Potapova Natalia A.,
Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Statistical Methods for Studying the Scale of Political Repression in Western Siberia in 1937–1938 (Based on Materials From the NKVD Commission and the Prosecutor of the USSR)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2019-4-7
The article is devoted to the experience of using statistical methods in the study of Soviet political terror. The author notes that the use of statistical methods in historical research has become possible thanks to the involvement of mass sources. Databases created on the basis of investigative cases of the repressed, and statistical methods allow us to study various waves of persecution in the USSR, including the period of the Great Terror. Based on the decisions of the Commission of the NKVD and the Prosecutor of the USSR, the author of the work compiled a database containing protocol digital information on the extent of the repression in the regions of the USSR. Using statistical methods in analyzing the database, the extent of “national” operations in Western Siberia was determined. Of the eleven “national” punitive lines in the region, ten were drawn. The Novosibirsk region has become a leader not only in the number of people arrested, but also in the cruelty of sentences. Here, 13,308 people went through “national” operations, including 12,821 people were sentenced to death (96 %). The number of people repressed by “linear” punitive actions in Altai was almost three times lower (4353 people). The percentage of those who received capital punishment was 78.7 %. The repressions were relatively sluggish in the Omsk region (1,637 repressed), and sentences in the first category did not exceed 45 %. The analysis showed that the proportion of convicts of “national” punitive action in the West Siberian region amounted to 8 % of the total number of repressed for this mass operation in the countrys.
Publishing: 30/08/2019
How to cite: Potapova N.A. Statistical Methods for Studying the Scale of Political Repression in Western Siberia in 1937–1938 (Based on Materials From the NKVD Commission and the Prosecutor of the USSR) // Historical Courier, 2019, # 4 (6). Article 7. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2019/ISTKURIER-2019-4-07.pdf
Links: Issue 4 2019
Keywords: statistical methods; databases; the Great Terror; the Commission of the NKVD and the Prosecutor of the USSR; Western Siberia