Thanks to Comrade Stalin for our happiness. "Thank you Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood"

On Red Square on July 6, 1936. Then the phrase appeared in the text of posters and the titles of a number of paintings. A year earlier, the “Song of Soviet Schoolchildren” appeared with the lines: “For our happy childhood / Thank you, dear country!” (words by V.M. Gusev), which definitely influenced the creation of the slogan.

In the journalistic literature about the history of the meeting between Stalin and Geli Markizova, there is information according to which Stalin allegedly said in Georgian, as if L.P. Beria was present at the meeting: “ მომაშორე ეგ ტილიანი! » ( momashore eg tiliani!- Remove this lousy one!). However, it is unlikely that the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Beria, who lived in Tbilisi at that time, was present in Moscow on January 27, 1936 (where he would move only in 1938); Photos and newsreels of the meeting also did not capture Beria’s presence next to Stalin. [~ 1] Engelsina Sergeevna’s granddaughter, Daria Andreeva, also expresses doubts: . The author of a publication in the magazine “The Art of Cinema” (2014), Sergei Tsyrkun, instead of Beria, speaks about “Georgian security guards”: .

At the May Day demonstration, a column of very old people carries a banner: “Thank you to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood.”

Someone in civilian clothes runs up to them:
- Are you kidding me? When you were children, Comrade Stalin was not yet born!

) that today's neo-Banderaites should pray for the founding fathers of the USSR, who divided the state along ethnic lines. Yes, the idea was not theirs, and even the first steps on this path were taken by the Austro-Hungarians and the Poles in Galicia. But it was the Bolsheviks who did not allow these seedlings to dry out.

On the contrary, they were groomed and cherished, seated and protected by the merciless force of the party of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I don’t even want to argue that this was justified by objective conditions - that’s not the point. The main thing is that this was the work of the Bolsheviks of the Stalin period.

Yes, Ukrainization began even before Lenin’s death. The same Stalin back in 1921 X At the congress of the RCP(b) he stated: “...It was recently said that the Ukrainian republic and Ukrainian nationality are an invention of the Germans. Meanwhile it is clear that Ukrainian nationality exists, and the development of its culture is the responsibility of communists. You can't go against history. It is clear that if Russian elements still predominate in the cities of Ukraine, then over time these cities will inevitably be Ukrainized».
But even after Lenin’s death, nothing changed and the brochure “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination” was not burned. On the contrary, the USSR was built from a “union of nations” with the right to secede from the USSR. Moreover, when after the Victory it was possible to transform the USSR into a single state with a “new community of Soviet people,” this was not done either.

So it was the party, and it was in the USSR, that created the Ukrainians as a nation, turned Little Russia itself into a huge full-fledged founding state of the UN, gathered all the territories into this state right up to the Crimea in its composition, and, in Stalin’s style, harshly and uncompromisingly implanted the Ukrainian language even where he was not born.

Historical fact - there were no “Ukrainians” in the Republic of Ingushetia! Look at any census. You will find there all the peoples of the empire, except one... So as not to be unfounded (census of the Republic of Ingushetia, 1897). There were no Ukrainians in neighboring countries either. There were Russians or Rusyns, Ruthenians, Little Russians, anyone. There were no Ukrainians until the First World War, even in the USA and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which cultivated Ukrainians from the Rusyns on its territory in Galicia (fortunately, Polish groundwork was made along this path). We must also pay tribute to the Russian Empire, in which “Ukrainians” were fashionable and popular (remember the reburial of Shevchenko).

However, only the World War began official Ukrainization. Pay attention to the passport of newspaper No. 61 dated October 13, 1914 and compare the passport of the next number 62 for October 15, 1914.

But these were just the beginnings.

Unsuccessful attempts to split the warring Russian Empire. And even all sorts of UPR of Grushevsky, Hetmanate of Skoropadsky and Directory of Petliura were not crowned with success. With the end of the civil war, the winners could replay everything - and the attempt to create the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic is just one example of a different kind of construction. But for the reasons that I wrote about in the previous article (Stalin and the time bomb that destroyed the USSR), the Bolsheviks followed the principle of national division of the USSR.

