Biography. Sergo Ordzhonikidze - biography, photos Who is Ordzhonikidze
Ordzhonikidze occupied one of the highest positions in the party-state hierarchy, and by the beginning of 1937 nothing foreshadowed a tragic outcome. He was one of Stalin's closest associates and at that time apparently enjoyed his trust. This can be proved by the words of the leader at one of the Moscow trials that Ordzhonikidze was on the list of 7-10 party leaders against whom the "Trotskyists" were plotting a conspiracy.
It should be noted, however, that Ordzhonikidze still differed from other prominent figures in that most of them turned into impersonal bureaucrats, executors of Stalin's will. He also managed to preserve those remarkable qualities that were characteristic of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of their revolutionary path. Ordzhonikidze remained a sincere and loyal comrade, democratic, but at the same time intolerant of lies and falsehood. True, this exceptional situation could be explained by his military past. Moreover, Lenin himself spoke very warmly of Ordzhonikidze in one of his last works "I personally belong to his friends and worked with him abroad in exile."
But after Pyatakov's arrest, the clouds over the head of the influential party member began to thicken. Everyone knew his remarkable ability to defend fellow workers from false accusations. In the spring-summer period of 1936, during the exchange of party documents, only 11 people were removed from work in the People's Commissariat (in the center and in the localities), of whom 9 were arrested and expelled from the party. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Ordzhonikidze, only 823 people worked. The situation changed by the end of 1936, when 44 people who held high posts in the People's Commissariat were removed from their posts. More than 30 of them were arrested and expelled from the party.
All in all, in the certificate compiled by the department of leading party cadres of the Central Committee, 66 names of the nomenklatura workers of the People's Commissariat were given. All of them were allegedly oppositionists in the past - they hesitated. In NKVD parlance, this meant that they were all candidates for future purges. The department of affairs of the people's commissariat prepared the following document, which stated that 160 employees of the central apparatus of the NKTP were expelled from the party in the past, and 94 people were convicted of "counter-revolutionary activities."
Finally, during the days of his anniversary, Ordzhonikidze received news of the arrest of his older brother, Papulia, who held not the last party position in Georgia. To arrest a close relative of a Politburo member - this happened for the first time, although in the future it did not surprise anyone, and many relatives of Stalin's closest associates, as well as the comrades-in-arms themselves, experienced what Ordzhonikidze's relatives were now experiencing.
Sergo, who was on vacation in Kislovodsk, immediately turned to Beria with a demand to acquaint him with the case filed against Papulia, and also asked to provide him with the opportunity to meet with his older brother. Beria refused, promising, however, to do everything possible after the end of the investigation. But it dragged on, and Ordzhonikidze did not manage to do anything.
Some of the surviving documents best describe what Ordzhonikidze experienced during that period. From the memoirs of Mikoyan, written in 1966, "Sergo reacted sharply against the repressions that began in 1936 against party and economic personnel." One of the few Ordzhonikidze employees who escaped reprisals, S.Z. Ginzburg, later said that in the mid-1930s, many employees of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry noticed that the always cheerful and balanced Ordzhonikidze returned after each meeting “upstairs” worried and sad. “It used to be that he didn’t break out, I wouldn’t agree with that under any circumstances! - wrote Ginzburg. - I did not know exactly what it was about, and, of course, did not ask any immodest questions. But sometimes Sergo asked me about this or that worker, and I could guess that, obviously, “there” they were talking about the fate of these people. "
In 1953, when the case of Beria was considered at the July plenum of the Central Committee, some members of the Politburo mentioned, in particular, about Beria's intrigues with regard to Ordzhonikidze. Voroshilov “I remember how at one time it was known both to comrades Molotov and Kaganovich, and especially to the Georgians in Tbilisi, and to those who are present here, what a vile role Beria played in the life of the remarkable communist Sergo Ordzhonikidze. He did everything to slander, to stain this truly crystal clear man before Stalin. Sergo Ordzhonikidze told not only me, but also other comrades terrible things about this man. "
Best of the day
Something similar was stated at the plenum and Andreev "Beria quarreled Comrade Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, and the noble heart of Comrade Sergo could not stand it so Beria put out of action one of the best party leaders and friends of Comrade Stalin."
Mikoyan recalled how, a few days before Ordzhonikidze's death, shared with him his concerns “I don’t understand why Stalin doesn’t trust me. I am absolutely loyal to him, I do not want to fight with him, I want to support him, but he does not trust me. Here the intrigues of Beria, who gives Stalin the wrong information, and Stalin believes him, play an important role. "
The official cause of Ordzhonikidze's death, as presented by Stalin, was "my heart could not stand it." In 1953, judging by the speeches of the participants in the plenum, the emphasis was again on the Stalinist line, only this time Comrade Ordzhonikidze died not because he could not stand the betrayal of the "Trotskyists", but because he was driven by the intrigues of Beria.
But, according to modern researchers, the role of Beria was somewhat exaggerated. The “heirs of Stalin,” having arrested Beria out of fear for their safety, did not yet know what kind of accusation would be best brought against him. The reference to his involvement in the death of the popularly beloved and revered Ordzhonikidze was the best fit in this situation. At that time, members of the Politburo still did not dare to speak frankly about the true reasons for the conflict between Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, so they explained everything only by the intrigues of the insidious Beria. At that time, all the sins of the once powerful general secretary were generally attributed to Beria - that was the party line.
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, a few years after the legendary plenum, said “We created in 1953, roughly speaking, a version about Beria’s role that, they say, Beria is completely responsible for the abuses that were committed under Stalin ... We still could not get rid of the idea, that Stalin is a friend of everyone, the father of the people, a genius, and so on. It was impossible to immediately imagine that Stalin was a monster and a murderer ... We were in captivity of this version, which we created in the interests of Stalin's rehabilitation, not God is to blame, but saints who reported badly to God, and therefore God sends hail, thunder and other disasters ... People will learn that the party is guilty, that the party will end ... We were still in captivity with the dead Stalin and gave the party and the people incorrect explanations, turning everything to Beria. He seemed to us a convenient figure for this. We did everything to shield Stalin, although we shielded the criminal, the murderer, for we had not yet freed ourselves from admiration for Stalin. "
And yet, in the relationship between Ordzhonikidze and Beria, some difficulties were indeed noticed. Ordzhonikidze occupied a much higher position in the party hierarchy than Beria. In 1932, he was even able to prevent Stalin's decision to nominate Beria for the post of head of the Transcaucasian party organization. This fact was recalled by S.Z. Ginzburg and A.V. Snegova was one of the leading employees of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the 1930s. In addition, Ginzburg emphasized that Ordzhonikidze's negative attitude towards Beria only intensified over the years and he did not hide it at all.
Some investigative cases of the 1930-1950s also testify, albeit indirectly, to this. M. Zvontsov, the former second secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional committee, after his arrest in 1938, during interrogation, spoke about the content of the conversation between Ordzhonikidze and Betal Kalmykov, the head of the party organization of this region. Party organization "Sergo replied" Someone still trusts him. Time will pass, he will expose himself. "
The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Bagirov, speaking at the investigation in the Beria case, reported that in 1936 Ordzhonikidze questioned him in the most detailed way about Lavrentiy Pavlovich, while speaking about the latter extremely disapprovingly. "Ordzhonikidze then understood all the insincerity and treachery of Beria," said Bagirov, "who decided to slander Ordzhonikidze by any means."
The closest comrades of Beria at work also spoke about hostile relations between these two party members. So, Shariya showed "I know that Beria outwardly treated Sergo Ordzhonikidze as if it were good, but in reality he spoke all sorts of nasty things about him in the circle of those close to him." Goglidze said on this occasion "Beria, in the presence of me and other persons, made harsh statements of a disdainful character towards Sergo Ordzhonikidze ... I had the impression that Beria said this as a result of some personal malice towards Ordzhonikidze and set others against him."
