The famous English science fiction writer Herbert Wells, the author of the famous novels The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and others, visited Russia three times at the beginning of the 20th century. True, each time it was called differently - the Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, the USSR. After the second visit, the writer, even in Great Britain, was constantly under the supervision of the KGB. What did the science fiction writer from the shores of Foggy Albion interested in the workers of the Bolshevik special services?
What the writer kept silent about
Wells' first trip to Russia took place in 1914. The works of science fiction have already been published in Russian, but the writer did not want journalists to find out about his short visit. Impressions about the country were later included in the novel "Joan and Peter", the heroes of which spend several days in Moscow.
H. G. Wells.
The second visit took place in 1920. Wells spent almost two weeks in the Bolshevik state. It was during this trip that the science fiction writer attracted close attention of the special services.
The second man in the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky's deputy, Yakov Peters, tried to recruit Wells in order to receive intelligence information about the state of affairs in English society through him. Unfortunately, for Soviet intelligence, it was not possible to make the writer an agent. But another prominent figure of the Cheka, Gleb Bokiy, also showed interest in him. Gleb Ivanovich wanted to get the manuscript of the first novel by H. G. Wells, which was called The Argonauts of Time.
The writer himself in numerous interviews talked about the history of the creation of this work: in his youth he did not think about a literary career and worked as a cleaner in a haberdashery store. Once, for some minor offense, the owner fired him. Herbert wandered the streets without money or a roof over his head and prayed to God to find himself in another time and in another place. And it happened! True, the writer did not reveal any details - but a few months later he created a novel about time travel.
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The manuscript was initially overloaded with formulas and technical details. The publishers asked to remove them - and Wells rewrote the novel, calling it The Time Machine. The book was published in 1895.
Gleb Bokiya was interested in the technical part of the manuscript, which was not published. What formulas did the writer hide from his readers? And really pi with their help can be transported to another era?
Didn't believe Lenin
On October 5, 1920, Wells' famous meeting with the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin took place. The writer was skeptical about the plans to transform our country and a little later in the book "Russia in the Dark" called the leader "the Kremlin dreamer." But at the same time he noted his excellent English and talent for polemics.
Vladimir Lenin talks with writer HG Wells in his office in the Kremlin.
Lenin told Wells about the upcoming construction of powerful power plants and large industrial enterprises - and invited him to come to Moscow in ten years and personally make sure that all this will be done.
By the way, Vladimir Ilyich read the book of Herbert Wells "Russia in the Dark" in the original - and noted some passages for himself (in particular, he highlighted the paragraph where the writer argued that, according to Marxist theory, Russia will have a new heaven and a new earth "). Despite the harsh criticism and obvious disbelief of the great science fiction writer in the Bolsheviks' capabilities, the book was translated into Russian two years later (in 1922) and published in the USSR.
Good roads were never built
In July 1934, the writer once again visited the Land of the Soviets. He came from the USA. where he met with President Roosevelt, intending to mediate between the leaders of the two great powers. But the new leader of the Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin, received the guest rather dryly, although he devoted several hours to him.
Herbert Wells, Maxim Gorky and Maria Zakrevskaya, at that moment - Gorky's common-law wife, who later became Wells' common-law wife.
Before this meeting, H. G. Wells made a short trip around the country - and was convinced that Lenin's fantastic plans came true (the only thing the writer was right about was in his assertion that in 10-15 years good roads could not be built here, however, in comparison with the European powers, there are still very few of them). Wells met with Soviet writers Maxim Gorky, Alexei Tolstoy, Alexander Belyaev. To please the Englishman, it was decided to give him several of his works in Russian - but this turned out to be a difficult task, since the books were very popular, they were not available in stores and second-hand booksellers. As a result, Soviet writers donated their own copies.
The plans of the great science fiction writer were to interview Joseph Stalin (it was published in The New Statesman magazine) and persuade Soviet writers to join the PEN Club (an abbreviation from the English words swarm - "poet", essayist - "essayist", novelist - "novelist ", While the word PEN itself means" pen, pen ") - a worldwide creative organization, which Wells headed after the death of its first leader John Galsworthy.
