Robert Indigirovich Eikhe, victim of political repression. How the Stalinists reversed the “Great Terror” of the “regionals” Revolution and Civil War

On February 4, 1940, EIHE Robert Indrikovi, a Latvian communist fanatic who committed atrocities in Siberia since the age of 21, was shot.

One of the organizers of collectivization and dispossession. He was a member of the commission “to develop measures regarding the kulaks,” formed by the Politburo on January 15, 1930, headed by V. M. Molotov. On January 30, 1930, the Politburo, having finalized the draft of the Molotov commission, adopted a resolution “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization.”

Historian Yu. N. Zhukov writes:
“In 1930, Eiche’s tough, voluntaristic style of work, which too clearly demonstrated his extreme incompetence, caused a sharp and open protest from a large group of senior workers in Siberia. However, it was they, and not Robert Indrikovic, who were removed from their positions.”

Eikhe led the purge of the party and economic apparatus, which caused an unprecedented wave of arrests. He led the deployment of mass repressions in Siberia. He was part of the very first of the troikas of the Great Terror period (approved by a decision of the Politburo on July 28, 1937). has carried out thousands of extrajudicial death sentences.

In 1930, the troika of the OGPU of Western Siberia, which included Eikhe and Zakovsky, sentenced 16,553 people, including 4,762 to execution, 8,576 to sending to camps, 1,456 to exile, 1,759 to deportation.

Eikhe sought to personally direct the work of the Siberian security officers, intervened in the affairs of the NKVD, in some cases came to the department and was present at interrogations. In 1937, the troika under the leadership of Eikhe repressed 34,872 people on trumped-up cases of the “White Guard-monarchist organization of the EMRO”, “Siberian branch of the Labor Peasant Party”, “Church-monarchist insurgent organization” and others.

At the December 1936 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, at which N. I. Ezhov reported on “anti-Soviet Trotskyist and right-wing organizations,” Eikhe sharply spoke out against his former party comrades:
“The facts revealed by the investigation revealed the bestial face of the Trotskyists before the whole world... So, Comrade Stalin, several separate echelons of Trotskyists were sent into exile - I have not heard anything more vile than what the Trotskyists sent to Kolyma said. They shouted to the Red Army soldiers: “The Japanese and the Nazis will kill you, and we will help them.” Why the hell, comrades, send such people into exile? They need to be shot. Comrade Stalin, we are acting too softly.”

In 1937 Eikhe was appointed People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR.

On April 29, 1938, Eikhe was arrested and accused of creating a “Latvian fascist organization.” During the investigation he was tortured. In January 1954, the former head of the 1st special department of the NKVD, L. F. Bashtakov, testified as follows:
“Before my eyes, on the instructions of Beria, Rhodes and Esaulov brutally beat Eikhe with rubber truncheons, who fell from the beating, but they also beat him in a lying position, then they raised him up, and Beria asked him one question: “Do you admit that you are a spy?” Eikhe answered him: “No, I don’t admit it.” Then the beating of him by Rhodes and Esaulov began again, and this terrible execution of a man sentenced to death lasted only five times in my presence. During the beating, Eikhe’s eye was knocked out and leaking out.”

After the beating, when Beria was convinced that he could not get any confession of espionage from Eikhe, he ordered him to be taken away to be shot...

Burial place: Donskoye Cemetery, grave 1

Exactly 50 years ago, the 20th Congress of the CPSU closed in Moscow. He went down in history with his “closed” report on the cult of personality, which Nikita Khrushchev delivered on the last day of the party forum.

And after three and a half decades, an end will be put to the heroic and dramatic chronicle of the world’s first state of workers and peasants, to the construction of which Stalin devoted himself.

The sage was truly right when he said: “Do not shoot at your past with a revolver, otherwise it will answer you with gunfire.”

Transformation and resistance

In the mid-30s, the young Soviet state managed to overcome the fierce resistance of the Trotskyists with their orientation toward world revolution. It was possible to complete the collectivization of agriculture and overcome the dramatic consequences of the great famine in Ukraine, the Volga region and the North Caucasus. Hundreds of thousands of domestic tractors went to the villages. combines and cars.

One of the pearls of Stalin’s industrialization in Ukraine is the Krivoy Rog Metallurgical Plant. In independent Ukraine it was sold to foreigners.

Modern industrial enterprises were put into operation almost every day, the USSR confidently took second place in the world in terms of its economic potential, leaving behind Germany, England and France. A new generation of young, educated people was entering the world.

Soon Stalin announced the start of work on the draft of a new Constitution. The temporary restriction of the rights of certain categories of citizens lost its significance; they were given the opportunity to participate in elections of government bodies. Voting rights are being restored to more than two million citizens. At the same time, a course has been taken to develop a new electoral law on secret voting. On the eve of the next reports and elections in the party, the leader and his closest associates believed that the formation of all elected leadership should henceforth take place on an alternative basis.

Four decades later, the evil demon of the so-called perestroika, Gorbachev, would distort the spirit and character of Stalin’s undertakings; hidden resistance was shown even in Stalin’s closest circle.

