In 1946, the writer's novel was published in the Soviet Union Alexandra Fadeeva"Young Guard", dedicated to the struggle of young underground workers with the Nazis.

Novel and film "in hot pursuit"

Roman Fadeev was destined to become a bestseller for several decades to come: "Young Guard" in the Soviet period withstood more than 270 publications with a total circulation of over 26 million copies.

"Young Guard" was included in school curriculum, and there was not a single Soviet student who did not hear about Oleg Koshevoy, Luba Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova.

In 1948, the novel by Alexander Fadeev was filmed - the film of the same name "Young Guard" was shot by the director Sergei Gerasimov, involving in it students of the acting department of VGIK. The path to the stars began with the "Young Guard" Nonna Mordyukova, Inna Makarova, Georgy Yumatov, Vyacheslav Tikhonov…

Both the book and the film had an amazing feature - they were created not just on the basis of real events, but literally “in hot pursuit”. Actors came to places where everything happened, communicated with parents and friends fallen heroes. Vladimir Ivanov, who played Oleg Koshevoy, was two years older than his hero. Nonna Mordyukova was only a year younger than Ulyana Gromova, Inna Makarova was a couple of years younger than Lyuba Shevtsova. All this gave the picture an incredible realism.

Years later, during the collapse of the USSR, the efficiency of creating works of art will become an argument with which they will prove that the history of the underground organization "Young Guard" is a fiction of Soviet propaganda.

Why all of a sudden it was the young underground workers from Krasnodon who received so much attention? Were there much more successful groups that did not receive a small fraction of the glory and recognition of the Young Guard?

Mine number five

No matter how cruel it sounds, but the fame of the Young Guard predetermined its tragic ending, which occurred shortly before the liberation of the city of Krasnodon from the Nazis.

In 1943, the Soviet Union was already systematically documenting Nazi crimes in the occupied territories. Immediately after the liberation of cities and villages, commissions were formed whose task was to record cases of massacres against Soviet citizens, establish the places of burial of victims, and identify witnesses to crimes.

On February 14, 1943, the Red Army liberated Krasnodon. Almost immediately, it became known from local residents about the massacre perpetrated by the Nazis on young underground workers.

The snow in the prison yard still had traces of their blood. In the chambers on the walls, relatives and friends found the last messages of the young guards who were leaving for death.

The place where the bodies of the executed were located was also not a secret. Most of the Young Guards were thrown into the 58-meter pit of the Krasnodon mine No. 5.

The shaft where the Nazis executed members of the underground organization "Young Guard". Photo: RIA Novosti

“Arms are twisted, ears are cut off, a star is carved on the cheek”

The work of lifting the bodies was hard both physically and mentally. The executed young guards were subjected to sophisticated torture before their death.

The corpse examination protocols speak for themselves: “ Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, carved on the back five pointed star, the right arm is broken, the ribs are broken ... "

« Lida Androsova, 18 years old, removed without an eye, ear, hand, with a rope around his neck, which cut hard into the body. Dried blood is visible on the neck.

« Angelina Samoshina, 18 years. Traces of torture were found on the body: arms were twisted, ears were cut off, a star was carved on the cheek ... "

« Maya Peglivanova, 17 years. The corpse is disfigured: cut off the chest, lips, broken legs. All outer clothing has been removed.

« Shura Bondareva, 20 years old, removed without a head and right breast, the whole body is beaten, bruised, has a black color.

« Viktor Tretyakevich, 18 years. Extracted without a face, with a black-and-blue back, with shattered hands.

"Let me die, but I have to get her"

In the process of studying the remains, one more terrible detail came to light - some of the guys were thrown into the mine alive, and died as a result of a fall from a great height.

A few days later, work was suspended - due to the decomposition of the bodies, lifting them became dangerous for the living. The bodies of the rest were much lower and it seemed that they could not be lifted.

Father of the deceased Lida Androsova, Makar Timofeevich, an experienced miner, said: "Let me die from the poison of my daughter's corpse, but I must get her."

The mother of the deceased Yuri Vintsenovsky recalled: “A gaping abyss, around which small parts of our children’s toilet were lying: socks, combs, felt boots, bras, etc. The slag heap wall is all spattered with blood and brains. With a soul-rending cry, every mother recognized the dear things of her children. Moans, screams, fainting... Corpses that did not fit in the bath were laid on the street, in the snow under the walls of the bath. Creepy picture! In the bathhouse, around the bathhouse there are corpses, corpses. 71 dead!"

On March 1, 1943, Krasnodon escorted the Young Guards to last way. They were buried with military honors in mass grave in the park named after Komsomol.

The funeral of the young guards. Photo: RIA Novosti

Comrade Khrushchev reports

Not only material evidence of the massacre, but also German documents, as well as Hitler's accomplices, who were directly related to the death of the Young Guard, fell into the hands of Soviet investigators.

It was not possible to quickly understand the circumstances of the activities and death of other underground groups due to lack of information. The uniqueness of the "Young Guard" was that everything seemed to be known about it at once.

In September 1943, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev writes a report on the activities of the "Young Guard" on the basis of established data: "The Young Guards began their activities with the creation of a primitive printing house. Students of grades 9-10 - members of an underground organization - made a radio receiver on their own. Some time later, they were already receiving messages from the Soviet Information Bureau and began to publish leaflets. Leaflets were pasted everywhere: on the walls of houses, in buildings, on telephone poles. Several times the Young Guard managed to stick leaflets on the backs of the policemen... Members of the "Young Guard" also wrote slogans on the walls of houses and fences. On religious holidays, they came to church and shoved into the pockets of believers handwritten sheets of paper with the following content: “As we lived, so we will live, as we were, and we will be under the Stalinist banner,” or: “Down with Hitler’s 300 grams, Come on, Stalin's kilo." On the day of the 25th anniversary October revolution a red banner hoisted over the city, hoisted by members of an underground organization ...

"Young Guard" was not limited campaign work, she was actively preparing for an armed uprising. To this end, they collected: 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition and 65 kg explosives. By the beginning of the winter of 1942, the organization was a close-knit, fighting detachment with experience in political and combat activities. The underground thwarted the mobilization of several thousand residents of Krasnodon to Germany, burned down the labor exchange, saved the lives of dozens of prisoners of war, recaptured 500 head of cattle from the Germans and returned it to the inhabitants, carried out a number of other sabotage and terrorist acts.

Prompt award

1. Assign /posthumously/ Oleg Vasilievich KOSHEV, Ivan Alexandrovich ZEMNUHOV, Sergey Gavrilovich TYULENIN, Ulyana Matveevna GROMOVA, Lyubov Grigorievna SHEVTSOVA the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, as the most outstanding organizers and leaders of the Young Guard.

2. Award 44 members of the Young Guard with orders USSR for the valor and courage shown in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines / 37 of them - posthumously /.

Stalin supported Khrushchev's proposal. The note addressed to the leader is dated September 8, and already on September 13 the Decree of the Presidium was issued Supreme Council USSR about rewarding young guardsmen.

No extra feats were attributed to the boys and girls from the Young Guard - they managed to do a lot for unprepared amateur underground workers. And this is the case when there was no need to embellish anything.

What was corrected in the film and book?

And yet, there are things that are still being argued about. For example, about the contribution to the common cause of each of the leaders. Or about whether it is legitimate to call Oleg Koshevoy the commissioner of the organization. Or about who became the culprit of the failure.

For example, one of the Nazi accomplices at the trial stated that he had betrayed the Young Guards, unable to withstand the torture, Viktor Tretyakevich. Only 16 years later, in 1959, during the trial of Vasily Podtyny, who served as deputy head of the Krasnodon city police in 1942-1943, it became known that Tretyakevich became a victim of a slander, and became a real informer Gennady Pocheptsov.

Pocheptsov and his stepfather Vasily Gromov were exposed as Nazi accomplices as early as 1943, and were shot by the verdict of the tribunal. But the role of Pocheptsov in the death of the Young Guard was revealed much later.

Due to new information in 1964, Sergei Gerasimov even re-edited and partially re-voiced the film "Young Guard".

Alexander Fadeev had to rewrite the novel. And not because of inaccuracies, which the writer explained by the fact that the book is fiction, not documentary, but because of Comrade Stalin's dissenting opinion. The leader did not like the fact that the youth in the book act without the help and guidance of older communist comrades. As a result, in the 1951 version of the book, Koshevoy and his comrades were already guided by wise party members.

Patriots without special training

Such additions were later used to denounce the Young Guard as a whole. And the relatively recently discovered fact that Lyuba Shevtsova took a three-month NKVD course as a radio operator is ready to be presented by some as proof that the Young Guards are not patriot schoolchildren, but seasoned saboteurs.

In fact, there was neither the leading role of the party, nor sabotage training. The guys did not know the basics of underground activities, improvising on the go. Under such conditions, failure was inevitable.

Suffice it to recall how Oleg Koshevoy died. He managed to avoid detention in Krasnodon, but he failed to cross the front line, as he planned.

He was detained by the field gendarmerie near the town of Rovenki. Koshevoy's face was not known, and he could well have avoided exposure, if not for a mistake that is completely impossible for a professional illegal intelligence officer. During a search, they found a Komsomol ID sewn into his clothes, as well as several other documents revealing him as a member of the Young Guard.

Their courage struck enemies

The desire to keep the Komsomol card in such a situation is an insane act, life-threatening boyishness. But Oleg was a boy, he was only 16 years old ... He met his last hour on February 9, 1943 steadfastly and courageously. From the testimony Schultz- a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in the city of Rovenki: “At the end of January, I participated in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization“ Young Guard ”, among which was the head of this organization Koshevoy ... I remember him especially clearly because I had to shoot him twice . After the shots, all the arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy got up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This made me very angry Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drevitz finish him off. Drevitz went up to the lying Koshevoy and shot him in the back of the head ... "

His comrades also died fearlessly. SS man Drevitz told during interrogation last minutes the life of Lyuba Shevtsova: “Of those shot in the second game, I remember Shevtsova well. She drew my attention with her appearance. She had a beautiful, slender figure, an oblong face. Despite her youth, she held herself very courageously. Before the execution, I led Shevtsova to the edge of the execution pit. She did not utter a word about mercy and calmly, with her head held high, accepted death.

“I did not join the organization in order to ask your forgiveness later; I regret only one thing, that we managed to do little! ”, Ulyana Gromova threw in the face of the Nazi investigator.

The period of recent national history, called "perestroika", went like a skating rink not only through the living, but also through the heroes of the past.

The debunking of the heroes of the revolution and the Great Patriotic War in those years was put on stream. This cup has not passed and the underground workers from the Young Guard organization. "Debunkers Soviet myths"poured a huge amount of slop on the young anti-fascists destroyed by the Nazis.

The essence of the “revelations” was that no Young Guard organization supposedly existed, and if it did exist, then its contribution to the fight against the Nazis was so insignificant that it’s not worth talking about.

Got more than others Oleg Koshevoy, who in Soviet historiography was called the commissar of the organization. Apparently, the reason for the special hostility towards him on the part of the “whistleblowers” ​​was precisely the status of the “commissar”.

It was even claimed that in Krasnodon itself, where the organization operated, no one knew about Koshevoy, that his mother, who even before the war was a wealthy woman, earned on her son’s posthumous glory, that for this she identified instead of Oleg’s body the corpse of a certain old man ...

Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya, Oleg's mother, is not the only one who wiped their feet on in the late 1980s. In the same tone and almost with the same words they insulted Lyubov Timofeevna Kosmodemyanskaya- the mother of two Heroes of the Soviet Union who died during the war - Zoe and Alexandra Kosmodemyansky.

Those who trampled on the memory of the heroes and their mothers are still working in Russian media, wear high degrees of candidates and doctors historical sciences and feel great...

“Arms are twisted, ears are cut off, a star is carved on the cheek ...”

Meanwhile, the real story of the "Young Guard" is captured in documents and testimonies of witnesses who survived the Nazi occupation.

Among the evidence of the true history of the "Young Guard" there are protocols for examining the corpses of the Young Guards, raised from the pit of mine No. 5. And these protocols best of all speak of what the young anti-fascists had to endure before their death.

The shaft where the Nazis executed members of the underground organization "Young Guard". Photo: RIA Novosti

« Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, a five-pointed star is carved on the back, the right arm is broken, the ribs are broken ... "

« Lida Androsova, 18 years old, removed without an eye, ear, hand, with a rope around his neck, which cut hard into the body. Dried blood is visible on the neck.

« Angelina Samoshina, 18 years. Traces of torture were found on the body: arms were twisted, ears were cut off, a star was carved on the cheek ... "

« Maya Peglivanova, 17 years. The corpse is disfigured: cut off the chest, lips, broken legs. All outer clothing has been removed.

« Shura Bondareva, 20 years old, removed without a head and right breast, the whole body is beaten, bruised, has a black color.

« Viktor Tretyakevich, 18 years. Extracted without a face, with a black-and-blue back, with shattered hands. On the body of Viktor Tretyakevich, experts did not find traces of bullets - he was among those who were thrown into the mine alive ...

Oleg Koshevoy together with Any Shevtsova and several other young guards were executed in the Rattlesnake Forest near the city of Rovenka.

The fight against fascism is a matter of honor

Ivan Turkenich, commander of the Young Guard. 1943 Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

So what was the Young Guard organization and what role did Oleg Koshevoy play in its history?

The mining town of Krasnodon, in which the Young Guards operated, is located 50 kilometers from Lugansk, which during the war years was called Voroshilovgrad.

In Krasnodon at the turn of the 1930s-1940s, many working youth lived, brought up in the spirit of Soviet ideology. For young pioneers and Komsomol members, participation in the fight against the Nazis who occupied Krasnodon in July 1942 was a matter of honor.

Almost immediately after the occupation of the city, several underground youth groups formed independently of each other, which were joined by Red Army soldiers who found themselves in Krasnodon and fled from captivity.

One of these Red Army soldiers was Lieutenant Ivan Turkenich, elected commander of a united underground organization created by young anti-fascists in Krasnodon and called the Young Guard. The creation of the united organization took place at the end of September 1942. Among those who entered the headquarters of the Young Guard was Oleg Koshevoy.

Exemplary student and good friend

Oleg Koshevoy was born in the city of Priluki, Chernihiv region, on June 8, 1926. Then Oleg's family moved to Poltava, and later to Rzhishchev. Oleg's parents broke up, and from 1937 to 1940 he lived with his father in the city of Anthracite. In 1940, Oleg's mother, Elena Nikolaevna, moved to Krasnodon to live with her mother. Soon Oleg also moved to Krasnodon.

Oleg, according to the testimony of most of those who knew him before the war, was a real role model. He studied well, was fond of drawing, wrote poetry, went in for sports, danced well. In the spirit of that time, Koshevoy was engaged in shooting and fulfilled the standard for receiving the Voroshilovsky shooter badge. After learning to swim, he began to help others and soon became a lifeguard.

Commissioner and member of the headquarters of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" Oleg Koshevoy. Photo: RIA Novosti

At school, Oleg helped those who were lagging behind, sometimes taking “in tow” five people who were not doing well in their studies.

