Original taken from otevalm in Stalin's Bodyguard. The real story of Nikolai Vlasik

During the years of perestroika, when a wave of all kinds of accusations rained down on almost all people from the Stalinist entourage in the advanced Soviet press, the most unenviable fate fell to General Vlasik. The long-term head of Stalin's guard appeared in these materials as a real lackey who adored his master, a watchdog, ready to attack anyone at his command, greedy, vengeful and mercenary.

Among those who did not spare negative epithets for Vlasik was Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. But the bodyguard of the leader at one time had to become practically the main educator for both Svetlana and Vasily.

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik spent a quarter of a century next to Stalin, protecting the life of the Soviet leader. Without his bodyguard, the leader lived for less than a year.

From the parochial school to the Cheka

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in Western Belarus, in the village of Bobynichi, into a poor peasant family. The boy lost his parents early and could not count on a good education. After three classes of the parochial school, Nikolai went to work. From the age of 13 he worked as a laborer at a construction site, then as a bricklayer, then as a loader at a paper mill.

In March 1915, Vlasik was drafted into the army and sent to the front. During the First World War, he served in the 167th Ostroh Infantry Regiment, and was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer and appointed commander of a platoon of the 251st infantry regiment, which was stationed in Moscow.

During the October Revolution, Nikolai Vlasik, a native of the very bottom, quickly decided on his political choice: together with the entrusted platoon, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.

At first he served in the Moscow police, then he participated in the Civil War, was wounded near Tsaritsyn. In September 1919, Vlasik was sent to the bodies of the Cheka, where he served in the central apparatus under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky himself.

Master of security and life

Since May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik served as a senior authorized officer of the Operational Department of the OGPU.

As Vlasik himself recalled, his work as Stalin's bodyguard began in 1927 after an emergency in the capital: a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on Lubyanka. The operative, who was on vacation, was recalled and announced: from that moment on, he was entrusted with the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, government members at dachas, walks. Particular attention was ordered to be given to the personal protection of Joseph Stalin.

Despite the sad story of the assassination attempt on Lenin, by 1927 the protection of the first persons of the state in the USSR was not particularly thorough.

Stalin was accompanied by only one guard: the Lithuanian Yusis. Vlasik was even more surprised when they arrived at the dacha, where Stalin usually spent his weekends. One commandant lived at the dacha, there was no linen, no dishes, and the leader ate sandwiches brought from Moscow.

Like all Belarusian peasants, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was a solid and well-to-do man. He took up not only the protection, but also the arrangement of Stalin's life.

The leader, accustomed to asceticism, at first was skeptical about the innovations of the new bodyguard. But Vlasik was persistent: a cook and a cleaner appeared at the dacha, food supplies were arranged from the nearest state farm. At that moment, there was not even a telephone connection with Moscow at the dacha, and it appeared through the efforts of Vlasik.

Over time, Vlasik created a whole system of dachas in the Moscow region and in the south, where well-trained personnel were ready at any moment to receive the Soviet leader. It is not worth talking about the fact that these objects were guarded in the most careful way.

The security system for important government facilities existed even before Vlasik, but he became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events, and international meetings.

Stalin's bodyguard came up with a system according to which the first person and the people accompanying him move in a cavalcade of identical cars, and only the bodyguards know which one the leader is driving in. Subsequently, such a scheme saved the life of Leonid Brezhnev, who was assassinated in 1969.

Irreplaceable and especially trusted person

Within a few years, Vlasik turned into an indispensable and especially trusted person for Stalin. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin entrusted his bodyguard with the care of the children: Svetlana, Vasily and his adopted son Artyom Sergeyev.

Nikolai Sidorovich was not a teacher, but he tried his best. If Svetlana and Artyom did not cause him much trouble, then Vasily was uncontrollable from childhood. Vlasik, knowing that Stalin did not give up to children, tried, as far as possible, to mitigate the sins of Vasily in reports to his father.

But over the years, the “pranks” became more and more serious, and it became more and more difficult for Vlasik to play the role of a “lightning rod”.

Svetlana and Artyom, as adults, wrote about their "tutor" in different ways. Stalin's daughter in "Twenty Letters to a Friend" described Vlasik as follows: "He led the entire guard of his father, considered himself almost the closest person to him, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble ..."

“He had a job all his life, and he lived near Stalin”

Artyom Sergeev, in Conversations about Stalin, spoke differently: “His main duty was to ensure the safety of Stalin. This work was inhuman. Always the responsibility of the head, always life on the cutting edge. He knew very well both friends and enemies of Stalin ... What kind of work did Vlasik have in general? It was work day and night, there was no 6-8-hour working day. All his life he had work, and he lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin's room was Vlasik's room ... "

For ten or fifteen years, Nikolai Vlasik turned from an ordinary bodyguard into a general heading a huge structure responsible not only for security, but also for the life of the first persons of the state.

During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on Vlasik's shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to place them, equip them in a new place, and think over security issues. The evacuation of Lenin's body from Moscow is also the task that Vlasik performed. He was also responsible for security at the parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

Assassination attempt in Gagra

For all the years that Vlasik was responsible for Stalin's life, not a single hair fell from his head. At the same time, the head of the leader’s guard himself, judging by his recollections, took the threat of assassination very seriously. Even in his declining years, he was sure that the Trotskyist groups were preparing the assassination of Stalin.

In 1935, Vlasik really had to cover the leader from bullets. During a boat trip in the Gagra region, fire was opened on them from the shore. The bodyguard covered Stalin with his body, but both were lucky: the bullets did not hit them. The boat left the firing zone.

Vlasik considered this a real assassination attempt, and his opponents later believed that it was all a production. As it turns out, there was a misunderstanding. The border guards were not informed about Stalin's boat trip, and they mistook him for an intruder.

Cow abuse?

During the Great Patriotic War, Vlasik was responsible for ensuring security at conferences of the heads of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition and coped with his task brilliantly. For the successful holding of the conference in Tehran, Vlasik was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the Crimean Conference - the Order of Kutuzov I degree, for the Potsdam Conference - another Order of Lenin.

But the Potsdam Conference became a pretext for accusations of misappropriation of property: it was alleged that after its completion, Vlasik took various valuables from Germany, including a horse, two cows and one bull. Subsequently, this fact was cited as an example of the irrepressible greed of the Stalinist bodyguard.

Vlasik himself recalled that this story had a completely different background. In 1941, the Germans captured his native village of Bobynichi. The house where my sister lived was burned down, half the village was shot, the sister's eldest daughter was driven away to work in Germany, the cow and the horse were taken away. My sister and her husband went to the partisans, and after the liberation of Belarus they returned to their native village, from which little was left. Stalin's bodyguard brought cattle from Germany for relatives.

Was it abuse? If you approach with a strict measure, then, perhaps, yes. However, Stalin, when this case was first reported to him, sharply ordered that further investigation be stopped.

Opala

In 1946, Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik became the head of the Main Security Directorate: an agency with an annual budget of 170 million rubles and a staff of many thousands.

He did not fight for power, but at the same time he made a huge number of enemies. Being too close to Stalin, Vlasik had the opportunity to influence the leader's attitude towards this or that person, deciding who would get wider access to the first person, and who would be denied such an opportunity.

A lot of high-ranking officials from the country's leadership passionately wanted to get rid of Vlasik. Compromising evidence on Stalin's bodyguard was scrupulously collected, drop by drop undermining the leader's confidence in him.

In 1948, the commandant of the so-called "Near Dacha" Fedoseev was arrested, who testified that Vlasik intended to poison Stalin. But the leader again did not take this accusation seriously: if the bodyguard had such intentions, he could have realized his plans a long time ago.

In 1952, by decision of the Politburo, a commission was established to verify the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. This time, extremely unpleasant facts have surfaced that look quite plausible. The guards and personnel of the special dachas, which had been empty for weeks, staged real orgies there, plundered food and expensive drinks. Later, there were witnesses who assured that Vlasik himself was not averse to relaxing in this way.

On April 29, 1952, on the basis of these materials, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his post and sent to the Urals, to the city of Asbest, as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"Cohabited with women and drank alcohol in his spare time"

Why did Stalin suddenly back down from a man who honestly served him for 25 years? Perhaps it was all the fault of the leader's growing suspicion in recent years. It is possible that Stalin considered the waste of state funds for drunken revelry too serious a sin. There is also a third assumption. It is known that during this period the Soviet leader began to promote young leaders, and openly told his former associates: "It's time to change you." Perhaps Stalin felt that the time had come to replace Vlasik as well.

Be that as it may, very difficult times have come for the former head of the Stalinist guard.

In December 1952, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Plot. He was blamed for the fact that he ignored the statements of Lydia Timashuk, who accused the professors who treated the first persons of the state of sabotage.

Vlasik himself wrote in his memoirs that there was no reason to believe Timashuk: "There was no data discrediting the professors, which I reported to Stalin."

In prison, Vlasik was interrogated with prejudice for several months. For a man who was already well over 50, the disgraced bodyguard held firm. I was ready to admit "moral decay" and even embezzlement, but not conspiracy and espionage. “I really cohabited with many women, drank alcohol with them and the artist Stenberg, but all this happened at the expense of my personal health and in my free time,” his testimony sounded.

Could Vlasik extend the life of the leader?

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away. Even if we discard the dubious version of the murder of the leader, Vlasik, if he had remained in his post, he could well have extended his life. When the leader became ill at the Near Dacha, he lay for several hours on the floor of his room without help: the guards did not dare to enter Stalin's chambers. There is no doubt that Vlasik would not have allowed this.

After the death of the leader, the "case of doctors" was closed. All of his defendants were released, except for Nikolai Vlasik. The collapse of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953 did not bring him freedom either.

In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Vlasik guilty of abuse of office under especially aggravating circumstances, sentenced under Art. 193-17 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of exile, deprivation of the rank of general and state awards. In March 1955, Vlasik's term was reduced to 5 years. He was sent to Krasnoyarsk to serve his sentence.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record, but he was not restored to military rank and awards.

“Not a single minute did I have in my soul anger at Stalin”

He returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. Vlasik knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote to the leaders of the party and government, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere.

Secretly, he began to dictate memoirs in which he talked about how he saw his life, why he did certain things, how he treated Stalin.

“After Stalin’s death, such an expression appeared as“ the cult of personality ”... If a person who is the leader of his affairs deserves the love and respect of others, what’s wrong with that ... The people loved and respected Stalin. He personified a country that led to prosperity and victories, wrote Nikolai Vlasik. - Under his leadership, a lot of good things were done, and the people saw it. He enjoyed great prestige. I knew him very closely... And I affirm that he lived only for the interests of the country, the interests of his people.”

“It is easy to accuse a person of all mortal sins when he is dead and can neither justify nor defend himself. Why, during his lifetime, no one dared to point out to him his mistakes? What hindered? Fear? Or were there no such errors that should have been pointed out?

What Tsar Ivan IV was formidable for, but there were people who cared for their homeland, who, not fearing death, pointed out to him his mistakes. Or were brave people transferred to Rus'? - so thought the Stalinist bodyguard.

Summing up his memoirs and his whole life in general, Vlasik wrote: “Without a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison.

But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger in my soul against Stalin. I perfectly understood what kind of atmosphere was created around him in the last years of his life. How difficult it was for him. He was an old, sick, lonely man ... He was and remains the most dear person to me, and no slander can shake the feeling of love and the deepest respect that I always had for this wonderful person. He personified for me everything bright and dear in my life - the party, the motherland and my people.

Posthumously rehabilitated

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died on June 18, 1967. His archive was seized and classified. Only in 2011, the Federal Security Service declassified the notes of the person who, in fact, stood at the origins of its creation.

