Beria without lies. Who should repent? Tsquitaria Zaza
"Leningrad affair"
"Leningrad affair"
True, “The Case of the Aviators” will be “older”, but I think it would be more acceptable to start with the “Leningrad Case”, which clearly shows what was political situation in the country and around Stalin.
After Zhdanov was identified as a potential successor, the so-called “Leningrad group” came to the fore. It was this group that emerged as a dangerous competitor to the “old guard”: Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Beria and Khrushchev. As soon as the latter retreated into the shadows, the “Leningrad group” moved too close to Stalin. Stalin was not so naive and he himself implemented the policy of his teacher Lenin, not letting any group get close. Both had to balance each other out.
Unlike Lenin, who used the hostile relationship between Stalin and Trotsky in order to strengthen his own power, the scale of Stalin's political games was much wider. As counterweights in the game, he used three effective forces: the “old guard”, the “Leningraders” and the Minister of State Security, who miscalculated Stalin’s personality and overestimated his own capabilities.
Everyone was led by the skilled puppeteer Stalin. As we could ascertain, he quickly replaced the “old guards” in their place, but creating a new obedient core was not so easy. The death of Zhdanov especially mixed up all the cards. The new political group represented by the “Leningraders” turned out to be not so obedient, and things got to the point that they even intended to pursue a policy independent of Stalin.
When considering the "Leningrad Affair", the main emphasis is on Stalin's actions, but does not pay special attention actions of the accused. They evaluate this case from a legal point of view, but forget about its political background.
From a historical perspective, the question is again posed incorrectly and sounds like this: were the “Leningraders” guilty of the charges brought against them? It would be more correct to pose this question as follows: did they pose a danger to Stalin?
We will not consider the legal aspect of this problem and look at it only from a political point of view. How did this business start?
The opinion was firmly established that Stalin had deliberately fabricated this case, but, having no evidence of the guilt of the future accused, he recognized the fact of holding the All-Russian Wholesale Fair on January 10–20, 1949 as criminal.
IN in this case the purpose for which the fair was held and the manner in which it was conducted is ignored. Myself this fact presented as a harmless act. Well, so what if they held the All-Russian Fair, you never know who held it, they weren’t putting together an army, after all. But if you take a closer look, you can easily guess that holding a fair was not such a harmless act.
In fact, fairs were often held in the Union, and there was nothing reprehensible about it. The goal was to sell stale goods. The very fact of its implementation could not arouse Stalin’s anger, but the problem lies in the way it was carried out. Firstly, this was an initiative of the Leningrad party apparatus personally, but the Kremlin was informed after the fact.
The fair was held in complete secrecy without any advertising. The Council of Ministers gave permission only to hold a district-wide fair, but the initiators held an all-Russian fair without the consent of the management. At the same time, it is not without interest that the fair had never been held in Leningrad before due to the inconvenience of it. geographical location. At the same time, given the difficult post-war times, it was difficult to believe that there were so many stale goods in Leningrad that it would be worth holding a fair on such a scale to sell them.
Another suspicious circumstance is that only leading party leaders from large districts and districts of the RSFSR were invited to the fair. It was impossible for this “harmless” action not to arouse suspicion. It is difficult to say what was the real reason for convening the fair, however, all of the above questions and such a “starfall” of party functionaries gave rise to the suspicion that the pseudo-fair was in fact a secret meeting, the purpose of which was to create a new Russian communist party, which would exist separately from the CPSU.
This yet another “harmless” act was actually too dangerous. Perhaps the demand itself was even fair, since all the republics of the USSR had their own Communist Party, and only Russia was directly subordinate to the CPSU, without middle management.
In fact, everything was much more complicated, both the fair and the Communist Party of the RSFSR were just tinsel. Stalin should have perceived this step as a confrontation and recognized that the “Leningraders” were not as pliable as he would like. From this side, Stalin felt the danger of weakening, and perhaps even loss of power. This danger was not at all far-fetched, and if he had not taken preventive measures, the “Leningraders” would not have stopped at convening the fair. What could happen next is anyone's guess.
In February 1949, Stalin made his move. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the anti-party actions of a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade A.A. Kuznetsov.” and candidates for membership in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) vol. Rodionova M.I. and Popkova P.S.” All three were relieved of their positions. The same fate befell the Chairman of the State Planning Committee N. Voznesensky. Both Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were considered Stalin's favorites after Zhdanov's death.
The most effective force was used against the group. Along with the old guard in the person of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Shkiryatov, Abakumov also joined the fight, which once again indicates that the MGB stood above the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The investigation very quickly “identified” the criminals, and the case ended as expected. All the “conspirators” were found guilty, some of them were shot, some were arrested.
It is necessary to pay attention to one interesting detail related to this case - the course of the process was not covered in the press, which is quite atypical for Stalinist repressions, and most likely this fact indicates that the purpose of the process was not at all to intimidate the masses with new repressions. Here we are dealing with a purely political struggle.
The time has come to dwell on Beria’s role in this case: where can his trace be found? What is his role in the fabrication of the case?
Everyone who is looking for an answer to this question has one answer: there is no direct evidence of Beria’s guilt in this case, but...
If we continue the thought, the phrase can be completed as follows: who if not Beria? Why look for a scapegoat when we have at hand a sadist and executioner on whom we can blame any crime, and no one will look for an answer whether this is true or not?
Even the tireless dreamer Antonov-Ovseyenko does not have his own version of Beria’s role in this matter and tries to limit himself to general phrases, or at least refers to the “indisputable” authority of Khrushchev.
When he touches on the fact of Zhdanov’s death, he makes the following semi-conclusion: “We will not be surprised if someday it becomes known that Beria had a hand in this act.” Even Vyshinsky would be jealous of such evidence.
In general, regarding the Leningrad case, the “historian” refers to Khrushchev, who, 8 years after the trial, uttered the following wisdom: “ The promotion of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov alarmed Beria... -... it was Beria who suggested to Stalin that he, Beria, and his accomplices would fabricate materials against them in the form of statements and anonymous letters.”
At this point, Antonov-Ovseenko’s fantasy on the issue of Beria’s participation in the “exposure” of the “Leningraders” dried up. He himself did not really think about how true the words of the great corn leader were, and he did not ask him who these accomplices were, ready for the dirty deed. Is it really Kurchatov or Khariton, since Beria was in charge at that time? nuclear project, and he only had contacts with the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Ministry of State Security on issues related to new weapons. Antonov-Ovseenko himself admits that after Zhdanov became the second person in the country, there was a purge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security, in which Beria did not take part.
Although, most likely, we demand too much from such an “authority” in history, such as the son of an innocently convicted famous revolutionary. Thinking and making logical conclusions is not for him. Its genre is historical fiction.
A more serious biographer of Beria, Nikolai Rubin, advises us to take a difficult path to solve this problem. It proceeds precisely from the principle that we spoke about above: who benefits? True, this principle gives us only a one-sided answer, but since everyone considers it a full-fledged proof, it would be useful to consider this question exactly from this angle.
Here is how Rubin assesses the “Leningrad Affair” and Beria’s role in its falsification: “ Of course, there was nothing anti-Party at the Leningrad Fair...”
Firstly, it is difficult to agree even on this issue. Perhaps there was nothing criminal about the fair, but it was definitely anti-party for the reasons listed above. The continuation of the text is much more difficult to understand: “ Here one can see the hand of an experienced intriguer, who could be Beria or Malenkov. Maybe someone else, but it's less likely."
Such a conclusion does not really decorate the biographer. It turns out that Beria is under suspicion only because he is an experienced intriguer, although in order to recognize a person as an intriguer, and also an experienced one, on the contrary, you need to give a specific example (better examples), on the basis of which it would not be shameful to draw such a conclusion. N. Rubin himself depreciates such a complex syllogism with the following words:
“It is possible that the idea of attacking the Leningraders belonged to the leader himself, who previously often changed the circle of his favorites.”
This is already too much. Rubin's list of suspects has grown too long, and anyone can be accused, but the conclusion itself is based only on speculation. In this case, Beria’s name did not even come up. Abakumov was in charge of the MGB part, and Malenkov was in charge of the party part. But since Malenkov’s name is associated with the name of Beria, the latter was hit by a ricochet bullet from a colleague. Although let's put this question aside for a moment.
Despite a superficial examination of this case, Rubin tries to establish who was interested in the result that followed the “Leningrad Affair”:
“This crime of the Stalinist regime finally made Beria, Malenkov and Khrushchev the people closest to the leader. Please note we're talking about about three people! But many researchers, according to the traditions of the myth about Beria, for some reason consider him the designer of the “Leningrad affair” and the main executioner.”
As we see, Rubin “justifies” Beria, but this justification is nothing more than a redistribution of blame among several people.
It is impossible to accept this thought because it is baseless. I don’t know about Malenkov and Khrushchev, but there can be no talk of raising Stalin’s trust to Beria on the pedestal. To do this, it is enough to remember another matter that will break out in a short period of time. This is the “Mingrelian affair,” which was directed specifically against Beria.
Moreover, Rubin's argument that three people benefited from this case was made very hastily. The whole old guard benefited from this case. The fact that Molotov, Mikoyan and Voroshilov were not in favor with the leader does not mean at all that the rise of the “Leningraders” did not bother them.
No, based on the results, we must admit that the entire “old guard” breathed a sigh of relief after eliminating dangerous competitors. In addition, Rubin forgets about another important figure - Abakumov. For some reason, the interests of this official do not seem serious to him. As already noted, Abakumov was a rather independent figure, and he also did not really like the way Zhdanov and the “Leningraders” ran his kitchen. After eliminating his annoying rivals, Abakumov had more chances to become Stalin's only favorite.
As you can see, the list of people who were satisfied with the result is too long, and using this principle it is very difficult to find the person who whispered to Stalin what to do.
Although, if you take a closer look, we still missed one person whose interest in the outcome of the case was much higher than the interest of all the “suspects” listed above. This person was Stalin himself. For some reason, everyone assumes that someone must have suggested this or that solution to the issue to Stalin. To claim that someone denounced the “Leningraders” to him and thus used him to achieve their goals means not knowing the leader at all and ignoring his political experience.
