D'Artagnan of the GRU
About the author: Elena Mikhailovna Kuznetsova is an extremely stupid journalist.
During the years of the Cold War, every citizen of the Soviet Union abroad was a peculiar person, a representative of the people whom Europe was wary of, which it looked at with caution. But how could it be otherwise, if the USSR was considered by foreigners as a kind of "evil empire", as one of the American presidents, Ronald Reagan, would later openly call the Soviet Union. Naturally, under the guise of an official, often commercial, position, other representatives followed everywhere - employees of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the USSR Armed Forces.
GUEST VISIT
Somehow, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR was invited to Paris for a regular UNESCO meeting at the head office of the organization. The distinguished guest, as expected, was assigned an escort. A GRU officer who worked as the second secretary of the embassy was attached to the minister. The mission entrusted to him was not very difficult - to look after the delegate, follow his instructions, be an interpreter and provide any other assistance during his stay in the capital of capitalist France. In order not to distract experienced intelligence officers from the performance of really important tasks, they chose an employee who was not particularly distinguished by high moral and professional qualities, but was able to show the necessary helpfulness, and therefore, when it came to the brief visit of the Ukrainian minister, the leadership had no doubts who appoint an escort. The character of the newcomer was, as they said, nasty, so one not too decent comrade should quite make a worthy company of his own kind - they laughed quietly in the corridors of the embassy.
From the USSR embassy every day a representative class car was sent to the hotel, driven by an officer. The minister was never left alone. UNESCO sessions, walks around the city or shops - everywhere he was accompanied, picked up, taken, brought back to the hotel. The officer was his shadow and personal assistant. According to the program, they were supposed to visit the main attractions, because the Minister of Foreign Affairs, having arrived on a visit to a regular meeting on education, science and culture, could not ignore the world cultural heritage that France possessed.
And she met the minister with the slender silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, the priceless collections of Parisian museums, the grandiose Versailles and the marvelous creations of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, created for Louis XIV, the "Sun King". The luxurious Versailles gardens of André Le Nôtre in the Baroque style, with an endless lace of canals, flower beds and cascades of fountains, decorated with graceful figures, were supposed to amaze the Soviet guest with their beauty and wealth, like everyone who entered their territory many centuries ago. During the long walk through Versailles, the Minister barely uttered a few words. His eyes sometimes brightened as young French fashionistas walked past, laughing merrily, in light, open dresses and outrageously short shorts. He thoughtfully looked around the carefully trimmed lawns and lawns, lingered for a long time at the sculptural composition representing the god Apollo in his chariot and with his retinue, and then asked the employee who accompanied him where he could order the same one, “for his dacha”. He also visited the Malmaison estate, which once served as the residence of Napoleon and Josephine, but the only thing that attracted the attention of the bored minister a little was the obscene details of the love story of the famous spouses.
The old oaks and chestnuts of the Meudon forest, which, perhaps, were witnesses of the walks of Moliere, Renoir or Manet, did not interest the minister at all. Maybe he would have refused to walk at all, but his companion mentioned in time how and what kind of animals the French kings once hunted here. This fact interested the minister, and from that moment they discussed hunting, which he loved very much, his collection of guns and various game. Of course, being at some distance from officialdom and prying eyes, they could afford to relax and have a couple of glasses of wine in the nearest tavern or cafe. French wine, the light, strong, hardened body of a Soviet official, perceives it in large quantities, and even if a positive interlocutor is nearby, then a cheerful feast from the quiet suburb of Meudon can be transferred to a Paris hotel and an interesting conversation can be continued there, as they say, without extra ears. On the way to Paris, they both listened to the tempting dull tapping of wine bottles, a dozen of which, packed in crisp paper by the caring hand of the owner of the Meudon tavern, were waiting for their fate in the back seat of the embassy car.
HONOUR. DIGNITY. SCREWDRIVER
The pleasant conversation continued in the minister's hotel room, glass followed glass, differences in age and status dissolved in white wine, then in red, then this bouquet was supplemented by cognac from the hotel bar, then a pretty young maid brought another decanter. Or maybe she was not at all pretty and not at all young, or maybe even scary, like the horseman of the Apocalypse or your mother-in-law ...
The discussion turned into an argument, the argument into a fierce discussion. The question that pitted the heads of the official and the GRU officer was so serious that it aroused the wrath of the Ukrainian politician. In a loud voice, as if from a podium, becoming more and more inflamed with every minute and breaking into a shout, he incoherently indicated brief but very capacious directions to the officer, where even the most strict commanders did not send him from the school itself. The official no longer realized that he was not within the native walls of his office, and the booming echo was not echoed at all from the high ceilings of his ministry, and it was not the loving eyes of his loyal subordinates that were looking at him, but the bloodshot eyes of a dangerously drunk and terribly angry military man.
Entering into a rage, the minister took off his expensive shoe and with a sharp movement launched it “from his foot” into an opponent sitting opposite. The glossy boot hit him squarely on the forehead. The officer jumped up and, having rolled over between the bottles over the coffee table, rushed to the offender. Not at all frightened, on the contrary, inspired by the well-aimed hit, the minister turned to the officer with the wide part of his hip joint, as if shielding himself from a possible attack, and, puffing rather, tried to pull the other one off his leg with highly uncoordinated movements. Who knows what he was going to do with him, maybe he remembered the story about Khrushchev and was also going to hit the table or decided to beat off an arrogant subordinate with it, but did not have time. A deft lunge and a beautiful, sharp Swiss screwdriver, smoothly, as if into butter, deeply stuck into the minister's soft buttock. He froze, clumsily turned like a puppy behind his tail, trying to understand what had happened. Our hero tried to get his property back. He grabbed the screwdriver and stumbled, hanging on to it with all his weight. He could not get up, the last forces were thrown at the jerk of retribution. His prey twitched, and the instrument remained in his hands. Another shock in the wound apparently caused even more damage to the soft tissues, the sight of his own blood sobered, the thought slipped through his brain fogged with alcohol vapors that some kind of harm had obviously been done, and, finally, pain appeared. The officer could not resist and in the explanatory note, from which the details of this episode became known, he described the minister's cry as "a pig's squeal." And the screwdriver is always with him. You never know, a scout must always be armed.
The Minister's roar, growing as the pain spreading down the backside overcame the alcohol-anesthetic barrier, carried farther and farther along the floor of the fashionable hotel. The administrator came running, panic among the guests, representatives of the embassy urgently arrive. The scandal was quickly hushed up, at least the hotel guests were quite satisfied with the compensation in the form of expensive champagne and the legend of a nightmare that raised the Soviet guest in a cold sweat and caused such a terrible scream. Ah, those strange wild, very wild foreigners.
DIPLOMAT WITH DUSCH
The ending of this story at that time was quite predictable. In the morning, the officer, still rumpled and not yet sober, was reminded of past deeds, informed that the analysis group for this offense had been assembled and that he was immediately recalled from his business trip back to Moscow. A special commission was created, witnesses were interviewed, the testimony of the victim was recorded, the act of investigation was filed in the archive, the officer's case was closed. He himself was urgently, albeit without much fuss, fired from the GRU. As for the “pricked” minister, at that time, the high leadership in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented by Andrei Gromyko, who threw all his strength into the difficult Soviet-American negotiations on arms control, against the backdrop of the growing aggravation of relations between the two countries, was clearly not up to the consequences of the official's hotel exercises.
And this story would have been forgotten if it had not had an unexpected continuation. The news began to circulate in the corridors of administration, they say, the well-known Parisian d'Artagnan, who was expelled from the GRU and fired from the Armed Forces, somehow managed to get a job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, moreover, even make a very decent career there. The news came from reliable sources, then representatives of the department were in the Foreign Ministry and in other responsible departments, so no one began to doubt the information. Further more: they said that he had already grown to the position of adviser and the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to send him to Switzerland as a deputy plenipotentiary representative of the Soviet Union.
