If you believe the communist propaganda, you might think that the USSR had a quiet and peaceful life. In reality, the Soviet Union was overwhelmed by waves of crime and terrorism. Today we will tell only about some of the loudest terrorist attacks of the Soviet era …
Komsomolets-Old Believer against Anastas Mikoyan
On November 6, 1942, the mentally ill corporal Savely Dmitriev tried to shoot Anastas Mikoyan, the people's commissar (minister) of foreign trade. Savely was a member of the Komsomol, although he came from a family of Old Believers. The combination of these two (actually not very compatible!) Worldviews broke the mind of the young man. He had an obsession with killing one of the Soviet leaders.
In 1941, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the young man was drafted into the army. He served in the anti-aircraft machine gun regiment of the Moscow air defense zone. In addition to bombs, the Germans also dropped propaganda leaflets on Moscow. They said: “The commissar is lying to you! It is warm and satisfying in German captivity! And a similar lie.
Having read the German leaflets, Savely decided to launch a terrorist attack. At noon on November 6, 1942, Corporal Dmitriev deserted his post (he was on guard at the regimental garage). With him was a rifle and 45 rounds.
He came to Red Square, stood at Execution Ground and waited. No one had any suspicions: Savely was mistaken for the watch of the Kremlin commandant's patrol.
Promotional video:
Three bullets for the commissar
At about three o'clock in the afternoon, a limousine emerged from the Kremlin's Spassky Gate. Savely Dmitriev decided that Stalin himself was riding in it. In fact, in the car sat the People's Commissar for Foreign Trade Mikoyan.
Dmitriev fired three times with a rifle at the car. Fortunately, none of those sitting in the car was injured. Mikoyan's car immediately rushed on - as it should be according to the instructions. A car with a VIP-person should not stop: you never know the terrorist has accomplices who are just waiting to complete the assassination attempt.
The Soviet guards no longer made such mistakes, because of which, for example, Tsar Alexander II died. The monarch did a stupid thing: he stopped and got out of the carriage after the terrorist Rysakov threw a bomb at it. Just at that moment, another terrorist - Grinevitsky - threw a second bomb and finished off the king.
Mikoyan's car drove away at once. But the guards jumped out of the escort car and entered the battle with the insane corporal. Yes, Savely Dmitriev did not think to give up just like that. The guards had only pistols, Savely had a rifle. The corporal fired back successfully.
They managed to take the crazy shooter only when an officer of the Kremlin commandant's office came running to the scene with hand grenades. He threw two "lemons" in the direction of the Execution Ground, where the corporal was hiding. After that Dmitriev surrendered to the guard.
Oddly enough, a terrorist - moreover, an explicit one, and not invented by the Chekists! - did not shoot immediately. He was kept in prison for 8 long years.
In the state security agencies, everyone tried to find Dmitriev's connections with the counter-revolutionary underground or the special services of Nazi Germany. As a result, the investigation came to the conclusion that Dmitriev acted alone and at his own peril and risk. The reason for what happened was the upset psyche of the Komsomol Old Believer. On August 25, 1950, the tribunal sentenced Savely Dmitriev to death. The verdict was carried out on the same day.
Deadly May Day
Her one terrorist attack, which - of course - was not reported by the Soviet news, occurred in Arkhangelsk in 1954.
That year, on May 1, as usual, there was a festive demonstration. Columns of workers cheerfully walked past the stands in the central square of Trade Unions. Local city "leaders" were in the stands. And at that moment a seemingly quite ordinary man from the festive column rushed to the podium. Jumping into it, he took out a TT pistol and fired the entire clip at the party bosses.
The first to fall dead was the deputy chairman of the city executive committee Kharitonov. Then the assistant to the commander of the White Sea Military District Solovyov went to the other world. Ogarkov, the head of the agricultural department of the regional committee of the CPSU, was seriously wounded, but survived. Two more people got off with scratches.
At this time, General Rybakov, who was standing on the podium, together with the head of the Arkhangelsk KGB Directorate Konovalov, pounced on the shooter and twisted his arms. The disarmed terrorist was put face down on the asphalt. A crowd immediately gathered around, who wanted to lynch the geek. But then the police arrived.
The terrorist was picked up and taken to the KGB building.
