Secret archives of the NKVD-KGB. Stalinist executioners Secret archives read

Secret archives of the NKVD-KGB

In the previous volume of the "Secret Archives" we considered the activities of the most terrible and most bloodthirsty monster of all times and peoples, hidden from the people, called the Cheka-OGPU. Over the seventeen years of its existence, this ominous monster shed so much blood, destroyed so many worthy people of Russia, that we still feel these losses.

In 1934, the OGPU was transformed into the NKVD, headed by Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda (in fact, Enoch Gershenovich Yehuda). For two years of the leadership of the NKVD, Yagoda broke a lot of firewood, but compared to what Nikolai Yezhov, who replaced him, did, these were, so to speak, flowers. The time of “Yezhovism” is a time of unprecedented scale of repression. Judge for yourself: in 1937-1938 alone, one and a half million people were arrested, of which about 800 thousand were shot.

Lavrenty Beria, who replaced him as head of the NKVD, was a worthy successor to the work of his predecessors: arrests and executions continued on the same monstrous scale. It is one thing when they tried Bukharin, Sokolnikov or Tukhachevsky - at least theoretically they could pose a threat to the inhabitants of the Kremlin, and quite another when such people as Vsevolod Meyerhold, Mikhail Koltsov, Lidia Ruslanova, Zoya Fedorova and even underage boys ended up in the dungeons of the Lubyanka and girls.

In 1954, the gloomy building on the Lubyanka changed its sign again and became known as the Committee state security - KGB. The tasks set by the party for the KGB, at first glance, were lofty and noble: “In the shortest possible time, eliminate the consequences of Beria's enemy activities and achieve the transformation of the state security organs into a sharp weapon of the party directed against the real enemies of our socialist state, and not against honest people ".

Sad as it is to say this, the KGB became famous not only for its brilliantly conducted operations against spies and terrorists, but also for the brutal persecution of anyone who verbally or in writing expressed doubts about the genius of the party line or the God-chosen people of the Kremlin.

The strangest thing is that under the KGB sword (and I will remind you that the symbol of this organization is a shield and a sword) fell not only the so-called dissidents, but also writers, musicians, artists and other artists who, with all their desire, could not overthrow the Soviet regime ... That is why the authority of the KGB among the people was extremely low, and that is why everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the State Security Committee was abolished in December 1991 and as such ceased to exist.

SHOT THEATER

Not only the history of Russian theater of the twentieth century, but also the history of world theater is unthinkable without Meyerhold. The new that this great master introduced into the theatrical art lives in the progressive theater of the world, and will always live.

Nazim Hikmet

What a pity that these words of a great poet about a great master theatrical art were said in 1955, not fifteen years earlier! What a pity that Meyerhold's contribution to the progressive theater of the world is recognized only now, and not in the pre-war years, when Vsevolod Emilievich lived and worked!

Having uttered these words then, sign under them all those who knew him well and worked side by side with him, if they had shown civil courage then, and not fifteen years later, perhaps there would have been no case No. 537, approved by Beria personally and ended a verdict signed by Ulrich: "Meyerhold-Reich Vsevolod Emilievich shall be subjected to capital punishment - execution with confiscation of all property belonging to him personally."

It is difficult to say what explains the incredible haste associated with the arrest of Meyerhold, what kind of winds blew in the corridors of the Lubyanka, it is difficult to say, but the capital's enkavedes officers did not even wait for Vsevolod Emilievich to return to Moscow, but ordered his Leningrad colleagues to arrest him. On June 20, 1939, he was taken directly to an apartment on the Karpovka embankment. How it happened is told by his old friend Ippolit Alexandrovich Romanovich.

I was the last person to see Meyerhold at large, ”he recalls. - I parted with him at four in the morning. The latest in its normal life he spent the night in the apartment of Yuri Mikhailovich Yuriev. Their friendship and love began from the time they worked on Don Giovanni at the Alexandria Theater.

The night before, Vsevolod Emilievich came to Yuryev's for dinner. He was gloomy and for some reason asked all the time about the camp, went into the details of the life of the prisoners. At dawn Vsevolod Emilievich and I left Yuriev's apartment. In his hands Meyerhold held a bottle of white wine and two glasses for himself and for me. We sat down with a bottle on the steps of the stairs and continued to talk quietly about this and that, including again about the camp and about the prison. A strange feeling suddenly seized me: I wanted to kiss the Master's hand. But I was ashamed of my impulse and, embarrassedly taking my leave, went upstairs, '' Ippolit Alexandrovich finished.

A few hours later, the future enemy of the people was put in a special car and, after being examined for "pollution and lice", was sent to Moscow under reinforced escort.

The next day, the head of the prison, the doctor and the escort signed an act that "the arrested person's belongings were sanitized and disinfected, according to his examination and personal questioning of contamination and lice," they put the future enemy of the people in a carriage and sent him to Moscow under a reinforced escort.

The legal basis for this action was an arrest warrant signed by Lavrentiy Beria and his right hand in such cases, the head of the investigative unit, Bogdan Ko-Bulov. (In 1953, both will be arrested, sentenced to capital punishment, and shot in one day and one hour. - BS).