Beria's personal dislike for Sergo is also evidenced by the fact that after the death of the latter, many of his relatives were massacred. By order of Beria in May 1941, Ordzhonikidze's younger brother, Konstantin, was arrested. The investigation in his case lasted three years and did not lead to any significant results. However, Konstantin Ordzhonikidze was convicted by a Special Council and sentenced to 5 years in solitary confinement. Beria extended this period twice more, and the second decree was signed after Stalin's death.
But it is unlikely that only Beria's intrigues led to the death of the unyielding party member Ordzhonikidze. Here it would be appropriate to recall Khrushchev's speech at the 20th party congress "Ordzhonikidze interfered with Beria in the implementation of his insidious plans, he was always against Beria, which he told Stalin about." And further Khrushchev notes "Instead of understanding and taking the necessary measures, Stalin allowed the destruction of Ordzhonikidze's brother, and Ordzhonikidze himself brought him to such a state that the latter was forced to shoot himself."
In his memoirs, Khrushchev cites the content of the last conversation between Ordzhonikidze and Mikoyan (moreover, Mikoyan's memoirs on this topic in 1953 are somewhat different from Khrushchev's version). If you believe the version of Nikita Sergeevich, then Ordzhonikidze perceived the situation that developed at that time as hopeless, but the role of Beria was not mentioned. Nikita Sergeevich tells how Mikoyan, after Stalin's death, told him in a confidential conversation that shortly before Ordzhonikidze's death said “I can’t continue to fight with Stalin, and I don’t have the strength to endure what he does.” And further, “Stalin does not believe me; the frames that I selected were almost all destroyed. " Khrushchev insisted that the main reason for Ordzhonikidze's death was his general passively decadent mood.
Other facts suggest otherwise. Thus, one of the oldest Georgian Bolsheviks and Ordzhonikidze's closest friends, M. Orakhelashvili, during the investigation in 1937 gave the following testimony “I spoke slanderous about Stalin as the dictator of the party, and considered his policy excessively cruel. In this respect, Sergo Ordzhonikidze had a great influence on me, who back in 1936, speaking with me about Stalin's attitude to the then leaders of the Leningrad opposition (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Evdokimov, Zalutsky), argued that Stalin, with his excessive cruelty, was driving the party to a split and in the end will lead the country to a dead end ... In general, I must say that the reception room in Ordzhonikidze's apartment, and on weekends his dacha were often places of gatherings of members of our counterrevolutionary organization, who, in anticipation of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, had the most frank counterrevolutionary conversations, which in no way did not stop even when Ordzhonikidze himself appeared ”.
Of course, this testimony may look somewhat dubious, but if we exclude from it the words such as “counter-revolutionary” or “slanderous” typical for interrogations of that time, then in general one can imagine the attitude of Ordzhonikidze and his associates towards the events of the 1930s.
In addition, Stalin himself allowed himself to speak out about the conflicts with Ordzhonikidze at the February-March plenum of the Central Committee. The secretary general said that Ordzhonikidze seemed to “suffer from such a disease, he would become attached to someone, declare people personally loyal to him and rush with them, despite warnings from the party, from the Central Committee ... How much blood he ruined in order to defend against all such, as you can see now, scoundrels. " After that, Comrade Stalin listed several names of Ordzhonikidze's comrades-in-arms in the Transcaucasus. It was them that Ordzhonikidze tried to protect from false slander and vicious persecution. And further in Stalin's report "How much blood he spoiled for himself and how much blood he spoiled for us." It will not be superfluous to note that at that time Stalin was already accustomed to identifying the actions of the Central Committee party with his own.
Stalin's real hatred was caused by Ordzhonikidze's friendship with Lominadze, who, according to the secretary general, was one of the leaders of the "right-leftist bloc." Stalin argued that “Comrade Sergo knew more than any of us” about Lominadze’s “mistakes”, since back in the period from 1926 to 1928 he received letters of “anti-party character” from him. He told Stalin about these letters only 8-9 years later. It is curious that Stalin deleted all these remarks about Ordzhonikidze from the report that was being prepared for publication.
Indeed, in the last months before his death, Ordzhonikidze emphasized in many speeches the remarkable qualities of his subordinates and employees, noting their loyalty and devotion to the Soviet regime and refuting any suspicions of sabotage. Apparently, Stalin was well aware that at the upcoming plenum of the Central Committee, Ordzhonikidze, while remaining faithful to his principles, would again begin to shield industry commanders and engineering and technical personnel. Therefore, the General Secretary needed to demoralize the "enemy", instilling in him a sense of guilt, they say, he defended the once already "exposed traitors" - Pyatakov, Rataychak and the like. Therefore, now I must remain silent.
Having foreseen everything in advance, Stalin put on the agenda of the plenum of the Central Committee a report on sabotage in heavy industry. Ordzhonikidze presented him with a draft resolution on this report. The General Secretary literally covered the work with numerous comments and notes. Ordzhonikidze was supposed to "speak more sharply" about pests in production, while the central part of the report was instructed to make the question of business executives who, in the current situation, "must be clear about the friends and enemies of the Soviet regime." Where Ordzhonikidze wrote about the promotion of people with a special technical education to responsible posts, Stalin marked "... and who are trusted friends of Soviet Power."
Ordzhonikidze was seriously preparing for the upcoming plenum and understood how important the battle was ahead. In the draft resolution, he included the following item “Instruct NKTP within ten days to report to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the state of construction of the Kemerovo chemical plant, Uralvagonstroy and Sreduralmedstroy, outlining specific measures to eliminate the consequences of sabotage and sabotage at these constructions in order to ensure the launch of these enterprises in deadlines".
The fact is that some materials of the trial on the case of the "anti-Soviet Trotskyist center" had appeared in the press before. In the course of this process, it turned out that, allegedly, sabotage at these enterprises had reached appalling proportions. Ordzhonikidze, as a true champion of goodness and justice, had already begun to carry out checks on these objects on his own, but now he wanted to get the plenum's approval on this matter.
On February 5, Ordzhonikidze sent a commission headed by Professor N. Gelperin to Kemerovo. In careful wording, he advised him to conduct an objective check and find out how real the facts of "sabotage" are. “Consider that you are going to such a place,” Ordzhonikidze admonished, “where there was one of the rather active sabotage centers. Remember that faint-hearted or insufficiently conscientious people may have a desire to blame everything on sabotage in order, so to speak, to drown their own mistakes in the sabotage process. It would be fundamentally wrong to admit this ... You approach this matter as a technician, try to distinguish deliberate sabotage from an involuntary mistake - this is your main task. "
When Gelperin's commission returned to Moscow, the word "sabotage" was completely absent in its report. The same situation was in relation to the coke-chemical industry of Donbass, where a commission headed by Osipov-Schmidt, Ordzhonikidze's deputy, was engaged in the inspection. The results of the work of the third commission also did not prove the facts of "sabotage". But it is worth telling about the latter in more detail, since her return to Moscow took place shortly before Ordzhonikidze's death.
So, the third commission was engaged in clarifying the circumstances of the "sabotage" on the construction of a carriage plant in Nizhny Tagil. The commission was headed by the Deputy People's Commissar Pavlunovsky and the head of the Glavstroyprom Ginzburg. In mid-February, Ordzhonikidze called Ginzburg in Tagil and asked about the state of affairs at the construction site. Ginzburg assured him that no crime could be found. On the contrary, the quality of work at Uralvagonstroy even exceeds that at other Ural construction sites. Ginzburg especially emphasized that “the plant was built soundly, without imperfections, although there were small cost overruns on certain budget items. At the present time, the construction has stopped, the workers are confused. " After that, Ordzhonikidze turned to Ginzburg with a request to return to Moscow with Pavlunovsky and, on the way, draw up a note on the work of the commission at the construction site.