What was the cost of the “Kremlin conspiracy” between Enukidze and Yagoda alone, which became known as the “Klubok”? And the need for a harsh suppression of the Trotskyist-Bukharin bloc? What about the underground terrorist group of the highest generals of the Red Army? The shock and shock experienced then, as they say, “went off scale”, because at that time there were two cults in society: Stalin and the army.

They didn't need alternative elections...

But when work on the draft Constitution, on the new Law on the Election of Soviets, and in parallel with the elections of party bodies on an alternative basis, reached the “finish line”, a group of representatives of the “broad leadership” or the so-called “inner party” at the July (1937) Plenum The Central Committee announced the presence in its regions of ramified underground organizations of “kulak and other enemy elements.”

The initiators of local repressions were the first secretaries of the West Siberian Regional Committee and the Moscow MK Eikhe and Khrushchev, their like-minded people.

It was with their hands that the beginning of unjustified repressions began. Their use on a mass scale was advocated by those who did not have high professional training and a broad outlook, who continued to dream of a “world revolution.” They did not need either a new Constitution or alternative elections - after all, the prospect of deprivation of high posts clearly loomed before them.

Why was Stalin, as his inner circle believed, a highly pragmatic and sober politician, forced to temporarily retreat under the pressure of the small-town creators of terror? Yes, because he did not have a stable majority in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks at that time. It was easy for the “broad leadership” to remove Stalin and his supporters from the post of party leader.

And the notorious “troikas” were used, lists of “enemies of the people” scheduled for liquidation - in the first, in the second categories... Many of the “strikers” of violence - Eikhe, Khrushchev, Vareikis, Evdokimov, Postyshev demanded from Moscow new limits on extrajudicial killings. On top of that, the head of the NKVD, Yezhov, entered into a conspiracy with clans of presumptuous leaders. The country could plunge into an atmosphere of chaos and fear for a long time.

Already in January 1938, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Malenkov made a report “On the mistakes of party organizations in expelling communists from the party, on the formal-bureaucratic attitude of those expelled from the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and on measures to eliminate these shortcomings.” Thus, the first attempt was made to put an end to the practice of unjustified repression. By the end of 1938, the wave of violence began to decline with the appointment of Lavrentiy Beria to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Over the next two years, on his initiative, more than 200 thousand wrongfully convicted persons were rehabilitated. The direct organizers of the repressions, Eikha, Vareikis, Stolyar, Mirzoyan, and Evdokimov, had to pay a heavy price. Most of them were sentenced to capital punishment for gross violations of the norms of socialist legality.

Contrary to popular myths, it was with the arrival of Lavrentiy Beria in the leadership of the NKVD that hundreds of thousands of illegally repressed people were released.

The growing fire of World War II postponed political reforms for the future, but did not force Stalin to abandon them completely. Speaking in February 1946 to voters in the Stalin constituency of Moscow, the leader, in particular, said: “They say that the winners are not judged, that they should not be criticized and checked. This is not true.”

This is the truth about the repressions of the thirties, and not the interpretation presented to the delegates of the congress, thickly flavored with Khrushchev’s myths that, contrary to Stalin’s conclusion, as society moves towards socialism, the resistance of the exploiting classes will supposedly only weaken. All subsequent developments in the country after Stalin's death showed that the forces of world imperialism had by no means abandoned their intention to liquidate the USSR.

Fables of Grandfather Nikita

How did the idea of ​​submitting a report on the cult of personality to the congress come about? Malenkov spoke in favor of discussing this issue at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. Molotov was also distinguished by pragmatism and balanced assessments. Work on the report acquired a rapid pace in the last days of the congress. The initial version was prepared by the Secretary of the Central Committee Pospelov, who did not satisfy the customer. Then it was the turn of Pravda editor-in-chief Shepilov. According to the latter’s recollections, he had difficulty finding the remnants of his thoughts in his creation. And the report itself was distributed for quick review to members of the Presidium of the Central Committee during a short break after the official end of the congress.

During his speech, Khrushchev was distracted many times from the main text, resorting to improvisations and outright falsifications, of which he was a great master. So it was Khrushchev who became the main author of the stormy stream of outright lies.

Evaluating this report, the authoritative American historian Grover Furr, in his study “Anti-Stalin Meanness,” counted 61 cases of gross distortion and arbitrary interpretation of known historical facts. In other words, Nikita Sergeevich lied on average every four minutes.

Three decades later, one of the “architects” of Gorbachev’s perestroika and trusted agent of US influence, Alexander Yakovlev, “will take over” the baton of evil anti-Stalinist propaganda from Khrushchev’s hands. After the collapse of the USSR and the ban of the CPSU, he cynically noted: “We beat Stalin with Lenin, and then overthrew Lenin with the words of the Mensheviks Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, Dan and others.”

In his report, Khrushchev charged Stalin with reprisals against proven party cadres, although keeping silent about the reasons for the repressions. This was true, but only partial. The victims of arbitrariness were 58 thousand communists and candidates, whom regional leaders put under liquidation in the first category, and precisely those who could be seen among the deputies elected on an alternative basis, members of elected party bodies.

The cult whistleblower lacked the courage to take personal responsibility. But he found time to read out a pitiful letter from Eikhe about mercy, on whose conscience there are 20,000 thousand inhabitants in the West Siberian Territory. By the way, Khrushchev himself “neutralized” 45,000 “enemies of the people” in two years in the Moscow region he led.

