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Lavrenty Beria Case
Soviet Archives/Beria Case/Beria Case Plenum.pdf
Khrushchev: Comrade Kaganovich has the floor. Comrade Bagirov, get ready.
Kaganovich. Comrades, Comrade Malenkov has reported vividly, clearly, and correctly, and Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov and Bulganin have supplemented and illuminated for the Plenum the political essence and all the circumstances of the case of the anti-Party, anti-state criminal Beria. We must not underestimate the significance of this entire case, its place in our political life and the lessons that we must draw from this case. We are not talking about a political deviation from the Party line, but about a dangerous counter-revolutionary, adventurist conspiracy against the Party and the government. From the facts reported by Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and Bulganin, it is not difficult to see from all the methods, from the essence of the actions themselves, from the goals, that Beria was leading the matter towards a coup of a fascist nature.
We know that in our socialist state, with our close connection of the party and government with the people and with the complete isolation of the adventurer Beria and his ilk from the people, any attempt at a "palace" coup is doomed to inevitable failure. However, Beria could do harm, cause great harm to the party, and the state both inside and outside, and to the leadership of the party.
It must be said frankly that if the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party had been late for a very short time, perhaps measured in days, we would be in a completely different situation today.
It is possible and necessary to learn lessons, to reveal our shortcomings and mistakes from this matter, but first of all, at this Plenum we must note and establish the main and fundamental thing. And the main thing is that when the facts showed us that we were dealing with a counter-revolutionary, fascist conspirator, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party acted decisively, quickly, and most importantly, intelligently. The hand did not tremble. The enemy was expelled from the Party and arrested. In this way, the Presidium of the Central Committee justified the trust of its Central Committee. (Applause.)
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich: Comrade Bulganin here correctly noted the particularly outstanding role of the initiators in this matter, comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and as comrade Khrushchev added, also comrade Bulganin and other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
I was there at the time when this matter was brewing here, in the Urals. 51
Malenkov: But when they told Comrade Kaganovich, he unconditionally, immediately made the same decision as all of us. (Applause.)
Kaganovich: Because we are all people of the same school, the school of Lenin and Stalin, and all of us in our activities strive to be worthy students of our teachers in times of peace, war, and hardship. (Applause.)
And this time our party and leadership, its peoples of the Soviet Union were convinced once again, as was more than once in the history of our party in the struggle against the enemies of the people, against the enemies of the party, that the peoples of the Soviet Union and the party can entrust the leadership of their Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee completely and entirely to its Presidium, the faithful disciples of the great teachers and leaders of the working class, Lenin and Stalin. (Applause.)
Of course, comrades, we may be legitimately asked the question: it is good that you acted decisively and put an end to Beria's adventurist plans and to him personally, but where were you before, why did you allow such a person into the very heart of the leadership? This question naturally arises among those present and among each of us who wants to answer this question honestly for ourselves, to understand and answer it truthfully. This question will also arise among party members.
I must say that, analyzing the state of affairs, as it happened, we must distinguish two periods in the behavior and activities of this provocateur, as Comrade Malenkov, Khrushchev, Bulganin correctly called him here, the great provocateur, Beria. The first period is before Stalin's death, the second period is after Stalin's death.
And of course, we, as Marxists, as dialecticians, cannot draw a sharp line between the first and second periods, since the old arises in the new, the new contains the old within itself.
Of course, today we look at it with different eyes, we analyze all his activities differently, we weigh the facts differently. However, it must still be said that in the first period hardly any of us had, so to speak, the mood or assessment of Beria that was even close to the assessment that we give him today. He behaved much more modestly; his negative sides did not stick out as much as they began to do after Stalin's death. He acted from the background, like a real provocateur like Fouché, but on a smaller scale, he acted on the sly.
We all saw that he was an intriguer, that he was intriguing one against another, setting one against another, setting Stalin against us and other people , but many of us thought that perhaps these were specific character traits - quarrelsome, intriguing...
Khrushchev. And vile.
Kaganovich. And a vile one, of course. But mainly a figure who works with us in the party.
Voroshilov: Correct.
Kaganovich. It must be said that we were also under the influence of something else - Comrade Stalin trusted him, Comrade Stalin picked him up. We lived more peacefully under Stalin, I must say. Stalin trusts a person - that means we trust a person. Of course, even great people make mistakes. Stalin is great, but in this case it was his mistake too. We know from the history of our party that even the great Lenin made mistakes, and he himself later admitted it when he trusted Malinovsky - a provocateur, a deputy of the State Duma. If Stalin were alive, he would admit his mistake .
