WHAT IS THE DOCTORS' CASE SCREAMING ABOUT?
At the top of the watchtower, doctors shout day and night.
Nursery rhyme
Who hasn't heard of the infamous "Doctors' Plot"? It was absurd, unprofessionally cobbled together by half-literate MGB agents, and upon closer inspection, completely pointless. And very, very strange. According to the generally accepted version, it began with a letter from cardiologist Lidiya Timashuk.
There was a squabble at first
The Soviet elite weren't exactly known for their health, as they spent their lives without considering the consequences. But Zhdanov, the second-highest-ranking official in the party after Stalin, was one of the sickest. In the summer of 1948, he felt extremely ill and went on vacation to Valdai. Then, according to the generally accepted version, he suffered a heart attack. Doctors arrived from Moscow, from the Kremlin's Medical and Sanitary Directorate: Professors Yegorov and Vasilenko, and Academician Vinogradov. Along with them was cardiologist Lidiya Timashuk, along with ECG equipment. What followed was a typically medical event: the doctors disagreed on the diagnosis. Timashuk believed the patient had suffered a heart attack, but Professor Yegorov and Zhdanov's attending physician, Mayorov, disagreed, declaring it to be some kind of "functional disorder due to multiple sclerosis and hypertension" and suggesting she rewrite the diagnosis. We won't discuss the reasons for this decision for now. Dr. Timashuk was sent back to Moscow, and the patient was allowed to get out of bed.
The next day, Zhdanov's attack returned. Timashuk was summoned from Moscow again, scheduled for an electrocardiogram on August 30th, and again asked to rewrite the report. Realizing the matter was serious, the request was so insistent that, unable to withstand such luminaries, she complied. They didn't have time to perform a repeat electrocardiogram, because Zhdanov died on the 30th.
And no one knew that on August 29, while the patient was still alive, Timashuk wrote a letter to General Vlasik, head of the MGB's Main Security Directorate, to whom the Medical Sanitary Directorate reported, outlining this story. It's hard to say what motivated her: whether the medical luminaries had been rude to her, or whether she was trying so hard to save the patient's life, but it's a fact.
In fact, it was a trivial medical squabble. I won't repeat the arguments of a pathologist I knew, with whom I discussed this story, but in reality, all this is commonplace. Zhdanov's heart was in such a state that he could have died at any moment. And the autopsy showed that he actually died of a heart attack. The Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade Kuznetsov, the head of the Personnel Department, was present at the autopsy because he was supposed to be there; that was the procedure. But, somewhat stranger, Gosplan Chairman Voznesensky and First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee Popkov were also there. All three were future victims of the "Leningrad Affair," believed to have been completely falsified. But we, purely theoretically, will accept a different point of view: that this case was not falsified, and that these comrades, as stated in the indictment, if we translate its language into modern terms, were in fact plotting a coup d'état. Until now, the "Leningrad Affair" has remained unexplained by anything other than Stalin's paranoia or Stalin's personnel policy. But Stalin was not paranoid, and, possessing full power in the state, he resolved personnel issues in a simpler manner.
Let's assume that the "Leningrad brothers" were indeed plotting a coup d'état. Let's also assume that Zhdanov was involved. Because during the "Leningrad Affair," both investigators and judges received the strictest warning: keep Zhdanov's name out of the question. Well, Stalin had a principle: don't touch iconic figures. (That's why, by the way, Marshal Zhukov survived in 1948.) But after his death, Comrade Zhdanov was practically forgotten.
Be that as it may, immediately after Zhdanov's death, Kuznetsov, Voznesensky, and Popkov arrived at the sanatorium. Perhaps to pay their last respects, I'm sure. Or perhaps not only to attend the autopsy but also to rummage through the papers. Let's assume all this and see what we get.
How many letters were there?
So, Dr. Timashuk wrote a letter to Vlasik, which is not surprising: he was the person to whom the Medical Sanitary Directorate reported. The general passed it on to Stalin, who, according to the official version, read it and filed it away. And on September 7, she wrote another letter – to Comrade Kuznetsov, Secretary of the Central Committee. And here it would be interesting to know in what capacity Dr. Timashuk addressed him. The fact is, Kuznetsov was both the head of the Central Committee's Personnel Directorate and the party curator of the Ministry of State Security. If she viewed Kuznetsov in the former capacity – as if to say, "Look, Comrade Secretary, what cadres we have!" – then there could have been two letters: to him and to Vlasik. But if she viewed him in the latter capacity, there should have been three. Because it's completely unclear why, in this scenario, she omitted the intermediary between them, namely, Comrade Abakumov, Minister of State Security. Incidentally, Abakumov's appearance on the scene explains a completely baffling fact: why did Stalin archive the letter Vlasik gave him? Did he dismiss it as nonsense? Aha, that was after the spring of 1938, when the third "Moscow" trial examined the case of doctors Pletnev and Levin, accused of similar murders of Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, and Gorky. Right now!
This could only happen in one of two cases.
A. Abakumov asked to see Stalin.
— Comrade Stalin, I have received an alarming letter.
"Yes, I see. They gave me the same. Proceed as required, Comrade Abakumov."
B. Stalin summoned Abakumov, who did not receive the letter.
"Comrade Abakumov, I just received an interesting letter. Take it and check it out."
Abakumov investigated in the most natural way. Do you think he grabbed the doctors and hauled them off to jail? Of course not. A medical examination was ordered, after which it was determined to be a trivial medical squabble. After which the case was filed and forgotten—for four whole years. But the point is that Comrade Kuznetsov, who had his own copy of the letter and knew that Stalin had received a similar one, couldn't be sure that the case hadn't attracted the leader's special attention and that it was closed (or perhaps it really wasn't closed). So what did Comrade Kuznetsov do then, assuming he was a conspirator? That's right. He got nervous.
A very strange party
It's certainly not a bad idea for conspirators to have their own people spread across the country, so they can act together at the right moment. Now let's remember that Comrade Kuznetsov was the head of the Central Committee's Personnel Department, and in that capacity, he could appoint whomever he wanted and wherever he wanted. Incidentally, during the "Leningrad affair," he was accused, among other things, of creating a kind of "Leningrad mafia" in the country.
What's the natural reaction of a nervous leader of a secret organization? Naturally, gather the people and discuss the extent of the danger and what to do. If he has experience in covert work, he understands that giving in to this natural impulse is absolutely unacceptable—that's how conspirators get caught. But Kuznetsov had no such experience.
Let's see if there was some kind of get-together immediately after Zhdanov's death, where people from all over the country could socialize peacefully. Well, that's exactly what happened! And the event was so bizarre that it's hard to even think about it.
In October 1948, having assessed the accumulated unsaleable food and other goods in the warehouses of the Ministry of Trade, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers authorized interregional wholesale fairs in December to sell them all. And suddenly, instead, in early January 1949, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, Comrade Rodionov, held a huge, essentially all-Union, wholesale fair in Leningrad. Moreover, he held it on his own initiative, without the sanction of the USSR Council of Ministers, only notifying the operational body—the Bureau of the Council of Ministers. This was also a cunning move. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Comrade Stalin, would have said, "What? What all-Russian fair? Haven't celebrated New Year's together in a while? Tell Comrade Rodionov..." But the Chairman of the Bureau, Comrade Beria, had nothing better to do in 1948 than think about some fairs. He asked Voznesensky what it was, and received the answer: the same as they had decided, only larger; he signed it without looking and moved on to the next question, all the while thinking about atomic tests.
The fair was completely pointless. The sale of unsold goods failed, resulting in 4 billion rubles' worth of spoiled goods—and this during the famine-ridden post-war period. Another consequence was that Rodionov was summarily dismissed from his position. So the question arises: why take such a risk?
The fair was an extraordinarily absurd event from every perspective except one: people from all over the Soviet Union gathered in Leningrad, so if anyone needed to socialize, they did. Some researchers believe the fair was effectively an illegal congress of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, which Comrade Kuznetsov allegedly wanted to organize. Well, yes, he did. But holding a congress without founding the Communist Party, and this while Stalin was still alive, would have sent the organizers of this event straight from their chairs to the cells, not the streets. But gathering a few dozen conspirators—easy!
A parade of coincidences
...But Comrade Stalin was a conspirator. Because it was after this fair that very strange events began. Each of them seemed random—but aren't there too many coincidences?
In January 1949, an anonymous letter arrived at the Central Committee, alleging that the voting results at the December 25 party conference in Leningrad had been falsified. An investigation revealed that this was indeed the case. To achieve "unanimity," Popkov, the regional committee's second secretary, Kapustin, and Kuznetsov replaced 23 "against" ballots with "for" ballots. Some argue that vote rigging was the worst crime for the idealistic communists of that time. We won't buy into these sentiments—most likely, cheating was rampant, and everyone knew it. But the authorities' reaction to these actions depended on the situation. They could have pursued the matter, or they could have held back. They did. The sum of their exploits ultimately resulted in the dismissal of Kuznetsov, Popkov, and Kapustin.
But that wasn't all. Another piano had turned up in the bushes. This time, the clouds were gathering over Comrade Voznesensky's head. On March 1, 1949, his deputy, Pomaznev, wrote a memo to the Bureau of the Council of Ministers, exposing the planning imbalances. On March 3, a timely complaint arrived from Interior Minister Kruglov about the unsustainable plan his department was facing. The Bureau of the Council of Ministers ordered an audit of Gosplan's activities—and the hairs of those inspectors who weren't bald stood on end, as the falsifications and irregularities uncovered were truly astounding. As a result, Voznesensky, too, was fired. For now, on vacation. So the question arises: why, in just two months, did all the future key figures in the "Leningrad Affair" suddenly lose their posts for various reasons? Was it a coincidence? We won't mention Stalin's sinister plans to wipe out his competitors, but it's possible to surmise that Comrade Abakumov had already noticed their strange visit to Zhdanov's final resting place, conducted an intelligence investigation, and brought Comrade Stalin "tipped and stitched-up material." It's even entirely possible...
Spy Trail
But that wasn't all. The commission continued its work and uncovered something that made all previous evidence seem like mere dust. Over the course of five years, from 1944 to 1948, 236 classified documents disappeared from this agency. These included not just single sheets of paper, but such substantial documents as the state plan for the restoration and development of the national economy—200 pages of text—and so on. It turned out that Voznesensky knew about this perfectly well, yet took no action.
To properly understand the situation, it's important to know a few things. In 1945, the Soviet government approached the IMF for a loan to rebuild its devastated economy. In response, the American government demanded information on the state of the Soviet economy of such depth and scope that our side withdrew its request for a loan: better to get out of trouble ourselves than to supply a potential adversary with such information. And the most natural assumption, when the Gosplan cesspool was exposed, was that the Americans had found a cheaper way out. The scent of espionage was clearly present.
The "Leningrad Affair" itself actually began with espionage, but not from Gosplan. In the summer of 1949, the MGB received information through its foreign channels that the second secretary (now former) of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee, Kapustin, was a British intelligence agent. (By a curious coincidence, not long before, the MGB agent at the Intelligence Service, the famous Kim Philby, had become director of that agency's Soviet department.) On July 23, Kapustin was arrested; on August 4, he began to talk, and very soon Kuznetsov, Popkov, Rodionov, and several other party apparatchiks found themselves behind bars. And so the "Leningrad Affair" began...
Why was Viktor Abakumov burned?
Now let's fast-forward two years. On July 2, 1951, the Central Committee received a statement from Senior Investigator Ryumin, reporting problems in the MGB's operations. Following this, Minister of State Security Abakumov was ceremoniously dismissed and soon arrested. The contents of this statement are believed to be well known. Abakumov allegedly received testimony from a certain doctor, Etinger, that he had "treated" the First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee, Shcherbakov, but took no action, failed to pursue the case, and placed Etinger in a damp cell, where he soon died. He also failed to pursue the case of some underage Jewish nationalists, violated investigative procedures, and so on. As a result, the Central Committee decreed (and I quote): "Remove VS Abakumov from his post as Minister of State Security... expel him from the ranks of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and refer the case to court."
A strange piece of paper. Because, by normal human standards, if ministers were fired for such things, none of them would last longer than a week. Kuznetsov and Popkov didn't pay for their antics, not only with arrest, not only with their party membership, but even with their membership in the Central Committee.
Even stranger is the wording of the decree. Because this document had four authors. Namely: Malenkov, Beria, Shkiryatov, and Ignatiev. The last two—okay, they're party apparatchiks. But the first, who happened to be closely involved in the 1937 repressions, and the second, who worked in the security services for almost twenty years—how could they possibly overlook the wording: "refer the case to court"? Which court? It should have said: refer the case to the internal affairs agencies or the prosecutor's office. Central Committee decrees often use even more bizarre wording, but for the "lawyer" Beria to sign something like this? You could, of course, indulge in psychological analysis. But you could also take the simpler approach and assume the document is fake. There's nothing surprising about that; during Khrushchev's time, an astronomical number of forgeries were dumped into the archives—strictly speaking, almost no document from that time can be used without expert examination. So, let's assume that this document is fake, replacing another one, in the same place and with the same number. We'll discuss which one in a paragraph, but for now, let's make one observation.
Having carefully and meticulously studied Khrushchev's disinformation avalanche, I've noticed one peculiarity. Khrushchevites possess a certain sophistication. They love to accuse their enemies of what they spent their entire lives fighting against, and then attribute to them the opposite of what they actually did. I don't know who masterminded these disinformation campaigns under Nikita Sergeyevich, but he certainly had a knack for it. Therefore, the fact that Abakumov was accused of failing to open an investigation into the doctors who treated Shcherbakov is very, very circumstantial, but it's yet another argument that he did indeed conduct an investigation into Zhdanov's death.
Now let's consider what this note could have actually said. It's important to remember that Abakumov had long been convinced his arrest was a misunderstanding, that everything would soon be sorted out and he would be released. In other words, he clearly didn't do what he was accused of. And also: what could have possibly been so special that his three patrons—Stalin, Beria, and Bogdan Kobulov (Abakumov was "Kobulov's man")—disowned him? That's the first question. And the second. It was precisely after Abakumov's arrest that Ignatiev, a party functionary who had never in his life had anything to do with the security services, suddenly became Minister of Internal Affairs. And not only did he become Minister of Internal Affairs, but after his arrival, he also planted party apparatchiks in the MGB. So, Abakumov was fired—did the USSR no longer have any Chekists? What the hell was the reason for such an appointment? Individually, these facts can be explained. But together...
I can only find one explanation. Ryumin's letter accused Abakumov of falsifying the "Leningrad Affair" and using torture. And, apparently, there was evidence to support this—for example, the testimony of some of the defendants. Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, and Kobulov, all four burned by "1937," immediately not only sanctioned but demanded an investigation. And the Central Committee also made demands: two hundred high-ranking communists were executed in this case, two thousand imprisoned. We don't trust the internal affairs agencies, they're biased; we don't trust the prosecutor's office, it's weak. But we have a good guy here, Comrade Ignatiev, head of the Central Committee's department of party, trade union, and Komsomol organs, a man who was in no way involved in Chekist affairs. Let him handle this investigation. If he can handle the party organs, he can handle the MGB. How else could Ignatiev's appointment be explained? And no one knew that Comrade Ignatiev had one peculiarity. Neither Beria, nor Kobulov, nor Abakumov accepted torture. But for Ignatiev, this prohibition did not exist. And he was certain that as soon as the former minister began torturing, he would immediately confess, and the "Leningrad Affair" would be declared a fabrication.
What's the point of this? It's very simple. Kuznetsov and the other key defendants confessed to some things, but remained deathly silent about others. The thing is, when they were arrested, the death penalty didn't exist in the USSR; it had been introduced in January 1950. So the defendants had no incentive to say everything in the hopes of saving their lives. Instead, they had an incentive to say as little as possible, to get 15 years instead of 25. And they didn't say everything, so part of the organization remained free. Which part? More on that later.
