Hero of the revolution
Nikolai Vladimirovich Skritsky in his book “The most famous naval commanders of Russia” wrote: “It so happened that the distant descendant of Lieutenant D.S. Ilyin, the hero of the Chesme battle, F.F. Ilyin (Raskolnikov) over the centuries was at the head flotilla, which achieved one of the first victories of the Soviet fleet. His father, Fedor Alexandrovich Petrov, was the protodeacon of all the artillery of the cathedral of Sergievsky and committed suicide when he was 15 years old. Mother, the daughter of a major general, came from a clan dating back to Prince Dmitry Andreevich Galichsky, and her ancestors, Ilyin, were military. She sent Fyodor Raskolnikov in the fall of 1900 to the shelter of the prince of Oldenburg, who had the rights of a real school. "
And there is. According to official data, Fyodor Raskolnikov was the illegitimate son of Protodeacon Fyodor Petrov and the daughter of Major General Antonina Vasilyevna Ilina. He was born in 1892 year. After the death of the father, the mother identified the son to the orphanage. It happened in 1900 year. Nine years later, Fyodor Raskolnikov entered the Polytechnic Institute in St. Petersburg. It is known that he joined the Bolsheviks at the end of the 1910 of the year. At the same time, Raskolnikov stated that, together with Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, he worked in the "Bolshevik faction of the Polytechnic Institute".
In 1912, Fedor Raskolnikov tried himself in the journalistic field. And for a couple of years he was an employee of the Zvezda and Pravda newspapers. But his career cut short the First World War. He was not eager to go to the front. Raskolnikov explained his position by saying that the bloodshed is at odds with his convictions. And in order to avoid participation in hostilities, Raskolnikov became a listener to individual midshipmen classes (midshipman - the rank of noncommissioned officers in the Russian Imperial Navy, which existed from 1716 up to 1917). Just in 1917, Fedor Fedorovich them and graduated.
And if the First World War did pass by him, the February revolution opened up great opportunities and prospects for the young man. He managed to get the post of chairman of the Kronstadt Council. But soon (after the July crisis), Raskolnikov was arrested and identified in Kresty. True, there he did not stay long and was released in October of the same 1917 of the year.
Circled Raskolnikov and the maelstrom of the October Revolution. Fedor Fedorovich was noted in the suppression of the famous speech of Kerensky-Krasnov on Petrograd. After that, he took part in the battles in Moscow. When the passions subsided a bit, Raskolnikov was elected to the Constituent Assembly. And at a meeting in January 1918, Fedor Fedorovich read out a declaration stating that the Bolshevik faction was leaving. Already in the spring, he was appointed deputy Lev Davidovich Trotsky - Commissar of the People’s Commissariat (People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR for Maritime Affairs). Raskolnikov, executing the order of the Council of People's Commissars, sank the Black Sea Fleet in June 1918. And next month, Fedor Fedorovich became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front. And a month later he received a responsible position - he became the commander of the Volga military flotilla.
Raskolnikov noted participation in the seizure of Kazan, which occurred in September 1918. And then his flotilla set out to march on Kame.
During the campaign the flotilla under the leadership of Fyodor Fedorovich stumbled upon the so-called "death barge" in the village of Golyan. Raskolnikov's sailors managed to save more than four hundred people who were to die with the ship.
Soon Raskolnikov was waiting for a new appointment - he became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. It happened in the fall of 1918. And in December, Fyodor Fyodorovich was captured by British sailors. This event occurred during the campaign of the Soviet destroyers "Spartak" and "Avtoil" on Tallinn. That operation ended disgracefully. Both vessels, along with crews, were captured. People were transported to Brixton Prison in London.
But for a foreign lattice Raskolnikov did not last long. At the end of May 1919, the USSR and Britain exchanged prisoners, and Fedor Fedorovich was among the lucky ones. This event occurred in the village of Beloostrov, near Petrograd. Captivity in no way affected the career of Raskolnikov. Moreover, in June he was entrusted with the post of commander of the Astrakhan-Caspian flotilla. Soon he became the head of the Volga-Caspian military flotilla. In 1919, Raskolnikov participated in the defense of Tsaritsyn, and a year later he landed in the Iranian port of Enzeli. The meaning of the operation was that it was necessary to return the ship of the Caspian fleet stolen by the White Guards. Since everything went smoothly, Raskolnikov was honored with two Orders of the Red Banner.
Fedor Fedorovich was also noted as the commander of the Baltic Fleet. Assar, chairman of the Kronstadt department of the Baltic Fleet, recalled: “Raskolnikov considered the sailors to be second-class men. The sailors were starving, and the commander of the Baltic Fleet and his wife lived in a luxurious mansion, kept servants, ate delicacies and did not deny themselves anything.
