See what "1937" is in other dictionaries. See what "1937" is in other dictionaries 1937 entered Russian history as

The year 1937 became a household name for the inhabitants of the former USSR, a symbol of the Great Terror, a senseless and merciless conveyor of arrests, torture, trials and executions. During that year, about 350 thousand people were killed, 315 times more than the previous year, 1936. Approximately the same number were sent to camps for "counter-revolutionary crimes."
However, in parallel with the bloody orgy in the country, everyday life somehow continued with its joys and worries, newspaper reports on trials were densely interspersed with reports of new successes in socialist construction and the exploits of brave pilots. And for Western tourists who came to the USSR in 1937, the horror of mass executions remained completely behind the scenes.
I propose to look at a small kaleidoscope of visual evidence of that hectic time.

On January 6, a census of the population of the USSR was held:

However, its preliminary results were almost immediately (10 days later) declared "wrecking"; responsible officials who conducted it were arrested and repressed. It seems that several millions were missing, and "above" did not like it.

With unexpectedly great pomp in 1937, the USSR celebrated the centenary of the death of A.S. Pushkin (poster Buev and Jordan):

Pushkin was glorified even in the Gorno-Mari language:

Cultural life in general was in full swing: citizens were urged to actively subscribe to foreign literature:

In 1937, the second year began, as "Life has become better, life has become more fun" and the theme of people's happiness was actively played up by the authors of the posters.

"Thanks to the party, thanks to my dear Stalin for a happy, cheerful childhood!", 1937:

Painters did not lag behind. In this painting by Alexander Deineka, we see a 1937 fashion show in Moscow:

Propaganda brought up the cult of good spirits and a healthy, strong body.

The picture "Soviet physical education" by A. Samokhvalov was written in 1937:

Do not shy away from erotic motives. The famous sculpture of a girl with an oar by Shadr in Moscow's Gorky Park, 1937:

In the Caucasus, new resorts were built for workers.

City buses on Stalinsky Prospekt in Sochi, 1937:

"Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest" V.I. Govorkov, 1937:

Particular attention in the USSR was paid to the emancipation of women. In 1937, motorist ladies became a fashionable topic.

"We are learning to drive a car", S. Shor, 1937:

And motorcyclists! "Motorcycle run of engineers' wives", A. Yar-Kravchenko, 1937:

And pilots, of course. Poster by P. Karachentsev, 1937:

For successful women, the path was open to the very top. "Unforgettable meeting", Vasily Efanov, 1937:

The year 1937 was marked by another success in the industrial and technological development of the country.
At the turnkey automobile factories built by the Americans, the production of American car models was increasing.
The main conveyor of the ZIS, I. Shagin, 1937:

The futuristic giant steam locomotive "Joseph Stalin" (1937) entered the steel highways:

Handsome motor ships of previously unseen outlines entered the waterways, 1937:

One of the main events of the year was the opening of the Moscow-Volga channel:

A large group of photographers, journalists and writers was immediately brought along the canal, and a sumptuous photo album was published following the trip:

However, aviation became the greatest pride of the USSR!

In June 1937, the American city of Vancouver met the Soviet ANT-25 aircraft under the command of Chkalov:

While the authorities mercilessly exterminated the command staff of the Red Army, the country was publicly preparing for war.
Teachings in the Leningrad region, 1937:

"Collective farmers greet tankers during maneuvers", Ekaterina Zernova, 1937:

Back in 1937, the "architectural genocide" reached its peak - the massive destruction of Orthodox and other churches.
Demolition of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Baku, 1937:

At the end of the year, elections were held to the Supreme Soviet, according to the new Stalinist Constitution of 1936:

The Soviet leadership did its best to advertise the country's successes in the West.
The "nail" of the World Exhibition of 1937 in Paris was the Soviet pavilion with a sculpture by Vera Mukhina:

In 1937 thousands of Western tourists visited the USSR. Foreign tourists in Leningrad, 1937:

Back in 1937, a fairly well-known German writer visited the USSR

Gafurov Said 05/09/2017 at 10:25

In the days of the Great Victory, the hubbub of revisionist historians about the unbearable implicit racism of the Anglo-Saxons, about Budyonny and Tukhachevsky, the conspiracy of marshals had already become familiar ... What and how was it really? What are the well-known and new facts for a long time? World War II began in the summer of 1937, not in the fall of 1939. The bloc of Pan Poland, Horthy Hungary and Hitlerite Germany tore apart unfortunate Czechoslovakia. It was not for nothing that Churchill called the Polish masters of life the most vile of vile hyenas, and the agreement between Molotov and Ribbentrop was a brilliant success of Soviet diplomacy.

Every year, when Victory Day approaches, various nonhumans try to revise history, shouting that the Soviet Union is not the main winner, and its victory would have been impossible without the help of the allies. Usually they cite the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty as the main argument.

The very fact that Western historians believe that the Second World War began in September 1939 is due solely to the overt racism of the Western allies, primarily the Anglo-Americans. In fact, World War II began in 1937 when Japan launched an aggression against China.

Japan is the aggressor country, China is the victorious country, and the war went on from 1937 to September 1945, went on without a single break. But for some reason these dates are not called. After all, this happened somewhere in distant Asia, and not in civilized Europe or North America. Although the end is quite obvious: the end of World War II is the surrender of Japan. It is logical that the beginning of this story should be considered the beginning of Japanese aggression against China.

This will remain on the conscience of Anglo-American historians, and we just need to know about it. In fact, the situation is not at all so simple. The question is put in the same way: in what year did the Soviet Union enter the Second world war? The war has been going on since 1937, and its beginning was not at all the liberation campaign of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army in Poland, when Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were reunited with their brothers in the east. The war began earlier in Europe. It was in the autumn of 1938, when the Soviet Union announced to Pan Poland that if it took part in the aggression against Czechoslovakia, then the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Poland would be considered terminated. This is very important point; because when a country breaks a non-aggression pact, it is actually a war. The Poles then were very frightened, there were several joint statements. But still, Poland took part, together with the allies of the Nazis and the Chartist Hungary, in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. The fighting was coordinated between the Polish and German General Staffs.

Here it is important to recall one document that the patented anti-Sovietists are very fond of: this is the prison testimony of Marshal Tukhachevsky about the strategic deployment of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. There are papers there that both anti-Soviet and Stalin supporters call very important and interesting. True, their meaningful analysis for some reason is practically nowhere to be found.

The fact is that Tukhachevsky wrote this document in custody back in 1937, and in 1939, when the war on the Western Front began, the situation changed dramatically. The whole meaningful pathos of Tukhachevsky's testimony is that the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army was not in a position to win against the Polish-German coalition. And in accordance with the Hitler-Pilsudski pact (the first brilliant success of Hitler's diplomacy), Poland and Germany should attack the Soviet Union together.

There is a less well-known document - the report of Semyon Budyonny, who was present at the trial of the marshals' conspiracies. Then all the marshals, including Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, were sentenced to death - along with a large number of army commanders. The head of the political department of the Red Army, Gamarnik, shot himself. They shot Blucher and Marshal Yegorov, who participated in another conspiracy.

These three military men took part precisely in the conspiracy of the marshals. In the report, Budyonny says that the final impetus that forced Tukhachevsky to start planning a coup was his realization that the Red Army was not able to win against the united allies - Nazi Germany and Poland. That was the main threat.

So, we see that in 1937 Tukhachevsky says: the Red Army has no chance against the Nazis. And in 1938, Poland, Germany and Hungary tear the unfortunate Czechoslovakia to pieces, after which Churchill calls the Polish leaders hyenas and writes that the most vile of the vile led the bravest of the brave.

And only in 1939, thanks to the brilliant successes of Soviet diplomacy and the fact that the Litvinov line was replaced by the Molotov line, the USSR managed to remove this mortal threat, which consisted in the fact that in the West against Soviet Union Germany, Poland could act, and on the Southwestern Front - Hungary and Romania. And at the same time, Japan had the opportunity to attack in the east.

Tukhachevsky and Budyonny considered the position of the Red Army in this situation practically hopeless. Then diplomats began to work instead of soldiers, who managed to break the bloc between Soviet diplomacy, between Hitler, Beck and Pan Poland, between the Nazis and the Polish leadership, and unleash a war between Germany and Poland. It should be noted that the German army at that moment was practically invincible.

The Germans did not have much combat experience, it consisted only in the Spanish War, in the relatively bloodless Anschluss of Austria, as well as in the bloodless capture of the Sudetenland and then the rest of Czechoslovakia, except for those pieces that, by agreement between the Nazis and Poland and Hungary, went to these countries .

Pan Poland was defeated by the Germans in three weeks. To understand how this happened, it is enough to re-read military memoirs and analytical documents; for example, the famous book of brigade commander Isserson "New Forms of Struggle", which is now becoming popular again. It was a completely unexpected and quick defeat of Poland. In 1940, France, which was then considered the most powerful army in Europe, suffered the same quick three-week and disastrous defeat. Nobody expected this.

But, in any case, such a quick defeat of Poland meant only one thing: Soviet diplomacy worked great, it pushed the borders of the Soviet Union far to the West. After all, in 1941, the Nazis were very close to Moscow, and it is quite possible that these several hundred kilometers, to which the border moved to the West, made it possible to save not only Moscow, but also Leningrad. We have managed to do the almost impossible.

The victory of Soviet diplomacy provided us with guarantees that not only broke the bloc, but also led to the fact that Hitler destroyed the Warsaw threat to Russia. No one expected how rotten the Polish army would then turn out to be. Therefore, when they tell you about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, answer: it was a brilliant response to the Munich agreement, and the Polish lords received a well-deserved punishment. Churchill was right: they were the most vile of the vile.

The Great Victory is not just a holiday that unites us. This is a very important thing in our historical experience, which makes us always remember to keep our gunpowder dry: we are never safe.

There is, perhaps, no more odious date in the history of Russia than “37 years”. This is not even a date, but some kind of formula, a spell denoting a terrible disaster, such as the “Berezina” of the French. Who among us has not heard: “this is not your 37th year”, or vice versa, “this is a real 37th year”? Moreover, the following information was firmly established in the general consciousness: in 1937, the evil tyrant Stalin unleashed a bloody terror against his people, killing millions of people.

The reasons why Stalin unleashed this terror are simply explained: he fought for his power.

However, no one can explain why, in order to strengthen his power, Stalin needed to destroy people so different in their social, social, property and class status.

Of course, we will be told that he did this for mass terror. But what is terror, when and why is it used? Today, the concept of "international terrorism" is a necessary political camouflage, which was "fascism" in Stalin's time. For example, President V. V. Putin, for one reason or another, cannot name the states or political forces acting today against Russia, and he calls them “international terrorism”. As a politician, he is absolutely right. But from the point of view of the historian, the concept of "international terrorism" is a kind of vague and obscure definition. In fact, terrorism and terror cannot be an end, they are always a means to an end. Behind any terror there are specific states or regimes that carry out their tasks with the help of terror. For example: the purpose of the Jacobin terror was the destruction of Christian France, the purpose of the Social Revolutionary terror was the overthrow of the Russian monarchy, the purpose of the so-called "Red Terror" was the genocide of the Russian People and the destruction of Orthodox Russia. Individual terror also pursues specific goals, and not always clear to ordinary performers. Of course, the goal of, say, Chechen fighters who take hostages is not these same hostages, but the demands that the fighters put forward in this case. So, terrorists, carrying out mass or individual terror, set themselves specific task and this task is achieved by the physical extermination or intimidation of estates, classes, groups of the population or specific people. At the same time, terror is always aimed at destruction, destruction and never at creation.

Thus, the Nazi regime in Germany set as its task the destruction of foreign peoples: Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Jews, Gypsies. In addition, the Nazi terror was also directed at those estates and social groups within Germany that were dangerous for the regime: the Catholic Church, the Communists, the Social Democrats. Against these peoples and these sections of the population, the Nazis launched a bloody terror. But the Nazis did not set themselves the task of destroying the German people as such, and therefore most of the Germans were not persecuted and did not even know about the existence of death camps.

On the contrary, in the 1918-1920s, the Bolsheviks unleashed a bloody terror precisely against the entire Russian people, against all groups of the population, primarily against the nobility, clergy, officers, but also against the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia. The terror of the Cheka affected Russians, Little Russians, Belarusians, Cossacks, Balts, Jews, Kazakhs and representatives of hundreds of other peoples inhabiting the former Russian Empire. They killed with particular cruelty methodically and purposefully: women, teenagers, the elderly, even infants. This terror was carried out by a special caste, a special secret order, whose representatives mainly came from abroad and who were united, first of all, by an irreconcilable hatred of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, everything Russian, but at the same time also everything national in general. This secret order hid behind the name of the Bolshevik Party, but with the same success it manifested itself in the terror of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party or the "independent" Petliura.

It is well known that the leaders and chief executioners of this secret order were Jews. From this, some researchers draw the incorrect conclusion that the Red Terror was Jewish. But if we carefully analyze the crimes of Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev, Goloshchekin, Yakir and the like, we will see that the simple Jewish population of Russia also suffered from them. There is a lot of evidence when Jews were shot as hostages, subjected to all sorts of violence and harassment by their fellow Bolsheviks.

Thus, the Trotskyist-Leninist regime waged an all-out war of annihilation against all peoples, estates, classes, groups of Russia, that is, it carried out, as we have already said, the genocide of the Russian People.

It would seem that something similar to the Red Terror happened in 1937: during the Great Purge, all classes and strata of Soviet society, without exception, were subjected to repression: the party nomenklatura, workers, peasants, military men, and the clergy. At first glance, this gives us the opportunity to come to the conclusion that in 1937-1938 Stalin carried out the second wave of the "Red Terror". But it may seem so only at first glance.

The fact is that the so-called Bolshevik regime, which captured in October 1917, or rather its American-Jewish group, did not set itself the task of building any state on the territory of the former Russian Empire. According to the plan of Sverdlov and Trotsky, Russia was to die, disintegrate into hundreds of small states, and disappear. Millions of yesterday's subjects of Russia were to become dumb slaves, fuel for the World Revolution. The satanic plan envisaged destroying by the hands of the Russians themselves not only the Orthodox faith within Russia, not only their own state, not only Christian Europe, but in general the entire former world order. “On the mountain we are all bourgeois, we will inflate the world fire, the world fire is in the blood!” In this line of Blok, the word "bourgeois" must be replaced with the word "humanity" so that he would accurately express the goals of the most monstrous regime in world history.

In fact, this regime was an occupational one. Its leaders acted as occupiers. Relying on accomplices and punishers, they waged war on the Russian people.

Here are the words of Leon Trotsky, spoken by him in the summer of 1917, that is, even before the Bolsheviks came to power: “We must turn Russia into a desert inhabited by white Negroes, to whom we will give such tyranny as the most terrible despots of the East never dreamed of. The only difference is that this tyranny will not be from the right, but from the left, and not white, but red. In the literal sense of the word, it is red, because we will shed such torrents of blood before which all the human losses of capitalist wars will shudder and turn pale. The largest bankers from across the ocean will work in close contact with us. If we win the revolution, crush Russia, then on its burial ruins we will become such a force before which the whole world will kneel.”

And here are the words of Heinrich Himmler, spoken by him in 1943: “As the Russians have to do, I don’t care at all. ... Whether other peoples live in contentment or die of hunger interests me only insofar as our culture needs them as slaves, otherwise it does not interest me. Whether 10,000 Russian women will die from exhaustion in the construction of anti-tank fortifications or not, I am interested in so far as anti-tank fortifications are being built for Germany.

As you can see, there is no difference. For those and for others, Russia does not exist, moreover, they hate it and strive for its destruction. But Stalin did not seek to destroy Russia. Moreover, his views and actions were strikingly different from those of the Trotskyist occupiers. Thus, we have to figure out what real historical events are hidden behind the numbers of 1937, which have become a bloody symbol of the history of Russia in the twentieth century.

Today in our country a lot is said and written about Stalin. Write enthusiastically, write with hatred, write with deification or mockery, but almost never objectively.

Recently, the author of these lines had to listen more than once to accusations that he was a “monarchist”, but “stumbled on Stalinism”, “defends Dzhugashvili”, etc. What can I say? Only one thing: our society still lives with different “-isms”, just like under the Bolshevik domination. Our society does not like to think, does not like to analyze. It is still ready only to denounce, curse and glorify, while consuming the ideological chewing gum that is slipped into it. During the years of perestroika, the concept of “Stalinist repressions” was actively introduced into the consciousness of society. And various representatives of our society repeat this term like priests, without thinking that behind the name of Stalin they want to hide all the crimes of the Bolshevik regime. This summer, television went so far as to announce in its news that the "Red Terror" began in 1937. And we thought that the "Red Terror" began in 1918 with the savage murder of the Royal Family, with decossackization, with hostages, from the cellars of the Cheka! But no, we are assured that the "Red Terror" is Stalin's repressions! In this regard, it was gratifying to hear the speech of President Vladimir Putin at the Butovo training ground. As the President emphasized, “we all know very well that 1937, although it is considered the peak of repressions, was well prepared by the previous years of cruelty. Suffice it to recall the shooting of hostages during the years of the civil war, the destruction of entire estates - the clergy, the Russian peasantry, the Cossacks.

Our goal is not to justify Stalin in any way, but to understand what happened to our country in the 30s-50s. Of course, we must remember and take into account that for hundreds of thousands of people, the name of Stalin is associated with the death and torment of their relatives and friends, is associated with the White Sea Canal, the Gulag, with blown up churches, with hunger and lack of rights.

