The sentence was execution. The death penalty procedure in the late USSR
The most terrible punishment for anyone who commits a crime is the death penalty. Indeed, in a long imprisonment, a person’s hope for the mercy of fate shines through. And the condemned person is given the opportunity to die naturally. While the rest of life, spent in daily anticipation of death, turns a person inside out. If death were better than life imprisonment, then prisons would regularly issue news about suicides of convicts. Even taking into account security measures.
The criminal begins to fully understand the essence of his last sentence only days after his transfer to death row. The vague, agonizing wait lasts for months. At all times during this period, the convict hoped for pardon. And it didn't happen that often.
IN Russian Federation V this moment the death penalty is currently prohibited. She has been under a moratorium since her last death sentence on September 2, 1996. However, as a measure in the USSR, throughout the history of the country, they were organized for crimes of particular gravity.
Execution after Tsarist times
In tsarist times, execution was carried out by hanging or shooting. With the coming of the Bolsheviks to power, only the second was used - it was faster and more convenient for mass executions in the USSR. Until the 1920s, there were no laws in the country that would regulate this. Therefore, there were a whole lot of variations of this action. The sentence of execution in the USSR of those times was passed and carried out, including publicly. This is how the tsarist ministers were shot in 1918. The execution of terrorist Fanny Kaplan was carried out in the Kremlin without subsequent burial. Her body was burned in an iron barrel right on the spot.
How did executions take place in the USSR?
The state killed its citizens only for committing particularly serious crimes. There were special firing squads in the country that carried out executions. Most often it was about 15 people, including executors, a doctor, and a supervisory prosecutor. The doctor declared death, the prosecutor ensured that the convicted person was executed. He was convinced that the perpetrators did not kill another person, releasing the criminal for a fabulous sum. All responsibilities were strictly divided into this narrow circle of people.
The execution of people in the USSR was necessarily carried out by physically strong and morally stable male persons. Several people were executed at a time, which allowed executions to be carried out with less frequency. In the USSR, execution technology was not very sophisticated. After each performer was issued a service weapon, there was a briefing. Then they were divided in half. The first took the convicts out of the cell and organized the movement to the final destination. The second ones were already in place.
There were instructions when attacking a suicide convoy to shoot the convicts first. However, such cases have never been reported. So it was never useful.
Upon arrival at their final destination, the criminals were put in a special cell. In the adjacent room were the prosecutor and the detachment commander. They laid out the prisoner's personal file in front of them.
The suicide bombers were brought into the room strictly one at a time. Their personal data was clarified and verified with data from their personal file. The important point was to make sure that he was executed the right person. Then the prosecutor announced that the requests for clemency had been rejected, and the hour of sentencing had arrived.
Next, the convict was moved to the immediate place of execution death penalty into action. There they put an impenetrable blindfold over his eyes and led him into a room in which there was a ready-made performer with a service weapon. They held the suicide bomber's hands on both sides, making him sit on his knees. And a shot rang out. The doctor pronounced him dead. Burial certificates were collected, and the body in a bag was buried in secret place.
Secrets
The technologies of this process were hidden with special care from the citizens of the country. During civil war the advertisements only talked about counter-revolutionaries to intimidate. Relatives were never allowed to receive documents about the execution. The death penalty in the early USSR was announced only verbally.
According to documents from 1927, executions for banditry were not announced at all. Even after writing appeals, the relatives could not obtain any information about these people.
Mass executions
The executions of the troikas in the 1930s were always shrouded in mystery. Since 1937, mass executions in the USSR, also called mass operations, were carried out in an atmosphere of complete secrecy. Even those who were convicted as a couple were never sentenced, so that people would not have a chance to resist. They only realized that they were being led to execution once they were there. In the most early period the convicts were not sentenced at all.
In August 1937, a decision was made to shoot ten criminals. In this case, it was decided to carry out the action without announcing it. In the Supreme Court, the words “death penalty” were disguised as “the verdict will be announced to you.” Some of the accused were told that the verdict would be announced in the cell. Sentences to NKVD officers
A special procedure was carried out when NKVD workers were executed in the USSR, even if they had already resigned. There was a special procedure for them; there were no documents about the investigation or sentences. Without trial, by decision of Stalin and his associates, the victim was transferred to the military board of the Armed Forces with a note of execution. Everything was extremely secret, so notes were made by hand. The basis for the execution was a note in the certificate in the file, indicating the volume and page. Later, when studying Stalin’s volumes, it turned out that the number of each volume and page coincides with the number of the volume and page of the list with the names of the condemned.