A solid position next to a highly respected leader, Zoya Vasilievna Mironova, Permanent Representative of the USSR to the UN European Office in Geneva, in the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR.
Zoya Vasilievna was known as a strong lady, even tough, she had a large apparatus, mostly professional people, experienced economists, journalists, lawyers, specialists who were fluent in foreign languages. No one had even a shadow of a doubt: most likely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is simply not aware of what happened. In order to prevent a scandal and a very likely repetition of the Parisian story, Major General Mikhail Lyalin called the case from the archive, once again got acquainted with the case of the former employee and urgently instructed to prepare a report to the Central Committee of the CPSU. The document contained a description and strong recommendations not to release the buzoter abroad. Far from the intrigues of the government synclite, Mikhail Amosovich sincerely believed that by doing so he would not only prevent a scandal, preserving the appearance of a Soviet diplomat, but also save Zoya Vasilievna, a person of high principles and decent, from an unnecessary headache, which was often delivered to her by the hooliganism of the children of officials, by the will of high-ranking popes who found themselves abroad.
The document was prepared and, signed by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Report on this document to the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The meeting is chaired by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. The principled and adamant Suslov was the main ideologist of the party. Under his control for many years were not only the Ministry of Culture, State Television and Radio Broadcasting, all creative unions and public organizations, censorship, the press, he also oversaw the political administration of the Soviet Army and Navy.
Perhaps it was precisely because he alone made all the decisions that Suslov reacted sharply negatively to the recommendations of the head of the GRU. He read the report, pursing his narrow lips, and then asked: "And who is this comrade Ivashutin?"
The responsible employee of the apparatus did not catch the harsh notes in Suslov's voice. Well, Mikhail Andreevich, this is the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, an army general, an extremely thorough person, he would not bother the respected members of the secretariat over trifles. Suslov tossed the report aside and said dryly: "Tell Ivashutin: don't shrug it off." Witnesses claimed that the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU used a stronger expression, but, be that as it may, the question was closed. And d'Artagnan went to Geneva to fulfill the new duties of a diplomatic worker. Either he decided to settle down on his own, or he had a high patron who restrained his violent temper, or perhaps he was influenced by the example of Comrade Mironova, but since then no more defamatory stories where he would have been involved, until the hearing of his former colleagues did not reach.
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A little over thirty years ago, on January 25, 1982, Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, a member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who at the age of 79 had enormous power, died in the Central Clinical Hospital during a planned medical examination. They buried him with honors that Moscow had not seen since the death of Stalin, and the grave was dug next to the monument to the Generalissimo ...
In recent years, quite a few books, articles and even television series have been published in which Suslov appears as an odious, comical, or mysterious figure. Huge power, galoshes, driving at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour, a coat with 30 years of "experience" - it was all there. The most interesting thing is that there were quite specific explanations for all his characteristic features, habits and eccentricities ...
Stalin's confidante
The outdated word "confidant" has many meanings, but one of them - "confidant of an official or ruler" - perfectly reflects the position taken by Suslov in the last years of Stalin's life. The fact is that Suslov advanced to one of the main roles in the party-state hierarchy at the age of forty-five. And before that, he had the usual life of a party apparatchik, although he had reached "known degrees." Some “successes” were attributed to him, for example, an “ideologically correct” interpretation of the actions of the most famous pioneer of the USSR, Pavlik Morozov. They also noted the integrity shown during the party "purges" of the second half of the thirties. Unlike Khrushchev and Brezhnev, he did not take an active part in the hostilities during the Great Patriotic War. Despite this, he was listed as a member of the Military Council (as secretary of the Stavropol (after 1943 - Ordzhonikidze) regional committee and even "the organizer of the partisan movement" and was awarded the appropriate honors in the seventies and eighties.
At the end of 1944, Suslov was "thrown" into Lithuania liberated from the Nazis, having received the post of chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the Lithuanian SSR. In fact, it was an extraordinary and sovereign governing body of the republic. His task was to "clean out" the state bodies, to organize the fight against the "forest brothers", to begin the process of collectivization of agriculture.
Apparently, Mikhail Andreevich did not really like the new work, and he did not always “burn” on it.
Once, Commissar of State Security Tkachenko, authorized by the NKVD-NKGB in Lithuania, “tipped off” Lavrenty Beria on him: “Comrade Suslov’s speeches at plenums and various meetings are more instructive. Local leaders have become so accustomed to these instructions and speeches that they do not pay attention to them and do not draw conclusions for themselves... Comrade Suslov personally does little work. Since the organization of the bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he spent about half the time in Moscow, traveled to several districts for 1-2 days, during the day during working hours you can often find him reading fiction, in the evenings ... he is rarely in the service. But Comrade Stalin assessed Suslov's activities in Lithuania in his own way.
Since March 1946 he has been working in Moscow in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. His erudition and ability to use the "correct" quotations impressed the leader very much. A year later, at the plenum of the Central Committee, Stalin proposes his candidacy as a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee and secretary of the Central Committee of the party. Note that at that time there were only six secretaries of the Central Committee, including Suslov and Stalin.
The new high party leader had many duties. This is the organization of the work of the media (in 1949-1950 Suslov was also the editor-in-chief of Pravda), and a number of ideological issues. But the main occupation of the no longer young Mikhail Andreevich was to oversee relations with the communist and workers' parties of the whole world. And not just supervise, but also directly mentor and support them. Together with Zhdanov and Malenkov, for example, in June 1948, Suslov traveled to Romania to attend the Meeting of Representatives of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties, where the issue of the "opportunist policy" of the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party was discussed. Bringing Suslov closer to him, Stalin did not make him just a person with whom you could drink and eat at the Middle Dacha. It was at that time that Mikhail Andreevich became a confidant of the leader. And the Generalissimo entrusted him with the most precious thing - the party's foreign exchange office.
Very little has been written about this period of Suslov's life. Some interesting details were reflected only in the 2011 television film Comrade Stalin, the creators of which were advised by professional historians who have a large amount of information that is still hard to find.
In 1947-1953, Comrade Suslov "earned" international prestige for himself by determining exactly how and to what extent to finance this or that communist party abroad. Many historians believe that he sometimes even personally transferred certain amounts “in envelopes” to the secretaries of the “fraternal communist parties”. But usually financing was carried out using the possibilities of diplomatic mail and Soviet residency abroad.
The pinnacle of Suslov's hardware advancement during Stalin's lifetime was his introduction to the expanded presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in October 1952. He stayed in this position, however, only five months, leaving it in March 1953. A certain role in this was played by disagreements with Molotov and the brewing conflict with Malenkov, who considered himself the "ideologist" of the party and saw Suslov as a competitor. But the new first secretary of the Central Committee, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who understood that the "veterans" Molotov, Kaganovich and Malenkov could oppose him at any moment, felt his supporter in Suslov and in 1955 again introduced him to the Presidium. Mikhail Andreevich did not leave this supreme body of the CPSU (later called the Politburo) until the end of his life, that is, for another 26 years. And in his tenure as secretary of the Central Committee (35 years), he generally set an absolute record.
The former confidante of the leader had to return to Stalin, or rather, to debunk his cult in the very near future. And the same quotations from the "classics of Marxism-Leninism", for the timely use of which the General Secretary appreciated Suslov, began to be used by the latter to criticize Stalin. Quotes, by the way, have always been Mikhail Andreevich's forte. One of Khrushchev’s speechwriters, political scientist Fyodor Burlatsky, recalled that once he and his colleague Belyakov were instructed to prepare an anti-Stalinist speech for Khrushchev: “By morning, the speech was ready, neatly reprinted in three copies, and we went to Mikhail Andreevich. He seated us at a long table, he himself sat in the chairman's seat, Belyakov closer to him, further away - I. And he began to read his speech aloud, glaring strongly in Gorky and saying: “Well, it’s well said here. And here again it's good. Reflected well." And in one place he stopped and said: “Here it would be necessary to back up with a quote from Vladimir Ilyich. A quote would be nice. Well, I, drowsy from a sleepless night, assured: we will find a quote, they say, a good quote, a quote is not a problem for us. Then he threw the first glance at me, such a quick, sharp one, and said: “It’s me myself, now I’ll pick it up myself.” And so he quickly ran somewhere into the corner of the office, pulled out one of the drawers that are usually found in libraries, put it on the table and began quickly sorting through the cards with quotations with long, thin fingers. He will pull one out, look - no, not that one. Another will begin to read to himself - again not the same. Then he pulled it out and so satisfied: “Here, this one is good.” As Burlatsky recalled, the quote turned out to be just right ...
