At the end of 2007, the 70th anniversary of the creation of the People's Commissariat of the USSR Navy will be celebrated. However, now few people know the name of the first Soviet People's Commissar of the Navy. And meanwhile it was an outstanding personality for its time. The name of this man is Petr Aleksandrovich Smirnov. May 29 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of this major military leader of the 1930s.

Was born Smirnov in a working-class family living in the village of the Belo-Kholunitsky plant in the Vyatka province. Thanks to the efforts of his parents, he was able to graduate from a two-year school and a vocational school. Due to lack of funds in the family, he was forced to work independently from the age of thirteen - first as a digger on the construction of the road, then as a carpenter at the Lysva plant, where he took part in the strike movement, working as an authorized shop in the health insurance fund. In March 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party. Since October 1917, Pyotr Smirnov took an active part in the revolution, and then the Civil War in Russia. He began his career as a Red Guard, combining revolutionary activities with the duties of chairman of the shop committee, then a member of the factory committee in the city of Lysva. Very soon he became a member of the Perm provincial headquarters of the Red Guard. Smirnov spent the entire Civil War at the forefront as a military commissar of a regiment, brigade, division on the Eastern, Southeastern and Caucasian fronts.
After the end of hostilities, Smirnov held responsible party and political positions in the Red Army. In 1926-1937 he headed the political departments of the Baltic Fleet, the North Caucasian, Volga, Belorussian and Leningrad military districts.
In all these posts, he has established himself as a supporter of the Stalinist line in the party. Therefore, it is not surprising that in June 1937 it was he who was appointed head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army instead of Ya.B. Gamarnik, suspected of involvement in the "Tukhachevsky conspiracy". Having become the head of the army political agencies, Pyotr Alexandrovich continued to uncompromisingly implement the "general line of the party", which in fact was embodied in the sanctioning and personal initiation of the arrests of commanders and political workers suspected of political disloyalty.
During the ruthless struggle for power on the party Olympus, such workers as Smirnov were needed. I will cite an excerpt from his attestation for 1926-1927, which noted: “... energetic, hard-working, possesses perseverance bordering on stubbornness ... Thanks to the properties of his character and the objectively prevailing situation, he subordinated command to his influence and dictates his will even in issues of combat training. Among the personnel, it enjoys due authority, although old sailors do not like it for its heavy hand and coastal clone. The latter sometimes goes too far ... "
Second half of 1937 turned out to be eventful for Smirnov. In October, he, while remaining head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defense (concurrently). At the same time, he was awarded the next military rank of "army commissar of the 1st rank." And the day before the new year, 1938, an unexpected appointment followed, which dramatically changed the profile of his activities - he becomes a member of the USSR government in the position of People's Commissar of the newly formed People's Commissariat of the Navy.
By the time P.A. Smirnov People's Commissar The naval forces of the Red Army organizationally included four fleets (Baltic Black Sea, Pacific and Northern) and four flotillas (Amur, Dnieper, Caspian, North Pacific), totaling 45 formations.
According to contemporaries, Pyotr Aleksandrovich did not particularly like to stay too long in his office. The Revolution and the Civil War taught him from the first days to active work among the masses. He did not change this habit even when he sat down in the chair of the head of the PU of the Red Army. But if earlier, being the military commissar of the division and corps, the head of the political department of a number of districts, Smirnov devoted a lot of time to personal speeches to various categories of command staff, political workers, party and Komsomol activists, now, in 1937-1938, he was the main goal of trips to the troops and saw fleets, in his own words, in "restoring order." Under this definition, the first People's Commissar of the Navy meant only one thing - the "cleansing" of the cadres of the fleet from Trotskyists, "rightists", participants in the "military fascist" and other conspiracies. And in this case, Smirnov, unfortunately, was very successful. Frankly speaking, in the position of People's Commissar of the Navy, Smirnov did nothing more than identify "enemies of the people" and did not do anything. How this happened in practice can be seen in the example of the Northern and Pacific Fleets.
Northern the fleet at that time was the youngest of the country's fleets. It acquired its status only on May 11, 1937, and before that, for four years, this association existed in the form of a military flotilla. Its first commander was in 1933 the flagship of the 2nd rank Z.A. Zakupnev. He was the first to be arrested in March 1937, even before the start of the mass "cleansing" in the army and navy. At the same time, the chief of staff of a separate destroyer division, Captain 2nd Rank E.I. Batis. After his arrest, almost until the very end of 1937, not a single soldier in the Northern Fleet was repressed. And only on October 29 of the same year was the assistant commander of the fleet brigade quartermaster P.A. Shchetinin.
With the beginning of the new year, 1938, arrests in the Northern Fleet resumed. And by May 1938, the peak of arrests in the Northern Fleet reached its climax. On May 16, P.P., a member of the military council of the fleet, was urgently summoned to Moscow. Bairakny. Immediately after arriving in the capital, right at the station, he was arrested. Convicted and shot on August 19, 1938.
Following him, K.I. Dushenov and P.M. clip. Following their arrest, the People's Commissar of the Navy visited the Northern Fleet. At a meeting at the headquarters of the fleet, Smirnov publicly declared all the former leaders of the Northern Fleet "enemies of the people" and demanded that the "enemy tribe" be eradicated. Survivor after many years in the Gulag P.M. Clipp later recalled one episode during the investigation period connected with this speech by P.A. Smirnova. Describing the meeting in the dungeons of the NKVD with the later arrested Chief of Staff of the Northern Fleet P.S. Smirnov, he cites the following statement by K.I. Dushenova about the role of P.A. Smirnov in repressions: “I have known Pyotr Alexandrovich since October and the Civil War. Honest Bolshevik. And he knows me very well. Not from a good life he acted like that. So they forced it. And you can't be angry with him."
Unfortunately, Dushenov was sincerely mistaken in the conscientiousness of his old acquaintance. By that time, Smirnov, according to many researchers, was already a completely reborn lover of power.
An even more negative role was played by People's Commissar of the Navy Smirnov in the matter of "uprooting the enemies of the people" in the Pacific Fleet. This process began on December 1, 1937, when a former member of the military council of the Pacific Fleet, army commissar 2nd rank G.S. was arrested. Okunev. Then, on January 10, 1938, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, the flagship of the fleet of the 2nd rank, G.P., was arrested. Kireeva.
Immediately after returning
P.A. Smirnov from the Far East to the capital of the country, on April 22, 1938, the former head of the Naval Forces of the Red Army, flagship of the fleet 1st rank M.V. was arrested. Viktorov.
And the arrest of Smirnov himself followed on June 30, 1938. In the personnel confusion of those tragic months for the army and navy, they even forgot to dismiss him from his post, and formally he remained People's Commissar of the Navy until September 8.
Shocked by the sudden arrest, physically exhausted and morally devastated, Smirnov at first tried to stand his ground, rejecting all accusations against him. This continued until July 3, when investigators sent him to the infamous Lefortovo prison.
In the end, Smirnov wrote a statement addressed to Yezhov, in which he confirmed his participation in the conspiracy. He also explained that “at confrontations with Belov, Bulin and other conspirators, he did not plead guilty, but now, after painful reflections, he decided to confess.”
And then Smirnov really began to give evidence, truly written in his blood. He gave these testimonies during continuous interrogations, which went on day and night with the “conveyor” method of changing investigators (while one investigator interrogated the arrested person, the other slept off, and the person under investigation stood on his feet all this time and did not dare to sit down for a minute). So the above-mentioned confession of July 3, addressed to the People's Commissar of the NKVD, was written by Smirnov after a thirteen-hour interrogation.
Need say that even after such difficult interrogations, Smirnov still tried to defend his innocence. However, every time the investigators Agas and Ratner forced Pyotr Alexandrovich to write another repentant statement addressed to Yezhov, in each of which the names of more and more "conspirators" appeared. At the same time, the investigators placed particular emphasis on identifying "spies, pests and terrorists" in the central office of the People's Commissariat of Defense.
Under the unrelenting pressure of the investigators, I was forced to write on July 4 that, from the words of his deputy for the Political Directorate of the Red Army, Anton Bulin, he knew that the head of the Voroshilov secretariat, corps commissar I.P. Petukhov is a particularly conspiratorial participant in a military conspiracy. Pyotr Alexandrovich subsequently refused this slander of an innocent person, but the deed had already been done and Petukhov was arrested.
The investigators succeeded in getting evidence from Smirnov against the First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Army Commander 1st Rank I.F. Fedko. He was also arrested.
Gradually accustomed to his new position, Smirnov, in the course of further investigation, retracted part of the testimony he had given earlier, under pressure from Agas and Ratner. He clarified the rest of his testimony. For example, during interrogation on August 19, 1938, Pyotr Aleksandrovich stated that his testimony a month ago about a conversation with Uborevich about opening a front to the enemy in case of war was not true. From his words, Shinkarev wrote down the following: “... I never had any conversations about opening a front with Uborevich ... Uborevich did not talk about this with me. I wrote down this wording without thinking it over properly, and at a moment that was somewhat tense for me personally, most likely due to weakness of spirit.
The former People's Commissar of the Navy also claimed that his testimony of July 17-19 in terms of establishing a conspiracy connection with his deputy P.I. Smirnov-Svetlovsky are not true, since he learned about his participation in the conspiracy from Marshal A.I. Egorova. Pyotr Alexandrovich called his own testimony about the participation in the conspiracy of some naval commanders - Stolyarsky, Kuryokhin, Synkov, P.S. Smirnov, Moskalenko and others. "I slandered them!" - unequivocally told the investigator P.A. Smirnov.
Consequence on the case of the former People's Commissar of the Navy was completed in early February 1939. When performing this procedural procedure, Pyotr Aleksandrovich, having confirmed his belonging to an anti-Soviet military conspiracy, at the same time declared that a significant part of his testimony was not true, since he had given them involuntarily, under pressure from investigators, and some of them were not even written with his words, but personally by investigator Agas.
In particular, he denied his participation in the “Belarusian-Tolmachev group”, carrying out wrecking activities in the army and receiving instructions from Gamarnik for this, and having anti-Soviet connections with a number of persons indicated in the case file.
Still, personal courage to Peter Aleksandrovich Smirnov was not to be occupied. Few of those military leaders who were broken for months in the offices and punishment cells of the NKVD managed to find the strength in themselves on the eve of the trial to try to avert, at least partially, the misfortune from other people passing through his case. Smirnov found such strength in himself.
From an analysis of the content of the indictment in the Smirnov case, it becomes clear that his efforts to shield the innocent were in vain. Much of what Pyotr Aleksandrovich categorically objected to, nevertheless, entered without change into the text of the indictment.
The ascertaining part of this document reads as follows: “... Smirnov Petr Alexandrovich, born in 1897, a native of the Kirov region, the Belo-Kholunitsky plant, Russian, before his arrest - People's Commissar of the Navy, is accused of
1) Since 1928 he was a member of the Trotskyist organization, the so-called "Belarusian-Tolmachev opposition."
2) In 1933, he was recruited into the anti-Soviet military conspiracy by Gamarnik, was one of the leading participants in the conspiracy and led work to disrupt the combat capability of the Red Army and ensure the defeat of the Soviet Union in the war with fascist countries in order to overthrow Soviet power and restore capitalism, i.e. in crimes under Art. 58 p.1 "b" and 11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
The investigation is subject to
pressure on the military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR - for trial.
The trial took place on February 22, 1939. The procedure of the court, as is now known, was worked out to the smallest detail, and the session did not last long.
In the last In his speech, Pyotr Alexandrovich asked the court to take into account that he was not an inveterate enemy of the party and Soviet power. However, despite this, the court sentenced the former People's Commissar of the Navy to the highest measure - execution. The sentence was executed at dawn on February 23, 1939 - on the Day of the Red Army and Navy. Surprisingly, the “machine of repression” worked even on such a day.
About what happened in 1938-1939 with the former People's Commissar of the Navy and what his fate was, it became known only years after the death of Smirnov. Access to this information was closed even for the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsova. In his memoirs, he writes that, already working in Moscow as People's Commissar, he repeatedly tried to find out what happened to Smirnov.
Here is what the memoirs of the honored naval commander say: “I was given only short excerpts from his testimony to read. Smirnov admitted that "as an enemy, he deliberately beat the naval personnel." What was true, I can't say. I didn't hear anything more about him. Willingly or involuntarily, he really knocked out good cadres of Soviet commanders. Being there, on the spot, he really decided the fate of many, and if he really did not deliberately beat the cadres, then why didn’t he want to listen to the “accused” or even to me, the commander, and draw objective conclusions?
Apparently, the answer to this question must be sought in the analysis of the atmosphere of suspicion and fear that took place in our country in the late 1930s. Smirnov was one of the "cogs of the revolution", who fully accepted its laws. And the main law says: "The revolution devours its children."
By the definition of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of May 16, 1956, the case against P.A. Smirnov was terminated "due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions." At the same time, members of his family, who had previously been subjected to repression and all kinds of restrictions, were rehabilitated.
The difficult fate of the first People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR left an imprint on the memory of him among military sailors. And although the naval encyclopedias provide brief biographical data on P.A. Smirnov, a full biography of this major naval commander has not yet been published in marine publications. There are no publications about him in the “Naval Collection”, although in 1997, under the heading “Gallery of Soviet Naval Commanders”, this magazine contained portraits and detailed biographical information about most of the flagships and admirals of the Soviet Navy, including those repressed in the 30s the last century. This publication, I would like to hope, will to some extent fill this "gap" and help contemporaries to recreate a verbal portrait of the first People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR, who took on the cruel blows of a difficult and controversial time.
Pictured: A rare photograph of the People's Commissar.

