Vlasik Nikolai biography personal life of his wife children. Who is Vlasik? The British were amazed by the erudition of Stalin

VLASIK Nikolai Sidorovich (1896-1967)

One of the leaders of the state security organs of the USSR, the head of personal security I.V. Stalin, lieutenant general (07/09/1945).

Born in 1896 in the village of Bobynichi, Slonimsky district, Grodno province (Belarus). The son of a peasant. He was educated at a parochial school. Since 1913 he worked as a laborer, a digger. During the First World War, in March 1915, he was drafted into the army as a junior non-commissioned officer. From November 1917 he was a policeman in Moscow. In 1918 - a Red Army soldier, a participant in the defense of Tsaritsyn. In November of the same year he joined the RCP(b).

In September 1919 he was transferred to the bodies of the Cheka. On November 1, 1926, he became a senior commissioner of the Operations Department of the OGPU of the USSR, and then held senior positions in the Operations Department, whose functions included the protection of party and state leaders.

Nikolai Vlasik appeared in Stalin's guard in 1931 on the personal recommendation of the chairman of the OGPU V.R. Menzhinsky, after the death of Stalin's chief guard I.F. Yusis. Later, however, a legend arose that back in 1918, Stalin somehow liked the Red Army soldier Vlasik, whom he then took as a personal bodyguard. The legend has become widespread. Even Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Vissarionovich, took her on faith in her memoirs. She also got into fiction, for example, in the historical documentary novel by Vladimir Uspensky "The Privy Councilor to the Leader". However, this legend was refuted by Nikolai Sidorovich himself in his unpublished notes, written by him at the end of his life for his relatives and friends: an ordinary soldier Vlasik fought near Tsaritsyn, but a member of the Revolutionary Military Council I.V. He never saw Stalin then.

Initially, Nikolai Vlasik was only the head of Stalin's security. But after the tragic death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he was already the educator of children - Vasily and Svetlana, the organizer of their leisure time, the financial and economic distributor, whose vigilant eye kept all the inhabitants of the Stalinist house under supervision. N. S. Vlasik solved almost all of Stalin's everyday problems. Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva wrote in her memoirs "Twenty Letters to a Friend":

He headed all of his father's guards, considered himself almost the closest person to him, and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he went so far as to dictate to some artists "the tastes of Comrade Stalin" - so as he believed that he knew and understood them well. And the leaders listened to and followed this advice. And not a single festive concert at the Bolshoi Theater, or in the St. George's Hall at banquets, was compiled without Vlasik's sanction ... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists - whether he "liked it" - whether it was a film or an opera, or even the silhouettes of high-rise buildings under construction at that time... It would not be worth mentioning him at all - he ruined the lives of many, but he was such a colorful figure that you couldn’t pass him by. In our house for “servants”, Vlasik was almost equal to his father himself, since his father was high and far away, and Vlasik could do anything with the power given to him ...

During the life of my mother, he existed somewhere in the background as a bodyguard, and in the house, of course, there was neither his foot nor the spirit. At his father’s dacha, in Kuntsevo, he was constantly and “supervised” from there all the other residences of his father, which over the years became more and more ... "

A few years later, Vlasik becomes not only Stalin's main guard, but also one of the leaders of the entire security service of the top leadership of the USSR. In 1935-36, he was the head of the personal guard of the Operational Department of the NKVD of the USSR. Since 1936 - head of the operational group and head of the department of the 1st department of the 1st department of the NKVD of the USSR.

After joining the NKVD of the USSR, L.P. Beria and dismissal of nominees N.I. Ezhova N.S. On November 19, 1938, Vlasik was appointed head of the 1st department of the Main Directorate of State Security. In February-July 1941, the Vlasik department was part of the NKGB of the USSR, and then returned to the jurisdiction of the NKVD. On January 19, 1942, Vlasik was transferred to the post of first deputy head of the 1st department.

In 1941, in connection with the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev to control the relocation of the government there. Responsible for the protection of the residences of I.V. Stalin in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam.

After the secondary formation in April 1943 of an independent NGKB of the USSR, Vlasik's department was deployed to the 6th Directorate, but already on August 9, Vlasik again became not the head, the first deputy. July 9, 1945 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general. From March 1946 he was the head of the security department No. 1 of the USSR Ministry of State Security. This department was engaged exclusively in the protection and provision of Stalin. On November 28, 1946, under the leadership of General Vlasik, the Main Security Directorate (GUO) of the USSR Ministry of State Security was formed, which included the 1st and 2nd Security Directorates, as well as the Office of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin.

In the last year of Stalin's life, with the progressive deterioration of his health, the struggle of various groups in the leadership of the USSR for the Stalinist legacy intensified. At the same time, certain forces did not stop even before the leader’s departure was accelerated, and a necessary condition for this was the removal from the closest Stalinist circle of the most devoted to him people, which included Vlasik, who enjoyed Stalin’s exceptional confidence. Yes - and not too literate, and too big a lover of the fair sex, and, to put it mildly, not quite conscientious in relation to state property. But at the same time, the leader is infinitely devoted! Stalin could easily entrust his life to him.

On May 23, 1952, the GUO was transformed into the Security Directorate, and General Vlasik was removed from work and transferred to the post of deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp in Asbest (Sverdlovsk region). December 16, 1952 N.S. Vlasik was arrested and charged with "indulging pest doctors", abuse of office, etc. The investigation dragged on, and only in January 1955 he was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (in closed session) under Article 193-17, part "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Abuse of trust and official position) to 5 years of exile in Krasnoyarsk (term punishment was calculated from the moment of arrest). However, already in 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record and returned to Moscow. Apparently, the death of the "owner" still did not allow him to be crushed. Rehabilitated N.S. Vlasik was neither then nor later. According to his wife, Vlasik, until his death, was convinced that Lavrenty Beria "helped" Stalin die.

Lieutenant General N.S. Vlasik was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov of the first degree, the Order of the Red Star, the medals "XX Years of the Red Army", "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945", “In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow”, “XXX years of the Soviet Army and Navy”, as well as two badges “Honorary Chekist”. He was deprived of all these awards by a court verdict in 1955.

The daughter of General Vlasik, Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik, fought for the rehabilitation of her father for many years, and in 2000 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation posthumously acquitted Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik "due to the lack of corpus delicti."

In an interview given to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2003, Nadezhda Vlasik said: "... my father would not let him [Stalin] die. He would not wait a day outside the doors, like those guards on March 5, 1953, when Stalin "wake up". He would kick down all the doors, drive everyone out of the dacha, regardless of rank, and of course bring doctors."

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died in Moscow from lung cancer on June 18, 1967. He was buried at the new Donskoy cemetery, a few dozen steps west of the Great Patriotic War memorial.

At the end of N.S. Vlasik wrote memoirs that have not yet been published. A valuable historical source is the many photographs taken by him at different times of I.V. Stalin and his inner circle, and in an informal setting. Among other things, there is a photo of drunk Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, in a Ukrainian vyshyvanka of a dancing hopak at the Middle Dacha.

The Federal Security Service of Russia declassified the archive of the general Nicholas Vlasik, who served as chief of security for Joseph Stalin from 1931 to 1952. Vlasik's memoirs, dedicated to his life next to the leader, were published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

As Vlasik said in his notes, he was instructed to organize the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka and the Kremlin, as well as pay special attention to Stalin's personal protection, after a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on the Lubyanka in Moscow in 1927.

According to Vlasik, before he headed the leader's security, only one employee was responsible for his safety - the Lithuanian Ivan Yusis. At the dacha near Moscow, where Stalin rested on weekends, there was a complete mess. Vlasik began by sending linen and dishes to the dacha, hiring a cook and a cleaner, and also arranged for the delivery of food from the GPU state farm located nearby.

Described Vlasik and Stalin's way of life in an apartment in the Kremlin. The housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna and the cleaning lady kept order there. Hot meals were brought to the family from the Kremlin canteen in tins.

According to the general, Stalin then lived with his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, daughter Svetlana and sons Vasily and Yakov very modestly. Stalin walked in an old coat, and Vlasik's proposal to sew new outerwear was answered with a categorical refusal. As Vlasik wrote in his notes, he had to sew a new coat for the leader by eye - he did not allow me to take measurements. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was just as modest, according to the general.

He came to work late, and returned to the Kremlin on foot

As Vlasik recalls, Stalin usually got up at 9 am, after breakfast by 11 o'clock he arrived at the Central Committee building on Staraya Square. Dined at work. The leader worked until late at night. He often returned from work to the Kremlin on foot with Vyacheslav Molotov.

After Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1933, the care of the children fell on the housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna. According to Vlasik, when the children grew up, part of the responsibility fell on him. And if there were no problems with Svetlana, son Vasily studied at school reluctantly, and instead of preparing for classes, he was fond of something extraneous like horse riding. On the behavior of Vasily Vlasik, according to him, "reluctantly" reported to Stalin.

Stalin planted eucalyptus trees in Sochi

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, Stalin annually went on vacation to Sochi or Gagra for two months at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. There he read a lot, rode a boat on the sea, watched movies, played skittles, towns and billiards.

Another hobby of the leader was the garden. In the south, he grew oranges and tangerines. At the initiative of Stalin, a large number of eucalyptus trees were planted in Sochi, which, according to the leader's idea, was to reduce the incidence of malaria among the local population.

As Vlasik admitted, in the 30s, when Stalin arrived on vacation in Tskhaltubo at the dacha intended for employees of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of Georgia, it turned out to be so dirty there that, in his words, "the heart bled" when the leader was nervous, demanding to clean up.

About the leader's love for Kirov and the assassination attempt on Stalin

According to Vlasik, Stalin loved the head of the Leningrad party organization of the CPSU (b) Sergei Kirov "with some kind of touching, tender love." Kirov, arriving in Moscow, stayed at Stalin's apartment, and they did not part. The assassination of Kirov in 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev, instructor of the historical and party commission of the Institute of History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, shocked the leader. As Vlasik noted, he traveled with Stalin to Leningrad to say goodbye to Kirov and saw how he suffered, experiencing the loss of his beloved friend.

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, in the summer of 1935, Stalin himself survived the assassination attempt. This happened in the south, where he was resting in a dacha not far from Gagra. The boat, sent from Leningrad by the then head of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, on which Stalin was located, was fired upon from the shore. According to Vlasik, he quickly put Stalin on a bench and covered him with himself, after which he ordered the minder to go out to sea. In response, Stalin's guards fired machine gun fire along the shore.

According to Vlasik, a small and non-maneuverable boat was sent by Yagoda "not without malicious intent." Obviously, the chief of the NKVD assumed that on a big wave the ship would inevitably capsize, the general suggests. Fortunately, this did not happen. The assassination case was referred for investigation to Lavrenty Beria, who was then Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia.

During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat was with an unfamiliar number, it seemed suspicious to him and he opened fire, writes Vlasik. In fact, as historians write, the appearance of Stalin's boat in the protected area was not formalized by the relevant documents, and the border guards acted in strict accordance with the instructions. The commander of the frontier post department, Lavrov, demanded that the boat stop with shots in the air. The warning shots had to be repeated as the boat did not respond to the signals.

Lavrov was tried. Although he was threatened with the death penalty, after Yagoda's intervention, the commander of the outpost section was given only five years for "sloppiness." Lavrov, however, did not serve his term. In 1937, he was taken from the camp to Tbilisi, and after interrogation he was accused of a terrorist conspiracy and sentenced to death as an enemy of the people.

In his memoirs, Vlasik expresses the idea that the murders of Kirov, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky in 1934, Valerian Kuibyshev in 1935 and the writer Maxim Gorky in 1936, as well as the assassination attempts on Stalin and Molotov, were organized by the right-wing Trotsky bloc and became links in one chain. "This tangle was unraveled and thus neutralized the enemies of Soviet power," the general states.

Recall that the circumstances of the death of Gorky and his son Maxim Peshkov were considered suspicious for a long time, but the rumors about their murder have not been confirmed. At the 1938 trial, Yagoda was charged with poisoning Gorky's son. During interrogations, Yagoda stated that Gorky was killed on the orders of Trotsky, and he decided to liquidate the writer's son on his own initiative.

Under pressure from various "de-Stalinizers" from the "nano-democrat" Medvedev to Mlechin and the government commission to combat the falsification of history under the leadership of its permanent leader Svanidze, the Federal Security Service of Russia declassified the archive of Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik, including his diaries, memoirs. Vlasik was the head of Stalin's personal guard for more than 20 years - from 1927 to 1952. In 1946, he became the head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

The declassified documents, according to the plan of the idiots of the de-Stalinizers, were supposed to "highlight" the vices and greed of the Generalissimo so hated by them and confirm the myth of the leader's innumerable treasures. The notes of the general, published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, depict the leader not so much as a statesman, but as a specific person with his own habits and principles inherent in his everyday life, hidden from prying eyes. Yes, it probably could not have been otherwise: as one of the people closest to Stalin, Vlasik knew better than others the inside of Stalin's life. Inside out, figuratively and literally. In terms of clothes.

Quote: “Comrade Stalin lived very modestly with his family,” it is said, in particular, in his memoirs. - He walked in an old, badly shabby coat. I suggested to Nadezhda Sergeevna (Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. - Ed.) to sew him a new coat, but for this it was necessary to take measurements or take an old coat and make it exactly like that in the workshop. It was not possible to remove the measure, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still sewed a coat for him. ”.

Read and marvel. Was this really possible in our country (the USSR was also our country, whether anyone likes it or not), where power has been perceived from time immemorial, first of all, as a source of personal enrichment, as the basis of personal happiness, as a guarantee of personal comfort and prosperity? And suddenly you are a man, being at the pinnacle of power, at the very top (Stalin became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party back in 1922) and is not concerned about this very personal enrichment.

He even dismisses the offer to sew him a new coat: in the old one, they say, I look like it. Why is our country there: in the whole world history it is difficult to find a similar example when a person with such unlimited, more than monarchical power would be so indifferent to the personal-material side of the issue.

An exceptionally benevolent tone towards Stalin persists throughout Vlasik's memoir narrative, which has now been published. The Generalissimo appears before the readers not as a wingless angel, but as a modest in everyday life, hardworking and intelligent person.

That part of the audience that sees in Stalin only a “mustachioed, pockmarked cannibal”, naturally, immediately burst into mockingly caustic comments: they say, Vlasik wrote his opus while Stalin was alive. What else, they say, besides obsequious praise, could this “toady” write, whose position and very life depended on the will of the Master. I would have tried, they say, a security general to drop something disrespectful or dirty - he would have been put right up against the wall. Or until the end of his days he would chew camp bread in the polar latitudes. He would have chewed with the teeth he had after interrogations. In general, all these declassified archives of yours are flattering lies, and that's it. Such is the logic. Damaged, to be honest.