This was the most brutal and all-encompassing of the Ukrainizations - Yushchenko is resting (in total, under the USSR there were at least three waves of Ukrainizations under all the secretaries general, except for Andropov and Chernenko, who ruled for a short time). It was in the USSR that the population of the Ukrainian SSR and adjacent territories of the RSFSR learned that they were “Ukrainians.” Stalin did not “destroy” the “Ukrainians” - he created them!

At the 12th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1923, Stalin, in accordance with Lenin’s ideas, made a decision on “indigenization” - replacing the Russian language with local national languages ​​in administration, education and culture. In Ukraine, as well as in the Kuban, Stavropol Territory, part of the North Caucasus, Kursk and Voronezh regions, such indigenization was officially called Ukrainization.

The same Grushevsky, head of the UPR from Galicia, already favored by the Soviet authorities, wrote: « About 50 thousand people moved to the Ukrainian SSR from Galicia with wives and families, young people, men. Many Galicians work in the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Education of Ukraine. M.I. worked at Ukrnauka. Yavorsky, K. I. Konik, M. L. Baran; the scientific secretaries of the People's Commissariat for Education were A.I. Badan-Yavorenko, and then Zozulyak; Skrypnik’s personal secretary was the Galician N.V. Erstenyuk.”

Together with them, 400 officers of the former Galician army, led by G. Kossak, the uncle of Zenon Kossak, who became the author of 44 rules of life for the Ukrainian nationalist, were also discharged from then Polish Galicia to the Ukrainian SSR. I can imagine how delighted Pilsudski and Co. were.

From Gorky’s letter to the Ukrainian writer A. Slesarenko: “Dear Alexey Makarovich! I am categorically against shortening the story “Mother”. It seems to me that translating this story into Ukrainian is also not necessary. I am very surprised by the fact that people, setting themselves the same goal, not only assert the difference between adverbs - they strive to make the adverb a “language”, but also oppress those Great Russians who find themselves a minority in the field of this adverb.”

IN1930 in Ukraine, 68.8% of newspapers were published by Soviet authorities in Ukrainian language, in 1932 there were already 87.5%. In 1925-26. 45.8% of books published by communists in Ukraine were published in Ukrainian; by 1932 this figure was 76.9%. There was no market, the growth and distribution of circulation was a purely party matter and was not dictated by demand.

Here is a quote from the decision of the 4th plenum of the Donetsk regional committee of the CP(b)U: “ Strictly observe the Ukrainization of Soviet bodies, resolutely fighting against any attempts by enemies to weaken Ukrainization.” The decision was made in October 1934.

And six months before that, in April, the same regional committee made a strong-willed decision “On the language of city and regional newspapers in Donbass.” In pursuance of the party's decisions on Ukrainization, Donetsk residents decided to completely translate 23 of 36 local newspapers into Ukrainian, another 8 had to print at least two-thirds of the information in Ukrainian, 3 - in Greek-Hellenic, and only TWO newspapers (!) in the region were decided leave it in Russian.

Before the revolution, there were 7 Ukrainian schools in Donbass. In 1923, the People's Commissariat of Education of Ukraine ordered the Ukrainization of 680 schools in the region within three years.

But the peak of Ukrainization of education here occurred precisely in 1932-33! As of December 1, 1932, out of 2,239 schools in Donbass, 1,760 (or 78.6%) were Ukrainian, and another 207 (9.2%) were mixed Russian-Ukrainian.

By 1933, the last Russian-language pedagogical technical schools had closed. In the 1932-33 school year, in Russian-speaking Makeyevka there was not a SINGLE Russian-speaking class left in the elementary school, which caused violent protests from parents. This year, no more than 26% of the region’s students could study in Russian.

Party bodies have also actively Ukrainized (well, yes, the same party that they are now trying to accuse of genocide of the Ukrainian people). If in 1925 the ratio of Ukrainians and Russians in the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was 36.9% to 43.4%, in 1930 - 52.9% to 29.3%, then in the peak year of the “Holodomor” (1933). ) - 60% Ukrainians to 23% Russians

Wow, while “destroying” the “Ukrainians,” Stalin for some reason implanted the language everywhere and persecuted the Russian language. Some kind of strange "destruction".

