Strokes to the portrait of the Stalinist judge Vasily Ulrich
The name of the long-term chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, Ulrich, today, perhaps, says little to the younger generation. But behind this name is hidden not just the fate of some regular Stalinist temporary worker, who suddenly lost the favor of the owner. Behind him is a whole era of Soviet political terror, and in the center, as an ominous symbol, is the year 1937.

The path to the top of the judiciary, Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich, passed in a fairly short time. Thanks to the revolutionary origin. He was born on July 1, 1889 in Riga into a family, as he himself wrote in the questionnaires, of a "professional revolutionary." Since February 1920, Ulrich, having no legal education behind him, was appointed chairman of the Main Military Tribunal of the Internal Guard Troops. Of course, in those years, the “correct” origin and political allegiance played a much greater role than competence. And perhaps the fact that Ulrich's wife, Anna Davidovna Kassel, worked in Lenin's secretariat is also important.

In July 1921, Ulrich was appointed chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, then his fate was finally determined. Since 1923, he has been the chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, and since 1926, for more than two decades, he has been chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court (VKVS) of the USSR.

Beginning in 1933, all the high-profile political trials trumpeted in the Soviet newspapers were presided over by Ulrich. According to the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of July 10, 1934, cases of "treason", espionage, sabotage, sabotage and other political crimes, after being investigated by state security, were transferred to military tribunals and the Higher Military Commission.

Ulrich quickly learned the Stalinist science of carrying out quick and cruel reprisals. He understood the main thing: it is not he, nor the Military Collegium led by him, who makes the verdicts. Sentences are passed by Stalin, and Ulrich only has the honor of announcing them. In December 1934, during the trial of the murderer S.M. Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev, Ulrich, being puzzled by some ambiguities in the case, called Stalin and heard from him: “What more additional investigation? No investigations. Stop."

If you take a closer look at the lists of visitors received by Stalin in the Kremlin office, you will find a surprising pattern. Ulrich visited Stalin every time on the eve of the sentencing during the demonstration "Moscow Trials". And it is quite clear why. It was Stalin who personally determined the measure of punishment and personally edited the texts of sentences. Ulrich's task was only to turn the "Stalinist execution lists" into sentences of the Military Collegium. Nevertheless, the HCMC and its visiting sessions in the field held meetings according to a simplified procedure: without the participation of the prosecutor, defense counsel and calling witnesses. They spent only a few minutes on each defendant. When, in the course of short interrogations, Ulrich heard from the defendants that they were tortured in the NKVD and their confession of guilt and all the testimony was simply knocked out, he remained completely indifferent.

During the period from October 1, 1936 to November 1, 1938, the HKVS, as a court of first instance, considered a record number of cases - 36,906 people, of which 25,355 were sentenced to death.

Wave of arrests 1937-1938 did not bypass the system of military justice. According to the routine then, the arrests of more or less high-ranking party and state officials, the NKVD workers had to coordinate with the heads of the relevant departments. Ulrich easily authorized the arrests of employees subordinate to him - chairmen and members of the colleges of military tribunals. But there was someone to follow the chairman of the Military Collegium himself.


The document published above is clear evidence of the sophistication of the Stalinist political system. At the end of the Great Terror, the new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Beria, drew Stalin's attention to the fact that not everything was in order with the chief military judge. It turns out that he is intemperate and, even worse, talkative. But Ulrich could tell a lot of things if he wanted to.

And now - this rare document that has come down to us, slightly opening the veil over the secret of Stalin's reprisals. It turns out that Ulrich was not only present at the execution of sentences to the highest measure, but he himself participated in the murders. I shot myself. In particular, Ya.K. Berzin, head of the intelligence department of the Red Army. It is likely that, along with the Lubyanka, executions took place right on the spot - in the basement of the Military Collegium building.

Now this building on Nikolskaya, 23, belongs to a certain Prom Instrument LLC and is one of the most secret objects in the center of Moscow - even deputies of the State and Moscow Dumas are not allowed here.

