Prosecutors of two eras. Andrey Vyshinsky and Roman Rudenko Zvyagintsev Alexander Grigorievich

Chapter Three Stalin's Prosecutor

Chapter Three

Stalin's prosecutor

Ivan Alekseevich Akulov served as prosecutor of the USSR until March 1935. He enjoyed the unchanging sympathy of his subordinates. Here is what a former employee of the Prosecutor's Office of the Union N. A. Orlov wrote about him: “Akulov was in the full sense of the word a charming man, a man of a broad Russian soul. He loved life and nature. Going on vacation, he loved to travel, learn and show others new, beautiful places, was a connoisseur of art, loved and understood music. At home, this was the ideal of a family man, an unusually loving father. He highly valued friendship, knew how to make friends and was a faithful, reliable friend.

Apparently, Stalin did not like these qualities of his. And although Akulov, like other persons who stood at the pinnacle of power, blindly fulfilled all the requirements of the leader (even contrary to the law), he understood that not such a person was needed as the prosecutor of the USSR. The intelligent and gentle Akulov was clearly not suitable for the role of the organizer of mass repressions.

By the Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of March 3, 1935 (signed by M. Kalinin and I. Unshlikht), I. A. Akulov was approved as Secretary of the Central Executive Committee with release from his previous duties.

A.Ya. Vyshinsky was appointed the new prosecutor of the Union, who managed to obligingly and meekly fulfill the role of the "chief inquisitor" of the leader. His Menshevik past was consigned to oblivion. During the four years that Vyshinsky served as Prosecutor of the USSR, he was able to fully master all the key positions of legal science and practice. The former Prosecutor of the RSFSR A. A. Volin, in an interview with the authors, said that at that time “the voice of only one person was heard everywhere - Vyshinsky.”

The orders and instructions of the new Procurator of the USSR, which had previously not been distinguished by softness, now sounded more firmly and harshly, especially when it came to the implementation of all kinds of decisions of the party and government. Vyshinsky demanded that his subordinates initiate criminal proceedings and bring officials and citizens to trial for a wide variety of offenses: authorized procurement committees for failing to hand over grain delivery obligations to collective farms and individual farms; heads of collective farms and state farms - for handing over “healthy pregnant cattle” for slaughter, as well as for concealing livestock from accounting, for failure to fulfill plans for meat and milk supplies, for castration of breeding cattle; other business executives - for violation of the smooth operation of irrigation facilities, for the unsanitary state of bakeries, for overtime work. At the same time, it was often proposed to initiate cases immediately upon receipt of certain reports, especially from party and Soviet bodies, and to complete the investigation in 2-5, maximum 10 days. Prosecutors aimed at carrying out "timely, well-aimed, socially organized and harsh repression" (a phrase from one order).

Having become the prosecutor of the Union, Vyshinsky began to reorganize the organs of the prosecutor's office. He created, under his chairmanship, the Central Methodological Commission, which included the heads of the apparatus of the USSR Prosecutor's Office and scientists, in particular Aleksandrov, Golunsky, Viktorov, Roginsky, Strogovich, Umansky, Sheinin. He organized a civil department, headed by his assistant B. L. Borisov. The statistics service was resolutely reorganized. By order of February 28, 1935, an information and statistical unit (as a sector) was organized in the USSR Prosecutor's Office, directly subordinate to the Union Prosecutor. It was headed by A. A. Gertsenzon.

From the very first days of taking up his new position, Vyshinsky developed exceptional activity: trips, meetings, meetings with activists, speeches with reports followed one after another. In March 1935, he visited Kiev, where he personally got acquainted with the work of the prosecutor's office. In April, he heard a report from the Prosecutor of the RSFSR V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko on the work of the prosecutor's office in combating the production of low-quality products. In August, he delivered a long report at a meeting of the Presidium of the Communist Academy, the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law, and the Institute of Criminal Policy in connection with the third anniversary of the law of August 7, 1932 (on the protection of socialist property).

On May 11, 1935, Vyshinsky issued an order, approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, "On strengthening supervision over revolutionary legality", which, of course, had a huge positive impact on the situation with the implementation of laws in the people's commissariats, local Soviets, enterprises, institutions and collective farms.

