This article gives a brief biography of N. S. Khrushchev, describes him both inside the country and abroad. Also, the disadvantages of Khrushchev's rule and its advantages are determined, the activities of this political leader are assessed.

Khrushchev: biography. Carier start

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (life: 1894-1971) was born in the Kursk province (village of Kalinovka) into a family of peasants. In the winter season he studied at school, in the summer he worked as a shepherd. From childhood, he led Tak, at the age of 12, N. S. Khrushchev was already working in a mine, and before that, at a factory.

During the First World War, he was not called to the front, as he was a miner. He took an active part in the life of the country. Nikita Sergeevich was admitted to the Bolshevik Party in 1918 and participated on their side in the Civil War.

After the formation of Soviet power, Khrushchev engaged in political and economic activities. In 1929 he entered the Industrial Academy in Moscow, where he was elected secretary of the party committee. He worked as the second, and then the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee.

Khrushchev quickly given career growth. Already in 1938 he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian SSR. During the Great Patriotic War he was appointed to the post of commissioner of the highest rank. For the first time after the end of the war, N. S. Khrushchev was the head of the government of Ukraine. Six months after Stalin's death in 1953, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Rise to power

After the death of Joseph Vissarionovich, there was an opinion in party circles about the so-called collective leadership. In reality, internal political struggle was in full swing in the ranks of the CPSU. The result of it was the arrival of Khrushchev to the post of first secretary in September 1953.

Such uncertainty about who should lead the country took place due to the fact that Stalin himself never looked for a successor and did not express preferences about who should lead the USSR after his death. Party leaders were absolutely unprepared for this.

However, before taking the main position in the country, Khrushchev had to get rid of other possible candidates for this post - G. M. Malenkov and L. P. Beria. As a result of the unsuccessful attempt to seize power in 1953 by the latter, Khrushchev decided to neutralize him, while enlisting the support of Malenkov. After that, the only obstacle preventing him in the person of Malenkov was also removed.

Domestic politics

The domestic policy of the country during the Khrushchev era cannot be considered unambiguously bad or unambiguously good. Much has been done to develop agriculture. This was especially noticeable before 1958. Assimilated new peasants received greater freedoms, some elements of a market economy were born.

However, after 1958, the actions of the country's leadership, and Khrushchev in particular, began to aggravate the economic situation in the country. Methods of administrative regulation that hampered agriculture began to be applied. A partial ban on keeping livestock was imposed. Huge livestock was destroyed. The situation of the peasants worsened.

The controversial idea of ​​mass growing corn only made things worse for the people. Corn was also planted in those territories of the country where it obviously could not take root. The country is facing a food crisis. In addition, unsuccessful economic reforms, which practically led to a default in the country, had a negative impact on the financial opportunities of citizens.

However, it is impossible not to note the great achievements that the USSR achieved during the reign of Khrushchev. This is both a grandiose leap in the space sphere and a large-scale development of science, especially the chemical industry. Research institutes were created, vast territories were developed for agriculture.

In general, we can talk about the failure to achieve the goals set by Nikita Sergeevich both in the economic sphere and in the socio-cultural one. In this regard, it should be noted that Khrushchev was going to create and educate a truly communist society in the next twenty years. For this, in particular, an unsuccessful school reform was carried out.

The onset of the thaw

The reign of Khrushchev marked a new social and cultural turn in the life of the country. Creative people received, in a certain sense, greater freedom, theaters began to open, new magazines began to appear. Artistic art, uncharacteristic of the existing socialist regime, began to develop in the USSR, and exhibitions began to appear.

Changes also affected freedom in the country as a whole. Political prisoners began to be released, the era of cruel repressions and executions was left behind.

At the same time, one can also note the increased oppression Orthodox Church on the part of the state, hardware control over the creative life of the intelligentsia. There were arrests and persecution of objectionable writers. So, Pasternak had to face them in full for the novel Doctor Zhivago he wrote. Arrests for "anti-Soviet activities" also continued.

De-Stalinization

Khrushchev's speech in 1956 "On the cult of personality and its consequences" made a splash not only in party circles proper, but also in the public consciousness as a whole. Many citizens thought about the materials that were allowed for publication.

The report did not speak of the flaws in the system itself, nor of the erroneous course of communism. The state itself was not criticized in any way. Only the cult of personality developed during the years of Stalin's leadership was subjected to criticism. Khrushchev mercilessly denounced crimes and injustices, spoke about the deported, about those illegally shot. Unreasonable arrests and fabricated criminal cases were also criticized.

Khrushchev's reign, therefore, was to mark new era in the life of the country, to proclaim the recognition of past mistakes and their prevention in the future. And indeed, with the advent of the new head of state, executions stopped, arrests decreased. The surviving prisoners of the camps began to be released to freedom.

Khrushchev and Stalin differed significantly in the methods of government. Nikita Sergeevich tried not to use Stalin's methods even in the fight against his political opponents. He did not carry out executions of his own opponents and did not organize mass arrests.

Transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR

At present, speculations around the issue of the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine are flaring up with even greater force than before. In 1954, the Crimean peninsula was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, initiated by Khrushchev. Ukraine thus received territories that had never belonged to it before. This decision was the reason for the emergence of problems between Russia and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There are a huge number of opinions, including frankly improbable ones, about the real reasons that forced Khrushchev to take this step. They explained it both by a burst of magnanimity of Nikita Sergeevich, and by a sense of responsibility and guilt before the people of Ukraine for Stalin's repressive policy. However, only a few theories are the most likely.

Thus, there is an opinion that the peninsula was handed over by the Soviet leader as a payment to the Ukrainian leadership for assistance in being nominated for the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee. Also, according to the official point of view of that period, the reason for the transfer of the Crimea was a significant event - the 300th anniversary of the union of Russia with Ukraine. In this regard, the transfer of the Crimea was considered "evidence of the boundless trust of the great Russian people to the Ukrainian."

There are opinions that the Soviet leader did not have any authority to redistribute the borders within the country, and the separation of the peninsula from the RSFSR was absolutely illegal. Nevertheless, according to another opinion, this act was carried out for the benefit of the inhabitants of Crimea themselves. This is explained by the fact that as part of Russia, due to the unprecedented resettlement of entire peoples in the Stalin era, Crimea only worsened its economic indicators. Despite all the efforts of the country's leadership to voluntarily resettle people on the peninsula, the situation on it remained negative.

That is why the decision was made to redistribute the internal borders, which should have significantly improved economic ties between Ukraine and the peninsula and contributed to its greater settlement. In fairness, it should be noted that this decision subsequently brought a significant improvement in the economic situation in Crimea.

Foreign policy

Khrushchev, having come to power, understood the perniciousness and danger of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and Western countries. Even before him, Malenkov suggested that the United States improve interstate relations, fearing a possible direct clash of blocs after Stalin's death.

Khrushchev also understood that a nuclear confrontation was too dangerous and destructive for the Soviet state. During this period, he sought to find common ground with representatives of the West, and in particular the United States. Communism was not considered by him as the only possible way for the development of the state.

Thus, Khrushchev, whose historical portrait acquired some pliability in connection with the actions described, aimed his foreign policy in a certain sense at rapprochement with the West, where they also understood all the benefits of the emerging changes.

Deterioration of international relations

At the same time, the debunking of Stalin's personality cult had a negative impact on relations between the USSR and communist China. In addition, the international situation began to slowly but surely heat up. The aggression of Italy, France and Israel directed at Egypt contributed a lot to this. Khrushchev perfectly understood the vital interests of the USSR in the East and noted that he could provide direct military assistance to those who had been subjected to international aggression.

The intensified creation of military-political blocs also began. So, in 1954, SEATO was created. In addition, Germany was admitted to NATO. In response to these actions of the West, Khrushchev created a military-political bloc of socialist states. It was created in 1955 and formalized through the conclusion of the Warsaw Pact. The countries participating in the Warsaw Pact were the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria.

In addition, relations with Yugoslavia improved. Thus, the USSR also recognized a different model for the development of communism.

In this regard, one should note the discontent in the camps, which intensified significantly after the already mentioned XX Congress of the CPSU. Particularly strong discontent erupted in Hungary and Poland. And if in the latter the conflict was resolved peacefully, then in Hungary the events led to a bloody climax, when Soviet troops were brought into Budapest.

First of all, Khrushchev's disadvantages in foreign policy, according to many historians, were his excessive emotionality and demonstrative manifestation of his character, which caused fear and bewilderment on the part of the countries - representatives of the Western bloc.

Caribbean crisis

The intensity of relations between the USSR and the USA continued to put the world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. The first serious aggravation occurred in 1958 after Khrushchev's proposal to West Germany to change its own status and create a demilitarized zone within itself. Such a proposal was rejected, which caused the aggravation of relations between the superpowers.

Khrushchev also sought to support uprisings and popular discontent in those regions of the world where the United States enjoyed great influence. At the same time, the States themselves did their best to strengthen pro-American governments around the world and economically helped their allies.

In addition, the Soviet Union developed intercontinental ballistic weapons. This could not but cause concern in the United States. At the same time, in 1961, the Second West German leadership began to build a wall separating the GDR from the FRG. Such a move caused dissatisfaction with Khrushchev and the entire Soviet leadership.

However, the most dangerous moment in relations between the USSR and the USA was after Khrushchev's decision, shocking the West, to create a nuclear fist in Cuba directed against the USA, for the first time in history, the world was literally on the verge of destruction. Of course, it was Khrushchev who provoked the United States to retaliate. His historical portrait, however, is replete with such ambiguous decisions that fit perfectly into the general demeanor of the first secretary of the Central Committee. The culmination of events occurred on the night of October 27-28, 1962. Both powers were ready to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on each other. However, both Khrushchev and the then President of the United States, Kennedy, understood that a nuclear war would leave neither winners nor losers. To the relief of the world, the common sense of both leaders prevailed.

At the end of the reign

Khrushchev, whose historical portrait is ambiguous, due to his life experience and character traits, he himself exacerbated the already extremely tense international situation and sometimes nullified his own achievements.

In the last years of his reign, Nikita Sergeevich made more and more mistakes in domestic politics. The life of the population gradually became worse. Due to ill-conceived decisions, not only meat, but also white bread. Khrushchev's power and authority were gradually fading away and losing strength.

Discontent arose in the party circle. The chaotic and not always considered decisions and reforms adopted by Khrushchev could not but cause fear and irritation among the party leadership. One of the last drops was the mandatory rotation of party leaders, which was accepted by Khrushchev. His biography during this period is marked by increasing failures associated with the adoption of ill-considered decisions. Nevertheless, Nikita Sergeevich continued to work with enviable enthusiasm and even initiated the adoption of a new Constitution in 1961.

However, the party leadership and the people as a whole were already tired of the often chaotic and unpredictable management of the country by the first secretary of the Central Committee. On October 14, 1964, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, unexpectedly called from vacation, was removed from all previously held positions. Official documents stated that the change in party leader was due to Khrushchev's advanced age and health problems. After that, Nikita Sergeevich was retired.

Performance evaluation

Despite the fair criticism of historians regarding Khrushchev’s internal and external political course, the oppression of cultural figures and the deterioration of economic life in the country, Nikita Sergeevich can be called exactly the person who led her to great national achievements. Among them are the launch of the first artificial satellite, and the launch into space and the construction of the world's first nuclear power plant, and the not so unambiguous test of the hydrogen bomb.

It should be understood that it was Khrushchev who significantly intensified the development of science in the country. His historical portrait, despite all the ambiguity and unpredictability of his personality, can be supplemented by a stable and strong desire to improve the lives of ordinary people in the country, to make the USSR a leading world power. Among other achievements, one can note the creation of the Lenin nuclear icebreaker, which was also initiated by Khrushchev. Briefly, one can say about him as a person who sought to strengthen the country both internally and externally, but made serious mistakes in the process. Nevertheless, Khrushchev's personality rightfully takes its place on the pedestal of the great Soviet leaders.

Nikita Khrushchev is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the USSR. He was a "peasant's son" who rose to the pinnacle of power, which did not prevent the politician from being noted for a number of achievements in the "reorganization" of Soviet society after the deadly ideological schemes of his predecessor. Nikita Sergeevich became the most prominent reformer of the Soviet Union, whose failures and achievements are still discussed by historians today.

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was born on April 15, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, Kursk province, in a poor mining family. Nikita's childhood cannot be called happy, since from a young age the future head of the USSR had to work to help his parents make ends meet.

Khrushchev received his primary education at a parochial school, where he learned to read and write. During the summer holidays, the boy worked as a shepherd, and in the winter he learned to write and read. In the early 1900s, the statesman's family moved to Yuzovka, where Nikita Sergeevich began working at a machine-building plant from the age of 14. Here the young man was taught plumbing. After 4 years, Nikita went to work in a coal mine and joined the Bolshevik Party, in whose ranks he participated in the Civil War.

In 1918, Nikita Khrushchev gained membership in the Communist Party, and two years later became the political leader of the Donbass Rutchenkovskoe mine. At that time, the future leader of the Soviet Union entered the Donbass Industrial College at the working faculty and within the walls of the educational institution began to conduct party activities, which allowed him to be appointed to the post of party secretary of the college.

In 1927, Nikita Sergeevich was lucky enough to get into a real political "kitchen" - as a representative of Yuzovka, he was invited to the Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where he had a fateful acquaintance with the "gray eminence of Stalin". He saw political potential in Khrushchev and contributed to his rapid career.

Politics

A serious political biography of Nikita Khrushchev begins in 1928. Then Kaganovich promoted him to the central apparatus of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In this regard, Nikita Sergeevich had to enter the Industrial Academy of Moscow, since secondary education was not enough for an official at the republican level.

At the Academy, Khrushchev began to actively engage in party activities and soon headed the Politburo of the educational institution, since politics attracted him more than the educational process. The diligence and diligence of Nikita Sergeevich in party affairs were appreciated by the Soviet authorities, and soon he was appointed second secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU. In 1934, Khrushchev became the head of the Moscow party organization, replacing his protector Lazar Kaganovich in this post.

In 1938, Nikita Khrushchev was returned to Ukraine and appointed First Secretary of the Ukrainian SSR. Having received the first honorary "official trophy", Nikita Sergeevich set about restoring the administrative apparatus in Ukraine, which was destroyed by the repressions of 1937. Then he showed himself as a merciless fighter against "enemies" - literally in a year he subjected almost 120 thousand people from Western Ukraine to repressions, expelling them from their native lands.

During the years of the Ukrainian government of Khrushchev, the Great Patriotic War fell, during which the politician also did not sit idly by. He led the partisan movement behind the front line and rose to the rank of lieutenant general by the end of the war, although historians hold Nikita Sergeevich responsible for a number of defeats of the Red Army on Ukrainian territory.

After the war, Nikita Khrushchev remained the leader of the Ukrainian SSR, but in 1949 he went on promotion - he was transferred to Moscow to the post of head of the largest party organization in the USSR.

In 1953, Nikita Khrushchev reached the pinnacle of power. Then, when the whole country was plunged into mourning on the occasion of Stalin's death, he, along with his associates, which included Marshal Zhukov, masterfully beat his rivals for the post of head of the USSR. Khrushchev liquidated the main contender for the post of head of the Union, Lavrenty Beria, whom he accused of being an enemy of the people and shot for espionage.

In September 1953, Khrushchev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was an unexpected turn for the Soviet population, since during the years of his reign, Stalin always presented Nikita Sergeevich as an illiterate simpleton.

The years of Khrushchev's rule were marked by serious breakthroughs and failures in the economy of the Soviet Union. The loudest of them was the “corn epic” - the Soviet leader decided to make the “queen of the fields” the main cereal of the USSR, ordering the cultivation of corn everywhere, even where it could not produce a crop, for example, in Siberia.

Among the “achievements” of the politician, it is impossible not to note the Khrushchev reforms that were bubbling out of him. They were called "Khrushchev's thaw" and were more associated with the exposure of Stalin's personality cult.

Nikita Khrushchev's reforms are characterized by the elimination of the catastrophic consequences of the Stalinist repressions of the 1930s, the release of thousands of political prisoners, the emergence of partial freedom of speech, openness to the Western world, and the introduction of relative democratization into the social and political life of the country.

However, Khrushchev's economic policy was not just a failure, but disastrous for the Union. The ambitious leader of the USSR decided to "overtake America" ​​and increase the country's economic performance several times, which led to an unforeseen collapse in agriculture and famine.

At the same time, among the achievements of Khrushchev, indisputable successes can also be noted - he rapidly developed construction and resettled millions of Soviet citizens in his own apartments. Khrushchev apartments were and remain small and poorly planned, but at times they were superior in comfort to communal apartments, which suited the population.

Khrushchev also initiated the development of the space industry - during his reign, the first satellite was launched into space and the famous flight took place. In addition, Nikita Sergeevich earned fame as a patron of art. He loosened censorship in literature, launched television broadcasts in most of the Union, and revitalized the film industry. The first films of the "Khrushchev thaw" were "Spring on Zarechnaya Street", "Carnival Night", "Amphibian Man" and others.

Khrushchev's foreign policy led to the intensification of the Cold War, but at the same time strengthened the position of the Soviet Union in the international arena. First of all, having come to power, Khrushchev initiated the creation of the Warsaw Pact Organization (OVD), which was supposed to oppose the North Atlantic Alliance of the Western powers. The new treaty united the USSR, the countries of Eastern Europe and the GDR. A year later, the first uprising against the Soviet regime took place in Hungary.

In 1957, by order of Khrushchev, the World Festival of Youth and Students was held in the capital of the USSR, which brought together participants from 131 countries. The event had a positive effect on the image of a Soviet person in the eyes of foreigners, but did not help to reduce tension in relations with the United States.

In 1961, a political crisis arose in Germany, which led to the appearance of the Berlin Wall. In the same year, the only meeting between Khrushchev and. A year later, the US and the USSR exchanged threats - America deployed nuclear warheads aimed at the Soviet Union in Turkey, and the USSR in Cuba. The Caribbean crisis began, which almost escalated into the Third World War. But diplomatic talks helped ease the tension. In 1963, both sides signed a treaty banning nuclear tests in air, space and under water.

The sunset of Nikita Khrushchev's political career came in 1964. Against the background of mistakes and miscalculations, the politician was removed from power by the communists. He was replaced. Nikita Sergeevich became the only Soviet leader who left the post of head of the USSR alive.

Nikita Khrushchev entered Soviet history in an ambiguous political image. However, even more than 70 years after his reign, the USSR catchphrases politics remain on the lips of modern society. “We will bury you” and “Kuzka’s mother” by Nikita Khrushchev are well remembered in the United States, as the Soviet leader issued similar “threats” towards the West. The second phrase confused the delegation of Americans, headed by the vice president, since the translation of this idiomatic expression sounded literally: "Kuzma's mother."

And the photo of Nikita Khrushchev brandishing a boot has even received the status of a caricature in the Western media. Although Khrushchev's son Sergey later called this picture a photomontage. In fact, Nikita Sergeevich shook out pebbles from his shoe when he was at a UN meeting when the issue of the Hungarian Treaty was being considered.

Personal life

The personal life of Nikita Khrushchev is no less interesting than his political career. The third head of the USSR was married twice and had five children.

The first time Nikita Sergeevich married at the very beginning of his party activity, Efrosinya Pisareva, who died of typhus in 1920. For six years of marriage, Khrushchev's first wife bore him two children - Leonid and Yulia. In 1922, Khrushchev began to live with a girl named Marusya. The relationship lasted no more than two years. The girl had already raised a child from a previous marriage, whom Khrushchev then continued to help financially.

The second wife of Nikita Sergeevich was Nina Kukharchuk, a Ukrainian by nationality, who went down in history as the first wife of the Soviet leader, accompanying him at official events. With Nina Petrovna, the head of the USSR lived for more than 40 years in a civil marriage and only in 1965 officially registered the relationship.

Nina was the daughter of peasants, in Yuzovka she worked as a teacher in a party school, where she met Nikita Khrushchev. Despite her origin, Nina Petrovna was fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and French, as she was educated at the Mariinsky Women's School. Nina Petrovna did not stop self-education even during her marriage. In the late 30s, already a mother of three, she began to study English language. In the second marriage, three children were born in the family of the Soviet leader - Rada and Elena.