Read these lines, and you will understand not only how such documents were composed, but also who did it, - after all, Beria and his inner circle only signed these papers, thereby blessing the executioners of a lower rank for the bloody chaos.

“I, the captain of state security Golovanov, found: VE Meyerhold's available intelligence and investigative material. exposed as a Trotskyist and suspicious of spying for Japanese intelligence.

It has been established that for a number of years Meyerhold had close ties with the leaders of counter-revolutionary organizations - Bukharin and Rykov.

The arrested Japanese spy Yoshida Yoshimasu, while still in Tokyo, received a directive to contact Meyerhold in Moscow. Meyerhold's connection with the British was also established under data by the name of Gray, sent in 1935 from Soviet Union for espionage.

Based on the foregoing, he decided: to arrest Meyerhold-Reich Vsevolod Emilievich and conduct a search in his apartment. "

They did not wait for Meyerhold's arrival in Moscow, and the search in Bryusovsky Lane, where he lived with his wife Zinaida Reich, began immediately. Zinaida Nikolaevna was a temperamental woman, she knew her rights, so she became a mountain on the threshold of her room: “You can rummage through your husband's papers and things, but not in mine! Besides, my name is not on the search warrant. ”

There was a scandal that ended almost in assault. In any case, Junior Lieutenant Vlasov had to report to his superiors and write a report in which, of course, he shifts all the blame onto the fragile shoulders of the woman. With this lieutenant like soviet officer and a true admirer of beauty, cannot but cast a shadow on the famous actress throughout the country. “During the search, the wife of the arrested person was very nervous,” writes the lieutenant, “while declaring that we cannot search her belongings and documents. She said she would write a complaint against us. The son began to reassure her: “Mom, you don’t write like that and don’t get upset, otherwise you will end up in a psychiatric hospital again.”

And Vsevolod Emilievich was thrown into the notorious Inner Prison, which was popularly called the "inside". There it all started with filling out the arrested person's questionnaire. Here it is, this profile, screaming with terrible pain. I hold it in my hands, and, God knows, I cannot stop the trembling in my fingers - after all, this blood-curdling document was a pass to the real hell, the hell where they beat and tortured, where they beat and slashed, where they maimed and tormented, and then and killed.

From this questionnaire, we learn that Vsevolod Emilievich was born in 1874 in Penza, by nationality - German, education - secondary. The father, who was a merchant, died, and so did the mother. Wife - Zinaida Reich, actress. Children - Yesenina Tatiana, 21 years old, and Konstantin, 19 years old. Both Tatyana and Konstantin are the children of Zinaida Reich from her marriage to Sergei Yesenin. Vsevolod Emilievich has been a member of the CPSU (b) since 1918. Place of work - State Opera House named after Stanislavsky, position - chief director.

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Secret archives of the NKVD-KGB

In 1954, the gloomy building on Lubyanka again changed its signboard and became known as the State Security Committee - the KGB. The tasks set by the party for the KGB, at first glance, were lofty and noble: “In the shortest possible time, eliminate the consequences of Beria's enemy activities and achieve the transformation of the state security organs into a sharp weapon of the party directed against the real enemies of our socialist state, and not against honest people ".

SHOT THEATER

Nazim Hikmet

What a pity that these words of the great poet about the great master of theatrical art were said in 1955, and not fifteen years earlier! What a pity that Meyerhold's contribution to the progressive theater of the world is recognized only now, and not in the pre-war years, when Vsevolod Emilievich lived and worked!

I was the last person to see Meyerhold at large, ”he recalls. - I parted with him at four in the morning. The last night in his normal life he spent in the apartment of Yuri Mikhailovich Yuriev. Their friendship and love began from the time they worked on Don Giovanni at the Alexandria Theater.

A few hours later, the future enemy of the people was put in a special car and, after being examined for "pollution and lice", was sent to Moscow under reinforced escort.

“I, the captain of state security Golovanov, found: VE Meyerhold's available intelligence and investigative material. exposed as a Trotskyist and suspicious of spying for Japanese intelligence.

It has been established that for a number of years Meyerhold had close ties with the leaders of counter-revolutionary organizations - Bukharin and Rykov.

Based on the foregoing, he decided: to arrest Meyerhold-Reich Vsevolod Emilievich and conduct a search in his apartment. "

Their names were the biggest secret of the Soviet Union. And although the whole country knew about their existence, and the results of their activities from time to time became the property of the press, not to mention the fact that meeting with them frightened marshals and generals, people's artists and party leaders, ordinary workers and wealthy peasants, no names, no one knew the names of the representatives of this ancient profession.

But their faces were known to many, very many. True, this was the last thing these people saw: in a moment they appeared before God or Satan - as they were lucky. But the one who sent them to the next world busily reloaded the revolver and went to the next victim. Killing is his profession, and the more he kills, the higher the rank, the more orders, the higher the authority in the eyes of the authorities. These people are executioners, or, as they were then called, executors of death sentences.

I managed to lift the veil over this eerie and dark secret. I will introduce you to those who, in the truest sense of the word, have blood on their hands.

TO CARRY OUT EDUCATIONAL WORK AMONG PRISONERS TO BE SHOOTED!