On June 10, 1935, under the chairmanship of Vyshinsky, an expanded operational-production meeting was held in the USSR Prosecutor's Office. Two reports were submitted for discussion by its participants: on measures for general supervision and on social workers (Roginsky spoke) and on work with personnel (reported by Vavilov). In Roginsky's report on general oversight, the main idea was the need for a decisive restructuring of work, starting from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and ending with the district level. It was proposed, in particular, to establish a close relationship between the prosecutor's office and the legal departments and legal advisers of people's commissariats, enterprises and institutions, to visit organizations regularly, to participate in the work of executive committees, etc.

Summing up the discussion of Roginsky's report, Vyshinsky warned prosecutors against two dangers: "going to extremes" and watching "all sorts of trifles", which would only distract prosecutors from their most important work; and "taking on the role of consultants" for business and organizational leaders.

In Vavilov's report, the key point was the issue of staffing the prosecutor's offices, since at that time more than 2 thousand people were missing with exceptionally high turnover, which in some republics reached 30 percent. When discussing this issue, Vyshinsky proposed to deeply study the peripheral personnel, especially in the operational sectors, so that "the leadership of their movement was of a very operational nature and was based not on any official moments, not on purely paper data, but on a systematic, in-depth familiarization with living human cadres and with their real work on specific cases.

In August 1935, Vyshinsky participated in the trial in Baku in the case of the sinking of the tanker "Soviet Azerbaijan".

At the beginning of September of the same year, he delivered a long speech in Tiflis "On socialist legality and on the immediate tasks of the court and the prosecutor's office" at a meeting of senior officials of the court and prosecutor's office of the Transcaucasian republics. Messages on it were made by people's commissars of justice and prosecutors of the republics of Armenia - Ketykyan, Azerbaijan - Yagubov and Georgian - Ramishvili.

In 1935, when Vyshinsky was already the prosecutor of the Union, the authorities began to somewhat limit the scope of repressions against workers, mainly peasants. They also "condemned" the practice of "unauthorized arrests" and demanded that the officials coordinate the arrests with the prosecutors. A secret resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 17, 1935 "On the procedure for coordinating arrests" was adopted. It should be noted that in practice this provision was not always respected, especially in “counter-revolutionary cases”, to which the prosecutors simply “turned a blind eye”. Moreover, there were even cases when they gave signed blank forms for arrest to the NKVD bodies, in which it was required only to put down the last name, first name and patronymic of the arrested person, and also gave sanctions “backdating”. During mass campaigns, prosecutors were often on duty at night so that NKVD workers could obtain an arrest warrant immediately.

Simultaneously with the strengthening of "control over arrests", the process of reviewing some cases against collective farmers and representatives of rural authorities, who were convicted in the early 1930s, began. Vyshinsky grasped this situation very correctly and in December 1935 turned to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with a proposal on the need to review the sentences under the law of August 7, 1932, passed before January 1, 1935. The Politburo agreed with him, and in January 1936 a corresponding decree was adopted. Tens of thousands of those convicted of theft were released.

Vyshinsky's work was quite intense in subsequent years as well. For example, on February 13, 1936, he met at the Prosecutor's Office of the Union with employees and activists of the Prosecutor's Office of the Kalinin Region. The conversation went on for about four hours. The prosecutor of the region Nazarov was the first to ask for the floor. According to him, in the last year alone, the number of activists has doubled and exceeded seven thousand people. They signaled violations of the law, embezzlement and abuse that they noticed, helped to consider complaints and newspaper articles, acted as prosecutors in court, helped to study criminal cases subject to appeal, and the most legally trained of them even independently investigated criminal cases. From among the activists, some social workers of prosecutors and investigators were selected and then nominated for permanent work in the prosecutor's office.

After Nazarov, employees of the regional prosecutor's office and members of the prosecutor's office assistance group who were present at the meeting spoke. Here is a small snippet from that conversation.

Psheora(assistant prosecutor of the city of Kalinin). I am a former worker at the Vagzhanov factory. Prior to joining the prosecutor's office, she worked in the asset. In 1934, she was promoted to the post of assistant prosecutor. From that time on, I had to lead the work with the city's activists ... Special teams were created from the asset: for alimony cases, which monitors the timely payment of alimony for the maintenance of children; on cooperation, which is actively fighting against waste and theft in retail outlets, and others.

Vyshinsky. Isn't it difficult for you, comrade Psheorskaya, to work?