Relatives of Vlasik have repeatedly made attempts to achieve his rehabilitation. After several refusals, on June 28, 2000, by a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia, the sentence of 1955 was canceled, and the criminal case was dismissed "due to the lack of corpus delicti." (

Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik-Mikhailova, the daughter of Nikolai Sergeevich Vlasik, lives in a small two-room apartment not far from the Belorusskaya metro station. After the death of her mother, she handed over, according to her father's will, his suicide notes-memoirs about Stalin to Georgy Aleksandrovich Egnatashvili with a large number of photographs from the personal archive of Nikolai Sergeevich. I burned with a great desire to meet her without fail and write down her unbiased childhood and family memories of her father. And although she is already retired, but by profession a wonderful art editor and graphic artist, who has worked for more than thirty years at the Nauka publishing house, this unique publishing house still needs her talent and skill. She still works from home on the design of the Literary Monuments series and other publications, and therefore it was not so easy to find time for a conversation. Our meeting took place at her home. It was a leisurely and sincere conversation about the past and the most precious thing in her life. And it began, as usual, from her childhood and youth, from the first impressions of a child who came into our cruel and imperfect world.

My life began in Belarus, in the same village where Nikolai Sergeevich Vlasik was born - my own uncle, not my blood father. I was born on the first of August 1935 as the fifth child in the family of Olga Vlasik, the sister of Nikolai Sergeevich, who was only two or three years younger than him. And when in December 1939 he came to visit us with his wife in the village, he took me and took me to Moscow forever. So since the fortieth year I have been a Muscovite.

I take it he adopted you?

Yes. But not at once. At first, he simply took me to Moscow to feed me, because we lived very poorly, there were five of us half-starved children. It was in the year of the annexation of Western Belarus. Nikolai Sergeevich helped us all the time, and when he had the opportunity, he came and saw me, the smallest and thinnest in the family. After all, I was only four years old at the time. And since he had no children of his own, although he was already married for the third time, he somehow got used to me very quickly and asked permission from my parents to adopt me. They agreed, and he wrote me down in his last name and his patronymic. So I got two moms and two dads. It was in the forties.

Probably, the fact that Nikolai Sergeevich decided to take such a responsible step was an important merit of your new mother? Tell me, please, who is she, what was she like in life, being the wife of such a big man?

Well, first of all, she was a very beautiful woman. Thirteen years younger than him and, as I said, was his third wife. They met in the thirty-first, and got married in the thirty-second. They somehow got it interesting. This was her second marriage, because when she met her father, she was already married to an engineer. He loved her very much, and everything was fine with them. But then he went to Svalbard on a business trip. And when he returned a year later, she was already married to my father. And she never regretted it in her life. When she met her father, she fell madly in love with him. They had such an affair, such love! And divorce was easy before. Yes, and my father then worked in the Kremlin, he was a commissar, so it was not difficult for him to send documents somewhere, and my mother and her first husband were divorced without a sound.

As they would say now, he used his official position ...

Yes, - Nadezhda Nikolaevna smiled, - but it was too serious, which was confirmed by all their subsequent life together and love to the grave. So it was a pivotal moment in their lives. And my mother was the sixth child in the family of a merchant, and her own aunt raised her. After the seventeenth year, her father was already an old sick man, and he was not touched. Mom was a very outstanding person - she graduated from shorthand and English courses, which she was fluent in (she even had a diploma), but, unfortunately, this was not useful to her in life, and she was just a very good housewife.

You know what her father dictated to her before her death and what we published in the Spy magazine is written at a very good literary level, soundly, efficiently and very competently, which also speaks of her outstanding literary talent.

The fact is that she always read a lot and was interested in many things. Even at an advanced age, after the death of her father, she suddenly decided to study Spanish, although she already knew several foreign languages. But at the same time, she was not only an intelligent and educated woman, but also an amazing housewife who passionately loved her husband. But our father was a very explosive and even original person in this regard. It could have occurred to him after work and meeting friends to come with them to our house in the middle of the night. And my mother was always ready at any time of the day, always dressed, always combed, always greeted with a smile and set the table in an instant. And she always had everything, and everything was fine. And often he took her with him to the Kremlin to receptions, to banquets, to all sorts of ceremonial meetings ... For example, they were together at the evening dedicated to Stalin's seventieth birthday, and she looked very dignified next to her father. Worthy, so to speak, a lady of high society.

How do you remember your father in your childhood?

From the age of four to six, I remember him little, here are just these photographs in which I am in his arms at the parade of the fortieth and forty-first years. And when the war began, my mother and I left for Kuibyshev and lived there until the age of forty-three. When the Germans were driven away, we returned to Moscow, and I went to school. I studied, and then, in the fifty-second, my father was arrested ...

That's right, until the fifty-second year.

Unfortunately, in life it turns out that the great is seen only at a distance, time must pass before you realize who and what this or that person was for you. And the more I live in the world, the more deeply I realize what a great and outstanding personality my father was and what an interesting fate he had. And then it was just my dad, whom I very rarely saw, because he worked day and night. When I was still little, I remember how he came home and entered the apartment: in a jacket with rhombuses, with a wide belt and belt, with badges on the sleeves ... He will eat hastily, lie down to rest for about forty minutes, then head under the tap - and again on service. So I rarely saw him. And then, when I started to grow up, I began to understand a little what was happening, although my father never told me anything about his work. Maybe he told his mother about something, but I doubt it. And that's when I realized why he was so taciturn. His whole life was in work, the family is always in the background. And only occasionally did he manage to be with us, and even then in fits and starts. So, after the parade, having descended from the Mausoleum, where he was always next to the members of the government, he came to us. Sometimes he managed to carve out a week or two, and we would go somewhere south. In Kislovodsk, for example. I only now understand what it was like for my mother to be the wife of such a person ...

So you're on holiday with the whole family?

It happened. Rarely, really. However, I remember well Kislovodsk in 1951, where we had a wonderful two weeks. But in the spring of the following year, he was removed from work and transferred to Asbest to the post of deputy head of the camps. It was very hard for him to live there, because there was a lot of writing in this position, which he could not stand. After all, he had only four classes of a parochial school, and writing was a real torment for him. That is, he was a man of action, a brilliant leader and organizer, and not a clerical rat. And he rushed back to Moscow, wrote to everyone in a row, and his mother persuaded him, coming to him: “Don’t twitch, be patient, sit out, even if they forget about you, it’s such a troubled time there now that it’s better to stay in the shadows ...” Mom was very an intelligent woman and, it seems to me, more far-sighted than her father. “Someday your time will come and you will not go through everything so painfully,” she assured his hot head. "No!" - stood up on its hind legs father. I went and ran into. They lit him up and on December 16, 1952, they took him ... Shortly before the arrest, my father said: “If they take me away, there will soon be no Boss” (Stalin). And so it happened.

Do you remember this day well?

Still would! It was all so terrible! You wouldn't wish this on your enemy! The father went to work and did not return. Then they came to us with a search ... Firstly, they had no right to break into the house without their parents, because I was still a schoolgirl, I had just come from school ... Two healthy young guys burst in, go into the room: “Turn in gold, hand in weapons where the weapon is" - and so on. But I don’t understand anything, my mother is not at home, and I myself was so frightened that I can’t utter a word ... It’s good that my mother came soon. They turned everything upside down, made some kind of inventory. And all this in very rude tones, they literally didn’t even let us leave the room.

A lot of things were taken from us and a lot of everything that was connected with the father's archive. As a matter of fact, the main part. And what was left, my mother saved until her death. In 1985, people from Gori came to us with a letter from the Council of Ministers of Georgia with a request to transfer everything that was left to the Stalin Museum in Gori. I have it, I can show it to you. And I handed over one hundred and fifty-two photographs, five smoking pipes of Stalin, Nadezhda Alliluyeva's student card, the original of her letter, and something else. And what was left, I gave to Bichigo, as my mother bequeathed to me. I only have personal photos...

Can I take a look?

Please. Here is a photo from the 1940s. My father and I are at the May parade. And this is my family. Mom - Olga Sergeevna, father's older brother - Foma, my aunts - Danuta and Martsela. We lived in Western Belarus, near Poland, hence the Polish names. And here is a photo of the fifty-seventh year, when dad returned from exile and lectured me ...

What did he do after returning?

He was already old and sick. He was given a civil pension, I think, one thousand two hundred rubles. And my mother worked. When he was imprisoned, she was already about fifty. She grieved, grieved and went to work as a draftsman. And when he returned, I already went to work without interrupting my studies at the institute. And here I am, small in the arms of a young man, - Nadezhda Nikolaevna handed me an old photograph. - Do you know who he is?

Vasily Stalin?

Yes. It is he. Svetlana and Vasily often came to our dacha, and my father took pictures of us. And before I moved to Moscow, my mother said, Yasha often visited us. Mom even had pictures with him somewhere. And here they are! Mom said he was so shy! He somehow needed galoshes, and he came to his father and did not know how to tell him to buy galoshes for him. They are so etched in my memory...

Very pity. He was an amazingly humble and decent man. The best and brightest son of Stalin. But did you meet with Svetlana and Vasily after Stalin's death?

No. When his father returned, he tried to establish contacts with relatives of Joseph Vissarionovich, but nothing happened. He only talked to his friends.

And tell me, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, is it true that Vasily is buried in Kazan?

I was with my grandmother at his grave. And what?

You see, the thing is, they say there's a doll lying there. In fact, Vasily was buried in the eighty-fifth year in Gelendzhik under the name of Leonid Ivanovich Smekhov. A modest grave monument depicts a red-bearded man, an airplane above him, some verses, and below it is engraved: "Stalin V. I." Very close to my grandmother's grave. The old-timers of Gelendzhik said that when he was ill in Kazan, a nurse took care of him, who, with the help of Vasily's old connections, made him a passport in the name of Smekhov Leonid Ivanovich and took him to Gelendzhik. The most interesting thing is that back in the sixties, when I was finishing high school there, I often saw this man, often drinking with ordinary men in squares and on benches. And none of his drinking companions even guessed that they were drinking with Stalin's son. And when I buried my grandmother and wandered from her grave, I suddenly saw this primitive monument ...

With my own eyes? - Nadezhda Nikolaevna was perplexed.

Certainly. And now they even take tours of vacationers to his grave!

Amazing! And you know that in the death of Vasily, like his father, there is a lot of strange and mysterious ... I remember that even Korotich in his "Spark" once wrote about the death of Vasily. So, in general, everything there is full of riddles ... That he went to Kazan with one nurse Masha, there this nurse was replaced by another Masha ... Nothing is clear! And we were told that he fell ill with pneumonia there and they gave him some injections, after which he died. What kind of injections, what kind of injections? Why did he die from this? Everything is covered in darkness...

But who had to arrange his grave in Gelendzhik?

You know, there was such a legend that he was supposedly buried in Kazan, but then the body was stolen. In the fifty-eighth year, my grandmother and I sailed on a steamer along the Volga. And when he stopped for a few hours in Kazan, we went to the cemetery and saw his grave there ...

But in Gelendzhik there is a second grave! Who needs it?!

And who needed a legend to appear that I was Stalin's illegitimate daughter?! - Nadezhda Nikolaevna could not stand it. And she lived quite a long time! Who needs this?

Indeed? - I was surprised.

Well, of course. After all, in my family all blondes, my father is slightly reddish, my own mother, Olga Sergeevna, is downright bright blonde, and I am a brunette. Who knows? Who can tell me now? My parents are long gone. I don’t know anything ... A rumor spread that Natasha Poskrebysheva, my close friend, is very similar to Svetlana Alliluyeva - in hair color and facial features. But there is no confirmation of this, except for conversations. That's who needed it? .. And the legend about my origin spoiled my life very much. Therefore, my personal life did not develop for a long time. Everyone was kind of afraid of me. - Nadezhda Nikolaevna took out another pack of photographs. - This is the forty-first year, a few days before the start of the war. We are in Rublev with Vasily. And this is the fiftieth, in Barvikha, the three of us. Mom, Maria Semyonovna, dad and me. I am fifteen years old. He rested there three times, and in forty-eight I even lived with him on vacation. And this is fifty-seven. Look how terribly he has changed, what they have done to him!..

