Books about Stalin: a list. Truth and myths about Stalin. Mirroring Tom Clancy

The new book by Nikolai Luzan is a continuation of the dilogy: "Stalin. From "ex" to "Duck" and "Stalin. Operation Ring. Like previous books, it is based on rich factual material and tells about the activities of the Soviet secret services and the role that Joseph Stalin played in it. The novel is based on little-known events related to the preparation by Japanese military intelligence of an assassination attempt on Stalin, code-named "The Bear Hunt". It was thwarted by Soviet counterintelligence officers. rank, the head of the UNKVD of the USSR for the Khabarovsk Territory G. Lyushkov, were destroyed or captured as a result of an operation carried out on the territory of Georgia.

Epishin Dmitry Vasilievich 2017

Joseph

Joseph died and, freed from earthly passions, his soul gained the ability to see the past with a clear look. She led Joseph along the path of memories, on which he step by step turns from a romantic into a dictator, creating a proletarian empire with an iron fist. Much now he saw differently, much in his life he gives an impartial assessment.

Tereshchenko Anatoly Stepanovich 2016

Stalin and counterintelligence

One can argue endlessly about Stalin. Some consider him a tyrant, others - a wise ruler. But all opponents will agree with the statement that he took the country in complete ruin, and left it as a powerful nuclear power. How did he do it? One of Stalin's successful projects was the organization of the "invincible and legendary" SMERSH, whose activities ultimately decided the outcome of the war. In the new book by A. Tereshchenko, the leader appears before us not only as a commander in chief, but also as a simple person with his usual concerns, habits and sympathies. The author tried to describe as truthfully as possible the events that took place in the fate of Stalin, which played a decisive role in the formation of the personality of the leader, which subsequently allowed him to make the right decisions. The book, based on the author's personal experience in the intelligence agencies, will be of interest to a wide range of readers.

Luzan Nikolai Nikolaevich 2016

Stalin. Operation Ring

The book "Stalin. Operation Ring" tells about the holding of a "special event" to eliminate the traitor actor Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin, who at the beginning of the war went over to the side of the Nazis and began active anti-Soviet propaganda on the air and on the pages of pro-fascist newspapers. The Soviet secret services decided to destroy the traitor Blumenthal-Tamarin's nephew, the boxing champion of Leningrad, Igor Miklashevsky, agreed to become the performer.

New book about Stalin debunks liberal myths that denigrate the history of our country

Writer Nikolai Starikov: “About Stalin after his death they made up a bunch of lies”

Komsomolskaya Pravda, 3.10.12

Alexander Gorelik

A well-known publicist has released a rather scandalous book

Nearly sixty years have passed since the death of the "leader of the peoples", but disputes still do not subside: Stalin is a genius or a villain? Already, it would seem, it is time to put an end to this discussion. But no. You will be late for work, you will ask a question with a twist - and please, immediately someone in their hearts will say: “Stalin is not on you!” He will regret it, but he will immediately breathe a sigh of relief that, fortunately, he is not on us.

The well-known St. Petersburg historian and publicist Nikolai Starikov also expressed his opinion. His book "Stalin. We Remember Together”, created together with several dozen co-authors (those who have ever written memoirs about the “leader of peoples”), has already caused a lot of controversy. Iosif Vissarionovich turned out to be a talented commander, a great politician, an expert in all sciences and a connoisseur of all the arts - in general, a genius.

ALL SPIES AROUND

Who is Stalin for you?

A very complex person who lived in a very difficult era. Stalin was a politician of the highest order. And then about him, I'm sure, they made up a bunch of lies.

What exactly?

There are no documents confirming that tens of millions were shot under Stalin.

How is it not?!

Published documents that talk about the real number of deaths. Between 1923 and 1954, about 600,000 to 700,000 people were sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR. And in just 30 years, a little more than three million people were sentenced to various terms for counter-revolutionary activities (see excerpts from the book on p. 13. - Ed.).

Three million innocent victims! Isn't that enough?

Nowhere and never in history has it happened that one hundred percent of the verdicts of the courts were fair. And remember that two members of the NKVD were seriously thinned out, imprisoned and shot for breaking the law. Yagoda's closest associates were convicted of participating in anti-state conspiracies, in which they imprisoned innocent people as well. Then Nikolai Yezhov came to the NKVD. He, too, was convicted. Etc. And now both the innocently convicted person, who was arrested by some Chekist involved in an anti-state conspiracy, and this Chekist himself are considered victims of the regime.

Now the figures who fought against Russia are being pulled out into the light, and icons are being made of them. Bukharin, Zinoviev, Tukhachevsky - these people were in real anti-state conspiracies, which is why Stalin conducted open trials on them when reporters, including foreign ones, sat in the hall.

One might think that all those who were shot were agents of the enemy...

It is equally foolish to say that everyone was guilty and that everyone was innocent. Khrushchev himself gave an estimate of the share of the "guilty". In his time, one and a half million people convicted under Stalin were rehabilitated. That is, the remaining two million were still considered guilty. The second wave of rehabilitation took place in the period not by the night of the aforementioned perestroika, when its foreman Alexander Yakovlev began to whitewash everyone who fought with our country. And again, not everyone was rehabilitated.

"BLOODBATHS" AND OPPOSITION

But you will not argue that Stalin was a cruel ruler?

Good and evil is a rhetorical question for any statesman. Much that in ordinary life is considered indecent, in politics - valor and the ability to negotiate.

