Lebed Alexander Ivanovich, Russian, was born on April 20, 1950 into a working-class family in Novocherkassk. After graduating from school, he worked as a loader and then as a grinder at the Novocherkassk permanent magnet plant. Here I met my future wife Inna Alexandrovna Chirkova.

In 1969, Alexander Lebed entered the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command Twice Red Banner School. After graduating from college in 1973, he served there as commander of a training platoon and company.

In 1981-82, he commanded the first battalion of the 345th separate parachute regiment in Afghanistan.

In 1982 he entered the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze and graduated with honors in 1985.

He was appointed deputy commander of the parachute regiment, then commander of the parachute regiment in Kostroma.

From 1986 to 1988 he was deputy commander of the airborne division in Pskov.

Since 1988 - commander of the Tula Airborne Division, with which he was in Tbilisi and Baku.

In 1990, he was awarded the rank of major general.

Best of the day

In 1990, A. Lebed was elected as a delegate to the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU and the founding congress of the Russian Communist Party. At the last congress he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the RCP.

In February 1991, he was appointed deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training and universities.

In August 1991, he prevented bloodshed during the confrontation near the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in Moscow.

On June 23, 1992, he arrived in Tiraspol to eliminate the armed conflict in the region. He was the last commander of the now liquidated 14th Combined Arms Russian army in Transnistria.

In June 1995, with the rank of lieutenant general, he was transferred to the reserve by decree of the President of Russia.

December 17, 1995 elected deputy State Duma from Tula constituency N176.

At the beginning of January 1996, the initiative group nominated Alexander Lebed as a candidate for President of Russia. During the elections, as an independent candidate, he took third place, gaining 14.7% of the Russian vote.

On June 18, 1996, by decree of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, he was appointed Secretary of the Security Council and Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation for national security.

On July 15, 1996, B. Yeltsin signed an order appointing Alexander Lebed Chairman of the Commission on Higher Education military positions and the highest special ranks of the Council on Personnel Policy under the President.

Occupying the post of Secretary of the Security Council, he stopped the war in Chechnya. On October 15, 1996, he was dismissed by presidential decree.

In 1995, Alexander Lebed headed the All-Russian public movement "Honor and Motherland", and since December 1996 he has been Chairman of the Russian People's Republican Party.

Alexander Lebed is a Russian military man and politician. The general visited the war in Afghanistan, participated in the events of 1991, personally signed the Khasavyurt agreements, and as governor Krasnoyarsk Territory desperately fought against banditry, corruption and drunkenness of residents. Once in his youth he dreamed of becoming a pilot, but it was the sky that destroyed him.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Ivanovich was born into a working-class family in Novocherkassk (Rostov region). My father, a native of Ukraine, spent two years in a camp for two 5-minute delays to work, went through the Great Patriotic War. IN Peaceful time, being an excellent car mechanic, painter and carpenter, taught labor lessons to schoolchildren. Mom worked at the local telegraph office all her life.

At the age of 5, Sasha had a younger brother, Alexey, who in the future also made a career as a military man and politician. Alexander was a sports enthusiast from his youth, was fond of boxing and played chess masterfully. He also dreamed of the sky and was going to become a pilot. After school, he surprised me with his loyalty to his dream - for three years in a row he stubbornly tried to conquer the selection committee of the Armavir Flight School.

However young man every time doctors rejected educational institution– in a sitting position exceeded the permissible height standards. Between jobs, he earned money as a loader in a store. And then he became a polytechnic student and worked for a year as a grinder at a factory in his hometown.

Military service

The man has several certificates of education in his collection. The desire to become a pilot resulted in a military career. Lebed sat down at the desk of the Ryazan Airborne School, where he later remained in command of a training platoon and company. He received another diploma, with honors, from the Military Academy. Frunze.

Alexander Ivanovich passed Afghan war as a battalion commander of paratroopers, where he even received a shell shock. In the 80s he replenished achievement list ranks of commander and his deputy of the parachute regiments of Ryazan, Kostroma and Pskov. And before perestroika, he participated in the suppression of riots against Soviet power that broke out in Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 1990, Lebed rose to the rank of major general.

During the coup d'etat in August 1991, the man was deputy commander of the Airborne Forces and took direct part in historical events - together with the Tula paratroopers, he besieged the building of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. However, not even a day had passed before Lebed joined his comrades.