Psheora. I cope with the work entrusted to me, although I still have no special legal training. Now this issue has been resolved, and a special teacher is attached by the regional prosecutor's office to improve my literacy. Comrade Nazarov has already released the money for this.

Vyshinsky. Comrade Psheorskaya, are you being helped in your practical work?

Psheora. Of course, they help, because without this help I, an ordinary worker, would not be able to cope with such a big job. In particular, Comrade Nazarov helps me very well. I often turn to my city prosecutor, comrade Ragozin, for help. I promise to improve my political and legal literacy and achieve even better results in my work.

Then the collective farmer A. A. Valova, who worked in the assistance group for more than a year, spoke. To Vyshinsky’s question, how does she manage to work on a collective farm, raise four children and actively help the prosecutor’s office, she replied: “When I need to do social work, I leave my husband with the kids.”

Vyshinsky. Is he an activist too?

Valova. Yes, an activist, when he drinks wine, but in a sober state he is a completely backward person. I often have to argue and prove to him that you need to work more and drink less. These difficulties will not stop me, I will continue to work in the Stakhanov way on the collective farm and in the asset of the prosecutor's office.

Activists of the prosecutor's office, worker Belozerov, tractor driver Chumakov, teacher Galakhova and others also spoke at this meeting.

In conclusion, Vyshinsky noted the great successes achieved by the prosecutor's office of the Kalinin region in organizing and developing relations with assistance groups, especially highlighting the activities of the regional prosecutor Nazarov, his assistant Sadovnikov, the prosecutors of the city of Kalinin Ragozin, the Sebezhsky district of Pirogov and the Vyshnevolotsky district of Evgrafov. “The work of the Kalinin residents,” he stressed, “shows that groups assisting the prosecutor's office have taken deep roots in our land. This is good and very important. Here one of the most important principles of socialist construction is implemented - the direct participation of the working masses in the administration of the state. Vyshinsky thanked the activists for their work and said that the Union Prosecutor's Office would learn a serious lesson from this conversation. He promised to assist the activists in organizing correspondence courses and supplying them with relevant literature.

In the spring of 1936, Vyshinsky made a report at the Institute of Criminal Policy on the topic "Problems of evaluating evidence in the Soviet criminal process." In it, he criticized the attitudes voiced in the reports of professors M. M. Grodzinsky and V. S. Strogovich, who, in his opinion, underestimated the “subjective principles” in judicial work. The first considered it necessary to remove from the Code of Criminal Procedure the mention of “inner conviction”, the second one “diminished the creative and active role” of the judge’s inner conviction. Vyshinsky said that the rejection of inner conviction as a criterion, as a way of evaluating evidence, leads to a narrowing of the creative activity of a judge, and this must inevitably entail the introduction of a formal order into such an important and complex area of ​​judicial work, which binds the will and activity of the judge. "This provision is in direct contradiction with the requirements of our era," he stressed. In conclusion, Vyshinsky said that the work of a judge is creative, active, political, and that "objectification of evidence" should not be imposed on him. "The court should be as free as possible in assessing the evidence."

In March 1936, Vyshinsky spoke at the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR on issues of judicial policy and judicial work (reports were made by Chairman of the Supreme Court Vinokurov and director of the Institute of Criminal Policy Shlyapochnikov). The Prosecutor of the Union subjected Vinokurov’s report to crushing criticism, calling it a “statistical and accounting” rather than a political report, since, in his opinion, it did not “identify the key issues of judicial policy”, there is no “leading thread”, there is no “main core ". Hence the debate went "scattered, chaotically", capturing certain topics "superficially, carelessly, without clear guidelines." Vyshinsky called Antonov-Saratovsky's speech "strange", and the content of his speech - "hard to catch". He also did not like Shlyapochnikov's report, which "gave nothing", and Krylenko's speech.

On May 29 of the same year, Vyshinsky held a meeting at the USSR Prosecutor's Office with people's investigators from the prosecutor's offices of the Moscow and Kalinin regions. The first to speak was the prosecutor of the Kalinin region, Nazarov. He gave a depressing picture of the state of the investigative apparatus. Of the 69 investigators, more than 65 percent had a lower education, and 29 percent had a secondary education. Only three investigators had higher education; two investigators graduated from a one-year law school, and 16 - from six-month courses. And yet, each of the investigators managed to complete up to 7 cases per month. Scientific and technical means were practically not used. In addition, 13 investigators still temporarily acted as district prosecutors.