SMIRNOV-SVETLOVSKII

PETER IVANOVICH

Born August 1, 1897 in the Sulin farm (now the city of Krasny Sulin, Rostov Region) in the Don Army region in the family of a zemstvo doctor. The childhood and youth of the future Soviet naval commander passed in an era of upheaval - the revolution of 1905 (Russian-Japanese war).

Having received his primary education, Pyotr Smirnov entered the gymnasium.

After graduating from high school, he enters the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, and there he meets the famous Bolshevik organizer Nikolai Tolmachev, and, having contacted underground organizations through him, takes an active part in the work of the Petrograd organization of the RSDLP (b).

In his 20s, Smirnov was an active participant in the October armed uprising in Petrograd. On October 24, 1917, he entered the marching headquarters of the Baltic sailors on the Amur mine layer, which was sent at the head of a detachment of ships on a campaign from Kronstadt to Petrograd to overthrow the Provisional Government. Pyotr Ivanovich Smirnov-Svetlovsky was the commissar of one of the detachments, then the chief of staff of the Kronstadt combined detachment of sailors, which played a decisive role in the victory of the armed uprising in Petrograd on October 25, 1917.

The Civil War, which began soon, fully revealed the natural outstanding abilities, organizational and military talents of Smirnov-Svetlovsky. On July 6, 1918, he was sent to the Eastern Front for underground work in the rear of the White armies. However, upon arrival in Nizhny Novgorod, he was unexpectedly appointed chief of staff of the Volga military flotilla. Smirnov-Svetlovsky immediately became actively involved in this work, demonstrating martial arts.

Kolchak's offensive in the Urals required the concentration of forces to repel the threat of the fall of Soviet power on the Eastern Front. The Volga military flotilla was also preparing for battles. Its former commander, F.F. Raskolnikov, was at that time in English captivity. Therefore, on April 17, 1919, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, taking into account the combat experience of Pyotr Ivanovich and his previous service as chief of staff of the Volga military flotilla, appointed him commander and at the same time commissar. In a short time, Smirnov-Svetlovsky brought this flotilla to combat readiness after the winter break. In May 1919, under his direct supervision, brilliant operations were carried out to defeat the Kolchak troops.

After the end of the civil war, Pyotr Ivanovich left for Petrograd in December 1920 to resume his studies at the Polytechnic Institute, where he studied until the spring of 1922, remaining in reserve at the naval headquarters of the RKKF.

The restoration of the functioning of the Naval Academy of the RKKF in March 1922 opens up the prospect for Smirnov-Svetlovsky to receive a naval education. Petr Ivanovich goes to the Naval Academy and studies hard, learning the specifics of maritime affairs, as well as tactics and operational art.

At the academy, Smirnov-Svetlovsky acquires good theoretical maritime training, backed up by no less excellent maritime practice. In July-December 1924, in the position of commissar and senior assistant to the commander of the Vorovsky patrol ship, he made a long-range foreign voyage from Arkhangelsk to Vladivostok around Europe. At the end of this campaign, Peter Ivanovich was appointed military adviser to the leader of the Chinese revolution, Sun Yat-sen.

After graduating from the academy, Petr Ivanovich in 1927, he took the position of commander of the Novik-class destroyer, then commander of the destroyer squadron in the naval forces of the Baltic Sea, refusing to be appointed to prestigious and high posts.

For a long time from 1930 to 1931 and from 1934 to 1937 Smirnov-Svetlovsky served as an inspector of the Red Army Naval Administration. During this period of time, he actively participates in fleet exercises in the Baltic and Black Seas, as well as in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Petr Ivanovich published in those years in the "Naval Collection" a number of articles on issues of naval construction, operational art and tactics.

In 1937, he was awarded the military rank "Fleet Flagship 1st Rank", which corresponds to the current military naval rank - Vice Admiral.

August 15, 1937 Smirnov-Svetlovsky was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet. And on December 30, 1937, the People's Commissariat of the Navy of the USSR was formed. Taking into account Pyotr Ivanovich's many years of experience in the Central Office of the Naval Forces of the Red Army, on January 15, 1938, he was appointed First Deputy People's Commissar of the Navy with the military rank of fleet flagship of the 2nd rank (admiral).

On June 30, 1938, the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR Pyotr Alexandrovich Smirnov, namesake and direct boss, was arrested. Pyotr Ivanovich Smirnov-Svetlovsky had to take up the temporary duties of People's Commissar of the USSR Navy.

On September 8, 1938, commander of the 1st rank MP Frinovsky, who had previously served as deputy head of the NKVD, was appointed People's Commissar of the Navy. Smirnov-Svetlovsky was approved as his first deputy. Peter Ivanovich still had to prepare all the main decisions for managing the fleet at that difficult time.

The year 1939 has come. Smirnov-Svetlovsky still continued to actually lead the fleet, and the People's Commissar of the Navy, Frinovsky, mainly performed representative functions. But the clouds of Stalin's discontent were gathering over both of them.

Pyotr Ivanovich Smirnov-Svetlovsky was arrested on March 26, 1939. One of the grounds for the arrest was the testimony of his former boss, the first people's commissar of the USSR Navy, army commissar 1st rank P. A. Smirnov.

For a whole year, confessions of "enemy activity" were beaten out of Pyotr Ivanovich. At the same time, “physical measures of influence” were used, but simply beatings, torture and, “standing on the conveyor”, when the person under investigation stood for many hours, and the investigators changed.

On March 16, 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR considered the fabricated case of Smirnov-Svetlovsky, he was charged with hostile activity. Despite the merits of Pyotr Ivanovich Smirnov-Svetlovsky to the country during the years of the Civil War and the revival of the fleet, he was sentenced to capital punishment - execution. The sentence was carried out on March 17, 1940.

In 1956, Petr Ivanovich Smirnov-Svetlovsky was completely rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

A. Zaitsev, (based on the materials of Associate Professor of the Kuban State Technical University S. Bliznichenko. )

Gamarnik's shot was fired on May 31 - and the post of head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army became vacant. In reality, first of all, the army commissar of the 2nd rank Gaik Osepyan, the acting deputy of Yan Borisovich and the army commissar of the 2nd rank, Anton Bulin, who recently took over from Feldman the Management of the Commanding Staff of the Red Army, could claim it first of all. However, Osepyan's candidacy was immediately rejected, since on the day when the fatal shot for Gamarnik sounded, he was arrested and taken to the inner prison of the NKVD. Of course, any of the heads of political departments or members of the Military Council of the districts, as well as the head of the PURKKA department, especially the 1st or 2nd (organizational and propaganda, respectively) could be appointed to it. The list of applicants could also include the responsible secretary of the party commission at this authorized political body, which worked as a department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. And even the senior inspector of the 1st department of PURKKA - after all, in the middle of 1937 there was nothing unusual in the fact that the "star" of individual, party functionaries began to rapidly rise in the Moscow (and not only in Moscow!) sky, so that then, as as a rule, it is also uncontrollably fast to roll.

Therefore, you don’t notice anything out of the ordinary when reading one of the fragments of Ilya Dubinsky’s memoirs “A Special Account”. Being summoned from Kyiv to Moscow about his dismissal from the ranks of the Red Army, the commander of a separate tank brigade, Colonel Dubinsky, is trying to enlist support from the senior inspector of the PURKKA brigade commissar A.M. Kruglova-Landa.

“... He is aware of all events. Who, if not the senior inspector of the PUR, should know the situation thoroughly. He explains a lot to me, tells me a lot.

“I’m coming to you,” I told him on the phone.

"That's impossible," I heard dryly. - Come to PUR.

On the Arbat they gave me a pass, but Kruglov's office was empty. I turned to the secretary. He pointed to the door for me. A plaque hung on it: "Head of the PUR of the Red Army." It surprised me...

Now Kruglov was sitting behind the cherished door - my friend, comrade, bosom friend. But why did he say “you” on the phone and not “you”?

The new head of the PUR met me standing up. Called the secretary. He sat him down at the table… He looked at me with a dry, hard look.

- I'm listening to you!

“It seems to me that I will have to regret that I asked for this date,” I said, dumbfounded by the sort of reception of a former friend.

- That's your business. Speak!

The secretary, writing down the conversation, leaned over the paper.

- I was called to Bulin. Do you not know why?

“I know you should have been called. Do you know order number 82?

- So what? What do you think to do? Comrade Stalin and the people's commissar promise not only to forgive, but also to leave honestly repentant conspirators in the army. What did you come with?

- I have nothing to go with! I'm not a conspirator! And in this regard, I have nothing to repent.

- Which one has it?

– That he served under the command of Yakir. Obviously, since I am not a layman, I understand that this may cause some legitimate doubts in me and suggest some measure of retribution.

- That's not the point. The bottom line is, did Yakir and Schmidt recruit you into a counter-revolutionary conspiracy?..

... We had a great friendship. And now between us failure. I'm on the verge of falling, and Kruglov is uplifted. I am a disgraced colonel, he is the head of the PUR ... "

Ilya Dubinsky described an interesting case from his eventful biography in the above excerpt from his memoirs. It is likely that such a meeting with a former friend, his former deputy for political affairs, Kruglov-Landa, and the aforementioned conversation with him at Dubinsky really took place in the building of the Political Directorate of the Red Army. And the accents there, apparently, were placed exactly the same as it was said in the memoirs. Bitterness and disappointment is caused in the reader by the dialogue of these two people, who had recently been friends with each other. And what can we say about the feelings of the petitioner himself (Dubinsky), who was looking for reliable protection and help from a close friend ...

Everything here is basically true except for one thing. The scrupulous chronicler of the Red Cossacks is mistaken - his fighting friend, Brigadier Commissar A.M. Kruglov-Landa as head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army. An analysis of the content of the orders of the NCO on the personnel of the army shows that he, being in June 1937 the senior inspector of PURKKA, for some time acted as the executive secretary of the party commission and in this position, apparently, until the arrival of the army commissar of the 2nd rank P.A. . Smirnov, for several days remained for him in the former office of Ya.B. Gamarnika. The fact is that only two weeks after Gamarnik's suicide, the People's Commissar of Defense issued an order (No. 2461 of June 15, 1937), which announced the appointment of Pyotr Alexandrovich Smirnov, a member of the Military Council of the LVO, as head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army. That is how long it took Voroshilov to agree and approve in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks the candidacy of his new deputy for political affairs.