Of course, we approach him differently - now these facts stand out differently . After Stalin's death, this man, who before Stalin's death had shown himself to be the first disciple, loyal and devoted, began to do dirty tricks on Stalin, after his death he became unbridled. Fearing no one, he came from the background to the foreground, he began to act with an open visor, he began to suppress with each passing day brazenly and impudently. We, those around him, became more and more convinced of the intolerance of the situation he created, the intrigue, the setting one against the other, as was said here (comrades cited the facts, I will not repeat them), and the suppression of the slightest critical remarks at meetings - be it a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, be it a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
This impudent fellow, this insolent fellow, as we had already begun to regard him then, and later, as it turned out now, an adventurer and provocateur , who did not know the strength of the Bolshevik Party, who did not know the strength and roots of each of us, thinking that he could step on the throat of each of us with impunity, he imagined himself to be the strongest and "greatest" man, who could do anything, who was allowed to do anything and who was forgiven for anything. Each of us felt this, saw it, experienced it, each of us accumulated bitterness and a feeling of indignation, which later burst out in us. We did not collude. Why we did not collude and why we suffered for 3 1/2 months , I will tell you. It cannot be said that the reason why we did not collude was fear. Of course, we considered the issue politically, and here Comrade Malenkov, Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, Comrade Bulganin correctly presented the essence of the matter. We were in no hurry; we had no right to hurry if we were serious political figures and not cowards. Each of us could have jumped out, laid our cards on the table in advance, prematurely, and he, of course, could have done political harm.
He had the opportunity, comrades, if he had turned to the people, the people would have failed him, expelled him, but he had the means in his hands. He was the Minister of Internal Affairs. It was not for nothing that he was eager for this post, and he was eager. When I asked: "It is strange that you are considering the Ministry of Internal Affairs." He said: "That is better," he said quietly. In general, he was taciturn with most of us, only at meetings. When we had accumulated these facts and when we had gained a firm conviction, and I will say, it was necessary to gain conviction, it was impossible to act on a feeling of resentment, on a feeling of pride, everything must be weighed politically. This is what our teachers taught us, this is how Marxists act, we had to have a sense of conviction that we were dealing not only with an intriguer, but that we were dealing with a conspirator, an adventurer, a provocateur. And when we were convinced of who we were dealing with , we began to act. The Presidium was unanimous in this matter. I noted the role of the most active comrades, but we all quickly and decisively made a decision. There was a time when we endured. 3-4 months - a short period after Stalin's death. It must be said frankly that under Stalin, having a common political leadership, we lived more calmly, although Comrade Stalin, as was rightly said, was not able to work so actively and participate in the work of the Politburo lately. There were two periods - before the war and after the war, when Comrade Stalin did not gather us often , when there was no creative , lively exchange. Of course, this was reflected and created a favorable environment for Beria's intrigue. He is a clever man. It was still more difficult for him at open meetings, but then we lived more calmly in terms of unity. Each of us knew - Stalin unites and there is nothing to fear. This must be said frankly, but after Stalin died, after the grave grief appeared , naturally, we, all members of the Presidium, old and new, we treated the leadership of the collective that was formed after Stalin with great tension and care. I use the word carefully, not cautiously. We tried not to complicate our work. We worked in such a way that it seemed that it was not worth introducing elements of controversy because of such matters .
There were disputes, but we still made decisions, generally, unanimously, unanimously. We did not only demonstrate unity externally, no, comrades. Each of us internally tried to really achieve this unity, because external unity is not unity, not to complicate the work of the collective. Each of us thought - maybe the first period of scraping, adjustment will pass, and the work of the leadership will go more normally. However, this impudent fellow, and now it is clear that he is a provocateur and a political adventurer, perceived this sacred care of ours, sacred concern for the unity of the party, for the unity of the collective. He perceived it in such a way that it is possible to be rude, it is possible to be unbridled, it is possible to act, it is possible to be impudent.
And he became more and more insolent, insolent to the point that when the Central Committee made a decision on the issue of Ukraine, there was no mention in the decision of Beria's note being attached, and there was no mention of it in the minutes either. He calls Malenkov and Khrushchev and insistently demands that it not be written down that Beria's note should be approved, attached to the minutes, and sent to all members of the Presidium. Well ... then it also seemed that there was no point in arguing and disagreeing over this , because it was necessary to speak to him in high tones.
Malenkov. We had to deal with him right away.
