“Some nobleman rushed to the feet of a slave. He said that he had met Death at the bazaar, which threatened him with a finger, and begged the lord to give him a horse. The slave decided to escape from Death by fleeing to the city of Samarra. The grandee presented a slave with a horse, and he sped off, and the next day he went to the market and, meeting Death, asked: "Why did you scare my slave? Why did you threaten him with your finger?" “I didn’t scare him,” Death replied. “I was just very surprised to meet him in this city, because that evening I was to meet him in Samarra.”
(R.Shekli. "Mind exchange")
“Whoever is among the living, there is still hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
(Ecclesiastes Book 9, v. 4)
(R.Shekli. "Mind exchange")
“Whoever is among the living, there is still hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
(Ecclesiastes Book 9, v. 4)
Everything was like a banal spy novel. Night, the border and the Soviet officer with the rank of lieutenant-general, said accompanying him to the head of the frontier guard, that he was going to meet with an important agent. So, on the night of 14 June 1938 of the year, a person transferred to the “other side” across the Soviet-Manchurian border invested with the special trust of the party, the government, and personally Comrade Stalin, 3 rank state security commissioner Heinrich Lyushkov. Well, and being among the former enemies, he immediately asked them for political asylum and began to actively cooperate with Japanese intelligence. AT stories of the Soviet special services, he turned out to be the only traitor of such a rank — as did the lieutenant-general of the NKVD.

Heinrich Lyushkov
Not so long ago, several articles appeared on the VO website about shot Soviet commanders - Blyukher, Rychagove, Dybenko. And here, that cannot but be evident. They were all so stupid or blinded ... it is not clear what, as if they had not seen what was happening around them. They hoped for something ... And at first they themselves sat in the firing courts, and then they faced the same prosecutors, but only as defendants. Obviously, they believed that they would not touch them ...
But ... there were those who at least shot, not waiting for torture in the basements. True enough. Even fewer were those who dared to escape and even fewer those who succeeded. That is why the more interesting is the fate of one of the "most faithful" - Lieutenant-General of the NKVD, Heinrich Lyushkov.
The son of a Jewish cutter ...
One cannot even recall how many Jews came to the workers 'and peasants' revolution in Russia. In it, they rightly saw the opportunity to make a career. And right! Why was it not to take advantage of the opportunities? So Samuel Liushkov, a cutter’s son from Odessa, named Heinrich (born in 1900) graduated from college, but didn’t go to tailors, but got a job as a salesman in a store where they sold spare parts for cars - he realized that the future was for them business to be closer. As in the case of V.I. Lenin, was at the young Heinrich and older brother-revolutionary. And from him, he picked up "new ideas", engaged in underground work with him, and then in 17 years he joined the RSDLP. And as soon as the “revolution” took place, the young party member was at work in the Cheka. And then the “social elevator” carried him higher and higher, because as a person he was literate, loyal and executive.
Therefore, it is hardly necessary to be surprised that already in 19 years he became the Commissioner of the 14-th Separate Shock Army. In 20 for years, he was already the deputy head of the Cheka in Tiraspol, and in 1924, he became the head of the secret-political department in the central republican office of the GPU in Kharkov. There he worked for seven years and, apparently, did so well with his duties, that he was taken to Moscow, where he began to conduct the loudest political affairs of that time at the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
More than a successful career ...
In Stalin's USSR, many people were knocked out, what is called “out of the mud, and into riches”, became commanders, famous pilots ... So Lyushkov went upstairs very quickly along the career ladder. By 1937, his efforts had already repressed so many people that for these "merits" he was given the Order of Lenin. He was part of the notorious extrajudicial "triples", when three people, who usually did not have any legal education, literally for one minute, and in absentia and without any lawyers, condemned people, looking only at the materials of the case that they represented Im NKVD authorities. Minimum time, minimum interest in the fate of a person. The main thing was a plan lowered to one area or another from above, and then also the desire to over-fulfill it! Planning - it was generally the basis of Soviet society in everything ...
