A crime against improvement. The Great Terror - a method of preserving two-channel control
The theme of the Big Terror is very extensive. She has long been investigated by a bunch of people. The main part of what I know and think about this topic is, of course, not my own ideas, but the arguments of various researchers. Almost everything that I am now going to tell is the materials from Yury Nikolaevich Zhukov’s books “Ina Stalin” and Elena Anatolyevna Prudnikova’s “Khrushchev. The creators of terror ”(these books, like many other creations of these authors, are available both on paper and on the Internet). Something taken from the works of Yuri Ignatievich Mukhin - very enthusiastic, but able to get to the bottom of the facts, radically changing the whole picture. Vladimir Mikhailovich Chunikhin studied the leader’s managerial style in detail (his articles so far lie only on the Samizdat website and are not presented on paper). But still quite a lot about this, I thought out on my own. At least, further, the order of presentation and grouping of information - mine (and some conclusions, I hope, also). Nevertheless, I strongly recommend reading these books in full, because there are many other topics that I, naturally, will not be able to touch on in a small article.Political supervision
Common to all revolutions, how many of them stories there was a problem - inherited experts. Immediately after the revolution, of course, everyone who knows and knows something is people brought up under the previous regime. They absorbed the system of priorities of the previous regime - it was not even specific recipes for behavior, but a system of priorities, that is: what is more important, what to take into account in the first place. Accordingly, when a specialist faces a choice between various options for action, he makes this choice on the basis of the system of priorities formed under the old regime - not because of his own personal evil will, but simply because he has this system, as they say, subcortex sits on autopilot and works. In those cases when he thinks about the motives for choosing an option, he may well make this choice taking into account the new regime, on the basis of a new system of priorities. But more often than not, he doesn’t think about motives - he has, after all, enough purely professional cares: before choosing options, they must also be thought out and thought out.
Since the problem is common and very old, its solution is also known for a long time and everywhere - the “commander plus commissioner” system. The specialist makes decisions based on his knowledge and his life experience. The political controller ensures that these decisions do not enter too explicit (and implicit, he, alas, most likely will not notice - this requires special knowledge) contradictions with the system of priorities of the new regime, and points out to the specialist the revealed contradictions so that made other decisions - and at the same time made an amendment to his internal sight.
The very word “commissar” appeared during the Great French Bourgeois Revolution - but, naturally, this decision existed long before it. For example, during an equally great and equally bourgeois English revolution, almost all members of parliament left for the army formed by parliament and fighting against the forces of the king, precisely so that the forces of parliament would act in accordance with the wishes of parliament. True, some members of parliament, such as Oliver Robertovich Cromwell, turned out to be good commanders themselves, but this is what is called a free bonus, the very purpose of being a member of the army was political: to ensure that the troops of the parliament acted in the interests of parliament and in no other.
Well, the matter ends, naturally, with the fact that sooner or later (ten to twenty years, as a rule, that is, during the time needed for a change of generations), a new generation of specialists is formed that was brought up under the new regime and, accordingly, since childhood absorbed in the system of priorities of the new regime. It is clear that they no longer need the supervision of the commissars, and the emergency control system — two-channel — is replaced by a peace-time management system — one-channel.
I repeat, this is a completely common problem and solution, encountered at all times, among all peoples experiencing a change of social order. This system is just noticeable during revolutions. After all, let's say, a smooth transition from slavery to feudalism took several centuries - this time was enough for the new generation to form naturally, and nobody paid attention to the change of the priority system, nobody noticed it. But in revolutionary conditions, when the change of generations occurs quickly, it is very noticeable and very acutely experienced.
Our fatherland is no exception
Our country has also experienced a revolution. Accordingly, we also have a “commander plus commissar” system. Moreover, it was formed not only in the armed forces, but also in peaceful life. Moreover, just in Soviet times, this system was in demand in civilian life almost more than in military life, since socialism provides for the active role of the state in economic life, and, accordingly, even specialists in economic life required constant political oversight.
And we, like the rest of the world, have, through a generation, formed managers who do not need political oversight. First of all, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili naturally paid attention to this, since he was undoubtedly one of the world's best managers of that era and felt all such nuances much better than his colleagues. Accordingly, in the mid-thirties, he started a whole range of measures for the transition from the two-channel system “commander plus commissar” to single-channel — when specialists lead economic life without constant political oversight, and politicians are engaged only in social and political education and development of strategic goals — that is, What should (by definition!) be politicians and what they do in the world.
The system of legislative changes was extensive and diversified. First of all, the charter of the ruling party changed. By the way, the ruling party at that moment was the only one in the country at all - but she herself, when this situation had just formed, was pretty much her. After the famous Left-Socialist Revolution of 1918.07.06, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov repeatedly and variously complained that the Communist Party was left without an opponent at all and therefore runs the risk of making mistakes that no one would notice on time. On the basis of this, he drew a conclusion: it is necessary to sharply increase the inner-party control. But, unfortunately, quite soon the vicissitudes of the political struggle during the civil war led to a formal decision to ban factions - that is, organized internal opposition - within the Communist Party itself. As a result, as he foresaw, the party made quite a few mistakes, which no one identified in time as mistakes. When Dzhugashvili and his closest associates, who also understood (in his words or independently) what the current situation is about, began to carry out organizational reform, it was very versatile, but first of all they changed the statute of the ruling party.
Changed and the laws of the state. There was even a new constitution. Moreover, this constitution, for the first time in the history of our country, introduced universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage.
What it is? Before, for example, the system for electing councils in our country looked like (if we ignore some minor technical details) a pyramid. Collections of collectives - mainly at the place of work - nominate deputies of local councils of rural and settlement levels. At the meetings of these councils, their deputies elect from among themselves the deputies of district councils. Those, in turn, elect at their meetings, from among themselves, deputies of regional councils, and so on. Voting is usually open. The number of councils of different levels is such that in fact the voice of one worker is equal to about three voices of peasants. But this is nothing, because in the imperial time during the elections to the State Duma, the voice of one ordinary citizen corresponded to about five peasant voices, the voice of a merchant corresponded to three to four votes of ordinary citizens, and I don’t remember the exact number of a nobleman (yes revised several times), but something like this. This is what indirect and unequal suffrage is.
So, according to the constitution adopted by 1936.12.05, the councils of all levels, without exception, were elected by direct secret and equal voting of the citizens themselves. Moreover, previously there were so-called “deprived people”, that is, certain categories of citizens (mostly those who, under the previous regime, had the opportunity to exploit the labor of others; but not only them), were completely deprived of the right to elect or be elected. And according to the new constitution, such a right had any citizen who was not deprived of it individually - by a court decision.
