The fight against crime in besieged Leningrad. In the ring of blockade From the army "mowed" in the gang

Vladimir Ivanovich Terebilov for 10 years, from 1939 to 1949, worked in the Prosecutor's Office of Leningrad and the region, and then in the General Prosecutor's Office. Later he was Minister of Justice and Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The memories of our hero about the siege years, about the work of the supervisory authorities in this terrible time for Leningrad are unique.

Over the years of my life, I have experienced a prickly polar winter, saw terrible landslides in the mountains and in mines, the severe consequences of air and railway disasters, '' Terebilov said. - But there was no picture harder than the cold and hungry winter of 1941-1942.

"The old woman is mine!"

For us, prosecutors, in the first days of the war, the main operational task is to urgently complete the investigation and verification of materials. Everyone is busy preparing the firing points and trenches, the broken line of which runs just along the slope of the hill on which the building of the Pargolovsky Prosecutor's Office is located. A mass evacuation of the population began. The order to evacuate citizens of German and Finnish nationalities was particularly adamant. A significant part of them are the economic and party activists of the collective farms and institutions of the region. Crying, requests, complaints. Many categorically refused to leave, but the
the harsh law of war prevailed.

The most difficult situation gave rise to extraordinary criminal situations. Let me mention the case of the former editor-in-chief of the magazine Rural Life of Russia, patronized by Tsarevich Alexei. It seems his last name was Steinberg. He attracted attention by the fact that, imitating a dog, he barked in the evenings! Yes, he barked on the porch of his house. As it turned out, he ate the dog, but, imitating a dog barking, apparently wanted to hide this fact. During a search in the iron pot, pieces of a human body were found along with the slurry. This is what remains of his maid who disappeared a few days before. There was no need to interrogate the unfortunate man; he died in our presence. One can only imagine the horror of the last hours of his life. Later, to a relative of the deceased, her surname is Grushko, we handed over several kilograms of frozen potatoes preserved at Steinberg. Through the window, I saw an emaciated woman, barely moving, pulling on a sled a miserable, but at that time valuable inheritance. After all, it might have been her last load, or maybe the last chance to survive.

Undoubtedly, hunger and dystrophy often entail serious changes in the psyche. For example, during interrogation, old man V., who used parts of the corpse of his deceased wife for food, said: "What's wrong with that, my old woman!"

Couldn't carry away

By the end of winter, the situation with the supply of the city had improved somewhat, they began to import it across Ladoga. But there were also facts of thefts. Here is one episode. In order to somehow support the scientists, it was allowed to involve them to unload food. There they sometimes got something. Three, as it turned out, engineers, could not resist, carried away and hid three sacks of flour in the dugout. Here they were found. But how?! They dropped their load, and two were under the bags, and the third, the same dystrophic as they were, did not have the strength to free them. All three were quietly crying ... Looking at their haggard faces, we, hiding tears, helped them get out.

It would be untrue to say that hunger is the only cause of all delinquency in the city. No, not only because of hunger they were looting and even killed. Serious crimes were investigated, and the perpetrators were brought to justice. True, not everyone survived. The temperature in the pretrial detention cells was freezing, which meant death from cold and hunger.

Not human

The blockade and the war did not allow themselves to be forgotten for a long time in the post-war years. Once a front-line soldier, a young woman demobilized from the army, came to my prosecutor's office. I asked to return the apartment occupied during the blockade. According to the law, the living space must be returned, but how if the blockade family that settled in it has nowhere to relocate ?! He postponed the eviction, and offered the woman to come in a month. Then he extended the delay for another 3 weeks, for another two ... As luck would have it, the issue was not resolved for a long time. The woman, apparently, interpreted the red tape in her own way, put an envelope on my table, and she herself ran out of the office. And then - the court in the case of an attempt to bribe an official. The trial was attended by her two brothers, who also went through the entire war. She was punished with imprisonment. Formally, everything is correct, but in essence - not in a human way, not in conscience. You have to bear this sin in your soul.

Several months passed, and again a similar episode. An old man came and asks to release his son, who was involved in a small theft, until the trial. I promised to speak with the investigator. The old man, leaving, left a parcel near the door. He was detained and brought back. The package contained a small amount of money, cereals, vodka. What to do? The old man repeats: this is a sign of "gratitude." He told the old man to let go, the package was returned. In parting he threatened him with all possible punishments, but we nevertheless released his son before the trial.

The history of criminal gangs is much wider than the court records of their actions. It is inseparable from the historical moment that the country is experiencing. No wonder the best gangster films in world cinema are always epic, reflecting the spirit of the times. After the release of Stanislav Govorukhin's film "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed" based on the Weiner brothers' novel, the Black Cat gang became a symbol of the post-war hard times in the USSR. She is legendary in every sense of the word.

A still from the movie "The meeting place cannot be changed"

A different creature loosened up

The end of the Great Patriotic War in the USSR was accompanied by a monstrous surge in crime. It was not only caused by hunger and poverty, which drove people to the last limit. After the Stalinist amnesty in honor of the victory over Germany, thousands of criminals were released from the camps, for whom it was not difficult to arm themselves - after the war, the population had a lot of firearms. Crowds of former policemen, deserters, street children flocked to various gangs and gangs.