But the execution of the main defendants didn't end the investigation, as one might expect. Something urgent had to be done. First, get rid of Abakumov and seize control of the investigation, and then, if possible, declare the case falsified. (This is what was done almost immediately after Khrushchev came to power.) Therefore, it was essential to extract a confession from Abakumov. But military counterintelligence officer Abakumov ruined everything. They tortured him until the doctors said: that's it; he can't go on, he'll die. But he still wouldn't confess.
Initiative is punishable
And what about Comrade Stalin? He sat there, rejoicing: "Wow, everything's working out so well! Now the party comrades will investigate everything, figure it all out, and life will be so good!" Ah, right now!
The reason for this isn't just the "Leningrad Affair." The interest lies deeper. If we ask ourselves: why did Stalin suddenly begin such strange manipulations of the MGB after the war? Were Beria's high-brow intelligence agents sent to an office with the ridiculous name of GUSIMZ (State Administration of Soviet Property Abroad), which reeks of residency a mile away, while the rest of the intelligence was transferred to the Committee of Information? And was an army counterintelligence officer appointed Minister of State Security? There can only be one answer: Stalin intended to seriously investigate the outcome of the war. The war was sacred to him, and after the minister's arrest, he should have been not just extremely concerned, but boundlessly so: after all, if Abakumov couldn't be trusted, then this job, too, became questionable.
And what, one wonders, should Comrade Stalin have done in such a situation?
It is very likely that he told the secretary:
— Call comrade Merkulov to me!
Merkulov is a very interesting figure, and one that we underestimate, just like the structure he headed. The fact is that among the many state bodies of the Soviet Union, Stalin had one—only one!—his own child. On March 30, 1919, on his initiative, the People's Commissariat of State Control was established, of which he himself became the first People's Commissar. This agency subsequently underwent various metamorphoses, but no sooner had Stalin finally acquired real power in the state in the late 1930s than the People's Commissariat reappeared, and its People's Commissar became Lev Mekhlis, Stalin's former personal assistant, not just a trusted man, but a highly trusted one. And in 1950, the gravely ill Mekhlis was replaced in this post by another highly trusted man, not Stalin's, but Beria's (which, incidentally, by then were the same thing)—Vsevolod Merkulov. And this ministry was not subordinate to any Central Committee; in essence, it was the personal special service of the head of state.
That is why it was most natural to assume that Stalin summoned the former Minister of State Security and now Minister of State Control, Comrade Merkulov, and said:
"You know, of course, that Abakumov has been arrested. Take charge of this case, check everything out, and report back."
And here our conspirators—if they existed—found themselves in mortal danger. Not only because a new force had appeared, one they had no means of countering. It was also a matter of personality. Just as Molotov was Stalin's right hand, so Merkulov was Beria's, and touching him was like charging at a tank with a pistol. The trusted man of both rulers of the Soviet Union—old and young—was invulnerable. Now it was no longer a question of power, but of the very lives of the remaining conspirators.
The Doctors' Plot and Other Strikes
One can imagine the panic that gripped our conspirators. Their first thought, naturally, was to remove Stalin. Beria, after all, is not such a significant figure; there is some chance of reaching an agreement with him. However, reaching an agreement with Stalin in such a situation, as is easy to understand, is practically impossible. The tragedy of the situation was that Stalin underestimated the man who now stood at the head of this entire affair. He was underestimated in general. In and of himself, he was fairly harmless, but when driven into a corner, he became mortally dangerous. Primarily because he had no inhibitions, no restraints. Like that character in American cartoons who, unable to find his enemy, orders the destruction of the city in which he is supposedly located. You don't have to look far for examples. This is a man who seized power in a state by simply killing his rival; who, in order to strengthen his position, destroyed the ideology of the Soviet Union in one blow and destroyed the world communist movement; who solved diplomatic problems with tanks; Who nearly unleashed a global nuclear war... enough? His exploits could be listed endlessly. Why Khrushchev? Because he gave himself away. From the moment he came to power, the endless dance began around the "Leningrad affair," to which the new head of state was incredibly sensitive. Few people know that a huge section of his speech at the 20th Congress was supposed to be devoted to this very topic—but then, apparently, his own comrades stopped him: the affair was recent, everyone had heard about it, there was no point in revealing it so much...
However, after researching the trials of the 1950s, I have a strong feeling that the rehabilitation process itself was initiated for the sake of the "Leningraders." Just for the sake of it, you say? Well, well...
It was after Ignatiev's arrival at the MGB that preparations for Stalin's assassination began. His longtime aide, Poskrebyshev, was removed, followed by General Vlasik. But we're not talking about that now; we're talking about other moves by the conspirators.
...Apparently, while searching for a way out, someone remembered Dr. Timashuk's letter. Who knows what they were hoping for? Perhaps to redirect Stalin's attention to a new topic? Or to sow his mistrust of doctors? The latter is more likely—Khrushchev is letting this slip, too. Or perhaps they'll deal with the leader in the same way, and then attach "Comrade Stalin's murderers" to the "doctors' plot." And then conclude an agreement with Beria on the division of influence between the party and the state, and call it a day.
There are serious grounds to suspect that Stalin's death was deeply flawed. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the doctors. In any case, it was very convenient to retrieve Timashuk's letter from the archives...
And whose archive, by the way? After all, Stalin's letter was in Stalin's archive. Kuznetsov's? Where did they get it from? From the "Leningrad Affair"? Be that as it may, if we view the "Doctors' Plot" as a diversionary tactic, then... then everything ties together! And people often wonder why this case suddenly acquired a pronounced "Jewish" aspect—given that all the doctors who treated Zhdanov were Slavs. Well, that's even better! "Killer doctors," and Jews at that—two sore points for society. And besides, touch the Jews, and the case immediately takes on international significance. Screams, noise, smoke to the skies! Smoke... smoke... smoke... a smokescreen!
Which, incidentally, didn't fool the two very smart men at the helm of the Soviet Union. It's no wonder Beria, upon coming to power, immediately closed the "Doctors' Plot." Perhaps there was a good chance he'd negotiated the closure of the "Leningrad Affair" as well, as it was no longer relevant—the country was on the brink of change, after all.
But there remained one thing that could never be negotiated with him under any circumstances. My editor, as a girl, had heard a radio report on Stalin's funeral. She was so struck by the tragedy of Beria's speech, the grief it engulfed, it was so imprinted on her memory that she still remembers it, fifty years later. The rest simply vanished. There was no way to negotiate with Beria about Stalin's death; he would have conducted the investigation himself and publicly executed him at the Kremlin wall.
And then the conspirators once again faced mortal danger. Because there was someone who knew everything about the circumstances of the leader's death, and this person had committed something that guaranteed his arrest and execution. This was Ignatiev, the Minister of State Security, who used torture. And apparently, this wasn't all he was responsible for, because it's ridiculous to think that Beria spent three and a half months in power and didn't find the time to talk to Abakumov. What happened to Abakumov? It's still unclear. There were two ways to close his case: simply investigate all the charges or obtain a confession from the mastermind behind the Abakumov case, Ignatiev. In all likelihood, the former minister would have been released a few days after the arrest of his successor. Beria was planning to request sanction for Ignatiev's arrest on June 26, 1953. He was killed a few hours before the start of the Presidium of the Central Committee meeting. Do I need to explain why? It's so simple. Ignatiev and Beria couldn't be allowed to meet in the interrogation room. It would have been easier for our hypothetical conspirators, of course, to kill Ignatiev. But he, in all likelihood, had already taken some measures. They had to kill Beria. This, of course, is a more complicated matter—but life is more precious... And, in general, compared to the speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, this isn't such a great crime.
Do you know what's different about Stalinist socialism from what followed? Under Stalin, those at the top burned their lives for the country. Those who came after June 26, 1953, burned the country for their own lives. The same words, just arranged in a different order, that's all...
P.S.
So, here's a pure analysis. We've tried to hypothesize certain things, looked at the results... and we've come up with, it seems, a pretty good version of events. At least, everything fits together, no facts are far-fetched, and no loose ends are hanging out. That's the first thing. And the second. Stalin's public rehabilitation is long over. Beria's is in full swing. But Abakumov, for example, is still listed as a criminal. Although I personally have no confidence in that..."
So, how do you like the sharp turns and zigzags of history in the analytical version?
Isn't it all quite twisted?! But practically everything was exactly like that in reality. Let's turn to the superb analysis of these myths presented in the pages of one of the most objective modern researchers, Sigismund Mironin, in his new book, "The Riddle of '37: Stalin's Order" (Moscow, 2007, pp. 108–168. S. Mironin's data are presented as presented by the author of this book.)
The events of 1949–1950 are most often seen as a confrontation between certain clans within the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Moreover, leading party and Soviet figures are depicted by different authors on either side of the "barricades."
The issue of the “Leningrad affair” was first raised by Khrushchev at the June 1953 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee.
This version became official in May 1954: first in the Resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on May 3, 1954, and then in speeches by N.S. Khrushchev and Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko at a closed meeting of the Leningrad party activists on May 6–7, 1954. It was announced that the "Leningrad Affair" was "falsified by former Minister of State Security V.S. Abakumov and his henchmen on the orders of the enemy of the people, L.P. Beria." This version was then confirmed on February 25, 1956, in Khrushchev's infamous report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences." Such figures as Volkogonov, Antonov-Ovseenko, Volkov, Radzinsky, and even Sobchak, who compared himself to Voznesensky, shared their "revelations."
A brief comment. As you can see, the main "interpreters" (in journalistic slang, "intertrepation" is usually used instead of "interpretation," hence the word "interpreters") of the "Leningrad Affair" are the vanguard of the anti-Stalinist army of the late 20th century. All they know is to hurl false accusations at Stalin and his era. And not one of them even considered how it would be possible to falsify a case against 2,000 people, which is exactly how many were involved in this case. Not to mention how, in the post-war period, it would have been possible to falsify a case against so many people in such a way that approximately 200 people were executed.
In reality, only the figure of 2,000 defendants in this case is accurate. But we mean defendants, not those imprisoned. As for those repressed in this case, according to official data from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, a total of 214 people were convicted, including 69 primary defendants and 145 close and distant relatives of the defendants. Furthermore, two people died in prison before trial. The available verdicts of the Military Collegium and the resolutions of the Special Conference show that 23 people were actually sentenced to death, 85 to terms of imprisonment in camps and prisons, ranging from 5 to 25 years. One person was placed in a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment, and 105 people were exiled to remote regions of the country for various terms, mostly from 5 to 8 years, by resolutions of the Special Conference of the MGB. Of those convicted in this case, 36 worked in the Leningrad Regional and City Party Committees, as well as in the Regional and City Executive Committees, 11 held leadership positions in other Regional Party Committees and Regional Executive Committees, and 9 worked in the District Party Committees and District Executive Committees of the Leningrad Region. This information was included in the report by Kruglov and Serov dated December 10, 1953, addressed to Khrushchev. See GARF.F. 8131. Op. 32. D. 3989. L. 63–65.
Paradoxically, the falsification of this case began at a furious pace precisely after Stalin's assassination, but especially after Beria's. It continues to this day. It has reached the point of absurdity. The case file on 2,000 people, of whom approximately 200 were allegedly executed, in its current form consists of a thin folder containing a couple of dozen pages of unknown content. And this despite the fact that the arrest warrants and subpoenas for interrogation of these 2,000 people alone should have filled at least seven volumes! The orders initiating the case and the subsequent volumes of the case should also have filled at least seven volumes! Assuming that a separate file was opened for each defendant, the total number of pages of document inventories alone should have been at least 6,000 pages—that is, based on the then-current rules for maintaining secret records, at least 20 volumes of inventories alone! But nothing of the sort exists. Nor does the case itself exist in its original form. That is, Khrushchev's and subsequent falsifiers worked so hard, almost literally with an axe, that they hacked 99.9% of the case's documents and materials from the archives. Simply put, they tore them out and burned them! Moreover, they began burning the case's documents almost immediately after the assassination of Stalin and Beria. And for three years, they stoked the fires with archival investigations and court cases. From 1953 to 1956, they stoked the fires. Such are the "truth-seekers" in our country...
Here's how Radzinsky, known for his insinuations against Stalin, describes the "Leningrad Affair." "Beria and Malenkov immediately caught the Master's mood. Beria was eager to pounce on Kuznetsov, who oversaw his departments. 'The dogs are straining at the leash.'... The end had come for Voznesensky. Yesterday's 'outstanding economist' was accused of 'deliberately understating the plan figures,' and of his employees 'cheating with the government.'... In the last days of September 1950, the trial of Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, and the Leningrad party members took place in Leningrad. They confessed to all the incredible crimes and were sentenced to death. The finale of the trial was fantastic: after the verdict was announced, guards threw white shrouds over the condemned men, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and carried them across the courtroom to the exit. That same day, they were all executed."
...Descriptions of those convicted in the "Leningrad Affair" often bear a touch of apologetics, inspired primarily by the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Baibakov, Anastas Mikoyan, and the recollections of Leningraders who worked under Voznesensky and Kuznetsov. Khrushchev praised Voznesensky as "intelligent, blunt, straightforward, and courageous." Baibakov, who served for a long time as Minister of the Oil Industry and Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, considered Voznesensky "a talented organizer and a subtle economic psychologist."
A quick comment. Can't a "smart, sharp, straightforward, courageous, talented organizer and subtle economic psychologist" be a conspirator?! And besides, were they really tried for being smart, sharp, straightforward, courageous, and talented organizers?! They were tried for specific state crimes. Under the laws in effect at the time. Incidentally, during the very same period when this charade of instant political rehabilitation of all those convicted in the "Leningrad Affair" began, followed by their subsequent illegal legal rehabilitation, Khrushchev, under the same laws, jailed nearly 600,000 people! How many of them were smart, sharp, straightforward, courageous, and talented organizers, including subtle economic psychologists—no one can say now! In just one year—from March 5, 1953 to March 5, 1954—the "fighter against Stalin's personality cult" sent to prison virtually one-sixth of the total number of those convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes during Stalin's entire 30-year reign! That's what kind of "truth-seekers" we had! And we kept repeating "dear Nikita Sergeyevich," "the momentous 20th Congress," "the famous report at the Congress!"
…Who is right?… To understand the essence of the “Leningrad” case, several versions can be put forward.
1. Let's assume that the overly suspicious Stalin reshuffled his ranks and himself initiated the "Leningrad Affair" to get rid of his rapidly gaining power rivals. But Stalin enjoyed enormous authority at the time, and no one would have dared to remove him. Moreover, some believe that Stalin himself nominated both Kuznetsov and Voznesensky. This story has two interpretations. According to one, at a Politburo meeting in 1947, Stalin remarked: "Time passes, we are getting old. I see Alexei Kuznetsov in his place..." According to the memoirs of A.I. Mikoyan (although one should be very, very careful with his beliefs – A.M. ), Stalin allegedly once told his companions at Lake Ritsa that, as he approached old age, he was thinking about successors. He considered Nikolai Alekseyevich Voznesensky the most suitable candidate for the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Alexei Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov for the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. "What, you don't object, comrades?" Stalin asked. No one objected. Interestingly, Kuznetsov, a former carpenter, had no higher education. Yet, it was Kuznetsov whom Stalin entrusted with overseeing the repressive organs in 1946.
2. Let's assume that Stalin, for some reason, was afraid to leave Voznesensky and Kuznetsov as his heirs and didn't try to save them from their Politburo comrades. In other words, the "Leningrad Affair" stemmed from a clan struggle within the top party nomenklatura—and this factor was indeed present. According to Sudoplatov, the motives of Stalin's aides- the same motives that compelled Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev to destroy the Leningrad group- were clear: to strengthen their own power. They feared that the young Leningrad team would replace Stalin. Stalin feared not any opposition from them, but rather that they might seriously screw things up after his death, pitting Leningrad against Moscow, Russia against the Union. But, it seems, the roots of Stalin's decision to punish a group of seemingly promising and energetic leaders run much deeper.
3. One might think that the power struggle within the USSR's elite led to ordinary transgressions being immediately elevated to the level of state crimes. This hypothesis has a right to exist...