They arrived in the capital on the morning of February 18 and immediately called Ordzhonikidze. The call was answered by his wife, Zinaida Gavrilovna, and said that now her husband was asleep, but before that he had already asked about them several times. Then she asked them to go to Ordzhonikidze's dacha, where he himself would soon arrive.
In order to trace in all details the activities of Ordzhonikidze on the eve of his death, it is worth going back a little. So, on February 17, on the eve of the employees' return from the trip, from three o'clock in the afternoon Ordzhonikidze attended a meeting of the Politburo. The draft resolutions of the forthcoming plenum of the Central Committee were discussed here. In the evening of the same day, Ordzhonikidze went to the People's Commissariat, where he managed to talk with Gelperin and Osipov-Schmidt. At the same time, a search was carried out in his apartment. As soon as Ordzhonikidze found out about this, he immediately called Stalin and, probably, expressed his indignation in harsh terms. The general secretary, however, answered evasively, “This is such a body that a search can be made in my place. Nothing special…"
The next day, early in the morning, Stalin met personally with Ordzhonikidze. Then Sergo, returning home, once again spoke with Iosif Vissarionovich on the phone, and, according to eyewitnesses, the conversation was "unrestrainedly angry, with mutual insults, Russian and Georgian abuse."
At this time, Ginzburg, without waiting for Ordzhonikidze at his dacha, arrived at the People's Commissariat and from here, together with other leaders of the NKTP, went to Ordzhonikidze's apartment, where Stalin and other members of the Politburo were already staying. Ordzhonikidze was dead, and Iosif Vissarionovich, who was standing at the head of his bed, looked menacingly at all those present, and distinctly said, “Sergo with a sick heart was working hard, and his heart could not stand it.” Several years later, after Stalin's death, Ordzhonikidze's wife told how the secretary general, leaving the apartment of the deceased, rudely warned her "Not a word to anyone about the details of Sergo's death, nothing but an official message, you know me."
In the press of those years, an official message appeared, signed by the People's Commissar of Health Kaminsky and several Kremlin doctors, which indicated Ordzhonikidze suddenly died of cardiac paralysis during a nap. Soon, everyone who signed this statement was shot.
The death of Ordzhonikidze in time followed the completion of the process of the "Trotskyist center" and not much preceded the February-March plenum. Moreover, the plenum was postponed three days later than the planned date in connection with the funeral of Ordzhonikidze.
In those days there were rumors that the death of one of the Kremlin leaders was caused by his shock because of the "betrayal" of Pyatakov and other "Trotskyists." At the funeral meeting, many speeches were made in honor of the deceased. Characteristic is Molotov's speech, where, among other things, the following was said: “The enemies of our people, Trotskyist geeks, hastened the death of Ordzhonikidze. Comrade Ordzhonikidze did not expect the Pyatakovs to fall so low. "
Thus, the version about the fatal role of the "Trotskyists" in the fate of Ordzhonikidze was confirmed and sounded later in an article about this prominent party figure in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia "Trotskyist-Bukharin geeks of fascism hated Ordzhonikidze with fierce hatred. They wanted to kill Ordzhonikidze. The fascist agents did not succeed in this. But sabotage work, the monstrous betrayal of the despicable Trotskyite hirelings of Japanese-German fascism in many ways hastened Ordzhonikidze's death. "
Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that in 1937 he had no idea what the true causes of death could be. He learned about the suicide from Malenkov, and then after the war. Malenkov, however, learned about this from Stalin himself, who once accidentally let slip in a private conversation. Most likely, many did not really know that Ordzhonikidze committed suicide. Stalin ordered all those who witnessed his death to be silent, which is why the rank-and-file members of the Cheka did not know anything.
Khrushchev writes that Ordzhonikidze's suicide was an act of protest, an expression of his disagreement with Stalin's methods of work, since at that time the secretary general's closest associates could not otherwise resist his dictate. This situation suited the "heirs of Stalin", because it could at least to some extent justify their silence, inaction and weak-willed submission in those terrible years of repression.
And if Khrushchev puts Ordzhonikidze's suicide in the rank of actions requiring special courage, then Molotov, a convinced Stalinist, was inclined to see in this act only the stupidity and stubbornness of a person who did not want to support the secretary general. He unequivocally noted that Ordzhonikidze "put Stalin in a very difficult position." In conversations with Chuev, Molotov expressed the same position. Ordzhonikidze opposed the Soviet regime, there was reliable material on him. Stalin ordered his arrest. Sergo was indignant. And then he committed suicide at home. Found an easy way. I thought about my person. What a leader you are! .. With his last step he showed that he was still unstable. This was against Stalin, of course. And against the line, yes, against the line. It was a very bad move. Otherwise it cannot be interpreted ... Chuev asked Molotov "When Sergo shot himself, Stalin was very angry with him." To which Molotov replied "Certainly!"
How can this position of Molotov in relation to Ordzhonikidze's death be explained? Only by his devotion to the leader Or, behind his categorical conviction, something more interesting is hidden Indeed, as it turned out later, Molotov was also involved in Stalin's tacit persecution of Ordzhonikidze.
The Prosecutor General of the USSR Rudenko, speaking at the June plenum of the Central Committee in 1957, said that during the investigation of the Beria case, Voroshilov told him “You dig about Sergo Ordzhonikidze, he was hounded, and there is no need to hide that Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, when he was chairman Council of People's Commissars, treated the deceased incorrectly. "
Some evidence even calls into question the version of Ordzhonikidze's suicide. Many of those close to him argued that on the eve of his death, Ordzhonikidze was, as always, full of strength and energy; no one even noticed any signs of depression that could lead to suicide. Ginzburg said the same: “Who knew his actions, intentions, plans, in particular, recently, when he was preparing for the upcoming plenum of the Central Committee, cannot admit the thought of his suicide ... He carefully prepared to decisively oppose mass beating of party cadres, leaders of industry and construction. "
Ginzburg also cited as evidence a note sent to him by V.N. Sidorova, his former colleague in the People's Commissariat for Tyazhprom. This note reported the facts presented by Ordzhonikidze's wife, Zinaida Gavrilovna, under the great secret of Sidorova herself. On February 18, in the morning, a man unknown to Zinaida Gavrilovna came to Ordzhonikidze's apartment. He said that he should personally hand over the folder with the Politburo documents to Ordzhonikidze.
A mysterious visitor entered Ordzhonikidze's office, and a few minutes later a shot rang out there. Shortly before the arrival of this man, Ordzhonikidze spoke on the phone with Stalin. This was the very same conversation with "Russian and Georgian abuse".
The fact that Stalin did not forgive Ordzhonikidze even after his death is evidenced by the few facts reported by Ginzburg. So, for example, when Sergo's comrades-in-arms tried to get government permission to erect a monument to him, they were always met with mute disagreement. After the war, Stalin was presented with a list of prominent party leaders for approval, in whose honor it was planned to erect monuments in Moscow. The secretary general crossed out only one surname from the entire list - Ordzhonikidze.
Whether it was a murder, cunningly planned by Stalin, or a suicide committed by a person driven to extreme despair and who wants to save not only his honor, but also his family from reprisals - this can only be guessed about, as well as about many other cases associated with voluntary departure from life of the closest associates of the secretary general.