Afterwards, Alexander Ivanovich led the liquidation of the armed conflict in Transnistria for three years, trying to preserve the army and weapons for the Russian Ministry of Defense. And in 1995, they put an end to his military career by dismissing the lieutenant general to the reserve. Lebed himself submitted a report, disagreeing with the idea of ​​reorganizing the troops. The paratrooper reserved the right to wear military uniform and opened the door to big politics.

Policy

A former communist and party member, by the end of 1995 he was already sitting in the chair of a State Duma deputy from the Tula constituency, and a month later he announced his candidacy for the election of the President of the country.

Success accompanied Alexander Ivanovich - according to the results of the first round, he made it to the top three, gaining almost 15% of the votes. But at the second stage, he expressed support for Yeltsin in exchange for the post of Secretary of the Russian Security Council, while receiving “special powers.” The position of Assistant to the President for National Security was added to the position.

IN new role Alexander Lebed participated in the development of the Khasavyurt Agreements - his signature is in the documents regulating relations between the Russian Federation and Chechnya and the cessation of hostilities on Chechen lands. In the fall, a terrible political scandal broke out. The military man, at the instigation of the Minister of Internal Affairs Anatoly Kulikov, was falsely accused of preparing a military coup and was sent into retirement.

In 1998 political biography Lebed was supplemented by the post of governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. 59% of the population voted in his favor. The elections were held with loud scandals - a lot of violations were discovered on the part of candidates for the position, and even a couple of criminal cases were opened.

To the leadership of the region new governor started at the beginning of summer and immediately quarreled with the top of the Norilsk Nickel Plant, which contributed only a third of taxes to the regional budget. The plant actually stood on the lands of the region, but the Norilsk Mining Company was registered in Taimyr, which took the lion's share of taxes. To eliminate injustice, Alexander Ivanovich did not have enough authority.

The regional leader tried to apply radical measures to a number of issues. The general limited the sale of alcohol, announced a delay in salaries for employees of the regional administration until the issue of debts to representatives of the public sector was resolved, and came into conflict with business, convicting entrepreneurs of criminal ties with bandits.

Alexander Lebed had his own view of governing the state and regions. The man believed that the bulk of the region’s income should remain “at home”; economic issues should only be resolved by locals, otherwise it is impossible, because Russia is too big. Lebed mentioned a famous joke:

“Until the signal from the dinosaur’s head reaches the tail, it needs to be turned in the opposite direction, and there is no feedback at all.”

People treated Swan differently. Someone loudly criticized him, accusing him of ignorance of local problems, since the governor’s team consisted mainly of Muscovites. Others appreciated the contribution to development native land, because during the economic crisis, when neighboring regions were experiencing a terrible decline, the Krasnoyarsk Territory felt good against their background.

Personal life

Alexander Ivanovich met his future wife, a mathematics teacher by training, while he was working as a grinder at a factory. After four years of dating, in 1971, Inna Alexandrovna agreed to marry a young man.

Three children were born into the family. The eldest son Sasha graduated from the Tula Polytechnic University and devoted his life to the field of cybernetics. Daughter Ekaterina is also a graduate of this university and is married to a military man. Younger son Ivan studied at MSTU. Bauman. The children gave their parents three grandchildren.

Alexander Lebed was known as a supporter healthy image life, since 1993 he completely gave up alcoholic drinks. He joked that he was now the only fundamentally sober person in the country. Every day the man went for a run, and in the winter he went skiing. IN free time loved to sit in silence with a book, preferred the classics of Russian literature -, liked the works of and.

And Alexander Ivanovich himself tried his hand at writing. Two books came from his pen: “It’s a shame for the state” and “The Ideology of Common Sense.”

In November 1996, Lebed visited America and made friends there with. The men kept in touch until the general's death. The actor even came to the Krasnoyarsk Territory to support a friend in the elections.

Death

April 28, 2002 is the date of death of Alexander Lebed. The general was flying to the presentation of a newly built ski slope. A helicopter carrying the governor and members of the administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory crashed near the village of Aradan, colliding with a power line.

