In the post-war years, a distinguished guest was expected in the capital of Yugoslavia. The newspapers were full of reports that one of the fathers of the partisan movement against the fascist occupation, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Ilya Grigorievich Starinov, was coming to Belgrade. Veterans and ordinary residents of the city were in a hurry to greet him heartily. It didn't matter to them that in fact he was neither a general nor a Hero of the Soviet Union. If the Guinness Book of Records recorded the facts associated with the longest stay in the same military rank, Ilya Grigorievich would undoubtedly have ended up on its pages. After going through the entire war as a colonel, he bore this title to a ripe old age (and Starinov died at the 101st year of his life, and he remained in the ranks almost until his last days. - Ed.). Several times he was presented for the title of Hero, but he was never given. Several times they were going to shoot, but something took care of him - providence or incredible luck …
Ilya Grigorievich was born on August 2, 1900 in the family of a trackman. Nothing boded the boy's military career. He studied at the gymnasium and wanted to become a railroad worker. If not for the First World War and the Revolution, it probably would have been so. But everything turned out differently. Not finishing his studies at the gymnasium, Ilya got a job in the provincial administration as a clerk of one of the committees in charge of supplying the front. And when in 1917 a detachment of the Red Guard was formed in the city, he, a seventeen-year-old boy, immediately enrolled there. Soon the Red Army soldier Starinov was already fighting with units of the Volunteer Army.
Colonel of antiquities with his wife and comrade-in-arms in the war in spain Anna Kornilovna starinova.
THE BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE ROUTE
The beginning of his combat path was extremely unfortunate. He was wounded in the leg, and together with a group of fellow soldiers was taken prisoner. It was then that the still very young Starinov was first sentenced to death. But the prisoners managed to escape and … get to the Makhnovists. Probably, nothing good awaited them here either, but at that very time Makhno entered into an alliance with the Red Army, and the prisoners were handed over to their own. And if the salvation of the Red Army soldier Starinov is considered a miracle, then it must be said: the miracles did not end there.
Immediately after returning to the red, Ilya Grigorievich was sent to the hospital - the wound became inflamed, gangrene began. The doctors were unanimous - amputation! But Providence did not sleep. He clearly had his own plans for Starinov. A certain unknown paramedic undertook to treat a young Red Army soldier, and pretty soon the impossible happened - the gangrene receded. The leg was saved. By the way, it was there, in the hospital, that Starinov, who was rescued by a miracle worker, met the wounded miner. He so picturesquely told his neighbors about his service that Ilya Grigorievich (who had been familiar with railway signal firecrackers from childhood) suddenly realized: it was explosive devices that were his vocation.
In 1921, the command decided: a promising, competent fighter Starinov is worthy of becoming a red commander. True, he did not manage to get into the military engineering school - he did not get a point, but his childhood dream came true: he entered the Voronezh school of military railway technicians. Upon graduation, he became a company commander of the 4th Korostensky regiment, which was building a railway from Lepel to Orsha. But even here he was much more interested in how to stop traffic than in how to establish it. The fruit of tireless labors in this field was the emergence of Starinov's "train mine" - engineering ammunition, which with minimal changes went through several wars, including the Great Patriotic War. The number of enemy echelons derailed with the help of this brainchild of Ilya Grigorievich is incalculable.
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But this was only the first step towards the day when he will be called the god of sabotage. Then he simply became a candidate of technical sciences and soon pleased the command with a new, counter-sabotage mine. Such inconspicuous "surprises" were set in many places on secret objects and, when an unwanted subject tried to penetrate where it should not, exploded, deafening and blinding an excessively curious "guest". At the same time, the attacker remained alive and even retained the gift of speech in order to give a frank testimony later. According to the NKVD, the device was a "deafening" success. It not only guaranteed objects from secret penetration, but also well untied the languages of saboteurs.
WORK ON A CALL
Already in 1923-1924, Ilya Grigorievich was involved as an expert in the investigation of enemy sabotage in transport. And in 1929, a vocation job was found for the young red commander. He spent the next few years teaching future demolition saboteurs in special schools in Svyatoshino, near Kupyansk and in Tiraspol. New sabotage equipment was being prepared, tactics and strategy of partisan actions were developed.
