SEMEN DENISOVICH IGNATIEV

Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev was born in 1904 in the Kherson province into a poor peasant family. He started working at almost ten years old. My father left the village, went to a cotton gin in Termez. The future minister also worked there for four years.

Then he got a job as an assistant locksmith of the Emir-Abad railway workshops. At the end of 1919, Ignatiev became the secretary of the Komsomol cell of the main depot of the Bukhara railway.

In 1920, an active Komsomol member was taken to the political department of the Bukhara Group of Forces, the following year he was transferred to the military department of the All-Bukhara Cheka, and then to the Main Police Department of the Bukhara Republic.

During these years, the emir was expelled from Bukhara, and Bukhara came under the rule of Moscow: first, the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic was formally proclaimed, in 1924 it was called the Bukhara Socialist Republic, and a few months later the territory of the former Bukhara Emirate was divided between Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Bukharians resisted Soviet power for a long time. They were called Basmachi and systematically destroyed.

TALK WITH MALENKOV

Ignatiev, meanwhile, took the first step in his long and successful administrative career. First, he was taken to the organizational department of the Communist Youth Union of Turkestan.

Then he switched to trade union work - first in Uzbekistan, then in Kyrgyzstan. In 1926, Ignatiev was accepted into the party. In 1931, he entered the All-Union Industrial Academy named after I. V. Stalin, received the specialty of an aircraft manufacturing engineer, but he did not have to build aircraft.

Immediately after graduating from the academy, he was hired by the industrial department of the Central Committee. He worked under the well-known at that time secretary of the Central Committee Andrei Andreevich Andreev. Having become an employee of the party apparatus, Ignatiev finally found himself.

Two years later, in October 1937, when thanks to the efforts of Yezhov, vacancies arose literally every day, Ignatiev was sent as the first secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian Regional Committee (from 1923 to 1958 Buryatia was called the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Republic). Semyon Denisovich spent the war in the rear. In January 1943, he was promoted to First Secretary of the Bashkir Regional Committee.

In 1946, after another reform of the central party apparatus, the Central Committee formed a department for checking party cadres and gathered experienced provincial secretaries in it. Secretary of the Central Committee Nikolai Semenovich Patolichev was appointed head of the department. Semyon Ignatiev became his first deputy.

Patolichev writes in his memoirs that Stalin treated Ignatiev with confidence and spoke well of him. A year later, Semyon Denisovich was sent to Belarus as Secretary of the Central Committee for agriculture and preparations. Then he was promoted to second secretary.

In 1949, Ignatiev was transferred to the other end of the country and appointed secretary of the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee and authorized by the Central Committee for the Uzbek SSR.

The former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, Nuriddin Akramovich Mukhitdinov, recalls that Ignatiev arrived in Tashkent with his apparatus - several dozen people. They prepared an extensive note on the situation in the field of culture, science and art in Uzbekistan. A long list of the most prominent figures of science and culture was compiled, who were accused of carrying out active nationalist and anti-party activities: they meet, discuss the state of affairs in the republic and recruit supporters among the intelligentsia and youth ...

These accusations were quite close to a big deal, and the officials who came from Moscow wanted to make themselves known with some loud revelations.

Mukhitdinov, at that moment the secretary of the Central Committee of the republic for ideology, was summoned to Moscow. He asked to see Malenkov. He took it the next morning. Terribly asked:

Why is it that in Uzbekistan the work on the implementation of the course for decisive changes in ideological work is being poorly carried out? Tomorrow we want to discuss at the secretariat Ignatiev's note on the facts of manifestations of nationalism, parochialism, praising the past, ignoring the achievements of the Soviet people and the party.

Mukhitdinov deftly led the conversation:

Comrade Malenkov, the apparatus of the authorized Central Committee for Uzbekistan has comprehensively studied these issues. The comrades, who arrived from Moscow, carefully sorted things out. We all see this as a help. At the same time, one cannot agree with crude generalizations and sweeping accusations. Such an approach will offend not only the intelligentsia, but also the entire nation, which has a thousand-year history and ancient culture. The discussion at the secretariat of the Central Committee and the decision to be made is very useful. But perhaps it would be better to submit these notes for consideration by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan? This would increase the responsibility of the workers of the republic...

Let me raise one more question. After the war, the institute of the authorized Central Committee for Uzbekistan was created. It is headed by Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev. He has a team of highly qualified specialists. Personally, I have no complaints about any of them. But as a young party worker, there is another side that worries me. There is an authorized Central Committee only for Uzbekistan, in other republics there is no such body. There is a misunderstanding about this. National feelings can make themselves felt if they are offended and humiliated.

Malenkov remembered the words of Mukhitdinov. The note on ideological work in Uzbekistan was not considered by the secretariat of the Central Committee, which would have entailed drastic personnel measures, but was transferred to Tashkent for consideration. And soon Ignatiev called Mukhitdinov:

I want to say goodbye to you.

What happened?

With your light hand, the apparatus of the Commissioner has been liquidated. I've already been fired.

Semyon Denisovich, - answered Mukhitdinov, - how long we have been talking, but for the first time I hear that you, it turns out, can tell a lie.

Ignatiev laughed:

I am appointed head of the department of party, trade union and Komsomol organs of the Central Committee.

The ideal, laconic apparatchik liked Malenkov, and he put Ignatiev in the key position of the country's chief personnel officer, which he himself had recently occupied.

For two years, from 1950 to 1952, Ignatiev was in charge of the department of party, trade union and Komsomol personnel of the Central Committee.

"CORRECTION OF OUR MISTAKE"

After Abakumov's arrest, for several weeks the duties of the Minister of State Security were performed by his first deputy Sergei Ivanovich Ogoltsov. Of all the deputies of Abakumov, he gave the impression of the most reasonable and intelligent person. Seemed less than the others to be stained with dirty deeds, until it became known what he was doing.

Ogoltsov, like another deputy minister, Yevgeny Petrovich Pitovranov, was reprimanded for not signaling to the Central Committee about troubles in the work of the ministry.

Stalin did not make Ogoltsov a minister, because he needed not a regular Chekist, but an outsider, fresh blood, a skilled organizer who would force the state security to work at the right pace.

And Pitovranov was soon arrested. On October 29, 1951, at four o'clock in the morning, Sergei Goglidze, who had just been appointed First Deputy Minister of State Security, called him, and Pitovranov understood everything from his tone. He was kept in Lefortovo, he was a prisoner "No. 3". But he was lucky. He managed to please Stalin. Already after the arrest of Abakumov, Stalin's assistant Poskrebyshev called the MGB - Stalin had an urgent question, and no one except Pitovranov was on the spot. He went to Stalin, who was already going to rest in Tskhaltubo. He began to question Pitovranov in detail about the system of work of intelligence and counterintelligence.

He was particularly interested in the system of recruiting agents. He asked how many agents there were. Hearing the answer, I was surprised, why so many? He said that at one time the Bolsheviks had only one agent among the Mensheviks, but such that they knew everything!

Pitovranov spent more than an hour with Stalin. I returned to Lubyanka late at night. He was told that while he was driving, Poskrebyshev called: in the morning, at a quarter to twelve, Pitovranov should be at the Kursk railway station to see Comrade Stalin off. Pitovranov has arrived. The platform is completely empty. At the train is the Minister of Railways Boris Pavlovich Beshchev. Then two cars showed up. In one guard led by Vlasik, in the second - Stalin. He approached the wagon. Pitovranov and Beshchev wished him a happy journey, and the train started.

Remembering this conversation, Pitovranov wrote a letter to Stalin not asking him to pardon him, but with a list of proposals for the reorganization of intelligence and counterintelligence, realizing that such a letter would be reported to the leader. And so it happened. Stalin told Ignatiev:

I think that Pitovranov is an intelligent person. Is he sitting there for nothing? Let's let him out after some time, change his last name and hire him again in the state security agencies.

After that, Pitovranov told reporters, the attitude towards him in prison changed. They began to give him books and put in a cellmate - Lev Romanovich Sheinin, a writer and former head of the investigative department of the Union Prosecutor's Office. Pitovranov, out of professional habit, introduced himself to him as an engineer who worked in Germany and lost important documents ... On November 2, 1952, Pitovranov was brought directly from prison to Ignatiev, who congratulated him on his release and conveyed Stalin's words:

Let's not change Pitovranov's last name. Let's fix our mistake. We will be understood. Let's get some rest for now. It will be needed soon.

Ten days later, Pitovranov was summoned to the Kremlin and put in charge of intelligence. The Chekists were sure that he would become the next minister. After the death of Stalin, Pitovranov lost his high post, but he, the lucky one, unlike most of his colleagues, lived a fairly successful life and died at the eighty-fifth year of his life ...

"REMOVE THE WHITE GLOVES"

The head of the department of party and Komsomol bodies of the Central Committee, Ignatiev, by a special decree of July 11, 1951, was appointed representative of the Central Committee in the Ministry of State Security. In August, he already became a minister.

He became the first head of the state security organs after Menzhinsky, who remained a civilian in this post: he did not receive a title. Ignatiev changed the leadership of the ministry. On Stalin's instructions, he hired two dozen secretaries of regional committees, who received military ranks and headed various units in the MGB apparatus. Material conditions were preserved for them - no worse than those of the secretary of the regional committee, everyone was given apartments in Moscow.

For example, Viktor Ivanovich Alidin, secretary of the Kherson regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, was appointed deputy head of the Seventh Directorate.

In the building of the Central Committee on Staraya Square, where Ignatiev was still sitting, he met the secretary of the Tula regional committee, Serafim Nikolaevich Lyalin, the secretary of the Kirovograd regional committee, Nikolai Romanovich Mironov, and other party workers. Everyone was taken to the MGB.

Ignatiev invited them one by one and brought them up to date:

I select the leading cadres of the ministry, those with whom we will correct the situation. For this reason, you have been called.

As part of the Seventh Directorate of the MGB there was a department of arrests and searches. It consisted of seventeen people. It was headed by Colonel Peter Shepilov. He walked the corridors with a large red-bound book of arrest and search warrants. He was given orders directly by the minister or his deputy for investigation. One of the employees of the department with a strange gleam in his eyes said to Alidin:

I love my job, I like taking people at night.

The key post of deputy minister for personnel was taken by the former first secretary of the Odessa regional committee, Alexei Alekseevich Epishev, who would then head the Main Political Directorate of the Army and Navy for many years. Epishev expelled military counterintelligence officers from the Lubyanka as Abakumov's people.

On May 6, 1952, a reporting and election meeting of the Communists of the Office of Military Counterintelligence was held in the Dzerzhinsky Club. A person who had recently come to the ministry from party work was nominated to the party committee. And then one of the counterintelligence officers said that the Varangians were not needed, there were worthy candidates in the administration.

The next day, Ignatiev gathered the members of the party committee, gloomy and angry. He said:

Before you start solving organizational issues, circumstances force me to express my negative attitude towards the reporting and election meeting that took place yesterday in the central office. As I was informed, the meeting went ugly. Since the defeat of the Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition in the party, nothing like this has happened yet. A group of communists dared to rebel against the party line...

In addition, Epishev zealously began to purge the state security organs of Jews: they were all suspected of complicity in the Zionist conspiracy, headed by Abakumov. At the party conference of the apparatus, Epishev proposed to elect to the party committee such an honored person as new deputy Minister Rumin...

According to General Alidin, Ignatiev was “mild by nature, completely obeyed the requirements of the higher leadership, was especially shy in front of Stalin and unquestioningly carried out any order. That was also dangerous." Ignatiev's gentleness did not extend to the arrested, whom he ordered to be beaten and tortured.

Stalin, appointing him minister, said:

So you, Comrade Ignatiev, reported after checking the work of the MGB about the likelihood of the existence of a terrorist group among doctors. Now you have the cards in hand. We hope that you will reveal this terrorist group.

“Ignatiev,” writes Alidin, “took upon himself the task of working out this dirty business for Stalin, having in his hands only an exposing letter from the doctor of the Central Kremlin Hospital, Lydia Timoshuk ...”

But Ignatiev rushed to follow the leader's instructions. He formed an investigative group that checked the personnel of the Kremlin Medical and Sanitary Directorate and found it "clogged" with anti-Soviet elements.

“Treatment of comrade. Shcherbakov, - Ignatiev reported, - was calculated criminally ... The treatment of Comrade Zhdanov was carried out just as criminally ... The enemy group operating in the Kremlin's Lechsanupra sought to shorten their lives in the treatment of party and government leaders.

This was followed by arrests of doctors and administrative staff. The investigators knocked out the necessary testimony from the professors about the enemy terrorist group. She "was hostile to the party and Soviet power, acted on the instructions of the enemy of the people A. A. Kuznetsov, who, in connection with his enemy plans, was interested in eliminating Comrade Zhdanov."

Personnel changes, the leader's interest in the work of the security agencies caused an attack of enthusiasm in the Lubyanka, the rivalry between the state security units intensified. The main thing was to be the first to inform the authorities about their achievements. Awards and promotions went to those who were in the public eye.

Alidin recalls how they caught an American spy who was supposed to appear on October 25 Street near a well-known pharmacy.

From the pharmacy up to the fourth entrance of the MGB building and further along the corridors to the minister's reception room, where at that moment the head of the Second (counterintelligence) main department of the MGB, Lieutenant General Fedotov, was placed by state security officers. Their task was to ensure that Fedotov was the first to receive a message about the detention and immediately report the success to the minister.

The machine of repressions started to work at high speeds.

The work of the Special Council, which passed sentences in cases where they did not even want to hold a formal court session, was added to the work.

The meetings of the Special Meeting were chaired by one of the Deputy Ministers of State Security. He was handed a draft protocol, which contained brief information about the accused: last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, the wording of the charge and the proposed measure of punishment.

Employees of the local department of state security or the central office briefly reported the case. The accused himself was not summoned to the Special Conference. As a rule, three versions of the speech were passed - execution, ten years in the camps, five years of exile. However, the deputy minister could appoint any measure of punishment.