But, alas, ah, the theory of sycophancy does not stand up to scrutiny. Lieutenant General Vlasik in May 1952 was removed from the post of head of Stalin's security and sent to the Urals as deputy head of a forced labor camp. In December 1952, less than three months before Stalin's death, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Plot. In January 1955, he was convicted of abuse of office and sentenced to 10 years in exile. By virtue of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, Vlasik's term was reduced to five years. In December 1956, he was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record. He was not restored in military rank and awards. So Vlasik wrote his memoirs about the "bloody" tyrant after Stalin's death, when the "cult of personality" was "exposed" at the 20th Congress ...

The fact of Vlasik's personal devotion to Stalin and the possible element of subjectivity present in his notes does not mean that what he wrote is a lie. They do not mean this a priori, no matter how anyone would like the opposite. Subjectivity is generally an inevitable component of any diaries and memoirs, no matter who they are written by.

Quote: “I was severely offended by Stalin,” he wrote in his memoirs. - For 25 years of impeccable work, not having a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison. For my boundless devotion, he (Stalin.) gave me into the hands of enemies. But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger at Stalin in my soul..

But subjectivity is an evaluative property. But there are facts. One of these facts, testifying to Stalin's personal modesty and unpretentiousness, is such a well-known document as an inventory of the leader's personal property, compiled less than an hour after his death at the Near Dacha on March 5, 1953. The inventory includes: a notebook, a notebook, a common notebook, smoking pipes, books, a white tunic - 2 pcs., a gray tunic - 2 pcs., a dark green tunic - 2 pcs., trousers - 10, underwear. "A savings book was found in the bedroom, it contained 900 rubles"(for comparison: the average monthly salary of workers and employees in the country at that time was about 700 rubles.).

Skeptics always cling to the phrase appearing in the inventory “Other property belonging to Comrade Stalin was not included in the inventory”. And they talk about the countless luxurious dachas and residences that Stalin de built for himself and his loved ones and which his daughter Svetlana, in particular, recalled with delight. That's just about the palaces and treasures, which after the death of the leader passed into the personal use of his immediate and non-closest relatives, nothing is known. There are no such facts.

Dachas and cars that Stalin used during his lifetime, after his death, went into the service of other government officials. Some of these dachas eventually became sanatoriums. As for Stalin's closest relatives, his son Vasily died two years after his release from prison, where he worked as a turner.

And the daughter Svetlana, who emigrated in 1967, lived abroad mainly on the money earned by writing: the interest of publishers in the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, of course, was enormous. In this sense, Stalin provided for his daughter. But only in this sense. The diplomat Semyonov wrote in his diary from the words of Mikhail Sholokhov that Stalin somehow in a narrow circle remarked that he did not want to build a dacha for his daughter, because "the dacha would be confiscated on the second day after his death." When the offended comrades-in-arms “waved their hands”, Stalin allegedly said: "You are the first and oppose me".

In general, one way or another, but Vlasik's diaries did not report anything new and sensational about the personal modesty of the Generalissimo.

A special place in the family of I. V. Stalin was occupied by General N. S. Vlasik. He was not just the head of security, under whose vigilant eye was the entire Stalinist house. After the death of N. S. Alliluyeva, he was also a teacher of children, an organizer of their leisure, an economic and financial manager.

In the Soviet and foreign press, with the light hand of Svetlana Alliluyeva, he will be called Nikolai Sergeevich, a rude martinet, a rude and imperious head of security who has been near Stalin since 1919. Is it all so? Let's turn to some archival documents.

“I, Vlasik Nikolai Sidorovich, born in 1896, a native of the village of Bobynichi, Slonim district, Baranovichi region, Belarusian, member of the CPSU since 1918, lieutenant general,” he wrote in his autobiography. - He was awarded three orders of Lenin, four orders of the Red Banner, Kutuzov I degree, medals: "20 years of the Red Army", "For the defense of Moscow", "For the victory over Germany", "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow", "30 years of the Soviet Army and Navy", I have the honorary title of "Honorary Chekist", which I was awarded twice with a badge.

In the protection of I.V. Stalin, N.S. Vlasik appeared in 1931. Prior to that, he served in the bodies of the Cheka-OGPU. He was recommended for this post by Menzhinsky. Until 1932, his role was invisible. Stalin preferred to move around the city without guards, and even more so in the Kremlin.

The main thing in his activity was the protection of the dacha. Since 1934, the servants of the dacha began to change, and all newly admitted were enrolled in the staff of the OGPU, and then the NKVD, assigning military ranks. Left without a wife, Stalin, with the help of Vlasik, began to improve his life. The dacha in Zubalovo was left to Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluev and his wife, where Sergei Alexandrovich Efimov was the commandant. A dacha in Kuntsevo, an old manor along the Dmitrov highway - Lipki, dachas in Ritsa, the Crimea, Valdai, together with the security staff, maids, housekeepers and cooks, were subordinate to Vlasik.

Most of all, two people held out in the protection of the Stalin family - the nanny of Svetlana Bychkova and Vlasik himself. The rest changed. For almost six years, the cousin of his wife L.P. Beria, Major Alexandra Nikolaevna Nakashidze, spent almost six years as a housekeeper, who went to theaters with her children, checked their homework and reported to Vlasik about this. Children were taken to and from school by car, accompanied by security officers, and this applied to everyone - Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana. This function was performed by I. I. Krivenko, M. N. Klimov and others.

Occupied by the servants of the Stalin family, the guards lived well, they did not stay in the ranks, there were no problems with food and housing. All this they received, with rare exceptions, quickly.

A. N. Nakashidze, after appearing in Moscow, soon enough became a major, dragged her mother, father, sister and two brothers closer to her, who received apartments and dachas.

All security personnel were provided with special food rations. This issue was sanctioned by I. V. Stalin himself and by a special decision of the Council of Ministers.

On the shoulders of N. S. Vlasik lay almost all the everyday problems of the head of state. In 1941, in connection with the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev. He was entrusted with the control of the preparation of conditions for the government to move here. The direct executor in Kuibyshev was the head of the main construction department of the NKVD, General L. B. Safrazyan.

For I. V. Stalin in Kuibyshev, a large regional committee building, several colossal bomb shelters and summer cottages on the banks of the Volga were prepared, and for children - a mansion on Pionerskaya Street with a courtyard, where the museum used to be located.

Everywhere, N. S. Vlasik managed to almost exactly recreate the Moscow atmosphere that Stalin loved. The children of government members studied here in a special school.

Stalin's first grandson, Sasha, son of Vasily, was also born in Kuibyshev.

Children and relatives watched films, newsreels right at home, in the corridor, for which Vlasik was praised. Did Vlasik manage to become a skilled guardian for Stalin's children, and was he a good assistant to the latter? Judging by the memories of children and grandchildren, no.

On December 15, 1952, he was arrested. At this time, he served as head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security. The trial took place on January 17, 1955. The materials of the court case give us the opportunity to understand the life, character, personality, moral character of Vlasik, the officials of his entourage and the so-called friends.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you and is it clear to you?

Vlasik: I understand the accusation. I plead guilty, but declare that I had no intent in what I did.

Chairperson: From what time and until what time did you hold the position of head of the Main Directorate of Security of the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR?

Vlasik: From 1947 to 1952.

presiding; What were your job responsibilities?

Vlasik: Ensuring the protection of the leaders of the party and government.

Presiding: So, you have been given special confidence by the Central Committee and the government. How did you justify this trust?

Vlasik: I took all measures to ensure this.

Chairperson: Did you know Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, I knew him.

Chairman: When did you meet him?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but this refers to about 1934-1935. I knew that he worked on the design of Red Square for the festive holidays. At first, our meetings with him were quite rare.

Presiding: At that time, were you already in the protection of the government?

Vlasik: Yes, I have been seconded to the protection of the government since 1931.

Chairperson: How did you meet Stenberg?

Vlasik: At that time I was courting one girl. Her last name is Spirin. This was after I separated from my wife. Spirina then lived in an apartment on the same staircase with the Stenbergs. Once, when I was at Spirina's, Stenberg's wife came in and we were introduced to her. After a while we went to the Stenbergs, where I met Stenberg himself.

Chairperson: What brought you closer to Stenberg?

Vlasik: Of course, the rapprochement was based on joint drinking and dating women.

Presiding: Did he have a comfortable apartment for this?

Vlasik: I visited him very rarely.

Chairperson: Did you conduct official conversations in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: Separate official conversations that I had to conduct on the phone in the presence of Stenberg did not give him anything, since I usually conducted them very monosyllabically, answering “yes”, “no” on the phone. Once there was a case when, in the presence of Stenberg, I was forced to talk with one of the deputy ministers. This conversation concerned the issue of the construction of one airfield. I then said that this issue did not concern me, and suggested that he contact the head of the Air Force.

Presiding: I read out your testimony given at the preliminary investigation on February 11, 1953:

“I must admit that I turned out to be such a careless and politically narrow-minded person that during these sprees, in the presence of Stenberg and his wife, I had official conversations with the leadership of the MGB, and also gave instructions on the service to my subordinates.”

Do you confirm these statements of yours?

Vlasik: I signed these testimonies during the investigation, but they do not contain a single word of mine. All this is the wording of the investigator.

I said during the investigation that I did not deny the facts of my conducting official telephone conversations during drinks with Stenberg, but stated that it was impossible to understand anything from these conversations. In addition, please take into account that Stenberg worked on the design of Red Square for many years and knew a lot about the work of the MGB bodies.

Presiding: You declare that your words are not in the protocol. Does this apply only to the episode we are considering or to the whole case as a whole?

Vlasik: No, this cannot be regarded as such. The fact that I do not deny my guilt in the fact that I had conversations of an official nature on the phone in the presence of Stenberg, I also stated this during the investigation. I also said that these conversations may have touched on issues that Stenberg might be familiar with and might learn from. But the investigator wrote down my testimony in his own words, in a slightly different formulation than the one I gave during interrogations. Moreover, investigators Rodionov and Novikov did not give me the opportunity to make any corrections to the protocols they wrote down.

Chairperson: Was there a case when you spoke with the head of government in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, such cases took place. True, the conversation was reduced only to my answers to the questions of the head of government, and Stenberg, apart from who I was talking to, could not understand anything from this conversation.

Presiding: Did you call the head of government by his first name, patronymic or last name?

Vlasik: During the conversation, I called him by his last name.

Chairman: What was this conversation about?

Vlasik: The conversation was about the package that was sent to the head of government from the Caucasus. I sent this parcel to the laboratory for analysis. The analysis required time, and, naturally, the package was delayed for some time. Someone reported to him about the receipt of the parcel. As a result of this, he called me, began to ask the reasons for the delay in sending the parcel to him, began to scold me for the delay and demanded that the parcel be immediately handed over to him. I replied that I would now check the state of affairs and report to him.

Chairman: Where did this conversation come from?

Vlasik: From my country dacha.

Presiding: Did you call on the phone yourself or were you summoned to him?

Vlasik: They called me to the phone.

Presiding: But you could, knowing with whom the conversation would be, remove Stenberg from the room.

Vlasik: Yes, of course, he could. And it seems that even I closed the door to the room from which I was talking.

Presiding: How many times have you given Stenberg a seat on an official plane belonging to the Security Department?

Vlasik: I think twice.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do so?

Vlasik: Yes, I had.

Presiding: What, was this provided for by some instruction, order or order?

Vlasik; No. There were no special instructions in this regard. But I considered it possible to allow Stenberg to fly on the plane, since he went on a flight empty. Poskrebyshev did the same, granting the right to fly in this plane to the employees of the Central Committee.

Presiding: Doesn't this mean that, in particular, your friendly and friendly relations with Stenberg have taken precedence over official duty?

Vlasik: It turns out like this.

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

Vlasik: Yes, he gave out.

Presiding: Do you admit that this was an abuse of your official position?

Vlasik: Then I did not attach much importance to this. Now I regard this as an abuse I have committed. But please note that I gave passes only to people whom I knew well.

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

Vlasik: I just now realized what I had done, giving her a pass, a crime, although then I did not attach any importance to this and believed that nothing bad could happen.

Presiding: Did you give your cohabitant Gradusova and her husband Shrager tickets to the stands of the Dynamo stadium?

Vlasik: Yes.

Chairman: Where exactly?

Vlasik: I don't remember.

Presiding: I remind you that, using the tickets you gave, they ended up on the podium of the Dynamo stadium in the sector where there were senior officials of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. And then they called you about this, expressing bewilderment at the indicated fact. Do you remember it?

Vlasik: Yes, I remember this fact. But nothing bad could happen as a result of my actions.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do so?

Vlasik: Now I understand that I had no right and should not have done so.

Presiding: Tell me, have you, Stenberg and your cohabitants been in the boxes designed to protect the government, available at the Bolshoi Theater and others?

Vlasik: Yes, I was at the Bolshoi Theater once or twice. Together with me there were Stenberg with his wife and Gradusova. In addition, we were two or three times at the Vakhtangov Theater, the Operetta Theater, etc.

Presiding: Did you explain to them that these boxes are intended for security officers of members of the government?

Vlasik: No. Knowing who I am, they could guess for themselves.

“Stenberg and cohabitants were not only not supposed to be in these lodges, but also to know about them. I, having lost all sense of vigilance, myself visited these boxes with them and, moreover, committing a crime, repeatedly instructed to let Stenberg and cohabitants through in my absence in the box for the secretaries of the Central Committee.

This is right? Were there such cases?

Vlasik: Yes, they were. But I must say that in such places as the Operetta Theatre, the Vakhtangov Theatre, the circus, etc., members of the government have never been.

Chairperson: Did you show Stenberg and your cohabitants the films you shot about the head of government?

Vlasik: It happened. But I believed that if these films were shot by me, then I had the right to show them. Now I understand that I should not have done this.

Chairperson: Did you show them the government dacha on Lake Ritsa?

Vlasik: Yes, he showed from afar. But I want the court to understand me correctly. After all, Lake Ritsa is a place that, at the direction of the head of government, was provided to thousands of people who came there on an excursion. I was specially given the task to organize the procedure for sightseeing sightseeing of this place by sightseers. In particular, boat rides were organized, and these boats kept their way in the immediate vicinity of the government dachas, and, of course, all the sightseers, at least most of them, knew where the government dacha was located.

Presiding: But not all the sightseers knew which dacha belongs to the head of government, and you told Stenberg and your cohabitants about this.

Vlasik: All the excursionists knew her whereabouts, which is confirmed by the numerous intelligence materials that I had at that time.

Chairperson: What other secret information did you divulge in conversations with Stenberg?

Vlasik: None.

Chairperson: What did you tell him about the fire at Voroshilov's dacha and about the materials that died there?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly about it, but there was a conversation about it. When I once asked Stenberg for lights for a Christmas tree, I somehow told him in passing what happens when the electric lighting of a Christmas tree is carelessly handled.

Presiding: Did you tell him what exactly died in that fire?

Vlasik: It is possible that I told him that valuable historical photographic documents were lost in a fire in the dacha.