The end of the Civil War gave a peaceful respite, but the coming war seemed inevitable. Everyone in the state of workers and peasants knew about the intrigues of world capital and its predatory plans. And, strictly speaking, this view was not wrong. The land of the Soviets lived in a ring of enemies. In such conditions, there was always the possibility that the enemy might invade our territory. And it was necessary to take care of the "warm welcome" ahead of time. The preparation of competent, well-trained command and personnel for a wide partisan movement was considered a matter of primary importance. In addition, it was necessary to train specialists for the combat organizations of the Comintern in order to "beat the enemy in his lair"! The world revolution was still seen as a real thing, although it required serious preparatory work.
The concept of partisan war, developed by Starinov and a number of his associates, was fundamentally different from what was called partisan during the Civil War. The new tactics made it possible to destroy the enemy's communications, destroy the connection between the rear and the front, and make it as difficult as possible to control troops - turning the enemy into a colossus with feet of clay.
In 1933, already a recognized specialist in sabotage war, Starinov was transferred to Moscow to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), then sent to study at the Military Transport Academy. After graduation, he was appointed to a serious, honorable position for any railroad worker - deputy military commandant of the Leningrad-Moskovskaya railway station. But such a job was not for a sabotage war specialist.
HITLER'S PERSONAL ENEMY
Soon the assistant to the military commandant went on a long business trip "who knows where", but a military adviser, Rodolfo, a sabotage specialist, appeared in Spain. This was probably one of the most valuable personnel acquisitions of the Republican Army during the Civil War. His small sabotage detachment, assembled from a pine forest, eventually turned into a three thousandth partisan corps.
The successes of the saboteurs were so impressive that after one of their actions, Hitler called Starinov a personal enemy. Still: on a mine developed and delivered by Rodolfo, a train with the headquarters of the Condor air division took off. German pilots, sent by the Fuhrer to gain combat experience in Spain, took off into the sky without aircraft. At the same time, the mine was installed so cleverly that the train exploded in a tunnel, paralyzing traffic on a strategically important railway for a week. All in all, Starinov's fighters were absolutely more than two hundred sabotage, which caused colossal damage to the enemy. And, importantly, they sowed horror in the ranks of the enemy before the combat operations of the republican partisans.
Upon returning to his homeland, Ilya Grigorievich was awaited by gloomy news. Partisan cadres were exterminated or were under investigation; prepared warehouses with weapons, ammunition, food, communications and ammunition were seized; the leadership of the Red Army, pursuing the "partisan line", was repressed. And the very training of saboteurs was now treated with great suspicion. The Order of the Battle Red Banner, deserved in Spain, was a weak consolation in such a situation.
But Klim Voroshilov wished to meet and talk with the brave order bearer. And just in time: by this point, the NKVD had already demanded that Starinov give indictments against his recent comrades. The subsequent refusal almost automatically meant belonging to the "conspirators-terrorists". However, the intervention of the powerful People's Commissar of Defense at the last moment averted the inevitable thunderstorm.
For some time, the hero of Spain returned to his former commandant position in Leningrad, but soon received the assignment to lead the Scientific Testing Range of the Railway Troops. Needless to say, this place was also used by him for the improvement and development of explosive devices. Although, with an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, the very fact of preparing "infernal machines" could become fatal for Ilya Grigorievich. However, no repressions followed, and with the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war, Starinov was expected to have a new responsible appointment - to lead the clearance of the Karelian Isthmus.
The best choice was difficult to make. Ilya Grigorievich taught army sappers what to do with ingenious Finnish mines (they were considered harmless until Starinov came up with the idea of boiling them in boiling water) and developed a program for training troops to counter mine. The manual he created described not only the device of enemy explosive devices, but also the methods of their use and camouflage. It is impossible to count the lives he saved during this war. Ilya Grigorievich himself again survived only by a miracle. A Finnish sniper's bullet hit him in the shoulder. For the "cuckoos", he was not an accidental target: the destruction of the chief deminer was a welcome prize for them.