Stalin did not give way to the published Beria paper. In 1939 and in subsequent years, convictions continued according to the “Stalinist execution lists”, it’s just that their number was now not as catastrophically large as during the years of the Great Terror. However, Ulrich's skill and experience were indispensable for their design in the form of VKVS decisions. Suffice it to recall with what ease in May 1940 Ulrich in absentia, without trial, formalized the verdict of the VKVS on a large group of specialists - scientists and designers employed in defense work in "sharashkas" - closed prison design bureaus. And among them was the later famous aircraft designer Tupolev. Of course, this whole procedure was approved in advance by Stalin.

And although Stalin never again received Ulrich in his Kremlin office after 1938, maintaining a sovereign distance, the faithful judge was not forgotten. He rose to the rank of Colonel General of Justice and was generously showered with awards. Ulrich's chest was decorated with two Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree and the Red Star, many medals, including "For the Defense of Moscow". Maybe for quick trials and executions in Moscow in the autumn of 1941?

Surprisingly, Ulrich “burned out” on exactly what Beria signaled to Stalin back in 1939. In April 1945, a paper was received in the name of the Secretary of the Central Committee, Malenkov. It reported on Ulrich's drunken outburst at a banquet arranged by him at the dacha on the occasion of receiving awards, where all members of the Military College were invited: “Ulrich addressed everyone present with a speech about how he, heading the work of the College in 1936-1938, fought against the enemies of the people. In this speech, Comrade Ulrich allowed anti-Party chatter, told the members of the board present and their wives about a number of cases that constitute a state secret of special importance (the case of Yezhov and others). Speaking about these cases, Comrade Ulrich, in the presence of women, cursed with public abuse, using the expression - "Jewish muzzle." In addition, the document stated that all employees of the Military College "are aware of cases of frequent drinking of Comrade Ulrich, his long-term cohabitation with two wives (A.D. Ulrich and G.A. Litkens)".

Matvey Shkiryatov, deputy chairman of the Party Control Commission, was assigned to deal with the matter. But he was in no particular hurry. Finally, in the spring of 1948, the question of personnel changes was ripe. The Central Committee came to the conclusion that Ulrich, although "an honored tribunal worker, unconditionally conscientious and honest," but lives only on past merits, "broke away from the situation of today," "lost the feeling of party principles." It turned out that his wife A.D. Kassel (Ulrich) intervenes in the consideration of individual court cases at the request of interested parties, and cohabitant G.A. Litkens has a permanent pass to enter the building of the Military Collegium, and in her presence, Ulrich listens to the reports of his subordinates. In August 1948, Ulrich was removed from the post of chairman of the VKVS.

Having lost his high post, Ulrich took the inconspicuous position of head of advanced training courses for the military-legal staff of the Soviet army. He did not survive Stalin, and death saved him from the shame of Khrushchev's revelations. Ulrich's death was marked on May 10, 1951 by a modest obituary in the Red Star. The funeral, too, was not particularly pompous, although, as eyewitnesses recalled, students of the Military Law Academy carried the coffin with Ulrich's body to the Novodevichy cemetery in their arms.