After his speech, Vyshinsky was forced to admit: “Our investigative apparatus has degraded. It has degraded in terms of its class stratum, it has degraded in terms of general training, it has degraded in terms of legal and legal training ... The investigative apparatus is the backyard of our apparatus as a whole; Unfortunately it is so. They sent to the investigators those who had nowhere else to send ... They distributed those who graduated from universities in such a way that candidates for district prosecutors were selected first of all, worse - they were sent to court, and very bad ones - to investigators. He further said that it was necessary “to strive to ensure that justice workers are legionnaires of our Soviet law ... Investigators and prosecutors should be people without human weaknesses ... these should be people for whom the issue of law and law is a matter of life and death, not a question of their service. Vyshinsky admitted that "we, unfortunately, are very far from this task."

On July 13-16, 1936, the second All-Union Conference of Prosecutors took place in Moscow. It was attended by the prosecutors of the union and autonomous republics, territories, regions, large cities, water basins, railways. The meeting participants sent letters of greeting to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. V. Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. M. Molotov and Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR M. I. Kalinin. Greetings were sent to the former prosecutor of the Union, I. A. Akulov, who, after an illness, assumed the duties of secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, as well as to the prosecutor of the Kharkov region, M. I. Bron, who could not attend the meeting because of the assassination attempt (he was injured).

The meeting heard the reports of the prosecutor of the Union Vyshinsky "Stalin's Constitution and the tasks of the organs of justice" and his deputy Roginsky "Organizational issues of the restructuring of the prosecutor's office in the light of the draft Stalin Constitution." Vyshinsky began his report with praises of the draft of the new Constitution, which even then everyone began to call Stalin's. Then he cited Stalin's words that the Soviet Union lagged behind other developed countries by 50-100 years: “We must “run” this distance of 10 years. Either we do it, or we will be crushed.” Thanks to the advantages of the Soviet system and socialist democracy, this task turned out to be quite feasible, Vyshinsky remarked optimistically. Speaking about the section of the draft Constitution on the bodies of the prosecutor's office, he criticized the point of view put forward by Antonov-Saratovsky in an article published in Pravda that the USSR Prosecutor's Office should be included in the People's Commissariat of Justice, as well as the ideas of Krylenko, who tried in the constitutional commission to raise the issue of excluding the word “supreme” from the section of the draft Constitution on the Prosecutor’s Office in relation to supervision. "This is a very small proposal, harmless at first glance, but it could lead to extremely serious consequences," Vyshinsky stressed. He further said: "We have every reason to say that the current Prosecutor's Office of the Union is being built as a single independent system of prosecutorial bodies, purely centralized."

Then Vyshinsky proceeded to present the main tasks facing the prosecution authorities, dwelling in more detail on two areas: on issues related to general supervision, and on issues of judicial supervision. He noted that now instead of departments of industry, agriculture, etc., departments of general supervision, investigative, criminal-judicial and others will be created. At the same time, Vyshinsky criticized the point of view of Antonov-Saratovsky and Vinogradov, who believed that the investigative apparatus should be removed from the prosecutor's office and transferred to the justice authorities or the court.

Vyshinsky's ideas on the structure of the prosecutor's office were specified in Roginsky's report.

1936 turned out to be a very eventful year for the Union Prosecutor. Vyshinsky spoke endlessly in numerous audiences on a wide variety of issues: at the Moscow Regional Congress of members of the Collegium of Defenders, at a meeting in the Prosecutor's Office of the Ukrainian SSR, at the Eighth Congress of Soviets.

He also held some non-traditional meetings. On August 31, he hosted the participants and organizers of a large march in rowing boats along the Volga. Seven activists of the prosecutor's office of the Kimrsky district of the Kalinin region S. I. Bolozerov, A. A. Goryachev, M. S. Andreyanova, S. N. Streibo, S. M. Bulanov, E. N. Sokolova and V. V. Zhukov, workers - Stakhanovites of the Savelovsky Mechanical Plant and the Krasnaya Zvezda shoe factory covered the distance from Kimry to Astrakhan in record time - in 25 days. Along the way, they got acquainted with the work of the assistance groups of the prosecutor's offices of the Gorky, Kuibyshev, Saratov, Stalingrad regions, the Republic of the Volga Germans and shared their own experience.