By the way, when discussing this issue in the party organs (in my opinion, at one of the plenary meetings of the Central Committee), someone even asked: what will happen if they choose a priest or a former landowner? To which Dzhugashvili immediately replied: if this happens, it will mean that we have done a poor job in the area, because we could not prove to the working people, who constitute the majority of voters, that we will protect their interests better than a pop or former landowner. It is quite logical reasoning for the imputed politician. The only trouble is that by that time, not all domestic politicians have got rid of the skills of the rage of the Civil War.
In the end, Dzhugashvili and his team managed to make almost all of the planned changes. As Yury Nikolayevich Zhukov notes, the last straw that caused the extremely harsh reaction of the majority of party apparatchiks was the preparation of an electoral law providing for alternative voting - that is, the nomination of several candidates in each electoral district. But this was exactly the last drop in the big bowl.
Income warden
The point here, of course, is not only that, as they say, the cat knows whose meat has eaten, and many party apparatchiks understood that in the case of alternative elections they most likely have no chance (by the way, let me remind you that when Mikhail Gorbachev organized alternative election councils, they really very many party apparatchiks, they say, rolled). The point is also that the position of the Commissioner has many benefits. Moreover, these benefits are the greater, the better the commander works. Because then the commissioner has almost no work left, but he acquires a huge set of opportunities to attribute all the successes of the commander to his own sensitive and wise leadership. In addition, as is well known, only the one who does nothing is not mistaken - anyone who does can be found to have mistakes, and, understanding this threat, many commanders bought off commissioners. Roughly speaking, the secretary of the district committee arrives at the sponsored collective farm, and when he goes back in the trunk of his car a lot of various products of this collective farm. He arrives at the plant - and leaves with all sorts of valuable gifts (for example, the director - 1938 – 42 - of the Kirov factory Isaac Moiseevich Zaltsman is known, among other things, that many party leaders of different levels received from him at visits to the factory gifts decorated with precious stones, how he mined money for these stones remained unknown - but, apparently, he mined them at the cost of some losses in the work of the plant). It is clear that I really do not want to part with such a feeder. Even if a person does not give himself a report in the motives of his decisions, and believes that he is guided solely by the most noble intentions, he will still be fighting with all sorts of means and ways against everything that separates him from the trough.
I will not retell the details of the political struggle around the law on alternative elections - I advise you to read Zhukov’s book on this subject. But in general, the transcripts of the two plenums - the February – March and June in 1937 — the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) look very interesting. And very similar. The members of the Politburo tell in detail what new tasks the party faces in connection with the adoption of the new Constitution and how these tasks are best solved. And the party secretaries of the regional and republican levels, who make up the majority in the Central Committee, do not even react to these words of the politburo members, but reason: the situation in the country is extremely tense - they pressure it from the outside, and inside there are some diversions and other dirty tricks - and rightly so You, Joseph Vissarionovich, have warned us that as socialism is built, the class struggle will escalate.
Class approach
Joseph Vissarionovich, judging by his remarks, quietly tearing his hair. After all, he did speak about the aggravation of the class struggle - but spoke in specific circumstances and on a specific occasion. Namely, during collectivization, when the kulaks were eliminated as a class.
We have now decided to declare that the essence of this liquidation was the extermination of all strong owners. But “liquidation as a class” is in no way physical destruction. Class - a place in the system of social relations. To liquidate as a class - to change the system of social relations so that this place in it does not remain at all. What is a fist? This is not at all a strong owner (they were called middle peasants): the fist is a village moneylender. With money in the village is bad - basically bad, because in the village life money is needed much less than in the city. Therefore, the fists operated not with money, but in kind. I will give you a sack of grain for sowing - and you will return three sacks for me (this is godly, because the crop is more often than just three, that is, the ratio “you sow one, you get three”; and it happened that half of the crop was demanded for sowing grain, no matter how big it was). I'll give you a horse to plow the field - only you will plow my field first, and then you will have your field. Clearly, the usurer needs the poor - those who can not do without his services. But during collectivization, a farm is created that is capable of being put together - by joint efforts - to acquire the fact that the poor are forced one by one to take from the usurer. That is, the collective farm does not need a usurer. This is the elimination of the kulaks as a class — changing the way they live in such a way that life simply does not need moneylenders.
Obviously, the usurers themselves struggled with this. Fought in different ways. The kulak terror is not at all a figure of propaganda speech, but a very real and several years old phenomenon. For example, in Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov's “Raised Virgin Land” in general, the picture of collectivization is described quite adequately, and the scale of the kulak terror is even fairly underestimated. Really shot and set on fire much more than in this novel.
By the time the new Constitution was adopted, collectivization had long been completed. Fists - not even people who were fists, but the circumstances in which a person could be a fist - no more. Almost everyone who used to be fists, have already found other activities for themselves - usually safe for others. Accordingly, at that moment no aggravation of the class struggle on the basis of dispossession could smell. But the party secretaries insisted on this very aggravation - also because, to be honest, many of them did not really understand who the fist was. It is known that even when discussing this issue at the beginning of collectivization, the Kalinin thought more or less correctly about this topic: he himself was a worker, though in the first generation — that is, a native of the village. And all the other members of the Politburo of that time, the city dwellers from the very beginning, were mistaken on this topic in various ways and only very gradually were able to work out more or less correct formulations, as they say, using a scientific method. So it may very well be that many party leaders at these very same 1937 plenary sessions of the year were also completely sincerely mistaken.
But the motive of class struggle in their actions was undoubtedly present. Although they were completely different classes and completely different struggle.
The above definition of class as a place in the social division of labor is not orthodox Marxist. Karl Heinrikhovich himself singled out classes only in their relation to the ownership of the means of production. But this is only the largest division, sufficient only to clarify the main driving forces of history over entire eras. Essentially, the smaller strata of society are also important. Marx can only be justified by the relatively weak division of labor in his times. But even a few decades later, the difference between laborers, artisans, the labor aristocracy was far from obvious to a significant part of the Social Democrats (Iosif Dzhugashvili felt this difference, it seems much clearer than Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, for much longer engaged in the creation of circles at industrial enterprises). And the difference in the public roles of figures of the same chain - for example: the designer; a marketer who composes a specification for a project; the head of the design bureau, who wants both of them to reduce the cost of construction at any cost, despite all its other qualities, is not obvious not only to Western sociologists (they distinguish classes only by income level, so that Marx's theory is forgotten), but even most of the modern communists.