I read the protocols of interrogation, from which nothing is clear at all. He confesses to everything he has been accused of; I even got the impression that the accusatory bias was so steep and powerful that he seemed to agree with everything and made it clear: do what you want, I don’t care anymore ...

He said that he was kept in handcuffs all the time and was not allowed to sleep for several days in a row. And when he lost consciousness, they turned on a bright light, and behind the wall they put a record with a heart-rending child's cry on the gramophone. And in this state he was taken for interrogation and eventually brought to a heart attack. He told me: “I don’t remember what I signed, I don’t remember what I answered! I was insane." Look at this little photo of what they did to him during the six months in prison. And compare with this one, which was made a few days before the arrest ...

A prisoner of a fascist concentration camp and a brave Soviet general!

Exactly, brave. After all, he was all at work - everyone knows that! The fact that he was an excellent organizer and possessed this extraordinary gift was told by close friends of his father after his death. For example, something goes wrong. He comes and - he pinched one, twisted his tail to another, encouraged the third - and it went like clockwork! Yes, and his subordinates loved him very much. There were two cases in my life when the people who worked with him helped me a lot. Even go to college once!

Really? How did it happen?

I entered the printing industry. History exam. I'm taking a ticket. I know the first question, I know the third, and I don’t remember the second ... I’m worried. And my face has always betrayed me, it is like a mirror of my state. I decide what to do ... I will answer the first, but how will I start the second? And then suddenly a man gets up from the table of examiners and comes up to me. He leans down and quietly asks, "What's the problem?" - “You know, I can’t remember the second question, probably from excitement.” And suddenly he says to me: “Listen, I worked with your father,” and suddenly begins to dictate the answer to me. Whispered everything to me. I was shocked. Did well and did well.

And who was he?

Some military man. I didn’t see him at the institute later, I studied in absentia. And the second time it was. I went to buy a coat, and my purse was stolen from me. Good thing the money was elsewhere. But there was a passport. But you know how difficult it is to restore a passport. And when I came to our police station, they told me that I had to pay a fine. And again, a policeman suddenly stands up and says: “No fine is needed, I worked with your father.” He shook my hand and they immediately gave me a new passport. How! If my father was a bad person or a nasty boss, would I be treated like that?

But besides just human qualities, he was also very talented in many ways?

Not that word. It was just a nugget. Whatever he undertook, he succeeded. Judge for yourself, because he went through life from a shepherd to a lieutenant general! Take his passion for photography. The Pravda newspaper constantly published his pictures. I remember which number you take: "Photo by N. Vlasik." After all, he had a special dark room equipped at home. Everything - from exposure and shooting to developing, printing and glossing - he did exclusively by himself, without anyone's help. And what a billiard player he was! He beat everyone! And he did everything very cool and very talented. Although by nature he was quick-tempered, groovy, hot. But at the same time very easygoing. After a while, he could forget everything and speak calmly. And if you somehow showed yourself, you could encourage. He kept nothing in his bosom. However, it was this trait of his nature that played a fatal role in his career. This is what ruined him...

How?

Thanks to the fact that he told everyone everything directly in the face (as a normal honest and open person) and, as they say, cut the truth in the eyes, he made a lot of enemies, even among big people. I remember that Pyotr Nikolaevich Pospelov, a member of the Politburo, often visited us. So his father once said directly to his eyes: “You, Petya, are a toady!” It must be so. And it was not once or twice. And not only with him. Father was not afraid to tell the truth because, apparently, he hoped that everything would work out for him, since Stalin himself treated him well. But this was all during Stalin's lifetime, but when he died ... In this sense, of course, my father was a short-sighted person. For these dishonorable people then remembered everything to him! Here Poskrebyshev, for example, was more diplomatic and cautious. And in the end, he actually lost little. Although he was also very close to Stalin, like his father. But he was always oriented differently ...

And who else, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, had a grudge against her father?

Shortly before his death, he once told me about such cases. He was responsible for security, supply, medical care, transport and construction for all members of the government. And adhered to the strictest budget. As he said, he had his own paper for everything: government permission, financial documents, and so on. In a word, his bookkeeping was perfect. He talks about this in his memoirs, and he wrote about this in his petition for rehabilitation addressed to Khrushchev. However, there were situations from which it was impossible to adequately get out without making an enemy. One day, for example, Malenkov wanted to build a swimming pool in his dacha. And his father refuses him - the estimate is not provided! Makes an enemy. Further. Molotov idolized his wife Zhemchuzhina Polina Semyonovna. And then one day Vyacheslav Mikhailovich asks his father to send for her either a whole train, or a wagon to the south, so that she would come from the resort where she was resting. Father reported to Stalin, and he forbade: “What is he, crazy? Why is this necessary?!” He made another enemy... And then, of course, it all had an effect. After all, they remained in power for a long time after Stalin's death ...

What I liked was that he was somehow strongly drawn to knowledge. Before his arrest, we had a five-room apartment. When they took him away, two rooms were immediately sealed, and soon the family of a Georgian scientist from our Academy of Sciences moved in. And they left three rooms for our family, one for each. And all of them were somehow located in the corners, and all of them were isolated. And so, I remember, you get up at night, go out into the corridor and look - your father is reading. In the morning I sometimes look out - reads. I even read encyclopedias. Interested in absolutely everything. More, of course, historical and political literature. I studied all the correspondence between Stalin and Churchill. He subscribed to many newspapers. We received Pravda, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Ogonyok, Novy Mir and other thick magazines by mail. And on TV, I always watched the news program first. And he was interested in politics until the end of his days. And when a year before his death, in the sixty-sixth, Svetlana Stalin left (first to see the body of her Hindu husband, and then through the American embassy in India to the USA), he was very worried, because she was actually born and grew up before his eyes ...

And tell me, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, what is the main attitude towards Svetlana of people who knew her well, friends, relatives? ..

Very negative. And for men and especially in Georgia. And not even because she poured mud on her father and changed her surname to her mother's, although this is perhaps the main thing, but because polyandry is very condemned in Georgia itself. And she succeeded in this regard ...

Well, God be with her, with Svetlana. And what did your father talk about most of all in the last years of his life?

Once we were talking about politics, and suddenly he unexpectedly said to me: “Do you know, I foresee that everything will end with the restoration of capitalism!” And this is the sixty-sixth year. I was stunned: “Dad, what are you? How can you say that?" And he answers: “Remember my words ...” So he figured out what was what ...

Did he say anything about work?

He almost did not remember the work, but something slipped through. Then I was only nine years old, but I remembered this scene for the rest of my life. My father leaves for work in the morning and says goodbye to me and my mother in a special, tender way. He picked me up in his arms and kissed me tightly. He kisses his mother and suddenly says: “I may not return. Today I'm going to report to Beria. And I look at him, and I have goosebumps - I was so scared. What report is this? To whom does he go so that he can not return? Who is he so afraid of? After all, he is the closest person to Stalin! Who is this terrible Beria?! Then it made a terrible impression on me and crashed into my memory for life. It was in the forty-fourth year ...

And which of his friends visited your house?

My father was friends with the famous constructivist artist Stenberg Vladimir Avgustovich and operative worker Sirotkin Ivan Stepanovich. Conversations with Stenberg later influenced my choice of profession.

My father was in charge of many issues, including the supervision of the Bolshoi Theater. This includes the organization of holiday concerts, and estimates for their financing, and the approval of the lists of speakers - he endorsed all this. He knew all the artists of the Bolshoi Theater, and therefore many of them often visited our house. And I knew many people well. Quite often Sergei Yakovlevich Lemeshev came to us, and Ivan Semenovich Kozlovsky was generally at home with us. He came to us with accompanist Abram Makarov. Ivan Semenovich was the soul of society - cheerful, witty, charming. Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov was also a close person. And Natalia Dmitrievna Shpiller, and Elena Dmitrievna Kruglikova, and Olga Vasilievna Lepeshinskaya. And the famous dancer Mikhail Gabovich even checked my data - as a child I dreamed of becoming a ballerina. “Well, the figurine is nothing,” he then concluded with a smile. “If you do something, then maybe something will work out!” However, my parents categorically forbade me to be a ballerina. True, they sent me to a music school, and I graduated from it together with a ten-year-old at the same time in the piano class. Famous military leaders visited our house: Marshal Rokossovsky (after the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945.), Generals of the Army Khrulev, Meretskov, Antipenko, Admiral of the Fleet Kuznetsov and luminaries of science: Academicians Bakulev, Skryabin, Vinogradov, Yegorov and others. Families we were friends with the Poskrebyshevs, and all weekends and holidays, if my father was not busy at work, we spent with them. More often, they have.

Excuse me, Nadezhda Nikolaevna. In the materials of his interrogations - solid booze. Tell me frankly: did your father drink?

After such work - for days, without sleep and rest - of course, he sometimes drank in order to somehow discharge himself and relieve fatigue. As, I think, and any normal man in his place. I just can’t imagine how he could even withstand such a load! And because he started smoking at the age of eight, he had bad lungs. Back in the twenties, when he served with Dzerzhinsky, he developed a tuberculosis process, and he was sent to Ukraine for medical treatment. There, for two months, he fattened himself with bacon and sour cream. And his hearth somehow healed. And in the twenty-seventh year, he was transferred to the guards to Stalin, where he rose to the rank of head of the Main Directorate. But where there were scars on the lungs, emphysema subsequently developed, which eventually turned into lung cancer, from which he died ...

But, as you know, cancer is provoked by nervous and mental disorders. And above all, the troubles associated with the main business of human life.

Undoubtedly. The deterioration of his father's health began in the early fifties, when clouds began to gather around Stalin and, naturally, around his father. - Nadezhda Nikolaevna opened the envelope and pulled out yellowed sheets from Nikolai Sergeevich's notebook, where notes were made with a simple pencil and, which was noticeable, with a nervous, trembling hand. - Here are excerpts from my father's notes. From them it follows that for some reason the doctors of Sanupra began to arouse suspicion. They were suspected of improperly treating members of the government. And the father was instructed to check the entire professorship. Throughout the line, he carefully checked everyone and reported that all these people are absolutely clean, work with full dedication and their loyalty is beyond doubt. But some strange telegrams came from abroad ... And the clouds were gathering, as it were, from two sides. On the one hand, all this resulted, as you know, in the "case of doctors", and on the other hand, Beria prepared the ground for the final undermining of Stalin's health. These telegrams spoke of allegedly preparing attempts on the life of the leader. And my father then said that somehow they had outlined a route with Stalin to go south, and Beria reported that it was impossible to go along that road, since a conspiracy had been discovered there.

After a while, Stalin shows a desire to go somewhere else. Beria again: you can’t go there either, so-and-so confessed there, there were still pests, again a conspiracy ...

Approximately when did it all start?

Literally right after Stalin's seventieth birthday, since 1949. He became very suspicious. But it was the work of Beria. After all, as my father said, his health was already undermined by the war, all these sleepless nights and worries, and Lavrenty tirelessly aggravated the situation with his systematic reports on the disclosure of conspiracies. It was then that Maurice Thorez was severely paralyzed, then an attempt on his life, another attempt on him, after a while - a disaster with the car of Palmiro Togliatti ... Serious illnesses worsened in Georgy Dimitrov, Dolores Ibarruri. All this raised doubts: were they treated correctly in our country? Only now I found out in my father’s notes (I didn’t even know about it before) that they came to us for treatment under the guise of rest, so that they wouldn’t know in their homeland that they were actually seriously ill. Our professors advised them and prescribed treatment. Treated and cured. But then these professors were all arrested. - Nadezhda Nikolaevna brought a sheet from her father's notebook to her eyes and read: - “This was caused by Stalin's growing suspicion. And Beria's reports. Telegrams came from different countries, including socialist ones. They spoke of serious threats to kill Stalin and other government leaders. Telegrams came in constantly, especially often a year or two before Stalin's death. These messages were sent to the Central Committee of the party and the state security agencies. But it was no longer Beria who reported on them, but Malenkov. Even before Abakumov's arrest, he also reported on the violation of the state border and the infiltration of saboteurs. I took measures to strengthen security, especially when I.V. traveled to the south. Then it became known to me that all these threats were fabricated to increase Stalin's nervous excitability.