With the dexterity of a card sharper, Khrushchev tried to blame Stalin for the failure of the Kharkov offensive operation in May 1942. However, in his memoirs, the former Chief of the General Staff, Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky, recalled that the initiative to carry out the operation belonged entirely to the command of the South-Western direction (commander Timoshenko, member of the Military Council Khrushchev). But already on the fifth day, the offensive of the Soviet troops floundered, as they were dealt a powerful blow to their rear by an enemy tank armada from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Analyzing the causes and tragic consequences of the May defeat, Stalin did not skimp on harsh assessments of the actions of these individuals.

And what about grandfather Nikita’s fables that Stalin was planning operations on the globe? Talented representatives of the Soviet military leadership school Shaposhnikov, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Rokossovsky, Golovanov, Antonov, Shtemenko noted that the huge table in the leader’s office was always littered with maps with the operational situation on key fronts, which he dealt with knowledgeably.

Assessing Stalin’s style of leadership of the country and the party, accusing him of the lack of internal party democracy and deviation from Leninist norms of party life, Khrushchev left “behind the scenes” the pre-war, war and post-war years, when the question “To be or not to be?” the Soviet state, when yesterday's allies were secretly developing a new deadly war against the USSR. And the effectiveness of these decisions was measured not by the number of meetings of the Presidium and Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, Plenums of the Central Committee and congresses, but by the operational organization of all forces to repel and defeat the enemy, when in the country, in an atmosphere of complete secrecy, atomic and thermonuclear weapons, air defense systems and missile weapons were created in a short time .

They burned the country and blew up the Union

Objective historians and economists, assessing the Khrushchev period of leadership of the country, called it a stage of missed opportunities. The results of the first post-war five-year plans gave every reason for the country to be on par with the United States in key indicators of socio-economic development by 1970. She could, but she couldn't. Or didn't they?

On this occasion, the Leningrad writer Elena Prudnikova has an honest confession: “Do you know how Stalinist socialism differs from what followed? Under Stalin, the people at the top burned their hearts for the sake of the country. Those who came after June 26, 1953, burned their country for the sake of their lives. The same words, just placed in a different order, that’s all.”

Khrushchev’s “secret” report within a few days was distributed throughout Europe and far beyond its borders. It hit the international authority of the USSR and the world communist movement painfully. The Communist parties of France, Italy and other capitalist countries have lost their positions as the largest political forces. Khrushchev’s adventurous policy for many decades drove a wedge into the strategic alliance of the USSR and China, which the United States skillfully took advantage of. Otherwise, who knows in whose favor the rivalry between the two world systems would have ended by the end of the 1970s?

The overthrow of the Stalin monument in Hungary in 1956

Soon in Hungary, de-Stalinizers began hanging their opponents from poles

Why did the indomitable fighter against the cult of personality and its consequences need all this? Was Khrushchev simply used “in the dark”? Or did his deep Trotskyist roots play a decisive role? It is not for nothing that immediately after the 20th Congress, one of Khrushchev’s first steps was the rehabilitation of the organizers of the conspiracy of generals, members of the Trotskyist-Bukharin group, whose guilt was established in open trials. Rehabilitation was carried out privately, according to closed submissions from the USSR Prosecutor's Office. Soon after this, things came out of there that God forbid: the affairs of the half-dead thugs of the OUN - UPA, the Vlasovites, the “forest brothers”...

Unlike Khrushchev, the main perestroika planners Yakovlev and Gorbachev were much more frank in their vile confessions (though only after 1991, when the deed was done) that their main goal was to blow up the Union and Soviet society from the inside. As people say, Stalin was no longer there.

Demons of perestroika - Yakovlev and Gorbachev

Robert Indrikovich Eikhe, (1890-1940), was born into the family of a farm laborer in the Avotyn farmstead of the Courland province (now Latvia). Nationality: Latvian. He received an elementary education and worked as an apprentice to a blacksmith. In 1905 joined the Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). He joined the Bolsheviks only in 1918. He was arrested several times for distributing illegal literature, in 1908. emigrated to Great Britain and left politics for a long time. But in 1911 returned to Riga and tried to start legal social activities - educational and cooperative, albeit with a social-democratic “color”. The authorities did not meet him halfway, in 1915. R.I. Eikhe was again arrested and exiled to the Irkutsk province. Then Eikhe became embittered and decided that he would fight the regime, and the Bolsheviks became his political friends.

In 1917-1918 was working underground in German-occupied Latvia, was arrested, and fled to Moscow. During the Civil War, Eikhe did not hold major positions, and his rise took place in the 20s. In 1924 Eikhe became deputy chairman of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee, and in 1925 - chairman of the Siberian Regional Executive Committee. Eikhe's main task at this time was to suppress the remnants of white and Cossack detachments, as well as the “green” - peasant armies. The fact is that it was precisely at this time that the West Siberian peasant uprising took place, which was completely crushed in 1926. R.I. Eikhe drew up plans for punitive expeditions and determined their goals, and drew up detailed instructions for the troops and detachments of the Cheka-GPU. Eikhe paid special attention to the fight against the resistance of the Red Old Believers - they made up a significant percentage of the population of Siberia, were organized and wealthy. Old Believer villages and farmsteads were burned to the ground, and Eikhe was especially “zealous” in exterminating Old Believer priests. The Old Believers were rich, so it was extremely important for the Bolsheviks to rob them, and therefore Eikhe paid special attention to the policy of “confiscations.” Another “object of attention” of Eikhe is sectarians. Settlements of Molokans, Lutherans, and Baptists were not uncommon in Southern Siberia, and they were destroyed as “counter-revolutionaries.” The total number of victims of the suppression of the West Siberian uprising is up to 200 thousand people. For this “success” R.I. Eikhe became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and in 1930. - member of the Central Committee.

