(We continue the series of essays from the history of our university called "Red Hogwarts". Today - about the youth of one of our two graduates buried in the Kremlin wall)
Avramy Pavlovich Zavenyagin was born to the sound of bells on the bright day of Easter, April 1, the same common for almost all of my heroes in 1901. It happened at the railway station Uzlovaya, in the Tula region. He was born in the family of a locomotive engineer Pavel Ustinovich Zavenyagin, and was the ninth and last child.
He received his rare name - Avramius - thanks to the then popular "Sytinsky calendar", which claimed that April 1 is the day of the Holy Martyr Avramius. Later, the second letter “a” crept into the name through the efforts of the passport officers, thanks to which the children of our hero had different patronymics: the son was Yuli Avramievitch all his life, and the daughter was Evgenia Avraamievna.
In a large family, however, they did not bother with the number of letters and called the last child simply Avranei.
But this did not last long.
Almost all his life, Avramy Pavlovich was called precisely Avramy Pavlovich, this is noted by all memoirists. Always called. Even when he was a freshman.
Here is what his classmate wrote : “Avraamiy Pavlovich Zavenyagin was the former secretary of the Ukom, his name was always, even in his student years, Abram Pavlovich”. He is echoed by another former student of the Mining Academy, geologist Leonid Gromov: “I don't remember anyone calling him by his first name, only Abram Palych. I do not remember that any of the students, except for him, was called by his first name and patronymic. ... And it turned out by itself, without any claims or hints on his part.
The following fact is also interesting. Avramy Pavlovich himself, as was customary in patriarchal families, called his parents “you” all his life. This, of course, is nothing special. Another thing is more surprising - from a certain moment Pavel Ustinovich suddenly began to “poop out” to his youngest son, and so they showed each other mutual respect for many, many years.
As the daughter of our hero told, the family loved to recall the episode, how the grandfather, having learned about the appointment of his son as the director of Magnitogorsk, the then main construction site of the country, about which the radio and newspapers crackled from morning to evening, immediately arrived in Moscow. “He was very excited, hesitated for a long time and nevertheless asked his adult son one single, but important question:
"Avramy, can you handle this job?"
Pavel Ustinovich Zavenyagin
All these oddities with naming were explained simply - Avramy Palych had a unique innate talent.
Someone by nature is given absolute pitch, the other - a voice that does not even need to be "set". The third never went in for sports, but he was given incredible strength from birth - I saw such people. And at birth, Avramy Pavlovich was given an unsurpassed ability to manage people and solve tasks.
Avramy Pavlovich Zavenyagin was a manager by the grace of God.
The creator of the Polish "Solidarity" Lech Walesa, I remember, was often called a "political animal" for his innate talent as a politician. In this case, Zavenyagin was a "managerial animal" - no one could better than him solve the problem in the best way, while using the available resources in the most efficient way. It is no coincidence that all his life Zavenyagin's favorite saying was the words of the poet Baratynsky:
"Giving is a task, and must fulfill it, in spite of any obstacles."
This talent of his manifested itself in his early youth, when he studied at a real school in the neighboring town of Skopin. Like all my heroes, Zavenyagin came to the revolution very early - he became a member of the Bolshevik Party at the age of 16, immediately after the revolution, in November 1917.
And, having barely entered, he went into organizational work like a fish into water.
Day and night he conducts party work in Tula, Uzlovaya, Skopin and Ryazan. Then the Civil War began. And then the young editor of the Ryazan newspaper Izvestia writes to his sister Maria:
“On Tuesday I’m going to the front or to Moscow for command courses. There is no other way out. Kolchak, cursed, presses on. Calm down at home. I'll write some more. If mom decides to go to me - dissuade me. I wish you happiness."
As you know, nowhere do people grow as fast as in war. The 18-year-old Zavenyagin ended the civil war in the colonel's position as head of the political department of the Ryazan Infantry Division, and after the division was disbanded, the young commissar was sent by the party to do party work in the Donbass - the "All-Russian stoker".
