty that a process began that opened a new period in the history of the Soviet Union. Most of the political prisoners left by the mid-fifties.
Crime surge
In the summer of 1953, dangerous criminals really went free. Old age saved someone. Someone was sentenced to less than five years. Nevertheless, most of the amnestied were convicted of petty theft. These were those who really did not pose a serious danger to the state. But why exactly at the beginning of the fifties there was a catastrophic increase in crime?
This also happened because the amnesty conditions were poorly thought out. Nobody worked out the rehabilitation and employment program of the former convicts. People, having spent many years in prisons, were released, but nothing good was expected here. They did not have a family, home, or livelihood. It is not surprising that many took up the old.
It was difficult for law enforcement agencies in the USSR in the fifties. Indeed, not only individual criminals were released, but also entire groups, gangs in full force. Captures of former prisoners of settlements took place. A similar story is told in the aforementioned film "Cold Summer 53rd." In such cases, law enforcement agencies acted ruthlessly, harshly. They used weapons, sent criminals back to the camps.
"How it was"
On the 1953 amnesty, several documentaries were shot. One of them (“How It Was”) tells about the former prisoner Vyacheslav Kharitonov. This is a terrible and absurd story about a thief who stole a suitcase, and the 1953 amnesty. A police officer ended up in the zone after interrogating the offender.
He was convicted in 1951 of false interrogation. Kharitonov interrogated the thief who stole the suitcase, and the next day he himself was behind bars. He was declared an enemy of the people. Kharitonov later learned that the person under investigation wrote a denunciation on him, according to which the investigator made an anti-Soviet speech during interrogation. The former policeman was convicted under article 58.
Highly dangerous criminals
An amnesty decree was signed three weeks after Stalin's death. But he did not touch all. For stealing an armful of hay, a peasant could end up in camps for seven years. Such a prisoner did not fall under the amnesty. The so-called pests did not go free. But there was no question of letting political criminals loose, then, in early March 1953. According to the memoirs of Kharitonov, he, like other convicts under article 58, was summoned by the head of the camp, announced an amnesty, while emphasizing that he, as a particularly dangerous criminal, did not see freedom.
Yet Kharitonov was released. In the wake of amnesty, his case was reviewed. It turned out that the verdict was signed by a state security official who was accused of participating in repressions after Stalin's death. Kharitonov was released in August 1953. But one cannot speak of the 1953 amnesty and its consequences on the example of this case. Perhaps Kharitonov was lucky.
The inhabitants of the Stalinist camps were free labor. Convicts built roads, fell down the forest. But as soon as the "father of the peoples" died, their work was recognized as ineffective. The need to keep such an army of prisoners in the camps immediately disappeared.
A mistake or a carefully thought out plan
It is widely believed that Beria deliberately complicated the criminal situation in the country. Perhaps the head of state security simply made a mistake. After all, he did not have the opportunity to rely on a similar experience. Such large-scale amnesties in the history of the Soviet Union did not exist before. Another suggestion about the causes of the 1953 amnesty: it was timed to coincide with the death of the Great Leader. But this is just a myth. The decree on Stalin says nothing. His name was never mentioned
Beria was shot in the fall of 1953. Later he was called the “Kremlin executioner”. According to historical data, his hands were indeed elbowed in blood. Someone believes that Beria was hanged on the shot, taking this opportunity, and those crimes that he did not commit. The version that he staged the 1953 amnesty not with the aim of releasing a certain part of the prisoners, but with the aim of destabilizing the situation in the country, has not been proved. This is just an assumption.