And Mikhail Andreevich quoted not only Marx, Engels and Lenin. Thousands of cards with sayings of Herzen, Gogol, Dobrolyubov, Belinsky, Leo Tolstoy, Goethe, Schiller and many other writers were collected in his extensive card file.
Eminence grise
In the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Suslov was called the “gray eminence” behind his back. The fact is that he always tried to stay in the shadows, not to stick out. Even a modest three-volume collection of his selected works (the most boring reading, I will tell you) was published after the death of the “cardinal” in 1982. Once I asked Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov, who lived for quite a long time in the same house with Suslov and visited his house, how he assessed the activities of the “man in galoshes”. He replied that Suslov was the most cunning and resourceful politician. A significant part of his actions was generally known only to a narrow circle of top leaders of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He, although he was not a "Stalinist people's commissar", like, say, Kosygin, was still close to Stalin, and then became indispensable for both Khrushchev and "dear Leonid Ilyich." “My father-in-law respected him very much,” recalled Brezhnev’s son-in-law, “and was even a little afraid. He even called him by his first name and patronymic, and Mikhail Andreevich simply called him Leonid. It was very difficult to work with Suslov.”Officially, Suslov took the post of "chief ideologist" of the CPSU after the overthrow of Khrushchev, in which he took an active part. But before that, he already had experience in acting in extreme situations, both in the USSR and abroad. For example, in 1955 he took it upon himself to criticize Vyacheslav Molotov himself, after which, as we have already noted, Khrushchev was returned to the presidium of the Central Committee. Two years later, in the summer of 1957, by the way, in alliance with Marshal Zhukov, he helped Khrushchev in the fight against the "anti-party group" of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and, as Nikita Sergeevich aptly put it, "Shepilov, who joined them."
And after some three months, at the October plenum of the Central Committee, Suslov was already smashing “Marshal of Victory Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, accusing him of almost preparing a military coup: “Recently“ the Presidium of the Central Committee found out that Comrade. Zhukov, without the knowledge of the Central Committee, decided to organize a school of saboteurs for more than two thousand students. This school was supposed to take people with a secondary education who had completed military service. The term of study in it is 6-7 years, while in military academies it is 3-4 years. The school was placed in special conditions: in addition to full state support, students of the school, ordinary soldiers, had to pay 700 rubles, and sergeants - 1000 rubles a month. Tov. Zhukov did not even consider it necessary to inform the Central Committee about this school. Only three people should have known about its organization: Zhukov, Shtemenko and General Mamsurov, who was appointed head of this school. But General Mamsurov, as a communist, considered it his duty to inform the Central Committee about this illegal action of the minister.
Khrushchev himself dotted the “i” at the same plenum: “It is not known why it was necessary to collect these saboteurs without the knowledge of the Central Committee. Is this a conceivable thing? And this is what the Minister of Defense does with his character. After all, Beria also had a sabotage group, and before he was arrested, Beria called a group of his thugs. They were in Moscow, and if he had not been exposed, it is not known whose heads would have rolled. Tov. Zhukov, you will say that this is a sick imagination. Yes, I have such an imagination.
And Suslov, during a visit to rebellious Budapest in 1956, together with Mikoyan and Zhukov, took the initiative in preparing the introduction of Soviet troops into Hungary, criticized Albanian, Chinese and other "wrong" communists. Already in Khrushchev’s times, he “agreed” with the same Mikoyan (Anastas Ivanovich claimed that he was “against”) the execution of workers in Novocherkassk. In general, no matter how strange, funny (some compared his appearance with accounting) Suslov may seem, he made tough and difficult decisions.
Having become the main ideologist, Suslov took on a huge amount of work. One enumeration of the areas of his activity can take several pages. In the Central Committee of the CPSU, he controlled the activities of the department of culture, the departments of agitation and propaganda, science, schools and universities, the information department of the Central Committee, the department of youth organizations, and two international departments. The “gray cardinal” supervised the Political Directorate of the Soviet Army, the USSR Ministry of Culture, the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Publishing, Printing and Book Trade, the State Committee for Cinematography, and the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. The sphere of his interests included the work of Glavlit, TASS, the connections of the CPSU with other communist and workers' parties, the foreign policy of the USSR ...
“Under Suslov” there were creative unions: writers, journalists, theatrical figures, artists, architects ... Theatres, pop music, sometimes even sports and tourism were also under the closest supervision of the “man in galoshes”.
Alexander Yakovlev, who had to work with Suslov for quite a long time, recalled: “He had utter power. They went to the Politburo as if to a holiday. Nothing happened there: giggles and giggles, Brezhnev will be brought in, and he, let's talk about youth and about hunting. And at the secretariats, Suslov interrupted anyone who deviated a millimeter from the topic: “You report on the merits, comrade.” When Suslov was away, Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko led the secretariats for him. So Suslov, returning, first of all canceled en masse all the decisions made without him. He was very independent in making decisions on the secretariat. Without consulting anyone, he announced: “We will decide this way!” When some cunning people said that another decision had been agreed with Brezhnev, he waved it off and answered: "I will agree." And they were afraid of him, first of all, because he made personnel decisions very abruptly. He once watched hockey on TV and saw that the winning team was awarded a TV. The next day, the director of the television factory was fired. Suslov asked: “Did he give away his own TV?” And that's it."
Under Suslov, ideology was elevated to a cult. Our experienced readers who studied in Soviet universities remember that in the first years they studied the history of the CPSU, then Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and at the end of their studies they also studied a fantastic subject - “scientific communism”. In the last subject, by the way, even state exams were passed. It was impossible to enter graduate school, get a degree without passing the “social disciplines”. And Suslov also created a system in which interference in the activities of the ideological leadership of the Central Committee, even organizations such as the KGB, was not allowed. The same Alexander Yakovlev told how, thanks to Suslov, he managed to stay in a high diplomatic post: “When Soviet spies were expelled from Canada when I was ambassador, Andropov brought the question about me to the Politburo. I got up and started talking about the fact that the high-profile expulsion was my fault, because of my poor contacts with the Canadian leadership. And that it is necessary to solve the personnel issue - to recall me. Suddenly Suslov says: "Comrade Yakovlev was not appointed by the KGB as ambassador to Canada." Andropov turned gray and sat down. Brezhnev chuckled and said: "Let's move on to the next question."
And modesty in personal life
Suslov's modesty was noted by many contemporaries, although a huge apartment, and even in the house of the Central Committee on Bolshaya Bronnaya and a dacha located in the village of Troitse-Lykovo "Sosnovka-(1)" (ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was aiming at it not so long ago) can be considered luxury.But personally Mikhail Andreevich was an ascetic. Several years ago, as I already mentioned, we talked about Suslov with Brezhnev's former son-in-law, Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov. He told me that after the wedding, he and Galina Brezhneva became a neighbor of the "man in galoshes." The “young” lived on the fourth floor, and Suslov occupied the entire sixth. Together with him lived a son named Revoliy and daughter-in-law Olga. The most interesting thing is that the entire gigantic volume of the apartment was furnished with state-owned furniture with tags or seals "Administration of the Central Committee of the CPSU." The only “luxury” that the secretary of the Central Committee allowed his son (he was then working in the KGB) is a personal Volga GAZ-24 of 1976 with license plate 00–07 IOC. By the way, the dacha in Sosnovka was also furnished with official furniture. Both Suslov's guards and his nephew, who several years ago spoke about his uncle's habits in an interview, recalled this.