***
The regions that have found their own identity are extremely reluctant to part with it.
Donbass is no exception.
Donbass is always similar to Donbass – both in the XNUMXs of the XNUMXst century, and in the XNUMXs of the XNUMXth century, and in the twenties of the same XNUMXth century. At all times and under any regime, there are still the same steppes, the same waste heaps, and the same notorious “Donetsk smart boys”.
With the last component in the 20s of the twentieth century it was especially good. During the Civil War, a uniform madhouse was going on on the territory of Donbass - Bolsheviks, White Guards-Kaledintsy, "independence" of the Central Rada, again Bolsheviks, but already of the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic, forelock haidamaks, Sich Riflemen and Cossacks of the UNR , stiff Austrian and German occupiers, again “sharovarniks”, but already hetman, mine partisans, Don white Krasnov Cossacks, Anglo-French troops, insurgent detachments of anarcho-communists, May-Maevsky’s Denikinists, Antonov-Ovseenko’s red rifle divisions, Makhnovist Revolutionary the rebel army of Ukraine, the Wrangelites ...
Ataman of the Gaidamatsky Kosh of Sloboda Ukraine E.I. Volokh
The local population from all this commotion a little brutalized and decided not to stand aside.
Almost every self-respecting village formed its own self-defense forces, colloquially referred to as a "gang" led by some father-ataman. Most often, such a formation controlled its area, but on occasion they did not deny themselves the pleasure of rummaging around in the bins and with their neighbors. The number of such detachments could not be counted, there were thousands of them, they appeared and disappeared, sometimes they gathered into fairly large alliances in order to crumble at any moment.
In 1920, when Zavenyagin was sent to establish Soviet power in the Donbass, the madhouse was still in full swing. Most of the Donbass cities are controlled by the Bolsheviks, in Volnovakha and Mariupol by the Wrangelites, Starobelsk is controlled by the Makhnovists.
At the same time, there is no power outside of large settlements, except for those very local "lads" with sawn-off shotguns who have strayed into innumerable gangs.
But with the Makhnovists, to relieve the Bolsheviks, “Starobelsky agreements” were concluded, according to which the “red” Bolsheviks and the “black” anarchists, followers of Nestor’s father, form a temporary alliance designed to drive out the ideologically alien “white” Wrangelites from the Donbass. So that later the supporters of the socialist choice, with a clear conscience, continued to cut themselves among themselves.
The headquarters of the Makhnovist Insurgent Army discusses the project of defeating the Wrangelites, Starobelsk, 1920.
However, Zavenyagin did not participate in the battles much, he mainly worked by vocation - as a manager. Because war is war, but the main task was not at all to destroy the unfinished gangs. Donbass in those years was the main fuel base of the country. And it was the restoration of coal mining that was a top priority. All qualified miners under the age of 50 were mobilized into the Ukrainian Labor Army, and technical specialists under the age of 65 were mobilized. In June 1920, the Yuz newspaper Dictatorship of Labor wrote:
“Our next task is the steady implementation of labor conscription… The total mobilization of all non-labor elements… There is no place for parasites and idlers in a labor republic.
They are either shot or ground on the great millstones of labor.
Our concern is simple, our concern is this:
A native country would live and there are no other worries.
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
And in the Donbass, Zavenyagin, as they say, "hell told." By virtue of his natural talent, he makes a brilliant career and quickly rises in ranks and positions.
True, everything happened - it was there, in the Donbass, that Zavenyagin received his first and only conviction and a serious sentence: in 1920 he was sentenced by the Revolutionary Tribunal of the XIII Army to 15 years for the premature evacuation of the city of Yuzovka, now Donetsk. True, he actually served not 15 years, but several days, after which the sentence was canceled, and the convict was rehabilitated by the decision of the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b).