Here's another interesting document for you:

Resolution of December 14, 1932 of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On grain procurements in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Western Region”, quote:

D) Invite the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine to pay serious attention to the correct implementation of Ukrainization, to eliminate its mechanical implementation, to expel Petliura and other bourgeois-nationalist elements from party and Soviet organizations, to carefully select and educate Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres, to ensure systematic party management and control over the implementation of Ukrainization.

Read it - an interesting document. The fight against hunger and (ATTENTION!) Ukrainization are discussed! There, by the way, it is decided to cancel Ukrainization in Kuban, because The local population does not understand the language well. :)

"Confirm that Only persons who speak Ukrainian can be recruited for service, and non-owners can be accepted only in agreement with the District Commission for Ukrainization.” R-401 op.1, no. 82 Presidium of Lugansk District. executive committee: “Confirm to employees that careless attendance at courses and unwillingness to learn the Ukrainian language entails their dismissal from service.” R-401, op.1, case 72.

In July 1930, the Presidium of the Stalin District Executive Committee decided to “bring to criminal liability the heads of organizations formally related to Ukrainization, who have not found ways to Ukrainize their subordinates, who violate the current legislation in the matter of Ukrainization.” Newspapers, schools, universities, theaters, institutions, inscriptions, signs, etc. were Ukrainianized. In Odessa, where Ukrainian students accounted for less than a third, all schools were Ukrainized. In 1930, there were only 3 large Russian-language newspapers left in Ukraine.

Ukrainization of the Communist Party of Ukraine

Years Party members and candidates Ukrainians Russians others
1922- 54818... 23,3 %...... 53,6 % 23,3 %
1924- 57016... 33,3 %..... 45,1 % 14,0 %
1925- 101852 36,9 %... 43,4 % 19,7 %
1927- 168087 51,9 %.. 30,0 % 18,1 %
1930- 270698 52,9 %.. 29,3 % 17,8 %
1933- 468793 60,0 % .. 23,0 % 17,0 %
It would be a mistake to assume that Ukrainization stopped in the mid-30s. Yes, it quietly faded away in the Kuban, Stavropol, and Northern Caucasus. But without exception, all the lands that joined the Ukrainian SSR were Ukrainized harshly and mercilessly. In 1939, it turned out that the inhabitants of Galicia were also not sufficiently Ukrainized due to the prevalence of the Polish language. Lviv University named after Jan Casimir was renamed in honor of Ivan Franko and Ukrainianized in the same way as the Lviv Opera, which received the same name. The Soviet government massively opened new Ukrainian schools and founded new Ukrainian-language newspapers. It’s just that here they changed it to Ukrainian not Russian, but Polish.

De-Russification also occurred in Transcarpathia after joining the Ukrainian SSR. Approximately half of the locals, even before the First World War, through the efforts of the Austro-Hungarian authorities, who used the Terezin and Talerhof concentration camps to persuade them, chose Ukrainian identity. The other half of the Rusyns adhered to the all-Russian orientation and stubbornly considered Russian their native language. However, in 1945, all Rusyns, regardless of their wishes, were called Ukrainians by the Soviet government. Well, there is no need to talk about Crimea; its Ukrainization began as soon as Khrushchev stuck it into the Ukrainian SSR.

I won’t bore readers with a list of documents from different years - a few photocopies of newspapers:

"...to pay serious attention to the correct implementation of Ukrainization, eliminate its mechanical implementation, expel Petliura and other bourgeois-nationalist elements from party and Soviet organizations, carefully select and educate Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres, ensure systematic party leadership and control over the implementation of Ukrainization"

Vladislav Pavlovich Smirnov (born 1929) - Soviet and Russian historian, specialist in the history of France. Honored Professor of Moscow University (2012), laureate of the M.V. Lomonosov for teaching activities (2013). In 1953 V.P. Smirnov graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, then became a graduate student, and in 1957 he began working at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, where he worked his way up from assistant to professor. Below is an excerpt from his book: Smirnov V.P. FROM STALIN TO YELTSIN: self-portrait against the background of the era / V. P. Smirnov. – M.: New Chronograph, 2011.

