[Maxim Litvinov]

I've been compiling a small database all day based on some sources I have, and thought I may as well share it.

My interest is members of the Soviet 'A-list' under Stalin, the way they lived, worked and in particular what their wives did. In order to assess the society I've been looking through lists of residents of the first real apartment building for top Soviets in Moscow, the House of Government (Dom pravitel'stva) aka the House on the Embankment (Dom na naberezhnoy).

What I've been doing is looking at lists of the 140 members (and candidate members) of the Communist Party Central Committee in 1934 and working out who of them lived at this block of apartments, which of those who lived there were shot during the purges, which survived, which had family there etc. etc.



Some quick stats are as follows.
140 - number of people elected to the Central Committee in 1934.
41% - percentage of that committee who lived in the House.
50% - percentage of that committee who lived there or had family who lived there.
76% - percentage of residents there in the Central Committee of 1934 who lost their lives in the Stalinist purges (ie - dead by 1940).

If you look at things more closely though, you see a pattern...
48% - percentage of CC 1934 candidate members who lived at the House
34% - percentage of CC 1934 full members who lived at the House
82% - percentage of CC 1934 candidate members who lived at the House that were repressed
60% - percentage of Politburo candidate members (at 10/2/1934) who lived at the House
20% - percentage of Politburo full members (at 10/2/1934) who lived at the House
20% - percentage of Politburo full (10%) and candidate (40%) members repressed

In short, the House on the Embankment was reserved for the next tier of political figures down from the top. Which is why more candidate members of the Politburo and candidate members of the Central Committee lived there. And the purges of the late 1930s only got rid of 1 of the 10 top politicians in the country, while they absolutely obliterated the central committee, particularly its candidate membership. In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators.

When you keep in mind that 'only' some 1 in 3 residents of the House on the Embankment were repressed according to most figures, the fact that 75% or so of central committee people were repressed means that even in the elite community, the purges had a very specific target.

[alyster]

In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators.

Your so called research doesn't include anything about non-party members.

Rest is hilarious also.

For all we know new top politicians could have kept moving in while others were killed. All of the population of the house could have changed twice or trice a year due to the killings. We don't know that. Purges took lives of hundreds of thousands of people and you want to make generalizations based on 140 These percentages could merely be how many apartments were reserved for higher politicians and how many for middle politicians. People could have moved in and out/be killed in daily bases. Your research doesn't include that.

Knowing you enough, your mistakes didn't pop in while you analysed the material, but from the very begining. You weren't neutral on the subject. And if you're not neutral while researching history you always get the result you want. No matter how lousy the material and the fact that in such cases people usually ignore all the controversial material to their case of point.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Your so called research doesn't include anything about non-party members.

So-called? You are correct - unsurprisingly people in the Central Committee tended to be party members :/

Rest is hilarious also.

What's funny?

All of the population of the house could have changed twice or trice a year due to the killings. We don't know that.

We do, actually. I've got lists of the population of the house and even amongst the subset I was looking at, more than a handful lived there right through the purges.

Purges took lives of hundreds of thousands of people and you want to make generalizations based on 140

I'm making specific judgements about how the purges affected the very top dogs in the Bolshevik Party. Which actually means I'm basically examining 100% of the top 140. It's a pretty good sample for what I'm doing.

These percentages could merely be how many apartments were reserved for higher politicians and how many for middle politicians.

Data in general about the purges suggests the 'higher politicians' in the HotE were much more likely to be killed. So although I'm not making judgements in my research about the extent of the purges in general, if someone were to misuse my data as indicative of the country as a whole, if anything it would be grossly overstating the number of purge victims.

People could have moved in and out/be killed in daily bases.

Except they weren't. You can go through the testimonies if you want.

Your research doesn't include that.

As a matter of fact, you don't know what my research includes. Because all I've done is given some snippets of stats from the data I've been compiling today. I haven't even provided people with the text that I'll be writing on the House of the Embankment under Stalin, let alone the other 95% of my research. But nice of you to jump to conclusions.

You weren't neutral on the subject.

What subject? You're talking shit again.

[alyster]

We do, actually. I've got lists of the population of the house and even amongst the subset I was looking at, more than a handful lived there right through the purges.