Yuzovsky metallurgical plant. 1918
There, in the Donbass, the commissar imperceptibly turned into an official:
Avramy Pavlovich becomes, in the current terminology, the head of the administration of various cities. And not small ones. Immediately upon arrival in the Donbass, in February 1920, he held the post of chairman of the county revolutionary committee in the recently widely known Donbas city of Slavyansk, and in September he was transferred to Yuzovka as secretary of the county party committee.
With our money - the mayor of Donetsk. And this at the age of 19!
However, as Alexander Kozachinsky, a contemporary of Zavenyagin, later wrote in his book The Green Van: “He was only eighteen years old, but in those days people could be surprised by anything but youth”.
In order to appear at least a little more solid, Zavenyagin lets go of the mustache of the then fashionable style, today called "under Hitler." As if in retaliation for this, the malicious Fatum immediately "helped" him look even more mature - already at the age of 20, the secretary of the ukom suddenly began to go bald.
Like и , Zavenyagin had absolutely no reason to rush off to Moscow, everything was fine with him and in his place. Avramy Pavlovich quickly made friends with the local communists and found both real friends and useful acquaintances in the Donbass, which later would be useful to him more than once in life.
Avramy's best friend for many years was Tit Korzhikov, chairman of the county Council of Workers, with whom they headed the Yuzovsky committee together.
Let us both face misfortune after misfortune,
But only death will take my friendship with you.
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
Here is a photograph of the then leadership of Yuzovka - Korzhikov in the center, to the left of him - Zavenyagin.
Together with Titus, they had to go through the Crimea and the Rym - then it was impossible to do without it. As I said, the Donbass in the 20s was very reminiscent of the Donbass in the 90s - it was a patchwork of territories controlled by many groups that were in complex relations with each other.
And the significance of each grouping was determined by the number of fighters that it could put up, so from time to time it was necessary to go out to "stand for one's friends."
For example, the "Ukomovsky" to which Zavenyagin belonged, despite their high formal status, periodically had to ask for support from the party organization of the Yuzovsky technical school. And these fighters, famous in Yuzovka, were led by a young communist named Nikita, surnamed Khrushchev, who had recently returned from the Civil.
By the way, he didn’t go out of the image of a “smart kid” for quite a long time, here is the future “corn maker” (left) with friends on vacation in Kislovodsk in the early 30s.
And here it is important to understand one nuance - although formally Khrushchev was a subordinate of Zavenyagin, the real relations between the Ukom and the party organizations of the city were not relations between the boss and subordinates, but rather between the seigneur and unauthorized vassals.
Having united, the "vassals" could easily depose the "senior", which happened to Zavenyagin's successor Konstantin Moiseenko.
Here is how Khrushchev himself talks about this in his memoirs:
Zavenyagin was the secretary of the county party committee. When I graduated from the workers' faculty, then Moiseenko became the secretary of the district committee (then they switched from counties to districts). <...> In April 1925, the XIV Party Conference opened. I was elected to it from the Yuzovsky party organization. It was headed by Moiseenko (“Kostyan”, as we called him), whom I have already mentioned. He was a student who did not graduate from the medical institute, an excellent speaker and a good organizer. He was distinguished by a strong petty-bourgeois touch, and his connections and entourage were almost Nepman. Therefore, we put him out of the secretaries later.
By the way, Khrushchev also describes the behavior of the "Donetsk", led by "Kostyan", quite frankly at the party conference in Moscow:
And then we lived in Karetny Ryad, in the House of Soviets (so, perhaps, it was called). We lived quite simply, there were bunk beds, and, as they say, we slept on them for a while. I remember that at that time Postyshev, it seems, the secretary of the Kharkov party organization, came with his wife and also, in the same row, slept with us, and his wife slept next to him. This caused jokes about Postyshev. We were all young then.
In general, it seemed that everything with Zavenyagin was good and determined for many years to come.
The career is developing remarkably, the work is interesting, subordinates are respected, the authorities are in good standing. The bride also appeared, the local beauty Maria Rozhkova, whom he met at a rally in memory of party workers hacked to death by bandits of the famous ataman Moskalevsky, better known as "Yashka - the Golden Tooth." The wedding was in full swing...
