How Did I Survive? by Artavazd M. Minasyan [1 ed.] 9781443802840, 9781847186010

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How Did I Survive?

How Did I Survive?

By Artavazd M. Minasyan Edited Annotated Translation and Introduction by

Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

How Did I Survive? by Artavazd M. Minasyan, Edited Annotated Translation and Introduction by Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan This book first published 2008 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2008 by Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-84718-601-7, ISBN (13): 9781847186010

Professor Artavazd M. Minasyan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE .................................................................................... viii PREFACE .................................................................................................. ix PROLOGUE................................................................................................ 1 CHILDHOOD ............................................................................................. 3 YOUTH AND MATURITY ..................................................................... 17 IN THE ARMY ......................................................................................... 51 THE WAR................................................................................................. 57 THE YEARS AFTER THE WAR............................................................. 87 ROSTOV-NA-DONU ............................................................................. 117 HOW MY BOOKS WERE PUBLISHED............................................... 140 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 143 EPILOGUE ............................................................................................. 161 GLOSSARY............................................................................................ 163 MAJOR BOOKS ..................................................................................... 165 NOTES .................................................................................................... 167

EDITOR’S NOTE

This is the first English language edition of How Did I Survive? by Professor A.M. Minasyan. The original hand-written manuscript was completed by the author in Russian in October 1992. Intensive work on editing and translation of the book went on for several years. In translating the book, every effort was summoned to preserve originality and convey the individual peculiarities of the text’s unique language and way of expression saturated with epithets, rich imaginary creative constructions intertwined with critical thoughts of Professor A.M. Minasyan. The primary task was to make the translation clear, accurate and all encompassing. Without inflicting any deficiencies to the core content, that was accomplished through balance of strict grammar rules of English and a wide specter of synonyms and epithets of the Russian language. Most problematic in translating and editing were references to historical events, specific expressions, and play of words customary in Russian but a bit complex for English language reader. For those cases explanatory notes and commentary were added within the text in square brackets. Additional background information was arranged in the Notes section of the present book. All such added commentaries are marked with my initials “AVG”. I am indebted and sincerely grateful to everyone who has reviewed numerous drafts of the text for their interest and comments that assisted in my work. I would like to express special appreciation and gratitude to my grandmother, Hera Kh. Minasyan, my Gevorkyan and Minasyan families without whose active dedicated assistance and support completion of this project would have been difficult. Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan

PREFACE

The 21st century has brought a new era of advanced technology, grand scientific achievements, increased globalization and deeper interconnection, and interpenetration of cultures, philosophies, ways of thought and values of different peoples and countries. History teaches us that every phenomenon unfolding in the present has a specific chain of events preceding it in the past, serving as the concrete phenomenon’s premise and cause. In turn, this present phenomenon is a prerequisite for events to come. This book is exactly about this developing process: this chain reaction in human history. In his autobiography spanning over the 20th century the prominent philosopher Professor Artavazd Mikhailovich Minasyan (01/21/1913 – 05/23/1993) analyzes each event [even those that seem unimportant] through the prism of his time; cause and effect bond as he speaks to the reader about his life and personal experiences. Strictly adhering to the laws of dialectic cognition of the world, the author studies each event in unity of its ingredient opposite occurrences, that at first appearing as separate and dispersed events, are integrally bound with each other and diverse events of the last century and vice versa. It is a dialectical analysis of one’s life in macro perspective. Beginning with the description of the author’s childhood, How Did I Survive? depicts many of the details in the establishment of Soviet power in the Trans-Caucasus and related events in the early years of the 20th century. As he connects each day of his life with the national and international events occurring on a much grander scale, Professor A.M. Minasyan tells the story of 1937 in the USSR and Stalin’s purges that affected him and his family directly. He critically assesses the conditions under which he served in the Red Army, taking part in all decisive battles of World War II and rising from the rank of private to major. Our author speaks with a great pride and honor about the courage and dedication of his comrades in arms, those with whom he defended their Motherland and that of the Soviet people in general. As he returns to academe and his study of science after the war, Professor A.M. Minasyan continues his struggle for the just and correct understanding and application of Marx’s political economy within the realities of the Soviet Union. At times, the author’s character—opposing and always intolerant to any forms of injustice, inequality and prejudice—created problems with those who tried to use science and academia for their selfish and often political goals.

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Preface

Interestingly despite all trials and tribulations, all obstacles set by nay sayers on his way, and often feeling himself on the edge of total collapse, Professor A.M. Minasyan managed to create and preserve a hospitable and large family. He published many monographs, articles and textbooks in philosophy and earned recognition for his work. On innumerable occasions he lectured in the most prestigious universities of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Above all he retained warmth in his heart and openness in his soul to his fellow human beings. This is what the book is about! The ancient Christian proverb, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” found its realization in this philosopher’s life. Seeing the richness in the teachings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx and many other classical philosophers; understanding the true—underlining—essence of the processes taking place in the society of his time; being a contemporary of—often in direct contact with—the people empowered to change the lives of others, the author retained sincere love for his “neighbor,” his family, and anyone who turned to him for advice or help. This is the last book of Professor A.M. Minasyan. He finished writing the book in 1992. He died on May 23, 1993. At that time, I, his eldest grandson, Khachatur (as he used to call me) was just finishing my last year of high school. The loss of a thinker of such great caliber, of a person with the kindest soul, and of a grandfather was a great shock for all of us. People came to bid their last farewell from all over Rostov-na-Donu, Moscow, a number of cities in Russia and Eastern Europe, and Armenia. Those who could not come telephoned or sent letters and telegrams to express their condolences and the feeling of a terrible loss to the world. Each person wanted to say their farewell to their teacher, friend, brother, and “knight” (as the academic U.A. Zhdanov characterized A. M. Minasyan at the memorial service). In the years since his death our large family has grown larger, stronger and more solid. Now we his children and grandchildren have begun to realize the meaning of his words and the stories he used to share with us, most of which are found in his autobiography. Our grandfather’s books and teachings changed the course of the lives of many and have compelled us to ask controversial questions and continue his search for the truth. Still, as in our childhood we cry at the sounds of sad Armenian songs, not for fear but from realization of all that our grandfather endured for his family, for his people and for his neighbor—all so that people would live in peace and continue to hope for the best for humanity. Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan

PROLOGUE

“How did I survive?” Well, you might say, anyone can ask the same question especially given the cruel time, in which we live. This is true, anyone. However, any one has one’s own “I,” one’s own “ego,” one’s own peculiar history. The story of my life coincides with the history of the 1917 Russian Bolshevik Revolution and the history of the USSR. Not many have experienced this. I am eighty years old. At this age, one can better comprehend the life path in its totality and recognize the various aspects and stages of existence differently. Is it not wisely said: “Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape.” 1 Not “everybody” has all of that either. I have been through fire and water, I witnessed war against one’s own people, I fought Fascism, and I survived and returned to science. I created a strong family for posterity and life to go on. Please allow me to tell my story beginning with my childhood…

CHILDHOOD

Childhood? What childhood? Did I ever have a childhood? But there must have been something, right? I did not fall from the sky! Something. This “something” called childhood was perpetual cold, hunger, cruelty and a brutal struggle for existence. It was absolute damnation. I was born in the depths of the Highlands of Armenia in the village of Tolors in the Zangezur province. Our large family consisted of the families of three brothers (Samson, Mikael, Andreas). In all there were 12 people, seven of whom were children. My father—the middle brother—died after he had been captured and tortured in 1918. By miracle he had managed to escape from his persecutors and reach home where he died after several days of torment. My father was a hero of the national liberation movement in Armenia and a member of an aid committee working with the refugees from Turkish Armenia after the 1915 Armenian Genocide.2 In the same year (1918) my father’s youngest brother Andreas left our village taking with him the only horse in our household. Nobody knew where he had gone. The only adult man left in the house was their older brother Samson Abrahamovich who was a teacher. But, he was not teaching at that time because there was no school in the village.3 Instead he worked with us in the field growing our very modest crops on the rocks of Armenia. Years later even after he had reopened the village school and became the first teacher in Tolors he continued working long hours in the field. The most remarkable thing was that the traditions in this large family were rather strange: it was as if we lived in the ages of slavery and feudalism. In everything, and above everyone, ruled Haikanush, Samson’s wife. All children were to call her “mother”—even we, her nephews. We had to call our own mother by her first name, Shushanik (Armenian for Lilly or Lilia). Alas, my mother was a true slave. She was only 25 when she lost her husband—our father. She was continually sacrificing herself for us, her three sons. Many men came to our house asking for her hand in marriage, but emphatically, in a very determined way, she rejected them all! This beautiful, young woman rejected everyone for the sake of her children, carrying her cross in silence. Mother never spoke neither to her brother-in-law nor to any other men. Such were our customs. Hunger, hunger, hunger. What a calamity! During all of my young

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Childhood

years in the family I starved constantly. There was never a single instance when I ate fully—well, perhaps there was this one time and this is how it happened. The eldest among the children was my brother Kolya. He was more respected in the family among the children because he was the eldest (according to the Armenian custom). On one occasion somebody in the family found a handful of flour with some additives, baked a small bun and gave it to Kolya. I was so awfully hungry that I ran outside, grabbed one of the supporting poles of our porch in the yard, and began to cry loudly and annoyingly. That day several Red Army soldiers were stationed in our village some of whom even stayed in our home. One of them named Apres, after finding out that Kolya had a loaf of bread and would not share it, brought me a loaf of bread. Garnik, Samson’s son, asked me to share it with him. “No way!” I replied. I ran as fast as I could but Garnik followed me. He could not catch me, and although he begged and then later followed his begging with threats to beat me up (he was older), nothing helped him. I was surprised at how fast I ran that he could not catch up with me despite the fact that I was barefoot and had to run on sharp rocks. I wondered, from where did I get my strength? Hunger. I cannot say this word without a shudder. Children and adults perished; animals perished. It seemed like anything living was to die from this starvation. I remember one day I was invited for khorovats [Armenian dish: grilled pieces of meat on a rib skewer – AVG]. Our neighbor, Mariam had cut some good pieces of meat from a dead horse she had found in a dump and later prepared khorovats. We ate it with a great pleasure. The most terrifying and frightening days of hunger were always the last days of winter. By springtime we usually had run out of all our food supplies. However with the arrival of spring we always felt relief. Why, one may ask? there was still no bread: “So what?” I would reply; there was grass growing. The only problem was that early in the spring there was not much grass yet and later in the year when it was abundant there was no salt. Nevertheless we ate grass even without salt. In the early spring we ate snowdrop flowers and some yellow leaves that grew under the stones and rocks.4 Women of our village sometimes with their children used to search for this “delicacy” in the mountains. Once, my mother took me with her. I was only three or four years old at that time. Women lifted large boulders and picked up the grass from under them. Of course one could not get much without sots-sorevnovanie [Russian term that translates as ‘socialist

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competition’; a common term in Soviet times used in relation to work place competition to inspire higher “competitive” productivity. Here the word is used with some irony, denoting fierce competition among hungry villagers trying to gather as much grass as they could – AVG]. That day being carried away by such work my mother was getting farther and farther away from me. I fell behind and by the time my mother remembered me and grew worried I was already lost. The following three or so days the entire village searched for me in the mountains and finally they found me. Later when I was old enough to comprehend things differently I asked my mother how I had survived? Three days in the mountains for a small child was enough time for hungry wolves to tear me into pieces! My mother explained my rescue in the following way: “The men from our village who were looking for you had rifles. They shot their guns in the mountains for three days continuously so the wolves did not have time for you.” This was how I had survived. Later when I was seven years old I could already use a rifle myself. With my father’s rifle I hunted rabbits and stunned fish.5 Enough about hunger. I would like instead to tell you about our labor, our everyday work. In this extended family five people worked tirelessly: Uncle Samson, my mother, Kolya, Garnik and I. We completed all the responsibilities of the peasantry: Kolya and Garnik worked as ploughmen, and I as muleteer. In the summer we worked as mowers, reapers and threshers. Kolya and Garnik were eight years old and I was only six. Out of all the children, Uncle Samson loved me most. I do not know why. Perhaps he did so because I was obedient and did everything I was told to do. For example, very early in the morning someone had to get up on the roof of our house to open a hole that served as a window, which was closed with a sack of hay for the night. There was not any other source of light for the house. Every morning Uncle Samson repeatedly called out: “Kolya! Garnik! Kolya! Garnik...” but neither of them would get up pretending they were still asleep. He never called me. Nevertheless whenever I heard his call, I would crawl up barefoot on the roof so that nobody saw me and then open the “window.” Incidentally I remember that I did not have any shoes until I turned ten. You may ask how I could have walked barefoot in the freezing winter on snow and rocks? I will tell you—because I did not feel any frost or cold at all; my feet became “hoofs.” My mother, of course, worked the hardest of all in the family. A widow, she had to provide a living for her three young sons. Only with a great compassion, pity and tears in my eyes can I remember her unbearable fate: during the day she worked in the field; at night she

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Childhood

worked in the house with no sleep, with no rest. Arshavir was Garnik’s younger brother and was a year younger than me. Unlike Garnik, he did not like to work or study when he was a child. Once the three of us (Kolya, Garnik and I) were mowing in the field and Arshavir brought us some dinner. We were overwhelmed with joy! Here it was—our dinner! However very soon we found out that this dinner consisted of only one egg. “Kolya, you divide it.” “No, let Garnik do it. Garnik, split it for three people,” said Kolya. Arshavir started crying: “Why three? Mom told me four!” Garnik was studying the egg, how to divide it into four equal parts. He looked at it from different angles, turning it in his hand. Then he got up and threw it so far into the field, that poor Arshavir, crying, looked for it in the grass the whole day, but he never found it. Although he did find a sparrow’s nest with some eggs, we could not risk eating them. Another interesting thing that was amazing and unexplainable was that we, the young boys in the family, although tired and “beaten” from unbearable labor, could not sleep at night. One must sleep and rest at night before early morning and a new job but yet we could not bring ourselves to sleep. Hungry, we lay on the floor in a row talking and whispering stories to each other. My mother fed us, giving each a little piece of something to eat. She had to be cautious not to wake up Haikanush, because if she did, then... It was sometime in the early 1920s that Soviet power had finally reached us in Zangezur.6 Uncle Samson was the only educated person not only in our village but also in the entire surrounding region. He could read books in Armenian and Russian equally well. As mentioned before, it was with great difficulty that he managed to reopen the village school. He gathered all the children of the village ages six to sixteen in the building of the old school, which was near the cemetery and adjacent to the old church. Holding our breaths we listened to our teacher Samson. I sat in the front row with special pride. It was my uncle, whom we called “papa.” He started: “My children! Mesrop Mashtots7 created our Armenian alphabet in the year of 405 AD, but my people, almost everybody are illiterate! Your task is, first of all, to learn how to read and write. Agreed?” “Agreed, agreed!” “Does everyone agree?” “Yes, yes, everyone, all of us! We do.” “Good, then. We know what to do now.” This was the first time that I heard the name Mesrop Mashtots. I had heard the name Mesrop before. There were several Mesrops in our village. However I had never heard the name Mashtots until that moment. Later I asked my uncle if all Armenian names ended with “yan,”8 how could there

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be an Armenian name ending with “ts”? There must have been something wrong there. My uncle explained to me that Armenian last names did not always end with “yan,” especially the very old Armenian names. Also, the names depended on such things as the place where a person was born, names of his ancestors, and what his family did for a living. Our teacher was a very intelligent and well-educated person. He taught us not only how to read and write, math, geography, etc., but to sing as well. Oh, what a beautiful voice he had! But he sang very rarely; either he was shy or thought that it was impolite to sing in public. At every celebration, weddings or birthdays, the entire village demanded that he sing: “Varzhapet! Varzhapet! Sing!” (Armenian: teacher). Sometimes he sang. Most of all he liked to sing “Machkal” (Armenian: ploughman). I vividly remember long winter nights when my uncle, sitting by a kerosene lamp, sang our sad Armenian songs. He sang with a gentle voice and sincerity. People in our village, those who did not sleep and those who slept but were awakened, would come together near our house, with bated breath, to listen to his songs. When he taught us to sing he would group us in a row, first Kolya, then Garnik, then me, and then Arshavir. None of us dared not to sing! Otherwise he would punish us. We used to stay in the row for four or five hours, singing and learning new songs. I still remember and can sing many of them. In singing, I was taking something from Garnik, who had his father’s voice, so gentle and happy. Once, many years later, when we were already in Baku [capital of modern Azerbaijan – AVG], I asked him to sing on the radio. He told me: “Absolutely not, Tosy (that was my nickname)! Do you want me to become an artist? Is an artist a person?” He could have become an artist but unfortunately he did not want to. Somewhere he got this idea that an artist was not a “person”! I still do not comprehend it. Our teacher, Uncle Samson, practiced a somewhat peculiar system of discipline at our school based on coercion and corporal punishment. It is difficult for me to guess the reaction of today’s specialists to this teaching approach, but perhaps in those days it was well justified. For example, uncle would say to students: “In the morning, when you get up, you must wash your face. Is there water at home? Yes, there is. Besides that, you must clip your fingernails. Is that clear? Whoever does not obey will be punished!” Naturally, nothing was said about toothpaste in those times. Every morning when I came to school I would hear my uncle’s commanding voice: “Hands on the desks!” The teacher then would start examining our “clean” hands and clipped fingernails. With a long wooden ruler he walked along the aisles, saying, “You are a good boy! Very good!” to those students with clean hands. “And you are not!” to those

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Childhood

with dirt under their fingernails and then hit the dirty hands with the ruler. Moreover there was ongoing stealing in our school. Anything could have been stolen: a pencil, a notebook, etc. I remember one time when I got involved in a “theft story.” I was sitting at my desk when I felt something under my foot. I looked under the desk and picked it up. It was a notebook! We used to make our notebooks ourselves in those times. Usually they were blank pages and clippings from books – we used empty white spaces on the margins to patch clean pages together. We used flowers to prepare ink. So, I took that notebook and exchanged it for alchiki (bone-dice) with another guy. Later, that same day, my classmate, a girl, saw her notebook in someone else’s possession and told the teacher about it. I confessed and waited for punishment. However the teacher said, “Since Ataz (this was my other name) has sincerely confessed to and admitted his mistake we don’t need to punish him.” There was another incident; only this time it related more to my uncle’s discipline methods. One day I was mowing grass in the field with a few adults. Suddenly, my classmate Suren (lame from birth) ran up to me and stepped right on the scythe! He sustained deep cut in his leg and blood was everywhere. I was very afraid. I can still remember and relive the worry about that horrible moment! I was ready for severe punishment. I was not a child anymore—not six but seven-years-old, “a grown up.” How could this have happened? I even considered suicide to wash away my shame. I went to a barn to try but nothing worked. Somehow Garnik had found me, though. I was away from home for a long time so they got worried and uncle had sent Garnik to find me. When Garnik brought me home, there was silence and no conversation! I thought I would be punished at school in front of everybody. In the morning, we were walking with uncle to school in silence. He gave me a note and said: “Go to Akhlatian (a village four kilometers away from our school), find this teacher, give him this note and bring me an answer.” I was quick as lightning. I was happy! In Akhlatian I quickly found the school, the teacher, and at the speed of light ran back home. But my uncle was angry when I returned: “Why did you not go? Why didn’t you carry out my order?” But I reported to him everything and gave him the answer. Uncle Samson blushed and then became pale; he did not know what to say. I stood in front of him, afraid to meet his eyes, looking down. Suddenly he got up, embraced me, kissed me and told everyone: “Children, remember this boy! Let Ataz Ter-Minasyan be an example for you!” Had anyone else in the whole history of mankind ever received such a valuable prize for running a marathon? At that time I was overwhelmed with happiness, pride, and a deep and sincere love for my uncle. I am still amazed…

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Yes, it was true. I was Uncle Samson’s most beloved child. He protected me from everything and everyone, even from Garnik, though we were good friends and did the most difficult and complicated work together. There were times when Garnik and I worked in the field at nights. Yet, sometimes, he would beat me up! The first time he beat me up was when he could not catch me and take away my bread. The second time was for deceit. This is how it happened: Taking a break after a long day of work we stretched our bodies on the ground and talked dreamingly about something. Then Garnik said: “I wish I had a candy.” Quietly I crawled away and then offered him a piece of “candy.” It actually was hen’s dung wrapped in paper! The third time was when I went down to the cellar to get some potatoes. I decided to satisfy my excruciating hunger that was torturing me (hunger that tortured all of us) by grabbing anything edible I could find and trying to eat it as fast as I could. Garnik was upstairs and quickly figured out what was going on and threw a metal basket right at my head. For this, Uncle Samson gave him a good beating. As I said Uncle Samson protected me from everyone, but especially from the villagers. One day I was working in the field by myself without my immediate family near me. An older man from our village, Karo, was the ploughman and I was the muleteer. I do not remember why but this Karo threw a stone at me. Bleeding, I ran home and told everything to Uncle Samson. He was busy at that time but he stopped, dropped all his work and went to the field with me. As punishment he gave that Karo a severe beating. However, my uncle was a true intellectual: a very educated and brilliant man. He was a man of rich culture and great standing. In addition to the many great things he did for our school and village he organized a drama class at school. For the first time in the history of the village there was a real theater. We put on a play called “For a Piece of Land” (I do not recall the author’s name). I was offered the role of Manuk, an underage boy who had to get married to receive an additional little piece of cropland that was allotted to every family according to the number of family members. The whole village came to see the performance. We constructed our stage in a barn. People were all over the place; some sat on the floor, some on benches, and some on logs. A woman named Nianiagul sat in front of everyone. She was a widow and had nothing but a daughter, Arpik. People sitting behind her were shouting to her: “Hey, Nianiagul, get down. We can’t see anything! You are blocking our view!” But she answered loudly and with pride, “I can’t. My daughter is in the performance!” Arpik, my classmate, was in the second grade with me. She played the role of the bride. Soon, the play began. Acting according to my

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role of the groom, I embraced my “bride,” i.e. Arpik. At this very moment, Nianiagul literally went off like a bomb: “You son of a bitch!” she screamed at me. “What are you doing to my daughter?” Pretty soon the barn was filled with yelling and arguing voices. The play had to be brought to a halt. The place was in absolute disorder; nobody was listening to anyone! Two groups had formed in the audience. One group of people was arguing against me saying that I could not hug someone’s daughter. The other group argued that it was not my fault since I was simply acting out my role; and furthermore, I did not hurt her daughter in any way. I did not even kiss her (as was in the script)! Nevertheless a fierce fight began but luckily it ended without any victims—all thanks to my uncle who got up on stage and explained to the audience that in a theater people hug and kiss and there was nothing wrong because there was no “theater”, i.e. acting, without that. In the end my uncle’s authority and respect triumphed. Everybody parted peacefully but the play was cancelled. I survived again but I think one could say that this was the end of my acting career. This episode is a very good example of the customs, traditions and morals of Armenians in general and people of my particular village. The morals were strict; there were no streetwalking women or those who lived independently from their families. As a rule a young lady married only once and remained married for her whole life. Divorce was an unspeakable subject! A second marriage after a loss of a husband was a very exclusive and rare event. Such incidents turned women into objects of shame and disrespect. Did married couples kiss? My childhood observations in our village led me to believe that absolutely not. For example no Russian wedding is held without gorko [“gorko” means “bitter” in Russian. Guests shout “gorko”, thus asking the groom and the bride to kiss in front of everybody. It is Russian wedding tradition. – AVG]. In contrast I have been to many Armenian weddings but have never seen such a thing happen or anything even remotely close to it. Maybe this is simply a tradition and it does not mean a thing but, nevertheless, it is a fact. I clearly remember the times when my brother Kolya was the secretary of the village Komsomol9 group (in the 1920s). By then some of the villagers had already learned how to read and write. We youngsters hardly knew how, but went from one village to another, from one house to another promoting education and liquidating illiteracy among our compatriots. “Glory to Literacy!” “Say No to Illiteracy!” “Knowledge is Light, No Knowledge is Darkness!” “Literacy is the Way to Socialism!” Such were the slogans of that time. It was a time when the victims [i.e. people thrown in jails on others’ accusations – AVG] of “mass

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enlightenment” first appeared: the villagers started to write complaints against each other with or (most often) without any reason. People behaved like informers. I remember there was a man named Nerses in our village who was lazy and unwilling to work. He dropped out of school, never owned a thing, and provided for himself by stealing from others. His mother Nazo baked lavash [Armenian homemade bread, similar to pita bread – AVG] for the whole village and thereby supported the both of them. This vagabond Nerses filed a complaint against a co-villager named Mushegh, brother of Bayadur, member of the Communist Party of the USSR. The complaint was filed with the Republic of Armenia Komsomol Central Committee (CC). From the CC the complaint was sent to the local organization for investigation and appropriate action. Kolya, my brother, kept everything in secret; he did not say anything to anyone except for those working on the case. I found out where the meeting was going to be held and together with a friend of mine, we hid under the window of the room where the private hearing was taking place. So that we could hear we made a hole in the newspaper that was used to cover the broken window. Holding our breath we listened to all that was happening. I never felt such great interest before. This is what followed: Kolya: “We have received a complaint submitted by comrade Nerses against comrade Mushegh to the Central Committee. It states here that comrade Mushegh has hurt comrade Nerses’s donkey. Comrade Mushegh, how do you explain this?” Mushegh: “This is not true. This is slander! I did not touch his donkey.” Nerses: “Not just ‘touched’ it, but even hurt the poor animal!” Kolya: “Comrade Nerses, can you prove that?” Nerses: “I have a witness—comrade Tatos (Tatos was a worker at the village mill who stammered). He can confirm my words.” Tatos: “I-I-I-I cccon-fffir-mmm.” For a while Tatos described in every imaginable detail about how everything had happened with Mushegh screaming the entire time that “He is lying, this damn pathetic stammered. He is making it up.” The discussion took place for a really long time, very long. Finally one of the Komsomol activists got up and simply said: “Comrades, what is going on here? Everybody knows that comrade Nerses does not own a donkey and never has! How could comrade Mushegh have hurt a nonexistent animal?” Then Nerses got up and started screaming: “So what if I do not have a donkey now. I will have one tomorrow! Soviet power is my power; it will help the poor to own a donkey.”

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Childhood

The case was closed but Nerses did not yield. Despite this fiasco Nerses continued writing complaints about people. There were no kulaks10 in our poverty-stricken village back then. There were few families that could constitute a so-called middle class but the majority of the villagers were poor people. I guess because of the number of able workers in the family, we were considered to be part of the middle class, although we lived worse than most of the people of that class. Right at the peak of the collectivization11 process in the USSR, Nerses wrote another complaint. This time he accused Uncle Samson of being one of the kulaks. Nerses demanded investigation on the grounds that Uncle Samson had someone working for him and thus could be considered as one of the wealthy. That happened in 1930 and I had already been living elsewhere by that time. However my mother told me all about the incident. The Chairman of the local GPU12 came to our village to sort out the issue. He gathered everyone at the church and presented his orders on dekulakization. Nerses, with another plaintiff, was trying to prove that Uncle Samson was a kulak because he had hired a worker. When the Chairman asked the people gathered whether or not this was true, some kept quiet (fearing to draw attention to themselves) while others agreed with Nerses. Then my mother, seeing that the situation was getting even worse for my uncle, forgot her damned silence and spoke loudly to prove the truth and refute the accusing arguments. On this single occasion my mother actually spoke to people with whom she had never spoken before! She spoke persuasively clearly and with a great degree of certainty. She said that many people in the village hired seasonal workers because peasants cooperated with and helped each other. For example if someone’s crops had yielded more or earlier than his neighbor’s then the second one helps the first one and, later on, the first would help the other one. Thus all crops would be saved and collected in time. In this case, who was then a kulak and who was poor? Neither of them because they were both equals! Her reasoning was very rational and persuasive. As a result and thanks in large to my mother’s outburst, the dekulakization of my uncle was prevented. This was another failure of Nerses and his cohorts. However irrepressible Nerses tried to defame even me. It happened several years after the incident with my uncle. Along with a man from our village by the name of Aroun, Nerses paid me a visit in Nakhichevan. It was 1937 and I had already been appointed as the First Secretary of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Oblast [AO] [also Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) -- AVG] Committee of the Communist Party. I acted as a good host to them and welcomed my guests with the best of our hospitable traditions. Nevertheless these bastards complained to my superiors, saying

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they had been my hired workers, despite the well-known fact that they themselves had never worked a day in their lives and never did until their last days. By sheer luck their complaint was not given appropriate consideration by my immediate superior in the republican administration [of Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (AzSSR), since Nakhichevan oblast was under protectorate of AzSSR – AVG] and got lost in the bureaucratic paper trail. What happened next? Indeed the tramp remained true to oneself until the end. Such was the vagrant’s pathology: as long as Soviet power is a power of the proletariat and the poor then someone else had to do the work for them and defend this power for them. When the enemy [i.e. Nazi Germany – AVG] had invaded our country and the war began in 1941, all the young people from our village went to defend the country except for Nerses. He actually pretended to be mute and deaf! When the war was over on May 9, 1945, Nerses got up on the roof of his house and using very strong language and curses screamed loudly so that people in the neighborhood could hear: “Damn you all! Is it me you call mute? deaf?” How many like Nerses, with the same pathology but on different levels, has our country had and continues to have? Did not the same thing happen on the scale of the whole country? To get the country out of stagnation and end the hunger, cold, poverty, typhus, and death, Lenin invented, yes invented, the New Economic Policy (NEP).13 N.I. Bukharin14 supported the new reforms and proclaimed a new motto to the masses: “Get rich!” Stalin, on the contrary, refused the proclamation declaring Bukharin’s statement to be one of kulaks’, which drove the country to further poverty. Stalin managed to do this not merely with words but through his actions as well. Here is a Nerses for you, only on a much higher level. In remembering my childhood in Tolors I must say a few words about a very interesting man, Minas-apa (Armenian: apa - uncle). Minas was my father’s second cousin. He was very energetic and industrious man. I often used to work with him and that was not a simple job. On hot summer days Minas and the other men used to split pieces of rock from the surrounding mountains in our area. Then those rocks were broken into smaller stones and finally the children, five to six years old, crushed these smaller stones into sand. Subsequently people would use that sand to sow seeds of wheat, barley or other cultivated plants in it. The need for such laborious exercise is explained by an almost absolute lack of agricultural land in Armenia—a country covered by rocks. Minas-apa was one of those extraordinary individuals who would perform the most challenging tasks be it plowing, seeding, mowing or anything else, with a song. The whole village was asleep at night but if he

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was in the field he would sing so loudly that people complained that they could not sleep! However most of all Minas-apa was famous for his foul language! He could say anything to anyone at any time, even in front of women and children. It did not at all matter how rude or impolite his expressions were. One time we were on horseback together returning from the field, and his daughter-in-law was coming towards us. He called her to come forward. When she approached him, Minas-apa yelled: “Nubar, Nubar… and then a very rude phrase.” She yelled back: “Damn you!” Once a woman from the local district Communist Party Committee [from here on we will use a more common Russian abbreviation: raikom – AVG] came to our village. Seated on horseback and dressed in short pants, a sleeveless shirt, and a red tie, she rode right to the center of the village. We young boys ran up to her and gathered around her. We were very interested in observing an almost naked woman. One could never see something like that in the village! As we were gazing at her Minas-apa came with a mower on his shoulder and asked: “What has happened? What is this meeting for?” We told him that somebody from the raikom was there. Minas-apa came closer and exclaimed when he saw her: "Hey, a streetwalker has come! What raikom???” The woman tried to object: “No, I am not a streetwalker, I am the Women’s Leader in the raikom!” Minas-apa started shouting and teasing her after which she disappeared together with the horse. Minas-apa was also well known for his cruelty as he indiscriminately tortured everyone. One episode stands out in my memory. Sometimes I used to work in the field with Minas’s son, Aram. We were about six years old then. Together we would load hay on the horse and transport the load from the field to a silo. One day as we were getting ready to go back to the village, Minas-apa came to us and helped his son mount the horse. As he was doing this he pinched Aram so strongly, that poor boy started to cry and cried all the way back to the village. Minas-apa explained that this act would help his son remember everything his father had taught him. Minas-apa was also our village butcher. Every Sunday he killed either a cow or a pig in front of our house in the square. We, the children, really enjoyed that scene—especially when he removed the animal’s bladder and poured it all on us. There was another incident when Minas-apa showed himself an extraordinary person yet again. One day he dragged his daughter to the village square, exposed her butt, and told every kid in the village to spit and beat the naked butt of his young daughter. He did the same to his wife Banaush. He beat her saying, “There! Take that!” while she screamed and begged him to stop. Uncle Samson heard the screams and went to the

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square. When he saw that savage scene he could only say to Minas-apa: “Ai esh, ai esh! [esh, Armenian for donkey – AVG] What are you doing?” Minas answered: “What else could I be doing? What kind of power do we have now? Soviet? Yes! Literate? Yes! And this pig does not want likbez, and does not want to study.” In response Banaush screamed even louder: “No! I do not want to! I do not want to! I am not going to learn anything!” The harder Minas beat her the louder she screamed. Eventually she got her way: she gave birth to 12 children, died at the age of 100 – an illiterate woman, but perhaps the only one like that in Armenia. So this was my childhood in the village where I had finished the fouryear primary school. My mother insisted that I continue my education and I remember her often telling us: “I have dedicated all my life so that you could learn, study and someday become professors.” To continue my education meant that I had to attend the only seven-year school in the whole region located in the town of Sisian. We studied there in terrible conditions; again the hunger was persistent anywhere I went. It never completely left me until later in my adult life. Aside from that the school was located far away from our village and it was not easy to walk there every morning. I had to walk 14 kilometers in the mountains regardless of the weather conditions. Winter months were the most difficult when the mountain paths were covered with snow and were impassable. But persistently we continued to attend the school in Sisian. We had overcome even that hardship! Kolya and Garnik had graduated from this school a year before I did. Consequently on our family’s advice we decided to send Kolya to attend education-instructor courses in Goris. Garnik went to Baku to continue his studies (at that time, the nine-year school closest to us with instruction in Armenian was there). I was also set to go to Baku. In September 1929 my mother with tears in her eyes, packed my things. Aside from the obvious educational advantages the choice of Baku could be explained by the fact that I had uncles living there. Aghalo and Samson were my mother’s brothers and they owned a three-story house. Alas, Aghalo and Samson were of the nepmans15 and they did not accept me. Besides them in Baku there lived my uncle Andreas (my father’s long-lost brother). He lived in a small eight square meter apartment. Thankfully uncle Andreas welcomed me warmly to his place although with difficulty (“with difficulty” because he lived in very modest conditions). Despite this I settled in Baku and lived with my uncle in those modest eight square meters of space. My first and primary task was to enter the eighth grade to continue my education in the only Armenian nine-year school, School #25. Naturally the problem came where it was least expected. My initial application to

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Childhood

enter the school was rejected. The school’s principal, a man by the last name Arakelyan, argued: “First it is too late you should have thought about it before September 1, and secondly, we do not accept children of peasants.” Help came from Garnik’s uncle, Ashot, whose brother was an old Bolshevik. I recall the entrance exam in school. There were four or five teachers on the committee. I was asked, in Armenian, to define a “sentence.” I answered quickly in Russian: “A thought expressed in words is a sentence.” Oh what a delight that caused among the most respectful professors! How could this village boy know Russian so well! They did not know that I hardly knew anything else in Russian at that time. By what means did I learn Russian? What miracle had made me say those words? The phrase must have stuck in my memory since the time when Uncle Samson – our first Teacher – had taught us. In the end the fact remains: this definition saved me and I was accepted to the eighth grade. There was no limit to my joy!

YOUTH AND MATURITY

1929 Indeed this year was the year of The Great Breakthrough.16 Usually in any [mostly Soviet] literature this breakthrough is explained as “the time when the middle class (sub-kulaks) went into collective farming, i.e. kolkhoz.” Well I must say that the middle class did not go anywhere. The middle class was merely penned in there. In reality The Great Breakthrough held a completely different meaning with completely different consequences. It was the last year of the New Economic Policy (NEP), and putting it more truthfully, those were the last days we saw abundance. I was lucky enough to “catch” the tail of that abundance: stores, kiosks, small shops, and street markets were bursting with various consumer products. Oh and the quality of those goods! It was simply the best! One must have a very rich fantasy to imagine the highest quality of any product in those times. And the prices—it must have been some sort of magic! I recall on one occasion when uncle Andreas gave me 20 kopecks (one fifth of a ruble) and said: “Look, there is a store, ‘Concordia’ right across the street. Go there and buy one gallon of wine, one kilogram of bread and a kilogram of apples.” I did exactly what he told me and even brought back some change. Everything tied out: one gallon of red dry wine—17 kopecks, one kilogram of bread—one kopeck, one kilogram of apples—one kopeck. One thing that must be added is that my uncle worked as a weaver at a Vladimir I. Lenin Cotton Mill in Baku with a salary of 90-100 rubles a month or maybe a bit more than that. When I left for Baku my mother gave me a gold coin with an imprinted image of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicolas II, so that I would exchange it for a money bill. I went to almost everybody yet nobody wanted to exchange! The way we originally obtained that coin was simple. When we were selling sheep somebody paid with that coin. Later I did manage to exchange it for money and support myself for a while.

1930 The year 1930 was the beginning of total poverty. The products

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Youth and Maturity

disappeared quickly from stores. The rapid rate of en masse collectivization was sustained in the country’s plunge into poverty; stores, large and small, went out of business. Those that stayed in business did not have anything to sell and most often the shelves were filled with useless things. Very soon a card system was instituted. It should be noted that the working class had been given certain privileges under the new system. The country was brought to full starvation once again. In spite of N.I. Bukharin’s slogan ‘Get rich!’ poverty “flourished” everywhere. Most importantly destitution grew not only in the material sphere of society but also in the spiritual and cultural as well. I clearly remember many discussions and arguments we had at that time about collectivization and liquidation of the “wealthy.” Uncle Andreas and his comrades from the factory were arguing that Stalin was deviating from Lenin’s teachings and I was arguing the contrary. Our debates were very heated and many times we very nearly fought each other, literally. But the opposing parties were not equal: I was only a student of the ninth grade and they were poorly educated factory workers. So what were my opponents trying to prove? First they insisted that nobody, not even Stalin himself, knew what a total collectivization encompassed! Some said that everything would be unionized—even wives! Others said that aside from wives everything else would be shared while still others argued that only cattle suitable for work in the fields would be brought together in one collective farm. One of my opponents who had just come from our village witnessed the creation of a kolkhoz (a collective farm). He related the following: in the village square there was a huge pile of various household things. People had to throw all their things in this pile: dishes, pots, plates, torn blankets, rugs, sticks, spades, ploughs and other things one would need to live in a village. At that time an executive from raikom came to the village and upon seeing the pile ordered that mess to be “cleaned up” and so it was and people took their belongings back. Yet some time later a new order arrived and a new pile appeared on the same place. At that time Minas-apa, supported by the subsequent laughter of the people, asked the committee representative: “How about our fleas and lice? Don’t you drive our lice in kolkhoz as well?” This eyewitness further told us that some “irresponsible” peasants had been killing cattle and hid the corpses underground so that kolkhoz would not find them and take them. The second major issue that my opponents argued was that the kulak could not, nor should, be eliminated. He was not a parasite; he was a diligent worker: “You are saying Stalin does not alter Lenin’s policy, but Lenin never said that the kulak must be liquidated! On the contrary, Lenin

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said that the kulak was an experienced worker and we must use that experience. Stalin’s policy is a complete liquidation of the kulak as a class on the basis of en masse collectivization. Is this not an alteration and change of Lenin’s policy?” Although I was nominally more literate than my opponents were, I could hardly offer any resistance to their “attacks.” It took decades before the deceived, distorted consciousness, not simply my own literate one, but those of dozens of millions of other people received confirmation of my opponents’ assertion. The truth was, back in the 1930s, ultimately on the side of my opponents. Today17 we have a process of perestroika [literally from Russian: “rebuilding” - process of political, social and economic transformation started in mid 1980s in the USSR – AVG] under way in our country. I welcome it. No I am not a “wind gauge.” I have come to the realization that the whole symbol of this ‘perestroika’ is to rebuild and reestablish the principles of V.I. Lenin’s New Economic Policy. The idea is to interest the worker of a city or a village in the results of their labor—something that Stalin’s policy had uprooted. To bring the discussion of collectivization to some sort of a conclusion it is necessary to try to provide a reasonable answer to one question: How could one person, a seminarian, without any higher education fight his way through the different strata to the very seat of power in such a gigantic country and control it for more than 30 years? These days there are many publications and discussions on this subject. It seems to me that all attempts to answer this question miss one major point. Namely it must be admitted that Stalin was an unprecedented liar, unsurpassed in the whole history of mankind! His lies were superb so to speak. They were deeply justified, relatively sophisticated, and abundant with sophism so that people believed that his lie was a truth at the ultimate authority. For example let’s look at the case of the total collectivization: Stalin, the author of the The Great Breakthrough wrote an article Dizzy from Success18 in which he blamed everybody but himself for the mistakes of collectivization. What shameless hypocrisy, prudishness, blasphemy, and brazen lies! Stalin was smart and cunning. He labeled all his speeches with Lenin’s name but always acted on the contrary to Lenin’s ideals! People ask how he defeated such intelligent people, party activists, as L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev, N.I. Bukharin, A.I. Rykov, and many others. Again, quite simply: he acted using the authority in Lenin’s name and accused his opponents of being anti-Leninists. After all V.I. Lenin was a sacred figure for the Communist Party and for the people. Naturally anyone acting against his ideas and contradicting his vision (in Stalin’s

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Youth and Maturity

interpretation of course) could not follow Stalin—the “Lenin” of those days. He brought the country to starvation with his collectivization. In the beginning of the 1930s millions of people in Kuban’, Don, Ukraine, and in the regions with barren land were dying from hunger. Yet simultaneously Stalin proclaimed his slogan: “Life is getting better, comrades, life is getting happier!” What unprecedented deception! No instance of political prostitution could ever compare with this. Of course the people closest to Stalin supported him: L.M. Kaganovich, K.E. Voroshilov, V.M. Molotov and others were there when he needed them. A sort of a mafia-type group had been formed. Kaganovich was the second person in the government after Stalin and was proclaiming his own slogans. I remember how Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party published his slogan: “Put a rabbit on the worker’s table!” Rabbit breeding was propagandized in the country. And why not?! There was no meat in the entire country! In one of the issues of the satire magazine Crocodile, a cartoon displayed a giant rabbit with the caption ‘Milk cow of a new breed.’ But let me return to the story of my life in 1930s. I had been already living in Baku for several months and giving primary focus and undivided attention to my education. However I had developed a strong desire to work, to get a “real” job besides attending my classes and there were a few reasons for that. By that time I had already adjusted to living in the city of Baku. I even started to converse in Russian and Turkish (back then Azerbaijanis, used to call themselves Turks). There was even a street in Baku of the “Liberated Turkish Girl.” Perhaps people who lived in Baku and in the republic found the word “Turks” to be disharmonious and because of that started addressing each other as ‘Azerbaijanis’. It happened sometime in the late 1930s, early 1940s. Despite feeling settled in city life, I began to feel very uncomfortable remaining at my uncle’s home. Uncle Andreas was divorced and his female friend often visited him at our apartment. Obviously, I was getting in their way. Finally, I simply yearned to be a laborer—or, collectively, of the “working class”—a privileged title in those days; someone who in recognition for their hard labor received special treatment and respect. My uncle offered to help me find a job. But our numerous visits to several employment agencies (ironically all housed in one building) were fruitless. There we found crowds of unemployed and there were either no vacancies or maybe just one or two. Convinced that I would not gain much from a daily trip to the agencies, I decided to find a job myself. It was already May 1930 and I remember walking, walking, walking… Where to? I do not know myself, though I did get lucky in the end. As I passed a

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street in the “Black Town” (a district in Baku), I saw men digging a pit. I came up to them and said I wanted to dig too! Altogether they said “Sure!” many “fools” wanted to become laborers. They asked me if I knew that the word laborer [Russian: ‘rabochiy’ – AVG] derived from the word slave [Russian: ‘rab’ – AVG]? I did not hesitate for a second and told them I was ready to become even a slave. So I started “digging.” In other words I had finally become a worker! However there was a problem with my paperwork. My birth certificate from the village indicated that I had been born in 1915. “You are too young, so we can’t accept you as a worker,” they told me. But my coworkers supported me. They petitioned on my behalf, convincing the authorities that I was a good worker, healthy and strong. But nothing helped! I even had to ask Garnik to help. He had been working by then and I wanted to work with him since we worked together in our entire childhood. But help came from one of the co-workers—he was an Osetian by nationality: “Listen boy, tear that paper up, throw it to hell and tell them you were born in 1913.” And that was exactly what I did! Since that time my birth year has been 1913 in all my records. Finally I was a fullfledged worker! After working for several months I received a Worker’s Union membership card. Although I have paid my dues for sixty years I have never received any benefits or vacation vouchers as was allegedly the rule. I worked on a construction site where I performed all kinds of jobs. Like the much older professional workers I carried bricks, cement, and building material on a dolly. One of my co-workers, blond Vanya used to mock me constantly. He was older and stronger than I. Once I took a streetcar to work (back in those days people used to ride not only inside the car but also on its roof) and I remember there were many people inside the car and it was filled up to the brim. In such tightness I was strongly pressed against someone and farted in my pants! Vanya was right there, and when he found out who spoiled the air he caught and beat me up, saying: “You damn shit-head! Take this!” Those were the same days when I was intensively studying Russian and some of the words were very new to me. One time the oldest worker, we called him uncle Vasya, was swearing: “Go to hell.” I got up and asked him: “Where, Uncle Vasya?” I thought he wanted me to go somewhere. Everybody started laughing. Another time I heard Uncle Vasya address a woman from our management office as “madam.” I asked him what it meant, “madam.” He answered: “Well, a baba!” 19 I did not understand this either because coincidentally, the tool we used to drive the logs in the ground was also called baba. I remember another occasion in class, when I

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Youth and Maturity

said that Marx in the last century ‘pisil’ [Russian: urinated – AVG] a lot instead of ‘pisal’ [Russian: wrote – AVG]. This mix-up caused a disruption in class and the girls in the classroom laughed the most. However all that was for my own benefit. My everyday teachers of the Russian language were the workers, mostly Uncle Vasya.

