home Diagnosis and diseases History of barter: Soviet aid - Spanish gold. Spanish gold was exchanged for weapons for the Republicans

History of barter: Soviet aid - Spanish gold. Spanish gold was exchanged for weapons for the Republicans

“Operation “X” is how the program of assistance of the Soviet Union to Republican Spain was coded in the documents of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR and the NKVD. This name first appeared in the minutes of a Politburo meeting at the end of September 1936. By that time, the Francoists who had rebelled in Spain had already created a bridgehead in the south of the country , capturing a significant part of the territory.They received generous assistance from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy: planes, tanks, artillery pieces, shells and bombs, weapon...

Mussolini also sent his own soldiers to Spain (an entire expeditionary force, including a squadron of bombers), and Hitler sent a special air force known as the Condor Legion. Infamous: On April 26, 1937, the Condor Legion wiped out the small town of Guernica, center ancient culture. Thanks to the famous painting by Pablo Picasso, the tragedy of Guernica has become a symbol of the senseless cruelty of war.

As for Soviet support for Republican Spain, it is described in particular detail in a small, low-circulation, but very interesting book, published at the beginning of the 2000s in Moscow, in the “First Monograph” series of the Association of Researchers Russian society XX century. Germans also took part in the publishing projects of this association. The monograph was written by Yuri Rybalkin, a military historian dealing with this topic.

"Natasha" and "Katyushka"

The main directions of Operation X were military-technical assistance to the republican government, the activities of military advisers, the training of military specialists in the army of the republic and direct participation in the hostilities of Soviet volunteers. During the years of the civil war, as Rybalkin writes, the Soviet Union transferred about 650 aircraft to the Spaniards, more than a thousand artillery pieces, tanks, machine guns, several torpedo boats and almost half a million rifles. Moreover, not only old stuff was sent to Spain, but also modern I-15 and I-16 fighters, bombers, which the Spaniards called by Russian names (“Natasha” and “Katyushka”), as well as tanks and armored vehicles.

True, in comparison with the assistance provided to the Francoists by Hitler and Mussolini, the volume of military-technical assistance from the USSR to the Republicans was modest: the Soviet Union supplied half as many artillery pieces, two and a half times less aircraft, three times less tanks and armored vehicles. “This was due to both the economic capabilities of the USSR and political reasons,” emphasizes Yuri Rybalkin. “Stalin’s position regarding the Spanish Republic changed depending on his mood, the situation on the fronts and in the international arena. Gradually, Stalin’s interest in Spain disappeared, even "On the contrary, it was replaced by rejection. There are many known appeals from the republican government to the USSR for help, which Stalin simply ignored."

Strategist Voroshilov

There were also not enough Soviet military advisers in Spain: 600 people during the entire war, from 1936 to 1939. But already at the beginning of 1939 their number was reduced to 84 people. Only very few Soviet advisers knew Spanish. They were unfamiliar with the morals and customs of the Spaniards, so they had to work for a long time with the Republican commanders to whom they were attached. And advisers changed frequently: many were unexpectedly recalled to their homeland, where they were immediately arrested.

In addition, as the Russian historian notes in his book, “contradictory and not always justified instructions” came from Moscow. Simply put, Stalin and Voroshilov determined the directions of the main attacks, tactics and even the specific actions of individual units, without knowing either the combat conditions, the state of the troops, or even the topography of the operational areas. One of the orders of the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov regarding the Zaragoza operation looked like this: “Gather a powerful fist in one place, stock up on reserves and blow into the enemy’s most sensitive place.”

Context

Special attention Rybalkin also pays attention to the direct participation of the Soviet military in the hostilities against Franco. The losses were very large. Soviet technology was inferior to the new German aircraft that Hitler supplied to the Francoists. The lack of combat, and even just flying experience, also affected. Many had flown only 30-40 hours before being sent to Spain, while the German and Italian pilots who fought on Franco’s side had ten times more. Hence, for example, the high percentage of accidents and disasters (in just a year and a half of the Spanish war, almost one and a half hundred were lost because of them Soviet aircraft).

Chekist support

Unfortunately, the Russian historian speaks only briefly and briefly about the activities of the NKVD in Spain. Meanwhile, this activity deserves special discussion. Stalin's "Great Terror", which reached its peak in 1937-38, also spread to Spain. Moreover, the main enemies of the NKVD were, in the end, no longer the true supporters of Franco, but the “Trotskyists and their accomplices.” And it didn’t matter that they fought bravely in the international brigades or were (like Andreas Nin, for example) ministers of the regional governments of the Popular Front.

The security officers were entrusted with another delicate operation - transporting Spanish gold to the USSR, with which the republican government paid for Soviet aid. This story has given rise to many myths.

The "golden" payment for Soviet military aid to the republican government was prerequisite Stalin. The decision to send part of the gold reserves of the State Bank of Spain to the USSR was made in the fall of 1936. Since Franco's troops were already approaching Madrid, about five hundred tons of gold, packed in 7,800 boxes weighing 65 kilograms each, were taken to Cartagena and hidden near the port.

After the Prime Minister of Spain Caballero and the Minister of Finance Negrin officially appealed to the USSR with a request to accept part of the country's gold reserves for storage, the NKVD resident in Spain, Alexander Orlov, was instructed to organize its shipment. The boxes were loaded onto four Soviet ships over several nights. At intervals of a day they went to sea.

The route of the "golden caravan" was carefully designed. On November 2, 1936, the ships arrived at the port of Odessa. Here they were loaded onto a special train and taken to Moscow under heavy security. Stalin was in in a great mood. Spanish gold (ingots, bars, rare coins) was placed in the basement of one of the houses on Nastasinsky Lane in Moscow, supposedly for temporary storage. But at a banquet in the Kremlin, Stalin unexpectedly said: “The Spaniards will not see this gold like their own ears.”

