Tiger Pad – under the guns of tower guns.

The facts, arguments and conclusions of Yevgeny Savostyanov’s recently published article “Unnoticed Defeat” in Moskovskaya Pravda came as a surprise to many readers.

Savostyanov claims that the USSR waged two world cold wars. One, known to all – with the West. And here is the second, not advertised in any way and now already half-forgotten – with China.

Of course, unexpectedly. But then, after reading, awareness begins. Understanding that we lived, accustomed, and therefore, especially without noticing. Yes, there was a constant ideological confrontation on the basis of Marxism-Communism: they figured out who the true Marxist-Leninist was. They called us traitors, revisionists, and we called them Maoists…

But in general and on the whole, we are all from the same camp, the communist one. Differences are disputes between one’s own. On our banners – Marx-Engels-Lenin.

Yes, there were clashes at the border, everyone remembers the tragedy and the death of our guys on Damansky Island. However, here, too, there was an explanation in the mass consciousness: firstly, the Chinese were inflamed with their propaganda to the point of madness, what to take from them; secondly, the skirmish is a single one, we taught them a lesson, now they won’t climb. And again – between their …

What was not in the mass consciousness? What Yevgeny Savostyanov writes about is confrontations at the level of the Cold War.

Yes, that’s already what was not – that was not. No one knew that almost 2 million soldiers were concentrated along the Soviet-Chinese border on both sides.

No one knew … But, by the way, the inhabitants of those territories knew something, they saw it. But what was the conclusion? Are you used to? Didn’t notice? Didn’t pay attention?

Everyone remembers their own. Here is an interesting example. In 1993, when I was in Vladivostok, my good friend Nikita Yegorov and I set off across the Golden Horn Bay to Cape Peschany, a favorite vacation spot for the townspeople. “I’ll show you something,” Nikita intrigued. And upon arrival, he led me through the wilds of the forest to the top of the mountain. And there, a battery of gigantic, turreted ship-mounted cannons of the main caliber was opened.

Gray towers, monstrous black vents, concrete cellars, fresh grease. Just put the locks on, bring the shells up – and you can open fire.

Nikita immediately climbed onto the iron seat and began to twist the control knobs, turning the barrels around.

“From this side, we cover the entrance to the Ussuri Bay,” he used to say. – And with this one – we take Tiger Pad under fire. The Chinese divisions will not pass to the city along the Tigrovaya Pad.

Despite the iron reality of the main battery guns, everything looked, in general, like a game. Far below, invisible from here, sandy beaches, people swim, sunbathe, and above …

The Cold War is a struggle between economies. A commonplace was the assertion that rivalry with the West in the arms race undermined the economy of the USSR. And then there’s China…

“Starting from 1980, the Chinese economy began to significantly outpace the Soviet one in terms of growth. So, the backlog of the USSR was marked on the horizon not only from the West, but already from China, – writes Yevgeny Savostyanov. – Realizing that only something supernatural can save the economy of the USSR, in addition to being subject to sanctions, Mikhail Gorbachev tried to relieve it of unnecessary burdens as much as possible. One of them was the confrontation with China.”

In addition to maintaining additional troops, what other “encumbrances” were there?

Here I cannot but recall the meeting with Sergei Vasilyevich Bashilov. From 1979 to 1983 he headed a unique, one-of-a-kind ministry. After all, all departments are sectoral. And it was – “geographical”, territorial. It was called the Ministry of Construction in the regions of the Far East and Transbaikalia.

Bashilov’s article was being prepared for publication in the literary weekly where I worked then. Since the department is, shall we say, specific, the vigilance is double. The text in the latest edition, my friend and I took to the author.

The ministry was located in a large old building. No security, no permits, no inspection. Only the old watchman muttered: “Wipe your feet …”

The comrade whispered in my ear: “All sorts of spies are walking around, spreading dirt …”

So I still don’t know what it was. Then we were inclined to believe that this was a special, cunning type of disguise: they say, who would be interested in such a “passage yard”.

Bashilov and I edited the text, clarified it. Due to the specifics, a lot was hidden between the lines, simply hushed up. In the meantime, they talked about this and that. The Baikal-Amur Railway was approximately completed by October 1984, having laid the symbolic “golden link”.

Then, in 1983, during a meeting with Bashilov, the Ministry of Transport Construction responsible for the BAM had already “left” the highway, the cities and towns of the BAM people were abandoned. (They are still “ownerless”, in a difficult situation: in 2014, BAM veteran Alexander Bondar told President Putin during a teleconference that their former housing “has grown old, but I would like to live like a human being.”)

I asked Sergei Vasilyevich if he was going to take the BAM settlements under the tutelage of his ministry. Bashilov smiled: “Let’s see … BAM – these are pennies …”

That was a shock for me.

Probably, some idea of ​​​​what BAM is in the atmosphere of those years of the USSR is given by the song performed by the most famous, famous pop artist of those times – Muslim Magomayev. It was carried on radio and TV throughout the country:
“Listen, time is buzzing – BAM!
In the open spaces of steep – BAM!
This is the bell of our young hearts…”

From all the republics, special construction teams went there. Ten years over the country “time was buzzing – BAM!”

And suddenly: “It’s a penny …”

Bashilov handed me a sheet of paper with a text divided into five or six paragraphs: “You see, in the Central Committee Resolution on the tasks of our ministry, BAM is listed as the last paragraph.”

However, the Baikal-Amur Railway, although the “last point” in the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU, is not the last in importance. Very important.

In the event of a war, the Chinese would have easily bombed the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs almost along the border. That is why they began to build the BAM north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – a road, that is, a road parallel to the proposed front line. The road along which the front would be supplied.

And what about the first paragraphs of the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU? The same. Few people know that in the USSR, until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and proclaimed a new foreign policy, incredible money was buried in strengthening the Far Eastern borders. On near and far approaches. To create defensive positions and bridgeheads for the offensive. Planetary military building.

Now about BAM and “penny”. How many were there, those “kopecks”?

AT Resolution of the State Duma of March 17, 1999 says:

“The construction of the highway cost the state in 1991 prices, excluding lost profits, 17.7 billion rubles. At present, federal budget expenditures for the maintenance and development of the BAM zone exceed the proceeds from its operation by more than 1.2 billion rubles a year. The way out of the current difficult socio-economic situation in the BAM zone can be the intensification of its economic activity in the development of the richest reserves of natural resources and more efficient use of the highway.

According to various sources, BAM has become the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the USSR.

But if the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the USSR is “penny”, then what kind of forces and means were spent on the creation of defensive and offensive facilities along the entire line of the Soviet-Chinese border in the regions of the Far East and Transbaikalia?

This is what the “Cold War burden” with China was like.

And the construction of BAMA has not yet been completed; it has been dragging on for 48 years. It can be said that the biggest unfinished building of the USSR and the Russian Federation.

But that’s another story.

Sergei Baimukhametov.

Photo: Stas Zalesov.