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Rebuilding the Donbass. The Impact of Nazi-Occupation on Workers, Engineers and the Economic Development of the Post-War Soviet Union in Late Stalinism

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Social Movements and the Change of Economic Elites in Europe after 1945

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

The case of the Soviet Union looks at first sight to be a kind of dual ‘deficit story’ in terms of the role social movements played in the post-war cleansings of economic elites who collaborated with the Nazis during the period of German occupation in World War II. Firstly, due to the specific structure of the Soviet command economy and the lack of private enterprises, it seems rather difficult to identify the ‘economic elites’ who personally profited from the German occupying regime in local societies. Secondly, the late Stalinist post-war order allowed neither the formation of independent social movements nor the participation of social movements in cleansing policies. The role of trade unions under late Stalinist rule continued to be rather marginal.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Andreas Hilger, Nikita Petrov and Günther Wagenlehner (eds.), Sowjetische Militärtribunale, Vol. 1: Die Verurteilung deutscher Kriegsgefangener 1941–1953 and Vol. 2: Die Verurteilung deutscher Zivilisten 1945–1955 (Köln: Böhlau, 2001–2003); A.V. Prusin: ‘“Fascist Criminals to the Gallows!”: The Holocaust and Soviet War Crimes Trials, December 1945–February 1946’, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17:1 (Spring 2003), pp. 1–3; Tanja Penter, ‘“Das Urteil des Volkes”. Der Kriegsverbrecherprozesse von Krasnodar 1943’, in Osteuropa 60:12 (2010), pp. 117–131; Tanja Penter, ‘Local Collaborators on Trial. Soviet war crimes trials under Stalin (1943–1953)’, in Cahiers du Monde russe, 49:2–3 (2008), pp. 341–364 and the thematic volume Tanja Penter and Juliette Cadiot (eds.), ‘Law and Justice in Wartime and Postwar Stalinism’, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 61:2 (2013).

  2. 2.

    See Tanja Penter, Kohle für Stalin und Hitler. Leben und Arbeiten im Donbass 1929 bis 1953 (Essen: Klartext, 2010).

  3. 3.

    According to Soviet post-war party statistics, from 3958 industrial cadres in Stalino region, 2594 (65 per cent) remained in occupied territory, F. P-326, Op. 2, D. 85, Bl. 28, DADO (State archive of Doneck region).

  4. 4.

    For a microfilm collection of trials, see: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) collection of Soviet war crimes records (1943–1980s) related to the Holocaust in Ukraine (RG 31.018M); this invaluable collection, which encompasses over 600 trials, mainly of former policemen, was assembled from the records deposited in 21 different regional archives in Ukraine; the collection mainly focusses on trials against perpetrators, connected to crimes against Jews, so unfortunately the whole sphere of ‘economic collaboration’ is represented only rather marginally.

  5. 5.

    F. 1, Op. 23, D. 3839, Bl. 27ob, CDAHOU (Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive); this document has been mentioned first by Hiroaki Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas. A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s–1990s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  6. 6.

    Moreover, 20 per cent were agents of German espionage, 10 per cent members of the local police and 5 per cent fellow workers of the Gestapo; the rest were servicemen of the German army, fellow workers of the SS, Members of Kosak units and others; see V. M. Nikol’s’kij, ‘Donbasivci, represovani u 1941–1945 rr. Z polityčnych motyviv: rezul’taty zahal’nyh pidrachunkiv’, in Pravda čerez gody. Stat’i vospominanija, dokumenty. Vyp Tretij (Donec’k, 1999), pp. 42–50.

  7. 7.

    V. M. Nikol’s’kij, ‘Orhany deržavnoï bezpeky na Doneččyni v roky velykoï vitčyznjanoï vijny: statystyka dij’, in Istoryčni i politolohični doslidžennja (vydannja Donec’koho deržavnoho universytetu) 1:2 (2000), pp. 156–158.

  8. 8.