And so it happened. For a long time the fate of the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain was not known at all. But after Stalin’s death, a book was published in the United States by the “defector” Alexander Orlov, who led the NKVD operations in Spain and went into hiding after he was ordered to return to his homeland. Orlov spoke about sending gold to the Soviet Union. A scandal broke out, the echoes of which did not subside for many years.

At one time they even said that “Khrushchev” houses were built using Spanish gold exported to the USSR. This is, of course, a joke. But be that as it may, the history of Spanish gold continues to remain “dark”.

70 years ago, the Spanish Civil War began. In February 1936, for the first time in the history of this country, democratic elections were held, in which the winner Popular Front, which united a number of left-wing parties. But at the same time, right-wing and openly fascist forces consolidated and organized a military rebellion with the aim of overthrowing the legitimate government. The conditional signal for the start of active actions by the conspirators were the words broadcast on the night of July 18-19 by the radio station in the city of Ceuta: “There is a cloudless sky over all of Spain.” On September 29, the Soviet leadership decided to conduct Operation X - providing active military assistance to Republican Spain.

The fate of the Spanish gold reserves, part of which at the end of 1936 ended up in the Soviet Union, is directly related to Operation X. Still this" dark story"(in the words of some Russian and foreign authors) continues to excite historians. It has given rise to many rumors, myths and speculations. Until now, publications with sensational headlines appear in Spain and Russia, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that Moscow has "warmed up its hands" in Spanish gold, based on basic research Spanish experts, as well as Russian archival sources, will try to answer the question of what happened to Spanish gold.

THE WAY TO MOSCOW
To begin with, let us quote a report from a Polish intelligence agent dated November 24, 1936, found among captured documents in the Russian State Military Archive: “When the new Spanish ambassador Pascua was sent to Moscow, he received the broadest powers to conclude a secret agreement with the USSR on the further supply of the Spanish Reds with weapons. Such an agreement was signed on the third day after Pascua’s arrival in Moscow. Its essence was: that the Spanish government of Caballero pledged to keep in Moscow a gold fund amounting to no less than two hundred and fifty million pesetas (half a billion francs), against which Moscow pledged to supply weapons to the Spanish Reds. Thus, this act of “revolutionary support" on the part of the USSR for the government of Caballero consisted before "in all, an element of pure commerce, for Moscow, thanks to the help of the Spanish gold fund, received the opportunity, by no means unimportant in the face of possible international complications, to increase its gold fund. Having received Spanish gold, Moscow began huge and regular shipments of weapons to Spain."

(T-26 from the tank group of Colonel S. Krivosheev, tank crews
were mixed, commanders and mechanics from among Soviet specialists)

By the end of the month, 60 armored vehicles, a squadron of I-15 fighters, artillery systems with ammunition, etc. arrived. And the decision to send part of the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain to the Soviet Union was made by Prime Minister Caballero and Minister of Finance Negrin in the hour of extreme danger - the threat of the capture of Madrid by the Falangists . It seemed to many then that the days of the republic were numbered. Fierce fighting was already taking place in the city itself. And Franco’s radio daily transmitted to Madrid a pre-prepared program for the ceremonial entry of the nationalists into the capital.

Most likely, the republican authorities had no choice in those troubled days. Caballero announced the decision to evacuate the government from Madrid to Valencia. It was these circumstances that influenced the decision to send part of the Spanish gold reserves to the USSR. There are at least two versions about how Spanish gold was exported. According to the first, the Spanish government made this decision under pressure from Stalin. At the same time, arguments are given that are not supported by archival documents, so they cannot be considered sufficiently convincing. But in order to get a complete picture, we will also present this evidence.

On October 15, 1936, the deputy chief military adviser in Spain for counterintelligence and partisan warfare in the rear, A. Orlov (Swede), received a coded telegram from Moscow from the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N. Yezhov: "I am conveying to you a personal order from the Owner(Stalin. - Author's note). Together with Plenipotentiary Rosenberg, organize, in agreement with Caballero: the sending of Spain's gold reserves to the Soviet Union. Use a Soviet ship for this purpose. The operation must be carried out in absolute secrecy. If the Spaniards demand a receipt from you, refuse, I repeat, refuse to sign any document and explain that the formal receipt will be issued by the State Bank in Moscow. You are personally responsible for the success of this operation. Rosenberg was accordingly notified. Ivan Vasilievich(Stalin’s pseudonym. - Author’s note).”

(Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov (Lev (Leiba) Lazarevich Feldbin) - Soviet intelligence officer,
Major of State Security (1935). Resident of the NKVD and adviser to the republican government on
security in Spain (1937-1938). Since July 1938 - defector, lived in the USA)

The next day, Orlov and Rosenberg briefed Finance Minister Negrin on Stalin’s proposal. He agreed to send gold to the USSR. Later, in a US Senate commission, Orlov (after escaping to America) admitted that he and Rosenberg “were simply dumbfounded” at how quickly he allowed himself to be persuaded. As Orlov believed, the ground for such an agreement had already been prepared through the efforts of the Soviet trade representative in Spain A. Stashevsky. But today it was not possible to double-check these facts using archive documents.

According to the Spanish scientist A. Viñas, on October 15, 1936, Caballero and Negrin officially turned to the Soviet Union with a request to accept approximately 500 tons of gold for storage. We find confirmation of the fact of this appeal from the republican government in the “Special Folder” of the protocols of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Here is the resolution of the meeting dated October 19, 1936:
"[...] 59. Question from Comrade Rosenberg.
Instruct Comrade Rosenberg to answer the Spanish government that we are ready to accept gold reserves for safekeeping and that we agree to send this gold on our ships returning from ports on the condition that the gold will be accompanied by authorized representatives of the Spanish government or the Ministry of Finance and that our responsibility for the safety of gold begins from the moment it is handed over to the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR in our port."

