Leningrad affair
The Leningrad Affair ( Russian Ленинградское дело ) was a series of alleged criminal cases that are said to have occurred in the area of the Leningrad party organization of the CPSU in the late 1940s . Many Leningrad functionaries fell victim to this fabricated affair. They were mainly supporters of the Politburo member and Leningrad party secretary Andrei Zhdanov , who, alongside Stalin, was the most powerful man in the Soviet Union until his death in the summer of 1948 . The most prominent victim was Nikolai Voznesensky , a member of the Politburo of the CPSU and Gosplan chairman.
backgrounds
timeline
Shortly after the death of Andrei Zhdanov in 1948, whose opponents were Lavrenti Beria and Georgi Malenkov , in 1949 the Zhdanov friends Voznesensky, the secretary of the Central Committee for State Security Affairs Alexei Kuznetsov and the first secretary of the Leningrad party Pyotr Popkov and other officials disappeared suddenly without any explanation from public life. Khrushchev reported in his secret speech on the XX. Party convention that they were involved in the "Leningrad affair" invented by Stalin and Beria. Nikita Khrushchev stated :
- “It is well known that Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were excellent and talented officials. In their time they were close to Stalin…. The promotion of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov shocked Beria. As can be seen today, Beria and his subordinates constructed materials in the form of declarations and anonymous letters, in the form of various rumors and conversations, and 'slipped' Stalin under. "
In mid-February 1949, Stalin sent Malenkov to Leningrad. The occasion was the anonymous letter from a member of the electoral commission about irregularities in the December 1948 elections to the regional committee of the Leningrad conference of the CPSU. Malenkov accused the Leningrad leadership of numerous "mistakes" during his appearance in the meeting room of the Leningrad Regional and City Committee. For example, an all-Russian ( All-Union ) fair to improve trade was organized in Leningrad in January 1948 without a special decision by the management bodies. That was an act of resistance against the Central Committee . On the basis of some of Popkov's formulations, Malenkov finally brought his main charge forward: attempting to found a new Russian Communist Party.
A Museum of Defense of Leningrad , opened in 1946 , also caused confusion about the merits of the city's defense. The museum guide, published in 1948, paid tribute to the merits of the most important metropolis of the USSR and also that of Stalin. The exhibition, however , did not do justice to the genius general and generalissimo who had little part in the Leningrad struggle. According to eyewitnesses, Malenkov is said to have said when visiting the museum in early 1949: “A myth has been created about the special fate of Leningrad! The role of the great Stalin has been degraded! ”. The museum was then closed and the museum guide called in.
According to Malenkov's report, the entire party leadership in the area and the city was replaced. Then came the arrests on charges of espionage or anti-party behavior. Voznesensky was expelled from the Politburo in March 1949. The trial took place in September 1950. The indictment accused Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lasutin, Rodionov, Turko, Sakrschewskaja and Michejew of having formed an anti-Soviet group in 1938. Its aim was to wage a fight against the party and its Central Committee. That is why they tried to stir up dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU among the Communists of the Leningrad Organization. In doing so, they had spread slanderous allegations, expressed treasonable intentions and wasted state funds. The case files show that all of the defendants admitted their guilt completely.
Turko said on January 29, 1954 that his confession had been forced through regular beatings and threats against his wife and children until he signed everything the examining magistrate suggested.
After the first trial, other trials took place in which other leading representatives of the Leningrad party leadership (including Badayev, Kharitonov, Voznesenskaya) were convicted. Further arrests, trials and convictions followed until 1952. Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Popkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR Mikhail Rodionov , Popkov's deputy Yakov Kapustin , the chairman of the Leningrad Soviet Pyotr Lasutin and many other high party officials lost their lives. Around 2000 leading Leningrad party functionaries lost their posts and around 200 functionaries suffered repression and were sent to camps ( gulag ).
Leningrad and Moscow irritations
Between the Moscow headquarters of the party and the party structure in Leningrad, there were subliminal irritations or tensions, which probably originated from the time of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War , with Lenin and Trotsky , but less so with Stalin, in the 1930s , played an important role. The Moscow trials against the revolutionaries Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, who were popular in Leningrad and executed by Stalin , were not forgotten either. The events surrounding the death of Leningrad party leader Sergei Kirov in 1934 were also unclear ; Rumors of Stalin's involvement arose.
The long suffering of the Leningrad blockade and the defense of the city in the Second World War from October 1941 to 1943/1944 also led to irritations between the Leningrad leadership and the central power.
The suspicious Stalin repeatedly feared resistance from the Leningrad party level, and Beria fueled this distrust.
Vosnesensky as a victim
The following, presumably fabricated, reasons were given as to why Stalin had the excellent but also elitist Vosnesensky liquidated. Vosnesensky was accused of irregularities in economic statistics by Gosplan on the basis of allegations by Beria and Malenkov, and Beria reported to Stalin that in 1941 - when Stalin was in a profound personal crisis at the outbreak of the war against Germany - Voznesensky became the second man in the Vyacheslav Molotov's party is said to have encouraged to replace Stalin. Molotov had firmly refused this. As expected, Stalin took revenge on Vosnesensky, and Molotov also lost power and influence from 1949 - mainly for other reasons.
Voznesensky also wanted to implement economic reforms with market-economy elements after the war and, as chairman of the planning commission, presented his ideas in 1948. However, Stalin was against such reforms as those implemented under Brezhnev and for maintaining the centrally controlled planned economy.
Nikolai Punin's report
The Leningrad art historian and writer Nikolai Punin (1888–1953), who was also captured in 1949 and deported to the Vorkuta labor camp , reports on his time in the Gulag and the alleged Leningrad affair and alleged anti-Soviet activities.
literature
- Simon Sebag-Montefiore : Stalin - At the court of the red tsar . S. Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-050607-3 .
- Michel Tatu: Power and Powerlessness in the Kremlin. From Khrushchev to collective leadership . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1968.
- Dimitri Volkogonov : Stalin. Triumph and tragedy. A political portrait . Translated from the Russian by Vesna Jovanoska, 3rd edition, Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-430-19847-X .
- Carl-Günther Wilhelm Jastram: The "Leningrad Affair". A contribution to the practice of cleansing in the USSR from 1949 to 1953 . Dissertation, Hamburg 2011.
Footnotes
- ↑ Jastram: The "Leningrad Affair". P. 54.
- ↑ Sidney Monas, Jennifer Greene Krupala (eds.): The Diaries of Nikolay Punin, 1904–1953 . University of Texas Press, Austin 1999. ISBN 0-292-76589-4 .