With which actress did Vlasik have an affair. Versions and facts: what did Stalin's secret wife do with his chief guard. My new position

A special place in the family of I. V. Stalin was occupied by General N. S. Vlasik. He was not just the head of security, under whose vigilant eye was the entire Stalinist house. After the death of N. S. Alliluyeva, he was also a teacher of children, an organizer of their leisure, an economic and financial manager.

In the Soviet and foreign press, with the light hand of Svetlana Alliluyeva, he will be called Nikolai Sergeevich, a rude martinet, a rude and imperious head of security who has been near Stalin since 1919. Is it all so? Let's turn to some archival documents.

“I, Vlasik Nikolai Sidorovich, born in 1896, a native of the village of Bobynichi, Slonim district, Baranovichi region, Belarusian, member of the CPSU since 1918, lieutenant general,” he wrote in his autobiography. - He was awarded three orders of Lenin, four orders of the Red Banner, Kutuzov I degree, medals: "20 years of the Red Army", "For the defense of Moscow", "For the victory over Germany", "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow", "30 years Soviet army and the Fleet", I have the honorary title of "Honorary Chekist", which I was awarded twice with a badge.

In the protection of I.V. Stalin, N.S. Vlasik appeared in 1931. Prior to that, he served in the bodies of the Cheka-OGPU. He was recommended for this post by Menzhinsky. Until 1932, his role was invisible. Stalin preferred to move around the city without guards, and even more so in the Kremlin.

The main thing in his activity was the protection of the dacha. Since 1934, the servants of the dacha began to change, and all newly admitted were enrolled in the staff of the OGPU, and then the NKVD, assigning military ranks. Left without a wife, Stalin, with the help of Vlasik, began to improve his life. The dacha in Zubalovo was left to Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluev and his wife, where Sergei Alexandrovich Efimov was the commandant. A dacha in Kuntsevo, an old manor along the Dmitrov highway - Lipki, dachas in Ritsa, the Crimea, Valdai, together with the security staff, maids, housekeepers and cooks, were subordinate to Vlasik.

Most of all, two people held out in the protection of the Stalin family - the nanny of Svetlana Bychkova and Vlasik himself. The rest changed. For almost six years, the cousin of his wife L.P. Beria, Major Alexandra Nikolaevna Nakashidze, spent almost six years as a housekeeper, who went to theaters with her children, checked their homework and reported to Vlasik about this. Children were taken to and from school by car, accompanied by security officers, and this applied to everyone - Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana. This function was performed by I. I. Krivenko, M. N. Klimov and others.

Occupied by the servants of the Stalin family, the guards lived well, they did not stay in the ranks, there were no problems with food and housing. All this they received, with rare exceptions, quickly.

A. N. Nakashidze, after appearing in Moscow, soon enough became a major, dragged her mother, father, sister and two brothers closer to her, who received apartments and dachas.

All security personnel were provided with special food rations. This issue was sanctioned by I. V. Stalin himself and by a special decision of the Council of Ministers.

On the shoulders of N. S. Vlasik lay almost all the everyday problems of the head of state. In 1941, in connection with the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev. He was entrusted with the control of the preparation of conditions for the government to move here. The direct executor in Kuibyshev was the head of the main construction department of the NKVD, General L. B. Safrazyan.

For I. V. Stalin in Kuibyshev, a large regional committee building, several colossal bomb shelters and summer cottages on the banks of the Volga were prepared, and for children - a mansion on Pionerskaya Street with a courtyard, where the museum used to be located.

Everywhere, N. S. Vlasik managed to almost exactly recreate the Moscow atmosphere that Stalin loved. The children of government members studied here in a special school.

Stalin's first grandson, Sasha, son of Vasily, was also born in Kuibyshev.

Children and relatives watched films, newsreels right at home, in the corridor, for which Vlasik was praised. Did Vlasik manage to become a skilled guardian for Stalin's children, and was he a good assistant to the latter? Judging by the memories of children and grandchildren, no.

On December 15, 1952, he was arrested. At this time, he served as head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security. The trial took place on January 17, 1955. The materials of the court case give us the opportunity to understand the life, character, personality, moral character of Vlasik, the officials of his entourage and the so-called friends.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, do you plead guilty to the charges brought against you and is it clear to you?

Vlasik: I understand the accusation. I plead guilty, but declare that I had no intent in what I did.

Chairperson: From what time and until what time did you hold the position of head of the Main Directorate of Security of the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR?

Vlasik: From 1947 to 1952.

presiding; What were your job responsibilities?

Vlasik: Ensuring the protection of the leaders of the party and government.

Presiding: So, you have been given special confidence by the Central Committee and the government. How did you justify this trust?

Vlasik: I took all measures to ensure this.

Chairperson: Did you know Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, I knew him.

Chairman: When did you meet him?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but this refers to about 1934-1935. I knew that he worked on the design of Red Square for the festive holidays. At first, our meetings with him were quite rare.

Presiding: At that time, were you already in the protection of the government?

Vlasik: Yes, I have been seconded to the protection of the government since 1931.

Chairperson: How did you meet Stenberg?

Vlasik: At that time I was courting one girl. Her last name is Spirin. This was after I separated from my wife. Spirina then lived in an apartment on the same staircase with the Stenbergs. Once, when I was at Spirina's, Stenberg's wife came in and we were introduced to her. After a while we went to the Stenbergs, where I met Stenberg himself.

Chairperson: What brought you closer to Stenberg?

Vlasik: Of course, the rapprochement was based on joint drinking and dating women.

Presiding: Did he have a comfortable apartment for this?

Vlasik: I visited him very rarely.

Chairperson: Did you conduct official conversations in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: Separate official conversations that I had to conduct on the phone in the presence of Stenberg did not give him anything, since I usually conducted them very monosyllabically, answering “yes”, “no” on the phone. Once there was a case when, in the presence of Stenberg, I was forced to talk with one of the deputy ministers. This conversation concerned the issue of the construction of one airfield. I then said that this issue did not concern me, and suggested that he contact the head of the Air Force.

Presiding: I read out your testimony given at the preliminary investigation on February 11, 1953:

“I must admit that I turned out to be such a careless and politically narrow-minded person that during these sprees, in the presence of Stenberg and his wife, I had official conversations with the leadership of the MGB, and also gave instructions on the service to my subordinates.”

Do you confirm these statements of yours?

Vlasik: I signed these testimonies during the investigation, but they do not contain a single word of mine. All this is the wording of the investigator.

I said during the investigation that I did not deny the facts of my conducting official telephone conversations during drinks with Stenberg, but stated that it was impossible to understand anything from these conversations. In addition, please take into account that Stenberg worked on the design of Red Square for many years and knew a lot about the work of the MGB bodies.

Presiding: You declare that your words are not in the protocol. Does this apply only to the episode we are considering or to the whole case as a whole?

Vlasik: No, this cannot be regarded as such. The fact that I do not deny my guilt in the fact that I had conversations of an official nature on the phone in the presence of Stenberg, I also stated this during the investigation. I also said that these conversations may have touched on issues that Stenberg might be familiar with and might learn from. But the investigator wrote down my testimony in his own words, in a slightly different formulation than the one I gave during interrogations. Moreover, investigators Rodionov and Novikov did not give me the opportunity to make any corrections to the protocols they wrote down.

Chairperson: Was there a case when you spoke with the head of government in the presence of Stenberg?

Vlasik: Yes, such cases took place. True, the conversation was reduced only to my answers to the questions of the head of government, and Stenberg, apart from who I was talking to, could not understand anything from this conversation.

Presiding: Did you call the head of government by his first name, patronymic or last name?

Vlasik: During the conversation, I called him by his last name.

Chairman: What was this conversation about?

Vlasik: The conversation was about the package that was sent to the head of government from the Caucasus. I sent this parcel to the laboratory for analysis. The analysis required time, and, naturally, the package was delayed for some time. Someone reported to him about the receipt of the parcel. As a result of this, he called me, began to ask the reasons for the delay in sending the parcel to him, began to scold me for the delay and demanded that the parcel be immediately handed over to him. I replied that I would now check the state of affairs and report to him.

Chairman: Where did this conversation come from?

Vlasik: From my country dacha.

Presiding: Did you call on the phone yourself or were you summoned to him?

Vlasik: They called me to the phone.

Presiding: But you could, knowing with whom the conversation would be, remove Stenberg from the room.

Vlasik: Yes, of course, he could. And it seems that even I closed the door to the room from which I was talking.

Presiding: How many times have you given Stenberg a seat on an official plane belonging to the Security Department?

Vlasik: I think twice.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do so?

Vlasik: Yes, I had.

Presiding: What, was this provided for by some instruction, order or order?

Vlasik; No. There were no special instructions in this regard. But I considered it possible to allow Stenberg to fly on the plane, since he went on a flight empty. Poskrebyshev did the same, granting the right to fly in this plane to the employees of the Central Committee.

Presiding: Doesn't this mean that, in particular, your friendly and friendly relations with Stenberg have taken precedence over official duty?

Vlasik: It turns out like this.

Presiding: Did you issue passes for passage to Red Square during parades to your friends and cohabitants?

Vlasik: Yes, he gave out.

Presiding: Do you admit that this was an abuse of your official position?

Vlasik: Then I did not give it special significance. Now I regard this as an abuse I have committed. But please note that I gave passes only to people whom I knew well.

Presiding: But you gave a pass to Red Square to a certain Nikolaeva, who was connected with foreign journalists?

Vlasik: I just now realized what I had done, giving her a pass, a crime, although then I did not attach any importance to this and believed that nothing bad could happen.

Presiding: Did you give your cohabitant Gradusova and her husband Shrager tickets to the stands of the Dynamo stadium?

Vlasik: Yes.

Chairman: Where exactly?

Vlasik: I don't remember.

Presiding: I remind you that, using the tickets you gave, they ended up on the podium of the Dynamo stadium in the sector where there were senior officials of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. And then they called you about this, expressing bewilderment at the indicated fact. Do you remember it?

Vlasik: Yes, I remember this fact. But nothing bad could happen as a result of my actions.

Chairman: Did you have the right to do so?

Vlasik: Now I understand that I had no right and should not have done so.

Presiding: Tell me, have you, Stenberg and your cohabitants been in the boxes designed to protect the government, available at the Bolshoi Theater and others?

Vlasik: Yes, I was at the Bolshoi Theater once or twice. Together with me there were Stenberg with his wife and Gradusova. In addition, we were two or three times at the Vakhtangov Theater, the Operetta Theater, etc.

Presiding: Did you explain to them that these boxes are intended for security officers of members of the government?

Vlasik: No. Knowing who I am, they could guess for themselves.

“Stenberg and cohabitants were not only not supposed to be in these lodges, but also to know about them. I, having lost all sense of vigilance, myself visited these boxes with them and, moreover, committing a crime, repeatedly instructed to let Stenberg and cohabitants through in my absence in the box for the secretaries of the Central Committee.

It is right? Were there such cases?

Vlasik: Yes, they were. But I must say that in such places as the Operetta Theatre, the Vakhtangov Theatre, the circus, etc., members of the government have never been.

Chairperson: Did you show Stenberg and your cohabitants the films you shot about the head of government?

Vlasik: It happened. But I believed that if these films were shot by me, then I had the right to show them. Now I understand that I should not have done this.

Chairperson: Did you show them the government dacha on Lake Ritsa?

Vlasik: Yes, he showed from afar. But I want the court to understand me correctly. After all, Lake Ritsa is a place that, at the direction of the head of government, was provided to thousands of people who came there on an excursion. I was specially given the task to organize the procedure for sightseeing sightseeing of this place by sightseers. In particular, boat trips were organized, and these boats kept their way in the immediate vicinity of the government dachas, and, of course, all the sightseers, at least most of them, knew where the government dacha was located.

Presiding: But not all the sightseers knew which dacha belongs to the head of government, and you told Stenberg and your cohabitants about it.

Vlasik: All the excursionists knew her whereabouts, which is confirmed by the numerous intelligence materials that I had at that time.

Chairperson: What other secret information did you divulge in conversations with Stenberg?

Vlasik: None.

Chairperson: What did you tell him about the fire at Voroshilov's dacha and about the materials that died there?

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly about it, but there was a conversation about it. When I once asked Stenberg for lights for a Christmas tree, I somehow told him in passing what happens when the electric lighting of a Christmas tree is carelessly handled.

Presiding: Did you tell him what exactly died in that fire?

Vlasik: It is possible that I told him that valuable historical photographic documents were lost in a fire in the dacha.

