Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, died in 1907. She was the ideal companion of the future leader - humble, unquestioning, unnoticed. Svanidze died in 1907. Stalin's mistake was that after 10 years of loneliness, he married a rebellious, active and independent girl. Her name was Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Photo of Stalin's wife, biography, versions of the reasons for her death - all this is presented in the article.
Acquaintance
Dzhugashvili's mother insisted that he should come to Georgia and find a suitable bride. But he didn't like this idea. How will a simple peasant girl look next to the wives of her comrades, educated women who are not at all stupid? Dzhugashvili thought for a long time and finally paid attention to Nadya Alliluyeva.
According to family legend, in 1903, Stalin saved a two-year-old girl when she fell into the water while walking along the embankment. This was in the Caucasus, where the Alliluyevs then lived. After 14 years they met again. Stalin then came to Petrograd and lived for some time in the apartment of his future wife’s family. He was 38. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was barely 16.
Brief biographical information
Nadezhda Alliluyeva was born in 1901 into the family of a revolutionary worker. Her mother was German. The father, according to the daughter of Stalin and Alliluyeva, is a gypsy. In 1932, Stalin's second wife committed suicide. The mystery of her death has not been solved to this day.
Marriage
In February 1918, Nadezhda dropped out of high school. She got a job as a typist in Lenin's secretariat. In March of the same year, she married Dzhugashvili. She had not yet reached her majority then. According to the law issued by Stalin years later, such a marriage is invalid.
Nadezhda grew up among the Bolsheviks and was embraced by revolutionary ideas from a young age. However, she quickly matured after seeing the bloodshed that the war led to. Why did the girl marry a man who treated her, as eyewitnesses claimed, in a boorish, if not rude, manner? Besides, he was 20 years older? Marriage of convenience?
Contemporaries claimed that Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva was a modest person. There are several versions regarding her relationship to her husband. But many researchers, authors of biographies of Stalin’s wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, claim that she really was in love with the leader of the revolution.
Father and daughter
Their second meeting took place during difficult times. Civil War, confusion, terror... The gymnasium where Nadya studied was closed. My father was involved in the revolution, my mother was rarely at home. Nadezhda Alliluyeva became Stalin's wife because she needed someone to rely on. In addition, the tyrant of the 20th century was a rather pleasant person, according to those who had the opportunity to communicate with him. He knew how to be courteous with women and was distinguished by his eloquence and wit.
There is a scandalous version about the reason for Alliluyeva’s suicide. Her mother was very promiscuous in relationships with men. At the beginning of 1900, she also had a relationship with Dzhugashvili. Alliluyeva committed suicide after learning that she was her husband's daughter.
Married to a tyrant
In 1921, son Vasily was born. After 5 years - Svetlana. Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva could have had more children. She had about ten abortions. In those days, as is known, abortion operations were carried out without anesthesia and were an extremely unpleasant procedure for a woman.
In the book dedicated to Stalin’s wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, there is the following scene: in a foreign hospital, a doctor, examining the heroine, utters the phrase: “Poor thing, you live with a real animal.” Of course, no Soviet doctor would ever dare to utter these words. And was it actually said by some nameless doctor? Perhaps this is just Trifonova’s fiction. But, of course, living with the tyrant Alliluyeva was not easy.
Over the years she became more and more closed. Biography, personal life of Nadezhda Alliluyeva - many books are devoted to this topic. But they are written on the basis of assumptions, versions, guesses. The life of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, like everything connected with the name of Joseph Stalin, is shrouded in secrets. Of course, many letters have survived. In them, oddly enough, Stalin is very gentle, and his wife is reserved and cold. At the same time, according to Alliluyeva’s daughter, her mother was pushed to commit suicide by another quarrel with her husband.
There is a version that Stalin's second wife suffered mental disorder. Doctors diagnosed her mother with schizophrenia, which Joseph Vissarionovich learned about after his marriage. Nadezhda Alliluyeva did not have this disease. But she often experienced sudden mood swings. And in the early thirties, she increasingly attended church, which at that time was akin to madness.
Confession of a Dictator
Stalin could not help but know that his wife had become religious. Moreover, his close associates also knew about regular trips to the temple. How did the leader of the Soviet state feel about this? Joseph Dzhugashvili's mother dreamed that her only, beloved son would become a priest. He himself studied at the theological seminary, but did not graduate from it.
Some historians claim that Stalin's wife could not attend church, and all this is nothing more than idle rumors. However, before his death, in March 1953, the Generalissimo confessed. The veracity of this story is confirmed by many facts.
Under Khrushchev, the priest was interrogated a lot, but he, despite the threats, did not reveal the secret of confession. Stalin probably experienced pangs of conscience. He had many sins. But what tormented the Generalissimo most of all before his death? Guilt before the people or before dead wife? Nobody can answer this question.
Disease
Let's go back to the version about mental illness Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She was an easily excitable, nervous person. In addition, she was tormented by terrible headaches. Many legends have been created about the personal life of Nadezhda Alliluyeva. They said that she was incredibly jealous and had a hard time with her husband’s infidelity. But she decided to commit suicide not because of problems in her personal life. Nadezhda Alliluyeva suffered from a serious brain disease caused by improper fusion of the bones of the cranial vault. Among people with a similar diagnosis, suicidal feelings are not uncommon.
