Thread by @akoz33

As I keep reading the memoirs of Vyacheslav Ivanov, I will keep tweeting some rough translation of some of the most interesting things. Today two fragments about Alexander Fadeev, the founder and chairman of the Unionnof Soviet writers, who committed a suicide after Khrushchev’s

speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956.
“My grandmother was a “dacha friend” of Fadeev’s mother, Antonina Vladimirovna Kunts. She came from such an old-regime revolutionary intelligentsia, that is, according to her ideas, there was a certain system of rules that govern

relations between people. Now, when they write about Fadeev, they usually say that he repented his role in many arrests. I know that, for example, in the case of the Leningrad poet Spassky there is a telegram:

“Arrest Spassky. Fadeev. ” This is because he was the leader of the Writers' Union. According to the unwritten rules of those years, arrest was made with the consent of the main party member responsible for any institution. So, Fadeev was responsible for all arrests of

writers. But I imagine, now they say that because of this he committed suicide - and I doubt it. I have known Fadeev since the late thirties...

Now I turn to that day, about a month and a half before Fadeev committed suicide. The 20th Congress has already taken place.

Khrushchev’s report was delivered on February 25, 1956, and Fadeev committed suicide in early May. So this is mid-March or something like that. Still there was snow, I remember, so blue, wonderful ... “Spring of the Light”, according to Prishvin. We went for a walk with the

whole family. At the gate we are caught up with by Fadeev: "Let me go with you." We go, talk about various topics. Here are some things that are interesting in order to understand Fadeev’s state before the suicide.
He is no longer working. No longer leads the Writers' Union.

But he remains a member of the Central Committee, that is, he is still a very big Bolshevik. Among the manuscripts that the publishing house gives him are the memoirs of Goldenweiser. And Fadeev with some envy and enthusiasm tells us: “This is such a wonderful book!

This great pianist, who knew Tolstoy well, left an idealistic idea of ​​life. Well, of course, it’s impossible to print it now! ”We are returning from a walk. Fadeev is coming with us. He stayed with us till late night. He asks me: Have you got Gogol’s works here? Please bring

me “Viy”. I bring it. Fadeev finds quickly, he knows the text well, the scene of flying with the witch. And he reads this scene - amazingly! He is drunk, but reads well. But the most important thing is that he reads, as it were, from the point of view of a man who is now being

made to fly by a witch. Then Fadeev said: this torments me all the time and now I will tell you about it...”

It’s 1932. This is the beginning of Gorky's slow returns from Italy to Moscow. Mussolini is already there, as you know, and he will have to leave sooner or later. And the material side is important, because Gorky receives huge money from Russia and ceases to

receive pay from Western publishers - the glory is gone. This terrible crisis of 1929 has just taken place, so literature in general is not a way to make money in Europe. One way or another, Gorky is in a state of half-return to Russia.

For his final return, Stalin prepared a gift for him: a decree of the Central Committee on the dissolution of the RAAP, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. The decision was adopted without consultation with Gorky, and Gorky did not agree.

Father was invited to a private meeting at Gorky’s. Gorky said: I am against it, I think that it was wrongly closed, the party should not interfere in the affairs of proletarian writers. Since Fadeev is one of the leaders of the RAAP, he decides that he,

like an honest Bolshevik, should write a letter to Pravda. He, Fadeev, was the leader, but now the party has decided, the party must be right. He tells us: “Nevertheless, the mood is terrible. They made such a decision, printed it in Pravda - what will they do to us?

Nobody calls us, we drink with the poet Lugovsky. ” And then suddenly the bell rang: it’s Yagoda, the patron of the RAAP, the same chief minister of OGPU and then the NKVD. “You haven’t been with me for a long time, come to my country house.”

They are happy - well, everything will clear up, such a powerful man calls them! They go. Yagoda greeted them rather coolly. I am retelling almost literally Fadeev’s story. And Yagoda says to Fadeev: “Sasha, we have not played billiards together for a long time.

Let's go to the Fadeev room! ” When they start playing billiards, Yagoda says to him: “Look, what have you done? You have betrayed your friends! You led the RAAP - how could you write a letter? ” Fadeev said that there had mixed feelings, to be told such a thing by the man

holding the most powerful post in this terrible ministry. He could have had me arrested on the spot! One cannot agree but to disagree is also dangerous. But what Yagoda says is also dangerous for him, because that was a decision of the Central Committee, which means of Stalin.

And Fadeev begins to scream ... Fadeev had a loud voice, I remember it very well, his laugh was very high pitched, this terrible laugh came from a neighboring cottage ... He shouted: “How can you, an old Bolshevik ...”

And Yagoda was a member of the Bolshevik party simply from his youth in Nizhny Novgorod, whence his acquaintance and even friendship with Gorky. “How can you, an old Bolshevik, blame me, a young Bolshevik, for what I have done? Once the party has made such a decision

I must support it. Yagoda very roughly and abruptly cuts it off. Fadeev leaves the billiard room and tells Lugovsky: “No, that's it, Volodya, we are returning. Bye". They go back downcast. They are caught up in a car by no lesser figure than the deputy head of the OGPU and

the chairman of “ Dynamo”Georgy Prokofiev, who was also shot later: “Where are you going?” “Well, back to Moscow.” “And I will also go go to Moscow to catch you.” At home, Fadeev falls into even greater torment, because, well, he had a falling out with the country's chief

secret policeman - it is clear that it will end badly. Then Fadeev wrote a letter to the Central Committee in which he described everything, the whole conversation — how Yagoda permitted himself to oppose the Central Committee’s resolution.

Next, Fadeev tells us about 1939 - Stalin’s 60th birthday. There is a ceremonial meeting, on the podium of Voroshilov, Kalinin, Molotov, are the closest people. One of them descends into the hall to Fadeev and says: "Please, come to sit with us."

He is surprised, because only the leaders sit there, he is not of this rank. One of them in a whispers: “We want to explain to you why Joseph Vissarionovich treats you so well. He appreciates you very highly. He says that you are the only one at a time when no one reported

the thinking of Yagoda. " Fadeev admits to us: “And here I have to say that in fact I didn’t just write the letter then, and when I found out two or three years later that Yagoda was arrested, they turned to me and I already wrote a formal denunciation of him. " This is what

he considered his main crime.

This is shocking, right? According to the rules of decent people, to whom, of course, Antonina Vladimirovna Fadeev’s mother belonged, if he is a friend of Yagoda, then he does not write not only denunciations, but even letters about private

conversations with Yagoda. But I am inclined to think that after all he knew a little more. That is, he knew that, in fact, Yagoda did not like Stalin much and that, I think, there really existed a project to get rid of Stalin.

This is what is usually associated with the XVII Party Congress, the problem of Kirov, who was the main target. And if that was so, than it was not just a case of a personal betrayal but of political betrayal on a huge scale.