Passion for Stalin – Moskovskaya Pravda

60 years ago, on October 21, 1962, Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem “Stalin’s Heirs” was published in the main decision-making body of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the newspaper Pravda.

A year before, on October 17-31, 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU completed its work. It is notable for its decisive, open exposure of Stalinism. For the first time in the whole country, from the highest rostrum, the words “crime”, “crime” were heard.

Second Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU N.G. Egorychev:

“Great anger fills the heart when one listens to speeches at the Congress exposing the monstrous crimes against the Party and the people committed by a despicable group of political adventurers during the time of the personality cult.”

Member of the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU N.V. Podgorny:

“In the speeches of the delegates of our congress, numerous additional facts about the crimes were cited … The communists and working people of our country, discussing the materials of the XXII Party Congress at numerous rallies and meetings, resolutely demand that the organizers of the monstrous atrocities be severely punished.”

On October 31, a special Resolution of the XXII Congress of the CPSU was issued. On the night of October 31 to November 1, the coffin with Stalin’s body was taken out of the Mausoleum and reburied near the Kremlin wall.

Throughout the country, the renaming of cities, streets, squares bearing the name of Stalin, the demolition of monuments to Stalin began.

However, the reformers, led by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev, felt a certain uncertainty in achieving the result. Firstly, despite the brutal dispersal of the “anti-party group” Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich, semi-secretly opposed to de-Stalinization, part of the party-state apparatus remained faithful to the “ideas of the leader and teacher.” Secondly, there was no mass support of the people. Some greeted the debunking of Stalin, if not with hostility, then wary, with confusion: “You have believed all your life – and now what?” Others – with indifference: they say, this is the business of the authorities, let them figure it out. Additional measures were needed to attract interest, to convince the masses of the correctness of the decisions.

And then literature came to the rescue. From the death of Stalin, from the story of Ilya Ehrenburg “The Thaw” (1954), which gave the name to the Khrushchev era, she tried to break free from the vice, to say at least part of the truth. In this case, we are talking about Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem “Stalin’s Heirs” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”.

Years later, Solzhenitsyn wrote in his memoirs A Calf Butted an Oak:

“Here Tvardovsky also spoke well at the 22nd Congress, and he had such a note that for a long time it was possible to print more boldly and freely, but “we don’t use it.” Such a note that Novy Mir simply does not have any bolder and sharper works, otherwise it could … But – did the rumble of underground layers that broke through to the XXII Congress mean anything? .. I – decided. This is where the “lightweight” Shch-854 came in handy for what purpose and with what suggestion. I decided to submit it to the “New World”. (“Sch-854” is the original title of the story.)

In early August 1962, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Alexander Tvardovsky handed over the manuscript to Vladimir Lebedev, Khrushchev’s cultural aide. Three days later, Lebedev called: “Fabulous talent.”

In September, at a dacha in Pitsunda, Lebedev began to read the story aloud to Khrushchev. “The first half,” Lebedev said, “we read during rest hours, and then he pushed all the papers away in the morning: come on, read to the end. Then he invited Mikoyan and Voroshilov, asked to listen to certain passages.

So everything was decided.

The story was published in the November issue of the Novy Mir magazine. Two months later, “One day of Ivan Denisovich” was published by “Roman-gazeta” – in the first, January issue of 1963. In the same year, the publishing house “Soviet Writer” published a book.

The circulation of Novy Mir is 121,900 copies. “Roman-newspapers” – 700,000. Books – 100,000.

It was a shock. Perhaps most of all – for former campers. Even though they don’t seem to be surprised by anything. They read and re-read the story more than once. They could not believe that this was said in Soviet literature, loudly, throughout the country, and even written in such a way that it sinks into the memory and into the soul forever. My older friend Kuzmich (Alexander Kuzmich Vetrov, born in 1922), being a 9th grade student, wrote a letter to Stalin:

“I am dissatisfied with the policy of the government and the situation in the country… That is why I am writing you the truth. Do not be afraid of her, open your eyes, cast aside the sickening greetings from the “people”, listen to me … I propose to save the Motherland and Soviet power.

Sasha was allowed to finish ten years. And then for 8 years they were sent to the Dzhezkazgan camp, which later became Steplag. In the early 70s, in our nightly gatherings over a glass of tea, Kuzmich kept reading and rereading aloud One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. By the way, the action of the story takes place just in Steplag.

