Like all Soviet people, we lived with our own concerns and problems, carried out the assigned work and did not particularly delve into what was happening “up there”. The reshuffles in the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers did not affect us, they did not even interest us. There was one member of the Politburo, another instead of him - well, God bless them. As it was said in the anecdote of those times, "they have their own company, we have our own."
It wasn't until many years later that damned questions began to arise. How could an ordinary chatterbox Gorbachev achieve the highest power in the country, so that later it could be betrayed and given to enemies to be torn apart? How did the world's most stable economy, which provided all citizens of the USSR with unshakable confidence in the future, suddenly roll down? How did a literate, politically savvy people entrust their fate to crooks and swindlers who are in the service of those they have always known as vile and cruel opponents? For the third decade, these questions have kept millions and millions from sleeping.
In no way claiming to be the ultimate truth, I will try to give my own vision of the events of the past decades, which began just with my transition to Literaturnaya Gazeta.
The main intelligence services of the world, primarily the British, have a proven method of achieving the interests of their state. In the power against which they are working, they nominate those who cooperate with them and remove the opposing forces. The most famous episode is the attempt on Lenin's life in 1918. Had the British succeeded in this terrorist attack, and their (and international Zionism) agent Trotsky would have become the head of Russia. Their next victims were Dzerzhinsky, Kirov.
In the 70s and 80s, there were no political figures of this magnitude. The prophecy of Stalin, uttered two months before his death, came true: "The time of geniuses is over, the time of fools begins." The easier it became to move the pieces on the great chessboard.
The main pawns, which were steadily moving to queens with subtle moves, were Andropov, and then, in parallel with him, Gorbachev. What powerful forces calculated and carried out these moves - I don't even have a guess. This is a great mystery.
Andropov's godfather was his mentor since the days of his work in Karelia Kuusinen. Otto Wilhelmovich is a very interesting figure. In his youth, he moved on the political Olympus of Finland, made friends with rich and influential Freemasons. For 9 years he was a member of the Seimas, for 6 years he headed the Social Democratic Party. Then - “in underground work” (according to reference books). From 1921 to 1943 - one of the leaders of the Comintern. From 1941 until his death (1964), a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), and under Khrushchev - the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1939, there was one extraordinary episode associated with the Soviet-Finnish war. Kuusinen then headed the government of the People's Finland, created in the event of our victory, in which no one in the USSR doubted. How they reviled him in the West! Everywhere except the UK. And the major English politician Cripps, he publicly interceded …
In the Central Committee of the CPSU, Kuusinen was in charge of international issues. In the same 1957, when Khrushchev nominated him as secretary of the Central Committee, Andropov from the post of ambassador to Hungary immediately became the head of the department for relations with the communist and workers' parties of the socialist countries under Kuusinen's jurisdiction, and five years later - the secretary of the Central Committee. Otto Wilhelmovich has prepared himself a reliable replacement. Britain praised his services to the intelligence services. As they write in such cases, according to some reports, by a secret decree of the Queen, he was awarded the highest British order, received a knighthood, and was named by his colleagues the most successful agent in their dark history. Kuusinen's last wife wrote frankly in her memoirs: “After all, in fact, he had little interest in the Soviet Union. Building his secret plans, he did not think about the welfare of Russia."
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We will never know what was Brezhnev's motivation for appointing Andropov chairman of the KGB. Maybe the recommendation was his extremely tough position in the suppression of counter-revolutionary uprisings in Hungary? But what happened happened, and from 1967 to 1982 Kuusinen's godson was in this post, and since 1973 he was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Yuri Vladimirovich managed to acquire a strong influence on Brezhnev, however, most of the members of the Politburo, starting with A. N. Kosygin, to put it mildly, did not evoke sympathy. This was especially clearly written in his memoirs by V. V. Grishin ("From Khrushchev to Gorbachev"). His support was Gromyko and Ustinov. For history: these three persuaded Brezhnev to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan.