We? No, you in the best case. Atlist I hope. You didn't present any material about the people living there more than the groups they belonged to.

I'm making specific judgements about how the purges affected the very top dogs in the Bolshevik Party. Which actually means I'm basically examining 100% of the top 140. It's a pretty good sample for what I'm doing.

First of all you were making a judgement about non-party members also, "In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators." Secondly the way you put it "section of the population" can not be out of 140 families. The way you put your conclusion you analysed the Great Purges and groups from the entire population afected by it. And that with one single VIP house.

Data in general about the purges suggests the 'higher politicians' in the HotE were much more likely to be killed.

Now if we get to the point you claim now you wanted to say, that mid-level politicians were a bigger risk group than higher level politicians then you didn't bring out any comparison claiming otherwhise to your thesis.

Except they weren't. You can go through the testimonies if you want.

Exept you didn't present any. So can we called it a research at all? BTW which source are your numbers based on?
Numbers suggesting how many percent of Politburo members were killed and how many percent of communist party members were killed[excluding all politburo members] and numbers of how big percentage of non-party members were killed would be much accurate here.

What subject? You're talking shit again.

Your conclusion came on the Great Purges. So that's the subject I understood you were writing about, that's what your conclusion suggests.

[Maxim Litvinov]

You didn't present any material about the people living there more than the groups they belonged to.

Umm. I was giving people 10 or so stats, alyster, not a fucking chapter-long account of lives.

In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators.

There were around 800000 official deaths in the great purges. The population of the USSR was over 100 million. I'm talking about figures of 75% of the CC members in the HotE killed. In terms of the general population, we're talking about figures of <.75% killed. If you are unwilling to admit that an 100-fold increased risk of death is *significant* then God help whoever tried to teach you maths or statistics. Since the purges were actually less likely to affect non-Party members than the general population including Party members, then the decreased risk for non-Party members is even more significant than 100 times.

The way you put your conclusion you analysed the Great Purges and groups from the entire population afected by it.

The way I put that summary was precisely in line with what was being examined. If you want general statistics...

[1] Of the top 10 or so leaders of the country in 1935, none were killed off by the purges.
[2] Of the next 200 or so leaders, 75% or so were killed off in the purges (generally more likely to die the lower on that list you were).
[3] Of the Party elite in top positions within a Commissariat (going down the chain again), Sheila Fitzpatrick gives a figure of around 60% being purged (see Fitzpatrick's 'The impact of the Great Purges on Soviet elites...') in the case of the Narkom for Heavy Industry in Moscow.
[4] She contrasts this with 16% being purged out of the spravochnik of about 50000 floating around Moscow.
[5] We can then go down to <1% for the general population based on figures of total purge deaths and the population of the country.
[6] Knowing how disproportionately party members were affected by the great purge, we can easily get <0.5% for non-Party members.

It's pretty clear stuff, alyster. The stuff on the House on the Embankment alone only slots in piece number [2], but piece [1] is dead easy to find out and there are many figures elsewhere for the rest.

that mid-level politicians were a bigger risk group than higher level politicians then you didn't bring out any comparison claiming otherwhise

What's a 'comparison claiming otherwhise [sic]'? We know who was in the Politburo in the mid 1930s - they were the highest politicians. We know who was just in the Central Committee - they were pretty high, but not as high. We can also see clearly that the CC was much harder hit than the Politburo by the purges. Such a finding is hardly anything new.

Exept [sic] you didn't present any.

Because I'm not here to spoonfeed people hundreds of thousands of words. I'm here to give you people some simple stats based on some data I've been compiling. Seeing as you find it too difficult to even process 10 percentages, it seems that's unfortunately more than enough.

BTW which source are your numbers based on?

Which numbers? Lists of Politburo and CC members can be found in many places. Mine are from 'Imperiia Stalina' by Zalessky. Figures on who in the HotE was repressed are based upon the House's collected archives. Figures on who lives in the House are based on the same, particularly as referenced in two books sponsored by the House, the main one of those being 'Oknami na Kreml'' edited by Ter-Yegiazaryan et al., together with other general sources on who was living where when necessary.

