Special Accounting of Former White Guards and the Activities of an Informant Network in the Sumy Region (1920s-1930s)

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the special registration of former White Guards and the activities of the network of informants in the Sumy region during the 1920s and 1930s. It examines the mechanisms of the functioning of the Soviet repressive system at the local level, as well as the social, political, and economic consequences of these processes for the region. Special attention is given to the interaction between former White Guards and Soviet security authorities, their participation in the fight against the so-called “enemies of the people”, and the identification of the mechanisms that allowed the repressive authorities to effectively control the local population. The impact of these processes on the local political situation, social structure, and the general condition of the region is also considered. As a result of scientific research, personal-biographical materials have been identified, systematized, and carefully analyzed, which describe the registration of former White Guards and their situation under Soviet rule. The discovered documents help to understand how the Soviet authorities used such individuals in the fight against internal enemies, as well as how this process affected the everyday lives of local residents. The role of the informants during the mass repressions of 1937–1938 is revealed, when the NKVD actively involved informers and undercover agents to organize and fabricate cases against the so-called “insurrectionary counterrevolutionary organizations”. The mechanisms by which informants were used to create fictitious anti-Soviet groups that never existed in reality but became the basis for the persecution, arrest, and execution of many innocent people are explored. Special attention is given to the methods used by the NKVD to manipulate testimonies and documents, often resorting to torture and psychological pressure on suspects to obtain confessions that had no basis in reality. The ways in which agents were used to identify “enemies of the people”, sometimes even encouraging “criminal activity” in individuals who had no criminal intentions, are analysed.