THE WIND OF HISTORY WILL BLOW EVERYTHING

I.V. Stalin:
“I know that after death they will put a lot of garbage on my grave. But the wind of History will mercilessly dispel it.”

For the enemies of socialism, Soviet power a truly inexhaustible source from which most of their spiteful slander against the power of the working people is drawn, “arguments” that support dirty attacks are sought out, was the “cult of personality” and all the activities of J.V. Stalin.

The history of the creation of a new society that arose as a result of revolutionary upheavals is non-linear, dramatic, and sometimes tragic. This is typical for any country after any revolution. The forces overthrown by the revolution always and everywhere strive to organize a powerful resistance to the new order, try in every possible way to discredit the authorities that replaced them, pour out streams of dirty slander, vilify the inspirers and leaders, fighters for the cause of the people.
For the enemies of socialism and Soviet power, a truly inexhaustible source from which most of their spiteful slander against the power of the working people is drawn, and “arguments” that support dirty attacks are sought, has become the “cult of personality” and all the activities of I.V. Stalin. Everything has long been assessed, its causes and consequences revealed. But the counter-revolution could not rest on this! On a huge scale, under the pretext of fighting the “cult of personality,” an unprincipled and unscrupulous denigration and falsification of absolutely everything that happened in the country after 1917 began. V. Pozner, M. Shvydkoy, M. Shatrov, G. Baklanov, Yu. Afanasyev, G. Popov, a noisy pack of their like-minded people spew out streams of lies, strive to spit on the majestic fact of world-historical significance - the transformation of a backward, semi-colonial country into a highly developed, modern , the front line, which even its enemies called a superpower. They brazenly and completely ignore the inclusion of millions of illiterate, downtrodden, oppressed people in the achievements of human progress!
Not a single revolution has escaped the blood of innocent victims. So, fulfilling the will of the Convention, the body created by the Great French bourgeois revolution, in Lyon alone, in just a few weeks, more than one thousand six hundred people were executed by order of the representative of the Convention, Fouche, and not in the entire year of 1793 - the harbinger of our 1937. Even the vocabulary of those years is similar. “The people's avengers will remain firm in fulfilling the mission entrusted to them...,” Fouche wrote in one of the proclamations. “They will have the courage to calmly walk along the longest rows of graves of the conspirators, so that, walking through the ruins, they will come to the happiness of the nation and the renewal of the world.” Over five years during the Great French Revolution, 750 thousand people were sent under the punishing knife of the guillotine. In those years, the population of France was 25 million people. In proportion, this is many times greater than during repressions in the USSR. However, even in those difficult years Population growth in the Soviet Union reached almost 12 million people.
As Stefan Zweig wrote: “This is one of the secrets of almost all revolutions and tragic fate their leaders: they all do not like blood and yet are forced to shed it.” It is not for me, of course, who lost my father in 1937, to justify political repression, but the patterns of development of revolutions are such that no one can change them.
Objective prerequisites for pursuing a punitive policy existed. This is confirmed even by Churchill, who spent his entire life striving to strangle the first state of workers and peasants in world history. Here are his words: “The German government maintained contact with important Russian persons through the Soviet embassy in Prague. The purpose of the conspiracy is to overthrow Stalin and introduce a new pro-German regime in Russia. Soviet Russia began purges, merciless, but in any case necessary, which cleansed political and economic circles. The Soviet Army was liberated from pro-German elements."
Some facts of the treacherous activities of “important persons” cannot be denied by the current detractors of everything Soviet. Not long ago a film about Tukhachevsky was shown on television. It quite convincingly reveals the treacherous actions of one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. True, the screenwriters and directors of the film are trying to justify it by saying that conspiracies were being hatched against Stalin. The fact that at the same time our state and our people became victims of vile betrayal is completely ignored.
In 2004, the work “The Affairs of the Kremlin” by Semyon Vavilovich Korobenkov was published. The author is my fellow Irkutsk resident; he worked for many years in the apparatus of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In the three books of this work (Semyon Vavilovich labeled them - “Case No. 1”, “Case No. 2”, “Case No. 3”) there is a lot of interesting information for historians, politicians and the ordinary reader. It may be useful to borrow something from this book related to the topic of repression. S.V. Korobenkov writes: “It is known that none of the defendants (meaning the famous Moscow trials), including such as Yagoda, Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov, knew both the Criminal Code and the current then the rules of judicial procedure, did not state in court that their confessions of anti-Soviet activities were “extorted” by torture. Not because of pride, when it was a question of life and death?! And they knew very well the price of the “promises” - to save their lives in case of “sincere confession and repentance” - from past proceedings in which they themselves were participants...
Admitting themselves guilty under the pressure of irrefutable evidence, the main accused slandered the innocent and deliberately involved innocent people in the repressive whirlwind. More and more larger number people, including those close to the then rulers, became, in essence, hostages of the main accused.
The principle is the same: “If they shoot us, they will kill you too!” And they killed. But they are not groaning for those innocently killed unfortunate “hostages”, but for the representatives of the “thin layer”. About those who for many years mercilessly tore off the thick “soil” layer from Russia and wanted to continue this “operation” even at the cost of betrayal, openly like Trotsky, or secretly like Tukhachevsky, calling on Western countries, including and fascist Germany, to intervention, war against the USSR, promising them the most tasty “pieces” of its territory in return. Throughout the entire “second” half of his life, V.M. Molotov never tired of repeating that if in the 30s. If it had not been possible to destroy the “fifth column” that had formed in our country at that time, the Soviet Union would have lost the war with Nazi Germany.”
German writer Jewish origin Lion Feucht-Vanger in his book “Moscow 1937”, carefully hushed up by apologists of Trotsky and Bukharin, as is known, took Stalin’s side in his cleansing of the country from the “fifth column”. “Previously, the Trotskyists,” he wrote, “were less dangerous, they could be forgiven, or, in the worst case, exiled... Now, immediately on the eve of the war, such kindness could not be afforded. Schism and factionalism, which do not have serious significance in a peaceful situation, can pose a huge danger in a war.”
In the summer of 1941, US Ambassador to the USSR Joseph E. Davis wrote in his diary: “Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Hitler’s agents were active everywhere, even in the United States and South America. The German entry into Prague was accompanied by the active support of Gelen's military organizations. The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia (Tiso), Belgium (de Grell)... However, we do not see anything similar in Russia. “Where are Hitler’s Russian accomplices?” - they often ask me. “They were shot,” I answer.
Only now are you beginning to realize how far-sighted the Soviet government acted during the years of the purges... At that time, we argued a lot in our circle about the struggle for power in the Kremlin leadership, but, as life showed, we were sitting “in the wrong boat.”
Of interest are the observations and conclusions recorded by this ambassador in his diary on July 28, 1937: “There is an opinion among the diplomatic corps that the executed generals were guilty of crimes that, according to Soviet laws, are punishable by death.
In April, Tukhachevsky was present, among others (Voroshilov, Egorov, etc.) at a reception organized by our embassy in honor of the Red Army. He had a reputation as a talented person. However, he didn’t make much of an impression on me... If, on top of everything else, he still suffered from Bonapartist habits, then I must admit that Stalin got rid of his “Corsican”.
Adolf Hitler, speaking on May 8, 1943 at a meeting with
Reichs-Leiters and Gauleiters, stated that the USSR “was freed in time from this threat (“the fifth column.” - S.K.) and can therefore direct all its energy to fight the enemy.” This, in his opinion, “put an end to defeatism.”
West German military historian (and ardent anti-Soviet) Joachim Hoffmann in his book “History of the Vlasov Army” (ed. Rombach, Freiburg, 1984) provides a long list of “outstanding” traitors who went over to the Germans in 1941 and 1942 , and, as a rule, not due to forced circumstances. They created them themselves. Among them are such as Tukhachevsky’s former personal adjutant, at the beginning of the war commander
41st Rifle Division Boyarsky, head of the operational department of the Baltic Special Military District (from June 22 - Northwestern Front) Major General Trukhin. Is it any wonder the difficult situation at the front from the very first day of the war! The list is not short, from modest lieutenants to generals, most of whom went over to the enemy deliberately. There were especially many of these in Vlasov’s headquarters, which numbered about three hundred senior and senior officers, former commanders of the Red Army...
Against this background, the words spoken by Trotsky back in 1936 that in the event of Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin could not avoid defeat are no longer perceived as bragging. Such confidence suggests that Trotsky knew well about the hidden traitors and was connected with them... He raised and nurtured them himself. Hitler planned the war with them in mind. But he miscalculated - the traitors ensured his initial successes and our tragedy, then the contingent of traitors dried up...
Without Stalin, without the “cult of personality,” the champions of the restoration of capitalism would have clung to anything to denounce socialism and the Communist Party. They did not even bother to analyze what our country was like at the time Stalin entered the historical arena and what it became by the end of his reign. Historical figures are judged not by individual events, facts, or even stages, but by the final results, real results their reign. Stalin left behind a strong party that skillfully united and directed the people to solve the most difficult problems. complex tasks. He left the country with the most advanced, social and political system. He left the Soviet Union - a power of world significance, enjoying the greatest respect and authority, which received universal recognition for the defeat of the darkest, most reactionary, most cruel force of big capital - German fascism. These results pale in comparison to the mistakes and miscalculations that are often inevitable when charting a new and unknown path. It would be worth comparing what achievements the people of our country could be proud of and rejoice after the tragic disappearance of the first and last president THE USSR?!
The “revision” of Stalin’s role in Soviet history was started by his successor N.S. Khrushchev, who tried to deal with Stalin’s legacy using the “cavalry attack” method. He sullied Stalin from all sides, although millions of people believed in the late leader, believed with conviction and unconditionally. Stalin is a personality of truly world-historical proportions, despite some of the negative aspects of his rule. Millions Soviet people, and not only the simple ones, and this should have been foreseen, perceived N.S. Khrushchev’s report at a closed meeting of the 20th Congress of the CPSU as a blow to them, as a deletion of their military and labor achievements, and of their entire difficult life. His ridiculous “cavalry attack” created a deep crack in society, and it still hasn’t healed, like the trenches and trenches of the war...
Nowadays, a lot of data has appeared on the basis of which we can more calmly and objectively consider some of Khrushchev’s accusations against Stalin. First of all, about repression. No one can deny that they existed; they swept across the country like a terrible skating rink. At the same time, knowledge of the situation in the pre-war years forces us to admit that repressions were practically inevitable, although their scale could have been less destructive. Nowadays, many documents have become known that irrefutably prove that many Trotskyists and other oppositionists were in the pay of Western intelligence services, including fascist ones. Of course, it cannot be justified that innocent people fell under the comb of repression. However, it is also impossible to consecutively and indiscriminately rehabilitate those who caused enormous harm to our Motherland and betrayed it.
Khrushchev more than once dirtyly hinted that I.V. Stalin had direct relation to the murder of S.M. Kirov. It has now become clear that Sergei Mironovich had an affair with a waitress at the secretariat in Smolny, Matilda Draule. Her husband Nikolaev was a jealous and unbalanced person. He had the right to enter Smolny, and the guards knew him well. It was not difficult for him to deal with his opponent. As is known, a special commission was created to substantiate Khrushchev’s “version”. All the efforts of the commission were in vain. When the results were reported to Khrushchev, he burst into abuse and forbade their publication. Khrushchev’s statement that at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks someone proposed Kirov for the post of General Secretary and therefore Stalin saw him as a rival turned out to be nothing more than an evil fiction.
N.S. Khrushchev, when attacking I.V. Stalin, often referred to the so-called “testament” of V.I. Lenin; speaking directly, he speculated on the letter of the sick party leader to the XII Congress of the CPSU (b). In it, Vladimir Ilyich gave characteristics to the leading leaders of the party of that time and made a proposal to expand the composition of the Central Committee of the party. However, the letter was not read at this congress. After the congress, Trotsky and his supporters launched a campaign against Stalin, often citing Lenin's letter. In order to stop all sorts of rumors and speculations of the opposition, the Politburo decided to announce the letter to the regional delegations of the XIII Party Congress. Each delegation had to vote for its candidacy for the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. As a result, not a single (!) candidate other than Stalin was proposed. It is noteworthy that Trotsky and his supporters - the delegates to the congress - voted for Stalin! Nevertheless, at the first, organizational Plenum of the new Central Committee, Stalin resigned, but it was proposed to him - unanimously! - remain at your post.
Trotsky’s article “On Eastman’s book “After the Death of Lenin” was published in the magazine “Bolshevik” No. 16 for 1925. Trotsky writes: “In several places in the book, Eastman says that the Central Committee “hidden” from the party a number of exclusively important documents written by Lenin in the last period of his life (the case concerns letters on the national issue, the so-called “will”, etc.); this cannot be called anything other than slander against the Central Committee of our party. From the words of the Eastman, we can conclude that Vladimir Ilyich intended these letters, which had the nature of intra-organizational advice, for publication. In fact, this is completely false. Since his illness, Vladimir Ilyich more than once addressed the leading bodies of the party and its congress with proposals, letters, etc. All these letters and proposals, of course, were always delivered to their destination, brought to the attention of the XII and XIII party congresses and always, of course, , had a proper influence on the decisions of the party, and if not all of these letters were published, it was because they were not intended by their author for publication. Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any “will,” and the very nature of his attitude towards the party, as well as the character of the party itself, excluded the possibility of such a “will.” (Emphasis by me. - S.K.) Under the guise of a “will” in the emigrant and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press, one of Vladimir Ilyich’s letters, which contained organizational advice, is usually mentioned (in a distorted form beyond recognition). The 13th Party Congress paid the most attention to this letter, as to all others, and drew conclusions from it in relation to the conditions and circumstances of the moment. Any talk about a hidden or broken “will” is a malicious fiction and is entirely directed against the actual will of Vladimir Ilyich and the interests of the party he created.”
