Lenin's Hanging Order
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The term Lenin's Hanging Order refers to the handwritten order[1] dated August 11, 1918, written by Vladimir Lenin instructing communists operating in and around Penza to publicly hang at least one hundred kulaks; publicize their names; confiscate their grains and to designate an unspecified number of hostages. Whether anyone was actually hanged according to this order, remains unknown.
The order was discussed during a controversy around a 1997 BBC documentary, Lenin's Secret Files, based on Robert Service's findings in recently opened Soviet archives.
The document is as follows, as published in Robert Service's biography of Lenin.
"Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.
Telegraph receipt and implementation.
- 1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.
- 2. Publish their names.
- 3. Seize all their grain from them.
- 4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
- Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsucking kulaks.
- Yours, Lenin.
- Find some truly hard people"[2]
According to the book "Lenin and the Making of the Soviet State: A Brief History with Documents", on the 19th August Lenin sent another telegram to Penza expressing his exasperation and modifying his previous instruction:
Gubernia Executive Committee
Penza
Copy to the Gubernia Committee of the CommunistsI am extremely indignant that there has been absolutely nothing definite from you as to what serious measures have at last been carried out by you for the ruthless suppression of the kulaks of the five volosts and confiscation of their grain. Your inactivity is criminal. All efforts should be concentrated on a single volost which should be swept clean of all grain surpluses. Telegraph fulfillment[3]
[edit] Historical Context
According to notes appended to a different order in the Soviet Union published Lenin's Collected Works a kulak/peasant revolt broke out in Kuchkino Volost, of Penza Uyezd, on August 5, 1918 and soon spread to neighbouring volosts. The revolt lasted from to August 8, 1918 before it was crushed by Soviet forces. However the situation in the gubernia remained tense and a Left S.R. revolt started in the uyezd centre of Chembar on the night of August 18. Lenin sent several telegrams to Penza demanding drastic measures in fighting kulak, peasant and Left SR insurrectionists. These events happened at the height of the Russian Civil War.[4][5]
The historian Orlando Figes describes Lenin's Collected Works as a censored work.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Library of Congress Translation
- ^ Translation of 'hanging order' by Robert Service, page 365 of his Lenin a Biography (2000). London: Macmillan
- ^ Telegram to the Penza Gubernia Executive Committee of the Soviets in J. Brooks and G. Chernyavskiy (2007) Lenin and the Making of the Soviet State: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St Martin’s: Boston and New York: 77
- ^ Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, page 489. "Telegram to Yevgenia Bosch"
- ^ "An exchange of letters on the BBC documentary Lenin's Secret Files"
[edit] External links