1931 In 1931, our workers’ cafeteria was providing us with good food. I had a wolf’s appetite and ate a lot. Sometimes I could eat five or six, sometimes even seven meals at one time. One might suppose that I was trying to make up with what I had lost in the years of hunger. However I was growing not by days but by hours. I became very strong. Workers made me a special giant dolly and I, myself, filled it up to the top and pulled it. Everybody praised me, especially Uncle Vasya. At last the time had come. One summer evening I gathered all of my possessions and moved into the workers’ dormitory, freeing Uncle Andreas from my burden. The dormitory was located on the first floor of a three-story school building that was still under construction. One night I wanted to get up on the chilly third floor, but fell and tore skin off my back. My friends immediately put me on my wheelbarrow (an improvised ambulance) and took me to hospital. Several men held my hands at the same time so that a nurse would be able to put iodine on my back. As soon as she started her work, I threw those men left and right, freed my arms and she finished her procedure. In the 1930s I was also an active member of Komsomol at a number of construction sites. With my other young co-workers we were soliciting workers to subscribe for the government loan. I guess my rapid professional growth was a reason for someone’s envy. Somebody even tried to kill me. One time I was standing on the first floor of our dormitory. The master who strongly disliked me threw a large stone at me that almost hit me. I survived but in the event, if he had succeeded, he could have alleged carelessness or accident and would have come out clean. I did not get to work long on the construction site. A special working group was created for working-students in the ninth grade. Everyday from 8:00 am until 2:00 pm we were in school and from 2:00 pm until 10:00 pm we were working on the oil fields of the Ilich Bay. The history of the Bay was the following: a segment of the Caspian Sea Gulf, adjoined with Bibi-Aibatu (a district of Baku) had been dried up under the supervision of Polish engineer Pavel Potozky in 1921.

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Subsequently the oil was extracted at that created an oilrig. That oil field of “AzNeft” was the richest one producing high-quality oil. Thanks to that many high-ranked people such as L.D. Trotsky, S.K. Ordzhonikidze, L.P. Beria, M.J.A. Bagirov and others visited it often. At the end of 1931 Sergo Ordzhonikidze20 visited our oil field. He had long conversations with masters and asked questions about everything. I was standing a little aside and was listening to them attentively. When he was about to leave he noticed me and said: “And what is this sniveler doing here?” “Comrade Sergo, I am not a sniveler I am the working class!” I said. Sergo held out his huge hand: “Hullo, working class! How is life?” I said: “Comrade Sergo, I have a favor to ask of you.” Back then we used to address each other and even the party leaders in informal way [Russian familiar “ty”, instead of more formal “Vy”. – AVG]. Sergo answered: “Vah, what kind of favor can working class ask for? In our country the working class has the dictatorship of the proletariat!” I explained to him that I was not accepted into the Communist Party because I had been told I was “too young.” The First Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party (CP) of Azerbaijan at that time was V.I. Polonsky (who later perished in the Great Purge of 1937). It happened that he was accompanying Sergo on that particular trip. Sergo, turned and told him: “The Party is the party of the working class; we must accept the guy.” Thus in December of 1931, I was accepted as a candidate member of the Communist Party. I got my recommendations from the supervisor of the oil field, Makhno, the secretary of the party organization Agadjanov and one other person (all of them perished in 1937). The whole second oilfield came to the meeting where my candidacy was to be reviewed by a commission. In those days, all coworkers of the candidate had to participate in the process. Many people spoke and gave me good references. I was referred to as an industrious, active Komsomol member, politically literate, possessed the right morals, etc. Then a man named Yershov who worked as a locksmith at the field asked permission to say a few words. He was well known for using a foul language in his speeches. “I mean, damn it, I am against this guy. I ask this sniveler what socialism is and he says ‘It’s paradise’. What f…. paradise if hunger is everywhere!” He was the only one who voted against me. People called me sniveler just because I still did not have the special uniform overalls that everyone wore on the rig. On August 27, 1932 I was accepted as a full member of the Communist Party. In those years a candidate’s probation was six months if he was a factory and manufacturing worker and two years for the civil service employee. There was another meeting dedicated to the end of my probationary period.

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Again, Yershov with his “foul” language was against me. In 1931 I graduated from the nine-year school—a full high school education at that time. In 1932 I entered the Social Economic Institute in Baku majoring in economics. Four years later in 1936 I graduated from the college without ever having to quit my job. It happened that in the 1930s there was a newspaper published at the oilfield-printing house. The paper called Socialisticheskaya bukhta [Russian: Socialist Bay – AVG] was in three languages: Russian, Armenian and Turkish. In 1932 I was promoted to the position of editor for the Armenian page of the Socialisticheskaya bukhta. Again everybody from the field was called to a meeting and again Yershov was against me. At that time he blamed me for everything; even the widespread hunger (in 1932 the hunger held an even stronger hold over the majority of population. Before that time people were still enjoying the food that remained from the NEP, but in the following year even that had disappeared). “Why the hell did this sniveler (despite the fact that I already had the uniform) make up this socialism? Why does he call hunger socialism? What is it? Are we voting for a lie?” Nevertheless I was promoted to the editor’s position. I remember there were two occasions when I almost died on the rig. The first one happened in the following way: I was working with my partner Pavel Sockolov. We were fixing the borehole that was in the far side of the field. The whole purpose of the repair was to pull up the pipes with the tractor, clean each one of them from dirt and sand, put them back in the hole and then start the pumping mechanism again. We were using a chain key to unscrew the pipes and for some reason, one of them was difficult to unscrew (it was probably much rusted). We started to twist it but the whole underground setup, 1.5-2 kilometers of pipes in the ground, was twisting with it! What to do? If we were to let go, the whole thing would rotate in the opposite direction and the chain key would inevitably crush into us thus killing us both. Sockolov, weakened, fell down, and I, digging my heals in the ground, held the chain key and screamed for help! People on the ships in the sea, upon hearing my scream, blew the horns but that did not result in anything. Convinced that there would be no help I decided to let the chain tool go. But how could I do that? Had I done it on the level that I was holding it, the tool would have hit my head and undoubtedly kill me! I decided to jump up while letting it go thus I would be hit in the stomach. This was what I did. I do not remember anything else about that night. I was found in the morning unconscious, lying in the puddle on the ground. Miraculously I survived with only a broken arm. The second near-death incident was when I had finished the day’s work and began washing my uniform in benzene (one could not do it any other

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way because it was saturated with oil). To dry it quickly I sat near a gas oven. I had to do this quickly so that I would not be late for my class at 6:00 pm. I rarely took off my uniform: I felt a special pride in it, plus the uniform was made of a thick tarpaulin and it was difficult to change it. Therefore I was sitting by the fire literally drying the petrol, as if there was nothing more natural than that. At this time the Bursar of the field, a man by the last name of Seifulla, a very big fat man entered. As soon as he saw me, he started yelling at me, and managed to get me outside. “Do you want to turn into a flame?” were his words. Well, but this was not all. I went to class in the city car wearing the very same uniform. All passengers, especially women expressed their displeasure in all possible ways and demanded the driver to get me off the car! The uniform stunk with petrol! The driver said he did not have such a right: the working class was in the car! But once I arrived to the institute people ran away from me as if I was carrying a plague [naturally, all due to the petrol smell of the uniform]. I got myself in the position of a lone wolf. Being a student was very difficult for me. Firstly there was a language barrier. Every word I said would make my classmates, most often the girls, laugh. Most of all I had trouble with the stresses in Russian. Secondly commuting to the institute took a lot of time: I had to transfer several times before I got there. Thirdly I never slept enough in those days. Lastly, I just did not have time to study or do my homework. However I did not give up and worked with all my strength. I had several notebooks in which I recorded the lectures and kept those notebooks with me all time so I could study in city-cars on my way to college. I remember I spoke at one of the classes and was nicknamed Hegel for my expressed views. That name stuck with me for a long time (well, I have been trying to justify it ever since). Garnik studied with me but he had dropped out within a year (I do not know why) and later was admitted to the Azerbaijan State University (ASU) to the Department of History. Kolya was studying to become a lawyer at the Department of Law of our institute from which he later successfully graduated. He worked as a principal of the school in the village of Lor21 and enjoyed great authority there and was well respected. Many of the graduates of that school were famous people; one of them was the Armenian poet, Hamo Sahian. After the earthquake of 1931 Kolya moved to Baku.22 Later I helped my mother and my younger brother Sarkis (he perished in World War II in the battle for Stalingrad)23 move. My mother had hoped her brothers would help us with the move but neither Aghalo nor Samson who, as mentioned, were rich landlords at the time offered any assistance. A little ahead of my story, I should mention, though, that Samson did try to play a positive role

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in my life. Much later in 1941 when the war began, I was deployed to the front with the Red Army. Samson interfered saying he could make arrangements to help me stay at home. I flatly rejected that idea saying I went to the army as a volunteer and would serve until the end! Needless to say, Aghalo “helped” us in a truly capitalist way. He took our money that we had saved (approximately 1,000 rubles) and bought us for only 100 rubles a part of a room in a small multi-family-apartment that was connected with a sewer. Thus we heard and felt every noise and every smell coming out of the toilet. It was an old sewer with one deep hole where everything was dumped. Once a week the cleaners would come to clean it up. The stench was all over the place! While we lived there each of us had gotten some disease. Soon we got a chance to get out of that hell; help came from an oil worker who used to live in Lor. He bought an apartment for himself in a new house and let us move into his old one (in respect to Kolya). Thus we were saved!

1933 The small newspapers Socialisticheskaya bukhta and Doloto [Russian: Chisel – AVG] closed. Instead, a daily paper called Stalinets [Russian: The Stalinist – AVG] was established in the Stalin district of Baku. I was appointed Chief Editor of the Armenian page in that paper; Garnik was appointed the Chief Editor of the Armenian page in the newspaper Na Stroike [Russian: At the Construction Site – AVG] and Kolya was appointed to the same position in the newspaper Motor, of the city car depot [Russian: The Engine – AVG]. It was characteristic of those times that even such small papers were published in three languages. Indeed one might even say there was truly an overall feeling of internationalism and democracy. After working for some time in my new position I became the Chief Editor of Stalinets in all three languages (Russian, Armenian and Turkish). Largely due to my new status I had frequent meetings with L.P. Beria24 (back then he was the First Secretary of the Trans-Caucasus region’s All Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), VKP(b)) and M.J.A. Bagirov25 (the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party). Both of them used to come to our mines and sometimes they would even stay overnight. Once I was not on the rig but was working on one of the newspaper issues and Bagirov was curious, asking everyone ‘where is Minasyan, why is he not here?’ At that time both Beria and Bagirov seemed to be ordinary people, comrades. Nobody would even suggest that in the near future they would become “cannibals.” There are a few incidents that stand out in my memory from those

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times that I would like to share. One time there was yet another party conference, where L.P. Beria, M.A. Bagirov, Gurevich (the First Secretary of the Local District Communist Party Committee - raikom), Sef (from the city committee - gorkom) and others were sitting in the presidium. It was my turn to report on the work of the paper. In my speech I mentioned the fact that the employees of the editorial board (more than 20) had not been paid their salaries for three months. No matter what I did or how I fought there were no results. Nobody was interested how those people lived. As I was speaking Beria interrupted me and asked Bagirov: “Mir Jafar, what is going on?” Bagirov in turn asked Sef, and Sef asked Gurevich but none of them could give any reasonable answer. Then I spoke aloud: “Why do you not know Lavrentii Pavlovich [Beria]? You stay weeks on the rigs and do not know how the staff of the newspaper is living without the salary. The newspaper is a weapon of the Party!” On the next day, everybody received their salary. We were all paid in one payment for all three months. When I saw Gurevich the following day he patted me on the shoulder: “Good job, good speech yesterday.” Then there was another incident. It occurred at a meeting of the city party council. In the presidium were Beria, Bagirov and all the rest who were “supposed to be there.” In his speech the secretary of the Lenin raikom said that ‘one had to take care of the oil-well the same way one would court a young lady, otherwise there would be no result.’ At that moment Beria interrupted him: “Hey listen, kazo [Georgian: ‘my friend’ – AVG]! What a stupid comparison! First of all not every girl needs such special attention but every oil field requires special care! Second of all even if you do court a young lady you do it only once, not more. An oil field on the contrary needs constant care! Finally damn your girl! The country needs oil! Oil, not your stupid girl!” That was how we worked, studied, and actively participated in the life of the Communist Party. Overwhelmed with enthusiasm our every activity was dedicated to the victory of the socialism. Our whole life was saturated with the feeling of the deepest responsibility for everything. Even then when on the night of December 1, 1934, Garnik came to our house and told us that S.M. Kirov26 had been assassinated, some unexplained feeling either a feeling of confusion or a feeling of guilt gripped us. We felt as if we had done a poor job protecting his life and somewhere along the line had made a fatal mistake. That same night everybody went to their respective district committees. Kolya and Garnik went to Dzerzhinsky and I went to Stalinsky raikom, as if at the command “at arms!” There was mourning. The workers of our oil field were affected the most by the news of Kirov’s death. They knew him quite well. It had been under his

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supervision back when he was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the AzSSR Communist Party that the oilfield was created. He visited the rig and met the workers many times. They loved him deeply and sincerely. Kirov had much authority among them. Now that they had learned of his death, they wept. I was with them although I had never seen S.M. Kirov in my life. A new period had begun in the life of the Party and the country after Kirov’s death. Looking at the events of those days in retrospect makes one speculate about the true nature and cause of Kirov’s assassination. Did Stalin have anything to do with it? What grounds do I have to presume so? Firstly Kirov was a brilliant spokesman and political statesman. He often used to be called a ‘flaming tribune of the Party and the Revolution.’ Obviously Stalin had no tolerance for this. He could not let anyone rise above or to the same popularity level as him. Secondly at the 17th Congress27 of the Communist Party of the USSR (CPSU) a delegation of deputies from the Leningrad region had nominated S.M. Kirov to the position of the General Secretary of the CPSU. I learned about this from Levon Stepanovich Shaumyan28 who had been delegated to that congress. Naturally this was also something that Stalin would never swallow. Thirdly and most importantly Stalin used Kirov’s assassination to justify his own consistent policy of the eradication of the old guard - the Party of Lenin. Kirov’s assassination ran parallel to the fire of the Reichstag. Hitler and his accomplices used the ‘opportunity’ presented to them with the burning of the Reichstag to eliminate anti-fascist forces in Germany. Hence the assassination of S.M. Kirov was the ‘Reichstag fire’ in Stalin’s interpretation. Fourthly it was confirmed within days (almost immediately). Hundreds of people were put on a “black list,” arrested and shot with no trial or investigation, accused of being involved in Kirov’s assassination. Masses of innocent people became subject to repression. Considering these widely known facts there can be no confusion about the validity of the conclusion of Stalin’s involvement. Shortly after those events had taken place an exchange of the party identification documents was announced. That might have seemed to be quite normal for the time when the Party was worried about its members (i.e. who they were) and about its property. However that measure had taken a dimension in which people started to falsely accuse each other, lie and submit complaints about each other—nationwide! Garnik was expelled from the Party (I do not know why; I suppose they had to fulfill their plan). The identification documents for Kolya and me had been delayed for five or six months. Quite true is the Russian saying that ‘it is easier to catch a fish in dirty water.’29 There were even people from our

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own village who accused us of being of kulak class, and sons of the Dashnak,30 and exploiters. Our family had to “fight” to refute that entire disgusting lie. We had to do it quickly although it was not that easy. We sent Kolya to Nakhichevan ASSR to talk to our former co-villagers who had moved there, they were Turks. Our father, in 1918, had saved them from attempted revenge for the genocide of Armenians by the Turks. Kolya returned to Baku with their statements that spoke highly about our father. While Kolya was away I spent every hour, every day to find virtually every worker in Baku who had once worked with my father. I practically rallied the whole working class of Baku! I was lucky to find some of my father’s old friends. They provided statements that he had worked at the oil fields in Baku31 and played an active role in the revolution of 1905 (I obtained really good information about my father at this time). In the meantime we also managed to confirm through NKVD [national security force, predecessor to KGB and now FSB – AVG] that our father had never been in the Dashnak Party. Finally, the slander was refuted! However it had caused so much trouble and misery for us! One of the consequences of passing through those dire straits was that my brother and I were forced to renounce the prefix “Ter” from our last name. “Ter” in front of our last name (Ter-Minasyan) indicated the belonging of our family to the religious (spiritual, educated) class in the Armenian society. Soon Stalinets was shut down too and so I moved to another job. For some period I worked as an instructor at one of the raikoms. Later I was assigned as a Secretary of raikom’s Komsomol Committee. That time we were actively struggling against the remnants of “melkoburzhuasnoi raspushennosti” [sort of ‘capitalistic leftovers’ expressed in more liberal behavior non-conforming to socialist standard ideology of the time – AVG], petite bourgeoisie and similar chimeras. I recall a young woman by the last name Burdakova who was expelled from the Komsomol because she had put on some lipstick. Today girls tend to wear makeup since the day they are born and nothing happens to them! We were continuously fighting for the high morale of the proletariat. Party leaders displaying their closeness to the masses instituted informal address within the CPSU structure. The government was engaged in the process of “liberating” the Azerbaijani-Turkish women from the chador. The Turkish women used to always wear it so that only one eye could be seen through it. But I heard of stories when even with only one eye visible some women achieved greater control of their husbands and families than those who were “liberated” and wore no chador. I cannot miss another interesting fact that in 1930s many secretaries and other political officials were of different nationalities: Jews, Armenians,

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Russians, and, albeit more seldom, Azerbaijani Turks. In those days Baku was a very international city: 20 percent of the population were Russians, 30 percent - Armenians, 20 percent - Jews, 20 percent - Turks and – 10 percent other nationalities. A very intensive process of liquidation of illiteracy and preparation of the Turkish staff was underway. The difficulty was in that they did not have their own alphabet. They used Arabic in the beginning, then Latin and then eventually adopted Russian.

1937 In 1936 my much-beloved brother Kolya graduated from the Department of Law at ASU and began working as a Deputy Prosecutor in the office of the Public Prosecutor of the Caspian Basin. As for me after completing my four-year higher education in economics I entered the Institute of Red Professorship. This was a place where eminent Bolsheviks and experienced Party members studied and conducted scientific work. Everyone strongly believed that in a few years of academic instruction, they would become Red Professors. I was the youngest amongst them and I was making good progress in my studies. It was a very enjoyable experience since it was the first time in my life that I studied without having to work full time. In general the conditions there were ideal. However, even here things did not go smoothly, without “a drop of poison.” In February 1937 Sergo Ordzhonikidze died. I was deeply affected by such a loss and was very upset when I found out about it because I loved Sergo very much. I was always proud that it was he who had supported my application to join the Communist Party. Being extremely naive, one day I shared my doubts about the cause of death [i.e. official cause of death of Sergo Ordzhonikidze – AVG] with my classmate. The same day my classmate ran to the party committee and wrote a denunciation on me. It stated that: “Minasyan has information that Ordzhonikidze did not die from natural causes but he was assassinated. Furthermore, Minasyan is questioning the official Soviet government statement...” That was when they really began to “terrorize” me. I was taken from one office to another. The institute’s administration set up commissions for investigation and then it all began! The primary party organization expelled me from the Party “for the dissemination of false rumors about the death of comrade Ordzhonikidze.” In addition to this the whole Red Professorship turned into hell: classes were canceled. Instead people were conducting endless meetings. Everyone denounced the other and was denounced in turn; every one accused the other and then in turn again was accused of all sins

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including Trotskyism! All this lasted until the Plenum of the Central Committee of February-March 1937. Stalin, in his report “About the Drawbacks of the Party Work and Ways of Liquidation of the Followers of Trotskyism and Other Double-Dealers,” and Yezhov32 in his “The Lessons of Sabotage, Diversions and Espionage of the Japanese-German-Trotsky’s Agents” provided a theoretical basis for their policy of mass repression. To offer a philosophical perspective to this destructive policy Stalin proclaimed the following thesis: “The struggle among classes has to become more and more intense as socialism develops.” It must be mentioned that although ‘Stalin’s’ constitution, accepted in 1936, claimed that socialism had already won and classes of exploiters had been liquidated, nobody could dare ask why the class struggle should then continue and grow more intense. There were no exploiting classes in the first place! It was right at the time of that CC plenary meeting that the unprecedented bacchanalia in the Party ranks, and later in the whole country, had begun. I was at the AzCPCC office filling out the paperwork for transfer to Nakhichevan ASSR, when the chairman of the Central Executive Communist Party Committee of Azerbaijan SSR at the time, KachaiKachai, summoned everyone to a meeting. He had just returned from the Plenum sessions in Moscow and was telling everybody about his meeting with Stalin. “Yoldash [Turkish: comrade – AVG] Stalin told me to shay hullo to those who are with us and those who are not with us—we will be killing them!” The nickname of the old Bolshevik Mir Bashir Kasoumov, ‘Kachai-Kachai’, had its history. He was delegated to the Congress of Soviets of Russia in 1918. Lenin asked him to address those who had gathered. He spoke very poor Russian and said something as follows: “Yoldash Lenin! Moscow-Buky revolucion pump-pump. Buky Moscow nout (oil in Turkish) pump-pump!” Since then that nickname stuck firmly to him [in this context ‘kachai’ means ‘to pump’ in Russian -AVG]. By fall 1937 few people were left “with us” in the Party: a great portion of old Bolsheviks of the Party of Lenin—created by Lenin himself—had been terminated by the end of the year. Moreover, millions of those who were not members of the Party appeared to be “not with us!” So a carefully organized ‘meat-grinder’, unprecedented in history, achieved its objective, and perpetually in motion, penetrated deep into the society’s structure. All the necessary pre-conditions were precisely arranged into place in advance. This was why ‘the meat grinder’ was cutting effectively and productively, as the latest innovation of execution technology would have required.

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Early in 1937 almost everyone (including professors and students) at the Red Professorship had been jailed for treason or executed as “enemies of the people.” I survived this time, yet again. They simply did not have time to process my papers to expel me from the Party completely. However the main reason I believe I was left alone was because I was too young and did not occupy any notable position then. Nevertheless I had to do something. I had to find work to support my relatives and myself! I decided to discuss the situation with Bagirov. He ordered me to pack and go to Nakhichevan ASSR as the First Secretary of the Ordubad Party raikom. Upon my arrival to Nakhichevan, I went to see the First Secretary (at that time) of Nakhichevan obkom (regional committee), Gasan Rakhmanov. He knew my brother Nikolay Mikhailovich [Kolya]. They had worked together at the political department of the Party obkom of the Caspian Basin. When he found out that I was Kolya’s brother he appointed me as the Assistant to the Department of the Party Management Cadres (ORPO) in obkom. This happened in April 1937. I remember very clearly the May 1 demonstration in Nakhichevan. Watching the parade we stood on the tribune and shouted out slogans. Children from a kindergarten class passed and the chairman of the Central Executive Committee screamed at the top of his lungs: “Iashasyn shara amkalar ittifagy! (Turkish: Long live the Soviet Trade Unions!) Hurray!” And the children answered: “Hurryaaa!” Gasan fussed at him: “Ah, you akhmakh (Turkish: fool), don’t you see, they are just kids? Why Trade Unions?” A short period of time later the Second Secretary of obkom B. S. Batikian, was arrested and I was appointed in his place. Immediately after, everyone in the oblast’s administration was arrested on the grounds of treason and suspicion of being ‘enemy of the people.’ Everyone, Gasan and the other members of the obkom’s bureau, people commissaries, all secretaries of raikoms, even the writer Ragimov (First Secretary in the Noroshensk raikom), and the commander of the border defense regiment Major Korkin, all of them were arrested and put in jail! I was left alone waiting when ‘they’ [i.e. NKVD – AVG] would come after me. In the meantime I worked day and night. I had to fill the job vacancies; otherwise I could have been accused of being a supporter of the enemies of the people. The task of finding new people was not that simple! As soon as one was appointed to a position that person most surely disappeared within days. People were being arrested in waves. One wave followed another. It was an endless process. It was impossible to “fill in” these vacancies. There were hardly any literate people remaining in the region. Moreover nobody willingly agreed to assume a government-appointed position. For example the People’s Commissar of Health was arrested. In order to fill in

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his position I called the Chief Doctor in Nakhichevan main hospital, Talybov, thinking to appoint him to the new post. He fell on his knees and started crying: “Comrade Minasyan, did I do something wrong to you? I am a scientist. I am a Candidate of Medical Science. I have a family, kids! Why are you destroying me?” Feeling terrible for the poor man, I firmly told him: “Do not tell anybody else what you have just told me, otherwise you would also be arrested as an enemy of the people! You are an honest man and have nothing to be afraid of. That is why I have chosen you for the position.” Well what can I say: I appointed him but he was arrested immediately the next day. Adding to the overall aggravation was the fact that people still lived in poverty. Poverty was widespread affecting the common people to top administration leaders. I remember how I once berated one of the People’s Commissars for his torn socks that exposed his heels. He responded by saying that torn socks were not such a big deal! The AzSSR Sovnarkom’s Chairman [Council of People’s Commissars Chairman – AVG] Dadash Buniatzade did not have a suit. It was indeed so. To get a men’s suit, Buniatzade wrote a request to himself.33 Written with numerous grammatical errors it was something like this: To the Chairman of Azerbaijan SSR Sovnarkom Comrade Buniatzade, Dadash from: citizen Buniatzade[,] Dadash REQUEST I kindly ask you to give me a suit for I do not have one. The response, also written by him, said: “Refuse the full suit because there is none. Giffe the trousers for they are more important then the jancket.” 34 In a month or so he sent another request again addressed to him. In it he repeated the original letter. The new resolution was: “Refuse the suit, because there is none. Giffe the jancket for the trousers are already owned.” This was how he obtained a whole suit in a month’s time. It was considered to be a luxury. This was how we were building socialism, being proud that we were ragamuffins. I knew Buniatzade very well. He was an old Bolshevik and one of the organizers of the Soviet power in Azerbaijan. In that same year, 1937, he was liquidated as an enemy of the people. If the functioning officials and the Party’s leading staff were being exterminated who would want to become one? At the same time if one had

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refused the promotion to an official position that person was considered as a ‘hidden’ enemy and was jailed right away. Although nominally I had by now become the Secretary of the Regional Committee, the first person in the whole autonomous republic, nobody asked me anything. The people in the oblast were arrested at will. The local NKVD boss was Lieutenant Vackulchik and was not an appointed chief; his commanders had been arrested with everyone else but he was left alone. Vackulchik threw in jail anyone he wished; that was how it worked! A petty lieutenant of NKVD was given an absolutely unlimited power! During my service at the Nakhichevan AO there were several incidents when I had to deal with him directly. On one occasion I received a call at 3:00 am from the Shakhbuz raikom. Someone had committed an outrage against the raikom’s instructor: they had cut off his penis. I asked Vackulchik to go there and take care of it: find the bandits who had done this. However those bandits were not the ‘enemies’ for him; he actually told me: “I do not deal with such things. My job is to arrest the enemies of the people.” Another time I called Vackulchik because the border guards (the Nakhichevan oblast shares a common border with Turkey and Iran) had arrested a young couple. We had to do something about it, but he gave me the same answer: not his business. Indeed, he had too many things to be taken care of! So, on that occasion I went to check what happened myself. What had actually happened there was as follows. At that time a new decree was issued by the USSR Central Executive Committee, signed by the Chairman of the CP CC of the USSR, M.I. Kalinin,35 banning any gunfire within the national border areas. However local Turks had their own traditions and customs: usually after the wedding, the whole village would wait for a gunshot. If the bride were innocent (i.e. a virgin), the husband’s relative would get up on their house roof and start shooting, aiming the combat rifle in the air. After they heard the gun shot people in the village could sleep calmly. However if there were no shot then the villagers would sit the bride on a donkey. They would put tar on the doors of her parents’ home and even under the donkey’s tail. Then they would lead her around the village so that everybody could spit on her and throw stones at her until she died. That night there had been a shot and this was why the frontier guards had arrested the young couple. Only my interference saved them. There were some other wild customs as well. For instance a wife could not walk next to her husband. She had to walk a few steps behind him. Even the Party officials walked around like that. All my attempts to fight against old prejudices such as these were practically fruitless. However there was one time when Vackulchik fulfilled my request. A

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chairman of one of the border kolkhozes, rather than waiting to get arrested, had escaped abroad to Iran. In those days people could keep in touch by “sending” letters across the river Arax. This river was also the official state border. It was often the case that one brother lived on our side and the other lived across the river. They would write each other letters, wrap them around a stone and throw (“send”) the letters to the opposite shore. Through diplomatic contacts I managed to arrange a meeting with the governor of the bordering Iranian province to resolve the question of our deserter. The meeting was held on the bridge across Arax in Djugha (one half of the city was in the USSR and the other was in Iran. The bridge itself was also split between two countries. A white line separating the two parts served as the actual border.). Vackulchik was willing to escort me to that meeting. He must have been thinking that I was going to run away with the Iranians and so he decided to watch me. I clearly presented the essence of our government’s demand to the Iranian governor. However he refused, arguing that the former chairman had found a political asylum in Iran and there was nothing to discuss. We had to leave the matter at that. Interestingly there were several incidents like this one. If I were to use one word to describe my overall state of being at that time I would have said – arch-disgusting! One felt as a prisoner sentenced to death waiting for execution. Neither at night, nor during the day did people lock their doors. One anticipated the redheaded36 at any second. There were even incidences when people could not take it any longer and voluntarily turned themselves in to the NKVD. I knew two Kevorkov brothers: one was a Party official and the other a blue-collar worker. The Party official had been arrested and the worker turned himself in to the NKVD voluntarily, asking to be arrested. The request was fulfilled immediately! Both brothers disappeared without a trace. This simply meant that the two brothers had been apprehended by the secret police and "hidden" so nobody would ever find out what had happened to them. Such an unbearable environment was continuously aggravated by yet another factor. Everybody had to “disrobe” the enemies of the people by making denunciations. Even if there were no actual facts, there was fantasy: one could imagine or inspire anything that was needed. The obkom was getting hundreds of such “letters.” Often the matters seemed to be anecdotal. For example two persons could be arguing. One would say to the other: “I will expose you as the enemy of the people.” The other replied: “I will expose your slander.” “There is not going to be enough time,” answered the first one, “because by the time you do that you will have disappeared without a trace.” As I have already reported, in 1937 practically everyone in the regional

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committee had already been arrested. From the entire staff I was left with two instructors. Nevertheless someone had to read and investigate all these written denunciations. For example a denunciation was received saying that the administrator of the District’s Department of People’s Education (RONO) of Ordubad district had raped an eight-year-old girl in a cinema theater. I had to put great effort and work into disproving that slander. Another incident involved the Republic’s Public Prosecutor; he was at work when some villains threw a carpet and a lamb in his house through the window. They immediately told Vackulchik that the prosecutor was accepting bribes and that the material evidence could be found in his house! Again I had to struggle to expose that slander. But, all these were just flowers. The real fruits were apparently still ahead! It was in August 1937, I was on my way to the obkom’s office. As I was approaching the building, I noticed a strange group of people standing right by it. They were about 20 or 30 strong young men waiting for someone. I greeted them and asked if they had come to see me. In return I was answered by their laughter: “Who the hell are you?” they asked. When I said that I was the obkom’s Secretary they laughed even louder. As I entered my office one of them, maybe their chief, followed me pushing away my assistant. He apologized for being impolite adding that they had never seen such a young Secretary before. He also told me that comrade A.I. Mikoyan37 had arrived and the young men, whom I had seen at the door, were his personal bodyguards. I had absolutely no advance notice about Mikoyan’s visit. In about five minutes, Mikoyan stepped into my office. I reported: “Comrade Mikoyan, all the enemies of the people in Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic have been successfully exposed. Reporting: Secretary of the Regional Committee, Minasyan.” “Stop playing the fool; they reported the same way in Yerevan too. However, everyone in the Armenian Communist Party turned out be the enemies of the people. Let’s go!” “Where to, comrade Mikoyan?” “To Ordubad!” At that time, A.I. Mikoyan was the People’s Commissar of Supplies and Trade. There was a small, useless canned food factory in Ordubad that was 75 kilometers away from Nakhichevan. On the way there Mikoyan explained to me how he had come to our place. Stalin summoned him and said that the former chairman of the Council of the People’s Commissary of Armenian SSR, old Bolshevik Sahak Ter-Gabreilian, had committed suicide. Therefore Stalin ordered Mikoyan to go there (Yerevan, Armenia) and clear up the situation. But what had actually happened? Sahak did not commit suicide. The local NKVD Chief Mougdousy had summoned Sahak

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to his office, beaten him up until he died and then threw him out on the street from his office window on the third floor. Next day early in the morning, the people found Sahak on the pavement with a crashed skull. Mikoyan also related how he had exposed a whole group of the people's enemies in Yerevan and had left Malenkov to finish the job. When we arrived to Ordubad we went directly to the canned food factory. As we entered the hall, Mikoyan saw a portrait on the wall and yelled: “Who’s on the portrait? Who is the raikom’s Secretary here?” Guseinov, a newly appointed Secretary of the raikom, ran to him. Trembling, the man mumbled: “A portrait of one of the leaders of the Party and the government, comrade Mikoyan!” “You, foo-o-ol! It is the portrait of the enemy of the Soviet people!” roared Mikoyan. It was a portrait of D.E. Sulimov,38 a chairman of the Council of the People’s Commissary of the RSFSR. It was a good thing Mikoyan did not ask me that question. I had no idea Sulimov had been found an enemy of the state. Within moments, someone brought a ladder and the portrait was taken off the wall. The old portrait was removed, but now the question was whose portrait should be put in its place? Placing yet another “wrong” person’s portrait on the wall would result in the accusation of being a supporter of the enemies of the people. A safe one was found in few minutes. It was a portrait of Karl Marx taken from the school where Guseinov used to work as a teacher. It was a “safe” one because it would surely hang on the wall longer than any other simply because it was not possible to put Marx in prison as an enemy of the people. I was astonished. Why did Mikoyan have to go to Ordubad? Was it simply to tell them that Sulimov was another enemy? Mikoyan did not even enter the factory or speak to any of the workers. Behold our prominent leadership! It began getting dark when we returned to Nakhichevan. Mikoyan was seen off by Beria, Bagirov, and A.Y. Vyshinsky.39 As this company walked down the central street, an incredible crowd of people surrounded them throwing hundreds of letters from both sides right into Mikoyan’s path. Bagirov said to me: “Give an order to collect all these letters!” Immediately huge sacks were found and were filled up with the letters in minutes. When Mikoyan departed Bagirov stopped and praised me. He was impressed with my “correct criticism of Gurevich” at the old Party conference. It turned out that I had been the first one to notice the problem. All that despite the fact that my question regarding the staff of the editorial office going unpaid had not been addressed to Gurevich, but had been directed to Beria instead! I thought how odd: since Gurevich himself was pleased with my speech.

