Soviet figure General Abakumov is known for his difficult fate. To this day, his personality seems mysterious to many, although many books have been written in which the authors tried to reveal its features. Abakumov held the post of State Security Commissioner of the second rank. Some say that he was a man with a surprisingly strong, direct and honest character. Many contemporaries characterized him as courageous and unparalleled courage, a true hero of his time.
Secret and obvious: everything is intertwined
From the memoirs of other contemporaries it seems that General Abakumov was cruel, he put his whole life trying to eradicate the enemies of the people, and he considered both the guilty and the convicted groundless to be such. Some say that there was simply no other equally merciless person with high ranks in the Soviet state. There is a third opinion - that this uniquethe personality was distinguished by the strongest positive and negative qualities, the person was at the same time hot, confident that there were enemies and spies around, but courageous and ready to lay down his life for the sake of the Motherland. For some time he led SMERSH - the structure responsible for identifying spies and traitors - once he himself became a victim, was repressed, tortured, executed.
History in Brief
Viktor Semenovich Abakumov was born in 1908, died in 1954. In 1945 he received the rank of Colonel General. He replaced the people's commissar for the defense of the state. Managed SMERSH NPO from 1943 to 1946. From the 46th to the 51st he was the head of the ministry responsible for state security. The general was arrested in the middle of 1951, at the same time he was charged with treason to the state. He was considered a member of the Zionist conspiracy. The fate of Stalin made its own adjustments, the charges were reformulated, accusing the general of the so-called "Leningrad case". As the law enforcement agencies of that time suggested, Abakumov personally fabricated this situation. Tried in Leningrad. The process was organized in a closed form. The general was sentenced to death by firing squad. The verdict was put into effect in the second half of the last month of the 54th year. Geographically - Levashovo near Leningrad. Partial rehabilitation took place only in 1997.
How it all began
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov was born in the capital in 1908 in a simple working-class family, studied at a four-year school. For a long time, the young man worked at enterprises assimple worker, continuing the work of his father. In the 30th he became a member of the AUCPB, from the 32nd he worked in state security. At first he was an intern in the economic department, then he became an authorized representative of the same authority.
Continuing career
From the 34th, the future General Abakumov occupies the position of authorized economic department of the NKVD GUGB. From that moment began his career in the central apparatus of state security. Surprising for its time, high-speed career growth was due to personnel changes against the backdrop of the rise of Yagoda, who replaced Menzhinsky. This figure was ill for a long time and could not work actively. As it soon turned out, Abakumov was not as good as he seemed from his primary reputation. Avoiding his duties in the service, he used safe houses to meet with members of the opposite sex. The future general was charged with moral decay and forced to change jobs. Now he worked in the Gulag system, holding the position of an operative of the third department. This position was retained by him from the 34th to the 37th years. The department to which the future general was sent specialized in recruiting agents among those serving their sentences.
As you can see from the biographies of Viktor Abakumov, in 1937 he received the position of operational commissioner in the fourth department of the same instance under the NKVD. This unit was responsible for secret political work. He remained in the structure until the 38th year, then there he took the position of deputy head of the first department,responsible for foreign intelligence. After some time, he was entrusted with the position of manager of the second department of instance. The zone of responsibility was counterintelligence. A kind of career jumps are associated with repression within the NKVD. Many commanding people were accused of offenses a few months after the start of their careers, followed by arrest and execution. Abakumov, however, with surprising dexterity bypassed sharp corners, so such a sad fate at first avoided him.
Promotion towards SMERSH
A new line appeared in the biography of Viktor Abakumov in the last month of the 38th - he happened to take a managerial position in the UNKVD in Rostov. The place remained with him until the frosty February 41st. Abakumov was blamed for mass repressions. The testimonies of contemporaries have reached, proving that the future general was personally engaged in beating people under investigation.
In 1941, he managed to take a higher position - deputy commissar of the NKVD, then - head of the department of special departments. This period lasted until the spring of the 43rd. In April, he was entrusted with the post of head of the counterintelligence department. We are talking about the very organization SMERSH, whose name alone caused contemporaries to tremble. At the same time, Abakumov became deputy commissar of defense. The new workplace allowed the man to show his remarkable organizational skills and abilities. SMERSH, led by a general, organized several exceptionally successful operations against the intelligence services of Germany and other powers. Active work was carried out with the rebelanti-Soviet associations. Such existed in the lands occupied by German forces.