The wound was severe. The doctors again pronounced an unequivocal verdict - the hand will no longer work. After the hospital, Starinov was awaited by resignation and disability. But providence, as before, was on his side. With the help of fighting friends, Ilya Grigorievich managed to hide the fact of injury. Moreover, over time, doing specially designed gymnastics, restore arm mobility.
In the meantime, it was necessary to "settle down to quiet work" again in the Main Military Engineering Directorate of the Red Army, to lead the department of mining and obstacles. And there they will again train specialists in mine explosives, instead of those that were destroyed a few years before. The war with the Finns clearly showed that the average army level is no longer enough for command personnel. And that the next war would be and, contrary to official statements, would be soon, in the military environment it was clear to almost everyone. Leading specialist in sabotage and guerrilla warfare - among the first.
War, even if it is spoken about in every courtyard, starts suddenly. They prepare for it, make plans, but in reality everything does not go as expected. No one in the Soviet Union could have imagined that the "invincible and legendary" Red Army would suddenly begin to crumble under the blows of the armored fists of the Wehrmacht, and the military leaders, who only recently looked so brave and strong-willed, would be confused and lose control of the troops. The energy and courage of individual commanders, the courage of the Red Army soldiers largely saved the situation, but the fronts were bursting at the seams, and it seemed that it would not be possible to stop the enemy.
Tens of thousands of soldiers and officers of the defeated regiments of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army found themselves surrounded and tried, where with battle, where furtively, to cross the front line. Most of the encircled people died or were captured, and only a few, correctly assessing the situation, began to wage a new partisan war for themselves. It was difficult to reproach them for their inability to fight in isolation from the headquarters and rear. Nobody taught the combatant paints either tactics or the "craft" of partisan warfare. And there, on the crumbling fronts, there was no one to give them the necessary knowledge and skills. Where thousands of armed, organized, partisan detachments, accustomed to military discipline, could arise, a demoralized crowd, which had lost its soldier appearance, rolled from the border.
AC OF THE GUERRILLA WAR
Every Soviet person who witnessed the collapse of the fronts and the impotence of the troops, his soul was torn to shreds. But where most saw only a waking nightmare, some were bitterly aware of the missed opportunities. Among them was an ace of the partisan war, a saboteur of the highest class, Colonel Starinov. He was considered a personal enemy of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. His name was well remembered in Finland, the miners-saboteurs trained by him enjoyed (and enjoy) well-deserved respect all over the world, but here, in his homeland, a well-prepared, lovingly nurtured partisan movement was cut down by the roots several years ago by the country's leadership. But how differently could the events of the first year of the war develop, when the fascist rear, on the orders of Moscow, simultaneously flared up in a single fire ?!
Of course, partisan detachments arose in the occupied territory. But these were poorly armed, for the most part inept, having no connection either with each other or with the "mainland" groups, united by only one common goal - to beat the enemy! However, this also had to be done skillfully. Attacking individual patrols, eliminating traitors and policemen, even eliminating small garrisons were mosquito bites that the Germans could not pay attention to. But punitive actions after each such raid quickly nullified both the military and political success of such actions.
It is not known how many times a day Colonel Starinov remembered about partisan bases once prepared in the forests, about trained commanders, radio operators and explosives. About what could have happened if … But there was no one to blame and there was no time - it was necessary to train new specialists. However, even for this Ilya Grigorievich did not have the opportunity now.
In the very first days of the war, he was assigned to command an operational group of obstacles on the Western Front. At the end of June 1941, it was hard along the entire line of contact with the enemy, but the Western Front was simply falling apart before our eyes. For Starinov, this appointment was almost the last. There were not enough skilled explosives specialists, and Ilya Grigorievich, together with his group, went to blow up a strategically important bridge near Vyazma. In the turmoil of the first days of the war, a misunderstanding occurred: the documents confirming the special powers of Starinov's group were signed by the People's Commissar of Defense, and in those very days the protection of the bridges was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. They didn't bother to warn the explosives. Seeing the "fake", the guard of the bridge twisted the saboteurs, and Colonel Starinov again almost got shot. For luck,the local department of the NKVD quickly sorted out the situation. During the war years, he has to blow up 256 bridges! But this one could easily have been the last.
