Famous Soviet “defectors”: why they fled from the USSR and how they lived afterwards. “There is a habit in Rus'” (Western radio voices)

The question “About workers of state farms abroad who refused to return to the USSR” was first included on the agenda of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the summer of 1928, when the number of so-called defectors reached 123 people, of whom 18 were party members, a third of them with pre-revolutionary experience. In this regard, on August 24, it was decided to “instruct the Organizational Distribution Committee of the Central Committee to make a report to the Secretariat within a month, having studied the materials of the People’s Commissariat of Trade and the OGPU.”

In a resolution adopted on October 5, the secretariat stated “insufficiently careful and unsystematic selection by departments of workers for permanent work abroad” and ordered the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to hold accountable all those who gave recommendations to defectors, and “the administrative representatives of the People's Commissariat of Trade, the Supreme Council of National Economy, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the Commissions for Departures “to strengthen as much as possible the verification of those sent to work abroad, not admitting there persons who are compromised in some way or whose past is not clear.” It was also supposed to strengthen the inspectorate apparatus of trade missions and prepare for them within a year personnel loyal to the CPSU (b) - “mainly from promoted workers ... and employees of local bodies of the People's Commissariat of Trade, who had not previously lived abroad and had no family ties there.”

Later, on January 25, 1929, the party board of the Central Control Commission adopted the instruction “On checking the cells of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in joint establishments abroad” with the aim, as stated in the document, “of clearing them of socially alien persons, clingy, bureaucratic, decayed and maintaining connections with anti-Soviet elements " All communists and candidates for party membership were subject to verification, and to carry it out, “verification troikas” were established, headed by representatives of the Central Control Commission. Having approved the said instruction on February 1, the Secretariat of the Central Committee accepted “the proposal of the Central Control Commission to instruct commissions sent to inspect the foreign cells of the CPSU (b) to inspect all personnel of USSR institutions abroad.”

However, despite the political purge that had begun, over the next year and a half the number of defectors more than doubled and amounted, according to a certificate sent on June 5, 1930. in the Central Control Commission as a senior authorized representative of the INO OGPU X . J. Reif, 277 people, of whom 34 were communists. Moreover, if in 1921 only 3 defectors were registered (including 1 communist), in 1922 - 5 (2), in 1923 -3 (1) and in 1924 - 2 (0), then as the NEP collapsedand restrictions on democratic freedoms in the country, there is a sharp increase in the number of co-workers who decided not to return to the USSR: in 1925 - 24 people (including 4 communists), in 1926 - 42 (4), in 1927 - 32 (6) , in 1928 - 36 (4), in 1929 - 75 (10) and in the first five months of 1930 - already 45 people. From October 1928 to August 1930 alone, 190 employees of Soviet trade missions remained abroad, of which at least 24 were members of the CPSU (b), including: in Germany - 90 people, France - 31, Persia - 21, England – 14, Turkey and China – 6 each, Latvia – 5, Italy – 4, America and Finland – 3 each, Poland – 2, Estonia, Czechoslovakia and Sweden – 1 each.

“Some of these employees,” noted the aforementioned OGPU certificate, “somehow bribe takers, anti-Soviet minded, informants for foreign companies, etc., refused to leave after they were asked to go on a business trip to the USSR. Another part refused to leave after leaving work due to staff reductions or for other reasons... Some of the employees fled due to discovered embezzlement, forgery, etc. The list also included those employees who were hired and fired on the spot. This part went abroad for various purposes: to study, to receive treatment, to visit relatives, etc.” According to the OGPU, 113 defectors (including 10 communists) were “exposed bribe-takers,” 35 (5) were “spies,” and 75 (14) were “connected with whites, Mensheviks, embezzlers, etc.” (1)

The self-interest and lack of ideology of the majority of defectors was also pointed out by the Menshevik leader F.I. Dan, who wrote that among those dozens of “employees and business travelers, high dignitaries and small fry who shake off Soviet dust from their feet” at the very moment when they respond from abroad to the “socialist fatherland”, quite a few “predators, grabbers, bribe-takers, careerists” or even “slicksters who, despite the decree declaring them “outlaws”, manage to rip off a hefty sum from the Bolshevik government upon leaving Soviet service and lifelong pensions for “silence.” Recognizing the existence among defectors “and honest people who are bitterly convinced of the impossibility of fruitful work in that atmosphere of not only physical, but also spiritual and moral terror, which is an integral part of the “general line,” Dan’ stipulated that “most of all, of course, and here are ordinary people who, after years of living abroad, are terrified by the environment of all kinds of deprivations and stunning cultural squalor in which they would have to find themselves in their homeland.”

A different point of view was held by the editor of the Parisian “Last News” P. N. Milyukov, who believed that considering all defectors as “people who, both before and now, were and are guided exclusively by the calculation of their own benefit” and “an elementary sense of animal self-preservation,” would be too much simply and unfairly towards them. Obviously, he noted, “responsible officials, specialists and ordinary Soviet citizens leaving communist power” had previously come to the notice of their superiors as politically unreliable and unfaithful servants of the regime, and “for someone who has fallen into disgrace, the break is only the last link of some mental process that led him to category of unreliable.” And the very fact of leaving one’s “ship” for someone else’s is accompanied by “the risk of not only material losses, poverty and hunger in an unknown and hostile environment,” but also a real threat to one’s own life from the almighty OGPU. “The personal tragedy of “non-return,” one of the newspaper’s authors, A. Baikalov, echoed Miliukov, “is often very great for the defectors themselves. Many years of dedicated work have been put to rest; a whole period, often the best years of life, is recognized as erroneous; a leap into the unknown has been made” (2).

In the information material “Characteristics of workers of state farms abroad who refused to return to the USSR,” prepared in July 1928 by the administrative department of the People’s Commissariat of Trade together with the OGPU,and the certificate “Several examples of defectors - former members of the CPSU (b)”, sent on June 6, 1930 to the Central Control Commission by the assistant head of the INO OGPU M.S. Gorb, as well as in two lists (far from complete!) of party employees of trade institutions of the USSR abroad, who refused to leave for their homeland before January 1, 1931, the following persons are listed (in parentheses the author indicates the years of their entry into the Bolshevik Party, assignment to foreign work and transition to the position of defector): in Austria - member of the board of the Rusavstorg society I P. Samoilov (1918,1927,1930); in Great Britain - head of the licensing department of the trade mission E.V. Naglovskaya (1916, 1921, 1925) and director of Arcos (“ All Russian Cooperative Society Limited “) G. A. Solomon (Isetsky) (1917,1920, 1927); in Germany - head of the fur warehouse in Leipzig S. A. Bragin (Bryantsev) (1918, 1926, 1929), deputy representative of Mosvneshtorg E. I. Gedalke (1919, 1923, 1925), head of the department of “bread samples” of the trade mission of I. K. Koplevsky (1905,1920,1925), representative of the “Hleboproduct” society A.M. Miller-Malis (1906, 1925, 1926), editor of the trade representative bulletin P.M. Petrov (1901, 1921, 1925) and his wife of I. V. Petrov-Gelrich (1915, 1921, 1925), broker of the Hamburg branch of the trade mission of E. O. Ranke (1903, ?, 1927), assistant of the photo and film department of the trade mission in Cologne M. I. Ronin (1921, 1926, 1929) , head of the photo and film department E. Ya. Tserer (1918,1926, 1929), director of the Berlin film society “Prometheus” G. E. Shpilman (1917, ?, 1929), member of the board of the transport society “Derutra” Etwein (F. Y. Etwen? ) (?, 1926, 1929) and a certain A. A. Torgonsky (?, 1921,1921); for Italy - specialist in export goods of the trade mission M.A. Atlas (?, 1928,1930); for China - director of the joint-stock company “Wool” 3. A. Raskin (?) and authorized representative of “Exportles” M. M. Epport (1920, 1927, 1930); for Latvia - Commissioner of “Selkhozimport” V.I. Azarov (1917, 1928, 1930); for Persia - head of the department of the mixed export-import company “Sharq” (“East”) Sh. A. Abdulin (1918,1924, 1929), head of the Barfrush office “Sharq” M. Azizkhanov (1918, 1927, 1927); head of the Mohammer department of “Sharq” Z. L. Ter-Asaturov (1916, 1929, 1930) and chairman of the board of the “Avtoiran” society A. V. Bezrukov (1924, candidate member,?, 1928); in Poland - head of the transport point A. A. Kiryushov (1918, 1919, 1929) and head of the trade mission warehouse F. P. Shkudlyarek (1920, J 928, 1929); in the USA - engineer for military orders of Amtorg Makhnitovsky (T. Ya. Makhnikovsky?) (?, 1926, 1927); for Turkey - Deputy Trade Representative of the USSR I.M. Ibragimov (1920,1925, 1928) and accountant of the Petroleum Syndicate branch Budantsev (1918,1925,1929); for Finland - trade representative of the USSR S. E. Erzinkyan (1918,1927,1930); in France - head of the transport department of the trade mission and the department of Sovtorgflot B. G. Zul (1903, 1924, 1926), general secretary of the board of the mixed “ Banque Commerciale pour Europe du Nord ”H . P. Kryukov-Angarsky (1918, 1929, 1930), head of the fur warehouse M. V. Naumov (1918, 1926, 1930), head of the cork group of the trade mission K. A. Sosenko (1925, 1926, 1930) and a certain A. L Kapler (?, 1926, 1929); for Estonia - naval agent of the trade mission B. M. Jenson (1918, 1925, 1929) (3).

Paradoxical as it may seem, among the first defectors who broke with the Soviet regime back in the days of NEP were many honored underground revolutionaries, active participants in the October Revolution and the Civil War. For example, the hereditary nobleman G. A. Solomon, famous for his memoirs “Among the Red Leaders” and “Lenin and His Family (Ulyanovs),” was also a member of populist circles and the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” After the Bolshevik victory, Solomon worked as first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Berlin and consul in Hamburg, deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the RSFSR and its representative in Estonia, director of Arkos, but in the summer of 1923 he left Soviet service and settled in Belgium, where, according to the OGPU, bought a farm and began to make “exposures in the white press,” finally refusing to return to Moscow in 1927.

Following Solomon, one of the prominent political workers of the Red Army, 34-year-old A. Ya. Semashko, also joined the ranks of defectors. The son of an official, he graduated from the Libau Gymnasium and studied at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, but in 1907 he joined the RSDLP, was imprisoned and later, after graduating from the ensign school, he worked in the Military Organization under the PC of the RSDLP(b). After the October Revolution, Semashko commanded the troops of the Oryol and Ural districts, was a member of the revolutionary military councils of the Northern and Western Fronts and the 12th Army, the commander of the Special Brigade on the Caucasus Front and a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Far Eastern Republic. In 1923, Semashko was the charge d'affaires of the USSR and then the secretary of the plenipotentiary mission in Latvia, from where, as stated in the resolution of the party board of the Central Control Commission of September 28, 1926, “he escaped and went over to the camp of the bourgeoisie.” (By the way, even earlier, in 1922, the secretary of the embassy in Lithuania, a party member since 1919, I.M. Mirsky, also refused to return to Moscow.) In his farewell message, Semashko explained that although since the autumn of 1918. “began to have a negative attitude towards the course taken in food policy, the activities of the Cheka”, etc., he decided to leave Soviet service and go to America “solely due to insurmountable fatigue from constant intrigue, eternal squabbles, lies and hypocrisy, in the atmosphere of which he had to work”(4).