An unbearable burden
Nadezhda Alliluyeva saw that life was changing, but it was not changing for the better. She didn’t like collectivization and the lack of food in the store. In November 1927, diplomat Adolf Joffe, a participant in the revolutionary movement, committed suicide. He was ill. But everyone knew that Joffe was a supporter of Trotsky, and reprisals awaited him. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was with the diplomat in good relations. She went to Joffe's funeral and there heard indignant remarks about her husband's dictatorial policies.
She had not been a good housewife before, but in the second half of her twenties she began to devote less and less time to home and children, plunging into public life. Arrests began, many of those imprisoned and executed were her acquaintances. Alliluyeva tried to help them...
Stalin did not need such a wife. In his understanding, a woman should remain silent, cook dinner, raise children and under no circumstances start talking about politics. They were moving further and further away from each other. The most plausible version of the reason for Alliluyeva’s suicide can be formulated this way: she failed to cope with the role of the tyrant’s wife.
Death
On the night of November 8-9, 1932, Stalin's wife shot herself in the heart with a Walter pistol. Her husband was asleep at the time. The maid, seeing Alliluyeva’s body in a pool of blood, called her relatives. When everyone had gathered, they woke up Stalin. He went into his wife’s room, picked up the pistol and said: “Wow, it’s a toy, he shot once a year.”
All Alliluyeva's relatives were arrested. Stalin took revenge on them for the betrayal of his wife - this is how he regarded her departure from life.
Name: Nadezhda Allilueva
Age: 31 year
Place of Birth: Baku; A place of death: Moscow
Activity: Joseph Stalin's wife. Member of the CPSU(b)
Marital status: married to Joseph Stalin
Nadezhda Alliluyeva - biography
Alliluyeva Nadezhda Sergeevna - the second wife of Joseph Stalin, Secretary General Central Committee. Her life is eventful, but at the same time tragic.
Childhood, family
Nadezhda Alliluyeva was born on September 9, 1901. Her biography began in the sunny Azerbaijani city of Baku. She was born into the family of a simple worker. It is known that Svetlana’s father, Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev, was a revolutionary. As the girl herself stated, he also had gypsy roots. There is almost no information left about the girl’s mother, Olga Evgenievna Fedorenko. In her memoirs, the girl claimed that her mother was of German origin.
It's interesting that her godfather became a famous party leader Soviet Union A.S. Enukidze. In addition to Nadezhda herself, there was another child in the family - Pavel.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva - Education
After high school education, Nadezhda Alliluyeva entered the Industrial Academy in 1929, choosing the faculty of textile industry. Khrushchev also studied on the same course. It is known that it was Nadezhda Alliluyeva who introduced Stalin and Khrushchev.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva could always show her character. It is known that when her classmates were arrested, she was not afraid and called Yagoda herself, who at that time was the head of the OGPU. She demanded that her eight friends be released again. But it turned out that this was impossible to do, since suddenly all eight girls in prison became infected with some kind of infectious disease and suddenly died from it.
Career of Nadezhda Alliluyeva
Alliluyeva Nadezhda Sergeevna worked in the People's Commissariat for Nationalities Affairs. For some time she served in the Vladimir Lenin Secretariat. And long time collaborated with the editors of the then famous magazine “Revolution and Culture”, as well as in popular newspaper"Is it true". But the girl’s biography changed greatly and dramatically after the purge in December 1921, when she was expelled from the party, and reinstated four days later.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva - biography of personal life
Death
Nadezhda Alliluyeva died on November 9, 1932. It was suicide, although there are several versions of this death. It is known that on November 7, Nadezhda Sergeevna had a fight with her husband. This happened at a banquet on the fifteenth anniversary of October. One of the versions was that someone stood behind the curtains during a quarrel between the spouses and shot the woman. But there was no evidence for this version.
There were other versions. For example, that the murder of Stalin's wife was necessary because she became his political enemy. And this murder was the work of his assistants. There is a third version that Stalin himself killed her out of jealousy. There is also a version that Nadezhda Sergeevna shot herself after she found out that Stalin had a mistress and illegitimate son. But they are all far from the real truth.
Svetlana Alliluyeva, in her memoirs, said that the quarrel that occurred that evening between the parents was small, but after Nadezhda’s death, Stalin constantly found no place for himself and tried to understand what she wanted to prove to him by this.
The first days after Nadezhda Sergeevna, locked in her room after a quarrel with her husband, shot herself directly in the heart with a Walter pistol, Stalin himself did not want to live. They were even afraid to leave him alone.
There was also a letter that was partly not only personal, but also political. Because of this message, Stalin did not even want to come to her funeral. The cause of Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva’s suicide was a brain disease that she had suffered for a long time. She even went abroad for treatment, but nothing helped, and the pain only became stronger every year. Doctors at that time were unable to change the incorrect fusion of the skull bones, so it was impossible to change anything. In addition, quarrels with Stalin had a negative impact on the progression of the disease, which ultimately led to such an end.
The funeral of the second wife of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva, took place on November eleventh at the famous Novodevichy Cemetery. Stalin himself often visited his wife's grave and could sit for hours on the marble bench that stands opposite his wife's grave.
On September 22, 1901, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, the wife of the all-powerful Stalin, was born. This marriage produced two children, but the relationship between the spouses was uneven. The relationship between Stalin and Alliluyeva ended with her suicide. Until now, the circumstances of the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva remain a mystery to researchers and give rise to many legends - even to the point that Stalin himself killed his wife.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva was born into the family of Sergei Alliluyev and Olga Fedorenko. In Soviet sources, the word “worker” was always used next to the Alliluyev surname. As often happened with high-ranking people in the USSR, his biography, apparently, was subject to edits. In the USSR there was an aristocracy on the contrary. That is, people from quite wealthy families looked for workers and farm laborers among their ancestors, and if for some reason this was completely impossible, they invented incredible stories(“they threw a rich jeweler at the door of the house”, “found it in cabbage”, etc.).