A quick comment. I agree, it has a right to exist, but only after reviewing Soviet intelligence data, which will clearly show whether such a right exists at all.
4. Finally, there is a final hypothesis. The Leningraders were executed fairly. This last hypothesis, it would seem, has one very significant objection. It seems as if the death penalty was being reintroduced in the USSR precisely for the sake of the Leningraders. Previously, in 1947, the death penalty was abolished by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. During the investigation of the "Leningrad Affair," on January 12, 1950, the death penalty was reinstated for traitors to the Motherland, spies, and saboteurs. And in accordance with this decree, the convicted were executed. This violated one of the fundamental principles of law: "law has no retroactive effect." A similar situation would repeat itself in the 1960s, when those arrested in the case of illegal currency transactions were initially sentenced to 15 years in prison under an amended Article. 88 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (although at the time of the crime, the maximum sentence was 10 years), and six months later, they were executed following a protest by the USSR Prosecutor General, in accordance with the newly introduced sanction. This step is highly uncharacteristic of Stalin, who insisted on compliance with procedural norms... Or, alternatively, we must assume that, from Stalin's perspective, the Leningraders' guilt was so great that their execution was necessary in the interests of the state. Let's test all these hypotheses for consistency with reality.
A brief comment. Before I begin this examination with Mironin, I would like to draw the attention of my esteemed readers to one peculiarity of the reasoning of a number of authors. Even while sincerely striving to understand the true meaning of Stalin's actions, even while sincerely striving to demonstrate the justification for his actions, as a rule, even these authors, who objectively analyze past events, somehow completely, practically fail to take into account the Cold War that was raging in earnest at the time. Particularly depressing is the fact that virtually no one considers it necessary to take into account the unprecedentedly sharp intensification of intelligence and subversive activities by Western intelligence agencies against the USSR, especially the then-newly established CIA, as well as the British MI6 and others. If these authors had mentioned even half a word on this matter, their analyses would have immediately taken on a completely new, vivid, compelling, and exceptionally convincing aspect.
One of the well-known American publicists, himself a former professional intelligence officer—Louis Farago, well known to historians of the intelligence services—noted that intelligence services have had and continue to have a much greater influence on the course of history than some people imagine. “Behind every major event, behind every statesman involved in these events, there were (and are—A.M.) intelligence officers, but the authors of scientific chronicles—either out of arrogance or disgust—ignore their contribution and rarely mention their names…” [1] The issue, of course, is not so much the arrogance or disgust of the “authors of scientific chronicles,” but the fact that intelligence agencies rarely publicize their activities and specific deeds. As a rule, this happens many, many decades later, or, more often than not, they do not disclose the essence of their operations at all. Usually, intelligence agencies talk only about those affairs and those operations, as well as the intelligence officers and agents, about which the general public has somehow already become aware. This is a completely normal practice among intelligence services around the world. However, even in these cases, they only say as much as is permitted by intelligence security considerations, especially the safety of valuable intelligence officers and agents.
So it's not surprising that "authors of scientific chronicles" don't discuss the role of intelligence agencies in certain events, especially when they're still fresh in the trail. It's a different matter when intelligence agencies have already officially publicized some of their operations. Here, it's truly unclear what motives guide these "authors of scientific chronicles" in ignoring official intelligence information. Most likely, this stems from a simple inability to adequately apply intelligence information uncovered by intelligence agencies in historical research. This is a truly widespread phenomenon, significantly impoverishing such research and often leading to false conclusions. With regard to all historical research, it can be said that intelligence information, especially when reported to the highest levels of government at the time, serves as the benchmark for verifying the conclusions drawn in such research.
This is precisely the case with the events whose myths we are analyzing, including with the help of S. Mironin's excellent book. From Stalin's perspective, the Leningraders were truly guilty, and they should have been executed, because the geopolitical and intelligence aspirations of Western countries and their intelligence services coincided too closely with the accusations leveled against the defendants in the "Leningrad Affair." However, it was not because of the "Leningrad Affair" that the death penalty was reinstated into criminal law.
To our profound regret, this chronological coincidence proved to be akin to a total solar eclipse. No one saw, or wanted to see, its essence—that it was precisely during that period that Stalin obtained unique and highly classified documents from the United States and other Western countries, testifying to an unprecedented expansion of preparations for war against the USSR, an unprecedented intensification of intelligence and subversive activities against the Soviet Union, including psychological warfare. The return of the death penalty to criminal law was precisely connected with this. Stalin never, under any circumstances, tolerated those who seriously threatened the security of the USSR, especially if their actions coincided with Western countries' plans to threaten it. He responded with extreme severity, often cruelty, but always with the utmost fairness. This is precisely how the security of the state is defended. There are no alternatives. More precisely, there is only one alternative—absolute destruction. But Stalin could not allow this, and as long as he lived, he did not allow it. As we present the data from S. Mironin's analysis, we will also present data from Soviet intelligence.
VIOLATIONS OF PARTY NORMS
It all began quite banally. In January 1949, an anonymous letter arrived at the Central Committee of the Party. In it, the unknown person reported that the voting results at the joint regional and city party conference held in Leningrad on December 25 had been falsified. This seemingly unremarkable event marked the beginning of the largest legal case in post-war Soviet history, which involved not only the leaders of the Leningrad party organization but also several individuals from Stalin's inner circle. A review of the information received confirmed it. Popkov, Kapustin, and Kuznetsov had falsified the party protocols for elections to senior positions at the joint city and regional party conference on December 25, 1948, when 23 ballots with "no" votes were replaced with votes in favor of the leadership. According to P. Sudoplatov, the mentality of idealistic communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s should be kept in mind. At that time, the most heinous crime for a high-ranking party or government official was treason, but falsifying party elections was no less a crime. The party's cause was sacred, especially internal party elections by secret ballot, which were considered the most effective instrument of intra-party democracy.
WASTE OF PEOPLE'S WEALTH
But violating party norms was only the tip of the iceberg. The Leningrad group's second anti-people crime was organizing the All-Russian Wholesale Trade Fair in January 1949 in Leningrad without a special resolution from the central authorities. Popkov and Lazutin organized this fair in Leningrad with Voznesensky's permission. On October 14, 1948, the Bureau of the USSR Council of Ministers considered developing measures to sell the remaining consumer goods accumulated in the warehouses of the USSR Ministry of Trade, amounting to 5 billion rubles. A little later, the Bureau adopted a resolution to organize interregional wholesale fairs in December of that year, where these remaining goods were to be sold, and granted permission for their export. In reality, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, represented by its chairman, N.I. Rodionov, held the All-Russian Wholesale Fair in Leningrad from January 10 to 20, 1949, with the participation of trade organizations from the Union republics.
Kuznetsov, Rodionov, and Popkov not only failed to obtain permission, but also failed to notify the Central Committee and Politburo of the upcoming fair. The Central Committee received notice of the fair only on January 13, 1949, after the "merchandising" (note, outside the funds, and this under a planned economy) had already been underway for three days. The USSR Council of Ministers also made no decisions on the matter and was not even notified: only decisions were made by the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a de jure subordinate body. Consequently, this constituted at the very least a violation of official discipline, and, in fact, once again, an abuse of office by an entire group of senior party and government officials. Thus, the case was that the wholesale fair was illegal, utilizing dubious behind-the-scenes schemes carried out through personal connections with Kuznetsov, the "chief of Leningrad."
The organization of the fair resulted in the squandering of state commodity funds and the unjustified expenditure of public funds on organizing the fair and transporting goods to the country's outlying ethnic regions. Leningraders and Rodionov, as the formal leader of Russia, directly approached the Union republics. The involvement of Union-Republican government bodies and their direct negotiations with the "Leningraders" created a dangerous precedent of bypassing central planning authorities. But creating supply channels that bypassed centralized distribution was not the fair organizers' most significant miscalculation. The fair organizers were unable to sell the food products brought to Leningrad from across the country, leading to spoilage and an astronomical loss of 4 billion rubles. This was happening at a time when the country was just beginning to recover from the terrible famine of 1947. For this alone, those who committed such a step deserve the most severe punishment.
A quick comment. Frankly, there was a chance to avoid such damage. In such cases, normal business owners quickly lower prices and quickly sell their goods. Incidentally, there had been a similar incident about four years earlier. My colleague Yu. I. Mukhin, in his brilliant book, "The Assassination of Stalin and Beria" (Moscow, 2007), cites the following example. Immediately after the war, trade organizations imported food to Murmansk in quantities exceeding the population's purchasing power. The goods began to rot, and then the secretary of the Murmansk regional committee, Prokofiev, without seeking permission from Moscow, ordered a 20% price reduction. When this incident was reviewed by the Politburo, Stalin, having understood the reasons, did not punish Prokofiev in any way. Unless you count the joke attributed to Stalin that Prokofiev needed to be kept an eye on, lest he declare war on someone else on his own initiative.
However, neither Voznesensky nor Kuznetsov followed this honest path, much less reported to Stalin in a timely manner. The goods rotted, and Voznesensky concealed the losses by falsifying the state plan figures. During the "Leningrad Affair," Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were also accused of this. But they were not sentenced to death for this, or rather, not so much for this. The fact is that causing economic damage on a colossal scale—and 4 billion rubles is an astronomical sum not only for a war-torn country but also for a prosperous one—under the law of the time, it also carried the harshest punishment. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that the death sentence imposed on the "Leningraders" was not "not for this," but primarily "not for this."
And here's another thing. 1. The future key figures in the "Leningrad Affair" found themselves at the center of attention of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) during the investigation of violations uncovered during the implementation of the 1947 currency reform. The Party Control Committee received a complaint from communist Trofimov regarding the anti-state actions of certain senior officials in Leningrad and the region during the reform. The investigation established that, indeed, a number of senior officials, abusing their official positions and breaking the law, had deposited old-style currency into savings banks after the operations had ceased. The investigation found that, by December 28, 1947, over 900,000 rubles had been deposited in Leningrad and the region using falsified documents. The Leningrad City Committee categorically denied this, stating that it knew nothing of any abuses by senior officials. However, if we turn to the memoirs of Stalin's Minister of Finance, A.G. Zvereva's "Notes of a Minister" (Moscow, 1973), we see that violations did occur and those responsible were severely punished. You know, Stalin's People's Commissar of Finance is somehow more trustworthy than the party bureaucrats.
2. As veteran Chekists told the author, somehow the West, especially the United States, learned of another financial reform being prepared in particularly deep secrecy. The Soviet government decreed "to cease, as of March 1, 1950, the determination of the ruble's exchange rate against foreign currencies on a dollar basis and to transfer it to a more stable, gold-based basis, in accordance with the ruble's gold content." So, for some reason, the United States learned of this reform before the Soviet people. Yet, according to this decree, foreign exchange rates in the USSR were sharply reduced. An extremely limited circle of people were granted access to the materials of this reform. Among them were Voznesensky and Kuznetsov...
MANAGEMENT REACTION
At the Plenum on January 28, 1949, Kuznetsov was relieved of his duties as secretary and in February 1949 was appointed secretary of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which existed only on paper. On March 7, 1949, he was removed from the Orgburo. On February 15, 1949, the Politburo adopted a resolution classifying the entire set of facts as anti-state actions by the named individuals and non-party methods. The resolution stated that they
"are an expression of anti-party factionalism, sow distrust... and are capable of leading to the separation of the Leningrad organization from the party, from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)".
On February 22, 1949, a joint plenum of the Leningrad Regional and City Party Committees was held. Malenkov delivered a lengthy speech. He claimed that the leadership of the Leningrad party organization knew about the falsification but concealed it from the Central Committee. Furthermore, he claimed, the regional committee had become a stronghold for the struggle against the Central Committee, cultivating separatist sentiments and seeking to create an independent Russian Communist Party. The plenum expelled Tikhonov, chairman of the conference's counting commission, from the party, approved the Central Committee's decision to dismiss Popkov, first secretary of the Regional Committee and City Committee, reprimanded Kapustin, and imposed a number of party penalties on others involved in falsifying the election results.
A brief comment. This is the quintessence of the reason that led to such a harsh sentence. Let's turn again to Mukhin's book, mentioned above. He specifically points out that Stalin had disagreements with Lenin regarding the structure of the state. Stalin believed that, according to the Constitution, the republics should not have the right to secede from the USSR. But Lenin insisted. Stalin subsequently did not return to this issue. The integrity of the USSR was determined by the ruling party—the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and it technically could not split along national lines. It included the national communist parties of all the republics except Russia. Russia did not have its own communist party; the communists of Russia—the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)—were communists of Russia and were communists of the entire USSR. They were the cement that held the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) together and, consequently, the USSR. "So, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov hatched a plan to secretly convene a congress in Leningrad and declare a separate Russian communist party. Apparently, they got tired of waiting for Stalin to die and wanted to become leaders themselves as quickly as possible." Mukhin believes that "they failed to take into account that their actions were undermining the integrity of the territory of the USSR, as stipulated by Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Incidentally, the Criminal Code protected the integrity only of the entire territory of the USSR, not of its individual republics. So any attempt to separate a republic was already interpreted as undermining the integrity of the entire territory of the USSR. And separating the Russian Communist Party from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was direct preparation for the dismemberment of the USSR. So Voznesensky, who considered himself the smartest man after Stalin, could have read the Criminal Code from time to time. He would have been healthier. It's worth noting that Voznesensky and Kuznetsov's attempt was the first post-war attempt to dismember the USSR, and this attempt originated from the party apparatus of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), not from the state apparatus of the republics!"
One circumstance should be kept in mind here. The Leningrad group first approached Stalin with a proposal to create a Central Committee Bureau for the RSFSR back in September 1947. This occurred during the work of the Commission for the Development of a New Program for the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), established by a Politburo Resolution. A.A. Zhdanov and N.A. Voznesensky played a leading role in this commission. Incidentally, Stalin demanded that they develop a socially oriented program that envisioned a significant democratization of the Soviet system. In other words, he was once again quietly preparing a serious reform to replace the one that had failed back in 1937 due to the party bureaucracy.
Incidentally, Stalin's position on the territorial integrity of the USSR was well known among the highest echelons of the party apparatus. Back in 1937, at a dinner at Voroshilov's to commemorate the anniversary of the revolution, Stalin said: "The Russian tsars... did one good thing—they built up a vast state stretching all the way to Kamchatka. We inherited this state. And for the first time, we Bolsheviks united and strengthened this state as a single, indivisible state, not in the interests of landowners and capitalists, but for the benefit of the workers, all the peoples who comprise this state. We united the states in such a way that any part that were torn from the common socialist state would not only harm the latter, but also be unable to exist independently and would inevitably fall into someone else's thrall. Therefore, anyone who attempts to destroy this unity of the socialist state, whoever seeks to separate a particular part or nationality from it, is an enemy, a sworn enemy of the state, the peoples of the USSR." And we will destroy every such enemy, even if he were an old Bolshevik, we will destroy his entire clan, his family…”
Voznesensky and Kuznetsov's attempt led to the severing of Russia, the backbone of the Soviet Union, from the unified whole that was it. It hardly needs explaining that without a backbone, a unified whole cannot exist. Incidentally, the same thing happened before our own eyes, when a drunken rabble of jackals, scum, and other political prostitutes, known as people's deputies, adopted a declaration of Russia's independence on June 12, 1990. Independence from whom?! By August 1991, the USSR had already begun to fall apart, and on December 25, 1991, it was finally dissolved. And it all began in the post-war period with Voznesensky and Kuznetsov's attempt.
Now consider the West's geopolitical and intelligence aspirations during this period. Documents obtained by Soviet intelligence reveal this (I want to warn you in advance that the word "Russia" in the text of these documents, in the Western understanding of the time, meant the USSR):
1. From the US National Security Council Directive No. 20/1 of August 18, 1948: “Our primary objectives with respect to Russia are in reality only two:
a) Reduce Moscow's power and influence to the point where they no longer pose a threat to the peace and stability of the international community;
A brief comment on point "a." This is a very vile and brazen formulation, since by that point the United States knew perfectly well that the Soviet Union posed no threat to peace or international stability. This, incidentally, was documented in a number of analytical documents for the US leadership. Nevertheless, the Yankees will be Yankees—they only convince themselves with deliberate lies.
b) To implement basic changes in the theory and practice of international relations of the current Russian government.