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev recalled in his book “The Pool of Memory”: “During my stay, no one ever accused Suslov of receiving offerings. It never occurred to anyone to go to him with gifts. The author could have sent him the book. He also accepted this. But nothing else, God forbid. Gets kicked out of work."
As for the famous galoshes, Suslov himself explained their presence in the wardrobe by the desire to have “dry feet” all the time. The head of his security (from 1975 to 1982), Boris Alexandrovich Martyanov, recalled: “He had clothes in a long sock. At home he wore trousers and a jacket. At the dacha, when we went to the resort, I put on sports trousers. He had an eternal hat "pie". He wore an old heavy coat with an astrakhan collar. He didn’t recognize any microporks in shoes - he wore low shoes with leather soles - they were sewn to order for him in a special workshop: a shoemaker came, measured his leg and made it. Mikhail Andreevich wore them until he wiped off the entire sole. Suslov also liked to wear galoshes: we come to the Party Bureau - he carefully puts galoshes under a hanger. Everyone who comes knows: "Galoshes are in place - it means that Mikhail Andreevich has arrived." Because besides him, no one wore galoshes. He told us about this: “It’s very comfortable in galoshes - it’s damp outside, and I came into the room, took off my galoshes - and please: my foot is always dry!”
In fact, Suslov's manner of wearing galoshes, a warm coat or a raincoat in the summer was due to the fact that he suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis in his youth and was afraid of any cold.
One of Suslov's guards, Dmitry Selivanov, recalled several years ago how his relatives gathered Suslov to France: “He rarely traveled abroad. And one day he was invited to France on an official visit. Maya, this is his daughter, began to deal with his equipment. “Dad, you take off your hat, change it, you need a different one, a different coat.” He was very resistant. He always liked to walk in autumn, spring and put on galoshes on his boots. And she tried to convince him: "Don't you dare"! But if he's used to this kind of thing, you can't convince him to change. These are daughters, the family had to work hard to dress him in a modern style ... "
But moving at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour on a huge black ZIL was most likely not intended to ensure operational movement or security. The secretary of the Central Committee was never late for anything. At 8.59 he entered the building of the Central Committee, at 13.00 he drank tea, at 17.59 he left work. And during his half-hour journey from the dacha to the Old Square, he simply observed the life of the capital. Sometimes these observations brought results. Eldar Ryazanov recalled that one day Suslov saw from the car window an advertising poster for the Ryazan film "The Man from Nowhere", which depicted Sergei Yursky with lush facial hair. The main ideologist of the USSR did not like either the actor or the name. As a result, the film sat on the shelf for more than twenty years.
Vladimir Timofeevich Medvedev, deputy head of Brezhnev’s security, recalled some of Suslov’s habits and eccentricities: “Mikhail Andreevich Suslov was just as far from Brezhnev in character, by the end of the General’s life, almost the second person in the party. Reinsurer, pedant, dogmatist in words and deeds. In addition, a very stubborn person. He, the main ideologist of the party, was most feared by the progressive creative intelligentsia.
In a high environment, the character and habits of this man evoked irony. What are some galoshes worth, with which he did not part, it seems, even in clear weather and which became something like his visiting card, as well as his old-fashioned coat, which he wore for decades. After Brezhnev's playful offer to the members of the Politburo to chip in for Suslov's coat, he finally got himself a new one.
We sometimes go to the Mozhaisk highway and weave at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. There's a bunch of cars ahead. Leonid Ilyich jokes:
Michael must be on his way!
Brezhnev addressed everyone as "you" and if not in public, not in front of everyone, then by the names of Yura, Kostya, Nikolai. He could only call Suslov by name in absentia, he addressed him, as well as Kosygin. Only by name and patronymic. Apparently, because with Suslov, as with Kosygin, the general felt less confident than with others, and he and the other could object to him. It used to be that everyone was for, and Suslov was against. And when, say, the issue of awards or laureates was being decided, and everything went like clockwork, someone will always say: “How else will Mikhail Andreevich look ...”
- And you explain to him ... - said Brezhnev, and after a pause he added:
"Well, I'll talk to him myself."
Employees of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU recalled that Suslov's personal modesty was hypertrophied, but was completely sincere. While on business trips, he even paid for set meals, and even down to a penny. And yet, without informing anyone, he transferred part of his salary to the Peace Fund and for other charitable purposes, sent books to the libraries of his native Saratov region ...
Many people who worked with Suslov noted his unpretentiousness in relation to nutrition. The most ordinary food, cereals, dietary soups... Boris Martyanov, head of security for the secretary of the Central Committee, recalled: "A cook in the south could have cooked a month in advance - and then there was no need to work." But only during the Kremlin receptions could there be difficulties with food for Suslov. Aleksey Alekseevich Salnikov, an employee of the 9th Directorate of the KGB, who for many years served the first persons of the USSR, told me: “Suslov was very capricious, which manifested itself primarily at various festive receptions. He was often dissatisfied with the food served. Things like eggplant and squash caviar were not allowed to be shown to him at all. They disgusted him, and he called them "poor". Especially for him, you always had to keep sausages. Everyone is served sturgeon in Moscow, for example, and he is served sausages with mashed potatoes ... He also practically did not drink alcohol, except perhaps a glass of wine or champagne on a holiday. At receptions, he was poured boiled water into a glass ... "
Nikolai Kharybin, commandant of the dacha in Bocharov Creek, where Suslov liked to relax, noted that he showed some capriciousness in relation to the landscape design of the dacha and its interior. He really did not like the fact that instead of a wooden flooring to the sea, they made a stone-paved path, they say, it “shone”. I decided to move to another object "Riviera", and there the paths were also paved with tiles. Suslov said that it seemed to him that when he walked, he was about to fall into the pit. He also did not like the dark blue furniture - he had to change it. Taught by the experience of communicating with the "man in galoshes", Nikolai Arsentievich decided from now on to coordinate everything with him. Wore Suslov "for approval" samples of wallpaper, other interior details. And since then, Mikhail Andreevich has had no complaints ...
"Patron of the Arts"
Literature and art were Suslov's sphere of activity for many years. The secretary of the Central Committee from time to time personally communicated with writers, composers, artists, architects and other representatives, as they said in those days, "creative intelligentsia." Sometimes the circumstances of such communication were quite amusing. In the book “The calf butted with the oak”, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn recalled his acquaintance with Suslov, which seemed strange to him:“When in December 1962, at a Kremlin meeting, Tvardovsky ... took me around the foyer and introduced me to writers, filmmakers, artists of my choice, a tall, thin man with a very intelligent elongated face approached us in the cinema hall - and confidently held out his hand to me , began shaking her very vigorously and saying something about his extreme pleasure from "Ivan Denisovich", shaking her so much, as if now I would not have a friend closer. All the others named themselves, but this one did not. I inquired: “With whom ...” - the stranger did not name himself here, and Tvardovsky reproachfully in an undertone to me: “Mikhail Andreevich ...” I shrugged: “Which Mikhail Andreevich? ..” Tvardovsky with double reproach: “Yes Suslov!!”... And even Suslov did not seem to be offended that I did not recognize him. But here's a riddle: why did he greet me so warmly? After all, at the same time, Khrushchev was not even close, no one from the Politburo saw him - which means that it was not toadying. For what? Expression of sincere feelings? A freedom lover canned in the Politburo? The main ideologist of the party! .. Really?
In fact, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who was in charge of ideology, perfectly understood that it was necessary to meet and talk with writers and artists, and to speak extremely politely. At one time, Suslov invited the writer Vasily Grossman to his place and talked with him for more than three hours. It was about the novel “Life and Fate” seized from the writer. Suslov put it very briefly, in a classic style for party leaders: “... I didn’t read this book, my two referents read it, comrades who are well versed in fiction, whom I trust, and both, without saying a word, came to the same conclusion - the publication of this work will harm communism, Soviet power, the Soviet people.