Filipp Denisovich Bobkov, First Deputy Chairman of the KGB, writes in his memoirs that the new minister, Ignatiev, openly expressed distrust of state security officers. The employees of the ministry were read a directive letter from the Central Committee, which said that the Chekists work poorly, do not notice the terrorist nests, that they have lost their vigilance, work in white gloves, and so on.

Ryumin, who was in charge of the "doctors' case", was instructed by Ignatiev to beat the arrested with "mortal combat".

"Minister of State Security comrade. Ignatiev told us at the meeting that the course of the investigation in the cases that were in our production was assessed by the government as clearly unsatisfactory, and said that it was necessary to “take off the white gloves” and “with caution” resort to beating the arrested, - reported in a report dated 24 March 1953, Colonel Fedotov from the investigative unit for especially important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security. - Saying this, comrade. Ignatiev made it clear that there are instructions from above on this matter. A separate room for beatings was equipped in the inner prison, and a group of prison workers was assigned to carry out torture ...

In February 1953, Comrade Ignatiev, having called me to his place and conveyed comments on the protocol of Vlasik's interrogation presented to Comrade Stalin, suggested applying physical measures of influence to him. At the same time, Comrade Ignatiev stated that Comrade Stalin, having learned that Vlasik had not been beaten, reproached that the investigation “pities his own” ... "

THE FATE OF THE BODYGUARD

Lieutenant General Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was considered one of the most trusted people of the leader. He not only guarded Stalin, but was also responsible for his way of life.

Vlasik was dog-like devoted to Stalin, who awarded him not only the rank of lieutenant general, but also many orders - including the commander's order of Kutuzov, I degree, although Vlasik did not command anything other than the leader's personal guard and was not at the front. Vlasik loved to take pictures, and Pravda published his photographs, which depicted the leader. Vlasik was a powerful man. He even addressed the party elite with "you". Everyone fawned over him.

Svetlana Alliluyeva recalls:

“Vlasik considered himself almost the closest person to his father, and being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, he reached last years to the point that he dictated to some artists the “tastes of Comrade Stalin” - because he believed that he knew and understood them well ...

His arrogance knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether he “liked” whether it was a film, or an opera, or even the silhouettes of high-rise buildings under construction at that time ... "

Vlasik lived merrily, drank and walked at public expense, drove a car to Stalin's dacha for cognac and booze products with cheerful women. He brought women to government dachas, sometimes arranged shooting right at the dinner table - he shot at crystal glasses. He was fooled by trophy property - he collected fourteen cameras, gold watches, rings, jewelry, carpets, crystal in huge quantities. From Germany, he brought a porcelain service for a hundred items. And in his impunity, he went too far.

Apparently, someone carefully drew Stalin's attention to the rampant lifestyle of his chief bodyguard and remarked: is it possible for such an unreliable person who was carried away by personal affairs to entrust the protection of the leader?

But this was not the main reason why Vlasik lost the favor of the leader. Vlasik, like his assistant Poskrebyshev, he considered connected with Beria, they constantly met. And Stalin wanted to cut off Lavrenty Pavlovich from such important sources of information. He understood that Beria was not the kind of person who, when they came to arrest him, would take a toothbrush and allow himself to be taken to Lefortovo. That is why I did not want Lavrenty Pavlovich to have time to prepare for his arrest.

In April 1952, Stalin said that not everything was going well in the Main Security Directorate, and instructed Malenkov to head a commission to check the work of the directorate.

Vlasik was accused of financial omissions - the products allocated for the Politburo were brazenly stolen by numerous servants. Vlasik said in defense that he was illiterate and incapable of understanding financial documents. He was relieved of his post. At the same time, almost the entire leadership of the Main Security Directorate of the Ministry of State Security was dispersed. Minister Ignatiev himself took over the duties of the head of the security department.

To begin with, Vlasik was removed from Moscow - he was sent to the Urals in the city of Asbest as the deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp. In November, he was summoned to Moscow, and on December 16 he was arrested in the “doctors' case”. He was accused of not taking action after receiving Timashuk's letter and covering up the hostile activities of "killer doctors" who plotted against the Politburo and the leader himself.

Zhdanov not only died, but was killed by Abakumov...

Back in 1948, an officer of the security department was arrested - the commandant of the nearby dacha, Lieutenant Colonel I. I. Fedoseev. Now he testified that Vlasik ordered him to poison Stalin. Malenkov was involved in the investigation into the Fedoseev case. He interrogated him himself. Fedoseev was beaten and tortured so that he would give the necessary evidence as soon as possible.

The investigation into the Vlasik case went on for more than two years. In the development of the Ministry of State Security, Vlasik appeared as a participant in a conspiracy to kill Stalin and a member of the British intelligence spy network. Since 1946, the Ministry of State Security has been searching for people associated with British intelligence in the immediate environment of the leader. Ignatiev reported to Stalin that suspicions were falling on Vlasik and Poskrebyshev.

Vlasik was accused in connection with the artist Vladimir Avgustovich Stenberg, who for many years decorated Red Square for all holidays. And he was considered a spy, because until 1933 he was a Swedish subject.

Vlasik was accused of having secret conversations in the presence of Stenberg and even once talking to Stalin in front of him. He allowed his friend to fly security aircraft in Sochi. He showed him photographs, including pictures of Stalin's dacha on Lake Rida. Vlasik kept at home topographic map Caucasus with the stamp "secret", a map of the Moscow region with the same stamp. In addition, at home he kept an intelligence note about the people who lived on Metrostroevskaya Street in Moscow, and a note about the work of the Sochi city department, government train schedules ...

Even worse: Vlasik explained to Stenberg that his friends, with whom he has fun, are actually secret agents of the MGB.

Deputy Minister of State Security Vasily Stepanovich Ryasnoy showed Vlasik an undercover file on Stenberg, saying that there was also material on Vlasik himself. The MGB has already decided to arrest Stenberg and his wife. Vlasik realized that this would greatly compromise him, and went to Minister Ignatiev. He did not quarrel with the Stalinist guard and allowed the case to be sent to the archive, but told Vlasik to talk to Stenberg and explain how he should behave.

Vlasik called Stenberg to him and said:

I have to arrest you, you are a spy. He pointed to the folder in front of him. - Here are collected all the documents for you. They wanted to arrest you and your wife, but my boyfriend interfered in this case.

After that, Vlasik explained to Stenberg who in his entourage was knocking at the MGB.

During interrogations, Vlasik was asked:

What brought you closer to Stenberg?

The rapprochement was on the basis of joint drinking and dating women.

Did you issue passes for passage to Red Square during the parades to your friends and cohabitants?

Yes, I gave out ... But I ask you to take into account that I gave passes only to people whom I knew well.

But you gave a pass to Red Square to a certain Nikolaeva, who was connected with foreign journalists?

I just now realized what I had done by giving her a pass, a crime...

According to Vlasik's daughter, “he was kept in handcuffs all the time and was not allowed to sleep for several days in a row. And when he lost consciousness, they turned on a bright light, and behind the wall they put a record with a heart-rending child's cry on the gramophone.

When Stalin died, interest in Vlasik disappeared. He was tried under article 193–17 of the Criminal Code (“abuse of power, excess of power, inaction of power, neglect of service”), sentenced to ten years in exile in remote areas and deprivation civil rights, deprived of the rank of general and awards and exiled to Krasnoyarsk. But literally six months later, he was pardoned and released from serving his sentence with the removal of a criminal record. But his military rank was not restored.

KILL TITO!

The American researcher of Soviet justice, Peter Solomon, notes that in these years the struggle against acquittals began, but it was called the struggle against unjustified prosecution.

Judges who allowed too many acquittals were dismissed from office. Prosecutors and investigators got it if the cases were returned for additional investigation or if the persons arrested by them were later released. Therefore, the judges tried to pass the most severe sentence.

Lieutenant-General of State Security Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov writes in his memoirs that, meeting with Ignatiev, he was always amazed at how incompetent this person was. Each secret message was perceived by the minister as the discovery of America.

Minister of State Security Ignatiev and Minister of the Armed Forces Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky approved a plan of action against NATO and American military bases. The first blow was supposed to be inflicted on NATO headquarters.

Ignatiev ordered Sudoplatov along with military intelligence prepare a plan for sabotage operations on American military bases in case of war. Ignatiev and his deputies wanted to liquidate the heads of emigrant groups in Germany and Paris in order to report high-profile cases to Stalin. They ordered the residencies to intensify their penetration into the Menshevik organizations, considering them the main enemy...

In 1952, a crazy idea arose to kill the former chairman of the Provisional Government, Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky, who was going to form the "Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations." Then they decided to leave the elderly Kerensky, who did not enjoy any influence, in peace.

Ignatiev discussed with his deputies the idea of ​​destroying the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who dared to oppose Stalin. In the Soviet press, he was called "Tito's bloody dog."

It was proposed to entrust this to the Soviet illegal immigrant Iosif Romuyaldovich Grigulevich, the ambassador of Costa Rica in Italy and concurrently in Yugoslavia. He had to either shoot Tito or infect him with pneumonic plague. But the plan was rejected as fantastic. This saved the life of not only the Yugoslav leader, but also Grigulevich. He returned to Moscow, took up science, wrote several books and was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.

In October 1952, as a sign of special confidence, Ignatiev was introduced to the Presidium of the Central Committee. Of all his predecessors as chief of state security, only Beria rose to the party Olympus.

STRANGE STORY OF ZHDANOV'S DEATH

Lidia Feodosyevna Timashuk received a medical degree in 1926, and at the same time she was taken to the medical and sanitary department of the Kremlin. In 1948, she was in charge of the electrocardiography room of the Kremlin Hospital, which was then located in a well-known building on Granovsky Street.

The name of this woman is associated with one grandiose intrigue, the true meaning of which is still not completely clear. With her letter to the Central Committee in 1952, the so-called “Doctors' Plot” began. But what was the true meaning of this infamous case? And did Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov, the second person after Stalin in the country and in the party, die of natural causes?

At the end of the summer of 1948, the Politburo decided to send Zhdanov on vacation: he felt very unwell. Zhdanov went to Valdai, but this did not help him. He had an acute heart attack.

From Moscow, from the medical and sanitary department of the Kremlin, the best doctors were called. They examined a high-ranking patient, made an electrocardiogram, but did not find anything dangerous and advised Zhdanov to take more walks in the fresh air. The cardiographer Lidia Timashuk disagreed with the Kremlin luminaries, who, along with the equipment, was taken to Valdai by a special plane.

She diagnosed "myocardial infarction in the anterior wall of the left ventricle and interventricular septum." But the doctors who examined Zhdanov told her that the diagnosis was erroneous, that Zhdanov did not have a heart attack, and ordered her to rewrite the conclusion.

Lydia Timashuk did not defend her case in medical discussions with fellow doctors, but filed a complaint with the person who cared about the life and health of all members of the Politburo, the head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik.

On August 29, 1948, Timashuk wrote a letter to him and handed it over through the major of state security, a security officer attached to Zhdanov. “I think that the consultants and the attending physician underestimate the undeniably grave condition of A. A. Zhdanov, allowing him to get out of bed, walk in the park, go to the cinema, which caused a second attack and could lead to a fatal outcome in the future,” wrote Timashuk.

Zhdanov's condition was reported to the Kremlin every day by telegraph.

On August 29, Zhdanov had another seizure. Timashuk was again taken from Moscow to Valdai, but they did not take a cardiogram. On the same day, according to her, "the patient got up and went to the restroom, where he again had a severe attack of heart failure, followed by pulmonary edema, a sharp expansion of the heart, which led the patient to premature death." Zhdanov died on August 30.

And on September 7, Timashuk wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Alexei Alexandrovich Kuznetsov. This time she wrote quite definitely. An electrocardiogram showed that Zhdanov had suffered a myocardial infarction. But the doctors did not agree with her diagnosis, Zhdanov "was not created a particularly strict bed rest, which is necessary for a patient who had a myocardial infarction, he continued to receive a general massage, was allowed to walk in the park, watch movies."

Subsequently, historians will try to understand the motives for such persistence of Lydia Feodosyevna. Some will see this as a desire to settle scores with colleagues, others as a desire to absolve themselves of responsibility for failing to provide proper medical care to a member of the Politburo. She was afraid that they would want to punish one of the doctors for the death of Zhdanov, and did not want to be among them.

The autopsy results confirmed that Timashuk was right. The head of the Main Directorate of Security, General Vlasik, reported Timashuk's letter to Stalin, who sent a message to the archive: Zhdanov's death suited him perfectly.

Then Vlasik forwarded Timashuk's letter to her boss and his friend Pyotr Ivanovich Yegorov, who since 1947 headed the medical and sanitary department of the Kremlin. The leadership of the medical and sanitary department of the Kremlin was dissatisfied with Timashuk's complaints. She was transferred to a branch of the hospital. This story seemed to be forgotten.

But almost simultaneously, a new political case is being started, in which the name of Zhdanov will soon come up.

On November 20, 1948, the Politburo instructed the Ministry of State Security to “immediately dissolve the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee ... close the press organs of this committee, take away the affairs of the committee. For now, don't arrest anyone." Arrests will begin in 1952. Then Timashuk will be needed.

She was remembered in August 1952. Her letter was not lost: the department of state security always had a wonderful file cabinet. Timashuk's letter was taken out of the archive, and it formed the basis of the "killer doctors" case.

She was summoned to the investigation unit for particularly important cases of the Ministry of State Security and asked to describe in detail the circumstances of Zhdanov's death. She was interrogated several times, and on January 20, 1953, Secretary of the Central Committee Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov invited her to his Kremlin and thanked her for her vigilance on behalf of Comrade Stalin and the Soviet government.

The next day, January 21, on the next anniversary of the death of V. I. Lenin, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published in the central newspapers: “For the assistance rendered to the Government in exposing the killer doctors, award the doctor Timashuk Lydia Feodosyevna with the Order of Lenin.”

