Terror by Quota: State Security from Lenin to Stalin

Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes

by Paul R. Gregory

This original analysis of the workings of Soviet state security organs under Lenin and Stalin addresses a series of questions that have long resisted satisfactory answers. Why did political repression affect so many people, most of them ordinary citizens? Why did repression come in waves or cycles? Why were economic and petty crimes regarded as political crimes? What was the reason for relying on extra-judicial tribunals? And what motivated the extreme harshness of punishments, including the widespread use of the death penalty?

 

Through an approach that synthesizes history and economics, Paul Gregory develops systematic explanations for the way terror was applied, how terror agents were recruited, how they carried out their jobs, and how they were motivated. The book draws on extensive, recently opened archives of the Gulag administration, the Politburo, and state security agencies themselves to illuminate in new ways terror and repression in the Soviet Union as well as dictatorships in other times and places.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Michelle]

A powerful and engaging look at systemic genocide through the lens of political economy. The sheer wealth of man-hours that must have gone into this product is astonishing—every page is chock full of facts and figures drawn from archives.
(read for work)

[Ra44 · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book describing and analyzing the state security set-up of the most draconian modern industrial state to have existed, as yet.

The author shows how Stalin planned his mass killings, on what he predicated these actions. It was rational, in its own way - protecting the dictator, the movement, no weight on human rights. Better to kill/destroy 95 innocents in removing 5 out of 100 who might be potent enemies.

From Chap. 6:
" We do know that Stalin was obsessed with enemies and on public oc-
casions revealed how he calculated their numbers. Consider his musings
recorded verbatim at the March 5, 1937 Central Committee plenum:
If you remember the last discussion was in 1927; the discussion was
open; this was a real referendum. Seven hundred and thirty thousand
members of the party (out of 854,000) participated, meaning 123,000
did not vote. Maybe they were on leave, on vacation, or had other rea-
sons. Out of 854,000 party members 730,800 voted. Of these 724,000
voted for the Bolsheviks against the Trotskyites. This means 4,000 votes
for the Trotskyites. This is half a percent. There were 2,600 abstentions.
I think you would have to add the abstentions to the votes for the Trot-
skyites, which gives them a little over 6,000. I think from those who
were not able to participate in the referendum, namely 121,000, it is
possible to give 10 percent to the Trotskyites . . . this would add up to
11,000. If we add this 11,000 we get 18,000 Trotskyites. We can add
another 10,000 for Zinoviev, giving us 28,000, Yes, let’s reckon more
than we need for objectivity—28,000. If we add rightists and others,
let’s raise the figure to 30,000. . . . We now have 1.5 million party mem-
bers, 2 million with candidate members. From these cadres we have al-
ready arrested 18,000. If we take 30,000, this means there are 18,000
left.6
Thus Stalin did calculate the number of enemies. If we initially hold
the potency factor constant, changes in the threat level will be due ex-
clusively to changes in the number of enemies. If the number of enemies
170
Planning Terror
is below the revolution constraint, the dictator needs no new repressive
action. If the number of enemies rises above the revolution constraint,
the dictator must eliminate a sufficient number to return to the revolu-
tion constraint.
We can illustrate the eliminations model with a simple numerical ex-
ample in which we hold the potency factor constant at a “normal” level
of 1. The initial number of enemies is 20 (each representing a potency
level of 1), so that the threat level equals 20. If the total population is
100, 80 are “nonenemies” and 20 are enemies. If the revolution con-
straint is also 20, the dictator need not engage in eliminations.
If 10 previous nonenemies defect from the 80 to become enemies, the
dictator now has 30 enemies (70 nonenemies) at a potency rate of 1,
which places the actual threat level (30) above the revolution constraint
(20). If he does nothing, he will be overthrown. But, the simple solu-
tion—eliminating the 10 new enemies—is not simple after all, because
his enemies try to conceal themselves. He must be sure to eliminate the
10 defectors, but his ability to identify them depends on their skill in
concealing themselves and upon the quality of intelligence. His agents
can only identify enemies correctly with a certain probability. In our ex-
ample, we use a two-thirds probability, which means that to eliminate
10 enemies, he must repress 15 citizens, only 10 of whom will be his en-
emies. The dictator must eliminate a certain number of nonenemies
along with enemies to keep the threat level below the revolution con-
straint.
The eliminations model also suggests that repressions will increase if
the potency factor increases (enemies become more dangerous) or if the
ability to distinguish enemy from nonenemy diminishes. If, for example,
the number of enemies is constant at 20, but the potency factor increases
from 1 to 1.5, and the probability of detecting an enemy falls from two-
thirds to one-half, the dictator must now eliminate an additional 20,
only 10 of which will be enemies.7 The sacrifice of nonenemies is a nec-
essary evil of repression, but not without costs. In a labor-short econ-
omy, the loss of “loyal” or at least “neutral” able-bodied adults is a cost
a rational dictator would wish to avoid.
This eliminations model is a rational choice model. The dictator “ra-
tionally” chooses to keep his enemies below the revolution constraint,
and the model has two parameters: the potency of enemies and the
probability of correct labeling of enemies. "