For which they shot and sent to the camps schoolchildren and students from the literary circle

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

In early February 1952, a trial was underway in Moscow for a week. Schoolchildren were accused of organizing an alternative literary circle. True, over the six months of the existence of the team, its goals have changed. However, in the last months of activity, schoolchildren and first-year students were under the watchful eye of the "outdoor". Of the 16 people, three were sentenced to death, three more - to 10 years in the camps. The other ten were sentenced to 25 years.

Literary circle

They were just schoolchildren. They firmly believed in a bright future, read a lot, rejoiced at the opening of the children's library. One of the high school girls was Susanna Pechuro. She recalled how every good book was actually passed from hand to hand. True, later librarians began to suppress this practice so that the book could get to children from other schools in the region.

After classes, many schoolchildren rushed to the Palace of Pioneers. Some were engaged in dancing, others in vocals, and still others were in a hurry to the literary circle. There they read and discussed books, tried to write something worthwhile themselves.

For lovers of literature, the circle has actually become a second home. Even after leaving school, some teenagers continued to come to classes, brought their poems, discussed the work of famous writers.

There was a specific program, and everything that the children wanted to discuss on top of that had to be stipulated in advance. Controversial works were immediately rejected. However, everyone understood the situation and there were no open conflicts.

A little later, there was a dispute between the head and the participants over an innocent, in general, poem by a school graduate about the future. The teacher did not understand the girl's confusion, explaining that a Soviet person's future can only be bright.

Boris Slutsky did not agree with the teacher, his opinion about the poem was much less categorical than that of the teacher. Not finding understanding, Boris announced his withdrawal from the circle. Other participants followed him. Soon an alternative circle was organized at Boris's home.

An underground organization

At home Boris had a huge, absolutely amazing library. Here, the works of the classics of Russian literature peacefully coexisted with numerous volumes of works by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. At the same time, Vladimir Lenin's editions were in early editions.

Inquisitive young people began to study the works of Vladimir Ilyich, then compared them with the thoughts of Comrade Stalin. And suddenly it turned out that many of the ideas voiced by Vladimir Ulyanov had long been distorted and lost their original meaning.

Over time, long conversations about literature turned into dialogues about life, about the political structure of the country. Boris Slutsky was the first to declare his intention to fight for Lenin's ideals. Many members of the literary circle supported Boris, the first to stand next to his friend Vladilen Furman, later Susanna Pechuro joined them.

The creation of the Union of Struggle for the Cause of the Revolution in August 1950 was completely spontaneous. The participants had no plan, only a desire to make life better by arranging it according to the principles of justice, as Lenin bequeathed.

Young people and adolescents took an example from revolutionaries-conspirators: they invented pseudonyms for themselves, acquired a hectograph, on which they began to print leaflets, which were then distributed among young people. More and more new members appeared in the organization. Yevgeny Gurevich came to the former members of the literary circle.

True, he quickly left the organization, not finding understanding with other participants in the issue of methods of struggle. Yevgeny Gurevich considered it fair to hold small terrorist acts; Slutsky and Furman did not share such views.

Crime and Punishment

During the last months of the organization's existence, all of its members were monitored. However, the "observers" did not even think of hiding. Young people believed: the head of the literary circle wrote the denunciation of the former pupils.

Be that as it may, in January 1951, the arrests of young people and adolescents began. They came to them at night, looked for forbidden literature, confiscated books. The young people were immediately taken to prison, and the investigation into the case lasted a whole year. No one could have imagined that the court's verdict would be so cruel. Yesterday's students and schoolchildren were accused of creating a terrorist organization, the purpose of which was to overthrow and even eliminate the leadership of the USSR. However, even the then Minister of State Security Abakumov recommended that the members of the organization be flogged and punished not too harshly.

But the beginning of the cleaning of personnel changed everything. Abakumov was accused of conniving at the members of the Trotskyist youth organization. Abakumov himself, even under arrest, refused to admit the guilt of the schoolchildren, reasonably believing that things did not go further than conversations among these underground children.

But the court considered this case with the utmost rigor. As a result, Boris Slutsky, Yevgeny Gurevich and Vladilen Furman were sentenced to death as organizers.

Three of the participants had a completely indirect relationship to the "Union", they only had a family relationship with the participants and did not engage in any underground activities. But at the same time Galina Smirnova, Tamara Rabinovich and Nina Uflyand were sentenced to 10 years. The remaining 10 people received 25 years in the camps.

In 1956, the case was revised, the surviving participants were reduced in terms and released under an amnesty. In 1986, the victims were rehabilitated.

In 1936-1937, the skating rink of Stalin's repressions mercilessly destroyed the best representatives of Soviet astronomy. It is hard to imagine that observing the heavenly bodies could somehow influence the state structure or ideology of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in the case, which received the unofficial name "Pulkovskoe", scientists were shot, exiled to camps, deprived of property and rights. So why did science interfere with the leadership of the young Soviet state?