I arrived in Krasnodon on the morning of May 8 to meet several good people there and discuss humanitarian matters. But the realities of Novorossiya made their own adjustments, namely, there was a global drop in communications. Neither local nor Russian numbers were called from approximately five in the evening on May 7th until noon on the 8th. At least it was at 5 pm on the 7th that I started calling alonso_kexano , but couldn't get through.
On the 8th I met Vera, who was coming from Moscow, in Krasnodon odinokiy_orc , which carried banners for the May 9th parade in Stakhanov and vitamins for the grandfather-veteran. We didn’t have time to agree on the exact meeting place, so I spent some time running circles around Krasnodon, trying to find some way to get through. However, we successfully met at the bus station. To connect with e_m_rogov , with whom it was also planned to meet and devirtualize, there was no possibility. So we went to the Young Guard Museum, and then walked to Mine No. 5, the same one where the Young Guards were executed.


Krasnodon is the first large settlement after the border. Now he is relatively in the rear. But all the same, war is war, and the comparative prosperity of Krasnodon does not mean at all that people there are not afraid of war or do not experience problems due to the lack of salaries and pensions. The museum staff works enthusiastically without receiving a salary. Our guide mentioned that she was afraid of air bombing; according to her, it was much worse than even artillery.
The impressive Red Banner flies over the city's central square.


It is huge, and, judging by the clearly visible seams, I believe it is self-sewn. In general, in Novorossiya before May 9 there were a considerable number of red banners. Apparently, when it is not possible to raise the Victory Banner, they simply hang out a red banner. However, as my friend Roman from Stakhanov said, “we miss you here without the red banners.” They symbolize not only Victory, but are also associated with the good times of the USSR for Donbass, when the region prospered and was part of a single power with the RSFSR.

Museum and surroundings

In front of the Young Guard Museum we came across the house of Oleg Koshevoy

Memorial plaque


Busts of the Young Guards


We walked along the alley with monuments to them and Fadeev, who wrote the novel


And we went to the museum itself


There I photographed an exhibition of children's drawings for May 9th

Here is a whole allegory of the history of the Second World War being reshaped in a living way.

And here the child drew more from the stories of his brother or father than from his grandfather or great-grandfather. What can you do, they also had to fight, defending their native land

The inscription is in Ukrainian, as the children of the Russian Krasnodon were taught in schools in Ukraine, and this did not stop the local authorities from sending the drawing to the exhibition

The museum itself, despite the war, is open. Although the collections were packed in case of need to evacuate.
Parents of Young Guards

I was especially interested in the portrait of the Knight of St. George - the father of Ulyana Gromova

Prehistory. The lands of the modern LPR are the Cossack region, the territory of the Don Army

The first mines in Krasnodon, their life and the revolution of 1917

Life in a mining town in the 30s. Stakhanov movement

Childhood

Komsomol tickets?

School years of the future Young Guard

School essay

War

Especially for tarkhil photographed medical instruments

Field radio

Workers of Krasnodon who tried to sabotage work for Germany, and were brutally executed for this by punitive forces (they were buried alive in the ground), which some future Young Guards witnessed

Camps and work in Germany, where residents of Krasnodon were taken

Life during the occupation

Young guard

Oath. According to the guide, the Krasnodon militia slightly altered the text to suit modern realities, and pronounced it as an oath.

Arson by the Young Guard of the Labor Exchange building, which saved many people from being deported to Germany

Banners raised in Krasnodon on the anniversary of the Great October Revolution

An amateur club where the Young Guards held their meetings

Preserved surroundings and costumes

Dress by Lyubov Shevtsova

Suicide letters

Arrest

On the left is a photograph of a prison (or rather, not even an adequate prison, but a bathhouse adapted for it, not really heated, and in January, when the Young Guards were arrested, extremely uncomfortable)

Camera

Interrogation room, or rather torture room


The noose is presented because one of the tortures was to simulate hanging. A man was hanged, he began to choke, he was taken down, brought to his senses, asked to confess, and the procedure was repeated as a result of his refusal.

Lyuba Shevtsova, one of the last Young Guards was shot. They wanted to execute her with a bullet in the back of the head, but she didn’t want to kneel, so they shot her in the face

Mine No. 5 is the place of execution of the main group. Personal items by which relatives identified the dead children

On February 14, 1943, developing a successful offensive deep into the territory of the Voroshilovgrad region, Soviet troops liberated the cities of Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk) and Krasnodon from the German occupiers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the young anti-fascist heroes from the Young Guard had already been martyred by the invaders by this time. But several Young Guards were still able to survive and take part in the liberation of their hometown. It is all the more interesting to find out how their destinies turned out after the heroic epic of the Young Guard ended.

The oath of Ivan Turkenich on the grave of the Young Guards.

Let's start with Ivan Turkenich. Not only because he was the commander of the organization, but also due to the fact that he is the only survivor who already had the rank of officer at the time of joining the organization. It is logical to assume that after the liberation of Krasnodon, Turkenich will join the regular units of the Red Army and continue the war at the front.

Actually, that’s what happened. In Krasnodon, the former commander of the Young Guard, one of the few who, after the organization’s self-dissolution, managed to cross the front line and join his own, returned as the commander of the mortar battery of the 163rd Guards Rifle Regiment. But before going to fight further, Ivan Turkenich had to pay his debt to the memory of his fallen comrades. He took part in the reburial of the remains of the Young Guard. And his solemn words were heard over the grave (one feels that the young officer spoke through tears):"Farewell, friends! Farewell, beloved Kashuk! Goodbye, Lyuba! Dear Ulyasha, goodbye! Can you hear me, Sergei Tyulenin, and you, Vanya Zimnukhov? Can you hear me, my friends? You rested in eternal, uninterrupted sleep! We won't forget you. As long as my eyes see, while my heart beats in my chest, I swear to avenge you until my last breath, until the last drop of blood! Your names will be honored and forever remembered by our great country!”

Ivan Turkenich after the Young Guard

Ivan Turkenich fought all over Ukraine, and then Poland lay before him. It was on Polish soil that he was to perform his last feat and die, according to the behest of Polish patriots, “for our and your freedom.”

Turkenich did not like to talk much about himself. Before the publication of Fadeev’s novel, his fellow soldiers had no idea that their comrade was the commander of the Young Guard. But they remember that in his regiment he was a real leader of the youth. Modest and charming, knowledgeable about poetry, an interesting conversationalist, not at all hardened by the war, involuntarily attracted attention. However, he also conquered others with his constant courage. In the Radomyshl area, he had to single-handedly (the gun crew died) repel the advance of five German Tiger tanks, which were advancing on the Russian infantry, which was ordered to be covered by Turkenich’s artillerymen. Unable to withstand the well-aimed fire of the Soviet artilleryman, the German tanks turned back. Probably, the enemies never found out that one person repulsed their advance.

Or here’s another episode from his combat biography: “Once before the assault on an enemy stronghold, the division commander, Major General Saraev, set the scouts the task of capturing the “tongue” at all costs. Together with the scouts, Ivan Turkenich went to the enemy rear. When the group returned with the “tongue” to the front line, "It was discovered by an enemy patrol. In the firefight, the commander of the reconnaissance group was seriously wounded. Turkenich took command. He led the soldiers and the wounded commander to the division's front section. "Language" gave valuable testimony." This happened during the battles near Lvov.

Death overtook Turkenich in the position of assistant chief of the political department of the 99th Infantry Division. As colleagues recall, Ivan Vasilyevich (and at that time he could only be called that way) could not be found in the political department - he was always on the front line, next to the soldiers. In a battle near the Polish town of Glogow (now a city in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship), where fierce fighting broke out, Turkenich carried away a company of soldiers. War veteran M. Koltsin recalls: "On the path of the attackers, the Nazis created a powerful fire barrier. Artillery and mortars were constantly firing. I. Turkenich addressed the soldiers: “Comrades! We must escape from the shelling. Forward, friends, follow me!”

The voice of this man was well known to the soldiers, and his figure was very noticeable. Even though he’s only recently been in the division, we’ve already taken a closer look at him. More than once we saw him in the hottest cases and fell in love with the militant Komsomol leader for his courage, for his bravery.

A chain rose, machine gunners and submachine gunners rushed uncontrollably after the senior lieutenant, overtaking each other"(end quote).The German infantry could not withstand the attack and retreated. But German mortars opened fire on the attackers again. The Red Army soldiers, carried away by the battle, did not even notice how Ivan Vasilyevich disappeared from their ranks. Heavily wounded, he was picked up after the battle and died the next day. It was August 13, 1944.

Residents of Glogow greeted the liberators with flowers. The whole city gathered for Turkenich's funeral. The old Poles cried when the Red Army soldiers with a ceremonial salute saw off the former underground member of the Young Guard, who was barely 24 years old, on his last journey. For his feat, Ivan Turkenich received the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. And in 1990, the commander of the Young Guard was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Another surviving member of the Young Guard headquarters, Vasily Levashov, also joined the army. In September 1943, he took the oath as an ordinary soldier, participated in the crossing of the Dnieper, and in the liberation of Kherson, Nikolaev, and Odessa. The command noted the brave soldier and in April 1944, Red Army soldier Vasily Levashov went to officer courses.

Vasily Levashov

Vasily Levashov had to participate in the decisive battles of 1945 - in the Vistula-Oder and Berlin operations, he was one of those who liberated Warsaw and stormed Berlin. At the end of the war, Vasily Levashov served in the Navy and taught at the Higher Naval School in Leningrad. He often came to Krasnodon, where he saw his comrades in the Young Guard. Former Young Guard member Vasily Levashov died in our 21st century - July 10, 2001. His last place of residence was Peterhof.

But Mikhail Shishchenko, a disabled person from the Winter War and the leader of a cell in the village of Krasnodon, did not have to fight for health reasons. When the arrests began, he hid in the garden for some time, then got out of the village, changing into a woman’s dress. The Germans were very actively looking for him, sending out photographs of him to all nearby villages, but Mikhail Tarasovich knew how to camouflage himself well. Probably, this man would have tried to create a new underground organization on the ruins of the old one - but the Red Army came, and the need for the underground disappeared.

Mikhail Shishchenko. Colorization neoakowiec

Since May 1943, Mikhail Shishchenko headed the Rovenkovsky district Komsomol committee, and in 1945 he joined the party. After the war, he met a lot with schoolchildren, gave public lectures to them about the activities of the Young Guard, understanding the importance of patriotic education and passing on traditions to new generations. Mikhail Shishchenko left memoirs about the Young Guard. This man died in 1979.

Sergei Tyulenin's lover Valeria Borts was hiding with relatives in Voroshilovgrad before the arrival of Soviet troops. After the liberation of Krasnodon, the girl continued her studies and received a specialty as a translator from English and Spanish. She worked in the bureau of foreign literature at the Military Technical Publishing House.

Valeria Borts after the Young Guard

As an editor of technical literature, Valeria Davydovna worked for some time in Cuba, then served in the ranks of the Soviet Army as part of a group stationed in Poland. She got married and was actively involved in motor sports.

Alas, in the history of the post-war study of the Young Guard, Valeria Borts played a negative role. Apparently, the tragic death of her lover, Sergei Tyulenin, broke the psyche of this then still fragile girl. Moreover, on the eve of Sergei’s arrest they had a strong quarrel. But they never managed to make peace. Valeria Borts' stories about her Young Guard past are confused, often one memory simply contradicts another (and Valeria Davydovna herself claimed that she said certain words for the reason that she was “ordered so”). However, there are still people who are trying to base their conspiracy “theories” on her stories. In particular, the long-debunked myth of Tretyakevich’s betrayal.

Valeria Borts died in 1996 in Moscow, having already played the role of a living legend. A photograph has been preserved in which Valeria Davydovna is captured next to Yuri Gagarin. Each of them probably considered it a great honor to have their photo taken with the other.

Meeting between Valeria Borts and Yuri Gagarin.

Radik Yurkin at the time of the liberation of Krasnodon he was 14. He met the Red Army in Voroshilovgrad, where, like Valeria Borts, he was hiding from the Gestapo. He might have wanted to immediately go to the front, but the command could not actually expose children to harm. As a result, a compromise was found: Radik Yurkin was enrolled in a flight school. The former Young Guard graduated in January 1945 and was sent to the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet. There he took part in battles with the Japanese imperialists. “He loves to fly, he is proactive in the air,” his command certified, “In difficult conditions he makes competent decisions.”

Radiy Yurkin - naval aviation officer.

After the end of World War II, Radiy Yurkin continued his studies. In 1950, he graduated from the Yeisk Naval Aviation School, after which he served in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets. In 1957 he retired and settled in Krasnodon. Radiy Petrovich, like Mikhail Shishchenko, spoke a lot to schoolchildren and young people. Propaganda of the heroism of the Young Guard became an integral part of his life. In 1975, Radiy Petrovich Yurkin died. As they say - in the Krasnodon Museum, among the exhibits dedicated to his native “Young Guard”.

Armenian Zhora Harutyunyants after the failure of the Young Guard, he managed to escape to the city of Novocherkassk on the territory of the Russian Federation. His relatives lived there. With them he waited for the arrival of the Red Army and returned to Krasnodon on February 23, 1943. Harutyunyants took part in the extraction of the remains of the Young Guards from the pit of mine number 5 and in their reburial. In March 1943, he volunteered to join the Red Army, part of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. As part of this front, Georgy Harutyunyants took part in the liberation of the city of Zaporozhye, near which he was seriously wounded. Upon recovery, the command sent him to a military school - the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery School.

Georgy Harutyunyants after the Young Guard

After graduating from college, Harutyunyants stayed to work there. Colleagues noted his “extraordinary talent as an organizer.” Therefore, in 1953 he was sent to the Military-Political Academy, from which he graduated in 1957. And then he serves as a political worker in the troops of the Moscow District.

Georgy Harutyunyants did not lose interest in his comrades in the underground and often came to Krasnodon. Met with young people. As usual, I took part in celebrations dedicated to the Young Guard. The desire to preserve historical memory among the people eventually prompted him to take up science: Georgy Harutyunyants defended his dissertation and became a candidate of historical sciences. Georgy Minaevich died in 1973.

Ivantsov sisters, Nina and Olya On January 17, 1943, we safely crossed the front line. In February 1943, together with the victorious troops of the Red Army, both girls returned to Krasnodon. Nina Ivantsova, shocked by the death of her comrades, went to the front as a volunteer, took part in the battles on the Mius Front, in the liberation of Crimea, and then in the Baltic states. She was demobilized in September 1945, after the end of World War II, with the rank of guard lieutenant. After the war she was at party work. Since 1964, Nina Ivantsova worked at the Voroshilovgrad Mechanical Engineering Institute. She died on New Year's Day 1982.

Nina Ivantsova

Olga Ivantsova

After the liberation of Krasnodon, Olga Ivantsova became a Komsomol worker. She took an active part in the creation of the Young Guard Museum. She was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine. After 1954 she was at party work in Krivoy Rog. Olga Ivantsova died in July 2001.

Both sisters, both Olya and Nina, did a lot to restore the true picture of the exploits of the Young Guard, in particular, to restore the good name of Viktor Tretyakevich.

Anatoly Lopukhov crossed the front line near Aleksandrovka near Voroshilovgrad and joined the ranks of the Red Army. Together with Soviet troops, he returned to Krasnodon. And then he moved further west, liberating Ukraine from the invaders. On October 10, 1943, Anatoly Lopukhov was wounded in battle. After the hospital, he returned to his hometown, where for some time he helped Olga Ivantsova in creating the Young Guard Museum and even managed to be the director of this museum.

Anatoly Lopukhov. Colorization neoakowiec

In September 1944, Anatoly Lopukhov entered the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery School. In 1955 he entered the Military-Political Academy, from which he graduated with honors. He was repeatedly elected as a deputy of city and regional councils. In the end, Colonel Lopukhov, who retired to the reserve, settled in Dnepropetrovsk, where he died in 1990.

The names of two Vasily Borisovs - Prokofievich and Methodievich - and Stepan Safonov stand apart. V.P. Borisov in January 1943 joined the advancing Red Army troops. On January 20, 1943, the former Young Guard member helped Soviet soldiers establish communications through the Northern Donets. The group that included Borisov was surrounded and captured. The Germans were in a hurry and on the same day they shot all the prisoners. Many of the arrested Young Guards were still alive at that time.