Leader and teacher

When I was born, Stalin ruled the country. Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, who were close to him, called him “master” in their circle, and “leader and teacher” in public. In 1929, the last legal intra-party opposition, the “right opposition” led by N.I., suffered a complete defeat. Bukharin and A.I. Rykov. Just on my birthday, Pravda published a long article entitled: “Strongly and mercilessly fight the ideology and practice of right-wing opportunism.” Opposition members were expelled from the party, removed from work, sent into exile, and sometimes arrested, with fictitious crimes attributed to them, most often “anti-Soviet activities,” “sabotage,” or “espionage.” Some of the oppositionists, in search of salvation, repented and admitted their mistakes.

At the same time, a campaign of unbridled glorification of Stalin was underway and rapidly intensifying. The signal for her was a special issue of Pravda for the 50th anniversary of Stalin, entirely filled with greetings and praises. There, for the first time, the photograph “Lenin and Stalin in Gorki” appeared, without which not a single biography of Stalin was subsequently complete, articles by the members of the Politburo closest to Stalin, poems in his honor and - under the heading “Thousands of Greetings” - congratulatory telegrams from various institutions and organizations. The tone was set by the editorial of Pravda, which said: “The Communist Party, the working class and the world revolutionary movement are celebrating today the 50th anniversary of their leader and leader, friend and comrade comrade. Stalin."

For the first time, Stalin was called the “leader,” not only of the party, but also of the working class and the world revolutionary movement. How unusual this was then can be seen from the fact that in the greeting to Stalin on behalf of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the word “leader” was not yet used. Stalin appeared there only as “Lenin’s faithful, best student,” “iron soldier of the revolution,” “dear friend and comrade in arms” of the other members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission. The Moscow Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) turned out to be even more modest in its assessments. He hailed Stalin "as first among equals at the Bolshevik battle headquarters." In the flattering welcoming verses of Demyan Bedny published by Pravda, another note was sounded, which was then constantly repeated in the stream of enthusiastic writings about Stalin: the beloved leader, on top of everything else, is also incredibly modest - he only tolerates praise with difficulty.

“Telegrams... The editorial office is inundated with them.
On the occasion of Stalin's half-century!
Let Stalin do as he pleases
Angry, roaring,

But Pravda can no longer remain silent!” – wrote Demyan Bedny. The flow of praise grew, and the epithets applied to Stalin quickly reached their highest levels. In 1934, at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, officially proclaimed the “Congress of Winners,” the leaders of the largest party organizations in Moscow and Leningrad - N.S. Khrushchev and A.A. Zhdanov - called Stalin “brilliant”. It is unlikely that this thought occurred to them at the same time by pure chance. Khrushchev said that the Moscow Bolsheviks rallied “around our brilliant leader, Comrade Stalin,” and Zhdanov assured that all the successes of the USSR were achieved “under the brilliant leadership of the greatest leader of our party and the working class, the greatest man of our era - Comrade Stalin.”

Others did not lag behind, including those admitted by Stalin to the congress, the former leaders of the opposition - Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov. They all condemned the chain of their “mistakes, delusions and crimes,” dissociated themselves from their already arrested comrades, thanked Stalin for defeating them, swore allegiance to him, and praised him to the skies. Perhaps their statements need to be recalled, because they show how morally and politically broken the opposition leaders were even before the trials organized against them began. Zinoviev assured that Stalin belongs “to those few rare and rare writers and thinkers whose works you reread many times, each time finding in them a new wealth of content.” Kamenev said that Stalin “is a banner,” “an exponent of the will of millions, a blow against whom means a blow against the entire party, against socialism, against the entire world proletariat.”

Bukharin called for unity “around Comrade Stalin as the personal embodiment of the mind and will of the party, its leader, its theoretical and practical leader.” Rykov promised to “work for the cause of the proletarian revolution under the leadership of our Central Committee and its great leader, Comrade Stalin.” Repentance and forced praise of Stalin did not save the opposition leaders. A few years later, at trials, they had to not only repent, but also “confess” to treason, espionage, murder and other crimes that they did not commit; humiliatedly, but to no avail, beg Stalin for mercy.

After the defeat of the opposition, all the media were overwhelmed (and did not subside until Stalin’s death) with a wave of stories, poems and “folk tales” about Stalin, enthusiastic memories of people who had ever seen or at least heard of him. A special genre appeared: “Songs about Stalin,” where he was compared to a falcon, an eagle and the sun. Their authors were not only unknown rhymers, but also very famous, respected and authoritative people. So, in 1938, composer A.V. Alexandrov and the poet M. Inyushkin composed “Cantata about Stalin,” with which almost all holiday concerts have opened since then. It began with the words:

From edge to edge, along mountain peaks,
Where the free eagle takes flight,
About Stalin, wise, dear and beloved
The people compose a wonderful song.