Kaganovich: You can argue with any of us. Everyone remembers Sergo Ordzhonikidze. He was a temperamental, sharp-witted man. Anyone would enter into a heated argument with him, but he was a high-party, ideological, principled Bolshevik, and any argument that occurred between us ended with us moving on to the next business in two or three days . We had nothing like that with Beria. He was, first of all, a vindictive man, and besides that, he had his own goal. If we had entered into a dispute over individual issues, he might have felt distrust based on the sum of the issues and might have started to act prematurely. Therefore, I believe that we acted correctly politically, as Marxists, as Leninists.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich: We held out until the end, and then in one fell swoop we swatted this scoundrel away forever. (Applause.)
The Presidium of the Central Committee summed up all his actions and came to the conclusion that we were dealing with an enemy of the Party and the people. I believe that we exposed this matter in good time. It was difficult for us before. The Presidium does not have to apologize here. We have shortcomings and mistakes, we will expose them in the course of criticism and self-criticism, but we stand before the members of the Central Committee with a clear conscience and say that the Presidium of the Central Committee could not expose this impudent fellow earlier. In this short period of time, we managed to accumulate facts, we managed to observe, we managed to summarize all this with restraint and at the right moment decide this matter as our great teachers Lenin and Stalin would have decided this matter.
The Party and the people will undoubtedly approve of this decision of the Presidium, which will, we hope, be confirmed by a resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of our Party. (Applause.)
But, comrades, of course, it is not enough to expel and arrest. We need, and for this reason we are discussing this question, to learn a lesson from it and mobilize the party for a new upsurge on this basis, on the basis of the struggle against enemies, as has always been the case in our party, and to correctly explain this matter to the party and the people. We hope that the party and the people, as comrades have rightly said here, will approve of this measure. But it is necessary that even that small part which will think - how, why - should understand correctly, so that on the basis of the exposure of this Fact the ideological and theoretical level can be raised.
Who and what were we dealing with? What is the socio-political face of this whole event?
The first and absolutely correct answer is that we are dealing with an adventurer, a rogue, a provocateur and, of course, a spy of international scale, who has infiltrated the leadership of the party and the state and has set himself the goal of trying to use his position to seize power. But this is the subjective side of the matter. What is the objective basis, the objective background, who does he reflect, what line did he base his activity on? An ordinary adventurer sets himself the goal of personal gain, but when we are dealing with a political adventurer, we must look deeper, to see that this adventurer has drawn up some views, unprincipled, without ideas, but still his principles. Unlike the ideological principles of a Bolshevik party member, who subordinates his work, his position, his post to the principles of ideological service to the cause of the working class, the cause of communism, the adventurer, careerist Beria, on the contrary, subordinated his behavior, his "line", his "principles" to his adventurous plans - to seize power into his own hands. Apparently, Shishik's laurels did not give him peace. But we have a Bolshevik party and a powerful working class. He had his own principles, his own ideas, which he subordinated to his task and expressed. Therefore, if we systematize and analyze the disparate facts of his activity, we will certainly get a system, if not of views, then of some of his own approaches, some of his own line. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and Bulganin spoke correctly here about another line of the bourgeois degenerate. This line of bourgeois degeneration is aimed at undermining the socialist country, undermining its power, and preparing favorable ground for the seizure of power and degeneration into a bourgeois state.
Beria not only slowed down our work, but he laid the groundwork for replacing the line of communism, the line of Bolshevism, the line of Lenin-Stalin with the line of degeneration. Of course, this is only an attempt, it is ridiculous to think that he would have succeeded. But he still messed up in many matters, and if he had not been caught, he would have done very serious harm. This matter cannot be underestimated. We were facing a serious threat, which was eliminated by the Central Committee of our party.
Let us take the national question. Everyone knows that the basis of the power of our multinational state is the friendship of peoples. It played an important and decisive role both in peacetime and during the war. Our party won this friendship of peoples in the fight against deviations - great-power and local nationalism. That is how Lenin, Stalin, and all of us always formulated this question. How did Beria approach it? He replaced the struggle for the purity of our party's national policy, the struggle on two fronts, with flattery and the incitement of one nation against another. This is a diametrically opposed point of view. In his speech at the party congress, his speech 52 must now be viewed in a different light, as Comrade Khrushchev rightly said. In fact, with his praise he actually contrasted one nation with another.
Comrade Stalin, after the Great Patriotic War, at a banquet, when we summed up the heroism of all the peoples of the Soviet Union who participated in the war, fairly, rightfully, and every communist, no matter what nation he belongs to, will say that this is fair, paid tribute to the people who sacrificed their lives the most, the people who were the leaders in this initially unequal, difficult war with German fascism.