Presiding: Did you have the right to inform him about this?

Vlasik: No, of course he didn't. But I did not attach any importance to it then.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg that in 1941 you went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government?

Vlasik: Stenberg also returned from Kuibyshev at that time, and we had a conversation about my trip to Kuibyshev, but I don’t remember exactly what I told him.

Presiding: You told Stenberg how once you had to organize a deception of one of the foreign ambassadors who wanted to check whether Lenin's body was in the Mausoleum, for which he brought a wreath to the Mausoleum.

Vlasik: I don’t remember exactly, but there was some talk about it.

“I blurted out secret information to Stenberg only because of my carelessness. For example, during the war years, when Lenin's body was taken out of Moscow, one of the foreign ambassadors, deciding to check whether it was in Moscow, came to lay a wreath at the Mausoleum. This was reported to me by phone at the dacha when Stenberg was with me.

After talking on the phone, I told Stenberg about this incident and said that in order to deceive the ambassador, I had to accept a wreath and put up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum.

There were other similar cases, but I don’t remember them, because I didn’t attach any importance to these conversations and considered Stenberg an honest person.

Is this your correct statement?

Vlasik: I told the investigator that there may have been a case when they called me on the phone. But whether Stenberg was present during the conversation on this topic, I do not remember.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg about the organization of security during the Potsdam Conference?

Vlasik: No. I didn't tell him about this. When I arrived from Potsdam, I showed Stenberg a film that I had filmed in Potsdam during the conference. Since in this movie I was filmed in the immediate vicinity of the guarded, he could not help but understand that I was in charge of the organization of security.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, tell me, did you reveal to Stenberg three secret agents of the MGB - Nikolaev, Grivova and Vyazantseva?

Vlasik: I told him about the annoying behavior of Vyazantseva and at the same time expressed the idea that she might be connected with the police.

“From Vlasik, I only know that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (who works in the external design trust of the Moscow City Council) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his cohabitant Valentina Vyazantseva (I don’t know her middle name) also cooperates with the MGB.

Vlasik didn’t tell me anything more about the work of the MGB bodies.”

Vlasik: I told Stenberg that Vyazantseva called me on the phone every day and asked to meet with her. Based on this and the fact that she was working in some food stall, I told Stenberg that she was "yapping" and, in all likelihood, was collaborating with the criminal investigation department. But I didn’t tell Stenberg that she was a secret agent of the MGB, because I didn’t know about it myself. I must say that I knew Vyazantseva as a little girl.

Presiding: Did you show Stenberg the undercover file against him, which was conducted in the MGB?

Vlasik: This is not entirely true. In 1952, after returning from a business trip from the Caucasus, I was summoned by the deputy. Minister of State Security Ryasnaya and gave an undercover file on Stenberg. At the same time, he said that in this case there is material against me, in particular, about my official telephone conversations. Ryasnoy told me to familiarize myself with this case and remove from it what I considered necessary. I didn't know the whole thing. I only read the certificate - a submission to the Central Committee for the arrest of Stenberg and his wife. After that, I went to Minister Ignatiev and demanded that he make a decision regarding me, Ignatiev told me that I should call Stenbert and warn him about the need to stop all meetings with inappropriate people. He ordered the case to be archived and, in the event of any conversation about it, refer to his instructions. I called Stenberg and told him that a case had been opened against him. Then he showed him a photograph of one woman, which was in this case, and asked if he knew her. After that, I asked him a few questions, inquiring about his meetings with various people, including a meeting with a foreign correspondent. Stenberg replied that he met him by chance at the Dneproges and never saw him again. When I told him that there were materials in the case showing that he had met with this correspondent in Moscow, having already known me, Stenberg burst into tears. I asked him the same thing about Nikolaeva. Stenberg cried again. After that, I took Stenberg to my dacha. There, to calm him down, I offered him a drink of cognac. . He agreed. We drank one or two glasses with him and began to play billiards.

I never told anyone about this case. When I was removed from my post, I sealed the Stenberg case in a bag and returned it to Ryasny without removing a single piece of paper from it.

“When I appeared late in the evening at the end of April 1952 at the call of Vlasik to his service in the building of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, he, offering a cigarette, told me:“ I have to arrest you, you are a spy. When I asked what this meant, Vlasik said, pointing to a voluminous folder lying in front of him on the table: “Here all the documents for you are collected. Your wife, as well as Stepanov, are also American spies.” Further, Vlasik told me that Olga Sergeevna Nikolaeva (Vlasik called her Lyalka), during interrogation at the MGB, testified that I had been to embassies with her, and also visited restaurants with foreigners. Vlasik read out Nikolaeva’s testimony to me, they talked about some Volodya, with whom Nikolaeva, along with foreigners, went to restaurants.

Leafing through a voluminous folder, Vlasik showed me a photocopy of the document on my transition to Soviet citizenship. At the same time, he asked if I was a Swedish subject. I immediately reminded Vlasik that at one time I had told him in detail both about myself and about my parents. In particular, I then told Vlasik that until 1933 I was a Swedish subject, that in 1922 I traveled abroad with the Chamber Theater, that my father left Soviet Union to Sweden and died there, etc.

Looking at me materials, Vlasik showed me a photograph of Filippova and asked who she was. In addition, in this case, I saw a number of photographs. Vlasik also asked if my wife Stenberg Nadezhda Nikolaevna and I were familiar with the American Lyons; whether my brother was familiar with Yagoda, who gave me a recommendation when entering Soviet citizenship, etc.

At the end of this conversation, Vlasik said that he was transferring the case against me to another department (Vlasik named this department, but it was not preserved in my memory), and asked me not to tell anyone about the call to him and the content of the conversation.

... Vlasik told me that "they wanted to arrest you (meaning me, my wife, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, and Stepanov), but my boyfriend intervened in this matter and delayed your arrest."

Is the testimony of the witness correct?

Vlasik: They are not entirely accurate. I have already shown the court how it all really happened.

Presiding: But you told Stenberg that only your intervention prevented the arrest of him and his wife.

Vlasik: No, it was not.

Presiding: But by showing Stenberg the materials of the undercover case against him, you thereby revealed the methods of work of the MGB bodies.

Vlasik: Then I did not understand this and did not take into account the importance of the misconduct.

Chairperson: Did you tell Stenberg that the Potsdam Conference was being prepared before it was officially known to everyone?

Vlasik: No, it was not.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, did you keep secret documents in your apartment?

Vlasik: I was going to compile an album in which photographs and documents would reflect the life and work of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, and therefore I had some data for this in my apartment. In addition, I found an intelligence note on the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and materials related to the organization of security in Potsdam. I thought that these documents were not particularly secret, but, as I see now, I had to deposit some of them with the MGB. I kept them locked in the drawers of the table, and my wife made sure that no one climbed into the drawers.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, you are presented with a topographic map of the Caucasus marked "secret". Do you admit that you had no right to keep this card in the apartment?

Vlasik: Then I did not consider it secret.

Chairperson: You are presented with a topographic map of Potsdam with the points marked on it and the conference security system. Could you keep such a document in your apartment?

Vlasik: Yes, I couldn't. I forgot to return this card after returning from Potsdam, and it was in my desk drawer.

Chairperson: I present to you a map of the Moscow region marked "secret". Where did you keep it?

Vlasik: In a desk drawer in my apartment on Gorky Street, in the same place where the rest of the documents were found.

Presiding: And where was the secret note about the people who lived on Metrostroevskaya Street, the secret note about the work of the Sochi city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and government train schedules kept?

Vlasik: All this was stored together in a desk drawer in my apartment.

Presiding: How do you know that these documents were not the subject of inspection by anyone?

Vlasik: It's out of the question.

Chairperson: Are you familiar with the expert opinion on these documents?

Vlasik: Yes, I know.

Chairperson: Do you agree with the conclusions of the examination?

Vlasik: Yes, now I understand all this very well.

Presiding: Show the court how you, using your official position, used products from the kitchen of the head of government to your advantage?

Vlasik: I do not want to make excuses for this. But we were placed in such conditions that sometimes it was necessary not to reckon with costs in order to provide food at a certain time. Every day we were faced with the fact of changing the time of his eating, and in connection with this, part of the previously prepared products remained unused. These products were sold by us among service personnel. After unhealthy conversations around this appeared among employees, I had to limit the circle of people who used the products. Now I understand that given hard times war, I should not have allowed these products to be used in this way.

Presiding: But your crime lies not only in this? You sent a car to the government dacha for groceries and cognac for yourself and your cohabitants?

Vlasik: Yes, there were such cases. But sometimes I paid money for these products. True, there were cases that they were delivered to me for free.

Presiding: This is theft.

Vlasik: No, this is an abuse of his position. After I received a remark from the head of government, I stopped it.

Presiding: Since when did your moral decay begin?

Vlasik: In matters of service, I was always in place. Drinking and meeting women was at the expense of my health and in my spare time. I admit that I had many women.

Chairperson: Did the head of government warn you about the inadmissibility of such behavior?

Vlasik: Yes. In 1950 he told me that I was abusing relationships with women.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know Sarkisov?

Vlasik: Yes, he was attached to Beria as a guard.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did he tell you that Beria is debauched?

Vlasik: This is a lie.

Member of the court Rybkin: But you acknowledged the fact that you were once informed that Sarkisov was looking for suitable women on the streets and then took them to Beria.

Vlasik: Yes, I received intelligence materials about this and handed them over to Abakumov. Abakumov took over the conversation with Sarkisov, and I avoided this, because I thought that it was not my business to interfere in this, because everything was connected with the name of Beria.

Member of the court Rybkin: You testified that when Sarkisov reported to you about Beria's debauchery, you told him that there was nothing to interfere in Beria's personal life, but that it was necessary to protect him. Did it take place?

Vlasik: No, it's a lie. Neither Sarkisov nor Nadaraya reported this to me. Sarkisov once turned to me with a request to provide him with a car for household needs, motivating this by the fact that he sometimes has to use a "tail" car when performing Beria's task. What exactly this car was for, I do not know.

Member of the court Rybkin: Defendant Vlasik, how could you allow a huge overspending of public funds in your administration?

Vlasik: I must say that my literacy suffers greatly. All my education consists in 3 classes of a rural parish school. In financial matters, I did not understand anything, and therefore my deputy was in charge of this. He repeatedly assured me that "everything is in order."

I must also say that every measure we planned was approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR and only after that was it carried out.

Member of the court Rybkin: What can you show the court about the use of free rations by security officers?

Vlasik: We have repeatedly discussed this issue, and after the head of government instructed to improve the material situation of the security guards, we left it the way it was before. But on this occasion, the Council of Ministers made a special decision, and I, for my part, considered this situation to be correct, since security workers were away from home for more than half the time a week and it would be inappropriate to deprive their families of rations because of this. I remember that I raised the question of conducting an audit of the 1st Department of the Security Directorate. At the direction of Merkulov, a commission chaired by Serov carried out this audit, but no abuses were found.

Member of the court Rybkin: How often did you have parties with women you know?

Vlasik: There were no sprees. I was always on duty.

Member of the court Rybkin: Did shooting take place during the carousing?

Vlasik: I don’t remember such a case.

Member of the court Rybkin: Tell me, did you conduct official telephone conversations in the presence of Stenberg from your apartment or from his?

Vlasik: The conversations were both from my apartment and from his. But I considered Stenberg a reliable person who knew a lot about our work.

“In the presence of Stenberg from his apartment, I repeatedly had official conversations with the duty officer of the Main Security Directorate, which sometimes concerned the movement of members of the government, and I also remember that from Stenberg’s apartment I talked on the phone with the Deputy Minister of State Security about the construction of a new airfield in the vicinity of the city of Moscow” .

Vlasik: This is the wording of the investigator. In my official telephone conversations, which took place in the presence of Stenberg, I was very limited in my statements.

Court member Kovalenko: Do ​​you know Erman?

Vlasik: Yes, I know.

Member of the court Kovalenko: What kind of conversation did you have with him about traffic routes and guarded exits?

Vlasik: I did not talk to him about this topic. In addition, he himself was an old Chekist, and without me he knew all this very well.

Member of the court Kovalenko: For what purpose did you keep the scheme of access roads to the dacha "Middle" in the apartment.

Vlasik: This is not a diagram of access roads to the dacha, but a diagram of the internal roads of the dacha. Back in the period Patriotic War the head of government, walking around the territory of the dacha, personally introduced his own amendments to this scheme. So I saved it as historical document, and the whole point was that, with the old arrangement of exit routes from the dacha, the headlights of the car hit Poklonnaya Gora and thus the moment of the car's departure was immediately given out.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Were his instructions carried out as indicated in the scheme?