Bureaucracy is undoubtedly a class. Marx, focused primarily on property relations, said that it turns the state itself into its private property. For each concrete bureaucrat, this sounds like a great exaggeration: what kind of property is this, if it can be taken away with a simple order of dismissal! But for the bureaucracy as a whole, the state apparatus is an undoubted means of livelihood, and it provides not only a regular income in the form of a salary (the term “wages” is not quite suitable here, because there is no clear connection between the result of work and its payment), but also many additional amenities (such as the benefits mentioned above, which the commissioners derive from the supervision of commanders). So the bureaucracy has quite class interests. These interests became the subject of protection at the plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) in 1937.
Decision making
Be that as it may, the case ended with the fact that the state of emergency in the country was officially recognized. The June Plenum held a decision, subsequently known as the Great Terror. For all the indisputability of the very fact of the involvement of the majority of the Central Committee in the formation of the atmosphere of extraordinary measures (which is evident from the transcripts of the plenary sessions), there is still no consensus: under what circumstances was the decision made.
Say, Yuri Nikolayevich Zhukov believes: the last straw was a letter Eikhe. It is known that the evening before the last day of the plenum, the first secretary of the West Siberian Regional Party Committee, Robert Indrikovich Eiche, brought a letter to the politburo members. The letter has not survived. Under Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, the archives (first of all, the party archives) were seriously cleaned. But Zhukov tried, by indirect evidence, to reconstruct the content of this letter. And he came up with something like the following: “I have just been informed that the regional department of internal affairs revealed a big conspiracy among the former kulaks, who were exiled to the West Siberian region in the order of dispossession. The plot is very extensive, and a kulak insurgency can happen at any moment. The only way to prevent it is to immediately arrest anyone who, according to circumstantial data, may be involved in this plot, and only then, after removing the urgency of the situation, to understand all the details of who is to blame. ” Well, I had to give him extraordinary powers. And at the same time - to other party secretaries, because they - according to their own stories at the plenum - were just as tense.
A natural question arises: why, in fact, did the politburo take the lead from Eyhe? Yes, because by that time the position of the majority of the members of the Central Committee was already revealed. If the politburo had not given Eiche's letter a move, then at the plenum on the last day he would come to the podium and say: there is such important information, and the politburo ignores it. Then the plenum could simply re-elect all the politburo. After all, whatever the powers of the members of the Politburo in the interval between the plenary sessions, but at the Plenum itself they are quite ordinary members of the Central Committee, who have no special rights.
By the way, after two decades something very similar happened. 1957.06.18 most members of the Politbureau (then it was called the “Presidium of the Central Committee”) decided to remove Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev from the post of first secretary. But the candidate member of the politburo, Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva, managed to leave the meeting hall on the pretext that she urgently needed to go to the toilet (what can you do - a woman!), Rushed to her office and immediately began calling the Central Committee members, telling them about this decision and inviting they immediately arrive at an extraordinary plenum of the Central Committee. Defense Minister Georgy Zhukov and Chairman of the State Security Committee Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov, tied to Khrushchev with the 1953.06.26 coup d'état (when the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Interior Minister Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria were killed), organized the immediate transfer of members of the Central Committee to Moscow by military aircraft (the first few members of the Central Committee, loyal to Khrushchev, arrived directly at the presidium meeting and achieved a postponement of the adoption of the resolution, to which the Central Committee, by way of party discipline us probably would have obeyed). As a result, the next day, quite unexpectedly for the majority (7 man against 2) of the presidium, a plenum assembled and dismissed the entire presidium, except Khrushchev and his supporter Anastas Ovanesovich (Ivanovich) Mikoyan.
Similarly, events could develop in 1937 as well. Contrary to all the current - launched from the hard hands of the same Khrushchev - the legends about the bloody tyrant to Stalin, to whom everyone unconditionally obeyed.
But there is another version. The transcripts of the last few days of the plenum have not been preserved - but, again, the archives have been pretty well cleaned up. Perhaps the majority of the plenary session itself voted for these extraordinary powers. Good could afford. In the period between congresses, the plenum of the Central Committee is the supreme organ of the party. And the decisions of the party - according to the statute - must obey all its members. Including the politburo, and senior civil servants: they, too, almost all were in the same ruling party.
Barriers and rounds
But when the state of emergency actually began, no one had yet expected that it would be poured precisely into the Great Terror. If only because the Politburo, having agreed to the use of emergency measures, has surrounded it with many, so to speak, defenses.
First of all, the emergency measures were to be taken by the so-called special troika - that is, the decisions were made by the most competent people at that time in each region, namely, the first secretary of the regional party committee, the head of the regional department of internal affairs and the prosecutor of the region. The management system of that time was built in such a way that practically all information about the state of affairs in the region passed through these three - respectively, it was they who had the most information that could indicate what the real degree of danger could be in the region, and therefore, who at least for something guilty.
In addition, from the very beginning, limits were set on the use of emergency measures. From the regions they reported to the center (translated into modern language): according to our operational data, there are so many people in the region who are suspected of complicity in crimes suitable for the article “treason” of the Criminal Code (in the criminal code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic she had the number 58, whence a lot of stories mentioning exactly this number); of these, so many people are suspected of crimes under this article that allow the use of the death penalty (such suspects in the jargon at that time were called the “first category”, which is understandable, since only the most dangerous crimes are punished with the death penalty); we ask permission to arrest them for further investigation. The center reserved the right to reduce these limits - to allow the detention of a smaller number of citizens than requested from the regions. Also, in general, it is quite logical, because the center has information about the painting as a whole throughout the country - respectively, what seems to be extraordinary circumstances from the region can actually turn out to be something quite quiet and calm, not requiring any extraordinary measures. It seems that everything is logical and can limit excessive zeal. But from the ground they began to respond to this with the requirements of additional limits on arrests. Regions are known, from where such additional applications were sent five to six.