He paid tribute and made a toast to the great Russian people.
How did Beria use this? They said here, correctly, flattery. He spoke about this in passing, in passing, without developing what the merit was, and then moved on to the national republics and began to praise the national republics. He did not say a word about the enemies of the national republics.
The national question is a delicate question, it has a basis . Our policy is based on internationalism - Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, the class struggle is reflected in the national question. Beria had nothing of the sort. He had flattery, flattery and flattery, praise, praise, and praise. This was already the beginning of his speculation on the national question, and not an upsurge.
As a result of implementing our policy on the national question, on the basis of the victory of a single socialist structure in the national economy, we have created new, socialist nations. These socialist nations must be united more and more for their flourishing, and not opposed. Beria led to the disunity of nations.
How did he end up? And his line, which he pursued as Minister of Internal Affairs, was aimed at setting one nation against another within the Union republics. Even such a thing, which looks noble, liberal, like the graduation of doctors, and this was connected with the Jewish question, even this supposedly liberal thing was done correctly, a necessary thing, as comrades said, but it was presented sensationally, violently. artificially, that this method is a method of praising oneself, that I do it, and not the Central Committee. I correct it, and not the government.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich: You all know that this was presented sensationally, which caused some to react in opposition and incitement.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich: It was presented completely differently.
Further. Take all the decisions as he presented them, for example, on Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and other republics. Of course, there are shortcomings, there are no words. I think that we at the Plenum of the Central Committee implemented all the decisions on the republics correctly, basically a number of shortcomings were noted correctly.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich. However, how did he present it, in what way? It turned out to be a sweeping accusation. Firstly, a sweeping justification of the OUN members. It was an army during the war. Secondly, it was presented in such a way that Russians and others were really being expelled from the national republics and Western Ukraine. But it takes time to train specialists and other workers in the same Western Ukraine , since many were shot as enemies, as OUN members. They needed to be educated, trained, but for Beria as an adventurer, time does not exist . He does not take into account time, place, or historical situation.
He is an adventurer, he wanted to win over dissatisfied nationalist elements. That is one line.
He released a whole army of thieves, repeat offenders , released about one and a half million. We were in favor of releasing petty thieves, for example, a woman took a bunch of straw, she was sentenced to three years, she should be released. But what does this woman have in common with a repeat offender? They should have looked, and in the first group of those amnestied there were no thieves or repeat offenders, right, Comrade Gorshenin, and then they included everyone - both thieves and repeat offenders. It was one line - release, get a receipt of loyalty from them and use them later. This is a rabid gang, this is the core of Beria's fascist gang.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich. A gang of repeat offenders, murderers. This was done with the aim of inspiring and activating those ardent nationalists and chauvinists in the republics - both in Lithuania and in Western Ukraine. These are his cadres. He created his cadres . This was done in order to set one nation against another and instead of friendship between peoples to get God knows what in our country, that is, to undermine the foundation. This was his line of conduct. This was certainly done with a specific purpose.
The Central Committee has destroyed the adventurer Beria and will certainly correct everything that is necessary on the national question, will ensure better preparation for this event and certainly, I have no doubt that we will ensure the flourishing of the socialist nations, we will ensure the further strengthening of the national policy of our state and the further implementation of the policy that Lenin and Stalin taught us and which the party carried out. We will not allow this fight between nations, which was and is the lot of bourgeois states, which was the lot of oppressed peoples under tsarism and was eliminated in our country, that this fight will flourish in some way or even exist in our country. We will strengthen the friendship of peoples. This, comrades, is the guarantee of our successful advancement.
Let's take the question of Beria's attitude to the working class. I must say that he generally treated trade unions with great disdain. All comrades remember how he spoke about trade unions, that they are worthless, that they are slackers. And we know what importance the party attached and attaches to this large union of the working class. These are the workers who take on all the grievances and discontent that exist in the factories, in the plants, and who resolve these issues. In a word , trade unions are a school of communism, this remains in force to this day . It is no coincidence that Comrade Shvernik sits on the Presidium. Beria brushed him off from work too. He objected to being invited to the Presidium meetings.
