Marshal Stalin. Marshals of the Russian Federation

Yuri Viktorovich Rubtsov

STALIN'S MARSHALS

In memory of my parents - participants in the Great Patriotic War: Alexandra Ilyinichna - a home front worker and Viktor Emelyanovich - a Baltic sailor.

The appearance of its own marshals in the Red Army in 1935 was an unprecedented step. Since all ranks, titles and ranks were abolished back in 1917, our commanders have differed only in their positions. The terms “officer”, “general”, “marshal (field marshal general)” were perceived by Soviet people only as relics of tsarism. And then a real revolution took place in the system of distinguishing military personnel.

Of the forty-one military leaders who were awarded the highest military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union over the 56 years of existence in the USSR, only nineteen can be considered Stalinist marshals, excluding I.V. Stalin himself.

Here are their names (the year the title was awarded is indicated in brackets):

Kliment Efremovich VOROSHILOV (1935)

Mikhail Nikolaevich TUKHACHEVSKY (1935)

Alexander Ilyich EGOROV (1935)

Semyon Mikhailovich BUDENNY (1935)

Vasily Konstantinovich BLUCHER (1935)

Grigory Ivanovich KULIK (1940, stripped of his rank in 1942, posthumously restored in 1957)

Semyon Konstantinovich TIMOSHENKO (1940)

Boris Mikhailovich SHAPOSHNIKOV (1940)

Georgy Konstantinovich ZHUKOV (1943)

Alexander Mikhailovich VASILEVSKY (1943)

Ivan Stepanovich KONEV (1944)

Leonid Aleksandrovich GOVOROV (1944)

Konstantin Konstantinovich ROKOSSOVSKY (1944)

Rodion Yakovlevich MALINOVSKY (1944)

Fedor Ivanovich TOLBUKHIN (1944)

Kirill Afanasyevich MERETSKOV (1944)

Lavrenty Pavlovich BERIA (1945, stripped of his title in 1953)

Vasily Danilovich SOKOLOVSKY (1946)

Nikolai Aleksandrovich BULGANIN (1947, demoted to the rank of Colonel General in 1958).

Why do we call these people Stalin's marshals? For the most obvious reason: long before September 22, 1935, when this highest title was introduced by decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, nothing more or less important happened without the initiative or approval of the “father of nations.”

Stalin personally determined each candidate for the rank of marshal. The basis for the positive decision was not only the military leadership merits of the candidate. As a rule, personal loyalty was also required. In other cases, even he, the dictator, was forced to take into account objective factors - the successes of candidates for marshals on the battlefields, the posts they occupied in the military hierarchy.

We will focus on the biography of several senior military officers of the 30s and 40s. At the same time, the reader, I think, is not without interest in the collective portrait of the Red Marshals.

Thus, among them there was not a single one who would hold any noticeable position in the tsarist army (only Shaposhnikov rose to the rank of colonel there). The majority are workers and peasants by origin. Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Konev, Timoshenko, Budyonny, Kulik also came from the soldier environment of the tsarist army. Egorov, Tukhachevsky, Vasilevsky, Govorov, Tolbukhin rose to the rank of officers there, but of low rank. Then they voluntarily joined the Red Army.

The only future marshal, Govorov, found himself on the other side of the barricade for some time: in 1918–1919. served with Kolchak, being forcibly mobilized, as a junior officer of an artillery battery. Then he fled and, meeting with units of the Red Army, joined it as a volunteer. As incredible as it may seem, this biographical fact did not affect Govorov’s career in any way. Moreover, in 1942, he, the commander of the Leningrad Front, was accepted into the party without undergoing candidate experience, and in 1945 he was awarded the highest military order of Victory.

The talent of the future major commanders of the Great Patriotic War, and then quite young colonels, brigade commanders and division commanders, grew stronger in the 30s and early 40s in Spain and China, in the battles in the area of ​​Lake Khasan, on Khalkhin Gol and the Karelian Isthmus. They also studied military theory a lot. In I. Kh. Bagramyan’s book “The Sons of the Great Nation” there is a mention that some of the West German general-memoirists argued: Russian commanders beat the Nazis because, while studying at the Reichswehr Military Academy, they learned military wisdom according to German recipes. Ivan Khristoforovich called such statements a malicious falsification and not without reason. Most Soviet commanders studied at home in military academies and in numerous advanced training courses for command personnel; they studied intensely, realizing that in the age of technology you cannot go far on a familiar horse. Even Budyonny graduated from the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze, however, as he proudly emphasized more than once, without interruption from his main official duties. Vasilevsky and Govorov managed to attend the full course of the Military Academy of the General Staff before 1941.

Zhukov was unable to obtain an academic education, but thanks to tireless independent work, he enriched his rare natural talent with military theory in full. As the famous American historian G. Salisbury wrote about Georgiy Konstantinovich, “he knew by heart all the classical military literature from Caesar to Clausewitz.”

The first marshal “conscription” in 1935 consisted entirely of heroes of the civil war. Legendary heroes, the scale of whose fame today is difficult to even imagine. People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, Deputy People's Commissar Tukhachevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Egorov, Inspector of the Red Army Cavalry Budyonny, Commander of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army Blyukher - the names of these people by that time, for at least a decade and a half, had not left the pages of newspapers, sounded in the names of factories and collective farms, military units and pioneer detachments. Poems and songs, books and films were dedicated to them.

“The title of marshal was given to the greatest proletarian military leader, an unshakable Leninist, Stalin’s most faithful comrade-in-arms, the iron People’s Commissar Klim Voroshilov,” wrote the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, responding to the appearance of the first marshals in the Red Army. - Who doesn’t know the legendary folk hero, former farm laborer, commander of the 1st Cavalry Army, Comrade Budyonny, whose very name instilled fear and panic in the ranks of the enemies?.. Who doesn’t know the invincible Blucher - the hero of the “Volochaev” days in the fight for Siberia and Far East, for the impregnable Perekop?

Today it is often argued whether it is possible to become a hero in a civil war and is it worth elevating those who distinguished themselves while fighting their compatriots in battle? There is a moral reason for such debates. But in purely military terms, many future Red Marshals turned out to be quite wealthy in the conditions of that time. Making extensive use of the experience of military experts, they successfully defeated the troops of the white generals.

The first five marshals of the Soviet Union (from left to right) are sitting: Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot); standing: Budyonny and Blucher (arrested, died in Lefortovo prison from torture).

It’s not for nothing that the country awarded us medals,

Each of our fighters knows this,

We are ready for battle, Comrade Voroshilov,

We are ready for battle, Stalin is our father.

To fight for the homeland, to fight for Stalin,

We can stand up for him

Well-fed horses beat their hooves,

The handle of the checker is in the hand.

And now, 74 years later, the terrible anniversary is approaching - June 22. I, who remember this whole day as if it were yesterday, remember today not only those soldiers and commanders who fought, died or survived, but also those who did not have time to take part in the defense of their country. Didn't have time. Why?

I had a chance to see some of the Red Army commanders of that pre-war period. Two of my close relatives were veterans. Uncle Petya in his youth was in a detachment of Red partisans in Ukraine, and Uncle Ernest was an ordinary Red Army soldier, a participant in the Polish campaign of 1920. Each of them managed to maintain connections with several fellow soldiers who occasionally visited their homes. Knowing that I, a ten-year-old boy, was very interested in the civil war and military problems in general, each of them invited me to these meetings one or two times. Five or six people gathered there. Their faces are still before my eyes, perhaps because I gazed at them, saw them as heroes, objects to be emulated. After all, I, like all the boys, dreamed of participating in the future inevitable great and last war, which would also be a world revolution.

Yes, I remember them, still young, about forty years old, cheerful, vigorous. All conversations revolved around only two topics: memories of “battles and campaigns” and the inevitable war with Nazi Germany and the Japanese samurai. The whole life of these people was completely connected with the Red Army. From ordinary soldiers, moving up the career ladder, it took almost twenty years to reach positions that later corresponded to the ranks of major, lieutenant colonel, colonel (at that time the ranks were just being introduced). There were no shoulder straps, I remember sleepers and diamonds.

And this is what Petya’s uncle, Colonel Pyotr Dmitrievich Ignatov, subsequently told me (he himself was arrested in 1937, but released before the war): of his friends and fellow soldiers, not a single one remained at the beginning of the war. And Uncle Ernest said absolutely the same thing. Everyone was either arrested, shot, sent to camps, or, at best, dismissed from the army.

Strange? No. These are the numbers that I already announced once on Echo, but I will say again, this is required by the memory of the commanders who did not live to see the war.

In 1937-38 were shot:

Marshals – 3 out of 5;

Commanders (corresponding to army generals) – 14 out of 16;

Komkor (colonel generals) - 58 out of 62;

Divisional commanders (lieutenant generals) - 122 out of 201;

Fleet flagships of 1st rank (full admirals) – 2 out of 2;

Army commissars 1st rank – 2 out of 2;

Army commissars 2nd rank - 15 out of 15;

Corps commissars - 25 out of 28;

Brigade commissars - 34 out of 36;

8 deputy people's commissars of defense, 68 of 85 members of the Military Council under the people's commissar of defense, and heads of 13 military academies were shot. At the brigade level of the army, 373 commanders were repressed, at the division level - 222, at the corps level - 93, at the highest level - 41. In total, there were 412 people in positions from brigade commander to marshal. 379 colonels were shot. All this on the eve of the war!

Where does the data come from? Russian State Military Archive, Russian Center for Storage and Study of Documents of Contemporary History, Card File of Cases of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (50 thousand cards), fundamental work of Colonel O.F. Suvenirova “Tragedy of the Red Army” with a martyrology numbering 2 thousand names, and many other works.

As Voroshilov announced in his speech at a meeting of the Military Council on November 29, 1938, “throughout 1937-1938 we had to mercilessly cleanse our ranks. Over the entire period of time, we have cleared out more than four tens of thousands of people.”