The organizers of the transition, the prosecutors of the Kimrsky district V. S. Shevrygin and the Kalinin region L. Ya. Nazarov, as well as all its participants, were awarded with valuable gifts.

From August 20 to September 1, the first All-Union Training Conference of People's and Senior Investigators was held at the USSR Prosecutor's Office, and from September 1 to 10, the second conference of investigators from military, railway and water transport prosecutor's offices was held. They were attended by 116 of the best investigators in the country, most of whom had more than six years of experience. After the conference, Vyshinsky held a meeting with the investigators. In December of the same year, the third conference of investigators took place.

On November 5, 1936, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the new structure of the Prosecutor's Office of the Union presented by Vyshinsky. Production departments (industrial, trade, cooperation and finance, and others) were liquidated. The new structure consisted of 15 divisions: the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, the Chief Prosecutor's Office of Railway Transport, the Chief Prosecutor's Office of Water Transport, departments of general supervision, criminal and civil judicial, investigative, special cases, supervision of places of detention and others. Directly attached to the Prosecutor of the USSR were prosecutors for special assignments, investigators for the most important cases, inspectors and consultants. In relation to this structure, the prosecutor's offices of the union and autonomous republics, territories and regions had to build their own apparatus.

By order of October 29, 1936, Vyshinsky, “in order to unite the methodological leadership of the investigation of all prosecution bodies,” transformed the Central Methodological Commission into the Methodological Council under the Prosecutor of the USSR. On November 22, opening its first meeting, Vyshinsky said that, first of all, a number of important issues had to be resolved: about the classification card of an investigator, about organizing training conferences, about social workers for investigators, about an open investigation. After that, the members of the methodological council discussed the draft plan of methodological measures, which was reported by E. E. Leventon. In total, four meetings of the Methodological Council were held in 1936.

On December 25-28, 1936, the first All-Union Conference of employees of the court and the prosecutor's office in civil cases was held in Moscow. It was opened by the People's Commissar of Justice of the USSR N. V. Krylenko and Deputy Prosecutor of the USSR G. M. Leplevsky. Vyshinsky was not present at the opening of the meeting; at that time he was preparing for the trial of the Trotskyist anti-Soviet center, but then he arrived and made a big speech. Reports were made by Deputy Chairman of the Civil Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR Reichel, Chairman of the analogous collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR Lisitsyn, and Assistant Prosecutor of the USSR Borisov.

In 1937-1938, Vyshinsky still spoke a lot in various audiences, sometimes making great speeches, in particular at a meeting of prosecutors for water and rail transport, repeatedly at the Law Academy and at the assets of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, at meetings of prosecutors in the Byelorussian SSR and the Leningrad Region , at the 4th session of the CEC of the USSR of the 8th convocation and at the 2nd session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, at the plenums of the Supreme Court of the USSR, at the All-Union Conference on Legal Education, at the party-Soviet-Komsomol activists in Saratov, at the general meeting of students and teachers of the Law Institute, at a meeting of members of the electoral district commissions of Moscow and the Moscow region. He held several night meetings with the prosecutors of the republics, territories and regions by radio, for example, on April 10, 1937, at such a meeting, the work of the prosecutor's office was discussed and complaints and statements were considered.

On July 20, 1937, the "merits" of A. Ya. Vyshinsky in strengthening "revolutionary legality" were awarded a high award - the Order of Lenin. As was customary at that time, numerous telegrams and letters of congratulations were addressed to him from prosecutors, representatives of the justice authorities, courts, legal institutions, and even from “specialists and employees of the Irkutsk enterprises of Glavryba” and “employees of the Kursk Penkotrest”.

On August 29, 1937, in connection with the 15th anniversary of the prosecutor's office, a group of prosecutors was awarded orders. The Order of Lenin was awarded to the Deputy Prosecutor of the USSR G. K. Roginsky, the Order of the Red Star was awarded to the Chief Military Prosecutor N. S. Rozovsky, his assistant A. S. Grodko and the Military Prosecutor S. Ya. cases of the Prosecutor's Office of the Union L. R. Sheinin and M. Yu. Raginsky, the prosecutor of the West Siberian Territory I. I. Barkov, the prosecutor of the department for special cases A. M. Gluzman and the deputy prosecutor of the Union G. M. Leplevsky. The vast majority of those awarded were in one way or another connected with the preparation and conduct of political trials.

