“The execution was inevitable.” A warrior who escaped from captivity five times became a hero of the USSR

SPITSYN ALEXANDER IVANOVICH The division in which Alexander Spitsyn fought liberated over 40 cities, thousands of villages and workers' settlements. Spitsyn crossed more than twenty rivers, and he handed over 18 “tongues” to the battalion headquarters. 12 destroyed machine guns, three pillboxes, ten fortified dugouts on

He fled to the front, but was arrested on suspicion of espionage. A death sentence and a penal battalion, German captivity and escape to his own... For his amazing bravery, Senior Sergeant Alexander Bashkin was nominated several times for the country's main award, but received it only in 1944. This time it was simply impossible to turn a blind eye to the fighter’s merits - regardless of his “reputation”.

Love for the homeland, unbridled courage, and a fair amount of luck made Alexander Bashkin a hero out of an ordinary peasant guy. Five times he escaped from German captivity and went to war again.

They didn’t want to take him, a 19-year-old boy, to the front. The reason was good: he worked in a branch of the State Bank, and the employees of this government agency were subject to reservations. On this basis, Alexander Bashkin could avoid conscription.

There were ten brothers and sisters in the Bashkin family. Mother and father worked tirelessly, and every penny in the family counted. Mother did not want to let Alexander go to war. He later recalled: “I looked at her for the last time. I looked with unprecedented tenderness, I knew that I might not return.” And yet, despite this, Alexander turned to the Komsomol cell with a request to send him to the front as a volunteer.

First battle. Battle of Smolensk

In July 1941, a large-scale military operation unfolded over a vast territory - from Idritsa to Novgorod-Seversky, from Polotsk to Yelnya. Here the troops of the fascist group “Center” and the Soviet Western Front clashed. The fighting was fierce - in Smolensk itself only every tenth house remained undamaged. The Tula Volunteer Communist Regiment, into which Alexander Bashkin was enlisted, was sent into this meat grinder.

Near the city of Yartsevo, the regiment entered into battle with the 3rd Nazi SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. The battle lasted all day, from the morning of July 20 until late in the evening, as a result of which Yartsevo was liberated from the fascist invaders. At night, the regiment crossed the right tributary of the Dnieper River Vop, went to the airfield and set fire to warehouses with fuel and ammunition.

The next day, soldiers defended the Moscow-Minsk road, where they destroyed 18 tanks. Only a few survived these battles. Alexander Bashkin was among them. He was seriously injured and was sent to a hospital in Yasnaya Polyana. After treatment, he went to the Tesnitsky camps of the Tula Artillery School.

First escape

A man who felt the real taste of war, who saw real battle and the death of his comrades, who killed the enemy, how could he calmly walk along the parade ground and master the basics of military affairs, while the Nazis committed atrocities and destroyed his people?! And he found the foreman to be picky and dislike Bashkin. Therefore, Alexander decided to flee.

He had no documents. Having escaped from a military school, he turned out to be a deserter. The conversation with such people in those years was short - execution on the spot, without trial or investigation, since martial law was declared in Tula. The worst thing, according to Alexander’s recollections, was that his mother, brothers and sisters could find out about this shame. Bashkin went to the front.

At the Temkino station, Alexander falls into the hands of counterintelligence.

A guy without documents, with scars, who is eager to go to war is a very suspicious guy. He is arrested as a spy and begins to extort a confession. Alexander holds on steadfastly and they give up on him - there is no point in wasting any more time on “processing” him. But soon confirmation comes from the school that he is indeed the same Alexander Bashkin who survived in the Smolensk region. For desertion, the young man is sent to a penal battalion.

Way of the Warrior

As part of a penal battalion, Alexander fights near Smolensk, but his unit is surrounded and he is captured. The first escape was unsuccessful - he was found, beaten and sent to a prisoner of war camp located in the village of Kholm-Zhirkovsky on the school grounds. This camp served as a kind of transit point, from where prisoners were sent to Germany or to concentration camps. Bashkin runs for the second time. And this time it was successful.

However, once again finding himself without documents, he ends up with the NKVD. Again - interrogations. However, this time too, fortune smiles on Bashkin. In April 1944, Alexander was sent to fight. He did not disgrace his family name and went a long way as a warrior in a short time. His record includes the battles for Stalingrad, Smolensk and Moscow - some of the most brutal battles in the history of the Great Patriotic War. For five years, Alexander Ivanovich was an infantryman, an artilleryman, and even a tank driver on the Western, Ukrainian and three Belarusian fronts.