In front of me is a rather voluminous, but little-known book with a completely creepy title "Shooting lists". The book contains 670 names and fewer photographs of those victims. stalinist repression, who were shot, then burned and buried on the territory of the Don crematorium in the period from 1934 to 1940. But in addition to this place, the executed were buried on the territory of the Yauzskaya hospital, at Vagankovsky, Kalitnikovsky, Rogozhsky and some other cemeteries.

The death conveyor worked day and night, there was not enough cemeteries, and then the idea was born to create so-called "zones" located on the lands belonging to the NKVD in the village of Butovo and the state farm "Kommunarka": the most mass graves are located there.

The execution technology was surprisingly simple. First, an order was drawn up by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which was signed by the chairman of this collegium Ulrich. It goes without saying that the prescription had the stamp “Sov. secret. " Before me is one of these orders of December 25, 1936: “I propose to immediately execute the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of December 7, 1936 in relation to those sentenced to execution. To convey the execution. "

The commandant of the Military Collegium, Captain Ignatiev, was an executive man - after a while he sends his superiors a document written in his own hand:

“The verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of 7.XII.36 in relation to the six persons named on the reverse was carried out on 25.12.36 at 22.45 in the city. Moscow ".

On the same day, he writes another paper:

“Director of the Moscow Crematorium. I suggest accepting six corpses for cremation out of turn. "

The director does not object and confirms in writing that he accepted six corpses for cremation.

Pay attention to one important detail: eighteen days elapsed from the sentencing to its execution - an atypical case at that time. Usually they were shot within 24 hours.

The most disgusting thing was that the relatives were not informed about the execution, they were told that their father, husband or brother "had been sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp without the right of correspondence and transmission." This order was approved in 1939. And in the fall of 1945, they began to answer that the convicted person had died in prison. This was exactly what Mikhail Koltsov's brother, the famous cartoonist Boris Efimov, was told: "Koltsov-Fridlyand ME, while serving his sentence, died on March 4, 1942". But Vsevolod Meyerhold “lived” a little longer: his granddaughter was given a certificate that he died on March 17, 1942. And this despite the fact that both were shot on February 2, 1940.

But it also happened that the executions were announced in the press and the whole country happily greeted this event. So it was with Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Kork, Uborevich and Eideman, so it was with Putna, Smilga and Yenukidze - their bodies were also burned in the Donskoy crematorium.

So who pulled the trigger and who was the last person to look the victim in the eye? I will definitely tell you about this, but a little later. In the meantime, let's go along that hellish road that hundreds of thousands of people have traveled - from arrest to the executioner's shot.

"RUSSIA" BECAME "NUTRYANKA"

In the Soviet Union, there were two of the most terrible prisons, from which it was almost impossible to get out. I'm talking about the Inner Prison and the other one, which is popularly called Lefortovo. Let's start with the Inner Prison, or, more simply, the "interior". They called it that because it was located in the courtyard of house No. 2 on Lubyanskaya Square. The first two floors were once the hotel of the Rossiya insurance company. After the revolution, four more were built, and six exercise yards were built on the roof. The prison had 118 cells with 350 places. The cells were both single and shared, for six or eight people. The prison had its own kitchen, shower room, but there was no visiting room.

The instructions of the Special Department of the Cheka for managing the Internal (then called secret) prison have been preserved.

“The internal (secret) prison has as its purpose the detention of the most important counter-revolutionaries and spies while their cases are being investigated, or when, for known reasons, it is necessary to completely cut off the arrested person from outside world, to hide his whereabouts, to completely deprive him of the opportunity in any way to relate to his will, to flee, etc. ”.

The "interior" regime was very strict. Correspondence with relatives was not allowed, no fresh newspapers were given, no programs were received, in other words, in the truest sense of the word they were cut off from the outside world. The persons under investigation were not named by their names. Each was assigned a serial number, and under this number he disappeared into oblivion. For example, Nikolai Bukharin had No. 365, Yakov Rudzutak had No. 1615, aircraft designer Andrey Tupolev, who had been here twice, had No. 2068, and the writer Artem Vesely (Kochkurov) had No. 2146.

In the surviving prisoner registration log, in addition to all kinds of setup data, the date of departure from prison is always indicated against the name and number of the prisoner. Where to? As a rule, in Butyrka or Lefortovo. This has its own trick, or, if you like, subtlety. At the end of the investigation, the arrested person entered the jurisdiction of the judicial authorities, and they had nothing to do with the Inner Prison. Therefore, the same Abel Yenukidze, Sergei Korolev, Boris Pilnyak, Vladimir Kirshon or Natalya Sats were interrogated in the "interior", and before the court they were kept in Lefortovo or Butyrka.

Almost nothing is known about the morals of the "insider", about how the suspects were beaten, tortured and tortured. The investigators, as you understand, did not write about this, and what their victims said at the trial, as a rule, was not taken into account. But one voice reached us - the voice of the famous terrorist Maria Spiridonova. Let me remind you that the tsarist government sentenced her to be hanged, but replaced the death penalty with eternal hard labor on Akatui. After the revolution, Spiridonov was the inspirer of the Left SR revolt and the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach. She spent eleven years with the tsar, and then ten years in prison and twelve in exile under Lenin and Stalin.

