YES. Bystroletov

“Archival materials about the operational activities of the legendary Russian intelligence officer Dmitry Bystroletov will never become public knowledge, as they still contain data of the highest secrecy,” reported RIA Novosti on 9.3.2011, the head of the press bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation, Sergei Ivanov.

He brilliantly spoke 22 foreign languages, drew beautifully, and knew medicine at a professional level. Dmitry Alexandrovich managed to penetrate the secrets of the British Foreign Office, obtain secret ciphers and codes of Austria, Germany, Italy... Counterintelligence agencies of many European countries unsuccessfully tried to trace the successful Soviet intelligence officer. In 1938, after completing another assignment from the Center, Dmitry Bystroletov returned to Moscow, where he was arrested on a false denunciation. At 54, Bystroletov returned to Moscow. Group I disabled, without means of subsistence, without housing. He earned money by translating from different languages ​​and worked on his book “The Feast of the Immortals.” The intelligence officer died in 1975 in poverty.

Stoker.

One of Bystroletov's first successful operations was the development of a stoker for the German embassy in Prague named Kurt. According to information available in the station, in addition to his direct duties, he was also involved in the burning of secret documents. Dmitry started with external surveillance. I soon found out that Kurt is a big beer lover. On Saturdays he regularly visited the pub near Wenceslas Square. There Kurt sat until closing, drinking exactly six beers during the evening. The stoker did not engage in conversation, although he spoke Czech fluently, albeit with an accent. Kurt was apparently a Sudeten German. Bystroletov decided to portray a Baltic German who, like Kurt, was expelled from his homeland by war and revolution.

Bystroletov spent Saturday evenings in the pub for more than a month. When he had already become familiar, he arrived later than usual. I asked permission in Czech with a German accent to take the empty seat next to Kurt. Word by word, and a lively conversation ensued. The tipsy German was glad to see his fellow tribesman. After several meetings, Kurt already considered Dmitry a close friend. In the meantime, the intelligence officer found out that Kurt once a week burned documents in the furnace of the boiler room in the presence of the third secretary and the embassy security guard. But they don't know anything about this matter. As soon as the stoker turns on the draft at full power, the flame of the fuel oil nozzle will go to the top, while the bottom layer of documents remains untouched. And then Bystroletov offered the stoker a profitable business. He will find a buyer for the documents that Kurt will bring, and a hundred or two crowns will not hurt them. The decisive role was played by the fact that Kurt's friend swore not to reveal to the buyer from whom he received the goods.

Hungarian count.

Dmitry Bystroletov was a master of disguise. Most often the Hungarian count was used. It was this mask that Dmitry used to seduce a German woman, a fanatical admirer of Hitler. The fact is that she was in charge of the archive of intelligence data about the USSR in the Reich Security Service. Soviet intelligence became very interested in her. But how to get to her? It was a story in the spirit of melodrama. Portraying the Hungarian count, Bystroletov managed not only to meet her, but to quickly become close and even become her fiancé. It was getting close to the wedding. But copies of the necessary documents had already been obtained. And the bride receives a message that the count died tragically while hunting in the Transdanubian forests. The huntsman fired unsuccessfully, the bear remained alive, and the charge hit the count. The unfortunate bride wore mourning. However, this couple was destined to collide once again at the door of a Berlin cafe. The would-be bride fainted, and Bystroletov took advantage of the turmoil and quickly disappeared.

Code hunter.

Dmitry Bystroletov managed to recruit an employee of the British Foreign Office “Arno” - cipher operator Ernest H. Oldham, from whom English ciphers and codes, weekly collections of Foreign Ministry cipher telegrams, and other secret documents were received. In general, obtaining diplomatic ciphers of European countries became his specialization. Between 1930 and 1936, Bystroletov received German codes and established contact with a French military intelligence officer. Austrian, Italian and Turkish encryption materials were received from him, as well as secret documents from the secret services of Nazi Germany.

Simultaneously with work.

Simultaneously with work in intelligence in 1931-1935. Bystroletov studied at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zurich and received a Doctor of Medicine degree in Obstetrics and Gynecology. At the same time, as a practicing doctor in one of the Swiss private clinics, he made a scientific discovery about regulating the sex of the unborn baby during family planning.

In Berlin and Paris, he also studied at the Academy of Arts and took lessons from graphic artists.

In disgrace.

