austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

74 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
about political repression and secret police in Eastern Europe was exaggerated
(Marcy, 1990). Just for instance, in December 1989, it was
reported worldwide in the mainstream press that Romania had killed
over 60,000 peaceful demonstrators, when in fact a thorough investigation
by the government that overthrew the communists indicated only
142 demonstrators were killed and only after they had violently attacked
police forces and indicated their intention to overthrow the government
(Ratesh, 1991 ). Exaggerated claims of communist atrocities (which in
the case of Romania led to a brief civil war that did kill hundreds of
armed soldiers and police) often result from CIA disinformation, which
is spread through press sources in countries allied with the USA against
communism, or through private organizations and individuals funded
(overtly or covertly) by the CIA (Blum, 1995).
The claim that Stalin and other Soviet leaders killed millions (Conquest,
1990) also appears to be wildly exaggerated. More recent evidence
from the Soviet archives opened up by the anticommunist Ye ltsin
government indicate that the total number of death sentences (including
of both existing prisoners and those outside captivity) over the
1921-1953 interval (covering the period of Stalin's partial and complete
rule) was between 775,866 and 786,098 (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov,
1993). Given that the archive data originates from anti-Stalin (and
even anticommunist) sources, it is extremely unlikely that they underestimate
the true number (Thurston, 1996). In addition, the Soviet Union
has long admitted to executing at least 12,733 people between 1917 and
1921, mostly during the Foreign Interventionist Civil War of 1918-22,
although it is possible that as many as 40,000 more may have been
executed unofficially (Andics, 1969). These data would seem to imply
about 800,000 executions.
The figure of 800,000 may greatly overestimate the number of actual
executions, as it includes many who were sentenced to death but who
were not actually caught or who had their sentences reduced (Getty, Rit­
tersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). In fact, Vinton (1993) has provided evidence
indicating that the number of executions was significantly below
the number of civilian prisoners sentenced to death in the Soviet Union,
with only 7305 executions in a sample of 11,000 prisoners authorized
to be executed in 1940 (or scarcely 600/o ).
In addition, most (681 ,692) of the 780,000 or so death sentences
•
CHAPTER J
passed under Stalin were issued during the 1937-38 period (Getty, Rit­
terspom, and Zemskov, 1993), when Soviet paranoia about foreign
subversion reached its zenith due to a 1936 alliance between Nazi
Germany and fascist Japan that was specifically directed against the
Soviet Union (Manning, 1993) and due to a public 1936 resolution by
a group of influential anti-Stalin foreigners (the Fourth International
which was allied with the popular but exiled Russian dissident Leo
Trotsky) advocating the overthrow of the Soviet government by illegal
means (Glotzer, 1968). Stalin initially set a cap of 186,500 imprisonments
and 72,950 death penalties for a 1937 special operation to combat
this threat that was to be carried out by local 3-man tribunals called
''troikas" (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). As the tribunals
passed death sentences before the accused had even been arrested, local
authorities requested increases in their own quotas (Knight, 1993), and
there was an official request in 1938 for a doubling of the amount of
prisoner transport that had been initially requisitioned to carry out the
original campaign "quotas" of the tribunals (Getty, Ritterspom, and
Zemskov, 1993). However, even if there had been twice as many actual
executions as originally planned, the number would still be less than
150,000. Many of those sentenced by the tribunals may have escaped
capture, and many more may have had their death sentence refused or
revoked by higher authorities before arrest/execution could take place,
especially since Stalin later realized that excesses had been committed
in the 1937-38 period, had a number of convictions overturned, and had
many of the responsible local leaders punished (Thurston, 1996).
Soviet records indicate only about 300,000 actual arrests for anti­
Soviet activities or political crimes during this 193 7-3 8 interval (Davies,
1997). With a ratio of 1 execution for every 3 arrests as originally speci­
fied by Stalin, that figure would imply about 100,000 executions. Since
some of the people sentenced to death may have already been in confinement,
and since there is some evidence of a 50,000 increase in the
total number of deaths in labor camps over the 1937-38 interval that
was probably caused by such executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov,
1 993), the total number executed by the troika campaign would
probably be around 150,000. There were also 30,5 14 death sentences
pas�ed by military courts and 4387 by regular courts during the 1937-38
J)enod, but, even if all these death sentences were carried out, the total
75