By official version, Sergei Alliluyev was born into the family of a coachman and a maid. The family lived in dire need, soon the father died and young Alliluyev went wandering around the country. However, there are other versions, according to which he was born into a family of wealthy peasants, moved with his family to Vladikavkaz and trained as a mechanic.
Then he settled in Tiflis, where he met his wife. She was only 13 years old at the time, but this did not stop her from running away from home to her lover. True, it was impossible to get married at that age; I had to wait until I came of age.
It was in Tiflis that Alliluyev first met Stalin. However, their relationship could not be called close. He was much more connected with Leonid Krasin, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party at that time.
Soon Alliluyev, due to his activities, “became familiar” in the Caucasus and left for the capital. He settled down well in St. Petersburg. Under the patronage of Krasin, he became the director of one of the substations and earned quite well. Suffice it to say that he could afford to rent a huge four-room apartment with an area of more than 100 square meters and pay 70 rubles a month for it (Stalin’s daughter Svetlana recalled: “In St. Petersburg, my grandfather and his family had a small four-room apartment - such apartments seem like the ultimate dream for our current professors”).
And at the same time, he could pay for all four children’s studies at the gymnasium. For comparison, an ordinary laborer in those days received about 25 rubles a month, and a skilled worker (i.e., one who had education and specialty) rarely earned more than 80 rubles.
Sergey Yakovlevich Alliluev
Having taken a high position, Alliluyev could no longer risk it, so he reduced his underground activities to a minimum. Some delicate assignments were carried out by his children, as evidenced by his son Pavel: “We, children, as the most convenient means from the point of view of conspiracy, are involved in carrying out all sorts of simple but responsible assignments, such as: communication with safe houses, delivery of literature, letters, posting proclamations and, strange as it may seem now, carrying and transporting cartridges, revolvers, printing fonts for illegal printing houses, etc.
However, it is unknown whether Nadezhda carried out such orders. In addition to studying at the gymnasium, she studied music; her father even bought a piano for this, which was quite expensive at that time.
Although Alliluyev retired from active underground activities, secret meetings of party leaders were sometimes held in his apartment. It was there that after the defeat of the “July days” Lenin hid for some time. However, Alliluyev's apartment became most famous in connection with Stalin, who lived there after returning from exile throughout 1917.
Stalin
Nadezhda met Joseph Stalin at the age of 11. Then he stayed briefly in their apartment. But a closer acquaintance, which resulted in a novel, occurred already in 1917. Nadezhda was 16 years old, Joseph was 22 years older and already had a son, whom he did not raise due to his revolutionary activities.
Stanislav Frantsevich Redens
For some time they lived without signing. This was a fashionable fad among the revolutionaries of the time. The marriage was officially registered only in 1919. Nadezhda's older sister Anna later claimed that Stalin had abused Nadezhda and that his father was going to shoot him when he found out about it. But he warmly assured him that he was madly in love with his daughter and wanted to marry her. Nadezhda seemed to not want this, but gave in to her father. And Alliluyev, in a terrible secret, entrusted this story only to Anna. The story is dubious, since no one but her mentioned it, and it is worth noting that Anna Alliluyeva had every reason to hate Stalin. Her husband, a security officer in Redens, was shot during the Great Terror, and she herself spent several years in the camps.
Marriage
Nadezhda Alliluyeva joins the party and gets a job as a secretary in the apparatus of the Council of People's Commissars. At that time, the Bolsheviks actively advocated for the “emancipation of women” and campaigned for their active participation in the party and social work, as well as in work in production. However, Stalin himself, apparently, adhered to conservative views on this issue. Therefore, he treated his wife’s work with visible displeasure and insisted that she concentrate on fulfilling family responsibilities. Lenin, who learned about this, exclaimed: “Asian!” (in Lenin’s understanding, this word was synonymous with backwardness and lack of culture).
After the debunking of the Stalinist cult of personality, a tendency arose to paint Nadezhda as an unhappy woman who found herself in the lair of a tyrant and torturer. This was facilitated by the image preserved thanks to Alliluyeva’s photographs. She almost always looks meek and dreamy and is sharply dissonant with the appearance of her domineering husband. Nevertheless, Nadezhda was not a downtrodden housewife. Undoubtedly, Stalin was a very difficult person to communicate with, but Nadezhda also had a character and they often had quarrels.
Already at the very beginning of her married life, she was going to return to her father and they did not speak for quite a long time. The reason was Stalin's familiarity. He addressed his wife as "you", and she addressed him as "you". Now this is no longer very clear, but in pre-revolutionary times “poking” was perceived as rudeness. It is no coincidence that in February 1917, revolutionary soldiers were among the first to put forward a demand to prohibit officers from addressing soldiers as “you.”
Alliluyeva received an almost noble upbringing: metropolitan gymnasium, musical exercises, - Stalin grew up practically on the street. He addressed all his associates in his inner circle as “you,” as evidenced by Kaganovich and Mikoyan. It was “poking” that became the cause of many quarrels between spouses, and this is what Lenin’s secretary Fotieva spoke about when she talked about Stalin’s rude treatment of his wife.