In 1929 R.I. Eikhe became the 1st secretary of the Siberian regional party committee, and in 1930 - the West Siberian committee. Eikhe’s task was to organize dispossession, and it was Eikhe who decided to make Western Siberia a “zone of complete dispossession.”

R.I. Eikhe was included in the commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, headed by V.M. Molotov, which adopted the resolution “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization,” which doomed several million people to death. Eiche was the most active supporter of the adoption of this document. Eiche's actions to implement it caused protest among some of his colleagues, but he suspended them from work.

In 1933 Eikhe began preparing his region for the placement of exiles from other regions of the country: he allocated places for “special settlements” and concentration camps. In March 1933 he informed Stalin of his readiness to “accept” 500 thousand people, with “settlement” of them in the camps created according to his plan in the Narym and Tara north. R.I. Eikhe bears full responsibility for the death of the prisoners of these camps, since he determined their locations, and, in addition, as the chairman of the regional “troika” Eikhe controlled the work of the security officers, including in the camps.

In 1934 Eikhe asked the Politburo for permission to apply the death penalty in the territory under his jurisdiction for untimely or incomplete grain storage for a period of 2 months - from September to November. Eikhe assumed the functions of court and investigation. Eiche used his execution “powers” ​​in abundance. As a reward for this, he became a candidate member of the Politburo (in 1935).

R.I. Eikhe was part of the very first of the “NKVD troikas” and led the deployment of mass repressions in Siberia. For 1930 The “troika of the OGPU” in Western Siberia, led by R. Eikhe, condemned 16,553 people, including 4,762 to execution, 8,676 to camps, 1,456 to exile, 1,759 to deportation. Eikhe personally directed the work of the security officers, often participating in interrogations and torture himself.

In 1937 The “troika” under the leadership of Eikhe convicted 34,872 people. But the troika “worked” in 1931-1935, and also made decisions.

On the initiative of R. Eikhe, some political processes were falsified: “White Guard-monarchist organization of the EMRO”, “Siberian branch of the Labor Peasant Party”, “Church-monarchist insurgent organization”, and so on.

In December 1936 At the plenum of the Central Committee, Eikhe demanded strengthening of the punitive policy of the regime much more decisively than Yezhov, and even reproached the latter for “political myopia” and “inability to fully identify the enemy.” Stalin came to the conclusion that if Eikhe allowed himself such speeches in relation to his closest collaborator, then nothing would prevent him from bringing charges against Stalin. From that moment on, Eiche's fall was only a matter of time. Soon, Eikhe was transferred to the post of People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR, where he could no longer show his shooting zeal - there was nowhere, and he also could not work: he knew nothing about agriculture. Stalin often did this: he moved those he was going to destroy to “neutral” posts

Top secret

To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I.V. Stalin

October 25 this year I was announced that the investigation into my case had ended and was given the opportunity to familiarize myself with the investigative material. If I had been guilty of even a hundredth part of at least one of the crimes charged against me, I would not have dared to address you with this dying declaration, but I have not committed any of the crimes charged to me and I have never had a shadow of meanness in my soul . I have never told you half a word of lies in my life, and now, with both feet in the grave, I am not lying to you either. My entire case is an example of provocation, slander and violation of the elementary foundations of revolutionary legality. I learned that some kind of vile provocation was being carried out against me back in September or October 1937. In the protocols of interrogation of the accused, sent from the Krasnoyarsk Territory as an exchange to other regions, including the Novosibirsk NKVD (in the protocol of the accused Shirshov or Orlov), the following clearly provocative question was recorded: “Have you heard about Eikhe’s relationship to the conspiratorial organization?” and the answer: “the recruiter told me that you are still a young member of a counter-revolutionary organization and you will find out about this later.”

This vile provocative prank seemed so stupid and ridiculous to me that I didn’t even consider it necessary to write about it to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and to you, but if I were an enemy, from this stupid provocation I could build a good disguise for myself . The significance of this provocation in my case became clear to me only long after my arrest, about which I wrote to People's Commissar L.P. Beria.

The second source of provocation was the Novosibirsk prison, where, in the absence of isolation, exposed enemies were imprisoned, arrested with my sanction, who in anger made plans and openly conspired that “we must now imprison those who are imprisoning us.” According to Gorbach, the head of the NKVD Directorate, this is an expression of Vanyan, whose arrest I actively sought in the NKPS. The evidence incriminating me in my investigative file is not only absurd, but also contains, in a number of ways, slander against the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, since the correct decisions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, taken not on my initiative and without my participation, are portrayed as sabotage acts counter-revolutionary organization, carried out at my suggestion. This is in the testimony of Princes, Lyashenko, Nelyubin, Devits and others, and the investigation had every opportunity on the spot with documents and facts to establish the provocative nature of this slander.