But after all, our professors cured Torez, and Tolyatti, and Ibarruri ...

Nevertheless, they were nevertheless charged with the fact that they wanted to poison Stalin. And such an accusation was also brought against the father - that he, too, was a terrorist and in collusion with pest-doctors.

But then he was already removed from work with Stalin! ..

Yes, Beria still got his way. But how he managed to slander and remove away the person most loyal to Stalin remains a mystery ... I don’t know that. Maybe there is something in the case?

There is nothing in the case...

Then I don't know. But I am convinced of one thing: Stalin believed in his father without limit. I remember the forty-sixth year, when I was still small. Then the father was also temporarily suspended from his duties. It was summer, and we went south as a family. But when the time came for Stalin’s vacation, he firmly said: “I won’t go anywhere without Vlasik!” And he had to be called and returned to his former position. I remember this very well.

But we're talking about fifty-two.

Allegedly, the reason for this was some financial irregularities or abuses. Maybe there was something wrong with his accounting, but I strongly doubt it, remembering how responsible my father was in financial matters. And the most interesting thing is that these motives were considered in detail both in the fifty-sixth, when he returned, and in the sixty-sixth, when he had already reached the very top. For ten years he fought for his rehabilitation. And in the end, after his case was considered by a commission in the CPC under the leadership of Shvernik, he came to an appointment with Nikolai Mikhailovich, and he said to him: “Well, Vlasik, you are well done for enduring for a long time. Finally, your case will be decided, and, most likely, in your favor. Soon you will be called and you will be given an answer. And it so happened that on the eve of the November holidays of the sixty-sixth, namely the sixth of November, he was summoned and given a negative answer. And this was the final refusal, which was such a terrible blow for him that he could not survive it. At this time, academic cardiologist Bakulev, with whom he was very friendly and who treated his father until the last day, was dying. This happened in March of the sixty-seventh and incredibly crippled his father's health: he lost his appetite, he began to lose weight and literally three months later, on June 18, he died.

They say that Alexander Nikolaevich Bakulev was involved in the "case of doctors"?

No, he wasn't attracted. As it turned out later, these doctors were crystal-clearly honest people. By the way, the same Timashchuk gets hit by a car for no reason.

Helped get...

More likely. Yes, I almost forgot. Father in Siberia, where he was sent, still froze his diseased lungs. At fifty-four. This also played a role. As I already said, my mother went there to see him, and I stayed with my grandmother. Still, my mother was an extraordinary woman. On the one hand, a secular lady, and on the other, you know, she did not shun any menial work. Could do everything. And to heat the stove, and to stand in lines, and for several kilometers to go for groceries. She was a true friend and wife of her father. She never let him down in anything, no matter what situation she was in, and until his last breath she was next to him. There, in Siberia, she, as best she could, adjusted his life. And when he was in Lefortovo and Butyrka, she constantly carried parcels for him, stood in lines for half a day. Well, he returned, of course, broken. I tried to write somewhere so that at least they would be restored in the party. I remember these letters with pain. After all, he was a real communist, not like these, today ... No, nothing. They just cleared my criminal record and gave me a civil pension…

Were the awards confiscated?

Everything is absolutely! Four Orders of Lenin, Kutuzov, the Red Banner, medals, titles... All films and recordings of Stalin's voice were taken away... And a huge number of photographs, cameras...

Many things. But they were all paid for, and my mother kept all the bills. At first they were in business. And when there was a CCP commission, it turned out that all these papers and, in general, all the documents rehabilitating him had disappeared from the file! Disappeared in the archives of the Central Committee. I remember he once enters the house and says: “Can you imagine, everything is gone! I can't prove anything!"

As I remember from the case, they constantly sewed something on him in order to somehow add to the corpus delicti. But they never succeeded...

Quite right. Look, the "doctors' case" has disappeared - financial violations! They fall away - the artist Stenberg! He is justified and released - an excess of rights and powers! I still do not know on what basis he was denied rehabilitation! No motivations and references! Gross silence! And all the cases that were sewn for him fell apart like houses of cards! In 1984, on my own behalf, I wrote a letter to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU with a request for the rehabilitation of my father. Received an extremely laconic answer from the Military Board: "Rehabilitation is not subject." And no explanations, links to articles, nothing. So I don't know what my father was convicted of. What it is?!

Personal enemies, you said...

Most likely, this is the issue. After all, after the arrest of Abakumov, Serov came, who was his mortal enemy! Already in the sixties, my father said that during his interrogations, Serov (and he once aimed at his place, but his father then stood firmly on his feet) said directly to his eyes: “I will destroy you!” But Serov was in prison for a long time ... Only the Penkovsky case crippled him. It was said that Penkovsky was his son-in-law. And this is the end of the sixties. And Rudenko sat firmly, and other comrades, whom he did not please in his time, also drowned him. After all, he always cut the truth in their eyes ... So get it now! .. And then he once told me that all this pack had a lot of all sorts of relatives. Okay, he provided for the members of the government, but besides them, all sorts of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law demanded service! They all whispered to their high-ranking relatives.

Most likely, it looked like some kind of silent conspiracy.

Indeed. And it continues to this day. As this perestroika began, books suddenly appeared with such terry lies about my father that my mother and I almost stood on end. Take, for example, the author of The Privy Counselor to the Leader, Ouspensky. He painted his father's appearance there in such a way that we were simply amazed: where did he get such bilious anger? Who told him all this? “Vlasik,” he crucified, “this is a terrible person, this is a man who was capable of the highest meanness, of unheard of atrocities ...” This is horror - what a terry lie and what insults! That's how to kick the dead! And then another publication in the "Military History Journal" ... Mom could not stand it and wrote very strong and biting letters to the editor. She signed: “Widow Vlasik,” and sent it away. Of course, no answer.

Should have sued! After all, you yourself will hook them a little where - so immediately you will have a label: “Stalinist”, “fascist”. And mocking the dead is a favorite pastime. The breed is...

But my mother could not stand it and always fought back. And I also wrote to Korotich, this “human rights activist” and “democrat”. And he fled as soon as he realized that he would have to answer for what he had messed up ...

Now he’s thought of returning, it’s not painfully sweet for him to live in America. He regrets that he missed the robbery and was left with nothing. Well, to hell with them, these shorties, Radzinsky and Uspensky! All this is a pathology from history and journalism. Please tell us how you lived without a father.

They lived badly. My father was arrested the day after my mother's birthday - December 16th. We took it very hard. And it was not a pity even for the confiscated services and cameras - this can be experienced. It was terrible that the father's archive was ruined. I was finishing my 10th year that year, and we lived on some of the savings my mom had. Then she went to work. I wanted to go to college, but it didn't work out. I immediately entered the second year of the art and graphic school and graduated from it in the fifty-sixth. For two years she worked as a teacher of drawing and drawing from the fifth to the tenth grade at a secondary school on Taganka - Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya Street. Although she did not study well at school. Mathematics, physics and chemistry were difficult for me, but history, English and Russian were easy. In a word, a humanitarian bias, pronounced. And I entered the institute when my father returned. It was he who helped me. And at the institute, I actually had only fives, and my favorite subjects were drawing, painting, art history, type history, clothing history ... In 1959, while studying in my second year, I transferred to the correspondence department and went to work at the Nauka publishing house ". There I grew up. But I first entered the secretary, then became a junior editor, after graduating from the institute, when I received a diploma as a graphic artist, I became an art editor, then a senior art editor ... And in recent years I was there on a special account. In total, I worked there for thirty-six years and knew many scientists and eminent people. Even now, when I am retired, I still work there as a graphic artist.

You have a very interesting creative life!

Yes, I am satisfied with my creative destiny. I have many diplomas, even an all-Union diploma of the first degree, several VDNKh medals for participating in exhibitions. Nominal watch, badges: “Excellence in Printing” and “Winner of Socialist competitions” and many certificates of honor. And I received the first all-Union diploma of the first degree for artistic editing of the joint Soviet-American publication "Space Exploration". Several volumes of them have been published in our country and in the USA. And when in the ninety-fifth year I turned sixty, the order for staff reduction came to the publishing house - I volunteered to retire voluntarily. And the most interesting thing is that they were not going to cut me, because I was in a very good account. But I insisted on my own, because by this time I was applying for disability due to illness. I got a severe complication after the flu, which I endured on my feet. For by nature I was like my father - a workaholic. I went to work with a temperature, everyone was afraid that everything would be fine without me. And such terrible pains in my legs began that I even screamed and only lived on a saddle for a week. And since then I have coxarthrosis. Doctors say that they do not treat him here, but only in America. Like, if possible, go there. Where do I get this opportunity? So you have to support yourself with injections, massages, or pills. And the pension is small - only three hundred and fifty thousand, and I still have to earn extra money as a graphic artist. I am currently designing the well-known series “Literary Monuments”… It's good that I love my job.

How is your personal life?

Very hard. In view of the fact that my father was arrested and imprisoned, young people refused me when they found out about it. And the publishing house was even afraid. I got married late and was happy for only seven years, while my beloved Pavel Evgenievich was alive. Now I am completely alone, I have no children.

How did you end up in this apartment?

I already said that when my father returned, we had a room in a five-room apartment on Gorky Street. After the death of his father, it became impossible to live there at all - other people moved in and behaved ugly. We changed for a long time, about seven years, and finally gave that area for this apartment.

Please tell us about the last days of your father's life.

My mother and I did not know until the last hour that he had cancer. After all, he always coughed, as long as I remember him. And when he returned from exile, Professor Egorov put him in the hospital three times to heal. And the last time he lay there, he got pneumonia. And against the background of pneumonia, his emphysema intensified again. They began to prick him, but an abscess had already begun. But for the last two years before his death, he didn’t even go outside in winter - he was terribly suffocating. Spasms of the lungs: gasped for air and could not breathe. And then the rejection of the CCP and the death of Bakulev - all one to one. He began to cough even harder, and he got worse and worse. Two or three months before his death, he lost his appetite altogether, he ate almost nothing and began to lose weight very quickly. And on the eighteenth of June at eight o'clock in the morning he woke up his mother and asked to call an ambulance. And while she was driving to us for an hour, he started bleeding in his throat, and then such brown clots - pieces of his lungs. He fell and died. And it's been thirty years since he's gone. Until my mother's legs failed, she constantly went to his grave ...

Where is he buried?

In the Donskoy Monastery, where the crematorium is. The urns of my mother's parents were buried in the wall there. And when the father returned from exile, the parents, anticipating their end, bought an irregularly shaped granite stele, installed it in the same place, on the territory of the monastery, and transferred the ashes of grandparents there. They made a flower garden, photographs, inscriptions and left a place. And when my father died, his ashes were also buried there and the inscription was knocked out, and when my mother died, I myself buried her urn there. I chose her best photo, because she was very beautiful, and placed it next to my father's. And I left a place for myself next to my grandmother and punished my niece how to do everything ...

And how did mom die and what did she say?

