636 Cleared in Probe of Stalin Era : Soviets Seek Those Who Followed ‘Inhumane’ Orders

A Kremlin commission investigating Stalinist repressions has cleared 636 people and will expose those who “blindly fulfilled inhumane instructions,” the Communist Party daily Pravda reported today.

Mikhail S. Solomentsev, a member of the ruling 13-member party Politburo, detailed some of the commission’s work in a lengthy interview published on the newspaper’s front page.

The commission he heads was established at a party Central Committee meeting in October, 1987, “for further examination of materials connected with the repressions that took place in the 1930s-1940s and the early 1950s.”

Those dates refer to the 29-year dictatorship of Josef Stalin, accused by Western historians of ordering the deaths of as many as 20 million people.

“Many people are guilty of the abuses: Some of them were named, some not,” Solomentsev told Pravda. “The measure of the guilt of every one of them will be determined.”

After Stalin’s death, Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev launched the first review of the repressions, but Solomentsev said the work was not completed and did not cover abuses committed before 1934.

He said the commission has at its disposal all materials contained in the Soviet archives and will complete a thorough review of the historical records that detail Stalin’s actions. He appealed to the public for information that might help the inquiry.

Solomentsev said 636 people had already been legally rehabilitated by the commission because the accusations against them were unfounded, and that many other cases are still under review.

“We are equally interested in the fate of prominent leaders of the party and the Soviet state and the rank and file citizens--workers, peasants, office workers, party, government and economic functionaries, intellectuals,” he said.