Without the right of correspondence
Encyclopedia
"Without the right of correspondence", WRC was a clause in a sentence
of many political convict
s in the Soviet Union
.
In a large number of cases during the Great Purge
, the oral sentence was "10 years of corrective labor camps
without the right of correspondence", which was announced to relatives, while the paperwork contained the real sentence: "the highest degree of punishment: execution by shooting
". Many people did not understand the official euphemism
and incorrectly believed that their relative was still alive in prison. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it in The Gulag Archipelago
:
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
of many political convict
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
s in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
In a large number of cases during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, the oral sentence was "10 years of corrective labor camps
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
without the right of correspondence", which was announced to relatives, while the paperwork contained the real sentence: "the highest degree of punishment: execution by shooting
Execution by shooting
Execution by shooting is a form of capital punishment whereby an executed person is shot by one or more firearms. It is the most common method of execution worldwide, used in about 70 countries, with execution by firing squad being one particular form...
". Many people did not understand the official euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
and incorrectly believed that their relative was still alive in prison. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it in The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp...
:
Cases of deception
- Mikhail KoltsovMikhail KoltsovMikhail Efimovich Koltsov , born Mikhail Efimovich Fridlyand , was a Soviet journalist.-Biography:...
(a Soviet writer and correspondent, a prototype of Karkov in HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
's For Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is assigned to blow up a...
; executed February 2, 1940. When his brother, Boris EfimovBoris EfimovBoris Yefimovich Yefimov was a Soviet political cartoonist best known for his critical political caricatures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis produced before and during the Second World War, and was the chief illustrator of the newspaper Izvestia...
, by a miracle got an appointment with Vasiliy Ulrikh, the latter told him that Koltsov was sentenced to 10 years WRC) - Matvei Petrovich BronsteinMatvei Petrovich BronsteinMatvei Petrovich Bronstein was a Soviet theoretical physicist, a pioneer of quantum gravity, author of works in astrophysics, semiconductors, quantum electrodynamics and cosmology, as well as of a number of books in popular science for children....
(executed in 1937), a theoretical physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, a pioneer of quantum gravityQuantum gravityQuantum gravity is the field of theoretical physics which attempts to develop scientific models that unify quantum mechanics with general relativity...