People who reached the pinnacle of political power, which was the Politburo, passed such a natural selection that they seemed to be guaranteed longevity. The Kremlin medicine tirelessly took care of their health. But come on …
The publicist Valery Legostaev, who worked even under Andropov and after him as Ligachev's assistant, compiled a self-explanatory list of a series of deaths of Politburo members, who first opened Andropov and then Gorbachev the way to the general secretaries.
In 1976, “they fell asleep and did not wake up” personally devoted to Brezhnev, Defense Minister Grechko, a very promising Kulakov. A year later, Gorbachev took the vacant position of the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for agriculture on the insistent recommendation of the aforementioned group of comrades and Suslov, who joined them. Alexander Ilyich Agranovich commented on this appointment with the words: “We have recently made an analysis of the effectiveness of investments in agriculture; in the Stavropol Territory it is the lowest."
In 1980 P. M. died in a strange car accident on a rural road. Masherov, who was considered one of the possible successors of Brezhnev, and died after an equally strange incident while walking in a kayak
Talking about the record for the number of deaths among the country's leadership in 1982, one listing cannot be enough. This is the case when the devil is in the details. On January 19, Andropov's first deputy Tsvigun, Brezhnev's special confidant, who was married to Viktoria Petrovna's sister, seemed to have shot himself. Moreover, under strange circumstances: on a short stretch of the garden path from the car to the dacha, from which the guards did not release his wife to the scene. Except for the driver from the KGB garage, no one saw the moment of "suicide", and Tsvigun's body was shown to the family only at the funeral. I asked his son about this dark matter: he is convinced that his father was killed. Chazov wrote: "I knew Tsvigun well and never could have thought that this strong, strong-willed man, who had gone through a big life school, would commit suicide." As a result, Brezhnev lost a very important safety net.
Andropov had been seriously ill for a long time. He understood that he had very little time to come to the leadership of the party and the country. But from the KGB to the general secretaries you cannot get into under any circumstances. For this you need to work at least for a short time in the Central Committee apparatus. There was only one position corresponding to his plan - the second secretary, but it was occupied by M. A. Suslov, distinguished by an ascetic lifestyle and excellent health. According to Legostaev, the operation to eliminate him was developed with the direct participation of the head of the entire Kremlin medicine Chazov, who had long been Andropov's personal agent.
Chazov wrote in his book "Health and Power" that their meetings took place in the secret apartments of the KGB.
Members of the Politburo who had reached the age of 70 were entitled to an additional two-week leave in winter. Mikhail Andreevich spent it in the "suite" of the Central Clinical Hospital ("Kremlin"). Revoly Mikhailovich, my son, told me what happened there on the last day before discharge. Suslova came to visit her daughter. He told her that he was feeling well and that he would go to work straight from the hospital tomorrow. At this time, the attending physician brought some kind of pill. Mikhail Andreevich, a man of the Stalinist school, never took any pills in the hospital. However, the doctor insisted so much, emphasizing the intention to go to work, that he had to agree. Almost immediately after taking the medicine, Suslov blushed strongly and said to his daughter: "Go home, something is bad for me." He died a few hours later. This happened a day after Tsvigun's death. And a month later, the doctor who gave the fatal pill,found in a noose in their own apartment.
The detail is significant. The head of Stalin's security Khrustalev, who on his behalf sent all the officers to sleep on the fatal night of March 1 and did not call the doctors for half a day, also died a month after the death of the guarded man. Fanny Kaplan, who alone was credited with the attempt on Lenin's life in 1918, did not live even two days: after formal interrogation, she was shot and burned in a kerosene barrel on the territory of the Kremlin. Terrorist Law: Leave No Witnesses.
Four months after Suslov's death, Andropov was elected second secretary at the next Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. This is a unique case in our post-war history. Not only in the main Central Committee, but in all republican ones, except for Armenia, the post of second secretary was always held by Russians. For the Jew Andropov, however, they made an exception.
In place of Andropov, Brezhnev appointed the head of the KGB of Ukraine Fedorchuk, known for his rigidity in relation to the contingent served. He was absolutely sure of him.