The tragedy was blamed on the inexperienced crew of the Mi-8. However, there was room for other assumptions. One of them is that several grams of explosives were attached to the helicopter rotor blades.

The entire top government, from and ending with the Minister of Defense, expressed condolences to the widow of the deceased general. Alexander Lebed rests in the capital of Russia on Novodevichy Cemetery.

Awards

• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of the Red Star
• Two orders “For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR”
• Order of Suvorov
• Golden double-headed eagle with diamonds (highest award) Russian Academy arts)

Lebed Alexander Ivanovich

Lieutenant General, Secretary of the Security Council, who in August 1996 signed the agreements in Khasavyurt that ended the First Chechen war. In 1998-2002 - governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Biography

After graduating from school (1967), he tried several times to enter aviation schools, where he was not accepted due to his height and other medical indicators.

In 1969-1973 he studied at the Ryazan Higher Airborne School, where his commander was Pavel Grachev.

After serving in Afghanistan (1981-1982), he entered and graduated with honors Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze (1985).

In 1985-1988 he served as deputy commander and commander of airborne divisions in Kostroma, Pskov, and Tula.

In 1988 he participated in preventing the Armenian pogrom in Baku, in 1989 - 1990 he participated in the suppression of anti-Soviet protests in Baku and Tbilisi.

During the August 1991 coup, Lebed went over to the side of Boris Yeltsin, giving the order to defend The White house, where the Supreme Council was located.

In June 1992, General Lebed was appointed commander of the 14th Guards Combined Arms Army stationed in Transnistria. Thanks to his efforts, it was possible to end the armed conflict.

During the First Chechen War

Dismissal from the army

In the winter of 1994-1995, Alexander Lebed disagreed with Pavel Grachev on the conduct of the operation in Chechnya.

General Lebed called the introduction of troops into Chechnya in December 1994 “stupidity and stupidity,” saying that servicemen of the 14th Army “under no circumstances” will participate in military operations in Chechnya.”

Answering a question about the possibility of moving to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and leading the operation in the North Caucasus, Lebed replied that “if the conversation is about the withdrawal Russian troops from Chechnya, then I am ready to lead this operation."

In the summer of 1995, having disagreed with the order to disband the 14th Army and reorganize it into a peacekeeping Operational Group of Russian troops as part of the Joint peacekeeping forces in Transnistria, General Lebed submitted his resignation.

On June 15, 1995, he was released from his post and early dismissed from the Armed Forces.

Political activity

In October 1995, he headed the public movement "Honor and Motherland", and in December 1995 he became a deputy of the State Duma of the 2nd convocation.

In January 1996 he participated in presidential elections and in the second round he supported Boris Yeltsin.

On June 17, 1996, Alexander Lebed received an offer from Boris Yeltsin to take the post of Secretary of the Security Council. Lebed also insisted on the resignation of the Ministry of Defense of Pavel Grachev, with whom he refused to work, and the appointment of Igor Rodionov in his place.

In the evening of the same day, Lebed reported that he had prevented an attempt by “circles close to the former Minister of Defense” to organize “GKChP No. 3” after the removal of Grachev and “gave the command to the Central command post The General Staff should not transmit orders and instructions from Grachev, who was dismissed."

On June 18, Lebed officially took office as Secretary of the Russian Security Council “with special powers” ​​and also became Assistant to the Russian President for National Security.

On August 10, 1996, on the fourth day after the separatists captured Grozny and captured Gudermes and Argun, Lebed was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the Russian President in Chechnya.

On August 11, Lebed met with Aslan Maskhadov, agreeing to resolve issues related to the cessation of hostilities and the beginning of the withdrawal of federal forces.

On August 16, at a press conference dedicated to the results of his trip to Chechnya, Lebed demanded that Boris Yeltsin remove Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov from his post and entrust the Security Council Secretary with command of a group of federal troops in Chechnya: “You, Boris Nikolayevich, face a difficult choice - either Lebed , or Kulikov...", "...two birds cannot get along in one den."

On August 17, General Konstantin Pulikovsky signed an order to cease hostilities throughout the republic.

Khasavyurt agreements

On August 31, Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov met in Khasavyurt, Dagestan, and signed a joint statement on " Principles for determining the basis of relationships between Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic."