(Juan Negrin Lopez. During the Civil War 1936-1939 he was Minister of Finance in the government
Francisco Largo Caballero as representative of the "prietists" (from September 4, 1936 to May 17, 1937)

A telegram with the decision of the highest political leadership of the USSR arrived in Madrid on October 20. By this time, the gold had been exported from Madrid to Cartagena and was stored in old powder magazines near the port. About 510 tons (510,079,529.3 grams to be precise) of gold, packed in 7,800 standard-type boxes (65 kg each), were distributed among four Soviet ships that delivered weapons and ammunition to Cartagena. Gold was in bars, bars, coins, including rare numismatic specimens.
The ships were loaded at night from October 22 to October 25: on the Neva - 2,697 boxes; "KIM" - 2100; "Kuban" - 2020; "Volgoles" - 963. Everything happened in the deepest secrecy. For purposes of secrecy, A. Orlov was called "Mr. Blackstone of the United States National Bank", which President Roosevelt himself allegedly personally sent to Spain to transport gold to Washington. Only seven people in all of Spain were then involved in the operation; on the Soviet side, two were aware of the matter - Orlov and Rosenberg.

The Republican fleet was mobilized to guard the supposed route of the "golden caravan". This is confirmed by the summary of the military situation in Spain dated October 20, 1936, prepared by the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army: "The government fleet, which left the Bay of Biscay on October 13, arrived in the Mediterranean on October 18, 1936 and concentrated in Cartagena". The ships left at daily intervals. The Soviet naval attache and senior naval adviser in Spain N. Kuznetsov provided security for transports at the base and at sea. The route of the "golden caravan" was carefully planned. Having passed through the Mediterranean and Marmara Seas, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and the Black Sea, the transports arrived in the USSR on November 2. There was one representative of the Bank of Spain on each ship. In the port of Odessa, the gold was loaded into a special train and transported to Moscow under heavy security.

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. Litvinov, sending on November 3, 1936 to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. Molotov his proposals for accepting gold, wrote: “Final formalization is possible only after receiving the draft exchange of letters requested from Madrid. It would now be possible to invite the Spanish ambassador in Moscow to write us a letter asking us to accept the gold, but since he is unable to indicate either the weight or the value, such a letter is deprived legal significance. I again telegraphed Comrade Rosenberg to speed up the exchange of letters, as well as to communicate data on the amount of gold sent.".

By November 6, the gold was placed in storage at the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR. Later, an act on the acceptance of gold was drawn up, which in early February 1937 was signed by the Ambassador of the Spanish Republic M. Pascua, the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR G. Grinko and the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs N. Krestinsky. A copy of the act has been sent to the republican government. On April 24, 1937, A. Stashevsky from Valencia sent a coded telegram to the People's Commissar for Foreign Trade A. Rosengoltz: “I found out for sure that the Moscow gold acceptance certificate was handed over to Caballero, and he, in turn, handed it over to Baraibo, the deputy minister of war, a very dubious man.”. After the end of the civil war, this copy of the act was kept by Negrin, and after his death it was transferred to the Franco government.

PRICE OF OPERATION "X"
According to the famous English researcher A. Beevor, at a banquet in the Kremlin on January 24, 1937, Stalin, being in a good mood, allegedly unexpectedly said: “The Spaniards will never see this gold like their own ears.”.
Indeed, Operation X was not free of charge; weapons and equipment were supplied on a commercial basis. The Republic paid for Soviet military aid using gold deposited in the State Bank of the USSR. In addition, Spain paid for supplies military equipment and weapons from third countries purchased there on instructions from the Soviet government; USSR assistance in creating the republic's military industry; sending Soviet people to Spain and their participation in hostilities (salary); benefits and pensions for the families of those killed in the war; training in the USSR personnel for the republican army.

Let us note that funds for operation “X” were released by decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks even before the gold arrived in Moscow. The 1910 thousand rubles and 190 thousand dollars allocated on September 29, 1936 were not enough and on October 13 “additional funds have been allocated for the purchase in Czechoslovakia on a special order, in addition to the already allocated 400 thousand US dollars, another 696,347 US dollars.”

On October 17, the Politburo decides: “1) Approve the dispatch of people and goods to “X” according to the lists submitted by the NPO... 3) Release 2,500,000 rubles from the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to the NPO to cover expenses for a special task".
By November 15, 2,300 thousand rubles and 190 thousand US dollars were spent on sending 455 people and 9 transports with weapons to Spain. dollars. At the Politburo meeting on November 22, an additional 3,468.5 thousand rubles and 48.5 thousand were allocated. dollars to finance the dispatch of 270 people and 5 ships.

We can give other examples of the USSR government allocating funds for Operation X. The total amount of material supplied from the USSR from September 1936 to July 1938 amounted to $166,835,023. And for all shipments to Spain from October 1936 to August 1938, the republican authorities fully paid the entire amount of the debt to the Soviet Union in the amount of $171,236,088. All these figures are contained in the reference notebook of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. Voroshilov with the inscription on the cover "Operation X" .