Numbers suggesting how many percent of Politburo members were killed and how many percent of communist party members were killed[excluding all politburo members] and numbers of how big percentage of non-party members were killed would be much accurate here.

What do you mean 'more accurate'? You're talking gibberish. The most accurate way to assess the "percentage of residents there in the Central Committee of 1934 who lost their lives in the Stalinist purges" is to do exactly what I've done - find residents of the HotE, find residents who were purged, find residents in the CC of 1934. Your only problem - which seems to be a fundamentally silly one, as though you're grasping at straws - is that I haven't given you particular statistics that you might be interested in.

Once again, I'm not interested in comparing non-Party members killed to Party members killed (although, as has been described, the contrast would be marked if you tried). I'm simply looking at the makeup of the top 150 or so of the elite.

[alyster]

Umm. I was giving people 10 or so stats, alyster, not a fucking chapter-long account of lives.

You gave us stats about one thing and drew part of your conclusion on totally other things.

There were around 800000 official deaths in the great purges. The population of the USSR was over 100 million. I'm talking about figures of 75% of the CC members in the HotE killed. In terms of the general population, we're talking about figures of <.75% killed. If you are unwilling to admit that an 100-fold increased risk of death is *significant* then God help whoever tried to teach you maths or statistics. Since the purges were actually less likely to affect non-Party members than the general population including Party members, then the decreased risk for non-Party members is even more significant than 100 times

Again it's not my problem if you think of one thing and write all other stuff. If you didn't notice let me quote it a third time "killing off one section of the population". This thes needs an overview of the whole population's loses, to state that the idea was to kill off one section of population.

Maybe you didn't want to look into this topic but you sure did make conclusions about it. Kill off one section of population...you make it sound like a genocide.

The way I put that summary was precisely in line with what was being examined

Again some mystical thing no one has yet seen but you had it so perfectly on a paper in front of you.

[1] Of the top 10 or so leaders of the country in 1935, none were killed off by the purges.

In which percentage up above is that based on? Not only unsourced but unmentioned in your research. Others had to guess it before your conlusion?

[3] Of the Party elite in top positions within a Commissariat (going down the chain again), Sheila Fitzpatrick gives a figure of around 60% being purged (see Fitzpatrick's 'The impact of the Great Purges on Soviet elites...') in the case of the Narkom for Heavy Industry in Moscow.

Which every person should have known before reading your research to understand from where you draw your conclusion?

You know it's not that hard to give a off site link, or list of links incase they are archival records or books. But to say I knew this, I have these materials here and bring in vital data later is just foolish. Even our teen commies on this forum, although their style is alot and alot weaker, have learned to lay out the facts. (There were some here, some time ago)

I didn't get at the first what you meaned under HotE, so sry the second post was bit off topic. However your these that " In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators." is way out of your conclusion.

Btw repressed isn't killed. The defination is totally different. Although in great purges killing could have very well been almost the only way how to repress.

[The Immortal Goon]

You know it's not that hard to give a off site link, or list of links incase they are archival records or books. But to say I knew this, I have these materials here and bring in vital data later is just foolish. Even our teen commies on this forum, although their style is alot and alot weaker, have learned to lay out the facts. (There were some here, some time ago)

I'm fairly sure Maxim was well aware of the limitations of the data he was posting.

Soviet repression - some rough, particular stats.

I don't think is intention was anything more than a very simple rough survey over a representative example - hence the title.

[Maxim Litvinov]

You gave us stats about one thing and drew part of your conclusion on totally other things

I gave some stats in the OP about the Central Committee of 1934 and residence at the House on the Embankment, correct. I also ended with a short statement on how the stats fit into a general narrative on the Great Purges and which sections of society were most affected. I have even been so kind as to expand upon this statement in a subsequent post.

Really, you are yet to dispute any of the stats I gave, yet to give a counter-argument to the general narrative, yet to take issue with any sources. Your only 'argument' seems to be that I dared start a thread here without presenting thousands of words detailing it in context and providing a bibliography with detailed sources for my post. In short, your response borders on the absurd.

This thes needs an overview of the whole population's loses, to state that the idea was to kill off one section of population.