When the war began, Koshevoy, who, among other things, was also the editor of the school wall newspaper, began to help wounded soldiers in the hospital, which was located in Krasnodon, published the satirical newspaper Krokodil for them, and prepared reports from the front.

Oleg had very warm relationship with his mother, who supported him in all his endeavors, friends often gathered in the Koshevs' house.

Oleg's school friends from Krasnodon School No. 1 named after Gorky became members of his underground group, which in September 1942 joined the Young Guard.

He couldn't help it...

Oleg Koshevoy, who turned 16 in June 1942, was not supposed to stay in Krasnodon - just before the occupation of the city by the Nazis, he was sent for evacuation. However, it was not possible to go far, because the Germans were advancing faster. Koshevoy returned to Krasnodon. “He was gloomy, blackened with grief. A smile no longer appeared on his face, he walked from corner to corner, oppressed and silent, did not know what to put his hands on. What was happening around no longer amazed, but crushed the son’s soul with terrible anger, ”recalled Oleg’s mother Elena Nikolaevna.

In perestroika times, some “veil breakers” put forward the following thesis: those who before the war declared their loyalty to communist ideals, during the years of severe trials, thought only of saving their own lives at any cost.

Based on this logic, the exemplary pioneer Oleg Koshevoy, admitted to the Komsomol in March 1942, had to lie low and try not to draw attention to himself. In reality, everything was different - Koshevoy, having survived the first shock from the spectacle of his city in the hands of the invaders, begins to assemble a group of his friends to fight the Nazis. In September, the group assembled by Koshevoy becomes part of the Young Guard.

Oleg Koshevoy was engaged in planning the operations of the Young Guard, he himself participated in the actions, was responsible for communication with other underground groups operating in the vicinity of Krasnodon.

Frame from the film "Young Guard" (directed by Sergei Gerasimov, 1948). The scene before the execution. Photo: Frame from the film

Red banner over Krasnodon

The activities of the Young Guard, which included about 100 people, may indeed not seem the most impressive to some. During their work, the Young Guards issued and distributed about 5 thousand leaflets calling for the fight against the Nazis and with messages about what was happening on the fronts. In addition, they committed a number of sabotage actions, such as the destruction of bread prepared for export to Germany, the dispersal of a herd of cattle, which was intended for the needs of the German army, and the explosion of a car with German officers. One of the most successful actions of the Young Guard was the arson of the Krasnodon labor exchange, as a result of which the lists of those whom the Nazis intended to send to work in Germany were destroyed. Thanks to this, approximately 2,000 people were saved from Nazi slavery.

On the night of November 6-7, 1942, the Young Guards hung out red flags in Krasnodon in honor of the anniversary of the October Revolution. The action was a real challenge to the invaders, a demonstration that their power in Krasnodon would be short-lived.

The red flags in Krasnodon had a strong propaganda effect, which was appreciated not only by the inhabitants, but also by the Nazis themselves, who stepped up the search for the underground.

The "Young Guard" consisted of young Komsomol members who had no experience in illegal work, and it was extremely difficult for them to resist the powerful apparatus of Hitler's counterintelligence.

One of the last actions of the "Young Guard" was a raid on vehicles with New Year's gifts for German soldiers. The underground workers intended to use the gifts for their own purposes. January 1, 1943 two members of the organization, Evgeny Moshkov and Viktor Tretyakevich, were arrested after they were found carrying sacks stolen from German vehicles.

German counterintelligence, seizing on this thread and using previously obtained data, within a few days revealed almost the entire underground network of the Young Guard. Mass arrests began.

Koshevoy issued a Komsomol ticket

Mother of the Hero of the Soviet Union, partisan Oleg Koshevoy Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya. Photo: RIA Novosti / M. Gershman

For those who were not immediately arrested, the headquarters gave the only order possible under these conditions - to leave immediately. Oleg Koshevoy was among those who managed to get out of Krasnodon.

The Nazis, who already had evidence that Koshevoy was the commissar of the Young Guard, detained Oleg's mother and grandmother. During interrogations, Elena Nikolaevna Koshevoy injured her spine and knocked out her teeth ...

As already mentioned, no one prepared the Young Guard for underground work. This is largely why most of those who managed to leave Krasnodon could not cross the front line. Oleg after failed attempt On January 11, 1943, he returned to Krasnodon, so that the next day he would again go to the front line.

He was detained by the field gendarmerie near the town of Rovenki. Koshevoy's face was not known, and he could well have avoided exposure, if not for a mistake that is completely impossible for a professional illegal intelligence officer. During a search, they found a Komsomol ID sewn into his clothes, as well as several other documents revealing him as a member of the Young Guard. According to the requirements of the conspiracy, Koshevoy had to get rid of all documents, but boyish pride for Oleg turned out to be higher than common sense.

It is easy to condemn the mistakes of the Young Guard, but we are talking about very young boys and girls, almost teenagers, and not about hardened professionals.

"He had to be shot twice..."

The occupiers showed no leniency towards the members of the Young Guard. The Nazis and their accomplices subjected the underground to sophisticated torture. This fate did not pass and Oleg Koshevoy.

He, as a "commissar", was tormented with special zeal. When the grave with the bodies of the Young Guards executed in the Thundering Forest was discovered, it turned out that 16-year-old Oleg Koshevoy was gray-haired ...

The commissioner of the "Young Guard" was shot on February 9, 1943. From the testimony Schultz- a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in the city of Rovenki: “At the end of January, I participated in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization“ Young Guard ”, among which was the head of this organization Koshevoy ... I remember him especially clearly because I had to shoot him twice. After the shots, all the arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy got up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This made me very angry Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drevitz finish him off. Drevitz went up to the lying Koshevoy and shot him in the back of the head ... "

Schoolchildren at the pit of mine No. 5 in Krasnodon - the place of execution of the Young Guards. Photo: RIA Novosti / Datsyuk

Oleg Koshevoy died just five days before the city of Krasnodon was liberated by the Red Army.

The "Young Guard" became widely known in the USSR because the history of its activities, unlike many other similar organizations, was documented. The persons who betrayed, tortured and executed the Young Guards were identified, exposed and convicted.

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 13, 1943 to the Young Guards Uliana Gromova, Ivan Zemnukhov, Oleg Koshevoy, Sergey Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 3 members of the "Young Guard" were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, 35 - the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, 6 - the Order of the Red Star, 66 - the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" of the 1st degree.

Reproduction of portraits of the leaders of the underground Komsomol organization Young Guard. Photo: RIA Novosti

"Blood for blood! Death for death!”

The commander of the "Young Guard" Ivan Turkenich was among the few who managed to cross the front line. He returned to Krasnodon after the liberation of the city as commander of the mortar battery of the 163rd Guards Rifle Regiment.

In the ranks of the Red Army, he went from Krasnodon further to the west, to avenge the Nazis for his murdered comrades.

On August 13, 1944, Captain Ivan Turkenich was mortally wounded in the battle for the Polish city of Glogow. The command of the unit introduced him to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but it was awarded to Ivan Vasilyevich Turkenich much later - only on May 5, 1990.

"Krasnodontsy". Sokolov-Skalya, 1948 reproduction of the painting

The oath of the members of the Young Guard organization:

“I, joining the ranks of the Young Guard, in the face of my friends in arms, in the face of my native long-suffering land, in the face of all the people, solemnly swear:

Unquestioningly carry out any task given to me by a senior comrade. Keep in the deepest secrecy everything related to my work in the Young Guard.

I swear to avenge mercilessly for the burned, devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of thirty miners-heroes. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment's hesitation.

If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name, my family be forever damned, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades.

Blood for blood! Death for death!”

Oleg Koshevoy continued his war with the Nazis even after his death. Aircraft of the squadron of the 171st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 315th Fighter Aviation Division under the command of a captain Ivan Vishnyakova wore on their fuselages the inscription "For Oleg Koshevoy!". The pilots of the squadron destroyed several dozen Nazi aircraft, and Ivan Vishnyakov himself was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Monument "Oath" in Krasnodon, dedicated to members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard". Photo: RIA Novosti / Tyurin

ERIK SHUR

The Central Archive of the FSB gave us the opportunity to study Case No. 20056 - twenty-eight volumes of investigation materials on charges of policemen and German gendarmes in the massacre of the underground organization Young Guard, which operated in the Ukrainian city of Krasnodon in 1942.
Recall that the novel "The Young Guard", which we have not re-read for a long time, tells in detail about these events. The writer Fadeev made a special trip to Krasnodon after his release and wrote an essay for Pravda, and then a book.
Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
After that, not only the dead, but even the surviving "Young Guards" no longer belonged to themselves, but to Fadeev. In 1951, at the insistence of the Central Committee, he introduced communist mentors into his book. Immediately and in life, kilometers of dissertations were written about their role in leading the Krasnodon youth underground. And not a writer from eyewitnesses, but real participants in the events began to ask the writer: what was the Young Guard really doing? Who led it? Who betrayed her? Fadeev replied: "I wrote a novel, not a story."
The investigation was in hot pursuit, when not all the witnesses and defendants had time to read the novel, which quickly became a classic. This means that in their memory and testimony, the well-known book underground heroes have not yet had time to replace completely real boys and girls executed by the Krasnodon police.
So, having read the facts, the author found ...
"Young Guard" was invented twice. First, in the Krasnodon police. Then Alexander Fadeev. Before a criminal case was initiated on the fact of the theft of New Year's gifts at the local bazaar, there was no SUCH underground youth organization that we have known about since childhood in Krasnodon.
Or was it anyway?
So, facts.

FROM THE MATERIALS OF CASE No. 20056:
Valya Borts: “I joined the Young Guard through my school friend Serezha Safonov ( Safonov's name was Stepan - A.D..), who introduced me to Sergei Tyulenin in August 1942. Then the organization was small and was called the Hammer detachment. I took an oath.
The commander was Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar was Oleg Koshevoy, and the staff members were Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin and Ulyana Gromova. Later, the headquarters was increased by Lyuba Shevtsova.
Apparently, V. Borts had to name Viktor as commander in order to free up the post of commissar O. Koshevoy. Although in August there was only a group of Sergei Tyulenin, and there was not even a question of any headquarters.
Korostylev, engineer of the Krasnougol trust: “Somehow in early October 1942, I handed over a radio receiver to the Young Guards. The reports they wrote down were multiplied, and then spread throughout the city.
My opinion: if this were the case, then Seryozha Levashov would not have had to mount a radio receiver without straightening his back in the second half of October - see the memoirs of Valentina Mikhailovna Levashova in the "Events - October" section
Valya Borts: “... On November 7, red flags were hung on the buildings of the coal directorate and the club of mine No. 5-bis. The labor exchange was burned down, which contained lists of Soviet citizens to be deported to Germany. Shevtsov, Lukyanchenko and Tyulenin set fire to the labor exchange.
All, perhaps. Of course, it is not for us to judge whether this is a lot or a little when it comes to life and death, but even the gendarmes and policemen who were involved in Case No. 20056, just three years after the Krasnodon events, remembered the Young Guard with difficulty. They were never able to say how many people it consisted of and what it really did. At first, they did not even understand why, out of all that they managed to do during the war, the investigation was interested in this short episode with teenagers.
In fact, only twenty-five gendarmes were left to support the Ordnung of the Germans for the entire region. Then they sent five more. They were led by a fifty-year-old German - the head of the gendarmerie Renatus, a member of the NSDAP since 1933. And for thirty Germans in the area there were four hundred policemen. And the competition for a place in the police was such that they took only on the recommendation.

“On the facts of the arson of the labor exchange and the hanging of flags,” the police reported the next day: eight people were arrested. The head of the gendarmerie, without hesitation, ordered everyone to be shot.
In the File there is mention of only one victim of police reporting - the daughter of the collective farm manager Kaseev, who confessed to flying flags. It is absolutely known that Kaseyeva was never a “Young Guard” and does not appear on the lists of heroes.
The "guilty" of posting leaflets was also found immediately. The wife of an engineer of the coal directorate was just solving family problems. And in order to get rid of her husband, she reported to the police: here one engineer maintains contact with the partisans. The “sticker” was miraculously saved by a neighbor in the yard, burgomaster Statsenko.
* * *

Where did the myth of a huge, ramified underground organization posing a terrible threat to the Germans come from?

On the night of December 25-26, 1942, a German car was robbed near the building of the Krasnodon district government, in which there were mail and New Year's gifts for German soldiers and officers.
The driver of the car reported this to the Krasnodon gendarmerie.
The head of the Krasnodon police, Solikovsky, gathered all the policemen, showed a pack of cigarettes of the same brand as those stolen, ordered them to immediately go to the local market and deliver to the police everyone who would sell such cigarettes.
Soon, the interpreter Burgart and a German in civilian clothes walking with him through the bazaar managed to detain twelve-year-old Alexander Grinev (aka Puzyrev). The boy admitted that Yevgeny Moshkov gave him cigarettes. Eight boxes of cigarettes and cookies were found in Moshkov's apartment.
So the head of the club Moshkov, head. string circle Tretyakevich and some others.

And then they took Olga Lyadskaya.

In fact, she was arrested quite by accident. They came to Tosya Mashchenko in search of the “robber” Valya Borts, who by that time was already walking towards the front line. The policeman liked Tosya's tablecloth and decided to take it with him. Under the tablecloth lay Lyadskaya's unsent letter to her friend Fyodor Izvarin.
She wrote that she did not want to go to Germany in "SLAVERY". That's right: in quotation marks and capital letters.
Investigator Zakharov promised to hang Lyadskaya in the bazaar for her capital letters in quotation marks, if he did not immediately name others who were dissatisfied with the new order. She asked: who is already in the police? The investigator cheated and named Tosya Mashchenko, who had been released by that time. Then Lyadskaya showed that Mashchenko was unreliable.
The investigator did not expect more. But Lyadskaya fell for the hook and named a couple more names - those whom she remembered from her active Komsomol work even before the war, who had nothing to do with the Young Guard.
FROM THE MATERIALS OF CASE No. 20056:
Lyadskaya: “I named the persons whom I suspected of partisan activity: Kozyrev, Tretyakevich, Nikolaenko, because they once asked me if we had partisans on the farm and if I helped them. And after Solikovsky threatened to beat me, I betrayed Mashchenko's girlfriend - Borts ... "

And eighty others.
Even according to post-war lists, the organization consisted of about seventy.
For a long time, in addition to Lyadskaya, the “Young Guard” Pocheptsov was considered an “official” traitor. Indeed, investigator Cherenkov recalls that Gennady Pocheptsov, nephew former boss Krasnodon police, handed over in writing to Solikovsky and Zakharov a group in the village of Pervomaisky. And he issued the MG headquarters in this order: Tretyakevich (chief), Lukashev, Zemnukhov, Safonov and Koshevoy. He also named the commander of his "five" - ​​Popov.
Delivered to the police, Tosya Mashchenko admitted that she was distributing leaflets. And she betrayed Tretyakevich, who had been extradited for the third time since the New Year.
Tretyakevich betrayed Shevtsova and began to call the “Young Guards” entire villages.
The circle of suspects expanded so much that the chief Solikovsky managed to get even the son of the burgomaster Statsenko into the police. And, judging by the post-war testimony of the pope, Zhora told everything he knew about his friends whispering behind his back. His father rescued him, as an engineer arrested "for leaflets" before. By the way, he also came running and reported that Oleg Koshevoy was illegally listening to the radio in his apartment.
Indeed, the “Young Guard” Gennady Pocheptsov, who after the war was made “the official traitor of the Young Guard”, gave out on his own initiative. But he no longer told Solikovsky anything new.
The documents mention the Chinese Yakov Ka-Fu as a traitor to the Young Guard. Investigator Zakharov told investigator Orlov already in Italy, at the very end of the war, that this Chinese had betrayed the organization. The post-war investigation was able to establish only one thing: Yakov could be offended by the Soviet authorities, because before the war he was fired from his job because of his poor knowledge of the Russian language.
Imagine how the offended Chinese Ka-Fu handed over an underground organization. How he answered in detail the questions of the investigators - probably on the fingers. It is strange that if not all of China, then at least the entire Krasnodon district of Shanghai did not appear on the lists of the “Young Guards”.
For decades there has been a debate about what real story"Young Guard" differs from that written by Fadeev. It turns out that the argument is pointless. Case No. 20056 that the book did not embellish life, but a myth already created before the writer. At first, the exploits of the youth underground were multiplied by the Krasnodon police itself.
For what? Let's not forget that the Krasnodon policemen did not fall from the moon and did not come from the Third Reich. For a report to the authorities, revealing an ordinary robbery is much less significant than an entire underground organization. And having opened it, believe in it for the former Soviet labor did not constitute. For the former Soviet - from both sides of the front.
But all this was only the prehistory of the Young Guard. The story only begins now.