Let us emphasize once again that Trotsky wrote this. And in October 1927, at a meeting of the joint Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin addressed this issue: “Now about Lenin’s “testament”. Here the oppositionists shouted - you heard it - that the Central Committee of the Party “hidden” Lenin’s “testament”. This issue was discussed several times at the plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, you know this. (Voice. Dozens of times.) It has been proven and re-proven that no one hides anything. It was discussed at the XIII Party Congress. The opposition knows all this as well as the rest of us. And yet the opposition has the courage to declare that the Central Committee is “hiding” Lenin’s “testament”... On what basis are Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev now foolishly speaking, claiming that the party and its Central Committee are “hiding” Lenin’s “testament”? It’s “possible” to use your tongue, but you have to know when to stop.
They say that in this “testament” Comrade. Lenin suggested that the congress, in view of Stalin's rudeness, consider the question of replacing Stalin as General Secretary with another person. This is absolutely true. Yes, I am rude, comrades, towards those who roughly and treacherously destroy and split the Party. It is possible that a certain softness towards schismatics is required here. But I can't do it. At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the XIII Party Congress, I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to relieve me of my duties as General Secretary. The Congress itself discussed this issue. Each delegation discussed this issue. And all delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain in his post. What could I do? Run away from post? This is not in my character, I have never run away from any posts and have no right to run away, because that would be desertion. I am, as I said before, a forced person, and when the party obliges me, I must obey.
A year after this, I again submitted an application to the plenum for release, but I was again obliged to remain at my post.
What else could I do?
As for the publication of the “testament” ... then we have a decision of the plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission in 1926 to seek permission from the XV Congress to print this document.”
At the insistence and demand of Stalin, Lenin’s letter, against his will, was published on the pages of a special “Discussion Sheet” in Pravda on November 10, 1927. Khrushchev, of course, knew about this document and was obliged, as he was already in a leadership position by that time, to explain the party line on this issue. What motivated him when he, against all odds, known facts stated: “The letter to the congress was never published, but it was not mentioned at all. Was Stalin afraid of this letter? It is quite obvious that he deceived and misled the younger members of the CPSU, our entire people.
Khrushchev was especially gloating about Stalin as a military leader, trying not only to belittle his role and services in the defeat of Nazi Germany, but to present him as militarily ignorant. They say how Khrushchev once tried to recruit famous marshals to join his supporters in spitting on Stalin. “Ivan Stepanovich,” he turned to Marshal Konev, “you suffered from Stalin in 1941, come out, condemn... what the hell kind of commander is he...
- No, Comrade Khrushchev! Stalin really was a commander..."
He makes the same request to Marshal Grechko.
- No! Stalin was a great figure and a great commander! - Grechko answered.”
Khrushchev tried to persuade Marshal Zakharov, known for his directness and rudeness, to do this. But he sent Nikita Sergeevich... He paid for this with his position. Marshal Rokossovsky, who was subjected to repression, stated very politely and firmly:
- How can one talk about Stalin’s mediocrity if he has no equal leaders of states?! And we won thanks to Stalin’s talent. No, Comrade Stalin is a saint to me!
The former Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Vasilevsky, sharply stated:
- Stalin is a great statesman and great
Pol-Commander!
In his book “The Work of My Whole Life,” the marshal writes: “I had good relations with N.S. Khrushchev in the first post-war years. But they changed dramatically after I did not support his statements that I.V. Stalin did not understand operational-strategic issues and unqualifiedly led the actions of the troops as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. I still can't understand how he could say this. Being a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Party and a member of the Military Council of a number of fronts, N.S. Khrushchev could not help but know how high the authority of Headquarters and Stalin was in matters of conducting military operations. He also could not help but know that the commanders of the fronts and armies treated Headquarters and Stalin with great respect and valued them for their exceptional competence in leading the armed struggle.”
At one meeting in the Kremlin, Khrushchev stated:
- The Chief of the General Staff Sokolovsky is present here, he will confirm that Stalin did not understand military issues. Am I right?" “No way, Nikita Sergeevich,” the marshal answered clearly. He was also relieved of his post.
Well, Zhukov was brief: “We are not worth Stalin’s little finger!”
I had the good intention of putting together everything that outstanding figures of our country said and wrote about Stalin: military leaders, ministers, industrial workers, representatives of the scientific, technical and creative intelligentsia, who knew him not from stories, books and articles, but who worked with him, who regularly communicated and observed this figure in a variety of situations. But he failed to fully realize this intention. I only managed to write out something from the works of G.K. Zhukov. I believe it would be appropriate to quote only some of the statements of the Grand Marshal. Describing the work of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Georgy Konstantinovich unequivocally states: “The activities of the Headquarters are inseparable from the name of I.V. Stalin. During the war years I often met with him. In most cases, these were official meetings at which issues of managing the course of the war were decided. But even a simple invitation to dinner was always used for the same purposes. I really liked the complete lack of formalism. Everything that he did through the Headquarters or the State Defense Committee was done in such a way that the decisions made by these high bodies began to be implemented immediately, and the progress of their implementation was strictly and steadily controlled personally by the Supreme Commander or, at his direction, by other leading persons or organizations. […] …the work practice of the Headquarters and the State Defense Committee was physically very difficult for their members, but during the war this was not thought about: everyone worked to the fullest extent of their strength and capabilities. Everyone looked up to Stalin, and he, despite his age, was always active and tireless. When the war ended and the days of relatively systematic work began, J.V. Stalin somehow immediately aged, became less active, even more silent and thoughtful. The past war and everything connected with it had a strong and tangible impact on him. […]
J.V. Stalin made a great personal contribution to the cause of winning victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. His authority was extremely great, and therefore the appointment of Stalin as Supreme Commander-in-Chief was received positively by the people and troops. […]
Marshal Zhukov appeals to the authority of the genius of world and Russian literature, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, so that his assessments of I.V. Stalin are more convincing:
“It is impossible to dumb down and belittle Stalin’s activities during that period,” said the greatest writer of the 20th century. “Firstly, it is dishonest, and secondly, it is harmful for the country, for the Soviet people, and not because the winners are not judged, but first of all because the “overthrow” does not correspond to the truth.” G.K. Zhukov writes: “It is hardly possible to add anything to these words of M.A. Sholokhov. They are accurate and fair. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief did everything possible to ensure that the Headquarters, its working apparatus - the General Staff and the Military Councils of the fronts became truly wise and skillful military assistants to the party in achieving victory over Nazi Germany." […]
“The style of work, as a rule, was businesslike, without nervousness, everyone could express their opinion. The Supreme Commander addressed everyone equally - strictly and officially. He knew how to listen carefully when they reported to him knowledgeably. He himself was a man of few words and did not like the verbosity of others; he often stopped someone who was talking with remarks - “in short!”, “Clarify!”. Meetings were held without introductions opening remarks. He spoke quietly, freely, only to the essence of the issue. He was concise and formulated his thoughts clearly.” […] He did not tolerate answers at random; he demanded exhaustive completeness and clarity.
The Supreme One had some special instinct for weak spots in reports or documents, he immediately found them and strictly punished them for unclear information. Possessing a tenacious memory, he remembered well what was said and did not miss an opportunity to rather sharply reprimand for what was forgotten.” […]
“Unremarkable in appearance, I.V. Stalin made strong impression. Devoid of posturing, he captivated his interlocutor with the simplicity of his communication. A free manner of conversation, the ability to clearly formulate a thought, a natural analytical mind, great erudition and a rare memory forced people during a conversation with him, even very sophisticated and significant people, to gather themselves internally and be on the alert.”
“...He read a lot and was a knowledgeable person in a wide variety of areas of knowledge. His amazing efficiency and ability to quickly grasp the essence of a matter allowed him to view and assimilate in a day such a quantity of the most varied material that only an extraordinary person could do it.” […]
“J.V. Stalin was a strong-willed man and, as they say, “not one of the cowardly dozen.” […] Stalin firmly ruled the country, armed struggle, and international affairs. Even at the moment of mortal danger hanging over Moscow, when the enemy was at a distance of 25-30 kilometers from it, J.V. Stalin did not leave his post, was at Headquarters in Moscow and behaved as befits the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.” […]
“The merit of I.V. Stalin here lies in the fact that he quickly and correctly accepted the advice of military experts, supplemented and developed them in a generalized form - in instructions, directives and manuals - and immediately transferred them to the troops for practical guidance.
In addition, in ensuring operations, creating strategic reserves, in organizing military equipment and in general in creating everything necessary for waging war, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, frankly speaking, proved himself to be an outstanding organizer. And it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t give him credit for that.” […]
“In leading the armed struggle as a whole, I.V. Stalin was helped by his natural intelligence, experience in political leadership, rich intuition, and broad awareness. He knew how to find the main link in a strategic situation and, grasping it, outline ways to counter the enemy, successful implementation one way or another offensive operation. Undoubtedly, he was a worthy Supreme Commander." (Emphasis added by me. - S.K.)
It is worth recalling that all the above statements about I.V. Stalin were written by G.K. Zhukov in the years when it was not easy to evaluate this personality positively.
In one of the articles, Marshal D.T. Yazov, the last Minister of Defense of the USSR, provides a very remarkable dialogue. Once, when meeting with him, People's Artist of the USSR Innokenty Smoktunovsky said:
- What is Stalin! Such commanders as Zhukov or Vasilevsky could decide everything even without Stalin. We could do even better!
Yazov replied:
- Here at the Moscow Art Theater almost all of you are great artists! Why do you need a director?
- What about without a director?
“But what about without the Supreme Commander-in-Chief?” the marshal asked in turn. “Each front will drag on its own, each front will be on its own.”
In questions of a prominent representative of the Soviet intelligentsia, great artist were dominated by naive unprofessionalism, a frivolous substitution of serious reflections for emotional outbursts.
A person is never unambiguous, monochromatic. Everything is mixed up in it. So it is with Stalin. Only Stalin is the greatest statesman and political figure, a convinced, uncompromising communist. Another Stalin - a common person, a personality with inherent strengths and weaknesses. But for Stalin, the first dominated the second, which was almost unknown to anyone and occupied a subordinate, even secondary position in relation to the first. That is, the obvious primacy of the first over the second. For Stalin, the highest interests of building a socialist state always unconditionally stood above personal requests and needs. JV Stalin was not so naive as not to imagine how in the future certain forces would evaluate his activities. Air Marshal A.E. Golovanov quotes the following words of Stalin: “I know that when I’m gone, more than one bucket of dirt will be poured on my head. But I’m sure the winds of history will blow all this away.”
With Khrushchev, his individuality, his personal needs and passions dominated Khrushchev as a politician, statesman, and communist. His base, philistine, selfish interests rose above the interests of the party, country, and people.
Sometimes the thought arises: was it necessary for N.S. Khrushchev to blame J.V. Stalin for everything negative that happened under him? Yes, and add a stupid gag like directing military operations according to the globe, confusion and the like, clearly not characteristic of J.V. Stalin, nonsense.
Cult of personality?! He blurted out “our dear”, but, as they say, did not look into the calendar. There is a cult of personality, and there is also a micro-cult. A cult is when a significant person, through his service to the country and the people, achieves a high position in the party and in the state, and the grateful people glorify and even deify him. A microcult, a stump, a stump - you choose - this is when a nonentity, which cannot be seen with the most powerful microscope, inflates itself immensely, thinks of itself, in much the same way as that frog that burst. Stalin cannot be compared even with such figures as Alexander the Great and Napoleon! They are small creatures compared to him! Stalin is a personality, and such that his deeds will be remembered and glorified for centuries! The pug barked at the elephant!
From the closed report of N.S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the enemy received such arguments in the fight against the communists, against the Soviet state, which he did not even dare to dream of. You can’t help but wonder who Nikita Sergeevich served more - the cause of communism, the international communist and workers’ movement, his party, his state or the enemies of communism, reactionaries and obscurantists, opportunists and traitors? At one time, Nikita Sergeevich mixed with the Trotskyists, so wasn’t this a kind of relapse, a regurgitation of this past, which he really carefully concealed?