But the writers of the USSR reacted coolly to the idea of joining the PEN Club - due to the fact that its members were foreign writers who did not share communist beliefs. And Joseph Stalin's interview turned out to be too dry and categorical - despite the fact that the writer communicated with the leader through an interpreter for more than three hours. Although the fiction writer himself said in his opening remarks that he had never met a person more sincere and honest.
Secret agent
The Chekists continued to be interested in the possibility of creating a time machine. Gleb Bokiy gave the task to one of his best agents - Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, posing as a baroness and the daughter of a senator of the Russian Empire. Before the revolution, she worked for German intelligence, then she was a double agent for the Russian and German special services. After the Bolsheviks came to power, she began to work in the Cheka system. Apparently, the woman knew how to charm men. since all her assignments were carried out according to the same scheme: to become the mistress of this or that person needed by the Chekists.
The story of her rapprochement with H. G. Wells is worthy of the plot of a modern soap opera. First, the woman was instructed to become the mistress of the writer Maxim Gorky. The task was overfulfilled - Zakrevskaya, thanks to her beauty and intelligence, achieved that the proletarian classic made her his secretary. Gorky then lived abroad, and the Chekists wanted to know about his fate in all the details.
Zakrevskaya Maria Ignatievna.
Then Zakrevskaya was given a new task - to seduce H. G. Wells, who was friends with Gorky. According to one version, Wells was staying at Gorky's house and at night, confusing the doors, ended up in Mura's room (as Maria Ignatievna was called in the reports). According to another, she herself came to his bedroom. In any case, Maria Zakrevskaya not only seduced the science fiction writer, but also became the most necessary person for him.
Their relationship lasted for 13 long years - until the writer's death in 1946. Maria Ignatievna settled in London near the house of H. G. Wells, assuring him that she would stay with him as long as he wanted to, but would never marry him. According to his will, the famous science fiction writer left Moore $ 100 thousand.
Maria Zakrevskaya lived to a ripe old age, she died in 1974. An interesting detail: in her declining years, this woman intended to publish her memoirs. But her personal archive, which was in a car trailer, suddenly burned down. Why such a storage method was chosen for the documents and what actually happened is unknown.
80% of predictions came true
Apparently, Maria Ignatievna could not learn anything about the time machine. In any case, no documents about this have been preserved. Its chekist curator Gleb Bokiy was arrested in 1937 and shot for "counter-revolutionary activities" (in 1956 he was completely rehabilitated).
The question of whether H. G. Wells really knew the secret of the time machine remained open. It is known that after the death of the writer, his executor Charles Pink found among the papers of the great science fiction writer autobiographical memories of how, as a young man. Herbert found himself in a time machine and saw pictures of the future with his own eyes.
Ruined Khoroshima. The writer Wells predicted the atomic bombing many lats before it took place.
The researchers calculated that almost 80% of the writer's predictions came true. Back in 1895, he suggested that space is four-dimensional - another dimension is time. In 1914, Wells talked about the atomic bomb being dropped from an airplane (this happened in 1945 - when US airplanes carried out the military use of nuclear weapons in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9). The novel World Liberated (published in 1914) mentions the Second World War, which begins in the 1940s. And in 1923, H. G. Wells published the novel People Like Gods, where he coined the term "parallel worlds."
Was this a brilliant foresight? Or did HG Wells really travel in a time machine?
In the early 1990s, Russian scientists from the State Space Research and Production Center. M. V. Khrunicheva, together with employees of NPO Energia and Salyut, created a working model of a time machine. According to some employees, the clock placed inside the device was exactly four hours behind, and the devices recorded magnetic vibrations four hours before the start of the experiment. Unfortunately, all documents about this experiment were classified - and it cannot be said that it is in any way connected with the work of H. G. Wells.