Death

Khrushchev lived with Nina Kukharchuk until the end of his life. After the resignation, Nikita Sergeevich was “removed” away from Moscow and moved to a dacha near Moscow in Zhukovka-2. The politician could not get used to forced austerity. As a former manager, Khrushchev often scolded the new order, which, in his opinion, led to the gradual collapse of agriculture. Unexpectedly for his relatives, Nikita Sergeevich became addicted to listening to the programs of foreign radio stations Voice of America, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and began to build a garden. But at times, the former head of state fell into depression, which could not but affect his health.

He died on September 11, 1971 from a heart attack. They buried Nikita Sergeevich at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. After Khrushchev's death, Nina Petrovna received telegrams with condolences from all over the world. Later, a monument created by Ernst Neizvestny appeared on the grave of the head of the USSR.

Memory

• 1989 - "Stalingrad"
• 1992 - "The weather is good on Deribasovskaya, or It's raining again on Brighton Beach"
• 1992 - "Stalin"
• 1993 - Gray Wolves
• 1996 - "Children of the Revolution"
• 2005 - "Battle for space"
• 2009 - "Miracle"
• 2011 - The Kennedy Clan
• 2012 - Zhukov
• 2013 - "Gagarin. First in space"
• 2015 - "Main"
• 2016 - "Mysterious Passion"
• 2017 - "Death of Stalin"

Khrushchev Nikita Sergeevich
Born: April 3 (15), 1894.
Died: September 11, 1971 (age 77).

Biography

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (April 3, 1894, Kalinovka, Dmitrievsky district, Kursk province, Russian Empire - September 11, 1971, Moscow, USSR) - First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee from 1953 to 1964, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. Hero of the Soviet Union, three times Hero of Socialist Labor.

The period of Khrushchev's rule is often called the "thaw": many political prisoners were released, compared to the period of Stalin's rule, the activity of repressions significantly decreased. Decreased influence of ideological censorship. The Soviet Union has made great strides in space exploration. Active housing construction was launched. At the same time, Khrushchev's name is associated with the organization of the most severe anti-religious campaign in the post-war period, and a significant increase in punitive psychiatry, and the execution of workers in Novocherkassk, and failures in agriculture and foreign policy. During his reign, the highest tension of the Cold War with the United States falls. His policy of de-Stalinization led to a break with the regimes of Mao Zedong in China and Enver Hoxha in Albania. However, at the same time, the People's Republic of China was provided with significant assistance in the development of its own nuclear weapons and a partial transfer of the technologies for their production existing in the USSR was carried out.

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev Born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, Olkhovskaya volost, Dmitrievsky district, Kursk province (now Khomutovsky district, Kursk region) in the family of miner Sergei Nikanorovich Khrushchev (d. 1938) and Xenia Ivanovna Khrushcheva (1872-1945). There was also a sister - Irina.

In winter he attended school and learned to read and write, in summer he worked as a shepherd. In 1908, at the age of 14, having moved with his family to the Uspensky mine near Yuzovka, Khrushchev became an apprentice fitter at the E. T. Bosse Machine-Building and Iron Foundry, from 1912 he worked as a fitter at the mine and, as a miner, was not taken to the front in 1914 year.

In 1918 Khrushchev joined the Bolshevik Party. Participates in the Civil War. In 1918, he headed the Red Guard detachment in Rutchenkovo, then the political commissar of the 2nd battalion of the 74th regiment of the 9th rifle division of the Red Army on the Tsaritsyno front. Later, an instructor in the political department of the Kuban army. After the end of the war, he was engaged in economic and party work. In 1920, he became a political leader, deputy manager of the Rutchenkovskiy mine in the Donbass [source not specified 1209 days].

In 1922, Khrushchev returned to Yuzovka and studied at the workers' faculty of the Don Technical School, where he became the party secretary of the technical school. In the same year, he met Nina Kukharchuk, his future wife. In July 1925 he was appointed party leader of the Petrov-Maryinsky district of the Stalin district.

Party career

In 1929 he entered the Industrial Academy in Moscow, where he was elected secretary of the party committee. According to many statements, a former classmate, Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, played a certain role in his nomination.

Since January 1931, the 1st secretary of the Baumansky, and since July 1931 of the Krasnopresnensky district committees of the CPSU (b). Since January 1932, he was the second secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

From January 1934 to February 1938 - First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

From March 7, 1935 to February 1938 - First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Thus, from 1934 he was the 1st secretary of the Moscow City Committee, and from 1935 he simultaneously held the position of the 1st secretary of the Moscow Committee, he replaced Lazar Kaganovich in both positions, and held them until February 1938.

L. M. Kaganovich recalled: “I nominated him. I thought he was capable. But he was a Trotskyist. And I reported to Stalin that he was a Trotskyist. I said when they chose him in MK. Stalin asks: “And now how?” I say: “He is fighting the Trotskyists. Actively performs. He fights sincerely." Stalin then: “You will speak at the conference on behalf of the Central Committee, that the Central Committee trusts him.”

As the 1st secretary of the Moscow city committee and the regional committee of the CPSU (b), he was one of the organizers of the NKVD terror in Moscow and the Moscow region. However, there is a widespread misconception about the direct participation of Khrushchev in the work of the NKVD troika, "which issued death sentences to hundreds of people a day." Allegedly, Khrushchev was a member of it along with S. F. Redens and K. I. Maslov. Khrushchev was indeed approved by the Politburo in the NKVD troika by Politburo resolution P51 / 206 of 07/10/1937, but already on 07/30/1937 he was replaced in the troika by A. A. Volkov. In the Order of the NKVD dated July 30, 1937 No. 00447 signed by Yezhov, Khrushchev's name is not among the members of the troika in Moscow. No “execution” documents signed by Khrushchev as part of the “troikas” have yet been found in the archives. However, there is evidence that, by order of Khrushchev, the state security agencies (headed by a person loyal to him as the First Secretary, Ivan Serov) carried out the cleaning of archives from documents compromising Khrushchev, speaking not just about Khrushchev's execution of Politburo orders, but about the fact that Khrushchev himself played a leading role in the repressions in Ukraine and Moscow, which he headed at different times, demanding from the Center to increase the limits on the number of repressed persons, which Stalin refused (see Vladimir Semichastny. Restless Heart. Chapter "Lubyanka").

In 1938, N. S. Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Ukraine and a candidate member of the Politburo, and a year later a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In these positions, he proved himself as a merciless fighter against the "enemies of the people." In the late 1930s alone, more than 150,000 party members were arrested in Ukraine under him.

During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was a member of the military councils of the Southwestern direction, the Southwestern, Stalingrad, Southern, Voronezh and 1st Ukrainian fronts. He was one of the culprits of the catastrophic encirclement of the Red Army near Kyiv (1941) and near Kharkov (1942), fully supporting the Stalinist point of view. In May 1942, Khrushchev, together with Golikov, made the decision of the Headquarters on the offensive of the Southwestern Front. The Headquarters clearly stated: the offensive would end in failure if there were not sufficient funds. On May 12, 1942, the offensive began - the Southern Front, built in linear defense, moved back, because. soon the Kleist tank group launched an offensive from the Kramatorsk-Slavyansky region. The front was broken through, the retreat to Stalingrad began, more divisions were lost along the way than during the summer offensive of 1941. On July 28, already on the outskirts of Stalingrad, Order No. 227 was signed, called “Not a step back!”. The loss near Kharkov turned into a big disaster - the Donbass was taken, the Germans' dream seemed a reality - they failed to cut off Moscow in December 1941, a new task arose - to cut off the Volga oil road.

In October 1942, an order signed by Stalin was issued abolishing the dual command system and transferring commissars from command staff to advisers. Khrushchev was in the front command echelon behind Mamaev Kurgan, then at the tractor factory.

He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant general.

In the period from 1944 to 1947 he worked as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, then he was again elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine. According to the memoirs of General Pavel Sudoplatov, Khrushchev and the Minister of State Security of Ukraine S. Savchenko in 1947 turned to Stalin and the Minister of State Security of the USSR Abakumov with a request to authorize the murder of Bishop of the Rusyn Greek Catholic Church Teodor Romzha, accusing him of collaborating with the underground Ukrainian national movement and " secret emissaries of the Vatican. As a result, Romzha was killed.

Since December 1949 - again the first secretary of the Moscow regional (MK) and city (MGK) committees and secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

Supreme Leader of the USSR

On the last day of Stalin's life on March 5, 1953, at the joint meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces, chaired by Khrushchev, it was recognized as necessary for him to focus on work in the Central Committee of the party.

Khrushchev acted as the leading initiator and organizer of the removal from all posts and the arrest of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953.

In 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to transfer the Crimean region and the city of union subordination of Sevastopol to the Ukrainian SSR. Khrushchev's son Sergei Nikitich, in an interview with Russian television via a teleconference from the United States on March 19, 2014, explained, referring to his father's words, that Khrushchev's decision was related to the construction of the North Crimean water canal from the Kakhovka reservoir on the Dnieper and the desirability of conducting and financing large-scale hydraulic engineering works within the framework of one union republic .

At the XX Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev made a report on the personality cult of I.V. Stalin and mass repressions.

In June 1957, during a four-day meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was decided to release N. S. Khrushchev from the duties of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. However, a group of Khrushchev's supporters from among the members of the Central Committee of the CPSU, headed by Marshal Zhukov, managed to intervene in the work of the Presidium and achieve the transfer of this issue to the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU convened for this purpose. At the June plenum of the Central Committee in 1957, Khrushchev's supporters defeated his opponents from among the members of the Presidium. The latter were branded as “the anti-party group of V. Molotov, G. Malenkov, L. Kaganovich and D. Shepilov who joined them” and removed from the Central Committee (later, in 1962, they were expelled from the party).

Four months later, in October 1957, at the initiative of Khrushchev, Marshal Zhukov, who supported him, was removed from the Presidium of the Central Committee and relieved of his duties as Minister of Defense of the USSR.

Since 1958, simultaneously Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

The apogee of N. S. Khrushchev’s rule is called the XXII Congress of the CPSU (1961) and the new party program adopted at it.

Removal from power

The October Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964, organized in the absence of N. S. Khrushchev, who was on vacation, relieved him of party and government posts "for health reasons."

Leonid Brezhnev, who replaced Nikita Khrushchev as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, according to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (1963-1972) Petr Yefimovich Shelest, suggested that the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.E. Semichastny physically get rid of Khrushchev:

“I told Podgorny that I had met in Zheleznovodsk with V.E. Semichastny told me that Brezhnev offered him to physically get rid of N. S. Khrushchev by arranging an airplane accident, a car accident, poisoning or arrest. Podgorny confirmed all this and said that Semichastny and him had rejected all these “options” for eliminating Khrushchev ...

All this will be known someday! And what will “our leader” look like in this light?“ Nikolai Mesyatsev, former deputy head of the department of the Central Committee of the CPSU for relations with the communist and workers' parties of the socialist countries, recalls:

“The Plenum was not a conspiracy, all statutory norms were observed. The Plenum elected Khrushchev to the post of First Secretary. Plenum and released him. At one time, the Plenum recommended to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to appoint Khrushchev to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. And in October 1964, the Plenum made a recommendation to the Supreme Soviet to remove him from this post. Already before the Plenum, at a meeting of the Presidium, Khrushchev himself admitted: it was impossible for him to continue to remain at the helm of the state and the party. So the members of the Central Committee acted not only lawfully, but for the first time in the Soviet history of the party boldly, in accordance with their convictions, decided to remove the leader, who made many mistakes and, as a political leader, ceased to correspond to his appointment. After that, Nikita Khrushchev was retired. He recorded multi-volume memoirs on a tape recorder. He denounced their publication abroad. Khrushchev died on September 11, 1971

After Khrushchev's resignation, his name was "unmentioned" for more than 20 years (like Stalin, Beria and Malenkov); in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia he was accompanied by a brief description: "There were elements of subjectivism and voluntarism in his activities."

During the years of "perestroika" the discussion of Khrushchev's activities again became possible; the role of the "Khrushchev thaw" as the forerunner of perestroika was emphasized, at the same time, attention was drawn to Khrushchev's role in repressions, and to the negative aspects of his leadership. Khrushchev's "Memoirs" written by him in retirement were published in Soviet journals.

Family

Nikita Sergeevich was married twice (according to unconfirmed reports - three times). In total, N. S. Khrushchev had five children: two sons and three daughters. In his first marriage he was with Efrosinya Ivanovna Pisareva, who died in 1920.

Children from first marriage:
Leonid Nikitich Khrushchev (November 10, 1917 - March 11, 1943) - military pilot, died in an air battle. His first wife is Rosa Treivas, the marriage was short-lived and annulled by the personal order of N. S. Khrushchev. The second wife - Lyubov Illarionovna Sizykh (December 28, 1912 - February 7, 2014) lived in Kyiv, was arrested in 1943 on charges of "espionage". She was sent to camps for five years. In 1948 she was sent into exile in Kazakhstan. She was finally released in 1956. In this marriage, in 1940, a daughter, Yulia, was born. In the civil marriage of Leonid with Esfir Naumovna Etinger, a son, Yuri (1935-2004), was born.
Yulia Nikitichna Khrushcheva (1916-1981) - was married to Viktor Petrovich Gontar, director of the Kyiv Opera.

The next wife, Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, was born on April 14, 1900 in the village of Vasilev, Kholm province (now the territory of Poland). The wedding was in 1924, but the marriage was officially registered in the registry office only in 1965. The first of the wives of Soviet leaders, who officially accompanied her husband at receptions, including abroad. She died on August 13, 1984, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Children from a second (possibly third) marriage:
The first daughter of this marriage died in infancy.
Daughter Rada Nikitichna (by her husband - Adzhubey), was born in Kyiv on April 4, 1929. She worked in the journal "Science and Life" for 50 years. Her husband was Alexei Ivanovich Adzhubey, editor-in-chief of the Izvestia newspaper.
Son Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev was born in 1935 in Moscow, graduated from school No. 110 with a gold medal, rocket systems engineer, professor, worked at OKB-52. Since 1991 he has been living and teaching in the USA, now a citizen of this state. Sergey Nikitich had two sons: the elder Nikita, the younger Sergey. Sergei lives in Moscow. Nikita died in 2007.
Daughter Elena was born in 1937.

The Khrushchev family lived in Kyiv in the former house of Poskrebyshev, at a dacha in Mezhyhirya; in Moscow, first on Maroseyka, then in the Government House (“House on the Embankment”), on Granovsky Street, in a state mansion on the Lenin Hills (now Kosygin Street), in evacuation - in Kuibyshev, after retirement - at a dacha in Zhukovka-2.

Criticism

Veteran counterintelligence Boris Syromyatnikov recalls that the head of the Central Archive, Colonel V.I. Detinin, spoke about the destruction of documents that compromised N.S. Khrushchev as one of the organizers of mass repressions.

There are also materials reflecting the sharply critical attitude towards Khrushchev in various professional and intellectual circles. Thus, V. I. Popov, in his book expressing the views of the diplomatic community, writes that Khrushchev "found pleasure in humiliating diplomats, while he himself was an illiterate person."
Death Penalties for Economic Crimes: Retrospective Application of the Law.
V. Molotov criticized Khrushchev's peace initiatives: - Now we have taken off our pants in front of the West. It turns out that the main goal is not the struggle against imperialism, but the struggle for peace.
The initiator of the transfer of Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, Vladimir Putin said in 2014 in the Crimean speech, “was personally Khrushchev.” According to the President of Russia, only the motives that drove Khrushchev remain a mystery: "the desire to enlist the support of the Ukrainian nomenclature or to make amends for organizing mass repressions in Ukraine in the 1930s."

Memory

In Moscow, on the house where N. S. Khrushchev lived (Starokonyushenny Lane, 19), a memorial plaque was installed on June 18, 2015.
In 1959, a postage stamp of the USSR was issued, dedicated to the visit of N. S. Khrushchev to the USA.
In 1964, two postage stamps were issued in the GDR in honor of the visit of N. S. Khrushchev to this country.
The Republican Stadium in Kyiv was named after Khrushchev during his reign.
During the life of Khrushchev, the city of builders of the Kremenchug hydroelectric power station (Kirovograd region of Ukraine) was briefly named after him, which during his tenure (1962) was renamed Kremges, and then (1969) Svetlovodsk.
Until 1957, the street of the 40th anniversary of October in Ufa was named after N. S. Khrushchev.
In the city of Kursk, an avenue is named after Khrushchev.
In the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, the city of Elista, a street is named after Khrushchev.
In the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia, the city of Magas, a street is named after Khrushchev.
In the capital of the Chechen Republic - the city of Grozny in 1991-1995 and 1996-2000, a square was named after Khrushchev (now - Minutka Square). In 2000, the former Ordzhonikidze Square was named after him.
In 2005, a monument to Khrushchev was erected in one of the farms of the Gulkevichsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. On a column of white marble, topped with a bust of a politician, there is an inscription: "To the great devotee of corn Nikita Khrushchev"
September 11, 2009 in the village of Kalinovka, Kursk region, a monument was erected by the sculptor Nikolai Tomsky.

Soviet statesman. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1953 to 1964, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 1958 to 1964. Chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR from 1956 to 1964. Hero of the Soviet Union, three times Hero of Socialist Labor. As the first secretary of the Moscow city committee and the regional committee of the CPSU, he was ex officio a member of the troika of the NKVD of the USSR in the Moscow region.

Date and place of birth - April 15, 1894, Kalinovka, Dmitrievsky district, Kursk province, Russian Empire.

B iography and activities

Born on April 17, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, now the Dmitrievsky district of the Kursk region, in a working class family.

Got elementary education in the parochial school. Since 1908, he worked as a mechanic, a boiler cleaner, was a member of trade unions, and participated in workers' strikes. In winter he attended school and learned to read and write, in summer he worked as a shepherd.

In 1908, at the age of 14, having moved with his family to the Uspensky mine near Yuzovka, Khrushchev became an apprentice locksmith at the E.T. year.

After the February Revolution of 1917, he was elected to the Rutchenko Soviet of Workers' Deputies, during the days of the Kornilov rebellion he became a member of the local Military Revolutionary Committee, in December - the chairman of the trade union of metalworkers in the mining industry.

During the Civil War he fought on the side of the Bolsheviks. In 1918 he joined the Communist Party.

In 1922, he entered the workers' faculty of the Dontechnical College, where he became the party secretary of the technical school, and in July 1925 he was appointed party leader of the Petrov-Maryinsky district of the Stalin province.

In 1929, Nikita Sergeevich entered the Industrial Academy in Moscow, where he was elected secretary of the party committee.

In 1935-1938, Khrushchev was the first secretary of the Moscow and Moscow city party committees - the MK and the MGK of the CPSU.

In January 1938, he was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In the same year he became a candidate, and in 1939 - a member of the Politburo.

During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was a member of the military councils of the High Command of the South-Western, South-Western, Stalingrad, South-Eastern, Southern, Voronezh, 1st Ukrainian Fronts; worked on the organization of the partisan movement in Ukraine.

In October 1942, an order signed by Stalin was issued abolishing the dual command system and transferring commissars from command staff to advisers. Khrushchev was in the front command echelon behind Mamaev Kurgan, then at the tractor factory.

In 1943, Khrushchev was awarded the military rank of lieutenant general.

In 1944-1947 - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - the Council of Ministers) of the Ukrainian SSR. In December 1947, Khrushchev again headed the Communist Party of Ukraine, becoming the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine; held this post until his move to Moscow in December 1949.

On the last day of Stalin's life on March 5, 1953, at the joint meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces, chaired by Khrushchev, it was recognized as necessary for him to focus on work in the Central Committee of the party.

Khrushchev acted as the leading initiator and organizer of the removal from all posts and the arrest of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953.

In March 1958, Khrushchev took over as chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. He was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-6th convocations.

On October 14, 1964, the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, organized in the absence of N. S. Khrushchev, who was on vacation in Pitsunda, relieved him of the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee "for health reasons." The next day, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Khrushchev was relieved of his post as head of the Soviet government.

Leonid Brezhnev, who replaced Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, according to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (1963-1972) Petr Yefimovich Shelest, suggested that the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.E. Semichastny physically get rid of Khrushchev.

After that, N. S. Khrushchev was retired. He recorded multi-volume memoirs on a tape recorder. He denounced their publication abroad.