By 1947, crime had almost halved compared to 1945: a total of 1.2 million different types of criminal offenses were registered. Daring raids on savings banks, armed robberies of shops and warehouses, attacks on collector vehicles, burglaries and murders of ordinary citizens sowed panic among the inhabitants and gave rise to many rumors. One of the main "horror stories" of that time was the Black Cat gang. This name thundered throughout the country, making people numb with horror.

Some experts consider the "Black Cat" a hoax. Others are sure that it was a well-organized structure with a developed branch network. But everyone agrees on one thing: it was a high-profile criminal brand, to which both teenage pranksters and professional criminals were willingly "attached".

"In fact, in the archives of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, traces of about a dozen bandit groups with this name, operating in different cities of the country in the mid-40s of the last century, are recorded," writes a military lawyer, historian Vyacheslav Zvyagintsev in the book "War on the Scales of Themis." The symbol of a black cat painted at the scene of the crime turned out to be attractive not only for youngsters keen on thieves romance, but also for inveterate criminals. about the cruelty and elusiveness of the "Black Cat".

Photo from the site old.moskva.com

A joke written in blood

Actually, the majority of these gangs were teenagers, yard punks, who hunted mainly in petty thefts. The "rejuvenation" of crime in general was a trend in the post-war period. For example, in 1946, minors made up 43 percent of all those prosecuted. They were tried for theft, robbery, hooliganism, less often for murder.

As for the juvenile "black cat", they were let down by their love of special effects: notes with warnings, tattoos in the form of cats. Operatives split such teenage gangs pretty quickly. For example, in Leningrad in 1945, police officers who were investigating a series of burglaries in house number 8 on Pushkinskaya Street, within a few weeks went on the trail of a teenage gang and red-handed its top - students of vocational school number 4 Vladimir Popov, nicknamed Garlic, Sergei Ivanov and Grigory Shneiderman. During the search at the ringleader, 16-year-old Popov, a curious document was discovered - the oath of the Caudla "Black Cat", under which eight signatures were affixed in blood. But since only three participants managed to commit the crimes, they went to the dock. In January 1946, at a meeting of the people's court of the 2nd section of the Krasnogvardeisky district of Leningrad, the verdict was announced: the teenagers received from one to three years in prison.

But more often than not, the antics of the young "black koshatniki" turned out to be ordinary pranks, requiring, however, the departure of the task force, or even a lengthy investigation. Such hooligan antics spread among the people the rumor about the terrible gang. Once the village boys put on their ears the whole of Samara, hanging out leaflets with the following text: "Hello to thieves, kaput to framers. On April 6, 1945, several members of the Black Cat gang arrived. They have been acting for five days. Secretary of the Black Cat" Singe ".

Gangster epic in Odessa

A truly cinematic story unfolded in Odessa, where after the war its own "Black Cat" operated, consisting of 19 people, most of them recidivist criminals. The gang was marked by high-profile robberies of confectionery factories (flour, sugar and butter in the hungry 47th were worth their weight in gold) and numerous murders. Among those killed were a district inspector, a state security officer, and several military officers. The criminals used their weapons and uniforms when they went to work. Although, there may have been other reasons for the killings. There is information that the leader of the gang Nikolai Marushak and his assistant Fyodor Kuznetsov, nicknamed Kogut, had contacts with the Gestapo during the occupation.

The gang was hunted by officers of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department, headed by David Kurland (by the way, this man became the prototype of the protagonist of another popular television series about post-war bandit formations - "Liquidation" by Sergei Ursulyak). Taking her was not easy - in the intervals between robberies, the bandits hid in the catacombs. There they also hid the corpses of those killed.

Finally, during a raid on Privoz, operatives seized one of the ringleader's accomplices - he was identified by a former policeman who had been captured there. Arrested and indicated the place where the "headquarters" of the gang was. Criminal investigation officers set up an ambush, and when the criminals taken in the ring opened fire, they started shooting to kill. As for the leader, there was a clear directive: to take it alive. However, the seriously wounded Marushchak did not fall into the hands of justice. He committed suicide by biting through an ampoule of poison. Those who survived received 25 years of imprisonment (after the abolition of the death penalty in 1947, this was the capital punishment).

Photo from the site www.statehistory.ru

From the army "mowed" in the gang

According to a number of versions, the first large grouping under the name "Black Cat" began to form even before the war, and over time, its core consisted mainly of educated young people without a criminal past - deserters who sought to evade frontline service. Their average age was 25 years. The lack of convictions and connections in the underworld allowed them to remain out of sight of law enforcement officers for a long time.

By the middle of the war, the "Black Cat" had grown to the scale of the country. According to one of the researchers of its activities, Aleksey Shcherbakov, its "various" links "were relatively autonomous, but there was a general leadership, common fund and, most importantly, a ramified infrastructure." The gang included criminals of all stripes - katals, scammers, thugs, pinchers, gop-stopers. But the main source of income was the theft of products using forged documents (a whole staff of highly qualified specialists worked on their manufacture) with subsequent resale on the black market.