Presiding: Did you have the right to inform him about this?

Vlasik: No, of course he didn't. But I did not attach any importance to it then.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg that in 1941 you went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government?

Vlasik: Stenberg also returned from Kuibyshev at that time, and we had a conversation about my trip to Kuibyshev, but I don’t remember exactly what I told him.

Presiding: You told Stenberg how once you had to organize a deception of one of the foreign ambassadors who wanted to check whether Lenin's body was in the Mausoleum, for which he brought a wreath to the Mausoleum.

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but there was some talk about it.

“I blurted out secret information to Stenberg only because of my carelessness. For example, during the war years, when Lenin's body was taken out of Moscow, one of the foreign ambassadors, deciding to check whether it was in Moscow, came to lay a wreath at the Mausoleum. This was reported to me by phone at the dacha when Stenberg was with me.

After talking on the phone, I told Stenberg about this incident and said that in order to deceive the ambassador, I had to accept a wreath and put up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum.

There were other similar cases, but I don’t remember them, because I didn’t attach any importance to these conversations and considered Stenberg an honest person.

Is this your correct statement?

Vlasik: I told the investigator that there may have been a case when they called me on the phone. But whether Stenberg was present during the conversation on this topic, I do not remember.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg about the organization of security during the Potsdam Conference?

Vlasik: No. I didn't tell him about this. When I arrived from Potsdam, I showed Stenberg a film that I had filmed in Potsdam during the conference. Since in this movie I was filmed in the immediate vicinity of the guarded, he could not help but understand that I was in charge of the organization of security.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, tell me, did you reveal to Stenberg three secret agents of the MGB - Nikolaev, Grivova and Vyazantseva?

Vlasik: I told him about the annoying behavior of Vyazantseva and at the same time expressed the idea that she might be connected with the police.

“From Vlasik, I only know that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (working in the external design trust of the Moscow City Council) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his cohabitant Valentina Vyazantseva (I don’t know her middle name) also cooperates with the MGB.

Vlasik didn’t tell me anything more about the work of the MGB bodies.”

Vlasik: I told Stenberg that Vyazantseva called me on the phone every day and asked to meet with her. Based on this and the fact that she was working in some food stall, I told Stenberg that she was "yapping" and, in all likelihood, was collaborating with the criminal investigation department. But I didn’t tell Stenberg that she was a secret agent of the MGB, because I didn’t know about it myself. I must say that I knew Vyazantseva as a little girl.

Presiding: Did you show Stenberg the undercover file against him, which was conducted in the MGB?

Vlasik: This is not entirely true. In 1952, after returning from a business trip from the Caucasus, I was summoned by the deputy. Minister of State Security Ryasnaya and gave an undercover file on Stenberg. At the same time, he said that in this case there is material against me, in particular, about my official telephone conversations. Ryasnoy told me to familiarize myself with this case and remove from it what I considered necessary. I didn't know the whole thing. I only read the certificate - a submission to the Central Committee for the arrest of Stenberg and his wife. After that, I went to Minister Ignatiev and demanded that he make a decision regarding me, Ignatiev told me to call Stenbert and warn him about the need to stop all meetings with inappropriate people. He ordered the case to be archived and, in the event of any conversation about it, refer to his instructions. I called Stenberg and told him that a case had been opened against him. Then he showed him a photograph of one woman, which was in this case, and asked if he knew her. After that, I asked him a few questions, inquiring about his meetings with various people, including a meeting with a foreign correspondent. Stenberg replied that he met him by chance at the Dneproges and never saw him again. When I told him that there were materials in the case showing that he had met with this correspondent in Moscow, having already known me, Stenberg burst into tears. I asked him the same thing about Nikolaeva. Stenberg cried again. After that, I took Stenberg to my dacha. There, to calm him down, I offered him a drink of cognac. . He agreed. We drank one or two glasses with him and began to play billiards.

I never told anyone about this case. When I was removed from my post, I sealed the Stenberg case in a bag and returned it to Ryasny without removing a single piece of paper from it.

“When I appeared late in the evening at the end of April 1952 at the call of Vlasik to his service in the building of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, he, offering a cigarette, told me:“ I have to arrest you, you are a spy. When I asked what this meant, Vlasik said, pointing to a voluminous folder lying in front of him on the table: “Here all the documents for you are collected. Your wife, as well as Stepanov, are also American spies.” Further, Vlasik told me that Olga Sergeevna Nikolaeva (Vlasik called her Lyalka), during interrogation at the MGB, testified that I had been to embassies with her, and also visited restaurants with foreigners. Vlasik read out Nikolaeva’s testimony to me, they talked about some Volodya, with whom Nikolaeva, along with foreigners, went to restaurants.

Leafing through a voluminous folder, Vlasik showed me a photocopy of the document on my transition to Soviet citizenship. At the same time, he asked if I was a Swedish subject. I immediately reminded Vlasik that at one time I had told him in detail both about myself and about my parents. In particular, I then told Vlasik that until 1933 I was a Swedish subject, that in 1922 I traveled abroad with the Chamber Theater, that my father left the Soviet Union for Sweden and died there, etc.

Looking at me materials, Vlasik showed me a photograph of Filippova and asked who she was. In addition, in this case, I saw a number of photographs. Vlasik also asked if my wife Stenberg Nadezhda Nikolaevna and I were familiar with the American Lyons; whether my brother was familiar with Yagoda, who gave me a recommendation when entering Soviet citizenship, etc.

At the end of this conversation, Vlasik said that he was transferring the case against me to another department (Vlasik named this department, but it was not preserved in my memory), and asked me not to tell anyone about the call to him and the content of the conversation.

... Vlasik told me that "they wanted to arrest you (meaning me, my wife, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, and Stepanov), but my boyfriend intervened in this matter and delayed your arrest."

Is the testimony of the witness correct?

Vlasik: They are not entirely accurate. I have already shown the court how it all really happened.

Presiding: But you told Stenberg that only your intervention prevented the arrest of him and his wife.

Vlasik: No, it was not.

Presiding: But by showing Stenberg the materials of the undercover case against him, you thereby revealed the methods of work of the MGB bodies.

Vlasik: Then I did not understand this and did not take into account the importance of the misconduct.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg that the Potsdam Conference was being prepared before it was officially known to everyone?

Vlasik: No, it was not.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, did you keep secret documents in your apartment?

Vlasik: I was going to compile an album in which photographs and documents would reflect the life and work of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, and therefore I had some data for this in my apartment. In addition, I found an intelligence note on the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and materials related to the organization of security in Potsdam. I thought that these documents were not particularly secret, but, as I see now, I had to deposit some of them with the MGB. I kept them locked in the drawers of the table, and my wife made sure that no one climbed into the drawers.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, you are presented with a topographic map of the Caucasus marked "secret". Do you admit that you had no right to keep this card in the apartment?

Vlasik: Then I did not consider it secret.

Chairperson: You are presented with a topographic map of Potsdam with the points marked on it and the conference security system. Could you keep such a document in your apartment?

Vlasik: Yes, I couldn't. I forgot to return this card after returning from Potsdam, and it was in my desk drawer.

Chairperson: I present to you a map of the Moscow region marked "secret". Where did you keep it?

Vlasik: In a desk drawer in my apartment on Gorky Street, in the same place where the rest of the documents were found.

Presiding: And where were the secret notes about the people who lived on Metrostroevskaya Street, the secret notes about the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and government train schedules?

Vlasik: All this was stored together in a desk drawer in my apartment.

Presiding: How do you know that these documents were not the subject of inspection by anyone?

Vlasik: It's out of the question.

Chairperson: Are you familiar with the expert opinion on these documents?

Vlasik: Yes, I know.

Chairperson: Do you agree with the conclusions of the examination?

Vlasik: Yes, now I understand all this very well.

Presiding: Show the court how you, using your official position, used products from the kitchen of the head of government to your advantage?

Vlasik: I do not want to make excuses for this. But we were placed in such conditions that sometimes it was necessary not to reckon with costs in order to provide food at a certain time. Every day we were faced with the fact of changing the time of his eating, and in connection with this, part of the previously prepared products remained unused. These products were sold by us among service personnel. After unhealthy conversations around this appeared among employees, I had to limit the circle of people who used the products. Now I understand that, given the difficult time of the war, I should not have allowed these products to be used in this way.

Presiding: But your crime lies not only in this? You sent a car to the government dacha for groceries and cognac for yourself and your cohabitants?

Vlasik: Yes, there were such cases. But sometimes I paid money for these products. True, there were cases that they were delivered to me for free.

Presiding: This is theft.

Vlasik: No, this is an abuse of his position. After I received a remark from the head of government, I stopped it.

Presiding: Since when did your moral decay begin?

Vlasik: In matters of service, I was always in place. Drinking and meeting women was at the expense of my health and in my spare time. I admit that I had many women.

Chairperson: Did the head of government warn you about the inadmissibility of such behavior?

Vlasik: Yes. In 1950 he told me that I was abusing relationships with women.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know Sarkisov?

Vlasik: Yes, he was attached to Beria as a guard.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did he tell you that Beria is debauched?

Vlasik: This is a lie.

Member of the court Rybkin: But you acknowledged the fact that you were once informed that Sarkisov was looking for suitable women on the streets and then took them to Beria.

Vlasik: Yes, I received intelligence materials about this and handed them over to Abakumov. Abakumov took over the conversation with Sarkisov, and I avoided this, because I thought that it was not my business to interfere in this, because everything was connected with the name of Beria.

Member of the Court Rybkin: You testified that when Sarkisov reported to you about Beria's debauchery, you told him that there was nothing to interfere in Beria's personal life, but that he should be protected. Did it take place?

Vlasik: No, it's a lie. Neither Sarkisov nor Nadaraya reported this to me. Sarkisov once turned to me with a request to provide him with a car for household needs, motivating this by the fact that he sometimes has to use a “tail” car to complete Beria’s task. What exactly this car was for, I do not know.

Member of the court Rybkin: Defendant Vlasik, how could you allow a huge overspending of public funds in your administration?

Vlasik: I must say that my literacy suffers greatly. All my education consists in 3 classes of a rural parish school. In financial matters, I did not understand anything, and therefore my deputy was in charge of this. He repeatedly assured me that "everything is in order."

I must also say that every measure we planned was approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR and only after that was it carried out.

Member of the court Rybkin: What can you show the court about the use of free rations by security officers?

Vlasik: We have repeatedly discussed this issue, and after the head of government instructed to improve the material situation of security officers, we left it the way it was before. But on this occasion, the Council of Ministers made a special decision, and I, for my part, considered this situation to be correct, since security workers were away from home for more than half the time a week and it would be inappropriate to deprive their families of rations because of this. I remember that I raised the question of conducting an audit of the 1st Department of the Security Directorate. At the direction of Merkulov, a commission chaired by Serov carried out this audit, but no abuses were found.

Member of the court Rybkin: How often did you have parties with women you know?

Vlasik: There were no sprees. I was always on duty.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did shooting take place during the carousing?

Vlasik: I don’t remember such a case.

Member of the court Rybkin: Tell me, did you conduct official telephone conversations in the presence of Stenberg from your apartment or from his?

Vlasik: The conversations were both from my apartment and from his. But I considered Stenberg a reliable person who knew a lot about our work.

“In the presence of Stenberg from his apartment, I repeatedly had official conversations with the duty officer of the Main Security Directorate, which sometimes concerned the movement of members of the government, and I also remember that from Stenberg’s apartment I talked on the phone with the Deputy Minister of State Security about the construction of a new airfield in the vicinity of the city of Moscow” .

Vlasik: This is the wording of the investigator. In my official telephone conversations, which took place in the presence of Stenberg, I was very limited in my statements.

Court member Kovalenko: Do ​​you know Erman?

Vlasik: Yes, I know.

Member of the court Kovalenko: What kind of conversation did you have with him about traffic routes and guarded exits?

Vlasik: I did not talk to him about this topic. In addition, he himself was an old Chekist, and without me he knew all this very well.

Member of the court Kovalenko: For what purpose did you keep the scheme of access roads to the dacha "Middle" in the apartment.

Vlasik: This is not a diagram of access roads to the dacha, but a diagram of the internal roads of the dacha. Even during the Patriotic War, the head of government, walking around the territory of the dacha, personally made his own amendments to this scheme. Therefore, I kept it as a historical document, and the whole point was that in the old arrangement of exit routes from the dacha, the headlights of the car hit Poklonnaya Gora, and thus the moment of the car's departure was immediately given out.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Were his instructions carried out as indicated in the scheme?

Vlasik: Yes, but I declare once again that all these paths were inside the dacha, behind two fences.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know Shcherbakova?

Vlasik: Yes, he knew and was in close contact with her.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know that she had connections with foreigners?

Vlasik: I found out about this later.

Member of the court Kovalenko: But even after learning this, did you continue to meet with her?

Vlasik: Yes, he continued.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How can you explain that you, being a member of the party since 1918, have reached such a level of filth both in official matters and in relation to moral and political decay?

Vlasik: I find it difficult to explain this with anything, but I declare that I have always been in place in official matters.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How do you explain your act, which consisted in the fact that you showed Stenberg his undercover file?

Vlasik: I acted on the basis of Ignatiev's instructions and, to be honest, did not attach any special importance to this.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Why did you take the path of plundering trophy property?

Vlasik: Now I understand that all this belonged to the state. I had no right to turn anything to my advantage. But then such a situation was created ... Beria arrived, gave permission to purchase some things for the senior guards. We made a list of what we needed, paid money, got these things. In particular, I paid about 12 thousand rubles. I confess that I took some of the things for free, including a piano, grand piano, etc.

Presiding: Comrade commandant, invite witness Ivanskaya to the hall.

Witness Ivanskaya, show the court what you know about Vlasik and his case?

Ivanskaya: It seems that in May 1938, my friend Okunev, an NKVD officer, introduced me to Vlasik. I remember they came to me in a car, there was another girl with him, and we all went to the dacha to Vlasik. Before reaching the dacha, we decided to have a picnic in the forest in a clearing. Thus began an acquaintance with Vlasik. Our meetings continued until 1939. In 1939 I got married. Okunev kept calling me from time to time. He kept inviting me to come to Vlasik's parties. I, of course, refused. In 1943, these invitations were more insistent, and Okunev was joined by the requests of Vlasik himself. For some time I resisted their insistence, but then I agreed and several times I was at Vlasik's dacha and at his apartment on Gogol Boulevard. I remember that at that time Stenberg was in the companies, once there was Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov and very often Okunev. Frankly, I had no particular desire to meet Vlasik and generally be in this company. But Vlasik threatened me, said that he would arrest me, etc., and I was afraid of this. Once, at Vlasik's apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard, I was with my friends Kopteva and another girl. Then there was some artist, I think Gerasimov.

Presiding: What accompanied these meetings and for what purpose were you invited?

