Chapter 8 "Case of Zhukov", "Case of Leningrad Magazines" Following the "case of aviators" was the "case of Zhukov". On May 20, 1945, the chief of the rear of the Red Army, General of the Army A. B. Khrulev, sent a memo to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR V. M. Molotov: “In

THE HISTORY OF ONE POLITICAL FORGERY: TUKHACHEVSKY'S "CASE" The "case of the military", as the world press called the trial of the commanders of the Red Army, which took place in Moscow in the summer of 1937, had far-reaching and tragic consequences. Unleashed by Stalin and his

2. The Blank Letter Case and the Guo Huang Case Greed and corruption were characteristic features of bureaucratic rule in a feudal society. By all means to raise money, buy up land, have more domestic slaves, receive the highest possible ranks and as much as possible

Chapter 4 "Cases" against the members of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and related issues The case of R.I. Kosior, V. Ya. Chubar, P. P. Postyshev, A. V. Kosarev "Shooting lists" Resolutions

Chapter 6 "Violation of Lenin's principles of national policy" Mass deportations "Leningrad affair" "Mingrelian affair" Relations with Yugoslavia "The case of pest doctors" 39. Mass eviction of peoples

• R.P. Eideman - Chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviakhim;
• VK Putna - military attaché at the USSR plenipotentiary mission in Great Britain;
• B.M.Feldman - Head of the Department for the command and command personnel of the Red Army and
• VM Primakov - Deputy Commander of the Leningrad Military District;

Prosecution version

The wording of the charge

According to the indictment of June 9, 1937, all the accused were members of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist military organization associated with L. Trotsky, his son L. Sedov, convicted in January 1937 by G. Pyatakov and L. Serebryakov, already arrested by that time N. Bukharin and A. Rykov, as well as the German General Staff.

The purpose of the organization was declared to be the violent seizure of power in the USSR in an atmosphere of military defeat from Germany and Poland.

The list of charges included:

• the transfer of secret military information to representatives of the German General Staff in 1932-1935;
• the development in 1935 of a detailed operational plan for the defeat of the Red Army in the main directions of the offensive of the German and Polish armies;
• preparation of terrorist acts against members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government;
• preparation of a plan for the armed "capture of the Kremlin" and the arrest of the leaders of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Soviet government.

Some researchers (for example, Elena Prudnikova and Alexander Kolpakidi) point to the inconsistency of the accusation and believe that the real reason for the process was a conspiracy to seize power, and the highlighting of an external factor in the form of espionage in favor of Germany was intended to discredit the accused in the eyes of their combatants. comrades from the Red Army. In particular, Tukhachevsky himself did not admit the espionage charges.

A week before the trial, on June 2, 1937, an enlarged meeting of the Military Council at the NKO of the USSR was convened. The scope of the event is evidenced by the fact that in addition to the members of the Military Council, 116 guests attended the meeting. Stalin made an explanation of the government's position on the "Tukhachevsky case" before the army community. He began his speech with the words:

Stalin: Comrades, now, I hope, no one doubts that there was a military-political conspiracy against Soviet power. The fact is, such a lot of testimony from the criminals themselves and supervision by comrades who work in the field, such a mass of them that there is undoubtedly a military-political conspiracy against Soviet power, stimulated and financed by the German fascists.

In his speech, Stalin also emphasized the similarity of the accusations against the Tukhachevsky group with the military mutiny that happened in Spain a year earlier, with which Soviet military advisers were familiar in practice.

Preliminary investigation and trial

The first persons involved in the case - V. Putna and V. Primakov - were arrested in connection with another case. In the trial in the case of the Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center (-23 August 1936), they were named as members of the army's "Trotskyist military organization." Nevertheless, until May 1937, the arrested Putna and Primakov did not give any new names. Also, K.B. Radek (who had previously agreed to make revelations and testimony against anyone) at a court hearing on January 24, 1937, denied Tukhachevsky's connection with the opposition.

Proceeding from this, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K.E. Voroshilov, at a meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on February 23, 1937, assured those present that:

... In the army, so far not so many enemies have been discovered. I say - fortunately, hoping that there are not many enemies in the Red Army at all. This is how it should be, for the Party sends its best cadres to the army; the country singles out the healthiest and strongest people.

True, subsequent events dispelled the Marshal's optimism. At the end of January, A. Kh. Artuzov received a note about the reports of the "Surprise" in 1932. On March 11, 1937, the commander of the Ural Military District Corps Commander I. I. Garkavy was arrested, who immediately began to confess. On April 12, in a Japanese diplomatic mail opened by the Chekists, the Japanese military attaché in Poland reports on the establishment of a connection with Tukhachevsky.

Those publicists who on this issue take the side of Stalin (for example, E.A. conspiracy against Hitler in 1944). From the point of view of these researchers, the guarantee of the observance of the rights of the defendants should have been that the judicial composition consisted of comrades and colleagues of the accused - the chief of the General Staff, the Air Force commander, five commanders of military districts - that is, people who theoretically have sufficient military force to have independent point of view.

Finally, some military leaders (K. K. Rokossovsky, A. V. Gorbatov), ​​despite the cruel torture and blackmail of the investigators, were able to withstand the torture, did not give confessions and survived.

Consequences of the case

The "Tukhachevsky case" forced the government to give broad powers to the NKVD to expose conspiracies across the country.

A significant part of the whole world then believed that the famous trials of traitors and purges of 1935-1938 were outrageous examples of barbarism, ingratitude and a manifestation of hysteria. However, it has now become obvious that they testified to the amazing foresight of Stalin and his associates.

Protection version

Background

The accused belonged to a group of the highest Soviet military leaders who negatively assessed the activities of K. Ye. Voroshilov as People's Commissar of Defense. They believed that in the conditions of the USSR preparing for a big war, Voroshilov's incompetence negatively affects the process of technical and structural modernization of the Red Army.

A similar case was developed by the OGPU back in 1930: it was argued that a group of large military leaders led by Tukhachevsky was preparing the seizure of power and the assassination of Stalin (testimony was obtained from the arrested teachers of the Military Academy Kakurin and Troitsky). But Stalin did not give it a go. In mid-October of the same year, a confrontation between Tukhachevsky and Kakurin and Troitsky was held; Tukhachevsky was found not guilty.

German version

Investigation and trial

V. Primakov and V. Putna were arrested in August 1936, the rest of the accused in May 1937. Ya. B. Gamarnik shot himself on the eve of his arrest.

The investigation lasted less than a month. Interrogation protocols were sent to Stalin personally for editing.

On June 11, the case was considered in the manner prescribed by the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 1, 1934, that is, in a closed court session without the presence of defenders and without the right to appeal the verdict. The court record does not contain any facts confirming the accusations of espionage, conspiracy and preparation of terrorist acts.

All the accused were sentenced to death with confiscation of property and deprivation of military ranks. The verdict was carried out immediately after the end of the trial on the night of June 12, 1937 in the building of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The commandant of the NKVD V.M.Blokhin supervised the execution.