FROM THE MATERIALS OF CASE No. 20056:
Maria Borts: “... When I entered the office, Solikovsky was sitting at the table. In front of him lay a set of lashes: thick, thin, wide, lead-tipped straps. Vanya Zemnukhov, mutilated beyond recognition, stood by the sofa. His eyes were red, the eyelids were very inflamed. There are bruises and bruises on the face. All of Vanya's clothes were covered in blood, the shirt on his back was stuck to his body, and blood was seeping through it.

Nina Zemnukhova: “From Rafail Vasilyevich, a resident of Krasnodon Lensky, who was kept in the same cell with Vanya, I learned that the executioners took Vanya naked to the police yard and beat him unconscious in the snow.

Zhenya Moshkov was taken to the Kamenka River, frozen in an ice hole and then thawed in a nearby hut in the stove, after which they were again taken to the police for interrogation ...

... Volodya Osmukhin had a bone broken in his arm, and every time during interrogation his broken arm was twisted ... "

Tyulenina (Sergey's mother): “On the third day after my arrest, I was summoned for interrogation, where Serezha was. Solikovsky, Zakharov and Cherenkov forced me to strip naked, and then beat me with whips until I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, in my presence they began to burn Serezha's wound with a red-hot rod. right hand. The fingers were placed under the doors and clamped until completely dead. Needles were driven under the nails and hung on ropes. The air in the torture room was filled with the smell of burnt meat.

In the cells, the police officer Avsetsin did not give us water for days at a time in order to at least slightly moisten the blood that was caked in the mouth and throat.”

Cherenkov (police investigator): “I spent confrontation between Gromova, Ivanikhina and Zemnukhov. At that moment, Solikovsky entered the office with his wife. Having laid Gromova and Ivanikhina on the floor, I began to beat them. Solikovsky, encouraged by his wife, snatched the whip from my hands and began to deal with the arrested himself.

Since the prison cells were filled with young people, many, like Olga Ivantsova’s mother, simply lay in the corridor.”

Maria Borts: “... Solikovsky, Zakharov, Davidenko forced the girls to strip naked, and then they began to mock them, accompanying this with beatings. Sometimes this was done in the presence of Solikovsky's wife, who usually sat on the sofa and burst into laughter.

... Ulya Gromova was hung up by her braids ... They trampled on her chest with boots.

... Police officer Bautkin beat Popov with a whip and forced him to lick the blood that had splashed onto the wall with his tongue.

For almost a week, Oleg Koshevoy hid from persecution around the farms, dressed in women's dress. Then he lay down for three days - under the bed in the apartment of a relative.

Koshevoy thought that the Krasnodon police were looking for him as a commissar of the Young Guard. In fact, he was caught as a participant in a robbery of a car with New Year's gifts. And they took them for neither one nor the other - simply because in the front-line zone then they grabbed and searched all the young people.
Koshevoy was taken to the Rovno district gendarmerie to the investigator Orlov. Oleg knew: this is the same Ivan Orlov, who once summoned for interrogation and raped a teacher. And the Germans even had to "go to meet the population" and remove Orlov from Krasnodon here, in Rovenki.
Koshevoy shouted to Orlov: I am an underground commissar! But the investigator did not listen to the “Young Guard”: they say, can real partisans pretend to be so stupid? But the young man irritated the investigator so much that during the six days of interrogation Oleg turned gray.
About how Koshevoy was dying, the Germans from the firing squad testified. They hardly remembered how, during breakfast, the head of the gendarmerie, Fromme, came into the dining room and said: hurry up, there is work. As usual, the prisoners were taken to the forest, divided into two parties, and placed facing the pits...
But they clearly remembered that one gray-haired boy, after a volley, did not fall into the pit, but remained lying on the edge. He turned his head and just looked in their direction. The gendarme Drevitz could not stand it, came up and shot him in the back of the head with a rifle.
For the Germans, neither the name of Oleg Koshevoy nor the Young Guard existed. But even a few years after the war, they did not forget the look of a gray-haired boy lying on the edge of the pit ...

After the liberation of Krasnodon, on March 1, 1943, forty-nine corpses of the dead were stacked in coffins and transported to the park. Komsomol. It was snowing, immediately turning to mud. The funeral continued from early morning until late at night.

In 1949, Lyadskaya asked to be given the opportunity to independently complete the 10th grade program, because she had been in prison since the age of seventeen. Olga Lyadskaya was rehabilitated in the mid-nineties on the grounds that she was not a member of the Young Guard youth Komsomol organization, which means she could not extradite her.

In 1960, Viktor Tretyakevich was included in the lists of the "Young Guard" and awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree, posthumously.

The editors express their gratitude to the leadership of the CA FSB.

On September 13, 1943, the honorary title of Heroes of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to the young defenders of the Motherland, members of the underground organization "Young guard", which launched its activities in the German-occupied city of Krasnodon. Later, after the War, streets, organizations, ships will be named after them, many books will be written about them, films will be made.

They were not even 20 years old, the youngest of them - Oleg Koshevoy - was only 16, when they began their struggle with the German conquerors hometown. In the fall of 1942, the children of the miners united in the Komsomol underground organization, which they called the Young Guard.

Oleg Koshevoy's poem written during the occupation can be called his personal manifesto:

It's hard for me!.. Wherever you look
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish,
Everywhere a hateful form before me,
Esses badge with a dead head.

I decided that it was impossible to live like this!
Look at the pain and suffer yourself.
We must hurry before it's too late
Destroy behind enemy lines.

I made up my mind and I will do it!
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear
Beautiful Soviet country.

Heroes of the Young Guard

Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarding orders to members of the Komsomol organization Young Guard, which operated during the German occupation in the Voroshilovgrad region, are being published today. The children of the miners - members of the underground organization "Young Guard" - showed themselves to be selfless patriots of the fatherland, forever inscribing their names in the history of the sacred struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders.
Neither cruel terror nor inhuman torture could stop the young patriots in their striving to fight with all their might for the liberation of the Motherland from the yoke of hated foreigners. They decided to fulfill their duty to the fatherland to the end. In the name of fulfilling their duty, most of them died the death of heroes.
In the dark autumn nights of 1942, the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" was created. It was headed by a 16-year-old boy Oleg Koshevoy. His direct assistants in organizing the underground struggle against the Germans were 17-year-old Sergei Tyulenin, 19-year-old Ivan Zemnukhov, 18-year-old Ulyana Gromova and 18-year-old Lyubov Shevtsova. They united around themselves the best representatives of the miners' youth. Acting boldly, courageously, cunningly, the members of the Young Guard soon became a thunderstorm for the Germans. Leaflets and slogans appeared at the doors of the German commandant's office. On the anniversary of the October Revolution in the city of Krasnodon, red flags made from the Fascist banner stolen from the German club were raised on the Voroshilov school building, on the highest tree in the park, on the hospital building. Several dozen German soldiers and officers were killed by members of an underground organization led by Oleg Koshev. Their efforts organized the escape of Soviet prisoners of war. When the Germans tried to send the youth of the city to forced labor in Germany, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades set fire to the building of the labor exchange and thus disrupted the German event. Each of these feats required great courage, steadfastness, endurance, composure. However, the glorious representatives of the Soviet youth found enough strength in themselves to skillfully and prudently resist the enemy and inflict cruel, crushing blows on him.
When the Germans succeeded in uncovering the underground organization and arresting its members, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades endured inhuman tortures, but did not give up, did not give up, and with the great fearlessness of true patriots were martyred. They fought and fought like heroes, and heroes went down to the grave!
Before joining the underground organization “Young Guard”, each of the young people took a sacred oath: “I swear to mercilessly avenge the burned and devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of 30 miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment's hesitation. If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name, my family be forever damned, and I myself will be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades. Blood for blood, death for death!
Oleg Koshevoy and his friends fulfilled their oath to the end. They died, but their names will shine in eternal glory. The youth of our country will learn from them the great and noble art of fighting for the holy ideals of freedom, for the happiness of the fatherland. The youth of all countries enslaved by the German invaders will learn about their immortal feat, and this will give them new strength to accomplish feats in the name of liberation from oppression.
The nation that gives birth to such sons and daughters as Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova is invincible. All the strength of our people was reflected in these young people, who absorbed the heroic traditions of their homeland and did not disgrace their native land in a time of difficult trials. Glory to them!
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Elena Nikolaevna Koshevoy, mother of Oleg Koshevoy, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. She raised the hero, she blessed him to accomplish high and noble deeds - glory to her!
The Germans came to our land as uninvited guests, but here they encountered a great people full of unshakable courage and readiness to defend the fatherland with boundless fury and anger. Young Oleg Koshevoy is a vivid symbol of the patriotism of our people.
The blood of heroes has not been shed for nothing. They contributed their share to the common great cause of defeating the Nazi occupiers. The Red Army is driving the Germans to the west, liberating Ukraine from them.
Sleep well, Oleg Koshevoy! The cause of victory, for which you and your comrades fought, we will bring to the end. With enemy corpses we will mark the road of our victory. We will avenge your martyrdom to the full extent of our anger. And the sun will shine forever over our Motherland and our people will live in glory and greatness, being an example of courage, courage, valor and devotion to duty for all mankind!

During the six months that the organization existed, young men and women managed to do a lot in the fight against the Nazis. Komsomol members on their own were able to assemble a primitive printing house, where not only leaflets and small posters were printed, but also temporary Komsomol tickets.

The occupiers felt themselves in the occupied city like on a powder keg. Soviet leaflets appeared again and again on the walls of houses and at the doors of the German commandant's office.

The children received information for leaflets by listening to Oleg Koshevoy's tube radio at home, which, due to the lack of electricity, was connected to a special device. The latest news was briefly recorded, and then leaflets were compiled, which weekly informed the population about events at the front, in the Soviet rear and in the world, and reports from the Soviet Information Bureau. Even rumors were used to spread information.

Other sources were also used as leaflets. So one night Lyuba Shevtsova made her way into the post office and, destroying the letters of German soldiers and officers, stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were in Germany. The letters, still uncensored, were distributed around the city as leaflets describing the horrors of German hard labor. As a result, the recruitment of those wishing to go to Germany, carried out by the Nazi authorities, was thwarted.

Before the organization of the printing house, leaflets were written by hand and distributed by all members of the youth underground. The city was conditionally divided into sections, which were assigned to specific members of the organization. According to an unspoken rule, leaflets were placed in places where as many people as possible would read them: a bazaar, a water supply system, a hand mill. The guys usually went to paste up in twos - a guy and a girl, so as not to arouse suspicion. Sometimes they gathered in groups and, pretending to have fun, scattered leaflets. And Oleg Koshevoy, tying a white armband on his sleeve ( distinctive sign policemen), scattered leaflets in the park at night.

Also, thanks to the underground workers, loaded cars disappeared in the city every now and then, German soldiers lost machine guns, pistols and cartridges.

The Young Guards did not forget about the arrested communists either. With the money of the financial fund, formed from Komsomol membership fees, products were purchased and secretly transported to the Gestapo dungeons.

The Young Guards freed more than 90 of our fighters and commanders from concentration camp and organized the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaiskaya hospital. Also, about 2,000 people were rescued after Komsomol members set fire to the building of the labor exchange, where lists of citizens intended to be sent to Germany were stored.

Along with subversive activities, Komsomol members were also preparing for the celebration of the next anniversary of the October Revolution: red flags were sewn from red-dyed white pillowcases, red scarves, and even from the German banner. On the night of November 7, when it blew strong wind and it was raining, forcing the police patrols to hide, the Young Guards were able to attach the flags with ropes to the pipes on all the buildings quite freely. Lyuba Shevtsova and Tosya Mashchenko attached a pole to the ceiling on the building of the regional consumer union, dismantling the tiles, and Georgy Shcherbakov and Alexander Shishchenko were able to hang flags on the hospital and on the highest tree in the park.

The German traps, cunningly placed with the aim of capturing the underground, remained empty. Cops found proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found hanged in abandoned mine adits.

The organization was preparing for a decisive armed attack.

Despite the intelligence network organized by the Young Guard, the Germans still managed to uncover the underground. The arrests began. Only a few managed to get to the units of the Red Army. The rest of the occupation authorities were imprisoned. Inhuman torture had to be experienced by the Young Guard in last days life. Those of them who did not die after the torture were thrown alive by the Germans into the pit of an abandoned mine.

Arrested after the liberation of Donbass, the investigator of the district police M.E. Kuleshov, who led the case of the Young Guard, told during interrogations that during torture, the eyes of the arrested Young Guards were gouged out, their breasts and genitals were cut out, they were beaten half to death with whips.

From the memoirs of Vera Alexandrovna Ivanikhina, sister of Lily and Tonya Ivanikhin:

“... In December 1942, Serezha Tyulenev, Valya Borts, Vitya Tretyakevich, Zhenya Moshkov, Oleg Koshevoy, Vanya Zimnukhov and other guys took everything out of the German car, which was “... They tortured me terribly - they put me on the stove, drove them under the nails needles carved on the skin of the star. And, in the end, they were executed - they were thrown alive into mine No. 5. Behind them, dynamite, sleepers, trolleys flew into the mine. My older sister Nina, a doctor by education, subsequently processed the bodies of the sisters herself and saw with her own eyes that there were no lumbago, but only the hair remained alive. Relatives recognized the heroes only by special signs and clothes. It was all terrible."

