70 years ago, on June 4, 1946, the "Trophy Deal" or "General's Deed" began in the USSR. It was the campaign of the state security agencies of the USSR in 1946-1948, launched on the personal instructions of Joseph Stalin and with the active participation of the Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov, the former head of SMERSH. Its purpose was to identify abuses among the generals. But, according to some researchers, this was a reason to remove the popular commander, Marshal GK Zhukov, from the Olympus. It is believed that his authority among the people and the army was indisputable, especially after the victory in the Great Patriotic War. And all this was not to the liking of those close to Stalin and, of course, himself.
However, apparently, this idea appeared after de-Stalinization, when Stalin was accused of all possible and impossible sins. In reality, the generals were not without sin. Nobody wanted to highlight the unsightly side of some representatives of the Soviet generals and other representatives of the Soviet elite after the victory of the Red Army over Nazi Germany; it was much easier and more convenient (taking into account internal and external orders) to blame the paranoia and cruelty of the “bloody tyrant” Stalin.
Background
As you know, already during the war, the USSR began to collect trophies, which was a necessary condition for the destroyed economy. January 5, 1943 Chairman of the State Defense Committee JV Stalin signs the Resolution of the State Defense Committee "On the Collection and Removal of Trophy Property and Ensuring Its Storage." In accordance with this decree, in February 1943, the Central Commission for the Collection of Trophy Property began its work. Marshal of the Soviet Union Budyonny was appointed chairman of the commission. Lieutenant General Vakhitov was appointed head of the trophy department. It is clear that even before 1943 the Red Army was engaged in the collection of trophy property, but in the period 1941-1942. the collection of trophies was not centrally organized, and individual trophy teams subordinate to the chiefs of the rear of the fronts were guided in their work on the basis of the corresponding orders of the NKO.
During the second half of 1942 and 1943, the State Defense Committee will issue 15 orders regarding the organization of collection, accounting, storage and removal of trophy property and scrap metal. In addition, in 1943 the State Defense Committee will approve a plan for the delivery of scrap and waste of non-ferrous metals. The trophy department will be transferred to the bases of the Department of Material Resources of the NKO of the USSR, and the representatives of the trophy department who were sent to all fronts received clear instructions, which stipulated the tasks of accounting, collection, places of temporary storage and export of captured and damaged domestic weapons, as well as scrap metal and valuable property from army rear services and liberated territories. I must say that in addition to the military, the civilian population living in the liberated territory was also involved in the collection of captured weapons and property. Local residents helped a lot in collecting trophies, as they watched the retreat of the Nazis and knew where the Germans were, threw or hid weapons and property that they could not or did not have time to take out.
In April 1943, the Central Commission was reorganized into a permanent Trophy Committee under the State Defense Committee. Trophy teams were formed at the front departments. Marshal of the Soviet Union Voroshilov was appointed head of the Trophy Committee. In army units, trophy brigades, battalions and companies were formed, the personnel of which were mainly fighters of the older age group. By the summer, a clear structure of the trophy organs of the Red Army was formed: the Trophy Committee at the State Defense Committee; Department of captured weapons; Frontal administrations of captured weapons (since 1945, separate captured administrations subordinate to the commander of the fronts); army departments of captured weapons. Control over the work of the captured units was entrusted to the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence SMERSH.
According to the reports of the Trophy Committee for the period from 1943 to 1945. captured units collected 24615 wrecked German tanks and self-propelled guns; more than 68 thousand artillery pieces, 30 thousand mortars, 257 thousand machine guns, 3 million rifles; more than 114 million shells, 16 million mines, more than 2 billion different cartridges, etc. The total weight of the "recyclable" ferrous metal amounted to 10 million tons, including 165,605 tons of non-ferrous metal. Some of the equipment was repaired and returned to the troops. So, for example, in the period 1943-1945. The Red Army's car park was replenished with more than 60 thousand vehicles at the expense of various captured vehicles, which amounted to 9% of the total number of the entire Red Army's car park.
The war ended with the defeat of Germany, and the USSR's right to reparations was just and recognized by the other victorious powers. Created under the State Defense Committee, the State Commission determined the amount of material losses of the USSR from the war with Nazi Germany at 674 billion rubles. The issue of reparations was discussed during the work of the great powers at the Yalta Conference. The Soviet side proposed to fix the total amount of German reparations at 20 billion US dollars. At the same time, the USSR was supposed to - 10 billion, Great Britain and the United States, taking into account their sacrifices and an important contribution to the victory - 8 billion, all other countries - 2 billion. However, as you know, Churchill began to object to fixing the exact number of reparation obligations. London was interested in the de-industrialization of Germany.
