Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

many of the descendants of Vlodomirskiy’s victims, who saw the de-

cision as an effort to efface the terror of the Stalin years.

VOICES.Radio broadcasts from abroad—such as the Voice of America,

the BBC, and broadcasts from France, Germany, and the Vatican—

were referred to by Soviet citizens as “voices.” The official Soviet line

was that they were golos vraga(the voice of the enemy), but the

broadcasts reached millions of Soviet citizens every day. By the late

1970s, Iranian and Saudi radio stations were also broadcasting into

Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus, where 40 million Soviet Mus-

lims lived. The KGBspent a great deal of time and attention trying to

block these stations through jamming, but with little success. The

“voices” created a problem for the Soviet leadership, challenging the

Communist Party’s monopoly on information.

VORKUTA. One of the gulagsystem’s largest concentration of forced

labor camps centered on the northern city of Vorkuta. The city and the

camps were established in 1931 in the tundra north of the Arctic Cir-

cle for mining coal. The first 23 “settlers” to arrive were prisoners,

and approximately a million prisoners and exilespassed through the

camp system. In July 1953, news of riots in East Berlin led to strikes

and riots in the Vorkuta camps. In Camp Number 6, the strikers re-

fused promises from the authorities of better conditions and resisted

a blockade by security forces. Moscow then decided to use force, and

MVDtroops fired on the strikers, killing scores. Several of the strike

leaders were later executed. Vorkuta today is a city of 200,000.

VYSHAYA MERA NAKAZANIYA (SUPREME MEASURE OF

PUNISHMENT). Capital punishment during the years of Joseph

Stalin was referred to as Vyshaya mera (Supreme Measure) or

Vyshaya mera nakazaniya(Supreme Measure of Punishment), or as

simply Vyshayaor the acronyms VM and VMN. Lists of condemned

prisoners were provided to Stalin in 1936–1938 with “VMN” typed

next to them. Stalin usually signed the list, giving the NKVDau-

thorization to shoot the condemned.

VYSHINSKY, ANDREI YANUARIEVICH (1883–1954).Vyshinsky,

a Menshevik in his youth, served a sentence for political radicalism

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