In 1945, when the gang reached its heyday and attracted the attention of the investigating authorities, it was decided to move its center to Kazan as to a safer place, giving a wide field of activity, primarily due to the many evacuated enterprises. Here, the "Black Cat" was marked by a grandiose theft from the Kazan distillery: the bandits, dressed in military uniforms, received five tons of products under fake documents, and no trace of the stolen was found. And the criminals got out thanks to luck - the sister of one of the people they killed identified his coat at a flea market.
Pulling this thread, the militiamen learned the names, passwords, attendances. Raids began in the city, during which more than sixty people were arrested and subsequently convicted. During the investigation, the scale of this criminal group became clear. The trial was open. It took place in the House of Culture of the Sverdovskiy District and lasted a month. By the verdict of the court, twelve people were shot, the rest received long sentences. Trials over "Black Cat" took place in other republics of the USSR.

The leaders remained in the shadows

But how did it happen that such a serious criminal structure began to be called a myth, a fiction? The reason is, the researchers believe, that law enforcement officers of that time had no experience of working with organized criminal groups. "According to the laws of wartime, the criminals did not stand on ceremony for a long time," Alexei Shcherbakov writes in the essay "The Truth About the" Black Cat ". - When detained, they shot to kill. And there was no time to track the entire chain of gang connections. The leaders remained so in the shadows. But according to the assessments of the policemen who were involved in the exploits of the bandits, they worked calmly and methodically. "

Based on materials

Zvyagintsev V.E., War on the scales of Themis: War of 1941 - 1945 in the materials of investigative and judicial cases. - M .: TERRA - Book Club, 2006

LENINGRAD. 1943 year. December 26. / TASS /.The fight against crime took on particular urgency in the city, all of whose forces were thrown into resistance to the Nazis. In Leningrad, enclosed in a blockade ring, crime had its own specifics: there were no newcomer bandits - only “our own”. The Leningrad militia, who knew the accountable contingent well, dealt with them rather quickly. However, another task, characteristic of wartime, was more difficult - to identify and neutralize enemy scouts.

In the last days of December 1943, the military corr. LenTASS reported the capture of two spies: “A group of border guards led by senior lieutenant Shifrin bypassed their area. One of the fighters was leading the Alpu service dog on a leash. The path of the border guards lay past one building, standing far from the road. There has never been a military there before. And now the border guards noticed that a sentry was standing at the entrance to the building. He was dressed in full military uniform, armed with a machine gun and grenades. Senior Lieutenant Shifrin found this suspicious. Seeing the approach of the border guards, the “sentry” became nervous, grabbed a weapon and wanted to use it without any warning. Acting skillfully and decisively, the soldiers disarmed the "sentry". He tried to run, but was quickly overtaken by the dog Alp.

The escape of the imaginary "sentry" did not distract the attention of the border guards from the building. The soldiers who were watching the house noticed a man in the uniform of a soldier running out from the opposite exit. He was also caught a few minutes later. Both detainees - the "sentry" and his accomplice in the crime turned out to be enemy bandits. "

A few days earlier, newspapers wrote about how vigilant a police officer had shown: “The district police officer, junior lieutenant A. Savelyev, while checking the documents of the tenants of one of the apartments, found a hiding person. While trying to detain him, the unknown showed stubborn resistance; in the street he started to run. After the warning, Comrade Savelyev wounded the unknown in the leg with a shot from a revolver.

The detainee turned out to be an enemy spy who made his way through the front line. The police department of Leningrad announced to Comrade Savelyev gratitude for his vigilance. "

STRUCTURE AND TASKS OF THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

During the Great Patriotic War, the system of internal affairs bodies underwent some changes. In February 1941, the People's Commissariat of State Security of the USSR was separated from the NKVD, but in July 1943 it was again merged with the NKVD of the USSR. In April 1943, the NKVD was divided into three departments: the NKVD itself of the USSR, the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) and the counterintelligence department of the RKK (Smersh).

In Leningrad, the police were entrusted with the tasks caused by the requirements of wartime: participation in the internal defense of the city and the organization of anti-amphibious defense, ensuring the evacuation of the population, the placement of children who lost their parents / almost all police departments in besieged Leningrad had their sponsored orphanages /, the fight against deserters, alarmists, distributors of provocative rumors, assisting other units of the NKVD in identifying enemy agents and provocateurs, fighting theft.

Police officers in Leningrad. 1942 g.
With the outbreak of the war, the volume of work of the militia increased many times over. In the first months, when enterprises, museums, cultural property, scientific and industrial equipment were being evacuated, it was important to monitor this process in order to prevent theft. The militia also took part in cleaning the city, and in the first months of the war - in hiding monuments, including the famous Klodt horses buried in the Anichkov garden. Since the winter of 1941, militiamen had to keep a close eye on the "Bronze Horseman" - the monument to the founder of the city was covered with boards, and the townspeople, who had tore apart all the light wooden structures for firewood, strove to use the famous monument for heating and shelter.