40 thousand experienced commanders were “purged” while the shortage of commanders for the army was 240 thousand, as Vadim Kirpichenko, a future outstanding intelligence officer, who studied in the same group with me at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, later reported. “During the war,” Kirpichenko said, already being a lieutenant general, “when I served as a soldier, I had two division commanders—one with five years of education, the other with six.”

From the report of the head of the combat training department, General V.N. Kurdyumova: “out of 225 regiment commanders recruited, only 25 people ended up graduating from a military school, the remaining 200 people were people who graduated from courses for junior lieutenants...” It was the lieutenants who led the regiments into battle after June 22; It is not surprising that the Germans reached Moscow in four months, capturing almost 3 million soldiers and commanders.

Corps commander N.V. Kuibyshev, having taken command of the Transcaucasian Military District, discovered that out of 7 division commanders, 5 were arrested, and out of 26 regiment commanders, 7 remained. By the way, Kuibyshev (brother of the Politburo member in whose honor the city of Samara was renamed), awarded three Orders of the Red Banner of Battle , was declared an agent of German, Polish, Lithuanian and Japanese intelligence. And, of course, he was shot.

Zhukov’s letter to Konstantin Simonov: “Not only was the army, starting with the regiments, decapitated, it was also disintegrated” (“Marshal Zhukov: How We Remember Him,” p. 86).

And so I think: will today’s falsifiers of history, justifying Stalin’s repressions, dare to claim that all these commanders, who went from riflemen and cavalry to commanders of formations, were all spies and saboteurs?

Will all these Zhukovs and old people dare to deny that thousands of commanders like those whom I saw at the age of ten (and whose faces - here they are, in front of me, in my memory, the simple faces of Russian officers) - fell victims of Stalin’s terror, were “ purged” from the Red Army, or shot, sent to hard labor on the basis of absolutely false accusations?

Will these types dare to assert that the Heroes of the Soviet Union, Generals Pavel Rychagov and Ivan Proskurov, who became famous in Spain, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Yakov Smushkevich (the legendary General Douglas, organizer of the air defense of Madrid), were shot in 1941 (forty-first!), when the war, were repressed fairly as spies and enemies of the people?

I know in advance all the pathetic and vile subterfuges of the Stalinists: “there was such a wave, such a time,” “it was necessary to get rid of the “fifth column” on the eve of the war.” “Innocent people inevitably fell under the wheel of history, but they won the war.”

I remember Goebbels’ diary, his story about how Hitler laughed joyfully when he learned about the Tukhachevsky trial and Stalin’s destruction of his own military elite. After all, if it weren’t for this, the Fuhrer might not have dared to attack us...

Many will ask: why is this? What, Stalin deliberately, deliberately destroyed the command of his own army?

Of course not. The military were only a small part of the huge mass of those repressed. Civilian party cadres suffered no less. 98 of the 139 members and candidates of the party Central Committee elected at the 17th Congress were shot. Of the 136 secretaries of the district party committees of Moscow and the Moscow region, 7 remained in their posts. By October 1938, “the third composition of the district and regional committees was transferred” (FSB Central Archive. F.3.Op. 5. D.82.L.361). Diplomats and intelligence officers were destroyed almost entirely. In the Counterintelligence Department of the Main Directorate of the State Security Service, 20 heads of departments and branches, 26 of their deputies and assistants were successively arrested. The leader needed to change the apparatus, fill all the pores of the state organism with people raised, swept upward by himself and therefore devoted exclusively to him, “chicks of Petrov’s nest.”

And I know that some will say: “That’s right, Stalin liquidated the Leninist-Trotskyist-Bukharinist elite.” Again a lie. Painstaking research has shown that of the total mass of those repressed, the elite made up 8%, the rest were ordinary people, workers, peasants, office workers, and the intelligentsia. And not only. I remember in 1971 I gave a lecture at the Theological Academy, in the Trinity-Sergei Lavra; Then, during a conversation, one high-ranking clergyman almost said to me in my ear: “According to the data available in the Patriarchate, about 10 thousand priests were shot under Lenin and Stalin.”

Why shoot them and throw them into the Gulag? To bring the fear of God to the entire people, that’s why. People were afraid to make a sound.

And he achieved his goal. They feared and believed. But the trouble is that they still believe. Ask people on the street - they will say: “Yes, they heard about the repressions. Spies and pests were eliminated. They say that a lot of innocent people suffered - it’s a pity, but that was the time.” According to polls, 45% of the population believe that the repressions were justified. They cannot and do not want to imagine the stunned faces of the soldiers who gave their whole lives to the Red Army - yes, their whole lives! - and in return, after terrible beatings and torture, they received the title “enemy of the people”, and then a bullet in the back of the head.

But I remember them. What they were like even before this, when in a nightmare they could not dream of what the one for whom they always proclaimed the first toast would do to them.

I also remember the surviving Colonel Maksimovich, with whom I spoke at lecture seminars in the 60s, and his words: “The White Guards did a lot of bad things during the Civil War, but what they absolutely cannot be forgiven for is the fact that they did not kill Stalin near Tsaritsyn in 1919.”

Its role in the defense of Moscow is little known today, although many know about the “Siberian divisions.” It was thanks to the initiative of Army General I.R. Apanasenko sent 18 fully well-armed and trained divisions from the Far East, which made an invaluable contribution to the defense of the capital of our homeland. There is one remarkable story connected with him...

You can often hear that Comrade Stalin had a bad character and did not tolerate even the slightest objection, so all his orders were strictly carried out and were not subject to discussion. Well, if someone insisted on his opinion, then such an impudent person would very soon end up in a prison cell at Lubyanka.

I don't know, maybe that was the case. But there were other cases when a person could not only argue with the “Kremlin highlander”, but also openly tell him off. This is exactly what General Apanasenko did in 1941, in the most difficult situation for the Soviet Union. So what happened between Stalin and Apanasenko?

First, a few words about Apanasenko himself. The future general was born into a poor peasant family in the Stavropol region. As a teenager, he worked as a farmhand for a local landowner and as a shepherd. His entire education was limited to two classes at a parochial school (he never completed it).

Apanasenko himself repeated more than once that before the army he was an absolutely illiterate person. Subsequently, this circumstance greatly hampered his career advancement: the definition of “dropout” stuck to him until the very end of his life. But Joseph Rodionovich knew how to study...

In 1911, Apanasenko was drafted into the army, served as a machine gunner, and after 2 years he was promoted to non-commissioned officer - a good start for a “dropout”. During the First World War, he showed himself in the best way: he was awarded two St. George medals and three St. George crosses. Joseph Rodionovich ended the war with the rank of ensign and as commander of a machine gun company.

Apanasenko greeted the October Revolution with enthusiasm. Returning to his native village after the end of the war, he was immediately elected chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee and deputy commander of the Red Army detachment.

In 1918, Apanasenko already became the commander of a division as part of the First Cavalry Army, commanded by S. M. Budyonny. Distinguished by his personal courage, Joseph Rodionovich enjoyed great authority among his fighters. And even then he became famous for his independence. He could easily not carry out the order of the higher command, considering it incorrect. Budyonny removed him from his post as division commander three times for such arbitrariness. But he restored it every time.

It was during the Civil War that Apanasenko met Stalin, who was at that time a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR. Stalin liked the brave division commander, and he retained the best impressions of him.

After the end of the Civil War, Apanasenko continued his education with his characteristic tenacity. First, he completed courses for senior command personnel of the Red Army, then advanced courses for senior command personnel, and in 1932, the Military Academy of the Red Army.

As you know, in May 1938, Stalin transformed the Far Eastern Military District and the Special Far Eastern Army into the Far Eastern Front. And in July-August 1938, on Lake Khasan, this association received a baptism of fire. But Stalin was angry: the complete defeat of the Japanese did not work out, and our losses were very high.

In February 1938, Joseph Rodionovich was appointed commander of the troops of the Central Asian Military District, and from the beginning of 1941 - of the Far Eastern Front. Soon he was awarded the highest general rank - army general (only marshal is higher).

The first commander of the front, Vasily Blucher, was arrested and died in Lefortovo prison, then, already in January 1941, his replacement, General Stern, was also shot.

The new front commander was widely known in the army as a foul-mouthed, tyrant and ignoramus. And in appearance he looked as if he had been cut down with an axe.

Here are the statements of officers who personally communicated with him in the pre-war months and the first two years of the Great Patriotic War.

This is how Major General P.G. recalled his boss. Grigorenko: “a few months before the start of the war, Army General Joseph Rodionovich Apanasenko was appointed commander of the Far Eastern Front (in the Red Army this was the only peacetime association called a front) ... a powerful, but somehow uncouth figure, rough facial features, loud voice and hoarse... and one more thing - unrestrained. He can quickly become enraged, and then the culprit will not expect mercy... In general, we were all not happy about the change in commander. However, very soon those who stood closer to Apanasenko became convinced that the fame following him was largely based on nothing.

First of all, we soon noted the colossal natural intelligence of this man. He reads a lot and, most importantly, is able to evaluate the proposals of his subordinates and select what is appropriate in the given conditions. Secondly, he is brave. If he considers something appropriate, he decides and does it, taking full responsibility upon himself. He will never shift the blame onto the performers or put his subordinate at risk. If he considers one of them guilty, he will punish him himself... He doesn’t give any punishment to either the People’s Commissar or the tribunal.

Almost simultaneously with Apanasenko, many senior front-line management workers arrived, who were selected by him. All these people are smart, which in itself speaks in favor of Apanasenko. After all, he managed to somehow recognize them.

The new head of the Operations Directorate, Major General Kazakovtsev Arkady Kuzmich, also arrived. Grigory Petrovich Kotov, who was replaced by Kazakovtsev, as soon as he handed over the operational plan, immediately left for a new duty station.

