During the years of perestroika, when practically all people from Stalin’s circle were subjected to a wave of all kinds of accusations in the advanced Soviet press, the most unenviable lot fell to General Vlasik. The long-time head of Stalin's security appeared in these materials as a real lackey who adored his master, a chain dog, ready to rush at anyone at his command, greedy, vindictive and self-interested.

Among those who did not spare Vlasik negative epithets was Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. But the leader’s bodyguard at one time had to become practically the main educator for both Svetlana and Vasily.

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik spent a quarter of a century next to Stalin, protecting the life of the Soviet leader. The leader lived without his bodyguard for less than a year.

From parochial school to the Cheka

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in Western Belarus, in the village of Bobynichi, into a poor peasant family. The boy lost his parents early and could not count on a good education. After three classes at the parochial school, Nikolai went to work. From the age of 13, he worked as a laborer at a construction site, then as a bricklayer, then as a loader at a paper mill.

In March 1915, Vlasik was drafted into the army and sent to the front. During the First World War, he served in the 167th Ostrog Infantry Regiment and was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer and appointed platoon commander of the 251st Infantry Regiment, which was stationed in Moscow.

During the October Revolution, Nikolai Vlasik, who came from the very bottom, quickly decided on his political choice: together with the entrusted platoon, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.

At first he served in the Moscow police, then he participated in the Civil War, and was wounded near Tsaritsyn. In September 1919, Vlasik was sent to the Cheka, where he served in the central apparatus under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky himself.

Master of Security and Household

Since May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik served as senior commissioner of the Operations Department of the OGPU.

As Vlasik himself recalled, his work as Stalin’s bodyguard began in 1927 after an emergency in the capital: a bomb was thrown at the commandant’s office building on Lubyanka. The operative, who was on vacation, was recalled and announced: from now on, he will be entrusted with the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, and members of the government at their dachas and walks. Particular attention was ordered to be paid to the personal security of Joseph Stalin.

Despite the sad story of the assassination attempt on Lenin, by 1927 the security of the top officials of the state in the USSR was not particularly thorough.

Stalin was accompanied by only one guard: the Lithuanian Yusis. Vlasik was even more surprised when they arrived at the dacha, where Stalin usually spent his weekends. There was only one commandant living at the dacha; there was no linen or dishes, and the leader ate sandwiches brought from Moscow.

Like all Belarusian peasants, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was a thorough and homely person. He took on not only the security, but also the arrangement of Stalin’s life.

The leader, accustomed to asceticism, was initially skeptical about the innovations of the new bodyguard. But Vlasik was persistent: a cook and a cleaner appeared at the dacha, and supplies of food were arranged from the nearest state farm. At that moment, there was not even a telephone connection with Moscow at the dacha, and it appeared through the efforts of Vlasik.

Over time, Vlasik created a whole system of dachas in the Moscow region and in the south, where well-trained staff were ready at any time to receive the Soviet leader. It is not worth mentioning that these objects were guarded in the most careful manner.
The system for protecting important government facilities existed before Vlasik, but he became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events, and international meetings.

Stalin's bodyguard came up with a system according to which the first person and the people accompanying him travel in a cavalcade of identical cars, and only the personal security officers know which of them the leader is traveling in. Subsequently, this scheme saved the life of Leonid Brezhnev, who was assassinated in 1969.

An irreplaceable and especially trusted person

Within a few years, Vlasik turned into an irreplaceable and especially trusted person for Stalin. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin entrusted his bodyguard with caring for the children: Svetlana, Vasily and his adopted son Artyom Sergeev.

Nikolai Sidorovich was not a teacher, but he tried his best. If Svetlana and Artyom did not cause him much trouble, then Vasily was uncontrollable from childhood. Vlasik, knowing that Stalin did not give permission to children, tried, as far as possible, to mitigate Vasily’s sins in reports to his father.

But over the years, the “pranks” became more and more serious, and the role of “lightning rod” became more and more difficult for Vlasik to play.

Svetlana and Artyom, having become adults, wrote about their “tutor” in different ways. Stalin’s daughter in “Twenty Letters to a Friend” characterized Vlasik as follows: “He headed his father’s entire guard, considered himself almost the closest person to him, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble...”

“He had a job all his life, and he lived near Stalin”

Artyom Sergeev in “Conversations about Stalin” spoke differently: “His main duty was to ensure Stalin’s safety. This work was inhuman. Always take responsibility with your head, always live on the cutting edge. He knew Stalin’s friends and enemies very well... What kind of work did Vlasik even have? It was a day and night job, there were no 6-8 hour days. He had a job all his life and lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin’s room was Vlasik’s room...”

In ten to fifteen years, Nikolai Vlasik turned from an ordinary bodyguard into a general, heading a huge structure responsible not only for security, but also for the life of the top officials of the state.

During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on Vlasik's shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to accommodate them, equip them in a new place, and think through security issues. The evacuation of Lenin's body from Moscow was also a task that Vlasik performed. He was also responsible for security at the parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

Assassination attempt in Gagra

For all the years that Vlasik was responsible for Stalin’s life, not a single hair fell from his head. At the same time, the head of the leader’s security, judging by his memoirs, took the threat of assassination attempt very seriously. Even in his declining years, he was sure that Trotskyist groups were preparing the assassination of Stalin.

In 1935, Vlasik really had to cover the leader from bullets. During a boat trip in the Gagra area, fire was opened on them from the shore. The bodyguard covered Stalin with his body, but both were lucky: the bullets did not hit them. The boat left the firing zone.

Vlasik considered this a real assassination attempt, and his opponents later believed that it was all a staged act. Judging by the circumstances, there was a misunderstanding. The border guards were not notified of Stalin's boat ride, and they mistook him for an intruder.

Abuse of cows?

During the Great Patriotic War, Vlasik was responsible for ensuring security at conferences of the heads of participating countries anti-Hitler coalition and coped with his task brilliantly. For the successful holding of the conference in Tehran, Vlasik was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the Crimean conference - the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree, for the Potsdam conference - another Order of Lenin.

But the Potsdam Conference became the reason for accusations of misappropriation of property: it was alleged that after its completion, Vlasik took various valuables from Germany, including a horse, two cows and one bull. Subsequently, this fact was cited as an example of the irrepressible greed of Stalin’s bodyguard.

Vlasik himself recalled that this story had a completely different background. In 1941, his native village Bobynichi was captured by the Germans. The house in which the sister lived was burned, half the village was shot, the sister’s eldest daughter was taken to work in Germany, the cow and horse were taken away. My sister and her husband joined the partisans, and after the liberation of Belarus they returned to their native village, of which little remained. Stalin's bodyguard brought cattle from Germany for his loved ones.

Was this abuse? If you approach it with strict standards, then, perhaps, yes. However, Stalin, when this case was first reported to him, abruptly ordered further investigation to be stopped.

Opal

In 1946, Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik became the head of the Main Directorate of Security: an agency with an annual budget of 170 million rubles and a staff of thousands.

He did not fight for power, but at the same time he made a huge number of enemies. Being too close to Stalin, Vlasik had the opportunity to influence the leader’s attitude towards this or that person, deciding who would receive wider access to the first person and who would be denied such an opportunity.

Many high-ranking officials from the country's leadership passionately wanted to get rid of Vlasik. Incriminating evidence on Stalin's bodyguard was collected scrupulously, bit by bit eroding the leader's trust in him.

In 1948, the commandant of the so-called “Near Dacha” Fedoseev was arrested, who testified that Vlasik intended to poison Stalin. But the leader again did not take this accusation seriously: if the bodyguard had such intentions, he could have realized his plans a long time ago.

In 1952, by decision of the Politburo, a commission was created to verify the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. This time, extremely unpleasant facts have surfaced that look quite plausible. The guards and staff of the special dachas, which had been empty for weeks, staged real orgies there and stole food and expensive drinks. Later, there were witnesses who assured that Vlasik himself was not averse to relaxing in this way.

On April 29, 1952, on the basis of these materials, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his post and sent to the Urals, to the city of Asbest, as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“He cohabited with women and drank alcohol in his free time”

Why did Stalin suddenly abandon a man who had honestly served him for 25 years? Perhaps the leader’s growing suspicion in recent years was to blame. It is possible that Stalin considered the waste of state funds on drunken revelry to be too serious a sin. There is a third assumption. It is known that during this period the Soviet leader began to promote young leaders, and openly said to his former comrades: “It’s time to change you.” Perhaps Stalin felt that the time had come to replace Vlasik too.

Be that as it may, very difficult times have come for the former head of Stalin’s guard.

In December 1952, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Case. He was blamed for the fact that he ignored the statements of Lydia Timashuk, who accused the professors who treated the top officials of the state of sabotage.

Vlasik himself wrote in his memoirs that there was no reason to believe Timashuk: “There was no data discrediting the professors, which I reported to Stalin.”

In prison, Vlasik was interrogated with passion for several months. For a man who was well over 50, the disgraced bodyguard was stoic. I was ready to admit “moral corruption” and even waste of funds, but not conspiracy and espionage. “I really cohabited with many women, drank alcohol with them and the artist Stenberg, but all this happened at the expense of my personal health and in my free time from service,” was his testimony.

Could Vlasik extend the life of the leader?

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away. Even if we discard the dubious version of the murder of the leader, Vlasik, if he had remained in his post, could well have extended his life. When the leader became ill at the Nizhny Dacha, he lay for several hours on the floor of his room without help: the guards did not dare to enter Stalin’s chambers. There is no doubt that Vlasik would not allow this.

After the death of the leader, the “doctors’ case” was closed. All of his defendants were released, except Nikolai Vlasik. The collapse of Lavrentiy Beria in June 1953 did not bring him freedom either.

In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Vlasik guilty of abuse of official position under especially aggravating circumstances, sentencing him under Art. 193-17 paragraph “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of exile, deprivation of the rank of general and state awards. In March 1955, Vlasik’s sentence was reduced to 5 years. He was sent to Krasnoyarsk to serve his sentence.

By a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned and his criminal record was expunged, but his military rank and awards were not restored.

“Not for a single minute did I have any grudge against Stalin in my soul.”

He returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. Vlasik knocked on doors of offices, wrote to the leaders of the party and government, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere.

Secretly, he began dictating memoirs in which he talked about how he saw his life, why he committed certain actions, and how he treated Stalin.

“After Stalin’s death, such an expression as “cult of personality” appeared... If a person - a leader by his deeds deserves the love and respect of others, what’s wrong with that... The people loved and respected Stalin. He personified the country that he led to prosperity and victories, wrote Nikolai Vlasik. “Under his leadership, a lot of good things were done, and the people saw it.” He enjoyed enormous authority. I knew him very closely... And I claim that he lived only in the interests of the country, the interests of his people.”

“It is easy to accuse a person of all mortal sins when he is dead and can neither justify himself nor defend himself. Why did no one dare to point out his mistakes during his lifetime? What was stopping you? Fear? Or were there no errors that needed to be pointed out?

What a threat Tsar Ivan IV was, but there were people to whom their homeland was dear, who, without fear of death, pointed out to him his mistakes. Or have there been no brave people in Rus'? - this is what Stalin’s bodyguard thought.

Summing up his memoirs and his life in general, Vlasik wrote: “Having not a single penalty, but only incentives and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison.

But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I had no anger in my soul against Stalin. I understood perfectly well what kind of situation was created around him in the last years of his life. How difficult it was for him. He was an old, sick, lonely man... He was and remains the most dear person to me, and no slander can shake the feeling of love and deepest respect that I have always had for this wonderful man. He personified for me everything bright and dear in my life - the party, my homeland and my people.”

Posthumously rehabilitated

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died on June 18, 1967. His archive was seized and classified. Only in 2011, the Federal Security Service declassified the notes of the person who, in fact, was at the origins of its creation.

Vlasik’s relatives have repeatedly made attempts to achieve his rehabilitation. After several refusals, on June 28, 2000, by a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia, the 1955 sentence was overturned and the criminal case was dismissed “for lack of corpus delicti.”

PREFACE

The authors of this book were close to Stalin for many years, observed his life and were at the center of the most important political events.
The head of Stalin's personal security, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik, was born on May 22, 1896 in the Belarusian village of Bobynichi. From the age of thirteen he worked in construction, then in a paper mill. In World War I he was called up for military service. For his bravery he was awarded the St. George Cross, 1st degree. After being wounded in 1916, Vlasik was sent to Moscow to the 25th reserve regiment - with the rank of non-commissioned officer, platoon commander. In days February Revolution the young officer joins his regiment with the rebels - without firing a single shot. Since October 1917, Vlasik has been working in the newly created Soviet police. In 1918, as part of the 393rd Rogozhsko-Simonovsky Regiment, he was sent to the Southern Front, to the 10th Army defending Tsaritsyn. After being wounded and subsequently treated in a Moscow hospital, Vlasik is assigned to the 1st Soviet Infantry Regiment. In the same year he joined the ranks of the RCP (b). The next year, 1919, marked a new turn in the biography of Nikolai Sidorovich: after the mobilization of the party, he was sent to work in the Special Department of the Cheka, at the disposal of F. E. Dzerzhinsky, where the young security officer took an active part in operations to eliminate the counter-revolutionary underground in the USSR (in particular, cadet), carries out important assignments from the leaders of Soviet counterintelligence.
In 1927, an event occurred that determined the fate of N. S. Vlasik for many years: after the famous explosion in the commandant’s office building on Lubyanka, he was entrusted with organizing the security of the Special Department of the OGPU, the Kremlin, members of the Soviet government and the personal guard of J. V. Stalin. From that time on, Vlasik’s life and work were closely connected with the personality of Stalin, his activities, way of life, and character traits. Over almost a quarter-century of holding various positions related to ensuring the protection of the Soviet government and Stalin personally, Nikolai Sidorovich went through all the steps of the career ladder of one of the important sectors of the national state security system. Since 1938, Vlasik became the head of the First Department of the General Security of the Government. From 1947 to 1952 he directed the work of the Main Security Directorate of the MGB.