If we take into account that the actions of the “Leningrad group” were aimed not at rapprochement with Stalin (which competitors might have feared), but at actual confrontation with him, it becomes clear that their destruction was primarily suited to Stalin. Stalin himself controlled the actors involved in this performance, and the act he carried out in relation to the “Leningraders” was nothing more than a cooling of the presumptuous favorites. Beria did not play any role in this performance. Malenkov and Khrushchev were blind tools of Stalin, however, like Abakumov, who imagined God knows what about himself. So the words spoken by Malenkov at the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in 1957 in his justification: “ I was never an organizer of the Leningrad affair, this is easy to establish, and there are enough comrades here who can say that this was done on Stalin’s personal orders. That I led Stalin? So to speak, they will laugh,” were absolutely true.
The initiator of this case was none other than Stalin, but it is also impossible to say that his actions did not stem from the current situation.
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8 The struggle for power surrounded by Stalin. The Leningrad case, the doctors' case.
Stalin's "cult of personality" reached its apogee during these years. The celebration of Stalin's 70th birthday in December 1949 crossed all imaginable boundaries. For weeks, newspapers listed thousands of gifts sent to Stalin from all over the world. But despite the fact that the post-war years seemed to be the height of Stalin’s greatness and glory, he himself did not feel too 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 feared Zhukov, realizing that this tough (sometimes cruel) and strong-willed man was capable of going ahead in a critical situation and carrying out a military coup. Therefore, from the beginning of 1946, Zhukov’s name disappeared from all books, articles, films and newspapers. Zhukov himself is transferred to command first the secondary Odessa, and then the rear Ural district. In the post-war 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 was manifested in the fact that back in September 1945, the state of emergency was ended and the State Defense Committee (an extra-constitutional government body) 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 Council of the USSR (formerly the All-Russian Central Executive Committee) relieved M. I. Kalinin of his duties as Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council (due to illness), and N. M. Shvernik was elected to this post. On March 15, 1946, the session adopted a law transforming the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of Ministers, which corresponded to the names generally accepted in world government practice. The Supreme Council formed the government of the USSR - the Council of Ministers (Council of Ministers), whose chairman was Stalin. The center of government of the country became the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, which included 8 of Stalin’s closest associates (Minister of Foreign Affairs 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 State Planning Committee N. A. Voznensensky, curator of light and Food Industry Alexey N. Kosygin, curator of issues of culture and religion Kliment E. Voroshilov, Minister of Industry and Construction Materials Lazar M. Kaganovich).
A struggle for influence began within the party leadership immediately after the war. The first dispute occurred between Malenkov and Zhdanov, who were considered potential successors to Stalin after the end of the war. Thanks to his undeniable organizational abilities, Malenkov received very responsible posts during the war. A member of the State Defense Committee, in 1943 Malenkov was appointed head of the Committee for the Restoration of Liberated Areas. 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 rose higher and higher in the sphere of public administration, Zhdanov advanced no less successfully in the structure of the party apparatus. Having been secretary of the Central Committee since 1934 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 whose side 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, 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 a waste of funds. Stalin supported Zhdanov's group and removed Malenkov from his post. For two years, Zhdanov and his assistant M. Suslov enjoyed the confidence of Stalin, leading the ideological suppression of the intelligentsia. In the summer of 1948, after a two-year disgrace, Malenkov was returned by Stalin from the Secretariat of the Central Committee. On August 31, 1948, Zhdanov died suddenly, leaving his supporters defenseless against Malenkov. He, in turn, in collaboration 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 deposed and executed without trial in 1950. In total, the “Leningrad affair” 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 using the methods of international capitalism” and of “conspiracy with Tito’s supporters aimed at overthrowing Soviet power.” Although Malenkov now looked like the successor appointed by Stalin himself, the latter at the same time contributed to the promotion of 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 took place, 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 (it now included 232 people). Obviously, by inflating the staff of the governing bodies, Stalin tried to reduce the influence of his “old colleagues” by diluting them with “newcomers”, younger and less experienced, who were much easier to manage.
The Leningrad case is the general name for a number of court cases fabricated in 1949-52 with the aim of weakening the Leningrad party organization, politically discrediting and physically destroying a number of party and government figures who emerged on the eve of and during the Great Patriotic War. They were charged with slanderous accusations of conspiratorial counter-revolutionary activities in the party, of the intention to turn the Leningrad party organization into their support for the fight against the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; in carrying out subversive work in government bodies, causing material damage to the state, etc. During the investigation, illegal methods were used, those arrested were forced to “confess” to crimes that they did not commit. The main process according to “L. d." took place in September 1950 in the House of Officers (Liteiny Prospekt, 20; the trial of their executioners was subsequently held here). The process was closed, and information about it was not published in the press. Floor. d." in 1949-52, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and the Special Meeting under the Ministry of State Security convicted and sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment over 200 party and Soviet workers of Leningrad and their close and distant relatives; in the main trial, Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Kapustin, Lazutin, Popkov and M.I. Rodionov were sentenced to death and executed (presumably buried on the Levashovskaya wasteland). Hundreds of Leningrad communists, including those promoted to leadership positions in other regions of the country, were expelled from the party and expelled, arrested for “connection” with the defendants in “L. d." After the death of Stalin and the exposure of Beria in 1953, the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1954 conducted an audit of “L. d." The falsehood of the accusations and the violation of socialist legality were established. All those accused under “L. d." in 1954 they were rehabilitated, including many posthumously.
"Leningrad affair"- a series of trials in the late 1940s and early 1950s against party and state leaders of the RSFSR in the USSR. The victims of repression were all the leaders of the Leningrad regional, city and district organizations of the CPSU (b), as well as almost all Soviet and government officials who, after the Great Patriotic War, were promoted from Leningrad to leadership positions in Moscow and other regional party organizations. Arrests were made both in Leningrad and throughout the country: in Moscow, Gorky, Murmansk, Simferopol, Novgorod, Ryazan, Pskov, Petrozavodsk, Tallinn.
The first of these processes involved:
Kuznetsov, Alexey Alexandrovich - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks;
Popkov, Pyotr Sergeevich - first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee and city committee of the CPSU (b);
Voznesensky, Nikolai Alekseevich - Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee;
Kapustin, Yakov Fedorovich - second secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks);
Lazutin, Pyotr Georgievich - Chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee;
Rodionov, Mikhail Ivanovich - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR;
Turko, Joseph Mikhailovich - first secretary of the Yaroslavl regional committee of the CPSU (b);
Mikheev, Philip Egorovich - manager of the Leningrad regional committee and city committee of the CPSU (b);
Zakrevskaya, Taisiya Vladimirovna.
The reason for the Leningrad case was the holding of the All-Russian Wholesale Fair in Leningrad from January 10 to 20, 1949. The message about the fair became an addition to the already existing incriminating evidence. The leaders of the Leningrad party organization were accused of fraud during the election of a new leadership at a conference in December 1948.
G. M. Malenkov brought charges against A. A. Kuznetsov and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M. I. Rodionov, secretaries of the Leningrad regional committee and city party committee P. S. Popkov and Ya. F. Kapustin that they held the fair without the knowledge and bypassing the Central Committee and the government. Meanwhile, it has been documented that the fair was held in pursuance of a resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers. On November 11, 1948, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, chaired by Malenkov, adopted a resolution “On measures to improve trade.” The resolution stated: “to organize interregional wholesale fairs in November-December 1948, at which to sell off excess goods, to allow the free export from one region to another of industrial goods purchased at the fair.” In pursuance of this resolution, the Ministry of Trade of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR decided to hold the All-Russian Wholesale Fair in Leningrad from January 10 to 20 and obliged the Leningrad City Executive Committee to provide practical assistance in its organization and conduct. On January 13, 1949, during the fair, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M I. Rodionov sent written information to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G. M. Malenkov about the All-Russian Wholesale Fair that opened in Leningrad with the participation of trade organizations of the union republics.
On February 15, 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the anti-party actions of a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade A. A. Kuznetsov, and candidates for membership in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade Comrade. Rodionova M.I. and Popkova P.S.” All three were removed from their posts. At the same time, preparations for falsifications against N.A. Voznesensky began.
For these purposes, a memorandum by the Deputy Chairman of the USSR State Supply Committee M. T. Pomaznev was used about the USSR State Planning Committee underestimating the USSR industrial production plan for the first quarter of 1949. This document served as the beginning for raising charges against N.A. Voznesensky.
On February 21, 1949, Malenkov and a group of workers of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks left for Leningrad. At a joint meeting of the bureau of the regional committee and city committee on February 21, 1949, the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) Malenkov, using threats, sought from the secretaries of the regional committee and city committee a recognition that there was a hostile anti-party group in Leningrad. On February 22, 1949, a joint plenum of the Leningrad regional committee and the city party committee was held, at which G. M. Malenkov made a report on the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of February 15, 1949. None of the speakers cited any facts about the existence of an anti-party group, only P. S. Popkov and Ya. F. Kapustin admitted that their activities were anti-party in nature. Following them, other speakers began to repent of the mistakes they had not made. In the resolution of the joint plenum of the regional committee and city committee, A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov, P. S. Popkov, Ya. F. Kapustin were accused of belonging to an anti-party group.
In the summer of 1949, a new stage began in the development of the so-called “Leningrad case”. Abakumov and employees of the MGB he headed fabricated materials accusing A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov and the leaders of the Leningrad regional organization of the CPSU (b) of counter-revolutionary activities. Orders were given for arrests, which began in July 1949.
For more than a year, those arrested were subjected to interrogation and torture. All those convicted were charged with the fact that, having created an anti-party group, they carried out sabotage and subversive work aimed at separating and opposing the Leningrad party organization to the Central Committee of the party, turning it into a support for the fight against the party and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The issue of physical destruction was decided long before the trial, which took place on September 29-30, 1950 in Leningrad at the House of Officers on Liteiny Prospekt. It is for the sake of the “Leningraders” that the death penalty is being reintroduced in the USSR. Before this, in 1947, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the death penalty was abolished. Already during the investigation into the Leningrad case, on January 12, 1950, the death penalty was restored in relation to traitors to the Motherland, spies and subversive saboteurs. Despite the fact that the rule “the law does not have retroactive force” does not apply in this case, the introduction of the death penalty occurs three days before the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On anti-party actions...”, and therefore the connection between the two facts is visible. On October 1, 1950 at 2.00, an hour after the verdict was announced, N. A. Voznesensky, A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov, P. S. Popkov, Ya. F. Kapustin, P. G. Lazutin were shot . Their ashes were secretly buried on the Levashovskaya wasteland near Leningrad. I. M. Turko, T. V. Zakrzhevskaya and F. E. Mikheev were sentenced to long prison sentences.