By order of the OGPU of September 17, 1932, Bystroletov was awarded an honorary military weapon with the inscription “For the merciless fight against counter-revolution” from the OGPU board. In 1937, Bystroletov and his wife returned to Moscow. In the same year he became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

After Bystroletov’s return, he worked in the central intelligence apparatus. On February 25, 1938, he was unexpectedly dismissed from the NKVD and transferred to the All-Union Chamber of Commerce to the position of head of the Translation Bureau. On the night of September 17-18, 1938, Bystroletov was arrested on charges of espionage and connections with N. Samsonov (who was a resident of Soviet intelligence in Berlin) and Theodor Malli, who had been executed by that time, as well as defector I. Reis. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Dmitry Bystroletov to 20 years of imprisonment in a general regime camp. His wife and at the same time an intelligence officer committed suicide after her husband’s arrest.

I preferred prison.

In 1947, Bystroletov was delivered to the USSR MGB. Minister of State Security Abakumov offered Dmitry an amnesty and a return to work in intelligence. Bystroletov refused amnesty and demanded a retrial and rehabilitation. Abakumov was furious at this prisoner’s reaction. He said: “This man could have been walking around Paris within a week, but he preferred prison.”

After a conversation with Abakumov, Bystroletov was sent to the Sukhanovo special prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement for three years, and eventually became seriously ill. After treatment in the prison hospital, he was sent to hard labor in Ozerlag, then to Kamyshlag.

In 1954, Dmitry Alexandrovich was finally released. In 1956 he was rehabilitated.

After release.

When Bystroletov was released after 16 years of imprisonment, he lived in Moscow in a tiny room in an old communal apartment. “It resembled,” said Dmitry Alexandrovich, “either a 3rd class cabin, or a pre-revolutionary cell.” There was nowhere to turn - a table, a chair, a bed.

After his release, Dmitry Bystroletov worked as a scientific consultant at the Research Institute of Medical and Medical-Technical Information of the USSR Ministry of Health. Since January 1957, he worked at the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information as a translator from English, German, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Afrikaner, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, French, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian and Polish in fields of biology and geography. Since November 1958, Dmitry Aleksandrovich has been the language and literary editor of the abstract journal of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, and then the Research Institute of Medical and Medical-Technical Information of the USSR Ministry of Health.

This is what Dmitry Aleksandrovich’s wife wrote to the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yu. V. Andropov, a few months before her husband’s death:

Dear Yuri Vladimirovich!

Complete indifference and indifference to the fate of my poor sick paralyzed husband forced me to turn to you...

Dmitry Aleksandrovich Bystroletov is a half-forgotten hero of our intelligence in the pre-war years...

We are both old men who have lived together for many difficult years. We are disabled people of the first and second groups. We have been together for about 150 years. During the interrogations, my husband was mutilated by beatings - his ribs were broken, driving their fragments into his lungs.

In the camps there is cold, hunger, stages in severe frosts. Two strokes. On October 26, 1954, he arrived in Moscow.

With the first group of disabilities, he was sheltered by a medical abstract journal, where, with knowledge of 22 foreign languages, Bystroletov, a sick old man, worked as a language editor until 1974, until he was again paralyzed.

He is disabled, cannot work - loss of speech and other complications. Together we receive a social security pension. There is not enough for life and medicine. Considering all of the above, I ask you to grant my husband D. A. Bystroletov a personal pension.

Ivanova Anna Mikhailovna.

Of course, it is difficult to say which of the Soviet intelligence officers was the best. But, nevertheless, professionals usually always remember Dmitry Bystroletov, and in the Washington Intelligence Museum an entire stand is dedicated to him. So what made our intelligence officer so famous?

The future intelligence officer was born on January 3, 1901 in the Tauride province. There were rumors that his father was Count Alexander Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who was the elder brother of the famous writer A.N. Tolstoy. But Dmitry was never the darling of fate. His mother, Klavdia Dmitrievna Bystroletova, actively fought for women's rights, and she had almost no time left for her son.

The father gave the three-year-old boy to be raised by the family of his good friends in St. Petersburg, where he lived for 10 years, receiving a good education at home. In 1913, Dmitry entered a nautical school in Crimea. At the end of school, in the fall of 1917, Count Tolstoy recognized paternity, and Dmitry was given the title of count. True, he only had the chance to be a count for a few days - a revolution happened, and all titles were abolished. After the revolution, Dmitry began to have convulsive tossing: Volunteer Army - Turkey - Russia - Turkey again...