Nikita Petrov,
"Memorial",
Mark Jansen,
Amsterdam University

Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich (1889, Riga - 1951, Moscow) - state
activist, military jurist (11/20/1935), then Colonel General of Justice
(the only one to have both titles). One of the main performers
Stalinist repressions as chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme
courts of the USSR. From honorary citizens.
Educated at the Riga Polytechnic Institute (1914).
In 1908 he joined the revolutionary movement. In 1910 he joined the RSDLP,
Bolshevik. From 1914 he worked as a clerk.
In 1915 he was drafted into the army. Served in a sapper battalion, graduated from high school
ensigns. In 1917, second lieutenant. Since 1918 - in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (under the command of the first People's Commissar G. Petrovsky).
Head of the financial department of the NKVD. Ulrich started in the Petrograd Cheka
under the command of Ya. S. Agranov as an adventurer and provocateur involved in
fictional Operation Whirlwind. In 1921 they falsified together
called "Sebezh business" and promoted. It must be assumed that this
was not the only “linden” of Ulrich (Petrov M. In addition to the “Case of N.S.
Gumilyov" // New World. 1990. No. 5. S. 264; Povartsov S. Reason
death-shooting. M., 1996. S. 173). For the first time as a lawyer became known on
process in Yaroslavl (1922). Since 1919, he was the commissar of the headquarters of the troops of the internal security.
Later he was appointed head of the Special Department of the Naval Forces of the Black and Azov Seas.
In February 1922 led the mass arrests and
executions of naval officers of the white armies who remained in the Crimea.
In 1926-48 Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the CCCP and at the same time in
1935-38 Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
In 1930-31 he presided over the rigged trials of
"bourgeois" specialists, engineers. Was before. and on the largest
political trials of the era of the "Great Terror", including in cases of
"anti-Soviet united Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc" (19-
24.8.1936), "parallel anti-Soviet center" (23-30.1.1937),
"Anti-Soviet Right-Trotskyist bloc" (2-13.3.1938), M. N. Tukhachevsky (11.6.1937), etc.
One of the main organizers of terror.
Received personally from I. V. Stalin instructions on determining the measures for the defendants
punishment. 10/15/1938 informed L.P. Beria that from 10/1/1936 to 9/30/1938
the Military Collegium headed by him and visiting colleagues in 60 cities
30,514 people were sentenced to death by firing squad, 5,643 to imprisonment
person. According to one of the NKVD investigators, about "physical methods
the investigation was then well known to Ulrich” (we are talking about torture). In 1948
resigned and was appointed lecturer at the Law Academy.
Ulrich was always polite, taciturn and heartless. Many turned to him for
help, but to no avail. Most of his life he lived not at home, but in a room
suite at the Metropol Hotel. The only passion that consumed him -
collecting butterflies and beetles. Ulrich is the author of the brochure "Historical
materialism. Allowance for listeners of the 1st Workers' and Peasants'
radio university "(L., 1929).
According to official information, he died of a heart attack in freedom. There is also no
documented version, according to which Ulrich shortly before
death was arrested and died in prison. He was married to Anna Davydovna
Kassel (1892-1974), a member of the RSDLP since 1910, an employee of the secretariat of V.I.
Lenin.
Materials of the book were used: Torchinov V.A., Leontyuk A.M. around Stalin.
Historical and biographical reference book.

None of us are afraid of executions.

We are all old revolutionaries.

But you need to know who

which chapter to shoot.

When we shot

they knew exactly which chapter.

Trotsky

Now a large number of hunters have turned up to condemn everything, without bothering to prove it. Ulrich himself is subjected to especially fierce condemnations. One of the authors defines it this way: "Having long been known for his complete disregard for logic and justice." (G.I. Chernyavsky. Kh.G. Rakovsky on a court farce of 1938 - “New and Contemporary History”. 1990, No. 4, p. 84.) Another author writes about him as follows: “It didn’t matter to him whether the defendant admitted the confessions torn out by torture, or whether, finding himself before the members of the Military Collegium, he mustered up the courage to dismiss the monstrous and absurd accusations. There was only one final. When G.G. Yagoda was replaced by N.I. Ezhov, V.V. Ulrich, with the usual ease, sentenced the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and his closest associates to death. And when it was the turn of N.I. Yezhov and his entourage to go to execution, Ulrich sealed this sanction with his signature. One gets the impression that Ulrich is completely indifferent to who exactly appeared before the court - he only meticulously carried out Stalin's will, cynically trampling on the moral and legislative principles of justice.