The “principles” provided for the withdrawal of the Russian army from the republic and the signing of a political agreement between Russia and Chechnya on the “deferred” status of the Chechen Republic until the end of 2001.

The agreements with the separatists and the recognition of the de facto independence of Ichkeria were sharply criticized by the left opposition and the Minister of Internal Affairs.

Criticism and resignation

On October 2, 1996, the Duma heard reports from Alexander Lebed and Anatoly Kulikov. Kulikov, in particular, stated that “the Khasavyurt agreements are a fiction, a cover for unilateral, unlimited concessions in the most humiliating and destructive forms,” that “in the army and law enforcement agencies already open on different levels, from privates to generals, they are talking about the next round of national treason" and compared the logic of supporters of the agreements with the logic of Vlasov and Petain.

Follow up

In 1998, Alexander Lebed won the gubernatorial elections in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In his post, he tried to carry out reforms in the region, unsuccessfully fought with the oligarchs - Vladimir Potanin, who headed Norilsk Nickel, and Anatoly Bykov, who controlled the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, criticized the management system in the country, etc.

On April 28, 2002, the governor died in a Mi-8 helicopter crash in the area of ​​Lake Oyskoye.

Notes

1. Lebed A.I. It's a shame for the state... M.: "Moskovskaya Pravda", 1995. P.10.
2. Lebed A.I. It’s a shame for the state... M.: “Moskovskaya Pravda”, 1995. P.13.
3. Lebed A.I. It’s a shame for the state... M.: “Moskovskaya Pravda”, 1995. P.54-160.
4. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
5. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
6. Lebed A.I. It’s a shame for the state... M.: “Moskovskaya Pravda”, 1995. P.382-406.
7. Press conference of General A.I. Swan. Tiraspol 1992 // Youtube, September 1992.
8. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
9. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
10. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
11. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
12. Pavel Grachev - “Komsomolskaya Pravda”: “I regret that I agreed to become Minister of Defense” // Komsomolskaya Pravda, 09/23/2012.
13. Presidential Decree of July 17, 1996 No. 1035 “On the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation” // Yeltsin Center.
14. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
15. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
16. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
17. Chronicle of an armed conflict. Comp. A.V. Cherkasov and O.P. Orlov. M.: Human Rights Center "Memorial". P.83-84.
18. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
19. Lebed Alexander Ivanovich // Panorama, July 1998.
20. Alexander Lebed died in a plane crash // Lenta.ru, 04/28/2002.

On Wednesday, the man responsible for the death of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, General Alexander Lebed, was released. The Sverdlovsk District Court of Krasnoyarsk granted the request for the parole of Takhir Akhmerov, the first pilot of the helicopter in which the Governor General and seven other people accompanying him crashed to death on April 28, 2002. Takhir Akhmerov served half of his 4-year sentence in a penal colony. He still does not consider himself guilty. As the pilot stated immediately after his release, he now intends to try to return to flying work again.

Takhir Akhmerov worked as a driver in the colony - he drove the crew of the personal helicopter of the head of the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in a "six". He says that he does not consider the sentence imposed on him to be lenient, and the punishment to be proportionate. That is why he applied for parole. The leadership of the colony supported him. In 2 years, as Izvestia was told by the Federal Penitentiary Service of the region, the pilot has proven himself with best side. This means that the outcome of the case was practically a foregone conclusion - the court had no reasons for refusal.

Akhmerov came to the court hearing without an escort. Everything was decided in 40 minutes. After this, the convict was taken to a colony, parole papers were drawn up and released. A joyful Tahir Akhmerov said that after his health improves, he will try to return to work. Although it is unlikely that the 53-year-old pilot will ever be allowed to take the helm.

The swan did not put pressure on the crew

Akhmerov still considers himself innocent and says that while flying the helicopter, he saw no danger to its passengers. The pilot's first interview while free was given to Izvestia's correspondent Alexander Makarov.

news: Tahir, clarify, is Alexander Lebed to blame for what happened? After the disaster, many said that it was he who put pressure on the crew, insisting that you continue the flight, although the weather conditions were bad.

Tahir Akhmerov: I already said at the trial that Lebed came into our cockpit only once - when he set the task for the flight.

Izvestia: Maybe you were oppressed by a sense of responsibility that you could not complete the task?

