750,000 Killed as Enemies of State in Stalin Era, KGB Says
The KGB secret police said in a report today that three-quarters of a million citizens were shot to death as enemies of the Soviet state from 1930 to 1953, the years of Stalinist terror.
The figure does not include the millions who died in labor camps and prisons or in the famines instigated by Stalin during his collectivization of agriculture, but it represented the first time the KGB has given any figure for the number of Stalin’s victims.
Many Western sources say more than 10 million people were killed in Stalin’s reign of terror.
Under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reforms, government commissions and the KGB have been ordered to find the truth about Stalin’s terror and rehabilitate those who were sentenced.
The Tass news agency quoted a KGB committee as saying that 3,778,234 had been sentenced for crimes against the state from 1930 to 1953, the year Stalin died.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
