The complete renewal of the entire party and state apparatus almost did not affect its very top - the people who, from the beginning of the 20s, grouped around Stalin, supported him in the fight against all oppositions, were connected with him by close ties of many years of joint work and personal, everyday closeness. Their preservation at the helm of power was due to several reasons. First, Stalin had to create the impression that he was relying on the former Bolshevik Party. To do this, at the top of the party it was necessary to keep a group of old Bolsheviks, for whom the official propaganda created the image of "faithful Leninists" and outstanding political figures.

Secondly, without these people, who had considerable political experience, Stalin would not have been able to ensure the leadership of the country in the conditions of the total destruction of party, state, economic and military personnel.

Thirdly, Stalin needed these people so that, relying on their personal authority and the authority of the "Leninist Central Committee", they would carry out reprisals against the party leadership of the republics, territories and regions with their own hands. Stalin himself after 1928 never went on working trips around the country. As in the period of collectivization, he sent his closest henchmen there to carry out punitive measures on the ground.

Fourthly, these people shared with Stalin not only political, but also ideological responsibility for mass terror. Having outlined at the February-March plenum of 1937 the starting points for the “liquidation of Trotskyists and other double-dealers,” Stalin did not speak publicly on these issues over the next two years. His few articles and speeches of 1937-1938, on the contrary, contained statements about the value of every human life, etc. the need for special care and care with the most precious thing we have - with human lives ... These lives are dearer to us than any records, no matter how great and loud these records may be. Stalin “entrusted” the ideological justification of mass repressions to his “closest associates”.

All these considerations explain the fact that the proportion of repressed members of the Politburo was lower than the proportion of repressed members and candidate members of the Central Committee, apparatchiks at all levels and ordinary members of the party.

In order to ensure the unquestioning obedience of his "closest associates", Stalin collected a dossier on each of them containing information about their mistakes, blunders, and personal sins. This dossier was supplemented by testimonies against the Kremlin leaders obtained in the dungeons of the NKVD. On December 3, 1938, Yezhov sent Stalin "a list of persons (mainly from among members and candidate members of the Politburo. - V.R.), with a description of the materials stored on them in the secretariat of the NKVD." Stalin's personal archive also contains discrediting dossiers on Khrushchev, Malenkov, Beria, and Vyshinsky prepared by the Yezhov apparatus.

In addition, Stalin "put every member of the Politburo, if possible, in a position where he had to betray his yesterday's friends and like-minded people and speak out against them with furious slander." Stalin also tested the obedience of his henchmen by their reaction to the arrests of their relatives. Guided by the same Jesuit goals, he sent people from his inner circle to face-to-face confrontations with their recent associates who had been arrested.

Not all members of the Politburo were privy to the most pressing issues associated with the Great Purge. As Molotov recalled, the Politburo always had “a leading group. Let's say, under Stalin, neither Kalinin, nor Rudzutak, nor Kosior, nor Andreev were included in it. Officially, this non-statutory "leading group" was formalized by a Politburo resolution of April 14, 1937 in the form of a "permanent commission" of the Politburo, which was instructed to prepare for the Politburo, and "in case of special urgency" to resolve "issues of a secret nature" itself.

Only the members of this commission (Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Yezhov) developed the strategy and tactics of the great purge and had a complete understanding of its scope. This is confirmed by the journals, which recorded the names of all the persons who visited Stalin's reception, and the time of their stay in his office. Based on the publication of these records, the historian O. Khlevnyuk calculated that in 1937-1938 Molotov spent 1070 hours in Stalin's office, Yezhov - 933, Voroshilov - 704 and Kaganovich - 607 hours. This time is several times more than the time allotted for receptions of other members of the Politburo.

Stalin allowed Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov (much less often other members of the Politburo) to get acquainted with the reports sent to him by Yezhov. The first group of such reports presented lists of people whose arrest required Stalin's personal sanction. On one of these lists, which included the names of persons who were "checked for arrest," Stalin left a resolution: "It is necessary not to 'check', but to arrest."

This group of reports was joined by protocols of interrogations of those arrested with testimonies against persons who were still at large, sent to Stalin. On one of these protocols, Stalin wrote: “T. Yezhov. The persons marked by me in the text with the letters “ar.” should be arrested if they are not already arrested.

The second group of reports included reports on the progress of the investigation. On such documents, Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich often left indications like: "Beat and beat." Having received the testimony of the old Bolshevik Beloborodov, Stalin sent it back to Yezhov with a resolution: “Isn't it time to put pressure on this gentleman and force him to tell about his dirty deeds? Where is he sitting: in prison or a hotel?

The third group included lists of persons whose sentences were to be sanctioned by Stalin and his closest henchmen. Some of these lists were referred to as "albums". In the albums, which included 100-200 names each, the cases of the accused were summarized on separate sheets. Under each case, the names of the members of the supreme "troika" - Yezhov, Ulrich and Vyshinsky, were printed, as yet without their signatures. Stalin put the number "1" on these sheets, which meant execution, or the number "2", which meant "10 years in prison." The fate of persons about whom Stalin did not leave such notes, the "troika" disposed of at its discretion, after which its members signed each verdict.

In August 1938, Yezhov sent four lists for approval, which included 313, 208, 208 and 15 names (the last list included the names of the wives of "enemies of the people"). Yezhov asked for sanctions to condemn all these people to death. On the same day, a laconic resolution of Stalin and Molotov: "For" was superimposed on all the lists.

As Khrushchev reported at the 20th Congress, 383 lists were sent to Yezhov alone, including thousands of names of persons whose sentences required approval by members of the Politburo. Of these lists, 362 were signed by Stalin, 373 by Molotov, 195 by Voroshilov, 191 by Kaganovich, and 177 by Zhdanov. imprisonment in prisons and camps.

Thus, the fate of a significant part of the repressed was predetermined by Stalin and his henchmen, and then their decisions were formalized by the verdict of the "troika", the Special Conference or the Military Collegium.

The fourth group of reports and reports sent to Stalin by Yezhov and Ulrich contained the results of an accurate bureaucratic accounting of the number of repressed. So, Ulrich reported that from October 1, 1936 to September 30, 1938, 36,157 people were convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and field sessions of military collegiums, of which 30,514 were sentenced to death.

With the leaders of local party organizations, Stalin maintained personal contact. So, having received a message about a fire at the Kansk mill plant, he sent a telegram to the Krasnoyarsk regional committee: “The arson of the mill must have been organized by enemies. Take all measures to reveal the arsonists. Guilty judge quickly. The verdict is shooting. Publish about the execution in the local press ”(italics mine. - V.R.). It is clear that having received a telegram of this content in the hot atmosphere of 1937, the party secretaries, together with the ranks of the local NKVD, did everything to confirm Stalin's "assumptions". In this case, already two months later, on charges of setting fire to the plant, its former director, chief mechanic and a group of ordinary workers - a total of 16 people - were sentenced to death. Three months later, the regional press reported that these persons received 80 thousand rubles from foreign intelligence for setting fire to the plant.

Such telegrams from Stalin were sent to the regional committees in encrypted form, under the heading “Top secret. Making copies is prohibited. To be returned within 48 hours."

At first, some party secretaries did not believe in the most monstrous directives and turned to Stalin for clarification about them. So, the first secretary of the Buryat regional committee Yerbanov, having received a directive on the establishment of "troikas", sent a telegram to Stalin: "I ask for clarification whether the troika approved by the Central Committee for Buryat-Mongolia has the right to pass a sentence." Stalin immediately replied: "According to the established practice, the troikas pass sentences that are final."

Thus, only a narrow circle of top party secretaries knew about the true role of Stalin in organizing mass repressions, most of whom soon burned themselves in the fire of the great purge. Before the party activists on the ground in the role of supreme punishers appeared "the closest associates" sent there by Stalin.

Describing the moral and political character of Stalin's henchmen, Barmin wrote in 1938 that they all “accepted the accusation of espionage and treason, and then the murder one after another of their three or four deputies and their best main employees, not only without trying to protect them ... but cowardly praising these murders, glorifying the executioners who committed them, retaining his post at the cost of this betrayal and humiliation, buying with them his career and his position as the first people in the state ... To our shame and disgrace, a number of Soviet people's commissars, more precisely, those 3 -4 of them, who at this price bought their re-election to the new cabinet "formed" by Molotov. Only in this way did they escape the fate of their 25 liquidated colleagues.

With all this, the people who organized and directed the great purge were not initially bloodthirsty monsters. Even Yezhov, as many people who knew him noted, until the mid-1930s gave the impression of a mild-mannered and unsophisticated person. But all of them were distinguished by spinelessness and obedience, which were not properties of their character, but the inevitable consequence of brokenness caused by the incessant pressure of Stalin's ruthless will.

Stalin's relations with those close to him were fully affected psychological features“master”, vividly described by Trotsky: “Cunning, endurance, caution, the ability to play on the worst sides of the human soul are monstrously developed in him. To create such an apparatus, it was necessary to have knowledge of man and his secret springs, knowledge not universal, but special, knowledge of man from the worst sides and the ability to play on these worse sides. It was necessary to have a desire to play on them, perseverance, tireless desire, dictated by a strong will and irresistible, irresistible ambition. What was needed was complete freedom from principles and what was needed was the absence of historical imagination. Stalin knows how to use people's bad sides immeasurably better than their creative qualities. He is a cynic and appeals to cynicism. He can be called the greatest demoralizer in history."

These features, which allowed Stalin to organize the greatest forgery and mass murder in history, were, according to Trotsky, inherent in his nature. But "it took years of totalitarian omnipotence to give these criminal traits truly apocalyptic proportions."

Stalin played on the worst sides not only of people who belonged to his inner circle, but also of people whom he personally did not know, but who became the executors of his sinister plans. During the years of the great purge, an atmosphere of permissiveness was created in the country in the matter of looking for "enemies of the people", denunciations and provocations. Anything could be used here - slander, speculation, public insults, settling personal scores, everything that meant freedom from political principles and moral norms, the absence of moral brakes, the loss of human appearance. Stalin personally raised people capable of this to a pedestal. This is evidenced, for example, by his attitude towards the Kiev graduate student Nikolaenko, who was glorified by him at the February-March plenum of 1937 as a "little man" who can fearlessly "expose enemies."

Inspired by Stalin's words, Nikolaenko finally unbelted. So, after a conversation with one of the old Bolsheviks, she locked him up and called the NKVD: “An enemy of the people is sitting in my office, send people to arrest him.”

Sending Khrushchev to Ukraine, Stalin advised him to use the help of Nikolaenko in the fight against the enemies of the people. Acquainted with this special, Khrushchev came to the conclusion that she was a mentally ill person. When, during his visit to Moscow, he told Stalin about this, he “boiled and repeated:“ 10% of the truth is already the truth, this already requires decisive action from us, and we will pay if we don’t act like that. Only after Stalin received new denunciations from Nikolaenko with accusations against Khrushchev as a "non-disarmed Trotskyist" did he allow her to be transferred from Ukraine to another place. But even then, Stalin "joked", listening to Khrushchev's stories about the fear that the Kiev communists experienced before Nikolaenko.

As evidenced by Stalin's correspondence with Molotov, even in personal confidential communication between the Kremlin leaders, a kind of secretly established cipher operated. The "leaders" with indisputable confidence and efficiency informed each other about the testimony received in the NKVD as absolutely reliable and beyond doubt evidence of the guilt of the arrested.