By the way, one case is known when the Center raised the limit. From the Kirov region sent a request for a thousand people in the second category and three hundred in the first, to which the tyrrrran ™ Strut replied: I allow five hundred in the first and eight hundred in the second. Why am I sure this case is the only one? Because I have met literally a hundred scans of this request - and have never met a single scan of similar content. If there were several such examples, each of them would quote with great pleasure. I have some experience of filing applications with higher authorities, since I participated in the development of several automated process control systems (I was in charge of writing their software) during the Soviet era, and the equipment needed for such systems was not sold freely at that time, but purchased through a centralized supply system. From this experience, I know: if the boss satisfies your application in excess of at least one item, this means that he will not satisfy any of your applications on this topic under any circumstances. This experience allows me to assume: Joseph Vissarionovich had no reason to refuse this application directly, but he made it clear in bureaucratic language that later, if they submitted even one more application, he would find some other ways to refuse - up to official investigation in respect of those who submit this application. Of course, it sounds scary - in fact, to substitute two hundred people at risk of the death penalty only for the sake of such a bureaucratic hint. But there was really no other means at his disposal. So then the relationship of power levels was arranged. If you understand how the real control system looked at all at that time, and much later, and not talk about the only omnipotent tyrant, then such things become clear soon enough.
In general, it suffices to study the applications for limits in order to verify the heterogeneity of the events of that time and their motives.
Of the several regions, they sent applications counted to one person, and later - even despite some hints directly from the central office of the people's commissariat of internal affairs - they did not submit additional applications. They sent a request that, say, they have 657 people in the second category and 214 in the first category, that's all! It is clear that people really rummaged in affairs, found everyone who has serious suspicions, but there is no definite evidence, decided to close these cases using the permission from above, closed them, and they don’t need anything else.
And there were regions where applications were rounded up to hundreds and even thousands. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was especially distinguished by this. And in his applications, the numbers did not even converge. For example, the second category sends rounded up to hundreds, and the first - rounded up to thousands. It is clear that the only source of such numbers is the ceiling of the office office.
In general, among the leaders in terms of the number of those arrested and executed per capita are the regions that were led by Eiche, Khrushchev and Pavel Postyshev. So, it was Eyche and Postyshev who were the first to be Khrushchev who declared Stalin to be the innocent victims of the crrrrrrrrrrrrr tyrrrrrrán ™.
But additional limits are not everything. A very important role was played by the fact that in an emergency situation there are always a lot of people who want to settle their accounts with someone else's hands. The more turbid the water, the larger the fish that can be caught there. Such things as stories about denunciations for the sake of getting a room of a neighbor in a communal apartment, unfortunately, are not an exaggeration - there was that. In the twenties, investigators easily recognized such tricks and, as a rule, punished the scammer himself for a false denunciation. But in extraordinary circumstances - when the plaintive text from the very top, from the Central Committee of the ruling party, it is said that there is a conspiracy and it must be immediately disclosed at any cost, by any means - the investigator naturally has to take into account even frankly absurd denunciations. In addition, the party members began to settle accounts with each other. If the first secretary of the regional committee of the party knows that the second secretary is marking his place and has long led to this intrigue with the center, you have to be a very good person so as not to take the opportunity to make this second secretary a criminal.
All affairs must be internal
Another important circumstance, about which, it seems, practically no one even knew in the politburo itself - this is the so-called evdokimovshchina. She is being examined in detail by Lev Vershinin, so that in anticipation of the result of his works I will describe only the main thing. A large group of employees of the central office of the people's commissariat of internal affairs (and, probably, local staff) headed by Yefim Georgievich Evdokimov considered: once all the key information about life in the country passes through our commissariat, since we know most about the dangers threatening the country - This means that our role in governing the country should be top-priority and decisive. True, by the time of the Big Terror, Evdokimov no longer worked in the Commissariat of Internal Affairs - from 1934 he headed (in terms of our money) approximately our present Krasnodar and Stavropol Territory. By the way, Sholokhov very colorfully described Dzhugashvili, what disgraces were happening during the collectivization and grain procurements on the Don - at that time Evdokimov was in charge of this region, and this is enough to understand what kind of threat his ideas presented to the country. And although in 1937, Yevdokimov no longer worked in the People's Commissariat, but many people who shared his ideas about good governance of the country worked. By the way, Evdokimov shot 1940.02.02 - during the Great Purge, which I will discuss in more detail below - and, of course, rehabilitated in 1956.
True, almost a year before the start of the Big Terror - 1936.09.26 - Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was appointed to the post of Interior Commissioner instead of Enoch Gershonovich Yehuda (Heinrich G. Yagody) - before that Secretary of the Central Committee. By the way, in this respect, Ezhov was equal to Dzhugashvili, because at the insistence of Dzhugashvili himself in 1934, at the XVII Party Congress, the post of general secretary was abolished, and instead several secretaries were introduced with completely equal rights. It is clear that in practice Dzhugashvili was listened to more - but not because he had any special hardware rights, but simply because he offered his colleagues the right solutions more often. Yezhov was distinguished by incredible accuracy and diligence. Therefore, it was him who was appointed with the task of figuring out who and what exactly was wrong with Yagoda, and to put things in order in affairs. Yezhov really seriously began to put things in order. In particular, he introduced a system of formal criteria for the initiation of cases under the article “treason against the Motherland”. According to his order, three denunciations were required from people who were not dependent on each other (and really independent ones: there were cases when Yezhov refused to initiate a case because it turned out that there were some connections between the scammers) or two testimonies from those previously arrested. Why was testimony required less than denunciations? Because everyone knows: for group sex give more. Therefore, any defendant tries, if there is even the slightest opportunity, to pretend to act alone. If a person admits that he acted in a group and points to an accomplice, then most likely he points out correctly - that was the logic of Yezhov’s reasoning. In general, reasonable logic.
But Ezhov had no idea about, so to speak, investigative technology. Therefore, it seems, he was just framed. According to indirect data it seems: he was slipped several cases containing all the formal features indicated by him, but, in fact, completely fake. And he, without having experience of investigative work, of course, could not understand this. He approved the case, and after that he was told: you have killed such and such innocent people, you are now a murderer, and now you have one road - with us. Who exactly could arrange this? It is difficult to say for sure. Most likely, it was Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky - the first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs, the head of the border troops and a zealous supporter of Yevdokimov.