I.V. Stalin and his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva on vacation in Sochi. 1932 Collage © L!FE Photo: © RIA Novosti
In 1921, Alliluyeva was expelled from the party during the next purge, when the Bolsheviks expelled the so-called. "fellow travelers". Apparently, Stalin, if he did not have a hand in this, at least did not create obstacles. Apparently, he believed that his wife had no use for party work. However, Lenin found out about the expulsion and was outraged by this, demanding that the daughter of an honored man to whom he owed so much be returned to the party.
After the birth of her children, Nadezhda focused on maternal responsibilities (despite the appearance of housekeepers), which suited Stalin, but did not really suit her. He wrote to Maria Svanidze, the wife of the brother of Stalin’s first wife, that he regretted it because she “tied herself with new family ties” (meaning the birth of a second child).
Avel Safronovich Enukidze
Alliluyeva wanted to go to study, but her husband was categorically against it. Only the intervention of Abel Enukidze, who at that time held the high post of Chairman of the Central Election Commission, helped. Enukidze was Alliluyeva’s godfather and involved Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Through joint efforts, Stalin was persuaded to let his wife go to study. She entered the Industrial Academy, where her classmate was the future leader of the Soviet state, Nikita Khrushchev. It was thanks to his wife that the Kremlin leader heard about him for the first time.
A very high-ranking and knowledgeable security officer, Orlov-Feldbin, stated: “Extraordinary precautions were taken so that no one at the institute, with the exception of the director, would know or guess that the new student was Stalin’s wife. The head of the OGPU Operations Directorate Pauker was assigned to the same faculty under the appearance of students of two secret agents who were entrusted with taking care of her safety."
Shot
The circumstances that led to the fatal shot are still unclear. Although there were quite a few witnesses to the last quarrel between the spouses, they all left confused memories that have only one thing in common: the quarrel really took place.
In November 1932, in Voroshilov’s Kremlin apartment in a narrow circle Soviet leaders celebrated the 15th anniversary of the revolution. Nadezhda Alliluyeva always dressed rather modestly and unpretentiously, but this evening she dressed up in a way she rarely did.
Everyone describes the quarrel that happened that evening differently. Molotov claimed that nothing special happened, it was just that Alliluyeva was groundlessly jealous of her husband: “Alliluyeva was, in my opinion, a little psychopathic at that time. All this affected her in such a way that she could no longer control herself. From that evening she left with my wife, Polina Semyonovna. They walked around the Kremlin. It was late at night, and she complained to my wife that she didn’t like this, didn’t like this. About this hairdresser... Why did he flirt so much in the evening... It was just like that, he drank a little, it was a joke. Nothing special, but it had an effect on her. She was very jealous of him. Gypsy blood."
Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov
Irina Gogua, who knew Alliluyeva from childhood, was not present at the quarrel, but nevertheless had her own version: “They were all at Voroshilov’s. And Nadya was sitting opposite Joseph Vissarionovich. He, as always, broke a cigarette, filled his pipe and smoked. Then he rolled it up "The ball shot out and hit Nadya in the eye. And so Nadya, with her very great restraint, said something sharply to him about an Asian joke."
Khrushchev was also not personally present at these events, however, in his memoirs, with reference to Stalin’s security chief Vlasik, he reported: “After the parade, as always, everyone went to Voroshilov’s for dinner. Nadezhda Sergeevna was not there. Everyone left, and Stalin also left. He left, but didn’t come home. It was already late. Nadezhda Sergeevna began to show concern - where was Stalin? She started looking for him by phone. First of all, she called the dacha. The call was answered by the duty officer. Nadezhda Sergeevna asked: “Where is Comrade Stalin?” “Comrade Stalin is here.” - “Who’s with him?” - He called: “Gusev’s wife is with him.” In the morning, when Stalin arrived, the wife was already dead.”
Alliluyeva's nephew with reference to sister He also reported hopes for other relatives: “Stalin jokingly threw it on her plate orange peel(he really had such a mocking habit, and he often joked like that with children) and shouted to her: “Hey, you!” - “I’m not saying ‘hey, you’!” - Nadezhda flared up and, getting up from the table, left the banquet.
Nikolai Bukharin’s husband and Stalin’s granddaughter Galina also report about the conflict (with reference to family stories). Denies conflict only Foster-son Stalin Artyom Sergeev, who claimed that Alliluyeva shot herself because of a serious illness (she was tormented by severe headaches).
However, all these memories contradict each other in detail. It is now impossible to establish the true circumstances of the latest quarrel between the Kremlin spouses. The version of Alliluyeva’s nephew seems to be the closest to reality, since it is known that she really did not like it when her husband addressed her as “you”, and repeatedly quarreled with him because of this.
After the quarrel, Nadezhda returned home, went into the room, put the gun to her chest and pulled the trigger. They discovered her only in the morning. None of the household members heard the shot. Stalin's daughter claimed that her mother left a suicide note, which her father read, but no one saw this note. If it existed, Stalin destroyed it.
Funeral
The next day, all the newspapers came out with condolences over the sudden death of a close friend and comrade of the leader, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. The unexpected death of a 31-year-old woman sparked rumors that Stalin killed her out of jealousy or that she shot herself in protest against brutal collectivization. It is worth noting that the tone of condolences was maintained as if it was not about Stalin’s wife. They called her the daughter of an old and honored Bolshevik, a fighter for the happiness of the working people, a close friend and comrade of the leader, but they tried not to remind them that she was first and foremost a wife.