When Grossman asked for the author's copy of the novel to be returned to him, the secretary of the Central Committee was categorical: “No, no, you can't return it. We'll publish a five-volume book, but don't even think about this novel. Maybe it will be published in two or three hundred years.” The five-volume book, by the way, was also not published ...
The “merits” of Suslov in the field of “observance of the principles of Marxist-Leninist ideology” include the dispersal of the editorial office of Novy Mir, the seizure of copies of dozens of already printed books. His phrase, which has become popular, is known, with which he answered publishing workers who complained about losses: “They don’t save on ideology!”
Suslov's name is associated with problems that arose at the Taganka Theater, a virtual ban on the publication of lyrics and poems by Vladimir Vysotsky, a thorough "filtering" of the memoirs of military leaders and political figures, including Georgy Zhukov and Anastas Mikoyan. Many films, such as "Garage" by Eldar Ryazanov and "Kalina Krasnaya" by Vasily Shukshin, were banned from showing in large cities of the USSR for a long time.
There were, however, cases when the anger of the main ideologue could be softened, even if the initiators of the "punishment" were members of the Politburo. Alexander Yakovlev recalled one conversation with his former boss: “He listened very carefully when the conversation was face to face. He asked questions, and 99 percent of the time he listened to what I told him. When Yegor Yakovlev was removed from the post of editor-in-chief of the Journalist magazine, the question arose about his work. I considered his removal completely unjustified. Ustinov was the initiator. I saw reproductions of Gerasimov's paintings from the Tretyakov Gallery on the cover of a magazine. Well, a naked woman. But this is no reason to accuse the editor of a magazine of distributing pornography! I went to Suslov. He asked about Egor. And he agreed to his appointment as a correspondent for Izvestia.
At one time, the story of how Mikhail Andreevich Suslov visited a dentist in the Kremlin hospital was passed from mouth to mouth in the Central Committee of the CPSU. He came, complaining about a bad tooth, sat down in a chair. The doctor asked him to open his mouth. And the secretary of the Central Committee asked him a question: “Excuse me, but is it possible to do without it somehow?” Many researchers, recalling this funny legend, wrote that Suslov's credo was to open his mouth as little as possible. It seems that he also called on the creative intelligentsia to do the same ...
Relations with the sport of Mikhail Andreevich Suslov were, surprisingly, very good. Believe it or not, Suslov played volleyball from time to time. With all this, he played even when he was over seventy. Usually on vacation, his children, Revoliy and Maya (she was more fortunate with the name), daughter-in-law Olga and the guards were divided into two teams. The tall Mikhail Andreevich (190 centimeters, by the way) was not a very strong player, and good amateurs played with him in the team, who corrected the flaws in the game of the “man in galoshes”. And the opponents tried not to give and not to “extinguish” him. Boris Martyanov, Suslov's security chief, recalled that he was very upset, upset when his team lost, so he had to restrain his excitement and sometimes give in ...
The secretary of the Central Committee went swimming from time to time, preferring, however, unlike Brezhnev, who practiced long swims, ten-minute dives in the sea, pool or river. A mandatory attribute at the same time was his bathing cap.
Suslov was moderately interested in hockey. Most likely, this was not caused by excitement, but by ideological considerations: our victories in the World and European Championships, as well as at the Olympics, significantly increased the prestige of the country and improved the internal situation due to the more positive mood of the citizens of the USSR. He himself rarely visited Luzhniki and most likely was weighed down by these visits, but he kept his finger on the pulse tightly. There were several cases when, in company with Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev and other members of the Politburo, he attended the games of the USSR championship or the Izvestia Prize. In this case, all ashtrays were removed from the rest room, and Leonid Ilyich, who usually smoked right in the box of the Luzhnikov Palace of Sports, was forced to light up during a break almost in the toilet. Unlike other high-ranking fans, Suslov did not touch alcohol during a break in hockey matches, but he took an active part in the Politburo's favorite pastime - domino tournaments.
Old-timers of Luzhniki remember the case when, after the first period of the game between CSKA and Spartak, the Politburo in full strength suddenly did not return to the box. The second period, the audience only discussed that the disappearance of all the leaders. Someone ran to the lobby to see if the government ZILs were in the parking lot. They were not! Rumors immediately spread that a war had begun or some kind of state of emergency of an allied scale had occurred. And at the beginning of the third period, the entire composition of the Politburo appeared in the box and was even met with applause. The casket was opened simply: the leaders of the party and the state could not break away from the principled domino tournament with a knockout game. And there shouldn’t have been cars in the parking lot: they brought protected persons to the game, and then returned to the Special Purpose Garage (GON) to return either by the end of the match or on a call ...
When in 1972 the question arose of a meeting between the USSR national team hockey players and the best Canadian professionals, Mikhail Andreevich was against it. The loss significantly weakened our position in this most important sport, especially after our team lost to the Czechoslovak team in the battle for world championship gold medals in the spring of that year. But in the case of the Canadians, it was Brezhnev who took the decision. He was sure that ours would perform with dignity, and, which happened quite rarely, entered into an argument with Suslov. As a result, the legendary "Super Series - 72" was presented to the world. But if the “man in galoshes” rested, and we would not have seen any Phil Esposito for another ten years. Thanks to Brezhnev for this...
Monument to Comrade Suslov
In January 1982, Comrade Suslov was about to go south for a holiday. As usual, before such events, elderly members of the Politburo underwent medical examinations. Suslov, on the other hand, was in his eightieth year of life and had never been in good health at all. Type 2 diabetes mellitus and an almost inevitable companion of people of advanced age, vascular atherosclerosis, were added to the consequences of tuberculosis suffered in youth. The last disease has already given the first "call" - in 1976, the secretary of the Central Committee suffered a heart attack, and recovery after it did not go very well.Suslov did not like doctors and did not particularly trust them. When Yevgeny Chazov tried to explain to him that the pain in his left arm was a manifestation of angina pectoris, the main ideologist of the party did not believe it. The chief Kremlin doctor wrote about Suslov: “God grant everyone live so long. He never wanted to admit that he was ill or take medicine. He believed that he only had joint pain, but in fact he had severe angina pectoris. The hardest. He had focal changes in the heart. We figured out how to give him heart medicine - in the form of an ointment on a sore arm. Gorbachev is a witness to how I was dragged from the North Caucasus to Suslov. We were sitting with him in Zheleznovodsk when they called me and said: “Leave urgently, it’s bad with Suslov, so that by morning you will be in Moscow.” What happened to him could happen at any time.”
Some party leaders believed that Suslov's death was caused not only by purely medical reasons. Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev, for example, many years later wrote the following in his autobiographical book: “Suslov's death was somehow very timely. He greatly interfered with Andropov, who was eager for power. Suslov did not like him and would never have allowed Andropov to be elected general secretary. So it cannot be ruled out that he was helped to die.”
In the same way, Boris Nikolaevich Ponomarev, Suslov's closest ally and deputy, expressed certain doubts about what the main ideologist of the party actually died from: “Of course, the years took their toll, and it was increasingly difficult for Mikhail Andreevich to work. As was expected, he went to the Kuntsevo hospital for examination before leaving. We had talked to him a couple of days before. He was in a good holiday mood. He said that after his return, we will have more work. I still don't know what he meant. He felt quite well. There he went for a walk. I suddenly felt pain in my heart. He was getting worse. He returned to his room, where at that time his daughter Maya was. She rushed to Mikhail Andreevich, called the doctors. And three days later he was gone. Very strange".
