Bukharin - Mandelstam - Stalin in 1938

Post Scriptum to the forthcoming book "Political Biography of Osip Mandelstam".

by Leonid Katsis 

This chapter would never have been written if it were not for the huge PR campaign launched around the book by Gleb Morev, an IT-mandelshtamologist and scandalous pseudo-scientific blogger [1], about some pages of the biography of Osip Mandelstam. The central point of this campaign was the discussion of this work in the Liberal Mission Foundation with the participation of Gleb Pavlovsky.

The interest of this political philosopher in the work of Osip Mandelstam led to the fact that for the first time in our lives we picked up any book by G. Pavlovsky, and then, during high-speed viewing, references to Mandelstam flashed several times in it, close to which we saw in very indistinct, and somewhat banal conversations of Mikhail Gefter about Mandelstam [2]. However, the book publishes for the first time the materials of chamber wiretapping of N.I. Bukharin with a chamber hen [3], about which we have not heard anything.

For Gefter, they served as unnamed material for discussions about Bukharin and his prison manuscripts [4]. We will use these texts and some accompanying thoughts of M. Gefter [5] in order to single out N.I. Bukharin, those features of his reflections on his fate, creativity, Stalin, etc., which make it possible to discover incredible parallels with the fate of Mandelstam back in 1934. The year when Bukharin, as we tried to show earlier, rather took advantage of Mandelstam's situation than, as is traditionally believed, helped him.

Moreover, it is the Bukharin text of 1938 that is fundamentally important for understanding the very strange phrase of G.P. Struve from his preface to O.E. Mandelstam in 1974, in his lifetime for N.Ya. Mandelstam, that if Mandelstam had managed to go to the last exile with N.Ya. Mandelstam, the poet would have survived.

How did the five years of the camp term, received by Mandelstam, become a link where you can go with your wife? How did the so-called Stalinist “miracle” of 1934, which we do not consider a miracle, allowed the poet to go with his wife to exile, and not to a camp, turned into such a strange conclusion by G.P. Struve, published and not refuted during N.Ya. Mandelstam?

Now, taking into account what we already know about Mandelstam from the previous chapters of our monograph and previous publications, we will read the recordings of Bukharin's conversations in his dying months, noting completely unexpected parallels that make us look for direct connections between N.I. Bukharin and the "case" of Mandelstam, well known to him.

Realizing the complexity and riskiness of the proposed study, we proceed to it, starting with a very important thought of M.Ya. Geftera is not at all about Mandelstam:

From a conversation with the author, 1993, b.m.

M.G.: Bukharin and Stalin are having a dialogue of two. He goes all the way to the end. Here is February 1937, the party trial, from where he will be taken to the Lubyanka.

Bukharin: I am telling the truth here, no one will force me to say the monstrous things that are being said about me, and no one will achieve this from me under any circumstances. No matter what epithets they call me, I will not pretend to be a pest, to pretend to be a terrorist, to pretend to be a traitor, to pretend to be a traitor to the socialist homeland.

Stalin: You must not and do not have the right to rivet yourself, this is the most criminal thing ... You must enter into our position ... "And so on. When the performance is given, the denouement is known only to Stalin and is completely obvious only to him. Not to the performer Yezhov, not to henchmen-extras in the hall who portray righteous anger, and to the director in a single person to show tolerance.

And now the most important comment:

“You see, this is an important point. It is important to me that the two of them here speak the same language, but in such divergent dialects of this language, which obviously exclude understanding. Bukharin seems to be undoubtedly sincere. But what if the second one is also sincere? And what happens puts us into action. Like an ancient tragedy? And we are in the role of a choir that knows in advance everything that will happen to the heroes, but is powerless to suggest to them actions that would exclude what was destined by fate. Powerless to prompt Bukharin, we are powerless to prompt Stalin” (Weak, p. 168).

For us, this remark by M. Gefter about the language and its dialects is important, but we cannot in any way agree that Mandelstam, whom he constantly mentions, somehow falls out of the proposed scheme. In our opinion, Mandelstam is a third dialect of the same language, on the one hand, otherwise the so-called Stalinist “miracle” would have been impossible, and on the other hand, Stalin quite adequately understood the poet’s appeal to himself in the 1934 investigation file.

Consequently, all participants in the dialogues and the Dialogue with a capital letter mutually understood their dialects.

Moreover, still not knowing anything about these conclusions, M.Ya. Gefter, we have already assessed the “dialect” “We live below us, not feeling the country ...” and “If only I took coal for the highest praise ...” as referring to the same Kremlin corridor, and the “anti-Stalinist” poem itself is such , as it is already clear, we do not consider at all.

And this is not only the difference between our analytical positions and M. Gefter, but, moreover, this is our metaposition in relation to both those documents received from the heir of the philosopher, which we will analyze, and in relation to the roles of Stalin, Bukharin, Mandelstam and even the “choirboy” Gefter himself, which we will analyze against the background of what we already know about Mandelstam.

The figure of M.Ya. Geftera turns out to be an important intermediate figure for us between the poet Mandelstam, his widow, E.G. Gershtein, who already wrote “over” the books of N.Ya. Mandelstam. Gefter, who considered himself thrown out of government consultants in 1993, however, who considered himself a man of the Stalin era, the author of a vivid article “Stalin died yesterday”, occupies a very important niche in the system of our characters, since he is confident in knowing the dialects of his era.

So, then about Mandelstam, which constantly surrounds Gefter's reflections on Bukharin.

Shortly after the so-called "Congress of the Winners":

“And then, full of inspired zeal (solidarity with Koba and his general line), he regained the advantages of journalistic employment, along with the ability, even for a short period of time, to protect the top movements of the spirit (Osip Mandelstam testifies from the grave) - with his voice and his very existence” recruiting" shrews and individuals. And even more vividly he undertook to cultivate that million-headed layer of “new people” born in five-year plans, in whom he saw not only the guarantee of full-fledged socialism, but also an irreplaceable chance of victory in the impending battle with fascism ” (Weak p. 137).

And one more paragraph:

“I felt the hating breath of a man on the back of my head, whom – let’s repeat these terrible words – “learned to appreciate and love intelligently.” Why? Wanted to reconcile with Stalinist Russia and understood that reconciliation with all who are in it, for the sake of all who are on earth, requires loving one? The one who gave the name to this Russia, who managed to make it Stalinist. (Weak. p. 138).

Here you need to see a quote from the "Left March":

There

beyond the mountains of grief

the sunny edge is unfinished.

For hunger

beyond the sea

print a millionth step!

Let the gang surround the hired one,

steel pour out lei, -

Russia will not be under the Entente.

In combination with the unnamed "Poems about Stalin", which, voluntarily or involuntarily, like the constantly flashing name of Mandelstam, turn out to be an overtone-subtext of all reasoning:

The debtor is stronger than the lawsuit

Powerful eyes are decidedly kind,

A thick eyebrow shines close to someone,

And I would like to point with an arrow

On the hardness of the mouth - the father of stubborn speeches,

Stucco, complex, cool eyelid - to know

Works from a million frames.

All - frankness, all - confessions of copper,

And a keen ear that does not tolerate mute,

At all ready to live and die

Running, playing, gloomy wrinkles ...

The only difference in our position is that Bukharin did not so much save Mandelstam in the story with “We live without feeling the country under us ...”, but he used this story to try to meet with Stalin, which we wrote about in our place.