New times, new opportunities
In the biography of Viktor Semenovich Abakumov, many milestones and successes are due to the war with Germany. When hostilities began in 1941, Stalin decided to entrust counterintelligence to this promising man. Such a position remained with Abakumov until the end of the fighting, although in the 43rd the bodies were reorganized and changed their name to SMERSH, transferred to the People's Commissariat of Defense, the head of which at that moment was Stalin, who personally managed the work of the instance. The SMERSH headquarters was engaged in the fight against deserters and spies. It is noted that Abakumov's efforts have made significant progress. At the same time, the instance controlled the political mood of the generals, Red Army officers, was engaged in the intelligence network and operational work in all parts of the army.
When the war ended, it could not but affect the life of General Abakumov. The authority entrusted to him continued to check potentially dangerous people: prisoners of war, internees. The work was especially active in the first year after the victory. To make it easier, filtration camps were organized. Abakumov, in turn, worked in a special commission that prepared charges for a number of those accused of Nazi crimes. He helped the representatives of the Soviet Union invited to hold the International Tribunal.
Don't sit back
The biographies of Viktor Semenovich Abakumov always pay attentionfor the 44th year. Then the general organized the Ingush deportation. As a reward for his efforts he received the Order of the Red Banner. In the same year he was awarded the Order of Kutuzov. From the first month of the 45th until the middle of this year, she continued to manage SMERSH, at the same time having at her disposal the NKVD department responsible for the third front in Belarus. Just then he was promoted to the rank of Colonel General. In the spring of 1946, Abakumov became deputy minister for state security. In May of this year, he got the post of minister for this profile, which he retained until the summer of 1951.
Due to the personality and activities of this famous person, there was no autobiography of Viktor Abakumov, but the works written by researchers of his life path give an idea of his fate from the outside. In such works, attention is necessarily focused on the ups and downs of the 46th year. It was then that the Colonel General took the initiative to condemn some well-known figures in the Air Force and the aviation industry. Charges were brought against Shakhurin, Novikov, Repin. As the analysis of the events showed, these persons supplied the army with low-quality aircraft, during the testing of which several pilots died, vehicles were lost. The accused, as the investigation showed, sought to exceed the plans, for which unprepared cars were sent into production. At the same time, the persons engaged in forging reports and violated their obligations in other ways. What is surprising: the accused were subsequently fully rehabilitated only on the basis of the fact that Abakumov brought the charges, although Shakhurin evenwrote a memoir in which he admitted the crimes he had committed.
New cases and new problems
It is believed that the head of the main department of counterintelligence SMERSH, Viktor Abakumov, had a hand in what was unofficially called the "Leningrad case". Presumably, the colonel-general worked for Malenkov, who was interested in ridding his rivals. Participation in proceedings with the Anti-Fascist Jewish Committee significantly spoiled the reputation of the general. Its participants were accused of being prone to the Joint, called American spies.
In 1951, an active figure took up the deportation of the B alts, Moldovans to Siberia. People from the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR were also sent there. The main reason was belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses, Innokentievites, Old Believers, Adventists. The event was codenamed "North". The general chaired the Board of the MGB, participated in the work of the Political Bureau, which de alt with litigation.
If Victor Semenovich Abakumov looks proudly from the photos taken before the 51st, his gaze expresses self-confidence, then this year has significantly changed his fate. In July, the general was removed from his post and arrested as soon as possible. The reason was Ryumin's denunciation at the initiative of Malenkov. The general was accused of a Zionist conspiracy, considered a traitor and a person who interfered with the investigation of a number of state-significant cases. According to some historians who have studied this period, all the accusations were fictitious and groundless.