Testimonies of contemporaries

At the Kiev district party conference, we, the delegates, noticed that I.E. Yakir, always cheerful and cheerful, looked concentrated and gloomy at the presidium table. ... a few days later we learned that Yakir was arrested as a member of the "conspiratorial group of Tukhachevsky." It was a terrible blow for me. I knew Yakir personally and respected him. True, in the depths of my soul there was still a glimmer of hope that this was a mistake, that they would sort it out and release. But only very close people talked about this among themselves.
(Army General, Hero of the Soviet Union A. V. Gorbatov "It was like that")

Consequences of the case

The Tukhachevsky case was the beginning of large-scale repressions in the Red Army. In the course of these repressions, all the members of the "special presence" were also killed, except for Ulrich, Budyonny and Shaposhnikov.

The case drew widespread international reactions. So, the German magazine "Verfront" in 1937 wrote:

After the trial ... Stalin ordered the execution of eight of the best [RKKA] commanders. Thus ended a short period of reorganization of the command of the Red Army.<…>... Military qualifications were sacrificed to the politics and security of the Bolshevik system.

Rehabilitation

Links and notes

1. A documentary film "Stalin against the Red Army" (21:00).
2. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Double conspiracy. Secrets of Stalinist repression. - M .: CJSC OLMA Media Group, 2006. - S. 486-492. - 640 p. - (Riddles of history). - ISBN 5-373-00352-2
3. In the same place. S. 498-499.
4. I. V. Stalin's speech at an expanded meeting of the Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense on June 2, 1937 (uncorrected transcript)
5. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Decree. op. - S. 398-404, 407.
6. In the same place. P. 405.
7. (19 - 24 Aug.) The first open trial in Moscow - the so-called. The "trial of 16" (among them were prominent Bolsheviks and Lenin's associates: GE Zinoviev and LB Kamenev). Accused of creating a "terrorist Trotskyist-Zinoviev center", all 16 defendants admit that they maintained contact with Trotsky, were accomplices in the murder of S.M. Kirov, and prepared a conspiracy against Stalin and other leaders. They testify against N. Bukharin, A. Rykov and M. Tomsky. All were sentenced to death and shot on 25 August. After Stalin's death, all the accused were posthumously rehabilitated due to the lack of corpus delicti.
8. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Decree. op. - S. 451-452.
9. From 1931 to 1935 - chief of foreign intelligence of the OGPU. Shot in 1937 as a German spy
10. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Decree. op. - S. 405.
11. In the same place. P. 408.
12. Zhukov Yu. N. Another Stalin. M., Vagrius, 2008.S. 398-399.
13. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Decree. op. - S. 523.
14. In the same place. P. 468.
15. The accused Bolshevik veterans and associates of V. I. Lenin A. I. Rykov, N. I. Bukharin, N. N. Krestinsky and H. G. Rakovsky were executed. Posthumously rehabilitated after Stalin's death.
16. During the investigation, KK Rokossovsky was knocked out 9 teeth, broke 3 ribs, and beat off his toes with a hammer. But the arrested Rokossovsky did not sign the necessary testimony (Kirill Konstantinov. Rokossovsky. Victory NOT at any cost - M.: Yauza, Eksmo. ISBN 5-699-17652-7 p.42)
    General of the Army, Hero of the Soviet Union, A. V. Gorbatov recalled: “There were five interrogations with partiality, with an interval of two or three days; sometimes I went back to the cell on a stretcher. Then they gave me twenty days to catch my breath…. I withstood this torment in the second round of interrogations. For twenty days they did not call me again. I was pleased with my behavior. […] But when the third series of interrogations began, how I wanted to die as soon as possible! " (A. V. Gorbatov "Years and Wars")
17. I knew that there were many people who refused to sign the false statements, as I refused. But few of them were able to survive the beatings and torture - almost all of them died in prison or prison infirmary. Good health saved me from this fate, having passed the whole test. Obviously, the harsh conditions of my childhood and adolescence, and then long combat experience, hardened my nerves: they withstood the brutal efforts to break them. People who were mentally (but not morally) broken by torture, for the most part, were worthy people, deserving respect, but their nervous organization was fragile, their body and will were not tempered by life, and they surrendered. You can't blame them for this ... (A. V. Gorbatov "Years and Wars")
18. Prudnikova E. Beria. The last knight of Stalin. - SPb .: Publishing house "Neva", 2005. - S. 107-109.
19. Prudnikova E., Kolpakidi A. Decree. op. - S. 510-511.
20. Adolf Hitler's last interview.
21. Joseph Davis defended J.V. Stalin and his policies everywhere. He painted “Uncle Joe” to the Americans as a strict, fair leader who cares exclusively for the welfare of the state and people. Davis, in particular, attended three show trials and always found excuses for the disproportionate and unreasonable brutality of the sentences. In May 1945, Joseph Davis, the only Western diplomat in the history of the USSR, was awarded the Order of Lenin with the wording: "For successful activities contributing to the strengthening of friendly Soviet-American relations and promoting the growth of mutual understanding and trust between the peoples of both countries."
22. Marshal Zhukov told the writer Simonov: “It must be said that Voroshilov, the then People's Commissar, was an incompetent person in this role. He remained an amateur to the end in military matters and never knew them deeply and seriously ... And practically a significant part of the work in the People's Commissariat lay at that time on Tukhachevsky, who was indeed a military specialist. They had clashes with Voroshilov and generally had hostile relations. Voroshilov did not like Tukhachevsky very much ... During the development of the charter I remember such an episode ... Tukhachevsky, as the chairman of the commission on the charter, reported to Voroshilov as the people's commissar. I was present at this. And Voroshilov on some of the points ... began to express dissatisfaction and suggest something that did not go to the point. Tukhachevsky, having listened to him, said in his usual calm voice: - Comrade People's Commissar, the commission cannot accept your amendments.
    - Why? - asked Voroshilov.
    - Because your amendments are incompetent, Comrade People's Commissar. " (Simonov K.M. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. - M .: Publishing house APN, 1989, p. 383)
23. O. V. Khlevnyuk Politburo. Mechanisms of political power in the 30s. Chapter 1. Politburo in 1930. Completion of Stalinization
24. Schellenberg, W. Memoirs. - Minsk: Rhodiola plus, 1998 .-- ISBN 985-448-006-2.
25. Donald Rayfield "Stalin and his hangmen: the tyrant and those who killed for him" 2005 Random House, p. 324
26. S. T. Minakov. "Behind the lapel of a marshal's overcoat" Oryol, 1999 249-358 ISBN 5-87025-034-X
27. Boris Sokolov "The Exterminated Marshals", Smolensk, Rusich, 2000, p. 82-202
28. Lev KOLODNY Where they shot in the back of the head, there should be a Museum of Death
29. "The new face of the Red Army", "Verfront", 1937. TsGSA f.33987 op. 3, d. 1080, l. 7
30. Help from the Commission of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the verification of the charges brought in 1937 by the judicial and party authorities, com. Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich and other military leaders, in treason, terror and military conspiracy "Published: Military archives of Russia. 1993. Issue. 1.S. 4-113; Military-historical archive. 1998. Issue. 2.P. 3-81

see also

Literature

• Viktorov B.A. Not classified "Secret": Notes of the military attorney. - M.:

This year marks eighty years since the day when the prominent Soviet military leader Mikhail Tukhachevsky was sentenced to death and shot. During the first twenty years of Soviet power, he was considered one of the key Red military commanders, a member of the highest layer of the Soviet military hierarchy. Much has been written about Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but there is still debate about whether he was really preparing a conspiracy to overthrow Joseph Stalin, or was he illegally repressed? And if he was preparing a conspiracy, then was this conspiracy so dangerous for the country, because it could benefit from the coming to power of the military? Or she might not have won. There are more questions than answers.

