Over Four Million People Have Been Rehabilitated After Stalin's Death

All in all, over four million victims of political reprisals have been rehabilitated after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. Work along this line is still going on now. A statement to this effect was made Monday by Alexander Yakovlev, chairman of the commission for rehabilitation of victims of political reprisals under the Russian president. He pointed out that at the early stage of the rehabilitation work, which was launched at the time of so-called "Khrushchev's thaw" (with Nikita Khrushchev's coming to power, Stalin's personality cult was condemned), victims of political reprisals were just amnestied, but the accusations brought against them were not cancelled. At the same time, the Lenin period of reprisals, when lots of innocent people were killed en masse, wasn't taken into account. In Yakovlev's words, his commission deals with the files of that period as well. Yakovlev has also said that from 20 to 27 percent of people subjected to political reprisals, children included, died in special KGB camps every year. All in all, around 10 million people died in such camps over the years of reprisals, Yakovlev noted.