You know, because she was so lean, dryish. At eighty-six, she went shopping herself, served herself. And her memory was better than mine - no sclerosis. She was hit by a car on the street and her hip was broken. At that age. But she was a strong-willed person and after a month and a half she was already walking on crutches. I brought her home. But suddenly her circulation was interrupted, and her arms and legs began to swell badly. And then some hallucinations began. And when she became very ill, I transported her to the hospital, where she died in my arms. Having regained consciousness for a moment before the end, she said only one phrase: "What a nightmare ..." And that's it.

I left Nadezhda Nikolaevna with a full "diplomat" of photographs of her father, mother, Stalin, and members of his family. He got into the car, started the engine, but then turned the ignition switch and turned off the engine. "What a nightmare!" Her mother's words, spoken before her death, could be put as an epigraph to the huge bricks of pseudo-compositions about Stalin, placed on the shelves of bookstores. Indeed, in this shameless and brazen mockery of one's history there is not a word of life and not a word of truth. Self-admiration of mediocre and conceited graphomaniacs, genetically deprived of moral consciousness! There is no Kingdom of God inside them, that's why they kick the dead and defenseless. May they perish! And it was then that I finally established myself in the idea that by all means it was necessary to make a normal, human, and not a devilish book about Stalin and Vlasik.

During the years of perestroika, when a wave of all kinds of accusations rained down on almost all people from the Stalinist entourage in the advanced Soviet press, the most unenviable fate fell to General Vlasik. The long-term head of Stalin's guard appeared in these materials as a real lackey who adored his master, a watchdog, ready to attack anyone at his command, greedy, vengeful and mercenary.

Among those who did not spare negative epithets for Vlasik was Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. But the bodyguard of the leader at one time had to become practically the main educator for both Svetlana and Vasily.

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik spent a quarter of a century next to Stalin, protecting the life of the Soviet leader. Without his bodyguard, the leader lived for less than a year.

From the parochial school to the Cheka

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in Western Belarus, in the village of Bobynichi, into a poor peasant family. The boy lost his parents early and could not count on a good education. After three classes of the parochial school, Nikolai went to work. From the age of 13 he worked as a laborer at a construction site, then as a bricklayer, then as a loader at a paper mill.

In March 1915, Vlasik was drafted into the army and sent to the front. During the First World War, he served in the 167th Ostroh Infantry Regiment, and was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer and appointed commander of a platoon of the 251st infantry regiment, which was stationed in Moscow.

During the October Revolution, Nikolai Vlasik, a native of the very bottom, quickly decided on his political choice: together with the entrusted platoon, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.

At first he served in the Moscow police, then he participated in the Civil War, was wounded near Tsaritsyn. In September 1919, Vlasik was sent to the bodies of the Cheka, where he served in the central apparatus under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky himself.

Master of security and life

Since May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik served as a senior authorized officer of the Operational Department of the OGPU.

As Vlasik himself recalled, his work as Stalin's bodyguard began in 1927 after an emergency in the capital: a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on Lubyanka. The operative, who was on vacation, was recalled and announced: from that moment on, he was entrusted with the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, government members at dachas, walks. Particular attention was ordered to be given to the personal protection of Joseph Stalin.

Despite the sad story of the assassination attempt on Lenin, by 1927 the protection of the first persons of the state in the USSR was not particularly thorough.

Stalin was accompanied by only one guard: the Lithuanian Yusis. Vlasik was even more surprised when they arrived at the dacha, where Stalin usually spent his weekends. One commandant lived at the dacha, there was no linen, no dishes, and the leader ate sandwiches brought from Moscow.

Like all Belarusian peasants, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was a solid and well-to-do man. He took up not only the protection, but also the arrangement of Stalin's life.

The leader, accustomed to asceticism, at first was skeptical about the innovations of the new bodyguard. But Vlasik was persistent: a cook and a cleaner appeared at the dacha, food supplies were arranged from the nearest state farm. At that moment, there was not even a telephone connection with Moscow at the dacha, and it appeared through the efforts of Vlasik.

Over time, Vlasik created a whole system of dachas in the Moscow region and in the south, where well-trained personnel were ready at any moment to receive the Soviet leader. It is not worth talking about the fact that these objects were guarded in the most careful way.

The security system for important government facilities existed even before Vlasik, but he became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events, and international meetings.

Stalin's bodyguard came up with a system according to which the first person and the people accompanying him move in a cavalcade of identical cars, and only the bodyguards know which one the leader is driving in. Subsequently, such a scheme saved the life of Leonid Brezhnev, who was assassinated in 1969.

Irreplaceable and especially trusted person

Within a few years, Vlasik turned into an indispensable and especially trusted person for Stalin. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin entrusted his bodyguard with the care of the children: Svetlana, Vasily and his adopted son Artyom Sergeyev.

Nikolai Sidorovich was not a teacher, but he tried his best. If Svetlana and Artyom did not cause him much trouble, then Vasily was uncontrollable from childhood. Vlasik, knowing that Stalin did not give up to children, tried, as far as possible, to mitigate the sins of Vasily in reports to his father.

But over the years, the “pranks” became more and more serious, and it became more and more difficult for Vlasik to play the role of a “lightning rod”.

Svetlana and Artyom, as adults, wrote about their "tutor" in different ways. Stalin's daughter in "Twenty Letters to a Friend" described Vlasik as follows: "He led the entire guard of his father, considered himself almost the closest person to him, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble ..."

“He had a job all his life, and he lived near Stalin”

Artyom Sergeev, in Conversations about Stalin, spoke differently: “His main duty was to ensure the safety of Stalin. This work was inhuman. Always the responsibility of the head, always life on the cutting edge. He knew very well both friends and enemies of Stalin ... What kind of work did Vlasik have in general? It was work day and night, there was no 6-8-hour working day. All his life he had work, and he lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin's room was Vlasik's room ... "

For ten or fifteen years, Nikolai Vlasik turned from an ordinary bodyguard into a general heading a huge structure responsible not only for security, but also for the life of the first persons of the state.

During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on Vlasik's shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to place them, equip them in a new place, and think over security issues. The evacuation of Lenin's body from Moscow is also the task that Vlasik performed. He was also responsible for security at the parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

Assassination attempt in Gagra

For all the years that Vlasik was responsible for Stalin's life, not a single hair fell from his head. At the same time, the head of the leader’s guard himself, judging by his recollections, took the threat of assassination very seriously. Even in his declining years, he was sure that the Trotskyist groups were preparing the assassination of Stalin.

In 1935, Vlasik really had to cover the leader from bullets. During a boat trip in the Gagra region, fire was opened on them from the shore. The bodyguard covered Stalin with his body, but both were lucky: the bullets did not hit them. The boat left the firing zone.

Vlasik considered this a real assassination attempt, and his opponents later believed that it was all a production. As it turns out, there was a misunderstanding. The border guards were not informed about Stalin's boat trip, and they mistook him for an intruder.

Cow abuse?

During the Great Patriotic War, Vlasik was responsible for ensuring security at conferences of the heads of the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition and coped with his task brilliantly. For the successful holding of the conference in Tehran, Vlasik was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the Crimean Conference - the Order of Kutuzov I degree, for the Potsdam Conference - another Order of Lenin.

But the Potsdam Conference became a pretext for accusations of misappropriation of property: it was alleged that after its completion, Vlasik took various valuables from Germany, including a horse, two cows and one bull. Subsequently, this fact was cited as an example of the irrepressible greed of the Stalinist bodyguard.

Vlasik himself recalled that this story had a completely different background. In 1941, the Germans captured his native village of Bobynichi. The house where my sister lived was burned down, half the village was shot, the sister's eldest daughter was driven away to work in Germany, the cow and the horse were taken away. My sister and her husband went to the partisans, and after the liberation of Belarus they returned to their native village, from which little was left. Stalin's bodyguard brought cattle from Germany for relatives.

Was it abuse? If you approach with a strict measure, then, perhaps, yes. However, Stalin, when this case was first reported to him, sharply ordered that further investigation be stopped.

Opala

In 1946, Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik became the head of the Main Security Directorate: an agency with an annual budget of 170 million rubles and a staff of many thousands.

He did not fight for power, but at the same time he made a huge number of enemies. Being too close to Stalin, Vlasik had the opportunity to influence the leader's attitude towards this or that person, deciding who would get wider access to the first person, and who would be denied such an opportunity.

A lot of high-ranking officials from the country's leadership passionately wanted to get rid of Vlasik. Compromising evidence on Stalin's bodyguard was scrupulously collected, drop by drop undermining the leader's confidence in him.

In 1948, the commandant of the so-called "Near Dacha" Fedoseev was arrested, who testified that Vlasik intended to poison Stalin. But the leader again did not take this accusation seriously: if the bodyguard had such intentions, he could have realized his plans a long time ago.

In 1952, by decision of the Politburo, a commission was established to verify the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. This time, extremely unpleasant facts have surfaced that look quite plausible. The guards and personnel of the special dachas, which had been empty for weeks, staged real orgies there, plundered food and expensive drinks. Later, there were witnesses who assured that Vlasik himself was not averse to relaxing in this way.

On April 29, 1952, on the basis of these materials, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his post and sent to the Urals, to the city of Asbest, as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"Cohabited with women and drank alcohol in his spare time"

Why did Stalin suddenly back down from a man who honestly served him for 25 years? Perhaps it was all the fault of the leader's growing suspicion in recent years. It is possible that Stalin considered the waste of state funds for drunken revelry too serious a sin. There is also a third assumption. It is known that during this period the Soviet leader began to promote young leaders, and openly told his former associates: "It's time to change you." Perhaps Stalin felt that the time had come to replace Vlasik as well.

Be that as it may, very difficult times have come for the former head of the Stalinist guard.

In December 1952, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Plot. He was blamed for the fact that he ignored the statements of Lydia Timashuk, who accused the professors who treated the first persons of the state of sabotage.

Vlasik himself wrote in his memoirs that there was no reason to believe Timashuk: "There was no data discrediting the professors, which I reported to Stalin."

In prison, Vlasik was interrogated with prejudice for several months. For a man who was already well over 50, the disgraced bodyguard held firm. I was ready to admit "moral decay" and even embezzlement, but not conspiracy and espionage. “I really cohabited with many women, drank alcohol with them and the artist Stenberg, but all this happened at the expense of my personal health and in my free time,” his testimony sounded.

Could Vlasik extend the life of the leader?

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away. Even if we discard the dubious version of the murder of the leader, Vlasik, if he had remained in his post, he could well have extended his life. When the leader became ill at the Near Dacha, he lay for several hours on the floor of his room without help: the guards did not dare to enter Stalin's chambers. There is no doubt that Vlasik would not have allowed this.

After the death of the leader, the "case of doctors" was closed. All of his defendants were released, except for Nikolai Vlasik. The collapse of Lavrenty Beria in June 1953 did not bring him freedom either.

In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Vlasik guilty of abuse of office under especially aggravating circumstances, sentenced under Art. 193-17 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of exile, deprivation of the rank of general and state awards. In March 1955, Vlasik's term was reduced to 5 years. He was sent to Krasnoyarsk to serve his sentence.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record, but he was not restored to military rank and awards.

“Not a single minute did I have in my soul anger at Stalin”

He returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. Vlasik knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote to the leaders of the party and government, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere.

Secretly, he began to dictate memoirs in which he talked about how he saw his life, why he did certain things, how he treated Stalin.

“After Stalin’s death, such an expression appeared as“ the cult of personality ”... If a person who is the leader of his affairs deserves the love and respect of others, what’s wrong with that ... The people loved and respected Stalin. He personified a country that led to prosperity and victories, wrote Nikolai Vlasik. - Under his leadership, a lot of good things were done, and the people saw it. He enjoyed great prestige. I knew him very closely... And I affirm that he lived only for the interests of the country, the interests of his people.”