A very colorful figure among the early defectors was N. A. Orlov, a 35-year-old graduate of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, an old Social Democrat, co-operator and economist, who edited the magazine “Izvestia of the People’s Commissariat for Food” in 1918 and wrote “wonderful”, according to the assessment V.I. Lenin, book “Food Work of the Soviet Power”. Nevertheless, another book by Orlov, “The System of Food Procurement” (Tambov. 1920), which, according to its author, was a “harbinger of a new economic policy,” did not receive approval from the authorities and was only partially published (one chapter out of five), although , as Orlov emphasized in his statement to the Central Committee of the RCP (b), “everything I proposed in the “dangerous” prohibited manuscript was implemented a few months later.” Recalling that he was only allowed to “privately take part in the work to open the NEP era,” Orlov noted bitterly: “This did not prevent the fact that the historic April decree [on consumer cooperation] was half written in all the “liberation” points by me , not a single word from my draft was thrown out either in the Politburo or in the Council of People’s Commissars” (5).

Since the summer of 1921, Orlov headed the economic department of the magazine “New World” published by the Berlin embassy, ​​but in a secret diary he wrote about his desire to “expose” the Bolsheviks, who ruined a great country, “for all their meanness, deception, sycophancy, for the death of our generation , for violating everything we believed in.” As plenipotentiary representative N.N. Krestinsky reported to Moscow, in 1923 Orlov “not only ideologically, but also formally left the RCP,” refused to return to the USSR and, in connection with this, was dismissed from the plenipotentiary “for gross violation of official discipline.” . Having settled near Berlin, Orlov worked on the science fiction novel “The Dictator,” but died suddenly before reaching the age of 37 (6).

One of the organizers of the October Revolution, 37-year-old I. L. Dzyavaltovsky (Yurin, Gintovt), also enjoyed considerable fame in the USSR. A Vilna nobleman, he had been a member of the Polish Socialist Party since 1907, and in April 1917, as a staff captain of the Life Guards Grenadier Regiment, he joined the RSDLP(b) and headed the regimental committee. “The Guard, this most reliable core of the tsarist army, was won for our party by Comrade. Dzyavaltovsky,” N.I. Podvoisky later admitted. Arrested in June 1917 for Bolshevik agitation, Dzyavaltovsky was acquitted by the court and then led the creation of cells of the Military Organization of the RSDLP (b) in all garrisons defending Petrograd from the Northern Front.,“During the uprising on October 25,” recalled Podvoisky, “comrade. Dzyavaltovsky is appointed by the Military Revolutionary Committee as chief of staff of the main sector of the troops operating against the Winter Palace and conducts operations coolly, calmly, and prudently. At the same time, he is in charge of the field revolutionary investigation of the generals, bourgeois aces, etc. captured during the uprising. After the victory that same night, from October 25th to 26th, Comrade. Dzyawaltowski moves from the Headquarters of the uprising to the Winter Headquarters. The Military Revolutionary Committee appoints him commandant and commissar of the former royal palace. Here he withstands the first onslaught of the crowds attacking the wine cellars of the Winter Palace and rushing to take possession of his treasures. On the night of October 27, the Council of People's Commissars for Military Affairs orders Comrade. Dzyavaltovsky to organize the Field Headquarters of our defense against Krasnov on the Pulkovo Heights.”

Elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the second to sixth convocations, Dzyavaltovsky was the first commissar of the All-Russian General Headquarters of the Red Army and its Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions, then he was the Deputy People's Commissar of Military Affairs of Ukraine, assistant commander of the Eastern Front, Minister of War and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Far Eastern Republic, and head of its mission in Beijing. Recalled to Moscow at the request of G.V. Chicherin, who complained to the Central Committee that Dzyavaltovsky “arbitrarily negotiated with Japan,” he was sent in January 1922 “at the disposal of the NK RKI to work in hungry regions,” and in April he was approved as a member Economic Council of South-East Russia. “Comrade Dzyawaltowski,” wrote Podvoisky, “is one of the most active and best members of our party.” In May 1924 Dzyavaltovsky, then deputy chairman of the board of Dobrolet, was seconded to the disposal of the Comintern secretariat. And in November 1925, the world press reported with amazement that the “hero of October” voluntarily surrendered into the hands of the Polish authorities, explaining his decision by the “corruption of the majority of communists” (7).

Another “defector”, 30-year-old V. S. Nesterovich (M. Yaroslavsky), also a former staff captain and member of the RSDLP (b) since 1917, commanding the 42nd Infantry and 9th Cavalry Divisions during the Civil War, became a Knight of the honorary revolutionary weapon (and only 20 people were awarded this honor!) and the Order of the Red Banner. Appointed in April 1925 Military attache of the USSR embassy in Vienna, Nesterovich already in the summer decided to leave his post and live abroad, but was... poisoned by an OGPU agent.

Another defector, a member of the RSDLP since 1901, editor of the German bulletin of the Berlin trade mission, 41-year-old P. M. Petrov came from the family of a roofing worker and, being illiterate until the age of 15, educated himself in tsarist prisons, and after his escape in 1907. abroad - in the library of the British Museum. Elected to the London Committee and the Scottish Council of the British Socialist Party, Petrov in January 1916. was arrested for anti-war propaganda and imprisoned in Brixton prison, from where he was released only two years later together with G.V. Chicherin at the request of the authorities of the RSFSR. Petrov’s wife, Irma, who had been a member of the German Social Democratic Party since 1911, was also imprisoned. Returning to his homeland, Petrov headed the political section of the Higher Military Inspectorate, and at the beginning of 1919. was the People's Commissar and a member of the presidium of the Central Executive Committee of Belarus, but did not work well with local party members led by A.F. Myasnikov.

Since 1921, the couple served in the information department of the Berlin trade mission. In February 1925, the commission for checking members of the party cell of USSR institutions in Germany severely reprimanded Petrov “for involving the Social Democrat Lebe in his dispute with another party comrade, thereby compromising the party.” “Verification” petitioned for the immediate recall of Petrov to the USSR, but he appealed to the central verification commission at the party board of the Central Control Commission, which on April 3 decided: “Taking into account the statement of comrade.Petrov P.M., who openedhis complete hostility towards the RCP(b), expel him from the ranks of the party.” On July 1, the couple were dismissed from the trade mission, but several years later, due to their poor financial situation, trade representative M. K. Begge unsuccessfully petitioned for the Petrovs to be given some kind of work in Soviet institutions in Berlin.

In 1926, the ranks of defectors were joined by another old Bolshevik - a graduate of the Leipzig Commercial Academy, 38-year-old B. G. Suhl, who during the October Revolution was an emissary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee for the release of political prisoners, and then headed the Main Directorate of Water Transport of the Supreme Economic Council, representing the RSFSR at negotiations with Finland and actively participated in the civil war as the head of the political department of the Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front, a member of the revolutionary military councils of the 4th and 13th armies. Later, Suhl was the chairman of the food meeting in the Labor Commune of the Volga Germans, a special representative of the People's Commissariat of Railways for maritime transport, an authorized representative of Dobroflot in London and, from February 1925, a general agent of Sovtorgflot and head of the transport department of the USSR trade mission in France.

According to information from the INO OGPU, in Paris Suhl “concluded an unfavorable trade agreement with the Duberzak company, from which he received bribes,” and responded to an offer to go to Moscow by demanding that he be given a month’s leave, after which he did not even appear at the trade mission. “With Zul,” the OGPU reported, “all contact on the part of the Plenipotentiary and Trade Representatives in Paris has been lost. According to Paris workers, Suhl will not return to the USSR. Currently, according to intelligence information we have received, he is farming on land he purchased near Paris.” Attempts to talk to Suhl led nowhere: he did not want to see anyone, and only occasionally was he seen driving around Paris in his own car. By the decision of the party troika of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on December 14, 1926, Suhl was expelled from its ranks as “who had betrayed the trust of the party” (8).

How radically the assessments of the work of Soviet employees abroad changed after their refusal to return to their homeland is shown by the case of the USSR Deputy Trade Director in Angora, 40-year-old I. M. Ibragimov (Ibraimov). He received his pedagogical education in Turkey and before the revolution he served as a teacher in private firms in Crimea and Moscow, and collaborated in Tatar newspapers. Having joined the RCP(b) in 1920. “as part of the Crimean organization of Tatar youth,” Ibragimov was a member of the Yalta Revolutionary Committee and the Bureau of the Party Committee, People’s Commissar of Education of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Chairman of the Board of the Crimean Agricultural Bank and Crimean Industrial Cooperation, a member of the Crimean Central Executive Committee, and in October 1925 he was sent to Turkey for the post of deputy trade representative. Two years later, at one of the meetings in the organizational bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the review of foreign personnel of the People's Commissariat of Trade of the USSR, Ibragimov was spoken of extremely flatteringly: “This is a very impressive person in Turkish circles and very much our person. He has been in the party recently, since 20, and they say that there was a very wealthy man who personally handed over his entire fortune to us in due time, without waiting for them to take it away, without hiding it, and went to work for us [...]. Even Roizenman (member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission - V.G.), a very picky person in relation to people from the bourgeoisie, and he speaks very well about Ibragimov, that in no case should he be removed, that he is a valuable, useful worker "

However, as soon as Ibragimov became a defector, it turned out that he had not set up work in Angora, and by concluding suspicious transactions, he allegedly “frantically amassed” capital for himself. “Lately,” said his profile dated July 5, 1928, “Ibraimov was connected through his partner Zvure with the Turkish and French intelligence officer Adian Bey, lived beyond his means, bought himself a car for 3,200 lire. Having received orders to leave for the USSR, he fled to France. According to data obtained during the investigation into the case of the Crimean Central Executive Committee Veli Ibraimov, Deputy Trade Representative Ibraimov has close ties with nationalistanti-Soviet circles in Crimea and Crimean counter-revolutionary emigration in Turkey. It also turned out that these elements take advantage of his official position to maintain communication, mutual information, etc. According to additional information received, Ibraimov passed on to the Turkish authorities some information related to the special work of the embassy and consulate. According to the Turkish police, Ibraimov, having learned about the arrest of Veli Ibraimov, moved to another camp.”