By adding the cost of military equipment sent at the end of 1938 - beginning of 1939 to Spain from Murmansk via France ($55,359,660), we get the total cost of military-technical supplies. It varies from 222,194,683 to 226,595,748 dollars. Due to the fact that the cargo of the last delivery was not completely delivered to its intended destination and part of it was returned to Soviet military warehouses, the final figure for the cost of military cargo delivered to Republican Spain is 202. $4 million

Calculations for sending people and goods were quite complex, since they included not only salaries, but also travel to Spain and back, maintenance in Moscow, equipment, daily allowances, loading at ports, etc. For example, moving one person across railway via Europe it cost 3,500 rubles and 450 dollars, by sea - 3,000 rubles and 50 dollars, loading transport and providing the team with food - 100 thousand rubles and 5 thousand dollars (advance to the team leader). Until January 25, 1938, 1,555 volunteers were sent from the USSR to Spain, expenses amounted to $1,560,741.87 (6,546,509 rubles and $325,551.37).

The total cost of operation "X" also took into account monetary allowance, which was paid to Soviet military specialists in Spain. Their salaries varied; the pilots received the most. With the sanction of the Politburo, since January 1937, the families of Soviet military personnel killed in Spain were given a one-time benefit in the amount of 25 thousand rubles and pensions. Thus, the family of the commander of the 12th International Brigade, M. Zalka (Lukach), who died in June 1937, was given a pension of 1 thousand rubles. In total, more than 200 Soviet citizens died during the Spanish Civil War, of which 158 were sent only through the military department.

An important item of expenditure was the cost of training national personnel for the Spanish Republican Army in the USSR. Unfortunately, the final figures for tuition fees have not yet been revealed. Only some components are known. Thus, the cost estimate for construction and maintenance of the 20th military school pilots in Kirovobad for training pilots for the Spanish Air Force amounted to 4,022,300 rubles or 800 thousand dollars (this does not include the cost of aircraft, vehicles and other expenses). Republican pilots who studied at the Lipetsk military aviation advanced courses in 1938 received a monthly salary: captain - 1000 rubles, lieutenants - 750 rubles each.
The cost of food and uniform alone for 100 cadets who studied for 1.5 months at the Ryazan Infantry School, the Sumy Artillery School (30 artillerymen), the Tambov School (40 people) and the Gorky Tank School (30 tankmen) amounted to 188,450 rubles or $37,690.

An important feature of Operation X is that, starting in March 1938, it was carried out on credit. First, the Soviet government provided the Spanish government with a loan in the amount of $70 million for a period of three years, and in December 1938 - a new loan in the amount of up to $100 million. Legally, everything was formalized as a loan from the Bank of Spain, which the republican authorities undertook to repay after the end of the civil war.

WAS SECRET NECESSARY?
All events related to the movement of gold from Spain to another country took place in the strictest secrecy. In the “Brief overview of domestic and foreign political events in Spain for the third quarter of 1938” prepared by the 3rd Western Department of the NKID for the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. there is no mention of the fact that the Soviet Union provided military assistance to Republican Spain, and there is not a word about the fate of Spanish gold.

This was the Kremlin's reaction to the fact that “On January 12, the delegates of Germany and Italy in the London Committee raised the issue of exporting the gold reserves of the Spanish Bank.”. Advisor to the USSR Embassy in Great Britain S. Kagan, in a secret message dated April 23, 1937, informed the head of the 3rd Western Department of the NKID A. Neumann: “As the secretary of the French embassy, the Marquis Castellano, confidentially told me, the Italians’ persistent desire to obtain, at all costs, accurate data on the amount of Spanish gold exported after July 18, 1936 (where this gold is located and to what extent it is listed in the deposits of the Spanish government and other institutions of Republican Spain) is caused by the fact that one of the directors of the Spanish Bank who defected to Franco began a process in a French court in order to obtain a decision on the illegality of exporting gold reserves or part of it from Spain abroad. The main difficulty of this director is that he cannot in any way obtain the exact data he needs to conduct the process on the amount of gold exported and where this gold is located. This is where the Italians, having no other ways to obtain this data, tried to obtain this data through a commission of experts. According to Castelano , the French government in given time is not interested in having this data provided, and, for its part, does not intend to provide the information at its disposal on this issue".

In March 1939, the Spanish Republic was defeated. Memory of civil war on the Iberian Peninsula was eclipsed by the Second World War, more terrible and cruel. They “forgot” about Spanish gold for a while. Naturally, no one was going to calculate the total balance, much less make any payments of loans or interest on them. Much later, the Spanish scientist A. Viñas concluded that all the gold of the Bank of Spain sent to the Soviet Union was not appropriated by Stalin, but was completely spent on military assistance (that is, on Operation X).
For many years, no one knew about the operation to export Spanish gold reserves to the USSR. Only in 1953, a book by A. Orlov, who fled from Spain in July 1938, “The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,” was published in the United States, in which he spoke about the export of Spanish gold.
It is now clear that it was hardly correct to hide the fact of sending the Spanish gold reserves to Moscow; this only subsequently served as the basis for various speculations. Of course, one cannot discount the enthusiasm with which people in the USSR and all over the world responded to the call for fundraising to help Republican Spain.

It is possible that the Soviet leadership thought that the message about the export of Spanish gold to Moscow could deprive the USSR of the aura of a “disinterested defender” of revolutionary ideals. At the same time, the legally elected government of the Spanish Republic had every right to dispose of the country's gold reserves at its own discretion and use it to suppress the fascist rebellion. If this had been stated openly, then there would have been no accusations that the republican government existed with money from the Comintern - a thesis that was actively promoted by the Western press at that time.

The fate of the Spanish gold reserves, part of which at the end of 1936 ended up in the Soviet Union, is directly related to Operation X. To this day, this “dark history” (in the words of some Russian and foreign authors) continues to excite historians. It gave rise to many rumors, myths and speculations. Until now, publications with sensational headlines appear in Spain and Russia, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that Moscow has “warmed its hands” on Spanish gold. Based on fundamental research by Spanish specialists, as well as Russian archival sources, we will try to answer the question of what happened to Spanish gold.