In February 1917, the Russian authorities showed softness by not dispersing the demonstrations in Petrograd. It would seem - the people took to the streets, what nonsense. They demanded bread, but ended with the collapse of the country. And as a result, eight million citizens paid with their blood for the criminal gentleness of Nicholas II. A statesman must clearly fulfill his functions, and this is the maintenance of order in the country and the preservation of its territorial integrity. And when these most important tasks are not fulfilled, everything ends in a bloodbath.

That is, the right leader should suppress the opposition?

If, in order to preserve the integrity of the country, agents of foreign states must be condemned, then they must be condemned. Russia is a huge multinational country, in which centrifugal forces are traditionally strong, which is why a center with a strong-willed person capable of holding Russia is so important.

BREAKING TO THE FOUNDATION?

Why was it necessary to falsify the history of Stalin's rule?

The first falsifications were launched during the Khrushchev era. There are many strange accusations in his report at the Twentieth Congress. For example, Khrushchev says that Stalin was disrespectful to party members. Like, the comrades gathered for the next plenum of the Central Committee, but the evil Stalin did not hold it. And the date indicates: October 19, 1941. This is the day when the Germans were already approaching Moscow. Ask yourself the question: is this the time for the plenum of the Central Committee or are there more important things to do? Maybe the capital needs to be protected?

Under Brezhnev, the topic of Stalin was closed - he was not praised or scolded. And in perestroika, a wave of unverified information, incomparable with Khrushchev's, began. Today, our people are largely held together by the idea of ​​Victory, this is the foundation. So they are trying to hit on this foundation.

Why would someone hit him?

There are always contradictions between personal freedom and the interests of the state. Therefore, the enemies are trying to declare the state an enemy of man: yes, your country, but some country is not like that, wrong, but the other country is right, and therefore, if you defend your homeland, you seem to be doing wrong. It's just an attempt to manipulate consciousness. When such manipulation succeeds, the country falls apart, a civil war begins.

We recall history: 1917, the tsar, corrupt ministers. Were there any problems? Yes, a lot! They swept away this regime hated by the people, who came to replace it? The wonderful new people who organized the Cheka began to take bread from the peasants. In 1991, what were we told? Partocrats stole all the people's money, it is necessary that they leave and new good people come. And they came: Gaidar, Abramovich, Khodorkovsky, Fridman. What, the people became happier? And today we hear the same talk: "We need to topple the regime." Well, how many times can you step on the same rake?

Do we need a second Stalin now?

If this means: the restoration of industry, skillful diplomacy, the neutralization of enemies of the state who work on behalf of foreign intelligence services, yes, it is needed. But if Stalin is a new collectivization, then questions already arise. You cannot take the experience of the 1930s and transplant it into the 21st century.

Do you think he would like the current government?

Stalin restored the sovereignty of the country three times, today we are also moving in this direction. We are moving slowly but progressively, trying not to provoke aggression from our geopolitical "friends". Stalin moved in exactly the same way up to a certain point. After all, the USSR received full sovereignty only with the acquisition of the atomic bomb, and before that, Stalin pursued a cautious policy.

FROM THE "KP" DOSSIER

Nikolay STARIKOV is 42 years old.

An economist by education. The author of books in which he consistently convinces readers that Russia has always been the object of enemy intrigues from the world behind the scenes, primarily the United States and Great Britain, and most of the tragic events in Russian history are special operations of other states.

Married, has two daughters. Lives in St. Petersburg.

EXTRACTS FROM THE BOOK “STALIN. REMEMBER TOGETHER"

“There were no tens of millions of convicts”

The book "Stalin. Let's remember together” - this is either a frighteningly new, or a well-forgotten look at the former ruler of the country. Starikov described exactly that Stalin as he was imagined in the 30s and 40s.

“So what are the real numbers of those convicted during the years of Stalin's rule? There are no “tens of millions” that liberal historians talk about. According to a certificate prepared for Khrushchev in February 1954 by Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin, for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954, he was convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU collegium, "troikas" of the NKVD, the Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals 3,777,380 people, including 642,980 people sentenced to death (D. Lyskov. Stalinist repressions. The Great Lie of the 20th century. - M .: Yauza, Eksmo , 2009).

This is the end of the Civil War, this is the era after it. These are four years of a terrible war with Hitler. This is the period after WWII. This is a fight against gangs of Bandera and forest brothers. Including Yagoda and Yezhov, and other bloody executioners. Here and traitors, and Vlasov. There are deserters and marauders here. Crossbowmen. Alarmists. Members of the gangster underground. Nazi accomplices who shed blood. This is the “Leninist guard”, which destroyed a great country to the delight of the enemies of Russia. Zinoviev and Kamenev are here. Trotskyists included. Leaders of the Comintern. Traitor and traitor Tukhachevsky, who was about to stage a military coup. Executioner Bela Kun, drowning thousands of officers in the Crimea with stones around their necks. Multifaceted figure, polysyllabic. If you divide the total number of those executed by the number of years, you get less than 22,000 people a year. Lot? Certainly. But let's not forget what those years were like. And there are no tens of millions executed. This is definitely a deliberate lie. Remember this figure: 642,980 people ... "

“After a series of soundings from Germany, Berlin proposes to conclude a non-aggression pact (meaning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. - Ed.). But even here, Stalin demonstrates amazing composure and literally forces Hitler to first conclude a trade agreement. Its meaning is as follows: Germany gives the USSR a huge loan of 200 million marks, which is spent on the purchase of the latest technologies, machine tools and weapons from the Germans. We repay this loan with deliveries of various natural resources and foodstuffs. The trade and credit agreement was signed on August 20, and only after that did Stalin agree to the arrival of the Reich Foreign Minister in Moscow. On August 23, 1939, Stalin finally ruined the plans of the West to organize a war against the USSR back in 1939. In Moscow, the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union is signed, which is so hated in the West, and from the moment the liberals appeared in Russia, they hate it too.