But Suslov undoubtedly thought about his imminent death. In the late seventies, the leader of the "Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich studied at the evening department of the Moscow Architectural Institute and worked at the Moscow Giproteatre (this is an institute that was engaged in the design of theater buildings and the territories adjacent to them). And he told me the following story, which, in my opinion, could well have a real basis: “The director of the institute, as absolutely everyone knew, worked actively only until lunch. At lunch in the institute's canteen, in the presence of the entire team, he was offered a glass of cognac, which was covered with a white napkin. The director drank it, after which everyone began to dine, and he, having had a bite, served either in the office, from where orders and orders were no longer received that day, or home.
One fine day, when he had already removed the napkin from the glass and was already preparing to take it and knock it down his throat, the secretary ran into the room shouting: “Don’t drink!” The director put down his glass with displeasure, and she, out of breath, told him that Suslov had just called and a car had come out for him, the director. He had to leave the cognac until better times and go to the Old Square.
It turned out that the secretary of the Central Committee decided to talk to the director of the institute about his death. Suslov's speech was something like this: “We are all not eternal, unfortunately. Apparently, I will soon leave for another world. By decision of the Politburo, a monument will be erected to me on October Square. The pedestal is supposed to be installed in the form of a column of Karelian granite, and my statue in a mantle and cap will be carved on it, which shows my reverent attitude to science. Under my left elbow I will have a book, symbolizing knowledge and my patronage of literature and art. Well, around the pedestal there will be scenes of my rich biography cast in bronze. We studied your work, and I decided that the architectural project for the reconstruction of the square should be entrusted to you. In the near future there will be a corresponding decision of the Politburo. So get ready for the big deal."
Needless to say, for the next few months the entire institute was engaged exclusively in the project of beautification of Oktyabrskaya Square. When it was ready, the director received a state award, the employees of the institute, including myself, received smaller awards. But they weren't redundant...
It is said that this story had a continuation. There were rumors that on November 7, 1981, on the podium of the Mausoleum, Suslov had a political dispute with Brezhnev, and he did not cut off the Secretary General very diplomatically. But Leonid Ilyich, angry, threatened that there would be no monument to him, Suslov. Shortly thereafter, in early 1982, the frustrated Mikhail Andreevich died, and three years later, a monument to Lenin by Lev Kerbel was erected on October Square. By the way, for unknown reasons, the title architect was not the director of the Moscow Giproteatre, but Gleb Makarevich, the chief architect of Moscow.”
In 1972, having been awarded the second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor (on his 70th birthday), Suslov received the right to a lifetime bronze bust in his homeland in the village of Shakhovsky (now the Ulyanovsk region). Another bust of Suslov stands on his grave near the Kremlin wall. There are no other monuments to the “man in galoshes” either in our country or in other countries of the world ...
November 21, 1902, a man was born who was engaged in what is no longer there. And for what we bitterly cry - ideology.
This person's name is Mikhail Suslov. The all-powerful "gray eminence" of the USSR, the main ideologist of the party, the second, and according to some, the first person of the state. Myself Brezhnev, making other decisions, he could remark aloud: “And this is how Mikhal Andreevich will look ...”
A glass of... water
Appreciate the irony of fate! Myself Mikhail Andreevich he considered his main merit the introduction in all universities of the country of a subject that drove some students to a cloud of reason - scientific communism. I must say that Suslov had considerable experience in bringing students and Komsomol members to a stun. In fact, this is how he started his career. The minutes of the meeting of the activists of the Khvalynsk city organization of the Communist Youth League are known. A fair part of it is occupied by a discussion of the report read by our hero "On the personal life of a Komsomol member." The result is approximately the following: “He set out his requirements for moral education in the form of commandments, what can and cannot be done to a Komsomol member. Decided: Suslov's theses to be published and distributed to other cells. The speaker was then barely 20 years old.
It is easy to guess what exactly these “moral requirements” were. And many years later, the magazine “Life” sarcastically walked through Suslov, calling him “a true Soviet Aryan” and accompanying his photo with a buffoon characterization: “Nordic character, persistent. Ascetic in private life. Merciless to the enemies of the USSR.
Laughter with laughter, but there really were legends about the personal preferences of the second secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Okay, he doesn't drink or smoke. But he doesn’t drink to such an extent that he risks violating the norms of the protocol: at official receptions, instead of vodka, carefully boiled water was poured into his glass. He wore the same coat, dark gray, with an astrakhan collar, for almost three decades. And he changed it only after Brezhnev, at a meeting of the Politburo, ponderously joked: "Let's chip in to Comrade Suslov for a new coat." The furniture in the nomenklatura apartment and dacha, assigned to him by status, bore the stigma: “Administration of the affairs of the Central Committee of the CPSU”, i.e., did not personally belong to Suslov. As for the offerings, everything was also strict: “It never occurred to anyone to go to him with gifts. The author could have sent him the book. He also accepted this. But nothing else, God forbid. Gets kicked out of work."
The leaders of the CPSU and the government of the USSR on the podium of the Mausoleum V.I. Lenin during the May Day demonstration: Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny (second from left), Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. Photo: RIA Novosti
Here, however, in food he was extremely capricious - all eyewitnesses converge here. Another thing is that the whims were specific: “We always kept sausages especially for Suslov. Everyone is served Moscow-style sturgeon, and he is served sausages with mashed potatoes.” Yes, such a gentleman was found ...
The most decent
Of course, the details about what the top leadership of the country prefers to eat were not covered in the press at that time. This is not your current "breakfast with Putin." But the saying “You can’t put a scarf on every mouth” always applies. Some details about the personal life of the leaders still seeped into the people. There is a recording of the interrogation of a junior lieutenant of the Soviet army Viktor Ilyin - the same man who shot at Brezhnev's motorcade, hoping to finish off "dear Leonid Ilyich." The terrorist was asked the question: "Why did you want to kill the general secretary?" The answer was discouraging: “Now everything is stolen and dragged, down to bolts and cogs. Brezhnev condones it. A new person must take his place. The most decent. At the moment - Mikhail Suslov.
It is interesting that all these legends were confirmed, and documented. Being an atheist, and in early youth - even a Komsomol atheist, Mikhail Andreevich acted in full accordance with the spirit and letter of the Gospel: "When you do alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing." Only after his death did they learn that he regularly transferred a significant part of his rather big salary to the Peace Fund. And besides, as far as possible, he replenished the libraries of his native Saratov region.
One way or another, but almost all the rumors, gossip and fiction that accompanied Suslov sooner or later turned out to be true. In the end, we are talking about the "gray cardinal", whose whole life, by definition, consists of not quite reliable data. And, oddly enough, these data are subsequently still confirmed. Maybe the story about the embarrassment with the French communists is also true? After the removal of the leader of the PCF, who had supported the Prague Spring, a new one had to be elected. And in 1972, the personal file of a simple French communist with the beautiful name Jean and the no less beautiful surname Gondon was sent to Suslov for approval. They say usually discreet Mikhail Andreevich raged: “This is a provocation! Is it possible with such a name to pay us a friendly visit? In a warm environment? And kiss in front of the camera with Leonid Ilyich? We only lack these French ones here, when there is nowhere to put our own people ... Come up with something. Come up with. The resume was as follows: “We ask for the candidacy of Comrade. Gondon to reconsider. His real name is Saint-Gondon, and he bears the title of count, which may lead to a slanderous campaign in the bourgeois press."
Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov. Photo: www.russianlook.com
In general, the origin let us down. At the same Suslova this was all right. His father worked part-time in the Baku oil fields and was seen in connection with the revolutionaries. At the time, the strike movement in Baku was led by a certain
Joseph Dzhugashvili. He is Koba, and in the future - Stalin. Finally - another irony of fate. In 1962, the writer Vasily Grossman, whose novel Life and Fate was arrested and confiscated, sought Suslov's help. The main ideologist then answered the writer: "Your novel will be published in three hundred years." The novel came out 25 years later. A quarter of a century later, a series based on this novel appeared. And its main operator was, oddly enough, a man named Mikhail Suslov.
OCCUPANTS
My friend Aviva calls me an occupier.
“Why did you come to our country, invaders?” she asks.