The fate of Stepan Safonov developed in a similar way. He managed to get into the Rostov region, where he crossed the front line, joining the Soviet troops. Young Guard member Styopa Safonov died in the battle for the city of Kamensk on January 20, 1943.

V.P. Borisov

Styopa Safonov

V.M. Borisov

But Vasily Methodievich Borisov went not to the east, but to the west - to the Zhitomir region, where his brother Ivan fought underground. Vasily joined the Novograd-Volyn underground, and through Lida Bobrova established contact with the partisans. Together with this brave girl, they carried leaflets and mines into the city. Borisov carried out sabotage on the railway, helped organize the escape of Soviet prisoners of war, whom he transported to the partisans. The brave Young Guard was executed on November 6, 1943.

In conclusion, let's say a few words about the most mysterious member of the Young Guard. About Anatoly Kovalev. There is not even a photograph left of this man. It is only known that he was supposed to be executed along with the Tyulenin-Sopova group. But on the way, this well-trained guy, an athlete, a fan of a healthy lifestyle, who even in prison did not give up gymnastics, managed to... escape! Further traces of him are lost. What happened to him subsequently - there are several versions. According to one of them, he managed to voluntarily join the ranks of the Red Army and continued to fight. And after the war, his experience as an underground worker seemed interesting to the newly established MGB - and Anatoly Kovalev became an illegal intelligence officer. According to another version, he perished in Stalin’s camps because he protested too energetically against Fadeev’s version. According to the third, Anatoly Kovalev died in the 1970s in one of the insane asylums. There actually lived a certain old man who called himself a member of the Young Guard, Anatoly Kovalev. But whether it was really Kovalev, or whether the old man suffered from a personality disorder, could not be established.

History of the “Young Guard” (Krasnodon): a look after 60 years

annotation

Keywords

Time scale - century
XX

Bibliographic description:
Petrova N.K. History of the “Young Guard” (Krasnodon): a look after 60 years // Proceedings of the Institute of Russian History. Vol. 7 / Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Russian History; resp. ed. A.N.Sakharov. M., 2008. pp. 201-233.

Article text

N.K. Petrova

HISTORY OF THE “YOUNG GUARD” (KRASNODON): A LOOK AFTER 60 YEARS

The concept of time is very subjective. For history, 60 years can seem both a short moment and a long period.

In the fall of 2002, it was 60 years since the creation and start of activities of the Komsomol youth underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the city of Krasnodon during the period of temporary occupation of Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. . Almost all of the members of this organization were arrested, tortured, and then shot or thrown alive into the pit of Mine No. 5.

“Young Guard” is one of many underground youth organizations that arose on the initiative of the youth themselves, without the organizing and leadership role of party authorities. It operated for only a few months, since on January 1, 1943, arrests of its members began and continued throughout the month. Shortly before the liberation of the Voroshilovgrad region (now the Lugansk region), on the night of February 8-9, the last Young Guards in the city of Rovenki were shot.

The age of young underground workers is from 14 to 29 years. Among them are schoolchildren and those who have just graduated, students, military personnel who escaped from captivity and returned to Krasnodon. It was an international organization: it included Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Jews, Azerbaijanis, and Armenians. All of them were united by one desire - to fight the occupiers of their homeland.

We first learned about the Krasnodon Young Guards in the spring of 1943. And each of us (we mean those who were born before the end of the 60s of the last century) knows something about the “Young Guard,” but no one knows everything about her. For many years, bit by bit, material has been collected about those who were its members.

“Young Guard” is one of many underground organizations operating in the temporarily occupied territory. What is special is that her activities became widely known, that they were not kept silent about her for many years, as was the case with others, conducting checks through special agencies and finding out who was who in each of them.

In the book of memoirs V.E. Semichastny, published in 2002 under the title “Restless Heart,” I think, provides an absolutely correct explanation of the reasons for the continued popularity of “Young Guard.” V.E. Semichastny wrote that if N.S. Khrushchev “had not directly addressed Stalin, this organization, like many others like it, would have sunk into obscurity, having been checked by the MGB (Ministry of State Security - that was the name of the state security agencies from 1943 until Stalin’s death) . And there right away: who betrayed whom, who cheated on whom, etc. And this could drag on for years! But since the decrees were prepared in a timely manner and quickly signed by Khrushchev and Stalin, the matter ended successfully.

Members of the “Young Guard” were awarded during the war...

True, there were also costs: for example, V. Tretyakevich was not included in the number of glorious Young Guards.”(see p. 51).

With a general explanation from the former Chairman of the KGB of the USSR, and during the investigation of the history of the “Young Guard”, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Leninist Young Communist League V.E. We can agree with Semichastny. But we cannot agree with one thing - with the approach to “costs”: V. Tretyakevich, one of the organizers of the “Young Guard”, not only was not included in the list of Young Guards in 1943, and then in the updated and supplemented list compiled at the end 40s Voroshilov-grad regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Next to the name of V. Tretyakevich, due to false libel, until 1959 there was an accusation that he had betrayed the members of his organization.

And this is not just one “cost” in the history of the Young Guard.

In fact, there is no history of this organization as such. It still hasn't been written. In a number of published works, there is a brief summary of the actions of the members of this organization, a description of the members of its headquarters according to the award documents of 1943 is given, and the role of communists in the leadership of this organization is described. But was it all like that? And if not, then why does everything follow the established rules?

Many documents were unknown for a long time. At the beginning of the 21st century. An attempt was made to revise the history of the “Young Guard” from the first mention of it. In 2003, a collection of documents and materials entitled “Young Guard (Krasnodon) - artistic image and historical reality" was published. The collection includes original documents and can be a source for studying Soviet society of the 40-90s of the last century.

The history of the underground organization “Young Guard” for many years was for journalists, writers, for everyone who was concerned about the problems of educating young people, grateful material, providing examples of courage, patriotism, service to the people, bright role models. Unfortunately, at present, with the formation of the CIS, interest in this story has fallen.

Currently, some experts call the history of the “Young Guard” “a local history that does not have a wide appeal.” One can only regret that this opinion exists and is partly implemented in practice.

Tell me, do modern youth know who the Young Guards are, what kind of underground organization “Young Guard” is and who wrote the novel dedicated to its struggle during the Patriotic War? Studying recent sociological surveys, we will receive disappointing, negative answers to all of the above questions.

Let's return to the history of the issue.

For the first time, hot on the heels of the report about the Young Guard, journalists A. Gutorovich and V. Lyaskovsky wrote an essay about it, and very quickly they prepared a brochure about the Young Guard. A.A. Fadeev created a vivid essay “Immortality”. All this happened in 1943. Then A.A.’s novel was written on a documentary basis. Fadeev “Young Guard”. Even before its publication, its chapters were published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and in a number of magazines. The novel came to the soldiers' trenches with its first chapters. The book literally fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The entire novel was written in a year and 9 months, completed on December 18, 1945, and published as a separate edition in 1946. In June of the same year, the author received the State Prize of the 1st degree.

Roman A.A. Fadeeva is a document of the era. It contains the thoughts and feelings of wartime youth, their characters. This work entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining documentary truth and artistic comprehension. A.A. himself Fadeev said about this: “Although the heroes of my novel bear real names and surnames, I did not write the real history of the Young Guard, but a work of art in which there is a lot of fiction and even there are fictitious persons. The novel has the right to this." However, many, including historians, perceived this novel as a canonized history of the organization. There were years when the very idea of ​​clarifying something or doubting something was considered seditious.

The history of the “Young Guard” is a long and difficult search for the truth, and now it is no easier to do than before: after all, today the history of the “Young Guard” is part of the history of independent Ukraine. But we had one Great Patriotic War, which united all nations to defeat the enemy, and the “Young Guard” is part of our common historical past, in which it is important to separate truth from fiction, to pay tribute to all those young people who fought the enemy , to restore the good names of the Young Guards, forgotten or hastily crossed out by someone else’s hand.

Without thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, the Young Guards did what they could, what was within their power: they exposed the disinformation spread by the occupiers on Soviet soil, instilled faith in the people the inevitable defeat of the invaders, they obtained weapons in order to begin an open armed struggle at the right moment. Members of the organization wrote by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house, distributed Sovinformburo reports, and on the night of November 7, 1942, hung red flags on school buildings, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the boys.

By decision of the Young Guard headquarters, the building of the German labor exchange with all documents was burned, and over 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from a concentration camp. A herd of 500 head of cattle was captured and destined for export to Germany, etc. On New Year's Eve, 1943, an attack was carried out on German vehicles that were bringing New Year's gifts and mail to the invaders. The guys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest, planning to then transport them to a base created for partisan warfare.

This last action accelerated the defeat of the “Young Guard”, which had been hunted for months by the Krasnodon police and gendarmerie, together with the German, Italian and Romanian special services of Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk), Krasny Luch, Rovenki and Stalino (now Donetsk). And then there were brutal, truly medieval tortures. Police Chief Solikovsky tried his best. Ivan Zemnukhov was mutilated beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then thawed out on the stove and taken in for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin had a wound on his hand cauterized with a hot rod. Ulyana Gromova was hung from the ceiling by her braids...

They were executed at mine No. 5 bis. On the night of January 15, the first group of Young Guards was shot and then thrown into a pit, and some of them were thrown into the mine alive. Among them was Viktor Tretyakevich, one of the organizers of the Young Guard. Until January 31, the executioners dealt with the rest of the arrested Young Guards, among whom was Sergei Tyulenin.

Oleg Koshevoy was detained on January 22, 1943 near the Kartushino station. On the road he was stopped by police, searched, found a pistol, beaten and sent under escort to Rovenki. There he was searched again and under the lining of his coat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a homemade Young Guard seal. The chief of police recognized the young man (Oleg was the nephew of his friend). When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted that he was a commissar of the Young Guard. During six days of interrogation, he turned gray.

Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki. Oleg Koshevo was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova was shot on the night of February 9.

After the liberation of Krasnodon, on March 1, 1943, a funeral of 49 Young Guardsmen was held in the Komsomol Park from morning to evening.

And then the “Young Guard” and its history became a legend, a symbol of Soviet patriotism, material for propaganda work among young people. This has already happened with Nikolai Gastello, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Alexander Matrosov. Now the most active Young Guards have become heroes. The first message about them was received by the party and Komsomol bodies of Ukraine already on March 31, 1943. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Leninist Young Communist League B.S. Kostenko reported to Khrushchev on the front-line “HF” about the “Young Guard”. Nikita Sergeevich gave the command: “Take a sample, as we write I.V. Stalin - write the text and attach decrees on the award.” Kostenko, recalling this in the summer of 1992, said: “We, i.e. Central Committee, prepared and brought it. Khrushchev took it in his hands and asked: “Is everything correct here?” Having received an affirmative answer, Khrushchev, without reading, signed all the documents.” This is how the main document about the “Young Guard” was prepared - a note from Khrushchev addressed to Stalin dated September 8, 1943.

As you know, N.S. Khrushchev had especially warm feelings for the Donbass, where he attended his labor “universities.” That is why he took the message about the “Young Guard” to heart. Khrushchev’s note to Stalin emphasized that “all the activities of the Young Guard contributed to strengthening the population’s resistance to the occupiers and instilled faith in the inevitability of the defeat of the Germans and the restoration of Soviet power.” The note said nothing about the party leadership of the work of the Young Guards. However, this document already contained some misinformation regarding the composition of the leadership of the youth organization. The creators of the “Young Guard” were named Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov and Sergei Tyulenin, while Viktor Tretyakevich and Vasily Levashov did not appear in the note addressed to Stalin and, accordingly, were not nominated for the award.

Stalin supported the proposal of the Ukrainian leader to posthumously reward the heroes of the “Young Guard”; Khrushchev’s note with Stalin’s resolution went to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M.I. Kalinin. The decision was quick. Kalinin signed the decree on the award the very next day - September 13, 1943. Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A number of other Young Guard members were also awarded, as was Oleg Koshevoy’s mother, E.N. Koshevaya (she received the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree - for active assistance provided to the “Young Guard”). The newspaper Pravda reported this on September 15.

For parents whose children were posthumously awarded, this Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR brought temporary relief from the knowledge that their dead sons and daughters were being remembered. But not for long. The people, as always happens, began to discuss who received awards and for what, since many of those who died did not even receive medals.

At the same time, the special services were also “studying the issue,” actively looking for the traitor who had betrayed the organization.

The visit of the famous writer A. Fadeev to the city did not improve, but rather aggravated the situation in Krasnodon. Information about what happened in the city during the occupation, how the “Young Guard” was created and what it did, came to the writer from E.N. Kosheva, who vividly and convincingly recounted everything that she had heard from others and that she knew herself. The Komsomol Central Committee provided Fadeev with extensive documentary material. The writer talked with investigators. The materials, as Fadeev stated, made a huge impression on him and were used as the basis for the novel.

A.A. Fadeev deliberately violated the unwritten law of creativity, according to which it was necessary to undertake the creation of works about the most important historical events only after they had receded into the distant past. As a result, in his novel, historical reality mixed with fiction, acquired an artistic form, but at the same time lost part of its authenticity.

The novel sold out instantly. We will not dwell on its artistic merits. In the Donbass, the demand for the work exceeded the supply - there were not enough books in stores. But soon, along with enthusiastic reviews of the “Young Guard,” a stream of questions poured in to the local party authorities, to the writer, to various authorities, etc. This is explained by the fact that Krasnodon residents accepted the novel “The Young Guard” as the history of the activities of the organization, the youth underground of their hometown. People whose children died found no mention of their loved ones, or what was written did not coincide with what actually happened. They were outraged by the distortion of reality. The image of Yevgeny Stakhovich, a man who betrayed the organization, is especially accurate in matching the portrait of Viktor Tretyakevich, who was one of the organizers and commissar of the Young Guard.

No explanations were accepted. Not only V. Tretyakevich’s relatives defended the truth. Many parents were outraged. The regional committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine had to, as former secretary of the Voroshilovgrad regional committee N.V. recalled in 1989. Pilipenko, “to restore mutual understanding among the families of Young Guards.” As “reinforcements”, a group of Komsomol workers arrived from Kyiv, led by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Leninist Young Communist League Mitrokhin. They arrived to carry out a special order from the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Young Guard V.A. Kostenko: “to read the novel “The Young Guard” to the families of the Young Guard and ask them to know the history of the creation of this organization from the book.” A task is a task.

N.V. spoke about how it was carried out. Pilipenko at a meeting of the Komsomol Central Committee in April 1989. I think that his story is worth reproducing, since it has not been published before. “Mitrokhin and I went to Krasnodon,” Pilipenko recalled. - We read the book by family, by apartment. And they asked everyone: Let’s present the history of the “Young Guard” as it is shown in Fadeev’s book.” V.E. also spoke about the fact that such a “story” existed. Semichastny, in a conversation with the compilers of a collection of documents about the “Young Guard” in July 2000, he said that the most active and noisy had to be “calmed down with words.” I had to say that today your son (or daughter) is a hero, they know about him, but if you don’t calm down, we will make sure that from a hero he turns into a traitor. Such “explanatory” conversations were conducted with the most active Tyulenin family. Of course, Semichastny said this to the relatives of the Young Guard not on his own behalf, but because there was a “party attitude.” It was generally accepted then: the decisions of the party should not be discussed, since they are always correct. And on the draft Decree on rewarding the Young Guards it was written in a sweeping manner: “For. I. Stalin.” One signature and the issue is resolved. Such was the time. And for some time people became quiet. And then they wrote letters to Moscow again, indignant and demanding justice be restored.

Publication of the book by E.N. Kosheva’s “The Tale of a Son” caused a new wave of letters. To the question of one of the Komsomol leaders of the region, to whom she gave the book: “Is everything objectively described in it?” Koshevaya blushed and replied: “You know, writers wrote the book. But from my story.” And regarding the discovered inaccuracies and discrepancies with reality, Elena Nikolaevna replied: “You see, now you can’t correct anything in the book. What is clearly written with a pen cannot be cut out with an ax.” For a long time, reality proved that this was true.

A.A. Fadeev in his work painted a charming image of Oleg Koshevoy, the commissar of the “Young Guard”, who was able to create and lead an underground organization that united in its ranks about a hundred people aged from 14 years (Radik Yurkin) to 29 years (M. Shishchenko). It must be emphasized that in this organization there were many people who served in the Red Army, like M.I. Shishchenko and N. Zhukov, or those who were surrounded or captured and escaped from the camps (B. Glavan, V. Gukov). There were several people in the organization who graduated from intelligence school in Lugansk (these are two brothers Sergei and Vasily Levashov, V. Zagoruiko, L. Shevtsova). N. Ivantsova and O. Ivantsova, having completed courses for Morse students, were left to work behind enemy lines.