Having learned about the appearance of another defector, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a secret resolution on April 21, recorded in a special protocol: “In view of Ibragimov’s failure to leave for the USSR and the discovery that he had entered into unfavorable deals for us with selfish goals, to immediately deprive him of all powers. The question of prosecuting him criminally and demanding his extradition as a criminal, as well as other measures to neutralize him, should be postponed until all the materials have been thoroughly clarified, meaning to avoid any noise that could be used against us” (9).

However, not all defectors decided to openly break with the regime, and the most “high-ranking” of them, 43-year-old A.L. Sheinman, considered it best to offer Moscow to enter into a deal with him. A Bolshevik since 1903 and chairman of the executive committee of the Helsingfors Council of Deputies of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland in 1917, Sheinman, while still in the Leninist Council of People's Commissars, held the posts of deputy people's commissar of finance, food and foreign trade of the RSFSR. In 1921-1924. he was the chairman of the board of the State Bank and a member of the board of Narkomfin, in 1925 - People's Commissar of Internal Trade and Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign and Domestic Trade of the USSR, from January 1926 - again the head of the State Bank and Deputy People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR.

At the end of July 1928 The Politburo granted Sheinman a two-month leave, which was then extended until October 20, for treatment - with permission to spend it with his wife abroad, and on November 1 it ordered “to send, in addition to the commission that is currently working in the USA, vol. Sheinman, Osinsky, Mezhlauk,” proposing that the People’s Commissariat of Trade, the People’s Commissariat of Finance and the State Bank of the USSR “use Comrade Sheinman’s trip to America to work on a number of issues related to the USA.” However, Sheinman was seriously ill, and on November 26 from Berlin he notified I.V. Stalin and the Pre-People's Commissar A.I. Rykov about this. Nevertheless, Sheinman, formally remaining the head of the State Bank, went to New York, where he actually headed the board of Amtorg and began negotiations with American banks about long-term loans and the lifting of the ban on the import of Soviet gold.

“As for National City Bank,” Sheinman notified Rykov on March 1, 1929, “I have the conviction (and not just the impression) that now we could come to an agreement with him. But in view of the instructions received, I am now no longer touching on this issue in the hope that I will be allowed to return to it after my arrival in Moscow.” On March 31, Sheinman arrived in Berlin with the clear intention of returning to the Union. “I didn’t see anyone here,” he wrote to Rykov on April 2, “since upon arrival I immediately fell ill... While still in New York, Wise from London arranged a meeting with me at the end of this week. I believe that the conversation will be about the long-discussed cooperative loan [...]. In my conversation with Wise I will limit myself to questions, and upon my arrival in Moscow I will report his proposals.” “But he never had the chance to return to his homeland, and on April 20, 1929. The Politburo ordered “the immediate publication of the resolution of the SNKom on the release of Sheinman from his duties as chairman of the State Bank.”

According to the version of the then adviser to the Paris embassy, ​​the future defector, G. Z. Besedovsky, Sheinman’s agreement with the American Citibank on a loan caused Stalin’s sharp displeasure. Absorbed in the fight against the “right opposition,” with which Sheinman certainly sympathized. Back in March, the Politburo ordered him to interrupt negotiations, and then completely disavowed him. Rykov was instructed to officially declare to the head of Citibank Shvetman that since the main preliminarya condition for business negotiations is the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA, “responsibility for the misunderstanding that occurred falls entirely on Sheinman, who, without the knowledge of the USSR government, made a statement that exceeded his rights and powers, and that he did this not only in this case, but also in a number of others, in connection with which he was, by the way, removed from the post of chairman of the State Bank” (10).

At the same time, Sheinman himself, having learned in Berlin about the details of the campaign against the “right” (at the April plenum of the Central Committee, N.I. Bukharin and M.P. Tomsky lost their posts, respectively, editor-in-chief of Pravda and chairman of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions), decided to file resign, stay abroad and go into private life. However, realizing the dangers such a step could entail for his family on the part of the almighty OGPU, Sheinman turned to the prominent German Social Democrat P. Levi (less than a year later he would die after falling from the window of his apartment) with a request to speak his mediator in negotiations with Plenipotentiary Krestinsky.

The decision of a long-term member of the Council of People's Commissars, STO and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR to remain in the West caused a shock in Moscow (especially since his bank account abroad allegedly contained large sums from certain “secret funds”), and on April 24 the Politburo formed a commission “on the Sheinman case” consisting of Deputy Chairman of the People's Commissar Ya. E. Rudzutak, Chairman of the State Bank G. L. Pyatakov, People's Commissar of Trade A. I. Mikoyan and Chairman of the OGPU M. A. Trilis-ser. After a six-day pause, on April 30 the Politburo telegraphed to Krestinsky: “Being busy in connection with [the party conference, we were unable to respond in a timely manner. Sheinman's statement that he does not want to harm the Soviet Power, and the fact that he did not try to harm it during this time, deserves attention. It is possible that he will be retained in service abroad. One of these days a special person is leaving to talk with him and resolve issues related to the Sheinman case. Provide him with assistance, arrange a meeting with Sheinman." At the same time, the Politburo ordered the OGPU to "immediately establish thorough, but carefully organized surveillance of Sheinman" (11).

Tomsky urgently flew to Berlin, who unsuccessfully tried to convince Sheinman to return to his homeland, promising him forgiveness and the opportunity to work in peace, but he firmly stood his ground, agreeing to fulfill any demands of Moscow, as long as he was left alone. After heated debates, the Politburo, according to G. Z. Besedovsky, allowed Sheinman to stay in Germany, but demanded that he settle in solitude and not meet with anyone except the first secretary of the embassy, ​​I. S. Yakubovich, promising a monthly payment as a “price for silence.” a pension of 1 thousand marks and the right to work in Soviet foreign institutions in the future. These conditions were accepted, and on June 10, the Politburo suggested that Mikoyan “give an appointment to Sheinman within a week,” and the latter, together with Yakubovich, develop a form of refutation in the press of rumors about his employment in one of the Berlin banks. In addition, the Central Control Commission was instructed to “investigate the sources of the spread of various rumors about Sheinman among employees of co-institutions in Germany.”

At the same time, the “weekly period” established for Mikoyan was somewhat extended, and only...November 1, 1932. The Politburo, returning to the fate of the high-ranking defector, decided: “a) Predetermine the possibility of using Sheinman in one of the small posts abroad. b) Instruct comrades Rosengoltz and Krestinsky (respectively, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade and the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. - V.G.) to determine the nature of Sheinman's future work .c) Allow Comrade Khinchuk (the new USSR plenipotentiary representative in Germany - V.G.) to invite Sheinman to a reception at the embassy on November 7." Soon he was entrusted with managing the London branch of Intourist, but, as his deputy A. Gorchakov slandered in May 1933, Sheinman was afraid to even board a Soviet ship and was extremely suspicious and hostile towards his colleagues.He, Gorchakov reported, continues to consider himself “a great manand leader”, looking everywhere for “Moscow’s mistakes” and in general his moods are “extremely unhealthy, hostile, anti-Soviet, some of his judgments are downright White Guard.”

However, on August 7, the Politburo decided not to object to the proposal of the USSR trade representative in Great Britain A.V. Ozersky “to give Sheinman more work, as well as an increase in his salary by 10-15 pounds sterling monthly - with the condition that Comrade Rosengoltz should offer Sheinman not conduct anti-Soviet conversations" (12). According to Sheinman's son Yuri (Georg), his father headed the London branch of Intourist until 1939, when it closed due to the outbreak of World War II. “As I understood,” writes Yuri, “he not so much left the Soviet service as the service itself ceased to exist. That same year we accepted British citizenship, and my father sent me and my mother to Australia; he feared Hitler more than Stalin.” Left alone in London, Sheinman “found work in a factory,” but already in 1944. died.

Usually Moscow was in a hurry to declare defectors embezzlers and bribe-takers, and, for example, the adviser to the Parisian embassy, ​​34-year-old G. Z. Besedovsky, the author of the sensationally revealing memoirs “On the Road to Thermidor” (Paris. 1930-1931), was accused of embezzling government money in in the amount of $15,270, for which in January 1930. was sentenced in absentia by the Supreme Court of the USSR to imprisonment for 10 years with confiscation of all property and loss of all political and civil rights for five years. Anarcho-communist since 1910, left Social Revolutionary since 1917, member of the Ukrainian Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Fighters) since 1919. and, finally, a Bolshevik from August 1920, Besedovsky headed the provincial economic council and the provincial trade union council in Poltava and was a member of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee. Transferred to diplomatic work in 1922, he served in Austria, Poland, Japan, and from 1927 in France, but was at odds with Plenipotentiary V. S. Dovgalevsky and Second Advisor J. L. Arens. As a result, on September 28, 1929, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks instructed the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR to “recall Comrade Besedovsky, according to his request, from France and invite him to go to Moscow with all his things on the day he receives the code.” The next day, the Politburo approves the text of a telegram addressed directly to Besedovsky: “There is still no response from you to the Central Committee’s proposal to hand over your affairs and immediately leave for Moscow. Today we received a message that you threatened the embassy with a scandal, which we cannot believe. Your misunderstandings "We'll sort things out with the employees of the embassy in Moscow. You shouldn't wait for Dovgalevsky. Hand over your affairs to Arens and immediately leave for Moscow."

At the same time, the Politburo telegraphed to Berlin: “The Central Committee proposes that Roizenman or Moroz immediately go to Paris to sort out Besedovsky’s misunderstandings with the embassy. The matter in the Paris embassy threatens a big scandal. It is necessary to achieve at all costs Besedovsky’s immediate departure to Moscow for the final resolution of the conflict that has arisen. Besedovsky should not be intimidated and show maximum tact." But the matter takes the most undesirable turn for Moscow, because the disobedient actually does not hide his intention to break with the Soviet regime, and on October 2, the Politburo warns B. A. Roizenman, who arrived in Paris: “For political reasons and in order not to completely alienate Besedovsky, we consider conducting a search undesirable without the most extreme necessity" (13).

However, Besedovsky never succumbed to Roizenman’s persuasion and, seeing that he would not stop at using violent measures to send him to the USSR, he fled from the embassy, ​​jumping over the fence of his garden. “An hour and a half later,” he later recalled, “I returned, accompanied by M. Benoit, the director of the judicial police, took my wife and child and left the embassy forever” (14). Since the French government rejected Moscow’s demand to extradite the former adviser as an alleged criminal, already on October 10, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recognized the need to organize a trial in the Besedovsky case, butOn January 7, 1930, it decided to limit itself to accusing him only of “fraud and embezzlement.” This was done in order to discredit Besedovsky as a possible witness in the trial that was opening in Paris in the case of S. M. Litvinov (the younger brother of the then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR), who was accused of fabricating bills of exchange from the Berlin trade mission.