Aviva came from Riga fifteen years ago. She's a perfect American, but she still treats me like an occupier.
“Aviva,” I say, “I am not an occupier. I was then only seven years old. I didn't occupy you."
“It's still an occupier,” says Aviva. - Who called you? You are always like this: those who are smaller and weaker than you, those you capture. It's ugly..."
“I agree with you,” I say. - Don't bother.
And my thoughts are somewhere there, in the past... The reader is probably waiting for me to be transported to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Afghanistan... No, I'm walking down Pervaya Meshchanskaya with Mark and saying:
What should I do? Parents are sorry. When I don't come home at night, they don't sleep. You and I are already under thirty, but for our old people we are still children ...
What do you want? Mark answers. - As long as we live in the same room with our parents, it will always be so.
Well, I can’t bring Lidka home! - I am outraged. - Cursed housing! Where to get it?
Mark is silent. He has the same problem.
That's it, I say. - Let's play one game. I will write a letter to Suslov. Suslov from Suslov. I will write it very sincerely. Maybe some lackey will be moved and give him a letter. And there - what the hell is not joking? What if he gives a command?.. Just like that!
You're a fool, said Mark. - Lived to gray hair, but a fool. Well, why are you Comrade Suslov? He has a million letters like this. Give everyone a room? You got a little dumb. Marry a rich girl - here's your room!
Well, I do not want to be rich! I say. What am I going to do with her at night?
I go home and write a letter.
"Moscow. Kremlin. To Comrade Suslov M.A.
Dear comrade Suslov! I am a young engineer. I'm 28 years old. I live with my parents in the same room. We have a large bright room of 19 square meters. And we have only one neighbors - husband and wife. Old ones. And we are friends with them. We have all the amenities: water, separate toilet, kitchen, bath. My mother is very worried that I still have not married. But I can't do that because I have nowhere to bring my wife. I don't want to get married. And I have no right to stand in line for a room: we have more than three square meters per person, and no district executive committee will accept our application. I can't join a cooperative either, because I only get one hundred and thirty rubles a month, and my parents don't have any money. Here is such a problem, dear comrade Suslov. What prompted me to write to you? Firstly, I am also Suslov, and you, perhaps, do not receive letters from your namesakes very often. And so everyone pesters me: am I not a relative of you? And secondly, suddenly you have a son of my age. He, too, then Suslov. And suddenly he has the same problems as me? Ask him. And please give me a room so that I can finally please my mother, otherwise she can’t wait for her grandchildren. I can't produce them in the same room as my mom and dad.
Respectfully yours, Ilya Suslov.
I went outside and dropped the letter into the mailbox.
Ilya, - the pale boss told me, - you are summoned to the district committee of the party. To the secretary. What else have you done?
What are they? - I said. - I'm non-partisan.
Since they are calling, we must go, - said the headmistress.
In the district committee, a policeman checked my name, looked at the list and let me go upstairs. The district committee secretary turned out to be a woman. Such a blonde with a six month old. We looked at each other.
Did you write a letter to the Central Committee of the Party? she suddenly asked.
Uh-uh ..., - I said, - in what sense?
In a simple sense. Did you write a letter to Comrade Suslov?
Suslov?
What are you, - she smiled softly. - I won't eat you. Suslov.
Ah, Suslov! Suslov wrote.
Desperate, I must say, a letter.
And why, exactly, did you call me? I wrote to Suslov.
Well, you understand that Comrade Suslov will not be able to receive you. So I was asked to talk to you.
Why wouldn't he accept me? - a little insolent, I asked. - I'm not contagious.
Oh-oh! - she said. - You leave this tone. You are not at Aunt Valya's birthday party.
Okay, I said. - So how is the room? Where to go for an order?
She looked at me carefully. Her face was cold and stern.
Do you know that we had a war? she asked. - Do you know how many people we still live in basements and barracks? Sixteen people live in a room. And there are only three of you.
Do you also live in a barracks? I asked. - Do you live in the basement?
She leaned back in her chair in surprise.
Suslov, she said. - I wanted to be good. And you are a dangerous person!
Why am I dangerous? - I said. I was already carried. My lousy tongue was already grinding something for which it should have been bitten off long ago. "Keep your tongue off!" Mom always asked. - I'm not dangerous. I am curious. When did you arrive in Moscow?
And that doesn't concern you at all!
Why not? What concerns you is what I wrote to Suslov. And you know, I was born in this city. And he lived here all his life. This is my city. I know every street here, every courtyard. I studied here. I work here. And my parents have lived here all their lives. And they worked. And we have not earned a door for ourselves, an ordinary door separating one adult person from another. How is it? And you came...
Suslov,” she said with a laugh, “you are talking to me like an occupier!
I looked at her with great astonishment. I swear that thought never crossed my mind!
You know, - I said, - give me my letter. Consider that I did not write it. I fooled around. Under a drunken bench. For a dispute. I made a bet with a friend that Suslov would give Suslov a room. Apparently not destiny. We'll live. After all, we have 19 meters, all the amenities. The curtain is beautiful in the middle. So as not to wake my mother when I return late. What is there? We have a full openwork. Here people from the barracks will move, and they will give us. Right? And there was a war. I forgot about the war. How could I?
She looked on with sympathy.
Don't talk about the war, I said. She died twenty years ago. And we won that war. Germans and Japanese. Only for some reason they each have a door. Didn't read? So who won whom?
Here you are in vain! - she said. - This is clearly sung from someone else's voice.
I'm smiling. My lips are smiling, but my eyes are crying.
Don't, Suslov, she says. - No need.
Let's get a letter, I say, and forget about this joke. I'm a joker.
Well, how can I give it back, - she says plaintively, - it's registered. I have to answer.
Well, they say, a conversation was held. The friend understood everything.
So write it down.
I take my letter from the table and leave...
“Hey, occupier,” says Aviva, “when are you coming to visit?”
My wife and I get in the car and go to visit. I deliberately counted how many doors they have. Twelve...
| |
Summer is in full swing. Vacationers from all over the country rushed to rest to the sea shores. Naturally, an ordinary tourist has a choice of which foreign beach to go to - either to the Canary Islands, or to Hawaii, or maybe to the island of Phuket.
The first persons of the state have no such freedom of choice. They always swim and sunbathe on the state beaches near their native shores of the Black Sea. And when a warship anchors on the beam of Sochi, this is a "folk sign": someone "especially guarded" came to rest. In Sochi there is Stalin's dacha, Joseph Vissarionovich loved this Black Sea city. Ordzhonikidze and Voroshilov rested at the resort, leaving a sanatorium named after them as a keepsake. Sochi was loved by Brezhnev, Suslov, Kosygin and other official Soviet leaders. However, even today the leaders of the state do not bypass the “main resort” of the country, not only during vacations, but also at work.
Naturally, the presence in Sochi of such a number of high-ranking and world-famous resort guests could not but give rise to many stories among the people. Either true or made up.
Stalin easily promoted
Once in Sochi they were waiting for Comrade Stalin himself to rest. The local militia selected the bravest sergeants and placed them along the road. The service records of the sergeants were examined, they took exams in party political training, and checked the moral climate in the family.
And now Stalin is going to Sochi from the airport, and sergeants are standing along the road.
“They serve well,” said Iosif Vissarionovich.
“No, they serve very well,” Joseph Vissarionovich clarified.
- Yes sir. Very well.
Stalin lit his pipe and looked at his surroundings.
“Then why are such good police officers still sergeants?” I'm asking you?!
They say that the accompanying persons broke out in a cold sweat.
And while Comrade Stalin was driving to his dacha, an order was urgently issued by the Sochi police on the early assignment of the rank of lieutenant to all "road" sergeants. So lieutenants were already standing along the leader’s route, though still in sergeant uniform. Probably, on that day, in terms of the number of officers, local internal affairs bodies came out on top in the world.