In 1923, he moved to Prague and entered the university at the Faculty of Law. But, having seemingly settled well in Europe, Dmitry, nevertheless, dreamed of returning to Russia, and did not hide his pro-Soviet sentiments from anyone. Having sent an application for Soviet citizenship, he soon received it.

In 1925, a congress of proletarian students was held in Moscow, and, of course, Bystroletov also came. And there a meeting took place that radically changed his fate. Dmitry was invited to a conversation by Arthur Khristianovich Artuzov, who was at that time one of the heads of counterintelligence. It was he who managed to convince the pro-Soviet student to serve for the good of his Motherland.

Dmitry returned to Prague already as an employee of Soviet foreign intelligence. In order to provide legal cover, he was assigned to work at the Soviet trade mission.
But after a series of high-profile failures of our agents, the authorities decided to concentrate on illegal work. Dmitry was also transferred to an illegal status. One day Dmitry Bystroletov went somewhere and disappeared... And he never appeared anywhere else under his name. He didn’t think then that this would drag on for many years.

Living under an assumed name, he entered and successfully graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Zurich, becoming a doctor of medicine. Dmitry drew well, and in his free time he also studied at the art academies of Berlin and Paris.

Risky work. Agent Recruitment

However, his most important task was to recruit agents - six intelligence officers worked under his leadership. Recruitment work is very dangerous, because a scout has to reveal himself, and here, like a sapper, one cannot make mistakes.

Charming and always elegantly dressed, like a character from a Viennese operetta, Bystroletov was ideal for work in illegal intelligence. His rare charm, innate manners of an aristocrat and knowledge of as many as 22 languages ​​also served him well in this matter. He could easily win over anyone.

Bystroletov was also distinguished by his amazing ability to transform, not only externally, but also internally. It was not difficult for him to appear in the image of a prim English lord, a Canadian engineer living in a world of formulas, a successful businessman from Germany, and a merry count from Hungary. He even had to play the role of a brutal contract killer from Singapore, and he did it well too. He never repeated himself in his images, improvising anew each time.

One of the first assignments received by Bystroletov was the recruitment of the British cryptographer Ernest H. Oldham, and he did an excellent job. Soon Oldham gave Bystroletov secret ciphers and codes, as well as many encrypted documents. After this, also thanks to the recruitment of employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Staff, and the embassies of European countries, Bystroletov managed to obtain diplomatic encryption materials from the intelligence services of Germany, France, Austria, Italy, etc.

Bystroletov, due to his duty, had to constantly move in high circles, while he got used to the appropriate image, like a real artist. Once, while in the guise of “Sir Robert Grenville,” he managed to receive a diplomatic passport from the hands of the British Foreign Secretary himself, who had no doubt at all that before him was the son of an English lord, a seventh-generation aristocrat.

However, every day the work became more and more dangerous. In the summer of 1933, one of the residents had already sent a radiogram to Moscow, in which he reported that “Andrei” (D. Bystroletov) was being monitored by foreign intelligence services, and it was dangerous for him to stay here. But from Moscow they replied: “ We understand everything... Invaluable information... Be patient a little longer... The Motherland is asking... The Motherland will not forget... Please tell Andrey that we here are fully aware of the dedication, discipline, resourcefulness and courage shown by him in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions" And “Andrey” was forced to stay to continue his dangerous work.

Three years have passed, and Dmitry himself is asking to be recalled from this job: “ ...I’m tired, unwell, and I can’t continue working without serious rest. Every day I feel a growing lack of strength, which naturally reduces the quality of work, causing sloppiness in technology... In my hands is a matter of great importance and the fate of several people. Meanwhile... I am pressured by fatigue and periods of depression, I work only with nerves and tension of will. Without the slightest joy about success, with a constant thought: it would be nice to lie down in the evening and not get up in the morning. I have been abroad for 17 years, of which at our work - 11 years, in the underground - six years».

They met him halfway, and finally Bystroletov was in Moscow. Here he was greeted with open arms as a hero, he was promoted to the rank of state security lieutenant, and was soon to be accepted into the party. For the first time in many years, he was able to feel like an ordinary person, living calmly, without fear for his life. But that’s just how it seemed to him...

