The summer of 2018 marks the 65th anniversary of the 1953 amnesty that freed more than a million prisoners 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.
About the amnesty of 1953, most of the townsfolk have a general idea thanks to the film "Cold Summer of 53". This brilliant film, in which Anatoly Papanov played his last role, tells the story of the events that took place a few months after Stalin's death. But he probably gives not quite the right idea about the amnesty of 1953 in the USSR. At least, this is what many modern researchers believe.
Backstory
At the end of the thirties, the criminal law became much tougher. No changes were made to it until the death of Joseph Stalin. In accordance with a decree issued in June 1940, unauthorizedleaving for another enterprise without the permission of the chief threatened with imprisonment. For absenteeism or a twenty-minute delay, a person could also end up behind bars. Petty hooliganism in those troubled times was given five years.
If an enterprise produced defective products, an engineer or director could easily end up in the dock. There were false reports. One word could cost a man his freedom. In addition, parole was abolished. That is, a man sentenced to ten years could not even hope that he would be released ahead of time. More often it happened otherwise - after the first term followed by the second.
No wonder that by the beginning of 1953, a record was set for the number of prisoners in labor camps. 180 million people lived in the country. There were about two million people in the camps. For comparison: today there are about 650,000 criminals in Russian prisons.
Myths
There have been many legends about the amnesty of 1953 since Soviet times. It allegedly concerned not political prisoners, victims of Stalinist repressions, but notorious criminals. Killers, bandits, thieves in law were released, which is solely Beria’s fault, 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 amnesty of 1953 was called "Voroshilov". However, it went down in history as an event held by Lavrenty Beria.
Why did the authorities suddenly need to release so manyprisoners (more than a million)? This event, or rather, what followed, Beria deliberately provoked. He needed a particularly strong surge in crime, because in such conditions it was possible to establish a “hard hand” regime.
Main organizer
The amnesty decree was signed in 1953 by Klim Voroshilov. Nevertheless, the initiator of this event was a man who was later accused of organizing repressions. Beria wrote a report addressed to Georgy Malenkov. This document spoke about the 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 legislation. And what followed after the signing of the decree? The effects of the 1953 amnesty were positive for the prisoners. The Gulag is half empty. However, a wave of robberies organized by ex-cons swept across the country.
Who fell under the 1953 amnesty
In the Soviet Union in Stalin's time, everyone could lose their freedom. And not only on charges of espionage. That is why the camps organized in the 30s were overcrowded by the beginning of the 50s.
Who was eligible for release in 1953? First of all, minors and those convicted for a short period were to be released. The amnesty of 1953 guaranteed the freedom of persons convicted under a number of articles for economic, official, militarycrimes. Pregnant women and women with children under the age of ten were supposed to leave the camps. The amnesty of 1953 brought long-awaited freedom to people who had spent decades in the camps. It covered men over 55 and women over 50.
Prisoners who were sentenced to no more than five years were leaving the prisons. However, the amnesty did not apply to people who committed so-called counter-revolutionary crimes and theft of socialist property. It did not apply to those accused of banditry and murders.
Number of pardoned people
According to data for November 1953, about six thousand pregnant women, five thousand minors, more than forty thousand men over 55 left the camps. Prisoners suffering from severe ailments were released. There were about forty thousand of them. More than 500,000 people fell under the 1953 amnesty among those sentenced to terms of up to five years.
In addition, criminal cases were dropped. About four hundred thousand Soviet citizens passed the fate of the camp. It is worth saying that not a single political figure carried out such a large-scale amnesty in the USSR. There was nothing like it in tsarist times. True, before the revolution and arrests for political crimes, there were many times less, and they were justified.
This amnesty was not a criminal one. Beria did not pursue the goal of releasing criminal authorities, murderers, bandits from prison. In the text of the decree there is a phrase that clearly said: those convicted of intentional murderdo not get the right to freedom. However, many criminals before 1953 were convicted under more lenient articles. This happened due to the lack of evidence base. It's not about the shortcomings of the work of the Soviet law enforcement officers. As you know, even the legendary gangster Al Capone was convicted for nothing more than tax evasion.
The fate of political prisoners
As already mentioned, a large number of criminals were released in those days. At the same time, political criminals left the camps 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 amnesty of 1953 that a process began that opened a new period in the history of the Soviet Union. Most of the political prisoners were released by the mid-fifties.
Crime surge
In the summer of 1953, dangerous criminals really went free. Some have been saved by old age. Some were sentenced to less than five years. Yet the majority of those amnestied were those convicted of petty theft. These were those who really did not pose a serious danger to the state. But why was there a catastrophic increase in crime in the early fifties?
It also happened because the terms of the amnesty were poorly thought out. No one worked out a program of rehabilitation, employment of former convicts. People, after spending many years in prisons, were released, but nothing good awaited them here. They had no family, no home, no means of livelihood. Not surprising,that many took up the old.
Law enforcement agencies in the USSR in the fifties had a hard time. After all, not only individual criminals were released, but also entire groups, gangs in full force. There were seizures of settlements by former prisoners. A similar story is told in the aforementioned Cold Summer of '53 film. In such cases, law enforcement agencies acted ruthlessly and harshly. They used weapons, sent criminals back to the camps.
How it was
Several documentaries have been made about the 1953 amnesty. One of them (“How it was”) tells about the former prisoner Vyacheslav Kharitonov. This is a terrible and ridiculous story about a thief who stole a suitcase and an amnesty in 1953. A police officer ended up in the zone after interrogating the criminal.
He was convicted in 1951 under false interrogation. Kharitonov interrogated the thief who stole the suitcase, and the next day he himself ended up behind bars. He was declared an enemy of the people. Later, Kharitonov learned that the defendant had written a denunciation against him, according to which the investigator delivered an anti-Soviet speech during interrogation. The former policeman was convicted under Article 58.
Highly dangerous criminals
The amnesty decree was signed three weeks after Stalin's death. But it didn't affect everyone. For stealing a bunch of hay, a peasant could end up in camps for seven years. Such a prisoner did not fall under the amnesty. The so-calledpests. And then, at the beginning of March 1953, there was no question of releasing political criminals. According to Kharitonov's memoirs, he, like other convicts under Article 58, was summoned by the head of the camp, announced an amnesty, while stressing that he, as a particularly dangerous criminal, would not see freedom.
Yet Kharitonov was released. In the wake of the amnesty, his case was reviewed. It turned out that the verdict was signed by a state security officer who, after Stalin's death, was accused of participating in repressions. Kharitonov was released in August 1953. But one cannot speak of the amnesty of 1953 and its consequences on the example of this case. Maybe Kharitonov got lucky.
The inhabitants of the Stalinist camps were free labor. The convicts built roads, felled the forest. But as soon as the “father of nations” died, their work was recognized as ineffective. The need to keep such an army of prisoners in the camps immediately disappeared.
A mistake or an elaborate plan
It is widely believed that Beria deliberately complicated the criminal situation in the country. Perhaps the head of state security just made a mistake. After all, he did not have the opportunity to rely on a similar experience. There have never been such large-scale amnesties in the history of the Soviet Union. Another assumption about the reasons for the amnesty of 1953: it was timed to coincide with the death of the Great Leader. But this is just a myth. The decree says nothing about Stalin. His name was never mentioned
Beria was shot in the fall of 1953. Later he was named"Kremlin executioner". According to historical data, his hands were indeed up to the elbow in blood. Someone believes that the shot Beria was hanged, taking the opportunity, and those crimes that he did not commit. The version that he staged the amnesty of 1953 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 proven. This is just a guess.
