? It was not Stalin who won, but the people.

At the end of the NEP and after the war, devastation reigned in the country. What dishonest businessmen enjoyed with pleasure. But they managed to defeat them quite quickly ...

Corruption is not a phenomenon today. It also flourished under socialism. But in the USSR, from the 1930s to the beginning of the 1950s, there were periods when everything necessary was done to neutralize it. Corruption, like prostitution, cannot be reduced to nothing, but it is possible to ensure that it does not play a decisive role! This is exactly what Stalin did surprisingly quickly.

Corruption was defeated by a system of measures that affected everyone, regardless of connections and position in society. Even the relatives of the corrupt official, who knew but did nothing to identify the criminal, were brought to justice as accomplices. Moreover, everyone who even out of the corner of his ear heard, but kept silent, how someone takes bribes or is engaged in other illegal business, fell under the court.

That is why in those years a whole series of crimes were uncovered in the sphere of action of ministries, central administrations and enterprises.

The case of the "freeloaders"

After the war, Khlebnoe delo became one of the very first and high-profile. And this is not surprising, because people in those years were ready to give their last for bread!

It began with the fact that the investigators began to study documents, according to which, during 1945, the Council of People's Commissars allocated flour, sugar, condensed milk and other products to the baking industry. And the detectives got on the trail of a gang of corrupt officials led by the head of the supply department of the Rosglavkhleb distribution system, Mikhail Isaev. They profited by allocating to some trusts all the deficits without delay, and even in excess. For which their bosses rolled back to the Moscow authorities according to the following scheme.

They wrote out, for example, a ton of sugar to a confectionery factory. But in fact, only 950 kg were released, leaving 50 kilos to Isaev in the form of a rollback. In order to make up for this shortage (and even cash in), in the manufacture of, say, biscuits, instead of 1000 kg of sugar, 900 went into production. You won’t understand the difference in taste.

They also stole food directly, and then attributed the shortage to some unknown bandits who allegedly stole the goods directly from the cars. According to the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “from April 14, 1945 to 1946 inclusive, the criminal group of Isaev stole: 1670 kg of sugar, 8500 kg of flour, 670 kg of saccharin, 414 kg of butter, 2605 kg of jam and marmalade, etc. - in total for the amount of 1,139,230 rubles. 18 kopecks.

Isaev and his chief accountant Rosenbaum were given 25 years each, and their accomplices went to prison for a long time. With the complete confiscation of property - not only from corrupt officials, but also from their relatives.

The Case of the Weavers

In those years, there was nothing to sleep on, there was nothing to sew a shirt from. And the state began to allocate linen fabrics from scarce reserves for overalls . Which were disposed of by the head of the department of the Moscow Interregional Office, Comrade Tavshunsky. He organized the business in such a way that it began to be enough for bedding, and for shirts, and even for dresses for individual post-war beauties. To do this, he contacted the artel of tailors. And the wheels of the sewing machines began to spin, releasing everything in a shortened form, and besides, mostly small sizes. Say, dressing gowns on the proletarians who were emaciated during the war will converge anyway ... However, no matter how much the thread twisted, the end of it was found quickly enough. Here is how it was said in the special report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: “Tavshunsky entered into criminal ties with a number of leaders of the Moscow promartels, receiving bribes from them for the fact that they, with his knowledge, made small-sized overalls, thereby creating excess linen fabric, which they then sold to their own. accomplices..."

In total, Tavshunsky and his “colleagues” stole fabrics worth 180 thousand rubles. In those days - crazy money! Bottom line: all crooks got what they deserved so that their relatives curse Stalin to this day.

The Case of the Musicians

No matter what they say, but then the country wanted songs. And in the early 50s, the hunt for records began. This was immediately taken advantage of by the “musical figures” from the Aprelevsk record factory represented by the head of production Doroshenko, the head of the sales department Mironov and the warehouse manager Oskin. Thanks to their "intervention", some of the plates began to be pressed in a semi-handicraft manner from stolen powder. According to the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, "the criminal group Doroshenko - Mironov - Oskin turned this state production mainly into their personal property and began to use it for the manufacture of unaccounted for products with their subsequent sale."

Corrupt "musical connections" from Moscow quickly entangled the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. Money for the left goods poured into the pockets of the "musicians" in droves. To prove their crimes, special checks were organized. So, along the route of the trains, containers and wagons with raw materials for the production of records were reweighed; surplus raw materials were installed and activated; individual wagons and containers were opened, and the quality of the material was determined in them. All corrupt "musicians" were confronted with facts and confessed to their deeds.

P.S. From whom are bribes smooth?

"Leningrad business".

"Leningrad case" - a series of trials in the late 1940s and early 1950s against party and state leaders of the RSFSR in the USSR. All the leaders of the Leningrad regional, city and district organizations of the CPSU (b), as well as almost all Soviet and state figures who, after the Great Patriotic War, were nominated from Leningrad for leadership work in Moscow and other regional party organizations, became victims of repression.

NEW WAVE OF RESPRESSION

After the death of A. Zhdanov, which followed in August 1948, the situation of people close to him became especially vulnerable. G. Malenkov, using Stalin's pathological suspicion of any manifestations of independence and initiative, acted as one of the main organizers of the "Leningrad case". He sought to prove that there was an organized group of leaders in Leningrad that had embarked on the path of behind-the-scenes combinations directed against the central leadership. Already on February 15, 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to remove A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR) and P. S. Popkov (First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) from their posts ( b)). In 1949-1951. in Leningrad and the region, more than 2,000 senior officials were repressed.

Popkov and other Leningrad leaders were accused of striving to create a communist party of Russia with headquarters in Leningrad, following the model of other union republics, and also to transfer the government of the RSFSR to the city on the Neva. One of the features of the "Leningrad case" was that not only party functionaries were persecuted, but also Soviet, Komsomol, trade union leaders and members of their families.

There were purges in the universities of the city, during which many famous scientists lost their jobs. Hundreds of book and pamphlet titles were banned and removed from libraries.

From September 29 to October 1, 1950, a trial of the first group of defendants in this "case" took place in the building of the Leningrad District House of Officers. On October 1, the verdict was announced, and on the same day A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov, N. A. Voznesensky, P. S. Popkov, Ya. F. Kapustin and P. G. Lazutin were shot.

The list of victims of the "Leningrad case" continued to grow. At the end of October 1950, A. A. Voznesensky, Minister of Education of the RSFSR, former rector of Leningrad State University during the war years, was shot; M. A. Voznesenskaya - First Secretary of the Kuibyshev District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Leningrad; N. V. Solovyov - First Secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, previously Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad Regional Council; G. F. Badaev - Second Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; A. A. Bubnov - Secretary of the Leningrad City Executive Committee and other leaders. Arrests and trials continued in 1951-1952. The total number of deaths in the "Leningrad case" was about 30 people. Rehabilitation of convicts began after Stalin's death.

The "Leningrad case" became a kind of rehearsal for the planned series of new trials. In early July 1951, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks received a statement from the senior investigator for especially important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Lieutenant Colonel M. D. Ryumin, in which he "signaled" the unfavorable state of affairs in the Ministry and blamed his immediate superior, Minister of State Security V S. Abakumova. This circumstance suited Beria and Malenkov, who in the summer of 1951 headed a special commission of the Central Committee to investigate the activities of Abakumov and did everything possible to remove him from his post. The former head of the MGB was expelled from the party and taken into custody. A new campaign was launched to identify "enemies".

In late 1951 and early 1952, Stalin inspired the "exposure" of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist organization in Georgia. Even Beria, under these conditions, could not help but feel a threat to his position, having reason to believe that he himself could become the next victim of the dictator.

I.S. Ratkovsky, M.V. Khodyakov. History of Soviet Russia

LIST OF ARRESTED

Top secret

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE AUCP(b) to comrade I. V. STALIN

At the same time, I present a list of the rest of those arrested in the Leningrad case.

The Ministry of State Security of the USSR considers it necessary to condemn by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the usual manner, without the participation of the parties, in Lefortovo prison, with the consideration of cases for each accused separately:

First. - The accused listed in the attached list from 1 to 19 inclusive: SOLOVIEV, VERBITSKY, LEVIN, BADAEV, VOSNENSENSKY, KUBATKIN, VOSNENSENSKAYA, BONDARENKO, KHARITONOV, BURILIN, BASOV, NIKITIN, TALUSH, SAFONOV, GALKIN, IVANOV, BUROVSKY, PET CHURSINA - to the death penalty - shooting, without the right to appeal, pardon and with the enforcement of the court sentence immediately.

Second. - From the 20th to the 32nd list number inclusive: GRIGORYEV, KOLOBASHKIN, SINTSOVA, BUMAGINA, BOYAR, KLEMENCHUK, KUZMENKO, TAIROV, SHUMILOV, NIKANOROVA, KHOVANOV, RAKOVA and BELOPOLSKY, - to 25 years in prison each.

Third. - From 33 to 38 list number: TIKHONOV, PAVLOV, LIZUNOV, PODGORSKY, VEDERNIKOV and SKRIPCHENKO - for 15 years of imprisonment in a special camp each.

I ask for your permission.

V. Abakumov ABAKUMOV.

7220/A

STRUGGLE FOR POWER SURROUNDED BY STALIN

A.A. Kuznetsov with his son in besieged Leningrad

After the death of Zhdanov, the influence of the group headed by N.A. Voznesensky remained for some time. At the same time, the struggle between them and the Malenkov-Beria group intensifies. As noted in the official materials of the Commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU for additional study of materials related to the repressions that took place in the period 30-40 and early 50s. "Stalin in private conversations suggested that he saw the secretary of the Central Committee, a member of the Orgburo A.A. Kuznetsov as his successor on the party line. And on the state line - a member of the Politburo, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.A. Voznesensky" .

The conflict between Kuznetsov and Malenkov broke out as early as 1946. Kuznetsov was one of the executors of the "aviators' case" and, as employees of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks later recalled, "comrade Kuznetsov revealed a number of shortcomings made by Malenkov in the leadership of the personnel department and the Ministry of Aviation industry, and subjected them to well-deserved criticism at meetings of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In July 1948, Malenkov was again elected Secretary of the Central Committee. The struggle between the old and new chiefs of the Central Committee Personnel Department is entering a new phase. An external and clearly far-fetched reason for the persecution of the so-called "Leningrad anti-party group" was the accusation of A.A. Kuznetsov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M.I. The accusation was unfounded, since the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, chaired by G.M. Malenkov, twice decided to hold wholesale fairs for the sale of surplus goods twice - on October 14 and November 11, 1948. A more serious reason, in our opinion, was the accusation of factionalism, banned from the party at the 10th congress and fiercely persecuted by Stalin.

In February 1949 Malenkov was sent to Leningrad. An ideological basis was brought under the struggle of groups for power, continuity was established with the political processes of a decade ago. The rest remained a matter of execution technique. As a result of the arrests, it was possible to beat out evidence that the second secretary of the Leningrad city committee, Ya.F. Kapustin, an active participant in the defense of the city during the war years, was an "English spy." He was reminded that in 1935 he had a long internship in England, in Manchester, at the factories of the Metropolitan Vicker, that he enjoyed respect and trust at the factory, that he had an affair with his English teacher, who offered him to stay in England, and all these facts "deserve special attention, as a signal of a possible (italics ours. Auth.) processing of Kapustin by British intelligence.