Ivanskaya: I still don't know why he invited me and others. It seemed to me that Vlasik collects companies only because he likes to drink and have fun.

Presiding: And what was the purpose of your attending these parties?

Ivanskaya: I rode them simply out of fear of Vlasik.

At these parties, as soon as we arrived, we sat down at the table, drank wine and had a snack. True, on the part of Vlasik there were encroachments regarding me as a woman. But they ended in vain.

Presiding: Were you with Vlasik at the government dacha?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say what kind of dacha we were at. It looked like a small rest home or sanatorium. There we were met by some Georgian who manages this building. Vlasik then told us about him that this was Stalin's uncle. It was before the war, in 1938 or 1939. The four of us arrived there: Okunev, Vlasik, me and some other girl. Besides us, there were several military men there, including two or three generals. The girl who was with us began to express special sympathy for one of the generals. Vlasik did not like this, and, having taken out his revolver, he began to shoot the glasses standing on the table. He was already tipsy.

Chairperson: How many shots were fired at them?

Ivanskaya: I don't remember exactly: one or two. Immediately after Vlasik's shooting, everyone began to disperse, and Vlasik and this girl got into the general's car, and I got into Vlasik's free car. I persuaded the driver, and he took me home. A few minutes after my arrival, Vlasik called me and reproached me for leaving them.

Chairperson: Tell me, do you remember where this dacha was located, in what area?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say where she was, but I remember that we were driving at the beginning along the Mozhaisk highway.

Vlasik: No. I just can't understand why the witness is lying.

Presiding: Tell Vlasik, what kind of dacha are we talking about in connection with your shooting?

Vlasik: There was no shooting. We went with Okunev, Ivanskaya, Gradusova and Gulko to one subsidiary farm, which was in charge of Okunev. Indeed, we drank and ate there, but there was no shooting.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, do you insist on your testimony?

Ivanskaya: Yes, I showed the truth.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, tell me, what is the interest of the witness in showing the court a lie? What, you had a hostile relationship with her?

Vlasik: No, we did not have hostile relations. After Okunev left her, I lived with her as with a woman. And I must say that she called me herself more often than I called her. I knew her father, who worked in a special group of the NKVD, and we never had any quarrels with her.

Presiding: How long did your intimate relationship with her last?

Vlasik: Quite a long time. But the meetings were very rare, about once or twice a year.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, do you confirm the testimony of the defendant Vlasik?

Ivanskaya: I don't know why Nikolai Sidorovich talks about the alleged intimate relationship between us. But if he was capable of male exploits, then this applied to other women, and, in all likelihood, he used me as a screen in this, since everyone knew me as the daughter of an old Chekist. In general, I must say that Vlasik behaved provocatively in relation to others. For example, when I tried to refuse to meet with him, he threatened to arrest me. And he completely terrorized the cook at his dacha. He spoke to him only with the use of obscenities, and was not shy of those present, including women.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, the court has no more questions for you. You are free.

Comrade commandant, invite witness Stenberg to the hall.

Witness Stenberg, show the court what you know about Vlasik.

Stenberg: I ​​met Vlasik around 1936. Before the war, our meetings were rare. Then, from the beginning of the war, the meetings became more frequent. We went to Vlasik's dacha, to his apartment, drank there, played billiards. Vlasik helped me in my work on portraits of members of the government.

Presiding: During these meetings and drinking, were there women with whom you cohabited?

Stenberg: There were women at the same time, but we had no connection with them.

Presiding: Vlasik conducted office conversations on the phone with you?

Stenberg: There were separate conversations. But Vlasik always answered only “yes”, “no”.

Chairperson: What did he tell you about the fire at Voroshilov's dacha?

Stenberg: Vlasik told me that as a result of careless handling of the electric lighting of the Christmas tree at Voroshilov's dacha, there was a fire during which a valuable photo archive burned down. He didn't say anything more about it to me.

Presiding: Did Vlasik tell you that in 1941 he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government? -

Stenberg: I ​​knew that Vlasik went to Kuibyshev, but for what specifically, I did not know. He only told me that he had to fight rats somewhere.

Presiding: I read out the testimony of witness Stenberg:

“At the beginning of 1942, Vlasik told me that he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government. At the same time, he said: “Here is a city, you cannot imagine how many rats there are. This is the whole problem - the war with them.

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg. Yes, they are mostly correct.

Presiding: Vlasik told you that you once had to deceive a foreign ambassador who was trying to find out if the body of V. I. Lenin was in Moscow?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, Vlasik once, in my presence, gave instructions to someone to put up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum. After talking on the phone, he explained to me what it was for. It was either in the country, or in Vlasik's apartment.

Chairperson: Did Vlasik tell you about the organization of the protection of the Potsdam Conference?

Stenberg: Much time after the Potsdam Conference, Vlasik told me that he had to go to Potsdam and restore "order" there. At the same time, he told the details, in particular, that he had to bring all the products there in order not to use locally produced products. From the local population, as he said, only live cattle were bought.

Presiding: What films about members of the government did Vlasik show you?

Stenberg: I ​​saw, in particular, films about the Potsdam Conference, about Stalin and members of the government, about the arrival of Vasily and his sister to Stalin.

Presiding: Who, besides you, was present at the viewing of these films?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, there was one military man, everyone called him “Uncle Sasha”, among the women there were Anerina and Konomarev. I introduced Vlasik to Anerina in 1945, and Konomarev was known to him earlier. I personally cohabited with Konomareva.

Chairperson: Did Vlasik show you the dacha of the head of government on Lake Ritsa?

Stenberg: When we were on Lake Ritsa, Vlasik, filming us on film during a walk, showed me the location of Stalin's dacha.

Presiding: Tell me, didn’t Vlasik’s behavior seem strange to you? Did he have the right to show you the location of Stalin's dacha, films about him and about members of the government?

Stenberg: There was nothing wrong with those films.

Presiding: But do you know the procedure for allowing such films to be viewed?

Stenberg: I ​​did not attach much importance to this then.

Presiding: How many times did Vlasik give you the opportunity to fly on a business plane?

Stenberg: Three times. The first time I flew to a resort in the Caucasus, the second time from Sochi to Moscow, then Vlasik got me a ticket for one conference and, so that I could catch it, he allowed me to fly on a business plane. Two days later, when the conference ended, with the permission of Vlasik, I flew back to Sochi on the same plane.

Presiding: Did Vlasik give you the names of Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva and Grivova as secret agents of the MGB?

Stenberg: Vlasik said that Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva are informants and report various information to the MGB. Regarding Grivova, he said that insofar as she is a member of the party, she is obliged to do this herself, on her own initiative.

“From Vlasik, I only know that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (who works in the external design trust of the Moscow City Council) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his cohabitant Valentina Vyazantseva (I don’t know her middle name) also cooperates with the MGB.”

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Perhaps, in giving such testimony, I expressed my conclusions.

Presiding: Tell the court how it was with your acquaintance with the undercover file, which was conducted in the MGB.

Stenberg: I ​​remember Vlasik called me on the phone to his place. When I came to his office, in the MGB building, he told me that he had to arrest me. I replied that if necessary, so please. After that, he, showing me some volume, said that there were a lot of materials on me, in particular, that I and Nikolaeva wandered around foreign embassies and met with foreign correspondents.

Presiding: Did he tell you that your and your wife's arrest was averted thanks to his intervention?

Stenberg: Yes, some time after the conversation I mentioned above, Vlasik told me and my wife that our arrest was prevented only by the intervention of him, Vlasik, and one of his “guys”.

Presiding: Tell me, did Vlasik show you the materials of this undercover case?

Stenberg: He asked me about my individual acquaintances and at the same time, showing a photograph of Filippova, asked who she was. Then he asked me when I became a Soviet citizen. I answered everything for him.

Presiding: And for what purpose was Filippova's photograph placed in this case?

Stenberg: I ​​don't know.

Presiding: What other documents from this case did he read to you?

Stenberg: None.

Presiding: Did you believe Vlasik that his intervention prevented your arrest?

Stenberg: Frankly, no. I regarded it more as his desire to boast of his "power".

Presiding: Tell me, were there many women with whom Vlasik cohabited?

Stenberg: I ​​find it difficult to say how many women he cohabited with, because it often happened that during our meetings at his dacha, he and this or that woman retired to other rooms. But what he did there, I do not know.

Presiding: I read out an excerpt from your own testimony.

“I must say that Vlasik is a morally decomposed person. He cohabited with many women, in particular, with Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva, Mokukina, Lomtionova, Spirina, Veshchitskaya, Gradusova, Amerina, Vera G ...

I believe that Vlasik also cohabited with Shcherbakova, with the Gorodniv sisters, Lyuda, Ada, Sonya, Kruglova, Sergeeva and her sister and others whose names I do not remember.

Maintaining comradely relations with me, Vlasik soldered me and my wife and cohabited with her, which Vlasik himself later cynically told me about.

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Yes. Vlasik himself told me about some of them, but I guessed about others myself.

Chairperson: Did you know Kudoyarov?

Stenberg: Yes, I knew. I remember that Spirina once told my wife that Kudoyarov's sister was married to some American money "king", and when Kudoyarov went abroad on a business trip, his sister sent a blue express to the border for him. Once I saw Kudoyarov at Vlasik's dacha.

Court member Kovalenko: Did Vlasik warn you not to tell anyone about the case when he summoned you to his office at the MGB?

Stenberg: Yes, there was such a fact.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, do you have any questions for the witness?

Vlasik: I have no questions.

Presiding: Witness Stenberg, you are free.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court about your acquaintance with Kudoyarov.

Vlasik: Kudoyarov worked as a photojournalist in the period when I was attached to the guards of the head of government. I saw him on the set in the Kremlin, on Red Square, I heard about him as a great photographer. When I bought myself a camera, I asked him to give advice on the photo. He came to my apartment, showed me how to handle the camera, how to shoot. Then I visited him several times in a photo lab on Vorovskogo Street. And only a long time later I learned that his sister was abroad and was the wife of some American billionaire. Then I was told that during his business trip abroad, his sister really sent him a blue express to the border. As a result of this, I concluded that Kudoyarov was an employee of the authorities, and therefore did not attach much importance to everything.

Presiding: You heard here the testimony of the witness Stenberg, who told the court that you deciphered Grivova, Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva before him as secret agents of the MGB. Do you acknowledge it?

Vlasik: No. With regard to Grivova and Nikolaeva, these are Stenberg's inventions. As for Vyazantseva, I told Stenberg that she might have connections with the police. In addition, I warned Stenberg that Nikolaev had connections with foreigners.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court that from the trophy property you acquired illegally, without payment.

Vlasik: As far as I remember, I purchased a piano in this way, a grand piano, it seems, 3-4 carpets.

Court member Kovalenko: And the watch, the gold rings?

Vlasik: I did not acquire a single watch in this way, most of them were presented to me. With regard to gold rings, I remember that when we discovered a box with gold items and jewelry in one place, the wife exchanged one ring that she had for another from this box.

Member of the Court Kovalenko: How did you acquire the radiogram and the receiver?

Vlasik: Vasily Stalin sent them to me as a gift. But then I gave them to the dacha "Middle".

Member of the court Kovalenko: And what can you say about the fourteen cameras and lenses you had?

Vlasik: I received most of them through my official activities. I bought one Zeiss apparatus through Vneshtorg, another apparatus was presented to me by Serov.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And where did you get a camera with a telephoto lens?

Vlasik: This camera was made in Palkin's department especially for me. I needed it for filming I. V. Stalin from a long distance, since the latter was always reluctant to allow photography to be taken.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And where did you get the movie camera from?

Vlasik: The film camera was sent to me from the Ministry of Cinematography especially for the filming of I.V. Stalin.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And what kind of quartz devices did you have?

Vlasik: Quartz devices were intended for illumination during filming.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Where did you get crystal vases, glasses and porcelain dishes in such a huge amount?

Vlasik: In particular, I received a porcelain service for 100 items after the Potsdam Conference. Then there was an instruction to give the leading staff of the guard one service each. At the same time, several crystal vases and glasses were placed in the box without my knowledge. I did not know about this until the opening of the box in Moscow. And then he left it all to himself. In addition, when an order was placed for crockery for the “Middle” dacha, and subsequently for some reason this crockery could not be used for its intended purpose, I bought one wine set for myself. All this, taken together, created such a large amount of dishes in my house.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, the court has no more questions for you. What can you add to the trial?

Vlasik: I showed everything I could. I have nothing more to add to my testimony. I just want to say that everything that I have done, I realized only now, and before that I did not attach any importance to it. I thought it was all right.

Presiding: I declare the judicial investigation of the case completed.

Defendant Vlasik, you have the last word. What do you want to say to the court?

Vlasik: Citizens of the judge! I didn’t understand much before and didn’t see anything except the protection of the head of government, and to fulfill this duty I didn’t take into account anything. Please take this into account.

By a court decision, Vlasik was deprived of the rank of lieutenant general, subjected to exile for a period of 10 years. But in accordance with the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, this period was reduced to five years, without loss of rights. He died in Moscow shortly after Svetlana's failure to return to her homeland from India.

* * *

Time is a harsh judge. And only it pronounces the final verdict on the era and those who stood at the pinnacle of power. JV Stalin is just the figure who is both the personification of power and its leader. The time of his reign has already become history, painful, and tragic, and inspired, and striving forward.

Turning today to the fate of his family, we strive to penetrate deeper into the events of the time, to understand them in all their contradiction, as they were. No one can turn the wheel of history in a different way, as no one can cross out this page in the centuries-old history of our long-suffering Motherland.

Stalin's family bears the contradictory stamp of time in all its manifestations. Stalin himself was not given to become the happy head of the family. Both of his wives passed away very early, in different ways, unable to combine themselves with him. His eldest son, deprived of maternal affection in life, not always understood by his father, rejected by him with the harsh stigma of a traitor to the Motherland and sharing the terrible fate of millions of compatriots in captivity, decades later returned to us from oblivion as the personification of courage and fortitude, remaining the son of his land, his Fatherland . Before Vasily Stalin, it would seem, all the doors were open, any of his good thoughts could find a real embodiment in life. But the fragility of his character, the shadow of his father, and even more his entourage covered him so much that, after leaving prison eight years later, he could no longer find his place in life.

Stalin's beloved daughter, Svetlana, was given an excellent education, to become a mother, but happiness was not given in her homeland, despite the attempt to return.

In 1989, her things that she had once left at home were sent from the USSR to the USA. And it seems that now her fate has already been determined irrevocably, although there may still be zigzags here, as well as the fact that today everything that she wrote is available to us.

The grandchildren of Stalin living today are given a real opportunity to participate in the revolutionary events opened by perestroika, and we, without idle speculation and gossip, on the basis of documents, understand the issues of interest to us.

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USSR USSR -

RankLieutenant General

: Invalid or missing image

commanded Battles/wars Awards and prizes Russian Empire

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik(May 22, 1896, Bobynichi (Belarusian)Russian Slonim district of the Grodno province (now the Slonim district of the Grodno region) - June 18, 1967, Moscow) - an employee of the state security bodies of the USSR. Head of Stalin's security (-). Lieutenant General ().