For the red marshal, Mikhail Tukhachevsky did not have a very suitable biography. Not only does he come from a noble family, but also a career officer in the tsarist army. He received his education in the cadet corps, then in the Alexander military school, where he demonstrated great academic success. No sooner had the young second lieutenant Tukhachevsky received an appointment as a junior officer in the Semyonovsky Life Guards regiment, as the First World War began. Lieutenant Tukhachevsky managed to receive five orders, but in February 1915 he was captured, where he spent two and a half years. In September 1917 he managed to escape, and in October he showed up in Russia. The empire had already fallen, and Tukhachevsky had to decide with whom to be in the unfolding political confrontation. Yesterday's tsarist officer chose the Reds. So began his career as a red commander, which was fast, dizzying and within literally a year or two brought Mikhail Tukhachevsky to the top of the Soviet military Olympus. At the same time, Tukhachevsky was still a very young man. He became commander in 1918 at the age of 25.

As you know, Mikhail Tukhachevsky had his own opinion about the development of the Red Army, which was very different from the opinion of most other representatives of the Soviet military elite of that time. Back in the 1920s. the first information about the oppositional moods of the Soviet military leader began to appear, which was reported to the leadership of the party and state. However, the authority of Tukhachevsky in the troops was very high and the party leaders until a certain time did not dare to contact the hero of the Civil War. Nevertheless, since 1929, the Soviet leadership has been regularly receiving reports from various agents about the development of oppositional sentiments among a part of the command staff of the Red Army, headed by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. In the spirit of that time, they were viewed as "Trotskyist". It is known that the main opponent of Tukhachevsky in the army was Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. He enjoyed Stalin's confidence, but it is unlikely that Voroshilov's intrigues could have influenced Stalin so strongly that he would have decided to repress one of the most famous Soviet military leaders at that time. Nevertheless, on May 10, 1937, Mikhail Tukhachevsky was relieved of his post as First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR and transferred to a significantly lower position - he was appointed commander of the Volga Military District. However, Tukhachevsky failed to command them. Just twelve days after the new appointment, on May 22, 1937, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky was arrested in Kuibyshev and two days later taken to Moscow.

The circumstances of the Tukhachevsky case are well known, but few people paid attention to the figures of the investigators who were involved in the development of the marshal and the conduct of his case. It would seem that the effectiveness of their work is impressive - the most serious case against one of the most important Soviet military leaders lasted less than a month. On May 22, Tukhachevsky was arrested, and on June 12, 1937, he was shot. It took twenty days to prove his guilt, judge him, find him guilty and execute him. What kind of geniuses are these investigators capable of solving the most complicated case in the shortest possible time?

If you look at the figures of the investigators in the Tukhachevsky case more closely, you can doubt the veracity of the acts incriminated to the marshal. Moreover, most of the investigators followed Tukhachevsky himself a year later. The general leadership of the investigative actions against the red marshal was carried out by Israel Leplevsky. The son of the worker Moisey Leplevsky from Brest-Litovsk, Israel Moiseevich was born in 1896 - he was practically the same age as Tukhachevsky, three years younger. Only when Tukhachevsky studied at the cadet corps and a military school, Leplevsky was already engaged in political activities. At the age of fourteen he joined the Jewish party Bund, and in 1917 he went over to the Bolsheviks.

Since 1918, Israel Leplevsky served in the Soviet security forces, quickly advancing to leadership positions. By the mid-1930s, Israel Leplevsky already held very important positions in the NKVD system of the USSR. December 1934 to November 1936 he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Belarus. In 1935, he received the rank of State Security Commissioner of the 2nd rank, similar to the army rank of the 2nd rank commander (approximately corresponding to the later rank of lieutenant general). It is possible that the "stellar" career of his older brother Hirsch Leplevsky also contributed to the advancement of Israel. He followed the same political path - from Bundists to Bolsheviks, then served in the NKVD, and in the second half of the 1930s. served as Deputy Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union. However, it is not excluded that it was also Israel that could have been promoted by Hirsch - who can understand the intricacies of the career vicissitudes of the old Bolsheviks.

Israel Leplevsky, as an old and skillful Chekist, quickly enough "felled" the Tukhachevsky case. Moreover, Leplevsky was not the first to lead similar investigations. Back in 1930-1931. Leplevsky, at the suggestion of Yagoda, directed the investigation of the famous "Vesna" case. As a result of the investigation of this case, over 3,000 people were arrested, most of whom were the servicemen of the Red Army, who had previously served as officers in the tsarist army. The Soviet government did not fully trust them, and the enterprising Chekists used the possibilities of repression against the former tsarist officers to strengthen their own positions. By the way, then, in 1930-1931. the repressions had not yet reached such a scale as in 1937-1938, therefore, a significant part of those arrested were later released. Among those released was, for example, Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, a major general of the tsarist army, brother of Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich himself, the closest assistant and secretary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He was lucky - they did not touch him anymore, he was given the opportunity to work calmly, and already in 1944 he was even awarded the rank of lieutenant general.

Nevertheless, although not all of those arrested in the Vesna case were convicted, Israel Leplevsky could be considered after this case a serious specialist in organizing repressions against former and active servicemen. Later Leplevsky participated in the direct organization of the trials over Zinoviev, Kamenev, and later over Martemyan Ryutin. That is, Izrail Moiseevich already had experience in conducting investigative actions against iconic persons of the Communist Party - the old and authoritative revolutionaries of the Leninist Guard. Such a specialist was quite capable of "splitting" Tukhachevsky. Especially considering that the direct interrogation was entrusted to no less experienced security officers.

Zinovy ​​Ushakov-Ushimirsky was directly in charge of the investigative actions in the Tukhachevsky case. He, too, was an exemplary age of the same age as his boss Israel Leplevsky, and the person under investigation Tukhachevsky. Zinovy ​​Ushakov was born in 1895 in the town of Khabnoe, in the Kiev province. His father Mark worked as a carpenter. It would seem that Zinovy ​​Markovich was also waiting for the fate of an ordinary shtetl Jewish craftsman. In 1905-1909. the teenager studied at the cheder, a local Jewish school, and in 1909, at the age of fourteen, he went to work in a manufactory shop. Later, Zinovy ​​followed in his father's footsteps - he became a carpenter, and in 1916, upon reaching the age of 21, he was drafted into the tsarist army. But the conscientious soldier did not leave Zinovy. The young man deserted, was caught and imprisoned in the Radomysl prison. From there Zinovy ​​Ushakov escaped safely after fifty days. However, apparently, Ushakov did not want to serve only in the tsarist army.