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev died of a heart attack on September 11, 1971, at the age of 78. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

X rushchevka

Khrushchev-built houses (colloquially "Khrushchev") are Soviet standard series of residential buildings that were massively built in the USSR from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. The name is associated with N. S. Khrushchev, during his tenure as head of the USSR, most of these houses were built. Refers to the architecture of functionalism. Most Khrushchevs were built as temporary housing. However, later, due to the insufficient volume of housing construction, the period of their use constantly increased.

At the very beginning of the 1950s, in the major industrial centers of the USSR (Moscow, Sverdlovsk, Kuzbass), entire blocks of four-story capital houses were built, the structures of which were prefabricated at the factory.

A large-scale transition to new, progressive solutions in the field of construction began with the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of August 19, 1954.

The first Khrushchev houses were built in a short time in 1956-1958 around the village of Cheryomushki near Moscow (between the modern streets of Grimau, Shvernik, Dmitry Ulyanov and Prospect of the 60th Anniversary of October); sixteen experimental four-story houses had mostly four entrances and were arranged according to an elaborate plan by landscaping specialists and landscape architects.

On July 31, 1957, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the development of housing construction in the USSR", which marked the beginning of a new housing construction.

The construction of "Khrushchev" continued from 1957 to 1985. The first revision of Khrushchev projects was carried out in 1963-64. The construction of new modifications began after the resignation of Khrushchev in the second half of the 1960s, so such houses are classified as early Brezhnevs. In improved modifications, separate bathrooms, isolated rooms in two-room apartments appeared, the number of multi-room apartments increased, high-rise buildings with an elevator and a garbage chute appeared.

The refusal to build Khrushchevs in favor of more comfortable housing began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In Russia, about 290 million m? the total area of ​​Khrushchev, which is about 10 percent of the country's total housing stock

"GREAT LEAP" by Nikita Khrushchev

In the 30th year, being a student of the Industrial Academy named after I.V. Stalin in Moscow, he is elected (that's what it means to "have a language" - L.B.) secretary of the party committee of the Industrial Academy. Khrushchev soon learned that his 29-year-old classmate Nadezhda Alliluyeva, although she did not advertise it, was - who would have thought? - the "first red lady" of the Soviet state, the wife of Comrade Stalin himself, who was as much as 22 years older than his wife.

Realizing that this is a unique chance for his career, Khrushchev uses the “energy and determination” noticed in him by the foreman of the political staff Strashnenko, as well as the ability to “fully understand the situation” and takes a course towards rapprochement with Nadezhda Sergeevna, in whom he now sees "golden key", that magical "Sesame, open" that will lead him to the Corridors of Supreme Power. And he was not mistaken in his calculations! He managed to ensure that Nadezhda Alliluyeva put in a word for him (and maybe more than one) in front of the leader.

And from that moment begins Khrushchev's rapid ascent to the political Olympus. From January 1931, Khrushchev was secretary of the Bauman and then Krasnopresnensky district committees of the party in Moscow. And already in his “Personal File” a new piece of paper appears - “Special Remark of the Attestation Commission”, where our “round three” is translated as “who grew up on party work in the highest group of political staff”.

Professor of the Industrial Academy named after I.V. Stalin, Alexander Solovyov in his diary in January 1931 made an entry: “I and some others are surprised by Khrushchev’s rapid leap. I studied very poorly at the Industrial Academy. Now the second secretary, together with Kaganovich. But surprisingly narrow-minded and a big sycophant.

The initiators of "mass repressions"

One of the main instigators of "mass repressions" in the USSR, which after the notorious report at the 20th Congress will be referred to as "Stalinist repressions", was Nikita Khrushchev himself. Back in January 1936, he stated in one of his speeches: “Only 308 people have been arrested; for our Moscow organization - this is not enough. In his speech at the February-March (1937) Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he said: “Sometimes a person sits, enemies swarm around him, almost climb on his feet, but he doesn’t notice and puffs up, they say, in my apparatus there are no strangers. This is from deafness, political blindness, from an idiotic disease - carelessness.

He is echoed by one of the first rehabilitated "victims" of political repressions - Robert Eikhe, since 1929 the first secretary of the Siberian and West Siberian Regional Committees and the Novosibirsk City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. It was he who said: “We have uncovered many pests in Western Siberia. We uncovered sabotage earlier than in other parts of the world.”

By the way, it was this excessive zeal, the mass nature of unjustified arrests, the encouragement of denunciation and falsification of criminal cases on the ground, that was blamed on them, which is especially evident in the example of the same double-dealing Trotskyite Pavel Postyshev, who dissolved 30 district committees in the Kuibyshev region, whose members were declared enemies of the people and were repressed only because they did not see the image of the Nazi swastika on the covers of student notebooks in the ornament! How could Postyshev not be repressed, despite all his past merits?

In a word, our “hero”, the then “new promoter” Nikita Khrushchev, who with great joy took the place of Kosior in Ukraine and a place in the Stalinist Politburo, turned out to be the winner. Already in June 1938, that is, exactly six months after the appointment of Khrushchev, one of the delegates to the Congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the future head of the Sovinformburo, Colonel-General A. Shcherbakov, remarked: “The real merciless defeat of the enemies of the people in Ukraine began after the Central Committee sent comrade Khrushchev to lead the Bolsheviks in Ukraine. Now the working people of Ukraine can be sure that the defeat of the agents of the Polish lords and German barons will be brought to an end.”

N.S. KHRUSHCHEV AND ARCHITECTURE

Stalinist style and Khrushchev style remained from the Soviet era. There is no Leninist style, no Brezhnev style, no Gorbachev style. Only Stalin and Khrushchev left behind a visible image of the country of their time, the image of a Soviet city.

The five-story building can be entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the project replicated by the largest number. There are several million copies of these standard five-story buildings. They stand all over Russia, they were exported to China, to Vietnam: there entire areas were built up with such buildings. Almost the same five-story buildings exist in all major cities of the world. This project was invented in France in 1958 by engineer Lagutenko, and the first series of five-story buildings was called K-7.

Without an elevator, with a combined bathroom - a small and cheap housing for the general population. The principle itself was simple: the building was manufactured at the factory by the conveyor method, assembled on site from parts, which is why there were so many copies. After the purchase of the French project, it was remade to fit Soviet realities and, on the basis of the basic one, about fifteen series of various five-story buildings were developed - with garbage chutes, balconies, and the like. In state farms and small towns, three-story and four-story houses were built according to the same projects, just one or two floors were not completed.

In the early 60s, nine-story buildings appeared. Actually, in Khrushchev’s time, only these two types of houses were built, with the exception, of course, of houses according to individual projects, including residential ones. Perhaps the last mass construction throughout the Soviet Union took place during the Khrushchev era. The main building - Khrushchev: up to bus stops, markets, cinemas. In small provincial towns it is clearly seen that civilization last came there with Khrushchev. Many supporters of Stalin like to refute the assertion that the Soviet people owe it to Khrushchev for mass housing construction. At the same time, no one disputes that these five-story buildings solved the housing problem and massively provided Soviet citizens with separate apartments. But this category of people claims that Khrushchev only implemented a project that was born long before him, that is, even under Stalin. And, accordingly, Stalin should be called the father of this project.

The very renovation of the architecture that took place was in line with the leading global trends. And it was expressed in the rejection of Stalinist neoclassicism. The same dominance of neoclassicism before the Second World War was observed in all totalitarian countries - in Germany, Italy and Japan, and even in many democratic countries. After the war, Europe experienced an incredible craving for renewal. And in fact, in all countries, starting from 1950, modernism began to win. This was especially clear in Berlin, where Stalinist buildings were being built in the Soviet zone, and panel houses were already growing behind the wall. This was the global trend. And in this sense, it was very right that the USSR embarked on the same tracks as the whole world.

under Khrushchev, not only five-story buildings were built. Every political leader wants to leave behind something in architecture. After Stalin, there were grandiose Moscow skyscrapers, and after Khrushchev, the Palace of Congresses and Novy Arbat.

Under Khrushchev, there was a second wave of demolition of historical monuments after the 1920s. He fought remnants, religion, closed and demolished monasteries. During the construction of the Palace of Congresses, the Chudov Monastery was destroyed, and the New Arbat passed through residential areas.

X rushchev and corn campaign

In 1955, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, met the American farmer Roswell Garst, who spoke about the role of corn in US agriculture and its benefits. Subsequently, during a trip to the United States, I had the opportunity to personally get acquainted with the American culture of growing corn, which, in terms of crop area and yield, was far ahead of the grain crops traditional for the USSR. In addition, corn provided valuable industrial raw materials, so it was decided to reorient the agriculture of the USSR to this crop.

It was planned to triple the growth rate of cattle in 1959-1965 by expanding corn crops. Party delegates were sent to promote culture to the north and east. By the beginning of the 1960s, a quarter of the arable land was occupied by corn, for which fallow floodplain lands were also plowed up, which produced especially valuable hay.

Corn yields were much lower than expected, and by the mid-1960s corn crops began to decline.

B otok Khrushchev

A widely circulated story that on October 12, 1960, during a meeting of the 15th UN General Assembly, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev began to bang his shoe on the table

That day there was a discussion of the “Hungarian question”, and Khrushchev, along with other members of the Soviet delegation, tried in every possible way to disrupt it. According to Khrushchev's contemporaries, Anastas Mikoyan and Viktor Sukhodrev (Khrushchev's personal interpreter, who was present at that meeting), it happened in the following way: Khrushchev did not have a boot, but open shoes (like modern sandals). During the speech of the speaker, Khrushchev took off his shoe and began deliberately examining and shaking it for a long time, raising it at head level, and also lightly hit it on the table several times, as if trying to knock out a pebble that supposedly rolled there. By these actions, Khrushchev demonstrated that he was not interested in the report.

Khrushchev's son Sergei, who was present at that UN meeting, said that Khrushchev's shoe was taken off in the crowd, and then security brought it to him. He, tapping on the table as a sign of disagreement with the performance, began to help with his boot.

The next day, The New York Times published an article under the headline "Khrushchev taps his shoe on the table." A photograph was published in it, which depicts Khrushchev and Gromyko, and in front of Nikita Sergeevich there is a low shoe on the table.

At the same meeting, Khrushchev called the Filipino speaker "a lackey of American imperialism", baffling the interpreters.

From the memoirs of A. A. Gromyko:

„XV session of the UN General Assembly. Autumn 1960. The Soviet delegation was headed by the head of the government N. S. Khrushchev; British delegation - Prime Minister Macmillan.

The discussion was heated at times. Clashes between the Soviet Union and the leading countries of the NATO bloc were felt throughout not only the discussions at the sessions of the session, but also during the work of all the bodies of the General Assembly - its many committees and subcommittees.

I remember Macmillan's rather sharp speech on the fundamental issues of relations between East and West. The delegates listened attentively. Suddenly, in the part of the speech where Macmillan used especially harsh words about the Soviet Union and its friends, Khrushchev bent down, took off his shoe and began to knock it hard on the table at which he was sitting. And since there were no papers in front of him, the sound from a boot hitting a tree turned out to be solid and carried throughout the hall.

It was a unique case in the history of the UN. You have to give credit to Macmillan. He did not stop, but continued to read out his prepared speech, pretending that nothing special had happened.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly Hall froze, watching this highly original and intense scene.

Soviet and American guards immediately formed a ring around the Soviet delegation. To the right of Khrushchev I was sitting, to the left - the Permanent Representative of the USSR to the UN V. A. Zorin. They sat quietly and, of course, did not applaud.

Ahead, next door, was the table of the Spanish delegation. Diplomats sitting at this table, just in case, crouched a little.

Now it may look funny, but at that moment we were not laughing. The atmosphere in the hall was tense. One of the Spaniards in the rank of ambassador got up, took a step forward, just in case, away from the boot, turned around and shouted loudly to Khrushchev in English:

See du notes like yu! See du notes like yu!

No one saw anything surprising in this, because at that time our relations with Spain were bad, but there were no diplomatic ones. The country was still ruled by Franco.

Now it may seem strange, but there was not a single laughing person either in the hall from among the delegates or in the gallery for the public. Everyone was just surprised, as if they were present at some incomprehensible ritual that excited the audience.“

Nikita Khrushchev and Disneyland

In 1951, the then leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, flew to the United States for business purposes. But the trip was not limited to a meeting with US President Dwight Eisenhower. During the visit, Khrushchev also visited the famous Hollywood film studio 20th Century Fox, where he met many popular actors.

Now a small lyrical digression. The words spoken by the leader of the USSR a month before his visit to the United States, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you" were instantly replicated by all the world's media. By saying them, Khrushchev only meant that socialism would outlive capitalism. But the head of the Hollywood film studio Spyros Skouras, known for his anti-communist views, was touched by this phrase. And when the opportunity fell out to talk face to face, he told the Soviet leader that this was not the USSR, but Los Angeles did not want to bury someone, but would definitely take such a step if the need arose. Khrushchev regarded this speech as a mockery.

The situation escalated even more when the leadership of the United States, for security reasons, decided not to let Khrushchev into Disneyland.

The Soviet leader did not like this, to put it mildly. Nikita Sergeevich answered: “Are you hiding rockets in Disneyland? Or is there a cholera epidemic raging there? Maybe Disneyland has been taken over by bandits? Are your cops not strong enough to deal with them?”. In a word, the trip was unsuccessful. And it only added tension to the relations of the ruling world states.

Source - maxpark.com, biography.wikireading.ru, studopedia.ru, Wikipedia, publy.ru

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Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich(1894–1971), Soviet party and statesman. Born on April 5 (17), 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, Kursk province, in a mining family. He received his primary education at a parochial school. From 1908 he worked as a mechanic, a boiler cleaner, was a member of trade unions, and participated in workers' strikes. During the Civil War he fought on the side of the Bolsheviks. In 1918 he joined the Communist Party.

In the early 1920s, he worked in the mines, studied at the working faculty of the Donetsk Industrial Institute. Later he was engaged in economic and party work in the Donbass and Kyiv. In the 1920s, L.M. Kaganovich was the leader of the Communist Party in Ukraine, and apparently Khrushchev made a favorable impression on him. Shortly after Kaganovich left for Moscow, Khrushchev was sent to study at the Industrial Academy. From January 1931 he was at party work in Moscow, in 1935-1938 he was the first secretary of the Moscow regional and city party committees - the Moscow Committee and the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In January 1938 he was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In the same year he became a candidate, and in 1939 - a member of the Politburo.

During the Second World War, Khrushchev served as a political commissar of the highest rank (a member of the military councils of a number of fronts) and in 1943 received the rank of lieutenant general; led the partisan movement behind the front line. In the first post-war years, he headed the government in Ukraine, while Kaganovich headed the party leadership of the republic. In December 1947, Khrushchev again headed the Communist Party of Ukraine, becoming the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U; held this post until his move to Moscow in December 1949, where he became the first secretary of the Moscow Party Committee and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).

Khrushchev initiated the consolidation of collective farms (collective farms). This campaign led to a decrease in the number of collective farms within a few years from about 250 thousand to less than 100 thousand. In the early 1950s, he hatched even more radical plans. Khrushchev wanted to turn peasant villages into agro-towns, so that the collective farmers would live in the same houses as the workers, and not have personal plots. Khrushchev's speech published on this occasion in Pravda the next day was refuted in an editorial, which emphasized the debatable nature of the proposals. Yet Khrushchev in October 1952 was appointed one of the main speakers at the 19th Party Congress.

After Stalin's death, when Chairman of the Council of Ministers G.M. Malenkov left the post of secretary of the Central Committee, Khrushchev became the "master" of the party apparatus, although until September 1953 he did not have the title of first secretary. In the period from March to June 1953, L.P. Beria attempted to seize power. In order to eliminate Beria, Khrushchev entered into an alliance with Malenkov. In September 1953 he took the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In the first years after Stalin's death, there was talk of "collective leadership," but shortly after Beria's arrest in June 1953, a power struggle began between Malenkov and Khrushchev, in which Khrushchev won. In early 1954, he announced the start of a grand program for the development of virgin lands in order to increase grain production, and in October of that year he headed the Soviet delegation in Beijing.

The reason for Malenkov's resignation from the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers in February 1955 was that Khrushchev managed to convince the Central Committee to support the course towards the predominant development of heavy industry, and consequently the production of weapons, and to abandon Malenkov's idea to give priority to the production of consumer goods. Khrushchev appointed N.A. Bulganin to the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers, securing for himself the position of the first figure in the state.

The most striking event in Khrushchev's career was the 20th Congress of the CPSU, held in 1956. In a report at the congress, he put forward the thesis that the war between capitalism and communism is not "fatally inevitable." At a closed meeting, Khrushchev condemned Stalin, accusing him of mass extermination of people and an erroneous policy that almost ended in the liquidation of the USSR in the war with Nazi Germany. The result of this report was unrest in the countries of the Eastern bloc - Poland (October 1956) and Hungary (October and November 1956). These events undermined Khrushchev's position, especially after it became clear in December 1956 that the implementation of the five-year plan was being disrupted due to insufficient investment. However, at the beginning of 1957, Khrushchev succeeded in persuading the Central Committee to adopt a plan for the reorganization of industrial management at the regional level.

In June 1957, the Presidium (formerly the Politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU organized a conspiracy to remove Khrushchev from the post of first secretary of the party. After his return from Finland, he was invited to a meeting of the Presidium, which, by seven votes to four, demanded his resignation. Khrushchev convened a Plenum of the Central Committee, which overturned the decision of the Presidium and dismissed the "anti-Party group" of Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich. (At the end of 1957, Khrushchev dismissed Marshal G.K. Zhukov, who supported him in difficult times.) He strengthened the Presidium with his supporters, and in March 1958 took over as chairman of the Council of Ministers, taking all the main levers of power into his own hands.

In 1957, after successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and launching the first satellites into orbit, Khrushchev issued a statement demanding that Western countries "end the Cold War." His demands for a separate peace treaty with East Germany in November 1958, which would include the renewal of the blockade of West Berlin, led to an international crisis. In September 1959, President D. Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the United States. After a tour of the country, Khrushchev negotiated with Eisenhower at Camp David. The international situation became noticeably warmer after Khrushchev agreed to postpone the decision on the question of Berlin, and Eisenhower agreed to convene a summit conference to consider this issue. The summit meeting was scheduled for May 16, 1960. However, on May 1, 1960, a US U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in the airspace over Sverdlovsk, and the meeting was disrupted.

The "soft" policy toward the United States involved Khrushchev in a covert, if tough, ideological discussion with the Chinese Communists, who condemned negotiations with Eisenhower and did not accept Khrushchev's version of "Leninism." In June 1960, Khrushchev issued a statement about the need for "further development" of Marxism-Leninism and for the theory to take into account the changed historical conditions. In November 1960, after a three-week discussion, a congress of representatives of the communist and workers' parties adopted a compromise solution that allowed Khrushchev to conduct diplomatic negotiations on disarmament and peaceful coexistence, while calling for an intensified struggle against capitalism by all means, except military ones.

In September 1960, Khrushchev visited the United States for the second time as head of the Soviet delegation to the UN General Assembly. During the assembly, he managed to hold large-scale negotiations with the heads of governments of a number of countries. His report to the Assembly contained calls for general disarmament, the immediate elimination of colonialism, and the admission of China to the UN. In June 1961, Khrushchev met with US President John F. Kennedy and again expressed his demands regarding Berlin. During the summer of 1961, Soviet foreign policy became increasingly tough, and in September the USSR broke a three-year moratorium on nuclear weapons testing by conducting a series of explosions.

In the fall of 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev attacked the communist leaders of Albania (who were not at the congress) for continuing to support the philosophy of "Stalinism". In doing so, he also had in mind the leaders of communist China. October 14, 1964 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was replaced by L.I. Brezhnev, who became the first secretary of the Communist Party, and A.N. Kosygin, who became chairman of the council of ministers.

After 1964, Khrushchev, while retaining his seat on the Central Committee, was essentially retired. He formally dissociated himself from the two-volume work published in the USA under his name. Memories(1971, 1974). Khrushchev died in Moscow on September 11, 1971.

Khrushchev is an extremely controversial figure in Soviet history. On the one hand, he belongs wholly and entirely to the Stalin era, and is undoubtedly one of the conductors of the policy of purges and mass repressions. On the other hand, during the Caribbean crisis, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war and global catastrophe, Khrushchev managed to listen to the voice of reason and stop the escalation of hostilities and prevent the outbreak of a third world war. It is to Khrushchev that the post-war generation owes the beginning of the process of liberation from the deadly ideological schemes of the "reorganization" of society and the restoration of human rights on "one sixth" of the Earth.