A.A. Fadeev “did not notice” or did not consider it necessary to show that in terms of age it was far from a school underground organization; there were also young officers (just remember E. Moshkov and V. Turkenich).

A definite explanation for what happened was given in 1965 by the former secretary of the LKSMU Central Committee P.T. Tronko. “In the first months after the liberation of Krasnodon, information about the activities of the Young Guard was received mainly from the parents of the Young Guard (mainly from the mother of Oleg Koshevoy), and not from the surviving Young Guard. Oleg Koshevoy's mother... developed vigorous activity to exalt her son and portrayed the work of the organization in a light favorable to her. The work was carried out by the whole group, the team. Both Turkenich and Tretyakevich are worthy of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. These were the most mature people in the organization, the rest were very young. But since Tretyakevich was suspected of treason at that time, his name was kept silent..."

As for the novel, the press greeted “The Young Guard” in general with compliments. Fadeev’s “civic feat” and his “artistic achievements” were extolled, and the captivating charm and fearlessness of the boys and girls from Krasnodon were noted. The newspapers “Culture and Life” and “Pravda” on November 30 and December 3, 1947 responded to the publication of the novel with editorial articles, which highly praised the epic about young underground workers - children of the mining region. But soon there was also criticism: “The most important thing that characterizes the life, growth, and work of the Komsomol fell out of the novel - this is the leading, educational role of the party, the party organization,” Pravda pronounced its verdict, crossing out much of what it praised .

Having picked up this critical note, the smaller-caliber periodical press began, in turn, to scold the writer for the lack of a “cementing party principle”, “the flawed images of the Bolsheviks”, shown, they say, as worthless organizers, stumbling at every step.

Fadeev did not defend himself. On the contrary, he immediately “took it under his thumb,” because from experience he knew the merciless power of the ideological dictate of the System. As a result, he went to significant revision of the text of the novel. The Young Guards in the novel now have party mentors and leaders. The idea of ​​the leading and directing role of the CPSU(b) again demonstrated its all-conquering power. But at the beginning, hot on the heels of his first trip to Krasnodon, he wrote something completely different in the essay “Immortality” published in Pravda on September 15, 1943, which is now perceived as a sketch for the first version of the novel: “People of older generations , who remained in the city in order to organize the fight against the German occupiers, were soon identified by the enemy and died at his hands or were forced to hide. The entire burden of organizing the fight against the enemy fell on the shoulders of the youth. Thus, in the fall of 1942, the underground organization “Young Guard” was formed in the city of Krasnodon.”

This conclusion of A.A. Fadeeva is also confirmed by the “Report of the Voroshilovgrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) on the partisan movement and the activities of underground party organizations during the temporary occupation of the region by the Nazi invaders.” It says that at the end of 1941, neither the underground party collectives nor the partisan detachments had the opportunity to launch subversive work, because the front had partially stabilized, and the Voroshilovgrad region had not yet been occupied. Therefore, most of the underground and partisan units were disbanded, their personnel were drafted into the Red Army, and some “illegal immigrants” were transferred to carry out special missions in other areas. And only in connection with the new advance of enemy troops into the interior of the country, the Voroshilovgrad regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) again began to create underground party organizations and partisan detachments. In the districts and cities of the Voroshilovgrad region, underground district and city committees of the Communist Party (b)U were formed. But they did not have enough strength to provide leadership to the youth underground in Krasnodon.

In the historical literature there is still no complete study on the history of the youth underground organization “Young Guard”, but there are quite a lot of articles and publications about who was who in it, namely: who was the commissar - O. Kosheva or V. Tretyakevich. Undoubtedly, I would like to put an end to this issue. But the main thing is not studying the distribution of roles and positions in the underground, but recreating its entire history bit by bit, in detail. It is important for historians to find out its composition and activities (although this issue has been most studied); the reasons for the failure, who and why falsified some of its active participants. Not the least place in this long series of unstudied, ungeneralized problems is the restoration of the good name of everyone who has been labeled a “traitor” for many years. There is still no complete list of its participants. But there is a canonized list, approved at one time by a decision of the Bureau of the Lugansk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) in 1945.

To legitimize the party leadership of the “Young Guard”, the relevant documents were drawn up. April 20, 1945 Secretary of the Krasnodon Republic Committee of the Communist Party (b)U P.Ya. Zverev and the head of the NKGB RO M.I. Bessmertny signed a letter addressed to the secretary of the Voroshilovgrad regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) P.L. Tulnova. Its contents provide answers to some questions:

"...At the time of the withdrawal of the Red Army units in the summer of 1942, the Krasnodon Republic Committee of the Communist Party (b)U and the NKGB RO created several partisan groups in the area and left them behind enemy lines with a special task...

From the materials at our disposal and the RO NKRGB, it is clear that the abandoned partisan groups did not carry out any actions behind enemy lines; individual members of these detachments became active accomplices of the German occupiers.

During the occupation, a communist who worked under the Germans in the central electromechanical workshop, Comrade Lyutikov F.P. had the intention of organizing a partisan group on his own initiative.

Lyutikov created the core of the group, which included members of the CPSU (b) Barakov, Dymchenko, non-party members Artemyev, Sokolov etc. However, this group did not have time to take any action behind enemy lines, since at the beginning of January 1943, all of them, led by Lyutikov, were arrested by the police and shot...

We have not identified lone partisans who would fight behind German lines in the Krasnodon region.” .Below are the signatures of the authors of the message.

And after this, obviously, on the recommendation of the regional committee of the Communist Party (b)U, on April 28, 1945, the report “On the organization of a partisan detachment in the city of Krasnodon during the period of temporary occupation of the Krasnodon region by the Germans.” The speakers were the top officials of the city of Krasnodon: P. Zverev (secretary of the Republic of Kazakhstan Communist Party (b)U); Bessmertny (head of the NKGB RO) and Mi-shchuk (position not specified). And as expected, a resolution was adopted. The ascertaining part noted that during the occupation of the city "By initiative of individual communists who remained in connection with the encirclement(Paying attention: not abandoned on assignments, and remaining, i.e. unable to evacuate. - N.P.), there was an intention to organize a partisan group to fight the enemy. The Lyutikov-Barakov group elected the firstcommander, and the second - commissar, set the task - to instill confidence in the people in the return and soon liberation of the region by the Red Army... However, this group did not have time to take any actions behind enemy lines, since at the beginning of January 1943, the entire core, led by Lyutikov and Barakov, was arrested by the police and all members of the group were shot.

Based on the above, the Bureau of the Republic of Kazakhstan Communist Party (b)U decides:

1. Consider Lyutikov Philip Petrovich and Baranov Nikolai Petrovich as the organizers of the partisan group in the city of Krasnodon, brutally tortured by the Nazi invaders - PARTIZANS OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR.

2. The list of partisans and Young Guards... to be approved.

3. Ask the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party (b)U to approve this decision.” .

So, more than two years after the liberation of the city, shortly before the end of the Patriotic War, this document was drawn up. It was then approved in accordance with the request set out in the third paragraph of the resolution.

Let's say for clarification that the creation of this detachment of 50 people dates back to December 1942, and the Young Guard organization was created in September of the same year. The question arises: who helped whom, and who led whom?

Let's see through the eyes of documents how this page of “history” was recreated. For ten years, our society knew about the leading role of the communists in the youth underground in Krasno-Don. To whom do we owe the fact that this fairy tale became reality?!

To strengthen this “position” in 1948-1949, the Voroshilov-grad OK CP (b)U created a commission, which was tasked with collecting “additional materials about the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” and the role of communists in its work.” . On February 18, 1949, at a meeting of this commission, it was noted that “We do not have documents that would have been left directly by the party organization... Despite the fact that there are no such documents, we can still reconstruct the picture of the activities of the party underground...” .

Summing up the results of this meeting, the secretary of the regional committee, Alentieva, gave instructions to “find materials from the party underground in Krasnodon.” But “if the documents of this era have not been preserved, then the documents of 1949 will be preserved. And we should see these documents in mass recognition, in the person of party activists and official records of the bureau of the regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks),” concluded Alentyeva.

And that's not it. The transcript of another meeting of the above-mentioned commission, dated April 28, 1949, is a vivid example of how party authorities “participated in restoring” the history of the Young Guard. Alentyeva, as the main party ideologist of the region, concluded: “Fadeev wrote a work of art. We believe that we are creating a historical document; it is impossible to show Tretyakevich. Tretyakevich should not be shown as one of the most active people, this will be historically incorrect (emphasis added - N.P.).” And as a result of the work, on June 14, 1949, at a meeting of the OK CP (b)U bureau on the issue “About the Young Guard,” Alentyeva concluded (despite the lack of relevant documents) that “it was the party organization that began its activities before the “Young Guard” Guards”... We decided (note - “we decided.” - N.P.) to confiscate the Third Kevich. They will play the role of Buttercups and Baraks." Thus, another myth was created about the leading and guiding role of the party.

A.A. Fadeev, judging by the contents of the documents with which he became acquainted, conversations with the surviving Young Guards, of course, knew about this. However, he generously introduced new episodes into the narrative that were beneficial for the CPSU (b). He practically re-wrote seven and fundamentally restructured twenty-five chapters of the novel. The figures of communist mentors of youth were sculpted in the second edition in a three-dimensional, almost monumental manner. At the same time, the youth underground found itself in the “updated” novel on the outskirts of the Resistance, turning, as befits any Komsomol organization, into an assistant and reserve of the party.

But Fadeev got it not only and not so much from reviewers, but from readers - mainly fellow countrymen and relatives of the dead Young Guards. It is difficult to measure the grief of V.I.’s family. Tretyakevich, which brought them the image of the traitor Stakhovich created by Fadeev, who was like two peas in a pod like their son Victor. Tretyakevich’s father was paralyzed, his brothers “left” party work.

At first, in the spring and summer of 1943, Viktor Tretyakevich was still on the list of leaders of the Young Guard, along with Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Turkenich and Oleg Koshev. But then SMERSH intervened in the investigation of the circumstances related to the activities and failure of the Young Guard, which actively began searching for traitors.

In 1943, it was not taken into account that the Germans had certain information about the formation of the underground in the occupied territories. One interesting document from the special information department on the development of the partisan movement in 1942 (translated from Italian) has been preserved in the collections of the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. The following point attracts attention: the awareness of this German “department”. In the “Training” section we read: “From the beginning of the war, the Bolsheviks organized... special schools where regular training courses were conducted. In Voronezh alone there are 15 such schools, including one for women. The remaining schools are located in Voroshilovgrad and Rostov. Schools in Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad are the largest.” The heads of the schools, the nature of the training, the teaching plans, and even the details that in Voroshilovgrad and Millerovo (near Stalingrad) the school for spies and saboteurs had a two-week training period were known. In many schools, young people are taught the special art of arson.”

This once again indicates that the occupiers were constantly collecting information, using it to track suspects. To this end “The chiefs of the secret field police, the general commanders of the security forces and the commanders-in-chief of the north-central and southern armies kept special lists of partisans, their assistants, spies and suspicious Bolshevik agents.

These lists were sent to all secret field police units, field and local garrisons, police security information bureaus, prisoner of war camps... These lists contain, if possible, accurate personal data, description of appearance, address, place of activity and belonging to a specific partisan detachment” . If we believed, as stated in this document, that with the destruction of the Red Army the partisan struggle would decline, now(remember, it was 1942 - N.P.) the fight against partisans is one of the most important tasks assigned to the German troops located in the rear" For the Germans, partisans and underground fighters made no difference - they were their enemies. The Germans said that “ these fanatics, despite severe measures, often refuse to give any testimony” when they end up in the Gestapo.

After the primary material about the “Young Guard” was collected by a local commission of Komsomol workers headed by Evdokia Kornienko, a commission of the Komsomol Central Committee, consisting of the deputy head of the special department of the Central Committee A. Toritsyn and the instructor of the Central Committee N., arrived from Moscow on June 26, 1943. Sokolova. One of the main sources of information for them was conversations with E.N. Koshevoy. It is difficult to say how Toritsa’s version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal developed, but in a memorandum following the trip, he already wrote that Victor, “according to the testimony of our investigative authorities... unable to withstand the terrible torture,” “gave detailed testimony about the members of the organization and its combat activities.” After this, Tretyakevich’s name began to be erased from documents about the activities of the Young Guard and he was removed from the list of Young Guard heroes. That is why he is not in Fadeev’s novel.

However, Viktor Tretyakevich was not a traitor, just as there was no single traitor who failed the Young Guard. Testimonies that contained any information about the activities of the organization were given during interrogations under torture by several Young Guards (let’s not forget that these were very young guys), but this does not mean that they can be considered traitors. On December 14, 1960, the article “Brave Son of Krasnodon” appeared in Pravda, dedicated to the posthumous awarding of Viktor Tretyakevich with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. Only 16 years later the award found one of the leaders of the Young Guard, who became a victim of slander.

The story of the rehabilitation of V. Tretyakevich shows how difficult it was to remove the label that was attached to a person. It was no less difficult to prove that the list of Young Guards drawn up in 1943 by the Central Committee of the Komsomol, taking into account information from the Soviet special services, was incomplete, that there were gaps in it that were difficult for the relatives and friends of the deceased members of the Young Guard to come to terms with. Thus, it turned out that the act of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the Nazi invaders in Krasnodon documented the death of three more Young Guards - E. Klimov, N. Petrachkova and V. Gukov. Their names are not on A. Toritsyn's list. In 1955, party and Soviet authorities in Krasnodon filed a petition to award H.N. Petrachkova medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War”. Commission on the Affairs of Former Partisans under the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, chaired by S.A. Kovpaka recognized H.H. Petrachkova a member of the “Young Guard” and supported the idea of ​​her posthumous award.

However, time passed, and there was still no positive solution to the seemingly obvious issue. Then the girl’s father, a member of the CPSU since 1924, an honorary miner and holder of the Order of Lenin N.S. At the beginning of 1956, Petrachkov sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine with a request to look into this matter. On February 16, 1956, Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee S. Kirillova addressed the Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee A.N. Shelepin with a request to “petition before the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to award a member of the underground organization “Young Guard” comrade. Petrachkova N.H. medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, II degree,” citing the fact that it “was accidentally missed in the lists of the Young Guards nominated for government awards.” In 1958, the petition was repeated, and the then first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, future chairman of the KGB V.E. Semichastny ordered to “prepare materials for the authorities.” However, before the collapse of the USSR, this issue was never resolved. Apparently, the Komsomol Central Committee considered him too “small.”

One cannot but agree with the opinion expressed by members of the interregional commission created in the early 90s to study the history of the “Young Guard” - the Youth Union of the Lugansk region, that some Young Guards were “canonized as immortal heroes, others act as anti-heroes, and still others, although they took an active part in the main actions, are seen as exclusively ordinary, rather colorless individuals.” This applies in particular to A.B. Kova-levu. According to his memoirs, he looks like a bright, courageous, courageous person. His main “flaw” was that he managed to escape when he and his comrades were being taken to the pit of mine No. 5 for execution. M.N., who was traveling with him, helped him. Grigoriev, who untied the rope with his teeth. The escape was unexpected. The police did not immediately understand what had happened, and then, having come to their senses, they began to shoot at the fleeing man. Kovalev was wounded, but he managed to hide among the houses of the village. Then he was treated and hidden by his relatives, A. Titova (his beloved girlfriend) and some friends. Then Anatoly was taken from Krasno-Don to the Dnepropetrovsk region. When the Red Army arrived there, he was not there. Nobody knows what happened to him. He went missing. So far the feat of A.B. Kovalev, the former idol of the Young Guards, was not even awarded the “Partisan of the Patriotic War” medal.

Yuri Polyansky is not on the list of heroes, although his body was raised in February 1943 from the pit of the mine and buried in a mass grave on March 1, 1943. Meanwhile, Toritsyn declared him “missing in action” for some reason, apparently , guided by the fact that Yuri’s sister Serafima was suspected of betraying another group of underground fighters under the leadership of M. Shishchenko and N. Sumsky, which operated in Krasnodon as part of the “Young Guard”. (Its members were betrayed, and on the night of January 18, 1943, they were shot or thrown alive into a mine.)