In fact, this treaty, as Stalin later pointed out, neither directly nor indirectly affected the territorial integrity, independence and honor of our state. The USSR did not become an ally of Germany, we did not take on any - neither military nor economic - obligations. The USSR undertook to do only one thing - not to attack Germany and not to enter into alliances directed against it.

© Medvedev F. N., 2013

© Design, publishing house "BHV-Petersburg", 2013

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

©The electronic version of the book was prepared by Litres (www.litres.ru)

* * *

The name of Felix Medvedev, a Russian journalist, the legendary "Ogonkovets", the grandson of the Hungarian revolutionary, poet, doctor Zoltan Partos, who was repressed under Stalin, is known in our country and abroad. He began publishing in the media in 1954. Laureate of the Union of Journalists of the USSR, magazines Ogonyok, Moscow, Rodina, newspapers Literaturnaya Rossiya, Evening Club, etc. for half a century of work in the press published an incalculable amount of materials. His interviews with G. G. Marquez, F. Sagan, A. Miller, I. Brodsky, N. Berberova, Grand Duke V. K. Romanov, K. Vonnegut, M. Gorbachev, G. Vishnevskaya, B. Berezovsky and others figures of world culture and politics became sensations. Two publications by F. Medvedev were included in the Reader of Russian Journalism of the Second Half of the 20th Century (published by Moscow State University, 2009).

In 1987–1990, he hosted the TV shows The Green Lamp and The Parisian Dialogues. Author of the books “Grass after us”, “The price of insight”, a detective story about the death of Princess Diana “Death under a flash”, “I'm tired of the twentieth century”, “I will never forget you” (about A. Voznesensky), “My great old women ”,“ My great old men ”, etc.

Foreword

Well, the Generalissimo is beautiful,
descendants, you say, are partial to you?
Do not appease them, do not beg ...
Some of you muzzle and vilify,
others paint everything, and exalt,
and pray, and yearn to resurrect.

Bulat Okudzhava

The theme of Stalin is in vogue today. The shelves of bookstores are filled with more and more new studies about the life and work of the "leader of the peoples." Authors of very different profiles - historians, novelists, banal graphomaniacs ... The name of one "masterpiece" - "Christ and Stalin" has become insulting for many believers.

I have nothing to do with the "most-most" of the "most-most". Except, perhaps, two or three intersections of monstrous events called "Stalinism" with my usual biography.

Firstly, I was born on June 22, 1941, in the early morning, at four o'clock ... As our oldest actor Vladimir Etush told me, it was at that time, after the graduation ball, that he was walking home along Gorky Street and suddenly saw that they were rushing towards the Kremlin two black limousines.

“To the Kremlin at night… is it really a war?” he thought.

And exactly. It was German Ambassador Schulenberg who was on his way to USSR Foreign Minister Molotov to announce to the Kremlin that Hitler had begun military operations against the Soviet Union. It can be assumed that in the early morning of June 22, Comrade Stalin was suddenly awakened. And after that, he disappeared from the sight of his people until ... July 3, when he finally spoke to the country on the radio.

The second "binding" to the theme "Stalin" is tragic. These are three arrests by the Stalin-NKVDesh office of my grandfather - a Hungarian emigrant, a doctor by profession, a revolutionary by vocation, a poet.

And one moment. I live in that part of Trubnaya Square that adjoins the wall of the ancient Nativity Monastery. It was these 100-200 meters of land on March 6, 1953 that were covered with the blood of thousands of Muscovites who stood in a disastrous multi-kilometer long queue to the Hall of Columns, where the body of the leader of the peoples lay, and fell into a deadly stampede. Every time I go down Rozhdestvensky Boulevard to Trubnaya Square, I see on the pavement the blood of those who went to say goodbye to the "beautiful Generalissimo"...

As a journalist, I spoke with many of my colleagues, as well as with statesmen, scientists, writers, military men who were born at the beginning of the century and personally met Stalin, and with those who in their time listened to others' stories about meetings with him. In addition, in many interviews, my interlocutors and I, talking about the history of the country, in one context or another touched on the figure of the “leader of the peoples”, talked about the tragic fate of contemporaries during the years of repression. All these testimonies are different, contradictory, somewhat subjective, but this is what makes them interesting. I think they have the right to be made public and brought together under one cover. Without any comments.

It seems to me that this unexpected and unusual “Staliniada” can once again remind us of the danger for the country of the cult of “leadership”.

Part I. How they remember him

Chapter 1. Stalin's adopted son, General Artem Sergeev: "I survived because I was silent"

I learned about Stalin's adopted son about forty years ago from the once famous book of the French writer Henri Barbusse "Stalin". I have not read anywhere else about Artem Sergeev and have not heard this name from anyone. And only in perestroika times, Anna Mikhailovna Bukharina-Larina told me about a man who got into the family of the “leader of the peoples” in early childhood as an orphan. His father was the illustrious revolutionary "Comrade Artem", who died in 1921. But in the 1980s, I failed to find Artem Sergeev; during Gorbachev's rule, he lived aloof, not showing himself in public. Journalists, it seems, did not look for him, either forgetting about the existence of the leader's adopted son, or not daring in those years to interview the son of the crucified tyrant.