The Bronze Horseman in the protective forests during the siege of Leningrad
The police had to protect the townspeople from the emerging gangster communities. In a confined space, Leningrad militiamen quickly solved crimes, so there were no “long-term” gangs in the city, as well as numerous criminal communities - mostly groups of 2-3 people. There were also single bandits.

FROM THE REFERENCE OF THE HEAD OF THE NKVD LO OF OCTOBER 1, 1942

According to the NKVD, it is known that the fascist intelligence in their intelligence schools located on the territory of the Baltic republics and in the occupied regions of our region is preparing a significant number of intelligence officers, intending to throw them out in the rear of the Leningrad Front.

REFERENCE

In the 1940s, the Leningrad department of the NKVD was located next to the Hermitage - on Uritsky (Palace) Square, occupying the former premises of the tsarist Ministry of Internal Affairs.

On June 22, 1941, the number of police officers in Leningrad was 13,508.

In December 1941, after most of the police officers were called to the front, 5,600 people remained in the Directorate. There were many women among them.

1236 Leningrad militiamen died during the blockade from hunger, disease, shelling and while performing their official duties. A policeman in besieged Leningrad received rations on a work card.

ABOUT CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES OF SPECULATIVE-PREDATORY ELEMENTS DURING THE PATRIOTIC WAR OF 1941-1945 IN THE CITY OF LENINGRAD

From the report of the deputy head of the Leningrad police department comrade. Dryazgov

The criminal element - currency dealers during the Patriotic War were actively engaged in their criminal activities. A currency speculative organized group of 15 active currency dealers, engaged in the purchase of diamonds, currency, gold coins of imperial minting, household gold and bullion, was discovered and liquidated. Speculative and predatory elements, using the difficult food situation during the blockade and having at their disposal a significant amount of food, in 1942-43 used the marauding exchange of food products for industrial products and values \u200b\u200bon a large scale. The predatory speculators exchanged three kilograms of bread for a piano, a good man's suit was received for a kilogram of bread, etc.

The activities of the organizations involved in the trade, supply and distribution of food were also the subject of the most close attention of law enforcement agencies.

FROM THE REFERENCE OF THE HEAD OF THE NKVD LO IN GK VKP (B) ON THE NUMBER OF ARRESTED AND EXPORTED DURING THE WAR (OCTOBER 1, 1942)

During the Patriotic War, the NKVD Directorate of the Leningrad Region arrested 9574 people, including 1246 spies and saboteurs sent by the enemy.

625 counterrevolutionary groups and formations were discovered and liquidated, of which:

• espionage and treasonous - 169
• terrorist - 31
• insurgents - 34
• nationalistic - 26
• church-sectarian - 7
• Among those arrested:
• former kulaks, merchants, landowners, nobles and officials - 1238
• declassed item - 1243
• workers - 2070
• employees - 2100
• intelligentsia - 559
• collective farmers - 1061
• individual farmers - 258
• others - 1045

The number of recidivist thieves, due to the systematic cleaning of the city from the criminal element, has completely decreased.

The police arrested and tried 22 166 people, including 940 for banditry and robbery.

Money and items made of precious metals seized by officers of the criminal investigation department from criminals in besieged Leningrad
The greatest risk was posed by the appearance of fake cards, so every two weeks something was changed in them - pins, drawing, mesh design, etc. This also ensured that such fakes were not made in the German rear - with such a frequent change in the appearance of cards, the enemy simply physically could not have time to reorganize the work of their printing houses so quickly. Therefore, in the archives of the Leningrad militia, there are no references to the facts of the delivery of fake cards printed by the Germans to Leningrad.

Food and items made of precious metals seized by the officers of the criminal investigation department from criminals in besieged Leningrad
The Road of Life was also guarded by the police. Its official name was the Military Highway N101 of the NKVD of the USSR.

The report on the work of the consolidated detachment of the Militia Directorate under the VAD dated March 24, 1942 said that the main attention of the militia was paid to ensuring uninterrupted traffic on the roads connecting Leningrad with the shore of Lake Ladoga and leading to the northeastern regions of the Leningrad region.

Guard duty on the road of life
The tasks of the combined detachment were to combat the theft of food supplies, ensure uninterrupted traffic on the highway, prevent accidents and combat aimless downtime, as well as technical control over the state of vehicles.

The consolidated detachment consisted of employees of the State Traffic Inspectorate and operational-investigative units. It was divided into operational and inspection groups located on the line of the highway and in places where theft of goods was most likely - at loading and unloading bases and parking lots. Police detained 586 military personnel and 232 civilians for stealing cargo on the Road of Life. The detainees were seized and found 33.4 tons of food.