Various documents and publications call from 70 to 130 Young Guards. In the first published report of the Komsomol Central Committee there were over a hundred of them, and in the seventh edition of the collection of memoirs and documents “Immortality of the Young” there were only 71, although, in my opinion, it is impossible to agree with this figure.

How can such discrepancies be explained? Let’s not forget that the list of members of the organization was restored from the memory of parents and relatives, as well as from the act of the Extraordinary State Commission, which indicated those identified by relatives. But there were also those who remained unidentified, both in Krasnodon and in Rovenki.

The version according to which the reason for the failure and defeat of the “Young Guard” was betrayal among the Young Guard members themselves also prevented the establishment of involvement in the organization. G. Pocheptsov was one of the first to be arrested after the liberation of the city. The fact that he was allegedly a traitor was reported by former investigator M.E. Kuleshov. At first, Pocheptsov was summoned to the investigative authorities, interrogated, but released. During interrogations, the guy was confused in his answers; he didn’t even know what the name of the underground organization was: “Hammer” or “Young Guard”. He didn’t know who was who in the organization, he only knew his “five.” During the interrogations, they remembered that his uncle, a relative of his father, served in the police, but they did not want to know that his stepfather, the communist Gromov, like the whole family, was persecuted by the police. On the advice of the same Kuleshov, G. Pocheptsov, tired of interrogations using physical force, “confessed” to betrayal. He hoped that at the final court hearing he would refuse, explain himself and be believed. But... there was a war going on. Fifteen-year-old G. Pocheptsov was doomed to death, accused without evidence of betraying his friends. The first to be publicly executed in Krasnodon on September 19, 1943 were G.P. Pocheptsov, his stepfather V.G. Gromov and former investigator Kuleshov. Then the suspects included not only some Young Guard members, but also many young men and women who had nothing to do with the organization. Despite the fact that the question of the involvement of a particular person in the organization was raised more than once, the canonized list has not been expanded since 1943. This can partly explain the fact that the Young Guards V.M. were not awarded. Borisov, B.S. Gukov, A.B. Kovalev, N.I. Mironov, P.F. Palaguta, H.H. Petrachkova, Yu.F. Polyansky, V.I. Tkachev and others. They were recognized as members of the “Young Guard”, almost all were included in the lists of members of the organization back in 1943, but for various reasons they were not included in the lists for awards.

There were cases when those nominated for awards (V.V. Mikhai-lenko and I.A. Savenkov) did not receive them and were subsequently excluded from the lists of the “Young Guard”. It is unknown who did this and why. Maybe they thought like this: since he stayed alive, this is the best reward. But, most likely, this was done out of indifference, callousness, according to the principle: “War will write off everything.” Those Young Guards (and there were about 50 of them) who, after the liberation of Krasnodon, immediately went to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, did not receive their medals either. Those who changed their place of residence were also left without awards, so that nothing is still known about many of them.

Groundless and unsubstantiated accusations of treason and betrayal, followed by a quick investigation and a harsh sentence, were brought against more than 30 Krasnodon boys and girls who had nothing to do with the underground organization. Among them were Z.A. Vyrikova, O.A. Lyadskaya, S.F. Polyanskaya, G.V. Statsenko, N.G. Fadeev and others. They were subsequently acquitted due to the lack of evidence of a crime. Not everyone knows about this, and in the memory of many (according to the version of Fadeev’s novel) they remained traitors. Some of them changed their place of residence, others - their surname. Even their children, who are already grandparents, do not visit the places where their relatives were born.

The work of creating an objective history of the “Young Guard” cannot be considered completed, especially since attempts to discredit the blessed memory of those who fought in its ranks against the Nazi invaders are still ongoing. Thus, in the newspaper “Top Secret” (1999. No. 3), under the catchy heading “Special Services Archives,” Eric Schur’s material was published: “The Young Guard: the true story, or criminal case No. 20056.” The author carefully, although far from impartially, studied the 28 volumes of investigative materials stored in the FSB archives, which were hot on the heels of the events in Krasnodon in 1943. The case was opened on charges of policemen and German gendarmes in the massacre of the “Young Guard” . And this is what E. Shur comes to the conclusion: “The Young Guard was invented twice.” “At first,” he writes, “in the Krasnodon police. Then Alexander Fadeev. Before a criminal case was opened regarding the theft of New Year's gifts... there was no such underground organization in Krasnodon. Or did it exist?”

E. Schur leaves his truly Jesuit question unanswered. He abundantly quotes archival documents confirming the abuses of the Krasnodon police against the Young Guard; tells how the police went to the organization, seizing a seller of cigarettes in the market - the very same New Year's gifts seized by the guys on the night of December 26, 1942. But the general tone of the article is intended to give the reader the impression that the members of the “Young Guard” are not have committed no heroic deeds, that all their work is child's play, trifles, trifles...

The media have already published publications by journalists from Russia and Ukraine who are outraged by this interpretation of the activities of the Young Guard. But E. Schur’s conclusion partly coincides with the opinion of NKVD Colonel Pavlovsky, who in the summer of 1943 “insisted that the organization and its activities were inspired by the Gestapo,” and put pressure on the secretary of the Voroshilovgrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) )U A.I. Gaevoy, convincing him that there was no “Young Guard”. The former secretary of the Central Committee of the LKSMU B.C. told about this. Kostenko, who prepared documents for awarding members of the “Young Guard” for Khrushchev’s signature and sending to Stalin.

But Gaevoy did not agree with this. And he was right. In 1947, on one of his trips to B.C. Kostenko found himself in the compartment with a fellow traveler - Pro-Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR P.A. Rudenko. In 1945-1946 he acted as the main prosecutor from the USSR at the Nuremberg trials of the main Nazi war criminals. P.A. Rudenko showed B.C. Kostenko form of the German Ministry of Internal Affairs and a typewritten translation of the text on it. It read: “My Fuhrer,” Himmler reported, “in Ukraine, either in Krasnovodsk, or in Krasnograd, or in Krasno-Don... the Gestapo found and liquidated the malicious underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard.” Heil! After some time, Kostenko wrote a letter to Rudenko and asked for a copy of this letter for publication, but there was no response...

The further time takes us from the Patriotic War, the more difficult it is to answer the questions posed by military history. Years pass, people leave. The memory of eyewitnesses and participants in events is weakening. There is no one left alive today. In Rovenki and Krasnodon, the name of O. Koshevoy was carved on gravestones for many years. Now it is only at the site of his execution, in Rovenki. Finally, the name of V. Tretyakevich appeared on the Krasnodon tombstone.

But quite recently this was solved with great difficulty. The history and artistic line of the novel “fought” with each other. The 1970-1980s were a period of special activity by V.D. Bortz: over the course of a number of years, she has addressed letters to various authorities, objecting to the slightest attempts to clarify or make changes to the interpretation of the activities of the Young Guard, the role and place of Oleg Koshevoy in it. To prepare responses to letters from V.D. The wrestler was distracted by a lot of people. Commissions were periodically created, both through the Komsomol Central Committee and on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee. Voluminous memos were submitted to both Central Committees. It would seem that all controversial issues have been resolved, all points have been drawn.

During 1979-1980 V.D. Borts got acquainted with the materials of the “Young Guard” organization in the Komsomol Central Committee, talked with archive workers who at different times were involved in the history of this organization. Then she asked the archive management to conduct a forensic examination of temporary Komsomol tickets in order to establish the original signatures and erasures. The point is that, according to the testimony of a number of members of the “Young Guard”, as well as the first photographs of the tickets, the cliche “Slavin” (the underground nickname of V. Tretyakevich) was pre-typed on them. Borts also urgently asked to find out the party biography of the Tretyakevich brothers.

Regarding these requests, the former head of the Central Archive (hereinafter - CA) of the Komsomol V. Shmitkov in a memorandum to the Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee B.N. Pastukhov in 1980 expressed his opinion: “... Any historical research into the activities of the Young Guard, conducted under the flag of Koshevoy or under the flag of Tretyakevich, is harmful to the cause of communist education... The history of propaganda of the activities of the Young Guard, Considering the exceptional popularity of A. Fadeev’s book, it is very complex, contradictory, and sometimes downright biased in one direction or the other.” They listened to the opinion of V. Shmitkov, since the report contains a resolution: “1) Invite comrade to the Central Committee. Levashova, Borts and tactfully conduct a conversation about the need not to go beyond the generally accepted. 2) Make some kind of documentary collection in “Young Guard” (obviously we are talking about a publishing house. - N.P.) where to place emphasis...”

V.D. Borts wrote to the Komsomol Central Committee and the CPSU Central Committee. In this regard, certain “measures” were taken. So, at the beginning of April 1980, Pastukhov V.N. (Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol) some issues of promoting the history of the activities of the “Young Guard” were considered. In the postponed certificate, in section IV “Our position. Tasks of propagandists” we read: “ There are partycriteriaassessment of the activities of the Young Guards. They are, first of all, in the “Decrees on awarding them with awards of the Motherland.” Briefly and clearly. What other comments are needed?!

The Komsomol Central Committee drew attention to the fact that it was impossible forget“about the political expediency of clarifications, different readings, etc.” And one more thing: “It is impossible to underestimate the consequences of the possible release of information contained in the correspondence of relatives and Young Guards to mass media of propaganda or to a direct audience. You need to work with them...”

Obviously, some “work” has been done. But V.D. The fighter was not able to calm down for long. After the publication of the material “On the Scales of Truth” in “Komsomolskaya Pravda” on January 5, 1989, the topic of which was the restoration of the good name of V. Tretyakevich, V. Borts sent a letter to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper V. Fronin with sharp criticism of the publication.

Reacting to this letter, and practically defending the position of the newspaper, V. Fronin, in a letter to the Central Committee of the Komsomol, states that “in general, it seems that the author of the letter is in captivity of the very wrong concept that is mentioned in the material: the idea that restoring the honest name and truth about one hero casts a shadow on another.” V. Fronin suggested that if, despite the numerous commissions of the CPSU Central Committee and the Komsomol Central Committee “V. Borts believes that the whole truth... has not yet been established; perhaps it makes sense to once again create a competent commission of hysteria specialists.”

V. Khorunzhiy, head. Central Committee of the Komsomol, in a letter to the Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee N.I. Paltsev. On January 21, 1989, after another letter from Valeria Davydovna, Borts expressed the need to “once again return to the documents of the organization stored in the Central Committee of the Komsomol in order to make a final decision and publish the results on the pages of the Komsomolskaya newspaper Truth".

Since the organization’s documents are a large array in volume, working on them requires considerable time.” V. Khorunzhiy asked to extend the response period until March 23, 1989, i.e. for another two months.

Judging by the resolutions, this was reported to the first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee V.I. Mironenko. On January 26, 1989, there was a reaction addressed to those who were among the performers: “...Isn’t it time to put an end to this extremely ugly story? If for some reason this cannot be done, then explain why. Your suggestions?"

Obviously, Secretary for Ideology N.I. Paltsev reasonably explained the essence of the problem, and the deadline was extended. But these two months were not enough. Therefore, after the expiration of the specified period, in the name of V.I. Mironenko. another note arrived not only from the manager. Central Election Commission of the Komsomol, and signed by those persons who were entrusted with the execution of the order: “We inform you that according to the letter of Comrade V.D. Borts. Analytical work is being carried out with documents from the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”. However, the composition of the commission to resolve controversial issues about the “Young Guard” has not been fully formed. We ask you to extend the deadline for working on the letter until May 1, 1989.” Further signatures: N. Paltsev, V. Khorunzhiy, I. Shestopalov. There is a stamp on the paper in the archive: “Resolution of Comrade V.I. Mironenko. “Extended.”

Based on the materials of the Komsomol Central Committee, it was not possible to trace which commission the Komsomol leaders wrote to their boss about. Only one thing is clear: D.I. was asked to join the “analytical” work. Polyakov, journalist and historian. She carried out work to collect additional materials and publications about the “Young Guard” both in Russia and Ukraine, and also studied the material in the Central Asia of the Komsomol, in the party archive.

Deadline for response to V.D.’s letter The struggle* was nearing the end, and then a reasonable decision was made (it’s a pity that it never occurred to anyone earlier and was not implemented, at least 10-15 years ago): to hold a meeting at the Komsomol Central Committee on the activities of the underground Komsomol organization “ Young guard".

On April 27, 1989, this meeting took place. A decrypted tape recording of this meeting-discussion has been preserved. Its participants were workers of the Central Asian Komsomol (V. Khorunzhiy, E.M. Buyanova, T.A. Kameneva), scientists - D.I. Polyakova, I.N. Pilipenko, V. Levashov (member of the “Young Guard”), V.I. Tretyakevich (brother of the deceased Viktor Tretyakevich). Borts V.D. there was none, although many speakers spoke about her and her position. As V. Levashov noted, “until 1978, she (i.e. V.D. Borts. - N.P.) never said a single word about the Young Guard. She didn’t want to touch on history... And only in 1978, either at someone’s instigation, when she retired. By whose?” It is interesting to note that the surviving Young Guards ALL, I emphasize ALL, never gathered together. Neither themselves, nor the Komsomol Central Committee, nor the Komsomol Central Committee thought of taking such an initiative. According to V. Levashov, the survivors had different assessments of the role and place of Oleg Koshevoy in the work of the Young Guard. We read from the transcript: “Some are for it to be the way it really was, someone is for it to be in favor of Oleg Koshevoy. Yes. That is, falsification... Who was the commissioner, Oleg or Tretyakovich. This is why they avoided meetings... No one had the desire for everyone to get together. We often got together with Harutyunyants, Radik Yurkin, and Lopukhov.”

For each of them, as V. Levashov said, it was a matter of conscience to restore the good name of Viktor Tretyakevich, his role in the organization and activities of the Young Guard. They could not forgive themselves that in the 40s, after the liberation of Krasnodon, they did not stand up for the good name of Tretyakevich, when a rumor about his betrayal was started, and his name disappeared from the history of the “Young Guard” for years.

Now is not the time to figure this out. Today they are all dead. Let’s not forget that for many years people who were under occupation tried not to remember this period of life and preferred to keep quiet so as not to end up in places far from civilization, behind barbed wire. The reality of Soviet society in relation to the surviving members of the underground was sometimes harsh, and demanded to prove, if you survived, then why; what helped you to save yourself. It was not easy to answer these questions: the suspicion of those who were entrusted with establishing the truth was hampered. This has been written about more than once or twice in the works of historians.

But let's return to the meeting of 1989. It took place in conditions of awakened glasnost. At the beginning of this meeting, V. Khorunzhiy, however, said that it was as if former Young Guards had recently been gathered into the Komsomol Central Committee, even “a long conversation took place, and most of the surviving members of this organization testified that the commissar was Oleg Koshevoy. At the same time, as an analysis of our Komsomol documents shows, these comrades were not members of the headquarters and could not know the true state of affairs in the Young Guard.” In the materials of the Komsomol Central Committee there is neither a transcript nor any mention of the fact that such a meeting took place. It is mentioned indirectly in one of V. Borts’ letters. Who could have participated in it out of the nine people who survived the death of the organization? Let us recall that I. Turkenich died in 1944, G. Arutyunyants died in 1973, R. Yurkin - in 1975, M. Shishchenko - in 1979, N. Ivantsova - in 1982. Those who remained alive O. Ivantsova, V. Borts, V. Levashov and A. Lopukhov together, I emphasize together, met for the first time in the Komsomol Central Committee in the second half of the 80s. What was discussed is unknown. A transcript was not recorded.

No analytical note was published in 1989 after this meeting. Obviously, we limited ourselves to discussion. The same thing happened after the meeting in April 1989. The participants did not even correct their speeches based on the printed transcript (except for D.I. Polyakova). Signatures at the suggestion of N. Khorunzhego were placed at the end of the meeting on a blank sheet of paper, and then the text was printed. Almost familiar. Such things happened many times during the USSR. The story about the history of the “Young Guard” had its continuation.

On the recommendation of the higher Komsomol bodies of Ukraine, the Lugansk OK LKSMU on October 9, 1990 decided to create a working group to collect “all possible materials relating to the history of the Young Guard,” to study episodes associated with the names of O. Koshevoy and V. Tretyakevich, with events that give rise to controversial interpretations.” The working group included Komsomol workers, researchers from the city’s universities, journalists, KGB representatives, people’s deputies of the USSR, and “informals.” It was decided to turn to the surviving members of the Young Guard for help. The working group set as its goal to assist in restoring the truth about the activities of the underground in the city of Krasnodon. At the same time, the group noted that the feat itself, accomplished by the Young Guards, cannot be questioned: “The feat cannot be canceled due to conjuncture. It can be kept silent or distorted, which has been done for many years...”