Brave Undergrounders

In the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, the Germans felt like they were on a volcano. Everything around was seething. Soviet leaflets appeared on the walls of houses every now and then, red flags flew up on the roofs. Loaded motor vehicles disappeared, like gunpowder warehouses of grain caught fire. Soldiers and officers lost machine guns, revolvers, cartridges.
Someone acted very boldly, cleverly and deftly. Cunningly placed German traps remained empty. The fury of the Germans knew no end. They searched in vain through the lanes, houses, attics. And warehouses with grain caught fire again. The police found the proclamations in their own pockets. Then the policemen themselves were found hanged in abandoned mine adits.
On the night of December 5-6, the building of the labor exchange broke out. Lists of persons to be sent to Germany perished in the fire. Thousands of residents, who were waiting with horror for a rainy day when they were taken into captivity, perked up. The fire infuriated the invaders. Special agents were called from Voroshilovgrad. But the traces were mysteriously lost in the winding streets of the mining town. In what house do those who set fire to the labor exchange live? Hatred lived under every roof. Special agents put in a lot of effort, but they left with nothing.
The underground Komsomol organization acted more and more boldly. Insolence has become a habit. The experience of conspiracy accumulated, combat skills became a profession.
Quite a bit of time has passed since that memorable September day, when the first organizational meeting was held in Oleg Koshevoy's apartment at No. 6 on Sadovaya Street. There were thirty young people here who knew each other from school years, for joint work in the Komsomol, for the fight against the Germans. They decided to name the organization "Young Guard". The headquarters included: Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova and others. Oleg was appointed commissar and elected secretary of the Komsomol organization.
There was no experience of underground work, there was no knowledge, there was only an indestructible, burning hatred for the invaders and a passionate love for the Motherland. Despite the danger that threatened the Komsomol members, the organization grew rapidly. More than a hundred people joined the Young Guard. Everyone took an oath of allegiance common cause, the text of which was written by Vanya Zemnukhov and Oleg Koshevoy.
We started with flyers. The Germans began at this time to recruit those wishing to go to Germany. Leaflets appeared on telegraph poles and fences exposing the horrors of fascist hard labor. The recruitment broke. Only three people agreed to go to Germany.
A primitive radio was installed at Oleg's house and listened to the "breaking news". A short record of the latest news was reproduced in the form of leaflets.
With the expansion of the underground organization, its “five”, created for conspiracy, appeared in nearby villages. They published their leaflets. Now the underground workers had four radios.
Komsomol members also created their own primitive printing house. Letters they collected on the conflagration of the building of the regional newspaper. The frame for choosing the font was made by ourselves. The printing house printed not only leaflets. Temporary Komsomol tickets were also issued there, on which it was written: "Valid for the duration of the Patriotic War." Komsomol tickets were issued to newly admitted members of the organization.
The Komsomol organization disrupted literally all events occupation authorities. Neither the first, so-called "voluntary" recruitment, nor the second one, when they wanted to forcibly take away to Germany all the inhabitants of Krasnodon selected by them, failed the Germans.
As soon as the Germans began to prepare for the export of grain to Germany, the underground, on the instructions of the headquarters, organized the burning of bread stacks, warehouses, and infected some of the grain with a tick.
The Germans requisitioned livestock from the surrounding population and drove it in a large herd of 500 heads to their rear. Komsomol members attacked the guards, killed them, and drove the cattle into the steppe.
So every undertaking of the Germans was thwarted by someone's invisible, domineering hand.
Ivan Zemnukhov was the eldest among the staff members. He was nineteen years old. The youngest was the commissioner. Oleg Koshevoy was born in 1926. But both of them acted like mature, highly experienced people, hardened in secret work.
Oleg Koshevoy was the brain of the whole organization. He acted wisely and slowly. True, sometimes youthful enthusiasm prevailed, and then he participated, despite the prohibition of the headquarters, in the most risky and daring operations. Now with a box of matches in his pocket, he sets fire to huge stacks under the very noses of the policemen, then, wearing a policeman's bandage or taking advantage of the darkness of the night, sticks leaflets on the buildings of the gendarmerie and police.
But these enterprises are not reckless. Putting on a police bandage and going out at night, Oleg knew the password. In the farms and settlements of the region, Oleg planted his agents. Which carried out only his personal instructions. He received regular information about everything that was happening in the area. Moreover, Oleg had his own people in the police. Two members of the organization worked there as police officers.
Thus, the plans and intentions of the police authorities became known to the headquarters in advance, and the underground could quickly take their countermeasures.
Oleg also created the financial fund of the organization. It was compiled on monthly 15-ruble membership dues. In addition, in case of need, members of the organization paid one-time contributions. With this money, assistance was provided to needy families of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. These funds were used to purchase products for the transfer of parcels. Soviet people languishing in a German prison. Products were also handed over to prisoners of war who were in a concentration camp.
Each operation, whether it was an attack on a passenger car, when the Young Guards exterminated three German officers, or the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the May Day hospital, was developed by the headquarters under the leadership of Oleg Koshevoy in every detail and detail.
Sergei Tyulenin spent all the dangerous combat operations. He performed the most risky tasks and was known as a fearless militant. He personally destroyed ten fascists. It was he who set fire to the building of the labor exchange, hung out red flags, led a group of guys who attacked the guards of the herd, which the Germans drove to Germany. The "Young Guard" was preparing for an open armed offensive, and Sergei Tyulenin led a group to collect weapons and ammunition. In three months they collected former fields battles and stole from the Germans and Romanians 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15 thousand rounds of ammunition, pistols, explosives.
On the instructions of the headquarters, Lyuba Shevtsova went to Voroshilovgrad to establish contact with the underground. She has been there several times. At the same time, she showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage. She told the German officers that she was the daughter of a major industrialist. Lyuba stole important documents, obtained secret information.
One night, on the instructions of the headquarters, Lyuba snuck into the post office, destroyed all the letters of German soldiers and officers, and stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were at work in Germany. These letters, which had not yet been censored, were distributed throughout the city like leaflets on the second day.
In the hands of Ivan Zemnukhov were concentrated appearances, passwords, direct contact with agents. Thanks to the skillful methods of conspiracy of the Komsomol members, the Germans could not attack the trail of the organization for more than five months.
Ulyana Gromova participated in the development of all operations. She arranged for her girls to work in all kinds of German institutions. Through them, she carried out numerous sabotage.
She also organized assistance to the families of Red Army soldiers and tortured miners, the transfer of parcels to prison, and the escape of Soviet prisoners of war. The Young Guards released more than 90 of our fighters and commanders from the concentration camp.
The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the organization. In the dungeons of the Gestapo, young men and women were tortured in the most brutal ways. The executioners repeatedly put a noose around Lyuba Shevtsova's neck and hung her from the ceiling. She was beaten until she lost consciousness. But the cruel torture of the executioners did not break the will of the young patriot. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie department. There, Lyuba was tortured with more sophisticated methods: needles were driven under her nails, a star was cut out on her back, burned with a red-hot iron.
The Germans also subjected other young patriots to the same terrible tortures, inhuman torments. But they did not extract a single word of recognition from the lips of the Komsomol members. Tortured, bloody, half-dead Komsomol members, the Germans threw them into the shaft of an old mine.
Immortal is the feat of the Young Guard! Their fearless and uncompromising struggle against the German occupiers, their legendary courage will shine through the ages as a symbol of love for the Motherland!
A. Erivansky

Glory to the sons of the Komsomol!

You see, comrade, the affairs of Krasnodon
a little light is illuminated by rays of glory.
In deep darkness the Soviet sun
behind their young stood shoulders.
For the happiness of Donbass they endured
and hunger, and torture, and cold, and flour,
and they pronounced a sentence on the Germans
and lowered a stern hand.
Neither the gnash of torture, nor the cunning of the detective
Enemies failed to break the Komsomol!
In the darkness, an immortal spark arose,
and explosions again thundered across the Donbass.
And fearlessly they parted with life,
they died with simple words,
deep underground they remained
captive city masters.
No one saw their fire and lodging for the night
in the gloomy darkness of the German rear,
but the feat of Ulyana, the heroism of Oleg
Motherland saw and illuminated.
You see, comrade, the affairs of Krasnodontsy,
they will never be forgotten by us,
immortal glory, like the eternal sun,
rises, shining, above their names.
Semyon Kirsanov

This is how heroes die

The "Young Guard" was preparing to carry out its cherished dream- a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon garrison by the Germans.
Vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the youth.
As soon as the arrests of the Young Guards began, the headquarters gave the order - all members of the "Young Guard" to leave and make their way to the units of the Red Army. But, unfortunately, it was already too late. Only 7 people managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkevich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the "Young Guard" were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground workers were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them backed down from their oath. The German executioners went berserk, for 3, 3 hours in a row they beat and tortured the Young Guards. But the executioners could not break the spirit and iron will of the young patriots.
The Gestapo beat Sergey Tyulenin several times a day with whips made of electric wires, broke his fingers, and drove a red-hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought their mother, a 58-year-old old woman. In front of Sergei, she was undressed and tortured.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarino. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a red-hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time of execution was coming. In their last hour they were also strong in spirit. Ulyana Gromova, a member of the headquarters of the Young Guard, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
- The last order of the headquarters ... The last order ... they will lead us to execution. We will be led through the streets of the city. We will sing Ilyich's favorite song ...
Exhausted, mutilated, young heroes left prison on their last journey. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back. Shura Bondareva - with cut off breasts. Volodya Osmukhin had his right hand cut off.
The Young Guards went on their last journey with their heads held high. Solemnly and sadly rushed their song:
"Tortured by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death
In the fight for a job
You honestly folded your head ... "
The executioners threw them alive into the fifty-meter shaft of the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And looking at how it rinses in the wind, the inhabitants again remembered the Young Guard. Hundreds of people went to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. Above one of the walls, a heart pierced by an arrow is carved. In the heart are four surnames: "Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina." And above all the inscriptions in the entire width of the bloodied wall is the inscription: "Death to the German occupiers!"
This is how the glorious pupils of the Komsomol lived, fought and died for their fatherland, young heroes whose feat will survive the centuries.

"Long live our liberator - the Red Army!"

One of the leaflets of the "Young Guard"
“Read it and pass it on to a friend.
Comrades Krasnodontsy!
The long-awaited hour of our liberation from the yoke of the Nazi bandits is approaching. troops Southwestern Front line of defense broken. On November 25, our units, having taken the capital Morozovskaya, advanced 45 kilometers.
The movement of our troops to the west continues rapidly. The Germans are fleeing in panic, dropping their weapons! The enemy, retreating, plunders the population, taking away food and clothing.
Comrades! Hide everything you can so that the Nazi robbers do not get it. Sabotage orders German command, do not succumb to the false German agitation.
Death to the German invaders!
Long live our liberator - the Red Army!
Long live the free Soviet homeland!
"Young guard".

For 6 months, "Young Guard" in Krasnodon alone issued more than 30 leaflets, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.

After the liberation, the inhabitants of the city preserved the memory of the brave young men and women who fought against the German regime, and the domestic press made their feat known to all Soviet citizens. Sergei Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova became symbols of youth patriotism.

Komsomol members of Krasnodon

Not! Our youth cannot be killed
And don't kneel!
She lives and will live
Just like the great Lenin taught.

For honor, for truth, for the people,
Who is the most honest in the world,
She will go to the scaffold
Any torture will proudly meet.

And even death won't win
Her daring of the living, -
Shine brightly over the world
Star of Oleg Koshevoy.

And be pure beauty
To call for a feat from the best of the best
For the cause of the Motherland, the saint.
For what Stalin teaches us.

Not! Torture won't make us shudder!
Immortal scarlet banners
Where is the youth
Like the Komsomol members of Krasnodon!

The history of the "Young Guard" (Krasnodon): a look after 60 years

annotation

Keywords

Time scale - century
XX

Bibliographic description:
Petrova N.K. The history of the "Young Guard" (Krasnodon): a look after 60 years // Proceedings of the Institute of Russian History. Issue. 7 / Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Russian History; resp. ed. A.N.Sakharov. M., 2008. S. 201-233.

Article text

N.K. Petrova

HISTORY OF THE YOUNG GUARD (KRASNODON): LOOK AFTER 60 YEARS

The concept of time is highly subjective. For history, 60 years can seem both a short moment and a long period.

In the autumn of 2002, 60 years have passed since the creation and beginning of the activities of the Komsomol and youth underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the city of Krasnodon during the period of temporary occupation of Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 . Almost all members of this organization were arrested, tortured, and then shot or thrown alive into the pit of mine No. 5.

The “Young Guard” is one of many underground youth organizations that arose on the initiative of the youth themselves, without the organizing and leading role of party authorities. It operated for only a few months, since on January 1, 1943, the arrests of its members began and they continued throughout the month. Shortly before the liberation of the Voroshilovgrad region (now the Lugansk region), on the night of February 8-9, the last Young Guardsmen in the city of Rovenki were shot.

The age of young underground workers is from 14 to 29 years. Among them are schoolchildren and those who have just graduated from it, students, military personnel who escaped from captivity and returned to Krasnodon. It was an international organization: it included Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldavians, Jews, Azerbaijanis, and Armenians. All of them were united by one desire - to fight the invaders of their homeland.

We first learned about the Krasnodon Young Guard in the spring of 1943. And each of us (we mean those who were born before the end of the 60s of the last century) knows something about the Young Guard, but no one knows everything about her. For many years, bit by bit, material has been collected about those who were its members.

"Young Guard" is one of the many underground organizations operating in the temporarily occupied territory. The peculiarity is that her activities became widely known, that they did not hush up about her for many years, as was the case with others, doing checks along the line of special agencies and finding out who was who in each of them.

In the book of memoirs V.E. Semichastny, published in 2002 under the title "Restless Heart", I think that the explanation of the reasons for the preservation of the fame of the "Young Guard" is quite correctly given. V.E. Semichastny wrote that if N.S. Khrushchev “I didn’t directly turn to Stalin, this organization, like many like it, would have sunk into obscurity, having been checked by the MGB (Ministry state security- this was the name of the state security agencies from 1943 until the death of Stalin). And there immediately: who betrayed whom, who cheated on whom, etc. And it could take years! But since the decrees were prepared in a timely manner and signed quickly by Khrushchev and Stalin, the matter ended happily.

Members of the Young Guard were awarded during the war...

True, there were costs: for example, V. Tretyakevich did not get into the number of glorious Young Guardsmen ”(see p. 51).

With a general explanation of the former Chairman of the KGB of the USSR, and during the investigation of the history of the “Young Guard” of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol V.E. Semichastny can agree. But one cannot agree with one thing - with the approach to “costs”: V. Tretyakevich, one of the organizers of the “Young Guard”, not only did not get into the list of Young Guards in 1943, but then into the updated and supplemented list compiled at the end 40s by the Voroshilov-grad regional committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine. Until 1959, along with the name of V. Tretyakevich, on a false slander, there was an accusation that he had betrayed the members of his organization.

And this is not the only “cost” in the history of the “Young Guard”.