Service start

In 1927, he headed the Kremlin's special guards and became the de facto chief of Stalin's guards. At the same time, the official name of his position was repeatedly changed due to constant reorganizations and reassignments in the security agencies. From the mid-1930s - head of the department of the 1st department (protection of senior officials) of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR, from November 1938 - head of the 1st department in the same place. In February-July 1941, this department was part of the People's Commissariat for State Security of the USSR, then it was returned to the NKVD of the USSR. From November 1942 - First Deputy Head of the 1st Department of the NKVD of the USSR.

From May 1943 - head of the 6th department of the People's Commissariat of State Security of the USSR, from August 1943 - first deputy head of this department. Since April 1946 - Head of the Main Directorate of Security of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (since December 1946 - Main Directorate of Security).

Vlasik was Stalin's personal bodyguard for many years and lasted the longest in this post. Coming to his personal guard in 1931, he not only became her boss, but also adopted many of the everyday problems of the Stalin family, in which, in essence, Vlasik was a family member. After the death of Stalin's wife, N. S. Alliluyeva, he was also a teacher of children, practically performed the functions of a majordomo.

Vlasik is extremely negatively assessed by Svetlana Alliluyeva in the book "Twenty Letters to a Friend" and positively - by the adopted son of I.V. Stalin Artyom Sergeev, who believes that the role and contribution of N.S. Vlasik has not yet been fully appreciated.

His main duty was to ensure the safety of Stalin. This work was inhuman. Always the responsibility of the head, always life on the cutting edge. He knew very well both friends and enemies of Stalin. And he knew that his life and the life of Stalin were very closely linked, and it was no coincidence that when a month and a half or two before Stalin's death he was suddenly arrested, he said: "I was arrested, which means that soon there will be no Stalin." And, indeed, after this arrest, Stalin lived a little. What kind of work did Vlasik have in general? It was day and night work, there was no 6–8 hour working day. All his life he had work, and he lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin's room was Vlasik's room... He understood that he was living for Stalin, in order to ensure the work of Stalin, and hence the Soviet state. Vlasik and Poskrebyshev were like two props for that colossal activity, not yet fully appreciated, that Stalin led, and they remained in the shadows. And Poskrebyshev was treated badly, even worse - with Vlasik. Artyom Sergeev. "Conversations about Stalin".

N. S. Vlasik with I. V. Stalin and his son Vasily. Near dacha in Volynskoye, 1935	N. S. Vlasik with his wife Maria Semyonovna, 1930s	N. S. Vlasik (far right) accompanies I. V. Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, August 1, 1945	N. S. Vlasik in his office. Early 1940s

Since 1947, he was a deputy of the Moscow City Council of Workers of the 2nd convocation.

In May 1952, he was removed from the post of head of Stalin's security and sent to the Ural city of Asbest as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Arrest, trial, exile

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record, but he was not restored to military rank and awards.

In his memoirs, Vlasik wrote:

I was severely offended by Stalin. After 25 years of impeccable work, without any reprimand, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison. For my boundless devotion, he gave me into the hands of enemies. But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger in my soul against Stalin.

Last years

Lived in Moscow. He died on June 18, 1967 in Moscow from lung cancer. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery.

Rehabilitation

Awards

• George Cross 4th class
• Three Orders of Lenin (04/26/1940, 02/21/1945, 09/16/1945)
• Three Orders of the Red Banner (08/28/1937, 09/20/1943, 11/3/1944)
• Order of the Red Star (05/14/1936)
• Order of Kutuzov, 1st class (02/24/1945)
• Medal of the twentieth years of the Red Army (22.02.1938)
• Two badges Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (12/20/1932, 12/16/1935)

Ranks

• Major of State Security (12/11/1935)
• Senior major of state security (04/26/1938)
• Commissar of State Security 3rd rank (12/28/1938)
• Lieutenant General (07/12/1945)

Personal life and hobbies

Nikolai Vlasik was fond of photography. He owns the authorship of many unique photographs of Joseph Stalin, members of his family and inner circle.

Wife - Maria Semyonovna Vlasik (1908-1996). Daughter - Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik-Mikhailova (born 1935), worked as an art editor and graphic artist at the Nauka publishing house.

see also

Movie incarnations

• - "Inner Circle", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - People's Artist of the USSR Oleg Tabakov.
• - “Stalin. Live ", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - Yuri Gamayunov.
• - "Yalta-45", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - Boris Kamorzin.
• - "Son of the Father of Nations", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - Honored Artist of Russia Yuri Lakhin.
• - "Kill Stalin", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Yumatov.
• - The documentary series "Vlasik", in the role of N. S. Vlasik - Konstantin Milovanov.

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Literature

• Vlasik N. S."Memories of I. V. Stalin"
• // Petrov N. V., Skorkin K. V./ Ed. N. G. Okhotin and A. B. Roginsky. - M .: Links, 1999. - 502 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-7870-0032-3.
• V. Loginov.. - M .: Sovremennik, 2000. - 152 p. - ISBN 5-270-01297-9.
• Artyom Sergeev, Ekaterina Glushik. Conversations about Stalin. - M .: Krymsky most-9D, 2006. - 192 p. - (Stalin: Primary sources). - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-89747-067-7.
• Artyom Sergeev, Ekaterina Glushik. How JV Stalin lived, worked and raised children. Eyewitness testimony. - M .: Krymsky most-9D, STC "Forum", 2011. - 288 p. - (Stalin: Primary sources). - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89747-062-4.

Notes

Links

• Memoirs of the head of personal security I. V. Stalin:,,,,,

An excerpt characterizing Vlasik, Nikolai Sidorovich

The valet, returning, reported to the count that Moscow was on fire. The count put on his dressing-gown and went out to have a look. Sonya, who had not yet undressed, and Madame Schoss came out with him. Natasha and the countess were alone in the room. (Petya was no longer with the family; he went ahead with his regiment, marching to Trinity.)
The Countess wept when she heard the news of the fire in Moscow. Natasha, pale, with fixed eyes, sitting under the icons on the bench (in the very place where she sat down when she arrived), did not pay any attention to her father's words. She listened to the incessant groan of the adjutant, heard through three houses.
- Oh, what a horror! - said, come back from the yard, cold and frightened Sonya. - I think all of Moscow will burn, a terrible glow! Natasha, look now, you can see it from the window from here, ”she said to her sister, apparently wanting to entertain her with something. But Natasha looked at her, as if not understanding what she was being asked, and again stared with her eyes at the corner of the stove. Natasha has been in this state of tetanus since this morning, from the very time that Sonya, to the surprise and annoyance of the countess, for no reason at all, found it necessary to announce to Natasha about the wound of Prince Andrei and about his presence with them on the train. The countess was angry with Sonya, as she rarely got angry. Sonya cried and asked for forgiveness, and now, as if trying to make amends for her guilt, she did not stop caring for her sister.
“Look, Natasha, how terribly it burns,” said Sonya.
- What is on fire? Natasha asked. – Oh, yes, Moscow.
And as if in order not to offend Sonya by her refusal and to get rid of her, she moved her head to the window, looked so that she obviously could not see anything, and again sat down in her former position.
- Didn't you see it?
“No, really, I saw it,” she said in a pleading voice.
Both the countess and Sonya understood that Moscow, the fire of Moscow, whatever it was, of course, could not matter to Natasha.
The count again went behind the partition and lay down. The countess went up to Natasha, touched her head with her upturned hand, as she did when her daughter was sick, then touched her forehead with her lips, as if to find out if there was a fever, and kissed her.
- You are cold. You're all trembling. You should go to bed,” she said.
- Lie down? Yes, okay, I'll go to bed. I'm going to bed now, - said Natasha.
Since Natasha was told this morning that Prince Andrei was seriously wounded and was traveling with them, she only in the first minute asked a lot about where? as? is he dangerously injured? and can she see him? But after she was told that she was not allowed to see him, that he was seriously injured, but that his life was not in danger, she obviously did not believe what she was told, but convinced that no matter how much she said, she would be answer the same thing, stopped asking and talking. All the way, with big eyes, which the countess knew so well and whose expression the countess was so afraid of, Natasha sat motionless in the corner of the carriage and was now sitting in the same way on the bench on which she sat down. She was thinking about something, something she was deciding or had already decided in her mind now - the countess knew this, but what it was, she did not know, and this frightened and tormented her.
- Natasha, undress, my dear, lie down on my bed. (Only the countess alone was made a bed on the bed; m me Schoss and both young ladies had to sleep on the floor in the hay.)
“No, mom, I’ll lie down here on the floor,” Natasha said angrily, went to the window and opened it. The groan of the adjutant was heard more distinctly from the open window. She stuck her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her thin shoulders tremble with sobs and beat against the frame. Natasha knew that it was not Prince Andrei who was moaning. She knew that Prince Andrei was lying in the same connection where they were, in another hut across the passage; but this terrible unceasing groan made her sob. The Countess exchanged glances with Sonya.
"Lie down, my dear, lie down, my friend," said the countess, lightly touching Natasha's shoulder with her hand. - Well, go to bed.
“Ah, yes ... I’ll lie down now, now,” said Natasha, hastily undressing and tearing off the strings of her skirts. Throwing off her dress and putting on a jacket, she tucked her legs up, sat down on the bed prepared on the floor and, throwing her short, thin braid over her shoulder, began to weave it. Thin long habitual fingers quickly, deftly took apart, weaved, tied a braid. Natasha's head, with a habitual gesture, turned first to one side, then to the other, but her eyes, feverishly open, fixedly stared straight ahead. When the night costume was over, Natasha quietly sank down on a sheet spread on hay from the edge of the door.
“Natasha, lie down in the middle,” said Sonya.
“No, I’m here,” Natasha said. "Go to bed," she added with annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.
The countess, m me Schoss, and Sonya hurriedly undressed and lay down. One lamp was left in the room. But in the yard it was bright from the fire of Maly Mytishchi, two miles away, and the drunken cries of the people were buzzing in the tavern, which was broken by the Mamon Cossacks, on the warp, in the street, and the incessant groan of the adjutant was heard all the time.
For a long time Natasha listened to the internal and external sounds that reached her, and did not move. At first she heard her mother's prayer and sighs, the creaking of her bed under her, the familiar whistling snore of m me Schoss, Sonya's quiet breathing. Then the Countess called Natasha. Natasha did not answer her.
“He seems to be sleeping, mother,” Sonya answered quietly. The Countess, after a pause, called again, but no one answered her.
Soon after, Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did not move, despite the fact that her small bare foot, knocked out from under the covers, shivered on the bare floor.
As if celebrating the victory over everyone, a cricket screamed in the crack. The rooster crowed far away, relatives responded. In the tavern, the screams died down, only the same stand of the adjutant was heard. Natasha got up.
- Sonya? are you sleeping? Mother? she whispered. Nobody answered. Natasha slowly and cautiously got up, crossed herself and carefully stepped with her narrow and flexible bare foot on the dirty cold floor. The floorboard creaked. She, quickly moving her feet, ran like a kitten a few steps and took hold of the cold bracket of the door.
It seemed to her that something heavy, evenly striking, was knocking on all the walls of the hut: it was beating her heart, which was dying from fear, from horror and love, bursting.
She opened the door, stepped over the threshold and stepped onto the damp, cold earth of the porch. The chill that gripped her refreshed her. She felt the sleeping man with her bare foot, stepped over him and opened the door to the hut where Prince Andrei lay. It was dark in this hut. In the back corner, by the bed, on which something was lying, on a bench stood a tallow candle burnt with a large mushroom.
In the morning, Natasha, when she was told about the wound and the presence of Prince Andrei, decided that she should see him. She didn't know what it was for, but she knew that the date would be painful, and she was even more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she lived only in the hope that at night she would see him. But now that the moment had come, she was terrified of what she would see. How was he mutilated? What was left of him? Was he like that, what was that unceasing groan of the adjutant? Yes, he was. He was in her imagination the personification of that terrible moan. When she saw an indistinct mass in the corner and took his knees raised under the covers by his shoulders, she imagined some kind of terrible body and stopped in horror. But an irresistible force pulled her forward. She cautiously took one step, then another, and found herself in the middle of a small cluttered hut. In the hut, under the images, another person was lying on benches (it was Timokhin), and two more people were lying on the floor (they were a doctor and a valet).
The valet got up and whispered something. Timokhin, suffering from pain in his wounded leg, did not sleep and looked with all his eyes at the strange appearance of a girl in a poor shirt, jacket and eternal cap. The sleepy and frightened words of the valet; "What do you want, why?" - they only made Natasha come up to the one that lay in the corner as soon as possible. As terrifying as this body was, it must have been visible to her. She passed the valet: the burning mushroom of the candle fell off, and she clearly saw Prince Andrei lying on the blanket with outstretched arms, just as she had always seen him.
He was the same as always; but the inflamed complexion of his face, the brilliant eyes fixed enthusiastically on her, and especially the tender childish neck protruding from the laid back collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, childish look, which, however, she had never seen in Prince Andrei. She walked over to him and, with a quick, lithe, youthful movement, knelt down.
He smiled and extended his hand to her.