After the massacre of the “central group”, trials, who passed sentences on the remaining persons involved in the Leningrad case. In Moscow, 20 people were shot. The bodies of G. F. Badaev, M. V. Basov, V. O. Belopolsky, A. A. Bubnov, A. I. Burilin, A. D. Verbitsky, M. A. Voznesenskaya, A. A. Voznesensky, V . P. Galkin, V. N. Ivanov, P. N. Kubatkin, P. I. Levin, M. N. Nikitin, M. I. Petrovsky, M. I. Safonov, N. V. Solovyov, P. T. Talyusha, I.S. Kharitonov, P.A. Chursin were taken to the Donskoy Monastery cemetery, cremated and the remains thrown into a pit.
The destruction was carried out at Leningrad University, the Leningrad branch of the Lenin Museum, the Leningrad Museum of Revolution and the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad.
Economic, trade union, Komsomol and military workers, scientists, and representatives of the creative intelligentsia were also subject to repression (Leningrad scientists and cultural workers were convicted in separate cases not related to the Leningrad case itself).
Arrests continued later. In August 1952, over 50 people who worked as secretaries of district party committees and chairmen of district executive committees during the blockade were sentenced to long prison terms on falsified “cases” of Smolninsky, Dzerzhinsky and other districts of the city.
From the memorandum of the Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov and his deputy Serov: “In total, 214 people were convicted, of which 69 were the main accused and 145 people from among close and distant relatives. In addition, 2 people died in prison before trial. 23 people were convicted by the military collegium to capital punishment (execution)."
On April 30, 1954, the Supreme Court of the USSR reviewed the “Leningrad case” and rehabilitated the persons involved in it, and on May 3, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the final resolution “On the case of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others.”
It's the doctors' business.
The Doctors' Case (The case of the poisoning doctors, in the investigation materials The case of the Zionist conspiracy inMGB) - a criminal case against a group of prominent Soviet doctors accused of conspiracy and murder of a number of Soviet leaders. The origins of the campaign date back to 1948, when doctor Lydia Timashuk drew the attention of the competent authorities to the oddities in Zhdanov’s treatment, which led to the patient’s death.
The text of the official arrest report, published in January 1953, announced that " Most of the participants in the terrorist group (Vovsi M.S., Kogan B.B., Feldman A.I., Grinshtein A.M., Etinger Ya.G. and others) were associated with the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization "Joint“, created by American intelligence allegedly to provide material assistance to Jews in other countries" Those involved in the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were previously accused of having connections with the same organization. Publicity of the case in some places acquired an anti-Semitic character and joined the more general campaign to “fight rootless cosmopolitanism” that took place in the USSR in 1947-1953.
After the arrest of a group of doctors, the campaign took on an all-Union character, but ended after the death of Stalin in early March of that year. On April 3, all those arrested in the “doctors’ case” were released, reinstated in their jobs and completely rehabilitated.
The draft report from TASS and media materials (in particular, the Pravda newspaper) about the arrest of a group of “wrecker doctors” was approved on January 9, 1953 at a meeting of the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.
The message about the arrest of the doctors and the details of the “conspiracy” appeared in an unsigned article “Sneaky spies and murderers in the guise of professors and doctors,” published in Pravda on January 13, 1953. The actions of the majority of those arrested were linked to the ideology of Zionism and traced back to S. M. Mikhoels, who had already appeared in the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
The hero who exposed killers in white coats(a popular propaganda stamp of this campaign), the propaganda introduced Lydia Timashuk, a doctor who contacted the Central Committee with complaints about the improper treatment of Zhdanov back in 1948. “For her help in exposing the thrice-damned killer doctors,” she was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Beginning in 1952, the “Doctors’ Case” was developed by the MGB under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel M.D. Ryumin, who in 1951 wrote a denunciation to Stalin about a “Zionist conspiracy” in the state security agencies. On October 29, 1952, Ignatiev reported to Stalin that medical specialists confirmed the fact of criminal treatment of Kremlin leaders. Stalin immediately gave permission for the arrest of the main “conspirators.” Stalin read the interrogation reports every day. He demanded from the MGB the maximum development of the version about the Zionist nature of the conspiracy and the connections of the conspirators with British and American intelligence through the Joint (Zionist charitable organization). He threatened the new Minister of State Security S. Ignatiev, that if he “ will not reveal terrorists, American agents among doctors", then he will be arrested, like his predecessor Abakumov: " We will drive you away like sheep" In October 1952, Stalin gave instructions to use physical coercion (that is, torture) against arrested doctors. On December 1, 1952, Stalin stated (in a recording by A. Malyshev, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee): “ Any Jewish nationalist is an American intelligence agent. Jewish nationalists believe that the United States saved their nation... There are many Jewish nationalists among doctors" From November 6, 1952, on the instructions of Ryumin, prisoners in metal handcuffs were kept in Lubyanka cells around the clock. Moreover, in daytime hands were cuffed behind the back, and at night - in front. However, the prisoners persisted. They were taken to Lefortovo prison and beaten with rubber truncheons (the Internal Prison on Lubyanka did not yet have a room equipped for torture). On November 15, 1952, Ignatiev reported to Stalin that physical measures were applied to Egorov, Vinogradov and Vasilenko, For what selected... two employees who can perform special tasks (apply physical punishment) in relation to especially important and dangerous criminals. In order not to waste time in the future transporting prisoners to Lefortovo, in December 1952, the head of the Internal Prison, A. N. Mironov, equipped a torture room in his office. On November 24, 1952, First Deputy Minister of State Security S.A. Goglidze reported to Stalin: The collected documentary evidence and confessions of those arrested established that a terrorist group of doctors operated in LSUK - Egorov, Vinogradov, Vasilenko, Mayorov, Fedorov, Lang and Jewish nationalists - Etinger, Kogan, Karpay, who sought to shorten the lives of the leaders of the Party and Government during treatment. Nevertheless, Stalin continued to put pressure on the MGB, demanding increased “operational and investigative activity” in the case. As a result, new arrests of doctors began in January.
The message on January 13 spoke of 9 conspirators: Professor Vovsi M.S., general practitioner; Professor Vinogradov V.N., general practitioner; Professor Kogan M. B., general practitioner; Professor Kogan B.B., general practitioner; professor, corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, leading physician of Stalin, Egorov P. I., general practitioner; Professor Feldman A.I., otolaryngologist; Professor Etinger Ya. G., general practitioner; Professor Grinshtein A. M., academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences, neurologist; Mayorov G.I., general practitioner. They were arrested between July 1951 and November 1952. In addition to them, many more were arrested in the “doctors’ case,” including the creator and custodian of Lenin’s embalmed body, Professor B.I. Zbarsky (December 1952), writer Lev Sheinin (February 1953).
Most of the accused were Jews, including the doctors arrested a little later: N. A. Shereshevsky (endocrinologist, professor), M. Ya. Sereisky (psychiatrist, professor), Ya. S. Temkin (therapist, professor), E. M. Gelshtein (therapist, professor), I. I. Feigel (gynecologist, professor), V. E. Nezlin (therapist, professor), N. L. Vilk, Ya. L. Rapoport, L. H. Kechker, and others . M. B. Kogan and M. I. Pevzner were also posthumously involved in the case. It was alleged that those arrested were acting on instructions from the “Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization “Joint”. The famous actor S. M. Mikhoels, the cousin of one of the arrested doctors, the chief physician of the Soviet Army, Major General of the Medical Service M. S. Vovsi, was named as a participant in the conspiracy and died five years earlier in a “car accident.”
The “Doctors' Plot” caused persecution of relatives and colleagues of those arrested, as well as a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment throughout the country. Unlike the previous campaign against "cosmopolitans", in which Jews were usually implied rather than directly named, now the propaganda directly pointed to Jews. On February 8, Pravda published an introductory feuilleton, “Simps and Rogues,” in which Jews were portrayed as swindlers. Following him, the Soviet press was overwhelmed by a wave of feuilletons dedicated to exposing the true or imaginary dark deeds of persons with Jewish names, patronymics and surnames. The most “famous” among them was Vasily Ardamatsky’s feuilleton “Pina from Zhmerinka”, published in the magazine “Crocodile” on March 20, 1953.
All those arrested in the “doctors’ case” were released ( April 3) and reinstated. It was officially announced ( April, 4) that the confessions of the accused were obtained using “inadmissible investigative methods.” The lieutenant colonel who developed the “doctors’ case” Ryumin(by that time already dismissed from the state security agencies) was immediately arrested by order Beria; subsequently, during the Khrushchev trials of the perpetrators of repression, he was shot ( July 7 1954 ).
Possible conclusion of the doctors' case and the question of deportation
The case, which caused such a strong public outcry, could have ended in an appropriate climax. There were rumors that the main accused were to be publicly executed on Red Square. Yakov Yakovlevich Etinger- the son of Professor Ya. G. Etinger, who died in prison, also testifies that much later after Stalin’s death, Bulganin in a conversation with him, he confirmed that the trial of the doctors was scheduled for mid-March 1953, those convicted were planned to be publicly hang in the central squares of major cities of the USSR. This is approximately how the matter ended Slansky in the beginning of December 1952 V Czechoslovakia.
There is a version , according to which the high-profile trial of doctors was supposed to be a signal for massive anti-Semitic campaigns and the deportation of all Jews to Siberia and on Far East. Against the background of provoked Soviet propaganda suddenly flared up anti-Semitic sentiments among the population, the deportation was supposed to look like an “act of humanism” - saving Jews from “popular wrath”, pogroms and lynching. According to some, undocumented data, a letter was prepared, which had to be signed by prominent figures of Soviet culture, the essence of which was as follows: “We, prominent cultural figures, call on the Soviet leadership to protect traitors and rootless cosmopolitans of Jewish origin from the just wrath of the people and to settle them in Siberia." It was assumed that the Soviet leadership should respond favorably to this request. There is numerous evidence from contemporaries that rumors of deportation circulated in Moscow immediately after the news of the start of the doctors’ case.
Many researchers, without denying the anti-Semitic essence of the “Doctors’ Plot,” cast serious doubt on the existence of plans for the deportation of Jews. For a detailed study of this issue (using archival materials), see the article by Gennady Kostyrchenko, a researcher of Soviet state anti-Semitism. Historian Zhores Medvedev in his book “Stalin and the Jewish Problem” he writes that the existence of the plan for the deportation of Jews mentioned in many books is not confirmed by any archival documents.