A case helped me - when I was interviewing for one of the newspapers the widow of Anastas Mikoyan's son, the mother of the famous musician Stas Namin Nami Artemyevna Mikoyan, she suddenly unexpectedly uttered the name of Sergeyev. It turned out they were old friends. At my request, Nami Artemievna immediately called Artem Fedorovich, who agreed to the meeting:

- To go to me like this: by car or by autoline along Rublevsky highway to the Tsarskaya Okhota restaurant, upon arrival, dial my number, I will explain how to find me, ten minutes on foot. You will be met…

A well-groomed piece of land, a garden, around signs of golden autumn. It seems to be an unsightly house, but you go inside - it is spacious, there are many rooms, old furniture. A young man of Caucasian appearance leads me to a meeting with the owner - either an assistant orderly, or a guard of General Sergeyev, holder of the Order of Marshal Zhukov.

And here he is - Artem Fedorovich Sergeev.

A agile, energetic man with an open face and a confident look rises towards him from a chair, to whom you will never give 85 years, although he is approaching this significant date.

As soon as they started talking, I realized that Artyom Fedorovich was young at heart and sharp in memory. His speech is lively and frank.

– ... This place, which was once a cattle drive, my mother bought for five thousand rubles many years ago. The estate was large, but Khrushchev's cuts in collective farm estates did not affect us, mother was not a collective farmer. The owner of these places was a certain Klyukvin, who worked on the railroad. And now one well-known oligarch has been living in my neighbors for ten years already ...

- Artem Fedorovich, why did it happen that almost nothing is known about you? Not a joke after all - the adopted son of Stalin himself, who has survived to this day.

– And everything is simple - I have never spoken to anyone anywhere about my closeness to Stalin and his family. And my mother was silent about it.

“Are you saying that your mother didn’t ask the authorities for anything?” Otherwise, your incognito would be revealed.

– Never asked for anything. Therefore, Vlasik, who headed Stalin's security for many years, thought that she had long been dead.

- Can you at least now introduce yourself: “Am I the adopted son of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin?”

– No, I don't introduce myself in that way. Another thing is that sometime in the thirties, the French writer Henri Barbusse wrote about my existence in his book. The book was called "Stalin". And in it are the following words: "Stalin adopted Artem Sergeev, whose father died in a car accident." The book was published in a small edition, few people read it. Perhaps only those from the top, from the members of the Politburo. Well, read and read. Life went on as usual, and I realized long ago that my happiness is in my silence. I did not go anywhere with my biography, although there were many people around who tried to show themselves. For many, this ended badly.

- It turns out that some boy was spinning near Stalin, near his son Vasily, members of his family, and no one was interested in him?

– Yes, something like this: Sergeev and Sergeev, the son of the revolutionary Artem Sergeev, known as "Comrade Artem."

- And later, after the death of the leader and his son Vasily? Let's say Khrushchev knew about you? Was he, destroying the Stalinist inheritance, supposed to know that Stalin had an adopted son, a friend of Vasily Iosifovich, whom Nikita Sergeevich himself sent to prison?

– Yes, that's right, Khrushchev didn't know me, he didn't know me at all. And Brezhnev did not know me.

- I don’t understand anything, because you are not just a member of the family of the head of state, you became a general in the Soviet army. The General is not a needle in a haystack!

– And I didn’t go anywhere in the army either. And he served not in the so-called Arbat district, but in the army, in the troops, far from Moscow. And in the west, and in the east, and beyond the edge of the world. In 1937-1938 he studied at a military school, became a soldier, then a cadet of the 2nd Leningrad Artillery School. After graduating in 1940, he commanded a platoon of the 13th artillery regiment of the 1st motorized rifle division. He was a battery commander and participated in battles with the Nazis. We fought enemy tanks commanded by Guderian and Hoth. The names of the German commanders were learned from the prisoners.

After our guns were destroyed, I was appointed commander of a rifle company. We ended up in the German rear, surrounded. Gathered a small officer partisan detachment. He was captured, ended up in a concentration camp, then in a prison in Orsha. Managed to escape.

Of course, if someone knew my true biography, my last name, I would be finished. And so I was just Sergei Sarychev. And only one person knew who I was - the famous commander of the Flegont partisan unit, he died in 1943. I told him all my ins and outs.

- Since you were with Stalin for many years, tell me, what was his face like? It is believed that it is embellished in the photographs, in fact it was pockmarked, with pockmarks, which was very conspicuous.

– What was his face like? It was beautiful, not painted, but beautiful, good. It was a beautiful face, without any flaws. They say - freckled ... Wait a minute, but who saw it? Yes, pockmarks were present, but they were almost invisible. It was the face of an intelligent, simple man. I remember from early childhood how respected Iosif Vissarionovich was by everyone who was next to him, communicated at work, at work.

Once, the niece of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Kira Pavlovna, who herself suffered during the years of repression, was asked what Stalin was like, and she replied: “To tell the truth, he was a charming person.”

- Well, well, since Stalin was your named father, how did he communicate with you - caressed, kissed, presented gifts? Raised at last?

– Yes, he was an affectionate father. By nature explosive, impulsive, but extremely pedagogical. He did not allow the child to consider himself a fool, and with me, with Vasily and Svetlana, he spoke intelligibly and understandably on very serious topics. As if at our, still childish, level.

Sometimes Iosif Vissarionovich set us as an example to each other. When he saw that Vasily had bad grades, he made his way and set me as an example. Father knew that this was very unpleasant for Vasily. Vasily was kind, he could give everything, give everything, but by nature he was ambitious and even power-hungry.