1. Molotov

survived short period Stalin's disgrace in 1936 (which is evidenced by the absence of his name in the list of leaders on whom the defendants of the first Moscow trial allegedly prepared terrorist acts), Molotov soon became Stalin's right hand again, his most confidant and first assistant in carrying out the great purge.

In a number of cases, Stalin turned to Molotov for "advice" on how to respond to this or that denunciation. So, he sent Molotov a statement in which the old Bolshevik, a member of the October Central Committee, Lomov, was blamed only for his personal communication with Bukharin and Rykov. After reading Stalin's resolution: “T-schu Molotov. What to do?”, Molotov imposed his own resolution: “For the immediate arrest of this bastard Lomov.”

In Khrushchev's memoirs, Yezhov's note is mentioned, in which it was proposed to expel several wives of "enemies of the people" from Moscow. On this note, Molotov made a note next to one of the names: "Shoot." This fact was cited in Suslov's report at the February plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964. It was said here that Molotov commuted a 10-year prison sentence handed down to the wife of a prominent party leader with capital punishment.

If in other cases Molotov could refer to his "confidence" in the Yezhov investigation, then for this act alone he was subject to severe criminal punishment under the laws of any civilized state. But that was precisely the half-heartedness of Khrushchev's revelations, that Khrushchev did not dare to supplement the "party trial" of the closest accomplices of Stalin's crimes with a criminal court, which they certainly deserved. Such an open trial was dangerous for the survival of the post-Stalinist regime. In addition, the defendants on it would certainly point to the involvement in the repression of Khrushchev himself and other party leaders who remained at the helm of power.

Decades later, Molotov explained his ("military", in his words) decision this way:

“There was such a case. By decision, I had this list and corrected it. Made a correction.

And what kind of woman, who is she?

It does not matter.

Why did the repressions extend to wives and children?

What does it mean - why? They must have been isolated to some extent. And so, of course, they would be distributors of all sorts of complaints ... "

With such arguments, Molotov justified the legitimacy of the most monstrous crimes of the Stalinist regime, in which he took an active part.

According to Chuev, almost every time he met with Molotov, a conversation arose about Stalin's repressions. Molotov did not leave this topic, but, on the contrary, spoke in detail about the motives for which certain party leaders were repressed. In these stories, the ease with which Stalin and his henchmen resolved the issues of the destruction of their recent comrades-in-arms is striking. So, Molotov recalled that at one of the plenums of the Central Committee he quoted the testimony of Rukhimovich about his wrecking activities, although “he personally knew him very well, and he was a very good person ... It is possible that the fictitious testimony, but not all the same, reached the point that pleaded guilty. Rudzutak - he did not plead guilty to anything! Shot."

About the “guilt” of Rudzutak, who told Molotov at a confrontation how he was tortured in the dungeons of the NKVD, Molotov reasoned as follows: “I think that he was not a conscious participant (of the conspiracy. - V.R.) ... Former convict, four years he was in hard labor ... But towards the end of his life - I got the impression that when he was already my deputy, he was already engaged in self-pleasure a little ... This tendency is a little to rest and activities that are associated with relaxation ... such a philistine was fond of - to sit, have a bite with friends, being in a company is a good companion ... It’s hard to say what he got burned on, but I think that he had such a company where there were non-party ends, God knows what. From this set of empty phrases it is impossible to understand why Rudzutak's "inclination to rest" deserved to be arrested and shot.

The most amazing in Chuev's book seem to me to be the pages that deal with the fate of Arosev, Molotov's comrade in the underground, whose letters Molotov kept throughout his life (two such friendly letters are given in the book). Speaking of Arosev with unfailing warmth, Molotov explained his arrest and death as follows:

“- Disappeared in 1937. The most dedicated person. Apparently, illegible in acquaintances. It was impossible to confuse him in anti-Soviet affairs. But the connections ... The difficulty of the revolution ...

Couldn't you have taken it out?

And it's impossible to get it out.

Indications. As I say, trust me, I will interrogate or something?

And what was Arosev guilty of?

He could only be guilty of one thing: he dropped some liberal phrase somewhere.

Like all other "closest associates", almost all of Molotov's assistants and employees were arrested. At the same time, he understood that testimonies against him were being extorted from these people. In the 70s, he told Chuev:

“- My first secretary was arrested, the second was arrested. I see around me...

And they wrote to you, reported too?

Still would! But they didn't tell me.

But Stalin did not accept this?

How did you not accept it? My first assistant was arrested. A Ukrainian, also from the workers ... apparently, they pressed him a lot, but he did not want to say anything and rushed into the elevator in the NKVD. And here is my whole apparatus.

After Stalin's death, Molotov, like Kaganovich, proved to be a worthless politician. Both of them, unlike Khrushchev, Malenkov and even Beria, were not able to put forward a single serious reformist idea. With great stubbornness, Molotov resisted any attempts to debunk Stalin and shed light on his most serious crimes.

In 1955, Molotov was appointed chairman of the commission for the review of open trials and the closed trial of military leaders. In this post, he did everything possible to prevent the rehabilitation of convicts. In every way he opposed the return from exile of relatives of former prominent oppositionists. In 1954, Tomsky's widow, M. I. Efremova, applied to the CCP with a request for her own rehabilitation. There she was warmly received, they promised to reinstate her in the party and provide an apartment in Moscow, they gave her a ticket to a sanatorium. However, after returning from the sanatorium, she learned that Molotov ordered her to be returned to exile. When Khrushchev became aware of this, he sent a telegram to Efremova about her reinstatement in the party and permission to return to Moscow. This telegram no longer found her alive: her heart could not withstand the blow inflicted by Molotov.

At the June plenum of the Central Committee (1957), where documents about Molotov's active participation in the Great Terror were announced, Molotov could not but admit his involvement in "mistakes", as he called the crimes of the Stalinist clique. “I cannot absolve myself of responsibility and have never absolved political responsibility for those wrongs and mistakes that are condemned by the party,” he said. “... I bear responsibility for this, like other members of the Politburo.”

In his defense, Molotov mentioned his report dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, where he put forward the thesis about the moral and political unity of the Soviet people. According to him, this slogan was aimed at "going over to the moral method, going over to the methods of persuasion." In fact, the formula invented by Molotov sounded especially blasphemous in the time of the great terror. Molotov also kept silent about the fact that it was presented in a context that was intended to serve to further exalt Stalin. “The moral and political unity of the people in our country also has its living embodiment,” he said. “We have a name that has become a symbol of the victory of socialism. This name is also a symbol of the moral and political unity of the Soviet people. You know that this name is Stalin!”

After Molotov was expelled from the party, for more than two decades he addressed the Central Committee and party congresses with requests for reinstatement, in which he invariably defended the policy of mass terror. He repeatedly spoke about this in conversations with Chuev. Despite Chuev's obvious admiration for Molotov, his presentation of these conversations reflects the intellectual and moral degradation of Molotov. The reasons for this are not in senile insanity. Molotov, as is clearly seen from his judgments recorded by Chuev, almost until his death, retained a clarity of mind and an excellent memory. But the trials that he experienced after the war (Stalin's semi-disgrace, the arrest of his wife) and especially after the death of Stalin (removal from high posts, and then expulsion from the party), apparently, broke him as a politician, depriving him even of those political virtues which he had in the 1920s and 1940s. His judgments and assessments are invariably dominated by non-constructive, "defensive" reactions - the stupid stubbornness of an inveterate Stalinist and demonstrative moral deafness.

Until his death, Molotov did not say a word about remorse for his complicity in Stalin's crimes. Arguing that the policy of terror "was the only saving thing for the people, for the revolution, and the only thing consistent with Leninism and its basic principles", he repeated from year to year that he was ready to bear responsibility for it, to which, however, no one attracted him, if not consider punishment disproportionate to his guilt in the form of exclusion from the party. However, even this punishment seemed to Molotov excessively severe. “They should have punished me - right, but expelled from the party? - he said. - To punish, because, of course, you had to cut, not always understanding. And I think we had to go through a period of terror, I'm not afraid of this word, because then there was no time to figure it out, there was no opportunity. This idea of ​​the need for "haste" in which "you can only recognize everyone" was often varied by Molotov in explaining even the "mistakes" he admitted in carrying out the purge. The excerpts cited by Chuev from Molotov’s manuscript “Before New Tasks (On the Completion of the Building of Socialism)” say: “In the 1920s and even more in the 1930s, the group of Trotskyists, extremely hostile to Leninism, finally loosened its belt and became impudent (further, the whole set of accusations of the Moscow trials is repeated .- V. R.) ... The party, the Soviet state could not allow slowness or delay in carrying out the punitive measures that had become absolutely necessary.

Molotov’s statements reveal the mechanics of the great terror and the atmosphere that reigned in those years at the headquarters of Stalinist totalitarianism: “I signed Beria what Stalin sent me with his signature. I also signed - and where the Central Committee could not figure it out, and where there was undoubtedly a part of the honest, good, loyal ... In fact, here, of course, it was about trusting the authorities ... Otherwise, you yourself can’t check everyone.

In talking about open trials, Molotov never once repeated the nonsense that the oppositionists were striving to overthrow Soviet power and restore capitalism. Referring to the accusations of the “conspiracy” of the defendants with the governments of Germany and Japan on the dismemberment of the USSR, he said: “I do not allow Rykov to agree, Bukharin agreed, even Trotsky, to give up the Far East, and Ukraine, and almost the Caucasus, - I rule it out, but there were some conversations around this, and then the investigators simplified it. ” However, on another occasion, Molotov, in complete contradiction to these judgments, declared that the accusation of Trotsky and Bukharin in negotiations with the imperialists “has been proved unconditionally. This is what it really looked like. “Maybe what I read are forged documents, you can’t trust them, but there are no others that refute these documents!”

Believing that Yezhov and his helpers “confused everything” to such an extent that descendants will never be able to get to the truth, Molotov commented on the accusations of the Moscow trials in the following way: “Something is right, something is wrong. Of course, it's impossible to figure this out. I could not say either for or against, although I did not blame anyone (here Molotov "forgot" about his numerous speeches with furious philippics against the "traitors" - V.R.). The Chekists had such material, and they investigated ... There was also a clear exaggeration. And something was serious, but not sufficiently disassembled and much worse can be assumed.

Appealing to the transcripts of the trials as documents worthy of trust, Molotov noticed that Bukharin, Rykov, Rozengolts, Krestinsky, Rakovsky, Yagoda also admitted such accusations, which cannot but seem absurd. He shamelessly called this circumstance “a method of continuing the struggle against the party in an open trial - to say so much about yourself in order to make other accusations incredible ... they purposely attributed such things to themselves in order to show how absurd all these accusations were supposed to be.”

The above judgments of Molotov confirm the correctness of Khrushchev’s thought: “Stalin’s abuse of power ... during Stalin’s lifetime was presented as a manifestation of wisdom ... And now there are still die-hards who stand on the same position, pray to an idol, the killer of the color of the entire Soviet people. Molotov most vividly reflected the point of view of Stalin's time. Molotov adhered to this position in the 80s, when he said: “Of course, there might have been fewer victims if we acted more carefully, but Stalin reinsured the matter - not to spare anyone, but to ensure a reliable situation during the war and after war, a long period ... Stalin, in my opinion, led a very correct line: let the extra head fly off, but there will be no hesitation during the war and after the war.