Almost until Stalin's death, all newspapers will write about the patriotic doctor. In one day, she became the most popular person in the country.

In the meantime, everyone who treated Zhdanov was arrested: Yegorov, head of the medical department of the Kremlin, academician Vladimir Nikitovich Vinogradov, who since 1934 had been in charge of the therapeutic department of the Kremlin hospital, professor-consultant of the hospital Vladimir Kharitonovich Vasilenko, attending physician Gavriil Ivanovich Mayorov.

Several other famous doctors were also arrested. Everyone was accused of killing Soviet leaders on the instructions of foreign intelligence services by means of wrecking, improper treatment.

Timashuk's letter turned out to be the reason for the start of an all-Union campaign to identify killers in white coats - savage doctors. The case immediately took on an anti-Semitic character, since most of those arrested were Jews. The country was engulfed in real hysteria. People refused to be treated, to take medicines. Every doctor was under suspicion.

In the Soviet representation in Paris, the embassy doctor was put under House arrest, although her husband was a state security officer. And then, as luck would have it, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Andreevich Gromyko, who was passing through Paris, fell ill. I had to call the doctor anyway. She examined the patient - flu. She handed Gromyko the medicine. The future minister sharply removed her hand:

I won't take your medicine!

Academician Boris Vasilyevich Petrovsky, one of the largest Soviet surgeons, recalls that on the day when the message about the “killer doctors” appeared, he gathered fellow surgeons and they decided to cancel all operations scheduled for that day. In the wards, the patients heatedly discussed the TASS report.

Petrovsky told the patients that there were no pests in the team, however, given what was happening, it was decided to cancel the operations. The patients answered firmly:

We believe in you and ask you not to cancel the operation.

Two days later, Petrovsky received a call from the Central Committee. The instructor read a letter from a worker whom Petrovsky had successfully operated on for stomach cancer three years earlier. The worker wrote: “Apparently, Professor Petrovsky is also a pest. He sewed up some kind of tumor under my skin during the operation.

The instructor of the Central Committee asked to receive the worker and talk to him. Petrovsky examined the patient: everything was in order, at the place of intersection, and then fusion of the costal cartilage, a slight induration was felt. Petrovsky explained to him what was happening, and suggested that a small operation be performed to eliminate the induration.

The next morning, the patient ended up in Petrovsky's office with a bruise under his eye: it was in the ward, when he told his story, he was thus expressed his attitude towards the scammers.

Petrovsky in the Central Committee was asked to urgently leave for Ryazan as part of the commission. The secretary of the regional committee, Alexei Nikolaevich Larionov, called the Central Committee and asked to send a commission to investigate the "crimes of surgeons." A group of doctors arrived in Ryazan. They stopped at the Collective Farmer's House and took a trolley bus to the regional committee. Elderly women sat nearby. One told the others:

And Zhmur stabbed the patient again yesterday!

Petrovsky knew very well the surgeon V. A. Zhmur, a student of Academician Bakulev.

In the regional committee, Larionov said that four heads of departments of the Ryazan Medical Institute were engaged in sabotage - professors V. A. Zhmur, M. A. Egorov, B. P. Kirillov and I. L. Fraerman. Moreover, at the initiative of the regional committee, Yegorov has already been arrested. The rest are next.

Petrovsky began to talk with the Ryazan doctors. Very quickly, he had a suspicion that all four surgeons were the victim of a denunciation, and the informer was a certain doctor who worked for each of these professors and was expelled from everywhere as a bad surgeon. Then he got a job in the regional committee clinic, closer to the authorities, and began to settle scores with offenders.

For two weeks, Petrovsky examined the work of Ryazan surgeons and came to the conclusion that they are excellent specialists who work in very difficult conditions - there are no medicines, instruments, suture material.

The experienced Petrovsky introduced the likely complainant to the commission, which signed the conclusion. The results of the commission's work were considered at the bureau of the regional committee. It started at three in the morning.

The secretary of the regional committee, Larionov, was extremely dissatisfied when he heard that there was no corpus delicti in the actions of the doctors, and the city authorities, on the contrary, did not pay attention to medicine. Larionov interrupted Petrovsky:

But we have other information. We know that professors Kirillov and Zhmur operate poorly. Because of them, a woman - a member of the party - who, after a poorly performed operation, died of metastases of breast cancer, suffered.

This incident was known to Petrovsky. He said that the cancer was very advanced and the sad outcome could not be prevented. Petrovsky asked for the name of the doctor who informs the regional committee. Larionov unwillingly named the name. Then Petrovsky said indignantly:

Obviously, you do not know that this doctor was included in our commission and signed the act that I just announced? It is impossible to call the behavior of this, if I may say so, doctor otherwise than double-dealing.

Larionov, with a threat in his voice, said that the regional committee would sort everything out. When we went back in the car, the driver turned on the radio, and everyone heard a message about Stalin's illness, that his condition was serious, there was no consciousness and there was Cheyne-Stokes breathing.

The driver asked what these symptoms meant. Petrovsky replied:

This is the end…

The first secretary of the Ryazan regional committee, Larionov, will distinguish himself once again. When Khrushchev promised in May 1957 to "catch up and overtake America in per capita meat, milk and butter production," he ordered more meat supplies to feed the country. Larionov promised to increase the production of meat in collective farms and state farms by 3.8 times. And he kept his promise! Nikita Sergeevich admired Larionov, in 1959 he presented him with the “Gold Star” of the Hero of Socialist Labor, invited him to work in the Central Committee, although he could not help but understand that the laws of biology do not allow almost four times to increase production in one year.

And then it turned out that Larionov went on a scam: people were forced to transfer personal livestock to collective farms and state farms. Since there was no fodder, the cattle were simply put under the knife. In addition, Larionov's messengers bought up cattle in neighboring regions and sent them to slaughter. When this came to light, Larionov put a bullet in his forehead ... Other first secretaries did something similar, as a result, irreparable damage was caused to the country's agriculture.

Happiness Timashuk was also short-lived. After Stalin's death, all these affairs crumbled.

On April 3, 1953, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU canceled the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding Timashuk "as incorrect, in connection with the actual circumstances that have now come to light." At the same meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, it was decided to terminate the legal proceedings in the case of "killer doctors" as fabricated and to release from custody the rehabilitation of 37 accused in this case.

On April 4, newspapers published a message about the deprivation of the order of Lydia Timashuk. Two days later, a message appeared that the former Minister of State Security, Ignatiev, was personally guilty of the story with the doctors. Many breathed a sigh of relief.

Korney Chukovsky recorded in those days in his diary a conversation with the wife of the classic of Soviet literature Leonid Leonov, Tatyana Mikhailovna. She said that it was impossible to go to the doctors:

You understand, when doctors were declared poisoners... There was no trust in pharmacies, especially in the Kremlin pharmacy: what if all medicines are poisoned!

Chukovsky stunnedly wrote down: “It turns out that there were even people in the literary environment who believed that doctors were poisoners !!!”

And yet it remains a mystery: why were the best doctors in the country unable to give Zhdanov the correct diagnosis?

Andrey Zhdanov was the second person in the country. It is believed that he pushed back Malenkov and Beria. But after his death, they took revenge. They imprisoned Abakumov and staged a "Leningrad case" to destroy all Zhdanov's henchmen. That's how it's supposed to be thought.

In reality, everything was different. The destruction of the Leningrad party workers was not at all the result of a competitive struggle within the apparatus, although many were probably glad that high seats were vacated. The "Leningrad case" was being prepared during Zhdanov's lifetime. And under certain conditions, Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov himself would be the main defendant in the "Leningrad case".

His time ended before his earthly term expired. In the memoirs of Dmitry Trofimovich Shepilov, then head of the propaganda and agitation department of the Central Committee, a meeting of the Politburo is described, where Stalin sharply attacked Zhdanov.

But Stalin, apparently, did not want to touch Zhdanov, because all post-war ideological actions were associated with his name. If he is imprisoned, then loud decisions about literature, music, cinema should be thrown into the basket.

Zhdanov ceased to be needed by Stalin and even interfered. According to historians, there is reason to believe that Zhdanov was helped to leave this world.

He was a very sick man. The same Shepilov recalls that Zhdanov felt very unwell, came to meetings of the Politburo with difficulty, fainted. And the face of a dead man. But the question of whether Zhdanov should go on vacation and where exactly he should go to rest was decided not by doctors, but by the Politburo.

Various options were offered as to where he should go. At Stalin's suggestion, he was sent to Valdai. Although if he is so sick, why not put him in the hospital? As for Valdai, now many doctors say that this place is unfavorable for heart patients.

Shepilov told Zhdanov:

You need to go to the hospital immediately!

Zhdanov answered him:

No, the Politburo decided that I should go to Valdai. Comrade Stalin said that there is very good air for cores.

Stalin admonished doctors:

You take him for walks more often. And he's overweight...

There are no witnesses who could tell the true circumstances of Zhdanov's death. The first to hang himself seven days after Zhdanov's death was his housekeeper. Then the attending physician was destroyed, who did the autopsy together with Professor Vinogradov. In 1951, the commandant of the state dacha, where Zhdanov died, shot himself. Two bullet holes were found in his skull...

YOUTH IN MGB

The last years, and especially the last months of his life, Stalin was more concerned with the affairs of the Ministry of State Security than with the affairs of the Central Committee of the Party or the Council of Ministers. The investigators of the MGB, the Minister of State Security came to Stalin almost every day. A huge country fell into poverty, the village was starving, and his now senile mind closed in on conspiracies and intrigues.

General Alidin recalls that Stalin suddenly became interested in the work of the external intelligence of the MGB (this is surveillance and surveillance of suspects). The leader instructed to prepare this issue for consideration at the Presidium of the Central Committee. The Seventh Directorate did not play such a significant role in the activities of the Ministry of State Security, but Stalin's instructions are law.

The ministry prepared memorandums and a draft resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee "On the state and measures to improve the activity of external intelligence of the USSR Ministry of State Security." All these Documents were sent to the Party Central Committee. There, according to the hardware rules, a commission was formed. She met several times, preparing a report to Stalin, but the leader did not have time to study the work of the toptuns, because he died ...

Several major cases were being prepared at once, which they planned to end with public trials, as in the 30s.

Before Stalin's death, in early 1953, a decision was made to increase the number of places in the camps and prisons. The Ministry of Railways was ordered to prepare for the transfer a large number prisoners.

The Ministry of State Security under Abakumov, and then under Ignatiev, collected materials on Marshal Zhukov. They imprisoned all of Zhukov's entourage, from drivers to close generals.

Anyone could fall into disgrace. Stalin did not have eternal attachments. On March 25, 1942, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On the NKPS".

It said that the People's Commissar of Railways Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich "could not cope with the work in wartime conditions", and he was relieved of the post of People's Commissar. He remained a member of the Politburo, a member of the State Defense Committee, deputy head of the government, but this did not mean anything.

Stalin sent him to the small post of head of the political department of the North Caucasian Front. From there, he wrote servile letters to Stalin, reminding him of himself, asking him to send "some materials so that I would be at least a little aware and not so out of touch."

But the fall was short-lived. Lucky Kaganovich. In 1943, Stalin returned him to Moscow and reappointed him People's Commissar...

Molotov, Mikoyan and Voroshilov were credited as foreign spies. After Stalin's death, they will rhetorically ask: how could it have occurred to him to call them spies? But they themselves called their comrades in the Politburo Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev agents of foreign intelligence. Why did they, knowing the leader, think that this cup would pass them by?

In 1960, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Voroshilov, on behalf of Khrushchev, talked with Vasily Stalin. Voroshilov scolded Vasily for alcoholism. He spoke about the elder Stalin:

In recent years, your father was very strange, he asked me how I was doing with the British. Called me an English spy...

Had Stalin lived longer, Molotov and the others would also have been on the next list to be shot. But even earlier, Stalin was going to deal with Beria. Of all his entourage, he was afraid of Lavrenty Pavlovich, a decisive and adventurous person who had no illusions.

Stalin did not tolerate ties between his close associates. All the top leaders of the country were eavesdropped, including the Minister of State Security. One careless conversation could cost a career and a life. Beria knew this better than others. Ignatiev later recalled that Beria in conversations got off with monosyllabic phrases, he was afraid to say an extra word.

In the last months of his life, Stalin changed all the servants and guards at the dacha in Volynskoe. Now he believed that his guards were not connected either with Beria or with any of the former heads of state security. Instead of Abakumov, he appointed party apparatchik Semyon Ignatiev, a stranger to the Chekists, as the new minister.

The investigative unit of the Ministry of State Security for especially important cases was formed from completely new people, young party workers.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Mesyatsev was appointed assistant to the head of the investigative unit. During the war, he served in SMERSH, after the war he worked in the Komsomol, then he entered the Academy of Social Sciences, but from the first year he was called for a second time to work in the state security agencies.

Months said:

Somewhere in the beginning of 1953, we, three workers from the Komsomol, were invited to the Central Committee. Malenkov talked to each one separately. I rode in Ostankino on the skating rink, I went up to the house - there is this healthy convertible in which members of the Politburo ride. Who do I think it's for? It turned out behind me: “Comrade Malenkov is waiting for you, you urgently need to go.” I went up to the secretary floor to Malenkov, in his office the secretary of the Central Committee Averky Borisovich Aristov and the Minister of State Security Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev. I introduced myself, Malenkov left the table, said hello; “Nikolai Nikolayevich, we have decided to ask you to come to work in the investigation department of the MGB on especially important cases. You have experience behind you, you are a professional lawyer - help Semyon Denisovich figure it out.” Like snow on your head. I didn't think to return. I already have a different path in life. So what do you say? I say: I agree. Went to Ignatiev. We agreed that I would carefully read the reports that were drawn up on the basis of the interrogation protocols in the “doctors' case” and in the case of Abakumov. When I started reading, my hair stood on end.