In 1936-1937, the USSR Prosecutor's Office organized a number of large-scale trials on the facts of gross and massive violations of the law on the ground revealed by inspections. These were the so-called Lepel, Shiryaev and Chechelnitsk trials. The process against the leaders of the Shiryaevsky district of the Odessa region was especially loud. The accused under it were the chairmen of the district executive committee and village councils, the secretary of the district party committee, heads of departments of the executive committee, and even the district prosecutor.

According to the indictment, violations of laws in the region were massive and expressed in direct mockery of people. Rough administration, mutual responsibility, nepotism were noted. Complaining to anyone in the area about these violations was useless. Chairman of the Viktorovsky village council Pugach cynically declared to the collective farmers: "You can complain to the light bulb." And those who tried to fight violations or appealed to higher authorities got even more. In retaliation for complaints to the central authorities, collective farmers were generally deprived of their property (for example, local authorities took everything from Vlasenko, even removed the collar from the dog). The chairmen of the village councils could organize with impunity the so-called "night shock brigades" to collect mandatory payments, during which the collective farmers, even those who lived several kilometers from the regional center, were summoned 5-10 times in one night for "talks" to the headquarters of the brigade, and for failure to appear were fined and their property described. People did not find support in the prosecutor's office either. At the trial, they said: "Our prosecutor is a small man." About the secretary of the district party committee, they said this: "A hat with a party card."

The visiting session of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR sentenced all the perpetrators in this case to imprisonment for a term of 3 to 10 years, including the district prosecutor.

A. Ya. Vyshinsky was one of the few Soviet prosecutors who not only did not shy away from the judicial platform, but spoke with pleasure in trials and felt confident and at ease. In this respect, only another born tribune, N. V. Krylenko, could compete with him. All prosecutors before Vyshinsky and after him (with the possible exception of R. A. Rudenko) did not “favor” the judicial tribune.

Vyshinsky not only spoke a lot himself, and at the most high-profile trials, but also demanded the same from his subordinates. On August 27, 1938, A. Ya. Vyshinsky recalled to the active workers of the USSR Prosecutor's Office: “I have repeatedly said that a prosecutor who does not appear in the courts of first instance is not a prosecutor.”

At a meeting of prosecutors in the Leningrad region in the same 1938, Vyshinsky again raised this issue. “Now our prosecutors shy away from appearing in court,” he said, “because they don't feel well prepared for the trial, partly because they don't have a taste for the case. These prosecutors forget that the court is the main arena of prosecutorial activity. I, as the prosecutor of the Union, must categorically declare that I will continue to vigorously fight against such a fundamentally wrong attitude of some prosecutors towards this duty of theirs.

The prosecutor is a public figure, the prosecutor is a judicial tribune, the public prosecutor is a representative of the interests of the state in court. When the prosecutor supports the accusation that he initiated, and when he refuses to support the accusation, he equally remains a representative of state interests, an envoy of the state, a spokesman for state truth.

We talked about some of the trials in which Vyshinsky supported the prosecution, being the prosecutor of the RSFSR and the deputy prosecutor of the USSR. But even in the rank of Prosecutor of the USSR, he spent many days behind the judicial platform.

One of the most famous cases (not related to the number of political ones), in which Vyshinsky participated already as the Prosecutor of the USSR, is the case on the charge of the former head of wintering on Wrangel Island K. D. Semenchuk and the musher S. P. Startsev in the murder of Dr. N. L. Wolfson. It was initiated at the end of 1935, and the investigation was carried out by the investigator for the most important cases, L. R. Sheinin. At one time, this case was presented as a kind of "sample" of the use of circumstantial evidence in criminal proceedings. So let's stop there.

The case was heard by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR from May 17 to May 23, 1936. The defendants were sentenced to capital punishment and shot.