What was announced to relatives?
The fate of a person sentenced under the article on execution in the USSR was announced to his relatives with the wording “10 years in a camp without the right of correspondence.” In 1940, this was harshly criticized by Zakharov for the fact that such a method discredits the prosecutor's office. Many relatives made inquiries to the camps, and then received answers that their relative was not registered with them. Then they came with scandals to the prosecutor's office, seeking from the NKVD confessions about the execution and subsequent deception of them.
Who was present at the execution?
Usually the prosecutor, judge and doctor were absent when the execution was carried out without trial. But when a court decision on execution was made, the presence of a prosecutor was mandatory. They had to be sure to monitor the murder of major figures. So, sometimes they were entrusted with the task of monitoring whether he would make a confession before his death. The presence of an NKVD officer was not uncommon.
In the Tatar Republic, since 1937, convicts were photographed and it was obligatory for them to take photographs after execution. However, many documents from this era lack photographs and are confusing.
Violations
The law established humane conditions for carrying out the sentence. However, evidence has been preserved of how the execution actually took place in the USSR. Although according to the law the fact of death was determined by a doctor, in reality this was often carried out by the executors. Numerous information has been preserved that, despite the strict regulation of the procedure with the aim of killing the condemned instantly, the survivability of those killed was often manifested. In the absence of a doctor, people who were still alive were sometimes buried at executions, who seemed killed only at first glance. For example, in Yakovlev’s letters describing the execution of those who refused to undergo military service contains a description of a truly terrible execution. Then 14 Baptists, still wounded, threw themselves into the ground, they were buried alive, one escaped and confirmed this personally.
In the 1935 document about the execution of Ovotov, information was preserved that the convict died only 3 minutes after the shot. There was a regulation to shoot with certain angle so that death would be instantaneous. However, the shots might not lead to a painless death.
Terminology
Those involved in carrying out executions used evasive names for this action. This was not suitable for wide publicity among the population; it took place in an atmosphere of secrecy. Executions were called “the ultimate measure of punishment or social protection.” Among the security officers, the names of military massacres were “exchange”, “departure to Kolchak’s headquarters”, “disposal”. And since the 1920s, executions have been dubbed a cynical term for secret purposes - “wedding.” The name was probably chosen because of the analogy with the expression “to marry death.” Sometimes the performers allowed themselves flowery names like “translation into a state of non-existence.”
Since the 1930s, executions have been called first-category deportations, ten years without the right to correspondence, and special operations. The explanations, written by the performers themselves, were replete with the phrases “I brought the verdict,” which sounded so veiled and evasive. The main words were always omitted. The same was true in the ranks of the SS. Words such as murders and executions were always disguised there. Instead, it was popular to use the expressions “special actions”, “cleansing”, “exceptions”, “resettlement”.
Features of the procedure
During different periods of existence Soviet state The execution procedure varied greatly, going through military regimes, toughening and easing dictatorships. The bloodiest years were 1935-1937, when death sentences became very common. More than 600,000 people were executed during that period. The execution was carried out on the day the verdict was announced, immediately. There were no sentiments, rituals, there was no right to last requests and last meals, which were accepted even in the Middle Ages.
The condemned man was taken to the basement and the decree was quickly carried out.
The pace slowed down when Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to power. Those sentenced to death received the right to write complaints and requests for pardon. They now have time for this. Those sentenced were placed in a special cell, but the convicted person did not know the date of execution of the sentence until the very end. This was announced on the day when he was taken to a room in which everything was ready for execution. There the rejection of requests for pardon was announced, and executions were carried out. And even then there was no talk about the last meals and other rituals. The condemned ate the same thing as all the other convicts, and did not know that this meal would be their last. Conditions of detention, despite the norms established by law, in reality were downright bad.
Inmates of that era, eyewitnesses of executions in USSR prisons, recalled that their food could have been rotten, with worms. Everywhere there were numerous violations of the humane norms established by law. And those sentenced to death in the USSR could not receive parcels from relatives who would be able to somehow brighten them up last days on this Earth.
The only mercy from the firing squads was the tradition of giving a person before execution a cigarette or cigarette that the person smoked in last time. According to rumors, sometimes the perpetrators gave the convict tea and sugar.