We mentioned the name G.A. Osepyan, who, according to his position, was to assume the duties of the head of PURKKA. However, this did not happen in reality - Osepyan was arrested on the night of May 30-31, and after the death of Gamarnik, all the highest party and political power in the Red Army fell on the shoulders of Corps Commissar K.G. Sidorov, Executive Secretary of the Party Commission at PURKKA. As for A.M. Kruglova-Landa, he began to replace Sidorov during his absence.

Quite naturally, the question arises - what was the new head of PURKKA, who replaced Gamarnik in such a difficult and difficult time for the army, like? What is his official and party biography, which allowed him to occupy the highest rung in the party-political hierarchy of the Red Army? What position did he adhere to on topical and burning issues of public and party life? Turning to his personal file, we see that P.A. Smirnov in 1897 in a working-class family in the village of the Belo-Kholunitsky plant in the Vyatka province. He managed to finish a two-year school and a vocational school. From the age of thirteen, he began to work independently - as a digger at the construction of the road, as a carpenter at the Lysva plant, where he took part in the strike movement, working in the health insurance fund as an authorized shop. Since October 1917 - a Red Guard, chairman of the shop committee, member of the factory committee in the city of Lysva and the Perm provincial headquarters of the Red Guard. Member of the Bolshevik Party since March 1917. Smirnov spent the entire civil war at the forefront as a military commissar of a regiment, brigade, division on the Eastern, Southeastern and Caucasian fronts.

During the years of peaceful construction, P.A. Smirnov occupies responsible political positions in the Red Army: military commissar of a division and corps in the North Caucasian, Belorussian and Moscow military districts, then a member of the Revolutionary Military Council and head of the political department of the Baltic Fleet (January 1926 - March 1928), North Caucasian, Volga, Belorussian and Leningrad military districts (April 1928 - June 1937). He was repeatedly elected to the leading party bodies and, starting in 1923, was a member of the Kuban-Chernomorsk Regional Committee. Leningrad Provincial Committee. North Caucasian, Middle Volga provincial committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus. He was a delegate to five congresses of the CPSU (b) and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. For participation in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. He graduated from advanced training courses for senior political staff at the Military-Political Academy named after N.G. Tolmachev and courses of Marxism-Leninism at the Communist Academy.

The biography is quite common for a leading political worker of the highest echelon of the Red Army. Approximately the same had by 1937 other heads of political departments and members of the military councils of the districts. So why did Stalin and Voroshilov choose Pyotr Smirnov and not anyone else? How to explain all this? One cannot seriously accept the hypothesis that Smirnov's appointment was due to the fact that none of the other members of the Military Councils and heads of political departments of the districts had experience in both the army and the navy, but he was the only one of all who had it. In our opinion, such an opinion has the right to exist, but it is not decisive and the only true one.

So what is the secret of the appointment of P.A. Smirnova? We think. that in this case the whole thing lay in some of the personal qualities of Pyotr Alexandrovich and the style of his activity. It is known that each time requires its own people - both organizers and performers. And 1937 is a special year. He presented new, many times increased demands to the command cadres of the Red Army - increased “vigilance to the intrigues of enemies of the people”, improved activities to search for and uproot them, which was, of course, a political campaign. First of all, of course, the head of the PURKKA and his apparatus were obliged to organize it on the scale of the Red Army. Therefore, after the trial of the Tukhachevsky group and the suicide of Gamarnik, the position of the chief head of the party-political apparatus of the army and navy was to be taken by a hard man, to a large extent (by Bolshevik standards) unprincipled, able to strictly ask even his close friend: “Are you an enemy? ? Has anyone been recruited into a military-fascist (or Right-Trotskyist) conspiracy?!”

Such a burden was clearly beyond the capacity of such Smirnov's colleagues in the districts and fleets as M.P. Amelin (KVO), S.N. Kozhevnikov (HVO), G.I. Veklichev (SKVO), G.S. Okunev (Pacific Fleet), V.N. Shestakov (ZabVO), A.P. Yartsev (ZakVO). But Pyotr Smirnov, Efim Shchadenko, Lev Mekhlis, according to the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, suited the role of zealous "cleaners" as well as possible in many respects. Regarding P.A. Smirnov's qualities, which were repeatedly pointed out in the attestations by the relevant superiors, apparently played their negative-positive role here. For example, in the certification for 1926–1927 for a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Naval Forces of the Baltic Sea, P.A. Smirnov, it was noted: “... Energetic, efficient, possesses perseverance bordering on stubbornness ... Thanks to the properties of his character and the objectively prevailing situation, he subordinated command to his influence and dictates his will even in matters of combat training. He enjoys due authority among the personnel, although the old sailors do not like him for his heavy hand and coastal slope. The latter sometimes goes too far…”

So, in the middle of 1937, the "heavy hand" of Peter Smirnov was needed not only at the naval and district level, but also on the scale of the entire Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. About how she, this hand of the new head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army "cleaned" the cadres of commanders and political workers in the center and in the field, is said in the unpublished memoirs of the retired divisional commissar A.V. Terentiev, who knew Smirnov for more than one year, who studied with him in the courses of Marxism-Leninism at the Communist Academy.

“... Here, for example, Smirnov Petr Alexandrovich, who happened to know closely ... When he became the beginning. PUR, and I'm the commissar of the mountain builder's corps. Komsomolsk-on-Amur (So in the original manuscript. We are talking about a separate military construction building. - LF.) met twice. The first time he came as early. PUR (This was at the end of 1937. - LF.) Talked. The second time he was already coming as the people's commissar of the Navy, who had already believed in the correctness of the personality cult, lost his mind, as the people's commissar gave sanction for the arrest of hundreds, primarily leading, army cadres.

I had a one-on-one conversation with him in his car. He turned away and said to me with tears: “Tell me, Terentyev, are you an enemy of the people? Tell the truth, your fate is sealed anyway, but I want to know. Honestly!" My answer is also with tears: “Peter Alexandrovich! Do you believe what you say? I am and will be a Bolshevik devoted to the party. Under all circumstances, I will remain them. Of course he didn't believe me. He removed me from my post and gave the signal to expel me from the party.

For me, the time has come for suffering, trials, and he left Komsomolsk as a fighter for Stalin, for the party. And it so happened that I was still waiting for my fate, and he, having arrived in Moscow, soon found himself removed from the post of people's commissar and after some time arrested. While still free, I read in the newspapers that he, as an enemy of the people, was shot. I had to say: “Dear friend Pyotr Alexandrovich! How many hundreds have you killed, giving sanction for the arrest of honest people, and you yourself became a victim of this madness ... "

The appointment of Smirnov to the post of head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army coincided not only with the wave of repressions against the Red Army personnel that was gaining speed, but also with the holding of several extremely important events in the field of party political work. Practically to put them into practice fell to his lot. First of all, we are talking about such measures as the partial curtailment of unity of command in the army and navy by introducing the institution of military commissars, as well as the creation of military councils in military districts and fleets.

Let us recall that until 1934 the revolutionary military councils existed for ten years in all military districts. In accordance with the guidelines of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, by a decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of June 20, 1934, the Revolutionary Military Council of the country was liquidated, and the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs was renamed the People's Commissariat of Defense. Six months later, in November 1934, the Regulations on the Military Council under the NPO as an advisory body were approved. At the same time, the Regulations on the management of the military district were announced, which did not provide for the functioning of the military council. The head of the political department became (by position) deputy commander for political affairs, simultaneously reporting to the head of the Political Department of the Red Army.

The year 1937 has come ... The growth of aggressive aspirations on the part of some neighboring states, and above all Germany and Japan, forced the leadership of the Soviet Union to take a number of measures to further improve their armed forces and increase their combat capability. So, as a country that does not fully meet the needs of the country's defense, it was necessary to abandon the mixed organization of troops - territorial and personnel - and completely switch to a personnel basis for recruiting the army. In addition, the army and navy grew in numbers, their technical equipment changed on the basis of the success of the country's industrialization.

Under these conditions, the leadership of the CPSU (b) considered it necessary to take additional measures to strengthen party influence in the Red Army. And one more circumstance inspired alarm in him - the number of army communists continued to decline uncontrollably. At the end of 1936, there were about 150 thousand of them - two times less than at the beginning of the 30s, and therefore the party stratum in the Red Army by that time had decreased by more than two times. The proportion of communists among the rank and file and junior command staff decreased especially strongly - they accounted for less than one percent in the party organizations of the army and navy, which was the lowest figure since the creation of party cells in the Red Army. Moreover, this trend continued to remain fairly stable in 1937, as evidenced by the above figures for the Kharkov Military District. The expansion of the scale of repressions further aggravated the situation for P.A. Smirnov, one of the experienced army political workers, should have understood this very well.

The rapid growth of the army and navy, on the one hand, and the decrease in the number of communists there, on the other, created a threat of weakening the party leadership of the country's armed forces and reducing party influence in them. In addition, due to the rapid deployment of new units and formations, a significant number of commanders, primarily young ones who did not have sufficient experience in leading troops, were promoted to higher positions. The resulting situation could not but worry the leaders of the country, the People's Commissariat of Defense and the Political Directorate of the Red Army - and it became the subject of discussion at a meeting of the leadership of the Red Army, convened in early May 1937. Head of the political department of the LVO P.A. Smirnov was present at this meeting. Its participants made a proposal to reintroduce Military Councils in the link, navy, army, flotilla as bodies of collective leadership, and also to expand the scope of the institution of military commissars more widely, introducing it in all corps, divisions, brigades. In the companies it was supposed to introduce the institution of political instructors. All this, taken together, in the opinion of the conference participants, made it possible to intensify Party political work among the troops and, above all, to strengthen their Party organizations.

Having discussed the proposals of the meeting participants, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on May 8, 1937 recognized them as useful. By the decree of the PIK and SNK of the USSR of May 10, 1937, Military Councils were established in the military districts (navies), armies. The regulation was approved a week later. Military councils were established in the composition of the chairman - the commander of the troops and two members. This body was the highest representative of the military authority in the district (navy, army), all military units, institutions and institutions located on the territory of the district were subordinate to it. The military council bore full responsibility for their combat and mobilization readiness, political and moral state. All orders for the district (navy, army) were signed by the commander, one of the members of the Military Council and the chief of staff. The commander, as before, was the highest military commander in the territory of the district (navy, army). He presided over the meetings of the Military Council, all orders and orders were issued on his behalf. All this suggests that the creation of the Military Councils in the Red Army did not cancel the course towards unity of command - one of the fundamental principles of military organizational development.

On June 7, 1937, that is, a month after the work of the above-mentioned meeting, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense, the one-man commanders were relieved of their functions, commissars, and their political assistants assumed these rights. In the Regulations on military commissars, approved on August 10, 1937, it was noted that the main and fundamental in their activities is the daily political leadership and direct implementation of party political work in military units, formations, institutions, departments and educational institutions of the Red Army. Any control over the activities of the commander by the commissar was completely excluded.

Although the whole Regulation on military commissars was imbued with the spirit of the need for friendly and joint work of the commander and commissar, in essence it greatly clipped the wings of the commanders and gave even more scope to the military commissars, because there was an incomplete form of unity of command. There was an additional division of functions: the commander led the military side, and the commissar - the political side. This form of troop leadership, introduced with the beginning of the military reform in the 1920s, actually continued to exist in subsequent years, although the scope of its application was greatly narrowed. Until 1937, it was applied only if the commander of the unit or formation was not a member or candidate member of the party. Now it extended to all parts and connections.