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Moreover my staff received their pay immediately the following day. Was a mere professional constructive criticism the sufficient and necessary ground for Gurevich’s arrest? Perhaps, it would be more appropriate if I rephrased this question: Did one need any justification to have another individual arrested as the enemy of the people? If any exacerbating evidence was missing then even friendly, unintentional and indirect criticism could be used to achieve such horrible goals! The number of the victims of the Great Purge of 1937 increased in an exponential progression. Not even family members of the arrested were spared. In the meantime I still waited and waited. Everyday more and more people were dragged away. Surprisingly there was no panic. The arrests were performed with coolness for everybody had already selfprepared in advance. Many had no fear at all. They had convinced themselves and those near them that “there was nothing higher than death.” I was afraid of only one thing: I was afraid my arrest would inflict pain and sorrow on my beloved mother. Jumping ahead, I would like to note that the difference between these arrests and those by the Fascists in later years was that there existed resistance to the latter group. There was absolutely no resistance to the NKVD. As the [Soviet time] saying went “There are no such fortresses that Bolsheviks can not take,” but the life of the Bolshevik was not a fortress; it was nothing! Many years after 1937 during the trial of a staff member of the Azerbaijan NKVD, a man by the last name Grigoryan, testified: “It was easier for us to arrest and terminate the enemy of the people than to catch and cook a chicken.” I speculate that had they attempted to arrest the whole Party at the same time, there would have been some resistance. But instead, they were arresting people one by one and at different times. This is one fact that explained the intermittent nature of the purges. The second was very simple. To arrest everyone in the Party simultaneously was impossible since there was not enough space in jails to keep so many people. The jails had to be cleared for the next group in line through the “liquidation” process. At his later court trial Bagirov himself admitted to this. He had sent a telegram to Joseph Stalin: “All of the enemies of the people have been exposed. Please allow for gradual arrests, for there are no rooms in the prisons!” Positively there is no instance in the history of mankind that could be compared, neither quantitatively nor qualitatively, to this epic of the termination of own people. The most horrific thing is the psychology of the entire policy—all this was done in the name of the Communist Party and socialism! Infused with such meaningful content, the year 1937 was finally approaching an end. Of course I was waiting (oh and what a curse it was to wait!) not only for my arrest but also for something new. In

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particular I was expecting the new management of the obkom. I was alone in the obkom when they eventually showed up. A man by the last name Sultanov (a brother of the Chief of AzNeft) was the newly appointed First Secretary and Popovin was appointed Second Secretary. I immediately telephoned Bagirov in Baku. It was difficult to get a connection. So I had to make a call through Yerevan and Tbilisi. Finally I managed to get through: “Mir Jafar, what should I do?” He said: “Get over here!” So I had to leave. I got in a horse carriage and lowered the hood of my coat so that nobody could see me - the “king” of Nakhichevan was fleeing. I headed to the railway station about five kilometers away. Later on, I noticed Vackulchik with his loyal servants walking around the station. I thought he had come for me when in fact they were transporting Korkin in that train. Korkin was stripped of his uniform with his hands tied behind his back and two ‘redheads’ on left and right of him. We looked in each other’s eyes and that was it. There was no sound or any gesture! Those destined to die make no sound. I boarded the train. I remember how the other half of the train car was a cafeteria. Stretched on a tiny train bed I was expecting my last moments of freedom to end. Were they not [NKVD] supposed to take me at some point? Moreover, I just saw Korkin! How long could I persist in this torture? I felt horrible. Perhaps the Georgian selling food noticed that and came up to me: “Hey, kazo why are you so ‘dark’? I’ve got hvine (i.e. wine), fry (i.e. fried) chicken.” I told him: “All right, give it all to me. To hell with all that!” I had never tried wine in my life until that moment! I drank some wine and ate a little but the thought of arrest endured in my mind. It was a well known fact that people could be arrested anywhere: in the restroom, on the train or while at work. It did not matter. The train made a stop in Tbilisi. I went outside to walk on the platform and saw two ‘redheads’ walking towards me. I asked them if they had been looking for me. “No!” was the answer. However, for the first time in my life, I saw a huge billboard erected in the most visible spot. Depicted on it were two hands, in gloves with sticking sharp needles, choking a huge snake. The sign below it read: “Yezhovie rukavitsi!” [Play of words: ‘rukavitsi’ translates from Russian as ‘gloves’ and ‘yezh’ as ‘hedgehog,’ hence the direct translation would be ‘hedgehog’s gloves.’ However, with reference to the NKVD’s chief Yezhov, the expression gains another meaning as a public reminder of the sharp embrace of the national security agency. – AVG]. From that day I saw the poster everywhere I went. Thus my expectations were not yet fulfilled, although I waited for the arrest all the time especially at the train stops. Eventually I “safely” arrived in Baku. I survived but only for now because the Secretaries of the

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Committees such as myself and other Party officials were usually summoned from the districts and would subsequently be arrested in the Central Committee’s office. I had almost no doubt I would be arrested at the CC, too. I phoned Bagirov reporting that I had arrived. He said: “Come into my office, now!” When I entered his office I saw the full staff of the CC bureau. It seemed they were ready to start another meeting. To my greeting Bagirov replied in Turkish: “Alagyn var?” (‘Do you have connections [with the enemies of the people]?’). To everyone’s absolute surprise I said calmly and firmly: “Var!” (‘Yes, I do!’). Bagirov: “With whom?” I replied: “With you!” “All right then if it’s with me. Go and work with Frolov!” Frolov was the deputy director in the AzCP CC ORPO. I could hardly recognize him: he lost a lot of weight and looked very disturbed. It turned out they had thrown him in prison for a month or so, where he was “checked” (i.e. interrogated with all due strictness) and then released in a “checked” condition. Soon I started my work at the ORPO. It was December 1937 and Kolya had been called to serve in the Red Army. He had just obtained a new apartment in a new building of Kaspar on Nizne-bulvarskaia Street. One day when I was on my way to work I spotted Sultanov near the CC building. He had not worked a week as a Secretary of Nakhichevan Committee and was already here. Although I did not ask him anything, in a few days, I found out that he, along with his “co-plotters,” had been hung in Kirovobad as the enemies of the people. What an amazing display of operational administrative efficiency! So then what was I doing in the Central Committee one might ask? My job involved visiting and working with local village committees (basically raikoms) and assisting them with their activities related to the Party work. As part of my job I often had to prepare questions and lists of issues for the CC bureau review. Once I was dispatched to the Lericksky and Lenkoransky districts. On the agenda of the Executive Bureau of the Lenkoransky district was a question about the development of the regional agriculture. One of the officials argued that they could grow tea there and raikom’s Secretary and other members disagreed: “Let Georgia deal with that and that’s it; we have to grow early cabbage,” was their counterargument. I was supportive of the first official’s idea in my report. Eventually I convinced them that growing tea had better prospects for the region than early cabbage. Finally the positive decision of the raikom on that matter was attained. Perhaps that is the reason why Lenkoransky tea [in the USSR] is so popular. On my return trip to Baku I was alone in a two-person cabin on a steamship. However the conductor soon gave the empty seat to a young

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blond woman immediately after the ship’s departure. There we sat together in the cabin: a young and pretty couple. My immediate thought was that she had been sent to frame me, only to concoct one of those written denunciations. I was deeply convinced of this. Therefore, I decided not to speak to her at all! I did not utter a word the entire one day trip to Baku and neither did she. Even now I cannot comprehend it. How could such a thing ever happen? We were alone one whole day and not a word was said! Yes this was the extent to which people were in fear of one another. Although I grew weary of the long anxiety over my anticipated arrest I was so fed up with it that I did not care anymore and felt apathetic towards the entire situation. On many occasions I used to recall the words of Gasan:40 “A horrible end is better than this endless horror.” However my main responsibility at the ORPO was reviewing complaints and letters from the people and there were thousands of thousands of them! Even the members of the AzCP CC, different activist groups taken from their work were to deal with those letters. Oh how rich was the language of those letters! How deep were the thoughts of their writers! How much sorrow, tragedy, tears, despair, hopelessness, protest— and at moments—surprise and sincere bewilderment were reflected in those letters! People were asking if there had been any precedent in human history when the state eliminated the very persons who had won prosperity for it with their blood and sweat. People continued writing. They were writing to Stalin, Molotov, Yezhov, Vyshinsky, Voroshilov, and Bagirov, but everything ended up on our desks. Every sort of letter—polite requests, entreaties, and the simple ones of wives, mothers, relatives, and children— were forwarded to our office. No matter how distinct those letters were they held one thing in common. The essential message was: “not guilty,” “please save...” and “it was a mistake.” Even in such a disaster, there was still some humor. One letter had an anecdote: “A hare runs and yells that the whole tribe should hide away and save themselves. The old hare asks him ‘Where to run? Why should they run?’ The answer was that people were putting horseshoes on the camels. ‘All right, but we are not camels,’ objected the old hare. ‘Well, if they catch you first and then put a shoe, then it is your problem to prove that you are not a camel, that you are a hare!’” Really, the most terrifying thing was not in the anecdote by itself, but the fact that a “cretin” would believe in it! In fact there was no one to an appeal could be made. To this day, I do not understand the objective of our investigation of those letters. First of all years, not months, were needed to read them all. Second hundreds of people were needed to do the job but

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most of the time there were only five of us working on them. Finally it was a waste of time and effort. No one ever replied to those complaints. There was no reply possible. Was our work merely a pretense of legality and justice to cover up the greater crime?

1938 I had already been working at the ORPO CC for several months. Throughout that time several dozens of Party officials were summoned to the Central Committee and, of course, subsequently thrown in jail. However it was not my time yet. There was no one else left among our department’s staff. Even the newcomers were being taken away! But I was confident that my turn would come soon. I thought about getting married but the young woman to whom I had proposed replied, in accordance with the time we lived in: "Marry, you? Why? Just to become a widow?" The issue of marriage was then taken off my agenda for a long time. At one of the CC meetings Bagirov told everybody how one of the "freshmen," a secretary of Leninsky Party raikom (I believe it was Shiraliev) had “got" over 200 enemies of the people in a single night. In a single night! Modern technology does not even dream of such productivity. Then Shiraliev, shifting his attention from the local governance, attacked Bablumyan, the executive editor-in-chief of the Armenian language The Communist newspaper (in those days there were several official newspapers - “megaphones” of the Communist Party: The Communist in Armenian and Turkish, and Bakinsky rabochii [Russian: The Baku Worker – AVG]). Bablumyan cried and begged saying he had not any connections with the enemies. But it was pointless! He was ordered to abandon his position. Bagirov caught me with his eye and ordered: "Send Minasyan over there!" I stood up and asked him not to send me anywhere arguing that I was too young and would not be able to carry on the responsibility. "You'll be all right, you know the oil!" Bagirov yelled at me. The bandit had a good memory. I thought I had been appointed as the executive editor-in-chief. However, I was to assume the post of deputy editor. A man by the last name Asriyan was appointed as editor-in-chief. But he did not last long and was soon removed from the post. Later someone by the name of E. Grigoryan was sent in his place. In the meantime there was much work to be done at night. Most of the materials had to be translated daily and Grigoryan was an uneducated individual who spoke only Karabakh’s Armenian dialect and very poor Russian. Furthermore he did not take any part in the actual editing of the paper, but loved to give out instructions and orders. One night Yakubov, a

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Secretary of the CC of the AzCP, walked into the office and ordered Stepan Shaumyan’s portrait removed from the wall. I asked: "Is Shaumyan the enemy of the people too?" Yakubov answered that Shaumyan, enemy or not, had made his share of serious mistakes. “Throw out the portrait wherever you want,” he said. Only some time later I understood the actual significance of this event. In the Party, Shaumyan was known as the “Lenin of the Caucasus." By 1938 times had changed and Joseph Stalin was to become the "Lenin of the Caucasus." The name Shaumyan obviously was interfering with this. Had Shaumyan been alive there is no doubt he would have been sent to jail. However since he was dead, his portraits were being removed from all office walls. Bagirov in his speeches discredited Shaumyan in every way possible. He referred to mistakes that Shaumyan had never in fact made. In his speeches, Bagirov also abused Shaumyan’s name and refuted his enormous contribution to the creation and stability of the USSR and the establishment of Soviet rule and peace in the Caucasus. It should be noted that Bagirov was not the only one with the expertise that would afford him to do such things. His best teacher Joseph Stalin was the master of crafty lies and accusation. In reference to the provocative and falsification policy of Stalin I will only mention the facts that I know. In the early 1930s I was an active propagandist on the oilrig. I was the leader of the local Party group and often taught classes on the Communist Party’s history. I often cited reallife examples in my lectures to establish a firm connection for the workers between theory and practice. For instance I once spoke on how in the end of 1890s Avel Yenukidze41 organized Social-Democratic groups on the railroads of Trans-Caucasus and a secret printing house, “Nina,” in Tiflis. To my utmost surprise in 1934 when I was editor of The Stalinist, I was ordered to publish a decree of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) [All Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks – AVG] declaring Yenukidze as expelled from the Communist Party for “moral degradation.” In 1937 he disappeared without a trace. Quite conveniently, all of his accomplishments were soon attributed to Stalin. It is perfectly clear now that all this was necessary for the Leader [i.e. Stalin – AVG]! The accomplishments of not only Yenukidze but of many others including even Lenin, Stalin without a twinge of conscience credited to himself. He even claimed “The Short Course of History of the VKP(b),” created by the special commission of USSR Communist Party Central Executive Committee, to be his own masterpiece! Such a trickster was leading the Communist Party and the entire country for thirty long years! Even today one may find those few “honest” deceived people worshiping the “sincere” and “modest” Stalin! But the arrests did not stop. There were moments when it seemed to us

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that this was the end since there was no one left to arrest. Everyone was gone! Apparently we were deeply mistaken in that judgment. After one wave, there was another one impending. It was mid 1938 and Kolya was in the Red Army.42 Our mother and Sarkis lived in Kolya’s new apartment. Living in an old one-room-flat I continued my editorial post at The Communist. Around that time the entire political department and the top officials of the Caspian Basin SteamNavigation Administration where Kolya worked were arrested. I had a feeling that there was something wrong with Kolya, too. Every month I used to send him thirty rubles. One day, the money was returned from the Army Headquarters for the reason of the “absence of the addressee.” When I came home I saw a small package on the floor in the hallway. A neighbor told me that a man had come earlier and left that package for me. What was in it? I immediately unwrapped it. There was a note from Kolya and his wrist watch (I kept the watch for a long time as a relic). In his note Kolya said that he had been arrested near Leningrad (I think it was near Pushkin) and was then brought to Baku. Now he was being transported in “the black crow”43 from the railway station to the Bailov Prison. During the transfer by some miracle he managed to throw that package through the window with a note attached asking someone to pick it up and deliver to my address. Obviously the person who did this was a courageous and decent person. My deepest gratitude goes to him! So Kolya was arrested! I was the only person who knew about it. What should I have done? If I had told our mother right away she would have been unable to handle it and might have died from grief. But if I was not going to reveal the truth to her for how long should I have kept the secret? Besides, it might have become possible to visit Kolya and bring him food in jail from time to time. Finally, I made the decision. I decided slowly prepare my mother to face the bare facts. Over the following few days I told her that many people had been arrested, and we were not an exception from the rule. I gave her names of all the people we knew who had been already arrested. I asked her to be brave and be ready for the possible news of any of her sons’ arrest. But she had to remain absolutely confident of only one thing: “Your sons are not the enemies of the people.” No matter what had happened there should have been absolutely no doubt about this. A few days passed. Our mother was a clever woman and she soon guessed why I had told her all that. One day she asked me: “Tell me the truth. Do not be afraid. What is wrong with Kolya?” I could not keep the horrible news from my mother any longer. I could not keep the secret from others either. Something had to be done to save my brother! I came to the CC to see Giyzalov, the Deputy Secretary in the

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Department of the Propaganda. I told him what had happened to Kolya and tried to prove to him that my brother was innocent and that a mistake had occurred. He replied to my pleading: “Listen, do not tell anyone what you have just told me or you will be immediately arrested too.” One night at two or three o’clock in the morning I was standing on the balcony of my editorial office. People in the building across the street were celebrating something. There was a joyous party and an old musicrecords player played “Skajite Devushki Podrujke Vashei…”44 As I looked down the street, I saw how at the sounds of that most wonderful song, which has stayed forever in my soul, a ‘redhead’ was escorting L.I. Mirzoyan45 to the “black crow.” I knew Mirzoyan so well! He was the Deputy Chairman of the “GosPlan” (State Plan) of AzSSR. I often consulted with him when I was working on my thesis. And now he was walking down the street with a pillow under his arm, headed directly to NKVD! No doubt, there still was some “material” left for termination. Yes, there was a ‘forest’ of people that merely would need time to be chopped. Later there was a Party conference of the Voroshilov local district of Baku. I was a delegate there because the editorial office was located in that district. The raikom Secretary was Okinshevich. Both his parents were doctors and old Bolsheviks (I believe they joined the Party in 1903). By the time of the conference, he had already been arrested. His mother was asked to address the meeting. Oh, God! When she spoke I couldn’t believe what I was hearing: “I damn that dark day when I gave birth to that snake!” This she said about her own son! Yet that did not save her! Immediately from the tribune they placed her in the “black crow” where her husband had already been waiting for her. Consequently the Okinshevich family simply disappeared. With my brother’s arrest, I had to face a new situation at the office. Whenever I made a comment to an assistant, he would reply: “What else can you expect from the brother of the people’s enemy?” Another assistant, a retard Ishkhan, used to say the following: “Minasyan did not give a good honorarium for my article. You can’t expect anything good from the brother of the enemy of the people.” So, in fact, I was regarded as an enemy of the people but nobody ever said it in public. What should have I done? Should I have committed suicide? Such a thought came to my mind several times. Each time I discarded it as an option that led to no resolution. The random acts of suicide were often denounced by our society as acts of cowardice and fear of public exposure; thus, quite logically, proving the “guilt” of the victim. Only from this point of view did the media and the general public regard the news about the suicides of

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Y.B. Gamarnik, M.P. Tomsky and others.46 Worse yet, a suicide would have hurt my beloved mother immensely. That would deprive her from the sons she had brought up under the terrible conditions of struggle and at the sacrifice of her own happiness. No, such a thing must have been categorically excluded. Therefore I went to see Bagirov. He seemed surprised when he saw me: “Oh, they have not arrested you yet?” I do not know how my tongue turned to say: “No, I’m still waiting! I am asking you to relieve me from my duties.” Disappointingly for me, he did not grant his approval for my resignation. Around that time, The Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [or The Short Course of History of the VKP(b) -- AVG]47 was being actively propagated in the Soviet mass media. All editorial offices (including mine) were instructed to reprint and publicize it. The three official republican newspapers: Bakinsky rabochiy, The Communist in Turkish, and The Communist in Armenian were obligated to publish it in parts, by chapters and paragraphs. It was certainly an easier task for Bakinsky rabochiy, a Russian language publication, than for the other two papers. For us, Armenians and Turks, it was an extremely difficult task. First there were almost no literate people working in the editorial staff, much less skilled translators to translate the Russian original into Armenian and Turkish. Second the entire situation kept one in a highly tense state of being. The nervous system of every person was stiffened to the edge! Had there been a small, unimportant mistake, one could disappear without a trace that same moment. I worked day and night at the office, with no rest or sleep, almost always alone, receiving through the TASS48 information channels bits and pieces of the larger work. Then I corrected, translated and edited them in a concise form. I supervised all the revisions to the originals and printouts. Our boss E. Grigoryan did not even care to busy himself with anything. Actually no one is as lucky in life as a poorly educated boss. Usually such bosses receive reports from their assistants, which they sign without even inspecting. Hardly literate, they read some useless papers from time to time. Most of their efforts, though, go into giving orders and instructions to their employees and teaching them how to live. Isn’t that a wonderful life? It was not the first time I had found myself in a difficult situation. I had experience by then, more than enough, and just like the rest, I made it through that hell. However, the calm period in my life did not last for long. It so happened that the “3rd International” printing-house misspelled a phrase in the “Short History…” Instead of printing “Stolypin’s reaction”

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the printed version of the paper read “Stalin’s reaction.” My translation and edition were correct when I had sent it to the printing house. Once the error was uncovered dozens of workers were removed from their jobs. I survived again because the original copy of the translation that I had signed read correctly: “Stolypin’s reaction.” The fact that I was away at CC at the time of the printing of the newspaper also played in my defense. Yet although I had an alibi, my situation further deteriorated. I made a firm decision to quit the game. However, they [the party bosses and administration – AVG] would not let me go: I was to finish the publishing of the “Short History.” That I did!

1939 It was early 1939 and there was another, much bigger problem that had to be resolved! One day, while I was on my way to visit my mother, I noticed piles of clothing, broken kitchen items, and furnishings in the entrance of the building. All this fell at my feet straight from the third floor where my mother lived with my younger brother. The building administration was evicting my mother, as a relative of the enemy of the people, from the apartment! I stopped the evictor and asked: “Why are you doing all this? Does my mother resist eviction?” He answered: “No, she does not. That’s the rule! It must be done this way.” That same day I moved her and my brother, Sarkis, to my place. We returned to living in a single room in the same way we had lived in the past. In that dreadful time I financially and morally supported several of our extended family members. Mother was ill and could not work. Sarkis was still a student and we made sure nothing interfered with his studies. I also had to help four other close relatives, i.e. Garnik’s family.49 Naturally Kolya’s well-being occupied the first place in my list of priorities. Our mother visited regularly and always brought him packages with food and clothes from home. Later Kolya would say that if it had not been for those packages he would have died of hunger as had many others in the prison. I was one for all: providing much needed support. Surely, my salary alone was not sufficient to make ends meet so I had to work on the side. I read paid lectures. I remember the time I lectured at the medical workers’ club on the topic “About the Second Baku.” I felt so disgusted then that the event has stayed with me throughout my life. Sometimes I had to read five or six lectures on different topics and anywhere - even in a club for the hearing impaired! (I remember the auditorium was absolutely filled with people and a man stood up on a chair to interpret my speech in sign language). I also used to read lectures in distant regions, such as in the

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village of Chardakhly, the birthplace of the Marshals of the Soviet Union I.Kh. Bagramyan and A.Kh. Babadjanyan.50 Also in this time universities and higher education institutes across the USSR were establishing departments of Marxism-Leninism. I began working in the department of Marxism-Leninism of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (AzII) as a Senior Lecturer on February 7, 1939. I did not have any academic degree or special title. I simply read lectures on the “Short History…” to the fifth-year students of the Energy Faculty. Interestingly, but most of my students were older than me. Every lecture was being taken down in shorthand by someone from the administration. It often happened that the same lecture was taken down in shorthand several times. Damn it! Even here (i.e. educational institution) people were continually being followed, watched, suspected of diversion, and eventually arrested. As always everything was under meticulous scrutiny and anything could be reason enough for an arrest warrant. On one occasion I was questioned because of noting in one of my lectures that ‘…thanks to the subversive activities of the enemies of the people, the economy of the country was damaged.’ I was asked directly and bluntly for what I had been thanking the enemies of the people! A subsequent investigation followed at all levels; I was so disgusted, fed up with it all! I had no power left in me to take it anymore! In another one of my lectures I argued that any phenomenon is contradictory in its essence. One student - I remember his last name was Grinberg - protested: “How is that possible? It is said in the “Short History…” that the Socialist way of production is a perfect example of the total accord of the production relationships to the character of the productive forces in society - and total accord indicates a total absence of any contradiction!” Around this time I authored an article for a journal Pod znamenem marksisma [Russian: Under the Flag of Marxism—AVG], where I was scientifically proving and arguing the contradictory essence of any phenomenon. My article was never published. However in 1940 the same journal published an editor's article where in black on white, it was written: “whoever considers for the socialist mode of production to be contradictory in nature is the enemy of the people!” Finally! I was to be considered as one of the enemies of the people! Many writers with similar ideas as my own had already been arrested on that same charge. Now what was I supposed to do? I decided to disappear. But where was I to go? The circumstances prompted the right answer; I was of conscription age and until that time, due to occupied positions, received various postponements from active duty in the army. In light of new developments I reasoned that the time to fulfill my civil duty had

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come. So I went to Baku’s military enlistment office. Military commissar Israelyan (with whom I was acquainted) was very surprised to see me: “Bah! When have you risen from the dead?” My answer to him was the same as to Bagirov: “I have not been arrested yet, but am waiting for it though. Therefore, now, I am asking to be accepted in the Red Army ranks.” That same day, on August 27, 1940, I had my head shaved bald and was sent to a military base. I had the clear realization that there was no way around the war with fascism. I also reasoned that it was better to die at the front fighting for the Motherland rather than to die within the walls of Stalin’s prisons. My initial hunch was proved by the fact that the winter campaign of 1939-1940 of the Red Army [in the war with Finland] had been miserably pushed back. As they used to say in those days, ‘A giant bear [USSR] had moved his armies West and attacked a young girl [Finland], lost millions of his soldiers, but, could not do anything to her [Finland].’

IN THE ARMY

I was sent to my platoon in the Red Army right away. Interestingly though, it really seemed like nobody cared about me! I lived in the hall room of the commander Major Yerofeev. For several days I had to sleep there on wooden benches. The commander’s adjutant, a man by the surname Grigoryan, brought me food from time to time. I lived that way for a day or two. Then a week and another passed but still nothing was happening! For 17 days I was an absolute nobody. Was that my luck? Despite this peculiar fate the fact remained that I had continuously been “exempt” from the wave of arrests at my civil job. And again, here in the army it was again odd that I was left alone. I was neither arrested nor was I accepted into active service. During my “stay” at the headquarters, I witnessed something mysterious. For several days commanders of all subdivisions had meetings with the regiment’s commanding officer. They flew there as bees flew to honey. The meetings were long. Exiting the house after their meetings, the officers looked at me strangely, with suspicion. Then they walked away. Eventually, one day, a lieutenant walked out of the commander’s office, and in a very commanding voice gave me an order: “Listen, professor! Damn you! Come with me!” “Comrade lieutenant, why ‘damn me?’ - I asked.” “Because,” he answered, “no ‘dog’ would take you.” He, Lieutenant Pozhivin, was the commander of the artillery battery. In the very first battle he lost both legs. Later it was revealed that the commanders of subdivisions had refused to take me under their command for one simple reason that no one had ever heard of such a draftee: the Secretary of the obkom, the editor of the republican newspaper and a professor at a university suddenly called as a private in the army! But Pozhivin was not only a courageous man; he was also a decent, charming person. He was the first to address me as a professor. By going on the old adage ‘damn it, let whatever happens happen,’ he took a risk assuming me under his command. That same day my new commander brought me to our battery’s headquarters. Pozhivin called in Sergeant-Major Shvedov and commander of the gun crew Malinin. I was assigned to Malinin’s division as a private, i.e. regular soldier. My service had now begun. Gradually, I became

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accustomed to it. Yet surprisingly I was not given an army uniform. For the entire month I wore civilian clothes. Much more troublesome and even disgusting was that I did not even have my own spoon or soup-bowl. Malinin, as my superior, received food in one bowl for both himself and me. However there was only one spoon. As the commander he always ate first. He used to eat all of the meat and then would lick the spoon all over and offer it to me: “Here professor, finish up the rest.” For the first few days I refused both the food and the spoon. I still recall this with strong feelings of squeamishness. I limited myself to a loaf of dark bread. Eventually with time I grew accustomed to eating from one bowl. Malinin was constantly patronizing me: “This is the army. Remember that professor. You are not a schoolgirl. I always tell you, Pushkin is not going to do it for you,” and so on and so forth. There were 120 people living in our barrack. We slept on wooden beds covered with hay. It was not so bad by itself. However often times at night, there was either snoring or a urine “explosion.” Here, there and right in the target then ricocheting; it was so loud that one just could not sleep (not to mention the stench rising up)! It was a true brass band. After a month of active duty I finally received my uniform, a private bowl, a spoon and a horse by the nickname of Iya. Our battery was supposed to be traveling a lot. This was why I was given a horse and a brush to clean it. Although happy to finally have received my uniform I was very disappointed when I tried it on. It was of a much bigger size. The greatcoat was long and wide. This fact even caused an unfortunate incident. The Sergeant-Major gathered regiment on the parade ground. The Deputy Regiment Commander, a Major with long mustache, conducted a personnel inspection. He walked along the ranks making his remarks to soldiers about their appearance. If he saw dirty boots on someone he took that private two-steps away from the others and fussed at him: “What? Is Pushkin going to clean your boots for you?” I soon began to realize that Pushkin was not as popular nor did he hold anywhere such authority as in our battery. When the Major approached me, he was stunned by what he saw: “What is this woman standing here?” He kicked me in the stomach with his boot and began to tighten my belt! I quickly realized that his actions were against the code of conduct! I grabbed his mustache and yelled: “What the hell is this excessive mustache? Shave it off! Immediately!” The Major then flew into a rage. The Sergeant-Major calmed him down. He whispered something in the Major’s ear. Perhaps he said that I was special professor-private. I was fully aware that, to the Major’s breach of the code of conduct, I had responded with an equal violation. The uniform I had been given did

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not fit. Although it was not the Major specifically who had distributed the uniform, it did, however, come from a department, for which he was responsible. His duty was to oversee the order in his division. The regiment’s Commissar, battalion Commissar Petrov, requested that I come to see him. He was a tall, handsome blond, but an absolutely empty and arrogant man. The first thing he did was fuss at me: “Who gave you the right, comrade Red Army soldier, to pull the mustache of the higher ranking officer? Moreover, you even commanded him to shave it off immediately! What if you had torn off a piece of it? Do you realize what a crisis that would have caused throughout the whole Red Army? And what do you think would have happened to me? They could have fussed at me at the GlavPUR51 of the Army for the weak political education work. All for what? Just because a private does not like the Major’s mustache! Is it possible that you do not like mustaches at all? Do you know that comrade Stalin, too, has mustache?” I could not keep quiet any longer. It “smelled” more like politics than anything else. I said: “Comrade Commissar, firstly, a mustache can be of a different type. Not only do I like the mustache of comrade Stalin, I love it. Nevertheless I do not like the mustache of the Major because it looks like the mustache of Denikin.52 Secondly the Major was the first one to violate the code.” I went on and must have somehow convinced him. “All right,” he said, “we will check you out further in service. For now I am ordering you to supervise the work of the political club in our battery. The club is political—keep that in mind! You have to educate our soldiers politically, bring them up in the fighting spirit for an attack. We must decisively forbid all pessimistic songs that hurt the fighting spirit of the Red Army soldiers. For example they usually sing songs like: “Forgotten and left since youth” or “a beggar ran from Sakhalin on a green narrow path…” We have socialism in our country now! There are no forgotten or left behind people nor any beggars. Oh and something else: we must prepare the army to attack. There can be no talk at all about any possibility of defense. If the enemy attacks we will crush him on his territory with no bloodshed. Is that clear?” “It is clear, comrade Commissar.” “Now, go do it!” “It will be done, comrade Commissar!” “As you were! You must repeat the order of the higher officer in the Army. If you are told: ‘Go do it!’ you must reply: ‘Yes sir, go do it!’” “Yes sir, go do it!” There were only a few soldiers with higher education in the battery, while the rest of them were from villages, and were poorly educated. As a

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result they spoke various dialects of Russian. Many of them could not even pronounce the letter ‘F’. Instead, they said ‘Khv’ [which is grammatically incorrect – AVG]. We told them dozens of times but nothing changed. One time I tried to instruct a man from Siberia. “What’s your name?” I asked him “Khvedia,” was his answer. “No! Say Fedia!” Khvedia fell as a hero in one of the first battles our regiment became involved in. Perhaps at the time, one should not have expected a high literacy rate among the privates. My commander however was a special story. When we learned the setup and operation of a rifle, Malinin was our instructor. He said: “Comrades Red Army soldiers. This is our Russian, Mosin rifle with three tracks. It is a model of 1891 motorized in 1930.” Malinin said. “Comrade Commander, modernized, not motorized.” – I tried to help my superior officer. “As you were!” He retorted. But after we took it apart and then put it all together again I asked him: “Comrade commander, you said that the rifle to be motorized, but where is its motor?” “Private Minasyan, one extra duty!” “Yes sir, one extra duty!” I was then sent to the kitchen to peel potatoes as a punishment for my comment. What about the higher commanders? The battery commander Pozhivin could hardly read and write. The political supervisor of the battery, Sereda, seemed to me to be absolutely illiterate; he held his classes on politics in the open air. Sometimes when in a classroom, he would point at Africa on the map and say “This, comrades, is the United States of America!” Another time he would point at Europe and say, “…and this is Australia.” Of course it made many people laugh. We were not even surprised that he was lame. After all Comrade Stalin took “great” care of the Red Army. Why would the Army need Marshals, Combat Generals, and just literate Commanders when having lame and illiterate “staff” in the Army satisfied him just fine! Surely it was so because it was easier to manipulate such people. My service in the army especially in the first years convinced me of this. The commanders of subdivisions were afraid of literate soldiers as the devil would be of incense. Usually a literate soldier could easily spot the mistakes of a less educated commander. Naturally this was a highly undesirable situation for the superiors. “It is true,” Napoleon had once said, “that an army of sheep led

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by a lion is better, stronger than the army of lions led by a sheep.” One can only guess what an army it would have been had it consisted of lions and led by a lion! I carried on my military service as any other soldier. I fulfilled my civil duty and the duties of the Red Army soldier. I took care of my Iya. I did everything that a good soldier was supposed to do. I did, however, have extended responsibilities. I led the political club and read lectures on various topics. The personnel of our battery and from the neighboring batteries enjoyed my lectures. People from neighboring sub-divisions, even commanders, came to listen to me speak. Perhaps they were drawn to my seminars because I often cited examples from Russian literature in my discussions, especially from the fables of I.V. Krylov. I still can picture their faces, even now, with their eyes focused on me, waiting for me to begin the class. Slowly I earned some authority, even popularity, among the common soldiers and the commanding officers. People often came to me for advice, asking how to solve different questions they had argued about. Even people from the political department of the division used to come to me. However, most of all I was respected by privates. Once there was an interesting incident. At the evening roll call Sergeant-Major Shvedov was calling out names in front of the unit in formation. First came the names with the ending “chuck”: Ostapchuck, Kovalchuck, Barbenchuck, Yegorchuck, Gavrilchuck. After a dozen or so of “chucks” were other names in similar order. Whenever a soldier heard his name called, he had to reply “I.” “Podushkin!” yelled Sergeant Major. There was no reply. Shvedov repeated several times but Podushkin would not reply because he was asleep. Then Sergeant Major reported the incident to the Commander Pozhivin who came to check it out himself. Podushkin still did not obey. Enraged by such behavior Pozhivin took out a gun and aimed at him. At that moment Podushkin jumped on his plankbed and yelled: “Shoot me! Damn it! Go ahead and shoot me! I won’t stand in the ranks anyway! I can obey only the Professor! Let him speak!” Eventually I had to interfere and Podushkin stood in the formation. Later on he revealed to me the secret behind his name. His true last name was not Podushkin, but Kuznecov. “Podushkin” was the nickname he got on streets. Prior to being drafted to the army he had been a thief. Whenever he stole something, he would hide it under his pillow. This was how he got his new name Podushkin [play of words: ‘pillow’ in Russian is ‘podushka’, hence ‘Podushkin’ – AVG]. Looking ahead I must admit that he turned out to be a brave warrior, an intelligence officer. He retained his original personality and stayed proud and willful. For example once when Podushkin was awarded an Order of the Second Degree of the Great

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Patriotic War,53 he refused to take it. He replied to the bewildered commander’s question: “Comrade General, I am not a person of the Second Degree. I am of the First Degree.” The commander did not hesitate and immediately changed the Order to the First Degree. Another interesting occurrence happened when two soldiers from the neighboring sub-division, a Georgian by the name of Vano and an Armenian named Karo, asked me to settle a dispute between them. They had an ongoing heated argument about whose nation was the oldest and the smartest. They had come to me with their argument hoping I had the powers to resolve it. I explained to them that both peoples, Armenians and Georgians, were equally distinguished in intelligence and age. After we spoke extensively it seemed I had resolved their argument. But the very next day Vano ran to me and almost in tears said: “Karo said that our Georgian nightingale, Sayat-Nova54 was Armenian! The famous artist, painter of seascapes Ivan Aivazovsky55 was also Armenian. And then he said that Armenians were smarter than Georgians because Armenian king Ashot did our queen Tamar!” I tried to comfort him by telling him that King Ashot and Queen Tamar lived in different epochs, divided by 200 years.56 Shortly thereafter when the war broke out, Vano and Karo both died in the same battle, fighting shoulder to shoulder for their one Motherland. My growing authority was also demonstrated by the fact that I, a private, was elected as a member of the Communist Party bureau of the regiment. I participated in meetings on equal terms with the commanders and members of the party bureau. At one of such meetings in our regiment headquarters the adjutant of the commander, Grigoryan, already familiar to us, brought an urgent telegram to me. Oh what happened to me that instant! The telegram said that my beloved brother, Kolya, had been released from prison and was at home! I asked for permission to step outside. In the darkness of the night I both cried and laughed from the overwhelming feeling of happiness. I ran to the post office to send a telegram home. This day was December 5, 1940. In early 1941 I received a title of Zampolit of the 13th regiment in the Red Army [Russian: zamestitel politicheskogo rukovoditelia – deputy of the political supervisor of the army. Usually Zampolit, was the person directly dealing with the troops and responsible for the soldiers’ political outlook and upbringing – AVG]. I had four triangles now on my tabs. Zampolit was similar to any Red Army soldier but more distinguished among others. Zampolit was an example to other soldiers, a carrier of the Party’s policy, more active, and initiating, always in the front rows of an attack.

THE WAR

1941 The Second World War had already begun. The soldiers constantly asked me whom we were going to fight. Some speculated it would have been the Japanese, because Japan had fought against us before in the region of the Lake Khasan and Khalkhingol river.57 Others argued that the enemy we were to fight against was Turkey. Astonishingly, nobody even imagined that we might have to fight against Germany! Perhaps there was a reason for this. The signing of the Pact [German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939—AVG] and accords with Germany promising friendship and no attack, as well as, Soviet propaganda at the time worked to prove impossibility of a war and that German Fascism did not mean war. Yet, the world and the position it was thrown into was the living proof of the opposite. In the vanguard Germany confirmed that fascism meant war itself: through its aggression in Europe. By June 22, 1941 Germany occupied almost every country on the European continent. Despite the obvious proof of Nazi aggression the famous treaties between the USSR and Germany then created a sense of peace that turned the Soviet propaganda around 180 degrees and argued the opposite [i.e. German Fascism posed no threat to the USSR]. A Zampolit had no authority to object to this. He was obligated to follow the new policy and specifically the notorious TASS report of June 14, 1941!58 In light of this I would like to explain my view on the treaties, the start of the Soviet Great Patriotic War against Nazism in general and the reasons for Germany’s attack on the USSR. It is not merely that I served in the army then or that I was a contemporary, witness, and participant in the events of this time and that gives me firm ground for my argument. Yet, even that is not the main thing here. Quite often one may take an active role in the contemporary event, but, unfortunately, may not fully comprehend the process. However, it is my obligation as a scholar to provide an objective analysis of the events that took place half a century ago. It is more appropriate to begin with a review of the agreements especially given the fact of their mass discussions in the Soviet press of the time. It is absolutely true that the policy of the Communist Party and our government was aimed mainly at securing peace and the prevention of

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war. Given this goal a front of anti-fascists forces had to be created involving governments opposed to war [most notably USSR, Britain and France]. This was the path that the policy of our country followed, this was also the goal of Soviet negotiations with Britain and France. However, the negotiations on the collective security between the USSR, Britain and France produced no real results. One may reasonably inquire, why? It is possible to provide few explanations as to the failure of those talks. First, despite the calls of the “democratic” governments of the West that fascism meant war, in reality, they had never given up the hope of the eventual break up of the Soviet Union. Conveniently, a new aggressor [i.e. Hitler – AVG] climbed the stage. He was to help them regain what had been lost during the Western intervention in Russia of 1918-1920! It was only needed to raise the aggressor, arm him and set him on a direct path to the Soviet Union. With this policy the Western “democrats” of that period revealed their true selves in the 1938 Munich meeting [known as the Munich Agreement of 1938]. There, British Prime Minister Chamberlain and French Premier Daladier made an agreement with Hitler and the Italian leader Mussolini on the division of Czechoslovakia, according to which the western-most part of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) was to be ceded to Germany. The deal was closed despite the fact that France had already formed a treaty for mutual cooperation with Czechoslovakia! The second explanation has to do more with the subject and the substance of the actual negotiations. Assuming all anti-war parties agreed to create an anti-fascist front, the natural question that subsequently posed itself was with regard to the exact location where the Red Army would have been stationed for operations. The government of Poland categorically refused any possibility of Red Army deployment on its territory. The Czechs also objected. Incidentally, in the years following, when the war had already begun, Churchill often voiced his concerns about the Soviet Army’s involvement on the European continent. Finally, with negotiations dragging on, Hitler began his occupation of France and the bombing of England. The world anticipated Hitler’s advance across the English Channel and Britain’s eventual occupation. This did not happen. However, to a great degree, due to his occupation of Europe and bombing of the British cities, Hitler involuntarily precipitated a collective security compromise that had not been reached at earlier allied negotiations. An agreement on the creation of a joint antifascist front was finally attained. Hitler’s atrocities on the Western front were crucial in bringing a change to the course of the War. Soon Churchill had replaced Chamberlain in Great Britain. He realized

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that Hitler was not fooling around and because of Hitler’s aggression Churchill promptly put an end to the policy of pacification stemming from the actions of the previous group of shortsighted politicians. The allies failed still to direct Hitler towards the East. And what was the exit strategy from that situation? Churchill began to plan a formation of an anti-Hitler coalition. Simultaneously he thought of a way to pass on the greater weight of the war to the USSR. In the meantime Stalin had a different approach. His thinking ran in the following way: Hitler was too preoccupied with the war in the West and could not possibly dream of moving eastward. Furthermore, based on its miserable experience in the First World War, Germany would not dare to fight two fronts at the same time. Stalin hoped that an accord with Hitler would gain some time for the Soviet Union, should Hitler try to invade the country later. Thus, based on the above explanations, Stalin agreed to sign two treaties with Hitler: The Non-Aggression Pact and later, the second, the Soviet-German Treaty on Friendship and Borders. Now with the knowledge of the subsequent events in history we should be able to correctly address the question of how those accords served both Hitler and us. Was there anything that could actually be gained from them? If so, who gained and who lost? Contemporary literature on the subject presents two self-excluding viewpoints on the above questions. One asserts that the agreement was necessary and was of great benefit for us [the USSR]. The other claims the complete opposite! One might justly ask: which is the truth? Perhaps surprisingly to many the truth is in the dialectical principle of all-sided and thorough analysis of events, analysis, that is both well-rounded in its consideration of perspective and detailed in its research. Such a critical analysis considers all aspects of any phenomenon. It is crucial to scrutinize the problem in such a way that its core essence eventually reveals itself. The core, the main premise of the issue, must then be stressed in the argument, studied and deeply researched in order for one to get to the truth of any question at hand. Otherwise, a simple enumeration of various sides of the subject leads not to the truth but widely opens the doors for sophistry. So what did the Soviet Union get out of its agreements with Germany? The apparent benefit was the time gained and postponement of the war. There cannot be any doubt how this was a welcome development for the Soviet Army, its government, and the society. We won approximately one and a half to two years. Thus, we had time to get better prepared to resist the enemy. Let us assume that this was the positive side of the issue. However, the implications of “gaining extra time” were twofold and had a negative side as well. Unfortunately contemporary [Soviet and Western –

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AVG] analytical rhetoric has either forgotten or intentionally omitted existence of those negative implications. Hence, I would like to direct the reader’s attention to the most significant negative effects of this paradox. The first implication of the No Aggression Pact was awarding Hitler a free hand policy in his military attacks on the West. With the USSR pacified by the treaty Hitler managed to advance his military ambitions in Europe. The second negative (relative to the USSR) implication of the treaty unfolded perfectly for Hitler. The time he won allowed him to strengthen the already conquered European territories and use the highly developed [before] peaceful economies of Western Europe to provide manufacturing support for his army—all of which served long term military necessities. The third negative effect was exposed in the demoralization and disorientation of the antifascist forces in the USSR as well as abroad (which was a hard hit for the coalition force). Finally, Stalin’s deal with Hitler was made in a situation when the menacing axis Berlin—Rome— Tokyo was not just priming itself for global domination, but had already been acting accordingly in practice. Now, what kind of a world dominion would this have been without supremacy over the USSR? It was realized even then—even at the very time the deal was closed—that Hitler was not truly giving up his crackpot plans! Therefore, a war against the USSR was imminent and inevitable. Hence, it is clear that the deal with Hitler was a pernicious mistake followed by the most dreadful consequences. Now let us turn to Nazi-Germany’s cause for attack on the USSR. Certainly one may find a multitude of sound arguments explaining the attack! The aggressive nature of fascism, its plans of global domination, its perfidy, its hostility towards the social regime in the USSR, and Hitler’s relatively easy military victories in Western Europe (when people went to bed at night they awoke the following morning only to find that another European state had disappeared) - these were only a few reasons of the attack on the Soviet Union. Yet again it is possible to list a great number of similar reasons. Still, however, with decisive determination, the primary and defining cause of the attack must be singled out. There is hardly any doubt in my mind that the cause was the policy of Stalin. Yes, namely, Stalin! To be more precise, it was his destructive policy of extermination of his own people. The policy, already in place long before 1941, provoked Hitler’s attack and the eventual war. Absolutely, at the intellectual level of a small child it makes sense to conclude that since Germany unexpectedly and treacherously attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941, then Fascist Germany was the primary reason for the war! After all, it was Germany that attacked us! There cannot be any doubt in this truth or search for any other explanation. But as Stalin

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himself used to stress many times “the internal enemy is more dangerous than the external enemy!” A closer study of the events of that time would convince us that Stalin himself was the “internal enemy” of his country. First, Stalin had physically eradicated an entire class of the Soviet society: the kulaks. It was indeed his proclamation “Liquidation of kulak as a class on the basis of the total collectivization.” The classics of Marxism—Leninism had not foreseen such a policy. Their policy was “expropriation of the exploiters” and use of their experience to build socialism. Now let historians count how many millions had been executed by Stalin or had died from starvation because of the full collectivization policy. Second, in the 1930s, some time before Hitler’s attack, millions of the Lenin’s Communist Party members and those, who were not even in the Party, intellectuals, Soviet intelligencia, were terminated under Stalin’s supervision. A giant country had been orphaned. It had lost its “mind” and all the honor and consciousness of the epoch. The great country groaned mourning over its people who had disappeared without any trial or investigation. Most of those people were the pride of the nation. Lastly (and it is very important to specify that) the high commanding staff of the Red Army, from Marshals to Commanders of small sub-divisions, had been almost completely annihilated. One may ask, what was left of the army without its commanding staff? The Russian proverb says that “The sacred place is never empty,” but that is not the issue here. People who had no relation to the military in any way were filling the vacancies. I was told that a commander of our division was a former chairman of a kolkhoz. All that I have said simply means that long before Hitler attacked the USSR, Stalin had attacked it first. Stalin with his continuous, ten-year policy of terror had weakened the country; eventually giving Hitler “the green light to attack.” Had it not been for the “Stalin’s attack,” there would have never been any attack by Hitler or by any other force. I am absolutely convinced of this. Stalin’s own doctrine about the temporary and constantly active factors of war was aimed to dupe the people. It was developed in order to conceal the real, inner reasons of the fascist’s attack on the USSR. The first time I criticized his deceptive teachings (then popular in the Soviet academic circles), was at my lecture to the officers of the North-Caucasian military district in 1956 in the Officers’ House in Rostov-na-Donu. General Kladovoy and some other General from GlavPUR reproached me: “Comrade Minasyan, we are preparing the Army according to this theory! How could you be criticizing it?” “Don’t teach your army foolish things!” I replied.