Mass executions
Cases of massacres in the country also remain in history. Thus, a loud shooting of a demonstration in the USSR took place in 1962 in Novocherkassk. Then 26 workers were shot, who gathered as part of thousands of demonstrators for a spontaneous rally due to rising prices and lower wages. 87 people were wounded, the dead were buried secretly in cemeteries in different cities. About a hundred demonstrators were convicted, some were sentenced to death. Like many things in the USSR, the execution of workers was carefully hidden. Certain pages of that story are still classified.
This shooting of a demonstration in the USSR is considered a real crime, but no one was punished for it. The authorities did not make a single attempt to disperse the crowd either with water or with batons. In response to legitimate demands to improve the oppressive, miserable conditions of tens of thousands of workers, the authorities opened fire with machine guns, committing one of the most massive known executions of workers in the USSR.
This was just one of the most sensational cases, despite all attempts at secrecy, of mass executions of that era.
Execution of women in the USSR
Of course, cruel sentences also applied to the fair half of humanity. There was no ban on the execution of women, with the exception of pregnant women, and even then not in all periods. From 1962 to 1989, more than 24,000 people were executed, almost all of them male. The most widely publicized were 3 executions of women in the USSR of that period. This is the execution of “Tonka the Machine Gunner,” who personally shot Soviet partisans during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, speculator Borodkina, poisoner Inyutina. Many cases were classified.
The shooting of minors was also practiced in the USSR. But here it is important to note that it was the Soviet state that made the law regarding children more humane compared to what existed in tsarist times. Thus, during the time of Peter I, children were executed from the age of 7. Before the Bolsheviks came to power, criminal prosecution of children continued to be carried out. Since 1918, juvenile commissions have been established and executions for children have been prohibited. They made decisions on the application of measures against children. Usually these were attempts not to imprison them, but to rehabilitate them.
In the 1930s, the crime situation in the state became heated, and cases of sabotage by foreign countries became more frequent. There was an increase in the number of crimes committed by minors. Then, in 1935, capital punishment for minors was introduced. The shooting of children in the USSR was thus once again legalized.
However, the only such documented case was the execution of a 15-year-old teenager in the USSR during the Khrushchev era, in 1964. Then a guy who grew up in a boarding school, who had previously been caught for theft and petty hooliganism, brutally killed a woman with her young child. With the intention of taking pornographic photographs for the purpose of their further sale, he stole the necessary equipment for this and photographed the corpse, placing it in obscene poses. Then he set fire to the crime scene and fled, only to be caught three days later.
Until recently, the teenager believed that he was not in danger of death and cooperated with the investigation. However, under the influence of the cynicism that accompanied his actions, the Presidium of the Supreme Court published a provision that allowed the use of execution against juvenile offenders.
Despite the massive outrage caused by this decision, the Soviet authorities remained quite humane in relation to juvenile delinquents. Decisions to re-educate teenagers continued to be a priority. Indeed, few sentences were passed against this category of citizens. Indeed, in the United States, for example, until 1988, executions of persons adolescence. There are cases of death sentences for persons as young as 13 years old.
Memoirs of performers
According to the recollections of the members of the firing squad, Soviet methods of execution were still cruel. Especially unprocessed ones at first. Cases of requests from them to the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding this matter have been documented. The execution took place at night, after 12 o'clock. In fact, the performers had practically no substitutes, although by law they had to change to distract the performer from the horror he experienced. Thus, one of the members of the firing squad testified already in our time that, having killed 35 convicts in 3 years, he was never replaced by anyone.
Although the condemned were not told where they were being taken, they usually understood what was happening. Even full inner strength in the face of death they cried out farewell words and chanted slogans. There were those who sat gray in an instant. One of the most terrible memories of a participant in an execution is how a person, having realized where he was led, refuses to cross the threshold of the last room in his life. Someone tearfully begged not to kill, breaking free and clinging to the threshold. That is why people were not told where they were being taken.
Usually it was a closed office with a small window. Someone who had no will and character fell immediately upon entering the room. There were cases of death from heart failure minutes before the actual execution. Someone resisted - they were knocked down and twisted. They shot point-blank in the back of the head, slightly to the left, in order to hit a vital organ, and the convict died immediately. Understanding where he was led, the condemned man could make one last request. But, of course, there was never any fulfillment of unrealistic wishes like a feast. The maximum was a cigarette.
While waiting for execution, condemned prisoners could not communicate with the outside world in any way, they were forbidden to be taken out for walks, and were only allowed to use the toilet once a day.