No less famous was “Song about Stalin” by the poet A. Surkov and composer M. Blanter. They “composed a joyful song about the Great Friend and Leader.” Its chorus went:

Stalin is our military glory,
Stalin is the flight of our youth.
With songs, fighting and winning,
Our people are following Stalin.

In another “Song about Stalin” the poet S. Alymov and composer A.V. Alexandrov on behalf of the Soviet people assured:

We will all follow you for any feat,
Our banner of victory, our Stalin.

Along with the image of a great, wise and beloved leader, the songs of the 30s created the image of the USSR as an exceptionally rich and happy country.

The sunny and brightest land
The entire Soviet land has become...
Warmed by Stalin's smile
Our children are happy.

The vast majority of the population of the USSR lived in poverty, were malnourished, and in some places there was real hunger, but in the songs everything looked simply wonderful.

We're bursting with bread
In the barns there are bins,
All the way to the outskirts
All new houses.

The songs were joined by books, articles, films, theatrical performances, glorifying the happy life of the Soviet people under the leadership of their brilliant, wise, kind, humane leader - Comrade Stalin. His portraits hung in all institutions, military units, schools, hospitals, and in many private apartments. It was a genuine “cult of personality,” as it was later called, a cult resembling a religious one, accompanied by mass enthusiastic worship.

Not only “ordinary people”, but also famous intellectuals gifted with a critical mind were delighted at the mere appearance of Stalin. Having seen Stalin at the Komsomol congress in 1936, K.I. Chukovsky wrote in his diary: “I looked around: everyone had loving, tender, spiritual and laughing faces. Seeing him—just seeing him—was happiness for all of us... We walked home together with Pasternak, and both reveled in our joy.” The most amazing thing is that even people who seemed to know Stalin well, including his relatives, whom he later destroyed, saw in him “a real invincible Eagle” and believed that Stalin was “infinitely kind.”

After the revelation of Stalin’s crimes at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, when it became completely safe to criticize him, it turned out that some prominent scientists and writers, for example, A.A. Akhmatova, had no illusions either about Stalin or about the Stalinist regime. Perhaps many “ordinary people” thought the same, especially those who suffered under Soviet rule. However, they kept their feelings to themselves, because expressing them was mortally dangerous. I was a little boy then, growing up in an atmosphere of continuous praise of Stalin and perceived it as completely natural. I’ll tell you an episode from my childhood impressions, which unexpectedly received a continuation. Apparently, I could not read yet, but with great pleasure I looked at the large, beautiful posters hanging everywhere, on which Stalin, with a kind, fatherly smile, was holding a little girl in his arms with a large bouquet of flowers.

Many years later. In the fall of 2000, I met a beautiful middle-aged woman at my friends’ house. They told me: “Meet me. This is Gelya Markizova; Do you remember the girl with a bouquet in Stalin’s arms?” I remembered, I started asking Gelya, and this is what she told me. Her father was the Minister of Agriculture of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the secretaries of the Buryat Regional Committee of the CPSU, and a convinced communist. He named his children in honor of the founders of Marxism-Leninism: his son Vladilen (in honor of Lenin), and his daughter Engelsina (in honor of Engels). In 1936, my father, along with his wife and Gelya (as she was called at home), came to Moscow for a decade of Buryat art. He was invited to a government reception, and Gelya, who was then 5–6 years old, begged him to take her with him. They bought a large bouquet of flowers and went to the Kremlin. There Gele got tired of listening to speeches, she got up and went straight to Stalin with her bouquet. This caused wild delight in the entire room. Stalin picked her up, they were immediately photographed, and the next day the photograph appeared in the newspapers with the caption “Thanks to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood.” Gelya received a flood of congratulations and gifts. Stalin gave her a wristwatch and a gramophone. According to Gelya, he asked: “Will you get it?”, and Gelya answered: “I’ll ask dad.”