After several meetings, the group came to the conclusion that it was necessary to reorganize it into the Interregional Commission to study the anti-fascist activities of the Young Guard Komsomol organization.

In the process of more than two years of work, this commission examined both known and previously closed documents, often contradictory, mutually exclusive testimonies and testimonies of participants and eyewitnesses of the events in Krasnodon during the period of its occupation. Members of the commission met with V.D. Borts, V.D. Levashov, O.I. Ivantsova; with those who were considered traitors to the organization for many years, and have now been completely rehabilitated by law enforcement agencies: with Vyrikova Z.A., Lyadskaya O.A., Statsenko G.V. Over 40 people were interlocutors of the commission.

The result of the work of the Interregional Commission was the “Note on the study of problematic issues in the activities of the Krasnodon anti-fascist Komsomol and youth organization “Young Guard””, signed by all members of the commission on March 23, 1993, with the exception of one of its members - the director of the Krasnodon Museum “Young Guard” A.G. Nikitenko. He expressed his “dissenting opinion” on controversial issues.

This refers to the role of O. Koshevoy and V. Tretyakevich in the creation and leadership of the “Young Guard”. There are also disagreements in the interpretation of individual facts of the history of the Komsomol youth underground, in the assessment of the historical authenticity of “The Tale of a Son” by E.N. Koshevoy, in his approach to the problem of traitors of the Young Guard. Attempts to reconcile these differences and develop a common point of view in the spring of 1993 were unsuccessful.

Much of the commission's proposals remained unimplemented. I would like to hope that maybe, in connection with the “round anniversary” of the creation of the “Young Guard”, those members of the underground who have not previously received government awards from the USSR will be awarded with awards from the sovereign Ukraine.

During the 90s, more than once on the pages of the press, as in the above-mentioned document, a proposal was made to petition the Ukrainian government to award the organizer of the Young Guard underground, Viktor Iosifovich Tretya-kevich, the highest award of sovereign Ukraine.

If this happens, it will be an additional page in the history of the Young Guard, additional, but not the last. The search for truth, as the history of the Krasnodon underground shows, is a difficult path to the truth, especially when years have passed, when people who knew about the “Young Guard” have passed on to another world.

But the good thing about the truth is that sooner or later it will be established. People need it as a thread connecting generations, as cleansing from filth, as evidence that the memory of the “Young Guard” will live on. Must live.

[ 226 ] FOOTNOTES of the original text

DISCUSSION OF THE REPORT

G.A. Kumanev. I have a question. If you think that Pocheptsov was not a traitor, then what serious grounds are there for this? Why didn't the Germans arrest him? What do you think of his statement? He wrote it retroactively, on December 20, 1942, to Zhukov, the head of the mine, that he knew this underground organization.

Second question. When did Turkenich appear? In August or later? In Krasnodon they called him commander.

N.K. Petrova. I. Turkenich from July to August 1942 was in the 614 AP GAP 52 Army as an assistant chief of staff of the regiment. He appeared in the city at the end of August - beginning of September, and studied the situation for some time.

Vasily Levashov and Sergei Levashov (his cousin) were sent on August 23, 1942 together with a group of eight people to the area of ​​Krasny Liman (Donetsk region). But due to a mistake by the pilot, the entire group was dropped onto the territory of the Kharkov region. The group did not contact the “Center” (according to reports from the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement). But V. Levashov in his book “Find yourself in the naval ranks” (Pushkino, 1996, pp. 21-22) wrote that the group’s radio operators contacted Moscow. The group commander was captured, the survivors decided to retreat, there was no food or weapons. Making his way home, he was detained by the police near the city of Slavyansk, but then released.

V. Levashov came to Krasnodon on September 5, 1942. His brother Sergei was three days earlier. There were already underground groups operating in the city, and the Levashovs contacted them through guys they knew.

In a number of documents, V. Levashov argued that the “Young Guard” as an organization was created in August, but he only learned about it in mid-September. He was not directly involved in the creation, since he was not in the city in August.

The surviving member of the Young Guard, G. Harutyunyants, was summoned to Moscow in the spring of 1944. During the conversation (unfortunately, it is not known with whom, but a copy of her recording is kept in the RGASPI), Arutyunyants said that O. Koshevoy, together with Turkenich, came to the organization before November 7. According to other sources - at the end of October 1942.

G.A. Kumanev. A few months earlier, Koshevoy joined the Komsomol.

N.K. Petrova. He joined the Komsomol in March 1942. And Tretyakevich was in the Komsomol since 1939, in 1940 he was elected secretary of the organization of school No. 4, where he studied.

And now about Pocheptsov. You are not right. Pocheptsov was arrested on January 5, 1943, held for several days, then released, and not only Pocheptsov. A number of people were in the police, and then they were released, and we cannot consider them to be traitors.

About this list that no one has seen. The arrested former investigator Kuleshov said that Pocheptsov wrote in his own hand about the organization and gave this list to the head of the mine, Zhukov. But during the investigation, Zhukov did not confirm this. Unfortunately, this became clear already when G. Pocheptsov was shot as a traitor.

Pocheptsov did not know the entire organization. He only knew his “five”, and could name those who were active at school, since he lived and studied in Krasnodon. 2-3 people knew that he was a member of an underground organization.

Pocheptsov, by his character, by the certification that he had, was spiritually very close to Tretyakevich. These were two intellectuals in the village. As for Gromov, Pocheptsov’s stepfather, he was a communist before the war and did not discredit himself in any way. G.P. Soloviev and N.G. Talu-ev worked at the mine under his leadership. - lieutenants who were surrounded and found themselves in Krasnodon. One of them is from Leningrad, the second is from the Urals. Both were arrested in early January 1943, when the arrests began. They were executed as communists. As for Pocheptsov, there is not a single document from the police - not a single interrogation, not a single protocol - there is nothing about how it happened. Why? Firstly, during interrogations, in the practice that existed, short reports were written. What the police wrote up was burned in February 1943 near the city of Rovenki in an open field, because they were afraid that these papers would fall into the hands of the Red Army, and not into the Abwehr, whose residence was in Donetsk.

L.N. Nezhinsky. Thank you, Nina Konstantinovna, for your interesting and, in some way, dramatic message. We wish both the unit where you work and you personally to continue your work on researching this very difficult history of our people, a very serious event in the local history of the people of our country during the Great Patriotic War.

We conclude that we will need to think and also pay attention to those phenomena that take place in the modern history of both Russia and the modern history of the Soviet period, which needs further clarification, research, additions, etc. d.

This message was very interesting in its texture. It goes beyond just factual reporting.

This is a report that makes us think more broadly about the scientific and methodological problems of our history, the study of our history of the 20th century, especially the period of the history of Soviet society.

Yu.A. Polyakov. Today's report was of a special emotional nature.

We can conclude: how complex our history is, how many episodes there are. It is very difficult to study the underground, since the documents here have their own specifics. How complex our history is, how tragic all sides are: not only what happened under the Germans, but also how it was all confused later, how it was all twisted.

All this needs to be studied, to achieve a truthful, objective history, a truthful and objective presentation.

The significance of N.K.’s report Petrova is that it is directed against deheroization, which exists in our society and which is spreading in the media. And they have been writing and talking about Kosmodemyanskaya for decades.

But of course, a lot of inaccuracies were made during the war, but we need to understand the essence.

They have written more than once about 28 Panfilovites. Even the anthem of Moscow says: “Twenty-eight of the bravest sons.” But they are not sons of Moscow. The Panfilov division, as is known, was formed in Kazakhstan. Five people survived, and their fates turned out differently. The essence of Lidov’s essay was that 28, every single one, died defending Moscow and did not retreat.

This is the main thing for us. They write about Zoya that she set fire to a stable and a “living” hut, along with people. Of course, the scale of what was done matters. It would be better if she set fire to the headquarters and not the stables. But we must educate young people on this. And I think that our president means this by repeatedly turning to history and textbooks. The main thing is not that she set the fire, but the main thing is her inspiration, her devotion, the main thing is her real, genuine patriotism.

And if we talk about the 28, then the important thing is not who remained alive, wounded or not, but what Shcherbakov said correctly then. When someone doubted, he said: “well, if not this, then dozens of such episodes are happening nearby.”

This is the main thing, and this is the task of our institute and the Center for the History of War. And we should not forget about this.

G.A. Kumanev. Comrades, I also think that N.K.’s report. Petrova was very interesting and informative.

At one time, she undertook the creation of the collection “Young Guard (Krasnodon) - artistic image and historical reality,” which formed the basis of this report. We should be grateful to her for preparing the collection and report.

On some issues I have differences with the speaker. In March 1966, together with a former employee of our Institute V.D. Shmitkov, who later began working in the Komsomol Central Committee, was in charge of the Central Archive of the Komsomol, I was sent to Krasnodon. On what issue? Letters began to arrive, and especially intensively at the beginning of 1966 from relatives of the Young Guard - letters about how Elena Koshevaya did not behave quite correctly or with dignity. Nina Konstantinovna said in her report that Viktor Tretyakevich was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, but he was nominated according to primary documents for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and Koshevaya made superhuman efforts to prevent this from happening, because she believed that this This will create a slander against her Oleg.

In one of the letters from relatives of the Young Guard, which was written by the mother of Sergei Tyulenin (she, by the way, was a heroic mother - she had 12 children), it was said that Alexander Fadeev lived with Elena Nikolaevna, who was, according to the story was pretty, and then rumors spread about some kind of amorous relationship between her and Fadeev.

During this business trip (it lasted for a week), I was able to get acquainted with the documents in the Voroshilovgrad archive. I worked in the regional KGB Archive, talked with the chairman of the State Security Committee of the Voroshilovgrad region, who during the war years was the chairman of the Krasnodon district executive committee, talked with KGB officers.

What picture emerged? First. Of course, the Young Guard did not have as much to do as Fadeev attributed to them. This is the first.

Second. The speaker had this opinion not without reason: the children were playing at war. They had a lot of naivety even in these patriotic matters. Let's say they seized a car with German Christmas gifts. And what did they do? We gathered at the Club named after. Gorky, where they had rehearsals, and began to divide these gifts among themselves. They ate candy (they were hungry for candy), and threw the wrappers on the floor... A German soldier accidentally came, picked up the wrapper, shouted something and ran away. And this was also a reason for their arrest.

According to all the documents, it appears that V. Tretyakevich was not a commissar. He was the commander of the “Young Guard” (this is my opinion) at the first stage of its activity, because Ivan Turkenich appeared much later - a month or two after the creation of this organization. Tretyakevich was very authoritative. I already said from the spot that he was the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the high school literally on the eve of the war.

And when members of the Young Guard organization began to be arrested, several Young Guard members managed to escape, including Ivan Turkenich. He crossed the front line and the vigilant authorities of SMERSH (“Death to Spies”) immediately arrested him. He then, under their dictation, wrote a report on large white cardboard with a sharply sharpened pencil. And there, apparently, he told a lot of unnecessary things under dictation, including about his merits, and so on. This document was in the Young Guard museum in Krasnodon. But, I repeat, there is a lot of doubtful stuff there.

Finally, in the museum I held in my hands forms of Komsomol tickets, without any erasures. And it was written there: “Commander of the partisan detachment “Molot” Slavin,” i.e. Tretyakevich. “Detachment Commissioner - Kashuk” (Koshevoy). But all of them, those Young Guards with whom I met (who survived), said: “he was a very good collector of membership fees.” That was his role. He was still just a boy, but had recently joined the Komsomol. And how did he get caught? He took with him Komsomol membership forms and a pistol and sewed them into the lining of his coat. The highway patrol stopped him, searched him, and found him with a gun and everything.

Vanya Zemnukhov was caught very naively. I was sitting at home. They came running to him and said: “Vanya, a number of our comrades have already been arrested. Run!” - “And my mother locked me up. She went to the market and said: “Don’t go anywhere, Vanya. Everything will be fine!)” Mom came, opened it, and where did he go? I immediately went to the commandant’s office. “I am the leader of an amateur art group. On what basis were the members of my circle arrested?” Germans: “Oh-oh! We thought you had already run a hundred kilometers away, but you came yourself.”

And once again about Pocheptsov. The Germans did not arrest Pocheptsov. And then he was arrested and put in a cell as a decoy. Then he was released. I don’t know where this noble image of a young intellectual came from, but according to all the documents, according to all the evidence, he comes across as a traitor.

I held in my hands the interrogations of Lyadskaya, Vyrikova, and confrontations with Moshkov of Pocheptsov. And a lot was visible from them too. And when our people liberated Krasnodon, he was accidentally seen by Chernyshev, who was sitting in the cell with him. And he grabbed him and said: “Comrades, this is a traitor.” He didn’t come anywhere, he was dressed in a Red Army uniform, and the Germans left him as a future informant.

I agree that there is a lot of confusion, a lot of unsaid, a lot of contradictory things about this organization.

N.K. Petrova. What Georgy Aleksandrovich said does not coincide with the documents that I read and which are in the archives of the RGASPI on Kaluzhskaya. I have already said that the forms of temporary Komsomol tickets at one time, in 1989, at the request of V. Borts, were examined by the relevant authorities. Erasures were detected on the word “Slavin”.

As for the arrest of I. Zemnukhov, according to the words of his parents (they were also joined by the memories of I. Zemnukhov’s sister), everything was not as stated by G.A. Kumanev. On January 1, 1942, E. Moshkov and I. Zemnukhov were walking along the road. Policemen drove up to them on a sleigh and asked: “Which one of you is Moshkov?” After that, Moshkov, who was the director of the club, gave the folder with papers to I. Zemnukhov, and he was taken away. And Ivan came home, hid the papers in the yard, talked to his father, was very sad, then got dressed and went out. He was arrested on the street. The relatives only found out about this in the evening.

And once again about Pocheptsov. Yes, Chernyshev was in the same cell with him. But it was not Chernyshev who accused Pocheptsov of treason, but, as I said above, Kuleshov. G. Pocheptsov did not hide, did not change into a Red Army uniform. He, like others, was called to testify several times. An arrest warrant was issued in April 1943, and the city was liberated on February 14.

As for his consent to be an informant, there are no papers. And who and what was there to inform when the Red Army was rapidly liberating Donbass?

The fact that one of the girls, named G.A., began to cooperate with the police. Kumanev, then this is in the archive documents. I won’t mention the last name. At one time she was arrested and served time. Rehabilitated in the 90s.

And one last thing. I would like to remind you that before 1991 there was an order from the party: “The Young Guard” in the guise in which we accepted it from the novel and to which the soul of the entire population of the USSR and the whole world became attached (and the novel was widely and repeatedly reproduced), and must stay. It was impossible to change anything in her story, despite the fact that the facts confirmed the opposite. Three commissions worked: from IMEL, from the Central Committee of the party and jointly with the Central Committee of Ukraine. Members of the commissions consulted with the KGB of Ukraine, memos were written and marked “secret” and placed in safes.

The relevant authorities monitoring order - state security - at the level of the Lugansk (formerly Voroshilovgrad) region kept everything under control.

Now everything related to the history of the “Young Guard” has been transported from the region to Kyiv, and now try to get it!

L.N. Nezhinsky. All clear. Nina Konstantinovna, you will have every opportunity to discuss and explore this range of problems in detail. We wish you every success in this direction.

On April 19, 1991 (10 years after the expressed wish of V. Borts), the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the USSR Ministry of Justice, at the request of the Central Committee of the Komsomol dated April 5, 1991, conducted a study of four temporary certificates of members of the “Young Guard” Borts, Popov, Ivantsova and Fomin. It was established that “the handwritten entries of the surname of the commissar of the partisan detachment (written in brackets) in all certificates were changed by erasure. It is not possible to identify the original content of these records due to the intensity of the erasure. In a temporary certificate addressed to Ivantsova O.I. in the location of the first letter of the readable surname of the commissar of the partisan detachment “Kashuk” (written in brackets), the letter “C” was identified.” Next are the experts' signatures and seal. See: RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 368 (d). L. 1. Comments are unnecessary. Let us only add that shortly before this V.D. Borts left the ranks of the CPSU in February 1991, explaining it this way: “The power of the communists is untenable.” V. Borts was an uncompromising, consistent defender of the opinion that it was Oleg Koshevoy, and not someone else, who was the commissar of the Young Guard. (Ibid. D. 368 (g). L. 73).