Not only the circumstances of Alliluyeva’s death remain a mystery. The question of Stalin's presence at the funeral is also debatable. Alliluyeva’s nephew, citing family stories, claimed that Stalin did not go to the cemetery, saying that “she left as an enemy,” and allegedly saying to Enukidze: “You baptized her, you bury her.” Stalin's daughter Svetlana also wrote that her father was not at the funeral.
However, according to most evidence, Stalin was still present at the funeral. Even Orlov-Feldbin, who was critical of the leader, argued that Stalin came to the cemetery by car, and not as part of a funeral procession. Molotov and Kaganovich also testify that Stalin was at the funeral and was very worried about what happened.
After death
Stalin, apparently, was really very worried about what happened. At least in the first few years. He persuaded Bukharin to exchange apartments so that nothing would remind him of the past. He began to build a new dacha and eventually moved to live there.
Almost all the relatives of Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, came under repression. Even Alexei Svanidze, her brother and close friend of Stalin himself, who was executed in 1942, did not escape them. However, he did not touch his relatives along the Alliluyev line, with the exception of Anna Redens. Her husband, high-ranking security officer Stanislav Redens, was shot during the Great Terror. She herself was sent to camps after the war. Stalin communicated with his father-in-law Sergei Alliluyev until his death in 1945. One of her brothers, Pavel, died of a heart attack in 1938. Another brother, Fedor, worked in the Stalinist secretariat until the death of the leader.
In 1935, Stalin's life appeared new woman. 18-year-old Valentina Istomina-Zhbychkina, who recently arrived from the village. The leader liked her and until his death she remained his faithful housekeeper. Over time, they became so close that she became almost the only person he trusted unreservedly.
For a young village girl not particularly interested in politics, he was a real celestial being, omnipotent and omniscient. And not a revolutionary with dubious prospects, as for the first wife, and not a friend of the father who suddenly burst into the measured world of the family in an era of revolutionary unrest, as for the second. This was Stalin's happiest, although unregistered, marriage.
Her name was Ekaterina Semyonovna Svanidze or simply Kato. She was born in 1885, 7 years later than her future chosen one. Catherine came from a noble family, but, as Andrei Galchuk writes in the publication “ Amazing Russia“, at the very beginning of the 1900s, she was an ordinary day laborer, that is, she made a living by washing, ironing and sewing for strangers. It was at that moment that fate brought her together with Joseph. This happened thanks to brother Kato Alexandru, whom his loved ones simply called Alyosha.
Alyosha Svanidze studied at the Tiflis Theological Seminary together with Joseph Dzhugashvili. Moreover, they were friends. Therefore, it is not surprising that one day Alyosha invited Stalin to visit him. Alexander knew very well about the political position of his friend, therefore, according to the author of the book “Stalin. The Life of One Leader” by Oleg Khlevnyuk, tried with all his might to protect his 3 sisters from this information. However, the girls were not too interested in this. Moreover, the appearance of the guest, according to Edward Radzinsky (“Joseph Stalin. The Beginning”), did not make any impression on them. But Dzhugashvili himself was amazed by the beauty of one of the sisters, Alyosha Kato.
In 1919, forty-year-old Stalin married young Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She was then only seventeen years old; At the same time, Stalin brought her little brother into his house.
The Soviet people first learned the name of Nadezhda Alliluyeva in November 1932, when she died and a grandiose funeral procession stretched through the streets of Moscow - the funeral that Stalin gave her could, in its pomp, be compared with the funeral corteges of Russian empresses.
She died at the age of thirty, and, naturally, everyone was interested in the reason for this such an early death. Foreign journalists in Moscow, having not received official information, were forced to content themselves with rumors circulating around the city: they said, for example, that Alliluyeva died in a car accident, that she died of appendicitis, etc.
It turned out that rumor suggested to Stalin a number of acceptable versions, but he did not use any of them. Some time later, he put forward the following version: his wife was ill, began to recover, but, contrary to the advice of doctors, she got out of bed too early, which caused complications and death.
Why couldn't they just say that she got sick and died? There was a reason for this: just half an hour before her death, Nadezhda Alliluyeva was seen alive and well, surrounded by a large company of Soviet dignitaries and their wives, at a concert in the Kremlin. The concert was given on November 8, 1932 on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the October Revolution.
What actually caused sudden death Alliluyeva? Two versions circulated among OGPU employees: one, as if tested by the authorities, said that Nadezhda Alliluyeva had shot herself, the other, transmitted in a whisper, claimed that Stalin had shot her.
One of my former subordinates, whom I recommended to join Stalin’s personal guard, told me something about the details of this case. That night he was on duty in Stalin’s apartment. Soon after Stalin and his wife returned from the concert, a shot was heard in the bedroom. “When we burst in,” the guard said, “she was lying on the floor in a black silk evening dress, with curled hair. A pistol was lying next to her.”
There was one strange thing in his story: he did not say a word about where Stalin himself was when the shot was fired and when the guards ran into the bedroom, whether he was there too or not. The guard was silent even about how Stalin perceived the unexpected death of his wife, what orders he gave, whether he sent for a doctor... I definitely got the impression that this man would like to tell me something very important, but was expecting questions from me. Fearing that the conversation would go too far, I hastened to change the subject.
So, I learned from a direct witness to the incident that the life of Nadezhda Alliluyeva was cut short by a pistol shot; Whose hand pulled the trigger remains a mystery. However, if I sum up everything I knew about this marriage, I should perhaps conclude that it was suicide.