But in the same way, we must remember and take into account that for hundreds of thousands of people, the name of Stalin is associated with success, with outstanding achievements, with the development of industry, with breakthroughs in science, and finally with the Great Victory. Stalin, no matter how they treated him, was the Supreme Commander of our victorious army in the bloodiest and most difficult war. The image of Stalin is minted on the medal "For the Victory over Germany". Stalin, the only one of the Soviet, and even post-Soviet, figures said a toast "to the health of the Russian people." Therefore, the constant insult to the name of Stalin, and even more mockery of him, offend Russia. In E. Rostand's play "Eaglet", a French officer of the royal army challenges a man who insulted the memory of Napoleon to a duel. And when this officer is asked in bewilderment: “How, are you the king’s envoy, do you stand up for Bonaparte?”, The officer replies:

No, this is about France
And France is insulted.
Who dares to insult
Who did she love?

So it is with Stalin. When everything that happened in the era of the 30s-50s, good and terrible, is reduced only to his name, this is not historical, not fair and harmful to the future of the Russian state. Namely, it is about this, about the future of Russia, about its prosperity and well-being, that we must think first of all.

In our opinion, the biggest mistake in assessing Stalin is that he is considered throughout his life as something unchanging and frozen. Meanwhile, Stalin, like almost any person, changed, formed, adapted under the influence of external and internal factors. The Stalin of 1917 is not the Stalin of the year 1945. Just like the revolutionary Russia of 1917, it is not the victorious Soviet Union. The era changed, Stalin changed too. But in turn, he also changed the era, changed the worldview and spirit of the Soviet state.

Stalin is a natural consequence of the apostasy of Russian society from God and the Tsar that occurred in 1917. It must be clear that Soviet Russia was not Tsarist Russia, that Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s was generally cruel and godless, and that the new martyrs of the 20th century denounced this society with their feat. Stalin was cruel just like all his tough times. But, being cruel and even sometimes merciless, Stalin, nevertheless, was not a hater of Russia. Moreover, unlike Trotsky and Lenin, Stalin just saw the future of Soviet power in a strong state, in the state that is commonly called the "Soviet empire." And this "Soviet empire" could be based only on Russian patriotism. Stalin understood this very well and progressively gave the USSR the appearance of Russia. Of course, this was not Orthodox monarchical Russia, but in comparison with the bloody Council of Deputies of Trotsky and Sverdlov, a huge step was made towards precisely national self-consciousness.

At the same time, it should be said that Stalin was always closer than all the Bolsheviks to understanding the need to preserve the Russian state. On this occasion, he had a fundamental dispute with Lenin, during which Stalin advocated the preservation of the name of the state in the name of Russia and against the formation of the USSR.

Allegations that Stalin created in the 30s. totalitarian system, do not find actual confirmation. This system was created long before Stalin, created by Lenin, Trotsky, Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, Bukharin, Frenkel. It was they, and not Stalin, who were the creators of the first concentration camps. Stalin did a lot to change, at least outwardly, this system in the direction of softening it. In 1936, a new constitution of the USSR was adopted. In it, for the first time, at the insistence of Stalin, the practice of losing the rights of the so-called "disenfranchised" was abolished: the clergy, former officers, nobles, and so on. Thanks to the Stalinist constitution, hundreds of thousands of people, yesterday still without rights, were able to enter universities, vote, be elected to government bodies, and so on. This, of course, did not mean that lawlessness and reprisals did not stop with respect to these categories of people, but, of course, even the legal recognition of them as equal Soviet citizens meant a big step forward for them.

In 1937-1938, again on the initiative of Stalin, a number of events were carried out, which today may seem insignificant to us, but which then were of tremendous importance for Soviet society. We have in mind the return of the names that constituted Russian national glory. In 1937, Pushkin's anniversary was held on a grand scale. In order to understand the full significance of this event, one must remember that the name of Pushkin was actually outlawed in Bolshevik Russia. Mayakovsky's proposal to throw Pushkin off the "ship of history" was very popular with the Bolsheviks. Therefore, the honorable return of Pushkin to the life of Soviet society meant a strong blow to the Russophobic ideology.

Eisenstein's film "Alexander Nevsky", which began filming in 1937, dealt an even greater blow to this ideology. The Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky aroused pathological hatred among the Bolsheviks. Until the end of the 1930s, his name was mentioned only in offensive libels by Demyan Bedny and others like him. The powerful image of the noble defender of the Russian Land, created by Cherkasov, returned to Russia not just a national hero, but a saint glorified by the Church.

In the 1930s, the names of P. I. Tchaikovsky, A. V. Suvorov, Peter the Great, and F. F. Ushakov returned. In a harsh form, Stalin scolds Demyan Bedny for his Russophobic rhymes and poems. All this happens long before the war. Therefore, the assertions of many researchers that Stalin's patriotic rhetoric was caused only by the Great Patriotic War are unfair.

The state principle is felt in all spheres of Soviet society. Stalin restores the classical pre-revolutionary education in the school. The so-called "school" of academician M. N. Pokrovsky, the famous Russophobe and falsifier, one of the main slanderers of the Imperial Family tortured by the Bolsheviks, was subjected to severe criticism. In 1934-1936, a new unified textbook on the history of the USSR was created. Today, few people know that before 1934, Russian history was practically not taught in Soviet schools. There was a kind short course” Pokrovsky, where the entire pre-revolutionary Russian history was reduced to slanderous gag, and then there were praises of the “revolution and its leaders”.

Stalin does not stop even before criticizing the classics of Marxism. In the same year, 1934, Stalin sharply criticized the work of Friedrich Engels "The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsarism", in fact accusing Engels of hatred of Russia.

Being essentially the editor-in-chief of a new textbook on national history, Stalin speaks out in defense of Orthodox monasteries, which he called a source of culture and enlightenment, and in defense of the Baptism of Rus'. Now this Stalinist position may seem insignificant to us, but then it had the effect of an exploding bomb. After all, according to the plans of Lenin, Trotsky and their clique, the history of the Church was to be perceived only as the history of "obscurantism."

In general, Stalin was never a zealous champion of the struggle against the Church. In the midst of collectivization on March 2, 1930, in his article “Dizzy with Success,” Stalin condemned the removal of church bells. “Remove the bells - just think what a rr-revolutionary!” he wrote. Thus, Stalin spoke out against those who were too zealous in the fight against religion. The congress, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in March 1930, condemned the practice of forcible closing of churches. It is noteworthy that the Decree of the Central Committee spoke about the fight against "religious prejudice", and not "anti-religious propaganda", as it was before.

In 1934, the Union of Soviet Writers was created. In the USSR, the so-called "socialist realism" is developing, which in fact was a return to the principles of morality and patriotism in fiction, painting, theater and cinema. The victory of the Bolshevik regime in 1917 marked not only bloody murders, but also a complete decline in the moral foundations of society. The death rate far exceeded the birth rate. Drunkenness, smoking, abortions, divorces, sexual perversions, and venereal diseases flourished in the country. In 1919, the so-called "12 sexual commandments of the proletarian" were published in the newspaper Vecherniy Petrograd. The author of the article was the psychoneurologist A. B. Zalkind, an admirer of Marx and Freud. Here are the most revealing "commandments" of Salkind: "The working class serves the people, the revolution and the RCP (b), and not the sexual whims of our physiology. Physiology must be castrated by politics. History is made on the barricades, not in bed, not on the trestle bed of a communal apartment. Only a traitor to the revolution can obtain sexual satisfaction with a class alien element. Down with the kiss - this dirty and unhygienic relic of the past. Down with Love and Jealousy - this is clearly a possessive relationship. If your wife left you for a socially valuable comrade, and even more so for a member of the RCP (b) with pre-revolutionary experience, be proud of it. And if you have become proud, you have conquered the animal sense of ownership in yourself. Hooray for you! The revolution and social relations are above all other, and even more base, sexual relations. The class, in the interests of revolutionary expediency, has the right to interfere in the sexual life of its members. The sexual must obey the class in everything, without interfering with the latter, serving it in everything.

The commandments of Zalkind are a vivid example of the introduction of anti-Christian pseudo-morality into the consciousness of a person. The mockery of Christianity can be seen both in the very title of the "12 Commandments" and in the preaching of fornication and adultery. Zalkind was echoed by Academician Pokrovsky, who urged "not to spare religious feelings."

The "commandments" of Zalkind and Pokrovsky reigned supreme in literature and art. Here is one of the poems of the Latvian Chekist A. V. Eiduk from his poetry collection “The Smile of the Cheka”:

No greater joy, no better music
Like the crunch of broken lives and bones.
That's why, when our eyes languish
And the passion begins to boil violently in the chest,
I want to scribble on your verdict
One intrepid: “To the wall! Shoot!"
In 1938, Eiduk was shot as an "enemy of the people."

Russophobia was the basis of Bolshevik art. Here are the lines of the Komsomol poet Jack Althausen:

“I propose to melt Minin, Pozharsky.
Why do they need a pedestal?
Enough for us to praise two shopkeepers,
October caught them behind the counters.
In vain we did not turn their necks.
I know it would fit.
Do you think they saved Russey
Or maybe it would be better not to save?

Altauzen was echoed by the Small Soviet Encyclopedia. An article about Minin reported: “bourgeois history idealized Minin as a class fighter for a single “mother Russia” and tried to make him a national hero.”

Speaking today about the fate of Soviet writers in the 1930s, about Stalin's attitude towards writers, they often want to present the picture as if writers and poets were subjected to merciless repression precisely for their works of art, that is, for freedom of speech. However, this is a very simplified approach. The fate of each writer must be considered separately. Then we will see that very often this or that writer was condemned not for his literary, but for his political activity. Take, for example, the fate of I. S. Babel. Few people know that this singer of the Odessa bandits and the first red cavalry army was an active Chekist. Babel loved to gloatingly recall how in 1919 in the Alexander Palace he took apart the children's toys of the murdered Tsarevich Alexei. Babel dedicated his book Cavalry to Comrade Trotsky, the hero of the revolution. Like his idol, Babel was pathologically bloodthirsty. In the 1930s, being an active participant in collectivization, Babel told the poet Bagritsky: “Do you know, Eduard Georgievich, I began to watch with complete indifference how people were being shot.” From this phrase, one can only guess how many innocent people this writer killed. But Babel himself was shot not for this cruelty, but for his involvement in Trotskyist activities. Babel did not hide his sympathies for the Trotskyists and oppositionists until the very arrest. Here is what he wrote about Stalin’s struggle with them: “The existing leadership of the CPSU (b) perfectly understands, but does not openly express who such people as Rakovsky, Sokolnikov, Radek, Koltsov, etc. These are people marked by high talent , and they rise many heads above the surrounding mediocrity of the current leadership, but since the point is that these people have even the slightest contact with the forces, then the leadership becomes merciless: “arrest, shoot.”

Babel was also close to a group of red commanders, supporters of Trotsky: Primakov, Kuzmichev, Okhotnikov, Schmidt, Zyuk. All of them belonged to the left opposition. Babel, in his words, "was a close person in their midst, enjoyed their love, dedicated his stories to them."

During his trips abroad, Babel spoke frankly with foreign anti-Stalinist leftists who showed a special interest in the fate of the repressed oppositionists. Babel told them everything he knew about the life of the Trotskyists Rakovsky, Zorin and others in exile, "trying to portray their situation in sympathetic tones for them."

Therefore, the reasons for the execution of Babel in 1939 are completely obvious and understandable. He was an active supporter of the worst enemies of Stalin, who at the same time were the worst enemies of the Russian people and state.

In the same way, the writer Boris Pilnyak was shot for Trotskyist activity. We were told stories for a long time that he was allegedly shot by Stalin for The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon, in which Pilnyak told how the leader vilely forced People's Commissar Frunze to undergo a surgical operation, during which Frunze was killed. True, at the same time, for some reason, no one asks the question why Pilnyak wrote his story in 1926, and he was shot 12 years later - in 1938? In fact, the reasons for the execution of Pilnyak were completely different.

Boris Pilnyak was always close to Trotsky. The narcissistic Trotsky, who did not recognize any authorities other than his own, wrote respectfully about Pilnyak, and Pilnyak, in turn, dedicated his books to him. After Trotsky was expelled from the USSR, Pilnyak continued to be on friendly terms with many oppositionists. Traveling often abroad, Pilnyak, like Babel, met with leading Trotskyists, in particular with Viktor Serge (Kibalchich).

So, in Babel and Pilnyak, Stalin saw, first of all, Trotskyists and conspirators, and not dissidents. It is noteworthy that Andrei Platonov, whom Stalin subjected to derogatory criticism several times, was never arrested. He was not allowed to publish, criticized, but not repressed. During the war, the writer served as a war correspondent, collaborated with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

Interestingly, Stalin supported, and behind the scenes, the most anti-Soviet writers, such as M. A. Bulgakov and M. A. Sholokhov. It is quite obvious that if not for the support of Stalin, the above-named writers would have been destroyed by the Bolsheviks. Again, Stalin supported Bulgakov and Sholokhov primarily not because of their literary talent, but because their talent worked for Stalin's idea of ​​building a strong state. Stalin was closer to Bulgakov with his monarchism and White Guard past than Babel or Pilnyak with their Trotskyism and "revolutionary romanticism". Interestingly, at the same time, Stalin called Bulgakov an "anti-Soviet writer"!

It is well known that the literary Trotskyists poisoned Bulgakov to death and would have poisoned him if not for Stalin's constant interference. Was it easy for Stalin to do this? No, it's not easy. He did not then have full power, he was not completely free in his actions. It would have been much easier for him to sacrifice Bulgakov, to let him be torn to pieces by the bloodthirsty Trotskyist pack. But he did not allow this to be done.

Instead, Stalin did not hide the fact that he really liked Bulgakov's play Days of the Turbins, which he watched dozens of times. Let us remind the reader how this Bulgakov's work ends:

Studzinsky: We had Russia - a great power!
Myshlaevsky: And it will! And will be!"

Stalin applauded these words, he applauded this idea - Russia, a great power! Today we can hardly imagine what courage it was on the part of Stalin when the very word "Russia" was banned.

But Stalin went much further. There is some convincing evidence that in 1932, during the performance of "Turbine Days", which was attended by the highest party leadership, during the scene when the officers sing "God Save the Tsar", most of the audience stood up and began to sing the Russian Anthem! Modern Bulgakov scholars write that it was a miracle, “a protest of the people against Bolshevism” and other nonsense. Something neither before this performance, nor after it, no one "God save the Tsar" on the streets and in performances did not sing and no one expressed protests in this way! It is absolutely clear that without the will of Stalin there could be no singing of the Russian Anthem. It is noteworthy that no one was punished for singing "God Save the Tsar", and the "Turbine Days" continued to go on stage.

Bulgakov and Sholokhov were staunch supporters of Stalin until the end of their days. Bulgakov directly said that Stalin is the retribution for the revolution. In the first edition of the novel, known throughout the world as The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov ends the work with a scene when Woland leaves Moscow. Suddenly, a comet appears in the sky, which is rapidly approaching Moscow. Woland looks at her and says: “This iron man with a mustache. He has a manly face, he does his job right, and in general it's all over here. It's time!"

Again, most researchers who consider Bulgakov's novel a praise of Woland believe that the writer unites the devil with Stalin. But in our opinion, the meaning of this scene is just the opposite: Stalin's comet expels Woland and his retinue from Moscow with a fiery whirlwind.

Sholokhov had a sharp correspondence with the Leader about the progress of collectivization. In this correspondence, Sholokhov directly called the actions of the Soviet government in specific villages a crime and demanded that this genocide of the peasantry and Cossacks be stopped immediately. It is noteworthy that Stalin, although he did not agree with Sholokhov's assessments, nevertheless ordered checks on his letters, which revealed the real crimes of responsible persons. Thanks to Sholokhov, thousands of people were saved from starvation.

In the 1930s, Stalin crushed the work of Demyan Bedny (Pridvorov). Demyan Bedny devoted all his work to mockery of everything that was sacred to the Russian people. He sneered at the Russian Church, at the Russian tsars, at Russian history. Demyan Bedny's mockery of the Savior was especially vile. Sergei Yesenin dedicated the following lines to Bedny:

You offended the whole shop of poets.
And he covered his small talent with great disgrace.
But you, Demyan, did not offend Christ,
You did not touch Him with your pen in the least,
There was Judas, there was a robber, you, Demyan, were just not enough.
You dug your nostrils at the Cross like a fat boar,
You only grunted at Christ, Efim Lakeevich Pridvorov...

Stalin put an end to Pridvorov's work. The reason for this was the libretto by Demyan Bedny for the opera "Bogatyrs". In this libretto, the author, in his characteristic spirit, sneered at Russian history and, in particular, at the Baptism of Rus'. However, instead of the former support, Bedny received the most severe scolding from the authorities in the person of Stalin. On November 14, 1936, a resolution of the Committee for Art Affairs "On the play" Bogatyrs "by Demyan Bedny" was issued. In this decision, the fabulist was accused of trying to humiliate the Russian people. The Poor's career ended there. Interestingly, no matter how Poor tried to return to literature, no matter how he bowed before Stalin, it was all in vain. When, during the war, he nevertheless managed to publish his poem “Hell” (about fascism), Stalin, with his usual humor, said: “Tell the newly-minted Dante not to write anymore.”

Unlike the Leninist-Trotskyist clique, Stalin understood the mystical meaning of the state. Spiritual education could not pass without a trace: it left in Stalin's soul a sacred idea of ​​the supreme bearer of state power. In the early 1930s, Stalin, in a fairly wide party circle, told how, after the February Revolution, the Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus had convened. There was an endless debate about which party program is better. Suddenly, a mullah came to the podium and said: “What are the Socialist Mocrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks like? The people need a tsar, Russia needs a tsar!

Telling this, Stalin laughed, and it was clear that he approved of the words of this mullah.

