J.V. STALIN IN MY LIFE

J.V. STALIN IN MY LIFE

T.V. Komissarova , AUCPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolshevik s)

The very first time I saw J.V. Stalin was on the 1st May 1950 when I, a student at the Institute of Foreign Languages, was taking part in the athletics sporting society “Nauka” (Science) parade. The demonstration of the working people had begun. It was a wonderful sunny morning, music thundered out and the mood was uplifting. I was marching in the first right-hand flank column of demonstrators. When we began approaching Red Square, flowing around from the two sides of the Historical Museum, then along the columns of those marching ahead of us athletes we heard a wave of cries: “Stalin! Stalin!” By now, we had already understood that Comrade Stalin was standing on the tribune of the Mausoleum. And at that moment, a remarkable feeling of joy, delight and unity with all those on Red Square enveloped me. I heard only the rhythm of the march and the excited shouts of the marchers also reciting toasts, and then, I saw Him. He was standing, wearing a white military jacket and smiling, greeting with a raised hand the young people passing the mausoleum. It was then, while passing over the bar-shaped stones of Red Square that I experienced this remarkable feeling of unity of the Soviet people. I recalled Mayakovsky’s words: “…a great feeling in the name of class!” It is namely this feeling that I experienced on that day. And now, nearing the end of my life, I can say that this was the happiest day of my life.
And afterwards came the bitterest day: March 1953. All life and being, protested against the ending of the leader’s life; it seemed as if the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. And one single thought was worrying me: “How are we going to manage without him?” I was not able to pass through Kolonny Hall to bid farewell to him. And afterwards, when Red Square was open, thousands of people arrived and stood silently in front of the Mausoleum. I will never forget the silence and the eyes fixed on the new name on the Mausoleum. So much bitterness and anguish.
The second time I saw Stalin was when he was by now inside the Mausoleum.
Afterwards, began the Khrushchev period. The radio never stopped: “the personality cult, the personality cult…!” I immediately hung a portrait of Stalin on the wall at home. One day, my young son asked me: “Mummy, what do they mean by the Stalin personality cult?” I replied: “Son, you are still very young and there is much you still not understand. When you grow up, you will be able to work it all out yourself. Remember one thing though: the people loved him, they sacrificed themselves and gave their lives in his name, went into battle and triumphed over their enemies!”
The years passed. I supervised a scientific library in one of the Scientific Research Institutes in Moscow District. In 1970, we decided to celebrate the 100th Year since the birth of V.I. Lenin and “From Moscow to Berlin”, by setting up two exhibitions. I would like to tell you in more detail about the second one. It was made up of two sections: photo documents from the funds of the Soviet Army and authentic placards from the times of the Great Patriotic War from the funds of the Museum of the Revolution. One hundred photographs reflecting the whole period of the Patriotic War occupied the whole wall of the hall.
The exhibits opened with a leaflet with the speech by Comrade Stalin on the 3rd July 1941 and a photograph of him standing on the tribune of the Mausoleum during the military parade of the 7th November in the same year. A separate stand was devoted to each year of the war. The exhibits ended with a photograph of the Potsdam Conference, where behind a covered table sat the heads of three states, and with the words of V.I. Lenin: “A people will never be beaten where the workers and peasants in their majority recognized, felt and saw that they were fighting for their own Soviet power – power of the working people, that they were fighting for that cause, victory from which their children would be provided with the opportunity to make use of all the best things in culture and all the makings of human labour”.
The exhibition was a big success not only for us in the SRI but also in the sponsored Sovkhoz (state farm) where we later exhibited it.
Each year on Victory Day, and on Stalin’s Birthday, the 21st December, I take flowers to his grave, tied with special ribbon. And my flowers are never the first to ones arrive because there are always flowers, which have already been placed there before mine, and each year, the number of flowers being place is increasing.
When the film “Osvobozhdenie” (Liberation) appeared on the screens, from which I got to hear that J.V. Stalin’s son Yakov was imprisoned inside the German concentration camp “Sachsenhausen”, I swore that if at any time I was in Germany, I would take some flowers there.
And in June 1979 the unlikely occurred – my official work trip to the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
We crossed the state border at dawn on the 14th June. The train was traveling very slowly. It was a misty morning and the first birds were starting to sing their songs. We did not sleep. Instead, we stood by the window and with excitement peered into the early morning stillness. It was that same kind of silence that was broken by the salvo of guns on the 22nd June 1941.