Vlasik: Yes, but I declare once again that all these paths were inside the dacha, behind two fences.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know Shcherbakova?

Vlasik: Yes, he knew and was in close contact with her.

Court member Kovalenko: Did you know that she had connections with foreigners?

Vlasik: I found out about this later.

Member of the court Kovalenko: But even after learning this, did you continue to meet with her?

Vlasik: Yes, he continued.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How can you explain that you, being a party member since 1918, have reached such a level of filth both in official matters and in relation to moral and political decay?

Vlasik: I find it difficult to explain this with anything, but I declare that I have always been in place in official matters.

Member of the court Kovalenko: How do you explain your act, which consisted in the fact that you showed Stenberg his undercover file?

Vlasik: I acted on the basis of Ignatiev's instructions and, to be honest, did not attach any special importance to this.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Why did you take the path of plundering trophy property?

Vlasik: Now I understand that all this belonged to the state. I had no right to turn anything to my advantage. But then such a situation was created ... Beria arrived, gave permission to purchase some things for the senior guards. We made a list of what we needed, paid money, got these things. In particular, I paid about 12 thousand rubles. I confess that I took some of the things for free, including a piano, grand piano, etc.

Presiding: Comrade commandant, invite witness Ivanskaya to the hall.

Witness Ivanskaya, show the court what you know about Vlasik and his case?

Ivanskaya: It seems that in May 1938, my friend Okunev, an NKVD officer, introduced me to Vlasik. I remember they came to me in a car, there was another girl with him, and we all went to the dacha to Vlasik. Before reaching the dacha, we decided to have a picnic in the forest in a clearing. Thus began an acquaintance with Vlasik. Our meetings continued until 1939. In 1939 I got married. Okunev kept calling me from time to time. He kept inviting me to come to Vlasik's parties. I, of course, refused. In 1943, these invitations were more insistent, and Okunev was joined by the requests of Vlasik himself. For some time I resisted their insistence, but then I agreed and several times I was at Vlasik's dacha and at his apartment on Gogol Boulevard. I remember that at that time Stenberg was in the companies, once there was Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov and very often Okunev. Frankly, I had no particular desire to meet Vlasik and generally be in this company. But Vlasik threatened me, said that he would arrest me, etc., and I was afraid of this. Once, at Vlasik's apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard, I was with my friends Kopteva and another girl. Then there was some artist, I think Gerasimov.

Presiding: What accompanied these meetings and for what purpose were you invited?

Ivanskaya: I still don't know why he invited me and others. It seemed to me that Vlasik collects companies only because he likes to drink and have fun.

Presiding: And what was the purpose of your attending these parties?

Ivanskaya: I rode them simply out of fear of Vlasik.

At these parties, as soon as we arrived, we sat down at the table, drank wine and had a snack. True, on the part of Vlasik there were encroachments regarding me as a woman. But they ended in vain.

Presiding: Were you with Vlasik at the government dacha?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say what kind of dacha we were at. It looked like a small rest home or sanatorium. There we were met by some Georgian who manages this building. Vlasik then told us about him that this was Stalin's uncle. It was before the war, in 1938 or 1939. The four of us arrived there: Okunev, Vlasik, me and some other girl. Besides us, there were several military men there, including two or three generals. The girl who was with us began to express special sympathy for one of the generals. Vlasik did not like this, and, having taken out his revolver, he began to shoot the glasses standing on the table. He was already tipsy.

Chairperson: How many shots were fired at them?

Ivanskaya: I don't remember exactly: one or two. Immediately after Vlasik's shooting, everyone began to disperse, and Vlasik and this girl got into the general's car, and I got into Vlasik's free car. I persuaded the driver, and he took me home. A few minutes after my arrival, Vlasik called me and reproached me for leaving them.

Chairperson: Tell me, do you remember where this dacha was located, in what area?

Ivanskaya: I find it difficult to say where she was, but I remember that we were driving at the beginning along the Mozhaisk highway.

Vlasik: No. I just can't understand why the witness is lying.

Presiding: Tell Vlasik, what kind of dacha are we talking about in connection with your shooting?

Vlasik: There was no shooting. We went with Okunev, Ivanskaya, Gradusova and Gulko to one subsidiary farm, which was in charge of Okunev. Indeed, we drank and ate there, but there was no shooting.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, do you insist on your testimony?

Ivanskaya: Yes, I showed the truth.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, tell me, what is the interest of the witness in showing the court a lie? What, you had a hostile relationship with her?

Vlasik: No, we did not have hostile relations. After Okunev left her, I lived with her as with a woman. And I must say that she called me herself more often than I called her. I knew her father, who worked in a special group of the NKVD, and we never had any quarrels with her.

Presiding: How long did your intimate relationship with her last?

Vlasik: Quite a long time. But the meetings were very rare, about once or twice a year.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, do you confirm the testimony of the defendant Vlasik?

Ivanskaya: I don't know why Nikolai Sidorovich talks about the alleged intimate relationship between us. But if he was capable of male exploits, then this applied to other women, and, in all likelihood, he used me as a screen in this, since everyone knew me as the daughter of an old Chekist. In general, I must say that Vlasik behaved provocatively in relation to others. For example, when I tried to refuse to meet with him, he threatened to arrest me. And he completely terrorized the cook at his dacha. He spoke to him only with the use of obscenities, and was not shy of those present, including women.

Presiding: Witness Ivanskaya, the court has no more questions for you. You are free.

Comrade commandant, invite witness Stenberg to the hall.

Witness Stenberg, show the court what you know about Vlasik.

Stenberg: I ​​met Vlasik around 1936. Before the war, our meetings were rare. Then, from the beginning of the war, the meetings became more frequent. We went to Vlasik's dacha, to his apartment, drank there, played billiards. Vlasik helped me in my work on portraits of members of the government.

Presiding: During these meetings and drinking, were there women with whom you cohabited?

Stenberg: There were women at the same time, but we had no connection with them.

Presiding: Vlasik conducted office conversations on the phone with you?

Stenberg: There were separate conversations. But Vlasik always answered only “yes”, “no”.

Chairperson: What did he tell you about the fire at Voroshilov's dacha?

Stenberg: Vlasik told me that as a result of careless handling of the electric lighting of the Christmas tree at Voroshilov's dacha, there was a fire during which a valuable photo archive burned down. He didn't say anything more about it to me.

Presiding: Did Vlasik tell you that in 1941 he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government? -

Stenberg: I ​​knew that Vlasik went to Kuibyshev, but for what specifically, I did not know. He only told me that he had to fight rats somewhere.

Presiding: I read out the testimony of witness Stenberg:

“At the beginning of 1942, Vlasik told me that he went to Kuibyshev to prepare apartments for members of the government. At the same time, he said: “Here is a city, you cannot imagine how many rats there are. This is the whole problem - the war with them.

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg. Yes, they are mostly correct.

Presiding: Vlasik told you that you once had to deceive a foreign ambassador who was trying to find out if the body of V. I. Lenin was in Moscow?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, Vlasik once, in my presence, gave instructions to someone to put up a guard of honor at the Mausoleum. After talking on the phone, he explained to me what it was for. It was either in the country, or in Vlasik's apartment.

Chairperson: Did Vlasik tell you about the organization of the protection of the Potsdam Conference?

Stenberg: Much time after the Potsdam Conference, Vlasik told me that he had to go to Potsdam and restore "order" there. At the same time, he told the details, in particular, that he had to bring all the products there in order not to use locally produced products. From the local population, as he said, only live cattle were bought.

Presiding: What films about members of the government did Vlasik show you?

Stenberg: I ​​saw, in particular, films about the Potsdam Conference, about Stalin and members of the government, about the arrival of Vasily and his sister to Stalin.

Presiding: Who, besides you, was present at the viewing of these films?

Stenberg: As far as I remember, there was one military man, everyone called him “Uncle Sasha”, among the women there were Anerina and Konomarev. I introduced Vlasik to Anerina in 1945, and Konomarev was known to him earlier. I personally cohabited with Konomareva.

Chairperson: Did Vlasik show you the dacha of the head of government on Lake Ritsa?

Stenberg: When we were on Lake Ritsa, Vlasik, filming us on film during a walk, showed me the location of Stalin's dacha.

Presiding: Tell me, didn’t Vlasik’s behavior seem strange to you? Did he have the right to show you the location of Stalin's dacha, films about him and about members of the government?

Stenberg: There was nothing wrong with those films.

Presiding: But do you know the procedure for allowing such films to be viewed?

Stenberg: I ​​did not attach much importance to this then.

Presiding: How many times did Vlasik give you the opportunity to fly on a business plane?

Stenberg: Three times. The first time I flew to a resort in the Caucasus, the second time from Sochi to Moscow, then Vlasik got me a ticket for one conference and, so that I could catch it, he allowed me to fly on a business plane. Two days later, when the conference ended, with the permission of Vlasik, I flew back to Sochi on the same plane.

Presiding: Did Vlasik give you the names of Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva and Grivova as secret agents of the MGB?

Stenberg: Vlasik said that Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva are informants and report various information to the MGB. Regarding Grivova, he said that insofar as she is a member of the party, she is obliged to do this herself, on her own initiative.

“From Vlasik, I only know that my friend Galina Nikolaevna Grivova (who works in the trust for the external design of the Moscow City Council) is an agent of the MGB, and also that his cohabitant Vyazantseva Valentina (I don’t know her middle name) also cooperates with the MGB.”

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Perhaps, in giving such testimony, I expressed my conclusions.

Presiding: Tell the court how it was with your acquaintance with the undercover file, which was conducted in the MGB.

Stenberg: I ​​remember Vlasik called me on the phone to his place. When I came to his office, in the MGB building, he told me that he had to arrest me. I replied that if necessary, so please. After that, he, showing me some volume, said that there were a lot of materials on me, in particular, that I and Nikolaeva wandered around foreign embassies and met with foreign correspondents.

Presiding: Did he tell you that your and your wife's arrest was averted thanks to his intervention?

Stenberg: Yes, some time after the conversation I mentioned above, Vlasik told me and my wife that our arrest was prevented only by the intervention of him, Vlasik, and one of his “guys”.

Presiding: Tell me, did Vlasik show you the materials of this undercover case?

Stenberg: He asked me about my individual acquaintances and at the same time, showing a photograph of Filippova, asked who she was. Then he asked me when I became a Soviet citizen. I answered everything for him.

Presiding: And for what purpose was Filippova's photograph placed in this case?

Stenberg: I ​​don't know.

Presiding: What other documents from this case did he read to you?

Stenberg: None.

Presiding: Did you believe Vlasik that his intervention prevented your arrest?

Stenberg: Frankly, no. I regarded it more as his desire to boast of his "power".

Presiding: Tell me, were there many women with whom Vlasik cohabited?

Stenberg: I ​​find it difficult to say how many women he cohabited with, because it often happened that during our meetings at his dacha, he and this or that woman retired to other rooms. But what he did there, I do not know.

Presiding: I read out an excerpt from your own testimony.

“I must say that Vlasik is a morally decomposed person. He cohabited with many women, in particular, with Nikolaeva, Vyazantseva, Mokukina, Lomtionova, Spirina, Veshchitskaya, Gradusova, Amerina, Vera G ...

I believe that Vlasik also cohabited with Shcherbakova, with the Gorodniv sisters, Lyuda, Ada, Sonya, Kruglova, Sergeeva and her sister and others whose names I do not remember.

Maintaining comradely relations with me, Vlasik soldered me and my wife and cohabited with her, which Vlasik himself later cynically told me about.

Do you confirm these statements?

Stenberg: Yes. Vlasik himself told me about some of them, but I guessed about others myself.

Chairperson: Did you know Kudoyarov?

Stenberg: Yes, I knew. I remember that Spirina once told my wife that Kudoyarov's sister was married to some American money "king", and when Kudoyarov went abroad on a business trip, his sister sent a blue express to the border for him. Once I saw Kudoyarov at Vlasik's dacha.

Court member Kovalenko: Did Vlasik warn you not to tell anyone about the case when he summoned you to his office at the MGB?

Stenberg: Yes, there was such a fact.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, do you have any questions for the witness?

Vlasik: I have no questions.

Presiding: Witness Stenberg, you are free.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court about your acquaintance with Kudoyarov.