THE CASE OF DOCTORS, arrests of doctors in the early 1950s who were responsible for treating senior leaders of the USSR on trumped-up charges of sabotage and deliberate killing of “party and government” figures. The Doctors' Plot was caused by an escalation of the power struggle at the end of life I. V. Stalin and largely influenced the course of the struggle for his inheritance.
The origins of the Doctors' Case stemmed from a campaign against "cosmopolitans," as Jews were commonly called, who were accused of contempt for Russian culture, Jewish nationalism, and "adulation of the West." In 1950, the doctor J. Etinger (who treated the recently deceased first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU A. Shcherbakov) was arrested in connection with his critical political statements as part of the campaign against cosmopolitans. As a result of his stay in the Ministry of State Security (MGB), which was then headed by V. Abakumov, and interrogations with partiality, Etinger died. This fact was used in the internal struggle. MGB investigator for especially important cases M. Ryumin, who extracted testimony from Etinger, accused his boss Abakumov of deliberately killing the doctor under investigation in his cell, thus depriving the investigation of an important witness.
In the literature on the “Leningrad case,” an analysis of the political potential of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov is either completely absent or bears the features of apologetics. This apologetics is inspired mainly by the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Baibakov, Anastas Mikoyan and the memories of Leningraders who worked under Voznesensky and Kuznetsov.
Fifty years ago, on October 1, 1950, the former first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Nikolai Voznesensky, and the former secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee, Alexei Kuznetsov, were shot. about whom Stalin in 1948 spoke in a narrow circle of associates as the most suitable candidates for the posts of chairman of the Council of Ministers (Voznesensky) and Secretary General Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Kuznetsov) after his death. Why did he change his mind about these people and give permission for their destruction? There are several points of view among historians on this score, and comparing them can only further confuse the so-called “Leningrad affair”, the victims of which were Stalin’s failed heirs. However, to understand the reasons for the elimination of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov, an analysis of the intricacies of the “Leningrad case” is clearly not enough. To reduce the whole matter to the intrigues of Beria and Malenkov, who played on the manic Stalinist suspicion that intensified towards the end of his life, means talking about only one side of the problem. Before finding themselves in the role of defendants, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov had enormous power and led their own political game, the meaning of which has not yet been fully understood.
In the literature on the “Leningrad case,” an analysis of the political potential of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov is either completely absent or bears the features of apologetics. This apologetics is inspired mainly by the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Baibakov, Anastas Mikoyan and the memories of Leningraders who worked under Voznesensky and Kuznetsov. Khrushchev assessed Voznesensky as a “smart, sharp, direct and courageous” person, Baibakov, for a long time who worked as Minister of the Oil Industry and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, considered Voznesensky “a talented organizer, a subtle psychologist of economics.” Anastas Mikoyan, whose son married Kuznetsov’s daughter at a time when he had already been removed from all his posts, argued in his memoirs that during the siege of Leningrad, the “main figure” there was not Zhdanov, who “practically moved into a bomb shelter,” and Kuznetsov - it was to him that Stalin entrusted “the most important issues.” It is important for us not only to establish whether these characteristics correspond to reality, but also to try to answer the main question: did Voznesensky and Kuznetsov have any special qualities that allowed them to lead the country after Stalin’s death?
Let's start with Voznesensky. Indeed, he was a very strong-willed, strong leader who played a big role in the development of the defense industry during the Great Patriotic War. Then Voznesensky oversaw the work of the People's Commissariats of Arms and Ammunition (until February 1942), dealt with the evacuation of defense factories, and, as the chairman of the State Planning Committee, was responsible for the development of military-economic plans for ensuring the country's defense. Thanks to Voznesensky, the production of anti-tank rifles, as well as rocket artillery and shells for it, was significantly expanded and accelerated. Dmitry Ustinov, who headed the People's Commissariat of Armaments at that time, recalled that it was Voznesensky, a week before the start of the war, who gave instructions to continue work on the anti-tank rifle designed by Rukovishnikov, discontinued in 1940, and asked the People's Commissar to protect the designer from "nitpicking." According to the recollections of the Chairman of the Moscow Soviet Vasily Pronin, Voznesensky in the summer of 1941 successfully led the operational, “in a matter of weeks” restructuring of Moscow factories to produce rocket artillery and missiles. However, Voznesensky’s successes depended not only on his personal administrative abilities, but also largely on the enormous powers that he possessed in wartime conditions. The people's commissars subordinate to him, plant directors, and designers understood perfectly well that the failure of any order of the first deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, a member State Committee defense is fraught with at least removal from office. Therefore, these orders were often carried out in record time.
IN Peaceful time Voznesensky headed the USSR State Planning Committee for 11 years. At the same time, we have to admit that Mikoyan’s opinion that Voznesensky was an economist of the “professor type”, without any “practical experience in economic management,” is largely fair. Gosplan itself was a match for it; the structure was largely virtual. Sometimes it happened that even the leaders of the party and state could not understand the meaning of the existence of the department, the tasks and plans of which many ministers and plant directors sent to hell. Baibakov recalled that Brezhnev “didn’t have the patience to understand the draft plan in detail” and one day he interrupted Baibakov’s report with the following sentence: “Nikolai, to hell with you! You’ve filled our heads with your numbers. I can’t figure anything out anymore. Let’s take a break, let’s go go hunting." After the hunt, Brezhnev still found the strength to listen to the chairman of the State Planning Committee, but two days later at the Politburo he said: “I listened to Baibakov for two days, but now I can’t sleep.”
Stalin, unlike Brezhnev, took the State Planning Committee much more seriously, always perceived failures to meet planned targets with irritation, and severely punished the perpetrators of these failures. Mikoyan tried in vain to prove to him that it was impossible to set the same indicators for the first and fourth quarters - natural conditions prevented this. For example, in the fishing industry, autumn was the low season, and it was simply impossible to catch as many fish as in summer at this time. But Stalin did not react to these arguments or irritably said to Mikoyan: “Again, you’re on your own! Stop it.”
Voznesensky managed to achieve a significant strengthening of the position of the State Planning Committee in the administrative structure of the Soviet state, largely due to the fact that Stalin wanted the same. This does not mean that Voznesensky sought to make an easy career out of manipulating numbers. With Stalin, such games were deadly dangerous. He gained Stalin's favor by using Gosplan data and without concealment informing him about the true state of affairs in the economy. The following fact is indicative in this regard. When in January 1942, Stalin, intoxicated by the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, proposed an offensive using all nine fronts in order to ensure the “complete defeat of Hitler’s troops in 1942,” only Zhukov and Voznesensky opposed this idea, which then failed miserably. Voznesensky motivated his disagreement with Stalin’s plan by the fact that “we currently do not yet have material capabilities sufficient to ensure a simultaneous offensive on all fronts.” Stalin, in turn, saw in Voznesensky the most energetic worker, capable of exercising control over the implementation of the plan. This was a very convenient role - after all, it was not Voznesensky, but other people who had to correct the shortcomings identified by the State Planning Committee. Stalin's enormous power, personal favor and the fact that he led a number of key areas in the economy under extreme war conditions developed negative character traits in Voznesensky. There is a lot of evidence of arrogance, ambition, and rudeness, which he elevated to the style of his work. The most vivid of such descriptions was left by Nikolai Shvernik’s security chief, Georgy Egnatashvili: “There was a meeting of the Council of Ministers... And suddenly the door suddenly swung open, and Nikolai Alekseevich came out with two ministers. Oh, how he began to swear at them. Both in the tail and in the mane. I felt uneasy..." Of course, Voznesensky was not the only one who suffered from such a shortcoming as rudeness towards his subordinates; obscene expressions are found in some of Stalin’s resolutions (in 1941, on one of the NKVD messages about the impending German invasion of the USSR, he wrote: “Send your source to the f... mother”), but the “leader of peoples” could be very polite, an attentive, self-possessed interlocutor. Many who communicated with Stalin, for example, aircraft designer Yakovlev, writer Simonov, and air marshal Golovanov, were amazed by his erudition, wit, and even ability to admit he was wrong. Voznesensky was no different. In the memoirs of his contemporaries, he appears as a man who did not restrain his tongue. People's Commissar of the Navy Nikolai Kuznetsov recalled how unpleasantly he was struck by Voznesensky's behavior at one government meeting in June 1941. At this meeting, when Stalin announced the arrest of the head of the department air defense, Hero of the Soviet Union Stern, sitting next to Kuznetsov, Voznesensky loudly exclaimed: “Bastard! "
All this suggests that Voznesensky did not have the restraint necessary for his position in Stalin’s entourage. Having not, unlike Molotov, Kaganovich, Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, gone through the harsh school of repressions of the second half of the 30s, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov often went ahead where intrigue was needed, they did not know how to keep their mouths shut when it was necessary even for success in your personal political career. This made them vulnerable in the fight against their main opponents in the Politburo - Beria and Malenkov. According to Baibakov, Voznesensky made a mortal enemy in Beria in 1945 at one of the meetings where the issue of building the Moscow-Saratov gas pipeline was discussed. “Tired of the piercing and monotonous scream” of Lavrenty Pavlovich, he called him to order, “offering to get down to the essence of the matter.” “Beria,” writes Baibakov, “who did not expect such an intervention, seemed to turn completely green...”.