No matter what they say about the late Brezhnev, he, as an already very experienced politician, completely controlled the situation and was seriously preparing for the transfer of power. First Secretary of the Primorsky Regional Committee D. N. Gagarov talked about the conversation on this topic during his stay in the region. Sorting out possible candidates, Brezhnev named Andropov, but immediately rejected it: "it is not good, he burned himself at work in the KGB." In the end, Leonid Ilyich made up his mind. According to I. V. Kapitonov, who was in charge of party cadres in the Central Committee, a month before the already appointed plenum of the Central Committee, the general secretary called him to his place and said: “In a month, Shcherbitsky will be sitting in this chair. Make all appointments with this in mind. " For himself, Brezhnev planned to create the post of party chairman. Did he know that, according to Roy Medvedev, there was a hidden opposition around him in the person of Andropov,Ustinov and Gorbachev? The names are somewhat unexpected, but here Medvedev knows better.
What a rash step Leonid Ilyich took then! Brezhnev, of course, was aware that the KGB was listening day and night to all members of the Politburo. Surely Andropov reported to him about all the noteworthy conversations and even remarks. Microphones were everywhere, even in bedrooms. But the secretary general did not expect that he was being tapped just as well. As well as the fact that the plenum will take place much earlier than the deadline set by it and not at all with the agenda approved by the Politburo.
Brezhnev has long been tormented by insomnia. Over the years, he was so accustomed to using sleeping pills that he could no longer do without them. All his entourage was categorically forbidden to indulge this weakness of Leonid Ilyich. In extreme cases, he turned to Yura (he called Andropov in the eyes and behind the eyes). Andropov was the last person Brezhnev met with before his death. Like Beria with Stalin. What these two confidants did with their patrons, we will never know either. Only the results are known: Stalin received a severe stroke, Brezhnev, as has been the custom since 1976, fell asleep and did not wake up. Pharmacology, as we see, does not stand still. On the eve of his death, both the one and the other felt normal, Brezhnev even went to Zavidovo to hunt, calmly defended the entire parade and demonstration on November 7 at the mausoleum.
I questioned in detail the chief of security, General Secretary Vladimir Medvedev, read the lines of the Chaz book. Only one incongruity emerged. On the night without awakening, not a single medical worker was at the Brezhnev dacha, although before wherever he went, an intensive care car followed in the cortege with a full staff of personnel assigned for emergency cases. Medvedev both in the book "The Man Behind the Back" and orally told how he, together with the guard on duty, unsuccessfully tried to give Brezhnev artificial respiration. There was no one else to help. After some time, Chazov appeared and witnessed death. Why didn't he call the resuscitation team when he got the first report of what had happened? Did you know everything in advance?
The death of Brezhnev was accompanied by another circumstance, about which there is not a word anywhere. His widow Victoria Petrovna told the widow V. V. Grishina Irina Mikhailovna, who was the first to go to the dacha, literally 10-15 minutes after Medvedev's first call, Andropov arrived. Silently he went into the bedroom, took the Brezhnev case from the safe and, just as silently, without even going to Victoria Petrovna's, left. And then he arrived with all the members of the Politburo, as if he had not been here before. This was confirmed to me and her son-in-law Yu. M. Churbanov. Is it not the prevention of such information leakage that explains his arrest and eight-year imprisonment on a ridiculous charge? Members of the Brezhnev family have repeatedly tried to find out from him what is stored in a mysterious case. Leonid Ilyich laughed it off: "Here I have dirt on members of the Politburo."
As expected, after the funeral, a plenum of the CPSU Central Committee was held to select a new general secretary. Andropov was elected unanimously.
The change of power did not affect Literaturnaya Gazeta in any way. Chakovsky's long-term contacts with him have served us well. Another step was taken to strengthen favored status.
“Yuri Petrovich,” he said once, “I heard that Andropov’s son writes poetry. Ask him to select a few poems for publication.
I called and asked. But he received a polite refusal.