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The first stage of the war was the most difficult, fearful, and unprecedented for us. The retreat of our Red Army stunned us all. By June 23, our division had already been deployed to Brest. However, along with other detachments, we retreated. Those first retreats, those first losses of friends and comrades, have become the deepest tragedy of my life. For decades prior to Germany’s attack the Soviet troops had been trained to go into attack. There had been no talk of taking defensive lines. Now, in the first days of the war, we were to retreat?! It seems as though the word “retreat” does not adequately reflect the real state of affairs at that time. In any case, hardly anything of what happened back then could have been understood. Soldiers and officers asked me as the Zampolit to help explain the events they witnessed. However, I did not know what to answer. The Germans had crossed our state border; bombed our cities, yet Stalin ordered us not to open return fire! This was his commanding genius! Indeed, how true Napoleon’s expression is about “an army of lions but headed by a sheep…” We did fight as lions. This was absolutely true. We fought “not for life, but for death.” We fought for the Motherland, for Stalin. But the enemy was pressing forward deep inside our country with growing intensity. Our troops were retreating to the so-called “pre-prepared defense lines.” As if there were any “pre-prepared defense lines” for our retreat! We put our hopes in natural barriers, such as rivers, Pinskie swamps, and forests of Bryansk. We counted on using some of the old military forts that remained at the older Soviet borderline. As it turned out there were no old forts left. All the old defensive fortifications had been dismantled but there was no time to build anything at the new forts’ locations much less to move any cannons or other ammunition there. The enemy’s landing forces had cut off all our communication lines and thus management of Soviet troops. In such a disorderly situation, sub-divisions, regiments, divisions, armies, fronts - hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of our soldiers were surrounded and taken as prisoners of war! In the meantime, people like Voroshilov, Budenny, Timoshenko [famed Soviet military commanders of the time – AVG] and others commanded the major fronts. The real Commanders, Colonels, and just brilliant military leaders had been terminated beforehand. It is very unlikely that there is any other instance of such a shameful retreat in the history of Russian [Soviet] military tradition. Thus, within a few months, the enemy had reached the walls of Moscow and Leningrad. Rapidly advancing into the depth of the country on the vast territory from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, the enemy was mocking us. From the bomber planes Germans threw not only real bombs

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but wood and barrels that while falling sounded like real bombs, spreading fear and terror among everyone. There is nothing new that I can offer to this discussion. Such facts are well known and documented. Perhaps, if I were to point out something, it would be the inadequate portrayal of our retreat in the mass media today. Indeed, the quality of the media’s analysis on the retreat is extraordinary awful. In it there persists a fear of the truth. Was the fascist attack on the USSR a surprise to the Soviet government? It certainly was for us (ordinary people) who had no other information to back up our own suspicions and guesses. We believed everything that was communicated to us through official channels. To satisfy our quests for answers, we followed Stalin’s teachings on “the temporary and constantly active factors of war,” on the enemy’s treachery and on the suddenness of the attack. One must be absolutely naïve to buy into all this today. In reality there was no suddenness of the attack. Furthermore, I believe there are few arguments that provide the soundest proof of the above statement. First, no one other than Stalin himself promoted the idea that in the epoch of imperialism, wars were not declared. Thus, one should have better remained alert to possible threats. Second, Hitler’s notorious plan of attack (“Operation Barbarossa”) was prepared and confirmed in 1940. Did our intelligence not know about this or did Stalin not believe the secret reports just as he never believed anybody? Third, the enemy had deployed its troops at our Western frontier a long time before the attack. Our leadership had been informed of this. Stalin knew those facts, too. Hitler put up the charade that he was merely saving his troops from the British Air Force bombardments thus relieving Stalin. One must agree that only a defective boy, and not a political leader of such a giant country, could have been cheated in such a way. Fourth, not only our intelligence community (and most notably Richard Zorge59), Churchill and his ambassador Stafford Cripps, but Hitler’s own ambassador to the USSR, Mr. Schulenburg himself, had reported to Stalin and Molotov the exact date and time of the imminent Nazi incursion. For heaven’s sake, about what unexpectedness do we speak? So does that mean, as some naive people might ask, that Stalin conspired with Hitler? Did they have a secret agreement? I do not have an answer to these questions nor can I say anything definitive in respect to that. It is the historians’ job to sort it all out, but more importantly, what difference would it make? A leader is judged not according to what he thinks or says about himself but according to his deeds in life. Objectively what occurred implied that Hitler had no such other truly loyal ally than Stalin! One could not even dream of any better! But one must always repay one’s debts. Hence, Hitler “in return” became Stalin’s best helper in

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exterminating some of the “cream” of our nation, and mainly high positioned people in the Red Army ranks. In order not to digress too long from the main idea, let us return to the story of the war. The most critical milestone in the history of the Great Patriotic War was the battle for Moscow. That took place in December of 1941. As they say the destiny of our grand country literally “hung on a hair.” The foe was rushing ahead. According to his “Plan of Blitzkrieg,” Hitler hoped to end the war with the occupation of Moscow by 1941. However, that did not work out: the Nazi troops were not so strong after all! The Soviet Army crushed the German’s attack near Moscow and if prior to this battle our Soviet soldiers had little faith in the eventual triumph of the Red Army, after the successful operations at the Moscow front, I, Zampolit Minasyan, was able to offer the most convincing arguments to inspire our warriors to victory. Here yet again I am obliged to take a step back and express my view of this glorious moment in the Soviet military tradition, for even now there are inconsistencies in our country and abroad about this event. As always, several reasons explaining our victory have been offered to the public today. A popular argument attributes the victory to the infinite loyalty of the Red Army to the Motherland and Stalin [whom they protected while defending Moscow – AVG]. Some people point to Moscow’s impregnable defense fortifications. Then there are others who say that it was the winter and the vast space of Russian plains that caused a malfunction of the enemy’s machinery and thus it performed below its potential. Others say that defensive actions of the Red Army had worn out the enemy. Still others refer to the fact that Stalin had stayed in Moscow despite the government being evacuated from the city. Without any doubt it is possible to name many other causes for our victory. Moreover one may even agree with them. However, it is not enough to simply list these reasons, because again it would be a path to sophistry. It is utterly important to distinguish the main, distinct and decisive cause from the list of possible causes. I am convinced that the significant growth and improvement of Soviet military leadership across the lowest to the highest ranks of the commanding staff was precisely the core reason that led us to the victory battle of Moscow. Yes it was the exemplarily growth of the Soviet military art! Stalin, on the other hand, had nothing to do with it. He was not of the military stock. His secondary school knowledge was sufficient enough to establish his supremacy of an unprecedented, absolute monarch and to terminate the best of the nation. No matter what top military titles he awarded himself (Marshal, Generalissimo) he had never overcome that seminary level of maturity. Therefore, I am referring to

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those commanders who had grown up inside the divisions. I am referring to those who learned from the experience of a pitiful retreat and amid the fire of the battles. I am referring to those who came to honorably replace M.N. Tukhachevsky. I am referring to people like G.K. Zhukov. In their growth as wise commanders, these people daily proved the aphorism of Napoleon that when a lion leads the army, the officers and soldiers also turn into lions! Such an army is invincible!

1942 I was summoned to the Army’s staff headquarters and was soon promoted to the title of the mladshiy politruk [Russian: Junior Political Supervisor – AVG]. It was a position one level above my prior one but I still (and actually until the end of the war) performed the same functions of Zampolit of the Battery’s Infantry division. I also worked for some time for the army newspaper, both writing articles and serving as deputy editor. For a few months I was dispatched to Ivanovo to attend special courses for soldiers working in the newspapers. Shortly thereafter I was summoned to GlavPUR to work as an informant. I categorically refused and asked to be sent back on the frontlines (I remember I was burning with desire to crush the damn Nazis). At the end of 1942 I was appointed as a lecturer for the political department to the Thirteenth Army. To give you some idea what my appointment entailed I would simply say that I read lectures in subdivisions and divisions of the army whenever there were no combat activities. Whenever the commanding officer had information of an imminent military operation we, lecturers, agitators, and instructors in the Political Department of the Army called POARM [Russian: Politicheskii Otdel Armii – AVG] would be dispatched to our divisions and fought together with the rest as ordinary soldiers. We had to be watchful of our actions because the soldiers often followed our examples. We were responsible for leading the people in attack!

1943 It had been sometime since I had returned to the front when in January 1943 I was sent to the 148th infantry division under the command of the General Mischenko. One of the remarkable combatant episodes of that time was our battle in the Lipetsk region. The commanding headquarters had assigned us a task: to drive the Germans off and occupy a mount called Ogurets [Russian for “Cucumber” – AVG]. Despite our best efforts

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we were not succeeding in accomplishing the task. Within a short period of time and after a lot of blood shed, almost all of our division died there. After our division another one (the 74th division) under the command of the General Andranik Abramovich Kazaryan was brought to the fight. Just like the one before it that division was quickly dispersed. Then a third one was brought in too. Yet amazingly there was either one battalion or one company of the Germans holding position on that Ogurets. Furthermore, our other divisions had already passed around that mount and had liberated the villages of Kastornoe and Stary Oskol while we were losing three divisions near the village of Lomigory, thoughtlessly running into fire as sheep. Was that a reminder that we had not yet learned how to attack? I was in the artillery company and hit the enemy from the cannon. I fought courageously. Later, for that battle, I was awarded a medal “For Bravery.”60 In this first attack ever the instructors of POARM that I had worked with Kharchenko, Istleu Djanakov [Captain, former Deputy Peoples Commissar of Education of Kazakhstan – AVG], and Diachenko, were killed. I was wounded in the leg, “scratched” as we used to say. Nevertheless, at the hospital the surgeons spoke of amputation. I flatly refused. “In any case you won’t walk on this leg for more than a year,” one of them warned me. However, he was mistaken! That leg served me for a long time. Only 45 years after that incident did I lose it due to amputation (the war came back to haunt me). There was always an element of surprise after any battle: how did one survive? Still, as I think back and reminisce over the events of those days, I am astonished by the fact of one’s survival in the middle of a fight where Death walked close to us at all times; it was breathing right in my face. For example, once, the three of us (the Commander of the company, the Commander of the battery and I) were walking through a narrow ravine. We were unaware of the fact that the Germans had dug mines around it. Both of my comrades perished there before my eyes: they stepped on a landmine. I survived but was stupefied. The tragedy of the war was indeed personal for me, affecting my immediate family. In the battle for Stalingrad my younger brother Sarkis, Senior Lieutenant, platoon commander, disappeared without any trace. He was only 25. But yet I survived… Similar events took place at Kursk [the Battle of Kurskaia Duga – AVG].61 We had long awaited major fighting. After their defeat at Stalingrad the Germans were preparing for the major throw. The weight of the warfare shifted to Kursk. The Soviet Army established fortifications forming a deep echelon of defenses. Our troops were prepared to resist the enemy’s offensive. Thus, we spent our time waiting for the battle to begin.

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Soon May passed and then June, but no offensive had yet been launched. The whole world intensely watching these events was lost in guessing the final outcome of the suspense. I clearly remember that an American journalist, Walter Lippman, predicted Hitler would initiate the attack on Kurskaia Duga. He argued that Hitler was an adventurer and would not be able to stand the long “silence.” Indeed very soon while we were still preparing two German soldiers crossed over to our side informing us of Hitler’s orders to proceed on July 5. At this time I was deployed with the rest of the troops in the northern part of our army’s defense line in the region of the railway station of Poniry. A few hours before the enemy’s attack we opened fire from all calibers at the adversary’s initial offense positions. An enormous amount of the enemy’s manpower and military machinery were destroyed even before the battle began. My experience with artillery helped me in the battle. The fighting was bitter, dreadful, and went on without a break for days and nights. It was an extremely terrible sight! The Germans, who usually had been very careful to remove the corpses of their fallen soldiers, left the bodies of their comrades on the battlefield; this is how devastating the fighting was. Very soon the dead bodies of fallen from both sides began to rot in the heat and poisoned the air and the ground. A disgusting stench was all over the field. For more than a week I could neither eat nor drink; I did not even dream about sleep. It seemed to me there was no day, only night persisted for the sun was veiled with thick smoke all the time. I had never seen such a battle neither before nor since the war. I was “scratched” again few times at Kursk, but the idea of going to hospital for a check up was decisively ruled out. I stayed in the ranks, with the army. The enemy eventually drove a wedge into our defense line but could not advance any further. Although, I think, they did manage to get through our defenses in the Southern part (near Belgorod) of it. However, very soon our troops went into attack and quickly crossed Desna, Pripiat, and Dnepr. I was awarded the Order of the Red Star62 and a title of Major for the Kursk battle. I must admit that the mass media, literature, and film industry are still in great debt to our people. There is yet a “War and Peace” to be written about the Great War. Moreover, both retreats and attacks are often presented as a caricature. For example, let us look at the film Osvobozhdenie [Russian: Liberation – AVG]63 based on the novel by Jurii Bondarchuk. Some facts in that motion picture are simply inverted. When depicting the Soviet Army’s attempts to force Dnepr, the directors show few small boats with soldiers in them, some crossing the river with their

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horses on rafts! In reality there were thousands of soldiers who swam across holding their guns in the air. Those who were like me and could not swim crossed the river riding on their horses. There was something else. Those who took part in warfare would know that first the bomb explodes and only then one hears the sound of explosion. For some mysterious reason the modern film presents it in a reverse order. It is safe to suggest that Hitler’s adventurous blunder at Kursk was the last attempt of the German offensive. Although there were a few smaller attempts after that they mostly were of local importance and played no essential role in the bigger picture. Henceforth the offensive initiative was transferred to the Red Army. We advanced day and night, in cold and heat, in winter and in summer, in bad weather and sunny days. We hit harder and harder at the fascist parasite until we had finally overcome him. I was awarded with the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the Second Degree for the successful crossing of the rivers Oder and Shpree and for active participation in the capture of Berlin. But the war did not end with the capture of Berlin on May 2, 1945. Within days of that landmark event in the history of World War II, our Thirteenth Army was put on the tanks of Generals P.S. Rybalko and D.D. Lelushenko64 and was directed to Prague, which we liberated without a “scratch.” To close my story on the war, let me relate a few episodes or as the Major Kvitko, who died in Berlin, used to say “epizdot” [play of words in Russian, suggesting an obscenity – AVG] from my life at the frontline. Naturally I would not be able to retell everything so I only want to remember the most important events that will stand out in my memory forever. First of all, I would like to talk about the “second” [Allied] front. As I mentioned earlier Hitler involuntarily “helped” create the anti-Nazi coalition. At some point in the war Britain, the US, and France had become determined Soviet allies. I cannot be precise about the exact date of the event but I only know that the opening of the second front against Hitler had been consistently delayed. Incidentally, the allied powers had been helping us early on in the war but that help did not involve any military actions against the common enemy. Despite the postponement Stalin believed his new friends. Namely, because of them, he continued promising the people a very quick end to the war: “half a year more, maybe a year.” I was under the impression that the allies were only recollecting their pre-war policy. Although they had failed to direct Hitler to the East and profit from his invasion on the USSR then, the fact was now that the war was raging in the USSR. By postponing their military involvement the Allies hoped for the exhaustion and eventual collapse of

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our army, the spirit of our people, and the USSR. Thus, whenever I was asked a question at an army lecture or seminar, regarding the second front I said: “The second front has been opened!” “What do you mean it has been opened?” my surprised listeners would ask. “It is very simple,” was my answer. “First, the Red Army was preparing to fight the whole world’s imperialism, but the imperialists failed to advance a joined front against us! This was a victory for the Soviet Union by itself. Moreover, the events led to the eventual creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Second, not all of the imperialistic powers had attacked us. Is not this a second front in action? The essence of it is not the canned food from the USA or any other aid we receive. The true meaning of the second front as it applies to us is that neither Britain, nor the US, nor any other power has joined Hitler’s attack on us.” In 1944, once they had been assured beyond any doubt about the Red Army’s advance in Europe, the Allied powers began their military engagement in the Western front. Apparently Roosevelt had pointed out to Churchill that if they were not to proceed immediately the Red Army would soon reach the English Channel on its own and conquer Europe. Still, Stalin carefully fulfilled the Allies’ wishes. After delivering a deafening moral blow to Hitler’s armies in 1945 millions of our soldiers were transported at Stalin’s orders from the Western front to the Far East through twelve thousand kilometers of a ruined country [Russia] to fight the Japanese. To the disappointment of many the Soviet Union at that time did not utilize the opportunity of recapturing Armenian territories from Turkey.65 That was not surprising at all. At different periods of time, Stalin had been a marionette in the hands of Hitler, then Churchill and Roosevelt (later President Harry Truman). Yet again, the allies had successfully shifted the entire burden of the war in the Far East on us. Amazingly, they benefited from that too.

1944 In early 1944 our division was stationed in the Western Ukraine. The victorious advance of the Soviet Army had been hindered by existence and coordinated efforts of a very well organized enemy. Practically all of the male population of this region was mobilized in guerrilla warfare in different nationalistic groups called: “Bandery,” “Melniki”66 or others. All of them had one common goal: resistance to the Soviet Union. Hence they fought against us “for the sovereign Ukraine” [this is related to the Ukrainian separatist movement during the war – AVG]. In February 1944 our army liberated the cities of Rovno and Lutsk. The office of POARM

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13 was stationed in the village of Zdolbunovo. One night we were awakened by the command “to arms.” Our detachment was sent to patrol the highway Novograd—Volynsky—Rovno. It was on this road where the Commander of the 1st Ukrainian front, General N.F. Vatutin,67 had been fatally wounded on his way to the army’s headquarters in Rovno. The village where he had been shot was abandoned by people. We could not find anybody except for one priest who told us how it all had happened. According to the priest, Vatutin with his assistants had been traveling through the village in a car. They had passed the first houses that stretched along the highway, without any trouble. As they approached the road’s exit gunfire erupted from the houses located at the village’s outskirts. When the Soviet officers turned back to escape the slaughter the bandits opened fire from all houses using large-caliber guns! Wounded, Vatutin was taken to Moscow where he died after several days in hospital. The “Bandery” murdered mostly our high-ranking officers, often using fascist (or Stalin’s) methods of torture. It was customary at that time to hold meetings with workers and the general public in the cities, towns and villages liberated by the Soviet Army. After the liberation of the city of Lutsk one of us from the POARM was to be sent there to prepare a letter from the local population addressed to Stalin expressing their gratitude to him for the liberation. Such was the routine. The Deputy Commander of the Army, General Lieutenant, was preparing to go there and telephoned me saying that we had to go together, despite the fact that there were no Soviet troops there. As often happened, the Soviet cavalry had cleansed the city of enemy troops and advanced further, not waiting for the main divisions to arrive. Because of this [absence of the troops in the area], our trip was continuously delayed. The chief of the propaganda department in the POARM, Major V.A. Suchkov, ordered me to go there anyway. This man had been trying to get rid of me for a long time already. Wherever there was fatal danger he ordered me to be there in the first ranks. And this had happened a number of times by then. Following my superior’s orders, I often walked dozens of kilometers either to the cavalry corps’ bases or another detachments’, each time passing through the “Bandery” bands’ areas of control. Now this time, well aware of the fact that there were no Soviet troops in Lutsk, and all paths to it were under “Bandery” control, Suchkov had ordered me to report to Lutsk. An order was an order! We dared not disobey or express our objections. Together with a soldier named Nazarov, assigned to my mission and equipped with a sub-machine gun, I drove to Lutsk. We had to cover a distance of 100 kilometers between Rovno and Lutsk. Despite the fact that the highway was in good condition (asphalt was not badly

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broken), the road was packed with corpses of dead people and horses, smashed carriages, blown up cars and other military vehicles. To get through it, we had to constantly get out of the car and clear the road to move on. Half way on our journey we decided to make a short stop at a village. We entered the first house off the highway. A young, beautiful, dark-eyed Ukrainian woman met us holding a newborn child in her hands. We asked her if she knew if there were any “Bandery” in the village. She responded in Ukrainian: “Khiba bachili, khiba chuiali. [Ukrainian: Haven’t seen, haven’t heard. – AVG].” The problem was that it was a standard answer given by most of the village women in that part of Ukraine at the time. Often they used that tactic to provide a cover for their men, hiding behind a stove or sitting tight in the basement. I told her: “You are so young and beautiful. What a nice boy you have! Why do you hurt yourself? Go and ask your man to the table! Let’s eat.” She listened to me for a while and then unexpectedly burst into tears: “Mikola, Mikola! You hear, the pan [Ukrainian: “mister” – AVG] is calling you?” From the darkness of the back room there appeared Mikola, a young man with an automatic gun and grenades covering all his body. We sat at the table. I asked Mikola and Nazarov to put their guns away. We had some alcohol. We drank and then I began to read morals to Mikola. He listened to me attentively and silently. Not a word was uttered. My efforts to convince him in the uselessness of resistance to the Soviets were futile. We had to leave. It is true what they say, that it is easier to get on a tiger’s back than it is to get off it. There was a moment of tension and then I ordered: “Take your guns but do not open fire!” Nazarov with his gun aimed at Mikola and Mikola with his gun aimed at Nazarov walked out of the house with me; got in the car and left. Thankfully there was no shooting. When we got to Lutsk I asked the locals if there were any Soviet troops there. Some people said “no” while others had no clue. Finally, one of the villagers told us secretly where the soldiers from the cavalry division had a party going. I did not ask why it was “secret,” however it became apparent once we reached the place. Nazarov and I entered a room in the house where the officers were having fun. The whole room was covered in cigarette smoke. I approached a Major surrounded by drunken soldiers and reported: “Comrade Major! The Representative of the Military Committee of the 13th Army Major Minasyan!” He jumped up, embraced me, and said: “And I am the Commander of the Cavalry division, Major Avanesyan!” He was Armenian, like me! But I got right to work. There was no administrative power in the town. While I was preoccupied with searching for local governance, the cavalry division took off for the west. In my search for someone representing the local authority the best I had

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succeeded to find was a manager of a cinema theater who called himself Zavarykin. It was decided that we were to stay at his place. The next day, following the standard procedures of the time, we organized and held a general meeting for the local people in the center of the town. At the meeting I lectured on the Soviet Army’s victorious advance against the Nazis and recent developments in the country. Later that day I was up late putting together a letter-address from the local population to Stalin. Nazarov and our driver were talking in the adjacent room. I did not notice how Zavarykin’s wife came into my room. She reproached me for neither drinking, nor eating, nor even resting. She fixed me a drink, a small shot of some liquor maybe 15-20 grams, and insisted that I drank it. She watched as I sipped it and then left. In a half hour I felt very strange. It felt like my body was burning inside. The pain caused me to jump out of my chair up to the ceiling. As I fell down losing consciousness, I – luckily – managed to scream for Nazarov. I have no recollection of the events that followed the incident. When I “woke up” it was getting dark outside. I was not sure what was going on because in my mind I could only remember working on the report late at night. Thankfully Nazarov made it all clear to me. He explained that I was unconscious for two days (from February 13 until February 15). Obviously I had been poisoned. We left Lutsk immediately. The 121st Guards’ Infantry Division under the command of General L.D. Chervony was stationed within three kilometers from Lutsk. So, this was where we went. There I was happy to see my old classmate, already Deputy Commander of the artillery regiment, Yervand Hovanesovich Arzumanyan.68 We had retained our friendship even after the war was over. They really took good care of me at the field hospital. However, for some time after that incident, I could neither drink nor eat anything. Everything seemed to be poisoned! After a few days, although I still had that feeling, I started eating carrots. I was cleaning them myself, taking off a thick layer of carrots’ skin and eating only the core. Unfortunately the consequences of that damn poisoning had affected me through the rest of the war. Very often I had to be put in the field hospital. Nevertheless, again I miraculously survived. Running ahead of my story, I’d like to mention that a newspaper in the Armenian language, The Communist, published a big article with my portrait about my combat service. It was November 5, 1944. In August 1944 we liberated Poland. The locals met our army as well as other Soviet regiments with apparent hostility. Various covert and undercover anti-Soviet and anti-Russian organizations were active in Poland at that time. They constantly kept us on alert with their unexpected

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attacks. The task of the POARM was to warn and educate the Soviet troops about the hidden dangers but at the same time to restrain them from being hostile to the people. It was a difficult situation. The Poles, with their intoxicating homemade alcohol, offered drinks to the soldiers and then stole everything from them. Their antagonism towards us manifested itself in their opinion that their culture was higher [more civilized] than the Russian. In many an encounter the pans [here the references is to landowners in Poland – AVG] argued that Poles were older and smarter than the Russians. They based their theory on the historical facts of Polish occupation of Moscow, Kiev, L’vov and other regions of the old Russian Empire. Hearing all that, I could not help remembering the argument between the Armenian and the Georgian. Despite my counter argument that we had no time to waste on such useless discussions, that we had a one, common enemy to fight, their attitude had not changed. The Soviet troops were not considered to be the liberators of Poland and thus no warm feelings from the Polish population were extended to us. One of the major battles in Poland was at the river Vistula. The Soviet army (and our division in particular) was forcing the river in the battle in the Baranuv—Sandomir region, Sandomir bridgehead. The Germans used tanks causing our troops to retreat. The enemy must have been detained. With a group of sub-machine gunners I was sent to withhold the retreat of our troops. We were shocked at what we saw. The provision-carriage sped right by us. I ordered one of the soldiers to shoot the horse in the carriage for it was creating panic by its rapid movement in the midst of the fighting. No sooner had we accomplished control of one cluster of our troops when the artillery detachment began its retreat. I spotted a Colonel in the cabin of a car speeding away from the battlefield. He must have been the artillery commander. We blocked their way and I ordered: “Comrade Colonel, on behalf of the Supreme Soviet I order you to turn around and resume your position! Order your guns to be repositioned and hit the fascist’s tanks!” He dared not disobey the orders of Major Minasyan; the sub-machine gunners were aiming right at him.69 But the most disastrous thing happened! The enemy defeated us. Practically all personnel of the regiment and my sub-machine gunners perished in the battle. The Colonel, too, was shot. The only people who survived were the regiment’s Deputy Commander, few soldiers, the banner of the regiment, and I… We dug ourselves under ground and for several days we lived there! The German tanks and guns were crossing above us. At nights we would come out to gather grass, hay, find worms and other things to eat so as not to die from hunger. I think we lived this way as moles for at least ten days.

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Despite all of this we had no doubt that it was not going to last long. We expected the arrival of our main troops any moment. Finally it happened; early one morning at dawn we saw a tank formation quickly approaching us. The leading tank had a huge portrait of Stalin on it. We were saved! A few hours after the tanks’ arrival my chief from the POARM of the 13th Army, N.F. Voronov, caught up with the rest of the army. As soon as he got out of his car he attacked us: “So this is how we fight now? Where are the Germans?” I did not think long and immediately responded: “In the same place where he has been all this time—in the woman’s forepart, comrade Colonel!”70 There was nothing surprising in my response. The chiefs in POARM, divisions, and regiments, fought not only by signing documents, preparing reports, informing, asking questions, but also by driving their women around. Such was a generally accepted opinion of their work and “active duty.” I am not generalizing, but speaking of what I actually saw with my own eyes. Many of them [chiefs] had not ‘smelled’ the gunpowder. Most surprising to me was Voronov, a native of the Volga region [in Russia], a redheaded, short and fat man. Indeed there were times when he was sober but only when the fighting occurred. All other times he “swallowed” alcohol not in bottles but cases! He had nothing to worry about, though. He had personal bodyguards, a personal car, a girlfriend (secretary of the Political Department, Zoya), a personal cook, and always a special earthen-hut – he alone had it all. That was why we used to say: “For some it might be a war, but for others it’s their mother.” There were some chiefs who drove around two women, one was dressed in the military uniform and the other wore civil clothes (just to keep things diverse). As for the women in the Soviet army, I would like to say the following. Stalin had mobilized millions of 18-year-old girls. What were they supposed to do? Naturally some fell prey to irresponsible superiors. Nevertheless there were many young women who heroically fought against the Germans. Some of those girls were first class snipers! There was one girl, who served with us, named Galya. She worked as a medical assistant and pulled the wounded soldiers from the battlefield in the midst of fighting. Galya never let any man approach her too closely, though. There were many girls like that serving in the Army at that time. Speaking of “irresponsible superiors,” I am tempted to share a story about the Chief of the Political Department of the 24th Corps, Colonel M.A. Antipov. An illiterate man, he wore a pin of the Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. All literate men had been “eaten” by the Stalin regime in their time. Once, Suchkov and I were sent to the Corps. Antipov was away on some errand. We waited in his hut. Without losing

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any time Suchkov searched around Antipov’s “residence” and found a bottle of vodka and drank it all. Soon after that Antipov returned and found out that his vodka was gone. There began an unprecedented quarrel between him and Suchkov. I watched them fuss at each other. “Who gave you the right to steal my vodka?” yelled Antipov. Suchkov replied: “I am higher in rank than you are, I am from POARM! I can do what I want!” Antipov responded: “What the hell are you talking about!? I am the Colonel and you are a petty Major!” They were ready to jump at each other. Suchkov was an absolutely useless man, sneaky and a hypocrite. Another time, I arrived to the Corps by myself. I attended one of Antipov’s lectures to the officers of the Corps. An old large shed served as a classroom. While reading his notes, Antipov said: “Hitler had … an applause, hooray.” The room filled with whispering and suppressed laughter. The Agitator of the Political Department, Major Zenin, who had written the speech, shouted from his seat hoping for Antipov to hear him: “Comrade Colonel, - ‘apoplectic stroke! Hitler had an apoplectic stroke.”71 He repeated the phrase several times but still Antipov failed to say it correctly. Instead, Antipov cursed at his best the girl, his secretary, who had typed the report. Not “wasting” any time to correct himself, he went on talking about the importance of providing proper care for the soldiers. He declared to the officers gathered in the auditorium: “You must take very good care of your troops: feed your soldiers, provide them with a uniform, and be mindful of their needs. As they say, the being determines the consciousness.” Then he looked at me and asked: “Am I saying this correctly, comrade Major?” “Not exactly, comrade Colonel, social being determines the consciousness,” I replied. For a minute he stood there silent and then categorically replied: “Well, well, we’ll see about that.”

1945 It was early January 1945. Our army had approached the banks of the river Vistula in Poland. One night I was on duty in the office of the Army’s Political Department. A lamp with a steel cup and oil in it hardly gave any light to the room. Outside there was the utter darkness of a cold winter night. It was very late at night and I was by myself. Suddenly the door to the office opened and a Lieutenant came in and reported: “Comrade Major, I am the intelligence officer from the German headquarters,” [he mentioned his last name, but now I can not recall what it was]! In an instant I aimed my gun at him but he quickly said: “No, no need to shoot! Please don’t! Here is my gun and my

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communication radio.” He placed these on the table in front of me, sat down and began his story. Once I heard his account of the circumstances that had led him to us I called SMERSh72 and requested the chief of POARM-13 to come in. The Nazi scout told me the following. A native of Russia’s Southern Don region, he had been captured by the Germans in 1943. Upon his arrest he had been sent to an intelligence school in Braunschweig and then deployed to serve at the front. He had just landed with a parachute. He informed me that there was another officer with him, a German who was waiting for him in a secret location. In a few minutes Voronov, the Chief of POARM and a Major from SMERSh came in. Voronov slapped the Nazi scout in the face, and the Major took the guy to his office. Much later I found out that the scout had been awarded with an Order of Lenin73 for his heroic act. Eventually he delivered his service to the Soviet Union with bravery and dedication. Using his connection to the enemy’s intelligence service he had managed to lure in several German officers right to his residence in SMERSh! Indeed that war had witnessed numerous instances of bravery and cowardice, heroism in defense of humanity, and treachery and betrayal at all levels. Although the Soviet army had its own plan of attack in Poland, Churchill had asked Stalin to commence the attack earlier than the initial date agreed upon. He claimed increased intensity of the German atrocities on the Western front as a reason for his request. Hence he needed to create a distraction on the opposite side. As humble as only he could be Stalin obeyed and we attacked a week or two before we were supposed to. What an accuracy! Our troops devastated the Germans and ridding of them from smaller towns on the way, we soon entered Kielce. The entire time I was with the troops at the front participating in the battles. Once at a stop somewhere in the field, a Polish boy ran up to me: “Pan Major, I know where the Germans are! They are hiding in that stack of hay over there.” With a few of my soldiers I approached the hideout and ordered in German to give up! In a couple of minutes the Nazis crawled out. As we arrested them we noticed that they were officers of the headquarters of the tank division that had been defeated at Kielce earlier that day! Amazingly they were absolutely convinced in Hitler’s victory in the war. In fact despite being taken as prisoners of war they boldly declared that the Soviet Army, before going into the all-out attack, had been retreating, suggesting the possibility of a German counterattack against the Soviet army. Moreover, one of them a Deputy Commander, demanded schnapps for his chief. One of our fighters, a huge Tatar from Kazakhstan, gave him a punch in the face but no schnapps!

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Soon our combat actions shifted to German territory. As we moved across Germany towards Berlin we observed a number of things that left a strong impression upon us. First, we got rid of the lice; all through the war they had been literally eating us. No matter what we did, nothing helped. I remember we used to call lice the ‘Hitlerians’! When we got to Germany we took off our old lice-infected undershirts and put on long German ones, made of viscose silk. It seemed strange to us that the Germans did not have any underwear; a long shirt substituted for all pieces of undergarment. The second most surprising thing was the complete absence of any villages or small towns, and there were no huts either (similar to the ones in Russia, Ukraine and Poland); there were only big towns and cities. All buildings were grouped in a town-like fashion rather than that of a village. I had a difficult time as the Zampolit answering the soldiers’ questions about German villages. My third and most impressive memory was that of the great condition of the German roads. There were signs with mileage and town names all along our way. Naturally there were many road signs to Berlin. Almost in every town there was a sign with directions to Berlin: Nach Berlin 300, 250, 200 km. and so on. Often on such road signs one could see writings in Russian, added by our soldiers. This would be written using fresh paint and it read: Ni khrena… Ivan! Doidem! [Russian: “Screw them, Ivan! We’ll get there!” – AVG]. Thus we advanced through Germany on our way to Berlin not facing any serious resistance yet. Nevertheless all sorts of things happened. I was assigned to lead a battalion. The sight I saw when I arrived there [at the battalion’s station base – AVG] amazed me. For a moment it seemed there was nothing left of the strict discipline existent elsewhere in our army. There was a group of snipers convoying a huge pig dressed in woman’s clothes with a big hat on its head. I stopped them and demanded them to direct me to the battalion’s commander. The soldiers had absolutely no idea where any of their high-ranking officers were! Finally I managed to track down the commanding officers in a black catafalque. They wore civil clothes: tuxedoes, tall round hats and white gloves. They were drunk and playing cards. I ordered on behalf of the Supreme Soviet of the 13th Army that they “Resume positions!” Stunned, they did not know how to react at first. One of them drew his gun at me. Another grabbed the gun from his hands. The first, who aimed at me, began screaming how the fascists had killed his whole family. However, my order was fulfilled. The officers put on military uniform and went to their positions in the battalion and regiments. Still there was no fighting yet. We proceeded for a few hours until suddenly the battalion stopped. “What happened?” I asked the Commander

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“Comrade Major, the guys have found a barrel with alcohol!” I knew that our soldiers had quickly learned how to read the German word spirt (alcohol). The problem was that they could not have known what kind of alcohol it was. Was it the one that a human could drink, or was it the poisonous methyl alcohol—one that had already killed many of our men? It was impossible to distinguish between the two without tasting it. So now the soldiers asked for my permission for them to risk and try it: “Comrade Major, we have got enough food for three battalions like ours but we have nothing to drink! Please, allow us to try this alcohol!” My response was a categorical “No.” But a Sergeant-Major disobeying the order ran up to the barrel: “Comrade Major, let me do this without your permission!” He took off his helmet and scooped as much as he could from the barrel. Holding such improvised cup above his head he declared: “My dear ones! I am dying for you, for our Motherland, for Stalin!” He sipped the whole thing. For a while there was dead silence. No one dared utter a word. It was supposed to take half an hour for the reaction to occur. After some time had passed, the Sergeant Major was still alive. The soldiers were exhilarated with happiness. They were screaming and yelling ‘Hooray,’ ‘Victory.’ Being responsible for the whole battalion, I advised ‘kombat’ [Russian abbreviation for Commander of the battalion – AVG] on how best to divide the alcohol so that everyone could have his small portion and only when we took our breaks. Eventually, things had worked out well: no quarrels and no drunken soldiers. But the troops got the muchneeded break from the pressures of the war. We halted our march for a break. I worked on my paperwork when Sofia L’vovna ran up to me in panic. She was a Lieutenant in the 7th department of the POARM-13. Their job was very much involving counter intelligence expertise for she mostly worked with prisoners of war, i.e. arrested Nazis and their sympathizers. She was a small and frail woman with glasses and it was impossible to determine her age but she was very knowledgeable. What is more Sofia L’vovna also knew several languages. She stood trembling in front of me, nervously screaming: “Comrade Major, one of our soldiers is getting rid of the prisoners. Please help us!” I immediately put my coat on and at the speed of a lightning ran to the place where we kept all the prisoners of war. I was surprised to see that the little woman ran next to me and did not fall behind. As far as I knew she could not run at all. As we were approaching the prisoners’ barn, we saw about 30 or 40 people in fascist uniform walking in single file outside the camp. Just as she told me there was one of our soldiers escorting the

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prisoners. We caught up with them and stopped the line. “Where to?” I asked the soldier. “Over there, comrade Major, to that ravine. They had killed all my family. I must get rid of them.” “Turn around! At once! Take them back to the barn where they were!” I ordered. On the way to the barn, I tried my best to explain to this poor soldier that we, Soviet Army soldiers, were not fascists and should not be acting like them. Therefore we could not kill any prisoners without trial and investigation. He wept as he was walking and listening to me, realizing that his act would have been self-destructive for himself for he would have been sent to court-martial for committing such a crime. Inside the barn the prisoners refused to sit down. They stood facing us and answered my questions. I tried to speak to them in German but Sofia L’vovna told me they were Italians. If Italians, I said, they must sing! They cheered up and asked what Mr. Major wanted to hear. Sofia L’vovna translated my request into Italian: “Skajite Devushki Podrujke Vashei…” Oh how beautifully they sang! What a marvelous choir! I had never heard anything so mesmerizing like that in all my life. Today the mere memory of it gives me joy and delight but tears come to my eyes as I remember this song from that awfully frightening year of 1938… We were at the river Oder and I was assigned to the regiment of Colonel Pomozkov. We liberated the German territories in the areas of Karlsruhe and Cottbus. Strangely we rarely saw any locals on our way, even as we passed some of the bigger towns. Goebbels must have scared them incredibly so that people either had deserted the land or were hiding elsewhere. However, the silence was deceiving. One day our regiment stopped in a small town for a break. We entered the town without any resistance and no traces of Hitler’s troops were to be found. Everyone was relaxed and just when we were about to start eating all the buildings and grounds around us started exploding and burning. There was intense automatic gun-fire. Together with a few other soldiers I got out of the brick building we were in and lay down on the ground in the yard. All of a sudden a soldier from the tank crew jumped out of his tank and lay down near me. For some reason he placed his head on my chest. The only thing I saw next was the blood springing from his head, like a fountain! I was covered with blood from head to toe, but the blood was not mine. It was that soldier’s blood. I was simply “scratched.” That brave soldier without realizing it had covered me and saved me from the inevitable death. A stranger—a soldier—died, and I, by a miracle of luck survived again. On April 25, our troops met with the American Army at the river Elbe.

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The 2nd battalion of the 337th regiment of the 121st infantry division where I served participated in this triumphant meeting of the Allies. A picture from the newspaper Pravda now preserved in the museum of the Rostov State Academy of Construction,74 forever captured our meeting with the representatives of the 60th infantry regiment of the 5th division of the 1st American Army. After the formalities had been taken care of an American Major and I greeted each other with a German beer at a bar in the town of Torgau. After all, we were allies and now we were friends! We conversed in German with each other. Berlin, however, had not yet been taken. The American Major (and his army) and I (and my army) had to complete the job in rooting fascism out! My regiment (and obviously I along with it) was given the order to attack Berlin. My dream had come true—my soldiers and I were on our way to hit Berlin from our best 76th caliber cannons! Finally, we reached Berlin! The Allied advance was absolutely victorious. How satisfactory it was to hit and destroy the foe’s lair with cannon fire! We were all in high spirits at that time. At some point in the midst of our improvised celebrations a group of dark-skinned soldiers came up to me. Since I too had a dark complexion they must have found a “relative” in me. Almost in tears and interrupting me as they related their story, they approached me with their problem. “What happened?” I asked. “Our Khasan has been arrested,” they said. “What Khasan?” “The artillerist.” I remembered him immediately. I asked them, “Is this the fellow who used to say the female soldiers: ‘I know how you earned your medal for “Achievements in Combat?” “Yes, yes comrade Major, he’s the one. But he didn’t know Russian well at that time. He does not say things like that anymore.” “Why has he been arrested?” “At the Army headquarters, they told us he raped an elderly German woman. The Chairman of the military tribunal is in that house over there. He is the one who arrested Khasan.” This was a very serious issue indeed and a very unfortunate turn of events for poor Khasan, at that time. Determined to help I went to see the tribunal Chairman. We were of the same rank. He was also a Major. After I had introduced myself and explained my reasons for coming, he, almost crying, told me: “I cannot do anything comrade Major. We are following the order of the Supreme Commander: rape crimes are punished with a minimum of

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eight years of imprisonment. It is so strange that this soldier survived the whole war and now raped a seventy-year-old woman. I feel sorry for the fellow. I wish I could help. But nothing can be changed.” However, Khasan’s comrades did not let me go. Who were they? Uzbeks, Turkmens or may be Kirgizs. I did not ask. I knew they were from somewhere in Central Asia. People called them ‘yeldashy’ (yeldash comrade) in the army. I had to help Khasan, but how? It is true what they say about unique ideas coming to one’s mind when a person is placed in a difficult situation. My motto in life has always been: “Do good to a person! If you can not then do not do harm to him.” “Where is the woman?” I asked yeldashes. They took me to her. As we approached the building I noticed several of our soldiers leaving the very same building, spitting and cursing as they walked away. We went inside. A strange sight lay before our eyes. It was a huge barn full of children aged five to ten. In the center, sitting on a table, was an old German woman, with a stick in her hand. Children, as they should, were playing, screaming and running around. Yeldashes pointed out the old woman for me. I came closer to her to speak but was stumped for a moment. What a horror! She was a huge mass, with no forms—an elephant, not a woman, was sitting there. How did poor Khasan figure out what was where on her body? I greeted her and expressed my compassion for the unfortunate incident. She cried: “Oh, what a disgrace. I am 70 years old. What a shame!” I tried to calm her down and said: “These are your children, correct? Our soldiers have not touched them, right? However, you do know that, when your soldiers were in our country they touched, raped, and killed our children!” I had a long conversation with her. I tried to explain to her how everything was. She was amazed to learn some of the realities of the war. She then cried and told me how the children were hungry. Their parents had abandoned them and left her as guardian of the children. I promised to feed the children. I called two yeldashes and told them to find food for the children. I gave the order in Russian and then repeated it in German so that she could understand it too. I told them: “Tell any cook and whoever else on my behalf a representative of the Supreme Committee of the 13th Army Major Minasyan that since there is plenty of food everywhere tell them to feed these children! You, yourself, must help the cooks.” The old woman was convinced that I was sincere in my promise. She cheered up a little and thanked me. Now the time was just right to carry out my plan.