With his extremely straightforward, emphatically official, harsh, and often rough style Voznesensky’s work aroused hostility among many people’s commissars, which not only weakened his position as a possible future head of government, but also, most importantly, caused serious damage to industry, primarily the defense industry, and spoiled relations between the State Planning Committee and the people’s commissariats. People's Commissar of Ammunition Vannikov wrote that during the war it was Voznesensky who spoke out particularly sharply against the production automatic rifles, due to which they stopped producing them, but after some time they were still released by Stalin’s decision. Even more conflict situation arose between Voznesensky and the People's Commissars of the oil and coal industries Baibakov and Vakhrushev. “Once he (Voznesensky. - S.K.),” recalled Baibakov, “summoned me and the People’s Commissar of the Coal Industry Vakhrushev. The discussion was about how to provide fuel to the demands of the front and rear. Our information clearly did not satisfy Voznesensky. He frowned, somehow became all internally alert and demanded to increase the project targets for oil and coal production, “But this requires additional material resources! Here are the numbers, here are the indicators!" - we answered, knowing full well that our industries were working at the limit. “We don’t have such resources now, and we can’t give you anything.” Tension in the office increased... And suddenly, either in a temper, or due to overexertion of nerves, the heated argument turned into something unimaginable: Vakhrushev, turning pale, jumped up from his chair, grabbed Voznesensky by the lapels of his jacket and began to shake him, shouting completely scandalous “arguments.” I was taken aback: Voznesensky also grabbed his own. the angry interlocutor by the lapels and began to shake him, shouting something... We parted ways without receiving the required help.” After the war, Voznesensky met with sharp rebuff from the Minister of Shipbuilding Malyshev, from whom the Chairman of the State Planning Committee proposed to take away two factories, and also expressed distrust regarding the minister’s promises to establish the production of ship armor. Stalin himself was forced to stand up for Malyshev, saying that we know him “as an honest man.” It seems that the above facts do not speak in favor of Voznesensky as a potential head of the USSR government.
Alexei Kuznetsov was an even more unsuccessful candidate for the role of party leader than Voznesensky as head of government. If Voznesensky’s shortcomings could still be compensated for by the selection of smart deputies for him or disavowed by the intervention of the Politburo of the Central Committee, which in fact made all the key decisions in the economy, then Kuznetsov’s unpreparedness to lead the party apparatus could have much more serious consequences, because it was this apparatus that held in their hands all the threads of managing not only domestic but also foreign policy.
Kuznetsov's track record would seem to provide no basis for our conclusion. In fact, Kuznetsov went through all levels of the party hierarchy in Leningrad: from a city committee instructor to the first secretary of the regional committee and city party committee. His rapid career growth after the war occurred thanks to the patronage of Stalin’s closest comrade-in-arms at that time, Zhdanov. However, an analysis of Kuznetsov’s activities as Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee indicates that Zhdanov not only did not teach Kuznetsov how to behave around Stalin, but also did not explain to him how dangerous it is to demonstrate his Leningrad identity in Moscow. patriotism. This patriotism was expressed not only in the fact that during the war Kuznetsov cultivated the image of Kirov in Leningrad, but also in his desire to significantly increase the status of Leningrad and the Leningrad party organization, which later became one of the main reasons for the “Leningrad cause.” The literature on this matter is small in volume and overly confuses the reader who is not experienced in the history of late Stalinism. Three versions of this case are most clearly visible. The first version is the official one, formulated as a result of the rehabilitation of Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and other convicts in the “Leningrad case” - in 1954-1957. has undergone major evolution. In 1954, the main culprits in the destruction of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were made a group of state security officers led by the former Minister of State Security Abakumov, acting on the orders of Beria. After Khrushchev removed Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich from power in 1957, the official version changed. Now the main creators of the “Leningrad case” were Beria and Malenkov, who were afraid of strengthening the positions of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov and therefore inflated the following facts to the scale of a state crime: 1) in January 1949, an All-Russian wholesale fair was held in Leningrad with the participation of trade organizations union republics, thereby giving it union status and without informing Moscow; 2) the first secretary of the Leningrad regional and city committees Popkov hid the facts of voting against the party leadership of Leningrad at party conferences of the city and region in December 1948;
3) the same Popkov in 1948 suggested that Voznesensky take “patronage” over Leningrad. Beria and Malenkov accused Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Popkov and others of seeking to organize a hostile anti-party group in Leningrad, whose goal was to tear the party organization of Leningrad away from Moscow and the USSR, and to make Leningrad the capital of the RSFSR.
The second version comes from the surviving defendants in the “Leningrad case.” According to former entruster Kuznetsov Voinov, the deepest motives of the organizers of this case were to hide from the people “the true culprits of our military defeat in 1941,” as well as the culprits of “excesses in agriculture" and general "lawlessness and arbitrariness." Voinov sees in Voznesensky and Kuznetsov almost open opponents of Stalinism, representatives of the front-line generation, which, in essence, predetermined the "phenomenon of the 20th Congress." Finally, the third version was put forward by some historians of the national-patriotic trend, who believe Voznesensky and Kuznetsov as leaders of the “Russian party” in Stalin’s circle. Historian Oleg Platonov believes that in fact the “Leningrad affair” was a “Russian affair”, since “through it, most of the new Russian cadres who came after the war to replace the old Jewish cadres were destroyed. -cosmopolitan functionaries."
All three versions have a certain ideological background. The official version coming from the leaders of the CPSU was adjusted depending on the balance of power in the highest echelons of power. As for the two unofficial versions, they are related by an aberration of consciousness. Kuznetsov’s repressed comrades dream that he was an anti-Stalinist because he was a Kirov resident. However, this argument does not stand up to criticism, since it is based on the myth, popular during the years of perestroika, that Kirov was an anti-Stalinist. Historians, for example, Oleg Khlevnyuk, after perestroika, when the public ceased to be interested in such myths, documented that Kirov was one hundred percent Stalinist, only of a softer type, and therefore all the heart-warming stories about his opposition to Stalin should be recognized as fiction in the spirit of the popular the time of Anatoly Rybakov's novel "Children of Arbat".
For Platonov, presenting Voznesensky and Kuznetsov as leaders of the “Russian party” in the Politburo was necessary to substantiate his overall vision of the Stalinist period of our history. Stalin, in his portrayal, is not only the main Russian patriot of the twentieth century, but also the main opponent of world Zionism, which was personified by Beria, Malenkov and Khrushchev in Stalin’s entourage. Analyzing this argument in detail is as troublesome and time-consuming as refuting the constructions of famous mathematicians from history to Nosovsky and Fomenko. Even an article is not enough for this. Let us only point out that the idea of the Russian, patriotic character of the Stalinist rule of the 40s, based on anti-Semitic manifestations in personnel policy apparatus of those years, illusory. What to do with Stalin’s attitude towards the Russian countryside, with his latest economic research, leading, in essence, to a new military communism (at the end of his life, the leader suddenly decided that it was time to establish “direct product exchange” between city and village)? Somehow the persecution of genetics, which doomed our biology to vegetation, is also forgotten. Admiring the sovereign rhetoric of Stalin in the 40s. obscures these and other facts indicating that he was still a National Bolshevik, and not a Russian nationalist, and wanted to introduce the same communism, but with a Russophile overtones. At one of the meetings with political economy teachers in 1950, Stalin complained that young people knew Marx poorly or not at all; His last works were also written from an orthodox Marxist position. economic works. In general, the bizarre combination of the most diverse ideological trends in Stalin is a too serious topic. To present him in any one ideological form means to distort his true appearance.
The most interesting thing is that the two unofficial versions are based solely on speculative assumptions, conjectures, and unfounded statements. Meanwhile, the “Leningrad case” will never be completely unraveled, not only because Malenkov personally destroyed most of the materials on this case in 1957, but also because in these documents themselves, truth and lies are often simply indistinguishable. In fact, if the leaders of the CPSU twice changed their position regarding the main culprits of the “Leningrad affair,” then what can be expected from its other interpreters, who are not bound by party discipline and now censorship? Now the paper will bear everything.
Nevertheless, comparing the memories of contemporaries, drawing historical analogies, analyzing the specific situation in the highest echelons of power in the late 40s. allow us to assert that the emergence of the “Leningrad case” was largely to blame for the main participants themselves, who violated the rules of the political game that then existed in power. The same Kuznetsov, who instilled the cult of Kirov in Leningrad and turned a blind eye to the mistakes of Leningraders with the organization of a wholesale fair and other facts listed above, demonstrated not only imprudence, but also stupidity unacceptable for the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Stalin era.
It was unwise to cultivate everything connected with Leningrad for the simple reason that Stalin retained exclusively negative memories of the role of the St. Petersburg party organization during the time of its leadership by Zinoviev. Zinoviev and his comrades, fighting with Stalin for power, also used the revolutionary image of Leningrad and considered the Leningrad Bolsheviks to be the best and most worthy communists, whose voice should be listened to first of all. In addition, on the eve of the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the threat of a split in the party for Stalin was obvious not only due to the fact that the Zinovievites managed to obtain for their leader the right to make a co-report at the congress on a political report, which the Secretary General himself was supposed to deliver, but also due to the unexpected demarche of Stalin’s closest ally at that time, Voroshilov, who declared the admissibility of creating a separate party organization in the RSFSR. In this proposal, Stalin saw a danger for the central party bodies, whose authority the Russian Communist Party could undermine by its very scale. For the system of power that arose under Stalin, the fear of the formation of a Communist Party within the RSFSR was in many ways logical. The Politburo of the Central Committee was supreme body power in the Soviet Union because it crowned a rigid unitary system of governing the country. Russia was undeservedly bypassed by many attributes of sovereignty, but the absence of its own party and, therefore, its own Politburo was necessary for the effective functioning of the central party bodies. The emergence of two party centers of power in Moscow - the Union and the RSFSR - would not only create a dangerous precedent for demands for greater independence, say, of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but also threaten a clash of ambitions and interests of the Union and Russian leadership. At the state level, conflicting interests between union and republican departments often led to deadlock situations. For example, the disputes between the NKVD of the RSFSR and the OGPU of the USSR over the distribution of contingents of Gulag prisoners became so protracted and quarrelsome that the Russian NKVD, Stalin, ordered to “simply be closed.” And at the end of the 40s. Stalin suddenly again faces not only the separatism of the Leningrad party members, but also the dangerous aspirations to expand Russian sovereignty. According to the testimony of one of the district chairmen of the executive committee in Leningrad, Bulychev, after the war, Kuznetsov, together with the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Rodionov (who was shot in the “Leningrad case” on the same day as Kuznetsov) offered Stalin to transfer Russian government from Moscow to Leningrad, and make Leningrad itself the capital of the RSFSR. “They said in secret,” Bulychev recalled, “that Stalin did not like such a proposal, but he did not speak out openly, he remained silent.” This reaction from Stalin already gave reason to slow down and be more careful. But Kuznetsov “got into trouble.” If he did not know the history of the party well and deliberately worked to raise the status of not only Leningrad, but also the RSFSR as a whole, then this again indicates at least his naivety, which in such positions as Secretary of the Central Committee and Head of the Personnel Department Central Committee was simply suicidal. Equally naive were his “attacks” on the MGB workers, whom he supervised on Stalin’s orders. If you believe the recollections of eyewitnesses who claimed that Kuznetsov interrogated the KGB officers about the Kirov case and in public speaking gave preference to Kirov quotes over them, this again indicates Kuznetsov’s suicidal political line. Here, even friendship at home with the Minister of State Security Abakumov could not save.