Stepan KARNAUKHOV

Stepan KARNAUKHOV

A while ago there was a small discussion in Gus Buk about the words attributed to Stalin:

"I know that on my grave ungrateful descendants will cause a heap of rubbish, but the winds of history will mercilessly scatter it away."

I then wrote: Editor Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 06:38:24

I have come across this phrase more than once on Stalinist websites. The guys made a mistake by presenting their idol in an inappropriate manner. For never and under no circumstances could Stalin even think that one day “descendants would place a heap of garbage” on his grave. Excluded. Stalin will always shine in the mountainous future.

And the thought of his own grave would never have crossed his mind. These are other graves. He has eternity. At first Comrade Stalin seemed to have guessed right and ended up in the Mausoleum, which was not (and is not) a grave in any (namely, sacred) sense.
In short: Stalin never said this phrase. Moreover, he didn’t write. Apocrypha.

The writer answered me V.L. (Levashov) -Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 08:15:45
The phrase came from the memoirs of Air Chief Marshal A. Golovanov. In the early 70s, "October" published his memoirs. Several chapters were given to me for freelance editing. In the early 70s, "October" published his memoirs. Several chapters were given to me for freelance editing. I read it and said: “I won’t edit this, this is a hymn to Stalin.” They answered me: “And you edit it so that it becomes clear even to Kochetov.” Well, edited, the bad thing is not tricky. The times were no longer vegetarian, but Stalin had not yet come to the point of outright apologetics. After I edited it, Kochetov mulled over the manuscript for a long time, but did not dare publish it. Later the book was published in Voenizdat, and the phrase about a pile of garbage came into use.

Editor Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 09:29:35: Thanks for the valuable information. But are you, dear Viktor Vladimirovich, sure that the phrase was in the manuscript? Maybe this is folk art after all?

Seven years have passed since these discussions, and now much has finally become clear. The only word that could belong to Stalin in the phrase about garbage and the grave is “ruthless.”

The memoirs of Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov “Long-Range Bomber” were published by Kochetov in the magazine “October” during these years:

1969, № 7; 1970, № 5; 1971, № 9, 11; 1972, № 7.

That is, the publications were published with long breaks in five issues over three years! A separate book, also very shortened in comparison with the manuscript, was published in Voenizdat only in 1997, with a tiny circulation of 600 copies. There was nothing about Stalin's grave.

Later, in 2004, the book was published again, in more full version. It is posted online: http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/golovanov_ae/index.html
There really is nothing in it about the grave. But there is something similar, so to speak, “in theory.”

I will quote this part.

“It was only on December 7 (1943) that the Tehran Conference was announced in the newspapers.

On December 5 or 6, Stalin called me and asked me to come to his dacha. Arriving there, I saw that he was walking around with an overcoat thrown over his shoulders. He was alone. After greeting him, the Supreme Commander said that he apparently had a cold and was afraid of contracting pneumonia, since he always suffers from this disease with difficulty. After walking around for a while, he suddenly started talking about himself.

- I know,- he began,- that when I’m gone, more than one bucket of dirt will be poured on my head.- And, after walking around a little, he continued:- But I’m sure that the winds of history will blow all this away...

I must say frankly, I was surprised. At that time, it did not seem likely to me, yes, I think, and not only to me, that anyone could say anything bad about Stalin. During the war, everything was associated with his name, and this had clearly visible reasons."

As you can see, instead of garbage there is a tub of mud, and instead of a grave there is the head of a leader. The wind that will dispel all this abomination is still the same.

The situation is unusual: Stalin, who returned from the Big Three conference in Tehran, was physically unwell (sick for two weeks), but politically and morally triumphant. For no reason at all, speaking in private to the young General Golovanov (he was then 39 years old) about his death and posthumous glory was somehow out of order. And Stalin’s philosophy was not the same, and his psychology (his own death was a complete taboo), and not in his style.

Why so much attention to this “Stalin phrase”? Because with its help they now want to show how wise the leader was. Even when he foresaw the anti-patriotic rampage of perestroika and the fifth column of national traitors. And he knew that all this abomination would be swept away. Exactly to them. Or his reincarnation, in this case - Putin. He is the name of Russia, he is the smith of victory, he is the hope of revival. I quote a revealing entry from an ordinary blogger on the occasion of the anniversary of the Anschluss of Crimea:

"Musical greetings from the fathers of the artillerymen to the proud sons: March of the artillerymen." Artillerymen, Stalin gave the order." Musical greetings from the fathers of the tankmen to the PROUD sons: March of the Soviet tankmen. "When Comrade Stalin sends us into battle." Greetings to the money-grubbers, fools, alarmists from Stalin: Order No. 227 “Not a step back.”

I will now quote Stalin’s words on the topic of art and life, where he could show off metaphors, tropes, comparisons, and talk about the existential topic of death, the wind of history and other metaphysical concepts. But we will only read mournful party-official nonsense about class politics and the triumph of socialist ideals. Below are excerpts from his speech at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, delivered at approximately the same time as the words attributed to him about the wind of history - January 31, 1944.

Comrade Dovzhenko wrote a film story called “Ukraine on Fire.”
In this film story, to put it mildly, Leninism is revised, the policy of our party on basic, fundamental issues is revised. Dovzhenko’s film story, which contains gross errors of an anti-Leninist nature, is an outright attack against the party’s policies.

First of all, it is very strange that in Dovzhenko’s film story “Ukraine on Fire,” which should have shown the complete triumph of Leninism, under the banner of which the Red Army is now successfully liberating Ukraine from the German invaders, there is not a single word about our teacher, the great Lenin.

And this is no coincidence. It is no coincidence that this is because Dovzhenko revises policies and criticizes the party’s work to defeat the class enemies of the Soviet people. And, as you know, this work was carried out by the party in the spirit of Leninism, in full agreement with the immortal teachings of Lenin.

Dovzhenko speaks here against the class struggle. He is trying to discredit the policy and all practical activities of the party to eliminate the kulaks as a class. Dovzhenko allows himself to mock such sacred things for every communist and truly Soviet man concepts such as class struggle against the exploiters and the purity of the party line.
Dovzhenko is unaware of the simple truth, obvious to all Soviet people, that without the liquidation of the exploiting classes in our country, our people, our army, our state would not be as powerful, combat-ready and united as they turned out to be in the current difficult war against the German imperialists.

Dovzhenko writes about our personnel:
- Oh, why is this being done? Tell me why are we so filthy? - the wounded young man with a broken leg cried. - Comrade commander, what a program! The highest in the world. And that’s what we are, look! Give a lift to the wounded, kill your mother, let him go! - cried.
Cars flew by like autumn leaf».

Dovzhenko says that after the liberation of Soviet power seized by the Germans, we “… will no longer have, it’s true, any teachers, no technicians, no agronomists. The war will push out. Only investigators and judges will remain. Yes, healthy as bears, and practiced, they will return!”
Dovzhenko does not see and does not want to see the obvious and simple truth that our party, Soviet and military cadres are flesh of flesh, blood of the blood of the Soviet people, that they are in the forefront of the fighters against the fascist invaders, selflessly, heroically fighting in the ranks of the Red Army Army and in partisan detachments. Dovzhenko is at odds with the truth here too. And the truth is that Soviet people trusts our officers and generals, party and Soviet workers and loves them, because they are his the best people. This, by the way, is one of the important sources of strength and inviolability of our Soviet system.

Ukrainian girl Olesya addresses the following words to an unfamiliar tanker she meets on the road: “Listen,” said Olesya, “spend the night with me. Night is already coming. If possible, do you hear? She put the bucket down and walked over to him.

- I'm a girl. I know the Germans will come tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, torture me, abuse me. I'm so afraid of this. I ask you... let you... Spend the night with me..."

Where did Dovzhenko see such girls in Ukraine? Isn’t it clear that this is a rabid slander against the Ukrainian people, against Ukrainian women?
The openly nationalistic ideology clearly expressed in Dovzhenko’s film story is intolerant and unacceptable for Soviet people.

Stalin I.V. C repairs. – T. 18. – Tver: Information and Publishing Center “Soyuz”, 2006. P. 332–342. http://goo.gl/Hlvr7p

Dovzhenko, also not God knows what kind of writer, has at least “Cars flew by like an autumn leaf.” Comrade Stalin is just a set of wretched cliches of a political propagandist and the vocabulary of a prosecutor from the troika. Stalin wrote this speech himself (like most of his writings). Could show literary talent. Still, I wrote poetry in seminary. Tell me: could the author of this speech be talking about the wind of history that will scatter the garbage on his grave? Just purely stylistically? In no case.

Let's return to Tehran 1943.

Roosevelt lived in the premises of the USSR Embassy in Iran; it was connected by passages covered with tarpaulins (so that no one could see who was going where from the outside) with the nearby British Embassy. Everywhere possible everything was stuffed with microphones, especially Roosevelt's apartments. There was 24-hour wiretapping, and Stalin knew everything that Roosevelt and Churchill and everyone around them were talking about. This filled him with inexplicable joy and pride: he “beat them like a child.” Listening to enemies, friends and comrades was Stalin's favorite pastime since the beginning of his General Secretary in 1922, when a Czech communist specialist in automatic telephony installed wiretapping in all the apartments and offices of Politburo members (on completion of his work he was shot (see Memoirs of Stalin's Secretary Boris Bazhanov http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt) Therefore, Stalin always knew who was breathing what, what he was up to and what his connections were. At first he took various organizational measures to eliminate the danger, and then simply. shot at dubious associates.

In order not to return to the topic of Stalin’s celebration on the occasion of wiretapping, let us turn to the memoirs of Beria’s son Sergo (“My father is Lavrenty Beria”), who at that time was a student at the Leningrad Military Academy:

“Stalin asked how studies were going at the academy, and immediately got down to business:

I specifically selected you and a number of other people who do not officially meet with foreigners anywhere, because what I entrust to you is an unethical matter... He paused and emphasized:

But I have to... In fact, it’s being decided now main question: will they help us or not. I must know everything, all the nuances... I selected you and the others precisely for this. I chose people I know and trust. I know you are dedicated. And this is the task facing you personally...

All conversations between Roosevelt and Churchill were to be wiretapped, transcribed, and reported personally to Stalin on a daily basis. Joseph Vissarionovich did not tell me where exactly the microphones are located. I later learned that conversations were being monitored in six or seven rooms of the Soviet embassy where President Roosevelt was staying. All his conversations with Churchill took place there. They usually spoke to each other before the start of meetings or at the end of them.

Dialogues between Roosevelt and Churchill and the chiefs of staff were processed first. In the mornings, before the meetings began, I went to see Stalin.

The main text that I reported to him was small in volume, only a few pages. This was exactly what interested him. The materials themselves were translated into Russian, but Stalin forced us to always have the English text at hand. For an hour and a half every day he worked only with us. This was a kind of preparation for the next meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill. http://militera.lib.ru/bio/beria/06.html

The grave of Beria's son Sergo Gegechkori in Kyiv (mother's surname)

Let's return to the lines about buckets of mud on the leader's head. After the Great Terror, Stalin was no longer a leader. He was God. And God cannot die. He's lonely, yes, but he's immortal. In Galich's "Poem about Stalin" his psychology is shown absolutely accurately. There Stalin compares himself with Christ and tells Him:

Weak in soul and weak in mind,
You believed both God and the king,
I won't repeat your mistakes
I will not repeat any of them!
There is no blasphemer in the world,
To raise a spear at me,
If I die, what could happen?
My kingdom will be eternal!

Here death is spoken of in the subjunctive mood and as a theoretically possible (“may happen”), but practically incredible event. But even in this incredible case, no one will dare to raise a spear against God, and His kingdom will be eternal without interruption by a pile of garbage on a grave or a tub of dirt on one’s head. There is nothing about a tub of dirt on Stalinist sites. It's all about the pile of rubbish on the grave.

This is understandable: nevertheless, the dirt and slop on the leader’s head somehow completely diminishes the image. In addition, the wind would smear the dirt across the face and dirty everything around. Therefore, they usually quote about a grave with garbage and the wind of history. The garbage is light, a gust of wind will carry it far and the grave will become as fresh as new.