The plot of the case was as follows. On December 26, 1934, Dr. Vulfson, on the orders of the head of the winter quarter, Semenchuk, accompanied by a musher Startsev, set out on two sleds from Cape Rogers to the sick Eskimos in Predatelskaya Bay and Cape Blasson. On December 31, Startsev returned alone and reported that Dr. Wulfson had been lost on the way. On the first day of the search, the doctor's sled was found firmly locked. Of the eight harnessed dogs, seven survived. A few days later, two kilometers from this place, the corpse of Wolfson was discovered. The doctor's face was covered in blood and disfigured. Five meters from him lay a broken hard drive with one spent cartridge case. The doctor's corpse was transported to Cape Rogers and buried there without an autopsy. The wife of the deceased, Dr. Feldman, who was also on Wrangel Island, suspecting the violent death of her husband, demanded that the head of the wintering quarter Semenchuk send a message about the incident to Moscow with a request to send an investigator. However, Semenchuk opposed this. Only almost a year later, a criminal case was initiated on this fact. Dr. Krasheninnikov, who arrived at the cape, exhumed Wolfson's corpse and found that his death was violent.

The conducted investigation established that Semenchuk actually “failed” all scientific and fishing work, treated the local population and hunters cruelly. Among the Eskimos, who did not receive any food aid from the head of the winter quarters, diseases began, and some of the local residents even died of starvation. Disorder, decay and drunkenness reigned at the station, which Dr. Wolfson tried to fight, but to no avail. After the death of Wulfson, the biologist Vakulenko committed suicide and, under unclear circumstances, the Eskimo musher Tagyu died. In November 1935, Semenchuk was removed from his post as head of the winter quarters. In the order of the head of the Main Northern Sea Route, O. Yu. Schmidt, it was noted that as a result of criminal carelessness, administrative arbitrariness and a callous attitude towards people, Semenchuk brought the wintering to a complete economic collapse.

Vyshinsky spoke about all this in his accusatory speech. But what evidence did the prosecutor have to accuse Startsev of the murder of Vulfson, and Semenchuk as an accomplice in instigating and organizing the murder?

Vyshinsky built his speech on circumstantial evidence. And I must admit that he did it brilliantly. He used the techniques that were developed by W. Wills in the book "Experience in the theory of circumstantial evidence, explained by examples." Vyshinsky quite convincingly proved that Startsev, who had gone with Dr. Vulfson, could not "lose" him, since there was no snowstorm, to which the defendant referred. In addition, Startsev stated that he was driving ahead of the doctor, and when he had a breakdown, Vulfson allegedly overtook him and, without stopping, drove ahead, after which he disappeared. This version was refuted by experienced polar explorers, arguing that the dogs in the harness were trained in such a way that they never overtake the stopped sledges, but stop and lie down on the snow. The doctor's corpse was found two kilometers from the "stopped" sleds, while even experienced polar explorers in good weather do not move further than a kilometer from them, not to mention bad weather, when they usually stay near the sledges, since only in this may be their salvation. As established, Wulfson was not an experienced polar explorer and did not know how to "stop" the sled, which required considerable skill.

Vyshinsky set out in detail other circumstantial evidence "exposing" Startsev. He analyzed all the possible situations of the doctor's death - murder by a local shaman, another person, for example Vakulenko, who was hostile to Wulfson, an accident - and rejected them all as unfounded. The prosecutor managed to convince the judges of his involvement in the murder of the head of the winter quarter, Semenchuk. Among the evidence against him in the case was also a note left by Dr. Wolfson on the eve of the fateful trip: “I ask only Konstantin Dmitrievich Semenchuk to blame for my death,” he wrote.

Vyshinsky asked that Semenchuk and Startsev be found guilty of the murder of Dr. Vulfson and sentenced to capital punishment. The court agreed with him. However, during the “perestroika” period, this sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, and the case was dismissed due to lack of corpus delicti.

Accusatory speeches, such as the one delivered by Vyshinsky in the case of Semenchuk and Startsev, made him fairly widely known. However, all over the world Vyshinsky was known only as the "prosecutor of the Moscow trials." In 1936-1938 he spoke on a number of major political cases. Carefully preparing for them, he spoke emotionally, passionately and it made an impression. Among them is the case of the "Joint Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center", which was heard by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR from August 19 to 24, 1936. According to him, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Evdokimov and Bakaev (from the Zinovievites), Smirnov, Ter-Vaganyan and Mrachkovsky (from the Trotskyists), as well as Dreitzer, Pikel and others were brought to justice. All of them were charged under articles 58-8 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The military collegium sentenced them to capital punishment, which was carried out on August 25, 1936.