And again Ilya Grigorievich mined, mined and taught to mine the young recruits. The tank and mechanized wedges of the Nazis had to be, if not stopped, then at least delayed. Mine-explosive barriers - "quiet soldiers with loud voices" - were irreplaceable helpers in this. Soon, Starinov was transferred from the Western Front to the South-West - the saboteur colonel, in fact, was an independent combat force, and the engineering units attached to him served as powerful amplifiers of his iron will and unique martial art. In the fall of 1941, Starinov was summoned to Moscow and given a difficult and extremely responsible task - to mine Kharkov.
MINING KHARKOV
Today, not everyone understands the importance and tragedy of this combat mission. At that time, Kharkov was the third largest industrial center of the USSR in terms of capacity, the largest transport hub, both rail and road. There were several modern airfields, tanks, airplanes, tractors for artillery were being built … It was decided at Headquarters that it was impossible to keep the city, and if so, the Nazis should have nothing left that could benefit them. The deadlines were set as short as possible, few specialists were allocated, and explosive devices were also lacking. In addition, the convoy with equipment almost fell into the hands of the advancing Germans, and only the courage of its commander saved the miners.
The work was endless. To Starinov's luck, in Kharkov he met several experienced Spanish partisans, whom he knew from a joint struggle in 1936. Now the brave anti-fascists were eager to help Rodolfo, just as he helped them. Ilya Grigorievich managed to break the distrust of the command in relation to foreigners. Combat aid was very useful to him. Here, in Kharkov, besides all other tasks, it was necessary to perform filigree work that had no analogues.
Between the streets of Sumskaya and Dzerzhinsky there was a government mansion, the residence of the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. It was clear to everyone that the Germans also use this house as a residence, but they would not believe that the Russians could just leave such a luxurious house without having mined it. Starinov's team was preparing an unpleasant surprise for the Nazis. Under the house in which Khrushchev continued to work, a powerful radio explosive was installed. The earth was taken out, folded into bags with markings: at what depth the soil was taken. Then, when the land mine was installed, the earth returned to its place in reverse order, compacted, after which the next layer was filled up. For those who checked the building, the soil looked intact, even when the top layer was removed in this place, it was impossible to distinguish it from other soil samples. But,to calm the vigilance of the Germans, another explosive device was installed in the pile of coal lying in the basement - a "spoon" with several complex fuses, which looks very threatening.
Soon the fascists, who entered the city, trumpeted in the newspapers that the sappers had managed to find and defuse a number of mines planted by the "notorious Starinov". In particular, a super-powerful explosive device was found in a government mansion. Having received such news, the NKVD began to look at Ilya Grigorievich with predatory interest. But one day, early in the morning, on November 14, 1941, a conditional radio signal was sent from Voronezh, and … no information about the explosions was received from Kharkov (except for the government mansion, radio bombs were installed in a number of places). The clouds again thickened over Starinov's head. The failure of a responsible government assignment could, at best, turn into a penal battalion. But then the aviation delivered to the front headquarters the results of aerial photography with obvious ruins at the locations of the mansions.
As it became known later, the head of the Kharkov garrison, Lieutenant General Georg von Braun, died in the building. Many officers were killed or injured. Sapper captain Heyden, who neutralized the decoy mine, was demoted and sent to the front line, where he was captured and spoke in detail about his fiasco. The wasteland in the city center, where the mansion used to stand, remained undeveloped until the early 90s of the last century.
PROTECTION OF STALIN
The war continued, and Colonel Starinov had a lot of work. Soon, Ilya Grigorievich was appointed deputy chief of staff of the engineering troops of the Red Army and headed an operational engineering group engaged in mining bridges and overpasses in the Kalinin area and on the outskirts of Moscow. Here, his sappers planted mines right in the snow in front of the advancing tanks! As a result, about 60 units of enemy armored vehicles were scrapped, and the offensive was stopped.
Then again (the first performance was gone back in 1937, in Spain) it's time to get the Starin's Star of the Hero. But at this time, he sharply opposed the directive of the Kremlin "Drive the German into the cold!" According to this catchy slogan, it was necessary to burn houses, destroy food supplies and forests in the areas occupied by the Nazis. The slogan was voiced by Colonel-General Mekhlis, head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, but probably came from "the very top." Starinov, who was not used to understanding political intricacies, sent personally to the People's Commissar of Defense Stalin a report on the inadmissibility of actions that harm the civilian population and partisans and at the same time do not give the desired result.