A certain haste in the matter of introducing Military Councils in the districts (navies) is striking. Judge for yourself: on the same day as the adoption of the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the CIK of the USSR of May 10 on the establishment of these bodies, the personal composition of the Military Councils of all districts and fleets is approved. And this is being done without waiting for the development of the Regulations on them, which would regulate their functions, powers, tasks and responsibilities. It turns out that either the draft orders on the personal composition of the councils and new appointments were prepared in advance, or everything was done in one day, which means hastily and hastily. Studying the content of the NPO orders on new movements of the top command staff of the Red Army for May 10, 1937, you nevertheless come to the conclusion that this matter was discussed in advance. After all, the issue of appointing Deputy People's Commissar Tukhachevsky as commander of the PriVO troops was decided not in one day, but commander of the 2nd rank P.E. Dybenko - to the LVO. Pyotr Aleksandrovich Smirnov was appointed a member of the Military Council of the Leningrad Military District on the same date, the head of the political department of which he had worked since 1935.

If Smirnov took part in the preparation of the above documents, so to speak, with the right of an advisory vote, then after his appointment as head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, he actively begins to appear in the Central Committee of the party with his initiatives. So, a month after taking office, Pyotr Aleksandrovich, supported by People's Commissar Voroshilov, sends to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks a proposal to introduce the secretaries of regional, regional party committees and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the republics into the Military Councils of districts (fleets), considering the experience accumulated in this regard very positive. Smirnov's proposal is accepted. In this regard, instead of the heads of political departments, the councils began to include secretaries of local party committees. Regarding the place of the head of the political department of the district (fleet), the question remained open for some time, and only later the Central Committee of the party, together with PURKKA, came to the conclusion that he should be a deputy member of the Military Council - a political worker. At the same time, it was decided that the head of the relevant political agency should be the deputy commissar of the compound.

Days, weeks, months flew by in worries and troubles ... Smirnov tried his best to justify the high trust placed in him by the party and Stalin, while considering it his most important task to purge the army and navy, primarily their command and political staff, from "enemies of the people" and their accomplices. Directives of similar content, signed by him, repeatedly went to the troops, introducing additional difficulties into the work of the Military Councils, political agencies, party and Komsomol organizations. This requirement runs like a red thread in the section “Political work” prepared by the employees of the PURKKA apparatus and endorsed by Smirnov of the order of the People’s Commissar of Defense No.

“... 1) In 1938, organize all party political work in such a way that the entire mass of fighters, commanders and chiefs always keep abreast of the most important events in the international and domestic life of the country and the policy of the CPSU (b), was constantly in a state of political mobilization and keen revolutionary vigilance...

The entire party-political composition of the Red Army, the military commissars and political workers are primarily obliged to carry out political work among the Red Army masses with redoubled energy, raising each fighter, commander and chief to the height of understanding all the complex political tasks of our time, instilling in them the spirit of Bolshevik stamina, courage and energy.

2) To unremittingly continue a thorough study of the personnel and finally clear them of hostile and politically unstable elements. At the same time, it is the duty of all the chiefs to promote even more courageous advancement of young, capable, unwaveringly devoted to the Motherland and our Party people, daily concern for the education of steadfast, strong-willed commanders and chiefs capable of fighting the enemies of the people in a Bolshevik way ...

... 4) Commanders and military commissars are obliged to truly protect the units from the penetration of the Trotskyist-Bukharin enemies of the people and other pests, spies and saboteurs into them ... "

In the preamble of this order, which summed up the results of the combat and political training of the Red Army in 1937, its authors tried to present the supposedly successful work of the newly promoted personnel as one of the great achievements: “The political and moral state of the personnel of the Red Army, despite the attempts of enemies of the people to prevent normal growth of the army, was and remains unconditionally strong. The Red Army soldiers, commanders and commanding staff are united around their government. Communist Party... High political activity, heroism and selflessness in study and work are the hallmarks of our army.

The nomination of new young cadres, proven and devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin and our Motherland, for command and political work is already yielding the most positive results and will soon have an impact on unprecedented successes in all areas of our work.

The wave of arrests and dismissals among the leading cadres of the Red Army proceeded so rapidly that the personnel authorities did not have time to compile and update candidate lists. This applied to all categories of personnel, including the political staff. Here they were dismissed to such an extent that already in mid-November 1937 it was necessary to prepare (on the instructions of Smirnov) a special order on the state of selection of political personnel. It noted that the staffing of the Red Army with political personnel, especially at the highest and senior levels, was proceeding extremely slowly. “... There is still a lot of inertia and routine in the selection of personnel - they are looking for ready-made workers and the promotion of young, capable people loyal to the party is not bold enough. This is the result of poor knowledge of people, the political and business qualities of each, the lack of strict consideration of the individual abilities and characteristics of a person ... "

All Military Councils, heads of political departments of military districts and fleets, military commissars and heads of political agencies of formations, institutions and military educational institutions were instructed by directive to more carefully check all the cadres of political workers (regardless of rank and official position) and establish the political and business suitability of each ( why not the beginning of a new round of repression? LF.) with strict individual consideration of the nature of the work for which he is most suitable (organizational, propaganda, propaganda, command, cultural enlightenment work). And on the basis of these data, fill the vacant positions of the political staff until January 1938.

Smirnov also ordered that in large districts (MVO, BVO, LVO, KVO, OKDVA, ZabVO) create their own reserve of political workers of at least 150 people. In other districts - fifty less. He also ordered the heads of the political departments of the districts to submit to him lists of candidates for the PURKKA reserve: forty from the first-class districts, and twenty people from the rest, suitable for filling independent political or command positions, starting from the military commissar of the regiment and above. For a more decisive (as Smirnov understood decisiveness in personnel matters, the reader is convinced when reading this essay) and successful liquidation of the shortage of senior and top political staff, as well as for the selection of candidates for the PURKKA reserve, he sent part of his apparatus to the districts.

The second half of 1937 for P.A. Smirnova turned out to be eventful in general. After being approved by his head PURKKA, they followed one after another: in October - appointment as deputy people's commissar of defense (concurrently), in December - election as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the first convocation (he ran for the Council of the Union for the Dneprodzerzhinsky constituency of the Dnepropetrovsk region). At the same time, he was awarded the next military rank of "army commissar of the 1st rank." And the day before the new year, 1938, a new appointment followed, which dramatically changed the profile of his activities - he became a member of the government of the USSR.

This meant that the policy pursued by P.A. Smirnov as head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, his style and methods of "restoring order" in the Red Army received full approval and support from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Stalin personally. This meant that the tough position taken by Smirnov during the inquisitorial purge of the Red Army command cadres in 1937-1938 was in full accordance with the general line of the party at that time and that he justified the trust placed in him. This meant that in the terrible atmosphere of general suspicion in the middle and second half of the 1930s, especially in the highest echelons of power, Smirnov did not show any deviations from this line, the manifestations of which had to be paid dearly, up to freedom and life. According to the apt expression of one of the contemporaries P.A. Smirnov, a former political worker of the Red Army - Academician Isaac Mintz, "they wavered along with her, this general line ..."

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union headed for the construction of a large sea and ocean fleet. Through the efforts of the whole people, it was equipped with new military equipment and weapons. Based on the accumulated experience of operational-tactical and combat training, the development of military-theoretical thought, conditions were created for the appearance of the Combat Charter of the Naval Forces (BUMS-30, BUMS-37) and other guiding documents. They paid great attention to the combat use of submarines, aviation and torpedo boats, which were assigned the role of strike forces in offensive operations. It was envisaged to conduct operations on enemy communications by forces of submarines, aviation and surface ships.

In connection with the significant growth of the forces of the fleet and the change in the nature of its tasks, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government recognized it as necessary to separate the Navy from the Red Army and create an independent all-Union people's commissariat of the Navy. The decision on its formation was adopted by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on December 30, 1937. It said:

"one. Form an all-Union People's Commissariat for Naval Affairs.

2. Transfer the naval forces of the Red Army to the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Naval Affairs, separating them from the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR.

3. The People's Commissar for Naval Affairs of the USSR, within five days, submit to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for approval a draft regulation and structure of the People's Commissariat for Naval Affairs of the USSR.

At the same time, P.A. was offered to lead the new Commissariat. Smirnov. He handed over the post of head of PURKKA to Lev Mekhlis, one of Stalin's confidants, a political worker of the divisional level during the Civil War, urgently called up from the reserve with the simultaneous assignment of the title of "army commissar of the 2nd rank".

By the time P.A. Smirnov People's Commissar, the Naval Forces organizationally included four fleets (Baltic, Black Sea, Pacific, Northern) and four flotillas (Amur, Dnieper, Caspian, North Pacific), totaling 45 formations. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a military-political body was envisaged as part of the newly created People's Commissariat - the Political Directorate as the naval department of the Central Committee of the Party. It was headed by the divisional commissar (soon to become a corps commissar) M.R. Shaposhnikov - head of the department of organizational and party work of PURKKA. L.M. was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Navy. Galler, who for many years had commanded the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

The style of working with people at Smirnov and at the post of People's Commissar of the Navy remains the same - frequent spats, suspicion, lack of proper tact with subordinates, rudeness ... The rapid ascent to the very top of the hierarchical ladder, apparently, greatly turned his head, created the impression of personal indispensability and unchanged support from the leadership of the Kremlin and personally I.V. Stalin. And as a result, this greatly influenced the growth of such negative qualities as excessive arrogance, exaggeration of the importance of one's own person.

Pyotr Alexandrovich, on the whole, did not like to stay too long in his office. Even from the first days of his commissar activity, he was more attracted to work with people in the troops, both organizational and party, and agitation and mass. He did not change himself even when he sat down in Gamarnik's chair, still willingly leaving for the districts. But if earlier, being the military commissar of the division and corps, the head of the political department of a number of districts, Smirnov devoted a lot of time to personal speeches to various categories of command staff, political workers, party and Komsomol activists, now, in 1937-1938, he was the main goal in trips to I saw troops and fleets, in his own words, in "restoring order." Under this term, the new People's Commissar of the Navy, that is, a member of the government, meant only one hypostasis - the purge of personnel from Trotskyists, "rightists", participants in the "military fascist" and other conspiracies. And in this then honorable, but in fact - shameful business, Smirnov very, very succeeded. How this happened in practice, we will see below on the example of the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet).

He (Pacific Fleet) continued to be shaken by more and more waves of arrests of command personnel. Another of them occurred in the winter and spring of 1938. How painfully it affected the combat readiness of the fleet, you can learn from the memoirs of its commander N.G. Kuznetsova. Unfortunately, we have to state that the People's Commissar of the Navy P.A. Smirnov. In particular, his first, one might say, familiarization visit to the Pacific Fleet was accompanied by the arrest of a large group of fleet commanders and political workers.

Let us turn to the pages of the memoirs of Admiral N.G. Kuznetsova. He writes that “... in April 1938, I received a telegram that a new, newly appointed People's Commissar of the Navy, P.A., was arriving in the fleet. Smirnov. I was looking forward to meeting him. It was necessary to report on the needs of the fleet, to receive instructions on working in the new conditions. We understood that the reorganization of the Directorate of the Naval Forces is connected with big decisions on the fleet. The country began to intensively build up its maritime power.

Simultaneously with the creation of the People's Commissariat, the Main Military Council of the Navy was created. (Kuznetsov is wrong - the Main Military Council of the Navy was formed on March 13, 1938. - LF.). It included A.A. Zhdanov, P.A. Smirnov, several fleet commanders, including myself. But so far I have not been called to the council meetings. At that time, a trip from the Far East to Moscow and back took at least twenty days. The authorities, apparently, did not want to tear me away from the fleet because of one meeting for such a period. In a word, I considered the arrival of the new people's commissar quite natural and timely, especially since he had already visited the Northern Fleet and the Baltic. But it didn't work out the way I expected.

The official purpose of the visit was indicated in the telegram: to deal with the fleet. However, as it became clear later, this meant getting to know the people, and we realized that he would deal primarily with the management team. And so it happened.

“I came to put things in order with you and clean the fleet from enemies of the people,” Smirnov announced, barely seeing me at the station.

The People's Commissar set the main task of sorting out the entire composition of the commanders of formations in terms of their reliability. What, one might ask, were the grounds for questioning our cadres devoted to the Motherland? (And this is after twenty years of existence of Soviet power! - LF.).

