There are still many rumors about the NKVD toxicology laboratory. In its depths, since the 30s of the last century, the development of the most deadly and unidentifiable poisons has been carried out. And they were successful.
"Special office"
World political history can be looked at as a history of poisoning. In the struggle for power, poisons have been used since ancient times, but toxicological methods of eliminating political opponents received a methodological, scientific basis already in the 20th century.
A laboratory for the study and production of poisons appeared in our country back in 1921. It was created by personal order of Lenin, the work was supervised by the chairman of the OGPU Menzhinsky. Until 1937, the laboratory was not directly connected with the intelligence services and was formally under the department of the All-Union Institute of Biochemistry.
According to intelligence historian Boris Volodarsky, the idea to create a laboratory for the study of poisons came to Lenin after the assassination attempt of Fanny Kaplan. He was informed that the bullets were poisoned with ricin. Then Lenin became interested in poisons, and also proposed creating a “special office” in which the study of toxins and narcotic substances would be carried out.
Doctor Death
The “new life” of the poisons laboratory began in 1938, when it was included in the 4th special department of the NKVD. Lavrentiy Beria did not mince words and initially set a very specific task - to create poisons that would simulate death due to natural causes. At the same time, special attention was paid to ensure that they could not be detected during autopsy.
They took up the matter actively. Two laboratories were created at once, one bacteriological, the second for working with poisons. The “poisonous” laboratory was headed by Dr. Grigory Mairanovsky. For work, he was allocated five rooms in a house on Varsonofevsky Lane, located behind the internal NKVD prison. In his memoirs, “Stalin’s Terminator,” Pavel Sudoplatov wrote: “The toxicology laboratory in official documents was called “laboratory X.” The head of the laboratory, colonel of the medical service, Professor Mayranovsky, was engaged in research into the influence of deadly gases and poisons on malignant tumors. The professor was highly valued in medical circles.”
The location of the laboratory was very convenient, since Dr. Mayranovsky’s main subjects were prisoners sentenced to capital punishment. They were executed in a special, non-judicial manner. Every day a new batch of prisoners from the inner prison was delivered to the laboratory rooms. The effects of poisons were also studied on prisoners of war. The exact number of people who passed through “laboratory X” is impossible to establish today, since some protocols were destroyed, others remained in the KGB archives and have not been declassified to this day, despite the expiration of the statute of limitations. Most sources indicate the figure of 250 people.
Working in the laboratory was extremely stressful. Even trusted people could not withstand the stressful environment. After participating in ten experiments, experienced NKVD officer Filimonov went into an alcoholic tailspin, several more security officers received serious mental trauma, Shcheglov and Shchegolev, employees of “laboratory X” committed suicide.
“Doctor Death” himself held out until the end, but fate decreed that Mairanovsky was crushed by the very machine for which he worked. In 1951, he was arrested for participation in the “Zionist conspiracy” and also on the grounds that he stored poisonous substances in his home. His testimony subsequently became one of the ballasts that dragged down Lavrentiy Beria. Even while in prison, Mayranovsky continued to consult “authorities” in his specialty. “Doctor Death” was finally released in 1962, after which he lived for two years. Died in Makhachkala. The official cause of death is heart failure. Just like hundreds of his “patients”.
Poisons
Mairanovsky began his research with the study of mustard gas, but these experiments ended in a fiasco - upon autopsy, traces of mustard gas could be easily detected. It is noteworthy that Mayranovsky began experimenting with mustard gas even earlier than his “colleagues” from Nazi laboratories.
A lot of time was spent studying one of the most powerful poisons - ricin, which is 12 thousand times more powerful than rattlesnake venom. The lethal dose for humans is only 70 micrograms. Mairanovsky worked a lot with different dosages of this toxin. In 1942, he discovered that, at a certain dosage, ricin caused increased frankness in test subjects. Since that time, “laboratory X” began developing a “truth serum.”
A real discovery for Mairanovsky was carbilaminecholine chloride (K-2). According to the recollections of eyewitnesses of the experiments, after its introduction into the body, a person “seemed to decrease in size, became quieter, and weakened.” Death occurred within 15 minutes. It was impossible to detect K-2 in the body.
The laboratory not only produced poisons. The issues of their use, that is, their introduction into the body, were also resolved. In addition to traditional injections and the addition of poisons to food and liquids, the effects of poisons on the skin and mucous membranes were also studied. The report of the senior investigator of the MGB Molchanov (1953) also indicates that until 1949, under the leadership of Mayranovsky, the issue of human poisoning with dust-like toxic substances through inhaled air was studied. Given the success of reconnaissance operations using poisons, most experiments led to the desired result.
Operations
Many operations are associated with the activities of “laboratory X”. From the murder of Stepan Bandera by Bogdan Stashinsky in 1959 to the liquidation of Raoul Wallenberg in one of the Moscow prisons. Bandera was killed with potassium cyanide. Pavel Sudoplatov spoke about Majoranovsky’s involvement in the Wallenberg case in his memoirs.
The following operations are proven: the murder of the leader of the Russian All-Military Union, General Alexander Kutepov, the poisoning and kidnapping of General Evgeniy Miller, the murder of Archbishop Theodor Romzha (curare poison was used), the liquidation of the Bulgarian dissident Georgiy Markov in 1978.
This murder quite claims to be the most mysterious crime of the 20th century. Markov died three days after being injected with an umbrella. Before his death, recalling the events of the last days, Markov said that he was walking past a stop and tripped over something. At the same time I felt a slight prick. The “well-wisher” with an umbrella immediately got into the car and drove away, and Markov moved on. Soon he began to feel unwell.
An autopsy showed that death was caused by poisoning with the previously mentioned ricin. During the injection, a microcapsule containing a toxin was introduced into Markov’s body, which began to enter the blood.
It is interesting that “based on” this incident, the French comedy “Injection with an Umbrella” (working title - “Injection with a Bulgarian Umbrella”) was filmed, which became the box office leader in 1981 in the USSR.
Target: The information points to the central laboratory under the index X8. The mission is not easy. There may be information about secret experiments conducted in the Zone.
Terms of issue: Documents were found in the workshop with product No. 62
Walkthrough: We go to the Yubileiny KBO. We take with us in advance as much ammunition, first aid kits and bandages as possible. They can be obtained from a technician or a physician. On the first floor we approach the elevator, it is de-energized, we need to turn on the generator. We go up the stairs. There are many living creatures on the indicator. As we move to the top floor, we break through, killing the crowds and... On the fifth floor near the elevator you will find Barchuk's PDA, which says that the generator is located on the sixth service floor. We start the generator, go into the elevator and go down to laboratory x8.
We exit the elevator and open the door using the yellow key card. Right there, on the right, there will be a closed door with the sign that no outsiders are allowed to enter. This is where we need the red key card. We open the door, inside there is a whole cloud of weapons and medicines. We go into the classroom, on the path of the electrical anomaly, go down the stairs, on the table lies a blue notebook with notes about the experiment. We take it to the entrance. We go to the canteen, on the way you will meet a couple - it’s too early to be scared.
We go up the flight of stairs and go into the dining room. You can hear a child crying... You will find (!) in the men's toilet on the right. Do not forget to monitor your stamina, otherwise you will be left without a weapon. At the end of the room you will find research documents. We return to the entrance again. Let's go down to the laboratory. But we don’t turn left down, but go up the right stairs. There will be flying there, which always bothers me personally, but at that time I had a GP37. There will also be an RP-74 machine gun, useful in some cases. Now let's go down to the laboratory. Next to the model of the “rainbow” aggression suppressor on the shelf you will find another document. A total of three documents.
Be careful, in one of the rooms with documents there are documents that can easily drive you into subtle anomalies. In the room with two large barrels, there will be a transfer order on the control panel, and a little further on there will be an anabiotic - in my opinion, a very useful thing when there is no shelter from the release nearby. Now we go down, go into the right elevator shaft and go up the stairs, when we see open doors on the floor we jump there. There will be three Burers in the hall. Here we get only 7-6 rounds of ammunition and there are no burers. Well, then you take the two remaining documents. And two more anabiotics.
Now, just as we got here, we return - by elevator. Yes, I almost forgot. It will still be necessary to kill. As soon as you get out, run to the base to Kowalski’s laundry for a face-to-face conversation. In total, you should have 6 docks with you from laboratory x8.
By the way, advice - on the roof of the Yubileiny KBO, you can find two artifacts. But I only use them as a way to earn money. And since by the end of the game I had 240 thousand rubles, I stopped hunting for them.
One of the darkest pages in the Beria case was the history of the emergence and activities of a special laboratory in which fatal experiments were carried out on people. They were embarrassed to write about this in a brief newspaper report about the trial of Beria, published on December 24, 1953. The verdict, however, stated: “Other inhumane crimes of the defendants Beria, Merkulov, Kobulov were also established, consisting in conducting experiments on testing poisons on those sentenced to capital punishment and experiments on the use of narcotic substances during interrogations.” What was hidden behind this phrase and what were the scope and organizational forms of this activity?