The transfer of the operational plan was reported orally and in writing to the chief of staff, and then to the commander. Apanasenko immediately wanted to personally familiarize himself with the operational plan. We started with a cover plan. I reported (at that time a lieutenant colonel), because was responsible for this part of the operational plan. As the report progressed, Apanasenko made individual remarks and expressed judgments.

When I began to report on the location of the front reserves, Apanasenko said:

Right! It's easiest to maneuver from here. A threat is being created here, we bring our reserves here,” and he moved his hand to the south. “If it’s created here, we’ll maneuver it here,” he moved his hand to the west.

Kazakovtsev, who was silent when Apanasenko’s hand moved south, now calmly said, as if about something insignificant:

We'll maneuver if the Japanese allow it.

How is this? - Apanasenko was wary.

And so. This railway has 52 small tunnels and large bridges. If we blow up even one, we won’t be able to take anything anywhere.

Let's move on to vehicles. We'll maneuver on the ground.

It won't work. There is no primer parallel to the railway.

Apanasenko had a red stripe above his collar that quickly crawled up. With a red face and bloodshot eyes, he barked:

How so! They shouted: The Far East is a fortress! The Far East is on lock! But it turns out that we are sitting here as if in a mousetrap!

He ran to the phone and picked it up: “Moleva come to me immediately!”

A few minutes later, the alarmed chief of the front engineers, Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops Molev, ran in.

Molev! Do you know that there is no highway from Khabarovsk to Kuibyshevka?

Known.

So why are you silent? Or do you think the Japanese will build it for you? In short, a month for preparation, four months for construction.

And you,” Apanasenko turned to me, “on September 1 (that is, this conversation took place at the end of March 1941! - G.F.) you get into a gas car and go to Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya. Call me from there. You won’t get there, Molev, I don’t envy your fate. And keep the list of those who are to blame for the road not being built in your pocket. This won’t make your fate any easier, but it won’t be so boring where I put you.

But if you understand me seriously, here is my advice. Identify everyone who can participate in construction - military units and the local population, allocate plots for all of them and set deadlines. What you need for construction, fill out an application. And maintain strict control. I should have a progress report on my desk every day. And separately - a list of those who did not fulfill the plan.

On September 1, I drove a GAZ car from Khabarovsk to Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya and called Apanasenko. My speedometer added 946 kilometers. I saw what was done. I would put busts of Apanasenko at both the beginning and the end of this road.

This commander was not as formidable as he seemed. His terrible orders about removal, demotion and rank were known to everyone. But few people knew that not a single one of those punished was forgotten.

Some time passed, Apanasenko called the punished person and set a probationary period: “I’ll look at it myself, if you handle it, we’ll forget everything and the order won’t go into your personal file. If you can’t cope, blame yourself!” And I don’t know of a single case where a person failed..."

This is what the commander of the Far Eastern Front, Army General Apanasenko, was like in the opinion of those around him. Agree, this is not the worst impression of him...

“The beginning of the war highlighted Apanasenko’s appearance in a special way. ...Moscow demanded full strength (of the divisions sent to Moscow - G.F.), and Apanasenko was not the person who could allow a violation of the order. Therefore, a testing and graduation station was organized - Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya - the residence of the headquarters of the 2nd Army.

Each train had to leave the check-out station and actually left in full. Without asking anyone, Apanasenko began to form new divisions in place of the departed divisions. For these formations, Apanasenko also deserves a monument.

These were not Siberian divisions (as was commonly believed - G.F.), but Far Eastern divisions. The most famous of them are the 32nd (later renamed the 29th Guards Division) and the 78th (which became the 9th Guards Division), which entered the battle “straight from the wheels.”

But this did not mean at all that Apanasenko thoughtlessly gave everything in order, roughly speaking, to “bend in before Stalin.” An absolutely stunning situation was described by the first secretary of the Khabarovsk regional party committee E.A. Barkov (I remind you that from May 1924, by decision of the XIII Congress of the RCP (b), Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the party, and from August 8, 1941 - Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR, while remaining Secretary General of the CPSU (b). - G. F.):

“Stalin called me via a top-secret hardware connection. After greeting him, he said: “We have a very difficult situation between Smolensk and Vyazmoya.. Hitler is preparing an attack on Moscow, we do not have enough troops to save the capital. I earnestly ask you to immediately fly to Moscow, take Apanasenko with you, persuade him to be pliable, so as not to resist, I know his stubbornness.”

Over the years of my work in the Far East, and in other places, Stalin never called me. Therefore, I was extremely surprised when I heard his voice on the phone...

We have long been accustomed to the fact that his word is law for us; he never asked anyone, but ordered and demanded.

Therefore, I was surprised by the tone; it was as if I was not only informed, but reported on the situation in the west of the country. And therefore, when Stalin said the out-of-the-ordinary “persuade Apanasenko to be pliable,” it literally shocked me (emphasis mine. - G.F.).

At the end, he repeated once again: “Fly off immediately on the fastest military aircraft.”

Arrived in Moscow on October 1st or 2nd at midnight. They were waiting for us at the airport. They put me in a car and drove straight to the Kremlin.

The owner of the office warmly shook hands... silently walked around the office, stopped opposite us and began a conversation: “Our troops on the western front are fighting very difficult defensive battles. Hitler launched a major offensive against Moscow. I am forced to withdraw troops from the Far East." A chill ran down my back, and cold sweat appeared on my forehead from the terrible truth that the leader of the party and state told us. It was already a question not only of the loss of Moscow, but perhaps of the death of the state. Addressing Apanasenko, Stalin began listing the numbers of tank and mechanized divisions, artillery regiments and other particularly important formations and units that Apanasenko should immediately ship to Moscow.

Stalin dictated, Apanasenko carefully wrote it down, and then immediately, in the presence of the owner, who was smoking a cradle, he signed the order and sent an encrypted telegram to his chief of staff for immediate execution.

It was clear from everything that our short, clear, business meeting was coming to an end. Strong tea was placed on the table. Stalin asked about the life of the Far Easterners. I answered. And suddenly a question followed to Apanasenko: “How many anti-tank guns do you have?” The general responded immediately. I don’t remember the specific figure now, but I remember that he named something meager in comparison with what the Red Army already had at that time. “Get the loads and these guns ready to go!” - Stalin commanded quietly but clearly. And then suddenly a glass of tea, standing opposite Apanasenko, flew along the long table to the left, the chair under the general seemed to jump back. Apanasenko jumped away from the table and shouted: “What are you doing? What are you doing?! Damn it!.. And if the Japanese attack, how will I defend the Far East? These stripes?! - and hit his sides with his hands. “Remove me from my post, shoot me, I won’t give up my guns!”

I was stunned. Even though everything was spinning in my head, the thought pierced me: “This is the end. Now they will call Beria’s people, and we will both die.” And here I was again amazed by Stalin’s behavior: “Calm down, calm down, Comrade Apanasenko! Should we be so worried about these guns? Keep them for yourself..."

Saying goodbye, Apanasenko asked to join the Active Army - to the front.

“No, no,” the Supreme Commander answered friendly. “Brave and experienced people like you are needed in the Far East.”

This is how Iosif Rodionovich Apanasenko was.

This incident was described by the Hero of Socialist Labor F.T. Morgun and published it in the book “long before the fireworks” (Poltava, 1994, pp.67-71)

This is how General Apanasenko not only defended his point of view, but also, proving that he was right, swore at Stalin in front of everyone. And the Supreme Commander-in-Chief not only did not shoot the general, but also left him in office and continued to value him until the latter’s death.

So the stories about the bloodthirstiness of Comrade Stalin are nothing more than a myth. Joseph Vissarionovich respected the opinions of his subordinates. But only if this opinion was justified. But although he tolerated sycophancy, he did not at all encourage it, for which there is a lot of evidence...

What was the further fate of General Apanasenko? He continued to command the Far Eastern Front, doing a lot to strengthen its combat capability. But Stalin satisfied the general’s request to send him to the active army only at the end of April 1943, appointing him deputy commander of the Voronezh Front.

During the battles near Belgorod on August 5, 1943, he was killed during an enemy air raid (Khrushchev recalled that one plane flew by, and the bomb he threw exploded far, but a fragment hit Apanasenko directly. They found a note with him in which he swore allegiance to the communist parties).

I. R. Apanasenko was buried in Belgorod on Revolution Square (Cathedral). All residents of the newly liberated city came to see Apanasenko off on his final journey. Even Marshal Zhukov considered it his duty to visit the general’s grave.

In 1949, a monument was unveiled in Belgorod in memory of Apanasenko and one of the city streets was named.

Later, his ashes, according to his will, were reburied in the presence of his family and friends in Stavropol.

