Chapter 27 – Close Friends
In terms of total numbers, more revolutionaries were killed by Stalin than were slaughtered by successive tsars. Stalin not only completely cut off his open and potential political enemies, but also diminished their supporters. Moreover, in order to leave no living witnesses to his crimes, he sent off to another world one after another the accomplices who had faithfully carried out his criminal orders. Stalin refused to spare even his old friends, whom he had met in the Caucasus, for one reason only – they knew his past too well. In short, Stalin killed countless people during his long and bloody reign, but among all his crimes, I am most shocked and puzzled by the tragic death of Averil Yenukidze.
Yenukidze and Stalin were close friends as teenagers. In the mid-1930s, Yenukidze became the head of the Central Executive Committee, but by this Time he had lost the qualities that had made him a revolutionary of national renown and had transformed into a typical bureaucrat, content with a Life of luxury and great power.
Once I asked Yenukidze’s secretary (he was an old friend of mine) what his boss liked most. He replied.
“Ah, he, nowadays, likes most to compare his life with that of the tsar, to see which point he is not as good as the tsar.”
After saying this, my friend waved his hand helplessly, and a mischievous look appeared in his eyes. When I was puzzled, he added that his boss was the “best farmer”.
I never understood the basis of the deep friendship between Stalin and Yenukidze, knowing that they were two people who were incompatible in every way (even in their appearance and manners). Yenukidze was a typical man, tall and strong, with light gray hair and a courteous and pleasant demeanor. The biggest difference between him and the others in Stalin’s group was the smallness of his official addiction. I know one thing very well. In 1926, when Stalin wanted to put Yenukidze in the Politburo, the careerist Averill said: “Forget it, forget it, I’m not going to give up my job anyway. You’d better give this chair to Lazar (Kaganovich), who has wanted it for a long time!”
Stalin agreed. He knew that there was no need for small favors to enlist Averill, a man who could be trusted absolutely without special rewards. From then on, as far as I know, even when there was a vacancy in the Politburo, Stalin did not have the idea of filling it with Yenukidze, but used it as a most attractive bait to buy other covetous people.
Now that I know Yenukidze better, I tend to think that he declined to join the Politburo not because he lacked ambition, but because he realized that to occupy a seat in Stalin’s Politburo, he had to become a ruthless and unprincipled person.
Yenukey, on the other hand, was a kind-hearted man who loved nothing more than to relieve people of their problems. Many people who could remember to ask him for help when they encountered setbacks in their lives were able to get what they wanted. Any request for mitigation of punishment that reached Yenukidze was often met by the Central Executive Committee as much as possible. The families of the purged believed that Yenukidze was the only senior official who could help them. This was true, as many of them were given Food and doctors were sent to treat them or their children. Of course Stalin knew about all these things, but since the problem involved Yenukidze, he had to turn a blind eye and forget about it.
In this regard, I can also be considered a witness, because I had a personal experience that illustrates the character of Yenukidze. It was 1933, I was working in Austria and my Family was with me. One day we suddenly heard that Yenukidze had come, with his secretary and the best doctor. After a short stay in the hospital of Professor von Noldun, they went to Zemmeringer’s place of stay: they had many rooms in a top-class hotel there. A few days later, my wife and I went to Vienna on business and met them near the Soviet Embassy. Yenukey immediately invited us to go to Zemmerlinger for a vacation together. On the way, we passed through a small town in time for the country fair. The town was bustling with the traditional merry-go-round and a variety of simple folk entertainment. We also stopped to enjoy the vibrant scene. At that moment, a group of Cossacks dressed in Caucasian costumes approached our car from a dance floor not far from the road. They danced the Caucasian dance in front of Yenukidze, playing with daggers in their hands in a dazzling manner. Obviously, the Cossacks knew that their audience was Soviet government officials, and authentic Caucasians at that. They were performing so hard in the hope that we would be generous with our money. Sure enough, after the dance, a man approached our car, panting and holding out his Caucasian leather hat to us. Yenukey immediately fished out his money clip and slipped a 100 shilling bill into the leather hat. Then he beckoned all the dancers over and gave them a hundred shillings each. At that time, one hundred Austrian shillings was equivalent to fifteen dollars – quite a lot!
As we continued our journey, Yenukidze’s personal police officer said to him.
“Avir Savlonovich, these Cossacks used to be white bandits!”
“So what?” Yenukidze yelled, so excited that his face turned red. “They are also people ……”
I was extremely impressed by this statement of Yenukidze, which I will never forget. Of course, I did not appreciate this kind of money-spinning practice of his. I thought to myself that for the money he threw out in this minute, a domestic farmer would have to work for a whole year. Besides, he was the only one who had the right to be so generous, for anyone else would have lost his party vote.
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