Or when they were deciding on the reduction of construction projects. It was necessary to decide on the reduction of construction projects. And this was presented in a force majeure tone, not in a businesslike manner. This is our mistake and our fault. He was in a hurry to accept all these issues immediately after Stalin's death.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich. And to show his course. It was Stalin's revision. Stalin himself would have corrected the mistakes if they had been shown to him if he had had the opportunity and health. But we do not have such a situation, we are not dogmatists, we can make amendments, we will make amendments. We have made a number of decisions. At the same time it was said in passing. You know that money must now be spent on improving agricultural work.
And we need housing, to provide housing for the workers.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich: This is the main question, this is the most acute question. Do you think he said anything? It's okay, he says, they'll tolerate it, there's no need to rush into it. Not to mention that this man didn't know workers, he himself had never been a worker, he had never been to a factory, he had never spoken to workers, he treated all these issues with disdain.
Meanwhile, I was in the Urals. There are wonderful factories there, they can provide an increase in new capacities, and the workers live in semi-dugouts. And this is even at the old factories - at Uralvagonzavod, at the Berezniki Chemical Plant, which were built 20 years ago, and they have many old barracks that were built 20 years ago. New factories build houses, and the barracks there are falling apart, and now the old factories are in a worse situation with housing than the new ones. There is no more pressing issue than housing. Of course, the food issue is also pressing: there is little meat, there is not enough sausage, but housing, housing is more important. Once we have saved, then we can give money for housing . This applies to metallurgical plants, building materials. Nothing like that, nothing affected him. His attitude towards the working class was careless, provocative, it was reduced to causing discontent of the working class against us, against the party.
Voices. Correct.
Kaganovich. He carried out provocative work towards the bourgeois degeneration of our system. I will not speak here about agriculture, comrades have already spoken about it in detail. After all, it is a fact that even before the death of Comrade Stalin and after the death of Comrade Stalin, he slowed down the adoption of a number of decisions on agriculture, he demonstrated all the time.
For example, in animal husbandry. It must be said that he knew little about agriculture. He knew about viticulture, but as for animal husbandry, potato and vegetable growing, grain farming, he knew absolutely nothing. The man had never worked either in the steppe regions or here in the central regions. At first we thought that he did not know and therefore was confusing, but then it turned out that he not only did not know, but was deliberately holding back. You couldn’t understand what he wanted – now one thing, now another, now a third.
The question of potatoes arose. Comrade Stalin in "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" teaches us that economic adventurers (as if it was written for him) do not know and do not recognize the objective laws of economics, they think that they can write laws themselves. Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Malenkov, Comrade Mikoyan prove to him that it is necessary to raise prices on potatoes, it is impossible to keep the price at 4 kopecks on potatoes, it is a throwaway price. No economics, no objective laws of economic calculations allow this to be done. No, he says, and no. And we have the means, we are generally not in favor of raising prices endlessly, but where it is called for by the economy, there it must be done. But for an adventurer it is nothing: no and no, to press, to take measures. As if it is possible to press in the economy . In our time we pressed when it was necessary: during the civil war, during the Patriotic War. However, this is not the main method of our economy.
The main method of our economy is an economic understanding of the essence of the matter and analysis. To press, to take measures and so on - this is the method of an adventurer, and in this case, a political provocateur.
Now, I think things will go better. We have many shortcomings in agriculture, but our collective farm system is healthy, it contains huge reserves, huge opportunities.
For example, in the Urals, agriculture is in a difficult situation because the regions there are industrial. For example, in the Sverdlovsk region, 11% of the population is rural .
In the Chelyabinsk region it is the same - 88% of the industrial population. Of course, the healthiest population leaves the collective farms, women, old people, children remain, there is no one to work. It is necessary to mix high mechanization or make a balance - to consider the labor force so that agriculture is not undermined, so that agricultural products are not brought to the Urals, so that the Urals feed themselves. This is a major agricultural problem. Beria did not understand this. The Party and the Government will certainly fix these things. But. comrades, take the main and fundamental question - the question of the party. You and I know from history that any hostile act of crime against the state, against socialism, has always been directed first of all against the party. Why? Because the party stands like a cliff, it is the backbone of the state, it is the leader of the working class; the party is the fortress of the working class, and without tearing the party apart, no one can do anything. That is why the oppositionists of the previous period, even before the Trotskyists, and the so-called "Workers' Opposition" and others - Trotskyists, rightists, Bukharinists and so on - all attacked the party. The times are different now, of course, the period is different.