Still, Molotov was probably close to the truth when he said that Stalin designated as his heirs people who were not sufficiently prepared for the system of power that he created. Having provided them with rapid career growth, Stalin also forgot the outstanding intriguing abilities of his old guard and did not see that Voznesensky and Kuznetsov would not be able to compete with them. Beria and Malenkov played out the “Leningrad affair” like clockwork, and Stalin was forced to say it himself the last word, which decided the fate of his failed heirs. This was probably one of the most dramatic episodes in his political biography.
Sergey Konstantinov
Nepotism in government. Today and under Stalin. Feel the difference.
“The Leningrad affair.”
After the war, Stalin faced a new war - against corruption. So it was not for nothing and not out of fear of losing power, as some historians suggest, that Stalin began to “tighten the screws” after the Great Patriotic War. Yes, this is not news for world history - that after destructive wars everywhere and at all times, the restoration of the country begins with the strengthening of power (up to the introduction of a state of emergency and even dictatorship) in order to stop the discord and collapse of the economic and social management system that occurred during the war years.
By the way, even the main commander, Marshal Zhukov, was brought to justice due to the use of his official position for personal purposes. And only the “trophies from looting activities in Germany” that he handed over to the state saved him from severe criminal punishment, although they did not save him from a serious demotion along the party and state lines.
However, the most serious was the “Leningrad Affair” - the case of nepotism in the governing bodies of the party and state, which was a direct path to the emergence and flourishing of corruption. Its peak is the abuse of official position for personal interests, which began with privileges and benefits, and ended with bribes and the transformation of the state pocket into one’s own...
The “Leningrad case” is in reality a case of corruption, primarily in the leadership from top to bottom... At first, like everyone else, I did not know and did not understand this. But now, having familiarized myself with a number of party documents, I come to the conclusion that purely political accusations may have been fabricated, but the corruption side of the matter definitely took place! In any case, the actions committed by the accused clearly created the conditions for corruption. (I say this on the basis of party documents, and not on the basis of investigative materials, which have never enjoyed due confidence anywhere in the world. Party documents appeared in an atmosphere of free clarification of relations, and long before the establishment of an investigative case.)
But... first, such a seemingly completely harmless example.
Agree, it’s one thing when it comes to allocating money, say, to improve conditions in a kindergarten, and quite another when money is needed to restore a burned-out building. orphanage, whose pupils, unlike children who have a roof over their heads, simply have nowhere to go. It seems self-evident that first of all it is necessary to help homeless children.
However, thanks to nepotism, the boss often first of all allocates funds not to the orphanage, but to the kindergarten, because his beloved grandson goes there... It seems nothing special, but it is with such harmless facts that corruption begins, corroding the entire state like rust.
It is difficult to catch dealers in such crimes, but it is possible. To eliminate the possibility of nepotism or bribery among inspectors, in Stalin's times several independent commissions were appointed to check the same case. They submitted inspection materials not to any one main person, but, for example, to each member of the Politburo. This almost eliminated the possibility of concealing the results of inspections and in many areas (due to publicity) guaranteed the application of well-deserved measures.
If someone managed to neutralize all these commissions, then in this case (after the fact of collusion was established) no one could expect mercy, because organized crime was punished much more harshly and... unconditionally! It was a kind of party court that did not know the statute of limitations, as is the case today.
The Leningrad Affair began with Politburo resolutions February 15, 1949 in connection with the irresponsible initiative undertaken to hold the All-Union Wholesale Fair in Leningrad (from January 10 to January 20, 1949).
Nothing was really calculated, and instead of selling the goods, they were damaged and... a loss on 4 billion rubles
And this is in conditions of a terrible post-war manufactured goods and food famine. Plus, it was revealed that significant travel funds were squandered by leaders from all over the country on trips to the Northern capital. Simply put, many went simply to “break away from business” and party in a big way... That is, even in this there was corruption. Further more!
The Politburo Resolution noted:
“Based on the inspection, it was established that the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, Comrade. Rodionov M.I. together with the Leningrad leading comrades with the assistance of a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade. Kuznetsova A.A. arbitrarily and illegally organized the All-Union Wholesale Fair with an invitation to participate in it from trade organizations of the territories and regions of the RSFSR, including the most remote ones, right up to the Sakhalin region, as well as representatives of trade organizations from all Union republics.
At the fair, goods worth about 9 billion rubles, including goods, which are distributed by the Union government according to the national plan, which led to the squandering of state commodity funds and to the infringement of the interests of a number of territories, regions and republics (And this is corruption... and what else!) In addition, the holding of the fair caused damage to the state due to the large and unjustified expenditure of public funds on organizing the fair and on moving its participants from remote areas to Leningrad and back. (And this is also corruption!)
The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers the main culprits of this anti-state action to be candidates for membership in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, etc. Rodionov and Popkov and member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade A.A. Kuznetsov, who violated the elementary foundations of state and party discipline...
The Politburo believes that the above-mentioned anti-state actions were a consequence of the fact that Com. Kuznetsova A.A., Rodionov, Popkov there is an unhealthy bias, expressed in flirting with the Leningrad organization, in attempts to present themselves as special defenders of the interests of Leningrad, in attempts to create a mediastinum (that is, an obstacle interfering with direct relations) between the Central Committee and the Leningrad organization...
In this regard, it should be noted that Comrade Popkov, being the first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee and city committee, does not try to ensure communication between the Leningrad party organization and the Central Committee, does not inform the party Central Committee about the state of affairs in Leningrad and, instead of submitting questions and proposals directly to The Central Committee is taking the path of bypassing the Central Committee of the party, on the path of dubious behind-the-scenes and sometimes greedy combinations carried out through various self-proclaimed “chiefs” of Leningrad, like Comrade Comrade. Kuznetsov, Rodionov and others.
In this light, one should consider the proposal to “patronize” Leningrad, which has only now become known to the Central Committee from Comrade Voznesensky, which Comrade Popkov addressed to Comrade N.A. Voznesensky in 1948, as well as misbehavior Comrade Popkov, when he tries to replace the connections of the Leningrad party organization with the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with personal connections with the so-called boss Comrade A.A. Kuznetsov.
The Politburo believes that such methods are an expression of groupism...” (The resolution is given in an abbreviated form.)
The more carefully I reread this Resolution, the more fundamentally it arises next output: in this state of affairs, conditions are inevitably created for the emergence and development of relationships according to the principle “you - to me, I - to you!”, “Well, how can you not please your loved one?” However, this is corruption!!!
By the way, Kuznetsov, using the position of head of the Central Committee by personnel, placed “his people” - “Leningraders” in high positions throughout the country. This explains the fact that repressions in connection with the “Leningrad Affair” were not limited to Leningrad, but spread throughout the entire Union. Corruption was then cut down at the roots, in order to avoid metastases, often taking over places that were not yet infected, that is, those that were nearby. True, this was already an overlap of local figures on the principle of “no matter what happens,” or even the usual settling of scores. However, I also had to answer for all this later!
You should pay attention to this extremely important fact, namely:
February 21, 1949 At the Plenum of the Leningrad Regional Committee, a thorough discussion took place in connection with this Resolution. And, it should be noted, when sorting out relations at the Plenum P.S. Popkov did not make excuses, but directly said, “that absolute number questions that came from the regional and city party committees went to the Central Committee through Kuznetsov. I thought this arrangement was correct. I saw Kuznetsov’s desire to lead the Leningrad organization...
Here are some facts. Comrade Kuznetsov once called me and shouted at me indignantly (with one shout I had to inform the Central Committee of the party): “Why are you building a road to Terijoki? To make it easier for you to travel to the dacha?” I said: “A resort area is for rent, we need a road. There is a decision from the session of the Leningrad City Council and the city party committee.” “You made it all up. Such issues need to be coordinated with the Central Committee...” Now I understand that, by demanding coordination of such issues with the Central Committee, he meant himself by the Central Committee.
Verbitsky arrives and says: “I visited Alexey Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov, who asked me on what basis do you want to remove tram traffic from Engels Avenue?” Verbitsky then stated: Kuznetsov demands that such questions be coordinated with him...”
Notice! All this would be tolerable if the Central Committee entrusted Kuznetsov with responsibility for the state of affairs in Leningrad, but he did this without permission, being the head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee. Moreover, he exerted pressure, using his influence in the selection, replacement and promotion of people.
Moreover, he not only minded his own business, but also sought to resolve all issues single-handedly, hiding this from the Central Committee and acting in a way that was primarily beneficial to him: first from the point of view of the general cause, and then from the point of view of his personal career and personal well-being... And this also led to all-encompassing corruption, because if something is possible for the boss, then it is also possible for the subordinates!
Of course, in relation to his subordinates.
This conclusion can be clearly seen in the example of the second secretary of the Leningrad City Committee Ya.F. Kapustina, who said as if nothing had happened:
“In our system it was like this: just like a trip, you have to go to Kuznetsov in Moscow.
IN last time When I came with a delegation to greet the Moscow Party Conference, I again did not fail to visit him. Why did you come here? For what?"
To which Malenkov quite rightly replied: “The point is not that you went or did not go to Comrade Kuznetsov - he was the secretary of the Central Committee: why not come in? But the fact is that the Central Committee did not know what you talked about with Kuznetsov, what instructions Kuznetsov gave. It all came together in the group...
U Central Committee there is a Secretariat, there is a bureau, there is a Politburo, and depending on the importance of the issue, the Secretariat, the bureau or the Politburo decides. You support a different order - sole decision on the issue, sole instructions. That's what it's all about."
Malenkov is right, because it is with such unspoken conversations that corruption begins. And whoever does not understand this will never defeat corruption.
Historical fact
People from Leningrad (for example, in the person of N.A. Voznesensky) and in the USSR State Planning Committee did not really adhere to the rule: friendship is friendship, and service is service!
As a result, “it turned out that the Chairman of the State Planning Committee, Voznesensky, systematically underestimated the plan for some ministries and overestimated it for others. Accordingly, those he loved had good performance, bonuses and other delights.” But for the rest, it’s better not to remember...