Akhmerov: I’m not a boy - I have 30 years of flying experience behind me. The prevailing conditions made it possible to continue the flight. If I saw that there was a real security threat, I would turn the helicopter around.

Izvestia: How did the prisoners treat you?

Akhmerov: Normal. About 60 percent of them are drivers who committed a crime due to negligence. An accident occurred, a person died, someone should be punished for this. The investigation established that they were the ones who were speeding. No one is immune from this.

news: Two years ago the court ordered you to pay legal costs. This was a serious amount. Did you manage to pay?

Akhmerov: I must pay 80 thousand rubles as compensation for legal costs. I paid, it seems, 10 thousand. Money was automatically deducted from my salary. The victims have no financial claims against me - they are suing the airline. I read that Elena Lopatina (the journalist who flew with Lebed) won the lawsuit - she should be paid 500 thousand rubles. But her husband considered that this was not enough and filed an appeal.

Izvestia: What will you do when you leave the colony?

Akhmerov: Health.

Lebed's associates still believe that he was killed

One of Alexander Lebed’s associates, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the region Oleg Zakharov still believes that the governor was a victim of sabotage.

Remember, when it became known about the death of Alexander Ivanovich, the whole country gasped: “The Swan was killed.” At that time I was skeptical about this version. But then at the Novodevichy cemetery I met former officers GRU. They, on their own initiative, went to the scene of the disaster and came to the unequivocal conclusion - it was a special operation. Several grams of explosives were attached to the propeller blades. The charge was activated from the ground. Under normal conditions, the helicopter is not afraid of such damage - it will simply “fall” into an air pocket of 10-20 m and again gain altitude or land softly. But here there was a collision with a power line - despite the skill of the pilots, who did everything humanly possible, the wire wound around the tail rotor.

How did Governor Lebed die?

On April 28, 2002, a Mi-8T helicopter with 17 passengers, led by Governor Lebed, was heading to the presentation of a new ski slope in the Ermakovsky district. According to court materials, that flight initially had violations. There were more passengers than seats in the cabin, the flight map was old and too large, the weather forecast was unfavorable, and the pilots did not know the route to the landing point.

According to eyewitnesses, the fog in the mountains was a continuous wall. However, periodically “windows” appeared in the sky. Since the pilots did not know the route well, the head of the Ermakovsky district administration, Vasily Rogovoy, was sent to them as a guide.

A thick wire of a high-voltage power line appeared just a few tens of meters in front of the windshield of the helicopter absolutely unexpectedly. The helicopter began to fall. According to experts, Akhmerov made a mistake - the car went up too sharply. The lead rotor could not withstand the load - its blades bent and began to “chop” the tail of the helicopter. A moment later, one of the surviving tail rotor blades “wound” the lightning conductor wire. The car crashed from a height of 66 m. Eight people died on the spot.

What happened after the accident?

Alexander Lebed is buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. A bronze monument was erected on the grave. Everyone collected funds for it Krasnoyarsk Territory However, according to unofficial information, most of the required amount was allocated by the head of Russian Aluminum, Oleg Deripaska. The Krasnoyarsk Cadet Corps, streets in the village of Novouspenka, Ermakovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Territory, and in the city of Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, are named after General Alexander Lebed.

Along with him, the deputy governor for social issues Nadezhda Ivanovna Kolba, the head of the regional tourism department Lev Yakovlevich Chernov, the head of the Ermakovsky district Vasily Konstantinovich Rogovoy, an employee of the Shushensky sanatorium Lev Konzinsky, the operator of the Krasnoyarsk State Television and Radio Company Igor Vasilievich Gareev, a correspondent for the 7th Channel television company died. Pivovarova Natalya Viktorovna, correspondent of Segodnya Gazeta Konstantin Stepanov.

Many of the survivors of this tragedy became disabled. Journalist of the newspaper "Krasnoyarsk Worker" Elena Lopatina suffered more than anyone else in that plane crash. She has undergone 7 operations, but still moves with great difficulty. In order not to “go crazy within four white walls,” Elena Lopatina performs some duties in her newspaper. “The accident occurred due to general laxity and irresponsibility,” she says. “I can’t look at these people [the pilots]. It was entirely possible to land in the nearest town and get there by car.