“Iosif Dzhugashvili was afraid of death, and any reminder of it, even indirectly referring to him, on an equal footing with all people, caused him a sudden and unbridled reaction (recall how he interrupted a telephone conversation with Boris Pasternak in mid-sentence after he announced his desire to talk about life and death). (...) as a leader, who was daily assured of his absolute need, he found himself "forced" to reject death from himself - and what else, equivalent and even superior, was given to displace it, except by murder, achieving everything except him " (Weak p. 146).

This reasoning would be convincing if the suggestion "to talk about life and death" was actually used in Pasternak's conversation with Stalin. Meanwhile, as we constantly wrote and write, this expression is not in the "short version" of the conversation, at least until 1946. It seems to us that these words, as it has been written more than once, go back to the words about life, death and revolution from Osip Mandelstam's Komisarzhevskaya, uttered by Pasternak in a conversation with N.Ya. Mandelstam is purely as a signal to Mandelstam, who understood everything and answered Pasternak with arguments about the so-called. "shamans" [6].

This is another correction of the rather deep position of M.Ya. Gefter. Move on:

“G.P. What if it's not a weak person, but just the voice of his weakness? Weakness after all happens a different origin, on itself I know.

M.G. No, I am saying that Weak Man is the same definition as Homo erectus and Homo sapience, an upright man and a thinking man. Such is his anthropological status in history. The weak can do something that the strong cannot do. The tyrannicide, to which Mandelstam called in vain in an anti-Stalinist poem of 1933, nevertheless happened to Stalin - posthumously ” (Weak p. 173).

Even without taking seriously the assessment of the "epigram" as a call for the murder of a tyrant, we believe that this rather widespread intellectual point of view should simply be taken into account.

Now we can move on to the sequential reading of a completely unique document, the analogues of which we do not know, since we do not have access to transcripts of chamber hens and, it seems, for all the pricelessness of what we are about to see, it would be better not to have it.

G. Pavlovsky tells about the origin of these papers:

"1 man" - this is how Nikolai Bukharin himself is designated in the transcripts, and “II male.” - Natan Zaritsky, who was put in a cell with him for control and outlived his great cellmate by half a century.

“How this thing got to Gefter, I don’t know. He was a man with acquaintances in the Kremlin circles. Among his acquaintances, Olga Shatunovskaya is an investigator of the Yezhovshchina within the framework of the “Shvernik commission”. And also Alexey Chernyaev, Gennady Burbulis, Alexander Yakovlev - everyone had their own access to Stalin's secrets.

The reader of Gefter does not know about this document, it has not been published to this day, and I consider it important to print it here. Of course, this is not a scientific publication - I have no way into tightly closed archives. (p. 218).

It probably makes sense to provide information about Bukharin's cellmate: “Natan Davidovich Zaritsky (1904 (https://nkvd.memo.ru/index.php/Zaritsky,_Natan_Davidovich) - 1988/1989).

 CP member. From the beginning of the 1930s head of the URCM in Minsk, then in various positions in the OGPU PP for the BVO-NKVD of the BSSR. 

Until October 1934, head of the SPO department of the UGB NKVD of the BSSR. 

In October 1934 - July 1935. head of the 2nd branch of the SPO UGB UNKVD in the Saratov Territory, at the same time (since December 1934) concurrently assistant head of the SPO UGB UNKVD in the Saratov Territory. 

From July 1935, assistant chief of the SPO, and from December 1935 to May 1936. (concurrently) head of the 5th department of the SPO UGB UNKVD in the Saratov region. 

In April 1937 he was seconded to the NKVD of the USSR, since May 1937 he was an assistant to the head of the 3rd (operational security) department of the Dmitrov ITL NKVD. 

In May 1937 the appointment order was canceled, was returned to the disposal of the UNKVD in the Saratov region: from May 1937, head of the 5 (00) department of the UGB of the UNKVD in the Saratov region. 

In July 1937, he was relieved of his post "... as an arrested person" [418] and dismissed from the NKVD. 

In July 1937, he was convicted "for falsifying investigative materials" for 2 years in prison. He served his sentence in Moscow, was used as an intra-chamber agent to develop under investigation "enemies of the people" - N. I. Bukharin, I. D. Kabakov, K. V. Ryndin, M. M. Khataevich. 

In April 1938, the criminal case was dropped, and he was released from custody. 

In May 1938, the order to dismiss from the NKVD was canceled, then he was sent to work in the 3rd (operational-Chekist) department of the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR. In November 1939, he was dismissed from the NKVD altogether, later on in economic work. Died in Moscow. Lieutenant GB (1936), Senior Lieutenant GB (1937). Sign "Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU" (1934)" [7].

The note also provides more detailed information about Zaritsky, which connects this person with the name of Y. Agranov, who played such an important role in the fate of Mandelstam in 1934, as well as A.A. Andreev, who played no less a role in the life of the poet after the return of that one from Voronezh: 

“N. D. Zaritsky was arrested on charges of fabricating materials on a Right-Trotskyist organization in Saratov. In the course of checking the activities of the regional NKVD, organized by the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (G. M. Malenkov, A. A. Andreev, A. R. Stromin-Stroev), it was established that the investigation of individual arrested persons was conducted in a clearly wrong direction.

 According to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A. A. Andreev and the head of the ORPO of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G. M. Malenkov in Saratov: “There are those arrested who have nothing to do with [the] right-Trotskyist organizations, whose false testimony was dictated by investigators led by Agranov, and his closest assistant in this case is Zaritsky, a rather suspicious element. Correspondence. 

1938−1941 — M.; ROSSPEN, 1999. - P. 364. 

According to the testimony of Frinovsky (minutes of November 22, 1939), in June 1937, a telegram was received from Saratov to Moscow stating that a large group of conspirators had been opened by the local NKVD, both in Saratov and and other large cities of the country, including Moscow. 

The lists of people passing through this conspiratorial organization included a number of people, including those who, according to Frinovsky, “... did not raise doubts in terms of their honesty and devotion to the party and Soviet power, in particular, as members of the counter-revolutionary organization were called some of the closest associates of V. I. Lenin. and his closest assistant in this matter is Zaritsky, a rather suspicious element. 

Correspondence. 1938−1941 — M.; ROSSPEN, 1999. - P. 364. 

According to the testimony of Frinovsky (minutes of November 22, 1939), in June 1937, a telegram was received from Saratov to Moscow stating that a large group of conspirators had been opened by the local NKVD, both in Saratov and and other large cities of the country, including Moscow. The lists of people passing through this conspiratorial organization included a number of people, including those who, according to Frinovsky, “... did not raise doubts in terms of their honesty and devotion to the party and Soviet power, in particular, as members of the counter-revolutionary organization were called some of the closest associates of V. I. Lenin. and his closest assistant in this matter is Zaritsky, a rather suspicious element. Correspondence. 1938−1941 — M.; ROSSPEN, 1999. - P. 364.

In Moscow, it was decided to check this information. One of those arrested, a certain Saraev, who was summoned to Moscow, gave confessions, but, according to Frinovsky, they were extremely provocative. At the same time, Saraev answered questions according to the protocol of interrogation memorized, when answering the same question, but in a different wording, he began to get confused, and asked the question to be asked as written in the protocol. Yezhov personally ordered to “press” Saraev, and he confessed: he began to testify at the suggestion of Agranov, and the names of prominent party workers and their testimony were dictated to him by his investigator Zaritsky. After that, the issue of the immediate arrest of Agranov and Zaritsky was resolved in Yezhov’s personal office.