Where the quote about the grave, garbage and wind comes from has long been known. It is from Felix Chuev’s “documentary” story “One Hundred and Forty Conversations with Molotov.” This work was published in 1991, but it appeared on the Internet relatively recently, in the second half of 2008. This phrase is in the same paragraph as the following episode:

Several times I found out from Molotov the details of Stalin’s death. I remember walking in the forest, having really achieved nothing, I asked a clearly provocative question:
- They say that Beria himself killed him?
- Why Beria? Could it be a security officer or a doctor,” Molotov answered. “When he was dying, there were moments when he regained consciousness. It happened - he made a face, there were different moments like that. It seemed that he was starting to come to his senses. That’s when Beria stuck with Stalin! Ooh! I was ready...

It is possible that he had a hand in his death. From what he told me, and I also felt... On the podium of the mausoleum on May 1, 1953, he made such hints... Apparently he wanted to evoke my sympathy. Said, “I removed it.” It seemed to help me. He, of course, wanted to make my attitude more favorable: “I saved you all!” Khrushchev hardly helped. He could guess. Or maybe... They are still close. Malenkov knows more.

More, more.
...Shota Ivanovich (Kvantaliani, a historian by training, was present at half of Chuev’s meetings with Molotov - V.L) conveys the story former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia A. Mgeladze about his meeting with Beria immediately after Stalin’s funeral. Beria laughed and swore at Stalin: “The luminary of science! Ha-ha-ha!”
– Stalin himself, I remember, said during the war: “I know that after my death they will put a heap of garbage on my grave. But the winds of history will mercilessly dispel it!”

24.08.1971, 09.06.1976

Let's pay attention to the date of the conversation. There is not one, but two dates: August 24, 1971 and June 9, 1976. Wow! What does it mean? Molotov, as well as Kvantaliani, with a gap of 5 years, repeat the same thing? Verbatim? Like this, end-to-end - first about violent death Stalin and then about garbage and the wind of history? Moreover, Molotov, as presented by Chuev, speaks about the liquidation of the luminary of science many times and at different times, but about garbage and wind only once, but under two dates. This is understandable, because without death there can be no grave, and without a grave there can be no garbage.

More examples:

Chuev - Was Stalin poisoned?
Molotov - Perhaps. But who will prove this now?

22.04.1970
Chuev: It’s absolutely certain that he did not die a natural death...
“This is not excluded,” Molotov agrees.
(30.6.1976)

...Chuev: A writer friend of mine brought A. Avtorkhanov’s book “The Mystery of Stalin’s Death” from Paris and gave it to me to read. I, in turn, gave it to Molotov, and a few days later I came to listen to his opinion.
“She’s so dirty,” says Molotov. - He draws everyone in such a robber form! Of course, there is some truth here. If you read it, it becomes a little creepy. Bulganin played a small role. But Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev, they were the core of this direction.

Chuev (reading from Avtorkhanov): Khrushchev, in a radio speech on July 19, 1964, said: “In the history of mankind there were many cruel tyrants, but they all died from an ax just as they themselves supported their power with an ax.” (further Chuev comments) Gives versions of I.G. Erenburg and P.K. Ponomarenko, which largely coincide. At the end of February, Stalin convened a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee on the issue of the “Doctors' Plot” and the deportation of Soviet Jews to a separate zone of the USSR. Stalin's proposals were not supported, after which he fell unconscious. Beria remained silent there, and then also moved away from Stalin

Molotov: I admit that Beria is involved in this matter. He frankly played a very insidious role.
13.01.1984

So, there is death and the grave. But did Stalin talk about this?

Golovanov claims that Stalin spoke to him about the wind of history in private and names the date: December 5 or 6, 1943. Molotov, in Chuev’s retelling, names only the period “during the war,” but also presents Stalin’s revelation as said only to him and purely confidentially. Which one of them composes? Both? Or did Chuev come up with it?

Golovanov finished his memoirs “Long-Range Bomber” in 1969. In the same year, Chuev began going to talks with Molotov. Chuev knew Golovanov at that time; he collected materials about the pilots and wrote about them. I also wrote an essay about Golovanov. It is more than possible that Chuev read Golovanov’s memoirs in the manuscript and saw a paragraph there about the wind of history. The Stalinist Chuev liked this wind so much that he decided to slip it to Molotov. We have already seen above that the phrase about the grave and garbage does not at all correspond to the image of Stalin. And his style. These are not his words, not his vision of himself. But this is also not Molotov’s style.

Molotov always speaks official party words, alien to the gloomy poetics of the paragraph about the grave and garbage. Even when we're talking about really about the infernal events of the Great Terror. This is where it seemed possible to give free rein to the colors of hell, to paint horrors, passions, dying revelations, all sorts of Dostoevsky. Nothing like this. As they say, “despite some shortcomings, overall achievements have been achieved great success". Read for yourself:

- How to understand the year 1937?

“I believe that there were shortcomings and mistakes,” says Molotov. “How could they not exist when there were enemies in the very bodies that were investigating.”
As for the line, I was called on the issue of reinstatement in the party, I said that I defended and defend the party policy of the 30s in the same way as before. That there were mistakes, of course. I think that later they will talk about how each of us was wrong. In one case or another. It couldn’t have happened without this.

“Couldn’t Stalin have figured out that so many people couldn’t be enemies of the people?”
– Of course, it’s very sad and pity for such people, but I believe that the terror that was carried out in the late 30s was necessary. Of course, there might have been fewer casualties if we had acted more carefully, but Stalin reinsured the matter - not to spare anyone, but to ensure a reliable position during the war and after the war, for a long period - this, in my opinion, was the case. I do not deny that I supported this line. I couldn't figure out every single person. But people like Bukharin, Rykov, Zinoviev, Kamenev, they were connected with each other. Stalin, in my opinion, followed a very correct line: let the extra head fly off, but there will be no hesitation. Think about it, this policy was the only saving one for the people, for the revolution, and the only one consistent with Leninism and its basic principles.

“Solzhenitsyn writes,” says Kvantaliani, “that Stalin himself nominated Yezhov and himself forced him to kill the party cadres.”
- This is wrong. Yezhov was a fairly prominent worker. He is short and thin, but a very assertive, strong worker. And when he found himself in power, they gave him strong instructions, he was pulled in, and he began to chop according to plan. Yagoda paid for this before him. The person is not immediately identified. But here they made a mistake, of course. To say that Stalin did not know about this is absurd, but to say that he is responsible for all these matters is also, of course, wrong.

The Party and the Soviet state could not tolerate slowness or delays in carrying out punitive measures that had become absolutely necessary. For gross abuses of power, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov, exposed in some gross distortions of party policy, was then sentenced to capital punishment.

(Kvantaliani) - If they took, say, Tukhachevsky, well, a thousand, well, two, well, ten thousand, well, a hundred thousand - then the number exceeded, and most importantly, it exceeded against any desire from above, people began to write on each other, and damn -those who are already all sorts of bastards...
“There were a lot of mistakes, a lot,” agrees Molotov. “And who could arrest, besides Stalin?” Tupolev dragged about 50 people behind him. All the design bureaus were working. After all, they made cars in prison... True, Tupolev said about Stalin: “Scale! Swipe! Master!"
- And Petlyakov was sitting, and Stechkin was sitting, and Glushko...
- Myasishchev was sitting. You can add: Shakhurin was sitting.

Why were Tupolev, Stechkin, Korolev imprisoned?
- They were all sitting. There was a lot of unnecessary talk. And their circle of acquaintances, as one would expect... They didn’t support us...
The same Tupolev could become a dangerous enemy. He has great connections with the intelligentsia that is hostile to us. Tupolev is from that category of intelligentsia that the Soviet state really needs, but at heart they are against it, and through personal connections they carried out dangerous and corrupting work, and even if they didn’t, they breathed it. Yes, they couldn’t do otherwise!

Here we need to find a way to master this matter. The Tupolevs were put behind bars, the security officers were ordered: provide them with the most better conditions, feed him cakes, everything you can, more than anyone else, but don’t let him out! Let them work and design the military things the country needs. This the most necessary people. They are dangerous not by propaganda, but by their personal influence. And one cannot ignore the fact that at a difficult moment they can become especially dangerous. You can’t do without this in politics. They will not be able to build communism with their own hands.

“But people don’t see meat all over the country.”
- Well, to hell with it, with meat, if only imperialism dies!

Well, could such a person as Molotov talk about the “wind of history”? Could not. Just like his boss Stalin.

Chuev, who published all this, says that he recorded his conversations with Molotov on a tape recorder. So. Let's listen to Chuev himself:

How were our meetings? Usually I came to the dacha in Zhukovka, he met me in the hallway - warmly, at home:

Who's there, Comrade Felix?

We sat down at the table, had dinner, and walked through the forest. (“I was the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, and they overheard me, let’s go for a walk...”).

This means that the conversations took place during walks in the forest, because Molotov was afraid of eavesdropping. But here with Felix Chuev he suddenly stopped being afraid. Portable voice recorders were not produced in the USSR at that time. This means that he could carry a rather large (like suitcase) reporter's suitcase. With a cassette for only 20 minutes. Let's say. And where are these records? No, it is no coincidence that the genre of conversations with Molotov is defined as artistic and documentary. The fact that Molotov committed villainy is a documented fact. But the grave, garbage and wind are the arts introduced by Chuev.

To estimate to what extent you should trust Golovanov, who was the first to remember what Stalin told him about the wind of history, you need to take a brief look at him life path. He's writing:

“I myself, as they say, served my people faithfully and truthfully, and my whole life was in plain sight. Already in 1919, as a boy, I fought. In the 20s, I was an active worker in the Nizhny Novgorod City Komsomol Committee, participated in the fight against counter-revolution and sabotage He was in special forces - ChON, then in the famous Dzerzhinsky division. He fought against the Basmachism in Central Asia."

At the age of 21, he already wore four sleepers on his buttonholes - a colonel according to later concepts. Well, further: in 1923, the district committee of the Komsomol sent him to study. In 1924, the Provincial Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent him to work in the GPU in Gorky. He took part in the arrest of Boris Savinkov. He worked in the authorities from 1924 to 1933, in special departments, in operational work, from commissioner to head of department.

That is, a very prominent “organist” c personal experience executions. And suddenly he wanted to fly like a devil in a swamp and he became a pilot, where he also reached some heights - he became the chief pilot of Aeroflot. And in 1941, Air Force Commander-in-Chief Smushkevich advised him to write a letter to Stalin about organizing long-range bomber aircraft that would fly using radio navigation instruments. Stalin received him personally, gave him a lieutenant colonel, and things went smoothly. The only strange thing is that at the age of 21 Golovanov was already with four sleepers, like a colonel, and at the age of 37 he starts with a lieutenant colonel.

Well, at 21 he was a security officer-executive officer, but here he is a pilot, and here ranks are worth more. Then the career took off like a surface-to-air missile. Three years later, the lieutenant colonel, having run through all types of generals as a record sprinter, had already received the rank of chief air marshal! As they write in his biographies, he is the youngest marshal in the world (at 40 years old). Actually, it’s strange: the short, pockmarked withered man had an instinctive aversion to handsome, big fellows. Golovanov was one meter ninety tall, what is it like next to him for the leader with his 1.62 cm? But then everything returned to the Stalinist norm. In 1948 there was an inexplicably sharp decline. Stalin removes Golovanov from his post as commander of long-range aviation and sends him to study at the General Staff Academy. There have never been marshals there, only senior officers and junior generals.

The disciplined marshal graduates from the academy with honors. And what? Comrade Stalin sends the Air Chief Marshal to study at the Shot ground officer course! These are courses for junior and mid-level officers. But even this is taken for granted by the air marshal. At 50 years old, he crawls with young animals on his bellies. Those born to fly will also be able to crawl. Finishes perfectly. Next, probably, Comrade. Stalin would have sent him to the school for sergeants, but he didn’t have time - he died with the help of his faithful comrades.

Then Beria noticed the marshal and began to lure him into his department. But he didn’t have time either - this fighter against imperialism was swept away by his own people and was shot without hesitation. They wanted to imprison the suspicious Golovanov, as if he had been consorting with a reptile, but finding nothing reprehensible, he was thrown into the position of deputy at some aviation research institute. And in 1966 they sent him on a meager pension, so the marshal and his wife lived in their garden and wrote memoirs with a panegyric to Stalin. Golovanov died in 1975 after living for 71 years. He lived an incredibly long life for Stalin’s favorite and young nominee.

See for yourself what the fate of the young favorites, commanders of Soviet aviation before Golovanov, was.

Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis in 1931 at the age of 34 was appointed commander of the Red Army Air Force. On November 23, 1937, Alksnis was removed from all posts and arrested. On July 28, 1938, he was sentenced to death on charges of participation in a military conspiracy. The sentence was carried out; he was 41 years old.

Yakov Smushkevich: from November 19, 1939, at the age of 37, head of the Red Army Air Force. On June 8, 1941, he was arrested on charges of participation in a military conspiratorial organization. On October 28, 1941, he was shot in the village of Barbysh, Kuibyshev Region, at a special section of the USSR NKVD Directorate for the Kuibyshev Region on the basis of the order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria No. 2756/B dated October 18, 1941. He was 39 years old.

From August 1940, at the age of 29, Pavel Rychagov was appointed head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Force. On June 24, 1941, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy. On October 28, 1941, by order of Beria, a group of arrested officers was shot without trial, including 30-year-old P.V. Rychagov. Together with Rychagov, his wife, deputy commander of the special-purpose air regiment, Major Maria Nesterenko, was shot, accused of “being Rychagov’s beloved wife, she could not help but know about her husband’s treasonous activities.”

Yes, and after Golovanov, young Alexander Novikov became the chief air marshal. His comrade Stalin imprisoned and did not have time to shoot everyone for the same reason of his sudden and unexpected death for himself, but still Novikov served 6 years.

Comrade Stalin did not leave ANY of the top commanders of Soviet aviation alive. Except for Golovanov. So we see what happiness befell Marshal Alexander Golovanov. And why was he so immensely grateful to Comrade. Stalin for simply humiliating him incredibly by sending him to the Shot course. He just carried out a civil execution.

This massacre of Soviet pilots cannot be an accident. Yes, that was a real Marxist law. How can we explain this extermination of our own Stalinist falcons? I think for two reasons.

1. All of them were medal-winning beauties, an elite breed, one might say, Aryan sires. And they came from the lower classes, and guess what. Just like the nobleman Tukhachevsky. Maybe the bar pampered you? Let's take a look at them.

Yakov Alksnis

Yakov Smushkevich

Pavel Rychagov, similar to Tukhachevsky

For comparison - Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Alexander Novikov

Alexander Golovanov

1. All of them, in connection with their rapid rise from rags to riches, quickly developed a Napoleon complex. Bonapartist ways. They believed, as you can see, that the sea was knee-deep, the sky was waist-deep. And that with such military talents, they themselves could become leaders. Maybe they didn't think so. But Stalin thought so about them. The chief pilot is a suspicious man. Can spy out strategic secrets from above. May fly abroad. But the most dangerous thing is that he can order an air armada to dive onto the Kremlin, where at this time the window is lit - Comrade Stalin works all night long for the benefit of the whole country. Therefore, it would be correct to destroy the poisonous shoots before committing a state crime, at the stage of intent. Which was done religiously.

To what extent can we trust the memoirs of A. Golovanov, in which for the first time the idea of ​​the Stalinist philosophy of death, tubs of mud and posthumous retribution came through? Not too big. Golovanov writes that it was to him that Stalin entrusted the organization of the flight from Baku to Tehran for the meeting of the Big Three in 1943. But Stalin himself, as well as Molotov and Voroshilov, did not fly in Golovanov’s plane, but in another - with the pilot Viktor Grachev, Beria’s personal pilot. 80 people were awarded for this heroic flight. Everyone - except Golovanov. Modesty? However, he accepted other awards and titles without objection. There was a flight, but, it seems, without the filling of the brilliant commander Comrade. Stalin. They were transporting security and other personnel. There is information from participants in that conference that Comrade. Stalin did not fly, but rode in a special armored carriage. 80 people were awarded for the flight. And the carriage weighed 80 tons. Well, it's a coincidence. In the same way, the current Korean leader of nations, Kim Jong-un, never flies; he travels around the globe in his personal armored train.

Wiki, in an article about Tehran-43, reports: “As was his custom, Stalin refused to fly anywhere by plane. He left for the conference on November 22, 1943. His letter train No. 501 proceeded through Stalingrad and Baku. Stalin was traveling in an armored spring twelve-wheeler carriage.”

Stalin's translator V. Berezhkov wrote that Stalin arrived in Tehran by train.

Another source says: “Churchill and Roosevelt arrived at the conference by plane, the Soviet delegation led by Stalin reached Tehran by letter train through Stalingrad and Baku. Stalin was located in a separate armored carriage that weighed more than 80 tons.” http://www.aif.ru/society/history/1031871

In general, the method of delivery of Comrade. Stalin to Tehran is not such an important issue for history. Not as important as the possible philosophizing of the luminary about death and immortality. Stalin, of course, did not say anything like that. Neither Golovanov nor Molotov, as arranged by the poet and admirer of leader Chuev. This is a myth.

The question arises: why did Golovanov come up with Stalin’s phrase about a tub of dirt on his head after death and the wind of history that would scatter the dirt (garbage in Chuev’s editorial office)? And this is to emphasize the special trusting relationship with the leader. Golovanov never tires of repeating that he was personally subordinate to Stalin. No one else. That Stalin often received him in all alone. That their spiritual closeness was so great that this superman, a celestial being, shares with the young commander of long-range aviation the most intimate thing: his posthumous “rebirth.” That's how the myth was born.

Golovanov’s dying words are extremely revealing. According to the recollections of his wife Tamara Vasilievna, “His last words were: “Mother, what a terrible life..." He repeated three times... I began to ask: "What are you doing? What you? Why do you say that? Why is life terrible?!" And he also said: “Your happiness is that you don’t understand this...”"

Yes, Tamara Vasilievna would have been horrified if she had known about some of her husband’s exploits and the price at which he had earned the title of chief marshal. What did he dream? The pleading eyes of those being shot? The contemptuous grin of Boris Savinkov, vilely lured to the USSR, from whom Golovanov takes away the parabellum (and kept it for himself)? Dark missions ordered by Stalin, such as delivering the doomed Marshal Blucher to him by plane? Or writing words for Stalin about his posthumous unfading glory, this myth about the wind of history that will dispel the dirt about his crimes?

However, myth is sometimes more accurate than wingless protocol records. Like, for example, Stalin’s alleged words “If there is a person, there is a problem. If there is no person, there is no problem.” After all, Stalin didn’t say anything like that either. It is a myth. Anatoly Rybakov came up with these words and put them into Stalin’s mouth in the novel “Children of the Arbat.” Stalin didn't say it, he did it. And therefore these words became the best aphorism of that era. And the myth about the posthumous resurrection of Comrade. Stalin also accurately reflects the popular state of mind in today's Russia. It is no coincidence that Stalin was named “in the name of Russia”; it is no coincidence that it is with his second coming that the “common man” associates the restoration of order and the establishment of justice. At worst, with his ersatz substitute V.V. Putin. Stalin annexed entire countries to the USSR he created and built a huge socialist camp. But Putin is only in Crimea for now. And everything is not resolved, neither South Ossetia and Abkhazia, nor Trans-Destrovia, nor the DPR and LPR. Well, the trouble has begun.

Recently a survey was conducted in Russia. It was necessary to answer the question: knowing everything about mass repressions, about the monstrous victims of collectivization, the Holodomor, about the Great Terror, the number of people killed in the Second World War (these are tubs of dirt and garbage on the grave), would you now accept and support Stalin’s methods of governing the country? Answer: 57 percent would support. More than half the country would like a new Stalin. Or better yet, the old one. As soon as science matures and revives. These patriots do not know that Stalin’s body was burned and the ashes were scattered to the wind. According to the same wind of history that scattered “tubs of dirt on my head” and heaps of garbage on the grave of Comrade. Stalin.

P.S. In March, voting continued on the topic of the desirability of Stalin's coming. As a result, more than 110 thousand people cast their vote, and only 15 percent were in favor of Stalin’s methods, and 81 were against. Well, this gives us hope, although we should not forget that the advanced part of the population involved in the Internet voted. And the entire outback is “our backwater”. see http://echo.msk.ru/polls/1507786-echo/results.html

And this ZatoKrymNash on the anniversary (a good neologism from Facebook: on the anniversary) when asked about the possibility of using nuclear weapon for the sake of annexing Crimea, he answered: “for” 62 percent (!), which is even more destructive than the desire to have comrade again. Stalin.

See also material

In light of the performance of Zaldostanov in Stalingrad, the controversy http://kompas-m.livejournal.com/2134.html around the famous quote attributed to Stalin has once again revived.
It is no secret that the quote below played a big role in the rehabilitation of the leader:

Many of the affairs of our party and people will be distorted and spat upon, primarily abroad, and in our country too. Zionism, striving for world domination, will brutally take revenge on us for our successes and achievements. He still views Russia as a barbaric country, as a raw materials appendage. And my name will also be slandered and slandered. Many atrocities will be attributed to me.

World Zionism will strive with all its might to destroy our Union so that Russia can never rise again. The strength of the USSR lies in the friendship of peoples. The spearhead of the struggle will be aimed primarily at breaking this friendship, at separating the border regions from Russia. Here, I must admit, we have not done everything yet. There is still a large field of work here. And yet, no matter how events develop, time will pass, and the eyes of new generations will be turned to the deeds and victories of our socialist Fatherland. New generations will come year after year. They will once again raise the banner of their fathers and grandfathers and give us full credit. They will build their future on our past.”

For many people, especially young people, it became a symbol of the fact that the leader foresaw the future collapse and his inevitable rehabilitation. Well, if there is a prophet, then an army of neophytes is not far off. Nowadays, it is one of the most common quotes and aphorisms that are mentioned in the context of a positive attitude towards Stalin, along with the phrase attributed to Churchill about the plow and the nuclear bomb.

The quote itself, as we know, surfaced at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries and referred to “extracts from the diary of Alexandra Kollontai” (a famous and authoritative Bolshevik), which were introduced into circulation by the historian Trush. In the 2000s, it became fashionable to compare certain events of that era with the log of visits to Stalin’s office, which led to the refutation of many historical myths, as it made it possible to find out that many events did not actually occur. For example, some author writes that on such and such a date he was in Stalin’s office and such and such happened there. The historian opens the visitor log and sees that the author or hero of his story was not there on the designated day.
Consequently, either this did not happen at all, or the author confuses the dates (which is also possible) - for example, he writes that on June 25 he was at a reception with Stalin, and according to the visit log, he was there on the 27th. It can be assumed that he was confused by the passage of time.

For example, it was found that, contrary to Khrushchev’s lies, that on June 22 Stalin fell into prostration after learning about the German attack, the leader worked all day in his office, but at the same time it was established that there was a gap at the end of June after the fall of Minsk, which historians Taking into account the new information, they tried to explain.

The same thing happened with this quote. They began to check and found out that on the indicated date Kollontai did not meet with Stalin and on the indicated day she could not hear such things from him purely physically, which she herself wrote about.

“although I was in Moscow for only two days, an order came from Vyacheslav Mikhailovich to fly back to Sweden at 6 o’clock in the morning. I never saw Stalin. It’s a shame!”

In this regard, the question arose - whether the quote is a complete lie. Then we have:

1. On the indicated date, Kollontai did not meet with Stalin, as evidenced by the log of visits to Stalin’s office and Kollontai’s entry in her diary.

2. All of Kollontai’s diaries have not yet been published in full (from the editions that I have seen, they were only a selection of selected texts - perhaps last couple years, something more complete came out, but I didn’t come across it) and it’s not entirely clear what exactly Trush was working with, and if he collected his text from other texts by Kollontai, then from which ones. A historian he knew several years ago, who worked in the Moscow archives, pointed out that these documents are stored in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and he came across documents there that were not in the two-volume Diplomatic Diaries published in 2004. The easiest way to finally clarify the issue is to check the array of documents related to Kollontai for the presence/absence of this quote or the fragments from which it is collected. Moreover, given the specifics of archival work, it is not even necessary to shovel all the funds, but just look through those where there are notes that the historian Trush worked with them at such and such a time, and given that the books associated with these diaries are recent years 10 almost didn’t work out, then I don’t think the check will take much longer.

3. References to the fact that all volumes of Stalin’s works after 13 are doubtful are very naive, since they contain many documents whose authenticity is undoubted and which were not published in the classical collected works for ideological and organizational reasons. This does not mean that Trush could not add something of his own to the original documents, but to indiscriminately scrap the contents of 5 volumes is strong. In the foreseeable future, in light of the release of Stalin’s collected works edited by Kosolapov, where the authenticity of published documents is verified, it will be possible to draw conclusions about which documents are genuine, which are of dubious origin, and which are fakes.