But in this position Fedor Fedorovich was not for long. In 1921, he was made the plenipotentiary representative of the RSFSR (then the USSR) in Afghanistan. In the early thirties, he held a similar position in Estonia, then in Denmark. And in 1934, he went to Bulgaria. But in April, 1938 of his career drove through the rink of repression.
The Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union suddenly summoned Raskolnikov with his family. They left Sofia and went to the USSR. Since I had to do a transplant in Berlin, Fedor Fedorovich had a bit of free time. Probably, he already guessed why he was called. Fears confirmed one of the German newspapers, which Raskolnikov acquired at the station. From her he learned about his dismissal of the plenipotentiary in Bulgaria. Fears were confirmed. It became obvious that Fedor Fedorovich was awaiting the sad fate of many other prominent figures - the arrest and subsequent execution. And then he decided to escape. And instead of the USSR, he and his family went to France. But did not immediately report this. Raskolnikov decided to win some time, explaining in the letters the reasons for his delay by “formality”.
In Paris, Raskolnikov even met with the Soviet ambassador to France, Jacob Suritz. The diplomat said to his former colleague that the challenge is pure formality and the country's leadership has no complaints about it. The power is that the alarming “unauthorized stay abroad.” It is necessary to return home as quickly as possible to eliminate this misunderstanding. But Raskolnikov, of course, did not believe Suritsa.
"Enemy of the people"
But Raskolnikov was also not believed in his homeland. And in July 1939, the Supreme Court of the USSR declared Raskolnikov outlawed. This meant that he was only waiting for the execution. This decree “On outlawing officials - citizens of the USSR abroad, who fled into the camp of the enemies of the working class and the peasantry and refused to return to the USSR” was adopted in November 1929.
Raskolnikov understood his position perfectly. But it was too late to retreat. Stalin would never forgive him. Therefore, at the end of July in the Paris Russian émigré newspaper “Last news"He published a letter titled" How I was made an "enemy of the people." Fedor Fedorovich also began work on his legendary “Open Letter to Stalin”, where he described in detail all the horrors happening in the Soviet Union. The work was completed in mid-August, but Raskolnikov did not have time to publish it. He was crushed by the news of the non-aggression treaty between the USSR and Germany, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Fedor Fedorovich was in Nice and found out about it from local newspapers. Since he was a supporter of the alliance with France and England, the news made a strong impression on him and literally broke it. Raskolnikov believed that Germany could not be trusted, since Hitler could strike at the most unexpected moment.
When he learned about the Treaty, he fell into the so-called reactive psychosis. And my wife had to call the doctors. Raskolnikov was assigned to a psychiatric clinic and ... 12 September of the same year he was gone. It is still unknown what happened to Fedor Fedorovich. All available versions are very different from each other. At the same time, none of them has one hundred percent confirmation.
Nina Berberova in the book "Iron Woman" (biography, published in New York in 1981 year) wrote that Raskolnikov finally went crazy in a psychiatric clinic. And during a sharp aggravation I threw myself out of the window of my chamber, located on the fifth floor. Of course, they failed to save the former plenipotentiary of the USSR But the version raises many questions, since Berberova herself did not see anything of this. She at that moment was not next to Fedor Fedorovich. And her version does not have at least any documentary evidence. So, it is likely that Nina Nikolaevna embellished Raskolnikov’s death.
The widow of Fedor Fedorovich, Muza Vasilievna Raskolnikov-Kanivez, claimed that her husband died not as a result of suicide, but because of acute pneumonia. Like, he picked it up while he was in a psychiatric clinic, and the doctors did not try to help him.
There is a third version, probably the most popular. Publicist Roy Medvedev advanced the theory that Raskolnikov actually died at the hands of NKVD agents. But, like the other versions, this one does not have at least some kind of evidence base. There is no document confirming the targeted liquidation of Raskolnikov. In addition, according to the official version, the special department of the NKVD, which was engaged in eliminating the "enemies of the people" abroad, had already been disbanded. But after the collapse of the USSR, as it is known, it became fashionable to chase after ghosts and see handprints of Chekists in everything.
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As for the letter to Stalin, it was published in September 1939 of the year in the émigré newspaper Novaya Rossiya. Raskolnikov himself at this point, as mentioned above, was no longer alive. In his message Fedor Fedorovich, as they say, went through the roller on all the visible and hidden problems of the USSR. Well, the main villain was, of course, Joseph Vissarionovich. By and large, Raskolnikov told him everything that others were afraid to say. It is understandable, in Nice it was still easier to do.
In the letter, Raskolnikov harshly criticized the entire system of power, which was subordinate to Stalin: “For my part, I answer with complete reciprocity: I return you the entrance ticket to the“ kingdom of socialism ”you have built and break with your regime. Your “socialism”, with the triumph of which its builders found a place only behind the prison bars, is as far from true socialism as the arbitrariness of your personal dictatorship has nothing to do with the dictatorship of the proletariat. It will not help you if the honorable revolutionary revolutionary N.A. Morozov awarded with the order confirms that it was for such “socialism” that he spent 20 years of his life under the vaults of the Schlusselburg fortress ”.