Unfortunately, these are all only indirect assumptions - of course, there are no reliable documents to that effect. It is only known that by the end of the 1937 year, Yezhov naturally went to the roof, and he was kept from directly falling into Kashchenko only with horse doses of alcohol, cocaine and homosexuality, although he had not been interested in anything of this before. Naturally, in the revolutionary years, he tried all this (then many tried it that way), but did not get carried away, and then went to the full program. In addition, it is known that he began to collect full-scale dossier on Dzhugashvili and Scriabin. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Scriabin - Molotov - was at that time the chairman of the council of people's commissars - that is, unlike Dzhugashvili, the direct and immediate head of Yezhov - and could order his removal from office. Apparently, Yezhov reasoned that he could stay alive only if there was no one to ask him for everything he had done. By the way, he had quite real chances for the arrest of the same Scriabin and Dzhugashvili, because then it was not at all guaranteed that it was the prime minister or the first secretary who always won in all circumstances. What could have happened at the plenum - I have already said. I will give one more example from another country. In Czechoslovakia, in the 1951 year, the then president Clemente clashed with each other [the patronymic is unknown because of birth outside a registered marriage] Gotvald and first secretary Rudolf Shimonovich Zaltsman (he translated his surname into Czech - Slansky, that is Solyana). According to our modern ideas, in this situation the first secretary should have eaten the president even without oil and salt. And in fact, it was the first secretary who was recognized as a traitor and 1952.12.03 was executed (the president survived him for only three months: 1953.03.14 — a few days after returning from Djugashvili’s funeral — died of aortic rupture). So all sorts of things were possible.
Dzhugashvili - the main fighter with lawlessness
All these reasons led to the fact that the Great Terror really became a terror - inspired by horror. Although not everyone was afraid, of course. The main horror reigned among more or less educated citizens engaged in mental work. Manual workers didn’t see any threats to themselves from all this, and their calls to clean out all the traitors with a filthy broom were, apparently, quite sincere.
In addition, the Great Terror was initially perceived as a temporary measure. In my article “Why the dog didn’t bark”, it was noted that special triples, the main tool for expediting cases, were not included in the Law on Judicial Proceedings in the USSR, although technically it was not difficult. Consequently, no one intended to maintain the possibility of departing from the usual judicial — a long, but most reliable — procedure for handling cases from a political background. Alas, long experience shows: there is nothing more durable than temporary solutions. And the Terror could become not only Big, but also Long. At least, many of his accomplices got a taste with each new sentence, with each new article about conspirators.
It is clear that such a situation in the country is intolerable. Dzhugashvili struggled with him to the best of the opportunities that he had at all.
Firstly, he tried to reduce - with the only exception I mentioned - these very limits.
Secondly, from the list of names of persons brought to trial and investigation, he, if possible, crossed out those who were personally familiar to him and whom he, respectively, did not suspect of crimes. For example, it is known that Marshal Alexander Ilyich Egorov (he had Dzhugashvili a commissar on the South-Western front during the Polish campaign of the 1920 year) he crossed out from the lists twice. What materials he was given for the third time, and why he nevertheless agreed to allow the arrest of Yegorov, unfortunately, is still unknown, since under Khrushchev, as a rule, the criminal cases of the rehabilitated were destroyed. Which, by the way, in itself indicates the degree of reliability of the decisions on rehabilitation adopted under Khrushchev.
Thirdly, in all cases, when there was a choice of several options, he sought the most humane. For example, at the February – March 1937 th plenum, testimony was discussed against the most prominent party leaders, Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (in revolutionary years, the most prominent left-wing communist who declared the mass death penalty a necessary tool for educating the new man, and later the head of the right wing of the party) and Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (the first - 1917.11.08 – 16 - People’s Commissar of the Interior, the chairman - from April 1918 to May, 1921-th - Supreme Council of National Economy, the successor of Ulyanov as chairman - 1924.02.02 1930.12.19 - Council of People's Commissars, one of the right wing of the party leaders). Based on the discussion, three suggestions emerged. Most members of the Central Committee voted for the immediate execution. In second place was the idea of sentencing to death. Least of all the votes collected option proposed Dzhugashvili: to give under investigation in the usual legal order. Since in all three cases of votes there were less than half of the plenum, Dzhugashvili managed a series of persuasions and intrigues to achieve the adoption of his proposal during the second vote. True, the investigation gathered enough evidence at that time so that the third open Moscow trial - 1938.03.02 – 13 - sentenced Bukharin and Rykov to the highest degree of social protection. The foreign observers present at the trial - including the ambassador of the United States of America to the USSR, who was a lawyer for many years - recognized the trial as fair and the verdict justified.
In addition, at the January 1938 of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), Dzhugashvili made, among other things, the decision “On mistakes of party organizations when excluding communists from the party, on formally bureaucratic attitude to appeals excluded from the CPSU (b) and on measures to eliminate these shortcomings. " According to him, the party organization did not have the right to automatically exclude a person who was under investigation, even if he had already been arrested, but it was necessary to closely monitor the progress of the entire investigation. The party should be responsible for each of its members, and not get rid of him. But this, of course, did not help much. For example, the same Postyshev in the Kuibyshev region entrusted to him organized the arrests of three generations of party members - that is, the composition of the district party committees from 1937.06.14, when he headed the regional committee, before 1938.02.26, when he was finally arrested himself, changed three times.
But Dzhugashvili had another serious resource. He largely controlled the appointment of party cadres. And now, taking advantage of this, he immediately after the arrest of the 1st-rank army commissar Peter Alexandrovich Smirnov, who for the first time in Soviet history (in the same 1938) became the people's commissar of the naval fleet, suggested to Frinovsky - as I already said, the First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and the chief of the border troops - take this post on 1938.09.08 (it’s logical, since it is clear that the Navy also protects borders - the sea borders), and in the place of Frinovsky invited the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria.
Master of Business Administration
Beria, I must say, was a completely brilliant manager and business executive. In particular, it was under his leadership that the impoverished, hungry Georgia became the richest republic of the Union, because it was Beria who first realized: there is no need to grow bread in Georgia, but it is necessary to grow what is in demand in other regions of the Union. For tangerines from one tree it was possible to get ten times more bread in Russia than can be grown in Georgia itself in the area occupied by this tangerine tree. Thanks to such decisions, Georgia has become the richest republic of the Union. But Beria cared not only about agriculture. He, say, has achieved the creation of an aircraft factory in Georgia. This plant is relatively small, but precisely because of its small size, all kinds of exotic and experimental aircraft were often produced on it, which again brings more revenue than large-scale production. As far as I know, the aircraft factory, created under the leadership of Beria, is still working - during the Five-Day War, the Russian aviation she was forced to bomb the runway of this plant in order to prevent Georgian combat aircraft from flying from there.
