“Come on, marvel at me,” said the man in the jersey, “I’m Leva Zadov, you don’t need to talk nonsense with me, I’ll torture you, you’ll answer …”
(Alexey Tolstoy.)
As you know, Pinocchio could not drown because he was made of wood. The products of human life do not sink, but gold always sinks. Water does not hold him, and that's it. At the same time, experience shows that in times of change, people awaken to an active life, who in ordinary life do not show themselves especially in any way. Or they do, but not very noticeably. Well, and the revolution is just a sacred time for such “active people”. They see it as a chance to quickly succeed, climb the social ladder and realize their ambitions. So the head of counterintelligence of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army, Batko Makhno, by the name of Zadov, who later became a Soviet Chekist, was one of them. And his fate was very interesting … True, for the time being …
L. Zadov
He was born on April 11, 1893 in a Jewish family, in the agricultural colony Vesyolaya near the village of Yuzovka, in the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province. Father's name was Yudel Girshevich Zodov. In 1900, his family became completely impoverished, and they moved to Yuzovka. The son, named Levoy, learned, learned, and went to work. First, he went to a mill, and then he got a job at a metallurgical plant, where … he became an anarchist. Apparently, the slogan "Anarchy is the mother of order!" the young guy liked it.
The soul called Leva to action: what could be better than robbing the loot? Here Zadov in 1913 and attacked the post carriage, but was caught and received a term - eight years in hard labor. But it was there that he changed his old surname to a new one, which seemed to him more sonorous - Zinkovsky. February 1917 brought liberation to the young convict. As a "victim of the tsarist regime" he was elected a deputy of the city council in Yuzovka, which once again shows how deep mind Yuzov's voters had if they elected convicts to power!
In the spring of 1918, he joined the Red Army as a private, but soon became the commander of the combat area near Tsaritsyn. He fought, fought and pulled him home. To Ukraine. Live at home, relax … No sooner said than done. Autumn, and he is already in Ukraine. And there is the rebel army of Father Makhno. It was then that he remembered his youthful anarchism and … entered the service of the dad! But not in ordinary soldiers, no - in counterintelligence! Lev Golikov became its head, but Zinkovsky was taken as his assistants. He was engaged in various matters, including requisitions, and in the spring of 1919 distinguished himself during the storming of Mariupol.
In the summer of 1919, Batka's counterintelligence was divided into army and corps. Zadov became the chief of counterintelligence of the 1st Donetsk corps. One of his operations was the dispatch of a group of four scouts to the Kherson-Nikopol region, who obtained important information about the situation in the territory occupied by Denikin's troops. He also distinguished himself by leading the execution of the commander of the Iron Regiment and the communist Polonsky, along with others suspected of conspiring against Father Makhno.
And in 1919, the Red Army, having defeated Denikin, again found itself in Ukraine. But the Reds were at odds with the Makhnovists, and it all ended with the fact that in January 1920 Makhno was outlawed. It was Leo, along with his brother Daniel, who were among the followers of Makhno, who saved him from typhoid fever and hid him in a safe place. When Makhno recovered and rebuilt his army, they returned to him. It is interesting that the White émigré publications subsequently published a lot of materials about atrocities and torture, which Zinkovsky personally dealt with. But when the GPU considered the Zinkovsky case in 1924-1927, and the NKVD did it again in 1937, there is not a word about the atrocities and tortures attributed to him, although the Chekists investigated the cases in great detail. On the other hand, how was it possible to work in counterintelligence and at least never hit anyone with the handle of a revolver? "Put your hand on the table!" - and bang bang on your fingers! Both cheap and cheerful!
In October 1920, the command of the Red Army agreed with Makhno on a joint struggle with Baron Wrangel in the Crimea. Zadov commanded the Crimean corps, participated in the assault on Perekop, the defeat of Wrangel, and returned to Makhno in December 1920. It all ended with the remnants of Makhno's army, along with his daddy, leaving for Romania in July-August 1921.