Another defendant, the former chairman of the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee, N.V. Solovyov, appointed First Secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, was declared a "terry great-power chauvinist" for his proposal to create a Bureau of the Central Committee for the RSFSR, to form the Communist Party of the RSFSR. He was also accused of "being at work in the Crimea, making sharp hostile attacks against the head Soviet state".

On August 13, 1949, when leaving the office of G.M. Malenkov, A.A. Kuznetsov, P.S. Popkov, M.I. Rodionov, P.G. Regional Executive Committee N.V. Soloviev.

In parallel with this, there was a search for compromising evidence against N.A. Voznesensky.

Direct work to discredit N.A. Voznesensky was carried out by the chairman of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, M.F. Shkiryatov99. N.A. Voznesensky was accused of deliberately underestimating state plans, of distorting and falsifying statistical reporting, and, finally, of losing secret documents in the apparatus of the State Planning Commission. Considering that practically all the documentation was considered secret, this accusation was, in fact, a win-win. On September 9, 1949, Shkiryatov handed over to G.M. Malenkov the decision of the Communist Party of China with a proposal to expel Voznesensky from the party and bring him to trial FOR LOSS OF DOCUMENTS by the State Planning Committee of the USSR100. This proposal was approved by a poll of members of the Plenum of the Central Committee and on October 27, 1949, Voznesensky was arrested. The investigation was carried out by the Ministry of State Security and special investigators from among the employees of the Central Committee.

Arrested Kuznetsov, Kapustin, brothers Voznesensky, Rodionov, deputy chairman of the Lensoviet Galkin were brutally tortured. Malenkov, Beria and Bulganin were directly involved in the interrogation procedure along with MGB investigators.

The investigation (if this term can be used here at all) proceeded with exceptional, some kind of medieval cruelty. They beat pregnant women, exterminated their families (for example, in addition to N.A. Voznesensky himself, his brother, the Minister of Education of the RSFSR A.A. Voznesensky, his sister, M.A. Voznesenskaya, secretary of one of the Leningrad district committees and 14 (!) Wives and relatives of the other defendants.

The main point of the accusation against N.A. Voznesensky was that he had lost secret documents. Under this article, in accordance with the Law "On liability for the disclosure of state secrets and for the loss of documents containing state secret", adopted in 1947, was supposed to be imprisonment in a forced labor camp for a term of ten to fifteen years as the maximum punishment. The death penalty in the USSR after the war was officially abolished. is no longer necessary in peacetime conditions", ... "meeting the wishes of the trade unions of workers and employees and other authoritative organizations expressing the opinion of broad public circles" - the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR abolished the death penalty.

However, in order to punish the accused, the very norm of the law was changed. On January 12, 1950, a decree was adopted by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR traitors to the Motherland, spies and subversive saboteurs", again "in view of the statements received from the national republics, from trade unions, peasant organizations, as well as from cultural figures."

The court followed, its future decisions, in accordance with the usual practice, were approved in advance by Stalin and the Politburo. On October 1, 1950, at one in the morning, the verdict was announced, according to which Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Rodionov, Popkov, Kapustin and Lazutin were sentenced to death. An hour later, the sentence was carried out. Arrests and trials continued throughout the next 1950-1952. The KGB archive preserved a draft resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, dated August 1949, which was supposed to oblige the Ministry of State Security "to evict 1,500 people with families living in the city of Leningrad and the Leningrad Region, from among those who compromised themselves to some extent connection with the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, rightists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Germans and Finns for an eternal settlement in the Altai Territory, under the supervision of the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In the summer of 1957, F.R. Kozlov, the then secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee, declared at the Plenum of the Central Committee: “Tens of thousands of innocent people were then sent from Leningrad to exile, to prisons, and many of them went to execution, many of them died Tens of thousands of innocent people were sent by train."

With the elimination of Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and their supporters from politics and life, the struggle for power in the Kremlin and Staraya Square did not weaken or become clearer. Outwardly, it was a complete victory for Beria and Malenkov. However, contradictions persisted between the members of this group (suffice it to recall that in 1946 Malenkov almost became Beria's defendant), and Stalin himself watched them suspiciously, introducing "his own people" into the political game.

R. Pikhoya. Socio-political development and struggle for power in the post-war Soviet Union (1945-1953)

REHABILITATION

An investigation currently conducted by the USSR Prosecutor's Office on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU has established that the case on charges of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others of treason, counter-revolutionary sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet group was fabricated for enemy counter-revolutionary purposes by the former Minister of State Security, now arrested Abakumov and his accomplices. Using the facts of violation of state discipline and individual misconduct by Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others, for which they were removed from their posts with the imposition of party penalties, Abakumov and his accomplices artificially presented these actions as the actions of an organized anti-Soviet treacherous group and beatings and threats obtained fictitious testimonies from those arrested about the alleged creation of a conspiracy by them ...

From the resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the case of Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky and others" dated May 3, 1954 (V.A. Kutuzov. "Leningrad case": rehabilitation // University Petersburg readings: 300 years of the Northern capital. Collection of articles. SPb., 2003).

If someone says that it was not Stalin who won, but the people, then they will immediately ask him why the legs do not win when there is no head.

Why, for example, does the biceps not win when the heart is rotten? Why did the people not win in 1991, when the leadership of the USSR, against its will, destroyed the country and all the nation's gains? In that war, the Soviet people, first of all, the Russian people, their Armed Forces won a complete and undivided victory. It was the people who emerged from the deadly battle with the strongest and most merciless enemy, who brought the whole of Western Europe to its knees precisely because the Soviet people were led by Stalin! Almost all Europeans surrendered to the Nazis.

Only the Soviet people did not submit - and this was an integral attribute of the Stalinist leadership. Stalin's outstanding role in the victorious conclusion of the war lies in his impeccable choice of the only true method of waging war, in his unmistakable strategic skill, in his labor feat in organizing the war economy, in the patriotic education of the whole society, in the wisdom and courage of the commander.

Victories on the battlefields are obtained not just by some masses of people, not by iron and not by weapons, but above all by the will of the leader of the nation, the talent and art of military leaders, the experience, organizational and creative abilities of commanders and general staffs. Victory directly depends on the style of the entire state administration, on how skillfully the human and material resources of the entire country and the coalition of states are organized.

Those who suddenly say that it was not Stalin who won, but the soldier, will immediately be asked why the soldier did not defeat a bunch of Chechen terrorists in 1994-1996, when the Yeltsin leadership betrayed this soldier. It dragged him into battle, but forbade him to fight, was even afraid to declare the area under martial law, fawned over recidivists and scumbags, signing with them on behalf of the state the most disgraceful Khasavyurt conspiracy, in fact, capitulation. Why then did they not let the soldier win? To then renounce and repent for decades after another terrorist attack?

The art of winning begins with a strategist - a master of war management, a tactician, a skillful front operator; a strategist in all dimensions - spatial and temporal, spiritual and economic, political and informational.

The personal honor of the commander has a decisive influence on the course and outcome of the war. His mind and will - that's who decides everything. There is no success at the front without the courage and heroism of a strategist, without the personality of a commander.

A soldier would not have won a single victory if he had not believed every word of his Supreme Commander and if every word of the commander-in-chief had not been backed up by his deeds, modesty and honesty of the people's commander.
Success in a war requires not days, not months, but long years of trials, inhuman overexertion of the efforts of the entire nation.

Creation effective system strategic leadership is fully the merit of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin. Even before the start of the war, Stalin managed to concentrate in his hands all the threads of leadership military organization society, economy, social sphere, culture and science.

He solved a colossal amount of tasks: he analyzed the situation, outlined the prospects and goals of the struggle, developed plans for military campaigns and critical operations, created the necessary groupings of troops, set tasks for fronts and fleets, formations Air force and other troops.

He organized interaction, coordinated and directed the actions of millions of armed and trained people.

He provided logistics and ammunition for operations. He found and placed the best specialists in command posts.

He equipped them the best technique and weapons, created and used reserves, coordinated military efforts with the actions of diplomats.

He established the anti-Hitler coalition of the United Nations. All military-political, military-economic and military-technical issues were in Stalin's field of vision. Leaning on the brain of the Soviet army General base, he created the strategy of armed struggle and ensured its final result - Victory!

If someone later says that Stalin fought badly, then they will immediately ask him, but who could fight better than Stalin? Who has the right to judge him, especially by today's standards?

Stalin was then at an unattainable height in the fulfillment of his task. He went to this not instantly, but systematically and consistently. Before becoming a truly effective leader of strategic leadership, Stalin went through a complex, tortuous and difficult path.

Recognizing his mistakes, through the most difficult defeats and failures, Stalin came to the gradual formation of a clear, harmonious and flexible system, a rational structure of military policy. He mastered all the methods and forms of strategic and political management that corresponded to the realities of the global war. It is possible that there were shortcomings in his work and in the work of the commanders, headquarters of the fronts, but It's not for us losers to judge the winners! Victory judged them!

Stalin and his marshals, taking into account the experience gained in the Soviet-Finnish, Polish and other operations, through the defeat of the first phase of the war, eliminated all the shortcomings of the military-political leadership of the country and achieved the highest indicators in the science of winning.

And if someone begins to say that before the war, out of 85 commanders, Stalin left only 8 people: K.E. Voroshilov, S.M. Budyonny, S.K. Timoshenko, O.I. Gorodovikova, I.R. Apanasenko, A.V. Meretskova, then they will immediately answer him - it means that each of these eight turned out to be at least ten times better than the others(Tukhachevskys, Bluchers and Yakirs). This led to the fact that the entire leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense, the General Staff, the main and central offices, command of military districts and fleets. They were replaced by loyal to the people, honest, energetic and combat-ready officers.

From the very beginning of the war, Stalin became the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and personally headed the Headquarters. Thanks to his unbending will and political strength, the Headquarters acquired functions unique in the history of military art: a comprehensive assessment of the military-political and strategic situation, an analysis of the global prospects for its development; definition of goals, objectives, forms and methods of strategic actions; making lightning-fast decisions on continental operations, from setting their mission to direct control of the battle of the fronts.

All this happened during the course of the war, the composition and functions of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command were constantly improved until the Victory - the last time the composition of the Headquarters was changed on February 17, 1945 - it included I.V. Stalin, G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, N .A. Bulganin, A.I. Antonov and N.G. Kuznetsov. The system of military leadership was honed at all levels as well.

In order to increase the reliability and efficiency of leadership of the troops of the army on July 10, 1941, by decision of Stalin, the main commands of the North-Western, Western and South-Western strategic directions were formed. In April 1942, the main command of the North Caucasus direction was created. The commanders-in-chief of the directions were appointed members of the Headquarters and deputies of the NPO. They led the troops of the fronts and fleets, coordinated and controlled their actions, and were responsible for every item with their heads. mobilization project repulse the enemy.

In the spring of 1942, Stalin created a corps of representatives of the Headquarters. This was a qualitatively new stage in the development of the strategic management system. The role of representatives of the Headquarters is assigned to its members, deputies of the People's Commissar of Defense and the commanders of the General Staff. They had the highest authority and were usually sent to where, according to Stalin's plan, the main tasks were solved. Representatives of the Headquarters coordinated the actions of colossal groupings, fronts and fleets, solved strategic tasks, personally achieving the fulfillment of Stalin's orders.

Since July 1944, when Stalin instructed G.K. Zhukov to coordinate the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts, and A.M. Vasilevsky - the 1st and 2nd Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts, their every step calculated and controlled personally, constantly checking the general opinion of all members of the Stavka. According to G.K. Zhukov, in this style there was "a reasonable combination of collegiality with one-man management." The Institute of Headquarters representatives existed until the last months of the war.

