Almost 25 years ago, in April 1989, the next issue of the "Young Guard" magazine was published. Then passions boiled in society, which splashed out on the pages of the magazine. And yet, a significant part of the issue was taken up by a conversation with the former Minister of Agriculture of the USSR I. A. Benediktov, which was recorded by the journalist and economist V. Litov nine years before publication - in 1980. True, in this material too, its overwhelming part was devoted to the topic of "Stalin's personality cult and its consequences" that was constantly discussed in 1989. Therefore, not all readers of the magazine paid attention to a few words from this extensive conversation …
They dealt with the prepared by I. V. Stalin's decision to appoint P. K. Ponomarenko became the head of the Soviet government instead of himself. Benediktov said: "The document on the appointment of PK Ponomarenko as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was already endorsed by several members of the Politburo, and only Stalin's death prevented the execution of his will."
It is obvious that the interviewer was not ready to receive this important and previously unknown, and, therefore, sensational information. Therefore, his question after these words of Benediktov sounded like this: "But what about the exposure of the personality cult?" Moreover, society was not ready to receive this information in the spring of 1989. At that time, the focus of attention was the April events in Tbilisi, the "Gdlyan case", as well as many issues, the solution of which was associated with the first Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, which opened in May. Although P. K. Ponomarenko died just four years before the magazine was published, and many have already forgotten who the man who almost became the head of the USSR government was.
How Kuban became the head of Belarus
Panteleimon Kondratyevich Ponomarenko was born on April 27, 1902 in the Kuban Cossack farm Shelkovsky, Belorechensky district. At the age of 16, Ponomarenko joined the Red Cossack detachment and in 1918 took part in the battles for Yekaterinodar, then renamed Krasnodar.
After the end of the war, after working as a mechanic, Ponomarenko entered the Krasnodar workers' faculty, which he graduated in 1927. He continued his education at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers, from which he graduated in 1932. After graduating from MIIT, Ponomarenko was mobilized into the Red Army, where he served for three years in command positions in the Far East.
During the years of military service, Ponomarenko continued to engage in the profession he had acquired, and together with V. A. Rakov wrote the book "Electric Locomotive", which was published in 1936. In the same year, Ponomarenko headed a group at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute that was developing the electrification of railways.
However, in 1938, Ponomarenko switched to party work.
Having entered the CPSU (b) in 1925, Ponomarenko belonged to those 90%
the then communists who joined the party after the Civil War. In the mid-30s. almost all leading posts were held by those who became party members before 1921 (they accounted for 80% of the delegates to the 17th party congress). The overwhelming majority of them joined the party in 1917-1920. Their level of education was low: in 1920, 5% of the Bolsheviks had a higher education, 8% - secondary. 3% of those surveyed were illiterate. The rest (84%) had "lower", "home" and other types of out-of-school education.
Even after 10 years in power, the educational level of the ruling stratum was not high. Among the delegates to the 16th Party Congress (1930), only 4.4% had a higher education and 15.7% had a secondary education
At the same time, having become at the levers of government of the country during the Civil War, these people learned to lead the command methods characteristic of those years. At the same time, they held on to power, trying to stop the advancement of younger and more educated communists with experience in modern production. These circumstances largely explain the resistance of the overwhelming majority of the old cadres to the holding of secret, equal, direct elections to the Soviets on the basis of the USSR Constitution of 1936. In addition, the initial elections provided for the nomination of several candidates for one deputy seat. Under the pretext that the elections would be used by "internal enemies", most of the members of the Central Committee came out in late June - early July 1937 demanding the deployment of mass repressions. In addition to intimidating the population, these repressions were used to eliminate possible competitors from among the younger and more educated communists. Therefore, there were many party members among the victims of repression.
Since, after every repressed communist, those who gave him recommendations to join the party, members of the party bureau, and even his relatives were expelled from the party "for the loss of political vigilance", the party's number began to decline rapidly. At the January (1938) plenum of the Central Committee, the head of the department of governing bodies of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) G. M. Malenkov. Along with the "elimination of shortcomings", the initiators of the repressions were gradually eliminated. They were replaced by representatives of the younger generation of party members.
In January 1938 P. K. Ponomarenko was recalled from the research institute and became an instructor of the Central Committee, and soon - deputy G. M. Malenkov.