This is most clearly evident from the testimony about my alleged sabotage in collective farm construction, expressed in the fact that I advocated the creation of giant collective farms at regional conferences and plenums of the regional committee of the CPSU (b). All these speeches of mine were transcribed and published, but the accusation does not contain a single specific fact or quotation, and no one can ever prove this, since during the entire time of my work in Siberia I resolutely and mercilessly pursued the party line. Collective farms in Western Siberia were strong and, in comparison with other grain-growing regions of the Union, the best collective farms.

You and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks know how Syrtsov and his cadres who remained in Siberia fought against me, creating a group in 1930, which the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks defeated and condemned as unprincipled groupism, but in the accusation I am credited with supporting this group and after Syrtsov left Siberia, the leadership of this group. Particularly striking material about my creation of the k.r. Latvian nationalist organization in Siberia. One of the main accusers of me is not a Latvian, but a Lithuanian (as far as I know, who cannot read or speak Latvian) Turlo, who arrived in Siberia to work in 1935, but the testimony about the existence of the k.r. Turlo gives the nationalist organization, starting in 1924 (this is very important in order to see what provocative methods were used to conduct the investigation in my case), and Turlo does not even indicate from whom he heard about the existence of the Latvian nationalist counter-revolutionary organization since 1924. According to Turlo's protocol, he is Lithuanian and entered the Latvian nationality. k.r. organization with the goal of separating territory from the USSR and joining Latvia. The testimony of Turlo and Tredzen states that a Latvian newspaper in Siberia praised bourgeois Latvia, but does not provide a single quote and does not indicate a single issue. Separately, I must say about the accusations against me of having connections with the German consul and of espionage.

Testimony about banquets at the consul and the alleged decomposition of assets is given by the accused Vaganov, who arrived in Siberia in 1932 or 1933 and begins in 1923 (this is the result of the same provocation as in Turlo’s testimony), a description of banquet mania, decomposition, etc. ., and again without indicating from whom he knows this. The truth is that when I was chairman of the regional executive committee and there was no representative of the NKID in Siberia, I attended receptions with the consul twice a year (on the day of the adoption of the Weimar Constitution and on the day of the signing of the Rapallo Treaty), but I did this at the suggestion of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs . I did not organize return banquets and it was even pointed out to me that such behavior was incorrect and incorrect. I never went hunting with the consul and did not allow the asset to decompose. The correctness of my words can be confirmed by the housekeeper who lived with us, and by the employees of the economic department of the regional executive committee and the driver who traveled with me in the car. The absurdity of these accusations is also evident from the fact that if I was a German spy, then German intelligence, in order to preserve me, had to categorically prohibit advertising such closeness between me and the consul. But I have never been a spy or a spy. Every spy should naturally strive to become familiar with the most secret decisions and directives. You have repeatedly told members of the Central Committee in my presence that every member of the Central Committee has the right to get acquainted with P.B.’s special folder, but I have never become acquainted with the special folder and Poskrebyshev can confirm this.

The provocation about my espionage is confirmed in his testimony by the former commander of the Siberian Military District, Gailit, and I am forced to describe to you how these testimonies were fabricated.

In May 1938, Major Ushakov read to me an excerpt from Gailit’s testimony that on a day off, Gailit saw me walking alone in the forest with the German consul and he, Gailit, understood that I was conveying secret information received from him to the German consul. When I pointed out to Ushakov that, starting from 1935, the commissar and the NKVD intelligence had been accompanying me, they tried to impose on me that I had escaped from them in a car, but when it turned out that I didn’t know how to drive a car, they left me alone. Now in my file there is a protocol from Gailit, from which this part has been removed.

Pramnek shows that he established a counter-revolutionary connection with me during the January plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. This is a blatant lie. I never spoke with Pramnek about anything, and during the January plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, after finishing my report right there in front of the podium in a group of regional committee secretaries who demanded to indicate the time when they could come to the NKZ to resolve a number of issues, I had the following talk. Pramnek asked me when he could come to the NKZ and I scheduled him for the next day after 12 o’clock at night, but he didn’t come. Pramnek is lying that I was sick then, through the secretaries and the NKVD commissar it can be established that, starting from the day I left the hospital on January 11, I was in the People's Commissariat every day until 3-4 o'clock in the morning. The enormity of the slander is also clear from the fact that such an experienced conspirator as I am depicted, a month after the arrest of Mezhlauk, fearlessly establishes a connection using Mezhlauk’s password.

N.I. Pakhomov shows that even during the June plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1937, he and Pramnek discussed the question of how to use me, as the People's Commissar of Agriculture, for the c.r. organizations. I learned about my proposed appointment from you at the end of the October plenum of 1937, and after the end of the plenum I remember that not all members of the Politburo knew about this assumption. How can one believe such provocative slander as shown by Pakhomov and Pramnek?

Evdokimov says that he learned about my participation in the conspiracy in August 1938 and that Yezhov told him that he was taking measures to save my life.

In June 1938, Ushakov subjected me to severe torture so that I would confess to the attempt on Yezhov’s life, and Nikolaev documented this testimony of mine not without Yezhov’s knowledge. Could Yezhov have done this if there was even a word of truth in what Evdokimov said?