End of career
Victor, who previously controlled SMERSHAbakumov himself became a victim of the repressive system. The Lefortovo prison was assigned to him as a place of detention. One of the accusations was an obstruction in the investigation of the so-called "doctors' case", the very existence of which the general stubbornly denied. In the meantime, Stalin had died, power had passed to Khrushchev, and the prisoner faced new problems and accusations - now he was ranked among the "Beria gang". Malenkov sought to exonerate himself from the "Leningrad case", and Abakumov proved to be the right person to shift the blame. He was declared to have falsified the events and is completely guilty of them.
It is known that the general had to endure arrest and torture. Viktor Abakumov was severely beaten, which led to disability. The man spent a three-year period of imprisonment chained and in shackles. He was kept in a cell, the height of which did not exceed half the height of a person, in constant cold. He never admitted his guilt. The general was shot in 1954 in Lefortovo, and in 1955 he was posthumously stripped of all awards, titles, and deputy mandate. The latter is especially important, since in fact the person who had the mandate was inviolable - and yet at the time of execution he was still a deputy whom no one had the right to arrest, much less punish.
Where is the truth?
Our contemporaries will never be able to personally get to know a person who largely influenced the fate of the allied power - only photos of Viktor Abakumov and stories of his contemporaries have come down to us, and quite contradictory ones at that. Based on well-known facts,The 97th general was partially rehabilitated. As the commission involved in the case considered, the general exceeded his official capabilities and powers, which provoked serious consequences. If earlier all the property was confiscated, now the decision has been cancelled.
Shortly before this event, in 1994, several figures who actively collaborated with Abakumov were partially rehabilitated, for which they were punished by death in 1955. So, the court decisions regarding Likhachev, Komarov, Leonov have been changed. Two more citizens were fully rehabilitated: Broverman, Chernov, who in 1955 were prepared for imprisonment for 25 and 15 years, respectively.
Family
When the head of SMERSH counterintelligence, Colonel-General Abakumov, was under arrest, when it became clear that he had no real prospects for returning to freedom, surviving and recovering, he wrote an appeal to higher officials, hoping for their mercy. In this note, he asked to finish the case, release him from Lefortovo, transfer him to the Matrosskaya prison and remove him from spiteful critics. Then he convincingly asked to return home to his wife and child, for which he promised eternal gratitude. He called for a woman to be recognized as honest, faithful and innocent of anything.
It is known from history that at some point Abakumov had two apartments in the capital, of which he gave one to Tatyana Semenova. Official information about this has not been preserved, but it is believed that it was she who was the first wife of the future general. The woman was a housewife, from a poor family - her father was a shoemaker.
Close: who else?
The second living space was twice as large. He lived in it himself, later - with Antonina Smirnova. The woman was the unofficial wife of the general, but gave birth to a child from him. The next day after the arrest of the husband, Antonina and the baby were taken away by representatives of law enforcement agencies. The woman at that moment was 31 years old, her son was only two months old. Previously, Antonina worked in the MGB. The mother and son were sent to the Sretensky prison, where they were kept in custody for three years, and no criminal acts were found behind them. Viktor Abakumov's wife, Antonina Smirnova, was the daughter of a hypnotist who went by the name Ornaldo. It is assumed that the woman's father worked for the NKVD in the 30s, but by the end of the decade no one had heard anything about him, all traces were lost.
Viktor Abakumov's wife Antonina Smirnova was released in 1954. All this time, the son was also in prison. No corpus delicti was revealed, which did not prevent the family from being exiled from the capital district for several years. There is little official information from that period, but there is evidence of the woman's imminent death.
As you can see from the biography of General Abakumov, his son subsequently received a good education, built a scientific career and became an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He died in 2004. For science, Smirnov is an important figure who laid the foundation for computer psychotechnologies as a scientific approach. There is a research institute named after Smirnov in the capital.
About memory
For a long time no one knew where Colonel-General Abakumov was buried. Only in 2013 a tombstone with his name appeared. It can be seen at the Rokitki cemetery near Moscow, about a dozen kilometers away from the ring road of the capital. It is believed that the remains of a prominent figure of the allied power were brought here from the Leningrad region. Perhaps they were buried in a son's grave. Others believe that this is nothing more than a cenotaph. Perhaps the gravestone is symbolic, there is no ashes in it. It is only a gesture of respect for the memory of the unjustly executed.