In mid-June 1938 P. K. Ponomarenko was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, and in March 1939 he headed the delegation of Belarus at the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b). At the end of the congress, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the party. In the report of the credentials committee, G. M. Malenkov said that there were only 19.4% of the delegates who joined the party before 1921, that is, 4 times less than at the previous congress. Accordingly, the level of education of the congress participants increased: 26.5% had higher education, and 46% had secondary education.
Speaking from the rostrum of the congress, Ponomarenko spoke about the successes of Belarus in economic development. He mentioned 1,700 enterprises built during the implementation of the second five-year plan. Pointing out that 24% of the republic’s territory is made up of swamps, Ponomarenko said at the same time that "the peat industry has been re-created" in Belarus, and that high yields of rye, barley, oats and cabbage have been grown in the "developed swamps". Ponomarenko drew attention to the population growth of the republic by 1.2 million people over two five-year plans, that is, by 25%.
At the same time, Ponomarenko remarked: "Soviet Belarus has a western neighbor," which "proved itself to be known for its proximity to the so-called Berlin-Rome axis" and "dreamed about some lands lying nearby." Therefore, the leader of Belarus reminded of the defeats of the Polish, Swedish and French invaders, who "left their bones in the vastness of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian lands."
The first skirmish with Khrushchev
Just six months after this speech, the world witnessed the collapse of the Polish state, entangled in its relations with Berlin, and on September 17, 1939, units of the Red Army crossed the state border of the USSR, occupying the lands of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. On all ethnographic maps of Europe, the boundaries of the settlement of Belarusians and Ukrainians were clearly drawn, and therefore Ponomarenko, in his conversation with Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences G. A. Kumanev, recalled: “I did not think that … regions of the country.
However, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine N. S. Khrushchev presented his project of delimitation between the new western lands of the country, in accordance with which almost all of them retreated to the Ukrainian SSR. On November 22, 1939, Khrushchev and Ponomarenko were summoned to the Kremlin to see Stalin. Even before the meeting in Stalin's office began, Khrushchev attacked the project presented by Ponomarenko. “Who concocted this nonsense for you and how can you substantiate it ?!” he shouted.
Stalin received the first two secretaries, saying: "Great, hetmans, how about the border? You haven't fought yet? Have you started a war from abroad? Have not concentrated your troops? Or have you reached an agreement peacefully?"
After careful study and comparison of the two projects of the administrative border of the republics, Stalin supported mainly the proposal of Ponomarenko. True, Stalin made an amendment by drawing in one place the border north of the one marked on Ponomarenko's map. Stalin explained this by "the desire of the Ukrainians to get some timber."
During the lunch after the meeting, Khrushchev made no secret of his resentment. Ponomarenko recalled: "From the face, from the mood of Nikita Sergeevich, it was felt that he was not satisfied with this outcome and he will remember this story for a long time."
Akhtung! Partisan
Three hours after the start of the war, Stalin called Ponomarenko on the phone. Having listened to the message of the leader of Belarus, Stalin said: "The information that we receive from the headquarters of the district, now of the front, is extremely insufficient. The headquarters knows the situation poorly. As for the measures you have outlined, they are generally correct. You will receive in the near future on this score. instructions from the Central Committee and the government. Your task is to resolutely and as soon as possible reorganize all work on a war footing … You personally transfer your work to the Military Council of the Front. From there you direct and direct the work along the lines of the Central Committee and the government of Belarus."
However, the rapid encirclement of units of the Western Front, led by General of the Army D. I. Pavlov, and their defeat led to the fact that on June 28 the capital of Belarus was captured by German troops. On the same day P. K. Ponomarenko decided to organize sabotage at airfields occupied by the enemy and sent 28 groups for this purpose, with a total number of one thousand people.
A day later, on June 30, Ponomarenko signed a directive "On the transition to clandestine work of party organizations in areas occupied by the enemy." At the same time, the transfer of partisan detachments and sabotage groups to the rear of the enemy began
In the second half of 1941 alone, 437 partisan detachments and sabotage groups, numbering 7234 people, were deployed to various regions of Belarus.
The active actions of the partisans created enormous difficulties for the enemy. The German corporal M. Hron wrote in the summer of 1941: "While we reached Minsk, our convoy stopped and was fired on 4 times from machine guns and rifles." On the way, the Germans had to repair the blown-up bridge, and then "such firing began that it became scary. This continued until we jumped out of the forest. Yet in our car there were four killed and three wounded … Until we got to the front, we did not stop to fight these “invisible men.” Not far from Berezino, we had a uniform battle with them, as a result of which 40 people in our company were knocked out."