In 1934, by decree of Stalin, homosexuality was criminalized in the Soviet Union. This sexual perversion was widespread among the Soviet elite in the first decades of Soviet power. It united many representatives of the party, military, theatrical elite. Homosexuality flourished especially strongly in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. For a long time this commissariat was headed by sodomite Chicherin.

Stalin always treated sodomy with undisguised contempt. When he received a letter from a Danish homosexual communist who asked him to be accepted into the ranks of the CPSU (b), the Leader wrote in the margins: “Bastard and degenerate. To the archive." But besides contempt for the perverts, Stalin had more important reasons to start fighting them. And these grounds were again political. The fact is that there were a large number of oppositionists among homosexuals. Homosexual orgies were also meeting places for Stalin's enemies. Yagoda, who was himself a homosexual, reported to Stalin in 1933 that “the activists of pederasts, using the caste isolation of pederast circles for directly counter-revolutionary purposes, politically corrupted various social strata of youth, in particular working youth, and also tried to penetrate into the army and navy” .

On June 3, 1934, the deputy chairman of the OGPU, Agranov, reported to Stalin that “during the liquidation of centers of homosexuals in Moscow, D.T. Florinsky, head of the protocol department of the NKID, was identified as a homosexual.” Also, many cases of close communication between homosexual Soviet diplomats and their foreign colleagues, many of whom were representatives of foreign intelligence services, were revealed.

At Yagoda's report, Stalin wrote a resolution: "The bastards must be exemplarily punished, and an appropriate guiding decree must be introduced into the legislation."

Thus, we can state that in the early 1930s, Stalin pursued a progressive policy of changing the ideological and political component of the Bolshevik system, as it was created by Lenin and Trotsky.

But perhaps even more interesting is the economic policy of Stalin in the 30s. In 1925, at the initiative of Trotsky, the Lena gold mines were leased and operated for a period of 30 years to the English company Lena - Goldfils - Limited. The terms of the lease were very interesting: the English campaign took most of the profits for itself: the USSR was left with miserable crumbs. Few people knew that the American banking house Loeb, Kuhn & K was actually behind the English company. The same banking house that was behind the destruction of Russia in 1917. Already at the end of the 1920s, Stalin began a struggle to break the contract with Lena - Goldfils - Limited. It was possible to do this only in 1934 at the cost of the incredible efforts of the Stalinist leadership.

Why did Stalin do this? Many researchers explain this by the fact that Stalin did this to consolidate his power. This is partly true, although somewhat primitive. Indeed, the above actions consolidated Stalin's power in certain party and Soviet circles. But if Stalin had striven only for this, he would not have had to play such a complicated game. He could safely continue without Lenin and Trotsky their policy in the field of ideology. Moreover, he could continue their economic policy. By and large, Western financial circles did not care who would be the main supplier of Russian raw materials: Trotsky or Stalin. By changing the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR, defending its economic independence, Stalin did not strengthen his power, but, on the contrary, created many additional enemies for himself.

In our opinion, Stalin's actions are explained not by a maniacal desire to seize and retain absolute power in the country, but by Stalin's ideological and political convictions. In our time, when venality and unscrupulousness have become the norms of life, including political life, it may seem that this has always been the case for everyone. But this is far from true. Stalin had his own convictions and his own view on the development of the country. In general terms, these beliefs boiled down to the fact that Stalin was a supporter of building a strong state, sovereign and based on traditional Russian ideas about this state: autocracy, order, discipline, social justice, a strong family. The only thing that Stalin did not have in the list of these values ​​was Orthodoxy and Churchness. In any case, even if Stalin believed that the Church should play an important role in the history of the state, he never, not even in 1943, could return to Orthodoxy as part of the state ideology. This, in fact, doomed to death both Stalin himself and the state he created. Despite all the Stalinist changes, the basis of Soviet ideology has always been the deadly and disgusting cult of Lenin, with his false relics in the center of Red Square.

The more Stalin removed the old Bolsheviks from power, the more he concentrated full power in his hands, the more enemies he had, who were also very powerful. The destruction of these enemies was necessary for Stalin. But Stalin did not need a large-scale terror against the common population. In the conditions of a tough struggle with the Trotskyists, Stalin needed inner world. It is quite obvious that the massacres of the clergy, workers, and peasants did not make Stalin's power stronger, but, on the contrary, exposed it to serious danger. However, this widespread terror began and peaked in 1937. How did the country come to this terror, who carried it out and for what purpose?

Speaking of the role that Stalin played in the history of our country in the 1930s, of course, it would be absurd to portray this role only as a positive one. We have already said that Stalin was part of a cruel era and therefore, like his era, he was cruel. Today's statements of some researchers, in which Stalin appears as a meek and kind ruler, who only thinks about the welfare of the working people, are just as false as the images of Stalin as a bloody monster. Stalin, as we already wrote, wanted to create a powerful united and independent state on the ruins of the Russian Empire. But this does not mean at all that Stalin was going to recreate the Russian Empire itself in its former form. Stalin understood the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church and its role in the life of the state. At the end of the war, this understanding turned into Stalin's clear conviction, and his ideology becomes imperial. But this does not mean at all that Stalin in the 1930s was a conscious Orthodox statesman. To recreate the ruined economy, to equip the army with modern military equipment, and in the shortest possible years, Stalin needed bread, to sell it abroad and build factories and factories with the proceeds of gold. Stalin did not have the money to buy this bread from the peasant, and he took this bread away from him, driving the peasantry into collective farms and deporting hundreds of thousands of peasant families to Siberia. During collectivization, Stalin considered the Church a dangerous ideological rival and he mercilessly persecuted the Church. Stalin openly said that "we are striving to destroy the reactionary clergy." The 1937 census showed that most of the Soviet people consider themselves to be believers in God, and the Soviet regime responded to this by reprisals against hundreds of thousands of clergy and laity, many of whom were martyred. Moreover, terror was directed not only at Orthodox believers, but also at other religions. After the Orthodox, Muslims became the main victims of this terror. For example, in Tatarstan, it was in the 1930s that mass closings of mosques and arrests of mullahs took place. Therefore, the cited allegedly existing Stalinist decisions on the abolition of the "Leninist decree" on the fight against the clergy and religion are, in our opinion, nothing more than a fake.

But speaking of the Stalinist persecutions of the Church that certainly took place, the following should be noted. Unlike Sverdlov and Trotsky, who destroyed the Church out of hatred for Christ and Russia and for the destruction of any statehood on its territory, Stalin was the persecutor of the Church in order to build a powerful state, which he initially considered possible to build without the participation of the Church. Stalin's persecution of the Church was caused not by theomachism, but by the state interests he misunderstood. But very soon Stalin became convinced of the impossibility of such a construction. Stalin already in the late 30s, that is, in the midst of anti-church repressions, as we have already said, sets a different tone for Soviet ideology. It is barely noticeable, but every year the contours of Orthodoxy are drawn more and more clearly. It is noteworthy that from the end of the 1920s, Stalin supported the so-called “Sergian”, that is, the Orthodox Church, and not the “Renovationists”.

In 1924, M. I. Kalinin wrote to Stalin:
"Central Committee of the RCP comrade. STALIN
Neither the circular of the Central Committee of the RCP dated 16/VIII-23, nor the corresponding instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, nor a number of instructions from the 5th department of N.K.Yu. did not lead to a calm conduct of church issues in the localities, which is proved by daily appeals to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee ...
I would like you, comrade. Stalin, familiarized themselves with the documents, would give a strict directive on behalf of the Central Committee on the obligatory implementation of the directives of the Central Committee.
By the way, there is a growing desire to seize an increasing number of churches and back - the strength of resistance is growing, the irritation of the broad masses of believers is growing.
Appropriate action must be taken.
At the same time, I am enclosing a summary of the GPU and a document of exceptional importance in all its importance, coming from the Communists, without a signature.
M. Kalinin.

This letter shows that Stalin and Kalinin were opponents of the Trotskyist approach to the Church.

August 16, 1923 Stalin signs the Circular letter of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) No. 30 "On the attitude towards religious organizations." It specifically says:
“Strictly - Secret to ALL PROVINCE COMMITTEES, REGIONAL COMMITTEES, REGIONAL COMMITTEES, NATIONAL] CC and BUREAU of the CC. CIRCULAR LETTER of the Central Committee of the RCP No. 30 (On attitude towards religious organizations).

The Central Committee invites all Party organizations to pay the most serious attention to a number of serious violations committed by some organizations in the field of anti-religious propaganda and, in general, in the field of relations with believers and their cults. Some of our local organizations systematically violate these clear and definite directives of the Party program and the Party Congress. Numerous examples show with sufficient clarity how carelessly, frivolously, frivolously, some local organizations of the Party and local authorities treat such an important issue as the issue of freedom of religious belief. These organizations and organs of power apparently do not understand that by their rude, tactless actions against the believers, who represent the vast majority of the population, they are inflicting incalculable harm on Soviet power, threatening to frustrate the achievements of the Party in the field of corrupting the church, and risk playing into the hands of the counter-revolution.

Based on the foregoing, the Central Committee decides:
1) prohibit the closure of churches, prayer rooms ... on the grounds of non-compliance with administrative orders on registration, and where such closure has taken place, cancel immediately;
2) to prohibit the liquidation of prayer rooms, buildings, etc. by voting at meetings with the participation of non-believers or strangers to the group of believers that has concluded an agreement on the premises or building;
3) to prohibit the liquidation of prayer rooms, buildings, etc. for non-payment of taxes, since such liquidation was not allowed in strict accordance with the instructions of the NKJ of 1918, paragraph II;
4) prohibit arrests of a "religious nature" insofar as they are not connected with the obviously counter-revolutionary acts of "church ministers" and believers; 5) when renting premises to religious societies and determining rates, strictly observe the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of 29/III-23;
6) explain to the members of the party that our success in the cause of the corruption of the church and the eradication of religious prejudices does not depend on the persecution of believers - persecution only strengthens religious prejudices - but on a tactful attitude towards believers with a patient and thoughtful criticism of religious prejudices, with a serious historical coverage of the idea god, cult and religion, etc.;
7) to lay the responsibility for the implementation of this directive on the secretaries of provincial committees, regional committees, regional bureaus, national Central Committees and regional committees personally.
At the same time, the Central Committee warns that such an attitude towards the church and believers should not, however, in any way weaken the vigilance of our organizations in the sense of carefully monitoring that the church and religious societies do not turn religion into a weapon of counter-revolution.
Secretary of the Central Committee I. Stalin. 16/VIII-23".

It was a direct confrontation between Stalin and Trotsky and the defense of the Orthodox Church. Neither the congress nor Stalin note the personal responsibility of Trotsky and the Trotskyists for the identified shortcomings and deviations from the party program, because all the instructions came on behalf of the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin and the Politburo, and all the names of the real perpetrators of the pogrom of the Russian Church, as you know, "in order to avoid chauvinistic attacks" were hidden, conspiratorial.

In carrying out a radical change in the Bolshevik ideology, restoring the Cossacks and banning the Society of Old Bolsheviks, Stalin had to constantly curtsey towards the revolution, had to constantly swear allegiance to Leninism, otherwise he would simply be overthrown by the Trotskyists.

Despite his struggle with the Church, Stalin, however, was not personally the initiator of the massacres of the clergy and the destruction of churches. Stalin rather accepted these killings and destruction as a fact. According to eyewitnesses, the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior made such a depressing impression on Stalin that he refused to listen to the end of the report on the circumstances of the demolition of the cathedral. This may seem strange, since it would seem that Stalin himself gave the order for this barbarism. But it may seem so only at first glance. This view is based on the false notion of Stalin's omnipotence in the 1930s and that only he controlled the situation in the country. In fact, we can see that this was far from the case.

As you know, the beginning of the so-called "Stalinist repressions" is considered to be the same year 1934, or rather December 1, 1934, that is, the murder of the First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee S. M. Kirov. With Khrushchev's light hand, it is customary to blame Stalin for this murder. However, all the circumstances of this crime and its investigation today allow us to draw the opposite conclusion. Kirov always supported Stalin and had absolutely no ambitious plans to seize power. In the face of Kirov, Stalin lost a faithful ally, which, in the difficult conditions of the 1930s, noticeably weakened Stalin's power. In addition, if Stalin had been the organizer of the murder of Kirov, he would have taken care to eliminate possible witnesses immediately. In fact, Stalin, who personally arrived in Leningrad to investigate the crime, himself interrogated the murderer of Kirov Nikolaev and gave orders for his protection. However, Nikolaev himself and other witnesses to the crime were killed under mysterious circumstances, just when Stalin wanted to get important information from them that he needed. So, the Chekist Borisov was killed, who was summoned for interrogation to Stalin in Smolny. Borisov had important information about the murder and, according to a number of testimonies, he was killed with the knowledge or even by direct order of Zaporozhets. Today we can say with confidence that the assassination of Kirov was a retaliatory blow against Stalin by the Trotskyist opposition and its foreign leaders.

The forces that brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917 watched with alarm what was happening in the USSR. They reacted quite calmly to the removal of Trotsky from power. Ultimately, this did not directly threaten their interests in Russia. On the contrary, the talkative, narcissistic and narrow-minded Trotsky could not reliably ensure control over the resources of the USSR under the new conditions. Clever and cold-blooded Stalin seemed to the world behind the scenes a more promising protege. Stalin, being at the beginning very dependent on this behind the scenes, for the time being was in no hurry to disappoint her. However, continuing to increase the pace every year industrial production and at the same time moving the Soviet economy out of Western control, Stalin began to cause serious concern in the West. The “pro-Russian” orientation of the Stalinist course aroused the same concern there. In essence, in 1934, Stalin began to carry out the counter-revolution, reliably covering it up with revolutionary slogans. In response, the Trotskyists and their behind-the-scenes conductors launched a struggle against the Stalinist counter-revolution.

Certain circles in the West began to look for ways to remove Stalin from power. A conspiracy is organized against Stalin, which went down in history under the name "Klubok". This conspiracy was headed by Zinoviev, Yagoda, Yenukidze, and Peterson. Yagoda told his accomplice Chekist Artuzov: “You won’t get lost with such an apparatus as ours. Eagles - will do everything at the right moment. In no country will the Minister of the Interior be able to carry out a palace coup. And we will be able to do this, if necessary, because we have not only the police, but also the troops.

The conspirators intended to arrest the leading "five" of the Politburo, headed by Stalin. After that, the plenum of the Central Committee was to appoint some major military interim dictator of the country.

The goals of the conspirators were quite clearly expressed by the same Yagoda. He said: “It is absolutely clear that we have not built any socialism, there can be no Soviet power surrounded by capitalist countries. We need a system that would bring us closer to the Western European democracies. Enough shock! We must, finally, live a calm, prosperous life, openly enjoy all the benefits that we, as leaders of the state, should have.

It was said rather frankly and surprisingly reminds us of our “perestroika” and the “reforms” that followed it, with their privatizations and vouchers.

But as for the “Western democracies” in Klubka, everything was not simple. Today it is known that this Klubok was financed, among other things, from Nazi Germany.

Yagoda was well aware of the impending assassination attempt on Kirov. His protege in Leningrad, the head of the local NKVD Zaporozhets, a few days before the murder, ordered the release of Nikolaev, who was detained by state security officers, in whose briefcase a revolver and a plan of Kirov's route were found.

The preparation of the conspiracy was to be accompanied by the unleashing of terror and sabotage, in order to arouse severe discontent among the broad masses. Immediately after the assassination of Kirov, the NKVD, controlled by Yagoda, carried out extrajudicial executions of innocent citizens. At the same time, the NKVD used the tightening of the investigation into cases of political terrorism. Following the assassination of Kirov, a decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR "On the procedure for conducting cases on the preparation or commission of terrorist acts" was issued. This decree established the transience of conducting all cases on the consideration of persons accused of preparing or committing terrorist acts. essence this document consisted of the following:
1. The investigation in these cases was completed within no more than ten days.
2. The indictment was supposed to be handed over to the accused no more than one day before the hearing of the cases in court.
3. Cases were heard without the participation of the parties.
4. Do not allow cassation appeals against sentences, as well as filing petitions for pardon.
5. Sentence to capital punishment to be carried out immediately after sentencing.

So, in Leningrad, 95 so-called "White Guards", who were allegedly involved in the murder, were immediately shot. This was done without the knowledge of Stalin. The latter was furious when he found out about it. In total, after the assassination of Kirov, 12,000 people, mostly former nobles and officers, were convicted on mostly trumped-up charges by the NKVD. Today it is quite clear that Stalin was not the initiator of these massacres. On the contrary, on his initiative, the Prosecutor General A. Ya. Vyshinsky filed a protest against the actions of the NKVD, and many convicts were released.

In 1936, a wave of explosions swept through the Siberian mines, which led to the death of 12 people.

By 1937, the country was on the eve of a decisive showdown between Stalin and the old Leninist guard...

The repressions of 1937 are invariably referred to as "Stalin's repressions". However, a careful study of this era reveals that Stalin personally signed the sanction for the death sentences of several tens of thousands of people, and many more were shot. By the way, many myths have been created about the number of those killed in 1937-38. Here is a typical example of such myth-making. Professor A. Kozlov writes: “In fact, during that time“ under the wise leadership of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, headed by its leader I.V. Stalin" killed millions of people. How much specifically? Nobody knows. Only the most general estimates are known, apparently, however, not far from the truth. According to them, in the peaceful 1930s, the USSR lost more people, significantly more than in the four years of the unprecedentedly bloody Great Patriotic War. Maybe 50 or even 60 million people.”