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I said: “Has not enough blood been shed on both sides? Enough blood! Now, Khasan is going to be executed on the spot without even a fight (I was saying to make it sound more grave) for his mistake. He must be saved. The only person who can save him is you!” She was baffled: “How? What do I have to do with it?” I gave her some [war] trophy white paper sheets of the highest quality and colored pencils to choose from and asked her to write a note to the Soviet Commander. The old woman looked even more surprised. Nevertheless, I dictated a letter to the Chairman of the Soviet military tribunal: “I, Frau Zingerman, sincerely declare that the Red Army soldier, Khasan Annadurdyev, did not take me by force. It was I who remembered my youth and voluntarily gave myself to him.” Frau stubbornly refused to write and sign the note. I used all my propagandist experience and charm to finally compel her to write and sign it. Yet, there was still another step. She had to go to the Chairman and hand him the letter. She again resisted using the children as her excuse. I gave her my word, upon the honor of the officer that the children would be fed and would not be harmed. Not a hair would fall from their heads. All the while the group of yeldashes stood nearby waiting and I called orders in German, for the Frau’s benefit, to protect the children. I asked the others to help the woman to get on her feet and walk to the office. We found the tribunal Chairman and Frau gave him the note. The Chairman, with tears in his eyes, hugged and kissed me. I said to him: “Do not thank me. You should hug and kiss her, not me!” Then we returned to the barn. The children were eating sandwiches and other things—their first real meals. The old woman was content. The yeldashes were joyous too. The entire affair ended when, after his release, Khasan joined me in our last battle at Berlin. A little ahead of my story, I should mention, that Khasan found me after the war was over. Some time later, when I was no longer in the army, and married, lived and worked in Baku, I received a parcel. It was a package of dried fruit, raisins, melon, and plums. What a miracle?! Where could it have come from? The return address said it was from Ashkhabad. But I had no relatives or friends there. I had never been in that region! I sent a letter to the return address and soon received an answer. It was from Khasan! He thanked me for saving his life in Berlin. One thing I still do not know: how did he find my address and what had really happened in Berlin between him and the Frau? In any case let me continue with the rest of the war story. In the battle for Berlin, during the last decisive fight, some of my best comrades from POARM died. They were Majors N.G. Bogachev, Krasilnikov, and N.I.

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Kvitko. I survived. Berlin was completely taken on May 2, 1945. However, it was impossible to walk through the city. It was in ruins. We thought that the war had come to an end. For several days there were no military operations. We were overjoyed! As it turned out it was not yet the end! Shortly after the fall of Berlin, our 13th Army was put on the tanks of the Generals D.D. Lelushenko and P.S. Rybalko. It was either May 5 or May 6 when we were sent to liberate Prague. Our tank crew hit from the west and arrested the headquarters of the army of the traitor A.A. Vlasov.75 He was immediately put on an airplane and sent to Moscow. I did not even get a chance to see him, although I participated in the operation for his capture. However, I had a talk with a lecturer, a Colonel in rank, from the political department of Vlasov’s army. When I asked why they had betrayed the Soviet Union he cited only two reasons. One was the ill-fated collectivization and the other was Stalin’s repression policy. Before I continue further I would like to say a few words about the Czechs, who unlike the hostile Poles met the Soviet troops well—as their liberators. They met us with a feeling of deepest gratitude. There were young Czech girls with white aprons on both sides when our detachments marched along one of Prague’s central streets (it must have been Masaryk Street). The girls offered the troops many different tasty things. There were cooked ducks, turkeys, goats, chickens, vodka, wine, and beer! It was all for us! I noticed that the Czechs differed from other nations. They were richer than others were. They had better houses; most of them were in the cities. Whenever we stayed at a Czech’s house, the head of the family would not let us go to the officers’ cafeteria. He wanted to serve to us himself. He had everything in his house! So, on May 9 we celebrated the Victory in Prague, Czechoslovakia. I sent a telegram to my mother with congratulations on the long awaited Victory. On the way home we stopped in the town of Bautzen in Germany. I knew that Ernest Thalmann76 had been kept in the town’s jail. I went directly there. Although the fascists had retreated some prisoners still remained in jail. Many of them chose to live there before the war ended. They were French, German, Russian, and English—representatives of different countries all living in the prisons with their flags. This prison’s building was gigantic. Surely thousands of captives had often been locked up there. My comrades and I looked through dozens of volumes with prisoners’ names but all our efforts were futile. We could not find any record of Thalmann. I searched scrupulously and for a long time, however, with no success.

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The way back east for our 13th Army ran across the same paths that had led us to the west not so long ago. We reached Rovno in Ukraine sometime around August or September of 1945. Stationed for a while in that area we thought that finally the peace everyone had been waiting for had arrived. Soon, we were proven wrong in our hope. It turned out that the war was still ongoing in that part of Europe. Apparently Rovno was also a regional center for the “Bandery” bands. These groups were numerous. Hell knew how many thousands of them were out there! One thing was absolutely definite: there were lots of them and they were well organized and equipped. The primary task in the Western Ukraine, the establishment of the Soviet power, had not yet been accomplished. The “Bandery” were mercilessly and ruthlessly executing any representatives of the Soviet power: government officials, administrators, privates and particularly Army officers, even their family members—basically any one the bandits could get their hold of. On one occasion the Corps Commander’s (General Cherekmanov’s) wife visited him. Their son served in the headquarters of the same Corps. As the mother and the son were being driven somewhere, the “Bandery” captured them and cut them into pieces! In another terrible incident a Captain (Regiment’s Assistant to the Chief of the Headquarters #1) was found in a river not far from the city of Lutsk. It turned out he had been tortured and tied by the “Bandery” to the bridge support columns in February 1944! Quite often, we, the staff of the POARM had to rise with the command “To arms!!!” Hence the war was still on. The “Bandery’s” secret underground activity was organized and coordinated superbly. For example as we became acquainted with the local region and inspected nearby villages and buildings in them we found an enormously large warehouse between two rivers. The barn was used by “Bandery” bands to store their provisions. It stretched for a few kilometers with an entrance on the shore of one river and the exit on the opposite side of the other river.

1946 In 1946 there was a change in the POARM’s administration. The new chiefs came from various places of the safe rear of the Soviet Union. For example Colonel Shmelev was from Russia’s Far East and Colonel Kovalev was from Baku. I remember at a general meeting I was elected chairman. On the agenda was “The Order of the Soviet Supreme Commander on Preventing Pillage and Stealing of the War Trophy Inventory.” Indeed, quite many officers of different titles and ranks had lots of spoils in their baggage that they carried through all of Europe back

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home. Often they would have more than one set of any item with everything from pianos to typewriters (some soldiers had ten of each item) and many other things. At the meeting I took advantage of my elected position as a chairman and with all my conviction and with no regard to their ranks criticized those officers: “Comrade Colonel Shmelev, please tell us, what do you need two pianos for? I know that you like music but why do you need two instruments?” “Comrade Colonel Kovalev, what do you need ten typewriters for? I know that you can type very well. Good for you. But you can only type so well on one typewriter—not ten at once! I realize that when Major Zolotarev appropriated stuff for himself we criticized him for that. But the Germans had burnt his house and he only took things necessary to furnish his new place. And by the way he has gone through the whole war taking active part in combat actions. Now my dear Colonels it looks like you people who had stayed in the rear of the front all the time, have come here just to grab as much as you can.” I criticized them very sharply at this meeting. As a direct result of my harsh criticism another era of persecution and mockery on me began. The military chiefs used every bit of the power they held in their hands to make my life miserable as much as possible. My lectures were ruthlessly censored. Open meetings with staff were organized to discuss the views and ideas I expressed in conversations or in classes. The only purpose of those gatherings was, obviously, my humiliation. Often I was ordered to go to (or through) the midst of the terror bands. And as always in cases like these there was someone assisting the chiefs’ “crusade” against me. One toady Major, who practically had become Colonels’ serf was at their service. For his loyalty he, later on, received a free piano from the Colonels’ share of the spoils inventory. It was around that time that I decided to demobilize. I filed my request with the then visiting our regiment Chief of the regional personnel department of POARM. While waiting for a positive answer on my resignation request I continued giving lectures for the troops. The most popular topic among my listeners was “Love and Family.” My “chiefs-colonels” were unable— despite their best efforts—to stop me from giving lectures. I traveled from one division to another, speaking on various topics and addressing a range of different (sometimes controversial) issues. Crowds of people were coming to listen to my lectures. There were also many female-soldiers (PPZhs77) always present at my lectures. The destinies of those young women were all very different. Quite often, the PPZhs of the higherranking chiefs would marry the chauffeurs, adjutants or privates who were

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under those chiefs’ direct command. Those simple and common fellows were amazing individuals (note: there were too many single men in the army). For example, Tonya, the PPZh of Yermolenko, the Chief of the Personnel Department of POARM, although after much grumbling, married Petrovich, Yermolenko’s chauffeur. Zoya, who was Voronov’s mistress, eventually married Molodtsov, who was an actor in our club. However, sometimes PPZhs would not give up their men to the legitimate wives of those men. Namely, those women actively attended my lectures and “terrorized” me with their questions. August 27, 1946: I received the demobilization conferral. It is a peculiar date, August 27. It was on this same date in 1932 that I had become a member of the Communist Party. On the same day in 1940, I volunteered to serve in the Red Army. Now on the same day but in 1946 I was retiring from the active duty in the army…

THE YEARS AFTER THE WAR

The very day after I had arrived in Baku, where my mother lived at the time, I returned to work at the same university (AzII) and in the same department where I had taught before the war (which I had left for the Army few years earlier). Before I begin telling you the events of my life after the war, I should probably try to attempt an answer to the question of how and why I had survived despite all the misery and tribulations that I had seen in those years. What miracle had saved me? I am not going to say much about my childhood and youth. It seems to me that the acquired toughness through daily struggle for existence, with time had become a habit, and life under the severe mountainous laws had saved me. The struggles to survive the battles of two types of fascism—the fascism of Hitler and the fascism of Stalin—were very different. First, I must give a special consideration to Stalin’s fascism. Nobody, not even Stalin’s victims, had ever doubted Stalin; they were sure that Stalin himself was unaware of those unprecedented crimes! Everyone was deeply convinced that all the crimes that were committed were done behind his back. For the great majority of the common people the Yezhovs and Berias were primarily responsible for those inhumane crimes. Perhaps, at the upper echelons of state power the view was slightly different. Namely, because of that strongly rooted belief in Stalin’s innocence prisoners used to declare hunger strikes to be given a blank piece of paper and a pencil in order to write a complaint to the “Father of the people” [i.e. Stalin – AVG] and to explain to him what was actually happening. What naiveté! After receiving such a letter complaint the investigator would tear it apart and toss it in the face of the prisoner shouting something like: “Ah, you fascist bastard! How dare you write to the great Leader of the world proletariat?” Needless to say such interrogations were accompanied by another session of torture. That and many other things I learned from my brother Kolya. He told me about it all in strict confidence. Why was there a secret? The answer is quite simple. People were being thrown in jail with charges of anti-Soviet propaganda for even simply telling the stories of all that happened to them behind the bars. I realized this only much later. My partner, a lecturer in POARM - 13 Major Veniamin Semenovich Akselrod, whom I worked with the entire war kept complaining about how he had once been arrested.

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He had been charged for being a relative of the Russian Menshevik, Pavel Borisovich Akselrod. To prove that he was not in any way related to the Menshevik, Veniamin Semenovich for three years had to experience all the “charm” of Stalin’s prisons! Although complaining, he had never told me the exact details of what had happened to him while he was in jail. He did not wish a repetition of that horror. My brother told me his own tale in “the strictest of secrecy.” He trusted me not to tell anyone then. Now many years after those terrible events I believe I can share my knowledge with everyone. The torture was conducted in two parts. The essence of the first part was to make a victim admit that he was indeed a fascist and a spy. There were a variety of torture methods. At the XXth Congress of the Soviets, N.S. Khrushev, exposing Stalin’s policies, presented to the gathered Party leaders, among other examples, the torture of Kedrov, an Assistant to F.E. Dzerjinsky.78 Numerous times the interrogators had stuck a bottle into the man’s anus and he died urinating blood. As for my brother, he had his teeth broken. He had been constantly beaten in the stomach by the soldiers’ boots. He was locked up in a prison cell for months. Towards the end of his prison term he contracted tuberculosis. At the end of that first set of tortures the victim was literally driven to insanity, ready to sign any “exposing” documents. By that time as the victim prepared for death it was already immaterial what those meaningless papers stated. The popular saying in those days went as follows: “There is nothing beyond death…” The second session of tortures would begin with the following words of the interrogation officer: “Although you are a fascist scum, you still have a bit of conscience and confessed everything! Now tell us who your partners are, and with whom you have been conspiring to overthrow the Soviet power and kill our Leader!” The victim, now conscious, would try to object: “I have fought for, defended and won the Soviet power! How can I ever conspire against it?” But the investigator would staunchly keep his stand: “Here is the document proving that you are a fascist spy! You have signed it yourself!!! Now give me the names of the others—your coconspirators! With whom did you want to kill the Leader and destroy the Soviet power? No one? Wait and see, fascist scum. You will start talking, here!” The second session was even more refined! The tortures were perfected. For instance if in the first sessions the cell was a tall kennel where one could only stand up straight, not lie or sit down, in the second part a sewer pipe would be added there and placed above a person’s head with drops of urine falling from it onto the prisoner’s head. There were

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many other tortures invented and consistently used. Kolya described to me all of those that had been applied on him. Years after his release, my brother, among others, was summoned to testify at a court hearing against Bagirov. At the trial, General Prosecutor Rudenko questioned the former “boss”: “Bagirov, while in Baku, you managed to terminate more than four thousand people, charging them with terrorist attacks against you. Did all four thousand want to kill you, but failed?” “Go ask Stalin!” was Bagirov’s response. Some time ago in the Rodina [Russian: Motherland – AVG] periodical (N 1, 1989 pp. 42-43), I read an article titled “A Document Without Commentary.” The article cited a copy of the “Statement” of one of the victims of Stalin’s fascism, a man by the name V. Sheremet. In his statement, Sheremet laid out the details of his arrest on June 3, 1938. He described how he had “survived through the unbearable moral and physical torments that were inflicted” upon him: how he was brought into prison’s hospital with a temperature of 40c, with swollen legs and stomach, with a headache blinding him and putting him in a delirious state of mind. His story continued, “I saw people there who had lost their faculty of speech. They were paralyzed and insane as a result of the tortures and humiliation during the examinations. I was an involuntary witness to the beatings of people who finally lost consciousness and bled… I heard moans and groans that steadily grew into inhumane cries of people who were being tortured… In such conditions I signed the first protocols declaring me to be a member and an organizer of the Ukrainian rebel counterrevolutionary organization.” Following that statement the article had copies of two other official documents. One was a court order of V. Sheremet’s acquittal and release on October 5, 1939. The other was a certificate given to his wife stating: “[her] husband, Sheremet Vasiliy Feofilovich, died in September of 1939, while being held in the Dnepropetrvsk prison.” The court had released Sheremet, who had already been dead for a month. It truly was “a document without commentary!” However Sheremet only told us of the “first torture protocols.” He must have not had enough time to tell us about the second stage. By the second stage a victim driven to the edge would give any names, of the living and of the dead. The interrogators could give less regard to the state of existence of the new suspects. All that mattered was that the victim had testified. If the indications were given on the dead the secret service would destroy the graves of those people to confirm identity. If the testimony was against relatives, wives, or children, they were thrown right into prison. It

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was a sincere joy for the NKVD investigators when they managed to squeeze out a testimony against a living person. Therefore, a “live” testimony meant “new material” (new people) for termination. A detective, by securing a list of new names, would have reached his goal – exposing and arresting the enemies of the people! For such success, the investigator could expect a promotion or perhaps even receive an award for bravery or a bonus to his salary. Finally such exposes served to prove the “wise” idea of Joseph Stalin, according to which the class struggle within the country had intensified. I knew about all this from the conversations with my brother. My brother told me the following about his one-on-one interrogation with Gasan Rakhmanov already mentioned in these notes: “After another torture at the office of the Chief of the Transport Department of Az-NKVD—a man by the surname Grigoryan—I was not taken back to my cell immediately. They left me there for a while. I was to wait for a cross-examination session with Gasan there. Some time passed. I saw two “redheads” carrying Gasan on stretcher. He was not a human anymore: looking completely black, he had lost weight. Only skin and bones were left on him. They carried him as if they were carrying a piece of junk and not a man. He could not walk, sit or stand by himself. He could barely speak. Through an incredibly inhumane effort, Gasan made himself tell me that he did not give any testimony against you Arto (i.e. me). They continuously tortured him until he died from torments. One thing was definite though: he did not give any testimony against you.” My brother was tortured for three years, but he endured. He was fortunate enough to prove his alibi and was acquitted. Naturally had Gasan testified against me, had he provided the executioners with my name as they demanded I would have disappeared, as had he and millions of others did. This is the answer to the question why I did not perish from the blows of Stalin’s fascism. It was primarily thanks to the great bravery, courage and firmness of that man. May your name be always remembered, my dear friend! Thank you for your loyalty and please forgive… Please forgive us all, for we, who had been left free did not know how to come to your rescue. Forgive us for we could not find a way to save and protect you… Perhaps we [who stayed outside the prison walls] are guilty with no [real] fault. We are guilty only because we never believed that you and millions like you had ever been enemies. Instead, we continued on with our lives and hoped that eventually the one who had made the fatal mistake [of prosecuting innocent people] would realize and correct it. As for the miracle that protected me from the hits of Hitler’s fascism, I

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come to some difficulty in trying to explain it. I was not someone who served in the home front. I took the most active part in numerous battles during the horrible war. Thousands of times fascists tried to kill me. Many times I was wounded. Many more times, my comrades in arms were wounded - some more severely than others. Yet, in the military questionnaires we had always put ‘healthy - no wounds’ as our answer to the question addressing our general health. It was a superior indication of our patriotism. When in a hospital the doctors issued us certifications of our wounds, we tore them apart and threw those despised papers away. It is true that in a war, especially in a war like that one, people were killed. However, not everyone was killed. Some survived and they survived by mere chance! Any rejection of the chance’s role in this leads to mysticism. I declare that to you as a philosopher. There simply can be no other explanation to the question of how others and I had survived the war. Both kinds of fascism were unprecedented in history. Nevertheless, I survived despite millions of possibilities to ischesosha iako dym [Ukrainian expression: to disappear like a smoke – AVG]. At last I resigned from the active duty and began working at AzII again. I was faced with two problems almost instantaneously. The first had to do with the fact that I had no place to live. The flat that I had before the war was in ruins and was completely unsuitable for living. The second issue that concerned me was the need to get married and start a family. Those were the most crucial and primary tasks for me at the time. As the Russian saying goes “chasing two rabbits at once won’t get you either.” Still the chase, accompanied by the great suffering on my behalf, had begun. The obstacles in my way were quite obvious. For one it was practically impossible to find a house or a flat as the country was still recovering from the devastation of the war. With the majority of the population of Ukraine and Belorussia living in mud-huts the country had greater problems than assigning residence permits elsewhere. One had to apply and more than likely stubbornly argue with numerous offices and agencies to achieve any progress. Incredible courage, not any less than what was needed when facing the enemy at the front lines, was required to survive through all that humiliation. Eventually after investing enormous amounts of time and effort, I managed to get a flat. As far as “I had to marry,” I can explain it simply. My credo in questions concerning marriage is that one has to create a strong family. A human being without a family has a meaningless existence. The same is also true if one’s family is not strong or lacks inner integrity. Moreover I had an obligation to my family: to fulfill the losses of the war. Many of our relatives had died in that war. Among them were my brothers Sarkis

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and Shavarsh, who were Commanders of infantry platoons. Why was it difficult for me to get married? The answer, yet again, was quite simple and self-evident. The best girls had left for the war. Those who had stayed were “skin and bones!” Go ahead; try to find someone there! It is difficult to say how much effort I had put into solving this problem. Fortunately I was incredibly lucky. I met the most beautiful young woman. She was the daughter of a great man, a true worker-smith, named Khachatur Hairapetovich Akopov. Her name was Hera Khachaturovna. Together, we created a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful and strong family. The birth of each of my four children brought me an unforgettable joy, happiness and added meaning to my life. I love my family! I love my wife. I love my children. Often, during my lectures, I am asked by my students to describe what love is for me. My answer is: “it is creation of a pure and strong family.” Family must be an impregnable fortress. This is the true happiness and meaning!

1948 Two important problems were resolved. Now, I had my own family. We lived in a new flat [although a bit cold and damp]. My first daughter Lilechka [Lilia] was born in December. I was filled with joy and exhilaration. But alas, these calm and happy times did not last too long. Once again the issue regarding contradictions in the socialist system resurfaced.79 Just as in the years before the war, with tremendous enthusiasm, I, again, argued for the “great science” to accept the fact that any phenomenon is contradictory in its nature. Naturally, that also meant that there was contradiction in socialism as well. The interrogations began all over again! Only this time my situation was worse than it was before the war. In 1940, I “escaped” to the Red Army. I had no place to run to now. Moreover my new tribulations coincided with a period when an adventurer of the science, T.D. Lysenko,80 “scientifically” argued for the absence of contradictions within a biological species. As the saying has it “a fisherman sees another from a distance”—Lysenko was Stalin’s “right hand” man. In other words an adventurer in politics and an adventurer in science had found each other. Hence, in the academic circles of the time, Lysenko spread his ideas easily and with authority. Since, he argued, there were contradictions only among the animal species but not within a particular kind, one could assume that there existed a non-contradictory phenomenon in nature. Further, there could be absolutely no contradictions in the socialist system! I, on the other hand, was defending

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a completely opposite position: nothing less, nothing more! Perhaps another person in my place would have agreed with the generally accepted principle and dropped the argument. Indeed, it would have, probably, done more good to think about one’s family and its well being. Who cared about that “contradiction?” Well, I did! I did not accept half measures. Why were we having a “partial” dialectics in socialism? Why was it that before socialism, there was a normal dialectics? Now with socialism we adopted a different approach! My opponents defended their notions by proclaiming that an absence of contradiction was also considered a dialectics, but of a special sort. It was the socialist dialectics. Eventually I “achieved” what I “wanted.” The primary party organization expelled me from the Communist Party. The formal explanation read: “expelled for propaganda of anti-dialectics, expressed in incomprehension that an absence of contradiction is also dialectics, a special one dialectics—socialist.” The attached [to my case] documents were all referencing the work of Lysenko. The nightmare had begun again. There was no life, no sleep, and no rest! Every time I was home my young wife would reproach me. She cried and fussed at me. She would tell me I was not thinking of them, my family, and was thinking only about my damn contradiction. Every time I would go to work, the most “revolutionary” spirited staff members would not talk to me. I lived in an environment of a total damnation! What was left for me to do? I was worried. I reprimanded myself: “Why had not I died in the war?! Why the hell had I survived?!” I tried to calm myself down by thinking that it was not the first time something like this happened to me: that my damned life was in my blood and I had to stay strong and go through it. Indeed I did. One day on my way to work I bought Pravda at the newsstand. As I walked I opened the paper and read something that stunned me and stopped me in my tracks. I could not believe my eyes! I was amazed and began trembling. A strange feeling seized me. Standing in the middle of the street I read an article by U.A. Zhdanov,81 which clearly confirmed my views by stating that there existed a contradiction within one [the same] biological kind and not simply among many kinds. Therefore, there were no such things as “non-contradictory phenomena.” The article was directed against Lysenko. “Well done, Uriy Andreevich,” I thought. What a great man you are! Back then Mr. Zhdanov held a high position in the Central Committee as the Deputy Secretary in the Department of Science. Zhdanov’s article saved me. I wish I had saved a copy of that newspaper. Meanwhile the regional committee was in the process of

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reviewing the case for my expulsion from the Party. However, immediately after the above-mentioned publication, the proceedings were put on hold and later all accusations against me were dropped. I remained in the Party. Mr. Zhdanov saved me just in the same way Gasan Rakhmanov had in the prison and the dead soldier from the tank crew had, and, although, Zhdanov was later forced to apologize to Lysenko, I was left alone. Such was my first indirect acquaintance with Uriy Zhdanov. In the same year, 1948, I wrote a more detailed and better-argued article than the one I had previously written in 1939 about the contradiction in socialism. The article contained basic theories of dialectics with references to the classics of Marxism. It was as simple as “two times two is four.” I took that article to the Moscow based journal Voprosy Filosofii [Russian: Problems of Philosophy, leading philosophy journal – AVG] where at that time the editorial board was staffed with staunch Stalinists. It was a three-day ride on the train (I never traveled by air) from where I lived in Baku to Moscow. I rode in a public train car that did not have private compartments. It was very uncomfortable, narrow, dirty, and the car was overfilled with people. A woman, a peasant from the Krasnodar region, sat next to me. She was one of those passengers, without a ticket, whom the conductors [still] often allow to board the train only to earn some extra money. She looked miserable and very sad. I was very curious to know why she was so sad. She kept silent for a long time. After a while she started talking and with tears in her eyes, began praising her husband, Vanya: “Akh, Vanya, Vanechka, my dearest one, my only one. Where are you, my sober breadwinner?” I asked her who Vanya was. She told me it was her husband. He had just returned from the front, wounded in several places and was missing a rib. However, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for anti-kolkhoz propaganda. I asked her how Vanya expressed that propaganda: was not Vanya a worker in their kolkhoz? “Yes, he was. He was the best worker in our kolkhoz. But once he cursed the kolkhoz.” “Well, how could have he done anti-kolkhoz acts if he was the best worker?” “It is all the fault of the kolkhoz pig, she started to come to our garden. One time Vanya spotted her and drove her away with a stick. Then he called her a ‘kolkhoz prostitute.’ That was it. He cursed the pig, not the kolkhoz! But people told us that if he had called the pig that name he then meant to curse the kolkhoz as well.” “Did not your Vanya know that we don’t have prostitutes in

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socialism?” “Though there are no prostitutes now, I am going to Stalin to ask for a pardon…” I tried to cheer her up. Stalin certainly would help her. He was our father. I recalled the piles of letters written to Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin and many others. I felt a great pang and compassion for that poor woman. Her story threw me back into the abyss of worries. My mood grew worse. I had realized with greater clarity what U.A. Zhdanov’s article had meant for me, and what misfortune it had saved me from. Certainly I would have been kicked out of the Party and put in prison. The purges were still ongoing even after the war... My paper was accepted at the journal and I was promised a quick review and consideration. I took advantage of being in Moscow and stopped by the office of the Director of the Philosophy, Institute at the Academy of Sciences (AN) of the USSR (I think his name was G.S. Vasetskiy82). Fortunately I managed to discuss with him some questions regarding the topic of my dissertation “About Possibility and Reality.” However, the Director was quick to object: “What is this? Do you not have anything else to add to the title?” I immediately understood what he meant by that and quickly changed the topic to read: “J.V. Stalin About Possibility and Reality.” Such was the “fashion” of those days in the academic world. Incidentally Stalin has only one ingenious phrase on the subject: “possibility is not reality.” In those times, it mattered little what the research was about, it had to include the standard phrase “J.V. Stalin About…” in the title. It was entirely irrelevant if Stalin had completed any research [i.e. published anything] on the issue or not. Conforming to the requirement I accepted the new title for my dissertation and began my persistent work on it without uttering a word to any one. In the subsequent months I frequently traveled to Moscow, to handle issues with the dissertation and publication of my articles. I was fortunate to have my cousin Mikhail (Misha) Stepanyan83 help me during those trips. He was a personal adjutant to Stalin’s son Vasili Josephovich. At Misha’s insistence I stayed with him at his apartment on all of my Moscow trips. Steadily and without any public display I wrote the dissertation in few months. The dissertation defense was in February 1950. While writing the dissertation, I was working as usual. I had not missed a single day of work. According to the established practice of those days a Certificate of Defense—an official confirmation of the successful dissertation defense— was issued immediately after the defense. This was an official document, which accounting departments in universities across the USSR accepted as

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a basis for an increase in one’s salary. My certificate had the effect of a bomb exploding when I presented it in my workplace! From then on, my colleagues at the department had completely different attitudes towards me. Some simply stopped speaking to me. Others thought it was impossible that I could have finished my dissertation. Explanation is quite simple. In the academic system of this period, it was rare that one could write and much less defend a dissertation without appearing in the academic department’s quarterly plans and submitting timely reports on the progress of their work. This was exactly the case of all my co-workers. They were enlisted in every plan possible. Every year they reported on the percentage of the research work they had completed. Their work was constantly discussed at department meetings and even during party meetings. Now it is not difficult to understand the shock of some of my colleagues after finding out about my defense. I was not listed in any doctoral plan and all of a sudden had become a Kandidat Filosofskix Nauk [KFN - high level academic degree, roughly translated from Russian as the Candidate of Philosophy Sciences. This degree is still awarded in the former Soviet Union states to those who pass successful defense of dissertation and have sufficient accumulated amount of publications and teaching experience. KFN is similar to the PhD degree in the western education system. Next after KFN is the Doctor’s degree awarded at more experienced senior level. – AVG]. Soon thereafter, the accounting department at our institute had sent a request to the Soviet of Science in Moscow to confirm my standing and to make sure I was not lying to them. Only after they had received the confirmation did they raise my salary. But before that even happened, I struggled to obtain the approval of yet another pillar bureaucracy and the confirmation of my defense. Although the defense went well the confirmation from VAK [Russian: Vysshaaia Attestacionnaya Kommissija - Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Higher Education USSR – AVG] was delayed. One of the reviewers accused me of lacking references to Stalin in my dissertation. A new saga had begun! Several times I was called upon to defend my views in front of different commissions at VAK. There was even a plenum gathered on one occasion where yet again I had to prove what I had written. Finally on the basis of new reviews my new academic degree was conferred. Once this was over new trials began. These sufferings were far more dangerous. They were fatally dangerous! I remember thinking to myself that it was it, say farewell to life. I cannot recall this next period without shuddering.

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Before I proceed I must clarify something. I love anecdotes. A joke makes one laugh and I love to laugh. Regardless of any situation I have been in though usually tragic ones; regardless of how many times I was beaten and felt destroyed, a good laugh and sense of humor had never left me. As the great French playwright Moliere once said: “Beat me up but let me laugh!” A normal person cannot live without laughter. Long live laughter! But in the times when my story was taking place how could one laugh? In my conversations with students and colleagues, in my lectures, books, and articles, I regularly referred to the literary legacy of Gogol, Chekhov, and Krylov. I quoted their aphorisms quite often. Alas there were no new real Gogols during this period. There was strict censorship instead that prevented common folk from knowing the great satiric works of Bulgakov and Platonov. Zoshenko who was loved by everyone was followed and persecuted with such ferocity that the question of humor would not even appear in peoples’ heads. Consequently anecdotes became popular. The most dangerous were jokes related to politics. People were arrested for telling political anecdotes. Certainly restrictions and censorship were relaxed during Khrushev’s so called “thaw period,” but what about the time before that? I myself had never made up any anecdote but I liked to listen and to retell them to others. I simply cannot help myself from doing that! The fatal danger hanging over me in 1950 emanated from a silly anecdote. As a KFN I was invited to lecture at the Azerbaijan State University [ASU] to teach a History of Philosophy course. One day I had some time between my classes and decided to wait in the department office. Here I found Professor Makovelskiy discussing some issues on the subject of logic with a student. The department secretary, sitting across me, started speaking to me and showed me her pictures from the war. In the pictures she was in her military uniform. She told me that during the war she had served in Baku’s anti-aircraft defenses. The moment I saw those pictures I said naively that at the front we used to call such women PPZh. She begged me to explain the meaning of it. Not only did I explain the meaning of the word PPZh, but also I told her about a very popular anecdote among our soldiers about the difference between a PPZh and a bombshell. I really thought she knew the joke and all I did was to simply remind her of it. Again she begged me. I felt I had to tell her the joke to the end. Despite my strong refusal and obvious reluctance to tell it to her, she kept insisting, and demanding to hear the anecdote. I had to agree but upon one condition. The condition was that no one else besides her was to hear that joke. She gave me her word. I was so naive that I believed her. Until today I do not understand how one can live among people and not

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believe them! I told her the joke: “the difference is that a bomb is charged in the rear lines and goes off in the war zone and a PPZh on the contrary, is charged in the war zone and goes off in the rear lines.” The following day her husband, a Captain, came to see me. He very rudely accused me of insulting his wife by telling her an improper and impolite anecdote. I explained to him the joke was not about his wife as she had never ever been to the war. It was a combat joke. I did not make it up! Finally it was his wife who persisted on me telling her that story. Moreover, she gave me her word that she was not going to tell anyone about it! Unfortunately [and as might have been expected] the explanation did not help much. The same day a woman by the name Zeinab hit me with her crutch and said “Is it me you are calling PPZh?” She had fought in the war and lost one leg. The issue escalated all the way up to the Party Committee of the ASU. The department secretary – a very mean woman – prepared an official complaint. I was accused of slandering the women participants of the war and charged with no respect for the Soviet women, especially the heroes of the war like Liza Chaikina, Zoya Kosmodemianskaya84 and many others. There! It all began again! The commissions of the Party, gorkom, obkom committees were working hard on this case. They worked for a month and then another month. It seemed like there was no end! And just like the times before I was again experiencing great emotional and physical stress and agony with no time for rest or sleep. Every minute, and every second I expected the “redheads” to come and arrest me. The accusation that I was charged with was exceptionally grave at that time! My situation was super-horrible, beyond any description or comprehension. It was worsened by the silly jealousy of my beloved wife at home. “Why do you tell strange women those jokes?” she would say. “There, now, you get it and understand, not to talk to women you don’t know!” But my wife whom I dearly love had no reason to be jealous. Perhaps an indirect reference could be made to the fact that in all my time of searching for a wife, I had developed a habit of looking at women and comparing them to one another. Hence, my dear Hera would scold me anytime she noticed my wandering eyes: “lav eshi, lav eshi …” (look better, look better) she would tell me in the Armenian Karabakh dialect. Thus I was in between two presses. What was I supposed to do? It was then that Uriy Zhdanov came to help again. I remembered his article that had saved me before and wrote him a letter explaining the situation. I reminded him of the article and added that I was being persecuted for a joke. Having read my letter Zhdanov forwarded it to the

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gorkom secretary in Baku, Zevin,85 with his [Zhdanov’s] resolution: “Should we be prosecuting a soldier for a wartime anecdote?” Zevin in turn instructed the secretary of ASU party committee to have the secretary of the AzII party committee to come and discuss the issue together. The secretary of AzII partkom, Ibragimov, my former pre-war student, declared at the meeting in ASU: “Comrade Minasyan is listed in our party documents, at AzII. Hence I request all materials of the case to be given to me and we will resolve the issue at our institute according to the Party’s Charter.” The next day I was summoned to the AzII committee meeting. With the full political bureau and all members present Ibragimov told me: “Comrade Minasyan, you are listed here, in our committee, but the incident happened in ASU. So we have resolved the following!” He then took my file, several folders, and started ripping them apart and throwing them one by one in trashcan. After he had finished he said: “This is it. You may go now!” That is how I survived that time. Obviously this world does have a few kind and understanding people. My heartfelt thanks to all of them! Indeed people seem to place a different value, if any at all, to things that come easy in life. It certainly does not have equal importance as compared to something achieved through great effort and trials, overcoming constant concern and hardships. A simple analogy can be seen with the making of gold. If gold could be extracted as easily as a stone it would hardly be so expensive then. The positive outcome of the “anecdote case” brought happiness and relative calm to me again. One cannot help but remember the words of Hegel: “The end result is a corpse leaving a life after itself.”86 My happiness was doubled that year. Larochka, my second daughter, was born! Nevertheless, despite it all, I was not weaned away from telling jokes. Often in my works I use Aesopian language to criticize our leaders. For instance in my book Dialectics as Logic on page 334 [of the Russian language first edition] talking about scientific experiment I have made the following remark: “All that is true. Still a clarification is needed. Not every experiment achieves its original goal or is successful. However, the failure of an experiment in any science does not immediately assume a blunt rejection from a scientific problem. Moreover, by no means does it imply a rejection of science itself. So why then is there an exception made in the case of socialism? Why was Stalin-Brezhnev’s unsuccessful socialistic experiment taken as a complete denunciation of socialism? Sometimes people must spoil before they spin.’ Practice makes things perfect!” Unfortunately my editor took that phrase out. To that I ask, does

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the mankind, dear ‘new’ ladies and gentlemen, have no future? Is it developing nowhere? Or do you suggest sticking to capitalism forever? At best your response would be: “We do not know yet. The future will show…” A life of a human being is a life of an expedient, reasonable and practical activity. Without a clear understanding of the process of development, without some ideology, one can only live like a goat, but not as a human being in human society…Indeed it is easier to get on a tiger than to get off him. Well then, what happens next? On page 255 [from the same Dialectics as Logic – AVG], to quote Hegel, “…an educated individual is not satisfied with the ambiguous and unclear, but grasps the objects in their definiteness; whereas an uneducated individual, on the contrary, swings from one side to another,” I added a footnote with the following remark: “What would the old man Hegel say had he found out, in the other world, that not only “uneducated” men drift in doubt from one side to another, but even well-“educated” leaders of a great country considered the best way to fight alcoholism was to root out vineyards and the best way to fight poverty is to increase prices, etc. Yet, all these and similar measures have already been implemented. We are now left to wait trembling for the highest order: the best way to fight prostitution is to castrate all men! Right. Cut the problem at its root – as the same ‘logic’ suggests.” Let us get back to the story of my life. My happy family life with my wonderful, caring, tender and exceptionally patient wife and my little ones, was darkened by the illness of my beloved mother. A struggle for her life began. After we had exhausted all local resources, Hera and I took my mother to Moscow. With Misha Stepanyan’s help we arranged for her stay at the Botkin Hospital. All this coincided with my transfer to Rostovna-Donu, a city in the South of Russia. By this time I wanted to leave Baku where one could see the first rise of Turkish nationalism. Baku was an international and cross-cultural city. Russian was the language mostly spoken there. Before then Turks at AzII, ASU and other organizations rarely spoke their language; they spoke Russian well. Naturally all conferences, meetings, discussions, seminars etc., were held in Russian as the official language. Now, in 1952 the department meetings where most of the members did not speak or understand Turkish were held in Turkish. I am an Armenian by my ethnic origin. I had spoken only Armenian until the age of 15. In 1952 I considered Russian not as a language of another nationality even though friendly, but as my native tongue! Without any pathos I can declare that the Russian language had united all of us as one people of one great country. This had its greatest implications in the war. Never have I made

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any distinctions among people solely by nationality. Never have such ideas occurred to me, not now and certainly not before or at the time of this story; even among the Turks I had good friends. Nevertheless the occurring changes made me worry. I thought that by fighting for the progress of one national culture and by implementing an increase in staff based on ethnicity in every republic [of the USSR], our government leaders in their persistent habit of thinking and making decisions for everyone were thus cultivating, perhaps without realizing it, a growing nationalism. Around that time I was recommended by the raikom to the position of the secretary of the Party committee at AzII. “Surprisingly” the nomination was immediately canceled. Rumors spread fast and I was told in secret that I had not passed because of my nationality. To be quite honest, I really did not want to become a secretary (by then I had had enough experience of administrative work and giving out orders), but the incident had confirmed my resolution to move. By then I had several offers with a promise of a separate apartment. The treatment my mother was undergoing in the Moscow hospital was not producing any positive results. So we brought her to Rostov. We were given a room in the dormitory of the Rostov State University (RSU). The treatment was resumed in Rostov but to no avail! My mother died on the night of March 1, 1953 at the age of 60. She was buried at Baku’s Armenian cemetery next to her father, Poghos Poghosyan. This was the worst trauma of my life! A great martyr, heroic, courageous, a selfless mother, the noblest woman had passed away. .

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“How Did I Survive?” – copy of a page from A.M. Minasyan’s manuscript.

View from Tolors, Zangezur, Armenia [original photograph taken in June 1999].

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Flooded church built by Ter-Minasyan family in Tolors, Zangezur, in 1864 [original photograph taken in June 1999]. The church is still used for its primary intended purpose by the villagers today. Adjacent to the church were TerMinasyans house one side and the first village school on the other side.

Tombstones of Samson and Mikael Ter-Minasyans in Tolors, Zangezur, [original photograph taken in June 1999].

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A.M. Minasyan – First Secretary of Nakhichevan AO [1937].

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Officers of the Political Department of the 13th Army [1943]. A.M. Minasyan is standing second from the right.

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A.M. Minasyan[first from the left] with officers of the 13th Army [1943].

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Officers of the Political Department of the 13th Army in Germany [February 23, 1945]. A.M. Minasyan is standing seventh in the second row from the right.

Meeting with the American troops on the Elbe, Germany in April 1945. A.M. Minasyan is the fifth from the right.

Artavazd and Hera Minasyan [1953].

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At the Kremlin meeting of the Deans of the Departments of Social Sciences in Moscow [1957].

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Playing the favorite game with Professor M.M. Karpov on vacation [1963].

A.M. Minasyan conducting exam at the Rostov Engineering and Construction Institute (RISI) [1968].

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A.M. Minasyan [seating third from the left in the front row] with colleagues from the Rostov State University [1970].

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A.M. Minasyan during lecture [mid-1970s].

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Invitation to the Third Conference Dedicated to A.M. Minasyan held at the Rostov State Construction University [2003].

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A.M. Minasyan and A.V. Gevorkyan, Victory Day Parade [May 9, 1980].

A.M. Minasyan with wife Hera and grandchildren [1991].

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Artavazd Junior – the youngest grandson [1993].