In just two summer months and only one Gomel partisan detachment "Bolshevik" destroyed 30 cars and about 350 Nazis. In September, partisans of the Rudny district organized the crash of a German military echelon on the Minsk-Bobruisk road.
In October 1942, the headquarters of Army Group Center reported to the German headquarters of the ground forces: "The number of raids on the railways in the daytime are increasing. Partisans are killing the railway guards. Especially a large number of explosions occur on those sections of the railways that are our main transportation routes. On September 22, the Polotsk - Smolensk section, as a result of three raids, was put out of action at 21:00 and then at 10:00. On September 23, the Minsk - Orsha - Smolensk section of the railway was put out of action for 28 hours and again for 35 hours."
From July to November 1942 alone in Belarus, partisans derailed 597 trains, blew up and burned 473 railway and highway bridges, 855 vehicles, 24 tanks and armored vehicles, destroyed 2,220 German soldiers, officers and police.
The future historian General Kurt Tippelskirch then served "in a huge, almost as far as Minsk, wooded and swampy area." This area, according to him, "was controlled by large partisan detachments and was never cleared of them in all three years, much less occupied by German troops. All crossings and roads in this inaccessible area, covered with almost primeval forests, were destroyed." Soviet institutions operated there, collective farms were preserved, Soviet flags flew over the buildings of the village councils, Soviet newspapers were published. Their activities were led by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, headed by Ponomarenko.
Chief partisan of the USSR
It is not surprising that when the Kremlin decided to create a single center for the leadership of the partisan movement in the occupied territories, P. K. Ponomarenko. As he recalled, "in December 1941 and in the first half of 1942, work on the creation of the Central and Republican headquarters unfolded in full swing. But suddenly on January 26, GM Malenkov told me that the State Defense Committee had decided to suspend all preparatory measures." Later it turned out that the adoption of an important decision was postponed on the initiative of Khrushchev and Beria. Only on May 30, 1942, a meeting of the State Defense Committee took place, at which L. P. Beria. He proposed to put V. T. Sergienko, who was subordinate to Khrushchev, as the leader of Ukraine, and Beria, as the head of the NKVD of the USSR.
However, this proposal was rejected by Stalin. “Don't you regret giving such good Ukrainian personnel to the Center?” Stalin asked, not without irony, addressing Khrushchev and Beria. this extremely important issue.
A partisan movement, a partisan struggle is a popular movement, a popular struggle. And the party must and will lead this movement, this struggle … The head of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement will be a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. " circled my last name on the list and put it in first place with an arrow."
According to Ponomarenko, "Khrushchev and Beria, especially Khrushchev, were dissatisfied with this decision and my appointment, considering it" the defeat of Ukraine and the NKVD "… Khrushchev … regarded it as" humiliation of Ukraine or "Belarusian undermining" under it."
A stranger to a narrow departmental and limited parochial approach, the head of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, Ponomarenko, organized partisan operations in all the occupied territories. Under the leadership of the headquarters, a plan of combat operations was developed for partisan detachments under the command of S. A. Kovpak and A. N. Saburov. Coming out of the Bryansk forests on October 26, 1942, the detachments made a 700-kilometer raid along the deep rear of the enemy and left in mid-November in the Right-Bank Ukraine. Similar raids were carried out by partisans of the Kalinin, Smolensk, Leningrad regions, Karelia, and Latvia.
Partisans were especially active as the Soviet troops approached. Speaking about military operations during the complete lifting of the blockade of Leningrad, Marshal Meretskov wrote: "The offensive undertaken by the Soviet troops in the last decade of January coincided with a series of attacks organized by the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement and carried out by partisans on the German rear." Partisan detachments attacked enemy units, and sometimes took cities before the Red Army units entered them. So during the offensive of the Karelian Front, the partisans liberated 11 settlements and held them until the approach of the Red Army troops.