In these cannibalistic arguments, the voice of Stalin himself seems to be heard, although he never spoke so frankly with such an explanation of the reasons for the great purge.

As follows from the words of Molotov, the main motive for mass terror was the ruling clique's fear of the possibility of activating opposition forces during the war. Repeating many times that if there had not been a purge, then “disputes could continue” in the leadership of the party, Molotov declared the very existence of such disputes undesirable and dangerous. “I believe,” he said, “that we did the right thing by going to some inevitable, albeit serious, excesses in repression, but we also had no other choice at that time. And if the opportunists (i.e., opponents of Stalin. - V.R.) prevailed, they would, of course, not go for it (mass terror. - V.R.), but then we would have had during the war such an internal fight that would be reflected in all the work, in the very existence of Soviet power. Habitually identifying “we,” i.e., the Stalinist clique, with the Soviet government, Molotov implicitly admitted that this clique considered the preservation of “disputes” and dissidents capable of their own opinion in the party leadership as the most serious danger. Even more definitely, the true motives of Stalin and his minions Molotov inadvertently blurted out in the following phrase: “Of course, the demands came from Stalin, of course, they went too far, but I think that all this is permissible for the sake of the main thing: just to keep power!”

The creeping rehabilitation of Stalin in the 70s led to a kind of artistic rehabilitation of Molotov, depicted with undisguised sympathy in the "epic" "Liberation" and in the plump novels of Chakovsky and Stadnyuk. At the same time, the Brezhnev leadership did not dare to go for the party rehabilitation of Molotov - for fear of causing indignation in Soviet and foreign public opinion. However, “signals” about the desirability of such a rehabilitation went up from the bowels of the party apparatus. In our time, Kosolapov, one of the leading ideological apparatchiks of the “stagnant period,” proudly talks about his “merits” in this matter. He recalls how in 1977 Molotov's "theoretical" letter arrived in the Kommunist magazine, whose editorial board he then headed. After reading it, Kosolapov invited Molotov to his place. A confidential conversation took place between them, during which Molotov lamented the "limited nature of his contacts and opportunities to competently exchange views on topical theoretical issues." Feeling the benevolence of the interlocutor, Molotov turned to his favorite topic and “sternly remarked:“ But I still consider the policy of the 30s to be correct. Without it, we would have lost the war.”

After this conversation, Kosolapov sent a letter to the "top" in which "on his own initiative he drew attention ... to the lack of demand for Molotov's intellect and experience and the need to return him from political non-existence ... Many of those with whom I happened to work and communicate in those years, can confirm my unchanging point of view: Molotov, who, like any mortal, probably deserved criticism and even censure, nevertheless could not be expelled from the CPSU ... My determination to help Molotov return to the party, now that I have better understood his interests only grew stronger. Kosolapov adds with satisfaction that this desire of his came true a few years later, when Chernenko, who became General Secretary, personally handed Molotov a party card. Kosolapov calls this event "an act of historical justice", since "the case concerned the last knight of the Leninist guard (sic! - V.R.)".

With even greater certainty, a similar point of view was recently expressed in the pages of Pravda, where Chuev, in a commentary on new extracts from his conversations with Molotov, stated: “No matter what they say, Molotov went a heroic path. And heroes have the right to much. So I think."

2. Kaganovich

Already in the years preceding the great terror, Kaganovich showed himself to be one of the most devoted and flattering Stalinist satraps, capable of the most merciless cruelty. During the period of collectivization, he and Molotov repeatedly traveled to the troubled regions of the country with emergency powers to carry out punitive measures. Their ferocity extended equally to the recalcitrant masses and to party workers who showed hesitation in carrying out repression. At the June plenum of the Central Committee of 1957, it was said that the arrival of Kaganovich is still remembered in the Donbass, during which “the devastation and destruction of personnel began, and as a result, the Donbass rolled down.” Molotov and Kaganovich were also reminded of “what a massacre they carried out in the Kuban and in the steppe regions of Ukraine (in 1932-1933. - V.R.), when the so-called sabotage was organized. How many thousands of people died there then! And then all the heads of the political departments who unraveled this dirty story ... were repressed, all traces were wiped out.

Despite his extremely low educational level, Kaganovich often spoke with a "theoretical justification" for Stalinist actions on the "ideological front." Shamelessly falsifying Marxism, he expressed the most obscurantist ideas. Thus, in a speech at the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law (December 1929), he said: “We reject the concept of the rule of law ... If a person who claims to be a Marxist speaks seriously about the rule of law and even more so applies the concept of a “lawful state” to the Soviet state , then this means that he ... departs from the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the state. In a speech "For the Bolshevik Study of the History of the Party", read out in 1931 at a meeting of the Presidium of the Komakademiya, Kaganovich declared the four-volume "History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks", edited by Yaroslavsky, "a history tinted in the color of the Trotskyites."

In the first months of the great purge, Kaganovich did not immediately overcome the moral barrier associated with the need to destroy his closest party comrades. At the end of 1936, the well-known party worker Furer committed suicide, who, according to Khrushchev, “gave birth” to Stakhanov and Izotov, organizing noisy propaganda of their records. Kaganovich highly valued Furer, with whom he worked in Ukraine and Moscow. In a farewell note, Furer wrote that he was dying because he was unable to come to terms with the arrests and executions of innocent people. When Khrushchev, who was given this letter, showed it to Kaganovich, he wept, "literally roared uncontrollably." Then the letter reached Stalin, who, at the December plenum of the Central Committee in 1936, ironically stated about Furer: “What kind of letter did he leave after suicide, after reading it, you can immediately shed a tear.” Stalin called the suicides of Furer and other party leaders “one of the latest sharpest and easiest (sic! - V.R.) means”, which was used by the opposition in order to “for the last time before death, deceive the party by suicide and put it in a stupid position". After that, Kaganovich, as Khrushchev recalled, never mentioned Furer, "apparently, he was simply afraid that I could somehow let Stalin out, how he cried."

Combining three high posts in 1937-1938 (Secretary of the Central Committee, People's Commissar of Railways and People's Commissar of Heavy Industry), Kaganovich directed his executioner's efforts primarily to the ruthless purge of the people's commissariats subordinate to him. With the sanction of Kaganovich, all his deputies for the People's Commissariat of Railways were arrested, all the chiefs railways and many other people, through whose efforts the railway transport was brought out of the breakthrough in 1935-1936.

At a meeting of the bureau of the Moscow City Committee on May 23, 1962, where the issue of expelling Kaganovich from the party was considered, he was presented with a volume of photocopies of his letters to the NKVD demanding the arrest of hundreds of railway workers. The denunciations received by Kaganovich were also presented, on which he put resolutions: “I believe, a spy, arrest”; "The plant is not working well, I believe that there are all enemies." In one of his letters, Kaganovich demanded the arrest of a communist as a German spy on the grounds that his father had been a major industrialist before the revolution and his three brothers were abroad. When asked why he sent such letters, Kaganovich replied: “I don’t remember them, it was 25 years ago. If there are these letters, then they are. This is, of course, a gross mistake.

One of the participants in the meeting of the MGK bureau said: “My father was an old railway worker, we lived next to the people's commissariat in the house where the command staff of the railway transport lived ... And how did Kaganovich deal with all these people? .. Once I came home, my father is holding a collective photo and cries. Not a single one of those people who were in this photo remained alive.

About the atmosphere that arose in the 30s on railway transport, Zhegalin said at the June plenum of the Central Committee of 1957: “I remember well the time when he [Kaganovich] cracked down and repaired lawlessness, how all the railway workers (I worked as a machinist) were trembling, and as a result of these repressions, the best, qualified machinists simply drove through out of fear control arrows and semaphores, for which they were unfairly punished. Here is the people's commissar who, on the blood, created for himself the cult of the iron people's commissar.

At the June plenum of the Central Committee in 1957 and at a meeting of the bureau of the Moscow City Committee in 1962, Kaganovich was reminded of many specific facts of his participation in the great purge: “You remember the former manager of the Artyomugol trust, comrade. Rudenko?.. His wife curses you, comrade. Kaganovich". “I remember how you examined Uralvagonzavod, how you walked in an embrace with the director of the plant, comrade. Pavlotsky, surrounded by the gathered business executives and builders. I remember how well you were seen off and what a good mood everyone had. And on the same night, everything was overshadowed by the third arrest of almost all construction managers ... I remember how, after your visit to Nizhny Tagil, the head of the NKVD shot himself. He shot himself unsuccessfully, was still alive for several days and gave an explanation for his act: “I can’t make enemies anymore.”

In addition to reprisals against the workers of "his" people's commissariats, Kaganovich signed numerous lists for the execution of party workers. In the archive, in particular, a list of 114 people sentenced to death was found, on which Kaganovich left the resolution “Greetings”. Kaganovich's directive was also found concerning special settlers who had served their sentences and returned to their former places of residence: “All returning settlers should be arrested and shot. Execution to convey ".

In 1937-1938, Kaganovich went on several punitive expeditions in the field. After returning from Kyiv, he told how, at a party and economic activist convened there, he “literally called out:“ Well, come out, report, who knows what about the enemies of the people? many enemies of the people. On the same evening and night, about 140 party and economic leaders were arrested here.

Especially ominous was Kaganovich's trip to the Ivanovo region, which the local communists called the "black tornado". Speaking about this trip, the then deputy head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region, Schreider, recalled: on August 7, 1937, a special train arrived in Ivanovo with a group of Central Committee workers headed by Kaganovich and Shkiryatov, who were given security guards of more than thirty people. To meet the commission of the Central Committee, all the leading employees of the UNKVD arrived at the station (the regional committee and the regional executive committee were not informed about the arrival of Kaganovich). Kaganovich and Shkiryatov refused to stop at the dacha of the regional party committee, where they were going to be accommodated, and went to the dacha of the head of the UNKVD, Radzivilovsky. The protection of the highway adjacent to the dacha was carried by almost the entire operational staff of the city police. Behind the dacha, in the forest, a squadron of police cavalry was stationed, on alert.

The day after his arrival in Ivanovo, Kaganovich sent a telegram to Stalin, in which he said: already "the first acquaintance with the materials" led him to the conclusion that it was necessary to immediately arrest two leading workers of the regional committee. A few days later, a second telegram was sent to him: "Familiarization with the situation shows that right-wing Trotskyist sabotage has assumed wide proportions here - in industry, agriculture, supply, trade, health care, education and political work."

Having received from Stalin the authority to carry out arrests, Kaganovich did not deny himself the pleasure of turning the massacre of party workers into a kind of spectacular terrible performance. For this, a plenum of the regional committee was convened, at which most of its members were arrested.

How this happened is described in the story “No More Questions”, written by A. Vasiliev, the son of the arrested secretary of the Ivanovo City Party Committee. Main character stories - the apparatchik, who miraculously survived in the 30s, recalls:

“The first person to appear on the stage was a man with a beard (in fact, Kaganovich changed his beard “under Lenin” to a mustache “under Stalin” in 1933. - V.R.). I had only seen him in portraits before. He was then in great power - both the people's commissar and the secretary of the Central Committee, one in almost seven persons. There is silence in the hall. The People's Commissar frowned, evidently he didn't like the way he was received, he was used to triumph. Someone quick-witted caught on, clapped. Supported, and everything went as it should ...

And only then did the plenum learn about the agenda. The first is about the state of agitation and propaganda work in connection with the upcoming harvest, and the second is organizational issues ...