According to the reports of the Trophy Committee for the period from March 1945 to March 1946. for reparations collected from Germany in favor of the Soviet Union on the territory of Germany was dismantled and exported to the USSR: 1) Equipment of 29 ferrous metallurgy plants with a total value of 10 billion rubles. at state prices; 2) equipment of machine-building plants (214300 various machine tools and 136381 electric motors of various power); 3) industrial ferrous, non-ferrous and other metals 447,741 tons for the amount of 1 billion 38 million rubles; 4) equipment of 96 power plants, etc.
However, the USSR not only exported, but also contained Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe. Beginning in the fall of 1945, the Soviet Union began to “feed” the countries of Eastern Europe: already in June 1945, Hungary and Poland requested food aid; in September - Romania, Bulgaria, then Yugoslavia. In 1945, only the authorities of Czechoslovakia tried to cope with food difficulties on their own, but they also turned to the USSR for help a year later. In the same year, 1946, Finland also needed grain. The USSR also provided food aid to the Communist People's Liberation Army of China. And this despite the extremely difficult food situation in many areas of the Union itself. In addition, starting in May 1945, the Soviet Union was forced to take upon itself the decision to supply the population of large cities in Germany with food.
It is clear that even before entering the territory of Germany, the soldiers and officers of the rear units of the spacecraft often resorted to searching and "saving" various trophies in their favor. After the Victory over the Reich, an official decision was made by the TC, which Stalin allegedly verbally approved, allowing the spacecraft soldiers to send home the trophies received no more than one 5 kg parcel, and middle-ranking officers no more than one 10 kg parcel per month. Senior officers (with the rank of major and above) were allowed to send two parcels of 16 kg per month. To do this, in each of the military units, commandant's offices, hospitals, etc. commissions were created whose task was to check the content of parcels sent home. Weapons, items made of precious stones and metals, antiques and various other things related to the Nazi regime were not allowed to be sent home in parcels. However, these commissions are usually purely formal. And the parcels of senior officers were practically not checked.
The measures were later tightened. By order of G. K. Zhukov, the commandant's offices were ordered to stop transport and servicemen for checking property and take away the things they had that were prohibited for export according to the list approved by the June order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG). The list included cars, motorcycles, furs, etc. However, despite all the steps taken to tighten, many things from the prohibited list still very quickly ended up on the territory of the USSR. "Trophy peak" fell on the period 1946-1947. It is clear that the military counterintelligence simply did not have the ability to track down and stop for export everything that was in the duffel bags, trunks, suitcases of soldiers and officers returning from Germany to the Union.
It should be noted that the Red Army acted toughly against the marauders. A soldier or officer who was caught for looting was immediately subjected to a military tribunal, and his sentence in war and post-war times was unambiguous - execution. Therefore, in the Red Army, the relevant authorities and command very quickly extinguished the surge of "lawlessness" in the defeated country, which is usual for a war (aimless shootings, looting, violence against women, etc.). For comparison, the Allied armies did not have such strictness.
The Novikov case
On March 15, 1946, by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the People's Commissariats were transformed into Ministries. The NKGB changed its name to MGB. On May 4, 1946, Colonel-General V. S. Abakumov was appointed Minister of State Security. It was Abakumov who, at the beginning of his work in the ministerial office, had to face a "wave" of various post-war crimes. The war ended, but there were still a lot of problems, it was necessary to eliminate the "forest brothers" in the Baltic states and suppress the Ukronazis in Ukraine, to bring down the wave of ordinary banditry (the criminals used the war to increase their influence on society), etc.
In the spring of 1946, personnel changes took place at the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (MF USSR). People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry A. I. Shakhurin, Air Force Commander, Air Chief Marshal A. Novikov, Deputy Commander - Air Force Chief Engineer A. K. Repin were arrested during the investigation of the so-called. "Aviation business". Aviation Colonel General K. Vershinin was appointed to the post of commander of the USSR Air Force. Marshal of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
On April 30, 1946, MGB Minister Abakumov sent Novikov's statement to Stalin. In it, the former Air Force commander declared "sabotage" in concealing "anti-state practices in the work of the Air Force and the NKAP." Novikov admitted that “he himself cultivated servility and sycophancy in the Air Force apparatus. All this happened because I myself fell into a swamp of crimes related to the adoption of defective aircraft equipment by the Air Force. I am ashamed to say, but I was also too busy acquiring various property from the front and organizing my personal well-being. My head was dizzy, I imagined myself to be a great person …”.