Unfortunately, when listing the commanders who distinguished themselves during the Patriotic War, Soviet historians do not mention Apanasenko. In the 12-volume “History of the Second World War,” which was created in the 1970s, the name of Army General I. R. Apanasenko is not mentioned even once. Meanwhile, this general is, of course, one of the heroes of the Patriotic War. His name is undeservedly consigned to oblivion.

years of life: 5.5.1923-24.8.1991

date of title conferment: 25.3.1983

In WWII, battalion commander, pom. beginning regimental headquarters; in 1979-84 1st Deputy Chief of the General Staff, in 1984-88 Chief of the General Staff, since 1988 advisor to M. S. Gorbachev. Offered his services to the Emergency Committee; After his failure, he committed suicide in the Kremlin office, condemning the State Emergency Committee as an “adventure” in his suicide note.
years of life: 2.12.1897-21.9.1982

date of title conferment: 11.3.1955

In WWII - chief of staff of the fronts, army commander; in 1943-45 com. 1st Baltic, from April 1945 - 3rd Belorussian Front, army general (1943). After the war, commander of the PribVO (1946-54), deputy Minister of Defense, Chief of Logistics (1958-68).
years of life: 27.6.1910-17.2.1984

date of title conferment: 15.4.1968

In WWII - division chief of staff, division commander, corps commander, major general (1943); 1950-1953 - beginning Air Force General Staff, 1963-78 - Air Defense Commander.
years of life: 29.3.1899-23.12.1953

date of title conferment: 9.7.1945; deprived 26.6.1953

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR(1938-45), General Commissioner of State Security (1941). The rank of Marshal was awarded when the GB's own ranks were replaced by general military ranks. Minister of the Interior (March-June 1953). Arrested on June 26, 1953. According to official data, he was brought to trial by the Special Judicial Presence and executed.
years of life: 21.8.1904-19.10.1964

date of title conferment: 11.3.1955

In WWII - chief of staff of the fronts, army commander, colonel general (1944). 1st deputy Air Defense Commander-in-Chief(1954-55), Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense (1955-62), Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces (1962-63), Chief of the General Staff (1963-64). Died in a plane crash.
years of life: 1.12.1890-9.11.1938

date of title conferment: 20.11.1935

In the Civil War, commander of the army, commanded armies and fronts in the Far East: commander-in-chief of the army of the Far Eastern Republic (1921-22), chief military adviser in China (1924-27), com. Special Far Eastern Army (1929-38). After a clash with Japan on the lake, Khasan was arrested following a denunciation and soon died in prison; already posthumously “sentenced” to death. It is unknown whether he was stripped of his title. Rehabilitated in 1956
years of life: 19.12.1906-10.11.1982

date of title conferment: 7.5.1976

In WWII - commissar of a regiment, front, major general (1944); in the early 1950s Political Directorate of the Navy, in 1960-64 and 1977-82 - Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces; in 1964-82 - 1st sec., General Secretary (1966) Central Committee of the CPSU. Received the title of Marshal Chairman of the USSR Defense Council. Knight of the Order of Victory (the decree was canceled in 1989).
years of life: 25.4.1883-26.10.1973

date of title conferment: 20.11.1935

In the Civil War and after it - commander of the 1st Cavalry Army. Inspector of the Red Army Cavalry(1924-37); led the cavalry intermittently until 1954. Com. troops of the Moscow Military District (1937-39), deputy. and 1st deputy People's Commissar of Defense (1939-Sept. 1941). During the Second World War he commanded fronts and armies, was a member of the Headquarters, and in 1942 he was transferred to rear positions.
years of life: 11.6.1895-24.2.1975

date of title conferment: 3.11.1947; deprived of rank 11/26/1958

Party activist. In WWII, member of the military council of the fronts, army general (1944). In 1947-49 - Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR, in 1953-55 - Minister of Defense, in 1955-58 - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Dismissed by N.S. Khrushchev and demoted in rank (retired Colonel General).
years of life: 30.9.1895-5.12.1977

date of title conferment: 16.2.1943

In 1942-45 Chief of the General Staff. Developed many brilliant operations. In 1945, commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, then Commander-in-Chief in the war with Japan. In 1949-53 - Minister of the Armed Forces and Minister of War of the USSR. Twice Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 4.2.1881-2.12.1969

date of title conferment: 20.11.1935

Professional revolutionary, participant of Oct. revolution, commander of the Civil War; in 1925-34 People's Commissar of Military Affairs, People's Commissar of Defense(1934-40) USSR. A consistent supporter and apologist for Stalin, he lost his trust after the Finnish War. During the Second World War he commanded fronts (until 1942), was a member of the Supreme Command Headquarters, then removed from real leadership of the troops (Commander-in-Chief of the Partisan Movement, 1942-43). after the war - pred. Union Control Commission in Hungary. In 1953-60 before. Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces.
years of life: 22.2.1897-19.3.1955

date of title conferment: 18.6.1944

From 1942 to the end of the war - commander of the Leningrad Front. After the war he commanded air defense (1948-52, 1954-55). Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 30. (according to other sources 29.) 7.1900-29.7.1980

date of title conferment: 6.5.1961

Before the war (1940-1941) - head of the GRU, during World War II commander of the Bryansk and Voronezh fronts, colonel general (1943); in 1958-62 - Head of GlavPUR.
years of life: 26.2.1910-13.5.1988

date of title conferment: 28.10.1967

During World War II he commanded the Azov and Danube military flotillas, vice admiral (1944), in 1948-55 in the Black Sea Fleet. In 1956-85 Commander-in-Chief of the Navy - Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. Creator of the ocean fleet of the USSR, author of the classic work "Sea Power of the State" and other works.
years of life: 17.10.1903-26.4.1976

date of title conferment: 11.3.1955

During World War II - Commander of the Guards Army, Colonel General (1943). Commander-in-Chief of a group of troops in Germany(1953-57), ground forces (1957-60), Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact (1960-67), Minister of Defense of the USSR (1967-76).
years of life: 25.10.1883-23.2.1939

date of title conferment: 20.11.1935

In the Civil War the commander and front commander. Com. troops of the Belarusian Military District (1927-31), Chief of Staff of the Red Army(1931-1937; from 1935 General Staff). Arrested in the summer of 1938, shot; It is unknown whether he was stripped of his title. Rehabilitated in 1956
years of life: 14.10.1892-19.11.1970

date of title conferment: 11.3.1955

During the Second World War, commander of the fronts (including the Western in 1941, Stalingrad in 1942), ended the war as commander of the 4th Ukrainian Front, army general (1943). After the war commanding Prykarpatsky, West Siberian and North Caucasian IN.
years of life: 1.12.1896-18.6.1974

date of title conferment: 18.1.1943

The greatest commander of the Second World War. Chief of the General Staff (1941), front commander, member of the Supreme Command headquarters, deputy commander-in-chief. In 1955-57 - Minister of Defense of the USSR. Twice Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 17.8.1898-31.1.1972

date of title conferment: 8.5.1959

In WWII - chief of staff of the fronts, army general (29.5.1945). In 1953-57 Commander of the Leningrad Military District, then with troops in Germany (1957-60) and Chief of the General Staff (1960-63, 1964-71).
years of life: 22.8.1894-11.10.1967

date of title conferment: 3.3.1955; from May 25, 1945 he held the rank of “Admiral of the Fleet”, equivalent to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union

In 1938-50 deputy. People's Commissar of the Navy; in 1941-43 and 1946-50 beginning. Head. Navy Headquarters, then Deputy. Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, deputy Minister of the Navy. Author of historical and fictional works, editor of the Marine Atlas, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
years of life: 28.12.1897-21.5.1973

date of title conferment: 20.2.1944

IN WWII commander of armies and fronts, from 1944 - 1st Ukrainian Front. In 1946-50 and 1955-56, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces; in 1956-60 commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact. Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 21.12.1904-30.8.1976

date of title conferment: 15.4.1968

In WWII - division commander, corps commander, lieutenant general (1944), had two combat Gold stars. In 1957-65, commander of the Siberian, Kyiv Military District, in 1965-69 commander of a group of troops in Germany.
years of life: 29.4.1903-9.2.1972

date of title conferment: 28.5.1962

In WWII - army commander, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel General (1944); after the war - Commander of the Moscow Military District(1960-63), commander in chief of the Strategic Missile Forces (1963-72).
years of life: 24.7.1904-6.12.1974

date of title conferment: 3.3.1955; 25.5.1945-3.2.1948 and 11.5.1953-3.3.1955 bore the rank of “Admiral of the Fleet”, equivalent to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union; 17.2.1956 demoted to vice admiral; 7/26/1988 posthumously restored

In 1939-46, People's Commissar of the Navy, member of the Supreme High Command: played an extremely important role in the Second World War. In 1948, he was put on trial on trumped-up charges and transferred to the Pacific Fleet. In 1953, Minister of the Navy, in 1953-56 Commander in Chief of the Navy. Since 1956 he has been in disgrace again.
years of life: 9.11.1890-24. (according to other sources 29.)8.1950

date of title conferment: 7.5.1940; stripped of rank 19.2.1942; posthumously restored 9/28/1957

In the Civil War, chief of artillery of the 1st Cavalry, 1937-41 Head of the (Main) Artillery Directorate of the Red Army. Then he commanded fronts and armies; for failure to ensure the defense of Kerch, he was put on trial, demoted to major general, expelled from the party and deprived of awards. After the war he served in the Volga Military District; arrested along with a number of generals in 1947 and executed. Rehabilitated in 1956
years of life: 5.7.1921-28.5.2013

date of title conferment: 14.1.1977

In WWII - chief of staff of a tank brigade, 1969-71 - commander-in-chief of troops in Germany; 1971-77 - Chief of the General Staff; 1977-89 - Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact.
years of life: 13.2.1917-16.9.1990

date of title conferment: 25.3.1983

In WWII, tank battalion commander and brigade commander; in 1968-71 com. ZakVO, in 1971-72 commander of a group of troops in Germany. In 1972-88 Chief of Logistics of the USSR Armed Forces.
years of life: 23.11.1898-31.3.1967

date of title conferment: 10.9.1944

IN WWII commanding armies, 2nd Ukrainian Front. In 1957-67, Minister of Defense of the USSR. Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 7.6.1897-30.12.1968

date of title conferment: 26.10.1944

Vyborg took into the Finnish war; one of the first three Soviet army generals (1940). In 1940-January 1941, Chief of the General Staff, in June-September 1941 in prison; after liberation, he commanded the Volkhov Front (1941-1944, with a break). From February 1944 to the end of WWII commander of the Karelian Front, then the 1st Far Eastern Front against Japan. Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 11.5.1902-17.6.1985

date of title conferment: 11.3.1955

During the Second World War and the first years after it - army commander, colonel general (1943). In 1953-60, commander of the Moscow Military District. In 1960-62 Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, in 1962-83 Chief Inspector of the USSR Ministry of Defense.
years of life: 30.10.1917-23.1.1994

date of title conferment: 14.1.1977

In WWII, divisional engineer. Since 1968 in the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, in 1977-84 Chief of the General Staff - 1st Deputy Minister of Defense.
years of life: 15.1.1917-1.2.2014

date of title conferment: 25.3.1983

In WWII battalion commander, in 1972-76 commander of the Far Eastern Military District, in 1980-85 Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces.
years of life: 21.12.1896-3.8.1968

date of title conferment: 29.6.1944

In 1937-40 he was imprisoned. In WWII he was a front commander, a participant in the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. In 1944 com. 1st, then 2nd Belorussian Front. In 1949-56 in the Polish army; had the rank of Marshal of Poland, was Minister of National Affairs. defense of the People's Republic of Poland. Knight of the Order of Victory.
years of life: 1.7.1911-31.8.2012

date of title conferment: 17.2.1978

In WWII com. front tank forces, colonel (1943); in 1965-84 Commander of the Leningrad Military District, in 1967-84 1st Deputy Minister of Defense, in 1984-87 Minister of Defense of the USSR; lost his position after the scandalous landing of M. Rust’s plane in the center of Moscow. The oldest living marshal, holder of the Russian Order of Zhukov.
years of life: 21.7.1897-10.5.1968

date of title conferment: 3.7.1946

In WWII - chief of staff of the fronts commanded by Zhukov, army general (1943). After the war - commander in chief of troops in Germany(1946-49), Chief of the General Staff (1952-60).