Regarding agitation and propaganda work ... the head of the regional land administration Kostyukov was released to the podium ...

Kostyukov raised his eyes from the theses, and I felt terrified - they were so glassy, ​​like those of a dead man ...

Kostyukov nevertheless gathered his strength, and we heard:

Two days ago, the chairman of the regional executive committee, Comrade Kazakov, and I visited the Budyonny collective farm ...

The people's commissar was all pissed off and strangely somehow, either with surprise, or with mockery, asked the speaker:

With whom? With whom did you visit the collective farm?

With Comrade Kazakov...

The People's Commissar continues in the same incomprehensible tone:

Therefore, as I understand you, you consider Kazakov a comrade? Answer!

Kostyukov turned white and babbled...

The People's Commissar looked at his wristwatch, then looked behind the scenes, and a man, not one of ours, immediately jumped up to him. The People's Commissar listened to a second report and announced ...

The enemy of the people, Kazakov, was arrested twenty minutes ago...

And what happened, if measured by modern times, is absolutely incredible: one of those sitting on the presidium applauded. At first they picked it up timidly, then more vigorously. Someone's bass shouted:

Our glorious NKVD - cheers! ..

Kostyukov became completely limp and, after mumbling a few more words, left the podium, to the sound of his own heels. Nobody saw him again - he went backstage and forever.

The People's Commissar looked at his watch again and, in the same incomprehensible tone of his, turned to the propaganda secretary:

Maybe you'll supplement an unsuccessful speaker? The secretary came to the podium, white and white, cleared his throat for the sake of order, and began rather briskly:

The state of agitation and propaganda work in the countryside cannot but arouse legitimate concern in us ... True, Comrade Kostyukov did not note ...

At these words, the people's commissar again flailed and sarcastically asked:

Kostyukov is your comrade? Strange, very strange ... - Again look at the clock and - like a butt on the head:

The accomplice of the enemy of the people Kazakov, the last Kostyukov, was arrested five minutes ago ...

The entire bureau of the regional committee, the entire presidium of the regional executive committee swept under the whisk in forty minutes.

Kaganovich continued to deal with arrests even after the plenum. Several times a day, he called Stalin and reported to him on the progress of the investigation. During one such telephone conversation, during which Schrader was present, Kaganovich repeated several times: “I am listening, Comrade Stalin. I will put pressure on the leaders of the NKVD so that they do not become liberal and maximize the identification of enemies of the people.

Kaganovich also showed his sadistic inclinations in his "everyday guide." As members of the MGK bureau said in 1962, during the meeting, “it cost nothing to spit in the face of his subordinate, throw a chair at him” or hit him in the face.

Despite the burden of crimes trailing behind him, Kaganovich in the first years after Stalin's death was very self-confident. Like other members of the "anti-party group", he believed that their majority in the Presidium of the Central Committee would allow them to win an easy victory over Khrushchev. Accustomed to the fact that the Politburo (Presidium) of the Central Committee is really the absolute master of the party and the country, and the plenum of the Central Committee acts only as a humble executor of its will, Kaganovich at first behaved militantly at the meetings of the June 1957 plenum and even allowed himself to shout at its members. However, it soon became clear that the plenum of the Central Committee was perceived by its participants as supreme body party, as it should be according to its Charter. The discussion of the case of Molotov, Kaganovich and others began to resemble in its tone the discussion of the Bukharin-Rykov case at the February-March 1937 plenum, with two important exceptions. Firstly, the defendants here were not oppositionists who had been repeatedly branded earlier, but party leaders who had been in the Politburo for more than thirty years. Secondly, Molotov and Kaganovich were accused not of fictitious, but of real crimes.

During the plenum, Kaganovich "renewed" his memory, apparently afraid of new references to his crimes. This is evidenced by the fact that his speech at the December plenum of the Central Committee in 1936, which contained shameless persecution of "Trotskyists" and "rightists", was sent in June 1957 from the party archive to Kaganovich's secretariat.

In the last days of the plenum, when the mood of the overwhelming majority of its participants was finally determined, Kaganovich made repentant statements. Five years later, during the analysis of his personal case at a meeting of the Bureau of the Moscow City Committee, he again behaved quite impudently, declaring: “When they say here that I am a dishonest person, I have committed crimes ... but shame on you.” Then he gave the following assessment of the great terror: "Mass executions - yes, there was such an excess."

Assessing the “lessons” of his group’s struggle with Khrushchev, Kaganovich, who always spoke out with denunciations of factionalism, told Chuev: “Our mistake is that we ... were not a faction ... If we were a faction, we could take power.”

In the last years of his life, Kaganovich was not inclined to hide his true feelings. In conversations with Chuev, he repeatedly spoke about Stalin: "He was a great man, and we all bowed before him."

Kaganovich explained his active participation in the great terror by the fact that “it was impossible to go against public opinion then”; “there was such a situation in the country and in the Central Committee, such a mood of the masses that it was not conceivable in any other way.”

At the same time, once Kaganovich casually blurted out to Chuev the true reasons for the massacres of former opposition leaders. To the question: “Was it worth it to shoot them? Maybe they should have been removed from all posts, sent somewhere in the provinces?” Kaganovich replied: “You see, my dear, in the conditions of our capitalist environment, how many governments are at large, because they were all members of the government. There was a Trotskyist government, there was a Zinoviev government, there was a Rykov government, it was very dangerous and impossible. Three governments could have arisen out of Stalin's opponents." Kaganovich's further explanation clearly shows how terrified the Stalinist clique was at the possibility of uniting these people, despite the fact that they had gone through a long streak of capitulation and humiliation. “Bukharin met with Kamenev (in 1928. - V.R.), talked, talked about the policy of the Central Committee and so on,” said Kaganovich. “How could they be kept free? ... Trotsky, who was a good organizer, could lead the uprising ... Who could believe that the old, experienced conspirators, using all the experience of the Bolshevik conspiracy and the Bolshevik organization, that these people would not get in touch with each other and would not form an organization? The revolutionary past of the opposition Kaganovich actually explained the use of torture against them. This idea was expressed by him in the following florid phrase: “Torture may have been, but one must also assume that they are old, experienced Bolsheviks, and that they give voluntary evidence?”

Unlike the correspondence between Stalin and Molotov, Stalin's correspondence with Kaganovich has not yet been published. Meanwhile, already in 1957, two volumes of this correspondence were collected, "overflowing with sweetness, sycophancy, obsequious tone" from Kaganovich.

3. Voroshilov

Stalin entrusted Voroshilov with the task of carrying out a purge in the army. Trotsky suggested that from a certain moment Voroshilov “began to show signs of independence in relation to Stalin. It is very likely that Voroshilov was pushed by people close to him. The military apparatus is very voracious and does not easily endure the restrictions imposed on it by politicians, civilians. Anticipating the possibility of friction and conflict with the powerful military apparatus, Stalin decided to put Voroshilov in his place in a timely manner. Through the GPU, that is, Yezhov, he prepared a noose for Voroshilov's closest associates behind his back and without his knowledge, and at the last moment confronted him with the need to make a choice. It is clear that Voroshilov, who betrayed all his closest employees and the color of the command staff, represented after that a demoralized figure, no longer able to resist.

This hypothesis of Trotsky is confirmed by the surviving synopsis of Voroshilov’s speech at the February-March plenum of the Central Committee, which emphasized: “In the army, fortunately, not so many enemies have been revealed so far. I say fortunately, hoping that there are few enemies in the Red Army at all. A little later, in a note compiled for himself, Voroshilov admitted to himself: opposing the dismissal from the army or the arrest of individual commanders, he fears that "you can get into an unpleasant story: you defend, and he turns out to be a real enemy, a fascist."

At first, Voroshilov really tried to protect some of his subordinates. So, he managed to prevent the impending exclusion from the party and the dismissal from the army of the head of the Tashkent Military School Petrov, who successfully commanded armies and fronts during World War II and graduated with the rank of army general.

After the Tukhachevsky trial, Voroshilov began, as a rule, to endorse the lists for the arrest of commanders without objection, imposing resolutions on them such as: “need to be arrested”, “I agree to arrest”, “take all the scoundrels”, etc. On the report that corps commissar Savko called the arrest of one of the military leaders a misunderstanding at a party meeting, Voroshilov wrote: “Arrest!”

The arrested commanders turned for help primarily to Voroshilov. During 1938 alone, the People's Commissar of Defense received more than two hundred thousand, and in 1939 - more than 350 thousand letters, among which a large proportion were applications sent from prisons. Some officers and generals sent dozens of such statements to Voroshilov, talking about the torture and abuse they were subjected to. A group of commanders - Voroshilov's comrades in the civil war wrote: “Kliment Efremovich! You check the conduct of affairs for the commanders of the Red Army. You will be convinced that materials are taken from those arrested by means of violence, threats, turning a person into a rag. They force one arrested person to write to another and thereby bring charges, saying that whoever got into the NKVD should not come back. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that Voroshilov responded to any of these appeals.

After the arrest of all his deputies, the leaders of the army, navy and aviation, and hundreds of other people who worked with him over the years, Voroshilov keenly felt the damage done to the army. In notes compiled for himself, he wrote with alarm that "the authority of the army in the country has been shaken ... This means that the methods of our work, the entire system of command and control of the army, my work, as a people's commissar, have suffered a crushing collapse."

Apparently, Voroshilov did not perform executioner functions with such zeal as Molotov and Kaganovich. At the June 1957 plenum, Khrushchev, separating Voroshilov from other "closest associates", said that Voroshilov "more than others was indignant at abuses, especially against the military." As is clear from Khrushchev's memoirs, he made such a conclusion on the basis of a conversation between Stalin and Voroshilov, in which he happened to be present. During the Finnish war, when Stalin angrily criticized Voroshilov, “Voroshilov also boiled up, blushed, got up and, in response to Stalin’s criticism, threw an accusation at him:“ You are to blame for this. You have exterminated the military cadres." Stalin also answered. Then Voroshilov grabbed a plate on which lay a boiled pig, and hit it on the table. In my eyes, this was the only such case.

Unlike Molotov and Kaganovich, Voroshilov recalled the great purge with bitterness and disgust. At the June 1957 plenum, he asked its participants to "stop talking about these horrors." The most shameful and terrible pages of those years Voroshilov tried, as it were, to oust from his memory. This, apparently, explains his violent, indignant reaction to Kaganovich's admission that members of the Politburo had signed a secret decree on the use of torture. “Not only have I never signed such a document,” Voroshilov asserted with vehemence, “but I declare that if they offered me something like that, I would spit in my face. I was beaten in the [tsar's] prisons, demanding confessions, how could I sign such a document? And you say - we all sat (at a meeting of the Politburo at the time of the adoption of this resolution. - V.R.). It’s impossible, Lazar Moiseevich.”

Voroshilov also differed from Molotov and Kaganovich in that after Stalin's death he never mentioned the guilt of military leaders in the crimes attributed to them. Even in Stalin's times, he, according to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Snechkus, told the Lithuanian leaders that "Uborevich was wrongly shot."

In the last years of his life, Voroshilov tried, as it were, to make amends for the dead generals. In an order dated June 12, 1937, he called Gamarnik "a traitor and a coward who was afraid to appear before the court of the Soviet people." Thirty years later, Voroshilov wrote an essay about Gamarnik, which ended with the words: “The entire relatively short life of Yan Borisovich Gamarnik is labor and feat of arms... He was a real Bolshevik-Leninist. So he will remain in the hearts of those who knew him personally, in the memory of all working people.