That's it. No one "knows", there are "the most general estimates", but 60 million people died! It is noteworthy that, despite the fact that such statements abound with such words as “no one knows,” “apparently,” and so on, the idea that about 100 million people. Although an elementary analysis of demographic changes in the USSR convinces us that these figures are absurd. As established by modern researchers, in January 1937, that is, on the eve of the Great Terror, the population of the USSR amounted to 168 million people. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, this figure increased to 196,716,000. That is, the population has grown by almost 30 million people. It is clear that if 50-60 million people, not to mention 100 million, had been killed during the terror of 1937-38, there could not have been such a population growth in the USSR, and even more so no Great Patriotic war we would not be able to win, there would simply be no one to fight.

Of course, this does not mean at all that the "Great Terror" had no effect at all on the change in the population in the USSR. Serious and objective researchers directly point to this: “The change in the population of our country could be significantly influenced by what happened in the 30s. Among these factors, one should first of all highlight mass repression, however, far in scale from what has been written about with such persistence in recent years.

Today, the scale of the repressions of 1937-1938 is quite accurately established. According to declassified archives, 1.5 million people were convicted during these years, of which approximately 700,000 people were shot. Despite the fact that the figure of 700 thousand killed is incomparable with the mythical 50 million, it is still huge. And innocent, random people, martyrs for the Faith, out of these seven hundred thousand killed, there were a great many. It is enough to look at the lists of those killed at the Butovo training ground in Moscow, or at the Levashovskaya wasteland near St. Petersburg, to be convinced of this. Most of these lists are ordinary Russian people, most often workers, peasants, clergy, the so-called "former", even children. The conscience of an Orthodox, and indeed just a decent person, can never come to terms with these terrible murders. But our conscience can never come to terms with the fact that all these murders are attributed to Stalin alone, and often with the help of direct distortions of facts, forgeries and falsifications.

In 1935, the son of Russian poets N. S. Gumilyov, who was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1921, and A. A. Akhmatova, L. N. Gumilyov, was arrested. Akhmatova sent a letter to Stalin, in which she wrote: “Dear Joseph Vissarionovich, knowing your attentive attitude to the cultural forces of the country and, in particular, to writers, I decide to address you with this letter.

On October 23, N.K.V.D. was arrested in Leningrad. my husband Nikolai Nikolayevich Punin (Professor of the Academy of Arts) and my son Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov (L.G.U. student). Iosif Vissarionovich, I do not know what they are accused of, but I give you my word of honor that they are neither fascists, nor spies, nor members of counter-revolutionary societies. I live in the U.S.R.) since the beginning of the Revolution, I have never wanted to leave the country with which I am connected in mind and heart. /…/ In Leningrad, I live very secluded and often get sick for a long time. The arrest of the only two people close to me deals such a blow to me that I can no longer endure.

I ask you, Iosif Vissarionovich, to return my husband and son to me, confident that no one will ever regret this. Anna Akhmatova. November 1st, 1935."

On Akhmatova's letter, Stalin imposed the following resolution: "Vol. Berry. Release from arrest both Punin and Gumilyov and report on execution. I. Stalin.

In November 1935, Akhmatova's son and husband were released, and Gumilyov was reinstated at the Faculty of History. In 1938, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. The reason for the arrest was the following incident, which is well described in the memoirs of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov himself. At one of the lectures on Russian literature, Professor L.V. Pumpyansky “...began to make fun of my father's poems and personality. “The poet wrote about Abyssinia,” he exclaimed, “but he himself was not further than Algeria ... Here he is - an example of our domestic Tartarin!” Unable to stand it, I shouted to the professor from my seat: "No, he was not in Algeria, but in Abyssinia!" Pumpyansky condescendingly retorted my remark: “Who knows better - you or me?” I replied: "Of course, me." About two hundred students in the audience laughed. Unlike Pumpyansky, many of them knew that I was Gumilyov's son. Everyone turned to me and understood that I really should know better. Pumpyansky immediately after the call ran to complain about me to the dean's office. Apparently he complained more. In any case, the very first interrogation in the inner prison of the NKVD on Shpalernaya, the investigator Barkhudaryan began by reading me a paper in which he reported in detail about the incident that occurred at Pumpyansky's lecture.

Gumilyov and two of his comrades were accused of attempting a counter-revolutionary coup and sentenced to long prison terms. Gumilyov's mother Akhmatova again wrote a letter to Stalin. As L. N. Gumilyov himself writes, it remained unanswered. Nevertheless, after Akhmatova's letter, the case of L. N. Gumilyov was sent for additional investigation, and soon the war began and Gumilyov was mobilized into the army.

After the war, in 1948, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. Here is what he writes about this: “When I was young, more precisely, when I was just entering the first year of the Faculty of History of Leningrad University, I was already interested in the history of Central Asia. Alexander Natanovich Bernshtam, the “honored worker of Kyrgyz science,” agreed to talk to me, who began the conversation with warnings, saying that the most harmful doctrine on this issue was formulated by “Eurasianism,” White émigré theorists who say that real Eurasians, that is, nomads, were different two qualities - military courage and unconditional loyalty. And on these principles, that is, on the principle of their heroism and the principle of personal devotion, they created great monarchies. I replied that, oddly enough, I really like it and it seems to me that it was said very cleverly and efficiently. In response, I heard: “Your brains are on one side. Obviously, you are just like them." Having said this, he went to write a denunciation against me. This is where my acquaintance with Eurasianism and with the researcher Bernshtam began ... ".

So, let's ask the reader who is to blame for Gumilyov's arrests: scammers Bernshtam and Pumpyansky, or Stalin, who pulled Gumilyov out of prison? This does not prevent modern "denunciators of Stalinism" from asserting that Stalin "rotted away" in the prison of Lev Gumilyov.

In general, there are a lot of, to put it mildly, strange things in the question of the personal participation of I.V. Stalin in the repressions. For example, the well-known decision "On Anti-Soviet Elements" dated July 2, 1937, which refers to the need to shoot the most active hostile elements, is available only in the form of an extract printed on a typewriter. Stalin's signature under this extract was not even forged, but simply written by someone by hand.

Stalin's notorious cipher telegram "about torture" also exists in the form of a typewritten copy. Her history is like this. At the Twentieth Party Congress, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, stated that there allegedly existed a "telegram" dated January 10, 1939, signed by I. V. Stalin on the use of torture during the investigation. This “telegram” supposedly ended like this: “The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks explains that the use of physical force in the practice of the NKVD was allowed from 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers that the method of physical influence must continue to be applied, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as an absolutely correct and expedient method.

This telegram is stored in the Presidential Archive. It does not bear Stalin's signature. According to the notes on the archival copy, typewritten copies were sent to: Beria, Shcherbakov, Zhuravlev, Zhdanov, Vyshinsky, Golyakov, and others (10 recipients in total). But I did not have to meet a single signature of these addressees on receipt or familiarization. As well as the original text of this very telegram with the original signature of Stalin. V. M. Molotov, in conversations with the writer F. Chuev, categorically denied the existence of such a telegram. Therefore, it is likely that this telegram was fabricated by Khrushchev for the 20th Party Congress.

Stalin's involvement in the sanctions for the execution of tens of thousands of people has been documented, the so-called "Stalin's lists" number 44.5 thousand, but not 700 thousand. Who was the main conductor of the massacres that entered our public consciousness under the name of "repression"? D. A. Bystroletov, who found himself in the same cell with the former People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs A. I. Nasedkin, recalled how he spoke about his predecessor B. Berman: “In Minsk, it was a real devil who escaped from the underworld. He shot more than 80 thousand people in Minsk in an incomplete year of work. He killed the best communists of the republic. Decapitated the Soviet apparatus. He carefully looked for, found, pulled out all the people who stood out in the slightest degree in intelligence or devotion from the working people - Stakhanovites in factories, chairmen in collective farms, the best foremen, writers, scientists, artists. On Saturdays, Berman hosted production meetings. Six people from among the investigators were called to the stage according to a prepared list - three of the best and three of the worst. Berman begins like this: “Here is one of our best workers, Ivanov Ivan Nikolaevich. In a week, Comrade Ivanov completed a hundred cases, of which forty - for the highest measure, and sixty - for a total period of a thousand years. Congratulations, comrade Ivanov. Thank you! Stalin knows and remembers you. You present yourself for an award with an order, and now you will receive a cash prize in the amount of five thousand rubles! Here's the money. Sit down!" Then Semyonov was given the same amount, but without a presentation to the order for the completion of 75 cases: with the execution of thirty people and a gross term for the rest of seven hundred years. And to Nikolaev - for two thousand five hundred for twenty shot. The hall shook with applause. The lucky ones proudly dispersed to their places. There was silence. Everyone's faces turned pale, drawn out. Hands began to tremble. Suddenly, in dead silence, Berman loudly called out his last name: "Mikhailov Alexander Stepanovich, come here to the table." General movement. All heads turn. One person is making his way forward with unsteady steps. His face is contorted in horror, his unseeing eyes wide open. “Here is Mikhailov Alexander Stepanovich. Look at him comrades! He completed three cases in a week. Not a single execution, terms of five and seven years are proposed. Grave silence. Berman slowly approaches the unfortunate man. "Watch! Pick him up!" The investigator is taken away. “It was found out,” Berman loudly minted, looking into space over their heads, “it was found out that this man was recruited by our enemies, who set themselves the goal of disrupting the work of the organs, disrupting the fulfillment of Comrade Stalin’s tasks. The traitor will be shot!"

From the above passage, we see how Berman, with the hands of the NKVD, destroys the color of the nation, the best people, both from the people and from the NKVD itself. At the same time, he specifically emphasizes that he is acting on the orders of Stalin. The goal of Berman and those like him was simple: by destroying innocent people, to cause the people to hate Stalin. Consciously and purposefully, the image of Stalin was formed as a bloody executioner, tyrant, monster, that is, the very image that is embedded in the minds of our society today. Who is Berman?

Boris Davidovich Berman was born in 1901 in the Chita district in the family of the owner of a brick factory. In 1918 he served in the commandant's office of the Red Army as a private.

He took part in searches and confiscations of property from the "bourgeoisie". At the beginning of 1919, on a false passport, he left for Manchuria, went to serve as white soldiers as well. He did not participate in battles and campaigns. In 1921, he unexpectedly became the secretary of the agitation and propaganda department of the Semipalatinsk district committee of the RCP (b). In 1921, he entered the bodies of the Cheka-GPU. In 1931 he was sent abroad, under the "roof" of the embassy in Germany, he was a resident of Soviet intelligence. Since 1935, the first deputy head of the Foreign Department of the Main Directorate state security. Berman's brother - M. D. Berman in 1932-36 was the head of the Gulag, deputy and confidant of People's Commissar Yagoda. Both Berman brothers were Yagoda's nominees, which did not prevent them from becoming N.I. Yezhov's associates.

In March 1937, Yezhov appointed B. D. Berman People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Byelorussian SSR. In this position, Berman unleashed a bloody terror against the population of Belarus, the victims of which were at least 60 thousand people.

In May 1938 he was recalled to Moscow. At this time, a special commission, created by I.V. Stalin from members of the Central Committee lawyers, began to check the work of all the NKVD bodies operating on the territory of the BSSR. The commission revealed significant violations in the work of the NKVD in terms of illegal actions leading to human casualties on a large scale. Upon returning to Minsk, Berman was arrested. During the investigation, he testified that, while in Germany in the position of an intelligence agent for special assignments, he was recruited as an agent. On February 22, 1939, Berman was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court to be shot and shot. It is noteworthy that Stalin called Berman "a scoundrel and a scoundrel."

Again, let us ask ourselves: did Berman carry out the task of Stalin in Belarus? Of course not! On the contrary, he harmed Stalin. Stalin never called for mass terror. Moreover, he was afraid of its consequences. In his report entitled “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyist and other double-dealers”, in March 1937, Stalin not only did not orient the party towards mass terror, but, on the contrary, put forward demands “in this matter, as in all other issues, observe an individual, differentiated approach. You can not cut everyone with the same brush. Such an indiscriminate approach can only harm the cause of the fight against real Trotskyist wreckers and spies. The fact is that some of our Party leaders suffer from a lack of attention to people, to Party members, to workers. Moreover, they do not study Party members, they do not know how they live and how they grow, they do not know the workers in general. Therefore they don't have individual approach to the members of the party, to the workers of the party. And precisely because they do not have an individual approach in evaluating Party members and Party workers, they usually act at random: they either praise them indiscriminately, without measure, or beat them indiscriminately and without measure, expel them from the Party by the thousands and tens of thousands.

In general, such leaders try to think in tens of thousands, not worrying about "units", about individual members of the Party, about their fate. They consider it a trifling matter to expel thousands and tens of thousands of people from the Party, consoling themselves with the fact that our Party of two million and tens of thousands of those who have been expelled cannot change anything in the position of the Party. But only people who, in fact, are deeply anti-Party, can approach Party members in this way.

As a result of such a soulless attitude towards people, towards members of the Party and Party workers, discontent and anger are artificially created in one part of the Party, and the Trotskyist double-dealers deftly pick up such embittered comrades and skillfully drag them along with them into the swamp of Trotskyist sabotage. It is said very accurately and convinces us that Stalin understood well what goals were pursued by types like Berman. It was they who were "double-dealers", sowing bitterness towards the Stalinist leadership.

The former Stalinist Minister of Agriculture, I. A. Benediktov, writes in his memoirs: “Stalin, no doubt, knew about the arbitrariness and lawlessness committed during the repressions, and took concrete measures to correct the mistakes made and release innocent people from prisons. Even the January Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 openly admitted that lawlessness had been committed against honest communists and non-party people, adopting a special resolution on this issue, published in all central newspapers. Also, the harm from unjustified repressions was discussed openly before the whole country at the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b) in 1939 ... Immediately after the January Plenum, thousands of illegally repressed citizens, including prominent military leaders, were released from the camps. All of them were officially rehabilitated, and Stalin personally apologized to some of them.

Stalin was well aware that a hidden struggle was going on against him, that genuine instigators of repression were trying to discredit him in the eyes of the people. But due to other objective circumstances, he could not interfere in the activities of each of these skirmishers. Of course, Stalin, as the head of state, is objectively responsible, including for these skirmishers, since they acted during the years of his rule. But he cannot bear subjective responsibility for all their crimes, since they were directed, among other things, against Stalin himself.

Just like Berman, Stalin was harmed by another instigator of repression - the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, the former Trotskyist N. S. Khrushchev. In May 1937, at the plenum of the MGK of the party, he said: “It is necessary to destroy these scoundrels. Destroying one, two, a dozen, we are doing the work of millions. Therefore, it is necessary that the hand does not tremble, it is necessary to step over the corpses of the enemy for the benefit of the people.

And Khrushchev destroyed. Back in 1936, he lamented: “Only 308 people were arrested; for our Moscow organization, this is not enough.” Therefore, Khrushchev submitted the following note-proposal to the Politburo: ""to be shot: kulaks - 2 thousand, criminals - 6.5 thousand, to exile: kulaks - 5869, criminals - 26,936."

A note from Khrushchev from Kyiv addressed to Stalin, six months after being elected First Secretary of the Ukrainian Party Organization, dated June 1938, has been preserved: “Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! Ukraine monthly sends 17-18 thousand repressed, and Moscow approves no more than 2-3 thousand. I ask you to take urgent action. N. Khrushchev, who loves you.”

Stalin's answer is noteworthy: "Calm down, fool!".

And here are the actions of another “former” Trotskyist and “victim” of “Stalinist” repressions P. Postyshev. In the fight against "enemies of the people", he dissolved 30 district committees in the Kuibyshev region, whose members were declared enemies of the people and repressed only because they did not see the alleged image of the Nazi swastika on the covers of student notebooks in the ornament!

Postyshev was echoed by R. I. Eikhe, who was also subsequently shot by Stalin for unjustified repressions. In his 1937 speeches, he urged: “We must uncover, expose the enemy, in whatever hole he dug. After checking and exchanging (membership cards), an even greater number of sworn enemies were exposed and expelled from the party ... Enemies have not yet been exposed, we must intensify work in every possible way to expose the Trotskyist-Bukharin bandits.

Stalin gave instructions for repression against active enemies of the regime and criminals. But here is an excerpt taken from the list of people who were shot in the city of Leningrad in 1937.

- Abanin Alexander Dmitrievich, born in 1878, Russian, non-partisan, blacksmith of the 4th mountain section of the mine named after. Kirov trust "Apatit", Arrested on August 8, 1937. On September 3, 1937, a special troika of the UNKVD LO was sentenced under Art. Art. 19-58-8; 58-10 to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on September 6, 1937.
- Abbakumov Pavel Fedorovich, born in 1885 Russian, non-partisan, auditor of the 9th section of the financial department of the Kirov railway D., resided: St. Kem, Karelian ASSR, 2. Arrested on June 11, 1937. On August 19, 1937, a special troika of the UNKVD LO was sentenced under Art. Art. 19-58-9; 58-7-10-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on August 20, 1937.
- Abramov Alexander Semenovich, born in 1880, Russian, non-partisan, saddler of the Novinsky timber station, lived: art. New in Oredezhsky District Len. region Arrested on August 5, 1937. On August 22, 1937, by a special troika of the UNKVD LO, he was sentenced under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on August 24, 1937.
- Abramova Maria Alekseevna, born in 1894, Russian, non-partisan, collective farmer. Arrested on August 1, 1937. On September 23, 1937, by a special troika of the UNKVD LO, she was sentenced under Art. 58-6 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on September 28, 1937.
- Abramchik Vladimir Andreevich, born in 1882, Pole, non-partisan, senior gardener of the Botanical Institute. Arrested on July 7, 1937 by the Commission of the NKVD and the USSR Prosecutor's Office on August 25, 1937, sentenced under Art. Art. 58-6-10-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on August 27, 1937.
- Abulkhanov Mustafa Abulkhanovich, born in 1888, Tatar, non-partisan, seller of the Kirov department store in Leningrad. Arrested on August 15, 1937. On August 26, 1937, by a special troika of the UNKVD LO, he was sentenced under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on August 29, 1937.
- Averin Ivan Andreevich, born in 1885, native of the village of Navolok, Volkhov district, Len. oblast, Russian, non-partisan, paramedic of the Masselgsky section, lived: village Usadishche of the Volkhov district. Arrested on August 6, 1937. On August 22, 1937, by a special troika of the UNKVD LO, he was sentenced under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment. Shot in Leningrad on August 24, 1937.

