From arrest to arrest: experiences of the re-convicted victims of Stalinist terror in the USSR, 1930-1953

The issue of mass terror under dictatorships has traditionally attracted great attention, although only a few countries have made detailed materials about atrocities available for researchers. In Russia, the most important documents about the terror became accessible after the 1990s archival revolution. Using these materials, scholars have explored mechanisms of terror, the functioning of the Soviet labour camp system (Gulag), and other important problems. However, the central question of the exact number of victims of Stalinism is still widely debated (Khlevniuk, 2022; Zhuravskaya et al., 2021). This is, not least, because for precise estimation researchers still need to identify the number of so-called 'repeaters' ('povtorniky'), i.e. people arrested multiple times during Stalin's rule.

Most declassified statistics describe the numbers of year-by-year arrests or convictions. It is not possible to establish a total simply by adding up all these figures because many people would be counted twice. Some researchers have estimated that 10-15% of Gulag prisoners were re-arrested (Khlevniuk, 2022). However, these estimations are based on selected judicial statistical data that describe not only political but also 'ordinary' criminals. The proposed research will offer a more precise estimation of the number of people arrested two or more times by the authorities for 'political' reasons.

The case of 'repeaters' will also tell a lot about the long-term strategies for survival under totalitarianism. The unique history of over 20 years of Stalinism provides abundant material for a longitudinal study. Did people released from prison move (intentionally or forcedly) to another place, change their workplace? How did their family status and relations change?

Finally, the study will enrich the historiography of the state security agencies. According to the testimonials of former perpetrators of terror, they used card-indexes of 'suspicious' persons ('repeaters' were counted among these) for the different campaigns of terror (Hagenloh, 2009; Shearer, 2009). Did the waves of arrests of 'repeaters' coincide with general waves? Were specific ethnicities or social or gender groups disproportionately targeted?
The principal source base for this research is a large-scale online database, Victims of Political Terror in the USSR (Memorial, 2017), which includes more than 3 million short biographies of those arrested in 1917-1991.

Additionally, I shall examine a collection of terror victims' case files from the Moscow Region from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Methodologically, this research project will use complex data-analytics tools to identify within the database subsequent arrests of the same person with a high degree of probability. For example, machine-learning algorithms will be used to classify victims' social profiles, and georeferencing for tracking changes in victims' places of birth and residence.

This research project will elucidate important features of Stalin's dictatorship, including the total number of victims of political repressions, their experiences and strategies for survival, and the functioning of the state security agencies. Stalinism was one of the longer-lasting and largest-scale dictatorships. This makes a deeper exploration of the Soviet penal system and the experiences of repressed citizens of the utmost value for identifying, understanding and addressing the conditions and prospects of present-day political prisoners under authoritarian regimes across the world.