And the commanders - are
they frightened to tear the
enemy's uniforms with their
bayonets?
M.Y. Lermontov."Borodino"
Much has been written on the Stalin cult this past while. In general - he is witheringly judged for his being an actor in the revolutionary movement, although several voices, behind which a certain socil group is hidden, try to defend reprisals and other methods of state control and leadership, explaining his decisions and acting by the conditions and circumstances that had developed before the war. Some, apparently, only knew very little about the state of affairs. Others new by far too much and did not only intend not to make any cahnges of the existing atmosphere in society, but, what was more, tried to keep it as it was by all means. In order to find out details about a person, to get to the bottom of what kind of person someone was, to judge about him, particularly in case he is a statesman or a man of society, one must never forget about him as a simple ordinary man. This turns out to be the key that opens the door to all secrets.
Let us start with the very beginning. The seeds of political persecutions were spread in 1925. Here is an excerpt from the shorthand notes taken down on the occasion of the XIX. Party Conference, from the speech of the delegate of the Leningrad organization: "Comrades, where do we find the answers to current questions of the present? They send us to Molotov, to N.K., but they themselves do not know a single bit or, at least, do not want to have anything to do with it. Finally they send us to Stalin. Without any doubt he has a keen mind, but this mind is of a schematic nature; he does not analyse. He is able to answer any question concerning the past, but he is uncapable of replying to questions that concern the future. They tell us - you criticize a lot, and what is to be gained by it? For having uttered critical remarks they send you to places, where even Makar would never have sent his calves to. The old woman (N.K.) wrote two articles and none of them was printed".
And thus started the reprisals. Yesterday they buried Lenin, today his whole family (wife, sister, brother) are evicted from their Kremlin apartment by order of Stalin.
In 1928 this process befell the Industrial Party with the graduate Ramzin as the leading figure. And once they had put their stamp on them, they began to use force towards the scientists. Some were tormented in prisons, others plagued in camps. Ramzin's personage as a scientist and inventor was eliminated from life, although the specific uniflow boilers, the result of one of his inventions, are still being operated - in the thermal power station in Nasarovo, not far from Krasnoyarsk.
In 1951 a brigade of former university men, doctors of science of different branches, worked in Karaganda (Pesochny camp), where they built a brickworks. They were forced to pull down old masonry. An unfortunate country, where graduates have to carry out most simple construction work, while a pope, who never finished his education, came into power and rules over a whole state. The intelligentsia are no mushrooms, they are not born every twenty-four houses. The people must preserve them. And in Stalin's era they were exterminated. Not without good reason we still run abroad with stretched out hands and golden rubels for each single ladle, even though more than thirty years havepassed after all these events.
In 1904 they smashed the Tiflis organization of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party. Stalin escaped to Baku. Soonafter he became friends with a certain Akhmet.
Akhmet is a local, a resident from Baku, who carries around with him plans of thieving. He robs a bank, takes away the safe and lives to his greatest satisfaction. Stalin, who has meanwhile assumed the nickname of Koba, places his confidence in Akhmet. He explains to him the essential sense of his stay in Baku and opens a secret to him: that they should help and support the revolutionaries with money. Akhmet possesses a lot of money and if it serves a good purpose, he does not feel sorry for a certain amount. He is prepared to share his loot, although the risk of the robbery had been in his shoulders alone. Having stolen the whole safe, Akhmet hides it for a couple of weeks on the municipal dumping ground. And he hands out the second safe key to Koba.
And when Akhmet was convinced that they were not after him anymore, he went there and took some money for himself. When counting it, he sooned noticed that the amount did not correspond with the safe table anymore. And when Koba met with Akhmet, he apologized and asked him not betray his comrade, who had taken away a little money for his own needs. Akhmet kept silence and Koba - everything in his mind.
In 1911 they were arrested. Stalin was sent into exile to Turukhansk, to the village of Kureyka. Akhmet found himself in the Petrovsk central prison, where he attended special courses in true revolutionary fight.
In 1937 Akhmet takes over the position of the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaidzhan. He is arrested as an enemy of the people and sentenced to maximum penalty. While sitting in the cell, Akhmet spoke out the thoughts tormenting him before his comrades. And condemned persone do not lie.
"You might get away from this place one day, but I will be executed. I wrote three letters to Stalin. He did not even answer one of them. Koba does not like witnesses and I merely know too many details of his biography. That is why I have to die".
All this reported Reyn, the brigade leader of the timber loading brigade from the Kokchetavsk timber station, Akmolinsk camp, who had worked in Baku as the head power engineering specialist of Azerbaidzhan before his arrest.