WHY FADEYEV TOOK SORRY FOR READERS

And director Gerasimov also felt sorry for the audience - the film does not show all the torture that the guys endured. They were almost children, the youngest was barely 16. It’s scary to read these lines.

It’s scary to think about the inhuman suffering they endured. But we must know and remember what fascism is. The worst thing is that among those who mockingly killed the Young Guard, there were mainly policemen from the local population (the city of Krasnodon, where the tragedy occurred, is located in the Lugansk region). It is all the more terrible to watch now the revival of Nazism in Ukraine, the torchlight processions, and the slogans “Bandera is a hero!”

There is no doubt that today's twenty-year-old neo-fascists, the same age as their brutally tortured fellow countrymen, have not read this book or seen these photographs.

“They beat her and hung her by her braids. They lifted Anya out of the pit with one scythe - the other was broken.

Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
On January 31, 1943, after severe torture, Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.

Soviet people dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... They swore to avenge their death.
What can I say, the tragic and beautiful story of the Young Guards shocked the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown VGIK students, immediately received the title of Stalin Prize Laureate - an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, felt sorry for the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.

But what is happening now in Ukraine.

In Soviet times, ships and schools were named in honor of these boys and girls, monuments were erected to them, books, songs and films were dedicated to their feat. Their actions were cited as an example of the mass heroism of Komsomol youth in the Great Patriotic War.

Then, in the wake of the post-reform boom of “glasnost,” many people surfaced who wanted to “reconsider” the services of young heroes to the fatherland. Active myth-making has done its job: today, a considerable number of modern people associate the word “Young Guards” with the youth wing of a popular political party rather than with the fallen Komsomol members of the Great Patriotic War. And in the homeland of heroes, in general, part of the population raises the names of their executioners on the flag...

Meanwhile, every honest person should know the true story of the feat and the true tragedy of the death of the “Young Guards”.

School amateur club. In a Cossack costume - Seryozha Tyulenin, a future underground worker.

“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization that operated during the Great Patriotic War from September 1942 to January 1943 in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region of the Ukrainian SSR. The organization was created shortly after the occupation of the city of Krasnodon by Nazi Germany, which began on July 20, 1942.

The first underground youth groups to fight the fascist invasion arose in Krasnodon immediately after its occupation by German troops in July 1942. The core of one of them consisted of soldiers of the Red Army, who, by the will of military fate, found themselves surrounded in the rear of the Germans, such as soldiers Evgeny Moshkov, Ivan Turkenich, Vasily Gukov, sailors Dmitry Ogurtsov, Nikolai Zhukov, Vasily Tkachev.

At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into a single organization “Young Guard”, the name of which was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin.

Ivan Turkenich was appointed commander of the organization. The members of the headquarters were Georgy Arutyunyants - responsible for information, Ivan Zemnukhov - chief of staff, Oleg Koshevoy - responsible for conspiracy and security, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Sergei Tyulenin - commander of the combat group. Later, Ulyana Gromova and Lyubov Shevtsova were brought into the headquarters. The overwhelming majority of the Young Guard members were Komsomol members; temporary Komsomol certificates for them were printed in the organization’s underground printing house along with leaflets.

Younger guys aged 14-17 were messengers and scouts. The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included about 100 people, more than 70 were very active. According to the lists of underground fighters and partisans arrested by the Germans, the organization includes forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest of the prisoners was fourteen years old, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen...

Lyuba Shevtsova with friends (pictured first on the left in the second row)

The most ordinary guys, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys made friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They participated in school clubs and sports clubs, played stringed musical instruments, wrote poetry, and many drew well. We studied in different ways - some were excellent students, while others had difficulty mastering the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. We dreamed about our future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, some were going to go to a theater school, and others to a pedagogical institute...

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were also Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldovans, ready to come to each other’s aid at any moment, fought the fascists.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse began to burn, already ready for German barracks. It was Seryozha Tyulenin who began to act. There is still only one...
On August 12, 1942 he turned seventeen. Sergei wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the police often found them even in their pockets. He began to slowly steal weapons from the policemen, without even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. At first it consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, practically unrelated to one another - in total there were about 25 people in them.

The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was September 30: then a plan was adopted to create a detachment, specific actions of underground work were outlined, a headquarters was created, the active members of the organization were divided into fighting fives. For the purpose of secrecy, each member of the five knew only his comrades and commander, being unaware of the full composition of the headquarters.

The “Young Guards” put up leaflets - first handwritten ones, then they took out a printing press and opened a real printing house. 30 series of leaflets were published with a total circulation of about 5 thousand copies. The content is mainly calls for sabotage of forced labor and fragments of Sovinformburo reports received thanks to a secretly stored radio receiver.

On occasion, Komsomol members stole weapons from Germans and policemen - at the time of the defeat of the organization, 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of fuse cord had already been accumulated in its secret warehouse. With this arsenal, Oleg Koshevoy was going to arm the Komsomol partisan detachment “Molot”, which he intended to soon separate from the organization and redeploy outside the city to openly fight the enemy, but these plans were no longer destined to come true...
The guys burned a barn with bread that the Germans had taken by force from the population. On the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, red flags were hung around the city of Krasnodon, which the girls had sewn the day before from the red curtains of the stage of the former House of Culture. Several dozen prisoners of war were rescued from the camp.

Most of the Young Guard's actions took place at night. By the way, there was a curfew in Krasnodon during the entire period of occupation, and a simple walk around the city after six in the evening was punishable by arrest followed by execution. The Komsomol members also tried to establish contact with the partisan detachments operating in the Rostov region. However, it was not possible to find the Voroshilovgrad partisans and underground fighters. First of all, because in the forests the partisans kept a good secret, and in the city the underground was already defeated by the enemy and virtually ceased to exist.

This is where the first myth arises, created during the era of work on the famous novel by the writer Alexander Fadeev. As if the Komsomol members of Krasnodon fought against fascism exclusively as messengers and saboteurs under the leadership of an underground party organization led by Nikolai Barakov and Philip Lyutikov. Senior comrades develop an operation plan - Komsomol members, risking their lives, carry it out...

By the way, in the first edition of Fadeev’s novel there is no mention of the “adult” communist underground. Only by the second edition the author “strengthened” the connections between the Komsomol and the “adult” underground and introduced a scene of joint preparation for sabotage in one of the mines that the Germans wanted to launch.

In fact, the communist miners Barakov and Lyutikov really planned to disrupt the launch of the mine. But - completely independent of the “Young Guards”. The guys also prepared sabotage - on their own - and it was they who carried out it.
For the Nazis, coal was a strategic raw material, so they sought to put at least one of the Krasnodon mines into operation. Using the labor of prisoners of war and the force of driven local residents, the Germans prepared Sorokin mine No. 1 for launch.

But literally on the eve of the start of work at night, underground Komsomol member Yuri Yatsinovsky entered the pile driver and damaged the cage lift: he misregulated the mechanism and cut the lifting ropes. As a result, when the lift was launched, the cage with mining tools, in which there were also German foreman, and policemen with weapons, and forced miners, and several strikebreakers who voluntarily agreed to work for the enemy, collapsed into the mine shaft. I feel sorry for the dead slaves of fascism. But the launch of the mine was disrupted; until the end of the occupation, the Germans were unable to raise the cage and clear the shaft pit of the collapsed parts of the lift. As a result, during the six months of their rule, the Germans were never able to remove a ton of coal from Krasnodon.

Krasnodon Komsomol members also thwarted the mass deportation of their peers to Germany. The Young Guards introduced one of the underground workers into the labor exchange, who copied the list of young people compiled by the Germans. Having learned about the number and timing of the departure of the train of “Ostarbeiters,” the guys burned the stock exchange with all the documentation, and warned potential farm laborers of the need to flee the city. This action infuriated the police and the German commandant's office, and almost two thousand Krasnodon residents were spared from German hard labor.

Even such a seemingly purely demonstrative action as hanging red flags on November 7 and congratulating residents on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution was of great importance for the occupied city. The residents, eagerly awaiting liberation, realized: “They remember us, we are not forgotten by our people!”

Oleg Koshevoy

In addition, the “Young Guards” recaptured more than 500 head of livestock confiscated from the population from the horse-riding police. Animals were returned to those who could, the rest of the cows, horses and goats were simply distributed to the population of the surrounding farms, who were very poor after being robbed by German marauders. How many peasant families were saved from hunger thanks to such a “partisan gift” is now difficult to even calculate.

The real combat operation was the organization, jointly with the partisans, of a mass escape of prisoners of war from a temporary camp organized by the invaders outside the city in the open air. Those of the Red Army soldiers who were not yet completely exhausted from wounds and beatings joined the partisan detachment. Those unable to hold weapons were sheltered in their homes by villagers - and everyone left. Thus, the lives of almost 50 people were saved.

The German telephone wires were regularly cut. Moreover, the restless Seryozha Tyulenev came up with or read somewhere about a cunning method: the wire was cut in two places lengthwise with a thin knife. Then, using a crochet hook similar to a crochet hook, a section of the copper core was removed between the cuts. Outwardly, the wire looked intact, until you feel it along its entire length - you simply cannot find these thinnest cuts. Therefore, it was not easy for German signalmen to repair the communication gap - most often they were forced to re-lay the line.

Basically, the guys acted secretly, the only armed action of the underground took place on the eve of the New Year 1943 - the Young Guards made a daring raid on German vehicles with New Year's gifts for Wehrmacht soldiers and officers. The cargo was confiscated. In the future, German gifts, consisting mainly of food and warm clothes, were planned to be distributed to Krasnodon families with children. The Komsomol members decided to slowly sell the cigarettes, which were also gifts, at a local flea market, and use the proceeds for the needs of the organization.

Isn’t this what ruined the young underground fighters? In 1998, one of the surviving “Young Guards” Vasily Levashov put forward his version of the disclosure of the organization. According to his recollections, some of the cigarettes were given to a boy of 12-13 years old who knew the underground, who went to the market to exchange tobacco for food. During the raid, the guy was caught and didn’t have time to throw away the goods. They began to interrogate him, and with cruelty. And the teenager “split” under the beatings, admitting that his older friend, Genka Pocheptsov, gave him the cigarettes. On the same day, the Pocheptsovs’ home was searched, Gennady himself was arrested and also tortured.

According to Levashov’s version, it was Gennady, who was tortured in the presence of the named father - Vasily Grigorievich Gromov, the head of mine No. 1-bis and part-time secret agent of the Krasnodon police - on January 2, 1943, began to admit to participating in the underground. The Germans extracted from the guy all the information he possessed, and the commandant’s office became aware of the names of those underground fighters whose group operated in the Pervomaika area.

Then the Germans took the search for the partisans seriously, and within a few days two high school students were arrested because they did not have time to safely hide the bags of gifts. Levashov did not name the names of these guys, as well as his younger friend Gena Pocheptsov.

Levashov’s version can be doubted because, according to his memoirs, Gena Pocheptsov began speaking on January 2. And on the first day, the Germans took three “Young Guards” - Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Vanya Zemnukhov. Most likely, this was the result of an investigation that the Germans conducted after the Komsomol attack on a convoy carrying Christmas gifts.

On the day of the arrest of three members of the Young Guard headquarters, a secret meeting of Komsomol members took place. And at it a decision was made: all “Young Guards” should immediately leave the city, and the leaders of the combat groups should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. But the entire punitive apparatus has already begun to move. Mass arrests began...

Why did most of the “Young Guards” not follow the orders of headquarters? After all, this first disobedience cost almost all of them their lives? There can be only one answer: during the days of mass arrests, the Germans spread information throughout the city that they knew the full composition of the “gangster partisan gang.” And that if any of the suspects leave the city, their families will be shot en masse.

The guys knew that if they ran away, their relatives would be arrested in their place. Therefore, they remained faithful children to the end and did not try to protect themselves by the death of their parents,” surviving underground fighter Vladimir Minaev later said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists.

Only twelve “Young Guards,” at the insistence of their relatives, managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. The four cells of the city police jail were packed to capacity. In one they kept girls, in the other three – boys.

No matter how much they have previously written about the Young Guard, as a rule, researchers spare the feelings of readers. They write carefully - that Komsomol members were beaten, sometimes, following Fadeev, they talk about bloody stars carved on the body. The reality is even worse... But none of the popular publications mentions the names of the torturers in detail - only general phrases: “fascist monsters, occupiers and accomplices of the occupiers.” However, documents from the regional department of state security indicate that mass torture and executions were not carried out by ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers. For the role of executioners, the Germans used either special SS units - Einsatzgruppen, or police units recruited from the local population.

The SS Einsatzgruppe arrived in the Lugansk region in September 1942, the headquarters was located in Starobelsk, the special detachment of executioners was commanded by SS Brigadefuehrer Major General of Police Max Thomas. However, he, a professional torturer, preferred to place his soldiers in the cordon of the prison, dispatching only three hefty soldiers to punish the prisoners with rubber whips. And, in fact, the reprisal against the underground was carried out mainly by policemen of the local Krasnodon branch. Cossacks, as they called themselves...

Leaflet "Young Guard"

What these monsters - both the SS men and their local henchmen - did to the young partisans is scary to even read. But we have to. Because without this it is impossible to fully understand either the horrors of fascism or the heroism of those who dared to oppose themselves to it.

Almost immediately after the massacre of the teenagers, Krasnodon was liberated from the fascist invaders - in February 1943. Within two days, NKVD investigators began arresting individuals involved in the death of the underground organization. As a result, lists of people directly involved in the crimes were compiled - both Germans and local Nazi servants. Hence the special scrupulousness of the investigation and the search for criminals.

Lidiya Androsova was arrested on January 12. According to Pocheptsov's denunciation. It was the police who took her - and according to the testimony of the girls’ parents, during the search they mercilessly looted the house, not even disdaining women’s underwear. The girl spent five days in the police custody... When Lida’s body was removed from the pit of the mine where she was executed, her relatives identified her daughter only by the remnants of her clothes. The girl’s face was mutilated, one eye was cut out, her ears were cut off, her hand was chopped off with an ax, her back was striped with whips so that her ribs were visible through the cut skin. A piece of the rope loop with which Lida was dragged to execution remained on her neck.

Lida Androsova

Kolya Sumsky, whom his friends considered Lida’s first friend and even boyfriend, was taken on January 4 at the mine, where he was picking out coal crumbs from a waste heap. Ten days later they were sent to Krasnodon, and four days later they were executed. The teenager’s body was also mutilated: traces of beatings, broken arms and legs, cut off ears...

The same police arrested Alexandra Bondareva and her brother Vasily on January 11. The torture began on the first day. The brother and sister were kept in separate cells. On January 15, Vasya Bondarev was led to execution. He was not allowed to say goodbye to his sister. The young man was thrown alive into the same pit of mine No. 5 where Lida Androsova was killed. On the evening of January 16, Shura was also taken to execution. Before pushing the girl into the mine, the police beat her again with rifle butts until she fell into the snow. Vasya and Shura’s mother Praskovya Titovna, when she saw the bodies of her children raised from the mine, almost died of a heart attack.

Shura Bondareva

Seventeen-year-old Nina Gerasimova was executed on January 11. From the protocol of identification of the body by relatives: “A girl of 16-17 years old, thin build, was thrown into a pit almost naked - in her underwear. The left arm is broken; the whole body, and especially the chest, are black from beatings, the right side of the face is completely disfigured” (RGASPI Fund M-1, inventory 53, item 329.)

Close friends Borya Glavan and Zhenya Shepelev were executed together - tied face to face with barbed wire. During torture, Boris's face was smashed with a rifle butt, both hands were cut off, and they stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet. Evgeniy’s head was pierced, and his hands were also chopped off with an axe.

Borya Glavan

Mikhail Grigoriev tried to escape on January 31 along the road to the place of execution. Pushing the guard aside, he rushed across the virgin snow into the darkness... The police quickly overtook the teenager, exhausted from the beatings, but finally dragged him to the mine and threw him into the pit alive. The women who went to the waste heap for coal chips heard for several days that Misha remained alive for a long time, groaning in the trunk, but they could not help - the pit was guarded by a police patrol.