Life story
Ordzhonikidze is a leader of the revolutionary movement, party and Soviet leader. Born on October 12 (24), 1886 in the village of Goresh, Shorapansky uyezd, Kutaisi province, into the family of a landowner. He studied at the Kharagul two-grade school, then at the Tiflis paramedic school at the Mikhailovskaya hospital, from which he graduated in 1905. During his studies in 1903 he joined the RSDLP, a Bolshevik. He worked as a medical assistant and at the same time led party work in the Caucasus, was arrested and imprisoned in the Sukhum prison. In 1907, a member of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP, was arrested twice. In February 1909 he was exiled to the Yenisei province, fled abroad. In 1909-1910 he took part in the revolution in Persia. In 1910-1911 he studied at the party school organized by V. I. Lenin in Longjumeau (France). In 1911, on the instructions of the Central Committee, he inspected party organizations in Russia, and traveled to Vologda to see Joseph Stalin, who was in exile. In April 1912 he was arrested and sentenced to three years in hard labor in the Shlisselburg prison-fortress, then exiled to the Yakutsk region.
Liberated by the February Revolution. Since March 1917, a member of the Executive Committee of the Yakut Council. From January 1912 to April 1917 he was a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Since July 1917, a member of the Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. Member of the armed uprising of the Bolsheviks in October 1917 in Petrograd. Since December 1917, the temporary extraordinary commissar of the region of Ukraine, organized assistance to the starving workers of Donbass and the industrial center. Since April 1918, he was temporary extraordinary commissar of the South of Russia, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Don Soviet Republic. One of the organizers of the defense of Tsaritsyn (May 1918), where he became especially close to Stalin. In the spring of 1919 he made an illegal trip to Menshevik Georgia, and then to Baku. He was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) of many armies and fronts, including a member of the RVS of the 12th Army, which was part of the Western Front, of which Stalin was a member of the RVS.
In February - April 1920, chairman of the Bureau for the restoration of Soviet power in the North Caucasus, in March - chairman of the North Caucasian Revolutionary Committee. The restoration of Soviet power in the Caucasus was accompanied by mass terror against the "nationalists" and their "accomplices". From April 1920 he was a member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). He played one of the main roles in the overthrow of local governments in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia and the creation of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic under the auspices of the Bolsheviks. On the question of the form of formation, the USSR supported the Stalinist plan for the annexation of the Soviet republics to the RSFSR as autonomous entities. Ordzhonikidze so ardently defended the administrative approach to unification that during his trip to the Caucasus, at the head of the commission, he did not even disdain to use assault on the Georgian communists who did not agree with excessive centralism.
In 1921-1927 and since 1930 he was a member of the Central Committee of the party. From February 1922, 1st secretary of the Transcaucasian, from September 1926 - of the North Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b). Since December 1926, a candidate member, since December 1930, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In the internal political struggle against the Trotskyist, Zinoviev-Kamenev, united Trotsky-Zinoviev, and then the so-called right-wing opposition, he always unconditionally supported Stalin, advocated the policy of intensified industrialization of the national economy and the complete collectivization of the countryside. As the chairman of the party's control and punitive body - the Central Control Commission (CCC) of the CPSU (b) and, at the same time, the People's Commissar of the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection of the USSR (November 1926 - November 1930), he sanctioned repressive measures against many oppositionists and dissidents. At the same time, when using repressions, I have never been a supporter of their extreme, most cruel forms; in some cases, he defended former comrades-in-arms in the party, advocated the reduction or abolition of prison terms.
November 10, 1930 headed the All-Union Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) of the USSR, which was subordinate to almost the entire industry of the country. On January 5, 1932, the Supreme Council of the National Economy was divided into several People's Commissariats, Ordzhonikidze was entrusted with the most important of them - the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry. The former paramedic and professional revolutionary became the main organizer of the grandiose construction projects of the 1930s, many of which were worked by prisoners. He knew how to mobilize all available forces to carry out the decisions of the party, regardless of the victims. The country acquired many industrial enterprises, especially those of a defense profile, but at the same time suffered colossal losses both in people and in raw materials, which were spent extremely irrationally. In addition, many industrial giants, due to violations of technology for the sake of the speed of construction, required repair and modernization within a few years.
After the establishment of Stalin's autocracy in the party, Ordzhonikidze's relations with the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks gradually began to deteriorate, primarily due to the fact that the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry began to speak out more and more openly against the buildup of terror in the country. If in the early 1930s he still managed to defend highly qualified technical specialists from the OGPU bodies who were used at the construction sites of socialism, then after the assassination of S.M. Kirov, such opportunities sharply narrowed. In the second half of 1936, mass arrests began of communists who had never joined the so-called anti-party currents and non-party leaders, engineers, technicians, workers and employees of almost all sectors of the national economy. Those arrested were artificially associated with the opposition, and the shortcomings and omissions in their work were declared sabotage, sabotage and were presented as a result of the opposition's hostile activities. Moreover, Ordzhonikidze's older brother Papulia was arrested in Georgia. Papulia's falsified testimony about his participation in counterrevolutionary activities was handed over to Ordzhonikidze at Stalin's instructions.
A certain role in the deterioration of relations between former close friends was played by the promotion, on Stalin's initiative, to the first role in the Transcaucasian party organization of L.P. Beria, whom Ordzhonikidze not only disliked, but considered a crook and a dangerous intriguer.
On the eve of the notorious February-March (1937) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), where Ordzhonikidze was scheduled to be the main speaker on the issue of "the lessons of sabotage, sabotage and espionage by Japanese-German Trotskyist agents" in the national economy, the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry held a number of meetings with leading economic workers, to verify the data, the NKVD sent commissions to "Uralvagonstroy", "Kemerovkombinatstroy" and to the enterprises of the coke-chemical industry of Donbass. Based on the collected materials, Ordzhonikidze prepared a draft resolution based on his report. The draft did not mention the wide scope of sabotage in heavy industry, the main emphasis was placed on the need to eliminate the shortcomings in the work of the People's Commissariat. However, this draft resolution was criticized by Stalin, who made many caustic remarks on it, which led to the need for a radical revision of the draft with an indication of the industries allegedly affected by sabotage, "facts" of sabotage activities, "reasons for yawning," etc.
According to the recollections of NS Khrushchev, according to AI Mikoyan, shortly before the plenum, Ordzhonikidze was depressed and said: “I can’t anymore, I can’t put up with what is happening. I also cannot fight Stalin, and I don’t see now an opportunity to prolong my life. ” Five days before the opening of the plenum on February 18, 1937, Ordzhonikidze committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol in his apartment. However, as is often the case in the case of an unusual death, there is still a version that he was killed by order of Stalin, although this version is not supported by documentary evidence. It was officially announced in the newspapers that Ordzhonikidze had died of heart paralysis. He was buried in Red Square.
In 1932 the city of Vladikavkaz was named after Ordzhonikidze, in 1944 the city was renamed Dzaudzhikau. Since 1954 - again Ordzhonikidze, since 1992 - again Vladikavkaz.
Ordzhonikidze Grigory Konstantinovich (12 (24) .10.1886-18.02.1937),
Party member since 1903, Central Committee member in 1912-1917, 1921-1927 and since 1934 (member of the Central Control Commission in 1927-1934), member of the Politburo of the Central Committee since 21.12.30 (candidate 23.07-03.11.26).
Born in the village. Goresh of the Kutaisi province (Georgian SSR). Georgian.
In 1905 he graduated from the Tiflis paramedic school.
Since 1917, a member of the St. Petersburg Party Committee and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Temporary Extraordinary Commissioner for Ukraine and the South of Russia.
In 1918-1920. in military and political work in the Red Army.
Since 1920, a member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).
In 1922-1926. first secretary of the Transcaucasian and North Caucasian regional party committees.
In 1926-1930. pre. Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and People's Commissar of the RFI of the USSR, at the same time deputy. Prev. SNK and STO USSR.