I was at Yezhov’s dacha with Evdokimov, but Yezhov never called me a friend or a supporter or hugged me. This can be confirmed by Malenkov and Poskrebyshev, who were also there at that time.

Frinovsky in his testimony reveals another source of provocation in my case. He testifies that he allegedly learned from Yezhov about my participation in the conspiracy in April 1937 and that Mironov (chief of the NKVD in Novosibirsk) then asked Yezhov in a letter that he, Mironov, “could contact Eikhe” in the conspiracy as a participant conspiratorial organization. Mironov arrived in Siberia only at the end of March 1937 and, without materials, already received preliminary sanction from Yezhov on whom to carry out the provocation. Any person will understand that what Frinovsky is showing is not an attempt to cover me up, but an organization of provocation against me. Above, I emphasized in the testimony of Turlo and Vaganov the years with which they begin their testimony, despite the absurdity. Ushakov, who was then in charge of my case, had to show that the false confessions extracted from me were covered by testimony in Siberia and my testimony was transmitted by telephone to Novosibirsk.

This was done with open cynicism in front of me, did Lieutenant Prokofiev order the phone? from Novosibirsk. Now I turn to the most shameful page of my life and to my truly grave guilt before the party and before you. This is about my confessions in k.r. activities. Commissioner Kobulov told me that it was impossible to invent all this, and indeed I could never invent it. The situation was like this: unable to withstand the torture that Ushakov and Nikolaev applied to me, especially the first, who cleverly took advantage of the fact that my spine was still poorly healed after the fracture and caused me unbearable pain, they forced me to slander myself and other people.

Most of my testimony was prompted or dictated by Ushakov, and the rest I copied from memory the NKVD materials on Western Siberia, attributing all these facts given in the NKVD materials to myself. If something didn’t go well in the legend created by Ushakov and signed by me, then I was forced to sign another version. This happened with Rukhimovich, who was first enrolled in the reserve center, and then, without even telling me anything, was crossed out, and it also happened with the chairman of the reserve center, allegedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I recorded myself, but then they offered me to record Mezhlauk V.I. and many other points.

I should especially dwell on the provocative legend about the betrayal of the Latvian Council of People's Commissars in 1918. This legend was entirely created by Ushakov and Nikolaev. There has never been a tendency among Latvian Social Democrats to separate from Russia, and I and the entire generation of workers of my age were brought up on Russian literature, revolutionary and Bolshevik legal and underground publications. The question of a separate state Soviet organism like the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic seemed so wild to me and to many that at the first congress of councils in Riga I spoke out against it and I was not alone. The decision to create owls. Republic was adopted only after it was announced that this was a decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).

I worked in Soviet Latvia for only two weeks and at the end of November 1918 I went to Ukraine for work and was there until the fall of Soviet power in Latvia. Riga fell because it was actually almost surrounded by whites. In Estonia, the whites won and occupied Valk, the whites also took Vilna and Mitava and advanced on Dvinsk. In this regard, it was proposed to evacuate Riga in March 1919, but it held out until May 15, 1919.

I have never been to any meetings of counter-revolutionaries with either Kosior or Mezhlauk. Those meetings indicated in my testimony took place in the presence of a number of strangers who could be interviewed. My testimony about k.r. connection with Yezhov is the blackest stain on my conscience. I gave this false testimony when the investigator, interrogating me for 16 hours, brought me to the point of loss of consciousness, and when he posed an ultimatum question: what to choose between two pens (a pen and the handle of a rubber stick), I, believing that they had brought me to the new prison to be shot , again showed the greatest cowardice and gave slanderous testimony. At that time, I didn’t care what crime I took on, as long as I was shot as soon as possible, and to be beaten again for being arrested and exposed as a criminal. Yezhov, who destroyed me, having never committed anything criminal, I had no strength.

This is the truth about my business and about me. Every step of my life and work can be verified and no one will ever find anything other than devotion to the party and to you.

I ask and beg you to entrust my case to be investigated further, and this is not so that I can be spared, but in order to expose the vile provocation that, like a snake, has entangled many people, in particular, because of my cowardice and criminal slander. I have never betrayed you or the party. I know that I am dying because of the vile, vile work of the enemies of the party and the people, who created a provocation against me. My dream was and remains the desire to die for the party, for you.

The original statement is in the archival investigation file of Eikhe

Robert Eiche, "Siberian skating rink". He repressed the largest number of citizens, not catching up only with N. Khrushchev and A. Zhdanov. In fact, it was Zhdanov who Eikhe relied on. He actively supported reprisals, while being in the shadows

Eikhe was very upset that non-party people and, worst of all, kulaks and White Guards, now received equal rights with party members

Under Lavrentiy Beria, many cases were reviewed and leaders who contributed to the repressions were punished. Moreover, the investigation dragged on right up to 1941

Back in 1933, Eikhe demanded from the Politburo of the Central Committee permission to shoot 6,000 kulaks. But he was refused this.