Though no-one should need an overview - it's pretty much all common knowledge - I've already provided one in the last post. The rough figures of purge victims are as follows (to repeat myself)

Top 10 - 0%
10 - 200 - 75%
Top bureaucrats in major NarKoms - 60%
Type of people that made Moscow telephone directory (ie. urban professionals, many with party membership) - 16%
Population in general - 1/150 or so.
Non-party members - less than any of the above.

As I've said, the sheer hundredfold difference between the people in the House I'm talking about and the population of Russia as a whole would suggest to all but the braindead that the *focus* of the great purge was on the former group more than the latter. I did not actually say the 'idea' of the purge was to do this, incidentally, to stop you from misquoting me further.

Kill off one section of population...you make it sound like a genocide.

I didn't know you could genocide 'top party officials' :/. But I don't see you denying that over 50% of top party officials were killed off in the purges, so I'm not really sure what you're wanting to argue about. The simple fact is that the purges manifested themselves in an extremely top-heavy way - apart from those very very close to Stalin, the Soviet elite were completely torn apart by them in a way society in general wasn't.

Not only unsourced but unmentioned in your research.

Let's get this straight - the above is me sharing some stats with people here. It's not my 'research', but a post with stats. If you want, you can contest the validity of the stats. But don't pretend that the OP is somehow the presentation of some 'thesis' - if you mistake the OP for a thesis excerpt then you really are out of touch.

Btw repressed isn't killed.

I know. It just happens to correlate in this data, because all the CC members who were repressed received the 'highest measure of punishment' (ie. they were shot dead).

[KurtFF8]

The USSR was repressive and not a true worker state?!

[alyster]

I gave some stats in the OP about the Central Committee of 1934 and residence at the House on the Embankment, correct. I also ended with a short statement on how the stats fit into a general narrative on the Great Purges and which sections of society were most affected. I have even been so kind as to expand upon this statement in a subsequent post.

You gave us stats about when how many of which class people lived in the house. When I said all we could know people could have moved out in daily bases you said you have some sort of a full list of the residents. Then you whined that you're not going to post here their biography. So don't twist words about one thing every time to another. You didn't even mention that there hadn't been no notable changes in the list.

Your only 'argument' seems to be that I dared start a thread here without presenting thousands of words detailing it in context and providing a bibliography with detailed sources for my post. In short, your response borders on the absurd.

Your conclusion is all wrong even accoring to the info you gave and thought not worthy of sharing. (I don't even mantion sourcing it). This is for the fourth time for crying out loud can't you get it already. You can not make a generalization about the population and specially about non-party members based on this information.

Type of people that made Moscow telephone directory (ie. urban professionals, many with party membership) - 16%
Population in general - 1/150 or so.
Non-party members - less than any of the above.

Now you mention this? After I've kept whining about non-party members for a day? You didn't mention any in the begining, that's the problem.
PS. "Less than any above" is not valid.

I didn't know you could genocide 'top party officials'

Extermination of one direct group in society would be geneocide. More or less so. And "Kill off one section of population" It does sound so, just for the side note.

But I don't see you denying that over 50% of top party officials were killed off in the purges, so I'm not really sure what you're wanting to argue about.

Haven't I said it already?

The stats themselves are interesting, I'm not questioning them. However what you've done with them --> you've analysed the whole society, while you only have stats about one bigger politician group.

In order to assess the society I've been looking through lists of residents of the first real apartment building for top Soviets in Moscow

...

In short, the House on the Embankment was reserved for the next tier of political figures down from the top. Which is why more candidate members of the Politburo and candidate members of the Central Committee lived there. And the purges of the late 1930s only got rid of 1 of the 10 top politicians in the country, while they absolutely obliterated the central committee, particularly its candidate membership. In other words, the great purges were very much about killing off one section of the population - not the very top dogs, not the non-Party members, but those fairly high up administrators.

It doesn't say to analyse politicians nor politician community. From the sentence I've quoted here for hundreds of time I'd read out that majority of victims were not from non-party class nor higher politicians, but from some middle men. In worse case that would mean half a million dead bureaucrats, in better case comparison of percentages of victims' groups, but you didn't include the non-political people. And the worst thing is which I originaly read from it

The USSR was repressive and not a true worker state?!