Things seized by the criminal investigation officers from criminals in besieged Leningrad
At the beginning of the work of the VAD, due to the poor organization of traffic in some of its sections, traffic jams appeared, causing aimless downtime of vehicles. The poor condition of the cars and the non-observance by the drivers of elementary traffic rules in winter conditions led to the fact that at first a large number of cars got stuck in ditches, on the roadside and in ice cracks; drivers abandoned such vehicles unattended. The traffic police teams removed these vehicles and handed them over to the auto battalions. By December 26, 1941, congestion was largely eliminated, traffic was streamlined, which greatly contributed to the increase in the throughput of the highway.

The history of the blockade contains many tragic pages. In Soviet times, they received insufficient coverage, firstly, because of the corresponding attitudes "from above", and secondly, because of the internal self-censorship of the authors who wrote about the struggle for life in Leningrad.

In the past 20 years, censorship restrictions have been lifted. Together with external censorship, internal self-censorship practically disappeared. This led to the fact that not so long ago taboo topics began to be actively discussed in books and the media.

One of these topics was the topic of crime in besieged Leningrad. According to some "creators of the pen", the city did not know any greater bandit lawlessness either before or after.

The topic of cannibalism, as an integral part of crime, especially often began to flash on the pages of print media. It goes without saying that all this was presented in a completely pretentious manner.

What was the true state of crime in the besieged city? Let's turn to the facts.

There is no doubt that the war caused an inevitable surge in crime in the USSR. Her level has increased several times, the level of criminal record - 2.5-3 times

Leningrad, which, moreover, found itself in extremely difficult conditions of the blockade, did not bypass this tendency. For example, if in 1938-1940. 0.6 per 10 thousand people per year; 0.7 and 0.5 murders, respectively (i.e., 150-220 murders per year), then in 1942 587 murders were committed (according to other sources - 435). It is also worth considering that the population of Leningrad in 1942 was far from 3 million, as before the war. As of January 1942, judging by the data on the issuance of cards, about 2.3 million people lived in the city, and as of December 1, 1942 - only 650 thousand. The average monthly population was 1.24 million. Thus, in 1942, there were approximately 4.7 (3.5) murders per 10,000 people, which exceeded the pre-war level by 5-10 times.

For comparison, in 2005 in St. Petersburg there were 901 murders (1.97 per 10,000), in 2006 - 832 murders (1.83 per 10,000), i.e. the number of murders in the besieged city was about 2-2.5 times higher than in today's us. Approximately the same number of murders as in Leningrad in 1942 is currently being committed in states such as South Africa, Jamaica or Venezuela, which top the list of countries in terms of murder rates, second only to Colombia.

Speaking about crime during the blockade, one cannot but touch upon the topic of cannibalism mentioned above. There was no article for cannibalism in the RSFSR Criminal Code, therefore: “All murders for the purpose of eating the meat of those killed, due to their special danger, were classified as banditry (Art. 59-3 of the RSFSR Criminal Code).
At the same time, given that the overwhelming majority of the above type of crimes concerned eating cadaveric meat, the prosecutor's office of Leningrad, guided by the fact that by their nature these crimes are especially dangerous against the order of administration, qualified them by analogy with banditry (according to Art. 16 -59-3 of the Criminal Code) "(From the memorandum of the military prosecutor of Leningrad A. I. Panfilenko A. A. Kuznetsov about cases of cannibalism). In the reports of the prosecutor's office, such cases were further distinguished from the general mass and were encrypted under the heading "banditry (a special category)". In the special messages of the UNKVD on the Leningrad Region and the city of Leningrad, the term "cannibalism" was most often used, less often - "cannibalism".

I do not have accurate data on the first case of cannibalism. There is some discrepancy in dates: from November 15 to early December. I think the most probable time period is November 20-25, because the first dated in the special messages of the UNKVD for the Leningrad Region and the mountains. In Leningrad, the case falls on November 27, however, at least one was recorded before it.

Having reached a maximum in the first decade of February 1942, the number of crimes of this kind began to steadily decline. Isolated cases of cannibalism are still noted in December 1942, but already in the special message of the UNKVD for the Leningrad Region and the mountains. To Leningrad on April 7, 1943, it is stated that "... there were no murders for the consumption of human meat in March 1943 in Leningrad." It can be assumed that such killings ended in January 1943, when the blockade was broken. In particular, in the book “Life and Death in the Blocked Leningrad. Historical and medical aspect "it is said that" In 1943 and 1944. cases of cannibalism and corpse-eating were no longer noted in the criminal chronicle of blockaded Leningrad. "

In total for November 1941 - December 1942. 2057 people were arrested for murder for the purpose of cannibalism, cannibalism and the sale of human meat. Who were these people? According to the already mentioned note by A.I. Panfilenko, dated February 21, 1942, 886 people arrested for cannibalism from December 1941 to February 15, 1942 were divided as follows.