In September 1937, Maria Spiridonova, who was already over fifty, got into the "interior". This is what she wrote own hand after two months:

“We must give justice to both the tsarist prison regime and the Soviet prison. All the years of long-term imprisonment, I was inviolable, and my personal dignity in especially painful points was never hurt. The old Bolsheviks spared me, measures were taken so that not a shadow of abuse was inflicted on me.

The year 1937 brought about a complete change in this respect, and therefore there were days when I was searched 10 times in one day. To get rid of the groping, I screamed at the top of my lungs, struggled and resisted, and the warden covered my mouth with a sweaty hand, with his other hand pressed against the warden, who groped me and my panties. To get rid of this outrage and a number of others, I had to starve. I almost died of this hunger strike. "

Scurvy, sciatica, incipient blindness - this is an incomplete list of diseases that Spiridonova suffered from. But she held on. She held on as much as she could. And she trusted only paper with her irrepressible pain:

“I always think about the psychology of thousands of people - technical performers, executioners, executioners, those who see off those sentenced to death, about a platoon shooting in the twilight of the night at a tied, disarmed and distraught person.

The most terrible thing in imprisonment is the transformation of a person into a thing. The use of 25 or 10 years of isolation in my eyes is tantamount to the death penalty, and I personally consider the latter a more humane measure for myself. Show humanity this time and kill immediately. "

On September 11, 1941, "humanity" was shown, and by the verdict of the Military Collegium Maria Spiridonova was shot ... Shot, but not in the way she imagined. There was no "platoon", there was no "twilight of the night," and, of course, no one connected her. Everything was much simpler and more primitive. And she was escorted to death by one of those who will be discussed ...

In front of me are ten service records (now they are called personal files) of employees of the NKVD commandant's office, which are most often found in all kinds of execution documents.

“We, the undersigned, Senior Lieutenant of State Security Ovchinnikov, Lieutenant Shigalev and Major Ilyin, have drawn up this act stating that this date we have carried out the decision of the NKVD troika of 15 June. On the basis of this order, the following convicts were shot ... ”The following is a list of twenty-two people.

On this working day of Ovchinnikov, Shigalev and Ilyin did not end, they had to shoot seven more. The most striking thing is that this act was written by hand, in large, clear handwriting, therefore, the hands of the executioners did not tremble after such hard work, and they put their signatures sweeping and confident.

The Shigalev brothers are one of the most famous executioners of the Stalin era. The eldest, Vasily, having received a four-year education in his native Kirzhach, studied to be a shoemaker, joined the Red Guard, was a machine gunner, and then suddenly became a warden in the infamous Inner Prison. After serving for some time in the commandant's office of the NKVD, in 1937 Vasily received the position of an employee for special assignments - this was another way to encrypt the executioners. Over time, he became an honorary Chekist, holder of several military orders and, of course, a member of the CPSU (b).

Vasily is also known for the fact that he was the only performer who was "honored" with a denunciation from his colleagues. What he annoyed them with is hard to say, but in his personal file there is a report addressed to the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Frinovsky, in which it is reported that “the employee for special assignments Vasily Ivanovich Shigalev had a close acquaintance with the enemy of the people Bulanov, often visited him on apartment ". In 1938, such a report was enough to get into the hands of his colleagues in the commandant's office, but Frinovsky, apparently, decided that it was not worth throwing such personnel around, and left the denunciation without consequences.

Apparently, this story taught Vasily Shiga-lev something, and he, impeccably fulfilling his direct duties, for which he soon received the Order of the Badge of Honor, after 1938 tried not to be exposed anywhere: not a single piece of paper was preserved in the archives with his signature.

But his brother Ivan acted less cautiously. Either the three-year education affected, or the fact that for some time he worked as a salesman and was used to being in the public eye, but after serving in the army, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother: the warden in the Inner Prison, then the watchman, the head of the pass bureau and, finally, employee for special assignments. He quickly catches up with his brother in the number of executions, and even overtakes in the number of awards: becoming a lieutenant colonel, he receives the Order of Lenin and, what is strangest, the medal "For the Defense of Moscow", although he did not kill a single German. But your compatriots ... You are already familiar with one execution act, with his sweeping signature, and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of them.

And here is another curious document. As you know, in those, and very recent years, the whole country was covered by party studies. The history of the CPSU (b), and then the CPSU, was studied by workers and collective farmers, teachers and doctors, marshals and soldiers. The executioners also stood in this row. Having discharged the last cartridge, they took notebooks in their hands and went to Lenin's room to discuss and approve the next decision of the Central Committee or to outline the theses of Stalin's fundamental speech. Ivan Shigalev supervised this study: he was a party group organ and was engaged in mass propaganda work.

Ivan tried, Vasily was torn - he really wanted to be noticed and noted by the authorities, so that they would quickly assign the next rank and present to the order. The Shigalevs became famous, and in certain circles they were even respected. But the executioner brothers did not know that their surname had already been immortalized, and not by anyone, but by Dostoevsky himself. It was he who invented Shigalev and "Shigalevism" as an ugly product of the socialist idea, and described this phenomenon in "Demons".

Remember what the spokesman for this idea, Verhovensky, says?

