How it was 18.07.2001 (2001)

Amnesty, in 1953.

With the death of Stalin among the prisoners of the Gulag certain hopes arose connected with amnesty and rehabilitation.

In the spring of 1953, Lavrenty Beria forced the rehabilitation process.

On March 24, 1953, Beria sent a note to Khrushchev with a draft resolution, That at the moment more than 2.5 million prisoners are kept in forced labor camps and colonies, of which 590,000 are sentenced for up to 5 years.

With this in mind, Beria proposes to adopt the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on amnesty.

The project provides for the release of about 1 million people.

Under the amnesty fell those whose period did not exceed five years; Convicted for official, economic and some war crimes; Having young children and pregnant women; Minors, elderly people and people with disabilities.

The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on amnesty was unanimously approved at a meeting of the CPSU Central Committee on March 27, 1953.

All proposals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding the amnesty for those who were repressed in the 1930s-1940s were rejected.

Beria pointed out that he was conducting similar events with excessive haste.

On August 10, 1953, more than 1 million people left prison for amnesty.

Passport and regime restrictions were soon lifted in 340 cities, with the exception of Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, Sevastopol and Kronstadt.

The consequence of the amnesty was the fact that crime in many cities and towns of the country has increased dramatically.

Former prisoners tell their stories: Valeria Gerl, Vladimir Panasyuk, Rimma Levandovskaya, Dmitry Ikonnikov; Comments of the Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation Andrei Sukhomlinov.

Personnel chronicles: the insertion of the body of IV Stalin in the mausoleum, the speech of LP Beria in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a fragment of the newsreel "News of the Day" (a plot about the verdict of LP Beria).