APPENDIX. KHRUSHCHEV'S SPEECH AT THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE PARTY

Fragment 1.

N.S. Khrushchev

Comrades!

In the Report of the Central Committee of the Party to the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as well as earlier at the Plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU, much was said about the cult of personality and its harmful consequences.

After Stalin's death, the Central Committee of the Party began to strictly and consistently pursue a policy of explaining the inadmissibility of exalting one person, alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, turning him into some kind of superman with supernatural qualities, like a god. This man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do everything; he is infallible in his actions.

This notion of man, and, speaking specifically, of Stalin, has been cultivated in our country for many years.

This report does not aim to give a comprehensive assessment of the life and work of Stalin. Quite a sufficient number of books, pamphlets, and studies have been written about the merits of Stalin during his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and conduct of the socialist revolution, in the civil war, in the struggle to build socialism in our country is well known. This is well known to everyone. Now we are talking about a question that has great value both for the present and for the future of the party – we are talking about how the personality cult of Stalin gradually took shape, which at a certain stage turned into the source of a whole series of major and very serious distortions of party principles, party democracy, revolutionary legality.

Due to the fact that not everyone still realizes what the cult of personality led to in practice, what enormous damage was caused by the violation of the principle of collective leadership in the Party and the concentration of immense, unlimited power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee of the Party considers it necessary to report to the XX Congress Communist Party of the Soviet Union materials on this issue.

Allow me, first of all, to remind you how severely the classics of Marxism-Leninism condemned any manifestation of the personality cult. In a letter to the German politician Wilhelm Blos, Marx stated:

“... Out of dislike for any cult of personality, during the existence of the International, I never allowed the numerous appeals to be made public, in which my merits were recognized and with which I was annoyed from different countries - I never even answered them, except occasionally for them scolded. The first entry of Engels and mine into the secret society of communists took place on the condition that everything that promotes superstitious worship of authorities would be thrown out of the statute (Lassalle subsequently acted just the opposite).

Somewhat later, Engels wrote:

“Both Marx and I, we have always been against any public demonstrations in relation to individuals, except only in those cases when it had some significant purpose; and most of all we were against such demonstrations, which in our lifetime would concern us personally.

The greatest modesty of the genius of the revolution Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is known. Lenin always emphasized the role of the people as the creator of history, the leading and organizing role of the Party as a living, self-active organism, and the role of the Central Committee.

Marxism does not deny the role of the leaders of the working class in leading the revolutionary liberation movement.

Attaching great importance to the role of leaders and organizers of the masses, Lenin, at the same time, mercilessly castigated all manifestations of the personality cult, waged an uncompromising struggle against the Socialist-Revolutionary views of the “hero” and “crowd” alien to Marxism, against attempts to oppose the “hero” to the masses, the people.

Lenin taught that the strength of the party lies in its inextricable connection with the masses, in the fact that the people follow the party - workers, peasants, intelligentsia. “Only he will win and retain power,” said Lenin, “who believes in the people, who plunges into the spring of living folk art.”

Lenin proudly spoke of the Bolshevik, Communist Party as the leader and teacher of the people, he called for bringing all the most important questions to the judgment of class-conscious workers, to the judgment of his party; he declared: "we believe in her, in her we see the mind, honor and conscience of our era."

Lenin resolutely opposed any attempt to belittle or weaken the leading role of the party in the system of the Soviet state. He worked out the Bolshevik principles of party leadership and the norms of party life, emphasizing that the highest principle of party leadership is its collectivity. Even in the pre-revolutionary years, Lenin called the Central Committee of the Party a collective of leaders, the guardian and interpreter of the principles of the Party. “The principles of the party,” Lenin pointed out, “are observed from congress to congress and are interpreted by the Central Committee.”

Emphasizing the role of the Central Committee of the Party, its authority, Vladimir Ilyich pointed out: "Our Central Committee has formed into a strictly centralized and highly authoritative group ...".

During Lenin's lifetime, the Central Committee of the Party was the true expression of the collective leadership of the Party and the country. As a militant Marxist-revolutionary, always implacable on matters of principle, Lenin never forced his views on his comrades at work. He persuaded, patiently explained his opinion to others. Lenin always strictly saw to it that the norms of Party life were carried out, that the Rules of the Party were observed, that Party congresses and plenums of the Central Committee were convened in a timely manner.

In addition to all the great things that V.I. Lenin did for the victory of the working class and the working peasantry, for the victory of our party and the implementation of the ideas of scientific communism, his insight was also manifested in the fact that he timely noticed in Stalin precisely those negative qualities that led later to serious consequences. Concerned about the future fate of the party and the Soviet state, V.I. Lenin gave an absolutely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the issue of moving Stalin from the post of general secretary due to the fact that Stalin was too rude, insufficiently attentive to his comrades, capricious and abuse power.

In December 1922, in his letter to the next party congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote:

"Tov. Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power with sufficient caution.

This letter - the most important political document, known in the history of the party as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed to the delegates of the XX Party Congress. You have read it and will probably read it again and again. Think about Lenin's simple words, which express Vladimir Ilyich's concern for the Party, for the people, for the state, for the further direction of the Party's policy.

Vladimir Ilyich said:

“Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, which is quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of general secretary. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin with only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capriciousness, etc.”

This Leninist document was read out to the delegations of the 13th Party Congress, who discussed the question of moving Stalin from the post of general secretary. The delegations spoke in favor of keeping Stalin in this post, bearing in mind that he would take into account the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and be able to correct his shortcomings, which inspired serious fears in Lenin.

Fragment 2.

Comrades! It is necessary to report to the Party Congress about two new documents that supplement Lenin's characterization of Stalin given by Vladimir Ilyich in his "testament".

These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya to Kamenev, who chaired the Politburo at that time, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I read these documents:

1. Letter from N.K. Krupskaya:

“Lev Borisych, about a short letter I wrote under dictation from Vlad. Ilyich, with the permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed me the most rude trick yesterday. I'm in the party for more than one day. For all 30 years I have not heard a single rude word from a single comrade, the interests of the party and Ilyich are no less dear to me than to Stalin. Now I need maximum self-control. I know better than any doctor what can and cannot be discussed with Ilyich. I know what worries him, what does not, and in any case better than Stalin. I appeal to you and Grigory, as V.I.'s closest comrades, and I ask you to protect me from gross interference in my personal life, unworthy abuse and threats. I have no doubts about the unanimous decision of the control commission, which Stalin allows himself to threaten, but I have neither the strength nor the time that I could waste on this stupid squabble. I am also alive and my nerves are tense to the extreme.

N. Krupskaya.

This letter was written by Nadezhda Konstantinovna on December 23, 1922. Two and a half months later, in March 1923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent the following letter to Stalin:

2. Letter from V.I. Lenin.

"To Comrade STALIN. Copy: Kamenev and Zinoviev.

Dear comrade Stalin, you were rude to call my wife to the phone and scold her. Although she agreed to forget what was said to you, nevertheless this fact became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and it is useless to say that I consider what was done against my wife to be done against me. Therefore, I ask you to consider whether you agree to take back what was said and apologize or prefer to break off relations between us. (Movement in the hall.)

Sincerely, Lenin.

Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. If Stalin could behave in such a way during Lenin's lifetime, could treat Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya in this way, whom the Party knows well and highly appreciates as a true friend of Lenin and an active fighter for the cause of our Party from the moment of its inception, then one can imagine how Stalin treated other workers. These negative qualities of his developed more and more and in recent years have become completely intolerable.

As subsequent events showed, Lenin's anxiety was not in vain: for the first time after Lenin's death, Stalin still reckoned with his instructions, and then began to neglect the serious warnings of Vladimir Ilyich.

If we analyze the practice of leading the party and the country on the part of Stalin, if we think about everything that was allowed by Stalin, one becomes convinced of the validity of Lenin's fears. Those negative features of Stalin, which under Lenin appeared only in embryonic form, developed in recent years into serious abuses of power on the part of Stalin, which caused incalculable damage to our party.

We must seriously examine and analyze this question correctly in order to exclude any possibility of a repetition of even any semblance of what took place during the life of Stalin, who showed complete intolerance for collectivity in leadership and work, allowed gross violence against everything that did not only contradicted him, but what seemed to him, with his capriciousness and despotism, contrary to his attitudes. He acted not by persuasion, explanation, painstaking work with people, but by imposing his own attitudes, by demanding unconditional obedience to his opinion. Anyone who resisted this or tried to prove his point of view, his innocence, he was doomed to exclusion from the leadership team, followed by moral and physical destruction. This was especially evident in the period after the 17th Party Congress, when many honest, devoted to the cause of communism, outstanding party leaders and ordinary workers of the party became victims of Stalin's despotism.

It should be said that the party waged a great struggle against the Trotskyists, the rightists, the bourgeois nationalists, and ideologically defeated all the enemies of Leninism. This ideological struggle was carried out successfully, in the course of which the Party became even stronger and more tempered. And here Stalin played his positive role.

The Party waged a great ideological political struggle against those people in its ranks who came out with anti-Leninist positions, with a political line hostile to the Party and the cause of socialism. It was a stubborn, hard, but necessary struggle, because the political line of both the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc and the Bukharinites essentially led to the restoration of capitalism, to capitulation to the world bourgeoisie. Let us imagine for a moment what would have happened if in our party in 1928-1929 the political line of the right deviation, the stake on "calico industrialization", the stake on the kulak, and the like, had won. We would not then have had a powerful heavy industry, there would have been no collective farms, we would have found ourselves disarmed and powerless in the face of the capitalist encirclement.

That is why the Party waged an irreconcilable struggle from an ideological standpoint, explaining to all Party members and non-Party masses the harm and danger of the anti-Leninist actions of the Trotskyist opposition and Right opportunists. And this enormous work of clarifying the line of the party bore fruit: both the Trotskyists and the right-wing opportunists were politically isolated, the overwhelming majority of the party supported the Leninist line, and the party was able to inspire and organize the working people to carry out the Leninist line of the party, to build socialism.

It is noteworthy that even in the midst of a fierce ideological struggle against the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not applied to them. The struggle was waged on an ideological basis. But a few years later, when socialism had already been basically built in our country, when the exploiting classes were basically liquidated, when the social structure of Soviet society changed radically, the social base for hostile parties, political trends and groups was sharply reduced, when the ideological opponents of the party were politically defeated long ago, repressions began against them.

And it was during this period (1935–1937–1938) that the practice of mass repressions along the state line developed, first against the opponents of Leninism - the Trotskyists, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, who had long been politically defeated by the party, and then against many honest communists, against those party cadres who endured the civil war on their shoulders, the first, most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyists and the rightists, for the Leninist line of the party.

Stalin introduced the concept of "enemy of the people". This term immediately exempted from the need for any evidence of the ideological wrongness of the person or people with whom you are arguing: it gave the opportunity to anyone who disagrees with Stalin in some way, who was only suspected of hostile intentions, anyone who was simply slandered, subjected to the most cruel repressions, in violation of all norms of revolutionary legality. This concept of "enemy of the people" in essence already eliminated, excluded the possibility of any ideological struggle or the expression of one's opinion on certain issues, even of practical importance. The main and, in fact, the only evidence of guilt was, contrary to all the norms of modern legal science, the “confession” of the accused himself, and this “confession”, as later verification showed, was obtained by physical measures of influence on the accused.

This led to flagrant violations of revolutionary legality, to the fact that many completely innocent people who in the past supported the party line suffered.

It should be said that even in relation to people who at one time opposed the line of the party, there were often no serious enough grounds to physically destroy them. To justify the physical destruction of such people, the formula "enemy of the people" was introduced.

After all, many people who were subsequently destroyed, declaring them enemies of the party and the people, during the life of V.I. Lenin worked together with Lenin. Some of them made mistakes even under Lenin, but despite this, Lenin used them at work, corrected them, tried to ensure that they remained within the party spirit, led them along.

In this regard, the delegates to the party congress should be familiarized with the unpublished note by V.I. Lenin to the Politburo of the Central Committee in October 1920. Defining the tasks of the Control Commission, Lenin wrote that this Commission must be made a real "organ of the Party and proletarian conscience."

“To [a]k a special task of the Controlling] C[omission], to recommend an attentively individualizing attitude, often even a direct kind of treatment in relation to representatives of the so[called] opposition who suffered a psychological crisis in connection with failures in their Soviet or party career. We must try to calm them down, explain the matter to them in a comradely manner, find them (without a way of showing) a job suitable for their psychological characteristics, give advice and instructions at this point to the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, etc. ”

Everyone is well aware of how irreconcilable Lenin was towards the ideological opponents of Marxism, towards those who deviated from the correct party line. At the same time, as can be seen from the read out document, from all the practice of his leadership of the party, Lenin demanded the most attentive party approach to people who showed hesitation, had deviations from the party line, but who could be returned to the path of party membership. Lenin advised to patiently educate such people, without resorting to extreme measures.

This was the manifestation of Lenin's wisdom in his approach to people, in his work with cadres.

A completely different approach was characteristic of Stalin. Lenin's traits were completely alien to Stalin - to work patiently with people, stubbornly and painstakingly educate them, be able to lead people not by coercion, but by influencing them as a whole team from ideological positions. He discarded the Leninist method of persuasion and education, moved from the position of ideological struggle to the path of administrative suppression, to the path of mass repressions, to the path of terror. He acted more widely and more persistently through punitive bodies, often violating all existing moral norms and Soviet laws.

The arbitrariness of one person encouraged and allowed the arbitrariness of other persons. Mass arrests and exiles of thousands and thousands of people, extrajudicial executions and normal investigations gave rise to uncertainty in people, caused fear and even anger.

This, of course, did not help unite the ranks of the party, all sections of the working people, but, on the contrary, led to the destruction, cutting off from the party of honest workers, but objectionable to Stalin.

Our party fought for the implementation of Lenin's plans for building socialism. It was an ideological struggle. If a Leninist approach had been shown in this struggle, a skillful combination of party principles with a sensitive and attentive attitude towards people, a desire not to push people away, not to lose people, but to win them over to our side, then we probably would not have had such a gross violation of revolutionary legality. , the use of methods of terror against many thousands of people. Exceptional measures would be applied only to those persons who committed actual crimes against the Soviet system.

Let's look at some historical facts.

In the days preceding the October Revolution, two members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, Kamenev and Zinoviev, opposed Lenin's plan for an armed uprising. Moreover, on October 18, in the Menshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn, they published their statement that the Bolsheviks were preparing an uprising and that they considered the uprising an adventure. Kamenev and Zinoviev thereby disclosed to the enemies the decision of the Central Committee on the uprising, on the organization of this uprising in the near future.

This was a betrayal of the cause of the party, the cause of the revolution. In this regard, V.I. Lenin wrote: “Kamenev and Zinoviev gave Rodzianka and Kerensky the decision of the Central Committee of their party on an armed uprising ...”. He raised the question of expelling Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party before the Central Committee.

But after the accomplishment of the Great October Socialist Revolution, as is known, Zinoviev and Kamenev were promoted to leading positions. Lenin enlisted them to carry out the most important assignments of the Party, to work actively in leading Party and Soviet bodies. It is known that Zinoviev and Kamenev during the life of V.I. Lenin committed quite a few other major mistakes. In his "testament" Lenin warned that "the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev, of course, was not an accident." But Lenin did not raise the question of their arrest and, moreover, of their execution.

Or take, for example, the Trotskyists. Now that a sufficient historical period has passed, we can talk about the struggle against the Trotskyists quite calmly and quite objectively examine this matter. After all, there were people around Trotsky who by no means came from the bourgeoisie. Some of them were party intelligentsia, and some of them were workers. One could name a number of people who at one time joined the Trotskyists, but they also took an active part in the working-class movement before the revolution and during the October Socialist Revolution itself, and in strengthening the gains of this greatest revolution. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and went over to Leninist positions. Was there a need for the physical destruction of such people? We are deeply convinced that if Lenin were alive, then such an extreme measure would not have been taken against many of them.

These are just some of the facts of history. But is it really possible to say that Lenin did not dare to apply the most cruel measures to the enemies of the revolution, when it was really required? No, no one can say that. Vladimir Ilyich demanded cruel reprisals against the enemies of the revolution and the working class, and when the need arose, he used these measures with all ruthlessness. Remember, for example, the struggle of V.I. Lenin against the Socialist-Revolutionary organizers of anti-Soviet uprisings, against the counter-revolutionary kulaks in 1918 and others, when Lenin, without hesitation, took the most decisive measures in relation to the enemies. But Lenin used such measures against really class enemies, and not against those who err, who err, who can be led and even retained in the leadership by ideological influence.

Lenin applied harsh measures in the most necessary cases, when there were exploiting classes that madly resisted the revolution, when the struggle according to the principle of "who - whom" inevitably took on the most acute forms, up to civil war. Stalin, on the other hand, applied the most extreme measures, mass repressions, already when the revolution had won, when the Soviet state had strengthened, when the exploiting classes had already been liquidated and socialist relations were established in all spheres of the national economy, when our party had become politically stronger and tempered both quantitatively and ideologically. . It is clear that here Stalin displayed intolerance, rudeness, and abuse of power in a number of cases. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing the masses, he often followed the line of repression and physical destruction not only of real enemies, but also of people who did not commit crimes against the party and Soviet power. There is no wisdom in this, except for the manifestation of brute force, which so worried V.I. Lenin.

Recently, especially after the exposure of the Beria gang, the Central Committee of the Party has considered a number of cases fabricated by this gang. At the same time, a very unsightly picture of gross arbitrariness associated with the wrong actions of Stalin was revealed. As the facts show, Stalin, taking advantage of unlimited power, committed many abuses, acting on behalf of the Central Committee, without asking the opinion of members of the Central Committee and even members of the Politburo of the Central Committee, often without informing them of the decisions taken by Stalin alone on very important party and state issues.

In considering the question of the cult of personality, we must first find out what damage this has done to the interests of our party.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin always stressed the role and importance of the party in leading the socialist state of workers and peasants, seeing this as the main condition for the successful building of socialism in our country. Pointing to the enormous responsibility of the Bolshevik Party as the ruling party of the Soviet state, Lenin called for the strictest observance of all the norms of party life, for the implementation of the principles of collective leadership of the party and the country.

Collective leadership stems from the very nature of our party, built on the principles of democratic centralism. “This means,” said Lenin, “that all the affairs of the Party are conducted, directly or through representatives, by all members of the Party, on an equal footing and without any exception; moreover, all officials, all leading boards, all institutions of the party are elected, accountable, replaceable.

It is known that Lenin himself set an example of the strictest observance of these principles. There was no such important issue on which Lenin would make a decision alone, without consulting and without obtaining the approval of the majority of the members of the Central Committee or members of the Politburo of the Central Committee.

In the most difficult periods for our party and country, Lenin considered it necessary to regularly hold congresses, conferences of the party, plenums of its Central Committee, at which all the most important questions were discussed and decisions comprehensively worked out by a team of leaders were adopted.

Let us recall, for example, the year 1918, when the threat of invasion by imperialist invaders hung over the country. Under these conditions, the 7th Party Congress was convened to discuss the vital and urgent issue of peace. In 1919, at the height of the civil war, the 8th Party Congress was convened, at which a new party program was adopted, such important issues as the question of attitude towards the main masses of the peasantry, the building of the Red Army, the leading role of the party in the work of the Soviets, improvement of the social composition of the party and others. In 1920, the 9th Party Congress was convened, which determined the tasks of the Party and the country in the field of economic development. In 1921, at the Tenth Party Congress, the new economic policy developed by Lenin and the historic decision "On the Unity of the Party" were adopted.

During Lenin's lifetime, party congresses were held regularly, at every sharp turn In the development of the party and the country, Lenin considered it necessary first of all for a broad discussion by the party of the fundamental questions of domestic and foreign policy, party and state building.

It is quite characteristic that Lenin addressed his last articles, letters and notes precisely to the Party Congress, as the highest organ of the Party. From congress to congress, the Central Committee of the Party acted as a highly authoritative collective of leaders, strictly observing the principles of the Party and carrying out its policy.

So it was during the life of Lenin.

Were these Leninist principles sacred to our Party observed after the death of Vladimir Ilyich?