Maria Rozhkova
And just like in everyone's life, you will meet love one day.
With you, as you bravely through the storms, she will pass.
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
But, as we know, man proposes, but God disposes. Fadeev and Tevosyan were blown away by the party congress. A more interesting story happened to Zavenyagin.
When I say that the situation in the Donbass in the 20s was reminiscent of the Donbass in the 90s, it should be understood that in addition to similarities, there were also fundamental differences. Brothers of the 90s shared gas stations and markets, that is, they fought for loot. In the 20s, they fought for a brighter future - for their vision of how the planet should live on.
In fact, the Civil War was a religious war, which in no small measure explains its bitterness.
If you take another look at the photo of Yuzovsky Ukom, you won't notice a single gold chain on any of them. Moreover, some of the leaders of a large city are frankly poorly dressed.
But it didn't bother them.
They were idealists.
Despite all his managerial talents, Avramy Pavlovich did not always act in the way that the logic of career growth required. And this is a very important point. Zavenyagin was considered by many to be an "arithmometer on legs", a superbrain devoid of emotions, constantly calculating optimal moves in his head.
It is both so and not so at the same time.
Yes, he was very good at calculating moves. But at the same time, Avramy Pavlovich was not a soulless machine. He was a man, and a man with ideals. He, like all my heroes, sincerely believed that they were building a new one - and a better one! - world. They bring to life the age-old dream of mankind about the kingdom of justice. And these were not big words. It was the sincere faith of an idealist, a genuine and immense dream, for the realization of which these boys were ready to pay - and paid! - the highest price.
As long as I know how to walk, as long as I know how to look,
As long as I can breathe, I will go forward!
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
Once, a sensational incident happened in Yuzovka - an open car was rolling around the streets, in which a company of young people had fun.
Drunk party workers in the company of young employees bawled songs and fired into the air with revolvers.
It looked all the more disgusting because the time was the most hungry, and most of the inhabitants of the city, not like moonshine, did not see bread, they ate cake.
As it turned out, Ivan Chugurin, head of the Yuzovsky coal district, arranged a spree.
Ivan Chugurin
And this is where my heroes make a serious managerial mistake, but do not betray their ideals. Avramy Zavenyagin and the chairman of the executive committee, Tit Korzhikov, reacted extremely harshly - the party bureau adopted a resolution to remove Chugurin from office and expel him from the party.
It would seem that justice has prevailed. But for justice came the logic of hardware struggle, which works at all times and under all regimes. Ivan Chugurin was not an easy person. It's not even that he, like Zavenyagin, was a member of the CEC of Ukraine.
Much more important than a formal position was informal weight.
Chugurin was no match for the unknown upstart milksucker Zavenyagin. Ivan Chugurin was a proven comrade, an old Bolshevik with pre-revolutionary experience, a member of the CPSU (b) since 1902, one of the authors of the Bolshevik manifestos in February 1917. In April 1917, it was Chugurin who met Lenin, who returned to Petrograd from exile, at the Finland Station and personally handed Ilyich a party card number 600.
Even more serious was the fact that Chugurin was a protege of Georgy Pyatakov himself, a candidate member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), who a year ago was the head of the Provisional Workers 'and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, and now held the post of chairman of the Central Board of the coal industry in Moscow.
The answer followed immediately - Pyatakov demanded the removal of Zavenyagin from his post.
An undercover fight began.
Georgy Pyatakov
Surprisingly, the forces were almost equal. Of course, Pyatakov's administrative weight was incomparable with the insignificant capabilities of the "political Mowgli" Zavenyagin, who still has not acquired a decent patron. But most of the Donetsk Bolsheviks sided with the young communist, simply because he stood for the truth. Do not forget that these were still the romantic twenties.