The late 1920s and early 1930s were characterized by two events: the liquidation of the kulaks as a class and the collectivization of the whole country. The dekulakization was mastered quickly. After certain people had been stamped and the necessary number of families collected, in accordance with the quota system, these were loaded on vehicles and taken away to collecting points. This also happened to our family. Upon arrival at Bogoyavlensk station father addressed himself to the evacuation point. The person on duty had a look at his military documents and remarked: "You were arrested illegally. There is a secret ukaze (decree) which prohibits the exilation of participants of the Civil War, but it lies beyond my competence to let you go ... When you have reached the final destination, write a letter". And thus, I - a 15 year old boy, understood that laws only served as catchwords to the public at that time. Life passed swiftly under permanent despotism. We reached Karaganda by the 6th special train for prisoners. They forced us to get off somewhere in the barren, uninhabited steppe. The children below the age of 10 died with almost no exception during the first months. At the beginning of the cold snap we built up the settlement of "Kompaneyskiy", from straw and dung and grass sods. When the first snow fell, they allowed us to leave the dugouts and move into the houses. And after less than one year not more than 14000 people out of the 40000 who had been brought here had stayed alive, maybe even less, because there was a continuous flow in the supply of "human material" (manpower resources). After the construction work in the settlement had been completed, the whole adult population was chased away to the mines or to work for the construction of the Karaganda-Balkash railroad line, which extends over a length of 400 kms.
Roads were constructed, but their builders did not return. After several years I accidentally learned from some of the voluntary participants in this construction project that "only the cooks and a part of the brigade leaders came back, all the rest were left behind dead - under the sleepers. I worked there as a cook". This is what Vassily Dodonov, the father of my school-mate, told me during a confidential conversation.
In this way worked out the extermination of the best farmers, who had supplied cereals and other product to feed the Russian people. Nowadays, under the conditions of glasnost (publicity) and democracy it obviously seems to be shaming to be proud of "victories". In former times people standing on a speaker's desk sometimes used to mention the "veterans" in struggle against the kulaks. I have seen kulaks with my own eyes; they usually are a tall, broad-shouldered breed of people, with plams broad as a spade, chapped and horny from the daily work in the fields. And what kind of kulaks might have lived in Russia during those years, when the Civil War razed their land to the ground. Whenever someone dared to make use of strange labour force, he would be chased out of his home at best. At the worst he would die in this fight.
The settlement of "Kompaneyskiy", which lost two thirds of its initial population within ten months only, is a microscopically tiny spot on the map, and thousands of such spots lay scattered all over the Russian north and the Far East, many of them even involving more gloomy and tragic fates yet.
In his story "Bread" Alexey Tolstoy says: "When Stalin came to the front near Tasritsin, he came along on a sleigh and brought makhorka in packets for the soldiers. What a loving, fatherly care - hundreds of boxes of tobacco for thousands of soldiers fighting on the front; isn't that too a shabby way to win the recognition and respect of people, who have probably set out to their last battle?
And where had his mercy and goodness gone when - starting from the late 1920s until 1953 - he sent millions of people to the grave, young people, old people, upright and hardworking farmers, who were not guilty of anything at all, up to soldiers, who had become famous in fights and during the revolution, talented schlars, statesmen and party leaders? And this is what some people call Stalin's socialism.
After the passing of the decree on punishment in case of late commencement of work a concentration camp was organized near Moscow, on the bansk of the Khimkinsk storage lake, for people who had arrived late at work. Dundukovskiy from the village of Opochka, Pskov region, who spent six months in this camp, describes his stay there with the following wording: "The main work of the prisoners consisted of sawing out ice blocks from the artificial lake and pile them up. They were ostensibly destined for the refrigerators of the Muscovites. Who did not fulfil the quota was forced to work without a break in the second shift, as well. The guards, of course, relieved each other. Those, who did not fulfil the prescribed standard of performance, were prohibited to receive letters or parcels. The daily death rate in the camp amounted up to 40 people". He finished with the words: "If there had not been a released inmate, who come from the same part of the country as I did and who let me have his post as a fireman, there would have been no way out for me".
On the 18th of June Dundikovskiy, having been released from the camp, left by train. Looking out of the window he observed how the strong wind and the waves scattered apart the results of the work of these unhappy people into the vastness of the lake. Not a single ice block ever got into a Muscovian refrigerator.
In 1951 a prisoner transport with prisoners whose term of confinement had already expired, were brought from Karaganda to Krasnoyarsk. They were all assigned to general construction work, in spite of their high qualifications. All newcomers had to appear for weekly checks and registration. And that was not yet all. We were read out the contents of a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dating back to the year 1925: "Who has been registered on the left bank of the river Yenissey in the city of Krasnoyarsk and leaves for the opposite banks on his own initiative, will be sentenced to 25 years of forced labour". And this, too, is called Stalin's socialism.