Comrade Stalin back in 1937, dwelling on the shortcomings of party work and the lessons of traitors, said that the Trotskyists, the rightists, who were a political movement 7-8 years ago, had ceased to be a political movement. 52 They degenerated into bandits, all the more so this can be applied to Beria. If those are degenerates, this degenerate of degenerates, because he has absolutely no one behind him, but attacked the party from another side, but again attacked the bottom. attacked the party surreptitiously, attacked at meetings of the Presidium - this was the external side, and the main side is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is his main goal, his main instrument. He wanted to go not to the Central Committee, but asked to be nominated for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It would seem, why not to the Central Committee, but to the Cheka? Because it is a sharp instrument, a political instrument, a corrupted instrument. Corrupted by what Comrade Malenkov and those who followed him - Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, and others - talked about . It is spoiled by the fact that for a number of years it was polluted not only by bad people - Yagoda, Yezhov, Abakumov - but it was polluted by the method. Gradually such a tradition was created, such a custom was created, such morals were created, Beria's separation. The MVD from the party. The MVD is uncontrolled from the party. We, old secretaries, still remember when we listened to the MVD at bureau meetings, listened to reports and so on , and in the last period, when I went to Ukraine in 1947 53 , the MVD already considered itself independent: if it wants, it informs, if it doesn't, it arrests, doesn't report. I established contact with other workers, and not with the MVD. All the facts that were presented are not just isolated facts, no, it is a system. You look, Comrade Khrushchev, the Central Committee apparatus is calling in Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Kobulov and they want to sort out the issue of what changes are taking place.
It seemed that the bad, on the contrary, was good, the Central Committee wanted to help, but he called Comrade Khrushchev angrily: "On what grounds is the head of the department calling Kobulov, my deputy?" Comrade Khrushchev answered that this is how things are done here. "No, I will not allow this, I am the Minister ," Beria declared.
I remember in 1924, when I was the Secretary of the Central Committee and the Head of the Central Committee Orggraspred, at a meeting of the Orgburo there was a small squabble with the late Dzerzhinsky. He was a most honest man. The argument was as follows. They were reviewing the nomenklatura, and it was necessary to approve workers in the Central Committee. 54 Dzerzhinsky spoke up and declared that he was a People's Commissar, he was a member of the Politburo - and suddenly they did not trust him, that Kaganovich's apparatus would check his people, would say whether they were fit or not. Comrade Molotov should remember this . Then Comrade Stalin spoke up and said: "No, Felix, you are wrong. We are talking about the system of party control, about the system of party leadership. It is imperative that the party appoint leading people. It is difficult for you yourself as a minister, and you should be grateful to the Central Committee, and not argue ." And Comrade Dzerzhinsky immediately declared that he was withdrawing his proposal . And then Beria, who is not worth Dzerzhinsky's legs, protested. Why? Because he did not want the Central Committee to know his people, to have the Central Committee control him. He wanted to control the party himself. Take the issue that was discussed regarding the Lvov region, when they have materials on the secretaries of the regional committees. What does this mean? This means putting the party under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this means the Ministry of Internal Affairs is watching the communists, the secretaries of the district committees, the secretaries of the regional committees. If the secretaries of the regional committees were in the same condition as Comrade Serdyuk, what kind of party political leaders would they be? It would be a disaster for our party. This means that we cannot organize such people in any way. Such people under the supervision of Beria's police cannot be leaders of the masses, they cannot be leaders of socialist competition, such people cannot be organizers of criticism and self-criticism, such people cannot lead. He wanted to paralyze our cadres, turn them into rags, in order to dominate himself and to make it easier to carry out this coup in the name of the party.
You understand that it is impossible to speak to the people in the name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is not a stupid person. He needed to speak on behalf of the party, and to do this he had to break some people, turn some people into his agents and act. This is the enemy line, this is the line of foreign intelligence services.
The plan was very big - to tear the Ministry of Internal Affairs away from the Government. He bombarded us with papers, information, we read a lot, but we did not see or have a single paper on major issues. He acted himself . He presented us with information supposedly democratically, but in fact he did not give us anything serious.
The Presidium's position. I have already said that it acted not only in local organizations, but also in the Presidium. It did not work out, he ran into the wrong people. But the party organizations did bring it to the attention of the Central Committee. He did not manage to create a wall between the Central Committee and local party organizations. People did raise the issue with the Central Committee, and if it were not for the local party organizations, we would not have known everything.
His liberalism is the liberalism of the enemy. His amnesty, all the actions he took, and all the measures he took within the party are the actions of an enemy who wanted to suppress our party. It is ridiculous, a party with such rich experience, with such a Central Committee, such leaders, a party that under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin had made the path of great victories, such a party this pygmy, this bug, of course, would never have been able to suppress. However, he planned it and could have destroyed people.
