Viktor Zemskov

In 1981, Zemskov defended his candidate's (PhD) thesis "Contribution by working class to strengthening the material-technical base of agriculture in the USSR in the 1960s". In 1989, he joined the commission of the History Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences led by its corresponding member Yuri Polyakov to determine population losses and received access to statistical reports made by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD and kept in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution (CSAOR), now the State Archive of the Russian Federation.{{cite journal|last=Земсков |first=Виктор|title=К вопросу о масштабах репрессий в СССР |journal=Социологические исследования|year=1995|issue=9|pages=118–127 |url=http://scepsis.ru/library/id_957.html |access-date=14 August 2011}}{{cite magazine |last=Земсков |first=Виктор |title=Политические репрессии в СССР (1917–1990 гг.). |magazine=Россия XXI |year=1994 |issue=1–2 |pages=107–124 |url=http://kob.rv.ua/doki-dai/dotu/other/zemskov/zemskov_politrepressii(1917-1990).pdf |access-date=17 August 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330205748/http://kob.rv.ua/doki-dai/dotu/other/zemskov/zemskov_politrepressii(1917-1990).pdf |archive-date=30 March 2012 }} Between 1990 and 1992, he published the first precise statistical data on the Gulag which were based on the Gulag archives.{{cite book|last1=Rousso|first1=Henry|author-link1=Henry Rousso|last2=Golsan|first2=Richard|title=Stalinism and nazism: history and memory compared|year=2004|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-9000-4|pages=92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CIt7fMp30sAC}} According to Leonid Lopatnikov, Zemskov was the only historian admitted to the archives for the reports, and later the archives were again "closed."{{cite magazine |last=Лопатников |first=Леонид|title=К дискуссиям о статистике "Большого террора" |magazine=Вестник Европы|year=2009|issue=26–27 |url=http://magazines.russ.ru/vestnik/2009/26/ll28.html|access-date=12 January 2014}}

Zemskov's papers were criticized by Sergei Maksudov. In Maksudov's opinion, Lev Razgon and his followers, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, did not accurately enumerate the total number of the camps and markedly exaggerated their size. At the same time, from their experience, they knew something extraordinarily important about the Archipelago - its diabolical nature. On the other hand, Zemskov, who published many documents by the NKVD and KGB, is very far from understanding of the Gulag essence and the nature of socio-political processes in the country. Without distinguishing the degree of accuracy and reliability of certain figures, without making a critical analysis of sources, without comparing new data with already known information, Zemskov absolutizes the published materials by presenting them as the ultimate truth. As a result, in Maksudov's view, Zemskov's attempts to make generalized statements with reference to a particular document, as a rule, do not hold water.{{cite journal|last=Максудов|first=Сергей|title=О публикациях в журнале "Социс"|journal=Социологические исследования|year=1995|issue=9 |pages=114–118|url=http://scepsis.ru/library/id_956.html |access-date=17 August 2011}} In response, Zemskov wrote that the charge that he allegedly did not compare new data with already known information could not be called fair. In his words, most western writers did not benefit from such comparisons. Zemskov added that when he tried not to overuse the juxtaposition of new information with "old" data, it was only because of a sense of delicacy, not to once again psychologically traumatize the researchers whose works used figures that turned out to be incorrect after the publication of the statistics by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD.

In 2005, Zemskov defended his doctoral thesis "Special settlers in the USSR. 1930–1960".

• {{cite journal|author1=Getty, Arch |author2=Rittersporn, Gábor |author3=Zemskov, Viktor |title=Victims of the Soviet penal system in the pre-war years: a first approach on the basis of archival evidence|journal=American Historical Review|date=October 1993|volume=98|issue=4|pages=1017–1049|doi=10.2307/2166597|jstor=2166597|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf}}
• {{cite journal|author1=Getty, Arch |author2=Rittersporn, Gábor |author3=Zemskov, Viktor |title=Les victimes de la répression pénale dans l'U.R.S.S. d'avant-guerre : une première enquête à partir du témoignage des archives|trans-title=Victims of the Soviet penal system in the pre-war years: a first approach on the basis of archival evidence|journal=Revue des études slaves|date=1993|volume=65|issue=4|pages=631–670|doi=10.3406/slave.1993.6134 |jstor=43270097|language=fr}}
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/276810.html ГУЛАГ (историко-социологический аспект)] // Социологические исследования. 1991. No. 7. С. 3–16.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/276748.html ГУЛАГ (историко-социологический аспект)] // Социологические исследования. 1991. No. 6. С. 10–27.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100203183846/http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/mirros/msg/295644.html Демография заключенных, спецпоселенцев и ссыльных (30-е — 50-е годы)] // Мир России. 1999. Т. VIII. No. 4. С. 114–124.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/272402.html К вопросу о масштабах репрессий в СССР] // Социологические исследования. 1995. No. 9. С. 118–127.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/276482.html Об учете спецконтингента НКВД во всесоюзных переписях населения 1937 и 1939 гг.] // Социологические исследования. 1991. No. 2. С. 74–75.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/210914.html Репатриация советских граждан и их дальнейшая судьба (1944–1956 гг.)] // Социологические исследования. 1995. No. 6. С. 3–13.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/210092.html Репатриация советских граждан и их дальнейшая судьба (1944–1956 гг.)] // Социологические исследования. May 1995. No. 5. С. 3–13.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/276430.html Рождение «Второй эмиграции» (1944–1952)] // Социологические исследования. 1991. No. 4. С. 3–24.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/276942.html Спецпоселенцы (по документам НКВД-МВД СССР)] // Социологические исследования. 1990. No. 11. С. 3–17.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/241062.html Судьба «кулацкой ссылки» в послевоенное время] // Социологические исследования. 1992. No. 8. С. 18–37.
• [http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/socis/msg/238743.html «Кулацкая ссылка» накануне и в годы Великой отечественной войны] // Социологические исследования. 1992. No. 2. С. 3–26.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120330205748/http://kob.rv.ua/doki-dai/dotu/other/zemskov/zemskov_politrepressii(1917-1990).pdf Политические репрессии в СССР (1917–1990 гг.).] // Россия XXI, 1994, No. 1–2. С. 107–124.

• [http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2005/0211/biblio01.php Спецпоселенцы в СССР, 1930–1960]. — Москва: Наука, 2005. — 306 страниц, {{ISBN|5-02-010315-2}}
• Сталин и народ. Почему не было восстания. — Москва: Алгоритм, 2014. — 239 страниц, {{ISBN|978-5-4438-0677-8}}
• Народ и война: Страницы истории советского народа накануне и в годы Великой Отечественной войны. 1938–1945. — Москва, 2014. — 288 страниц.

• {{YouTube|x0AOzg7TVrQ|Video containing an interview with Viktor Zemskov about statistics of political repression in the USSR (in English)}}

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Category:1946 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Writers from Moscow

Category:Moscow State University alumni

Category:20th-century Russian historians

Category:Stalinism-era scholars and writers

Category:Deaths from aortic aneurysm

Category:Historians of Russia

Category:21st-century Russian historians