The overwhelming majority of women were 564. (63.5%), which, in general, is not surprising for a front city, in which men constituted a minority of the population (about 1/3). The age of criminals is from 16 to "over 40 years old", and all age groups are approximately the same in number (the category "over 40 years old" slightly prevails). Of these 886 people, only 11 (1.24%) were members and candidates of the VKP (b), four more were members of the Komsomol, the remaining 871 were non-partisan. Unemployed people prevailed (202 people, 22.4%) and "persons without certain occupations" (275 people, 31.4%). Only 131 people (14.7%) were native to the city.
AR Dzeniskevich also cites the following data: “Illiterate, semi-literate and people with lower education accounted for 92.5 percent of all accused. Among them ... there were no believers at all. "

The image of the average Leningrad cannibal is as follows: she is a non-native resident of Leningrad of indefinite age, unemployed, non-partisan, unbeliever, poorly educated.

There is a belief that the cannibals in the besieged Leningrad were shot without exception. However, it is not. As of 06/02/1942, for example, out of 1913 people on whom the investigation was completed, 586 people were sentenced to the VMN, 668 were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Apparently, cannibal killers were sentenced to the VMN, who abducted corpses from morgues, cemeteries, etc. places "got off" with the conclusion. AR Dzeniskevich comes to similar conclusions: “If we take the statistics until mid-1943, then 1,700 people were convicted under Article 16-59-3 of the Criminal Code (a special category). Of these, 364 people received capital punishment, 1336 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. With a high degree of probability, it can be assumed that the majority of those shot were precisely cannibals, that is, who killed people with the aim of eating their bodies. The rest are convicted of eating corpses. "

Thus, only a tiny fraction of those living in Leningrad at that time saved their lives in such a terrible way. Soviet people, even in those conditions that seemed incredible to us over the years, tried to remain human no matter what.

I would like to say about the surge in those days of actual banditry, this time of the "ordinary category." If in the last 5 months of 1941 under Art. 59-3 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, not so many were initiated - only 39 cases, then according to the "Information on the work of the prosecutor's office of Leningrad on combating crime and violations of the law from 1.07.1941 to 1.08.1943" in general, from June 1941 to August 1943 under Art. 59-3 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, 2,104 people were already convicted, of whom 435 were sentenced to military service, and 1669 were imprisoned.

On April 2, 1942 (since the beginning of the war), it was seized from a criminal element and persons who did not have permission to do so:

Combat rifles - 890 pcs.
Revolvers and pistols - 393 pcs.
Machine guns - 4 pcs.
Pomegranate - 27 pcs.
Hunting rifles - 11,172 pcs.
Small-caliber rifles - 2954 pcs.
Melee weapons - 713 pcs.
Rifle and revolving cartridges - 26 676 pcs.

Combat rifles - 1113
Machine guns - 3
Automata - 10
Hand grenades - 820
Revolvers and pistols - 631
Rifle and revolving cartridges - 69,000.

The surge in banditry can be easily explained. In conditions of an understandable weakening of the police service, in conditions of hunger, the bandits had no choice but to take the high road. However, the police and the NKVD jointly reduced banditry to an almost pre-war level.

In conclusion, I would like to note that although the crime rate in besieged Leningrad was undoubtedly high, anarchy and lawlessness did not rule the city. Leningrad and its inhabitants coped with this problem.

V.V. Luneev Crime during the Second World War
Cherepenina N. Yu. Demographic situation and healthcare in Leningrad on the eve of the Great Patriotic War // Life and death in blockaded Leningrad. Historical and medical aspect. Ed. J.D.Barbera, A.R.Dzeniskevich. SPb .: "Dmitry Bulanin", 2001, p. 22. With reference to the TsGA SPb., F. 7384, op. 3, d.13, l. 87.
Cherepenina N. Yu. Hunger and death in a blocked city // Ibid., P. 76.
The blockade is declassified. SPb .: "Boyanych", 1995, p. 116. With reference to Yu. F. Pimenov's fund in the Museum of the Red Banner Leningrad Police.
Cherepenina N. Yu. Hunger and Death in a Blocked City // Life and Death in a Blocked Leningrad. Historical and medical aspect, pp. 44-45. With reference to TsGAIPD SPB., F. 24, op. 2c, d. 5082, 6187; TsGA SPB., F. 7384, op. 17, d.410, l. 21.
Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Center for International Crime Prevention)
TsGAIPD SPB., F. 24, op. 2b, d.1319, l. 38-46. Cit. by: Leningrad under siege. Collection of documents on the heroic defense of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1944. Ed. A.R.Dzeniskevich. SPb .: Faces of Russia, 1995, p. 421.
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Archive of the FSB LO., F. 21/12, op. 2, b.n. 19, d.12, ll. 366-368. Cit. from: Lomagin N.A. In the grip of hunger. The blockade of Leningrad in the documents of the German special services and the NKVD, p. 267.
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Archive of the FSB LO., F. 21/12, op. 2, b.n. 19, d.12, ll. 287-291. Lomagin N.A. In the grip of hunger. The blockade of Leningrad in the documents of the German special services and the NKVD, p. 236.
Dzeniskevich A.R. Banditry of a special category // Magazine "Gorod" No. 3 dated January 27, 2003
Belozerov B.P. Illegal actions and crime in conditions of famine // Life and death in blockaded Leningrad. Historical and medical aspect, p. 257. With reference to the IC GUVD SPb and LO., F. 29, op. 1, d. 6, l. 23-26.
Leningrad is under siege. Collection of documents on the heroic defense of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1944, p. 457.
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Michael DORFMAN

This year marks 70 years since the beginning of the 872-day siege of Leningrad. Leningrad held out, but for the Soviet leadership it was a Pyrrhic victory. They preferred not to write about her, but what was written was empty and formal. The blockade was later included in the heroic legacy of military glory. They began to talk a lot about the blockade, but we can find out the whole truth only now. But do we want to?