Beria excelled after the war. In particular, it was he who headed the so-called First Special Committee that dealt with the nuclear issue, and even in December 1945 went away for the sake of this special committee from the post of people's commissar of internal affairs. Moreover, soon, under the leadership of Beria, they transferred the Second Special Committee, which was engaged in rocket production, and the Third, which was engaged in onboard radio electronics. It is clear that it’s not only that he managed his work better than the leaders of other special committees - it also worked out that this is a triune task, and it needs to be addressed comprehensively. Without missiles, there was nothing to deliver nuclear bombs on, and without good radio electronics, these missiles would fly anywhere, just not where they should be. But nevertheless, of course, Beria managed better than his colleagues: in particular, those who worked in the system of these special committees, invariably remembered him as an excellent leader.
By the way, a small episode from the life of special committees. If you drive along Kutuzovsky Prospekt Moscow from the center, then right behind the Third Transport Ring (and the Kutuzovskaya metro station on this ring) you can see the statue of Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova. The great pilot - the first woman awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union together with Polina Denisovna Osipenko and Marina Mikhaylovna Raskova for setting 1938.09.24 – 25 world record of nonstop flight for female crews (on the ANT-37 “Rodina” - designed for ultra-long-range air masses. ANT-25 “Range Record”, which really set records: 1934.09.10 – 12 12411 km on a closed route - Mikhail Mikhailovich Gromov, Alexander Ivanovich Filin, Ivan Timofeevich Spirin; X NUMX – 1936.07.20 22 km over the continent and 9374 – 1937.06.18 20 km between the mainland continents through the North Pole - Valery Pavlovich Chkalov, Georgy Filippovich Baidukov, Alexander Vasilyevich Belyakov; 8504 – 1937.07.12 14 km between the mainland through the North Pole - Mikhail Mykhaylov, who is in charge of the newcomers, Mikhail Mykhayl, who is in charge of the breakthroughs, Mikhail Mikhaylov, who is in charge of the breakthroughs, Michael Mykhaylova, KNUMX ––––––––––– Sergey Alekseevich Danilin) - stands in front of the Institute of Instrument Engineering, where in 10148 – 1946 and 63 – 1972 he led the flight tests of the very same on-board radio electronics that were part of the duties of the Third Special Committee. In 93, the best tester among writers and the best writer among testers Mark Lazarevich Gallai was removed from flight test work as being in the occupied territory (in June, 1950-h TB-1943 under his command was shot down on a combat mission; the crew descended on parachutes in the legendary Bryansk forests, 7 days spent among the partisans and evacuated to the Big Earth), and in addition also a Jew (the reasons for the sharp deterioration in the relationship of the USSR and created with the active Soviet political and military-technical assistance of Israel - p edmet separate study). Grizodubova took him to her institute - to fly a flying laboratory, where the developed devices were tested. Gallay himself notes: 12 / 9 of the tester's work - the platform, that is, piloting in a strictly steady-state mode, with an error in fractions of a percent, not caught by any instruments. The flying laboratory basically drove the pads, so Gallay did not lose his test skills. Meanwhile, the pilot of the flying laboratory of an entire institute is a position whose filling is in the competence of the head of the industry. That is, Beria undoubtedly knew about the invitation to work in the system entrusted to him by a person with a dubious questionnaire - and approved the appointment.
But in 1938, obviously, all his managerial skills were not important, and what was important was that Beria, as a young man, led the Transcaucasian Cheka a couple of years - that is, unlike Yezhov, he had his own investigative experience, and it was impossible It was so framed, as framed Yezhov.
Brake all the way
Beria worked for a couple of months as deputy people's commissar of internal affairs, investigating the internal structure of the commissariat and the levers of its management. At the same time, Dzhugashvili suggested that Yezhov take on part-time duties of the national water transport commissar Nikolai Ivanovich Pakhomov arrested by 1938.04.08: that there are no other suitable candidates yet, so work on the place freed under your leadership. Yezhov happily agreed to this, because he hoped to divert attention from his activities in internal affairs.
Then Dzhugashvili said: well, here, things are going more or less normally in the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and it is already clear that Comrade Beria can cope with them, but in the water transport the blockage has not yet been overcome, and Comrade Yezhov must fully concentrate on this work. 1938.11.25 Beria assumed the post of Commissar of Internal Affairs and immediately issued a series of orders, which simply meant the termination of the Great Terror. At the same time, the prosecutor of the USSR (then this post was not called the prosecutor general, but the prosecutor of the USSR) Andrei Yanuarevich Vyshinsky gave his order: the new law on judicial procedure in the USSR passed by 1938.08.15 just entered into force, according to this law the court prosecutors are no longer entitled to participate in the work of special triples. And so the conviction in the so-called special order has ceased.
This procedure itself was established by a decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Councils 1934.12.01 - on the day of the assassination of Sergei Kostrikov - Kirov. According to him, the cases on charges of terror (not just treason, but in its particular form - terror) were considered for a day without a debate of the parties, without the involvement of a prosecutor and a lawyer. The materials presented by the investigation were simply studied, and, well, one or two short remarks from the defendant were listened to. This special procedure for the consideration of cases has ceased - and since then has not been renewed. That was the end of the Great Terror.
True, the Great Terror was followed by the Big Check and the Big Purge.
Political criminality
Under the leadership of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, a revision of the convictions handed down by Nikolai Ezhov when the People’s Commissar of the Interior during XIUMX to 1936.09.26 was conducted. First of all, the death sentences that were not carried out were reviewed. In total, a little more than 1938.11.25 thousands of death sentences were passed under the leadership of Yezhov, of which about 600 thousands were not carried out. That's where they started. And then, naturally, they went on non-lethal sentences. Before the start of World War II, approximately one million (out of 100 millions) convictions were reviewed.
Unfortunately, the statistics of this revision are pretty confusing (especially considering that it may have continued into the war). I met several options. In general, the picture looks like this: out of a million convictions under the article “treason”, revised before the war, something between two and three hundred thousand was found to be completely unfounded with the full rehabilitation of the accused (and, if possible, their restoration at the same or close to that work) and something else between two and three hundred thousand was recognized as purely criminal, without political motives.