“We will proclaim destruction. We'll start the fires. We will let the legends go ... Here every scurvy "handful" will come in handy. I’ll find you in these same heaps of such hunters that they will go for every shot, and they will be grateful for the honor. Well, and the confusion will begin! The swing will go like the world has never seen. Rus will be clouded, the earth will cry for the old gods.

And yet, no matter how famous and no matter how authoritative the Shigalev brothers were, they are far from the most bloodthirsty and most famous figure among the performers. The name of this man was pronounced in an enthusiastic whisper, because on his personal account there were about 10 thousand people who were shot. The name of this executioner was Pyotr Ivanovich Maggo. Latvian by nationality, he graduated from only two classes of a rural school, worked for a landowner, took part in the First World War, in 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party and almost immediately became a member of the punitive detachment that was part of the Cheka.

Apparently, Maggo showed himself quite brightly, since literally a year later he was appointed a warden, and then the head of the prison located on Dzerzhinsky Street, 11. There he served until 1931, and then became an employee for special assignments of the OGPU commandant's office, or, simply put, an executioner.

For ten years, Maggo did not let go of the revolver, and, judging by the testimony of one of the currently living performers, whom I managed to meet, but whose name I promised not to name, the executioners preferred revolvers of this particular system. Over the years, Maggo became an Honorary Chekist, received several orders, was awarded a diploma from the OGPU and a gold watch, and in his description he was awarded the highest, albeit coded, praise: “He takes his work seriously. I did a lot of work on a special assignment. "

Yes, Maggo did a lot of work. As I said, on his personal account there are about 10 thousand ruined souls. But looking at his photograph, you never think so. If it were not for his uniform, he might well have been mistaken for a village teacher, doctor, or agronomist: a sweet old man in old-fashioned, round glasses.

And just like the teacher, every morning, having a quick breakfast, he went to work, however, instead of pointing, he picked up a revolver and got down to business. They say that once, having shot twenty dozen condemned, he went into a rage so that he yelled at the head of the Special Department, Popov, who was standing next to him: “Why are you standing here? Take off your clothes! Immediately! Otherwise I'll shoot you on the spot! " The frightened special officer barely fought off the "serious about work" executioner.

True, this ideal performer had a sin, which was even noted in the characteristic: Maggo loved to drink and, apparently, was strong. His current colleague, whom I have already mentioned, noticed that this sin was inherent in all performers.

We always had a bucket of vodka and a bucket of cologne on hand, '' he recalls. - Vodka, of course, they drank until they lost consciousness. Say what you like, but the work was not easy. They were so tired that at times they could hardly keep up. And we washed ourselves with cologne. Up to the waist. Otherwise, you cannot get rid of the smell of gunpowder and blood. Even the dogs shied away from us, and if they barked, then from afar.

And once Maggo got hit by Berg's immediate superior. Referring to Maggo, Berg indicated in a written report that many condemned people die with the words: "Long live Stalin!" The leadership's resolution was purely Bolshevik: “It is necessary to carry out educational work among those sentenced to death, so that at such an inopportune moment they do not smear the name of the leader. "

STALIN'S PERSONAL DRIVER

Getting acquainted with the personal files of the performers, I noted that there were no non-partisans among them. So, before getting a state revolver and access to the back of the convict's head, one had to join the party and, of course, earn the appropriate recommendation from the party committee. There are such recommendations in business. But one of the communist executioners had such serious recommendations, of course, oral ones, which the people's commissars never dreamed of.

I'm talking about Petr Yakovlev. In his personal file, and at the very end, there is a modest but very significant postscript: “From 1922 to 1924 he was assigned to the Kremlin to the personal garage of V.I. Lenin and Comrade Stalin. He was the head of the garage and served them personally. "

Is it any wonder that, with such omnipotent patrons, the illiterate Sormovo worker rose to the rank of colonel, having been both the head of the communications department and the head of the OGPU motor depot. But, most importantly, he made his way to the staff for special assignments. Throughout the war and even in the post-war years, right up to his dismissal, Yakovlev's place of work was the commandant's department, and his main tool was a revolver. It's hard to believe, but it's a fact: for some time he was a deputy of the Moscow City Council, apparently looking closely at his future victims.

The leadership of the NKVD and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) always kept in sight the selfless work of their promoter and celebrated his successes with numerous medals and orders, up to the highest award of the country - the Order of Lenin. And this is natural, because in his characteristic, issued during the next certification, it is written in black and white: “He treats work well. He is sick for the cause. Possesses great efficiency and a sufficient share of energy. Well-versed in the implementation of operational orders. Resourceful, disciplined. "

Now imagine what this man was doing, imagine the endless ranks of the condemned, whom he sent to the next world, and read the description again. Hair stands on end with shameless cynicism! For the cause, you see, he is sick, and even has a great capacity for work. Nightmare - if you think about these formulations!

Grasping the line that Yakovlev “is modest and a good family man in everyday life,” I asked a now familiar performer:

Did the wives and children know what their husbands and fathers were doing?

In no case! - he waved his hands. - Even at the Lubyanka, a very limited circle of people knew about it. Our names were the biggest secret of the Soviet Union. And those at home ... What do they care? We were given excellent apartments, salaries and rations were good, vouchers to sanatoriums - at any time of the year. What else does a wife and children need? And they were proud of the fact that the head of the family belonged to the NKVD. We were very proud! So there were no complexes.