If these two goals are achieved, then the problem our country faces in its relations with Russia will be reduced to a size that can be considered normal."
The directive goes on to state that the current leaders of the Soviet Union will not consider concepts proposed by the West. It then emphasizes that "for such concepts to become dominant in the Russian communist movement would require, given current circumstances, an intellectual revolution within that movement, which would be tantamount to a change in its political identity and the abandonment of its fundamental purpose... Such concepts could become dominant in the Russian communist movement only if, through a long process of change and destruction, that movement survives the shocks that gave it life and vitality and acquires a completely different significance in the world than the one it has today."
Fully aware of the extent of responsibility for encroachments on the Soviet Union, the authors of the directive further stated: "We... must not feel guilty about seeking to destroy concepts incompatible with peace and stability in the world and replace them with concepts of tolerance and international cooperation ( that is, the dictates of the West. - A.M. ) . We are not obliged to calculate the internal changes that the adoption of such concepts may lead to... nor should we feel responsible for these changes. If Soviet leaders decide that the growing prevalence of more progressive concepts of international relations is incompatible with the existence of their internal power in Russia, then this is their responsibility, not ours. This is a matter for their own conscience and the conscience of the people of the Soviet Union. We have not only the moral right, but also the moral duty to work for the universal acceptance of worthy and promising concepts of international life (that is, the dictates of the West. - A.M.). At the same time, we have the right not to be constrained by the means in terms of internal improvements."
… Our first intention with regard to Russia in time of peace is to encourage and facilitate by non-military means the gradual reduction of excessive Russian power and influence…
We must, by any means at our disposal, promote the development of federalist institutions in the Soviet Union that would allow for the revival of national life... (in other words, in such an elegantly refined form, so uncharacteristic of the dull Yankees, we are talking about inciting national separatism. - A.M.).
“…On our part, we must concentrate our efforts to create favorable conditions to take advantage of Soviet mistakes and the emerging cracks, and to contribute to the persistent deterioration of the moral influence that the Kremlin authorities exert on the people…
It's also extremely curious that one of the first instructions from Radio Free Europe, which was fully funded by the United States, obtained by Soviet intelligence in the late 1940s, suggested: "...Use the method of inciting one nation against another, one population group against another..." And the NATO Council session held in late 1952, as documented by Soviet intelligence, actually mandated that the bloc's joint bodies and individual member countries "truly promote anti-Semitism in Eastern European countries (taking into account the possible negative reaction in Western circles)." In this way, the West sought to "deteriorate the structure of the moral influence that the Kremlin authorities exert on people." Simply put, the Kremlin's policy of friendship and mutual support for nations, primarily the Soviet Union, categorically displeased the West.
"We are striving to create circumstances and situations that would be difficult for the present Soviet leaders to cope with and which would be undesirable to them. It is possible that, in the face of these circumstances and situations, they will not be able to maintain their power in Russia. But let us repeat once again: this is their business, not ours... If the situations to which our intentions are directed in peacetime actually arise and prove incompatible with the existence of internal Soviet power and force the Soviet government to disappear from the scene, we will observe these changes without regret; but we must not feel responsible for their search or their implementation."
This point particularly reveals the influence of Britain, which has historically suffered from extremely aggressive Russophobia. The fact is that it is based on the method of "conspiracy against conspiracy (conspiracy within a conspiracy)," atypical for obtuse Yankees. This is one of the most classic methods of Britain's struggle against the outside world, known in intelligence parlance as "conspiracy within a conspiracy" (or "conspiracy against a conspiracy"). Its use represents the pinnacle of global warfare. British intelligence is a master of this art. It is an incredible master of such tricks—after all, it has been honing its art for five centuries. And its mentors, in their time, were masters of secret methods in the global struggle for world domination.
The method itself originated during the fiercely contested Reformation and Counter-Reformation struggles in England. Its basic design entailed secret infiltration of Counter-Reformation supporters to gather information, and then, exploiting the mistakes, incompetence, and vanity of Counter-Reformation emissaries, not so much to expose enemy plans as to counter and channel enemy plots into the interests of the British government. Central to this "technology" was the covert facilitation of the failure of enemy plots according to a scenario that was advantageous to the English government at the time. This method's bloody "premiere" took place nearly five centuries ago. "In the 16th century, the head of the English secret service, Lord Burghley, and his closest aide, Walsingham, decided to eliminate Mary Stuart, a pretender to the throne. But how to do it? Simply repressing her—that was impossible." It was decided to "help" her organize a conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth.
An agent named Gifford was planted in Mary's entourage. [2] He skillfully pushed Mary's people to organize a conspiracy and helped expose it. The 16th-century "GKChPists," including Mary Stuart, were executed. In the history of intelligence agencies, this is a classic example of the "conspiracy within a conspiracy" method. [3]
The Yankees, especially back then, were thick-headed and didn't have this method (and, incidentally, still don't—it requires a particularly cunning, sophisticated British mind, not one with brains as straight as American state lines). The clue clearly came from Great Britain. It's no coincidence that it was Britain that spearheaded the entire intellectual leadership of the psychological warfare against the USSR in the post-war period.
"The smaller the territory left at the disposal of such a regime, the easier will be the task of putting forward conditions that satisfy our interests... We must demand... conditions designed to provide the necessary freedom, or federal status..."
The directive then continues with sections on "Separation" and "Selecting a New Ruling Group." The "Separation" section discusses the methods and technology for separating Ukraine from Russia and Russia from Ukraine. Incidentally, everything that has happened between Ukraine and Russia since 1991 corresponds with the provisions of this section with stunning precision.
So, how should Stalin and the state security agencies have reacted to the tricks of the "Leningraders," if the latter's actions were consistent with the provisions of the main enemy's directive on the fight against the Soviet Union?!
And here's what's surprising. Coincidences in politics are almost never the norm. Unless they're supernatural. But this case is not one of them. The fact is that, since 1946, one of the key figures in the "Leningrad Affair"—A.A. Kuznetsov—had been the party's curator of state security agencies, including, naturally, intelligence. This means he was aware of these Western aspirations...
ESPIONAGE
But the matter didn't end there. The Leningrad Affair also clearly reveals a trace of espionage. Yakov Kapustin, the second secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), while on an internship in England in 1935–1936, where he studied steam turbines, became involved in an intimate relationship with an English translator. One day, the English husband, returning home unexpectedly, found his wife and Kapustin dressed as Adam and Eve. A scandal erupted, and the case was investigated by the party organization of the Soviet Trade Mission in London. At the time, the matter was hushed up.
But in the summer of 1949, Soviet state security received reliable information that Kapustin had been recruited by British intelligence at the time. On July 23, 1949, Kapustin was arrested on charges of spying for Britain. Kapustin quickly admitted to having been recruited by British intelligence in London. While one can certainly fantasize about the torture Kapustin was subjected to, given the methods of British intelligence, it's entirely possible that the incident involving her husband's unexpected return was deliberately orchestrated. Until the case materials are published (and whether they ever will be), it's very difficult to determine whether Kapustin was recruited. At least Abakumov had no doubt about it. In a report dated August 1, 1949, Abakumov wrote to Stalin: "...there are compelling reasons to believe Kapustin is an agent of British intelligence..."
A quick comment. There's no need to fantasize about the torture Kapustin was allegedly subjected to. And don't even wait for the Kapustin case materials to be published. It's important to remember that British intelligence employed one of Soviet intelligence's most valuable agents—the legendary Kim Philby, who headed MI6's operations on the Soviet front. And of all people, he certainly knew about British intelligence networks on Soviet territory. Incidentally, this is far from the first time that members of the magnificent "Cambridge Five" informed Moscow about British agents in the USSR. For example, in late 1940, after a second attempt, one of MI6's most valuable agents in the USSR, a senior official in the secretariat of Politburo member A.I. Mikoyan, was finally identified and eliminated. Moreover, such incidents are far from uncommon in intelligence practice. Just remember the recent cases involving Soviet intelligence agents, and then agents of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, O. Ames and R. Hansen, with whose "help" the CIA lost more than a dozen of its most valuable agents in the USSR and Russia.
So, don't be surprised by the categorical nature of Abakumov's report. He wrote the absolute truth, as his words were backed by serious intelligence. What remains to be seen is the extent to which British intelligence knew about the secret plans of the Voznesensky-Kuznetsov group, and if it did, as is likely, then to what extent did it control their actions, even if only in the dark, and did it coordinate its actions with the Yankees? That's what matters! But no one will ever know, since such information would never be revealed under any circumstances. Surely the legend of "innocent, honest party members murdered" is not to be destroyed!
On August 4, Kapustin named two more conspirators. He then admitted that an anti-Soviet, anti-Party group had formed in Leningrad, led by Voznesensky, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers; Kuznetsov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who was tasked with monitoring state security agencies through the Central Committee; Rodionov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR; and Popkov, First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional and City Party Committees. Besides himself, this group also included Turko, Second Secretary of the Leningrad Regional and City Party Committees; Lazutin, Chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee; and Zakrzhevskaya, Head of the Organizational Department of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee. It turned out that more than 75 members of the Leningrad Party elite were connected to this group to one degree or another and firmly supported it. Let us not forget that the international situation at that time was very serious.
GROUP MANAGEMENT
The State Security Service continued its investigation and uncovered many more facts, astonishing for the time. Some of these were found in the Leningrad Defense Museum. As a reminder, the museum was ceremoniously opened in Solyanoy Gorodok (Solyany Town) near the Fontanka River in May 1946. Its creation began during the siege, first as an exhibition, then converted into a permanent museum. The suite of halls of the former All-Russian Industrial Exhibition of 1870 was filled with celebrated aircraft from the Leningrad Front, authentic diaries of siege survivors, trophies, dioramas, military maps, paintings by siege artists, sculptures, models of city fortifications, siege apartments, and bakeries… A total of thirty-seven thousand exhibits, or, as they say, storage units. The Defense Museum presented the siege as a heroic epic, a feat of Leningraders, city residents, and soldiers of the Leningrad Front, led by the party of Lenin and Stalin.
But the role of the "Leningrad leaders" was emphasized most of all. Portraits of Leningrad's leaders during the siege—the same Popkov, Kuznetsov, Kapustin, and others—dominated the exhibition. The portrait of Popkov, Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee, was as large as Stalin's. In those years, one could discern certain signs and intentions behind the size of symbols. The role of the Party Central Committee in saving Leningrad was essentially glossed over. Completely ignored were the facts that Leningrad was completely unprepared for the siege. This led to the deaths of almost half its population. And Kuznetsov, as the main organizer of the city's defense, along with other senior Party officials, bears his share of responsibility for this.
To top it all off, weapons were found in the museum. The culmination of the search was the discovery and seizure of gunpowder buried in the weapons workshop. Now one might argue that "it's no surprise that it ended up in the museum—exhibits were sometimes brought back from the front 'hot.' The gunpowder, of course, should have been handed over to specialists or burned, but some smart aleck, out of laziness, buried it in the weapons workshop." And in those difficult years, sabotage was everywhere.
As the investigation progressed, a very interesting picture began to emerge. It turned out that a peculiar Leningrad mafia was quietly forming in the country. Having risen to power, those from Leningrad pulled in their acquaintances, colleagues, and fellow countrymen, placing them in key government and party positions. Thus, in 1945, Kuznetsov nominated Popov, a former aircraft factory director, as secretary of the Moscow party organization, and Popov simultaneously became a member of the Central Committee Organization Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). All the main figures in the "Leningrad Affair," with the exception of Rodionov, had strong ties to Leningrad, where they had held leadership positions for considerable periods. As early as the summer of 1948, the Leningrad and regional party organization, represented by its leader, P.S. Popkov, approached N.A. Lenin, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Voznesensky with an offer to take "patronage" over Leningrad. Voznesensky declined, but did not report the incident to the Politburo. As it turned out, similar conversations had also taken place with A.A. Kuznetsov, a member of the Orgburo and the Central Committee's Secretary for Personnel.
Thus, a small, tight-knit inner-party group was quietly formed, its members openly supporting each other and having clear leaders at the top. It has now become common practice to drag one's acquaintances and fellow countrymen to the top. Putin alone has managed to pull so many of them along! And in those difficult years, Stalin ruthlessly fought against any manifestations of factionalism and nepotism.
When Zhdanov died in 1948, Popov demanded that the ministers, as party members, report to him as head of the Moscow Party Committee. Malenkov, seeking to remove Popov, interpreted this demand as evidence of a conspiracy and the emergence of an independent center of power within the Moscow Party organization. This assessment can, of course, be disputed, but Malenkov was not alone. Malenkov's opinion was supported by ministers who complained to Stalin that Popov was constantly interfering in their work. In essence, Zhdanov and Kuznetsov exercised dual control over the government: through Popov and through the Central Committee.
A brief comment. Yeltsin attempted something similar when he became secretary of the Moscow Party Committee. This was one of the reasons for his conflict with the Central Committee apparatus.
Such actions in those years could easily have been interpreted as an attempt to split the Communist Party by organizing an opposition center in Leningrad. Here is an excerpt from a Politburo letter to members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): "It can now be considered established that a group hostile to the Party had long been formed at the top of the former Leningrad leadership, including A. Kuznetsov, Popkov, Kapustin, Solovyov, Verbitsky, and Lazutkin. At the beginning of the war, and especially during the siege of Leningrad, Kuznetsov's group, overcome with fear and utter confusion in the face of the difficulties that had arisen, did not believe in the possibility of victory over the Germans. Kuznetsov's group harbored plans to seize leadership positions in the Party and the state. The question of moving the capital of the RSFSR from Moscow to Leningrad was repeatedly discussed and prepared within Kuznetsov's hostile group."
It's entirely possible that this group was first assembled as early as 1938 by Politburo member Zhdanov, Stalin's intended successor to General Secretary if he, Stalin, were to resign due to ill health, and who died unexpectedly in 1948. But this theory is pure fantasy (though you never know). Most likely, it was Kuznetsov's transfer to Moscow that led to the consolidation of the Leningrad group within the upper echelons of power. It included Central Committee Secretary Zhdanov, Gosplan Chairman Voznesensky, First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee Popkov, and, alongside them, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Rodionov.
On August 13, 1949, Kuznetsov was arrested in G.M. Malenkov's office. His apartment was searched that same day. According to his son, Kuznetsov was also accused of claiming that there were many non-Russians in the Politburo. Furthermore, it was established that Kuznetsov, Popkov, Kapustin, Lazutin, Turko, Zakrzhevskaya, and Mikheyev had embezzled state funds and used them for personal gain. The indictment at his 1950 trial stated that Kuznetsov "having fraudulently infiltrated the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)… planted his people everywhere—from Belarus to the Far East and from the North to Crimea." Rodionov, for example, proposed not only creating a Communist Party of the Russian Federation but also establishing its own Russian anthem and flag—the traditional tricolor, but with a hammer and sickle. Therefore, the intentions to make the Russian Federation more independent within the USSR, to elevate the role of Leningrad and the Leningrad region, transferring certain central government functions to the "northern capital," and even making it the capital of the RSFSR in the future, were clear. Moreover, they conceived of elevating the status of the Russian Federation not as a revival of genuine principles of federalism, but as a means of strengthening the position of their domain—Leningrad. At the same trial, instances of demagogic flirtation with the Leningrad organization, denigration of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)… in attempts to present themselves as special defenders of Leningrad's interests, in attempts to create a divide between the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Leningrad organization, and thus distance the organization from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) were uncovered. Popkov and Kapustin publicly, before their trial and arrest, admitted that their activities did not comply with party norms and were thus anti-party in nature.