Raskolnikov did not ignore reprisals: “With the help of dirty forgeries, you dramatized the trials that surpassed the medieval witch trials with the absurdity of the accusations. You yourself know that Pyatakov did not fly to Oslo, that Maxim Gorky died a natural death and Trotsky did not dump the train derailed. Knowing that everything is a lie, you encourage your minions ... As you know, I have never been a Trotskyite. On the contrary, I fought ideologically against all oppositions in the press and in wide meetings. And now I do not agree with the political position of Trotsky, with his program and tactics. Fundamentally diverging from Trotsky, I consider him an honest revolutionary. I do not believe and will never believe in his collusion with Hitler and Hess ... "
In a letter, Fyodor Fyodorovich called Stalin an “oath-breaker” because he believed that Joseph Vissarionovich had violated Lenin's testament. I remembered the comrades of Vladimir Ilyich, who were shot: “You slandered, dishonored and shot Lenin's long-term comrades-in-arms: Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov and others, whose innocence was well known to you. Before dying, you forced them to repent of crimes they had never committed, and smeared themselves with mud from head to toe.
And where are the heroes of the October Revolution? Where is Bubnov? Where is Krylenko? Where is Antonov-Ovseenko? Where is Dybenko? You arrested them, Stalin. Where is the old guard? She is not alive. You shot her, Stalin. You corrupted and dirtied the souls of your comrades. You forced those following you with torment and disgust to walk through the puddles of blood of yesterday's comrades and friends. In a lying stories Party, written under your leadership. You have robbed the dead, murdered and disgraced by you people and arrogated to themselves their exploits and achievements. You destroyed the party of Lenin, and on its bones you built a new "party of Lenin - Stalin," which serves as a successful cover for your autocracy. "
Of course, he could not get past the purge of the military, accusing Stalin of the fabrication of the “Tukhachevsky case”. He did not disregard Raskolnikov and harsh censorship in his work: “You have squeezed art in a vice, from which it suffocates, withers and dies out. The frenzy of censorship intimidated by you and the understandable timidity of the editors, who are responsible for everything with their heads, led to the ossification and paralysis of Soviet literature. The writer can not be printed, the playwright can not put the play on the stage of the theater, the critic can not express his personal opinion, not marked by the official stamp. You are strangling Soviet art, demanding that it be courtly lisoblyudstvo, but it prefers to remain silent, so as not to sing “hosanna” to you. You spread pseudo-art, which with annoying monotony glorifies your notorious “genius”, which has become sick of teeth. The worthless clowns glorify you as a demigod, "born of the moon and the sun," and you, as an oriental despot, enjoy the incense of coarse flattery.
You ruthlessly exterminate the talented, but personally disagreeable Russian writers. Where is Boris Pilnyak? Where is Sergey Tretyakov? Where is Alexander Arosev? Where is Mikhail Koltsov? Where is Tarasov Rodionov? Where is Galina Serebryakova, guilty of being a wife of Sokolnikov? You arrested them, Stalin. ”
Raskolnikov criticized Stalin both for domestic and foreign policy: “In the terrible hour of military danger, when the edge of fascism is directed against the Soviet Union, when the struggle for Danzig and the war in China is only preparing a springboard for future intervention against the USSR, when the main object of Germani- Japanese aggression - our homeland, when the only way to prevent war is the open entry of the Union of Soviets into the International Bloc of Democratic States, the earliest conclusion of a military and political alliance with England and Franz And, you hesitate, wait and swing like a pendulum between two "axes". In all calculations of your foreign and domestic policy, you do not start out of love for the Motherland, which is alien to you, but of animal fear of losing personal power. Your unprincipled dictatorship, like rotten, lies across the road of our country. "
At the end of his letter, Raskolnikov predicted to Stalin the dock that awaits him "as a traitor to socialism and revolution, the main wrecker, a genuine enemy of the people, an organizer of famine and judicial fraud."
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That defector's message did not cause a serious resonance after publication. It is understandable, in Europe at that time, and their problems enough. Few were interested in the confession of a defector. It remained the same unnoticed in the Soviet Union. It is not known whether Stalin knew about him. And even if you knew, did not respond. Joseph Vissarionovich understood that it was pointless to focus on the defect.
In 1963, Fedor Fedorovich rehabilitated. His letter became public only in the eighties. The people actively discussed it. Some were horrified by the situation in the country, while others believed that Raskolnikov was greatly offended, so he wrote a sentimental “fairy tale”. But soon the citizens of the USSR switched to current problems. What is the difference what happened then, if now comes a frightening and incomprehensible restructuring?