The year has just begun, but it is already clear that we will continue to see VIP arrests, parliamentary confrontations, historical disputes, and so on. The authorities have already warned that Ukrainians will have to tie their belts tighter and undergo a number of unpopular reforms. Oppositionists call for resistance to the regime, uniting in a united front. About what is happening in the country, what is the future fate of Yuriy Lutsenko, who risks ending up behind bars and much more in an interview For Um "y said the people's deputy from the OU-NS, opposition deputy prime minister Oles Doniy.

- Oles, nine months have already passed since April 27, 2010, when the parliamentary majority suppressed by force the opposition protest against the ratification of the agreement on the deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. You were seriously injured that day. In June, after being discharged from the hospital, you said in an interview with ForUm that the prosecutor’s office did not want to recognize you as a victim. Tell me, has something changed in the case? Have you been recognized as a victim?

Nothing changed. They didn't recognize it. The prosecutor's office doesn't even bother me anymore, doesn't call me. She doesn't want to do anything.

- Has the matter been put on hold?

Yes. For them, it is more important now to imprison Yuriy Lutsenko.

The history of the parliamentary massacre will go down not only the day of ratification, but also December 16, 2010. Did you expect such a second “liberation” of parliament?

Absolutely. If you can beat deputies with impunity once, then it is clear that the temptation to repeat this will only grow over time. It is obvious that now this will be the way to deal with undesirables not only in the Verkhovna Rada, but everywhere.

This example is contagious. Remember how the wife of the newly elected rector of Donetsk University, who was disliked by the current leadership of the Ministry of Education, was beaten near the house. Again, there were so many praises from journalists for the “Tax Maidan” and talk about public resistance. And as soon as the interest has subsided somewhat, those who set up tents on Maidan Nezalezhnosti are already sitting down.

One more example. On January 10, my friends from Boryspil called me - Yuri Noga and Marina Bratsilo. This an ordinary family Ukrainian humanitarian intelligentsia. And do you know what happened to them? In response to the explosion in Zaporozhye, the Main Investigation Department of the SBU for Combating Terrorism conducted a search of their premises and seized their phones, notebooks, and flash drives. Moreover, these people are not members of any political parties or public organizations. This is an example of intimidation of the cultural intelligentsia.

Anyone who is now in opposition to the government is a potential victim of attack. The system is working against them. Beatings, searches, arrests, detentions, dismissal from work, etc. can be used against them. After all, the scheme has already been tested. Look at Belarus and Russia.

You remembered the explosion in Zaporozhye. It is known that the incident with the monument to Stalin on the territory of the Zaporozhye regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine was reclassified as a terrorist act, and the case was transferred from the police to the SBU.

This case is very similar to the Reichstag fire (occurred on February 27, 1933, played a big role in strengthening the power of the Nazis in Germany - author). Now there is an opportunity to come with a search or arrest to any of the public activists, to each of the representatives of the Ukrainian-speaking intelligentsia.

- You assume that They blew it up themselves, and now they’re just pretending to look for the culprits?

There is no evidence. But it's very similar. Remember how in Russia at one time houses were suddenly blown up by unknown people, and in a similar way, with the help of explosives. Then the residents of one house detained officers of the Russian special service FSB, who began to say that this was supposedly an exercise. But all this was a strong enough impetus for the election of Vladimir Putin as President of the Russian Federation.

The past year ended with the initiation of cases and arrests of former government officials who are today in the opposition. Tell me, will the process continue this year? Who else may end up under investigation or behind bars?

Undoubtedly, such actions will continue. You understand that if the apparatus launches a repressive mechanism, then it can only be stopped by extremely powerful resistance. Otherwise, the regime will only get stronger.

Look into history and you will see how, for example, the repressive apparatus operated in the 20-30s of the twentieth century. Everything progressed: first all opponents were destroyed, then theoretical opponents, and after that directly those who were engaged in repression. It may be the same here, with us.

- You say that the repressive machine can only be stopped by powerful resistance. What do you have in mind?

It is obvious. Unless there is strong pressure from international authorities or the public, repression will intensify.

On New Year's Eve, former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko was arrested. You immediately began to effectively help, actively protecting him. Tell me why? As far as I know, you were never close friends?

Why does this surprise you? This is fine. This is what everyone should do normal person, friend, comrade. We are political comrades. It's absolutely normal to help each other. It's not normal that others don't do this. So they need to be asked, why is this? Why didn’t they lend a shoulder in difficult times?

At one time, there were a lot of people close to Yuriy Lutsenko. Now only Oles Doniy, Yuriy Grymchak, Taras Stetskiv and Yuriy Stets are actively supporting him. Where are the others?

This is a question for them, and not for those who stayed nearby.

- Well, but still?

Probably the reason is that there are a lot of temptations. For some it’s finances, for others it’s career.

- Oles, in your opinion, what is the future fate of Lutsenko?

It is quite clear that this is a political matter. There are all signs of coordination of the actions of at least three law enforcement agencies - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine and the judicial system. This means that the decision is made by the body that can coordinate their actions and manage them.

Accordingly, the court does not take into account any legal argumentation, and no system of defense in court can lead to success. If this is a political matter, then the defense must be political.

- That is?

If the authorities act this way, then we need to defend ourselves politically: show the illegal actions of the authorities to the international community, attract international structures. The US State Department has already responded to the political repressions that are taking place in Ukraine. In addition, I think it is necessary to involve the public in street struggle and civil resistance. Otherwise, it is clear what will happen in Ukraine.

Please note: the authorities are not interested in murder cases or billion-dollar thefts, but the pension supplement for driver Lutsenko allegedly has signs of collusion. All this is being done only to scare Lutsenko with imprisonment for up to ten years. This is not just selectivity and inadequacy, but a clear focus of justice in the fight against political opponents.

There is an opinion that neither Yuriy Lutsenko, nor Yulia Tymoshenko, nor anyone else from former authorities the wealthy will not be imprisoned, since this will be a precedent that in the future will allow representatives of the current government to be sent to jail. Therefore, those who are under investigation today will be frightened, publicly flogged, and then they themselves will ruin their cases and release them.

No. This is wrong. This information is disseminated by government officials themselves.

- Why do they need this?

To weaken the opposition, to prevent the creation of a united general front. In fact, the repressive apparatus is gradually gaining momentum, acting more and more powerfully. And there is no need to entertain illusions.

We must understand that if we don’t protect all representatives of the opposition now, then believe me, they will imprison them, and in the future they will imprison everyone. And as soon as public attention begins to subside, repression will increase.

By the way, in Belarus, where everything has been reduced to the point of absurdity and a regime similar to the one now gaining strength in Ukraine operates, oppositionists are not only imprisoned. Dissenters there “disappear,” and journalists “take their own lives.”

Every day it becomes more expensive to live in Ukraine, and salaries, pensions, and scholarships are frozen. Maybe everything is this way because the poor are easier to lead, easier to intimidate?

This has been the policy of the authorities in Ukraine for twenty years now. In the former socialist countries of Central Europe there is no such economic stratification as in Ukraine. About countries Western Europe there is no need to talk at all. In Ukraine, first there was the policy of the communist nomenklatura, then - the post-communist one.

The authorities see that for the poor population, only everyday problems come first: food, housing, clothing. Therefore, people have no time to think about social problems and needs.

Moreover, the Party of Regions is a party of big capital. Even in economic policy they direct their interests to support big business. The country's budget is not used to reduce the gap between rich and poor and raise wages and pensions, but vice versa. Money is thrown away on global projects, in particular for Euro 2012, and there you can abuse it more and “saw” it for yourself.

- Today, Ukrainian society has taken an observant position and looks at everything that happens from a distance.

Here is a question for society... And society should know that there is little choice: either everyone will understand that this cannot continue like this, or this regime will rise like Stalin’s or North Korea’s in their time. If there is an understanding that you want to go to Europe and democracy, and not to the last century, you need to resist.