THE WAY TO MOSCOW

To begin with, let us quote a report from a Polish intelligence agent dated November 24, 1936, found among captured documents in the Russian State Military Archive:

“When the new Spanish ambassador Pascua was sent to Moscow, he received the broadest powers to conclude a secret agreement with the USSR on the further supply of the Spanish Reds with weapons. Such an agreement was signed on the third day after Pascua’s arrival in Moscow. Its essence was: that the Spanish government of Caballero pledged to keep in Moscow a gold fund amounting to no less than two hundred and fifty million pesetas (half a billion francs), against which Moscow pledged to supply weapons to the Spanish Reds. Thus, this act of “revolutionary support" on the part of the USSR for the government of Caballero consisted before "in all, an element of pure commerce, for Moscow, thanks to the help of the Spanish gold fund, received the opportunity, by no means unimportant in the face of possible international complications, to increase its gold fund. Having received Spanish gold, Moscow began huge and regular shipments of weapons to Spain."

In fact, military specialists and weapons from the Soviet Union began to arrive on the Iberian Peninsula much earlier than Spanish gold ended up in the USSR. The first military advisers were sent to Spain on the 20th of August 1936. And by October 22, 50 T-26 tanks with fuel and ammunition, a squadron of SB high-speed bombers (30 units), and small arms were delivered on five ships. By the end of the month, 60 armored vehicles, a squadron of I-15 fighters, artillery systems with ammunition, etc. arrived. And the decision to send part of the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain to the Soviet Union was made by Prime Minister Caballero and Minister of Finance Negrin in the hour of extreme danger - the threat of the capture of Madrid by the Falangists . It seemed to many then that the days of the republic were numbered. Fierce fighting was already taking place in the city itself. And Franco’s radio daily transmitted to Madrid a pre-prepared program for the ceremonial entry of the nationalists into the capital.

On October 15, 1936, the deputy chief military adviser in Spain for counterintelligence and partisan warfare in the rear, A. Orlov (Swede), received from Moscow a coded telegram from the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N. Yezhov: “I am conveying to you the personal order of the Master (Stalin. - Author's note) . Together with Plenipotentiary Rosenberg, organize, in agreement with Caballero: the shipment of Spain's gold reserves to the Soviet Union. Use a Soviet ship for this purpose. The operation should be carried out in absolute secrecy. If the Spaniards demand a receipt from you, refuse, I repeat, refuse to sign any "there was a document and explain that a formal receipt will be issued by the State Bank in Moscow. You are personally responsible for the success of this operation. Rosenberg, accordingly, has been notified. Ivan Vasilyevich (Stalin's pseudonym - Author's note)."

"[...] 59. Question from Comrade Rosenberg.

Instruct Comrade Rosenberg to answer the Spanish government that we are ready to accept gold reserves for safekeeping and that we agree to send this gold on our ships returning from ports on the condition that the gold will be accompanied by authorized representatives of the Spanish government or the Ministry of Finance and that our responsibility for the safety of gold begins from the moment it is handed over to the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR in our port."

A telegram with the decision of the highest political leadership of the USSR arrived in Madrid on October 20. By this time, the gold had been exported from Madrid to Cartagena and was stored in old powder magazines near the port. About 510 tons (510,079,529.3 grams to be precise) of gold, packed in 7,800 standard-type boxes (65 kg each), were distributed among four Soviet ships that delivered weapons and ammunition to Cartagena. Gold was in bars, bars, coins, including rare numismatic specimens. The ships were loaded at night from October 22 to October 25: on the Neva - 2,697 boxes; "KIM" - 2100; "Kuban" - 2020; "Volgoles" - 963. Everything happened in the deepest secrecy. For purposes of secrecy, A. Orlov was called “Mr. Blackstone from the US National Bank,” whom President Roosevelt himself allegedly personally sent to Spain to transport gold to Washington. Only seven people in all of Spain were then involved in the operation; on the Soviet side, two were aware of the matter - Orlov and Rosenberg.

The Republican fleet was mobilized to guard the supposed route of the "golden caravan". This is confirmed by a summary of the military situation in Spain dated October 20, 1936, prepared by the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army: “The government fleet, which left the Bay of Biscay on October 13, arrived in the Mediterranean on October 18, 1936 and concentrated in Cartagena.” The ships left at daily intervals. The Soviet naval attache and senior naval adviser in Spain N. Kuznetsov provided security for transports at the base and at sea. The route of the "golden caravan" was carefully planned. Having passed through the Mediterranean and Marmara Seas, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and the Black Sea, the transports arrived in the USSR on November 2. There was one representative of the Bank of Spain on each ship. In the port of Odessa, the gold was loaded into a special train and transported to Moscow under heavy security.

By November 6, the gold was placed in storage at the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR. Later, an act on the acceptance of gold was drawn up, which in early February 1937 was signed by the Ambassador of the Spanish Republic M. Pascua, the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR G. Grinko and the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs N. Krestinsky. A copy of the act has been sent to the republican government. On April 24, 1937, A. Stashevsky from Valencia reported in a coded telegram to the People's Commissar of Foreign Trade A. Rosengoltz: “I found out for sure that the Moscow gold acceptance certificate was handed over to Caballero, and he, in turn, handed it over to Baraibo, the Deputy Minister of War, a very dubious person.” After the end of the civil war, this copy of the act was kept by Negrin, and after his death it was transferred to the Franco government.

PRICE OF OPERATION "X"

According to the famous English researcher A. Beevor, at a banquet in the Kremlin on January 24, 1937, Stalin, being in a good mood, allegedly unexpectedly said: “The Spaniards will never see this gold like their own ears.”