The former penal officer received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the battle for the Narew bridgehead in Poland. Here he already fought as a gun commander of the 436th anti-tank unit and knocked out three tanks. When the gun failed, he began to fire manually, setting an example for others. The soldiers followed him, and the bridgehead was recaptured from the enemy.

Mother's Betrayal

The worst thing that happened to Alexander Bashkin was not three serious wounds, not being captured by the Nazis and counterintelligence officers, but the fact that his own mother abandoned him. She was told that Alexander had betrayed his homeland, and she believed it. She can be understood - times were hard, and she needed to think about her other children who could have suffered if she had not done this act. Bashkin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He made peace with his mother, but until the end of his life - Bashkin died in 2011 at the age of 88 - this episode of the war was the most difficult for him.

The artilleryman’s name appears on the “golden list” of Heroes of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War in the military memorial on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.

The history of the Great Patriotic War, as well as the times preceding and following it, is captured not only in military and civil archives, triangular envelopes and literary works, museums and memorials. The past leaves its indelible imprint on every individual, and not only in the mind and memory. History is capable of imposing its writings on everyday life, on habits and even on the physical body - just as in Franz Kafka’s story “In the Penal Colony” a punishing machine scratches the text of the commandment he violated on the skin of the guilty person. But is it always the truly guilty who are punished?

Writer Oleg Sveshnikov For 25 years he was friends with the Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Bashkin. This friendship resulted in the novel “Farewell of the Slavic Woman,” which was recently presented in Tula. In it, the author told everything that he managed to hear from his friend over many years of friendship.

The book was published 16 years ago, but today it was unexpectedly presented at the Tula Weapons Museum. Perhaps the organizers felt that the novel had acquired new relevance in modern times. Or maybe (which, alas, seems most plausible) there was a need to hold another patriotic event for young people.

Be that as it may, the book is worthy of the reader's attention. And no longer because of the literary qualities themselves, but because of the history of a person’s life, on which time has left its abundant writings.

“He talked about himself extremely reluctantly, and in general he was very taciturn,” shares Sveshnikov. “Sometimes I just had to extract details from him bit by bit.” And his life was amazing: death came so close to him several times that it seemed that the next meeting should be fatal. And every time he remained alive. Miracle".

Alexander Ivanovich Bashkin was born on December 25, 1922 in the village of Pryakhino, Venevsky district, Tula region. After school I managed to work in a branch of the State Bank of the USSR. But not for long - until the start of the war. Bashkin was 19 years old when he began to ask to go to the front. The guy could well have avoided conscription, since he, as a government employee, was subject to reservation. And his parents - peasants, in whose family they raised 11 children - categorically refused to let him go to war. However, Alexander did not fulfill his parents’ will - he turned to the Komsomol cell and, as Oleg Sveshnikov writes about this, asked to be sent to the front as a volunteer.

Sand pours out of others, but medals pour out of me

Volunteer

So he became part of the Tula Communist Regiment, formed in three days - from June 24 to June 27, 1941. The regimental list includes communists and Komsomol members who voluntarily went to the front. According to the Tula historian and local historian Alexander Lepyokhin, this was the first Tula militia regiment that died almost completely. Volunteers were trained in military affairs for only 20 days. During this time, fighters must learn to wield weapons and combat tactics.

Exactly at 4 o'clock in the morning on July 18, 1941, the regiment was raised by a combat alarm. The secretary of the Tula regional party committee arrived at the camp Vasily Zhavoronkov. He read out the order of the State Defense Committee about the Germans breaking through the front south of Smolensk, as well as about the German landing in the city of Yartsevo, Smolensk region. The Tula communist regiment was ordered to liquidate the landing force.

In July 1941, a large-scale military operation unfolded in the territory from Idritsa to Novgorod-Seversky, from Polotsk to Yelnya. Here the troops of the fascist group “Center” and the Soviet Western Front clashed. The fighting was fierce. According to a local historian, only every tenth house in Smolensk survived.

Alexander Bashkin’s regiment fought near the city of Yartsevo, where from the morning of July 20 until late in the evening it fought with the 3rd Nazi SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. The result of the battle is the liberation of the city. And the very next day, Tula soldiers defended the Moscow-Minsk road, destroying 13 enemy tanks. Only a few survived that battle, among them was Alexander Bashkin. He was taken to a hospital in Yasnaya Polyana with a serious wound to his leg. And after receiving medical treatment, they were sent to the Tesnitsky camps of the Tula Artillery School. But his story did not end there.