“It is easy to accuse a person of all mortal sins when he is dead and can neither justify nor defend himself. Why, during his lifetime, no one dared to point out to him his mistakes? What hindered? Fear? Or were there no such errors that should have been pointed out?

What Tsar Ivan IV was formidable for, but there were people who cared for their homeland, who, not fearing death, pointed out to him his mistakes. Or were brave people transferred to Rus'? - so thought the Stalinist bodyguard.

Summing up his memoirs and his whole life in general, Vlasik wrote: “Without a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison.

But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger in my soul against Stalin. I perfectly understood what kind of atmosphere was created around him in the last years of his life. How difficult it was for him. He was an old, sick, lonely man ... He was and remains the most dear person to me, and no slander can shake the feeling of love and the deepest respect that I always had for this wonderful person. He personified for me everything bright and dear in my life - the party, the motherland and my people.

Posthumously rehabilitated

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died on June 18, 1967. His archive was seized and classified. Only in 2011, the Federal Security Service declassified the notes of the person who, in fact, stood at the origins of its creation.

Relatives of Vlasik have repeatedly made attempts to achieve his rehabilitation. After several refusals, on June 28, 2000, by a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia, the sentence of 1955 was canceled, and the criminal case was dismissed "due to the lack of corpus delicti." (

The series about Vlasik goes in the evenings on Channel One

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On Channel One, the 14-episode film “Vlasik. Shadow of Stalin. Nikolai Vlasik was called by many the shadow of the leader. He was a real "product of his time", having received the rank of general with three classes (!) Of education. Rostovite Valeria Baykeeva, the author of the script for the series, told Komsomolskaya Pravda about the most striking episodes from the life of the bodyguard of the leader of the peoples.

MY HOMELAND - BELARUS

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in the village of Bobynichi, Grodno district, in Western Belarus. This boy from a poor peasant family lost his parents early. There was no one to rely on, so after three classes of the parochial school, from the age of 13 he worked as a laborer at a construction site, was a bricklayer and a loader.

He had no education in the classical sense of the word. But he had an excellent memory, resourcefulness and curiosity, - says screenwriter of the film Valeria Baykeeva.

In March 1915, he was drafted into the army, sent to the front. For the courage shown in the battles during the First World War, the fighter was awarded the St. George Cross. By the way, he did not hide his award all subsequent years, on the contrary, he was proud of it.

UNIQUE SECURITY SYSTEM IS STILL IN USE

After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer, appointed commander of a platoon of an infantry regiment in Moscow. During the October Revolution, together with his subordinates, he quickly oriented himself and went over to the side of the Bolsheviks: he served in the Moscow police, participated in the Civil War, was wounded again - already near Tsaritsyn. Four years later, he was sent under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky to the bodies of the Cheka. His work as Stalin's bodyguard began in 1927, after a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office on Lubyanka. The 31-year-old operative Vlasik was recalled from vacation and announced an important mission, which from now on was assigned to him - the protection of the Kremlin, members of the government and Himself.

Having fallen into Stalin's orbit, Vlasik developed such a unique security system that the modern Federal Security Service still uses his developments - the screenwriter says.- In particular, several identical motorcades following different routes - the idea of ​​​​the main guard of the Union. Or, so that nothing threatened the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition at a meeting in Tehran in 1943, the bodyguard "built" an impenetrable "corridor" of specially crafted shields, and installed it along the path of Stalin's cortege. By the way, in the famous Soviet film "Tehran 43" - which shows the operation of Soviet intelligence to prevent an assassination attempt on the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition, there is not a word about Vlasik's brilliant work. Despite the fact that he arranged the residence of the Soviet leader in such a way that Roosevelt, disappointed in the safety of the American mission, went "to wait" to Stalin.

SAVE THE LEADER FROM BULLETS

It was Vlasik who became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events and international meetings. During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on his shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to place them, equip them in a new place, and think over security issues. Once, risking his life, he had to close the leader from bullets with his body - this happened in 1935 in Gagra, when the border guards, not knowing what kind of boat was sailing past the outpost outside the set time, opened fire from the shore. In fact, for fun - where wine and songs flowed like water, they simply forgot to warn them. Lucky the bullets didn't hit anyone.

LOVER OF SONGS AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Nikolai Vlasik was a rather closed, silent and calm person and knew how to present himself. But at the same time he did not stick out, did not pull the blanket over himself. The truth is not with everyone. With his own - with whom he served and whom he trusted - with his guards, the people with whom he began serving at Menzhinsky, he was the soul of the company. He loved to sing. By the way, he had an excellent baritone voice. Basically, the repertoire consisted of Belarusian songs such as "Kukushechka" and "Voselochka", as well as Russian folk and romances.

And Vlasik's main hobby was photography. He photographed excellently, preferring the Soviet FED. During the arrest, more than 3,000 negatives were confiscated from Vlasik - pictures of his family, the Leader's family, on vacation and at home ...

By the way, Vlasik’s sense of humor was close to modern, as they would say, “black” ... During interrogation, when he was asked: “How would you comment on the accusations of drunkenness and debauchery?” He replied: “I really harmed my health, but I did it outside of working hours ...”

CHANGED YOUR PATRONYMENAME

Vlasik was an "economic guy": he arranged the life of Stalin and his family in the way he would like to arrange his own. Seeing that the leader and his wife were eating sandwiches brought from Moscow in their dacha, he organized the delivery of food there and organized a cook, a cleaning lady from the nearest state farm, and a telephone connection. But he never had enough time for his family. On the other hand, the handsome, stately Nikolai SERGEICH - as he called himself (the patronymic Sidorovich seemed dissonant to him), was noticed by beautiful women, from waitresses to actresses, including party workers. They said different things, but the prominent bodyguard did not even think about getting divorced.

In fact, Vlasik, like Stalin and his children, was deeply unhappy in his personal life. They had no children with a wife. They, at the insistence of his wife, adopted the girl Nadia, the daughter of Nikolai's deceased sister, raising her.

HAS BEEN ENGAGED IN LOVE ADVENTURES

Vlasik partly took over the care of Stalin's children. Svetlana - the leader's rain, frankly, she did not like him.

Let's start with the fact that Svetochka grew up as a bitchy and very proud girl, - the interlocutor says.- For the first time she fell in love as a teenager, with the son of Beria, whom his father brought to Moscow. Then the reddish and by no means beautiful daughter of the leader of the superpower was friends with the charming Martha Peshkova, Gorky's granddaughter. Girlfriends went everywhere together, and the handsome Sergo became the object of dreams of both of them. But the guy chose Marfa, married her. Later they had children and a close-knit family. Svetlana, at first, went crazy, raged, showing her character. And then she had an affair with screenwriter Alexei Kapler, who was much older than her. When it came to Stalin, then, as they would say today, he simply had an explosion of the brain. As a father, one could understand him: a young girl ran after an adult man as if tied. I must say that Kapler treated her very gently - he introduced her to literature, took her to the skating rink and concerts. Vlasik was indirectly involved in the whole thing. He understood that there was no danger. And even somehow tried to influence the enraged Joseph. But dad was unstoppable. The leader ordered: "Solve this issue, Vlasik!". Then Vlasik suggested that the screenwriter leave Moscow peacefully. But the groom, well-known to the public, overestimated his abilities and, having remained, ended up in the camps. The inconsolable Svetlana suffered at first, but quickly calmed down and began to marry many times. It's hard to say why she behaved this way. The girl was left without a mother early. She was raised by two very busy men: a martinet - her father's bodyguard, and the leader of the state, one of the most influential people on the planet and at all times. What is the upbringing?

VASILY STALIN RESPECTED VLASIK

But the middle son of Stalin - Vasily - respected Vlasik.

Red - that's what Stalin called him for his red hair, worked miracles - the screenwriter continues.- Now they would say that he majored in full: he didn’t want to study, he made a duplicate key to the apartment of Yasha’s older brother - while he was studying in Leningrad, and arranged drinking parties there. Vlasik periodically covered this "raspberry" himself, and when strangers complained, he stood up for Vasya before his father. After one of these sprees, Stalin sent his son to study at the Kachinsky Pilot School. But then Beria began to fight for influence on Vasya, knocking out his sacred duty - to visit the heir. He went there with checks, and then went to Stalin with reports. What was the father's surprise when a letter came to his name from the commander of the school, in which he wrote "your son is a loser, a lazy person and a violator of the rules." The brutalized Stalin called Vlasik, sending him to deal with the offspring. He gave the ward a good scolding. Vasily was afraid of Vlasik, but he loved, calling Uncle Kolya.

"GIFT" FROM BERIA

Iosif Vissarionovich was a very knowledgeable person and told Vlasik: I know everything about everyone. But he had an interesting property: even if a person behaved inappropriately, committed some misconduct, but at the same time was useful to him until a certain time, Stalin did not touch him. Then the main question remains - why, after two decades of service, the leader still refused a devoted bodyguard?

There was a confluence of circumstances - the scriptwriter thinks. - Stalin was a man far from the way of life. He completely and in all domestic matters trusted Vlasik. And Beria very cleverly played on this feature. Once they were standing together on the roof of the Middle Dacha. And the leader suddenly asked: "Lavrenty, what kind of city is there on the horizon?" Beria replied: "So this is your Vlasik and built for his guards." In fairness, it should be noted that the bodyguard, actively promoting a healthy lifestyle and taking care of his subordinates, really organized a small village with a stadium, a swimming pool and a cinema so that the guards lived right next to their object. But how was it presented? And that was the first call.

Then Beria hinted to Stalin that that Astrakhan herring, which is always on the table and appears at the first click of the owner, costs crazy money, because, by order of Vlasik, it is delivered by plane, which in itself is not a cheap pleasure. And it began to dawn on the leader: a lot of money is being spent uncontrollably. Beria actively warmed up this topic. Then, in 1952, the “case of the poisoning doctors of a number of Soviet leaders” arrived. By that time, Stalin had already begun to suffer from the same paranoia that is still talked about so much. And he refused Vlasik.

And when they came to arrest the bodyguard, he said: "There will be no me, there will be no Stalin." In less than three months, he turned out to be right - Stalin died.

TWO HEART AND FAKE SHOOTING

56-year-old Nikolai Vlasik went to prison, outwardly still a handsome healthy man, and four years later he came out as a deep old man with shuffling legs - after all, there he had two heart attacks and two false executions.

After the arrest, the bodyguard thrown to the sidelines of life returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. The wife lived in cramped conditions. The husband of the adopted daughter, after the arrest of an influential father, left his wife. Not accustomed to giving up, Vlasik knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote to government leaders, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere. He was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record only after the reburial of Stalin. That's just in the military rank and awards have not been restored.

WHO WROTE THREE MILLION DENUSIONS?

There was one episode that clearly showed the attitude of the then contemporaries to Vlasik - recalls Valerie.- Somehow, in the 60s, he arrived at the Kuntsevskaya dacha, where Stalin died. At that time, the remnants of the leader's personal belongings were taken out of there, and among others, huge boxes with denunciations written by the Soviet people. The denunciations were both serious and on the level: "Dear Comrade Stalin, please influence my neighbor Serafima Kozlovskaya, who does not turn off the light at night in the toilet." The young officer recognized old Vlasik and rudely “asked” to leave the territory. Vlasik replied: "I actually built this cottage." To which the young man grunted: “Listen, grandfather, neither history nor the fate of the tyrant and murderer (meaning Stalin) is of interest to anyone here.” Vlasik remained faithful to his master to the last and did not remain silent: “The tyrant and the murderers, maybe, just who wrote these three million denunciations?”

SPECIFICALLY

Watch the series "Vlasik. Shadow of Stalin” from Monday to Thursday at 21:35 on Channel One.

60 years ago, on December 16, 1952, the former head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Lieutenant General Vlasik, was arrested. Stalin played a very strange role in the fate of his main bodyguard. Yevgeny Zhirnov, head of the historical and archival service of the Kommersant Publishing House, understood this mysterious story.