The regulations for the perpetrators included a clause according to which after each execution they were entitled to 250 grams of alcohol. They were also entitled to a salary increase, which was significant at that time.
Usually the performers were paid about two hundred rubles a month. During the entire existence of the Soviet state since 1960, not a single executioner resigned by his own decision. There were no cases of suicide among their ranks. The selection for this role was carried out carefully.
Eyewitnesses have preserved memories of the tricks used by the executioners to soften the blow to the condemned. Thus, he was informed that he was being led to write a request for pardon. This had to be done in another room with deputies. Then condemned with a brisk step walked into the room, and upon entering, found only the performer. He immediately shot in the left ear area according to the instructions. After the condemned man fell, a control second shot was fired.
No more than a few people included in the management knew about the occupation of the performers themselves. On trips to carry out “secret missions,” officers took on other people’s names. When traveling to other cities for execution, they immediately went back after the sentence was implemented. Before the “execution” began, each performer was required to familiarize himself with the case of the convicted person, then read the guilty verdict. This procedure was envisaged in order to eliminate any pangs of conscience among officers. Each member of the firing squad realized that he was ridding society of the most dangerous people, and by leaving them alive, he would have given them a free hand for further atrocities.
Participants in executions in the USSR often became drunkards. There were cases of them ending up in psychiatric hospitals. Sometimes the sentences accumulated, and dozens of people had to be shot.
Violations
With the publication of “Execution Order” in 1924, it became clearer what violations could have occurred during the execution of the sentence. Thus, the document prohibited publicity of the execution. No painful methods of killing were allowed; there was a ban on removing parts of clothing and shoes from the body. It was forbidden to give the body to anyone. The burial took place in the absence of rituals and signs of a grave. There were special cemeteries where the condemned were buried under tablets with numbers.
In what year were executions abolished in the USSR?
The last execution sentence carried out was the execution of Sergei Golovkin, the killer of more than a dozen people. This was in August 1996. Then a moratorium on capital punishment was introduced, and since then they have not been practiced on the territory of the Russian Federation. However, discussions regarding the return of this procedure continue to flare up periodically throughout the country.
However, the justice system since Soviet Union has already undergone many changes. There are more opportunities for corruption than in that era. Carrying out capital punishment may simply turn into a means for enemies to punish each other. There are also many cases of miscarriages of justice.
Despite the fact that decades have passed since the collapse of the Soviet state, the topic of mass executions and executions of death sentences still remains full of secrets and riddles. Many direct participants have passed away, much remains classified as “top secret” to this day. However, from eyewitness accounts one can trace how the execution of criminals actually took place. And, it should be noted, in comparison with other civilized states, humane considerations in the actions of the authorities are clearly visible. Contrary to the popular opinion today about the inhumanity of the USSR authorities.
Pictures in school textbooks dedicated to the pacification of the sepoy uprising in India (1857-59) by the British colonialists depict heartbreaking scenes of the execution of captured Indians. They are tied to the muzzles of cannons, from where a deadly shot should be fired, tearing the body of the unfortunate victim into pieces.
Those who watched the Soviet film “Captain Nemo” based on the works of Jules Verne should remember the same plot. There, one British officer explains to another the reasons for this particular execution of captured sepoys: according to their beliefs, it is impossible to be reborn with it. future life. The fear of death not only of the body, but of the entire soul, paralyzes their resistance.
Why, in fact, did the “cultured” Englishmen use this type of execution in some of their colonies in the middle of the “enlightened” 19th century? Let's try to figure it out.
"Devil's Wind"
Shooting from a cannon was also called “the devil’s wind.” He was mentioned in a number of works of art about pirates who talked about more early times. But all these stories were composed after the Sepoy Mutiny. So the “devil wind” in them is an anachronism inspired by events in India mid-19th century.
Two types are known devilish wind": when a cannonball was fired from a cannon and when a condemned person was killed by a blank charge of gunpowder. In the first case, death occurred almost instantly, in the second, the executed person with a broken spine and torn insides could agonize for some time. In both cases, the body of the executed person was a bloody mess with limbs and even the head separated from the body. When executed with a cannonball, the heads are guaranteed to be torn away from the body and, as described by Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin, “fly upward in a spiral.”