4. Mikoyan

Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov, together with Stalin and Yezhov, actually constituted a “small Politburo” that developed the strategy and tactics of the great purge and signed the main part of the proscription lists. But Stalin also made other, less significant persons from his inner circle, accomplices in his crimes. To suppress their political will and human conscience, he used "doubtful" moments in their biography. The subject of Mikoyan's blackmail, Stalin chose the fact that he managed to survive during his stay in 1918 at party work in Baku. As Mikoyan himself told in 1956, Stalin told him in early 1937: “The story of how 26 Baku commissars were shot and only one of them, Mikoyan, survived, is dark and confused. And you, Anastas, do not force us to unravel this story.

After that, Mikoyan unquestioningly carried out all the executioners entrusted to him and the ideological actions that accompanied them. In December 1937, he delivered a report dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD. This report drew attention to two "shock points". Firstly, Mikoyan announced: "Every worker in our country is a People's Commissar for Internal Affairs!" Secondly, speaking about the results of the past year, he exclaimed: “The NKVD has done a good job during this time! .. We can wish the NKVD workers to continue to work just as well as they did.”

Mindful of the national origin of Mikoyan, Stalin sent him along with Yezhov and Malenkov to Armenia, where they carried out the defeat of the entire party leadership of the republic. Although at that time the press emphasized Mikoyan's leading role in these events, his name was not mentioned at the mention of them at the XXII Congress.

After Stalin's death, Mikoyan discovered the ability to boldly and decisively criticize Stalinism. Of the members of the Politburo of 1937, he was the only one who supported Khrushchev in exposing Stalin's crimes. In the tense days of the 20th Congress, when the question had not yet been resolved - whether to read Khrushchev's secret report, Mikoyan delivered a vivid speech that caused a huge resonance in the country and around the world. Without mentioning the name of Stalin, he nevertheless gave an unambiguous assessment of the Stalinist regime, pointing out that “for about 20 years we actually had no collective leadership, the cult of personality flourished, condemned by Marx and then by Lenin, and this, of course, could not but exert an extremely negative influence on the position in the party and on its activity.

From the colorless speeches of the other members of the Politburo, Mikoyan's speech was distinguished by the abundance of facts cited and the clarity of generalizations. Particular attention was paid to the criticism of historical party literature, including the sacred for the Stalinists "Short Course in the History of the CPSU (b)". “If our historians,” said Mikoyan, “really, deeply began to study the facts and events of the history of our party during the Soviet period ... then they could now better, from the positions of Leninism, illuminate many of the facts and events set forth in“ short course“» .

Mikoyan chose the topic of historical falsifications as a springboard in order to report for the first time on the falsity of the accusations against some party leaders who are considered enemies of the people. “One Moscow historian,” he declared, “even agreed to the following: do not be among the Ukrainian party leaders Comrade. Antonova-Ovseenko and comrade. Kosior, perhaps, there would have been no Makhnovshchina and Grigorievshchina, Petlyura would not have been successful in certain periods, there would have been no enthusiasm for planting communes (by the way, a phenomenon not only Ukrainian, but common to the party at that time), and immediately, you see, in Ukraine, the line to which the entire party and the country had passed as a result of the NEP would have been taken. Most stunning in this tirade was the use of the names of a hundred times stigmatized Bolsheviks with the prefix "comrade".

After Mikoyan's speech, it was already difficult for hardened Stalinists who were part of the Politburo to resist the announcement of Khrushchev's report on Stalin.

5. Andreev

Stalin blackmailed Secretary of the Central Committee Andreev with an unprecedented fact of his biography among his “closest associates”. During a discussion about trade unions in 1920-1921, Andreev, then one of the youngest members of the Central Committee, voted for Trotsky's platform. Therefore, despite his unconditional defense of the positions of the ruling faction in all subsequent discussions, he gained a reputation as a "formerly active Trotskyite." The retention of Andreev in the Politburo was supposed to serve as confirmation that Stalin did not punish "disarmed Trotskyists" who showed ruthlessness towards their former associates. At a meeting of the Military Council that preceded the trial of the Tukhachevsky group, Stalin pointed to Andreev, who was next to him, stating that he "was a very active Trotskyist in 1921", but then moved away from Trotskyism and "fights very well with the Trotskyists".

Khrushchev recalled that “Andrey Andreyevich did a lot of bad things during the repressions of 1937. Perhaps because of his past, he was afraid of being suspected of being soft on former Trotskyists. Wherever he went, many people died everywhere.

Andreev's most executioner expedition was a trip to Uzbekistan in the autumn of 1937. Its formal goal was to “explain” to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic the letters of Stalin and Molotov about the first secretary of the Central Committee of Uzbekistan, Ikramov, who was still at large. It said that the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, on the basis of the testimony of those arrested and confrontations, established: “T. Ikramov not only showed political blindness and short-sightedness towards bourgeois nationalists, enemies of the Uzbek people ... but sometimes even patronized them”; he "apparently had connections with the leaders of the Trotskyist-right groups in Moscow." The republican plenum of the Central Committee was asked to “discuss the question of Comrade Ikramov and communicate his opinion to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

By the time of the plenum, most of the members of the Uzbek Central Committee were already in prison. The plenum, which gathered in a truncated composition, expressed the required “opinion” about Ikramov and opened a new wave of terror in the republic. The situation that arose during Andreev's stay in Tashkent was so terrible that Ikramov immediately after the plenum said to his employee, who was nominated for the post of secretary of the regional committee: “Do not accept appointments under any circumstances. You will be arrested immediately. Get sick, leave whatever you want. They need to fulfill the plan according to the nomenclature. Ikramov himself was ordered to go on the same train with Andreev to Moscow, where he was soon arrested.

After the removal of Yezhov from the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Andreev was appointed chairman of the Politburo commission to investigate the activities of the NKVD. Thousands of letters began to arrive in his name from those arrested with requests for a review of their cases. The 62-year-old Bolshevik Kedrov, who knew Andreev well, wrote: “From the gloomy cell of the Lefortovo prison I appeal to you for help. Hear the cry of horror, do not pass by, intercede, help destroy the nightmare of interrogations ... I am convinced that with a calm, impartial investigation, without disgusting abuse, without anger, without terrible mockery, the groundlessness of the accusations will be easily established. The letter was left Andreev unanswered. Although the court arranged for Kedrov acquitted him, he was executed at the beginning of World War II on the personal order of Beria.

6. Kalinin

Among the members of the Stalinist Politburo, Kalinin was in its composition for the longest time - since the formation of this body in March 1919. At the same time, at the suggestion of Trotsky, he was elected to the post of chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (with this election, Trotsky first called Kalinin "the all-Union headman"). Having dared to express his independent judgments in the 1920s, Kalinin in the 1930s turned into a purely decorative figure. During the years of great terror, he unquestioningly gave sanctions for the arrests of members of the highest state body of the country. In the second half of 1937 alone, he sent to the USSR Prosecutor's Office 15 lists with discrediting data on 181 members of the Central Executive Committee. After receiving the "conclusion" of the Prosecutor's Office, Kalinin signed decrees on the exclusion of these people from the CEC and the transfer of their cases to the NKVD.

Kalinin was the first member of the Politburo to have his wife arrested (the turn of the wives of Molotov and Andreev came after the war). According to Larina, E. D. Kalinina was arrested in the summer of 1938 for describing Stalin in a conversation with an old friend: “A tyrant, a sadist who destroyed the Leninist guard and millions of innocent people.”

Kalinin, as the head of state power, was often approached by relatives of those arrested with a request to influence the decision of their fate. When a Moscow professor asked to facilitate the release of his wife from the camp, Kalinin simply answered him: “My dear, I am in exactly the same position. Try as I might, I couldn't help my wife. I can't help yours either."

As a result of the insistent requests of the “all-Union headman”, Stalin ordered the release of his wife only after the war.

7. Zhdanov

Zhdanov, secretary of the Central Committee and candidate member of the Politburo, belonged to a cohort of Stalin's own nominees. He led the purge in Leningrad, which began immediately after the assassination of Kirov and took on a particularly wide scope, since the majority of the members of the Leningrad party organization supported the "new opposition" in 1925. In addition, Zhdanov was entrusted with trips to other regions to crack down on local party cadres. These trips in ferocity can be compared with the punitive expeditions of Kaganovich and Andreev.

In October 1937, Zhdanov held a plenum of the Bashkir Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, at which he accused the leadership of the regional committee of a Trotsky-Bukharin and bourgeois-nationalist conspiracy. “From a political point of view, these are fascists, spies. On the social side - lousy, corrupt officials. About the first secretary of the regional committee Bykin, Zhdanov responded as follows: “Bykin is an old wolf; in my opinion, he will turn out to be an old spy with an experience of 8-10 years ”(italics mine. - V.R.).

In a report at a solemn meeting dedicated to the 14th anniversary of Lenin's death, Zhdanov stated that "1937 will go down in history as the year of the defeat of the enemies of the people."

Being one of the most cynical and ruthless Stalinist satraps, Zhdanov was no stranger to specific humor. The aircraft designer Yakovlev, admitted in those years to the circle of the Kremlin leaders, recalled an anecdote told to him by Zhdanov: “Stalin complains: the pipe has disappeared. He said, "I would give a lot to find her." Beria found 10 thieves three days later, and each of them “confessed” that it was he who stole the pipe. And a day later, Stalin found his pipe, which just fell behind the sofa in his room. “And Zhdanov laughed merrily at this terrible anecdote,” added Yakovlev.

8. Khrushchev

Promoted to a high administrative position only in 1932, Khrushchev successfully continued his ascent during the years of the great purge. In 1937, he was the first secretary of the Moscow Committee and the Moscow City Committee, and in early 1938 he was transferred to the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Ukraine. Khrushchev was the only person (not counting Yezhov) introduced over the years to the fairly thinned Politburo as a candidate.

Khrushchev's behavior did not differ significantly from the behavior of other republican and regional secretaries, who were obliged to authorize the arrest of workers who were part of the nomenclature of their party committees. At the same time, it is no coincidence that it was Khrushchev who initiated the exposure of Stalin's crimes. His memoirs testify that the repressions of 1936-1938 caused him sincere bewilderment, which after Stalin's death turned into burning indignation.

In his memoirs, Khrushchev made no secret of his admiration for Stalin in the 1930s and the agonizing process he went through in getting rid of illusions about Stalin. He wrote that only after investigating Stalin’s crimes did he fully realize: they were based on “the carefully calculated actions of a despot who managed to convince many and many that Lenin did not understand people, did not know how to select people, and almost everyone who after him death led the country, turned out to be enemies of the people. The Great Purge, according to Khrushchev, was unleashed by Stalin “in order to exclude the possibility of the appearance in the party of some persons or groups who want to return the party to Leninist inner-party democracy, turn the country towards a democratic social structure ... Stalin said that the people are manure, a shapeless mass that follows the strong. This is how he showed his power. He destroyed everything that could give some kind of food for a true understanding of events, sensible reasoning that would contradict his point of view. This was the tragedy of the USSR.