Complexes with complexes, and health with health ... Nature took its toll and punished the executioners in its own way: they resigned as deeply disabled. The same Maggo finally got drunk, acquired a whole bunch of various diseases and died shortly before the war. Pyotr Yakovlev "earned" cardiosclerosis, pulmonary emphysema, varicose veins, and deafness in the right ear - a sure sign that he shot from the right hand.

His colleague Ivan Feldman quit his job as a disabled person of the second group with so many diseases that he did not live even a year. And Lieutenant Colonel Yemelyanov, as they say now, has gone bad. The order on his dismissal says so: “Comrade. Emelyanov is transferred to a pension due to illness (schizophrenia) associated exclusively with long-term operational work in the organs. "

A former Latvian shepherd, then a prison warden and, finally, a model employee for special assignments Ernest Mach found himself in the same position. Mach gave twenty-six years to his beloved occupation, rose to the rank of major, was appointed educator of the "youngsters" —that was the name of the young security officers, received several orders and became a psycho.

In any case, his immediate superior in a report to the management asks to dismiss Mach from the organs as a person "suffering from a neuropsychic illness."

Lieutenant Colonel Dmitriev retired as an invalid of the first group, and in fact he, one might say, rescued the leadership of the NKVD, voluntarily switching from chauffeurs to executors: in 1937, the park was terrible, and there were chronically not enough executioners.

But two gallant colonels - Antonov and Semenikhin - resigned not because of illness, but because of their age. Judging by their track records, they understood in time what the daily shooting at live targets leads to, and made their way to the group leaders. In other words, they themselves are in last years they did not shoot, but only watched as the subordinates did it, of course, from time to time making comments and sharing their rich experience.

RESERVE "ORDER" of the executioners

I have already said that the executioner must certainly be a communist. This is the main condition for joining this kind of "order". But there was one more, not less important: almost every executioner had to go through a prison school and work as a warden. Why? Yes, apparently, because, in the words of Maria Spiridonova, he sees how a person turns into a thing, moreover, he contributes to this. And since a person has become a thing, then later it costs nothing to break this thing, or even shatter to smithereens. This means that the warders are both a breeding ground and a kind of reserve for replenishing the "order" of the executioners.

But the warders were not only there, they are now, as, indeed, there are potential executors of execution sentences. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get to know them, but I talked to the warders and their superiors to my heart's content, and not just anywhere, but in the Lefortovo prison that went down in history. How I got there is a special conversation, but, fortunately, not as a guest, but, let's say, for the purpose of familiarization.

So, I'm standing at an unremarkable gate. In less than a second, they swung open by themselves: either a photocell was triggered, or someone invisible pressed a button. The steep-shouldered ensign, without asking for documents, called me by name and patronymic, opened one door, another, a third, then two marches upstairs - and I was in the chief's office.

Yuri Danilovich, - he rose to meet. - Come on in. Sit down. Make yourself at home.

At the word "sit down" I involuntarily shuddered, but decided to laugh it off and cheerfully picked up:

Yeah ... like home. Although, as experienced people say, you sit down earlier - you leave earlier!

Not always. You don't have to go out at all, - the boss remarked competently.

I took out a notebook, a camera, a dictaphone and got ready for a conversation. But Yuri Danilovich raised his hands in protest.

No, no and NO! The agreement will be like this: do not ask anyone's names, and take pictures only of what I allow.

Photos - wherever it went. But what about without surnames? - I was surprised. - It's not accepted in our country.

And we have it that way. By name and patronymic, we turn not only to each other, but also to those under investigation, and they are just the same to us. So we will do without names and portraits.

It's better not to argue with the head of the prison, I decided and turned on the recorder.

Could you please clarify a rather simple, at first glance, question: how old is your institution? I asked. - According to some sources, it was built during the time of the associate of Peter I Franz Lefort, and according to others, during the time of Catherine I.

Both sources are lying, to put it mildly. The Moscow military prison for solitary confinement of war criminals was built in 1880, that is, during the time of Tsar-liberator Alexander II. It was intended only for the lower ranks who committed minor crimes. The prisoners were kept only in solitary cells. They were fed once a day. Nobody spoke to anyone. Deathly silence, meager food and complete idleness drove people to a frenzy. At the time of the revolution, and then in the twenties and thirties, the prison was sometimes called a domzak, then a labor colony, and in the Yezhov-Beria era, Lefortovo became a branch of the Inner Prison.

I already know that people were taken away from here for trial. And after the trial, were they always sent to Butovo and Kommunarka, or were they returned to Lefortovo?

What for? - the chief did not understand.

To carry out the sentence. Were they shot here, in these basements? - I stamped on the floor.

Ruled out! - he raised his voice. - They didn't shoot in Lefortovo. Never! I declare this as a professional who worked here at first as a controller, but simply as an overseer, and for many years now as a chief. Let me remind you: our institution is a pre-trial detention center, which means that we have people under investigation. Our primary task is to save a person for the investigation, and then for the court.