It is known that Stalin called Marshal Shaposhnikov by his first name and patronymic. And this was a sign of special treatment and special respect. But there was another person whom Joseph Vissarionovich called that. This is Air Marshal Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov. His memoir, Long Range Bomber, is perhaps the most interesting I have ever read. In his book “Stalin. Let's remember together,” I gave several quotes from Golovanov’s book. But the volume of information, interesting and unusual, in it is such that it is necessary... to quote the entire book.

An excellent article from Rossiyskaya Gazeta tells us about the fate of Marshal Golovanov and his career.

And the special attitude of Comrade Stalin towards him.

Which, for example, when this person came to his home, met him and tried to help him undress. And when leaving, he ALWAYS helped Golovanov get dressed, throwing his overcoat over his shoulders.

Confusing the marshal and not paying attention to his resistance...

Air Chief Marshal Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov

"Sine wave of Marshal Golovanov

The Rise and Fall of Stalin's Favorite

Text: Semyon Ekshtut (Doctor of Philosophy)

The life of this man was marked by a sharp rise in his career - having received the position of commander of an aviation regiment and the rank of lieutenant colonel in February 1941, on August 19, 1944 he became the Chief Marshal of Aviation, the youngest marshal in the history of the Red Army.

Stalin knew him personally and had fatherly feelings for him. Stalin always, when this man came to his home, met him and tried to help him undress, and when he left, he accompanied him and helped him get dressed. The marshal was embarrassed. “For some reason, I always felt terribly awkward about this and always, when entering the house, I took off my overcoat or cap as I walked. When leaving, I also tried to quickly leave the room and get dressed before Stalin approached.”1. “You are my guest,” the Master said instructively to the embarrassed marshal, handing him his overcoat and helping him put it on. Is it possible to imagine Stalin giving his overcoat to Zhukov or Beria, Khrushchev or Bulganin?! No! And again no! For the owner, who was not prone to sentimentality, this was something out of the ordinary. Sometimes from the outside it might seem that Stalin was openly admiring his own nominee - this tall, heroic, handsome, light brown-haired man with large gray-blue eyes, who made a huge impression on everyone with his bearing, smartness, and elegance. “An open face, a kind look, and free movements complemented his appearance” 2. In the summer of 1942, the military orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Alexander Nevsky were established. After the victory at Stalingrad, test samples were brought to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for approval. In his office were prominent military leaders who had just returned from Stalingrad. Stalin, having applied the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, made of platinum and gold, to the heroic chest of the commander of Long-Range Aviation, Lieutenant General Golovanov, remarked: “That’s who it will go to!” Soon the corresponding Decree was published, and in January 1943 Golovanov became one of the first holders of this high military award, receiving Order No. 9.

Marshal of the Soviet Union - Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov

Even years after the first meeting with the commander, the marshal's senior adjutant could not hide his involuntary admiration for Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov. “An impeccably fitted marshal’s uniform on a slender figure. It was, without exaggeration, a classic example of male beauty. ... In Golovanov’s entire appearance there was courage, will and dignity. When he was forced to lean on the podium, which was not high for him and, naturally, bent over a little, I saw There is something eagle-like and irresistibly powerful about him. At that moment, rays of light fell from the windows. An unforgettable picture... “3 The spectators of another unforgettable picture were people from Stalin’s closest circle. When, in the late autumn of the turning point of 1943, the Marshal’s daughter Veronica was born, and he came to his wife from the front at the maternity hospital, Stalin, who learned about this, strictly ordered Golovanov’s adjutant not to tell him anything about an urgent summons to Headquarters until the Marshal himself won't ask. For disobedience, the adjutant was threatened with removal from office and sending to the front. When the concerned Golovanov arrived at Headquarters, he was greeted with congratulations by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief himself. The stern leader behaved like a hospitable host and carefully accepted his cap from the hands of the marshal. Stalin was not alone, and the “rabbit of thin-necked leaders” witnessed this unique manifestation of paternal feelings: the birth of his own grandchildren never pleased the leader as much as the birth of Veronica delighted him. And although Golovanov had just arrived from the front, the conversation began not with a report on the state of affairs in the troops, but with congratulations.

“Well, who should I congratulate you with?” Stalin asked cheerfully.
- With my daughter, Comrade Stalin.
— She’s not your first, is she? Well, it’s okay, we need people now. What was the name?
- Veronica.
- What kind of name is this?
- This is a Greek name, Comrade Stalin. Translated into Russian, it means “bringing victory,” I answered.
- This is very good. Congratulations "4.

Political denunciations and everyday slander were constantly written against the famous commanders. Stalin's favorite did not escape this either.

Ostentatious asceticism dominated the party environment. The leader did not allow anyone to address him by his first name or patronymic, and always addressed his interlocutors by their last name with the addition of the party word “comrade.” And only two marshals could boast that Comrade Stalin addressed them by name and patronymic. One of them was the former colonel of the General Staff of the Tsarist Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, the other was my hero. Having a fatherly attitude toward the marshal, Stalin not only called him by name, but even wanted to meet him at home, which he persistently hinted at several times. However, Golovanov each time avoided answering his proposals. The marshal reasonably believed that the leader’s inner circle left much to be desired. And Marshal’s wife Tamara Vasilievna in those years “was in the prime of her beauty, and, of course, he was afraid of losing her”5. By personal order of the leader, in 1943 the marshal was given a huge, by Soviet standards of that time, five-room apartment with an area of ​​163 square meters. meters in the famous House on the Embankment. The Kremlin was visible from the windows of the office and bedroom. Children rode bicycles along the corridors. Previously, this apartment belonged to Stalin’s secretary Poskrebyshev. Poskrebyshev’s wife was imprisoned, and he hurried to move. The marshal's wife, Tamara Vasilyevna, already very frightened by the Soviet regime (her father was a merchant of the 1st guild, and the daughter of a deprived person for a long time had neither a passport nor food cards), took into account the sad experience of her previous mistress and her entire long life until Until her death in 1996, she was afraid to talk on the phone. Tamara Vasilievna's fears were generated by the terrible time in which she had to live. Political denunciations and everyday slander were constantly written against the famous commanders. Stalin's favorite did not escape this either.

Valentina Grizodubova

Having received a slander against the marshal, Stalin did not lash out, but found the time and desire to understand the essence of the unfounded slander against his favorite. He even joked: “Finally, we have received a complaint against you. What do you think we should do with it?” 6. The complaint came from the famous pilot and idol of the pre-war years, Hero of the Soviet Union and deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Colonel Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova, who wanted the aviation regiment she commanded to receive the honorary title of Guards, and she herself to receive the rank of general. And then, using her personal acquaintance with Comrade Stalin and other members of the Politburo, Grizodubova decided to go all-in. Violating all the rules of military subordination and service ethics, acting over the head of the division commander, corps commander, not to mention the commander of Long-Range Aviation, Marshal Golovanov, she turned to the Supreme Commander - and her complaint was transferred personally to Stalin. Grizodubova, triumphant in advance, arrived in Moscow - “she already saw herself as the first woman in the country in a general’s uniform...” 7 The newspapers wrote a lot about women selflessly fulfilling their military duty. The chairman of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women, possessing a striking beauty and well known throughout the country, Valentina Grizodubova, who during the war personally flew about 200 combat missions to bomb enemy targets and to maintain contact with partisan detachments, was ideally suited to become an iconic propaganda figure - an avatar patriotism of Soviet women. Grizodubova, without a doubt, was a charismatic personality and media figure of the Stalin era. Often ordinary people sent their appeals to the authorities to the following address: “Moscow. Kremlin. Stalin, Grizodubova." She often and willingly extended a helping hand to those who were in trouble, and during the years of the Great Terror, people turned to her for help as the last hope for salvation - and Grizodubova willingly helped. It was she who saved Sergei Pavlovich Korolev from death. However, this time it was not Grizodubova who complained, but she herself complained. Stalin could not dismiss the complaint signed by the famous pilot. The marshal was accused of a biased attitude towards the all-Union famous pilot: he allegedly bypassed her with awards and overshadowed her in the service. There was a certain reason for her words. Colonel Grizodubova fought for two years and made 132 night flights behind enemy lines (always flying without a parachute), but did not receive a single award. Her gymnast was decorated with the Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor and the Red Star - all of these awards she received before the war. At the same time, the chest of any aviation regiment commander could be compared to an iconostasis: they were so often and generously awarded. So, Grizodubova’s complaint was not unfounded.