* * *

“The man behind” accompanied Stalin on his trips around the city, at airfields, in theaters, at parades and official events, on vacation trips, at conferences and meetings with heads of foreign countries - this, as is known, is the “specificity” of this responsible and not an easy profession, especially when it comes to protecting a great statesman, the leader of a world superpower. In addition, if we take into account that the Main Security Directorate of the MGB had a large staff of employees, and this department also had a whole complex of buildings, state dachas, outbuildings in different parts of the vast state, had a branched structure (in fact, an autonomous “ministry” in the Soviet system state security), it is not difficult to imagine what volume of responsibilities was assigned to the head of this organization and what weight the “man under Stalin” had in the highest Kremlin circles.
The Soviet government highly appreciated the services of N.S. Vlasik to the country. He was awarded three Orders of Lenin (2 of them for providing security for participants in the Tehran and Potsdam Conferences), four Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree (for providing security for participants in the Yalta Conference), the Order of the Red Star, and five medals.

* * *

Vlasik was always devoted to Stalin. But he was not loyal in a lackey way - which was alien to this courageous man - but sincerely devoted, knowing what responsibility lay with him. This sincere and reverent attitude towards his duties was sometimes expressed in excessive anxiety, acute feelings about even the most insignificant mistake made by one of his subordinates (Vlasik recorded such “incidents” very emotionally and self-critically in his diary). Such concern for Stalin’s life and health can hardly be explained by the usual bureaucratic desire to curry favor or fear of possible punishment for a mistake. Here we can rather talk about a particularly reverent attitude towards the assigned task: after all, we were talking about the head of a great state, the Leader of the Soviet people. It should be noted that Stalin also trusted the head of his security department, to a certain extent, of course.
At the end of the 40s, N. S. Vlasik made, however, two significant mistakes: firstly, he did not give effect to L. F. Timashuk’s letter about the incorrect treatment of A. A. Zhdanov, which led to death. This omission of Vlasik became clear later, in the early 50s, when the proceedings of the famous “Doctors’ Case” began, during which many facts of anti-state activities of its defendants were revealed. The second mistake of N.S. Vlasik was that he got involved in political intrigues, the purpose of which was to eliminate L.P. Beria from Stalin’s entourage.
The denouement came soon. On April 29, 1952, Vlasik was removed from office on charges of abuse of office, and on December 16, 1952, he was arrested.
He spent three years in prison. His trial took place in 1955, already under Khrushchev. Stalin was not alive, but Vlasik did not renounce the leader, like many “Khrushchevites,” so his fate was sealed. According to the court verdict N.S. Vlasik was sent into exile in Siberia. He was released only under an amnesty; Vlasik returned to Moscow and worked on his memoirs in the last years of his life.

* * *

Rybin Alexey Trofimovich was an employee of I.V.’s personal security. Stalin since 1931. Alexey Rybin guarded Stalin in the Kremlin, at the dacha, and on vacation; later he was appointed commandant of the Bolshoi Theater.
Rybin's memories of Stalin are distinguished by their vividness and spontaneity; they contain many interesting details showing the leader at home and in everyday life. In addition, Rybin supplements his notes with memories of other people who knew and saw Stalin, and conducts a historical investigation of some controversial episodes from his life.
Georgy Aleksandrovich Egnatashvili was the head of security for member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks N.M. Shvernik. Georgy Egnatashvili was friends with Stalin’s eldest son, Yakov, and knew Stalin’s family well, including his mother.
The topic of Stalin’s relatives and relationships in his family is continued by Artem Fedorovich Sergeev. He was the son of a prominent figure in the Bolshevik Party, one of Stalin’s closest associates, Fedor Andreevich Sergeev. After the tragic death of his father, Artem was raised in the family of Joseph Stalin and was friends with his youngest son Vasily.
Memoirs of A.F. Sergeev is shown to I.V. Stalin during family holidays, in communication with friends, with children; touch on the topic of Stalin's personal attachments.
IN Application The book uses the memoirs of Yakov Ermolaevich Chadayev. During the Great Patriotic War, he was the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, saw I.V. Stalin at work and in relationships with subordinates. The assessment of Stalin's business qualities is supplemented in Chadayev's memoirs with an assessment of the top leaders of the Soviet state. It seems interesting to compare these notes with the memoirs of N.S. Vlasik.
(The biographical sketch about N.S. Vlasik uses materials from Alexey Kozhevnikov, candidate of historical sciences.)

Notes of N. S. Vlasik

BRIEF FOREWORD

HOW I WAS APPOINTED TO STALIN

In 1927, a bomb was thrown at the commandant's office building on Lubyanka. At that time I was in Sochi on vacation. The authorities urgently called me and instructed me to organize the security of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, as well as the security of government members at dachas, walks, trips, and to pay special attention to the personal security of Comrade Stalin. Until this time, Comrade Stalin had only one employee who accompanied him when he went on business trips. It was the Lithuanian Yusis. He called Yusis and went with him by car to a dacha near Moscow, where Comrade Stalin usually rested. Arriving at the dacha and examining it, I saw that there was complete chaos there. There was no linen, no dishes, no staff. There was a commandant who lived at the dacha.
As I learned from Yusis, Comrade Stalin came to the dacha with his family only on Sundays and ate sandwiches that they brought with them from Moscow.

STALIN'S FAMILY, RHYTHM OF LIFE, LIFE

Comrade Stalin’s family consisted of his wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna, the daughter of the old Bolshevik Alliluyev S. Ya., whom Comrade Stalin met when he was hiding in his family’s apartment in Petrograd, and two children - son Vasya, a very lively and impetuous boy of five years old, and daughter Svetlana is two years old. In addition to these children, Comrade Stalin had an adult son from his first marriage to Ekaterina Svanidze, Yakov, a very sweet and modest person, unusually similar to his father in his conversations and manners. Looking ahead, I will say that he graduated from the Institute of Railway Transport and lived on a scholarship, being in need at times, but never turned to his father with any requests. After graduating from college, in response to his father’s remark that he would like to see his son in the military, Yakov entered the Artillery Academy, which he graduated from before the war. In the very first days of the war, he went to the front. At Vyazma, our units were surrounded, and he was taken prisoner.
The Germans held him prisoner in the camp until the end of the war, in the camp and killed him, allegedly while trying to escape. According to the former French Prime Minister Herriot, who was with him in this camp, Jacob behaved with exceptional dignity and courage. After the end of the war, Herriot wrote to Stalin about this.
In the apartment in the Kremlin where Stalin lived with his family, there was a housekeeper, Karolina Vasilievna, and a cleaning lady. They received food from the Kremlin canteen, from where K.V. brought lunch in boats. By order of my superiors, I had to, in addition to security, arrange supplies and living conditions for the protected person.
I began by sending linen and dishes to the dacha, and arranged for a supply of food from the state farm, which was under the jurisdiction of the GPU and located next to the dacha. He sent a cook and a cleaner to the dacha. Established a direct telephone connection with Moscow.
Yusis, fearing Comrade Stalin’s dissatisfaction with these innovations, suggested that I myself report everything to Comrade Stalin. This is how my first meeting and first conversation with Comrade Stalin took place. Before that, I had only seen him from afar, when I accompanied him on walks and on trips to the theater.
Comrade Stalin lived very modestly with his family. He walked around in an old, very shabby coat. I suggested that Nadezhda Sergeevna sew him a new coat, but for this it was necessary to take measurements or take an old one and make exactly the same new one from it in the workshop. It was not possible to take measurements, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still managed to sew him a new coat.
His wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna, was a very modest woman, rarely made any requests, and dressed modestly, unlike the wives of many senior workers. She studied at the Industrial Academy and paid a lot of attention to children.

* * *

I wanted to know (and I needed it) the tastes and habits of Comrade Stalin, the peculiarities of his character, and I looked closely at everything with curiosity and interest.
Comrade Stalin usually got up at 9 o’clock, had breakfast and at 11 o’clock was at work at the Central Committee on Old Square. He had lunch at work; it was brought to his office from the Central Committee canteen. Sometimes, when Comrade Kirov came to Moscow, they went home together for dinner. Comrade Stalin often worked until late at night, especially in those years when, after the death of Lenin, it was necessary to intensify the fight against the Trotskyists.
He also worked on his book “Questions of Leninism” in his office at the Central Committee, sometimes staying until late at night. I often returned from work on foot along with Art. Molotov. We walked to the Kremlin through the Spassky Gate. I spent Sundays at home with my family, usually going to the dacha. Comrade Stalin went to the theater more often on Saturdays and Sundays together with Nadezhda Sergeevna. We visited the Bolshoi Theatre, the Maly Theatre, and the Theatre. Vakhtangov, went to Meyerhold to watch the play “The Bedbug” by Mayakovsky. With us at this performance, I remember, were comrades Kirov and Molotov, Comrade Stalin loved Gorky very much and always watched all his plays that were shown in Moscow theaters. Often after work, Comrade Stalin and Molotov went to watch films in Gnezdnikovsky Lane. Later, a screening room was set up in the Kremlin. Comrade Stalin loved cinema and attached great propaganda importance to it.
In the fall, usually in August-September, Comrade Stalin and his family left for the south. He spent his holidays on Black Sea coast, in Sochi or Gagra. He lived in the south for two months. While vacationing in Sochi, he sometimes took Matsesta baths.
Throughout his vacation he worked very hard and received a lot of mail. He always took one of his employees to the south. In the 20s, a cryptographer traveled with him, and starting from the 30s, a secretary. During the vacation, business meetings also took place. So, in the late 40s, K. Gottwald and E. Hoxha came to him. Before his appointment to Poland, K.K. Rokossovsky came to his dacha in Gagra.
Comrade Stalin read a lot, followed political and fiction literature.
Entertainment in the south included boat trips, movies, bowling alleys, small towns, which he loved to play, and billiards. The partners were employees who lived with him at the dacha.
Comrade Stalin devoted a lot of time to the garden. Living in Sochi, he planted many lemon and tangerine trees in his garden and always watched their growth, rejoicing when they were well received and began to bear fruit.
He was very worried about the disease local population malaria. And on the initiative of Comrade Stalin, large plantings of eucalyptus trees were carried out in Sochi. This tree is known to have valuable properties: it grows unusually quickly and dries out the soil, destroying breeding grounds for malarial diseases.
Molotov, Kalinin, and Ordzhonikidze often came to Comrade Stalin’s dacha, who at that time were also vacationing on the Black Sea coast. Comrade Kirov came to visit.

* * *

In 1933, Comrade Stalin’s wife tragically died. I.V. deeply experienced the loss of his wife and friend. The children were still small, Comrade Stalin could not pay much attention to them due to his busy schedule. I had to hand over the upbringing and care of the children to Karolina Vasilievna. She was a cultured woman, sincerely attached to children.
Svetlana was calm and obedient, which could not be said about Vasya, a very active and playful boy. He caused a lot of trouble to his teachers. When the children grew up and both were already studying, part of the responsibility for their behavior fell on me.
The daughter, her father's favorite, studied well and was modest and disciplined. The son, gifted by nature, was reluctant to study at school. He was too nervous, impetuous, could not study diligently for a long time, often to the detriment of his studies and, not without success, getting carried away by something extraneous, like horse riding. I reluctantly had to report his behavior to my father and upset him. He loved children, especially his daughter, whom he jokingly called “mistress,” of which she was very proud. He treated his son strictly and punished him for pranks and misdeeds. The girl, who looked like her grandmother, the mother of Comrade Stalin, was somewhat withdrawn and silent in character.
The boy, on the contrary, was lively and temperamental, very sincere and responsive. In general, children were raised very strictly; no pampering or excess was allowed. The daughter grew up, graduated from college, defended her dissertation, has a family, works, and raises children. She changed her father's last name to her mother's last name. Subsequently, she went abroad to see her husband off on his last journey and stayed there. The fate of his son was more tragic. After graduating from aviation school, he became a participant in the war, commanded, and quite well, an aviation regiment. After the death of his father, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years. After serving his sentence, he was released completely sick. He retained his military rank and was given a pension, but was asked to give up his father’s surname, which he did not agree to.
After this, he was exiled to Kazan, where he soon died, in March 1962, at the age of 40.

MURDER OF S. M. KIROV

I especially want to talk about Kirov.
Stalin loved and respected Kirov most of all. I loved him with some touching, tender love. Comrade Kirov's visits to Moscow and the south were a real holiday for Stalin. Sergei Mironovich came for a week or two. In Moscow, he stayed at Comrade Stalin’s apartment, and I.V. literally did not part with him.
S. M. Kirov was killed on December 13, 1934 in Leningrad. Kirov's death shocked Stalin. I went with him to Leningrad and I know how he suffered and experienced the loss of his beloved friend. Everyone knows what a person of crystal purity S.M. was, how simple and modest he was, what a great worker and wise leader he was.
This vile murder showed that the enemies Soviet power have not yet been destroyed and are ready to strike from around the corner at any moment.
Comrade Kirov was killed by enemies of the people. His killer Leonid Nikolaev stated in his testimony: “Our shot should have been a signal for an explosion and an offensive within the country against the CPSU (b) and Soviet power.” In September 1934, an assassination attempt was made on Comrade Molotov while he was on an inspection tour of the mining regions of Siberia. Comrade Molotov and his companions miraculously escaped death.