It was no secret to high-ranking officers of the OGPU-NKVD that Stalin and his wife lived very unfriendly. Spoiled by the unlimited power and flattery of his entourage, accustomed to the fact that all his words and actions evoke nothing but unanimous admiration, Stalin allowed himself in the presence of his wife such dubious jokes and obscene expressions that no self-respecting woman could withstand. She felt that by insulting her with such behavior, he took obvious pleasure, especially when all this happened in public, in the presence of guests, at a dinner party or party. Alliluyeva’s timid attempts to pull him back caused an immediate rude rebuff, and when drunk, he burst out with the most choice obscenities.
The guards, who loved her for her harmless character and friendly attitude towards people, often found her crying. Unlike any other woman, she did not have the opportunity to freely communicate with people and choose friends on her own initiative. Even when meeting people she liked, she could not invite them “to Stalin’s house” without obtaining permission from him and from the OGPU leaders responsible for his security.
In 1929, when party members and Komsomol members were thrown into the rise of industry under the slogan of the speedy industrialization of the country, Nadezhda Alliluyeva wanted to make her contribution to this matter and expressed a desire to enter some educational institution where one could obtain a technical specialty. Stalin didn’t want to hear about it. However, she turned to Avel Enukidze for help, he enlisted the support of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and together they convinced Stalin to let Nadezhda study. She chose a textile specialty and began studying viscose production.
So, the dictator's wife became a student. Extraordinary precautions were taken to ensure that no one at the institute, with the exception of the director, knew or guessed that the new student was Stalin’s wife. The head of the Operations Directorate of the OGPU, Pauker, assigned two secret agents to the same faculty, under the guise of students, who were entrusted with taking care of her safety. The driver of the car, who was supposed to deliver her to classes and bring her back, was strictly ordered not to stop at the institute entrance, but to turn the corner into an alley and wait there for his passenger. Later, in 1931, when Alliluyeva received a brand new GAZ car (a Soviet copy of a Ford) as a gift, she began to come to the institute without a driver. OGPU agents, of course, followed on her heels in another car. Her own car did not arouse any suspicion at the institute - at that time in Moscow there were already several hundred high-ranking officials who had their own cars. She was happy that she managed to escape from the musty atmosphere of the Kremlin, and devoted herself to her studies with the enthusiasm of a person doing an important matter of state.
Yes, Stalin made a big mistake by allowing his wife to communicate with ordinary citizens. Until now, she knew about government policies only from newspapers and official speeches at party congresses, where everything that was done was explained by the party’s noble concern for improving the lives of the people. She, of course, understood that in order to industrialize the country, the people had to make some sacrifices and deny themselves many things, but she believed the statements that the standard of living of the working class was increasing from year to year.
At the institute she had to make sure that all this was not true. She was shocked to learn that the wives and children of workers and employees were deprived of the right to receive ration cards, and therefore food products. Meanwhile, two students, having returned from Ukraine, told her that in areas especially seriously affected by famine, cases of cannibalism were noted and that they personally took part in the arrest of two brothers who were found with pieces of human meat intended for sale. Alliluyeva, struck by horror, retold this conversation to Stalin and the head of his personal security, Pauker.
Stalin decided to put an end to hostile attacks in his own home. Having attacked his wife with obscene language, he told her that she would not return to the institute again. He ordered Pauker to find out who these two students were and arrest them. The task was not difficult: Pauker’s secret agents assigned to Alliluyeva were obliged to observe who she met within the walls of the institute and what she talked about. From this incident, Stalin made a general “organizational conclusion”: he ordered the OGPU and the party control commission to begin a fierce purge in all institutes and technical schools, turning Special attention on those students who were mobilized to carry out collectivization.
Alliluyeva did not attend her institute for about two months and only thanks to the intervention of her “guardian angel” Enukidze was able to complete her course of study.
About three months after the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Pauker had guests; there was talk about the deceased. Someone said, regretting her untimely death, that she did not take advantage of her high position and was generally a modest and meek woman.
- Meek? – Pauker asked sarcastically. - So you didn’t know her. She was very hot-tempered. I would like you to see how she flared up one day and shouted right in his face: “You torturer, that’s what you are! You torture your own son, you torture your wife... you tortured the whole people!”
I also heard about such a quarrel between Alliluyeva and Stalin. In the summer of 1931, on the eve of the day scheduled for the couple’s departure for vacation to the Caucasus, Stalin for some reason became angry and attacked his wife with his usual public abuse. She spent the next day in the hassle of leaving. Stalin appeared and they sat down to dinner. After lunch, the guards carried Stalin's small suitcase and his briefcase into the car. The rest of the things had already been delivered directly to the Stalinist train in advance. Alliluyeva took the hat box and pointed to the guards at the suitcases she had packed for herself. “You won’t go with me,” Stalin suddenly declared. “You’ll stay here!”
Stalin got into the car next to Pauker and drove off. Alliluyeva, amazed, remained standing with a hat box in her hands.
She, of course, did not have the slightest opportunity to get rid of her despot husband. There would be no law in the entire state that could protect her. For her, it was not even a marriage, but rather a trap, from which only death could free her.
Alliluyeva's body was not cremated. She was buried in a cemetery, and this circumstance also caused understandable surprise: a tradition had long been established in Moscow, according to which deceased party members were supposed to be cremated. If the deceased was a particularly important person, the urn with his ashes was walled up in the ancient Kremlin walls. The ashes of lesser dignitaries rested in the wall of the crematorium. Alliluyeva, as the wife of the great leader, should, of course, be honored with a niche in the Kremlin wall.