An interesting collection of facts about how the "bloody tyrant" Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin fought corruption in the state apparatus. Of course, liberals tell us about the billions of people who were shot, despite the fact that under Stalin the death penalty was abolished in our country during the most difficult period of post-war reconstruction, but facts are stubborn things. No one says that there were no executions, but the most important thing in such a matter as history is strict adherence to facts, and not to manipulative interpretations.

At the end of the NEP and after the war, devastation reigned in the country. What dishonest businessmen enjoyed with pleasure. But they managed to defeat them quite quickly ...

And whoever thinks that Stalin defeated corruption because he "simply shot" the bribe-takers is fundamentally mistaken. At least for the reason that in the midst of the fight against post-war corruption (May 26, 1947) he abolished the death penalty. Corruption was defeated by a system of measures that affected everyone, regardless of connections and position in society. Even the relatives of the corrupt official, who knew but did nothing to identify the criminal, were brought to justice as accomplices. Moreover, everyone who even out of the corner of his ear heard, but kept silent, how someone takes bribes or is engaged in other illegal business, fell under the court. That is why in those years a whole series of crimes were uncovered in the sphere of action of ministries, central administrations and enterprises.

The case of the "freeloaders"

After the war, Khlebnoe delo became one of the very first and high-profile. And this is not surprising, because people in those years were ready to give their last for bread!

They wrote out, for example, a ton of sugar to a confectionery factory. But in fact, only 950 kg were released, leaving 50 kilos to Isaev in the form of a rollback. In order to make up for this shortage (and even cash in), in the manufacture of, say, cookies, instead of 1000 kg of sugar, 900 went into production. You won’t understand the difference in taste.

They also stole food directly, and then they attributed the shortage to some unknown bandits who allegedly stole the goods directly from the cars. According to the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “from April 14, 1945 to 1946 inclusive, the criminal group of Isaev stole: 1670 kg of sugar, 8500 kg of flour, 670 kg of saccharin, 414 kg of butter, 2605 kg of jam and marmalade, etc. - in total for the amount of 1,139,230 rubles. 18 kopecks.

The Case of the Weavers

In those years, there was nothing to sleep on, there was nothing to sew a shirt from. And the state began to allocate linen fabrics for overalls from scarce reserves. Which were disposed of by the head of the department of the Moscow Interregional Office, Comrade Tavshunsky. He organized the business in such a way that it began to be enough for bed linen, and for shirts, and even for dresses for individual post-war beauties. To do this, he contacted the artel of tailors. And the wheels of the sewing machines began to spin, releasing everything in a shortened form, and besides, mostly small sizes. They say that dressing gowns on the proletarians who have become emaciated during the war will converge anyway ... However, no matter how the thread twisted, the end of it was found quickly enough. Here is how it was said in the special report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: “Tavshunsky entered into criminal ties with a number of leaders of the Moscow promartels, receiving bribes from them for the fact that they, with his knowledge, made small-sized overalls, thereby creating excess linen fabric, which they then sold to their own. accomplices..."

The Case of the Musicians

P.S. From whom are bribes smooth?

Stalin. Path to power Emelyanov Yury Vasilievich

WHY DID STALIN WIN? (INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION)

In April 1929, from the composition of the Leninist Politburo, which was formed in the early 1920s, only Stalin remained in this supreme body of power of the ruling party. Why did Stalin manage to defeat all the other inhabitants of the Soviet political Olympus?

From the point of view of some of the vanquished, it turned out that their defeat was accidental, since Stalin had no merit. One of the prominent Trotskyists, I. Smirnov, in a conversation with Trotsky said that Stalin is “a completely gray and insignificant person”, L.B. Kamenev considered Stalin "a leader on a county scale", while Trotsky called Stalin "the most outstanding mediocrity".

In his unfinished book on Stalin, Trotsky wrote: “He has neither theoretical imagination, nor historical farsightedness, nor the gift of anticipation ... In the field of knowledge, especially linguistics, Stalin's inactive mind always sought the lines of least resistance ... Stalin's willpower is not inferior, perhaps, to strength will of Lenin. But him mental capacity will be measured by some ten or twelve percent, if we take Lenin as a unit of measurement. In turn, in the field of intellect, Stalin has a new disproportion: the extraordinary development of practical insight and cunning at the expense of the ability to generalize and creative imagination. Trotsky assured that Stalin's "primitive mind" was also combined with many spiritual shortcomings that manifested in his behavior: "He feels like a provincial, moves forward slowly, steps heavily and looks around enviously." "Rudeness is an organic property of Stalin." From the reasoning of Trotsky, who rated himself very highly, it turned out rather illogically that he was defeated by a man who was distinguished by many mental and spiritual flaws.

In order to somehow explain his defeat, his opponents often repeated that Stalin won victories over them thanks to secret behind-the-scenes intrigues. Bukharin spoke of Stalin's "intrigue". Trotsky assured: "The apparatus created Stalin." There is no doubt that, having learned the covenant “be wise as snakes” in theological schools, Stalin showed exceptional ingenuity when he needed to isolate his political opponents and deprive them of the levers of control. However, its success can hardly be attributed solely to hardware games.

This explanation was also rejected by Stephen Cohen: “Stalin's triumph was ensured not only by the political machine. As far as the Central Committee was concerned, it could count on the loyalty or benevolent neutrality of lower and middle-ranking delegates who had come forward thanks to Stalin's patronage ... However, despite the fact that these junior party workers were members of the Central Committee, in 1928-1929 their role was secondary . In fact, they only approved the decisions taken by a narrower, informal group of senior members of the Central Committee - an oligarchy of twenty to thirty influential individuals, such as top party leaders and heads of important delegations to the Central Committee (representing, first of all, Moscow, Leningrad, Siberia , North Caucasus, Ural and Ukraine)… As administrators and politicians they were often associated with the general secretary, but for the most part they were not thoughtless political creatures, but were themselves big, independent-minded leaders… By April 1929, these influential people preferred Stalin and provided him majority in top management.

Not in last turn the choice in favor of Stalin was made because he was much more responsible for the work and coped with it much better than his opponents. While they were relaxing in resorts and writing articles about art, he was forced to study alone. difficult questions National economy. Stalin's opponents often shied away from the decision difficult questions preferring bright declarations from the stands.

People accustomed to seeing Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin and others not only in the stands, but where the most important decisions for the Soviet state were made, had no illusions about their business qualities. They knew that Trotsky's noisy reputation was largely exaggerated, and that his organizational "talents" manifested themselves mainly in orders with threats of execution. Roy Medvedev cited an excerpt from a letter from an army worker, V. Trifonov, who, at the height of the Civil War, called Trotsky “an incompetent organizer” and emphasized: “It was not Trotsky who created the army, but we, ordinary army workers. Wherever Trotsky tried to work, confusion immediately began. Confusion has no place in the body, and military affairs is precisely such an organism.

Zinoviev was also characterized as a weak worker. Trotsky did not exaggerate much when he said: “In favorable periods ... Zinoviev very easily climbed into the seventh heaven. When things went badly, Zinoviev lay down on the sofa, not in a metaphorical, but in a true sense. Trotsky confirmed this characteristic with the words of Sverdlov: "Zinoviev is a panic." Summing up these and other assessments of Zinoviev, Roy Medvedev, who was by no means inclined to slander Stalin’s opponents, wrote: “Many people who knew Zinoviev well, not without reason, noted not only his great activity, but also his lack of restraint, promiscuity in means, a tendency to demagogy. , as well as exceptional ambition and vanity. He was a man who evoked sincere sympathy from few people.

While estimating Zinoviev's business qualities low, Medvedev rated Kamenev's abilities even lower, noting that he "was inferior to them (Zinoviev and Stalin) as an administrator." Although Lenin relied on his diligence, Kamenev was not distinguished by businesslike zeal and repeatedly declared among friends that it would be much better if the Bolsheviks did not take power, but limited themselves to staying in the parliamentary opposition. Inclined to sybaritism, Kamenev believed that it would be easier for him to make a diatribe in the Duma and then take a break from righteous labors than to solve the endless affairs of governing the country, which did not give him a moment's rest.

Regarding why members of the party leadership preferred Stalin to Bukharin, S. Cohen wrote: “To some extent, their choice was undoubtedly determined by the fact that they felt kinship with the general secretary as with a strong-willed“ practical politician ”, while soft, immersed in Bukharin's theory, compared to him, might perhaps seem "just a boy." Stalin had a huge advantage over Bukharin, who described himself as "the worst organizer in Russia." Commenting on Bukharin's remark about himself, Cohen wrote: "Although this is no doubt an exaggeration, Bukharin, apparently, greatly neglected his organizational duties."

People who constantly observed the top Soviet leaders could not fail to notice that, unlike his rivals, Stalin took upon himself a huge burden of assignments, the execution of which was often associated with intense and often thankless work. It was for these qualities that Lenin valued Stalin.

Stalin's enthusiasm for work was organically combined with his efficiency and readiness to discuss complex state issues with people of different status. Deutscher wrote: “His appearance and demeanor epitomized modesty. He was more accessible to the average office worker or party worker than the other leaders... Being withdrawn, he was an unsurpassed master of patiently listening to others.

Sometimes you could see him sitting in a corner, puffing on his pipe and not moving, listening to an excited storyteller for an hour, or even two hours, only occasionally breaking his silence with a couple of questions. It was one of his qualities that showed a lack of selfishness."

Many people testified to Stalin's high demands on himself and in his personal life. Deutscher noted that "Stalin's personal life was impeccable and did not arouse suspicion." His personal secretary, who fled abroad, Bazhanov wrote: “This passionate politician has no other vices. He does not like money, pleasures, sports, or women. Women other than his wife do not exist."

Although Stalin’s position did not allow him to devote much time to his family and raising children, as was almost always the case with major statesmen, he was an exemplary family man and, as he knew how, he tried to fulfill parental responsibilities even after the suicide of Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1932. Stalin's kind and gentle attitude towards children did not prevent him from being strict with his children, especially when he saw that they take for granted the blessings assigned to their family. In June 1938, he sent a letter to V.V. Martyshin, teacher flight school where his son Vasily studied. Stalin regretted that his son was “spoiled by all sorts of “godfathers” and “gossips”, constantly emphasizing that he is “the son of Stalin”. He gave the teacher "advice: demand stricter from Vasily and not be afraid of the fake, blackmailing threats of the capricious about "suicide." You will have my support in this."

His nephew Vladimir Alliluyev recalled how indignant Stalin was when, visiting his relatives, he discovered that the chocolates in the box were covered with mold. “Then everyone got it - the children for being “snickering” and not even eating such sweets, adults for not taking good care of children and festering foods that are not yet abundant in the country. Stalin believed that his children and the children of his relatives should not be aware of themselves as "special" due to the position of their parents.

Stalin's way of life corresponded to popular ideas about the proletarian leader, in contrast, for example, to Trotsky, who liked to throw noisy parties in the Kremlin, which culminated in collective hunting trips in the Moscow region. Deutscher wrote that Stalin and Alliluyeva “lived in a small apartment in a house that was intended for servants in the Kremlin ... The stamp of everyday life and even asceticism lay on the personal life of the general secretary, and this circumstance made a favorable impression on the party, whose members were guided by puritanical mores and therefore, they were concerned about the first signs of corruption and promiscuity in the Kremlin.”