During the investigation into the Beria case in 1953, this became one of the “shock” episodes, although they did not get to it right away. Imprisoned under Stalin during the exposure of the so-called. Zionist conspiracy in the MGB, Colonel of the medical service Grigory Mayranovsky (sentenced by the MGB OSO on February 14, 1953 to 10 years) himself attracted the attention of the prosecutor’s office. In the spring of 1953, in the hope of being released, he repeatedly turned to the new Minister of Internal Affairs, Beria, and in letters he openly wrote about his “special work” in a special laboratory and emphasized his merits. In the first, from the Vladimir prison on April 21, 1953, he wrote: “With my hand, more than a dozen sworn enemies of Soviet power were destroyed, including nationalists of all kinds (and Jewish ones) - Lieutenant General P.A. Sudoplatov knows about this “- and assured Beria: he is ready to carry out “all your tasks for the benefit of our mighty Motherland.” After Beria’s arrest, these letters fell into the hands of the investigation, and the thread began to unwind. On August 18, 1953, Mayranovsky’s case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office.
During interrogation on August 27, 1953, Mayranovsky described in detail how at the end of 1938 or the beginning of 1939 he asked Beria to allow him to conduct experiments on people and as a result: “Beria approved my proposal. I was instructed to conduct these studies on convicts.”
Now it is the turn to interrogate the main accused. To a direct question about testing poisons on those sentenced to death on August 28, 1953, Beria replied: “I don’t remember.” But after Mairanovsky’s testimony was read to him, he realized that it was pointless to deny: “I admit that what Mairanovsky testifies to is a terrible, bloody crime. I gave the task to Mairanovsky to carry out experiments on those sentenced to VMN, but this was not my idea.” Beria was immediately asked whether his deputy Vsevolod Merkulov was privy to the secret activities of the special laboratory. Beria answered “of course,” clarifying that he “was more involved in this.” After thinking a little more, Beria decided that he had not clearly explained his subordinate role in this matter: “I would like to add that I received instructions about organizing a special laboratory from I.V. Stalin and in accordance with these instructions, the experiments discussed above were carried out.”
By this time, Merkulov, who held the position of Minister of State Control of the USSR, had not yet been arrested. But the investigation had its sights on him as Beria’s closest associate and so far interrogated him as a witness. To the surprise of prosecutorial investigators, during interrogation on August 29, 1953, Merkulov not only did not deny the existence of such a laboratory in the NKVD, but also undertook to theoretically substantiate its necessity. When asked if he believed that these experiments were a crime against humanity, Merkulov said: “I don’t think so, since the ultimate goal of the experiments was the fight against the enemies of the Soviet state. The NKVD is a body that could apply such experiments on convicted enemies of Soviet power and in the interests of the Soviet state. As an employee of the NKVD, I carried out these tasks, but, as a person, I considered this kind of experience undesirable.” Thus, in the person of Merkulov, the state defeated man.
With such revelations, witness Merkulov paved the way for himself to become accused. On September 1, 1953, Prosecutor General Rudenko sent Malenkov a certificate about Merkulov with a request to authorize his arrest as one of Beria’s “associates” who led the activities of a secret laboratory where experiments were carried out on people.
Meanwhile, Beria, along the way, tried in every possible way to belittle his role in the organization and functioning of “laboratory X”. During interrogation on August 31, he stated: “I saw Mayranovsky only two or three times. He reported to me about the work of the laboratory and about experiments on living people,” and Merkulov gave permission to conduct specific experiments.” Moreover, Beria explained that soon after his appointment as People's Commissar he "was interested in these poisons in connection with the emerging action against Hitler."
When asked “how do you evaluate experiments on living people, secret abductions and murders of people,” Beria replied: “These are unacceptable phenomena and bloody crimes.”
Merkulov, being arrested, admitted during interrogation on September 28 that he personally gave permission to Mayranovsky to use poisons on 30–40 convicts, explaining that no one except him and Beria could give such permission. He repeated again that he did not consider this illegal, since we were talking about those sentenced to capital punishment and there was Beria’s sanction. True, he made a reservation: “In particular, I did not imagine that these experiences were painful in nature. I even believed that the procedure for quietly poisoning a convicted person was less painful than the procedure for execution. Of course, I had to take an interest in the details of the experiments and create the proper framework for them or even stop them altogether.”
In addition to Mayranovsky, who was engaged in toxicological research, senior chemist of the special laboratory Alexander Grigorovich and bacteriologist Sergei Muromtsev, who tested botulinum toxin on prisoners, took part in the experiments on humans. The following had access to the laboratory: Sudoplatov, Eitingon, Filimonov and the head of the laboratory Arkady Osinkin. As Mayranovsky explained during the investigation, in addition to the leaders of the NKVD, employees of the commandant’s office subordinate to the Lubyanka commandant Blokhin also knew about the experiments on people: brothers Vasily and Ivan Shigalev, Demyan Semenikhin, Ivan Feldman, Ivan Antonov, Vasily Bodunov, Alexander Dmitriev, who usually carried out executions, and in In the event of the transfer of the condemned to Mairanovsky's laboratory, they were spared the need to perform their executioner duties. It is difficult to say whether they were happy about this circumstance, whether they saw in Mayranovsky a competitor capable of “taking away the job” - replacing their hands, worn out and calloused from the handles of pistols, with a test tube of poison. So what then – quit?
Commandant Vasily Blokhin spoke in detail about the history of the creation of the laboratory during interrogation on September 19, 1953. Beria, shortly after his appointment as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, called him and said that it was necessary to prepare a room for conducting experiments on prisoners sentenced to death. Blokhin dates this conversation to 1938. First, Beria found out whether it was possible to use the premises in house No. 2 (in the main building of the NKVD on Lubyanka) for this purpose. Blokhin replied that such work could not be carried out in house No. 2 and that it was possible to equip premises in another building (as is clear from Mairanovsky’s testimony, this was the NKVD building in Varsanofyevsky Lane). Blokhin sketched out a plan and handed it over to Mamulov. The premises on the 1st floor were converted into 5 cells and a reception area.
Mairanovsky injected poison into prisoners through food, through injections with a cane or a syringe, and also conducted experiments with silent weapons. Blokhin said: “When the arrested prisoners were killed by introducing various poisons, I was present, and more often those on duty, but in all cases when the killing had already been carried out, I came to Mayranovsky’s premises in order to complete the entire operation. From Sudoplatov’s department, Eitingon was more often than others in Mairanovsky’s premises, Sudoplatov was somewhat less likely. In all cases of killing there were representatives of department “A” Podobedov, Gertsovsky, Vorobiev.” Assignments to the special department, and from 1943 to department “A”, to select convicts for transfer to the laboratory were given by Beria and his deputies Merkulov and Kobulov. Those arrested to be delivered to Mayranovsky were delivered and placed in cells, always with the participation of employees of department “A”. “After the death of the arrested, a representative of department “A” was also necessarily present, who, on the back of the order, drew up an act on the execution of the sentence, which was filed by an employee of department “A”, as well as by me and sometimes by a representative of Sudoplatov’s department. These acts are stored in department “A”..."
Blokhin explained that the killing of convicts in this way took place from the end of 1938 to 1947. Most of all in 1939 – 1940. about 40 people. This stopped with the start of the war, and since 1943, when experiments on humans resumed, there have been about 30 people. Blokhin kept a notebook where, on his own initiative, he entered the names of the subjects, but in 1941 he burned it, then resumed the notes in 1943 and, retiring in 1953, handed the notebook to his deputy Yakovlev, who, with Blokhin’s consent, burned it .
In December 1953, Beria and his closest associates were convicted and executed. But the prosecutor’s office’s investigation into the history of the special laboratory continued. This is what he said about his participation in the activities of the special laboratory and experiments on people on March 4, 1954, during interrogation at the prosecutor’s office of Muromtsev. In 1942, Sudoplatov called him and, in the presence of Filimonov, offered to participate in duty in a special laboratory. Responsibilities included observing and recording observations. “Personally,” said Muromtsev, “I did not take part in the administration of poisons.” According to Muromtsev’s testimony, Filimonov visited Laboratory X almost every day, “once Sudoplatov was with me (he came with Filimonov) - he examined the situation, walked along the corridor, sat for a few minutes in the reception area, asked Mairanovsky a few questions and left.” As Muromtsev said, he was on duty in the special laboratory for a short time - 2-3 months, then refused, because he was not “able to tolerate this situation”: the continuous drunkenness of Mayranovsky, Grigorovich, Filimonov, together with the workers of the special group. “In addition, Mairanovsky himself was striking with his brutal, sadistic attitude towards prisoners.” Some drugs caused severe suffering in prisoners. Muromtsev’s relationship with his wife began to deteriorate (she didn’t like the fact that he didn’t spend the night at home). Muromtsev talked with Blokhin, he reported to Sudoplatov, and they no longer took him on duty. As Muromtsev explained, “I didn’t talk to Filimonov, because by that time he had become an alcoholic.”