Execution and more execution

A young man, who has already sniffed gunpowder, which, presumably, left an indelible mark on his perception of the world, commits an act, the consequences of which will reverberate for a very, very long time. He... runs away from school.

During his lifetime, Bashkin himself said that, having been on the front line, marching along the parade ground and attacking straw effigies with bayonets became simply unbearable for him - he wanted to go into battle. Biographers write that Bashkin had some kind of permanent conflict with the foreman. In general, be that as it may, this act, according to the laws of war, was considered pure desertion, for which there was only one sentence - execution on the spot, without trial.

He was caught pretty soon. Bashkin fell into the hands of counterintelligence fighters at the Tyomkino station in the Smolensk region. A young man without documents, with numerous scars, eager to go to war - a suspicious type in all respects. He is mistaken for a spy and begins an “interrogation with prejudice” - and, in general, it is already clear that he inevitably faces execution. But literally a couple of days before the execution of capital punishment, news comes from the school that the detained suspicious person is yesterday’s cadet, a fugitive, wounded at the front. And then another miracle happens: the shooting gives way to being sent to a penal battalion. That is, the fugitive's wish is fulfilled - he goes to the front. Perhaps Bashkin’s merits in the battles in the Smolensk region were credited.

And it had to happen that again near Smolensk, but already as part of a penal battalion, the regiment, which included a former cadet, was surrounded, and Bashkin found himself in German captivity.

He escapes from German captivity - just like he once did from school. And in the same way he is caught quite quickly. The Nazis and the dogs are beaten half to death with rifle butts and sent to a prisoner of war camp in the Kholm-Zhirkovsky district of the Smolensk region. His fate is sealed - the death penalty. No options.

But he manages to escape a second time! And the second attempt turns out to be successful. In his homeland, as a prisoner of war, and even with a reputation as a “deserter,” of course, SMERSH awaits him, interrogations and the prospect of execution, replaced by sending to the front...

In total, Alexander Bashkin was surrounded and captured by the Germans five times. And, apart from the first unsuccessful escape, all the others ended in success. Each time he managed to escape to his own people, where endless interrogations awaited him, and after that he was sent to the front line again.

His own mother abandoned him as a “traitor to the motherland.”

During all this time, he did not receive any awards or promotions. They tried not to notice his merits, since his reputation was tarnished. Even his own mother abandoned him as a “traitor to the motherland.” However, it is possible that she did this to ward off anger from herself and her other children. It is known that after the war, the “disgraced hero” finally made peace with his parent.

Bashkin received his first award - the medal "For Courage" - only in 1944, a month later - the Order of the Red Star.

Every day is war

But he accomplished his main feat in September 1944. As a gun commander of the 446th anti-tank unit, he knocked out three enemy tanks. And when the gun failed, he began to fire manually from a machine gun. The soldiers followed the example of the commander. This unequal battle took place in the area of ​​the Polish city of Ruzhan. Thanks to containing the enemy's onslaught, the main parts of the Soviet forces were able to cross to the western bank of the Narev River.

For capturing the Narew bridgehead in November 1944, Alexander Bashkin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. His name is on the “golden list” of Heroes of the Great Patriotic War in the military memorial on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow. During the war years, he attended battles on the Western, Voronezh, Ukrainian and Belorussian fronts, and took part in the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. He met victory in the city of Tilzin (after 1946 - the city of Sovetsk, Kaliningrad region - Ed.), from where he was demobilized.

Yes, I went to war from the very birth. Every day it's like we're at war. We fight for something all the time

As Alexander Ivanovich himself said, even before the Victory he was once again summoned for questioning at the division headquarters. They asked if he wanted to return to his native village. To which he replied: “What else - they will think that I ran away again!” But even after the Victory - right up to 1947 - the Hero of the Soviet Union was constantly summoned to the NKVD for interrogation. They asked about German captivity, about the escape from the artillery school...

Photo: From personal archive/ Alexander Bashkin

By the way, after the war, the former penalty soldier was offered to enter the Frunze Military Academy. But he categorically refused: “Living in one rented apartment, then in another - no! I won’t even have my own mug...”

He wanted him to have a family, a big comfortable home. This wish came true: after the war, he got married, raised four children, who gave birth to six grandchildren, and they, in turn, gave birth to five great-grandchildren.

They say that he had a favorite joke: “Others make sand, but I make medals.” And when he was asked to talk about the first days of the war, he usually answered: “Yes, I went to war from the very birth. Every day it's like we're at war. We’re always fighting for something.”