Vasily Gukov, executed on January 15, was identified by his mother by the scar on his chest. The young man's face was trampled under police boots, his teeth were knocked out, and his eyes were cut out.

Seventeen-year-old Leonid Dadyshev was tortured for ten days. They mercilessly flogged him and cut off the hand on his right hand. Lenya was shot with a pistol and thrown into a pit on January 15.

Zhenya Shepelev

Maya Peglivanova experienced such tortures before her death that no inquisitor would have imagined. The girl's nipples were cut off with a knife and both legs were broken.

Maya's friend Shura Dubrovina probably could have even been saved - the Germans were never able to prove her connection with the underground. In prison, the girl looked after the wounded Maya until the very end and was literally forced to carry her friend to execution in her arms. The police also cut Alexandra Dubrovina's chest with knives, and then right next to the mine shaft, they killed the girl with the butt of a rifle.

Zhenya Kiikova, arrested on January 13, gave her family a note from prison. “Dear mom, don’t worry about me - I’m fine. Kiss grandpa for me, feel sorry for yourself. Your daughter is Zhenya.” This was the last letter - during the next interrogation, all the girl’s fingers were broken. In five days at the police station, Zhenya turned gray like an old woman. She was executed together with her friend Tosya Dyachenko, who had been arrested the day before, tied up. The friends were then buried in the same coffin.

Maya Peglivanova

Antonina Eliseenko was arrested on January 13 at two in the morning. The police burst into the room where Antonina was sleeping and ordered her to get dressed. The girl refused to dress in front of men. The police were forced to leave. The girl was executed on January 18. Antonina's body was disfigured, with her genitals, eyes, ears cut out...

“Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old, was executed in a pit. During torture, she was forced to sit on a hot potbelly stove; her body was removed from the mine with 3rd and 4th degree burns on her thighs and buttocks.”

Tosya Eliseenko

Vladimir Zhdanov was taken from his home on January 3. He also gave his family a note, hiding it in the bloody laundry that was being taken out for washing: “Hello, dears... I’m still alive. My fate is unknown. I don't know anything about the others. I am sitting separately from everyone in solitary confinement. Goodbye, they’ll probably kill me soon... I kiss you deeply.” On January 16, Vladimir, along with other Young Guard members, was taken to the pit. The square was cordoned off by police. They brought 2-3 people to the place of execution, shot the prisoners in the head and threw them into the mine. Tied up, having suffered severe beatings with a rubber whip and a Cossack whip, Vovka Zhdanov at the last moment tried to push the chief of police Solikovsky, who was observing the execution, into the pit with his head. Luckily for the executioner, he stood on his feet, and the executioners immediately began to torture Vovka himself further, and then shot him. When the young man’s body was lifted from the mine, the parents fainted: “Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old, was pulled out with a laceration in the left temporal region from point-blank shooting, the fingers of both hands were broken and twisted, there were bruises under the nails, two stripes three times wide were cut on his back centimeter long, twenty-five centimeters, eyes gouged out and ears cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 36).

At the beginning of January, Kolya Zhukov was also arrested. After torture, on January 16, 1943, the guy was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5: “Nikolai Zhukov, 20 years old, was taken out without ears, tongue, teeth, his arm was cut off at the elbow and his foot was cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 73).

Vladimir Zagoruiko was arrested on January 28. Police Chief Solikovsky personally took part in the arrest. On the way to prison, the chief policeman was sitting in a cart, Vladimir was walking through the snowdrifts, tied up, barefoot, in only his underwear, in a frost of minus 15. The police pushed the guy with rifle butts, pinned him with bayonets and offered to warm up... by dancing: “Dance, red-bellied, they say you are before the war I studied in a dance ensemble!” During the torture, Volodya had his arms twisted at the shoulders on a rack and hung by his hair. They threw him into the pit alive.

Vova Zhdanov

Antonina Ivanikhina was arrested on January 11. Until the last hour, the girl looked after her comrades, weakened after torture. Execution - January 16. “Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old, was taken out of the mine without eyes, her head was tied with a scarf, under which a wreath of barbed wire was tightly placed on her head, her breasts were cut out” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 75).

Antonina's sister Lilia was arrested on January 10 and executed on the 16th. The surviving third sister, Lyubasha, who was very young during the war, recalled: “One day, our distant relative, the wife of a policeman, came to us and said: “My husband was placed as a watchman near mine No. 5. I don’t know if yours are there or not, but My husband found combs and combs... Look at the things, maybe you’ll find your own. Most likely, don’t look for your daughters, probably yours are there, in the pit.” When they were shooting, my grandfather, who was collecting coal, was forced to leave. But he climbed onto the waste heap and saw from above: some girls jumped on their own, not wanting to be touched by the hands of the executioners, some friends or lovers jumped hugging each other, the guys sometimes resisted - they spat at the police, cursed them with the last words, pushed them, tried to drag them into the trunk the mines behind them... When the Red Army soldiers later dismantled the mine, they brought the dead sisters. Lily's hand was cut off and her eyes were blindfolded with wire. Tonya is also mutilated. Then they brought coffins, and our Ivanikhins were put in one coffin.”

Tonya Ivanikhina

Klavdiya Kovaleva was arrested in early January and executed on the 16th: “Klavdiya Kovaleva, 17 years old, was taken out swollen from beatings. The right breast was cut off, the soles of the feet were burned, the left arm was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, and black traces of beatings were visible on the body. The girl’s body was found ten meters from the trunk, between the trolleys, she was probably thrown alive and was able to crawl away from the pit” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 10.)

Antonina Mashchenko was executed on January 16. Antonina’s mother Maria Alexandrovna recalled: “As I found out later, my beloved child was also executed with terrible torture. When Antonina’s corpse was pulled out of the pit along with other Young Guards, it was difficult to identify my girl in it. She had barbed wire in her braids and half of her full hair was missing. My daughter was hung up and tortured by animals.”

Klava Kovaleva. Fragment of a family portrait with mother and uncle

Nina Minaeva was executed on January 16. The underground worker’s brother Vladimir recalled: “...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothing that remained on her. Nina’s arms were broken, one eye was knocked out, there were shapeless wounds on her chest, her whole body was covered in black stripes...”

Nina Minaeva

Police officers Krasnov and Kalitventsev led Evgeniy Moshkov tied up around the city all night. It was severely frosty. The policemen brought Zhenka to the water intake well and began to dunk him in there on a rope. Into icy water. Dropped several times. Then Kalitventsev froze and brought everyone to his home. Moshkov was seated by the stove. They even gave me a cigarette. They drank the moonshine themselves, warmed up and took them out again... Zhenya was tortured all night, by dawn he could no longer move independently. The twenty-two-year-old “Young Guard,” a communist, nevertheless, choosing the right moment during the interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist beasts hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in this position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They removed him and began interrogating him again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner’s face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him backhand. Exhausted by torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame, and lost consciousness. They threw him into the pit unconscious, perhaps he had already died.

Zhenya Moshkov with friends (left)

Vladimir Osmukhin, who spent ten days in the hands of the police, was identified by sister Lyudmila from the remains of his clothes: “When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost completely headless, missing his left arm up to the elbow, I thought I was going crazy. I didn't believe it was him. He was wearing only one sock, and his other foot was completely bare. Instead of a belt, wear a warm scarf. No outerwear. The head is broken. The back of the head had completely fallen out, leaving only the face, on which only teeth remained. Everything else is mutilated. The lips are twisted, the mouth is torn, the nose is almost completely gone ... "

Viktor Petrov was arrested on January 6. On the night of January 15-16, he was thrown into a pit alive. Victor’s sister Natasha recalls: “When Vitya was taken out of the pit, he could have been about 80 years old. A gray-haired, emaciated old man... His left ear, nose, and both eyes were missing, his teeth were knocked out, hair remained only on the back of his head. There were black stripes around the neck, apparently traces of strangulation in a noose, all the fingers on the hands were finely broken, the skin on the soles of the feet was raised like a blister from a burn, there was a large deep wound on the chest, inflicted by a cold weapon. Obviously, it was inflicted while still in prison, because the jacket and shirt were not torn.”

Shura Dubrovina

Anatoly Popov was born on January 16. On his birthday, January 16, he was thrown into a pit alive. The last meeting of the Young Guard headquarters took place at Anatoly Popov’s apartment. From the protocol for examining the young man’s body: “Beaten, the fingers on his left hand and the foot on his right leg were cut off” (RGASPI F-1 Op.53 D.332.)

Angelina Samoshina was executed on January 16. From the protocol for examining the body: “Traces of torture were found on Angelina’s body: her arms were twisted, her ears were cut off, a star was carved on her cheek” (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331.). Geli’s mother, Anastasia Emelyanovna, wrote: “She sent a note from prison, where she wrote that they wouldn’t hand over a lot of food, that she felt good here, “like at a resort.” On January 18, they did not accept the transfer from us; they said that they were sent to a concentration camp. Nina Minaeva’s mother and I went to the camp in Dolzhanka, where they were not there. Then the policeman warned us not to go and look for us. But rumors spread that they were thrown into the pit of mine No. 5, where they were found. This is how my daughter died..."

Gelya Samoshina

Anna Sopova's parents - Dmitry Petrovich and Praskovya Ionovna - witnessed the torture of their daughter. Parents were specifically forced to watch this, in the hope that the older generation would persuade the young partisans to confess and hand over their comrades. The old miner recalled: “They started asking my daughter who she knew, who she had a connection with, what did she do? She was silent. They ordered her to undress - naked, in front of the police and her father... She turned pale - and did not move. And she was beautiful, her braids were huge, lush, down to her waist. They tore off her clothes, wrapped her dress over her head, laid her on the floor and began to whip her with a wire whip. She screamed terribly. And then, when they started beating her on her hands and head, she couldn’t stand it, the poor thing, and asked for mercy. Then she fell silent again. Then Plokhikh - one of the main executioners of the police - hit her in the head with something...” Anya was lifted out of the pit half bald - in order to further torture the girl, they hung her on her own braid and tore out half of her hair.

Anya Sopova with friends by the sea (second from left)

Among the last to be lifted from the mine was Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching the post, and did not take his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son - without a face, with a black and blue back, with crushed hands - he fell to the ground, as if knocked down. No traces of bullets were found on Victor’s body, which means they dumped him alive...

Nina Startseva was taken out of the pit on the third day after the execution - the girl almost did not live to see the liberation of the city. Mom recognized her by her hair and the embroidery on the sleeve of her shirt. Nina had needles driven under her fingers, strips of skin were cut on her chest, and her left side was burned with a hot iron. Before being thrown into the pit, the girl was shot in the back of the head.

Demyan Fomin, on whom a sketch of a leaflet was found during a search, was subjected to especially cruel torture and was executed by beheading. Before his death, the guy had all the skin cut off from his back in narrow strips. When asked what he was like, Dyoma’s mother Maria Frantsevna answered: “A kind, gentle, responsive son. I was interested in technology and dreamed of driving trains.”

Alexander Shishchenko was arrested on January 8, executed on the 16th: “The nose, ears, lips were cut off, arms were twisted, the whole body was cut up, shot in the head...”

Ulyana Gromova kept a diary right up to her execution, managing to smuggle the notebook even into the dungeon. The entry in it dated November 9, 1942: “It is much easier to see heroes die than to listen to the cries of some coward for mercy. Jack London". Executed on January 16. “Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, a five-pointed star was carved on her back, her right arm was broken, her ribs were broken.”

Ulya Gromova

In total, at the end of January, the occupiers and police threw 71 people, alive or shot, into the pit of mine No. 5, among whom were both “Young Guards” and members of the underground party organization. Other members of the Young Guard, including Oleg Koshevoy, were shot on February 9 in the city of Rovenki in the Thunderous Forest.
In the liberated city of Krasnodon, there were many living witnesses to both the struggle of the “Young Guards” and their deaths.

Uli's letter from prison

The first document of the declassified archival criminal case is a statement from Mikhail Kuleshov addressed to the leadership of the regional NKVD department dated February 20, 1943, says Vasily Shkola. - Then the first investigative actions were carried out. The facts of brutal torture of young people, whose bodies were removed from the pit of mine No. 5, have been established. In the materials of interrogations of members of the organization who were still alive at that time and who were subjected to torture, there is a description of the office of the police officer of the city of Krasnodon Solikovsky. - It is said that there are whips and heavy objects, including wooden ones.

From the testimony of Captain Emil Renatus, who commanded the Krasnodon district gendarmerie during the occupation: “Those arrested, suspected of criminal activities and who refused to testify, were laid on a bench and beaten with rubber whips until they confessed. If previous measures did not produce results, they were transferred to a cold room, where they had to lie on an ice floor. The same arrested persons had their arms and legs tied behind their backs, hung in this position with their face to the ground and held until the arrested person confessed. Moreover, all these executions were accompanied by regular beatings.”

Krasnodon resident Nina Ganochkina said: “I and two other women, on the orders of the police, were cleaning the girls’ cell. They could not do the cleaning themselves, since they were constantly taken for interrogation, and after torture they could not even get up. I once saw how Ulya Gromova was interrogated. Ulya did not answer questions accompanied by abuse. Policeman Popov hit her on the head so that the comb holding the scythe broke. He shouts: “Pick it up!” She bent down, and the policeman began to hit her in the face and everywhere. I was already cleaning the floor in the corridor, and Ulya had just finished torturing her. She, having lost consciousness, was dragged along the corridor and thrown into a cell.”

Oleg Koshevoy

As the burgomaster of Krasnodon Vasily Statsenkov showed during interrogation after the war in 1949, over 70 people were arrested for involvement in the Young Guard in Krasnodon and the surrounding areas alone within a few days.

Walter Eichhorn, who as part of the gendarme group directly participated in the beatings and executions of members of the Young Guard, was found in Thuringia, where he worked... in a doll factory. Ernst-Emil Renatus, the former head of the German district gendarmerie in Krasnodon, who also tortured the “Young Guards” and ordered the police to gouge out the guys’ eyes, was also found and arrested in Germany.

From Eichhorn’s testimony (9.III.1949):
“While still in Magdeburg, before being sent to occupied Soviet territory, we received a number of instructions regarding the establishment of a “new order” in the East, which stated that the gendarmes should see in every Soviet citizen a communist partisan, and therefore, with all composure, each of We are obliged to exterminate peaceful Soviet citizens as our opponents.”

From the testimony of Renatus (VII.1949):
Arriving in July 1942 as part of a gendarme team in the city of Stalino, I participated in a meeting of officers of the “Einsatzkommando gendarmerie”... At this meeting, the head of the team, Lieutenant Colonel Ganzog, instructed us to first of all focus on the arrests of communists, Jews and Soviet activists. At the same time, Gantsog emphasized that the arrest of these persons does not require any action against the Germans. At the same time, Gantzog explained that all communists and Soviet activists should be exterminated and only as an exception imprisoned in concentration camps. Having been appointed head of the German gendarmerie in the city. Krasnodon, I followed these directives..."

“Artes Lina, a translator, told me that Zons and Solikovsky torture those arrested. Zons especially loved to torture arrested people. It was a great pleasure for him to summon prisoners after dinner and subject them to torture. Zons told me that he only brings prisoners to confession through torture. Artes Lina asked me to release her from work in the gendarmerie due to the fact that she could not be present during the beatings of those arrested.”

From the testimony of district police investigator Cherenkov:

“I interrogated members of the Young Guard organization, Komsomol members Ulyana Gromova, two Ivanikhin sisters, brother and sister Bondarevs, Maya Peglivanova, Antonina Eliseenko, Nina Minaeva, Viktor Petrov, Klavdiya Kovaleva, Vasily Pirozhok, Anatoly Popov, about 15 people in total... Using special measures of influence (torture and bullying), we established that soon after the Germans arrived in the Donbass, the youth of Krasnodon, mostly Komsomol members, organized themselves and waged an underground struggle against the Germans... I admit that during interrogations I beat the arrested members of the underground Komsomol organization Gromova and the Ivanikhin sisters "

Volodya Osmukhin

From the testimony of policeman Lukyanov (11/11/1947):
“The first time I participated in the mass execution of Soviet patriots was at the end of September 1942 in the Krasnodon city park... At night, a group of German gendarmes led by officer Kozak arrived at the Krasnodon police in cars. After a short conversation between Kozak and Solikovsky and Orlov, according to a pre-compiled list, the police began to take the arrested people out of their cells. In total, more than 30 people were selected, mainly communists... Having announced to the arrested that they were being transported to Voroshilovgrad, they were taken out of the police building and driven to the Krasnodon city park. Upon arrival at the park, the arrested were tied by the hands in groups of five and taken into a pit that had previously served as a refuge from German air raids and there they were shot. ... Some of those shot were still alive, and therefore the gendarmes who remained with us began to shoot those who still showed signs of life. However, the gendarmes soon got tired of this activity, and they ordered to bury the victims, among whom there were still living ones...”