I knew that Sachsenhausen was located 30 km north of Berlin not far from Oranienburg railway station when I was still in Moscow. And here I was, approaching Oranienburg. A large signpost pointed to the right, towards Sachsenhausen. I walked through the quiet German town under a canopy of huge maple trees. At a crossroads, stood a small sign with the words: “Here began the death march”. When our troops began to approach these areas, the Germans, afraid of retribution for their actions, started covering up their traces. Columns of prisoners were deported from the camp under guard in the direction of the Baltic Sea coastline, where they would be loaded onto barges and then drowned at sea. Many of them did not even make it to the coast because they had been shot on the way there. Those who did get there were saved by our tankists, having forced their way through to the coast of the Baltic Sea.
And here I was, at Sachsenhausen. In all, only a few tens of metres away from the houses of the town’s residents and surrounded by a three metre high concrete wall, with barbed wire running along the top of it, behind which run a high-voltage electric wire and behind that, barbed wire rolled into three spiral layers and standing only a few metres away from the watchtowers with their searchlights. This camp was one of the first of its kind and Himmler himself visited it in 1936 to see the opening of it. This was to be the model for all the camps. Sachsenhausen shook me… Not by its size for it was comparatively small compared to Auschwitz. No, what shook me was the well thought out refinement in the methods of taunting and mockery to which the political prisoners were subjected. Nearby stood the headquarters of the SD (security service), and the most refined and barbarous methods were tested on the prisoners in order to break them both morally and physically.
So, inside the camp there was a block where medical experiments were carried out on living and healthy people. For example, a healthy person would have his leg cut open, where afterwards straw and rubbish would be stuffed into the wound and then the leg sewn up again. And after that, when gangrene had set in, they would treat it with medicines and other preparations, which were previously untested. And one has to say that inside this block, everything had been decorated in Dutch tile where glass cabinets stood together with their instruments. Everything was clean and tidy, completely “German”, as they say. The fascists really loved “cleanliness”. They even killed “cleanly” and “neatly”. Before a prisoner was sent to a gas chamber or executed by firing squad, he would be examined by a “doctor” in a very clean room, where on the wall would hang a sign saying: “Cleanliness prevails in here”!!! Or another example; around the “appelplatz” (the square where roll calls took place each day) a path was laid, which was three metres wide and covered with a variety of surface materials (sand, slag, crushed stone and large stones). A certain German firm had chosen this path to conduct a test on the soles of the soldiers’ boots that they were producing, in order to determine the amount of wear and tear would take place on these boots. The prisoners were made to put on a pair of these boots, which were two sizes too small for them, and then a sack of sand would be hoisted onto their backs. They were then forced to walk along this path for hours on end… A hundred thousand prisoners were murdered and tortured at Sachsenhausen, twenty thousand of whom were Soviet prisoners of war.
On the territory of the camp there was a prison “zellenbau” (cell-block) with single cells. This was the “secret” prison that not even those working for the SS knew which prisoners were being held there. Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of J.V. Stalin was imprisoned in one such cell. By the entrance door can be seen the words: “A special political prisoner of the Gestapo was held here”. It was a small cell, 3x2 metres in size with a trestle bed, small table and stool and a small window so high up that only a tiny bit of sky could be seen. Behind the thick metal door with its peephole, there stood another door made of thick iron bars.
I placed a bunch of flowers, red carnations tied with special ribbon at the entrance to his cell… I had thereby fulfilled by promise.
I took a few stones with me out of Sachsenhausen: a piece of slag from the path where the prisoners were forced to walk around, and two stones, one from the area where prisoners had been hanged by their hands on a hook, and the other from under the window cill of Yakov Dzhugashvili’s cell. I kept these stones for more than a decade, so that afterwards I could give them to somebody who was closest to Yakov Iosevovich Dzhugashvili.
And at one of the wreath-laying occasions at the grave of J.V. Stalin, comrades announced the presence of his grandson Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili. I saw him, approached him, introduced myself and told him about my visit to Sachsenhausen. But I could only give him the stones and booklet about Sachsenhausen the next time we laid wreaths and flower at the grave of J.V. Stalin. It was then that I gave these stones to his grandson Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili at the grave of J.V. Stalin.