Indeed, Operation X was not free of charge; weapons and equipment were supplied on a commercial basis. The Republic paid for Soviet military aid using gold deposited in the State Bank of the USSR. In addition, Spain paid for the supply of military equipment and weapons from third countries purchased there on instructions from the Soviet government; USSR assistance in creating the republic's military industry; sending Soviet people to Spain and their participation in hostilities (salary); benefits and pensions for the families of those killed in the war; training in the USSR personnel for the republican army.

Let us note that funds for operation “X” were released by decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks even before the gold arrived in Moscow. The 1,910 thousand rubles and 190 thousand dollars allocated on September 29, 1936 were not enough and on October 13, “additional funds were allocated for the purchase in Czechoslovakia on a special assignment to the already allocated 400 thousand US dollars, another 696,347 US dollars.”

On October 17, the Politburo decides: “1) Approve the sending of people and goods to “X” according to the lists submitted by the NPO... 3) Allow the NPO from the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR 2,500,000 rubles to cover expenses for a special assignment.” By November 15, 2,300 thousand rubles and 190 thousand US dollars were spent on sending 455 people and 9 transports with weapons to Spain. dollars. At the Politburo meeting on November 22, an additional 3,468.5 thousand rubles and 48.5 thousand were allocated. dollars to finance the dispatch of 270 people and 5 ships.

Calculations for sending people and goods were quite complex, since they included not only salaries, but also travel to Spain and back, maintenance in Moscow, equipment, daily allowances, loading at ports, etc. For example, moving one person by rail via Europe it cost 3,500 rubles and 450 dollars, by sea - 3,000 rubles and 50 dollars, loading transport and providing the team with food - 100 thousand rubles and 5 thousand dollars (advance to the team leader). Until January 25, 1938, 1,555 volunteers were sent from the USSR to Spain, expenses amounted to $1,560,741.87 (6,546,509 rubles and $325,551.37).

The total cost of Operation X also took into account the salary paid to Soviet military specialists in Spain. Their salaries varied; the pilots received the most. With the sanction of the Politburo, since January 1937, the families of Soviet military personnel killed in Spain were given a one-time benefit in the amount of 25 thousand rubles and pensions. Thus, the family of the commander of the 12th International Brigade, M. Zalka (Lukach), who died in June 1937, was given a pension of 1 thousand rubles. In total, more than 200 Soviet citizens died during the Spanish Civil War, of which 158 were sent only through the military department.

An important item of expenditure was the cost of training national personnel for the Spanish Republican Army in the USSR. Unfortunately, the final figures for tuition fees have not yet been revealed. Only some components are known. Thus, the cost estimate for the construction and maintenance of the 20th military pilot school in Kirovobad for training pilots for the Spanish Air Force amounted to 4,022,300 rubles or 800 thousand dollars (this does not include the cost of aviation equipment, vehicles and other expenses). Republican pilots who studied at the Lipetsk military aviation advanced courses in 1938 received a monthly salary: captain - 1000 rubles, lieutenants - 750 rubles each. The cost of food and uniform alone for 100 cadets who studied for 1.5 months at the Ryazan Infantry School, the Sumy Artillery School (30 artillerymen), the Tambov School (40 people) and the Gorky Tank School (30 tankmen) amounted to 188,450 rubles or $37,690.

WAS SECRET NECESSARY?

All events related to the movement of gold from Spain to another country took place in the strictest secrecy. In the “Brief overview of domestic and foreign political events in Spain for the third quarter of 1938” prepared by the 3rd Western Department of the NKID for the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. there is no mention of the fact that the Soviet Union provided military assistance to Republican Spain, and there is not a word about the fate of Spanish gold.

For many years, everything related to Spanish gold became a taboo topic in the USSR. Moreover, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on January 14, 1937, it was proposed that “Comrade Maisky (USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in Great Britain and the Soviet representative in the Committee on Non-Interference in Spanish Affairs. - Author’s note) should strongly object to the discussion by the London Committee the question of Spanish gold." This was the Kremlin’s reaction to the fact that “on January 12, the delegates of Germany and Italy in the London Committee raised the issue of exporting the gold reserves of the Spanish Bank.” Advisor to the USSR Embassy in Great Britain S. Kagan, in a secret message dated April 23, 1937, reported to the head of the 3rd Western Department of the NKID A. Neumann: “As the secretary of the French embassy, Marquis Castellano, confidentially told me, the stubborn desire of the Italians to get at any cost exact data on the amount of Spanish gold exported after July 18, 1936 (where this gold is located and to what extent it is included in the deposits of the Spanish government and other institutions of Republican Spain) is due to the fact that one of the directors of the Spanish Bank who defected to Franco began in French court process, in order to achieve a decision on the illegality of exporting gold reserves or part of it from Spain abroad. The main difficulty of this director is that he cannot obtain the exact data he needs to conduct the process on the amount of gold exported and where this gold is located.This is where the Italians, having no other ways to obtain this data, tried to obtain this data through a commission of experts. According to Castellano, the French government is not interested at this time in having this data provided, and, for its part, does not intend to give the information at its disposal on this matter."

In March 1939, the Spanish Republic was defeated. The memory of the civil war on the Iberian Peninsula was eclipsed by the Second World War, which was more terrible and cruel. They “forgot” about Spanish gold for a while. Naturally, no one was going to calculate the total balance, much less make any payments of loans or interest on them. Much later, the Spanish scientist A. Viñas concluded that all the gold of the Bank of Spain sent to the Soviet Union was not appropriated by Stalin, but was completely spent on military assistance (that is, on Operation X).