Now we will try to sequentially go through the Lubyanka transcripts, highlighting from them direct parallels with the history of Mandelstam, without being interested in how reading these papers affected the philosophy, political activity and worldview of M.Ya. Gefter and G. Pavlovsky.

This source study method was used by us because it allows us to see the fate and behavior of Mandelstam in that Kremlin top context, which we considered in the analysis of “We live without feeling the country under us ...” or “Journey to Armenia”, but not in the context of the behavior of poets and literary officials, but against the background of direct relations between the two leaders of the party and the government at the moment when the imprisoned Bukharin became a prose writer himself in the literal sense and included himself in this context, including even the names of quite real writers and writers' bosses. This is the first time we encounter such a “reverse” element of our paradigm. The more important are the parallels, which it was impossible to even guess.

As we proceed, we will provide references to the dates of the relevant documents and, accordingly, page numbers.

So, January 12, 1938:

"1 man. They will send you to Yakutia for 25 years, you know, it's cold there. My brother was cured of tuberculosis there.

II. So tell me, can I take a wife?

I. I don't know. Ride in wagons” , and then talk about what kind of “premises” await the prisoners.

It is characteristic that, unlike G.P. Struve in his article to the collected works of Mandelstam, N.I. Bukharin understands that if you ride in wagons, of course, men's, then there is no place for your wife there. Another thing is how much it distinguishes the link from the camp and, accordingly, the route. This is followed by a long conversation about the mass of those arrested, where Bukharin answers the questions of the "brood hen".

Bukharin's dreams, as the mother hen understands them, in the continuation of the dialogue are very reminiscent of what happened in the case of Mandelstam, who, unlike Bukharin, was not shot:

“They will give you two rooms, even three, and a working room. You will sit and work. If you want, you can take a walk for 3-4 hours so that you don’t feel the prison atmosphere. A well-known term is a date with his wife. In the camps, you can hunt and draw. After the trial, you will be asked how you arrange your prospects. And you say, give me a book, I'll work - write, that's all. Maybe so?

1. Of course it can.

Interestingly, when discussing what Bukharin wrote, the latter says:

1. One read.

II. And what?

1. He is very excited.

II. Here you go.

1. Yezhov knows about this ”(Weak. B. S. 245-246)

If Ezhov's name is mentioned directly, then "one", whose opinion is important for Yezhov, according to Bukharin, is apparently the first person.

The question of his wife going into exile with him comes up again and again on February 23, 1938:

"II. Write her a letter.

I. Will not be given.

II. Why.

I. I wrote such a letter, it lies in my store.

II. She will be given.

I. This is in case of my death. And if they send me somewhere, then she will go /pause/. They'll come up with something else." (Weak. B. S. 283).

Within the framework of our interests, it seems that even after 1937, not to mention 1934, and even before the assassination of S.M. Kirov, when it was relevant for Mandelstam, such a development of events for not quite ordinary inmates was considered likely.

Meanwhile, in 1934, permission for Mandelstam to go into exile with his wife was not commonplace.

On February 24, 1938, the topic of literature, writing, etc., arises, which, in the opinion of the "mother hen", who for some reason is ready to write about this to the authorities, can help Bukharin:

"II. Tell me something interesting. You know so much.

I. Wait, let me either die or live through it.

II. I want to talk to you.

I. I will read you a novel.

II. The novel is interesting, I would like you to finish it.

I. Pray to God.

II. It doesn't help /pause/. If you want, I will write a statement in which I will indicate the value of your existence, your life. /silence/".

Quite unexpectedly, Bukharin finds himself in the role of an imprisoned writer. Almost like Babel, who had to write like this in reality.

Although, of course, it is difficult to analyze the adequacy of Bukharin's condition in his situation, the constant talk either about the camp or about some kind of dacha for work under supervision does not go anywhere.

Recall that already in Voronezh, Mandelstam seriously discussed the purchase of a house in the Crimea or really rested in the suburbs of Voronezh.

So, February 28, 1938:

" II. Be patient until the process, and then go to rest.

I. This is not a vacation.

II. If they send you to the camp, then this is already a rest.

I. We will not be sent to the camp.

II. That is OK.

I. There, of course, it would be nice. I would agree if they gave me a small hut without the right to go out for a long distance, even for a kilometer, but only books and Anyuta, well, there are all sorts of writing materials.

II. Would you like a dacha near Moscow?

I. Yes.

II. You would be tired.

I. If there were still good paints, the canvas and one could walk for some distance. I don’t need anything else, books and nothing more ”(Weak. B. 299).

And on the same day, a rather long story about writing a novel appears (B. 302, 307, 308, 318, 379). Parallel to this, there are stories about a meeting with Yezhov on March 1, 1938 (B. 305, 313). Here a special place is occupied by Zaritsky's memorandum about Bukharin's story about the meeting with Yezhov (B. 321).

On March 6, 1938, a very long literary conversation took place, which we will give in sufficient volume, because. Here, in a very peculiar context, people appear who are directly related to Mandelstam's history and the fate of both 1934 and 1938.

"II. It seems to me that you will not be sent to the camps.

I. And what will they do?

II. Here you will be placed somewhere under supervision. You will have to stay there without a break, they will put a certain amount of salary, you will have to take your family, it seems to me that it is mandatory, to take your family.

I. Why a family?

II. This is my own guess. Tell us something".

Here it is worth briefly recalling how Mandelstam, and other oppositionists known to us around 1932-34, were sent, in full accordance with what is now known from the report of V. Serge (Kibalchich). Recall that he clearly distinguished those who, like Mandelstam in his time, and now Bukharin, were ready to go over to the side of the winner, and those who continued to persist were sent to places that were hardly suitable for life.

Therefore, the conversations in the Lubyanka cell were not completely groundless. In addition, Kibalchich himself, whom N.I. Bukharin, it was in such conditions that he was in Orenburg, where he wrote novels and historical studies. Through Yagoda (although by this time in Bukharin he himself was in prison. However, the Lubyanka prisoner met, as we know, with Yezhov) corresponded with Romain Rolland, etc., and in the end he was released and sent to the West.

It was precisely this fate that Bukharin dreamed of when he offered Stalin to become a fighter against Trotsky precisely abroad. We can only surmise the terms of Kibalchich's release, but he clearly had to be promised something similar. Another thing is that with his report to Trotsky's son, he violated the agreements, ruining a lot of people in the USSR.

But we read further already quite a strange passage:

"II. Tell us something. For example, there is such a writer Stavsky, he seems to be the chairman of the association of Soviet writers?

I. Well, Stavsky is not a very good writer. I write better than Stavsky.

II. (laughs) ”(Weak. B. 383).

It is interesting that the "brood hen" confuses writers' organizations: the Russian Organization of Proletarian Writers, the Federation of Soviet Writers' Associations, and, of course, the Union of Soviet Writers, at whose first congress Bukharin made a report.

Why did the question about Stavsky arise at all, to which the fully informed Bukharin did not answer, but simply turned to the problem of the quality of literature?

The fact is that the "hen" spoke of Stavsky as the head of the Writers' Union, on whom something depends, while Bukharin avoided the conversation.

Here is the preceding paragraph: “If you are pardoned, they will exile you to a remote area like Altai or somewhere else. You say you don't want to sit here in the middle of nowhere and offer your writing services."