ATTEMPT ON STALIN

In the summer of 1935, an attempt was made on Comrade Stalin. This happened in the south. Comrade Stalin was relaxing at a dacha near Gagra.
On a small boat, which was transported to the Black Sea from the Neva from Leningrad by Yagoda, Comrade Stalin took walks along the sea. Only security was with him. The direction was taken to Cape Pitsunda. Having entered the bay, we went ashore, rested, had a snack, and walked, staying on the shore for several hours. Then we got on the boat and went home. There is a lighthouse on Cape Pitsunda, and not far from the lighthouse on the shore of the bay there was a border guard post. When we left the bay and turned in the direction of Gagra, shots were heard from the shore. We were fired upon.
Having quickly seated Comrade Stalin on the bench and covering him with me, I ordered the mechanic to go out to the open sea.
Immediately we fired a machine gun along the shore. The shots at our boat stopped.
Our boat was small, riverboat and completely unsuitable for walking on the sea, and we had a great chat before we landed. The sending of such a boat to Sochi was also done by Yagoda, apparently not without malicious intent - on a large wave it would inevitably capsize, but we, as people not versed in maritime affairs, did not know about this.
This case was transferred for investigation to Beria, who was at that time the secretary of the Georgian Central Committee. During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat had an unfamiliar number; this seemed suspicious to him and he opened fire, although he had enough time to find out everything while we were on the shore of the bay, and he could not help but see us.
It was all one ball.
The murder of Kirov, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, as well as the mentioned assassination attempts, were organized by the right-wing Trotskyist bloc.
This was shown by the trials of Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1936, the trial of Pyatakov, Radek and Sokolnikov in 1937, and the trial of Yagoda, Bukharin and Rykov in 1938. This tangle was unraveled and thus the enemies of Soviet power were neutralized before the war. They could be a "fifth column".

MILITARY CONSPIRACY

Among the numerous accusations leveled against Comrade Stalin after his death, the most significant, perhaps, is the accusation of the physical destruction of a group of military leaders of the Red Army led by Tukhachevsky.
They have now been rehabilitated. At the XXII Congress Communist Party The USSR declared to the whole world their complete innocence.
On what basis were they rehabilitated?
They were convicted according to documents. 20 years later, these documents were declared false... But how should Comrade Stalin have reacted to the document incriminating Tukhachevsky of treason, handed over by a friend Soviet Union President of Czechoslovakia Benes? I can’t imagine that other evidence besides this was not collected. If all the military leaders, as they now claim, were innocent, then why did Gamarnik suddenly shoot himself? I have never heard of such cases when innocent people shot themselves while awaiting arrest. After all, revolutionaries, always living under the threat of arrest, never committed suicide. In addition, this group of military men was not shot, like the 26 Baku commissars, without trial or investigation. They were convicted by the Special Military Tribunal of the Supreme Court.
The trial, it is true, took place behind closed doors, since the testimony at the trial was supposed to concern military secrets. But the court included such authoritative people known throughout the country as Voroshilov, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov. The trial announcement indicated that the defendants pleaded guilty. To question this message means to cast a shadow on such pure people as Voroshilov, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov.
Speaking about this process, I would like to dwell on the personality of the leader of the military group, Tukhachevsky. The personality is certainly very bright. Much has already been written about him, in particular, such a venerable writer as L. Nikulin wrote a book about him. It is about this book and about another book – Michael Sayers and Albert Kahn’s “The Secret War against Soviet Russia” – that I would like to say a few words. I want to dwell on the characterization of Tukhachevsky that the authors of these books give.
Their characteristics are exactly the opposite. Which one is right? Who to believe? I personally met Tukhachevsky and knew him. It was known about him that he came from a noble landowner family, graduated from the Cadet Corps and the Alexander Military School. But I never heard that his mother was a simple, illiterate peasant woman. Nikulin writes that he received information about Tukhachevsky’s childhood from a friend of his acquaintance, who found a 90-year-old man who had worked in his youth on the estate of Tukhachevsky’s father. I recorded the conversation with him and forwarded it to Nikulin.
The source seems to me to be of little authority.
There is no doubt that Tukhachevsky was a highly educated person. Neither his appearance, nor his gestures, nor his demeanor, nor his conversation - nothing in him pointed to a proletarian origin; on the contrary, blue blood was visible in everything.
Nikulin writes that Tukhachevsky was not a careerist, but according to other sources, Tukhachevsky, after graduating from the Alexander School, said: “Either at thirty I will be a general, or I will shoot myself.” The French officer Remi Ruhr, who was captured along with Tukhachevsky, characterized him as an extremely ambitious person who would stop at nothing.
Subsequently, in 1928, Remi Roure wrote a book about Tukhachevsky under the pseudonym Pierre Fervaque.
Tukhachevsky escaped from German captivity and returned to Russia on the eve of the October Revolution. He first joined former officers tsarist army, then broke with them.
Sayers and Kahn write that when asked by his friend Golumbek what he intended to do, Tukhachevsky replied: “Frankly speaking, I am going over to the Bolsheviks. The White Army is unable to do anything. They have no leader."

* * *

In 1918, Tukhachevsky joined the party. A cultured man, an educated military man and an undoubtedly talented commander, Tukhachevsky quickly rose to the forefront of the leadership of the Red Army. The Bolsheviks had few such people, and they needed them. Tukhachevsky's calculation was correct. After graduation Civil War Tukhachevsky became one of Frunze’s closest assistants at the Red Army headquarters. And in 1925, after the death of Frunze, he was appointed to the post of chief of staff of the Red Army.
Here is what Sayers and Kahn write about this period of Tukhachevsky’s activity: “Working at the headquarters of the Red Army, Tukhachevsky became close to the Trotskyist Putna, who successively held the positions of military attaché in Berlin, London, Tokyo, and the head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, Jan Gamarnik, whom Sayers and Kahn call personal friend of the Reichswehr generals Socht and Hammerstein.”
Nikulin writes that all the charges against Tukhachevsky were based on slander. To do this, they took advantage of the official trips of the marshal and his comrades abroad, meetings that were purely business in nature.
Here's what Sayers and Kahn write about one such trip.
At the beginning of 1936, Tukhachevsky, as a Soviet military representative, traveled to London for the funeral of King George V. Shortly before leaving, he received the coveted title of Marshal of the USSR. He was convinced that the hour was approaching when the Soviet system would be overthrown and the “new Russia”, in alliance with Germany and Japan, would rush into battle for world domination. On the way to London, Tukhachevsky stopped briefly in Warsaw and Berlin, where he talked with Polish colonels and German generals. He was so confident of success that he almost did not hide his admiration for the German militarists.

General N.S. Vlasik occupied a special place in the family of I.V. Stalin. He was not just the head of security, under whose vigilant eye was the entire Stalinist house. After the death of N. S. Alliluyeva, he was also a teacher of children, an organizer of their leisure time, and an economic and financial manager.

In the Soviet and foreign press, with the light hand of Svetlana Alliluyeva, he will be called Nikolai Sergeevich, a rude martinet, a rude and domineering chief of security who has been close to Stalin since 1919. Is this all true? Let's look at some archival documents.

“I, Vlasik Nikolai Sidorovich, born in 1896, native of the village of Bobynichi, Slonim district, Baranovichi region, Belarusian, member of the CPSU since 1918, lieutenant general,” he wrote in his autobiography. - Was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, Kutuzov I degree, medals: “20 years of the Red Army”, “For the defense of Moscow”, “For victory over Germany”, “In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow”, “30 years” Soviet army and Navy,” I have the honorary title “Honorary Security Officer,” which was awarded to me twice with a badge.

N.S. Vlasik appeared in the guard of I.V. Stalin in 1931. Before that he served in the Cheka-OGPU. Menzhinsky recommended him for this post. Until 1932, his role was invisible. Stalin preferred to move around the city without security, and even more so in the Kremlin.

The main thing in his activity was the protection of the dacha. Since 1934, the staff at the dacha began to change, and all those newly admitted were enrolled in the staff of the OGPU, and then the NKVD, conferring military ranks. Left without a wife, Stalin, with the help of Vlasik, began to improve his life. The dacha in Zubalovo was left to Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev and his wife, where the commandant was Sergei Aleksandrovich Efimov. The dacha in Kuntsevo, the old estate along the Dmitrovskoe highway - Lipki, dachas in Ritsa, Crimea, and Valdai were subordinated, along with the security staff, maids, housekeepers and cooks to Vlasik.

Two people lasted the longest in protecting Stalin's family - Svetlana Bychkova's nanny and Vlasik himself. The rest changed. For almost six years, the cousin of L.P. Beria’s wife, Major Alexandra Nikolaevna Nakashidze, worked as a housekeeper, who went to the theaters with the children, checked their homework and reported this to Vlasik. Children were transported to and from school by car, accompanied by security officers, and this applied to everyone - Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana. This function was performed by I. I. Krivenko, M. N. Klimov and others.

Busy as servants to Stalin's family, the guards lived well, did not stay in rank, and there were no problems with food or housing. With rare exceptions, they received all this quickly.

After appearing in Moscow, A. N. Nakashidze quickly became a major and brought her mother, father, sister and two brothers closer to her, who received apartments and dachas.

All security personnel were provided with special food rations. This issue was sanctioned by I.V. Stalin himself and a special decision of the Council of Ministers.

Almost all the everyday problems of the head of state lay on the shoulders of N.S. Vlasik. In 1941, due to the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev. He was entrusted with overseeing the preparation of conditions for the government to move here. The direct executor in Kuibyshev was the head of the main construction department of the NKVD, General L. B. Safrazyan.

A large regional committee building, several colossal bomb shelters and dachas on the banks of the Volga were prepared for I.V. Stalin in Kuibyshev, and for children - a mansion on Pionerskaya Street with a courtyard where the museum used to be located.

Everywhere N.S. Vlasik was able to almost exactly recreate the Moscow environment that Stalin loved. The children of government members studied in a special school here.

Stalin's first grandson, Sasha, the son of Vasily, was also born in Kuibyshev.

Children and relatives watched films and newsreels right at home, in the hallway, for which Vlasik received praise. Did Vlasik manage to become a skilled guardian for Stalin’s children and was he a good assistant to the latter? Judging by the memories of children and grandchildren, then no.

On December 15, 1952, he was arrested. At this time he held the position of head of the Main Security Directorate of the Ministry state security THE USSR. The trial took place on January 17, 1955. The materials of the court case give us the opportunity to understand the life, character, personality, and moral character of Vlasik, the officials around him and his so-called friends.

Presiding Judge: Accused Vlasik, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you and do you understand them?

Vlasik: I understand the accusation. I admit myself guilty, but I declare that I had no intent in what I did.

Chairman: Since when and for what time did you hold the position of head of the Main Security Directorate of the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR?

Vlasik: From 1947 to 1952.

presiding officer; What were your job responsibilities?

Vlasik: Ensuring the protection of party and government leaders.

Chairman: This means that you were given special confidence by the Central Committee and the government. How did you justify this trust?

Vlasik: I took all measures to ensure this.

Chairman: Did you know Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, I knew him.

Chairman: When did you meet him?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but this dates back to approximately 1934-1935. I knew that he was working on decorating Red Square for the holidays. At first, our meetings with him were quite rare.

Chairman: Were you already part of the government security force at that time?

Vlasik: Yes, I was assigned to government security since 1931.

Chairman: How did you meet Stenberg?

Vlasik: At that time I was courting a girl. Her last name is Spirina. This was after I separated from my wife. Spirina then lived in an apartment on the same staircase with the Stenbergs. Once, when I was at Spirina’s, Stenberg’s wife came in and we were introduced to her. After some time, we went to the Stenbergs, where I met Stenberg himself.

Chairman: What brought you and Stenberg together?

Vlasik: Of course, the rapprochement was based on drinking together and meeting women.

Chairman: Did he have a comfortable apartment for this?

Vlasik: I visited him very rarely.

Chairman: Did you have official conversations in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: The individual official conversations that I had to conduct on the phone in Stenberg’s presence did not give him anything, since I usually conducted them in very monosyllables, answering “yes” and “no” over the phone. There was once a case when, in the presence of Stenberg, I was forced to talk with one of the deputy ministers. This conversation concerned the issue of setting up one airfield. I then said that this issue did not concern me, and suggested that he contact the head of the Air Force.

Presiding Judge: I read out your testimony given at the preliminary investigation on February 11, 1953:

“I must admit that I turned out to be such a careless and politically narrow-minded person that during these revelries, in the presence of Stenberg and his wife, I had official conversations with the leadership of the MGB, and also gave service instructions to my subordinates.”

Do you confirm this testimony?

Vlasik: I signed this testimony during the investigation, but there is not a single word of mine in it. All this is the investigator’s formulation.

I said at the investigation that I did not deny the facts that I had official conversations with Stenberg on the phone during drinks, but I stated that nothing could be understood from these conversations. In addition, please take into account that Stenberg worked for many years on the design of Red Square and knew a lot about the work of the MGB.

Chairman: You state that your words are not in the protocol. Does this apply only to the episode we are examining or to the whole case as a whole?

Vlasik: No, it can’t be assessed that way. The fact that I do not deny my guilt in the fact that I had conversations of an official nature on the phone in the presence of Stenberg, I stated this during the investigation. I also said that these conversations may have touched on issues that could be familiar to Stenberg, and he could learn something from them. But the investigator recorded my testimony in his own words, in a slightly different formulation than the one I gave during interrogations. Moreover, investigators Rodionov and Novikov did not give me the opportunity to make any corrections to the protocols they recorded.

Chairman: Was there a time when you spoke with the head of government in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, such cases occurred. True, the conversation boiled down only to my answers to the questions of the head of government, and Stenberg, besides the person I was talking to, could not understand anything from this conversation.