The investigator took the medical history, for example, of the same chairman of the party control commission, Andreev, and read it carefully. Well, which of the investigators is a specialist in the field of the ear, throat, nose? The result is clear. Andreev, who had a severe earache, was given a small dose of opium to alleviate the pain. So the investigator attributed to the attending physician that he accustomed a member of the Politburo to opium and drove him to madness. It was clear that it was a fake.

When Stalin died, the doctors were immediately released by Beria, who took the place of Ignatiev. Ignatiev had a heart attack, he was admitted to the hospital.

I asked Mesyatsev:

What kind of person was Ignatiev?

To work in the organs is a vocation, as in any business. If I make boots, I must love it and do it well. I am the last authority, I decide whether to put a person in jail or not. And I think that softness, insufficient firmness towards his comrades in the Presidium of the Central Committee prompted Ignatiev to lean towards illegal actions ...

With the youth from the MGB, Stalin worked like a good professor with promising graduate students. He invited me to his dacha and explained what and how to do. He edited the documents himself, told how to draw up an indictment. Sat with investigators for hours. He himself figured out what questions investigators should ask their victims during interrogations. He himself decided who and when to arrest, in which prison to keep. And of course, determined the verdict.

It can be said that Stalin performed on a voluntary basis the duties of the head of the investigative unit for especially important cases of the Ministry of State Security. He took care of the youth, which he gathered in the MGB. On his instructions, the new investigators were provided with nomenklatura benefits that were bestowed on high-ranking officials, for example, they were attached to the medical and sanitary department of the Kremlin, although this was not supposed to be their position.

Black cash, the distribution of money in envelopes, secretly, was not invented under Yeltsin. Stalin himself came up with this when all the top officials were given a second salary in envelopes, with which not only taxes were not paid, but also party dues ...

Stalin, in order to please the Chekists, decided to reintroduce special ranks for state security officers. On August 21, 1952, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR appeared, from all the lieutenants, captains, majors and colonels of the MGB added the words "state security" to the military rank.

The "doctors' cause", successfully launched by Stalin with the help of Lydia Timashuk, was part of a global plan. It was supposed to hold several trials, where all the defendants would confess that they were American spies and terrorists.

The trial of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee had to be closed by the Ministry of State Security. Those accused of spies did not recognize themselves. It was 1952.

All the defendants were Jews: actor Veniamin Zuskin, academician Lina Stern, writers Perets Markish, Lev Kvitko, Semyon Galkin, David Gofshtein, chief doctor of the Botkin hospital Boris Shimeliovich, former member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Solomon Lozovsky ... It was an ethnic trial. They were judged not for the crime, but for the origin.

The verdict in the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created in 1941 to fight Nazism, was supposed to show that all Jews are American spies and work for overseas masters. But the process failed.

During perestroika times, the archives were opened and 42 volumes of the investigative file and 8 volumes of the transcript of the court session were declassified. The writer Alexander Mikhailovich Borschagovsky, who studied them, wrote a book about the process “Blood is Accused”.

Lieutenant-General of Justice Cheptsov, who presided over the trial, quickly and without hesitation handed down death sentences in cases prepared by investigators from the Ministry of State Security. In 1950, he sentenced Miriam Zheleznova (Eisenstadt) and Samuil Persov to death for espionage and treason. Then the general was quite satisfied with the "proof" of their guilt - articles sent abroad about the Moscow Automobile Plant named after I.V. Stalin, essays about Jews - Heroes Soviet Union.

But when, by decision of the Central Committee, a two-month trial was arranged over the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, with detailed interrogations of the accused, the case collapsed. And General Cheptsov saw it first. He, writes Borshchagovsky, even imbued with respect for the defendants.

The actors, writers, doctors sitting on the dock did not participate in the preparation of terrorist acts against Comrade Stalin, did not engage in espionage and betrayal, and did not even conduct anti-Soviet propaganda.

Lieutenant-General Cheptsov recognized only one crime for his defendants. He convicted them of their desire to write in their native language, publish books in Yiddish, preserve monuments of national culture, preserve their theater and stage old plays in it. General Cheptsov reproached one of the defendants:

Why would a communist, writer, Marxist, progressive Jewish intellectual need to get in touch with priests, rabbis, obscurantists, advise them about preaching, about matzoh, about prayer books, about kosher meat?

The authorities demanded complete assimilation from the Jews, as they now demand from Russians in the republics of the former USSR. An illiterate investigator, seeing that the writer Abram Kogan corrects errors in the text of his own interrogation, beat him up: he knows, scoundrel, Russian, but writes in Hebrew! Concern for national culture was recognized as harmful and unpatriotic. But the general and his assessors did not want to shoot for this.

Risking his party card, his career, and perhaps even his life, General Cheptsov asked the Central Committee for permission to return the case for further investigation.

But Georgy Malenkov, a member of the Politburo, did not allow this to be done: “You want to put us on our knees before these criminals, the sentence in this case has been approved by the people, the Politburo dealt with this case three times, follow the decision of the Politburo.” And the defendants were shot a few months before their death Stalin. If the case had been sent for further investigation, they would have been saved.

The most devoted to the regime people were subject to eradication. Almost simultaneously with Borschagovsky's book, memoirs were published in the USA former general KGB Pavel Sudoplatov. In the chapter on Soviet atomic espionage, he mentions intelligence officer Grigory Kheyfets, who skillfully recruited Americans. Returning to Moscow, Kheifetz was appointed Deputy Executive Secretary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee with instructions to report everything to the Ministry of State Security.

In the summer of 1948, Kheifetz compiled lists of Jews who came to the anti-fascist committee and asked to be sent as volunteers to Palestine - to fight against the Arab reactionaries, who were then branded by the Soviet press. He handed over the lists to the Ministry of State Security for "taking measures."

The Kheyfets case was singled out as a separate proceeding, instead of the execution of 25 years in the camps ...

Despite the torture and humiliation, these far from young and not very healthy people showed an example of fortitude and courage. Alexander Borschagovsky: “If not for the bullet in the finale, not for the blood, one could rejoice at the courage of those under investigation…”

On January 13, 1953, Pravda and Izvestia reported on the discovery of a "conspiracy of Kremlin doctors."

In the last months before Stalin's death, the investigation into the "doctors' case" assumed a hectic character. This suggests that some date for an open trial has been set. To the arrested Professor Rappoport, the investigator said with professional resentment in his voice:

Well, why are you giving such evidence? With them, you can not go to an open process!

The MGB investigators hurried with the doctors: it was more necessary to get information about what kind of intelligence they worked for.

At the trial, the defendants had to confess in connection with Molotov and Mikoyan, who were doomed. After the verdict, public executions were planned. Bulganin later told the son of Professor Etinger that the convicts were going to be executed right on Red Square.

Bulganin spoke about the fact that the Jews were supposed to be expelled from large cities, and these freight trains were planned to be attacked by "indignant crowds."

True, it is impossible to say for sure whether Stalin really intended to expel all Jews, as he had already done with some peoples. Many historians say: there are no such documents. There are no instructions of Joseph Vissarionovich fixed on paper.

And right. Stalin avoided autographing dubious documents. He preferred to either answer orally, or write a resolution on a separate piece of paper, which was pinned to the document. He thought that the sheet would then be thrown away, and the document would always be kept. And I was wrong. With all his experience, knowledge of office work, all this apparatus life, he did not realize that no one, and even more so Malenkov, would not dare to throw away a sheet of paper with Stalin's words. That is why some of his resolutions still survived.

Professor Naumov believes that it is necessary to continue work in the archives. The mere decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee in January 1953 to build new camps for 150-200 thousand people speaks volumes. For whom were they intended?.. The decision of the presidium said that for "particularly dangerous foreign criminals." There were not so many foreigners in the country!

It is known that a letter was prepared as a justification for the expulsion of Jews, which were to be signed by prominent Jews. The final text was never prepared, but several variants were found, the differences between which are of a stylistic nature Under one of them, signatures have already begun to be collected, and many managed to sign it:

"To all the Jews of the Soviet Union

You all know very well that recently the organs of state security exposed a group of wrecking doctors, spies and traitors... Among a significant part of the Soviet population, the monstrous atrocities of murderous doctors naturally aroused hostility towards the Jews. Shame fell on the head of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.

Among the great Russian people, the criminal actions of a gang of murderers and spies aroused particular indignation. After all, it was the Russian people who saved the Jews from complete annihilation by the Nazi invaders ...

That is why we fully approve of the fair measures of the party and government aimed at the development of the expanses of Eastern Siberia, the Far East and the Far North by the Jews. Only by honest, selfless work will Jews be able to prove their devotion to the Motherland, to the great and beloved comrade Stalin and to the entire Soviet people.

Academician Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov recalled how in early 1953 he dined in the canteen for the leaders of the atomic project. Dining nearby was Kurchatov and Nikolai Ivanovich Pavlov, a state security general who worked in the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers, which was engaged in the creation of nuclear weapons.

At that moment, the radio broadcast that a bomb had been thrown at the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv in protest against the anti-Semitic campaign in the Soviet Union.

“And then I saw,” writes Sakharov, “that Pavlov’s handsome face suddenly lit up with some kind of triumph.

That's what they are - the Jews! he exclaimed. - Both here and there they harm us. But now we'll show them."

Academician Igor Evgenievich Tamm presented Pavlov with a list of talented youth. General Pavlov told him:

What's wrong with all the Jews! You give us mermaids, let's mermaids!

A second trial was also being prepared for an officer of the Kremlin guard, who allegedly came into contact with the Americans.

General Alidin recalls that at the beginning of 1952, Zhuravlev, an employee of the Security Directorate, allegedly let slip about his intention to kill Stalin. He immediately disappeared. They searched for him and found him in an apartment on the Arbat. Stalin passed by this house every day.

Everything was going to bring serious accusations against the United States. Not only in interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, but also in the preparation of terrorist acts against Stalin and other leaders of the country. In particular, the accusation was made that from the windows of the American embassy on Manezhnaya Square they were going to fire at the Kremlin when Stalin and others gathered there.

The American ambassador was effectively declared persona non grata. He went on vacation, but could not return: he was not allowed to go to Moscow. The embassy was beheaded. They demanded that two embassy employees be handed over to Soviet justice. The Americans recalled that they lived in Moscow as in a besieged fortress, they had the feeling that they could be arrested at any moment.

Soviet people imagined foreign spies at every turn. Khrushchev's son-in-law Aleksey Ivanovich Adzhubey recalled how in the summer of 1952 he and the first secretary of the Belarusian Komsomol Pyotr Mironovich Masherov, Hero of the Soviet Union, a partisan, were sent to Austria to attend a rally of youth in defense of peace. In Vienna, they saw CIA agents everywhere. Masherov, barely moving his lips, said to Adjubey:

This is a spy, remember him, Alexey, we cover our tracks ...

Professor Naumov:

Those arrested in 1950 recalled that the staircase in Lefortovo, which led to the investigation building, where interrogations took place, was so worn out that it was impossible to walk in the middle, they pressed against the wall. And it was impossible to close the prison for repairs: the flow of new arrests was continuous ...

Stalin was about to repeat the great purge of 1937. Then they were looking for German spies, now American ones. Historians cannot agree on the extent to which Stalin was seized with senile paranoia, and to what extent he was guided by a cynical calculation, declaring from time to time one of the top leaders guilty of all the problems of the country.

I have already quoted the memoirs of the writer Kornely Lutsianovich Zelinsky about his conversations with Fadeev. Once Fadeev was summoned by Stalin after the war:

Listen, Comrade Fadeev, you must help us. You are not doing anything to really help the state in the fight against enemies. We have given you the high-profile title of "Secretary General of the Union of Writers of the USSR", but you do not know that you are surrounded by major international spies.

And who are these spies?

Stalin smiled one of those smiles of his, from which some people fainted and which, as Fadeev knew, did not bode well.

Why should I tell you the names of these spies when you should have known them? But if you are already such a weak person, Comrade Fadeev, then I will tell you in which direction we should look and in what way you should help us. First, a major spy is your closest friend Pavlenko. Secondly, you know perfectly well that Ilya Ehrenburg is an international spy. And finally, thirdly, didn't you know that Alexei Tolstoy was an English spy? Why, I ask you, are you silent about this? Why didn't you give us any signal?

Stalin wanted to repeat the scheme that, from his point of view, ensured his success in the 1937 purge. How did he act then? He replaced the personnel security officer Yagoda with the secretary of the Central Committee Yezhov, cleared the state security apparatus of old workers and sent professional party employees there. And the people who were arrested were considered German spies, because the people felt threatened by Germany.

Now Chekist Abakumov has been replaced by the head of the department of the Central Committee of the CPSU Ignatiev, the party and Komsomol youth have been mobilized to the Ministry of State Security. Those arrested were called American spies. But since the mood in society in 1952 was different from what it was in 1937, open trials were needed. They would have raised the heat of hatred in the country, created the necessary background for a mass purge.

But Stalin did not have time to carry them out ...

THREE VERSIONS OF STALIN'S DEATH

On that March day, at the body of the leader, Vasily Stalin was the first to shout that his father had been killed. He wasn't the only one who thought so.

Stalin, even in his old age, seemed to be a strong man. And nothing foreshadowed an unexpected death, although in recent years he was constantly ill. He, judging by the surviving documents, had two strokes. But it was impossible to talk about it.

When he didn't feel well, he wouldn't let anyone near him. He was sick in the south. During the second stroke, Beria wanted to come to visit him, Stalin forbade it.

Not only did he not need purely human sympathy, but he did not want anyone to know about his ailments. His illnesses were a terrible state secret. Everyone thought that the leader was healthy and working. Works even on vacation.

This man, about whom the Soviet newspapers wrote every day, made sure that his compatriots knew only what they were allowed to know about him.

The same secret was Stalin's personal life and state of health. Before the war he was a healthy man. Only often had the flu and a sore throat.