The fact that this style of behavior of the spouses was preserved even after Stalin became the first leader of the party and the country is confirmed by the correspondence between Nadezhda Alliluyeva and Stalin. So, in September 1929, Alliluyeva, who at that time was studying at the Industrial Academy, wrote from the Kremlin: “Joseph, send me, if you can, rub. 50, they will give me money only on 15/IX in the Industrial Academy, and now I am sitting without a penny. If you send, it will be good. Nadya". Ten days later, Stalin answers her from Sochi: “I forgot to send you money. I am sending them (120 rubles) with a comrade who is leaving today, without waiting for the next courier. Kiss. Your Joseph. Because the we are talking about the amount of about a month's wages of a skilled worker, it is quite clear that the spouses did not have any money savings. And apparently, Stalin's wife did not even think about acquiring anything on a "credit".

From the correspondence it is clear that in many cases the spouses are accustomed to doing without outside help. So, while in Sochi, Stalin asked not his secretaries serving him, but Alliluyeva to find him an English language tutorial, a textbook on metallurgy and a textbook on electrical engineering, and she, without turning to anyone for help, herself looked for these books. At the same time, Stalin sent his letters to his wife by regular mail. One day, Stalin's letter from Sochi was lost, and the search for it did not lead to anything.

Of course, the financial situation of the spouses was incomparably better than that of ordinary Soviet citizens. And yet, many aspects of family life did not differ from the life of most Muscovites. From Alliluyeva's letters it follows that members of the Stalin family used public transport, and not personal cars to move around Moscow, like the rest of the capital's residents. Alliluyeva shared with Stalin her impressions of her trips on the Moscow tram. She informed Stalin about the queues for milk that arose at the end of 1929, and about the mood of people in the autumn of 1930, about construction in Moscow and the state of Moscow streets. She wrote to Stalin in Sochi and that, despite minus temperature at the beginning of October 1930, the Moscow authorities ordered not to heat the houses until October 15, and she, like the rest of the students of the Industrial Academy, had to sit in class in a coat.

After the death of Alliluyeva, Stalin did not change his way of life. He, as before, managed a minimum of servants. The guard M. Starostin recalled: "I worked under Stalin from 1937 to 1953 ... I declare that Stalin never had a batman." A. Rybin testifies: “Stalin usually did not bother others, serving himself. He shaved with a safety razor, trimmed his mustache with scissors. He only mentioned Matryona Butuzova, who “at a nearby dacha was in charge of the dishes in the closet, looked after Stalin’s shoes, ironed his tunic and cleaned the office. Stalin respected her very much for her diligence and even gave her his portrait with an inscription.

Marshal Zhukov recalled: “As you know, J.V. Stalin led a very modest lifestyle. The food was simple - from Russian cuisine, sometimes Georgian dishes were prepared. No frills in the atmosphere, clothes and life at I.V. Stalin was not. A similar impression was made by Air Chief Marshal Golovanov: “I happened to observe Stalin in everyday life. This life was amazingly modest. Stalin owned only what he was wearing. He didn't have any closets.

Stalin was completely unpretentious in his clothes. In his diary M.A. Svanidze wrote about Stalin on November 4, 1934: “He always changes clothes seasonally with difficulty, wears summer clothes for a long time, which he obviously gets used to, and the same story in the spring and also with suits when they wear out and you need to put on a new one.” A. Rybin told what tricks the attendants of the Stalinist dacha had to go to in order to change the collapsed furniture or at least force the Generalissimo to put on new low shoes. In response, Stalin sternly demanded that his old, worn-out shoes be returned to him, and the maids with difficulty "managed to hide the dilapidation of shoes with a shine of cream."

Referring to the memoirs of the head of the government guard, General B.C. Ryasny, Felix Chuev wrote that after his death, “it turned out that there was nothing to bury Stalin in. Ryasnoy opened the closet, and there were only four suits - two generalissimo and two civilian ones, gray and black. The black one was sewn when Mao Zedong arrived, they were specially sewn, forcibly, and Stalin never put it on. Moreover, the bekesha hung - old, shabby, faded. “She must have been a hundred years old, by God,” says Ryasnoy. - Bekesha or an arkhaluk like a fur coat - he would put it on, it happened, and walk in the garden. (Apparently, Ryasnoy was referring to the famous Turukhansk doha. - Note. auth.) One generalissimo tunic was all smeared, greasy, and the other was shabby ... A new suit was not sewn. Stalin was lying in a coffin in his old, but tolerable: the sleeves were hemmed, the tunic was cleaned.

It is unlikely that such unpretentiousness in clothes could be explained by the desire to cultivate asceticism for show, if only because the personal life of leaders in Soviet times was hidden from the public. Stalin led a way of life that basically met the needs of a person brought up in poverty and accustomed to moderation and modesty in theological schools, which was very different from many leaders who, due to their position, were able to satisfy any desires. Considering his work to be the most important thing in his life, Stalin did not attach of great importance how he looks from the outside and whether his outfit corresponds to fashion ideas or not. For example, his reluctance to buy new shoes was explained by his chronic pain in his legs. Therefore, he probably preferred worn shoes. He even made holes in his boots himself so as not to injure his sore legs.

He preferred cheap and simple convenience. Rybin wrote about Stalin’s “nearby” dacha: “There were no pools or massages in the dacha. No luxury either. Although Stalin used state-owned vehicles and lived in various dachas, they were not his personal property. None of the expensive gifts presented to him as the leader of the country, none of the household items of the Kremlin apartment or dachas, remained in the ownership of his children. Stalin's money savings, inherited by his children, also turned out to be small. A. Rybin said that after the death of Stalin, Starostin, an employee of his personal guard, “discovered a savings book. Only nine hundred rubles accumulated there - all the wealth of the leader (then a similar amount was about half a month's wages of a skilled worker. - Note. auth.). Starostin handed over the passbook to Svetlana.

Summing up his impressions of Stalin's life and personal life, Air Chief Marshal Golovanov remarked: “There was nothing remarkable or special in his personal life. It looked gray to me, colorless. Apparently, because in our usual understanding, he simply did not have it.

However, Stalin was valued not only as a modest and conscientious worker who gave himself completely to work. Prominent leaders of the USSR saw in him the author of original and necessary state decisions. S. Cohen wrote: "It seems obvious that they did this not because of his bureaucratic power, which he possessed, but because they preferred his leadership and his policies."

This opinion was shared by other Sovietologists. Without disregarding the significance of the post of general secretary for Stalin's success, Robert Tucker pointed out that this circumstance alone “cannot explain the events of that time. The candidate for the role of leader would need to offer an attractive program and make it convincing for the highest party circles. Agreeing with him, Jerry Hough drew attention to the fact that “only 45 percent of the members of the Central Committee were party functionaries, while the industrialization program proposed by Stalin was attractive to the growing number of economic leaders in the Central Committee. (They were 20 percent of the total number of members of the Central Committee in 1927.) "

It should be taken into account that the struggle on the Soviet political Olympus required considerable knowledge of Marxist theory and a good command of current information on various domestic and foreign policy issues. In addition, the guidelines in the inner-party struggle were constantly changing. At first, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin branded Trotsky for betraying Leninism, and Trotsky accused the members of the triumvirate of the same sedition, but soon Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky renounced their accusations against each other. At first, Bukharin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of apostasy from Leninism, and they saw Bukharin as a dangerous "evader" from the Leninist course, but then these former opponents created a common bloc against Stalin.

In the course of the internal party struggle, Stalin also changed his position more than once. Then he condemned Trotsky for his attacks on Zinoviev and Kamenev the day before October uprising, then spoke about the validity of Lenin's accusations of Zinoviev and Kamenev of "strike-breaking". Either Stalin defended Bukharin against the accusations of Zinoviev and Kamenev of a “kulak deviation” and said that he would not give them “Bukharin’s blood”, then he himself accused Bukharin of encouraging the kulaks and demanded his resignation from prominent posts. Either Stalin condemned Preobrazhensky for his calls to rob the countryside, or he announced the need to impose a “tribute” on the peasantry. To understand these disputes, it was necessary not only to have great general cultural knowledge and be well informed, but also to understand the true background of the positions of political leaders. And for this it was necessary to be a member of the Central Committee, as D. Hough believed, or to enter a narrow circle of the most influential persons in the party leadership, as S. Cohen believed.

And yet there were questions that were equally acute for both the party elite and the rank and file members of the party. From its very beginning, the history of the Bolshevik Party was marked by unceasing inner-party struggle, fraught with a split. The prospect of a split in a party that has overcome enormous difficulties underground life, and after coming to power, which found itself surrounded by an overwhelming non-party majority of the country, aroused the alarm of all its members, and therefore the “schismatics” were strongly condemned by its majority. Mensheviks, otzovists, liquidators, ultimatists, left communists, the military opposition, the workers’ opposition, decises, all kinds of “national deviationists”, authors of various “letters” and “platforms”, that is, all who for several decades opposed "general line" of the party.

Since the early 1920s, Trotsky has been such a troublemaker, and it is not surprising that the vast majority of party members at various levels opposed him and his supporters. Zinoviev and Kamenev were the first to speak out against Stalin, Bukharin and other members of the Politburo and organized the "revolt" of the Leningrad organization against the majority of the congress delegates. Their association with Trotsky, that eternal rebel against Lenin and then against Stalin, the repudiation of the decisions they voted for, the rejection of their own fierce criticism of Trotsky, only strengthened the impression of them as party splitters and unprincipled politicians seeking to usurp power, not respecting the will of the majority.

Similarly, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky were the first to oppose the Politburo's emergency measures, which they recently voted for. The impression was created that they were sabotaging the well-coordinated work aimed at solving state issues, drawing the party into an unconstructive discussion. The negotiations with Kamenev showed the lack of principle of Bukharin and his supporters in his struggle for personal power. Violation of agreed decisions by Stalin's opponents, their opposition of their "platforms" to the "general line" of the party, their alliances with former political opponents prevented the vacillating members of the Politburo and the Central Committee, and then the rest of the party, from being attracted to their side.

In contrast to his opponents, Stalin personified unity in the party for the vast majority of the party leadership and its rank-and-file members. This position organically followed from all his party activities. He stood firm in the position of the Leninist majority from 1903. In 1909, in Baku, he sounded the alarm in connection with the threat of a split in the party "into separate organizations." Then he constantly supported the Leninist majority, even in cases where he clearly did not agree with the prevailing opinion.

In order to ensure the unity of the party during the discussions of the 1920s, Stalin repeatedly demonstrated his readiness to overcome differences, search for a compromise and the ability to forget past sharp disputes in the name of a common cause. Deutscher wrote that “at the time, it seemed to many people that, compared with other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin did not possess the greatest intolerance. He was less vicious in his attacks on opponents than the other triumvirs. In his speeches, there were always notes of good-natured and slightly cheerful optimism, which corresponded to the prevailing benevolent moods. In the Politburo, when important political issues were discussed, he never imposed his views on his colleagues. He followed the debate closely to see which way the wind was blowing, and invariably voted with the majority, unless he secured beforehand that the majority acted as he saw fit. Therefore, it has always been acceptable to the majority. For the party audience, he did not seem like a person who had personal gain or harbored personal resentment. He appeared to be a devoted Leninist, a doctrinal guardian who criticized others solely in the name of the cause. He made that impression even when he spoke behind the closed doors of the Politburo.”