If in the first years after Lenin's death party congresses and plenums of the Central Committee were held more or less regularly, then later, when Stalin began to abuse power more and more, these principles began to be flagrantly violated. This was especially evident in the last fifteen years of his life. Can it be considered normal that more than thirteen years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party Congresses, during which our Party and country experienced so many events? These events urgently required the adoption by the party of decisions on questions of the defense of the country in the conditions of the Patriotic War and on questions of peaceful construction in the postwar years. Even after the end of the war, the congress did not meet for more than seven years.

Almost no plenums of the Central Committee were convened. Suffice it to say that in all the years of the Great Patriotic War not a single Plenum of the Central Committee was actually held. True, there was an attempt to convene a Central Committee Plenum in October 1941, when members of the Central Committee were specially summoned to Moscow from all over the country. For two days they waited for the opening of the Plenum, but did not wait. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk with members of the Central Committee. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how arrogantly and dismissively he treated the members of the Central Committee.

In this practice, Stalin's disregard for the norms of party life, his violation of the Leninist principle of the collectivity of the party leadership, found expression.

The arbitrariness of Stalin in relation to the party, to its Central Committee, was especially manifested after the 17th Party Congress, held in 1934.

The Central Committee, having at its disposal numerous facts testifying to gross arbitrariness in relation to party cadres, singled out a party commission of the Presidium of the Central Committee, which was instructed to carefully investigate the question of how mass repressions were possible against the majority of members and candidates of the Central Committee of the party, elected by the 17th Congress VKP(b).

The commission got acquainted with a large number of materials in the archives of the NKVD, with other documents, and established numerous facts of falsified cases against the communists, false accusations, flagrant violations of socialist legality, as a result of which innocent people died. It turns out that many party, Soviet, economic workers, who were declared "enemies" in 1937-1938, in reality never enemies, spies, pests, etc. were not that they, in essence, always remained honest communists, but were slandered, and sometimes, unable to withstand the brutal tortures, they slandered themselves (under the dictation of falsifying investigators) all sorts of grave and incredible accusations. The Commission submitted to the Presidium of the Central Committee a large documentary material on mass repressions against delegates to the 17th Party Congress and members of the Central Committee elected by this congress. This material was considered by the Presidium of the Central Committee.

It has been established that out of 139 members and candidate members of the Central Committee of the Party elected at the 17th Party Congress, 98 people, that is, 70 percent, were arrested and shot (mainly in 1937-1938). (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

What was the composition of the delegates of the 17th Congress? It is known that 80 percent of the members of the 17th Congress with the right to vote joined the party during the years of the revolutionary underground and the civil war, that is, until 1920 inclusive. In terms of social status, the bulk of the delegates to the congress were workers (60 percent of the delegates with the right to vote).

Therefore, it was absolutely inconceivable that a congress of such composition would elect a Central Committee in which the majority would turn out to be enemies of the party. Only as a result of the fact that honest communists were slandered and accusations against them were falsified, that monstrous violations of revolutionary legality were committed, 70 percent of the members and candidates of the Central Committee elected by the 17th Congress were declared enemies of the party and people.

Such a fate befell not only the members of the Central Committee, but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of the 1966 congress delegates with a decisive and advisory vote, significantly more than half were arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes - 1108 people. This fact alone shows how absurd, wild, contrary to common sense were the accusations of counter-revolutionary crimes brought against, as it now turns out, the majority of the participants in the 17th Party Congress. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

It must be recalled that the 17th Party Congress went down in history as a congress of victors. Active participants in the construction of our socialist state were elected delegates to the congress, many of them waged a selfless struggle for the cause of the party in the pre-revolutionary years in the underground and on the fronts of the civil war, they bravely fought enemies, more than once looked into the eyes of death and did not flinch. How can one believe that such people, in the period after the political defeat of the Zinovievites, Trotskyists and Rights, after the great victories of socialist construction, turned out to be "double-dealers", went over to the camp of the enemies of socialism?

This happened as a result of the abuse of power by Stalin, who began to use mass terror against the party cadres.

Why did mass repressions against activists intensify more and more after the 17th Party Congress? Because by that time Stalin had risen so far above the party and the people that he no longer took any account of either the Central Committee or the party. If before the 17th Congress he still recognized the opinion of the collective, then after the complete political defeat of the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, when as a result of this struggle and the victories of socialism the party was united, the people were united, Stalin more and more ceased to reckon with the members of the Central Committee of the party and even with members of the Politburo. Stalin believed that he could now manage all the affairs himself, and he needed the rest as extras, he kept all the others in such a position that they had only to listen and praise him.

Fragment 3.

After the villainous murder of S.M. Kirov, mass repressions and gross violations of socialist legality began. On the evening of December 1, 1934, at the initiative of Stalin (without the decision of the Politburo - this was formalized by a poll only 2 days later), the secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee Yenukidze signed the following resolution:

“1) The investigative authorities - to deal with those accused of preparing or committing terrorist acts in an expedited manner;

2) Judicial bodies - not to delay the execution of sentences of capital punishment because of the petitions of criminals of this category for pardon, since the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider it possible to accept such petitions for consideration;

3) The bodies of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs - to carry out the sentence of capital punishment against criminals of the above categories immediately after the pronouncement of court verdicts.

This decision served as the basis for mass violations of socialist legality. In many falsified investigative cases, the defendants were accused of "preparing" terrorist acts, and this deprived the accused of any opportunity to check their cases even when they retracted their forced "confessions" in court and convincingly denied the charges against them.

It should be said that the circumstances connected with the murder of Comrade Kirov are still fraught with many incomprehensible and mysterious things and require the most thorough investigation. There are reasons to think that the killer of Kirov - Nikolaev was helped by someone from the people who were obliged to protect Kirov. A month and a half before the murder, Nikolaev was arrested for suspicious behavior, but was released and not even searched. It is extremely suspicious that when the Chekist attached to Kirov was taken for interrogation on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car “accident”, and none of the persons accompanying him were injured. After the assassination of Kirov, the leaders of the Leningrad NKVD were removed from work and subjected to very mild punishments, but in 1937 they were shot. One might think that they were shot in order to cover up the traces of the organizers of the murder of Kirov. (Movement in the hall.)

Mass repressions intensified sharply from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and Zhdanov from Sochi dated September 25, 1936, addressed to Kaganovich, Molotov and other members of the Politburo, which stated the following:

“We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent to appoint Comrade Yezhov to the post of People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. Yagoda was clearly not up to the task of exposing the Trotskyite-Zinovievist bloc. The OGPU was 4 years late in this matter. All party workers and the majority of regional representatives of the NKVD speak about this. By the way, it should be noted that Stalin did not meet with party workers and therefore could not know their opinion.

This Stalinist attitude that “the NKVD was 4 years late” with the use of mass repressions, that it was necessary to quickly “catch up” for what was lost, directly pushed the NKVD workers to mass arrests and executions.

It should be noted that this attitude was also imposed on the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1937. The resolution of the Plenum on Yezhov's report "Lessons of sabotage, sabotage and espionage by Japanese-German-Trotskyist agents" stated:

“The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks believes that all the facts revealed during the investigation into the cases of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center and its supporters in the field show that the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs was at least 4 years late in exposing these worst enemies of the people.”

Mass repressions were carried out at that time under the flag of the struggle against the Trotskyists. Did the Trotskyists really pose such a danger to our party and the Soviet state at that time? It should be recalled that in 1927, on the eve of the 15th Party Congress, only 4,000 people voted for the Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition, while 724,000 voted for the party line. In the 10 years that passed from the 15th Party Congress to the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee, Trotskyism was completely defeated, many former Trotskyists abandoned their former views and worked in various sectors of socialist construction. It is clear that there were no grounds for mass terror in the country under the conditions of the victory of socialism.

In Stalin's report at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, "On the Shortcomings of Party Work and Measures to Eliminate Trotskyist and Other Double Dealers," an attempt was made to theoretically substantiate the policy of mass repressions under the pretext that, as we move forward towards socialism, the class struggle must supposedly become more and more and become more aggravated. At the same time, Stalin argued that this is how history teaches, this is how Lenin teaches.

In fact, Lenin pointed out that the use of revolutionary violence is caused by the need to crush the resistance of the exploiting classes, and these instructions of Lenin referred to the period when the exploiting classes existed and were strong. As soon as the political situation in the country improved, as soon as Rostov was taken by the Red Army in January 1920 and the main victory over Denikin was won, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky to abolish mass terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin substantiated this important political event of the Soviet power in the following way in his report at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 2, 1920:

“Terror was imposed on us by the terrorism of the Entente, when the world-powerful powers attacked us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out even for two days if these attempts by the officers and the White Guards had not been answered in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente. And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty and thus showed that we treat our own program as promised. We say that the use of violence is motivated by the task of crushing the exploiters, of crushing the landlords and capitalists; when this is allowed, we will renounce all exceptional measures. We proved it in practice” (Soch., vol. 30, pp. 303-304).

Stalin retreated from these direct and clear program instructions from Lenin. After all the exploiting classes in our country had already been liquidated and there were no serious grounds for the mass application of exceptional measures, for mass terror, Stalin oriented the party, oriented the organs of the NKVD towards mass terror.

This terror turned out to be actually directed not against the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes, but against honest cadres of the party and the Soviet state, who were presented with false, slanderous, senseless accusations of "double dealing", "espionage", "sabotage", preparation of any fictitious "assassination attempts" etc.

At the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee (1937), in the speeches of a number of members of the Central Committee, doubts were essentially expressed about the correctness of the outlined course towards mass repressions under the pretext of fighting "double-dealers".

These doubts were most clearly expressed in the speech of Comrade. Postyshev. He said:

“I reasoned: such tough years of struggle had passed, rotten members of the party broke down or went to the enemies, healthy ones fought for the cause of the party. These are the years of industrialization, collectivization. I had no idea that, after going through this steep period, Karpov and his ilk would fall into the camp of the enemy. (Karpov is an employee of the Central Committee of the Party of Ukraine, whom Postyshev knew well). But according to the testimony allegedly Karpov since 1934 was recruited by the Trotskyists. I personally think that in 1934 it is unbelievable for a healthy member of the Party, who has gone through a long path of fierce struggle with enemies for the cause of the Party, for socialism, to fall into the camp of enemies. I don't believe this... I can't imagine how one can go through difficult years with the Party and then go to the Trotskyists in 1934. This is strange...” (Movement in the hall.)

Using Stalin's attitude that the closer to socialism, the more enemies there will be, using the resolution of the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee on Yezhov's report, provocateurs who made their way into the state security organs, as well as unscrupulous careerists, began to cover up mass terror against party cadres in the name of the party and the Soviet state, against ordinary Soviet citizens. Suffice it to say that the number of those arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes increased in 1937 in comparison with 1936 by more than ten times!

It is known what gross arbitrariness was also committed against the leading workers of the Party. The Party Rules, adopted by the 17th Congress, proceeded from Lenin's instructions from the period of the 10th Party Congress and said that the condition for applying to members of the Central Committee, candidates for membership of the Central Committee and members of the Party Control Commission such an extreme measure as expulsion from the Party, "should be the convening of the Plenum of the Central Committee with by inviting all candidates for membership in the Central Committee and all members of the Party Control Commission," that only on the condition that such a general meeting of responsible party leaders by two-thirds of the votes recognizes this as necessary, could a member or candidate of the Central Committee be expelled from the party.

Most of the members and candidates of the Central Committee, elected by the 17th Congress and arrested in 1937-1938, were illegally expelled from the party, in gross violation of the Party Rules, since the issue of their exclusion was not raised for discussion by the Plenum of the Central Committee.

Now that some of these supposed "spies" and "saboteurs" have been investigated, the cases have been found to be fraudulent. Confessions of many arrested people accused of hostile activities were obtained through cruel, inhuman torture.

At the same time, according to the members of the Politburo of that time, Stalin did not send them the statements of a number of slandered politicians when they retracted their testimony at the trial of the Military Collegium and asked for an objective investigation of their case. And there were many such statements, and Stalin, undoubtedly, was acquainted with them.

The Central Committee considers it necessary to report to the congress about a number of falsified "cases" against members of the Central Committee of the Party elected at the 17th Party Congress.

Fragment 3. An example of vile provocation, malicious falsification and criminal violations of revolutionary legality is the case of the former candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, one of the prominent figures in the party and the Soviet state, Comrade Eikhe, a member of the party since 1905. (Movement in the hall.)

Tov. Eikhe was arrested on April 29, 1938 on the basis of slanderous materials without the sanction of the USSR prosecutor, which was received only 15 months after his arrest.

The investigation into the Eikhe case was carried out in an atmosphere of gross distortions of Soviet legality, arbitrariness and falsification.

Eikhe, under torture, was forced to sign interrogation protocols drawn up in advance by investigators, in which accusations of anti-Soviet activities were raised against him and a number of prominent party and Soviet workers.

On October 1, 1939, Eikhe filed a statement addressed to Stalin, in which he categorically denied his guilt and asked to deal with his case. In a statement, he wrote:

"There is no more bitter torment than to sit in prison under the regime for which you have always fought."

The second statement of Eikhe, sent by him to Stalin on October 27, 1939, has been preserved, in which he convincingly, based on facts, refutes the slanderous accusations brought against him, shows that these provocative accusations are, on the one hand, the work of real Trotskyists, whose arrest he sanctioned, as the first secretary of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the party, gave, and who conspired to take revenge on him, and on the other hand, the result of a dirty falsification of fictitious materials by investigators.

Eikhe wrote in his statement:

“October 25 this year. I was announced that the investigation of my case was over and given the opportunity to familiarize myself with the investigative material. If I were guilty, even in the hundredth part of at least one of the crimes against me, I would not dare to turn to you with this dying statement, but I did not commit any of the crimes incriminated to me and I never had a shadow of meanness on soul. I have never told you a half word of lies in my life, and now, being with both feet in the grave, I am not lying to you either. My whole case is a model of provocation, slander and violation of the elementary foundations of revolutionary legality...

The testimonies available in my investigative file that expose me are not only absurd, but on a number of points contain slander on the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, since the correct decisions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars taken not on my initiative and without my participation are portrayed as sabotage acts counter-revolutionary organization carried out at my suggestion...

Now I turn to the most shameful page of my life and to my really grievous guilt before the Party and before you. This is about my confessions in counter-revolutionary activities ... The situation was as follows: unable to withstand the torture that Ushakov and Nikolaev applied to me, especially the first, who cleverly took advantage of the fact that after the fracture my spine was still poorly overgrown and caused me unbearable pain, they forced me to slander myself and other people.

Most of my testimony was prompted or dictated by Ushakov, and the rest I copied from memory the NKVD materials on Western Siberia, attributing all these facts given in the NKVD materials to myself. If something didn’t stick in the legend created by Ushakov and signed by me, then I was forced to sign another version. So it was with Rukhimovich, who was first enrolled in a reserve center, and then, without even telling me anything, was deleted, it was the same with the chairman of the reserve center, allegedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I recorded myself, but then I was offered to record Mezhlauk, and many other moments ...

I ask and beg you to instruct me to investigate my case, and this is not in order to be spared, but in order to expose the heinous provocation that, like a snake, has entangled many people, in particular because of my cowardice and criminal slander. I never cheated on you and the party. I know that I am dying because of the vile, vile work of the enemies of the party and the people, who created a provocation against me. (The Eikhe case. vol. 1, package.)

It would seem that such an important statement should have been necessarily discussed in the Central Committee. But this did not happen, the application was sent to Beria, and the brutal reprisal against the slandered candidate for membership in the Politburot. Eihe continued.

On February 2, 1940, Eikhe was put on trial. In court, Eikhe pleaded not guilty and stated the following:

“In all allegedly my testimony, there is not a single letter I named, with the exception of the signatures at the bottom of the protocols, which were signed by force. The testimony was given under pressure from the investigator, who from the very beginning of my arrest began to beat me. After that, I began to write all sorts of nonsense ... The main thing for me is to tell the court, the party and Stalin that I am not guilty. Never been part of a conspiracy. I will die with the same faith in the correctness of the party's policy, as I believed in it throughout my entire work. (The Eikhe case, volume 1.)

On February 4, Eikhe was shot. (Noise of indignation in the hall.) It is now indisputably established that the case of Eikhe was falsified, and he was posthumously rehabilitated.

A candidate member of the Politburotov completely retracted his forced testimony at the trial. Rudzutak, party member since 1905, who spent 10 years in the tsarist hard labor. The minutes of the court session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court recorded the following statement by Rudzutak:

“... His only request to the court is to bring to the attention of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks that there is an abscess that has not yet been uprooted in the NKVD, which artificially creates cases, forcing innocent people to plead guilty. That there is no verification of the circumstances of the accusation and no opportunity is given to prove one's non-involvement in those crimes that are put forward by certain testimonies of various persons. The methods of the investigation are such that they force them to invent and slander innocent people, not to mention the defendant himself. He asks the court to give him the opportunity to write all this for the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. He assures the court that he personally never had any bad thought against the policy of our party, since he always fully shared all the policy of the party, which was carried out in all areas of economic and cultural development.

This statement of Rudzutak was ignored, although Rudzutak, as is known, was at one time the chairman of the Central Control Commission, which was created, according to Lenin's idea, to fight for the unity of the party. The chairman of this highly authoritative party organ fell victim to brutal arbitrariness: he was not even summoned to the Politburo of the Central Committee, Stalin did not want to talk to him. He was convicted within 20 minutes and shot. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

A thorough check carried out in 1955 established that the case against Rudzutak was falsified and he was convicted on the basis of slanderous materials. Rudzutak was posthumously rehabilitated.

How artificially - by provocative methods - various "anti-Soviet centers" and "blocs" were created by former NKVD workers, is evident from the testimony of Comrade Rosenblum, a party member since 1906, who was arrested by the Leningrad Department of the NKVD in 1937.

When checking the case of Komarov in 1955, Rosenblum reported the following fact: when he, Rosenblum, was arrested in 1937, he was subjected to severe torture, during which false testimony was extorted from him both on himself and on other persons. Then he was brought to the office of Zakovsky, who offered him release on the condition that he give false evidence in court in the NKVD fabricated in 1937 "the case of the Leningrad sabotage, espionage, sabotage, terrorist center." (Movement in the hall.) With incredible cynicism, Zakovsky revealed the vile "mechanics" of artificially creating fake "anti-Soviet conspiracies."

“For clarity,” Rosenblum said, “Zakovsky unfolded in front of me several options for the proposed schemes of this center and its branches ...

After familiarizing me with these schemes, Zakovsky said that the NKVD was preparing a file on this center, and the process would be open.

The head of the center will be put on trial, 4–5 people: Chudov, Ugarov, Smorodin, Pozern, Shaposhnikova (this is Chudov’s wife), and others, and 2–3 people from each branch ...

The case of the Leningrad Center must be presented in a solid manner. This is where witnesses matter. Here plays an important role and social position (in the past, of course), and the party experience of the witness.

You yourself, - said Zakovsky, - will not have to invent anything. The NKVD will compile for you a ready summary for each branch separately, your job is to memorize it, remember well all the questions and answers that may be asked in court. This case will be prepared for 4-5 months, or even six months. All this time you will prepare so as not to let the investigation and yourself down. Your further fate will depend on the course and outcome of the trial. If you drift off and start to fake - blame yourself. If you endure, you will save a head of cabbage (head), we will feed and clothe until death at the state expense.

These are the vile deeds that were going on at that time! (Movement in the hall.)

The falsification of investigation cases was even more widely practiced in the regions. The NKVD Directorate for the Sverdlovsk Region “discovered” the so-called “Ural insurgent headquarters – an organ of a bloc of rightists, Trotskyists, Social Revolutionaries, churchmen,” allegedly led by the secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee and a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Kabakov, a member of the party since 1914. According to the materials of the investigative cases of that time, it turns out that in almost all territories, regions and republics there were supposedly widely branched "Right-Trotskyist espionage-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage organizations and centers" and, as a rule, these "organizations" and "centers" why some were headed by the first secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees or the Central Committee of the national communist parties. (Movement in the hall.)

As a result of this monstrous falsification of such "cases", as a result of the fact that they believed various slanderous "testimonies" and forced slanders of themselves and others, many thousands of honest, innocent Communists perished. In the same way, "cases" were fabricated against prominent party and state figures - Kosior, Chubar, Postyshev, Kosarev and others.

In those years, unjustified repressions were carried out on a massive scale, as a result of which the party suffered heavy losses in personnel.