VIOLATIONS OF PLANNED DISCIPLINE
But that wasn't all. The USSR Council of Ministers (chaired by Stalin) received a report from M.T. Pomaznev, Deputy Chairman of Gossnab, regarding the USSR State Planning Committee (chaired by N.A. Voznesensky) underestimating the target figures for the USSR industrial production plan for the first quarter of 1949. A Central Committee commission was dispatched to Gosplan, which conducted an investigation into Gosplan's activities under Voznesensky's leadership and discovered that, with the active participation of Voznesensky and Rodionov, the planning and distribution of material resources was based on personal preferences, to the detriment of the state's interests. Preference was given to those regions led by like-minded individuals, and through Voznesensky, state plan targets were reduced for them. In other words, using his administrative powers within Gosplan, Voznesensky was actively cobbling together a group of his protégés, whose careers were facilitated. The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Council of Ministers. Stalin described such incidents as "attempts to adjust figures to suit one or another preconceived opinion constitute criminal offenses." This resulted in the following protocol entry: "Comrade Voznesensky is unsatisfactorily managing Gosplan, failing to demonstrate the necessary party spirit, especially for a Politburo member, in his management of Gosplan and in upholding government planning directives. He is improperly training Gosplan employees, resulting in the cultivation of non-party morals within Gosplan, anti-state actions, instances of deception of the government, criminal instances of figure-falsification, and, finally, instances that indicate that Gosplan's senior staff are cheating the government."
In addition to the underestimation of the industrial development plan, this commission proved that Voznesensky was guilty of instilling departmental tendencies within Gosplan, corrupting personnel, and elevating and maintaining ties with the Leningrad anti-Party group. The USSR Council of Ministers Commission found that Voznesensky "failed to demonstrate the obligatory party affiliation, especially for a Politburo member, in his leadership of Gosplan and in upholding government planning directives. He improperly trained Gosplan employees, resulting in the cultivation of non-party morals within Gosplan, anti-state actions, instances of deception of the government, criminal acts of figure manipulation, and, finally, evidence that Gosplan's senior officials were deceiving the government."
Voznesensky did everything he could to promote "his" people to high positions, relying not on their professional merits but on their membership in the so-called "Leningrad group." Voznesensky was accused of "deceiving the state," or, in modern parlance, window dressing. Seeking to make life easier for himself, Voznesensky deliberately understated the industrial production plan, only to later report to his superiors that it had been exceeded. Such actions, especially coming from a man Stalin held up as a role model, evoked extreme indignation in him. Gosplan, he repeatedly reiterated, was the general staff of the economy, which must be absolutely objective and honest, otherwise order in the country would be impossible.
Here are excerpts from the Politburo Resolution on the USSR State Planning Committee, dated March 5, 1949: "The USSR Government has repeatedly stated that the primary task of the State Planning Committee is to ensure the growth and development of the national economy in state plans, identify existing reserves of production capacity, and combat any departmental tendencies to understate production plans. As the nationwide body for planning the national economy of the USSR and overseeing the implementation of state plans, the USSR State Planning Committee must be an absolutely objective and 100% honest body; any kind of fiddling or manipulation of figures is completely unacceptable in its work, since any attempt to adjust figures to suit one or another preconceived opinion constitutes a criminal offense."
However, as a result of an investigation carried out by the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in connection with the note of the USSR State Committee for Supply and Logistics (comrade Pomaznev) on the industrial production plan for the first quarter of 1949, facts of deception by the USSR State Planning Committee of the Government were revealed. It was established that the USSR State Planning Committee allows an objective and dishonest approach to matters of planning and evaluation of the implementation of plans, which is expressed primarily in the adjustment of figures in order to obscure the actual state of affairs. It was also revealed that there is a liaison between the USSR State Planning Committee and individual ministries and departments and an understatement of the production capacities and economic plans of the ministries.
During the investigation, the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, Comrade Voznesensky, the First Deputy Chairman, Comrade Panov, and the Head of the Consolidated Department of the National Economic Plan, Comrade Sukharevsky, instead of acknowledging the anti-state actions committed by the State Planning Committee, persistently tried to conceal the actual state of affairs by adjusting figures, thereby demonstrating that there was a system of mutual responsibility within the USSR State Planning Committee, and that the employees of the USSR State Planning Committee, in violation of state discipline, obeyed the incorrect procedures established within the USSR State Planning Committee.
By colluding with individual ministries, the USSR State Planning Committee began to underestimate plans for a number of industrial sectors. According to O. Petrova, it should be remembered that "there was a practice of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and each of his deputies supervising a number of ministries, and this assignment was formalized by an official document—a Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers. The Deputy Chairman not only had authority over the ministries he supervised but was also accountable to the Government and the Politburo for their work. Voznesensky oversaw the ministries of the aviation industry, heavy engineering, the automotive industry, machine tool manufacturing, shipbuilding, finance, and the construction of military and naval enterprises, as well as the State Bank, the Main Directorate of State Material Reserves, the Main Directorate of Labor Reserves, and the Committee for the Accounting and Allocation of Labor. Plans for "his" ministries were underestimated, while those for "other" ministries—for example, the oil industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs—were overestimated. It's important to note that by changing the plan, Voznesensky's group at Gosplan disrupted the natural proportions of the national economy, leading to shortages of some products and "surpluses" of others. Whether this was done deliberately, with the goal of unbalancing the entire economy, or "simply" to "make life easier" for "their own" is a secondary question.
A brief comment. This is far from a minor issue. Stalin had an excellent memory, and he remembered the Industrial Party affair very well. Even during the analysis of the myth about the alleged falsification of the Industrial Party case, it was pointed out that the leaders of this organization, L.K. Ramzin and V.A. Larichev, were on a business trip to Paris in the late autumn of 1928, where they addressed the leaders of the Trade Industry. L.K. Ramzin addressed those present with a lengthy report. He informed his audience that their organization numbered over two thousand people, that they had infiltrated all areas of Soviet industry, and were actively implementing a carefully, scientifically developed sabotage plan in order to hinder the implementation of the bold and ambitious five-year plan for the rapid industrialization of the USSR. "One of our methods, " the professor reported enthusiastically, " is the method of minimal standardization, which hinders the country's economic development and reduces the pace of industrialization. Then there's the method of creating disproportion between individual sectors of the national economy, as well as between individual sectors within the same sector. And finally, there's the method of "capital stagnation," in other words, investing capital either in completely unnecessary construction or in projects that can be postponed for a long time because there's no current need for them. Professor Ramzin went on to express particular satisfaction with the results achieved by the "capital stagnation" method. "This method, " he emphasized, " was intended to delay the progress of industrialization. Without a doubt, it lowered the country's overall economic standard of living, which caused widespread discontent."
Naturally, these data immediately surfaced in Stalin's powerful and tenacious memory, especially in light of intelligence data. The fact is that, according to the aforementioned National Security Council Directive No. 20/1 of August 18, 1948, the United States set the task of instigating "conditions designed to create serious economic dependence" on the outside world for the USSR! And creating serious economic dependence on the outside world for such an economically autarkic state as the USSR is only possible through the constant creation of economic imbalances, resulting in a wave of deficits and the need for external aid (we all recently experienced this firsthand). It's also important to keep in mind that creating economic imbalances, let alone skillfully creating them, requires extremely detailed economic information, especially regional information. And here's what's curious about this. Even as his pre-war prestige grew, Voznesensky managed to convince Stalin of the need to establish the institution of Gosplan Commissioners for the country's most important economic regions, which was established by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 21, 1941. Their status was enshrined in the Gosplan Regulations. The Commissioners had a small but highly qualified staff. They were not subordinate to local authorities and therefore could objectively and deeply delve into the essence of a problem. They carried out the most important assignments from Gosplan and the USSR Government that required on-site review. The Commissioners' reports were reviewed at the highest level. This acted as Voznesensky's personal economic intelligence service within the country. It was the Commissioners who provided invaluable analytical data on the true situation on the ground. And note that there were 25 of these Gosplan Commissioners in the country.
Such actions were classified as grave state crimes by the then Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Let me remind you of the contents of Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR in this section (in order of importance for this case):
Article 58/1. Any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening the power of the workers' and peasants' councils and those elected by them, on the basis of the Constitution of the USSR and the constitutions of the union republics, the workers' and peasants' governments of the USSR, the union and autonomous republics, or at undermining and weakening the external security of the USSR and the fundamental economic, political and national gains of the proletarian revolution, is recognized as counterrevolutionary.
58/7. The undermining of state industry, transport, trade, monetary circulation or the credit system, as well as cooperation, committed for counter-revolutionary purposes through the corresponding use of state institutions and enterprises or by obstructing their normal activities, as well as the use of state institutions and enterprises or obstructing their activities carried out in the interests of former owners or interested capitalist organizations, shall entail the social protection measures specified in Article 58/2 of this Code.
58/2. An armed uprising or invasion of Soviet territory by armed bands for counterrevolutionary purposes, the seizure of power at the center or locally for the same purposes, and in particular with the aim of forcibly seizing from the USSR or an individual union republic any part of its territory or terminating treaties concluded by the USSR with foreign states, shall entail the highest measure of social protection - execution by firing squad or declaration as an enemy of the workers, with confiscation of property and deprivation of citizenship of the union republic and, consequently, citizenship of the USSR and expulsion from the borders of the USSR forever, with the possibility, under mitigating circumstances, of reduction to imprisonment for a term of not less than three years, with confiscation of all or part of the property.
Modern supporters of Voznesensky must admit that he either deliberately caused harm or was completely incompetent and, as Chairman of the State Planning Committee, was unaware of the fundamental principles of a planned economy. Since Voznesensky graduated from the Institute of Red Professors, held a doctorate in economics, and was even a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, authored several articles and the book "The Military Economy of the USSR During the Patriotic War," the theory of complete incompetence seems unlikely.
CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE (Is this negligence? - A.M.)
But that wasn't all. The USSR State Planning Committee, headed by Voznesensky, lost a significant number of documents constituting state secrets between 1944 and 1949. It turned out that Voznesensky was to blame. Judging by the lack of comment on this matter from the commission for the rehabilitation of so-called victims of repression, headed by Yakovlev, one can indirectly conclude the seriousness of the document loss. Let's cite one archival document.
Note on the disappearance of secret documents in the USSR State Planning Committee
(RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 135. D. 16. L. 83–89)
August 22, 1949
To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Comrade Ponomarenko P.K.
The USSR State Planning Committee accumulates a large number of documents containing classified and top secret information of national importance, but document security is inadequate. Document accounting is poorly organized, and reproduction is often uncontrolled. Secret and top secret documents are sometimes left in desks or passed from one employee to another without proper documentation. A significant number of documents submitted to the State Planning Committee are not registered. The lack of proper document management led to the disappearance of 55 classified and top secret documents from the USSR State Planning Committee in 1944, 76 in 1945, 61 in 1946 , 23 in 1947 , and 21 in 1948. A total of 236 classified and top secret documents were missing over a five-year period .
Among the documents lost in 1944 are :
State plan for the restoration and development of the national economy for 1945 (capital works plan), No. 18104, 209 sheets.
Main indicators of the production plan (non-ferrous metals), actual fulfillment of the plan for 1940 and 1943, expected fulfillment for 1944 and draft plan for 1945–1946, No. 9007-1, on 4 sheets.
Draft resolution of the State Defense Committee on the restoration of industry and municipal services in the city of Leningrad, No. 2152, 28 pages.
On the supply of metal-cutting equipment to enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy in the second quarter of 1946, No. 261, 10 sheets.
A project received from the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the restoration of ferrous metallurgy in the south, No. 8353, on 10 sheets.
On the plan for industrial production and the commissioning of new energy capacities by the People's Commissariat of Power Plants in the fourth quarter of 1944, No. 8654, 5 sheets.
Extract from the draft resolution on the long-term plan for the construction of power plants, No. 9023, on 2 sheets.
Draft labor plan for 1944, No. 3002, 7 sheets.
Among the documents lost in 1945 are:
On calculations of oil transportation for 1945, No. 128, on 3 sheets.
The document provides data on the capacity of oil pipelines and the volume of transportation by rail, sea and river transport.
Long-term plan for the restoration of the national economy in the liberated regions of the USSR, No. 1521, one book.
On the five-year technical plan for 1946–1950, No. 7218, 114 sheets.
On the plan for the transportation of oil and oil products by water in 1945, No. 166, 6 sheets.
On the organization of production of radar stations, No. 4103, 6 sheets.
Note on the plan for the restoration of railway transport in 1946–1950, No. 7576, 4 sheets.
Balance of the main types of equipment in the five-year plan for 1946–1950, No. 7737, on 7 sheets.
On the development of manganese ore mining at the Chiaturmarganets mines, People's Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy, No. 2663, 10 sheets.
Note on the further development of agricultural mechanization, No. 1568, 61 pages.
On the purchase in the USA for cash of equipment not delivered by the Americans, No. 557, 15 sheets.
Draft resolution of the State Defense Committee on the removal of equipment from the city of Shvibos No. 2739, on 2 sheets.
Letter and draft order on the organization of production of 152 mm naval projectile bodies at the former German shipyard in Schichau, No. 11736, 6 sheets.
Note to the long-term plan for procurement of agricultural products for 1946–1950, No. 6676, 8 sheets.
Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the publication of textbooks for schools of the Ukrainian SSR in 1945, No. 5, 1 sheet.
List of issues constituting a state secret and subject to classification in the offices of authorized representatives of the USSR State Planning Committee, No. 3134, copy No. 2.
Instructions for maintaining secret and top secret correspondence by employees of the State Planning Committee, No. 3132, copy No. 17.
Among the documents lost in 1946 are:
Memorandum to the material balances and distribution plans for 1947, No. 6676, 21 pages. The memorandum contains top secret data on petroleum products, non-ferrous metals, and army supplies.
Balance and plan for the distribution of material assets (non-ferrous metals and cable products as of Book IV, 1946), No. 4124, 95 sheets.
List of Amendments to the Five-Year Plan for 1946–1950, No. 363, 39 pages. The document provides reporting data on oil production and the production of all types of petroleum products, crude and refined copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, nickel, and mercury for 1940 and 1945, as well as production plans for 1946–1950.
A report on amendments from the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy to the draft national economic plan for the third quarter of 1946, No. 3026, on two sheets. The report contains data on the 1946 plan and provides production data on lead, cobalt, and refined copper, as well as the number of production workers by industry for the third quarter of 1945.
On the plan for the distribution of petroleum products for the third quarter of 1946, No. 2402, 3 sheets. The document provides data on the plan for the second quarter of 1946 and the draft plan for the third quarter of 1946. Among other petroleum products, data on aviation gasoline and aviation oils is provided.
Conclusion on the proposals of the Gosplan production departments to increase the limit on capital works and the volume of construction and installation work for 1947, No. 6439, 10 pages. The document lists the total number of enterprises engaged in the production of radar equipment.
Comprehensive plan for logistics support for NKvoenmorflot, NKtyazhmash, NKkhimprom, NKtransmash, NKugol, NKneft and NKles, No. 931, 26 sheets.
Comprehensive plan for the material and technical support of the People's Commissariat of Non-Ferrous Metals, the People's Commissariat of Chemical Industry, and the NKVD for the first quarter of 1946, No. 391, 88 sheets.
Note and draft resolution on balances and plans for the distribution of ferrous and non-ferrous metals for the second quarter of 1946, No. 1497, on 3 sheets.
Balance of ferrous metals for the third quarter of 1946, No. 2372, on 12 sheets.
On the results of the implementation of the national economic plan for January 1946, No. 1063, 12 sheets.
Certificate of Soviet-Foreign Enterprises Abroad, No. 675, 4 pages. The certificate lists the number of Soviet and Soviet-Foreign enterprises in Germany, Manchuria, and Korea, along with the number of employees (without specifying the company's specialization).
Note on the status of dismantling, removal and use of equipment and materials from German and Japanese enterprises, No. 3072, 4 sheets.
Information on the need for Donetsk, Kuznetsk and Chelyabinsk coals for individual brands and grades for 1947 according to the Ministry of Aviation Industry, No. 34963, on 1 sheet.