In fact, there is no history of this organization as such. It has not yet been written. In a number of published works, there is a brief summary of the actions of the members of this organization, a description of the members of its headquarters according to the award documents of 1943 is given, and the role of the communists in the leadership of this organization is described. But was it all so? And if not, then why is everything going according to the established rules?

Many documents were not known for a long time. AT early XXI in. an attempt was made to revise the history of the "Young Guard" from the first mention of it. In 2003, a collection of documents and materials was published under the title "Young Guard" (Krasnodon) - an artistic image and historical reality. The collection includes original documents and can be a source for study Soviet society 40-90s of the last century.

The history of the underground organization "Young Guard" for many years was for journalists, writers, for everyone who was concerned about the problems of educating young people, grateful material, giving examples of courage, patriotism, serving the people, bright role models. Unfortunately, at present, with the formation of the CIS, interest in this story has fallen.

At present, the history of the “Young Guard” is called by some experts “a local history that does not have a wide sound”. One can only regret that this opinion exists and is partly implemented in practice.

Tell me, does today's youth know who the Young Guards are, what kind of underground organization "Young Guard" is, and who wrote a novel dedicated to its struggle during the years of the Patriotic War? Studying sociological surveys of recent times, we will receive disappointing, negative answers to all the above questions.

Let us return from discussion to the history of the question.

For the first time, in hot pursuit, after reporting on the Young Guard, journalists A. Gutorovich and V. Lyaskovsky wrote an essay about it, very quickly they prepared a brochure on the Young Guard. A.A. Fadeev created a vivid essay "Immortality". All this was in 1943. Then, on a documentary basis, the novel A.A. was written. Fadeev "Young Guard". Even before its publication, its chapters were published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and in a number of magazines. The novel came to the soldiers' trenches with the first chapters. The book fought in the truest sense of the word on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The whole novel was written in a year and 9 months, completed on December 18, 1945, and in 1946 came out as a separate edition. In June of the same year, the author received the State Prize of the 1st degree.

Roman A.A. Fadeev is a document of the era. It contains the thoughts and feelings of wartime youth, their characters. This work entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining documentary truth and artistic comprehension. Sam A.A. Fadeev said on this occasion: “Although the heroes of my novel have real names and surnames, I did not write the real history of the Young Guard, but a work of art in which there are many fictional and even fictional faces. The novel has the right to do so. However, many, including historians, this novel was perceived as a canonized history of the organization. There were years when the very idea of ​​clarifying something or doubting something was considered seditious.

The history of the “Young Guard” is a long and difficult search for truth, and now it is no easier to do it than before: after all, today the history of the “Young Guard” is part of the history of independent Ukraine. But we had one Great Patriotic War, which united all peoples to defeat the enemy, and the Young Guard is part of our common historical past, in which it is important to separate truth from fiction, to pay tribute to all those young people who fought against the enemy , to restore the good names of the Young Guards, forgotten or hastily crossed out by someone's hand.

Not thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, the Young Guards did what they could, what they could: they exposed the disinformation spread by the invaders on Soviet soil, instilled in the people faith in the inevitable defeat of the invaders, they obtained weapons in order to start an open armed struggle at the right time. Members of the organization wrote by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house, distributed reports of the Sovinformburo, on the night of November 7, 1942 they hung red flags on school buildings, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the guys.

By decision of the headquarters of the “Young Guard”, the building of the German labor exchange with all documents was burned, more than 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from the concentration camp. A herd of 500 cattle destined for export to Germany was beaten off, etc. On the eve of the new year, 1943, an attack was made on German cars that were carrying New Year's gifts and mail to the occupiers. The guys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest, planning to send it to the base created for the partisan struggle.

This last action hastened the defeat of the Young Guard, which had been hunted for several months by the Krasnodon police and gendarmerie, together with the German, Italian and Romanian special services of Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk), Krasny Luch, Rovenkov and Stalino (now Donetsk). And then there were brutal, truly medieval torture. Chief of Police Solikovsky tried his best. Ivan Zemnukhov was mutilated beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then thawed on the stove and taken for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin was cauterized with a red-hot rod. Ulyana Gromova was suspended from the ceiling by braids...

They were executed at mine No. 5 bis. On the night of January 15, the first group of Young Guards were shot and then thrown into the pit, and some of them were thrown into the mine alive. Among them was Viktor Tretyakevich, one of the organizers of the Young Guard. Until January 31, the executioners dealt with the rest of the arrested young guards, among whom was Sergei Tyulenin.

Oleg Koshevoy was detained on January 22, 1943 near Kartushino station. On the road he was stopped by policemen, searched, found a pistol, beaten and sent under escort to Rovenki. There he was again searched and under the lining of his overcoat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a self-made seal of the Young Guard. The police chief recognized the young man (Oleg was the nephew of his friend). When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted out that he was the commissar of the Young Guard. During six days of interrogation, he turned gray.

Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki. Oleg Koshevo was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova on the night of February 9.

After the liberation of Krasnodon, on March 1, 1943, the funeral of 49 young guardsmen was held in the Komsomol park from morning to evening.

And then the "Young Guard" and its history became a legend, a symbol of Soviet patriotism, material for agitation and propaganda work among young people. This has already happened with Nikolai Gastello, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Alexander Matrosov. Now the most active young guards have become heroes. The first message about them was received by the party and Komsomol organs of Ukraine already on March 31, 1943. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol V.S. Kostenko reported on the front-line "HF" Khrushchev about the "Young Guard". Nikita Sergeevich gave the command: “Take a sample, as we write I.V. Stalin - write the text and attach decrees on rewarding. Kostenko, recalling this in the summer of 1992, said: “We, i.e. Central Committee, prepared and brought. Khrushchev took it in his hands and asked: “Is everything right here?” Having received an affirmative answer, Khrushchev, without reading, signed all the documents. Thus, the main document on the “Young Guard” was prepared - a note by Khrushchev addressed to Stalin dated September 8, 1943.

As you know, N.S. Khrushchev had especially warm feelings for the Donbass, where he passed his labor “universities”. Therefore, he took the message about the "Young Guard" to heart. Khrushchev’s note addressed to Stalin emphasized that “all the activities of the Young Guard contributed to strengthening the resistance of the population to the invaders, instilled faith in the inevitability of the defeat of the Germans and the restoration of Soviet power.” The note said nothing about the party leadership of the work of the Young Guard. However, this document already contained certain misinformation regarding the composition of the leadership of the youth organization. Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov and Sergei Tyulenin were named the creators of the Young Guard, while Viktor Tretyakevich and Vasily Levashov did not appear in a note addressed to Stalin and, accordingly, were not presented for the award.

Stalin supported the proposal of the Ukrainian leader on the posthumous awarding of the heroes of the "Young Guard", Khrushchev's note with the Stalinist resolution went to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M.I. Kalinin. The decision was quick. Kalinin signed the award decree the very next day - on September 13, 1943, Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by death. A number of other Young Guardsmen were also awarded, and the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, E.N. Koshevaya (she received the Order of the Patriotic War II degree - for active assistance provided to the "Young Guard"). The Pravda newspaper of September 15 reported this.

For parents whose children were awarded posthumously, this Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR brought temporary relief from the realization that their dead sons and daughters are remembered. But not for long. The people, as always happens, began to discuss who and for what received awards, since many of those who died did not even receive medals.

At the same time, the special services were also “studying the issue”, actively looking for the traitor who betrayed the organization.

Did not improve, but rather exacerbated the situation in Krasnodon visiting the city famous writer A. Fadeev. Information about what was in the city during the occupation, how it was created and what the “Young Guard” did, came to the writer from E.N. Koshevoy, who vividly and convincingly recounted everything that she had heard from others and that she herself knew. The Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League provided Fadeev with extensive documentary material. The writer talked to the employees of the investigating authorities. The materials, as Fadeev stated, made a huge impression on him and were the basis of the novel.

A.A. Fadeev deliberately violated the unwritten law of creativity, according to which it was necessary to take on the creation of works about the most important historical events only after they recede into the distant past. As a result, in his novel, historical reality mixed with fiction, acquired an artistic form, but at the same time lost some of its authenticity.

The circulation of the novel sold out instantly. We will not dwell on its artistic merits. In the Donbass, the demand for the work exceeded the supply - there were not enough books in the stores. But soon, along with enthusiastic reviews of the Young Guard, a flood of questions poured in to the local party authorities, to the writer, to various authorities, and so on. This is explained by the fact that Krasnodon residents accepted the novel "Young Guard" as the history of the organization, the youth underground of their hometown. People whose children died did not find any mention of their loved ones, or what was written did not coincide with the real thing that was. They were outraged by the distortion of reality. Especially exact match of the image of Yevgeny Stakhovich, the man who betrayed the organization, with the portrait of Viktor Tretyakevich, who was one of the organizers and commissar of the Young Guard.

No explanations were accepted. Not only V. Tretyakevich's relatives defended the truth. Many parents were outraged. The regional committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine had, as he recalled in 1989, the former secretary of the Voroshilovgrad regional committee N.V. Pilipenko, “to restore mutual understanding among the families of the Young Guards”. As “reinforcements, a group of Komsomol workers arrived from Kyiv, headed by the secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol Mitrokhin. They arrived to fulfill the special order of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol V. A. Kostenko: “to read the novel “Young Guard” to the families of the Young Guard and ask them to know the history of the creation of this organization from the book.” A task is a task.

N.V. told about how it was carried out. Pilipenko at a meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League in April 1989. I think that his story is worth reproducing, since it had not been published before. “Mitrokhin and I went to Krasnodon,” Pilipenko recalled. - Read the book by families, by apartments. And they asked everyone: Let's tell the story of the Young Guard as it is shown in Fadeev's book. The fact that there was such a “story” was also told by V.E. Semichastny in a conversation with the compilers of a collection of documents about the "Young Guard" in July 2000. He said that the most active and noisy had to "calm down with words." I had to say that today your son (or daughter) is a hero, they know about him, but if you don’t calm down, then we will make him turn from a hero into a traitor. Such “explanatory” conversations were held with the most active Tyulenin family. Of course, Semichastny said this to the relatives of the Young Guards not on his own behalf, but because there was a “party setting”. It was then generally accepted: the decision of the party not to be discussed, since they are always correct. And on the draft Decree on the awarding of the Young Guardsmen, it was boldly written: “For. I. Stalin”. One signature and the issue is resolved. Such was the time. And for a while, people quieted down. And then they wrote letters to Moscow again, indignant and demanding justice be restored.

The publication of the book by E.N. Koshevoy's "The Tale of a Son" caused a new wave of letters. To the question of one of the Komsomol leaders of the region, to whom she presented the book: “Is everything objectively described in it?” Koshevaya blushed and replied: “You know, the writers wrote the book. But from my story. And regarding the discovered inaccuracies, discrepancies with reality, Elena Nikolaevna answered: “You see, now you can’t correct anything in the book. What is written, apparently, with a pen, cannot be cut down with an ax. For a long time, reality proved that this was true.

A.A. Fadeev in his work wrote out a charming image of Oleg Koshevoy, the commissar of the Young Guard, who was able to create and lead an underground organization that united about a hundred people aged from 14 years old (Radik Yurkin) to 29 years old (M. Shishchenko). It must be emphasized that in this organization there were many people who served in the Red Army, like M.I. Shishchenko and N. Zhukov, or those who were surrounded or captured and fled from the camps (B. Glavan, V. Gukov). There were several people in the organization who graduated from the intelligence school in Lugansk (these are two brothers Sergey and Vasily Levashov, V. Zagoruiko, L. Shevtsova). N. Ivantsova and O. Ivantsova, after graduating from Morse course, were left to work behind enemy lines.

A.A. Fadeev “did not notice” or did not consider it necessary to show that in terms of age it was far from a school underground organization, there were also young officers (suffice it to recall E. Moshkov and V. Turkenich).

A certain explanation for what happened was given in 1965 by the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol P.T. Tronko. “In the first months after the liberation of Krasnodon, information about the activities of the Young Guard was received mainly from the parents of the Young Guards (mainly from the mother of Oleg Koshevoy), and not from the surviving Young Guards. The mother of Oleg Koshevoy ... developed a vigorous activity to exalt her son and portrayed the work of the organization in a favorable light for her. The work was carried out by the whole group, the team. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union is worthy of both Turkenich and Tretyakevich. These were the most mature people in the organization, the rest were very young. But since at that time Tretyakevich was suspected of betrayal, his name was hushed up ... ".

As for the novel, the press greeted the "Young Guard" as a whole complimentary. Fadeev's "civil feat" and his "artistic achievements" were extolled, the captivating charm and fearlessness of the boys and girls from Krasnodon were noted. The newspapers “Culture and Life” and “Pravda” on November 30 and December 3, 1947 responded to the release of the novel with editorials, which highly appreciated the epic about young underground workers - children of the mining region. But soon criticism was also heard: “The most important thing that characterizes the life, growth, work of the Komsomol fell out of the novel, this is the leading, educational role of the party, the party organization,” Pravda passed the verdict, crossing out much of what she praised .

Picking up this critical note, the smaller-caliber periodicals, in turn, began to scold the writer for the lack of a “cementing party principle”, the “inferiority of the images of the Bolsheviks”, shown, they say, by worthless organizers stumbling at every step.

Fadeev did not defend himself. On the contrary, he immediately “took him under the goats”, because he knew from experience the merciless power of the ideological dictate of the System. As a result, he went to a significant revision of the text of the novel. The young guards in the novel appeared party mentors and leaders. The idea of ​​the leading and guiding role of the CPSU(b) once again demonstrated its all-conquering power. But in the beginning, in the hot pursuit of his first trip to Krasnodon, he wrote in the essay “Immortality”, published in Pravda on September 15, 1943, which is now perceived as a sketch for the first version of the novel, something completely different: “People of older generations , who remained in the city in order to organize the fight against the German invaders, were soon identified by the enemy and died at his hands or were forced to hide. The entire burden of organizing the fight against the enemy fell on the shoulders of the youth. Thus, in the autumn of 1942, the underground organization “Young Guard” was formed in the city of Krasnodon.

This conclusion A.A. Fadeeva also confirms the “Report of the Voroshi-Lovgrad Regional Committee of the CP (b) U on the partisan movement and the activities of underground party organizations during the period of temporary occupation of the region by the Nazi invaders.” It says that at the end of 1941, neither the party collectives in the underground, nor the partisan detachments had a chance to launch subversive work, because the front had partially stabilized, and the Voroshilovgrad region had not yet been occupied. Therefore, most of the underground and partisan units were disbanded, their personnel were drafted into the Red Army, and some "illegals" were transferred to perform special tasks in other areas. And only in connection with the new advance of enemy troops into the interior of the country, the Voroshilovgrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine again began to create underground party organizations and partisan detachments. In the districts and cities of the Voroshilovgrad region, underground district committees and city committees of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine were formed. But they did not have enough strength to provide leadership to the youth underground in Krasnodon.