Since 1930, the head. Supreme Council of National Economy of the USSR, since 1932 People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR.
Member of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
Committed suicide.
Buried on Red Square in Moscow.
Other biographical materials:
Volkov S.V. Received all the highest Soviet awards ( Black book of names that have no place on the map of Russia. Compiled by S.V. Volkov. M., "Seeding", 2004).
Zalessky K.A. Almost the entire industry of the USSR was subordinate to him ( Zalessky K.A. Stalin's empire. Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. Moscow, Veche, 2000).
V. N. Zabotin In 1918, he reached an agreement on the establishment of a demarcation line between German and Soviet troops ( Politicians of Russia 1917. Biographical Dictionary. Moscow, 1993).
V.A. Torchinov, A.M. Leontyuk In the inner circle of Stalin ( V.A. Torchinov, A.M. Leontyuk Around Stalin. Historical and biographical reference book. Saint Petersburg, 2000).
Shikman A.P. There is a version that he was killed by order of Stalin ( Shikman A.P. Figures of national history. Biographical reference book. Moscow, 1997).
Elkina S.I. He made mistakes on the national question ( Soviet Historical Encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 10. NACHIMSON - PERGAM. 1967).
Read on:
Pass number 109, issued by the Military Revolutionary Committee to comrade Ordzhonikidze. November 2, 1917.
Letter from the head of Glavtsvetmetzoloto A.P. Serebrovsky to the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR G.K. Ordzhonikidze on the inspection of the work of the Kalatinsky and Krasnouralsky copper plants. March 10, 1932
Speech by Comrade Ordzhonikidze. (From the transcript of the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b)). 1934 g.
Kaganovich, Yezhov, Ordzhonikidze to Stalin, August 22, 1936
Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov, Chubar, Yezhov to Stalin, August 22, 1936
Compositions:
Articles and speeches, v. 1-2, M., 1956-57.
Literature:
Kirillov B. C., Sverdlov A. Ya. G.K. Ordzhonikidze (Sergo): Biography. M., 1986;
Kirillov V.S., Sverdlov A. Ya., G.K. Ordzhonikidze (Sergo). Biography, M., 1962;
G.K. Ordkonikidze (Sergo). Biography, M., 1962
Ordzhonikidze 3., The Bolshevik's Way, M. 1986.
O. V. Khlevnyuk Stalin and Ordzhonikidze. Conflicts in the Politburo in the 30s. M., 1993.
Dubinsky-Mukhadze I. M., Ordzhonikidze, M., 1963;
Source-Wikipedia
Ordzhonikidze, Grigory Konstantinovich 2nd Chairman of the Central Control Commission of the CPSU (b) (November 3, 1926 - December 15, 1930)
after Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev, 2nd People's Commissar of the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection of the USSR,
4th Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, 1st People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR
Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze, party nickname Sergo, was born (12 (24) October) 1886,
the village of Goresha, Shorapansky district, Kutaisi province - February 18, 1937, Moscow)
- a prominent Soviet state and party leader, professional
revolutionary. The son of a nobleman. He studied at the Tiflis paramedic school. Member of the RSDLP
since 1903. Bolshevik.
He actively participated in the revolution of 1905-1907. in the Caucasus. Studied at the Leninist
party school in Longjumeau in France. In 1912 he was elected a member of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee
Bolsheviks, in 1912-1917. was in hard labor and in exile. After returning from
links - member of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd
Council. An active participant in the October Revolution of 1917. During the Civil
war - in leadership work in the army, one of the organizers of the defeat of Denikin.
Considered one of the founders of the deportation
policy of the Soviet state - on his initiative in May 1918, it was adopted
the decision on "decossackization" - the eviction of the Cossacks of the Sunzhenskaya line and the provision of
released lands to the Ingush.
Ordzhonikidze was directly involved in the overthrow of governments in Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Georgia and the creation of the TSFSR. In 1912-17, 1921-27 and from 1934 he was a member of the Central Committee of the party. WITH
February 1922 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian, from September 1926 North Caucasian
regional committee of the RCP (b). In 1926-1930. Ordzhonikidze - Chairman of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, People's Commissar
RCT and deputy. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Since 1930 - Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, and then People's Commissar
heavy industry. From 1930 to 1937 - Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (candidate
in 1926). Member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of 1-7 convocations.
Ordzhonikidze and Stalin
In 1907, Ordzhonikize was arrested on charges of banditry and placed in
Bayil prison in Baku. There, in cell number 3, he met Joseph
Dzhugashvili, who at that time bore the party nickname Koba. Since then between them
relations close to friendly have been established. Ordzhonikidze was one of the few
people with whom Stalin was on the "you". After the suicide of Nadezhda Alliluyeva
it was Ordzhonikidze (and Kirov) who, as close friends, spent the night in Stalin's house.
Stalin's devoted supporter Ordzhonikidze, however, could not agree with
the destruction of the "old Bolsheviks". If, before the murder of Kirov, repressions against
members of the Communist Party who have never officially opposed the party line were
relative rarity, then after - an ordinary phenomenon. Ordzhonikidze, in
in particular, did not want to put up with attempts to open the alleged mass
sabotage. To a certain extent, rumors of such sabotage were influenced by
disruption of technology in pursuit of economic growth (according to some data
unofficially sanctioned by Ordzhonikidze, according to other sources - no). In the same
time there is a deterioration in relations with Stalin - including due to
nomination on the initiative of the Secretary General for the first role in the Transcaucasian
party organization L.P. Beria, whom Ordzhonikidze did not like and considered
a rogue and a dangerous schemer.
At the February-March (1937) plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Ordzhonikidze was outlined
the main speaker on the "lessons of sabotage, sabotage and espionage
Japanese-German-Trotskyist agents ”. In this regard, the People's Commissar of the heavy
industry since 1932, Ordzhonikidze held a number of meetings with
economic workers and to verify the data of the NKVD sent commissions to
"Uralvagonstroy", "Kemerovkombinatstroy" and at the enterprises of the by-product
industry of Donbass. Based on the collected materials Ordzhonikidze
prepared a draft resolution based on his report. The project did not mention
the scale of sabotage in heavy industry, the emphasis was on the need
elimination of the shortcomings in the work of the People's Commissariat. There is evidence that this
the project was criticized by Stalin.
Reliable evidence that Ordzhonikidze was found at home on February 18, 1937
home with a gunshot wound, no. But it should be specially noted that
Ordzhonikidze was clearly trying in the face of increasing control of organs
state security and repression to turn the NKTP into a relatively autonomous
an organization that protected not only its employees from the NKVD, but also
subordinate objects. Find out in more detail what was happening inside the People's Commissariat,
especially among the management, it seems rather difficult, since the estimates
very controversial.
In favor of at least significant disagreements with the secretary general, evidence
repressions sanctioned at the very top after the death of Grigory Ordzhonikidze
against the closest relatives - a wife, three brothers (and the wife of one of them),
nephew. All persons who made a conclusion about Ordzhonikidze's death from a heart attack,
were shot - which seems highly suspicious. By order of Stalin
some objects bearing the name of Gregory were subsequently renamed
Konstantinovich - the city of Ordzhonikidze, etc. After that, until Stalin's death, the name
Ordzhonikidze has never been appropriated anywhere.
On this basis, two versions later arose: about suicide and about murder by
to the order of Stalin. The official cause of death is a heart attack. Death Has Come 18
February 1937. Urn with the ashes of Ordzhonikidze was buried at the Kremlin wall on
Red Square in Moscow.