For many years, no one knew about the operation to export Spanish gold reserves to the USSR. Only in 1953, a book by A. Orlov, who fled from Spain in July 1938, “The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes,” was published in the United States, in which he spoke about the export of Spanish gold. It is now clear that it was hardly correct to hide the fact of sending the Spanish gold reserves to Moscow; this only subsequently served as the basis for various speculations. Of course, one cannot discount the enthusiasm with which people in the USSR and all over the world responded to the call for fundraising to help Republican Spain. It is possible that the Soviet leadership thought that the message about the export of Spanish gold to Moscow could deprive the USSR of the aura of a “disinterested defender” of revolutionary ideals. At the same time, the legally elected government of the Spanish Republic had every right to dispose of the country's gold reserves at its own discretion and use it to suppress the fascist rebellion. If this had been stated openly, then there would have been no accusations that the republican government existed with money from the Comintern - a thesis that was actively promoted by the Western press at that time.

It's no secret that Joseph Vissarionovich began his career by robbing banks and collectors. Before each raid, he wrote a statement of resignation from the party, so as not to discredit it in case of arrest. And then he applied for admission again. Then the party banned robberies, but Comrade Stalin did not always obey party decisions... Take, for example, the Spanish robbery of 1936. After all, they took 600 million dollars!

Spanish gold

Ali Baba's Cave

At night, a convoy of 20 trucks left Cartagena. We drove without turning on the headlights. There was a car ahead. In addition to the driver, there were two people sitting in it: the chief adviser to the Spanish government on intelligence, counterintelligence and guerrilla warfare Orlov and high-ranking official Spanish state treasury, whose name history has not preserved.
We arrived at our destination in complete darkness. We stopped among the hills and turned on the headlights of the car. Their light brought out from the darkness a huge armored gate, recessed into the hillside. It was a secret warehouse for the Spanish navy. Armed men in uniform opened the gate and the trucks drove straight into the hill.
Wooden boxes lined the walls of the huge warehouse in endless rows. They stored not ammunition, not gunpowder and shells, but real gold. Thousands and thousands of boxes with gold bars and coins...
These were treasures that were brought from overseas colonies over the course of three or four centuries. Perhaps gold was stored here, mined by the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. No, Ali Baba's cave was far from the local treasures.
Alexander Orlov came to take all this to Moscow.

"Top secret"

On July 17, 1936, a counter-revolutionary rebellion broke out in Spain, and within three months General Franco’s troops surrounded Madrid. The Republican government, concerned about the fate of the gold reserves, decided to transport it to some safe place. The safest thing, the ardent revolutionaries considered, was to take the gold to the Soviet Union, which from the very first days of the rebellion expressed its support for the republic. The proposal was sent to Moscow, agreement came immediately.
The transfer of gold to the Country of Soviets was formalized retroactively. The decree did not specifically indicate the location of storage; the document only ordered the Minister of Finance to find a “safe place at his discretion” for storing gold. This issue was to be considered in the Cortes (parliament), but for reasons of secrecy, the deputies were not informed of what was happening.
Orlov, meanwhile, received a radiogram from Moscow marked “top secret.” The decrypted text read: “Agree with Prime Minister Largo Caballero to transport Spanish gold to the Soviet Union. The cargo must be delivered only on Soviet ships. Maintain the strictest secrecy. If the Spaniards ask for receipts, refuse. Explain that all documents will be handed over to them in Moscow after receiving the gold. You are personally responsible for the transaction. Ivan Vasilievich." The signature meant that the order came personally from Stalin.
Alexander Orlov understood what kind of game Joseph Vissarionovich was playing. The scout also understood that his own life was at stake.

Trusting Caballero

Orlov invited the Spanish Minister of Finance to the Soviet Embassy. Already the first minutes of conversation with him reassured the security officer. “A typical soft-spoken intellectual,” the adviser decided. And in general, I was not mistaken. A member of the Socialist Workers' Party, Juan Negrin, rejected communism as a doctrine, as a path for the development of society, but treated the Soviet Union with respect. Negrin was a physiologist by training, but the lack of personnel loyal to the republic forced him to take up finance. The Spanish caballero, true to his word, believed every word of the representative great country- the only one in Europe that supported Spain in its just struggle.
Orlov asked where the gold was. Negrin replied: near Cartagena, in deep cave. It was a great success. Several Soviet warships were constantly stationed in the port of Cartagena. It was necessary to act with lightning speed until rumors leaked that gold reserves were being taken out of Spain. In this case, the danger would increase many times over. On the way to Odessa, the valuable cargo could have been intercepted by the Italians or Germans. And even the Spaniards themselves, with all their internationalism, might not like such an adventure: friendship, of course, friendship, but releasing gold from the country...
The next day Orlov went to Cartagena. His friend, naval attache Nikolai Kuznetsov, was already there, his task was to bring him to full readiness Soviet ships that have just unloaded weapons and ammunition. The problem of transporting gold to the port was also successfully resolved. A Soviet tank brigade under the command of Colonel Krivoshein had just arrived there. It was he who allocated 20 trucks for the business and gave his best drivers. They were dressed in the uniform of Spanish sailors. The 60 Spaniards accompanying the convoy (as well as the Russian drivers) had no idea what exactly they were about to take out. The crews of the Soviet ships that were to deliver the cargo to Odessa did not know this either.

Robbery, and nothing more!