Vlasik: Kudoyarov worked as a photojournalist in the period when I was attached to the guards of the head of government. I saw him on the set in the Kremlin, on Red Square, I heard about him as a great photographer. When I bought myself a camera, I asked him to give advice on the photo. He came to my apartment, showed me how to handle the camera, how to shoot. Then I visited him several times in a photo lab on Vorovskogo Street. And only a long time later I learned that his sister was abroad and was the wife of some American billionaire. Then I was told that during his business trip abroad, his sister really sent him a blue express to the border. As a result of this, I concluded that Kudoyarov was an employee of the authorities, and therefore did not attach much importance to everything.

Presiding: You heard here the testimony of the witness Stenberg, who told the court that you decoded Grivova, Nikolaeva and Vyazantseva before him as secret agents of the MGB. Do you acknowledge it?

Vlasik: No. With regard to Grivova and Nikolaeva, these are Stenberg's inventions. As for Vyazantseva, I told Stenberg that she might have connections with the police. In addition, I warned Stenberg that Nikolaev had connections with foreigners.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Defendant Vlasik, show the court that from the trophy property you acquired illegally, without payment.

Vlasik: As far as I remember, I purchased a piano in this way, a grand piano, it seems, 3-4 carpets.

Court member Kovalenko: And the watch, the gold rings?

Vlasik: I did not acquire a single watch in this way, most of them were presented to me. With regard to gold rings, I remember that when we discovered a box with gold items and jewelry in one place, the wife exchanged one ring that she had for another from this box.

Member of the Court Kovalenko: How did you acquire the radiogram and the receiver?

Vlasik: Vasily Stalin sent them to me as a gift. But then I gave them to the dacha "Middle".

Member of the court Kovalenko: And what can you say about the fourteen cameras and lenses you had?

Vlasik: I received most of them through my official activities. I bought one Zeiss apparatus through Vneshtorg, another apparatus was presented to me by Serov.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And where did you get a camera with a telephoto lens?

Vlasik: This camera was made in Palkin's department especially for me. I needed it for filming I. V. Stalin from a long distance, since the latter was always reluctant to allow photography to be taken.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And where did you get the movie camera from?

Vlasik: The film camera was sent to me from the Ministry of Cinematography especially for the filming of I.V. Stalin.

Member of the court Kovalenko: And what kind of quartz devices did you have?

Vlasik: Quartz devices were intended for illumination during filming.

Member of the court Kovalenko: Where did you get crystal vases, glasses and porcelain dishes in such a huge amount?

Vlasik: In particular, I received a porcelain service for 100 items after the Potsdam Conference. Then there was an instruction to give the leading staff of the guard one service each. At the same time, several crystal vases and glasses were placed in the box without my knowledge. I did not know about this until the opening of the box in Moscow. And then he left it all to himself. In addition, when an order was placed for crockery for the “Middle” dacha, and subsequently for some reason this crockery could not be used for its intended purpose, I bought one wine set for myself. All this, taken together, created such a large amount of dishes in my house.

Presiding: Defendant Vlasik, the court has no more questions for you. What can you add to the trial?

Vlasik: I showed everything I could. I have nothing more to add to my testimony. I just want to say that everything that I have done, I realized only now, and before that I did not attach any importance to it. I thought it was all right.

Presiding: I declare the judicial investigation of the case completed.

Defendant Vlasik, you have the last word. What do you want to say to the court?

Vlasik: Citizens of the judge! I didn’t understand much before and didn’t see anything except the protection of the head of government, and to fulfill this duty I didn’t take into account anything. Please take this into account.

By a court decision, Vlasik was deprived of the rank of lieutenant general, subjected to exile for a period of 10 years. But in accordance with the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, this period was reduced to five years, without loss of rights. He died in Moscow shortly after Svetlana's failure to return to her homeland from India.

* * *

Time is a harsh judge. And only it pronounces the final verdict on the era and those who stood at the pinnacle of power. JV Stalin is just the figure who is both the personification of power and its leader. The time of his reign has already become history, painful, and tragic, and inspired, and striving forward.

Turning today to the fate of his family, we strive to penetrate deeper into the events of the time, to understand them in all their contradiction, as they were. No one can turn the wheel of history in a different way, as no one can cross out this page in the centuries-old history of our long-suffering Motherland.

Stalin's family bears the contradictory stamp of time in all its manifestations. Stalin himself was not given to become the happy head of the family. Both of his wives passed away very early, in different ways, unable to combine themselves with him. His eldest son, deprived of maternal affection in life, not always understood by his father, rejected by him with the harsh stigma of a traitor to the Motherland and sharing the terrible fate of millions of compatriots in captivity, decades later returned to us from oblivion as the personification of courage and fortitude, remaining the son of his land, his Fatherland . Before Vasily Stalin, it would seem, all the doors were open, any of his good thoughts could find a real embodiment in life. But the fragility of his character, the shadow of his father, and even more his entourage covered him so much that, after leaving prison eight years later, he could no longer find his place in life.

Stalin's beloved daughter, Svetlana, was given an excellent education, to become a mother, but happiness was not given in her homeland, despite the attempt to return.

In 1989, her things that she had once left at home were sent from the USSR to the USA. And it seems that now her fate has already been determined irrevocably, although there may still be zigzags here, as well as the fact that today everything that she wrote is available to us.

The grandchildren of Stalin living today are given a real opportunity to participate in the revolutionary events opened by perestroika, and we, without idle speculation and gossip, on the basis of documents, understand the issues of interest to us.

Born in 1896 in the village of Bobynichi, Slonimsky district, Grodno province (Belarus). The son of a peasant. He was educated at a parochial school. Since 1913 he worked as a laborer, a digger. During the First World War, in March 1915, he was drafted into the army as a junior non-commissioned officer. From November 1917 he was a policeman in Moscow. In 1918 - a Red Army soldier, a participant in the defense of Tsaritsyn. In November of the same year he joined the RCP(b).

In September 1919 he was transferred to the bodies of the Cheka. On November 1, 1926, he became a senior commissioner of the Operations Department of the OGPU of the USSR, and then held senior positions in the Operations Department, whose functions included the protection of party and state leaders.

Nikolai Vlasik appeared in Stalin's guard in 1931 on the personal recommendation of the chairman of the OGPU V.R. Menzhinsky, after the death of Stalin's chief guard I.F. Yusis. Later, however, a legend arose that back in 1918, Stalin somehow liked the Red Army soldier Vlasik, whom he then took as a personal bodyguard. The legend has become widespread. Even Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Vissarionovich, took her on faith in her memoirs. She also got into fiction, for example, in the historical documentary novel by Vladimir Uspensky "The Privy Councilor to the Leader". However, this legend was refuted by Nikolai Sidorovich himself in his unpublished notes, written by him at the end of his life for his relatives and friends: an ordinary soldier Vlasik fought near Tsaritsyn, but a member of the Revolutionary Military Council I.V. He never saw Stalin then.

Initially, Nikolai Vlasik was only the head of Stalin's security. But after the tragic death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, he was already the educator of children - Vasily and Svetlana, the organizer of their leisure time, the financial and economic distributor, whose vigilant eye kept all the inhabitants of the Stalinist house under supervision. N. S. Vlasik solved almost all of Stalin's everyday problems. Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva wrote in her memoirs "Twenty Letters to a Friend":

He headed all his father's guards, considered himself almost the closest person to him, and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, he reached last years to the point that he dictated to some artists the “tastes of Comrade Stalin,” because he believed that he knew and understood them well. And the leaders listened to and followed this advice. And not one holiday concert at the Bolshoi Theater, or in the St. George's Hall at banquets, was not compiled without Vlasik's sanction ... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists - whether he "liked" it - whether it was a film, or an opera, or even the silhouettes of those being built then high-rise buildings ... It would not be worth mentioning him at all - he ruined the lives of many, but before that he was a colorful figure that you couldn’t pass him by. In our house for “servants”, Vlasik was almost equal to his father himself, since his father was high and far away, and Vlasik could do anything with the power given to him ...

During the life of my mother, he existed somewhere in the background as a bodyguard, and in the house, of course, there was neither his foot nor the spirit. At his father’s dacha, in Kuntsevo, he was constantly and “supervised” from there all the other residences of his father, which over the years became more and more ... "

A few years later, Vlasik becomes not only Stalin's main guard, but also one of the leaders of the entire security service of the top leadership of the USSR. In 1935-36, he was the head of the personal guard of the Operational Department of the NKVD of the USSR. Since 1936 - head of the operational group and head of the department of the 1st department of the 1st department of the NKVD of the USSR.

After joining the NKVD of the USSR, L.P. Beria and dismissal of nominees N.I. Ezhova N.S. On November 19, 1938, Vlasik was appointed head of the 1st department of the Main Directorate of State Security. In February-July 1941, the Vlasik department was part of the NKGB of the USSR, and then returned to the jurisdiction of the NKVD. On January 19, 1942, Vlasik was transferred to the post of first deputy head of the 1st department.

In 1941, in connection with the possibility of the fall of Moscow, he was sent to Kuibyshev to control the relocation of the government there. Responsible for the protection of the residences of I.V. Stalin in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam.

After the secondary formation in April 1943 of an independent NGKB of the USSR, Vlasik's department was deployed to the 6th Directorate, but already on August 9, Vlasik again became not the head, the first deputy. July 9, 1945 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general. From March 1946 he was the head of the security department No. 1 of the USSR Ministry of State Security. This department was engaged exclusively in the protection and provision of Stalin. On November 28, 1946, under the leadership of General Vlasik, the Main Security Directorate (GUO) of the USSR Ministry of State Security was formed, which included the 1st and 2nd Security Directorates, as well as the Office of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin.

In the last year of Stalin's life, with the progressive deterioration of his health, the struggle of various groups in the leadership of the USSR for the Stalinist legacy intensified. At the same time, certain forces did not stop even before the leader’s departure was accelerated, but necessary condition for this was the removal from the closest Stalinist circle of the most devoted to him people, which included Vlasik, who enjoyed Stalin's exceptional confidence. Yes - and not too literate, and too big a lover of the fair sex, and, to put it mildly, not quite conscientious in relation to state property. But at the same time, the leader is infinitely devoted! Stalin could easily entrust his life to him.

On May 23, 1952, the GUO was transformed into the Security Directorate, and General Vlasik was removed from work and transferred to the post of deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp in Asbest (Sverdlovsk region). December 16, 1952 N.S. Vlasik was arrested and charged with "indulging pest doctors", abuse of office, etc. The investigation dragged on, and only in January 1955 he was convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (in closed session) under Article 193-17, part “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Abuse of trust and official position) to 5 years of exile in Krasnoyarsk (term punishment was calculated from the moment of arrest). However, already in 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record and returned to Moscow. Apparently, the death of the "owner" still did not allow him to be crushed. Rehabilitated N.S. Vlasik was neither then nor later. According to his wife, Vlasik, until his death, was convinced that Lavrenty Beria "helped" Stalin die.

Lieutenant General N.S. Vlasik was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov of the first degree, the Order of the Red Star, the medals "XX Years of the Red Army", "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945", “In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow”, “XXX years of the Soviet Army and Navy”, as well as two badges “Honorary Chekist”. He was deprived of all these awards by a court verdict in 1955.

The daughter of General Vlasik, Nadezhda Nikolaevna Vlasik, fought for the rehabilitation of her father for many years, and in 2000 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation posthumously acquitted Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik "due to the lack of corpus delicti."

In an interview given to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2003, Nadezhda Vlasik said: "... my father would not let him [Stalin] die. He would not wait a day outside the doors, like those guards on March 5, 1953, when Stalin "wake up". He would kick down all the doors, drive everyone out of the dacha, regardless of rank, and of course bring doctors."

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died in Moscow from lung cancer on June 18, 1967. He was buried at the new Donskoy cemetery, a few dozen steps west of the Great Patriotic War memorial.

At the end of N.S. Vlasik wrote memoirs that have not yet been published. A valuable historical source is the many photographs taken by him at different times of I.V. Stalin and his inner circle, and in an informal setting. Among other things, there is a photo of drunk Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, in a Ukrainian vyshyvanka of a dancing hopak at the Middle Dacha.

The Federal Security Service of Russia declassified the archive of the general Nicholas Vlasik, who served as chief of security for Joseph Stalin from 1931 to 1952. Vlasik's memoirs, dedicated to his life next to the leader, were published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

As Vlasik said in his notes, he was instructed to organize the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka and the Kremlin, as well as pay special attention to Stalin's personal protection, after a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on the Lubyanka in Moscow in 1927.