Currently, versions of both suicide and heart attack are disputed. But
accurate data, neither that Ordzhonikidze was shot, nor even that he
shot himself, not available. See Shatunovskaya: Death of Ordzhonikidze. The memoirs of Nikolai Bukharin's wife describe
episode when Bukharin on the day of "suicide" met by chance on the square in
Kremlin Ordzhonikidze, heading to Stalin for a conversation. According to Bukharin,
told later to his wife, Ordzhonikidze was at the moment of this meeting with him in an elated
mood and determined. Versions that Ordzhonikidze was shot
during this conversation in Stalin's office as the head of his personal guard,
groundless.
In 1937, Ordzhonikidze's older brother, Papulia, was arrested and shot.
who gave Sergo a recommendation to the party. In 1938, Ordzhonikidze's wife, Zinaida
Gavrilovna Pavlutskaya - sentenced to ten years in prison. Also in 1938
year was convicted another brother Ordzhonikidze - Ivan and his wife. In 1941 was
the third brother, Konstantin, was arrested. The nephew was also repressed
Ordzhonikidze Georgy Gvakharia, Director of the Makeevka Metallurgical Plant.
Soon, the persons who drew up the act of Ordzhonikidze's death from
"Paralysis of the heart": G. Kaminsky, I. Khodorovsky (head of the medical and sanitary
management of the Kremlin), Dr. L. Levin (professor-consultant of the Kremlin
hospitals).
In the Soviet Union, a number of objects were named after Ordzhonikidze, in particular,
settlements (see Vladikavkaz, Yenakiyevo, Ordzhonikidzevskaya). In the 1940s
Stalin took measures to abolish the perpetuation of the memory of Ordzhonikidze: Yenakiyevo was
the historical name was returned (1943), and in 1944 Ordzhonikidze (former
Vladikavkaz) received the Ossetian name Dzaudzhikau. One year after death
Stalin, this city was again named Ordzhonikidze (1954), and after 1990
called Dzaudzhikau in Ossetian and Vladikavkaz in Russian.
Criticism of Ordzhonikidze
Ordzhonikidze: “If at least one Cossack rises up against Soviet power in
one page, the whole page will be answered: right up to execution, up to
destruction ". Documents of this kind are evidence of genocide.
“Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Front Comrade Ordzhonikidze ordered: first - the village of Kalinovskaya
burn; the second - the villages of Ermolovskaya, Zakan-Yurtovskaya, Samashkinskaya,
Mikhailovskaya - to give: always former subjects of Soviet power to the Nagorny
Chechens. Why is the entire male population of the aforementioned villages from 18 to 50 years old
loaded into echelons and sent under escort to the North for heavy compulsory
work, the elderly, women and children to be evicted from the villages, allowing them to move to
farms and villages to the North.
The commander of the Nadterechnaya line to the Prodcom Skudra to appoint a commission under
chaired by the command staff of the group of troops comrade. Gegechkori consisting of two members,
at their own discretion, which: to evict the entire population. "
See Death of Ordzhonikidze
Links:
1. Lilya Lungina: school and "rejection of the Soviet system"
2.Gvaharia George
3. Ordzhonikidze Ivan
4. Creation of the material and technical base of aviation of the USSR 1929-1933
5. KB-22 Bolkhovitinov: work on the long-range bomber DB-A
6. "Aviatrest"
7. Mitkevich becomes director, discontent of the "working elite"
8. Alksnis Yakov Ivanovich (1897-1938)
9. Pavlutskaya (Ordzhonikidze's husband) Zinaida Gavrilovna
10. SB (ANT-40) aircraft, high-speed bomber
11. The first main directorate of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, 1931
12. Gorbunov Sergey Petrovich
13. Ordzhonikidze Konstantin
14. Soviet aviation 1929-1937: losses from repression
15. KB-22, or KB Bolkhovitinov - the last case of Mitkevich
16. Life of the Alliluyevs at Stalin's dacha (Zubalovo)
17. Alliluyeva Nadezhda Sergeevna (1901-1932)
18. Correspondence between Stalin and N. Alillueva in 1928-1931
19. Mirzoyan Levon Isaevich
20. Ordzhonikidze Eteri Grigorievna (1923)
21. Redens S.F. at the end of 1928 sent to Transcaucasia
22. Uralmash - "Father of factories"
23. "Fifth item" of the Soviet questionnaire (nationality, 5th item)
24. The book of Brackman explains a lot
25. The managers of the plant 47 accused Yakovlev of sabotage
26. Rozhansky D.A. at large 1931
27. Rozhansky D.A .: arrest and prison 1930
28. Avtorkhanov: The case of "doctors-pests", 1953
29. MINTS Alexander Lvovich 1895-1975: Brief biography
30. Atarbekov Georgy Alexandrovich (1892-1925)
31. The first return of Gorky
32. "AND THIS IS EVERYTHING SO CRUSHED!" (Bulgakov and Stalin)
33. "The Miracle of Mandelstam" - not shot, but just exiled
34. Beria L.P. and repression in Georgia
35. Beria L.P. and scientists, sharashka
36. Sergo Beria about his father and the family's lifestyle
37. The role of L.P. Beria in the Menshevik uprising in Georgia, 1924
38. "Doctors' case" and L.P. Beria
39. People's Commissars of the NKVD, predecessors of LP Beria.
40. Bartini reached speed on "Steel-6", which the Air Force got only in the 40s.
41.
Ordzhonikidze, party nickname - Sergo, real name - Grigory Konstantinovich (12 (24) October 1886, village Goresh, Kutaisi province - 18 February 1937, Moscow) - Georgian Bolshevik, organizer of the ruthless genocide of the Russian Terek Cossacks in years Civil war... A close friend of Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, with his support, was first placed at the head of the Soviet Transcaucasia, and then (1926) was transferred to Moscow. Since 1930 "Sergo" was introduced into Politburo Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In 1932, the semi-educated paramedic Ordzhonikidze was assigned to direct the development of Soviet heavy industry, which was then created through the bloody "collectivizing" plunder of the countryside. Soon Stalin intensified the persecution of the old Bolshevik guard, which was dangerous for his autocracy. Ordzhonikidze, who belonged to her, felt a personal danger in this, began to express dissatisfaction with the Great Terror - and in February 1937 he unexpectedly died under vague circumstances. His relatives and employees were arrested and repressed.
Grigory Ordzhonikidze at the X Congress of the Party, 1921
Biography of Ordzhonikidze before 1917
Grigory Ordzhonikidze was born in Western Georgia into a family of small local nobles. His education was limited to a two-year school in the village of Kharagauli and a paramedic school at the Mikhailovskaya hospital in Tiflis (where he studied in 1901-1905).
Since 1903, Ordzhonikidze began to participate in revolutionary activities. In 1904 he was briefly arrested for possession of illegal literature, and in December 1905, at the height of the first Russian revolution, - for transportation of weapons from abroad. On the last charge, Ordzhonikidze was released on bail five months later, and he left for Germany with a false passport.
At the beginning of 1907, Ordzhonikidze returned to the Caucasus and settled in Baku. There he worked as a paramedic in the oil fields and worked as a Bolshevik. Historians are inclined to believe that Ordzhonikidze participated in the murder (1907) of the prince Ilya Chavchavadze, a famous Georgian poet and thinker. In the same 1907 he was arrested during a May Day demonstration and spent 26 days in prison under the pseudonym "Kuchishvili". In November 1907, Grigory Ordzhonikidze was arrested again on charges of banditry and spent 18 months in the prisons of Baku and Sukhum. In the Baku Bayil prison, Ordzhonikidze met the revolutionary "Koba" - Joseph Dzhugashvili, the future Stalin. A rather weak person, "Sergo" soon fell under the strong influence of this senior comrade of his.
In February 1909, Ordzhonikidze was exiled to the Yenisei province, but in August he escaped from exile, returned to Baku, and then left for Persia. He participated in the revolution that was taking place there then, lived in Tehran. At the end of 1910 "Sergo" went to Paris and in the spring of 1911 he studied at the Leninist party school in Longjumeau.