At first, success was on the side of Avramy Pavlovich's opponents. It was not possible to expel him from the party, but Zavenyagin was removed from his post and sent from Donetsk to the local Muhosransk-Zaglushkinsky - the regional center of Starobelsk. However, it was not in the wilderness, it was very problematic for Zavenyagin to simply work in Starobelsk.
If only because the city was controlled by bandits - the remnants of the gangs of Makhno, Marusya and Kamenyuk.
Avramy Palych agrees with the appointment, and his supporters gather a detachment of loyal people for him in Yuzovka - they allocated about 70 people. Soon they move to occupy Starobelsk.
They fought their way to the city, the section from the Svatovo station to Starobelsk turned out to be especially difficult - the bandits really did not want to let the important railway junction out of control. Zavenyagin had to ask the railway workers for help. Those people were given, and in September 1921 Starobelsk was taken.
We do not need peace, happy with such a fate.
You take the flame with your hand, break the ice with your breath.
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
Power in the city passed to the Revolutionary Committee, headed by Zavenyagin.
However, it was possible to strengthen only in the city itself, and on the roads they were still "naughty".
So Abramius sat in the city, like a rebellious baron in a besieged castle.
By the way, Zavenyagin's head of the Starobelsk Cheka was none other than Dmitry Medvedev. Only on Dmitry Anatolyevich, and Dmitry Nikolaevich.
The same legendary Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev, a terrible dream of the atamans of the Donbass rebel detachments and the leaders of the Odessa criminal gangs, was twice dismissed from the ranks of the NKVD before the war, and during the war became the commander of the legendary "Partisan Special Forces Detachment" Winners "created by Sudoplatov." The very one where our outstanding scouts N. I. Kuznetsov, N. V. Strutinsky, Africa De las Heras and many others fought.
They lived happily in Starobelsk. As Evgenia Zavenyagina recalled, her father once sent a Red Army soldier to his mother, then still a bride, with a letter in which he asked to come. “Mom hesitated, did not know what to answer. The Red Army soldier decided that she was afraid, and began to convince her that there was nothing dangerous, that one section only needed to be slipped through, and just in case, he would give her a machine gun to shoot back.
Such romantic dates were appointed then ...
Opening of the first monument to the "Fighters of the Revolution" in Starobelsk, fire station in the background. 1924
Then the swing swung in the other direction - the Yuzovsky communists managed to push through the decision to reinstate Zavenyagin as secretary of the Yuzovsky party committee. This threatened to bring the conflict to a new round of tension, therefore, apparently, the conflicting parties, tired of the struggle, concluded a settlement agreement providing for an exchange on the principle of "neither ours nor yours."
Since reconciliation is impossible, and the victory of one of the parties is problematic, both conflicting parties had to leave Donbass - Chugurin with his people, and Zavenyagin with Korzhikov.
Everyone is given the opportunity to save face - in particular, Avramy Pavlovich and Tit Mikhailovich will leave for Moscow to study.
Korzhikov was going to continue his party career, so he chose the State Institute of Journalism - there was such a university in Moscow, later renamed the Communist Institute of Journalism. Zavenyagin, to the surprise of many, preferred the engineering path and entered the Moscow Mining Academy. The only thing that the Yuzovsky communists were able to push through was a decree postponing the departure for a year. Because of him, Zavenyagin began his studies at the academy later than his peers.
Do not think that everyone has sung, that the storms have all died down.
Get ready for a great goal, and glory will find you.
And the snow, and the wind, and the stars of the night flight,
My heart is calling me to an alarming distance.
But before leaving, the bride and groom finally got married. So Zavenyagin arrived at the Mining Academy - with his young wife and her dowry, consisting of a Singer sewing machine and a heavy chest with forged handles.
Who only later did not sleep on this chest - including Khrushchev, who somehow descended into the capital to buy a hunting rifle for himself and stopped at the former boss ...
The essay uses the verses of Lev Oshanin. Other essays in the cycle - by tag "Red Hogwarts"
Source: habr.com