4. Trush himself did not give any clear explanations on the topic of this quote - he did not admit to lying, he did not prove the authenticity with foam at the mouth. In addition to a possible gag, we also cannot exclude the possibility of an error when the author simply mixed up the date by moving Kollontai’s meeting with Stalin to a day when it physically could not have happened, which of course is also not in the best possible way characterizes Trush as a historian.

5. The text itself, if we compare it with the content of other texts, the authenticity of which is undoubted, allows us to say that Stalin could really say this - since the quote does not have any particular discrepancies with his views on Zionism or the possibility of the defeat of socialism in the USSR . This allows us to say that the text may simply be a compilation of Stalin’s views, which Trush took from the collected Works and put into the form of a biting quotation, which he introduced into circulation through Alexandra Kollontai. Which does not change the fact that the quote itself in this form is a fake.

6. In the meantime, this is a kind of apocrypha living life in the style of “The Dulles Plan does not exist, but is being carried out.” If we agree that he completely invented the quote or compiled it from other texts by Trush, then it turns out that he concocted an ingenious and prophetic forgery, which for several years anticipated the process of Stalin’s rehabilitation in public consciousness and then we must admit what Trush did with his lies for rehabilitation Soviet era much more than other publicists and historians, because the ideological power of this quote is enormous. Could Trush have foreseen at the end of the 90s that in 10 years the number of admirers of the talents of the “bloody tyrant” would exceed 50%? Did he set such goals if he really threw his text into Stalin’s collected works?

For today, I will be careful not to say that this quote is completely false or, on the contrary, completely genuine. In my opinion, it requires additional verification, namely the direct work of professional historians with Kollontai’s diaries in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry to establish the final verdict. For now, I classify it in the category of quotes “attributed to Stalin.”

Regarding the question on the topic - “Are such unverified quotes needed to prove the greatness of Stalin and his foresight,” then for me personally, Stalin’s historical greatness is determined primarily by his deeds, and secondarily by how and what he said. I try not to use quotes of dubious origin, because even without them, the authorship of the Leader of the Peoples is more than enough prophetic and simply catchphrases, well revealing the scale of his personality. Anyone can see this for themselves by reading his collected works.

Well, regarding the wind of history, regardless of who gave birth to this phrase - Stalin or Trush, he actually cleared Stalin’s grave of the atrocities attributed to him.

"I know that after my death they will put a pile on my grave
garbage, but the wind of history will mercilessly dispel it!”
(I.V. Stalin)

STALIN'S PROPHECY

Many of the affairs of our party and people will be distorted and spat upon, primarily for
abroad, and in our country too. Zionism, striving for world domination,
will take cruel revenge on us for our successes and achievements. He's still considering
Russia as a barbaric country, as a raw material appendage. And my name will be too
slandered, slandered. Many atrocities will be attributed to me. World Zionism by all
will strive to destroy our Union so that Russia will never again
was able to get up. The strength of the USSR lies in the friendship of peoples. The spearhead of the struggle will be directed
but above all, to break this friendship, to separate the outskirts from Russia. Here, it is necessary
I must admit, we haven’t done everything yet.
Nationalism will raise its head with particular force. He will press down for a while
internationalism and patriotism, only for a while. National
ny groups within nations and conflicts. MANY PYGMY LEADERS WILL APPEAR,
TRAITORS WITHIN THEIR NATIONS.
In general, in the future, development will take more complex and even frantic paths, as
the gates will be extremely steep. Things are about to get particularly agitated
East. Sharp contradictions with the West will arise. And yet, no matter how we develop
events took place, but time will pass, and the EYES OF NEW GENERATIONS WILL BE TURNED
TO THE DEEDS AND VICTORIES OF OUR SOCIALIST FATHERLAND.
Year after year new generations will come, they will again raise the banner of their
fathers and grandfathers and will give us full credit. They will build their future on
our past.
(from a recording of a conversation with the USSR Ambassador to Sweden A.M. Kollontai in November 1939)

"...IF THE SLAVS ARE UNITED AND SOLIDARY, NO ONE IN THE FUTURE
DOESN'T MOVE A FINGER. DOESN’T MOVE A FINGER!” Stalin repeated, sharply cutting
air with your index finger.
(Milovan Djilas (1911-1995), Yugoslav politician)

* * *
After WWII relay race impact force globalists, lost by Hitler's Germany
nia, was picked up by the United States. Theoretical doctrine of a new war against Russia
(“Cold War”) was formulated in a directive from the National Security Council
US Security "Our goals in relation to the USSR" (18.8.1948). Main points
The doctrines were formulated by the director of the CIA at that time, ALAN DULLES:

We will throw all the gold, all the material power into fooling and fooling
of people. The human brain and people's consciousness are capable of change. Having sowed there
chaos, we will quietly replace their values ​​with false ones and force them into these
false values ​​to believe... We will find our like-minded people, our
powerful men and allies in Russia itself.
Episode after episode, a grandiose scale will be played out.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE DEATH OF THE MOST DISOBEDIENT PEOPLE ON EARTH - THE RUSSIANS,
the tragedy of the final and irreversible extinction of his self-awareness.
For example, from art and literature we will gradually eradicate their social
essence, we will alienate artists, we will discourage them from depicting
reality, search for truth, study and research of reality and
those processes that take place in the soul of the people. Literature, theaters, TV,
cinema, the press - everything will depict and glorify only the most vile
human feelings. We will support and raise the so-called
famous “artists” who will actively instill and hammer into people
eternal consciousness of the cult of sex, debauchery, violence, sadism, betrayal -
in a word, all immorality.
In governing the state we will create chaos and confusion, we will be invisible,
but actively and constantly promote the tyranny of officials and prosperity
bribery... Bureaucracy and red tape will be elevated to virtue,
We will ridicule honesty and decency - no one will need them, except
are turning into a relic of the past.
Rudeness, arrogance, lies, drunkenness, drug addiction, animal fear of each other
friend and shameless betrayal, nationalism and enmity of peoples, before
just enmity and hatred of the Russian people - we will do all this deftly and
carefully cultivate so that all this will bloom in full bloom.

And only a few, very few will guess or even understand that
is happening. But we will put such people in a helpless position, we will turn
into ridicule, we will find a way to slander them and declare them the scum of society.
We will mercilessly tear out the spiritual roots of Russians, vulgarize and destroy
foundations of folk morality. We will undermine this generation in this way
behind the generation. We will take on people from childhood and teenage years, and main
We will always place our bets on youth - we will begin to corrupt, corrupt and
corrupt her...

STALIN'S PROPHECY

All this will fall on the shoulders of the Russian people. For the Russian people are a good people.
The Russian people have a clear mind. It’s as if he was born to help other nations.
The Russian people are characterized by great courage, especially in difficult times, in danger.
new times. He is proactive. He has a persistent character. He's a dreamy bunch.
He has a goal, which is why it is harder for him than for other nations. You can use it
rely in any trouble. The Russian people are invincible, inexhaustible.

TWO OPPOSITE VIEWS ON STALIN'S PERSONALITY

HEIRS OF STALIN (Evgeniy Yevtushenko)

The marble was silent, the glass flickered silently,
the guard stood silently, turning bronze in the wind.
And the coffin was smoking a little. Breath flowed through the cracks,
when they carried him out of the doors of the mausoleum.
The coffin floated slowly, touching the bayonets with its edges,
he was also silent, too - but menacingly silent.
Sullenly clenching his embalmed fists,
in it, a man leaned against the crack, pretending to be dead.

He wanted to remember all those who carried him,
Ryazan and Kursk young recruits,
so that somehow later I can gain strength for a sortie
and rise from the ground and reach them foolish ones.
He's up to something. He just took a nap to rest,
and I appeal to our Government with a request:
double, triple the guard at this stove,
so that Stalin does not rise, and with Stalin - the past!

We are not talking about that secret and VALORABLE IN VIEW,
where Turksib and Magnitka were, and the FLAG OVER BERLIN.
In this case, by past I mean
oblivion about the welfare of the people, slander, arrests of the innocent.

We sowed honestly. We honestly welded metal,
and we walked honestly, forming soldier’s chains;
he was far-sighted, wise in the laws of struggle,
He left many heirs on the globe.

It seems to me that a telephone has been placed in the coffin:
Stalin conveys his instructions to Enver Hoxha.
Where else does the wire go from that coffin?
No, Stalin did not give up. He considers death to be reparable.
We took him out of the mausoleum,
but how can we remove Stalin from Stalin’s heirs?
Other heirs of the retired rose are pruned,
but secretly they believe that this resignation is temporary.
Some even scold Stalin from the stands,
and at night they themselves yearn for the old time.
The heirs of Stalin, apparently, today are not in vain
they have heart attacks,
to them, who were once supports,
I don’t like the time when the camps are empty,
and the halls where people listen to poetry are overcrowded.
The Party told me not to be calm:
as long as Stalin's heirs are on earth,
It will seem to me that Stalin is still in the mausoleum!

ANSWER TO THE POET YEVTUSHENKO

Staggering around the world,
bathing in flower dust,
you are the honest name of the poet
I exchanged it for rubles a long time ago.
We greeted you like a brother,
like a friend they brought you into the house,
your hypocritical speeches
sounded at our table.

You went to the coming dawns,
celebration for glorious people,
aren't you at the house in Gori?
shouted about his greatness?
Isn't it you, breaking the dishes,
shouted that it wasn’t his fault?
You sold him like Judas
you drank it like a pirate.

All honest people united
and the guys really have one.
Don't think that only Georgians
I'm mad at you now.
You sold your devoted voice,
I bought comfort for a lie,
all honest people today
they call you a scoundrel.

Your lies are false
as women of street honour.
Stalin's heirs are alive,
there are Stalin's heirs.
There are many of them, and they are all right,
him continuing his business,
it was not true, but it was also true
Stalin had it too.

There's nowhere for you to escape from the truth,
you can’t bury it or burn it,
he bequeathed peace to us as an inheritance,
He bequeathed to us to take care of him.
And the cult! In a sycophantic frenzy
and you would probably blossom.
Such corrupt creatures
created a halo for him.

To hell with the cult! He brought us to the light
and to the sun from the sorrowful darkness.
This and only this
We are the heirs of Stalin.
And only plays into the hands of the bastards
your bargaining verse.
There are prostitutes in history,
there is no need for them in poetry.

Reviews

Any prophecy is just an attempt to look into the future based on: knowledge, the development of history and the ability to draw conclusions. Intuition is just a 50/50 coincidence.
Stalin's personality is ambiguous, he managed to mobilize the country's forces and defeat the armies of many European countries - Germans, Austrians, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, Romanians, Balts, Finns, our Banderaites. The industry of all Europe worked for Germany. In the first days, Stalin lost all the armies stationed and advanced to the border, and tank columns went out into the open. In July, German planes bombed Moscow. I heard about this at the pioneer camp during the morning assembly. And I heard about the possible outbreak of war a few days before June 22. If he was a prophet, why didn't he beat Hitler by a day or two? The war would have ended earlier and there would have been no loss of 15 million Soviet soldiers. Some have brought this figure to 50 million. In total, the USSR killed 110 million people. But the population of the USSR grew from 150 million to 320 million. In 1949, 171 million.
You don't know history well and used one-sided primary sources.
But the verse is closer to my consciousness. You may not agree with something, many prisoners
from Stalin's camps, recognizing the strength of his greatness, they spoke of him as an arrogant man who believed only in himself and in himself. "Kudryavtsev". on prose.ru.
Good luck to you.

Vladimir, Stalin’s prophecy is not about what you analyzed.
I do not pretend to be a historian, but I will answer you that you are bad
know history, use false information and impose
From now on, I ask you to express these “fantasies” on your page and
don't clog mine.
The population under Stalin increased from 137 million in 1920.
up to 209 in 1959. Population growth in 1924-1953 - 62 million people.
Up to 35 million Soviet soldiers took part in WWII, about
9 million (not 15!), of which 3 million were communists, 9,000 were employees
SMERSH and 200,000 - NKVD employees.
“Stalin lost all his armies in the first days”... Which has set my teeth on edge in 30 years
fake. Defeated armies do not win victories, which is what happened to the Germans.
skoy army.
Data on German losses were falsified. If you didn't use
"one-sided primary sources", then they would have discovered that losses in the first
the years of the war were approximately the same (except for prisoners of war): the number
The official German burials on the territory of the USSR in the early 90s significantly exceeded 2 million people, and there were more than 4 million unofficial burials. In addition, the Germans destroyed civilians and especially
committed atrocities during the retreat. I will write more about this, now I’m free
there is not enough time.

I.V. Stalin:
“I know that after death they will put a lot of garbage on my grave. But the wind of History will mercilessly dispel it.”