In addition to various souvenirs, I received two books as a gift from Stalin: one in 1928, the other in 1929. Unfortunately they disappeared from me. On Daniel Defoe's book "Robinson Crusoe" he wrote: "To my friend Tomik, with the wish that he grow up to be a conscientious, persistent and fearless Bolshevik." Stalin called me Tomik in memory of my father, who was once called Tom in the local manner in the emigration.

Of course, he was a very busy person and rarely worked with children - only when he had a free minute. He returned late from his office, but if the children did not sleep, he approached and talked.

Have you been to his office?

– You will be surprised now, but in those years that I remember well, Stalin's office was, as it were, the whole apartment. After the death of his wife, he did not have his family home. There was Svetlana's room, Vasya's room, a kitchen, and then the door and his room. Here is a small dining room, maybe a little larger than this, in which we are talking. To the left is his bedroom. To the right - a large room - a meeting room for a narrow circle, and further - a large meeting room of the Council of Ministers. That is, Stalin, as it were, was always at his workplace.

I remember such an episode in 1938. Stalin sent a young party member, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, to Belarus to eliminate repressions. He gave him the assignment like this: “Here is a telephone,” he pointed to his device, “you will have the same one, and next to it there will be books with the numbers of the HF equipment, the internal Kremlin communication ... Just in case, you can remember my phone. If something is wrong, call me, I'm always there.

So it turns out that Stalin's working day was both day and night.

- Curious, but where did the head of the country put himself in order, say, cut his hair, shave? In a special barbershop?

– Not exactly special, in the Kremlin there was one barbershop for everyone. It seemed to me that he shaved himself, because no one, in my memory, came to shave him. And he cut his hair, apparently, in the same general barbershop. She was in the Cavalry Corps. Once I, a boy, was waiting in it for my turn to get a haircut. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin arrives, of course, I immediately gave him my turn. And he suddenly says in response: “No, you can’t ... Now it’s your turn, so use it. Do we have such laws, according to which Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin could be served without a queue at a hairdresser? There are no such laws. But I write the laws, and above all, I must fulfill them. And I have never written such a law and will never sign it. So feel free to take your place."

- Yes, as they say, "there were people in our time" ...

– Of course there were, you are being ironic in vain. I recall such episodes, about which Ivan Alexandrovich Serov, the then Minister of State Security, told me in detail. You must have heard the gossip that Stalin did not go to the front, that he was afraid of everything. So one day Stalin orders: get ready for a trip to the Western Front! Ivan Alexandrovich prepares cars, people - the minimum number. They arrive at the headquarters of the Western Front. Stalin is interested in how the work is going, how our aviation is, along the way he praises Golovanov's long-range aviation for the fact that it performs any tasks.

We moved to the Kalinin Front. From headquarters, he calls Malenkov to Moscow. Malenkov asks: "Where are you calling from, Comrade Stalin?" Answer: “It doesn't matter…” There is again a long conversation, and again Golovanov's name is pronounced in superlatives. Then Stalin said to Malenkov: "Tomorrow the newspapers will publish an order to award Golovanov the rank of air marshal." Golovanov is immediately called over the phone, Stalin congratulates the commander on the promotion to the rank of marshal. He says he doesn't know anything about it. Stalin retorts: “Newspapers must be read!”

The second episode: how Vasily and I learned from Serov about the monetary reform in 1947. In the presence of his wife and Vasily Stalin's wife, Katya Timoshenko, Ivan Alexandrovich suddenly glanced at his watch a couple of times and said: "That's it, your money was crying ... They don't work anymore." Everyone froze. Serov's wife screams at her husband: "Oh, you bastard, why didn't you tell me?" And he replies: “That’s why I didn’t say that I was entrusted with this matter, up there they know that I won’t tell anyone, even you ...”

Katya Timoshenko calmly said: “But I don’t care, we have nothing but debts.”

New banknotes of 1947 were transported on warships, and Serov said that anyone who divulged the secret of this operation was threatened with imminent execution.

- How did you, Artem Fedorovich, become the adopted son of Stalin? I heard that you ended up in the leader's family because Stalin wanted his son to grow up with some kid, as they say, easier to educate.

– The story is like this. My father was a famous revolutionary. They had been close friends with Stalin since 1906. Both were delegates to various pre-revolutionary party congresses. Both have been in prisons and exile. Having met in the seventeenth year, they no longer parted until the death of their father. And his father died by accident, as a result of a car accident on the 104th kilometer of the Moscow-Tula road. But, going as a delegate to the 10th Party Congress to suppress the Kronstadt rebellion, my father asked Iosif Vissarionovich, if something happened to him, to look after my mother, who at that time was pregnant with me. And at about the same time, a son, Vasily, was born in the Stalin family. So it turned out that from the age of 5 months I actually lived with the Stalins, in the same room with Vasily. Then, until the age of 16, I visited them regularly. And we rested in the south together.

I began my conversation with A. Sergeev with a seemingly strange question - can Artem Fedorovich himself introduce himself as Stalin's adopted son. He replied that no, he didn't. There is no legal document on this score, but the Politburo resolution, issued immediately after the death of Fyodor Sergeev in August 1921, has been preserved. In it, the 18th paragraph reads: "On providing for the family of Comrade Artyom." The CEC meeting was attended by Lenin, Zinoviev, Trotsky, Kamenev, Dzerzhinsky. Stalin was appointed responsible for the implementation of the decree, who indeed literally for many years carried out the decision of the Central Executive Committee, becoming the adoptive father of his friend's son ...