Balance and plan for the distribution of ferrous metals
II quarter 1946, No. 1138, on 18 sheets.
Balance of liquid fuels (lubricating oils) on
III quarter 1946, No. 2387, on 112 sheets.
Draft resolution on the general plan for transportation by rail, river and sea transport for September 1946, No. 2037, on 2 sheets.
Among the documents lost in 1947 are :
Certificate of deficiencies in the most important material balances, including: non-ferrous metals, aviation gasoline and oils, No. 6505, on 4 sheets.
Certificate of fuel oil reserves in the state reserve, No. 6187, 1 sheet.
On the growth of labor productivity and wages in industry during the war, No. 1246, 17 sheets.
Report on the work of the radar industry for the first half of 1947 (page 11 is missing), No. 11807.
Among the documents lost in 1948 are :
A memo to the government on measures to develop the oil and coal industries in 1947, No. 522, 10 pages. The memo contains data on oil production from 1940 to 1947, well drilling and commissioning, capital investment, construction, and capacity, and the location of refineries (for aviation gasoline and aviation oils).
Letter from the Ministry of the Navy on transportation for 1947 and draft transportation plan for 1948, No. 2424, on 4 sheets.
Note on the implementation of the national economic plan in January 1948, No. 865, 13 sheets.
Draft labor plan for 1949 for the ministries of mechanical engineering, No. 3619, 4 sheets.
Draft resolution on the balance and distribution plan for ferrous metals, No. 53, 6 sheets.
Draft resolution on the balance and plan for the distribution of forest materials for 1948, No. 703, on 4 sheets.
In violation of current regulations for ensuring the preservation of state secrets, the secret department illegally copied lost documents from the employees assigned to them and failed to notify the USSR Ministry of State Security of the loss of classified and top secret documents. The documents were copied primarily on the instructions of Comrade Kuptsov, Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee, who oversaw the work of the secret department. None of the employees responsible for the loss of state documents were brought to trial, as required by law. The vast majority of those responsible faced no punishment, not even administrative penalties. The destruction of classified documents at the State Planning Committee is carried out without regard to established regulations. In 1944, the head of the 3rd section of the secret department, Beschatnov, and a group of employees drew up a report on the destruction of a large number of documents, but he kept 33 documents listed as destroyed according to the report and stored them uncontrolled until the end of 1946. Among these documents were: a five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the USSR for 1946-1950; a five-year plan for the restoration and development of rail transport for 1946-1950; materials on the balance and distribution of funds for electricity, solid and liquid fuel, ferrous and non-ferrous metals for the second quarter of 1946; data on the accumulation of petroleum products in the state reserve, and others.
Gosplan's leadership conducted no investigation into this criminal case and merely issued Beschatnov a reprimand. Furthermore, Beschatnov was later promoted to deputy head of the secret department. Beschatnov has now been dismissed from Gosplan, partly because he provided contradictory information about his father, who lived in the United States.
It should also be noted that the USSR Gosplan archive is in disarray, housed in cramped and inconveniently located premises. The archive lacks a single qualified archivist capable of systematizing and processing materials of significant national economic significance. The storage and accounting of vital government documents in the Gosplan archive does not preclude the possibility of misuse of classified archival materials.
I consider it absolutely necessary to conduct an official investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of secret documents from the USSR State Planning Committee.
The issue of bringing order to the secret department's operations has been raised with Comrade Saburov. Measures are being taken to strengthen the secret department's personnel.
Currently, secret office work in the State Planning Committee is being checked by employees of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
I sent the same note to Comrade G.M. Malenkov.
Andreev, authorized representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for personnel in the USSR State Planning Committee.
A short comment. The document bears the resolution (autograph): "To Comrade Sazonov. Ponomarenko." On September 10, Sazonov informed Ponomarenko that "based on a note from Comrade Andreyev, the Authorized Representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for Personnel at the USSR State Planning Committee, regarding the procedure for recording and storing secret and top secret documents at the USSR State Planning Committee and regarding the loss of a significant number of these documents, a special resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers was adopted on August 25, 1949. A special commission was instructed to investigate the reasons for the loss of the documents" (RGASPI.F. 17. Op. 135. D. 16. L. 90).
The Party Control Commission began to question Voznesensky about this note. Voznesensky responded with a formal reply, the gist of which boiled down to "I don't know, I didn't see it." In cases where feigning forgetfulness was impossible, Voznesensky offered all sorts of excuses.
Here is the text of Voznesensky's reply.
Note from N.A. Voznesensky to I.V. Stalin
0 missing classified documents at the State Planning Committee
USSR
(AP RF.F. 3. Op. 54. D. 26. L. 78–91.)
September 1, 1949
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
to Comrade Stalin I.V.
Today I was summoned to the Party Control Committee (PCC ) to see Comrade Shkiryatov and informed that an audit at Gosplan revealed the disappearance of 236 secret and top secret documents over the past five years, that Gosplan had not been properly organized in storing secret documents, and that those responsible for their disappearance were not brought to justice, as required by Soviet law. In this regard, I am providing my explanation to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
1) From the facts I was reminded of in the CPC or informed of, as some of them were unknown to me, I certainly see and acknowledge that there was serious disarray in the storage of classified documents at Gosplan. The order required by law was absent, and those responsible for document loss were not brought to justice. I knew from Comrade Kuptsov's reports that document losses had occurred at Gosplan: during the war, when Gosplan conducted a mass document security audit, in 1948, when Comrade Kuptsov's memo was presented, and from his individual reports.
2) Why didn't I take the decision to bring the perpetrators to court, but limited myself to administrative penalties and failed to report these facts to the Central Committee and the Government? When I try to understand the reasons for such an offense, I have to distinguish between the question: why didn't I do this then and how do I understand this matter now? At the time, I thought that since there was no evidence that the documents were used to disclose state secrets and that Kuptsov, as he told me, was reporting the missing documents to the Ministry of State Security, I thought I could believe the perpetrators' explanations and limit myself to administrative penalties. Now I understand that this philistine approach is unacceptable, that I committed grave wrongdoing before the Central Committee and the Government, that subjective interpretation cannot replace the law, that it must be strictly observed, and that only the courts and the investigation are competent to resolve this matter. All this is now clear to me because after my dismissal from work, at the cost of great experiences, I eliminated my illness - arrogance and self-conceit, so that my entire attitude towards party and Soviet decisions, of course, became truly heightened and vigilant.
3) All of the above also applies to Kuptsov's document of May 5, 1948, in which he reported the absence of a number of documents assigned to various senior Gosplan officials. My fault lies in the fact that, when giving instructions to Panov, Kuptsov, and Oreshkin, I failed to give direct orders to bring the culprits to trial. And when Kuptsov reported this matter to me again orally, this time without suggesting that the case be referred to court, I again failed to display the dignity of a leader and did not suggest acting strictly according to the law. In this, I committed intolerable carelessness and arrogance; I had no other thoughts or intentions. Regarding the practice of "copying off" undiscovered secret documents based on Kuptsov's resolutions, which I first became familiar with in the CPC, I declare that I did not initiate such a practice, was unaware of it, and was fully confident that a proper report was being drawn up for each undiscovered document.
4) In violation of the relevant instructions, the management of the secret department at Gosplan was entrusted to the deputy chairman, Comrade Kuptsov, and not to me, as the head of the institution. In this, I violated the instructions, but there was no intent; I thought Kuptsov would do more to restore order, given his greater time and understanding of secret office work. As before, so now, I, of course, understand that the head of the institution ultimately bears responsibility. It is also clear now that all the measures taken at Gosplan to restore order in document storage were insufficient, since the most important thing was not accomplished—those responsible were not brought to justice.
5) I would also like to clarify the issue of the loss of documents in the secretariat of the Chairman of the State Planning Committee, which Comrade Shkiryatov informed me of. I declare that I was not aware of this. On the contrary, the head of the secretariat of the Chairman of the State Planning Committee, Filatov, when I was Chairman of the State Planning Committee, told me that all the documents listed for the secretariat were in order; Kuptsov, or anyone else, also did not inform me of the loss of documents. After I was dismissed from my job, the former head of the secretariat in the Council of Ministers, Kolotov, told me that he had paid in full, and that Filatov was still in charge of two minor documents. Therefore, this message from Comrade Shkiryatov was completely unexpected for me. As for the two documents (Kosyachenko's and Lyubimov's), I had them in my possession at the Council of Ministers, and I was the only one who used them: Kosyachenko's memo on monetary circulation in connection with the preparation and implementation of the monetary reform, and Lyubimov's report on the ratio of ammunition production during the First and Second World Wars—when working on the results of the war economy. When I left the Council of Ministers, I handed these documents, like many others, to Kolotov for return.
This is what I can say about this difficult matter, in which I have committed a great deal of guilt.
I appeal to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and to you, Comrade Stalin, and ask you to forgive me for the offense I have described here. The punishment I have already received and the long period of unemployment have so shaken and transformed me that I dare to ask you for this and trust that you are dealing with a man who has learned his lessons and understands how to observe Party and Soviet laws.
N. Voznesensky."
These arguments, with their pretense of sincere remorse, seem inappropriate for a leader of such stature; they wouldn't have passed even for a cadet covering for a friend who lost a manual "for official use only." Following the investigation by the Communist Party Committee, Voznesensky was expelled from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and the case was transferred to investigative bodies. But the investigation into the case was not limited to mere organizational measures.
On September 11, 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decided: 1. To approve the proposals submitted by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the issue of numerous cases of disappearance of secret documents in the USSR State Planning Committee.
Brief comment No. 1. The proposals submitted by the CPC to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) included the following measures:
1. For violating Soviet laws on the protection of state secrets and creating a corrupting atmosphere of connivance in the apparatus of the USSR State Planning Committee towards those responsible for the loss of secret documents, N.A. Voznesensky is to be expelled from the membership of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
— In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 9, 1947, and in view of the particular seriousness of the violations of the law in the USSR State Planning Committee, bring to trial Voznesensky, as the main culprit of these violations, as well as the former deputy chairman of the State Planning Committee Panov, the deputy chairman of the State Planning Committee Kuptsov, the head of the personnel department Oreshkin, and the head of the 5th department of the State Planning Committee Belous, who are responsible for the loss of classified documents and for the failure to take measures to preserve classified documents.
— To propose to the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Comrade Safonov, to conduct the necessary investigation into the case of the disappearance of secret documents in the USSR State Planning Committee.
RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 1078. L. 20, 166–169.
2. The decision to exclude N.A. Voznesensky from membership in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) shall be submitted for approval to the Plenum of the Central Committee. RGASPI. Fund 17. Op. 3. D. 1078. L. 20, 166–169.
A brief comment #2. Please note one circumstance. The greatest number of secret and top secret documents disappeared between 1944 and 1946—55 , 76, and 61, respectively. That is, 81.4% of all documented losses occurred during this period. Meanwhile, it was precisely during this time that Stalin was trying to negotiate loans with the United States to rebuild the war-ravaged Soviet economy! And detailed data on the Soviet economy was of great interest to the Americans. American researcher D. J. In his book , The United States and the Emergence of the Cold War, 1941-1947 , published back in 1972 , Gaddis, with unrivaled mastery, showed the full baseness of the American position on this issue: “On September 14, 1945, a delegation led by the chairman of the committee (the special congressional committee on postwar economic policy and planning. - A.M.) William M. Colmer… was honored: Stalin accepted it. Colmer told the Soviet leader that his committee knew about Russia’s desire to receive a loan from the United States. How, he wanted to know, would the Soviets use the funds, how would they repay them, and what could Washington expect in return?… The delegation… made a report to Secretary of State J. Byrnes (the same one who, in the same September 1945, openly threatened the USSR with an atomic bomb. - A.M. ), and then conferred with Truman (the US President. - A.M. ). Colmer's group emphasized in discussions with both that it was necessary to "toughen our approach to the Soviet Republic." Colmer's committee was prepared to approve an American loan to the Soviet Union on the condition that the Russians accept certain obligations. They must disclose what share of their production goes to arms. They must disclose key data on the Soviet economy and allow verification of the accuracy of this data. The Soviet Union must not provide political aid to Eastern Europe and must disclose the contents of its trade agreements with these countries. Both in the USSR and in the Eastern European countries under its control, the Kremlin must guarantee full protection of American property and the right to distribute American books, magazines, newspapers, and films. Finally, the United States must insist that the Russians fulfill their political obligations on the same terms as other governments.
In the summer of 1946, another US delegation arrived in Moscow—a reparations delegation led by the prominent oil industrialist E. Pauley. The delegation's main objective was to familiarize Soviet authorities with the principle of "first come, first served." According to the American historian D. Yergin's book, "Shocked World" (1977), the following was the rationale: "Reparations from current production, that is, from the output of the German economy, are reduced to a minimum. Exports from this production are first used to pay for goods imported from the West, and only then for reparations deliveries to the East. Germany is integrated into the multilateral, American-controlled world economic order until reparations are paid to its Soviet ally."
Let's pay particular attention to what's relevant to our analysis. Remarkably, the very things that interested the US most closely match the content of the documents that disappeared between 1944 and 1946. Incidentally, the same is true for all cases of secret document disappearances. I'd also like to draw readers' attention to the following. To pose the question of reparations distribution in this way, their role in the restoration of the USSR's national economy had to be precisely understood. Furthermore, note the Americans' demand not only for precise information about the Soviet economy but also for the opportunity to verify the accuracy of this data. Naturally, during the negotiations, Stalin spoke of the devastation of the Soviet economy as a whole. He didn't provide any precise data, especially classified data. And the Americans were extremely interested in this. And so, documents capable of answering the questions the Yankees were asking are disappearing from Gosplan...
Now, special attention should be paid to the content of the excerpt from the report of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) dated April 25, 1950, on the investigation of Gosplan personnel in connection with the discovered facts of the disappearance of secret documents: “Insufficiently qualified and, in some cases, dishonest employees were placed at the head of many departments and divisions, incapable of defending the directives of the party and government in the area of national economic planning. It should be noted that among the Gosplan employees there was a significant group of individuals who maintained written communications with their close relatives living abroad, mainly in the USA, who were expelled from the party for anti-party views, and who maintained contacts with their closest relatives convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes” (RGASPI. Fund 17. Op. 135. D. 38. L. 1-10).
But that's not all. Consider also the following coincidence. The aforementioned fair in Leningrad was held by the future key figures in the "Leningrad Affair" from January 10 to 20, 1949. Meanwhile, as noted above, by September 1, 1948, a new attack plan on the USSR— "Fleetwood" —was developed , which also envisioned massive atomic bombings of the USSR. According to this plan, the war was to begin no later than April 1, 1949! To implement this plan, the US Air Force command developed the SAC operational plan EVP-149, which defined the tasks and objectives of this barbaric attack and compiled navigation charts for crews to carry out simultaneous bombings of 70 cities in the Soviet Union. The maps were distributed before February 1, 1949. By the end of 1948, even this seemed insufficient. The overseas scum developed a new plan , "Sizzle" ("Incinerating Strike"), which became a senseless plagiarism of the "Charioteer" plan, since it completely repeated it.
So, when the navigation charts indicating the atomic bombing targets arrived in Moscow (naturally, along with the plans themselves), it turned out that the targets had been chosen with remarkable precision. And what are we supposed to think about this, given that a huge number of secret documents in which these targets were directly mentioned disappeared from Gosplan?! Even the introduction to the five-volume set, as well as the second book, explicitly stated that the internal anti-Stalin opposition had an ineradicable habit of coordinating its actions with the threat of an external attack! An attack on the USSR was scheduled for April 1, 1949, and as the curator of the state security organs, Kuznetsov knew this, and he and Voznesensky held a meeting of like-minded people as early as mid-January 1949!
But Stalin was precisely that extraordinarily perceptive and experienced politician who instantly grasped the most subtle connections... Apparently, that is why the sentence was so harsh.