The same Vereshchagin was not personally present at such executions, but studied them, as they say, “from sources,” when in 1884 he painted his picture depicting this type of execution. This picture is called differently (“Execution of captured sepoys by the British”, “Suppression of the sepoy uprising by the British”, etc.). The painting was purchased at auction in New York and since then has probably been in someone's unknown private collection.
It is curious that, according to experts, it depicts executions not after the sepoy uprising, but during the reprisal against the Sikh Namdhari sect in 1872. This is evidenced by the dressing of the depicted victims in the white clothes prescribed by this sect. According to the recollections of Vereshchagin himself, when he exhibited his paintings, including this one, at an exhibition in London, many British categorically denied that they used this barbaric execution in India. At the same time, one retired British general personally boasted to the Russian artist that he himself had invented such an execution, and it was introduced by the colonial authorities on his recommendations.
Vereshchagin invented
Vereshchagin believed that such an execution would instill the greatest possible fear in the Indians. In his opinion, an Indian, especially one from a high caste, is horrified by the prospect of being intermingled with the bodies of people from lower castes:
“It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste if he only needs to touch a fellow lower caste: he must, in order not to close off the possibility of salvation, wash himself and make sacrifices after that endlessly... Here it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin about three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of the pariah - brrr! This thought alone makes the soul of the most determined Hindu tremble! I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who has been in those countries or who has impartially familiarized themselves with their descriptions will contradict me.”
This is an explanation, which, as is easy to see, formed the basis for such an execution by the screenwriter Soviet film about Prince Dakkar-Captain Nemo, cannot be accepted for the following reasons.
Firstly, only pariahs are considered untouchable by the upper castes in India, and all the grotesque produced by Vereshchagin’s words is about religious customs- simply a lack of understanding of the subtleties or a deliberate exaggeration designed to catch the simple-minded public.
Secondly, rebirth after death is guaranteed for a Hindu. But even if such an image of death somehow negatively affected subsequent reincarnation, then one would expect that, on the contrary, the desire to avoid it would give strength to resist, and the effect of this execution would be the opposite.
Thirdly, and importantly, the already mentioned Namdhari sect, which is precisely depicted in Vereshchagin’s painting, consisted precisely of former pariahs, and there was no trace of representatives of the higher varnas in it.
Shootings from cannons were practiced by Indians before the arrival of the colonialists
There is evidence that this type execution was not introduced by the British in India, but was only borrowed by them from the Indians themselves. It was first used back in 1526 during the conquest of India by the army of Sultan Babur, who founded the Mughal dynasty. Subsequently, the Indians themselves repeatedly executed their enemies this way: both prisoners of war and state criminals, conspirators, etc.
These executions were adopted from the Indians by the first European colonizers of Hindustan: the Portuguese and the French. The first use of cannon firing in the colonies of the British East India Company dates back to 1761. Thus, during the suppression of the sepoy uprising, this execution was not invented. It only became, thanks to its mass application (due to the scale of the uprising itself), widely known, mainly to the European public, who previously knew nothing about it.
The following assumption can be made about why the Hindus themselves came up with this execution as the most terrible. IN medieval Europe The most terrible execution was considered to be burning alive at the stake. But in India this is not an execution, but a rite of voluntary death, practiced by widows and some yogis in order to achieve bliss in the future life. It is known that the women and children of an entire medieval Indian city subjected themselves to collective self-immolation so as not to fall into the spoils of the winner. Burning could not be perceived in India as a means of intimidation.
But Indians in the 16th century first became acquainted with firearms and were shocked by its deadly effects. Death, which occurred as a result of the instantaneous tearing of the body into pieces, seemed, apparently, the most terrible of all possible.
The worst punishment for a criminal is death sentence. Even a long prison term gives hope for some kind of leniency in the future. In this case, the convicted person receives the right to die his own death. But her constant expectation can lead to madness. Therefore, never believe those who say that life imprisonment is worse than the death penalty. This is absolutely false. Otherwise, in prisons where lifers are imprisoned, suicides would constantly occur, despite all security measures.
A full understanding of the essence of a harsh sentence comes to the convicted person a few days after he is transferred to death row. The agonizing wait can last for several months until the highest court, the Supreme Court, makes its final decision. In the vast majority of cases, sentences remain unchanged. But there is another chance - a pardon from the highest official states. In most cases, this last hope is not justified. How is the death penalty carried out?
This question, posed in the present tense, is irrelevant for the vast majority of countries. After the Second World War, there was a trend in the world towards the abolition of death sentences. Progressive thinking people began to argue that taking the life of a criminal is a cruel and inhumane act.