For Prince Andrei, seven days have passed since he woke up at the dressing station in the Borodino field. All this time he was almost in constant unconsciousness. The fever and inflammation of the intestines, which were damaged, in the opinion of the doctor who was traveling with the wounded, must have carried him away. But on the seventh day he ate with pleasure a piece of bread with tea, and the doctor noticed that the general fever had decreased. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after leaving Moscow was quite warm, and Prince Andrei was left to sleep in a carriage; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself demanded to be carried out and to be given tea. The pain inflicted on him by being carried to the hut made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When they laid him down on the camp bed, he lay with his eyes closed for a long time without moving. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “What about tea?” This memory for the small details of life struck the doctor. He felt his pulse and, to his surprise and displeasure, noticed that the pulse was better. To his displeasure, the doctor noticed this because, from his experience, he was convinced that Prince Andrei could not live, and that if he did not die now, he would only die with great suffering some time later. With Prince Andrei they carried the major of his regiment Timokhin, who had joined them in Moscow, with a red nose, wounded in the leg in the same Battle of Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, the prince's valet, his coachman and two batmen.
Prince Andrei was given tea. He drank greedily, looking ahead at the door with feverish eyes, as if trying to understand and remember something.
- I don't want any more. Timokhin here? - he asked. Timokhin crawled up to him along the bench.
“I'm here, Your Excellency.
- How is the wound?
– My then with? Nothing. Here you are? - Prince Andrei again thought, as if remembering something.
- Could you get a book? - he said.
- Which book?
– Gospel! I have no.
The doctor promised to get it and began to question the prince about how he felt. Prince Andrei reluctantly but reasonably answered all the doctor's questions and then said that he should have put a roller on him, otherwise it would be awkward and very painful. The doctor and the valet raised the overcoat with which he was covered, and, wincing at the heavy smell of rotten meat spreading from the wound, began to examine this terrible place. The doctor was very dissatisfied with something, he altered something differently, turned the wounded man over so that he again groaned and, from pain during the turning, again lost consciousness and began to rave. He kept talking about getting this book as soon as possible and putting it there.
- And what does it cost you! he said. “I don’t have it, please take it out, put it in for a minute,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went out into the hallway to wash his hands.
“Ah, shameless, really,” said the doctor to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. I just didn't watch it for a minute. After all, you put it right on the wound. It's such a pain that I wonder how he endures.
“We seem to have planted, Lord Jesus Christ,” said the valet.
For the first time, Prince Andrei understood where he was and what had happened to him, and remembered that he had been wounded and that at the moment when the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he asked to go to the hut. Confused again from pain, he came to his senses another time in the hut, when he was drinking tea, and then again, repeating in his recollection everything that had happened to him, he most vividly imagined that moment at the dressing station when, at the sight of the suffering of a person he did not love , these new thoughts that promised him happiness came to him. And these thoughts, although vague and indefinite, now again took possession of his soul. He remembered that he now had a new happiness and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. That's why he asked for the gospel. But the bad position that had been given to his wound, the new turning over again confused his thoughts, and for the third time he woke up to life in the perfect stillness of the night. Everyone was sleeping around him. The cricket was shouting across the entryway, someone was shouting and singing in the street, cockroaches rustled on the table and icons, in autumn a thick fly beat on his headboard and near a tallow candle that was burning with a large mushroom and stood beside him.
His soul was not in a normal state. A healthy person usually thinks, feels and remembers at the same time about an innumerable number of objects, but he has the power and strength, having chosen one series of thoughts or phenomena, to stop all his attention on this series of phenomena. A healthy person, in a moment of deepest reflection, breaks away to say a courteous word to the person who has entered, and again returns to his thoughts. The soul of Prince Andrei was not in a normal state in this respect. All the forces of his soul were more active, clearer than ever, but they acted outside of his will. The most diverse thoughts and ideas simultaneously owned him. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such force, clarity and depth, with which it had never been able to act in a healthy state; but suddenly, in the middle of her work, she broke off, was replaced by some unexpected performance, and there was no strength to return to her.
“Yes, a new happiness has opened up to me, inalienable from a person,” he thought, lying in a half-dark, quiet hut and looking ahead with feverishly open, stopped eyes. Happiness that is outside the material forces, outside the material external influences on a person, the happiness of one soul, the happiness of love! Any person can understand it, but only God alone can recognize and prescribe its motif. But how did God ordain this law? Why a son? .. And suddenly the train of these thoughts was interrupted, and Prince Andrei heard (not knowing whether he was delirious or really hears this), heard some kind of quiet, whispering voice, incessantly repeating to the beat: “And drink, drink, drink,” then “and ti ti” again “and drink ti ti” again “and ti ti”. At the same time, to the sound of this whispering music, Prince Andrei felt that some strange airy building of thin needles or splinters was being erected above his face, above the very middle. He felt (although it was hard for him) that he had to diligently keep his balance so that the building that was being erected would not collapse; but it still collapsed and again slowly rose to the sounds of evenly whispering music. "It's pulling! stretches! stretches and everything stretches, ”Prince Andrei said to himself. Together with listening to the whisper and with the feeling of this stretching and rising building of needles, Prince Andrei saw in fits and starts the red light of a candle surrounded by a circle and heard the rustling of cockroaches and the rustling of a fly beating on the pillow and on his face. And every time a fly touched his face, it produced a burning sensation; but at the same time he was surprised that, striking in the very region of the building erected on the face of his face, the fly did not destroy it. But besides that, there was one more important thing. It was white at the door, it was a statue of a sphinx that crushed him too.

Thanks to the diaries of the personal bodyguard of the leader Nikolai Vlasik, many episodes of our history will open from the other side.

... The diaries of the all-powerful head of the Stalinist guards, which for more than fifty years lay in an old suitcase with his daughter Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik-Mikhailova. These notes in notebooks, notebooks, on scraps of paper are a sensation. Nikolai Vlasik for many years was Stalin's personal bodyguard and lasted the longest in this post. Coming to his personal guard in 1931, he not only became her boss, but actually became a member of the family. After the death of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he was also the educator of children - Vasily and Svetlana.

Having served his "Master" faithfully for more than 20 years, Vlasik was practically betrayed by him and arrested two and a half months before the death of the leader ...

... In May 1994, during the restoration of the first building of the Kremlin on the second floor in the former Stalin's office, a secret passage was discovered. In the very place where Stalin's table used to stand, two large hatches were found under the parquet. Below them are two brick shafts with iron brackets in the walls going into the basement. Now one can only guess about the purpose of the secret passage. But two severed special communications cables found in these mines are alarming. It looks like someone was listening to Stalin. Who?

Only one person from his entourage, Beria, could decide on this, and only in the last years or even months of Stalin's life, when the question of an heir turned for Beria into a matter of life and death. It was then that Beria managed to remove one of his main opponents from his path - the head of Stalin's personal guard, Nikolai Vlasik, a figure now, perhaps, no less legendary than Beria himself. During his arrest in December 1952, Vlasik uttered prophetic words:

"If there is no me, there will be no Stalin." And he turned out to be right. Stalin died a strange death 2.5 months later at his "Near Dacha" in Kuntsevo.

Today, for the first time in many years of rumors and legends, it became possible to hear Vlasik himself. It's hard to believe, but it turns out that there are diaries of the all-powerful chief of the Stalinist guard. They have lain in a closet in an ordinary old suitcase for more than 50 years. These notes in notebooks, notebooks, on random scraps of paper are a sensation, priceless evidence of the era.

Published materials N.S. Vlasik are unique historical documents that are of great value both for any researcher and for a wide circle of readers interested in the history of Soviet society.

It is worth noting that the personal bodyguard of the leader was fond of photography, and in almost 30 years of service he took more than 3000 pictures. All of them were confiscated by the Lubyanka during the arrest of Vlasik. And until recently, private pictures of the leader of all peoples were not available to the general public. About ten years ago, the surviving archives of Vlasik were "opened" by his relatives and even his diaries were published. But the confiscated other materials about the life of Stalin, and in huge quantities, including photos, videos, and audio, are not yet available.

“During the arrest of N.S. Vlasik during a search at work, in an apartment and at a dacha in the village of Tomilino, numerous records and about three thousand photographs and negatives were seized. Almost all of these documents and unique photographs taken by the general over many years of service were included in his criminal case. After the rehabilitation of N.S. Vlasik, a significant part of these materials was returned to the general's family. Later, they were transferred to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation by the adopted daughter N.S. Vlasika - Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik"

"Favorites" - from the diaries of Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik

Foreword

I do not set myself the task of showing Stalin as a political figure.

Try to remove the unfair accusations of rudeness, cruelty and inhumanity raised against him. Try to refute the false things that were attributed to him after his death, to justify what he was undeservedly accused of.

To the best of my ability to highlight the facts that I witnessed, to establish the truth where possible.

1919 The year of healing the wounds inflicted by the war, the year of the beginning of the restoration of the national economy and the ongoing struggle against counter-revolutionary elements trying to strike at the young and fragile Republic of Soviets.

At this difficult time for the country, at the call of the party, I was sent to the Special Department of the Cheka at the disposal of comrade. Dzerzhinsky. Until 1927 I worked in the Special Department, and then in 1927 I moved to work in the Operations Department.

From 1919 to 1952, I went from an ordinary employee to a general.

My new position

In 1927, a bomb was thrown into the building of the commandant's office on Lubyanka. At that time I was in Sochi on vacation. The authorities urgently called me and instructed me to organize the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, as well as the protection of government members at dachas, walks, on trips, and pay special attention to the personal protection of Comrade Stalin. Until that time, with Comrade Stalin, there was only an employee who accompanied him when he went on business trips.

It was a Lithuanian - Yusis. Calling Yusis, we went by car with him to a dacha near Moscow, where Stalin usually rested. Arriving at the dacha and examining it, I saw that there was a complete mess. There was no linen, no dishes, no staff. There lived one commandant at the dacha.

As I learned from Yusis, Comrade Stalin came to the dacha with his family only on Sundays and ate sandwiches that they brought with them from Moscow.

Family, rhythm of life, life

Comrade Stalin's family consisted of his wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna, an unusually modest young woman, the daughter of the old Bolshevik Alliluyev S.Ya., whom Comrade Stalin met in 19 (?), When he was hiding in their apartment in Petrograd, and two children - the son of Vasya, a very lively and impetuous boy of five, and daughter Svetlana of two years.

In addition to these two children, Comrade Stalin had an adult son from his first marriage, Yasha, a very sweet and modest man, remarkably like his father in conversation and manners.

Looking ahead, I’ll say that he graduated from the Institute of Railway Transport, lived on a scholarship, sometimes in need, but never turned to his father with any requests. After graduating from the institute, to the remark of his father that he would like to see his son in the military, Yasha entered the Artillery Academy, which he graduated from just before the war. In the very first days of the war, he went to the front. Near Vyazma, our units were surrounded and he was taken prisoner. The Germans kept him in captivity, in a camp until the end of the war. In the camp and killed him, allegedly while trying to escape.

According to the former French Prime Minister Herriot, who was with him in this camp, he behaved with exceptional dignity and courage. After the end of the war, Herriot wrote about this to Stalin.

By order of the authorities, in addition to the guards, I had to arrange the supply and living conditions of the guarded.

I began by sending linen and crockery to the dacha, arranging for the supply of food from the state farm, which was under the jurisdiction of the GPU and located next to the dacha. He sent a cook and a cleaner to the dacha. Established a direct telephone connection with Moscow. Yusis, fearing Stalin's dissatisfaction with these innovations, suggested that I myself report everything to Comrade Stalin.

This is how my first meeting and first conversation with Comrade Stalin took place. Before that, I had only seen him from afar, when I accompanied him on walks and on trips to the theater.

Comrade Stalin lived with his family very modestly. He walked in an old, badly worn overcoat.

I offered Nadezhda Sergeevna to sew him a new coat, but for this it was necessary to take measurements or take an old coat and make exactly the same in the workshop. It was not possible to remove the measure, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still sewed a coat for him.

His wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna, as I have already said, is unusually modest, very rarely made any requests, dressed modestly, unlike the wives of many responsible workers. She studied at the Industrial Academy and devoted a lot of time to children. I wanted to know, and it was necessary for me, the tastes and habits of Comrade Stalin, the peculiarities of his character, and I looked at everything with curiosity and interest.

August 17, 1922. Joseph Stalin (left) and his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva (right)

Stalin usually got up at 9 o'clock, had breakfast, and at 11 o'clock was at work in the Central Committee on Staraya Square. He dined at work, they brought him to his office from the dining room of the Central Committee. Sometimes, when Comrade Kirov came to Moscow, they went home together to dine. He often worked until late at night, especially in those years when, after the death of Lenin, the fight against the Trotskyists had to be intensified.

He also worked on his book Questions of Leninism in his office at the Central Committee, sometimes staying late into the night. He often returned from work on foot, together with Comrade Molotov, they went to the Kremlin through the Spassky Gates. Sunday spent at home with his family, usually went to the country. Stalin went to the theater more often on Saturdays and Sundays together with Nadezhda Sergeevna. We visited the Bolshoi Theatre, the Maly Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre, im. Vakhtangov. We went to Meyerhold, watched Mayakovsky's play Bedbug. With us at this performance were comrade. Kirov and Molotov.

Stalin was very fond of Gorky and always watched his plays, which were shown in Moscow theaters. Often after work, Stalin and Molotov went to watch movies in Gnezdnikovsky Lane. Later, a viewing room was set up in the Kremlin. Comrade Stalin loved cinema and attached great importance to it as propaganda.

In autumn, usually in August-September, Stalin and his family went south. He spent his holidays on the Black Sea coast in Sochi or in Gagra. He lived in the south for two months. Resting in Sochi, he sometimes took Matsesta baths.

Throughout his vacation, he worked very hard. He received a lot of mail. To the south, he always took one of the employees. In the 20s. a cryptographer traveled with him, and starting from the 30s. - secretary. Business meetings also took place during the holidays.

Stalin read a lot, followed the political and fiction. Entertainment in the south was boat trips, movies, bowling alleys, the towns he liked to play in, and billiards. The partners were employees who lived with him in the country. Comrade Stalin devoted much time to the garden. While living in Sochi, he planted many lemons and tangerines in his garden. He himself always followed the growth of young trees, rejoicing when they were well accepted and began to bear fruit.

He was very worried about the incidence of malaria among the local population. And on his initiative, large plantings of eucalyptus trees were carried out in Sochi. This tree has valuable properties. It grows unusually fast and dries out the soil. Planting eucalyptus in wetlands, foci of malarial mosquitoes, dry out the soil and destroy breeding grounds for malarial diseases. Molotov, Kalinin, Ordzhonikidze often came to his dacha, who at that time were resting on the Black Sea coast. Comrade Kirov came to visit. I want to talk about Kirov in particular. Most of all, Stalin loved Kirov. He loved with some touching, tender love. Comrade's arrivals Kirov to Moscow and to the south were a real holiday for Stalin. Sergei Mironovich came for a week or two. In Moscow, he stayed at Stalin's apartment, and literally did not part with him.

In 1933, Comrade Stalin's wife tragically died. Joseph Vissarionovich deeply experienced the loss of his wife and friend. The children were still small, Comrade Stalin, due to his employment, could not pay much attention to them. I had to transfer the upbringing and care of the children to Karolina Vasilievna, the housekeeper who ran the household. Karolina Vasilievna was a cultured woman, sincerely attached to children.

Editor's note: Maria Svanidze, a friend of Nadezhda Sergeevna, wrote in April 1935: “... And then Joseph said: “How can Nadia ... could shoot herself. She did very badly ... "What children, they forgot her after a few days, and she crippled me for life. Let's drink to Nadia! - said Joseph. And we all drank to the health of dear Nadia, who left us so cruelly ... "

Comrade Stalin often came to Nadezhda Sergeevna's grave. I was sitting on a marble bench opposite, smoking a pipe, thinking about something of my own ...

When the children grew up and both were already studying, part of the responsibility fell on me. The daughter, her father's favorite, studied well and was modest and disciplined. The son is gifted by nature, he studied reluctantly at school. He was too nervous, impetuous, he could not study diligently for a long time, often to the detriment of his studies and, not without success, was carried away by something extraneous like horse riding. Reluctantly, he had to report to his father about his behavior and upset him.

He loved children, especially his little daughter, whom he jokingly called "mistress", which she was proud of. He treated his son strictly, punished for pranks and misconduct. The girl looked like a grandmother, Stalin's mother. The character was somewhat closed, silent and rather dry. The boy, on the contrary, is lively and temperamental. He was very kind and responsive.