In March 1918, he volunteered for the Red Army. Zinovy ​​served there for more than two years, and in December 1920 he entered the service in the Cheka. The operational activities of Zinovy ​​Ushakov took place in the Kiev, Volyn, Zhitomir, Donetsk and Odessa provincial emergency commissions. During his service in the Cheka-OGPU, Zinovy ​​Ushakov got acquainted with Israel Leplevsky. When the latter became the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Byelorussian SSR in 1934, Zinovy ​​Ushakov was appointed deputy head of the special department of the NKVD of the BSSR. Then he was transferred to Moscow - to the post of assistant head of the 5th department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR. Zinovy ​​Markovich received the special rank of captain of state security (until 1940 this rank corresponded to the rank of colonel of the Red Army).

Apparently, Zinovy ​​Markovich Ushakov was not just a tough investigator, but a natural sadist. Zinovy ​​Markovich could not do without physical pressure, which took the character of not only beatings, but also savage tortures. Even many colleagues were amazed at the working methods of this "investigator". Many prominent Soviet military leaders fell victim to the bloody interrogations of State Security Captain Ushakov. Obviously, he was specially assigned to this difficult direction - to interrogate the Red commanders, people brave and decisive, who required "special methods of investigative influence." The list of those under investigation for Zinovy ​​Markovich is impressive - they are Marshal Alexander Yegorov and 2nd rank commander Pavel Dybenko, Politburo member Stanislav Kosior and 2nd rank commander Yakov Alksnis, corps commander Boris Feldman and candidate member of the Politburo Pavel Postyshev. And these are only the most "eminent" ones.

In Zinovy ​​Ushakov's works, the most courageous heroes of the Revolution and the Civil War split like cute ones. One can imagine what this "investigator" did with his suspects. There are recollections that one of Zinovy ​​Markovich's favorite "methods of inquiry" was putting the person under investigation with his bare butt on an overturned stool. Comments are superfluous. As well as questions about why so quickly the famous Soviet military leaders who went through the First World War and the Civil War, who were wounded, signed confessions. For example, the famous corps commander Robert Eideman was subjected to this torture.

It was with the captain of state security Zinovy ​​Markovich Ushakov that Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky was to meet. This circumstance in itself becomes an answer to the question of why a major Soviet military leader, within a few days after his arrest, confessed and said that he had participated in a military-political conspiracy against Stalin.

Together with Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the commander of the Kiev military district, the commander of the 1st rank Iona Yakir, the commander of the Belarusian military district, the commander of the 1st rank Ieronim Uborevich, the head of the Military Academy named after I. Frunze 2nd Rank Army Commander August Kork, Deputy Commander of the Leningrad Military District Corps Commander Vitaly Primakov, Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army and First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Army Commissioner 1st Rank Yan Gamarnik, Head of the Directorate for the Command and Command Personnel of the Red Army Corps Commander Boris Feldmanav Eideman and the USSR military attaché in Great Britain, corps commander Vitovt Putna.

On June 9, 1937, the indictment recognized all the accused as members of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist organization, and also indicated the cooperation of the military leaders with the General Staff of the German Wehrmacht. The only one who managed to avoid arrest and execution was Jan Gamarnik, who shot himself shortly before they were supposed to "come" for him. On June 11, 1937, the Special Judicial Presence of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced all the defendants to death. On the night of June 12, 1937, the sentence was carried out. This is how Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other prominent Soviet military leaders of the first two decades of Soviet power ended their lives.

It is noteworthy that the fate of the investigators in charge of the Tukhachevsky case was quite predictable. Israel Leplevsky at first seemed to have a brilliant career ahead of him. Right after the sentence to Tukhachevsky, he was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, where he launched large-scale repressions. But already in April 1938, less than a year after Tukhachevsky's arrest, Leplevsky, the 2nd rank State Security Commissioner, was dismissed from the NKVD of the USSR. On April 28, 1938, he was arrested, and on July 28, 1938, he was shot at the Kommunarka training ground. Major of State Security Zinovy ​​Markovich Ushakov did not outlive his boss much. He continued to serve as an assistant to the head of the 5th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR until September 1938. The new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria decided to arrest Ushakov. He was imprisoned for a year and a half, and on January 21, 1940, he was sentenced to death and on January 26, 1940, shot.

10 days before the trial of Tukhachevsky and his accomplices, on June 2, 1937, Stalin speaks at an expanded meeting of the Military Council, holding the materials of the investigation. He names 13 people - the leaders of the conspiracy. These are Trotsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Yenukidze, Karakhan, Rudzutak, Yagoda, Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Eideman, Gamarnik. He said: “If you could read the plan of how they wanted to seize the Kremlin ... We started small - with an ideological group, and then moved on. The conversations were like this: here, guys, what's the deal. The GPU is in our hands, Yagoda is in our hands ... The Kremlin is in our hands, since Peterson is with us. The Moscow District, Cork and Gorbachev are also with us. We have everything. Either move forward now, or tomorrow, when we come to power, stay on the beans. And many weak, unstable people thought that this business was real, damn it, it seemed even profitable. You miss that way, during this time the government will be arrested, the Moscow garrison and all that sort of thing will be seized, and you will be stranded. " Stalin is a politician. He speaks carefully, adapting his speech to be understood. But what did he mean?

Back in 1925, the military gathered at the apartment of Kuibyshev's older brother. Frunze was there. There was Tukhachevsky. And Stalin easily dropped in to them. Tukhachevsky, who was then 32 years old, set the tone for the general conversation, emphasizing that cooperation with the Germans is a dangerous business. Stalin, who decided to keep the conversation going, asked: “What's wrong with the Germans coming to visit us? After all, our people also go there. " To which Tukhachevsky coldly replied: “You are a civilian man. It's hard for you to understand. " Senior Kuibyshev hastened to turn the conversation to something else.

It is easy to see that yesterday's cadet of the Aleksandrovsky school behaved in the presence of two outstanding revolutionaries and statesmen, to put it mildly, incorrectly and ill-mannered. It is also clear that this was done on purpose, and it is clear for whose approval. Portraits of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council L.D. Trotsky then still hung in the headquarters and directorates of all levels. Tukhachevsky's career did not suffer. He eventually became the youngest marshal. But this was not enough for him, and he could not hide it. The opinion of Tukhachevsky as an unprincipled careerist was universal both in the country and in the emigration.

Dzerzhinsky was the first to make Tukhachevsky a "conspirator". The famous game with emigration - Operation Trust - assigned Tukhachevsky the role of the chief leader of the military conspiracy. This legend was perceived by everyone as quite plausible. He apparently liked it. The young marshal was frivolous. He gladly played the role of a handsome man and a hero-lover, not paying attention to the fact that among his favorites of the NKVD agents was "a dime a dozen."
He did not graduate from the Academy of the General Staff, which does not fit into the head of any serious person who considers him a major military leader, but he wrote many articles on military strategy in the era of the revolution - he taught everyone else the theory of military art, although he did not even command a company before his dizzying takeoff. He was also fond of music and made violins with his own hands. In short, he was an outstanding personality. At least this person was on everyone's lips. Stalin did not throw such people around, but, of course, he could not blindly trust him. Moreover, since the beginning of the 30s, there have been many testimonies about his unreliability against the young commander. It was very easy for people like Stalin, Voroshilov, Budyonny, Kirov, Molotov, Kaganovich to see that this was “a stranger among his own people”.