According to Vlasik, before he headed the leader's security, only one employee was responsible for his safety - the Lithuanian Ivan Yusis. At the dacha near Moscow, where Stalin rested on weekends, there was a complete mess. Vlasik began by sending linen and dishes to the dacha, hiring a cook and a cleaner, and also arranged for the delivery of food from the GPU state farm located nearby.

Described Vlasik and Stalin's way of life in an apartment in the Kremlin. The housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna and the cleaning lady kept order there. Hot meals were brought to the family from the Kremlin canteen in tins.

According to the general, Stalin then lived with his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, daughter Svetlana and sons Vasily and Yakov very modestly. Stalin walked in an old coat, and Vlasik's proposal to sew new outerwear was answered with a categorical refusal. As Vlasik wrote in his notes, he had to sew a new coat for the leader by eye - he did not allow me to take measurements. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was just as modest, according to the general.

He came to work late, and returned to the Kremlin on foot

As Vlasik recalls, Stalin usually got up at 9 am, after breakfast by 11 o'clock he arrived at the Central Committee building on Staraya Square. Dined at work. The leader worked until late at night. He often returned from work to the Kremlin on foot with Vyacheslav Molotov.

After Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1933, the care of the children fell on the housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna. According to Vlasik, when the children grew up, part of the responsibility fell on him. And if there were no problems with Svetlana, son Vasily studied at school reluctantly, and instead of preparing for classes, he was fond of something extraneous like horse riding. On the behavior of Vasily Vlasik, according to him, "reluctantly" reported to Stalin.

Stalin planted eucalyptus trees in Sochi

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, Stalin annually went on vacation to Sochi or Gagra for two months at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. There he read a lot, rode a boat on the sea, watched movies, played skittles, towns and billiards.

Another hobby of the leader was the garden. In the south, he grew oranges and tangerines. At the initiative of Stalin, a large number of eucalyptus trees were planted in Sochi, which, according to the leader's idea, was to reduce the incidence of malaria among the local population.

As Vlasik admitted, in the 30s, when Stalin arrived on vacation in Tskhaltubo at the dacha intended for employees of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of Georgia, it turned out to be so dirty there that, in his words, "the heart bled" when the leader was nervous, demanding to clean up.

About the leader's love for Kirov and the assassination attempt on Stalin

According to Vlasik, Stalin loved the head of the Leningrad party organization of the CPSU (b) Sergei Kirov "with some kind of touching, tender love." Kirov, arriving in Moscow, stayed at Stalin's apartment, and they did not part. The assassination of Kirov in 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev, instructor of the historical and party commission of the Institute of History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, shocked the leader. As Vlasik noted, he traveled with Stalin to Leningrad to say goodbye to Kirov and saw how he suffered, experiencing the loss of his beloved friend.

As Vlasik wrote in his memoirs, in the summer of 1935, Stalin himself survived the assassination attempt. This happened in the south, where he was resting in a dacha not far from Gagra. The boat, sent from Leningrad by the then head of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, on which Stalin was located, was fired upon from the shore. According to Vlasik, he quickly put Stalin on a bench and covered him with himself, after which he ordered the minder to go out to sea. In response, Stalin's guards fired machine gun fire along the shore.

According to Vlasik, a small and non-maneuverable boat was sent by Yagoda "not without malicious intent." Obviously, the chief of the NKVD assumed that on a big wave the ship would inevitably capsize, the general suggests. Fortunately, this did not happen. The assassination case was referred for investigation to Lavrenty Beria, who was then Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia.

During interrogation, the shooter stated that the boat was with an unfamiliar number, it seemed suspicious to him and he opened fire, writes Vlasik. In fact, as historians write, the appearance of Stalin's boat in the protected area was not formalized by the relevant documents, and the border guards acted in strict accordance with the instructions. The commander of the frontier post department, Lavrov, demanded that the boat stop with shots in the air. The warning shots had to be repeated as the boat did not respond to the signals.

Lavrov was tried. Although he was threatened with the death penalty, after Yagoda's intervention, the commander of the outpost section was given only five years for "sloppiness." Lavrov, however, did not serve his term. In 1937, he was taken from the camp to Tbilisi, and after interrogation he was accused of a terrorist conspiracy and sentenced to death as an enemy of the people.

In his memoirs, Vlasik expresses the idea that the assassinations of Kirov, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky in 1934, Valerian Kuibyshev in 1935 and the writer Maxim Gorky in 1936, as well as the assassination attempts on Stalin and Molotov, were organized by the right-wing Trotsky bloc and became links in one chain. "This tangle was unraveled and thus rendered harmless to the enemies Soviet power", says the general.

Recall that the circumstances of the death of Gorky and his son Maxim Peshkov were considered suspicious for a long time, but the rumors about their murder have not been confirmed. At the 1938 trial, Yagoda was charged with poisoning Gorky's son. During interrogations, Yagoda stated that Gorky was killed on the orders of Trotsky, and he decided to liquidate the writer's son on his own initiative.

Under pressure from various "de-Stalinizers" from the "nano-democrat" Medvedev to Mlechin and the government commission to combat the falsification of history under the leadership of its permanent leader Svanidze, the Federal Security Service of Russia declassified the archive of Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik, including his diaries, memoirs. Vlasik was the head of Stalin's personal guard for more than 20 years - from 1927 to 1952. In 1946, he became the head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

The declassified documents, according to the plan of the de-Stalinizers' fools, were supposed to "highlight" the vices and greed of the Generalissimo so hated by them and confirm the myth of the leader's innumerable treasures. The notes of the general, published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, depict the leader not so much as a statesman, but as a specific person with his own habits and principles inherent in his everyday life, hidden from prying eyes. Yes, it probably could not have been otherwise: as one of the people closest to Stalin, Vlasik knew better than others the inside of Stalin's life. Inside out, figuratively and literally. In terms of clothes.

Quote: “Comrade Stalin lived very modestly with his family,” it is said, in particular, in his memoirs. - He walked in an old, badly shabby coat. I suggested to Nadezhda Sergeevna (Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. - Ed.) to sew him a new coat, but for this it was necessary to take measurements or take an old coat and make it exactly like that in the workshop. It was not possible to remove the measure, as he flatly refused, saying that he did not need a new coat. But we still sewed a coat for him. ”.

Read and marvel. Was this really possible in our country (the USSR was also our country, whether anyone likes it or not), where power has been perceived from time immemorial, first of all, as a source of personal enrichment, as the basis of personal happiness, as a guarantee of personal comfort and prosperity? And suddenly you are a man, being at the pinnacle of power, at the very top (Stalin became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party back in 1922) and is not concerned about this very personal enrichment.

He even dismisses the offer to sew him a new coat: in the old one, they say, I look like it. Why is our country there: in the entire world history it is difficult to find a similar example when a person with such unlimited, more than monarchical power would be so indifferent to the personal and material side of the issue.

An exceptionally benevolent tone towards Stalin persists throughout Vlasik's memoir narrative, which has now been published. The Generalissimo appears before the readers not as a wingless angel, but as a modest in everyday life, hardworking and intelligent person.

That part of the audience that sees in Stalin only a “mustachioed, pockmarked cannibal”, naturally, immediately burst into mockingly caustic comments: they say, Vlasik wrote his opus while Stalin was alive. What else, they say, besides obsequious praise, could this “toady” write, whose position and very life depended on the will of the Master. I would have tried, they say, a security general to drop something disrespectful or dirty - he would have been put right up against the wall. Or until the end of his days he would chew camp bread in the polar latitudes. He would have chewed with the teeth he had after interrogations. In general, all these declassified archives of yours are flattering lies, and that's it. Such is the logic. Damaged, to be honest.

But, alas, ah, the theory of sycophancy does not stand up to scrutiny. Lieutenant General Vlasik in May 1952 was removed from the post of head of Stalin's security and sent to the Urals as deputy head of a forced labor camp. In December 1952, less than three months before Stalin's death, he was arrested in connection with the Doctors' Plot. In January 1955, he was convicted of abuse of office and sentenced to 10 years in exile. By virtue of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953 on amnesty, Vlasik's term was reduced to five years. In December 1956, he was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record. He was not restored in military rank and awards. So Vlasik wrote his memoirs about the "bloody" tyrant after Stalin's death, when the "cult of personality" was "exposed" at the 20th Congress ...

The fact of Vlasik's personal devotion to Stalin and the possible element of subjectivity present in his notes does not mean that what he wrote is a lie. They do not mean this a priori, no matter how anyone would like the opposite. Subjectivity is generally an inevitable component of any diaries and memoirs, no matter who they are written by.

Quote: “I was severely offended by Stalin,” he wrote in his memoirs. - For 25 years of impeccable work, not having a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison. For my boundless devotion, he (Stalin.) gave me into the hands of enemies. But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger at Stalin in my soul..

But subjectivity is an evaluative property. But there are facts. One of these facts, testifying to Stalin's personal modesty and unpretentiousness, is such a well-known document as an inventory of the leader's personal property, compiled less than an hour after his death at the Near Dacha on March 5, 1953. The inventory includes: a notebook, a notebook, a common notebook, smoking pipes, books, a white tunic - 2 pcs., a gray tunic - 2 pcs., a dark green tunic - 2 pcs., trousers - 10, underwear. "A savings book was found in the bedroom, it contained 900 rubles"(for comparison: the average monthly salary of workers and employees in the country at that time was about 700 rubles.).

Skeptics always cling to the phrase appearing in the inventory “Other property belonging to Comrade Stalin was not included in the inventory”. And they talk about the countless luxurious dachas and residences that Stalin de built for himself and his loved ones and which his daughter Svetlana, in particular, recalled with delight. That's just about the palaces and treasures, which after the death of the leader passed into the personal use of his immediate and non-closest relatives, nothing is known. There are no such facts.

Dachas and cars that Stalin used during his lifetime, after his death, went into the service of other government officials. Some of these dachas eventually became sanatoriums. As for Stalin's closest relatives, his son Vasily died two years after his release from prison, where he worked as a turner.

And the daughter Svetlana, who emigrated in 1967, lived abroad, mainly on the money earned by writing: the interest of publishers in the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, of course, was huge. In this sense, Stalin provided for his daughter. But only in this sense. Diplomat Semyonov wrote in his diary from the words of Mikhail Sholokhov that Stalin once in a narrow circle remarked that he did not want to build a dacha for his daughter, because "the dacha would be confiscated on the second day after his death." When the offended comrades-in-arms “waved their hands”, Stalin allegedly said: "You are the first and oppose me".

In general, one way or another, but Vlasik's diaries did not report anything new and sensational about the personal modesty of the Generalissimo.

During the years of perestroika, when a wave of all kinds of accusations rained down on almost all people from the Stalinist entourage in the advanced Soviet press, the most unenviable fate fell to General Vlasik. The long-term head of Stalin's guard appeared in these materials as a real lackey who adored his master, a watchdog, ready to attack anyone at his command, greedy, vengeful and greedy ...

Among those who did not spare negative epithets for Vlasik was Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. But the bodyguard of the leader at one time had to become practically the main educator for both Svetlana and Vasily. Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik spent a quarter of a century next to Stalin, protecting the life of the Soviet leader. Without his bodyguard, the leader lived for less than a year.

From the parochial school to the Cheka

Nikolai Vlasik was born on May 22, 1896 in Western Belarus, in the village of Bobynichi, into a poor peasant family. The boy lost his parents early and a good education could not count. After three classes of the parochial school, Nikolai went to work. From the age of 13 he worked as a laborer at a construction site, then as a bricklayer, then as a loader at a paper mill. In March 1915, Vlasik was drafted into the army and sent to the front. During the First World War, he served in the 167th Ostroh Infantry Regiment, and was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery in battle. After being wounded, Vlasik was promoted to non-commissioned officer and appointed commander of a platoon of the 251st infantry regiment, which was stationed in Moscow.

During the October Revolution, Nikolai Vlasik, a native of the very bottom, quickly decided on his political choice: together with the entrusted platoon, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. At first he served in the Moscow police, then he participated in civil war, was wounded near Tsaritsyn. In September 1919, Vlasik was sent to the bodies of the Cheka, where he served in the central apparatus under the command of Felix Dzerzhinsky himself.