How the Motherland “did not forget”

The investigator interrogating Bystroletov was openly perplexed:
« ...Have you managed a three million foreign currency account abroad? Did you also have a foreign passport?
Several passports, all real.
So why the hell did you come back here?!»

« This is my homeland..." was his answer
(indeed, in Europe he had huge sums in his accounts, as befits a “textile industrialist”)

They beat a confession out of him, and he signed it. But he didn’t sign because of torture, although it was very cruel (his skull was fractured, his ribs were broken, his muscles were torn). It’s just that faith still lived in him then: “ ...everything will be sorted out, and justice will prevail».
It did not triumph... He was sentenced to 20 years in the camps and five years of exile.

And again his life turned into a kaleidoscope... Only now it was not the cities and countries that changed, but the camps: Norillag, Kraslag, Siblag...

But in 1947, an opportunity arose to escape from this nightmare. Unexpectedly, the prisoner Bystroletov was taken to the Minister of State Security Abakumov, who cynically stated: “ Maybe it's enough to rest already. It's time to get to work", offered him an amnesty and a job in intelligence. But Bystroletov agreed to accept this offer only on the condition of complete rehabilitation. Abakumov was furious. " This man could have been walking around Paris within a week, but he preferred prison" After this conversation, Bystroletov was sent to the Sukhanovo special prison. After spending three years there in solitary confinement, he became seriously ill. After some treatment, he was again sent to the camps.

Bystroletov was released in 1954, and two years later he was rehabilitated, “ for lack of corpus delicti" He returned to Moscow already disabled and received a ten-meter room in a communal apartment to live. Dmitry Alexandrovich died on May 3, 1975.

When one of the journalists jokingly asked a question to former KGB colonel Mikhail Lyubimov: “ Who is the best spy of all time?”, he answered quite seriously:

« In the 20-40s, Soviet intelligence was the best in the world. People who worked there were obsessed with the idea of ​​building communism. From my point of view, our most amazing intelligence officer is Dmitry Bystroletov, his life is like an adventure novel in which there was plenty of adventure. He worked in the 20-30s, relatively little was known about him. But he did a lot, a lot. In our country, great intelligence officers ended up in prison not abroad, but in the homeland where they served».

There was another legendary figure in the history of intelligence. George Blake - .

Illegitimate son of Count Alexander Nikolaevich Tolstoy, born on August 12, 1858 near Vyborg, higher education, lawyer, double namesake of Count Alexander Nikolaevich Tolstoy, older brother of the writer A. N. Tolstoy. In August 1916, by the decision of the Department of Heraldry of the Governing Senate, Dmitry Bystroletov was introduced into Personal Honorary Citizenship of the Russian Empire, and in October 1917, he was introduced to the count dignity of the Russian Empire - Count Tolstoy.

In 1904-1913. lived in St. Petersburg. In 1913-1917 studied in Sevastopol at the Naval Cadet Corps.

Education

In 1919, he graduated from the final classes of the classical gymnasium of the city of Anapa, at the same time, he graduated from the final classes of the Navigation School of the city of Anapa - a long-distance navigator. In 1922 he graduated from the graduating class of the College for Christian Europeans in Constantinople. In May 1922 he was admitted to the medical faculty of the Jan Amos Comenius University in Bratislava, in November 1922 he transferred to Charles University in Prague, in 1924 he transferred to the law faculty of the same university and graduated in 1927 with a diploma " Specialist in world oil trade,” in March 1928 he defended his dissertation “Basic Problems of Law in the Coverage of Historical and Dialectical Materialism” and was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Law. In 1935 he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich (under someone else's name and documents), in 1936 he defended his dissertation on gynecology and was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Medicine. Studied at the Academy of Arts of Paris and Berlin, admitted in 1937 to the "Union of Artists of the USSR"

Intelligence activities

Working at the Soviet trade mission and the plenipotentiary mission in Prague, he collaborated with the INO OGPU (foreign intelligence of the USSR), and from February 1924 on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic he collected information on technical, economic and political intelligence. Since 1930, full-time employee of the INO OGPU, from 1930-1937. worked illegally in neighboring countries of Asia, North and South America, Africa and Europe, as an illegal recruiter and leader of a group of illegal immigrants (under the pseudonym “Andrey”). Assignments to Bystroletov from the “Center” were given directly by A.Kh. Artuzov, acting through legal and illegal residents of the INO (N.G. Samsonov, B.Ya. Bazarov, T. Malli, I.S. Poretsky, etc.). Provided the leadership of the USSR with diplomatic ciphers and codes for England, Germany, Italy, Finland, and France. Organized the receipt of classified information from the US State Department. He controlled the personal correspondence between Hitler and Mussolini. He obtained a number of the latest technologies and weapons for the USSR.