During Muromtsev's duty, experiments were carried out on approximately 15 convicts. When asked whether Muromtsev tested his drugs, he replied: “Once Filimonov told me that, at Sudoplatov’s suggestion, I should test the effect of butulinus toxin (as in the text, we are talking about botulinum toxin. - N.P.) in a special laboratory, where I was brought in by them for duty at Mairanovsky’s.” Muromtsev conducted the experiment together with Mairanovsky, the toxin was given along with food. “There were three such experiments, apparently with fatal outcomes. Death occurred within 48 hours." In all cases, mild stomach pain, nausea and paralysis were observed. Filimonov reported the results of experiments on botulinum toxin to Sudoplatov.
Muromtsev also remembered how once, on the orders of Sudoplatov, transmitted through Filimonov, during the war he gave Mairanovsky one dose of botulinum toxin for use, as Filimonov told him, behind the cordon, in Paris. Then Sudoplatov called Muromtsev and, in the presence of Filimonov, scolded him for the fact that the drug turned out to be ineffective.
During interrogation on March 13, 1954, Mayranovsky was asked why he hid the fact that he conducted research on poisons at the end of 1938 in an internal prison. Mairanovsky admitted that he began his research in a room in a house on Varsanofevsky Lane, but once, when it was necessary to test some remedy in order to give it to the leadership, he carried out experiments in the internal prison of the NKVD. Grigorovich began to help on duty when experiments were carried out in another room in Varsanofevsky Lane, and V.D. Shchegolev also helped (in April 1940, during the experiments, he poisoned himself and committed suicide).
A question was asked about experiments with poisoned bullets, and Mairanovsky said that he had conducted experiments under Filimonov. Mairanovsky himself, Grigorovich, Filimonov and Blokhin’s special group took part. These were lightweight bullets, inside of which there was aconitine: “These experiments began in the upper chamber in Varsanofevsky Lane, but when research on poisons was already carried out in the six lower ones.” Mayranovsky: “In Varsanofevsky Lane, in the upper chamber, we carried out experiments, it seems, on three people. Then these experiments were carried out in the basement where the sentences were carried out, in the same building on Varsanofevsky Lane. Here, experiments were carried out on approximately ten convicts.”
Shots were fired into “non-lethal” areas with explosive bullets. Death occurred within 15 minutes to an hour, depending on where the bullet hit. Filimonov or someone from the special group shot at the “experimental subjects”. “It seems to me,” added Mayranovsky, “Grigorovich did not shoot, I myself have never shot either... all cases where poisoned bullets were used ended in death, although I remember one case when a test subject was shot by special group workers.” And there was a case when the bullet stopped at the bone, and the test subject pulled it out. During the experiments with poisoned bullets in the basement, Mayranovsky, Filimonov, Grigorovich, Blokhin and his employees from the special group were present.
Mairanovsky also remembered experiments with a pillow poisoned with poison, which caused sleep, and how large doses of sleeping pills were given, which caused death.
A number of criminal episodes were never investigated. During interrogation on August 27, 1953, Mayranovsky said that he participated in operations to eliminate people during secret meetings in safe houses. He received assignments through Sudoplatov. The discussion of upcoming actions took place with Beria or Merkulov, and in all cases Sudoplatov (sometimes Eitingon and Filimonov) participated in the discussion. As Mairanovsky explained, “I was never told why this or that person should be killed, and their names were not even given.” Mayranovsky was organized a meeting with a potential victim at a safe house, and while eating and drinking, as he explained, “I mixed poisons,” and sometimes he killed the “stupefied person” beforehand by injection. As Mairanovsky said, “this is several dozen people.”
He testified about the special laboratory and Sudoplatov. During interrogation on September 1, 1953, he said that the head of the 4th special department of the NKVD, Filimonov, brought him up to date on the matter of “Laboratory X” and the experiments, when his department entered the department headed by Sudoplatov. The work in the “special laboratory” was carried out by Filimonov, Mayranovsky and Muromtsev and reported on it to Merkulov and Beria. According to surviving test reports, work began in 1937 or 1938. A total of 150 protocols have been preserved.
According to Sudoplatov, Abakumov in 1946 gave the order to liquidate the laboratory and keep the test reports. And Sudoplatov kept these documents until his arrest in August 1953. After Sudoplatov’s arrest, the protocols were kept in the Prosecutor General’s Office.
In 1954, a folder with the title “Materials of Laboratory X” was transferred from the Prosecutor General’s Office to permanent storage in the KGB. The current FSB keeps its contents secret, although this contradicts Art. 7 of the “Law on State Secrets,” which prohibits classifying information about repressions and crimes against justice. I wonder how long the FSB intends to keep secret the names of the victims of the criminal experiments of Stalin’s security officers?
Raoul Wallenberg and secret diplomacy during the Second World War
The mystery surrounding the name of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat widely known throughout the world for his work rescuing Jews during the Second World War and who disappeared in 1945, has still not been solved. Wallenberg was detained by military counterintelligence SMERSH in 1945 in Budapest and secretly liquidated, I assume, in an internal MGB prison in 1947. Almost half a century has passed in fruitless investigations carried out by both official KGB liars and journalists, but Wallenberg's investigative and prison files have never been discovered.
Recently, a letter from the head of the intelligence department of the NKGB of the USSR Fitin was found addressed to SMERSH, which arrested Wallenberg in 1945, with a request to transfer him to the disposal of intelligence for operational purposes. However, Abakumov rejected this idea, apparently trying to attribute the “laurels” of successful work with Wallenberg to his apparatus.
Raoul Wallenberg belonged to a well-known family of financial magnates, which had maintained secret contacts with representatives of the Soviet government since the beginning of 1944. Although I was not assigned to study Wallenberg and his connections with German and American intelligence agencies, I was aware of the contribution his family made to the conclusion of a separate peace with Finland. The nature of the military counterintelligence reports about Raoul Wallenberg and the contacts of the entire family suggested that the diplomat was a suitable target for recruitment or the role of a hostage. Wallenberg's arrest, interrogations, the circumstances of his death - everything confirms that there was an attempt to recruit him, but he refused to cooperate with us. Perhaps the fear that the failed recruitment attempt would become known if Wallenberg was released forced him to be eliminated.
During the war years, our station in Stockholm was instructed to find influential people in Swedish society who could become mediators in negotiations with the Finns to conclude a separate peace. That's when we established contacts with the Wallenberg family.
Stalin was concerned that Finland, an ally of Germany since 1941, might sign a peace treaty with the Americans without taking into account our interests in the Baltic states. The Americans, in turn, feared that we would occupy Finland. However, we did not have such a need: the neutrality of the closest neighboring country was important to us in order to use it to our advantage through agents of influence in the main political parties of Finland. These people agreed to cooperate with us if we ensured the neutrality of the Finnish state. In addition, they wanted to play the role of mediator between East and West.
It is significant that in the 70-80s, influential political circles in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, as well as in the Baltic republics, who advocated the revival of their state independence, sought to follow the Finnish example. These attempts were called Finlandization by both sides - those who made them and those who opposed them.
I remember how in 1938, a year before the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish war, Stalin ordered the transfer of two hundred thousand dollars for political support to the Finnish smallholder party, so that it would play a role in shaping the government’s position on resolving border issues. The money was given to the Finns by Colonel Rybkin, my friend, who was then the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Finland and known there under the name Yartsev. Stalin personally instructed him how to talk with political figures who received money from us, as well as on the issue of preparing secret negotiations with representatives of the Finnish government with the aim of concluding a pact of non-aggression and cooperation, planned with the participation of a trusted representative of the Soviet government, personally known to the head of the Finnish states to Mannerheim. It was Count Ignatiev, the author of the book “Fifty Years in Service.” Mannerheim rejected the proposals submitted by Yartsev to the Finnish government, but informed Hitler about the unusual proposal from the Soviet side. Thus, the German leadership, when deciding to begin negotiations with us to conclude a non-aggression pact, knew full well that their proposal could not be considered by Moscow as completely unexpected and unacceptable. It is significant that all these negotiations were conducted in strict secrecy from the USSR Ambassador to Finland Derevianko.
During the war, Rybkin and his wife led our station in Stockholm. One of their tasks was to maintain contacts with the Red Chapel intelligence network in Germany through Swedish channels. Rybkin’s wife is known to many as a children’s writer for the books “Mother’s Heart”, “Through the Icy Darkness”, “Bonfires”, etc. - she published under her maiden name Voskresenskaya. In the diplomatic circles of Stockholm and Moscow, this Russian beauty was known as Zoya Yartseva, who shone not only with her beauty, but also with her excellent knowledge of German and Finnish. Rybkin, a tall, beautifully built, charming man, had a subtle sense of humor and was a great storyteller. The couple were very popular among diplomats in the Swedish capital, which allowed them to be aware of the Germans' probing attempts to find out the possibility of a separate peace agreement with the United States of America and Great Britain without the participation of the Soviet Union. By the way, German intelligence, for provocative purposes, spread rumors in Stockholm in 1943-1944 about possible secret negotiations between the USSR and Germany on a separate peace without the participation of the Americans and the British.