Where did the second group of amended sentences come from? The fact is that the then criminal code was written in 1922 year, partially reworked in 1926. At that time, the conviction arising from the simplest understanding of Marxism that people commit crimes under pressure from external adverse circumstances prevailed in our country — these circumstances should change, as a person ceases to be a criminal. It is clear that it is unjustly severely to punish a person for what, in general, does not depend on his will, but is done under the pressure of circumstances. Therefore, many punishments were, from our present point of view, absurdly mild. For example, for rape was given up to five years. And what should the investigator do if he sees that there is a redneck with a wooden muzzle in front of him and for five years not exactly to be trimmed? He looks - the Komsomol member is raped - and writes in the indictment: “an attempt was made on a member of a public organization”, and this is already an article “treason”, and under this paragraph of the article you can be given up to 10 years in prison. This is how political cases emerged from obvious criminal ones. Beria strictly forbade this practice, and while he was the people's commissar of internal affairs, this prohibition was observed, but with his resignation from this post already in 1946, the practice of political appendages to criminal offenses resumed because the code remained the same, it is awkwardly lenient punishments, and there were no other ways out of the situation, apart from appendages. Only when 1961.01.01 entered into force the new Criminal Code, written already taking into account the accumulated experience, these very political appendages really stopped, because they no longer needed them.
By the way, I will give a couple of real sentences with political overhangs.
We all know that during the crunching of Tirrrran ™ to Stalin, the great designer of space technology, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, was convicted - but not everyone knows exactly what he was convicted of. Korolev in 1937 – 38-m years developed guided missiles - cruise and anti-aircraft. We know that now cruise and anti-aircraft missiles are the most serious combat force. Naturally, it even looks strange that a person who was engaged in such an important development in our terms was arrested. But when Korolev had just started his work, the autopilot developers immediately said that they were unable to make a control system capable of operating under the conditions of a rocket flight - if only because there are starting overloads an order of magnitude higher than overloads in any evolution of the aircraft. They were, unfortunately, right. Even the Germans, who were ahead of us in instrumentation for a couple of generations of devices, managed to create a flying cruise missile - Fizeleler-103, better known as V-1 - only in 1943. Fau - the first letter of the German word Vergeltung - retribution. The Germans proclaimed England’s participation in the war against the Germans by betraying its racial origin - respectively, weapon, able to reach England, called "Retribution". But the German anti-aircraft missiles did not leave the experiment stage until the very end of the war, although Germany was vital for resisting the massive raids of British and American bombers on German cities. But it did not work out - even the Germans could not create normally flying anti-aircraft missiles. Accordingly, in Korolev in 1938, this would obviously have failed. He was told that. He knew that. In addition, the Germans used an air-jet engine on Fizeleler-103 - it takes the oxidizer from the ambient air, and only fuel is stored on board. Korolev also built a cruise missile with a liquid-propelled jet engine: it had to carry both fuel and oxidizer on board. It is clear that the total energy storage is an order of magnitude less than in the German version. Fizeler-103 flew up to three hundred kilometers, and the Korolev rocket, according to the project, was calculated on the 30 km range. The military immediately declared to him: in principle, we do not need a rocket of such a range; at such a distance it is easier to send an ordinary plane on a low-level flight — it will fly unnoticed, hit the target without a miss; and your rocket, in the first place, will inevitably fall not exactly at the target, and, secondly, it costs almost as much as a plane, but a one-time rocket, and the plane will return; we do not need a rocket with such characteristics. But Korolev was just very interesting. He was a man extremely enthusiastic, like all the rocket builders of that era (not for nothing, the reduction of GIRD - the group of research of jet movement - the participants themselves deciphered as a “group of engineers working for nothing”), and really wanted to do at least something. As a result, he built the same 4 prototype of a cruise missile. They all flew wherever God sends. God even sent one of them to the dugout at the missile range, where several generals were at that moment, who had come to look at such exotic weapons. Naturally, Korolev was arrested on charges of attempting to assassinate the commanders of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, misusing state funds and undermining the country's defenses by misuse of funds, because the Rocket Research Institute, where Korolyov worked, was financed from the defense budget. . But the investigation immediately dropped the charge of assassination: after all, if a rocket flies anywhere, if it is impossible to create an autopilot for it, then it is impossible to aim it deliberately at a dugout with the generals. Therefore, although Korolev was arrested under the first category, the crimes for which were punishable by death, but this accusation during the investigation disappeared, and gave him 10 years on the basis of a combination of other acts. From which, by the way, it can be seen how, under the bloody regime, all crimes were attributed to everyone and punished for what they attributed. This was under Yezhov, and under Beria this charge was reconsidered and concluded that there was no misuse of funds (when you do something obviously useless, which you have been told from all sides that it is useless, then it is undoubtedly improper use of funds ), but there was no undermining of defense capability, because Korolev did not act on malicious intent, but out of sincere delusion - and, accordingly, his term was reduced from 10 years to 8, laid down by law precisely for inappropriate use of public funds. True, these years he spent in closed design offices - the so-called sharashkas - and his talent was used for its intended purpose. But, apparently, the accusations were, unfortunately, quite justified. I suppose now Korolev would receive about the same for such an attitude towards government money.
Another example. Another innocent bystander. Great aircraft designer Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev. Also accused by the current legends, the devil knows what. But, fortunately, it knows not only the devil. Since the criminal case of Tupolev, like the criminal case of Korolev, has survived, we also know what he was accused of. A few months before his arrest, Tupolev once again went on a business trip to the United States of America, where he again selected aircraft for the purchase of licenses for its production. He bought a license for three planes there. One of them was the famous Douglas Commercial Third - a truly fabulously successful car. Suffice it to say that DiCi-3 has an unrestricted certificate of suitability for flying - that is, with proper maintenance work on the maintenance of the machine DC-3 can be operated indefinitely. And so far these same aircraft are flying in different parts of the world. We have it, by the way, known as Lee-2, since the plant number XXUMX, where for the first time in the USSR mastered its mass production, was headed by Boris Pavlovich Lisunov, and in the first syllable of his name was called an airplane. But the other two planes chosen by Tupolev, when examined in detail at the board of the people's commissariat of the aviation industry, were deemed unnecessary by the country. I don’t remember for what reasons, but in the end, the country is not infinitely rich, we have to choose: what to produce and what to refuse. Even now it is necessary, and even then even more so. And these two planes out of three are considered not suitable for our production. Naturally, the question arose: why such a competent specialist as Tupolev decided to purchase them, why did he not realize himself and immediately that we do not need such airplanes? This, of course, is not a ground for arrest, but a ground for suspicion. Next. When purchasing licenses in the United States of America and Britain, we always demanded that the inch system constructs be recalculated into a metric one. Why demanded? Because it is in no way a formal task. For example, in some place of the original construction, a quarter-inch-thick sheet is 6.35 mm, and our industry does not produce a sheet of such thickness. Releases either 6 mm or 6.5 mm. Only the designer, who has all the initial data for the strength calculations, can unequivocally say whether it is possible in this case to confine to the 6 mm sheet or need the sheet 6.5. Without the initial data, the whole strength calculation has to be carried out anew, from scratch. In particular, the calculations for converting DC-3 from inch to metric measure were taken from one of Tupolev’s closest employees, designer Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev, and his working group for six months. Naturally, this already aroused suspicion: didn’t Tupolev get any rollback from the company for removing this work from her and shifting our designers onto the shoulders? The last straw in the patience was that during this business trip, Tupolev bought a car for himself and an air conditioner in his office. In principle, according to his official position he was given these rare things at that time. But he did not have the right to decide on their purchase independently. He was obliged to request permission either from the people's commissariat of the aviation industry, or from the USSR trade mission at the MUH. He did neither the one nor the other, and this is the abuse of official authority and even the abuse of trust.