The people's commissar stopped at the apartment of a member of the military council Ya.V. Volkov, with whom they were old friends. The first day of his stay in Vladivostok was busy with conversations with the head of the NKVD department. I was waiting for the people's commissar at headquarters. He arrived just before midnight.

Wasting no time, I began to report on the situation in the fleet. Started from the main base. Its entire area on the operational map was dotted with symbols. There was really a lot of power here. Airfields, batteries, military units were located along the coast and on numerous islands. Ship formations were deployed in the Golden Horn Bay and in nearby harbors. But the farther north, the weaker the strongholds and bases were defended. Separate sections of the coast were under the contract in the hands of Japanese fishermen, and this further complicated the situation. I saw that the picture I had drawn made a great impression on the People's Commissar. But when I began to talk about the needs of the fleet, P.A. Smirnov interrupted me:

– This will be discussed later.

“Well,” I thought, “let him ride, see with his own eyes. Then it will be easier to negotiate."

- Tomorrow I will study with Dimentman (head of the regional department of the NKVD. - LF.). - Smirnov said at the end of the conversation and invited me to be present.

At the appointed hour, P.A. Smirnov, member of the Military Council Ya.V. Volkov, head of the regional NKVD Dimentman and his deputy for the fleet Ivanov. Dimentman looked askance at me and seemed to stop noticing me. In a conversation, he pointedly addressed only to the people's commissar.

For the first time I saw how the fate of people was decided then. Dimentman took out a sheet of paper from the folder, read the commander's last name, first name, patronymic, and called his position. Then it was reported how much evidence there was against this person. Nobody asked any questions. They were not interested in a business description or the opinion of the commander about the named person. If Dimentman said that there were four testimonies, Smirnov, without hesitation for a long time, wrote on the sheet: "I authorize." And thus the fate of man was already decided. This meant: a person can be arrested. At that time, I still had no reason to doubt whether the NKVD materials were serious enough. The names that were called were familiar to me, but I had not yet had time to get to know these people closely. Surprised, disturbed only by the ease with which the sanction was given.

... I walked under the heavy impression of the arrests. Were tormented by thoughts about how the people who served nearby could become sworn enemies and why we did not notice their rebirth? That the state security organs could act incorrectly still did not occur to me. Moreover, I did not allow the thought of some unusual ways of obtaining evidence.

People's Commissar spent two days at sea, visited the Olgo-Vladimir region. He did not particularly delve into operational matters. Maybe it was difficult for him, a person who did not have special naval training. But he was very meticulously interested everywhere in people "who had connections with the enemies of the people" ...

Smirnov's stay was coming to an end. Unfortunately, he did not want to resolve the issues that we put before him on the spot, he ordered that materials be prepared for him in Moscow. I have drafted solutions. Smirnov took them, but not one of our requests was considered until his dismissal, on the spot the people's commissar decided only one issue concerning the Pacific Fleet, but this decision was not in our favor. It was about a large connection of heavy aviation. In Vladivostok, Smirnov told me that the command of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army asked that this formation be transferred to him. I resolutely objected, I argued that the bombers had worked out well the interaction with the ships, and if they were given away, we would lose a lot in combat strength. Smirnov noted that aviation can interact with the fleet even being subordinate to the army.

“No,” I objected. - That will be aviation already lost for the fleet.

I referred to the Spanish experience, which showed how important it is for aircraft and ships to be under a single command. All this was not taken into account. The order was given, we had to carry it out. Then Smirnov confessed to me. that he made the decision because he was persuaded by Marshal Blucher. Our "persuasion" on the people's commissar had less effect ...

... It was possible to cite dozens of tragic episodes when, after the departure of Smirnov, who, obviously, took with him "detailed" material, the commander of naval aviation L.I. Nikiforov and a member of the military council of the fleet Ya.V. Volkov. The arrest of the latter, even in that situation, seemed incredible to me. He was on excellent terms with Smirnov and, it seems, could prove his innocence ... "

Smirnov had exactly six months to head the People's Commissariat of the Navy, like the Political Directorate of the Red Army ... So to speak, to the day, because on June 30, 1938 he was arrested and taken to the inner prison of the NKVD. There he was already expected by the head of the 2nd Directorate of the NKVD, brigade commander N.N. Fedorov with his assistant - an experienced "chamber" major of state security V.S. Agas. For two days they exerted powerful psychological pressure on him, but the matter had not yet reached the point of beatings - the investigators hoped to break the resistance on the part of Smirnov without resorting to scuffles. Fedorov and Agas made their main bet on the testimony of the previously arrested former colleagues of Pyotr Alexandrovich, who knew him well, primarily in the Belarusian and Leningrad military districts, as well as in PURKKA and the People's Commissariat of the Navy - I.P. Belova, A.S. Bulina, A.I. Egorova, S.P. Uritsky, D.F. Serdich, B.U. Troyanker, F.S. Mezentseva, P.S. Ivanova, I.I. Sychev and others.

They demanded “very little” from him - to admit his participation in the military-fascist conspiracy and belonging to the Belarusian-Tolmachev opposition of 1928; recruiting work to involve new members in the conspiracy; wrecking activities to weaken the combat power of the Red Army and the political and moral state of its personnel, as well as the adoption of leadership of the military-fascist conspiracy along the military-political line (after the death of Gamarnik).

For example, what did it cost Smirnov to read the testimony written by the hand of Pyotr Ivanov, the head of the political department of the Orsha aviation brigade: “With Smirnov’s arrival in the BVO, an underground counter-revolutionary organization began to operate there, led by Smirnov P.A. thought against the NPO - that he was not capable of leading the army ... I personally met with Smirnov and he said that the goal of the organization was to remove Voroshilov from the leadership of the army, to preserve the Trotskyist cadres, to recruit new members. Thus, Smirnov P.A. was involved in the military conspiracy for the first time, and the second time - by A.S. Bulin.

Or the testimony of the corps commissar M.R. Shaposhnikov received from him a week before Smirnov's arrest. It should be noted that Shaposhnikov was a nominee, so to speak, a protégé of Smirnov: it was him, the head of the PURKKA department, that Pyotr Aleksandrovich recommended for the approval of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the highest political position in the newly created People's Commissariat of the Navy of the USSR. It was not difficult to do this - Smirnov, leaving PURKKA, had the opportunity to choose his deputy for political affairs. And he made this choice in favor of Mikhail Shaposhnikov, knowing him for many years in joint service in various districts.

And here before him is Shaposhnikov’s testimony, in which he writes that Smirnov summoned him, then the head of the organizational department of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, and set the task of “exposing the Trotskyists in every possible way in order to encrypt their activities.” Further, Shaposhnikov reports that, together with Smirnov, he managed to achieve the appointment of a number of conspirators to responsible military-political posts in the Red Army. Among the latter, he attributed the corps commissar Ya.V. Volkov - a member of the Military Council of the Pacific Fleet, divisional commissar N.A. Jung - a member of the Military Council of the Siberian Military District, as well as divisional commissars A.V. Tarutinsky - a member of the Military Council of the Ural Military District, I.M. Gornostaev - head of the political department of the KVO, I.I. Kropachev - head of the political department of OKDVA, F.S. Mezentsev, a member of the Military Council of the Black Sea Fleet.

The investigators persistently “pressed” Smirnov, organizing face-to-face confrontations for him, including with I.P. Belov and A.S. Bulin - his deputy for PURKKA, slipping him more and more testimonies of those arrested, who convicted the former naval minister of a multitude of conceivable and unimaginable sins. So, divisional commander D.F. Serdich testified that Smirnov, being the head of the political department of the BVO, surrounded himself with Trotskyists (N.A. Jung, R.L. Balychenko and others). Further, Serdich stated: “... Although no one has ever directly told me that Smirnov is a participant in an anti-Soviet conspiracy, however, a number of facts characterize him from the anti-Soviet side ...” Serdich attributed to such facts that Smirnov made negative statements about K .E. Voroshilov.

Similar verbal attacks by Smirnov against the people's commissar of defense are also mentioned in the testimony of the former head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, commander S.P. Uritsky, who on June 18, 1938 claimed that during the purge of the party in 1928-1929 in the North Caucasus Military District, through the fault of a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the district (that is, P.A. Smirnov), a significant number of communists were compromised, while Trotskyists, for example, like D.A. . Schmidt and some others passed it without any delay. And such well-known commanders in the Red Army as I.R. Apanasenko, E.I. Kovtyukh, were allegedly defame and brought to bitterness. And this was done, according to Uritsky (and to be completely precise, according to the version of the investigative unit of the Special Department of the NKVD of the USSR), in order to tear the commanders away from the party, to prove that they were not her sons, but just unloved stepsons.

Exhausted physically and morally devastated, Smirnov continued to stand his ground, rejecting all accusations against him. This continued until July 3, when the investigators, enraged by the resistance offered, carried out their threat - they sent him to the Lefortovo restraint prison.

If you listen (albeit twenty years later) to the former NKVD workers, then nothing terrible, according to them, happened at the same time. - the usual everyday life of investigative activities. For example, A.M. Ratner, who took a very active part in the investigation of the Smirnov case, testified during interrogation on February 29, 1956: “After Smirnov’s arrest, the then deputy first dealt with him. the head of the Special Section, Aghas, who spoke to him personally. Two or three days later, Agas ordered me to start an investigation into the case and warned me that he would be in charge of the investigation. Smirnov was certainly already prepared by Agas to testify about participation in the conspiracy, and I have no doubt that Agas used either methods of physical coercion or provocative methods ... Smirnov's condition was extremely depressed, oppressed ... "

The test of the Lefortovo prison withstood a few units, among which Smirnov does not belong. Already on July 3, he writes a statement addressed to Yezhov, in which he confirms his participation in the conspiracy. And he also says that at confrontations with Belov, Bulin and other conspirators, he did not plead guilty, but now, after painful reflections, he decided to confess ...

And Smirnov began to give these testimonies, truly written in his blood. Interrogations went on continuously day and night. Thus, the above statement of July 3, addressed to Yezhov, Smirnov wrote, unable to withstand the thirteen hours of torture. He was no better off the rest of the day. Judge for yourself. From a certificate obtained from the archives of the Lefortovo prison, it can be seen that Smirnov was in this institution cursed by people and forgotten by God from July 2 to 9, 1938. The dynamics of interrogations these days and nights is as follows:

Each time, having broken Smirnov's resistance, Agas and Ratner forced him to write another repentant statement addressed to Yezhov, in each of which the names of more and more conspirators appeared. Investigators placed particular emphasis on identifying "spies, pests and terrorists" in the central office of the People's Commissariat of Defense. Under their relentless pressure, Smirnov was forced to write on July 4 that, according to his deputy for PURKKA Anton Bulin, he knew the head of the secretariat Voroshilov, corps commissar I.P. Petukhov as one of the especially conspiratorial participants in the military conspiracy (subsequently, Smirnov will refuse these accusations against Petukhov, but the deed has already been done).

However, such evidence was not enough for the leadership of the Special Department - for them, some kind of head of the office of the people's commissar, albeit defense, albeit Voroshilov himself, was a small fry. They needed access, if not to the people's commissar himself, then at least to his deputies, who, in fact, were all in their sights: it was important for Yezhov's department to "reveal" a new big conspiracy in the leadership of the Red Army. The position of the first deputy at that time was performed by the commander of the 1st rank I.F. Fedko. It was then that they decided to reach him through Smirnov, who, in a statement dated July 5, said that since 1937 he had been connected in a conspiracy with Fedko, whose participation in the conspiracy he had first learned from I.P. Belova.

The more Smirnov gave confessions, the more the appetite of the investigators inflamed. There were still six months of time before the trial (which, of course, Smirnov was unaware of), several dozens of many hours of interrogations and face-to-face confrontations - the scope of the essay simply does not allow listing all of them. Let's just say that the statutory deadlines for the investigation of his case had to be extended several times, which was done by Senior Lieutenant of State Security I.R. Shinkarev.