This is the context in which the name “Chairman of the Association of Soviet Writers” appeared in conversations on death row.

It is not necessary to be surprised at the illiteracy of Bukharin's interlocutor, a shtetl Jew, far from literary life. For him and the XIX century. no different from XX:

"II. … You actually write better than Alexei Tolstoy, than Sholokhov. It is easier to read with you, you write better than Goncharov, than Pisemsky.

I. Do I write as well as Alexei Tolstoy? Come on, these are your inventions.

II. And what do you think, you are doing well, very well. In general, you are not known as a writer. If your book comes out, then check it out. In general, I am not a connoisseur, but I can still distinguish good from bad. We have, in essence, two writers: Sholokhov and Alexei Tolstoy, and you write better than them and even better than Pisemsky. You have a good presentation, good language and erudition. Your language is rich. Your books are easy to read, there are no heavy expressions ”(Weak. B. 384).

Even more ominous is the following remark in the dialogue at the very end:

"2. Well, yes, you want to get more tired of the process (laughs). Nikolai Ivanovich, try to draw me in this position, look here.

1. Draw? There is no time for this.

2. Once you have such a pencil, they are very good at drawing (pause). Remove the blanket.

1. For what?

2. Yes. It interferes."

(1 sits down to write, II sleeps). (Weak. B. 386).

For us, who remember the satirical drawings of Bukharin at meetings of the Politburo, etc., the author of portraits of Stalin, the semi-literate prison “hen”, now obvious to him, offers to draw himself. Let us recall the role played by the drawings of Bukharin and his successor Mezhlauk in our analyzes “We live. I don’t feel the country under me…”.

Some episodes of these chamber recordings even make it possible to detect literary overtones that appeared in the conversations of cellmates after several days of the process that have passed since the previous recording:

"one. Have you seen such a play "Alien Child"?

2. I saw.

1. There is a remember: Zina, Zinok.

2. Who wrote it?

1. I forgot, I don't remember. Remarkably good comedy.

2. I saw her in Moscow, at the Satire Theater.

1. There, remember how one looks after a pretty girl and says to her: "Zinushka, Zinok." Remember?

2. Why did you remember this play?

1. I don't know.

2. Have you watched it?

1. Yes, I saw her in Leningrad, and then I saw her in the Kremlin.

2. How is it in the Kremlin?

1. Well, there was such a part at some reception.

2. Is it in the same building?

1. No, in different ones. It was in the so-called Sverdlovsk Hall.

2. Do all meetings take place in this room?

1. No, the meeting was held in the Grand Palace.

2. And what is it called?

1. It is called St. George's Hall.

2. Are there banquets here?

1. Yes. (Weak. B. 423).

This is followed by a conversation about various Kremlin squares and buildings. Recall that at that time there was no entrance to the Kremlin for ordinary people.

Stalin's name was not mentioned in this passage of conversations, but the Kremlin's methods are connected with him by the strongest ties.

Moreover, the aforementioned comedy by Shkvarkin deserved a rather high appraisal of one of the former members of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Solts [8].

True, Soltz's review was for a performance staged at the Bolshoi Theater.

Let us now turn to Shkvarkin's play "An Alien Child" [9], which was mentioned by Bukharin. It will enable us to understand, in the context of the meetings of the trial and the preparations for them in the cell, what Bukharin had in mind.

Our reasoning will be quite heavy, because. parallels to Shkvarkin's peaceful vaudeville will have to be sought in Bukharin's dying words in the cell, and even in the Shakespearean-Dostoevsky context, mentioned personally by Bukharin.

So, quite seemingly harmless remarks from the play:

YAKOV. It doesn't matter: in love means sick.

BONE. Yakov, she's here... Swear in an undertone.

YAKOV. Got to live in one room with a lover!

BONE. It's not contagious.

YAKOV. But it's unpleasant. Every day you will shave, today trousers, tomorrow a collar, then you will come down to a tie. Tell me honestly: did you bring a tie?

BONE. Well, bring it.

YAKOV. How can you live after this?

BONE (seeing that Manya has left, loudly). Is it possible not to yell, you nasty governess?

YAKOV. From a normal person, I would not have taken down the “governess”.

BONE. You are not more ferocious, understand, because I, because with me, because I have ... Yasha, friend! (Hugs Jacob.)

YAKOV. He started attacking people. Straight lunatic! [10].

If you do not know that in the cell Bukharin is constantly talking about how he will be dressed for the process, how he will look there, how often he is shaved, etc., then the fun from reading will quickly disappear. But even more creepy against our background is Mani's monologue:

MANIA (with a role in hand). I'm alone on the stage ... Here is the ramp, there is the audience ... It's creepy ... Oh, how creepy! Here they are, the audience. How terrible they all are! .. Better not to look. After all, they do not know that this is my first role. The main thing is not to worry. So. Silence. Good - silence, but if they cough in the auditorium, like in a tuberculosis sanatorium? And suddenly a failure? No, I'll play great. But how to play when I don't understand the role? This is before the revolution. The girl got along with her lover. Nothing special. He abandoned her.

Please don't cry! She must have a child. Also nothing supernatural. Parents find out about this and kick their daughter out of the house. Just think, a tragedy - took it and moved! All her friends turned away from her. Yes, I myself would not look at such acquaintances. Finally, the heroine meets a student. She leaned all over for him, he leaned all over for her; but, having learned about the child, he did not come again. That's where the road is! And she suffers.

Four acts, eight pictures suffer. Because of which? Because of which? How absurdly people lived! Oh, if only one such girl could be found now! Look, ask... I don't understand... I wanted to contact the author - it turns out he died a natural death: from a lack of royalties. He is fine, but I have a premiere in a month. So - the ramp, so - the audience ... I enter ... and I do not understand anything! (Olga Pavlovna comes out of the house onto the terrace.) Mother, mother!

And here's a later reply:

BONE. When will they sign?

YAKOV. Who with whom?

BONE. Manya with Semyon Perchatkin.

YAKOV. So far only Senka has signed. He signed his stupidity and left.

BONE. How? What? Where did you go?

YAKOV. After. Now take off your pants. Take it off, please.

BONE. That is, as?

YAKOV. Just shoot. Borrow white trousers. I'm going to introduce myself to this... test.

BONE. Which one are you…

YAKOV. Can you take off your pants without psychology? (Takes Kostya away.)

Alexander Mironovich enters from the other side, followed by Raya.

RAYA. Dad Father!

ALEXANDER MIRONOVICH. I am not your father. Your father is in the zoological garden. Sitting in a cage: he is a beast.

RAYA. Just don't worry.

ALEXANDER MIRONOVICH. I'm not worried, I'm already uplifting! I am a beast! This is what you need in Butyrki. I had a process in the lungs, let it be in the Supreme Court now.

RAYA. Dad, honey!

Even discussions on love topics find parallels in Bukharin's conversations with the mother hen in the cell:

MANIA. Don't be shy, tell me where it was?

KARAULOV. We have at home.

MANIA. How did they get poisoned?

KARAULOV. Fish. I ate.

MANIA. I'm not asking about this. From love, from love for you, no one suffered? You are an artist, a musician, perhaps - you were interesting.

OLGA PAVLOVNA. Never was.

KARAULOV. Was, was.

MANIA. Don't argue. Well? Did you kill your fans?