AT historical literature there is still no complete research on the history of the youth underground organization “Young Guard”, but there are quite a lot of articles and publications about who was who in it, namely: who was the commissioner - O. Koshevoy or V. Tretyakevich. Undoubtedly, I would like to put an end to this issue. But the main thing is not to study the distribution of roles and positions in the underground, but to recreate its entire history bit by bit, bit by bit. For historians, it is important to find out its composition, activity (although this issue is the most studied); the reasons for the failure, who and why falsified some of its active participants. Not the last place in this long series of unexplored, ungeneralized problems is the restoration of the good name of everyone who has been labeled a “traitor” for many years. Still no complete list its members. But there is a canonized list, approved at one time by the decision of the Bureau of the Lugansk Regional Committee of the Communist Party (b)U in 1945.

To legitimize party leadership The “Young Guards” prepared the relevant documents. April 20, 1945 Secretary of the Krasnodon RK KP (b)U P.Ya. Zverev and the head of the RO NKGB M.I. Bessmertny signed a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Voroshilovgrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party (b)U P.L. Tulnova. Its contents provide answers to some questions:

"... At the time of the withdrawal of the Red Army units in the summer of 1942, the Krasnodon RK KP (b) U and RO NKGB created several partisan groups in the area and left behind enemy lines with a special task ...

From the materials at our disposal and the RO NKRGB, it is clear that the partisan groups left behind did not carry out any actions behind enemy lines, individual members of these detachments became active accomplices of the German invaders.

During the occupation period, a communist who worked under the Germans in the central electromechanical workshop Comrade Lyutikov F.P. had the intention, on his own initiative, to organize a partisan group.

Lyutikov created the core of the group, which included members of the CPSU (b) Barakov, Dymchenko, non-party Artemyev, Sokolov etc. However, this group did not have time to do any actions behind the enemy, since at the beginning of January 1943, all of them, led by Lyutikov, were arrested by the police and shot ...

Lone partisans who would fight in the rear of the Germans have not been established by us in the Krasnodon region” .Below is the signature of the authors of the message.

And after this, obviously, on the recommendation of the regional committee of the CP (b) U on April 28, 1945, the report “On the organization of a partisan detachment in the city of Krasnodon in the period temporary occupation by the Germans of the Krasnodon region”. The speakers were the first persons of power in the city of Krasnodon: P. Zverev (Secretary of the RK CP (b) U); Bessmertny (head of the RO NKGB) and Mi-shchuk (position not specified). And then, as expected, a decision was made. In the ascertaining part, it was noted that during the occupation of the city "on the initiative of individual communists who remained in connection with the environment(Paying attention: not abandoned for assignments, and remaining, i.e. unable to evacuate. - N.P..), there was an intention to organize a partisan group to fight the enemy. The Lyutikov-Barakov group elected the firstcommander, and the second - the commissar, set the task of instilling confidence in the people in the return and early liberation of the area by the Red Army ... However, the specified group did not manage to do any actions behind enemy lines, since in early January 1943, the entire core, led by Lyutikov and Barakov, was arrested by the police and all members of the group were shot.

Based on the foregoing, the bureau of the RK CP (b) U decides:

1. Consider Lyutikov Philip Petrovich and Baranov Nikolay Petrovich the organizers of the partisan group in the city of Krasnodon, brutally tortured by the Nazi invaders - PARTISANS OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR.

2. The list of partisans and young guards ... approve.

3. To ask the bureau of the Regional Committee of the CP(b)U to approve this decision” .

So, more than two years after the liberation of the city, shortly before the end of World War II, this document was drawn up. It was further approved in accordance with the request set out in the third paragraph of the judgment.

Let's say for clarification that the creation of this detachment of 50 people is dated December 1942, and the Young Guard organization was created in September of the same year. The question arises: who helped whom, and who led whom?

Let's see through the eyes of documents how this page of "history" was recreated. For ten years our society has been aware of the leading role played by the communists in the youth underground in Krasnodon. To whom do we owe the fact that this fairy tale has come true?!

In order to strengthen this “position” in 1948-1949, the Voroshilov-grad OK KP (b)U created a commission, which was instructed to collect “additional materials about the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” and the role of communists in its work” . On February 18, 1949, at a meeting of this commission, it was noted that “We don’t have documents that would have been left directly by the party organization... Despite the fact that there are no such documents, we can still restore a picture of the activities of the party underground...” .

Summing up the results of this meeting, the secretary of the regional committee, Alentyeva, instructed "to find the materials of the party underground of Krasnodon." But “if the documents of this era have not been preserved, then the documents of 1949 will be preserved. And we should see these documents in mass recognition, in the face of party activists and official records of the bureau of the regional committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine, ”Alentyeva concluded.

And that's not it. The transcript of another meeting of the above-mentioned commission, dated April 28, 1949, is a vivid example of how party authorities “participated in the restoration” of the history of the Young Guard. Alentyeva, as the main party ideologist of the region, concluded: “Fadeev wrote a work of art. We believe that we are creating a historical document, it is impossible to show Tretyakevich. Tretyakevich should not be shown, as one of the most active people, it would be historically wrong (italics mine. - N.P.)” . And as a result of the work, on June 14, 1949, at a meeting of the bureau of the OK KP (b) U on the issue “On the Young Guard”, Alentyeva concluded (despite the lack of relevant documents) that “it was the party organization that began its activities before the Young Guards”... We decided (pay attention - “we decided.” - NP) Tretya-kevich to be withdrawn. They will play the role of Buttercups and Barakov. Thus, another myth about the leading and guiding role of the party was created.

A.A. Fadeev, judging by the content of those documents with which he got acquainted, conversations with the surviving young guards, of course, knew about this. However, he generously introduced new episodes that were winning for the CPSU (b) into the narrative. He practically re-wrote seven and fundamentally rebuilt twenty-five chapters of the novel. The figures of the communist mentors of youth were molded in the second edition in volume, almost monumental. At the same time, the youth underground found itself in a "renewed" novel in the backyard of the Resistance, turning, as it should be for any Komsomol organization, into an assistant and reserve of the party.

But Fadeev got it not only and not even so much from reviewers, but from readers - mostly fellow countrymen and relatives of the dead Young Guards. It is difficult to measure the grief of the family of V.I. Tretyakevich, which was brought to them by the image of the traitor Stakhovich created by Fadeev, like two drops of water similar to their son Viktor. Tretyakevich's father was paralyzed, the brothers "went away" from party work.

At first, in the spring and summer of 1943, Viktor Tretyakevich was still on the list of leaders of the Young Guard along with Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Turkenich and Oleg Koshev. But then SMERSH intervened in the investigation of the circumstances related to the activities and failure of the Young Guard, actively engaged in the search for traitors.

In 1943, it was not taken into account that the Germans had certain information about the formation of an underground in the occupied territories. In the fund of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement at the Headquarters Supreme High Command one interesting document has been preserved from the department of special information on the development of the partisan movement in 1942 (translated from Italian). Attention is drawn to such a moment: the awareness of this German “department”. In the “Education” section we read: “From the beginning of the war, the Bolsheviks organized ... special schools where a regular course of study was held. There are 15 such schools in Voronezh alone, including one for women. The remaining schools are located in Voroshilovgrad and Rostov. Schools in Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad are the largest.” School leaders, the nature of education, teaching plans, and even the details that in “Voroshilovgrad and Millerovo (near Stalingrad) a school for spies and saboteurs had a two-week training period were known. In many schools young people are taught the special art of arson.”

This once again indicates that the occupiers were constantly collecting information, using it to track down suspects. To this end “The chiefs of the secret field police, the general commanders of the security forces and the commanders-in-chief of the north-central and southern armies made special lists of partisans, their assistants, spies and suspicious Bolshevik agents.

These lists were sent to all parts of the secret field police, field and local garrisons, information bureaus of the security police, prisoner of war camps ... These lists contain personal data, as accurate as possible, a description of appearance, address, place of activity and belonging to a particular partisan detachment” . If we believed, - this document states, - that with the destruction of the Red Army, the partisan struggle would decline, now(recall, it was 1942 - N.P.) the fight against partisans is one of the most important tasks assigned to German troops, located in the rear". For the Germans, partisans and underground workers made no difference - they were their enemies. The Germans said that these fanatics, despite harsh measures, often refuse to give any evidence” when they get into the Gestapo.

After the primary material about the “Young Guard” was collected by the local commission of Komsomol workers headed by Evdokia Kornienko, a commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League arrived from Moscow on June 26, 1943, consisting of the deputy head of the special department of the Central Committee A. Toritsyn and the instructor of the Central Committee N. Sokolov. One of the main sources of information for them was conversations with E.N. Koshevoy. It is difficult to say how Toritsa-na developed the version of Tretyakevich's betrayal, but in a memorandum following the trip, he already wrote that Viktor, "according to the testimony of our investigating authorities ... unable to withstand the terrible torture" "gave detailed testimony about the members of the organization and about its combat activities”. After that, the name of Tretyakevich began to be erased from documents on the activities of the Young Guard and he was removed from the list of Young Guard heroes. Therefore, it is not in Fadeev's novel either.

However, Viktor Tretyakevich was not a traitor, just as there was no single traitor who failed the Young Guard. Testimony that contained any information about the activities of the organization was given during interrogation under torture by several young guards (let's not forget that they were very young guys), but this does not mean that they can be considered traitors. On December 14, 1960, Pravda published an article entitled “The Courageous Son of Krasnodon”, dedicated to the posthumous award of Viktor Tretyakevich with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. Only 16 years later, the award found one of the leaders of the Young Guard, who became a victim of slander.

The story of the rehabilitation of V. Tretyakevich shows how difficult it was to remove the label attached to a person. It was no less difficult to prove that the list of Young Guards compiled in 1943 by the Komsomol Central Committee, taking into account information from the Soviet special services, was incomplete, that it contained gaps that it was difficult for the relatives and friends of the dead members of the Young Guard to come to terms with. So, it turned out that the act of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the Nazi invaders in Krasnodon documented the death of three more young guards - E. Klimov, N. Petrachkova and V. Gukov. Their names are not in A. Toritsyn's list. In 1955, the party and Soviet bodies of Krasnodon filed a petition to award H.H. Petrachkov medal "Partisan of the Great Patriotic War". The Commission for the Affairs of Former Partisans under the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, chaired by S.A. Kovpak recognized H.H. Petrachkova as a member of the “Young Guard” and supported the idea of ​​her posthumous award.

However, time passed, and there was still no positive solution to the obvious, it would seem, issue. Then the girl's father, a member of the CPSU since 1924, an honorary miner and holder of the Order of Lenin N.S. Petrachkov sent a letter at the beginning of 1956 to the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine with a request to look into this matter. On February 16, 1956, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol S. Kirillova addressed the secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol A.N. Shelepin with a request “to apply to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the award of a member of the underground organization “Young Guard” comrade. Petrachko-howl H.H. medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" II degree", motivating this by the fact that she "accidentally was omitted from the lists of young guards presented for awarding government awards" . In 1958, the petition was repeated, and the then first secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, the future chairman of the KGB V.E. Semichastny ordered to "prepare materials for the instance." However, before the collapse of the USSR, this issue was not resolved. Apparently, in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League he was considered too “small”.

One cannot but agree with the opinion expressed by the members of the interregional commission created in the early 90s to study the history of the “Young Guard” - the Union of Youth of the Lugansk Region, that some Young Guardsmen were “canonized as immortal heroes, others act as anti-heroes, and the third, although they accepted Active participation in the main actions, they pass as exceptionally ordinary, rather colorless personalities. This applies in particular to A.B. Kova Levu. According to the memoirs, he looks like a bright, courageous, courageous person. His main “disadvantage” was that he managed to escape when he and his comrades were being taken to execution to the pit of mine No. 5. M.N., who was traveling with him, helped him. Grigoriev, who untied the rope with his teeth. The escape was a surprise. The police did not immediately understand what had happened, and then, coming to their senses, began to shoot at the fleeing man. Kovalev was wounded, but he managed to hide among the houses of the village. Then his relatives, A. Titova (beloved girl) and some friends treated him and hid him. Then Anatoly was taken from Krasno-Don to the Dnepropetrovsk region. When the Red Army came there, he was not there. What happened to him, no one knows. He went missing. So far, the feat of A.B. Kovalev, the former idol of the Young Guard, was not even awarded the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War."

Yuri Polyansky is also not on the list of heroes, although his body was raised in February 1943 from a mine pit and buried in a mass grave on March 1, 1943. Meanwhile, Toritsyn declared him “missing in action” for some reason, apparently , guided by the fact that Yuri's sister Serafima was suspected of betraying another group of underground workers led by M. Shishchenko and N. Sumsky, who operated in Krasnodon as part of the Young Guard. (Its members were betrayed, and on the night of January 18, 1943, they were shot or thrown alive into a mine.)

In various documents and publications, from 70 to 130 Young Guardsmen are named. In the first published report of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, there were over a hundred of them, and in the seventh edition of the collection of memoirs and documents “Immortality of the Young” - only 71, although, in my opinion, it is impossible to agree with this figure.

What can explain such discrepancies? Let's not forget that the list of participants in the organization was restored from the memory of parents and relatives, as well as from the act of the Extraordinary State Commission, which lists those who were identified by relatives. But there were also those who remained unidentified, both in Krasnodon and in Rovenki.

The establishment of involvement in the organization was hindered by the version according to which the reason for the failure and defeat of the Young Guard was betrayal among the Young Guards themselves. One of the first to be arrested after the liberation of the city was G. Pocheptsov. The fact that he is allegedly a traitor was reported by the former investigator M.E. Kuleshov. At first, Pocheptsov was summoned to the investigating authorities, interrogated, but released. During interrogations, the couple got confused in the answers, did not even know the name of the underground organization: “Hammer” or “Young Guard”. He did not know who was who in the organization, he only knew his "five". During the interrogations, they remembered that his uncle, a relative of his father, served in the police, and they did not want to know that his stepfather, Gromov the communist, like the whole family, was persecuted by the police. On the advice of the same Kuleshov, G. Pocheptsov, tired of interrogations with the use of physical force, “confessed” to betrayal. He hoped that at the final session of the court he would refuse, explain himself, and believe him. But ... there was a war. Fifteen-year-old G. Pocheptsov was doomed to death, accused without evidence of betraying his friends. The first to be publicly shot in Krasnodon on September 19, 1943 were G.P. Pocheptsov, his stepfather V.G. Gromov and former investigator Kuleshov. Then, not only some Young Guardsmen, but also many young men and women who had nothing to do with the organization, were among the suspects. Despite the fact that the question of involvement in the organization of a particular person was raised repeatedly, the canonized list has not been expanded since 1943. This can partly explain the fact that the Young Guardsmen V.M. Borisov, B.C. Gukov, A.B. Kovalev, N.I. Mironov, P.F. Palaguta, H.H. Petrachkova, Yu.F. Polyansky, V.I. Tkachev and others. They were recognized as members of the Young Guard, almost all of them were included in the lists of members of the organization back in 1943, but for various reasons they were not included in the lists for awards.