Chernov about Abakumov
Now it is difficult to understand who General Abakumov was - the executioner or the victim. Much of the information that has come down from that period is contradictory and ambiguous. It is extremely difficult to separate truth from false accusations. You can get some idea of a person's personality by reading what his colleagues told about him. In particular, the information provided by Chernov, who worked side by side with the general for some time, is interesting.
As this person personally acquainted with the statesman said, General Abakumov Viktor Semenovich was young, but authoritative, he was respected in the structure in which he worked. He concentrated his attention on search activities, knew the specifics of the process very well and demanded active case management. Abakumov clearly controlled the work of the chiefs, equally paid attention to both the central and front-line apparatuses. With him, no one could count on concessions. The man was brusque in his manner of communication, but not swaggering. If he offended someone, then he took measures to correct the situation.
These opinions are confirmed by a number of memoirs in whichrespect for SMERSH.
Bright and expressive
General Abakumov, People's Commissar of SMERSH, a Soviet minister who made a strong impression on his contemporaries. People who worked with him earlier recognized him as smart and quick-witted. The determination of the man is noted. Many, comparing him with his predecessors in the position of minister, admitted that Abakumov was much more suitable for such work. This was largely due to excellent knowledge in the field of operational operations.
Abakumov attracted attention with his appearance. A tall man with handsome features and an excellent physique. He cared about his appearance, used the form, fitted to the figure. He liked fashionable suits, always had impeccable colognes on hand. The man was fond of tennis. He achieved considerable success in sambo, became a master of sports in this direction.
Leningrad business
According to many, Abakumov paid with his life for possessing valuable information. Those in power feared that he might not behave in a way that would be beneficial to them - for this reason they invented and fabricated an accusation, convicted the man in a short time and shot him until the details came out. Perhaps the critical, turning point was the "Leningrad affair". In 1944, for the first time in many years, a Plenum of the Central Committee was organized, for which a project was formed to eliminate the Communist Party. Party organs, as follows from the documentation, are responsible for agitation, propaganda, personnel selection, while the economic sphere,education, scientific, agricultural and cultural areas must be given to Soviet authorities, selected by the people's will. The Politburo refused to accept the offer.
Shortly after the war, the leader of the country fell ill for the first time, and the closest supporters realized that death was not far off. Power has split. During the period of hostilities, in fact, the government of the country was entrusted to five - Beria and Malenkov, Mikoyan and Molotov, all personally headed by Stalin. When Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were transferred to the capital, there was simply no place for them. It is believed that they decided to join forces in order to eliminate the former ruling class, primarily Molotov, Beria, Malenkov. The conspiracy was soon discovered and they decided to expel the guilty. However, they resisted and began to write appeals to Stalin. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs, those in power initiated a lawsuit against Kuznetsov and Voznesensky. Since both of them were from the northern capital, the whole situation was nicknamed the “Leningrad Affair.”
Power and destiny
Both in 1952 and 1953, the highest ranks of the Soviet government continued to fight among themselves, trying to seize power over the state. That Malenkov, that Beria did not behave too honestly, but this gave them the desired result. Abakumov became one of the first victims on the path of these people to power. Following him, Vlasik and Poskrebyshev were arrested. Stalin by this period was already seriously ill and practically did not take care of the country, lived in the country, prepared home-made wine. He was not worried about conflicts and ups and downs. Already during his lifetime, a decree was issued in which they dismissedformer ruler. The medical history testified: death is not far off.
When, after a hard term of imprisonment, numerous tortures suffered, Abakumov appeared before the court, he refused to admit guilt, despite everything he had experienced. He pointed to Beria and Ryumin as the people who fabricated the whole process, and drew attention to the fact that he did nothing of what was recognized as a crime, but only carried out direct orders from his superiors. However, at the same time, Abakumov admitted that he had some shortcomings, but urged the investigation and the audience to be more logical. In particular, he was accused of using the resources of the Special Conference, where the general had never been chairman. However, the judges and followers of the ruling elite did not care about logic or objectivity. The case of Abakumov was ordered to be investigated until the guilt of the general was proved. This is what the adherents of the system did.