In a letter dated November 8, 1929, Mikoyan alarmed the Politburo: “A particularly dangerous signal is the increasing frequency of betrayals and betrayals in recent times..], and not only among communists who have clung to them, but also among those who were previously considered good communists in our country. On the issue of betrayal and treason, a year ago, the People's Commissariat of Trade presented a special report and drew the attention of the Central Committee to this circumstance. Now this issue is more acute, because the examples of Sheinman and Besedovsky are contagious for wavering or completely collapsed communists abroad. For the last one "In the year (from October 1, 1928 to October 1, 1929), 44 people from the foreign apparatus betrayed us - a huge figure. Of these, seven were party members."

The eighth was the popular journalist, party member since 1917, V. A. Selsky (Pansky), who in 1921-1924. worked as a correspondent for Izvestia in Berlin, and then was invited by L. B. Krasin to Paris for the post of second secretary of the USSR embassy. Selsky later edited a daily Polish newspaper in Minsk, and then was a member of the boards of the Association of Proletarian Writers and Revolutionary Cinematographers in Moscow. He was known as the author of the novel “Wheels” (M.-L. 1928), the story “Glass of Water” (M. 1928) and a number of collections of stories and essays, in particular “Modern France” (Minsk. 1926), “Ping- Pong” (M. 1929) and “Sounding Cinema” (M. 1929). “In Moscow I belonged to that small party and literary elite,” Solsky admitted, “whose financial situation could be the envy of any Western European bourgeois!” And yet, in November 1929, while undergoing treatment in Germany, Solsky decided to “leave the Communist Party, as well as all Soviet organizations,” which he did not hesitate to inform the Berlin embassy about” (15).

The sensational flight of Besedovsky forced the Politburo to instruct the People's Justice of the RSFSR N.M. Yanson on November 19 to “submit for approval by the Central Committee a draft law on traitors from among our civil servants abroad who refused to return to the USSR and report to the Soviet government.” Just two days later, the Politburo approved the “draft law on defectors with amendments by Comrade Stalin” and ordered “to publish it on behalf of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR with the signatures of Comrade Stalin.” Kalinin and Enukidze.” Formalized as a resolution of the Central Election Commission on November 21, the latter read: “1. The refusal of a citizen of the USSR - an official of a state institution or enterprise of the USSR operating abroad, to the offer of state authorities to return to the USSR should be considered as a defection to the camp of the enemies of the working class and peasantry and qualified as treason. 2. Persons who refuse to return to the USSR are declared outlaws. 3. Declaration of outlawry entails: a) confiscation of all property of the convicted person; b) execution of the convicted person 24 hours after identification. 4. All such cases are considered by the Supreme Court of the USSR.”

In addition to determining punitive sanctions against defectors, on December 15, 1929. the party Areopagus adopted a resolution “On the reorganization of the foreign trade apparatus in Europe,” which provided for a reduction in its number by at least 50% (at the end of November, 2,290 Soviet employees worked in Great Britain, Germany, the USA and France, including 301 communists and 449 members of foreign communist parties) , and formed a “commission consisting of vol. Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Litvinov, Ordzhonikidze and Messing to study the reasons causing the disintegration of our workers abroad and refusal to return to the USSR.”

In the draft prepared by the Politburo on January 5The commission’s resolution stated that “the main and most important reason for the betrayal of a significant part of the employees of Soviet institutions abroad is their political instability, disbelief and, sometimes, hostility to the policy of attacking capitalist elements and the hostility often born in connection with this towards the successes of socialist construction in our country, as well as easy susceptibility to bourgeois ideological influence and material temptations of the environment.” Based on this, the Politburo demanded to ensure a careful selection of employees of foreign institutions in terms of their “political stability and devotion to the party and Soviet power” and to maximize “ideological Bolshevik work,” and on January 3, the Presidium of the Central Control Commission decided to carry out “inspection and purge of foreign cells of the CPSU ( b) in Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, Prague, London, Paris and Italy” (16).

However, less than three months after the trial in the Besedovsky case, as an adviser to the USSR embassy in Sweden, 37-year-old S. V. Dmitrievsky openly announced his decision to remain in the West. The son of a gymnasium teacher, Dmitrievsky graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University and before the revolution served as assistant secretary of the Central Military-Industrial Committee and deputy head of the statistical reference bureau of the Council of Congresses of Industry and Trade. Having joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party back in 1911, after the overthrow of the monarchy, he was elected to the Petrograd Soviet and was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper “Narodnoye Slovo”, the organ of the Labor People’s Socialist Party (“Enesov”). “I was a populist, a defencist and a nationalist,” recalled Dmitrievsky. “I actively, more actively than many, opposed the Bolsheviks.” Arrested after the October Revolution, Dmitrievsky was escorted to Smolny, and after his release he went to the South, where he stayed until the fall of Rostov and Novocherkassk, publishing anti-Bolshevik articles in local newspapers under the pseudonym “D. Sergievsky,” and then, having made his way to Moscow, participated in the underground “Union for the Revival of Russia.” But in August 1918, he broke with his former comrades in the struggle, explaining this decision solely by his patriotism: “I left those ranks after the Czechoslovak uprising took place, when foreign bayonets sparkled on the country’s borders, foreign gold rang, and “faces familiar from the old regime appeared behind the screen of the “institution” and in the villages occupied by the “whites” they began to flog the peasants into submission.”

Having entered the Soviet service, Dmitrievsky worked as an assistant editor of the “Library of Scientific Socialism”, head of the department of universities and the section of people's universities in Petrograd; in October 1919 he became a member of the RCP (b). In 1920-1921 he served as commissar of the Higher Aerophotogrammetric School and assistant to the chief of the Air Fleet of the Republic, head of the Administrative Department and manager of the People's Commissariat of Railways of the RSFSR. Having left for Europe in February 1922 as an authorized board of the NKPS at the Russian Railway Mission, Dmitrievsky was soon appointed manager and secretary of the Berlin trade mission, and later was secretary of the embassy in Germany and Greece, from November 1924 - manager of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and, finally, from June 1927 - adviser to the embassy in Stockholm, where he worked until April 2, 1930. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks did not propose to the NKID “to report the dismissal of Dmitrievsky and publish tomorrow […] a note in the newspaper chronicle about his dismissal” (17).

In the statement “How and why I broke with the Bolsheviks,” published on April 15 by the Parisian Latest News, Dmitrievsky wrote: “I learned about my recall from the newspapers. The reasons, of course, are well known to me. The purely formal reason is the provocation of unscrupulous individuals who took advantage of my private conversation with them about the desire to leave the diplomatic and civil service and remain in scientific work abroad.

[...]Until my last day, I honestly served the Soviet state. Doubts, hesitations - there were many of them - were my internal matter. I never took them outside the circle of my closest friends. None of those who know me here can cite a single example where I did not defend the interests of my state. Now, as I leave, I consider it necessary to say: no one will hear from me sensational revelations of state secrets.” (In 1930-1932, Dmitrievsky published three books - “The Fate of Russia: Letters to Friends”, “Stalin” and “Soviet Portraits” (Stockholm, Berlin).

Following Dmitrievsky, the USSR naval attache in Sweden, 40-year-old Muscovite A. A. Sobolev, also refused to go home, saying that although he perfectly understands that he will be sentenced to death, he asks not to be considered a Soviet citizen anymore. “That official information,” Sobolev echoed Dmitrievsky, “that was entrusted to me, belongs to my homeland, Russia, and for her sake I will keep it as sacred as before, until the day of my death. I will not enter into any controversy; only threats and slander can force me to say anything. If my wife or I are destined to become victims, then public opinion will know whose victims we were” (18).

Former senior gunner of the battleship “Emperor Pavel” I “, lieutenant of the fleet, Sobolev during the civil war headed the operational department of the headquarters of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla and the Naval Forces of the Black and Azov Seas, served as commander and was chief of staff of the Naval Forces of the Caspian Sea and the Red Fleet of Azerbaijan, and subsequently held the position of scientific secretary of the Operational Directorate of the Headquarters Red Army, from January 1925 he served as the naval attaché of the USSR in Turkey and from March 1928 in Sweden. According to his colleagues, Sobolev “behaved impeccably both in his service and in his way of life,” but his secretary (later recognized as mentally ill!) suspected the attaché of treason, spread false rumors about him and thus, apparently, accelerated his break with the Soviet regime. Although suspicions were expressed in the press (which, however, did not escape any of the defectors) that the entire incident with Sobolev was inspired by the Bolsheviks themselves and that he was a “Soviet spy,” nevertheless, as A. M. Kollontai testified, a certain “Sh " urgently rushing with a special mission from Helsingfors, he developed plans “to kidnap Sobolev,” promising to deliver him to the USSR “dead or alive.” But, fearing an international scandal, Moscow limited itself to a demand for the extradition of the former attaché as a military deserter, which, naturally, was rejected by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

Then, on September 25, 1930, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by V.V. Ulrikh, found Sobolev guilty not only of “treason and desertion to the camp of the enemies of the working class and peasantry,” but also of embezzling state funds in the amount of 1,191 US dollars. dollar. Having examined on October 13, 1930. question “About the case of S.”, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposed to the Stockholm embassy “to begin the process in court and seize S[obolev’s] money in the bank in the amount established by the verdict of the Supreme Court,” instructing the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR to “submit everything to the NKID documentary data, including reports from S[obolev himself], establishing the fact of embezzlement mentioned in the verdict.” Having satisfied the request of the embassy, ​​the Swedish authorities sequestered the attaché’s monetary deposit in one of the banks in Stockholm, and on March 31, 1931, a satisfied A.M. Kollontai wrote in her diary: “The Sobolev case ended in court in our favor[...]. The main good thing is that all this did not cause any fuss in the press. Sobolev is going to leave for Belgium. I didn’t perform anywhere, I didn’t write anything” (19).

As early as April 23, 1930, the Politburo adopted a resolution “On the state of party organizations and Soviet apparatuses in Western Europe,” which stated that they were significantly infested with “alien and treacherous elements,” which was “particularly evident in the refusal toreturn to the Union by a number of responsible non-party workers during reorganization in foreign institutions,” as well as “the presence of significant elements of decay and everyday decay among party members and even individual facts of direct betrayal on the part of some communists.” In this regard, the foreign inspection of the NK RKI USSR was asked to “carry out a secret check of the entire non-party staff of trade missions and organizations controlled by them and remove from the apparatus all dubious and unreliable persons,” as well as all communists who “did not live up to the trust of the party in their work abroad, the basis of the conclusions and decisions of the inspection commission.”

However, the purge of foreign institutions only increased the number of defectors many times over, and already at the beginning of June 1930, their ranks were joined by one of the leaders of the Soviet bank in Paris, 42-year-old N.P. Kryukov-Angarsky, a former Socialist Revolutionary, who in 1908-1916. was in hard labor, then was exiled to a settlement on the Angara River and after the October Revolution joined the RCP(b). During the Civil War, he held the positions of military commissar of the division and headquarters of the Southern Front, infantry inspector of the headquarters of the Caspian-Caucasian Front and the 11th Army, head of the command staff department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, and later, having graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army, where he was elected secretary of the party control commission, and was demobilized Due to illness, he served as manager of Severoles and Vneshtorgbank, and from January 1929, general secretary of the board of the Parisian Eirobank. Since the protocol of the “verification commission of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the cleansing of the trade mission and the plenipotentiary mission in Paris” dated March 27, 1930, noted that Kryukov-Angarsky “is passive in party life, politically underdeveloped, does not work on himself,” and material was received, as if before the revolution he “participated in a criminal robbery and betrayed the Socialist Revolutionaries during interrogation,” a decision was made to remove him from foreign work, followed by party cleaning in the Central Control Commission (20).

