Case number 21620: Why the legendary journalist Mikhail Koltsov was shot

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

He was a well-known journalist, his reports were popular among the inhabitants of the USSR, and Joseph Stalin personally favored him. The glory of Mikhail Koltsov was comparable to that of Papanin and Chkalov. He was favored by the authorities and had many awards. But in December 1938 he was arrested, and two years later he was shot. Why was the popular favorite, who from the very beginning supported the Soviet regime, executed?

In the rhythm of the revolution

He was born into a Jewish family and was named Moses. His father, Efim Moiseevich Fridlyand, was a simple shoemaker, his mother, Rakhil Savelyevna, was engaged in the household and raised the children. Efim Moiseevich dreamed that his sons Moses and the younger Boris would receive a decent education. In Bialystok, where the family moved from Kiev, Moses and Boris studied at a vocational school, where they began to show their talents.

Together they published a handwritten school magazine, while Boris drew illustrations for it, and Moses acted as editor and correspondent. It was then that the foundations of the brothers' future professional activities were laid. Subsequently, Boris became a famous cartoonist and became famous under the name of Boris Efimov, and Moses, who changed his name after the revolution, became a successful journalist, whom everyone knew as Mikhail Efimovich Koltsov.

After college, Moses became a student at the Psychoneurological Institute in Petrograd, but already in 1916 he began to actively publish, collaborating simultaneously with several publications. He wholeheartedly accepted the revolution, at first supported the Provisional Government, in 1918 became a member of the RSDLP (b), but very quickly left the party, explaining this fact by political differences.

Journalism became his real vocation, and Mikhail Koltsov began to cover the political processes taking place in society. He was not afraid of difficult tasks and topics, he tried to honestly talk about events, branded unrest and chaos and supported the authorities, believing in a bright future. Service in the Red Army since 1919 and cooperation with Kiev and Odessa publications allowed Mikhail Koltsov to declare himself.

On the road to glory

The talented journalist was noticed, invited to work in the press department of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and later he became a correspondent for Pravda. His political feuilletons enjoyed particular success and made Mikhail Koltsov the most famous and respected journalist in the Soviet Union.

He was a creative and active person, it was on his initiative that the publication of the Ogonyok magazine was resumed, which was stopped in 1919. In addition, Mikhail Koltsov became one of the founders of the Za rubezhny magazine, initiated the creation of the Za Rulem and Soviet Photo magazines. He was constantly on the move, wrote a lot and was engaged in the implementation of creative projects, one of which was the creation of a unique novel "Big Fires", which was written by a team of 25 authors, one chapter from each.

Mikhail Koltsov told readers about the construction of the metro and the opening of hydroelectric power plants, about the first Soviet air travel and the author of the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" Nikolai Ostrovsky, whom he personally tracked down in Sochi.

He himself never stopped at what he had achieved, all the time he strove for new knowledge, improved in journalism, which allowed him, without a higher education, to be nominated as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.

Mikhail Koltsov also visited abroad, was familiar with many foreign writers, and in 1936 he was sent to Spain, when the king was overthrown there. Later, the Pravda correspondent will become the hero of Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, under the name Karkov.

Glory and betrayal

Mikhail Koltsov's reports from Spain brought the journalist to a new level of popularity. Already in 1937, he was awarded a personal reception, which was attended by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Yezhov. For almost two hours, the high officials listened to the journalist's story about the Spanish events.

And at the end, Stalin, thanking Koltsov for the interesting report, suddenly asked if Mikhail Efimovich had a pistol. Hearing an affirmative answer, the leader asked if Koltsov was going to shoot himself from him. The journalist was very surprised and assured Joseph Vissarionovich that he had never even had such thoughts.

After Mikhail Koltsov again left for Spain and returned to the Soviet Union a year later, in 1938. Koltsov became a member of the Supreme Council, received a military award and seemed to be loved and treated kindly by the authorities. The Spanish Diary was very well received by readers and critics, and Stalin personally asked the journalist to speak to the writers with a report on the recently published Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

On April 12, 1938, Mikhail Koltsov read the report, and the very next day he was arrested. During the year he was tortured, beating out confessions in espionage activities, participation in the counter-revolutionary movement. The basis for the arrest of the well-known journalist was an anonymous denunciation and a confession, knocked out under torture from an arrested acquaintance of Koltsov, that he worked for foreign intelligence. He did not manage to become a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences because of his arrest.

During his trial on January 16, 1940, he declared his innocence and obtained confessions exclusively under torture. However, the words of Mikhail Koltsov were no longer taken into account. He was sentenced to death and carried out on February 2, 1940. He was cremated and buried in a common grave at the Donskoy cemetery.

Mikhail Koltsov was completely rehabilitated in 1954. Posthumously.

The stigma of the "enemy of the people" in Stalin's times cost many of the smartest and most talented people of the era not only professional successes, but also their lives. Even high ranks close to the leader could not avoid repression. Children of "enemies of the people" often had to pay for the uncommitted crimes of their parents, and although many of them subsequently managed to overcome their fate and become famous actors, they preferred not to remember their past.