Chairman: Did you call the head of government by his first name, patronymic or last name?

Vlasik: During the conversation, I called him by his last name.

Chairman: What was this conversation about?

Vlasik: The conversation was about a package that was sent to the head of government from the Caucasus. I sent this parcel to the laboratory for analysis. The analysis took time, and, naturally, the parcel was delayed for some time. Someone reported to him that the parcel had been received. As a result of this, he called me, began to ask the reasons for the delay in the delivery of the parcel to him, began to scold me for the delay and demanded that the parcel be immediately transferred to him. I replied that I would now check what the situation was and report to him.

Chairperson: Where did this conversation come from?

Vlasik: From my country dacha.

Chairman: Did you make the phone call yourself or were you called to him?

Vlasik: They called me to the phone.

Chairman: But you could, knowing who the conversation would be with, remove Stenberg from the room.

Vlasik: Yes, of course, I could. And, it seems, even I closed the door to the room from which I was conducting the conversation.

Presiding Officer: How many times have you given Stenberg a seat on an official plane owned by the Security Directorate?

Vlasik: It seems like twice.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do this?

Vlasik: Yes, I did.

Chairman: Was this provided for by any instruction, regulation or order?

Vlasik; No. There were no special instructions in this regard. But I considered it possible to allow Stenberg to fly on the plane, since it was going on the flight empty. Poskrebyshev did the same, granting the right to fly in this plane to Central Committee employees.

Chairman: Doesn’t this mean that, in particular, your friendly and friendly relations with Stenberg took precedence over official duty?

Vlasik: It turns out like this.

Chairman: Did you issue passes to your friends and live-in partners to enter Red Square during parades?

Vlasik: Yes, he did.

Chairman: Do you admit that this was an abuse of power on your part?

Vlasik: Then I didn’t attach much importance to it. Now I regard this as an abuse committed by me. But please take into account that I only gave passes to people I knew well.

Chairman: But did you give a pass to Red Square to a certain Nikolaeva, who was connected with foreign journalists?

Vlasik: I only now realized that I had committed a crime by giving her a pass, although at the time I didn’t attach any importance to it and believed that nothing bad could happen.

Chairman: Did you give your partner Gradusova and her husband Schrager tickets to the stands of the Dynamo stadium?

Vlasik: Yes.

Chairman: And where exactly?

Vlasik: I don’t remember.

Chairman: I remind you that, using the tickets you gave, they ended up on the stands of the Dynamo stadium in the sector where the senior officials of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers were located. And then they called you about this, expressing bewilderment at this fact. Do you remember this?

Vlasik: Yes, I remember this fact. But nothing bad could happen as a result of such my actions.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do so?

Vlasik: Now I understand that I had no right and should not have done this.

Chairman: Tell me, have you, Stenberg and your cohabitants been to the boxes intended to protect the government, those available at the Bolshoi Theater and others?

Vlasik: Yes, I was at the Bolshoi Theater once or twice. Stenberg and his wife and Gradusova were there with me. In addition, we were two or three times at the Vakhtangov Theater, Operetta Theater, etc.

Chairman: Did you explain to them that these boxes are intended for security personnel of government members?

Vlasik: No. Knowing who I am, they could have guessed it themselves.

“Stenberg and his cohabitants were not only not supposed to be in these lodges, but also to know about them. I, having lost all sense of vigilance, visited these lodges with them myself and, moreover, committing a crime, repeatedly gave instructions to let Stenberg and his cohabitants into the boxes for the secretaries of the Central Committee in my absence.”

This is right? Were there such cases?

Vlasik: Yes, they were. But I must say that members of the government have never been to such places as the Operetta Theater, the Vakhtangov Theater, the circus, etc.

Chairman: Did you show Stenberg and your cohabitants the films you made about the head of government?

Vlasik: This took place. But I believed that if these films were made by me, then I had the right to show them. Now I understand that I shouldn't have done this.

Chairman: Did you show them the government dacha on Lake Ritsa?

Vlasik: Yes, he showed it from afar. But I want the court to understand me correctly. After all, Lake Ritsa is a place that, on the instructions of the head of government, was provided to thousands of people who came there on an excursion. I was specifically given the task of organizing the procedure for excursionists to see the sights of this place. In particular, boat rides were organized, and these boats kept their route in close proximity to the location of the government dachas, and, of course, all the excursionists, at least most of them, knew where the government dacha was located.

Chairman: But not all the excursionists knew which dacha belonged to the head of government, and you told Stenberg and your cohabitants about this.

Vlasik: All the excursionists knew her whereabouts, which is confirmed by numerous intelligence materials that I had at that time.

Chairman: What other secret information did you divulge in conversations with Stenberg?

Vlasik: None.

Chairman: What did you tell him about the fire at Voroshilov’s dacha and about the materials that were lost there?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly about this, but a conversation about it took place. When I once asked Stenberg for light bulbs for the Christmas tree, I somehow incidentally told him what happens when the electric lighting of a Christmas tree is handled carelessly.

Chairman: Did you tell him about what exactly died in this fire?

Vlasik: It is possible that I told him that valuable historical photographic documents were lost in a fire at the dacha.

Chairman: Did you have the right to inform him about this?

Vlasik: No, of course he didn’t. But I didn’t attach any importance to it then.

Chairman: Did you tell Stenberg that in 1941 you went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government?

Vlasik: Stenberg also returned from Kuibyshev at that time, and we had a conversation about my trip to Kuibyshev, but I don’t remember what exactly I told him.

Chairman: You told Stenberg how you once had to organize a deception of one of the foreign ambassadors, who wanted to check whether Lenin’s body was in the Mausoleum, for which he brought a wreath to the Mausoleum.

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but there was some conversation about it.

“I blurted out secret information to Stenberg only because of my carelessness. For example, during the war years, when Lenin’s body was taken out of Moscow, one of the foreign ambassadors, deciding to check whether it was in Moscow, came to lay a wreath at the Mausoleum. I was informed about this by telephone at the dacha when Stenberg was with me.

After talking on the phone, I told Stenberg about this incident and said that in order to deceive the ambassador, I had to accept the wreath and set up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum.

There were other similar cases, but I don’t remember them, because I didn’t attach any importance to these conversations and considered Stenberg an honest person.”

Are your readings correct?

Vlasik: I told the investigator that there may have been a case when they called me on the phone. But I don’t remember whether Stenberg was present during the conversation on this topic.

Chairman: Did you tell Stenberg about the organization of security during the Potsdam Conference?

Vlasik: No. I didn't tell him about this. When I arrived from Potsdam, I showed Stenberg a film that I had shot in Potsdam during the conference. Since in this film I was filmed in close proximity to the person being guarded, he could not help but understand that I was in charge of organizing the security.

Presiding Judge: Accused Vlasik, tell me, did you reveal three MGB secret agents to Stenberg - Nikolaev, Grivova and Vyazantseva?

Vlasik: I told him about Vyazantseva’s annoying behavior and at the same time expressed the idea that she might be connected with the police.

“I only know from Vlasik that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (who works in the Moscow City Council External Design Trust) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his partner Vyazantseva Valentina (I don’t know her middle name) also collaborates with the MGB.

Vlasik didn’t tell me anything more about the work of the MGB bodies.”

Vlasik: I told Stenberg that Vyazantseva called me on the phone every day and asked me to meet with her. Based on this and the fact that she worked in some kind of food tent, I told Stenberg that she was a “big talker” and, in all likelihood, was cooperating with the criminal investigation department. But I didn’t tell Stenberg that she was a secret agent of the MGB, because I didn’t know about it myself. I must say that I knew Vyazantseva as a little girl.

Chairman: Did you show Stenberg the intelligence file on him that was conducted by the MGB?

Vlasik: This is not entirely true. In 1952, after returning from a business trip from the Caucasus, the deputy called me to his place. Minister of State Security Ryasnoy and gave an undercover file on Stenberg. At the same time, he said that in this case there is material about me, in particular, about my official conversations on the phone. Ryasnoy told me to familiarize myself with this case and remove from it what I considered necessary. I was not familiar with the whole matter. I only read the certificate - a submission to the Central Committee for the arrest of Stenberg and his wife. After that, I went to Minister Ignatiev and demanded that he make a decision regarding me. Ignatiev told me that I should call Stenbert and warn him about the need to stop all meetings with inappropriate people. He ordered the file to be archived and in case of any conversation about this, to refer to his instructions. I called Stenberg and told him that a case had been opened against him. Then he showed him a photograph of one woman in the case and asked if he knew her. After that, I asked him several questions, inquiring about his meetings with various people, including a meeting with one foreign correspondent. Stenberg replied that he met him by chance at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and never saw him again. When I told him that the file contained materials indicating that he had met with this correspondent in Moscow, already being acquainted with me, Stenberg began to cry. I asked him the same thing about Nikolaeva. Stenberg began to cry again. After that, I took Stenberg to my dacha. There, to calm him down, I offered him a drink of cognac . He agreed. He and I drank one or two glasses each and started playing billiards.

I never told anyone about this matter. When I was removed from my post, I sealed Stenberg’s file in a bag and returned it to Ryasnoy, without removing a single piece of paper from it.

“When I showed up late in the evening at the end of April 1952, upon Vlasik’s summons, to his service in the building of the USSR Ministry of State Security, he, offering me a cigarette, told me: “I must arrest you, you are a spy.” When I asked what this meant, Vlasik said, pointing to a voluminous folder lying on the table in front of him: “Here are all the documents for you collected.” Your wife, as well as Stepanov, are also American spies.” Further, Vlasik told me that Nikolaeva Olga Sergeevna (Vlasik called her Lyalka) during interrogation at the MGB testified that I allegedly visited embassies with her, and also visited restaurants with foreigners. Nikolaeva’s testimony was read to me by Vlasik; it talked about some Volodya, with whom Nikolaeva, along with foreigners, visited restaurants.

Flipping through the voluminous folder, Vlasik showed me a photocopy of the document about my transition to Soviet citizenship. At the same time, he asked if I was a Swedish subject. I immediately reminded Vlasik that at one time I told him in detail both about myself and about my parents. In particular, I then informed Vlasik that until 1933 I was a Swedish subject, that in 1922 I traveled abroad with the Chamber Theater, that my father left the Soviet Union for Sweden and died there, etc.

Looking through the materials for me, Vlasik showed me a photograph of Filippova and asked who she was. In addition, I saw a number of photographs in this case. Vlasik also asked if my wife Nadezhda Nikolaevna Stenberg and I were familiar with the American Lyons; whether my brother knew Yagoda, who gave me a recommendation when becoming a Soviet citizen, etc.

At the end of this conversation, Vlasik said that he was transferring the case against me to another department (Vlasik named this department, but it was not preserved in my memory), and asked me not to tell anyone about the summons to him and the content of the conversation.

...Vlasik told me that “they wanted to arrest you (meaning me, my wife, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, and Stepanov), but my boyfriend intervened in this matter and delayed your arrest.”

Is the witness's testimony correct?

Vlasik: They are not entirely accurate. I have already shown the court how it all really happened.

Presiding Officer: But you told Stenberg that only your intervention prevented the arrest of him and his wife.

Vlasik: No, that didn’t happen.

Chairman: But by showing Stenberg the materials of the intelligence file against him, you thereby revealed the working methods of the MGB agencies.

Vlasik: Then I did not understand this and did not take into account the full importance of the offense.

Chairman: Did you tell Stenberg that the Potsdam Conference was being prepared before everyone knew it officially?

Vlasik: No, that didn’t happen.

Presiding Judge: Accused Vlasik, did you keep secret documents in your apartment?

Vlasik: I was going to compile an album in which the life and work of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin would be reflected in photographs and documents, and therefore I had some data for this in my apartment. In addition, I was found with an agent note about the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and materials concerning the organization of security in Potsdam. I thought that these documents were not particularly confidential, but, as I see now, I had to deposit some of them with the MGB. I kept them locked in desk drawers, and my wife made sure that no one climbed into the drawers.

Presiding: Accused Vlasik, you are presented with a topographic map of the Caucasus marked “secret”. Do you admit that you had no right to keep this card in the apartment?

Vlasik: Then I didn’t consider it secret.

Chairman: You are presented with a topographic map of Potsdam with points marked on it and the conference security system. Could you keep such a document in your apartment?

Vlasik: Yes, I couldn’t. I forgot to return this card after returning from Potsdam, and it was in my desk drawer.

Chairman: I present to you a map of the Moscow region marked “secret”. Where did you keep it?

Vlasik: In a desk drawer in my apartment on Gorky Street, in the same place where the rest of the documents were found.

Chairman: Where was the agent note about the people living on Metrostroevskaya Street, the agent note about the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, government train schedules kept?

Vlasik: All this was kept together in a desk drawer in my apartment.

Chairman: How do you know that these documents were not the subject of inspection by anyone?

Vlasik: This is impossible.

Chairman: Are you familiar with the expert opinion on these documents?

Vlasik: Yes, I know him.

Chairman: Do you agree with the conclusions of the examination?

Vlasik: Yes, now I realized all this very well.

Presiding Judge: Show the court how, using your official position, you used products from the kitchen of the head of government to your advantage?

Vlasik: I don’t want to make excuses for this. But we were placed in such conditions that sometimes we had to ignore costs in order to provide food at a certain time. Every day we were faced with the fact of changing the time of his meal, and in connection with this, some of the previously prepared products remained unused. We sold these products to service personnel. After unhealthy conversations around this arose among employees, I was forced to limit the circle of people who used the products. Now I understand that, given the difficult times of the war, I should not have allowed these products to be used in this way.

Chairman: But your crime is not only this? You sent a car to the government dacha to buy food and cognac for yourself and your cohabitants?