"Being stupid but noble"

Once, in the era of glasnost, which captured not only the press, but also veterans of the authorities and special services, who at that time willingly shared their memories, one of the former state security officers told me about an episode associated with the incredible physical strength of Stalin's chief bodyguard, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik. My interlocutor, then still a young MGB operative, unexpectedly recognized in the crowd on a Moscow street in a strong man dressed in an excellent coat, the head of the Main Directorate of Security (GUO) of the MGB of the USSR, Lieutenant General Vlasik. The operative noticed that a suspicious type, obviously a pickpocket, was spinning near the high boss, and began to quickly move towards the general. But, approaching, he saw that the thief had already put his hand into Vlasik's pocket, and he suddenly put his powerful five on his coat over his pocket and squeezed the thief's brush so that, as the opera told, the crack of breaking bones was heard. The veteran recalled that he wanted to detain the pickpocket, who had turned white and lost consciousness from pain, but Vlasik winked at him, shook his head negatively and said: "There is no need to plant, he will not be able to steal anymore."

Other veterans recalled that Vlasik was considered one of the most powerful figures in Stalin's entourage, not only in terms of physical strength, but also in terms of influence. It was said that at times the head bodyguard exaggerated his importance, resorting to a simple trick. The door from Stalin's reception room led to a small vestibule, from which the next door opened - to the office. They said that Vlasik could enter this vestibule, stand there, go out and announce that Comrade Stalin did not want to see such and such a petitioner. And a frightened to death official or general began to seek friendship with the all-powerful Nikolai Sidorovich, so that he would help change the leader's anger to mercy.

Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva wrote about the same thing in the book "Twenty Letters to a Friend":

“We have to mention another general, Vlasik, who stayed near his father for a very long time, since 1919. Then he was a Red Army soldier assigned to guard, and later became a very powerful person behind the scenes. He headed all his father’s guards, considered himself almost the closest person to him and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he went so far as to dictate to some artists the "tastes of Comrade Stalin", as he believed that he knew and understood them well. followed this advice... And not a single festive concert at the Bolshoi Theater or in the St. George's Hall at banquets was compiled without Vlasik's sanction ... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether he "liked" "himself", whether it was a film , or the opera, or even the silhouettes of the high-rise buildings under construction at that time ... It would not be worth mentioning him at all - he ruined the lives of many, but before that he was a colorful figure that you couldn’t pass him by. "

Many well-known artists at that time tried to get into the companies where Vlasik visited in order to gain his favor. And some became famous thanks to participation in these feasts. One of the participants in such meetings, Vera Gerasimovna Ivanskaya, said:

"I ... several times was at Vlasik's dacha and at his apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard. I remember that Stenberg was in the companies then, once there was Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov and very often Okunev. To be honest, I had no particular desire to meet with Vlasik and in general to be in this company. But Vlasik threatened me, said that he would arrest me, etc., and I was afraid of this. Once at Vlasik's apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard, I was with my friends Kopteva and another girl. Then there was some then the artist, it seems Gerasimov.

Vlasik behaved as if no Soviet laws and norms of behavior were written for him. Vladimir Avgustovich Stenberg, a Red Square graphic designer who had been friends with him for many years, wrote in his own testimony after his arrest:

"I must say that Vlasik is a morally corrupt person. He cohabited with many women, in particular with Nikolaeva, Ryazantseva, Dokukina, Lokhtionova, Spirina, Veshchitskaya, Gradusova, Averina, Vera Gerasimovna. I believe that Vlasik also cohabited with Shcherbakova, with Gorodnichev sisters: Lyuda, Ada, Sonya, Kruglikova, Sergeeva and her sister and others whose names I don’t remember. Maintaining comradely relations with me, Vlasik soldered me and my wife and cohabited with her, which Vlasik himself later cynically told me about " .

Actually, there was nothing strange about it. Who could stop the leader's main bodyguard, if at times Stalin consulted with him, deciding the fate of his leaders, whose names alone terrified the whole country. In his not very literate letter to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, written on April 5, 1955, Vlasik gave an example of such an event:

"The head of government, being in the south after the war, in my presence expressed great indignation against Beria, saying that the state security agencies did not justify their work with proper support. He pointed to individual failures in the work of his leadership and said that he had given instructions to remove Beria from the leadership in the MGB. He asked me how Merkulov, Kobulov worked, and subsequently about Goglidze and Tsanava. I told him what I knew, with the facts that I knew from work, about the shortcomings of the leadership. "

On December 29, 1945, Stalin removed Beria from the leadership of the NKVD of the USSR and oversight of state security, ordering him to focus on the Soviet atomic project. On May 7, 1946, Merkulov lost the post of Minister of State Security of the USSR, only a year later he received the post of head of the Main Directorate of Soviet Property Abroad. The former Deputy Minister of State Security, Colonel General Kobulov, unflatteringly described by Vlasik, ended up in the same department.

The former heads of state security at that time did not yet know about the role that Vlasik played in the collapse of their career. But in 1948, having recovered from the blow, they apparently decided to punish the head of the GUO, who did not influence Stalin's decision in a positive direction for them. Fortunately, the new Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel-General Abakumov, although he was their enemy, also sought to get rid of the overly influential chief bodyguard.

"Falsely testified against me"

Judging by the letter of Vlasik Voroshilov, Abakumov used the incident with his subordinate, Beria's security chief, Colonel Sarkisov, to activate the enemies of the head of the Main Security Directorate.

“In the practice of work,” Vlasik wrote, “there were cases, and especially with Sarkisov, that he often went on assignment during his duty, and there was even a case on the operational car, because there was no his economic car, at that time they filed the main car, since Sarkisov has not yet returned with an operational car, the guards were left without a car and lagged behind.

The fact that a member of the Politburo Beria left without a "tail" guard car was an emergency, and Vlasik called Sarkisov for dressing:

“An investigation was carried out on this issue, and a remark was made to him, he stated that, while fulfilling the order of the guarded, he did not have another car. had the right to be interested in what tasks he was carrying out. He was with me later, when he was accused that the main car left without protection, and asked to allocate an economic car, which I did, not only to him, but to everyone attached. We also agreed to entrust all orders to the commandants of the facility. That's how it was."

During the check, an unsightly detail was revealed: Sarkisov used an operational vehicle to transport strangers.

“I,” wrote Vlasik, “reported this to the then minister Abakumov, I could not do otherwise, since it was clear from the material that this applies more to Sarkisov himself than to Beria, and without checking these materials I could not report higher, since unverified material could be mistaken for slander, squabbles, etc. At that time, I myself had no right to check on my own without the sanction, or even the minister, without his official order. government, there is a decision of the Central Committee on this matter. That is why I reported to Abakumov, who said that he himself would check and summon Sarkisov. I took this document and after a long time gave the order to burn it and not conduct any verification. I still did not burn it, but returned it to the head of the Intelligence Department Maslennikov ... I could not foresee that Abakumov would turn out to be an enemy and would not make the appropriate checks or report where he should after the check.

But Abakumov informed Beria that Vlasik was interested in his personal life, and the "Lubyansk Marshal" did not remain in debt:

“I soon noticed that Beria had noticeably changed his attitude towards me. This, of course, alarmed me, I wanted to talk about this with the Head of Government, but I thought that it would be tactless, especially since I did not have any hard data ".

In 1948, Beria, before Stalin, arrived at his Near Dacha in Kuntsevo and found that packages with especially important documents for the leader, which were delivered by field communications, were lying on the table intended for them in disarray. Beria immediately announced that there was a spy among the guards. Soon Fedoseev, assistant commandant of the dacha, who was on duty that day, was arrested along with his wife. Fedoseev, according to some sources, was placed in the worst prison in the country - Sukhanovskaya, or Sukhanovka, where especially important prisoners were tortured both by conventional methods and by absolute silence, from which a person could go crazy. Since Beria’s experienced associates from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by Deputy Minister Serov, were dealing with his case, Fedoseev soon surrendered and signed a confession stating that he, along with Vlasik, was going to poison Stalin.

Beria reported on the result achieved to the leader, but the result was not quite the one that Lavrenty Pavlovich counted on.

“Fedoseev,” Vlasik wrote, “gave false testimony against me, and the Head of Government, doubting its plausibility, personally checked this case himself. He called and interrogated him. It was found that this was a false testimony. Beria's observation, after that the case was transferred to the MGB Fedoseev stated that he was forced to give false testimony because he was beaten every day, so he gave such testimony, knowing that the Head of Government would call him, where he would ask to be "They didn't beat me. After this check, the Head of the Government himself told me what evidence Fedoseyev had given against me and why he had given it."

Stalin, according to his chief bodyguard, personally figured out another accusation put forward by Beria - in huge embezzlement and misappropriation of products delivered to Stalin's Middle and other dachas:

“Right away we talked about these unfortunate products, for which I am accused of stealing in the protocols. We need to know our former situation of life on the Middle. I explained to the Head of Government on this issue which products and when we really used and which ones I took measures to ensure that there were no more abuses here. He agreed with me and even himself changed his regimen in orders for cooking dinners, etc. I could not, and would not be allowed to, write down the details of our situation on the "Middle" and It would be wrong to write about this. You, like other members of the government, are aware that various samples and other things sent were not always considered in time, and we could sometimes do nothing with them. Many facts can be cited about this which I did to the Head of Government, and he could not but agree with me."

It would seem that the history of the persecution of Vlasik could end there. But Beria, as it turned out, was not going to put up with defeat.

Beria, Merkulov and Kobulov (in the photo - from left to right), thanks to Vlasik, from the real heads of state security at the moment they became former

"It was important for them to pollute me"

In 1949, after the successful test of the atomic bomb, Beria again found himself in favor with Stalin:

“It must be said frankly and honestly,” wrote Vlasik, “that when the Head of Government spoke after the war and clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with Beria, but he attributed it more to the inability, inability and poor knowledge of the work of state security agencies, but in no case expressed political distrust of him. I understood that. And it all soon passed. The head of the government, on the contrary, praised him very emphatically after completing one of the big tasks of the government. It was clear and understandable to me that he had changed his attitude about past shortcomings in Beria's work by the Ministry of State Security.

One could assume that it was precisely thanks to Stalin's location that Beria had a new chance to get rid of Vlasik. In a letter from the former head of the GDO to Voroshilov, it was said:

“Selecting materials dating back to 1948, which the Head of Government himself had already checked, they, through Abakumov, climbed into all the little things of my intimate life, inflating everything to incredible limits, distorting reality ... All this dirty bouquet, apparently, was reported to the Head of Government, after which the question arose at the Politburo of the Central Committee - about the trouble in the Main Directorate of the Guard.

By decision of the Politburo, a commission was created to verify the activities of the Guo MGB of the USSR:

"As a result of the work of the commission chaired by Comrade Malenkov with the most active participation of Beria and other members of P.B., I was expelled from the party, suspended from work without any observance of the proper transfer of the Office and leaving documentation, etc. I was urgently sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city Asbestos to the Urals to work in the camp - deputy head of the camp administration, which deprived him of the opportunity to defend himself in accusations of trouble, which ended up in the apparatus of the administration. "

Vlasik was removed from his post as head of the GDO in May 1952, and at the end of the year he was arrested. The first accusation, as Vlasik wrote, was that he looked through the killer doctors among the Kremlin doctors:

“I was arrested on December 16, 1952. The investigation of the former MGB on especially important cases charged me with the fact that I, being the head of the Main Directorate of Security of the MGB, did not ensure the timely opening of the spy terrorist organization of doctor-professors of the Kremlin Sanitary Directorate, which was serviced by a trusted me I was also charged with not taking appropriate measures on the signal received from the doctor Timoshuk and did not conduct an investigation into the treatment of the sick comrade Zhdanov, which helped the enemies-professors to hide my evil intention. By this he became an indirect accomplice in the organization of wreckers and enemies of the people. "

To get out of a difficult situation, the head of the Main Directorate of Security had to kowtow to Beria (in the photo, Beria is second from the right, Vlasik is behind him)

The following accusation was not new:

"The second accusation is the use of his official position. He used products at a guarded facility at the expense of the state."