Furthermore. Stalin was seriously concerned not only with the situation at Gosplan, but also with the political situation surrounding Voznesensky. Voznesensky tried to "bring his ideas to the masses," but he did so in a unique way. Having secured the support of his supporters in the journal "Bolshevik," Voznesensky began to promote his book by every means possible. Here is what is said about this in the notes on the results of the audit of the work of the journal "Bolshevik": "The audit also revealed that the editorial staff of the journal "Bolshevik" included various quotes in the authors' articles without due necessity. In addition to the well-known case with the article by Comrade Andrianov, quotes from N. Voznesensky's book "Military Economy of the USSR" were inserted into the articles by P. Tapochok "The Combination of Personal and Public Interests under Socialism" (No. 6, 1948), and A. Morozov "The Impoverishment of Workers in Capitalist Countries" (No. 16, 1948).
In clarifying the reasons for Comrade Koshelev's arbitrary inclusion of a quotation from N.A. Voznesensky's book in Comrade Andrianov's article, I must say that the economists working for Bolshevik grossly exaggerated the political and theoretical significance of N.A. Voznesensky's book. The main proponent of this opinion regarding the book's particular political significance was Comrade Gatovsky, who served as head of the economics department of Bolshevik magazine until September 1948 and was later engaged as a consultant on several articles on economic topics. In January 1948, at the direction of the editors, Comrade Gatovsky wrote a review of N.A. Voznesensky's book for Bolshevik magazine, in which he exaggerated its significance. In response to editorial board members' comments that the book's evaluative formulations should be more modest, Comrade Gatovsky responded that these formulations had already been published in the press, and he could not change them... After Comrade Gatovsky's review was published in the journal "Bolshevik," he boasted to some of the journal's employees that his review had been received with approval by Gosplan. Clearly, when composing his review, Gatovsky was concerned not so much with the interests of theory or the interests of the readers, but with how this review would be viewed by Gosplan. Comrade Gatovsky cherished N.A. Voznesensky's book as the most authoritative textbook. When the editorial staff drew Comrade Gatovsky's attention to the incorrectness or ambiguity of some of the formulations in his article, he replied that this is what was written in N.A. Voznesensky's book. It is clear that Comrade Gatovsky did not restrain authors from inappropriately quoting provisions from N.A. Voznesensky's book. Voznesensky, he approved articles that liberally quoted this book. For example, Comrade Gatovsky gave a positive opinion on the article by Gosplan employee Sorokin, which abounds with quotations from the book by N.A. Voznesensky (the article was published in No. 24 of the magazine "Bolshevik" in 1948). In this regard, Comrade Gatovsky also influenced Comrade Koshelev, an employee of the economics department of the magazine, who to this day believes that quoting the book by N.A. Voznesensky as a theoretical source in articles published in "Bolshevik" was a normal phenomenon, that "that's how everyone did it." Comrade Koshelev denies that anyone prompted him to include a quotation from the book by N.A. Voznesensky in Comrade Andrianov's article. Comrade Koshelev explains the inclusion of this quotation by the fact that he wanted to "improve the article." It should be noted that the deputy. The journal's editor-in-chief, Comrade Kuzminov, who was responsible for articles on economic issues, did not resist the tendency to unnecessarily inject quotations from N.A. Voznesensky's book into articles, and he himself cited several quotations from this book in his articles. When asked why he cited the book, Comrade Kuzminov replied that the quotation was not necessitated by the need to present the issues involved, but that he feared being accused of ignoring N.A. Voznesensky's book. This unprincipled explanation demonstrates that, when preparing Comrade Andrianov's article, Comrade Kuzminov couldn't stop Koshelev from including a completely irrelevant quote. This means the editors not only primarily published articles praising Voznesensky's book, but also inserted quotes from it into articles by authors who had no intention of quoting Voznesensky.
The book itself, "The Military Economy of the USSR," is unremarkable—a good statistical compendium with slogans and quotes instead of conclusions and recommendations. If you read a number of Voznesensky's articles from various periods, which is not difficult—he was actively publishing in the 1960s and 1970s—you'll see how prominent a role he attributes to market methods, and business accounting in particular, in the construction of communism. Of course, there are nods to communism and ample quotations from classic Marxist authors, but business accounting "resurfaces" at every stage, from the end of the NEP to the very last page. For example, in the article "Business Accounting and Planning at the Current Stage," he writes: "Not only cannot we abolish business accounting, but we are obliged to strengthen it. The current economic situation has made business accounting particularly relevant... We must transfer every workshop, every team, to business accounting... Every business accounting unit has fixed working capital." The article concludes: "So, our general conclusion is clear: business accounting is a powerful lever for achieving Bolshevik rates, a powerful lever for socialist planning (emphasis added by Voznesensky)." This article was written in late 1931. Here's an excerpt from a 1939 article: "Business accounting relations are essential during the period of socialism... That's why it's essential to maintain a monetary account of planned indicators." In other words, Voznesensky and his students believed that, no matter what stage the USSR's economy was in, at every stage, business accounting was the most necessary, important, and relevant."
A brief comment. All this ideological fuss over and around Voznesensky couldn't help but evoke strong associations in Stalin with Bukharin in the late 1920s. Everything happened exactly the same way back then. Kolya Balabolkin himself presented himself as a supposed theoretician, especially in the field of political economy, churning out works and articles, while his supporters everywhere extolled the non-existent mind of the "eternal muddlehead." It all ended with an underground anti-state organization, a trial, and execution.
Naturally, Stalin couldn't ignore such a phenomenon in the post-war period. He even more so couldn't ignore the fact that, in the post-war period, intelligence increasingly began reporting documented evidence of plans for ideological subversion against the USSR, including special efforts to cultivate so-called heretical communism and implement internal changes within the Soviet system. The US National Security Council Directive 20/1 of August 18, 1948, cited above, stated: "For such concepts to become dominant in the Russian communist movement would require, given the current circumstances, an intellectual revolution within that movement, which would be tantamount to a change in its political identity and the abandonment of its basic purpose." So, the whole point is that the ideological fuss over and around Voznesensky strongly resembled some attempt at some kind of "intellectual revolution."
Moreover, towards the end of the war, and especially in the immediate post-war years, the West began to seriously consider not only what would happen to the USSR in the post-Stalin era. Even then, the West had already begun multi-move, multi-level maneuvers and covert operations in the hopes of somehow influencing the choice of a new Soviet leader. Primarily, this meant making him more susceptible to Western influence, or, even better, "one of the West's own." I emphasize, this idea had already captured the imagination of the highest echelons of the Western political elite, and Western intelligence agencies worked tirelessly, sweating their brows, to solve this incredibly complex task. Simultaneously, the most sophisticated and highly secretive channels of international political Freemasonry were deployed. And this could cause such a mess that even the KGB, CIA, MI6, and Mossad, working together, wouldn't be able to sort it out... And the West struggled with this most complex of tasks until 1985, when it installed its own man, the later Nobel Prize-winning combine operator "Marked Mikhail," in the General Secretary's chair. A well-known former dissident, later a pro-statist philosopher, the now, unfortunately, deceased Alexander Zinoviev once let it slip: "In 1979 (at the time he was in exile. - A.M.), during one of my public speeches, which was titled: "How to kill an elephant with a needle?", I was asked which place in the Soviet system was, in my opinion, the most vulnerable. I answered: the one that is considered the most reliable, namely, the apparatus of the CPSU, within it the Central Committee, within it the Politburo, and within the last the General Secretary. "Get your man into this post, " I said to the audience's roaring laughter, " and within a few months he will destroy the party apparatus, and a chain reaction will begin, leading to the disintegration of the entire system of power and governance. And as a consequence, the disintegration of society as a whole will begin."
And then A. Zinoviev added: "The reader should not think that I suggested this idea to the Cold War strategists. They came up with it themselves (and when they actually thought about it – towards the end of the war and in the first post-war years – A.M.) and without me. One of the employees of the Intelligence Service once told me that they (that is, the Western powers) would soon place their man on the 'Soviet throne.'" And that man, M.S. Gorbachev, "naturally" became one after that unforgettable meeting with Margaret Thatcher back in 1984, that is, a year before his election as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
As for business accounting, it's worth noting that Stalin never denied its significant economic significance. This was discussed back in the fourth book. But Stalin never made a special economic fetish out of it, much less extolled it at every turn. After all, it was merely one means of effective management. Voznesensky and his hangers-on, however, envisioned business accounting as practically the foundation of all economic life. And from there, incidentally, it was only a short step to a market economy. Moreover, with such a fetishization of business accounting, under conditions of public ownership and a planned economy, a frontal clash of the two was inevitable. Because sooner or later, the problem of business accounting's effectiveness would inevitably run up against the problem of changing the status of ownership. And this threatened to openly undermine the very economic foundations of Soviet power. Could Stalin allow such a thing? The answer, one would think, is obvious.
On Stalin's orders, Malenkov, Beria, and Bulganin interrogated Voznesensky and concluded that he was guilty of the charges brought against him. On March 7, 1949, Voznesensky was removed from his government posts and from the Politburo of the Central Committee. Voznesensky's case was referred to the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Here, "self-aggrandizement" and "maintaining ties with a Leningrad anti-party group" were added to the previous charges. On September 9, 1949, CPC Chairman Shkiryatov submitted a proposal to the Politburo to remove Voznesensky from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and prosecute him. Three days later, the Central Committee Plenum approved this proposal. But when it seemed the decision had been made, the stage was set for reprisal, and the inevitable arrest was imminent, Voznesensky was unexpectedly left alone. He was arrested only on October 27, 1949. By this time, he had written a thick manuscript for his book, "The Political Economy of Communism."
With each passing month, the investigation uncovered more and more of the Leningrad group's stooges. More and more people were arrested—district party committee secretaries, district executive committee chairmen, city executive committee employees—and then they began to round up the directors of large factories and trusts. The investigation then spread to Leningraders who, after the war, were sent to Novgorod, Murmansk, Gorky, Ryazan, and Simferopol. I'm not saying they were all guilty. But when investigations are underway and denunciations are widespread, there are certain rules of the genre. Many people identified their enemies themselves.
COURT
The investigation lasted over a year. Colonel Vladimir Komarov, former deputy head of the MGB's Investigative Department for Particularly Important Cases, who was arrested along with Abakumov, recounted the events during interrogation: "I went to Leningrad with ten other investigators... Before leaving for Leningrad, Abakumov sternly warned me not to mention Zhdanov's name in court. 'You're responsible with your head,' he said. But everything went as planned. The name of Zhdanov, who had by then been canonized, was not mentioned at the trial." On September 26, Chief Military Prosecutor A.P. Vavilov officially approved the indictment. It was decided to hold the trial in Leningrad. On September 29, 1950, a visiting session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR opened in the premises of the District Officers' Club on Liteiny Prospekt. The collegium included three major generals of justice, chaired by I.R. Mutalevich. The case was heard without the participation of the state prosecutor and defense attorneys. Malenkov maintained constant control over the investigation of the "Leningrad case," and allegedly was also present at numerous interrogations of those arrested. The investigative team was directly led by Colonel Komarov, who later admitted (under pressure from Khrushchevite investigators) that, on Abakumov's orders, he had personally beaten Voznesensky, while investigators Sorokin and Pitovranov applied similar brutal physical force to Kuznetsov. According to Sergei Beria, Malenkov, as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, personally organized a "special prison" in Moscow in 1950 to conduct investigative political cases. Employees of the Administrative Department of the CPSU Central Committee were involved in organizing the "special prison," while employees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPC) under the CPSU Central Committee were recruited for the investigative work. The progress of the "special prison" and its activities were reported directly to Malenkov, and a government rotary telephone was installed in the prison. There were cases when leading officials were arrested upon leaving Malenkov's office in the CPSU Central Committee building. For example, former Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee A.A. Kuznetsov, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M.I. Rodionov, former Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee P.S. Popkov, and others. A few of the surviving members of the Leningrad group claim that physical violence was used against them. For example, former Second Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee Iosif Turko, who received a 15-year prison sentence on January 29, 1954, told investigators reviewing the "Leningrad Case": "I committed no crimes and never considered myself guilty. I gave my testimony as a result of systematic beatings, because I denied my guilt. Investigator Putintsev began beating me systematically during interrogations. He hit me on the head, in the face, and kicked me. One time, he beat me so hard that my ear started bleeding. After such beatings, the investigator sent me to solitary confinement, threatening to destroy me, my wife, and my children, and sentence me to 20 years in a labor camp."If I don't confess... Then Putintsev asked me to sign a monstrous report about Kuznetsov, Voznesensky, and others. It also contained wild fabrications about the leaders of the Party and government. And that I was a participant in the conspiracy. They beat me. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I spent seven days in solitary confinement. Again, I refused to sign the report... More beatings. Then I saw a doctor with a syringe. I got scared and signed two reports at once... They took me to Komarov. I was more afraid of him than Putintsev... I wanted to commit suicide... At home, my wife lost her mind, my son was arrested, my young daughter was sent to an orphanage. In the end, I signed everything the investigator suggested..."
This witness describes his torture with extreme vividness. But let's not argue with him. It's not the point. Whether there was torture or not (most likely, there wasn't), the defendants' guilt is clearly evident from the available evidence. On September 29-30, 1950, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR heard the criminal case against Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lazutin, Rodionov, Turko, Zakrzhevskaya, and Mikheyev in open court. During the trial, the defendants fully admitted their guilt. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lazutin, and Rodionov to death by firing squad. The indictment against the arrested men stated: "Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lazutin, Rodionov, Turko, Zakrzhevskaya, and Mikheyev, having united in 1938 to form an anti-Soviet group, carried out subversive activities within the party aimed at severing the Leningrad party organization from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), with the goal of turning it into a bulwark against the party and its Central Committee. To this end, they attempted to stir up discontent among the Leningrad communists with the activities of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). They expressed treasonous intentions regarding desired changes in the composition of the Soviet government and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Toward these same ends, they promoted their like-minded individuals to responsible party positions in a number of regions of the RSFSR."
In the dead of night on October 1, 1950, at 12:59 AM, the court began reading the verdicts. Major General of Justice Matulevich rose from the presiding judge's chair: "...Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lazutin, Rodionov, Turko, Zakrzhevskaya, and Mikheyev were found guilty of uniting in 1938 to form an anti-Soviet group and engaging in subversive activities within the Party aimed at separating the Leningrad Party organization from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) with the goal of turning it into a bulwark against the Party and its Central Committee... To this end, they attempted to incite discontent among Communists of the Leningrad organization with the activities of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), spread slanderous allegations, and expressed treasonous intentions... They also squandered state funds. As is evident from the case materials, all defendants fully admitted their guilt during the preliminary investigation and at the court hearing." Voznesensky was also accused of nepotism: his younger brother and sister held positions of responsibility in Moscow and Leningrad. This indirectly affected Mikoyan as well: one of his sons married Kuznetsov's daughter. His brother, A.L. Voznesensky, and his sister, M.A. Voznesenskaya, who held the post of secretary of the Kuibyshev District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Leningrad, were also repressed. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR qualified their actions under the most serious articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: Article 58-1a (treason), Article 58-7 (sabotage), and Article 58-11 (participation in a counter-revolutionary organization). A.A. Kuznetsov, N.A. Voznesensky, P.E. Popkov, P.G. Lazutin, M.I. Rodionov, and Ya.F. Kapustin were sentenced to death by firing squad. I.M. Turko received fifteen years of imprisonment, T.V. Zakrzhevskaya and F.E. Mikheyev - ten years each. The sentence was final and could not be appealed. In such cases, those sentenced to death have only one option - to petition the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for clemency. But the convicted were not given this opportunity: immediately after the verdict was passed, General of Justice I.O. Matulevich ordered the immediate execution of the sentence. On October 1, 1950, N.A. Voznesensky, A.A. Kuznetsov, P.S. Popkov, M.I. Rodionov, Ya.F. Kapustin, and P.G. Lazutin were executed. The following executions took place in 1951 and 1952. Those executed were M.A. Voznesenskaya (the Voznesenskys' sister), Badayev, I.S. Kharitonov, P.I. Levin, P.N. Kubatkina... The head of the Leningrad MGB, General Kubatkin, was repressed and executed after a closed trial.