Novikov also accused Zhukov of "politically harmful conversations with him that we had during the war and until recently." Zhukov allegedly, as "an exceptionally power-hungry and narcissistic person," "brings people together around him, brings them closer to him."According to Novikov: “Zhukov very cunningly, subtly and in a cautious manner in his conversation with me, as well as among others, tries to belittle the leading role in the war of the Supreme High Command, and at the same time, Zhukov does not hesitate to emphasize his role in the war as a commander and even declares that all the basic plans for military operations have been developed by him. So, in many conversations that took place over the past year and a half, Zhukov told me that the operations to defeat the Germans near Leningrad, Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge were developed according to his idea and he, Zhukov, prepared and carried out. Zhukov told me the same about the defeat of the Germans near Moscow. Thus, Zhukov's "Bonapartism" manifested itself, and the line of a military conspiracy with the aim of a coup d'état emerged.
After Stalin's death, Novikov will become almost the main witness at the trial of Abakumov and the chief prosecutor Rudenko will make every effort to prove that the arrest of the chief marshal of the aviation was groundless, and his testimony was knocked out by torture and torture. This version, voiced during the beginning of the "Khrushchev thaw", that is, de-Stalinization, will be further replicated and will become the main one during the "perestroika" and "democratization" of Russia in the 1980s and 1990s.
Zhukov's case
On June 1, 1946, the Zhukov case was considered at the Supreme Military Council in the presence of all nine marshals of the Soviet Union, each of whom expressed his opinion regarding the personality of G. K. Zhukov. The Council, by a collegial decision, made a proposal to release Marshal Zhukov from the posts of Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Soviet occupation forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR. On June 3, the USSR Council of Ministers approved these proposals. Georgy Zhukov was appointed commander of the Odessa Military District, which meant disgrace for him.
However, Zhukov's problems did not end there. On August 23, 1946, the Minister of the Armed Forces N. Bulganin sent a memorandum to Stalin, in which it was reported that 7 cars were detained near Kovel, in which there were 85 boxes of furniture. When checking the documentation, it turned out that the furniture belonged to Marshal Zhukov. According to the inventory of the property that arrived from the city of Chemnitz, there were 7 carriages: 194 pieces of furniture for the bedroom, living room, study, kitchen, etc. The furniture for the living room, made of mahogany, stood out. Stalin's reaction to this incident is unknown, but soon there were events that went down in history as a "trophy case".
Trophy case
It is obvious that the riots in the Red Army, despite its rapid reduction, greatly worried Stalin. It was necessary to restore order, especially among the highest command personnel. Otherwise, the Soviet Union could easily become a victim of the United States and Britain. The craving for the material led to the degeneration of the Soviet elite, turning it into a bourgeois class with a philistine psychology. The Soviet project was based on building a society of creation and service, and here the beginnings of a consumer society appeared. After the elimination of Stalin, it is precisely the rejection of the desire for the ideal of a society of creation and service and an orientation towards the material that will lead to the fall of the Red Empire. Two "perestroika" - Khrushchev and Gorbachev, will destroy the essence of the red (Soviet) project, the program of creating an "ideal" society. The Soviet Union will lose the purpose of its existence, which will cause the geopolitical catastrophe of 1991.
After all, corruption has struck even the KGB. For example, the head of the counterintelligence department of the 1st Belorussian Front, A. A. Vadis, created at the department an "illegal warehouse of trophy property" from which he made gifts to the deputy chiefs of the SMERSH Criminal Intelligence Agency N. N. Selivanovsky, I. I. Vradiy and others. high-ranking security officers. Vadis did not forget himself - he sent valuable property to his family by an official plane from Germany to Moscow, and Vadis's wife speculated on them. He himself took out a carriage of furniture and other things from Berlin, as well as a car. Then Vadis brought to Moscow trophies acquired while working in Manchuria (served as head of the SMERSH UKR of the Trans-Baikal Front) - furs, silk and woolen fabrics, etc. from the party for not providing measures to liquidate the OUN underground, excessive drunkenness and excessive love for trophies (A. Teplyakov "On corruption in the bodies of the NKVD-NKGB-MGB-KGB of the USSR").