Having received an order on May 21 to leave for the USSR within two weeks, Kryukov-Angarsky said, “for the sake of appearances, I agreed and began submitting all my affairs and reports, since I knew that I would not go to Moscow anyway. It was necessary to provide care so that I could not later be accused of embezzlement.” On the day of his intended departure, Kryukov-Angarsky’s nerves gave way, and he called Besedovsky from the street, who, with several comrades, drove up to the bank. “It was decided that […] they would remain at the door and be ready: at the slightest alarm they would take the necessary measures.” Only after handing over the keys to the safes and leaving the building, Kryukov-Angarsky sighed calmly, and on June 5, Parisian newspapers published his “Declaration,” in which he, in particular, stated: “Over the past years, I have repeatedly wondered whether I was doing the right thing, remaining in the ranks of the CPSU? All around I saw bureaucracy and oppression of the working masses instead of the freedom they were promised, and evidence from the future did not convince me. At first I thought that the evil was in people, in the criminal leaders of the party, but then I came to the conclusion that it was in the system and that the system of suppressing the working masses could not help but produce the terrible results to which the current dictatorship has led the country [...]. In the face of my conscience, I made a firm decision to leave the CPSU and fight as best I could for my political ideals hand in hand with all those who seek to democratize the Soviet system.” In the appeal “To the Workers and Peasants”, published in the magazine “Struggle” published by Besedovsky in Paris ( N 4 of June 20, 1930), Kryukov-Angarsky called for the “political and economic emancipation” of the USSR and, branding the Stalinist regime as a “gravedigger of revolutionary conquests,” which only oppresses the working people, ruins the countryside and imposes bureaucracy everywhere, indignantly asked: “Where is at least signs of freedom of thought, press or primitive respect for human dignity? This is nothing not only for the workers and peasants, whose government the dictators dare to call themselves, it is also absent for the members of the government party, whicha bunch of rapists have long been turned into a soulless apparatus, kept from final disintegration by the most vile methods of espionage and provocation of the GPU.”

“Fight” (22 issues of the magazine were published from April 15, 1930 to March 1, 1932) published declarations of other political defectors, in particular, documents of the executive committee of the “Will of the People” party, a Belgian group of former members of the CPSU (b), headed by a certain A I. Boldyrev, who introduced himself as a former secretary of the Smolensk Provincial Committee, and E. V. Dumbadze, the author of the book “In the Service of the Cheka and the Comintern; Personal Memoirs,” published with an introductory article by V. L. Burtsev and a foreword by G. A. Solomon in 1930 in Paris.

Among the opponents of the Stalinist regime, whose statements, articles or chapters from books were published on the pages of Besedovsky’s magazine, it is worth mentioning the former security officer G.S. Agabekov, military pilot J. Voytek, S.V. Dmitrievsky, F.P. Drugov (formerly - an anarchist, member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and the board of the Cheka, who claimed that he fled from the USSR “under machine-gun fire from Soviet border guards”), famous pre-revolutionary and Soviet writer A. P. Kamensky (like Drugov, having returned to the USSR, he was repressed), responsible employees of foreign trade institutions V.V. Delgas, R.B. Dovgalevsky, S.M. Zheleznyak, M.V. Naumov, I.P. Samoilov, G.A. Solomon and K.A. Sosenko, “Kraskom” V.K. Svechnikov (who escaped from the Solovetsky camp) and others, as well as some emigrant authors, in particular V.P. Boggovut-Kolomiytsev, N.I. Makhno, S.M. Rafalsky and V. N. Speransky.

Besedovsky’s example turned out to be so “infectious” that, despite the threat of the death penalty, the flow of defectors increased, and, for example, on June 7, 1930. The party troika of the Party Collegium of the Central Control Commission confirmed the resolution of the cell bureau on the expulsion from the ranks of the CPSU (b) for refusing to return to the USSR “the secretary of the [party] collective in Persia” (!) 29-year-old G. N. Apannikov, a former worker-shoemaker, graduate of the Institute oriental studies, who joined the party in 1921 and from 1924. who was working abroad.

At the same time, the former trade representative of the USSR in Finland, 49-year-old S.E. Erzinkyan, whom the emigrant press called “Mikoyan’s intimate friend,” also refused to return to Moscow. Coming from a fairly wealthy family (his father served as a priest in Tiflis), Erzinkyan lived in France and Switzerland from 1901, where he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva and received a position as a privat-docent. Although Erzinkyan was a member of student Bolshevik organizations abroad, he officially joined the party only in May 1918. in Tiflis. Erzinkyan worked as secretary of the editorial and publishing commission at the underground Caucasus regional committee of the RCP (b), pre-executive committee and secretary of the Lori provincial committee of the party, editor of the newspaper “Voice of Lori Peasants”, and then headed “Kavrosta” and “Tsentropechat” in Baku, was editor of the newspaper “Karmir Asth” ” (“Red Star”) and plenipotentiary representative of the Armenian SSR in Tiflis. In 1925-1927 Erzinkyan headed the Armenian edition of the Baku official “Communist”, but, having received a party reprimand for publishing an article “based on unverified rumors,” he was appointed trade representative of the USSR in Helsingfors.

However, at the beginning of February 1930. Chairman of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G.K. Ordzhonikidze is delivered an illiterately written anonymous letter stating that Erzinkyan is “selling the party for the sake of a dubious Finnish woman. He stays with her all the time, spends the night there, and arrives in the morning in her own car. Onag visits his office.” Since the denunciation ended with a warning: “Sleep through the second Besedovsky!”, Ordzhonikidze imposes a resolution: “Comrade Mikoyan was told today to send Erz[inkyan] a telegram about his immediate departure to Moscow.” Although he obediently arrived and on March 29, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, was relieved of his duties as a trade representative, already on April 11, the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided that “nothere are grounds to bring charges against Comrade Erzinkyan that are compromising him and that he can work on behalf of the party at any job both in the USSR and abroad,” and on April 29, the party troika of the party board of the Central Control Commission issued a final verdict: “Consider verified.”

But, having returned to Finland “to settle personal affairs” and receiving there on June 8 a new encrypted telegram with an order to immediately leave for Moscow, Erzinkyan switched to the position of a defector, and therefore on August 10, by decision of the Party Collegium of the Central Control Commission, he was expelled from the party “as a traitor to the cause of the working class " A charge is also brought against him of issuing a false bill of exchange in the amount of over 5 million Finnish marks, and at the request of Plenipotentiary Representative I.M. Maisky, the former trade representative ends up behind bars in the Helsingfors prison.

But if the majority of employees of foreign trade institutions did not pose a particular danger to the Kremlin rulers, then the escape of the former head of the Eastern Sector of the INO OGPU and an active illegal resident in Turkey and the Middle East, a party member since 1918, 35 years old, truly had the effect of a bomb exploding for Moscow. G. S. Agabekova. Arriving in France on June 26, 1930, four days later he announced his break with the regime, “creating an unbearable life for the huge 150 million people of the USSR and ruling with the force of bayonets” due to the irresponsibility of the army and the disorganization of workers and peasants. “I have hundreds of honest communist friends, employees of the GPU,” Agabekov emphasized in a statement published on July 1 in Latest News, “who think the same way as me, but, fearing revenge abroad of the USSR, do not risk doing what I do. I am the first of them, and let me serve as an example to all my other honest comrades, whose thoughts have not yet been completely eaten away by the official demagoguery of the current Central Committee. I call you to fight for genuine, real, real freedom.” After the release of Agabekov’s sensational book “GPU. Notes of a Chekist” (Berlin, 1930) a formal hunt began for the “traitor”, which was crowned with success only in 1937.

The next “ideological” defector was the former deputy chairman of the board of Amtorg, 38-year-old V.V. Delgas, a talented engineer who, during the Civil War, was specially authorized by the Defense Council for fuel, and then served in the Supreme Economic Council, where he was close to F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Since 1924, Delgas worked in London as the manager of the representative office of the Oil Syndicate, from 1926 as its representative in New York and later headed the technical bureau of the Khim-Stroy company there, was a representative of Vsekhimprom and the NKPS of the USSR, and director of the export department. Amtorg." Announcing July 23, 1930 to its head P.A. Bogdanov about his refusal to work in Soviet institutions, Delgas, explaining the motives for this decision, wrote bitterly about the USSR: “Instead of emancipation of free creativity and thought suppressed by war communism, there is a new enslavement. Instead of establishing normal relations with the rest of the world and strengthening the economic capabilities of the country, its accumulated wealth is wasted on the crazy ideas of communism around the world. Not emancipation, but slavery in the name of the crazy ideas of pathological cowards - the Stalinist clique!”

Fearing for his life, Delgas left for a neighboring state, but soon a representative of Amtorg came to him, who offered a deal - a return to Soviet service in exchange for permission to live in America. Since Delgas, as he indicated in his “Declaration,” “categorically refused to meet with Bogdanov and generally conduct any further negotiations on this topic,” on September 5, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided “to consider it necessary to pronounce a court verdict in the case of D. immediately” and instructed “the commission consisting of comrade. Khloplyankin, Khinchuk, Yanson, Stomonyakov to submit proposals on the form of carrying out this decision.” Having examined the question “About case D” for the second time. On September 10, the Politburo ordered the commission to “preliminarily edit the indictment and the draft sentence” (!) and recognized the need to “publish the verdict immediately after its delivery, but no later than September 13.”

In accordance with this, the criminal-judicial panel of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by N. N. Ovsyannikov, found Delgas “guilty of treason against the USSR and defecting to the camp of the enemies of the working class and peasantry.” But it was the publication of the verdict, which Delgas learned about from the newspapers, that made him decide to “openly oppose the Stalinist regime,” and he testified before a congressional commission, declaring that secret Soviet agents not only directed communist propaganda in America, but also engaged in espionage (21).

And on October 2, the criminal-judicial panel of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by V.P. Antonov-Saratovsky, declared “outlaw” another defector - a senior engineer at the Berlin trade mission, 45-year-old A.D. Naglovsky. The son of a general close to the royal court, who played with the children of the grand dukes, Naglovsky joined the RSDLP back in 1902 and, arrested and brought to trial in Odessa for propaganda in the army, was exiled to the Kazan province. In 1905, he traveled to Geneva, where he met with Lenin, who sent him to St. Petersburg as a responsible propagandist for the Narva region. Elected to the St. Petersburg Council, Naglovsky joined the Mensheviks and, later graduating from the Institute of Railway Engineers, served on the North-Western Railways.