In the summer of 1911, Ordzhonikidze was sent by Lenin to Russia to organize the All-Russian Party Conference. This VI conference of the RSDLP took place in January 1912 in Prague. Ordzhonikidze was its delegate and was elected to the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). At the same conference, Stalin was co-opted in the Central Committee.
On April 14, 1912, Ordzhonikidze was arrested in St. Petersburg. After three years of imprisonment in the Shlisselburg fortress, he was exiled to Yakutsk, where he worked as a doctor.
After February revolution, in June 1917 Ordzhonikidze returned from Siberia to Petrograd, where he became a member of the local Bolshevik City Committee and the Executive Committee Petrograd Soviet.
Ordzhonikidze at the head of the Bolshevik genocide of Russians in the Caucasus
... even at the end of December, the Chechens, with fanatical enthusiasm, attacked their neighbors in large forces. They plundered, ravaged and burned to ashes rich, flourishing villages, economies and farms of the Khasav-Yurt district, Cossack villages, railway stations: they burned and plundered the city of Grozny and the oil fields. In alliance with the Chechens, the Ingush began to drive out the Cossack villages of the Sunzhenskaya line [the majority of the male population of which was at the front], for which, back in November, they first of all set fire to and destroyed the Fieldmarshalskaya village on all sides ...
The Bolsheviks immediately approved of the actions of the mountaineers. A member of the local regional committee of the RCP (b) S. Kavtaradze, said that in the North Caucasus "the national struggle almost coincides with the class struggle," and the policy of the Soviet government "must rely on the Ingush and Chechens." The Russian Caucasian communists began to call the "landowner people", having adopted this definition from the Chechen chauvinist Aslambek Sheripov. Samuil Buachidze, a compatriot and friend of Ordzhonikidze from elementary school, became the head of the local Bolsheviks, who began his revolutionary activities in 1905 by robbing the Kviril Treasury. Ordzhonikidze also began to play a prominent role on the Red Terek.
On December 26, 1917, the Terek ataman Karaulov was killed. The Bolsheviks plunged entire Cossack villages into disarmament. Disarmaments were followed by "requisitioning" of land, property and mass evictions. In May 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the Terek Soviet Republic decided to evict the Russian Cossacks from the villages of the Sunzhenskaya Line and to transfer the "liberated" lands to the Ingush. In August, the Bolsheviks organized an invasion of Ingush militants into the villages of Aki-Yurtovskaya, Sunzhenskaya, Tarskaya and Tarskie khutors. During the eviction, the Cossacks were deprived of property in the amount of 120 million gold rubles. The main inspirer and initiator of this action were Ordzhonikidze and the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Red Government in Vladikavkaz, Jew Yakov Figatner. After the transfer of one part of the Cossack lands to the Ingush, the Tersk Council of People's Commissars, at the suggestion of Grigory Ordzhonikidze, addressed an inflammatory appeal to the Ossetians:
A number of Cossack villages are wedging into Ossetia. And if the Cossacks do not agree voluntarily and by the decision of the Pyatigorsk Congress to cede to you by right of revolution land, then with arms in hand, like the Ingush brothers, invite the stanitsas that have settled on our native land to disarm and move out.
The Bolsheviks did not succeed in immediately implementing this plan. The Cossacks, led by ataman Gerasim Vdovenko, collected the surviving weapons and began to resist. At the beginning of 1919, white troops from the Kuban approached them - the corps of General Lyakhov. However, at the end of the Civil War, the Terek Cossack army was completely defeated: the Cossacks were disarmed, subjected to new evictions, and their lands were transferred to the Chechens and Ingush. Ordzhonikidze, who was leaving for a while as a commissar for the Ukraine, reappeared in 1920 on the Terek as head of the Caucasian Bureau of the RCP (Caucasus Bureau). He pointed out to the head of the Tersk Revolutionary Committee V. Kvirkelia:
The Politburo of the Central Committee approved the resolution of the Caucasus Bureau on allotting land to the mountaineers, without stopping before the eviction of the villages.
The first in the spring of 1920 were again forcibly taken out three long-suffering Cossack villages: Aki-Yurtovskaya, Tarskaya and Sunzhenskaya. These lands were occupied by the Ingush. The resistance of the Cossacks was brutally suppressed. Ordzhonikidze prescribed:
If at least one Cossack in one village rises up against Soviet power, the whole village will be answered: right up to execution, up to destruction.
One of the official documents from that period reads:
Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Caucasus Front Comrade Ordzhonikidze ordered: first, to burn the village of Kalinovskaya; the second — the villages of Ermolovskaya, Zakan-Yurtovskaya, Samashkinskaya, Mikhailovskaya — should be given to the Nagorno Chechens by former subjects of Soviet power. Why should the entire male population of the aforementioned villages from 18 to 50 years old be loaded into echelons and sent under escort to the North for heavy forced labor. The old people, women and children should be evicted from the villages, allowing them to move to the farms and villages to the North. The commander of the Nadterechnaya line to the Prodkom Skudre to appoint a commission chaired by the commander of the group of forces comrade Gegechkori consisting of two members, at its discretion, which: to evict the entire population.
The direct leadership of this punitive expedition was carried out by Commissioner Kimen. According to the commander of the Labor Army Joseph Kosior, "9000 families were subject to eviction, a significant part of the Cossacks was sent to forced labor in the mines of the Donetsk basin." Chechen and Ingush leaders demanded a complete eviction of Russians from the territory of the Mountain Republic. The Cossack genocide was personally approved by Lenin. Ordzhonikidze, who led him, proclaimed:
We definitely decided to evict 18 villages with a population of 60 thousand on the other side of the Terek ...
and then reported:
... The villages of Sunzhenskaya, Tarskaya, Field Marshalskaya, Romanovskaya, Ermolovskaya and others were freed from the Cossacks and transferred to the mountaineers - Ingush and Chechens.
The magazine "Young Guard" (No. 3 for 1993) describes an episode of the eviction of these 60 thousand Cossacks, mainly women, old people and children, on April 17, 1921 by the decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the CPSU (b) headed by Grigory "Sergo" Ordzhonikidze. The eviction was made in one day! At the same time, 35 thousand people were killed on the way to the railway station. According to the memoirs of a witness of this eviction, a Terek Cossack woman, published in 1990 in the Don magazine,
Our village was divided into three categories. [First -] "Whites" - the male sex was shot, and the women and children were scattered, where and how they could escape. The second category - the "reds" - were evicted, but not touched. And the third is the "communists". Those included in the first category were not given anything to anyone, the "reds" were given one cart per family, on which they could take whatever they wanted. And the "communists" had the right to take away all movable property. The courtyards of the entire village went to the Chechens and Ingush, who fought for our good among themselves.
Twenty thousand Chechens moved to the territory that had previously belonged to the Cossacks, who received 98 thousand dessiatines of land at their disposal. The "Mountain Republic" formed by the Bolsheviks in the North Caucasus, the communist bosses initially thought of giving wide borders (see map). In the early 1920s, the Orthodox clergy were subjected to the most severe repressions (general removal of valuables from temples, clergy processes with death sentences). But the founding congress of the Mountain Soviet Republic in April 1921 adopted a resolution "On the introduction of Sharia legal proceedings in the Mountain ASSR" - and it was introduced on its territory, having existed there until 1927. The mountain republic then had a flag with Muslim symbols.