Vlasik: Yes, there were such cases. But I sometimes paid money for these products. True, there were cases that they were delivered to me for free.

Chairman: This is theft.

Vlasik: No, this is an abuse of one’s position. After I received a remark from the head of government, I stopped it.

Chairman: Since when did your moral and everyday decay begin?

Vlasik: In matters of service, I was always on the spot. Drinking and meeting women was at the expense of my health and during my free time. I admit that I have had a lot of women.

Chairman: Did the head of government warn you about the inadmissibility of such behavior?

Vlasik: Yes. In 1950 he told me that I was abusing women.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Did you know Sarkisov?

Vlasik: Yes, he was attached to Beria as a guard.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did he tell you that Beria is debauched?

Vlasik: This is a lie.

Member of the court Rybkin: But you admitted the fact that you were once informed that Sarkisov was looking for suitable women on the streets and then taking them to Beria.

Vlasik: Yes, I received intelligence materials about this and passed them on to Abakumov. Abakumov took upon himself the conversation with Sarkisov, and I avoided this, because I believed that it was not my place to interfere in this, since everything was connected with the name of Beria.

Member of the court Rybkin: You testified that when Sarkisov reported to you about Beria’s depravity, you told him that there was no point in interfering in Beria’s personal life, but that it was necessary to protect him. Did this take place?

Vlasik: No, that's a lie. Neither Sarkisov nor Nadaraya reported this to me. Sarkisov once turned to me with a request to allocate him a car for business needs, citing the fact that he sometimes had to use a “tail” car when carrying out Beria’s assignment. What exactly this machine was needed for is unknown to me.

Member of the court Rybkin: Defendant Vlasik, how could you allow a huge overspending of public funds under your management?

Vlasik: I must say that my literacy suffers greatly. My entire education consists of 3 classes at a rural parish school. I did not understand anything about financial matters, and therefore my deputy was in charge of this. He repeatedly assured me that “everything is fine.”

I must also say that every event we planned was approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR and only after that was carried out.

Member of the court Rybkin: What can you show the court about the use of free rations by security department employees?

Vlasik: We discussed this issue several times, and after the head of government gave instructions to improve the financial situation of security officers, we left it as it was before. But the Council of Ministers made a special decision on this matter, and I, for my part, considered this situation to be correct, since security workers were away from home more than half the time a week and it would be inappropriate to deprive their families of rations because of this. I remember that I raised the question of conducting an audit of the 1st department of the security department. At the direction of Merkulov, a commission chaired by Serov carried out this audit, but no abuses were found.

Member of the court Rybkin: How often did you go on carousings with women you knew?

Vlasik: There were no revelries. I was always on the spot for work.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did the shooting take place during the revelry?

Vlasik: I don’t remember such a case.

Member of the court Rybkin: Tell me, did you conduct official conversations on the phone in the presence of Stenberg from your apartment or from his?

Vlasik: The conversations were both from my apartment and from his. But I considered Stenberg a reliable person who knew a lot about our work.

“In the presence of Stenberg, from his apartment, I repeatedly had official conversations with the duty officer at the Main Security Directorate, which sometimes related to the movement of government members, and I also remember, from Stenberg’s apartment, I talked on the phone with the Deputy Minister of State Security about the construction of a new airfield in the vicinity of Moscow.” .

Vlasik: This is the investigator’s wording. In my official telephone conversations that took place in the presence of Stenberg, I very limited my statements.

Court member Kovalenko: Do ​​you know Erman?

Vlasik: Yes, I know.

Member of the court Kovalenko: What kind of conversation did you have with him about the routes and departures of the protected person?

Vlasik: I didn’t talk to him about this topic. Besides, he himself is an old security officer and knew all this perfectly well without me.

Member of the court Kovalenko: For what purpose did you keep a diagram of the access roads to the Blizhnaya dacha in your apartment?

Vlasik: This is not a diagram of access roads to the dacha, but a diagram of the internal routes of the dacha. Even during the Patriotic War, the head of government, walking around the territory of the dacha, personally introduced his own amendments to this scheme. Therefore, I saved it as a historical document, and the whole point was that with the old arrangement of the exit routes from the dacha, the headlights of the cars hit Poklonnaya Gora and thereby immediately revealed the moment the car was leaving.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Were his instructions carried out as indicated in the diagram?

Vlasik: Yes, but I declare once again that all these paths were inside the dacha, behind two fences.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Did you know Shcherbakova?

Vlasik: Yes, he knew and was in close contact with her.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know that she had connections with foreigners?

Vlasik: I found out about this later.

Court member Kovalenko: But even after learning this, they continued to meet with her?

Vlasik: Yes, he continued.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How can you explain that you, having been a member of the party since 1918, have reached such filth both in official matters and in relation to moral and political decay?

Vlasik: I find it difficult to explain this with anything, but I declare that in official matters I was always in place.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How do you explain your action, which was that you showed Stenberg his intelligence file?

Vlasik: I acted on the basis of Ignatiev’s instructions and, frankly, did not attach any special importance to this.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Why did you take the path of stealing trophy property?

Vlasik: Now I understand that all this belonged to the state. I had no right to turn anything to my advantage. But then such a situation was created... Beria arrived and gave permission for the security management to purchase some things. We made a list of what we needed, paid money, received these things. In particular, I paid about 12 thousand rubles. I admit that I took some of the things for free, including a piano, grand piano, etc.

Presiding Officer: Comrade Commandant, invite witness Ivanskaya to the hall.

Witness Ivanskaya, show the court what you know about Vlasik and his case?

Ivanskaya: It seems that in May 1938, my acquaintance, NKVD officer Okunev, introduced me to Vlasik. I remember they came to see me in a car, there was another girl with him, and we all went to Vlasik’s dacha. Before reaching the dacha, we decided to have a picnic in a clearing in the forest. This is how my acquaintance with Vlasik began. Our meetings continued until 1939. In 1939 I got married. Okunev continued to call me periodically. He always invited me to come to Vlasik’s parties. Of course, I refused. In 1943, these invitations were more persistent, and Okunev was joined by requests from Vlasik himself. For some time I resisted their insistence, but then I agreed and visited Vlasik’s dacha and his apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard several times. I remember that at that time Stenberg was in the companies, once there was Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov and very often Okunev. Frankly, I had no particular desire to meet Vlasik or generally be in this company. But Vlasik threatened me, said that he would arrest me, etc., and I was afraid of this. Once, I was at Vlasik’s apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard with my friends Kopteva and another girl. Then there was some artist there, it seems Gerasimov.

Chairman: What accompanied these meetings and for what purpose were you invited?

Ivanskaya: I still don’t know why he invited me and others. It seemed to me that Vlasik gathers company only because he likes to drink and have fun.

Chairman: What was your goal in attending these parties?

Ivanskaya: I rode them simply out of fear of Vlasik.

At these parties, as soon as we arrived, we sat down at the table, drank wine and had a snack. True, Vlasik made attempts against me as a woman. But they ended in vain.

Chairman: Were you and Vlasik at the government dacha?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say what kind of dacha we were at. It looked like a small rest home or sanatorium. There we were met by some Georgian who managed this building. Vlasik told us about him then that he was Stalin’s uncle. This happened before the war, in 1938 or 1939. The four of us arrived there: Okunev, Vlasik, me and some other girl. Besides us, there were several military men there, including two or three generals. The girl who was with us began to express special sympathy for one of the generals. Vlasik did not like this, and he, taking out his revolver, began to shoot the glasses standing on the table. He was already tipsy.

Chairman: How many shots did they fire?

Ivanskaya: I don’t remember exactly: one or two. Immediately after Vlasik’s shooting, everyone began to leave, and Vlasik and this girl got into the general’s car, and I got into Vlasik’s free car. I persuaded the driver and he took me home. A few minutes after my arrival, Vlasik called me and reproached me for leaving them.

Chairman: Tell me, do you remember where this dacha was located, in what area?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say where she was, but I remember that we first drove along the Mozhaisk highway.

Vlasik: No. I just can't understand why the witness is telling a lie.

Chairman: Tell Vlasik, what kind of dacha are we talking about in connection with your shooting?

Vlasik: There was no shooting. We went with Okunev, Ivanskaya, Gradusova and Gulko to one subsidiary farm, which was managed by Okunev. Indeed, we drank and ate there, but there was no shooting.

Presiding Judge: Witness Ivanskaya, do you insist on your testimony?

Ivanskaya: Yes, I showed the truth.

Presiding Judge: Accused Vlasik, tell me, what interest does it have for a witness to tell the court a lie? What, you had an adversarial relationship with her?

Vlasik: No, we didn’t have hostile relations. After Okunev left her, I lived with her as with a woman. And I must say that she called me more often than I called her. I knew her father, who worked in a special group of the NKVD, and we never had any quarrels.

Chairman: How long did your intimate relationship with her last?

Vlasik: Quite a long time. But meetings were very rare, about once or twice a year.

Presiding Judge: Witness Ivanskaya, do you confirm the testimony of the defendant Vlasik?

Ivanskaya: I don’t know why Nikolai Sidorovich talks about the alleged intimate relationship between us. But if he was capable of masculine feats, then this applied to other women, and, in all likelihood, he used me as a screen, since everyone knew me as the daughter of an old security officer. In general, I must say that Vlasik behaved defiantly towards others. For example, when I tried to refuse meetings with him, he threatened to arrest me. And he completely terrorized the cook at his dacha. He spoke to him only using obscenities, and was not embarrassed by those present, including women.

Presiding Judge: Witness Ivanskaya, the court has no further questions for you. You are free.

Comrade Commandant, invite witness Stenberg to the hall.

Witness Stenberg, show the court what you know about Vlasik.

Stenberg: I ​​met Vlasik around 1936. Before the war, our meetings were rare. Then, from the beginning of the war, meetings became more frequent. We went to Vlasik's dacha, to his apartment, drank there, played billiards. Vlasik helped me work on portraits of government members.

Presiding Officer: During these meetings and drinks, were there women with whom you cohabited?

Stenberg: There were women there, but we had no connection with them.

Chairman: Did Vlasik have official conversations on the phone in front of you?

Stenberg: There were separate conversations. But Vlasik always answered only “yes” and “no”.

Chairman: What did he tell you about the fire at Voroshilov’s dacha?

Stenberg: Vlasik told me that as a result of careless handling of the electric lighting of the Christmas tree at Voroshilov’s dacha, there was a fire, during which a valuable photo archive burned down. He didn't tell me anything more about this.

Chairman: Did Vlasik tell you that in 1941 he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government?

Stenberg: I ​​knew that Vlasik went to Kuibyshev, but for what exactly, I did not know. He only told me that he had to fight rats there somewhere.

Presiding Judge: I read out the testimony of witness Stenberg:

“At the beginning of 1942, Vlasik told me that he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government. At the same time, he said: “This is the city, you can’t imagine how many rats there are.” This is a whole problem - a war with them.”

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg. Yes, they are mostly correct.

Chairman: Vlasik told you that he once had to deceive a foreign ambassador who was trying to find out whether V.I. Lenin’s body was in Moscow?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, Vlasik once, in my presence, gave instructions to someone to set up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum. After talking on the phone, he explained to me why it was needed. This happened either at the dacha or at Vlasik’s apartment.

Chairman: Did Vlasik tell you about organizing security for the Potsdam Conference?

Stenberg: Long after the Potsdam Conference, Vlasik told me that he had to go to Potsdam and restore “order” there. At the same time, he told the details, in particular, that he had to bring all the products there in order not to use locally produced products. As he said, only live cattle were bought from the local population.

Chairman: What films about members of the government did Vlasik show you?

Stenberg: I ​​saw, in particular, films about the Potsdam Conference, about Stalin and members of the government, about the arrival of Vasily and his sister to Stalin.

Chairman: Who, besides you, was present when watching these films?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, there was one military man, everyone called him “Uncle Sasha”; the women were Anerina and Konomareva. I introduced Vlasik to Anerina in 1945, and Konomareva was known to him earlier. I personally lived with Konomareva.

Chairman: Did Vlasik show you the dacha of the head of government on Lake Ritsa?

Stenberg: When we were on Lake Ritsa, Vlasik, filming us during our walk, showed me the location of Stalin’s dacha.

Chairman: Tell me, didn’t Vlasik’s behavior seem strange to you? Did he have the right to show you the location of Stalin’s dacha, films about him and members of the government?

Stenberg: There was nothing bad in those films.

Chairman: But you know the procedure for allowing such films to be viewed?

Stenberg: I ​​didn’t attach much importance to it then.

Chairman: How many times did Vlasik provide you with the opportunity to fly on a business plane?

Stenberg: Three times. The first time was when I was flying to a resort in the Caucasus, the second time from Sochi to Moscow, then Vlasik got me a ticket to a conference and, so that I could be on time for it, allowed me to fly on a business plane. Two days later, when the conference ended, with Vlasik’s permission, I flew on the same plane back to Sochi.

Chairman: Did Vlasik tell you the names of Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva and Grivova as secret agents of the MGB?

Stenberg: Vlasik said that Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva are informants and report various information to the MGB. Regarding Grivova, he said that insofar as she is a member of the party, she is obliged to do this herself, on her own initiative.

“I only know from Vlasik that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (who works in the Mossovet External Design Trust) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his partner Vyazantseva Valentina (I don’t know her middle name) also collaborates with the MGB.”

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Perhaps, by giving such testimony, I expressed my conclusions.

Presiding Judge: Tell the court what happened with your acquaintance with the undercover case that was conducted in the MGB.

Stenberg: I ​​remember Vlasik called me on the phone to his place. When I showed up at his office in the MGB building, he told me that he had to arrest me. I replied that if necessary, then please. After that, he showed me a volume and said that there was a lot of material on me, in particular, that Nikolaeva and I wandered around foreign embassies and met with foreign correspondents.