There have been many cases when the suspect was released right in the courtroom, but it also happened that the investigation dragged on for years. Remember at least the case of the former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, and besides, Brezhnev's son-in-law, Yuri Churbanov. Both he and his accomplices were kept with us, and then some went home, while others, including Churbanov, were to serve their sentences. A Rutskoy, Khasbulatov and others famous peoplewho were involved in the case of, let's say, the White House - we had nineteen of them in total - they are free, and not just free, but almost all have returned to big politics.

You said: keep the person for the investigation. What does it mean? After all, the people have a firm conviction that prison is every minute humiliation and all kinds of psychological influences, and the consequence is threats, beatings and torture.

What was, what was, - Yuri Danilovich sighed. - Let me remind you that about ten million people were passed through the millstones of the GULAG, including, only by sentences, six hundred and fifty thousand were shot. Most of them have pleaded guilty to the most incredible crimes. Of course, these testimonies were knocked out in the truest sense of the word. But ... Stalin personally blessed these measures, and no one could disobey him. Back in 1937, on behalf of the Central Committee, he ordered the use of physical measures during interrogations. But this seemed to him not enough, and two years later the leader demanded the obligatory application of such measures. Since the leader demanded this, they began to beat people mercilessly. And so it went on until the "thaw".

Now any beatings and bullying are excluded. As the head of the isolation ward and our doctor, I am responsible for the life and health of our patients! We are monitored monthly by the supervising prosecutor, he reviews all written and listens to oral complaints. If necessary, any of those under investigation can talk to him in private.

But there are purely professional requirements, for which we are strictly responsible. For example, there should not be people in the cell who are involved in the same case. In addition, we must exclude the possibility of an accidental meeting of such people, prevent them from exchanging notes, any other information and, of course, prevent the possibility of escape.

Speaking of escapes, I said. - Were they in the history of the Lefortovo prison?

No one! Although attempts were made from time to time. One of them, rather curious, happened many years ago. There was no sewage system here, and all the waste was taken out in barrels. So one fugitive dived into such a barrel in the expectation that he would be taken out of the city, but he could not sit for a long time, emerged, and was found. They say that he was laundered then for two months.

And then we left the office and went through the floors, cells and boxes. The prison is built in the shape of the letter "K". At the intersection of three sticks there is a remote control and a main post, so the controllers can clearly see and hear everything. The silence here, by the way, is amazing, as in kindergarten during the "quiet hour". Stairs, passages, grids between floors, television cameras, alarms, massive doors, complex locks - everything is subject to security.

Yuri Danilovich, - I hesitated a little, I turned to the chief, - do not consider me arrogant, but I have a request. I understand that it is a little strange, and yet ... It, of course, God forbid, crap, but ... Can't I sit for at least half an hour in one of your cells for the sake of completeness?

So little? - the boss threw up his hands somewhat theatrically. - There were no such dates in our history. But, as they say, the trouble is the beginning. Who knows, maybe the hour will strike when the investigators will have half an hour to solve the crime. And in such a trifling request, how to sit in a prison cell, I cannot refuse you.

When the locks and bolts rattled and they locked me in the cell, God knows, for a moment my throat caught and my heart sank. Then I calmed down a little and looked around ... There are two metal beds along the walls, one more window. There is a transom under the very ceiling. A sink, a table, a toilet bowl, three stools, a mirror mounted in the wall, a button to call the controller, a loudspeaker, shelves for personal belongings and toiletries - that is, in fact, the whole furnishings of the prison cell. The light is on around the clock, but at night it is weaker.

After a while I was taken for a walk. It turns out that every day for exactly one hour, all those under investigation are in the exercise yards, located not below, but on the roof itself. In principle, this is a series of concrete, albeit rather spacious, wells, covered with a grid on top. Here you can walk, jog, sit on a bench, do floor exercises, which is what many do.

Breathing in fresh air, I went to the kitchen, then to the medical unit, examined the interrogation boxes, the shower room, and finally got to know those for whom I came here. The inspectors are usually young, strong warrant officers. They are shy about their profession, in any case, neither their girls nor their wives know that they work in prison, and even as wardens.

But how is that? - I was surprised. - If we talk about the girl from the disco, this is understandable: the guy from the prison for dancing is not the best party. But if she became a wife, if you have a normal family, then why hide, why hide? In the end, everyone earns their bread as best they can.

Well, yes, ”one of the ensigns remarked gloomily. - What to hide ... A friend's husband works as a manager, broker or some kind of director, wanders around the world, sunbathes in the Bahamas, after each trip - chat on the phone for a week. And what to show off my? By the fact that her husband works in prison? No, let it be better to brag about the fact that the husband serves in the organs - period.

It is rumored that the lives of the people in the cells depend on you in the truest sense of the word. Is it so?

It happens that it depends. Our people are different - spies, murderers, bandits, smugglers. Some of them believe that there is no need to wait for the trial, all the same "watchtower", and this is life imprisonment, and are trying to take their own lives here. For example, I noticed that one of the defendants twisted a rope from the strips torn from the sheet. Obviously, I wanted to hang myself. But I did not give it to him and took the rope out in time. And my shiftman missed the process of making the rope, but still managed to pull the suicide out of the loop.

But what if, as it was twenty years ago, the "tower" is real? If the court passed a death sentence, then who carried it out? - I asked a not entirely correct question.