While active in the fight against Trotsky, Stalin at the same time objected to harsh measures that could provoke unnecessary unrest among party members, and, contrary to the position of Zinoviev and Kamenev, insisted on keeping Trotsky in the Politburo. From the very first days of the emergence of the "new" opposition, Stalin tried to stop the development of the conflict, offering a compromise before the start of the XIV Congress. In his report at this congress, he ignored the disagreements that had arisen and drew attention to the common things that united the party. Although Stalin was harsh in his assessments and accusations, during the two years of polemics with the “new” and then “united” opposition, he repeatedly advocated compromise solutions, opposing the immediate expulsion of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev from the party.

Party members saw that Stalin dealt with his opponents in much the same way as always dealt with "deviators" in the past history of the party. After severe condemnation and recognition of their mistakes, the leaders of the opposition could count on being left in their former posts. At first, Stalin refrained from "cutting off" prominent figures, and only a protracted struggle with Trotsky, Zinoviev and their supporters led to a change in the methods of their punishment. In addition, it was obvious that no matter what accusations were thrown in his face, Stalin was ready to turn a blind eye to this, if the discussion was of a private nature and "little rubbish was not taken out of the hut." For this reason, he was ready to forgive Bukharin both "Genghis Khan" and the "schemer" and offer him a compromise.

Later, these actions of Stalin were regarded as a manifestation of Jesuit cunning aimed at smashing their rivals piece by piece and then destroying them. However, in contrast to this statement, examples can be given that Stalin was ready to ignore his former participation in the opposition, hesitation, behind-the-scenes intrigues and harsh words addressed to him and leave people in high positions if they stopped the inner-party struggle. Despite the fact that N.S. Khrushchev was a Trotskyist, and A.A. Andreev played a prominent role in the Trotskyist opposition, Stalin contributed to their election to the Politburo. And although Andreev promised support to the "Rightists," as Bukharin's conversation with Kamenev implied, he remained in the Politburo until 1952, until he lost his ability to work. Both Kalinin, who was considered "right-wing", and Kuibyshev, "fluctuating" between Stalin and the "right-wingers", remained the leaders of the country until his death. Stalin did not seek to get rid of either Ordzhonikidze, who more than once "swearingly scolded" him and insisted on removing Stalin from the post of general secretary, or Voroshilov, who had a reputation of being either "right-wing" or "wavering" (and Trotsky even saw him as a potential Bonaparte, which will overthrow the Soviet power). Only Jesuit cunning cannot explain why Rykov, who, together with Bukharin, participated in the opposition demonstrations of 1928-1929, remained as chairman of the Council people's commissars until the end of 1930. Of course, many of Stalin's consistent supporters could have taken this post already at the beginning of 1929.

It is unlikely that Stalin's readiness to compromise with yesterday's opponents or forget past hesitation and harsh words addressed to him was explained by his kindness or gentleness. Most likely it was a sober political calculation. Firstly, it was obvious to Stalin that in the event of the failure of the "general line" of the party, those who were not involved in its implementation would receive trump cards in their hands. Therefore, it was important to achieve not the overthrow of their opponents from the political Olympus, but their renunciation of political views, to ensure that they supported the “general line” of the party and even actively participated in the work of a single “team”. Secondly, Stalin was aware that the expulsion from the leadership of everyone who had ever wavered or spoken out against him could turn unsteady supporters into fierce enemies not only of him personally, but of the government, and then of the system. Thirdly, frequent and large-scale overthrows of the famous leaders of the country from the political Olympus would testify to the instability of the "general line" and would discredit the party. The position of the party in the country has never been absolutely unshakable, and discord in the leadership could become a pretext for protesting against the system. Therefore, even in those cases when parting with former colleagues in the Politburo was inevitable, Stalin tried to make it gradual and not turn it into a group expulsion.

Fourth, as much as it contradicted the most enduring ideas about Stalin, he was not interested in being surrounded by those who agreed with him on everything. Contrary to popular belief, Stalin not only did not suppress dissent in the process of discussing various issues, but actively encouraged it. This was recognized even by his opponents, such as Mikoyan and Khrushchev became after his death. Describing the course of the meetings of the Politburo under Stalin, A.I. Mikoyan testified: “Each of us had a full opportunity to express and defend his opinion or proposal. We frankly discussed the most difficult and contentious issues(in relation to myself, I can speak about this with full responsibility), meeting Stalin in most cases with understanding, a reasonable and tolerant attitude, even when our statements were clearly not to his liking. He was also attentive to the proposals of the generals. Stalin listened to what he was told and advised, listened with interest to disputes, skillfully extracting from them the very truth that later helped him formulate the final, most expedient decisions, thus born as a result of collective discussion. Moreover, it often happened when, convinced by our arguments, Stalin changed his initial point of view on a particular issue.

Even such a memoirist as disliked by Stalin as Khrushchev admitted: “And here’s what’s interesting (which was also characteristic of Stalin): this person, with an angry outburst, could cause great harm. But when you prove your case and if at the same time you give him healthy facts, he will eventually understand that a person is defending a useful cause, and will support ... There were such cases when you persistently object to him, and if he is convinced that you are right, he will retreat point of view and accept the point of view of the interlocutor. This, of course, is a positive quality.”

Stalin's concern for the unity of the party provided him with broad support from the rank and file of the Communists. Jerry Hough had reason to recognize Stalin as "the spokesman for powerful tendencies in Bolshevism (especially the nationalist trend and the desire for industrialization)."

The defeat of the leaders of the opposition was explained by the fact that they did not understand these tendencies and moods in the party, opposing them with the theoretical schemes of the world revolution and purely personal political interests. Explaining Trotsky's defeat, Stalin, unlike his opponent, first of all spoke about his merits: “Doesn't Trotsky have the will, the desire for leadership? ... Is he a lesser orator than the current leaders of our party? Would it not be more correct to say that, as an orator, Trotsky is superior to many of the present leaders of our party? How, then, is it to be explained that Trotsky, in spite of his oratory, in spite of his will to lead, in spite of his abilities, was thrown away from the leadership of the great party called the VKP(b)?” Stalin believed that all the virtues of Trotsky were crossed out by his separation from the rank and file members of the party. Evaluating Trotsky's arrogant statements about the party masses, Stalin said: “Only people who despise it and consider it mob can talk about our party like that. This is the view of a seedy party aristocrat on the party, as on a voting ram.

Stalin, on the other hand, was always alien to "aristocrats", out of touch with life, but who imagine themselves to be "high priests." Being a native of the people, Stalin from the time of his underground revolutionary activity tried to take into account the aspirations of the working people, to respond to them. (Trotsky remarked with contempt: "Only in the circle of primitive, resolute and unprejudiced people did he become more even and amiable.")

Of course, Stalin's opponents, whom he branded for "deviation" from the proletarian positions, and later for betraying the cause of the working class, also considered themselves spokesmen for the interests of the proletariat. However, unlike Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin perceived the proletariat largely in a bookish way, out of touch with Russian reality. This was facilitated to no small extent by the fact that they lived abroad for a long time and were formed as prominent party figures in exile abroad, where they were also cut off from real life workers. In accordance with their purely theoretical concepts, only the proletariat of a highly developed capitalist country, who made up the majority of its population and had accumulated centuries of experience in the class struggle, could make a socialist revolution and, relying on the help of the proletarians of the same developed countries, build socialism. The Russian proletariat did not correspond to these ideas.

Knowing the theoretical principles of Marxism and possessing book information about the labor movement in Western countries, the most prominent opponents of Stalin had no experience in fighting for the rights of Russian workers. They knew the problems of the Russian workers poorly, had a more abstract idea of the features of the Russian proletariat, and therefore underestimated its capabilities. To a large extent for this reason, Trotsky and Bukharin, during the negotiations in Brest, proceeded from the fact that fate Russian revolution will be decided by the international proletariat. Disbelief in the ability of the working people of the Soviet country to build a developed socialist society underlay the platforms of the united opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev.

Trotsky wrote that the Russian proletariat “was formed under the barbaric conditions of tsarism and backward capitalism, and therefore in no way corresponded to the tasks of socialist revolution". The "backward" proletariat of Russia, according to Trotsky, exhausted its potential in the October Revolution, after which came "a long period of fatigue, decline and disappointment in the results of the revolution."

Unlike Trotsky and other oppositionists, Stalin saw in the working class of the country a huge creative potential. He declared "the question of the cultural forces of the working class ... one of decisive questions", and " therefore, "every means that can raise the level of development of the cultural forces of the working class, every means that can facilitate the development of skills and abilities in the working class to manage the country, industry - every such means should be used by us to the bottom." The working class of the country, on which Stalin tried to rely, was a minority of the population, but a rapidly growing minority. As Stalin noted in a report at the 15th Congress, in just two years (from the 1924/25 financial year to the 1926/27 financial year) the number of hired workers increased from 8,215,000 to 10,346,000. Stalin. During the same period, the number of manual laborers, including agricultural and seasonal workers, rose from 5,448,000 to 7,060,000, an "increase of 29.6 percent." During these same years, the number of workers in large-scale industry increased from 1,794,000 to 2,388,000, and Stalin summed up: "An increase of 33 percent."

Millions of newcomers came to the country's rapidly growing cities and new businesses peasant communities. They brought with them to cities and factories many obsolete and erroneous ideas about the world, absurd prejudices against "strangers". At the same time, they were the bearers of the powerful "cultural forces" that Stalin spoke of. They entered the new Soviet life with a huge potential for physical and mental health, with powerful fortitude. Stalin contributed to the development of the "cultural forces" of the working class, encouraging the "Leninist call", the study of the party members of this call, putting forward the most talented people from the people to responsible posts. The new bosses, as well as the new employees and workers, were free from many inert and conservative habits, but at the same time, being from the people, they brought to city life a love of folk culture, adherence to traditional moral principles, and deep patriotism. .

It can hardly be considered that AS. Ratiev, a descendant of the Russian branch of the ancient Georgian family of Ratishvili, greatly distorted the words of L.D. Trotsky in a speech he delivered in December 1918 in Kursk: “Patriotism, love for the motherland, for one’s people, for those around them, far and near, for those living at this very moment, for those who yearn for small, imperceptible happiness, self-sacrifice, heroism - what value are all these empty words! ... "

Trotsky especially disliked the pride of the Russian people for the achievements of their national culture. He wrote that Russia was "sentenced by nature itself to a long backwardness", that the pre-revolutionary culture of Russia "was only a superficial imitation of the highest Western models and did not contribute anything to the treasury of mankind." Although Bukharin acted as an opponent of Trotsky, he was also inclined to belittle the importance of the Russian people and their potential, which was clearly manifested both in his attacks on the work of Yesenin, and in his thesis about the need to put the Russian people, that is, the majority of the country's population, in an unequal position on on the grounds that before the revolution the Great Russians were an "oppressive nation".

Being a recognized party expert on the national question, Stalin understood the role and significance of the national factor and condemned the nihilistic attitude towards national culture and patriotism. Stalin rejected the dismissive attitude towards the Russian historical and cultural heritage, so widespread in the country after 1917, seeing this as a humiliation and insult to the Russian proletariat. In a letter to the poet Demyan Bedny dated December 12, 1930, Stalin wrote:

“The whole world now recognizes that the center revolutionary movement moved from Western Europe to Russia ... The revolutionary workers of all countries unanimously applaud the Soviet working class, and above all Russian to the working class, the vanguard of the Soviet workers, as their acknowledged leader... And you? Instead of comprehending this greatest process in the history of the revolution and rising to the height of the tasks of the singer of the advanced proletariat, they went somewhere into the hollow and, entangled between the most boring quotations from the works of Karamzin and no less boring sayings from Domostroy, began to proclaim to the whole world that Russia in the past was a vessel of abomination and desolation, ... that "laziness" and the desire to "sit on the stove" is almost national trait Russians in general, and therefore also Russian workers, who, having gone through the October Revolution, of course, did not cease to be Russian. The value of these remarks was enhanced by the fact that they were written by a Georgian addressing a Russian intellectual.