Perhaps many Ukrainians have a genetic fear of power? Many of us left the USSR, many of our relatives died in the Holodomor or were repressed...

I believe that you can justify laziness and your own fear with anything. You need to be able to suppress both.

For example, the other day there was an action to protect a historic house in Kyiv. People came out because they were rooting for the face of the city. And it cannot be said that they have no fear, that they are deprived of memories of the pain of the past. But they have higher values, more important priorities, so they are ready to overcome their own fear.

And this is how every citizen of our country needs to act in all matters relating to Ukraine.

- Tell me, can you now predict when a change for the better will happen in Ukraine?

It must be repeated here once again. Everything depends on the society itself. In other words, only when people really want changes for the better, only then will they get them. And as long as there is no awareness that everything depends not on the authorities, not on the next messiah, but on each of us, changes for the better should not be expected.

Yulia Artamoshchenko,

The events of May 2 in Odessa, where 48 people were killed, burned and torn to pieces, are one of the most serious European tragedies of the past year. In the city itself, nothing like this has happened since the Great Patriotic War, when it was occupied by the Nazis. 7 months have passed. But to the most important questions - how this could happen and why some civilians so cruelly took the lives of others - no one has yet given an answer to either the city or the world. It must be said that the world, often so sensitive and in much less tragic situations, does not ask unnecessary questions. 48 lives were written off as costs of the formation of the young state. The war in Ukraine, where hundreds and hundreds have already died, somehow compressed the scale of the Odessa tragedy.

In addition to professional ones, I also had personal reasons to try to understand what happened on May 2. I lived in Odessa for 12 years, and those were happy years in a joyful city. Because of this experience, it was perhaps easier for me than for my colleagues: I knew someone, someone remembered me.

While working on the tragedy, I was here several times on business trips and published something in Ogonyok while hot on the trail. But the whole picture has only now begun to emerge.

Background

There is no need to be complacent: the national question in Odessa has always smoldered. And although the overwhelming majority wrote the name of the city with two Cs - in Russian, one C, as in Ukrainian, also had the right to life. In the difficult 80s and 90s, Odessa residents who left the city en masse to travel around the world were replaced by people from Ukrainian districts and regions. There was more one S, the ear increasingly caught the Ukrainian language on the street, which had previously been rare in Odessa communication. During the time of President Yushchenko, Odessa was already Ukrainized through a complete change of local authorities to Western Ukrainian “any friends”.

All this smoldered and burst into flames last years and the months when some accepted the signals of Euromaidan with their hearts, others began to realize that for this same Euromaidan, Russian means second-rate, and for them Novorossiya is not an empty phrase.

Back in January, the head of the regional administration called on people to protect themselves and the building from visiting pogromists and militants. The capture of the city loomed on the horizon. Later, experts would write that it was on this day that the state monopoly on the use of force ended in Odessa. Citizens received the next signal that they needed to defend themselves in mid-February, when near the same building several hundred unknown people beat both Euromaidan activists and their opponents from the Russian “Youth Unity” with sticks and batons. Soon, both sides created special squads, which included armed and trained people who could easily be called militants.

During the days of the March Troubles, when Russian flags were raised over administrative buildings in Donetsk, Kharkov, Zaporozhye, a “people's assembly” with the participation of several thousand people was held on the Kulikovo Field. The speeches included both “Novorossiya” and “Odessa autonomy”. The next day, a rally of supporters of Ukrainian unity brought together about 7 thousand people who marched to the Russian consulate.

A month later, protesters from Kulikovo Field removed the Ukrainian flag from the flagpole in front of the regional administration building and raised the Russian tricolor. They say that a man who tried to take the Ukrainian flag from pro-Russian activists was severely beaten. Moreover, the leader of Youth Unity, Anton Davidchenko, entered the hall where the session of the regional council was taking place and demanded that the protesters be allowed in. And deputy Alexey Albu suggested that the council initiate a referendum on the special status of the Odessa region. But Ukrainian activists were already approaching the building. When more than 2 thousand of them gathered, they had to leave the building and return the flag to its place.

Nemirovsky

As a result of these events, a new head of administration appeared in the region - Vladimir Nemirovsky. They talked about him as a protege of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. One way or another, Nemirovsky was in the general package of patriotic businessmen who were entrusted with becoming statesmen regional scale. Before becoming the head of the region, this man owned the Odessa rope plant and became famous for his long resistance to the raiders of the Yanukovych family.

They replaced the chiefs in the police, the SBU, and the prosecutor's office. Anton Davidchenko was detained, and his brother Artem replaced him as the leader of the pro-Russian youth.

The new regional chief left a serious mark on the future events of May 2. And if you ask me who is to blame for what happened in the first place, I would say Nemirovsky. It was he who, back in April, at a meeting of pro-Ukrainian activists, promised to deal with the tent city. It can be assumed that he was given the task of holding a parade on the Kulikovo Field on May 9 by Kiev.

At first they acted peacefully, commercially. We managed to come to an agreement with the “Youth Unity” of the same Artem Davidchenko. How? The numbers are given differently: some – 50, others – 35 thousand dollars. On the eve of the events, on May 1, their tent city moved ten kilometers from Kulikovo Field to the area of ​​the 411th battery memorial. They talked openly about the money; they were supposedly needed to protect Anton’s arrested older brother. The then candidate and future mayor of Odessa, Gennady Trukhanov, took part in the operation. One way or another, the youngest and most combat-ready part of the anti-Maidanovites moved out of the city center.

Money, as they say, was also offered to other “tenants” of the Kulikov Field - the “Odessa squad,” but they refused. What, according to the general belief, was Nemirovsky's plan? Use the football match of Chernomorets with Kharkov Metalist to gather after it fans who have long turned into national ultras in Ukraine, and lead them to demolish tents. Blood, in all likelihood, was not intended, but on the contrary, it was planned that the police would separate the inhabitants of the tent city from the raging tifosi.

But, apparently, the plan was still tougher. In a memo from one of the police officials, I found this: “The events that took place on May 2, 2014, became possible with the help of Governor V.L. Nemirovsky, since he brought, financed, fed and housed about 500 people from the Maidan of the city. Kiev. They were stationed at checkpoints and took an active part in the dispersal of the Kulikovo field. The governor repeatedly demanded... to clear the tent city with police forces. To which he received a refusal and, having agreed with the acting president Turchynov, attracted forces controlled by Parubiy" (Andrey Parubiy is a member of the Svoboda party, the commandant of Euromaidan, at the time of the Odessa events - the secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine.— "ABOUT").

It must be said that checkpoints were a thorn in Odessa life even before the May events. Not only was it unknown who and where was trying to control the police, but they were also newcomers who openly found fault with Odessa residents. If these guys helped anything, it was the growth of tension in and around the city.

The documents of the special investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada also testify against Nemirovsky. The conclusion requires an investigation into the activities of Nemirovsky’s subordinate - the head of the department for interaction with law enforcement agencies, defense work and detection of corruption, Igor Bolyansky, who specifically gave the command to one of the leaders of “self-defense” Dmitry Gumenyuk to deploy his people and lead them from Greek Square to disperse the Kulikovo Field.

Nemirovsky’s plan was not destined to come true, primarily because, having driven a whole train with Kharkov fans to Odessa (at the request of Odessa Railway reported that 347 reserved seat and 104 compartment seats were sold), the organizers did not take into account: these guys will not relax peacefully with chess and lemonade from 9 am, when the additional train N 503 arrived at the Odessa station, until 6 pm, the time the football starts.

The fans had already begun to warm up when the meeting with the Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine had just begun at the regional prosecutor's office. From 12 to 15 o'clock, the heads of all law enforcement agencies in the region sat on it with their phones turned off.