Presiding Judge: Did he tell you that the arrest of you and your wife was prevented thanks to his intervention?

Stenberg: Yes, some time after the conversation I mentioned above, Vlasik told me and my wife that our arrest was prevented only by the intervention of him, Vlasik, and one of his “guys.”

Chairman: Tell me, did Vlasik show you the materials of this undercover case?

Stenberg: He asked me about some of my acquaintances and at the same time, showing Filippova’s photograph, asked who she was. Then he asked me when I became a Soviet citizen. I answered him everything.

Chairman: For what purpose was Filippova’s photograph placed in this file?

Stenberg: I ​​don't know.

Chairman: What other documents from this case did he read to you?

Stenberg: None.

Chairman: Did you believe Vlasik that his intervention prevented your arrest?

Stenberg: Frankly, no. I regarded this more as his desire to boast of his “power.”

Chairman: Tell me, were there many women with whom Vlasik cohabited?

Stenberg: I ​​find it difficult to say how many women he cohabited with, because it often happened that during our meetings at his dacha, he and one woman or another would retire to other rooms. But I don’t know what he was doing there.

Presiding Officer: I am reading an excerpt from your own testimony.

“I must say that Vlasik is a morally corrupt person. He cohabited with many women, in particular, Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva, Mokukina, Lomtionova, Spirina, Veshchitskaya, Gradusova, Amerina, Vera G...

I believe that Vlasik also cohabited with Shcherbakova, with the Gorodniv sisters, Lyuda, Ada, Sonya, Kruglova, Sergeeva and her sister and others, whose names I do not remember.

Maintaining friendly relations with me, Vlasik got me and my wife drunk and cohabited with her, which Vlasik himself later cynically told me about.”

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Yes. Vlasik himself told me about some of them, but about others I guessed myself.

Chairman: Did you know Kudoyarov?

Stenberg: Yes, I did. I remember that Spirina once told my wife that Kudoyarov’s sister was married to some American money “king,” and when Kudoyarov went abroad on a business trip, her sister sent him a blue express to the border. Once I saw Kudoyarov at Vlasik’s dacha.

Court member Kovalenko: Did Vlasik warn you not to tell anyone about the incident when he summoned you to his office at the MGB?

Stenberg: Yes, there was such a fact.

Presiding Judge: Accused Vlasik, do you have any questions for the witness?

Vlasik: I have no questions.

Presiding: Witness Stenberg, you are free.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court about your acquaintance with Kudoyarov.

Vlasik: Kudoyarov worked as a photojournalist V the period when I was attached to the security of the head of government. I saw him filming in the Kremlin, on Red Square, and heard reviews of him as an excellent photographer. When I bought myself a camera, I asked him for photography advice. He came to my apartment and showed me how to use the camera and how to take pictures. Then I visited his darkroom on Vorovskogo Street several times. And only a long time later I learned that his sister was abroad and was the wife of some American billionaire. Then they told me that during his business trip abroad, his sister actually sent him a blue express to the border. As a result of this, I concluded that Kudoyarov is an employee of the authorities, and therefore did not attach much importance to everything.

Presiding Judge: You heard here the testimony of the witness Stenberg, who told the court that you deciphered Grivova, Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva to him as secret agents of the MGB. Do you admit it?

Vlasik: No. Regarding Grivova and Nikolaeva, these are Stenberg’s inventions. As for Vyazantseva, I told Stenberg that perhaps she has connections with the police. In addition, I warned Stenberg that Nikolaeva has connections with foreigners.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court what you acquired from the trophy property illegally, without payment.

Vlasik: As far as I remember, I purchased a piano, a grand piano, and, it seems, 3-4 carpets in this way.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And the watches, the gold rings?

Vlasik: I haven’t acquired a single watch this way, most of them were given to me as gifts. Regarding gold rings, I remember that when we discovered a box with gold items and jewelry in one place, the wife exchanged one ring she had for another from this box.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How did you acquire the radio and receiver?

Vlasik: Vasily Stalin sent them to me as a gift. But then I gave them to the Blizhnaya dacha.

Member of the court Kovalenko: What can you say about the fourteen cameras and lenses for them that you had?

Vlasik: I received most of them through my official activities. I bought one Zeiss device through Vneshtorg, and Serov gave me another device.

Court member Kovalenko: Where did you get the camera with the telephoto lens?

Vlasik: This camera was made in Palkin’s department especially for me. I needed it to photograph I.V. Stalin from long distances, since the latter was always very reluctant to allow photography.

Court member Kovalenko: Where did you get the movie camera?

Vlasik: The film camera was sent to me from the Ministry of Cinematography specifically for filming I.V. Stalin.

Court member Kovalenko: What kind of quartz devices did you have?

Vlasik: Quartz devices were intended for illumination during photographic filming.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Where did you get crystal vases, glasses and porcelain dishes in such huge quantities?

Vlasik: In particular, I received a porcelain service for 100 items after the Potsdam Conference. Then there was an instruction to give the senior security staff one set each. At the same time, several crystal vases and glasses were placed in my drawer without my knowledge. I didn’t know about this until the box was opened in Moscow. And then he left it all for himself. In addition, when an order was placed for dishes for the “Blizhnaya” dacha and this dishes subsequently, for some reason, could not be used for their intended purpose, I bought one wine service for myself. All this taken together created such a large amount of dishes in my home.

Presiding Judge: Defendant Vlasik, the court has no more questions for you. How can you supplement the judicial investigation?

Vlasik: I showed everything I could. I can’t add anything more to my testimony. I just want to say that I realized everything that I had done only now, and before I did not attach any importance to it. I thought all this was in order.

Presiding Judge: I declare the judicial investigation into the case completed.

Defendant Vlasik, you have the last word. What do you want to tell the court?

Vlasik: Citizens judges! I didn’t understand much before and didn’t see anything other than protecting the head of government and didn’t take anything into account to fulfill this duty. Please take this into account.

By a court decision, Vlasik was stripped of the rank of lieutenant general and subjected to exile for a period of 10 years. But in accordance with the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, this period was reduced to five years, without loss of rights. He died in Moscow shortly after Svetlana failed to return to her homeland from India.

* * *

Time is a harsh judge. And only it pronounces the final verdict on the era and those who stood at the pinnacle of power. J.V. Stalin is precisely the figure who is both the personification of power and its leader. The time of his reign has already become history, painful and tragic, and inspired, and forward-looking.

Turning today to the fate of his family, we strive to penetrate deeper into the events of time, to understand them in all their contradictions, as they were. No one can turn the wheel of history differently, just as no one can cross out this page in the centuries-old history of our long-suffering Motherland.

Stalin's family bears the contradictory stamp of time in all its manifestations. Stalin himself was not given the opportunity to become the happy head of the family. Both of his wives died very early, in different ways, unable to combine themselves with him. His eldest son, deprived of maternal affection in life, not always understood by his father, rejected by him with the harsh stigma of a traitor to the Motherland and sharing the terrible fate of millions of compatriots in captivity, decades later returned to us from oblivion as the personification of courage and perseverance, remaining the son of his land, his Fatherland . It would seem that all doors were open to Vasily Stalin; any of his good thoughts could find real embodiment in life. But the instability of his character, the shadow of his father and even more so his environment covered him so much that, after leaving prison eight years later, he could no longer find his place in life.

Stalin's beloved daughter, Svetlana, was given the opportunity to receive an excellent education and become a mother, but was not given happiness in her homeland, despite an attempt to return.

In 1989, those belongings that she had once left at home were sent from the USSR to the USA. And it seems that now her fate has already been irrevocably determined, although there may still be zigzags here, as well as the fact that today everything that she wrote is available to us.

Stalin's grandchildren living today have been given a real opportunity to participate in the revolutionary events opened by perestroika, and we, without idle speculation and gossip, can understand the issues that interest us on the basis of documents.

Thanks to the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik, many episodes of our history will open from the other side

The diaries of the all-powerful chief of Stalin’s security, which lay for more than fifty years in an old suitcase with his daughter Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik-Mikhailova. These notes in notebooks, notebooks, and on scraps of paper are a sensation. Nikolai Vlasik was Stalin’s personal bodyguard for many years and held this position the longest. Having joined his personal guard in 1931, he not only became its chief, but also actually became a member of the family. After the death of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he was also the teacher of the children Vasily and Svetlana.

Having served his master faithfully for more than 30 years, Vlasik was practically betrayed by him and was arrested two and a half months before the leader’s death...

In May 1994, during the restoration of the first building of the Kremlin, a secret passage was discovered on the second floor in a former Stalinist office. In the very place where Stalin’s desk used to stand, two large hatches were found under the parquet. Below them are two brick shafts with iron brackets in the walls going into the basement. One can now only guess about the purpose of the secret passage. But two severed special communication cables found in these mines are alarming. It looks like someone was listening to Stalin. Who?

Only one person from his entourage, Beria, could decide to do this, and only in the last years or even months of Stalin’s life, when the question of an heir turned into a matter of life and death for Beria. It was then that Beria managed to remove one of his main opponents from his path - the head of Stalin’s personal security, Nikolai Vlasik, a figure now, perhaps, no less legendary than Beria himself. During his arrest in December 1952, Vlasik uttered the prophetic words: “If there is no me, there will be no Stalin.” And he turned out to be right. Stalin died 2.5 months later in a strange death at his “Near Dacha” in Kuntsevo.

It seemed to contemporaries that it had always been this way: Joseph Stalin and his “shadow” Nikolai Vlasik

Today, for the first time in many years of rumors and legends, there was an opportunity to hear Vlasik himself. It’s hard to believe, but it turns out that there are diaries of the all-powerful head of Stalin’s security. They lay in a closet in an ordinary old suitcase for more than 50 years. These notes in notebooks, notebooks, and random scraps of paper are a sensation, priceless evidence of the era.

If not for the first World War and the revolution of 1917, Nikolai Vlasik would probably have remained a farm laborer in his Belarusian village. But in 1914, immediately after the start of the war, he was drafted into the army. He gets into intelligence, receives the rank of non-commissioned officer and the St. George Cross. And immediately after the coup of 1917, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and already in 1918 began serving in the Cheka under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky. Could a simple, poorly educated Belarusian guy have imagined then that two decades later he would become one of the most influential people in his country? We can say 100%: no.

In 1927, private counterintelligence officer Vlasik was wounded during a terrorist explosion at Lubyanka. IN extreme situation he showed his best side and immediately after the hospital was sent to Stalin’s personal guard. Head of personal security Secretary General The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Ivan Yusis, was preparing to retire due to illness and received the order to gradually hand over his affairs to the newly arrived bodyguard. Vlasik watched closely for several months, helping Yusis. The first personal communication with Stalin occurred only when Vlasik first went to his dacha in Zubalovo. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “Having arrived at the dacha and examined it, I saw that there was complete chaos there - there was no linen, no dishes, no staff. There was a commandant who lived at the dacha. Stalin came to the dacha with his family only on Sundays, eating sandwiches that they brought with them from Moscow.”

Ivan Yusis (far right) was tired of the role of bodyguard and could not cope with it

The very next day, Vlasik ordered linen and food to be sent to Stalin’s dacha, direct government telephone numbers were installed, he organized security, and appointed a cook and a cleaner. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “Yusis, fearing Stalin’s dissatisfaction with these innovations, suggested that I myself report everything to Stalin. This is how my first meeting and first conversation with Comrade Stalin took place. Before that, I had only seen him from afar.”

Vlasik was terribly worried before the meeting. But everything worked out. Stalin grumbled, but accepted the innovations. Gradually, Vlasik began to control almost everything, even the arrangement of furniture. A diagram, drawn by his hand, has been preserved showing how best to arrange Stalin’s office and room. It indicates everything down to the smallest detail, in which corner and by which window the desk should be, where the sofa should be, how best to place the ficus so that the flower pleases the owner’s eye.

A simple village guy, Nikolai Vlasik, turned out to be an excellent psychologist. For several years he carefully gained confidence in Stalin’s family until he almost became a member of it. The moment came when, together with Stalin’s wife Nadezhda Sergeevna, they decided to encroach on something sacred - the personal wardrobe of Joseph Vissarionovich. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “I suggested that Nadezhda Sergeevna sew him a new coat. But to do this, it was necessary to take measurements or take an old coat and make exactly the same in the workshop. It was not possible to take measurements, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still made him a coat.”

For protection for 25 years...

Behind the last lines lies a family special operation. At night, while the owner was sleeping, Vlasik personally measured all the details of the coat and handed them over to the master in the studio. A day later, instead of the old worn out overcoat, a new one was already hanging on the hanger. Stalin pretended not to notice the substitution and said nothing.

And yet, Vlasik considered his main task to be preserving the life of the owner at any cost. And in this his ingenuity knew no bounds. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​driving out in a cavalcade of several identical cars. Already by the mid-thirties, Vlasik had intelligence information about all the residents of those streets along which Stalin usually passed. If the owner left the capital for resorts by train, then train schedules for Moscow stations were not approved without Vlasik’s consent. In just a few years, Vlasik built a security system that almost never failed. Almost...

In the fall of 1933, Stalin was relaxing at a dacha near Gagra and every day he took walks on the sea on a small river boat with guards. During one of them, when exiting the bay into the open sea, the boat was suddenly fired upon from the coastal border post. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “Having quickly seated Stalin on the bench and covering him with myself, I ordered the mechanic to go out to the open sea. Immediately we fired a machine gun along the shore. The shots at our boat stopped. This case was transferred for investigation to Beria, who was at that time the head of the Georgian Cheka. During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat had an unfamiliar license plate. This seemed suspicious to him, and he opened fire, although he had enough time to find out everything while we were on the shore of the bay, and he could not help but see us.”

