The informer got more than the general: The history of denunciations in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

K. V. Lebedev "Towards a Boyar with Slander". 1904 g.

For residents of Russia, a new "price list" has appeared - for messages to the police that help solve or prevent a crime. According to the recently approved order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the maximum can be earned on this up to 10 million rubles. We have tried to match the current rewards for whistle-blowers with those that existed in the past.

The historian Alexander Kokurin helped to understand such a mercantile issue.

The domestic history of denunciations stretches from time immemorial. Moreover, in this field, even the "top officials of the state" were distinguished. For example, the Moscow prince Ivan Danilovich Kalita, famous for his efforts to "collect land", did not disdain from time to time to "knock" on the Horde on other appanage Russian princes.

The benefit from such denunciation was very great: it helped Kalita to remove competitors with the help of the Tatars on the way to gaining more and more power. Including from the chronicles it is known that in 1339, Prince Ivan personally went to the Horde ruler in order to "rave" against Prince Alexander of Tver, who did not want to recognize the supremacy of Moscow. After that, the ruler of Tver was urgently summoned to the Horde, where he was executed for the offenses indicated by Ivan Danilovich. As a result, the informer - Prince of Moscow, received a "great award" from the Tatar Khan and took Tver "under his arm."

“… Priests, monks, sexton's, priests, priests reported on each other. Wives denounced their husbands, children denounced their fathers. Husbands hid from their wives from such horror. And in these accursed denunciations a lot of innocent blood was shed, many died from torture, others were executed … - this is how a contemporary described the situation in Russia during the reign of Boris Godunov.

The situation with "snitching" in the country did not change much over the next centuries. As V. Klyuchevsky noted in his famous essay, "denunciation became the main instrument of state control, and the treasury greatly respected it."

Tsar-reformer Peter the First issued several decrees regarding denunciation. They also mention the "material component".

"If someone informs where the neighbor is hiding money, that informer of that money is a third, and the rest is for the sovereign." (From the Decree of 1711)

“Whoever truly denounces such a villain, then for such his service the wealth of that criminal, movable and immovable, will be given, and if he is worthy, he will also be given his rank (that is, the villain mentioned in the denunciation - A. D.), and this permission is given to people of every rank, from the first even to the farmers. (From the decree of 1713)

In other matters, in the times of Peter the Great it was possible to earn extra money and pay off on an obviously not rich person. The main thing is that this person seems to be very dangerous for the existing government.

From the surviving archival papers, for example, a case relating to the spring of 1722 is known. Then, at the bazaar in Penza, a certain posad man, Fyodor Kamenshchikov, heard the monk-monk Varlaam make a publicly "outrageous" speech. Immediately reporting this to the right place, Kamenshchikov received a very hefty reward. He was not only paid from the treasury 300 rubles (at that time a good cow cost only 2 rubles!), But also granted a lifetime right to trade without paying the state a duty for it.

At the time of the other Romanovs - the successors of Peter the Great, denunciation in Russia was also encouraged, including financially. However, at times the autocrats allowed themselves to make fun of the next "informer".

A typical case occurred during the reign of Nicholas I. Once in the royal office addressed to the emperor himself a letter of denunciation was received.

A naval officer, who had found himself in the St. Petersburg garrison guardhouse for some kind of offense, reported to His Majesty that a flagrant violation had been noticed. The guards officer, who was sitting in the cell with the informer, managed, contrary to all the rules of the Charter, to get a "leave of absence" from prison and went to "unwind" for several hours to his home. Such an opportunity for the guardsman appeared thanks to the assistance of the guard on duty: he turned out to be a good friend of the arrested person.

The emperor ordered to investigate the incident, and when all the circumstances stated in the denunciation were confirmed, both officers - the arrested guardsman and the guard commander - were put on trial and eventually demoted to the rank and file. The sovereign ordered to thank the informer sailor, to give him as a reward an amount equal to a third of the monthly salary. However, in addition to this, Nikolai slyly "added a fly in the ointment." He ordered to make a record of the awarded monetary award in the service record of the naval officer, be sure to mention at the same time why it was received.