It was the spring of 1944. The war continued. The Supreme had his hands full, but he considered it necessary to personally navigate the essence of this difficult conflict. It was demonstrated to Stalin's closest circle that even in times of military disasters, the wise leader does not forget about the people who conscientiously fulfill their duty at the front. Marshal Golovanov was summoned for personal explanations to Stalin, in whose office almost all members of the Politburo, at that time the body of the highest political leadership, were already sitting. The Marshal realized that the Supreme Commander, based on higher political considerations, had in fact already made a positive decision both on conferring the guards rank on the aviation regiment and on conferring the general rank on Grizodubova. But neither one nor the other was possible without an official submission signed by the commander of Long-Range Aviation, who only had to complete the necessary documents. The marshal refused to do this, believing that Colonel Grizodubova did not deserve such an honor: she twice left the regiment without permission and went to Moscow, and there was low discipline and a high accident rate in the regiment. Indeed, not a single regiment commander would ever dare to leave his unit without the permission of his immediate superiors. However, Grizodubova was always in a special position: everyone knew that she owed her appointment to Stalin, “which she spoke about unambiguously”8. That is why her immediate superiors - both the division commander and the corps commander - preferred not to get involved with the famous pilot. Without risking removing her from her post, they deliberately bypassed the regiment commander with awards, to which Grizodubova had an undoubted right based on the results of her combat work. Not afraid of Stalin's wrath and at the risk of losing his post, Marshal Golovanov did not succumb to persistent persuasion or naked pressure. If Stalin’s favorite had succumbed to this pressure, then he, too, would have actually recognized Grizodubova’s special status. To sign the submission meant to sign that not only her immediate superiors, but also he, the commander of Long-Range Aviation, was not a decree for her. The marshal, who was proud of the fact that he was personally subordinate to Comrade Stalin and only to him alone, could not agree to this. Golovanov took a great risk, but his action had its own logic: he endlessly believed in the wisdom and justice of the leader, and understood very well that the suspicious Master was intolerant of those who were trying to deceive him. The marshal, relying on facts, was able to substantiate the absurdity of Grizodubova’s claims, spoiled by the attention of higher circles, proving the slanderous nature of her complaint - and this only strengthened Stalin’s confidence in himself. “However, I also knew how the Supreme Commander reacts to fiction and slander...” 9 As a result, a decision was made according to which Colonel Grizodubova “for slandering her immediate commanders for personal gain” was removed from command of the regiment.

The Marshal became convinced that only the wise and fair Stalin would always decide his fate. Belief in this predetermined all his future actions and, ultimately, contributed to the decline of his brilliant career. The happy end of this story for the marshal prevented him from looking soberly into the eyes of the truth: his incident was almost the only one. How often during the years of the Great Terror, innocently slandered people appealed not to the law, but to the justice of the leader, but they never waited for it. At the same time, the marshal did not bother to correlate the successful outcome of his case with another story, the protagonist of which he happened to be two years earlier. In 1942, he was not afraid to ask Stalin why aircraft designer Tupolev, declared an “enemy of the people,” was imprisoned.

Aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev and ANT-25 crew members: Alexander Belyakov, Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov (from left to right) on the eve of the flight from Moscow to Udd Island. 1936 Photo: TASS Photo Chronicle

“-Comrade Stalin, why is Tupolev in prison?..
The question was unexpected.
There was quite a long silence. Stalin was apparently thinking.
“They say that he is either an English or an American spy...” The tone of the answer was unusual, there was neither firmness nor confidence in it.
- Do you really believe this, Comrade Stalin?! - I burst out.
- Do you believe it?! — switching to “you” and approaching me closely, he asked.
“No, I don’t believe it,” I answered decisively.
- And I don’t believe it! - Stalin suddenly answered.
I did not expect such an answer and stood in the deepest amazement “10.

Tupolev was soon released. This short dialogue between the leader and his favorite radically changed the fate of the aircraft designer. For those who did not live in that era, the situation seems absolutely monstrous and immoral, beyond the boundaries of good and evil. Arbitrariness reigned in the country, but those who were inside this system, with rare exceptions, preferred not to think so and were careful not to make generalizations. The marshal several times sought the release of the specialists he needed. Stalin never refused his favorite, although sometimes he grumbled: “You are talking about your own again. Someone imprisons, and Stalin must release” 11.

The marshal was satisfied that he was deciding the issue of the release of a specific person, which was a colossal amount in those conditions, but he drove away thoughts about the depravity of the system itself.

Deputy Chief of the Red Army Air Force Y.V. Smushkevich with officers at the Douglas DC-3 aircraft at the Ulaanbaatar airfield

However, the time has come to talk about how his ascent began. During a noisy New Year's Eve 1941 meeting in the House of Pilots in Moscow, later in this building the Sovetskaya Hotel was located, Aeroflot chief pilot Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov found himself at the same table with twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General of Aviation Yakov Vladimirovich Smushkevich. Before the war, only five people were awarded the high title of twice Hero, and by 1941 only four remained alive. General Smushkevich, the hero of Spain and Khalkhin Gol, was one of them. However, the fate of this major aviation commander hung in the balance. The general himself, who had angered Stalin with his negative attitude towards the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, was well aware that his days were numbered. When conferring the first general ranks, the head of the Red Army Air Force, Smushkevich, who had the personal rank of army commander of the 2nd rank and wore four diamonds in his buttonholes, became only a lieutenant general, although due to his position and exceptional military merit he could lay claim to a higher military rank. (In June 1940, 12 army commanders of the 2nd rank became lieutenant generals, 7 people received the rank of colonel general, and 2 military commanders received the rank of army general.) Without any motivation, General Smushkevich was removed from the post of chief of the Red Army Air Force and In August 1940, he was first transferred to the secondary position of Inspector General of the Air Force, and in December - to the position of Assistant Chief of the General Staff for Aviation, even further away from combat aviation. In this critical situation, Yakov Vladimirovich thought not about his fate, but about the future of Soviet aviation, about its role in the inevitably approaching war. Smushkevich did not doubt for a minute that he would have to fight Hitler. On New Year's Eve 1941, it was he who persuaded Golovanov to write a letter to Stalin, dedicated to the role of strategic aviation in the coming war, and suggested the main idea of ​​this letter: “...The issues of blind flights and the use of radio navigation aids are not given due importance... Next, write what you can take on this is the matter and put it at the proper height. That’s all “12. In response to Golovanov’s perplexed question as to why Smushkevich himself would not write such a letter, Yakov Vladimirovich, after a short silence, replied that they were unlikely to pay serious attention to his memo. Pilot Golovanov wrote such a letter, and Smushkevich, who retained his connections in Stalin’s secretariat, managed to deliver the note to its destination. Aeroflot chief pilot Golovanov was summoned to the leader, after which a decision followed to form the Separate 212th Long-Range Bomber Regiment, subordinate to the center, to appoint Golovanov as its commander and to assign him the rank of lieutenant colonel. The salary of an aviation regiment commander was 1,600 rubles per month. (Very big money at that time. This was the salary of the director of an academic institute. An academician for this very title received 1000 rubles a month. In 1940, the average monthly wage of workers and employees in the national economy as a whole was only 339 rubles.) Having learned, that Golovanov, as chief pilot of Aeroflot, receives 4,000 rubles, and in fact earns even more with bonuses, the Owner ordered that this amount be assigned to the newly promoted regiment commander as a personal salary. This was an unprecedented decision. The People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko, who was present, noted that in the Red Army even the People's Commissar does not receive such a large salary. “I left Stalin as if in a dream. Everything was decided so quickly and so simply.”13. It was this speed that stunned Golovanov and predetermined his attitude towards Stalin for the rest of his life. The repressions did not spare his family: his sister’s husband, one of the leaders of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, was arrested and shot. (His widow, until her death, could not forgive her brother-marshal for going into the service of the tyrant.) Alexander Evgenievich himself miraculously escaped arrest during the era of the Great Terror. In Irkutsk, where he served, a warrant had already been issued for his arrest, and NKVD officers were waiting for him at the airfield, and Golovanov, warned in advance about the arrest, left by train the night before for Moscow, where only a few months later he managed to prove his innocence. During the years of the Great Terror there was amazing confusion. The Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, having compared the materials of the “case” of Golovanov’s expulsion from the party, which was to be followed by inevitable arrest, and the pilot’s nomination for the Order of Lenin for outstanding achievements in work, made a Solomonic decision: the order was denied, and his life , freedom and party membership were preserved. Alexander Evgenievich belonged to that breed of people for whom state interests, even if falsely understood, were always higher than their personal experiences. “When they cut down the forest, the chips fly,” that’s how even very worthy people reasoned in those years.

A.E. Golovanov is the commander of the 212th separate long-range bomber aviation regiment (far right). Smolensk, spring 1941 Photo: Author unknown/commons.wikimedia.org

From the very first days of its formation, the Separate 212th Long-Range Bomber Regiment, the backbone of which was made up of experienced Civil Air Fleet pilots who were fluent in the elements of blind flight, was in special conditions. The regiment was not subordinate to either the district commander or the chief of the Air Force. Golovanov retained this same special status both as commander of an aviation division and as commander of Long-Range Aviation. In 1941, the rapid rise of Lieutenant Colonel Golovanov began. The fate of General Smushkevich ended tragically: on June 8, 1941, two weeks before the start of the war, he was arrested, and on October 28, in the most hopeless days of the war, when the Red Army was so lacking in experienced military leaders, after inhuman torture, he was shot without trial at the training ground NKVD near Kuibyshev.

