Kliment Voroshilov and his Golda: the only one of Stalin's falcons who saved his wife from repression

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The fate of Ekaterina Voroshilova (née Golda Gorbman) was very bizarre. She was an Orthodox Jew, then joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and then completely converted to Orthodoxy and became a member of the RSDLP (b). She was ready to follow her husband Kliment Voroshilov into fire and water, and the People's Commissar of Defense had to defend his wife's right to life and freedom with arms in hand.

Long way to yourself

She was born into a Jewish family in 1887 in the small village of Mordarovka near Odessa. While studying sewing at the school. A. Segal in Odessa, Golda met Serafima Gopner, who was completely fascinated by revolutionary ideas. Golda Gorbman enthusiastically joined the underground and soon became a full member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. As a result, the young graduate of the school, who managed to work as a seamstress for a short time, ended up in exile near Arkhangelsk.

There, her romance with Abel Yenukidze flared up, but he did not bring her happiness. Golda was happy when she found out about her pregnancy. But the girl's lover did not share her joy and broke off the relationship immediately after the news of the upcoming fatherhood.

The consequences of getting rid of pregnancy turned out to be cruel: the ardent revolutionary could no longer have children. Perhaps that is why Golda Gorbman was wary of her new acquaintance, Kliment Voroshilov. But he looked after her beautifully, took care of her touchingly and managed to melt the girl's heart.

Her exile ended much earlier than Clement's exile, and Golda went home to Odessa. But after a month and a half she returned to Nyrob, unable to get rid of her longing for Voroshilov. Since then, they have been together all the time, and during the second exile, the girl went after Voroshilov. She could not be with him, and the local gendarme ordered the young woman to leave the village. But parting with her beloved was not included in her plans, and she decided to cheat the gendarme around her finger.

Golda and Clement found a portrait of the tsar in one of the magazines, hung it on the wall, and invited guests from the locals to the house, just in time for the arrival of the gendarme. When the gendarme, as usual, collapsed in his chair and, without hesitation in expressions, began to demand that Golda leave the village at the same moment, Voroshilov was loudly indignant. It is impossible to imagine that a representative of the authorities would swear under the portrait of the Tsar-Father.

Seeing the portrait attached to the wall, the gendarme immediately fell at Voroshilov's feet with a request not to destroy. And he even promised to help with the wedding. At the baptism of Golda, Gorbman received the name Catherine, and when she married Clement, she took his last name.

In sorrow and in joy

From the very first day she did not hide her past from her lover. She told me honestly about why she couldn't have children. Clement Efremovich, even in this, did not see obstacles to their marriage. They had the main thing: love and mutual respect. Ekaterina Davidovna has never disappointed her husband in her entire life. She became his faithful wife, friend and companion.

She was with him at the front during the Civil War, while behaving like the wife of the commander of the Red Army: she took care not only of her husband, but became a mother for many soldiers. It is believed that Ekaterina Davidovna played a very important role in her husband's brilliant career.

Even the White Guard publications emphasized: Voroshilov's wife was able to awaken some spiritual interests in him, and also contributed to his acquaintance with high-ranking people, who later influenced the appointment of Kliment Voroshilov to leading positions.

At the same time, Ekaterina Voroshilova herself did not sit at home, content with the role of wife and mother for their adopted son Petenka, whom the spouses adopted in 1918. She worked in the editorial offices of several publishing houses, headed the social security in Yekaterinoslavl and was a member of the Women's Council of the First Cavalry Army. She was very sociable, easily knew how to find a common language with a variety of people and had a light and cheerful disposition.

She defended her position on political issues with her usual frankness and adherence to principles. But the more successful the career of Kliment Voroshilov developed, the more closed his wife became. She appeared less and less in society, directing all her strength to her family and children.

In 1925, after the operation, Mikhail Frunze died, almost a year later his wife Sofya Alekseevna committed suicide, and in 1931 Mikhail Vasilyevich's mother, who raised the grandchildren of Timur and Tatyana, fell seriously ill. Clement Efremovich and Ekaterina Davidovna, without a shadow of a doubt, took the children to themselves and officially adopted them. He called himself the adopted son of the spouses and Leonid Nesterenko, the son of his colleague Kliment Efremovich who died in the Civil War.

Failed arrest

In 1937, OGPU officers came to the house where the Voroshilovs lived with an order to arrest Ekaterina Davidovna. She was blamed for the "Socialist-Revolutionary" past. However, the real reason could lie in the overly close relationship between Ekaterina Voroshilova and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, especially since Stalin's wife committed suicide after she quarreled with her husband in the Voroshilovs' house.

In any case, it was clear: only Stalin himself could have given the arrest order. But the Chekists who came for Ekaterina Davidovna could hardly have guessed how zealously the People's Commissar of Defense was ready to defend his wife. Kliment Efremovich took his pistol out of its holster and fired several warning shots at the ceiling, making it clear that the next one would be the one who dared to approach his wife.

The OGPU employees left the people's commissar's house, and Stalin, when he was informed about the unsuccessful attempt to arrest Yekaterina Voroshilova, just waved his hand and said: "Well, to hell with them!"

The spouses were really left alone, and they lived together until the death of Ekaterina Davidovna in 1959. Kliment Efremovich outlived his wife for 10 years.

Unlike Kliment Voroshilov, People's Commissar of the USSR Navy, Pyotr Shirshov, could not protect his wife, actress Yevgeny Garkusha. Her name was consigned to oblivion, and only years later the matured Marina Petrovna Shirshova managed to restore the circumstances of her mother's death from the records of her father's diary.