    Among them, 1019 members of local police and Gestapo, 346 Starosta, 12 mayors, 99 leading Members of German institutions, 256 employees of German institutions, 265 agents of German espionage, 103 ‘traitors, who switched over to the enemy’, 10 Ukrainian nationalists, 432 ‘anti-Soviet elements’, F. 1, Op. 23, D. 3839, Bl. 42, CDAHOU (Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive)

  9. 9.

    See O. B. Mozohkin, Statistika repressivnoi deiatel’nosti organov bezopasnosti SSSR na period s 1921 po 1953 gg., www.fsb.ru/history/autors/mozohin.html [accessed in June 2009]; See also Nikolsky, Represyvna dijal’nist’ orhaniv deržavnoï bezpeky, pp. 206–224.

  10. 10.

    For the conviction of German war criminals in the Soviet Union, see the excellent overview by Andreas Hilger, ‘“Die Gerechtigkeit nehme ihren Lauf”? Die Bestrafung deutscher Kriegs- und Gewaltverbrecher in der Sowjetunion und der SBZ/ DDR’, in Norbert Frei (ed.), Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik. Der Umgang mit deutschen Kriegsverbrechern in Europa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006), pp. 180–246.

  11. 11.

    Frei, Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik, pp. 32–35.

  12. 12.

    Epifanov, Otvetsvennost’ gitlerovskich voennvch prestupnikov i ikh posobnikov v SSSR: istoriko-pravovoi aspekt, Volgograd, 1997, p. 76.

  13. 13.

    ‘Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten Nr. 54, 14 May 1943’, R58/224, Federal State Archive Berlin; p. 172; Ereignismeldung UdSSR Nr. 186, 27, March 1942, R58/221, Federal State Archive Berlin, p. 167; letter of the propaganda ministry (Generalreferat Ostraum) to the Reichsminister, 12 February 1942, R55/1289, Federal State Archive Berlin, pp. 52–55.

  14. 14.

    More than three quarters of the 970,000 arrests that took place in Ukraine during the years 1927 to 1961 occurred before the war. This indicates that the cleansing of potential enemies of the Soviet government was much more extensive during the 1930s than during the post-war period; See Nikol’s’kij, Represyvna dijal’nist’ orhaniv deržavnoï bezpeky, pp. 119–120.

  15. 15.

    However, the NKVD could not always rely on the local population. In some localities, especially in areas where power had changed hands more than once within a short period of time, the population was scared and did not report collaborators to the Soviet authorities. Sometimes people even hid the collaborators from persecution.

  16. 16.

    §54 of the Ukrainian criminal law was similar to §58 in the Russian criminal law, which had played a central role in prosecuting ‘counterrevolutionary crimes’; see V. Maliarenka (ed), Reabilitatsia represovanykh. Verkhovnyi sud Ukraïny: Zakonodavstvo ta sudova praktyka, (Kiev: 1997), p. 20.

  17. 17.

    See Maliarenka, Reabilitatsia represovanykh, p. 20.

  18. 18.

    See Manfred Zeidler, Stalinjustiz contra NS-Verbrechen. Die Kriegsverbrecherprozesse gegen deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der UdSSR in den Jahren 1943–1952. Kenntnisstand und Forschungsprobleme (Dresden: Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung, 1996), pp. 16–20.

  19. 19.

    See, for example, the instruction of the national Soviet prosecutor No 46ss from May 1942 about the classification of people’s actions serving the German occupiers, in Maliarenka (ed.), Reabilitacija represovanych, pp. 44–45.

  20. 20.

    See Maliarenka (ed.), Reabilitatsia represovanykh, pp. 47–49.

  21. 21.

    See Maliarenka (ed.), Reabilitatsia represovanykh, pp. 47–49.

  22. 22.

    See Epifanov, Otvetstvennost’ gitlerovskikh voennykh prestupnikov, pp. 70–80.

  23. 23.

    See Peter H. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), p. 412.

  24. 24.

    1/23/684, CDAHOU (Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive), pp. 6–15.

  25. 25.

    See Tanja Penter, ‘Local Collaborators on Trial. Soviet war crimes trials under Stalin (1943–1953)’, in Cahiers du Monde russe, 49:2–3 (2008), pp. 341–364.

