Secret postal telegram on personnel purge of communication organizations and institutions in Siberia. August 17, 1928.

Document publication

doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-3-849-863

For citation

Sushko, Alexey V., Petin, Dmitry I. (2024), Secret postal telegram on personnel purge of organizations and institutions of communication in Siberia. August 17, 1928, Herald of an Archivist, № 3, pp. 849-863, doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-3-849-863

Sushko, Alexey V., Petin, Dmitry I., Omsk State Technical University, Omsk, Russia

Secret postal telegram on personnel purge of communication organizations and institutions in Siberia. August 17, 1928.

Abstract

This paper is a source study of a circular postal telegram on the need to purge “politically unreliable” and “harmful” persons from the organizations and institutions of communication in Siberia. The document was sent to the heads of the Siberian regional subdivisions of the OGPU bodies, the management of organizations and communication institutions in Siberia in the second half of August 1928. The published source makes it possible to reveal the procedure of “getting rid” of “former people” and other persons who were seen as unreliable for the communist state from the point of view of the Soviet state security agencies. Based on the study of the postal telegram stored in the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region, it is substantiated that, despite its interdepartmental nature, the document was prepared by the officers of the OGPU for Siberian Krai, who were responsible for ensuring the security of strategically important for the state communications agencies and the implementation of state policy with regard to “former people” and other unreliable persons. The theoretical basis of the work is represented by a combination of source and system methods. The source study method allowed us to study the published document in connection with the peculiarities of the era that caused its emergence. The system method allowed us to consider the document as a product of the political regime in the USSR, which increasingly ignored the existing legislation and gradually expanded the practice and scale of political repression. The study determines the scientific significance of the published historical source; according to the authors, it consists in the fact that the postal telegram sheds light on significant aspects of the history of the Soviet state and its socio-political life in that period. First of all, the source testifies to the forms and methods of work of the Soviet secret services, which were a special part of the party apparatus in the late 1920s, already confidently dictating their rules of conduct to representatives of Soviet organizations and institutions. In addition, this document demonstrates the process of degradation of Soviet law enforcement practice, which was caused by the activities of officials described in the document, this and similar instructions that created a system of ignoring the current legislation by the party-state apparatus and special services. The work may be of interest to researchers studying, first of all, the Soviet society of the Stalinist era, personnel purges, the activities of the Soviet security services and the existence of “former people” in the USSR.

Keywords

Soviet society, special services, state security agencies, OGPU, communication institutions, purges, “former people”, Siberia.

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About the authors

Sushko Alexey V., Doctor of Historical Sciences, Omsk State Technical University, Department of History, Philosophy and Social Communications, Professor, Omsk, Russia, 8-962-057-13-27, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Petin Dmitry I., Ph.D. historical sciences, Omsk State Technical University, Department of History, Philosophy and Social Communications, Associate Professor, Omsk, Russia, 8-950-333-56-81, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The article was received in the editorial office on 19.01.2024, recommended for publication on 20.06.2024.