It must be said that, gathering in the city center to repel the visitors, the anti-Maidanites clearly did not calculate their strength. However, those investigating the case are confident that fighting It was the anti-Maidanovites who started it, although there were significantly fewer of them. The investigative materials say that the conflict was provoked by pro-Russian characters. Some of them began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails into the crowd of football ultras. A little later, police from the “Falcon” special squad took away six pistols, a pump-action shotgun and several knives from the initiators of the fight.

On the other side, paving stones and bottles with Molotov cocktails also flew, shots rang out...

For some time in Ukraine, perhaps the main argument that at that moment the Odessa police were at one with the pro-Russian crowd was that the policemen and anti-Maidanovites had armbands of the same color. But everything turned out to be very simple: the latter actually shared the tape with the police, which they used to identify their own. The fact is that the shields on the policemen’s hands keep slipping down and they decided to fix them in this way.

During the battle, the first casualties appeared in the city center - six people (four died on the spot, two later died in the hospital). Both sides fired from rifled and smooth-bore weapons. There were significantly fewer anti-Maidan protesters, and, retreating, they barricaded themselves in the Afina shopping center. Later, the same Molotov cocktails, helmets, pieces of pipes and fittings were found here...

An angry crowd almost surrounded the shopping center, and then the police decided to storm it. But before that, the head of the department for combating organized crime, Oleg Kuzmenko, asked him to let one person through. As those in the Athena later told me, he guaranteed their evacuation. “We’ll take you to the industrial zone and let you go.” The besieged decided to surrender. Paddy wagons were driven to the back entrance. Instead of the industrial zone, they were taken to pre-trial detention centers in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, Ovidiopol and Vinnitsa. It took them 18 hours to get to the nearest Ovidiopol, where it was an hour and a half drive. As one of the participants on that flight told me, at the regional department where they were taken, those accompanying them said about them that these were the same Transnistrian terrorists who set fire to the House of Trade Unions... For those arrested, this almost ended tragically.

And today there are 118 people under house arrest and in pre-trial detention centers. There is not a single Maidan supporter among them...

Kulikovo field

At the time of the assault on the Kulikovo field there were the most different people: Anti-Maidan activists, and their parents (many mothers and fathers, having seen the television broadcast, anxiously searched for their sons around the city), and children, and sympathizers, and random passers-by. Kulikovo Field is the center of Odessa, literally across the road there is a railway station.

The “Ukrainian Unity March” was scheduled for Maidan supporters at 3 p.m. By this time, groups from Vinnitsa, Nikolaev, Rovno, and Kherson arrived in Odessa. But, of course, there was no longer any march, except for how the angry crowd swept from Greek Square, where the Athena shopping center was located, along Pushkinskaya Street to Kulikovo Field.

It is not obvious that those who tried to first protect their tent city and then hide in the House of Trade Unions had at least a leader. Some people name regional council deputy Vyacheslav Markin, but I’m afraid this is more likely because they finished him off with particular cruelty.

There were about 400 people in the House of Trade Unions. Many fled to their offices, where they found themselves one or two at a time against the brutal crowd. Only those who climbed to the roof are guaranteed to survive. Firefighters removed them from her at night.

At 22:30, when a team of forensic experts arrived on the Kulikovo field, 8 bodies (7 men and 1 woman) lay in front of the House of Trade Unions. The rest were in the building. Later, experts provided information that 24 people died as a result of the fire, the rest from gunshot wounds and falls from a height. Everyone saw how people were finished off, but no one supposedly died from this. Perhaps the examination data was influenced by the fact that, as stated in the statement of its head, “research is difficult due to the lack of necessary equipment on the bureau’s balance sheet.” But other information also came from the families of the victims: the bodies were not released until the relatives signed a document stating that their relatives died from burns or carbon monoxide, and not from bullets and stab wounds. In particular, this happened with the body of Gennady Kushnarev, who had a gunshot wound.

I have already written that the work of criminologists in this case was nullified by the fact that on the second day they opened free access to the building, destroyed traces of blood with a special solution and removed furniture from the offices where the murdered were located.

Everything that happened at the House of Trade Unions at the end of the day on May 2 is impossible to describe. People have massively crossed the line of humanity. In the video, you can hear how Centurion Mikola, who became the “hero” of these events, before shooting at the House with a pistol, reports to someone on the phone: “There are more of us, but they don’t let us do anything.”

Lied. There was no resistance to the killers. The mother of one of the victims said that not only did everything happen in front of the police, but also when they approached the senior lieutenant colonel with a demand to intervene, the answer was received: there was no authority or instructions from above.

Probably, there could have been fewer casualties if the firefighters had managed to get to the House of Trade Unions, who had about three minutes to get to the scene of the events. But in the afternoon, the Maidan fighters took away from the firefighters the car with which they were going to storm the Athena, and the reinsured authorities generally forbade going to fires that day without the permission of the head of the department or his first deputy.

The deputy commission received a recording of calls to 01. On the 5th, 10th, 20th call, the duty officer answered like an automatic machine: “We know that tents are burning there.” She has already called her superiors back several times, to which they reassure her: “Well, you know what to answer...”

The first and for a long time the only fire engine arrived at the House of Trade Unions at the beginning of 9 pm. But they were not allowed to work either. The certificate states: “Aggressive self-defense protesters threatened and interfered with the execution of the task.” They simply perceived the firefighters as supporters of the people burning in the building.

After May 2, power in Kyiv was briefly at a loss. And then acting The head of the presidential administration, Sergei Pashinsky, made all the necessary statements: everything that happened is the result of the activities of Russian saboteurs... part of the plan of Russia and its special services.

It turned out that the main characters - Euromaidanists or the head of the region Nemirovsky - were saboteurs?

It is paradoxical that the main culprit for the incompetent activities of the local and Ukrainian authorities on May 2 was named as the only person who tried to do something and did not leave the street himself until he was wounded. I suspect that his main fault is not how the head of the Odessa public security police acted during critical hours, but that in response to unfair accusations he gave up on everything and left for Russia.

I think that Dmitry Fuchedzhi is still missing from the Odessa police. He knew everyone, he could negotiate with any side of the conflict, because he kept his word. On May 2, he found a certain Sergei Dolzhenkov, the leader of the anti-Maidanovites, to persuade him not to lead people to the center to Greek Square, where by that time about 3 thousand of their opponents had already gathered. But Dolzhenkov did not listen to him...

On May 3, the Kyiv authorities dismissed the head of the regional police department, Pyotr Lutsyuk, who was obviously at a loss. At the key moment of the events of May 2, they simply could not reach him by phone. And about. Fuchedji was appointed. The deputy minister who arrived in Odessa also promised him the rank of general. But the next day events in Odessa continued. In the temporary detention center at the city police department there were 63 people arrested for the riots the day before. Mostly they were anti-Maidanovites.

Fuchedzhi said: “On May 4, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, about 2.5 thousand people gathered near the city administration demanding the release of the detainees. None of the arriving heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted to make a decision. The storming of the building began... I arrived when the people were in the courtyard of the Internal Affairs Directorate , smashed the transport and broke the door to the duty station and the isolation ward. I began to communicate with the leaders whom I identified visually... The most important thing was to exclude the seizure of weapons. I began to call the arriving deputy ministers S.I. Chebotar and I.I. Borshulyak, but no one answered. Then I decided to release the detainees in order to exclude the possibility of taking possession of weapons. In addition, I knew that 4-5 Right Sector minibuses were driving around near the headquarters. They were just waiting for the shooting to start. Returning to the headquarters, I "In the presence of witnesses, Deputy Minister S.I. Chebotar reported what had happened. He replied that he “did the right thing”... In the evening, the Right Sector held an action near the Internal Affairs Directorate building with threats against me and my family."

Since the colonel released the anti-Maidanovites, later under hot hand and instead of the rank of general, he was given the label of their agent and supporter, and at the same time a criminal case was opened.

No one was going to defend Dmitry Fuchedzhi, then he defended himself - he left for Russia.