In the memoirs of A. Alleluyeva, the elder sister of N. Alleluyeva, Stalin's wife, we can read: "Stalin, Sverdlov and others reached St. Petersburg by the first revolutionary train that had been made up in Achinsk, after three days and nights". When they came to see the Alleluyevs and sat down for a cup of tea, it was usually Stalin who started the conversation: "Jakob, do you remember the days in Kureyka? When I was to start working and I stood on my skis and left for Turukhansk to fetch the mail? - I never liked to do housework". Jakob Mikhailovich gloomily, without raising his head and stirring the tea in his cup with a spoon, replied: "Do you believe that anybody, at all, likes to do housework? Nobody likes it, but the whole trouble about it is that it has to be done".
From a report of the director of the Sverdlov Museum (the former Stalin Museum) in Turuckhansk: "In his cottage in Kuntsevo Stalin tells his visitors about how he escaped from his place of exile in Turukhansk. According to his words this can be read in the remembrances of G.K. Shukov. But all this is a filthy lie. Following the documents kept in the archives of the regional party committee in Krasnoyarsk, nothing has been mentioned about Stalin's escape from his Turukhansk internal exile. After his term had expired in 1915 he was mobilized to the army and did his military service in the Achinsk garrison - until the beginning of the February revolution. He says nothing about this in his biography. As the director explains, Stalin did not lead a miserable life there, at all: the Tsar had sent to him 15 kgs of flour and 6 rubels for tobacco every month, and sturgeons he could get himself from the Yenissey.
Oh dear! What hard conditions had the Tsar imposed on this lawbreaker. And what did this revolutionary do, after he had seized unlimited power? He interdicted John Reed's book about the revolution ("Ten days that shook the world"), because the author had not made any effort to mention Stalin's personality in a single word.
No sooner had they forced all farmers on kolkhoz farms - farmers who had been declared in 1917 that they were the masters of the land - they passed the law of the 7th of August 1932, according to which all products yielded by the kolkhoz farmers were state property. And the people who had worked on their fields day and night did not even have the right to collect the few ears that had dropped on the ground during the harvest. And they were prohibited to pick up the crucians that had died in the dried up ponds and swamps.
Again hunger, again trials, punishments and all this socialism.
Several comrades stated in the press that Stalin achieved a lot. The greatest thing he achieved is the destruction of the churches. Apparently, he tried to prove to all peope, what a passionate godless person he was. Not without reason the Russians still remember a proverb from prehistoric times: "Demolition instead of construction - then nobody will suffer from headache". And they started to demolish what had been constructed by masterly hands and talented architects.
What a shame! - The undone construction of the Palace of the Soviets which had been planned to be erected in the place of the destroyed church. What a shame - the Baikal-Amur railroad line, which was first built and later disassembled again for purposes of war. Millions of tons of materials and tens of thousands of human lives - all gone, all turned to dust.
Several observers uttered their thoughts about Stalin, as a revolutionary, having tried to establish socialism according to his own scheme. No. he isn't a revolutionary at all. He was placed into the nest of revolution. And as soon as this bird had fledged, he started pushing all the others out of his nest, all those, who were around them, and even those who were not close by but nevertheless disturbed him. He simply is a canning gangster - to a large extent. And when the time of "distribution" came, he stretched out his hands and seized what he considered to be his share. And the chief executors were "stamped", chased away to places that were not too far away, but from where they never came back, as a rule.
The period of stagnation - that is the continuation of the cult in a slightly more done up and smoothed out form.
Take away this black, bloody disgrace from our sanctuaries. Clean the Kremlin wall from all this rotten stuff, which continuous to spoil the credulous and the scoundrels with the poison of this cult.
May this be the retribution for all the harm and wrong done to the Soviet people and the millions of people that became victims. This will free the will and conscience of the people. It will honestly feel free from the various kinds and appearances of the cult in their creative con-science. And the supports of the cult, which one might call bureaucrats (to put it mildly), will feel emptiness within themselves, once the effects of this cult have gone lost.
The brakes that were cleverly integrated into the mechanism of the perestroyka start to fall off in their effectivity. The fight of moral strength and common sense in society against the negative appearances will turn out to be successful.
ANNOTATIONS ABOUT THE REMINESCENCES OF THE PAST
1. The winter of the year 1942 only brought little snow. The first snow flakes fell on frozen ground. The wind blew the snow away into the ravines. We had to do a distance of 20 kms along the legendary Aryk - Balyksk stretch, where there was no snow at all. This section was 200 or more meters wide, and almost half of the winter we were forced to cover the passage with snow, which we dragged over from the slopes at the riverbank and from other places. And then we drove over the horses and the carts, one by one.