There was a vicious practice when the NKVD compiled lists of persons whose cases were subject to consideration at the Military Collegium, and the punishment was determined in advance. These lists were sent by Yezhov personally to Stalin to authorize the proposed penalties. In 1937-1938, 383 such lists were sent to Stalin for many thousands of party, Soviet, Komsomol, military and economic workers, and his sanction was obtained.

A significant part of these cases are now being reviewed and a large number of them are dismissed as unfounded and falsified. Suffice it to say that from 1954 to the present, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has already rehabilitated 7,679 people, and many of them have been rehabilitated posthumously.

The mass arrests of Party, Soviet, economic and military workers have inflicted enormous damage on our country and the cause of socialist construction.

Mass repressions had a negative effect on the moral and political state of the party, gave rise to uncertainty, contributed to the spread of painful suspicion, and sowed mutual distrust among the communists. All sorts of slanderers and careerists became active.

The resolutions of the January Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 brought a certain improvement to the party organizations. But widespread repression continued into 1938.

And only because our party has great moral and political strength, it was able to cope with the difficult events of 1937-1938, to survive these events, to grow new cadres. But there is no doubt that our progress towards socialism and preparation for the defense of the country would have been carried out more successfully if it were not for the huge losses in personnel that we suffered as a result of massive, unjustified and unjust repressions in 1937-1938.

We accuse Yezhov of the perversions of 1937, and we rightly accuse him. But it is necessary to answer such questions: how could Yezhov himself, without the knowledge of Stalin, arrest, for example, Kosior? Was there an exchange of views or a decision of the Politburo on this issue? No, it wasn't, just as it wasn't in relation to other similar cases. How could Yezhov decide such important issues as the fate of prominent party leaders? No, it would be naive to consider this the work of Yezhov alone. It is clear that such cases were decided by Stalin, without his instructions, without his sanction, Yezhov could not do anything.

We have now sorted out and rehabilitated Kosior, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Kosarev and others. On what basis were they arrested and convicted? The study of the materials showed that there were no grounds for this. They were arrested, like many others, without the permission of the prosecutor. Yes, in those conditions, no sanction was required; what else could be a sanction when everything was allowed by Stalin. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions on arrests on his own initiative. This should be said so that there is complete clarity for the Congress delegates, so that you can give a correct assessment and draw the appropriate conclusions.

Fragment 4.

The facts show that many abuses were committed on Stalin's orders, regardless of any norms of Party and Soviet legality. Stalin was a very suspicious person, with morbid suspicion, as we were convinced while working with him. He could look at a person and say: “something your eyes are running around today,” or: “why do you often turn away today, don’t look directly into your eyes.” Painful suspicion led him to a sweeping distrust, including in relation to prominent party figures whom he had known for many years. Everywhere and everywhere he saw "enemies", "double-dealers", "spies".

Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness, suppressed a person morally and physically. A situation was created in which a person could not show his will.

When Stalin said that such and such should be arrested, one should have taken it on faith that he was an "enemy of the people." And the gang of Beria, who was in charge of the state security organs, climbed out of their skin to prove the guilt of the arrested persons, the correctness of the materials they fabricated. And what evidence was put into play? Confessions of the arrested. And the investigators got these "confessions". But how can you get a confession from a person in crimes that he never committed? Only one way - the use of physical methods of influence, through torture, deprivation of consciousness, deprivation of reason, deprivation of human dignity. This is how imaginary "confessions" were obtained.

When the wave of mass repressions began to weaken in 1939, when the leaders of local party organizations began to accuse the NKVD workers of using physical force on those arrested, Stalin sent a coded telegram on January 10, 1939 to the secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties, the people's commissars of internal affairs, and the heads of departments NKVD. This telegram said:

“The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks explains that the use of physical force in the practice of the NKVD has been allowed since 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks ... It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use physical force against representatives of the socialist proletariat and, moreover, use it in the most ugly forms. The question is why socialist intelligence should be more humane towards inveterate agents of the bourgeoisie, sworn enemies of the working class and collective farmers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers that the method of physical influence must continue to be applied, as an exception, in relation to obvious and non-disarming enemies of the people, as an absolutely correct and expedient method.

Thus, the most gross violations of socialist legality, torture and torment, which led, as was shown above, to slander and self-slander of innocent people, were sanctioned by Stalin on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Recently, just a few days before this congress, we summoned to a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee and interrogated investigator Rhodes, who at one time conducted an investigation and interrogated Kosior, Chubar and Kosarev. This is a worthless person, with a chicken outlook, in a moral sense, literally a degenerate. And such a person determined the fate of well-known leaders of the party, and determined the policy in these matters, because, proving their "criminality", he thereby provided material for major political conclusions.

The question is, how could such a person himself, with his mind, conduct an investigation in such a way as to prove the guilt of such people as Kosior and others. No, he couldn't do much without appropriate instructions. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he told us this: “I was told that Kosior and Chubar were enemies of the people, so I, as an investigator, had to extract from them a confession that they were enemies.” (Noise of indignation in the hall).

This he could achieve only through prolonged torture, which he did, receiving detailed instructions from Beria. It should be said that at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Rhodes cynically stated: "I believed that I was fulfilling the instructions of the party." This is how Stalin's instruction to apply methods of physical coercion to prisoners was carried out in practice.

These and many similar facts testify to the fact that all norms for the correct party solution of problems were eliminated, everything was subordinated to the arbitrariness of one person.

Stalin's autocracy led to particularly grave consequences during the Great Patriotic War.

Fragment 5.

If we take many of our novels, films and historical "research", then they portray the question of Stalin's role in the Patriotic War in a completely implausible way. Usually such a scheme is drawn. Stalin foresaw everything and everything. The Soviet Army, almost according to the strategic plans drawn up in advance by Stalin, carried out the tactics of the so-called "active defense", that is, the tactics that, as you know, allowed the Germans to reach Moscow and Stalingrad. Using this tactic, the Soviet Army, only thanks to the genius of Stalin, went over to the offensive and defeated the enemy. The world-historical victory won by the Armed Forces of the Soviet country, our heroic people, is attributed in such novels, films and "research" entirely to the military genius of Stalin.

We need to look into this issue carefully, because it is of great, not only historical, but above all political, educational and practical significance.

What are the facts in this matter?

Before the war, a boastful tone prevailed in our press and in all educational work: if the enemy attacks the sacred Soviet land, then we will respond to the enemy’s blow with a triple blow, we will wage the war on enemy territory and win it with little bloodshed. However, these declarative statements were by no means fully supported by practical deeds in order to ensure the real impregnability of our borders.

During the war and after it, Stalin put forward the thesis that the tragedy that our people experienced in the initial period of the war was allegedly the result of the "sudden" attack of the Germans on the Soviet Union. But this, comrades, is completely untrue. As soon as Hitler came to power in Germany, he immediately set himself the task of crushing communism. The Nazis spoke about this directly, without hiding their plans. For the implementation of these aggressive plans, various pacts, blocs, axes were concluded, such as the notorious Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Numerous facts of the pre-war period eloquently proved that Hitler was directing all his efforts in order to unleash a war against the Soviet state, and concentrated large military units, including tank ones, near the Soviet borders.

From the documents now published, it can be seen that as early as April 3, 1941, Churchill, through the British ambassador to the USSR, Cripps, made a personal warning to Stalin that the German troops had begun to redeploy in preparation for an attack on the Soviet Union. It goes without saying that Churchill did not do this out of good feelings for the Soviet people. He pursued his imperialist interests here - to pit Germany and the USSR in a bloody war and strengthen the position of the British Empire. Nevertheless, Churchill indicated in his message that he asked "to warn Stalin in order to draw his attention to the danger threatening him." Churchill insistently emphasized this in the telegrams of April 18 and the following days. However, Stalin ignored these warnings. Moreover, there were instructions from Stalin not to trust information of this kind in order not to provoke the start of hostilities.

It should be said that this kind of information about the impending threat of the invasion of German troops into the territory of the Soviet Union came from our army and diplomatic sources, but due to the prevailing prejudice against this kind of information in the leadership, it was each time sent with caution and furnished with reservations.

So, for example, in a report from Berlin dated May 6, 1941, the naval attache in Berlin, Captain 1st Rank Vorontsov reported: “Soviet citizen Bozer ... informed the assistant of our naval attache that, according to one German officer from Hitler’s headquarters , the Germans are preparing an invasion of the USSR through Finland, the Baltic states and Latvia by May 14. At the same time, powerful air raids on Moscow and Leningrad and the landing of paratroopers in border centers are planned ... "

In his report dated May 22, 1941, the assistant military attache in Berlin, Khlopov, reported that "... the offensive of the German troops was allegedly scheduled for June 15, and possibly will begin in early June ...".

In a telegram from our embassy from London dated June 18, 1941, it was reported: “As for the current moment, Cripps is firmly convinced that a military clash between Germany and the USSR is inevitable, and, moreover, no later than mid-June. According to Cripps, today the Germans have concentrated on the Soviet borders (including air forces and auxiliary forces of units) 147 divisions ... ".

Despite all these extremely important signals, sufficient measures were not taken to prepare the country well for defense and to exclude the moment of surprise attack.

Did we have time and opportunities for such preparation? Yes, there were both time and opportunities. Our industry was at such a level of development that it was able to fully provide Soviet Army everything necessary. This is confirmed, if only by the fact that when almost half of our entire industry was lost during the war, as a result of the occupation by the enemy of Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the western regions of the country, important industrial and grain regions, the Soviet people managed to organize the production of military materials in the eastern regions of the country , put into use there the equipment exported from the western industrial regions and provide our Armed Forces with everything necessary to defeat the enemy.

If our industry had been mobilized in time and really to provide the army with weapons and the necessary equipment, then we would have suffered immeasurably fewer casualties in this difficult war. However, such mobilization was not carried out in a timely manner. And from the very first days of the war it became clear that our army was poorly armed, that we did not have enough artillery, tanks and aircraft to repulse the enemy.

Before the war, Soviet science and technology provided excellent examples of tanks and artillery. But the mass production of all this was not established, and we began the rearmament of the army, in essence, on the very eve of the war. As a result, at the time of the enemy attack on Soviet soil, we did not have the required quantities of either the old equipment that we were withdrawing from service, or the new equipment that we were going to introduce. It was very bad with anti-aircraft artillery, the production of armor-piercing shells for fighting tanks was not established. Many fortified areas turned out to be helpless by the time of the attack, since the old weapons had been removed from them, and the new ones had not yet been introduced.

Yes, the matter, unfortunately, is not only in tanks, artillery and aircraft. By the time of the war, we did not even have a sufficient number of rifles to arm the people called up for the active army. I remember how in those days I called Comrade from Kyiv. Malenkov and told him:

“People have joined the army and demand weapons. Send us weapons.

Malenkov replied to this:

We can't send weapons. We transfer all rifles to Leningrad, and you arm yourself. (Movement in the hall.)

Such was the case with weapons.

It is impossible not to recall in this connection such, for example, a fact. Shortly before the attack of the Nazi armies on the Soviet Union, Kirponos, being the commander of the Kyiv Special Military District (he later died at the front), wrote to Stalin that the German armies had approached the Bug, were intensively preparing everything for the offensive, and in the near future, apparently, they would go on the offensive. Considering all this, Kirponos suggested creating a reliable defense, withdrawing 300 thousand people from the border regions and creating several powerful fortified zones there: dig anti-tank ditches, create shelters for fighters, and so on.

To these proposals from Moscow the answer was given that it was a provocation, that no preparatory work should be done on the border, that there was no need to give the Germans a reason to open hostilities against us. And our borders were not truly prepared to repulse the enemy.

When the fascist troops had already invaded Soviet soil and began hostilities, an order followed from Moscow - do not answer the shots. Why? Yes, because Stalin, contrary to obvious facts, believed that this was not yet a war, but a provocation by individual undisciplined parts of the German army, and that if we respond to the Germans, this will serve as a pretext for starting a war.

This fact is also known. On the eve of the invasion of the Nazi armies into the territory of the Soviet Union, a German ran across our border and said that the German troops had received an order - on June 22, at 3 o'clock in the morning, to launch an offensive against the Soviet Union. This was immediately reported to Stalin, but this signal was also ignored.

As you can see, everything was ignored: the warnings of individual military leaders, and the testimony of defectors, and even the obvious actions of the enemy. What kind of foresight is this of the leader of the party and the country at such a crucial moment in history?

And what did such carelessness, such ignorance of obvious facts lead to? This led to the fact that in the very first hours and days the enemy destroyed in our border areas a huge amount of aviation, artillery, other military equipment, destroyed a large number of our military personnel, disorganized the command and control of the troops, and we were unable to block his path deep into the country.

Very serious consequences, especially for the initial period of the war, also had the fact that during 1937-1941, as a result of Stalin's suspicion, numerous cadres of army commanders and political workers were exterminated on slanderous accusations. During these years, several layers of command personnel were repressed, starting literally from the company and battalion to the highest army centers, including those command personnel who had gained some experience in waging war in Spain and the Far East were almost completely destroyed.

The policy of extensive repression against army cadres also had the grave consequences that it undermined the basis of military discipline, since for several years commanders of all levels and even soldiers in party and Komsomol cells were taught to “expose” their senior commanders as disguised enemies. (Movement in the hall.) Naturally, this had a negative effect on the state of military discipline during the first period of the war.

But before the war we had excellent military cadres, boundlessly devoted to the Party and the Motherland. Suffice it to say that those of them who survived, I mean such comrades as Rokossovsky (and he was in prison), Gorbatov, Meretskov (he is present at the congress), Podlas (and this is a wonderful commander, he died at the front) and many , many others, despite the heavy torment they suffered in prisons, from the very first days of the war showed themselves to be real patriots and selflessly fought for the glory of the Motherland. But after all, many of these commanders died in camps and prisons, and the army did not see them.

All this taken together led to the situation that was created at the beginning of the war for our country and which threatened the fate of our Motherland with the greatest danger.

It would be wrong not to say that after the first heavy setbacks and defeats on the fronts, Stalin believed that the end had come. In one of his conversations these days, he stated:

- What Lenin created, we have irretrievably lost all this.

After that, for a long time he did not actually direct military operations and did not start business at all and returned to leadership only when some members of the Politburo came to him and said that such and such measures must be taken without delay in order to improve the state of affairs at the front. .

Thus, the formidable danger that hung over our Motherland in the first period of the war was largely the result of the vicious methods of leading the country and the party on the part of Stalin himself.

But the point is not only the very moment of the beginning of the war, which seriously disorganized our army and inflicted heavy damage on us. Already after the start of the war, the nervousness and hysteria that Stalin showed when he interfered in the course of military operations caused serious damage to our army.

Stalin was very far from understanding the real situation that was developing on the fronts. And this is natural, since during the entire Patriotic War he was not on any sector of the front, in any of the liberated cities, except for the lightning-fast exit to the Mozhaisk highway with a stable state of the front, about which so many literary works have been written with all kinds of fiction and so many colorful paintings. At the same time, Stalin directly intervened in the course of operations and issued orders that often did not take into account the real situation on a given sector of the front and which could not but lead to colossal losses of human lives.

In this connection I will allow myself to cite one characteristic fact showing how Stalin led the fronts. Present at the congress here is Marshal Baghramyan, who at one time was the head of the operations department of the headquarters of the Southwestern Front and who can confirm what I will tell you now.

When, in 1942, exceptionally difficult conditions developed for our troops in the Kharkov area, we made the right decision to stop the operation to encircle Kharkov, since in the real situation of that time, the further implementation of an operation of this kind threatened fatal consequences for our troops.

We reported this to Stalin, declaring that the situation required a change in the plan of action in order to prevent the enemy from destroying large groupings of our troops.

Contrary to common sense, Stalin rejected our proposal and ordered the continuation of the operation to encircle Kharkov, although by this time a very real threat of encirclement and destruction hung over our numerous military groups.

I call Vasilevsky and beg him:

“Take,” I say, “a map, Alexander Mikhailovich (comrade Vasilevsky is present here), show Comrade Stalin what the situation is. And I must say that Stalin planned operations on the globe. (Animation in the hall.) Yes, comrades, he will take a globe and show the front line on it. So I say to Comrade Vasilevsky, show the situation on the map, because under these conditions it is impossible to continue the previously planned operation. For the good of the cause, it is necessary to change the old decision.

Vasilevsky answered me that Stalin had already considered this question and that he, Vasilevsky, would no longer report to Stalin, since he did not want to listen to any of his arguments on this operation.

After talking with Vasilevsky, I called Stalin at the dacha. But Stalin did not answer the phone, but Malenkov took it. I say tov. Malenkov that I am calling from the front and want to personally talk to Comrade. Stalin. Stalin sends through Malenkov that I speak with Malenkov. I declare for the second time that I want to personally report to Stalin on the difficult situation that has arisen at our front. But Stalin did not consider it necessary to pick up the phone, but once again confirmed that I should speak to him through Malenkov, although it was a few steps to get to the telephone.

“Having listened” in this way to our request, Stalin said:

- Leave everything as it is!

What came of it? And it turned out the worst of what we expected. The Germans managed to encircle our military groups, as a result of which we lost hundreds of thousands of our troops. Here is the military "genius" of Stalin, that's what he cost us. (Movement in the hall.)

Once, after the war, at a meeting between Stalin and members of the Politburo, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan once said that, they say, Khrushchev was right then when he called about the Kharkov operation, that they didn’t support him then in vain.

You should have seen how angry Stalin was! How is it possible to admit that he, Stalin, was wrong then! After all, he is a "genius", and a genius cannot be wrong. Anyone can make mistakes, but Stalin believed that he was never wrong, that he was always right. And he never admitted to anyone in any of his big or small mistakes, although he made many mistakes both in theoretical questions and in his practical activities. After the Party Congress, we will apparently need to reconsider the assessment of many military operations and give them a correct explanation.

The tactics that Stalin insisted on, not knowing the nature of combat operations, cost us a lot of blood, after we managed to stop the enemy and go on the offensive.

The military knows that already from the end of 1941, instead of conducting large-scale maneuver operations with outflanking the enemy, with calls into his rear, Stalin demanded continuous frontal attacks in order to take village after village. And we suffered huge losses on this until our generals, who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders, managed to change the state of affairs and go over to conducting flexible maneuver operations, which immediately led to a serious change in the situation on the fronts in our favor.

All the more shameful and unworthy was the fact when, after our great victory over the enemy, which was given to us at a very heavy price, Stalin began to smash many of those generals who had made their considerable contribution to the victory over the enemy, since Stalin ruled out any possibility that merits won at the fronts were attributed to anyone other than himself. Stalin showed great interest in assessing Comrade. Zhukov as a military commander. He repeatedly asked my opinion about Zhukov, and I told him:

- I know Zhukov for a long time, he is a good general, a good commander.

After the war, Stalin began to tell all sorts of fables about Zhukov, in particular, he told me:

- So you praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. They say that Zhukov at the front before any operation acted like this: he would take a handful of earth, sniff it and then say: you can, they say, start an offensive, or, conversely, you can’t, they say, carry out the planned operation.

I answered this then:

- I don't know, comrade. Stalin, who invented this, but it's not true.

Apparently, Stalin himself invented such things in order to belittle the role and military abilities of Marshal Zhukov.

In this regard, Stalin himself very intensely popularized himself as a great commander, by all means introduced into the minds of people the version that all the victories won by the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War are the result of Stalin's courage, valor, genius and no one else. Like Kuzma Kryuchkov, he immediately raised 7 people to the peak. (Animation in the hall.)

In fact, take our historical and military films or some works of literature that are sickening to read. After all, they are all designed to promote this particular version to glorify Stalin as a brilliant commander. Let's remember the picture Fall of Berlin. Only Stalin acts there: he gives instructions in a hall with empty chairs, and only one person comes to him and reports something - this is Poskrebyshev, his invariable squire. (Laughter in the hall.)

Where is the military leadership? Where is the Politburo? Where is the Government? What do they do and what do they do? This is not in the picture. Stalin alone acts for all, without regard or consulting with anyone. In such a perverted form, all this is shown to the people. For what? In order to glorify Stalin and all this - contrary to the facts, contrary to historical truth.

The question is, where are our military, who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders? They are not in the film, there was no place left for them after Stalin.