But the release of the November issue of Novy Mir is yet to come. Then, from October 12, 1962, after the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee to publish One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, all those involved (not to mention the author) lived in an electrified atmosphere of expectation. Yes, and all literary Moscow already knew, read in typewritten copies. I waited and did not believe …

And then came October 21st…

It seems that quite recently, in 2005, Yevgeny Yevtushenko told in a long interview how, immediately after the removal of Stalin from the Mausoleum, he wrote the poem “Stalin’s Heirs”, how he went to the editorial offices with him, getting refusals everywhere. And then the former editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta Valery Kosolapov (previously fired for publishing Yevtushenko’s poem “Babi Yar”) gave him the phone number of Khrushchev’s assistant, Vladimir Lebedev.

Again Lebedev! Not that little-known, but almost forgotten.

But Soviet literature owes him the appearance in print of these iconic works. And not only them. Vladimir Lebedev “pierced” through Khrushchev the story of Emmanuel Kazakevich “The Blue Notebook”, the very one with Lenin’s seditious reasoning, and Tvardovsky’s poem “Tyorkin in the Other World”. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, historian Nikolai Nikolaevich Pokrovsky (six years in prison in the political zone, in Dubrovlag), during the years of perestroika and glasnost, told me that one of his fellow campers was serving a sentence for spreading it in samizdat. He came to the political officer of the camp, showed a poem published by that time in the Izvestia newspaper (1963) and asked: “How is it, but I’m sitting here ?!”

From an interview with Yevtushenko:

“I gave Lebedev the Heirs of Stalin to read… He promised that he would show Khrushchev at the right moment … Khrushchev arrived at some Abkhazian collective farm, and the chairman began to tell him about the atrocities of the Chekists – how they arrested people, how they tortured, killed … And at some point Khrushchev could not stand it, tears rolled down out of his eyes, and he, in his usual habit, banged his fist on the table: “We underexposed Stalin!” Here Lebedev took out my poem from his pocket. “Immediately to Moscow! Military aircraft! Print in Pravda! Khrushchev ordered. After the poems were printed, a group of senior party officials from the Central Committee, not knowing that this was a direct order from Khrushchev, wrote him a letter demanding the resignation of the editor-in-chief of Pravda, Pavel Satyukov.

An interesting point. That is, they, like the people, believed that “dealing with Stalin’s personality cult” was exclusively their business, the business of the authorities, and it is impossible to allow the people, the press to such an open discussion. They say that today they criticize Stalinism, but tomorrow … And, in general, they were right in their own way. I remember that in 1968, at a meeting of the creative intelligentsia, the secretary of the regional party committee for ideology ardently denounced: “And gradually, in Yevtushenko’s poems, criticism of Stalin’s personality cult turned into criticism of the party, into criticism of our social system!”

From an interview with Yevtushenko:

“When Khrushchev returned from vacation, he at the very first meeting (after reading the letter – S.B.) delivered a thunderous speech:

“What is it? Does that mean I’m anti-Soviet too?! We are to blame for our people – how many innocent people we killed during collectivization, before the war … And our people did not begin to take revenge on their government, but stood up to defend their homeland in the war. So why the hell do we censor our people? Censorship is outdated. Comrade Ilyichev (Secretary of the Central Committee for ideological issues – S.B.), immediately prepare a resolution: “In connection with the increased consciousness of the people, the party and the government consider that the institution of censorship is an anachronism.”

(Alas, the apparatchiks did not let him lift censorship, they defended the main stronghold of ideology. A crude but effective provocation worked there, the creative intelligentsia were set up, and Khrushchev himself staged a pogrom at the All-Union Conference the following year, for which he later repented …)

Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem “The Heirs of Stalin” was published on October 21, 1962 in the Pravda newspaper in a multi-million circulation.

Effect, resonance – there is nothing to compare with. From enthusiastic bewilderment to dazzling hopes. Meanwhile, Yevtushenko then warned in that poem:

He thought of something. He just took a nap.
And I appeal to our government with a request:
double, triple guard at this plate,
so that Stalin does not get up, and with Stalin – the past …
Where else does the wire go from that coffin?
No, Stalin did not give up. He considers death fixable.
We carried him out of the Mausoleum,
but how to take out Stalin from the heirs of Stalin?

According to opinion polls in 2019-2021, 60-70% of Russians positively assess Stalin’s role in the country’s history.

Sergei Baimukhametov.

In the pictures: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, early 60s; the Pravda newspaper with the Decree of the XXII Congress of the CPSU on the removal of the coffin with the body of Stalin from the Mausoleum: Vladimir Semenovich Lebedev, Khrushchev’s assistant.