Let us ask ourselves: how did these non-Party accountants, paramedics, gardeners, collective farmers interfere with Stalin's power? Nothing. But all of them were convicted under Article 58 (treason). How could they change the Motherland? Clearly, nothing. So, who needed their deaths? Their death was needed not by Stalin, but by the Bermans, Khrushchev, Postyshev and the like. But the question arises: why did the Bermans and Khrushchevs suddenly need such sacrifices in 1937? Why did they need it in 1937 to “blame” Stalin so seriously?

We find the answer to this in the actions of Stalin, which he stubbornly pursued from 1934 onwards. And these actions consisted in the consistent removal of the party elite from the levers of state power. Stalin changed the very essence of the Bolshevik Leninist-Trotskyist state system and ideology. The historian Yu. N. Zhukov directly writes: “Stalin wanted to remove the party from power altogether. That is why I first conceived a new Constitution, and then, on its basis, alternative elections. According to the Stalinist project, the right to nominate their candidates along with party organizations was granted to almost everyone public organizations countries: trade unions, cooperatives, youth organizations, cultural societies, even religious communities. However, Stalin lost the last fight and lost in such a way that not only his career, even his life, was in jeopardy. From the end of 1933 to the summer of 1937, at any Plenum, Stalin could be accused, and quite rightly, from the point of view of orthodox Marxism, of revisionism and opportunism.

As for alternative elections and Stalin's liberalism, one has, of course, strong doubts. Stalin was a realist and certainly knew Russian history well. Of course, he could not fail to understand that liberalism in Russia is doomed. But there is no doubt that Stalin sought through the new electoral system to put an end to the dictatorship of the party and establish autocracy in the USSR. Alternative elections to the Supreme Soviet were supposed to knock out party apparatchiks from its ranks. And this was a direct violation of the "Leninist norms" of party life, that is, the cessation of lawlessness and permissiveness for the party Bolshevik bosses, who, like ghouls, sucked the blood of the people they enslaved. The party nomenklatura felt mortal danger for itself and, with the help of its henchmen in the regional and city committees, as well as in the NKVD, began to wage a bloody war with Stalin.

It was these people, like Berman, Khrushchev, Postyshev, Eikhe, who were the initiators and inspirers of the bloody terror in the country. As the historian Yu. N. Zhukov correctly writes: “In 1937 there was no all-powerful dictator Stalin, there was an all-powerful collective dictator named Plenum. The main stronghold of the orthodox party bureaucracy, represented not only by the first secretaries, but also by the people's commissars of the USSR, major party and government officials. At the January Plenum of 1938 Malenkov made the main report. He said that the first secretaries did not even wave the lists of convicts in “troikas”, but only two lines indicating their number. He openly accused the first secretary of the Kuibyshev Regional Party Committee P.P. Postyshev: you imprisoned the entire party and Soviet apparatus of the region! To which Postyshev replied in the spirit that I arrested, I arrest and will arrest until I destroy all enemies and spies!

The blow to Stalin from the party elite was dealt precisely at the Plenum of the Central Committee in June 1937. At this Plenum, Stalin sought to consolidate his dominant position both in the country and in the party and to ensure that the new electoral law was adopted by the party majority. This electoral law was supposed to bring new people to power and remove the old party leadership. During the Plenum, Eikhe, already known to us, relying on the conspiracy of the secretaries of the regional committees, appealed to the Politburo with a request to temporarily grant him emergency powers in the territory under his jurisdiction. In the Novosibirsk region, he wrote, a powerful anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary organization, huge in number, had been uncovered, which the NKVD authorities were unable to completely liquidate. It is necessary to create a "troika" in the following composition: the first secretary of the regional party committee, the regional prosecutor and the head of the regional department of the NKVD, with the right to make operational decisions on the expulsion of anti-Soviet elements and the death sentences for the most dangerous of these persons. That is, in fact, a court-martial: without defenders, without witnesses, with the right to immediate execution of sentences. That is, Eikhe and the party apparatus tried to prevent the consolidation of Stalin's power and disrupt the approval of the new electoral law.

Stalin and his supporters were then forced to accept Eikhe's proposal. The reasons for this Stalinist retreat are well explained by Yu. N. Zhukov: “If the Stalinist group had gone against the majority, it would have been immediately removed from power. It was enough for the same Eikhe, if he had not received a positive resolution to his appeal to the Politburo, or Khrushchev, or Postyshev, anyone else, to rise to the podium and quote Lenin that he spoke about the League of Nations or about Soviet democracy ... it was enough to take into the hands of the program of the Comintern, approved in October 1928, where they recorded as a model the system of government that was fixed in our Constitution of 1924 and which Stalin tore to shreds when adopting the new Constitution ... it was enough to present all this as an accusation of opportunism, revisionism, betrayal of the cause of October, betrayal of the interests of the Party, betrayal of Marxism-Leninism - and that's it! I think Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov would not have survived until the end of June. They would have been unanimously removed from the Central Committee and expelled from the party at that very moment, transferring the case to the NKVD, and the same Yezhov would have carried out a lightning-fast investigation into their case with the greatest pleasure. If the logic of this analysis is carried through to the end, then I do not rule out such a paradox that today Stalin would be listed among the victims of the repressions of 1937, and Memorial and A. N. Yakovlev's commission would long ago have secured his rehabilitation.

Having dispersed to their places, by July 3, the most nimble party secretaries sent similar requests to the Politburo for the creation of extrajudicial "troikas". Moreover, they immediately indicated the planned scale of repressions. During July, such cipher telegrams came from all the territories of the Soviet Union. Nobody resisted! This irrefutably proves that there was a conspiracy at the Plenum and it was only important to create a precedent. Here I have a photocopy of several cipher telegrams from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, which were recently declassified for purely propaganda purposes. Already on July 10, 1937, the Politburo considered and approved the twelve applications that came first. Moscow, Kuibyshev, Stalingrad regions, the Far Eastern Territory, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Belarus ... I added up the numbers: on that one day alone, permission was given to repress one hundred thousand people. One hundred thousand! Such a terrible scythe has never walked through our Russia.

It can be said with certainty that in 1937 the mass terror against the people was started not by Stalin and his leadership, but by certain part the top of the party, the top of the NKVD and the army.

The purpose of this terror was to preserve the dominance of the party in the upper echelons of power, to prevent Stalin from concentrating all power in his hands. In 1937, it was the party elite who carried out mass executions of those groups of people who, a year ago, Stalin had given the opportunity to get into the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and thereby push the party elite from the state Olympus. At the same time, another dangerous and formidable force came out against Stalin - a group of military conspirators.

When we talk about what happened in 1937, about conspiracies, repressions, political assassinations, we must not forget for a second in what foreign policy situation they took place. We must not forget that, starting in 1933, the West was preparing at a frantic pace for war with the USSR. At the same time, it was a mistake to think that the danger came only from Nazi Germany. Few people pay attention to the fact that until 1938-39 Germany was not considered by the Soviet leadership as the only likely enemy. Much more dangerous for the USSR was the so-called "Little Entente", which consisted of Poland, Romania, the Baltic states and was supported by France and Great Britain, and potentially Germany. The united front of the West against the USSR - that was the main danger for Stalin. In the 1930s, Stalin knew that the Soviet Union was disastrously unprepared for war. In 1931 he prophetically stated: “We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed.". Pay attention to the year of Stalin's speech - 1931! As we know, exactly 10 years later the Great Patriotic War began.

Based on the foregoing, one can understand the danger that internal instability and all kinds of conspiracies, which peaked in 1937, posed for the state security of the USSR. And, perhaps, the greatest danger was a military conspiracy, military sabotage. It was the military conspiracy that V. M. Molotov had in mind when he said that 1937 was necessary, because “Without him we would not have won the war”.

Indeed, the conspiracy of the military in 1937, the very fact of the existence of which with the light hand of Khrushchev, has been denied or questioned for more than half a century, as the archives are declassified, it becomes more and more detailed. As these details become known, the mortal danger that this conspiracy represented for the Soviet state on the eve of World War II becomes obvious. It also becomes clear that this conspiracy had the deepest roots in the ranks of the Red Army and that the danger of this conspiracy was not stopped by the execution of the main conspirators in the summer of 1937, and the consequences of this conspiracy continued to be felt in 1941 and, in all likelihood, in 1942. However, there is still no clear understanding of what the conspirators were guided by when planning the coup d'etat, on whom they relied, and whose interests they represented.

Speaking about the conspiracy of the military, first of all they always remember Marshal of the Soviet Union M.N. Tukhachevsky. It is no coincidence that the 1937 conspiracy itself is usually called the "Tukhachevsky Conspiracy." Since the death of Tukhachevsky in 1937, there have been several completely opposite myths around his name. The first myth arose in the 1960s, when Khrushchev was waging a frenzied campaign to debunk Stalin. Then Tukhachevsky was portrayed as a "genius strategist" who, of course, would have won a brilliant victory over Hitler in 1941, had he not been untimely killed by Stalin. As this myth flourished in a new lush color during the years of the notorious "perestroika", a significant number of people grew aversion to this myth, and in contrast to it, another myth arose, the meaning of which is that Tukhachevsky was a complete idiot and a pest who planned to build hundreds of thousands of tanks for the Red Army, which, of course, would have ruined the Soviet economy. Both of these myths, in our opinion, are equally false. Tukhachevsky was certainly not a "genius strategist", but he was not a complete idiot either, and his sabotage did not have the character of something permanent and complete. By 1937, Tukhachevsky had become a dangerous and cunning enemy of Stalin and objectively of the Soviet Union, but this does not mean that he was such an enemy from the very beginning of his Bolshevik career. In order to understand the role of Tukhachevsky in the conspiracy of the military, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with his biography, since the fateful year of 1937 was the logical conclusion to his life path.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky was born on February 04 (16), 1893 in the Alexandrovskoye estate of the Dorogobuzh district of the Smolensk province. The Tukhachevskys are an ancient, albeit impoverished, noble family. In the Court Calendar for 1917, the name Tukhachevsky is found twice in the list of those close to the Imperial Court. Tukhachevsky's father, the nobleman Nikolai Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky, cohabited with an illiterate peasant woman, Mavra Petrovna Milohova, from whom he had three children out of wedlock. In the end, Nikolai Tukhachevsky married Mavra, and they had another son, Mikhail. Tukhachevsky's father was a man "without social prejudices" and an atheist. From childhood, he brought up hatred of God in his children. So, the children had three dogs, whose names were God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We consider it impossible here to give examples of the blasphemy that the children of Nikolai Tukhachevsky "devoid of social prejudices" showed. Let's just say that this blasphemy caused rejection in Tukhachevsky's mother, who, unlike his father, was a believer.

As the sisters of the future marshal recalled: “Michael became the most militant atheist. He invented all sorts of anti-religious stories and sometimes even "overdid it", involuntarily offending the pious dressmaker Polina Dmitrievna living in our house. But if Polina Dmitrievna forgave everything to her pet, mother sometimes tried to calm down the anti-religious ardor of her naughty son. True, she did not always succeed. One day, after several unsuccessful remarks, she became angry in earnest and poured a cup of iced tea over Misha's head. He wiped himself off, laughed merrily and continued as if nothing had happened ... "

Tukhachevsky's dislike for Orthodoxy was also noticed in the gymnasium, which threatened to become a serious obstacle to continuing education. A priest who taught at the Penza gymnasium, where Tukhachevsky studied, complained: "Mikhail Tukhachevsky is not engaged in the Law of God".

According to V. G. Ukrainsky, Tukhachevsky’s gymnasium comrade, he “I didn’t believe in Christ and in the lessons of the law of God I allowed some liberties in relation to teachers. For this, he was punished several times and even removed from the class..

The same memoirist claims that the gymnasium authorities found out only in the fifth year that Tukhachevsky never took communion and was not at confession.

Later, in the service of the Bolsheviks, Tukhachevsky openly called Christianity a false religion. Once Tukhachevsky built an effigy of Perun out of colored cardboard and gave him a “joking” worship, saying that the Slavs needed to return to natural religion, to paganism. Later, he submitted to the Council of People's Commissars a draft resolution on the abolition of Christianity and the replacement of Christianity with paganism for the benefit of the revolutionary cause.

"Latin-Greek culture- said Tukhachevsky, - it's not for us. I consider the Renaissance, along with Christianity, one of the misfortunes of mankind. Harmony and measure - that's what needs to be destroyed first of all. We will sweep away the ashes of European civilization that has covered Russia with powder, we will shake it up like a dusty rug, and then we will shake up the whole world. I hate Saint Vladimir because he baptized Rus' and betrayed it to Western civilization. It was necessary to preserve intact our crude paganism, our barbarism. But both will return. I don't doubt it!" It is no coincidence that during the years of the Civil War Tukhachevsky received the nickname "the demon of the revolution." The author of this nickname was Leon Trotsky, who himself was called in a similar way.

Naturally, in Tukhachevsky, theomachism was combined with hatred for the reigning Emperor. The Tukhachevsky sisters recalled a typical case:

“Once, during a walk, the nanny took us to see the tsar who had arrived in Moscow. When Misha found out about this, he began to explain to us that the tsar is the same person as anyone else, and it’s stupid to go and look at him on purpose. And then through the wall we heard Michael, in a conversation with his brothers, calling the tsar an idiot.”

Mikhail Tukhachevsky from childhood did not think of himself as anyone but a military man. Tukhachevsky's sister-in-law Lydia Nord recalled how the marshal himself told her that at a young age he was infected with military affairs from his great-uncle the general, warriors to the marrow of his bones:
“I always looked at him with admiration and respect, listening to his battle stories. Grandfather noticed this, and once, putting me on his lap, I was then seven or eight years old, he asked: “Well, Mishuk, what do you want to be?” “General,” I answered without hesitation. “Look you! he laughed. “Yes, you’re directly Bonaparte with us - you’re aiming for generals right away.” And since then, when my grandfather came to us, he asked: “Well, Bonaparte, how are you?” With his light hand, they called me Bonaparte at home ... Of course, I didn’t aim for Bonaparte, but I confess, I really wanted to become a general.

Other eyewitnesses recall that Tukhachevsky, in his early youth, stood in front of a mirror in a Napoleonic pose and posed like that for a long time.

In an effort to give his son a metropolitan education, Nikolai Tukhachevsky moved with his family to Moscow. Mikhail enters the Moscow gymnasium. In the gymnasium, Mikhail studied poorly and all the time asked his father to send him to a cadet school. The father at first resisted this desire of his son, but then yielded to him. The main reason for this concession was the catastrophic financial situation of the family, which grew poorer every year. On August 16, 1911, Mikhail Tukhachevsky entered the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps of Empress Catherine the Great.

The 1st Moscow Corps was a privileged establishment. Here the teaching of not only special military, but also general education subjects was well established. The 18-year-old boy was fascinated by military affairs. He was quite used to the Spartan life within the walls of the corps, willingly engaged in drill training, went on boy scout excursions, walks, being physically strong and dexterous, was the first in the gymnastic class. It was said that Tukhachevsky could, sitting in the saddle, pull himself up on his hands along with the horse. In the cadet corps, Mikhail immediately stood out "brilliant abilities, excellent zeal in service, a true vocation for military affairs".

In August 1912, Tukhachevsky entered the Alexandrovskoye military school in Moscow. He did not enter more prestigious St. Petersburg schools, like Pavlovsk: life in the capital of the empire, away from his parents, was too expensive. Junker Tukhachevsky studied hard: he had to finish the course as one of the best in order to be able to choose a vacancy in the guards regiment, to give a good start to his career. Already at the school, he especially carefully studied military disciplines, with an eye on future admission to the Academy of the General Staff. In 1912, Tukhachevsky met N. N. Kulyabko, with whom they soon became friends. In the official biography of Tukhachevsky, Kulyabko is usually called a Bolshevik. However, most likely, Kulyabko joined the Bolshevik party only after the October coup. One thing is certain: even before the revolution, Kulyabko was closely associated with the enemies of the Throne.

For "zeal in the service" Tukhachevsky was introduced to Emperor Nicholas II.

A colleague of Tukhachevsky recalled: “In the days of the Romanov celebrations, when the Alexander and Alekseevsky military schools had to carry out responsible and heavy guard duty in the Kremlin Palace during the arrival of the Sovereign Emperor and his family in Moscow, the sword-junker Tukhachevsky excellently, conscientiously and with distinction performed guard duties assigned to him.

Here, for the first time, Tukhachevsky was introduced to His Majesty, who drew attention to his service and especially to the really rare case for a junior cadet to receive a junker belt rank. The Sovereign expressed his pleasure after reading from the short report of the company commander on the service activities of the sword-junker Tukhachevsky. Presentation to the Emperor once again revealed one of the main qualities of the soul of Tukhachevsky: hypocrisy. Stretching out to the front in front of the Sovereign, Tukhachevsky, after a few hours, was talking nasty things about the Monarch.

During the years of study at the school, another quality of Tukhachevsky was revealed: careerism. As his colleagues recalled, “In his service, he had neither relatives nor pity for others. Everyone knew for sure that in case of an oversight, no mercy could be expected. Tukhachevsky communicated completely despotic with the junior course. ”.