Ulrich was distinguished by a rare, one might say pathological, heartlessness. He was not touched by any pleas, or complaints, or curses. Many wives, parents and children of the repressed (among them there were many people who knew him personally) turned to him with requests for help. He didn't answer. After finishing his day's work, which consisted of churning out another batch of death sentences, Ulrich went to the Metropol's lived-in hotel room, read adventure books or looked at boxes of butterflies and insects. It seems that he sent people to their death with the ease with which he pricked beetles on pins. (Arkhipenko V. Vasily Ulrikh - shoulder work master. - "Agitator". 1989, No. 17, p. 38.)

What was he like according to his biography, this lover of the collection of beetles and butterflies, this "judicial monster", as some define him?

Vasily Vasilievich Ulrich was born in 1889 in Riga, in a prosperous German family (his father was a hereditary honorary citizen). His mother was a famous writer, she had a significant influence on her son.

In 1909, Ulrich graduated from a real school, then from the Riga Polytechnic Institute (commercial department). Participated in the student and student revolutionary movement. His party membership was listed since 1908. He worked as a clerk, and unofficially - as a propagandist and in party intelligence. In the imperialist war, he was mobilized as a soldier, graduated from the school of ensigns and received the rank of second lieutenant, worked in intelligence. After October 1917, he found himself in the NKVD-VChK system as head of the financial department. At the age of 30 (1919) - Commissar of the Headquarters of the Internal Guard Troops. Then - the head of the Special Department of the Black and Azov Seas. In 1922, he was a member of the trial of Colonel Perkhurov, who led the bloody revolt of the White Guards in Yaroslavl. Becomes a member of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. In 1926, he replaced the old Bolshevik V.A. Trifonov (1888-1938, party member since 1904), a supporter of Trotsky and Zinoviev, who was sent as a trade representative to Finland. After the assassination of Kirov (1934), his sharp rise begins. Almost daily, Ulrich makes oral and written reports to Stalin. It approves death sentences for those accused of involvement in terrorist acts. In all the prominent processes of the 1930s he played the leading role. In 1948, as a result of internal struggle and intrigue, having parted ways with Beria, Ulrich lost his position and was moved to the post of head of advanced training courses (!) At the Military Law Academy. He had great connections at the top of the party, for his wife Anna Davydovna Kassel (1892-1974, member of the party since 1910) worked in the secretariat of V.I. Lenin. Ulrich died very timely - 62 years old (1951). He was buried with honor at the Novodevichy Cemetery, where the heroes of the war of 1812 (Denis Davydov and others), the Decembrists, Gogol, Chekhov and other respected people of the country lay. His death was noted in the newspapers. (V.V. Ulrich. Obituary. - Pravda, Izvestia, Krasnaya Zvezda. 1951, May 10; A. Khorev. Judge Ulrich. History and Fate. - Krasnaya Zvezda. 04/08/1989, p. 4 .)

From Ulrich, unfortunately, no diaries have been preserved, his reports to Stalin or letters have not been published. Without these documents, it is difficult to judge Ulrich as a lawyer and a person. But still, we can get a fairly accurate idea of ​​​​him - from the following, for example, a passage taken from the verbatim record of the B.C. trial. Abakumov (1908-1954), colleague of Beria, Minister of State Security (arrested on July 12, 1951). This amazingly interesting passage also vividly shows the character traits of himself; Abakumov and how careers were made in those difficult years:

QUESTION FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MILITARY BOARD OF THE USSR SUPREME COURT V.V. ULRICH. Tell me, defendant, why were you expelled from the Party twenty years ago, in April 1934?

ABAKUMOV. I was not excluded. Transferred to the party candidate for a year for political illiteracy and immoral behavior. And then they restored it.

ULRICH. Have you become politically literate in a year, and your behavior - moral?

ABAKUMOV. Certainly. I have always been both a literate and quite moral Bolshevik. Enemies and envious people dripped.

ULRICH. What position did you hold at that time and what was your rank?

ABAKUMOV. All this is written in the case file.

ULRICH. Answer court questions.

ABAKUMOV. I was a junior lieutenant and served as an operative in the secret political department - SPO OGPU.

