This fall, historian Konstantin Sholmov discovered the name of one of the KGB officers, Lieutenant Putin, in a search report on the famous 1976 case of the inscription “You crucify freedom, but the human soul knows no shackles!” (the protocol is stored in the Museum of Political History of Russia). It turns out that the future president worked on the case of the artist Yuli Rybakov, who, together with Oleg Volkov, inscribed the inscription – 23-year-old Putin participated in the search at Volkov's.
The president's involvement in the "case of inscriptions" has again drawn attention to his first job.
Before that, in 1972-1974, there was a story with an underground collection of poems by Joseph Brodsky, who had recently left his homeland. At first, in the hands of Vladimir Maramzin, folders and volumes were collected from individual sheets left with friends. Then there was an unsuccessful hunt for this meeting by the KGB. One of those who prepared the poems for publication – Mikhail Kheifets – just wrote a preface, but he was still accused of "anti-Soviet agitation", imprisoned for four years and given two years of exile (despite the fact that the collection of poems itself never came out) .
Later, in a conversation with The Insider, Heifetz recalled:
“For one of the interrogations to my investigator V. Karabanov, a young man entered the office, silently gave him some piece of paper, he nodded, and the young man sat in a corner and sat silently, only listened attentively to everything. That's all. I wouldn’t remember him in my life, but I met him before: my wife is a music teacher, she had a beloved adult student, her name was Natasha Zueva, and somehow I saw several times how, half-embracing, she walked along our street Astronauts with some young man. I liked the girl, and, of course, it was interesting who she went with, who was the chosen one (we teachers have a special weakness for our beloved students). And then I saw him in the office – and was upset: “Natasha chose the KGBist!” Many years have passed, and suddenly on the TV screen I see the new prime minister of Russia. I see a familiar face. Where did I see him? I began to remember and remembered.
A man with an inconspicuous face
In 2010, this photograph was published in the book of memoirs by Yuli Rybakov “My Century” : March 12, 1989, a rally of the “Democratic Union” near the Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad, the detention of one of the leaders of the St. ). The policemen are led by a curator: the opera has an inconspicuous but familiar face. "Volodya-Stasi", who, according to the official version, worked all his life in counterintelligence, and in the 1980s was in the GDR.
The photograph was seen by another St. Petersburg dissident, Andrey Reznikov, who immediately remembered this “inconspicuous face.” Andrei had many "adventures" in the second half of the 1970s, when he, together with Arkady Tsurkov and Alexander Skobov, organized a commune – they made samizdat magazines, tried to hold an intercity conference of like-minded people and organize demonstrations.
Andrei Reznikov spoke about such an attempt:
“The demonstration [in front of the Kazan Cathedral] was in December, on the day of the Decembrist uprising, December 14, 1978. And before that, all the alleged participants were "closed" under various pretexts. The day before, I went to the bakery for bread. Suddenly, some aunt began to squeal: “He beats me!” They attacked me, began to beat me, knocked me to the ground. Then I saw a photograph by which I identified him – he was such a small uncle. With some probability, but quite high. And then – he himself admitted in various interviews how they stopped this demonstration by the Decembrists. This story of the December 1978 demonstration is best read in Putin's memoirs. He wrote, as far as I remember, something like this: when the KGB found out about this, on that day a solemn wreath-laying ceremony was organized at the monument by the ambassadors of foreign states. The area was cordoned off, the ambassadors laid flowers, no one was allowed to enter the cordon. These are exactly the methods by which modern "marches" are hindered. <…>
There were two such episodes. That's when with Putin – they took it quite clearly, cleanly and smoothly. And when without Putin, it was the second time, it was a complete disgrace. They attacked me and my wife, they began to beat us. I then fought back with some kind of sticks, people began to jump out of the houses, because it was late, in the evening. People wanted to help, my wife began to shout: “Help, they beat me!” They jumped out to help. Then she said that it was the KGB. And immediately everyone dispersed."
This second provocation "without Putin" was also arranged not just like that, but with meaning and intent. Skobov had already been sent to a “psychiatric hospital”, while Tsurkov was going to be imprisoned in earnest, under Article 70 of the then Criminal Code (“anti-Soviet agitation”). And exactly on the eve of the trial, Andrei was staged another street provocation and was “closed” in a special detention center. At the trial of a comrade who was given 6 years in the camp and 3 years of exile, Reznikov could not be present.
Chronicle of current events, issue 53, Trial of Tsurkov and Skobov
On the night of March 30-31 [1979], when Andrei REZNIKOV and his pregnant wife Irina FYODOROVA were walking down the street, they were attacked by 8 people. Andrei was beaten. His wife was thrown to the ground.