* I don’t like prostitutes, neither in skirts nor pants.
* We don’t swear, we talk to them.
* A Democratic General is the same as a Jewish reindeer herder.
* He who shoots first laughs last.
* An ataman without a gold reserve is not an ataman.
* There are no sinless airborne generals.
* If there are no culprits, they are appointed.
* Anyone who doubts that Russia has a special path, let him travel along our roads.

Alexander Lebed

All revolutions in the history of our country were made with bayonets. The army was the main force that decided the outcome of the rebellion. Whichever side she took, that side won the confrontation. This historical experience Russian Empire and the USSR could not be ignored by those who prepared the 1991 coup. Therefore, the first main blow of the degenerated party nomenklatura and the top of the KGB was aimed at destroying the army. Therefore, Gorbachev’s main idea was general disarmament, but in fact, discrediting the army, reforming, replacing and subordinating its leadership. His followers, Yeltsin and Putin, are tirelessly doing the same thing. They fear only the army - the only force capable of challenging the regime, protected by intelligence services and police.

However, in the 90s there were three generals who came very close to the goal: Rutskoy in 93, Lebed in 96, Rokhlin in 98. All of them were slandered and digested by the system, the last two died under suspicious circumstances.

If two of them appear as heroes among patriots (Rutskoy and Rokhlin), then Swan arouses hatred even among patriots.

What's left of him?

Betrayal in Khasavyurt.

This is the first thing that comes to mind, hammered into it by TV propaganda.

How did this happen?

I’ll say right away: I have an ambivalent attitude towards Swan, for me he is not an absolute hero, but not a traitor either. However, the falsehoods spread about him require us to think about why he was made a traitor and who needs it.

Part 1. Peacemaker

Victim of Soviet power

Lebed Alexander Ivanovich was born in the city of Novocherkassk on April 20, 1950 in a family of ordinary workers. According to his passport, his nationality is Russian, although his younger brother Alexey was registered as Ukrainian in honor of his mother, Ekaterina Grigorievna, born a Don Cossack.

Father, Ivan Andreevich, in 1937, after the second five-minute delay to work, received five years in the camps. After serving two years, he was transferred to a penal battalion and sent first to the war with Finland, and then with Germany. Having miraculously survived the bloody battles, Ivan Lebed was demobilized in 1947, and in 1978 he died from the consequences of his wounds.

This version of the biography, as you understand, is too liberally biased: 5 minutes late, camps, penal battalion, died 30 years later from his wounds. It was apparently written by some fascist liberal. The biography of Lebed will be rewritten more than once, interpreted in a way that is beneficial to this moment, and we will draw your attention to this. This part was written, judging by the handwriting, during the period of the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Yeltsin bacchanalia, when only those who suffered from the Soviet regime were accepted into power and such details were a mandatory part of their biography. For the destroyers of the country, this was a marker - “theirs.” If such details were not in the biography, they were made up. And the bloodier the better. But Yeltsin is only the heir to such a policy. Already in the late USSR, a significant part of the Central Committee consisted of relatives and children of those repressed. That's exactly what they were driving force perestroika.

According to another version, Lebed's father was in exile as the son of a kulak. After exile, he fought, and after being demobilized, he came to Novocherkassk, where his sisters already lived. He worked at a school as a labor teacher. He had specialties: car mechanic, carpenter, painter, roofer, stove maker. Mother, Ekaterina Grigorievna, a Don Cossack, worked all her life at the telegraph office in Novocherkassk.

The eldest son Alexander was registered as Russian, the younger Alexey (a colonel and also a State Duma deputy) as Ukrainian. Giving an interview to the newspaper of the Russian Party of Crimea, General Lebed - as a commentary on the topic of Russian-Ukrainian relations raised by the interviewer - mentioned this fact, accompanied by slight bewilderment. The bewilderment is completely unnecessary: ​​in mixed Russian-Ukrainian families, children were traditionally registered “in half”, fortunately the Soviet system of recording nationality did not prevent this. Alexander Lebed considered himself Russian, his wife Inna Aleksandrovna Chirkova (a school mathematics teacher by training) was Russian, and both of his sons were registered as Russians.