Odessa is a very life-loving city, but even there the mood has changed. No one understood why the killers of the Kulikovo Field were made heroes, why politics is more important than life. And the city became more wary, more embittered. His passion, and now his thirst for revenge, did not disappear, but went somewhere under the skin. One of the recent prisoners, saying goodbye, told me: “Odessa is still crying, while she is wiping away her tears. Bye.” But the main reason why Odessa became quiet, I think, is not fear and grief, but a reluctance to repeat the path of Lugansk and Donetsk. This is now a common motive for people of all political views: to avoid devastation, not to invite war.

On May 4, the Galitsky District Court of Lvov recognized a native of Lvov, a 3rd year student at the Lvov National University. Franco was guilty of committing a crime under Part 1 of Article 436-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, but with a suspended sentence of 1 year and without confiscation of property. From the very beginning, this case was classified by the court as a criminal case, with the clarifying wording that the poor student committed a crime against peace, the security of humanity and international law and order.

What kind of terrible article is this, 436-1?

And here’s what this article is: “Production, distribution of communist, Nazi symbols and propaganda of communist and national socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes.” According to the indictment, this Lviv student posted on his Facebook page for a year “...publications that contain propaganda of elements of communist ideology”, which consists in

“the dissemination of biased information aimed at idealizing and popularizing communist ideology and in the public use of products with symbols of the communist regime, which include:

— publications dedicated to V. Lenin, i.e. a person who held a leadership position in the highest authorities of the USSR;

— his (i.e. V. Lenin’s) philosophical and political quote;

- well-known communist slogans: “Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live”, “The plan is the law, fulfillment is a duty, overfulfillment is an honor”, ​​etc.”

The fascist dictatorship, when adopting a new criminal code with Article 436 in 2014, deliberately lumped together extreme opposites. She trembles with fear of the ideas of communism, and the whole point of this article comes down to the fight against it, and not against fascism, which was stuck there to deceive the broad masses of Ukrainians. Having identified a society of freedom and prosperity with a Nazi prison, the bourgeoisie is trying to convince the masses that socialism is a terrible dead end, and that fighting for it (against the existing order) is stupid and pointless. However, it is obvious that not everyone can be convinced of this, and in their struggle against the revolution the bourgeoisie becomes not only fierce and merciless, but also pitiful and ridiculous.

Thus, in the summary part of the verdict, the Lvov court decided to destroy part of the material evidence in this case, including the Komsomol card of the LKSMU and the PSPU party card in the name of the defendant, red, St. George and yellow-blue ribbons, flags, disks, caps, T-shirts with a hammer and sickle , leaflets, Komsomol registration documents, as well as 1 volume of Marx’s “Capital”. All these “instruments of crime” must be doused with flammable liquid and burned in the presence of a special commission, about which a corresponding act is drawn up.

What does it mean?

This means that the arsenal of ideological arguments against socialism has been exhausted, and the fascist dictatorship is moving on to ritual bonfires, on which it hopes to burn all “heresy.” The bourgeoisie has nothing to cover up its historical misery and economic impotence. And, apparently, by burning “Capital”, she believes that, thereby, all Marxism will be destroyed, and the days of the reign of capital will somehow extend themselves.

They won't last.

But we must not forget that it was the first trial in the history of modern Ukraine directly on political cause, a precedent, so to speak. At the same time, the prosecutor's office of the Lvov region openly stated that two more criminal cases are on the way, the defendants of which “exposed by the SBU and accused of promoting communism via the Internet and using paper and other material means.”

Indeed, large departments have been created in the central office and in the regional departments of the SBU, whose task, among other things, is to block “dangerous” sites and personal pages on social networks. Things are clearly moving to the point where people will shut, seize and gag their mouths not only for communist agitation and propaganda itself, but also for simply writing or saying aloud such words as “Marx”, “Lenin”, “Bolshevism”, and more in total - for the word “revolution”.

In addition, the secret police have organized and are widely introducing so-called “permanent presence services”, in other words, hordes of spies who are obliged to hang around any gatherings of citizens, be present inside any meetings, infiltrate all “suspicious” societies, in a word, respond to any public activity – what if there is Marxist sedition there? This means that the fascist dictatorship intends to brandish Article 436-1 like a saber, handing out long prison sentences left and right.

The increasing jitters of the Ukrainian oligarchy, the brutal convulsions of the SBU, the court and the prosecutor's office, of course, indicate the weakness of the bourgeoisie, its strength is running out. That is why she turns to fascism, because other than direct violence she has nothing else to support her power with. But this does not mean that the working class should relax. On the contrary, we must expect that in their struggle against the revolution the reaction will intensify, uniting against the working class with the fascist regimes of other countries. It is possible that secret negotiations are already underway between the SBU and the FSB, in which the confrontation between these services, including the “hot” one with the corpses of agents, and the confrontation in Donbass, is relegated to the background in front of the threat from the labor movement. (Actually, the war in Donbass itself, one of its most important reasons, is the desire of the capitalists to stop the growth in Ukraine and Russia revolutionary movement.) Such cooperation is all the more possible and necessary for the secret police, given that the closest and dearest to the Ukrainian part of the working class is the Russian and Belarusian parts of the world proletariat. On Lubyanka, as well as on the street. Kotsyubinsky in Kyiv, they understand well that if today it starts to burn in Krivoy Rog or Kharkov, then Leningrad and Sverdlovsk will burn tomorrow.

It must also be said that jokes and games of communist activity have come to an end. Those who have already touched the greatest work of our era should understand well that this work must be committed seriously, completely, to the end. This means taking the enemy seriously, without giving him a single extra clue, not a single word against yourself.

In this regard, the defendant's behavior leaves much to be desired. He saw the shakiness of the charges, had a good lawyer, but abandoned the presumption of innocence, in fact, the fight and made a deal with the prosecutor's office, fully admitting his guilt before the trial. Of course, all the circumstances of this case are not yet known, however, one thing is clear: those who will still be convicted under this article You can't make plea deals. And in this particular case, even more so, this step of the defendant is not justified in any way. The fascist Ukrainian bourgeoisie needed a show trial, essentially a frightening farce, during which it was necessary to create the appearance of omnipotence of the secret police, the appearance of complete control over society and the Internet, to intimidate all leftists and anyone protesting against lawlessness with the fact that the state was monitoring their every move.

But this is a bluff. It’s clear that no one is saying that secrecy and caution when working are not needed, but at the same time you cannot absolutize your safety and caution to such an extent that you do not do anything “seditious” because of this, since this would mean that The fascists achieved their goal and intimidated the left, making them passive even in “absentee” agitation and propaganda work.

The fact is that, by its very nature, the Internet has gone into the future social system; it is already a socialized, public means of production, which not a single secret police in the world can control. Bourgeois states can puff themselves up and scare netizens with “high-profile” trials of individual victims of fascist terror, but they will ban or cancel Marxist work on the net not capable, since this would mean that the entire Internet must be canceled, with all electronic payments, communications, television, etc., and therefore the insane profits of the bourgeoisie itself. How will the bourgeoisie go about cutting off the branch on which it sits, which is the whole meaning of its existence? Of course, in its agony, the bourgeois government will try more than once to block sites, put bans and slingshots on the information of the labor and communist movement. But at the same time, for every ban or filter, the working class will immediately find a bypass channel, a master key, a backup server, etc.

Yes, fascism tries to ban dangerous ideas. But he fights against them exactly as the Catholic Church in its time fought against the progress of science and culture, not as a healthy political organism, i.e. in open discussion and through sound scientific arguments, and through the conservation of ignorance, lies, fear, torture and bonfires. After all, both then and now, the question of preserving the material and political power of the rotten exploitative “firm” is at stake. Yes, you can intimidate one, ten, a hundred people, but is it possible to repeal the laws? social development with bonfires or prisons? Is it possible to ban the millions of people who are the physical bearers and executors of these laws? It is clear that it is impossible.