Not Stalin, but the party as a whole, the Soviet government, our heroic army, its talented commanders and valiant warriors, the entire Soviet people - that's what ensured victory in the Great Patriotic War. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

Members of the Central Committee of the party, ministers, our business executives, figures of Soviet culture, leaders of local party and Soviet organizations, engineers and technicians - each was at his post and selflessly gave his strength and knowledge to ensure victory over the enemy.

Exceptional heroism was shown by our rear - the glorious working class, our collective farm peasantry, the Soviet intelligentsia, who, under the leadership of party organizations, overcoming incredible difficulties and hardships of wartime, devoted all their strength to the cause of defending the Motherland.

The greatest feat in the war was accomplished by our Soviet women, who bore on their shoulders the enormous burden of production work in factories and collective farms, in various sectors of the economy and culture, many women took a direct part in the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, our courageous youth, who in all sectors front and rear made an invaluable contribution to the defense of the Soviet Motherland, to the defeat of the enemy.

Immortal are the merits of Soviet soldiers, our military commanders and political workers of all levels, who in the very first months of the war, having lost a significant part of the army, did not lose their heads, but managed to reorganize on the move, create and temper during the war a mighty and heroic army and not only repel the onslaught of a strong and an insidious enemy, but also to defeat him.

The greatest feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, which saved hundreds of millions of people in the East and West from the threat of fascist enslavement hanging over them, will live in the memory of grateful mankind for centuries and millennia. (Stormy applause.)

The main role and the main merit in the victorious end of the war belongs to our Communist Party, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the millions and millions of Soviet people educated by the Party. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

Fragment 6.

Comrades! Let's look at some other facts. The Soviet Union is rightfully considered a model of a multinational state, because we have in fact ensured the equality and friendship of all the peoples inhabiting our great Motherland.

All the more flagrant are the actions initiated by Stalin and which represent a gross violation of the basic Leninist principles of the national policy of the Soviet state. It's about about the mass expulsion from their native places of entire peoples, including all communists and Komsomol members without any exceptions. Moreover, this kind of eviction was in no way dictated by military considerations.

So, already at the end of 1943, when a lasting turning point in the course of the war in favor of the Soviet Union was determined on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, a decision was made and implemented to evict all Karachais from the occupied territory. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, exactly the same fate befell the entire population of the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic. In March 1944, all Chechens and Ingush were evicted from their homes, and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were evicted from the territory of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Republic to remote places, and the republic itself was renamed the Kabardian Autonomous Republic. The Ukrainians escaped this fate because there were too many of them and there was nowhere to send them. And then he would have evicted them. (Laughter, animation in the hall.)

In the minds of not only a Marxist-Leninist, but also any sane person, such a situation does not fit - how can one lay responsibility for the hostile actions of individuals or groups on entire peoples, including women, children, the elderly, communists and Komsomol members, and subject them to mass repressions, deprivation and suffering.

After the end of the Patriotic War, the Soviet people proudly celebrated the glorious victories achieved at the cost of great sacrifices and incredible efforts. The country experienced a political upsurge. The Party emerged from the war even more united, and the cadres of the Party were tempered in the fire of the war. Under these conditions, no one could even think of the possibility of any kind of conspiracy in the party.

And in this period, the so-called "Leningrad case" suddenly arises. As has now been proven, this case was falsified. Innocently died TT. Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Rodionov, Popkov and others.

It is known that Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were prominent and capable workers. At one time they were close to Stalin. Suffice it to say that Stalin nominated Voznesensky as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Kuznetsov was elected Secretary of the Central Committee. The mere fact that Stalin entrusted Kuznetsov with the supervision of the state security organs speaks of the confidence he enjoyed.

How did it happen that these people were declared enemies of the people and destroyed?

The facts show that the "Leningrad case" is also the result of the arbitrariness that Stalin allowed in relation to the cadres of the party.

If there were a normal situation in the Central Committee of the Party, in the Politburo of the Central Committee, in which such questions would be discussed, as it should be in the Party, and all the facts would be weighed, then this case would not have arisen, just as other similar cases would not have arisen.

It must be said that in the post-war period the situation became even more complicated. Stalin became more capricious, irritable, rude, his suspicions especially developed. The mania of persecution increased to incredible proportions. Many workers became enemies in his eyes. After the war, Stalin further fenced himself off from the team, acted exclusively on his own, without regard for anyone or anything.

The vile provocateur, the vile enemy of Beria, who exterminated thousands of communists, honest Soviet people, cleverly used Stalin's incredible suspicion. The nomination of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov scared Beria. As it is now established, it was Beria who "tossed" Stalin the materials concocted by him and his henchmen in the form of statements, anonymous letters, in the form of various rumors and conversations.

The Central Committee of the Party checked the so-called "Leningrad case", the innocent victims have now been rehabilitated, the honor of the glorious Leningrad Party organization has been restored. The falsifiers of this case - Abakumov and others - were put on trial, they were tried in Leningrad, and they got what they deserved.

The question arises: why were we now able to sort out this matter, and did not do it earlier, during the life of Stalin, in order to prevent the death of innocent people? Because Stalin himself gave direction to the "Leningrad case" and the majority of the members of the Politburo of that period did not know all the circumstances of the case and, of course, could not intervene.

As soon as Stalin received some materials from Beria and Abakumov, he, not understanding the essence of these fakes, gave instructions to investigate the "case" of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov. And this already sealed their fate.

Instructive in this regard is also the case of a Mingrelian nationalist organization that allegedly existed in Georgia. On this issue, as is known, decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU were adopted in November 1951 and March 1952. These decisions were made without discussion in the Politburo, Stalin himself dictated these decisions. They raised grave accusations against many honest communists. On the basis of forged materials, it was alleged that a nationalist organization allegedly exists in Georgia, which aims to eliminate Soviet power in this republic with the help of imperialist states.

In connection with this, a number of responsible party and Soviet officials of Georgia were arrested. As it was established later, it was a slander against the Georgian party organization.

We know that in Georgia, as in some other republics, at one time there were manifestations of local bourgeois nationalism. The question arises, maybe, indeed, during the period when the above-mentioned decisions were made, nationalist tendencies grew to such an extent that there was a threat of Georgia's secession from the Soviet Union and its transition to the Turkish state? (Animation in the hall, laughter.)

This, of course, is nonsense. It is difficult even to imagine how such assumptions could come to mind. Everyone knows how Georgia has risen in its economic and cultural development during the years of Soviet power.

The industrial output of the Georgian Republic is 27 times greater than the production of pre-revolutionary Georgia. Many branches of industry that were not there before the revolution have been recreated in the republic: ferrous metallurgy, the oil industry, mechanical engineering, and others. The illiteracy of the population has long been liquidated, while in pre-revolutionary Georgia the illiterate numbered 78 percent.

Comparing the situation in their republic with the plight of the working people in Turkey, could Georgians aspire to join Turkey? In Turkey in 1955, per capita steel production was 18 times less than in Georgia. Georgia produces electricity per capita 9 times more than Turkey. According to the 1950 census, 65 percent of the Turkish population was illiterate, and among women - about 80 percent. There are 19 higher educational institutions in Georgia, where about 39 thousand students study, which is 8 times more than in Turkey (per thousand people). In Georgia, during the years of Soviet power, the material well-being of the working people has risen immeasurably.

It is clear that in Georgia, with the development of the economy and culture, the growth of the socialist consciousness of the working people, the soil on which bourgeois nationalism feeds is increasingly disappearing.

And as it turned out, in fact, there was no nationalist organization in Georgia. Thousands of innocent Soviet people became victims of arbitrariness and lawlessness. And all this was done under the "brilliant" leadership of Stalin - "the great son of the Georgian people," as the Georgians liked to call their countryman. (Movement in the hall.)

Stalin's arbitrariness made itself felt not only in resolving issues of the country's internal life, but also in the field of international relations of the Soviet Union.

At the July Plenum of the Central Committee, the causes of the conflict with Yugoslavia were discussed in detail. At the same time, the very unseemly role of Stalin was noted. After all, there were no questions in the "Yugoslav affair" that could not be resolved through a comradely party discussion. There were no serious grounds for the emergence of this "case", it was quite possible to prevent a break with this country. This does not mean, however, that the Yugoslav leaders did not have mistakes or shortcomings. But these mistakes and shortcomings were monstrously exaggerated by Stalin, which led to a break in relations with our friendly country.

I remember the first days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to be artificially inflated.

Once, when I arrived from Kyiv to Moscow, Stalin invited me to his place and, pointing to a copy of a letter sent to Tito not long before, asked:

And without waiting for an answer, he said:

- If I move my little finger - and there will be no Tito. He will fly...

This "moving the little finger" cost us dearly. Such a statement reflected Stalin's megalomania, because he acted in this way: I move my little finger - and there is no Kosior, I move my little finger again - and there is no Postyshev, Chubar, I move my little finger again - and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others disappear.

But with Tito it did not work out that way. No matter how much Stalin moved not only with his little finger, but with everything he could, Tito did not fly off. Why? Yes, because in the dispute with the Yugoslav comrades, the state stood behind Tito, there was a people who went through a harsh school of struggle for their freedom and independence, a people who supported their leaders.

This is what Stalin's megalomania led to. He completely lost his sense of reality, showed suspicion, arrogance in relation not only to individuals within the country, but also in relation to entire parties and countries.

Now we have carefully sorted out the question of Yugoslavia and have found the correct solution, which is approved by the peoples of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, as well as by all the working people of the countries of people's democracy, by all progressive mankind. The liquidation of abnormal relations with Yugoslavia has been carried out in the interests of the entire camp of socialism, in the interests of strengthening peace throughout the world.

Fragment 7.

We should also recall the "case of pest doctors." (Movement in the hall.) Actually, there was no "case" except for the statement of the doctor Timashuk, who, perhaps under the influence of someone or on instructions (after all, she was an unofficial employee of the state security organs), wrote a letter to Stalin in which she stated, that doctors allegedly use the wrong methods of treatment.

It was enough for such a letter to Stalin, as he immediately concluded that there were pest doctors in the Soviet Union, and instructed to arrest a group of prominent specialists in Soviet medicine. He himself gave instructions on how to conduct an investigation, how to interrogate those arrested. He said: to put shackles on academician Vinogradov, to beat such and such. Present here is a congress delegate, former Minister of State Security Comrade Ignatiev. Stalin told him directly:

- If you do not achieve the recognition of doctors, then your head will be taken off. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

Stalin himself called the investigator, instructed him, indicated the methods of investigation, and the methods were the only ones - to beat, beat and beat.

Some time after the arrest of the doctors, we, the members of the Politburo, received protocols with the doctors' confessions. After these protocols were sent out, Stalin told us:

- You are blind, kittens, what will happen without me - the country will perish, because you cannot recognize the enemies.

The case was staged in such a way that no one had the opportunity to verify the facts on the basis of which the investigation is being conducted. There was no way to verify the facts by contacting the people who made these confessions.

But we felt that the case with the arrest of doctors is a dirty business. We personally knew many of these people, they treated us. And when, after Stalin's death, we looked at how this "case" was created, we saw that it was false from beginning to end.

This shameful "deed" was created by Stalin, but he did not have time to bring it to the end (in his understanding), and therefore the doctors remained alive. Now all of them have been rehabilitated, they are working in the same positions as before, treating senior officials, including members of the Government. We give them full confidence, and they conscientiously fulfill their official duty, as before.

Fragment 8.

In the organization of various dirty and shameful deeds, a vile role was played by the terrifying enemy of our party, the agent of foreign intelligence, Beria, who infiltrated Stalin's confidence. How was this provocateur able to achieve such a position in the party and the state that he became the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee? It is now established that this scoundrel walked up the state stairs through the many corpses on each step.

Were there any signals that Beria was a person hostile to the party? Yes they were. Back in 1937, at the Plenum of the Central Committee, the former People's Commissar for Health Kaminsky said that Beria worked in Musavat intelligence. No sooner had the Plenum of the Central Committee ended than Kaminsky was arrested and then shot. Did Stalin verify Kaminsky's statement? No, because Stalin believed Beria, and that was enough for him. And if Stalin believed, then no one could say anything contrary to his opinion; whoever thought to object would suffer the same fate as Kaminsky.

There were other signals as well. Of interest is Comrade Snegov's statement to the Central Committee of the Party (by the way, recently rehabilitated after 17 years in the camps). In his statement, he writes:

“In connection with raising the question of the rehabilitation of the former member of the Central Committee Kartvelishvili-Lavrentiev, I gave the representative of the KGB detailed testimony about the role of Beria in the massacre of Kartvelishvili and the criminal motives that Beria was guided by.

I consider it necessary to restore an important fact in this matter and report it to the Central Committee, since I considered it inconvenient to place it in the investigative documents.

On October 30, 1931, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a report was made by Secretary of the Regional Committee Kartvelishvili. All members of the bureau of the regional committee were present, of which I am the only one alive. At this meeting, I.V. Stalin, at the end of his speech, made a proposal to form a secretariat of the Zakkraykom consisting of: 1st secretary Kartvelishvili, 2nd - Beria (this is the first time in the history of the party that the name Beria was named as a candidate for a party post), here Kartvelishvili, on the other hand, stated that he knew Beria well and therefore categorically refused to work with him. Then I.V. Stalin suggested leaving the issue open and solving it in working order. After 2 days, it was decided to nominate Beria for party work and to leave Kartvelishvili from Transcaucasia.

This can be confirmed by Mikoyan A.I. and Kaganovich L.M., who were present at this meeting.

The longstanding hostile relationship between Kartvelishvili and Beria was widely known; their origins come from the time of Comrade. Sergo in Transcaucasia, since Kartvelishvili was Sergo's closest assistant. They served as a basis for Beria to falsify the "case" against Kartvelishvili.

Characteristically, Kartvelishvili is accused in this "case" of a terrorist act against Beria.

The indictment in the case of Beria details his crimes. But something is worth recalling, especially since, perhaps, not all delegates to the congress have read this document. Here I want to recall Beria's brutal reprisals against Kedrov, Golubev and Golubev's adoptive mother, Baturina, who tried to bring to the attention of the Central Committee about Beria's treacherous activities. They were shot without trial, and the verdict was issued after the execution retroactively. Here is what Comrade wrote to the Central Committee of the Party. Andreev (comrade Andreev was then secretary of the Central Committee) the old communist comrade Kedrov:

“From the gloomy cell of the Lefortovo prison I appeal to you for help. Hear the cry of horror, do not pass by, intercede, help destroy the nightmare of interrogations, open the mistake.

I suffer innocently. Believe me. Time will tell. I am not an agent provocateur of the tsarist secret police, not a spy, not a member of an anti-Soviet organization, which I am accused of, based on slanderous statements. And I have never committed any other crimes against the Party and the Motherland. I am an untainted old Bolshevik who honestly fought (almost) 40 years in the ranks of the Party for the good and happiness of the people...

Now I, a 62-year old man, are being threatened by investigators with even more severe and cruel and humiliating physical measures. They are no longer able to realize their mistake and recognize the illegality and inadmissibility of their actions against me. They seek to justify it by portraying me as the worst, non-disarming enemy and insisting on increased repression. But let the Party know that I am innocent and no measures will be able to turn the faithful son of the Party, devoted to her to the grave of life, into an enemy.

But I have no choice. I am powerless to turn away the approaching new, heavy blows.

Everything, however, has a limit. I'm utterly exhausted. Health is undermined, strength and energy are running out, the denouement is approaching. To die in a Soviet prison with the stigma of a contemptible traitor and traitor to the Motherland - what could be worse for an honest person. Horrible! Boundless bitterness and pain constrict the heart with a spasm. No no! It won't happen, it shouldn't happen, I scream. And the Party, and the Soviet government, and People's Commissar L.P. Beria will not allow that cruel, irreparable injustice to happen.

I am convinced that with a calm, impartial investigation, without disgusting abuse, without malice, without terrible bullying, the groundlessness of the accusations will be easily established. I deeply believe that truth and justice will prevail. I believe, I believe."

The Military Collegium acquitted the old Bolshevik comrade Kedrov. But, despite this, he was shot by order of Beria. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

Beria also committed a brutal reprisal against the family of Comrade Ordzhonikidze. Why? Because Ordzhonikidze interfered with Beria in the implementation of his insidious plans. Beria cleared his way, getting rid of all the people who could interfere with him. Ordzhonikidze was always against Beria, about which he spoke to Stalin. Instead of sorting it out and taking the necessary measures, Stalin allowed the destruction of Ordzhonikidze's brother, and brought Ordzhonikidze himself to such a state that the latter was forced to shoot himself. (Noise of indignation in the hall.) That's what Beria was like.

Beria was exposed by the Central Committee of the Party shortly after Stalin's death. As a result of a thorough trial, the monstrous atrocities of Beria were established, and he was shot.

The question is why Beria, who destroyed tens of thousands of party and Soviet workers, was not exposed during Stalin's lifetime? He had not been exposed before because he skillfully exploited Stalin's weaknesses, kindling a feeling of suspicion in him, pleasing Stalin in everything, acting with his support.

Fragment 9.

Comrades!

The cult of personality acquired such monstrous proportions mainly because Stalin himself encouraged and supported the exaltation of his person in every possible way. Numerous facts testify to this. One of the most characteristic manifestations of Stalin's self-praise and lack of elementary modesty is the publication of his Brief biography, published in 1948.

This book is an expression of the most unbridled flattery, an example of the deification of a person, turning him into an infallible sage, the most "great leader" and "the unsurpassed commander of all times and peoples." There were no other words to praise the role of Stalin even more.

There is no need to quote the nauseatingly flattering characterizations piled on top of each other in this book. It should only be emphasized that all of them were approved and edited personally by Stalin, and some of them were personally entered by him into the layout of the book.

What did Stalin find it necessary to include in this book? Perhaps he sought to moderate the ardor of the flattery of the compilers of his Brief biography? No. He strengthened precisely those places where the praise of his merits seemed to him insufficient.

Here are some characteristics of Stalin's activities, inscribed by the hand of Stalin himself:

“In this struggle with those of little faith and capitulators, Trotskyists and Zinovievites, Bukharins and Kamenevs, after Lenin’s failure, that leading core of our party finally took shape ... which defended the great banner of Lenin, rallied the party around Lenin’s precepts and led the Soviet people onto a wide road industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture. The leader of this core and the leading force of the party and state was Comrade. Stalin."

“Skillfully fulfilling the tasks of the leader of the party and the people, having the full support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin, however, did not allow in his activities even a shadow of conceit, arrogance, narcissism.”

Where and when could any figure so glorify himself? Is this worthy of a figure of the Marxist-Leninist type? No. It was precisely this that Marx and Engels opposed so resolutely. This is what Vladimir Ilyich Lenin always sharply condemned.

The layout of the book contained the following phrase: "Stalin is Lenin today." This phrase seemed to him clearly insufficient, and Stalin himself recasts it as follows:

"Stalin is a worthy successor to the work of Lenin, or, as they say in our party, Stalin is Lenin today." That's how strong it was said, but not by the people, but by Stalin himself.

One can cite many such self-praiseful characteristics, introduced into the layout of the book by the hand of Stalin. He was especially zealous in lavishing praise on his address about his military genius, his military leadership talents.

Let me give you one more insert made by Stalin in relation to the Stalinist military genius:

“Comrade Stalin,” he writes, “further developed advanced Soviet military science. Comrade Stalin worked out a position on the constantly operating factors that decide the fate of a war, on active defense and the laws of counteroffensive and offensive, on the interaction of military branches and military equipment in modern war conditions, on the role of large masses of tanks and aircraft in modern warfare, on artillery as the most mighty branch of the military. At different stages of the war, Stalin's genius found the right solutions, fully taking into account the peculiarities of the situation. (Movement in the hall.)

“Stalin's military art manifested itself both in defense and in the offensive. Comrade Stalin unraveled the plans of the enemy with brilliant insight and repulsed them. In the battles in which Comrade Stalin led the Soviet troops, outstanding examples of military operational art were embodied.

This is how Stalin was glorified as a commander. But by whom? By Stalin himself, but no longer acting as a commander, but as an author-editor, one of the main compilers of his laudatory biography.

Such, comrades, are the facts. Needless to say, these are disgraceful facts.

And one more fact from the same Brief biography Stalin. It is known that over the creation Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party(Bolsheviks) worked commission of the Central Committee of the party. This work, by the way, is also very saturated with the cult of personality, was compiled by a certain team of authors. And this position was reflected in the layout Brief biography Stalin in the following wording:

"The Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, with his personal active participation, creates A short course in the history of the All-Union Communist Party(Bolsheviks)».