Following Stalin, a variety of institutions and organizations began sending gifts to Gele. Some collective farm even donated a cow and calf. Posters depicting Geli in Stalin’s arms made her famous throughout the country. And then came ’37... My father was arrested, accused of spying for Japan and of conspiracy to separate Buryatia from the USSR, brutally tortured and shot. The posters with Gels in Stalin’s arms disappeared. Gelya, her brother and mother were exiled to Kazakhstan. After the rehabilitation of her parents, Gelya was able to see her mother’s personal file. It contained a request from the local NKVD branch: What to do with the mother? She keeps a photograph of Geli in Stalin’s arms and can use it in the future. Beria, who replaced Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, signed a resolution in blue pencil: “Eliminate.” After this, Geli’s mother was admitted to the hospital under some pretext and a few days later they said that she had committed suicide in a fit of depression by cutting her throat with a broken bottle. Gelya didn’t believe this. According to her, she herself saw the mark of the cut - it was narrow, thin, like from a knife or lancet, and not torn, as it would be from a fragment of a bottle. The further fate of Geli and her brother turned out relatively well. They were adopted by distant relatives, they were not considered “members of the family of a traitor to the motherland,” they received higher education, and worked. Gelya graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University. In her story, Gelya mentioned a detail that now surprised her. She did not believe the accusations against her father, but in 1953, when Stalin died, she cried and was very sorry that her little daughter would never see such a great man.

Thanks to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood

Even earlier, persistent propaganda of happy childhood and motherhood began. The period between the second half of 1935 and the first half of 1936 can be called the Soviet “year of the child”: during this period, the problems of children acquired (more than ever in the history of the country) enormous importance. In 1935 and 1936, in the August issues of the party newspaper Pravda, not only new regulations regarding children were discussed (“Resolution on the protection of motherhood and childhood” of June 27, 1936, the law on criminal liability of minors of April 7, 1935), but also a wide range topics related to the new generation: kindergartens, children's cinema, palaces of pioneers, child prodigies and even the production of toys, sweets and chocolate for children. The contrast between the almost complete absence of such “harmless” topics in the early 1930s and, conversely, their widespread occurrence from mid-1935 to early 1937 is truly impressive.

Materials about consumer products for children had political implications that went far beyond the competence of an individual family. In 1933, Stalin declared that all Soviet citizens had the right to a “prosperous life.” In 1935, at the First All-Union Meeting of Stakhanovite Workers and Workers, he uttered his famous saying: “Life has become better, comrades, life has become more fun.” The favorite propaganda image of the Soviet people at this time was the image of the “Soviet family at the festive table” (196). The expanded picture of this “prosperous”, “cheerful” life also included a “happy childhood”, which, as it was claimed, all Soviet children had. In 1935, the official slogan “Thank you to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood!” appeared. And in the first issue of “Pionerskaya Pravda” for 1936, a material was published called “Dreams of the Happy,” where children talked about their desires: to ski and skate, learn to play chess and, of course, to see Stalin.

The pioneer movement gradually provided more and more practical support for the realization of such “dreams.” Since 1934, the range of children's hobbies has expanded greatly. In 1936, the first Palace of Pioneers opened, a large children's leisure center, where children studied in various sections of interests and participated in pioneer celebrations, including New Year celebrations with a decorated Christmas tree, songs, dances and gifts from Father Frost and the Snow Maiden. Those who did not have the opportunity to visit the Palace studied in some circle in the regional House of Pioneers, although these activities did not always coincide with their “dreams”.

The idea of ​​an ideal childhood has changed, and new young heroes have appeared. Since the mid-1930s, there has been a stir around child prodigies. The Young Talents program represented young writers, musicians and artists at the Bolshoi Theater, on tours around the country, and in performances before party leaders (197). Especially outstanding ones could even be shown to Stalin himself. Memories were written about this - to the envy of others (198). It is surprising how apolitically the children's achievements were reported in the press. None of them, say, distributed 2,000 election leaflets, organized a large-scale political meeting at school or an exhibition to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, let alone took part in the fight against “enemies of the people.” Of course, the articles usually said that these children were pioneers, but the main emphasis was on their achievements in areas that had nothing to do with politics: in music, study, and sometimes in work (199). The heroes of such publications are mainly children from big cities, from families of the Soviet middle class (the latter circumstance once again confirms how apolitical the image of the ideal child was at that time).