The very transition of the bourgeoisie to a fascist dictatorship, to total prohibitions and total terror does not mean its strength, but political and economic impotence before the coming revolution: in the politics of the ruling class, blunt force and blunt prohibition are used when the system is sick and doomed no other It is no longer possible to contain and protect in any way. Therefore, the hunt for red “witches” on the Internet and the trial of one Lvov leftist are not victories of fascism, but signs of despair, a recognition that “gentlemen” are not able to stop the social and movement of history. The oligarchy has material wealth, weapons and the Gestapo, but practically no support in society, there is no social class or stratum on which it could fully and boldly rely in its struggle against the working class. And therefore the oligarchy does not rely on social groups, but on the temporary ideological and political state of these groups: the strength of fascism lies in disorganization and disorientation of the working class and the working masses.

This means that if part (tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of people) of the working masses realizes their class interests and becomes communist agitators and propagandists, then no state with the entire punitive apparatus can't do anything, since there will be so many mouthpieces that there won’t be enough scarves for them. And besides, the very punitive apparatus of the state, which the oligarchy recruits not on the Moon, but in the working class, among the working people, among the petty bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois strata of the population, in such a situation will also not remain a frozen sculpture, but will inevitably be subjected to “erosion” from the outside the conscious part of the working class and from the side of social practice itself, which shows the armed people of the state that they, serving a bunch of scoundrels, inevitably become criminals and enemies of the entire people. And this is a very dangerous matter, since it puts the bulk of the armed servants of the bourgeoisie between two fires. In an acute situation, their owners will inevitably abandon and betray them (as they betrayed, for example, in the Ukrainian Maidan of 2014, the notorious “Berkut”, onto which they later blamed all the sins for the shed blood), and on the other hand, those who are covered in punitive actions or hesitates for a long time and does not go over to the side of the revolution, can and will inevitably be destroyed by the armed multi-million working class. And going against the millions is pure suicide.

Since the above speech touched upon the behavior of the defendant during the investigation, there is a need to say a few words about what the behavior of leftists and communists could be (and should be!) if they fell into the clutches of a fascist state.

There are not and cannot be ready-made instructions and directions for every case, but there are general instructions based on the extensive experience of Russian revolutionaries, from Narodnaya Volya to Bolsheviks. This experience shows that any cooperation the arrest of a revolutionary by the police inevitably meant the end of him as a revolutionary, in fact, his betrayal of the cause of the revolution and his comrades.

When the conditions were such that it was impossible to talk about the essence of the issues at all, there was no one to make an accusatory campaign speech to, and at the same time it was also impossible to “simply” reveal one’s political convictions, revolutionaries usually refused to testify. In the protocols of the tsarist courts that held hearings on the cases of the Bolsheviks, in the column “Testimony of the defendant” they often wrote: “Refused to testify.” In closed courts there is no opportunity to express one's views so that they become known to the broad working masses. In this situation, the communists refused both to testify at the preliminary investigation and to make any appearances at “their” trials. So, in particular, Lenin, arrested in 1895 in the case of the “St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” did not have the opportunity to speak at the trial, and refused any testimony, knowing full well that any word he said could be used against his comrades.

The more revolutionaries fell into the hands of the police, the more often the party was faced with the question of how to behave during the preliminary investigation and what tactics to use in court. By the beginning of 1905, among the Bolshevik prisoners there was general rule, which prescribes to refrain from giving evidence during the investigation, since, despite the tsarist law of 06/07/1904 “On some changes in the procedure for proceedings in cases of criminal state officials and on the application to them of the decrees of the new criminal code,” providing for the analysis of political “ crimes" in open court, preliminary investigation was carried out by the same gendarmes, although in the presence of a prosecutor. This meant that the defendants’ hands began to be wringed less often, however, falsify No one stopped interrogation protocols. Therefore, it was best to keep the interrogation records empty.

But regarding tactics in court, the question remained open for a long time. In December 1904, E. Stasova, on behalf of her comrades, wrote to Lenin on this issue. Lenin’s answer is worth citing in its main part, since it can be used precisely as a basis for developing specific tactics of behavior by those communist agitators who end up in the police and in court. Lenin writes:

“...I received your request about tactics in court... the note speaks of three groups, perhaps referring to the following three shades that I am trying to restore:

1) Deny the trial and outright boycott it.

2) Deny the trial and not take part in the judicial investigation. A lawyer should be invited only on the condition that he speaks exclusively about the insolvency of the court from the point of view of abstract law. In the final speech, state the profession de foi (political program, your worldview) and demand a jury trial.

3) About the final word too. Use the court as a propaganda tool and for this purpose take part in the judicial investigation with the help of a lawyer. Show the lawlessness of the court and even call witnesses (prove your alibi, etc.).

The next question is: should we only say that we are a Social Democrat by conviction, or should we recognize ourselves as a member of the RSDLP? ...Personally, I have not yet formed a definite opinion for myself and would prefer, before speaking decisively, to talk in more detail with my comrades who are sitting or have been at the trial. To start such a conversation, I will state my thoughts. Much depends, in my opinion, on what kind of trial it will be? Those. Is there an opportunity to use it for campaigning or is there no opportunity? If the former, then tactic No. 1 (denying the trial and boycotting it) is unsuitable; if the latter, then it is appropriate, but even then only after an open, definite, energetic protest and statement. If it is possible to use the court for propaganda, then tactic No. 3 is desirable (use the court as a means of propaganda). A speech outlining a profession de foi is generally very desirable, very useful, in my opinion, and in most cases would have a chance of playing a propaganda role. Especially at the beginning of the government's use of the courts, the Social Democrats should have made a speech about the Social Democratic program and tactics. They say: it is inconvenient to admit that you are a member of a party, especially an organization; it is better to limit yourself to the statement that I am a social democrat by conviction. It seems to me that organizational relations should be explicitly mentioned in speech, i.e. to say that for obvious reasons I will not talk about my organizational relations, but I am a social democrat and I will talk about our party. Such a statement would have two benefits: it is directly and precisely stated that it is impossible to talk about organizational relations (i.e. whether he belonged to an organization, which one, etc.) and at the same time it is said about our party. This is necessary so that Social Democratic speeches at the trial become party speeches and statements, so that the agitation goes in favor of the party. In other words: I leave my formal organizational relations without consideration, I will remain silent about them, I will not speak formally on behalf of any organization, but, as a Social Democrat, I will talk to you about our party and ask you to take my statements as the experience of presenting precisely those social democratic views that were held throughout our social democratic literature, in such and such our brochures, leaflets, newspapers.

Question about a lawyer. Lawyers should be hired hedgehog gloves and put them in a state of siege, because this intellectual bastard often plays dirty tricks. Announce to them in advance: if you, son of a bitch, allow yourself even the slightest indecency or political opportunism... then I, the defendant, will cut you off right there in public, call you a scoundrel, declare that I refuse such a defense, etc. And carry out these threats. Only hire smart lawyers, don’t need others. Tell them in advance: to exclusively criticize and “catch” the witnesses and the prosecutor on the issue of checking the facts and the frame-up of the prosecution, exclusively to discredit the Shemyakin sides of the court... Just be a lawyer, ridicule the prosecution witnesses and the prosecutor, at most contrast a kind of court and a jury trial in a free country, but Don’t touch the defendant’s beliefs, don’t even dare to stutter about your assessment of his beliefs and his actions. Because you, liberal, don’t understand these convictions so much that even praising them you won’t be able to do without vulgarities...

The question of participation in the judicial investigation is resolved, it seems to me, by the question of a lawyer. Inviting a lawyer means participating in the judicial investigation. Why not participate - to catch witnesses and agitate against the court. Of course, one must be very careful not to fall into the tone of inappropriate justification, that's to say! It is best to immediately, before the judicial investigation, answer the first questions of the chairman of the court by declaring that I am a social democrat and in my speech I will tell you what this means.