ROSTOV-NA-DONU

I remember it was late August 1952. After I wandered the streets of Rostov, I went into the city park named after the writer Maxim Gorky and sat on a bench there contemplating and weighing all the pros and cons of a possible move to Rostov. I had heard many things about this city. People referred to it as the city of bandits and thieves. They used to say ‘Rostovpapa and Odessa-mama’ (in reference to the criminal fame of both cities). Sitting there and thinking about all this, someone I knew passed by me. It was that same Major who in Rovno had helped the Colonels maltreat me. He was from Rostov. I waved to him. He looked over and seemed glad to see me again, happily turning towards me. We talked for some time about our post-war lives. He told me he held a high post at the Rostov’s gorkom. I decided to ask for his view on my possible move to Rostov. “If you have not changed your character, you’d better not move,” - he said. But I did not follow his advice. I moved to Rostov. Three years after that I went to see the Major at gorkom and reminded him of the pianos that he had received at the price of my suffering. I have always loved music since childhood and even used to make and play kiamancha (a string instrument). Therefore I really wanted my girls to learn how to read music and more importantly play an instrument. To accomplish this one had to purchase a piano, but a piano was not sold anywhere at that time. I went to see the Secretary of the Rostov gorkom of CPSU, D.Y. Sokolov but he could not assist me. “We distribute pianos like combine harvesters,” was his response implying scarcity of both. This was when the Major’s involvement was required. I asked him to either sell his war-trophy-piano to me or find a way for me to buy one elsewhere. He ended up helping us and we bought a wonderful piano ‘Rostov-Don.’ My girls began learning music and I have enjoyed listening to them play and sing ever since. After we moved, for a total of one year, my family, lived in a dormitory instead of the promised apartment. Eventually we were assigned two rooms in a large shared apartment with many neighbors. Life seemed to be progressing normally for now. I worked at the Philosophy Department of the Rostov State University as a senior lecturer / researcher, where I read lectures and conducted seminars. I was elected to the Party committee but refused the promotion. In the same year of 1953, in April,

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my first son Sergey was born. Live and be happy! However, the environment was still the same characteristic of Stalin’s era. In the atmosphere of total shadowing, every lecture was recorded. Every step was checked. Not a day passed without any special or extraordinary commission at all levels: local and city, ministerial, commissions from Moscow and so on. Often during a lecture a group of repairmen, electricians, and others would come in to install radios or speakers! All lectures were transmitted to some idiot’s office where he would listen to what people were saying. As with many other things people grew accustomed to this. Unfortunately, there were scoundrels among those “checkers.” There definitely were more of them than honest people. Perhaps the epoch itself was a scoundrel. After all the censorship rascal had to distinguish himself! But how could one have done it with no real facts? It was not a problem at all. The facts could be made up! I encountered this while still at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. At a special meeting with the Central Committee Bureau, member of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan (commissioned to the work of our department) Valuev, one of the reviewers, declared that I was reading lectures from my pre-war notes. Personally I found no crime in that. But why did that man have to lie? That was the question that puzzled me. I have never read lectures from any notes neither before the war nor after the war! I considered it a shame to read lectures or reports from notes. On a separate occasion, already in Rostov in 1955, a chairman of a commission from Moscow (I do not remember his name, but remember his face) was convinced of my guilt of reading from old notes. He “reviewed” me as he listened to my lecture “The Denial of the Denial.” Back then, not too many professors chose to give lectures on that topic. It was considered to be a perverse interpretation of Hegel. The general mood was that there was no such law as “the denial of the denial,” especially because it was not mentioned in Stalin’s works. After I had finished the lecture the “checker” would not give up asking why I was not using my notes. My explanation did not convince him. I, however, added that I had an article on the topic under review at the journal Voprosy Filosofii. He received a copy of the article from me assuring me it was to satisfy his personal curiosity: “Only for myself, I would like to learn more on the topic.” The next day I was invited [actually, summoned] to the Rostov obkom. The Head Chairman of the Bureau was the First Secretary of Rostov obkom Kiselev. That idiot from Moscow delivered his report. Throwing in the air the pages from my article he yelled: “Comrades, this is unacceptable! What is the obkom doing? Here in Rostov under your supervision the instructor at the university, Minasyan, is propagating a

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perverse interpretation of Hegel!” Most of the people present had no idea how to react for they could not understand what he was talking about. “What? What?” – they asked. The Moscow fellow quickly realized and said, “The denial of the denial.” After hearing these words Kiselev began to laugh: “Ha-ha-ha. So one denial is not enough, he needs a second one! That’s funny!” Perhaps the comparison I am about to suggest may seem crude, but in my childhood I used to take care of horses. A mare does not neigh the way stallion neighs when he sees a mare. As he laughed and repeated “the denial of the denial,” Kiselev was “neighing” like a stallion. Once again I could disappear like smoke. My life was hanging on a hair thin thread. Fortunately, the works of Lenin, Marx and Engels saved me. Convinced that Voprosy Filosofii would not publish my article [up until this time, it is still under “review”], I sent it to the German philosophy journal in the GDR. It was published there in 1960 with an honorarium sent to me of DM1000. Later the article was published in a Romanian journal and the journal called Dalniy Vostok [Russian: Far East – AVG]. The works of Marx, Engels and Lenin could not help me all the time for Stalin’s ideas had infiltrated practically every subject. Nevertheless sometimes the works of the classics did save me. One time the Dean (Chugunov) attended an exam administered by me for the Law students of the Rostov State University (RSU) in 1953. One student named Bagalay was presenting his answer on “Necessity and Chance.” His presentation deserved an excellent grade (now he is a professor). He almost precisely quoted a crucial paragraph from Engels’s Dialectics of Nature: “There are five peas in this pod, but not four or six; the length of a tail of that dog is five inches, but not longer or shorter by a line; this flower was fertilized this year by a bee, and the other was not, in addition it was done by this specific bee and at this definite time; this definite, blown away by wind, seed of a flower gave in roots and grew up, but the other did not; last night I was bit by a flea at 4 AM, not 3 AM nor 5 AM, and I was bit in my right shoulder, but not in my left hip…” I gave him a grade of “excellent.” Chugunov quietly and without saying anything left the room. Several minutes later a secretary from the department came in and said that Pro-Rector of Science (Sofronov) wanted to see me. I asked her to tell him that I would come after I had finished the exam. The secretary returned this time with Sofronov’s order: “Stop the exam and immediately go to his office!” An order is an order. I went to the office. Besides Sofronov himself there were Chugunov and secretary of the partkom Teniaev. When he saw me he attacked: “Comrade Minasyan, what nonsense is taking place during your exam? Some fool is talking about a

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bug that had bit Engels’s ass and you give that hooligan an ‘excellent’ grade.” And it all began. He fussed at me, accused me of all sins saying that I had lost my focus, that I had been brought up in the wrong way, and thus had a bad influence upon my students, and that I did not have any principles and so on. I patiently listened to that foul speech and then went into attack: “First, Engels had been bit not by a bug but by a flea. Second, it bit him not in the ass, or left hip but in the right shoulder. Third, our student Bagalay knows Engels’s works, but you do not although, you occupy such a high position. Fourth, Engels used those examples to criticize those philosophers who rejected chance and recognized only necessity. That leads to mysticism. Fifth, why do you not read the books that you have in your own office? The book must be read…” “Did Engels really write about himself like that?” Sofronov would not give up. “Impossible!” said Teniaev. I took the volume of Dialectics of Nature by Engels from Sofronov’s bookshelf, with his permission, of course, and read the quoted place. All of a sudden a grave silence befell the room and for few seconds not a sound was heard. The first one to come to his senses was Teniaev. He broke the silence: “Well, so what that he wrote that. He wrote it a hundred years ago. There was no socialism back then. Now we have socialism and we do not have any fleas! One must be creative, Comrade Minasyan…” This was my life! This was the creative approach! In socialism there were no contradictions, no prostitutes, and no fleas! Oh, what a boring life! As for the fleas, to hell with them, there were plenty of other insects. As for the contradictions in socialism, things were even more complicated. In the Voprosy Filosofii and some other journals there were several of my articles sitting in queue waiting to be published. However, none of them were published. I struggled desperately for each article. My works were discussed several times at various levels with various people. As a result each time I had to rewrite some parts, to fulfill the caprices of the editors. Months and years passed and still the articles were not published. At one such “round-table” organized by the Voprosy Filosofii my article “On the Question of Contradiction between Form and Content” was on the agenda. In this article I argued against the two pillar statements in the philosophical science of those days. The first statement was Stalin’s that “contradiction exists not between form and content, but between the old form and the new content.” The second one, popularized in biology, was the statement of Lysenko that “the contents of a living body are the

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external surroundings and its form is the living [physical] body by itself.” The journal’s entire editorial staff, and even Lysenko himself took part in that discussion. One should have seen how they flattered and smiled at that trickster! It was simply impossible to believe it! The staff led by the chief editor awaited Lysenko’s arrival half an hour before the scheduled discussion. Holding their breaths they sat motionless waiting for him to come. When he finally arrived everyone jumped up from their seats and stood at attention. The chief bending in front of Lysenko was trying to catch his look. It was the first time I had ever seen Lysenko. He had Hitler-style haircut. Soon Lysenko began his speech: “I familiarized myself with the article of comrade Minusyan. I am very interested in the topic for I have been working for a long time now on the problem of form and content in the living body. I must say, however, that the author does not comprehend the most crucial thing: namely that everything depends on the living conditions. I am sure that this pivot and brilliant instruction of comrade Stalin is well known. In practice based solely on that rule I have managed to turn the seeds of spring wheat into winter wheat and vice versa, by successfully changing the conditions of the experimental environment. Moreover by changing the conditions of a live body I can create a new biological species. Thus according to all this after a thorough and meticulous analysis, I have come to the conclusion that the contents of a living body are the external conditions. For example, here in the corner, let’s say, stands a cow chewing hay. What will be the content of that cow? It is clear, and without any doubt, that it is the hay. That is why, comrades, I have arrived to another practical and important conclusion: in order for the country to raise our cattle stock we need more cattle food.” I should say that this charlatan of science was not a member of the Communist Party, but participated in the Plenums of the Central Executive Committee and issued executive instructions. After he had finished I requested permission to ask a question: “Trofim Denisovich [Lysenko],” I began, “does it not happen that hay can be the content of not just the cow that’s chewing it but of any other animal that eats hay as well? For example, a goat eats the same hay as the cow does. Hence, both the cow and a he-goat will have the same contents. But how would one explain the fact that a cow produces milk and a hegoat does not. All right, let us assume we decide for ‘hay’ to be the content of a goat. First of all, will that cause the milk glands to grow on him after that? Second, what kind of living being is a cow without any contents, which wanders around looking for its own contents outside itself or externally? It becomes an empty cloud, but not a cow – not an animal.”

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Hearing all this Lysenko got up (everyone in the room rose as well), and said: “Comrade Minusyan, you did not understand anything.” Then he left. A silent pause and awkwardness filled the room. Eventually the journal published my article. However, to my surprise, the editorial board published another reviewer’s name instead of Lysenko. My “new” opponent was someone by the name of Sinukhin. No matter how hard I tried to find out who this person was I could not get a straight answer. Later it became obvious that the name of Lysenko had been changed to Sinukhin in order to protect Lysenko from any criticism. Things could not have been any better… Lysenko’s absurd proclamations such as “science - enemy of chance”, “the live body from the dead through the live one” and many others had their gnosiological roots. That scientist agronomist - trickster based his ideas on the not less confusing philosophy of Stalin. For instance Stalin has a concept of two types of motion - evolutionary and revolutionary. Under “evolutionary motion,” he recognized only quantitative changes such as metaphysics. Under “revolutionary motion” he recognized only qualitative changes such as dialectics. This was simply stupid, absolutely unscientific! The meanings of the terms were confused without the realization that evolution is a process of constant development, which is always a union of both qualitative and quantitative changes. Indeed incorrect and nonsensical the idea was voiced by “the genius of the mankind!” So, Lysenko, when he learned that Darwin’s theory had been called evolutionary attacked the theory declaring it [to be] unscientific and pure metaphysics. The whole thing was made up by Lysenko in order to distinguish himself and move up in his political career under the cover of “The Creative Darwinism of Michurin—Lysenko.” In my book Dialectic Logic (1966) I criticized that trick of Lysenko by saying: “The magic did not work; the magician was drunk.” Nevertheless, that “trick-idea” is still present in some scientific works today. Despite it all I had managed to publish several of my research papers in the 1950s. Each publication was exceptionally dear to me but what I had to go through to obtain them was equal to a suicide.

1953 In Rostov-na-Donu I was invited to the obkom office for a meeting with the Chairman of the Department of Science and Culture, Uriy Andreevich Zhdanov. At last, there was a personal meeting. However, I was lost guessing as to why I had been invited. Zhdanov wanted to know more about me. He was interested in me and the story of my life so he

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asked me about everything. In those years I often lectured on the questions of love, family and marriage [a topic I had lectured on during the war]. He asked about my views on those and other issues. We had an interesting and lively discussion. In a year Uriy Andreevich was appointed as Rector of RSU. In the 1950s-to 1960s, I wrote for one of Rostov’s popular papers called Molot [Russian: Hammer – AVG]. Requests on various topics for new articles would often come from the Editor-in-Chief, A.M. Suichmezov, and his assistant Serdukov. I fulfilled their assignments readily and efficiently. I had become more vocal in my articles arguing against the misinterpretations and confusing statements abundant in Stalin’s works. Such “bravery” was certainly due to what is now known as Khrushev’s “thaw” era. I ventured as far as publishing “The Law of Denial of Denial” on the pages of the paper. No doubt the article was daring for there was no mention of such a law in Stalin’s famous On Dialectics and Historical Materialism. The norms of those days dictated that if something was not mentioned in Stalin’s work, then that phenomenon has no existence at all. As Suichmezov told me later he had been summoned to the headquarters of Pravda in Moscow where he had been reprimanded for publishing such a sinister view of Hegel’s teachings. My motto in life is the following: the lack of knowledge is not disgraceful by itself, whereas the unwillingness to know [read learn] is one’s true disgrace. It must be mentioned that even today, the crucial law of Hegel’s theory is not being properly recognized or studied. Even though some academic texts do include references to “The Law of Denial of Denial” in the overview, they intentionally ignore it in the details of footnotes and appendices, referring to the law as a “misrepresented theory” of Hegel. Moreover often publishers reject the idea of Hegel’s philosophical triad or they dispute some aspects of the particular law that they think to be “inaccurate.” In all of my works I have consistently followed and carried through the idea of the triad. A separate chapter informs the reader of the importance of that main principle of dialectics and of Capital—the fundamental work of Marxism—that is based on the idea of the triad at its core. In the fourth issue of Voprosy Filosofii in 1955, I finally published my article titled “On the Question of Contradiction between Form and Content.” Later it was translated into German and published in the German Democratic Republic. Alas I was mistaken to think that I had won the argument and that contradictions do exist in the socialist system: those contradictions that must be identified and that require scrutiny, analysis and the most thorough research in order for us to achieve true progress.

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Stalin’s ideology had planted deep roots in the bright minds of many of the Soviet philosophers, historians, lawyers and economists. Some of them stubbornly refused to accept any suggestion of contradictions in socialism. Others accepted not a contradiction but its ugly deviation, something external and inferior to the nature of socialism. Still others, moderates, accepted a specific form of contradictions (of a particular, nonantagonistic character). Millions of innocent people died in the country of socialism without trials or investigations. Despite this the pressure of ideology persisted in its denial of any contradictions! There was no antagonism! Today, in the Soviet Union [of the early 1990s] attempts are being made to critically rethink the experiences of the past. Alas! Sophistry and eclectics and severe deviations from core dialectics, rather than a pure critical scientific approach, are present in and are the driving forces of these attempts. This again is the same old legacy from the Stalin era. Unfortunately the fact is that one could struggle against Stalinism while remaining within the framework of old dogmas and established prejudices. One cannot help remembering Einstein’s exclamation: “It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.” After my article had been published another confrontation between the official science of socialism and me began. This time I was accused of denying the brilliant notions of Stalin’s teachings on basis, superstructure and historical materialism. First, let us briefly discuss the theory of “basis and superstructure.” After our victory in World War II the country was still in ruins and poverty. Persistent hunger and suffering was everywhere. People in Ukraine and Byelorussia were living in dugouts. When the country was in such horrible conditions Stalin initiated a discussion about language. The polemics focused on the issue of whether or not a language could be used to discriminate against classes. In 1950 Stalin published an article titled “Marxism and Questions of Linguistics.” Since then many commentaries and articles have been written about that work. One could find references to it in the memoirs of well-known authors but also in the outlawed songs of those days (the prohibition of which had made them even more popular than they might have been otherwise). The work of Joseph Vissarionovich was truly famous and famed. The destinies of scores and scores of people had been literally crippled by that theory. One could not help but wonder how Stalin with his confidence and yet pure ignorance “stuck his nose” in every field of academia and issued instructions to scientists! Thus cybernetics “turned out to be” a false science or, to be more precise, “a weapon of imperialist reaction.” Veismanism, Mendelism, and Morganism in biology were considered as unscientific reactionary theories. The time had come now for the field of linguistics where Stalin strongly criticized a

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prominent academician N.Y. Marr87 as well as several other researchers. Stalin openly regretted that he had not had a chance to arrest them as they had passed away long before. It was namely on the pages of this brochure on linguistics that Stalin advanced his teaching on basis and superstructure. The pandemonium began right after its publication. Not only did the Soviet printing and verbal propaganda of Stalin’s teachings (in every language of the USSR) praised and glorified this work of genius for days and nights, for months and years with no end, but so did the communist and workers’ movements around the world. Incidentally I sort of liked the idea of basis and superstructure when it first had come out. I wrote a thick monograph, in a futile attempt of interpreting the economic theory of Marx within the framework of this new philosophical idea. With my characteristic swiftness and determination I took the article to the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for publication. Thank God I was late! By then a number of academic works had been written on the same subject supporting Stalin’s views and incorporating his theory with the classical teachings of Marxism. Professor G.E. Glezerman and Professor Chesnokov were among the most prominent authors of the time. Shortly thereafter Glezerman was awarded the title of Hero of the Socialist Labor of the USSR. Chesnokov was “elected” a member to the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. However, that [awards/appointments – AVG] has little meaning, and my story is not about this. On the contrary I would like to say how grateful I still am to my destiny that my work was not published. A deeper analysis of the question once I so to speak, had rid myself of the “first impression syndrome,” revealed that there was no true theory behind Stalin’s teaching. And the more I studied it the more I became convinced in the play of words in that so-called theory. Naturally, my first audiences to hear the criticisms of that invention were the students in my lectures. However, in the beginning I had to deal with some resistance: my listeners could not understand my disapproval of the official line. Some time later I explained my ideas in articles and books. In particular, I did so in the book Dialectic Logic. What were my primary arguments? First, it must be said that the words basis [translated in Russian as bazis – AVG] and superstructure [translated in Russian as nadstroika – AVG] are not philosophical categories. In fact, they are specific terms that the classics of Marxism had used in a figurative form within a specific context. Second, a reference to Marx is an error. Basically, Marx is being misquoted and his teaching abused. Marx had clearly stated that “The aggregate of the

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productive, economic relations is a real basis...” Stalin had this statement flipped in the following way: “Basis is the aggregate of the productive relations.” It is basically equivalent to one saying that a donkey is an animal and the other saying that an animal is a donkey. Therefore, there was no need to make any references to Marx. Third, the terms basis and the superstructure may have different definitions depending on the contexts especially in the Russian language where basis can be translated into foundation and superstructure has been “borrowed” from the construction business where its meaning also varies depending on the context. A textbook, The Fundamentals of the Marxist Philosophy by F.V. Konstantinov did not consider science to be part of the superstructure; rather it was defined as a “special phenomenon.” But is there a nonspecial phenomenon? I wondered, if the idea of basis and superstructure had so deeply penetrated the academic literature why was “science” excluded from the superstructure? The answer given to me stipulated that with a revolutionary change in the basis; the superstructure would have disappeared but the science would have not. There you go! The use of these terms in relation to different issues is really limitless. Therefore, a theoretical “fix-up” about the interrelation of the basis and the superstructure does not substitute for a true academic doctrine. Yet, unfortunately, that teaching has caused enormous damage to the science of philosophy by crowding out and discrediting such fundamental categories of historical materialism as “the social being (i.e. existence) and the consciousness.” Lastly as a chain reaction in the academic circles Stalin’s teaching caused continuous, repetitive and never-ending scholastic arguments all of which suggested that the basis had existed before the superstructure in time. Hence the respected researchers concluded that first there was an action and then a word. Most of them forgot a simple postulate that a human action is an expedient [i.e. reasonable/rational – AVG] action. Thus, such approach to the question was purely scholastic in nature. Now, let us briefly address this concept of historical materialism. In the work of Stalin titled, “About Dialectical and Historical Materialism,” the idea is defined as a distribution of the principles of the dialectical materialism upon society and history. This in turn initiated a new classification of the Marxist philosophy and its split into two parts: dialectical materialism was considered as an aggregate of examples of various sciences out there and on the other side historical materialism was thought to represent an aggregate of real life scientific examples, and not simply a theory. Universities across the USSR had seen two new groups

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being formed: the “diamats”—dialectical materialism—and the “histomats”—historical materialism. Quite naturally I could not just stand by and remain an indifferent observer to these processes. Thus I worked to restore the truth in the social sciences first of all through my lectures and written works. My arguments were twofold. As the first ingredient of my counter attack I defended the view that there had been no such theory as dialectical materialism before historical materialism. In more abstract terms one could say that in order for an idea to be applied to another theory, this idea must exist before the actual fact of its application. Second, I stated that references to Marx and Lenin in the given context were out-right incorrect and had no ground of support: the “classics” had a different view on historical materialism. In support of that statement I often used a quote from Lenin’s work: “Delving into the depths of and further developing philosophical materialism, Marx had brought it to the conclusion; he spread its cognition of nature onto cognition of the human society” (Russian edition of Complete Works by V.I. Lenin, Volume 23, page 44). So what did Marx, according to Lenin, add to cognition of the human society? Quite clearly it is: a materialistic cognition of nature, which had been known before Marx. As Engels said, the main flaw of the old materialism was in that it was materialism in cognition of nature at the “bottom” but remained idealism at the “top”—in terms of cognition of the human society. There was no invention or discovery in my words. I was simply restoring the truth in its right. With the growing determination and consistency as the denunciation of Stalin’s cult of personality developed I worked on uncovering Stalin’s mistakes and misrepresentations that he had made at different times and in various academic fields. It seemed like there could not be any harm in restoring the once defeated true ideas. Apparently this was an incorrect premise to go by! Suffice it to say that not everyone had accepted N.S. Khrushev’s thaw with earnest. My critical attitude to Stalin’s “heritage” fired up hostility among many, for Stalin had been and was the most sacred personality for them. In a period such as this, all that was needed to “catch” someone like me was a minor cause, or a minor incident. And this I offered… In 1958, Molot published my article on the Program of the Communists of Yugoslavia. The article was titled “Revisionism—Manifestation of Bourgeoisie Ideology.” It included a quote from V.I. Lenin, a phrase he had used in connection with his criticism of Lench’s “The German SocialDemocracy and World War.” It was published in 1915. The quote from Lenin read: “…an example of a lackey - chauvinistic bliaga [which

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translated from Russian means: jest – AVG]” (Russian language edition V.I. Lenin compilation, Volume 27, page 296). The newspaper’s editorial office had accepted the article after a careful scrutiny and final approval of the word “bliaga.”88 The quotation from Lenin was correct but yet nobody had been able to find a clear definition of the word that sounded quite impolite to a Russian language reader. In the end the editors resolved to take the citation out from the article. I understood their reasons and did not object. So, at the time of signing in the article for publication, the quote had already been taken out. To my surprise, when I read the June 12, 1958 issue of Molot I saw that same quote in my article. Could it have been that, perhaps, the editors liked it after all? The following day there was a special Party meeting at the university in connection with my article. Absolutely everyone I had worked with before shoulder to shoulder was against me. The demand repeated in unison by a number of “speakers” was to expel me from the Party. The basis for the accusation was the insult hidden in my article that I had inflicted upon Yugoslavian communists by using an improper lexicon in referring to them. The gathered feared that Tito89 would go on demarche and demand an answer. They spent an hour trying to distinguish the difference between a whore and a prostitute. By the way, that was the first time that I found out that “difference.” The Dean of the Department, Utkin, said the following: “Comrades, is it not clear that instructor Minasyan has caused an international scandal by his hooligan and uncensored article? We are here to make only one decision and that is to expel him from the ranks of the Communist Party.” The others used similar epithets and made similar calls in their speeches. Only one man, M.M. Karpov, suggested: “Why don’t we just check the quote? Lenin could not have written such a thing. There must be a mistake somewhere.” Alas the decision on my expulsion from the Party was made with one abstention. There was trouble again! It was somewhat comforting to know that all that had happened after the 20th Congress of the Supreme Soviet of the Communist Party. There was a tiny bit of hope that the consequences of this incident would not be disastrous. After the university meeting, I went home searching for ways out of that crisis situation, thinking, at the same time, about what was to happen to me, my family, all that I had worked for. Unexpectedly, I met my friend, Professor G.M. Shparlinski, the Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. Grigorii Matveevich inquired about my horrible mood and I told him the entire story of what had happened earlier. Even more surprising than bumping into him in a street was his reaction. He laughed in reply and translated the word bliaga. It was a short

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from French blaguer which means a talker or a jest. Now, upon my urgent request, the next day there was another special meeting. Professor G.M.Shparlinski was invited to translate the word. He did the translation and the earlier decision was inverted. I was reinstated, although no one apologized to me for the slander that had been poured on me the day before. It is difficult to explain such adventures of mine. Unwillingly one becomes a mystic, believing in the power of destiny watching these endless incidents of various proportions and their ramifications on a person. This is also true when there does not seem to be even a hint for something controversial that would cause any trouble. For example in 1953 I sometimes read lectures at the Rostov Pedagogical Institute. At one of the classes I began: “Let us now review the seven devils90 of Stalin.” Thankfully I quickly realized and apologized for and corrected my mistake. Still I thought that was not enough and would not prevent me from being persecuted. The incident was reported to the higher ups instantaneously! Fortunately I got lucky that time. There was another incident at an exam. A young lady, a student of mine, had filled out the grade list incorrectly spelling my last name. Instead of MinAsyan, she had written MinOsyan. I advised her of the mistake and suggested that she correct the spelling in her paperwork. In response she objected and said that there was little difference anyway. I told her: “Your last name is Shaposhnikova. Would you not care if we all had started addressing you as ShOposhnikova?” It was a spontaneous reaction on my part and I did not pay attention to that until I noticed smiling faces of other students in the classroom.91 It must be mentioned however that the young people, my students, the generation of the 1960s always expressed their deepest respect and affection to me. Often times my stance on various issues would find the strongest and solid support among them. For me that was the most important thing as a professor, educator and thinker. The youth is the future, whereas it is not easy to make the older generations learn something new especially if it requires a step aside from and a critical review of instilled dogmas. More and more I felt that I was popular and had authority as a lecturer among the students. Many times I was invited to teach classes at other universities not only as a substitute professor but also to give speeches and talk on some of the pressing issues of the day. Once in 1956 the students of two senior classes of the History Department at the Rostov State University went on strike. The event that triggered the strike (that by itself was an unthinkable action just a few years before) was the discussion of the book Ne Khlebom Edinym

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[Russian: Not Only the Bread – AVG] by V.D. Dudintsev. The very heated debates focused on the exceptionally controversial question of the role of the masses and personality in the course of history. For the professors such a question asked by a student group was indeed a test that many failed to pass. The student body posed a concrete issue: “Had the common folk, i.e. the masses, played any decisive role in the foreign policy of the Russian Czar?” The typical answer “yes” was dismissed with shouts of “Down with that!” For several days the History Department resembled a stirred hornet’s nest. A group of fifth year students had come to see me. Regardless of the fact that I never taught in their groups they “dragged” me into the classroom. For eight hours and no break I talked to them and answered every question. Apparently they deemed my answers to be satisfactory and cancelled the strike, returning to the normal class schedule the following day. At the university’s Party Committee meeting some of them even made speeches in my favor.

1958 In 1958 I finished the monograph Kategorii Soderjania i Formi [The Categories of Content and Form – AVG]. The Dean of the Philosophy Department, Sutiagin, did not accept it for departmental review and commentary as was to be done back then in accordance with all the rules. He defended his refusal to read it by claiming absence of the monograph in the annual plan of the departmental work. Not even a formal certificate was issued to me confirming the fact that the work had been done at the department. I again turned to Uriy Zhdanov, who was the Secretary at the Department of Science in Rostov’s Obkom. Within a week he had finished reading and studying the work and recommended it for publishing. The editorial office director, Samartsev, was given the task of issuing the book. A third heartfelt thanks from me to U.A. Zhdanov! The monograph was published and distributed without any significant problems! Some time after another happy event occurred. Our family received the fourth child in August 1961. I named the newborn boy after my father, Mikhail. Misha was born on August 7. Incidentally, it was exactly that day that a great celebration was taking place across the whole country: That day Herman Titov,92 the well-known cosmonaut, flew into space. It must be said that those were happy years for many. It had become easier to “breathe.” People had become more certain about their future. There was an immense feeling of pride for our country, and for its successes in every field and direction. Such perception of the state of affairs in general, a characteristic feature of the 1960s, was quite common to people. The fast

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growth of cosmonautics geared up the process of “warming up” and loosening of restrictions in the Soviet society. I think it is important to have an understanding of the significance of this celebratory mood that was in the air and its influence on people’s life to fully comprehend what I am about to say further. On the day my son Misha was born, aside from coinciding with the space flight of Titov, only girls were born at that hospital. In other words he was the first baby boy. The doctors and supporting personnel immediately took notice of that exception. Shortly thereafter people from the television came and asked Hera to name her son after Herman Titov. Certainly Mr. Titov was a very nice person, a hero, but we had already chosen a name for our son. I named my eldest son in the honor of my brother, Sarkis (Sergei) who had died in the war. Hera chose the names for our girls. That was how my wife and I had agreed. Our elder children had been anxiously awaiting the birth of their baby brother. They adored him, always took special care of him. They did so not only while he was a baby but even later when he was much older. Mikhasik, as we call him with affection has united my children. They learned to take better care of each other and love one another.

1962 I am saying the fourth thank you to U.A. Zhdanov. In 1962 he eagerly agreed to participate as a reviewer of my doctoral dissertation defense.93 As it had become customary in my life, this time I again was at the edge of the total collapse. Just a few days before the defense, Uriy Andreevich fell sick and was hospitalized. With no delay I went there to see him and he explained to me that the doctors had prescribed that he stayed in bed to recover and hence could not come to my defense. Back then (and today I still do) I believed in the healing powers of a good laugh. To pass some time I told him an anecdote to help him get better: “The Shah of Iran is sick: problems with his stomach. The doctors are trying everything but nothing helps. The Shah orders his viziers to summon all the doctors of his vast empire! The order is fulfilled but yet, to no avail. No one could help the Shah. What to do? The illness progressed. The state matters are neglected. The harem is getting bored.” Here he interrupted me by saying: “I do not have a harem, but the state matters do require my attention.” I continued: “The Shah then orders his viziers to find anyone who has any remote connection to the medicine. Although everyone has already been summoned there still is a Russian medical attendant who has not been called in yet, Afanasiy. ‘Call him in at once!’ was the Shah’s order. Summoned to the royal palace, Afanasiy carefully examines the Shah,

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gives his diagnosis, and recommends the only suitable treatment, ‘Give him an enema.’ The moment the Shah heard the translation of Afanasiy’s cure, he roared: ‘To give an enema! To give an enema to me, ShahinShah? Hang that bastard!’ Afanasiy is brought to the gallows where a mullah, upon finishing reading the Koran, offers Afanasiy a privilege of the last word: ‘I’m Russian,’ he says, ‘I am not afraid of death. You want to hang me, go ahead. But I do not know why.’ The hangman objects: ‘What do you mean, you do not know? You have insulted His Excellency by suggesting that we give him an enema!’ Afanasiy quickly came to his senses: ‘No, no, no. You’ve got the translation wrong! I have said to give me an enema, not to the Shah!’ The Shah retracted his order. Afanasiy was brought back in and was given an enema with the Shah and his entourage watching. The Shah recovered from his pains instantly.”94 Uriy Andreevich loved the joke. He declared he felt better thanks to it and would convince his doctors to let him go to participate in the defense hearings. Hence the defense took place on time, in Moscow in Volkhonka at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It started at 12:00 p.m. and went on for eight hours. A great deal of time was dedicated to the discussion of the issue of abstract labor. Even longer was the time required for a few “idiots” to deliver their speeches! In those days the dissertation defenses were quite popular types of gatherings and widely advertised forums. It goes without saying that each topic and each department had its own “fans,” those who would have attended every defense hearing and criticize the defender just for spite. At my defense one of them concluded his “remarks” by saying the following: “Comrades! How could such a retard receive a respected doctoral degree? You ask him a question and the first thing he does he thinks on how to answer. Look at comrade professor Dudel. He answers the questions that you have not even finished asking!” Another psycho was a stout man with gray-hair, a beard and mustache. All that time he sat in the front row (actually, I was afraid of him the most). He was a gynecologist and began by saying that he had been fighting for materialism against idealism in gynecology for the past twenty or so years. He made sure to mention his successes in that walk of life and the achievement of some important practical results. In his one hour-long speech the “scientist” summarized by saying: “Comrades! How can we award such a high degree to a man who cannot say a thing about the struggle of materialism against idealism in gynecology! Furthermore, I have carefully studied his thick monograph. I have attentively listened to his speech today. Neither there nor here is there a word mentioned about that vital issue.” A brief commotion followed in the audience but I felt

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some relief after hearing those two speak. The defense was successful. Out of thirty-three members of the defense committee, only one or two were against. I was congratulated on becoming the first Doctor of Philosophy in the South Region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. VAK confirmed my degree relatively quickly (within two or three months). Shortly after the defense, I was invited to chair the Department of Philosophy at the Rostov Engineering and Construction Institute (RISI). There were a few reasons for the transfer from RSU to RISI: First, I had become the first Doctor of Philosophy Sciences in the South of Russia, and not just in the Rostov region. Every one congratulated me on that accomplishment. Yet others who were only candidates [a step before the formal doctoral degree in the Soviet/Russian academics, as mentioned earlier – AVG] had been appointed as chairs of the department. I needed the department not primarily because of my career but in order to fulfill my intent of changing the direction of the academic work of the department. I was (and still am) very determined about developing the dialectics as logic—a science of cognition—rather than taking an easy way out and reducing it to a sum of real life examples. The transfer to RISI assured that shift would become possible. There I established a new department with a sole aim in that academic direction. I established a graduate school and began working on a monograph. In fact in RISI I have written several monographs that have turned into books: three volumes of Dialekticheskii Materialism, Dialektika i Sophistika, Dialektika kak Logika, Do Kakix Por? [Dialectical Materialism, Dialectics and Sophistry, Dialectics as Logic, Until when? – AVG] and a few others. Second, I needed to improve my living conditions. As I have already described above my family was getting bigger. Besides our four children, there have always been (and still are) several nephews and nieces around. However, we lived in a two-room common flat that in addition to us housed three other families. The Rector of RISI S.N. Sabaneev had promised his help in resolving that issue. He did just as he said and in a year we managed to achieve some privacy. We also helped our neighbors find and settle in other apartments. A great deal of assistance in that had come from the Second Secretary of the Rostov obkom, Mikhail Kuzmich Fomenko. I am very thankful to both of them for their involvement on my behalf. Yet, I would like to mention a small detail: if only I had invested all that energy spent on getting a private apartment into building a house for my family I would have built a skyscraper! Nevertheless, I commenced my work at RISI as the Chair of the Department of Philosophy in 1964. S.N. Sabaneev was a decent and talented leader. Some time after my

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transfer to RISI he was appointed as Chairman of the Rostov oblispolkom. He actively participated in the reconstruction of the Armenian cathedral in Rostov called Surb-Khach.95 My brother Nikolai Mikhailovich Minasyan96 worked with Sabaneev on that project as one of the members of the restoration committee. Today Surb-Khach is a museum of ArmenianRussian friendship [it is also now an active Armenian Church. – AVG]. On the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the USSR, the Armenian population of the Proletarskiy [Russian: Proletarian – AVG] district of Rostov applied to the obkom requesting to reinstate the original name of the district—Nor Nakhichevan. Translated from Armenian it means New Halt. The letter was forwarded to me as well and I promised to talk to S.N. Sabaneev. This nice man listened to me and together we discussed the issue. The main arguments I offered to back up the request were the following: 1. There were two ‘Proletarskiy’ boroughs in the region. One was a village district and the other a district in the city. Was there really a need for two? 2. The Russian Empress Catherine II founded Nor Nakhichevan in 1770 by resettling the Armenians from the Crimea who were led to their new homeland by the prominent Russian military commander A.V. Suvorov. Hence, the original name would have been consistent with the historical truth. 3. Nor Nakhichevan had historically been a mercantile and trade center. There hardly were any grounds to consider it a “proletarian” district. 4. And finally, the close ties that had been established between Armenian and Russian people should be preserved, and protected, not destroyed... We talked about a few other aspects of the issue and delved into some other reasons that might be used to argue a case for restoration of the original name. Shortly after my meeting with him Sabaneev defended the Armenian view and struggled for a positive resolution at one of the obkom’s meetings when the issue of the letter from the Rostov Armenians was discussed. Unfortunately his efforts did not bear any fruit. His strongest opponent was the [then] Secretary of the regional committee, Teslia. The issue of the restoration of the original name still remains unresolved. I do hope that sooner or later it will gain a long overdue favorable [to the Armenians’ request] review.

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[…] Overall, things were progressing pretty well in my life. Without complaints I lived happily. However, another calm stretch in my life did not last long. What happened to me next was a complete devastation. Anyone else in my shoes at the time would have thought it had been some sort of black magic or karma involved. Therefore, I should have accepted the blows of life resigning myself to my fate. My foes had written an anonymous letter of denunciation that had been sent to the central party committees in Moscow. The accusations against me were rich with epithets, calling me a money-grabber, hoarding tons of money and working at several universities without appropriate permit and etc. That libelous letter was titled “A Six Faced Janus.” [or in Russian: “Shestilikii Janus” – AVG]. I had certainly known and heard about jealousy and knew about it not merely from someone’s words. I had even experienced its impact on myself. Furthermore I knew by heart the poem by Avetik Isahakyan97 “Abu-Lala Mahari.” The poet characterizes some people as voracious. The people in the poem [and often in life] are wolves and jackals eating each other. They may raise one of their own today on their shields only to drop that “lucky” one later onto the ground and crush him. In his poem Isahakyan goes on to say that people are foul creatures who envy all the good in you and happy for all the bad in your world. Yet I adamantly refuted that view arguing that it was characteristic of the bourgeois society’s moral where as the saying has it “one human being is a wolf to another.” On the contrary in our socialist society there were no antagonistic contradictions. In our society people treated each other with compassion. Paraphrasing, the saying, “one human being is a friend to another!” Paradoxically this was happening at the same time when tens of millions of innocent people in the USSR were being physically destroyed! My life, a damnation of its own, at times had been worse than any antagonism. I had experienced those bad attitudes towards me. I went through it all and not only once but many times had to withstand the horrendous outcomes of my “comrades’” petty jealousies. I understood it all too well. I knew that people were envious of others’ successes, talents and fruits of one’s hard work. However, all that paled before that anonymous letter, which had had the most devastating effect upon my family and me. I did not want to live anymore. The most dreadful and ruinous blow had been delivered upon me—this time my foes were people I knew well! The story of how I found out about that slanderous denunciation goes

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as follows. The letter had been redirected from Moscow to the Rostov Party obkom. I was invited to the hearing and was allowed to read the actual letter. I recognized the handwriting of someone I knew. No doubt I had offered all the grounds for others to be envious of me. Absolutely! I had created such a beautiful, impregnable family; had worked to obtain a big apartment for my family (for that I was called a “landlord” or “pomeshik”); I was well respected in the academic circles of the city. But most importantly so many times I had been destroyed but yet I came out alive. I had survived! Certainly, one would feel jealous of all this. The letter by itself represented an example of completely nonsense accusations. Indeed I had combined jobs at Rostov State Pedagogical Institute and Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute. However, the people who had written the letter had no idea that I worked at those additional colleges and universities other than my primary at the request and permission of the Rostov region Party’s obkom. What made that letter even less relevant was the fact that at the time of its appearance I had no combined assignments anymore anywhere! However, the letter did inflict an awful pain upon me. As a result of that incident I suffered for a long time. I was constantly worried. To live through those times required exceptional self-control and self-mastery on my part. My wife Hera [Gerochka] wisely used to tell me that I could not reverse the events; one had no choice but to accept people, no matter who, the way they were and forgiving them would be a noble act of goodwill. She reminded me how in Lutsk I had been poisoned yet survived. I had no other choice but to survive and courageously go through this new calamity that had befallen me. I realized I had to be strong and hold out. So, that was what I did… No matter how many times I had been in similar incidents I still could not stay indifferent to any absurdity. Often times I was invited to obkom bureau meetings as an expert. During one such session the bureau was deliberating on the question of expulsion of someone Sarmakeshov (who must have been a former chief of Rostov NKVD branch) from the Party. In 1937 he jailed twelve fishermen who had been fishing on the river Don right under the railway bridge that ran across the river. They had been arrested for the alleged attempt of blowing up the bridge. Now at his trial Sarmakeshov was asked, “How were those fishermen going to blow up the bridge?” He responded: “Our investigation unit found an empty cartridgecase from a bullet in their boat.” I remember that I then asked him: “Are you aware of the fact that the front line during the war ran through our city? In that war the Germans could not blow up that bridge neither with

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their bombs nor their guns? How could a few fishermen create such an explosion with an empty gun shell?” “We had an investigative lead and in those times a suspicion was a sufficient enough cause for an arrest warrant,” he said. I often took part in the discussions of the municipal and regional party activity committee discussions and meetings. I must say, those partaktivy were rather boring. Conveniently they often ran according to agendas that were designed beforehand. The “prominent” speakers with notes prepared in advance and chitchats delivered practically as speeches. How I remember the partaktivy of the 1930s! Those were no comparison to these new ones. The quality and content were considerably higher, more sophisticated and energetic back then. In the 1930s the leaders spoke without any notes or any paper whatsoever, astonishing everyone with their oratory mastery. Nowadays [in the 1980-1990s], some of the higher echelon do manage to “flabbergast” the public if only with their low level rhetorical skills. This is extremely evident on the scale of our country as a whole. For instance the speech of the General Secretary is being broadcast on national television. In a short period of time a cultured person may involuntary hear too much rubbish in the speech to make any sense out of it! And what about the stresses! The meaning of what is being said changes if a word has been mispronounced and not corrected! For example, instead of “we have to make a decision” listeners might hear something like “we has to mate a decision.” Quite simply the area of public speaking seems to be something unknown and in horrible shape even as it applies to the highest levels of our political elite who address the people publicly so often. Furthermore examples of negligence and simply stupid things that have been continuously been brought up at each partaktiv for the last thirty or so years make me shiver. At one of those regional partaktivs of the 1960s the Secretary of obkom Kiselev was invited to summarize a report on the condition of cattle farming in the region. He presented many negative facts about cattle farming including some final results of the efforts of artificial cattle insemination. Frenzied, he reported: “In this kolkhoz, 47percent of the cows turned out to be dry and sterile...” I caught a moment to make a remark: “A cow needs a bull, not a pipette!” Most of the time I was invited to sit in the presidium of those meetings. Once in 1966 we were having a meeting at the Maxim Gorky Theater of Rostov-na-Donu. Sitting next to me was Dmitrii Fedorovich Ustinov.98 S.N. Sabaneev introduced us to each other and immediately we had a mutual understanding and respect between us. Back then D.V. Ustinov was the Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Party of the

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USSR, alter becoming the Minister of Defense. I gave him my newly published and autographed Dialectics as Logic. Dmitrii Fedorovich seemed a polite and decent person and looking back I wish we had had more meetings. Unfortunately I never had a chance to see him again after that. At another partaktiv one of the regional administrators declared: “We spent millions of dollars to obtain expensive Japanese equipment for the Semikarokorski canned food factory. We did not know how to use it and it was left outside the factory on the ground uncovered and now it is damaged and not operational.” Another informed everyone on how many tons of crops they had, yet, could not have saved and thus had let the crops rot under the sun. What was striking about those examples was that nobody ever said who was responsible for that and who was being punished for such unspeakable negligence! Moreover, each partaktiv lasted six to eight hours and sometimes longer. We had to sit through the entire thing in the presidium and listen to those speeches. Another time I was in the presidium listening to a report as I was busy writing something on a piece of paper. The man sitting next to me held an important position in the municipal administration. He whispered: “What are you so diligently writing over there?” I asked him to be patient and told him he would have a chance to read it soon. This was what I wrote: “Dear comrades! What have we Rostovites done wrong to Vuchetich99 that he had shoved to us such a potboiler? I am referring to the monument commemorating the [Bolshevik] Victory in the Civil War. Our beautiful city is getting better, prettier and growing with new constructions every year. And that slapdash is damaging the view of the city. Please explain to me, what does that “masterpiece” in the center of the city represent? I guess, there is no such word yet that would describe that adequately. Do yourself a favor, please, go and see it with your own eyes. Now, let us suppose it is made of bronze and there is a horse, although from the back it looks like a wet goat. The front legs are broken. However, let us permit that as well. A bandit is riding that horse with a saber in the air. They say it is Budennyi. We’ll accept that too. The horse is protected [blocked] by the huge body of the soldier wrapped in torn clothes with a rifle in his arms. Right under the horse there is a sailor with a bunch of grenades ready to explode. Again, let it be so. The question is though, how does that horse run if there is a sailor with grenades right under it? Yet, again, let us assume it is another ingredient of the exceptional master design of the monument. However, I must draw your attention to a really disturbing fact. Where is this bandit riding to with a saber in the air? Where is that

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poor soldier aiming his rifle? In what direction is the sailor throwing his grenades? What is this armada targeting? Apparently, it is aiming right at the windows of the First Secretary of the Rostov gorkom [across the street from this unfortunate monument - AVG]! Now, how come no one who made the decision to place the monument there had ever noticed that? Is this why none of our municipal secretaries have stayed in office for a long period of time?” I passed that note to the First Secretary of obkom, I.A. Bondarenko. He then passed it to the other members of the presidium to read. So what? Well, nothing! We laughed and that was it. The secretaries came and went but the monument is still laughing at them and all of us.