Repression

On September 17, 1938, Bystroletov was arrested on charges of espionage; on May 8, 1939, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Bystroletov Dmitry Aleksandrovich to imprisonment in forced labor camps for a period of twenty years with loss of political rights for five years and with confiscation property belonging to him personally.
From 1939-1940 served his sentence in Narillag.
From 1940-1941 served his sentence in Mariinsk (Siblag).
From 1941-1947 served his sentence in Suslovo (Siblag).
In January 1948, on the instructions of the USSR Minister of State Security, Abakumov was taken under escort to Moscow. For refusing an amnesty and for refusing to work in the MGB, Abakumov, with his authority, changed Bystroletov’s sentence of May 8, 1939, to five years in solitary confinement, after which he could be executed.
From 1948-1951 served his sentence in solitary confinement in the Sukhanovskaya special security prison.
In 1951 he went crazy, was placed for treatment in a prison hospital, and after treatment was sent to a special camp (Soviet penal servitude).
From 1951-1952 served his sentence in Ozerlag (construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline).
From 1952-1954 served a sentence in Kamyshlag (construction of an oil refinery in Omsk).
In 1954, after a stroke, he was released from serving his sentence (“activated”).
In 1956, due to the lack of evidence of a crime, he was rehabilitated.
From 1957-1975 lived in Moscow, worked, with knowledge of 22 foreign languages, as a language editor at the All-Union Research Institute of Medical and Medical-Technical Information of the USSR Ministry of Health, including working on the literary work “The Feast of the Immortals” in 17 books, completed shortly before the author’s death. This is what Dmitry Alexandrovich’s wife wrote to the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yu. V. Andropov, a few months before her husband’s death.

Dmitry Alexandrovich Bystroletov

Bystroletov (Tolstoy) Dmitry Alexandrovich (1901-1975). Soviet intelligence officer, writer, journalist, screenwriter, artist, photographer. Born in Crimea in the town of Achkora. Son of Count Alexander Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Claudia Dmitrievna Bystroletova. In 1904-1914. lived in St. Petersburg, in the family of Countess de Corval, where he received home education and upbringing. In 1915-1917 studied in Sevastopol at the Naval Cadet Corps. Participant of the First World War in the Turkish Theater of Operations. In 1919 he deserted from Denikin's army and fled to Turkey. He graduated with honors from the graduating class of the college for European Christians in Constantinople. In Czechoslovakia he entered the university.

In 1923 in Prague he received Soviet citizenship. Worked at the trade mission of the USSR. Since 1925 - full-time foreign intelligence officer, in 1930-1937. - illegal immigrant. Continuing his education, he became a Doctor of Law from the University of Prague, a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Zurich, studied at the Berlin and Paris Academies of Arts, and studied twenty foreign languages. Traveled to many countries in Asia, Africa, America and Europe. He lived among the Tuaregs in the Sahara desert, among the pygmies in Equatorial Africa, among the aristocrats of England, France and Italy, industrialists and bankers of Germany, America and Holland.

Bystroletov belonged to the “elite squadron” of Soviet intelligence, was one of the best employees of the INO OGPUK-GUGB-NKVD of the USSR, engaged in economic, military and political intelligence. A master of disguise, he managed to penetrate the secrets of the British Foreign Office, obtain ciphers and codes for Austria, Germany, Italy, France and other countries. Recruited a number of agents in Italy, France, Czechoslovakia and England.

In 1937 he came to the USSR, in the same year he became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. In September 1938 he was arrested. Charged under Article 58, paragraphs 6, 7, 8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Next - according to the “Stalinist voucher” - the full GULAG program: in polar Norilsk, in Kraslag, in Siblag, in solitary confinement at the special facility “Sukhanovka”, in the Soviet penal servitude in Ozerlag and Kamyshlag. Released in 1954 (classified as disabled). Rehabilitated in 1956. Bystroletov's wife (and employee) Shelmatova Milena Iolanta Maria committed suicide after her husband's arrest.