Among the recently declassified investigative documents is a statement written by Gennady Pocheptsov. According to Levashov - under torture, according to the parents of those executed - voluntarily. ..

“To the head of mine No. 1 bis Mr. Zhukov
from Mr. Pocheptsov Gennady Prokofievich
Statement
Mr. Zhukov, an underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was organized in Krasnodon, of which I became an active member. I ask you to come to my apartment in your free time and I will tell you in detail about this organization and its members. My address: st. Chkalova, house 12, entrance No. 1, apartment of Gromov D.G.
20.XII.1942 Pocheptsov.”

From the testimony of Guriy Fadeev, an agent of German special forces:
“The police had such an order that first of all the arrested person was brought to Solikovsky, he brought him to consciousness, and ordered the investigator to interrogate him. Pocheptsov was called to the police. He said that he was indeed a member of an underground youth organization that existed in Krasnodon and its environs. He named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Zemnukhov, Lukashov, Safonov and Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself is a member of the Pervomaisk organization, whose leader is Anatoly Popov. The May Day organization consisted of 11 people, including Popov, Glavan, Zhukov, Bondarevs (two), Chernyshov and a number of others. He said that the headquarters had weapons at its disposal: Popov had a rifle, Nikolaev and Zhukov had machine guns, Chernyshov had a pistol. He also said that in one of the quarries in the pit there was a weapons warehouse. There used to be a Red Army warehouse there, which was blown up during the retreat, but the youth found a lot of ammunition there. The organizational structure was as follows: headquarters, Pervomaiskaya organization, organization in the village of Krasnodon and city organization. He did not name the total number of participants. Before I was removed from my job, up to 30 people were arrested. Personally, I interrogated 12 people, incl. Pocheptsov, Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Petrov, Vasily Pirozhka and others. Of the members of the headquarters of this organization, Kosheva and Safonov were not arrested, because they disappeared.

As a rule, preliminary interrogations were carried out personally by Solikovsky, Zakharov and the gendarmerie, using whips, fists, etc. Even investigators were not allowed to be present during such “interrogations.” Such methods have no precedent in the history of criminal law.

After I was recruited by the police to identify individuals distributing Young Guard leaflets, I met several times with the deputy chief of the Krasnodon police, Zakharov. During one of the interrogations, Zakharov asked me a question: “Which of the partisans recruited your sister Alla?” Knowing this from the words of my mother M.V. Fadeeva, I betrayed Vanya Zemnukhov to Zakharov, who actually made an offer to my sister to join an underground anti-fascist organization. I told him that in Korostylev’s apartment, Korostylev’s sister Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya and her son Oleg Koshevoy, who was recording messages from the Sovinformburo, were listening to radio broadcasts from Moscow”...

From the testimony of the head of the Rovenkovo ​​district police, Orlov (XI 14, 1943)
“Oleg Koshevoy was arrested at the end of January 1943 by a German gendarme and a railway policeman at a crossing 7 km from the city of Rovenki and brought to my police station. During the arrest, Koshevoy’s revolver was confiscated, and during a second search at the Rovenkovo ​​police, a seal of the Komsomol organization and some two blank forms were found on him. I interrogated Koshevoy and received testimony from him that he is the leader of the Krasnodon underground organization.”

From the testimony of policeman Bautkin:
“At the beginning of January 1943, I arrested and brought to the police a member of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” discovered by the police in Krasnodon... Dymchenko, who lived at mine No. 5. She was tortured by the police and, along with her other underground friends, was shot by the Germans... I arrested a “Young Guard” who lived at mine No. 2-4 (I don’t remember his last name) from whose apartment, during a search, we found and seized three notebooks with prepared texts anti-fascist leaflets."

From Renatus' testimony:
“...In February, Wenner and Zons reported to me that my order to shoot Krasnodon Komsomol members had been carried out. Some of those arrested... were shot in Krasnodon in mid-January, and the other part, due to the approach of the front line to Krasnodon, was taken from there and shot in the mountains. Rovenki."

From the testimony of policeman Davidenko:
“I admit that I took part in the executions of the “Young Guards” three times and with my participation about 35 Komsomol members were shot... In front of the “Young Guards”, first 6 Jews were shot, and then one by one all 13 “Young Guards”, whose corpses were thrown into the pit shaft No. 5 is about 80 meters deep. Some were thrown into the mine pit alive. To prevent shouting and proclamation of Soviet patriotic slogans, girls' dresses were lifted and twirled over their heads; in this state, the doomed were dragged to the mine shaft, after which they were shot and then pushed into the mine shaft.”

From the testimony of Schultz, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“At the end of January, I took part in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard,” among whom was the leader of this organization, Koshevoy. ...I remember him especially clearly because I had to shoot him twice. After the shots, all those arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This greatly angered Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drewitz to finish him off. Drewitz approached the lying Koshevoy and shot him in the back of the head.

...Before escaping from Rovenki on February 8 or 9, 1943, Fromme ordered me, Drewitz and other gendarmes to shoot a group of Soviet citizens held in the Rovenki prison. These victims included five men, a woman with a three-year-old child, and active Young Guard member Shevtsova. Having delivered the arrested to the Rovenkovsky city park, Fromme ordered me to shoot Shevtsova. I led Shevtsova to the edge of the pit, walked away a few steps and shot her in the back of the head, but the trigger mechanism on my carbine turned out to be faulty and it misfired. Then Hollender, who was standing next to me, shot at Shevtsova. During the execution, Shevtsova behaved courageously, standing on the edge of the grave with her head held high, her dark shawl slid over her shoulders and the wind ruffled her hair. Before the execution, she did not utter a word about mercy...”

From the testimony of Geist, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“...I took part, together with... other gendarmes, in the execution in Rovenkovsky Park of Komsomol members arrested in Krasnodon for underground work against the Germans. Of the executed members of the Young Guard organization, I remember only Shevtsova. I remember her because I interrogated her. In addition, she attracted attention with her courageous behavior during the execution...”

From the testimony of policeman Kolotovich:
“Arriving at the mother of Young Guard member Vasily Bondarev, Davidenko and Sevastyanov told her that the police were sending her son to work in Germany, and he was asking her to give him things. Bondarev's mother gave Davidenko gloves and socks. The latter took gloves for himself upon leaving, and gave Sevastyanov socks and said: “There is a start!”

Then we went to the house of the Young Guard Nikolaev. Entering Nikolaev's house, Davidenko, turning to Nikolaev's sister, said that the police were sending her brother to work in Germany, and he asked for food and things for the road. Nikolaev’s sister apparently knew that he had been shot, so she refused to give him any things or food. After that, Davidenko and Sevastyanov, a policeman (I don’t know her last name) and I forcibly took away her man’s coat and sheep. Then we went to another Young Guard member (I don’t know his last name) and they also forcibly took four pieces of lard and a man’s shirt from the latter’s mother. Having put the lard in the sleigh, we went to the family of the Young Guard Zhukov. In this way, Davidenko, Sevastyanov and others robbed the families of the Young Guard.”

Vanya Turkenich

From the testimony of Orlov, the head of the Rovenkovsky district police:
“Shevtsova was required to indicate the storage location of the radio transmitter that she used to communicate with the Red Army. Shevtsova categorically refused, saying that she was not Lyadskaya, and called us monsters. The next day, Shevtsova was handed over to the gendarmerie department and shot”...

It's time to talk about another myth related to the history of the Young Guard. In Fadeev’s novel, written hot on the heels of the liberation of the city, the collapse of the underground is explained by betrayal. The names of the informers are mentioned - a certain Stakhovich, Vyrikova, Lyadskaya and Polyanskaya.

Where did the writer get these “traitors”? The fact is that literally immediately after the arrest of three representatives of the headquarters, the Germans started a rumor that Viktor Tretyakevich “split during interrogation. The writer, who was staying with Oleg Koshevoy’s mother while working on the book, allegedly received a note in which an unknown local resident named the names of the informers...

The version does not stand up to criticism. Fadeev wrote the book hastily; he did not even have time to meet the relatives of many Young Guards, for which many Krasnodon residents later reproached him. Meanwhile, the parents of many Young Guards are L. Androsova, G. Harutyunyanants, V. Zhdanova. O. Koshevoy, A. Nikolaev, V. Osmukhin, V. Petrov, V. Tretyakevich - not only knew about the underground activities of their sons and daughters, but also helped them in every possible way in equipping the printing house, storing weapons, radios, collecting medicines, making leaflets , red flags...

The note itself has not survived, which may be why until now researchers have not been able to establish the authorship of the forged document. But for a long time there was a rumor in Krasnodon that Viktor Tretyakevich was brought out under the name of Stakhovich in Fadeev’s novel. Until 1990, the Tretyakevich family was labeled as “relatives of a traitor.” For many years they collected eyewitness accounts and documents about Victor’s innocence...

Olga Lyadskaya is a real person. The girl was only 17 years old when she was captured by the Germans for the first time. The young beauty attracted the attention of Deputy Chief of Police Zakharov, who had a separate office for intimate meetings. A few days later, her mother managed to ransom her daughter from her concubines for moonshine and warm clothes. But the stigma of “police litter” remained with Olya. The frightened girl, whom the policeman promised to hang if she did not return to him, and who was condemned by all her neighbors for her connection with the punisher, was even afraid to leave the house. Is this why Lyuba Shevtsova uttered the words “I’m not Lyadskaya to you!” during one of the interrogations?

After Krasnodon’s release, Olga initially served as a witness in the case of police atrocities, but later told the SMERSH investigator that she was taken to confront the arrested “Young Guardsmen.” They asked: “Do you know such and such?” And she, seeing that her peers were being cruelly tortured, said that she went to school with some of the kids, danced with someone in an ensemble, made gliders with someone in the House of Pioneers... Lyadskaya allegedly said nothing about the underground , because I simply didn’t know about it. But nevertheless, in the investigation materials there is a confession signed by Olya personally in cooperation with the occupiers and the police. Most likely, the girl, with her will broken even by Zakharov, thought that for cohabitation with a policeman, especially a forced one, in the worst case, she would simply be exiled. And living for several years away from shame, even in Siberia, seemed to her not the worst outcome of the matter... But as a result, Olga received ten years in Stalin’s camps...

And after the publication of the novel “The Young Guard,” the investigation into the case of “Lyadskaya’s betrayal” was resumed, and a show trial was being prepared. True, it did not take place: Olga fell ill with tuberculosis and was released, and there was clearly little evidence “from the book” for Soviet justice. She managed to recover, even finish her studies at the institute, get married, give birth to a son... Later, Olga Lyadskaya, through the prosecutor’s office, applied for further investigation – herself. And all charges of betrayal of the “Young Guards” were dropped after a careful study of the materials of her case.

Zina Vyrikova and Serafima Polyanskaya, released from the police as “not involved in a partisan gang,” also went into exile in Bugulma after the liberation of the city. SMERSH arrested them even before the publication of Fadeev’s book. Subsequently, Zinaida Vyrikova also got married, changed her last name and left for another city, but until her death she was afraid that she would be identified as a “traitor” and arrested... Neither Zina nor Sima, by the way, could extradite any of the “Moldovan Guards” - their own knowledge of the composition and activities of the underground was limited to rumors that “the leaflets were planted by boys from our school.”

His parents stood up for Vitya Treryakevich, who died in fascist dungeons and was slandered by German henchmen. They wrote all the way to the Komsomol Central Committee, seeking the truth. Only 16 years after the war, it was possible to arrest one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guard, policeman Vasily Podtynny. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered. In this way they wanted to “set an example for other partisans” - they say, your leader has already spoken, it’s time for you to loosen your tongue! A special state commission created after the trial of the policeman established that Viktor Tretyakevich was the victim of a deliberate slander, and “one of the members of the organization, Gennady Pocheptsov, was identified as the real traitor.”

The surviving underground fighter Levashov confirmed that his father was arrested three times to find out where his son was hiding. Levashov Sr. sat with Tretyakevich in the same cell, where he saw how the latter was brought from interrogations completely crippled, which, in the opinion of Levashov’s father himself, was clear evidence that “...Viktor still did not split.”

By the way, the fate of Gennady Pocheptsov himself, who was released from the police three days after the denunciation, was cruel but fair: after the liberation of the city of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Gena Pocheptsov, as well as police agents Gromov and Kuleshov, were put on trial.

The investigation into the case of the Young Guard traitors lasted 5 months. On August 1, 1943, an indictment was presented to Pocheptsov and Gromov. Having familiarized himself with it, Pocheptsov stated: “I plead guilty in full to the charges brought against me, namely that, as a member of the underground youth organization “Young Guard,” I betrayed its members to the police, named the leaders of this organization and told the police about the presence of weapons.” .

After the indictment was approved by the head of the operational group of the NKGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel Bondarenko, the case against Pocheptsov and his stepfather was considered by the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk) region, the visiting sessions of which were held in Krasnodon from August 15 to 18, 1943. When Gromov, contrary to previous in his testimony, began to assert that he did not advise his stepson to betray the underground members, the latter asked to speak and said, “Gromov is not telling the truth, he advised me to file a police report against members of the youth organization, telling me that by doing this I would save my life and the life of my family, according to We never quarreled with him on this issue." In his last word, Pocheptsov, addressing the court, stated: “I am guilty, I committed a crime against my Motherland, I betrayed my comrades, judge me as the law requires.”

Funeral of the "Young Guards"

Having found Gromov and Pocheptsov guilty of treason, the Military Tribunal sentenced them to capital punishment - execution with confiscation of personal property.

On September 9, 1943, the issue of the verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops was discussed at the Military Council of the Southwestern Front. His resolution, signed by the front commander, Army General R.Ya. Malinovsky, stated: “The verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad region dated August 18 of this year in relation to ... Vasily Grigorievich Gromov and Gennady Prokofievich Pocheptsov is to be approved and carried out on place where the crime was committed - in public."

Having familiarized themselves with the verdict of the Military Tribunal, Gromov and Pocheptsov appealed to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a petition for pardon. Pocheptsov wrote: “I consider the verdict of the tribunal to be correct: I filed a statement with the police as a member of an underground youth organization, saving my life and the life of my family. But the organization was discovered for other reasons. My statement did not play a corresponding role, because it was written later than "The organization was exposed. And therefore I ask the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Union to save my life, since I am still young. I ask for the opportunity to wash away the black stain that has fallen on me. I ask to be sent to the front line."
However, the petitions of the convicts were rejected, and the verdict of the Military Tribunal was carried out on September 19, 1943. A native of Krasnodon, Igor Cherednichenko, who studied the history of the organization, cited in one of his articles the words of his godfather, who witnessed the execution:

“Gromov stood scared, as white as chalk. His eyes ran around, hunched over, he was trembling like a hunted animal. Pocheptsov first fell, a crowd of residents moved towards him, they wanted to tear him to pieces, but the soldiers at the last moment managed to snatch him from the crowd. And Kuleshov stood near the side of the car with his head raised and it seemed that this did not concern him. He died with indifference on his face... Pocheptsova was even going to shoot her own mother, but someone held her, although she was roaring and demanding to give her rifle. By the way, his mother was a very respected person in the city. She trimmed everyone at the lowest prices, did not refuse anyone."

So, almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor’s mother, who never took off her black mourning clothes until the end of her life, stood in front of the presidium of the ceremonial meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son’s posthumous award. The crowded hall stood and applauded her. Anna Iosifovna turned to her comrade who was rewarding her with only one request: not to show the film “The Young Guard” in the city these days, shot by the brilliant director Gerasimov based on the novel by Fadeev...

By the decision of the Presidium of the Lugansk Regional Court, which, implementing the law of Ukraine of April 17, 1991 “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in Ukraine,” on December 9, 1992, reviewed the conclusion of the Lugansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office on criminal cases charging Gromov and Pocheptsov, it was recognized that these citizens were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation.

Thus another myth collapsed. And the feat will remain for centuries...

The pit of Mine No. 5, where the heroes were executed, became part of the memorial park