But Tukhachevsky had a friend among this team. This is the soul-man Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Tukhachevsky knew how to find the keys to a simple heart. Tukhachevsky even suggested making Ordzhonikidze military commissar instead of Voroshilov. Such is the immediacy of an outstanding personality. One thing is clear: long before the aforementioned speech at an expanded meeting of the Military Council, Stalin repeatedly had to think: who are you, my youngest marshal?

But Stalin was not the only one who looked closely at Tukhachevsky. In 1927, in the political struggle, the Trotskyists were defeated, who believed that Stalin was wrongly leading the party and the country (a lot of bureaucracy and little democracy). To put it simply, they did not like the dictatorial methods of Stalin's leadership, i.e. their own methods applied to themselves.
In 1929, the group of Bukharin and his supporters moved to the camp of the defeated opponents of the general line. They had their own weighty arguments. Stalin allegedly abandoned the Leninist course towards NEP and adopted the "Trotskyist policy of military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry and the unprecedented pace of industrialization." This was followed by collectivization with its horrors, which was difficult for many military men, who came from the peasants, to understand and accept.
The resistance of the peasantry was disorganized, spontaneous, and the actions were scattered. The emigration tried to take over the organization of peasant uprisings and renew the Civil War. The head of the Russian Combined Arms Union (ROVS), General Kutepov, instructed a group of staff officers to develop a plan for organizing armed struggle on the territory of the USSR by the spring of 1930. It was planned to send 50 specially trained officers from abroad to direct military operations. The foreign department of the OGPU organized the kidnapping of Kutepov in January 1930. The agents of the ROVS inside the country were eradicated. At the same time, Operation Spring was carried out, the essence of which was to purge the officers and generals of the tsarist army serving in the Red Army.

And within the party there were speeches of those dissatisfied with Stalin's policies (Ryutin, Syrtsov, Lominadze). Although these people spoke openly and adhered to principles, it is difficult to exclude that there were ambitious motives in their behavior. But the main thing was that the party had already made its decisions at plenums and congresses, and they were committing a certain political crime, imposing a second discussion. And this was prohibited by the decision of the 10th Congress. There were many who did not speak out openly.

It was difficult and almost impossible for the dissatisfied to imagine that Stalin would be able to conduct an independent foreign policy in such a formidable environment that he would be able to create powerful armed forces of his time and, having entered into a battle with the most powerful land army in the world, relying on the resources of almost the entire continental Europe, he would withstand and will win.
It was the most mysterious moment in the life of the nation. Romantics of communism, theorists of Marxism, commanders covered with glory of victories in the Civil War, the entire Bolshevik elite resisted this leader, who was not like them. After all, they understood that in comparison with the battle of the giants of the world war, their war was valiant, but somewhat simplified, and even exaggerated, with shortages of ammunition and food, with unstable and mobile front lines, with disorganized rear areas and missing reserves. They remembered how, when preparing the Polish campaign, the clever staff officer Lebedev had warned them: "Europe will fill us up." Without Lenin, they ceased to be real “Leninists”, lost the main components of their virtues as revolutionaries and became themselves (“realists” and skeptics). Finding themselves outside the field of Lenin's intellect and thinking with their own minds, they no longer believed in the possibility for Russia of becoming a modern military power, and, consequently, in the possibility for it of an independent policy and independent destiny.

And he, who was already at that time on the fronts of the Civil War, was an “unsurpassed master,” as Churchill would later note, “to find a way out of desperate situations,” no, he did not believe, but knew where to lay the only path to the revival of Russia, and led the people who followed him, alien to clever people, who hate him. And the people understood that it was Stalin, as it was supposed to be a communist, that bears his cross in the name of his interests and that he would not stop in that “fatal struggle”, as it should be for a revolutionary. The people understand even now: as soon as another lascivious campaign against Lenin or Stalin begins, it means that another deception and robbery, another round of destruction of Russia is being prepared.

Around that time, in the early 30s, the original author, the National Bolshevik Dmitrievsky, fled abroad and there published the book Stalin - the Forerunner of the National Revolution, in which he writes: “It seems incredible, but this is a fact: a caricature of Stalin abroad was created mainly under the influence of various diplomatic and trade representatives of the Soviet government. Foreigners, people of action who understand the importance of a strong personality in history, often asked them in intimate conversations: tell me, what is Stalin? And they usually got the answer: Stalin? A dirty, rude unprincipled businessman who scattered the entire color of the intelligentsia of our party and relies on the same dark and dirty people as himself ... Sooner or later life comes with its own arguments - to replace the legend it creates a real idea of ​​people and things. Stalin, like the people around him now, must be known as they are, with all their shortcomings, but also with all their strength. For only in this way can the history of our present be explained, and only in this way can we be guided by the complex paths of the future ... The path, which at first seemed in Russia as an abstract international proletarian revolution, turned out in the end to be a Russian revolution: having, however, like any great revolution, world tasks and world influence, but basically national. And people who in the beginning sincerely considered themselves only communists have now become national communists, and many of them are already on the verge of pure Russian nationalism.

The past year has brought many changes in Russia itself, and in particular in its current ruling strata. A year ago, at the top of power, everything was teeming with the worms of Thermidorian degeneration, people of the "swamp". It seemed: they are the gentlemen of the situation, they are leading. They have now found themselves in the overwhelming majority thrown overboard by Stalin himself. More and more people of the people are climbing upward. They carry with them upstairs a nationalism that is still unconscious for some, while for others it is already conscious nationalism. Nationalism is the idea of ​​"socialism in one country" that finally triumphed there. Nationalism is "industrialization". Nationalism is an increasingly common statement: we have our own homeland, and we will defend it. Nationalism is an increasingly frequent comparison of our era with the era of Peter the Great, which is certainly true, with the only difference that the scale of our era is greater, and much wider popular strata are involved in the revolutionary transformation of Russia ” ...

This book was first published in 1931 in Berlin. The author, although he defends Stalin, has his own convictions, which Stalin does not officially share, but, as Dmitrievsky claims, he actually implements, for the simple reason that revolutions are driven by the masses, and the leaders only catch the vector of these aspirations. The analysis of Dmitrievsky, who knew the leaders of the revolution personally, and who was a living witness of that revolution, shows the social alignment of forces in the ongoing struggle. It is easy to see that as the revolution took on a popular character (Dmitrievsky, due to his specific worldview, understands this as nationalism), it is more and more obvious that yesterday's revolutionaries were turning into anti-popular counter-revolutionaries, as was the case with the Girondists, the “swamp,” the Thermidorians of the French revolution. In this maelstrom of events, Stalin and his comrades-in-arms became increasingly lonely at the top of political battles, like Robespierre, to whom Saint-Just suggested that the further development of the people's revolution could be guided only by establishing a personal dictatorship.
Robespierre was prevented from establishing a dictatorship by democratic prejudices. This role went to Napoleon Bonaparte, who loved to repeat: “I came out of the depths of the people. I'm not some Louis XVI for you. " Stalin could say the same thing with great reason. It is easy for our contemporaries to grasp the counter-revolutionary spirit of the forces opposing Stalin, since it invariably revived - first at the April 1953 plenum in the anti-Stalinist speech of Beria, which was prepared by Pospelov, then in Khrushchev's report at the XX Congress, which was prepared by the same Pospelov and which is saturated with arguments and facts taken from the foreign press that have no basis whatsoever and utterly deceitful.