And Heinrich Lyushkov, as the faithful son of the party and the working people, proved himself so well in this field that Stalin himself noticed him and even invited him to the Kremlin, and had a whole conversation with him for 15 minutes. And, apparently, Lyushkov comrade Stalin liked, he knew how, so to speak, “select personnel”, because, as he did after this conversation, he headed the NKVD throughout the Far East. It is clear that an energetic man was needed there, capable of most ruthlessly destroying the kulaks, the priests, all sorts of former White Guards, and at the same time the criminals, and, of course, their own security officers. Well, those that have already done their job and whose services the party no longer needed.
And here Lyushkov again showed himself as well as possible. Apparently the leader’s inspirational look had a strong effect on him. Having directive No. 00447 “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements”, Heinrich Samuilovich began by finding and disarming the 40 security officers - that is, almost all of the previous leadership of the local NKVD administration together with its head, the old Bolshevik Terentiy Deribas. Moreover, Lyushkov did not for a moment stop the fact that Deribas was a state security commissar of rank 1, that is, he was a general of the army. At the same time, according to the “recommendation” of Lyushkov, the head of “Dalstroy” (a “trust” such was in the GULAG system), the honored chekist Eduard Berzin, was also shot. Well ... he was a spy and did not work well, naturally ... Through the efforts of Lyushkov in the Far East, thousands of people were repressed - in fact, the entire old party and KGB elite who organized a "Far Eastern right-Trotskyist conspiracy" there. One only did not understand the failed tailor that he himself would be the next in line for execution - Heinrich Lyushkov.
Intrigue system
In the meantime, for their successes in the work of eradicating the enemies of the people, the loyal security officer-Stalin was elected deputy of the Supreme Council. But, only for some reason, when he arrived in the capital for a meeting, it turned out that he was being watched and followed this surveillance. I noticed, but did not know yet that “the car is already rolling” along the approved and “rolling path”. Meanwhile, the Chekists, who were arrested at that time, were already demanded to stipulate Lyushkov before being shot, and it is clear that they did it. Why spare him something? Today we die, so die as you, at least tomorrow! And the first who realized that the general, in fact, already dead, was his colleague in the bodies and deputy mandate, the commander of 1 rank Mikhail Frinovsky, to whom Heinrich Samuilovich had just complained about the surveillance he had noticed.
And then it was Frinovsky who was sent a year later to the Far East — for the new purge of the NKVD apparatus, the border troops, and in order to “restore order” already behind Lyushkov himself. In the spring of 1938, his deputies, the generals of the NKVD, MA, were arrested. Kagan and I.M. Leplevsky, who surrendered their boss for a minute immediately. And then Marshal Blucher, who was not arrested at that time, although standing in line, also threw out his weighty word. And already here, of course, after such an “authoritative signal” the failed tailor was immediately summoned to Moscow, while at the same time he was removed from his post. True, it seems only to appoint a new post in the NKVD of the USSR. But from the telegram of Yezhov, who was his direct leader, Lyushkov learned that no post for him in the central office of the NKVD was ever foreseen. This could only mean one thing: the inevitable arrest upon arrival in the capital. Lyushkov immediately understood everything and made an attempt to organize an escape for his family abroad. But it did not. His wife was arrested and then sent to a camp, and his stepdaughter was taken up by relatives. That is, they could not get abroad. But on the other hand, now Lyushkov didn’t have anything to lose except his “successful KGB past.” Therefore, in early June, he went to Posyet, where he crossed the border, surrendering to the Japanese, who at that time already occupied the whole of Manchuria. Apparently, he decided that it was better to become a “living dog” rather than play the role of another “dead lion”. More than a week before the message came from Japan, Lyushkov was considered missing, believing that he was possibly abducted or killed by the Japanese.
Pure Japanese thanks ...