The specific decision on participation in the judicial investigation depends entirely on the circumstances: let’s assume that you are completely exposed, that the witnesses are telling the truth, that the whole essence of the accusation is in undoubted documents. Then, perhaps, there is no need to participate in the judicial investigation, but to pay all attention to the principled speech.

If the facts are shaky, the intelligence witnesses are confused and lying, then it is hardly worth taking away propaganda material to expose the rigging of the trial. The case also depends on the defendants: if they are very tired, sick, tired, there are no tenacious people accustomed to “court negotiations” and verbal battles, then it may be more rational to refuse to participate in the judicial investigation, declare this and give all attention to the principled speech, which it is advisable to prepare in advance. In any case, we are talking about the principles, program and tactics of social democracy, about the labor movement, about socialist goals, about the uprising - the most important thing.

I repeat in conclusion once again: these are my preliminary considerations, which should least of all be considered as an attempt to resolve the issue. We must wait for some indications from experience. And in developing this experience, the comrades will in most cases have to be guided by weighing specific circumstances and the instinct of a revolutionary.”

The correctness of these general Leninist instructions was confirmed by the widest experience, and therefore they formed the basis for the behavior of many Bolsheviks during investigations and trials. Both yesterday and today, the central idea in the communist tactics at trial is in firmness, party integrity, in the offensive, accusatory nature of speeches. But at the same time, as Lenin teaches, you should not throw pearls before swine, finding yourself in a tightly sealed fascist court. It must be remembered that in such a situation we are not talking about protecting one’s life, but about protecting one’s organization from failure, about protecting one’s party, one’s views, the very cause of communism. And here the situation can take such a turn when “you have to speak without saying anything.” In this regard, it will be very useful for the agitator to know something of jurisprudence and delve into all the details of the process, in order to, on occasion, turn into a “hook-maker” (in in a good way), i.e. from the accused to the accuser and, step by step, prove a violation of the procedure, the complete inconsistency of the accusation, etc.

Of course, the conspiratorial experience, the experience of “court negotiation,” and the instinct of a revolutionary do not fall from the sky, but are developed in practical work, in struggle, in constant Marxist study. The fight against the fascist investigation and trial is a difficult matter, but quite possible. As an example, it is worth citing the Leipzig trial of 1933 in the case of the Reichstag fire, as a result of which the Nazi court was forced to acquit all accused communists. Dimitrov was not afraid of the trial then, but turned it into a trial of fascism itself. So we have someone to take from practical lessons Bolshevik "legal proceedings".

M. Zolin, M. Ivanov

The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR. Volume 1 Golinkov David Lvovich

9. The first major political processes

On November 3, 1917, at the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District, the Red Guards detained a 17-year-old cadet of the Caucasian Shock Battalion, Evgeniy Zelinsky, who was trying to steal headquarters forms. He was taken to Smolny, to the Investigative Commission. Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee N.V. Krylenko and member of the Investigative Commission A.I. Tarasov-Rodionov interrogated him.

Zelinsky said that in August he was promoted to ensign by General Kornilov and arrived in Petrograd from the front. Left after October revolution Without funds, he went to the officers' dormitory for help. There, some ensign invited him to join the monarchical union and brought him to V. M. Purishkevich. He recruited him into an officer-junker organization that was preparing an armed uprising against Soviet power, and placed him in the Rossiya Hotel, paid for by the monarchists, where other officers and cadets already lived. On instructions from this organization, Zelinsky tried to steal forms from the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District.

The large landowner of the Bessarabian province V. M. Purishkevich was at one time the leader of the Black Hundred “Union of the Russian People”, and since 1907 - the equally reactionary “Union of Michael the Archangel”. Purishkevich's speeches in the State Duma aroused the indignation of all honest people, and his name became synonymous with militant monarchist reaction.

Purishkevich met the revolution with undisguised hostility; he could not even come to terms with the bourgeois Provisional Government. After October, Purishkevich lived on a false passport in the name of Evreinov and was, as Zelinsky testified, very aggressive. He told the members of his group: “It is necessary... to strike in the rear and destroy them mercilessly: hang them and shoot them in public as an example to others. We must start with the Smolny Institute and then go through all the barracks and factories, shooting soldiers and workers en masse.”

It was decided to arrest the counter-revolutionary group that Zelinsky spoke about. Several participants in the conspiracy, including Purishkevich, were detained in the rooms of the Rossiya Hotel. Weapons prepared by the conspirators were also found there. At the apartment of a certain I. D. Parfenov, which was a gathering place for monarchists, they found a stack of forged certificates on various forms military units and a list of persons associated with Staff Captain N.N. de Vode, chief of staff of the secret organization. On the table lay a letter to General Kaledin, not yet sent, but signed by Purishkevich and de Vaud. Purishkevich wrote: “The situation in Petrograd is desperate, the city is cut off from outside world and all in the power of the Bolsheviks...

The organization, at the head of which I stand, works tirelessly to unite officers and all the remnants of military schools and to equip them. The situation can only be saved by creating officer and cadet regiments. Having struck with them and achieved initial success, it will then be possible to obtain the local military units, but immediately, without this condition, you cannot count on a single soldier here... The Cossacks are largely propagandized thanks to the strange policy of Dutov, who missed the moment when decisive actions could something else to achieve. The policy of persuasion and exhortation has borne fruit - everything decent is persecuted, driven away, and criminals and the mob rule (this is how the monarchist bison Purishkevich spoke of the revolutionary people and their leaders. - D.G.), which will now need to be dealt with only by public executions and gallows.

We are waiting for you here, General, and by the time you approach we will move out with all available forces. But in order to do this, we need to establish contact with you and first of all find out about the following:

I. Are you aware that on your behalf all officers who could participate in the upcoming struggle here are being invited to leave Petrograd, supposedly in order to join you?

II. When approximately can we count on your approach to Petrograd? It would be useful for us to know about this in advance in order to coordinate our actions.”

V. M. Purishkevich created a counter-revolutionary monarchist group under the Provisional Government, in October 1917. Its members included: Doctor V. P. Vsevolozhsky, General D. I. Anichkov (who managed to escape), Colonel F. V. Vinberg, the mentioned Baron de Vaude, Parfenov, captain D.V. Shatilov, several guards officers, cadets and students from the aristocratic families of the city (former chairman of the monarchist union of academic students I.O. Graf, cadet D.G. Leuchtenbergsky, S.A. Hesketh). The conspirators recruited officers and cadets, purchased weapons, created “counterintelligence” and prepared for an armed uprising.

After his arrest, Purishkevich stated that he was not preparing an armed uprising, “because he did not see Russia in this moment there is no basis for this.” “I wrote my letter to General Kaledin dated November 4, having in mind to join him with several of my like-minded people in the event that Kaledin entered Petrograd with his detachment... The goals that I pursued and guided me in my attempt to create an organization of like-minded people, consisted solely in achieving the establishment of firm power and order in Russia, which could not happen under the rule of the Bolsheviks. But the Soviet authorities are slaves. and soldier I do not recognize deputies and Soviet commissars...”

Among the members of Purishkevich's organization were persons who took part in the cadet uprising on October 29. Purishkevich denied any connection with this uprising and the “Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution.” “The cadets who were in our organization at Bode’s disposal,” he asserted, “were moved to occupy the telephone exchange, the Mikhailovsky Manege and the Engineer’s Castle, contrary to my and Bode’s orders and obeying only the provocative orders of Colonel Polkovnikov and the “Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution,” with whom I personally had no contact.”

The trial of Purishkevich and 13 of his accomplices, which took place from December 28, 1917 to January 3, 1918, was the first major political trial of a monarchist conspiracy against the young Soviet Republic. The case aroused great interest. The courtroom was overcrowded. Many friends and relatives of the defendants came. Prominent Petrograd lawyers volunteered to defend the monarchists “from the public,” including V. M. Bobrishchev-Pushkin, his son A. V. Bobrishchev-Pushkin and others. The accusers were D. Z. Manuilsky and other Bolsheviks.

