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[82] [3] British historian Michael Ellman argues that mass deaths from famines should be placed in a different category than the repression victims, mentioning that throughout Russian history famines and droughts have been a common occurrence, including the Russian famine of 1921–1922, triggered by Stalin's predecessor Vladimir Lenin's war ...
Daniel Goldhagen argues that 20th century communist regimes "have killed more people than any other regime type." [160] Other scholars in the fields of communist studies and genocide studies, such as Steven Rosefielde and Benjamin Valentino, have come to similar conclusions.
Stalin probably exceeded Hitler". [188] Wheatcroft elaborates: Stalin undoubtedly caused many innocent people to be executed, but it seems likely that he thought many of them guilty of crimes against the state and felt that the execution of others would act as a deterrent to the guilty. He signed the papers and insisted on documentation.
The NKVD recorded that between 26 and 27 million Soviet citizens had been killed, with millions more being wounded, malnourished, or orphaned. [480] In the war's aftermath, some of Stalin's associates suggested modifications to government policy. [481] Post-war Soviet society was more tolerant than its pre-war phase in various respects.
The first Party purge of the Joseph Stalin era took place in 1929–1930 in accordance with a resolution of the XVI Party Conference. [4] Purges became deadly under Stalin. More than 10 percent of the party members were purged. At the same time, a significant number of new industrial workers joined the Party.
The Great Purge ended in 1939. In October 1940 the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs), under its new chief Lavrentiy Beria, started a new purge that initially hit the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, People's Commissariat of Aviation Industry, and People's Commissariat of Armaments.
The first critical inquiry into the Great Purge outside the Soviet Union had been made as early as 1937 by the Dewey Commission, which published its findings in the form of a 422-page book entitled Not Guilty (this title referred to the people who had been charged with various crimes by Joseph Stalin's government and therefore purged); the Dewey Commission found them not guilty.
The people were given only 15 to 30 minutes to pack for the surprise transfer. [40] According to a correspondence dated March 3, 1944, at least 19,000 officers and 100,000 NKVD soldiers from all over the USSR were sent to implement this operation. Some 500 people were deported by mistake even though they were not Chechens or Ingush. [44]