After his release, he lived in Moscow, working on books, memoirs, and scripts. In November 1973, the premiere of the feature film “A Man in Plain Clothes” based on the script by Bystroletov took place. He was buried in Moscow at the Khovanskoye cemetery.

Bystroletov is the author of sixteen books and memoirs, in which he gives his vision of the situation in the country on the eve of World War II and an assessment of the actions of the governing bodies of the Soviet state and Stalin. Some of his forecasts about the development of the situation in the USSR are striking in their insight. So, he writes: “I would like to point out another mistake of Stalin, and with him Lenin and the party in general. This mistake at one time aroused universal approval and made the author (Stalin - comp.) a kind of specialist and authority. But time will pass, its disastrous results will become clear and in due course will cause dire consequences for our state.

Unnoticed by everyone, Stalin laid a time bomb in the foundation. The ominous rumbling of the clockwork is already heard by ears that want to hear. Later, under suitable conditions, explosions and the disintegration of the building in parts will begin, then even fools will see it.

We are talking about national politics. About the deceptive formula: “National in form, socialist in content.”

For a country where one and a half hundred nationalities live, the question of national politics is of paramount importance. If there is a mistake in this area, the growth of local nationalism and the collapse of the union state are inevitable: conditions may arise under which it will be impossible to restrain the centrifugal forces from Moscow.

In the tsar’s passport, the column “nationality” did not exist, the population of the empire got used to it, and when after the revolution they began to introduce the Soviet passport system, they would have taken advantage of historical luck and once and for all erased this damned word from official terminology. But no: someone’s his hand dragged him into the everyday life of Soviet life; moreover, when filling out the passport form, Lenin allegedly defiantly wrote about himself: “without nationality,” and left the national question to his faithful secretary general. This is where the infection came from.

In the famous formula, thanks to Stalin’s countless mistakes, the socialist principle gradually eroded, and the nationalist principle, fueled by the war, the pressure of foreign propaganda and other factors, primarily dissatisfaction with Moscow, grew to a decisive and purposeful significance...

In parallel with the deterioration of living conditions, I see the growth of local anti-Russian nationalism... In the Caucasus, they are openly snapping, but things have not yet come to direct collective action. In Central Asia, Russians are being tripped up on the sly, but they don’t dare to squabble openly. In the North, the Yakuts are just beginning to carefully stab people in the back or “accidentally” squeeze out calluses. There is nothing to say about the Baltic republics! The process is the same everywhere, but is at different stages of development.

Nowhere else have national cadres grown enough to replace the Russians, and an open challenge is still far away. But this time, unfortunately, will definitely come, political and economic miscalculations

Stalin and Khrushchev fuel the thirst for protest and discontent in the minds of national minorities, giving the anti-Stalin and anti-Khrushchev feeling an anti-Russian character... Stalin’s subtle mistake in the national question will someday become a state crime” (D. A. Bystroletov, Journey to the End of the Night. M., 1996. pp. 375-376).

It is interesting that this was written in a prosperous year, by Soviet standards, in 1965. There are truly “no prophets in their own” homeland.” Bystroletov further writes: “On the basis of anti-scientific principles of labor organization in management and science, as well as on the basis of an extensive economy, in which half of the people’s efforts and wealth are wasted, a state was built, all whose grandiose achievements were purchased at the price of irrational squandering of the spiritual and material resources of the people.

The ease with which Stalin broke the democratic screen and its obvious falsification by Khrushchev show that in the structure of the state and the party there is no legal mechanism that guarantees the country from repeating Stalin’s crimes and Khrushchev’s stupidities.

The bureaucratic machine for managing the economy, science and art gave rise to the ideology of neo-Stalinism, i.e., a system of feeding, the fight against which is impossible, because it is a really existing superstructure over a really existing material basis.

Therefore, the current structure in the country and the party every year more and more hampers progress in the field of spiritual culture and economy: the share of national income and people’s efforts going towards useful construction is no longer enough to keep up with the global technical and cultural revolution. The country and the neo-Stalinist party are approaching the inevitable “moment of truth,” or, more simply put, a test of strength and ability to adapt to circumstances” (Ibid. p. 578).

Book materials used: Torchinov V.A., Leontyuk A.M. Around Stalin. Historical and biographical reference book. St. Petersburg, 2000