“Here are the Leningraders. Here the townspeople are men, women, children. Next to them are Red Army soldiers. "

Blockade's bread card

In Soviet times, I ended up at the Piskarevskoye cemetery. Roza Anatolyevna, a girl who survived the blockade, took me there. She did not bring flowers to the cemetery, as is customary, but pieces of bread. During the most terrible period of the winter of 1941-42 (the temperature dropped below 30 degrees), they gave out 250 g of bread per day to a manual worker and 150 g - three thin slices - to everyone else. This bread gave me much more understanding than the cheerful explanations of the guides, official speeches, films, even a statue of the Motherland, which was unusually modest for the USSR. After the war, there was a wasteland. Only in 1960 did the authorities open the memorial. And only recently have nameplates appeared, and trees have been planted around the graves. Roza Anatolyevna then took me to the former front line. I was horrified at how close the front was — in the city itself.

On September 8, 1941, German troops broke through the defenses and entered the outskirts of Leningrad. Hitler and his generals decided not to take the city, but to kill its inhabitants with a blockade. It was part of a criminal Nazi plan to starve and destroy "useless mouths" - Slavic population of Eastern Europe - to clear the "living space" for the Millennial Reich. The aviation was ordered to raze the city to the ground. They failed to do this, just as the carpet bombing and fiery holocaust of the Allies did not manage to demolish German cities from the face of the earth. How it was not possible to win a single war with the help of aviation. This should be thought of by all those who over and over again dream of winning without stepping on the enemy's ground.

Three quarters of a million citizens died of hunger and cold. This is from a quarter to a third of the city's pre-war population. This is the largest extinction of the population of a modern city in recent history. To the tally of victims it is necessary to add about a million Soviet servicemen who died on the fronts around Leningrad, mainly in 1941-42 and in 1944.

The siege of Leningrad became one of the largest and most brutal atrocities of the war, an epic tragedy comparable to the Holocaust. Outside the USSR, they hardly knew about it and did not talk about it. Why? Firstly, the blockade of Leningrad did not fit into the myth of the Eastern Front with endless snow fields, General Zima and desperate Russians marching in a crowd on German machine guns. Up to the wonderful book by Anthony Beaver about Stalingrad, it was a painting, a myth that had taken root in the Western mind, in books and films. Much less significant Allied operations in North Africa and Italy were considered the main ones.

Secondly, the Soviet authorities were reluctant to talk about the blockade of Leningrad. The city held out, but very unpleasant questions remained. Why are there so many victims? Why did the German armies reach the city so quickly, moved so far into the USSR? Why wasn't a mass evacuation organized before the blockade was closed? After all, it took German and Finnish troops three long months to close the blockade ring. Why were there no adequate food supplies? The Germans surrounded Leningrad in September 1941. The head of the city's party organization Andrei Zhdanov and the front commander, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, fearing that they would be accused of alarmism and lack of faith in the forces of the Red Army, refused the proposal of the chairman of the food and clothing supply committee of the Red Army Anastas Mikoyan to provide the city with food supplies sufficient to the city survived a long siege. In Leningrad, a propaganda campaign was launched denouncing the "rats" fleeing the city of the three revolutions instead of defending it. Tens of thousands of townspeople were mobilized for defense work, they dug trenches, which soon found themselves behind enemy lines.

After the war, Stalin was least interested in discussing these topics. And he clearly did not like Leningrad. Not a single city was cleaned the way Leningrad was cleaned before and after the war. Repressions fell upon Leningrad writers. The Leningrad Party organization was defeated. Georgy Malenkov, who led the rout, shouted into the audience: "Only the enemies could need the myth of the blockade to belittle the role of the great leader!" Hundreds of books about the blockade were confiscated from libraries. Some, like the stories of Vera Inber, for "a distorted picture that does not take into account the life of the country", others for "underestimating the leading role of the party," and the majority for the fact that there were the names of the arrested Leningrad leaders Alexei Kuznetsov, Pyotr Popkov and others, walking on the "Leningrad case". However, they are to blame too. The hugely popular Museum "Heroic Defense of Leningrad" (with a model bakery that served 125-gram bread rations for adults) was closed. Many documents and unique exhibits were destroyed. Some, like the diaries of Tanya Savicheva, were miraculously saved by the museum staff.

Museum director Lev Lvovich Rakov was arrested and charged with "collecting weapons for the purpose of carrying out terrorist acts when Stalin arrives in Leningrad." It was about the museum collection of captured German weapons. This was not the first time for him. In 1936, he, then an employee of the Hermitage, was arrested for a collection of noble clothing. Then the "propaganda of the noble way of life" was also sewn onto terrorism.