Let's ask ourselves a question: why was the terminally ill Andropov so eager for power? Even if he was destined to have good impulses, then nothing was given to accomplish. What kind of accomplishments, if half of the secretary general's term had to be spent in a hospital, chained to artificial dialysis equipment? In addition to raids in the cinema and restaurants on malicious truants, the period of Yuri Vladimirovich's reign was not imprinted in the memory of the people. Not much for a figure of this magnitude. Surely, the efforts of the great chess players were not spent for this operation at the level of the commander of the people's squad.
So what for?
To place in the right places the cadres who were to complete the change of power in the USSR.
Shot number 1 - Ligachev. I am citing the above-mentioned memoirs of V. V. Grishina: "Nobody did the party as much harm as Ligachev." With his hands, Andropov, and then Gorbachev, replaced in the Central Committee and the party apparatus the proven reliable guard of party workers with former directors of factories, builders, as well as scientists who, as all politicians of the world know, should not be allowed to power. In the book "The Mystery of Gorbachev" Yegor Kuzmich gives Andropov's assessment of this activity, given a month and a half before his death in the Kremlin hospital: "You turned out to be a find for us." Let us emphasize these words: "for us" … I will give one more quote from the book: "Yuri Vladimirovich planned the renewal of socialism, realizing that socialism needs deep and qualitative changes." Which ones, Gorbachev later showed us clearly, who at first every now and then proclaimed:"More socialism!"
Shot number 2 - Yakovlev. Andropov returned him to Moscow from the Canadian embassy exile, where he was sent for anti-Russian speeches, giving him the post of director of the second most important and anti-communist internal climate of the international institute of the Academy of Sciences. Without any scientific baggage for that. But with a diploma of a one-year internship at the US Columbia University. From the institute, Yakovlev, with the speed of a comet, jumped from position to position: head. department of propaganda of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Committee, member of the Politburo - a gray cardinal.
Shot number 3 - Gorbachev. It was under Andropov that he rose from the weakest secretary of the CPSU Central Committee to one of the most influential, who, when Chernenko was sick, ran all personnel affairs, placing his supporters everywhere. It was he who dragged Ligachev from Tomsk to the most important post in the party apparatus of the head of the department of organizational work. The details of this operation are interesting. Such a position did not exist before. All personnel work was carried out by the first deputy of this department, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Petrovichev, who enjoyed well-deserved respect in the party. And his immediate supervisor was the secretary of the Central Committee, Kapitonov, who in turn was subordinate to the second secretary of the Central Committee, Chernenko. Andropov and Gorbachev made the decision on Ligachev in one day, when Chernenko was on vacation, without coordinating it with any of the members of the Politburo. Aerobatics!
Some were pushed forward by a new tandem, others were pushed. Cautious Brezhnev kept two first deputies in the KGB under Andropov, his loyal people - Tsvigun and Tsinev. The Minister of Internal Affairs Shchelokov was also immensely devoted to him. A month after Brezhnev's death, Shchelokov was fired. Fedorchuk, Shcherbytsky's promoted candidate, was transferred to his place from the KGB. In 1984, Shchelokov seemed to have shot himself - at home with a hunting rifle. In 1985, already under Gorbachev, Tsinev was sent to the “paradise group” created for senior military leaders for the elderly. There were no Brezhnev personnel left in the KGB.
After Andropov's death, Chernenko was elected general secretary at the suggestion of Ustinov. Besides him, the decision was discussed by Gromyko, Tikhonov and Chernenko himself. The name of Gorbachev was not even mentioned by them.
Konstantin Ustinovich soberly assessed his capabilities, he really did not want this. When he came home from the plenum of the Central Committee, which had placed an unbearable burden on him, his wife asked:
- Kostya, why do you need this?
- It should be so.
Colleagues in the Politburo persuaded him so as not to let Gorbachev, who had long been seen through, to power. But what kind of successor could Chernenko prepare? He was surrounded by the same elders as himself. A man younger and more energetic than others, Leningrad First Secretary Romanov was completely discredited in the eyes of the people at the suggestion of Radio Liberty. Word of mouth passed that he arranged the wedding of his daughter in the royal palace, where drunken guests broke an antique service. Romanov then demanded a refutation in the press: after all, the wedding took place in the dining room of the regional committee, there were no sets, and he himself was not even present at it. Andropov, to whom he turned, refused: they say, you never know what else the enemy voices will come up with, for every chokh you will not be pleased.