  26. 26.

    RG 31.018M/reel 1 (D. 43555); RG 31.018M/reel 2 (D. 43111), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).

  27. 27.

    1/23/684, CDAHOU (Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive), pp. 6–15.

  28. 28.

    1/23/684, CDAHOU (Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive), pp. 6–15.

  29. 29.

    Penter, Local Collaborators on Trial, pp. 341–364.

  30. 30.

    RG 31.018M/reel 2/frame 3701 (D. 2784), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

  31. 31.

    Penter, Local Collaborators on Trial, pp. 341–364.

  32. 32.

    According to a decree of the National Defence Committee from July 1942, the immediate family of the collaborators could also become subject to legal prosecution; according to this decree, adult relatives of the collaborators, including parents, spouses, children and siblings were to be banished for five years into remote areas of the Soviet Union; the main purpose of the decree was to deter Soviet citizens from switching sides.

  33. 33.

    1/23/684, Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive, p. 8.

  34. 34.

    For example, four out of the five policemen who stood trial in Kiev in 1951 declined the services of an attorney, RG 31.018M/reel 2 (D. 46837), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

  35. 35.

    In this particular case, all trials, and not only those of collaborators, are meant; see Nikolsky, Represyvna dijal’nist’ orhaniv deržavnoï bezpeky, pp. 443–451.

  36. 36.

    1/23/4954, Central State Archive of public associations of Ukraine; former party archive, pp. 171–173.

  37. 37.

    By that time, the absolute numbers of convicted collaborators had significantly diminished, 1/24/100, CDAHOU, p. 101.

  38. 38.

    Nikolsky, Represyvna dijal’nist’ orhaniv deržavnoï bezpeky, pp. 443–451; in 1946 only 905 out of 29,204 convicted collaborators were acquitted; see 1/23/4954, CDAHOU, pp. 171–173.

  39. 39.

    For example, the former policeman Aleksandr Mynzar was sentenced to 25 years of forced labour in Ternopol in 1948; he was arrested for the first time in 1944 but was released shortly after the end of the war; the defendant Mynzar complained in a letter to the Supreme Court in 1955: ‘How come that someone could be convicted twice for the same crime in accordance with the Soviet law?’; in 1957 the sentence was reduced to 10 years and Mynzar was released; in 1983, however, additional witness accounts prompted a new investigation into the case of Mynzar; see RG 31.018M/reel 24 (D. 33533), USHMM.

  40. 40.

    See trial statistics in 1/24/100, CDAHOU, p. 101.

  41. 41.

    1/24/100, CDAHOU, p. 109.

  42. 42.

    1/23/4954, CDAHOU, p. 174.

  43. 43.

    ASBUDO, F. 1, D. 26612; D. 42341; D. 66345; F. 2, D. 1339; CDAHOU, F. 1, Op. 23, D. 3839, Bl.27-41ob.

  44. 44.

    ASBUDO, F. 1, D. 6634, D. 42341.

  45. 45.

    ASBUDO, F. 1, D. 26612, Tom 1, Bl. 231–276.

  46. 46.

    ASBUDO, F. 1, D. 26612, Tom 2, Bl. 375–388; D. 42341, Bl. 3–13.

  47. 47.

    F. 1, Op. 23, D. 3839, Bl.27-41ob, CDAHOU; F. 1, D. 26612, D. 42341, D. 66345 and F. 2, D. 1339, ASBUDO.

  48. 48.

    See among others: Hiroaki Kuromiya, ‘The Shakhty Affair’, in South East European Monitor 4 (1997), pp. 41–64; Nikolaij Vasil’evic Krylenko, Ėkonomičeskaja kontr-revoljucija v Donbasse (itogi Šachtinskogo Dela). Stat’i i dokumenty (Moskva: 1928); S. D. Šein, Sud nad ėkonomičeskoj kontr-revoljuciej v Donbasse. Zametki obščestvennogo obvinitelja (Moskva/Leningrad: 1928).

  49. 49.