To end this national issue, I will cite an apocrypha of Donetsk origin (not from Donetsk, which is in Lebed’s native Rostov region, but from the neighboring capital of Donbass). As if Lebed was asked: “What will happen if you are not elected president of Russia?” And he allegedly answered: “And then I will run for office in Kyiv. The crests will definitely elect me to spite the Muscovites. And then we will get to Moscow - but in an exclusively peaceful, civilized, ELECTORAL way!”

We must take into account that Lebed was, after all, from a family of repressed people, and how this affected his perception of the events in which he became a participant. As well as the following moment of the biography:

In June 1962, as a 12-year-old teenager, Lebed witnessed the shooting of demonstrators on Novocherkassk Square. This is how his "family friend" describes it:

According to the mother’s recollections, her sons were sitting on a huge old mulberry tree in the courtyard of their home when they started shooting in the square. “The boys fell from the branches like sparrows to run there,” but grandmother Anastasia Nikiforovna “drove the boys home.”

Should you believe the “writer, family friend” or mother? I already warned you. Nevertheless, this is an important episode, which was later interpreted in the “right direction”, describing the events of August 1991.

And again, I have to add: Lebed’s mother avoided communicating with journalists - firstly, because of the past sad experience when her words were twisted and then “I was ashamed in front of my sons and neighbors”, and secondly, because she was embarrassed by her poor vision, almost blindness. She became blind after an erroneous “funeral” for Alexander from Afghanistan. Therefore, the reliability of the above-described biography of Lebed raises certain doubts.

Military career

Graduated in 1967 high school, Alexander Lebed submitted an application to the military registration and enlistment office for enrollment in the Kachin Flight School, but did not pass the medical examination. I had to use a Komsomol permit to go to work as a grinder at the Novocherkassk permanent magnet plant, where I worked for a year (and where, by the way, I met my future wife - she was then secretary of the Komsomol organization his workshop). For another year he worked as a loader in a grocery store. After repeated failure with the Kachinsky School (I didn’t pass the “sitting height” test), I tried to enter the Armavir Aviation School for two summers in a row, but each time, due to health reasons, I again failed to pass the medical examination. After another failure in the summer of 1970 with the Armavir Aviation School, he submitted documents to the Ryazan Airborne Command School - and entered. The health requirements for future paratroopers turned out to be less stringent than for pilots.

Until 1981, he served within the walls of his native “training school” - first as a platoon commander, then as a company commander. Moreover, Lebed led the platoon under the command of a senior officer Pavel Gracheva, who led his company at that distant time. I also had to live in the same room as Grachev in the hotel, which served as a dormitory for the officers of the school. The future "Russia's best defense minister" taught the future secretary of the Security Council to play cards.

This interesting fact biography, acquaintance with Grachev will greatly influence the fate of Lebed. But their personal relationships are just as ambiguous in interpretation. And you will see it. This clearly doesn't look like friendship.

From 1981 to July 1982, Alexander had to visit Afghanistan as commander of the first battalion of the 345th parachute regiment. At this time, his brother Alexey had already commanded a reconnaissance company there for two years. Lebed writes about this war in his memoirs “It’s a shame for the state”: “Afghanistan is pain, Afghanistan is tears, Afghanistan is memory. This is anything, but not a shame - the soldiers fulfilled their duty in full. They did not win that war and they couldn’t win - the situation was not the same. There was no Moscow behind them, there was no Russia, but they didn’t lose it, because they were the descendants of Suvorov and Zhukov’s soldiers - Afghanistan was paid for with 15 thousand lives honestly given in an incomprehensible war.
About 40 thousand were wounded and maimed. This was a fair soldier's price for political insanity. And she, this payment, cannot be shameful."

During the war, Lebed was shell-shocked. The mother was informed that he had been killed. Since then she began to go blind.

Without stopping at his military education, in the summer of 1982 he passed the entrance exams to the Frunze Military Academy, which he graduated with honors in 1985. In subsequent years, Lebed served in Ryazan, Kostroma, Pskov, until, finally, in 1988, he established himself as commander of the airborne division in Tula. Thus, Alexander, without skipping a single required step, by the age of forty had gone from a simple platoon lieutenant to a division commander general. His chest was decorated with four orders: military orders - the Red Star, the Red Banner and "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" II and III degrees. At the same time, his colleagues considered him an excellent military man, although he did not shine with military leadership talents. Lebed was a candidate for master of sports in boxing, ran every day, and in his free time liked to read domestic literature. It was also known about him that he hardly drank, was strict with his subordinates, and never curried favor with his superiors. Unfortunately, he had no close friends. The general did not get along closely with anyone, but on the contrary he parted very easily.