The report was passed on to Mehlis and infuriated the general from politics. He wanted to punish the impudent upstart, but Joseph Vissarionovich took under the protection of his best saboteur. And he sent him into another bloody hell - already to the Southern Front, to mine the approaches to Rostov-on-Don. The mine-explosive obstacles created by Ilya Grigorievich in the shortest possible time, with minimal forces and means, made the offensive of the Nazis extremely difficult.
This was not enough for Starinov - in February 1942, with an immediately formed battle group, crossing the Taganrog Bay on the ice, he struck at the rear of the Germans. As a result, it was possible to destroy a strategically important highway and halt the advance of the fascist troops. And at the same time - clearly show what a well-trained sabotage group in the enemy's rear is capable of. Convincingly and unambiguously. But there was still not enough experienced personnel, and Starinov was sent to command the 5th Special Forces Engineer Brigade. Stop enemy tanks on a line 400 km from Rzhev to Surozh.
Only in August 1942, the long-awaited appointment finally came - to head the High Operational School for Special Purpose at the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement - to do what should have been done all the pre-war years. In the shortest possible time, he established uninterrupted work, and soon the partisan detachments began to receive not just classy specialists, but also competent instructors who could train new saboteurs from among the partisans on the spot. He worked in the Central, then in the Ukrainian partisan headquarters, personally went to the partisan lands, behind the front line, teaching the command of the detachments in the high art of partisan tactics.
The results were not long in coming: in 1942, the Ukrainian partisans managed to derail about 200 echelons, in 1943 - about three and a half thousand! In total, about 12,000 trains were detonated on the mines developed by Starinov! More than destroyed by bomber aircraft!
Meanwhile, Ilya Grigorievich again showed himself to be a worthless politician and sharply opposed the Stalinist "rail war". Instead of a useless, easily removable detonation of rails, from which more harm than good was obtained, Ilya Grigorievich proposed a train mine that he had developed, camouflaged as a piece of coal. An explosion in an overheated boiler of a locomotive furnace gave a much more tangible effect. Clouds gathered over the ruffy colonel, but Stalin again accepted his arguments.
Until the end of the war, Starinov was still appreciated but not favored. During this time, about five thousand partisan saboteurs passed through his hands. And not only our fellow citizens. Ilya Grigorievich trained specialists for the liberation armies of Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China … He was deputy chief of staff in the Polish partisan movement, then chief of staff of the Soviet military mission in Yugoslavia. When the war rolled further west and there was no need to train partisan saboteurs, Starinov was sent to Lvov to restore and clear the railways. And at the same time, and to fight against Bandera evil. And, as always, Ilya Grigorievich coped with the tasks entrusted to him in the best way.
HERO REWARD
In 1956, Colonel Starinov officially retired. But this did not mean that he retired. Further, he was waiting for teaching, including in a special school - equally legendary and unknown - KUOS KGB (advanced training courses for the officers of the State Security Committee). One of the most secret divisions of the Soviet Union was hidden under this unobtrusive sign. The leading sabotage school, which to this day has no analogues in the whole world. Starinov taught there for 20 years! Generations of officers of such special forces as "Vympel", "Kaskad", "Zenith", "Alpha" passed through his hands …
Hero's last reward.
Even in the waning days, much over 90 years, during the first Chechen war, he developed and proposed to the country's leadership plans to destroy the odious leaders of the gangs. But they diligently did not hear him. The war paid off high dividends. In 1998, Yeltsin ignored the appeal of the Anti-Terror veterans to confer the title of Hero of Russia on the father of the Russian special forces. In 2000, when Colonel Starinov turned one hundred years old, veterans of the special services, who had once begun their service under his command, who studied with him and according to his secret textbooks, again came out with the initiative to award Ilya Grigorievich the deserved title of Hero. This time the answer followed, and the greatest saboteur of the 20th century was awarded … the Order of Courage. However, he never cared about increasing his own awards. A prosperous countryalong which trains travel calmly from end to end was the highest reward for him.
Vladimir SVERZHIN