Under these circumstances, it does not seem surprising that Pavlik Morozov's fame reached its apogee in the mid-1930s, spread throughout the Soviet Union, and then began to decline. The exceptional decision of the Politburo of July 17, 1935 to erect a monument to Pavlik was not implemented. True, it was once again accepted at a Politburo meeting on June 29, 1936 (this time with a precise indication of the location: “Establish a monument to Pavlik Morozov near the Alexander Garden at the entrance to Red Square along Zabelinsky Proezd”) (200). But the fact is that on June 18, 1936, Gorky, the main inspirer of the Pavlik cult, suddenly died. And the repeated decision to erect the monument eleven days after his death was, without a doubt, a tribute to the memory of the writer. And subsequently, no one was found with sufficient authority to implement this decision.

Pionerskaya Pravda journalists, trying to make up for lost patronage, waged a focused campaign throughout 1937 and 1938 to get the project off the ground. On September 2, 1937, the newspaper attacked the Moscow city authorities for delays in the construction of the monument. By this time, the deadline for its installation had already been missed three times, the sketches were no good, and the original budget was spent. The criticism had some effect, and the following year a competition was held for the best design of the monument; A sketch by Isaac Rabinovich (201) was chosen for embodiment in bronze. But Pavlik was not destined to stand on Red Square: the plan according to which he would have become the most famous child in Soviet monumental history (and perhaps in the monumental history of all nations) was quietly scrapped. And Eisenstein’s film “Bezhin Meadow,” filmed under the direct impression of Pavlik Morozov’s biography, was eventually banned. It is rumored that Stalin's condemnation - "We cannot allow every boy to act like the Soviet regime" - was a decisive factor in the decision to close the film (202).

One should not, however, exaggerate the extent of the decline in Pavlik's reputation. Pioneer magazines continued to publish materials about him, and the texts multiplied. In addition to the biography written by Yakovlev and other “factual” evidence, this list includes Eisenstein’s “Bezhin Meadow,” Alymov and Aleksandrov’s “Song of the Pioneer Hero” (cited in Chapter 2), and a poem by Sergei Mikhalkov. Mikhalkov in those years was an extremely ambitious young man, who over time became not only a Soviet children's “poet laureate” de facto, but in 1943 also the author of the Soviet anthem (in 2001, this outstanding centenarian rewrote the text for the Russian national anthem). In Mikhalkov’s poem, a boy, living in the “gray fog” of the taiga region (this, of course, is a symbol), “away from the big highway,” fearlessly exposes the unseemly actions of his father:

Pavel Morozov was with the enemy in the fight

And he taught others to fight him,

Speaking before the whole village,

He exposed his father.

Behind the village thick grasses bloomed,

The grain was earing, ringing in the fields,

For a cruel father, reprisal

Pavlik's relatives threatened him.

For my father...

And one quiet summer evening,

In a quiet hour, when the leaf does not tremble,

From the taiga with my little brother

“Communist Pasha” did not return.

From taiga...

The banner was raised by the lightning dawn.

Away from the main road

Morozov was killed with his fists,

A pioneer was stabbed to death in the taiga.

Was killed... (203)

These lines directly follow from the legend about Pavlik, still alive at that time, created, among other things, by Yakovlev’s book and Alymov’s song, from which the motif of the hero’s “non-return” was borrowed and literally repeated. At the same time, Mikhalkov’s version adheres to the original interpretation of the murder: Pavlik was stabbed to death, but what exactly the father’s crime was remains unexplained.

A comparison of these three texts in itself points to an extremely important feature of the Pavlik legend: it has undergone changes. Her side motives changed; for example, the person to whom Pavlik reported his father was either a local teacher or an OGPU employee, and his name was either Bykov or Dymov, or his name was not mentioned at all. The father’s crime consisted either of forging documents or of concealing grain. The murder weapon was either a knife or an ax. Pavlik himself was portrayed either as a blond or as a brunette. Such uncertainty is also characteristic of the more fundamental components of the legend, for example, the character of the boy, the reasons for his action, his actions. With the change in ideas about ideal childhood, the image of Pavlik had to be manipulated so that he absorbed new, admirable qualities of the young hero.