POLITICAL REPRESSIONS
POLITICAL REPRESSIONS were carried out in the USSR in the 1930s – early 50s on charges of political crimes against individual citizens, social groups, classes and peoples; carried out by state bodies. In Bashkortostan, 25.5 thous. farms were dispossessed (ref. Kulaks), 22.5 thous. peasants were repressed for anti‑soviet activities, approx. 32 thous. people were sent to Siberia and the northern regions of the country, and approx. 30 thous. people were placed in special settlements. Lists of people, who had to be subjected to P.r., were prepared beforehand by party and law enforcement agencies for each raion and city. Decisions on the measure of punishment were made by judicial and extra‑judicial bodies — the so‑called Troykas (Trios) under the Bashkir Obl. Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and raion Troykas, which included Head of the Raion OGPU Departments, Chairman of the Raion Executive Committee and Raion Prosecutor. In 1933, Political Departments were created for conducting P.r. at the Machine tractor stations and collective farms. Those departments mainly included the members of the Party, sent from Moscow and the central oblasts. In 1934, Special Meeting under the NKVD and the Special Board of the NKVD (special courts) were established to deal with cases of counter-revolutionary crimes. According to the results of the 1937 October Plenum of the Bashkir Oblast Committee of the ACP(b), 274 people were repressed (about half of the oblast committee and a third of the members of the Bashkir Central Executive Committee), including Z.G.Bulashev, Ya.B.Bykin et al. Many figures of science, culture, art (V.MurtazinImansky, D.Yultyy, etc), Komsomol leaders, and teachers were accused of bourgeois nationalism, validovshchina (named after A.Validov), sultangaliyevshchina (named after M.Sultan‑Galiyev) and subjected to P.r. Almost all participants of the Bashkir National Movement (Yu.Yu.Bikbov, Kh.K.Ku shayev, M.L.Murtazin, M.D.Khalikov, Kh.Yu.Yumagulov, etc) were repressed. During the years of P.r., 50,293 people were sentenced to execution or imprisonment on charges of political crimes in the BASSR. Mass P.r. stopped after the death of I.V.Stalin. Since the mid. 1950s, the rehabilitation of innocent convicts began. There are republican, city and raion commissions for the restoration of the rights of rehabilitated victims of P.r. under the executive authorities of the RB, and the Political Repressions Victims Association in the Republic of Bashkortostan. In 2000, the Monument to Victims of Political Repressions was established in Ufa. Since 1997, The Book of Memory for Victims of Political Repres sions of the Republic of Bashkortostan has been published.