Eikhe would repeat his petition at the plenum of the Central Committee in early 1936. Eikhe spoke out against his former party comrades

Eikhe made fiery speeches, denouncing enemies everywhere:

“Before the party public, before all the working people of the country, they swear allegiance to the party, they swear that there are no disagreements, that they are fully aware of their mistakes,

And behind their backs, in their damned underground, they inflame their cadres with anger, hatred against the leadership of the party, there they develop methods to harm the party, there they develop everything how they could put a spoke in the wheels of the party...”

“In this struggle, there is no mercy for anyone whom we expose, whom we reveal. There can be no mercy for these fragments, these traitors, these traitors to the party and the working class, traitors to our socialist homeland.”

“We need to put an end to these reptiles, wherever they hide, the party and the working class will crush this reptile...”

Eiche expressed his opinion and reproached the party and Stalin in particular for being too soft on their enemies:

“The facts revealed by the investigation revealed the bestial face of the Trotskyists before the whole world...

Here, Comrade Stalin, several separate echelons of Trotskyists were sent into exile - I have never heard anything more vile than what the Trotskyists sent to Kolyma said. They shouted to the Red Army soldiers: “The Japanese and the Nazis will kill you, and we will help them.”

Why the hell, comrades, send such people into exile? They need to be shot.

Comrade Stalin, we are acting too softly.”

Stalin again refused to support the frantic secretary...

Only in 1937, having teamed up with 30 more secretaries and several members of the Politburo, Eiche achieved his goal

COUNTING ENEMIES

Eikhe's initial goals were non-party citizens who enjoyed an active lifestyle and former party members

Many of them were nominated as candidates in alternative elections. These were the heads of collective farms, cooperatives, labor collectives and other public organizations

Once Eikhe even made a scrupulous count of such “bastards” and in March 1937. shared this peculiar statistics with the PLENAUM of the Central Committee:

“We have a lot of people expelled from the party over the years... If we take the West Siberian Territory, now we have 44 thousand party members and candidates, and 93 thousand people expelled and dropped out since 1926. As you can see, there are twice as many party members. This creates a difficult situation for a number of enterprises.”

After this, the terror became unsystematic

TERRIBLE IMPACT

On the very first day, the first sentences were confirmed against 157 people. -members of the so-called

"a monarchical-SR organization (EMRO) of former officers which included Lieutenant Colonel I.P. Maksimov, Staff Captain K.L. Loginov, Staff Captain Prince A.A. Gagarin and others."

Over the course of a month, the troika intensively passed mass verdicts, on average 50 people per meeting, and by August 1, 1937, the total number of those sentenced was 980 people.

The procedure for passing sentences was gradually developed during the trial procedure itself. How many cases could be presented at one meeting? How to pass sentences on people who have not admitted their guilt?

How can we achieve maximum acceleration of the team’s work with an increasing flow of cases? - such questions arose already during the first meetings of the troika of the UNKVD ZSK.

According to the testimony of one of the NKVD workers, the difficulties of the first days forced important adjustments to be made to the work of the troika in Novosibirsk.

After several meetings, the head of the NKVD Mironov and his deputy Maltsev categorically demanded to stop presenting cases of “unconfessed kulaks” to the troika.

Over the course of several meetings, the cases of those who “did not confess” were removed from consideration and sent “for further investigation,” and the rapporteurs were strictly instructed not to present such cases. Following this, it was forbidden to present single cases to the troika.

As security officer Lev Maslov testified during interrogation in 1941:

“After a short time, cases on local groups were also not allowed to go to the troika, and the peripheral bodies that presented such investigative cases were accused of inactivity, of unwillingness to fight the counter-revolution.”

Local NKVD workers began to be required to submit cases only to “organized counter-revolution” with a large number of participants.

Lev Maslov noted:

“Members of the troika liked such investigative cases, and no one was interested in the fact that the cases seemed to be fabricated

According to the agenda, which was prepared at the secretariat, I, as the speaker at the troika, had to read out the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and briefly the background of the arrested person. This was enough for the members of the troika to make a decision on the punishment of the arrested person, without hearing the corpus delicti of the crime he had committed.

The troikas usually met at night. At least 100–200 cases were processed overnight; Most of those arrested were sentenced to death."

EIHE AS INVESTIGATOR

Eikhe interrogated him personally in other cases. And, it seems, he was a master of his craft. Once he greatly helped the security officers

He joined in the interrogations of the former Red partisan and hero of the fight against the White Cossacks - Shevelev-Lubkov.

Eikhe admonished Shevelev in a comradely manner: confess, they say, to Trotskyism and other sins. And here comes the luck: Shevelev writes his testimony, incriminating himself.

He also writes a certain confession addressed to Eikha, it contains the following words:

“I am ashamed that I deceived Comrade Eikhe; I did not have the courage, looking him in the face, to say that I was a scoundrel. I ask you to tell him my apology and tell him that I have decided to tell the whole truth and my only hope is that he will save me and that I will be useful in a future war, then I will prove that I am not completely lost to the Soviet regime.”

Eikhe did not save Shevelev. For what? After all, Eikhe joined the interrogations solely to encourage Shevelev to self-incriminate.

As a result, Shevelev-Lubkov was shot.

DESTRUCTION OF LABOR COLLECTIVES, PRIVATE SECTOR AND WRITERS

Members of the Zapsibzoloto trust with all its mine departments were repressed, its members were convicted and shot

All cooperatives and private artels were destroyed. Their members were convicted and most of them were shot again.