He began his attack on the party with an attack on Stalin. What shocked and amazed me was when, the day after Stalin's death, when Stalin was still lying in the Hall of Columns, he actually staged a coup, overthrew the dead Stalin, he began to stir things up, to do dirty tricks, he said that Stalin said this about you, that about someone else, he said that Stalin was going against him, Beria. He told us, a group of people: Stalin didn't know that if he had tried to arrest me, the Chekists would have staged an uprising. Did he say that?
Voices from the Presidium. Spoke.
Kaganovich. He said this on the Mausoleum tribune. When he said this, we immediately felt that we were dealing with a scoundrel, a counter-revolutionary who was preparing something. He portrayed Stalin in the most unpleasant, insulting words. And all this was presented under the guise of the fact that we now need to live in a new way, we need this and that. It must be said that he achieved something. He achieved that our press is hushing up the economic problems of socialism.
Voices from the audience: Correct.
Kaganovich. We know very well that nothing human is alien to all people. Marx spoke about this. It is not alien to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin either. We know very well that everyone has shortcomings, Stalin had them too. And we, his students, do not intend to deify him and portray him without shortcomings. Moreover, we have always proceeded from and considered that our science, the great science of Marxism-Leninism, is not a dogma, we are not pedants, we understand Marxism creatively and we know, as is written about in the final chapter of the party history 55 , that life experience has enriched us with knowledge and understanding of life, this experience has always posed new questions and required changes in certain decisions both in theory and in practice.
That haste, that persistence, the hissing whistle that Beria raised around this issue showed that this man was a careerist, an adventurer who wanted, by discrediting Stalin, to undermine the foundation on which we sit and clear his way, that, they say, after Stalin I am an authority, I am a liberal, after Stalin I will amnesty, I will expose, I will do everything. That is his goal, he wanted to undermine the foundation of the teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. Note that in his speeches - published and unpublished - you will not find the words Marxism-Leninism. He did not know Marxism-Leninism. He was poorly grounded theoretically; the book that Comrade Molotov spoke about here was not written by him, he made his capital on it. But even without knowing Marxism-Leninism, if he had been a real party member, he would not have spoken about it. He openly, especially recently, went against the party line when he said that the teachings of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin had to be changed, that it had to be acknowledged in the press. When they said that Stalin was the great continuer of Lenin's work, the work of Marx-Engels, he snorted.
I believe that we must now, without a doubt, legitimize Stalin in his rights to be in the ranks of the great teachers of the working class and to lead the people spiritually. (Applause)
Beria simply did not want the amendments we are talking about, literate people. Amendments can be made, but to what end, to the foundations of Marxism-Leninism, and he wanted to slap Marxism-Leninism on the head, he needed it to clear its path to degeneration. That is why today we have finally consolidated our victories, not only economic and ideological, but also principled and political. Of course, we soberly take into account the situation, we do not get carried away, we know that we also have shortcomings. Although the conditions are different, the situation is different, it would be useful to read Comrade Stalin's report and the resolution adopted on his report at the Plenum of the Central Committee in 1937, on the issue of shortcomings in the work and the lessons of sabotage. In this report and in this resolution, Comrade Stalin raises a number of questions, analyzes the rotten theories that supposedly we lack class struggle, raises a number of pressing questions, talks about the shortcomings in our work. Comrade Stalin demands that we have honest criticism and self-criticism, that we have no pomposity, he demands that in the name of not arguing, we give in to each other.
Of course, we must improve our party work. We must raise it to a higher level. Of course, we, in the Presidium of the Central Committee, have shortcomings, and I think that we will eliminate them now. Now the situation is different. We now have a truly party atmosphere, friendly, there is no bullying, like when that scoundrel was sitting with us. We will work as Leninists-Stalinists should, unanimously criticizing each other, not being afraid to become each other's enemies.
This is how we must work in the party organizations at the bottom. We must create a truly businesslike atmosphere right down to the grassroots party organizations . We need criticism, but we need criticism that is not hostile, but criticism of our actions , criticism of the shortcomings that we must eliminate in order to improve our work. We must raise our ideological work, raise the ideological-political work among workers and communists, and we must strengthen the party organs.
The Party is above all for us. No one is allowed when this scoundrel says: the Central Committee is personnel and propaganda. Not political leadership, not leadership of all life, as we, Bolsheviks, understand. But this does not mean that the Central Committee should replace the Council of Ministers, the regional committee - the regional executive committee, etc., but we must concentrate on political leadership, including political problems. The organizational issue is subordinated to politics. The organizational issue and politics are closely connected.