The Rybkins took an active part in the preparation and execution of secret economic agreements. In 1942, with the help of our agent, the famous Swedish actor and satirist Carl Gerhard, they managed to conclude a barter deal: we received high-quality Swedish steel, essential for aircraft construction, in exchange for platinum. Sweden's neutrality was grossly violated, but the bank that carried out the deal made a handsome profit. The Wallenberg family owned a controlling stake in the bank.
Karl Gerhard maintained friendly relations with Raoul's uncle Marcus Wallenberg and, according to the plan approved in Moscow, introduced Zoya Rybkina to him at a reception.
Zoe charmed Marcus Wallenberg. They met again over the weekend at a luxury hotel owned by the Wallenberg family near Stockholm. The conversation was about how it was possible to arrange a meeting of diplomats from two countries - the USSR and Finland - that were at war, at which they could discuss the conclusion of a separate peace treaty. Zoya Rybkina told Wallenberg that it was necessary to bring to the attention of the Finns: the Soviet side guarantees complete state independence at the end of the war, but due to the continuation of hostilities in the Baltic theater, it expects to receive the right to a limited military presence in the ports of Finland and a limited deployment of naval and air forces bases on its territory.
The Wallenberg family, in turn, had financial interests in Finland and were very interested in a peaceful settlement of Soviet-Finnish relations.
It only took Marcus Wallenberg a week to organize a meeting between Zoe and the representative of the Finnish government, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, who later became president, replacing Carl Gustav Mannerheim. The Soviet side was represented at the negotiations by Alexandra Kollontai, our ambassador to Sweden, who for a long time remained the first and only woman at the rank of ambassador. Only in the 70s was a woman again in the rank of ambassador - Zoya Mironova, who headed the Soviet mission to international organizations accredited in Geneva.
Possible reasons for detention and unsuccessful attempts to force cooperation with Soviet authorities
Consultations continued throughout the summer and, finally, on September 4, 1944, a peace treaty was concluded between the USSR and Finland.
With Raoul Wallenberg in our hands as a hostage or potential recruit, Stalin and Molotov probably hoped to exploit the Wallenberg family's position to secure lucrative loans in the West.
In 1945, the Soviet leadership spread rumors that a Jewish autonomous republic would be created in Crimea, where Jews from all over the world, especially from Europe, who had suffered from fascism, would be able to come. Stalin bluffed, pursuing several goals. First, with this bait - a Jewish republic - he hoped to reassure the British allies, who feared that a Jewish state would be created in Palestine, which was under their protectorate. Secondly, Stalin sought to find out the possibilities of attracting Western capital to restore the national economy destroyed by the war.
From Beria I received instructions to sound out the Americans on this issue during conversations with their ambassador in Moscow, Harriman (in 1945, I met with him under the name Matveev).
At the time of his arrest by military counterintelligence, Raoul Wallenberg was known for his activities in rescuing and transporting Jews from Germany and Hungary to Palestine. We knew of Wallenberg's high reputation among the leaders of international Zionist organizations. It was unthinkable to arrest him, like any Western diplomat, without direct instructions from Moscow. Even if we assume that he was detained by accident (at the same time, more than thirty diplomats from some European countries were detained, almost all were released a few months later in exchange for prisoners of war and Soviet Army soldiers remaining in the West), then the leaders of military counterintelligence in Budapest should have be sure to report this to Moscow. It is now known that the order for Wallenberg's arrest was signed by Bulganin, Stalin's deputy at the People's Commissariat of Defense, and the order was immediately carried out.
My former colleague, Lieutenant General Belkin, once deputy chief of SMERSH, was familiar with the Wallenberg case. He told me that in 1945, the front-line organs of SMERSH received from Moscow an orientation on Wallenberg, which indicated that he was suspected of collaborating with German, American and British intelligence, and was ordered to establish constant surveillance of him, track and study his contacts, before just with the German intelligence services.
Wallenberg’s work, as I recall, was reported on by our agent Kutuzov (he belonged to the family of the great commander), an emigrant brought into cooperation with Soviet intelligence back in the early 30s. Kutuzov worked at the Red Cross mission in Budapest and participated in the development of Wallenberg. According to Kutuzov's reports, Raoul Wallenberg actively collaborated with German intelligence. Kutuzov interpreted his behavior as a double or even triple play. Of course, in such a risky business - saving Jews - it was necessary to maintain close contacts with officials and German intelligence services. I remember that Belkin told me about several recorded meetings between Wallenberg and the chief of German intelligence, Schellenberg.
Circumstances were such that Wallenberg found himself in the area of increased attention of our intelligence agencies. Perhaps, through him, the Soviet leadership hoped to achieve closer cooperation between the Wallenberg family and our representatives in the Scandinavian countries in order to gain the trust of international capital to obtain loans.
I recall that Raoul Wallenberg was included in operational intelligence materials and as a confidant during the secret separate armistice negotiations that began in 1945 between representatives of Germany, England and the United States behind the back of the Soviet Union. It is possible that the plan to recruit him or use him as a hostage in a possible political game arose because Wallenberg was seen as an important witness to the behind-the-scenes connections between the business circles of America and Nazi Germany, as well as the intelligence services of these countries during the war. When the allies reached a secret agreement on the range of charges that would be brought against the leaders of the Third Reich at the Nuremberg trials, there was no longer any need for Wallenberg - he was destroyed.
Raoul Wallenberg was detained (in fact, it was an arrest) in his apartment: counterintelligence officers came to him and offered to go to the headquarters of a group of Soviet troops. Wallenberg then said to one of his friends: I don’t know who I will be - a guest or a prisoner.
He was taken to Moscow under guard, but in a sleeping car, he was treated as a “guest”, food was brought from the dining car. Kutuzov was also taken to Moscow, separately from Wallenberg. Soon Kutuzov, unlike Wallenberg, was released from prison and allowed to travel to the West, of course, with the condition of continuing active cooperation with Soviet intelligence. He eventually settled in Ireland, where he died in 1967.
Special unit of the internal prison and special laboratory of the NKVD - MGB in 1940–1950
In Moscow, Wallenberg was placed in a special block of the internal prison at Lubyanka, where especially important people were detained, who were persuaded to cooperate; if they refused, they were liquidated.
Wallenberg's interrogation protocols were regularly sent to the German department of our intelligence. Perhaps the investigators intimidated him, accusing him of having connections with the Gestapo.
From the materials published in the press it is clear: Wallenberg was kept in two prisons in Moscow - the inner one in Lubyanka and in Lefortovo. MGB-KGB officers recall that after interrogations “with passion” in Lefortovo, Wallenberg was again transferred to a special block of the internal prison at Lubyanka.
The special block of the internal prison was more like a hotel. The premises in which the prisoners were kept could only be called cells conditionally: high ceilings, normal furniture. Food was brought from the NKVD canteen and restaurant; the quality, of course, was very different from the prison food. However, this place was ominous under Stalin. This building housed the commandant's office of the NKVD - MGB, where in 1937-1950 sentences were carried out against persons sentenced to death, as well as those whom the government considered necessary to liquidate in a special, that is, non-judicial, manner.
In Varsonofevsky Lane, behind the Lubyanka Prison, there was a toxicology laboratory directly subordinate to the minister and the commandant’s office and a special cell attached to it. The toxicology laboratory was referred to as “Laboratory-X” in official documents. The head of the laboratory, Colonel of the Medical Service, Professor Mayranovsky, was engaged in research into the effect of deadly gases and poisons on malignant tumors. The professor was highly regarded in medical circles.
In 1937, Mayranovsky's research group from the Institute of Biochemistry, headed by Academician Bach, was transferred to the NKVD and reported directly to the head of the special department of operational equipment at the commandant's office of the NKVD - MGB. The commandant's office was responsible for guarding the NKVD building, maintaining secrecy and security, and for executing death sentences.
All the work of the laboratory, the involvement of its employees in intelligence operations, as well as access to the laboratory, strictly limited even for the leadership of the NKVD - MGB, were regulated by the Regulations approved by the government and orders of the NKVD - MGB. Neither I nor my deputy Eitingon had access to Laboratory-X and the special chamber.
The work of the laboratory was directly supervised by the Minister of State Security or his first deputy. There are still many monstrous rumors about this laboratory.
An audit carried out under Stalin, after the arrest of Mayranovsky, and then under Khrushchev in 1960, for the purpose of anti-Stalin revelations, showed that Mayranovsky and members of his group were involved in carrying out death sentences and liquidating undesirable persons by direct decision of the government in 1937- 1947 and 1950, using poisons for this. I know that similar actions were carried out by our intelligence services abroad also in the 60s and 70s. KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin spoke and wrote about this.