Someone cleaned up Stalin's personal fund, which was kept in the archives of the Politburo, and there is no complete medical history. There are separate pages that were kept in sealed envelopes. Records of doctors were found about endless colds, tonsillitis, diarrhea that tormented Stalin (sometimes he literally could not go far from the toilet). But not a word about cardiovascular diseases. The leader complained to others about headaches, which is natural for a hypertensive patient, and there are no medical records of complaints.

After the war, he began to get sick seriously - high pressure, atherosclerosis. After the war, he spent three or four months in the south every year. He usually returned by December 21st, his birthday. There, in the south, away from people, he was treated. The results of the tests that were taken from him have been preserved. Only referrals were issued to a different name, usually the guard who brought them. In 1952, all analyzes were recorded on his chief bodyguard Khrustalev.

Professor Naumov:

When they say that Stalin did not care about his health, drove doctors and Poskrebyshev treated him, this is not true. Poskrebyshev was responsible for inviting doctors. And he was the first to swallow all the pills that were prescribed to Stalin! ..

Doesn't this medieval method of avoiding poisoning indicate that Stalin was very afraid for his life?

Stalin was afraid, like everyone else in his empire. He was afraid of assassination attempts, he was afraid that he would be poisoned. He existed in the world of criminals. If he killed, then why couldn't they kill him? He was in no hurry to treat himself to something at his dacha at the table. Every dish had to be tasted by someone. It was believed that this is a manifestation of concern for the guest ...

The former general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary, Matthias Rakosi, who lived in the Soviet Union for many years, recalls that Stalin usually dined in the company of members of the Politburo:

“Food and drinks were placed on a large table, and everyone served himself, including Stalin, who curiously lifted the lids of the dishes and drew my attention to this or that dish. Stalin even drank in the evenings.

I often observed how, from a long glass not suitable for champagne, he drank red Tsimlyansk wine or champagne in small sips. But this process with Stalin was similar to how he smoked, spending much more time on printing Herzegovina cigarettes, stuffing a pipe and constantly lighting it, than on the process of smoking itself ...

The atmosphere at such dinners was relaxed, jokes were told, often even greasy, to the loud laughter of those present ...

When, after three o'clock in the morning, Stalin left the room, I remarked to the members of the Politburo:

Stalin is already seventy-three years old, do such dinners, dragging on until late at night, harm him?

The comrades reassured me, saying that Stalin knows when to stop. Indeed, Stalin returned, but a few minutes later he got up, and the company began to disperse.

Nikita Khrushchev described in his memoirs how Stalin met his last New Year at the "near" cottage:

Stalin was in good mood, so he drank a lot and forced others. Then he went to the radio and started playing records. We listened to orchestral music, Russian songs, Georgian. Then he put on dance music and everyone started dancing.

We had a “recognized” dancer - Mikoyan, but any of his dances looked like one another, both Russian and Caucasian, and they all originated from the Lezginka. Then Voroshilov picked up the dance, followed by others. Personally, as they say, I did not move my legs. Bulganin stomped out something Russian to the beat. Stalin also moved his feet and spread his arms. I would say that the general mood was good.

Then Svetlana appeared. A sober young woman arrived, and her father immediately forced her to dance. The daughter began to become stubborn, and father Stalin pulled her hair with all his heart.

Two months later, the leader died.

The Ministry of State Security in those March days compiled reports on the mood in connection with Stalin's illness. The report on the mood in the army, dated March 5, 1953, has been declassified:

“The same killer doctors are guilty of Comrade Stalin's serious illness. They gave comrade Stalin slow-acting poisonous drugs.”

“Comrade Stalin has high blood pressure, and his enemies sent him to the south for treatment. This, apparently, was also done by doctors.

“Perhaps Comrade Stalin was also poisoned. A hard life has come, everyone is being poisoned, but the truth cannot be told. If Comrade Stalin does not recover, then we need to go to Israel and smash the Jews.”

However, even then there were people who said: "He is the way to go." These people were ordered to be arrested.

And to this day, many people are sure that Stalin was killed. There are many versions.

Version one:

Stalin was killed by Beria, because he knew that Stalin was preparing to eliminate him, and he was ahead of the leader.

Beria allegedly removed in advance all the people loyal to Stalin, in particular his assistant Poskrebyshev and the head of security, General Vlasik, and surrounded the leader with his people.

Beria, on the other hand, planted Stalin's personal doctor, specially for this he organized the "case of doctors", and Stalin did not trust other doctors, did not let him near him. And at the right moment, Beria ordered Khrustalev, an employee of the Security Department of the Ministry of State Security, to give Stalin a fatal injection.

True, Beria in those years did not have power over the Ministry of State Security, he did not select the personnel of the Stalinist guards, and he did not arrange the "doctors' case." But rumors exist without facts.

Version two:

Stalin was killed by Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich because Stalin wanted to send all the Jews to Siberia.

During a conversation at the dacha, Kaganovich demanded an objective investigation of the "doctors' case", a scandal arose. Stalin wanted to call the guards, but Mikoyan did not let him press the bell button. Stalin had a seizure and died.

There is another version of this version. Kaganovich made his niece Rosa Stalin's mistress, and she changed the pills in the leader's first aid kit.

But no Rosa Kaganovich ever existed, Lazar Kaganovich himself until his death remained the most devoted servant of Stalin and was so cowardly that in life he would not have dared to object to him. But there are people who are ready to believe that she was.

Version three:

There was an electric kettle in Stalin's office, into which any member of the Presidium of the Central Committee (the Politburo was renamed the Presidium at the 18th Congress in 1952) could pour poison. After seeing off his comrades, Stalin decided to drink tea, but drank poison.

When Khrushchev and the others returned in the morning, Stalin was still alive. Seeing Stalin on the floor, they began to choke him. And they killed the old man. And the guards were shot so that no one would know. This is the most fantastic...

Judging by the documentary information collected in recent years, in the March days of 1953 everything happened differently.

The long-term editor-in-chief of Pravda, Viktor Grigoryevich Afanasyev, recalled that wooden cottage in Kuntsevo, known as Stalin's "near" dacha, was one-story, then a second floor was added. Adjacent to the dacha was a one-story building for guards and service personnel. One of the rooms was a control room. On the wall is a scoreboard with numbers. Each figure corresponded to some room in the house or a summer cottage. A light was lit on the scoreboard so that the guards knew exactly where Stalin was. He was under constant supervision...

WITH DOCTORS OR WITHOUT DOCTORS?

The last time Stalin visited the Kremlin was on February 17, when he received the Indian ambassador. On February 27, he left the dacha for the last time - he watched Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theater.

On February 28, in the evening, he invited Malenkov, Khrushchev, Beria and Bulganin to his place. They had dinner together. Stalin was in a great mood, he drank more than usual. The guests left after five in the morning.

This fun party was the last in his life.

The next day, March 1, Stalin did not leave the room at all. The guards did not dare to disturb him for a long time. Then one of them, with mail in his hands, nevertheless entered Stalin's room and saw the leader lying on the floor. He was unconscious and only wheezed. It was already eleven o'clock in the evening.

In fact, the guards, following the instructions, called the Minister of State Security Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev. But he was frightened, he told the guards: call Beria or Malenkov. We got through to Malenkov. He was kind of older. At two o'clock in the morning he arrived with Beria.

The guards reported that they found Stalin on the floor, picked him up and laid him on the sofa. Now he seems to be sleeping. Malenkov and Beria were frightened and did not enter his room: what if Stalin wakes up and sees that they have caught him in this position. They left.

In the morning, the guards reported that Comrade Stalin had not come to his senses. Then Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev arrived. But only on the evening of March 2, doctors appeared at Stalin's bedside. All of these were new people, because the doctors who treated Stalin had almost all been arrested. These, too, were not sure that they would return home safely.

The first doctor who approached Stalin was afraid to take his hand. The Minister of State Security, Ignatiev, arrived and was afraid to enter the house of the already dying Stalin.

The leader was on the verge of death, and they still trembled before him. No one could raise a hand against him. Stalin killed himself. He created such an atmosphere of fear around him that his own assistants and guards did not dare to help him at the hour of death.

All members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were afraid of Stalin. And it's understandable why. Khrushchev recalled how, during one of his last visits to Stalin's dacha, he sat down at the table from the edge. He was covered with a pile of papers, and the leader did not see his eyes. He told Khrushchev:

What are you hiding? I'm not going to arrest you. Move the papers and sit closer...

They say that in the last weeks and months of his life, Stalin was left without doctors, without medical care. I asked Professor Vladimir Pavlovich Naumov about this, who was sorting through the personal documents of the leader.

No, - Professor Naumov answered, - there were doctors next to him. They were also present during the last illness. Another thing is that under the circumstances last hours his life is still much unclear. But it has already been established that Stalin did not go to bed that night. When they found him, he was in clothes. And he didn't take off his dentures. If he went to bed, he would definitely take them off: anyone who wears dentures knows why they must be removed at night.

Why did Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev come to the dacha? Only them, and even Bulganin, in the last weeks of his life, Stalin invited to his place. The rest of the way was not. Molotov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich and even the old friend Voroshilov were hanging by a thread. Stalin did not let them into his dacha. He was not joking when he called Molotov an American spy and Voroshilov an English one.

When Stalin, at the last 19th Party Congress during his lifetime, unexpectedly recruited many new people to the Presidium of the Central Committee, this meant that he wanted to take a closer look at them. He gathered newcomers, talked to them, explained how the secretary of the Central Committee should work, what a member of the presidium should do. He was preparing to replace the old leadership with them.

Hearing from the doctors that Stalin was bad, the troika went to the Kremlin. The entire party leadership has already gathered in Stalin's office. They immediately decided to summon members of the Central Committee to Moscow in order to hold a plenum in the near future.

It is now firmly established that Malenkov, Molotov, Beria and Khrushchev hastened to share power when Stalin was still alive and doctors even reported some improvement in his condition.

That is why in the March days of 1953, at the body of Stalin who had fallen into unconsciousness, Beria could not hide his joy. But when it seemed to him that Stalin moved his eyebrow a little, he threw himself on his knees in fear ... Fortunately for his comrades-in-arms, Stalin never recovered.

On March 5, at eight o'clock in the evening, a joint session of the plenum of the Central Committee, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Council opened. At this meeting, Beria proposed “due to the fact that Comrade Stalin is absent in the leadership of the party and the country, appoint the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. We are sure that you will share this opinion that in the time our party and country are going through, we can have only one candidate - the candidacy of Comrade Malenkov.

Then all other positions were divided. Stalin died only a little more than an hour after the division of leadership chairs ended.

A VOICE FROM ARREST

Semyon Ignatiev ceased to be a minister - the Ministry of State Security was merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Beria became a minister. Ignatiev, however, was elected Secretary of the Central Committee for Law Enforcement on March 5, but he spent only a month in this chair.

On April 3, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, where it was decided to stop the "doctors' case" and release those arrested, the decision was written in the third paragraph:

“To propose to the former Minister of State Security of the USSR, Comrade Ignatiev SD, to submit to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU an explanation about the grossest perversions of Soviet laws and falsification of investigative materials committed by the Ministry of State Security.”

And the sixth point determined the fate of the former minister:

“To submit for approval by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU the following proposal of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU:

In view of the admission of Comrade Ignatiev S. D. serious mistakes in the leadership of the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR, it is impossible to leave him as Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

But that was only the beginning. On April 28, Ignatiev was also removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU. This meant that Beria was determined to imprison him.

“Ryumin,” Beria’s accompanying note said, “with the knowledge and approval of Ignatiev, introduced a widespread practice of applying physical measures to unreasonably arrested citizens and falsifying investigative materials.”

Beria, perhaps, would have planted Ignatiev, but did not have time. The next day, June 26, he himself was arrested.

Ignatiev sighed freely. Malenkov immediately gave him the post of first secretary of the Tatar regional committee.

Malenkov defended Ignatiev because he was his man. The arrest of Ignatiev would have entailed the fall of Malenkov. Ignatiev would immediately tell that he was only following the instructions of Georgy Maximilianovich.

When Beria was arrested, Ignatiev turned out to be "a victim of Beria." And most importantly, Ignatiev shifted his focus from Malenkov to Khrushchev in time.

On the last day of the plenum of the Central Committee, which considered the case of Beria, Khrushchev received the floor on the organizational issue.

Comrades, - he said, - on April 28, 1953, a decision was made by the plenum to remove Comrade Ignatiev from the membership of the Central Committee. You know this issue, it is hardly necessary to report in detail. There is a proposal now to reconsider this issue and restore Comrade Ignatiev as a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Because this was done on a well-known slander, and now this matter needs to be reviewed and corrected.

True, at the most intense moment he had a heart attack. Then he was diagnosed with a heart attack. This is understandable: he got into such a meat grinder that even a healthy heart would not survive. Therefore, the entire correspondence of the MGB on these matters was conducted by First Deputy Minister Goglidze, who replaced Ignatiev. He also reported to Stalin. So Ignatiev was lucky.

He was an ordinary party functionary, bureaucrat. Stalin hoped that he would find in him a second Yezhov, who dispersed the organs, brought in new people, walked around the cells himself, interrogated the arrested and beat them. Ignatiev did not justify his hopes, he turned out to be a weakling. He punctually followed all the instructions of the leader, demanded from his subordinates that they beat out the necessary testimony, while he himself sat at his desk.

Disappointed, Stalin told him directly:

Do you want to be white? Will not work. Forgot that Lenin ordered to shoot Kaplan? And Dzerzhinsky said that Savinkov would be destroyed. You will be clean, I will fill your face. If you do not follow my instructions, you will end up in the next cell with Abakumov.

Khrushchev recalled this, speaking at a closed meeting: the XX Congress:

Here sits the delegate of the congress, Ignatiev, to whom Stalin said: if you do not achieve recognition from these people, then your head will be taken off. He himself called the investigator, he himself instructed him, he himself indicated to him the methods of the investigation, and the only methods were to beat ...

So Ignatiev had a heart attack, which is not surprising in such a meat grinder.

Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs:

“I personally heard how Stalin called Ignatiev more than once. I knew him. He was an extremely sick, gentle character, thoughtful, endearing person. I treated him very well. At that time, he had a heart attack, and he himself was on the verge of death. Stalin calls him (and we know in what physical condition Ignatiev is there) and talking on the phone in our presence, loses his temper, yells, threatens that he will grind him to powder. He demanded from Ignatiev: the unfortunate doctors must be beaten and beaten, beaten mercilessly, put in shackles.

If Stalin had not died, Ignatiev would have followed Abakumov to prison. So for those who shed tears at the coffin of Stalin, these were tears of joy for their lives.

A delegation came to Stalin's funeral from Lubyanka - members of the collegium of the MGB and the party committee with a wreath "I. V. Stalin from the staff of the state security of the country.

Senior officials, recalls state security veteran Viktor Alidin, were given personalized passes to enter Red Square “for the funeral of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Generalissimo Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin.”

First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Ivan Serov walked in front of the procession, followed by the generals, who carried Stalin's awards on red cushions, then a car with a gun carriage, on which stood a coffin, closed on top with a glass cap. On the granite front panel, made for the mausoleum at the Dolgoprudny stone processing plant, there were already the words "Lenin - Stalin" ...

Khrushchev did not return Ignatiev to the central apparatus, but he worked for four years as the first secretary of the Bashkir regional committee and for another three years as the first secretary of the Tatar regional committee. In October 1960, Khrushchev retired the holder of four Orders of Lenin. Ignatiev was only fifty-six years old, but Khrushchev no longer needed him. For more than twenty years, the former Minister of State Security has enjoyed his personal pension.

He died on November 27, 1983 and was buried at Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. A small obituary appeared in Pravda announcing the death of "a personal pensioner of allied significance, a member of the CPSU since 1926, Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev." The obituary said that "he was distinguished by modesty and a sensitive attitude towards people."

Ilinykh Oleg Vladimirovich was born on August 2, 1974 in Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Territory, higher education. In 1995 he graduated from the Barnaul special secondary school for training the commanding staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, in 2002 - the Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, in 2007 - the Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

He began his service in the internal affairs bodies on May 16, 1993 as a guard policeman for the protection of buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Altai. In 1995, he was appointed to the position of detective of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Internal Affairs Department of Gorno-Altaisk of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Altai, in 1997 - to the position of senior detective of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Internal Affairs Department of Gorno-Altaisk of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Altai. In 1999, he was appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Gorno-Altaisk Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Altai Republic, in 2002 - to the position of Head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Gorno-Altaisk Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Altai Republic.

In 2003, he was appointed head of the Shebalinsky District Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Altai. In 2005 he was sent to the 1st faculty of the Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow for full-time education.

In 2008, he was appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Altai. In 2009, he was sent to serve in the North Caucasus region as the head of the criminal police of the mobile detachment of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Republic of Dagestan.

In 2010, he was appointed to the position of head of the Department of Internal Affairs for the city of Gorno-Altaisk of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Altai, in 2011 - to the position of Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Altai - chief of police.

Decree of the President Russian Federation dated June 26, 2013 No. 577 was appointed to the post of head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated December 23, 2015 No. 657, he was appointed to the post of Head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Kurgan Region.

By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 22, 2017 No. 83, Oleg Vladimirovich Ilinykh, the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Kurgan Region, was awarded the special rank of Major General of Police.

In October 2017, by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Ilinykh Oleg Vladimirovich was awarded the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree. In the same year, for many years of impeccable service, huge contribution in order to ensure the rule of law, law and order and public safety in the Russian Federation, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

In April 2018, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, he was awarded an award weapon - a Makarov pistol for achievements in operational activities and active work to strengthen law and order.

By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 44 dated February 8, 2019, he was appointed Head of the Main Directorate for Countering Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

During the period of service, he was repeatedly encouraged by the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Married, has three sons. He has a sports qualification - a candidate master of sports in alpine skiing.

Let's talk a little about him - about the main killer of Stalin.

Since 1927, with an attempt to assassinate Stalin, first his personal security, and then the security of the entire government, was headed by N. S. Vlasik, who by the time he was removed from office had the rank of lieutenant general. The Main Directorate of Security, headed by him, was a rather extensive department, which included not only the staff of bodyguards of government members, but also medical and material services for members of the Government. The department not only protected, but could independently conduct undercover developments of suspicious persons, i.e. in fact, it was an independent special service.

Organizationally, the Main Security Directorate was part of the MGB, but was not subordinate to the Minister of State Security. This technique created competition and, if you like, organized mutual surveillance of each other. The MGB ensured that no enemy appeared in the Main Directorate of Security, and the Directorate had the opportunity to trace suspicious persons in the MGB.

This independence of the Main Directorate of Security existed until the removal of N. S. Vlasik from his post. It was at this moment that Stalin made a fatal mistake for himself. You saw that, with the removal of Vlasik from his post, he replaced the commandant of the Kremlin with a faithful person, but, apparently, he could not immediately pick up the head of the Main Security Directorate.

On February 28, 1953, Minister of State Security S. D. Ignatiev himself performed his duties! And it was to him, his immediate superior, that the bodyguard Starostin called in the first place, which he involuntarily admitted in his story.

Ignatiev is a very inconspicuous person in Russian history, historians seem to be embarrassed by him. For example, K. Stolyarov mentioned by me with Lieutenant General of Justice Katusev, considering that period, a huge place in the book was assigned to Ignatiev's deputy - Ryumin. And almost nothing is written about Ignatiev himself, the minister of the MGB.

“Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev was born in 1904 in the village of Karlovka, Kherson province, Ukrainian by nationality, party experience since 1926, higher education. From 1937 - Secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, from 1943 - 1st Secretary of the Bashkir Regional Committee, from 1946 he worked in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, from 1947 - Secretary, 2nd Secretary Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Belarus, since 1949 - Secretary of the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, since 1950 - Head. Department of Party, Trade Union and Komsomol Bodies of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

As you can see, Ignatiev is the purest party and apparatus nomenklatura, like Yezhov, he made a career only along the party line, and therefore, perhaps, Stalin so imprudently trusted him. Ignatiev was the minister of the MGB from August 1951 to March 1953. He was a very weak minister. His subordinate P. Sudoplatov may be from evil, but certainly, not without reason, characterizes him as follows: “ Every time I met Ignatiev, I was amazed at how incompetent this person was. Each agent's message was accepted by him as the discovery of America. He could be convinced of anything: as soon as he read any document, he immediately fell under the influence of what he read, not trying to double-check the facts.

And it should be said that Khrushchev and Malenkov supervised the MGB from the side of the party and the government; Ignatiev depended on them, unless he was appointed to this position on their recommendation.

Historians usually believe that the struggle for power is carried out to occupy some high prestigious positions. If we look at those who jumped up after Stalin's death, we will see that Khrushchev's position, at first glance, did not increase very much. Until Stalin's death, he was one of the ten secretaries of the Central Committee and he remained the same (at that time there were no posts either general or first secretary of the Central Committee, and Stalin was just a secretary). In addition, Khrushchev was the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU, after the death of Stalin he was relieved of this post. Due to the fact that Khrushchev was left with only one, the highest position - Secretary of the Central Committee, we can assume that he received some promotion.

Malenkov received a net promotion: from the secretary of the Central Committee, from the post of one of the leaders of the party, he became the chairman of the Council of Ministers - the head of the country.

Beria was somewhat demoted due to the dilution of the amount of his posts - he remained deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, but he was additionally given direct control by the combined MGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Only Ignatiev made a sharp jump up. He jumped from the ministers of the MGB to the post of secretary of the Central Committee, i.e. became one of the four leaders of the CPSU, became equal in position to Khrushchev and, in addition, he was entrusted with the party leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, i.e. he became the party chief of Beria. (True, Beria abruptly and decisively dropped him from this post a month later).

So, if we decide to ask ourselves the question of who benefited from Stalin's death, then Malenkov and Ignatiev follow in order of career jump, followed by Khrushchev.

If you look at the track record of Ignatiev, in which there is nothing significant (Khrushchev, say, was the first secretary of the Central Committee of Ukraine, Malenkov was a member of the State Defense Committee during the war), then you doubt that this gray inconspicuous mouse just jumped so high.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that the date of March 2 was the boundary for Ignatiev - on March 3, he would no longer even be the minister of the MGB. Historians mention, but do not attach importance to the purpose with which Stalin invited a number of members of the Presidium of the Central Committee to dinner on Saturday 28 February. The fact is that on March 2, on Monday, there was to be a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, and Stalin gathered the comrades on February 28 to informally discuss the issues on the agenda of this meeting. Today one can only guess what these questions were, which we will do below, but one question can be said absolutely for sure - on Monday, March 2, 1953, the Presidium of the Central Committee would decide the issue of merging the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security into one ministry and on the appointment of Minister Beria concurrently with all his other posts. Why is it possible to talk about this with absolute certainty?

The fact is that the issue of this reorganization, among 16 other issues, was decided by the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers on March 5, 1953, on the day of Stalin's death (but when Stalin was still alive). It took the members of the Presidium 40 minutes to answer all 16 questions. Until March 5, members of the Presidium and the government were on duty at Stalin's bedside and did not gather at the Presidium. Such an issue as the reorganization of two departments cannot be resolved instantly, in 2.5 minutes - this is out of the question. Such issues are discussed for a very long time and in advance, since they entail a lot of related issues: from the volume of affairs of the new department to personnel issues - who will lead, deputies, what to do with the released, etc. Moreover, the very association of these two departments is incomprehensible from a business point of view. In all major countries, the police and state security are separated, and in the USSR they began to be separated before the war and finally separated in 1943. And suddenly again the unification in order to separate them again after the assassination of Beria ...

From this follows two unconditional conclusions. Firstly, the question of the unification of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security was discussed for a long time and was worked out in detail so much that on Thursday, March 5, an end was simply put, and if Stalin had not fallen ill and held a meeting on March 2, then the end would have been put precisely on the planned Presidium of the Central Committee on Monday.

Secondly. The incomprehensible union of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security was carried out by Stalin under Beria personally, there is simply no other answer. This means that neither the Minister of the Interior Kruglov nor the Minister of the Ministry of State Security Ignatiev corresponded to their posts, Stalin did not see a full replacement for them and decided to again entrust the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security to Beria. (The fact that Stalin decided to entrust these ministries to Beria, who was overloaded with nuclear affairs, suggests that the issue of them has become very acute. Otherwise, they would have been playing for time, looking for a suitable replacement).

The minister of the USSR is appointed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (on the proposal of the Presidium of the Central Committee), and the deputy ministers are appointed not by the minister, but by the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Consequently, the personal issue with the deputies of the new minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was also resolved by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Stalin: Serov and Kruglov became them. Ignatiev was not envisaged in the new ministry; on Monday, he would have been simply removed from his post and it was unlikely that he would be promoted - after all, in the secretariat of the Central Committee, he, in fact, took the post vacated after Stalin.

P. Sudoplatov in his memoirs "Intelligence and the Kremlin" writes: “At the end of February 1953, a few days before Stalin’s death, I noticed a growing uncertainty in Ignatiev’s behavior.” And in the "Beria case" it is noted that, having become the minister of the united Ministry of Internal Affairs, Beria repeatedly explained to his subordinates that in 1938 the party appointed him to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD so that he would defeat the Yezhovshchina, and today his goal is to defeat the Ignatievshchina.

Let's face it, Stalin's death was not only beneficial for Ignatiev, it, apparently, was his salvation.

The further fate of Ignatiev is interesting. As I wrote, already in April, Beria makes an energetic maneuver, and Ignatiev quietly but far flies away: at first, nowhere - he is expelled even from the members of the Central Committee at the plenum on April 28, but already at the plenum on July 2, 1953, dedicated to the "Beria case" , Ignatiev, at the suggestion of Khrushchev, was again elected a member of the Central Committee, after the "trial of Beria" in December 1953, he was the secretary of the Bashkir regional committee of the CPSU, since 1957 - the secretary of the Tatar regional committee, and since 1960, at the age of 56, he pensions.

Under Ignatiev, the MGB began the fight against Jewish cosmopolitanism, under him arrests were made in the "case of doctors", under him the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was investigated, whose members were shot under him. After Stalin's "personality cult" was exposed, all this was called "arbitrariness", all those under investigation and convicted were called "innocent victims." It would seem that the Jews and the Jewish press should hate Ignatiev and throw thunder and lightning at him, a hundred times more than at Beria. But here's the paradox! And the Jewish press does not show malice or interest in him, and the Jew Yu. V. Andropov ordered in 1983 to bury this seemingly already forgotten old man at the Novodevichy cemetery! Are there many former secretaries of the Tatar Regional Committee there? Something owed him the Central Committee of the CPSU! And it should be strong, even if they could not refuse to relatives what they simply refused to the relatives of, say, the people's favorite V. Vysotsky.