Returning to 1917 into the ranks of the RSDLP (b), he held high positions as the Petrograd commissar of railways and a member of the board of the NKPS of the RSFSR, being a special representative of the Defense Council on the railways of the Northern Front and the Petrograd junction and the head of military communications of the 7th Army. In a letter to Lenin dated April 23, 1920, Deputy People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR P.I. Stuchka characterized Naglovsky as “a persistent, modest, honest, worthy member of the party and a serious, capable, energetic, sober, in a word, an outstanding Soviet worker.” After the Civil War, Naglovsky served as a trade representative in Rome and manager of the railway mission of the RSFSR in Berlin, director and member of the board of the Norwegian-Russian Shipping Society in Bergen and London, and from 1924. - in the Berlin trade mission, but dropped out of the ranks of the RCP (b).

“Due to the fact,” the Supreme Court verdict said, “that Naglovsky became close to the White Guard emigration and the speculator environment, he was asked to return to the USSR.” Naglovsky refused, because, as trade representative Begge assured, he allegedly became “a drug addict and completely lost his willpower, doing everything that the enemy camp dictated to him.” In Paris, Naglovsky lived in the same house as B.I. Nikolaevsky and other Mensheviks. “He was already getting old,” recalled R.B. Gul, “very thin, frail, and in poor health. When I first met him, he seemed to me like a complete man in the sense of vital energy. I think complete disappointment “in the matter of life” (revolution), ... declaring him “outlaw” by the Bolsheviks, all together somehow broke his energy. He didn’t work anywhere, didn’t do anything.” Naglovsky died during the Second World War, but his memoirs about Vorovsky, Zinoviev, Krasin, Lenin and Trotsky, recorded by Gul back in 1936, were published in “New Journal” (22).

“Non-return,” the emigrant press gloated, “is taking on the character of an epidemic. Hardly a day goes by without the ranks of the “third emigration” being swelled with new arrivals. Not only those suspected of “deviations” and “decay” are fleeing, but also... one hundred percent communists!” Referring to the political gap of an ever-increasing part of the communists “with the ideas of social utopianism and terrorist dictatorship.” Dan noted that the “return” of Russian emigrants to NEP Russia “dissipated like smoke,” and, conversely, non-return became a real “sign of the times,” when hundreds of thousands of residents of the USSR, these peculiar “Smenovekhites inside out,” would gladly and immediately rush to now abroad, “if they had at least some physical, material and police opportunity!”

Meanwhile, the “cruel reduction and even more brutal purge” of Soviet foreign institutions, the number of employees of which, according toOrdzhonikidze’s statement, already by XVI Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decreased by almost half (by 41.6%), actually leading to the disorganization of the foreign trade apparatus. Moreover, the decision to send abroad only “absolutely persistent, proven, seasoned workers” - communists, who, in the opinion of the Central Control Commission, were the only ones who could resist the pernicious “influence of bourgeois temptations”, was the reason why, for example, in the Paris trade mission There were only two management employees who spoke French, and the majority of employees, as acting trade representative B.A. Breslav complained to his superiors, were incapable newcomers who did not have any “commercial and trading experience.”

Although, thanks to the “draconian” measures taken by Moscow, the flow of defectors gradually decreased, in 1931 their ranks were joined by the following communists (the years of their entry into the party and assignments to work abroad are indicated in brackets): statistician of the Sovtortflot in Latvia A.K. Astapov ( 1921, 1928), security courier of the Vienna embassy P. I. Eliseev (1925, 1926), head of the Bread Department of the Hamburg branch of the trade mission R. B. Dovgalevsky (1917, 1928), director of the financial department of the Paris trade mission S. M. Zheleznyak (1919, 1928), head of the transport department of Amtorg S. L. Kosov (1917, 1927), representative of Dalugol in China V. V. Puchenko (1917, 1930); head of the metals department of the Berlin trade mission E. L. Raik (1917, 1928), former receiver of cars of the Paris trade mission I. M. Raskin-Mstislavsky (1903, 1926), etc.

For example, on November 6, 1931, the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks expelled from the party “as a traitor to Soviet power and refusing to return to the USSR” J. M. Duret, who had been a member of the Polish Socialist Party since 1914, joined the ranks in 1916 Bolsheviks and until 1919 was at underground work in Poland, and then until 1923 he was the “leader of the French Komsomol” and at the 4th Congress of the Comintern he was elected as a candidate member of its Executive Committee. Since 1924 Duret lived in the USSR and taught at a college, but in 1928. returned to France, and in March 1930. The Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided: “Due to the fact that Comrade Duret is completely cut off from the cell, does not work anywhere, and refused to work at TASS because of the small fee, it is considered necessary to send him to the USSR to undergo purge.” Duret categorically refused to return to Moscow, in which, apparently, he was supported by his wife Ivet, who had been a member of the PCF since 1921, and of the CPSU (b) since 1925, and was also expelled from the party “as a traitor to Soviet power” (24 ).

According to incomplete data from the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR, in 1932. 11 defectors were registered, including 3 communists, and in 1933 - 5, including 3 communists. So, in 1932 switched to the position of defectors: chief accountant of “Fransovfrekht” G.N. Bolonkin (1926, 1931), head of the Belgian branch of the USSR trade mission in France and former manager of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade of the USSR A.I. Lekikh (1903, 1927?), representative of the “Agricultural Union” in Berlin N. S. Shakhnovsky (1919, 1929), accountant of the Berlin trade mission O. V. Stark (1920, 1928), head of the Soviet boarding house in Germany G. A. Shletser (Schlesser) (1906, 1928). In 1933, the head of the accounting and statistical department of the London trade mission, I. I. Litvinov (1916, 1931), and his wife, an employee of the fur department, R. A. Rabinovich (1920, 1931), deputy director of the Berlin Manganexport, former chairman, became defectors State Planning Committee and Deputy Chairman of the People's Commissar of Georgia K. D. Kakabadze (1917, 1931). 22. GUL R. B. I took away Russia. T. 2. Russia in France. NY. 1984, p. 233; Izvestia, 5.X.1930.

23. Latest news, 3. VII .1930; Socialist Bulletin, 26. VII .1930, N 14 (228), p. 10; RGA SPI, f. 71, op. 37, d. 147, l. 560, 605; f. 17, op. 120, d. 42, l. 5.

24. RGA SPI, f. 613, op. 2, d. 62, l. 181-182

Questions of history. – 2000. – No. 1. – P. 46-63.

Genis Vladimir Leonidovich– publicist.

Defectors

Famous figure skaters, the first Soviet Olympic champions in figure skating Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov; KGB resident in London Oleg Gordievsky; officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate under the General Staff of the Soviet Army Vladimir Rezun, aka Viktor Suvorov, author of the best-selling books “Aquarium” and “Icebreaker”; famous geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky; UN Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR Arkady Shevchenko; film director Andrei Tarkovsky; chess player, contender for the chess crown Viktor Korchnoi; ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Alexander Godunov; Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. And besides them, there are thousands more, whose names few people know. All these people, different in profession, social status and lifestyle, have one thing in common - at some point in their lives they decided to radically change their fate and left “the best country in the world”, exchanging it for the “decaying West”.

They say that the word “defector” first appeared in the vocabulary of officers of the KGB’s third directorate and meant a person who either did not return home from a trip abroad or crossed the state border in one way or another and remained in the West. At first, this word had a certain sarcastic and mocking character, they say, run if you can, and even if you can, we will still get you. There was even some sound similarity: “defector” - “pervert”. In Stalin's times, there were, in general, few “defectors” - simply because a very limited number of Soviet citizens traveled abroad. However, over time, the intelligence services had no time to laugh - although the “iron curtain” remained dense, it was still gradually opening. The more our compatriots went abroad, the more “defectors” there were. Flight became widespread. In general, the word “escape” in relation to people who simply wanted to leave the country is a product of perverted Soviet ideology, but in those days this very expression was in use, so we will have to use this term.

In the Western press, after each such case, standard headlines appeared: “He (or she, or, if the escape was collective, they) chose freedom!” Soviet newspapers published the same standard small notes, in which approximately half of the text consisted of expressions like “traitor to the Motherland,” “traitor,” “renegade,” “henchman of the West,” and other “epithets” of this kind.

The escapes of major scientists associated with the military industry and intelligence officers were perceived most painfully. The former gave away important defense secrets, the latter left and right handed over the intelligence network and foreign citizens recruited by Soviet intelligence. And yet, in a certain sense, they were ready for this. Scientists and intelligence officers were well acquainted with the Western way of life and could compare the reality “there” and “here.”

They fled the country in different ways. It was easier for those who managed to legally get beyond the borders of the socialist world. The main thing is to break away from the spies from the “authorities” and by any means surrender to the authorities of a country that was not an ally of the USSR. Almost always, the fugitive was provided with political asylum, citizenship and protection from persecution from the “former” homeland. It was more difficult for those for whom abroad was inaccessible. In this case the risk was much greater. But this did not stop, Soviet citizens showed miracles of ingenuity to escape from the country. They fled to Turkey, crossing the Black Sea on homemade rafts and air mattresses. They fled to Finland, hiding for weeks in the Karelian forests. In general, whoever could, the method of escape depended on the imagination and courage of the fugitive.

In one short article, it is not possible to talk about all the “defectors,” at least about those whose names the whole country knew - there were too many of them. Therefore, we will focus on one of the loudest and most resonant escapes from behind the Iron Curtain, which occurred in the second half of the 70s of the last century.

This was one of the few times in Soviet history when the top party and military leadership was completely at a loss, so unexpected was this escape itself and the circumstances that accompanied it. And it was done by a man who until then was unknown to anyone and insignificant on the scale of the country...

On the afternoon of Monday, September 6, 1976, a flight of MiG-25 fighter-interceptors from the 513th Flight Squadron, based at the Chuguevka airbase, 200 kilometers from Vladivostok, took off to perform scheduled training flights. The conditions were just perfect - perfect weather, zero clouds and excellent visibility. The MiG-25 flight was running parallel to the ocean coast, when suddenly the plane with the number “31” on board sharply gained altitude and then just as quickly began to descend. The flight director and flight commander tried to contact the pilot, but there was no response. At 12:45 the MiG-25 disappeared from the radar screens of the ground tracking service...

A search was immediately launched for the missing plane and its pilot. No signs of the fighter falling into the ocean, such as a kerosene stain or debris on the surface of the water, were found, but no one at the base doubted that for an unknown reason the plane crashed into the ocean, and the pilot died before he could eject. In the evening, colleagues, according to the old flying tradition, remembered their fallen comrade...

At 13:11, an alarm was declared in Japanese air defense units; four radar stations located on the island of Hokkaido detected an unknown air target 200 kilometers from the coast, flying at an altitude of 6,700 meters at a speed of about 800 km/h. At 13:18, two F-4J Phantom interceptors took off from the Chitose airbase to intercept, but soon the target disappeared from the radar and the fighters returned to base. At 13:52, an unknown aircraft was detected in the area of ​​Hakodate Civil Aviation Airport.