2.The camp administration demanded more wood than the area could produce with regard to the set norm. They found a way out of this situation. Instead of allowing us four days and nights for the trip, we were now obliged to make it in only three, i.e. the brigade, loaded with wood, has to get from the woods to Kokchetav in two days and nights and then cover the distance of 70 km for the way back in only one day.
What happened to the horses we only learned during the summer; we ourselves slept during the trip and the coachmen were exchanged from time to time. In the summertime diseases broke out among the horses; thirty of them disappeared from the statement of accounts. The "summer disease". The reason - complete exhaustion.
Early in December of the same year. I am the brigade leader of the transportation brigade. We are on our way to Kokchetav with freight. A woman approaches us; she is driving a young bull, which is put to a single sleigh. He barely succeeds to move the sleigh forward. The guys are shouting: "Look, I.I., over there our meat is dragging itself along!" The next day, when returning to the camp in the evening, we recognize something lying on the ground, about 40 meters away from the road. The Muscovitan taxi driver, Popov, shouts: "Look, I.I., it's a bull (the one we saw yesterday)". I approach Ulanovskiy, the rifleman. I say: "Well, may the guys cut themselves a couple of pieces out". He gave his permission. The guys went near the bull and, without hesitation, loaded it on the cart and brought the whole cadaver to the Pavlovsk camp sector. Ulanovskiy became uneasy and alarmed and informed captain Barinov, the chief of the camp. Barinov recalled the times of the mass dying of cattle - and now they carried a perished bull into the camp! He immediately summoned me, in a more or less good humour scolded me and demanded me to ask the guys to disperse and take the bull back as quickly as possible, 15 km away from here, to be more precise. They tore him away by sleigh behind the dunghill and towards morning nothing was left from the perished animal except the remem-brance of it.
3. December of the year 1944. I am the brigade leader of the central transport unit, already in this very same Akmolinsk sub-division of the Karlag. I was responsible for the allocation of the necessary vehicles and carts. Towards half past seven all horses stables were supposed to be empty. They passed the guards at 6 o'clock. The weather was beautiful. A wonderful silence. The temperature around -30°C. Towards 10 o'clock in the morning wind sprang up and it began to snow. In the Kazakh's language this is called buran (snowstorm). It was impossible to recognize any human soul within a distance of three meters. In this very moment the chief of the camp, captain Barinov, draws near. He finds a couple of studhorses in the stable. We greet eachother and suddenly he asks: "Did you lead the whole transport?" I readily reply: "Yes, the whole". And then he looked at me with his grey eyes and gasped out: "And the mother animals?" I could not evade this question anymore. And I said: "Of course." Then he raised his right arm, pointed with his finger to one of the continuous rafters on the roof and said: " If only a single dam will foal prematurely, I will hang you by the neck on that crossbeam". I imagined the whole chaos on the road and replied: "Then you better hang me right now". - "But why", he asked. "Since nobody is going to take the trouble of finding out the truth", I answered. "She foaled, because she was on transport. That is what everybody is going to say". - "Well, you are courageous", he said, whereupon I retorted: "I have no other choice".
4. The same year 1944. The winter turns out to be a hard one. There is the forager, Pava Nikolayevich Cheprovka, an utterly upright and kind-hearted man. He weighs out the hay with the same care and accuracy as the bread for the prisoners. Each horse stable gets its hay ration in accordance with the assigned norm, depending on the number of horses. Once I go out tot the square and notice the group around Solnikov with six pairs of harnessed horses, just on the point of getting ready for departure. And I see that each of them is taking away an armful of hay, but not from the stable, where their horses are usually put into. I insist that they put it back to the place they have taken it from. Solnikov, the group leader, did not obey. I approached to a pair of horses, took their reins and said: "If you do not bring the hay back, you will not leave this place; and the responsibility for wether or not this transport will ever take place after all (they transported coal for heating), lies with you alone". In this very moment I clearly heard the words: "Go away or I will shoot!" I turned around to where the voice had come from and placed myself in a way that I formed a straight line between the rifleman and the horse. he repeated his menacing order while cocking his gun. I said: "Remember well that not all of these six are such scoundrely as you are. They are people, who will tell the truth. If you shoot, you will have to justify your action". Once again he turned the cock, but this did not really impress or trouble me. Then Salnikov got up, approached and threw the stolen hay on a heap, and so did all the others immediately afterwards. However, they threw everything into disorder. I demanded that they should pile it in the same way as it had been piled before. They collected the hay once again and drove away. Thus, it seemed that nobody would bother about this incident any more.