Nikolai Vlasik with Stalin's children: Svetlana, Vasily and Yakov

After this incident, relations between Vlasik and Stalin moved to a new level. Stalin seemed to have truly taken a liking to the head of his personal security. It is no coincidence that soon an entry very characteristic of their relationship of that period appeared in Vlasik’s diary. Once, during a vacation in the south, noticing the fatigue on Vlasik’s face, Stalin ordered him to go and rest, and he himself went with his friends to the sea. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “I left, but did not go to bed, but accompanied him in another car. Returning home, Comrade Stalin asked his employees several times whether Vlasik was sleeping. And only the next day he called me and asked if I had gotten enough sleep. I apologized to him, and he laughed, and I saw in him a truly dear, close person to me.”

This post says a lot. If you also know that all this happened after the main tragedy in Stalin’s life - the suicide of his wife Nadezhda Sergeevna. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “Joseph Vissarionovich deeply experienced the loss of his wife and friend. The children were still small, Comrade Stalin could not pay much attention to them due to his busy schedule.”

Vlasik began to take care of children. It was on him that the main burden of raising them fell. And Vlasik tried his best. Yakov, the son from his first marriage, did not require special attention by that time - he himself was already a married man. But the life of the younger ones, Svetlana and Vasily, was controlled by the head of the Stalinist guard from start to finish, showing almost maternal care. Vlasik did not have any children of his own; the injury he once received took its toll. But the head of Stalin’s security loved children very much, which is why he adopted his niece Nadezhda from a Belarusian village. But if Vlasik had no problems with little Nadya, he suffered with Vasily Stalin. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “The son, gifted by nature, was reluctant to study at school, he was too nervous, impetuous in nature. He could not study diligently for a long time, often to the detriment of his studies and, not without success, becoming interested in something extraneous like horse riding. I reluctantly had to report his behavior to my father and upset him. He treated his son strictly, punishing him for pranks and misdeeds.”

Nikolai Vlasik was irreplaceable in his office

Vlasik will have to reluctantly report on the misdeeds of Stalin's children almost until the end of his owner's life - the family was too complicated. Either Sveta will fall in love again, losing her head, or Vasya will once again organize a noisy party, about which all of Moscow will whisper. However, this will happen a little later, when the children grow up. In the meantime, in the thirties, Vlasik is doing everything so that they grow up as worthy people, and continues to blindly believe in Stalin’s lucky star. Even when the purges and repressions of 1937 began, Vlasik did not for a minute doubt the correctness of the owner’s actions.

Until the end of his life, Vlasik was confident that before the war they managed to secure the country from the so-called fifth column and prevent a stab in the back in 1941. He did not admit for a very long time that at the end of the thirties, under the repressive Moloch, along with the real conspirators, tens, hundreds of thousands of innocent people died. Even when he himself was thrown behind bars on trumped-up charges: “I am me, others are others.” And he wasn’t the only one who thought so. This psychology, this blind faith is one of the mysteries of that terrible and at the same time great era.

In 1938, Vlasik became the head of the first department of general security of the government. Now, in addition to the safety of Stalin himself, he was responsible for protecting the Lenin Mausoleum, archives and secret documents, organizing parades and demonstrations. It was then that he made a close friend - Vladimir Stenberg, the designer of all Kremlin events. This man, along with Beria, would subsequently play a fatal role in his fate.

Vladimir Stenberg is the best friend and the best traitor...

As for Lavrenty Beria, at first Vlasik took his appearance in Moscow completely calmly. A black cat ran between them immediately after Beria was appointed head of the NKVD, that is, he became Vlasik’s nominal boss. Beria was not the right person not to try to take complete control of the situation. But Nikolai Vlasik turned out to be a very difficult opponent. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “Beria has been opposed to me since 1940, when, on the instructions of Comrade Stalin, two of my deputies - Beria’s proteges - Kapanadze and Gulst were removed from work. They both applied for my position, collected gossip about my personal life and reported this to Beria, who, in turn, reported to Comrade Stalin.”

With the start of the war, both Vlasik and Beria had no time for personal intrigues. The most difficult situation at the front, the appearance of the Germans on the outskirts of Moscow forced them to forget about hostility for a while. Vlasik, for example, was responsible for the evacuation of all government families and state valuables to Kuibyshev, the reserve capital of the country.

Stalin, the main object of Vlasik’s concerns, did not go to Kuibyshev. He returned from the station on October 16, 1941 to the Kremlin, when panic had already begun in Moscow. Until the end of his life, Vlasik believed that it was this act of the chairman of the State Defense Committee that saved Moscow from surrendering to the Germans. He probably knew something. Stalin generally gave him a lot of trouble in those days. What was it worth just for the owner’s manner of watching the bombing of Moscow from the roof of his dacha in Kuntsevo! To all Vlasik’s pleas and requests to go down to the bunker, Stalin just waved his hand: “Ah! What is destined is destined."

The very famous photo of Nikolai Vlasik, taken on November 7, 1941 during the parade on Red Square

Who was the first to report to Stalin about the capture of his eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili, history is silent. Maybe Vlasik too. One can only guess what was going on in Stalin’s soul in those days. Vlasik writes little and very reservedly about Yakov’s captivity. From the diaries of Nikolai Vlasik: “In the very first days of the war, he went to the front. At Vyazma, our units were surrounded, and he was taken prisoner. The Germans kept him prisoner in the camp until the end of the war.”

This restrained tone is also due to the fact that neither our intelligence nor the special services were able to fully understand this situation. In addition to the purely human aspect of the tragedy, a terrible propaganda blow was dealt. On July 19, 1941, Berlin radio broadcast the message: “Jacob stated that he realized the futility of resistance and therefore he himself went over to the side of Germany.” On August 7, one of the leaflets with which the Germans bombarded the Soviet army was sent to the Kremlin, with the text of a letter allegedly written by Yakov: “Dear father, I am quite healthy. I will be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. The treatment is good. I wish you health. Hi all! Yasha."

What it was, a special operation by German intelligence or the real captivity of Stalin’s son, is still unclear. Recently, more and more evidence has appeared that Yakov died on the battlefield, and the Germans, having discovered his documents, staged the provocation of the century by framing a double. After all, the living Yakov, who surrendered at the very beginning of the war, is a trump card in the propaganda war that one can only dream of.

German propaganda leaflet on "material" - Yakov, Stalin's son

The fact that not everything is in order with the official version of the capture and murder of Yakov while trying to escape is indicated by Vlasik’s strange phrase in his diary: “He behaved with exceptional dignity and courage. They killed him in the camp. Allegedly while trying to escape." This mysterious phrase “allegedly while trying to escape” suggests that, having all the information available at that time about Yakov’s stay and death in captivity, neither Vlasik nor Stalin fully believed in the official version.

In general, as for Stalin’s children, throughout the war they did not let either their father or Vlasik get bored. This is despite the fact that both of them, roughly speaking, had no time for them. Vlasik was personally responsible not only for the evacuation of the government, but also for the evacuation of Lenin’s body to Tyumen, for ensuring security during the famous parade on November 7, 1941 on Red Square, and performed dozens of other important tasks.

The romance of young Svetlana Stalina with the famous screenwriter Alexei Kapler fell out of the blue. Vlasik almost turned gray when his subordinate Kryukov, assigned to Svetlana and Kapler, reported that 17-year-old Svetlana and 42-year-old Kapler were left alone in one of Vasily Stalin’s apartments. After this, the enraged Vlasik personally called Kapler and ordered him to get out of Moscow, leaving Svetlana alone. He did not listen, and Vlasik reported everything to Stalin. A few days later, Kapler was arrested. Since then, Svetlana did not like Vlasik and took revenge almost 20 years later, speaking extremely negatively about him in her famous book “Twenty Letters to a Friend.” In principle, it is possible to understand it.

Nikolai Vlasik with the “Boss” and his son Vasily

Until the spring of 1943, Stalin's youngest son Vasily could only be accused of an excessive passion for alcohol and beautiful women. At the same time, he achieved being sent to the front, flew, commanded a regiment, and received a military order for shooting down a German plane. But in April 1943, his father scandalously removed him from his post and sent him to the rear. The official investigation document has been preserved in the archives: “Secret, copy No. 1. Report of an emergency incident in the 32nd Guards Regiment. On the morning of April 4, 1943, a group of flight personnel consisting of regiment commander V.I. Stalin, Lieutenant Colonel N.I. Vlasov, Captain A.Ya. Baklan, Captain A.G. Kotov, Captain E.I. Razin. I went to the Selizharovka River, located one and a half kilometers from the airfield, to go fishing. Throwing grenades and rockets into the water, they drowned out the fish, collecting them from the shore with a net. As a result, one person, captain E.I. Razin, was killed. Colonel Stalin V.I. and captain Kotov A.G. seriously wounded...

Vlasik personally reported to Stalin about this incident. Stalin was furious. As a result, an order appeared in which the Supreme Commander-in-Chief did not spare his son. “I order the Commander of the Red Army Air Force, Air Marshal Comrade Novikov. First: immediately remove the commander from his position aviation regiment Colonel Stalin V.I. and not give him any command posts until my order. Second: announce that Colonel Stalin is being removed from the post of regiment commander for drunkenness and riotous behavior and for spoiling and corrupting the regiment. Third: report the execution. People's Commissar of Defense Stalin. May 26, 1943 "...

Vasily will return to the active army only in 1944, when the final turning point in the war has already come. By that time, England and the USA will finally open a second front...

To be continued.

Born in 1896 in the village of Bobynichi, Slonim district, Grodno province (Belarus). The son of a peasant. He received his education at a parochial school. Since 1913 he worked as a laborer and digger. During the First World War, in March 1915, he was drafted into the army as a junior non-commissioned officer. Since November 1917 he has been a policeman in Moscow. In 1918 - a Red Army soldier, participant in the defense of Tsaritsyn. In November of the same year he joined the RCP(b).

In September 1919 he was transferred to the Cheka. On November 1, 1926, he became the senior commissioner of the Operations Department of the OGPU of the USSR, and then held leadership positions in the system of the Operations Department, whose functions included protecting the leaders of the party and state.

Nikolai Vlasik appeared in Stalin’s guard in 1931 on the personal recommendation of the OGPU chairman V.R. Menzhinsky, after the death of Stalin’s chief guard I.F. Yusis. Later, however, a legend arose that Stalin, back in 1918, somehow liked the Red Army soldier Vlasik, whom he then took as his personal bodyguard. The legend became widespread. Even Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Vissarionovich, took her on faith in her memoirs. She also got into fiction, for example, in the historical and documentary novel by Vladimir Uspensky “The Leader’s Privy Advisor.” However, this legend was refuted by Nikolai Sidorovich himself in his unpublished notes, written by him at the end of his life for his family and friends: ordinary soldier Vlasik fought near Tsaritsyn, but member of the Revolutionary Military Council I.V. He had never seen Stalin then.

Initially, Nikolai Vlasik was only the head of Stalin's security. But after the tragic death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he was already the teacher of the children - Vasily and Svetlana, the organizer of their leisure time, the financial and economic distributor, whose vigilant eye kept all the inhabitants of the Stalinist house under the supervision. N.S. Vlasik solved almost all of Stalin’s everyday problems. Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva wrote in her memoirs “Twenty Letters to a Friend”:

He headed his father’s entire bodyguard, considered himself almost the closest person to him, and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he went so far as to dictate to some artists “the tastes of Comrade Stalin,” so as he believed that he knew and understood them well. And the leaders listened and followed these advice. And not a single festive concert at the Bolshoi Theater, or in the St. George’s Hall at banquets, was organized without Vlasik’s sanction... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether he “liked it” himself, be it a film or an opera, or even the silhouettes of the high-rise buildings that were under construction at that time... It would not be worth mentioning him at all - he ruined the lives of many, but he was such a colorful figure that you could not pass him by. In our house, for the “servants”, Vlasik was almost equal to his father himself, since his father was high and far away, and Vlasik, with the power given to him, could do anything...

During my mother’s life, he existed somewhere in the background as a bodyguard, and, of course, there was neither his foot nor his spirit in the house. He was constantly at his father’s dacha in Kuntsevo and “directed” from there all the other residences of his father, which became more and more numerous over the years...”

A few years later, Vlasik becomes not only Stalin’s main security guard, but also one of the leaders of the entire security service of the top leadership of the USSR. In 1935-36, he was the head of the personal security of the Operations Department of the NKVD of the USSR. Since 1936 - head of the operational group and head of the 1st department of the 1st directorate of the NKVD of the USSR.

After joining the NKVD of the USSR L.P. Beria and the removal of N.I.’s nominees from posts. Ezhova N.S. On November 19, 1938, Vlasik was appointed head of the 1st Department of the Main Directorate of State Security. In February-July 1941, Vlasik’s department was part of the NKGB of the USSR, and then returned to the NKVD. On January 19, 1942, Vlasik was transferred to the post of first deputy head of the 1st department.

In 1941, due to the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev to monitor the government's move there. Responsible for guarding the residences of I.V. Stalin in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam.

After the secondary formation of the independent National State Clinical Hospital of the USSR in April 1943, Vlasik’s department was deployed to the 6th Directorate, but on August 9 Vlasik again became not the chief, but the first deputy. On July 9, 1945, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general. Since March 1946, he has been the head of security department No. 1 of the USSR Ministry of State Security. This department was exclusively engaged in the protection and provision of Stalin. On November 28, 1946, under the leadership of General Vlasik, the Main Security Directorate (GUO) of the USSR Ministry of State Security was formed, which included the 1st and 2nd Security Directorates, as well as the Directorate of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin.