Intelligence and counterintelligence officers worked with Wallenberg, under the leadership of one of its leaders, Utekhin. The interrogations were conducted by the investigative unit on criminal charges. Lieutenant Colonel Kopelyansky interrogated him more often than others. He was fired from the force in 1951 due to his Jewish origin. Although Kopelyansky’s participation in the interrogations was documented - his name is listed in the prison register of a prisoner being summoned for questioning by an investigator - he denied this and said that he did not remember a defendant with that name. However, these journal entries show that it was Kopelyansky who called Wallenberg out of his cell for questioning the day before his death.
By early July 1947, the Wallenberg case had reached a dead end. He refused to cooperate with Soviet intelligence and was no longer needed either as a witness to secret political games or as a hostage - the Nuremberg trials were over.
It seems that Wallenberg was transferred to a special cell at Laboratory X, where he was given a lethal injection under the guise of treatment (at the same time, the country's leadership continued to assure the Swedes that they knew nothing about Wallenberg's whereabouts and fate). The prison medical service had no idea and his death was pronounced as usual. However, Minister of State Security Abakumov, apparently aware of the real cause of Wallenberg's death, prohibited an autopsy and ordered his cremation.
There was a special practice of cremation of those who were destroyed by a special government decision: an autopsy was not performed, the ashes were to be buried as unclaimed in a common grave. Later, the authorities very reluctantly admitted that the ashes of such famous people as Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Meyerhold, and others were buried in this common grave. The crematorium of the Donskoy Monastery was the only one at that time, so perhaps the ashes of my boss, friend and mentor Shpigelglaz and one of the intelligence leaders Serebryansky lie in the same grave. It is very likely that the ashes of Wallenberg and Beria were buried there.
As follows from the memoirs of former employees of the MGB - KGB, a journal of special records of all liquidations with links to the relevant decisions of higher authorities in a sealed envelope with the inscription “do not open without the permission of the minister” and stamped “top secret” after the arrest of Beria was sent to Sukhanov, Malenkov’s assistant, Head of the special sector of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1966, Colonel Studnikov, who immediately after my arrest replaced me as head of intelligence and sabotage work abroad, his deputy Gudimovich and Colonel Vasilevsky confirmed to the Central Committee that this package had been seized from the safe at Lubyanka and transferred to a special sector of the Presidium of the Central Committee . Since then, it has been in the depths of the archives or destroyed at the direction of the top leadership, since it contains evidence of direct responsibility for the actions carried out by “Laboratory-X”, not only of Yezhov, Beria, Abakumov, Merkulov, but also of the country’s top leadership - Stalin, Molotov , Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev.
In June 1993, Izvestia published Maximova’s article “Wallenberg is Dead. Unfortunately, there is enough evidence,” and the newspaper “Segodnya” - Abarinov’s article “Not only money is laundered, but also versions.” Both articles provide excerpts from documents relating to Wallenberg's fate.
From Vyshinsky’s memo to Molotov (1947) it is clear that at the end of 1944 the Swedes turned to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR “with a request to take under the protection of the first secretary of the Swedish mission in Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg.”
In 1945, at the beginning of January, the Swedes were informed that Wallenberg had been discovered and taken under the protection of Soviet military units (in fact, Wallenberg was arrested by military counterintelligence in Budapest).
After some time, the Swedes notified the Foreign Ministry that Wallenberg was not among the staff of their mission who had left Budapest, and asked to find him. On this issue, they sent eight notes to Soviet authorities and made five oral requests. The Swedish Ambassador to Moscow, Söderblom, in 1946 turned to Stalin (he was received by him) with a personal request to find out the fate of Wallenberg.
In turn, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also asked SMERSH and the Ministry of State Security about Wallenberg several times. Finally, in February 1947, the Foreign Ministry was informed by P. Fedotov, then head of the intelligence department, that Wallenberg was at the disposal of the MGB.
In the above-mentioned memo, Vyshinsky wrote: “Since the Wallenberg case continues to remain motionless to this day, I ask you to oblige Comrade. Abakumov to submit a certificate on the merits of the case and proposals for its liquidation.”
For me there is no doubt about the ominous meaning of Vyshinsky’s last words. He does not propose to close the case (then there would be a different wording - “to close the case”), but almost “demands” that Abakumov submit proposals for the destruction of Wallenberg as an undesirable person for the Soviet leadership.
So, Vyshinsky made such a request - this is extremely important - being Molotov’s deputy and in charge of intelligence work that was carried out in those years by the Information Committee. Fedotov, who informed Vyshinsky that Wallenberg was in prison, was also one of the leaders of the Information Committee at that time.
Molotov’s resolution on Vyshinsky’s note is also of great importance: “Comrade. Abakumov. Please report to me, 18. V. 47.”
In fact, it was an order from the deputy head of government and the head of intelligence to submit proposals on how to eliminate Wallenberg. This was the usual practice in those years. (A document sent to Stalin and Molotov in 1947 concerning an American citizen, overseas NKVD agent Isaac Oggins, who was suspected of a double game, was recently published and shown on television. This document contains the same wording.)
After the proposal was considered, Stalin or Molotov gave their consent orally and sometimes in writing. If verbally, then Abakumov, as was established during the checks and investigation in his case, made a note on the following documents: “Consent of vol. Stalin, Molotov received” and put down the date.
From official documents it is clear: Wallenberg died on July 17, 1947. However, on August 18 of the same year, Vyshinsky informed the Swedish ambassador that the Soviet government had no information about Wallenberg and that he could not have been detained by the Soviet authorities, but, most likely, became an accidental victim of street fighting in Budapest (in January 1945 we informed Swedes that Wallenberg is under the protection of Soviet military units).
In March - May 1956, during Soviet-Swedish negotiations held in Moscow, the Swedish side provided our government with materials related to Raoul Wallenberg. At the same time, the Party Central Committee decided to check and clarify the circumstances of the death of the Swedish diplomat. This decision of the CPSU Central Committee has not yet been published.
In 1957, the CPSU Central Committee approved a draft memorandum of the Soviet government on the fate of Wallenberg, prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister Shepilov) and the KGB (Chairman Serov).
The Soviet government informed the Swedish government that the competent authorities had studied and verified the materials submitted by the Swedes about Raoul Wallenberg. A thorough search in the archives of the internal prison at Lubyanka, Lefortovo, as well as Vladimir and other prisons did not yield anything: no information was found about Wallenberg’s stay in the Soviet Union (in 1947 there was: we informed the Foreign Ministry that Wallenberg was at the disposal of the MGB). The competent authorities then checked all the archival documents of the auxiliary services, and as a result, in the documents of the medical service of the internal prison at Lubyanka, they found a report from the head of this service, Smoltsov, addressed to the former Minister of State Security Abakumov. The report stated that the prisoner Wallenberg, personally known to the minister, died unexpectedly in his cell on the evening of July 17, 1947. The cause of death was heart attack.
The memorandum ended, as expected, with sincere regrets and deep condolences over the death of Raoul Wallenberg.
An important detail is noteworthy: on Smoltsov’s report dated July 17, 1947, a note was made that Wallenberg’s death was personally reported to the minister and the body was ordered to be cremated without an autopsy.
I believe that the destruction of archival investigative materials on the Wallenberg case began during the preparation of the memorandum. This was apparently due to the fact that the direct initiators of his arrest and murder - Molotov and Bulganin - were still in power and occupied leading positions in the country's leadership. Bulganin, who signed the order for the arrest of Wallenberg, was the head of government, and Molotov, who gave the order for the liquidation of the Swedish diplomat, was one of the top leadership of the state.
However, in my opinion, the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service contain extensive materials on this case. In particular, immediately after Wallenberg’s arrest, as far as I remember, in February 1945, Stalin was informed through the NKVD of the contents of a secret memorandum by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany, Ribbentrop, on possible conditions for a separate peace between Germany, the USA and England. It was noted that Raoul Wallenberg was involved in mediating in establishing contacts on this issue between the intelligence services of the United States and Germany.
Our government officially acknowledged Wallenberg's arrest, imprisonment and death from a "heart attack" ten years after his death. It also stated that Raoul Wallenberg was illegally arrested on the orders of Abakumov, who received the harshest punishment for his crimes, including Wallenberg's arrest.
It was a cynical lie. During the trial and investigation, Abakumov was not charged with such charges.
Abakumov’s note to Molotov, which probably should have outlined the essence of Wallenberg’s case and, apparently, contained proposals initiated by Vyshinsky that were fatal to his fate, has not yet been found in the KGB archives. Although the note was not found, traces of it can apparently be found in the correspondence of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the chairman of the KGB with the leadership of the CPSU Central Committee and the government during the specified period of time. In the registration journal of Molotov's secretariat there is a code number by which you can trace the passage of this document.
But in the KGB archives, as they told my son in the fall of 1994, they managed to find a document from which it follows that KGB Chairman Serov asked Molotov to accept him in the Wallenberg case in February 1957, when a draft memorandum was being prepared for the Swedish government recognizing Wallenberg’s arrest and his death .