Grishin, who headed almost a million-strong party organization in the capital, was also slandered. About him, a crystal honest and scrupulous man, they spread rumors one more absurd than the other: that he left his family, married Tatyana Doronina, and now the newlyweds are daily delivered all kinds of free food from the Eliseevsky deli; that he is a disguised Jew and patronizes all the underground dealers of this nationality. Etc.
They cruelly dealt with Ustinov. At the end of 1984, maneuvers of the Warsaw Pact troops were conducted in Czechoslovakia with the participation of defense ministers. Upon returning from the maneuvers, one after another, the heads of the military departments of the GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the USSR died at intervals of several days. From what Dmitry Fedorovich died, no one explained. Chazov wrote that his death "left many questions regarding the causes and nature of the disease." There is something to be surprised at! A mass terrorist attack against high-ranking leaders of four states - and neither investigation nor punishment of terrorists …
Chernenko was killed in two attempts. In the summer of 1983, while Andropov was still alive, he was mortally poisoned on vacation in the Crimea. Instead of an investigation, they came up with a story about poor-quality smoked horse mackerel. But everyone who lived at the state dacha ate it, and for some reason only Konstantin Ustinovich suffered. So much so that by a miracle he did not give his soul to God. His already poor health was undermined, he could not restore his working capacity for a long time. Soon after his election as general secretary, Chazov sent Chernenko to the alpine resort of Kislovodsk by means of strong pressure. For a patient suffering from enphysema of the lungs, it was worse than poisoning. After 10 days he was loaded onto a plane on a stretcher and urgently returned to Moscow. What a job here …
After the second medical assassination attempt, Chernenko struggled to take over the reins of government. His entourage also tried their best to show that he was acting. By order of the First Assistant Secretary General Bogolyubov, in Moscow, they organized a staging of the participation of Konstantin Ustinovich in voting in the elections to the Supreme Council. But his days were already numbered. They did not give him any chance to solve the main task for which he ascended to the highest post.
Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. By a striking coincidence, a few days before this, Shcherbitsky was sent to the United States at the head of the delegation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Upon learning of the death of the secretary general, he demanded that the ambassador immediately return to his homeland. To which he received the answer: "Your return is now undesirable." On the basis of what instructions did the ambassador decide on such impudence towards a member of the Politburo? My housemate, who was then in command of the government squadron, confirmed: and he received an order to delay Shcherbitsky's departure for three days. It turns out that everything was planned.
In Moscow at that time there was a tense undercover game, in which Primakov, Yakovlev and son Gromyko participated. The main character was Ligachev. Andrei Andreevich was promised the post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, if he, in turn, offered the Politburo to elect Gorbachev as general secretary. The fate of the future best German was then hanging in the balance: none of the members of the Politburo, assembled to report on the death of Chernenko, named him as a successor. At night, with a proposal to take this post, some of them turned to Grishin, but he refused. And Gromyko accepted the proposed deal. The next morning, as soon as the Politburo met, he, without waiting for the official opening of the meeting, got up and did what Gorbachev, Ligachev and the powerful forces of a world scale standing behind them were expecting of him. They voted unanimously. The same thing happened at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which opened two hours later. Thus, the death warrant was signed to the Soviet Union and the party that raised the country from the ashes, made it a great power, defeated Hitler, saved Russia and humanity.
I learned all of the above many years later, and then, in April 85th, I was happy with everyone that at last a person full of strength came to replace the feeble elders, freely speaking from the podium without a piece of paper, promising to update, improve and improve everything. The time has come for high hopes, high expectations.
God, how naive we were!
I leave it to the readers to calculate how many corpses formed the staircase for Gorbachev's ascent to the coveted pedestal.