On March 31, the judge of the Kuibyshev District People's Court of Leningrad, KOTOVICH, gave REZNIKOV 10 days of arrest.
The Lesser of Infinite Evils
How did Putin, with such baggage, get from the “past century” to the “present century”? And not only him, but also many of his colleagues?
With Putin, at first glance, it is clear: in general, no one knew about him. "A man without properties" did not light up anywhere. He could end up in the city hall of St. Petersburg, not just by chance, but without hindrance.
Another thing is Koshelev standing next to him in the line of the search protocol. Having graduated in 1974 from the same law school at the Leningrad State University as Putin, Pavel Konstantinovich Koshelev was better known not by his own name and not by his participation in dissident affairs (although this was enough). He was well known as "Pavel Nikolaevich Korshunov" – under this pseudonym he oversaw the writer's "Club-81" and the Leningrad Rock Club from the "Office". He rose in management to the head of the "fifth service" and, according to the accepted version, retired with the rank of either a colonel or a lieutenant colonel. And then – an active political life: in 1990 he was elected a deputy of the Petrograd District Council and became its chairman. In 1991 he was appointed head of the district administration. Since 1999, he has been the first deputy chairman of the culture committee in the city administration. And all this was accompanied by a more or less active discussion of the "political face" of Koshelev-Korshunov – however, without visible consequences for that.
These two operas fell into our field of vision by chance – as a rule, their brethren did not shine too much in reports on investigative actions.
Whether business investigators! For example, Viktor Cherkesov, who died recently. Here are the cases of Christian associations, women's associations, "prevention" (read: pressure), the cases of "simply dissidents": Dolinin, Evdokimov, Meilakh … The last known case (about "treason" against the St. Petersburg "Democratic Union") Viktor Cherkesov as deputy head KGB led the investigative department of the Leningrad Region since December 1988. Around the same time, in March 1989, Valery Terekhov's "vintage" supervised operas with a familiar but unmemorable face.
In early 1992, Cherkesov was appointed head of the Department of the Ministry of Security for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. It was then that I compiled a certificate on him – a selection of the Chronicle and other dissident sources in which Cherkesov had the imprudence to check himself – and sent it to the Human Rights Committee of the Supreme Council of Russia. Like, what's going on?
To quote the accompanying note to the help <original design preserved – The Insider >:
“FIRSTLY … CHERKESOV's predecessor as head of the department was Stepashin, in the past he was the head of the police school, obviously not involved in political affairs; here it is not the appointment that is alarming, but the replacement.
SECONDLY … In addition to investigators, the so-called. "operational workers", the latter predominating numerically (ratio of about 1:10) and carried out the most "dirty" actions, which, however, were not recorded in documents – neither in official (protocols, etc.), nor in human rights, which served as a source when compiling this certificate <…>
If one of them is appointed to replace CHERKESOV, then no experts will be able to challenge this appointment without access to the KGB archives. Thus, without solving the problem of ACCESS TO ARCHIVES AND LUSTRATION, new people involved in political repressions will remain and appear in the leadership of the security agencies and in other key positions. …
Cherkesov in this series is seen as a figure, on the one hand, not random – we are dealing with a process, and not with an individual case, and on the other, within the framework of the process – a figure not a key and not the most terrible.
… The Ministry of Defense of Russia is one of the pillars of the current government. Neither the "cleansing" of personnel, nor the transfer of archives has been carried out; ITSELF neither one nor the other will happen. Such appeals at one time “replaced” open criticism of the regime as a whole and faded away after such criticism became possible. Naturally, as a result, the regime changed “as a whole”, while maintaining the punitive organs intact as the basis. (Earlier, the same thing happened during TWO changes of power in Georgia – during the accession and overthrow of Zviad Gamsakhurdia; apparently, until the onset of chaos, this process – the organs, like the "ring of omnipotence", change the owner, and he succumbs to the temptation to use them in his goals, in fact becoming their slave, is natural; we have not grown up to Czechoslovakia [where state security was liquidated and built "from scratch"].) A similar provision was enshrined in the adoption of the Law on Investigative Activities, and most recently – the Law on Security … in connection with the CHERKESOV case, it is worthwhile to clearly understand that we are once again at the BEGINNING OF THE WAY.
The second problem facing us is the problem of COMPETENCE. KGB investigators, as a rule, had a higher legal education and were at least formally supervised by the prosecutor, and they, unlike "operational workers", whose education was usually limited to the KGB school, are almost the only people in the current MB who are familiar with the law and had practice within the law. It is far from obvious that the replacement of CHERKESOV with another employee of the IB will lead to this post a more competent and law-abiding employee. In the case of the appointment of a "democrat"-non-professional, the loss of control over the apparatus is quite likely (the cases of Murashov and Savostyanov).