Master of security and life

Since May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik served as a senior authorized officer of the Operational Department of the OGPU. As Vlasik himself recalled, his work as Stalin's bodyguard began in 1927 after an emergency in the capital: a bomb was thrown into the commandant's office building on Lubyanka. The operative, who was on vacation, was recalled and announced: from that moment on, he was entrusted with the protection of the Special Department of the Cheka, the Kremlin, government members at dachas, walks. Particular attention was ordered to be given to the personal protection of Joseph Stalin. Despite the sad story of the assassination attempt on Lenin, by 1927 the protection of the first persons of the state in the USSR was not particularly thorough. Stalin was accompanied by only one guard: the Lithuanian Yusis. Vlasik was even more surprised when they arrived at the dacha, where Stalin usually spent his weekends. One commandant lived at the dacha, there was no linen, no dishes, and the leader ate sandwiches brought from Moscow.

Like all Belarusian peasants, Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik was a solid and well-to-do man. He took up not only the protection, but also the arrangement of Stalin's life. The leader, accustomed to asceticism, at first was skeptical about the innovations of the new bodyguard. But Vlasik was persistent: a cook and a cleaner appeared at the dacha, food supplies were arranged from the nearest state farm. At that moment, there was not even a telephone connection with Moscow at the dacha, and it appeared through the efforts of Vlasik. Over time, Vlasik created a whole system of dachas in the Moscow region and in the south, where well-trained personnel were ready at any moment to receive the Soviet leader. It is not worth talking about the fact that these objects were guarded in the most careful way. The security system for important government facilities existed even before Vlasik, but he became the developer of security measures for the first person of the state during his trips around the country, official events, and international meetings.

Stalin's bodyguard came up with a system according to which the first person and the people accompanying him move in a cavalcade of identical cars, and only the bodyguards know which one the leader is driving in. Subsequently, such a scheme saved the life of Leonid Brezhnev, who was assassinated in 1969.

"Illiterate, stupid, but noble"

Within a few years, Vlasik turned into an indispensable and especially trusted person for Stalin. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin entrusted his bodyguard with the care of the children: Svetlana, Vasily and his adopted son Artyom Sergeyev. Nikolai Sidorovich was not a teacher, but he tried his best. If Svetlana and Artyom did not cause him much trouble, then Vasily was uncontrollable from childhood. Vlasik, knowing that Stalin did not give up to children, tried, as far as possible, to mitigate the sins of Vasily in reports to his father.

Nikolai Vlasik with Stalin's children: Svetlana, Vasily and Yakov.

But over the years, the “pranks” became more and more serious, and it became more and more difficult for Vlasik to play the role of a “lightning rod”. Svetlana and Artyom, as adults, wrote about their "tutor" in different ways. Stalin's daughter in "Twenty Letters to a Friend" described Vlasik as follows:

“He headed all of his father’s guards, considered himself almost the closest person to him, and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he went so far as to dictate to some artists the“ tastes of Comrade Stalin ”, since believed that he knew them well and understood ...His arrogance knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether he “liked” whether it was a film, or an opera, or even the silhouettes of high-rise buildings under construction at that time ... "“He had a job all his life, and he lived near Stalin”

Artyom Sergeev in "Conversations about Stalin" spoke differently:

“His main duty was to ensure the safety of Stalin. This work was inhuman. Always the responsibility of the head, always life on the cutting edge. He knew perfectly well both friends and enemies of Stalin ...What kind of work did Vlasik have in general? It was work day and night, there was no 6-8-hour working day. All his life he had work, and he lived near Stalin. Next to Stalin's room was Vlasik's room ... "

For ten or fifteen years, Nikolai Vlasik turned from an ordinary bodyguard into a general heading a huge structure responsible not only for security, but also for the life of the first persons of the state.

N. S. Vlasik with I. V. Stalin and his son Vasily. The near dacha in Volynskoye, 1935.

During the war years, the evacuation of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and people's commissariats from Moscow fell on Vlasik's shoulders. It was necessary not only to deliver them to Kuibyshev, but also to place them, equip them in a new place, and think over security issues. The evacuation of Lenin's body from Moscow is also the task that Vlasik performed. He was also responsible for security at the parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

Assassination attempt in Gagra

For all the years that Vlasik was responsible for Stalin's life, not a single hair fell from his head. At the same time, the head of the leader’s guard himself, judging by his recollections, took the threat of assassination very seriously. Even in his declining years, he was sure that the Trotskyist groups were preparing the assassination of Stalin. In 1935, Vlasik really had to cover the leader from bullets. During a boat trip in the Gagra region, fire was opened on them from the shore. The bodyguard covered Stalin with his body, but both were lucky: the bullets did not hit them. The boat left the firing zone. Vlasik considered this a real assassination attempt, and his opponents later believed that it was all a production. As it turns out, there was a misunderstanding. The border guards were not informed about Stalin's boat trip, and they mistook him for an intruder.

Cow abuse

During the Great Patriotic War, Vlasik was responsible for ensuring security at conferences of the heads of participating countries anti-Hitler coalition and he did his job brilliantly. Behind successful implementation conference in Tehran, Vlasik was awarded the Order of Lenin, for the Crimean Conference - the Order of Kutuzov I degree, for the Potsdam Conference - another Order of Lenin.

But the Potsdam Conference became a pretext for accusations of misappropriation of property: it was alleged that after its completion, Vlasik took various valuables from Germany, including a horse, two cows and one bull. Subsequently, this fact was cited as an example of the irrepressible greed of the Stalinist bodyguard. Vlasik himself recalled that this story had a completely different background. In 1941, the Germans captured his native village of Bobynichi. The house where my sister lived was burned down, half the village was shot, the sister's eldest daughter was driven away to work in Germany, the cow and the horse were taken away. My sister and her husband went to the partisans, and after the liberation of Belarus they returned to their native village, from which little was left. Stalin's bodyguard brought cattle from Germany for relatives.

Was it abuse? If you approach with a strict measure, then, perhaps, yes. However, Stalin, when this case was first reported to him, sharply ordered that further investigation be stopped.

Opala

In 1946, Lieutenant General Nikolai Vlasik became the head of the Main Security Directorate: an agency with an annual budget of 170 million rubles and a staff of many thousands. He did not fight for power, but at the same time he made a huge number of enemies. Being too close to Stalin, Vlasik had the opportunity to influence the leader's attitude towards this or that person, deciding who would get wider access to the first person, and who would be denied such an opportunity. In 1948, the commandant of the so-called "Near Dacha" Fedoseev was arrested, who testified that Vlasik intended to poison Stalin. But the leader again did not take this accusation seriously: if the bodyguard had such intentions, he could have realized his plans a long time ago.

Vlasik in the office.

In 1952, by decision of the Politburo, a commission was established to verify the activities of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. This time, extremely unpleasant facts have surfaced that look quite plausible. The guards and personnel of the special dachas, which had been empty for weeks, staged real orgies there, plundered food and expensive drinks. Later, there were witnesses who assured that Vlasik himself was not averse to relaxing in this way. On April 29, 1952, on the basis of these materials, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his post and sent to the Urals, to the city of Asbest, as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Why did Stalin suddenly back down from a man who honestly served him for 25 years? Perhaps it was all the fault of the leader's growing suspicion in recent years. It is possible that Stalin considered the waste of state funds for drunken revelry too serious a sin. Be that as it may, very difficult times came for the former head of the Stalinist guards ... In December 1952, he was arrested in connection with the “doctors' case”. He was blamed for the fact that he ignored the statements of Lydia Timashuk, who accused the professors who treated the first persons of the state of sabotage.

Vlasik himself wrote in his memoirs that there was no reason to believe Timashuk: "There was no data discrediting the professors, which I reported to Stalin."

Could Vlasik extend the life of the leader?

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away. Even if we discard the dubious version of the murder of the leader, Vlasik, if he had remained in his post, he could well have extended his life. When the leader became ill at the Near Dacha, he lay for several hours on the floor of his room without help: the guards did not dare to enter Stalin's chambers. There is no doubt that Vlasik would not have allowed this.

After the death of the leader, the "case of doctors" was closed. All of his defendants were released, except for Nikolai Vlasik. In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Vlasik guilty of abuse of office under especially aggravating circumstances, sentenced under Art. 193-17 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of exile, deprivation of the rank of general and state awards. In March 1955, Vlasik's term was reduced to 5 years. He was sent to Krasnoyarsk to serve his sentence. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 15, 1956, Vlasik was pardoned with the removal of a criminal record, but he was not restored to military rank and awards.

“Not a single minute did I have in my soul anger at Stalin”

He returned to Moscow, where he had almost nothing left: his property was confiscated, a separate apartment was turned into a communal one. Vlasik knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote to the leaders of the party and government, asked for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the party, but was refused everywhere.

Secretly, he began to dictate memoirs in which he talked about how he saw his life, why he did certain things, how he treated Stalin.

"P After Stalin's death, such an expression as "the cult of personality" appeared ... If a person - the head of his affairs deserves the love and respect of others, what's wrong with that ... The people loved and respected Stalin. He personified a country that he led to prosperity and victories, wrote Nikolai Vlasik. - Under his leadership, a lot of good things were done, and the people saw it. He enjoyed great prestige. I knew him very intimately... And Ia yu that he lived only in the interests of the country, the interests of his people.

“It is easy to accuse a person of all mortal sins when he is dead and can neither justify nor defend himself. Why, during his lifetime, no one dared to point out to him his mistakes? What hindered? Fear? Or were there no such errors that should have been pointed out?

What Tsar Ivan IV was formidable for, but there were people who cared for their homeland, who, not fearing death, pointed out to him his mistakes. Or were brave people transferred to Russia? - so thought the Stalinist bodyguard.

Summing up his memoirs and his whole life in general, Vlasik wrote: “Without a single penalty, but only encouragement and awards, I was expelled from the party and thrown into prison.

But never, not for a single minute, no matter what state I was in, no matter what bullying I was subjected to while in prison, I did not have anger in my soul against Stalin. I perfectly understood what kind of atmosphere was created around him in the last years of his life. How difficult it was for him. He was an old, sick, lonely man ... He was and remains for me the most dear person, and no slander can shake the feeling of love and the deepest respect that I have always had for this wonderful person. He personified for me everything bright and dear in my life - the party, the motherland and my people.

Posthumously rehabilitated

Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik died on June 18, 1967. His archive was seized and classified. Only in 2011, the Federal Security Service declassified the notes of the person who, in fact, stood at the origins of its creation.

Relatives of Vlasik have repeatedly made attempts to achieve his rehabilitation. After several refusals, on June 28, 2000, by a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia, the 1955 sentence was canceled, and the criminal case was dismissed "due to the lack of corpus delicti".

60 years ago, on December 16, 1952, the former head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Lieutenant General Vlasik, was arrested. Stalin played a very strange role in the fate of his chief bodyguard. Yevgeny Zhirnov, head of the historical and archival service of the Kommersant Publishing House, understood this mysterious story.

"Being stupid but noble"

Once, in the era of glasnost, which captured not only the press, but also veterans of the authorities and special services, who at that time willingly shared their memories, one of the former state security officers told me about an episode related to the incredible physical strength of Stalin's chief bodyguard Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik. My interlocutor, then still a young MGB operative, unexpectedly recognized in the crowd on a Moscow street in a strong man dressed in an excellent coat, the head of the Main Directorate of Security (GUO) of the MGB of the USSR, Lieutenant General Vlasik. The operative noticed that a suspicious type, obviously a pickpocket, was spinning near the high boss, and began to quickly move towards the general. But, approaching, he saw that the thief had already put his hand into Vlasik's pocket, and he suddenly put his powerful five on his coat over his pocket and squeezed the thief's brush so that, as the operas told, the crack of breaking bones was heard. The veteran recalled that he wanted to detain the pickpocket, who had turned white and lost consciousness from pain, but Vlasik winked at him, shook his head negatively and said: "There is no need to plant, he will not be able to steal anymore."

Other veterans recalled that Vlasik was considered one of the most powerful figures in Stalin's entourage, not only in terms of physical strength, but also in terms of influence. It was said that at times the head bodyguard exaggerated his importance, resorting to a simple trick. The door from Stalin's reception room led to a small vestibule, from which the next door opened - to the office. They said that Vlasik could enter this vestibule, stand there, go out and announce that Comrade Stalin did not want to see such and such a petitioner. And a frightened to death official or general began to seek friendship with the all-powerful Nikolai Sidorovich, so that he would help change the leader's anger to mercy.

Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva wrote about the same thing in the book "Twenty Letters to a Friend":

“We have to mention another general, Vlasik, who stayed near his father for a very long time, since 1919. Then he was a Red Army soldier assigned to guard, and later became a very powerful person behind the scenes. He headed all his father’s guards, considered himself almost the closest person to him and, being himself incredibly illiterate, rude, stupid, but noble, in recent years he went so far as to dictate to some artists the "tastes of Comrade Stalin", as he believed that he knew and understood them well. followed this advice... And not a single festive concert at the Bolshoi Theater or in the St. George's Hall at banquets was compiled without Vlasik's sanction ... His impudence knew no bounds, and he favorably conveyed to artists whether he "liked" "himself", whether it was a film , or the opera, or even the silhouettes of the high-rise buildings under construction at that time ... It would not be worth mentioning him at all - he ruined the lives of many, but before that he was a colorful figure that you couldn’t pass him by. "

Many well-known artists at that time tried to get into the companies where Vlasik visited in order to gain his favor. And some became famous thanks to participation in these feasts. One of the participants in such meetings, Vera Gerasimovna Ivanskaya, said:

“I ... was several times at Vlasik’s dacha and at his apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard. I remember that Stenberg was in the companies then, once there was Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov and very often Okunev. To be honest, I had no particular desire to meet with Vlasik and in general to be in this company. But Vlasik threatened me, said that he would arrest me, etc., and I was afraid of this. Once at Vlasik’s apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard, I was with my friends Kopteva and another girl. Then there was some then the artist, it seems Gerasimov.

Vlasik behaved as if no Soviet laws and norms of behavior were written for him. Vladimir Avgustovich Stenberg, a Red Square graphic designer who had been friends with him for many years, wrote in his own testimony after his arrest:

"I must say that Vlasik is a morally corrupt person. He cohabited with many women, in particular with Nikolaeva, Ryazantseva, Dokukina, Lokhtionova, Spirina, Veshchitskaya, Gradusova, Averina, Vera Gerasimovna. I believe that Vlasik also cohabited with Shcherbakova, with Gorodnichev sisters: Lyuda, Ada, Sonya, Kruglikova, Sergeeva and her sister and others whose names I don’t remember. Maintaining comradely relations with me, Vlasik soldered me and my wife and cohabited with her, which Vlasik himself later cynically told me about " .

Actually, there was nothing strange about it. Who could stop the leader's main bodyguard, if at times Stalin consulted with him, deciding the fate of his leaders, whose names alone terrified the whole country. In his not very literate letter to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, written on April 5, 1955, Vlasik gave an example of such an event:

"The head of government, being in the south after the war, in my presence expressed great indignation against Beria, saying that the state security agencies did not justify their work with proper support. He pointed to individual failures in the work of his leadership and said that he had given instructions to remove Beria from the leadership in the MGB. He asked me how Merkulov, Kobulov worked, and subsequently about Goglidze and Tsanava. I told him what I knew, with the facts that I knew from work, about the shortcomings of the leadership. "

On December 29, 1945, Stalin removed Beria from the leadership of the NKVD of the USSR and oversight of state security, ordering him to focus on the Soviet atomic project. On May 7, 1946, Merkulov lost the post of Minister of State Security of the USSR, only a year later he received the post of head of the Main Directorate of Soviet Property Abroad. The former Deputy Minister of State Security, Colonel General Kobulov, unflatteringly described by Vlasik, ended up in the same department.

The former heads of state security at that time did not yet know about the role that Vlasik played in the collapse of their career. But in 1948, having recovered from the blow, they apparently decided to punish the head of the GUO, who did not influence Stalin's decision in a positive direction for them. Fortunately, the new Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel-General Abakumov, although he was their enemy, also sought to get rid of the overly influential chief bodyguard.

"Falsely testified against me"

Judging by the letter of Vlasik Voroshilov, Abakumov used the incident with his subordinate, Beria's security chief, Colonel Sarkisov, to activate the enemies of the head of the Main Security Directorate.

“In the practice of work,” Vlasik wrote, “there were cases, and especially with Sarkisov, that he often went on assignment during his duty, and there was even a case on the operational car, because there was no his economic car, at that time they filed the main car, since Sarkisov has not yet returned with an operational car, the guards were left without a car and lagged behind.

The fact that a member of the Politburo Beria left without a "tail" guard car was an emergency, and Vlasik called Sarkisov for dressing:

“An investigation was carried out on this issue, and a remark was made to him, he stated that, while fulfilling the order of the guarded, he did not have another car. had the right to be interested in what tasks he was carrying out. He was with me later, when he was accused that the main car left without protection, and asked to allocate an economic car, which I did, not only to him, but to everyone attached. We also agreed to entrust all orders to the commandants of the facility. That's how it was."

During the check, an unsightly detail was revealed: Sarkisov used an operational vehicle to transport strangers.

“I,” wrote Vlasik, “reported this to the then minister Abakumov, I could not do otherwise, since it was clear from the material that this applies more to Sarkisov himself than to Beria, and without checking these materials I could not report higher, since unverified material could be mistaken for slander, squabbles, etc. At that time, I myself had no right to check on my own without the sanction, or at least the minister, without his official order. we are talking about a member of the government, there is a decision of the Central Committee on this matter. That is why I reported to Abakumov, who said that he himself would check and call Sarkisov. He took this document and after a long time gave the order to burn it and not to carry out any verification. I still didn’t burn it, but returned it to the head of the Intelligence Department, Maslennikov ... I could not foresee that Abakumov would turn out to be an enemy and would not make the appropriate checks or report where he should after the check.

But Abakumov informed Beria that Vlasik was interested in his personal life, and the "Lubyansk Marshal" did not remain in debt:

“I soon noticed that Beria had noticeably changed his attitude towards me. This, of course, alarmed me, I wanted to talk about it with the Head of Government, but I thought it would be tactless, especially since I didn’t have any hard data ".

In 1948, Beria, before Stalin, arrived at his Near Dacha in Kuntsevo and found that packages with especially important documents for the leader, which were delivered by field communications, were lying on the table intended for them in disarray. Beria immediately announced that there was a spy among the guards. Soon Fedoseev, assistant commandant of the dacha, who was on duty that day, was arrested along with his wife. Fedoseev, according to some sources, was placed in the worst prison in the country - Sukhanovskaya, or Sukhanovka, where especially important prisoners were tortured both by conventional methods and by absolute silence, from which a person could go crazy. Since Beria's experienced associates from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by Deputy Minister Serov, were engaged in his case, Fedoseev soon surrendered and signed a confession stating that he, along with Vlasik, was going to poison Stalin.

Beria reported on the result achieved to the leader, but the result was not quite the one that Lavrenty Pavlovich counted on.

“Fedoseev,” Vlasik wrote, “gave false testimony against me, and the Head of Government, doubting its plausibility, personally checked this case himself. He called and interrogated him. It was found that this was a false testimony. Beria's observation, after that the case was transferred to the MGB Fedoseev stated that he was forced to give false testimony because he was beaten every day, so he gave such testimony, knowing that he would be called by the Head of Government, where he would ask to be "They didn't beat me. After this check, the Head of the Government himself told me what evidence Fedoseyev had given against me and why he had given it."

Stalin, according to his chief bodyguard, personally figured out another accusation put forward by Beria - huge embezzlement and misappropriation of products delivered to Stalin's Middle and other dachas:

“Right away we talked about these unfortunate products, for which I am accused of stealing in the protocols. We need to know our former situation in life on the Middle. I explained to the Head of Government on this issue which products and when we really used and which ones I took measures to ensure that there were no more abuses here. He agreed with me and even himself changed his regimen in orders for cooking dinners, etc. I could not, and would not be allowed to, write down the details of our position on the "Middle" and It would be wrong to write about this. You, like other members of the government, are aware that various samples and other things sent were not always considered in time, and sometimes we could not do anything with them. Many facts can be cited about this which I did to the Head of Government, and he could not but agree with me."

It would seem that the history of the persecution of Vlasik could end there. But Beria, as it turned out, was not going to put up with defeat.

Beria, Merkulov and Kobulov (in the photo - from left to right), thanks to Vlasik, from the real heads of state security at the moment they became former

"It was important for them to pollute me"

In 1949, after a successful test atomic bomb, Beria was again in favor with Stalin:

“I must say frankly and honestly,” Vlasik wrote, “that when the Head of Government spoke after the war and clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with Beria, he attributed it more to the inability, inability and poor knowledge of the work of state security agencies, but in no case expressed political distrust of him. I understood that. And it all soon passed. The head of the government, on the contrary, praised him very emphatically after completing one of the big tasks of the government. It was clear and understandable to me that he had changed his attitude about past shortcomings in Beria's work by the Ministry of State Security.

One could assume that it was precisely thanks to Stalin's location that Beria had a new chance to get rid of Vlasik. In a letter from the former head of the GDO to Voroshilov, it was said:

“Selecting materials dating back to 1948, which the Head of Government himself had already checked, they, through Abakumov, climbed into all the little things of my intimate life, inflating everything to incredible limits, distorting reality ... All this dirty bouquet, apparently, was reported to the Head of Government, after which the question arose at the Politburo of the Central Committee - about the trouble in the Main Directorate of the Guard.

By decision of the Politburo, a commission was created to verify the activities of the Guo MGB of the USSR:

"As a result of the work of the commission chaired by Comrade Malenkov with the most active participation of Beria and other members of P.B., I was expelled from the party, suspended from work without any observance of the proper transfer of the Office and leaving documentation, etc. I was urgently sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city Asbestos to the Urals to work in the camp - deputy head of the camp administration, which deprived him of the opportunity to defend himself in accusations of trouble that ended up in the administration apparatus.

Vlasik was removed from his post as head of the GDO in May 1952, and at the end of the year he was arrested. The first accusation, as Vlasik wrote, was that he looked through the killer doctors among the Kremlin doctors:

“I was arrested on December 16, 1952. The investigation of the former MGB on especially important cases charged me with the fact that I, being the head of the Main Directorate of Security of the MGB, did not ensure the timely opening of the spy terrorist organization of doctor-professors of the Kremlin Sanitary Directorate, which was serviced by a trusted me I was also charged with not taking appropriate measures on the signal received from the doctor Timoshuk and did not conduct an investigation into the treatment of the sick comrade Zhdanov, which contributed to the enemies-professors to hide my evil intention. By this he became an indirect accomplice in the organization of wreckers and enemies of the people. "

To get out of a difficult situation, the head of the Main Directorate of Security had to kowtow to Beria (in the photo, Beria is second from the right, Vlasik is behind him)

The following accusation was not new:

"The second accusation is the use of his official position. He used products at a guarded facility at the expense of the state."

Finally, the third accusation concerned the moral decay of Vlasik and his illegibility in the choice of friends:

"About promiscuous connections and acquaintances. In particular, he kept in touch for a long time with the designer of the Red Square Vladimir Avgustovich Stenberg, who did not inspire political confidence, who was arrested on charges of espionage. After a change in leadership and verification, he was released from custody. My investigation began on these questions, and on the basis of these false accusations brought against me, a conclusion was drawn up, approved, like my arrest, by the former deputy minister, an enemy of the people, Goglidze, using Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, as having not justified confidence. the most humiliating checks in almost 25-30 years of all my acquaintances, inflicting interrogations on them, using old materials of already verified cases, as according to Stenberg.

The most curious thing was that Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev, who was appointed Minister of State Security of the USSR after Abakumov's arrest, already understood Vlasik's relationship with Stenberg. But the new state security leadership, headed by Beria, took up Stenberg and Vlasik with all seriousness and force:

“I myself spoke about the Stenberg case during my first interrogation after my arrest. I asked the investigators to write down that I checked this case former minister Ignatiev and reported on him to the Central Committee, moreover, he told me that in this case they wanted to compromise Vlasik, and the Stenberg case does not deserve any attention, they wanted to arrest Stenberg, Ignatiev instructed me to warn Stenberg about chatter, and to hand over the case to the archive, and in case any misunderstanding refer to it. No matter how much I asked to reflect this in the protocols, I was not allowed to do so. He was arrested and, like me, was subjected to the strictest regime and unacceptable mockery."

Vlasik described in detail the methods of investigation applied to him, quite common for the department in which he had served for more than three decades:

“Of course, at my age and state of health, I could not stand it. I got a nervous breakdown, a complete shock and lost absolutely all self-control and common sense, and then a heart attack followed, because before these terrible trials, exacerbations of my disease appeared - headaches, sheer hallucinations and nightmares. For months I was without sleep. In this state, pre-prepared protocols were fabricated on me. I was not even able to read my answers compiled by them, just under abuse and threats in sharp handcuffs worn to the bones, I was forced to sign this terrible for I was compromised in every little thing by 90 percent of a painted lie, since at that time the handcuffs were removed and promises were made to let go to sleep, which never happened, because in the cell their tests followed, more disguised, but also more painful, acting morally and physically " .