In 1978, this type of punishment was abolished in Spain. In 1981, France did the same. Since 1990, widespread imitation of the above-mentioned countries began. The bloody punishment was abolished by 40 states. By 2008, there were 89 countries that had stopped killing criminals for serious crimes. 30 countries have imposed a moratorium on this matter. Today, 130 countries in the world do not have death sentences, but 68 do.
When it comes to numbers, China comes first. An average of 1,700 people are sentenced to death every year. In the USA, the corresponding figure is 38 in 2010-2012 (106 in 2009). In Iran, this figure corresponds to 345. And in Saudi Arabia, on average, 105 people are killed every year. In 2009, 2,812 criminals were executed in 30 countries.
Execution of the death penalty in the USSR
In Russia, a moratorium has been imposed on this type of punishment. It has been operating since 1996. The last execution dated September 2, 1996. But in Soviet times, criminals were deprived of their lives for especially serious crimes. For this purpose there was a special firing squad. Officially, it was called a special group for the execution of death sentences.
This unit consisted of 12-15 people. This number of people included the executors, the doctor, and the supervising prosecutor. He was appointed prosecutor general of the country. There were 2 direct perpetrators who shot in the back of the head. But if necessary, they could be replaced by other members of the group. That is, versatility was encouraged, but usually each employee performed only his own duties.
Such a team was staffed by physically strong and mentally balanced men. Several people were shot at once. Therefore, such procedures did not happen very often. Before completing the task, each employee took his service weapon with him. After instructions, some of the employees went to the place of execution of the sentence, and the other part organized the removal of death row prisoners from their cells, their boarding of transport and delivery to their destination.
According to the instructions, in the event of a suicide attack on a vehicle, special forces officers were to immediately shoot all those escorted and only after that leave the vehicle. But this measure security was never implemented in practice, since such attacks simply did not happen.
After arriving at their destination, the death row prisoners were placed in a special cell. Opposite there was a room where the supervisory prosecutor and the special forces commander sat at the table. The personal files of those sentenced to death were placed in front of them.
Again, in accordance with the instructions, the convicts were brought into the office one at a time, and the prosecutor, checking their personal data, made sure that those in front of him were exactly the people whose personal files were on the table. The prosecutor announced to each sentenced person that his request for clemency had been rejected and the sentence would be carried out immediately. At that moment the suicide bomber turned into a resigned creature and practically did not understand what was happening to him.
The next stage of the execution of the death penalty consisted of transporting the person sentenced to the place of execution. The criminal was blindfolded and taken to a special cell, where an officer with a pistol was already waiting. Two other employees wrung the convict’s hands, lowered him to his knees, and the perpetrator fired a shot in the back of the head. Death came instantly. She was diagnosed by a doctor. After this, the acts of execution of the sentence and the act of burial were signed. All these documents were filed in the personal file of the executed person. The body was packed in a bag and buried. The burial place of the executed person was a state secret.
Execution by email chair in the USA in the 20th century
Execution of the death penalty in the United States
In the United States, the death penalty is currently practiced in 36 states. Federal judges also apply this penalty. In total, there are 5 methods of taking life: lethal injection, gas chamber, electric. chair, hanging and execution. Lethal injection is considered the most popular. In second place is el. chair. Shootings are not popular in America. Hanging and the gas chamber have not been used in the 21st century, although state laws provide for them on an equal basis with other methods of killing.
Only in Nebraska the only way deprivation of life was el. chair until 2008. In all others administrative divisions convicts could choose their own method of death.
The execution of the death penalty in the United States has certain rules and traditions. The condemned person has the right to a last supper. He is also provided the last word immediately before death. The trial itself is carried out in the presence of witnesses. This is the prosecutor, the lawyer, the relatives of the victims. A priest is required. They try to make the transition to another world absolutely painless.
Before execution in China
Execution of the death penalty in China
China is an exotic country. In addition, she is terribly relocated. Therefore, the percentage of people prone to crime is higher than in other countries of the world. In this regard, the country's leadership practices public executions. They shoot officials involved in corruption, drug dealers, and owners of underground brothels, smugglers. In total, there are 68 articles of the criminal code that allow deprivation of life.
Today, criminals are shot and given lethal injection. In the second case, 2 injections are given. First, an anesthetic is injected under the skin, followed by a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. The condemned person dies within 1 minute. It is planned to abandon executions altogether, since this is a more harsh and inhumane action compared to injection.