No, seems to me it rather repressed the bureaucrats. Actually it even sounds logical, remaking of killing the bourgeois class

[Maxim Litvinov]

...you've analysed the whole society...

I've been analysing Bolshevik elite society, alyster. Not doing some grand analysis of the entire Soviet population. So, again the trouble comes with you misreading the OP. Which is why since I am analysing the top 100 or so politicians in the country the sample of CC members is actually very good.

Any further stats on how the purges affected other sectors of society I've stuck up here to give people a general idea of where the 140 I was talking about fit in. Although it's an idea you seem to have problems with, considering your continued lack of understanding.

If you want to argue with the figures or interpretation that's fine. But while you're making rather non-sensical notes about what you would have preferred I had talked about, or what you think I talked about based on your poor English or what you'd rather I was studying, or which sources you'd rather I had quoted, it's all pretty silly on your part.

Incidentally, if your conclusion was just that the purges were about 'bureaucrats and middle men', I'd say again that the simple breakdown I've already provided twice doesn't really support that. Rather it shows that with the exception of Stalin's 'closest henchmen' (ie. people like Molotov, Kaganovich, Khrushchev, Beria, Ordzhonikidze), you were generally more likely to die the closer you were to the very top. People like Bukharin, Yezhov, Gamarnik & Tukhachevsky, Kosior & Postyshev were hardly 'bureaucrats' and it was at their level of society that the most deaths occurred.

[alyster]

If you want to argue with the figures or interpretation that's fine. But while you're making rather non-sensical notes about what you would have preferred I had talked about, or what you think I talked about based on your poor English or what you'd rather I was studying, or which sources you'd rather I had quoted, it's all pretty silly on your part.

I said if you wanted to make a assessment on the "society" and the "population", then you should have looked at these stats also, which you missed. Perhaps your sphere of interest was different, however you refered to the whole society in quite several places.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Still no argument with my figures? Good.

[Unperson-K]

Tell me, Maxim, how difficult is it for foreigners (non-Russians) to get access to the Russian archives? I only ask because I am proceeding to do a Masters in Russian History next year and am considering the possibilty of doing a PhD. I hear from my dissertation tutor that it can be quite tough gaining access: a Lithuanian colleague of his was apparently denied access to some medieval treaties on the basis of the fact that they were state secrets.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Woah. I don't know about medieval treaties and state secrets...

As far as I'm aware, to get to 90% of material, all you'll need is a letter stating your university and topic and requesting access.

I went to Moscow twice. First time this letter was typed up by an agency that helps academics get admission to archives (it's called Praxis and run by Arch Getty.

Second time, the only thing I needed to get into archives like GARF (State Archive of Russia) and RGASPI (Russian State Archive for Socio-Political Research) was the same letter... except I found I could just write the letter out myself ("My name is X. I'm doing a PhD at Y university on the subject of Z and wanting access to this archive...") and they let me in - I'm not sure if they'd therefore accept anyone off the street like that, or that they remembered me from last time.

The FSB archives (ie. people's police records) I didn't get into: you need to be a relative of the person whose archive you want to see or have specific permission from them. The presidential archives are also not open (though materials drifted out of them particularly in the early 90s). But the archives I went to had everything from meeting minutes to the personal correspondence of top Bolsheviks to diaries of major figures etc. etc.

[alyster]

Still no argument with my figures? Good.

For the love of God, never wanted to. You still didn't understand what bugged me?



There isn't much of a elder archive left in Russia. The poles took it in 1610 and the the Russians retook whole Polish archive in 1795*, some wars and few fires etc. Alot of material has been destoried by the orders of the state because they just didn't have enough room. I mean there defenetly are interesting stuff but a great deal has been lost. Estimates for some provinces' remaning material has been around 4%. And ofcourse you can find stuff about Estonia in Siberian archives and stuff about Moscow in Estonian/Latvian/Swedish archives. Not much in Sweden probably because they had a nasty fire but still...

Archives which are harder to access are the party archive and the military archives.

What period are you focusing on?

* Lithuanians probably are interested in Moscow's older archives, because with Polish material, there are also Lithuanian materials.