Repressions also took place against cultural figures of the region.

The Union of Writers of the Siberian Territory was also repressed - in the same Novosibirsk, all six of its members were arrested.

HOT WINTER OF 1937

The collection of protocols of the ZSK troika really reflects the systematic and some kind of unusually painstaking “work” carried out in the bowels of the NKVD to select and systematize victims.

Some protocols methodically decide the fate of 150 or 200 people at once; others are dedicated to just one or two or three people arrested.

Sentence statistics show that until the end of November 1937, the pace of the mass operation in Western Siberia (Novosibirsk region) with the participation of the UNKVD troika had a uniform dynamics - approximately 6,500 convicts per month.

But since December 1937, the situation changed dramatically due to the fact that the leadership of the NKVD planned to urgently complete the campaign under order No. 00447.

The scale of the troika’s “work” increases significantly this month; The figures for individual protocols are becoming unprecedented:

"In just one day - December 25 - sentences were confirmed against 1,359 people, of which 1,313 people were subject to execution."

This was more than the NKVD troika in the Omsk region sentenced for the entire month. And on December 28, the troika’s activity took a simply fantastic turn: during that day, sentences were approved against 2,021 people, of which 1,687 people were convicted. - to be shot.

The overall result of the last month of 1937 was 9,520 convicted, of which 8,245 were people. sentenced to VMN.

From Protocol No. 46 of October 13, 1937, the ZSK troika began to be called the troika for the Novosibirsk region (in connection with the abolition of the region and the formation of the region). But her new status entailed minor changes.

Although the troika reoriented itself to a narrower territory (without the areas allocated to the Altai Territory), it continued to operate with the same composition (Maltsev - from August 1937, Eikhe, Barkov) and with the same intensity, without interrupting the numbering of its protocols.

From the second half of October 1937, part of the materials of the former troika of the UNKVD ZSK (separated areas) began to arrive at the new NKVD department for the Altai Territory

On October 30, the first meeting of the UNKVD troika in the Altai Territory took place, which received a limit from the Politburo to shoot 4,000 people. and the conviction of 4,500 people.

From July 1937 to March 1938, NKVD troikas in the regions of Siberia sentenced tens of thousands of people arrested

Data from the protocols of the NKVD troika of the Novosibirsk region allow us to trace the features of each phase of the largest operations of 1937–1938. - “kulak” and “ROVS”

EIKHE'S CARE AND HIS REPLACEMENT

Eikhe was one of the first to be transferred to the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and this was the beginning of his end.

In his place, under the patronage of A. Zhdanov, Ivan Alekseev was appointed....an extremely cruel person

Ivan Alekseev, who successfully cleared the city on the Neva, promised that he would achieve no less success in Siberia.

As a result, he repressed no less than Eikhe himself

It is interesting that Alekseev was the first party member to be awarded the Order of Lenin only for party activities.

DEFEAT OF THE PARTY BRANCH OF THE REGION

After the arrests of non-party citizens and members of labor collectives, they set to work on the party branches of the region

The terror was not just massive - it was continuous.

In Novosibirsk, the security officers were proud of the fact that by April 1938 they had arrested three members of the district and regional leadership.

After Eikhe's removal, dozens of party leaders who worked with him were arrested.

New people took their place. But they lasted only a month and were arrested. On charges of “counter-revolutionary” crimes

They were replaced by new leaders - who previously occupied very insignificant positions in the secretariat and district committee... but they did not last long

Just 2 weeks later, security officers came for them and took them to the dungeons of the local NKVD...thus, about 400 local leaders were arrested

By that time, Siberia, reorganized into the Novosibirsk region, was left without civil governance

In November 1938, the entire leadership of the NKVD of the region was removed from their posts and later shot

In 1940, only two of the former leadership of the NKVD remained alive: ex-chiefs of the Krasnoyarsk NKVD K.A. Pavlov and F.A. Leonyuk, who were now working in the Gulag system.

RESULTS OF THE TERRIBLE PURGES

The results of the purges were:

1.Destruction of non-party candidates

2. Destruction of the leadership of collective farms of the region

3. Complete destruction of labor collectives and private enterprises

4.Partial destruction of the regional prosecutor’s office

5.Partial destruction of the region’s pariah leadership

And as a result, disorganization of the administration of the region.... in fact, the West Siberian region was deprived of state and party control for some time

THE END OF THE FORMER OWNER OF THE EDGE

On April 29, 1938, Eikhe was arrested. Before his arrest, he lived on Serafimovich Street in Moscow, in house No. 2, in apartment 234.

According to his unsent letters, it is clear that he was tortured. And his former friends, Yezhov and Ushakov-Ushmirsky, were tortured.

Eiche wrote:

“The situation was like this, unable to withstand the torture that Ushakov and Nikolaev applied to me, especially the first, who cleverly took advantage of the fact that my spine was still poorly healed after the fracture, and caused me unbearable pain, forced me to slander myself and other people...” .

But the letters, as expected, were not released from prison....

True, the main initiators of the purges, Zhdanov and Khrushchev, got away unscathed. And do not forget that while the executioners are called innocently repressed by the evil Stalin, you honor their memory