There was no official press report of the trial. Therefore, the details of the trial remained unknown for a long time. A little later, the same fate awaited many other Leningraders: G.F. Badayev, I.S. Kharitonov, P.I. Kubatkin, P.I. Levin, M.V. Basov, A.D. Verbitsky, N.V. Solovyov, A.I. Burlin, V.I. Ivanov, M.N. Nikitin, V.P. Galkin, M.I. Safonov, P.A. Chursin, A.T. Bondarenko—a total of about two hundred people. The trial also heard about his group's attempt to create the Communist Party of Russia, which would have effectively led to the disintegration of the USSR along ethnic lines. Stalin could not allow this.
WHY IS THE SENTENCE SO CRUEL AND WHY IS IT CARRIED OUT SO SOON?
Why, then, was the sentence so harsh by today's standards, and why was it carried out so quickly? Some researchers believe that Stalin feared that power would fall into the hands of market proponents, of whom Voznesensky undoubtedly belonged. They claim that Stalin, unlike Voznesensky, believed that commodity circulation was incompatible with the prospect of transition from socialism to communism and that "as centralized scientific planning developed, economic accountability inevitably became a savage anachronism, a hindrance to the construction of communism." During the final period of Stalin's rule, the concept of economic policy was based on the priority of reducing production costs and improving the mechanism for annual price reductions. It was believed that planned cost reductions would stimulate the introduction of more productive equipment, while planned price reductions would encourage conscientious labor and careful stewardship of public property.
It seems the leader decided to deal with his ideological opponents among the "marketeers" in his usual manner. The reason for this, it is believed, was the famous debate about the economic problems of socialism, which occurred in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The discussion was sparked by disputes within the Politburo, initiated by Voznesensky. Even then, he declared a transition to a freer economy, which during the war had been restructured along military lines: orders were to be carried out, and failure to carry out orders meant prison or execution. "Stalin convened a meeting of economists from across the country... The discussion, on the surface, dealt with a rather abstract question: does the law of value operate under socialism? But the crux of the matter was whether the government could command everything at its own discretion and arbitrariness—resources, prices, people, determine economic proportions, the standard and way of life, and so on—or whether there were limits based on the demands of economic efficiency. It is clear that Stalin strictly adhered to the first of these points of view."
A quick comment: This is far from true.
More precisely, this is not the case at all. According to the testimony of K.N. Brutents, a well-known former figure in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Unfulfilled, Moscow, 2005, p. 22), in January 1953, the USSR State Planning Committee, the USSR Ministry of Finance, and three other major agencies, on Stalin's orders, prepared an analytical report on the possible prospects for the development of the Soviet economy. It stated, in particular, that the period of national economic recovery had come to an end, and that rigid centralized state planning was beginning to hinder the development of productive forces. To this end, it was necessary to: reduce the range of products included in the plan approved by the government and the Supreme Soviet; reduce the range of products distributed according to the supply plan, the prices for which are set by it; allow the law of value to operate in a "transformed form," and for the market to play a certain role; grant greater freedom of economic activity to ministries, enterprises, and republics.
That is, it is blatantly obvious that Stalin set a course for the use of certain market mechanisms in the Soviet economy, but under strict state control, as evidenced by the sly expressions "the law of value in a transformed form" and "the market must play a certain role." Stalin's position also suggests that such a course would not have been possible without the intensification of business accounting, but it is equally clear that the intensification of business accounting in Stalin's style would have occurred without its fetishization in the manner of Voznesensky.
It's unlikely that the leader's cruel decision was motivated primarily by his fundamental differences with Voznesensky on the conceptual issues of the USSR's further economic development. Most likely, Stalin feared that after his inexorably approaching death—he understood that everyone is powerless before death—the Leningrad group of Kuznetsov-Voznesensky, who had demonstrated their sectarianism, disregard for the norms of party democracy, personal indiscretion, the destruction of planning, and negligence, would take over the leadership. This rapidly gaining power, self-serving group within the country's leadership did not hesitate to rig votes. But most importantly, with this cohesive group in place, honest and principled comrades would have a hard time ousting them from power. Stalin saw how some of his former comrades, having embarked on the path of creating corrupt small groups of acquaintances and fellow countrymen, very quickly began to prioritize personal success and enrichment. It's no coincidence that almost all members of the Leningrad group were noted for their personal immodesty. The Chairman of Gosplan's dissemination of theoretical views and his immodest citation of his own scientific works (and even coercion of others to cite them) signaled his preoccupation with his own reputation and career. Stalin clearly saw the consequences, to use Gumilev's terminology, of the subpassionarity of the leaders, who most often behaved like double-dealers. Defeated in ideological battles, they formally acknowledged their mistakes, while in practice maintaining the same positions. The struggle to defend one's opinions quickly outgrew the norms of the party charter; they began to push "their people" into leadership bodies and push aside "theirs," and then to implement their own line in practice—that is, to sabotage the party line.
A brief comment. Indeed, the main motive for the leader's harsh decision was by no means his fundamental differences with Voznesensky on conceptual issues. The true motive behind this decision was revealed above, using intelligence and other materials. The entirety of the above data demonstrates that, based on the materials collected by state security agencies, Stalin saw a real threat to his brainchild—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which he defended to his last breath. He could not give his already identified enemies a chance to destroy his life's work.
It's paradoxical, but true, that only partial documents from the "Leningrad Case" have been published. Moreover, even such a rabid enemy of Stalin and the USSR as the ill-remembered A.N. Yakovlev, when he was chairman of the Rehabilitation Commission, hesitated to publish the prosecution's arguments, limiting himself to the characteristic vileness of a seasoned falsifier, capable only of casting a shadow on a non-existent fence. He simply blurted it out: and the MGB fabricated a number of materials. And that's all.
The outstanding contemporary Russian artist Ilya Glazunov, whose immense talent dwarfs many celebrities of the past and present, is fond of quoting one phrase from his beloved P. A. Stolypin. Here it is:
"For those in power, there is no greater sin than a cowardly shirking of responsibility. The state can, the state must, when in danger, enact the strictest, most exceptional laws to protect itself from disintegration. When a murderer attacks you, you kill him. This order is recognized by all states. It is a state of necessary defense."
So, when the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR reinstated the death penalty on January 12, 1950, the very title of the document clearly stated why it was issued: "On the Application of the Death Penalty to Traitors of the Motherland, Spies, and Subversives." In my opinion, this is self-explanatory.
ABAKUMOV'S ROLE
There is much speculation about the role of then-Minister of State Security Abakumov. Indeed, on July 11, 1951, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On the Unhealthy Situation in the USSR Ministry of State Security." In accordance with the assessments contained in this resolution, the next day, the then-Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel-General Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov, was arrested and declared "the head of a Zionist conspiracy within the MGB," and a purge of the state security agencies began.
At a visiting session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in Leningrad from December 12–19, 1954, Abakumov was accused of fabricating court cases, including the "Leningrad Affair," and labeled a "member of Beria's gang." Abakumov pleaded not guilty and was executed. Convicted along with Abakumov were A.G. Leonov, head of the investigative unit for especially important cases of the USSR MGB, his deputies V.I. Komarov and M.T. Likhachev, and investigators I.Ya. Chernov and Ya.M. Broverman. If we assume that Abakumov's subordinates, under his direction, fabricated this case, then Abakumov acted in accordance with the orders he had received. After all, the entire Politburo, including Stalin, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Beria, and Mikoyan (A.N. Kosygin and A.A. Andreyev also voted in favor), unanimously passed a resolution obliging Abakumov to arrest the Leningrad group and bring them to trial. So, in this case, it appears that the fabrication was carried out on the direct orders of the Politburo, based on the investigation materials of the Party Control Committee. However, the multi-stage nature of the investigation, along party and state lines (before the involvement of state security agencies), and the materials of that investigation themselves completely rule out the possibility of falsification.
Research on this period sometimes includes the assertion that Abakumov maintained friendly relations with Central Committee Secretary Kuznetsov and even, whenever possible, delayed the "development" of the "Leningraders" in order to delay their arrest. This may be true. That Abakumov was closely connected to the "Leningraders" is confirmed by the questions the investigators posed to him after his arrest. He was accused, in particular, of having uncovered the "Leningrad Affair" not by the MGB under Abakumov's leadership, but by the party organs themselves under Malenkov. The MGB, however , only began to perform its duties under duress, after the Central Committee had already learned everything.
A brief comment. Abakumov was on bad terms with many Politburo members. He was able to prove that Malenkov was well aware of the cover-up of problems in the aviation industry, and in 1947, Malenkov was reprimanded, dismissed, and temporarily exiled to Kazakhstan. He was removed from the Central Committee Secretariat, and his duties were transferred to Kuznetsov, a protégé of Zhdanov. Abakumov and Kuznetsov developed the closest of friendships. However, two months later, Stalin appointed Malenkov Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Beria supported Malenkov at the time and made no secret of their frequent meetings. The "Aviation Affair" soured Abakumov's relationship with Central Committee Secretary Georgy Malenkov. The results of the state security agency's investigation were reported to Stalin, who learned of the personal shortcomings of Georgy Maximilianovich, who had overseen the aircraft industry during the war. Consequently, he was forced to spend several months working for the party in Central Asia. Meanwhile, Leningrader Alexei Kuznetsov replaced Malenkov as Secretary of the Central Committee, responsible for personnel policy, state security agencies, and justice. Based on the above, Abakumov's falsification of the case seems unlikely.
REHABILITATION
After Khrushchev assassinated Stalin and Beria on April 30, 1954, the Supreme Court of the USSR completely rehabilitated the defendants in the Leningrad Affair (however, it was only in 1988 that Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were reinstated in the party, which soon died).
RESOLUTION OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE CPSU CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE "LENINGRAD AFFAIR"
On April 30, 1954, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR rehabilitated N.A. Voznesensky, A.A. Kuznetsov, M.I. Rodionov, P.S. Popkov, Ya.F. Kapustin, G. Lazutin, I.M. Turko, T.V. Zak-rzhevskaya, and F.E. Mikheev. A resolution was adopted by vote providing for the decision to be kept secret in a "special folder." However, at the meeting on May 20 of the same year (protocol no. 65, clause XXVIII), on the initiative of N.S. Khrushchev decided to remove the "special folder " classification from the resolution and familiarize the party and Soviet nomenklatura with it, sending it to the regional committees, territorial committees, the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics and to the departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU for review (RGANI. F. 3. Op. 8. D. PO. L. 182). (See also the reference "On the so-called "Leningrad affair" and other documents" // Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1989. No. 2. pp. 124-137).
An investigation conducted by the USSR Prosecutor's Office on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee established that the case against Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others for treason, counter-revolutionary sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet group was falsified for enemy adventurist purposes by the former USSR Minister of State Security, now arrested Abakumov, and his accomplices.
Using evidence of violations of state discipline and individual offenses by Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, and others, for which they were removed from their posts and subjected to party penalties, Abakumov and his accomplices artificially presented these actions as the actions of an organized anti-Soviet treasonous group and, through beatings and threats, extracted fictitious testimony from those arrested about the conspiracy they had allegedly hatched. Based on these false materials fabricated by Abakumov, in 1950 the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky N., Rodionov, Kapustin, and Lazutin to death by firing squad, Turko to 15 years in prison, and Zakrzhevskaya and Mikheyev to 10 years in prison. In connection with this case, the Special Council of the former USSR MGB and the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR convicted over 200 people, some as accomplices, and the majority as close and distant relatives of the convicted.
The Central Committee of the CPSU resolves:
Instruct the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Comrade Rudenko, in connection with newly discovered circumstances, to appeal the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the case of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others with a view to its cancellation and the termination of this case.
Take note of the message from the USSR Prosecutor's Office that the cases against family members convicted in connection with this case have been reviewed and these persons have been rehabilitated.
Instruct the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (Comrade Serov) and the USSR Prosecutor's Office (Comrade Rudenko) to charge Abakumov and his accomplices with the crime they committed - falsification of the case and the reprisals they carried out against Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, and others.
Instruct the Administrative Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU to provide Party and Soviet officials convicted in the case of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, and others, and now rehabilitated, with financial assistance in the amount of 10,000 rubles, plus 5,000 rubles per family member (mother, father, wife, and children). Instruct the Leningrad and Moscow Regional Committees of the CPSU to provide employment to these officials and their family members. Instruct the USSR Ministry of Finance to return confiscated property to these officials and their family members or compensate for the value of such property.
To oblige the Leningrad and Moscow City Executive Committees of Workers' Deputies to provide appropriate housing to persons convicted in connection with the Kuznetsov case and others and now rehabilitated. RGANI. F. 3. Op. 10. D. 108. L. 113; D. 81. L. 31–32.
A brief comment. Note how vilely the CPSU Central Committee acted under Khrushchev's leadership. After all, the transfer of the "Leningraders" case to the USSR MGB was carried out by a Politburo decree based on CPC materials. And if we were to assume this, then the CPC employees, along with the head of that party organ, Matvey Shkiryatov, should have been executed along with the MGB investigators. But nothing of the sort happened...
Note also how Stalin's Politburo and Khrushchev's Central Committee acted. Stalin's Politburo merely proposed that the USSR Prosecutor General conduct investigative actions, meaning that, at least on paper, it did not interfere with the Prosecutor's Office's functions. Khrushchev's Central Committee, however, had already openly ordered a protest against the verdict in the "Leningrad Affair," which constitutes flagrant interference in the Prosecutor's Office's affairs. Worse still, the very first paragraph of the resolution refers to "in connection with newly discovered circumstances." But here's the thing. How and by whom were these "newly discovered circumstances" uncovered? Strictly speaking, this could only happen in one case—if the case was sent for further investigation, and even then, by order of the very same Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. But then the question arises: who initiated this? And on what basis did they base their order for further investigation? There's no answer to any of these questions. Because there was no follow-up investigation whatsoever. There was a purely political order from a scumbag Trotskyist to rehabilitate the "Leningraders." And Rudenko, inextricably linked to Khrushchev by the blood of truly innocent people, could acquit or convict anyone. Which is exactly what he did. That was the entire "price" of Khrushchev's "rehabilitation."
A few months later, the investigators in this case appeared in court: the Minister of State Security, Colonel-General V.S. Abakumov; the head of the investigative unit for especially important cases, Major-General A.G. Leonov; and his deputies, Colonels M.T. Likhachev and V.I. Komarov, who had led the "Leningrad Case." The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found them guilty and sentenced them to death. Tellingly, the "Leningrad Case" is the only case in which virtually all the investigators were executed. The trial was held amid much fanfare at the Leningrad Officers' Club. It is highly unusual that only partial documents from the "Leningrad Case" have been published to this day. However, it's hardly surprising, given that they contain nothing more than a few dozen pages.
I emphasize once again that the Rehabilitation Commission, headed by the notorious A.N. Yakovlev, nevertheless declined to publicize the prosecution's case, stating only that "the MGB fabricated a number of materials." This, of course, is more convenient for the anti-Stalinist Banderists. The MGB falsified the entire case, and that's it! No more speculation!
However, even from the brief comments provided above, it's clear that there's much to discuss. And not just discuss, but rather categorically assert that the USSR MGB falsified nothing. Because the materials presented convincingly prove that members of the Leningrad group committed grave crimes against the USSR. The gravity of these crimes is not immediately apparent to the current generation, who still don't understand the social system Stalin built and therefore often see only totalitarianism in Stalin's USSR. Meanwhile, within the framework of socialism, the crimes of the Leningrad group are enormous. Stalin waged a fierce campaign against violations of planning discipline and distortions of reporting, against negligence, factionalism, and attempts to dismember the USSR along ethnic lines. This was especially true in the difficult international situation that, unfortunately, always beset the USSR throughout its history. This explains the harsh sentences handed down to members of the so-called Leningrad group.
This is the difficult truth about the complex "Leningrad affair." We must know it before hurling all sorts of accusations at Stalin. For assessments of the past, as the wisest ones used to say, must always correspond to the realities of the past.