Lessons from Tbilisi

In 1988, the situation in the country began to heat up. Airborne troops began to be actively involved in carrying out tasks in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. The Tula division, among others, was sent to suppress the rebellions. First in Baku, where after Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian pogroms began, then to Georgia. On April 9, 1989, a crowd of demonstrators gathered in front of the Government House was dispersed in Tbilisi. As a result, eighteen people died. Actually, Lebed at that moment was with his convoy at the city airport and did not take direct part in the “beating of civilians.” But I saw perfectly well how the authorities treated Igor Rodionov.

From Lebed’s memoirs it can be understood that on April 9, 1989, when the famous tragic events occurred, he was at the Tbilisi airport (he flew from Tula on April 8 and “landed in one of the first planes”), but actually entered the city with his column at night from April 9 to April 10 - that is, he did not directly participate in the dispersal of the April 9 rally. But Lebed took the events of this day very close to his heart. The parachute regiment (345th "Bagram-Afghan" - the same one in which Lebed commanded a battalion in 1981-82 in Afghanistan) was stationed after Afghanistan in Ganja. On April 6, 1989, the regiment received the task: to make a 320-kilometer march from Ganja to Tbilisi and “with its experienced bayonets to support the shaky regime of Patiashvili.” The regiment “blocked the approaches to the Government House and the square in front of it, where a southern, hot, nervous rally was raging for the second day. The approaches to the square were barricaded by heavy vehicles filled with selected crushed stone the size of a fist.” The demonstrators threw this rubble at the soldiers, who could not respond in any way.

Defending General Igor Rodionov, then commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, against accusations, Lebed claims that the commander objected to the use of troops to block the demonstrators. Moreover, according to Lebed, on April 9 there was no purposeful operation at all to clear the square of demonstrators. The purpose of the paratroopers' attack was supposedly only the trucks: "to capture the trucks and thereby get rid of the unpleasant rockfall." But “panic arose in the square, blazing with passions,” a stampede in which “18 people died, 16 of them women, aged from 16 to 71 years.”

Meanwhile, General Rodionov himself, speaking at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, did not at all deny that there was an order to clear the square - he only asserted that he did not come up with this crazy operation himself, that the decision was made at the level of the leadership of the Communist Party of Georgia (and the Georgian party bosses and The KGB men, naturally, blamed everything on the general and his soldiers). Lebed completely denies beating demonstrators with sapper shovels; in his opinion, sapper blades were only a means of protection against flying stones, often used in the absence of body armor.

Swan is simply Jesuitically mocking the indignant democratic press.

Regarding the assertion, as he writes, of the Zarya Vostoka newspaper, that one paratrooper allegedly chased an old woman for three kilometers and hacked her to death with a shovel, Lebed sneers: “What kind of old woman was she who ran three kilometers from the soldier? Question two.” "What kind of soldier was it that couldn't catch up with the old woman at three kilometers? And the third question, the most interesting: were they running around the stadium? At three kilometers there wasn't a single Georgian man to stand in the way of this scoundrel?"

How the scribblers have to dodge when they tailor Lebed’s biography to suit their interests! Could be so:

Defending the army (which is really less to blame than the party), Lebed exactly follows the very democratic journalists whom he condemns: just as they did not emphasize facts that were inconvenient for them (stones, shivs, anti-Abkhaz - and not just anti-Soviet - slogans of demonstrators), so he consciously “straightens” reality. Most likely, most of the dead were actually crushed and not hacked to death, but doctors recorded incised wounds from blows with shovels from large number casualties, including some killed.

Despite the fact that Lebed did not take an active part in the Tbilisi events, he is still considered an enemy in Georgia.

Fate would bring Lebed together with Rodionov again in 1996, and then Lebed would hope for his help, the Minister of Defense appointed at Lebed’s request instead of Grachev, but in vain. Rodionov will turn out to be just an ordinary campaigner. But when he himself is forced into retirement, he will run to Rokhlin.