However, Stalin objected to cremation. He ordered Yagoda to organize a magnificent funeral procession and burial of the deceased in the ancient privileged cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, where the first wife of Peter the Great, his sister Sophia and many representatives of the Russian nobility were buried.
Yagoda was unpleasantly surprised that Stalin expressed a desire to follow the hearse all the way from Red Square to the monastery, that is, about seven kilometers. Responsible for the personal safety of the “owner” for twelve seconds extra years Yagoda knew how much he strives to avoid the slightest risk. Always surrounded by personal guards, Stalin, nevertheless, always came up with additional, sometimes even ridiculous, techniques to ensure his own safety even more reliably. Having become an autocratic dictator, he never dared to walk the streets of Moscow, and when he was going to inspect some newly built factory, the entire factory territory, on his orders, was cleared of workers and occupied by troops and OGPU employees. Yagoda knew how Pauker would get if Stalin, walking from his Kremlin apartment to his office, accidentally met with one of the Kremlin employees, although the entire Kremlin staff consisted of communists, checked and rechecked by the OGPU. It is clear that Yagoda could not believe his ears: Stalin wants to follow the hearse on foot through the streets of Moscow!
The news that Alliluyeva would be buried at Novodevichy was published the day before the burial. Many streets in central Moscow are narrow and winding, and funeral processions are known to move slowly. What is it worth for some terrorist to look out the window of the figure of Stalin and throw a bomb from above or shoot at him with a pistol, or even a rifle? Reporting to Stalin several times a day on the progress of preparations for the funeral, Yagoda each time tried to dissuade him from a dangerous undertaking and convince him to arrive directly at the cemetery at the last moment, in a car. Unsuccessfully. Stalin either decided to show the people how much he loved his wife, and thereby refute possible unfavorable rumors for him, or his conscience troubled him - after all, he caused the death of the mother of his children.
Yagoda and Pauker had to mobilize the entire Moscow police and urgently request thousands of security officers from other cities to Moscow. In each house along the route of the funeral procession, a commandant was appointed, who was obliged to drive all residents into the back rooms and prohibit them from leaving there. In every window facing the street, on every balcony there was a gunman. The sidewalks were filled with a public consisting of police officers, security officers, members of the OGPU troops and mobilized party members. All side streets along the planned route had to be blocked and cleared of passers-by from early morning.
Finally, at three o'clock in the afternoon on November 11, the funeral procession, accompanied by mounted police and OGPU units, moved from Red Square. Stalin actually walked behind the hearse, surrounded by other “leaders” and their wives. It would seem that all measures were taken to protect him from the slightest danger. However, his courage did not last long. About ten minutes later, having reached the first one he encountered, path of the square, he and Pauker separated from the procession, got into a waiting car, and the cortege of cars, one of which included Stalin, raced in a roundabout way to the Novodevichy Convent. There Stalin waited for the funeral procession to arrive.
Grave of Nadezhda Alliluyeva
As I already mentioned, Pavel Alliluyev followed his sister when she married Stalin. In these early years, Stalin was affectionate with his young wife and treated her brother as part of his family. In his house, Pavel met several Bolsheviks, little known at that time, but who later occupied the main positions in the state. Among them was Klim Voroshilov, the future People's Commissar of Defense. Voroshilov treated Pavel well and often took him with him when going to military maneuvers, aviation and parachute parades. Apparently, he wanted to awaken Pavel’s interest in the military profession, but he preferred some more peaceful occupation, dreaming of becoming an engineer.
I first met Pavel Alliluyev at the beginning of 1929. It happened in Berlin. It turns out that Voroshilov included him in the Soviet trade mission, where he monitored the quality of supplies of German aviation equipment ordered by the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense. Pavel Alliluyev was married and had two small children. His wife, the daughter of an Orthodox priest, worked in the personnel department of a trade mission. Alliluyev himself was listed as an engineer and was a member of the local party cell. Among the huge Soviet colony in Berlin, no one, except for a few senior officials, knew that Alliluyev was a relative of Stalin.
As a state control officer, I was tasked with overseeing all export and import transactions carried out by the trade mission, including secret military purchases made in Germany. Therefore, Pavel Alliluyev was subordinate to me and we worked hand in hand for more than two years.
I remember when he first came into my office, I was struck by his resemblance to his sister - the same regular facial features, the same oriental eyes, looking at the light with a sad expression. Over time, I became convinced that his character was in many ways reminiscent of his sister - just as decent, sincere and unusually modest. I want to emphasize one more of his properties, so rare among Soviet officials: he never used weapons if his opponent was unarmed. Being Stalin's brother-in-law and Voroshilov's friend, that is, having become a very influential person, he never made this clear to those mission employees who, out of careerist motives or simply because of a bad character, plotted intrigues against him, not knowing with whom they were dealing.
I remember how a certain engineer, subordinate to Alliluyev and involved in the inspection and acceptance of aircraft engines manufactured by a German company, sent a memo to the mission leadership, where it was said that Alliluyev had a suspicious friendship with German engineers and, having fallen under their influence, carelessly monitored the inspection aircraft engines sent to the USSR. The informant considered it necessary to add that Alliluyev also reads newspapers published by Russian emigrants.
The head of the trade mission showed this paper to Alliluyev, noting that he was ready to send the scoundrel to Moscow and demand his expulsion from the party and his removal from the Vneshtorg apparatus. Alliluyev asked not to do this. He said that the man in question was well versed in motors and checked them very conscientiously. In addition, he promised to talk to him face to face and cure him of his intriguing tendencies. As we see, Alliluyev was too noble a man to take revenge on the weak.