The defendants and their defenders sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to turn the trial into a political demonstration against Soviet power. They argued that there was no monarchist conspiracy, but that there was only a “group of like-minded people” that supposedly met “for conversations on political topics.” V. M. Bobrishchev-Pushkin even stated that “the monarchical conspiracy is a figment of the imagination of the Bolsheviks and the efforts of investigator Tarasov,” and the trial of the participants in the cadet uprising is “illegal,” as if “the Bolsheviks and cadets rebelled at the same time. The existing government at that time was the Provisional Government, and if the Bolsheviks won, then there is still no reason to judge the vanquished.” At the same time, Purishkevich and his associates not only did not hide their monarchist convictions and goals, but also declared them from the dock. Colonel Vinberg said that he devoted his whole life to suppressing the revolution and did not repent of it at all.

The defendants and their lawyers at the trial made every effort to discredit the personality of Zelinsky, according to whose testimony the Purishkevich organization was exposed. With their statements spread through bourgeois newspapers that Zelinsky is a “traitor”, a “provocateur”, they brought this morally unstable person to hysteria. Zelinsky shouted at the trial that he was retracting all the testimony previously given during the investigation, and became hysterical.

Playing up this incident, relatives and lawyers demanded a forensic psychiatric examination of the defendant, and “experts” gave an opinion that Zelinsky “suffers from moral insanity.”

Purishkevich’s wife also fainted during the trial.

But the proletarian judges, chaired by I.P. Zhukov, considered the case with restraint, calmly, objectively and fairly. Even some organs of the bourgeois press were eventually forced to note this endurance of the judges and prosecutors.

The charges brought against the defendants were confirmed not only by the testimony of Zelinsky, but also by many other pieces of evidence: an eloquent letter from Purishkevich and de Vode to General Kaledin, the facts of the purchase of weapons to arm officers and cadets, which Purishkevich himself did not deny, the participation of some members of the organization in the cadet uprising

The Revolutionary Tribunal announced the following verdict: “In the name of the Revolutionary People! Having heard the case of the monarchical organization headed by Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich, the Revolutionary Tribunal, taking into account the data of the case and the judicial investigation, came to the conclusion that the organization as such existed, and rejecting the existence of a conspiracy for the immediate restoration of the monarchy and considering that the monarchical organization Purishkevich pursues counter-revolutionary goals, the achievement of which at any opportune moment could result in bloodshed, - decided: Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich should be subjected to forced community service in prison for a suspended period of four years, and after the first year of work with credit for pre-trial detention, Vladimir M. Purishkevich is given freedom, and if during the first year of freedom he does not demonstrate active counter-revolutionary activity, he is released from further punishment.” On the same terms as Purishkevich, the revolutionary tribunal sentenced Baron de Bode, Colonel Vinberg and Parfenov to three years of forced labor. The remaining defendants were sentenced to terms from two to nine months, and the cadets Leuchtenbergsky and Hesketh, due to their youth, were completely exempted from punishment and placed “under the supervision of relatives.” The court decided to place Zelinsky in a psychiatric hospital for a detailed examination, and the court determined: if Zelinsky turns out to be healthy, he should be imprisoned for a period of one year.

After more than two months, Purishkevich and his associates were freed. On April 17, 1918, the Chairman of the Cheka F. E. Dzerzhinsky and the Commissioner of Justice of Petrograd N. N. Krestinsky allowed Purishkevich to be temporarily released from prison due to the illness of his son. He gave the following signature: “I hereby undertake with my word of honor to appear after the expiration of the period specified for me, i.e., the 25th s. m., to the Revolutionary Tribunal at 12 noon. During this time, I undertake not to take any part in public life, not to speak publicly. I certify that I am requesting temporary release for the sole purpose of caring for my sick son. Vl. Purishkevich."

Soon, the Council of Commissioners of the Petrograd Commune discussed a decree on amnesty in commemoration of the day of international proletarian solidarity - May 1. Representative of the Commissariat of Justice A.I. Svidersky indicated that Purishkevich was also subject to release, whose political sentiments were in Lately as if a fracture was noticed. Purishkevich (who was free at that time by the grace of the Soviet people), having learned about A.I. Svidersky’s speech, was “offended” and published a refutation in the newspaper, in which, among other things, he stated: “I will not go into the details of the debate concerning my release , leaving the speakers responsible for everything that they said about me. Let me say briefly: I am not Ruzsky, not Guchkov and not Shulgin, to kick the former sovereign who abandoned the throne... And I am less capable than anyone else of being an “apologist” of Soviet power... I remained the same as I was, it goes without saying, without changing one iota."

And yet this lover of “firm” monarchist power was released under an amnesty. Just like Krasnov, Purishkevich appreciated the generosity of the people in his own way. He went south to the camp of the monarchist counter-revolution, and continued to fight against the revolution until his death in 1920.

The trial of Dorrer in Tashkent was also a major political trial.

On the night of October 28, 1917, the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government made an attempt to prevent the transfer of power into the hands of workers and soldiers. By order of the General Commissioner of the Provisional Government, General P. A. Korovichenko, a detachment of cadets and Cossacks surrounded the “House of Freedom” in Tashkent and arrested the chairman of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and some members who were there executive committee. At the same time, attacks were carried out on the barracks of the revolutionary 2nd and 1st Siberian regiments and on the garrison of the fortress. The cadets disarmed the soldiers of the 2nd regiment and occupied the fortress. The soldiers of the 1st Regiment offered armed resistance to the attackers. Outraged by the counter-revolutionary sabotage, the workers, Red Guards and revolutionary soldiers of Tashkent rose up against the counter-revolutionaries. The battle lasted four days. At dawn on November 1, the cadets laid down their arms. Power passed into the hands of the Council. The leaders of the rebellion were arrested.

On November 30, the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Territory decided to form a Temporary Revolutionary Elected Jury Court and transfer to it for consideration the case of the inspirers, leaders and active participants in the counter-revolutionary uprising on October 28 - November 1.

On December 3, the first meeting of the People's Revolutionary Court opened in the hall of the Tashkent Military Assembly. The case of the assistant general commissioner of the Provisional Government in the Turkestan region, Count G. I. Dorrer, who was arrested on November 1, was heard.

The panel of judges, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Territory dated November 30, was approved in the following composition: chairman - representative of the bar I.V. Charkovsky, comrades of the chairman - Agapov (commissar of internal affairs of the Turkestan region) and Ageev (representative of the executive committee of the Council), members of the court - Soldatov (from Central Bureau of Trade Unions) and Belovitsky (from the Council of Peasant Deputies of the Tashkent District).

15 jurors were elected by the Tashkent Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Central Bureau of Trade Unions, the regimental committees of the 1st and 2nd Siberian regiments, the first, second and third squads, a sapper company, three artillery batteries and the Council of Peasants' Deputies. These were mainly participants in the battles for the Soviets.

The public prosecutors were: a prominent figure in the Bolshevik organization, chairman of the Tashkent Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies I. S. Tobolin and fellow chairman of the Council, Menshevik internationalist Weinstein. The city's bar union appointed two defenders - Sherman and Stein (a female lawyer).

Opening the court session, Chairman I.V. Charkovsky explained in his speech to the audience how the new court differs from the old, pre-revolutionary court. In the people's revolutionary court, he said, the case is considered by a panel of judges consisting of 5 people and 15 jurors - representatives of the people who decide “not according to the letter of the law, but according to their conscience.” Their decision cannot be appealed. The panel of judges must only ensure that the trial proceeds correctly, so that the interests of both the prosecution and the defense are strictly observed.

The chairman also said that in the new court, as a people's court, in addition to prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses, any person from the public can speak - both on the side of the prosecution and on the side of the defense.

Charkovsky further explained that the revolutionary court can impose as punishment deprivation of political rights, imprisonment for a term of one to 20 years, and in special cases sentenced to life imprisonment and deprivation of all rights.