Being the bearer of the traditions of folk culture, Stalin was well aware that pride in his people, in his culture, in the history of his country is a powerful driving force, more effective than the dream of a world revolution. The party members of the "Leninist call", Stalin's nominees were the same people from the people's environment. Their thoughts and moods were in tune with the moods of Stalin, and therefore they supported the course of building a prosperous society of social justice in their country, without waiting for the victory of the world revolution.

Their peasant social origin and their current social status as urban workers and employees were reflected in the contradictions and zigzags of party policy in peasant question. Like yesterday's peasants, they supported Stalin when he condemned the policy of exploiting the countryside, advocated a "bond with the countryside", for a careful attitude towards the peasant economy and an attentive attitude towards the peasants. At the same time, leaving the village, they were leaving the attraction of property and market relations. Becoming townspeople, they acquired a sense of superiority over the peasants who remained in vicious circle their village ideas and the hardships of peasant labor. They readily accepted the Soviet ideology, which convinced them of the superiority of the urban worker over the rural owner, and quickly turned into supporters of profound socialist transformations in the countryside.

The zigzags of the general line of the party pursued by Stalin, as well as the contradictory justifications for its implementation, ultimately reflected the changeable and contradictory reality of those years. The policy of "war communism", the NEP, and then the transition from the NEP to building socialism in one country were perceived by a significant part of the country's population as necessary ways to strengthen the position of Soviet power and solve important issues society in a particular historical setting.

When the NEP helped to get out of the devastation after the Civil War, it suited all the working people of the country. However, in the late 1920s, it became clear to Stalin and his supporters that the interests of the rapidly growing working class were at odds with the New Economic Policy. Food shortages in many cities in 1927 increased the dissatisfaction with the NEP on the part of the working class. Remembering his youth in the 1920s, a member of the Brezhnev Politburo K.T. Mazurov said: “NEP brought prosperity to trade and small business, the peasants began to live better. And the workers were still very hard. They often had no bread on the table. Their discontent grew ... The workers thought: let them crush those who hide the bread, and we will have it. As historians G.A. Bordyugov and V.A. Kozlov: “The working class did not become the social force that held on and fought for the principles of NEP ... When in 1927 the social problems, food difficulties arose, when in 1928 "fence books" (a rationing system for supplying food) were introduced, nothing tied the workers to the NEP. However, a significant part of the peasantry did not support the NEP and market relations. Bordyugov and Kozlov wrote that “35% of the peasants exempted from paying agricultural tax, the proletarian, semi-proletarian and poor elements of the countryside - were they interested in maintaining the NEP? Those benefits, class guarantees, which the rural poor enjoyed in the 1920s, were guaranteed to them by direct state intervention in the economy.

The transition of the party leadership from defending the NEP in the struggle against the Trotskyites, and then the Zinovievists, to the rejection of the NEP was received positively by the majority of the country's working class when the NEP crisis began. Offering a radical solution: to build socialism in one country in the shortest possible time, Stalin received the support of the most dynamic and least well-to-do sections of the population. Stalin's successes in this activity were the successes of these layers, his failures and failures were largely the result of the class and social psychology of those who represented his main social support.

Stalin was supported not only by the party and the proletariat, but also by patriotic representatives of the peasantry, scientific and creative intelligentsia, military specialists, civil servants, who saw in Stalin a consistent and resolute defender of the country's national interests.

This can be doubted, referring to the fact that at that time in the USSR there were no real opportunities for expressing public views through representative elections. However, this doubt refutes the opinion of such an opponent of Soviet power as Pitirim Sorokin, who believed that the stability of any system is the best evidence that he enjoys the support of the most politically active part of the population. He wrote: “It is naive to believe that the so-called absolute despot can afford whatever he pleases, regardless of the desires and pressures of his subordinates. To believe that there is such an “omnipotence” of despots and their absolute freedom from public pressure is nonsense.” At the same time, Pitirim Sorokin referred to Herbert Spencer, who stated: “As practice shows, the individual will of despots is an insignificant factor, its authority is proportional to the degree of expression of the will of the others.” P. Sorokin also referred to Renan, who noted that every day of the existence of any social order is in fact a constant plebiscite of members of society, and if a society continues to exist, this means that a stronger part of society answers the question posed with a silent “yes”. Commenting on these words, P. Sorokin stated: "Since then, this statement has become a banality." In fact, Stalin was elected with the tacit consent of the "stronger part" of Soviet society.

It should be taken into account that Stalin was chosen by the ruling party and the politically active forces of Soviet society when the threat of a new world conflict arose and an arms race began in the capitalist countries. In this situation, political leaders who rose on the wave of the First World War began to enter the political foreground.

Despite his partial paralysis, F.D. returned to active political life. Roosevelt, who in November 1928, having received powerful financial support from the billionaire B. Baruch, won the election of the governor of the state of New York. He soon became the most likely contender for the presidency of the United States, which meant that the world's leading financial magnates were betting on Roosevelt as a potential leader of the most powerful country in the world. Like many politicians born of the First World War, F.D. Roosevelt saw his goal in defeating communism. In mid-1930, he wrote: "There is no doubt that communist ideas will gain strength in our country if we fail to maintain the old ideals and the original goals of democracy."

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Raised some time ago by Alexei Chadayev in Russkiy Zhurnal, the question of the essential, political and political rehabilitation of Stalin is long overdue. And, one might say, overripe. Moreover, at the level of mass consciousness, this actually happened. What finally fixed the excitement that caused the 50th anniversary of the death of the Generalissimo in 2003. Today, even to scold Stalin, without making certain reservations, only political outcasts allow themselves. However, restalinization is, so far, spontaneous.

This is a populist movement, a reaction to the atmosphere of political, military and social humiliation in which Russia finds itself under the “anti-Stalinists”. After the scale of the nation’s human losses in just a decade and a half, which happened without any wars, revolutions and executions, became obvious, even the argument from the Gulag disappeared, since the number of “victims of democracy” has long surpassed all any realistic estimates of the number victims of repression.

The "perestroika" version of history simply crumbled under the blows of facts. It seems that there is not a single classic anti-Stalinist myth left that has not been debunked by historians, documentary filmmakers, and, at worst, by journalists. This is done with all the more zeal that the re-Stalinization of history is becoming a hot commodity, you can make a name and even money on it, which cannot but direct young ambitions in the appropriate direction. The last line of defense of "anti-Stalinism" is artistic notions, regularly transferred to the screen in the form of all kinds of "Moscow sagas" and "Children of the Arbat". However, despite the high viewership rating, such series do not achieve their goals - the audience does not so much follow the plot as admire the artifacts of the past that have fallen into the frame, and beautiful actresses, if any, in the frame. To shudder-inducing phrases like “Nat man, no problems,” the viewer usually angrily agrees: “That's for sure. Do not be Chubais ... ".

The rear line of "anti-Stalinism" is a hysteria, a screech into which some "decent people" break down, one has only to emphasize the need to restore justice to Stalin, at least as to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The recent scandal in the “high society” of Runet (that is, in LiveJournal), where an action was held with a call to restore such justice to the Commander-in-Chief, very well showed the nervous nature of the reaction of the majority of anti-Stalinists. No one could ever explain what reason we have to deny the Commander-in-Chief the triumph of the Victor, if the army under his command unconditionally won the greatest war in world history. Either excuses began that “and in 1941 everything was bad,” and even funnier, “if it weren’t for Stalin’s pact with Hitler, there would have been no war at all,” or the matter is completely limited to statements like: “Don’t dare. The people won the war, not Stalin. Chadayev very correctly pointed out that it was precisely by allowing Khrushchev and his family to instill such sentiments in the USSR that we, as a result, created the current situation, when on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Victory a wave of revanchism sweeps across Europe, the rabid vanguard of which is our former, and now NATO-vskaya Baltic.

At first we agreed that "Stalin did not better than Hitler", then, in perestroika, that he is "the same as Hitler", today it turns out that in the opinion of our Western neighbors "Stalin is worse than Hitler." Which is quite logical - service German officers the Latvian girl Vaira would not be ashamed, but in horror before the Russians she fled to the ends of the world. Instead of the Germans quietly eating bran in a euroshed, the Eastern European Slavs, and at the same time the Romanians, were forced under the yoke of the Russians for 40 years to build their own statehood, develop some kind of economy, create an army, participate in some exercises of some Warsaw Pact ... In general, to indulge in activities to which they, according to the German race theory, were not adapted.

But what do we, in essence, care about these "unrest of Lithuania." Stalin is part of our Russian history. We need to understand what he gave and what he deprived of our nation, what he is guilty of before it, and what is his great merit. Let's not go far and revise the history of NEP, industrialization, collectivization, cultural revolution, national policy and repression. Let us dwell on the main discussion episode - the war. If it was not Stalin who won the Great Patriotic War, then one would have to assume that there was no Victory at all.

The opposite assertions are based on an ignorant philistine idea of Stalin as a political leader who exercises only "general strategic leadership" of the war and relies on the opinion of well-chosen assistants in specific issues. In this case, Stalin may be billed for general strategic mistakes, while his involvement in specific achievements and victories remains in question. Despite the huge memoir literature, the intelligent layman usually adheres to the notion gleaned from bad films, in which Stalin usually asks idiotic questions like: “Will we be able to defeat the Germans?” and with difficulty agrees to the practical recommendations of military leaders.

In fact, all administrative chains in the army, industry, and politics were closed to Stalin as the head of state, and then as the Supreme Commander. He was directly responsible for every little thing. This involvement of Stalin was all the more so because a unique feature of his personality was an exceptional memory for details, which allowed him to freely navigate issues that most leaders of states and armed forces simply did not know due to the limited intellectual resource. Therefore, Stalin bears personal responsibility both for all the mistakes made, and, as soon as the war was brought to an unconditional victory over the enemy, for this Victory.

1. Your own General Staff. Why didn't Stalin go to the front?

In the interests of "fighting the cult of personality" and "de-Stalinization" in official histories and memoir literature about the war, its leadership was stubbornly depersonalized. Instead of a real commander-in-chief, the faceless “Stavka” appears everywhere, which “teaches”, “advises”, “recommends”, “decides”. Fortunately, things did not reach the point of insanity, and when talking about conversations with Stalin personally, it is not stated that "a meeting with the Headquarters took place." But wherever we read Stavka, we must read Stalin. It is enough to make this replacement, and the volume of work that Stalin did from day to day will immediately become clear.

During the war, Stalin created a very peculiar structure for the leadership of the armed struggle of the Soviet Union. The structure is super-centralized, but also the most durable and efficient. Political, economic and purely military leadership was concentrated in one hand and one head. Being, in fact, a student of Marshal Shaposhnikov, the author of the famous work on the General Staff "The Brain of the Army", Stalin valued the general staff command very highly. This is the difference from Germany, where the General Staff essentially ceased to exist and was split into several parallel and fiercely competing structures, each of which independently went out to Hitler (Wehrmacht High Command - OKW, High Command ground forces- OKH, the only one under General Halder who seriously performed staff functions, and the air and navy commands), and Western democracies, where staff planning and leadership were separated from the political. In the USSR, "Stavka", that is, Stalin, united all functions. The General Staff was the operational working body of the Headquarters, and after the departure of the sick Shaposhnikov, in fact, it was headed by Stalin himself.