And quite recently, when, on the wave of Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's “reforms”, a full tub of long-exposed fakes, circulating in the West at different times, poured onto our unprepared reader's head, we fully plunged into this atmosphere of counter-revolutionary anger and hatred ... This last time, the counter-revolution was a success, and its goals, the main of which is the dismemberment of our country in the interests of geopolitical forces alien to us, were realized. And then the spirit of the Russian, the first in the history of the socialist revolution, directed against the attempts of the minority to exploit the majority, was still alive.
Being constantly on underground work in Russia and often finding himself in prison, the unpretentious and almost impoverished Stalin had to use the sympathy of ordinary Russian people, invariably kind to the outcast. Angular, with a strong Georgian accent, but shrewd and domineering Stalin, relations with representatives of the party's elite were always difficult, and he got used to the hostility of this environment, paying little attention to it. But in this atmosphere of enmity and ill will, people very close to him perish one after another: Nadezhda Aliluyeva in 1932, Sergei Mironovich Kirov in 1934, Sergo Ordzhonikidze in 1936.
Stalin reproached himself for having caught himself too late (it was necessary to pay attention to the all-pervading stench of counter-revolution "four years ago").

He did not believe in Nikolaev's sole guilt in Kirov's murder. And Stalin understood that he had to take everything into his own hands. Already in February 1935, N.I. Ezhov became secretary of the Central Committee, and then chairman of the CPC and began to closely supervise the NKVD. Although Yagoda could not like it, the attitude towards him personally was extremely correct and benevolent. The first to be attacked by Yezhov was Yenukidze, who was accused - and, most likely, quite rightly - of moral decay. It was said that it was Yenukidze who was the prototype of the character in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, who demanded revelations and received them in his address. The scene ended with a frivolous song: "His Excellency loved domestic birds and took under the protection of pretty girls." But the matter was not only in the moral decay of Yenukidze. Yenukidze was in charge of the Kremlin's security and the service of the very Peterson, about whom Stalin spoke in his speech at an expanded meeting of the Military Council on June 2, 1937.

Zinoviev testified during the investigation that the decision of the Trotskyite-Zinovievist bloc to kill Stalin was taken at the insistence of the Trotskyists Smirnov, Mrachkovsky and Ter-Vaganyan, and they had a direct directive to do so from Trotsky. A member of the Trotskyite-Zinoviev bloc, E.A. Draitser, admitted that he received such a directive from Trotsky in 1934.
Preparations for the palace coup also took place in Yagoda's department. At the beginning of 1936, a company of militants was formed by his deputy Agranov, the head of the government guard Pauker, his deputy Volovich and captain Ginzel, ostensibly to seize the Kremlin and arrest Stalin.
There were rumors of a coup d'état scheduled for May 1, 1936.
In March 1935, Yenukidze was relieved of his duties as secretary of the USSR Central Executive Committee, and in June he was removed from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and expelled from the party.

In the summer of 1936, Divisional Commander Schmidt, deputy. Commander of the Leningrad Military District Corps Commander Primakov (Primakov’s wife Lilya Brik was an NKVD agent and, unlike other wives, was never persecuted), Commander Putna’s military attaché in Great Britain. They were all Trotskyists.
In August 1936, the trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotskyists Smirnov, Mrachkovsky, Ter-Vaganyan ended with death sentences. Vyshinsky immediately reported on the investigation into Tomsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Uglanov, Radek, Pyatakov, Sokolnikov and Serebryakov.
On September 26, 1936, Yezhov replaced Yagoda as head of the NKVD.
On February 18, 1937 S. Ordzhonikidze committed suicide. Whether he was involved in the conspiracy has not been clarified. In any case, a search was carried out in his apartment a few days before Ordzhonikidze's suicide. Two other prominent members of Stalin's team, Bubnov and Rudzutak, were also among the repressed. The investigation had materials on Meretskov (Uborevich's chief of staff) and, moreover, on Budyonny and Timoshenko, but these three were not touched. It seems that they simply themselves informed Stalin about the conspiracy. And Dybenko, whom Kollontai urged to do the same as Budyonny and Tymoshenko, did not use this opportunity. Kollontai even organized a meeting at Stalin's apartment, where the three of them recalled the past, sang Ukrainian songs, but Dybenko kept silent. Saying goodbye, Stalin chuckled: “Tell me, Dybenko, why did you break up with Kollontai? You did a very stupid thing, Dybenko. " Dybenko, apparently, understood him literally and did not think about why he was invited to visit (not to sing songs).

Clever Kollontai did not save a loved one, although, of course, she understood what kind of "stupidity" Dybenko did. She also did not save another Alexander (Sanka) Shlyapnikov. Didn't even try. And David Kandelaki, a charming, friendly trade representative in Sweden and then in Germany, she most likely ruined herself ... Stalin saved our Motherland and sometimes sacrificed people, even if these people had to be pulled out of his heart with blood. The fate of the country was at stake ... It was the famous Stalinist terror, but there were no extrajudicial shootings. Hundreds of thousands of people were shot by the verdicts of triplets. Their main fault was that their political activity could hinder the moral and political unity of the country before the mortal battle. Who among us will undertake to save the Motherland by such means? Which of us would then be able to save her by any conceivable means and defeat her? That was a different time, the time of the giants.
Wars such as World War I and II are immense crimes in themselves, and the historical blame lies with those who prepare and unleash them. In the latter case, the blame lies with the criminal policies of Chamberlain and Hitler. And all attempts to blame the leadership of our country are a cynical lie.