Due to the aggravation of the political situation in the Empire in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. the need for informers only grew. Law enforcement agencies have actually legalized the existence of professional "informers" in towns and villages. As such, janitors, cabbies, prostitutes, innkeepers were widely recruited …

Among these "sexists" were students, representatives of the intelligentsia, even people from the "noble society." According to reports, before the revolution in Russia, there were almost 40 thousand informers, recruited only by the police. Some of them worked "for the idea", others received one-time payments (their size depended on the importance of denunciation and could range from several dozen kopecks to 10, 50, even 100 rubles).

There were also "snitches" on a "solid salary". For example, the informer-provocateur Malinovsky, who was a member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and regularly "leaked" all party information to the secret police, at first received 300 rubles a month, and then the "salary" of such a valuable informant was raised to 500 and even 700 rubles. This is even higher than the general's salary!

The radical political changes that took place in the country in 1917 did not in the least affect the attitude towards informers. The new government also needed them. And in the conditions of a fierce struggle against the "hidden counter" - even more.

Here is what Trotsky wrote in his memoirs about the first post-revolutionary weeks: “Informants came from all sides, workers, soldiers, officers, janitors, socialist cadets, servants, wives of minor officials came. Some gave serious and valuable instructions … "However, in fairness, it should be noted that most of these people acted unselfishly, for the sake of devotion to" the cause of the revolution. " Although in those lean times, the sums of money or food rations given to some of the "snitches" were not superfluous for them.

The socialist state gradually grew stronger, but it still needed the services of volunteer informants. A telegram signed by Dzerzhinsky's deputy for the Cheka Menzhinsky with the following content was sent to the localities: "Take measures to spread awareness in factories, factories, in the centers of provinces, state farms, cooperatives, forestry enterprises …"

This campaign, organized by the Chekists, was supported by publications in newspapers and magazines. Here is what you can read in the 1925 issue of "Soviet Justice": "Develop the ability to denounce and do not be alarmed for a false report."

One of the most famous cases of denunciation in the pre-war years was the story of Pavlik Morozov. And, although modern researchers have come to the conclusion that this guy was not a pioneer, however, having “laid down” his own “counter-fight” father, he received all-Union fame as a significant bonus, and became a pioneer “icon”.

Pavlik also had followers, whom such a loud fame was bypassed, but from the publications in "Pionerskaya Pravda" you can learn some interesting details and the material side of the matter. Here, for example, is the Rostov pioneer Mitya Gordienko, who informed the Chekists about his neighbors who were secretly collecting spikelets in the field. According to his denunciation, the members of this family - husband and wife, were arrested and convicted. And the boy received as a reward “a personal watch, a pioneer suit and an annual subscription to the local pioneer newspaper“Lenin's grandchildren”.

During the infamous Stalinist terror, denunciation took on a global scale. For many, denunciations have become a way to save themselves from arrest - these people saved their lives at the cost of other people's lives. Others agreed to "knock" for the sake of some "preferences": promotions, opportunities for a creative career … Similar help to their informants from the "authorities" existed in later times.

A separate topic is the "snitches" behind the barbed wire. There were many thousands of such people in the Gulag system. They regularly reported about other inmates to the “godfather” - the commissioner, receiving in return exemption from heavy work, a more nourishing ration, a reduction in the term of imprisonment … Sometimes - money. For example, Solzhenitsyn, in his novel In the First Circle, mentions that an informant who was among the “contingent” of the “sharashka” received 30 rubles a month. Other sources also mention the "fees" of informers who were imprisoned in GULAG camps. The "salaries" of these "snitches" were 40-60 rubles (it was possible to buy several bottles of vodka and packs of cigarettes with this money).

A very unusual incentive for denunciation in the Brezhnev era was the "service" provided by the KGB to its "freelance employees" who worked in enterprises and organizations. They, unlike many other Soviet citizens, were given the green light for travel abroad without unnecessary problems. It was worth a lot at that time …