Talking about the situation that developed during the years of great terror in Ukraine, Khrushchev tried to justify himself by the fact that the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the republic, Uspensky, filled him with papers, "and no matter the paper, then enemies, enemies, enemies." By endorsing the lists of those arrested and convicted, Khrushchev thereby "carried out, as it were, party control (over the republican NKVD)." However, he was well aware that at the same time these lists were sent to Yezhov, who reported them to Stalin. Thus, any refusal of the local party leader to authorize the arrests would certainly have been noticed by Stalin. Describing this mechanism of the great purge, Khrushchev rightly remarked: “What kind of control is there when the party organs themselves fell under the control of those whom they should control ... The Cheka rose above the party.” Returning to the characterization of the relationship between the party bodies and the NKVD bodies, he wrote: “Actually speaking, we did not lead them, but they imposed their will on us, although outwardly all subordination was observed. In fact, with their materials, documents and actions, they directed us there and in the way they wanted. We, according to established practice, were obliged to trust their documents in everything, which were submitted to the party bodies.

It is clear that in his memoirs Khrushchev dwelled in detail on those cases when he managed to prevent the arrest of individuals. So, he saved the poet Maxim Rylsky from arrest, telling another people's commissar of internal affairs that the song he wrote about Stalin "is sung by all of Ukraine." Khrushchev also mentioned such cases when, of his own free will, he dared to go to the NKVD to talk with those arrested, whose guilt he doubted, or when he informed Malenkov of his distrust of certain testimonies.

Khrushchev's memoirs vividly describe the repressive campaign caused by the mass loss of horses in the border regions of Ukraine. To investigate the causes of the death of horses, several commissions were created, whose members were arrested already at the beginning of their work as participants in a wrecking conspiracy. Trying to delve into this story, Khrushchev found out: professors and veterinarians are accused of preparing and adding some kind of poisonous potion to the horses' feed. After that, he asked Uspensky to get the chemical formula of this poison from the arrested. According to this recipe, food was prepared for horses, from which they did not get sick. Following this, Khrushchev tried to personally interrogate the arrested. They told him that they really poisoned the horses with a poisonous feed additive obtained from Germany. Thus, the arrested did everything to "confirm their testimony and prove the correctness of their tormentors-Chekists". The loss of horses, meanwhile, continued. Then Khrushchev created two new commissions working in parallel, plus one more - from Moscow scientists. These commissions discovered the real cause of the death of horses, which was the contamination of stale feed, which was given to horses, with a microscopic fungus that settled on straw. After strict instructions were drawn up on the preparation of feed, the mortality stopped. This story of Khrushchev is confirmed by the message of Academician Sarkisov, who has survived to this day, who, together with Ukrainian scientists, discovered the toxicity of the fungus in the late 30s. However, by the time of this discovery, many chairmen of collective farms, agronomists, livestock specialists, and scientists had already been shot on charges of wrecking.

According to Khrushchev, even after these events, he did not allow the idea that false testimony was knocked out by the NKVD, since "these bodies were considered impeccable." Here Khrushchev was undoubtedly cunning. After all, he had many times met with people who talked about the tortures they endured. So, the former People's Commissar of Trade of Ukraine, Lukashov, after his release from prison, told Khrushchev how he was made disabled, demanding evidence that he was sent by Khrushchev abroad to establish contacts with foreign intelligence. When Khrushchev told Stalin about this, he said: “Yes, there are such perversions. And they collect materials for me too. Yezhov collects.

Khrushchev also told Stalin about how a young teacher who had just been released from prison came to see him, where he was tortured, extorting testimony that the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, Korotchenko, was an agent of the Romanian royal court. Hearing that Korotchenko was, according to the NKVD, connected with the Romanian king, Stalin “joked”: “Or with the queen? How old is this queen? Khrushchev replied in the same vein: “[„]The king is a minor there, but there is a queen mother. He must be related to the Queen Mother." This caused even more jokes.

This episode, like Zhdanov's anecdote mentioned above, vividly depicts the atmosphere that prevailed among the Stalinist camarilla. True, in this case, the result of the “exchange of jokes” was the execution of the investigators who cooked up the “Korotchenko case”.

Apparently, in this Khrushchev story, we are talking about the case of the Moldavian teacher Sadaluk, from whom they sought discrediting evidence not only against Korotchenko, but also against Khrushchev. Sadaluk's complaint was considered at a meeting of the Politburo in December 1938, as a result of which a decision was made: "Organize an open trial, shoot the guilty and publish [about this] in the press (central and local)"

Roy Medvedev

Stalin's inner circle

FOREWORD

This book contains seven short biographies, seven political portraits of people who were part of different time to Stalin's inner circle: Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Voroshilov, Malenkov, Suslov and Kalinin.

It may be asked - why, out of the many people who at various times stood in close proximity to Stalin and possessed great power, did I choose the above seven names? Why don't I draw portraits of R. K. Ordzhonikidze, S. M. Kirov, A. S. Yenukidze and others who, with all their shortcomings, made up the best part of Stalin's inner circle in the late 1920s and the first half of the 30s? Why, on the other hand, do I not cite in my book of political biographies such people as N. I. Yezhov, L. P. Beria, R. G. Yagoda, A. N. Poskrebyshev, L. Z. Mekhlis, A. Ya. Vyshinsky and others, who made up the worst part of Stalin's assistants and close associates?

My answer is simple. All the people listed above, whose portraits are missing in our essay, perished or died during Stalin's lifetime or survived him for a short time. I wanted to trace the political and personal fate of those who joined the party and began their political career during the life of Lenin, successfully continued it under Stalin, but survived the terrible Stalinist era and were an active political figure in the time of Khrushchev. Some of these people still lived during Brezhnev's time, and some of them even outlived Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. All of them played an important role in our history. Two at different times headed the Soviet government (Molotov and Malenkov). Two at different times headed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (Voroshilov and Mikoyan). Three of them occupied at different times the second place in the party hierarchy (Kaganovich, Malenkov and Suslov). All of them sat for decades in the Politburo, in the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and their decisions directly or indirectly affected the fate of millions of people. But history was also reflected in their own destiny, various epochs experienced by our country were reflected. Stalin relied on such people, they were necessary for him to establish a totalitarian dictatorship, but they also needed him in order to maintain their share of influence and power. This makes them typical representatives of the Stalinist system.

None of the people depicted in this book can be called, in essence, an outstanding political figure, although they have played important roles on the stage of the historical stage. But they weren't directors or scriptwriters. Molotov was not a diplomat - I wanted to say: a real diplomat - although he held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs for many years. Voroshilov was not a real commander, although he commanded armies, fronts and even groups of fronts. Suslov was not a true theorist or ideologue of Marxism, although he held the position of "chief ideologist" of the party. Malenkov was highly experienced in bureaucratic intrigues, but inexperienced in real state activity. Kaganovich changed many of the highest positions, but never learned to write correctly - even a simple letter or note. Only Mikoyan can be put a little higher than others in terms of intelligence. However, he was only a semi-intellectual, who knew better than others the limit, beyond which meant death for him.

In addition, it was a very unfriendly team, they were all at enmity with each other. But Stalin did not want to have a friendly team around him. He valued something else than people from his inner circle possessed. Almost everyone we will talk about here was not only diligent and energetic workers themselves, but also knew how to get their subordinates to work, using mainly methods of intimidation and coercion. They often argued with each other, and Stalin encouraged these disputes, but only following the principle of "divide and rule." He allowed some "pluralism" in his environment and benefited from mutual disputes and enmity among the members of the Politburo, as this often enabled him to better formulate his own proposals and ideas. Therefore, at discussions in the Politburo or the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party, Stalin usually spoke last. His closest assistants learned only to agree with him and could carry out any, even the most criminal, order of the leader. The one who was not capable of crimes was not only removed from power, but also physically destroyed. It was a special selection, and the seven people we listed passed it more successfully than others. These people embarked on the path of degeneration at a time when revolutionary firmness was turning into cruelty and even sadism, political flexibility into unscrupulousness, enthusiasm into demagoguery.

All these people were corrupted by Stalin and the conditions of their era. But they were corrupted not only by the enormous power that they themselves possessed and from which they could no longer refuse, but also by the unlimited power of the leader, in whose submission they were and who could destroy each of them at any time. Not only ambition, vanity, but also fear led them from crime to crime. None of the people depicted in the book were born criminals or villains. However, the conditions in which they were placed by the Stalinist regime do not remove responsibility from these closest assistants of Stalin.

The selection of people to run the country did not depend on one whim or whim of Stalin. These people tried to distinguish themselves in front of him and provide the "goods" that he needed so much. But it was a special "sport" or competition, because these people had to walk over the corpses of other people - and not only the real enemies of the party and the revolution, but also those whom they falsely presented as enemies.

In many ways, people from Stalin's entourage were similar. But in many ways they were different. Some of them could carry out any, the most unfair and inhuman order, realizing its cruelty and "not feeling pleasure from it." Others gradually became involved in crime and turned into sadists who received satisfaction from their monstrous orgies and bullying people. Still others turned into fanatics and dogmatists, forcing themselves to sincerely believe that everything they do is necessary for the party, the revolution, or even for a "happy future." But whatever the types, forms and motives of the behavior of people from Stalin's entourage, in any case, we are talking here about those whom neither our country, nor the Communist Party, nor mankind can be proud of.

Yet their fate is instructive, and therefore of no small interest to the historian, who cannot choose his characters merely out of sympathy or antipathy. In addition, some lessons must be drawn from history, the main of which, of course, is that such democratic mechanisms must finally be created in the Soviet Union, under which people like Stalin and most of the figures from his entourage will never again could be in power.

Compiling a biography of even the most famous political figures in our country is not an easy task, because the most important aspects of their activities are kept in deep secrecy. They wanted fame and glory, they encouraged their "small" cult of personality, but did not want the public to know the real facts of their political biography and personal life. They made politics in offices behind many doors, they rested behind the high fences of state mansions, they tried to leave as few documents as possible, according to which it would be easier for a historian to reconstruct the past. Therefore, I apologize in advance to readers for possible inaccuracies and thank you in advance for any comments and additions. I am especially grateful to those who helped me in the earliest stages of this work, for which I had to collect materials for many years.

The first edition of this book was published in 1983 in England, then it was translated into

Stalin's "cult of personality" in these years reached its apogee. The celebration in December 1949 of the 70th anniversary of Stalin crossed all conceivable boundaries. For weeks, the newspapers listed thousands of gifts sent to Stalin from all over the world. Thousands of messages filled with the deepest worship and admiration flocked to the Kremlin. But despite the fact that the post-war years seemed to be the height of the greatness and glory of Stalin, who was now also called the "creator of Great Victory”,“ the greatest commander ”, etc., he himself did not feel very confident in the last years of his life. First of all, he began to fear his own army, the sharply increased popularity and independence of military leaders. Most of all, he was afraid of Zhukov, realizing that this tough (sometimes cruel) and strong-willed person is capable of going ahead in a critical situation and carrying out a military coup. Therefore, since the beginning of 1946, Zhukov's name has disappeared from all books, articles, films and newspapers. Zhukov himself is transferred to command first the secondary Odessa, and then altogether - the rear Ural district.

In the postwar years, two contradictory trends intertwined in Soviet society: the formal democratization of the political system and the actual strengthening of the repressive role of the state (“Zhdanovshchina”). Democratization manifested itself in the fact that back in September 1945, the state of emergency was terminated and the GKO (extra-constitutional authority) was abolished. In 1946-1948. re-elections of Soviets at all levels were held and the deputy corps, formed back in 1937-1939, was renewed. In March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (formerly the All-Russian Central Executive Committee) released M.I. Kalinin from his duties as Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces (due to illness), N.M. was elected to this post. Shvernik.

