The "Vesna" Case (), also Operation Vesna of 1930-1931 was a massive series of
Soviet repressions targeting
former officers and generals of the Russian Imperial Army who had served in the
Red Army and
Soviet Navy, a major
purge of the Red Army preceding the
Great Purge. According to over 3,000 group cases in Moscow, Leningrad and Ukraine, over 10,000 persons were convicted. In particular, in May 1931, in Leningrad alone over 1,000 persons were executed according to the so-called "Guards Case" ().
["Гвардейское дело" (Дело "Весна"), 1930 - 1931]
/ref>
The Vesna case was briefly discussed in the 1998 book Трагедия РККА 1937—1938 ("Tragedy of the Red Army 1937-1938") by ,[ but the major groundbreaking work on the case was the 2000 book "Голгофа русского офицерства в СССР 1930-1931 гг." by Ukrainian researcher .]
/ref> In 2016 the Russian journal ' published an article that described the archived documents related to the Vesna Case.[
]
Background of the research
For a long time historians assumed that the destruction of the officer cadre of the Red Army happened during Stalin's Great Purge. However new data that emerged on the break of the 21st century radically changed this perception.[Операция «Весна»]
'' Znanie — Sila'' magazine, no. 11, 2003
In 1958 the central directorate of KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
transferred to its Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...
department 3,496 cases of criminal investigations against the former Tsarist officers in the Red Army carried out during 1930–1931, because the majority of them were related to Ukrainian SSR. However, for unknown reasons the batch included hundreds of cases concerning Moscow, Leningrad, and Voronezh[
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yaroslav Tinchenko with the help of the archivists of the Ukrainian security service got an insight into this classified information.][
]
History of the case
While the mass systematic arrests started in 1930, repressions against " former military" began much earlier. Initially the tsarist '' voyenspetses'' were fired, demoted, or transferred to military teaching positions. Initially arrests were only occasional, but their amount gradually increased. In 1929-1930 a major purge of the military industry was carried out.[Tinchenko]
chapter "Первые репрессии бывших офицеров и начало дела "Весна"
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In addition to the ''Vesna'' case, other repressions against former tsarist officers were carried out at the same time, often overlapping with "Vesna", such as the "Microbiologists case" (дело
«контрреволюционной вредительско-повстанческой организации микробиологов, ветеринаров и бывших офицеров»).
A major instigator of the case was leader of the Ukrainian State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate (), abbreviated as GPU (), was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from February 1922 to November 1923. It was the immediate successor of the Cheka, and was replaced by the Joint ...
(GPU) Izrail Leplevsky, apparently supported by Genrikh Yagoda. Other major Ukrainian "chekists" involved in the fabrication of the cases were Genrikh Lyushkov and Vsevolod Balitsky. Some others opposed the case after seeing the evidence of the fabrication in the documents. However Yagoda and Lazar Kaganovich appealed to Stalin himself, and he ordered to fire the GPU "dissidents".[
In particular, several arrested gave evidence against general (later Marshal) ]Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...
even during cross-examination in front of Stalin and other members of Politburo. Tukhachevsky was spared at that time, but still he was executed later, during the Great Purge.
Notable convicts
Among others, arrested were Andrei Snesarev, А. Л. Родендорф, Alexander Svechin, Pavel Sytin, Ф. Ф. Новицкий, Aleksandr Verkhovsky, В. И. Галкин, Ю. К. Гравицкий, Vladimir Olderogge, В. А. Яблочкин, Е. Л. Слухоцкий, Nikolai Sollogub, А. А. Балтийский, Mikhail Bonch-Bruyevich, Н. А. Морозов, Aleksei Gutor, А. Х. Базаревский, Mikhail Matiyasevich, В. Ф. Ржечицкий, В. Н. Гатовский, П. М. Шарангович, Д. Д. Зуев, Nikolai Kakurin, И. А. Троицкий.Служили два офицера
an excerpt from Tinchenko's book, '' Znanie — Sila'' magazine, no. 11, 2003[A chapter from the 2009 book «Органы государственной безопасности и Красная Армия» by is related to the Vesna Case, pp. 376-397]
References
{{reflist
Political repression in the Soviet Union
Soviet Army
Soviet Navy
1931 in the Soviet Union
1930 in the Soviet Union