He hoped that, like Fedoseev in 1948, Stalin would call him to check his testimony, find out that the testimony was obtained under torture, and release him. But the leader could no longer call him:

“I thought about everything when I faced the fact of such an investigation, and especially when I was summoned for interrogation to Beria and Kobulov, where they showed me a newspaper about the death of the Head of Government, which I did not know about. I just found out that they again stood at the leadership of the MGB. It was important for them to pollute me, which they did and achieved their goal. "

But the most amazing discovery awaited Vlasik ahead. Before interrogating Beria, he was summoned by the head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General Vlodzimirsky:

“He demanded that I testify that I told what conversations I had with the Head of Government about the former leadership of the MGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He said that I gave characteristics that led to the dismissal of large leaders of operational work from work in the MGB, which caused damage to the state, meaning the dismissal of Merkulov, Kobulov, Beria, myself and others. I categorically refused to give any evidence on this issue ... And now I am finally convinced that this conversation between me and the Head of Government became him for sure known, I was amazed by that. That's why they removed me and expelled me from the party."

But much more important and striking was something else:

"Apparently, he himself told them about my conversation with the Head of Government when they reported to him these dirty materials about me."

Even under fear of new torture, Vlasik did not testify against his old colleague, the head of the secretariat, Stalin Poskrebyshev (pictured in the center)

"Threatened to repeat the basement"

It turned out that Stalin, who had previously defended his faithful bodyguard and looked through his fingers at his adventures and abuses, suddenly gave Vlasik to be torn to pieces by his worst enemies. And further encouraging them.

“Then I realized,” Vlasik wrote, “that, apart from death, I have nothing more to wait for ... They demanded testimony against Poskrebyshev, Kobulov called twice more in the presence of Vlodzimirsky, I refused, saying that I had no data to compromise Poskrebyshev no, he just said that the Head of Government at one time was very dissatisfied with the work of our bodies and the leadership of Beria, he cited the facts that the Head of Government told me about failures in work, which he accused Beria of, to which Kobulov told me that I I forgot about it, I didn’t remember it anywhere else. For refusing to testify against Poskrebyshev, he said bluntly, you would die in prison. He threatened to repeat the basement.”

In a letter, Vlasik said that Kobulov's prediction had almost come true:

“In such a serious condition, I was again sent to Lefortovo at night, where I had a heart attack - a heart attack. It was, I don’t remember exactly, on May 19 or 18, 1953, and therefore the interrogation promised to me was not carried out, as Kobulov said the night before I was sent to Lefortovo prison, that tomorrow you will be interrogated. I lay on my back for a whole month in a cell, then I was sent to Butyrka prison in June, where I lay in a hospital cell with service and improved nutrition. They began to treat me, but the regime of moral the effect was not removed, and my health did not improve in any way, but, on the contrary, worsened, although my heart improved, my head and the general state of the nervous system worsened every day. I felt terrible. Insane thoughts came into my head, which I could not get rid of under the regime in which I was kept all the time. They transferred me several times again to the inner prison, but the problem I didn't feel anything. I was deprived of newspapers, that is, I never received and knew nothing. All the time he was waiting for his end, almost two years."

But he was unexpectedly lucky. Beria and his associates were arrested. It would seem that after that, given that the case of the killer doctors was recognized as fabricated and the main charge against Vlasik fell away, he could be released. But the case was not stopped, and the new head of state security, Colonel General Serov, took over.

“Finally,” Vlasik wrote, “Serov called me, I was still in the same condition. After two interrogations, he announced to me that Beria and all this bastard had been exposed. They improved my nutrition, began to treat me again, but the investigation was again delayed, although Serov promised I could not wait and again got a severe deterioration of the nervous system, again delusions, nightmares, since the moral regimen was not removed from me, I cannot bring it here, but it completely drove me crazy, madness climbed into my head, I I didn’t even believe Serov’s promises made to me. Why the new leadership of the investigation again does not trust me, painfully experiencing this. Why two years in solitary confinement with such a regime and no trial, do not finish the investigation, again all sorts of nightmares and stupid thoughts climbed into my head. I’m alive only because the enemies were exposed, saved from a painful death, and suddenly there was no progress in my case. Finally, I waited for the investigation and soon the court. l: I will strain all my strength, just don’t put it off. I could hardly stand it, it's true, the trial did not last very long with two breaks. At the trial, I was not only unable to defend myself against all this data, but I could not connect a few logical phrases. But I hoped for the fairness of his decision in relation to me, since I was sure that such a lengthy check was enough for the investigation to check all the doubts in my questions that were not clear to the investigation. However, although the investigation announced to me before the court that any accusation on the issue of the doctors of Sanupr was dropped. The Kremlin, since this case was not confirmed during the check and the professors were all released from custody and fully rehabilitated. Also, Stenberg was released from custody. They didn't even change the articles on the charges against me. According to her, the court ruled. deprive military rank, deprive government awards, seize items illegally acquired, and send them to remote areas for 5 years. The term shall be calculated from the day of arrest, that is, from December 15, 1952."

Soon after the verdict on January 17, 1955, Vlasik was taken to the place of exile - to Krasnoyarsk, from where he wrote a letter to the head of the Soviet state, Marshal Voroshilov. He was not satisfied with the outcome of the case:

“No matter how hard it was for me to go through all this morally and physically, especially since the investigation and the court expressed some distrust of me, I attribute this to those complex and confusing circumstances, not only in my making mistakes in this whole case, but also in my illness and nervous shock. I was not able to state all the reasons and circumstances logically for the last investigation, even at the trial I refused the last word of the defendant. "

Vlasik was glad that he managed to survive Beria and his team:

"Dear Kliment Efremovich, allow me here to bring deep, sincere gratitude to you and in your person to the party and government, to which I owe my life, although I have not long to use it, but I am morally satisfied, as the enemies of the people have been exposed and punished according to their deserts ".

But most importantly, he repented and asked for mercy:

“I swear to you, dear Kliment Efremovich, with full responsibility to the party and the government, that in all the mistakes I made there is not and never was any intent or political misunderstanding, and connections with all sorts of reptiles, as well as with this gang enemies of the people. I ask you to take into account my extremely serious state of health. Deprived not only of treatment, but also of proper care, living without a family, in this state I have very little life left, although by a court decision I have to be in exile for another two years and nine months It means to die away from the family, with such heavy feelings and in a completely helpless state, not to mention the deprivation that cannot but excite me, having worked for thirty-three years in the state security agencies, twenty-four of them in the protection of the Head of Government. Having honestly given up all my health, I am deprived of the right to even a piece of bread, not to mention a pension. yu and the government for pardon. Forgive me my mistakes, give me the opportunity to get my Moscow passport in order to live my last days near my family.

"I was completely honest with him"

In 1956, Vlasik was pardoned and allowed to return to Moscow, but neither the title, nor the awards, nor the membership card was returned. In 1960, he tried to be reinstated in the CPSU, and he almost succeeded. The certificate of his party affairs stated:

"On behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Party Control Committee on April 13, 1960 considered the application of Vlasik N.S. on his reinstatement in the party and rehabilitation in court. Then the following decision was made: "Enter the Central Committee of the CPSU with the proposal of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU about the restoration of Comrade Vlasik in the party "".

But the decision on Vlasik was not approved in the Central Committee of the CPSU, and the CCP considered his case again:

"Due to the fact that this decision was returned to the Party Control Committee, a re-check of Vlasik's case was carried out and the question of his party membership was again discussed ... According to Vlasik's statement, the USSR Prosecutor's Office checked his case and confirmed the correctness of the charges brought by the court. Vlasik's party membership, it turned out that for a long time (from the 30s) he led a depraved and riotous lifestyle, arranged drunkenness and revelry, cohabited with a large number of casually familiar women... Moreover, he often used his high position, intimidated women, forcing them to cohabitation. Moral unscrupulousness led to a loss of political vigilance. Vlasik brought his cohabitants to government theater boxes, gave them passes to Red Square, uncovered some secret objects ... Having considered Vlasik's case at a meeting on October 12, 1962, the Party Control Committee changed an earlier decision was denied by Vlasi ku in a petition to the Central Committee of the CPSU for his reinstatement in the party.

The main reason for the refusal was the result of an additional interrogation of Vlasik by party investigators. He admitted that he hid from Voroshilov:

“It was also established that Vlasik N. S. kowtowed before Beria, “was with him,” as Vlasik said, “he was frank to the end,” “personally informed him about the mood of I.V. Stalin,” “Beria valued his opinion even then, when he no longer worked as a People's Commissar "".

There is no doubt that it was precisely because of this that Stalin not only agreed to his arrest, but also set Beria against him. Perhaps the faithful bodyguard ceased to be faithful out of fear, after in 1948 the "Lubyansk Marshal" took up arms against him. But it is more likely that Vlasik began to inform Beria after Stalin's health deteriorated.

Due to his illiteracy, he did not know that for many millennia, aging rulers who felt unwell resorted to the standard method of checking their environment. From time to time they mimic a sharp exacerbation of the disease. And then they get rid of those who began to develop some kind of illegal activity, be it the chief bodyguard or the minister of defense. And there is no doubt that this technique will be in demand in the future. Wherever the limitation of the term of office of the first person is nothing more than a convention.

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Biography, life story of Vlasik Nikolai Sidorovich

Vlasik Nikolai Sidorovich - head of security.

Childhood and youth

Nikolai Vlasik was born into a poor peasant family on May 22, 1896 in the village of Bobynichi (Slonim district, Grodno province). He received a modest education - he graduated from three classes of a rural parish school. Nikolay began to work at the age of 13. He was both a laborer for the landowner and a digger on railway, and a laborer at a paper mill in Yekaterinoslavl.

Service

In the spring of 1915, Nikolai Vlasik was called up for military service. For the courage and courage shown during the hostilities of the First World War, he received an honorary award - the St. George Cross. During the October Revolution of 1917, non-commissioned officer Vlasik sided with the Soviet government. In the same year he became an employee of the Moscow police.

At the end of the winter of 1918, Nikolai Sidorovich ended up in the Red Army. In the fall of 1919, Vlasik was transferred to the central office of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. In May 1926, Nikolai Vlasik received the position of senior commissioner of the Operational Branch of the Joint State Political Administration under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. At the beginning of 1930, he became a department assistant in the same department.

In 1927, Nikolai Sidorovich became the head special protection Kremlin, in fact - the head of personal security. In the mid-1930s, Vlasik was approved for the post of head of the department of the first department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR, and then the head of the entire first department. In November 1942 he became the first deputy head of the first department of the NKVD of the USSR; in May 1943 - head of the sixth department of the People's Commissariat of State Security of the USSR; in August 1943 - first deputy head of the department of the People's Commissariat of State Security. In the spring of 1946, Vlasik became the head of the Main Security Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security (Main Security Directorate). In 1947, Vlasik became a deputy of the Moscow City Council, a deputy of the working people.

CONTINUED BELOW

For many years, Nikolai Sidorovich was a personal bodyguard. Very quickly he became close to the leader, practically a member of his family. After the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, wife, Vlasik took up raising their children and taking care of the house.

In the late spring of 1952, Nikolai Vlasik was removed from his duties as head of security and sent to Asbest as deputy head of the Bazhenov forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Family

The wife of Nikolai Sidorovich was called Maria Semyonovna (years of life - 1908-1996). The couple raised their daughter Nadezhda (born in 1935). She was an adopted daughter for Vlasik, but the relationship between them was truly warm and kindred.

In mid-December 1952, Nikolai Vlasik was arrested in connection with the pest doctors case (a criminal trial initiated against doctors accused of conspiring and killing Soviet leaders). The reason for the arrest was that it was Vlasik who provided treatment for members of the government and was responsible for the trustworthiness of the professors. In January 1955, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR found Nikolai Sidorovich guilty and sentenced him to 10 years of exile and deprivation of state awards and the rank of general. In March of the same year, the term of Vlasik's exile under an amnesty was reduced to 5 years. Krasnoyarsk was chosen as a place for exile.

In December 1956, Nikolai Vlasik was pardoned by the Presidium Supreme Council THE USSR. The criminal record was removed, but in the awards and titles, it was decided not to restore it.

Nikolai Sidorovich was fully rehabilitated only in June 2000. The Supreme Court of Russia overturned the verdict against Vlasik for lack of corpus delicti. The confiscated awards of Nikolai Vlasik were handed over to his daughter Nadezhda in 2001.

Last years of life and death