The nominal chief of staff A.M. Vasilevsky actually, together with Zhukov, worked as a drive belt for Stalin's decisions, driving around the fronts. Both marshals, whom Stalin more than once jokingly proposed to unite into one, were valuable assistants and advisers to Stalin. Vasilevsky adequately represented the "intellectual" beginning of brilliant military planning, Zhukov represented the beginning of a fiercely strong-willed, the ability to achieve at any cost what Stalin called "Bolshevik pace." But Stalin did not dare to entrust any of them with the coordination of all military efforts in the scope of the present General Staff. The role of the "brain of the army" he took on himself.

During the war years, Stalin managed to create a real “big General Staff” that embodied the ideas of Moltke, Conrad von Hetzendorf and Shaposhnikov, to achieve constant accurate information of the Headquarters about what was happening at the front and unquestioning execution of its directives and specific orders. Stalin knew in detail the situation on all fronts, in the armies and corps, and, at the same time, he had a complete picture of what was happening, which allowed him to make the right decisions. (1)

Most of Stalin's "mistakes" occurred during that period of the war, when there was no well-functioning system of informing the General Staff by the fronts, when responsibility was divided among a large number of persons, each of whom sought to avoid this responsibility. A classic example of such inconsistency was the summer campaign of 1942, when the decision on strategic defense was not carried out as a result of the adventurism of the leaders of the directions, who until the last promised success to the Stavka. At the same time, the General Staff represented only one of the parties in the system of approvals. Stalin did not have the instrument on which he could "play". Before the war, Stalin apparently had the illusion that the tool already existed, which is why he was so shocked (all conscientious participants in the events speak of his sincere shock, and not of mythical "confusion") by the disorganization of the Soviet troops in the first days of the war. In two and a half years, "at a Bolshevik pace", Stalin created a reliable instrument of military control, just as he had created an instrument of political control before that. Already in 1943 the game was almost flawless. The history of the German leadership of the war was the history of the disorder of the "instrument" as a result of inept play on it, the history of the Soviet leadership of the war was, on the contrary, the history of "tuning".

One very important anti-Stalinist myth, which is widely circulated, is connected with this work of Stalin as Commander-in-Chief. The fact that the Supreme was allegedly afraid to go to the front because of cowardice. The accusation is absurd. Everyone who knew Stalin during the period of the revolutionary underground, the infamous "expropriations" and the Civil War, noted his exceptional personal courage, which to some seemed insane. Even Trotsky accuses Stalin of arbitrariness, stubbornness, cruelty, but not cowardice. The most difficult days of the Battle for Moscow include the words of Stalin, transmitted by his bodyguard Rybin. In response to the question of when to send the regiment of the Kremlin Guard to the evacuation, the Supreme Commander replied: “If necessary, I myself will lead this regiment to the attack.” Stalin's reluctance to go to the front, and even more so to travel around the world, as, say, Churchill did (and in fact put his life in serious danger more than once) was explained by his position in the military command system.

Churchill was a political leader, an easily replaceable prime minister, Roosevelt was replaced after his death by Truman without any damage to America. Stalin, on the other hand, was not only practically indispensable, but was constantly at his post as a real commander in chief, constantly monitoring the military situation. Under these conditions, "acquaintance with the front line" did not give him new information, cut him off from the real control of the troops, and exposed his life to really unnecessary danger. In the memoirs of almost any major Soviet military leader, we will find stories about how miraculously they managed to avoid death during the bombing. They managed to replace Vatutin and Chernyakhovsky, it would be difficult to find a replacement for Zhukov and Vasilevsky, there was no replacement for Stalin, and everyone understood this. At the same time, Stalin, who had run enough under the bullets, did not at all need to confirm his personal courage. And the fact that someone doubts it today is due either to ignorance or malice.

2. Supreme weapons designer

Stalin was directly involved in the development of all types of weapons used by the Red (and then Soviet) Army during the war. He gave fundamental tasks, monitored their implementation, gave recommendations to designers, and made decisions on the smallest details of weapons. Undoubtedly, Stalin possessed outstanding polytechnical knowledge acquired by him on his own. The real revolution in the weapons of the Red Army begins in the prewar years, when Stalin took the development of weapons under his constant control, relegating intermediate instances to the background. Almost every type of Soviet weaponry, from light infantry to tanks and aircraft, was created by designers in coordination with the country's leader.(2)

Throughout the war, Soviet soldiers fought with "Stalinist" weapons, and the more dense and creative Stalin's work with designers was, the better the quality of weapons.

3. Organizer and inspirer. The secret of order No. 227.

Stalin's role as "the organizer and inspirer" of the Victory is much less frequently disputed. If one can somehow try to pretend that Stalin was not a military specialist and did not specifically deal with military issues, then it is completely ridiculous to challenge the political leadership of the country. Directives and orders Supreme Commander, written by Stalin personally, constantly explained the political meaning and nature of the war being waged by the Soviet Union. Each of them was a fusion of political information, a campaign appeal and specific tough orders. Stalin's style has already earned due appreciation even from researchers who are far from politics.

Wartime orders and speeches are one of the best examples of journalistic art in Russian. The closest analogies can be found in the messages of Ivan the Terrible and the regulations of Peter I, which also revealed the ideas and principles of the Russian rulers, but both from one and from the other, Stalin differs in clarity of thinking, concreteness of questions and clarity of images. Everyone remembers "brothers and sisters" and "not one step back." It is possible that the formula "our cause is just", voiced by Molotov, also belongs to Stalin, who took an active part in the composition of the speech.

Therefore, the “anti-Stalinists” dispute not the very fact of such leadership, but its beneficial effect. Especially got, for example, order No. 227: “Not a step back!”, Which only the lazy does not call “cruel” and “barbaric”. Meanwhile, this order contains an absolutely iron, one might say - mathematical logic, concentrated in one paragraph: “Every commander, every Red Army soldier and political worker must understand that our means are not unlimited. The territory of the Soviet Union is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers and mothers, wives, brothers, children ... After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, Donbass and other regions, we have less territory, therefore , became much less people, bread, metal, plants, factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 80 million poods of grain a year and more than 10 million tons of metal a year. We no longer have superiority over the Germans either in human resources or in grain reserves. To retreat further means to ruin ourselves and at the same time ruin our Motherland. Each new patch of territory left by us will strengthen the enemy in every possible way and weaken our defense, our Motherland in every possible way.

Stalin, in fact, entered into a confrontation with the ideology of the "Scythian war", firmly ingrained in the Russian military consciousness, subconsciously penetrating into the ideas of commanders and commissars. Few noticed that the order did not contain attacks or reproaches against the Red Army, that is, ordinary soldiers. Stalin was not addressing an army that, according to some, "didn't want to fight." Main blow inflicted on panicking or self-willed commanders - from commanders to commanders. And exhortations, and threats, and repression are addressed to them. “Not a step back” is an appeal to the commanders of the Red Army not to “think of themselves as strategists”, who decide whether to retreat or not, whether there is room for maneuver or not.

The development of "strategic thinking" among soldiers and officers who are trying to correlate their combat mission with almost the "general situation on all fronts" and decide whether or not the defense of one or another line is meaningless in the light of the general strategic situation is the main danger for any army . Both the soldier and the officer, along with the initiative, must also have a certain "narrowness" of thinking, which allows him to carry out the assigned task, no matter what. It was this imaginary "narrowness" that gave rise to that stubborn resistance, which, in the most hopeless situation, was provided by the surrounded Soviet units in 1941. In 1942, precisely because there was no talk of encirclement, there was a retreat and shedding of the front, the commanders did not show such stubbornness, and it took an absolutely specific and on the fingers explaining the perniciousness of the "Scythian war" order No. 227, so that the collapse was stopped, turning into a stubborn defense of Stalingrad.

4. Human resources strategy. Why did Stalin lose fewer soldiers than Hitler?

We have already spoken about the outstanding concreteness and mathematics of Stalin's military thinking. Let us turn again to the memoirs of General Shtemenko, which shed light on how Stalin imagined the strategic course of the war.

JV Stalin suddenly asked:

“- And what does the young chief of the General Staff think, why did we defeat Nazi Germany and forced her to capitulate?

Having recovered from the surprise, I thought that it would be best to tell Stalin his own speech to the voters, delivered on the eve of the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on February 9, 1946. I formulated the position that the war showed the viability of the social and state system of the USSR and its great stability. Our social system was stable precisely because it was a truly people's system that grew out of the depths of the people and enjoys their mighty support... rebuff a strong enemy. In conclusion, he spoke about the high fighting qualities of our army, about the outstanding art of Soviet military leaders and generals.

After patiently listening to me to the end, I. V. Stalin remarked:

All that you have said is true and important, but does not exhaust the entire volume of the question. What was the largest army we had during the war?

Eleven million people with a little.

What would be the percentage of the population?

Having quickly estimated in my mind the population before the war - 194 million, I answered: about 6 percent.

Correctly. But again, this is not all. It is also necessary to take into account our losses in the armed forces, because the soldiers and commanders who were killed and died from wounds were also part of the army ...

Learned this too.

And now, - continued Stalin, - let's calculate how things were with Hitler, who had losses of more than 13 million army with a population of 80 million people.

Calculated. It turned out - more than 16 percent.

Such high percent mobilization is either ignorance of the objective laws of warfare, or adventurism. Rather, the latter, - Stalin concluded. - The experience of history, the general laws of warfare teach that no state can withstand such great stress: there will be no one to work in factories and factories, grow bread, provide for the people and supply the army with everything necessary. Hitler's generals, brought up on the dogmas of Clausewitz and Moltke, could not or did not want to understand this. As a result, the Nazis undermined their country. And this is despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who were taken from other countries worked in Germany ...

The German rulers plunged Germany into the war twice and both times were defeated," Stalin continued, walking along the balcony. "The undermining of the country's viability in the First and Second World Wars was one of the reasons for their collapse... Kaiser in World War I, remember?

Everyone was silent. Stalin went into the room and a few minutes later came out with some book. He leafed through it, found the right place and said;

Here, nineteen and a half percent of the population, which in 1918 was 67 million 800 thousand.

He closed the book and, turning to me again, said:

Hundreds of thousands of people worked for Hitler, who were taken to Germany and turned, in essence, into slaves. And yet he could not adequately provide for his army. And our people did the impossible, accomplished a great feat.”

(Shtemenko S.M. The General Staff during the war years. - M., 1989. pp. 557-559).

This wonderful dialogue is probably the best answer to those who say that the USSR suffered unreasonably large losses in the war with Germany, that Germany, having lost, retained its human potential, that “the vanquished live better than the winners.” Before the war, 196 million people lived in the USSR, and by the time of the collapse of the USSR - 270 million. The total population of modern Germany and Austria is 90 million people. That is, after the war, the “defeated victors” increased their population by only 1/8 of the pre-war population, while the USSR increased its population by a third, the Russian population over the same period increased by almost half, from 100 to 145 million.