Of course, when you look at how people who dispose of government money too easily are treated now, then the decision may seem too harsh. But, in my opinion, such a punishment of money dispensers is vital for the country, so that it exists at all, so that it will not be taken away - as in the song of NEP times - “by pebbles, by bricks”.
That was the review of sentences. Presumably, in that part of the sentences that they did not have time to reconsider, the ratio was about the same - that is, roughly rounding up, about a quarter of the cases were really completely unfounded and about a quarter of cases attracted to betrayal by the ears, But the rest was unfortunately reasonable. Yes, qualifying criminality as a policy is, of course, also not good - it’s better not to confuse these categories - but, on the other hand, for a country living in a really dangerous environment, many purely criminal cases turn out to be more dangerous than any policy.
First among the worst
Along the way, the Great Purge was conducted: purposefully looking for and punishing those who were guilty of the Great Terror. It is said that one of the questions that Beria asked in an interview with any employee of his People's Commissariat immediately after taking office was: “How do you think, who here does not behave like human beings?” And those who behaved not human, really very seriously punished. As far as I remember, several thousand employees were dismissed from the people's commissariat of internal affairs (for the whole range of reasons). And in their place, Beria tried to recruit people with higher or at least incomplete higher education, not associated with any kind of law enforcement work: law students were not pulled out of the Internal Affairs Commissariat of Internal Affairs, but pulled out mostly engineering students.
Along the way, many prominent party leaders were punished. True, not all. Khrushchev, for example, survived in an original way: by jumping to the side. At the end of 1937, he proposed to check the quality of work in the party organization of Ukraine. According to the principle “he himself invented - he himself implements” he headed the verification commission. Naturally, the commission found many shortcomings in the activities of the leadership of Ukraine, and almost all of the central leadership of Ukraine was fired, many were soon arrested, and the members of the commission themselves took the appropriate places. For example, Khrushchev, who had previously been the first secretary of the Moscow regional and city party committee (then it was a single committee), became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. As a result, when the Big Purge began, it was not Khrushchev who was punished for everything that was happening in Moscow, but those of his accomplices who remained in Moscow. In addition, Khrushchev immediately and very successfully played the role of an obliging fool. Sergo Lavrent'evich Beria, the son of Lavrentiy Pavlovich, said that shortly after arriving in Kiev, Khrushchev sent a telegram about the following to Moscow: “Dear Iosif Vissarionovich! Unable to work! Please urgently understand. We send applications for 12 – 14 to thousands of people in Moscow, and leave a limit on 2 – 3 thousands. Please tell there that our applications are satisfied! ”According to Sergo Lavrentievich, Joseph Vissarionovich imposed a resolution on this telegram“ Calm down, you fool! ”. Khrushchev abolished, sharply reduced the volume of his applications for arrests and executions - and as a result he became an executive fool. And an executive fool with good supervision is a rather useful tool that is not sacrificed unless absolutely necessary. So, he remained alive and intact. Although still in Moscow, plunged into the blood before the holes in the nose.
Class defeated single
Immediately I will say: if Khrushchev had been shot, it probably would have little effect on the events after the death of Dzhugashvili. Because, as can be seen from the foregoing, the then bureaucracy had a class interest in maintaining a two-channel control system. That is, the interests of the party bureaucracy itself - as a whole - were best met precisely under this two-channel system, when party apparatchiks could give direct orders to economic bodies.
This same class interest, they were able to protect. Although most of the organizers and activists of the Great Terror executed or at least removed from office, time was lost. By the end of 1938, it was already clear to everyone that the war would begin soon. After all, not to mention anything else, 1938.09.30 in Munich is at a meeting of the leaders of the German Empire, the Italian Empire, the British Empire and the French Republic (in fact, however, also an empire: although France had a republican structure, but France then had a second after Britain was a network of colonies and, accordingly, was also really an empire) - it was decided to give Germany a significant part of Czechoslovakia. Under the political circumstances of the time, this meant that the war was approaching sharply. And on the eve of the war, it is absolutely impossible to break the country's governance system. Because the old system will cease to work, and when a new one starts working is unknown, and in principle cannot be known.
Therefore, Dzhugashvili and his team had to keep the existing order of management. And throughout the war, the party apparatus worked, as an essential part — and quite useful in extraordinary circumstances — of the state apparatus.
It was only after the completion of the post-war reconstruction of the economy that Dzhugashvili returned to this issue and at the XIX Party Congress, 1952.10.05 – 14, he pushed through the changes in the party’s charter and in the personal composition of the party’s top management bodies. These changes, in essence, meant the first step of the transition to single-channel control, which had long been planned by him. And at the first plenum of the election of the Central Committee - immediately after the congress - he announced his desire to leave the post of secretary of the Central Committee and remain only the chairman of the Council of Ministers. In the memoirs of one of the participants of the plenum - the poet Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov (he signed Konstantin, because he was very lisping and Kirill was uncomfortable to pronounce, but his son is called Alexey Kirillovich) - a very colorful description remained: how stormy and negative was the reaction to this sentence. This is understandable: without the legendary leader, the Central Committee immediately lost a fair amount of prestige in the country, and most importantly, it was deprived of the opportunity to informally interfere in the work of the state control system, closing on the pre-Council meeting. Seeing this reaction, Joseph Vissarionovich went back down - he remained the secretary of the Central Committee.
And soon he died - and immediately after his death, almost all the changes he made in the life of the party were canceled. This death happened so in time that many suspect its unnaturalness. But this is already a conspiracy - to go into it with the available set of known data, perhaps, is meaningless. Just note: the preservation of a two-channel control system ultimately gave rise to most of the problems that led to a serious organizational crisis in the USSR in the 1980s and to a temporary one - I hope! - the collapse of our country.
This is the history of the problem of the number of control channels.
Information