Probably, any film director would have paid dearly to be in the area of ​​the Hakodate airfield at that moment with his film crew. Without any takes or rehearsals, the result would be a wildly twisted action movie with breathtaking documentary footage. The MiG-25 roared over the runway at an altitude of 300 meters. The pilot clearly intended to land, but at that moment the Nippon Airways Boeing 727 took off. The planes almost collided. The MiG made two more passes and finally touched down at 13:57. The pilot released the flaps and braking parachute, but the runway was not long enough, and the fighter jumped onto the ground. Having plowed 250 meters along the ground, the MiG-25 demolished two antennas and stopped...

Airport employees rushed to the plane. At that moment, the pilot climbed out of the cockpit, fired several times into the air, driving away the curious, and then demanded that his car be immediately covered with a tarpaulin. Hakodate airfield was closed to flights for several hours. Japanese police soon arrived and the pilot was taken to the nearest police station.

During interrogation, the pilot said that his name was Viktor Ivanovich Belenko and that he was a senior lieutenant in the USSR Air Force. At first, the pilot motivated his actions by saying that he had lost his way and, due to a lack of fuel (as an inspection of the MiG-25 showed, there was only 30 seconds of fuel left in its tanks for the flight) made an emergency landing in Hakodate. However, then Viktor Belenko asked for political asylum in Japan. Soon, news agencies spread sensational news around the world: “A Soviet pilot hijacked a top-secret fighter to Japan.”

The situation was so extraordinary that the Japanese authorities were at a loss for a long time and did not know what to do with the plane and its pilot. Among other things, the Japanese were concerned about protecting the fighter from the annoying curiosity of uninvited guests. Soviet planes flew in schools on the border of Japanese airspace in the area of ​​the island of Hokkaido, in the evening and at night from September 6 to 7, Japanese fighters flew about 140 times (!) to intercept air targets. There was also unrest on the ground. A large crowd of curious people gathered near the fence of the airfield, among them were people for whom “curiosity” is a professional duty - employees of the CIA, KGB and intelligence services of other countries.

In the USSR, according to the old Soviet tradition, they initially tried to hide the very fact of Belenko’s escape. However, Western “voices” worked “to the fullest”, and soon almost the entire population of the Soviet Union knew about the fact of the theft. An official statement by the Soviet government stated that the landing of the MiG-25 was forced, and expressed a demand for the Japanese authorities to immediately return the plane and pilot. Relations between the USSR and Japan were more than strained; after the end of World War II, the countries never signed a peace treaty and were formally in a state of war. But the Japanese did not want to start an open quarrel with their northern neighbor. Japan found itself, as they say, between a rock and a hard place: on the other hand, its main ally, the United States, pressed with all its might.

Here we will make a digression and travel back to the 60s. At this time, the United States began developing the ultra-modern strategic bomber Stratofortress, which was supposed to fly at an altitude and speed inaccessible to Soviet fighters. The USSR knew about this project, and the MiG-25 became the answer to it. The Americans eventually abandoned the Stratofortress project, but in the USSR the MiG-25 continued to be produced in large quantities. It really was the best fighter of its time, although in the Western press its capabilities, to put it mildly, were somewhat exaggerated. The MiG-25 was believed to be an aircraft made primarily of titanium, with a speed three times the speed of sound and a range unmatched by other fighters, equipped with a unique radar that could detect enemy aircraft long before the enemy did. , and the most powerful weapons. It is clear that the Americans tried to get any information about the MiG-25, but they had nothing but some general information. And suddenly such luck: a MiG-25 lands in Japan in full combat equipment, with secret “friend or foe” identification codes and a highly experienced pilot-instructor. The Americans simply could not miss such a chance...

In order to maintain legal decency and at the same time not give Belenko and the MiG-25 to the Soviet Union, the Japanese opened a criminal case against the pilot, accusing him of “illegally crossing the state border.” In this case, the Japanese said, the pilot could not be released until the end of the investigation, just like the plane, which is material evidence. Both the USSR and the USA approached the Japanese government with a request to jointly investigate the case, but both requests were rejected. However, the Japanese did not rule out the possibility of involving foreign “experts” in the investigation. It is clear what country these experts were from and what they wanted to discover.

The MiG-25, disassembled into parts, was transported under heavy security (the transport plane carrying the MiG was accompanied by no less than 14 fighters) to the Hakari air force base. This, and especially the participation of American specialists in the inspection of the MiG, aroused the anger of the Soviet government. On September 22, the Japanese Foreign Ministry received a note of protest from the Soviet ambassador, which indicated the inadmissibility of such actions, and if Japan's position remains unchanged, relations between the two countries could deteriorate sharply. And Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Miki was forced to promise that the MiG-25 would be returned to the USSR. The diplomatic skirmish continued for about another month, the parties put forward mutual claims to each other, until finally, on the night of January 11-12, containers with parts of the MiG-25 were transported to the port of Hitachi to a Soviet ship stationed there.

Who really is Viktor Ivanovich Belenko, and how should we evaluate his actions? A traitor who sold his homeland for a handful of dollars, or a brave and determined person who managed to escape from behind the “Iron Curtain” in the only way possible in his situation? In fact, did his actions seriously undermine the country’s defense capability and cause enormous material damage to the people who raised and educated him, or did he just beautifully and gracefully, but very painfully, “flick on the nose” of the communist regime? Even those fellow pilots for whom Belenko is clearly a traitor paid tribute to how he masterfully managed to overcome the air defense systems of both the USSR and Japan. We will not make any assessments; let the reader decide for himself which point of view is closer to him.

Viktor Belenko himself never regretted his action. Naturally, he did not intend to return to the USSR and a few days after his escape he was transported to the USA, where he received the status of a political refugee. In the early 80s, Soviet newspapers reported that Viktor Belenko died in a car accident, but the “deceased” himself denied the overly exaggerated rumors about his death. For some time, the former senior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force taught at one of the air force academies, together with the writer John Barron he wrote the book “MiG Pilot”, became rich, and became a successful entrepreneur.

What were the motives and reasons for the escape of the Soviet pilot? Until a certain point, a guy from a simple working-class family, born in 1947 in Nalchik, believed in the ideals of the socialist system and considered that he was very lucky in life: after all, he was born in the Soviet Union. The Belenko family moved to Altai, where Victor graduated from school with a gold medal. Belenko studied at a medical institute for two years, but never completed his studies at this university, and then entered the Armavir Higher Military Aviation School of Air Defense Pilots. While studying in Armavir, Victor got married and had a son. Belenko graduated from college with honors, then served in units in the Rostov region and Stavropol region. He established himself as an excellent pilot, and after several years of service he was transferred to the position of instructor pilot. In general, he is an ideal Soviet pilot, with excellent characteristics, without a single dark spot in his biography.

And yet Belenko escaped. Immediately after the escape, they tried to explain his desire to stay in the USA in the USSR by the influence of some psychotropic drugs that were allegedly pumped into the pilot, then a version appeared that Belenko was recruited by the CIA. These versions did not receive any documentary confirmation. Viktor Ivanovich himself, in his memoirs, explains his action by “the discrepancy between his worldview and the political system of the USSR.” Perhaps this is true. Shortly before his escape, an episode occurred in the biography of Viktor Belenko that could have provoked the pilot to take a desperate step. At the school where Belenko worked, theft and drunkenness flourished, and government-issued alcohol intended for aircraft maintenance flowed like a river. Belenko spoke at the meeting with criticism. Instead of understanding the situation, the head of the school, Golodnikov, sent the pilot for examination to a psychiatric hospital. After an examination that did not reveal any abnormalities in the officer’s mental state, Belenko returned to his unit. The head of the school tried in every possible way to survive the unwanted subordinate, sending him to the detachment almost every day. In the end, Viktor Belenko was “exiled” to the Far East. At some point, he realized that it was impossible to fight the System, and sent his MiG to Japan...

You can, of course, accuse Viktor Belenko and other “defectors” of betrayal, saying that the Motherland should be loved not because of it, but in spite of it. And yet... As they say in the East: “No matter how much you say “halva”, it will not become sweeter in your mouth.” Paraphrasing this proverb in relation to “defectors”, we can say: “No matter how much you say how good it is to live in the Soviet country, it will not be better to live in it.” Risking life and freedom, no one will run away from a good country where a person feels like a Human...

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Defectors- the name of citizens of the USSR, as well as subjects of the Russian Empire or other states who refused to return to the country from legal foreign trips or business trips. The official name of the phenomenon in the USSR in the 1930s: “Escape while abroad.”

Non-return is a form of flight, i.e. illegal emigration from a country with a totalitarian or “permissive” migration regime. Most typical for countries such as the USSR, China, North Korea, the Republic of Cuba and other countries of the former socialist camp.

Story

One of the first mentions in Russian literature of the 19th century about the mass non-return of Russian citizens is contained in the memoirs of artillery officer A. M. Baranovich, a participant in the war with Napoleonic France.

After returning from the European campaign, the Russian army was missing forty thousand lower ranks, “for the return of which Sovereign Alexander asked King Louis XVIII,” but the king could not fulfill the emperor’s request “due to the French hiding the fugitives, and therefore not a single one returned.”

...What a decline has our army reached if an old non-commissioned officer and a simple soldier remain in France, and 60 people deserted from a horse guards regiment in one night with weapons in their hands and horses. They go to farmers who not only pay them well, but also give them their daughters for them.

...Do me a favor, arrange for me to have some sign of English respect, a sword, a vase with an inscription, the right of citizenship.

Among the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century, Vladimir Sergeevich Pecherin is often called the “first defector intellectual.”

IN THE USSR

The legislative definition of “non-return” in the USSR was formulated in 1929 in connection with the adoption of the Resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR “On the outlawing of officials - citizens of the USSR abroad, who have defected to the camp of the enemies of the working class and peasantry and who refuse to return to the USSR”.

On November 21, 1929, an article on defectors was introduced into the criminal legislation of the USSR (the Law “On the outlawing of officials - citizens of the USSR abroad, who defected to the camp of enemies of the working class and peasantry and refuse to return to the USSR” or the so-called “Law on defectors"). Those who committed this act or attempted it were charged with treason.

A person who refused to return was declared an outlaw. Recognizing a person as an outlaw according to Art. 4 of this resolution was carried out by the Supreme Court of the USSR and entailed the confiscation of all property of the convicted person and execution after 24 hours.

This law had retroactive force (Article 6) - that is, it applied to all those officials - citizens of the USSR who did not return to the USSR from abroad even before the adoption of the law.

...the number of defectors more than doubled and amounted, according to a certificate sent to the Central Control Commission on June 5, 1930 by the senior commissioner of the INO OGPU H. Ya. Reif, 277 people, of whom 34 were communists. Moreover, if in 1921 only 3 defectors were registered (including 1 communist), in 1922 - 5 (2), in 1923 - 3 (1) and in 1924 - 2 (0) ...