Serov’s note has not yet been discovered, in which he, before the official memorandum of the Soviet government was prepared, was supposed to inform Khrushchev and Bulganin, respectively the first secretary of the Central Committee and the chairman of the Council of Ministers, about what really happened to Wallenberg.
Knowing Khrushchev’s habits, I claim that he kept Serov’s note in his archive, which certainly contained serious dirt on Molotov. For Khrushchev, this note was of significant importance in the context of an intensified struggle for power at the beginning of 1957, which ended, as is known, with the defeat of the so-called anti-party group of Molotov, Kaganovich, Malenkov and Shepilov who joined them. However, for reasons that are unclear to me, Khrushchev did not use the Wallenberg case against Molotov. I remember how the investigators very persistently sought from me information about Molotov’s participation in secret transactions with Western industrialists and diplomats, and I understood that their questions were far from random. However, Wallenberg's name did not appear at that time.
Serov had to definitely turn to Khrushchev for permission to destroy materials on the Wallenberg case. It is likely that after this they were destroyed. The reason is clear: Molotov was still in power in February 1957 and remained a very influential figure in the leadership. He, like other government officials who were directly involved in scandalous and criminal actions, was interested in having documentary evidence disappear.
The last time the Wallenberg case was investigated was on the orders of Gorbachev, under the supervision of Bakatin, the chairman of the KGB. A new investigation has confirmed that Wallenberg did indeed die in prison. It was also established that his investigative, archival and prison files were destroyed.
Probably, Molotov’s grandson Professor Nikonov, chairman of the Politika Foundation, who was then Bakatin’s assistant, knows some of the details of the search for material on the Wallenberg case.
Unfortunately, archives, like manuscripts, are burned and destroyed. But traces remain. There are discoveries that are completely random and unexpected. Thus, a technical officer in the KGB archive, who had nothing to do with the investigation of the Wallenberg case, discovered his diplomatic passport and personal belongings in a bag that had fallen out of a hefty stack of unsorted documents.
After the loud scandal caused by the publication of my book in the West, in May 1994, at the request of the Russian-Swedish commission on the Wallenberg case, I wrote an explanation to the accounting and archival department of the Federal Security Service. My son talked with Swedish representatives: finding out the truth about the Raoul Wallenberg case depends to a large extent on the Swedish side, which stubbornly refuses to make public the data of his reports on contacts with German and American intelligence services in 1941-1945.
As the Finnish historian Seppo Izotalo told me, the Swedish authorities currently have in their possession documents that they are hiding about Wallenberg’s fulfillment of American intelligence assignments, as well as about his participation, on behalf of his uncle, financial tycoon Marcus Wallenberg, in the “laundering” of the Nazis’ seized Jewish wealth. population.
I think that someday researchers will eventually get to our and foreign archival materials, as happened with the Katyn case, and put an end to Wallenberg’s complicated and tragic story.
The attempt of our authorities, it must be said, not unsuccessful, to hide the truth about Wallenberg is reminiscent of the case of the execution of Polish prisoners of war in 1940 in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk and other places. Only in 1992 were archival materials from this case published in the press, in particular the report of the former KGB chairman Shelepin on the destruction of documents related to the criminal act (Shelepin in 1959 turned to Khrushchev to obtain permission to destroy them). All this gives reason to assume that they did the same with the Wallenberg case.
Although Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin handed over documents to Lech Walesa and the case of Polish prisoners of war seems to have already been closed, the veil of secrecy has not yet been completely lifted. The documents extracted from the KGB archives do not contain information about how this action was planned and carried out. Even those who were actively involved in the recruitment of Polish officers had no idea what fate awaited prisoners of war who refused to cooperate with the NKVD. I assume that Reichman, who was involved in Polish affairs, knew about this.
The official government report stated that Polish prisoners of war in the camps fell into the hands of the Germans and were shot. Indeed, some Polish officers were killed by German weapons. Then many, including me, believed this version.
The first time I heard that we shot Polish prisoners of war was from KGB Major General Kevorkov, Deputy General Director of TASS in the 80s. He said that Falin, who headed the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, was reprimanded by Andropov in the 70s for showing interest in the Katyn case and proposing to start a new investigation. I was amazed that, according to Kevorkov, the Central Committee was most concerned with placing full responsibility for this matter only on the NKVD and hiding the fact that the destruction of the Polish officers was carried out by decision of the Politburo.
Speaking about the criminal mass extermination of Polish prisoners of war and the attempts of Khrushchev and Gorbachev to hide this tragedy, it should also be noted that, perhaps, the execution of the Poles in 1940 was a kind of revenge, settling scores with ardent anti-Soviet Polish officers, for the destruction of forty thousand ( according to different sources, different figures) of our prisoners of war in Polish concentration camps after the defeat of the Red Army in 1920 near Warsaw.
In 1953, Eitingon and I were accused of organizing the liquidation of people disliked by Beria using poisons in special safe houses and country residences, and these murders were presented as deaths from accidents. Abakumov was also accused of exterminating people he disliked. Contrary to the requirements of the law, the names of “our victims” did not appear in either the indictment or the verdict in our cases. And this was not an accident or the result of careless work of the investigators - they knew their job. There were simply no victims, they did not exist. Neither I nor Eitingon took part in settling the personal scores of Beria and Abakumov with their opponents.
All secret liquidations of double agents and political opponents of Stalin, Molotov, Khrushchev in 1930-1950 were carried out by order of the government. That is why the specific combat operations carried out by my subordinates together with the employees of Laboratory-X against enemies who were truly dangerous for the Soviet state, as it seemed then, were not blamed on either me or Eitingon. Abakumov, who personally gave orders on behalf of the government to carry out operations, was also not blamed for them. Beria, in 1945–1953, had nothing to do with these affairs and did not even know about them.
All the work of Laboratory-X, not only scientific. was well known both to those who were investigating the case of Beria and Abakumov, and to the government and the Central Committee of the party, who observed and directed the progress of the investigation in these cases and determined its content.
The indictment in my case alleged that it was I who oversaw the work of a top-secret toxicology laboratory that experimented with poisons on prisoners sentenced to death between 1942 and 1946. This charge was dropped during my rehabilitation, since in the archives of the CPSU Central Committee and the KGB they found a government-approved Regulation that regulated all the activities of this laboratory and the procedure for reporting on its work. Laboratory-X was not under my control. I could neither give orders to her boss Mayranovsky, nor use poisons against anyone, much less conduct experiments with them on people. And now they are trying to speculate on the testimony extorted from Mairanovsky, an alleged participant in a Zionist conspiracy in the MGB that never existed, in order to discredit me and Eitingon. Moreover, this is done by Vaksberg, Bobrenev - professional lawyers and Petrov from Memorial, who are aware that the use of testimonies and protocols that have lost their legal significance, not signed by the accused and defendants, against rehabilitated people, exposes them in the most unsightly light, turns them into accomplices in falsification of criminal cases.
With the current view of these events, one cannot help but keep in mind another very important circumstance. The practice of secretly eliminating political opponents and double agents was an unpleasant but inevitable attribute of the Cold War and authoritarian rule. It was regulated by a special decision not of party bodies, but of the government, announced in orders both through the State Security agencies and military intelligence. In the Regulations on the tasks of the service of reconnaissance and sabotage operations, which are subject to strict and unquestioning implementation, it was directly written that “the service carries out surveillance and the supply of agents to individuals conducting enemy work, the suppression of which, in necessary cases and with special permission from the government, can be carried out in special ways : by compromise, secret removal, physical influence or elimination.”
In 1951, Mairanovsky, along with Eitingon, Reichman, Matusov and A. Sverdlov, were arrested and accused of illegal possession of poisons, as well as being participants in a Zionist conspiracy, the purpose of which was to seize power and destroy the highest leaders of the state, including Stalin. Ryumin, who headed the investigation into this case, managed to extort fantastic confessions from Mairanovsky (he refused them in 1958) and the deputy head of the secretariat, Abakumov Broverman. When at the end of 1952 Ryumin, being Deputy Minister of State Security Ignatiev, was removed from his post, the investigative unit could not present an indictment against Mayranovsky in the form in which Ryumin had prepared it. The testimony of the head of the toxicology laboratory was not supported by the confessions of the doctors arrested in the Abakumov case, who had no idea about this laboratory.
None of the arrested doctors knew anything about Mairanovsky’s secret activities: he himself conducted experiments with poisons on those sentenced to death in accordance with the procedure established by the government and the Ministry of State Security. It was too risky to record Mairanovsky’s confession in full, since he referred to instructions from higher authorities and awards he received. That is why his case was submitted to an extrajudicial body - the Special Meeting under the Minister of State Security. Apparently, there were some plans to use Mayranovsky as a witness against someone in the top leadership in the future. He was left alive and in February 1953 was sentenced to ten years in prison for illegal possession of poisons and abuse of office.