Golovanov brilliantly coped with the task assigned to him by the leader. Already on the second day of the war, the regiment, led by its commander, bombed a concentration of German troops in the Warsaw area. The pilots of the aviation division he commanded bombed Berlin during the harshest period of the war, when Goebbels propaganda screamed about the death of Soviet aviation. Long-Range Aviation airships, even at the moment when the Germans approached Stalingrad, bombed enemy military installations in Budapest, Königsberg, Stettin, Danzig, Bucharest, Ploesti... The goals for the pilots were set by Stalin himself, who did not go to rest until the last plane landed and the results of the raid on distant targets will not become known. Moreover, the commander of the ship that bombed Berlin received the right to send a radiogram addressed to the leader with a report on the completion of the assigned combat mission. "Moscow. Stalin. I am located in the Berlin area. The task is completed. Young." Moscow responded to the renowned ace: “Your radiogram has been received. We wish you a safe return.”14

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ignatievich Molodchiy. 1944 Photo: RIA Novosti ria.ru

“The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, ordering a strike on one or another distant object, weighed many circumstances, sometimes unknown to us. The bombing strikes of the ADD on the deep rear of the enemy reminded not only the Nazis, but the troops of their allies, pulled up to the banks of the Volga, that fascist Germany and its satellites - are still vulnerable and under the influence of Soviet aviation "15. Stalin was pleased with the actions of the ADD pilots, who proudly called themselves “Golovanovites.” Golovanov himself was constantly promoted in military ranks: in August 1941 he became colonel, on October 25 - major general of aviation, on May 5, 1942 - lieutenant general, on March 26, 1943 - colonel general, on August 3, 1943 - air marshal, August 19, 1944 - Air Chief Marshal. This was an absolute record: none of the famous commanders of the Great Patriotic War could boast of such a rapid rise. By the end of 1944, a real armada was concentrated in the hands of Golovanov. In addition to more than 1,800 long-range bombers and escort fighters, his direct subordination included 16 aircraft repair factories, several aviation schools and schools, where they trained already flown crews for the needs of the ADF; The civil air fleet and all airborne troops transferred to the marshal in the fall of 1944 on the initiative of the Supreme Commander. The airborne troops in October 1944 were transformed into the Separate Guards Airborne Army, which consisted of three Guards Airborne Corps and included an aviation corps. The fact that it was this army that would have to solve the most important tasks at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War was indicated by the indisputable fact that already at the time of the formation of the army it was given the status of Separate (the army was not part of the front) and awarded the guards rank: neither one nor the other Others have never been abused by Stavka. This striking fist, created on the initiative of Stalin, was intended for the quick and final defeat of the enemy. The army had to operate in an independent operational direction, in isolation from the troops of all available fronts.

The creation of such a powerful one hundred thousand strong association within the framework of the ADD could not but cause a certain jealousy on the part of other military leaders, well aware of the special status of both Long-Range Aviation and its commander. “...I had no other leaders or superiors to whom I would report except Stalin. Neither the General Staff, nor the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense, nor the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief had anything to do with the combat activities and development of the ADD. All management of combat operations and development ADD went only through Stalin and only on his personal instructions. No one except him had access to Long-Range Aviation. This case is apparently unique, because I don’t know of any other similar examples “16. Golovanov did not report on the results of his activities either to Marshal Zhukov, or to the commander of the Air Force, or to the General Staff. Alexander Evgenievich valued his special status and guarded it jealously. “It happened more than once,” recalled the chief of staff of the ADD, Lieutenant General Mark Ivanovich Shevelev, when Golovanov reprimanded me for calls and trips to the Air Force headquarters to resolve operational issues: “Why are you going to them? We do not obey them" "17.

Marshal Zhukov, who held the post of Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief, was transparently hinted by well-wishers that Marshal Golovanov was aiming for his place. Considering Golovanov's closeness to the leader, this assumption seemed very plausible. The question arose: who would be appointed commander of the airborne army? It was obvious that since the army would play a decisive role in ending the war, its commander would receive victorious laurels and glory, titles and awards. Relying, probably, on the recommendation of his deputy, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief considered Army General Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky the most desirable figure for this responsible post. The general served for a long time with Zhukov as chief of staff of the front and was Georgy Konstantinovich’s creature. Summoning Golovanov to Headquarters, Stalin invited him to approve the appointment of Sokolovsky. However, Golovanov, who jealously defended the special status of the ADD and always selected command personnel himself, insisted on his candidate this time too. Sokolovsky was an experienced staff worker, but his command of the Western Front ended with his removal from his post. Marshal Golovanov, who continued to fly as a commander, and when he was a regiment commander and division commander, piloted an airship to bomb Berlin, Koenigsberg, Danzig and Ploesti, could hardly imagine General Sokolovsky jumping with a parachute and crawling on his belly behind enemy lines. General Ivan Ivanovich Zatevakhin, whose entire service was spent in the airborne troops, was placed at the head of the Separate Guards Airborne Army. Back in 1938, he had the rank of parachute training instructor; he met the war as the commander of an airborne brigade. When the corps, which included this brigade, was surrounded in September 1941, it was Zatevakhin who was not at a loss, took command and after five days led the corps out of the encirclement. The commander of the Airborne Forces gave him a brilliant description: “A tactically competent, strong-willed, calm commander. With extensive experience in combat work. During battles he was always in the most dangerous places and firmly controls the battle.”18. This is exactly the kind of person Golovanov needed. On September 27, 1944, Chief Marshal Golovanov and Major General Zatevakhin were received by the Supreme Commander, stayed in his office for a quarter of an hour, from 23.00 to 23.15, and the question of the army commander was resolved: on October 4, Zatevakhin was appointed commander, and a month later he received the rank of lieutenant general . The army began to prepare for landing beyond the Vistula.

During the war, Golovanov worked with utmost effort, literally without sleep or rest: sometimes he did not sleep for several days in a row. Even his heroic body could not withstand such an incredible load, and in June 1944, during intensive preparations for the Belarusian operation, Alexander Evgenievich found himself in a hospital bed. Medical luminaries could not understand the causes of the disease, caused by severe overwork. With great difficulty, the marshal was put on his feet, but while the war was going on, there could be no talk of any reduction in the length of the irregular working day of the ADD commander. Tensely dealing with the preparation and upcoming use of the airborne army, Golovanov again forgot about sleep and rest - and in November 1944 he again became dangerously ill and was hospitalized. The Chief Marshal submitted a report to the Supreme Commander with a request to relieve him from his post. At the end of November, Stalin decided to transform the ADD into the 18th Air Army, subordinate to the Air Force command. Golovanov was appointed commander of this army. Stalin told him over the phone: “You’ll be lost without anything to do, but you’ll cope with the army even if you’re sick. I think you’ll get sick less too.”19 Aeroflot was transferred to the direct subordination of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and the Separate Airborne Army was disbanded: its corps were returned to the ground forces. Golovanov lost his special status and began to submit to the commander of the Air Force: in the victorious 1945, he never received a reception from Stalin. However, Golovanov was not forgiven for his former closeness to the Supreme. Marshal Zhukov personally crossed out his name from the list of military leaders nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for participation in the Berlin operation.

November 23, 1944 became an important milestone in the history of the Red Army. The war was still going on, but the Supreme Commander-in-Chief had already begun to think about the post-war structure of the Armed Forces and gradually began to build a rigid vertical of power. On this day, Stalin signed order No. 0379 of the People's Commissariat of Defense on a preliminary report to the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Army General Bulganin, on all issues being prepared for submission to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. From now on, all heads of the main and central departments of NGOs and commanders of military branches were forbidden to contact the People's Commissar of Defense, Comrade Stalin, bypassing Bulganin. The only exceptions were three people: the Chief of the General Staff, the Head of the Main Political Directorate and the Head of the Main Counterintelligence Directorate SMERSH. And four days later, on November 27, a decision was made to merge the ADD with the Air Force, but neither Golovanov nor the Air Force commander, Air Force Chief Marshal Novikov, no longer had the right to directly report to the People's Commissar of Defense. The post-war decline of Golovanov’s career fits perfectly into the logic of Stalin’s actions towards the creators of Victory. Few of them managed to escape Stalin's wrath and post-war persecution.

Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov fell into disgrace.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky was forced to take off his Soviet military uniform and went to serve in Poland.
Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov was removed from his post as commander-in-chief of the Navy and demoted to the rank of rear admiral.
Air Chief Marshal Novikov was convicted and sent to prison.
Air Marshal Khudyakov was arrested and shot.
Marshal of the Armored Forces Rybalko, who dared publicly at a meeting of the Supreme Military Council to doubt the expediency and legality of both the arrest of Novikov and the disgrace of Zhukov, died under mysterious circumstances in the Kremlin hospital. (Marshal called his hospital room a prison and dreamed of being released.)
Chief Marshal of Artillery Voronov was removed from his post as commander of the artillery of the Armed Forces and only miraculously escaped arrest.
Artillery Marshal Yakovlev and Air Marshal Vorozheikin were arrested and released from prison only after Stalin's death.
And so on and so forth...

Against this background, the fate of Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov, although he was removed from the post of commander of Long-Range Aviation in May 1948 and miraculously escaped arrest (he hid in his dacha for several months and never again held high command posts corresponding to his military rank), this fate still seems relatively prosperous. After the great Victory, the Master again surrounded himself with the same “rabble of thin-necked leaders” as before the war. Moreover, if before the war Stalin “played with the services of semi-humans,” then by the end of his life his inner circle had mastered this difficult art and began to manipulate the behavior of the suspicious leader. As soon as Stalin began to work directly with one of the military leaders, ministers or aircraft designers, his inner circle began to intrigue, trying to denigrate such a person in the eyes of the Master. As a result, the next caliph disappeared forever from Stalin’s horizon for an hour.

The victims of insidious intrigues were Marshal Zhukov, Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov, Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov, MGB Minister General Abakumov, Chief of the General Staff General Shtemenko, and aircraft designer Yakovlev. These different people were united by one important circumstance: on the eve or during the war years, they were all promoted to their high positions on the initiative of Comrade Stalin himself, he closely monitored their activities and did not allow anyone to interfere in their lives and fate, he decided everything himself. For a certain time, these Stalinist promoters enjoyed the trust of the suspicious leader, often visited him in the Kremlin or at his “near dacha” in Kuntsevo and had the opportunity to report to Stalin himself, bypassing the jealous control of his inner circle. From them the leader often learned what the “faithful Stalinists” considered necessary to hide from him. Stalin's former favorite, who came to prominence during the war, had no place among them. (In 1941, the pilot, and then regiment commander and division commander Golovanov met with Stalin four times; in 1942, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief received the ADD commander 44 times; in 43 - 18 times; in 44 - five times; in 45 - not once, in 46 - once and in 47 - twice. The following year, Golovanov was removed from the post of commander of Long-Range Aviation, and the leader no longer accepted him 20.)