"With all their lives They defended you, Leningrad, Cradle of the Revolution."

In Brezhnev's times, the blockade was rehabilitated. However, even then they did not tell the whole truth, but gave out a strongly cleaned up and heroized story, within the framework of the mythology of the Great Patriotic War that was being built then. According to this version, people were dying of hunger, but somehow quietly and carefully, sacrificing themselves to victory, with the only desire to defend the "cradle of the revolution." No one complained, did not shy away from work, did not steal, did not manipulate the rationing system, did not take bribes, did not kill neighbors to get hold of their food ration cards. There was no crime in the city, no black market. No one died in the terrible epidemics of dysentery that mowed down Leningraders. It's not so aesthetically pleasing. And, of course, no one expected the Germans to win.

Residents of besieged Leningrad collect water that appeared after shelling in holes in the asphalt on Nevsky Prospect, photo by B.P.Kudoyarov, December 1941

A taboo was also placed on discussing the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet authorities. Numerous miscalculations, petty tyranny, negligence and bungling of the army officials and party apparatchiks, theft of foodstuffs, the deadly chaos that reigned on the ice "Road of Life" across Lake Ladoga were not discussed. Silence was shrouded in political repression that did not stop for a single day. Honest, innocent, dying and starving people were dragged by the KGB to Kresty so that they could die there sooner. Arrests, executions and deportations of tens of thousands of people did not stop in front of the advancing Germans in the city. Instead of an organized evacuation of the population, trains with prisoners left the city until the very close of the blockade ring.

Poetess Olga Bergolts, whose poems, carved on the memorial of the Piskarevskoye cemetery, we took as epigraphs, became the voice of besieged Leningrad. Even this did not save her elderly doctor father from arrest and deportation to Western Siberia right under the noses of the advancing Germans. All his fault was that the Bergoltsy were Russified Germans. People were arrested only for their nationality, religious affiliation or social origin. Once again, the KGB went to the addresses of the book "All Petersburg" in 1913, in the hope that someone else had survived at the old addresses.

In the post-Stalin era, all the horror of the blockade was safely reduced to a few symbols - stoves, stoves and homemade lamps, when the communal services ceased to function, to children's sleds, on which the dead were taken to the morgue. Potbelly stoves have become an indispensable attribute of films, books and pictures of besieged Leningrad. But, according to Roza Anatolyevna, in the most terrible winter of 1942, a stove was a luxury: “No one had the opportunity to get a barrel, pipe or cement, and then they had no strength ... In the whole house there was a stove in only one apartment, where the district committee supplier lived ”.

"We cannot list their noble names here."

With the fall of Soviet power, the real picture began to unfold. More and more documents appear in the public domain. A lot has appeared on the Internet. The documents in all their glory show the rot and lies of the Soviet bureaucracy, its self-praise, interdepartmental squabbles, attempts to blame others, and to ascribe the merits to themselves, hypocritical euphemisms (hunger was called not hunger, but dystrophy, exhaustion, nutritional problems).

Victim of the "Leningrad disease"

We have to agree with Anna Reed that it is the children of the blockade, those over 60 today, who most zealously defend the Soviet version of history. The blockaders themselves were much less romantic in relation to their experiences. The problem was that they had experienced such an impossible reality that they doubted they would be listened to.

“But know, he who hears these stones: No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten.”

The Commission to Combat the Falsification of History, created two years ago, has so far turned out to be just another propaganda campaign. Historical research in Russia is not yet subject to external censorship. There are no taboo topics related to the blockade of Leningrad. Anna Reed says that there are quite a few cases in "Partarchive" to which researchers have limited access. Basically, these are cases of collaborators in the occupied territory and deserters. Petersburg researchers are much more concerned about the chronic lack of funding and the emigration of the best students to the West.

Outside universities and research institutes, the leafy Soviet version remains almost intact. Anna Reed was struck by the attitude of her young Russian employees with whom she dealt with bribery cases in the grain distribution system. “I thought people behaved differently during the war,” her employee told her. "Now I see that it's the same everywhere." The book is critical of the Soviet regime. Undoubtedly, there were miscalculations, mistakes and outright crimes. However, perhaps, without the unshakable brutality of the Soviet system, Leningrad might not have survived, and the war might have been lost.

Jubilant Leningrad. The blockade is lifted, 1944

Now Leningrad is called St. Petersburg again. The traces of the blockade are visible despite the palaces and cathedrals restored during the Soviet era, despite the post-Soviet European renovations. “It’s not surprising that Russians are attached to a heroic version of their history,” said Anna Reed in an interview. - Our stories about “Battle of Britain” also do not like to think about collaborators in the occupied Channel Islands, about massive robberies during German bombing, about the internment of Jewish refugees and anti-fascists. Nevertheless, sincere respect for the memory of the victims of the siege of Leningrad, where every third person died, means a true story of their story. "