Mairanovsky was convicted shortly before Stalin's death. When Beria again headed the security agencies, Mayranovsky sent him a huge number of applications for release, wrote about his innocence and referred to work under his direct supervision in 1938-1945. Beria, apparently, was going to release him, but was soon arrested himself. The prosecutor's office immediately used Mayranovsky's statements against himself, against Beria, Abakumov and Merkulov. Now Mairanovsky was presented as Beria's accomplice in his mythical plans to eliminate the Soviet leadership using poisons.
I know of four cases of liquidation of dangerous enemies of the Soviet state, as was then clearly understood, carried out with the participation of Mayranovsky in 1946-1947. I mean the famous Ukrainian nationalists, whom I have already talked about, as well as foreigners - Samet and Oggins.
Samet, a Polish engineer of Jewish origin, interned by us in 1939, was engaged in top secret work on the use of captured German equipment on our submarines, which gave a great advantage in the length of stay under water. Samet contacted the British: he was going to leave for Palestine. In order to introduce an agent into Samet’s circle and control his connections with foreigners, Eitingon was sent to Ulyanovsk, where everything happened. Mairanovsky, who arrived later, together with an agent, a doctor at the factory clinic, gave Samet an injection of curare poison during a routine examination.
In 1992, General Volkogonov presented to the US Congress a list of Americans who died in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, as well as the Cold War, and expressed regret on behalf of President Yeltsin regarding their deaths. Oggins was also on this list. Oggins was eliminated, Volkogonov believes, so that he could not tell the truth about Soviet prisons and concentration camps.
In the West by that time the Gulag was quite well known. and the reason why Oggins was destroyed is not as simple as it was written in our newspapers. Judging by the publications, Oggins was illegally arrested by the NKVD and sentenced by a Special Meeting to eight years in prison, allegedly for anti-Soviet propaganda. In fact, Oggins came to the Soviet Union on a false Czechoslovak passport - there was not a word about this in the press. He really sympathized with communist ideas and was an unofficial member of the US Communist Party. Oggins was also an old agent of the Comintern and the NKVD in China, the Far East and the USA. His wife Nora was part of the NKVD agent network in America and Western Europe and was responsible for maintaining our safe houses in France and the USA in 1938-1941. Oggins was arrested in 1938 on suspicion of double-dealing. His wife returned to the United States in 1939. At first she believed that her husband was in the Soviet Union for operational reasons, but then she realized that he was arrested. We had reason to believe that Nora began collaborating with the FBI and other American and Japanese intelligence agencies. She tried, perhaps on instructions from American counterintelligence, to restore connections with our agents in America that had been interrupted since 1942. At the end of the war, Nora Oggins turned to American authorities to help find her husband. hoping to secure his release. During the period of our good relations with America, an employee of the American embassy in Moscow was allowed to meet with Oggins in Butyrka prison, pursuing his goals - to reveal what the Americans knew about his activities.
After the failure of our intelligence network in the United States and Canada in 1946-1947, Molotov feared that if Oggins was also released, the Americans might bring him before the Un-American Activities Committee and use him as a witness against the US Communist Party. In addition, according to our intelligence services, Nora Oggins’ contacts with American authorities and cooperation with the FBI have already caused serious damage to our agent positions in the United States and France.
Abakumov, knowing this, proposed to eliminate Oggins, the decision was made by Stalin and Molotov. In 1947, during a medical examination, Mairanovsky gave Oggins, who was in prison, a lethal injection. Eitingon and I were instructed to organize his funeral at the Jewish cemetery in Penza and set the burial date as 1944 or 1945.
Now, remembering this man, I feel regret. But then, during the Cold War, neither we nor the Americans thought about the moral aspects of eliminating dangerous opponents, double agents.
Raoul Wallenberg
Monument to Wallenberg in Tel Aviv
Zoya Voskresenskaya, aka Yartseva
She is Rybkina
with her husband Boris Rybkin
Grigory Mairanovsky
One of the darkest pages in the Beria case was the history of the emergence and activities of a special laboratory in which fatal experiments were carried out on people. They were embarrassed to write about this in a brief newspaper report about the trial of Beria, published on December 24, 1953. The verdict, however, stated: “Other inhumane crimes of the defendants Beria, Merkulov, Kobulov were also established, consisting in conducting experiments on testing poisons on those sentenced to capital punishment and experiments on the use of narcotic substances during interrogations.” What was hidden behind this phrase and what were the scope and organizational forms of this activity?
During the investigation into the Beria case in 1953, this became one of the “shock” episodes, although they did not get to it right away. Imprisoned under Stalin during the exposure of the so-called. Zionist conspiracy in the MGB, Colonel of the medical service Grigory Mayranovsky (sentenced by the MGB OSO on February 14, 1953 to 10 years) himself attracted the attention of the prosecutor’s office. In the spring of 1953, in the hope of being released, he repeatedly turned to the new Minister of Internal Affairs, Beria, and in letters he openly wrote about his “special work” in a special laboratory and emphasized his merits. In the first, from the Vladimir prison on April 21, 1953, he wrote: “With my hand, more than a dozen sworn enemies of Soviet power were destroyed, including nationalists of all kinds (and Jewish ones) - Lieutenant General P.A. Sudoplatov knows about this “- and assured Beria: he is ready to carry out “all your tasks for the benefit of our mighty Motherland.” After Beria’s arrest, these letters fell into the hands of the investigation, and the thread began to unwind. On August 18, 1953, Mayranovsky’s case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office.
During interrogation on August 27, 1953, Mayranovsky described in detail how at the end of 1938 or the beginning of 1939 he asked Beria to allow him to conduct experiments on people and as a result: “Beria approved my proposal. I was instructed to conduct these studies on convicts.”
Now it is the turn to interrogate the main accused. To a direct question about testing poisons on those sentenced to death on August 28, 1953, Beria replied: “I don’t remember.” But after Mairanovsky’s testimony was read to him, he realized that it was pointless to deny: “I admit that what Mairanovsky testifies to is a terrible, bloody crime. I gave the task to Mairanovsky to carry out experiments on those sentenced to VMN, but this was not my idea.” Beria was immediately asked whether his deputy Vsevolod Merkulov was privy to the secret activities of the special laboratory. Beria responded “of course,” clarifying that he “was more involved in this.” After thinking a little more, Beria decided that he had not clearly explained his subordinate role in this matter: “I would like to add that I received instructions about organizing a special laboratory from I.V. Stalin and in accordance with these instructions, the experiments discussed above were carried out.”
By this time, Merkulov, who held the position of Minister of State Control of the USSR, had not yet been arrested. But the investigation had its sights on him as Beria’s closest associate and so far interrogated him as a witness. To the surprise of prosecutorial investigators, during interrogation on August 29, 1953, Merkulov not only did not deny the existence of such a laboratory in the NKVD, but also undertook to theoretically substantiate its necessity. When asked if he believed that these experiments were a crime against humanity, Merkulov said: “I don’t think so, since the ultimate goal of the experiments was the fight against the enemies of the Soviet state. The NKVD is a body that could apply similar experiments on convicted enemies of Soviet power and in the interests of the Soviet state. As an employee of the NKVD, I carried out these tasks, but, as a person, I considered this kind of experience undesirable.” Thus, in the person of Merkulov, the state defeated man.
With such revelations, witness Merkulov paved the way for himself to become accused. On September 1, 1953, Prosecutor General Rudenko sent Malenkov a certificate about Merkulov with a request to authorize his arrest as one of Beria’s “associates” who led the activities of a secret laboratory where experiments were carried out on people.
Meanwhile, Beria, along the way, tried in every possible way to belittle his role in the organization and functioning of “laboratory X”. During interrogation on August 31, he stated: “I saw Mayranovsky only two or three times. He reported to me about the work of the laboratory and about experiments on living people,” and Merkulov gave permission to conduct specific experiments.” Moreover, Beria explained that soon after his appointment as People's Commissar he "was interested in these poisons in connection with the emerging action against Hitler."
When asked “how do you evaluate experiments on living people, secret abductions and murders of people,” Beria replied: “These are unacceptable phenomena and bloody crimes.”
Merkulov, being arrested, admitted during interrogation on September 28 that he personally gave permission to Mairanovsky to use poisons on 30-40 convicts, explaining that no one except him and Beria could give such permission. He repeated again that he did not consider this illegal, since we were talking about those sentenced to capital punishment and there was Beria’s sanction. True, he made a reservation: “In particular, I did not imagine that these experiences were painful in nature. I even believed that the procedure for quietly poisoning a convicted person was less painful than the procedure for execution. Of course, I had to take an interest in the details of the experiments and create the proper framework for them or even stop them altogether.”