Mountain Republic project
Unlike eviction of Ingush and Chechens by Stalin in 1944, the no less bloody Bolshevik genocide of the Terek Cossacks did not receive wide coverage in modern historical literature. The liberal community prefers not to remember either about it or about the scale of participation in it of those local peoples who, a quarter of a century later, were themselves evicted. And if Caucasian nationalities were returned to their homeland Khrushchev and received “in compensation” for their short-lived expulsion of the territories from neighboring Russian regions, then no one ever intended to make amends for the historical blame before the Terek, Kuban and Don Cossacks.
Ordzhonikidze played an important role in including the territory of the entire Transcaucasia into the newly formed USSR. Following the seizure of Azerbaijan (April 1920) and Armenia (November 1920) by the Bolsheviks, Ordzhonikidze led them invasion of Georgia(February-March 1921), which was transformed into a socialist republic. He himself considered it best to make Georgia not a union republic, but autonomy within the RSFSR, and for this reason he became the main figure in “ Georgian affairs 1922. Sergo's harsh treatment of the Georgian communists angered Lenin, who proposed to expel him from the Communist Party. In the same period, Ordzhonikidze helped Mirza Kuchek Khan establish a short-lived Gilan Soviet Socialist Republic in the north of Iran, which was also supposed to be put in closer connection with Soviet Russia.
In March 1922, an agreement was signed on the unification of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Transcaucasian Federation(existed until 1937). In 1922-1926 Ordzhonikidze served as the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Party Committee, that is, he was the supreme Bolshevik governor of the entire Transcaucasia.
Mikoyan, Stalin, Ordzhonikidze. Tbilisi, 1925
In November 1926, who rose after the victory over Trotsky and Zinoviev - Kamenev Stalin transferred his old friend Sergo from the Caucasus to Moscow. For four years (1926-1930) Ordzhonikidze headed the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection and the Central Control Commission of the party. In 1926, he became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (a non-voting member), but in the same year he lost this title - apparently due to the still unstable position of Stalin at the top of the Soviet Olympus. However, in 1930 "Sergo" became a full member of the Politburo.
In November 1930 Ordzhonikidze was appointed chairman Supreme Council of National Economy of the USSR, and on January 5, 1932, he was "transferred" from this position to the post of People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR. This provision was very important, since the second five-year plan gave the development of heavy industry an unconditional priority. It is difficult to imagine how a person could work in these most difficult positions, behind whose shoulders there were only two classes of elementary school and a medical assistant's school. Historian Robert Conquest believes that Ordzhonikidze, who was not professionally prepared to manage the industry, was completely dependent on the technical skills and knowledge of his deputy, Georgy Pyatakov. Sergo himself, apparently, was in his ministerial position only the overseer and "whip" of Stalin.
On the question of the degree of personal loyalty to Sergo Stalin, researchers disagree. Ordzhonikidze did not like very much the repressions that his friend Joseph unleashed more and more against the "old guard" of the Bolsheviks. Sergo also belonged to this guard. In 1932, he is said to have spoken out, along with several other members of the Politburo, against the harsh persecution of those who advanced the so-called “ Ryutin's platform", And this even then led to a conflict with Stalin.
Leaving Transcaucasia, Ordzhonikidze replaced most of the leading posts there with his personal nominees. In the early 1930s. Stalin, who did not tolerate any competition, removed most of them, and this caused new clashes between him and "Sergo". Ordzhonikidze considered Lavrenty Beria, now a rogue and a dangerous intriguer, to play the first role in Transcaucasia. On the basis of rumors about the opposition of "Sergo" to Stalin, in many publications he is portrayed as almost a liberal and a democrat. However, we must not forget: the reason for this opposition was purely personal interests. Ordzhonikidze, who had not at all condemned either the genocide of the Cossacks, or the defeat of peasant Russia during collectivization, or the enslavement of the working class at the industrial construction sites of the first five-year plans, now only wanted to defend against the excessive "absolutism" of the privilege of the highest communist elite, which he himself belonged to.
Speech by Ordzhonikidze, 1936
Recently disclosed documentary facts also incline to the idea that the degree of even such resistance Ordzhonikidze to Stalin had previously been exaggerated. Previously, historian Roy Medvedev argued that Ordzhonikidze rather actively opposed Great Terror 1936-1938, which was accompanied by the arrest of the deputy of "Sergo", Pyatakov. However, now another historian, Oleg Khlevnyuk, reports that in the Soviet archives there is no evidence of Ordzhonikidze's opposition to the Moscow public trials of "enemies of the people", including the conviction of Pyatakov. According to the archives, Ordzhonikidze, on the contrary, personally interrogated Pyatakov and pretended to believe in his "crimes."
On the Zinoviev and Kamenev trial the defendants "confessed" to attempts on the life of not only Stalin, but also Ordzhonikidze. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia at one time even argued that enemy intrigues had greatly reduced Sergo's life.
Death of Ordzhonikidze
There is information that in November 1936 "Sergo" suffered a heart attack.
Ordzhonikidze died on the night of February 17-18, 1937. In the obituary published by Pravda and signed by three doctors, as well as the People's Commissar of Health Grigory Kaminsky, the cause of death was called “heart paralysis”. Robert Conquest claims that this medical report was a lie, and one of the doctors did not want to sign it.
Another version: that Ordzhonikidze committed suicide in despair from the Great Terror - was first mentioned by Khrushchev in a secret report on February 25, 1956. He repeated it in a speech at the 22nd Party Congress (1961). In his memoirs, Khrushchev gives two of his sources for this version: he allegedly expounded it to him Georgy Malenkov during the war and Anastas Mikoyan after her.
There is another version that Ordzhonikidze was killed by order of Stalin or forced to commit suicide. It spread soon after World War II. Conquest reports that witnesses saw people who fled from Ordzhonikidze's house immediately after his death. There were rumors that “Sergo's” wife, Zinaida Gavrilovna Pavlutskaya, who was next to her husband at the time of death, told some people that he had committed suicide, and others that he had been killed. Taking into account the then events in the USSR and the example death of Kirov the version of the murder does not seem implausible at all. But most serious historians still reject it.
However, most researchers have no doubts: at the end of 1936, Stalin identified Ordzhonikidze as one of his immediate targets for destruction. In 1955-56. several former employees NKVD was tried on charges of collecting libel against Ordzhonikidze. Stalin's liquidation of many of Ordzhonikidze's employees can also be considered an indirect sign of the preparation of repressions against himself.
Soon after the death of Ordzhonikidze, at February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, Stalin sharply criticized the deceased for "conciliation". He claimed that Ordzhonikidze was well aware of the "anti-party sentiments" Lominadze, however, hid them from the Central Committee. In 1937, Ordzhonikidze's older brother, Papulia, was arrested and shot. In 1938, Sergo's wife was sentenced to ten years in prison. Later, his third brother, Konstantin, was arrested, and his nephew, Georgy Gvakharia, director of the Makeyevsky metallurgical plant, was shot.
Memory of Ordzhonikidze in the USSR
Several cities and districts in the USSR were renamed Ordzhonikidze: for example, Vladikavkaz in Russia and Vakhdat in Tajikistan (later they were given their historical names back). The name Ordzhonikidze was given to the Nizhny Novgorod Sokol plant, the main manufacturer of MiG fighters, as well as to the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI).
In honor of Ordzhonikidze, the Sverdlov-class naval cruiser was named, on which Khrushchev arrived in Great Britain in 1956. During this visit, the British secret service MI6 dispatched the famous diver "Buster" Crabbe to examine the bottoms and propellers of the Ordzhonikidze in order to understand the nature of the superior maneuverability of this class of cruisers. Crabbe did not return from the mission. A year later, a body was found without a head and arms, presumably belonging to a missing diver. At the end of 2007, former Soviet combat swimmer Eduard Koltsov said that half a century ago he cut Crabbe's throat when he found him planting a magnetic mine near the ship's powder magazine. Koltsov's version has not received confirmation and is disputed by many.