Another type of historical crime is the exploitation of the majority for the sake of fabulous enrichment and corruption of the minority, which inevitably leads to social catastrophes and revolutions. Without taking into account these main points, the story turns into a tangled tangle in which the one in whose hands the media is right, who has a stronger throat. Yezhov's purges in the NKVD were completed in March 1937. On April 3, Yagoda was arrested. Agranov, Pauker, Volovich, Gintsel and others were arrested. Some of Yagoda's employees committed suicide. In May, arrests began among the highest command personnel. They were arrested: the commander of the Volga VO, Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky, the head of the personnel department of the Red Army B.M. Feldman, the chairman of the council of the Osoaviakhim R.P. Eideman, the head of the military academy. Frunze A.I. Kork, commander of the Belarusian Military District I.P. Uborevich, commander of the Leningrad Military District I.E. Yakir. The head of the political department of the Red Army Y.B. Gamarnik committed suicide. Immediately after the arrest of Tukhachevsky, Walter Krivitsky (the head of military intelligence in Europe, closely associated with Trotsky and Tukhachevsky) left the USSR. He soon fled to the West.
The arrests of the top of the military command took place from May 19 to May 31, 1937. On June 11, the verdict was pronounced. The suspects gave confessions from the first interrogations. There is a lot of evidence of the use of physical pressure on those under investigation of that terrible time. But this is unlikely to refer to the lightning-fast investigation that Tukhachevsky and his comrades went through. Most likely, they testified in shock, under the influence of intense fear. So Feldman, in a note to investigator Ushakov, even thanks for the cookies, fruits and cigarettes that he received. It doesn't fit well with beatings. The materials of that investigation have now been published, and for all their contradictions, they create an integral picture that looks like this.
All of them admit to participation in the conspiracy, and all recognize Tukhachevsky as the leader of the conspiracy, which began in 1931-1932. Tukhachevsky's closest associates were Gamarnik, Uborevich, Feldman and Kork.

Although Primakov and Putna were Trotskyists, and the investigation was strenuously revealing a connection with Trotsky, the conspiracy seems to be oriented towards the right. Yagoda and the same Yenukidze were associated with the Rights. The arguments of Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky were close to the bulk of the military. The plan to seize the Kremlin had been prepared since 1934 and was outlined for 1936, "when Hitler will complete preparations for war." The main role here was played by: M.N. Tukhachevsky, Yu.E. Yakir, I.P. Uborevich, Ya.B. Gamarnik, N.G. Egorov (commander of the Kremlin cadet school located on the territory of the Kremlin), B.S. Gorbachev (deputy chief of the Moscow garrison), A. Yenukidze, R. A. Peterson (commandant of the Kremlin until 1935), Pauker, Bubnov. There are Tukhachevsky's confessions that he was involved in the organization of the Rights as early as 1928.Yenukidze and since 1934 was personally connected with Bukharin, Yagoda, Karakhan, etc. the right was supported through Gorbachev and Peterson, who were associated with Yenukidze, Yagoda, Bukharin and Rykov. Kork asserted during the investigation: “Back in 1931 I was talking with Tukhachevsky about a coup in the Kremlin, Tukhachevsky told me that what I initially learned from Yenukidze in June 1931, that is, that the right has planned a counter-revolutionary coup in the Kremlin, relying on the school of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, that Peterson, Gorbachev and Yegorov are involved in this case, - Tukhachevsky confirmed to me that we must envisage a coup in the Kremlin as the first step in the final plan of our actions ". Tukhachevsky denied these testimonies, but how? He said that he learned about the preparation of the "palace coup" in 1934, and not from Cork, but from Gorbachev.
Uborevich argued that the so-called conspiratorial gatherings at Tukhachevsky's were just gatherings with their wives over a cup of tea. At the same time, he confirmed that anti-Soviet sentiments among the group of people forming around Tukhachevsky were constantly growing. Uborevich claimed that he had a decisive conversation with Tukhachevsky in 1935. Then Tukhachevsky declared that the Trotskyists and the Rights should be looked at as fellow travelers, but in reality he was thinking about his personal dictatorship.
The so-called conspirators acted in an extremely sloppy and disorganized manner. Their conspiracy is more like scratching with tongues in a circle of ambitious, dissatisfied, but not sophisticated enough for such a thing people. Our “conspirators” were ready to pour out their longing for the “overthrow of Stalin” in front of everyone who was ready to listen to them: in front of the Reichswehr officers, who did not remain in debt, because they themselves thought of a conspiracy against Hitler, in front of their wives and mistresses.

Stalin was well aware of all this chatter of the defeated opposition and the politicizing military. Schellenberg's version that he and Heydrich, with Hitler's approval, transferred (even sold) information about the conspiracy to Stalin through Benes, was denied by competent people in Germany (Spalke) and here (Sudoplatov). It is believed that Schellenberg's memoirs themselves are one of the many forgeries of the Intelligence Service that this British service constantly practices as ideological instruments of its policy. Schellenberg did not have time to write his memoirs. They were written for him after his death.

Our idea of ​​what is happening is then confirmed by the very course of those events.
After debunking the unlucky Yenukidze, replacing Peterson and establishing control over Yagoda by the CPC, discussions of the coup d'etat plan temporarily stopped. The leaders of the conspiracy, confident that the USSR would not be able to resist Germany militarily, decided to wait for the outbreak of the war. Tukhachevsky, according to Uborevich, put forward in 1935 a new version of a coup d'etat in the form of a military mutiny when hostilities began. But after the trial over the "parallel center" in January 1937, Tukhachevsky began to rush the coup d'etat, suspecting, and apparently not without reason, that Stalin knew everything.
According to A. Orlov (the head of military intelligence in Spain, who fled to the west), as Yuri Yemelyanov, the most objective researcher of this history, puts it, events developed as follows.

A certain NKVD worker Stein allegedly finds in the archives documents about Stalin's connection with the tsarist secret police and takes them to Kiev, where he shows the head of the NKVD of Ukraine to Balitsky, who introduces them to Yakir and Kosior. In the course of the matter, the deputy. Balitsky Katznelson, who, being Orlov's cousin, informs him about this case in February 1937. Meanwhile, Yakir informs Tukhachevsky, Gamarnik and other participants in the conspiracy. A plan arises: to convince Voroshilov, under some pretext, to hold a conference on military problems and thus gather all the conspirators in Moscow, declare Stalin a provocateur and arrest him. But they again began to delay and allowed Yezhov to complete the purges in the NKVD in March-April. The last chance remained on May 1, 1937 ...

Could Stalin have done without bloodshed? I think he could. He had the opportunity to prevent the conspirators from committing a crime. He could prosecute the perpetrators both in the criminal order and in the order of party discipline and prevent the development of events to a deadly line.
But Stalin's policy style was precisely that he rarely attacked first, but was preparing for a swift and merciless counteroffensive. He needed this terror to establish his own unquestioning dictatorship before the inevitable military battle.
Can this be reproached with Stalin? In that state of affairs, of course not. In wars such as our Great Patriotic War or the Roman War with Hannibal, dictatorship is the optimal form of organizing total war. One thing only needs to be borne in mind: a long-term dictatorship has a negative impact on society and can have disastrous consequences. The presence of a constructive opposition, a balance of political and social forces is a necessary condition for stable and peaceful development.
Was that opposition constructive? Of course not. "Political scum" in the form of defeated left and right and political dilettantes in the form of a military clique that formed around the lordly Tukhachevsky, who hoped to get rid of his political fellow travelers after the coup and establish a personal dictatorship, were a nasty, if not fatal alternative to the selfless Stalinist leadership. This leadership "was the greatest happiness for Russia." This is how the sophisticated politician Churchill appraised Stalin's leadership of the war. And if the Western press raised its usual noise about "falsification of trials" and "innocence of the accused", then sober politicians in the West did not share this point of view. Roosevelt's foreign policy associate Joseph Davis called them "the fifth column", expressing satisfaction that they had been gotten rid of before the outbreak of war.