Until 1960, treason to the Motherland was the content of Article 58-1a of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, put into effect by decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on June 8, 1934:

“Treason to the Motherland, that is, actions committed by citizens of the USSR to the detriment of the military power of the USSR, its state independence or the inviolability of its territory, such as: espionage, betrayal of military or state secrets, defection to the enemy, flight or flight abroad, are punishable the highest measure of criminal punishment - execution with confiscation of all property, and in mitigating circumstances - imprisonment for a term of 10 years with confiscation of all property." The concept of the Motherland here is synonymous with the state, since many were convicted of "treason to the Motherland" (in particular, under Stalin) people born outside the Russian Empire or the USSR within the then borders.

In the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960, “Treason to the Motherland” is highlighted in a separate 64th article:

“Treason to the Motherland, that is, an act intentionally committed by a citizen of the USSR to the detriment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity or state security and defense capability of the USSR: defection to the side of the enemy, espionage, betrayal of state or military secrets to a foreign state, flight abroad or refusal to return from abroad in the USSR, providing assistance to a foreign state in carrying out hostile activities against the USSR, as well as conspiracy to seize power, is punishable by imprisonment for a term of ten to fifteen years with confiscation of property and with reference to a term of two to five years or without reference or death penalty with confiscation of property"

Some famous defectors

In culture

• Film "Moscow on the Hudson".
• Film "Flight 222". The plot of the film is based on the true story of ballet dancers Alexander Godunov and Lyudmila Vlasova.

see also

• List of defector pilots from Soviet bloc countries

Write a review about the article "Defectors"

Literature

• Vladimir Genis. Unfaithful servants of the regime: The first Soviet defectors (1920-1933). Documentary research experience. (in 2 books). - Book 1. “He escaped and joined the camp of the bourgeoisie” (1920-1929). M., 2009. 704 p. ISBN 978-5-8107-0238-2 // Book. 2. "The third emigration" (1929-1933). M., 2012. 815 p. ISBN 978-5-98585-084-0

Links

• // Radio Liberty, 9.09.2012
• - V. Genis in the program “Myths and Reputations” with I. Tolstoy on Radio Liberty
• (English)

Notes

Excerpt characterizing Defectors

In Soviet times, defectors were those who left their homeland forever through illegal emigration. Their actions amounted to betrayal. Judgments were made in absentia. Property was subject to confiscation, relatives were sent to camps.

Execution in 24 hours

Flight abroad in the 20s acquired such a large scale that the authorities were forced to think: as a main preventive measure, a law was issued “On outlawing officials - citizens of the USSR abroad, who fled to the camp of the enemies of the working class and peasantry and refusing to return to the USSR." According to the new law: “Declaring an outlaw entails: confiscation of all property of the convicted person; execution of a convicted person 24 hours after his identity is confirmed. All such cases are considered by the Supreme Court of the USSR. The names of those declared outlaws are subject to notification to all executive committees and bodies of the GPU.”

They took what they could carry

The fleeing people took with them only the most valuable things that they could carry in their hands. Almost all home furnishings - dishes, household items, furniture sets - remained in empty apartments. They were first described by NKVD officers, and then new residents moved in, who often received the rich decoration of the abandoned houses. Most of the defectors belonged to the caste of the political or scientific elite, which, even during the Civil War, did not deny itself worldly pleasures.

"Commission shops" - trade center

Often things were handed over for sale to thrift stores, which began to open in cities on a large scale. Moreover, especially valuable things were sold out almost instantly: the USSR was experiencing a commodity crisis, there was a shortage of good things that were no longer produced; at the end of the 20s, according to statistics, only half a shoe was produced per capita. Not only ordinary residents, but also close NKVD employees brought their things to the “thrift shop” for sale. However, they were not directly involved in selling such things: it was forbidden to do so under pain of dismissal and criminal prosecution. But their family members could sell things. Citizen Zaitseva, indignant at the ongoing disgrace, wrote about this to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov, and the Prosecutor of the USSR, Andrei Vyshinsky. In her letter, she was forced to appeal to the highest officials of the USSR and say that she bought food products for her children at exorbitant prices from speculators - the wives of policemen, who, under the cover of their husbands, profited from the plight of the common people. The police officers were supplied according to standards equivalent to working rations; this was clearly not enough for them. However, such letters were isolated and could not reverse the general trend: in the USSR they tried to get as many valuable things as possible into the state arsenal. The All-Union Association for Trade with Foreigners was created - the Torgsin Fund, which also received the property of defectors.

Store agents

The black market and thrift stores received many valuable items left behind by defectors. The directors of the “thrift stores” had an extensive network of agents who received a certain percentage of profit for their information about a valuable product: prices in the stores were twice as high as in regular ones.

The party commission identified millions

In 1935, the Party Control Commission sent to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR a “Memorandum on the widespread use of thrift stores by private owners,” which, in particular, mentioned the names of citizens who handed over for sale a huge number of valuable things that had previously been found in the possession of persons who had illegally left the country. The main income of the “thrift shops” came from the sales of so-called “stylish furniture”, which was left behind by defectors. The memo indicated that store owners initially assessed incoming furniture at a deliberately low price, and then resold it, pocketing the difference: one of the leaders of Kabardino-Balkaria bought furniture worth 300,000 rubles, and two commission shops of Lenpromtorg were able to sell furniture for 800,000 rubles. These were fabulous sums for that time. A lot of valuable things went to the so-called groups “A” and “B”, which, by decision of the People’s Commissariat of Supply, included the party elite from among the leaders - this is how special distribution funds began to appear. Some apartments resembled museum collections.

The answer is everything

By 1929, the authorities began to wonder: why does no one inform law enforcement agencies about their malicious intent to leave the country? A new article was introduced providing for criminal liability for family members who did not promptly inform about their relative’s intention to illegally leave the territory of the Soviet Union. Families of defectors were recognized as criminal elements and sent to special settlements, usually in Siberia. Despite the fact that such settlements were not part of the Gulag system, residents could not leave this place; they were subject to a special operating regime. Getting to such a settlement was considered great luck: in most cases, the families of defectors were punished harshly, using criminal articles under which the unfortunate people were sent to forced labor camps. This is how they showed those who hid “over the hill” and were in prosperity to the full extent of their moral responsibility for wrongdoing before their homeland and members of their families.

The term “defector” appeared in the Soviet Union with the light hand of one of the State Security officers and came into use as a sarcastic stigma for people who forever left the country of the heyday of socialism for life in decaying capitalism. In those days, this word was akin to anathema, and the relatives of “defectors” who remained in a happy socialist society were also persecuted. The reasons that pushed people to break through the Iron Curtain were different, and their destinies also turned out differently.

VICTOR BELENKO

Fighting the system is like banging your head against a wall. And when the confrontation reached its boiling point, Victor’s nerves could not stand it. During the next flights, his board disappeared from the tracking screens. Having overcome the air defenses of the two countries, Belenko landed at a Japanese airport on September 6, 1976, stepped out of the MIG-25 with his hands raised and was soon transported to the United States, receiving the status of a political refugee.

The West glorified the Soviet pilot - an ace who risked his life to overcome the Iron Curtain. And for his compatriots he forever remained a defector and a traitor.

VICTOR SUVOROV

These days, Suvorov teaches at the British Military Academy.

BELOUSOV and PROTOPOPOV

They walked to their peak slowly but surely. They were their own choreographers and coaches. First they won the Union Championship, then the European Championship. And soon they made a real splash at the Innsbruck Olympics in 1964, and then, in 1968, at the World Championships, where, to the jubilant approval of the audience, the referees unanimously gave them a 6.0.

Young people came to replace the star couple, and Belousova and Protopopov began to openly force them out of the ice arena, deliberately lowering the scores. But the couple was full of strength and creative plans that were no longer destined to come true in their homeland.

During the next European tour, the stars decided not to return to the Union. They remained in Switzerland, where they continued to do what they loved, although they did not receive citizenship for a long time. But they say that your place is where you can breathe freely, and not where the stamp in your passport indicates.

ANDREY TARKOVSKY

In 1980, Tarkovsky went to Italy, where he began work on his next film. From there, he sent a request to the Union so that his family would be allowed to travel to him for the duration of filming for a period of three years, after which he undertakes to return to his homeland. The CPSU Central Committee refused the director's request. And in the summer of 1984, Andrei announced his non-return to the USSR.

Tarkovsky was not deprived of Soviet citizenship, but a ban was imposed on showing his films in the country and mentioning the name of the exile in the press.

The master of cinema made his last film in Sweden, and soon died of lung cancer. At the same time, the Union lifted the ban on showing his films. Andrei Tarkovsky was awarded the Lenin Prize posthumously.

RUDOLF NURIEV

Then the artist moved to London and for fifteen long years became the star of the English ballet and the idol of British fans of Terpsichore. He soon received Austrian citizenship, and his popularity reached its peak: Nureyev gave up to three hundred performances annually.

In the 80s, Rudolph headed the ballet troupe of the theater in Paris, where he actively promoted young and attractive artists.

In the USSR, the dancer was allowed entry only for three days to attend his mother’s funeral, while limiting his circle of contacts and movements. For the last ten years, Nureyev lived with the HIV virus in his blood, died from complications of an incurable disease, and was buried in a Russian cemetery in France.

ALICE ROSENBAUM

The revolution of 1917 took almost everything from the Rosenbaum family. And later, Alice herself lost her loved one in Stalin’s dungeons and her parents during the siege of Leningrad.

At the beginning of 1926, Alice went to study in the States, where she remained to live permanently. At first she worked as an extra at the Dream Factory, and then, after marrying an actor, she received American citizenship and became seriously involved in creativity. Already under the pseudonym Ayn Rand, she created scripts, stories and novels.

Although they tried to attribute her work to a certain political movement, Ain said that she was not interested in politics, because it was a cheap way to become popular. Perhaps that is why the sales volume of her books was tens of times higher than the sales of works by famous creators of history, such as Karl Marx.

ALEXANDER ALEKHIN

Throughout his entire chess career, Alekhine lost only once to his opponent, but soon took revenge over Max Euwe, and remained the world champion until the end of his life.

During the war, he took part in tournaments in Nazi Germany in order to somehow feed his family. Later, the chess players were going to boycott Alexander, accusing him of publishing anti-Semitic articles. Once “beaten” by him, Euwe even proposed to deprive Alekhine of his well-deserved titles. But Max’s selfish plans were not destined to come true.

In March 1946, on the eve of the match with Botvinnik, Alekhine was found dead. He was sitting in a chair in front of a chessboard with pieces arranged. It has not yet been established which country’s intelligence services organized his asphyxia.

Fyodor Chaliapin, whose novel was talked about by Iola Tornagi, also left his homeland at one time.