The same was written by Remy Ruhr, who knew Tukhachevsky well from captivity: “He had a cold soul, which was heated only by the heat of ambition. In life, he was only interested in victory, and at the cost of what sacrifices it would be achieved, he did not care. It's not that he was cruel, he just had no pity.".

On July 12, 1914, Mikhail Tukhachevsky graduated from the Alexander Military School first in academic performance and discipline. He was promoted to second lieutenant and, according to the rules, was given a free choice of duty station. Tukhachevsky, as his grandfather-general bequeathed to him, preferred the Semenovsky Regiment to the Life Guards. The Semyonovsky regiment was one of the best regiments of the Russian Empire. In 1905-1906, it was the Semyonovites who distinguished themselves in suppressing the Moscow rebellion, showing courage and devotion to the Sovereign. It was a great honor to serve in such a regiment. But Tukhachevsky considered service in the regiment only as a temporary step for a further career. According to Tukhachevsky's uncle, Colonel Balkashin, the nephew was going to continue military education: "He was very capable and ambitious, he intended to make a military career, he dreamed of entering the Academy of the General Staff".

After graduating from college, Tukhachevsky went on vacation, which, however, soon ended: the First World War began. Tukhachevsky caught up with his regiment near Warsaw. The young lieutenant was appointed junior officer of the 7th company, commanded by Captain Veselago. Soon the regiment was transferred to the region of Ivangorod and Lublin against the Austro-Hungarian troops. On September 2, 1914, the company of Captain Veselago and Lieutenant Tukhachevsky near the town of Krzheshov crossed the San River along the bridge set on fire by the Austrians, and then safely returned to the eastern bank with trophies and prisoners. For this feat, the company commander received the Order of St. George 4th degree, the junior officer - the Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree with swords. Then other battles followed with the Austrians and the German units that came to their aid. Tukhachevsky fought well. Subsequently, he pointed out that during the First World War he was awarded all the orders "from Anna IV degree to Vladimir IV degree inclusive". Some researchers believe that Tukhachevsky attributed some of the orders to himself. Maybe it is. But this does not at all detract from Tukhachevsky's personal courage, since the Order of St. Vladimir with Swords, an award in which there is no doubt, was the second most important military award after the Order of St. George. On November 5, 1914, Tukhachevsky was wounded in a battle near the town of Skala and sent to a hospital in Moscow. Having recovered from his wound, Tukhachevsky returned to the front again, but in February 1915 he was captured near Lomza. The circumstances of his capture are still very vague. Historian V. Leskov writes: “Lieutenant Tukhachevsky went to the front not to fight for Russia, like many others, but, in his own words, just to make a career, a brilliant career. He firmly intended to become a general - already at the age of 30! And such a misfortune, the end of all ambitious dreams! Because in the present desperate situation It wasn’t the general’s epaulets or at least the order that “shone”, but a German bayonet or a bullet, he decided to show prudence, consoling himself with a completely understandable thought: “You can still escape from captivity, brother, but you won’t succeed from the next world”.

For the fact that Tukhachevsky surrendered himself, without a serious fight, two facts speak, absolutely indisputable:
1. He did not receive a single wound, not a single scratch;
2. But his boss, company commander Veselago, a participant in the Russian-Japanese war, who had the St. George Cross for his courage, he really fought fiercely to the end. He was bayoneted by four German grenadiers. More than 20 (!) Bullet and bayonet wounds were later counted on the body of the valiant captain.

Captivity is one of the darkest and most mysterious pages of Tukhachevsky's life. The official Khrushchev biography of the Red Marshal depicts the heroic life of Tukhachevsky in captivity, constant attempts to escape from this captivity. In fact, the circumstances of these "escapes", as well as being in captivity in general, are very strange. Firstly, it was quite difficult, almost impossible, to escape five times from German captivity. True, Tukhachevsky escaped for the fifth time from the gloomy prison of Ingolstadt during a walk, which the Germans allowed only after the captured officers gave an officer's word of honor not to escape from captivity. Tukhachevsky, without blinking an eye, broke his word. Well, this is very similar to Tukhachevsky: as we remember, he was a man "without social prejudices", and it was not difficult for Tukhachevsky to step over some kind of "anachronism", like an officer's honor. But here's what's interesting. One of the officers-prisoners of Ingolstadt later recalled: “Tukhachevsky and his comrade Captain of the General Staff Chernyavsky somehow managed to arrange that others signed their documents. And one day they both fled. For six days the fugitives wandered through the forests and fields, hiding from the chase. And on the seventh they stumbled upon the gendarmes. However, the hardy and physically strong Tukhachevsky fled from his pursuers ... After a while he managed to cross the Swiss border and thus return to his homeland. And Captain Chernyavsky was sent back to the camp..

So, we note that only Tukhachevsky managed to escape. A lot of questions arise here. For example, how did Tukhachevsky manage to cross the German-Swiss border without documents, without papers? And this was during the war, when the German gendarmes were looking for him? Then, after Tukhachevsky's escape, the Germans in Ingolstadt hastened to recognize him as dead for a ridiculous reason: a note was written in one Swiss newspaper that the corpse of a Russian officer was found on the shores of Lake Geneva. For some reason, everyone decided that it must certainly be the corpse of Tukhachevsky!

But even stranger things happen! Tukhachevsky again crosses the Franco-Swiss border without documents and without money, and then from Switzerland he goes to Paris! Again, according to what documents, for what money? But I wonder where he's going. And he goes to the Russian military agent in Paris, Count A. A. Ignatiev, the very one who later goes to the service of the Soviets and writes a book "50 years in the ranks." In order for the reader to understand what Ignatiev was doing in Paris, let us explain: he, speaking modern language, was a legal resident of Russian intelligence in France. Ignatiev himself is a dark personality, and in terms of the degree of renegade and double-dealing is not much different from Tukhachevsky. It is clear that he had to curry favor with the Bolsheviks in order to earn a general's pension and a general's rank from them later. According to the emigrant A. Markov, through the hands of Ignatiev “billions of Russian money went to pay off the orders made by the War Ministry in France, and of these huge sums, so much stuck to his hands that by the end of the war Ignatiev was no longer able to submit a report”. The count's support for the Bolsheviks was associated precisely with these embezzlements.

For whom Ignatiev worked in 1917, it was no longer clear, but not for Russia. There is also no doubt that by that time Tukhachevsky was working for anyone, but not for Russia. As befits a person devoid of "social prejudices", Tukhachevsky, without any regret, forgot about the oath he had given to the Tsar as soon as he learned about the February Revolution. Even before the revolutionary events, Tukhachevsky shared his thoughts with a captured French officer: “ Just yesterday, we, Russian officers, drank to the health of the Russian Emperor. Or maybe this dinner was a memorial. Our Emperor is a narrow-minded person... And many officers are tired of the current regime... However, a constitutional regime in the Western manner would be the end of Russia. Russia needs a firm, strong government…”

It is not difficult to guess what the ambitious Tukhachevsky was ready for with such thoughts in his head after February 1917. He was ready for anything, just to be in Russia. He saw himself as Napoleon crushing the revolution. It was he, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was supposed to be at the head of the "firm, strong government"! But how to get to Russia from German Ingolstadt? Only with the help of some powerful force. Only the Germans could be such a force. Here it would be logical to assume that Tukhachevsky was trivially recruited by German intelligence. But the further actions of Tukhachevsky, the plan of his movements make us think that the matter was more serious than simple German recruitment. It is clear that Tukhachevsky did not just “escape” from captivity, but went to Paris to Ignatiev, having some kind of recommendation papers in his hands. Ignatiev, of course, was not a German spy, and papers from German intelligence would not have made an impression on him. Further, for some reason, Tukhachevsky is not going to Russia from Ignatiev, which would be logical, but for some reason to London. Therefore, on the occasion of September 29 (October 12), 1917, Ignatiev writes the following letter to the military agent General N. S. Yermolov in London:
“At the request of Lieutenant Tukhachevsky, who escaped from German captivity of the Guards Semenovsky, I was ordered to give him money in the amount necessary for a trip to London. I also ask you not to refuse to help him in his further pursuit..

We will, of course, be told that he could only pass through London, since all other countries were under German occupation. Let's say. But they do not take into account only one thing: it was insanely difficult to get to England from France in 1917: Belgium and part of northern France were occupied by the Germans, German cruisers and submarines plowed the English Channel. It was even more difficult to get from England to Russia. It was necessary to sail on a ship across the North and Baltic Seas, stuffed with mines and combat enemy ships, to "neutral" Sweden, which was essentially on the side of Germany, and from there, at best, by train, to Russian Finland. The journey is not only long, but also very dangerous. In addition, Tukhachevsky left for London on October 12, when he arrived in it - it is not known, but already on October 16, that is, after 4 (!) Days he was already in Petrograd! One gets the impression that Tukhachevsky did not move around war-torn Europe, but flew by plane in peacetime! Recall that Lenin's journey from Switzerland to Russia in the spring of 1917, and the journey overland and the shortest, directly through the territory of Germany, took less than 10 days.

It is noteworthy that, having arrived in Russia shortly before the October Revolution, Tukhachevsky, shortly after the Bolsheviks came to power, in March 1918, met with their leading leaders: Sverdlov, Kuibyshev, and then with Lenin and Trotsky. What explains such popularity in the highest Bolshevik circles of an unknown second lieutenant?

There are good reasons to believe that cooperation between Tukhachevsky and the Bolsheviks began during the German captivity. A French officer, Pierre Ferwax, in a book published in 1928, claims that Tukhachevsky, while still in a prisoner of war camp, told him: “If Lenin is able to rid Russia of the rubbish of old prejudices and help her become a free and strong power, I will follow him.”

Considering that in Paris Tukhachevsky hurried to Ignatiev, who was already associated with the Bolsheviks, then the suspicions of secret cooperation between Tukhachevsky and the Bolsheviks become even more significant. Also, one should not forget that part of the Bolshevik leadership was closely connected with German intelligence and that Tukhachevsky could be used by both the Germans and the Bolsheviks.

Be that as it may, but after meeting with the leaders of Bolshevism, Tukhachevsky's rapid military career begins. But one should not think that Tukhachevsky seriously believed in Bolshevik propaganda. No, the same ambitious plan to become a Russian Bonaparte dominated his mind. Lydia Brozhovskaya, the wife of a good friend of the future red marshal, recalled: “In 1917, Tukhachevsky had breakfast with us, in the wing of the Semenovsky regiment ... Tukhachevsky made the most gratifying and indelible impression on me. Beautiful radiant eyes, charming smile, great modesty and restraint. At breakfast, the husband joked and drank to the health of the Napoleon, to which Tukhachevsky only smiled. He himself drank little. After breakfast, my husband, I, and several of our officers left to see him off at the station, as he was leaving for Moscow. He was dressed in a black civilian overcoat and a tall astrakhan hat that increased his height. After previous conversations, I was full of enthusiasm and for some reason it seemed to me that he was capable of becoming a “Hero”. In any case, he was above the crowd. I rarely make mistakes in people, and it was especially hard for me when I later found out that he supposedly quite sincerely became a Bolshevik..

Brozhovskaya was wrong: Tukhachevsky never sincerely became a Bolshevik. All his life he was a fan of one person: himself. Power, personal uncontrolled power - that's what guided all the actions and feelings of Mikhail Tukhachevsky. The Bolsheviks, like earlier the tsarist army, were only a means to achieve this power, random companions who were supposed to help him pave the way to this power.

In the same March 1918, Tukhachevsky joined the Bolshevik Party, at the same time Tukhachevsky submitted to the Council of People's Commissars his project on the ban on Christianity, a project that they are trying to present to us as an "innocent joke." By the way, this project of Tukhachevsky was seriously considered in the Council of People's Commissars. In addition to this project, Tukhachevsky proposes the creation of a special "Bolshevik service". In general, the notorious blasphemer Tukhachevsky came to the court of the Bolshevik blasphemers. He is recognized as one of his own and appointed commissioner. The duties of Commissar Tukhachevsky included spying on the generals of the Russian army, who went over to the service of the Bolsheviks. On June 19, 1918, Tukhachevsky received his first military appointment in the Red Army: he became the commander of the 1st revolutionary army, which acted against the insurgent Czechoslovak corps. First of all, Tukhachevsky took up the fact that he began to agitate former officers to join the Red Army. There was only one alternative to refusal - execution. But even those officers who expressed a desire to serve with the Reds were taken hostage by family members. With ordinary Red Army soldiers, Tukhachevsky also did not stand on ceremony. Shootings were commonplace. The commander acted in strict accordance with the orders of People's Commissar Trotsky, who said: “You cannot build an army without repression. You can't lead masses of people to their death without having the command of the death penalty in their arsenal. As long as the evil tailless monkeys called people, proud of their technology, build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between possible death ahead and inevitable death behind. ”.

For Trotsky and Tukhachevsky, people were only "tailless monkeys" who could and should be mercilessly killed if the interests of the Trotsky and Tukhachevsky so required.

But Tukhachevsky knew how not only to shoot mindlessly. He knew how to win people over to his side. By special orders, he forbade the shooting of captured whites and, on the contrary, began to recruit them into the ranks of the Red Army. Especially Tukhachevsky succeeded in agitation among white officers. The very sight of Tukhachevsky - fit, with the military bearing of the old army, made a positive impression on the officers.

Tukhachevsky fought successfully, after the 1st revolutionary, he commanded the 8th army of the Southern Front. Its units beat both Czechoslovakians and Kolchakists. But at the same time there was an active "promotion" of Tukhachevsky. Meanwhile, as the army commander was just a capable executor of the strategic plans of the headquarters of the Red Army, in which the former tsarist generals played the main role, Tukhachevsky was stubbornly made into a "great commander." Someone really needed this image.

Speaking of the secret patrons of Tukhachevsky, they usually refer to Leo Trotsky. However, the relationship between Trotsky and Tukhachevsky was far from idyllic and constancy. Since the relationship between the two "demons" of the revolution is extremely important for our topic, we will dwell on them in a little more detail.

Indeed, at the beginning of the Civil War, Trotsky spoke extremely flatteringly about Tukhachevsky. The energy and diligence of Tukhachevsky, his willingness to take tough measures to establish a revolutionary order in his units impressed Trotsky. He sets an example for other commanders "the glorious name of Comrade Tukhachevsky".

Trotskyist A.I. Boyarchikov testified: “Military advisers of that time knew that Trotsky loved Tukhachevsky for his great military talent, combat experience and creative initiative during the battle. Personal charm attracted his subordinates and people who encountered him in the service..

During the conflict between Tukhachevsky and Commissar Medvedev, when Tukhachevsky allowed himself an insolence that was unheard of for a commander and spoke out against the interference of the commissar in his activities, Trotsky took the side of Tukhachevsky, and Medvedev was removed from the army.

At a meeting of political workers of the Red Army in December 1919, Trotsky called Tukhachevsky "one of the best commanders", especially noting his "strategic talent"

But Trotsky and Tukhachevsky were pathologically ambitious. Moreover, it seems that Tukhachevsky developed this ambition even more than Trotsky. Tukhachevsky physically could not tolerate any authority over himself. Lydia Nord cites Tukhachevsky's story about one of the skirmishes with the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic: “Trotsky came to the front to Tukhachevsky. Tukhachevsky was mapping the battle plan at that time. Trotsky made several remarks. The commander stood up, put a pencil in front of him, with which he marked on the map, and left. "Where are you?" Trotsky shouted out the window. “To your car,” Tukhachevsky replied calmly. “You, Lev Davidovich, apparently decided to change places with me.”.

Then Trotsky outwardly resigned himself and even apologized to Tukhachevsky. But I remember this incident. Already by the time of the Polish campaign of 1920, Trotsky saw in Tukhachevsky a potential military dictator.

As S. Minakov writes: “By this time, the relationship between Trotsky and Tukhachevsky was far from friendly. The reports of the GPU reported on the "anti-Trotskyist", "nationalist" position of the commander. It is very important for understanding Tukhachevsky's interests that he united around himself the so-called. "Red commanders" who competed with Trotsky's "military experts".

Trotsky, quite rightly, perceived Tukhachevsky as an extreme ambitious man, greedy for flattery, who loved luxury and aspired to power. In order to understand the then weight of Tukhachevsky, we present the information published in July 1923 in the weekly "Military Bulletin": “The following telegram has been received in the name of the commander of the Western Front. To the leader of the Fifth Army, the liberator of the Urals from the White Guards and Kolchak, on the day of the fourth anniversary of the capture of the Urals by the Red Army, the Miass City Council sends them proletarian greetings; to commemorate the day, the city of Miass is renamed the city of Tukhachevsk - your name ".

After Lenin's death, Trotsky's position became more and more vulnerable. Therefore, Trotsky tried to be on good terms with Tukhachevsky, trying to use him in the event of a coup d'état, as a "sword". The members of the Politburo opposed to Trotsky had every reason to expect from Tukhachevsky, as the leader of the "red generals", supporters of the participation of the army in the world revolution, an association on this basis with Trotsky.

However, Trotsky himself expected, after the success of his coup, to immediately remove the dangerous Tukhachevsky. However, Tukhachevsky himself was not at all going to pave the way for Trotsky to power. He needed power. Therefore, in the 1920s, Tukhachevsky opposed Trotsky on the side of Stalin. “One of the main reasons for the “fall” of L. Trotsky and his refusal to fight, to use in it such a powerful weapon that was at his disposal as the Red Army, I think, was the position taken by the military elite, the commanders of the main military districts and, before in total, the commander of the Western Front M. Tukhachevsky. Let me remind you that back in March 1923. Colonel P. Dilaktorsky spoke about widespread false ideas regarding the high authority and strong influence of L. Trotsky in the Red Army and, conversely, the "fashion" for M. Tukhachevsky"(S. Minakov).