ULRICH. Three years later, you already had the rank of senior major of state security, that is, you became a general and took the post of head of the Rostov Regional NKVD. What was the reason for such a successful promotion?

ABAKUMOV. So what? A year and a half later, I was already the people's commissar of state security. Nothing surprising - the party and Comrade Stalin personally appreciated my abilities and selfless devotion to the cause of the CPSU (b).

ULRICH. Sit down, defendant. (TO COMMANDANT.) Invite witness Orlov to the hall. (TO THE WITNESS) Witness, do you know the defendant well? ORLOV. Yes, this is the former Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel General Viktor Semenovich Abakumov. I've known him since 1932, we served together in the SPO OGPU as detectives.

ULRICH. What can you say about it?

ORLOV. He was a very nice guy. Cheerful. The women respected him. Victor always walked with a gramophone. “This is my briefcase,” he said. There is a recess in the gramophone, where he always had a bottle of vodka, a loaf and already cut sausage. Women, of course, went crazy with him - he is handsome, his own music, an excellent dancer, and even with a drink and a snack.

ULRICH. Stop laughing in the hall! Those who interfere with the court session I will order to be removed. Go on, witness.

“...” Witness Orlov, were you at the party meeting when Abakumov was transferred from the members of the CPSU (b) to candidates? Remember what it was about?

ORLOV. Of course I remember. He and Lieutenant Pashka Meshik, the former Minister of State Security of Ukraine, drank together the mutual aid fund of our department.

ULRICH. Probably, then Meshik was not a minister in Ukraine?

ORLOV. Well, of course, he was our comrade, his brother operative. It was they who later, after Yezhov, picked up the stars.

ULRICH. And why did Abakumov grab, as you put it, stars, do you know?

ORLOV. So everyone knows it. In the thirty-eighth he went to Rostov with the Kobulov commission - secretary. There, under Yezhov, things were heaped up in bulk. Half the city was killed. Well, Comrade Stalin ordered to sort it out - maybe not everything is right. Here is Beria, the new People's Commissar of the NKVD, and sent his deputy Kobulov there. And he took Abakumov, because before that he had expelled the former secretary, a complete blockhead who could not even get good women.

ULRICH. Speak decently, witness!

ORLOV. I obey! So, Vitka himself is a Rostovite, he knows all the good people by touch. Well, they arrived in Rostov in the evening, at night they shot the head of the regional NKVD, and in the morning they began to look through the files of prisoners, those, of course, who were still alive. You can't resurrect the dead. Abakumov immediately found some kind of aunt, or acquaintance, an old woman, in general, even before the revolution she kept a brothel, and under the Soviet regime she quietly hunted pandering. In short, in a day, with the help of this lady, he collected all Rostov pink meat for a commission in a mansion.

ULRICH. Be clearer, witness!

ORLOV. How much clearer! I used to mobilize all the pretty ones, pardon the expression. Comrade Abakumov brought booze in boxes there, the chefs were requisitioned from the Delovoy Dvor restaurant on Kazanskaya Street, now Friedrich Engels Street. In general, the commission worked hard for a week: three compositions of girls were changed per day. And then Kobulov made a decision: at the moment it is no longer possible to make out which of those arrested for the case is incarcerated, and who accidentally got into it. Yes, and no time. Therefore, the commission went to the prison on Bagatyanovskoye, and then to the "vnutryanka", lined up all the prisoners: "On the first or second - pay!" The even-numbered were sent back to their cells, the odd-numbered were sent home. Let them know: there is justice in the world!

ULRICH. And what about Abakumov?

ORLOV. Like what"? For his dedication and agility, Kobulov left him acting head of the regional department of the NKVD. And promoted from lieutenants to senior majors. A year later, Abakumov returned to Moscow. Already the commissioner of state security of the third rank.

ULRICH. Defendant Abakumov, what can you say about the testimony of the witness?