In other countries, the execution of the death penalty is very diverse. Those sentenced to death are hanged, shot, or killed with poison. Those states that have abandoned this type of punishment keep criminals in special prisons. The question of complete abolition of the death penalty throughout the world is not yet raised.
The article was written by Yuri Kashirin
I fully admit that the footage of this French film about staged guillotining. But, nevertheless, they, in my opinion, quite realistically reflect the main thing in the entire procedure of any “civilized” execution - what immediately precedes it. It was precisely because of this period of waiting for execution by the condemned, not only the immediate one, but also the entire waiting time preceding the execution of the sentence, that F.M. Dostoevsky, who himself once experienced this terrible experience, later life was a staunch opponent of the death penalty. His argument: There is no crime for which the equivalent retribution would be the experience of the convicted person before the sentence was carried out. This, of course, has its own logic, but only if we're talking about about such crimes as suddenly hitting an old pawnbroker on the skull with an ax, or Trotsky’s darling with an ice pick on him. Then - yes, then the death of the victim is much easier than the entire ensemble of the villain’s experiences before execution. Here Dostoevsky was apparently right.
Today we know about such atrocities, for which “civilized” people have not yet been able to come up with an adequate retribution, no matter how much they rack their brains in various intricacies. It was easier for the “uncivilized” in this matter: “The first thing to do is put the adulterer Yakin on a stake, and then after that!..”.The happy inhabitants of the Middle Ages had the opportunity to prolong their pleasure by achieving happy moment, when the condemned person himself only dreamed of the coming of death, but they did not let him go there in every possible way. Now, this was full-fledged retribution! Sometimes it even led to satisfaction. The current one a person lives It’s difficult, and I want, of course, to savage myself to my heart’s content, but they won’t let me. Indecent, they say. "Nizya!", - all sorts of bastards are causing mischief on all sides, they don’t allow you to break away, like any civilized soul, well-known case, asks. But then in the cultural West, and the Russians are famous savages, especially the “scoops”, they are a tragedy empty space They won’t breed, right? No, that's not true. Once I found out exactly how they were executed in the late, Brezhnev, at least, USSR, where the whole procedure was a secret behind seven seals. And I learned from a very authoritative source. And having learned, I marveled at that unexpected degree of humanism, which neither the “civilized” West nor the “savages” of the countries of the East could boast of. So, those who like to tickle their nerves are free, they will not be interested.
A book dedicated to one of the most tragic events not only in regional, but also in all-Russian history - the Yaroslavl anti-Bolshevik uprising of 1918, in Soviet historiography better known as the Yaroslavl White Guard (or Socialist Revolutionary) rebellion. For the first time, a hundred years after the Yaroslavl “Fronde,” it was possible to collect in one publication all the documentary evidence of what happened in order to evaluate them impartially and without ideological “swings.” The RG correspondent met with the author of the book “Executed Yaroslavl,” political scientist and journalist Evgeny Solovyov.
Evgeniy Aleksandrovich, the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, under the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Boris Savinkov, with French money in July 1918, planned to organize uprisings in 23 cities of the Volga region and the center of Russia. But in many cities the uprisings did not take place at all, and in some places they were suppressed within a day or two. And only Yaroslavl was held by the rebels for 16 days. There were more opponents here Soviet power?
Evgeny Soloviev: In Rybinsk, the uprising was suppressed in half a day; in Murom, the rebels held power for one day and left without waiting to be defeated. In Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod There were no uprisings at all in other cities. Yaroslavl, of course, stands out very much in this series. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the weakness of the local Soviet government, which had a lot internal conflicts. In addition, the new authorities turned many wealthy citizens - industrialists, businessmen - against themselves by engaging in requisitions and confiscations. Plus, in the country as a whole in 1918 there were very big problems with food. Huge queues appeared at bakeries in the provincial center, and hunger riots took place in Yaroslavl and Rybinsk.
At the same time, several armies were disbanded in the Yaroslavl province and nearby territories after the war with Germany. About 11 thousand officers and 20 thousand soldiers arrived on Yaroslavl land. In March 1918, 6,400 unemployed were registered at the Yaroslavl labor exchange, of which 50 percent were those who arrived from the front. That is, a lot of “superfluous” people have accumulated in Yaroslavl, who for the last few years have been engaged only in war.