    See for a cultural approach towards the history of Soviet engineers Susanne Schattenberg, Stalins Ingenieure. Lebenswelten zwischen Technik und Terror in den 1930er Jahren (München: Oldenbourg, 2002).

  50. 50.

    Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas, p. 213.

  51. 51.

    F. 8225, Op. 1, D. 7128, Bl. 12–15, pp. 42–59, Russian State Economic Archive (RGAE); the document says that of 483 directors of mines of the Soviet coal mining industry, 478 got into this position only during the years 1937–1939; all of the 184 directors of combinates and trests started their work only during the years 1937–1938; from 1782 “načal’niki uččastok” in the Soviet coal mining industry, 1683 had only been employed in this function since 1937–1939.

  52. 52.

    Bernhard Chiari, Alltag hinter der Front. Besatzung, Kollabortion und Widerstand in Weißrußland 1941–1944 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1998), p. 59ff.

  53. 53.

    See the different contributions in: Werner Röhr (ed.), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz 1. Okkupation und Kollaboration. (1938–1945) (Berlin: Hühtig, 1994).

  54. 54.

    F. P-326, Op. 4, D. 929, Bl. 8, DADO.

  55. 55.

    See Oleksandr Melnyk, ‘Stalinist Justice as a Site of Memory: Anti-Jewish Violence in Kyiv’s Podil District in September 1941 through the Prism of Soviet Investigative Documents’, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 61:2 (2013), pp. 161–171.

  56. 56.

    F. 326, Op. 2, D. 85, Bl. 2, DADO; see also E.L. Kravčenko, ‘Problema inženerno-techničeskich kadrov v ugol’noj promyšlennosti Doneckoj oblasti (1941–1945gg.)’, in ‘Novi storinky istoriï Donbasu. Statti’ Knyha 6 (1998), pp. 198–205.

  57. 57.

    F. 8225, D. 44, Bl. 1–33; DADO, F. P-326, Op. 2, D. 61, Bl. 22–28, RGAE.

  58. 58.

    F. P-326, Op. 2, D. 273, Bl. 23, DADO.

  59. 59.

    F. P-326, Op. 8, D. 963, Bl. 60–61, DADO.

  60. 60.

    See Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War. The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 82–126; For the Donbass see similar exclusions of party members (for 1944), in F. P-326, Op. 2, D. 117, Bl. Pp. 88–102; D. 122, Bl. 1–14; D. 128, Bl. 5–18; (for 1946) F. P-326, Op. 4, D. 161, Bl. 1–46, DADO.

  61. 61.

    Beate Fieseler, ‘Innenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit 1945–1953’, in Stefan Plaggenborg (ed.), Handbuch der Geschichte Russlands, Bd. 5: 1945–1991. Vom Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs bis zum Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 2001), pp. 40–41.

  62. 62.

    Interview with Vasilij A. Aristov (born in 1921), recorded in June 2003 in Donec’k.

  63. 63.

    See among others M. Ellman, ‘The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines’, in Cambridge Journal of Economics 24:5 (2000), pp. 603–630; See also V. F. Zima, Golod v SSSR 1946–1947 gg.: Proischozdenie I posledstvija (Moskava 1996); Holod 1946–1947 rokiv v Ukraini: Prycyny I naslidky: Miznarodna naukova konferencija, Materialy, Kyiv (New York 1998).

  64. 64.

    See Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism. Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Penter, Kohle für Stalin und Hitler, pp. 360–369.

  65. 65.

    Interview with Vera P. (1922), recorded in June 2001 in Donets’k.

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  1. Unversität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Tanja Penter

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  1. Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Stefan Berger

  2. Faculty of Languages and Cultures, Lumière University Lyon 2, Lyon, France

    Marcel Boldorf

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Penter, T. (2018). Rebuilding the Donbass. The Impact of Nazi-Occupation on Workers, Engineers and the Economic Development of the Post-War Soviet Union in Late Stalinism. In: Berger, S., Boldorf, M. (eds) Social Movements and the Change of Economic Elites in Europe after 1945. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77197-7_8

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