HOW MY BOOKS WERE PUBLISHED

Of special interest are the stories of my battles with publishers. I am not going to say anything about articles and journals. Each publication required a consistent and stubborn battle on my part with the editors’ offices even in the journal where I was nominally a member of the editing committee! I fearfully remember how much effort was given to publication battles. Trembling I recall how much I suffered and went through and how much energy and titanic stamina were needed to publish a single book. I am not going to tell you about usual trials. I would rather tell you about sudden hits when they came absolutely unexpected. Those were the hits that compared to being stabbed in the back without any warning. In 1976 I was invited to the Kremlin meeting of the Deans of the Departments of Social Sciences. Zimianin, the Secretary of the Executive Committee at the time, gave an explicit order to “terminate any print and oral propaganda of Maoism.” They must have thought that with the death of Mao, there would be more of a chance to establish better relations with the Communist Party of China. Perhaps on a political level such an order was well justified. Nevertheless Maoism was not a fiction. It had really existed and had its gnosiological roots that had to be examined and most importantly exposed. I had reflected that in the third volume of my trilogy Dialectical Materialism. The final edition of that volume was printed in the publishing house of Voroshilovgradskaya Pravda. However, it was not distributed anywhere yet. The book issued by the Rostov State University was published in Voroshilovgrad. Strangely RSU refused to endorse the book. With a colossal effort I managed to include the issuance of the book in the plan of the Saratov State University (SSU). Once it was printed and distributed to some universities a veto was placed prohibiting its sale and further distribution! For almost a year the new book remained in warehouses. Not surprisingly, the Soviet-Chinese relations did not benefit a bit from that… Even more dramatic was the destiny of another book titled Dialectics and Sophistry. The effort I invested in its publication would have been enough for writing hundreds of volumes on any topic! Judge it for yourself. I presented the manuscript according to every rule of the publishing house of the RSU. From the publishing house it was sent to the

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then obkom Secretary, Teslia. Then it was forwarded to Moscow for further censorship and peer review. I went to Moscow. There was an army of censors there. They were reading it, writing recommendations, and giving orders. Months passed but still there was no word said about issuing the book. Lost in speculation regarding the steps to take to ensure everything would be resolved smoothly, I remembered the “third volume” and that people in Saratov had once helped me with publication. So I went there and was politely welcomed. They started to work on the book’s publication. Finally! Naïvely, I did not sign any copyright agreements to determine the responsibilities of the publisher. Nor was I ever interested in things like that. Well, who was to blame? It is common knowledge that those who relied on other people’s goodwill often fell victims of other’s treachery and adventurism. Hence, the publication of the book was not guaranteed judicially. Incidentally even if it had been it would not have helped much under the given circumstances. There was a precedent. Then, I had an agreement with the Sotsekgiz publishing house to publish the book. The text had already been set up on the printers. However the Director of the Department, Kadysheva, rejected everything. There were no means against the wish of authority. While my manuscript was being examined and reviewed by the editors I collected all their remarks and made all the appropriate changes. Eventually the revised and final manuscript was sent to the publishing house. They began printing the hard cover; the book was about to be issued. I even received the first draft of the book in print. To ensure everything went well and without any extraordinary incidents, I purchased five tons of paper and sent it to Saratov with my own money. When things went relatively calm in my life I should have known by then to expect an obstacle to arise, out of nowhere. On the last day of December 1984, on New Year’s Eve, the Chief Editor of the publishing house of the Saratov University telephoned me in Rostov to inform me that they were not going to publish the book. It was taken off the plan. That was quite a New Year’s present! A new epopee of the battle for the book began. I realized there was a plot against my publications. I went to Saratov, but could not do much there. Moscow had ordered the dismantling of the entire press. Moreover, I was told that since the text had been already set up in lead (more than three tons) they could not keep it on for a long time. In this story I am grateful to one brave lady, the Director of the printing-house. She was the Deputy and the only one who objected to Moscow’s order. She argued that the workers had put their labor and time in preparing the text! Back in Moscow I went to every committee

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possible: the CEC, the Ministries, the Goskomizdat of the RSFSR, and the USSR. There were enough bureaucrats everywhere. All was to no avail; no one helped me. Not once in the history of European football was there a ball that had been kicked around from one side to another the way I was! Constrained by such a desperate situation I turned again to U.A. Zhdanov. Repeatedly he had come to my rescue in the past and he helped me this time as well. Zhdanov used his influence to publish the book at the printing house of the RSU. I am also obliged to the then Director of the Print, Aleksandr Ivanovich Akopov. The book itself speaks of its long prepublication history, although not in much detail. The last page reads “Publishing House of the Saratov State University, 1982.” The first page reads “Publishing House of the Rostov State University, 1985.” Now, I feel it is necessary to discuss the book titled Until When? It is less stressful to talk about that book. It was published by the RSU with no significant problems, just like the monograph The Categories of Content and Form, all thanks to U. A. Zhdanov. He had read the manuscript and recommended it for printing. I dedicated the book to the 19th All-Union Party Conference of June 28, 1988. A copy of the book with my autograph was sent to the General Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev. After some time I received a call from the office of Gorbachev. The General Secretary thanked me for the book and supported it. He then also telephoned the Secretary of Rostov obkom and expressed his enthusiasm to the Rostov regional administration about the book. All that took place on September 24, 1988. On that same day I was admitted into hospital. The leg that had been wounded in war began to bother me. On October 14 and then again on October 18 my leg was amputated. The first time it was cut right below the knee, yet it did not heal. Pieces of the war times bombshell were found above the knee, and another surgery was required. The second time the leg was cut above the knee. The war reminded me of itself! Fortunately the amputation was not done immediately after I had been wounded as the combat surgeon had predicted. My leg was amputated only forty-five years later. And now, without one leg, I still work and write these notes. True are the poet’s words: People are boats though on land. While you live, many dirty shells get stuck to our sides. And then, after fighting the angry storm One sits closer to the sun And cleans off the green beard of the sea plants And the red mucus of the jellyfish.

CONCLUSION

The time has come to draw an end! My life has been more or less laid out to a curious reader in these notes. In relating various events I have tried to follow the grand principle of coincidence of the historical and the logical. Obviously there is little ground to declare that my work here is complete and exhaustive. On the contrary the presentation has a sporadic character and lacks consequence. It requires further details and a betterversed argumentation. Nonetheless, this short story of my life and survival provides the necessary information for a critical analysis and envisagement of the historical course of the Soviet power in our country, the USSR. With relative confidence I can say that the path of my life is a short and approximate representation of that history—from the beginning up until now. Everything in this book is real fact—is the truth. The events are presented as they unfolded in my life. There should not be any doubt or concern to their authenticity. Today the Soviet Union is undergoing the expansive process of perestroika.100 It is a revolutionary phenomenon. Among many other things it contains a critical and creative attitude to the past. A history of the country as well as the history of a human being can be likened to the ascent to a mountaintop. Passing potholes, little swamps, turning stones upside down and going through numberless other obstacles, a person finally reaches the peak of the rock. From there one plainly sees the path passed. Everything is as clear as the palm of one’s hand. The details of one’s life with accompanying mistakes, retreats, achievements, successes, positive as well as negative aspects become more apparent. By all means it is an objective progression. Still we must bear in mind the union of the two contradictory tendencies—the violation of which leads to sophistry. First, the unity of the aim and the adequate means of its realization should be recalled. Human activity is an expedient activity. In other words every step of that activity [action] before it is made must pass through the mind of the human being, acquiring different ideal forms: targets, wishes, intentions, plans, and desires. Those forms in turn are indirectly defined by various inner and outer factors. Therefore to move to such a high target as socialism, the factors of scientific prediction and scientific theory— lightening the path of that movement (knowledge of the laws of movement)—are necessary.

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Otherwise the movement is bound to be spontaneous and abundant with mistakes and retreats. And at that time even the highest and the noblest idea can be attained in such an incredibly incorrect way that it will transform into its own opposite. That has been proven by our [Soviet] experience in the past. Unfortunately it is being proven again presently. Second, it is not acceptable for a characteristic of a mature phenomenon to be automatically transposed on a characteristic of an embryo event. Yet, it is done all over the place and at all times and especially when a still young and developing process is being characterized [more often criticized] by application of the norms and postulates of those developments that have already achieved a certain [higher] point of maturity. Since the beginning of life every generation has considered the younger to be inferior to their standards—to be “not the one.” The fact remains that despite everything the development and continuous growth of humanity proceeds even at times of backward movements, regressions and evolutionary stagnations that sooner or later have been dealt with and passed through, ensuring the eventual ascent. As N.G. Chernyshevsky101 had once said that “life was not the boardwalk of the Nevsky Avenue: there were turns and potholes in it.” In the end progress takes over and wins over regress. In the context of this there appears to be the question of human, but most importantly, leaders’ mistakes. I have said before that from the height of developmental achievements it is better to recognize and correct the errors of the past. Does this mean that I am simply trying to justify them? By no means. As Lenin’s aphorism has it: “It is not the individual who makes no mistakes who is smart. There are no such people. But the smart person is the one who does make non-essential mistakes, and who can easily and quickly correct them.” At one of the meetings of the obkom’s bureau, where I participated as an expert I heard one ignoramus distort that phrase by saying that “Lenin said that the smart person is the one who makes mistakes!” Well, that did not help that person; he was kicked out the Communist Party. Nevertheless, many get stronger by twisting the ideas of others, adjusting those notions to their level of perspective and understanding. Sometimes they get lucky and earn their political capital that way and make careers. And if scientists can so shamelessly misrepresent the ideas and thoughts of others, what then can be said about the laymen? How do people admit they have made mistakes? There seems to be a tendency that proves to be true across the board. The more illiterate a person is and the higher position he or she occupies, the more difficult it is for them to admit, much less to correct, a mistake. The complex of “the

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honor of the regiment” prevents one from doing that. The general view is that any admission of any mistake undermines the established authority. Moreover if the person is cooked up to be an absolute monarch, sort of a little god what admission of mistake can one even begin to speak about? Friendly, inoffensive criticisms, even a simple suggestion, a piece of advice, are seen as an insult. This reminds me of a popular joke of the 1930s: a Chairman of the kolkhoz is taking the bus to work. The conductor asks him to pay for the ride. The administrator, surprisingly and with anger declares: “What! Do you mean I have to pay, too?” Power is strength. This has been known for quite some time already. Hobbes102 considered the state to be a Leviathan. Naturally, according to the different social conditions, the degree of power changes as well. There are numerous forms of state and political authority known to humanity. With regard to growth and reform movements in the Soviet Union since the late 1980s, it is vitally important to realize what we have been creating for seventy years. The clear answer may be socialism; the same socialism in practice, which the author of these memoirs has been an active participant of. I would add not just a participant but a true udarnik of the first five-year plan. So, what have we been busy building all this time? What is socialism? First, it must be said with all determination that one must not mix two different things, i.e. the scientific socialism of Marx and Lenin must not be confused with the socialism, which was built in our country under the leadership of Stalin and Brezhnev. We say now that we have built a barrack-style, deformed socialism—and we are absolutely correct when we declare that! This practical construction process has had its share of essential errors and retreats from the tenet ideas of scientific socialism. But to realize the correct set of reforms that we need to adopt in our country today, we must know the ultimate goal that we so zealously are trying to achieve. Once again I repeat that human activity is an expedient activity. A critical and thorough analysis of the past historical legacy encompassing all perspectives is urgently needed today as never before. Evidently any attempts of such analysis will meet resistance, namely, a covered resistance: the type that is unnoticeable at the surface. As to the old Stalinists, they continue to praise their leader’s order. Their argument is that there was more order in those days than there is now. Stalin organized the industrialization of an agrarian country. Russia would still have been working only with a plough in the field if it had not been for Stalin. Stalin won the war and many other accomplishments are attributed to him. Unfortunately our contemporary propaganda, press, and mass media in general, is unable to explain and restore the truth. It allows for serious

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mistakes in this purely ideological fight. In these mistakes the secondary, minor aspects substitute for the factual essence. Numberless articles and various literature publications have mushroomed in the last few years. In one work the author states Stalin to be a paranoid. Another paper says Stalin was in love with the actress Davydova. Still other journals say that he had many summer cottages and lovers. Still others say that he should not have signed a pact with the Germans. The authors of such publications think that by making all this public they expose Stalin. Yet they do not realize that instead—namely by doing so—they justify the unprecedented “cannibal,” passing on to him common human traits! Sophistry is not that these facts might have taken place. On the contrary sophistry is in that they [the facts] cover up and subdue the true essence—the main and the decisive core. And that essence was Stalin’s inhumane destruction! Hence, the power is a Leviathan. It is even more evident in Stalin’s epoch. This supremacy of power can turn an ugly person into a handsome man. It transforms a prostitute into an innocent girl; a cretin into a wise man; a seminary student into a chief commander; a dishonorable rascal into an etalon of nobleness; evil into virtue. The French in the 18th century used to say that swindlers triumphed while the clever and the honest lost. I wonder what they would have said today had they learned about our reality and the tragic history of our people, a tiny bit of which is my life? Very often people tell me that I am a happy man. Indeed I am. I have survived through all of life’s challenges with a still strong and unbroken spirit in me. I have a wonderful family, interesting and creative work, etc. However, I can firmly state that any person of my generation, if that person is honest to oneself, cannot be completely happy. For example, this book is titled “How Did I Survive?” Does it really relate only to me? No. It concerns anyone who has survived in that war against one’s own people and the war against Hitler. What came after those wars? How could one live with the enormous load of memories of countless victims, memories of the people with whom one talked, laughed, shook hands, smoked cigarettes, dreamt of a happy life in the future? They left one by one quietly, leaving endless and everlasting pain in my chest. I mourn them all my life. My wife and children know too well about that. I could not keep that pain to myself; I shared it with them. Individually I talked to each of them about such things. It was easier that way for me. I have told many a story to them, often the same ones several times, trying to free myself from the burden of heavy memories. As I was looking for support in my wife and children I was also looking for their protection. It was so because the psychological

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nature of any person is set up in such a way that one simply can not hold so much sorrow and pain inside. One could try hiding and keeping it away from curious eyes. To the young people I would like to say that it only seems to you that the older people protect you, their children. In fact they need your protection not to a lesser degree as you need theirs. Love them! Help them! I am thankful to my children and my wife, Gerochka, for their protection, faith and loyalty. Very often my children asked me ‘how could have all that happened?’ Why was it allowed to happen in such a gigantic country? Why was Lenin’s Will103 not fulfilled? To answer these questions is not an easy task. Moreover, I am brought up in a way that one should not attempt to reply to a question if he does not know the answer. On the other hand it is always easier to not to answer the question “why.” Nevertheless I will try to provide the best answer to those questions. Before attempting to uncover anything it is of primary importance to consider the level of the occupied position, the role and place of a person in society. A society consists of different levels. There are the political elites—administrative, executive leaders and politicians (theirs is always the highest level that in turn, is also divided in sub levels). Then there is a vertical differentiation and then come the masses, the people. The highest echelon creates all the politics. The masses have practically no role in the policy making process. People are busy with their own problems. They create material goods and trust their administration. And even if they do not trust their leaders, they keep it quiet because the one who says a word against the leader will most surely be isolated from the society. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this isolation. At least this is how it was during my lifetime. Perhaps now comes a new age in that sense. At least people now have a chance to voice their wishes through a popular vote. In itself that is a tremendous and important achievement. There was a persistent primacy of misinformation, deception, and cheating everywhere in the country that sometimes reached disgusting abstraction. For instance when in the early 1930s people in the Don, Kuban and Ukraine regions died from hunger Stalin declared: “Life has become better, comrades, life has become happier!” Finally, one should also account for the feeling of great enthusiasm and the boundless faith of the people in the idea of socialism and ... Stalin. People were fond of the idea of socialism, the idea of equality, justice, and brotherhood, and trusted Stalin with hardly any doubt. Stalin in turn promised them a better future, prosperity, abundance and happiness. It is difficult even to imagine that enthusiasm! They used to sing short songs about the building of socialism. I remember one verse:

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Ɉɣ ɤɚɥɢɧɚ-ɦɚɥɢɧɚ! ɒɟɫɬɶ ɭɫɥɨɜɢɣ ɋɬɚɥɢɧɚ Ɉɫɬɚɥɶɧɵɟ Ɋɵɤɨɜɚ ɢ ɉɟɬɪɚ ȼɟɥɢɤɨɝɨ! The joke-song was about the “six conditions” of Stalin. We all knew those conditions too well.104 One had to remember to recite those at the admission exams to Komsomol or the Party. In the war we went into attack “For the Motherland! For Stalin!” Where there was Stalin, there was victory: Stalin led us to communism. But it was not only that. The degrees of people’s beliefs can vary as well. Quite possibly there is no other known religion in the world that would dictate such a blind faith in God, such fanaticism, as was the faith in Stalin. I am not speaking about the attitudes of the power elites since I do not know much on the subject. I can speak, however, on the attitudes of the common people, the mortals. Among them and for them, Stalin was not just a God to whom they felt a fanatic affection for and blind faith. They were absolutely sure that Stalin never made a mistake in anything! He was not just a genius, a theorist; he was a professional in all sciences and arts. There was no sphere of the practical human life, which he would not have an extensive knowledge about. He constantly gave out instructions with no regard to the essence of the discussion be it cybernetics, linguistics, philosophy or something else. I remember once on November 6, 1944 in the trenches with other soldiers, I was listening to Stalin’s report on the anniversary of the Russian October revolution of 1917: “Now Fascist Germany is in the greep of the two fronts.” There was a mistake in the word! He put a stress incorrectly in the word grip. The soldiers asked me: “Comrade Major should not it be ‘in the grip?” I said: “That is correct, soldier. However, that is when we speak in general. But here in a particular case you should know that the whole fascist Germany is in the grip and not some little thing. That is why it should be ‘greep’ and not ‘grip.’ Comrade Stalin was correct when he said so. He never makes mistakes.” That was how I “saved” comrade Stalin but certainly and most importantly saved myself. Had I even thought of suggesting another interpretation to the soldiers the commanders would have immediately doubted me as a Zampolit ensuring my most definite disappearance without trace… Upon my return to POARM after my time in combat I related this to my comrades and they all praised me for my quick wit. My partner Major Akselrod told me: “Arkady (they called me so in the army), we all know that you are a resourceful brave soldier.” The chancellor, Captain Korolenko, in reply to Akselrod joked: “In our Byelorussia people say that where there is one Armenian there is nothing for two Jews to do.” The major part of all meetings, discussions and celebrations of those

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times was dedicated to the praise of Stalin that was accompanied with a stormy applause and then ending with an ovation! There is nothing new to say about this fact. It is rather well known. However, I still recall the oppressive feeling I had after one of such meetings. It took place at the Mailov Opera theatre in Baku in 1950. The then “master” of Azerbaijan (as everybody called him) Bagirov was making another report on some “important” topic. It was a regular speech interrupted by stormy applause of the entire audience (every five minutes), finally evolving into a standing ovation in Stalin’s honor. All of a sudden Bagirov declared: “When the greatest of the greatest, the wisest of the wisest was studying … at the spiritual seminary he was getting unsatisfactory grades on religious subjects. It tells us only one thing! He is a born atheist!” I had never heard such an explosion that followed these words even in the war. It is hard to imagine what was going on. We stood for one hour applauding and yelling slogans in honor of the Greatest One! It was a horrible mess with shouts, slogans and noise! Finally, everyone got tired and we sat down. Then some woman hysterically yelled out another slogan. Everyone had to jump up again and applaud. By the end we had done this at least a dozen times. I cannot remember any other Party meeting worse than that nightmare in my whole life. We were clapping loudly, as hard as we could. If one got tired and did not clap, then... he was immediately arrested for not applauding in honor of comrade Stalin. Stalin was “our great pilot,” “the wisest of the wisest,” “the genius of geniuses,” “the greatest of the great commanders of all times and peoples!” I remember perfectly well the day when Stalin died. On March 5, 1953 my entire family was on the train from Baku to Rostov. At that time we were returning to Rostov from Baku after the death of my mother. Suddenly the train abruptly stopped in the middle of some field. A middleaged man dressed well in a civil suit entered our compartment and said: “A terrible tragedy has happened. Stalin has died. Everyone must come down from the carriage. We are going to have a meeting in the field.” “Yes, yes, certainly,” I said. I was struck by the news. Years of praising Stalin had turned him into a God. At least to me it seemed impossible that he could have died as any other man. I stood thunderstruck. In almost the same instant my wife simply astounded me even more. She said to the man in the civil suit: “You see I am pregnant. It will be difficult and unsafe for me to jump from the steps of the carriage. With your permission, I will not go outside.” Indeed in a month and half she gave birth to our son Sergey. Nonetheless neither before nor after this incident had I ever noticed my wife worrying too much about her pregnancies. She usually behaved as a healthy, normal woman regardless of how she felt herself. The man in civil

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clothes tried to object to her: “No, we will carry you on hands.” “Oh, no, no,” Hera insisted. “It is not necessary. My husband will come down with you.” So she stayed in the compartment with our girls, Lilia and Larisa. After the meeting in the field I returned very nervous and shaken. I had never doubted the honesty of my friends, comrades, and acquaintances who had suffered as the people’s enemies. I knew they were not the enemies. However back in 1953 I was still absolutely confident that all of it occurred behind Stalin’s back. I was sure he did not know the extent of the atrocities against common people. I was also sure that he was a colossal power preventing all those excesses. I was sure that all those Berias and Yezhovs were afraid of being exposed by him. Interestingly enough there was proof of all that. Had there not been any arrests of numerous officers of the NKVD at all levels? There had been plenty of those. I returned to the compartment sat down, put my elbows on the table, covered my face with my hands and whispered: “What is going to happen to all of us now?” I had tears in my eyes. In response I heard: “Do not worry, it won’t be any worse.” It was my wife who said that. It was my wife who was, at the time, a little over 20 (I am 17 years older than she). It was that same girl whom I, like a Pygmalion, was going to create as I liked and teach her how to live. She turned out to be wiser than I. For the first time I saw behind her beautiful appearance a mature and courageous person. I remember now this discovery even distracted me from the national sorrow. And I thought about it; I thought that here was a person sitting in front of me who was a lot younger than I, a person of a different generation. It was this person who since she was eight years old had waited in visitor lines in prison. Those long, long lines. That was her childhood. Anna Akhmatova described those lines in her poem: ɏɨɬɟɥɨɫɶ ɛɵ ɜɫɟɯ ɩɨɢɦɟɧɧɨ ɧɚɡɜɚɬɶ, Ⱦɚ ɨɬɧɹɥɢ ɫɩɢɫɨɤ, ɢ ɧɟɝɞɟ ɭɡɧɚɬɶ. Ⱦɥɹ ɧɢɯ ɫɨɬɤɚɥɚ ɹ ɲɢɪɨɤɢɣ ɩɨɤɪɨɜ ɂɡ ɛɟɞɧɵɯ, ɭ ɧɢɯ ɠɟ ɩɨɞɫɥɭɲɚɧɧɵɯ ɫɥɨɜ. Ɉ ɧɢɯ ɜɫɩɨɦɢɧɚɸ ɜɫɟɝɞɚ ɢ ɜɟɡɞɟ, Ɉ ɧɢɯ ɧɟ ɡɚɛɭɞɭ ɢ ɜ ɧɨɜɨɣ ɛɟɞɟ, ɂ ɟɫɥɢ ɡɚɠɦɭɬ ɦɨɣ ɢɡɦɭɱɟɧɧɵɣ ɪɨɬ, Ʉɨɬɨɪɵɦ ɤɪɢɱɢɬ ɫɬɨɦɢɥɶɨɧɧɵɣ ɧɚɪɨɞ, ɉɭɫɬɶ ɬɚɤ ɠɟ ɨɧɢ ɩɨɦɢɧɚɸɬ ɦɟɧɹ ȼ ɤɚɧɭɧ ɦɨɟɝɨ ɩɨɝɪɟɛɚɥɶɧɨɝɨ ɞɧɹ. Ⱥ ɟɫɥɢ ɤɨɝɞɚ-ɧɢɛɭɞɶ ɜ ɷɬɨɣ ɫɬɪɚɧɟ ȼɨɡɞɜɢɝɧɭɬɶ ɡɚɞɭɦɚɸɬ ɩɚɦɹɬɧɢɤ ɦɧɟ, ɋɨɝɥɚɫɶɟ ɧɚ ɷɬɨ ɞɚɸ ɬɨɪɠɟɫɬɜɨ,

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ɇɨ ɬɨɥɶɤɨ ɫ ɭɫɥɨɜɶɟɦ - ɧɟ ɫɬɚɜɢɬɶ ɟɝɨ ɇɢ ɨɤɨɥɨ ɦɨɪɹ, ɝɞɟ ɹ ɪɨɞɢɥɚɫɶ: ɉɨɫɥɟɞɧɹɹ ɫ ɦɨɪɟɦ ɪɚɡɨɪɜɚɧɚ ɫɜɹɡɶ, ɇɢ ɜ ɰɚɪɫɤɨɦ ɫɚɞɭ ɭ ɡɚɜɟɬɧɨɝɨ ɞɧɹ, Ƚɞɟ ɬɟɧɶ ɛɟɡɭɬɟɲɧɚɹ ɢɳɟɬ ɦɟɧɹ, Ⱥ ɡɞɟɫɶ, ɝɞɟ ɫɬɨɹɥɚ ɹ ɬɪɢɫɬɚ ɱɚɫɨɜ ɂ ɝɞɟ ɞɥɹ ɦɟɧɹ ɧɟ ɨɬɤɪɵɥɢ ɡɚɫɨɜ. Ɂɚɬɟɦ, ɱɬɨ ɢ ɜ ɫɦɟɪɬɢ ɛɥɚɠɟɧɧɨɣ ɛɨɸɫɶ Ɂɚɛɵɬɶ ɝɪɨɦɵɯɚɧɢɟ ɱɟɪɧɵɯ ɦɚɪɭɫɶ, Ɂɚɛɵɬɶ, ɤɚɤ ɩɨɫɬɵɥɚɹ ɯɥɨɩɚɥɚ ɞɜɟɪɶ ɂ ɜɵɥɚ ɫɬɚɪɭɯɚ, ɤɚɤ ɪɚɧɟɧɵɣ ɡɜɟɪɶ. ɂ ɩɭɫɬɶ ɫ ɧɟɩɨɞɜɢɠɧɵɯ ɢ ɛɪɨɧɡɨɜɵɯ ɜɟɤ, Ʉɚɤ ɫɥɟɡɵ, ɫɬɪɭɢɬɫɹ ɩɨɞɬɚɹɜɲɢɣ ɫɧɟɝ. ɂ ɝɨɥɭɛɶ ɬɸɪɟɦɧɵɣ ɩɭɫɬɶ ɝɭɥɢɬ ɜɞɚɥɢ, ɂ ɬɢɯɨ ɢɞɭɬ ɩɨ ɇɟɜɟ ɤɨɪɚɛɥɢ. The story of the Akopov family, Hera’s family, was not at all unusual for those days. Hera’s brother, Grigoriy Khachaturovich Akopov, worked as the Dean of one of the departments at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute until 1938. At that time he was married. His wife worked at AzII as well. They had two children. When he obtained an apartment he moved there with his mother, father, brother and four sisters. Grigoriy Khachaturovich himself, moved with his family and mother-in-law to a separate apartment at another place. Why was he jailed? People said that he had deliberately made up a schedule so that the instructors had “windows” between the classes. Thus he was a covert enemy of the people! Coincidentally and perhaps that had played some role in Grigoriy’s fate, the family that lived next door Grigoriy’s family had been put into prison (Only a little girl was left. My wife’s mother Anna Arakelovna adopted the poor child. The girl lived with everyone in the big apartment for a short period of time. Sometime later an aunt of that girl took her to live with her in the Central Asia.). When Grisha (Grigoriy) was arrested their entire family was put out in the street. They did not have a place to stay. Help came from their father’s - Khachatur’s - friend. He brought the whole family into one of the basements where they lived. This is the history my mother-in-law told me. The first time I saw my future wife Hera was at the theater in1948. She was 18 years old. Her beauty struck me and I followed her to her home (that basement), and found where she lived. When I finally had managed to “conquer” her heart I met her brother Grisha. He lived in the village of Tobishen in Nagorno-Karabakh. That was a ten-hour drive from Baku.

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Although he was not allowed to live in the city he secretly had come to Baku with only one thing to tell me: “You will never marry my sister, because she is a sister of the enemy of the people.” “I am not marrying You. I am marrying your sister. She is not the enemy of the people,” I replied. Many years later on one of the May 9 Victory days when everyone who celebrated with us went home or were asleep, I sat in the room with Larochka and cried. I cried. It was a holiday “with tears in the eyes.” I cried and screamed: “You will never understand me. You do not know what it is to retreat! I retreated, retreated! I … and retreated, losing my comrades in war! Do you understand what that is?” My daughter told me: “Dad, you are a very brave man. It was impossible not to retreat. You know it yourself. Do not worry so much. Remember the Victory.” I wanted to hang on to the words that I was brave: “Do you really think so? But what is my bravery? I have told you so many stories. Give me an example. How do you understand this bravery?” Larisa then said: “Well, remember how you married our Mom. It was only 1948 and Grisha was not exonerated yet.” And I thought to myself, my children are too overwhelmed with the feeling of the senseless sorrow of the past years. Grisha’s little girl died in the beginning of the war. His mother-in-law had taken her to Ukraine [she was from there] for the summer. But when the war erupted they could not save the girl who was about three years old. His wife Vera was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She died in 1956 at the age of fifty from a heart attack. Grisha was fully exonerated after Stalin’s death. …Thus it was not going to be worse my wife had said. It turned out that our God had been well aware of all events. How could he then have become such a God for us? Nobody whom I had known had ever doubted the absolute chastity of the Chief; nobody except for my wife and brother. Who created that hardly literate student of a seminary to become such a deity? First of all it was the company around him. I clearly remember how once I came across a newspaper with editorials dedicated to Stalin’s 50th anniversary. The jubilee was celebrated with demonstrations and meetings across the country. After giving its due to description of the festivities, the newspaper also published a speech delivered by Kaganovich declaring Stalin as a grand theorist of Marxism. In his statement Voroshilov was proving that Stalin was a great commander. And that was only in1929. Molotov was saying that Stalin was the great leader of the world

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proletariat. The rest of the politicians’ speeches were in the same spirit. Hence a Mafia group with an absolute monarch who had the primitive intellect of an unlucky seminary student was transformed into a God. The people around Stalin, the members of the Politburo, are to assume the primary responsibility for what had happened. Their crime was that they had not exposed him in time. How many millions of lives would have been saved by the one who would have put Stalin down! The one who would have freed the country from the greatest cheater in politics would have saved innumerable values! A high level of development would have been achieved in agriculture, science, art, and the standard of living by the one who would have freed our society from obscurantism. If only… Here I remember one of Krylov’s fables titled “The Donkey and the Man.” The gist of the story is that the farmer rented a donkey for the summer to protect the garden from bold and stubborn birds. The donkey was diligent in fulfilling his task running after birds “across all of the garden’s patches. He galloped so hard and so fast that he stepped on everything that grew in the garden. Hence the farmer was compelled to obtain his reimbursement for damaged products by whipping the donkey’s back. But the one who told the donkey to watch after the garden is also wrong.” Most importantly Stalin possessed those characteristic features that Lenin had pointed out in his Will that argued against bestowing extraordinary power to Stalin. To the great misfortune of the country, the people, the state and history, Lenin’s Will was not fulfilled by those who later became the first victims of their mistake. It is wrong to consider Stalin’s cruelty and harshness to be “granted from above.” Of course it was not so. In other conditions those features would not have been hypertrophied but on a fertile soil they had developed to a disgusting scale. In the process of their realization Stalin’s experience of annihilation of people developed as well. There are facts that speak to that. Together with Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and Rykov, Stalin had been fighting against Trotsky. When he had finished with Trotsky he switched to Kamenev, and Zinoviev. Then it was the turn of Rykov, Bukharin and others. A special tactic had been devised by which today’s allies turned into tomorrow’s enemies. When the potential competitor, Kirov, had appeared, the order was to take him out! If for some reason Stalin did not like the members of the Politburo Rudzutak and Kosior the order was to wipe them out as well! When Postyshev mentioned: “Comrade Stalin, it seems like we have too many enemies of the people!” Stalin said: “Listen, Postyshev, why are your eyes blinking like the Menshevik’s?” The member of the Politburo, Voznesenskiy, had published a book called The Military Economy of the

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USSR During the Great Patriotic War. We used that book together with the Short Course… to teach at the universities. How could Stalin have put up with that? Pretty soon Voznesenskiy disappeared. I have already talked about how the common people believed in Stalin and would not permit the thought of Stalin being a tyrant. But the individuals of Stalin’s inner circle knew all that! It was impossible for them not to know it! Their wives, children, and relatives were jailed in prisons but nobody had even tried to remove Stalin. No one! That was the strangest and at the same time most incomprehensible verity. History has abounded with instances of coup d'état, palace intrigues, takeovers and changes of monarchs. Why had nothing even close to that ever occurred to anyone during Stalin’s reign? I recently read an article with an interview with Nina Andreeva reprinted in the Ogonek [Russian: Light – AVG] magazine (#33, 1989). The American newspaper The Washington Post had conducted the interview. Reading the article I became conscious of the fact that there were and there would continue be Stalinists. It is not at all simple to obliterate from the minds of people something that for decades was fed to them—specifically, Stalin being our glory, our happiness and the greatest of all. I am repeating myself but yes, during the war we went into attack with the slogan “For Motherland! For Stalin!” We often said that where Stalin was there was victory. That was the social contract of the time. I realize that the breakup of one’s convictions is a complicated psychological process. It is practically impossible, difficult, and painful to turn the established ideas 180 degrees and kick out from the conscience something that has been rooted there for decades. Indeed, I remember someone saying once that “Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, but how to take him out of people’s conscience?” I am perfectly well aware of the reality that among the people who worship Stalin as the national hero there are many honest, decent, hard working people, who are true soldiers and true patriots. What I absolutely cannot come even close to comprehending is the purpose of their continuous exculpation and “whitening” of Stalin’s unprecedented inhumane crimes. Why is the dual moral judgment tolerated? They choose one moral for themselves (I highly doubt the people I am talking about are capable of killing a human being) but accept another ideology for their idol. A crime in any society, at all times, irrespectively of who the criminal might be, has always been prosecuted and will continue to be prosecuted and justly punished. The objective existence of crime objectively contains its conviction. That does not depend upon whether or not the doer or the defender—paid or unpaid—recognizes that! Otherwise civilization is

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impossible. Day after day there go endless enumerations of Stalin’s achievements. He was the leader “under whose command the country had built socialism in thirty years;” “in four years Stalin defeated the Fascist army and became the chief of the world workers movement;” and so on and so forth. Well nobody refutes those facts! Further there was not anyone in the entire Party (with its copious blocs, platforms and groups invented by Stalin and against which he had fought using his refined methods) who argued against the socialist development of the country. Hardly anyone had objected to the ideas of national industrialization and unconstrained collectivization of the agriculture. The issue was the following: all of this development could have been accomplished without excessive toughness and abuse towards common people. Repeating myself again I must say that we have built a deformed and barrack-styled socialism with hardly any relevance to scientific socialism. No phenomenon, especially a sociological one, subsists as only positive or negative, having only a good or a bad “side” to it. Quite easily one can construct an infinite list of features on the one hand and on the other hand. The moment a phenomenon is defined to be something on the one hand and to be another on the other hand it reveals its nature to be unknown not fully recognized. Namely that is the core disparity between the two lines—dialectics and sophistry. Dialectics requires considering all possibly existing sides of a given event. Yet, that is not all. The most important step of this process is that once you have calculated and listed all the pros and cons, dialectics requires extrication of the essence of the phenomenon underlining it. Sophistry may sometimes take into account even more sides than dialectics but it does not identify and separate from other factors the gist, the essence of the event. Contrary to dialectics, sophistry melts the essence in the multitude of “sides” of the event basically obliterating it to nonexistence. By the same token the customary enumeration of Stalin’s achievements is the device of sophistry since in listing his accomplishments the essence of his work and life is being crowded out. Dialectics, without rejecting his doubtless achievements, determines the true essence of Stalin. At the core of Stalin’s actions lay severe animosity towards the people that transformed into execution of the disagreeable. “No person, no problem,” was Stalin’s slogan. I am astonished by the fact that in an attempt to exculpate Stalin his advocates venture into debates on how many lives Stalin actually destroyed in camps in Siberia and jails elsewhere. The dominating view is that it was not anywhere near twenty or fifty million people. It was only 870 thousand people (cited from “Ogonek,” #33, 1989 p.26)!!!

