Nobel Prize in Literature to Solzhenitsyn. Literary genius or great liar

Rosalia Zalkind, widely known under the pseudonym Zemlyachka, was one of the most respected and titled young Bolsheviks Soviet republic. Still would! This woman exterminated as many opponents of the Bolshevik regime as other convinced Leninists had never even dreamed of. The Crimea was given to Rosa to be torn to pieces, and soon all the coastal cities were literally littered with corpses. The bodies of White Guards and dissidents hung on street lamps, trees and monuments. HistoryTime decided to find out how a girl from a decent merchant family turned into a brutal “fury of the red terror.”

Countrywoman in her youth

Rosalia Samoilovna Zalkind grew up in the family of a successful Kyiv merchant of the 1st guild. The girl received an excellent education: she graduated from high school and then studied at the medical faculty in France, in Lyon. At the age of 17, young Zalkind became seriously interested in leftist ideas and decided to devote her life to their implementation. Literally a couple of years later, in 1896, Rosalia joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). The aspiring fury plunged headlong into revolutionary activity. The convinced communist did not know the feeling of fear. Zalkind always took an extremely responsible approach to party work and therefore quickly moved up the vertical of power. Already in 1903, a woman joined the Central Committee of the party. However, then she was no longer Zalkind: a lady from a Jewish merchant family should not have fought for the rights of workers and peasants. That is why the surname soon sank into oblivion, and underground pseudonyms took its place. Fragile Rosa was called by her comrades Countrywoman (it was this nickname that was officially assigned to her after the revolution), Osipov and Demon. The last nickname turned out to be prophetic.

The revolution finally gave many Bolsheviks a free hand. Among them was Rosalia Zemlyachka. 1920 - 1921 became one of the most terrible periods in the history of the Crimean peninsula, and in many ways this happened precisely because of her. Comrade Demon joined the local revolutionary committee, which was headed by Bela Kun, a communist of Hungarian origin. It was Zemlyachka and Kun who became the organizers of bloody terror in many cities of Crimea.

Carrying out mass executions and torture of both white officers and civilians of the peninsula, Rosalia and her henchmen were guided by the precepts of the beloved Ilyich. Vladimir Lenin said in 1920:

Now there are 300,000 bourgeoisie in Crimea. This is a source of future speculation, espionage, and all kinds of assistance to capitalists. But we are not afraid of them. We say that we will take them, distribute them, subdue them, digest them.

Rosalia Zemlyachka performs at an evening dedicated to March 8th. 1930

As the inscription said in the famous Soviet propaganda poster, “The party said: it is necessary! The Komsomol answered: yes!” Rosalia hastened to immediately begin to carry out the will of the leader, especially since the woman’s hands had long been itching to take revenge on the damned whites. Soon the peninsula literally began to choke in blood. It was rumored that even the Black Sea began to turn red from the number of people tortured and killed on its shores. According to historian Sergei Melgunov, on the very first night of terror in Simferopol, about two thousand people were killed. And this is only in one city out of many Crimean settlements!.. They shot with a machine gun burst: this way it was more convenient for the executioners to work in the current conditions of the death conveyor. Hundreds of dead were not even properly buried - they were only lightly covered with earth. Many of those who were not killed were even buried alive. The Bolsheviks stopped at nothing: there is evidence that criminals even got rid of women with infants.

However, soon this method of murder, such as shooting, seemed to Zemlyachka to be too expensive and unjustifiably long. Rosalia decided that it was a pity even for cartridges for these vile people, besides, times were difficult, we had to save significantly. And then she ordered the soldiers to drown the prisoners. Innocent people began to be pushed onto barges specially designated for execution, where cobblestones were tied to them and, without unnecessary ceremony, the “enemies of the people” were thrown overboard. When the fishermen went out to sea in boats the morning after the terrible night events, it seemed to them that there was a whole army of corpses standing under the water.

Actress Miriam Sekhon as Rosalia Zemlyachka

Soon even Rosalia’s subordinates, including some of the perpetrators of the described atrocities, realized that the boss was clearly going too far. They tried in vain to contact the central authorities and open the eyes of the leadership to the horrors happening in Crimea. However, the situation suited Lenin and other representatives of the highest stratum of the party quite well: the Red Terror affected not only the Black Sea peninsula, but also spread throughout the country. Vladimir Ilyich even recommended: “look for tougher people.” Zemlyachka was considered just such a “solid” person.