Finally, the third accusation concerned the moral decay of Vlasik and his illegibility in the choice of friends:

"About promiscuous connections and acquaintances. In particular, he kept in touch for a long time with the designer of the Red Square, Stenberg Vladimir Avgustovich, who did not inspire political confidence, who was arrested on charges of espionage. After a change in leadership and verification, he was released from custody. My investigation began on these questions, and on the basis of these false accusations against me, a conclusion was drawn up, which, like my arrest, was approved by the former deputy minister, an enemy of the people, Goglidze, using Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, as having not justified confidence. the most humiliating checks in almost 25-30 years of all my acquaintances, inflicting interrogations on them, using old materials of already verified cases, as according to Stenberg.

The most curious thing was that Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev, who was appointed Minister of State Security of the USSR after Abakumov's arrest, already understood Vlasik's relationship with Stenberg. But the new state security leadership, headed by Beria, took up Stenberg and Vlasik with all seriousness and force:

“I myself spoke about the Stenberg case during my first interrogation after my arrest. I asked the investigators to write down that the former minister Ignatiev checked this case and reported on it to the Central Committee, moreover, he told me that they wanted to compromise Vlasik in this case, and the Stenberg case does not deserve no attention, they wanted to arrest Stenberg, Ignatiev instructed me to warn Stenberg about chatter, and to hand over the case to the archive, and in case of any misunderstanding refer to him. applied, like me, the strictest regime and unacceptable mockery.

Vlasik described in detail the methods of investigation applied to him, quite common for the department in which he had served for more than three decades:

“Of course, at my age and state of health, I could not stand it. I got a nervous breakdown, a complete shock and lost absolutely all self-control and common sense, and then a heart attack followed, because before these terrible trials, exacerbations of my disease appeared - headaches, sheer hallucinations and nightmares. For months I was without sleep. In this state, pre-prepared protocols were fabricated on me. I was not even able to read my answers compiled by them, just under abuse and threats in sharp handcuffs worn to the bones, I was forced to sign this terrible for I was compromised in every little thing by 90 percent of a painted lie, since at that time the handcuffs were removed and promises were made to let go to sleep, which never happened, because in the cell their tests followed, more disguised, but also more painful, acting morally and physically " .

He hoped that, like Fedoseyev in 1948, Stalin would call him to check his testimony, find out that the testimony was obtained under torture, and release him. But the leader could no longer call him:

“I thought about everything when I faced the fact of such an investigation, and especially when I was summoned for interrogation to Beria and Kobulov, where they showed me a newspaper about the death of the Head of Government, which I did not know about. I just found out that they again stood at the leadership of the MGB. It was important for them to pollute me, which they did and achieved their goal. "

But the most amazing discovery awaited Vlasik ahead. Before interrogating Beria, he was summoned by the head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General Vlodzimirsky:

"He demanded that I testify that I told what kind of conversations I had with the Head of Government about the former leadership of the MGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He said that I gave characteristics according to which large leaders of operational work were removed from work in the MGB, which caused damage to the state, meaning the removal of Merkulov, Kobulov, Beria, myself and others. I categorically refused to give any evidence on this issue ... And now I am finally convinced that this conversation between me and the Head of Government became him for sure known, I was amazed by that. That's why they removed me and expelled me from the party."

But much more important and striking was something else:

"Apparently, he himself told them about my conversation with the Head of Government when they reported to him these dirty materials about me."

Even under fear of new torture, Vlasik did not testify against his old colleague, the head of the secretariat, Stalin Poskrebyshev (pictured in the center)

"Threatened to repeat the basement"

It turned out that Stalin, who had previously defended his faithful bodyguard and looked through his fingers at his adventures and abuses, suddenly gave Vlasik to be torn to pieces by his worst enemies. And further encouraging them.

“Then I realized,” Vlasik wrote, “that, apart from death, I have nothing more to wait for ... They demanded evidence against Poskrebyshev, Kobulov called twice more in the presence of Vlodzimirsky, I refused, saying that I had no data to compromise Poskrebyshev no, he just said that the Head of Government at one time was very dissatisfied with the work of our bodies and the leadership of Beria, he cited the facts that the Head of Government told me about failures in work, which he accused Beria of, to which Kobulov told me that I I forgot about it, I didn’t remember it anywhere else. For refusing to testify against Poskrebyshev, he said bluntly, you would die in prison. He threatened to repeat the basement.”

In a letter, Vlasik said that Kobulov's prediction had almost come true:

“In such a serious condition, I was again sent at night to Lefortovo, where I had a heart attack - a heart attack. It was, I don’t remember exactly, on May 19 or 18, 1953, and therefore the interrogation promised to me was not carried out, as Kobulov said the night before I was sent to Lefortovo prison, that tomorrow you will be interrogated. I lay on my back for a whole month in a cell, then I was sent to Butyrka prison in June, where I lay in a hospital cell with service and improved nutrition. They began to treat me, but the moral the impact was not removed, and my health did not improve in any way, but, on the contrary, worsened, although my heart improved, my head and the general state of the nervous system worsened every day. I felt terrible. Insane thoughts came into my head, which I could not get rid of under the regime in which I was kept all the time. They transferred me several times again to the inner prison, but the problem I didn't feel anything. I was deprived of newspapers, that is, I never received and knew nothing. All the time he was waiting for his end, almost two years."

But he was unexpectedly lucky. Beria and his associates were arrested. It would seem that after that, given that the case of the killer doctors was recognized as fabricated and the main charge against Vlasik fell away, he could be released. But the case was not stopped, and the new head of state security, Colonel General Serov, took over.

“Finally,” Vlasik wrote, “Serov called me, I was still in the same condition. After two interrogations, he announced to me that Beria and all this bastard had been exposed. They improved my nutrition, began to treat me again, but the investigation was again delayed, although Serov promised finish quickly. I could not wait and again got a severe deterioration of the nervous system, again delusions, nightmares, since the moral regimen was not removed from me, I cannot bring it here, but it drove me completely crazy, madness climbed into my head, I I didn’t even believe Serov’s promises made to me. Why the new leadership of the investigation again does not trust me, painfully experiencing this. Why two years in solitary confinement with such a regime and no trial, do not finish the investigation, again all sorts of nightmares and stupid thoughts climbed into my head. I am alive only because the enemies were exposed, saved from a painful death, and suddenly there was no progress in my case. Finally, I waited for the investigation and soon the court. l: I will strain all my strength, just don’t put it off. I could hardly stand it, it's true, the trial did not last very long with two breaks. At the trial, I was not only unable to defend myself against all this data, but I could not connect a few logical phrases. But I hoped for the fairness of his decision in relation to me, since I was sure that such a lengthy check was enough for the investigation to check all the doubts in my questions that were not clear to the investigation. However, although the investigation announced to me before the court that any accusation on the issue of the doctors of Sanupr was dropped. The Kremlin, since this case was not confirmed during the check and the professors were all released from custody and fully rehabilitated. Also, Stenberg was released from custody. They didn't even change the articles on the charges against me. According to her, the court ruled. Deprive of military rank, deprive of government awards, seize items illegally acquired, and deport to remote areas for 5 years. The term shall be calculated from the day of arrest, that is, from December 15, 1952."

Soon after the verdict on January 17, 1955, Vlasik was taken to the place of exile - to Krasnoyarsk, from where he wrote a letter to the head of the Soviet state, Marshal Voroshilov. He was not satisfied with the outcome of the case:

“No matter how hard it was for me to go through all this morally and physically, especially since the investigation and the court expressed some distrust of me, I attribute this to those complex and confusing circumstances, not only in my making mistakes in this whole case, but also in my illness and nervous shock. I was not able to state all the reasons and circumstances logically for the last investigation, even at the trial I refused the last word of the defendant. "

Vlasik was glad that he managed to survive Beria and his team:

"Dear Kliment Efremovich, allow me here to bring deep, sincere gratitude to you and in your person to the party and government, to which I owe my life, although I have not long to use it, but I am morally satisfied, as the enemies of the people have been exposed and punished according to their deserts ".

But most importantly, he repented and asked for mercy:

“I swear to you, dear Kliment Efremovich, with full responsibility to the party and the government, that in all the mistakes I made there is not and never was any intent or political misunderstanding, and connections with all sorts of reptiles, as well as with this gang enemies of the people. I ask you to take into account my extremely serious state of health. Deprived not only of treatment, but also of proper care, living without a family, in this state I have very little life left, although by a court decision I have to be in exile for another two years and nine months It means to die away from the family, with such heavy feelings and in a completely helpless state, not to mention the deprivation that cannot but excite me, having worked for thirty-three years in the state security agencies, twenty-four of them in the protection of the Head of Government. Having honestly given up all my health, I am deprived of the right to even a piece of bread, not to mention a pension. yu and the government for pardon. Forgive me my mistakes, give me the opportunity to get my Moscow passport in order to live my last days near my family.

"I was completely honest with him"

In 1956, Vlasik was pardoned and allowed to return to Moscow, but neither the title, nor the awards, nor the membership card was returned. In 1960, he tried to be reinstated in the CPSU, and he almost succeeded. The certificate of his party affairs stated:

"On behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, on April 13, 1960, the Party Control Committee considered the application of Vlasik N. S. to reinstate him in the party and rehabilitate him in court. Then the following decision was made: "Enter the Central Committee of the CPSU with the proposal of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU about the restoration of Comrade Vlasik in the party "".

But the decision on Vlasik was not approved in the Central Committee of the CPSU, and the CCP considered his case again:

"Due to the fact that this decision was returned to the Party Control Committee, a re-check of Vlasik's case was carried out and the question of his party membership was again discussed ... According to Vlasik's statement, the USSR Prosecutor's Office checked his case and confirmed the correctness of the charges brought by the court. Vlasik's party membership, it turned out that for a long time (from the 30s) he led a depraved and riotous life, arranged drunkenness and revelry, cohabited with a large number of casually familiar women... Moreover, he often used his high position, intimidated women, forcing them to cohabitation. Moral unscrupulousness led to a loss of political vigilance. Vlasik brought his cohabitants to government theater boxes, gave them passes to Red Square, uncovered some secret objects ... Having considered Vlasik's case at a meeting on October 12, 1962, the Party Control Committee changed an earlier decision was denied by Vlasi ku in a petition to the Central Committee of the CPSU for his reinstatement in the party.

The main reason for the refusal was the result of an additional interrogation of Vlasik by party investigators. He admitted that he hid from Voroshilov:

“It was also established that Vlasik N. S. kowtowed before Beria, “was with him,” as Vlasik said, “he was frank to the end,” “personally informed him about the mood of I.V. Stalin,” “Beria valued his opinion even then, when he no longer worked as a People's Commissar "".

There is no doubt that it was precisely because of this that Stalin not only agreed to his arrest, but also set Beria against him. Perhaps the faithful bodyguard ceased to be faithful out of fear, after in 1948 the "Lubyansk Marshal" took up arms against him. But it is more likely that Vlasik began to inform Beria after Stalin's health deteriorated.

Due to his illiteracy, he did not know that for many millennia, aging rulers who felt unwell resorted to the standard method of checking their environment. From time to time they mimic a sharp exacerbation of the disease. And then they get rid of those who began to develop some kind of illegal activity, be it the chief bodyguard or the minister of defense. And there is no doubt that this technique will be in demand in the future. Wherever the limitation of the term of office of the first person is nothing more than a convention.