Walkers sailed to Khrushchev and waited for him at the radio center
Swimming has always been considered a purely Sochi method of delivering complaints to Moscow. A swimmer-complaintant went into the sea with a letter in swimming trunks and waited until some responsible comrade went to take sea baths from the state beach, which was located behind the fence of the Riviera city beach. The "client" dived as close as possible and tried to hand over the paper. Few were lucky.
For example, one now unknown Sochi resident almost swam to Khrushchev. Unfortunately, the swimmer managed to intercept the security. However, this did not stop the complainant. The comrade took advantage of his official position, and he worked as an announcer in the beach radio center. And then the Sochi resident made an announcement on a crowded city beach: “Resting Khrushchev, go to the radio center of the beach, they are waiting for you ...”
Three minutes later, five people appeared at the beach radio station. Judging by the swimming trunks, the comrades were in the rank of no less than a major. The rowdy announcer was quietly taken away. After this incident, the readers in the beach radio centers became workers of the ideological front and the nomenclature of the city party committee. The texts of announcements were perfected and subject to approval by the Bureau.
Brezhnev fought for cleanliness in Sochi, and Kosygin bought sausage
During his last visits to Sochi, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev spoiled the attention of local trade workers. Moreover, even the head of Ilyich's personal guard could not say in advance whom the "dear and deeply respected" would pamper.
Once Brezhnev stopped by a department store in the Svetlana microdistrict. And there the grandmother-cleaner in a black coat cleans up.
“For whom are you mourning here, comrades?” asked Leonid Ilyich.
- Don't mourn. We are working.
- You need to work in a white coat and white gloves ...
At the bureau of the city committee of the party, white gloves were urgently found and distributed to Sochi sellers, porters and cleaners. When someone from Leonid Ilyich's entourage appeared, the workers, on command, put on all white and smiled solemnly.
One day, Comrade Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, entered one of the department stores in Sochi. Aleksey Nikolaevich bought doctor's sausage at a supermarket for 2 r. 10 kopecks, and did not even pay attention to white coats and gloves.
After receiving disturbing information, an urgent operational meeting was held at the Sochi meat processing plant, at which one question was discussed: “Why did Comrade Kosygin buy our Doctorskaya sausage? The director of the meat processing plant personally checked the entire chain of preparation of Doctor's, swallowed validol and prepared for the worst. But there were no reprisals. And the question of why Kosygin needed the Sochi boiled sausage is still open. True, it was rumored that Alexei Nikolaevich simply allowed himself sometimes to snack on good vodka with his favorite doctor's sausage from an ordinary supermarket.
Suslov preferred "handmade" kefir
Not all the main "party members" liked to drink. For example, Comrade Suslov Mikhail Andreevich used only kefir in Sochi. And since the main ideologist of the country of the Soviets rested at the resort regularly, the production of this drink was considered the number one party task at the dairy plant. This "party" drink in Sochi was prepared by a very experienced employee Aunt Masha. Suslov knew about her, appreciated her talent and praised her.
And so Aunt Masha retired. A worthy replacement was prepared at the dairy plant. It seemed that Aunt Masha passed on all the secrets of kefir to Comrade Suslov.
Mikhail Andreevich arrived. The forwarding lieutenant colonel delivered the precious product to the dacha. Comrade Suslov tried:
- Something not very good. Aunt Masha forgot how to cook.
There was a quiet panic in production. Aunt Masha was urgently recalled from retirement in a black Volga. The honor of "party" yogurt has been restored! They say that after fulfilling this most important assignment, Aunt Masha was given an apartment, a certificate of honor "Drummer of Communist Labor" and was allowed to retire only at the same time as Comrade Suslov.
Gagarin after the flight secretly climbed Mount Akhun
At the end of April 1961, a short young man appeared near the observation tower on Mount Akhun in Sochi. He calmly walked around the neighborhood, climbed the famous tower. Went down. And the people who came that day on an excursion suddenly whispered: “Look, it’s Yuri Gagarin himself! Our first cosmonaut!
At that time, young Nikolai Dorokhov worked as a cook in a restaurant near the tower of Mount Akhun. He fried the famous "Akhun" kebabs. He approached the cosmonaut and invited him "for a cup of tea", so to speak, to celebrate Gagarin's return to his native Earth.
“Yuri Alekseevich was a simple, sociable person,” recalls Nikolai Fedorovich. - Well, over a glass of good "Kinzmarauli" we talked about space, about life, and then the "retinue" that had lost Gagarin drove up. The hero was invited to an official meeting at the Akhun restaurant.
- Did he go?
— Yes, I did, of course. I was surprised by the abundance of official guests. He asked: “Why so many people?” And then he smiled: “Thank you, I was already met on Akhun as it should be!”
It is clear that Nikolai Dorokhov was not patted on the head for such hospitality and initiative. Yes, and the director of the restaurant got on the party line.
Since then, many Soviet and Russian cosmonauts have trodden the "star path" to Akhun. Valentina Tereshkova, Andrian Nikolaev, Alexei Leonov, Boris Volynov came here after their flights. The astronauts climbed the observation tower and, probably, involuntarily compared the view from the mountain with the panorama from space.
“I know many cosmonauts personally,” Nikolai Fedorovich smiles. - And Boris Volynov even promised to come to my wedding. I remember that the day of the wedding came, but Volynov was not there. The next day, I hear a TASS message on the radio about the launch of a manned spacecraft. Crew commander Boris Volynov.
Mount Akhun is one of the most iconic and famous places in Sochi. Almost like the New Athos cave in Abkhazia.
In the city committee of the CPSU, a "caveman" worked hard
Ordinary members of the Central Committee often rested in Sochi. And therefore, in the local city committee of the CPSU there was one secret position, which the party comrades among themselves called the "cave secretary." The duties of the “cave secretary” included escorting members of the Central Committee on an excursion to the New Athos cave in Abkhazia, so that in the end the guest, God forbid, would not get lost and slip. They say that the “caveman” knew the New Athos caves better than speleologists and could draw a map of underground halls with an accurate indication of depths and air temperature.
And somehow they entrusted the “cave” communist to accompany another member of the Central Committee deep into the earth. We arrived. The member of the Central Committee did not like the "hole", and he decided: "Let's drink better." We drank. Let's go back. On the radio handed over to all posts: prepare restaurants along the route. In general, there was a "caveman" over time appointed secretary of one of the Sochi district committees of the CPSU.
Polite people are always there
In the very center of the city, a Sochi resident went into a sports bar and ordered a glass of beer. I was sitting, enjoying a football match, and suddenly a slight fuss began at the bar. Before the man had time to figure anything out, a man very similar to Putin appeared near the table. Yes, it was the president himself. He also ordered a beer and sat down next to me: “Will I interfere?” Naturally, the man somehow uttered: “Don’t get in the way…”
We sat, silently watched the match and Putin left as suddenly as he appeared.
The legendary meetings with Putin in Krasnaya Polyana are even more democratic. One skier told how he had a rest in a small cafe high in the mountains on the third stage of the cable car. I just ate pancakes. And then the president appeared in a high-altitude cafe in a ski suit, and also ordered pancakes. After tasting pancakes, Vladimir Vladimirovich paid off and went skiing. And no “at the expense of the institution” there! ..
They say that on the ski slopes the president is easily accessible. In different offices, I personally saw photographs of ordinary Sochi residents from the series “Me and Putin” and “Me and Medvedev”. It is hard to imagine such photographs of the series "I and Stalin" or "Brezhnev and I".
True, attempts to get "unauthorized" photos can lead to embarrassment. Once, in a forest near the sea, one grandfather was picking mushrooms. He sees a boat going out to sea from dacha No. 1. Well, grandfather takes out a camera and ... at this time, a "polite man" falls down from a tree and asks him to stop taking pictures.
Everything ended well, but now, picking mushrooms in the forests of Sochi, grandfather, just in case, peers into the crowns of trees.
Out of courtesy.
Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Alexei Nikolsky.