After this, the chairman of the court called on the jurors to be attentive and impartial when considering the case, to judge according to their conscience, and demanded from them a solemn promise to follow these instructions. The people's representatives solemnly promised to judge according to their conscience.

The consideration of the case, in essence, began with a speech by the public prosecutor of the chairman of the Tashkent Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies I.S. Tobolin, who also emphasized the role and significance of the new court and, above all, its true nationality. “The accused,” he said, “will be judged in this the people themselves are judged, and not according to written laws, but from a public point of view.” Tobolin cited the facts of Dorrer’s counter-revolutionary activities and presented to the court a number of documents confirming that the defendant was one of the inspirers and organizers of the attempt to suppress the popular revolutionary movement. Characterizing the personality of the defendant, the prosecutor noted that for his anti-people activities, Dorrer, at the request of public organizations, was removed from the post of commissar of the Provisional Government in Ashgabat. Left out of work in Ashgabat, Dorrer contacted General Korovichenko, sent by the Provisional Government to Tashkent with a punitive expedition, and became his assistant in suppressing the revolutionary movement in Turkestan. Dorrer, in particular, took an active part in leading the counter-revolutionary uprising on October 28. The prosecutor presented to the court Dorrer's report to the Provisional Government, written by him when he was already under arrest. Dorrer called on the Provisional Government to immediately send troops to Tashkent to suppress the revolution. The prosecutor demanded that Dorrer be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The defendant, a former lawyer, took the floor. First of all, he began to criticize the procedure in the new court, saying that it did not correspond to generally accepted judicial and legal norms. There was no preliminary investigation into his case, and therefore he only learned at the trial, from the speech of the prosecutor, what he was accused of. However, Dorrer was forced to admit that although there was no formal investigation into his case, nevertheless, as a lawyer, he understands what he is accused of.

“I am accused of acting against the interests of the people through a premeditated conspiracy,” Dorrer said.

Rejecting this accusation, the defendant explained that he was only an assistant to the General Commissioner Korovichenko, who ruled the region individually, as a governor. Korovichenko made all the decisions that led to the armed conflict himself. He, Dorrer, allegedly did not agree with some of these decisions.

“If I am accused of facilitating a bloody clash,” he said, “then I reject it, but if I am accused of fighting Bolshevism, then it’s true...

The trial took place on December 3–5, 1917, with the active participation of all those present at the trial - prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, witnesses called by the court, and persons who came to the trial on their own initiative. They all heatedly discussed the circumstances of the case.

When a certain Smelnitskaya, a witness “from the public,” stated that Dorrer was one of the active participants in the revolution in Ashgabat in February - March 1917, another witness who was in court demanded to speak and stated that Dorrer, being a commissar of the Provisional Government in Ashgabat, pursued an anti-people, bourgeois line. For example, he appointed the millionaire Dubsky as a commissioner at Fort Aleksandrovsk (now Fort Shevchenko)...

The chairman of the court, I.V. Charkovsky, restrained the passions that flared up during the trial and called on the parties to avoid heated polemics so as not to put pressure on the jury. At the same time, the court in detail, with complete objectivity, clarified and established accurate data about the defendant’s specific crimes.

After questioning the witnesses, the chairman of the court again gave the floor to prosecutor I. S. Tobolin. Addressing the jury, Tobolin urged them to make a decision on the guilt of Dorrer, who played the role of “first fiddle” under Korovichenko.

Defense attorneys Stein and Sherman asked for leniency for the defendant.

In his last word, defendant Dorrer stated that he now understood: “Bolshevism is a broad popular movement” - and that a “huge mistake” was made when they tried to fight Bolshevism.

The court retired to deliberate to formulate questions for the jury to answer. The issues were discussed by the parties, finally formulated and presented to the jury. After an hour and a half deliberation, the jury's answers to the following questions were announced:

When asked whether Dorrer was guilty of contributing to the shelling of the revolutionary soldiers of the fortress by his actions, the jury’s answer was: “No, not guilty.”

When asked whether Dorrer was guilty of facilitating the disarmament of the 1st and 2nd Siberian Regiments, knowing that this could cause bloodshed, the jury replied: “Yes, guilty, but deserves leniency.”

When asked whether Dorrer was guilty of contributing through his actions to the arming of counter-revolutionary groups of the civilian population of Tashkent, the jury came to the conclusion: “No, not guilty.”

The court then retired to deliberate on the verdict, and an hour later the chairman of the court announced:

The Provisional Revolutionary Court, having examined the case of Georgy Iosifovich Dorrer, determined that Dorrer should be imprisoned for three years and four months with deprivation of political rights for the same period.

The forms of the structure of the court and legal proceedings in the Dorrer case differed from the forms of the structure of the court and the rules of legal proceedings established by the first decree on the court of November 22, 1917. Each of the first pre-October trials in cases of counter-revolution in the country (in Petrograd, Moscow, Tashkent, Ukraine) was distinguished by its originality. But all of them had one thing in common: these were truly democratic people's courts, in which justice, objectivity, and humanism of the working class that won in October triumphed.

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Part three SOCIO-POLITICAL STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES IN THE MEDIEVAL

The first court hearing in the case of Algirdas Paleckis is due to take place today in Vilnius. The Lithuanian politician is accused of violating the law on denial of crimes of the Soviet regime. Paleckis publicly questioned the official version of events on January 13, 1991, when Soviet special forces stormed the television center in Vilnius.

I studied the version of the politician that brought him to the dock NTV correspondent Georgy Grivenny.

Politician Paleckis at the scene of a crime, someone else’s and committed more than 20 years ago.

Algirdas Paleckis, leader of the Front political party: “There was gunfire from this nine-story building.”

Beginning of 1991. The USSR is hopelessly ill and is beginning to fall apart. Lithuania is one of the first to declare independence, after which tanks appear on the streets of Vilnius. The television center is stormed on the night of January 13, there is a shootout in the city, 14 civilians and a special forces soldier from the Alpha group are killed.

Soon Lithuania will truly gain freedom, and the dead (except for the Soviet officer) will have the aura of martyrs. Lithuanian history stigmatizes military personnel as murderers, but 20 years later, Lithuanian politician Algirdas Paleckis explodes a real information bomb live.

Algirdas Paleckis, leader of the Front political party: “I asked a rhetorical question: what happened at the TV tower on January 13? And, as it now turns out, our own people shot at our own people.”

According to Paleckis, some victims could not have died from shots fired by Soviet soldiers. Someone else was shooting from the roofs of neighboring houses.

Algirdas Paleckis, leader of the Front political party: “These are not Soviet soldiers, because they were below and they simply could not shoot themselves. That is, they were provocateurs.”

But now it is the truth-teller who can be condemned. According to the law on denial of crimes of the Soviet regime, a large fine up to two years in prison. Paleckis himself denies his guilt. He says that he was simply expressing an opinion, and is surprised: for 20 years, the case of shooting near the TV tower has not been fully investigated. But now you can end up in court for words spoken on air.

The presenter of the radio station, on the air of which the scandalous revelations were heard, says that at first no one believed their ears.

Audris Antonaitis, radio presenter: “This is what you would expect if someone shouted ‘Heil, Hitler!’, for example. Still, this is a very painful topic for Lithuania. And all the investigations do not confirm what Mr. Paleckis said.”

Political scientist Vadim Valovoy is sure that Paleckis is fighting not only for the truth, but also for ratings. His party's left-wing membership is still extremely small.

Vadim Valovoy, political scientist: “Pursuing, to a large extent, I think, my personal interests, I raised enough interesting topic generally".

All observers agree on this. For 20 years, a full investigation into the tragic events at the Vilnius television center has not been carried out.

Algirdas Paleckis: “It is still not clear who exactly killed whom, with what gun, with what bullets, under what circumstances.”

On Tuesday, Paleckis promises another unmasking session with witness testimony in court.