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Consequently, these pseudo-activists fail to mention the victims of forced collectivization, starvation, diseases, numerous suicides, unexpected deaths and many other things. Also baffling is the paradoxical acceptance of the fact that the repressions did take place but yet there persists an absolute lack of conviction of those crimes. Instead a sophisticated debate is scaled up about the numbers, the “degree.” Is it not terrible! At the time of writing these notes the Soviet Union is undergoing the process of reform. Some serious upshots of that development already exist. First and foremost it is undoubtedly the victory of democracy, informal elections of the head of state. Quite naturally the reformation process is not flowing smoothly. Often it meets with obvious hindrance. Not all the measures implied by reforms will be agreed with, not everything will be welcomed. Evidently the Stalinists will sophistically cite the pitfalls of perestroika, applying all the trickery skills only to whiten their idol. To that I declare with all confidence that no drawbacks of the contemporary transition can ever justify Stalin’s deeds. There simply cannot be any excuse for him! Any normal intelligent and decent person in the ranks of Stalin’s supporters should finally understand and reject his or her blind love and faith. I would like to adjoin a few more important views in connection to the above. Repeating myself for the n-th time, I want the reader to unquestionably realize that human activity is an expedient and reasonable activity. It is commendable that the current leadership as well as the society in general has found the courage to rethink the past, to determine the mistakes and accept the course of social re-building. Logically while doing so it is important to have a clear realization of what the ultimate goal is that we are trying to reach—what we want the society that we are rebuilding to be. The state leaders are obliged to have plain and unambiguous answers to those specific questions. In the beginning I believed that the start of perestroika was to signify the correction of the mistakes of the past and the development of the scientific socialism order. However currently many things present themselves unexplained and incomprehensible to me. One would gain significantly when guided by scientific principles and methods in his or her practical life. “The Law of the Denial of the Denial” comes in handy as well in cases like that. Again, human activity is an expedient activity. Before setting on a course of reforms it would have been crucial and prudent to foresee such a scenario of transformation that would have ensured that all the positive and creative forces that have been developed in this gigantic country, earned through the sacrifice of life and labor of many generations (including mine) was preserved, reevaluated and

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appreciated. For it would be this accumulated legacy that could serve as the foundation upon which any modifications could be added. In essence “the Law of the Denial of the Denial” implies ascent to a higher level with preservation of the entire positive that has been taken from the old, purified level. Not all was bad. There really were a lot of positive facets in the history of the USSR. For one it was a strong and powerful state. Was it reasonable to destroy that state leaving it as a victim of dull internal strife for political power? The greatest achievement of our country was the wide spread internationalism. Unfortunately the blunders, strategic oversights of the late 1940s—early 1950s at the highest state level when the administrative map was being divided at will, have led, today to the “fruits” of intensified nationalism. Yet, I am convinced and know for a fact that the idea of internationalism is close to the hearts of the great majority of the Soviet people[s]. In no way does that diminish or underestimate the value of the national pride of any people. On the contrary just as humanism cultivated in a person a love of one’s mother, the feeling of internationalism in its basic essence contains love to one’s own people, one’s own national culture, one’s own native language and one’s own mother. Take my word on this, as I am well too familiar with this issue! In the meantime, nationalism, as in chauvinism, that places one nation above others and denies the equal rights of all nations is a misfortune! The state is called a state because it bases upon the law. Therefore the law should interpret such nationalism as a dangerous phenomenon for and a crime against a state. In the Until When? I wrote in 1988 that the true source of the delusional views in and erosion of the political economy in our country was the insufficient knowledge of Marx’s Capital. I wrote the book about the wave of perestroika reforms in our country logically assuming that we were bound to see a more powerful process of rebuilding in social sciences, which were vital and had a tremendous impact on the course of reforms in the USSR. I stand on that position still today. I have adhered to this position all my conscientious life. Over a hundred years have passed since Marx wrote his Capital. Naturally there have been profound changes in the capitalist society. New socioeconomic formations have appeared. The social processes within those formations have provided us with new and rich empirical material that is to be used in the efforts of rethinking the postulates of the theoretical arguments of Marx’s economic teachings. The issue to be addressed is different however. Capital gives the methodology for the development of the political economy within the new confines, new frameworks. Therefore before embarking on the course of any particular action [and particularly economic ones] it is imperative to have a clear

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realization on: x The process of manufacturing of the surplus product; x The process of circulation of the surplus product; and x The process of manufacturing in general. Without a sound theoretical analysis of these three notions one cannot even dream about a positive outcome of any reforms whatsoever. In actuality we bear witness to the opposite. Namely, there seems to persist an illogical not dialectical and wasteful rejection of the past. This said, it must be mentioned that such an absolute dismissal finds its best contemporary manifestation in the ongoing governmental reform led by Yegor Gaidar.105 Perhaps I will be mistaken and time may prove the opposite. No argument about it, the command—administrative system had its contradictions within itself, resolution of which is made possible by a shift to a new content—the free market mechanism. Still it is incorrect to deny the role of the government and regard it as a pull-back factor that only suppresses any initiative; as the source of “artificial introduction of controversies in the market processes,” a view largely held by the representatives of the Chicago monetarist school. Modern reforms in Russia are being implemented exactly in accordance to that popular view. It would be a healthy reminder to the activists propagating the abrogation of the past experience to know that Western scholars and economists themselves have repeatedly criticized the recommendations of the monetarist school. The majority of developed economies even in the capitalist world have accepted the path of mixed economics where market effects are controlled and regulated by the state. Hence the conscious ignorance or the dearth of knowledge of Capital could have led to the idea that lies at the foundation of the contemporary reform in the USSR. According to that pivotal idea money is the prime cause of any market relations in a society. This is yet another example of a policy decision implemented without the required analysis of the process of circulation of the surplus product. As the Russian folk saying has it, we have yet again “put the carriage in front of the horse!” How far are we going to get in this way? Ingeniously one of the pillars of such monetarism is the noncontradictory nature of such a market. And here was I who had believed contradictions did not exist only in socialism or at a very minimum within animal species in the imagination of ignorant Lysenko! At every turn of my life there seems to be the same vulgar nonsense reappearing—namely the widespread ignorance of the basics of the dialectics. It is evident and is directly related to the individuals holding in their hands the destinies of citizens, entire peoples, and countries.

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Painfully one realizes his feebleness. My time has passed. I am not able to get back in the ranks anymore. All that is left to do is to talk about all these issues here on the last pages of my final book.

EPILOGUE

My life has passed by. Yet, I do not despair, even in looking through the prism of my past experiences. Indeed “my years are my wealth,” as the popular Soviet times song goes! Years can be different: empty of content or not. Moreover the content varies from year to year. What were my years like? Let the one who reads this book think about it for oneself. For the third month I am “chained” to my bed. Nevertheless every day given to me I try to live at its full and with happiness. I ring my little bell (my children gave me a small and nice bell of yellow color and, despite its size, very loud). At the sound of the bell all of my grandchildren run to me. They do not just run; they try to pass each other! The question is who will be the first to reach Grandpa and take better care of him and help him first. I am a rich man: I have three grandsons and four granddaughters. Two of them are already seniors in high school. They are Alec (Lilia’s son) and Anna (Larisa’s daughter). The rest are still little ones. Among them the eldest is Gerochka (Sergey’s daughter, named after my wife Hera). She goes to the second grade in school. Sonechka (Larisa’s daughter) goes to the first grade. Arkadik (Lilia’s son) and Ilona (Misha’s daughter) are still in the elementary school. Finally there is Artavazdik (Misha’s son)106—the youngest among us all who has just barely learned how to walk. I give them money and they run to get ice cream for everyone. When they return they sit around me and together we eat the coldest ice cream. In the meantime I tell them about my heroic war life. Holding their breath my children listen to me… The most fearful foe of a human being is the loss of hope and faith in a better future. I know I have a future. It is the future of my children and my grandchildren. My life experience has taught me that no matter how complicated the situation that one gets into is one must never lose hope. Keep it up! I am absolutely confident about the best future of my children and my country. I would like to draw an end with the wise words of the beloved poem The Old Blessing [in Armenian: Hin orhnutiun – AVG] by a great Armenian poet, Hovhannes Toumanyan: …Well, we have finished. Then twirling his moustache Tamada rose up. After him the others with their glasses full rose up.

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They told us: “Be blessed your hour! Live children, but live happier than us…” The years have passed. One cannot count the losses… And our songs are sadder today. With tears covering the present day, I understood why, blessing us The older people had said: “…Live children, but live happier than us…” Oh, who died so long ago! Peace be with you! All troubles of yours now we have known And now, in hour of sadness or hour of joy, When see our children away, As you we say to them: “Be blessed your hour! Live, children, but live happier than us…”

Artavazd M. Minasyan October 17, 1992

GLOSSARY

ArSSR AzNeft AzSSR ASU CC CCCPAz gorkom GPU NAO NEP obkom ORPO partkom raikom RONO SovNarkom VKP(b) Zampolit

Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic Azerbaijan Oil (Azerbaijan Neft’) Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic Azerbaijan State University Central Committee (Central’nyj komitet) Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan City Communist Party Committee (Gorodskoi Komitet KP) Main Political Council (Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie) Nakhichevan Autonomous Oblast New Economic Policy (Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika) Regional Communist Party Committee (Oblastnoj Komitet KP) Department of the Party Management Cadres (Otdel Rukovodiashikh Partiinikh Organov) Communist Party Committee (Partijnyj komitet) Local District Communist Party Committee (Raionnii Komitet KP) District’s Department of People’s Education (Raionnii Otdel Narodnogo Obrazovania) Council of People’s Commissars (Sovet Narodnyx Kommissarov) All Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks (Vsesoyuznoya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov)) deputy of the political supervisor of the army (zamestitel politicheskogo rukovoditelia)

MAJOR BOOKS

Major monographs authored by Professor A.M. Minasyan [original titles’ Russian transliterations are in brackets]. All publications are in Russian, with the exception of this edition of How Did I Survive? x

Dialectic Logic [Dialekticheskaya logika], Rostov-na-Donu, 1966.

x

Dialectical Materialism [Dialekticheskij materialism], Vol.1, Rostov Engineering and Construction Institute (RISI), Rostov-naDonu, 1972.

x

Dialectical Materialism [Dialekticheskij materialism], Vol.2, Rostov State University (RSU), Rostov-na-Donu, 1974.

x

Dialectical Materialism [Dialekticheskij materialism], Vol.3, Saratov State University (SSU), Saratov, 1976.

x

Dialectics and Sophistry [Dialektika i sofistika], Rostov State University (RSU), Rostov-na-Donu, 1985.

x

Until When? [Do kakix por?], Rostov State University (RSU), Rostov-na-Donu, 1989.

x

Dialectics as Logic [Dialektika kak logika], Rostov Engineering and Construction Institute (RISI), Rostov-na-Donu, 1991.

x

How Did I Survive? [Kak ya ucelel?], Russian edition, edited by A.V. Gevorkyan, Rostov State Pedagogical University, Rostovna-Donu, 2006.

x

How Did I Survive? English edition, edited and translated by A.V. Gevorkyan, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2008.

NOTES 1

This quote from K. Marx’s Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomieis (1857-61) is used here to show that often times it makes more sense [easier and clearer] to study a complex object in order to fully grasp the understanding of a simple. One of the pillar statements of A.M. Minasyan as philosopher has been that “general (totality) is only general because it includes private (small parts).” [Dialectics as Logic] – AVG. 2 Mikael Ter-Minasyan’s task was to meet the refugees from Western Armenia fleeing to the east, transport them to safety and provide for living for the first few months. Mikael was leading a group of followers when they were captured. Many were killed and tortured. M. escaped and died at home from the wounds. – AVG. 3 Samson Abrahamovich Ter-Minasyan was an exceptionally highly educated man. Aside from the required religious training he had graduated from one of the most prestigious Armenian colleges of the time, St. Nerses Seminary [Nersisian Academy] in Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia). There he attended instruction, amongst others, together with a famous Armenian poet Hovhannes Toumanyan. The TerMinasyan family belonged to the religious strata in the Armenian society and that was why “religious / priest” training was required for the eldest son (Samson) in the family. – AVG. 4 The grass in that region of Armenia is still good, fresh and nutritious. Perhaps it is due to the fact that Zangezur is situated up in the mountains, away from urban and polluted areas. – AVG. 5 I remember this episode from my grandfather’s life very well. Many times, when my cousins and I were still little kids, he would tell us this story over and over again. He would always finish it up by telling us to not to be afraid and always hope for the best. – AVG. 6 Armenia officially became part of the USSR November 29, 1920. – AVG. 7 Mesrop Mashtots (362 – 440) – a distinguished Armenian monk, theologian, and linguist. In 405 AD M.M. created the Armenian alphabet (which is still in use) and promoted translation works from other languages in Armenian. M.M. supported development of science, literature and schools across Armenia and in neighboring countries. It is said that M.M. had primary involvement in creation of the Georgian alphabet as well. – AVG. 8 or “ian” in Western Armenian transliteration – AVG. 9 Komsomol – Russian abbreviation of Vsesoyuzny Leninsky Kommunistichesky Soyuz Molodyozhi – All-Union Leninist Communist Union of the Youth. Organized in 1918, K. was a Communist political organization preparing future leading members of the Communist party in the USSR’s youth. – AVG. 10 Kulak – Russian for “fist” – a wealthy peasant, financially independent, owned large farm, cattle, horses; able to hire workers and lease land. These rich peasants formed a separate class across the Soviet Union – kulachestvo – eliminated at the time of en masse collectivization in late 1920s. – AVG.

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Notes

Collectivization – policy the Soviet government pursued most intensively between 1929 and 1933. The ultimate goal was to transform traditional agriculture in the Soviet Union and to firmly establish Soviet power in agriculture. Under collectivization the peasantry was forced to give up their individual farms and join large collective farms (kolkhoz). These measures were undertaken in conjunction with the campaign to industrialize the Soviet Union rapidly. The process caused a lot of controversy among the top ranks of the Soviet leadership and suffering among ordinary people. – AVG. 12 GPU – Russian Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie, English Main Political Council – AVG. 13 New Economic Policy – In the years between 1921 - 1928 the Soviet government instituted reform measures that have become known as NEP. The essence of NEP was a retreat from an earlier policy of extreme centralization and forceful nationalization of property. By allowing return of most agriculture, retail trade, and small-scale manufacturing to private ownership and management, NEP brought some measure of stability to the Soviet economy and allowed the people to recover from years of warfare and rigid reforms. The government, however, retained its control over heavy industry, transport, banking, and foreign trade. – AVG. 14 Bukharin, Nikolay Ivanovich (1888 – 1938) – Soviet theoretician and economist, prominent leader of the Communist Party. B. was very vocal in 1928, arguing against en masse and forceful collectivization. His alternative was an “evolutionary approach,” according to which cooperation and joint work would gradually crowd out individual economics. In 1938 B. was declared an enemy of the people and executed. He was reinstated in 1988. – AVG. 15 NEPman – to identify rich landlords and traders during the times of New Economic Policy in the USSR. – AVG. 16 The Great Breakthrough – is a period in the Soviet history (most of 1929 and on) during which the Soviet government succeeded in carrying out the plans for en masse collectivization (creation of kolkhozes, elimination of kulak as a class – in many cases, the physical elimination of people) and industrialization (institutionalization of planned economy, channeling all resources to increased industrial production). Naturally, both processes were carried out with a magnified resistance from the peasantry and workers. – AVG. 17 End of 1980s beginning of 1990s in the USSR. – AVG. 18 Dizzy from Success – was Stalin’s famous article published on March 2, 1930 in the midst of strong peasants’ resistance and mass slaughter of farm animals to prevent their cattle from being taken by the kolkhoz. The resistance triggered by the collectivization policy of the 1929 resulted in lost crops, cattle, and a drop in the USSR’s agricultural production. In his article Stalin blamed local officials for their errors in conducting the collectivization and attacked distortions that had departed from the “voluntary principle” in collectivization, despite the well-known fact that all orders and instructions that were executed had been initially approved by the Communist Party Central Committee, i.e. involving Stalin’s review and ultimate agreement to the undertaken measures. – AVG.

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baba – is a Russian word used in reference to a peasant woman. – AVG. Ordzhonikidze, Grigory Konstantinovich (1886 – 1937) – byname Sergo, Soviet political and communist leader. In 1930 O. became a full member of the Central Committee’s Politburo; chairman of Soviet Council of People’s Commissars and later commissar for heavy industry. O.’s sudden death in 1937 was officially attributed to natural causes. However, N.S. Khrushchev later charged (1956) that Stalin had driven O. to commit suicide, because of Sergo’s criticism of Stalin’s policies. Ordzhonikidze is buried on the Red Square in Moscow – AVG. 21 Lor is a village near Tolors and Sisian in Zangezur, Armenia. – AVG. 22 The earthquake of 1931 was one of the most destructive quakes at that time in Zangezur. The first one happened in 1924. However, after the disaster of 1931 practically all buildings in Tolors and neighboring villages were destroyed and a lot of people were killed. The village of Akhlatian was completely erased from the surface. By a miracle, the Ter-Minasyans survived in the earthquake. The church that their ancestors had built in 1864 remained intact. One can find it still standing in Tolors, in the midst of an artificial water reservoir, created in the 1970s on the original spot of the village. Ter Abraham, the author’s grandfather had served mass in that church. The school, where Varzhapet Samson was the first teacher, was adjoined to the church building. – AVG. 23 Ter-Minasyan, Sarkis Mikaelovich (1917 – 1943) - lieutenant in the Red Army in the Second World War. He was considered to be missing in action since the battle for Stalingrad, where he took an active role in 1943, commanding an infantry platoon. A.M. Minasyan could not obtain any further information about his brother. – AVG. 24 Beria, Lavrenty Pavlovich (1899 – 1953) - director of the Soviet secret police (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs - NKVD) who played a major role in the purges of Stalin's opponents. At the time Beria was the First Secretary of the Trans-Caucasus region’s All Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. – AVG. 25 Bagirov, Mir Jafar Abass (1895-1956) – 1932 Chairman of People’s Commissariat of Azerbaijan SSR. !933-1953 B. served as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR and Baku city party committee (gorkom); April – August 1956 Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Az.SSR. Bagirov was brought to trial and executed in 1956. – AVG. 26 Kirov, Sergey Mironovich (1886 – 1934) – Soviet party and political leader. In 1926 K. was elected as the head of Leningrad party organization. K. was elected to full membership in the Politburo in 1930. On December 1, 1934 K. was assassinated in Smolny – Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad [now St. Petersburg]. – AVG. 27 The Congress took place in 1934. – AVG. 28 L.S. Shaumyan was the son of Stepan Shaumyan (1878 – 1918) the famous Soviet revolutionary, political leader one of the twenty-six Baku commissars, executed by the British troops in 1918 in Krasnovodsk. – AVG. 29 The saying refers to the fact that when things are mixed and confused, it is easier to solve problems that otherwise, under normal conditions, would have caught 20

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unnecessary attention. Simple example, elimination of political opponents during the “witch hunt” that was happening in Stalin’s era in the USSR. – AVG. 30 Here is the reference to the Dashnaktsutyun (arm. - “Confederacy”) Armenian political party, whose members were commonly called Dashnaks. The D. party was outlawed during the Soviet times in Armenia, to suppress any nationalistic aspirations of Armenians and ensure the hegemony of the CPSU. It continued its work in the Armenian Diaspora and is presently one of the active political parties in modern day Republic of Armenia. – AVG. 31 Mikael Minasyan worked in Baku in the early 1900s. – AVG. 32 Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1895 – 1940) – Soviet Communist Party official; General Commissar of State Security since late 1936; “The Iron Narkom”. At the time of Yezhov, as the head of NKVD, a phrase “Yezhov’s gloves” had become popular, signifying intolerance to any “enemies of the state” and promising to squeeze all those who were against the Soviet power. Yezhov personally took part in examinations of the arrested, compiled lists of those to be executed and so on. In 1939 Y. was arrested, accused of espionage and anti-Soviet plot. He was executed at the order of the Military council of the Supreme Court of the USSR. – AVG. 33 The official position occupied by D. Buniatzade (and other officials) provided sufficient leverage for him (them) to submit such requests. – AVG. 34 Refuse, Giffe, jancket – the words are written with obvious grammatical errors, to convey the true language of the particular request mentioned in the text. It also reflects a high level of illiteracy of those times even among the Party officials. – AVG. 35 Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich (1875 – 1946) – Communist leader; a full member of the Politburo of the Party's Central Committee. K. was the Chairman of the CP Central Executive Committee of the USSR since 1922. From 1938 until March 1946 his official post was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Buried at the Kremlin wall. – AVG. 36 Redheaded (Redheads) – rus. krasnoshaposhniki – reference to the soldiers serving in the Soviet Secret Police, NKVD. – AVG. 37 Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich (1895 – 1978) – Soviet statesman and Party leader. M. was the Head of the Soviet Food Industry Commissariat from 1934 until 1938. He was a full member of the State Defense Committee of the USSR (which ruled the country in the times of World War II); member of the committees for reconstruction of liberated regions (after the WWII). 1953-1955 M. served as the Minister of Trade. 1955-1964- First Deputy of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. 1964-1965 – Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Although excluded from the Party’s Presidium (Politburo) in 1966, Mikoyan retained his membership in the Central Committee. Mikoyan dominated the supervision of foreign and domestic trade in the USSR; was involved in the negotiations with Fidel Castro during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Unlike other honored Party officials Mikoyan was not buried by the Kremlin wall, but in the Novodevechy Cemetery in Moscow in 1978. – AVG. 38 Sulimov, Daniil Egorovich (1890 – 1937) – Since 1936 Chairman of the Council of the People’s Commissary of the Russian Federation. Arrested and executed in

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1937 on the grounds of treason. He was exonerated and reinstated in the Party ranks belatedly in 1956. – AVG. 39 Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich (1883 – 1954) – Soviet statesman; 1933-1939 deputy, later became Chief Prosecutor of the USSR. V. led the biggest Purge trials exposing and liquidating the “traitors”, “opposition”, and other enemies of the working people. As a lawyer he led the Institute of Law at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. As the Soviet Foreign Minister, V., represented USSR at the UN 19491954. – AVG. 40 Gasan Rakhmanov - former First Secretary of the Party’s Obkom in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Oblast – AVG. 41 Yenukidze, Avel Safronovich (1877 – 1937) – Soviet statesman and Communist Party official. Y. was one of the primary organizers and managers of the “Nina” publishing house in Tiflis. In 1937 Y. was sentenced to death on the accusation of participating in the activities of the anti-Soviet Trotskyite center. He was executed in 1937. In 1960 Y. was exonerated and reinstated in the CP ranks. – AVG. 42 Regardless, yet mainly because of, his high position, of the Deputy Prosecutor, in the Caspian Basin Steam-Navigation Administration Nikolai Mikhailovich Minasyan was not excused from the army draft. – AVG. 43 Black Crow – rus. cherny voron – was the name that common people had given to the NKVD cars that transported prisoners. “Black Crow” seemed appropriate as it most evidently brought sorrow and grief wherever it appeared. – AVG. 44 “Skajite Devushki Podrujke Vashei...” is a Russian version of a more wellknown Neapolitan song “Dicitencello Vuje” by Enzo Fusco, Rodolfo Falvo – AVG. 45 Mirzoyan, Levoi Isaevich (1897 – 1939) – Soviet statesman. M. actively participated in the establishment of the Soviet power in the Trans Caucasus. He was arrested in 1938 and later was sentenced to death and executed. He was belatedly exonerated and reinstated in the Communist Party in 1956. – AVG. 46 Gamarnik, Yan Borisovich (1894 – 1937) – in 1930s Gamarnik was the Deputy people’s Commissar of the Military and Marine Affairs of the USSR. In the atmosphere of the Grand Purge he committed suicide. – AVG. Tomsky, Mikhail Pavlovich (1880 – 1936) – member of the Party since 1919 and later member of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee and Politburo. He was removed from his position of a Union leader and had had no real political power since late 1920s, however, remained a full member of the CC until 1934. T. committed suicide during the Grand Purge period in the Soviet history. – AVG. 47 Istoriya Vsesoyuznoy Kommunisticheskoy Partii (Bolshevikov): Kratky kurs 1938, apparently the work of a party committee but authorship is attributed to Stalin. – AVG. 48 TASS – abbrv. Telegrafnoe Agentsvo Sovetskogo Soyuza (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union), official news agency of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. – AVG. 49 Aside from financial help, A.M. Minasyan encouraged his cousins to enter Az Industrial Institute, as in the case of Garnik’s sister, Knarik. A.M. Minasyan

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facilitated Knarik’s move from Tolors to Baku and with determination helped her in the education process, especially learning the Russian language. – AVG. 50 Bagramyan, Ivan Khristophorovich (1897 – 1982) – Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshall of the Soviet Union, Commander in Chief of 11th Army during the World War II. Babadjabyan, Amazsp Khachaturovich (1906-1977) – Two time Hero of the Soviet Union, Chief Marshall of the Soviet Tank Army, Commander of the 3rd Mechanized Brigade of the 1st Tank Army during the WWII – AVG. 51 GlavPUR of the Army – abbrv. Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie Armii (Chief Political Administration of the Red Army) – AVG. 52 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (1872 – 1947) – Russian military commander, one of the leaders of the White movement, general of the White Army during the civil war in Russia, shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution. D. led rebellions against the Red Army. – AVG. 53 Order of the Second (and First) Degree of the Patriotic War was established by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 25, 1945. It was used to award soldiers of the Soviet Army who had distinguished themselves in the war against the German aggressors in World War II. – AVG. 54 Sayat-Nova (real name: Haroutin Sayadian) (1712 – 1795) – Armenian poet, troubadour (ashug). He composed his love songs in Armenian, Georgian and Turkic. A court minstrel of Irakli II of Georgia, S.N. entered a monastery of Haghpat in 1768. He was killed during the Persian invasion of Georgia. S.N. had an immense influence on the culture of the Trans-Caucasus and of Armenia specifically. – AVG. 55 Aivazovsky, Ivan Konstantionvich (real name: Hovannes Gevorgovich Aivazyan) (1817 – 1900) – grand Russian artist-painter of seascapes, ethnic Armenian. Aside from his artwork, I.A. was also known for his valuable contributions to the developments of the Russian and Armenian cultures of the 19th century. He lived and worked in Feodosia, Crimea. He was buried there according to his will. A sign on his tombstone, written in ancient Armenian, has a quote from the 5th century “History of Armenia” by Moses Khorenatsi says: “Born as a mortal, left the immortal memory of himself.” – AVG. 56 Ashot II Erkat (the Iron) Bagratuni (reigned 914 – 929) – The famed king of Armenia of the 10th century. Ashot Erkat declared himself to be the shahanshah (king of kings – recognized by the powers of the time) having defended Armenia’s independence against the Arab Caliphate and Byzantine empire and uniting fragmented principalities of the Armenian kingdom. His title gave him real power over smaller semi-autonomous lands in Armenia and Trasncaucasus. – AVG. Queen of Georgia Tamar (reigned 1184 – 1213) – coming from an ancient dynasty of the Bagratids, cousins to the Armenian Bagratid dynasty, she co-ruled with her father, Georgi III since 1178. Her reign is known as the golden age in the Georgian tradition, when the country was at the zenith of its power. Queen Tamar was a piety ruler, promoting Christianity in Georgia. – AVG. 57 Japan attacked Mongolia in August of 1939 at the Khalkhingol river. The Soviet Union stepped in to defend Mongolia and repelled Japan’s attacks. Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov – member of the Soviet High Command

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Committee and Deputy of the Supreme Commander played a decisive role in launching successful Soviet military campaign. The most important Soviet military commander during WWII, Zhukov commanded the fronts and Army maneuvers in WWII, participated in the crucial events and battles of the war. – AVG. 58 In its official communication dated June 14, 1941 TASS declared the impeccable compliance of the Germans with the terms of the Soviet-German Pact of ‘no attack.’ Any suggestions of an upcoming German invasion of the USSR were ruled out as baseless. Germany claimed that the accumulation of its troops at the Soviet borders was due to military maneuvers, military exercises, and protection of its army from the attacks of the British aviation. The Soviet government supported that explanation in its report. – AVG. 59 Zorge, Richard (1895 – 1944) – one of the best Soviet intelligence officers, journalist. Between 1930-1940 worked in Russia’s Far East region (bordering with China and Japan) and Germany to obtain vital information on Nazi Germany’s forthcoming attack on and eventual war with the USSR. He was captured by the Japanese military forces and eventually executed on November 10, 1944. – AVG. 60 The medal “For Bravery” (rus. - “Za Otvagu”) was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on October 17, 1938. The medal was awarded to the soldiers of active combat duty for their exceptional valor exhibited in the battles defending the Fatherland and accomplishing their soldier’s duty. – AVG. 61 The Battle of Kurskaia Duga was the decisive clash of the two adversaries in the war. Unprecedented in its bitterness and obstinacy fighting lasted for fifty days. A great number of live force and machinery was involved from both sides. Having defeated the German Army in this historical battle the Soviet Army went into all out attack. The combat experience acquired at that time had firmly settled within the practice of the Soviet troops and helped deliver the crushing defeat to the Nazi regime at the end. – AVG. 62 The Order of the Red Star was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on April 6, 1930. The Order was awarded for personal courage and bravery in battles, exemplary organization and skillful supervision of combat activities; for strong merit in sustaining of combat readiness of the troops and excellent qualities in military and political preparedness. – AVG. 63 Osvobozhdenie - is a well-known Soviet motion picture about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. – AVG. 64 Rybalko, Pavel Semenovich (1894 – 1948) Soviet military commander; two times Hero of the Soviet Union; Marshal of the Tank and Armored Forces. In WWII R. commanded the 5th (June 1942), the 3rd (October 1942) and the 3rd Guard (May 1943) Tank Armies; participated in many combat operations including offenses at Kiev, Jitormir, Proskurov, Lvov, Berlin, Dresden, Prague and others. – AVG. Lelushenko, Dmitrii Danilovich (1901 – 1987) – two times Hero of the Soviet Union; General-Major, commanded the 30th Army on the Western and Kalinin fronts between Nov. 1941 – Nov. 1942. From Jan. to Nov. of 1942 his Army led

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the bloodiest battles for Rjev. – AVG. 65 At the dawn of the XX century (customarily the count starts in the year of 1915) the Ottoman government had carried out its long in advance planned scheme of annihilation of the Armenian population of Turkey. As a result of what would later become known as the “First Genocide of the XXth century” over one and a half million Armenians, indigenous population of Western Armenia, at the time citizens of Turkey, had been massacred. The territory, where by then for over three thousand years the Armenian nation had resided, was annexed by Turkey that since has persistently erased any reference to former inhabitants of the region. – AVG. 66 “Bandery” and “Melniki” – Ukrainian nationalistic organizations that fought against the Soviet Army. “Bandery” took their name from Stepan Bandera (19091959) – the leader and ideologist of the Ukrainian nationalist, anti-Soviet groups, with direct access to Gestapo that his organization was a part of. – AVG. 67 Vatutin, Nikolai Fedorovich (1901 – 1944), Soviet Army General, Hero of the Soviet Union. The troops under his command participated in the battles at Voronezh, Stalingrand, Kursk, river Dnepr, and in other battles. – AVG. 68 After the war the Deputy Political Commander of the 313rd Guard’s Artillery Regiment Y.H. Arzumanyan, professor, Honorary Scientist of the USSR, worked as a Director of the Institute of Economics in Moscow. A.M. Minasyan and Y.H. Arzumanyan continued to be close friends over the years after the war.– AVG. 69 To be more precise, the orders were of the Supreme Military Soviet and had to be carried out. The soldiers pointing their rifles at the Colonel would have pointed them at A.M. Minasyan as well, had he not ordered the Colonel to resume position. Such were the realities of the awful war. – AVG. 70 This was, certainly, an exclamation filled with sarcasm and a pity irony of the situation. – AVG. 71 Obviously the confusion was caused by the similarity of the two words in Russian: applause (aplodismenti) and apoplectic (apoplekticheskii). Moreover the Russian word for stroke is udar, which seemed to be the same as ura (Hooray!) in Antipov’s speech. Naturally that had caused disturbance in the lecture. – AVG. 72 SMERSh – “Smert’ Shpionam” – “Death to the Spies” was a counterintelligence organization set up by the Soviet military command in 1943 to expose and prosecute Nazi spies in the Soviet Army. – AVG. 73 Order of Lenin – an award established by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on April 6, 1930. The Order was awarded to individuals, community groups, professional unions, and military regiments for extraordinary deeds and achievements for the Motherland. – AVG. 74 Rostov State Construction University or former Rostov Engineering and Construction Institute [RISI] in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia. – AVG. 75 Vlasov, Andrei Andreevich (1901 – 1946) – Lieutenant-General. Vlasov commanded the 2nd Attack Army (Volkhovsky Front). The Army was surrounded in spring of 1942. After being taken as a POW Vlasov headed the “Russian Liberation Army” within the Nazi Army, the military operations of which were directed against the Soviet troops. V. was captured in 1945. Later by the order of the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR was executed. – AVG.

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Thalmann, Ernest (1886 – 1944) – famous German statesman for the international workers’ movement. Th. actively fought against fascism in Germany. After 1933 he worked underground. Th. was later arrested by the Gestapo and was kept in the Berlin prison Moabith (1933-37), Hanover (1937-43) and later Bautzen. Th. kept constant contact with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany through his wife, Rose Thalmann, and daughter Irma. Th. was taken to Buchenwald in 1944 where he was executed at Hitler’s and Himmler’s direct orders. – AVG. 77 PPZh – rus. pokhodno-polevye zheny (field - march wives) – an acronym popular in the Soviet army during WWII and commonly applied to women serving in the army. The term referred to the “girlfriends” - unofficial wives of high and medium ranking officers. – AVG. 78 Dzerjinsky, Felix Edmundovich (1877 – 1926) – Soviet political statesman, Peoples Commissary of Internal Affairs of RSFSR (1919-1923). D. was one of the organizers of the “red terror” campaign, mass repression against the enemy’s of Soviet power. Simultaneously with other duties, D. worked on alleviating the problem of orphans in Russia. – AVG. 79 Here the reference is to the key statement of the dialectics – unity of contradictions in any phenomenon – and its vital importance in the process of intellectual research and cognition, especially in questions relating to the society. A more detailed understanding of the method of dialectics can be found in A.M. Minasyan’s work titled “Dialectics as Logic” – AVG. 80 Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich (1898 – 1976) – biologist, agriculturist, academician of Soviet Academy of Sciences, President of the Agricultural Sciences Academy of V.I. Lenin (rus. acronym: VASKhNIL). L. worked as an agro-selectionist in Azerbaijan, Odessa and later in Moscow. He believed that absolutely any plant can be artificially grown. He rejected [now commonly accepted] theory of chromosome heredity. Under Lysenko’s supervision the Soviet science of genetics was destroyed and practically ceased to exist. Years later, his ideas were disproven as based on misleading research and falsifications of the experiments’ results. Lysenko was one among the many criticized by N.S. Khurshev in 1956. – AVG. 81 Zhdanov, Uriy Andreevich (1919 – 2006) - Academician of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Doctor of Chemical Sciences. Zh. was awarded the Orders of Great Patriotic War, Red Star and various combat medals. From 1947 until 1953 he worked as the Deputy Secretary of the Science Department of CC of CPSU. Later, he led the work of the Science and Culture department of the Rostov-naDonu Regional Party Committee. Then he became the Rector of the Rostov State University (RSU). U.A. Zhdanov is a prominent scientist. He established the first department of Natural Chemistry. RSU under his patronage transformed to be one of the leading universities in Russia with an emphasis on natural sciences and humanitarian subjects. The first Department of Theory of Culture was established at RSU on his initiative. Zhdanov widely published in subjects of theory of culture, prominent figures of science and culture. Mr. U.A. Zhdanov lived and worked in Rostov-na-Donu. – AVG.

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G.S. Vasetskiy was the Director of the Philosophy Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR between 1946-1947. A.M. Minasyan, actually, must have met and discussed his dissertation topic with G.F. Aleksandrov, who occupied that position until 1955. – AVG. 83 Stepanyan, Mikhail Armenakovich (1918 – 1997) – was author’s first cousin. They were related through their mothers. Stepanyan was the son of Mane Poghosovna – sister of Shushanik Poghosovna, mother of Artavazd Mikhailovich. Stepanyan was a Captain and a combat pilot. While studying in the Pilot’s college, Stepanyan had met Vasilii Stalin, son of Joseph Stalin. Later on he became Vasilii’s personal adjutant. In the “cleansing” that had occurred after Stalin’s death in 1953, Stepanyan was arrested among others (following earlier arrest of Vasilii). M.A. Stepanyan was the only person of dozens arrested in relation to Vasilii’s arrest who did not testify against Vasilii. That was noted in all official protocols and subsequent official and journalistic investigations. Stepanyan, quiet in the interrogation rooms, had his teeth beaten out and one could see traces of severe injuries from beating on his body. After his release from prison Stepanyan lived in Moscow, working as the General Director of the “Temp” factory. His wife, Evgenia Mkrtychevna Stepanyan, currently resides in Moscow. – AVG. 84 Liza Chaikina and Zoya Kosmodemianskaya – young women, heroes who served in the ranks of the Red Army’s partisan groups. They were tortured and murdered by the Fascists during WWII. – AVG. 85 Zevin was the son of a better known Zevin, Y.D. (1888 – 1918) a revolutionary, People’s Commissary of Labor who was one of the 26 Baku Commissar – 26 prominent revolutionaries in the Caucasus executed September 20, 1918 during the fall of the Baku Soviet – Y.D. Zevin was executed with the others. – AVG. 86 Alternative translation of Hegel’s quote reads: “… the bare result is the corpse which has left the guiding tendency behind it.” (G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, English ed., 1977, p.3) – AVG. 87 Marr, Nikolay Yakovlevich (1865 – 1934) – A prominent linguist, philologist, historian, and archeologist. Marr specialized in the history, archeology and ethnography of Caucasus. He researched and published a number of ancient and important works of Armenian and Georgian literary legacy in the series of “Texts and Findings on Armenian-Georgian Philology.” In Marr’s view a language is a social superstructure value similar to art. Language serves as a “driving belt” in the superstructure category of any society. According to Marr, language initially had appeared across many nations independently, but because culture is one entity and in its development goes through the same stages, all processes are similar across nations as well. Marr played an influential role in the history of the Soviet academia as an organizer and mentor of several generations of linguists and orientalists. He made great contributions in researching the languages of the people of the USSR and creation of alphabets for the languages that had no written history. Marr was awarded an honorary Order of Lenin. – AVG. 88 Bliaga is uncommon in Russian. Being a foreign word it rhymes with a harsh profanity in Russian slang. – AVG. 89 Tito, Broz (1892 – 1980) – political statesman of the Soviet Federative Republic

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of Yugoslavia; General secretary (later President) of the Union of the Communists of Yugoslavia (1939-1980); Commander in Chief of the Yugoslavian Armed Forces (1945-1980), Marshall, President (1953-1980). His ideas lay at the foundation of the “second Yugoslavia” – socialist federation after WWII. T. was the first Communist leader in power, who had openly declared his vision of socialist development, putting him in direct opposition to the generally accepted Soviet doctrine at the time. – AVG. 90 As elsewhere in this story, there is a play of words specific to the Russian language. A native speaker would catch that the intended word was not “chertei” (devils) but rather “chert” (characteristic features). – AVG. 91 This “revised” spelling of the young lady’s name may be consonant to a less polite word in Russian. – AVG. 92 Titov, Herman Stepanovich (1935 – 2000) – Soviet pilot-cosmonaut, MajorGeneral (1975), Hero of the Soviet Union (1961). August 6-7, 1961 Titov completed the second ever flight into space on a spaceship “Vostok-2.” In 1991 Titov was elected to the Russian State Duma in 1995. He is the author of several monographs. – AVG. 93 The topic of A.M. Minasyan’s dissertation was “The Categories of the Content and the Form” – AVG. 94 Quite obviously the joke is based on play of words, explanation of which is omitted to avoid over-complexity of the text. – AVG. 95 Surb-Khach – [arm. Holy Cross] – one of the few remaining Armenian churches on the territory of Russia. It is situated in Rostov – na-Donu in the city’s Northern district. – AVG. 96 N.M. Minasyan was commissioned to go to Armenia to negotiate with the government of the Soviet Armenia their involvement in and funding of the reconstruction process. He returned to Rostov having had successfully accomplished the main task. – AVG. 97 Isahakyan, Avetik (1875 – 1957) – famous Armenian poet and prosaic. Isahakyan was born on October 31, 1875 near Gyumri, Armenia. Ishakyan was the Chairman of the Soviet Committee for Defense of Peace. During 1946-57 he was the Chairman of the Union of the Writers of Armenia. Ishakyan’s poems, translated into several foreign languages, have served as inspiration for new music and lyrics for songs. The official censure prevented any publication of “Abu-Lala Mahari.” A.I. died October 17, 1957 in Yerevan, Armenia. – AVG. 98 Ustinov, Dmitrii Fedorovich (1908 – 1984) – Soviet statesman. Marshall of the USSR (1976); Hero of the Socialist Labor (1942, 1961); Hero of the Soviet Union (1978). Between 1941 and 1957 Ustinov served as the People’s Commissary (Minister since 1946) of Arms, Minister of Military Industry of the USSR. 1957-65 Ustinov served as a Deputy, then First Deputy of the Chairman of the Soviet of the Ministers of the USSR and Chairman of VSNKh USSR. 1965-1976 served as the Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the CPSU. From 1976 he served as the member of Politburo of the CC CPSU, becoming later on the Minister of Defense. – AVG. 99 Vuchetich, Evgenii Viktorovich (1908 – 1974) – Soviet sculptor; People’s Artist

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of the USSR (1959), Hero of the Socialist Labor (1967), active member of the National Academy of Arts of the USSR (1953). V. is well known for his grandiose, large scale monuments and sculptures. – AVG. 100 To be able to complexly and accurately understand the paragraph the reader is reminded that the original manuscript of this book was written by the author during the times of reforms of late 1980s early 1990s in the USSR. – AVG. 101 Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828 – 1889) – Russian revolutionary, thinker, writer, economist, philosopher. At the root of Ch.’s outlook was the anthropological principle. Citing the general notions of the “human nature,” human’s drive to “self benefit,” Ch. argued for the necessity of revolutionary change of social relations and forms of ownership in the Russian society of mid XIXth century. Along with Gertsen, Chernyshevsky is the forefather of the narodnik movement in Russia. In 1862 he was arrested and later exiled to Siberia for the activities directed at overthrowing the existing order in the tsarist Russia. – AVG. 102 Hobbes, Thomas (1588 – 1679) – English philosopher, materialist. H. adhered to the principle of initial equality of all people among themselves. H., most famous for his view on politics, assigns a special, supreme role to the government - the state - as the absolute sovereign. – AVG. 103 Lenin’s Will – is considered to be a compilation of articles and letters dictated by Lenin at the end of 1922-beginning 1923, that comprised his “Political Will.” Those works were intended for the 12th Communist Party Session. In those works, Lenin called for the necessity “to realize the core change of our point of view on socialism.” He had suggested some ways of that new direction: socialism was to be a regime of civilized cooperators with state ownership on means of productions; the center focus was to shift to peaceful organizational and cultural, in the widest sense of its meaning, work (see Lenin “Full Works”, Volume 45, pp. 373, 376-377 – Russian language edition). Substantiating the plan of federative restructuring of the Soviet republics he wrote: “I think I am guilty before the workers of Russia, for I did not interfere with adequate energy and rigidity in the discussion of the alleged question of self-government…Apparently, this whole idea of “autonomy” is wrong at its root and is inopportune. They say we needed a unity of the state apparatus… [the idea of the] “freedom of exiting the Union” that we console ourselves with will turn out to be a useless piece of paper that would be unable to protect the non Russian element from the ... villain, as the typical Russian bureaucrat is.” (ibid. pp. 356-57) Further: “...we must introduce most strict rules regarding the use of the national language in the non-Russian republics of our Union” (ibid. p.361), returning to the question of the sole state apparatus, he said “…keep the union of the Soviet Socialist Republics as a military and diplomatic entity only, in all other respects the self-governance of the individual People Committees should be restored and granted” (ibid. pp.361-362). In his “Letter to the Session” Lenin had suggested to transfer J.V. Stalin from the position of the General Secretary to another office, being aware and assured that once Stalin accumulated that enormous power in his hands he would not be able to apply it “with sufficient caution” (ibid. pp.345-346). – AVG.

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“Six Conditions” – was the name of the economic development program presented by Stalin in 1931, where among other “reforms” it was signed into law to determine wages based on one’s labor, thus rejecting the prevalent equalization of incomes. – AVG. 105 Gaidar, Yegor Timurovich (born 1956) – economist, reformer of the Russian economic theory and economy in general in the early 1990s; former Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR government on issues of Economics; Minister of Economy and Finances of the RSFSR; Director of the “Institute of Economics of Transitional Period.” The essence of the transition reforms under Gaidar’s leadership was complete remission of the so-called limitations of the socialist system, i.e. administrative planning, price liberalization, total privatization and support of free market doctrine of laissez-faire. Clearly, the economic and social transformations of early 1990s lay at the basis of modern developments in the former Soviet Union countries. – AVG. 106 Here the names are translated as written in the original text by the author, i.e. short names in the Russian language. – AVG.