In the course of the investigation, Smirnov refused some of the testimony he had previously given, while he clarified the other part. For example, during interrogation on August 19, 1938, he stated that his testimony a month ago (dated July 17–19) about a conversation with Uborevich about opening a front to the enemy in case of war did not correspond to reality. “... I never had any conversations about opening a front with Uborevich ... Uborevich did not talk about this with me. I wrote down this wording without thinking it over properly, and at the moment it was somewhat tense for me personally, most likely due to weakness of spirit.

The former People's Commissar of the Navy claimed that his testimony of July 17–19 regarding the establishment of a conspiracy connection with his deputy, P.I. Smirnov-Svetlovsky, does not correspond to reality, since he learned about his participation in the conspiracy from Marshal A.I. Egorova. Pyotr Alexandrovich called his own testimony about the participation in the conspiracy of naval commanders - Stolyarsky, Kuryokhin, Synkov, P.S. Smirnov, Moskalenko and others. "I slandered them!" - unambiguously told the investigator P.A. Smirnov.

On the whole, Smirnov's multi-page case swelled day by day. They forced him to confess to active recruitment work, since, according to the investigation, he had plenty of opportunities for this. That was reflected in the protocols of interrogations and in the indictment. Smirnov's recruiting activity included practically the entire senior command staff of the military districts, in which for many years he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council and the head of the political department, as well as the PURKKA and the People's Commissariat of the Navy. The fork of dispersion here is really great: from instructors of the departments of the political administration of the district to the pompolit of the Naval Academy, the military prosecutor of the BVO and the commissar of the Academy of the General Staff.

The pages of the investigative file captured many dramatic, soul-tearing and heart-chilling scenes that in many ways give odds to the works of the immortal Shakespeare. For example, a meeting at a confrontation on July 13, 1938 between Smirnov and Fedko. The first claims that he first learned about Fedko's anti-Soviet activities and participation in the conspiracy from Commander Belov, and then during a personal conversation that took place twice. At the same time, Fedko allegedly asked Smirnov to find out the content of the "compromising evidence" on him during his stay in OKDVA. Fedko, in turn, did not confirm all these testimony of Belov and Smirnov and stated that he had never been a participant in the conspiracy. Enkavedeshniks arranged a confrontation for Smirnov even with People's Commissar Voroshilov. Although it would be more accurate to define it as an interrogation of Smirnov with the participation of Voroshilov, to whom, in the course of the conversation, the investigator asked questions regarding the previous service and the behavior of the person under investigation. To the credit of the people's commissar of defense, he was in no hurry to blatantly throw mud at his former deputy for political affairs.

In order not to retell the numerous protocols of interrogations and confrontations, personal statements and many other documents of the investigative case, we will turn to only one of them, so to speak, the final one - the indictment. But first, one more, important document should be reproduced, characterizing the behavior of Pyotr Smirnov after almost a year of prison probation. The fact is that the investigation into the Smirnov case was completed at the beginning of February 1939, which was announced to him on the 9th. When performing this procedural operation, Pyotr Aleksandrovich, having confirmed his belonging to an anti-Soviet military conspiracy, at the same time declared that a significant part of his testimony was not true, since he had given them involuntarily, and some of them were not even written from his words, but personally by investigator Agas.

In particular, he denied his participation in the Belarusian-Tolmachev group, carrying out wrecking activities in the army and receiving instructions from Gamarnik for this, involving I.I. Korzhemanov (before his arrest in 1938, he worked as the head of the personnel department of the headquarters of the BVO. - LF.), the presence of an anti-Soviet connection with a number of persons indicated in the case file.

Here's what the statement looks like:

« Question: What can you add to the materials of the investigation?

Answer: I admit my guilt, as a participant in the anti-Soviet military conspiracy, but I consider it necessary to make the following corrections to the protocol records, as not corresponding to reality, as evidence that I did not look at when signing or was forced to give incorrectly by me: the Belarusian-Tolmachev period was covered incorrectly, in Belarusian I did not participate in the Tolmachev group and did not join it. On the contrary, being in 1928 the head of the puokr in the North Caucasus Military District, having received the Belarusian-Tolmachev resolution, at a specially assembled meeting of the command and political staff of the district, which was held in Pyatigorsk, I made a report condemning the Belarusian-Tolmachev group in the army as incorrect and politically harmful.

At my suggestion, a corresponding resolution was adopted, which can be found in the files of the Puokra and PUR for 1928. At the Plenum of the Revolutionary Council of the Union in 1928, this issue was specially discussed, and there I spoke out against the Belarusian-Tolmachev sentiments, which was confirmed by People's Commissar Voroshilov at the confrontation, and subsequently at all meetings I consistently adhered to the same position. After all, it was at the moment when Belarusian-Tolmachev's views were openly expressed, therefore, there were no grounds for going underground and double-dealing. I sharply opposed excesses in the conduct of unity of command, in connection with this, part of the political workers who shared the views of the Belarusian-Tolmachevites supported me. I did not conduct any underground counter-revolutionary work on the basis of Belarusian-Tolmachev sentiments before joining the conspiratorial organization, i.e. until 1933, when the Belarusian-Tolmachevites were used for this purpose. Therefore, the entire first section of the testimony of July 17 is incorrect, mostly written not by me, but by Agas (the investigator). Naturally, the record is also incorrect, which says that the heads of the puokra Kozhevnikov, Kuchmin, Vasiliev, Berman knew me as a Belarusian-Tolmachevite.

Shifres (head of the Military Economic Academy, army commissar of the 2nd rank. - LF.) I didn’t know as a Belarusian-Tolmachevist. Isaenko and Tregubenko (chiefs of the North Caucasus Military District), as Belarusian-Tolmachevites, were mentioned incorrectly, and I did not know anything about their right-wing views. The entry in the protocol that I was dismissed from the Red Army is incorrect, since I never quit the Red Army, but was sent to courses in Marxism. Mention of Vainer (L.Ya. Vainer in the first half of the 30s commanded the 3rd cavalry corps in the BVO. Subsequently, until his arrest in August 1937, he was commander, military adviser to the Commander-in-Chief (Minister) of the Mongolian People's Army. - LF.), as connected by conspiracy with Uborevich, is incorrect, since I did not know this. About Vainer and Serdich (he will replace Vainer as commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps. - LF.) as conspirators, I became aware from official materials after their arrest. Instructions to Zinoviev (head of the political department of the Ural Military District, corps commissar. - LF.) about establishing a connection by him in a conspiracy with Garkavy (commander of the troops of the Ural Military District in 1935-1937. - LF.) and Golovin (Chairman of the Ural Regional Executive Committee. - LF.) I did not give in the Urals. With Rumyantsev (Secretary of the Western Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. - LF.) I did not establish any connection along the line of the conspiracy, and therefore, he could not tell me about the persons connected with him by conspiracy. This indication is forced. I found out about Rumyantsev's participation in the conspiracy only after his arrest ... With Zykunov (head of the department of leading party bodies of the political administration of air defense. - LF.) and Rudzit (an employee of this political department. - LF.) there was no direct connection to the conspiracy, but I knew about them, as participants in the conspiracy, from the words of Nemerzelli (deputy Smirnov, in the LVO, corps commissar. - LF.). I did not receive any instructions about wrecking activities from Gamarnik, and I did not carry out any wrecking work in the BVO and LVO. On the contrary, he sharply set and promoted this work in the plane of its sharp improvement, which Zhdanov (First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) knows about. LF.) and Voroshilov. I became aware of the mentioned participants in the conspiracy in motorized units in Leningrad only after their arrest.

About Shaposhnikov B.M. said in the protocol with a stretch. He, of course, is responsible for the shortcomings and sabotage in the LVO, but I cannot say anything about his personally conscious participation.

About Primakov and Germanovich (comcors. The first of them worked as deputy commander of the LVO troops before his arrest, and the second as an army inspector of the same district. - LF.) Gamarnik did not tell me about the conspirators, and I did not know them because of the conspiracy. On the contrary, I took part in exposing Primakov and raised the issue before the people's commissar and at the party meeting. Bulin did not tell me, as about the participants in the conspiracy, about Sidorov (the executive secretary of the party commission under PURKKA, the corps commissar. - LF.), Landa (executive editor of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. - LF.), Sychev (head of the political department of the BVO, divisional commissar. - LF.)…

Mention of Yermolchik (military commissar of the 6th Air Corps, divisional commissar. - LF.), as a conspirator, in a conversation with Belov is wrong. I knew nothing about Yermolchik as a participant in the conspiracy. On the contrary, Yermolchik filed an application against Belov, in which he denounced Belov that the latter was trying to recruit him into a conspiracy. The letter was handed over to the Commissar by me. An entry in the protocol about Gorev (former military attache of the USSR in Spain. - LF.) is wrong ... Jung (member of the Military Council of the Siberian Military District, divisional commissar. - LF.) informed me about Antonyuk (commander of the troops of the Siberian Military District, commander. - LF.), as a former Trotskyist whose brother was shot, but did not mention the establishment of a personal connection by conspiracy.

Maksimov (head of the 7th department of the Red Army Headquarters) is unknown to me as a participant in the conspiracy, but his personal connection is known - close intimate with Kuibyshev (commander of the troops of the ZakVO, commander. - LF.) and Mesis (member of the Military Council of the BVO, army commissar of the 2nd rank. - LF.). About Petukhov (for special assignments under the people's commissar of defense, corps commissar. - LF.), as a conspirator, Bulin did not tell me, and as a conspirator I did not know Petukhov. Bulin only said that Petukhov was Gamarnik's man, which I understood in a conspiratorial sense. Instructions to Ivanov (commissar of the Orsha air brigade) to establish contact with Kivertsev (deputy head of the political department of the BVO, brigade commissar. - LF.) I did not speak, but spoke about the establishment of his connection with Zinoviev.

Krasilnikova, Rusanova (deputy head of the Communications Department of the Red Army, division engineer. - LF.) and Vasentsovich (chief of staff OKDVA, divisional commander. - LF.) I didn’t name Fedko and he didn’t tell me, and also Maximov was never mentioned between us as a conspirator.

Conversation with Grichmanov (Chairman of the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee. - LF.) there was no direct information about conspiratorial work in the LVO, and he hardly knew about my participation in the conspiracy. I didn't tell him, but the anti-Party talk was...

I was informed about the end of the investigation, I got acquainted with the materials of the investigation. The answer to the question was written down from my words correctly, I read the protocol.

P. Smirnov.

The end of the investigation was announced by the senior investigator of the OO GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR, senior lieutenant of state security

Still, personal courage to Peter Aleksandrovich Smirnov was not to be occupied. Few of those military leaders who were broken for months in the offices and punishment cells of the NKVD managed to find the strength in themselves on the eve of the trial to try to avert, at least partially, the misfortune from other people passing through his case. Smirnov, on the other hand, found such strength in himself, realizing at the same time that excessive denial of investigative materials would cause discontent among the leadership of the NKVD. And yet…

Smirnov's statement does not mention corps commissar Ya.V. Volkov, a member of the Military Council of the Pacific Fleet, who ended up in prison a day after the arrest of Pyotr Aleksandrovich. Admiral N.G. has already mentioned their friendly relations. Kuznetsov, adding that Volkov could prove his innocence. And he really tried to prove it for a decade and a half in various instances, including the highest ones (Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Supreme Court of the USSR, OK VKP (b), refuting the charges against him. V. Stalin, written in May 1945, Volkov, among others, denies the evidence against him given by P. A. Smirnov. that he involved me in a criminal anti-Soviet military organization and that, on his instructions, since 1934 I have been carrying out sabotage work at the Naval Academy to train personnel for the V.M. Fleet .... There is not a single word of truth in Smirnov’s testimony and cannot perhaps this is a malicious slander, confirmed by no one and nothing, of a doomed enemy, to denigrate and gloss over a person who, not only in deed, but also in word and thought, is not guilty of his Motherland, the party and Soviet power for over 2 0 years of operation.