Nikolay the Bloody
During interrogations, it turned out that the shooter's name was Nikolai Romanov. He was born in 1926 into an ordinary Arkhangelsk family: his father is a skipper, his mother is a housewife. After graduating from the seven-year period, he studied for some time at a mechanical college, but soon received his first term - five years for rape. In the colony, he contracted tuberculosis and was released due to illness. But he did not stay free for long: he received a new term for a drunken fight. However, he was lucky: in 1953, Stalin died, and the famous "Beria" amnesty took place. Romanov found himself free again.
He returns to Arkhangelsk, where he is possessed by an obsession - to take revenge on the authorities for his failed life. To make his dream come true, he needed a weapon. And he was able to get it: he stole a TT pistol from a drunken officer. On May 1, 1954, Romanov brought his villainous plan to fruition.
Naturally, the criminal could not count on leniency. The crime was definitely “firing squad”. The death sentence for the Arkhangelsk terrorist was carried out on March 9, 1955. And since then, at May Day demonstrations in the USSR, a double police cordon was established between the tribune and the demonstrators - for security purposes.
Dead man hunt
The mausoleum on Red Square, where the body of the founder of the Soviet state V. I. Lenin, was a constant target for attacks by mentally unbalanced people.
So, in March 1959, a visitor broke the glass of the sarcophagus with Lenin's body by throwing a hammer at it. In June 1960, Kirghiz Minibayev smashed the glass with his foot, jumping onto the barrier. In 1961, a certain Smirnova broke glass with a stone. The stone was thrown again in April 1962. And in March 1966, they even threw a sledgehammer into the sarcophagus. But these were all "childish pranks" in comparison with subsequent events.
In 1967, a visitor from Lithuania detonated a homemade bomb at the entrance to the Mausoleum. The explosion killed several people, including the terrorist himself. After that, an improved version of the sarcophagus was installed in the Mausoleum. The leader's glass coffin had to withstand any terrorist attack!
The novelty was installed in the Mausoleum in April 1973. And very soon life will test it in practice - how durable the new special coffin of Lenin is …
Scoundrel from Gorlovka
September 1, 1973. The beginning of the school year in Soviet schools. Crowds of smart kids went to the Mausoleum that day, because under Soviet rule it was one of the "sacred" places in Moscow and the entire USSR. It was on this day that the crazy maniac decided to commit his bloody crime. The name of the bastard was Nikolai Savrasov. He was 34 years old. He lived in the city of Horlivka (Donetsk region).
Hiding a pre-made explosive device under his clothes, the terrorist - in the midst of a crowd of joyful schoolchildren - went to the Mausoleum. Coming up with Lenin's body, the kamikaze terrorist Savrasov connected the contacts on an explosive device. A powerful explosion thundered.
Well, I must admit - the new tomb of the leader withstood the test with honor. The armored glass of the sarcophagus did not break. But people standing next to people!
The explosion killed a married couple from Astrakhan. Four schoolchildren were seriously injured. The soldiers of the Kremlin regiment guarding the sarcophagus were wounded. From the terrorist himself, only a hand and a fragment of a head remained.
The main version of the investigation was the version of a lone maniac who decided - in the manner of the ancient Herostratus - to immortalize his name with the destruction of the Mausoleum. However, it was not possible to establish for certain the motives of the attacker.
Fatal distillation
The most famous post-war terrorist attack was the explosion in the Moscow metro in January 1977. The bomb exploded on the stretch between the Izmailovskaya and Pervomayskaya stations. 7 people were killed. Dozens of people were injured.
The best investigators were thrown into the search for the terrorists. Parts and materials that were used in its manufacture were identified from the fragments of the explosive device. Having found out the places of production and sale of these materials, the investigators outlined the circle of "suspected" cities: Yerevan, Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov. Then, at the Tashkent airport, a KGB officer drew attention to the bag in the passenger's hands. The passenger had nothing to do with the explosions, but his bag was the same as the one used by the terrorists. It turned out that the bag was sewn in Yerevan.
Further, experts found that a special electrode with a calcium fluoride coating was used for the electric welding of the bombs. These were only at the enterprises of the defense industry. This means that one of the terrorists works in the "defense industry".
This is how, step by step, the Chekists came to the criminals. They turned out to be Armenian nationalists Stepan Zatikyan, Hakob Stepanyan and Zaven Baghdasaryan. The terrorists declared the creation of "independent Armenia" as their goal. And the terrorist attacks were seen as a way to "draw attention to the oppression of Soviet Armenians."
The organizers of the villainous explosion were sentenced to death and shot on January 30, 1979 …