There were cases when those presented for awards (V.V. Mikhailenko and I.A. Savenkov) did not receive them and were subsequently excluded from the lists of the Young Guard. It is not known who did it and why. Maybe they thought so: since he survived, this is the best reward. But, most likely, this was done out of indifference, heartlessness, according to the principle: “The war will write off everything.” Those young guards (and there were about 50 of them) did not receive their medals either, who, after the liberation of Krasnodon, immediately went to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Those who changed their place of residence were also left without awards, so nothing is known about many of them.

Groundless and unsubstantiated accusations of treason and betrayal, followed by a quick investigation and a harsh sentence, were brought against more than 30 Krasnodon boys and girls who had nothing to do with the underground organization. Among them were Z.A. Vyrikova, O.A. Lyadskaya, S.F. Polyanskaya, G.V. Statsenko, N.G. Fadeev and others. Subsequently, they were acquitted due to the lack of corpus delicti. Not everyone knows about this, and in the memory of many (according to the version of Fadeev's novel), they remained traitors. Some of them changed their place of residence, others - their last name. Even their children, now flocks of grandparents, do not visit the places where their relatives were born.

The work on creating an objective history of the “Young Guard” cannot be considered completed, especially since attempts are still continuing to discredit the blessed memory of those who fought in its ranks against fascist german invaders. So, in the newspaper “Sovershenno sekretno” (1999. No. 3), under the catchy heading “Archives of special services”, Eric Schur’s material was published: “Young Guard”: a true story, or criminal case No. 20056. The author carefully, although far from impartially, studied the 28 volumes of investigation materials stored in the FSB archive, which were hot on the heels of the events in Krasnodon in 1943. The case was initiated on charges of policemen and German gendarmes in the massacre of the Young Guard . And this is what E. Schur comes to the conclusion: "The Young Guard was invented twice." “At first,” he writes, “in the Krasnodon police. After that Alexander Fadeev. Before a criminal case was initiated on the fact of the theft of New Year's gifts ... there was no such underground organization in Krasnodon. Or was it anyway?"

E. Shur leaves his truly Jesuit question unanswered. He abundantly cites archival documents confirming the abuse of the Krasnodon police against the Young Guards; tells how the policemen approached the organization, seizing a seller of cigarettes on the market - those same ones from the New Year's gifts seized by the guys on the night of December 26, 1942. But the general tone of the article is intended to give the reader the impression that the members of the Young Guard are not made no heroic deeds that all their work is child's play, trifles, trifles ...

The mass media have already published publications of journalists from Russia and Ukraine, outraged by such an interpretation of the activities of the Young Guard. But the conclusion of E. Schur partly coincides with the opinion of the NKVD colonel Pavlovsky, who in the summer of 1943 “insisted that the organization and its activities were inspired by the Gestapo”, and put pressure on the secretary of the Voroshilovgrad regional committee of the Communist Party (b )A.I. Gaevoy, convincing him that there was no "Young Guard". This was told by the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol V.S. Kostenko, who prepared documents for the awarding of members of the Young Guard for Khrushchev's signature to be sent to Stalin.

But Gaeva did not agree with this. And he was right. In 1947, on one of his trips to B.C. Kostenko was in the compartment of a fellow traveler - the pro-curator of the Ukrainian SSR P.A. Rudenko. In 1945-1946. he acted as the chief prosecutor from the USSR on Nuremberg Trials major Nazi war criminals. P.A. Rudenko showed B.C. Kostenko form of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Germany and a typewritten translation of the text on it. It read: “My Fuhrer,” Himmler reported, “in Ukraine, either in Krasnovodsk, or in Krasnograd, or in Krasno-Don ... the Gestapo found and liquidated the malicious underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”. Heil! After some time, Kostenko wrote a letter to Rudenko and asked for a copy of this letter for publication, but there was no answer ...

The further time takes us from the Patriotic War, the more difficult it is to answer the questions posed by military history. Years pass, people leave. The memory of eyewitnesses and participants in the events is weakening. No one is left alive today. In Roven-kah and Krasnodon, the name of O. Koshevoy was carved on gravestones for many years. Now it is only at the place of his execution, in Rovenki. Finally, the name of V. Tretyakevich appeared on the Krasnodon tombstone.

But quite recently it was solved with great difficulty. The story and the artistic line of the novel “fought” with each other. The 1970s-1980s were a period of special activity for V.D. Borts: for a number of years she addressed letters to various authorities, objecting to the slightest attempts to clarify or make changes to the interpretation of the activities of the Young Guard, the role and place of Oleg Koshevoy in it. To prepare responses to letters from V.D. Wrestler distracted quite a few people. Periodically, commissions were created, both through the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, and on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Both Central Committees were presented with voluminous memorandums. It would seem that everything contentious issues have been resolved, all the dots have been placed.

During 1979-1980. V.D. Borts got acquainted with the materials of the Young Guard organization in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, talked with archive workers who at various times were engaged in the history of this organization. Then she asked the management of the archive to conduct a forensic examination of temporary Komsomol tickets in order to establish the original signatures, erasures. We are talking about the fact that, according to the testimony of a number of participants in the Young Guard, as well as the first photographs of tickets for them, the cliché “Slavin” (underground nickname of V. Tretyakevich) was typed in advance. Borts also urged to find out the party biography of the Tretyakevich brothers.

Regarding these requests, the former head of the Central Archive (hereinafter - CA) of the Komsomol V. Shmitkov in a memorandum to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol B.N. Pastukhov in 1980 expressed his opinion: “... Any historical research into the activities of the Young Guard, conducted under the flag of Koshevoy or under the flag of Tretyakevich, is harmful to the cause of communist education ... The history of propaganda of the activities of the Young Guard, given the exceptional popularity of the book by A. Fadeev, it is very complex, contradictory, and sometimes even directly biased in one direction or the other.” The opinion of V. Shmitkov was heeded, since the memorandum contains a resolution: “1) Invite to the Central Committee vols. Levashova, Borts and tactfully conduct a conversation about the need not to go beyond the generally accepted. 2) Make in the “Young Guard” (obviously, we are talking about a publishing house. - N.P.) some kind of documentary collection, where to place accents ... "

V.D. Borts wrote to the Central Committee of the Komsomol and the Central Committee of the CPSU. In this regard, certain “measures” were taken. So, in early April 1980 Pastukhov V.N. (Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League), some issues of propaganda of the history of the activities of the Young Guard were considered. In the pending reference, in section IV “Our position. The tasks of propagandists” read: “ There are partycriteriaassessment of the activities of the young guards. They are, first of all, in the "Decrees on awarding them with awards of the Motherland." Briefly and clearly. What other comments do you need?

At the same time, the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League drew attention to the fact that it was impossible forget“on the political expediency of clarifications, different readings, etc.” And again: “Underestimate the consequences possible way out information contained in the correspondence of relatives and members of the Young Guard, on mass media propaganda, or to a direct audience, is not allowed. You have to work with them...”

Obviously, some “work” has been done. But V.D. Wrestler managed to calm down not for long. After the publication of the material “On the Scales of Truth” in Komsomolskaya Pravda on January 5, 1989, the theme of which was the restoration of the good name of V. Tretyakevich, V. Borts sent a letter to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper V. Fronin with sharp criticism of the publication.

Reacting to this letter, and practically defending the position of the newspaper, V. Fronin in a letter to the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League states that “in general, it seems that the author of the letter is in captivity of the very completely wrong concept that is mentioned in the material: notions that the restoration of an honest name and the truth about one hero casts a shadow on another. V. Fronin suggested that if, despite the numerous commissions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, “V. Borts believes that until now the whole truth ... has not been established, perhaps it makes sense to create once again a competent commission of isgorikov specialists.

V. Horunzhiy, head. Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, in a letter to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Paltsev N.I. On January 21, 1989, after another letter from Valeria Davydovna, Borts expressed the opinion that it was necessary “once again to return to the documents of the organization, which are stored in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, in order to make a final decision and publish the results on the pages of the newspaper Komsomolskaya truth".

Since the organization's documents are a large array in terms of volume, work on them requires considerable time. V. Khorunzhiy asked for an extension of the deadline for the reply until March 23, 1989, i.e. for another two months.

Judging by the resolutions, this was reported to the first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee V.I. Mironenko. On January 26, 1989, there was a reaction to those who were among the performers: “...Isn't it time to put an end to this extremely ugly story? If for some reason this is not possible, please explain why. Your suggestions?"

Obviously, the secretary for ideology N.I. Fingers reasonably explained the essence of the problem, and the deadline was extended. But these two months were not enough. Therefore, after the expiration of the specified period in the name of Mironenko The.AND. received another note, not only from the head. CA Komsomol, and signed by those persons who were entrusted with the execution of the order: “We inform you that, according to the letter of Comrade Borts V.D. analytical work is being carried out with the documents of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”. However, the composition of the commission for resolving controversial issues about the Young Guard has not been fully formed. We ask you to extend the deadline for working on the letter until May 1, 1989.” Further signatures: N. Paltsev, V. Khorunzhiy, I. Shestopalov. There is a stamp on the paper in the archive: “Resolution of Comrade Mironenko V.I. "Extended".

Based on the materials of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, it was not possible to trace what kind of commission the Komsomol leaders wrote to their boss. Only one thing is clear, that D.I. Polyakov, journalist and historian. She carried out work to collect additional materials and publications about the "Young Guard" both in Russia and in Ukraine, and also studied the material in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, in the party archive.

Deadline for response to a letter from V.D. The struggle * was nearing the end, and then a reasonable decision was made (it’s a pity that it hadn’t occurred to anyone before and hadn’t been implemented, at least 10-15 years ago): to hold a meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League on the activities of the underground Komsomol organization " Young guard".

On April 27, 1989, this meeting took place. A decoded tape recording of this meeting-discussion has been preserved. Its participants were workers of the Central Committee of the Komsomol (V. Khorunzhiy, E.M. Buyanova, T.A. Kameneva), scientists - D.I. Polyakova, I.N. Pilipenko, V. Levashov (member of the Young Guard), V.I. Tretyakevich (brother of the deceased Viktor Tretyakevich). Borts V.D. was not, although many speakers spoke about her, about her position. As V. Levashov noted, “until 1978, she (i.e. V.D. Borts. - N.P.) never said a single word about the Young Guard. She did not want to touch history ... And only in 1978, either at the instigation of someone, when she retired. For what? It is interesting to note that the surviving Young Guards ALL, I emphasize - ALL, have never gathered together. Neither themselves, nor the Central Committee of the Komsomol, nor the Central Committee of the Komsomol did not guess to show such an initiative. According to V. Levashov, the survivors differently assessed the role and place of Oleg Koshevoy in the work of the Young Guard. We read from the transcript: “Someone is for it to be the way it really was, someone for it to be in favor of Oleg Koshevoy. Yes. That is, falsification ... Who was the commissioner, Oleg or Tretyakovich. Because of this, they avoided meetings ... No one had aspirations for everyone to get together. With Arutyunyants, with Radik Yurkin, Lopukhov, we often met.

For each of them, as V. Levashov said, it was a matter of conscience to restore the good name of Viktor Tretyakevich, his role in the organization and activities of the Young Guard. They could not forgive themselves that in the 40s, after the liberation of Krasnodon, they did not stand up for the good name of Tretyakevich, when a rumor was spread about his betrayal, and his name disappeared from the history of the Young Guard for years.

Now is not the time to deal with this. Today they are all dead. Let's not forget that for many years people who were under occupation tried not to remember this period of their lives and preferred to keep quiet so as not to end up in places far from civilization, behind barbed wire. The reality of Soviet society in relation to the surviving members of the underground was sometimes harsh, and required to prove, if you survived, then why; what helped you to escape. Answering these questions was not easy: the suspicion of those who were entrusted with establishing the truth interfered. This has been written about more than once or twice in the works of historians.

But let us return to the 1989 meeting. It took place in the conditions of awakened publicity. At the beginning of this meeting, V. Khorunzhiy, however, said that the Central Committee of the Komsomol had recently gathered former Young Guards, even “a long conversation took place, and most of the surviving members of this organization testified that Oleg Koshevoy was the commissar. At the same time, as an analysis of our Komsomol documents shows, these comrades were not members of the headquarters and could not know the true state of affairs in the Young Guard. In the materials of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League there is no transcript, no mention of the fact that such a meeting took place. Indirectly, it is mentioned in one of the letters of V. Borts. Who could participate in it of the nine people who survived after the death of the organization? Recall that I. Turkenich died in 1944, G. Arutyunyants died in 1973, R. Yurkin - in 1975, M. Shishchenko - in 1979, N. Ivantsova - in 1982. The remaining alive O. Ivantsova, V. Borts, V. Levashov and A. Lopukhov together, I emphasize together, in the Central Committee of the Komsomol met for the first time in the second half of the 80s. What was discussed is unknown. No transcript was kept.

No analytical note in 1989 was postponed after this meeting. Obviously, limited discussion. The same thing happened after the meeting in April 1989. The participants did not even correct their speeches based on the printout of the transcript (except for D.I. Polyakova). Signatures on the proposal of N. Khorunzhy were put at the end of the meeting-meeting on a blank sheet of paper, and then the text was already printed. Almost familiar. Such things happened repeatedly during the Soviet era. The story about the history of the "Young Guard" had its continuation.

On the recommendation of the higher Komsomol bodies of Ukraine, on October 9, 1990, the Luhansk OK LKSMU decided to create a working group to collect "all possible materials relating to the history of the Young Guard, to study episodes associated with the names of O. Koshevoy and V. Tretyakevich, with events that cause controversial interpretations. The working group included Komsomol workers, researchers from the city's universities, journalists, representatives of the KGB, people's deputies of the USSR, "informals". It was decided to seek help from the surviving members of the Young Guard. Working group set as its goal to assist in the restoration of the truth about the activities of the underground in the city of Krasnodon. At the same time, the group noted that the very feat accomplished by the Young Guards should not be called into question: “The feat cannot be canceled due to the conjuncture. It can be kept silent or distorted, which has been done for many years...”

After several meetings, the group came to the conclusion that it was necessary to reorganize it into an Interregional Commission for the Study of the Anti-Fascist Activities of the Young Guard Komsomol Organization.

In the course of more than two years of work, this commission examined both known and previously closed documents for study, often contradictory, mutually exclusive testimonies and testimonies of participants and eyewitnesses of the events in Krasnodon during the period of its occupation. Members of the commission met with V.D. Borts, V.D. Levashov, O.I. Ivantsova; with those who were considered traitors to the organization for many years, and now are completely rehabilitated law enforcement: with Vyrikova Z.A., Lyadskaya O.A., Statsenko G.V. Over 40 people were interlocutors of the commission.

The result of the work of the Interregional Commission was the “Note on the Study problematic issues in the activities of the Krasnodon anti-fascist Komsomol youth organization “Young Guard”, signed by all members of the commission on March 23, 1993, with the exception of one of its members - the director of the Krasnodon museum “Young Guard” A.G. Nikitenko. He expressed his "dissenting opinion" on controversial issues.