In addition to Mayranovsky, who was engaged in toxicological research, senior chemist of the special laboratory Alexander Grigorovich and bacteriologist Sergei Muromtsev, who tested botulinum toxin on prisoners, took part in the experiments on humans. The following had access to the laboratory: Sudoplatov, Eitingon, Filimonov and the head of the laboratory Arkady Osinkin. As Mayranovsky explained during the investigation, in addition to the leaders of the NKVD, employees of the commandant’s office subordinate to the Lubyanka commandant Blokhin also knew about the experiments on people: brothers Vasily and Ivan Shigalev, Demyan Semenikhin, Ivan Feldman, Ivan Antonov, Vasily Bodunov, Alexander Dmitriev, who usually carried out executions, and in In the event of the transfer of the condemned to Mairanovsky's laboratory, they were spared the need to perform their executioner duties. It is difficult to say whether they were happy about this circumstance, whether they saw in Mayranovsky a competitor capable of “taking away the job” - replacing their hands, worn out and calloused from the handles of pistols, with a test tube of poison. So what then - quit?
Commandant Vasily Blokhin spoke in detail about the history of the creation of the laboratory during interrogation on September 19, 1953. Beria, shortly after his appointment as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, called him and said that it was necessary to prepare a room for conducting experiments on prisoners sentenced to death. Blokhin dates this conversation to 1938. First, Beria found out whether it was possible to use the premises in house No. 2 (in the main building of the NKVD on Lubyanka) for this purpose. Blokhin replied that such work could not be carried out in house No. 2 and that it was possible to equip premises in another building (as is clear from Mairanovsky’s testimony, this was the NKVD building in Varsanofyevsky Lane). Blokhin sketched out a plan and handed it over to Mamulov. The premises on the 1st floor were converted into 5 cells and a reception area.
Mairanovsky injected poison into prisoners through food, through injections with a cane or a syringe, and also conducted experiments with silent weapons. Blokhin said: “When the arrested prisoners were killed by introducing various poisons, I was present, and more often those on duty, but in all cases when the killing had already been carried out, I came to Mayranovsky’s premises in order to complete the entire operation. From Sudoplatov's department - Eitingon was more often than others in Mairanovsky's premises, Sudoplatov was somewhat less likely. In all cases of killing there were representatives of department “A” Podobedov, Gertsovsky, Vorobiev.” Assignments to the special department, and from 1943 to department “A”, to select convicts for transfer to the laboratory were given by Beria and his deputies Merkulov and Kobulov. Those arrested to be delivered to Mayranovsky were delivered and placed in cells, always with the participation of employees of department “A”. “After the death of the arrested, a representative of department “A” was also necessarily present, who, on the back of the order, drew up an act on the execution of the sentence, which was filed by an employee of department “A”, as well as by me and sometimes by a representative of Sudoplatov’s department. These acts are stored in department “A”..."
Blokhin explained that the killing of convicts in this way took place from the end of 1938 to 1947. Most of all in 1939 - 1940. about 40 people. With the beginning of the war this stopped, and since 1943, when experiments on humans resumed, about 30 people. Blokhin kept a notebook where, on his own initiative, he entered the names of the subjects, but in 1941 he burned it, then resumed the notes in 1943 and, retiring in 1953, handed the notebook to his deputy Yakovlev, who, with Blokhin’s consent, burned it .
In December 1953, Beria and his closest associates were convicted and executed. But the prosecutor’s office’s investigation into the history of the special laboratory continued. This is what he said about his participation in the activities of the special laboratory and experiments on people on March 4, 1954, during interrogation at the prosecutor’s office of Muromtsev. In 1942, Sudoplatov called him and, in the presence of Filimonov, offered to participate in duty in a special laboratory. Responsibilities included observing and recording observations. “Personally,” said Muromtsev, “I did not take part in the administration of poisons.” According to Muromtsev’s testimony, Filimonov visited Laboratory X almost every day, “once Sudoplatov was with me (he came with Filimonov) - he examined the situation, walked along the corridor, sat for a few minutes in the reception area, asked Mairanovsky a few questions and left.” As Muromtsev said, he was on duty in the special laboratory for a short time - 2-3 months, then refused, because he was not “able to tolerate this situation”: the continuous drunkenness of Mayranovsky, Grigorovich, Filimonov, together with the workers of the special group. “In addition, Mairanovsky himself was striking with his brutal, sadistic attitude towards prisoners.” Some drugs caused severe suffering in prisoners. Muromtsev’s relationship with his wife began to deteriorate (she didn’t like the fact that he didn’t spend the night at home). Muromtsev talked with Blokhin, he reported to Sudoplatov, and they no longer took him on duty. As Muromtsev explained, “I didn’t talk to Filimonov, because by that time he had become an alcoholic.”
During Muromtsev's duty, experiments were carried out on approximately 15 convicts. When asked whether Muromtsev tested his drugs, he replied: “Once Filimonov told me that, at Sudoplatov’s suggestion, I should test the effect of butulinus toxin (as in the text, we are talking about botulinum toxin. - N.P.) in a special laboratory, where I was brought in by them for duty at Mairanovsky’s.” Muromtsev conducted the experiment together with Mairanovsky, the toxin was given along with food. “There were three such experiments, apparently with fatal outcomes. Death occurred within 48 hours." In all cases, mild stomach pain, nausea and paralysis were observed. Filimonov reported the results of experiments on botulinum toxin to Sudoplatov.
Muromtsev also remembered how once, on the orders of Sudoplatov, transmitted through Filimonov, during the war he gave Mairanovsky one dose of botulinum toxin for use, as Filimonov told him, behind the cordon, in Paris. Then Sudoplatov called Muromtsev and, in the presence of Filimonov, scolded him for the fact that the drug turned out to be ineffective.
During interrogation on March 13, 1954, Mayranovsky was asked why he hid the fact that he conducted research on poisons at the end of 1938 in an internal prison. Mairanovsky admitted that he began his research in a room in a house on Varsanofevsky Lane, but once, when it was necessary to test some remedy in order to give it to the leadership, he carried out experiments in the internal prison of the NKVD. Grigorovich began to help on duty when experiments were carried out in another room in Varsanofevsky Lane, and V.D. Shchegolev also helped (in April 1940, during the experiments, he poisoned himself and committed suicide).
A question was asked about experiments with poisoned bullets, and Mairanovsky said that he had conducted experiments under Filimonov. Mairanovsky himself, Grigorovich, Filimonov and Blokhin’s special group took part. These were lightweight bullets, inside of which there was aconitine: “These experiments began in the upper chamber in Varsanofevsky Lane, but when research on poisons was already carried out in the six lower ones.” Mayranovsky: “In Varsanofevsky Lane, in the upper chamber, we carried out experiments, it seems, on three people. Then these experiments were carried out in the basement where the sentences were carried out, in the same building on Varsanofevsky Lane. Here, experiments were carried out on approximately ten convicts.”
Shots were fired into “non-lethal” areas with explosive bullets. Death occurred within 15 minutes to an hour, depending on where the bullet hit. Filimonov or someone from the special group shot at the “experimental subjects”. “It seems to me,” Mayranovsky added, “Grigorovich didn’t shoot, I myself never shot either... all cases where poisoned bullets were used ended in death, although I remember one case when a test subject was shot by special group workers.” And there was a case when the bullet stopped at the bone, and the test subject pulled it out. During the experiments with poisoned bullets in the basement, Mayranovsky, Filimonov, Grigorovich, Blokhin and his employees from the special group were present.
Mairanovsky also remembered experiments with a pillow poisoned with poison, which caused sleep, and how large doses of sleeping pills were given, which caused death.
A number of criminal episodes were never investigated. During interrogation on August 27, 1953, Mayranovsky said that he participated in operations to eliminate people during secret meetings in safe houses. He received assignments through Sudoplatov. The discussion of upcoming actions took place with Beria or Merkulov, and in all cases Sudoplatov (sometimes Eitingon and Filimonov) participated in the discussion. As Mairanovsky explained, “I was never told why this or that person should be killed, and their names were not even given.” Mayranovsky was organized a meeting with a potential victim at a safe house, and while eating and drinking, as he explained, “I mixed poisons,” and sometimes he killed the “stupefied person” beforehand by injection. As Mairanovsky said, “this is several dozen people.”
He testified about the special laboratory and Sudoplatov. During interrogation on September 1, 1953, he said that the head of the 4th special department of the NKVD, Filimonov, brought him up to date on the matter of “Laboratory X” and the experiments, when his department entered the department headed by Sudoplatov. The work in the “special laboratory” was carried out by Filimonov, Mayranovsky and Muromtsev and reported on it to Merkulov and Beria. According to surviving test reports, work began in 1937 or 1938. A total of 150 protocols have been preserved.
According to Sudoplatov, Abakumov in 1946 gave the order to liquidate the laboratory and keep the test reports. And Sudoplatov kept these documents until his arrest in August 1953. After Sudoplatov’s arrest, the protocols were kept in the Prosecutor General’s Office.
In 1954, a folder with the title “Materials of Laboratory X” was transferred from the Prosecutor General’s Office to permanent storage in the KGB. The current FSB keeps its contents secret, although this contradicts Art. 7 of the “Law on State Secrets,” which prohibits classifying information about repressions and crimes against justice. I wonder how long the FSB intends to keep secret the names of the victims of the criminal experiments of Stalin’s security officers?