So the population supported the rebellion?
Evgeny Soloviev: There are many versions here. From the Soviet, which did not support and a small group of military personnel recruited with money from the Entente countries took part in the uprising, to the point of view, popular in the 90s, that it was popular performance. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Because the rebels were supported mainly by former military officers and officers. And not only the demobilized and unemployed, but also people who worked in the Soviet authorities. Even before the leader of the uprising, Alexander Perkhurov, arrived in Yaroslavl, they created the headquarters of the conspirators and prepared anti-Soviet protests. But the peasants, for example, reacted to what was happening in a unique way. They took weapons and returned home to guard exclusively their homes. The workers did not support en masse either: a hundred people came from the railway workshops to the headquarters, took rifles, but then they all mostly fled.
Lyceum students, students, businessmen, traders, and townspeople joined the rebels. The rebels even announced a conscription. They promised to pay for participation in the volunteer army, and as a result, six thousand people signed up for it on the first day. But when the fighting began, many volunteers fled from their positions. As a result, only 600-700 rebels remained. They had machine guns, weapons of disbanded units. Machine guns were placed on all tall buildings, including bell towers.
The Yaroslavl rebels held out for 16 days, but were still forced to lay down their arms
How many people died on the "death barge"? Were communists shot there?
Evgeny Soloviev: There were no executions there. The rebels placed Soviet party members and public figures, which could not be locked in the basements. According to various estimates, there were from 70 to 200 people on the barge. She was driven to the Volga fairway and tied to the pier with ropes. The barge found itself on the front line and was fired upon from different sides - by both the Reds and the rebels. At first, the rebels brought food there, but because of the shelling they stopped, and the people on the ship went hungry. About 10 people died from shelling and explosions on the barge. And only ten seconds later extra days after the uprising began, they were able to cut the ropes, the barge was carried ashore in the area of Korovniki, and the prisoners were saved.
The Yaroslavl rebels held out for 16 days, but were still forced to lay down their arms because they found themselves in complete isolation. Did the expectation of mass popular protest not materialize?
Evgeny Soloviev: Since the uprising in Rybinsk was quickly suppressed, help, including weapons, did not come from there. The rebel guns fell silent on the third day of the mutiny because they had run out of shells. There was also little ammunition for machine guns and rifles. At the same time, the Reds bombed the city from airplanes; it was continuously fired upon by three armored trains and several artillery batteries. On the night of July 21, realizing that resistance was futile, the rebel headquarters surrendered to German prisoners of war, who were kept in Volkovsky Theater. True, in the evening of the same day, Red troops burst into the theater, arrested the headquarters, took all 57 people to the Vspolye railway station (now it is the Yaroslavl-Glavny station) and there, after interrogation, almost everyone was shot. Following this, sweeps began in the city: the male population was driven to the same Vspolye, their documents were checked and their palms were examined - if they had characteristic calluses that occur when shooting from a rifle or machine gun, a short investigation took place, followed by execution. According to various sources, in the first days after the uprising, from 350 to 428 people were killed. Their names and burial places are unknown. There are no documents: they are either lost or are in the archives of the FSB.
Key Question
More than ten years ago, the historical part of the city was included in the list World Heritage UNESCO. But the city could be even more beautiful. What did he lose during the two-week war on his streets?
Evgeny Soloviev: During the uprising, more than two thousand people died - participants in the confrontation and civilians. A third of all city buildings burned down, the rest were damaged by bullets and shells. Three monasteries and more than 20 churches were damaged and partially destroyed by shelling and fires. Of the 75 factories and factories, twenty burned or were destroyed. On the Volga and Kotorosl rivers, 18 steamships, 12 piers and 25 barges with goods and cargo were damaged, burned or sank. 25 percent of the population were left homeless, and 33 percent completely lost all their property. 40 thousand people left the city. However, the Bolsheviks benefited from this disaster. On the smoking ruins, director Dzigi Vetrov filmed documentary, and it became a powerful ideological weapon that showed what would happen to any Russian city that intended to oppose Soviet power. Stills from the film were shown to the public in the first Soviet film magazine "Kino-Week" in August and September 1918.
Help "RG"
The book "Executed Yaroslavl" was published on the initiative of the regional branch of the Russian Military Historical Society. The Anatoly Lisitsyn Foundation collected the history of the events of 1918 in parts, or rather, from photographs. Ten years ago a documentary was made. The book became its continuation.