Only in August 1952, Golovanov, who by that time had completed the Academy of the General Staff and the Shot course, after numerous requests and very strong humiliations, received command of the 15th Guards Airborne Corps, stationed in Pskov. This was an unprecedented demotion: in the entire history of the Armed Forces, the corps had never been commanded by a marshal. Golovanov quickly gained authority among his subordinates. “If only everyone were like him. Yes, we follow him through fire and water, after all, he crawled with us on his belly” 21. These words of an admiring paratrooper, spoken in front of witnesses, will cost Golovanov dearly. Envious people will decide that it was no coincidence that the popular marshal so persistently sought a command position in the troops and constantly refused all high positions not related to commanding people and real power. Soon after Stalin's death, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, who led the Atomic Project, would summon the corps commander to Moscow, and Alexander Evgenievich would take part in a secret meeting at which the use of nuclear weapons and sabotage operations in Western Europe were discussed. However, the enemies of the Chief Marshal decided that Beria deliberately brought Golovanov, who had once served in the GPU, closer to himself in order to use his corps in the upcoming struggle for power. (In his youth, Alexander Evgenievich took part in the arrest of Boris Savinkov and was friends with Naum Eitingon, the organizer of Trotsky’s murder; during the war, ADD aircraft were used to deliver reconnaissance and sabotage groups behind enemy lines.) After the arrest of Lavrenty Pavlovich, ill-wishers will remember Golovanov’s closeness to Beria: behind his back they would call him “Beria’s general” and in the same year 1953 he would be hastily dismissed.

He never served again. He was assigned a small pension - only 1800 rubles, Marshal Zhukov received 4000 rubles after his resignation, and Vice Admiral Kuznetsov, who was reduced in military rank, received 3000 rubles in the price scale before the monetary reform of 1961 (respectively 180, 400 and 300 post-reform or, as they were often called “new” rubles). Half of the pension went to pay for an apartment in the House on the Embankment: the disgraced marshal was deprived of all benefits for housing, he sent 500 rubles monthly to his old mother, as a result, the family, which had five children, was forced to live on 400 rubles a month. Even in those lean times, this was well below the cost of living. A subsidiary farm at the dacha and a hectare of land on Iksha helped out. Half a hectare was sown with potatoes, all savings were spent on a cow and a horse. His wife Tamara Vasilievna ran the household herself, milked the cow, looked after her, made cottage cheese, and cooked cheese. The marshal himself worked a lot on the land, walking behind the plow, which was pulled by his horse Kopchik, the favorite of the whole family. Alexander Evgenievich even learned how to make wine from berries. When money was needed to buy school uniforms for children, the Golovanovs with their whole family collected berries and handed them over to a thrift store. He did not hide his contempt for Comrade Stalin’s successors and refused to sign a letter condemning Stalin’s personality cult, which was sent to him from Khrushchev. He refused to mention Brezhnev’s name in his memoirs (allegedly he met with the head of the political department of the 18th Army, Colonel Brezhnev, during the war and wanted to “consult” with him about the combat use of ADD), as a result, the book “Long-Range Bomber ...” was published only after Alexander’s death Evgenievich, which followed in 1975. The book was published only in 2004. Until the last days of his life, he remained a convinced Stalinist: in his memoirs, Stalin looks like a wise and charming ruler, who has the right to count on History’s acquittal. Alexander Evgenievich described such an episode very sympathetically. Back on December 5 or 6, 1943, a few days after the successful completion of the Tehran Conference, Stalin told Air Marshal Golovanov: “I know... that when I’m gone, more than one bucket of dirt will be poured on my head.... But I’m sure that the wind of history will dispel all this... "22 Talking about meetings with military leaders who became victims of the Great Terror, he never mentioned in his memoirs the tragic fate of generals Pavlov, Rychagov, Proskurov, Smushkevich and Air Marshal Khudyakov. The aesthetic completeness of his relationship with Stalin is striking. There is a pre-established harmony in the fact that the leader brought him closer to him in the midst of great trials, and moved him away when they were behind him, and Victory was just around the corner. Stalinism became for Golovanov the very screw on which everything was held together; if you remove this screw, everything will fall apart.

Joseph Stalin

“I saw Stalin and talked with him more than one day and more than one year, and I must say that everything in his behavior was natural. Sometimes I argued with him, proving my point, and after some time, even after a year or two, I was convinced : yes, he was right then, not me. Stalin gave me the opportunity to see for myself the error of my conclusions, and I would say that this method of pedagogy was very effective.

Somehow in the heat of the moment I told him:

...Very often he also asked about health and family: “Do you have everything, do you need anything, do you need to help your family with anything?” The strict demands of his work and at the same time his concern for people were inseparable for him; they were combined in him as naturally as two parts of one whole, and were very much valued by all the people who came into close contact with him. After such conversations, the hardships and adversities were somehow forgotten. You felt that not only the arbiter of destinies was speaking to you, but also just a person..." 23(Italics are mine. - S.E.) The disgraced marshal even convinced himself that Stalin, by alienating him from himself, actually saved him from big troubles: the authorities would definitely have cooked up a new “case” against him - and Golovanov would not have gotten off so easily. This is probably how it really was: the leader knew well the laws of the functioning of the system that he himself created. Remember the logic of Stalin’s reasoning in “The Feasts of Belshazzar” by Fazil Iskander.

“They think power is honey,” Stalin thought. No, power is the inability to love anyone, that’s what power is. A person can live his life without loving anyone, but he becomes unhappy if he knows that he cannot love anyone.
...Power is when you can’t love anyone. Because no sooner do you fall in love with a person than you immediately begin to trust him, but once you start to trust, sooner or later you will get a knife in the back.
Yes, yes, I know that. And I was loved and received for it sooner or later. Damned life, damned human nature! If only it were possible to love and not trust at the same time. But this is impossible.
But if you have to kill those you love, justice itself demands that you deal with those you don’t love, the enemies of the cause.
Yes, Dela, he thought. Of course, Dela. Everything is done for the sake of the Cause, he thought, listening in surprise to the hollow, empty sound of this thought.” 24

Perhaps Golovanov would agree with these arguments. In any case, the text of the work of art echoes his memoirs and finds its continuation and confirmation in them. "Stalin, communicating with a huge number of people, was essentially alone. His personal life was gray, colorless, and, apparently, this is because he did not have the personal life that exists in our concept. Always with people, always at work "25. There is not a word of lie in Golovanov’s memoirs—it’s simply not the whole truth. At the same time, Alexander Evgenievich was not a dogmatist: in 1968, he condemned the introduction of troops into Czechoslovakia, constantly listened to the BBC and “said that democratic changes in socialist countries should not be suppressed.” 26

The system rejected an outstanding person. The architect of this system was Stalin. But only once did Golovanov the memoirist tell readers about his doubts about the justification of the Great Terror: “... Sweeping away everything that interferes and resists from our path, Stalin does not notice how many people suffer in the process, whose loyalty could not be doubted. This gave rise to I feel pain and annoyance: the examples were well known... But, in my understanding, the threads of such troubles were drawn to Stalin. How, I thought, did he allow this? “27 However, it would be in vain to look for the answer to this rhetorical question in the book.

I had the opportunity to see Alexander Evgenievich Golovanov twice. Once he spoke at our military department at Moscow State University, another time I completely accidentally ran into him in a half-empty metro car at the Novoslobodskaya station: Golovanov was in a marshal’s uniform with all the regalia. I remember well that I noticed the three military orders of Suvorov, 1st degree, and the marshal’s faded gray-blue eyes.

Shortly before his death, he told his friend, showing a steep sine wave with his hand: “My whole life is like this. I don’t know if I’ll scratch myself out now... “28 His last words were: “Mother, what a terrible life...” he repeated three times. Tamara Vasilievna began to ask : “What are you doing? What are you saying? Why is life so terrible?!” And he also said: “It’s your luck that you don’t understand this...” 29

Notes

1. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... M.: Delta NB, 2004. P. 107.
2. Usachev E.A. My commander // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. M.: Mosgorarchiv, 2001. P. 24
3. Kostyukov I.G. Notes of the senior adjutant // Ibid. P. 247.
4. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 349.
5. Golovanova O.A. If only it were possible to return time... // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 334.
6. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 428.
7. Ibid. P. 435.
8. Ibid. P. 431.
9. Ibid. P. 434.
10. Ibid. P. 109.
11. Fedorov S.Ya. They were waiting for him in the regiments // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 230.
12. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 25, 26.
13. Ibid. P. 36.
14. Ibid. P. 85.
15. Skripko N.S. For targets near and far // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 212.
16. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 15-16.
17. Reshetnikov V.V. A. Golovanov. Laurels and thorns. M.: Ceres, 1998. P. 39.
18. Great Patriotic War. Commanders. Military biographical dictionary. M.; Zhukovsky: Kuchkovo Pole, 2005. P. 79.
19. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 505.
20. See the index: At the reception with Stalin. Notebooks (journals) of persons accepted by I.V. Stalin (1924-1953): Directory / Scientific editor A.A. Chernobaev. M.: New Chronograph, 2008. 784 p.
21. Golovanova O.A. If only it were possible to return time... // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 310
22. Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 366.
23. Ibid. pp. 103, 111.
24. Iskander F.A. Sandro from Chegem. M.: All Moscow, 1990. P. 138.
25 Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 113.
26. Mezokh V.Ch. “I’ll tell you the following...” // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P.349.
27. Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 28; Golovanov A.E. Long-range bomber... P. 37, 38.
28. Mezokh V.Ch. “I’ll tell you the following...” // Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov: Moscow in the life and fate of the commander: Collection of documents and materials. P. 355.
29. Golovanova T.V. Mother of God, save his life // Ibid. P. 286."