Both at the trial and at repeated investigations, I categorically denied Smirnov's testimony as clearly hostile and slanderous. At the same time, I did not hide and told the truth that I periodically met with Smirnov when he was the head of the political department of the Leningrad Military District, that in my opinion and understanding he was a decent person and worker, since I did not notice anything negative and criminal behind him. And lastly, why the last time he visited the Pacific Fleet as People's Commissar of the Fleet in April-May 1938, if we admit my criminal connection with him, then at a meeting of the command staff he discredited me and my work in every possible way and immediately appointed Laukhin as head of the political department and a member of the Military Council , and I had already worked at the Pacific Fleet for more than 6 months, and in the carriage, on my personal report about leaving work, he scolded me in every possible way and set the condition that if I did not take the report back, he would arrest me as an enemy of the people, as running from difficulties and unwilling to work.

With such a view, I was forced to take the report back, which I bitterly regret.

But it was all in vain! After serving his sentence (10 years in labor camp), Volkov was sent to administrative exile in the city of Yeniseisk in July 1948, where he worked as an electrician on duty at a shipyard until his rehabilitation at the end of 1954.

But we digress. Turning to the content of the indictment in the Smirnov case, one can trace the reaction of the investigative unit of the Special Department of the GUGB NKVD to the statement of the defendant dated February 9, 1939. The picture is bleak - much of what P.A. categorically objected to. Smirnov, however, entered one to one in the line of the indictment. Yes, the formality was observed - the arrested Smirnov was announced the end of the investigation in his case and he got acquainted with it. However, they wanted to sneeze at some objections of the person under investigation (they have hundreds and thousands of them!) The head of the investigative unit, a major of state security with an impeccable Russian surname Ivanov, and his boss (head of the Special Department), senior major of state security V.M. Bochkov (a year later he will become the Prosecutor of the USSR).

As a result, the ascertaining part of the indictment is as follows:

“... Smirnov Pyotr Alexandrovich, born in 1897, a native of the Kirov region, Belokholunitsky plant, Russian, before his arrest - People's Commissar of the Navy, is accused of:

1) since 1928 he was a member of the Trotskyist organization, the so-called "Belarusian-Tolmachev opposition".

2) in 1933 he was recruited into the anti-Soviet military conspiracy Gamarnik was one of the leading participants in the conspiracy and carried out work to disrupt the combat capability of the Red Army and ensure the defeat of the Soviet Union in the war with fascist countries in order to overthrow Soviet power and restore capitalism, i.e. in crimes under Art. 58 p. 1 "b" and 11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

The investigation file is to be sent to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR - for trial.

So, the “criminal acts” of P.A. Smirnov were qualified as traitorous, wrecking with an aggravating weight, in the form of the 11th paragraph of the 58th article. These two points (and even one of them) were quite enough to get the “legitimate” nine grams in the back of the head or temple. In addition, on the first page of the indictment in the Smirnov case, someone from the top leadership, whose decision was subject to strict implementation by the members of the court (this is felt by the content and intonation of the resolution), on the eve of the court session, made the inscription: “Skip according to the law of 1.XII. 34".

The signature is illegible, but it is definitely not Stalin's signature. Most likely, either the Prosecutor of the Soviet Socialist Republic Vyshinsky or the Chairman of the Military Collegium Ulrich could impose such a resolution. Or People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria. And this is in the absence of any material evidence in the case, as was mentioned in the corresponding note. It is most likely that Ulrich nevertheless imposed the resolution, who, according to the testimony of the employees of the Military Collegium, who communicated with him in the service for many years, repeatedly, especially after the next information or report (who knows which of them is more important and scary) to Stalin, Vyshinsky or Beria, put down the category of the upcoming punishment on the cases. The number "1" meant the death penalty, and the number "2" - a long term of imprisonment in labor camps. In the presence of one of these notes, the judges, when opening the court session, already unequivocally knew what sentence should be passed on the defendant. The law of December 1, 1934 did not leave any hope for the life of the defendant and assumed only one thing - death.

The blatant lawlessness that took place in 1937-1938 in the department of Yezhov-Beria is once again evidenced by the fact that the decision to select a measure of restraint and bring charges against P.A. Ivan Shinkarev, senior investigator of the Special Department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR, issued Smirnov only on January 25, 1939. That is, less than a month before the trial of Smirnov and seven months after his arrest. Apparently, while finalizing the case and preparing to transfer it to the Military Collegium, the investigator discovered the absence of this important document in it and, without any hesitation, composed it retroactively. As the saying goes, “better late than never”.

The trial took place on February 22, 1939. It was chaired by Vasily Ulrich himself, for whom sending an innocent person to death was a piece of cake. The court procedure, as you know, was worked out to the smallest detail and the meeting did not last long. Smirnov, as noted in the minutes of the court session, pleaded guilty (at the trial, in addition to paragraphs 1 “b” and 11 of Article 58, paragraph 8 of the same article was added to him), he confirmed his testimony at the preliminary investigation. But he confirmed them, taking into account the statement he made on February 9, 1939, the content of which we have already mentioned. In his last speech, Pyotr Alexandrovich asked the court to take into account that he was not an inveterate enemy of the party and Soviet power.

They shot P.A. Smirnov February 23, 1939 - the day after the trial. By the decision of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of May 16, 1956, the case was dismissed due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions.

What happened to him in 1938-1939 and what was his fate - not only the members of P.A.'s family did not know about it. Smirnov, who themselves were subjected to repressions and all sorts of restrictions, but a member of the government, People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G., could not find out either. Kuznetsov. In his memoirs, he writes that while already working in Moscow as People's Commissar, he repeatedly tried to find out what happened to Smirnov. “I was only allowed to read short excerpts from his testimony. Smirnov admitted that "as an enemy, he deliberately beat the naval personnel." What was true, I can't say. I didn't hear anything more about him. Willingly or unwittingly, he really knocked out good shots , Soviet commanders Being there, on the spot, he really decided the fate of many, and if he really did not deliberately beat the cadres, then why didn’t he want to listen to the “accused” or even to me, the commander of the fleet, and draw objective conclusions?

The answer to such a rather specific question was the former People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov never got it.

The Great Patriotic War. Big biographical encyclopedia Zalessky Konstantin Alexandrovich

People's Commissariat of the Navy of the USSR

People's Commissar: N. G. Kuznetsov (April 28, 1939–February 25, 1946)

1st Deputy People's Commissar: I.S. Isakov (4.1939–4.1946)

Deputy people's commissars: I. V. Rogov (3.1939–1946); L. M. Galler (1940–1947); G. I. Levchenko (4.1939–11.1941, 9.4 1944–2.1946); S. P. Ignatiev (October 25, 1938–January 20, 1942); N. V. Malyshev (January 20, 1942–April 19, 1945); P. S. Abankin (19.4.1945–2.1947); S. I. Vorobyov (June 22, 1941–September 3, 1945)

Chiefs of the Main Naval Staff: I.S. Isakov (10.1940–3.7.1942); V. A. Alafuzov (acting, July 3, 1942–February 13, 1943; July 19, 1944–April 21, 1945); G. A. Stepanov (acting, 10.4.1943–2.3.1944); S. G. Kucherov (April 21, 1945–February 18, 1946)

Head of the Main Political Directorate: I. V. Rogov (20.7.1941–2.1946)

Heads of the Operations Department: V. A. Alafuzov (7.1940–17.3.1943); V. L. Bogdenko (March 17, 1943–August 5, 1944); F. V. Zozulya (5.8–12.9.1944); S. G. Kucherov (September 12, 1944–April 27, 1945); N. M. Kharlamov (April 27–September 3, 1945)

Head of the Organizational and Mobilization Department: P. I. Babin

Heads of the Intelligence Directorate: N. I. Zuykov (22.6–11.9.1941); M. A. Vorontsov (September 11, 1941–April 10, 1945); A. A. Filipovsky (April 10–May 9, 1945, August 9–September 3, 1945); A. M. Rumyantsev (9.5–9.8.1945)

Head of the Department of Military Communications: N. K. Kechetzhi

Heads of the Department of External Communications: I. M. Sendik (October 6, 1941–December 13, 1944); N. D. Sergeev (December 13, 1944–August 30, 1945)

Heads of the Combat Training Department: N. M. Kharlamov (July 22–July 20, 1941, November 20, 1944–April 27, 1945); K. M. Kuznetsov (July 25–September 3, 1941); S. P. Stavitsky (September 3–25, 1941, March 17, 1942–November 20, 1944); K. Yu. Korenev (September 25, 1941–March 17, 1942); I. I. Gren (April 27–September 3, 1945)

Head of the Communications Department: V. M. Gavrilov

Head of the Shipbuilding Department: N. V. Isachenkov

Heads of the Artillery Directorate: M.I. Akulin (June 22, 1941–3.1942); V. A. Egorov (3.1942–3.9.1945)

Head of the Mine and Torpedo Department: N. I. Shibaev

Heads of the Technical Department: A.G. Orlov (June 22, 1941–April 28, 1945); A. N. Savin (April 29–September 3, 1945)

Head of the Radar Department: S. N. Arkhipov (16.7.1943–3.9.1945)

Heads of the Scientific and Technical Committee: A. A. Zhukov (June 22, 1941–January 24, 1943); A. A. Yakimov (4.1943–7.5.1944); N. V. Alekseev (from 05/07/1944)

Head of the Hydrographic Department: Ya. Ya. Lapushkin

Heads of the Emergency and Rescue Department: F.I. Krylov (22.6.1941–8.1941); A. A. Kuznetsov (8.1941–2.1942); A. A. Frolov (2.1942–3.9.1945)

Head of the Engineering Department: P. I. Sudbin

Heads of the Diving Department: A. S. Frolov (January 26–11, 1943); N. I. Vinogradov (December 2, 1943–February 23, 1944); A. M. Stetsenko (June 24, 1944–March 9, 1945); A. P. Shergin (9.3–3.9.1945)

Head of the Medical and Sanitary Department: F. F. Andreev

Head of the Department of Coastal Defense: I. S. Mushnov

Head of the Air Force Directorate: S. F. Zhavoronkov

Head of the SMERSH counterintelligence department: G. A. Gladkov (3.6.1943–25.2.1946)

From the book Collection of current resolutions of the plenums of the supreme courts of the USSR, the RSFSR and the Russian Federation on criminal cases the author Mikhlin A S

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From the book All Stalin's Fighter Aviation Regiments [First Complete Encyclopedia] author Anokhin Vladimir Alexandrovich

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Naval commander and statesman. He saved the fleet at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, successfully commanded it during the war, did a lot for it in peacetime.

Biography

Carier start

Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov was born on July 11 (24), 1904 in the family of Gerasim Fedorovich Kuznetsov (1861-1915), a peasant in the village of Medvedki, Veliko-Ustyug district, Vologda province (now in the Kotlas district of the Arkhangelsk region). Since 1917, N. G. Kuznetsov worked as a messenger in the port of Arkhangelsk. In 1919, at the age of 15, he joined the Severodvinsk flotilla, giving himself two years to be accepted. Member of the Civil War: served as a sailor in the Severodvinsk river flotilla, as well as in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.

Since 1920, he was sent to study at a preparatory school at the Naval School. Frunze, graduated from it in 1922 and was enrolled in the school itself. He graduated with honors in 1926. Member of the CPSU (b) CPSU since 1925.

He chose the Black Sea Fleet and the cruiser Chervona Ukraine, the first of the cruisers built in the USSR, as the place of service. He held the positions of battery commander, company commander, senior watch officer.

I.V. Stalin on the deck of the cruiser "Chervona Ukraine"

In 1929-1932, N. G. Kuznetsov was a student of the Naval Academy, which he also graduated with honors. In 1932-1933 he was a senior assistant to the commander of the cruiser "Red Caucasus (1916)". From November 1933 to August 1936 he commanded the cruiser Chervona Ukraine.