Vasily (the son of Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva) and Artem Sergeev lived in the same family for some time. True, in passing Artem Fedorovich told me that for several years, namely from 1923 to 1927, Stalin's sons (native Vasily and adopted Artem) lived and were brought up in ... an orphanage for fifty people, which was located in a beautiful mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya, built at the beginning of the 20th century by the architect F. Shekhtel for the businessman, banker and collector Stepan Ryabushinsky. Later, the government gave this house to Maxim Gorky, if only he would return from Capri to the USSR. Gorky returned and, after living for several years, according to fairly convincing assumptions, in this last refuge he was put to death.

The co-founders and co-directors of the house were Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva and the mother of Artem Fedorovich Elizaveta Lvovna. By the way, A.F. Sergeev justifies the assignment of offspring to an orphanage by the eternal employment of parents. At the same time, the children of the first person in the country were not sent to some elite temple of education, fifty homeless children lived next to them. “Here are both of us in this very company,” exclaimed Artem Fedorovich.

* * *

In the book “The Chronicle of the Times of Vasily Stalin”, presented to me by Vasily Stalin’s wife Kapitolina Vasilyeva, there are such fragments of the recollection of my interlocutor on the topic “Stalin and children”:

« When we were 13 years old, Vasily and I found a bottle of champagne. We drank. The family complained to Stalin. He called us and asked: “Did you feel dizzy? Oh, so your head is not your head. It's still early, we'll have to wait a bit." Probably, if he had yelled at us, they say, such and such, do not dare, we would have tried again the next day ... ”.

“From modern literature, Stalin loved Zoshchenko. Sometimes he would read aloud to Vasily and me. Once he laughed almost to tears, and then said: “And here Comrade Zoshchenko remembered GEPEU and changed the ending!”

“Vasily Stalin received four orders for the war - his comrades who participated in such operations were awarded more generously. And he was given the Order of the Red Banner for dispersing the German bombers flying to bomb our rear. He rose into the sky on an unloaded fighter in front of the ranks ... The commander, who observed this picture from the ground, not knowing that Stalin's son was there, ordered the pilot to be rewarded ... "

* * *

- Artem Fedorovich, fate has closely connected you with Stalin's son Vasily, whom you probably know everything about. There are still many legends about Vasily Iosifovich, this is a man of a truly tragic, largely unsuccessful fate. What are, for example, his marriages, which, as they say, did not bring him happiness ...

– The last wife of Vasily, the famous swimmer Kapitolina Vasilyeva, died in May of this year.[Interview taken in 2006. – F. M.] Vasily was lucky with this woman, decent and faithful, she was his real wife. Here I am telling you and scrolling through my life like in a movie camera. In 1940, on December 10 or 12, I don’t remember exactly, Vasily called me and said: “Come to my bride on the 15th, I’m getting married. Let's sit down and have a drink. Meet my fiancee." I tell Vasily that I can’t, because I’m leaving on a business trip on the 15th. I returned to Moscow on December 29, for some time Vasily and I missed each other, I returned to my regiment, Vasily to his, which was stationed in Lyubertsy, so I saw Kapitolina a little later.

- And what was your impression?

– I will tell you about Kapitolina a little later, but I want to tell you about the first wives immediately. The first wife of Vasily Galya Burdonskaya is a simple, cheerful, easy girl, without any pretensions. We can say that she was without a twist, and Vasily was not interested in her.

Books about Stalin allow you to understand one of the most significant and controversial figures in Russian history of the 20th century: the General Secretary of the Party, the commander in chief, the Generalissimo, who actually led the country for more than thirty years. Some consider him a brilliant military leader and an experienced manager who managed to put the country on its feet after the devastating Civil War. Others argue that it was a bloody dictator, all of whose achievements are based on millions of human victims. Who was Stalin in reality? The books that are described in this article will allow at least a little understanding of this difficult issue.

1. "Stalin and the repressions of the 1920-1930s"

Many books about Stalin are devoted to repression. One of the most popular is the work of the military historian "Stalin and the repressions of the 1920-1930s."

In it, the author tells in detail about the conversation that took place between the Generalissimo and the Swedish ambassador Kollontai on the eve of the Soviet-Finnish war. In it, Stalin predicted that many of his deeds would be distorted, his name would be vilified, and many atrocities would be attributed to his personality.

In this work, Martirosyan sets himself the task of dispelling two hundred of the most popular anti-Stalinist myths about the leader, as well as exposing a number of documentary fakes, arguing that in reality everything was not so.

2. "Stalin's revenge. Return Russian lands!"

Igor Pykhalov in his book "Stalin's Revenge. Return the Russian Lands!" argues that rather than squandering the achievements of the past, it is better to carefully protect what was collected and suffered by previous generations.

The author notes that after the Great October Revolution and the subsequent foreign intervention, Russia lost a number of important and strategically significant territories. In place of the outskirts of the great empire, such states as Finland, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia began to emerge. According to Pykhalov, the dominant ideology in them was militant Russophobia.

The writer sees Stalin as a zealous owner who, during the years that he was in power, managed to return most of the lost lands. This is what Igor Pykhalov's new historical bestseller "Stalin's Revenge. Return the Russian Lands!" is dedicated to.

3. "Russian Tsar Joseph Stalin. Myths and Truth"

Among the books about Stalin, it is necessary to highlight the work of Alexei Kofanov, which is called "The Russian Tsar Joseph Stalin. Myths and Truth." According to some researchers, this is one of the most candid books written about this controversial and controversial figure. At the same time, as Kofanov himself claims, he builds all his arguments and conclusions on irrefutable facts, which is extremely important when we try to analyze the Stalin era.