ABAKUMOV. I can only say that thanks to my efforts, a large group of honest Soviet citizens, doomed to death in connection with violations of socialist legality by the bloody Yezhov-Beria gang, were saved from reprisal. I'll ask you to put it on the record. This is first. And secondly, all the stories of Orlov Sanka about the mess allegedly organized by me are fiction, a slander of a fiery Bolshevik and a selfless Chekist! And he slanders out of envy, because he himself, Sanka, was not allowed into the mansion, and he was cold, such a donkey, in the outer guard, like a tsutsik. And what happened in the room during the work of the commission, he cannot know.

It fell to us to live in a very turbulent, and most importantly - a vile time for a long time. The voice of one crying in the desert that if it goes on like this, the judges will destroy both themselves and the country, except for empty talk at the top, did not lead to anything significant. As a result, Ukraine today is a laughingstock for the whole world, and the Constitutional Court is already being seized by a raider attack. Where does all this disgrace come from, where do specimens come from among the judges, in whose soul there is less conscience than dirt under the nails? Why is there no justice in Ukraine, and why no one even remembers the honor of persons exposed by the authorities?

Bad heredity
As you know, nothing just happens. Having borrowed Soviet refereeing, the nomenklatura Ukraine lived well until everything was a draw and, moreover, it lay badly. As soon as everything, basically, became someone's, and the appetites of especially gifted comrades did not subside in any way, skillful lawmaking and no less skillful judging went into action. As a result, the slogan: to sue for nothing - to sue for nothing, has already become an official doctrine in our country. Refereeing, as the most important branch of the normal functioning of the state, has completely lost its purpose, as well as authority among the people. At the same time, do not complex!
Is it really that Ukrainian Independence had such a bad effect on the thousand-year-old institution of the court? Unfortunately, this is partly true - quasi-independence, indeed, from the semblance of at least some kind of court in the Soviet style, for the sake of the nomenklatura nobility, managed to make a complete caricature of the judiciary. But after all, there has already been a similar period of judicial caricature, besides cruel and inhuman, in history. Stalin and his henchmen, of course, are not good people, but there were figures with them who were called judges. By the way, the leader of all peoples was a pedant and shot not just like that, but only according to a clearly formalized court verdict.
The greatest master of such sentences was Ulrich. In order not to be unfounded, a quote from the Moscow News newspaper with a response to the 55th anniversary of the death of the mentioned judge. “On May 7, 1951, Colonel-General of Justice Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrikh (b. 1889) died. Since 1926, the chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, signed about 30 thousand death sentences. On average, he spent 15 minutes to consider the case, the sentences were carried out immediately. The convicts who interested him personally, he liked to shoot with his own hands "...
Here is such a, say, a knight, without fear and reproach!
However, this is not the main thing. After all, overworking himself as the head of socialist justice, Comrade Ulrich consistently outlived his comrades in the Inquisition: Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky, Yagoda and Yezhov. In addition, he managed to die in his bed at a time when two other inquisitors, Beria and Abakumov, were either shot or tortured in their own departments.