IN Last year Stalin's life, with the progressive deterioration of his health, the struggle of various groups in the leadership of the USSR for the Stalinist legacy intensified. At the same time, certain forces did not stop at speeding up the leader’s departure, and a necessary condition for this was the removal from Stalin’s inner circle of the people most devoted to him, which included Vlasik, who enjoyed Stalin’s exceptional trust. Yes - and not too literate, and too much of a lover of the fair sex, and, to put it mildly, not entirely conscientious in relation to state property. But at the same time, infinitely devoted to the leader! Stalin could easily trust him with his life.

On May 23, 1952, the Main Directorate of Defense was transformed into the Security Directorate, and General Vlasik was removed from work and transferred to the post of deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp in Asbest (Sverdlovsk region). December 16, 1952 N.S. Vlasik was arrested and accused of “indulging in sabotage doctors,” abuse of office, etc. The investigation dragged on, and only in January 1955 he was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (in a closed session) under Article 193-17, part “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Abuse of Trust and Official Position) to 5 years of exile in Krasnoyarsk (term punishment was calculated from the moment of arrest). However, already in 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with his criminal record expunged and returned to Moscow. Apparently, the death of the “master” still did not allow him to be crushed. N.S. was rehabilitated. Vlasik was not there either then or later. According to his wife, until his death, Vlasik was convinced that Lavrentiy Beria “helped” Stalin die.

Lieutenant General N.S. Vlasik was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov first degree, the Order of the Red Star, medals “XX Years of the Red Army”, “For the Defense of Moscow”, “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War” Patriotic War 1941 – 1945”, “In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow”, “XXX years of the Soviet Army and Navy”, as well as two badges “Honorary Security Officer”. He was deprived of all of the above awards by a court verdict in 1955.

The daughter of General Vlasik, Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik, fought for many years for the rehabilitation of her father, and in 2000, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation posthumously acquitted Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik “for lack of corpus delicti.”

In an interview given to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2003, Nadezhda Vlasik said: “...father would not have let him [Stalin] die. He would not have waited for a day outside the doors, like those guards on March 5, 1953, when Stalin “wake up.” He would knock down all the doors, drive everyone out of the dacha territory, regardless of rank, and of course he would bring doctors.”

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died in Moscow from lung cancer on June 18, 1967. He was buried in the new Donskoy cemetery, a few dozen steps west of the Great Patriotic War memorial.

At the end of his life N.S. Vlasik wrote memoirs that have not yet been published. Valuable historical source is a lot of things he did in different time photographs by I.V. Stalin and his inner circle, and in an informal setting. There is, among other things, a photo of a drunk Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, in a Ukrainian embroidered shirt, dancing the hopak at the Near Dacha.

The Russian Federal Security Service declassified the general's archive Nikolai Vlasik, who served as Joseph Stalin's security chief from 1931 to 1952. Vlasik’s memoirs, dedicated to his life next to the leader, were published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

As Vlasik said in his notes, he was tasked with organizing the security of the Special Department of the Cheka and the Kremlin, as well as paying special attention to Stalin’s personal security, after a bomb was thrown into the commandant’s office building on Lubyanka in Moscow in 1927.

According to Vlasik, before he headed the leader’s security, only one employee was responsible for his safety - Lithuanian Ivan Yusis. At the dacha near Moscow, where Stalin vacationed on weekends, complete chaos reigned. Vlasik began by sending linen and dishes to the dacha, hiring a cook and a cleaner, and also arranging for the delivery of food from the nearby GPU state farm.

Vlasik also described Stalin’s way of life in his apartment in the Kremlin. The housekeeper Karolina Vasilyevna and the cleaning lady kept order there. Hot meals were brought to the family from the Kremlin canteen in boats.

According to the general, then Stalin lived very modestly with his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, daughter Svetlana and sons Vasily and Yakov. Stalin walked around in an old coat, and responded to Vlasik’s offer to sew new outerwear with a categorical refusal. As Vlasik wrote in his notes, he had to sew a new coat for the leader by eye - he did not let me take measurements. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was just as modest, according to the general.

He came to work late and walked back to the Kremlin

As Vlasik recalls, Stalin usually got up at 9 a.m. and after breakfast at 11 a.m. he arrived at the Central Committee building on Old Square. Had lunch at work. The leader worked until late at night. He often returned from work to the Kremlin on foot with Vyacheslav Molotov.

After Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1933, the care of the children fell on the housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna. According to Vlasik, when the children grew up, part of the responsibility fell on him. And if there were no problems with Svetlana, son Vasily studied at school reluctantly, and instead of preparing for classes, he was interested in something extraneous like horse riding. Vlasik, in his words, “reluctantly” reported to Stalin about Vasily’s behavior.

Stalin planted Sochi with eucalyptus trees

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, Stalin annually went on vacation to Sochi or Gagra for two months at the end of summer and beginning of autumn. There he read a lot, rode a boat on the sea, watched movies, played skittles, gorodki and billiards.

Another hobby of the leader was the garden. In the south he grew oranges and tangerines. On Stalin’s initiative, a large number of eucalyptus trees were planted in Sochi, which, according to the leader’s idea, was supposed to reduce the incidence of malaria in the local population.

As Vlasik admitted, in the 30s, when Stalin arrived on vacation in Tskhaltubo at the dacha intended for employees of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of Georgia, it turned out to be so dirty that, in his words, “his heart bled” when the leader was nervous, demanding to clean up.

About the leader's love for Kirov and the assassination attempt on Stalin

According to Vlasik, Stalin loved the leader of the Leningrad party organization of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Sergei Kirov, “with some kind of touching, tender love.” When Kirov came to Moscow, he stayed at Stalin’s apartment, and they never parted. The murder of Kirov in 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev, an instructor of the historical-party commission of the Institute of History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, shocked the leader. As Vlasik noted, he traveled with Stalin to Leningrad to say goodbye to Kirov and saw how he suffered, experiencing the loss of his beloved friend.

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, Stalin himself survived the assassination attempt in the summer of 1935. This happened in the south, where he was vacationing at a dacha near Gagra. The boat sent from Leningrad by the then head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda, on which Stalin was, was fired upon from the shore. According to Vlasik, he quickly put Stalin on a bench and covered him with himself, after which he ordered the minder to go out to the open sea. In response, Stalin's guards fired a machine gun along the shore.

According to Vlasik, the small and unmaneuverable boat was sent by Yagoda “not without malicious intent.” Obviously, the NKVD chief assumed that on a large wave the ship would inevitably capsize, the general assumes. Fortunately, this did not happen. The case of the assassination attempt was transferred for investigation to Lavrentiy Beria, who then held the position of Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia.

During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat had an unfamiliar license plate; this seemed suspicious to him and he opened fire, Vlasik writes. In fact, as historians write, the appearance of Stalin’s boat in the protected zone was not documented with the appropriate documents, and the border guards acted in strict accordance with the instructions. The commander of the border post department, Lavrov, fired shots into the air and demanded that the boat stop. Warning shots had to be repeated because the boat did not respond to signals.

Lavrov was tried. Although he was facing the death penalty, after Yagoda’s intervention, the commander of the outpost squad was given only five years for “sloppiness.” Lavrov, however, did not serve his term. In 1937, he was taken from the camp to Tbilisi, and after interrogation, he was accused of a terrorist plot and sentenced to death as an enemy of the people.

In his memoirs, Vlasik expresses the idea that the murders of Kirov, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky in 1934, Valerian Kuibyshev in 1935 and the writer Maxim Gorky in 1936, as well as attempts on Stalin and Molotov, were organized by the right-wing Trotskyist bloc and became links in one chain. “We managed to unravel this tangle and thus neutralize the enemies of Soviet power,” states the general.

Let us recall that the circumstances of the death of Gorky and his son Maxim Peshkov were considered suspicious for a long time, but rumors about their murder were never confirmed. At the 1938 trial, Yagoda was charged with poisoning Gorky's son. During interrogations, Yagoda stated that Gorky was killed on Trotsky’s orders, and he decided to liquidate the writer’s son on his personal initiative.

Under pressure from various “de-Stalinizers” from the “nano-democrat” Medvedev to Mlechin and the government commission to counter the falsification of history under the leadership of its permanent leader Svanidze, the Russian Federal Security Service declassified the archive of Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik, including his diary and memoir entries. Vlasik was the head of Stalin's personal security for more than 20 years - from 1927 to 1952. In 1946, he became head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

The declassified documents, as planned by the klutzes of the de-Stalinizers, were supposed to “highlight” the vices and greed of the Generalissimo, so hated by them, and confirm the myth about the leader’s countless treasures. The general's notes, published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, depict the leader not so much as a statesman, but as a specific person with his own habits and principles inherent in his everyday life, hidden from prying eyes. Yes, it probably couldn’t have been otherwise: as one of the people closest to Stalin, Vlasik knew the underbelly of Stalin’s life better than others. Inside out, figuratively and literally. In terms of clothes.

Quote: “Comrade Stalin lived very modestly with his family,” it is said, in particular, in the memoirs. - He walked around in an old, very shabby coat. I suggested that Nadezhda Sergeevna (Stalin’s wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. - Ed.) sew him a new coat, but for this it was necessary to take measurements or take an old coat and make exactly the same one in the workshop. It was not possible to take measurements, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still made him a coat.”.

You read and are amazed. Was this really possible in our country (the USSR was also our country, whether anyone likes it or not), where power from time immemorial has been perceived, first of all, as a source of personal enrichment, as the basis of personal happiness, as a guarantee of personal comfort and prosperity? And suddenly you see a man, being at the pinnacle of power, at the very top (Stalin became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party back in 1922) and is not concerned with this very personal enrichment.

He even brushes off the offer to sew him a new coat: he says he looks like the old one. What about our country: in all of world history it is difficult to find a similar example where a person possessing such unlimited, more than monarchical power would be so indifferent to the personal and material side of the issue.

An exceptionally benevolent tone towards Stalin is maintained throughout Vlasik’s now published memoir. The Generalissimo appears before readers not as a wingless angel, but as a humble, hardworking and intelligent person.

That part of the audience that sees in Stalin only a “mustachioed, pockmarked cannibal”, naturally, immediately burst out with mockingly caustic comments: they say, Vlasik wrote his opus while Stalin was alive. What else, they say, besides obsequious praise could this “lack,” whose position and very life depended on the will of the Master, write? If, they say, the general guard tried to write something disrespectful or dirty, he would immediately be put up against the wall. Or until the end of his days he would chew camp bread in the polar latitudes. He would chew with the teeth he still had after interrogations. In general, all these declassified archives of yours are flattering lies, and that’s all. This is the logic. It's flawed, to be honest.

But alas, the theory of sycophancy does not stand up to criticism. In May 1952, Lieutenant General Vlasik was removed from his post as head of Stalin’s security and sent to the Urals as deputy head of a forced labor camp. In December 1952, less than three months before Stalin’s death, he was arrested in connection with the “Doctors’ Case.” In January 1955, he was found guilty of abuse of office and sentenced to 10 years in exile. By virtue of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, Vlasik’s sentence was reduced to five years. In December 1956, he was pardoned with his criminal record expunged. He was not restored to his military rank or awards. So Vlasik wrote his memoirs about the “bloody” tyrant after Stalin’s death, when the “cult of personality” was “exposed” at the 20th Congress...

The fact of Vlasik’s personal devotion to Stalin and the possible element of subjectivity present in his notes do not mean that what he wrote is a lie. They do not mean this a priori, no matter how much anyone might want the opposite. Subjectivity is generally an inevitable component of any diaries and memoirs, no matter who they were written by.

Quote: “I was cruelly offended by Stalin,” he wrote in his memoirs. - For 25 years of impeccable work, without a single penalty, but only incentives and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison. For my boundless devotion, he (Stalin.) gave me into the hands of enemies. But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I had no anger in my soul against Stalin.”.

But subjectivity is an evaluative property. And there are facts. One such fact testifying to Stalin’s personal modesty and unpretentiousness is such a well-known document as the inventory of the leader’s personal property, compiled less than an hour after his death at the Blizhnaya Dacha on March 5, 1953. The inventory includes: a notebook, a notebook, a general notebook, smoking pipes, books, a white jacket - 2 pcs., a gray jacket - 2 pcs., a dark green jacket - 2 pcs., trousers - 10, underwear. “A savings book was found in the bedroom with 900 rubles written in it.”(for comparison: the average monthly salary of workers and employees in the country at that time was about 700 rubles.).

Skeptics always cling to the phrase appearing in the inventory “Other property belonging to Comrade Stalin was not included in the inventory”. And they talk about countless luxurious dachas and residences that Stalin built for himself and his loved ones and which his daughter Svetlana, in particular, recalled with delight. But nothing is known about the palaces and treasures that, after the death of the leader, became the personal use of his immediate and non-immediate relatives. There are no such facts.

The dachas and cars that Stalin used during his lifetime were transferred to the service of other government officials after his death. Some of these dachas eventually became sanatoriums. As for Stalin’s closest relatives, his son Vasily died two years after his release from prison, where he worked as a turner.

And daughter Svetlana, who emigrated in 1967, lived abroad mainly on money earned by writing: publishers’ interest in the memoirs of Stalin’s daughter, of course, was enormous. In this sense, Stalin provided for his daughter. But only in this sense. Diplomat Semenov wrote in his diary from the words of Mikhail Sholokhov that Stalin once remarked in a narrow circle that he did not want to build a dacha for his daughter, because “the dacha would be confiscated on the second day after his death.” When offended comrades “waved their hands,” Stalin allegedly said: “You will be the first to oppose me.”.

In general, one way or another, Vlasik’s diaries did not report anything new or sensational about the personal modesty of the Generalissimo.