In general, children were brought up very strictly, no pampering, excesses were allowed. The daughter grew up, graduated from the institute, defended her dissertation, has a family, works and brings up children. Only the name of the father had to be abandoned.

Svetlana Alliluyeva at a meeting with journalists 1967, USA.

Editor's note: Lana Peters, the daughter of I. Stalin, emigrated from the USSR to the USA in 1966. On November 29, 2011, she died in the USA in a nursing home. She was 85 years old. In recent years, she was seriously ill, lived quietly, did not favor journalists. What I wanted to tell, I already said, including in my memoirs. Her last interview formed the basis of the film "Svetlana", which was shown on Channel One.

The fate of the son was more tragic. After graduating from an aviation school, he was a participant in the war, commanded, and I must say not bad, an aviation regiment. After the end of the war, he worked as...

After the death of his father, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years. For what? Don't know. After serving his sentence, he was released completely sick. They kept his military rank and assigned him a pension, but they suggested, like his sister, to give up the name of Dzhugashvili's father, to which he did not agree. After that, he was exiled to Kazan, where he soon died in March 1962 at the age of 40.

Murder of Kirov

On December 13, 1934 (December 1, 1934), S.M. was killed in Leningrad. Kirov. Kirov's death shocked Stalin. I went with him to Leningrad and I know how he suffered, experienced the loss of his beloved friend. About what a crystal clear man was S.M. Everyone knows Kirov, how simple and modest he was, what a great worker and wise leader he was. This vile murder showed that the enemies of Soviet power had not yet been destroyed and were ready at any moment to strike from around the corner. Tov. Kirov was killed by the enemies of the people.

His killer, Leonid Nikolaev, stated in his testimony: "Our shot was supposed to be a signal for an explosion and an offensive inside the country against the CPSU (b) and Soviet power." In September 1934, an attempt was made on Comrade Molotov, when he made an inspection tour of the mining regions of Siberia. Comrade Molotov and his companions miraculously escaped death.

assassination attempt

In the summer of 1935, an attempt was made on Comrade Stalin. It happened in the south. Stalin was resting at a dacha not far from Gagra. On a small boat, which was transported to the Black Sea from the Neva from Leningrad, comrade. Stalin took walks on the sea. He had only security with him. The direction was taken to Cape Pitsunda. Having entered the bay, we went ashore, rested, ate, walked, having been on the shore for several hours. Then they boarded the boat and went home. There is a lighthouse on Cape Pitsunda, and not far from the lighthouse on the shore of the bay there was a border guard post.

When we left the bay and turned in the direction of Gagra, shots rang out from the shore. We were being fired upon. Quickly putting Comrade Stalin on the bench and covering him with myself, I ordered the minder to go out to sea. We immediately fired a burst of machine gun fire along the shore. The firing on our boat stopped.

Our boat was a small river boat and completely unsuitable for sea trips, and we had a great chat before we landed on the shore. The dispatch of such a boat to Sochi was made by Yagoda, apparently not without malicious intent, on a big wave it would inevitably capsize, but we, as people not versed in maritime affairs, did not know about this.

This case was referred for investigation by Beria, who was at that time the secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia.

During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat was with an unfamiliar number, this seemed suspicious to him, and he opened fire, although he had enough time to find out everything while we were on the shore of the bay, and he could not see us. It was all one ball. The assassination of Kirov, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev and Gorky, as well as the assassination attempts mentioned above, were organized by the right-wing Trotskyist bloc. This was shown by the trials of Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1936.

Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, 1940s.

trips to the south

Accompanying Stalin on trips to the south, I talked a lot with him, we always dined together, and he spent almost all his free time with us, I mean himself and his secretary Poskrebyshev. In Moscow, I saw him much less often. I accompanied him on trips around the city, to the theater, to the cinema.

During the life of A.M. Gorky, Stalin often met with him. As I mentioned, he loved him very much. He visited him both at the dacha and in the city. On these trips, I always accompanied him.

Speaking about the trips to the south, which Stalin made every year, I wanted to tell you more about this trip, because. her route was not quite usual. It was in 1947. In August, I don’t remember the date, Stalin called me and announced that we would go south, not as usual by train, but to Kharkov by car, and in Kharkov we would take the train.

It is difficult to express my joy in words. Stalin still fully trusts me, I, like all previous years, will accompany him to the south, and he entrusts the organization of the entire trip to me. I must say that in 1946 my doctors and envious people, and I had a lot of them, slandered me, and I was removed from the post of head of the Department.

But Comrade Stalin reacted to this with all his sensitivity, he himself sorted out all the charges, absolutely false, made against me, and, seeing my complete innocence, restored my former trust. I carefully thought out the plan of the trip, consulted with the minister, he approved everything, and I reported it to Comrade Stalin.

Considering that such a long journey by car would be tiring for him, I tried to convince him to refuse such a trip, but he did not want to listen to me. We left on the 16th of August. We drove to Kharkov with three stops in Shchekino - Tula region, Orel and Kursk. At the stops, everything was very modest and simply without any noise, which Comrade Stalin really liked.

We all ate together with Comrade Stalin. And in Shchekino, and in Kursk, Comrade Stalin walked around the city. On the way between Tula and Orel, the tires on our Packard overheated. Stalin ordered the car to stop and said that he would walk a little, and the driver would change tires, and then he would catch up with us.

After walking a little along the highway, we saw 3 trucks that were standing at the side of the highway and on one of them the driver was also changing a tire. Seeing Stalin, the workers were so confused that they could not believe their eyes, so unexpected was the appearance on the highway of Comrade. Stalin, and even on foot. When we passed, they began to hug and kiss each other, saying: “What happiness, they saw Stalin so close.”

After walking a little more, we met a little boy of 11-12 years old. Tov. Stalin stopped, held out his hand to him and said: “Well, let's get to know each other. What is your name? Where are you going?" The boy said that his name was Vova, he goes to the village where he grazes cows, studies in the 4th grade for fours and fives. At this time, our car approached, we said goodbye to Vova and continued our journey. After this stop, Comrade Stalin moved to the ZIS-110. He really liked the car, and all his vacation he drove only on the domestic ZIS.

Editor's note: ZIS-110, passenger car of the highest (executive) class, the first Soviet post-war car. Produced at the Moscow Plant named after Stalin. (ZIS) Its production began in 1945, replacing the ZIS-101 on the assembly line, and ended in 1958, when it, in turn, was replaced by the ZIL-111. On June 26, 1956, the plant received the name of I. A. Likhachev, and the car was renamed ZIL-110. A total of 2072 copies of all modifications were produced.

In Orel, we made a stop, rested, washed up from the road, had lunch and set off on our further journey. Our next stop was in Kursk. We stopped to rest in the apartment of one of our security officers. The apartment was clean and comfortable, there were a lot of china knick-knacks on the shelf above the sofa, and on the mirror-holder there were many beautiful perfume bottles and empty ones.

Tov. Stalin carefully examined the entire furnishings of the apartment, touched the trinkets that stood on the shelf, and when we, after resting, were about to leave, he asked me what we would leave the hostess as a keepsake, if we had cologne. Fortunately, the cologne was found in a rather beautiful bottle. Tov. Stalin himself took him to the bedroom, where he was resting, and put him on the mirror.

Despite the very tiring road, we left Moscow in the evening, drove all night and day, sleeping comrade. Stalin was a little more than two hours, Iosif Vissarionovich felt very good, his mood was excellent, which we were all very happy about. In a conversation, he said that he was very pleased that we went by car, that he had seen a lot.

I saw how cities are being built, fields are being harvested, what kind of roads we have. You can't see it from the office. These were his true words.

Regarding the roads, Comrade Stalin noted that the road from Moscow should be made as good as possible, divided into sections, guards should be appointed, houses should be built for them, a piece of land should be given so that they have everything they need, they will be interested and will take good care of the road. Install filling stations, because. there will be many cars, everyone will drive cars, not only in the city, but also in the countryside.

Having safely reached Kharkov, we transferred to the train and traveled by train to Simferopol. From Simferopol to Yalta we again traveled by car. In Yalta, the Molotov cruiser was waiting for us, on which Comrade Stalin was to make a trip to Sochi.

Cruiser "Molotov"

On August 19, 1947, the Molotov cruiser under the command of Admiral Yumashev, accompanied by two destroyers, left the port of Yalta.

On board the cruiser, in addition to Comrade Stalin, were Comrade Kosygin, invited by Joseph Vissarionovich, who was resting at that time in Yalta, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Oktyabrsky, and other persons accompanying Stalin.

The cruiser headed for Sochi. This trip made an unforgettable impression on me. The weather was great and everyone was in high spirits. Tov. Stalin, under the incessant welcoming "Hurrah" of the entire crew, walked around the cruiser. The faces of the sailors were joyful and enthusiastic.

In the picture, the shadow of the photographer - Nikolai Vlasik

Having agreed to the request of Admiral Yumashev to be photographed together with the personnel of the cruiser, Comrade Stalin called me. I ended up, one might say, in photojournalists. I already took a lot of pictures, and Comrade Stalin saw my pictures. But, despite this, I was very worried, because. I wasn't sure about the film. Stalin saw my condition and, as always, showed sensitivity. When I finished shooting, having taken a few photos to guarantee, he called a security officer and said:

“Vlasik tried so hard, but no one took him off. Take a picture of it with us."

I handed the camera to the employee, explaining everything that was necessary, and he also took a few pictures. The photographs turned out to be very successful and were reprinted in many newspapers.

Rest in Sochi

Resting in Sochi, Comrade Stalin often walked around the city and along the highway. These walks gave me a lot of excitement, because. There were always a lot of vacationers on the streets, we were surrounded by a crowd, everyone welcomed Comrade Stalin, everyone wanted to shake his hand, talk to him.

Protecting the leader in such a situation was extremely difficult, especially since Comrade Stalin did not like to have security guards with him. Usually he was accompanied on walks by me, the secretary Poskrebyshev, and two or three security officers.

Once, during a trip around the city, Comrade Stalin decided to call at the port. When we got to the pier, we got out of the car. The ship "Voroshilov" was unloading in the port. T. Stalin looked at the unloading for a long time, he did not like the ship, he found it clumsy.

When we returned to the cars, a large crowd had already gathered in the port. Everyone wanted to look at the leader, to see if it was true that Stalin was just walking in the port like that. Approaching the cars, Stalin warmly responded to the greetings and, opening the door, invited the guys who ran to the car to ride with us. Stalin wanted to give the children some pleasure, to treat them with something.

Let's go to the "Riviera", there was an open cafe. We went there, seated the guys at the tables, but here it turned out the same as in the port. Vacationers surrounded us, among them there were many children, we had to invite everyone for lemonade. I brought a large vase of sweets from the buffet, and Comrade Stalin began to treat the children with sweets. One little girl, apparently timid, was pushed aside by the guys, she got nothing, and she began to cry. Then Comrade Stalin took her in his arms so that she herself chose the sweets that she would like. After distributing all the sweets and paying off the barman, I turned to the guys: “Well, guys, now the pioneer “Hurray” to Comrade Stalin.” The boys shouted "Hurrah" in unison. We barely made it through the crowd to the car and drove home.

In the autumn of October 14, 1947, in Sochi, on Stalin's instructions, I met at the airport the British delegation of Laborites - members of Parliament. Stalin received them at his dacha. He allowed me to attend this reception. For me, this meeting was extremely interesting.

The British asked questions of a deeply political nature, as well as an economic one. Stalin gave short, clear and exhaustive answers. After the reception, I escorted the guests to the dacha allotted to them. There were two of our translators at the reception. Over dinner, they shared their impressions of this meeting.

The British were amazed at Stalin's erudition. This is really a great man, he not only understands all political issues, but also knows the economy of England.

Warm attitude towards people

I would like to give a few more examples of Stalin's warm and caring attitude towards the people, employees and me personally.

I remember a conversation that took place in the 1930s. between Stalin and Molotov during a walk in Sochi. The conversation turned to five days. While Sunday as a day of rest was cancelled. The people worked for five days, and the sixth day was a day of rest. The working week was continuous, and everyone had a rest on different days. Tov. Molotov said that he had heard rumors that the people were dissatisfied with the five-day period, because. neither family can get together, nor friends can meet to spend a free day together. Tov. Stalin, hearing this, immediately said:

“Since the people are dissatisfied, it is necessary to cancel the five-day period and make a general day off, as the people want.”

It is necessary to explain this in the press and make a decision. Which is what was done. Tov. Molotov was at that time chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. Let me give you another fact.

Living in Sochi, Iosif Vissarionovich decided to inspect the Matsesta baths. Entering the room where patients take baths, he saw that the water in the baths was of a dirty black color. He got very angry. Returning home, he called Professor Valdinsky, who was in charge of the state of the resort, and asked him: “Can't you purify the water? Why do patients have to take such dirty baths. Everything possible must be done to purify the water.” After this conversation, all measures were taken and the water in the Matsesta baths began to flow not polluted, but clean. Iosif Vissarionovich was also interested in the construction of housing stock. He made sure that they were built soundly and beautifully, that the buildings would decorate the city, and not disfigure it, that the people would receive bright and comfortable apartments.

In the post-war period, he carefully monitored the timely and regular reduction of food prices. The commanders participating in the war were allowed to build dachas for personal recreation on preferential terms.

Attitude towards employees

Let me give you an example of a warm attitude towards employees. Once, during a summer vacation, one of the employees guarding the territory of the dacha where Comrade Stalin was resting fell asleep at his post. In his defense, it should be noted that I had only nine security officers, and the territory was large, all in thickets, people, of course, got tired. Tov. Stalin was informed about this, he called me and asked what measures had been taken against this employee. I replied that I wanted to take him off work and send him to Moscow.

Iosif Vissarionovich asked if he confessed that he had fallen asleep at the post. I replied that I confessed. “Well, since he confessed, don’t punish him, let him work,” said Iosif Vissarionovich. After this incident, I had a conversation with the employees, increased the security and thus gave the guards the opportunity to have a normal rest.

Personal attitude towards me

The following fact speaks of Stalin's caring attitude towards me personally.

In 1948, in the Crimea, during a vacation, Comrade Stalin called me and said that guests would come to him - a family, there would be six of them. They need to be provided with accommodation, food and services. Today we ourselves will also move to one of the free dachas.

In the evening, as always on vacation, Secretary Poskrebyshev and I dined with him. Iosif Vissarionovich joked a lot, shared memories from his past, talked about life in exile in the Turukhansk region. These hours of leisure spent in the company of the leader will forever remain in my memory as the best hours of my life. He made me feel so at ease with him that I always felt at ease with him.