On March 15, 1946, the session adopted a law on the transformation of the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of Ministers, which corresponded to the names generally accepted in world state practice. The Supreme Soviet formed the government of the USSR - the Council of Ministers (Council of Ministers), whose chairman was approved by Stalin. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers, which included 8 of Stalin's closest associates (Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov, head of the Special (Atomic) Committee Lavrenty P. Beria, Minister of Agriculture A.A. Andreev, Minister of Foreign Trade Anastas I. Mikoyan, chairman Gosplan N.A. Voznensensky, curator of the light and food industry Alexei N. Kosygin, curator of cultural and religious issues Kliment E. Voroshilov, Minister of Industry and Building Materials Lazar M. Kaganovich).

Within the party leadership, immediately after the war, a struggle for influence began. The first dispute took place between Malenkov and Zhdanov, who after the end of the war were considered potential successors to Stalin. Thanks to his indisputable organizational skills, Malenkov received very responsible posts during the war. A member of the GKO, in 1943 Malenkov was placed at the head of the Committee for the Restoration of the Liberated Regions. In 1944, he headed the Committee for the Dismantling of German Industry, which was engaged in obtaining reparations from Germany in favor of the USSR. While Malenkov was rising higher and higher in the sphere of public administration, Zhdanov was no less successful in the structure of the party apparatus. Since 1934, secretary of the Central Committee and Kirov's successor as first secretary of the Leningrad party organization, he played a prominent role in the "purges" of 1936-1938. The dispute between Malenkov, supported by Beria, Kaganovich and the leaders of heavy industry on the one hand, and Zhdanov, on the side of which were the chairman of the Gospalan Voznesensky, Doronin, Rodionov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR), Kuznetsov and some military leaders, on the other hand, developed around a purely private issue: Zhdanov and Voznesensky attacked Malenkov in connection with his policy of exporting German industry, which, in their opinion, led to the squandering of funds. Stalin supported Zhdanov's group and removed Malenkov from his post. For two years, Zhdanov and his assistant M. Suslov enjoyed Stalin's confidence, leading the ideological suppression of the intelligentsia. In the summer of 1948, after a two-year disgrace, Malenkov was returned by Stalin to the Secretariat of the Central Committee. On August 31, 1948, Zhdanov died suddenly, leaving his supporters defenseless against Malenkov. He, in turn, in cooperation with Beria, the head of the MGB Abakumov, and with the blessing of Stalin, began another purge, this time directed against Voznesensky, employees of the State Planning Committee and the party apparatus of Leningrad (Stalin always treated this city with distrust). Voznesensky was removed and in 1950 shot without trial. In total, the "Leningrad case" cost the lives of several hundred political workers, most of whom owed their careers to Zhdanov. All these people were accused of trying to "destroy the socialist economy by the methods of international capitalism" and of "conspiracy with Tito's supporters aimed at overthrowing the Soviet regime." Although Malenkov now looked like a successor appointed by Stalin himself, the latter at the same time promoted Khrushchev, who in 1949 received the posts of secretary of the Moscow regional party committee and secretary of the Central Committee.

In October 1952, the 19th Party Congress was held, the last one attended by Stalin. The CPSU (b) was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Politburo was replaced by a much more cumbersome Presidium, which consisted of 36 people. The number of the Secretariat of the Central Committee was also increased from 5 to 10 members, the Central Committee also doubled (now it included 232 people). Obviously, by inflating the staff of the governing bodies, Stalin tried to reduce the influence of his "old colleagues", diluting them with "newcomers", younger and less experienced, who were much easier to manage.

Roy Medvedev

STALIN'S ENVIRONMENT

FOREWORD

My work on a book about Stalin's entourage began back in the late 1970s, and the first essays about individuals from Stalin's entourage were published in various newspapers and magazines in Western countries in 1980-1983. The first English edition of the book ("All Stalin's Men") was published in 1984, after which translations from both English and Russian editions were published in many countries, including Japan, China, Poland and Hungary. A significantly enlarged Soviet edition of this book, titled "They Surrounded Stalin," was published in 1989. These were the years of perestroika and glasnost, and in the next two years the author tried to write a separate short book about each of the six main characters in the book. I was only able to complete part of this task. The Kiev magazine Vitchizna (No. 5 and No. 6, 1991) and the Voronezh magazine Podyem (No. 8 and No. 9, 1991) published the book Lazar Kaganovich. The publishing house "Respublika" published in 1992 the book "The Gray Cardinal" about M. Suslov. In 1992, I also wrote the essay "All-Union Starosta" - about Mikhail Kalinin. In this edition, I have combined all these works under one cover. For the period from 1992 to 2005 in Russian Federation many works about Stalin's entourage were published. Several volumes of Stalin's correspondence with Molotov, Kaganovich and Kalinin have been published in Russia and the USA. The memoirs of A. I. Mikoyan - “So it was”, as well as recordings of conversations with Molotov and Kaganovich, were published. The son of G. Malenkov wrote a book about his father. Molotov's grandson V. Nikonov published a detailed biography of his grandfather in two volumes. Most of this work is, however, of academic interest. People from Stalin's entourage were not outstanding personalities or great politicians, and for the general public, for whom the ZhZL series is intended, there is no need to know all the details of the life and work of these people. Therefore, I did not expand the texts written earlier, but limited myself to correcting some inaccuracies. In Russia, in the last 15 years, a new generation of readers has appeared, for whom, I hope, my book will be interesting.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues Alexey Alexandrovich Vasilevsky, Dmitry Arturovich Ermakov and Petr Vadimovich Khmelinsky for creative assistance in preparing the materials for the book.

October 2005

ABOUT ONE MOSCOW LONG-LIFE

(V. M. Molotov)

"I STILL HAVE THE WATCH"

One of my friends, hurrying to work, forgot her watch at home. Walking along Granovsky Street, she saw an old man of small stature standing on the sidewalk. "Tell me, please, what time is it?" the woman asked. “Thank God, I still have a watch,” said the old man and named the time. When he raised his face, the woman, the daughter of one of the old Bolsheviks who was shot in 1937, was surprised to recognize in the old man Molotov, the man who headed the Soviet government in the 30s and whose name was still in the late 40s when listing members of the Politburo of the Central Committee The CPSU(b) invariably stood in second place after Stalin.

However, many young people with whom I have spoken lately do not even know Molotov's name. This does not seem strange to me, although it once surprised such a thoughtful American journalist as Hedrick Smith.

“Western people forget,” he writes in his book The Russians, “that from their distance they sometimes know more about certain historical events in the Soviet Union than Russian youth. For me, the most obvious example of this phenomenon is one episode that happened to Arkady Raikin, the famous Soviet stage actor. One winter, he suffered a heart attack and was admitted to the hospital, where the actor was visited by his 18-year-old grandson. Suddenly, Raikin jumped up on his bed, amazed that Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's closest surviving comrade-in-arms, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, passed by the ward.

It is he! Raikin gasped.

Who? - asked the grandson; the face of the man walking down the corridor was unfamiliar to him...

Molotov,” Raikin muttered.

And who is this, Molotov? the young man asked with stunning ignorance. Such historical deafness, as one middle-aged scholar said, led to the development of a generation of young people who knew neither villains nor heroes and worshiped only the stars of Western rock music.

Of course, people of the older generation remember Molotov well. However, they, in fact, knew nothing about the fate of the ex-premier in the last 20 years, and even about whether he was alive. Therefore, at the end of 1986, they read with great surprise a short notice from the Council of Ministers of the USSR about the death at the age of 97 of V. M. Molotov, who was chairman of the Council of People's Commissars from 1930 to 1941. This sounded to many both as a death notice and as the rise of Molotov's name from political oblivion.

Molotov joined the Bolshevik Party in 1906, and he was probably in the last year of his life the oldest member of the party. Until the end of the 1970s, the oldest party member in our country was Faro Rizel Knunyants, who joined the Social Democrats in 1903. However, she died at the end of 1980 at the age of 97. In 1983, Timofei Ivanovich Ivanov, a member of the CPSU since 1904, died at the age of 99. In the summer of 1985, Anna Nikolaevna Bychkova, who had joined the party in June 1906, also died at the age of 99. Now Molotov is dead too...

But if Molotov was little the oldest member of the party, then he undoubtedly was long time the only surviving member of the Central Committee of the party of the early 20s. Only a few of them died of natural causes, most were shot or died in prisons and camps. And Molotov put a lot of effort into the destruction of all these people.

CAREER UNDER LENIN

The real name of Molotov is Scriabin. When he first began to publish in the Bolshevik newspapers, his short notes and articles appeared under various pseudonyms. Only in 1919, on a pamphlet on the participation of workers in economic construction, the author put the pseudonym "Molotov", which soon became his permanent surname.

For some reason, many believed that Molotov came from a noble family. This is not true. He was born on March 9, 1890 in the Kukarka settlement of the Vyatka province and was the third son of the tradesman Mikhail Scriabin from the city of Nolinsk. Molotov's father was a wealthy man and gave his sons a good education. Vyacheslav graduated from a real school in Kazan and even received a musical education. A revolution was taking place in Russia, and the majority of Kazan youth was very radical. Molotov joined one of the circles of self-education, where they studied Marxist literature. Here he became friends with Viktor Tikhomirnov, the son of a wealthy merchant and heir to a large fortune, who nonetheless joined the Bolshevik group in Kazan as early as 1905. Under the influence of Tikhomirnov, Molotov also entered this group in 1906. In 1909 Molotov was arrested and exiled to Vologda. At the end of his exile, he came to St. Petersburg and entered the Polytechnic Institute. In 1912, the first legal Bolshevik newspaper Pravda began to appear in the capital. One of its organizers was Tikhomirnov, who donated a large sum of money for the needs of the newspaper. Tikhomirnov also attracted Molotov to work in the newspaper, who published several articles here. Later, already in the 30s, Molotov patronized his friend's daughter, the ballerina I. Tikhomirnova, who danced at the Bolshoi Theater in every possible way.

Due to the arrests and emigration of many party leaders, not only the St. Petersburg, but the entire Russian organization of the Bolsheviks found itself without leaders at the beginning of the war. Only in the autumn of 1915, under the leadership of A. Shlyapnikov, the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee was re-established in Petrograd. A year later, 26-year-old Molotov also joined it. Naturally, in the first days of the February Revolution, he turned out to be a prominent figure. In March 1917, he was a member of the editorial board of Pravda and the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

But after returning from exile and emigration, the leaders of the party, Molotov resigned to secondary roles. He possessed neither oratorical talent, nor strong will, nor revolutionary energy. Therefore, he could not distinguish himself in any way either in the turbulent months of the 1917 revolution, or in the years that followed it. civil war. But Molotov showed himself to be a diligent, assiduous and diligent man. In addition, he had almost completed technical education. In 1918 Molotov headed the Council National economy Northern region, which then included 7 provinces former Russia and the Karelian Labor Commune. In 1919, he led the restoration of the economy and Soviet organizations in the Volga region. In the summer of 1919, during a joint trip on the Krasnaya Zvezda propaganda ship, Molotov met N. K. Krupskaya. Acquaintance with Lenin happened even earlier, in April 1917.