Long discussions around the calculation of the irretrievable losses of the Soviet army and the Wehrmacht led to the conclusion that these losses were almost equal, amounting to about 8 million people, although there are many those who significantly increase the number of Wehrmacht losses - up to 11 and even 13 million. But even if we take the lower figure for the losses of the Wehrmacht, it turns out that Germany lost 10% of its population in battles on the Eastern Front alone, while the similar losses of the USSR amounted to only 5% of the population.

Another thing is that the final demographic score was not in favor of the Soviet Union in absolute terms - 26 million against 11 million, and equal in terms of the percentage of the population - 13%. At the same time: on the territory of Germany the war lasted 5 months, and on the territory of the USSR 4 years; The USSR did not pursue a policy of systematic genocide of the population of Germany, while Germany pursued it; The USSR was not engaged in the systematic destruction of German prisoners of war, and Germany was engaged, as a result of Soviet captivity 3.5 million people returned to Germany, and 1.8 million returned from Germany to the USSR.

Taking all this into account, we will have to admit that the war was conducted by the Soviet Union in such a way as not to lead to a catastrophic overstrain of the forces of the people, and Stalin succeeded in this. Even despite the monstrous terror of the Nazis and their oblivion towards the "Slavs" of any military codes of honor, the USSR did not experience a demographic catastrophe. The pre-war population level was restored by 1954, that is, during the post-war rule of Stalin. The Generalissimo returned the human “debt” to the country. Although this demographic recovery had a negative impact on the standard of living of the Soviet people. All the necessary resources had to be divided into more mouths than the Germans, who with difficulty restored their original numbers, and therefore, of course, each German got much more, and anti-Soviet propaganda received another excellent reason to mock the fact that "we live worse."

If we assume that post-war USSR If the population were fixed at 200 million, but at the same time it would continue to develop production, and even use US loans, then most likely its standard of living would be much higher than in Germany. But somehow no one complained about the increase. And “market reforms” were needed for Russia to live the same way as the “defeated winners” in Germany, that is, it fell apart, entered the period of the notorious “second demographic transition”, and the era of population decline, replaced by aggressive migration. But Stalin, as Commander-in-Chief and even as a political leader, is not responsible for Gaidar, Chubais, Gref and Zurabov.

5. Trophy Germany. Why was Stalin the first Russian ruler after Nicholas I to truly win the war?

Russian statesmen of the 19th century surprisingly disliked winning wars. Or they didn't know how to do it. As a reward for the war of 1812, Russia received ... the Kingdom of Poland, which became the "Chechnya" of the 19th century. And this is instead of, at least, the Ionian Islands, which were under the rule of Russia for a decade, had a population of the same faith, and are extremely necessary for the establishment of Russia in the Mediterranean. Even more expressive was the "reward" for the blood shed by the Russian army in the war with Turkey in 1877-78. After an unconditional victory, under the terms of the Berlin Treaty, concluded at the Berlin Congress, where Bismarck worked as an "honest broker", Russia regained the mouth of the Danube given after the Crimean War and acquired Kars and Batum, first conquered in the same Crimean War.

On the other hand, Austria, which did not participate in the war and hated Russia, occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the German king from the Battenberg dynasty was placed on the throne of Bulgaria (for the independence of which, it seems, the whole war was fought) (a family of completely scandalous origin - it arose as a result of a morganatic marriage Prince Alexander of Hesse, brother of Alexander II's wife Maria Alexandrovna, with the daughter of a Polish dignitary, Julia Gauke). After such an outcome of the war, Bismarck quite logically remarked that "all the Balkans are not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier." The Pomeranian grenadiers were really not needed, since the Russian grenadiers regularly paid the bills that interested Germany.

The last war of Russia, not of a colonial nature, which brought serious trophies, was the Russian-Persian war, after which, according to the Turkmenchay peace of 1828, Yerevan and Nakhichevan were annexed. The next was to be the Crimean War, and it promised colossal trophies, but it also turned into a colossal defeat after the death of Nicholas I.

Now let's compare this deplorable situation with the results of the Second World War, provided by the USSR precisely with Stalin's diplomacy (the fact that it was Stalin who was responsible for the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conspiracies, and even more so for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, does not seem to be disputed by even the most fierce anti-Stalinist). By 1941, having carried out only one local operation against Poland, and one bloody, but local, war against Finland, without entering the World War, the USSR returned Western Belarus to the state territory of Russia, Western Ukraine, the Baltic States, the Karelian Isthmus, Northern Bukovina, created military base on the peninsula of Hanko, for the first time since the 13th century, firmly included Galicia and Volhynia in Russia (Stalin dreamed of the return of Galicia since the Soviet-Polish war, and the fact that his plan to attack Lvov instead of a senseless campaign against Warsaw was rejected cost the Soviet Russian loss of vast territories). Stalin was well aware that, whatever the outcome of the World War (except for the total defeat of the USSR by Germany), no one would encroach on these territories he had acquired. With one diplomatic maneuver, Stalin brought the war that had not yet begun in favor of the USSR.

After the end of the war, Stalin achieved the transfer of the Petsamo district to the USSR, shared East Prussia with Poland, with Koenigsberg, which became Kaliningrad (Stalin sought to create a strong, independent Poland, “fed” at the expense of Germany and deployed against the West, and could hardly imagine that his successors would allow a new transformation of Poland into an anti-Russian outpost), seized Transcarpathia inhabited by Rusyns from Czechoslovakia, returned to Russia the Kuril Islands, half of Sakhalin, as well as control over the Chinese Eastern Railway and Port Arthur. A cordon of satellites was created around the western borders of the USSR, which also included a fragment of Germany under Soviet occupation that became the GDR, although Stalin continued to hope that a strong neutral Germany would appear in the center of Europe. Stalin considered the development of events only on the southbound, where the USSR failed to obtain custody of Libya, take away the Straits, Western Armenia from Turkey, and Iranian Azerbaijan from Iran. But, in general, the territorial increments of the USSR received in just 6 years were impressive. Almost everywhere where it made sense, the USSR returned to the borders Russian Empire 1904, and in some places even crossed these boundaries, realizing the ancient national-imperial goals.

In short, commander Stalin returned home with trophies. And the people, first of all - the Russian people, could not but appreciate this. With trophies, as I said, Russian soldiers did not return home for a very long time. With such trophies - never. In general, Stalin's decision not to prevent "the country of lemons from going - a solid suitcase" was one of his wisest strategic decisions. The suitcase was a clear evidence of the fact that the war was not in vain, the senselessness of war for an ordinary soldier, psychological compensation for the fact that Soviet army could not “reckon” with the Germans according to the rules of blood feud, and in general the USSR did not pursue a terrorist policy towards Germany (although, from the point of view of “Byzantine” logic, such terror could be justified at least in weakening the future enemy). Moreover, in the disposition of the Soviet troops, inscriptions similar to those hung in the occupied territories of the USSR would be unthinkable: “Water in the well is only for German soldiers. For approaching - execution.

Contrary to the widespread gossip about the spontaneous robbery and looting of Russian soldiers, the distribution of trophies was put on an organized and completely socialist footing: “Like many officers returning from the war, my father brought trophies - a Zundapp motorcycle (Zundapp-K350), two bicycles and some other that's a trifle. In the perestroika press sometimes Soviet soldiers they tried to imagine not liberators, but robbers fighting over booty, dragging home full cars of the confiscated property of German citizens. It is quite possible that individual cases there were looting, but my father said that in order to bring something with him to the Union, a fairly impeccable track record was needed. Captured equipment was issued from special bases in strict accordance with the existing regulations. In this form, the distribution of trophies resembled, rather, the issuance of awards for service. And it is unlikely that any of the descendants of the veterans of the War will doubt that the awards were well deserved.

Thanks to the trophies, the Victory acquired a material, quite tangible dimension. Not only personal, in the form of a "suitcase", but also all-Union - in the form of newly annexed lands, as well as German reparations. The industrial equipment exported as reparations played a dual role in the history of the USSR. On the one hand, "reparations" became, in fact, the second industrialization, allowing the Soviet industry to launch the production of consumer goods, many of which we simply did not have before. The post-war Moskvich 401, which became the first "people's car", for the first time introducing ordinary citizens to the joys of driving, was produced on Opel equipment and was a copy of the German Opel-Kadet model. It would take the USSR more than one decade to reach industrial development to the production of such goods. The history of the well-being of all developed Western countries began with a large-scale robbery of the colonies and neighbors, and even in general of their own South, like the United States. Stalin gave the USSR the opportunity to commit such a "robbery" on completely legal grounds - in compensation for what was taken away and destroyed from us. Another thing is that, relying on imported equipment, the USSR launched many necessary industries and fell behind in some ways, but this, again, can hardly be blamed on Stalin himself, and not on his unworthy successors.

The Russians fought from century to century, if not from decade to decade. However, it was extremely rare that they received something significant in exchange for the losses incurred. Most often these were wars either for survival or for miscalculated imperial interests. The last truly large and historically significant territorial acquisitions were brought by the war in general under Catherine II. Since the “time of the Ochakovskys and the conquest of the Crimea”, the Russians could not say at all that they had received at least something, even a piece of land from those led by them big wars(well, except for the conquest of Central Asia or the Caucasus). And Stalin's ability to provide the country with not just "geopolitical acquisitions", but precisely concrete, tangible trophies, became another circumstance that sharply distinguishes the Second World War from a series of Russian wars of the 19th-20th centuries.

6. King of quantity and signs of the times. Why did Stalin defeat Hitler?

The French traditionalist philosopher Rene Guenon has a very beautiful idea about the realm of quantity, about a new world era, during which the world is gradually reified, material laws begin to prevail over spiritual, material, “physical” energies, over spiritual energies. The world becomes heavier and denser, becoming impenetrable to the sacred. Not quite of course, complete impenetrability would be the death of the world, but the possibility of spiritual influence on the world becomes limited. The materialization of the world goes hand in hand with the displacement of the true spiritual Tradition from it, with the approach of the end of time, with the intensification of the action of what the Apostle Paul called the "mystery of lawlessness", the "mystery of anomie".

However, it is a mistake to see materialization as a cause, or, on the contrary, a consequence of spiritual degradation. It is more logical to see in materialization a protective reaction of the world to the growth of "lawlessness", carried out by some mysterious ways. The world is getting heavier, becoming unbearable for a satanocratic revolution, too clumsy to move it with the help of levitation, too "one-dimensional" to obey the laws of magic. In other words, not only the resistance of the retreating "Army of the Apocalypse" holds back the advance of the Antichrist. It is also resisted by the materializing, growing heavier structure of the world, which is becoming less permeable to the true spirit of Antichrist, which, in fact, is far from both materialism and atheism, which is rather mixed up on poisoned mysticism and perversion of the religious spirit. The world is becoming too "difficult" for the Antichrist.

The Russian Revolution crushed the world order in which Russia thought of itself as a Katekhon, as an armed force holding back the advance of the "mystery of lawlessness." Further development could go two ways. Either Russia will take the path of spiritual revolutionism, will become a genuine "kingdom of the Antichrist", as many in the emigrant and catacomb clergy considered it, or, on the contrary, Russia will "harden", encapsulate, "freeze", not letting the "spirit of decay" into itself. Former seminarian Stalin did a lot to ensure that genuine "lawlessness" in post-revolutionary Russia did not increase, but, on the contrary, seriously decreased. The country left the roads of capitalism, liberalism, leftist revolutionism, decadent theosophy and occultism for a long time, on which it was equally expected to die. Hardened Russia, liberated for a certain period from the spiritual duality that corroded it, acquired an extraordinary economic, military-political and cultural (if we keep in mind the secular aspect of