For the enemies of socialism and Soviet power, a truly inexhaustible source from which most of their spiteful slander against the power of the working people is drawn, and “arguments” that support dirty attacks are sought, has become the “cult of personality” and all the activities of I.V. Stalin.

The history of the creation of a new society that arose as a result of revolutionary upheavals is non-linear, dramatic, and sometimes tragic. This is typical for any country after any revolution. The forces overthrown by the revolution always and everywhere strive to organize a powerful resistance to the new order, try in every possible way to discredit the authorities that replaced them, pour out streams of dirty slander, vilify the inspirers and leaders, fighters for the cause of the people.

For the enemies of socialism and Soviet power, a truly inexhaustible source from which most of their spiteful slander against the power of the working people is drawn, and “arguments” that support dirty attacks are sought, has become the “cult of personality” and all the activities of I.V. Stalin. Everything has long been assessed, its causes and consequences revealed. But the counter-revolution could not rest on this! On a huge scale, under the pretext of fighting the “cult of personality,” an unprincipled and unscrupulous denigration and falsification of absolutely everything that happened in the country after 1917 began. V. Pozner, M. Shvydkoy, M. Shatrov, G. Baklanov, Yu. Afanasyev, G. Popov, a noisy pack of their like-minded people spew out streams of lies, strive to spit on the majestic fact of world-historical significance - the transformation of a backward, semi-colonial country into a highly developed, modern , the front line, which even its enemies called a superpower. They brazenly and completely ignore the inclusion of millions of illiterate, downtrodden, oppressed people in the achievements of human progress!

Not a single revolution has escaped the blood of innocent victims. Thus, fulfilling the will of the Convention, the body created by the Great French bourgeois revolution, in Lyon alone, in just a few weeks, on the orders of the representative of the Convention, Fouche, more than one thousand six hundred people were executed, and not in the entire year of 1793 - the harbinger of our 1937. Even the vocabulary of those years is similar. “The people's avengers will remain firm in fulfilling the mission entrusted to them...,” Fouche wrote in one of the proclamations. “They will have the courage to calmly walk along the longest rows of graves of the conspirators, so that, walking through the ruins, they will come to the happiness of the nation and the renewal of the world.” Over five years during the Great French Revolution, 750 thousand people were sent under the punishing knife of the guillotine. In those years, the population of France was 25 million people. In proportion, this is many times greater than during repressions in the USSR. However, even in those difficult years, population growth in the Soviet Union reached almost 12 million people.

As Stefan Zweig wrote: “This is one of the secrets of almost all revolutions and the tragic fate of their leaders: they all do not like blood and are still forced to shed it.” It is not for me, of course, who lost my father in 1937, to justify political repression, but the patterns of development of revolutions are such that no one can change them.

Objective prerequisites for pursuing a punitive policy existed. This is confirmed even by Churchill, who spent his entire life striving to strangle the first state of workers and peasants in world history. Here are his words: “The German government maintained contact with important Russian persons through the Soviet embassy in Prague. The purpose of the conspiracy is to overthrow Stalin and introduce a new pro-German regime in Russia. Soviet Russia began purges, merciless, but in any case necessary, which cleansed political and economic circles. The Soviet Army was liberated from pro-German elements."

Some facts of the treacherous activities of “important persons” cannot be denied by the current detractors of everything Soviet. Not long ago a film about Tukhachevsky was shown on television. It quite convincingly reveals the treacherous actions of one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. True, the screenwriters and directors of the film are trying to justify it by saying that conspiracies were being hatched against Stalin. The fact that at the same time our state and our people became victims of vile betrayal is completely ignored.

In 2004, the work “The Affairs of the Kremlin” by Semyon Vavilovich Korobenkov was published. The author is my fellow Irkutsk resident; he worked for many years in the apparatus of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In the three books of this work (Semyon Vavilovich labeled them - “Case No. 1”, “Case No. 2”, “Case No. 3”) there is a lot of interesting information for historians, politicians and the ordinary reader. It may be useful to borrow something from this book related to the topic of repression. S.V. Korobenkov writes: “It is known that none of the defendants (meaning the well-known Moscow trials), including such as Yagoda, Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov, knew both the Criminal Code and the then existing judicial procedures rules, did not state at trial that their confessions of anti-Soviet activities were “extorted” by torture. Not because of pride, when it was a question of life and death?! And they knew very well the price of the “promises” - to save their lives in case of “sincere confession and repentance” - from past proceedings in which they themselves were participants...

Admitting themselves guilty under the pressure of irrefutable evidence, the main accused slandered the innocent and deliberately involved innocent people in the repressive whirlwind. More and more people, including those close to the then rulers, essentially became hostages of the main accused.

The principle is the same: “If they shoot us, they will kill you too!” And they killed. But they are not groaning for those unfortunate “hostages” who were innocently killed, but for the representatives of the “thin layer”. About those who for many years mercilessly tore off the thick “soil” layer from Russia and wanted to continue this “operation” even at the cost of betrayal, openly like Trotsky, or secretly like Tukhachevsky, calling on Western countries, including fascist Germany, to intervention, war against the USSR, promising them the most tasty “pieces” of its territory in return. Throughout the entire “second” half of his life, V.M. Molotov never tired of repeating that if in the 30s. If it had not been possible to destroy the “fifth column” that had formed in our country at that time, the Soviet Union would have lost the war with Nazi Germany.”

The German writer of Jewish origin, Lion Feuchtwanger, in his book “Moscow 1937,” which was carefully hushed up by apologists for Trotsky and Bukharin, as is known, took Stalin’s side in his cleansing of the country from the “fifth column.” “Previously, the Trotskyists,” he wrote, “were less dangerous, they could be forgiven, or in the worst case, exiled... Now, just on the eve of the war, such kindness could not be allowed. Schism and factionalism, which do not have serious significance in a peaceful situation, can pose a huge danger in a war.”

In the summer of 1941, US Ambassador to the USSR Joseph E. Davis wrote in his diary: “Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Hitler’s agents were active everywhere, even in the United States and South America. The German entry into Prague was accompanied by active support from Gehlen's military organizations. The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia (Tiso), Belgium (de Grell)... However, we do not see anything similar in Russia. “Where are Hitler’s Russian accomplices?” - they often ask me. “They were shot,” I answer.

Only now are you beginning to realize how far-sighted the Soviet government acted during the years of the purges... At that time, we argued a lot in our circle about the struggle for power in the Kremlin leadership, but, as life showed, we were sitting “in the wrong boat.”

Of interest are the observations and conclusions recorded by this ambassador in his diary on July 28, 1937: “There is an opinion among the diplomatic corps that the executed generals were guilty of crimes that, according to Soviet laws, are punishable by death.

In April, Tukhachevsky was present, among others (Voroshilov, Egorov, etc.) at a reception organized by our embassy in honor of the Red Army. He had a reputation as a talented person. However, he didn’t make much of an impression on me... If, on top of everything else, he still suffered from Bonapartist habits, then I must admit that Stalin got rid of his “Corsican”.

Reichsleiters and Gauleiters, stated that the USSR “was freed in time from this threat (“the fifth column.” - S.K.) and can therefore direct all its energy to fight the enemy.” This, in his opinion, “put an end to defeatism.”

The West German military historian (and ardent anti-Soviet) Joachim Hoffmann, in his book “History of the Vlasov Army (ed. Rombach, Freiburg, 1984) provides a long list of “outstanding” traitors who went over to the Germans in 1941 and 1942, and how usually not due to forced circumstances. They created them themselves. Among them are such as Tukhachevsky’s former personal adjutant, at the beginning of the war commander

41st Rifle Division Boyarsky, head of the operational department of the Baltic Special Military District (from June 22 - North-Western Front) Major General Trukhin. Is it any wonder the difficult situation at the front from the very first day of the war! The list is not short, from humble lieutenants to generals, most of whom went over to the enemy deliberately. There were especially many of these in Vlasov’s headquarters, which numbered about three hundred senior and senior officers, former commanders of the Red Army...

Against this background, the words spoken by Trotsky back in 1936 that in the event of Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin could not avoid defeat are no longer perceived as bragging. Such confidence suggests that Trotsky knew well about the hidden traitors and was connected with them... He raised and nurtured them himself. Hitler planned the war with them in mind. But he miscalculated - the traitors ensured his initial successes and our tragedy, then the contingent of traitors dried up...

Without Stalin, without the “cult of personality,” the champions of the restoration of capitalism would have clung to anything to denounce socialism and the Communist Party. They did not even bother to analyze what our country was like at the time Stalin entered the historical arena and what it became by the end of his reign. Historical figures are judged not by individual events, facts, or even stages, but by the final results, the real results of their reign. Stalin left behind a strong party that skillfully united and directed the people to solve the most difficult problems. He left the country with the most advanced social and political system that strengthened its position. He left the Soviet Union - a power of world significance, enjoying the greatest respect and authority, which received universal recognition for the defeat of the darkest, most reactionary, most cruel force of big capital - German fascism. These results pale in comparison to the mistakes and miscalculations that are often inevitable when charting a new and unknown path. It would be worth comparing, what achievements could the people of our country be proud of and rejoice after the tragic disappearance of the first and last president of the USSR?!

The “revision” of Stalin’s role in Soviet history was started by his successor N.S. Khrushchev, who tried to deal with Stalin’s legacy using the “cavalry attack” method. He sullied Stalin from all sides, although millions of people believed in the late leader, believed with conviction and unconditionally. Stalin is a personality of truly world-historical proportions, despite some of the negative aspects of his rule. Millions of Soviet people, and not just ordinary people, and this should have been foreseen, perceived N.S. Khrushchev’s report at a closed meeting of the 20th Congress of the CPSU as a blow to them, as an erasure of their military and labor achievements, and of their entire difficult life. His ridiculous “cavalry attack” created a deep crack in society, and it still hasn’t healed, like the trenches and trenches of the war...

Nowadays, a lot of data has appeared on the basis of which we can more calmly and objectively consider some of Khrushchev’s accusations against Stalin. First of all, about repression. No one can deny that they existed; they swept across the country like a terrible skating rink. At the same time, knowledge of the situation in the pre-war years forces us to admit that repressions were practically inevitable, although their scale could have been less destructive. Nowadays, many documents have become known that irrefutably prove that many Trotskyists and other oppositionists were in the pay of Western intelligence services, including fascist ones. Of course, it cannot be justified that innocent people fell under the comb of repression. However, it is also impossible to consecutively and indiscriminately rehabilitate those who caused enormous harm to our Motherland and betrayed it.

Khrushchev dirtyly hinted more than once that I.V. Stalin had a direct connection to the murder of S.M. Kirov. It has now become clear that Sergei Mironovich had an affair with a waitress at the secretariat in Smolny, Matilda Draule. Her husband Nikolaev was a jealous and unbalanced person. He had the right to enter Smolny, and the guards knew him well. It was not difficult for him to deal with his opponent. As is known, a special commission was created to substantiate Khrushchev’s “version”. All the efforts of the commission were in vain. When the results were reported to Khrushchev, he burst into abuse and forbade their publication. Khrushchev’s statement that at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks someone proposed Kirov for the post of General Secretary and therefore Stalin saw him as a rival turned out to be nothing more than an evil fiction.

N.S. Khrushchev, when attacking I.V. Stalin, often referred to the so-called “testament” of V.I. Lenin; speaking directly, he speculated on the letter of the sick party leader to the XII Congress of the CPSU (b). In it, Vladimir Ilyich gave characteristics to the leading leaders of the party of that time and made a proposal to expand the composition of the Central Committee of the party. However, the letter was not read at this congress. After the congress, Trotsky and his supporters launched a campaign against Stalin, often citing Lenin's letter. In order to stop all sorts of rumors and speculations of the opposition, the Politburo decided to announce the letter to the regional delegations of the XIII Party Congress. Each delegation had to vote for its candidacy for the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. As a result, not a single (!) candidate other than Stalin was proposed. It is noteworthy that Trotsky and his supporters - the delegates to the congress - voted for Stalin! Nevertheless, at the first, organizational Plenum of the new Central Committee, Stalin resigned, but it was proposed to him - unanimously! - remain at your post.