What is the pop, such is the arrival
What kind of capable comrade Ulrich is this? He was born in Riga in a family of honorary (i.e. very prosperous) citizens. History is silent about the occupation of the pope, while mother dabbled in literature. By 1908, he was drawn to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, i.e. Socialist-Revolutionaries, and then to the Bolsheviks. True, it should be noted here that during the years of World War I, unlike many other brothers in the party, Ulrich did not put a spoke in the wheels of his homeland, but served in a sapper battalion. He rose to the rank of lieutenant.
By the way, by 1914 he was not only working on the “idea”, but also managed to graduate from the Riga Polytechnic Institute.
With the beginning of the revolution - in the Cheka. Worked in finance. But very soon, according to biographical encyclopedias, he succeeded in "adventurism and provocations." What they consisted of, biographers did not particularly spread. Therefore, I had to delve into the materials, and find the boss and teacher, but rather an accomplice of Vasily Ulrich named Agranov.
This same comrade Yakov Saulovich Agranov (as Yankel Shmaevich Sorenson called himself for the people), worked out in practice all the issues of the activities of both Yezhov and Beria at the dawn of Soviet power. Although he is younger than Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich in age, he became his real godfather in the falsification of evidence. In particular, on behalf of comrades Lenin and Dzerzhinsky, Agranov headed the investigation of the so-called. Kronstadt mutiny (uprising of the sailors of the ships of the Baltic Fleet in 1921). The matter did not pan out. Therefore, a certain operation "Whirlwind" was simply invented, and then a host of other "cases", including the so-called. "Sebezh business". 87 people were shot at him, from among the intelligentsia, including the famous poet Nikolai Gumilyov. They were shot just to drive away anger at someone and intimidate others.
The authorities liked this agility of the Chekist, and Agranov, and often Ulrich with him, investigated the most important cases for the Central Committee of the party: the “Antonov rebellion” (a peasant uprising in the Tambov province), the right SRs, the Industrial Party, the Labor Peasant Party. Agranov personally supervised the interrogations and falsification of cases. It was to him that Lenin instructed to compile lists of the leading representatives of the intelligentsia that survived in the abyss of the revolution, for expulsion from the then RSFSR. Thus, a whole “philosophical ship” was formed, which sent the best people of the former empire to forge the power of other countries and peoples.
Agranov, on the other hand, was constantly growing up the ranks and by the period of the Yezhovshchina, he had become Stalin's most trusted person, taking the post of first deputy people's commissar of the NKVD. Yes, along the way, he had extensive connections in the cultural and literary environment of Moscow. Which helped him, among other things, to keep rumors and spread rumors around the capital, as well as to make acquaintances with all the celebrities of those times, including the Brikov family and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Experts believe that it was Agranov who organized the murder of the poet.
However, all these services to Comrade Stalin did not help Comrade Agranov to survive. As a "man" by that time, the former (before Yezhov) head of the NKVD Yagoda, who had already been shot, he was arrested and, a year later, on August 1, 1938, he was shot. And his accomplice Ulrich survived ...