That is why we must preserve the Central Committee, protect it, strengthen it, and so that the Central Committee really would not be what this scoundrel wanted, but so that it would remain as it always was, a strong, central organ of our Party, which directs the entire life of our country. We, comrades, of course understand that the situation has changed, not what it was before. However, we must say that, nevertheless, much of what was said in 1937 remains today. The capitalist encirclement has not only remained, it has become smaller. We have conquered a number of countries and the belt surrounding us. We have such a friend as China with a population of 800 million. However, those enemies that exist have exacerbated their relations, and we must be on guard. The enemy is strong, and we must respond to his strength with even greater vigilance. Vigilance does not mean the word vigilance itself. It means that we must educate people not by the method of administration, not by the method of arrest.
There may be people with a rotten embryo, but if you treat this embryo in time, it will give results. That is why explanatory and educational work is of the greatest importance. This is political work, not just pedantic propaganda, but this is the political education of the masses, this is the political education of the party members, the party leadership.
Beria certainly had connections with international intelligence. The facts cited here, his letter and fraternization with Rankovic and Tito after Tito came from England and visited America, his speech on the question of Germany, against socialism, show that he is a degenerate. He belittled Meshik's statement about the countries of people's democracy and Rakosi in order to entice him and make him a person who would be close to him. We do not yet know everything about the role he played in all the other countries.
Or recently a rumor about a currency reform has spread. Where did the panic come from? After there was panic in Prague - in Czechoslovakia, and not only panic, but also the uprising. 56 It is not known what relation he has to this. Certainly, he had some influence here. It is also not known what role he played in all the other events and in the countries of people's democracy if we recall Meshik's statement. That is why we must be more vigilant in these matters and in international ones . Both the Central Committee and its Presidium will pursue this line firmly and definitely.
Comrades, as the holy of holies, we must protect the unity of the Party and the principled policy. Comrade Stalin said at an evening for graduates of the Kremlin cadets: "A principled policy is the only correct policy." 57 This is the very formula with which Lenin stormed new positions. We are pursuing and will pursue this policy. This principled policy helped the Presidium resolve this issue. If the Presidium of the Central Committee had gone astray along the path of examining minor cases and minor disputes, it would not have found as much determination as it did. Only because the Presidium generalized the facts and looked at these facts from a political point of view, it saved the people, saved our Party from upheavals, from the possibility of serious complications. We did not allow this to happen because we have a strong Central Committee. That is why I think that without bragging, despite all the shortcomings that exist in the Central Committee and Party organizations, we can say - glory to our tradition of collectivism, Party wisdom! Glory to our Central Committee, which was able to draw the conclusions quickly and decisively it did.
Under the leadership of our party, a socialist society has been built on one sixth of the earth, where there is no exploitation of man by man, no crises and unemployment, no antagonistic classes, there are friendly classes of society, where there is no division into lower and higher races, into dominant and oppressed nations. Great is the fraternal family of socialist nations, building a new culture, national in form and socialist in content, building communism.
The peoples are marching towards the great goal of communism under the banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. The Party itself marched and led the working class, the toiling peasantry, the toiling intelligentsia throughout its history, not in the dark, not groping, but consciously, confidently, illuminating its path to communism with the most advanced and most revolutionary theory.
Our party successfully built, led, and inspired the people to labor and military exploits on the fronts of peaceful communist construction and on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, because it successfully fought the enemies of the party and united the people around its Central Committee, around its Soviet government.
And today the party, its Central Committee once again demonstrates its ideological and political power, its loyalty to the theory, principles, and methods of Marxism-Leninism. We emerge from this event even more united. We have cleansed ourselves of filth, we have cleansed ourselves of a major provocateur who spoiled the atmosphere, harmed, and prevented us from working.
Under the banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, under the leadership of its strong, wise Central Committee of the Party, our Party will lead the people to new victories of communism not only in our country, but throughout the world. (Applause.)
Khrushchev: There is a proposal, comrades, to take a break now. No objections?
A 15-minute break is announced.
Khrushchev: Let's continue, comrades. There was a proposal to establish a time limit, since many comrades signed up, to give a large number of comrades the opportunity to speak at the Plenum. There is a proposal to set 20 minutes.
Voices from the floor. Correct.
Khrushchev: No objections? No other proposals? Then I ask the comrades speaking to adhere to the established rules.
Comrade Bagirov has the floor, comrade Malyshev must prepare.