How is it - who? Performers. But they passed through another department and had nothing to do with our isolation ward, - Lefortova's chief answered for everyone.

Were they not recruited from your guys, not from Lefortov's controllers? And who are they? Could you introduce some of them?

What are you doing ?! Their names were the country's biggest secret. And there were only one or two of them, no more. True, I knew them, but they were not Lefortovo controllers. Long before Russia joined the Council of Europe, execution sentences were very rare. And where, by whom and how they were carried out, it was not allowed to chat. And why is it necessary?

So, the circle is complete. The names of the executioners, as they were, remain the biggest secret. And how can one fail to recall the unusually capacious and accurate aphorism of Vladimir Dahl: "God forbid anyone to be the executioner - but you can't live without him!" Dahl, of course, is right, you cannot live without an executioner, someone must do this job too. And we see that in many countries, including quite developed ones, where the death penalty is not prohibited, some people do this work not without success.

But ... for every profession, like this one, you need to have an inclination. Agree that the tendency to cold-blooded murder, and from month to month, from year to year, is an abnormal phenomenon. Honestly, I thought that among the ancestors of the executioners of the Stalinist era I would find at least inveterate criminals and this would explain the many years of work as executors of their descendants. No, nothing of the kind was found: ordinary peasant or working families, dark and almost illiterate people.

So what drove the Shigalevs, Yakovlevs, Machs and their order-bearing colleagues? What made you take a revolver and shoot defenseless people? I think I have found the answer to this exotic question. Rereading the party description of Lieutenant Colonel Dmitriev, I drew attention to the following lines: “Ideologically consistent. Loyal to the cause of the party of Lenin-Stalin. "

And now let's remember the words of one of the most fanatical party members, Verkhovensky, who said that he would find such hunters that they would go for every shot, and they would still be grateful for the honor.

Verkhovensky is a literary image, while Lenin, Stalin and their party are reality. Eerie reality. It was they who awakened base instincts in people, it was they who gave birth to executioners with party membership cards, they did it so that loyalty to the party of Lenia-Stalin meant being grateful for the honor of shooting a defenseless and often innocent person in the back of the head.

In the previous volume of the "Secret Archives" we considered the activities of the most terrible and most bloodthirsty monster of all times and peoples, hidden from the people, called the Cheka - OGPU. Over the seventeen years of its existence, this ominous monster shed so much blood, destroyed so many worthy people of Russia that we still feel these losses.

In 1954, the gloomy building on Lubyanka changed its sign again and became known as the State Security Committee - the KGB. The tasks set by the party for the KGB, at first glance, were lofty and noble: “In the shortest possible time, eliminate the consequences of Beria's enemy activities and achieve the transformation of the state security organs into a sharp weapon of the party directed against the real enemies of our socialist state, and not against honest people ".

Executed theater

Nazim Hikmet

Having uttered these words then, sign under them all those who knew him well and worked side by side with him, if they had shown civic courage then, and not fifteen years later, perhaps there would have been no case No. 537 approved by Beria personally and ended a verdict signed by Ulrich: "Meyerhold-Reich Vsevolod Emilievich shall be subjected to the capital punishment - execution with confiscation of all his personal property."

“I was the last person to see Meyerhold free,” he recalls. - I parted with him at four in the morning. He spent the last night in his normal life in the apartment of Yuri Mikhailovich Yuriev. Their friendship and love began from the time they worked on Don Giovanni at the Alexandria Theater.

The night before, Vsevolod Emilievich came to Yuryev's for dinner. He was gloomy and for some reason asked all the time about the camp, went into the details of the life of the prisoners. At dawn Vsevolod Emilievich and I left Yuriev's apartment. In his hands Meyerhold held a bottle of white wine and two glasses - for himself and for me. We sat down with a bottle on the steps of the stairs and continued to talk quietly about this and that, including again about the camp and about the prison. A strange feeling suddenly seized me: I wanted to kiss the Master's hand. But I was ashamed of my impulse and, embarrassedly taking my leave, went upstairs, - concluded Ippolit Alexandrovich.

A few hours later, the future enemy of the people was put in a special car and, after being examined for "pollution and lice", was sent to Moscow under reinforced escort.

“I, the captain of state security Golovanov, found: VE Meyerhold's available intelligence and investigative material. exposed as a Trotskyist and suspicious of spying for Japanese intelligence.

It has been established that for a number of years Meyerhold had close ties with the leaders of counter-revolutionary organizations - Bukharin and Rykov.

Based on the foregoing, he decided: to arrest Meyerhold-Reich Vsevolod Emilievich and conduct a search in his apartment. "

There was a scandal that ended almost in assault. In any case, Junior Lieutenant Vlasov had to report to his superiors and write a report in which, of course, he shifts all the blame onto the fragile shoulders of the woman. At the same time, the lieutenant, as a Soviet officer and a true admirer of beauty, cannot but cast a shadow on the actress known throughout the country. “During the search, the wife of the arrested person was very nervous,” writes the lieutenant, “while declaring that we cannot search her belongings and documents. She said she would write a complaint against us. The son began to reassure her: “Mom, you don’t write like that and don’t get upset, otherwise you will end up in a psychiatric hospital again.”