Partisans of Belarus were involved in the operation
"Bagration". PC. Ponomarenko, who was awarded the military rank of lieutenant general, became a member of the military council of the 1st Belorussian Front. By that time, 150 partisan brigades and 49 separate detachments, with a total number of over 143 thousand people, were operating in the republic. On the eve of the start of the operation, partisan detachments took action to destroy the enemy's railway communications. On the night of June 20 alone, partisans blew up over 40 thousand rails. As a result, railroad transportation on many routes passing through Belarus was completely disabled and partially interrupted.
Ponomarenko's role in leading the partisan movement is now widely recognized. Therefore, on the day of his 100th birthday, July 27, 2002, in the Museum on Poklonnaya Gora, he was remembered as the "Chief Partisan of the USSR".
Restoring Belarus
In July 1944, after his return to Minsk, P. K. Ponomarenko was appointed chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Belarus. He had to deal with the restoration of the devastated republic. 74% of the housing stock in Belarus was destroyed. In the countryside, 1,200 thousand houses were burned down. The occupants were taken to Germany or destroyed agricultural equipment and 70% of the livestock. They killed 2.2 million residents and prisoners of war. Over 380 thousand people were taken to Germany.
A year later, during a conversation with Stalin during his trip through Belarus to Potsdam for a conference, Ponomarenko said that the republic had restored 320 destroyed machine and tractor stations and was able to fulfill the plan for spring field work by 138%. Ponomarenko also drew attention to "the restoration of orphanages in conditions when there are over 300 thousand orphans left in Belarus", to "10 thousand restored and built schools, where classes have already begun." Although ruins were visible everywhere from the windows of the Stalinist carriage, Ponomarenko said that housing construction was developing, and "about 100 thousand families of the defenders of the Motherland have moved from dugouts to new houses by now."
Ponomarenko and Stalin also discussed the future of the Belarusian capital. Having said that Minsk was “destroyed to the ground,” Ponomarenko posed the question: “Is it necessary to restore it the way it was? and housing and improvement. Streets will need to be made wider and straighter, and in the planning of the city to include already other indicators. A great restoration effort will have a great purpose."
Stalin also agreed with Ponomarenko's proposal to build a powerful tractor plant in Minsk instead of the aircraft plant projected before the war. So many features of the economy of Belarus and the appearance of its capital were determined on the initiative of Ponomarenko.
About a year before this meeting, Ponomarenko defended the borders of Belarus, which have survived to this day. In August 1944 he was summoned to Moscow by G. M. Malenkov. He was told that a decision was made on the territory of Belarus to form the Polotsk region and transfer it to the RSFSR
Ponomarenko objected to this, but Malenkov said that the issue was practically resolved. It turned out that Malenkov's proposal was supported by Stalin. At a meeting of the Politburo, Ponomarenko argued that Polotsk "in the minds of Belarusians, especially the intelligentsia, is the center of Belarusian culture." He mentioned the great Belarusian educator Francisk Skaryna and other cultural figures of Belarus who were born in Polotsk or worked in this city. The main thing, according to Ponomarenko, was the fact that during the war the Belarusian people suffered "the hardest casualties at the fronts, in the partisan and underground struggle … And by the end of the war Belarus is shrinking territorially and in terms of population due to the withdrawal of a number of regions to the RSFSR." Ponomarenko believed that "this will not be understood by the people and will offend many."
As Ponomarenko recalled, “Stalin frowned, there was a painful pause, everyone was silent and waited for his decision. Finally, he got up, slowly walked back and forth along the table, then stopped and said:“Okay, let's end this issue, the Polotsk region must be formed, but as part of Belarus. The people are good and really should not be offended."
According to Ponomarenko, "Malenkov, the main initiator of the project, was upset and gloomy … NS Khrushchev also poorly concealed his annoyance."
Failed appointment
On May 5, 1948, by a survey of members of the Central Committee, Ponomarenko was approved
secretary of this supreme body of the party. He was charged with overseeing the work of government planning, finance, trade and transport. Since 1950, Ponomarenko also became the Minister of Procurement. Therefore, a significant part of Ponomarenko's speech at the XIX Congress of the CPSU was devoted to the procurement of agricultural products, achievements and shortcomings in this matter.
By that time, despite the influx of more educated and trained people into the leadership, only those who had become communists before 1921 were represented in the highest body of the party - the Politburo. Only one of the 11 members of the top leadership (G. M. Malenkov) had a complete higher education. Members of the Politburo took up managerial positions during or shortly after the Civil War, maintaining the same level of training and leadership habits of those years.