For almost seven years, Lyushkov worked first in the intelligence department of the Imperial Army General Staff (Bureau for East Asia Studies), and after that in the headquarters of the Kwantung Army. For a start, he gave the entire Soviet agent network in the Far East to the Japanese, which doomed a lot of people to wild torture and death, informed all radio codes of points of contact and spoke about all the operational plans of the Red Army in the event of war, including not only Siberia, but also Ukraine. He also drew detailed maps and charts of all border fortifications for the Japanese and gave the most detailed information, which they would not have received from hundreds of spies, about the locations of Soviet troops in the Far East, including their numbers and all data on their weapons. But life is a fun thing! Richard Sorge managed to access his report and photographed the most important pages. When the film reached Moscow, they were horrified: Lyushkov gave everything he knew. True, having learned all this, and then also by checking, the Japanese saw that the forces of the Red Army were many times greater than their own in this area, and in the end did not dare to begin military operations against the USSR. In addition, knowing the security system of the Stalin dacha in the Crimea, which he himself had organized at the time, he proposed the most realistic project of the assassination attempt on Stalin. Its development was begun, but the plan failed because of the actions of the Soviet counterintelligence. That is, Lyushkov worked for the Japanese, not for fear, but for conscience, although it is still unknown so accurately whether he told them everything and whether there was a certain amount of misinformation in his messages. In any case, the Japanese "thanked" Lyushkov purely samurai: in August 1945, he was killed by them in Dairen, so that if something did not fall into the hands of Russians or Americans, he knew too much. Thus, by his betrayal, he won seven years of life and nothing more. But, on the other hand, before his death at least they did not beat him with rubber sticks ...
Aftermath
Once behind the “iron curtain”, Lyushkov told a lot of interesting things about “living in the USSR”. So, 13 July 1938, in an interview with the Japanese newspaper "Yomiuri Shimbun", he stated:
“I until recently committed great crimes against the people, since I actively cooperated with Stalin in carrying out his policy of deception and terrorism. I'm really a traitor. But I am a traitor only in relation to Stalin ... These are the immediate reasons for my escape from the USSR, but this is not the end of the story. There are more important and fundamental reasons that motivated me to act like that.
This is what I am convinced that the Leninist principles have ceased to be the basis of the party’s policy. I first felt the hesitations since the murder of Kirov by Nikolayev at the end of 1934. This case was fatal for the country as well as for the party. I was then in Leningrad. I was not only directly involved in the investigation of the murder of Kirov, but also actively participated in public trials and executions carried out after the Kirov case under the leadership of Yezhov. I dealt with the following cases:
The case of the so-called Leningrad terrorist center at the beginning of 1935.
The case of the terrorist center about conspiracy against Stalin in the Kremlin in 1935.
The case of the so-called Trotsky-Zinoviev joint center in August 1936
Before the whole world, I can certify with full responsibility that all these imaginary conspiracies never existed and all of them were deliberately fabricated.
Nikolaev certainly did not belong to the Zinoviev group. He was a crazy man suffering from delusions of grandeur. He decided to die to go down in history as a hero. This is clear from his diary.
At the trial, which took place in August 1936, the accusation that the Trotskyists through Olberg 1). They were connected with the German Gestapo, accusations against Zinoviev and Kamenev of espionage, accusations that Zinoviev and Kamenev were connected with the so-called "right center" through Tomsk, 2). Rykov and Bukharin, - fully fabricated. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky, Rykov, Bukharin and many others were executed as enemies of Stalin who opposed his destructive policies.
Stalin used the opportunity presented in connection with the Kirov case to get rid of these people through the fabrication of extensive anti-Stalinist conspiracies, espionage processes and terrorist organizations.
So Stalin got rid of all measures from political opponents and from those who may become them in the future. Stalin's diabolical methods led to the fall even very sophisticated and strong people. His events gave rise to many tragedies. This happened not only because of Stalin’s hysterical suspicion, but also on the basis of his firm determination to get rid of all the Trotskyists and right-wingers who are Stalin’s political opponents and may present themselves as a political danger in the future ... ”
Lyushkov said that the sensational confessions of espionage and sabotage were in fact dislodged from those convicted by cruel torture and threats of new torture. In confirmation of the correctness of his words, he published the suicide letter he had seized with himself to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of the former Assistant Commander of the Independent Red Banner Far Eastern Army for the Air Force A.Ya. Lapin, who committed suicide in a Khabarovsk prison. Revealing to the whole world the secrets of Stalin’s terror, Lyushkov did not hide his own active participation in these bloody affairs ...
Naturally, Lyushkov in the 1939 year in the USSR was sentenced to death in absentia, and his escape affected the career of the People's Commissar of the NKVD Ezhov ... Well, and all the staff assigned to their places who escaped Lyushkov were immediately arrested and executed.