Stages of a long journey
Yes, Agranov and Ulrikh did one big thing, but at times the “beloved student” also received independent tasks. “Since 1919, the commissar of the headquarters of the internal guard troops,” writes the Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary about him. - Later appointed chief. Special Department of the Naval Forces of the Black and Azov Seas. Feb. 1922 led the mass arrests and executions of naval officers of the white armies who remained in the Crimea. Yes, Comrade Ulrich, as his biography says, combined successes in military labor with successes in his personal life. “He was married to Anna Davydovna Kassel, a member of the RSDLP since 1910, an employee of the secretariat of V.I. Lenin.
Since 1922, i.e. since the formation of the "philosophical ship" by Comrade Lenin, again, as books with official biographies say, Ulrich "became known as a lawyer." Those. he was noted at his first trial in Yaroslavl, because he did not acquire a legal education until the end of his life ... Since 1924, he was a member of the military collegium of the Supreme Court, chairman of the tribunal in the case of Boris Savinkov. Let us note that Savinkov is, of course, a great (because he is demonized) enemy of Soviet power. But this is also the most famous militant of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, who acted against tsarism at a time when the leading Bolsheviks only wrote articles. Having received 10 years in prison from Comrade Ulrich, Savinkov, of course, died under very mysterious circumstances at the Lubyanka.
Since 1926, a new appointment. In order not to torment the reader, just a quote from a biographical encyclopedia. “In 1926-48 Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the CCCP and at the same time in 1935-38 Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Back in 1930-31, he presided over falsified trials of "bourgeois" specialists and engineers. Was before. and at the largest political processes of the era of the "Great Terror", incl. on cases of the "anti-Soviet united Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc" (19-24.8.1936), "parallel anti-Soviet center" (23-30.1.1937), "anti-Soviet right-Trotskyist bloc" (2-13.3.1938), M.N. . Tukhachevsky (1 June 1, 1937), etc. One of the main organizers of terror. Received personally from I.V. Stalin's instructions on determining the punishment for the defendants. 10/15/1938 reported L.P. Beria that from October 1, 1936 to September 30, 1938, the Military Collegium headed by him and visiting collegiums in 60 cities sentenced 30,514 people to execution. According to one of the NKVD investigators, "the physical methods of the investigation were then well known to Ulrich" (we are talking about torture).
What a valuable shot this was, says the fact that the verdicts on two executioners - Yagoda and Yezhov were also signed by Judge Ulrich. “A living component of the Stalinist guillotine,” the famous historian Dmitry Volkogonov called Ulrich. And the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn unearthed information that the comrade judge was a shirt-guy - he joked not only with colleagues, but also with people whom he sent to the execution cellar after a memorable 15 minutes.
By the way, in comparison with the boorish prosecutor Vyshinsky, Comrade Ulrich was politeness itself. And many turned to him for help. He listened to them very carefully and ... did not help anyone. “He was laconic and heartless,” biographers say. And one more thing. He practically did not live at home, he lived mainly in the suite of the Metropol Hotel. Either the treasury at that time was rich, or the pay of the chairman of the military tribunal corresponded to the level of foreign crowned persons and capitalist ministers, who, when visiting communist Moscow, were certainly settled in the Metropol. He was also a real fan of collecting butterflies and beetles.
Yes, having worked gloriously on the eve and in the first months of the war, Comrade Ulrich held out in his post, as noted above, until 1948. It is difficult for us to understand the motivation behind Stalin's actions. Maybe he hid his best shots, who, figuratively speaking, bathed not in a bath, but in a pool of blood, in the ranks of scientists and diplomats? As far as Prosecutor Vyshinsky is concerned, that is exactly what happened. In principle, Ulrich could simply annoy the leader.
But be that as it may, in 1948 he received a new appointment: the head of advanced training courses at the Military Law Academy. He died three years later. By the way, the grave of Colonel-General of Justice Ulrich is still on the list of monuments of history and culture of the peoples of the Russian Federation. Just disarmed...
Instead of an afterword
They say that during the years of perestroika, when such a disgusting “rewriting of history” began for many, the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against Ulrich. Then she closed it, but not because of the death of the defendant, but because of the ABSENCE OF A CRIME. Everything is correct, it turns out that Comrade Ulrich did it. All the papers in the cases are in place and filed! Although formally speaking, according to the realities of today, the executioners are not Stalin, Vyshinsky, Molotov, Kaganovich, Yezhov, and, moreover, not Beria. Executioner - ULRICH. It was his sentences that the mentioned figures through their henchmen ABSOLUTELY LEGALLY carried out.
“Yes, the author is laughing at us”? – probably, the reader was indignant. No, I'm just kidding. For the judges of constitutional and other courts have taught us to joke, according to the decisions of which (realizing someone's powerful OPINION) our country is now on its hind legs and is about to throw off the rider - you and me. And the judges (they seem to find an excuse for themselves in a bad heredity from Ulrich) wanted to sneeze at everything ...
And it is very doubtful that they will listen to the words of Alexander Rosenblum”: “Vasily Ulrich is a symbol of Soviet lawlessness. But today, few remember this judicial scum in a general's uniform. And the executioner was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, where students of the Military Law Academy carried him across Moscow in their arms. Well, both the righteous and the wicked rest on any churchyard. It seems to be believed that death equalizes everyone who left this world. And I would not be surprised if someone who has not yet got rid of the longing for Soviet totalitarianism reproaches with the winged words: "About the dead, or good, or nothing." But then what about a story that does not tolerate silence?
Like Julius Fucik: “People, I loved you - be vigilant!” This is an appeal to all of us, sleepy and waiting for either a good king, or stability, but, most likely, the period of 1992-99. Because they deserve...
Leonid Romanovichev