Denoting the questions that arose in connection with the appointment of CHERKESOV, I would like to indicate its context:
– people not from the system should be appointed to key positions in the apparatus of the MB – that is, professionals not involved in the crimes of the totalitarian regime (if by professionals we mean lawyers, not security officers);
– employees of bodies involved in political repressions should not hold positions in the civil service outside the IB system either;
– in particular, in order for this process to proceed within the framework of the law, it is necessary to adopt appropriate laws and solve the problem of the KGB archives;
“This case is purely hopeless.”
Of course, neither this and other references, nor conversations had any effect: we could not convince our own friends and colleagues.
The logic of those who made the decision to abandon the “cleansing” of the security apparatus is understandable. There are former "bodies" that, although former, are now the backbone of the new democratic government. And in the Duma sit and roam the streets by no means former communists who, with their comrades, have thought of crushing this new democratic government. And you have to choose one of the two. Who are we fighting? With former KGB men? Or with the "red-brown killers"? Either we will now get involved in lustration, in long, meaningless, fruitless lawsuits (and the very recent experience of considering the “CPSU Case” in the Constitutional Court indicated this), and in the end we will be demolished. Or we'll put it off until later. For a long time.
As a result, in December 1992, all the “former” who claimed to become “future” were re-certified and re-approved – without exceptions. They chose from two evils, and this could be called a “political decision”, or it could also be called a “principled position”. There were, of course, many other arguments, but this one was the main one, even if it was silent about it – the specter of communist revenge and civil war. This is exactly how the dissident Mikhail Molostov, according to his daughter Ekaterina, discussed this dilemma in the Human Rights Committee with the same yesterday's political prisoners and dissidents, "memorialists". Then, of course, he returned to this time many times, reevaluating these decisions.
The beginning of a beautiful friendship
In the "covering note" that I quoted, one important detail was not touched upon: agents. One of the best-kept secrets under the old and new regimes, their 'holy of holies'. Perhaps that is why numerous myths are born and exist. For example, about the fact that there was a “sea” of them, that almost every first one was an agent, in order to follow every second. In fact, the "authorities" did not at all seek to inflate the agent-information apparatus, rightly fearing the loss of its controllability.
The cadre Chekists, although they cared a lot (to be more precise: they should have taken care) of the agents, of maintaining conspiracy, of morale (an agent “on nerves” cannot work well, he will fail himself and fail the operation), but they did not have much respect for those who switched "in frames" "from agents" – another "suit". Traitors are generally not liked – well, or they are wary of them, even in these circles. Therefore, by the way, the attitude of the "old guard" of the FSB towards the director of the Service, Putin, was, let's say, somewhat ambiguous.
The refusal in Russia of lustration in any form meant, among other things, the refusal to disclose agents – of course, under plausible pretexts, including the "protection of rights" and the refusal to "hunt for witches."
Firstly, people who worked a lot and meaningfully in the relevant archives said that the KGB reporting on agents was as false as any Soviet reporting. That “operational cases” are the most closed part of the KGB office work, but this does not fill it with meaning and truth. That in reporting on agents, of course, there were postscripts, “bullshit”: no one canceled the norms for “curators” either, as well as human laziness.
Secondly, there are obvious plots, but in general, “everything is complicated.” Here someone stumbled, signed a piece of paper, but did not hand over anyone, or then refused to cooperate and generally behaved like a hero, but now, after the publication of the card index, this piece of paper and public opinion will determine his life.
Thirdly, the ability to read archival and, in general, any documents is a craft no less difficult than reading x-rays. And therefore, formally, without studying each individual case, following the Chekist card index is, in fact, almost involving in their delirium, in their plan and worldview.
I could “fourthly” and “fifthly” continue and develop the reasoning in the “Treatise on Denunciation” or “Treatise on White Coats”, but there is another side to the matter.
Without disputing these arguments, I will note one inevitable and very curious consequence: the former agents turned out to be dependent. The agent forever remained "on the hook" of his "curator" – especially if in his new life he was a prominent politician, "democrat", etc.
Nothing hung on the "teflon" Zhirinovsky, nothing stuck to him – he lost the court, where he challenged the accusations of belonging to the KGB agents, and nothing. And let's imagine that yesterday's agent is not a caricatured "liberal democrat", but a venerable democrat and liberal respected by all. For such a person, exposure is the end of a career.
And on the other hand, yesterday's "curators" – they are now nobody, they are now useful servants.
You can call this kind of relationship "toxic." And you can quote the movie "Casablanca": "It seems to me that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"