How difficult such “Leningrad traditions” are for the country, the people experience to this day!
What was it
All proceedings in the “Leningrad case” took place in purely public order and did not touch on that part of the “case” that the authorities opened six months later, starting criminal investigation for attempts of a political nature, with the goal of creating a new party (RKP) and forming on this basis the RSFSR into... so to speak, a full-fledged republic.
That is, the “Leningraders” were tried for those political plans, which ultimately assumed what Yeltsin did in 1980-1990, namely: by declaring Russia independent within the USSR, Yeltsin thereby destroyed the Soviet Union and, therefore, committed an act that should have been prosecuted under the article “Treason.” Motherland" by destroying the constitutional foundations of the USSR, expressed in the change or overthrow of the social system.
In other words, the “Lendelians” were tried and sentenced for attempting to create what 40 years later Yeltsin and his allies in the form of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Polozkov-Zyuganov and the notorious Commonwealth created Independent States(CIS), from which the peoples of the former Soviet republics still cannot recover. However, this was a completely different and more terrible story, which put into the background even the issues of corruption that we discussed above.
In addition to the corruption component of the “Leningrad case”, revealed at the highest party and state level, in those same years a whole series of “cases” were solved economic order in the sphere of action of ministries, central administrations and enterprises directly producing products of high and everyday demand.
"Bread business"
No matter how secretly the “tops” do something, the “bottoms” immediately (!) begin to repeat it. Because while the “tops” are still getting ready, the rich imagination of the observant “bottoms” is already picturing what the “tops,” they say, have been doing for a long time... Indeed: if the “tops” can do it in relation to their subordinates, then why can’t these subordinates do it in relation to to your “bottoms”?!
Corruption, like electricity, instantly spreads through all channels of power! And if someone gets in her way, she immediately turns him into “hers” or throws him out (!) from her system - she simply destroys those who are especially disobedient. That's why I call corruption cancerous tumor society...
This is the grave misfortune that befell the victorious but hungry Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War. And the first of the cases that corruption took on, naturally, was the “grain business.” Because hungry people were ready to give their last savings for bread!
The distribution system has become an incubator and carrier of corruption in the Russian food industry "Rosglavkhleb" headed by the head of the supply department Mikhail Isaev.
The extensive network of his criminal group (except for the deputy head of the department Shulkin B.N., the chief accountant of the department Rosenbaum D.A. and the director of the Moscow interregional base of the Main Directorate Bukhman E.M.) included officials from the poorly controlled trusts of Altai and Tatarstan, as well as the Arkhangelsk , Bryansk, Ivanovo, Moscow, Orenburg and Rostov regions. There were at least 20 people in total...
The attention of Nevzorov and his comrades in the special services was attracted by pretty young women, whom the overfed Isaevsk beauties changed like gloves. Of course: when some were sick from hunger, the tables in restaurants and dachas were full of food and drinks, which made it possible to organize an almost competitive selection among the fairer sex. It got to the point that Isaev’s wife found out about her husband’s dacha “choral orgies” and... hanged herself. Isaev and his companions in an easy life, in order to hide the true causes of death, buried her as if she had died from a sudden heart attack...
The question was: how much money and where did all this come from?
The answer was extremely simple: from the world one by one - a shirt to the body. Indeed, for the fact that all the deficits were allocated to these trusts without delay, and even beyond what was required, their bosses “rolled back” them to the Moscow authorities according to the following scheme.
They prescribed, for example, a thousand kg of flour or sugar to some bakery or confectionery factory, but only 950 kg of sugar was released, leaving Isaev with 50 kilos as a kickback. In order to cover this shortage (and also to profit from the resulting shortage), for example, during the production of cookies, a shortage of sugar was carried out: instead of 1000, 900 kg were used for production... in the expectation that it is impossible to determine by taste how much sugar is in a kilogram of cookies - 90 g or 100! This could only be done in the laboratory.
Or let's take baking 100 thousand buns, for each of which instead of 10 pcs. There were 8 raisins and instead of 30 grams of sugar - 25, etc., etc.
Direct theft was also practiced due to incomplete receipt of incoming food, which in post-war conditions was easily explained by both undetected losses from cars unsealed en route, and obvious robberies during the unloading of “freight trains” by members of numerous gangs who were hired as decent people, but then suddenly disappeared in an unknown direction and, naturally, not empty-handed. As a result, financially responsible persons were forced to draw up acts for the damage caused. Of course, in the current situation, many of them stole themselves, and blamed everything on the bandits.
Products “saved” in this way were quickly sold in markets and through a commercial network of stores.
Be that as it may, detective Fyodor Nevzorov and his comrades in the special services managed to lead to clean water not only the already named capital food and crime center M.I. Isaev, but also high-ranking provincial lovers associated with Isaev who like to arrange a “sweet life” for themselves at the expense of the bitter tears of ordinary citizens.
According to intelligence data.
I list the corrupt criminals and their “deeds” according to the documents of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“LEIDERMAN L.G., a representative of the Rostov trust, in a criminal conspiracy with Isaev and other employees of the Central Base and supply department of Rosglavkhleb, received various products worth 123.7 thousand rubles for the baking industry enterprises of the region, but in the city. Rostov did not deliver them. He transferred part of the money for these stolen products (by agreement with the chief accountant of the supply department of Glavka Rosenbaum) through the Moscow state labor savings banks in cash. Some of the goods were written off at individual bakeries for production as allegedly spent on the production of bakery products.
Frolov A.E., working as manager of the Arkhangelsk Trust for the Baking Industry, in 1945-46. received from the Rosglavkhleb base food products worth 86,928 rubles, of which 66,569 rubles were not delivered to the trust and were stolen.
In a similar way, they received and stole food products:
representatives of the Tatar Baking Trust, forwarder Kurochkin-Savoderov F.N. and Tsanin Y.T. - in the amount of 183 thousand rubles (of which Kurochkin-Savoderov - 136 thousand rubles);
chief engineer of the Altai, and then manager of the Bryansk trust "Rosglavkhleb" Dashkovsky M.I. - in the amount of 10,600 rubles;
Forwarder of the Buzuluk bakery, Orenburg region Spevak S.M. - in the amount of 94 thousand rubles, etc.
In addition, the investigation in the case established that Isaev M.I. By order of the Ministry of Food Industry of the USSR No. 104 dated March 18, 1946, he received 30 vehicles from the Moscow Trust “Bake” to be sent according to orders to a number of trusts of the Russian Federation. By a criminal agreement with the manager of the transport office of the Moscow Trust, Melamed G.Ya. for sending cars to trusts, they received bribes from their representatives at the rate of 7 thousand rubles per car. In total, they received about 200 thousand rubles.
For example, the same Leiderman gave Melamed a bribe of 70 thousand rubles for 10 cars. Documentedly, Leiderman reported that he allegedly spent the specified amount on machine repairs, which he carried out privately at Moscow enterprises. Fictitious documents were prepared for him by the forwarder of the Central Base “Rosglavkhleb” Rabinovich I.Z.
For the delivery of cars to the Buzuluk bakery, Isaev received 60 kg of saccharin from its representative Spevak, which he had to deliver to his bakery. As a result, in order to hide the shortage, the saccharin stolen in this way was written off for production...
Part of the illegally obtained money was spent on a riotous lifestyle, in particular, on drinking in restaurants and carousing with women of easy virtue. The other part was spent on the purchase of jewelry and household items. A bearer savings book in the amount of 100 thousand rubles was seized from Isaev and an expensive dacha in the Moscow region was described, where a whole warehouse of food products was discovered and seized, and among them - bags of sugar and flour, a large amount of canned meat and dairy, hundreds bottles of expensive wines, vodka and sausage products worth tens of thousands of rubles, etc.
Isaev’s criminal group stole from April 14, 1945 to 1946 inclusive: sugar - 1670 kg, flour - 8500 kg, saccharin - 670 kg, raisins - 310 kg, butter- 414 kg, condensed milk - 1553 cans, jam and marmalade - 2605 kg, etc. - total at retail prices (according to Order of the USSR Ministry of Trade No. 550 dated December 14, 1947) in the amount of 1,139,230 rubles. 18 kopecks
Isaev and Rosenbaum to 25 years in prison each, followed by loss of voting rights for five years;
their accomplices: Kurochkin-Savoderov - to 15 years in prison;
Melamed, Spevak and Tsanin - to 10 years in prison;
Bukhman, Leiderman, Frolov and others - also to long terms of imprisonment;
all - with complete confiscation of property their relatives».
Thus, the damage caused by the criminals to the state was fully compensated. One cannot even dream of such results today... (zanuda2: it is noteworthy that the majority of participants and main organizers of these thefts are ethnic Jews - Bukhman, Leiderman, Melamed, Dashkovsky, Spevak, Tsanin, etc. As is also the case among the current "olingarchs" - all these Berezovskys, Gusinskys, Abramovichs, Prokhorovs, Vakselbergs, Izraileviches, Kogans, Levites, etc. True, the Jews themselves say that this is just a coincidence...)
NEW WAVE OF REPRESSION
After the death of A. Zhdanov, which followed in August 1948, the position of people close to him became especially vulnerable. G. Malenkov, using pathological suspicion of any manifestations of independence and initiative, became one of the main organizers of the “Leningrad Affair”. He sought to prove that in Leningrad there was an organized group of leaders who had taken the path of behind-the-scenes combinations directed against the central leadership. Already on February 15, 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to remove from their posts A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov (chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR) and P. S. Popkov (first secretary of the Leningrad regional and city committee of the All-Union Communist Party ( b)). In 1949-1951 In Leningrad and the region, over 2,000 responsible workers were subjected to repression.
Popkov and other Leningrad leaders were accused of wanting to create a Communist Party of Russia based on the model of other union republics with headquarters in Leningrad, as well as transferring the government of the RSFSR to the city on the Neva. One of the features of the “Leningrad Affair” was that not only party functionaries, but also Soviet, Komsomol, trade union leaders and members of their families were persecuted.
Purges took place in the city's universities, during which many famous scientists lost their jobs. Hundreds of book titles and pamphlets were banned and removed from libraries.
From September 29 to October 1, 1950, the trial of the first group of defendants in this “case” took place in the building of the Leningrad District House of Officers. On October 1, the verdict was announced, and on the same day A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov, N. A. Voznesensky, P. S. Popkov, Ya. F. Kapustin and P. G. Lazutin were shot.