This refers to the role of O. Koshevoy and V. Tretyakevich in the creation and leadership of the Young Guard. There are also disagreements in the interpretation of individual facts of the history of the Komsomol-youth underground, in the assessment of the historical authenticity of E.N. Koshevoy, in the approach to the problem of traitors of the “Young Guard”. Attempts to reconcile these differences and develop a common point of view in the spring of 1993 were unsuccessful.

Many of the commission's proposals remained unrealized. I would like to hope that, perhaps, in connection with the “round date” of the creation of the “Young Guard”, those members of the underground who had not previously received government awards from the USSR will be awarded with awards from sovereign Ukraine.

During the 90s, more than once on the pages of the press, as in the above-mentioned document, a proposal was made for a move before the government of Ukraine to award the organizer of the Young Guard underground, Viktor Iosifovich Tretyakevich, with the highest award of sovereign Ukraine.

If this happens, then this will be an additional page to the history of the Young Guard, additional, but not the last. The search for truth, as the history of the Krasnodon underground shows, is a difficult path to the truth, especially when years have passed, when other people who knew about the Young Guard left for the world.

But the truth is so good that sooner or later it will be established. People need it as a thread that binds generations, as a cleansing from filth, as evidence that the memory of the Young Guard will live on. Must live.

[ 226 ] Footnotes of the original text

DISCUSSION OF THE REPORT

G.A. Kumanev. I have a question. If you think that Pocheptsov was not a traitor, then what are the serious grounds for this? Why didn't the Germans arrest him? How do you feel about his statement? He wrote back, on December 20, 1942, to Zhukov, the head of the mine, that he knew this underground organization.

Second question. When did Turkenich appear? August or later? He was called the commander in Krasnodon.

N.K. Petrova. I. Turkenich from July to August 1942 was in the 614th AP GAP of the 52nd Army as an assistant to the chief of staff of the regiment. He appeared in the city in late August - early September, and studied the situation for some time.

Vasily Levashov and Sergey Levashov (his cousin) On August 23, 1942, they were sent along with a group of eight people to the area of ​​​​the city of Krasny Lyman (Donetsk region). But by mistake of the pilot, the entire group was thrown into the territory of the Kharkov region. The group did not get in touch with the “Center” (according to reports in the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement). But V. Levashov in his book “Find Yourself in the Naval Ranks” (Pushkino, 1996, pp. 21-22) wrote that the radio operators of the group contacted Moscow. The group commander was captured, the survivors decided to retreat, there were no food and weapons. Making his way home, he was detained by the police in the area of ​​the city of Slavyansk, but then released.

V. Levashov arrived in Krasnodon on September 5, 1942. His brother Sergey was three days earlier. Underground groups were already working in the city, and the Levashovs contacted them through the guys they knew.

In a number of documents, V. Levashov argued that the “Young Guard” as an organization was created in August, but he learned about it only in mid-September. He had no direct participation in the creation, since he was not in the city in August.

The surviving member of the "Young Guard" G. Arutyunyants in the spring of 1944 was summoned to Moscow. During the conversation (unfortunately, it is not known with whom, but a copy of her record is kept in the RGASPI) Arutyunyants said that O. Koshevoy, together with Turkenich, came to the organization before November 7th. According to other sources - at the end of October 1942.

G.A. Kumanev. A few months earlier, Koshevoy joined the Komsomol.

N.K. Petrova. He joined the Komsomol in March 1942. And Tretyakevich had been in the Komsomol since 1939, in 1940 he was elected secretary of the organization of school No. 4, where he studied.

And now about Pocheptsov. You're not right. Pocheptsov was arrested on January 5, 1943, kept for several days, then released and not only Pocheptsov. A number of people were in the police, and then they were released, and we cannot consider that they are traitors.

About this list that no one has seen. The arrested former investigator Kuleshov said that Pocheptsov wrote with his own hand about the organization and gave this list to the head of the mine, Zhukov. But during the investigation, Zhukov did not confirm this. Unfortunately, this became clear already when G. Pocheptsov was shot as a traitor.

Pocheptsov did not know the whole organization. He only knew his “five”, and could name those who were active at school, since he lived and studied in Krasnodon. The fact that he was a member of an underground organization knew 2-3 people.

Pocheptsov, in terms of character, according to the certification that he has, was spiritually very close to Tretyakevich. It would be two intellectuals in the village. As for Gromov, Pocheptsov's stepfather, he was a communist before the war, he did not discredit himself in any way. Solovyov G.P., Talu-ev N.G. worked at the mine under his leadership. - lieutenants who were surrounded, who ended up in Kras-nodon. One of them is from Leningrad, the second is from the Urals. Both were arrested at the beginning of January 1943, when the arrests began. They were executed as communists. As for Pocheptsov, there is not a single document from the police - there is not a single interrogation, not a single protocol - there is nothing about how it was. Why? Firstly, during interrogations, in the practice that existed, they wrote brief reports. What was composed by the police was burned in February 1943 near the city of Rovenki in an open field, because they were afraid that these papers would fall into the hands of the Red Army, and not in Ab-wehr, whose residence was in Donetsk.

L.N. Nezhinsky. Thank you, Nina Konstantinovna, for your interesting and, in a way, dramatic message. We wish both the unit where you work and you personally continue to work on researching this very difficult history of our people, a very serious event in local history people of our country during the Great Patriotic War.

We conclude that we will need to think about and also pay attention to those phenomena that take place in recent history in Russia, and in the recent history of the Soviet period, which needs further clarification, research, additions, etc. d.

This message was very interesting in its texture. It goes beyond just a factual alert.

This is also a report that makes us think more broadly about the scientific and methodological problems of our history, the study of our history of the 20th century, especially the period of the history of Soviet society.

Yu.A. Polyakov. Today's report was of a special emotional nature.

We can conclude: how complex our history is, how many episodes. It is very difficult to study the underground, because the documents here have their own specifics. How complex our history is, how tragic all sides are: not only what happened under the Germans, but also how it was all confused later, how it was all twisted.

All this must be studied, to achieve a truthful, objective history, a truthful and objective exposition.

Significance of N.K. Petrova in that it is directed against the deheroization that exists in our society and that is spreading in the media. And they have been writing and talking about Kosmodemyanskaya for decades.

But of course, a lot was done inaccurately during the war, but you need to understand the essence.

More than once they wrote about 28 Panfilovites. Even in the anthem of Moscow it is said: "Twenty-eight of the most, most brave sons." But they are not the sons of Moscow. The Panfilov division, as is known, was formed in Kazakhstan. Five people survived, and their fates developed in different ways. The essence of Lidov's essay was that 28, every one of them died defending Moscow, and did not retreat.

For us, this is the main thing. They write about Zoya that she set fire to the stable, and the “living” hut, with people set on fire. Of course, the scale of the deed matters. It would be better if she set fire to the headquarters, not the stables. But we must educate the youth on this. And I think that our president has this in mind, more than once referring to history and textbooks. The main thing is not that she set it on fire, but the main thing is her inspiration, her devotion, the main thing is her real, genuine patriotism.

And if we talk about the 28th, then it is important not who survived, wounded or not, but what Shcherbakov said correctly then. When someone doubted, he said: “well, if not this, then there are dozens of such episodes nearby.”

This is the main thing, and this is the task of our institute and the Center for the History of War. And we must not forget about it.

G.A. Kumanev. Comrades, I also think that N.K. Petrova was very interesting and informative.

At one time, she undertook the creation of the collection “Young Guard” (Krasnodon) - an artistic image and historical reality, which was the basis of this report. We should be grateful to her for the preparation of the collection and the report.

On some issues, I have differences with the speaker. In March 1966, together with V.D. Shmitkov, who later began working in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, was in charge of the Central Archive of the Komsomol, I was sent to Krasnodon. For what question? Letters began to arrive, and especially intensively at the beginning of 1966 from relatives of the Young Guard - letters about how Elena Koshevaya behaved not quite correctly or with dignity. Nina Konstantinovna in her report said that Viktor Tretyakevich was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, but according to primary documents he was presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and Koshevaya made superhuman efforts to prevent this from happening, because she believed that this the most slander will be erected on her Oleg.

In one of the letters from the relatives of the Young Guard, which was written by the mother of Sergei Tyulenin (she, by the way, was a hero mother - she had 12 children), it was said that Alexander Fadeev lodged with Elena Nikolaevna, who was, according to story-deputy, pretty, and then rumors spread about some kind of amorous relationship between her and Fadeev.

During this business trip (it lasted for a week), I managed to get acquainted with the documents in the Voroshilovgrad archive. I worked in the regional KGB Archive, talked with the chairman of the State Security Committee of the Voroshilovgrad region, who during the war years was the chairman of the Krasnodon regional executive committee, talked with KGB officers.

What picture emerged? First. Of course, the “Young Guard” did not have so many cases, as Fadeev attributed to them. This is the first.

Second. This opinion slipped through the speaker, not without reason: the children were playing war. They had a lot of naivety even in these patriotic deeds. Let's say they hijack a car with non-German Christmas presents. And what did they do? Gathered in the Club. Gorky, where they had rehearsals, and began to share these gifts among themselves. They ate sweets (they were hungry for sweets), and they threw the wrappers on the floor ... By chance, a German soldier came, picked up the wrapper, shouted something and ran away. And that was also the reason for their arrest.

According to all documents it appears that, after all, V. Tretyakevich was not a commissar. He was the commander of the "Young Guard" (this is my opinion) at the first stage of its activity, because Ivan Turkenich appeared much later - a month or two after the creation of this organization. Tretyakevich was very authoritative. I already said from the spot that he was the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the secondary school literally on the eve of the war.

And when members of the Young Guard organization began to be arrested, several members of the Young Guard managed to escape, including Ivan Turkenich. He crossed the front line and the vigilant authorities of SMERSH (“Death to spies”) immediately arrested him. He then, under their dictation, wrote a report on a large white cardboard with a sharply honed pencil. And there, apparently, he spun too much from dictation, including about his own merits, and so on. This document lay in the Young Guard museum in Krasnodon. But, I repeat, there are many doubtful things.

Finally, in the museum, I held in my hands the forms of Komsomol tickets, without any erasures. And there it was written like this: “Commander of the partisan detachment “Hammer” Slavin”, i.e. Tretyakevich. “The commissar of the detachment is Kashuk” (Koshevoy). But all of them, those young guardsmen with whom I met (survivors), said: that “he was a very good collector of membership fees”. That was his role. He was still a boy at all, only recently he joined the Komsomol. And how did he get caught? He took with him forms of Komsomol tickets, a pistol and sewed them into his coat lining. Highway Patrol stopped him, searched him, and they found him with a gun, and so on.

Vanya Zemnukhov was caught very naively. Sat at home. They ran to him, saying: “Vanya, a number of our comrades have already been arrested. Run!” “But my mother locked me up. She went to the market, said: “Don't go anywhere, Vanya. Everything will be all right!) ”” Mom came, opened it, and where did he go? Immediately went to the commandant's office. “I am the leader of the amateur art circle. On what basis were the members of my circle arrested?” Germans: “Oh! We thought you had already fled for a hundred kilometers, but you yourself came.”

And once again about Pocheptsov. The Germans did not arrest Pocheptsov. And then he was arrested and put in a cell as a decoy duck. Then he was released. I do not know where this noble image of a young intellectual came from, but according to all the documents, according to all the evidence, he comes across as a traitor.

I held in my hands the interrogations of Lyadskaya and Vyrikova, and the confrontations with Moshkov of Pocheptsov. And they also showed a lot. And when our people freed Krasnodon, he was accidentally seen by Chernyshev, who was sitting with him in the cell. And he grabbed him and said: “Comrades, this is a traitor.” He did not come anywhere, he was dressed in a Red Army uniform, and the Germans left him as a future informant.

I agree that there is a lot of confusion, a lot of understatement, a lot of contradictions about this organization.

N.K. Petrov. What Georgy Alexandrovich said does not coincide with the documents that I read and which are in the archive of the RGASPI on Kaluzhskaya. I have already said that the forms of temporary Komsomol tickets at one time, in 1989, at the request of V. Borts, passed an examination in the appropriate authorities. Erasures on the word “Slavin” were revealed.

As for the arrest of I. Zemnukhov, according to his parents (they were joined by the memories of I. Zemnukhov's sister), everything was not as G.A. Kumanev. January 1, 1942 E. Moshkov and I. Zemnukhov walked along the road. Policemen drove up to them on sledges and asked: “Which of you is Moshkov?” After that, Moshkov, and he was the director of the club, gave the folder with papers to I. Zemnukhov, and he was taken away. And Ivan came to my house, hid the papers in the yard, talked to his father, was very sad, then got dressed and went out. He was arrested on the street. Relatives found out about it only in the evening.

And once again about Pocheptsov. Yes, Chernyshev was in the same cell with him. But it was not Chernyshev who accused Pocheptsov of betrayal, but, as I said above, Kuleshov. G. Pocheptsov did not hide, he did not change into a Red Army uniform. He was called, like others, to testify several times. The arrest warrant was issued in April 1943, and the city was liberated on 14 February.

As for his consent to be an informer, there are no papers. And who and what was there to inform about when the Red Army was rapidly liberating the Donbass?

The fact that one of the girls named G.A. began to cooperate with the police. Kumanev, then it is in the documents of the archive. I won't name names. At one time she was arrested, served time. Rehabilitated in the 90s.

And the last. I want to remind you that until 1991 there was an indication of the party: “Young Guard” in the form in which we adopted it from the novel and to which the soul of the entire population of the USSR and the whole world has become attached (and the novel was widely and repeatedly replicated), and should stay. It was impossible to change anything in her history, despite the fact that the facts confirmed the opposite. Three commissions worked: from IMEL, from the Central Committee of the party and together with the Central Committee of Ukraine. Members of the commissions consulted with the KGB of Ukraine, reports were written and marked “secret” were placed in safes.

The relevant bodies that keep order - the state security - at the level of the Luhansk (formerly Voroshilovgrad) region kept everything under control.

Now everything related to the history of the “Young Guard” has been transported from the region to Kyiv, and now try to get it!

L.N. Nezhinsky. All clear. Nina Konstantinovna, you will have every opportunity to discuss and explore this range of problems in the most detailed way. We wish you every success in this direction.

On April 19, 1991 (10 years after the expressed wish of V. Borts), the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Examinations of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, at the request of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League of April 5, 1991, conducted a study of four temporary certificates of members of the “Young Guard” Borts, Popov, Ivantsova and Fomin. It was found that “handwritten notes of the name of the commissar of the partisan detachment (executed in brackets) in all certificates were changed by erasing. It is not possible to identify the original content of these records due to the intensity of the erasure. In a temporary certificate in the name of Ivantsova O.AND. at the location of the first letter of the readable surname of the commissar of the partisan detachment “Kashuk” (executed in brackets), the letter “C” was revealed.” Further signatures of experts and seal. See: RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 368 (d). L. 1. Comments are unnecessary. We only add that shortly before this V.D. Borts in February 1991 left the ranks of the CPSU, explaining it this way: "The power of the Communists is untenable." V. Borts was an uncompromising consistent defender of the opinion that it was Oleg Koshevoy, and not someone else, who was the commissar of the Young Guard. (Ibid. D. 368 (g). L. 73).