However, this formulation could no longer satisfy Stalin, and in the published Brief biography this place is replaced by the following provision:

In 1938 a book was published History of the CPSU(b).Short course, written by Comrade Stalin and approved by the Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. What else can you say! (Animation in the hall.)

As you can see, there has been a striking transformation of the work created by the collective into a book written by Stalin. There is no need to say how and why such a transformation took place.

A legitimate question arises: if Stalin is the author of this book, then why did he need to glorify the personality of Stalin so much, and, in fact, make the entire post-October period in the history of our glorious Communist Party only a background for the acts of the “Stalinist genius”?

Did this book adequately reflect the efforts of the Party for the socialist transformation of the country, the building of a socialist society, the industrialization and collectivization of the country, and other measures taken by the Party, firmly following the path outlined by Lenin? It mainly talks about Stalin, his speeches, his reports. Everything, without any exception, is connected with his name.

And when Stalin himself declares that it was he who wrote A short course in the history of the CPSU(b), then this cannot but cause at least surprise and bewilderment. How can a Marxist-Leninist write about himself like that, raising the cult of his personality to the skies?

Fragment 10.

Or take the question of the Stalin Prizes. (Movement in the hall.) Even the kings did not establish such prizes that they would call their names.

Stalin himself recognized as the best the text of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, in which there is not a word about the Communist Party, but there is the following unparalleled glorification of Stalin:

"Stalin raised us - to loyalty to the people, Inspired us to work and exploits."

In these lines of the anthem, all the enormous educational, leading and inspiring activity of the great Leninist party is attributed to Stalin alone. This, of course, is a clear retreat from Marxism-Leninism, a clear belittling and belittling of the role of the party. For your information, it should be said that the Presidium of the Central Committee has already decided to create a new text for the anthem, which would reflect the role of the people, the role of the party. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

But without Stalin's knowledge, was his name assigned to many major enterprises and cities, was Stalin's monuments erected all over the country without his knowledge - these "monuments during his lifetime"? After all, it is a fact that on July 2, 1951, Stalin himself signed a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which provided for the construction of a monumental sculpture of Stalin on the Volga-Don Canal, and on September 4 of the same year issued an order to release 33 tons of copper for the construction of this monument. Who was near Stalingrad, he saw what a statue rises there, and in a place where there are few people. And a lot of money was spent on its construction, and this at a time when our people in these areas after the war were still living in dugouts. Judge for yourself whether Stalin wrote correctly in his biography that he “did not allow in his activities even a shadow of conceit, arrogance, narcissism”?

At the same time, Stalin showed disrespect for the memory of Lenin. It is no coincidence that the Palace of Soviets, as a monument to Vladimir Ilyich, the decision to build which was made over 30 years ago, was not built, and the question of its construction was constantly postponed and forgotten. It is necessary to correct this situation and build a monument to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

It is impossible not to recall the decision of the Soviet government of August 14, 1925 "On the establishment of V.I. Lenin prizes for scientific work." This decision was published in the press, but there are still no Lenin Prizes. This also needs to be fixed. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

During the life of Stalin, thanks to the well-known methods, which I have already spoken about, citing the facts, as it was written at least Brief biography of Stalin, all events were covered in such a way that Lenin seemed to play a secondary role even in the commission of the October Socialist Revolution. In many motion pictures, in works of fiction, the image of Lenin is illuminated incorrectly, unacceptably belittled.

Stalin was very fond of watching the film Unforgettable year 1919, where he is depicted riding on the bandwagon of an armored train and almost hitting enemies with a saber. Let Kliment Efremovich, our dear friend, muster up the courage and write the truth about Stalin, because he knows how Stalin fought. Tov. Voroshilov, of course, is hard to start this business, but it would be good for him to do it. This will be approved by everyone - both the people and the party. And the grandchildren will be grateful for it. (Prolonged applause.)

When covering the events connected with the October Revolution and the Civil War, in a number of cases the matter was portrayed in such a way that the main role everywhere, as it were, belongs to Stalin, that everywhere and everywhere he tells Lenin how and what to do. But this is a slander against Lenin! (Prolonged applause.)

I probably will not sin against the truth if I say that 99 percent of those present here knew little and had heard little about Stalin before 1924, and everyone in the country knew Lenin; the whole party knew, the whole people knew, from young to old. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

All this must be resolutely reconsidered so that the role of V.I. Lenin, the great deeds of our Communist Party and the Soviet people - the people-creator, the people-creator, find their correct reflection in history, literature, works of art. (Applause.)

Comrades! The cult of personality contributed to the spread of vicious methods in party building and economic work, gave rise to gross violations of inner-party and Soviet democracy, bare administration, all sorts of perversions, covering up shortcomings, varnishing reality. We have divorced a lot of sycophants, hallelujahs, swindlers.

It is also impossible not to see that as a result of numerous arrests of Party, Soviet and economic workers, many of our cadres began to work uncertainly, with caution, to be afraid of the new, to beware of their own shadow, and began to show less initiative in their work.

And take the decisions of party and Soviet bodies. They began to be drawn up according to a template, often without taking into account the specific situation. Things got to the point that the speeches of party and other workers, even at the smallest meetings, meetings on any issues, were pronounced according to a cheat sheet. All this gave rise to the danger of rendering party and Soviet work, bureaucratization of the apparatus.

Stalin's detachment from life, his ignorance of the actual state of affairs on the ground can be clearly illustrated by the example of the management of agriculture.

Everyone who was even slightly interested in the situation in the country saw the difficult state of agriculture, but Stalin did not notice this. Did we talk about this to Stalin? Yes, we talked, but he did not support us. Why did it happen? Because Stalin did not travel anywhere, did not meet with workers and collective farmers, and did not know the real situation on the ground.

He studied the country and agriculture only from films. And films embellished, varnished the state of affairs in agriculture. Collective farm life in many films was portrayed in such a way that the tables cracked from the abundance of turkeys and geese. Apparently, Stalin thought that in reality it was so.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin looked at life differently, he was always closely connected with the people; received peasant walkers, often spoke at factories and plants, traveled to villages, talked with peasants.

Stalin fenced himself off from the people, he did not go anywhere. And so it went on for decades. His last trip to the countryside was in January 1928, when he traveled to Siberia on grain procurement matters. How could he know the situation in the village?

And when Stalin was told in one of the conversations that the situation in agriculture is difficult in our country, the situation in the country with the production of meat and other livestock products is especially bad, a commission was created, which was instructed to prepare a draft resolution "On measures for the further development of animal husbandry on collective farms and state farms. We have developed such a project.

Of course, our proposals at that time did not cover all the possibilities, but ways were outlined for the development of public animal husbandry. At that time it was proposed to raise procurement prices for livestock products in order to increase the material interest of collective farmers, MTS and state farm workers in the development of animal husbandry. But the project developed by us was not accepted, in February 1953 it was postponed.

Moreover, when considering this project, Stalin made a proposal to increase the tax on collective farms and collective farmers by another 40 billion rubles, since, in his opinion, the peasants live richly, and by selling only one chicken, the collective farmer can fully pay off the state tax.

Do you just think what that meant? After all, 40 billion rubles is the amount that the peasants did not receive for all the products they handed over. In 1952, for example, the collective farms and collective farmers received 26,280,000,000 rubles for all their products handed over and sold to the state.

Was such Stalin's proposal based on any data? Of course not. Facts and figures in such cases did not interest him. If Stalin said something, it means that it is so - after all, he is a “genius”, and a genius does not need to count, it is enough for him to look at it in order to immediately determine everything as it should be. He said his word, and then everyone should repeat what he said and admire his wisdom.

But what was wise in the proposal to increase the agricultural tax by 40 billion rubles? Absolutely nothing, since this proposal did not come from a real assessment of reality, but from the fantastic fabrications of a person cut off from life.

Now in agriculture we have begun to gradually extricate ourselves from a difficult situation. The speeches of the delegates to the 20th Party Congress please each of us when many delegates say that there are all conditions for fulfilling the tasks of the Sixth Five-Year Plan for the production of basic livestock products not in five years, but in 2-3 years. We are confident in the successful fulfillment of the tasks of the new five-year plan. (Prolonged applause.)

Comrades!

When we now sharply oppose the cult of personality, which became widespread during Stalin's lifetime, and talk about the many negative phenomena generated by this cult alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, some people may have a question: how is it, after all, Stalin was at the head of the party and countries for 30 years, major victories were achieved under him, how can you deny this? I believe that only people blinded and hopelessly hypnotized by the personality cult, who do not understand the essence of the revolution and the Soviet state, who do not truly understand, in a Leninist way, the role of the party and people in the development of Soviet society, can put the question in this way.

The socialist revolution was carried out by the working class in alliance with the poorest peasantry, with the support of the middle peasantry, by the people led by the Bolshevik Party. The great merit of Lenin is that he created the militant party of the working class, armed it with a Marxist understanding of the laws of social development, the doctrine of the victory of the proletariat in the struggle against capitalism, he tempered the party in the fire of revolutionary battles populace. In the course of this struggle, the party consistently defended the interests of the people, became its tried and tested leader, led the working people to power, to the creation of the world's first socialist state.

You well remember the wise words of Lenin that the Soviet state is strong by the consciousness of the masses, that history is now being made by millions and tens of millions of people.

We owe our historic victories. These victories are the result of the enormous activity of the people and the party as a whole, they are not at all the fruit of the leadership of Stalin alone, as they tried to present during the period of the prosperity of the personality cult.

If we approach the essence of this question in a Marxist, Leninist way, then we must state with all frankness that the practice of leadership that developed in the last years of Stalin's life became a serious brake on the development of Soviet society.

Stalin did not consider many of the most important and urgent questions of the life of the Party and the country for many months. Under Stalin's leadership, our peaceful relations with other countries were often jeopardized, since individual decisions could and sometimes did cause great complications.

In recent years, when we have freed ourselves from the vicious practice of the cult of personality and have outlined a number of measures in the field of domestic and foreign policy, everyone can see how activity is growing literally before our eyes, the creative initiative of the broad masses of working people is developing, how beneficially this is beginning to affect the results of our economic and cultural building. (Applause.)

Some comrades may ask the question: where did the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee look, why did they not come out in a timely manner against the cult of personality and do so only recently?

First of all, it must be borne in mind that the members of the Politburo looked at these questions differently in different periods. At first, many of them actively supported Stalin, because Stalin is one of the strongest Marxists and his logic, strength and will had a great impact on the cadres, on the work of the party.

It is known that after the death of V.I. Lenin, especially in the early years, Stalin actively fought for Leninism, against the perverters and enemies of Lenin's teachings. Proceeding from Lenin's teaching, the party, headed by its Central Committee, launched a great deal of work towards the socialist industrialization of the country, the collectivization of agriculture, and the implementation of the cultural revolution. At that time, Stalin won popularity, sympathy and support. The party had to fight against those who tried to lead the country astray from the only correct, Leninist path - with the Trotskyites, Zinovievists and right-wing, bourgeois nationalists. This fight was necessary. But then Stalin, abusing his power more and more, began to crack down on prominent figures of the party and the state, to use terrorist methods against honest Soviet people. As already mentioned, this is exactly what Stalin did with prominent figures of our party and state - Kosior, Rudzutak, Eikhe, Postyshev and many others.

Attempts to speak out against unfounded suspicions and accusations led to the fact that the protester was subjected to reprisals. In this regard, the story of Comrade Postyshev is typical.

In one of the conversations, when Stalin showed dissatisfaction with Postyshev and asked him a question:

- Who are you?

Postyshev firmly stated, with his usual rounding accent:

- I am a Bolshevik, Comrade Stalin, a Bolshevik!

And this statement was regarded at first as disrespect for Stalin, and then as a harmful act, and subsequently led to the destruction of Postyshev, declared without any reason to be an "enemy of the people."

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin and I often talked about the situation that developed at that time. Once, when the two of us were driving in a car, he said to me:

- Sometimes you go to Stalin, they call you to him as a friend. And you sit at Stalin's and don't know where you will be taken from him: either home or to prison.

It is clear that such a situation put any member of the Politburo in an extremely difficult position. If, moreover, we take into account that in recent years the Plenums of the Central Committee of the Party have not actually been convened, and meetings of the Politburo have been held from time to time, then it becomes clear how difficult it was for any member of the Politburo to speak out against this or that unjust or wrong measure, against obvious mistakes and shortcomings in management practice.

As already noted, many decisions were made individually or by poll, without collective discussion.

Everyone knows sad fate member of the Politburo comrade Voznesensky, who became a victim of Stalin's repressions. It is characteristic to note that the decision to withdraw him from the Politburo was not discussed anywhere, but was carried out by a poll. Also, the survey carried out decisions on the release from their posts TT. Kuznetsov and Rodionov.

The role of the Politburo of the Central Committee was seriously belittled, its work was disorganized by the creation of various commissions within the Politburo, the formation of the so-called “fives”, “sixes”, “sevens”, “nines”. Here, for example, is the decision of the Politburo of October 3, 1946:

"Comrade's proposal. Stalin.

1. To instruct the Foreign Affairs Commission under the Politburo (Six) to deal, in addition to questions of a foreign policy nature, also with questions of internal construction and domestic policy.

2. To replenish the composition of the six with the chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR comrade. Voznesensky to continue to call the six the seven.

Secretary of the Central Committee - I. Stalin.

What is this gambler's terminology? (Laughter in the audience.) It is clear that the creation of such commissions - "fives", "sixes", "sevens" and "nines" within the Politburo undermined the principle of collective leadership. It turned out that some members of the Politburo were thus removed from solving the most important issues.

One of the oldest members of our party, Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, was placed in unbearable conditions. For a number of years, he was actually deprived of the right to take part in the work of the Politburo. Stalin forbade him to appear at meetings of the Politburo and send him documents. When the Politburo met and comrade. Voroshilov found out about this, then every time he called and asked permission if he could come to this meeting. Stalin sometimes allowed, but always expressed dissatisfaction. As a result of his extreme suspiciousness and suspicion, Stalin came to such an absurd and ridiculous suspicion that Voroshilov was a British agent. (Laughter in the hall.) Yes, by a British agent. And a special apparatus was set up at his house to eavesdrop on his conversations. (Noise of indignation in the hall.)

Stalin single-handedly also removed from participation in the work of the Politburo another member of the Politburo, Andrei Andreyevich Andreev.

It was the most unbridled arbitrariness.

And take the first Plenum of the Central Committee after the 19th Party Congress, when Stalin spoke and at the Plenum he gave a characterization of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov and Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, presenting unfounded accusations against these oldest leaders of our party.

It is possible that if Stalin had been in leadership for a few more months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan might not have spoken at this party congress.

Stalin, apparently, had his own plans for reprisals against the old members of the Politburo. He repeatedly said that it was necessary to change the members of the Politburo. His proposal after the 19th Congress to elect 25 people to the Presidium of the Central Committee pursued the goal of eliminating the old members of the Politburo, bringing in less experienced ones so that they would praise him in every possible way. It can even be assumed that this was conceived in order to later destroy the old members of the Politburo and hide the ends in the water about those unseemly acts of Stalin, which we are now reporting on.

Comrades! In order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, the Central Committee strongly opposes the cult of personality. We believe that Stalin was exalted beyond measure. It is indisputable that in the past Stalin had great merits before the party, the working class and before the international labor movement.

The issue is complicated by the fact that everything mentioned above was accomplished under Stalin, under his leadership, with his consent, and he was convinced that this was necessary to protect the interests of the working people from the intrigues of enemies and the attacks of the imperialist camp. He considered all this from the standpoint of defending the interests of the working class, the interests of the working people, the interests of the victory of socialism and communism. It cannot be said that these are the actions of a tyrant. He believed that this should be done in the interests of the party, the working people, in the interests of defending the gains of the revolution. This is the real tragedy!

Comrades! Lenin repeatedly emphasized that modesty is an essential quality of a true Bolshevik. And Lenin himself was a living personification of the greatest modesty. It cannot be said that in this matter we are following Lenin's example in everything. Suffice it to say that numerous cities, factories and plants, collective farms and state farms, Soviet and cultural institutions have been given the names of various state and party leaders, who are still healthy and prosperous, as private property, so to speak. In assigning our names to various cities, regions, enterprises, collective farms, many of us are accomplices. This must be corrected. (Applause.)

But this must be done wisely, without haste. The Central Committee will discuss this matter and examine it thoroughly in order to avoid any mistakes and excesses here. I remember how in Ukraine they found out about Kosior's arrest. The Kyiv radio station usually began its broadcasts like this: "The radio station named after Kosior is speaking." One day, radio broadcasts began without mentioning Kosior's name. And everyone guessed that something happened to Kosior, that he was probably arrested.

So if we start removing signs everywhere and renaming them, then people might think that something has happened to those comrades whose names are given to enterprises, collective farms or cities, that, probably, they too have been arrested. (Animation in the hall.)

How do we sometimes measure the authority and importance of this or that leader? Yes, the fact that so many cities, factories and factories, so many collective farms and state farms are named after him. Isn't it time for us to put an end to this "private property" and carry out the "nationalization" of factories and plants, collective farms and state farms. (Laughter, applause. Shouts: "That's right!") This will be to the benefit of our cause. The cult of personality is also reflected in such facts.

We must take the question of the cult of personality seriously. We cannot take this question out of the Party, much less into the press. That is why we are reporting it at a closed session of the congress. It is necessary to know the measure, not to feed the enemies, not to expose our ulcers in front of them. I think that the congress delegates will correctly understand and appreciate all these measures. (Stormy applause.)

Comrades! We must resolutely, once and for all, debunk the cult of personality, and draw appropriate conclusions both in the field of ideological and theoretical work and in the field of practical work.

For this you need:

First, in a Bolshevik way, to condemn and eradicate the cult of personality as alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and incompatible with the principles of party leadership and the norms of party life, to wage a merciless struggle against all and every attempt to revive it in one form or another.

To restore and consistently implement in all our ideological work the most important tenets of the teaching of Marxism-Leninism about the people as the creator of history, the creator of all the material and spiritual wealth of mankind, about the decisive role of the Marxist party in the revolutionary struggle for the transformation of society, for the victory of communism.

In this regard, we have to do a lot of work to critically examine and correct from the positions of Marxism-Leninism the erroneous views associated with the cult of personality that have become widespread in the field of historical, philosophical, economic and other sciences, as well as in the field of literature and science. art. In particular, work must be carried out in the near future to create a full-fledged Marxist textbook on the history of our Party, compiled with scientific objectivity, textbooks on the history of Soviet society, books on the history of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War.

Secondly, to consistently and persistently continue the work carried out in recent years by the Central Committee of the Party on the strictest observance in all Party organizations, from top to bottom, of the Leninist principles of Party leadership and, above all, the highest principle - collective leadership, on observing the norms of Party life, enshrined in the Rules of our Party. , on the deployment of criticism and self-criticism.

Thirdly, to fully restore the Leninist principles of Soviet socialist democracy, expressed in the Constitution of the Soviet Union, to fight against the arbitrariness of persons who abuse power. It is necessary to fully correct the violations of revolutionary socialist legality that have accumulated over a long period as a result of the negative consequences of the personality cult.

Comrades!

The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union demonstrated with renewed vigor the indestructible unity of our Party, its solidarity around its Central Committee, its determination to carry out the great tasks of communist construction. (Stormy applause.) And the fact that we are now raising in all its breadth the fundamental questions of overcoming the cult of personality, which is alien to Marxism-Leninism, and of eliminating the grave consequences caused by it, speaks of the great moral and political strength of our Party. (Prolonged applause.)

We have full confidence that our Party, armed with the historic decisions of its 20th Congress, will lead the Soviet people along the Leninist path to new successes, to new victories. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

Long live the victorious banner of our Party—Leninism! (Stormy, prolonged applause, turning into an ovation. Everyone rises.)

Literature:

Medvedev R.A. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Political biography. M., 1990
The vicissitudes of fate. About two turning points in political biography N.S. Khrushchev. M., 1994
Khrushchev S.N. Nikita Khrushchev: Crises and Missiles: An Inside View, tt. 1–2. M., 1994
Iskanderov A.I. Memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev as a historical source. – Questions of History, 1995, No. 5–6
Internet resource: http://www.coldwar.ru