But in the 30s, a new round of Tukhachevsky's big game begins, during which he will again find himself in alliance with Trotsky, already exiled from the USSR ...

1937 overwhelming majority Soviet people perceived as part of a happy pre-war time.

So, G.K. Zhukov wrote in his memoirs: Each peaceful time has its own features, its own color and its charm. But I want to say a kind word about the time before the war. It was distinguished by a unique upsurge of mood, optimism, some kind of spirituality and at the same time efficiency, modesty and simplicity in communicating with people. Well, very well, we started to live»!

And life itself gave serious grounds for this both in the field of material and spiritual development of the country.

1937 was the twentieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. He seemed to be summing up the twentieth anniversary of the existence of the world's first state of workers and peasants. And the results were very successful. This year ended the second five-year plan, which radically changed the face of the country.

During the second five-year plan, the USSR overtook Great Britain and France in terms of the production of iron, steel, and electricity. The USSR was ahead of all capitalist countries in terms of growth rates. Stalin remarked on this: Our industry has grown in comparison with the pre-war level more than nine times, while the industry of the main capitalist countries continues to trample around the pre-war level, exceeding it by only 20-30 percent».

During the years of the second five-year plan, 4,500 new large industrial enterprises were built. Mechanical engineering developed especially rapidly - its output grew almost 3 times instead of 2.1 times according to the plan.

Ferrous metallurgy output tripled, with electric steel smelting growing 8.4 times; in the production of electric steel, the USSR overtook all the capitalist countries. Copper smelting increased by more than 2 times, aluminum - by 41 times; an industry was created for the production of nickel, tin, magnesium.

The output of the chemical industry has tripled, and new major industries have emerged for the production of synthetic rubber, nitrogen, and potash fertilizers. 80% of all industrial output was received from new or radically reconstructed enterprises during the 1st and 2nd five-year plans.

The USSR turned into a powerful industrial country, economically independent from the capitalist world and providing National economy and Armed forces new equipment and weapons.

The decisive victory won by the Soviet people in the field of industry made it possible to finally eliminate the country's former dependence in technical and economic terms on the advanced capitalist countries. The USSR now fully provided its industry, agriculture and defense needs with the necessary equipment.

Stopped import tractors, agricultural machines, locomotives, wagons, cutters and many other machines and mechanisms. During the years of the second five-year plan, dozens of new cities appeared and old ones were rebuilt.

Describing Moscow in 1937 in his book, Lion Feuchtwanger wrote: “ Everywhere they are constantly digging, digging, knocking, building, streets disappear and appear; what seemed big today, seems small tomorrow, because suddenly a tower appears nearby - everything flows, everything changes».

The collectivization of agriculture was completed. Collective farms united 93% of peasant households and had over 99% of all sown areas. Major successes were achieved in the technical equipment and in the organizational and economic strengthening of the collective farms. AT agriculture 456 thousand tractors, 129 thousand combines, 146 thousand trucks worked. The sown area increased from 105 million hectares in 1913 to 135.3 million hectares in 1937.

The well-being of workers has improved. The number of workers and employees in 1937 reached 26.7 million people; their salary fund increased by 2.5 times. Cash incomes of collective farms increased 3 times.

By 1937, for 20 years of Soviet power illiteracy was completely eradicated(only in 1930-32, 30 million people studied in the educational program schools). In 1930, universal compulsory primary education was introduced in rural areas and seven years in cities and workers' settlements. in languages ​​of 70 nationalities. During 1929-1937, 32,000 schools were built.

1937 - this is also June 18 - 20 - the world's first non-stop flight of the Heroes of the Soviet Union V.P. Chkalov, G.F. Baidukov and A.V. Belyakov on the route Moscow - Portland (USA) through North Pole; this and July 15 - the opening of the Moscow Canal; December 12 - the first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR under the new Stalinist Constitution; 1937 - 1938 - work of the 1st Soviet drifting scientific station (ID Papanin, P. P. Shirshov, E. K. Fedorov, E. T. Krenkel) in the ice of the Arctic Ocean in the region of the North Pole; this and the publicly celebrated centenary of the death (1837 - 1937) of A.S. Pushkin - numerous performances, films, books reminded of Tsar Saltan, Tsarevich Gvidon, the Golden Cockerel, Queen Elisha, Balda and other characters in the fairy-tale world of Pushkin; Vera Mukhina created the immortal sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Girl"; in music it is Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th symphony; in opera, ballet, performing arts, we will name only one incomparable Ulanov.

What is the "North Pole" ("SP-1")? This is the world's first Soviet polar research drifting station. February 13, 1936 in the Kremlin at a meeting on the organization of transport flights O.Yu. Schmidt outlined the developed plan for an air expedition to the North Pole and the establishment of a station in its area.

Stalin and Voroshilov, on the basis of the plan, adopted a government decree instructing the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Glavsevmorput) to organize an expedition to the North Pole region in 1937 and deliver scientific station equipment and winterers there by plane. The leadership was assigned to O.Yu. Schmidt. The official opening of "SP-1" took place on June 6, 1937 (near the North Pole).

Composition: station manager Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin, meteorologist and geophysicist Evgeny Konstantinovich Fedorov, radio operator Ernst Teodorovich Krenkel, hydrobiologist and oceanographer Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov.

After 9 months (274 days) of drift to the south, the SP-1 station, created in the region of the North Pole, was moved to the Greenland Sea, the ice floe sailed more than 2000 km. The icebreaking ships Taimyr and Murman removed the four winterers on February 19, 1938, beyond the 70th latitude, a few tens of kilometers from the coast of Greenland.

The scientific results obtained in a unique drift were presented to the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on March 6, 1938 and were highly appreciated by specialists. The scientific composition of the expedition was awarded academic degrees. Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin and Ernest Teodorovich Krenkel received the titles of Doctors of Geographical Sciences. For an outstanding feat accomplished for the glory of Soviet science and in the development of the Arctic, four polar explorers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Also, this title was awarded to pilots - A. D. Alekseev, P. G. Golovin, I. P. Mazuruk and M. I. Shevelev.

But 1937 was far from idyllic. These are Italy's entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937, the riots provoked by the Nazis in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia on October 17, the merger of fascist groups in Hungary into the National Socialist Party on October 16, Hitler's meeting with Mussolini in September 1937 and other events that were clear harbingers of the coming world war.

Soviet Government, I.V. Stalin understood the terrible danger that threatened the state of the workers and peasants. Everything possible was done to strengthen the socialist state: this was accelerated industrialization, and self-reliance, these were numerous (alas, unsuccessful) attempts to consolidate the “democratic” countries of Western Europe for future confrontation with the Nazi bloc; these are tough measures to strengthen the rear of the country, the destruction of the "fifth column", possible traitors.

On January 23, 1937, Karl Radek and 16 other prominent communists are on trial in Moscow, accused of organizing a conspiracy involving Trotsky, Germany and Japan. Radek and three other defendants were sentenced to prison, and the rest to death.

The German writer Lion Feuchtwanger, who was present at the Moscow trial, wrote: The people who stood before the court were by no means to be considered tortured, desperate beings. The defendants themselves were sleek, well-dressed men with casual manners. They were drinking tea, newspapers were sticking out of their pockets...

In general terms, it looked more like a discussion ... conducted in a conversational tone by educated people. It seemed that the defendants, the prosecutor and the judges were carried away by the same, I almost said sports, interest in finding out everything that had happened with the maximum degree of accuracy.

If this court were instructed to stage a director, then it would probably take him many years, many rehearsals to achieve such teamwork from the accused.

The change made its way into the army. In June, in the USSR, several military leaders were arrested on charges of collaborating with Germany, put on trial and shot. The fact that there was a conspiracy in the Red Army, both Churchill and Hitler and Goebbels knew.

In my memoirs Churchill noted that there was a conspiracy and what " this was followed by a ruthless, not useless purge among the military and politicians in Soviet Russia…».

Goebbels wrote in his diary shortly before his suicide: Stalin carried out this reform in a timely manner(purge in the army) and therefore now enjoys its benefits…».

Looking back at 1937, at the events that took place eighty years ago, only now you clearly understand how deep the penetration of I.V. Stalin, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Soviet Government into the essence of the foreign and domestic political situation in 1937 and in subsequent years. Only it, this deep understanding, and ensured the victory of the "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" over the Nazi swastika, victory in the Great Patriotic War, guaranteed the survival of the Soviet country and the prospect of further peaceful development.

You will be mistaken if you think that this is the end of the assessment of the role of 1937 in Soviet history. No, far from it! Since 1956, starting with the slanderous report of N.S. Khrushchev at the XX Congress, which marked the victory of the counter-revolution, a new stage begins, the stage of flooding both 1937 and the entire Stalin era with mud, smearing it with black paint.

The main instrument of this work for decades has been slander, falsification, lies, in the spirit of Goebbels- the more blatant a lie, the more likely it is to be believed. Let us dwell on several characteristic examples of the lies of the “democrats”.

One of the "misdemeanors" accused of Stalin by his critics is the words about "cogs", with which he once compared people. Today's opponents accuse him of this statement as almost one of the most important sins. And they assure that already in this comparison is expressed highest degree disrespect and contempt for the one who was called a "cog".

And the most interesting thing is that Stalin really said this. More precisely, something similar. Yes, he did use that comparison. The question is that all such myths are created in this way: something is taken that really took place, and weaves into what was not or it wasn't at all.

Stalin spoke about the "cogs" on June 25, 1945, at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of the USSR's victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. And the following was said:

“Don't think I'm going to say anything out of the ordinary. I have the simplest, most ordinary toast. I would like to drink to the health of people who have few ranks and an unenviable title. For the people who ut"cogs" of the great state mechanism, but without which we all- marshals and commanders of fronts and armies, - roughly speaking, we don't stand a damn thing. Any "screw" will go wrong - and it's over.

I raise a toast to simple, ordinary, modest people, to the "cogs" that keep our great state machinery in all branches of science, economy and military affairs. There are a lot of them, their name is legion, because they are tens of millions of people.

These are humble people. No one writes anything about them, they have no title, few ranks, but these are the people who hold us like the foundation holds the top. I drink to the health of these people, our esteemed comrades».

This is how the TRUTH is transformed by the enemies into FALSE.

There is probably not a single “democrat”, liberal, in other words, anti-Soviet, who would not kick “this monster” - Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky for his words “RECOGNITION IS THE QUEEN OF EVIDENCE”.

For those to whom the name Vyshinsky does not mean anything, it is worth recalling that this is the chief prosecutor in the political trials of the 30s, who allegedly successfully introduced the postulate "RECOGNITION IS THE QUEEN OF EVIDENCE" into Soviet legal theory and practice.

In reality this phrase was used in Ancient Rome . The queen of evidence (lat. - Regina probationum) - this is how in Roman law they called the confession of guilt by the defendant himself, which makes all other evidence, evidence and further investigative actions redundant.

Vyshinsky himself, as follows from his work "The Theory of Judicial Evidence in Soviet Law", was of the exact opposite opinion:

“It would be a mistake to give the accused or the defendant, or rather, their explanations, more importance than they deserve... to such an extent that the recognition by the accused of being guilty was considered an indisputable, unquestionable truth, even if this confession was wrested from him by torture, which at that time was almost the only procedural evidence, in any case considered the most serious evidence, the “queen of evidence” (regina probationum).

This principle is completely unacceptable for Soviet law and judicial practice..

Indeed, if OTHER circumstances established in the case prove the guilt of the person brought to justice, then the consciousness of this person loses the value of evidence and in this respect becomes redundant.

Its significance in this case can only be reduced to being a basis for assessing certain moral qualities of the defendant, for lowering or strengthening the punishment determined by the court.

What is the main thing in the method of lying to A.Ya. Vyshinsky? Only one thing - relying on our laziness, our gullibility, and yet we must act in a completely different way - everything, even what seems to us the ultimate truth, must be checked, verified by independent sources, carefully compared and considered.

The political trials of 1937 - what do foreigners say about them? Dozens, if not hundreds, of correspondents from Western newspapers and numerous representatives of the diplomatic corps attended the trials.

Here is the opinion of the US Ambassador to the USSR in 1936-1938. Joseph W. Davis:

« The defendants appear physically healthy and quite normal. The order of the process is strikingly different from that adopted in America, however, given that the nature of people is the same everywhere, and based on their own experience as a lawyer, it can be concluded that the defendants are telling the truth, admitting their guilt in committing serious crimes.

The general opinion of the diplomatic corps is that the government achieved its goal during the process and proved that the accused participated in some kind of conspiracy.

Conversation with the Lithuanian Ambassador: he believes that all the talk about torture and drugs allegedly used against the defendants is groundless».

Joseph W. Davis wrote in his diary on July 7, 1941: “… Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Hitler's agents are everywhere, even in the United States and South America.

The German entry into Prague was accompanied by active support for Henlein's military organizations.

The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia(Tiso), Belgium(Degrel)...

However, we do not see anything like this in Russia.. “Where are the Russian accomplices of Hitler?” — they ask me often. "They were shot" I answer».

Speaking about the processes of 1937 - 1938, V.M. Molotov said to the writer Felix Chuev a phrase that says a lot: “ We did not wait to be betrayed, we took the initiative into our own hands and were ahead of them».

It is appropriate here to recall the story of General A.A. Vlasov. After all, just a few months before the betrayal, he showed himself well in the defense of Moscow. And he betrayed - and the secrets of his soul were revealed - I hate the Communists, I hate the Soviet government, I hate Stalin.

It must be said that the counter-revolutionary, starting with N.S. Khrushchev, the leadership of the Soviet Union created ideal conditions for anti-Soviet, anti-Stalinist elements to slander the trials of 1937-1938.

What did it give rise to? MYTHS, one is meaner than the other. So, V.I. Alksnis, says in an interview about Tukhachevsky: “... But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. The newspapers wrote that they denied everything, did not agree with anything. And in the transcript - a full confession. The very fact of confession, I understand, can be achieved by torture.

But it’s completely different there: an abundance of details, a long dialogue, mutual accusations, a lot of clarifications ... Today I am completely convinced that a conspiracy within the Red Army really existed, and Tukhachevsky was its participant.

Especially harmful, interfering with honest historians - researchers ( and through them to the general public) to find out the truth about the Soviet country, and about the repressions, and about I.V. Stalin - is the secrecy of the funds of many state archives, especially with regard to political repressions, i.e. events eighty years ago.

This order causes indignation even among the “memorialist” Nikita Petrov:

« The requirements for a researcher by archival officials to obtain written consent from the descendants of the repressed for access to archival and investigative files do not comply with the law.

Why is it that the right to dispose of the archives of the repressed belongs to his descendants? In Russia, according to the law, only the right to property and copyright is inherited, but not the right to dispose of access to documents of state archives (note, state, not personal)!”

He (Nikita Petrov) says:

« At one time I helped four acquaintances who also had"someone repressed", find information about them. People have wasted a lot of time on appeals to various archives, and a lot of money.

As a result, it turned out that one grandmother sat down not because “she was the daughter of a tsarist officer”, but for the fact that she, being an accountant at the factory, took money from the factory cash desk and bought herself a fur coat.

Another grandfather sat down not "for a joke about Stalin", for participating in a gang rape.

The third grandfather turned out to be not a “peasant dispossessed for nothing”, but a recidivist who received a tower for murder whole family (father, mother and two teenage children).

Only one grandfather turned out to be really politically repressed, but again, not"for a joke about Stalin", but for the fact that during the war he was a policeman and worked for the Germans.

This is to the question of whether it is worth trusting family legends about repressed relatives.

Analyzing the struggle as a whole both around the repressed and around the whole of Soviet history, you understand that its causes and its essence are the fierce hatred of the class enemy for the very essence of Soviet power - the power of workers and peasants, the power of labor.

The enemies of Soviet power hate everything in it - people loyal to the principles of communism, and the laws of the Soviet state, and the social transformations that freed the working man. And in order to slander Soviet society, its enemies readily use any vile lie, any slander.

In defending Stalin, in defending Soviet history, we Bolsheviks carry forward the glorious red banner of the struggle of the working people for a just social order, for the equality of people, for a society in which there is no exploitation of man by man.

We will win!

S.V. Khristenko

Memoirs and remarks of a man born in June 1937. Like many people born in 1937, the author of this article more than once had to enter into conversations about the history of our country, as soon as his year of birth was mentioned. At the same time, I was sometimes asked if my parents or relatives were arrested that year. Some people asked if I was born in a prison or in a Gulag camp. This has been the case since the mid-50s, when the idea that 1937 was almost the blackest year in Russian history took root in the minds of a significant part of Soviet society.

The year 1937 did not evoke such associations in the author and his classmates, when on September 1, 1944 we became students of the 56th Moscow school. 1937 was our hallmark, but we knew that there were a lot of people like us. Because in addition to our class "A", there were also classes "B", "C", "G", "D", "E" and even "F", and each of them had more than 40 people. The years 1936, 1937 and 1938 were marked by an unprecedented increase in the birth rate in the USSR, which is why schools created so many parallel classes for those born in those years. Then our huge age cohorts created difficulties for the military registration and enlistment offices, which sometimes did not always have time to notify all those born in 1936-1938 on time. subpoenas on the need to register with the military or to arrive for military service.

1937 was the year of birth for millions of my peers, and if only for this reason they did not tend to regard it as a gloomy year. Until the mid-1950s, it was not customary to consider this year as such even among the older people around us. At that time, when those born in 1937 became students of the first grades, ideas about the "black year" were firmly associated with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

It is unlikely that at that time it was possible to find a family in our country in which there were no victims of the war. The vast majority of children of the generation of 1937 in our country received news of the death of their relatives and friends during the war years. For many of my peers, the war crippled their lives. At that time, one could meet many disabled children of the war. The physical and mental traumas they received in childhood remained with them for the rest of their lives. The terrible stories of eyewitnesses about the horrors of war and the atrocities of the invaders became part of the first impressions of the world around those who were born in 1937.