We sat at dinner for a very long time and then, without going to bed, we decided to go to another dacha. After waking up the drivers, we drove to Livadia. Arriving in Livadia, Comrade Stalin ordered that breakfast be laid on the veranda and invited the drivers and security officers who accompanied us. Breakfast was held in a simple friendly atmosphere. After breakfast, Comrade Stalin and Poskrebyshev went to rest, since we did not go to bed that night, and I had things to do, and besides, I was excited by this conversation with the leader and did not want to sleep.

After a few hours of sleep, Comrade Stalin asked for a car to go inspect the dacha, which we decided to prepare for the guests. When I approached him, he saw that I looked tired, and, learning that I did not go to bed, did not allow me to go with him, but ordered me to go to bed immediately. I left, but I could not sleep, and accompanied him in another car.

Returning home, Comrade Stalin asked the employees several times if Vlasik was sleeping, and only the next day he called me and asked if I had slept. I apologized to him, he laughed and I saw a truly dear, close person to me.

During the twenty-five years of my work, of course, I had mistakes and blunders, and he understood them with all sensitivity and tact and forgave me a lot, seeing my sincere incorruptible devotion and ardent desire to justify his trust.

Chkalov

Not rudely and cruelly, but carefully and attentively, Stalin treated people. Everyone knows his warm and paternal attitude towards the famous pilot Valery Pavlovich Chkalov. Let us recall his words to Chkalov: "Your life is dearer to us than any machine." Words that excited this courageous, rude-looking pilot to the depths of his soul. Let us recall Stalin's concerns about his further flights.

The route of Chkalov's first non-stop flight Moscow-Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka was suggested by Stalin as a stage for preparing an unprecedented flight across the North Pole to America. Stalin was worried about Chkalov, trying to persuade him not to rush to fly over the Pole, as it was very dangerous. It is better to carefully check the aircraft and material equipment in order to somehow secure the flight over the pole. I remember how at a reception in the Kremlin in the St. George Hall in honor of the return of the Chkalovsky crew from America after the flight over the North Pole, the excited Chkalov, tearing his tunic on his chest, exclaimed, turning to Stalin: “I’m ready to give you not only my life, take my heart!”

Attitude towards children

Joseph Vissarionovich was very fond of children. Meeting children on a walk, he always entered into a conversation with them. I remember once during a walk on Matsesta tt. Stalin and Molotov, we met a little boy of about six, very talkative and intelligent, he sensibly and thoroughly answered the questions of Joseph Vissarionovich. When they were getting acquainted, Stalin held out his hand to him and asked: “What is your name?” - "Valka", - the boy answered solidly. “Well, I’m Oska-pockmarked,” Stalin answered him in tone. "Well, now we know each other." Comrade Molotov and I laughed, and the boy looked attentively at Iosif Vissarionovich. Comrade Stalin, after suffering smallpox in childhood, had several mountain ash on his face.

Comrade Stalin loved animals. Once in Sochi, he picked up a hungry homeless puppy. I personally fed him and took care of him. But the puppy turned out to be ungrateful, and when he was fat and strong, he ran away.

I cited all these facts of Stalin's warm and sensitive attitude towards those around him, towards the people - in refutation of the assertion widespread after his death, representing him as a rude and tough person, inhuman and merciless towards those around him. It's a lie. He never was like that. He was simple and friendly, condescending and sensitive. He was merciless to enemies, but deeply loved friends. And if he took the enemy for a friend, brought him closer to him and trusted him, it was his mistake. Fatal mistake. May she forgive him! He paid a heavy price for her - with his life.

He spent many years next to the Generalissimo. Who was this bodyguard of Stalin, what is the real story of Nikolai Vlasik?

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in Western Belarus, in the village of Bobynichi, into a poor peasant family. The boy lost his parents early and could not count on a good education. After three classes of the parochial school, Nikolai went to work. From the age of 13 he worked as a laborer at a construction site, then as a bricklayer, then as a loader at a paper mill.

In March 1915, Vlasik was drafted into the army and sent to the front. During the First World War, he served in the 167th Ostroh Infantry Regiment, and was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer and appointed commander of a platoon of the 251st infantry regiment, which was stationed in Moscow.

During the October Revolution, Nikolai Vlasik, a native of the very bottom, quickly decided on his political choice: together with the entrusted platoon, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.

At first he served in the Moscow police, then he participated in the Civil War, was wounded near Tsaritsyn. In September 1919, Vlasik was sent to the bodies of the Cheka, where he served in the central apparatus under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky himself.

Master of security and life

Since May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik served as a senior authorized officer of the Operational Department of the OGPU.

As Vlasik himself recalled, his work as Stalin's bodyguard began in 1927 after an emergency in the capital: a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on Lubyanka. The operative, who was on vacation, was recalled and announced: from that moment on, he was entrusted with the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, government members at dachas, walks. Particular attention was ordered to be given to the personal protection of Joseph Stalin.

Despite the sad story of the assassination attempt on Lenin, by 1927 the protection of the first persons of the state in the USSR was not particularly thorough.

Stalin was accompanied by only one guard: the Lithuanian Yusis. Vlasik was even more surprised when they arrived at the dacha, where Stalin usually spent his weekends. One commandant lived at the dacha, there was no linen, no dishes, and the leader ate sandwiches brought from Moscow.

Like all Belarusian peasants, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was a solid and well-to-do man. He took up not only the protection, but also the arrangement of Stalin's life.

The leader, accustomed to asceticism, at first was skeptical about the innovations of the new bodyguard. But Vlasik was persistent: a cook and a cleaner appeared at the dacha, food supplies were arranged from the nearest state farm. At that moment, there was not even a telephone connection with Moscow at the dacha, and it appeared through the efforts of Vlasik.

Over time, Vlasik created a whole system of dachas in the Moscow region and in the south, where well-trained personnel were ready at any moment to receive the Soviet leader. It is not worth talking about the fact that these objects were guarded in the most careful way.

The security system for important government facilities existed even before Vlasik, but he became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events, and international meetings.

Stalin's bodyguard came up with a system according to which the first person and the people accompanying him move in a cavalcade of identical cars, and only the bodyguards know which one the leader is driving in. Subsequently, such a scheme saved the life of Leonid Brezhnev, who was assassinated in 1969.

"Illiterate, stupid, but noble"

Within a few years, Vlasik turned into an indispensable and especially trusted person for Stalin. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin entrusted his bodyguard with the care of the children: Svetlana, Vasily and his adopted son Artyom Sergeyev.

Nikolai Sidorovich was not a teacher, but he tried his best. If Svetlana and Artyom did not cause him much trouble, then Vasily was uncontrollable from childhood. Vlasik, knowing that Stalin did not give up to children, tried, as far as possible, to mitigate the sins of Vasily in reports to his father.

But over the years, the “pranks” became more and more serious, and it became more and more difficult for Vlasik to play the role of a “lightning rod”.

Svetlana and Artyom, as adults, wrote about their "tutor" in different ways. Stalin’s daughter in “Twenty Letters to a Friend” described Vlasik as follows: “He headed the entire guard of his father, considered himself almost the closest person to him and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he reached the point that dictated to some artists the “tastes of Comrade Stalin”, because he believed that he knew and understood them well ... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether “himself” liked it, whether it was a film, or opera, or even the silhouettes of high-rise buildings under construction at that time...”

“He had a job all his life, and he lived near Stalin”

Artyom Sergeev, in Conversations about Stalin, spoke differently: “His main duty was to ensure the safety of Stalin. This work was inhuman. Always the responsibility of the head, always life on the cutting edge. He knew very well both friends and enemies of Stalin ... What kind of work did Vlasik have in general? It was work day and night, there was no 6-8-hour working day. All his life he had work, and he lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin's room was Vlasik's room ... "

For ten or fifteen years, Nikolai Vlasik turned from an ordinary bodyguard into a general heading a huge structure responsible not only for security, but also for the life of the first persons of the state.

During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on Vlasik's shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to place them, equip them in a new place, and think over security issues. The evacuation of Lenin's body from Moscow is also the task that Vlasik performed. He was also responsible for security at the parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

Assassination attempt in Gagra

For all the years that Vlasik was responsible for Stalin's life, not a single hair fell from his head. At the same time, the head of the leader’s guard himself, judging by his recollections, took the threat of assassination very seriously. Even in his declining years, he was sure that the Trotskyist groups were preparing the assassination of Stalin.

In 1935, Vlasik really had to cover the leader from bullets. During a boat trip in the Gagra region, fire was opened on them from the shore. The bodyguard covered Stalin with his body, but both were lucky: the bullets did not hit them. The boat left the firing zone.

Vlasik considered this a real assassination attempt, and his opponents later believed that it was all a production. As it turns out, there was a misunderstanding. The border guards were not informed about Stalin's boat trip, and they mistook him for an intruder. Subsequently, the officer who ordered the shooting was sentenced to five years. But in 1937, during the "great terror", they remembered him again, held another process and shot him.

Cow abuse

During the Great Patriotic War, Vlasik was responsible for ensuring security at conferences of the heads of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition and coped with his task brilliantly. For the successful holding of the conference in Tehran, Vlasik was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the Crimean Conference - the Order of Kutuzov I degree, for the Potsdam Conference - another Order of Lenin.

But the Potsdam Conference became a pretext for accusations of misappropriation of property: it was alleged that after its completion, Vlasik took various valuables from Germany, including a horse, two cows and one bull. Subsequently, this fact was cited as an example of the irrepressible greed of the Stalinist bodyguard.

Vlasik himself recalled that this story had a completely different background. In 1941, the Germans captured his native village of Bobynichi. The house where my sister lived was burned down, half the village was shot, the sister's eldest daughter was driven away to work in Germany, the cow and the horse were taken away. My sister and her husband went to the partisans, and after the liberation of Belarus they returned to their native village, from which little was left. Stalin's bodyguard brought cattle from Germany for relatives.

Was it abuse? If you approach with a strict measure, then, perhaps, yes. However, Stalin, when this case was first reported to him, sharply ordered that further investigation be stopped.

Opala

In 1946, Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik became the head of the Main Security Directorate: an agency with an annual budget of 170 million rubles and a staff of many thousands.

He did not fight for power, but at the same time he made a huge number of enemies. Being too close to Stalin, Vlasik had the opportunity to influence the leader's attitude towards this or that person, deciding who would get wider access to the first person, and who would be denied such an opportunity.

The almighty head of the Soviet special services, Lavrenty Beria, passionately wanted to get rid of Vlasik. Compromising evidence on Stalin's bodyguard was scrupulously collected, drop by drop undermining the leader's confidence in him.

In 1948, the commandant of the so-called "Near Dacha" Fedoseev was arrested, who testified that Vlasik intended to poison Stalin. But the leader again did not take this accusation seriously: if the bodyguard had such intentions, he could have realized his plans a long time ago.

In 1952, by decision of the Politburo, a commission was established to verify the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. This time, extremely unpleasant facts have surfaced that look quite plausible. The guards and personnel of the special dachas, which had been empty for weeks, staged real orgies there, plundered food and expensive drinks. Later, there were witnesses who assured that Vlasik himself was not averse to relaxing in this way.

On April 29, 1952, on the basis of these materials, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his post and sent to the Urals, to the city of Asbest, as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"Cohabited with women and drank alcohol in his spare time"

Why did Stalin suddenly back down from a man who honestly served him for 25 years? Perhaps it was all the fault of the leader's growing suspicion in recent years. It is possible that Stalin considered the waste of state funds for drunken revelry too serious a sin. There is also a third assumption. It is known that during this period the Soviet leader began to promote young leaders, and openly told his former associates: "It's time to change you." Perhaps Stalin felt that the time had come to replace Vlasik as well.

Be that as it may, very difficult times have come for the former head of the Stalinist guard.

In December 1952, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Plot. He was blamed for the fact that he ignored the statements of Lydia Timashuk, who accused the professors who treated the first persons of the state of sabotage.

Vlasik himself wrote in his memoirs that there was no reason to believe Timashuk: "There was no data discrediting the professors, which I reported to Stalin."

In prison, Vlasik was interrogated with prejudice for several months. For a man who was already well over 50, the disgraced bodyguard held firm. I was ready to admit "moral decay" and even embezzlement, but not conspiracy and espionage. “I really cohabited with many women, drank alcohol with them and the artist Stenberg, but all this happened at the expense of my personal health and in my free time,” his testimony sounded.

Could Vlasik extend the life of the leader?

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away. Even if we discard the dubious version of the murder of the leader, Vlasik, if he had remained in his post, he could well have extended his life. When the leader became ill at the Near Dacha, he lay for several hours on the floor of his room without help: the guards did not dare to enter Stalin's chambers. There is no doubt that Vlasik would not have allowed this.

After the death of the leader, the "case of doctors" was closed. All of his defendants were released, except for Nikolai Vlasik. The collapse of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953 did not bring him freedom either.

In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Vlasik guilty of abuse of office under especially aggravating circumstances, sentenced under Art. 193-17 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of exile, deprivation of the rank of general and state awards. In March 1955, Vlasik's term was reduced to 5 years. He was sent to Krasnoyarsk to serve his sentence.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record, but he was not restored to military rank and awards.

“Not a single minute did I have in my soul anger at Stalin”

He returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. Vlasik knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote to the leaders of the party and government, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere.

Secretly, he began to dictate memoirs in which he talked about how he saw his life, why he did certain things, how he treated Stalin.

“After Stalin’s death, such an expression appeared as“ the cult of personality ”... If a person who is the leader of his affairs deserves the love and respect of others, what’s wrong with that ... The people loved and respected Stalin. He personified a country that he led to prosperity and victories, wrote Nikolai Vlasik. - Under his leadership, a lot of good things were done, and the people saw it. He enjoyed great prestige. I knew him very closely... And I affirm that he lived only for the interests of the country, the interests of his people.”

“It is easy to accuse a person of all mortal sins when he is dead and can neither justify nor defend himself. Why, during his lifetime, no one dared to point out to him his mistakes? What hindered? Fear? Or were there no such errors that should have been pointed out?

What Tsar Ivan IV was formidable for, but there were people who cared for their homeland, who, not fearing death, pointed out to him his mistakes. Or were brave people transferred to Russia? - so thought the Stalinist bodyguard.

Summing up his memoirs and his whole life in general, Vlasik wrote: “Without a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison.

But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger in my soul against Stalin. I perfectly understood what kind of atmosphere was created around him in the last years of his life. How difficult it was for him. He was an old, sick, lonely man ... He was and remains the most dear person to me, and no slander can shake the feeling of love and the deepest respect that I always had for this wonderful person. He personified for me everything bright and dear in my life - the party, the motherland and my people.

Posthumously rehabilitated

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died on June 18, 1967. His archive was seized and classified. Only in 2011, the Federal Security Service declassified the notes of the person who, in fact, stood at the origins of its creation.

Relatives of Vlasik have repeatedly made attempts to achieve his rehabilitation. After several refusals, on June 28, 2000, by a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia, the 1955 sentence was canceled, and the criminal case was dismissed "due to the lack of corpus delicti".