The list of victims of the Leningrad Affair continued to grow. At the end of October 1950, A. A. Voznesensky, the Minister of Education of the RSFSR, the former rector of Leningrad State University during the war years, was shot; M. A. Voznesenskaya - first secretary of the Kuibyshev district committee of the CPSU (b) of Leningrad; N.V. Solovyov - First Secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, formerly Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad Regional Council; G. F. Badaev - second secretary of the Leningrad regional committee of the CPSU (b); A. A. Bubnov – secretary of the Leningrad City Executive Committee and other leaders. Arrests and trials continued in 1951-1952. The total number of deaths in the Leningrad Affair was about 30 people. The rehabilitation of convicts began after Stalin's death.
The “Leningrad Affair” became a kind of rehearsal for a planned series of new trials. At the beginning of July 1951, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks received a statement from the senior investigator for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Lieutenant Colonel M.D. Ryumin, in which he “signaled” the unfavorable state of affairs in the Ministry and blamed his immediate superior, Minister of State Security V. . S. Abakumova. This circumstance suited Beria and Malenkov, who in the summer of 1951 headed a special commission of the Central Committee to investigate the activities of Abakumov and did everything possible to remove him from his post. The former head of the MGB was expelled from the party and taken into custody. A new campaign has been launched to identify “enemies”.
At the end of 1951 - beginning of 1952, Stalin inspired the “exposure” of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist organization in Georgia. Even Beria, under these conditions, could not help but feel a threat to his position, having reason to believe that he himself could become the next victim of the dictator.
I.S. Ratkovsky, M.V. Khodyakov. History of Soviet Russia
LIST OF ARRESTED
Top secret
CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to Comrade I.V. STALIN
At the same time, I present a list of the rest of those arrested in the Leningrad case.
The USSR MGB considers it necessary to convict the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the usual manner, without the participation of the parties, in the Lefortovo prison, with the consideration of cases for each accused individually:
First. - The accused listed in the attached list from 1 to 19 numbers inclusive: SOLOVIEV, VERBITSKY, LEVIN, BADAEV, VOZNESENSKY, KUBATKIN, VOZNESENSKY, BONDARENKO, KHARITONOV, BURILINA, BASOVA, NIKITIN, TALUSH, SAFONOVA, GALKINA, A, BUBNOV, PETROVSKY, CHURSINA, - to the death penalty - execution, without the right of appeal, pardon and with the court sentence carried out immediately.
Second. - From 20 to 32 list numbers inclusive: GRIGORIEV, KOLOBASHKINA, SINTSOVA, BUMAGINA, BOYAR, KLEMENCHUK, KUZMENKO, TAIROVA, SHUMILOVA, NIKANOROVA, KHOVANOV, RAKOV and BELOPOLSKY - to 25 years in prison each.
Third. - From 33 to 38 list number: TIKHONOV, PAVLOV, LIZUNOV, PODGORSKY, VEDERNIKOV and SKRIPCHENKO, - each to 15 years of imprisonment in a special camp.
I ask for your permission.
V. Abakumov ABakumov.
THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER AROUND STALIN
After the death of Zhdanov, the influence of the group led by N.A. Voznesensky remained for some time. At the same time, the struggle between them and the Malenkov-Beria group is intensifying. As noted in the official materials of the Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee for additional study of materials related to the repressions that took place in the period 30-40 and early 50s. “Stalin, in private conversations, suggested that as his successor on the party line, he saw the Secretary of the Central Committee, member of the Organizing Bureau A.A. Kuznetsov, and on the state line - member of the Politburo, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.A. Voznesensky.” .
The conflict between Kuznetsov and Malenkov broke out back in 1946. Kuznetsov was one of the executors of the “aviators’ cause” and, as employees of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) later recalled, “Comrade Kuznetsov revealed a number of shortcomings made by Malenkov in the leadership of the personnel department and the Ministry of Aviation industry, and subjected them to deserved criticism at meetings of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
In July 1948, Malenkov was again elected secretary of the Central Committee. The struggle between the old and new heads of the Central Committee Personnel Department is entering a new phase. An external and clearly far-fetched reason for the prosecution of the so-called “Leningrad anti-party group” was the accusation of A.A. Kuznetsov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M.I. Rodionov and the First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee P.S. Popkov of holding an All-Russian Wholesale Fair in Leningrad. The accusation was unfounded, since the Bureau of the USSR Council of Ministers, chaired by G.M. Malenkov, twice decided to hold wholesale fairs for the sale of surplus goods twice - on October 14 and November 11, 1948. A more serious reason, in our opinion, was the accusation of factionalism, banned from the party at the 10th Congress and savagely persecuted by Stalin.
In February 1949, Malenkov was sent to Leningrad. An ideological basis was provided for the struggle of groups for power, and continuity with the political processes of ten years ago was established. The rest remained a matter of executioner technique. As a result of the arrests, it was possible to extract testimony that the second secretary of the Leningrad City Committee, Ya.F. Kapustin, an active participant in the defense of the city during the war, was an “English spy.” He was reminded that in 1935 he had undergone a long internship in England, in Manchester, at the Metropolitan Wicker factories, that he enjoyed respect and trust at the plant, that he had an affair with his teacher in English, which offered him to stay in England, and all these facts “deserve special attention as a signal of the possible (our italics. Author) processing of Kapustin by English intelligence.”
Another accused, the former chairman of the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee, appointed first secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) N.V. Solovyov, was declared a “tall great-power chauvinist” for his proposal to create a Bureau of the Central Committee for the RSFSR and form the Communist Party of the RSFSR. He was also accused of “making sharp hostile attacks against the head of the Soviet state while at work in Crimea.”
On August 13, 1949, when leaving the office of G.M. Malenkov without the sanction of the prosecutor, A.A. Kuznetsov, P.S. Popkov, M.I. Rodionov, the chairman of the Leningrad executive committee of the city council P.G. Lazutin and the former chairman of the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee N.V. Soloviev.
In parallel with this, there was a search for compromising evidence against N.A. Voznesensky.
Direct work to discredit N.A. Voznesensky was carried out by the Chairman of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) M.F. Shkiryatov99. N.A. Voznesensky was charged with deliberately underestimating state plans, distorting and falsifying statistical reporting, and finally - losing secret documents in the State Planning Committee. Considering that almost all the documentation was considered secret, this accusation was, in fact, a win-win. On September 9, 1949, Shkiryatov conveyed to G.M. Malenkov the decision of the CCP with a proposal to expel Voznesensky from the party and bring him to court for LOSS OF DOCUMENTS by the State Planning Committee of the USSR100. This proposal was approved by a survey of members of the Plenum of the Central Committee and on October 27, 1949, Voznesensky was arrested. The investigation was carried out by the Ministry of State Security and special investigators from among the Central Committee employees.
Those arrested Kuznetsov, Kapustin, the Voznesensky brothers, Rodionov, and Deputy Chairman of the Leningrad City Council Galkin were brutally tortured. Malenkov, Beria and Bulganin took direct part in the interrogation procedure, along with MGB investigators.
The investigation (if this term can be used here at all) proceeded with exceptional, some kind of medieval cruelty. They beat pregnant women, exterminated their families (so, in addition to N.A. Voznesensky himself, his brother, the Minister of Education of the RSFSR A.A. Voznesensky, his sister, M.A. Voznesenskaya, the secretary of one of the Leningrad district committees and 14 (!) wives and relatives of other accused.
The main point of accusation against N.A. Voznesensky was that he lost secret documents. Under this article, in accordance with the Law "On liability for disclosure of state secrets and for the loss of documents containing state secret", adopted in 1947, the maximum punishment was intended to be imprisonment in a forced labor camp for a period of ten to fifteen years. The death penalty in the USSR was officially abolished after the war. The resolution Supreme Council The USSR announced that “the use of the death penalty is no longer caused by necessity in peacetime conditions”, ... “meeting the wishes of trade unions of workers and employees and other authoritative organizations expressing the opinion of broad public circles” - the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR abolished the death penalty .
However, in order to punish the accused, the very norm of the law was changed... On January 12, 1950, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies and subversive saboteurs” was adopted, again “in view of statements received from the national republics , from trade unions, peasant organizations, as well as from cultural figures."
A trial followed, its future decisions, in accordance with usual practice, having been approved in advance by Stalin and the Politburo. On October 1, 1950, at one in the morning, the verdict was announced, according to which Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Rodionov, Popkov, Kapustin and Lazutin were sentenced to death. An hour later the sentence was carried out. Arrests and trials continued over the next 1950-1952. The KGB archive preserved a draft resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, dated August 1949, which was supposed to oblige the Ministry of State Security to “evict those living in the city of Leningrad and Leningrad region 1,500 people with families, from among those who have compromised themselves to some extent by connections with Trotskyists, Zinovievites, rightists, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, Germans and Finns, for permanent settlement in the Altai Territory, under the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs." In the summer of 1957. F.R. Kozlov, the then secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee, said at the Plenum of the Central Committee: “Tens of thousands of innocent people were then sent from Leningrad into exile, into prison, and many of them were shot, many of them died. Tens of thousands of innocent people were sent away in trains."
With the removal from politics and life of Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and their supporters, the struggle for power in the Kremlin and on Old Square did not weaken or become clearer. Outwardly, it was a complete victory for Beria and Malenkov. However, contradictions remained between the members of this group (it is enough to recall that in 1946 Malenkov almost became Beria’s subject of investigation), and Stalin himself looked after them with suspicion, introducing “his people” into the political game.
R. Pihoya. Socio-political development and struggle for power in the post-war Soviet Union (1945-1953)
REHABILITATION
An investigation currently conducted by the USSR Prosecutor's Office on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee has established that the case accusing Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others of treason, counter-revolutionary sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet group was fabricated for enemy counter-revolutionary purposes by the former Minister of State Security, now arrested Abakumov and his accomplices. Using facts of violation of state discipline and individual offenses on the part of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others, for which they were removed from their posts with the imposition of party penalties, Abakumov and his accomplices artificially presented these actions as the actions of an organized anti-Soviet treasonous group and with beatings and threats obtained fictitious testimony from those arrested about the alleged creation of a conspiracy...
From the resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the case of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others” dated May 3, 1954 (V.A. “Leningrad case”: rehabilitation // University St. Petersburg readings: 300 years of the Northern capital. Collection of articles. St. Petersburg ., 2003).
