[The following is a report that is representative of the practice of completely random detentions and kidnappings common in the Soviet Union, by its government, in the early 1930s.]
The OBPU’s Plenipotentiary Representative for Western Siberia designated another group of “several hundred persons who were abusively deported by officials in the course of random roundups that had no objective other than to fulfill quotes and to relieve themselves as quickly as possible of a task imposed on them or that arose from unverified denunciations.” There followed a long list of cases presented as particularly characteristic:
M. Arofimovich, 32, “deported with his wife and nine-year-old daughter because he had sold tobacco illegally in 1931.”
Andrei Alexeienko, 57, “ace mechanic-worker deported from Sochi because he had his own house, and in the past had owned a small bookstore.”
Dimitri Chintiapkin, 44, “manual laborer who came to Tuapse from Central Asia. Intended to take his family back to Central Asia, was picked up when doing errands in the market, taken directly to the convoy and deported without his family.”
Piotr Tsal’, 51, “tailor, deported from Sochi. His daughter and son-in-law are Party members and are in the diplomatic service abroad. Deported because he owned his house.”
M. Livchits, 62 , “retired, deported from Sochi. Taught mathematics for thirty-seven years. One of his sons is an engineer in Leningrad and a Party member. The other son is a teacher of mathematics. Deported as a parasitical element.”
Maria Lavrikova, 35, “waitress in the Riviera Hotel in Sochi. According to her statements, her husband is a battalion commander in Amur province, and holds two Red Flag decorations. Deported with her father, aged 71, her mother, aged 70, and a brother, aged 22. Reasons unknown.”*
N. Khavadegia, 45, “deported from Sochi without reason. Her husband is a Party member, card no. 1646240. At the time of the roundup, she was carrying out a mission for the Central Committee of the Communism Party of Georgia.”
A. Popova, 30, “arrested in the Tuapse train station where she had gone to meet her niece. A. Popova works in the port and cannot in any way be considered a parasitical element.”*
Natalia Barabanova, “arrested during a roundup in the Sochi market, and immediately put in a departing convoy. N. Barabanova is married to a dock worker. All her requests to be allowed to go home, to notify her husband, to take along three children, including an infant, were refused. Several weeks after her arrest, no one in her family knows what has happened to her. The reasons for her arrest are unknown. After considering all hypotheses, Barabanova thinks she was arrested for having bought a kilo of dolphin fat from a shady character in the market.”
Evguenia Markovkina, 18, “deported from Tuapse with her sister, 17, and her two brothers, 13 and 5, because her father, who died in 1931, had been a shady operator in the past. The five-year-old died en route. Since no one was authorized to leave the convoy, the boy’s body was thrown out a window.”
Vera Mirochnichenko, “Party member, card no. 1471366. Rounded up and deported when she went to get things from the apartment of her ex-husband, who was about to be deported as a déclassé element. Despite her protests, Mirochnichenko was put on a convoy along with her husband, and was not authorized to return to her home in order to prove her identity and her membership in the Party.”
Source:
Werth, Nicolas. “In the Tomsk Transit Camp.” Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag. Princeton University Press, 2007. 98-100. Print.
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