KARAULOV. I do not understand - what kind of murder do you require from me? I have been playing in the orchestra almost all my life, and women only died from soloists, and even then not to death.

MANIA. Why are you so dim?

OLGA PAVLOVNA. Are we dim? It's a shame to listen.

It is hard to believe, but even random remarks find parallels in Bukharin's conversations:

MANIA. Sit down, just a little. (Reads the role.)

SENECHKA. Of course, with my happiness, only a long time in prison. Maria Sergeevna, one purely theoretical question torments me. Is my job very ugly?

MANIA. Why? You are the right person, a technician ...

SENECHKA. But what kind of technician? Dental. And I want to have prospects in life, but what are the horizons in the oral cavity?

MANIA. Well, study, work on yourself.

SENECHKA. Am I not working? Speaking between us, I read the Great Encyclopedia.

MANIA. And read a lot?

SENECHKA. In the first volume, it reached "absurdity". I live according to the plan. (Takes out a notebook.) Here's a self-task: for June - to make a suit for the occasion, and for July - to rebuild the psychology. Maria Sergeevna... (He wants to hug Manya, but does not dare, his hand remains in the air.) Maria Sergeevna, I have decided to gather myself with insolence. (Jumps up.) My biography is in your hands!

MANIA. What's wrong with you? (Leaves the role.)

SENECHKA. And the fact that now I seem to have to jump from an airplane with a parachute. All around - a whirlwind, eight miles to the ground, they push in the back, but there is not enough impudence to jump. What if the parachute doesn't open? What then? Formlessness and civil memorial service.

MANIA. Senechka, what's wrong with you?

SENECHKA (closes her eyes with her hand). See. I'm jumping! I love you! I'm flying and waiting for an answer! And one, and two, and three, and four...

And this is still before the remark that Bukharin has in mind, we will consider it separately, but for now:

OLGA PAVLOVNA. We wish you happiness.

MANIA. Good specialists, instructors fortunately! What do you think happiness is?

OLGA PAVLOVNA. In Fyodor Fyodorovich.

MANIA. Fedor Fedorovich ... Yes, if I want, I will have a dozen of them!

KARAULOV. This is what we are afraid of.

OLGA PAVLOVNA. Settle down, please, let us die in peace.

MANIA. I won't let you die in peace. Remember once and for all: I will date anyone ...

OLGA PAVLOVNA. Oh!

MANIA. …anywhere…

KARAULOV. The program is wide!

MANIA. Yes, but I ask you not to interfere in my personal life. It's tactless. Try to improve and do not bother with trifles, like marriage. I'm going through drama right now. (Slaps the notebook.) Tragedy! (Exits.)

KARAULOV. You share with us. Where did you run into the bushes to worry? ..

OLGA PAVLOVNA. And we are in terror again...

And this remark follows immediately after the one just quoted. Here it is, keeping in mind the Bukharin biographical context and its circumstances:

Enter Zina and Raya.

KARAULOV. Zina, Zinochka ...

Zina stops. Raya goes on and hides.

OLGA PAVLOVNA. Zinochka, do not reject our request.

KARAULOV. We are to you as to a senior comrade.

3INA. And what? And what?

KARAULOV. Did Manya tell you anything so tragic?

ZINA. And what?

OLGA PAVLOVNA. We don’t know, only something happened to her or is about to happen ... Here she is ...

KARAULOV. See, what a terrible gait? .. (Olga Pavlovna.) Hide, otherwise it will hit you again.

They go to the rooms. MANA enters. Zina quietly approaches her from behind. Senechka enters and involuntarily eavesdrops from around the corner of the dacha.

MANIA (from the role). "What should I do?" No not like this! “What should I do? .. Tell my mother ... She will not survive this. Leave? But where?.. And what will happen to the child? What kind of life awaits him? .. My child ... My child! Die?"

ZINA. Just don't despair! Manya, honey, I heard everything. Is it possible to die because of this? (Manya does not understand at first, then laughs.) Of course, you are an actress and you laugh very naturally, only I understand everything.

MANIA. I just spoke out loud, to myself, preparing the role.

ZINA. You're lying, you spoke with tears in your eyes. Parents, of course, must be deceived, and a girlfriend is disgusting. I didn't deserve that kind of treatment.

MANYA (making a decision). Okay. Help me. What to do? What to do?"

Let us briefly note that Shkvarkin's play also has more cheerful references to Russian classics:

ZINA. I don't understand anything! (Exits.)

SENECHKA (around the corner). My biography began with a blob! (Staggering, leaves.)

And now the verses of M.A. Kuzmina 1906:

Tears will not notice on my face

crybaby reader,

Fate does not put a point at the end,

But only a blot...

The Soviet Shkvarkin is not so simple ... But we read further:

KARAULOV. Who called me?

SENECHKA. I called! (Puts the bottle on the table with a flurry.) Calling everyone! Have fun at the civil memorial service for Semyon Perchatkin. He jumped from an airplane ... He jumped on his head, but the parachute (points to Manya) is beautiful, but deceitful, the parachute turned out to be rotten! .. Rotten! .. And Senechka crashed into small crumbs. Before you, stands a valiant dead man.

YAKOV. It's from the heat. Cover your head, comrade.

SENECHKA. Shut up, Caucasian prisoner.

The last words of the remark do not require commentary, but the living dead is quite the opposite.

Even conversations about old books that the parents kept and about which the heroes of the play talk find parallels in chamber conversations about classical literature by Bukharin and his spy, although we will not quote them here.

We only note that, as V. Verbina notes, “Shkvarkin had to rewrite the super-popular comedy Alien Child (1933) in 1939, and then at least again in 1954” [11]. It is clear that all these dates are not random at all. To finish the conversation about Shkvarkin, let's mention another of his plays, "A Harmful Element" [12].

Here we find a vaudeville scene where two cheaters sitting in a cell exchange surnames, one is released, and the other, the one who should have been released, is sent to the appropriate places.

Then, as always in vaudeville, the deception is revealed. But it is important for us that two people in the cell are discussing exactly what Bukharin discussed with his “mother hen”:

Chubchik. Don't lose your address.

Croupier. Silance, monsieur, what is worse: Narym or Solovki?

Column. I will inform you. (He is surrounded). What is Narym? - Big trouble and climate change. But if you have the means, Narym is a gold mine: You turn your face to the village and buy furs; then turn to face the city and send the furs to Moscow.

Navazhin. And the Solovki?

Column. Solovki? It’s not like a businessman there, there, even with the sun, he doesn’t make any turns. First there is a 4-month working day, and then an 8-month working night.

Shukin. But on the Solovki, they say, they built a theater, but what will I do in Narym? …

Schukin. How to change? Surname and destiny. You will be Navazhin and go to Solovki, and I ... is your surname?

Shukin. Schukin.

Navazhin. And I will be Shchukin and go to Narym. So what do you think?[13]

And literally verbatim coincidence with Bukharin's prison protocols:

Navazhin. Do not refuse to write for memory the most important information about yourself. I will do the same (both write).

Schukin. What to write? …

Navazhin. (Shchukin). When we part, do not refuse to tell my wife the most important facts. Attached address.

Schukin. That's what can happen to a person. (Reads the note.) I am no longer a widower, I am married ... and my wife's name is ... ...

(Convoy enters.)

Navazhin. They're coming (to Shchukin). Remember: you are Navazhin.

Escort. Navazhin Grigory with things!

Column (to Shchukin). It's you."