In August 1936, he was seconded to the civil war in Spain, where he was the chief naval adviser to the Republican government (he took the pseudonym Don Nicolas Lepanto, in honor of the greatest naval victory of Spain). Participated in the preparation and conduct of combat operations of the Republican fleet, ensured the reception of transports from the USSR. For successful activities in Spain, he was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.

From August 1937 - captain of the 1st rank and deputy commander, and from January 1938 to March 1939 - commander of the Pacific Fleet. On February 2, 1938, he was awarded the next military rank of flagship of the 2nd rank. The forces of the fleet under the command of Kuznetsov supported the actions of the ground forces during the battles near Lake Khasan.

April 29, 1939 34-year-old Kuznetsov was appointed People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR. In this post, he managed to make a great contribution to the strengthening of the fleet before the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Under the leadership of N. G. Kuznetsov, a number of major exercises were carried out. He personally visited many ships, solving organizational and personnel issues. He initiated the opening of new naval schools and naval special schools (later Nakhimov schools), as well as several higher naval educational institutions. For his services in the introduction of general and admiral ranks in June 1940, he was awarded the rank of admiral.

The Great Patriotic War

By mid-June 1941, relations with Germany were becoming more and more aggravated. Assessing the current situation, N.G. Kuznetsov decided by his order to increase the combat readiness of the fleets. Admiral Kuznetsov, risking not even his career, but his head, these days, by his order, transferred all the fleets to combat readiness No. 2, ordered the bases and formations to disperse forces and increase surveillance of water and air, to prohibit the dismissal of personnel from units and from ships. The ships received the necessary supplies, put in order the materiel, stood ready for battle and campaign.

On June 19, 1941, the Baltic and Northern fleets were transferred to operational readiness No. 2. On June 20, the Black Sea Fleet completed the exercise and returned from the Odessa region to Sevastopol. The fleet was ordered to remain in operational readiness No. 2. The People's Commissar of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff were informed by the reports of the Main Naval Staff that the forces of the fleets were transferred from June 19, 1941 to operational readiness No. 2. Against the measures taken in the Navy to increase There were no combat readiness objections, but there was no approval either. Until the last moment, the People's Commissar of Defense did not send a directive to the commanders of the military districts to increase readiness, which played a fatal role at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War.

Only at 23.00 on June 21, People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Timoshenko informed Kuznetsov about a possible attack that night by the Nazis. The fleets were immediately declared operational readiness No. 1. And at midnight, the naval forces were ready to repel aggression. On the first day of the war, not a single warship, not a single coastal battery, not a single Navy aircraft was hit. In fact, the sailors and the fleet were saved from defeat. And at five o'clock in the morning, under his own responsibility, the People's Commissar of the Navy ordered to convey to the fleets that Germany had begun an attack on our bases and ports, which should be repulsed by force of arms. Then, at three o'clock in the morning on June 22, having reported to the Kremlin about the raid on Sevastopol, Admiral Kuznetsov, without waiting for instructions from above, ordered all fleets: "Immediately begin laying minefields according to the cover plan." The minesweepers that went out to sea covered our bases with a mine ring and laid mine banks on the routes of the German convoys. Fleets and flotillas began to operate according to pre-war defense plans. In August 1941, the hardest for the country, at his suggestion, naval aviation bombed Berlin 10 times!

Here is what N.G. wrote about the initial period of the war. Kuznetsov: “More seriously, deeply, with all responsibility, the causes of failures, mistakes in the first days of the war should be analyzed. These mistakes do not lie on the conscience of people who survived the war and kept in their souls the sacred memory of those who did not return home. These mistakes to a large extent on our conscience, on the conscience of leaders of all levels. And so that they do not repeat themselves, they should not be hushed up, not shifted to the souls of the dead, but courageously, honestly admit them. For repeating past mistakes is already a crime ... Because of this that there was no clear organization in the center, many issues remained unresolved in the field." And here's another: "We paid a long time for organizational unpreparedness in the first year of the war. Why did it all happen? I think because there was no clear regulation of the rights and obligations among the high military leaders and top officials of the country. knew their place and the limits of responsibility for the fate of the state.After all, at that time we were already sure that in the upcoming war, military operations would begin from its very first hours and even minutes "

The admiral was a member of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, he constantly traveled to ships and fronts. The fleet prevented an invasion of the Caucasus from the sea. In 1944, N. G. Kuznetsov was awarded the military rank of Admiral of the Fleet. On May 25, 1945, this rank was equated with the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union and marshal-type shoulder straps were introduced. In 1945, N. G. Kuznetsov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Postwar ups and downs

Marshal Zhukov and Admiral Kuznetsov.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the main tasks of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov, were the revival and construction of the modern Navy, the establishment of its place in the system of the country's Armed Forces and its organization, taking into account the experience of the past war. Under his leadership, a ten-year shipbuilding program was developed, which planned the construction of modern ships, including aircraft carriers. Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov predetermined the development of the Russian Navy. However, after the war, the combative, straightforward and uncompromising people's commissar becomes unnecessary. The "Arkhangelsk" admiral was an inconvenient figure for the environment of I.V. Stalin, his removal from office was also associated with the adoption of the first post-war shipbuilding program. His perseverance and determination to implement the shipbuilding program, disagreement with the division of the Baltic Fleet came into conflict with the position of I.V. Stalin and the country's top military leadership.

The People's Commissariat of the Navy was divided, and N. G. Kuznetsov was removed from his post. Then he had to experience the shameful "court of honor of the admirals" and the court of the Supreme Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. During the arranged trial, Nikolai Gerasimovich defended with all his might, first of all, not himself, but his subordinates - Admirals L. M. Galler, V. A. Alafuzov and Vice Admiral G. A. Stepanov, showing everyone a vivid example of courage and civil courage. Unfortunately, honor and dignity were then powerless in the face of lies and meanness. They did not dare to put him in prison, but he was removed from work and demoted to Rear Admiral. From 1948 to 1951, N. G. Kuznetsov served in Khabarovsk as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Far East for Naval Forces, and then as Commander of the Pacific (5th) Fleet.

Leading such a complex organism as the Navy is not given to everyone. They say that there are no irreplaceable people. However, there are exceptions ... In the summer of 1951, Stalin returned Kuznetsov, who remembered the "lesson", to work in Moscow as the Minister of the Navy. The admiral again rose to the "captain's bridge" of the country's fleet, when his broad outlook, national scale and erudition, knowledge, practical experience, the talent of a naval commander, special human qualities - self-confidence, independence, firmness of character, simplicity and accessibility were in demand.

After the death of I. V. Stalin, Nikolai Gerasimovich was restored to his former rank - Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union - and all charges were completely dropped from him, as well as from his subordinates, due to the absence of corpus delicti in the “case of admirals”.

In 1953-1955, Kuznetsov was First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. On March 3, 1955, his rank was renamed "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union" and he was awarded the Marshal's Star. During this period, Kuznetsov paid great attention to the technological re-equipment of the fleet, in particular, the development of aircraft carriers. With his direct participation, the creation of the first Soviet nuclear submarine and the introduction of missile weapons into the Navy were started, which laid the foundations for the creation of an ocean-going nuclear missile fleet.

However, his relations with the Minister of Defense G.K. Zhukov and the new General Secretary N.S. quickly deteriorated. Khrushchev. In December 1955, under the pretext of guilt in the explosion on the battleship Novorossiysk, Kuznetsov was removed from his post (although at that time he was on sick leave), and on February 17, 1956, he was demoted to vice admiral and dismissed with a humiliating the wording "without the right to work in the Navy."

On the land

The contribution of Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov to the construction, development and strengthening of the Soviet Navy, to the training and education of naval personnel is invaluable. However, his life in the future was very dramatic. The disgrace, blatant in its injustice, followed again. Kuznetsov was deprived of both his position and the highest naval rank, which was rightfully deserved during the Great Patriotic War - Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union. At fifty-one, in the prime of his physical and mental strength, he was again retired "without the right to work in the navy."

Over the 18 years of his “disgraced” life, N. G. Kuznetsov wrote five books of military memoirs, about 100 articles on naval topics and the memoir genre - about the people of the fleet, returning to history the names of the dead and repressed. Nikolai Gerasimovich was one of the first to tell the truth about the reasons for the country's unpreparedness for war and its tragic course over the course of two years, calling to analyze the mistakes and failures of the leadership of the Armed Forces for the future. In a word, not a single Soviet military leader and naval commander of the 20th century left such an extensive historical and literary heritage.

Name restoration

After the resignation of Zhukov in 1957 and Khrushchev in 1964, a group of Navy veterans repeatedly petitioned the government for Kuznetsov to be reinstated and placed in the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense (which would give him, in addition to symbolic, and material advantages). Nevertheless, all these initiatives ran into opposition from the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Kuznetsov's successor, S. G. Gorshkov.

Even posthumously, Kuznetsov could not be restored to the rank while Gorshkov was alive. Only on July 26, 1988, Kuznetsov was posthumously reinstated in the rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union. Prior to that, for 14 years, at the behest of his relatives, no military rank was listed on his grave.

Awards

USSR awards

• The hero of the USSR
• 4 Orders of Lenin
• 3 Orders of the Red Banner
• 2 orders of Ushakov, 1st class
• Order of the Red Star
• Order of the Badge of Honor
• Medal "For the Defense of Moscow"
• Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"
• Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
• Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
• Medal "For the victory over Japan"
• Medal "XX years of the Red Army"
• Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
• Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Sign "Participant in the battles near Lake Khasan"

Named weapon

• Foreign awards
• Order "For Military Merit"
• Knight of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland
• Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 1st class
• Order of National Liberation
• Order of the Partisan Star, 1st class
• Medal "For our and your freedom"
• Medal "For the Liberation of Korea"

perpetuation of memory

• One of the largest ships of the Russian fleet is named after Kuznetsov (Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov, a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser).
• In Arkhangelsk, where Nikolai Gerasimovich's maritime career began, a street was named after him, and a monument was erected in 2010.
• In 2004, the centenary of his birth was widely celebrated in the Navy.
• By order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation No. 25 dated January 27, 2003, the departmental medal of the Ministry of Defense * of the Russian Federation "Admiral Kuznetsov" was established.
• Streets in St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok, Zheleznodorozhny and Kotlas; square in Barnaul
• Heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov" - the flagship of the Russian Navy
• Naval Academy N. G. Kuznetsova
• Memorial plaque on the building of the General Staff of the Navy in Moscow
• Underwater island in the Pacific Ocean
• The strait located between the islands of Bering and Medny (Commander Islands)
• River boat on the river. Northern Dvina
• Public Foundation in memory of N. G. Kuznetsov, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union
• Memorial Museum in the village of Medvedki, Kotlassky district, Arkhangelsk region
• Secondary school No. 4 in the city of Tara, Omsk region - "named after Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union N. G. Kuznetsov"
• Secondary school No. 1465 in Moscow named after Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union N. G. Kuznetsov
• Bust of Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov in the courtyard of school No. 1465 in Moscow
• Bust in the courtyard of the Peter the Great Children's Maritime Center in Moscow
• Monument in Sevastopol on the street. Bolshaya Morskaya
• Monument at the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok
• Monument to Admiral Kuznetsov in Arkhangelsk
• Bust in the city of Kotlas, Arkhanegl region. at the House of Children's Creativity
• Memorial plaque in Khabarovsk, on the house where the admiral lived, on the street. Zaparin, opposite the headquarters of the Air Defense Forces

In many cities of the former Soviet Union, you can find memorial plaques twice to the Admiral of the Soviet Union.

Image in art and media

Films

• Far-Close (film interview) Tsentrnauchfilm, dir. V. A. Nikolaeva, 1971
• The first day - the last day (War through the eyes of the naval minister) doc. APN film
• unknown war. part 17. Allies (documentary series, dir. R. Karmen) (episodes)

Literature and sources of information

• Bulatov V.N. Admiral Kuznetsov
• Rudny V.A. readiness number 1

Links

Gallery

Video