From January 23 to 30, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, with the participation of the state prosecutor Vyshinsky, heard the case of the "Moscow Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center." 17 people walked along it, including Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov, Muralov. The court sentenced 13 people to death, and the rest to long terms of imprisonment. The convicts were shot immediately after the verdict.

From March 2 to March 13, 1938, Vyshinsky took part in the trial in the case of the Anti-Soviet Right-Trotsky Bloc. Among the defendants - Krestinsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Rakovsky, Yagoda, doctors Levin and Pletnev, 21 people in total. All the defendants, with the exception of Pletnev, Rakovsky and Bessonov, were sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on March 15, 1938.

About these cases, the methods of conducting the “investigation”, about “knocking out” confessions from the accused, and then from the defendants, monstrous falsifications and forgeries, as well as about the role of the “chief Stalinist inquisitor” Vyshinsky, the press once wrote in sufficient detail. All these cases have now been reviewed, the sentences have been canceled, and the persons involved in them have been rehabilitated (with the exception of Yagoda).

Vyshinsky's speeches on political cases, which we mentioned above, have nothing in common with the court speeches of state prosecutors, where a scrupulous analysis of the evidence incriminating the guilty persons is required. In them, he did not bother himself with a deep study of the guilt of the defendants, but only gave a journalistic character and a political coloring pleasing to the authorities. And in this he succeeded. As for the presentation of evidence to the court, this was not required at all, since the verdicts were in fact already a foregone conclusion, and not even by Vyshinsky. In these processes, he was only the mouthpiece of Stalin and his entourage. Vyshinsky's speeches on political affairs do not stand up to any criticism, either from a legal or a moral point of view. They not only did not contain a strong evidence base, but were also filled with rude, offensive language, which is completely unacceptable for prosecutors. He called the defendants "a gang of despicable terrorists", "enraged dogs" who "should be shot to one and all", "toadies and boors of capitalism", "rabid counter-revolutionary elements", "monsters", "a cursed cross between a fox and a pig" (about Bukharin ), "damned reptile".

As already mentioned, in his speeches Vyshinsky did not focus on evidence, especially since the verdict was already a foregone conclusion, but on rhetoric and pathos. And not because the “chief inquisitor” was a bad lawyer - it was necessary to use a red phrase and labeling not so much to justify the process that had already taken place, but to pave the way for future ones.

Here are some of his “beautiful” phrases: “In the gloomy underground, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev issue a vile call: remove, kill! An underground machine begins to work, knives are sharpened, revolvers are loaded, bombs are equipped, false documents are written and fabricated, secret ties are established with the German political police, posts are set up, shooting is trained, and finally, they shoot and kill. Zinoviev terrorist center").

Or: “These people, these lackeys and boors of capitalism, tried to trample the great and holy feeling of our national, our Soviet patriotic pride into the dirt, they wanted to mock our freedom, the sacrifices made by our people for their freedom, they betrayed our people, crossed over on the side of the enemy, on the side of the aggressors and agents of capitalism. The wrath of our people will destroy, incinerate the traitors and wipe them off the face of the earth...” (From a speech on the case of the “Moscow Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center”).

And one more example. “The contemptible, treacherous, bandit activities of the Bukharins, Yagods, Krestinskys, Rykovs and other right-wing Trotskyists are now being exposed before the whole world. They sold our homeland, traded in the military secrets of its defense, they were spies, saboteurs, pests, murderers, thieves - and all in order to help the fascist governments overthrow the Soviet government, overthrow the power of the workers and peasants, restore the power of the capitalists and landowners, dismember the country of the Soviet people, tear away the national republics and turn them into imperialist colonies” (from a speech on the case of the “Anti-Soviet Right-Trotsky Bloc”).

Analyzing these processes from the point of view of a lawyer, the former prosecutor of the RSFSR and Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR A. A. Volin, who knew Vyshinsky firsthand, told the authors: in their political content, they are generally of a preventive nature, that “evidence of guilt” of those accused of treason, committing terrorist acts and other crimes of this kind is obtained either by cruel or insidious methods. By the nature of his work, Vyshinsky knew this as well as Stalin himself. They acted out lawsuits in the same way that actors act out plays. And in this sense, Vyshinsky cannot but share with Stalin the responsibility for the grossest violations of the law, for which there is no forgiveness.