At Stalin's insistence, 36 members were elected to the newly created Presidium of the Central Committee after the 19th Congress. Almost all "newcomers" had higher education. For the first time in the history of the party, three doctors of sciences were elected to the leadership. Among the new members of the Presidium of the Central Committee was P. K. Ponomarenko.
In his speech at the October 1952 plenum of the Central Committee, held after the conclusion of the congress, Stalin announced that he was going to resign. By this time, Stalin's state of health, undermined by hard work during the war years, had deteriorated greatly. This was reflected in his performance. According to Molotov, he did not sign many government documents for a long time. Therefore, from February 1951, three members of the Politburo (G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria, N. A. Bulganin) received the right to sign various documents instead of Stalin.
However, Stalin did not intend to nominate any of these three in his place after his resignation.
As A. I. Lukyanov, who for a long time was responsible for the secret archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in December 1952 a document was prepared, which was mentioned in his memoirs by I. A. Benediktov back in 1980
According to A. I. Lukyanov, usually draft decisions were signed first by the first persons in the leadership, and then by those who stood below. This time, the first signatures were put by candidates for members of the Presidium, and then by full members of this supreme body of the Central Committee. Lukyanov emphasized: "The draft decision was not only signed by four members of the Presidium of the Central Committee: GM Malenkov, LP Beria, NA Bulganin and NS Khrushchev."
The unusual procedure for collecting signatures was probably caused by Stalin's desire to confront the fait accompli of those who considered themselves the most likely successors to him in leading positions. As A. I. Mikoyan, at the end of the 40s. Stalin, while on vacation, said in the presence of members of the Politburo that in the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, N. A. Voznesensky, and as secretary of the Central Committee - A. A. Kuznetsov. Soon, incriminating materials were presented against both Stalin, and then both leaders were accused of an anti-state conspiracy. One gets the impression that Stalin took this lesson into account and tried to hide his preference for Ponomarenko. He was not nominated by Stalin as a member of the congress presidium, and his speech did not seem like a speech by a contender for the highest government office.
Therefore, none of those who considered themselves the most likely successors of Stalin expected that instead of them, preference would be given to P. K. Ponomarenko. In addition, as follows from the above, Khrushchev, Beria, Malenkov had long-standing personal grievances against Stalin's chosen one.
Obviously, the decision on the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was to be put on the agenda of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which was to open, as it was before, on the first Wednesday of March. In 1953, that Wednesday was March 4th. Three days before that, on Sunday, a dinner was supposed to take place at Stalin's dacha, to which its owner invited the leaders of the party, as well as his children Vasily and Svetlana. Perhaps during lunch he was going to talk about his decision, which had already been approved by the overwhelming majority of the members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.
However, late in the evening Malenkov, Beria, Bulganin and Khrushchev came to Stalin's dacha. They sat for a long time at the table, drinking slightly alcoholic Georgian wine. They dispersed only at five o'clock in the morning on March 1. The guards testified that Stalin was in a good mood.
Further events are known.
Although it was not possible to discover the fact of Stalin's violent death, it is obvious that the prohibition of G. M. Malenkova, L. P. Beria, N. A. Bulganin and N. S. Khrushchev to call doctors cannot be regarded otherwise than as a criminal offense related to failure to provide assistance to a seriously ill person
From the words of the guards, they knew that they had carried Stalin from the floor, where he was lying unconscious. “Don't panic! Stalin is asleep!” The party leaders announced to the guards. The doctors arrived at the paralyzed Stalin only the next morning.
Opal Ponomarenko
Two hours before Stalin's death on the evening of March 5, the party leadership hastened to make a decision on personnel changes in the government and the Presidium of the Central Committee. In fact, this meant the exclusion from the Presidium of almost everyone who was introduced to it after the 19th Congress. P. K. Ponomarenko.
10 days after Stalin's death, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, it was announced that a ministry of culture had never existed in the country before. The minister was appointed P. K. Ponomarenko. Obviously, this is how they tried to confuse those who heard something about the appointment of Ponomarenko as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
Less than a year later, Ponomarenko was sent to Kazakhstan to the post of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the party in this republic. However, he did not stay in Alma-Ata for long - until August 1955.
This was followed by appointments to the posts of ambassador to India, Nepal, Poland, Holland, and the IAEA. Ponomarenko was not yet 60 years old when he was retired.