Unfortunately, Bukharin's life did not provide for such a vaudeville happy ending.

We have now taken advantage of Bukharin's direct reference to a specific and rather forgotten play.

However, already during the process, Bukharin suddenly spoke with his "hen" on a very significant topic "about life and death."

Son M.Ya. Gefthera says:

“Perhaps Bukharin did not want to “talk about life and death,” as in the famous 1934 conversation between Stalin and Pasternak. (Boris Leonidovich was Bukharin's favorite poet, who very often relied on his protection in the 1920s and early 1930s). And in that conversation, it was about the fate of the imprisoned Mandelstam, generally speaking. The situation at that time was not so tragic, I think there was no talk of death in 1934, but it was similar to the case of Bukharin. After all, this is also a conversation about the deepest and most essential things” [14].

Meanwhile, M.Ya. Gefter, who had the text of Bukharin's prison transcripts, knew what he was talking about, but he did not allow anyone but himself to this secret.

Therefore, V. Gefter does not find the origins of his father's very strange position:“Here the counterpoint is not to Bukharin, but to Stalin. In the analysis of this link Bukharin-Stalin, Weakness-Strength, "the most unfortunate consciousness" refers to strength. In Gefterev's analysis of Bukharin there is an attempt to understand why he appeals to Stalin. What in this possibility (to appeal to the leader-demiurge) catches Bukharin? What is the motive, the root cause? And I think that, oddly enough, he pities Stalin.

 An interesting turn, I don't know how convincing it is from the point of view of Bukharin's text, it should be looked at more carefully, but for Gefter it was very important. "The most unhappy consciousness" in the sense that Stalin is unhappy from his strength. From your cunning, lies. Still, neither Bukharin nor Gefter considered him a devil. There is no diabolism there, no need to look for Woland there. In this case, we are talking about an unfortunate person, who brought untold suffering to others and himself became a victim of this suffering. There is even (this is already a little different) such a phrase, which is also from Gefter's text: "Humanize the Stalinist result." Not only terror, but the Stalinist result as a whole.

Meanwhile, M.Ya. Gefter knows about the presence of a text about life, death and Stalin, which we will now cite. Although for M.Ya. Gefter, our approach to the history of Bukharin’s letter to Stalin about Mandelstam as simply an attempt by the beaten Bukharin to penetrate to the Leader, and to Mandelstam’s “We live without smelling the country under us ...” as a parquet and very apical text, not to mention an attempt to link behavior Bukharin in prison with Pasternak’s well-known remark in a conversation with Stalin “about life and death”, which, in our opinion, did not exist and which existed only in Pasternak’s stories, in particular, N.Ya. Mandelstam, etc., is absolutely impossible.

But today we know more than Gefter knew then about poets and leaders, and as much as he did about the actual recording of Bukharin's words.

This is precisely what allows us to connect Bukharin's dying thoughts with the situation that allowed Mandelstam to briefly postpone his end in Voronezh exile.

Moreover, it is our approach to the texts and position of Mandelstam, so close to how and what Bukharin thought, that allows us to connect his words in transcripts with the saving story of the author of "Poems about Stalin."

Another thing is that, as we have shown, the version of The Fourth Prose that has come down to us, which we attribute to the last months of Mandelstam's life, is of an extremely anti-Bukharin character.

But after all, this is the text of Mandelstam, who traveled his “road to Stalin” three years before Bukharin, when he virtually managed “to see him without a pass to the Kremlin” to enter “a confession” to the heavy ...

Sad as it may seem, but this is exactly the case: Mandelstam was historically ahead of Bukharin, and he was arrested for the second time after the execution of his former patron.

It is clear that such an approach destroys the “metaphysics of Stalinism” (according to V. Gefter) of the philosopher who has preserved for us the prison transcripts of Bukharin, in which formally there is no Mandelstam’s name.

At the same time, Pasternak, as you know, was not able to discuss the problem of "life and death" with Stalin, and here Bukharin, knowing perfectly well who and how would read or listen to his speech, decided to discuss this issue further. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s in the process or in the camera being listened to, it doesn’t matter who.

Here is Bukharin's text dated March 10-11, 1938:

“I am afraid that there will be a break (contact with the investigator and the prosecutor, not excluding N.I. Ezhov - L.K.). On the other hand, I don't want to show down, i.e.perform not as well as I can. (...) One could simply confess everything, and that's it, but it's all nonsense (pause). Here I want to talk about the fluctuations between life and death. I want to talk about life and death. When a person is between life and death, he is already weighing his entire life path, he is still counting on life (pause), if he remains to live, of course. If we are talking about death, then a person has the question of how to die. How speech is connected with death, then it is necessary to tell everything, and if you don’t tell, then you will have something left on your back, and no one will know about it (pause). Next, we need to connect the speech with the Spanish and Chinese events (pause). Personal insult, vanity, etc., everything is now discarded, so I came up with all the arguments, however, now I have them in a scattered form ” (Weak. B. 459-460).

And further arguments about Dostoevism and the duality of the whole situation, the problem of denying legal accusations while admitting political guilt. And here is literally the same thing that we saw in the case of a much more radical than Bukharin, Ryutin, who wrote to the family practically the same thing. So, Bukharin:

“Here it is necessary to say about the political slowdown. The argument is the great construction of the USSR, psychology has split in two. Here are some new things I came up with (pause)” (B. 461).

And after a few remarks, we move on to the most important thing - the attitude towards Stalin, which is also important for assessing the path previously traveled by Mandelstam. Here is that dialogue:

1. (Reads his speech 32 sections). Here is the defense of espionage, left communism is especially good, because it will be possible to get rid of it.

2. What does this mean?

1. There is material against me under 4 articles, you understand, and there are 8 articles in total, they concern a group of people, but I didn’t make up any group.

2. Levin was a member of the group.

1. Under the name of the “Right-Trotskyist” bloc, legally, of course, I will recognize it as a weapon (pause), but the main thing is treason to the Motherland, of course, there is no greater betrayal than treason to the Motherland. A betrayal of Stalin is a betrayal of socialism. Well, how?

2. Right.

1. It's not about what's right. Good or not?

2. Well, only you succeeded, as if you cheated on one person - Stalin.

1. No, here Stalin and socialism have grown together into a single whole.

2. Well, okay.

1. I completely reject the case of the attempt on Lenin's life. And I admit everything else, I am guilty ”(Weak. B. 462-463).

This text is important for understanding what resulted in the pre-Kirovsky period of 1934 at the beginning of perestroika, and in 1936−37. with Mandelstam in verses like "Poems about Stalin" or the entire Stalinist cycle, and with Bukharin in a significantly different situation in his speech at the trial.

It is also important that for all the difference in the personal and political fate of Bukharin and Mandelstam, the conversation, as Stalin-Bukharin rightly wrote about the couple, goes on in several different dialects of the same political language, where the language or dialect of Mandelstam is inserted quite harmoniously.

From a traditional point of view, this is completely impossible and blasphemous, but from our point of view, studying not the legendary poetic, but the real political biography of the poet, there is nothing strange here.

In conclusion, let us give another no less striking parallel about the readiness for death.