Orlov looked at the loot: about 10 thousand boxes, 72 kilograms of gold in each. More than 700 tons... So late in the evening of October 20, the operation began. The Spaniards accompanying the cargo took the box in twos and carried it to the back of the truck. And during the holidays they played cards - almost everyone was a desperate gambler. This behavior amused Orlov: they rejoice at a few coppers won, sitting on boxes with millions!
The nights were dark and moonless - the Russians were lucky with this. The trucks walked with their headlights off. Most of all, Orlov was afraid of running into Republican patrols. After all, none of the drivers spoke a word of Spanish. They could be mistaken for German spies, arrested, and the boxes opened. Then everything would open up. But by the end of the third night, three-quarters of all the gold (that is, about 540 tons) was safely delivered to four Soviet ships.
When the last box was shipped, Orlov experienced something like shame for the first time. An official from the treasury asked him for a receipt. Trying not to look into the Spaniard’s eyes, sore from three days of lack of sleep, Orlov cheerfully said: “Compañero, I am not authorized to give receipts. Don’t worry, you will receive this document in Moscow at the State Bank when everything has been calculated and weighed.” He became seriously agitated: this is not how things are done. But what could he do? After all, the cargo was already on board the Russian ships! Then the Spaniard made a decision: he was going to Odessa! I took three more with me so that on all four ships there would be a person who would monitor the cargo until it was handed over against receipt. “It would be better if you stayed at home,” Orlov sighed.

The leader's joke

Orlov remained in Spain. And in Odessa, the gold was met by a huge number of NKVD officials from Moscow and Kyiv. For several nights they carried boxes like simple loaders. The gold was loaded onto a special train; the train was also accompanied by hundreds of armed NKVD soldiers.
The Spanish government, having received the news that the gold had been safely delivered to Moscow, stopped worrying about the fate of the valuable cargo. When, after a while, Orlov asked the Ministry of Finance whether the four who had left for the USSR with the gold had returned, they answered him in surprise: “No, and they don’t even answer letters. The guys were probably just having a spree.”
And in Moscow, after the gold was handed over to the State Bank, Stalin arranged a reception for NKVD officers and members of the Politburo. The leader was in a great mood. Of course, 700 tons of gold! About 600 million dollars at the then exchange rate! Comrade Stalin approached People's Commissar Yezhov and whispered to him quietly: “The Spaniards will not see this gold like their ears.” And they both laughed out loud.
But the Spaniards really didn’t see their gold anymore.

One of the main secrets of the USSR is connected with this beautiful ancient building at 3 Nastasinsky Lane in the very center of Moscow. In the basement of this fairytale-like house, built at the beginning of the 20th century in the shape of an old merchant's chest for the Russian Loan Treasury (a state financial institution Russian Empire, designed to provide small - up to 1000 rubles - loans to small merchants and entrepreneurs at low interest rates) in November 1936, 510 tons of gold taken from Spain “at the request” of the republican government were secretly stored - almost the entire gold reserve of the country.

The decision to send gold to the USSR was made by the leaders of the Republican government of Spain - Prime Minister Francisco Largo Caballero and Finance Minister Juan Lopez Negrin in October 1936. According to some historians, the proposal to take gold to the Soviet Union for storage came from I.V. Stalin as a response to requests from the republican leadership of Spain to increase the supply of Soviet weapons to the capital of the country, the city of Madrid, surrounded by the troops of General Franco. An allegedly encrypted telegram with this order was sent to the deputy chief military adviser of the USSR in Spain for counterintelligence, Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov (who had an NKVD certificate in the name of Lev Nikolsky - real name Lev Feldbin) and the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in Spain Marcel Izrailevich Rosenberg from the People's Commissar of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Yezhov himself . However, no documents on this subject have been preserved in the Soviet archives. But - and apparently not by chance - protocol No. 44 of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks has been preserved, from which it follows that the USSR “agreed to accept gold reserves for storage” - allegedly in response to a request from the Spanish government dated October 15, 1936 of the year.

Motor ship "KIM" (Communist Youth International)

One way or another, on October 20, the loading of gold onto the Soviet ships Kim, Kuban, Neva and Volgoles began in the port of the Spanish city of Cartagena. The total volume of gold was about 510 tons, packed in 7,800 wooden boxes. To protect Soviet ships with valuable cargo, the Republican government of Spain mobilized almost its entire combat-ready naval fleet.
As a result, the ships arrived safely in the USSR, and the cargo of gold was first stored in the premises of the Gokhran on Nastasinsky Lane, and then was transported to one of the buildings of the Central Bank on Neglinnaya Street. The participants in this operation received promotions in rank, including NKVD Major Nikolsky - as Pravda reported - was awarded the Order of Lenin “for completing an important government task.” However, this did not prevent A. Orlov from seriously fearing his arrest and execution, and after a series of orders received from Moscow and very dubious, from his point of view, about meetings with Soviet residents in July 1938, he fled first to Canada, and then to The USA, threatening in its letter to the People's Commissar of the NKVD N. Yezhov, in case of persecution, to reveal the USSR intelligence network known to him in Spain and Europe. Orlov's escape, along with other intelligence officers, became one of the reasons first for his resignation (in the fall of 1938, and then for the arrest and execution of Yezhov, who notoriously confessed to all his sins, including homosexuality.
Export Soviet Union Spanish gold did not receive widespread discussion or publicity. In 1937, Soviet representatives categorically refused to discuss this issue at a meeting of the international Committee on Non-Interference in Spanish Affairs, which included all the countries actually participating in the conflict: the USSR, Germany and Italy.
For the first time, the world started talking about the fate of Spanish gold after the publication of A. Orlov’s book in the United States in 1953, in which he spoke about many of the crimes of Stalinism known to him - without, however, revealing a single important state secret and without betraying agents known to him, some of them who were still working in the United States for Soviet intelligence. Since, besides Orlov, only a few knew about the fate of Spanish gold in the USSR, today hardly anyone has accurate information about where this gigantic reserve of gold was sent. According to the unofficial Soviet version, the cost of Spanish gold was already covered by 1938 by the USSR's costs of the war in Spain.

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