So was there really a conspiracy of the military, connected with the Trotskyists and the right? The current official version, depicting the convicted as honest and blameless people, looks absurd in the light of what has now become known, and an absurdity built on the desire to apply the approaches of modern justice, which gave complete free rein to corruption and crime, to criticize the revolutionary justice of that harsh time. All this argumentation boils down to condemnation of the "Stalinist repressions", which are motivated by the "tyrant's bloodthirstiness." This is old and unconvincing. This is how public opinion was prepared and our people were brainwashed for decades in a row.
Now Stalin has many defenders. We can say that a new round of Stalin's personality cult began from below. Many authors portray Stalin as the defender of the Russian people from Jewish domination, the savior of Russian national values. This is a simplification. Stalin's role cannot be reduced to Russian nationalism. In terms of the depth of the performances, the politics of Lenin and Stalin was not the politics of the 19th, as it is sometimes understood by the patriotic intelligentsia, but the politics of the 21st century. The patriotism that this policy instilled in the nation was much broader than nationalism and ruled out chauvinism as a factor that humiliates the nation, but does not elevate it. Chauvinism is inherent in a battered and embittered nation. It does not suit the Russian nation, which is easy to imagine deceived, but impossible to imagine beaten. It was a carefully selected, subtle, but super-effective policy of realizing national pride. It was during this period that the assimilation of all the peoples of Russia with the Russian people took place and the transformation of the Russian language into a language carrying a common culture and forming a single national environment. The nation was turning into a monolith.
And in the dispute about Stalin, the position of the defense was expressed most objectively by the writers V.V. Karpov, Yu.V. Emelyanov, F.I. Chuev. They convincingly prove that the conspiracy took place, but they are not convincing enough in their assessment of the repression. The fact of repressions and excesses that took place during their implementation always confuses the defenders of Lenin, Stalin, and Soviet power. So were there massive repressions or not? Of course there were. Were the trials of the 1930s an act of justice? Of course they weren't. It was a single and merciless revolutionary process in the name of social justice, in the name of establishing Stalin's personal dictatorship as an uncontested political solution for the sake of saving our people and our country from mortally dangerous threats of a foreign and domestic political nature.

There is a rule known for centuries, formulated by Machiavelli: if the elite opposes the people, it must be eliminated and replaced by an elite loyal to the people. And this is nothing more than a political revolution from above. If the elite loyal to the people is eliminated in the interests of the elite opposing the people, then this is a political counter-revolution. Accepting this logic, we can assert that the degradation of the ruling elite of the USSR, its slide into the position of confrontation with the people was a process of smoldering counter-revolution. And the coup d'etat and the crushing of the USSR by Gorbachev and Yeltsin was an act of a typical counter-revolution aimed at enslaving its own people and unprecedented betrayal of national interests.
It is often said that by eliminating the military elite before the war, Stalin significantly weakened the country militarily. The experience of the war does not confirm this. Hitler, after a series of defeats suffered by the Red Army, lamented that he had not carried out a purge in the army similar to Stalin's. It seems that it is he from despair. With the loss of continuity with the Reichswehr, its traditions and spirit, the Wehrmacht, which found itself in the hands of such an improviser and dilettante as Hitler, would hardly have won. In fact, the atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht under the leadership of Hitler led to the death of the renowned military tradition and professional pride of the German army. But the wartime Red Army, the creator of which was Stalin, certainly won under his indisputable leadership.

The untenable attempts to attribute this merit to Zhukov now, when much about Zhukov has become known, look ridiculous, how ridiculous are the assertions that the creation of our nuclear and thermonuclear weapons was the merit of Beria. Both he and the other were, roughly speaking, talented drivers. No matter what Stalin undertook, no matter what he began to do closely, tremendous success was achieved everywhere. The change in the ruling elite as a result of "Stalinist repressions" was the pinnacle of all the successes. “The old cadres,” writes Yu.V. Yemelyanov, “were replaced by leaders who, as a rule, joined the party after 1917, often during the“ Leninist draft ”. In contrast to the old cadres, many received higher education, as a rule, technical, and had experience in managerial work at enterprises and construction sites in the five-year plan. These people were formed as leaders during the period of creative labor, not the Civil War. They had not yet been spoiled by the authorities, they were closer to the people, their aspirations, their culture. " But wanting to be objective, Yemelyanov wonders why the old elite was not retired, but, roughly speaking, was wiped off the face of the earth. Both Molotov and Kaganovich evaded answering this question. The answer, of course, is, but who will turn the tongue to voice it?

We will only dare to quote the words of Marat: "Little has been done for the fatherland, if not everything has been done." Then the country lived according to revolutionary laws. And this is not a steam bath with girls.
The new Stalinist elite was his "magic wand". These were people of rare dedication to their cause and their country. It is amazing how Stalin managed to educate these communists and internationalists in boundless devotion and love for their homeland? They say that they lived in fear, that they were not free. There was no fear that paralyzes and fetters people. There was another fear - the fear of not being up to the task of the country. It was the duty of each and every responsible worker to follow the policy of the party. There was no offense for the state. Everyone was responsible for the state.

So they were betrayed and they were honest. They were disciplined, selfless, and everyone was in their place. Yes, they were not free. But this was the lack of freedom of the soldiers, i.e. lack of freedom of honor. Without a doubt, these people were, by and large, happy. This was the elite of a great generation of a great country. So they felt themselves. But ... this, alas, was the elite, nominated by the dictator. Although its positive influence persisted for decades after Stalin's death, it did not possess the ability to reproduce itself. And it is illogical to place this problem on Stalin, who died half a century ago. It would be a cult of personality inside out. It is much more logical to take and use everything positive not only from foreign experience, but from our own experience of unprecedented success. It doesn't matter what concept the coming generation of our leaders will adopt. If it loves its country with the same selflessness and maintains the same devotion and respect for its people, it will ultimately find the right path.

It makes no sense for us to condemn or defend Stalin. Our task is to understand this stage of our revolution, which is inseparable from the previous Leninist stage. Nostalgia for our revolution, attempts to parody the policies of Lenin or Stalin will lead to nothing but farce. This is already history. But to disown the revolution that has recreated our country is stupidity, which will bring nothing but new misfortunes. At the same time, an analysis of the processes of our revolution in projection to the present time shows: we need power directed against those forces that are opposed to national interests. It can be realized without leading to a revolutionary dictatorship, if things don't go too far.

But then, before the Second World War, death was approaching, knowing no mercy. All the heroes of our story fell sooner or later. The revolution is known to devour its own children. The lives of those of them who honestly and disinterestedly served their people, and those countless righteous people whom they were able to lead (namely, they left us a great country) deserve the respect of descendants. They deserve the pathos of the memorial words, which on October 25, 1917 shocked the chronicler of revolutions John Reed, when at the Congress of Soviets he heard "a sad but victorious song, deeply Russian and endlessly touching": "The time will come, and the people will wake up, great, mighty, free ... Goodbye brothers! You honestly walked your noble path of valor. "

Georgy Elevterov