Traditional Mandelstam studies confuse all dates and periods, including here even intertextual devices:

"Gumilyov's subtexts are also evident in The Wolf, and in general it is important to keep them in mind when analyzing the theme of death in Mandelstam - not only Gumilev's poems on this topic, but also the cult of heroic death that associated with his name after the execution. In The Wolf, Gumilev's dramatic poet Gondla (1917) specifically responded - its plot is based on the confrontation between Icelandic warriors, the "polar wolves", and the prince Gondla, who has a different blood 11. Gondla is a poet, a "swan", alien to him the bloodthirstiness of the "wolves", he is persecuted, and he sings the beauty of God's world; in the finale, he is stabbed to death with the words: “I am drunk with the wine of grace / I am drunk and ready to die, / I am the coin with which the Creator / Buys the salvation of wolves”, that is, he sacrifices himself. 

This plot, with many of its details, flickers through the poetic fabric of The Wolf and clarifies something in this poem, and not only in it: three years later, Mandelstam will repeat the dying words of Gondla in the first person: “We walked along Prechistenka (February 1934), what we talked about - I don’t remember. They turned onto Gogolevsky Boulevard, and Osip said: “I’m ready for death” (Anna Akhmatova, “Leaves from a Diary”) 12. But it will be later, when readiness for death takes shape not only in the statement, but also in actions, but in the spring of 1931 th Mandelstam in "The Wolf" prays for salvation - turning away from the blood and "flimsy mud", he shifts his gaze to the beauty of the universe: "So that blue foxes shine all night / Me in their primeval beauty." Note that “blue foxes” are not polar foxes, as is usually believed and written, but the northern lights, as M.L. explained. Gasparov (cf. Lermontov's "The earth sleeps in the blue radiance"). In the last stanzas of The Wolf, the perspective of exile is embodied in images of desired beauty,» .

Between the text, created in March 1931, and the last line that came in 1935, arrest and exile happened in Mandelstam's life. On the night of May 17, 1934, during a search, the poem falls right into the crossroads of the poet’s biography, at the moment when his fate began to clear up: “We all noticed that the rank is interested in manuscripts of poems of recent years. He showed O. M. a draft of The Wolf and, frowning his brows, read this rhyme in an undertone from beginning to end ... ”(Nadezhda Mandelstam) 14; “The investigator with me found the “Wolf” (“For the explosive valor of the coming centuries ...”) and showed it to Osip Emilievich. He silently nodded” (Akhmatova) 15. A draft of fate, written in verse, began to come true before our eyes” [15].

How vulgar does timeless intertextuality sound in the context of the real history of a very specific time!

Suffice it to recall that “We live without feeling the country under us ...” was written before the end of 1933, and the conversation with Akhmatova was already in February 1934, that is , at a time when Mandelstam feared arrest, then this phrase, if Akhmatova accurately remembered the date, then Mandelstam's psychological state can be quite compared with Bukharin's dying feelings, who, unlike Mandelstam, heard a public death sentence.

Here are the words of Bukharin, in which it would never occur to anyone to see quotations from N.S. Gumilyov:

“I am ready for death, absolutely cold-blooded, I only ask for a meeting with Anyuta ... I am 100% ripe for death” (Weak. B. 474).

And in the midst of all this horror, there is again a literary quote in an entry dated March 13, 1938:

“2 men. Sleep already?

1. No. I'm just like that. I have now opened a page in the book, and look what is written - "This is enough for us all to be hanged."

2. You are superstitious.

1. No ”(Weak. B. 497).

This is a quote from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, from the episode where the characters are preparing to put on a play and assign roles. Thus, we return to the Shkvarkin plot, to the theater, roles and “the process is not in the lungs, but in the Supreme Court”, for Bukharin a real trial-performance with a game at the cost of life:

Burav: Have you written the role of a lion? Please, if it is written, give it to me, otherwise I memorize it very hard.

Pigwa: No, you will just improvise: you will only have to growl.

Baseline: Let me take the role of the lion. I will growl so that all listeners will love to listen to me. I will roar so that the duke will say: “Let him roar some more, let him roar some more!”

Pigwa: If you growl too scary, you will scare the Duchess and the ladies: you will growl, and they will squeal. And that's enough to hang us.

All: Yes, that's enough to hang us all!

Basis: I agree with you, friends, that if we frighten the ladies to the point that they lose their senses, then perhaps they can order us to be hanged; I will hold my voice and roar like a tender dove, I will roar like a nightingale.

Pigwa: You can't play any other role than Pyramus. Pyramus needs a good-looking man, a handsome man, as you can imagine, in the prime of his life. For this role, a person with the most elegant and noble appearance is needed. Therefore, you must certainly play the role of Pyramus.

Basis: Okay, I'll take it upon myself. Which beard is best for my role?

Pigwa: Whatever you want.

Base: I will tie myself a beard or straw-colored, or deep orange, or purplish-crimson, or bright yellow, French.

Pigwa: French heads are often completely bald, so you would have to play without a beard at all. However, friends, here are your roles. I demand, I beg and most humbly ask you to learn them by tomorrow evening. We will all gather in the ducal forest, which is only a mile from the city, and there, by moonlight, we will rehearse. If we gather in the city, the crowd will run after us and blather about our intentions. In the meantime, I'll make a list of some of the things needed for our presentation. Please don't deceive me: come."

We will not lengthen the citation of Shakespeare, we will only note that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a very old translation by N.M. Satin Bukharin discovered not by chance. After all, there is also an "Alien child" here:

Oberon

It's up to you to fix it.

Titania, why contradict?

I'm just asking me to give in baby

Into my pages.

Titania

You can rest easy

I won't take the whole magical land

For this child. his mother

She was my priestess. How many times

In the darkness of Indian nights, fragrant,

She was my companion!

Etc.

Thus, Bukharin comprehended his situation through Dostoevsky, and through Herzen, and through Shakespeare in the translation of a friend of the author of Past and Thoughts, right up to Shkvarkin. Moreover, he himself writes a novel in the cell and discusses with his interlocutor about a possible appeal to the head of the SSP Stavsky about literary work, even in exile. Not to mention the fact that many situations go back, as we see it, to the Mandelstam-Pasternak situation, in which the already far from omnipotent editor-in-chief of Izvestia took an active part.

It was hard to imagine such a turn, but the very nature of the Bukharin and Mandelshtam dialects of the great Stalinist language style, without any doubt, form a dense and very politically chosen unity.

This is where the analysis of a single strange mention of the possibility of Mandelstam and his wife going into exile as early as 1938, which came across to us in an article by G.P. Struve.

And in conclusion, let's touch on the fate of the two wives of the two heroes of our article.

It should be noted here that M.Ya. Gefter felt himself not only "Bukharin in the Lubyanka cell", but, in part, Stalin. It is from this point of view that we will present his opinion regarding the oddities of A.M. Bukharin:

“MG: Anna, Bukharin's young wife, is being deported to Astrakhan with the wives of executed marshals. Then in Astrakhan all of them were arrested, except for two, and shot. Life was saved for Anna and Yakir's wife. Why Yakiru, I can't judge. It sunk into Stalin's mind that Yakir, before being shot, shouted: "Long live Comrade Stalin!" - or something else? Anna Mikhailovna is sent somewhere near Chelyabinsk, where they are trying to spin a case of counter-revolutionary activities. They even staged an imaginary execution. They allegedly took him out to be shot, and during this execution (imaginary, but retroactively!) A man runs - stop! After that, Larina is brought to Moscow to the Lubyanka.