In Romania, the Zinkovsky brothers lived in Bucharest, hiring seasonal jobs. In 1924, the "ciguranza" (Romanian intelligence) offered Zinkovsky to engage in sabotage activities on the territory of Soviet Ukraine. But when the group crossed the border, Zadov invited his comrades to confess!
There is a hypothesis, confirmed only by the memoirs of the Soviet Chekist Medvedev, that all this was done on purpose to get the "Makhno's treasure", which he buried in the Ukraine in the Dibrovsky forest. But whether they got it or not, and most importantly, how they managed to transport it to their dad, it is not known.
In the Cheka, Lyova was interrogated for six months, but was eventually released. First, as a Makhnovist, he fell under the 1922 amnesty. In addition, the employees of the "organs" appreciated his work experience and considered that such a valuable staff would be useful for the dictatorship of the proletariat. “Let him work,” they apparently decided. "And we will always have time to shoot him!"
So Lev Zadov, together with his brother Daniil, became non-staff employees of the Kharkov Republican GPU, and in the spring of 1925 they were given work as operatives of the foreign departments of the GPU, and Leva ended up in the Odessa department of the GPU-NKVD.
In this post, he showed himself from the best side and was even wounded in the arm while capturing the dangerous saboteur Kovalchuk. For this he was given gratitude and a prize of 200 rubles! Then (1932) he received a personalized weapon from the Odessa Regional Executive Committee, and two years later, for the elimination of a group of terrorists, another prize, and one more personalized weapon.
He worked in the organs until August 1937. It is usually said that people of such a fate and in such a job have an "animal instinct" for danger. But it is obvious that he did not foresee any danger personally for himself and did not take any measures to save himself (although, probably, he could). So he went to work until August 26, he was arrested on charges of spying for Romania. At the trial, he was remembered by everything, including the service with Batka Makhno, although it was for her that he was amnestied. The trial, however, lasted a whole year and sentenced him to be shot on September 25, 1938. In the same year, his brother Daniel, an employee of the Tiraspol OGPU, was also shot. Zadov's wife, Vera Matveenko, was imprisoned, and she spent a year in prison, but then was released. For many years, Zadov's guilt was not subject to any doubts, but in January 1990, that is … even under Soviet rule (that's how it is!), He was posthumously rehabilitated.
Zadov had two children: son Vadim Lvovich Zinkovsky-Zadov and daughter Alla. During the Great Patriotic War, she worked as a nurse and died in June 1942 near Sevastopol. His son volunteered for the front in 1944, rose to the rank of colonel. Retired in 1977, died in 2013. He left behind an interesting book about his father: "The truth about Zinkovsky-Zadov Lev Nikolaevich - anarchist, security officer."
After Zadov's death, his image was actively used in Soviet literature and cinema. The first to introduce him, as a typical bandit, was the Soviet classic Aleksey Tolstoy in his epic novel "Walking in the throes":, marvel at me, - said the man in a jersey, - I am Leva Zadov, you don’t need to talk nonsense with me, I will torture you, you will answer …”
The figure of Leva Zadov and his relationship with the Chekists are shown in the novel about the Civil War "The Crimson Feathers" by Igor Bolgarin and Viktor Smirnov. The life story of Lev Zadov, including his trial, is described in the book by Vitaly Oppokov: "Lev Zadov: Death by Unselfishness." A. P. Listovsky in the book "Cavalry" portrayed him as an executioner and a murderer, an ardent enemy of the Red Army soldiers of Budyonnovo. One way or another, he is mentioned in Zvyagintsev's science fiction novels "Local Fights" and "Scorpion in Amber".
In the cinema, Zadov in the guise of the Odessa criminal and the main henchman of the daddy Makhno was again shown in two film versions of Gloomy Morning (1959 and 1977), as well as in the film Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno (2006).
Now you can’t say with certainty what kind of person he was: an adventurer, an irresponsible but active “comrade”, a fellow traveler, “forged by will into socialism,” or a person who was striving all the time for only one thing - to stay alive under any circumstances … Naturally, he was not a Romanian spy. But it was certainly a convenient "tick" in the reporting.