Article: Biography
Publication date: 00.00.0000

Educated at the Industrial Academy (1935). From 1914 he worked at a cotton gin (Termez), railway. In 1919-20 before. Komsomol cell of railway workshops. In 1920-22 he was a political worker in the Bukhara group of troops, an employee of the military department of the Cheka. Participated in repressions against the Basmachi and their "accomplices". From 1922 deputy. head organizational department of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Turkestan. From 1925 to leading work in trade unions. In 1926 he joined the CPSU(b). In 1935 he was transferred to Moscow to the industrial department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. With the onset of repression among senior management party did, as a proven apparatchik and nominee I.V. Stalin, a quick career. In 1937-62 he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Since 1937, 1st Secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian, since 1943 - of the Bashkir Regional Committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1939-52 he was a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1946, Ignatiev was appointed to the most important post of deputy. early Office of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for checking party bodies, in fact, now all repressions against the leadership of the party and the state were carried out with the blessing of Ignatiev Since 1947, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (b) of Belarus for agriculture, then the 2nd secretary. From 1949 secretary of the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee and authorized by the Central Committee for Uzbekistan. Enjoyed the support of G.M. Malenkov. In 1950-52 head. department of party, trade union and Komsomol bodies of the Central Committee of the bKP (b), exercised control over the entire Soviet nomenclature. 11/7/1951 shortly after the arrest of B.C. Abakumova Ignatiev was appointed representative of the Central Committee in the MGB, and on 08/09/1951 he was instructed to head the MGB of the USSR. Since 1952, a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and since October. 1952 - Member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. At a meeting at the MGB, he said that "we must take off our white gloves and, with caution, resort to beating the arrested." On the personal instructions of Stalin, he began active work on the creation of a "case of doctors." However, in the midst of work, Ignatiev had a heart attack, and all correspondence on the case was conducted by his deputy. S.A. Goglidze. Thanks to his activity, he became the most dangerous rival of L.P. Beria. By this time, 2.5 million people were in the camps subordinate to Ignatiev. 29.5:1952, after Stalin, who saw conspiracies everywhere, ordered a purge in the Main Security Directorate, Ignatiev was instructed to personally (concurrently) head the Security Directorate of the MGB. After Stalin's death on May 3, 1953, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were merged into one under the leadership of Beria, and Ignatiev was removed from the Presidium of the Central Committee and elected Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. However, Beria did not forget Ignatiev's old enmity, and on April 5, 1953, he was removed from the post of secretary "due to serious mistakes made in the leadership of the former MGB of the USSR," on April 6. it was announced that he was "personally guilty of creating the case of doctors," and on 28/4/1953 he was removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU. But Ignatiev was not arrested, he was saved by Malenkov, having achieved the appointment of Ignatiev as the 1st secretary of the Bashkir regional committee of the CPSU. After the arrest of Beria on July 7, 1953, he was reinstated in the Central Committee. In 1957-60 he was the 1st secretary of the Tatar regional committee of the CPSU. In 1960, Ignatiev, who was only 55 years old, was retired.

The future head of the TASSR was the reason for the arrest and death of the "iron Commissar" Lavrenty Beria. Part 2

One of the most mysterious politicians of the USSR, Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev, the first secretary of the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU in 1958-1960, became the hero of the book by professor-historian Bulat Sultanbekov "Semyon Ignatiev: light and shadows of the biography of the Stalinist minister." In the second part of the biographical essay "BUSINESS Online" tells the story of the rise, political collapse and miraculous rescue of the last Stalinist Minister of State Security of the USSR.

Semyon Ignatiev

ALADDIN'S CAVE IN BERLIN

Immediately upon arrival in Moscow at the end of December 1950, after a conversation with Malenkov, the Politburo asserts Seeds of Ignatiev head of the department of party, Komsomol and trade union organizations of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It was a key department in charge of the appointment and movement of the entire Soviet political elite. As part of the new position, Ignatiev was included in a special commission of the Central Committee, headed by Georgy Malenkov, on verification of mutual complaints of the Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov and Deputy Minister of the Interior Ivan Serov. They convicted each other of appropriating trophies, stealing food sold to Stalin, and other foul-smelling deeds.

Indeed, some of the "powers that be" in defeated Germany did not carry a spoon past their mouths. And paid for the scale of looting. For example, in the same years General Alexey Sidnev, who served as Minister of State Security of Tatarstan, in 1945 - the head of the operational sector of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in Berlin, reporting directly to Serov. The protocols of his interrogations are reminiscent of the description of the contents of Aladdin's cave. Only during one of his many trips from Berlin to Leningrad, he took 40 suitcases full of jewelry, antiques and furs to his apartment. Alas, there were many such Sidnevs. It is one thing when, on Stalin’s instructions, soldiers and junior officers were allowed to send home to impoverished families several small parcels with wearable items that were scattered in abandoned warehouses, shops and houses, and it’s completely different when they brought trophies by cars, wagons, planes.

True, in Serov's denunciations, in addition to accusations of a "trophy" nature, there were also political attempts. In particular, he wrote that in October 1941 Abakumov purchased wading boots for himself and close generals. This allegedly testified to disbelief in victory and preparation for flight. Although it is known that in the fall of 1941 the surrender of Moscow was not ruled out, and various power structures, including special services, were preparing to work in the occupied city and its environs. Buildings that could accommodate enemy headquarters were mined, underground sabotage groups were created, etc., and the acquisition of such equipment was obviously connected with these circumstances. In general, Serov, judging by the content of his testimony, appears as a petty provocateur and informer. Abakumov as a person was much larger.

In general, the “trophy” squabble between two high-ranking Chekists, which began back in 1948, was not essentially considered until 1951. Obviously, for Stalin, it seemed not significant enough. There was no politics in the information of the “defendants”, and you will not surprise anyone with theft. And suddenly the story becomes topical, and no less than a special commission of the Central Committee is appointed to investigate it. Why?

By this time, the struggle for power and influence on the aging leader had reached its climax. And Stalin himself, foreseeing the sad fate that awaited the retired leader in the USSR, sought to preserve, and therefore strengthen his position. The fear of strengthening the role of the special services and the desire to limit their influence was combined with a constant desire to use them to strengthen their own positions. Behind the instantly emerging and just as quickly disintegrating alliances, one could feel his hand, his direction. And one of the "heroes" of the deadly farce being played out was none other than Colonel General Viktor Abakumov, who during the war years headed the famous SMERSH. In 1946, he replaced as Minister of State Security of the USSR Vsevolod Merkulov who, according to Stalin, was too devoted Lavrenty Beria, and such a "bundle" became dangerous. Abakumov then significantly weakened Beria's influence on the state security agencies, but now, after 5 years, it was his turn to make room.

Ivan Serov

Taking over the investigation of the case of Abakumov and his subordinates, Ignatiev, at the request of Stalin and Malenkov, simultaneously revived the “doctors' case”, which had been started long before he joined the Central Committee. It was about creating a picture of a Zionist conspiracy against the country. Major doctors were arrested, including Stalin's personal doctor Professor Vladimir Vinogradov. They were accused of involvement in the death of a number of prominent figures of the party and the international communist movement. Compared to the mutual accusations of "junk stuff", everything became much more serious.

Author of the book “Semyon Ignatiev. Light and shadows of the biography of the Stalinist minister, professor-historian Bulat Sultanbekov emphasizes that Ignatiev played an auxiliary role in the "doctors' case". Sultanbekov supports the point of view of one of the main defendants in the "case" of the professor Yakov Rapoport: the script was developed by Stalin himself, and Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Ryumin, whom he personally instructed, became the main performer. Ryumin in July 1951 made a rapid career from senior investigator to Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR. Here is how Konstantin Stolyarov, a well-known researcher of the history of special services, describes the content of the information provided to Stalin: “Ryumin came up with a Jewish conspiracy and put his former minister at the head. According to Ryumin, it turned out that the Jews decided to make Abakumov a puppet dictator, but in fact they were going to rule the country themselves ... Stalin liked the scheme.

On July 2, 1951, right in Ignatiev's office, Ryumin wrote a memorandum to Stalin stating that Abakumov was covering for the enemies of the people and the Zionists. On the same day, with the help of Malenkov, the note reached the addressee.

(Subsequently, Ryumin, on behalf of Stalin, became the main executor in the investigation of the “Abakumov case”, personally beating him during interrogations. In the presence of members of the Politburo and Ignatiev, he reported to Stalin on the progress of the investigation and received further instructions. After completing the dirtiest work, Ryumin was immediately recognized as an illiterate person , morally decomposed, allowing acts and actions that compromise the “organs.” On November 17, 1952, M.D. Ryumin was removed from the post of deputy minister, and after Stalin’s death, he was arrested, tried and shot).

Further events developed in the spirit of Shakespearean tragedies. At half past twelve on July 5, 1951, members of the Politburo Molotov, Bulganin, Beria and Malenkov gathered in Stalin's office, who were familiarized with Ryumin's note. Abakumov and his deputy were sitting in the waiting room waiting for a call. Sergey Ogoltsov. Separately from them, Ryumin was in an "ambush" in a neighboring office. Half an hour later, Abakumov was summoned, and Beria announced to him that he had been removed from the post of minister, briefly repeating the accusations contained in Ryumin's letter. When Abakumov, dumbfounded by surprise, tried to justify himself, Ryumin appeared in the office and for half an hour exposed the already former minister, placing special emphasis on his connections with the Zionists. Then Ogoltsov was invited for five minutes, he was told that he would act as minister, and Ryumin would become deputy. After that, all three left the office at 2:25, and 20 minutes later the members of the Politburo left.

On July 11, 1951, late in the evening, a short meeting of the Politburo took place, at which Stalin announced to Ignatiev that he had been appointed representative of the Central Committee in the MGB. Ignatiev was supposed to lead the investigation into the Abakumov case.

On July 12, Abakumov was arrested, charged under article 58-1 b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR " Treason to the Motherland committed by military personnel". The only punishment is execution. (Viktor Semenovich Abakumov was brought to a closed trial in Leningrad and on December 19, 1954 he was shot in Levashovo near Leningrad. In 1997, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court was partially rehabilitated: he was acquitted of the charge of treason, and the sentence was reclassified under the article “ Military official crimes and replaced by 25 years in prison).

August 9, 1951 by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR S.D. Ignatiev is appointed Minister of State Security of the USSR. At the same time, he retained the post of head of the department of the Central Committee.

Viktor Abakumov

IGNATIEV TAKE A NAPKIN...

Here is how the brothers describe those events in the political detective story "The Gospel of the Executioner" Arkady and Georgy Vainers: "All these bloody seruns hid in holes and waited with horror for the order to appoint a new minister of state security. And, finally, it struck. And Comrade Stalin showed everyone why neither Lavrukha, nor Malenkov, nor Kaganovich - in general, none of his gang He appointed Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev as minister, neither the dashing fearless rogue Krutovanov, nor the cunning executioner Kabulov, nor the terrorist Sudoplatov, nor the spy Fitin, nor the murderer Rukhadze, nor his growing up young leaders, Ignatiev, the minister of state insignificance Semyon Denisovich. Not a personality and not a professional detective, but who could guarantee Pakhan one thing - a silent and ruthless struggle of clans in the Office with the inevitable denunciation to the top about any disloyal act of a competitor. this gloomy, heavy-nosed creature with the inconspicuous face of a witness.

On the second day of work, Ignatiev appointed an extended meeting of the leadership and the ministry's activists. Of all the state virtues of Ignatiev, his cleanliness made the greatest impression. On the table next to him lay a stack of white paper napkins, and when the government phone rang, Ignatiev took a napkin, carefully wrapped the telephone receiver with it, and then brought it to his ear: “ Ignatiev is listening!". He shook hands with some of those present, and immediately sprinkled the “Lights of Moscow” perfume on his palm from a blue bottle and carefully wiped it with a napkin. And he said his first word weightily and menacingly: “Fatit! ". We all froze, and he explained: “Fatit, comrades, be liberal. It's time for all our enemies, the enemies of our Motherland, the Party and Comrade Stalin personally, to wind up fosts for real! I looked at the happy face of Minka Ryumin and realized that from now on, out of respect for the diction of the new minister, he would call me "Fatkin".

Ignatiev became the third, after Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, the head of state security, who has neither a military nor a special rank (which he later regretted when applying for a pension). Again, the third in the history of the USSR, after Yezhov and Beria, this was the case of the appointment of a party worker as the head of special services. In this way, having replaced Viktor Abakumov, Semyon Ignatiev became the last Minister of State Security of the USSR, not only under Stalin, but in history in general. After his removal, the position was abolished due to the reorganization of the security forces and the division of power, caused by the death of the leader.

Veterans of the special services, who remembered the arrival of the new minister, noted the peculiarities of his work style. Unlike his predecessors Yezhov, Beria and Abakumov, he avoided personal participation in interrogations in every possible way and even refused to sign execution orders, noting that this was the business of the commandant of the Lubyanka, and not the minister. General Vasily Ryasnoy, who then worked in the central apparatus of the MGB, later said that the party worker Ignatiev got into this position "like chickens in a pluck" and was burdened by his duties.

A very interesting, but not entirely correct analysis of the activities of the leaders of the Soviet special services is contained in the publications of Komsomolskaya Pravda "Who was Stalin's most" iron commissar "?" and "Once again about Stalin's 'iron commissars'". Quantitative information is given about political repressions during the leadership of the Cheka-OGPU, NKVD, NKGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs by Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, Merkulov, Abakumov, Ignatiev, Kruglov. It follows from them that the smallest number of those sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and the death penalty was precisely during the period of Ignatiev's leadership. The incorrectness of these comparisons, according to Professor Sultanbekov, is that they do not take into account the tenure of these persons in positions and a number of other important circumstances. For example, from these statistics it follows that in terms of “bloodlessness” and “liberalism”, the second place after Semyon Ignatiev is occupied by ... Felix Dzerzhinsky.

One way or another, Stalin warned Ignatiev that if those under investigation in the "doctors' case" did not confess their crimes, then he himself would be in their place, or next to Abakumov in one of the neighboring cells. As one of the publicists later wrote, Ignatiev was ordered to "take off his white gloves." Ignatiev not only hit, but got into Big History. This case, as it now appears, was only the tip of the political "iceberg", an important, but still part of a multi-way combination designed to "finally solve" the Jewish question in the country.

« THE ATOMIC AGE BEILIS CASE»

It is not so important whether Stalin was a Judeophobe or not, but this “Jewish card” was certainly in the state plans. Stalin's disillusionment with the policy of the state of Israel played a role, the creation of which at first he greatly contributed both through diplomacy (the Soviet Union became the first country to de jure recognize the Jewish state in full on May 17, 1948), and assistance in supplying weapons through Czechoslovakia. Stalin hoped to gain in Israel a base of influence in the Middle East as a counterbalance to the reactionary, pro-Western regimes in the Arab states. However, its leaders increasingly began to rely on the support of England, France and especially the United States.