She looks in surprise: there are Georgians everywhere - some kind of coup? Where is Yezhov? She is received by the new People's Commissar for Internal Affairs Beria, flips through the file and says: “Oh, how gullible you are” (she said too much to someone there in the camp). “Were you left alone after the arrest of Nikolai Ivanovich?” Beria conducts the conversation in such a way that she has the impression that Bukharin is alive - Beria deliberately spoke of him as a living person ”(B., 174).

This is the most important element of the whole situation - the change of Yezhov to Beria, the beginning of the so-called "Beria countercurrent", which led not only to conversations in the office of Lavrenty Pavlovich, but also to the release of not so few figures of the previous period.

We will not succumb to the "charm" of Comrade. Beria, he is not so “liberal”:

“All this is amazing. Demonstrating a disposition towards her, what is Beria seeking, why does he need her in Moscow? In the case of Bukharin, no initiative can be shown, an immutable rule applies: with someone who is considered to be Stalin, the initiative is unacceptable. Beria finds out from Larina what exactly he said before his arrest about “outstanding figures of our party” - it is important for Stalin that Bukharin, who had been dead for a long time, spoke about him. This is how Stalin writes his biography. I know such people, their whole life is thinking over a personal biography!” (B. p. 174) .

This fragment is interesting because here M.Ya. Gefter, as it were, does not take into account the presence of Lubyanka transcripts. He generally tries to displace this knowledge. However, it is difficult to imagine that Yezhov's heir, Beria, did not know anything about them and was not interested in them. And further:

“So, from Lubyanka, Anna Mikhailovna is sent with fresh fruit to a cell, where they are kept for quite a long time. Every month she receives a transfer of 100 rubles and asks - from whom, someone from her family? No, they say - intra-prison transfer. Finally, they are sent to the camp.

Years pass - the term of imprisonment has expired. Post-war time, the usual practice then - everyone automatically extends the terms. But no, Bukharin's wife, albeit with restrictions, was released. The only line of pursuit is her second husband. She has an affair with a good man who loved her very much. Marriage arose, and the new husband was persecuted with incredible sophistication until he eventually died after being released. But don't touch her! Who, except Stalin, could order the release of Bukharin's wife? Everyone got a camp extension, except for her. Who else in the USSR could secretly follow her fate, dispose of her? (B. p. 174) .

And then Gefter tells how Bukharin's son was guarded.

Now let's compare this information with the fate of N.Ya. Mandelstam. Which not only was not convicted, but which, immediately after the fall of Yezhov, wrote amazing letters to Beria and about rehabilitation, letters that only a person who feels secure could write. From whom and what - the question ...

With all the vicissitudes of fate, N.Ya. Mandelstam, she managed to defend her Ph.D. thesis and teach at provincial universities until retirement. She was assisted by Academician V.M. Zhirmunsky and Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V.N. Yartseva, who once told us about this.

Let's not forget that in the Stalin era and in general immediately after the war there were very few candidates of science, as well as teachers of foreign languages, even provincial, but universities. It was not a humiliating job at all, but the very idea of ​​preparing a Ph.D. thesis in a period, on the one hand, of brutal cosmopolitanism, and on the other, in the period of the very recent overthrow of Marr, is not a trivial idea ...

Not without reason, in 1953, when another turning point occurred associated with the death of Stalin, the dissertation of N.Ya. Mandelstam was not given protection, and in 1955 everything went as it should.

And one more detail. In the chapter "Academicians" [16] N.Ya. Mandelstam joyfully describes his participation in the meeting, where the cautious Academician V.V. Vinogradov gave the right to overthrow Marr to some graduate student, fearing that something might not happen. But I forgot N.Ya. Mandelstam that the overthrow of Marr did not happen “from below”, but from the very top in the work of I.V. Stalin on the problems of linguistics!

And were the Mandelstams' holidays in Zadonsk during the Voronezh exile, and dreams of a vacation in Gagra, and discussions about buying a house in Stary Krym, etc. really so accidental? There was not this “all-seeing eye” that followed A.M. Bukharin. And if a failed romance happened with B. Kuzin, to which N.Ya. Mandelstam, the whole picture of the life of N.Ya. Mandelstam would become a direct parallel to the fate of the young widow Bukharin.

The whole story of N.Ya. Mandelstam described in the “Third Book” in the chapter “Academicians” exactly this way, without Stalin, but the history of recreation, etc. in his memoirs.

Was it really necessary to deceive yourself even in the notes for yourself? Where do such specific slips come from that A.M. Bukharina and N.Ya. Mandelstam that their follower M.Ya. Gefter, for whom forever "Stalin died yesterday", it seems, just like Bukharin!

We will not judge this now. The fate of Bukharin and Mandelstam against the backdrop of the memoirs of their widows is a special subject of the history of early post-Stalinism, requiring completely different research methods. Its study is beyond the scope of our book and even her PS-ma.

Note:

Osip Mandelstam: Fragments of a literary biography (1920-1930s). M., 2021.

Conversation with M.Ya. Gefter about Mandelstam and Bulgakov. Transcript of an audio recording made in October 1994.

Pavlovsky G. Weak. Alternative conspiracy. M., Century XX and the world, 2021. Lubyanka transcripts. Appendix. pp. 217−510.

Gefter M. Apology of the Weak Man // Pavlovsky G. Weak. Alternative conspiracy. M., Century XX and the world, 2021.S. 115-160.

This article is accompanied by voluminous material, partly parallel to the conversation with M. Gefter about Mandelstam and Bulgakov, mentioned above. From conversations with Gefter while working on Bukharin's prison papers // Pavlovsky G. Weak. Alternative conspiracy. M., Century XX and the world, 2021. S. 161−216.

L. F. Katsis Unknown "Malraux List" of 1934 and B. Pasternak's conversation with I. Stalin about Osip Mandelstam // Upper Volga Philological Bulletin. 2016 - No. 3. S. 25−31.

Zolotarev V. Jews in the NKVD of the USSR. 1936−1938//

Novikov A. V. SHKVARKIN'S COMEDY "ALIEN'S CHILD" IN THE ASSESSMENT OF SOVIET CRITICISM // Bulletin of the TSPU (TSPU Bulletin). 2019. 1 (198). pp. 49−57. Quoted article by A. Solts: Solts A. A man changes his skin (“Alien child”) // Pravda. 1933. December 17. No. 346 (5872). We will not analyze in detail the not very obvious fact that the title of the article uses the title of the latest novel by Bruno Jasensky "A Man Changes His Skin", published in 1932-1933.

Shkvarkin V. Alien child. Comedy in 3 acts: As a manuscript / Moscow: Vsekodrama. Dep. distribution, 1933 (tipo-lit. named after Vorovsky). - Region, 85 p., and a number of annual publications until 1936.

Cit. by: docs.yandex.ru

verbinina.livejournal.com

Shkvarkin V. Harmful element. Vaudeville in 3 acts 5 scenes. From MODPIK.: M.-L. 1927.

Shkvarkin V. Harmful element. Vaudeville in 3 acts and 5 scenes. Ed. MODPIK. M.-L., 1927. S. 29−31.

Valentin Gefter about "Apology of a Weak Man". On the eve of the publication of Mikhail Gefter's article "Apology of a Weak Man", we present an interview with Valentin Gefter about this work of his father. // Gefter. Journal.

Surat I. “And only an equal will kill me” // Banner, number 8, 2016.

Mandelstam N. Academicians // Mandelstam N. The third book. Paris. 1987. S. 96−98.

March 13, 2022

Leonid Katsis