This book about Stalin contains a large number of sources, so that, if desired, all the information and data given in it can be easily verified. The author takes on an extremely complex and controversial topic, but at the same time he manages to write his work in an understandable and accessible language. In a casual way, he tries to answer the main questions about the personality of Joseph Stalin.

The annotation claims that after reading it, you will be able to find out exactly why many people hate the Soviet leader so much, whether he was really a maniac, an Okhrana agent, a raider and a paranoid one, why the liberal intelligentsia prefer Trotsky to Stalin, and what really happened in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

4. Eckstuth's analysis

In it, the author attempts to answer the difficult question of why Stalin, despite all the repressions and persecutions, remained in the people's memory as a positive hero. In the book "Comrade Stalin, can you hear us?" Ekshtut tries to explain why the broad masses perceive him exclusively as one of the strongest and most just rulers.

Author of the book "Comrade Stalin, can you hear us?" tried not only to assess the damage caused by the repressions, but also to analyze the effectiveness of personnel decisions in the highest echelons of power. This has been done many times before. Ekshtut, on the other hand, decided to find out how all the people who read his book should change in order to prevent a similar situation from happening again in the future.

5. "Young Stalin"

In 2007, the biographical novel "Young Stalin" by the English historian and publicist Simon Montefiore was translated into Russian.

By this time, the work was already quite well known in the world, won a number of prizes and prestigious literary awards. For example, it won the Bruno Kreisky Prize and the Los Angeles Times Prize for Best Biographical Work. A film adaptation is expected in the near future, the rights were bought by Miramax Films.

Among the main advantages of this novel, it should be noted that it was written by one of the largest English specialists in the history of Russia. Montefiore manages to paint a portrait of Stalin, unknown to most readers, to dispel many myths that existed about the Soviet General Secretary. Interestingly, these myths were created both by modern sources and were cultivated by the hero of the novel himself.

As a result, the writer turned out to be a real bestseller, an exciting biography that will not leave anyone indifferent. On its pages we will get acquainted with Stalin-lover, terrorist, hunter, poet and meteorologist. We learn about such aspects of his personality, which were not even suspected before.

An interesting look at Stalin and his contemporaries in those days when he did not yet inspire fear in everyone around. While working on the book, Montefiore plunged into archival documents, restored in detail the life of the Soviet leader under tsarist Russia, trying to scrupulously record his every action on the way to power.

6. "Stalin: biography of the leader"

From the series "200 Myths about Stalin" Arsen Martirosyan's book "Stalin: Biography of the Leader" is well known. The author in his work recognizes the importance of the figure of the hero of his book. Today it is already generally recognized both in Russia and abroad. At the same time, he claims that many atrocities were attributed to him in the last half century, after the course of the Soviet Communist Party to debunk the cult of personality. Many, according to the author, tried to attribute to him a false biography, which has little in common with reality.

Military historian Arsen Martirosyan is trying to debunk the most popular myths, to expose a whole series of supposedly true documents.

The author tries to figure out whether Stalin was really an agent of the tsarist secret police, a seminarian who did not finish his studies, did not play any role in the October Revolution and the Civil War, hid Lenin's will from the party and the public, ignored the principles of democracy, did not tolerate criticism, did not trust anyone, suffered from manic suspicion , personally created his own cult, compared himself with Napoleon, initiated repressions as ethnic cleansing, and so on.

He refutes these and other statements, citing facts, documents and his own conclusions.

7. "Stalin. Life and death"

In the book "Stalin. Life and Death" he tries to show the injustice, which, in his opinion, is observed in most studies devoted to this politician. In them, the political qualities of the figures always obscure the human ones. Surprisingly, the same trend is observed in the memories of his relatives, friends and even relatives.

The popularizer of history Radzinsky wants to explain this injustice. He is trying to figure out what Stalin felt and thought, being at the top of the power pyramid created by himself. The writer analyzes the so-called Stalin phenomenon, exploring the personal qualities of a historical character, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of this major political figure.

Interestingly, Radzinsky's work is divided into three parts. Their names coincide with the nicknames that the Generalissimo had. These are Soso, Koba and the most famous - Stalin.

8. Volkogonov's book

Certainly one of the most famous biographies of the Soviet leader is a study called "Stalin" by Dmitry Volkogonov. Many consider it the main work dedicated to the famous Generalissimo; it has sold millions of copies around the world. It has been translated into more than ten foreign languages.

The biography of the most famous dictator of the 20th century is written from an anti-Stalinist position. At the same time, the author tries to maintain historical objectivity.

It is noteworthy that Volkogonov himself did not stoop to settling personal scores with the General Secretary, being the son of "enemies of the people." The historian's father was shot during the years of repression, and his mother died in exile. As a true historian, he managed to maintain detachment and impartiality, being as objective as possible. At the same time, he did not write a political agitation that would reflect his personal views on what is happening, but a deep encyclopedic study of the phenomenon of the Leader, a book that is interesting to read after many years.

9. "Stalin's first defeat"

In 2011, Yuri Zhukov's study "Stalin's First Defeat" was published. It tells about how the career of the Soviet leader developed at the very beginning.

Zhukov tells how Stalin tried to preserve the unity of the country during the Civil War and the October Revolution, resisting its disintegration, the separation of individual national republics. And also about the people who opposed him in this, about the factors due to which he managed to win.