Trotsky’s article “On Eastman’s book “After the Death of Lenin” was published in the magazine “Bolshevik” No. 16 for 1925. Trotsky writes: “In several places in the book, Eastman says that the Central Committee “hid” from the party a number of extremely important documents written by Lenin in the last period of his life (the case concerns letters on the national question, the so-called “will”, etc.); this cannot be called anything other than slander against the Central Committee of our party. From Eastman’s words we can conclude that Vladimir Ilyich intended these letters, which had the nature of intra-organizational advice, for publication. In fact, this is completely false. Since his illness, Vladimir Ilyich more than once addressed the leading bodies of the party and its congress with proposals, letters, etc. All these letters and proposals, of course, were always delivered to their destination, brought to the attention of the XII and XIII party congresses and always, of course, , had a proper influence on the decisions of the party, and if not all of these letters were published, it was because they were not intended by their author for publication. Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any “will,” and the very nature of his attitude towards the party, as well as the character of the party itself, excluded the possibility of such a “will.” (Emphasis added by me. - S.K.) Under the guise of a “will,” the emigrant and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press usually mentions (in a distorted form beyond recognition) one of Vladimir Ilyich’s letters, which contained organizational advice. The 13th Party Congress paid the most attention to this letter, as to all others, and drew conclusions from it in relation to the conditions and circumstances of the moment. Any talk about a hidden or broken “will” is a malicious fiction and is entirely directed against the actual will of Vladimir Ilyich and the interests of the party he created.”

Let us emphasize once again that Trotsky wrote this. And in October 1927, at a meeting of the joint Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin addressed this issue: “Now about Lenin’s “testament”. Here the oppositionists shouted - you heard it - that the Central Committee of the Party “hidden” Lenin’s “testament”. This issue was discussed several times at the plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, you know this. (Voice. Dozens of times.) It has been proven and re-proven that no one hides anything. It was discussed at the XIII Party Congress. The opposition knows all this as well as the rest of us. And yet the opposition has the courage to declare that the Central Committee is “hiding” Lenin’s “testament”... On what basis are Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev now foolishly speaking, claiming that the party and its Central Committee are “hiding” Lenin’s “testament”? It’s “possible” to use your tongue, but you have to know when to stop.

They say that in this “testament” Comrade. Lenin suggested that the congress, in view of Stalin's rudeness, consider the question of replacing Stalin as General Secretary with another person. This is absolutely true. Yes, I am rude, comrades, towards those who roughly and treacherously destroy and split the Party. It is possible that a certain softness towards schismatics is required here. But I can't do it. At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the XIII Party Congress, I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to relieve me of my duties as General Secretary. The Congress itself discussed this issue. Each delegation discussed this issue. And all delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain in his post. What could I do? Run away from post? This is not in my character, I have never run away from any posts and have no right to run away, because that would be desertion. I am, as I said before, a forced person, and when the party obliges me, I must obey.

A year after this, I again submitted an application to the plenum for release, but I was again obliged to remain at my post.

What else could I do?

At the insistence and demand of Stalin, Lenin’s letter, against his will, was published on the pages of a special “Discussion Sheet” in Pravda on November 10, 1927. Khrushchev, of course, knew about this document and was obliged, as he was already in a leadership position by that time, to explain the party line on this issue. What motivated him when, contrary to all known facts, he declared: “The letter to the congress was never published, but it was not mentioned at all. Was Stalin afraid of this letter? It is quite obvious that he deceived and misled the younger members of the CPSU, our entire people.

Khrushchev was especially gloating about Stalin as a military leader, trying not only to belittle his role and services in the defeat of Nazi Germany, but to present him as militarily ignorant. They say how Khrushchev once tried to recruit famous marshals to join his supporters in spitting on Stalin. “Ivan Stepanovich,” he turned to Marshal Konev, “you suffered from Stalin in 1941, come forward, condemn... what the hell kind of commander he is...

- No, Comrade Khrushchev! Stalin really was a commander..."

He makes the same request to Marshal Grechko.

- No! Stalin was a great figure and a great commander! - answered Grechko.”

Khrushchev tried to persuade Marshal Zakharov, known for his directness and rudeness, to do this. But he sent Nikita Sergeevich... He paid for this with his position. Marshal Rokossovsky, who was subjected to repression, stated very politely and firmly:

– How can one talk about Stalin’s mediocrity if he has no equal leaders of states?! And we won thanks to Stalin’s talent. No, Comrade Stalin is a saint to me!

The former Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Vasilevsky, sharply stated:

– Stalin is a great statesman and great

commander!

In his book “The Work of My Whole Life,” the marshal writes: “I had good relations with N.S. Khrushchev in the first post-war years. But they changed dramatically after I did not support his statements that I.V. Stalin did not understand operational-strategic issues and unqualifiedly led the actions of the troops as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. I still can't understand how he could say this. Being a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Party and a member of the Military Council of a number of fronts, N.S. Khrushchev could not help but know how high the authority of Headquarters and Stalin was in matters of conducting military operations. He also could not help but know that the commanders of the fronts and armies treated Headquarters and Stalin with great respect and valued them for their exceptional competence in leading the armed struggle.”

At one meeting in the Kremlin, Khrushchev stated:

– Chief of the General Staff Sokolovsky is present here, he will confirm that Stalin did not understand military issues. Am I right?" “No way, Nikita Sergeevich,” the marshal answered clearly. He was also relieved of his post.

Well, Zhukov was brief: “We are not worth Stalin’s little finger!”

I had the good intention of putting together everything that outstanding figures of our country said and wrote about Stalin: military leaders, ministers, industrial workers, representatives of the scientific, technical and creative intelligentsia, who knew him not from stories, books and articles, but who worked with him, who regularly communicated and observed this figure in a variety of situations. But he failed to fully realize this intention. I only managed to write out something from the works of G.K. Zhukov. I believe it would be appropriate to quote only some of the statements of the Grand Marshal. Describing the work of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Georgy Konstantinovich unequivocally states: “The activities of the Headquarters are inseparable from the name of I.V. Stalin. During the war years I often met with him. In most cases, these were official meetings at which issues of managing the course of the war were decided. But even a simple invitation to dinner was always used for the same purposes. I really liked the complete lack of formalism. Everything that he did through the Headquarters or the State Defense Committee was done in such a way that the decisions made by these high bodies began to be implemented immediately, and the progress of their implementation was strictly and steadily controlled personally by the Supreme Commander or, at his direction, by other leading persons or organizations. […] …the work practice of the Headquarters and the State Defense Committee was physically very difficult for their members, but during the war this was not thought about: everyone worked to the fullest extent of their strength and capabilities. Everyone looked up to Stalin, and he, despite his age, was always active and tireless. When the war ended and the days of relatively systematic work began, J.V. Stalin somehow immediately aged, became less active, even more silent and thoughtful. The past war and everything connected with it had a strong and tangible impact on him. […]

J.V. Stalin made a great personal contribution to the cause of winning victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. His authority was extremely great, and therefore the appointment of Stalin as Supreme Commander-in-Chief was received positively by the people and troops. […]

“You cannot dumb down and belittle Stalin’s activities during that period,” said the greatest writer of the 20th century. “Firstly, it is dishonest, and secondly, it is harmful for the country, for the Soviet people, and not because the winners are not judged, but first of all because the “overthrow” does not correspond to the truth.” G.K. Zhukov writes: “It is hardly possible to add anything to these words of M.A. Sholokhov. They are accurate and fair. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief did everything possible so that the Headquarters, its working apparatus - the General Staff and the Military Councils of the fronts - became truly wise and skillful military assistants to the party in achieving victory over Nazi Germany." […]

“The style of work, as a rule, was businesslike, without nervousness, everyone could express their opinion. The Supreme Commander addressed everyone the same - strictly and officially. He knew how to listen carefully when they reported to him knowledgeably. He himself was a man of few words and did not like the verbosity of others; he often stopped someone who was talking with remarks - “in short!”, “Clarify!”. The meetings were held without introductory opening remarks. He spoke quietly, freely, only to the essence of the issue. He was concise and formulated his thoughts clearly.” […] He did not tolerate answers at random; he demanded exhaustive completeness and clarity.

The Supreme Commander had some special instinct for weak points in reports or documents; he immediately found them and strictly punished them for unclear information. Possessing a tenacious memory, he remembered well what was said and did not miss an opportunity to rather sharply reprimand for what was forgotten.” […]

“Unremarkable in appearance, J.V. Stalin made a strong impression during the conversation. Devoid of posturing, he captivated his interlocutor with the simplicity of his communication. A free manner of conversation, the ability to clearly formulate a thought, a natural analytical mind, great erudition and a rare memory forced people during a conversation with him, even very sophisticated and significant people, to gather themselves internally and be on the alert.”

“...He read a lot and was a knowledgeable person in a wide variety of areas of knowledge. His amazing efficiency and ability to quickly grasp the essence of a matter allowed him to view and assimilate in a day such a quantity of the most varied material that only an extraordinary person could do it.” […]

“J.V. Stalin was a strong-willed man and, as they say, “not one of the cowardly dozen.” […] Stalin firmly ruled the country, armed struggle, and international affairs. Even at the moment of mortal danger hanging over Moscow, when the enemy was at a distance of 25–30 kilometers from it, J.V. Stalin did not leave his post, was at Headquarters in Moscow and behaved as befits the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.” […]

“The merit of I.V. Stalin here lies in the fact that he quickly and correctly accepted the advice of military experts, supplemented and developed them in a generalized form - in instructions, directives and manuals - and immediately transferred them to the troops for practical guidance.

In addition, in supporting operations, creating strategic reserves, organizing military equipment and, in general, creating everything necessary for waging war, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, frankly speaking, proved himself to be an outstanding organizer. And it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t give him credit for that.” […]

“In leading the armed struggle as a whole, I.V. Stalin was helped by his natural intelligence, experience in political leadership, rich intuition, and broad awareness. He knew how to find the main link in a strategic situation and, seizing on it, outline ways to counter the enemy and successfully carry out one or another offensive operation. Undoubtedly, he was a worthy Supreme Commander." (Emphasis added by me. – S.K.)

It is worth recalling that all of the above statements about I.V. Stalin were written by G.K. Zhukov in the years when it was not easy to evaluate this personality positively.

In one of the articles, Marshal D.T. Yazov, the last Minister of Defense of the USSR, provides a very remarkable dialogue. Once, when meeting with him, People's Artist of the USSR Innokenty Smoktunovsky said:

- What is Stalin! Such commanders as Zhukov or Vasilevsky could decide everything even without Stalin. We could do even better!

Yazov replied:

– Here at the Moscow Art Theater almost all of you are great artists! Why do you need a director?

– What about without a director?

“But what about without the Supreme Commander-in-Chief?” the marshal asked in turn. “Each front will drag on its own, each front will be on its own.”

The questions of a prominent representative of the Soviet intelligentsia, a great artist, were dominated by naive unprofessionalism, a frivolous replacement of serious reflection with emotional outbursts.

A person is never unambiguous, monochromatic. Everything is mixed up in it. So it is with Stalin. Only Stalin is the greatest statesman and political figure, a convinced, uncompromising communist. Another Stalin is an ordinary person, a personality with inherent advantages and disadvantages. But for Stalin, the first dominated the second, which was almost unknown to anyone and occupied a subordinate, even secondary position in relation to the first. That is, the obvious primacy of the first over the second. For Stalin, the highest interests of building a socialist state always unconditionally stood above personal requests and needs. JV Stalin was not so naive as not to imagine how in the future certain forces would evaluate his activities. Air Marshal A.E. Golovanov quotes the following words of Stalin: “I know that when I’m gone, more than one bucket of dirt will be poured on my head. But I’m sure the winds of history will blow all this away.”

With Khrushchev, his individuality, his personal needs and passions dominated Khrushchev as a politician, statesman, and communist. His base, philistine, selfish interests rose above the interests of the party, country, and people.

Sometimes the thought arises: was it necessary for N.S. Khrushchev to blame J.V. Stalin for everything negative that happened under him? Yes, and add a stupid gag like directing military operations on the globe, confusion and the like, clearly not characteristic of J.V. Stalin, nonsense.

Cult of personality?! He blurted out “our dear”, but, as they say, did not look into the calendar. There is a cult of personality, and there is also a micro-cult. A cult is when a significant person, through his service to the country and people, achieves a high position in the party and in the state, and the grateful people glorify and even deify him. A microcult, a stump, a stump - you choose - this is when a nonentity, which cannot be seen even under the most powerful microscope, inflates itself immensely, imagines itself in much the same way as that frog that burst. Stalin cannot be compared even with such figures as Alexander the Great and Napoleon! They are small creatures compared to him! Stalin is a personality, and such that his deeds will be remembered and glorified for centuries! The pug barked at the elephant!

From the closed report of N.S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the enemy received such arguments in the fight against the communists, against the Soviet state, which he did not even dare to dream of. You can’t help but wonder who Nikita Sergeevich served more - the cause of communism, the international communist and workers’ movement, his party, his state or the enemies of communism, reactionaries and obscurantists, opportunists and traitors? At one time, Nikita Sergeevich mixed with the Trotskyists, so wasn’t this a kind of relapse, a regurgitation of this past, which he really carefully concealed?