After graduation civil war Rosalia Zemlyachka took an honorable place in the ranks of senior party functionaries. Comrade Demon lived in the legendary House on the Embankment - the most elite Moscow residential complex of all possible. “The fury of bloody terror,” as Alexander Solzhenitsyn dubbed her, lived almost until the middle of the century and died only in 1947 at a fairly old age. By a cruel irony of fate, the killer’s ashes still rest near the Kremlin wall, in the state’s most honorable cemetery.

Recently, information leaked to the media that Rosalia Zemlyachka is either the grandmother or great-grandmother of the authoritative Russian oppositionist Sergei Udaltsov. However, this story seems to be a deliberate hoax, an attempt to discredit the political activist. Firstly, it is known that Zemlyachka had no children, and accordingly, she could not become anyone’s own grandmother/great-grandmother. Secondly, indeed, Udaltsov’s grandmother had the last name Zalkind, but her name was different: Margarita Manuilovna.

Regular article May 8, 1939 - August 26, 1943 Prime Minister: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin May 8, 1939 - September 6, 1940 Prime Minister: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov Predecessor: Zakhar Moiseevich Belenky Successor: The position was abolished, Lev Zakharovich Mehlis as People's Commissar of State Control of the USSR The consignment: RSDLP(b) since 1896 Birth: 1.4.1876 (20.3.)
Kyiv, Russian Empire Death: January 21, 1947
Moscow, USSR

Rosalia Samoilovna Zemlyachka(nee Zalkind, by her husband Samoilova) (March 20 (April 1) 1876, Kyiv - January 21, 1947, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet party and statesman.

Born into the family of a merchant of the 1st guild, Samuil Markovich Zalkind, a Jew by nationality. She received her education at the Kyiv Women's Gymnasium and at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lyon.

She became famous thanks to her participation in the organization of the first Russian revolution, in particular the Moscow uprising in December 1905, and subsequently as one of the organizers of punitive actions during the civil war, carried out in Crimea after the defeat of the White Army in 1920-1921.

Party activities

IN revolutionary activities from the age of 17.

Since 1896, he has been a participant in the Russian Social Democratic movement and a member of the RSDLP. Underground pseudonyms - Demon, Osipov.

In 1909, secretary of the Baku party organization, then she was in exile.

In 1915-1916, member of the Moscow Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.

From February 1917, secretary of the 1st legal Moscow Committee of the RSDLP (b); delegate of the 7th (April) All-Russian Conference and 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b), in October 1917 she led the armed struggle of the workers of the Rogozhsko-Simonovsky region.

After October revolution- at the leading party and Soviet work. She was repeatedly elected as a member of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In 1918, head of the political departments of the 8th and 13th armies.

“... in the army... political work was in charge of the famous Bolshevik Rosalia Zemlyachka. The far from young lady chose her partner for the night from among the Red Army soldiers every evening. And Leonov seemed to have to hide from her all the time.”

“Zemlyachka was an amazing person. She never tired of caring for people... She lived a difficult life, experienced both royal dungeons and prisons, and more than once looked death in the face. And, as long as I remember her, she worked, sparing no effort” (I. D. Papanin).

After the liberation of Crimea in November 1920, Secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the RCP (b). The countrywoman, together with Bela Kun, participated in the executions in Crimea of captured white officers of the army of P. N. Wrangel, members of their families and simply the civilian population. The victims of Zemlyachka and Kun were tens of thousands of officers of Wrangel’s army, who surrendered, believing the appeal of M.V. Frunze, who promised those who surrendered life and freedom. The compatriot is the author of the phrase: “It’s a pity to waste cartridges on them and drown them in the sea.”

In 1922-1923, secretary of the Zamoskvoretsky RK party in Moscow.

In 1924-1925, a member of the South-Eastern Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), then secretary of the Motovilikha RK RCP (b) in the Urals.

In 1926-1931, member of the board of the People's Commissariat of the Russian Foreign Inspectorate.

In 1932-1933, member of the board of the NKPS.

Delegate to the 8th, 11th-18th party congresses. Since the 13th Congress of the RCP (b) (1924) member of the Central Control Commission. At the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (6) (1934) she was elected a member of the Commission of Soviet Control, worked as deputy chairman and chairman of the Commission of Soviet Control.

At the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (6) (1939) she was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

In 1939-1943, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, from May 1939 to September 1940, Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, then Deputy Chairman of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st and 2nd convocations.

She was awarded 2 Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.

After her death in 1947, she was cremated and her ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.