The book uses rare archival documents, many of which have become public only in recent years.

10. "Joseph Stalin. The Last Riddle"

Another book dedicated to the Soviet dictator was written by Edward Radzinsky. "Joseph Stalin. The Last Riddle" is a deep study of the leader's activities on the eve and during

This is an attempt to explain many of the actions and deeds of the leader, which have not yet received a reasonable explanation. This novel is part of a cycle called "Apocalypse from Koba".

11. "Our commander Stalin"

Here we can look at the personality of the leader from the side of his associates, which is especially interesting.

1. Anatoly Rybakov - "Children of the Arbat"

Anatoly Rybakov is a writer whose novels are read by millions of domestic and foreign readers. Many of his works are extremely popular, and most of them have been filmed. "Children of the Arbat" is a trilogy in which we find ourselves in the Stalin era of the 30-40s of the last century, in the pre-war and war times of authoritarianism and diktat. The first part of the trilogy tells about the fate of individuals who were born and raised on the Arbat in Moscow. The drama of that time and the feelings of the characters are intertwined. The modern screen version of the novel by A. Rybakov was published in 2004 as a television serial film, which included all parts of the trilogy.

2. Vasily Grossman - "Life and Fate"

It would be strange if a book similar to the second novel in Vasily Grossman's dilogy Life and Fate, written by the writer in 1960, would be immediately published. In it, through the fate of people - different: "big" and "small" - the writer tries to prove that it is impossible to put above human values ​​the ideals of the revolution invented by someone, a single system, and so on. And that the greatest value is the life and fate of any of us.

3. Tamara Petkevich - "Life is an unpaired boot"

Tamara Petkevich is a dramatic actress who has embodied more than one female image on the theater stages of the former Soviet Union. Her memoirs are a surprisingly subtle and at the same time dramatically intense narrative of her life, which fell under the wheel of history in 1937.

4. Vasily Aksenov - "Moscow Saga"

The history of the country is the history of the people. The history of a people is the history of individuals. History of the Soviet State - from the beginning of the twenties to the beginning of the fifties. During this time, the Soviet people had enough trials - the struggle against Trotskyism, collective farms and collectivization, the war against the Nazi invaders ... The Moscow Gradov family, consisting of three generations of intelligentsia, goes through all the circles of hell of Stalin's time, together with the people of the entire Soviet country. Their story is a real Moscow saga... Vasily Aksenov's novel-trilogy "The Moscow Saga" includes three books - "Generation of Winter", "War and Prison", "Prison and Peace". In 2004, director Dmitry Barshchevsky filmed the Moscow Saga series of the same name based on the plot of the work.

5. Evgeny Ginzburg - "Steep route"

18 years of prisons, camps and exiles is really a very "cool" route that the author of this book had to go through. "A steep route" - according to Evgenia Ginzburg herself, this is "Chronicle of the times of the cult of personality." The first, first published in the West, and later in the USSR, a novel that tells about Stalin's repressions, as well as about the personal tragedies of truly extraordinary people who were affected by this disaster. Chronologically, the events in the book are described from the moment of Kirov's assassination to the rehabilitation of the author in 1955.

6. Varlam Shalamov - "Kolyma stories"

"Kolyma Tales" by Varlam Shalamov is a reliable and realistic description of the suffering and horrors of the Kolyma camps, the collision of a person with a ruthless state machine that grinds him both physically and morally. “Abandon hope, everyone who enters here,” is said on the threshold of hell in the “Divine Comedy” by Dante. The prisoners of Kolyma, in spite of everything, did not give up hope - this only unsteady support helped them, if not to survive, then not to lose their human appearance ...

7. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - "The Gulag Archipelago"

"The Gulag Archipelago" - the history of camps, repressions and prisons in the former USSR. The abbreviation GULAG means "Chief Directorate of Camps". This book is both a historical study with elements of an ethnographic parody essay, and memoirs of the author himself. In his work, Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells about the personal experience of camp life, about the martyrs and sufferers of the Gulag. The very creation of the Gulag seems to be a “turned inside out” creation of the world…

8. Valeria Novodvorskaya - "My Carthage must be destroyed"

Valeria Novodvorskaya is one of the most shocking thinkers and politicians of our time, although sometimes her remarks are sharp and timely. And once again you are convinced of this by reading her book "My Carthage must be destroyed." Who took away the inner sense of freedom from the modern generation of Russians? They themselves, the author claims, because they are lazy and good for nothing. No one particularly oppressed them, enslaved and enslaved them. But they still didn’t turn out to be citizens ...

9. Edward Radzinsky - "Stalin"

The book "Stalin" is presented by the famous presenter Edward Radzinsky. This is not his first work. He wrote about Rasputin, John the Tormentor, Alexander II, Napoleon and other famous personalities. But as the author himself admits, this book haunted him all his life. It was not by chance that the author dedicated the work "Stalin" to his father. It was he who always dreamed of writing a book about the great and widely discussed ruler, around whom there were always many rumors. After the death of his father in 1969, Radzinsky began work, including in the book the stories of those whom he knew as a child. After all, it was these stories that his father loved to retell so much.

10. Vladimir Pozner - "Farewell to illusions"

In 2012, Vladimir Pozner's book "Farewell to Illusions" was published. The journalistic work was previously known only to the English-speaking audience, and only in our time has Pozner translated it into Russian. The book is dedicated to historical events and incidents of the 20th century, which the author observed with his own eyes. As part of the story, Posner manages to update a number of social problems, and with a funny irony.