At the same time, the year 1937, which remained outside personal memory, merged in our ideas about the pre-war period. They were formed on the basis of their own vivid but fragmentary memories of the pre-war months and under the influence of the stories of adults who, in contrast to the ongoing war, often spoke of the suddenly lost pre-war life as a bright, cloudless time. Apparently, it is no coincidence that in almost every Soviet film dedicated to the beginning of the war, the peaceful life that preceded it was portrayed as a joyful holiday. Of course, it could not be so in principle. However, this film image was in tune with the ideas of millions of Soviet people.

Reports of the invasion of the treacherous enemy, bombs falling on Soviet cities, Red Army soldiers and civilians who died from enemy bullets, shells and bombs, the inhuman atrocities of the Nazi invaders formed not only our ideas about the present, but also about the suddenly interrupted peaceful past. The howl of sirens, the view of an unusually empty street, a cramped bomb shelter, the words of the announcer: "Citizens! Air raid alert!" and then the long-awaited words: "Hang up!" became signs of the new age.

In contrast, I recalled the pre-war pictures of the same street, along which festive demonstrations took place on November 7 and May 1. Music blared, people sang songs, shouted something. In their hands were many banners, banners, portraits. Posters and portraits made of cloth adorned the walls of houses. Now, on these walls were paper posters depicting Red Army soldiers. They fought huge snakes that writhed like swastikas, or Hitler climbed through the text of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. The window through which I had watched the festive demonstrations as a child before the war was now crossed out with white paper strips that my mother had glued on so that the glass would not fly out during the bombing.

Although new lyrical songs and even songs with peppy tunes appeared during the war, then for the first time songs were heard about "harsh autumn, the rattle of tanks and the gleam of bayonets", about the "cherished stone" that the dying hero of the defense of Sevastopol held in his hands, about a soldier who knows that from his dugout "to death - four steps." Leonid Utyosov, who before the war sang about how "easy the heart is from a cheerful song," during the war sang a gloomy song about a sailor whose family was destroyed by the invaders and his beloved girlfriend was abused. Immediately after the war, a sad song about a soldier who returned to his ruined house and the grave of his wife became popular. And from the pre-war times, joyful songs about the "jolly wind", festive May Moscow, a happy life "in the vastness of the wonderful Motherland" have been preserved in the memory. One of the songs said: "I don't know another such country where a person breathes so freely." Sometimes in pre-war songs the words sounded like an energetic patter: "Oh, it's good to live in a Soviet country", "we were born to make a fairy tale come true", "we have no barriers either at sea or on land." The songs cheerfully called for "Oh, let's thunder, stronger ...", "Physical education! Hurrah! Hurrah! and be ready!".

Magazines and books written for children during the war years differed sharply in their content from books and magazines of the pre-war period. If in Lev Kassil's book "Your Defenders", published during the war, it was about pilots, tankers, mortarmen, sailors, signalmen and many other Soviet soldiers of various branches of the military, then in the pre-war book it was told about a boy who wanted to be like " Chkalov, or maybe Gromov, familiar to all citizens.

These names were well known to the children of wartime thanks to postage stamps, which were then collected by almost everyone. A series of postage stamps were issued on the occasion of the landing of the expedition led by I. Papanin to the North Pole, the flight of V. Chkalov, G. Baidukov and A. Belyakov, and then - M. Gromov, A. Yumashev and S. Danilin across the North Pole to USA. All these events took place in 1937.

The year 1937 was also mentioned in a series of postage stamps dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of A. S. Pushkin. Two dates - 1837 and 1937 - were marked on the box with a board game that required a good knowledge of Pushkin's fairy tales. Therefore, the 37th year was reminiscent of Tsar Saltan, Tsarevich Gvidon, the Golden Cockerel, Queen Elisha, Balda and other characters of the fairy-tale world. Even those who saw their birth certificate in 1937, on the top of which it was written: "People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR", did not think of something ominous. At the same time, back in our school years, many of us heard the word "Yezhovism."

From my childhood I knew that on the orders of Yezhov many people were unjustly arrested. My mother's brother and sister were imprisoned: Leonid Vinogradov, an engineer at the Litsetsk Metallurgical Plant, and Ekaterina Vinogradova, who worked in the Ryazan Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. And although they all lived in different cities and rarely saw each other for many years, my mother was expelled from the party "for the loss of political vigilance."

Despite the fact that 1937 in our family was remembered not only by joyful events, it was perceived as part of a happy pre-war period. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of Soviet people who survived the Great Patriotic War at least as children perceived the year 1937 in this way.

But maybe the year 1937 was perceived differently outside our country? How, for example, did the authors of the Complete Chronology of the 20th Century, written in Oxford and published by the Veche publishing house in 1999, remember the year 1937? In this voluminous book, more than five pages of small type were devoted to the events of 1937 on our planet. In the "Complete Chronology" it was said that in 1937 the canvases "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso and "The Dream" by Salvador Dali were presented to the audience, Carl Orff's opera "Carmina Burana" and "Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge" by Benjamin Britten were first performed, came out in film distribution films "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Lost Horizon", "Blaze over England".

Ernst Hemingway's "To have and not to have", A. Cronin's "Citadel", D. Steinbeck's "About mice and people", J. Kawabat's "Snowland". Were named scientific discoveries and inventions in 1937: the advent of xerography, the first use of insulin for the treatment of diabetes, the synthesis of vitamin B, the creation of the first prototype of a jet engine, the receipt by DuPont of a patent for the production of nylon. It was said that in 1937 the longest suspension bridge across the Golden Gate Strait was opened in the United States. In 1937, a Pithecanthropus skull was reportedly found on the island of Java. Many of these achievements of culture, science and technology are still remembered, although often people do not know when they were implemented.

The "Complete Chronology" also reported on the coronation of King George VI of Great Britain on May 12, 1937, the nationalization of oil fields in Mexico, the explosion of the German airship "Hindenburg" in New York, the unrest of Muslims in Albania, the adoption by Ireland of the first constitution of an independent state. They talked about the severe floods in the Midwest of the United States, during which millions of people lost their homes. It was mentioned that on July 7, 1937, the Royal Commission of Great Britain recommended that Palestine be divided into two states - Jewish and Arab. Few people now remember that one of the milestones of modern confrontation in this region of the world was passed in 1937.

The Complete Chronology paid much attention to the intensification of Nazi terror in Germany. It was also mentioned that Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937, the riots provoked by the Nazis in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia on October 17, the Nazi amnesty in Austria on January 15, the merger of fascist groups in Hungary into the National Socialist Party on October 16, the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in September 1937 and other events that became harbingers of the coming world war.

However, of all the countries of the world, Spain occupied the largest place among the events of 1937. More than a dozen events related to the ongoing civil war in this country. It was no accident. A three-year bloody war, in which the armed forces of Germany and Italy participated, ravaged and devastated Spain. According to rough estimates, the death toll in this war amounted to more than half a million people (with the then population of the country about 25 million). This war was a test of the forces of the fascist aggressors in Europe.

In the "Complete Chronology" a lot was said about the war that Japan unleashed in China. Special mention was made of the December 5 entry of Japanese troops into the city of Nanjing, northwest of Shanghai. It was noted that "as a result of the "Nanjing massacre" that followed, about a quarter of a million Chinese were killed (the killings continued until December 13)." This "massacre" was far from the only one perpetrated by the Japanese occupiers. During the eight years of the war, 37 million Chinese were killed. Obviously, among the many world events of 1937 listed in the "Complete Chronology", the largest place was occupied by those that were associated with the movement of mankind to a grandiose global conflict.

The events in our country in 1937 did not occupy a large place in the Complete Chronology. It was reported that on July 17, a navy agreement was signed between the USSR and Great Britain, and on August 3, a trade agreement was concluded between the USA and the USSR. The section "Science, technology, discoveries" said: "The USSR is opening a research station on a drifting ice floe near the North Pole." In the section "Painting, Sculpture, Fine Arts, Architecture" it was said that "Vera Mukhina shows "Worker and Collective Farmer" (a monumental sculpture in the style of socialist realism, which is installed above the Soviet pavilion"). In the "Music" section, Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th symphony, created in 1937, was mentioned.

And yet, out of seven events connected with the life of our country in 1937, three directly or indirectly related to the political struggle in the USSR and trials. It was said that on January 9, 1937, "after a short stay in Turkey and Paris, the former prominent communist figure Trotsky is coming to Mexico." (This information was not accurate, since Trotsky lived in Turkey for quite a long time and traveled to Mexico from Norway "after a short stay" in this country.) It was said that on January 23 "the trial of Karl Radek and 16 other prominent Communists accused of organizing a conspiracy involving Trotsky, Germany and Japan. Radek and three other defendants are sentenced to prison, and the rest to death." The "Complete Chronology" also mentioned that in June "in the USSR, several military leaders were arrested on charges of collaborating with Germany, put on trial and shot. Following this, a purge of the armed forces begins." (The information did not make it clear that the arrests of Tukhachevsky and other military leaders took place mainly in May 1937 and even earlier.)

The list of these three events did not give grounds to the authors of the "Complete Chronology" to believe that 1937 went down in history as a year of unprecedented repressions that occurred in the USSR until now, or became the darkest year in the history of our country.

Of course, one can learn much more about the life of our country in 1937 from Soviet books on the history of the USSR than from the Complete Chronology. Although, contrary to current allegations in the media, in Soviet times, from the mid-50s. many times they wrote about the repressions of 1937-38. in various books on the history of our country, they contained detailed information about the enormous achievements of the country of the Soviets. In a brief list of the events of 1937, placed in the essay "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" from the 13th volume of the "SIE", it was stated:

"1937, April 28 - resolution of the Council of People's Commissars "On the third five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR" (1938 - 1942); June 18 - 20 - the world's first non-stop flight of Heroes of the Soviet Union V. P. Chkalov, G. F Baidukova and A.V. Belyakova Moscow - Portland (USA) across the North Pole; July 15 - opening of the Moscow Canal; December 21 - non-aggression pact between the USSR and China; December 12 - the first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR under the new Constitution, 1937 - 1938 - the work of the 1st Soviet drifting scientific station (I. D. Papanin, P. P. Shirshov, E. K. Fedorov, E. T. Krenkel) on the ice of the Arctic Ocean in the area North Pole".

In Volume 9" world history"(VI), released in 1962, and various volumes of the" Soviet Historical Encyclopedia "(SIE), published from 1961 to 1976, first of all, it was emphasized that 1937 was the year of the successful completion of the second five-year plan. Data were given about the completion of construction and commissioning of many industrial enterprises of the country, the growth of mechanization and the power supply of agriculture.Much has been said about achievements in science, technology, education, and the familiarization of vast masses of the population with the achievements of culture.

During the second five-year plan, the USSR overtook Great Britain and France in terms of the production of iron, steel, and electricity. In the report of the Central Committee to the 18th Party Congress, Stalin presented a table from which it followed that the USSR was ahead of all capitalist countries in terms of growth rates. Commenting on the data in the table, Stalin remarked: “Our industry has grown by more than nine times in comparison with the pre-war level, while the industry of the main capitalist countries continues to trample around the pre-war level, exceeding it by only 20-30 percent. This means that according to In terms of growth rates, our socialist industry ranks first in the world.

In the 9th volume of "VI" it was noted that during the years of the second five-year plan "4,500 new large industrial enterprises were built ... Machine building developed especially rapidly. During the years of the second five-year plan, its output increased almost 3 times instead of 2.1 times, planned by the plan The output of ferrous metallurgy tripled, with electric steel smelting growing 8.4 times, the USSR surpassed all capitalist countries in the production of electric steel, copper smelting more than doubled, aluminum smelting 41 times, an industry was created for the production of nickel, tin, magnesium. The production of the chemical industry has tripled, and new major industries have emerged - for the production of synthetic rubber, nitrogen, potash fertilizers and apatites.

In the essay "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", published in the 13th volume of "SIE", it was said: "The production of the entire industry of the USSR by the end of 1937 increased 2.2 times compared to 1932, 4.5 times compared to 1928 (The United States for such a growth of industry took almost 40 years - approximately from 1890 to 1929), 5.9 times compared with 1913. The production of large-scale industry increased 8.1 times compared with 1913 and 2.4 times compared with since 1932. 80% of all industrial output was received from enterprises new or radically reconstructed during the 1st and 2nd five-year plans ... Industry in 1937 produced about 200 thousand cars (in 1932 about 24 thousand), more than 176 thousand tractors ( in terms of 15-strong people) ... Due only to the overfulfillment of the plan in the field of increasing labor productivity in 1937, almost as much was produced as the entire factory industry of Russia in 1913. The USSR turned into a powerful industrial country, economically independent of the capital world and providing the national economy and the Armed Forces with new equipment and weapons. In terms of industrial growth rates (average annual for the 2nd five-year plan - 17.1%), the USSR overtook the main capitalist states, and in terms of volume it came out on top in terms of industrial output, it came out on 1st place in Europe and 2nd place in the world after USA. The share of the USSR in world production was 10%.

Summing up the industrial development of the country during the years of the second five-year plan, the authors of the 9th volume of "VI" stated that "the decisive victory won by the Soviet people in the field of industry made it possible to finally eliminate the country's former dependence in technical and economic terms on the advanced capitalist countries. USSR now fully provided the necessary equipment for its industry, agriculture and defense needs. The import of tractors, agricultural machines, steam locomotives, wagons, coal cutters and almost completely - steam boilers, lifting transport equipment has ceased.

The completion of the second five-year plan made it possible to significantly strengthen the defense capability of the Soviet country. For 10 years before 1937, the Commissar of the CCCH, K. E. Voroshilov, informed the delegates of the XV Party Congress that in terms of the number of tanks of the USSR (less than 200 together with armored cars) lagged behind not only the advanced countries of the West, but also Poland. The Red Army had less than a thousand aircraft of obsolete designs and only 7 thousand guns of various calibers, which in 1927 was completely insufficient to defend one-sixth of the earth's surface from the attack of foreign armies, in which stocks of military equipment were rapidly increasing.

The number of Soviet Armed Forces by 1937 was increased to 1,433 thousand people. During the years of the second five-year plan, the army was armed with 51,000 machine guns and 17,000 artillery pieces, and by 1939 the number of machine guns had increased to 77,000 and artillery pieces to 45,790. The number of tanks and aircraft grew at an equally rapid pace. Foreign-made tanks were withdrawn from service. Instead, the army received domestic tanks, the armor of which was becoming stronger. If in 1929 82% of the aircraft in the Armed Forces were reconnaissance aircraft, then by the end of the second five-year plan there were 52 thousand bombers and attack aircraft, 38.6 thousand fighters and 9.5 thousand reconnaissance aircraft.

During the years of the second five-year plan, dozens of new cities appeared and old ones were rebuilt. Describing Moscow in 1937 in his book, Lion Feuchtwanger wrote: “Everywhere they are constantly digging, digging, knocking, building, streets disappear and appear; what today seemed big, tomorrow seems small, because suddenly a tower appears nearby - everything flows, everything changes ".

Talking about the results of the development of agriculture during the years of the second five-year plan, the authors of the essay in SIE wrote: “In the second five-year plan, the collectivization of agriculture was completed. equipment and in the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms. 456 thousand tractors, 129 thousand combines, 146 thousand trucks worked in agriculture. The sown area increased from 105 million hectares in 1913 to 135.3 million hectares in 1937. "

Volume "VI" stated: "Together with the tractor, new equipment came to the fields: a tractor plow, a tractor seeder, tractor harvesters ... It was a genuine technical revolution in agriculture."

In the essay "SIE" it was written: "The well-being of the working people has improved. The number of workers and employees in 1937 reached 26.7 million people; grew 3 times.

In 1937, they summed up the results of the cultural revolution that began in the USSR after 1917. The SIE essays noted that "by 1937, during the 20 years of Soviet power, illiteracy was completely eliminated (in 1930-32 alone, 30 million people studied in educational programs). In 1930, universal compulsory primary education was introduced in rural areas and seven years in cities and towns. settlements in the languages ​​of 70 nationalities.32,000 schools were built between 1929 and 1937. The number of students in primary and secondary schools in 1938 was over 30 million (in 1914, 9.6 million; in 1928, 11.6 million). and vocational education".

The successes of the USSR were admired all over the world. Even in Latvia, where the Communist Party was banned, the communists were in prison, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, articles were published in bourgeois newspapers that highly appreciated the achievements of Soviet power.

A demonstration of the successes of the USSR in 1937 was the pavilion of the Soviet country at the World Exhibition in Paris. The figures of the Worker and Collective Farm Woman, created by V.I. Mukhina, symbolized the power and dynamism of the young Land of Soviets. It so happened that the German pavilion was located opposite the Soviet pavilion. The architect of the German pavilion, the future Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, managed to find out the sketch of the Soviet pavilion that was kept in secret. Speer recalled: "A sculptural couple ten meters high victoriously moved towards the German pavilion. Therefore, I created a sketch of a cubic mass, which was raised on powerful supports. It seemed that this mass stops the advance of the figures. At the same time, on the cornice of the tower, I placed an eagle that held a swastika in its claws. The eagle looked down on Russian sculpture. I received the gold medal of the exhibition for the pavilion." But Speer admitted that "the Soviet colleagues received the same award."

The silent confrontation between the two powers in 1937 at the World Exhibition seemed to foreshadow future events. The successes of the USSR in 1937, as well as in previous and subsequent years, ensured the victory of the Worker and Collective Farm Woman over the Nazi swastika.

Yuri Emelyanov, historian, writer, laureate of the Sholokhov Prize