In the USSR, anti-Jewish hysteria begins, engulfing not only medicine. The term “killers in white coats”, introduced by the press into the mass consciousness of citizens, is becoming commonplace. On December 1, 1951, the 13th anti-Zionist department was created as part of the 2nd Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security, which was immediately reported to Stalin and his approval was received (although, with the death of the leader, he did not have time to start work). A Jewish Autonomous Region is being created in the Far East, versions are being voiced that a mass deportation of Jews to the East of the country was being prepared, and almost echelons were already being driven to Moscow. Even in the biography of Beria, they tried to find Jewish roots!

The President of the United States condemned the anti-Jewish campaign in the USSR Dwight Eisenhower, English Premier Winston Churchill, many prominent scientists and cultural figures. In the Western media, a biting definition of the "doctors' case" appeared - "the Beiliss case of the atomic age."

Professor of History Bulat Sultanbekov worked in 1954-1961 as an instructor of the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU and carried out some personal, including confidential, instructions from Ignatiev, and spoke with him confidentially several times. Here is what he writes: “Once, through negligence, I asked him a question about the “case of doctors”. The answer was short and dry: "It was started by Stalin and Malenkov before me, I once a week reported on its progress by phone or in person." It was felt by the tone that the topic was extremely unpleasant and painful for him, but for me this tactless question, as I later realized, had no negative consequences.

« IGNATIEVSHCHINA» AGAINST "BERIEVSHINA"

Being the Minister of State Security of the country made the name of Ignatiev a household name, which is not often the case even with very prominent figures. It is no coincidence that Lavrenty Beria, who rushed to power after the death of the leader and promised to carry out liberal reforms in March-June 1953, repeatedly stated that he had eliminated the "Yezhovshchina" in his time, and now he would put an end to the "Ignatievshchina", designating this new revelry repressions in the last years of Stalin's life. Khrushchev, in July 1953, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, dedicated to the liquidation of the already "Berievshchina", said that Ignatiev should not have agreed to the post of Minister of State Security: by his nature, he is too soft and not suitable for such work. Simply put, according to Beria, Ignatiev is the direct heir and continuer of the bloody deeds of Yezhov, according to Khrushchev, a soft-bodied liberal who accidentally ended up in the Lubyanka. All other estimates - and there are many of them - fall between these two extremes. As for the consent to take the post of power minister, they did not ask Ignatiev for it, the leader's proposals were executed unquestioningly.

The period from the end of 1952 to March 5, 1953 (the day of Stalin's death) was the peak of Semyon Ignatiev's entire state career. Within these timeframes, the “doctors' case” was completed, the “Abakumov-Zionist group” in the MGB was crushed. Stalin instructed Ignatiev to investigate the so-called "Mingrelian case", indirectly directed against Beria, a Mingrelian by nationality. All this made Ignatiev the leader's favorite and caused Beria to be wary, which grew into direct enmity. However, Malenkov has so far successfully blocked his attempts to reduce the influence of his nominee.

Many in power structures believed that Ignatiev could take a higher post than a ministerial one, and there were good reasons for this. He is entrusted with the arrests of a number of people from the leader’s entourage, including the head of his personal guard, a thieving but devoted general Nicholas Vlasik. He was fired "for abuse" in May 1952 and sent to a small position in one of the forced labor camps in the Urals. Soon he was summoned to Moscow and arrested on December 15. Ignatiev reported this to Stalin and received instructions from him to interrogate Vlasik harshly, without discounts on previous merits. Vlasik was tried, given 10 years, but in 1956 he was pardoned.

Recently it became known that Stalin instructed Ignatiev to organize a number of "resonant" terrorist actions abroad. In particular, the assassination of the leader of Yugoslavia Marshal Josip Broz Tito, former head of the Provisional Government of Russia Alexander Kerensky and some other similar operations. Their implementation was prevented by the death of the "customer". In the early 1950s, Stalin planned to implement major foreign policy projects, in the implementation of which a significant role was assigned to foreign intelligence. For example, he put forward the idea of ​​creating a united Germany, taking into account the interests of the Soviet Union. Even before the death of the leader, Minister Ignatiev approved a special probing questionnaire of the Soviet special services on this topic. Stalin was also very interested in the project "Britain's Path to Socialism", developed by the local Communist Party, about which the Soviet leader consulted several times with Harry Pollitom, leader of the British Communists. But the most great importance Stalin gave all the same force methods achieve world domination. On the initiative of Ignatiev, Stalin held a meeting in December 1951 to further improve the activities of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence. Even before that, the Politburo approved a plan of preventive sabotage operations developed jointly with the Ministry of Defense to destroy NATO bases in Europe in the event of a threat of war.

Ignatiev was also involved in the work on solving the problems of disaggregating territories, creating new regions and staffing them. In the TASSR, for example, the Kazan, Chistopol and Bugulma regions were formed and, accordingly, the Tatar Territory Committee and the Regional Committee of the Party, which were abolished shortly after the death of the dictator. The range of issues on which he consulted with Ignatiev was wide and went far beyond the competence and duties of the Minister of State Security. One gets the impression that at the end of 1952 he really could be considered by Stalin as one of his successors. On October 16, 1952, Ignatiev became a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party, that is, one of the leaders of the country.

In the growth of Ignatiev's authority in the eyes of the leader, not only his vast experience in leading party and state work in general, but also his knowledge of the state of affairs in the national republics played a big role. None of the "inner circle" had such experience in the "Muslim" regions, and they attracted more and more attention of the leader for reasons both domestic and international.

From May 19, 1952, Ignatiev was also assigned the duties of the head of personal security. None of the leaders of the special services was awarded such trust. It was to him that on March 1, 1953, the guards called, finding Stalin lying unconscious. Ignatiev immediately reported the incident to Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev. In recent days, he periodically came to the Middle Dacha. On March 5, Stalin died without regaining consciousness.

STALIN'S KILLER?

Historian and publicist Yuri Mukhin put forward a sensational version of the role of Ignatiev in the events of early March 1953, calling him, along with Malenkov and Khrushchev, "the main organizer of Stalin's assassination." There is also an unnamed doctor who allegedly carried out the task of Ignatiev. Of course, this is only one of the many versions, which I repeated in a more categorical form. Sergey Kremlev in the book "Great Beria. The best manager of the 20th century. The sinister "triad" that carried out the murder is called. The inspirer is the fifth column, the Zionists. The patron is Khrushchev. Responsible executor - Ignatiev. In the book, a new tool appeared, used to eliminate the leader - a vessel with mercury, hidden in the attic of the dacha. Another researcher, Elena Prudnikova, author of the book "Beria. The Last Knight of Stalin", generally paints the details, from which it follows that Ignatiev, along with Khrushchev, stood next to the perpetrator of the murder. However, whoever is blamed for the death of Stalin, most often recall the words of Beria, allegedly said to Molotov: "I removed him, I saved you all."

Currently, most researchers believe that Stalin's death was the result of an exacerbation of a long illness that led to a stroke. The confusion of the service personnel and representatives of the Kremlin leadership played a role, as well as the rejection of urgent measures to provide medical assistance because of this. Thus, we can talk about the unintentional, insufficiently conscientious performance of their duties by a number of persons - from security guards to leaders of the party and state. The tragic outcome is also associated with the imperfection of the notification service system created by Stalin himself at the Middle Dacha, and the fact that in the last months of his life he refused to consult highly qualified doctors.

The unexpected death of Stalin abruptly changed the situation in the country, and the events that followed became fatal for political career Ignatiev's seeds and even nearly cost him his life.

In none of the memoirs of the last days and the funeral of Stalin, the name of Ignatiev is mentioned. It seems that he was immediately removed from all activities related to national security. On March 5, 1953, while Stalin was still agonizing at the Near Dacha, six members of the Presidium and several members of the Central Committee gathered in his Kremlin office. Ignatiev was also invited. This very narrow circle of participants, which did not have a quorum, but later called in the press "a joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR", made the following decisions: Malenkov became Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Khrushchev "concentrated" on work in the Central Committee CPSU, Beria became Malenkov's first deputy and headed the Ministry of the Interior, which included the Ministry of State Security. Ignatiev, at the suggestion of Malenkov, was appointed secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. According to Ignatiev himself, Beria, although he did not object to this appointment, commented on it "with some kind of sarcastic remark."

In the composition of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU announced in the newspapers, Ignatiev was no longer there. The post of secretary of the Central Committee made him a minor figure. Formally, he was called upon to oversee the state security agencies, but everyone understood that the political “heavyweight” Beria, who had become his leader, would not allow this.

At the suggestion of Beria, at the meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, decisions were made to terminate a number of investigative cases and release those already convicted. The most resonant was the press release on April 4, 1953, about the complete rehabilitation of "pestologists". 14 professors and one doctor (G.M. Mayorov, Zhdanov's personal doctor) were found not guilty. The messages in Pravda and Izvestia ended with the words: "Persons guilty of illegal investigation have been arrested and prosecuted." On April 6, in the editorial of Pravda, the perpetrators of the lawlessness were already listed by last name. Former Minister of the Ministry of State Security Ignatiev “showed political blindness and rotosity, turned out to be on the lead of such political adventurers as the former deputy. minister and the head of the investigation unit, who directly supervised the investigation, Ryumin, now arrested. Ryumin was called a hidden enemy of the state and people. For Ignatiev, these official publications meant death, so far political. The Presidium of the Central Committee, at the suggestion of Beria, ordered the former minister to provide an explanation. His future fate could be predicted based on the final paragraph of the document: “To submit to the Plenum a proposal to release Ignatiev SD, due to serious mistakes when he was a minister, from the duties of secretary of the Central Committee.” This meant the “surrender” by Malenkov of his nominee and ally in order to enlist the support of Beria. Ignatiev was removed not only from the secretaries, but from the Central Committee in general.

GUN UNDER PILLOW

What happened next? In the Personnel Registration Sheet there is a mysterious line: “IV. 1953 - XII.1953 - sick, was on treatment, mountains. Moscow". Some publications say that at the end of March Ignatiev had a heart attack, and in a confidential conversation in Kazan, he once mentioned that during his illness he was surrounded by "orderlies" from his former department. According to the memories Kamilya Faseeva, in 1959 - 1960, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Ignatiev said that he slept with a pistol under his pillow, knowing what awaited him if he fell into the hands of his "Lubyansk associates". He was not going to give up alive. But it was bravado, the former chief of state security could not have been unaware that, if necessary, they would take him in such a way that you would not have time to put your hand under the pillow. True, Khrushchev ironically remarked in his memoirs that he put himself under house arrest. One thing is indisputable: Ignatiev was not officially arrested, and he was in Moscow.

Professor KSU Ivan Ionenko, who met with Ignatiev in an informal setting and was friends with his son Gennady, recalled that he in every possible way avoided talking about his failed arrest, noticing only once: “I survived by a miracle. The arrest warrant had already been issued and was on the prosecutor's desk." The bill, obviously, was no longer for days, but for hours.

Here's what it looked like. On June 25, 1953, the day before his arrest, Beria sends Malenkov the materials of the interrogation of former Deputy Minister Ryumin. It followed from them that Ignatiev, referring to the opinion of the Central Committee, demanded that he beat the doctors under investigation, allegedly he also inspired not only the "doctors' case", but also the "Leningrad case", the liquidation of members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). Ryumin, who gave such testimony, was obviously already inadequate: Ignatiev, during the preparation and conduct of the process in the “Leningrad case”, was still in secondary party positions in Belarus and Uzbekistan and had nothing to do with the case. The process of liquidating the JAC, which began back in January 1949, also took place before him, but after becoming a minister, he received a strict order from Stalin to complete it.

Beria verbally demanded from Malenkov a sanction for the immediate arrest of Ignatiev. Perhaps it was here that he made a fatal mistake that cost him not only his political career, but also his life. The arrest of Ignatiev would inevitably lead the investigation to reveal the sinister role of Malenkov in most of the major political cases of the post-war period: the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the "Leningrad", "doctors' case" and some others. On the initiative of Malenkov, a special prison was created for senior officials "Matrosskaya Tishina", where the prisoners were kept under numbers, their names were unknown to the guards. Malenkov repeatedly visited it and participated in interrogations. There is no doubt that the necessary testimony from Ignatiev would be quickly knocked out. Beria, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, immediately declared Ignatiev the main culprit of the repressions of 1951-1952. Obviously he was planning a big political process, whose main defendant would be Ignatiev, and Abakumov and Ryumin as co-respondents. There is no doubt that they would have told a lot about the role of Malenkov in organizing repressions, and not only in the last years of Stalin's life. Ignatiev, judging by the memoirs of Kamil Faseev, who told him that “Malenkov betrayed me to Beria in April 1953,” would not remain silent during the investigation and would recall numerous facts of Malenkov’s participation in organizing repressions, starting from the mid-1930s. Such a gloomy prospect finally saved Malenkov from hesitation, and he took an active part in the liquidation of his recent friend and ally.

The dramatic circumstances of Beria's arrest, reminiscent of a tough Hollywood detective, have been repeatedly described, and each of its participants, primarily Khrushchev, Malenkov and Zhukov, attributed to himself a decisive role in this action. Other persons directly or indirectly involved in the liquidation of Beria generously shared their memories. One honored general was proud all his life that, willingly taking on the duties of an executioner, he “shot a bullet in the forehead” of the bound Beria. However, in the public consciousness of those years, Malenkov was still given priority in the elimination of Beria.

So fate once again saved Ignatiev. He was present in 1953 at the July plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which put an end to Beria's political biography. On it, Ignatiev was restored as a member of the Central Committee. However, he did not speak, although Khrushchev noted him among those present and even gave a generally favorable assessment, calling him an honest party worker who was not up to the difficult Chekist work. Ignatiev himself, in a conversation with one of his friends, said then: “It was not bad on the Lubyanka, but much better on Staraya Square.” In general, a kind of political amnesty took place, but he was not returned to the Old Square, where the building of the Central Committee was located. The gloomy events of 1951 - early 1953, which, directly or indirectly, were associated with the name of Ignatiev, were too fresh in my memory.

To be continued.