Soon Molotov began to have sharp conflicts with local workers. This led to him being recalled from the Volga region and sent to Ukraine, where he worked for only a few months. During this period, the central apparatus of the RCP(b) increased significantly, which was natural in a one-party system. In addition, in March 1919, Ya. M. Sverdlov died, who until then had almost single-handedly and promptly led the party apparatus. It was decided to create a secretariat of the Central Committee on a collegiate basis, and in 1920 the plenum of the Central Committee elected N. N. Krestinsky, E. A. Preobrazhensky and L. P. Serebryakov as secretaries of the Central Committee. All of them were supporters of Trotsky, and after the "trade union discussion" Lenin decided ...

State educational institution of higher professional education

SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF SERVICE AND ECONOMICS

SIUSP Institute

Department of History and Political Science

ESSAY

DISCIPLINE: National history

TOPIC: Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and his entourage

Specialty: Social work.

Work completed:

1st year student 30505, D/O

Zhuchkova N.V.

St. Petersburg

1. Introduction

2. Biography of Dzhugashvili - Koba - Stalin

3. Official certificate for a member of the Central Committee

4. Joseph as a child and his first education. Gori Theological School

6. Georgian social democratic organization "Mesame-dasi" in 1898.

7. I.V. Stalin heads the work of the Caucasian Union Committee of the RSDLP

8. In 1917-1922, the People's Commissar for Nationalities

9. The new Secretariat of the Central Committee, formed after the XI Party Congress. Lenin Guard

10. Stalinist terror with henchmen

11. Red Army. The Great Patriotic War

12. Historical background

13. Opening a second front in Europe

14. Tehran - 43

15. Victory

18. Strengthening totalitarianism

19. Struggle for power surrounded by Stalin

20. Stalin and the creation of the atomic bomb

21. Death of Stalin.

22. Historical reference. General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party 1922 - 1953

23. List of sources used

Introduction

The largest historical personality of the past century, Joseph Vissarionovich STALIN, whose life and state activity left the deepest mark not only in the fate of the people of the USSR, but also of all mankind, will be the subject of careful study of historians for more than one century. The biography of Dzhugashvili - Koba - Stalin, a political centenarian of the 20th century, contains an uncountable number of contradictory characteristics: where he is cruel, but also his own father; the leader of the communist party, authoritarian and merciless, the leader of the great communist country.

No one can give a better description than his contemporaries. His personality spoke for itself.

Stalinist Russia is not the former Russia that perished along with the monarchy. But the Stalinist state without successors worthy of Stalin is doomed...

Stalin spoke there (in Tehran. - Ed.) as a person who has the right to demand an account. Without revealing Russian plans to the other two participants in the conference, he managed to get them to present their plans to him and amend them according to his requirements. Roosevelt joined him in rejecting Churchill's idea of ​​a broad offensive by Western military forces through Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece towards Vienna, Prague and Budapest. On the other hand, the Americans, in agreement with the Soviets, rejected, despite the insistence of the British, the proposal to consider at the conference the political questions concerning Central Europe, and in particular the question of Poland, where the Russian armies were about to enter.

Beneš informed me about his talks in Moscow. He portrayed Stalin as a man restrained in his speeches, but firm in his intentions, having his own thought, hidden but quite definite, in relation to each of the European problems.

Wendell Willkie made it clear that Churchill and Harriman returned from their trip to Moscow dissatisfied. They found themselves in front of the mysterious Stalin, his mask remained impenetrable for them. ". (De Gaulle Charles. Military memoirs. Book II. M., 1960, p. 235-236, 239, 430).

Charles de Gaulle (France).

"Bold, but cautious, easily angered and suspicious, but patient and persistent in achieving his goals. Able to act with great determination or expectantly and secretly - depending on the circumstances, outwardly modest and simple, but jealous of the prestige and dignity of the state ... Principled and mercilessly realistic, resolute in his demands for loyalty, respect and obedience Sharply and unsentimentally studying people - Stalin could be, like a real Georgian hero, big and good friend or implacable, dangerous enemy. It was difficult for him to be somewhere in the middle between the one and the other.” (Dialogue, 1996, No. 10, p. 74).

George Cannon (USA).

"Stalin saved Russia, showed what it means to the world. Therefore, as an Orthodox Christian and Russian patriot, I bow low to Stalin."

Archbishop Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky).

"I had to get to know I.V. Stalin closely after 1940, when I worked as Chief of the General Staff, and during the war - as Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief. I.V. Stalin's appearance has been written more than once. I. V. Stalin made a strong impression. Deprived of posturing, he bribed his interlocutor with the simplicity of communication. Free manner of conversation, the ability to clearly formulate thoughts, a natural analytical mind, great erudition and a rare memory, even very sophisticated and significant people were forced during a conversation with I. V. (...) He knew the Russian language perfectly and liked to use figurative literary comparisons, examples, metaphors. (...) He wrote, as a rule, by hand. He read a lot and was a widely knowledgeable person in his amazing capacity for work, his ability to grasp material quickly, enabled him to look through and assimilate in a day so many different facts logical material, which was only possible for an outstanding person. It is difficult to say what character trait prevailed in him. A versatile and talented person, he was not even. He had a strong will, a secretive and impulsive character. Usually calm and sensible, he sometimes got irritated. Then objectivity betrayed him, he literally changed before his eyes, turned even more pale, his eyes became heavy and hard. I did not know many daredevils who could withstand Stalin's wrath and parry the blow. (...) I worked a lot, 12-15 hours a day.

As a military figure, I. V. Stalin, I studied thoroughly, since I went through the whole war with him. J. V. Stalin mastered the issues of organizing front-line operations and operations of groups of fronts and led them with complete knowledge of the matter, well versed in big strategic issues ... In leading the armed struggle as a whole, J. V. Stalin was helped by his natural mind, rich intuition . He knew how to find the main link in a strategic situation and, seizing on it, to counteract the enemy, to conduct one or another major offensive operation. Undoubtedly, he was a worthy Supreme Commander." (Zh at about in G. K. Memoirs and reflections. M., 1969, p. 295-297).

Marshal G.K. Zhukov.

“It was a great happiness for Russia that in the years of the most difficult trials the country was headed by the genius and unshakable commander Stalin. He was the most outstanding personality, impressing our changeable and cruel time of that period in which his whole life passed.

Stalin was a man of extraordinary energy and unbending willpower, sharp, cruel, merciless in conversation, to whom even I, brought up here in the British Parliament, could not oppose anything. Stalin above all had a great sense of humor and sarcasm and the ability to accurately perceive thoughts. This force was so great in Stalin that he seemed unique among the leaders of states of all times and peoples.

Stalin made the greatest impression on us. He possessed deep, devoid of any panic, logically meaningful wisdom. He was an invincible master of finding ways out of the most hopeless situation in difficult moments. In addition, Stalin, at the most critical moments, as well as in moments of triumph, was equally restrained and never succumbed to illusions. He was an unusually complex person. He created and subjugated a huge empire. This was a man who destroyed his enemy with his own enemy. Stalin was the greatest, unparalleled dictator in the world, who took over Russia with a plow and left her with atomic weapons. Well, history, people do not forget such people ". (W.Cherchill. Speech in the House of Commons on December 21, 1959).

Winston Churchill (Great Britain).

“Stalin,” wrote Trotsky, “after the death of Lenin is the main instrument of this coup. He is gifted with practical sense, endurance and perseverance in pursuing his goals. His political horizons are extremely narrow. Theoretical level completely primitive. His compilation book The Foundations of Leninism, in which he tried to pay tribute to the theoretical traditions of the party, is teeming with student errors. Unfamiliarity with foreign languages ​​forces him to follow the political life of other countries only from hearsay. In terms of mind, this is a stubborn empiricist, devoid of creative imagination. To the upper stratum of the Party (he was not known at all in wider circles), he always seemed to be a man created for second and third roles. And the fact that he is now playing the first role does not characterize him, but rather the transitional period of political slippage. (Leo Trotsky. In memoirs, events covering the period up to 1929. "My Life"). Lev Davidovich Trotsky.

2. Biography of Dzhugashvili - Koby - Stalin

Stalin (real name - Dzhugashvili) Joseph Vissarionovich, (born December 21, 1879, Gori, now the Georgian SSR, - died March 5, 1953, Moscow). One of the leading figures of the Communist Party, the Soviet state, the international communist and workers' movement, a prominent theorist and propagandist of Marxism-Leninism. Born in the family of a handicraft shoemaker. In 1894 he graduated from the Gori Theological School and entered the Tbilisi Orthodox Seminary. Under the influence of Russian Marxists who lived in Transcaucasia, he joined the revolutionary movement; in an illegal circle he studied the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov. Since 1898 member of the Central Committee. While in the social democratic group "Mesame-dasi", he promoted Marxist ideas among the workers of the Tbilisi railway workshops. In 1899 expelled from the seminary for revolutionary activities, went underground, became a professional revolutionary. He was a member of the Tbilisi, Caucasian Union and Baku committees of the RSDLP, participated in the publication of the newspapers Brdzola (Struggle), Proletariatis Brdzola (Struggle of the proletariat), Baku Proletarian, Gudok, Baku Worker. He was an active participant in the Revolution of 1905-1907. in the Caucasus. Since the creation of the RSDLP, he supported Lenin's ideas of strengthening the revolutionary Marxist party, defended the Bolshevik strategy and tactics of the proletariat's class struggle, was a staunch supporter of Bolshevism, and exposed the opportunistic line of the Mensheviks and anarchists in the revolution. Delegate of the 1st Conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors (1905), the 4th (1906) and 5th (1907) Congresses of the RSDLP. During the period of underground revolutionary activity, he was repeatedly arrested and exiled. In January 1912 at a meeting of the Central Committee, elected by the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, co-opted in absentia to the Central Committee and introduced to the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. In 1912-1913, while working in St. Petersburg, he actively collaborated in the newspapers Zvezda and Pravda. Member of the Krakow (1912) meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers. At this time, Stalin wrote the work "Marxism and the National Question", in which he highlighted Lenin's principles for resolving the national question, and criticized the opportunist program of "cultural-national autonomy." The work was positively evaluated by V.I. Lenin. In February 1913 Stalin was again arrested and exiled to the Turukhansk region. After the overthrow of the autocracy, Stalin on March 12 (25), 1917. returned to Petrograd, was introduced to the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and to the editorial board of Pravda, took an active part in expanding the work of the party in the new conditions. Stalin supported Lenin's course towards the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. At the 7th (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) he was elected a member of the Central Committee (since that time he has been elected a member of the Central Committee of the party at all congresses up to the 19th inclusive). At the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b), on behalf of the Central Committee, he delivered a political report of the Central Committee and a report on the political situation. As a member of the Central Committee, Stalin actively participated in the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution: he was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, the Military Revolutionary Center - the party body for leading the armed uprising, in the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26 (November 8), 1917. elected to the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for Nationalities (1917-1922); At the same time in 1919-1922. headed the People's Commissariat of State Control, reorganized in 1920. . People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (RKI). During the Civil War and foreign military intervention 1918-1920. Stalin carried out a number of responsible assignments of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Soviet government: he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, one of the organizers of the defense of Petrograd, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern, Western, Southwestern fronts, a representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense. Stalin showed himself to be a major military-political worker of the party. Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 27, 1919. awarded the Order of the Red Banner.