Over the two years of working together, we touched on many topics in our conversations, but only occasionally talked about Stalin. The fact is that Stalin didn’t interest me too much even then. What I managed to learn about him was enough to disgust me with this person for the rest of my life. And what new could Paul tell about him? He once mentioned that Stalin, drunk on vodka, began to sing spiritual hymns. Another time I heard from Pavel about such an episode: once in a Sochi villa, leaving the dining room with a face distorted with anger, Stalin threw a knife on the floor of the dining room and shouted: “Even in prison they gave me a sharper knife!”
I broke up with Alliluyev in 1931, as I was transferred to work in Moscow. Over the next years, I almost never had to meet with him: sometimes I was in Moscow, and he was abroad, sometimes vice versa.
In 1936, he was appointed head of the political department of the armored forces. His immediate superiors were Voroshilov, the head of the political department of the Red Army, Gamarnik, and Marshal Tukhachevsky. The reader knows that the following year Stalin accused Tukhachevsky and Gamarnik of treason and anti-government conspiracy, and both of them died.
At the end of January 1937, while in Spain, I received a very warm letter from Alliluyev. He congratulated me on receiving the highest Soviet award - the Order of Lenin. The letter contained a postscript with very strange content. Pavel wrote that he would be glad to have the opportunity to work with me again and that he was ready to come to Spain if I took the initiative and asked Moscow to be assigned here. I couldn’t understand why it was I who needed to raise this issue: after all, Pavel just had to tell Voroshilov about his desire, and the job would be done. On reflection, I decided that the postscript was attributed to Alliluyev simply out of politeness: he wanted to once again express his sympathy to me, expressing his readiness to work together again, he wanted to once again demonstrate his friendly feelings.
In the autumn of the same year, when I was in Paris on business, I decided to inspect the international exhibition taking place there and, in particular, the Soviet pavilion. In the pavilion, I felt someone hug me by the shoulders from behind. I turned around and the smiling face of Pavel Alliluyev was looking at me.
- What are you doing here? – I asked in surprise, meaning by the word “here”, of course, not the exhibition, but Paris in general.
“They sent me to work at the exhibition,” Pavel answered with a wry smile, naming some insignificant position he occupied in the Soviet pavilion.
I decided he was joking. It was impossible to believe that yesterday’s commissar of all armored forces of the Red Army was appointed to a position that could have been filled by any non-party member of our Paris trade mission. It is even more incredible that this would happen to a Stalinist relative.
The evening of that day was busy for me: the NKVD resident in France and his assistant invited me to dinner at an expensive restaurant on the left bank of the Seine, near Place Saint-Michel. I hastily scribbled the address of the restaurant on a piece of paper for Pavel and asked him to join.
In the restaurant, to my surprise, it turned out that neither the resident nor his assistant knew Pavel. I introduced them to each other. Lunch was already over when Pavel needed to leave for a few minutes. Taking advantage of his absence, the NKVD resident bent down to my ear and whispered: “If I had known that you would bring him here, I would have warned you... We have Yezhov’s order to keep him under surveillance!”
I was taken aback.
After Pavel and I left the restaurant, we leisurely walked along the Seine embankment. I asked him how it could happen that he was sent to work at the exhibition. “Very simple,” he answered bitterly. “They needed to send me somewhere far away from Moscow.” He paused, looked at me searchingly and asked: “Have you heard anything about me?”
We turned down a side street and sat down at a table in the corner of a modest cafe.
“Big changes have taken place in recent years...” Alliluyev began.
I was silent, waiting for what would follow.
“You must know how my sister died...” and he fell silent hesitantly. I nodded, waiting for him to continue.
- Well, since then he stopped accepting me.
One day, Alliluyev, as usual, came to Stalin’s dacha. At the gate, the guard on duty came out to him and said: “It’s ordered not to let anyone in here.” The next day Pavel called the Kremlin. Stalin spoke to him in a normal tone and invited him to his dacha next Saturday. Arriving there, Pavel saw that the dacha was being rebuilt, and Stalin was not there... Soon Pavel was sent from Moscow on official business. When he returned a few months later, some Pauker employee came to him and took away his Kremlin pass, ostensibly in order to extend its validity. The pass was never returned.
“It became clear to me,” said Pavel, “that Yagoda and Pauker inspired him: after what happened with Nadezhda, it was better for me to stay away from him.”
– What are they thinking about there! – he suddenly exploded. – What do they think I am, a terrorist, or what? Idiots! Even here they are spying on me!
We talked most of the night and parted when it was already getting light. We agreed to meet again in the coming days. But I had to urgently return to Spain, and we never saw each other again.
I understood that Alliluyev was in great danger. Sooner or later the day will come when Stalin will become unbearable at the thought that somewhere nearby the streets of Moscow are still wandering the one whom he made his enemy and whose sister he brought to the grave.
In 1939, walking past a newsstand - this was already in America - I noticed a Soviet newspaper, either Izvestia or Pravda. Having bought the newspaper, I immediately began looking through it on the street, and a mourning frame caught my eye. This was an obituary dedicated to Pavel Alliluyev. Before I even had time to read the text, I thought: “He’s finished him off!” The obituary “with deep sorrow” reported that the commissar of the armored forces of the Red Army, Alliluyev, died untimely “in the line of duty.” The text was signed by Voroshilov and several other military leaders. There was no Stalin's signature. As in relation to Nadezhda Alliluyeva, now the authorities carefully avoided details...