What is the 5th column. The fifth Ukrainian column - what is it? Civil war in Spain

Fifth column

There is one more circumstance that should be examined before approaching the investigation of Goebbels' falsifications. Over time and under the influence of propaganda, priorities in society change dramatically. Previously, young and even well-educated people did not know what the French word “blowjob” meant, but everyone knew what the words “fifth column” meant. Today it’s the other way around: I’ve had to deal with enough educated people, for whom the words “fifth column” are an empty phrase. Therefore, we will have to pause to consider this concept.

It dates back to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. In the mid-1930s in Spain, leftist parties won in the usual parliamentary way and began a series of social reforms, in particular agrarian reform. The capitalist (self-described as “free”) world did not like this at all, and this world incited the Spanish army to revolt. The rebellion began in Spanish Morocco, then the rebel troops landed in Spain proper and marched on Madrid in four columns. At this time, supporters of the rebels in the Republican government of Spain and in its troops rebelled against the Republic in support of the rebels. General Franco, the commander of the rebel army, called these traitors to the republic his fifth column. Since then, this term has firmly come into use to name traitors within a country or organization. As for Spain, the rebels there won in 1939 during a bloody war thanks to this “fifth column”, which, by the way, included Trotskyists, of whom there were many in the USSR.

This does not mean that such a phenomenon as betrayal and support for the enemy did not exist before the Spanish events. It has always been there, it’s just that Franco gave this phenomenon a term accepted by the world. (True, sometimes the “fifth column” is called “quislings” after the traitor to the Norwegian people, Nazi supporter Quisling, but the Spanish name is still more common.)

Previously, the “fifth column” in their country was hated by the inhabitants of the whole world and they necessarily fought a fierce fight against it: if they could not neutralize it before the war, then with the beginning of the war they would definitely deal with it (if they had time).

For example, the British are considered the inventors of death camps, who created them at the beginning of the last century during Boer War in South Africa. The families of the Boers, the Dutch colonists of this state who fought against Britain, were imprisoned in these camps. Boer families were imprisoned in camps to deprive the Boer troops of intelligence and food. And this is not a whim, not some special malice of the British government: just think about how many lives of British soldiers, and even the lives of the Boers themselves, who were forced to surrender, were saved by this measure. This is the duty, this is the responsibility of every government that truly cares about its people.

The French are even more decisive in this regard. When at the beginning of the First World War the Germans approached Paris, the French, without any trial, simply on the instructions of Parisian police agents, shot all thieves, swindlers and even hooligans in the ditches of Fort Vincennes. Nothing changed by World War II; with its beginning, all Germans, even anti-Nazis, and all those suspected of having connections with them, were arrested and placed in camps in France.

The same was true in Great Britain. The Nazi "fifth column" was being tracked. Churchill writes: “It was known that at that time there were twenty thousand organized German Nazis in England. A furious wave of sabotage and murder as a prelude to war would only correspond to their previous behavior in other friendly countries.". In fact, Churchill means only the English supporters of Hitler, organized in the British Union of Fascists party of the millionaire Oswald Mosley. Membership in this party was secret, but the police knew that there were about 400 grassroots organizations with an average of 50 people.

Following them, 74,000 people from countries hostile to Great Britain went to the camps, and the British silenced their talkers and alarmists with an iron fist: “British citizens were also subjected to draconian punishments. On July 17, 1940, a man was sentenced to a month in prison for publicly declaring that Britain had no chance of winning the war. The man who advised two New Zealanders: “What is the point of dying in this bloodbath?” – received three months in prison. A woman who called Hitler "a good ruler, better than our own Mr. Churchill" has been sentenced to five years in prison. English newspapers were warned to beware of reckless statements. The editors were made very clear that the government would not tolerate “irresponsible” criticism; Moreover, it will itself decide which criticism is responsible and which is not.”, complains Len Deighton.

The Americans were not going to tolerate the “fifth column” in any way. After the Japanese attack on the United States, the newspaper " Los Angeles The Times editorialized: “A viper remains a viper, no matter where it lays its egg. So an American, born of Japanese parents, grows up to become Japanese, not American."(quoted from the Workers World newspaper, Nov. 29, 2001, p. 5). It’s rude, but it conveys the Americans’ fear accurately. A month and a half after the start of the US war with Japan, Roosevelt ordered and the American army detained and put in camps all American citizens with Japanese blood, and to get into the camp, even 1/8 of such blood was enough. There were 112 thousand such people.

This is what all governments that serve their people do, and peoples with governments that do not put pressure on the “fifth column” pay dearly for this. In Norway, for example, at the time of the German landing, the “fifth column” paralyzed the work of the state apparatus and prevented mobilization; Quisling spoke on the radio as the head of the new government, causing confusion in the country and the army. The Norwegian army surrendered Norway to the weak German landing force almost without a fight. What do we care about Norway, haven’t we seen how the West destroyed and robbed the USSR? If Brezhnev had had the intelligence and will to repress all these Gorbachevs, Yakovlevs, Shevardnadzes, Kravchuks and their accomplices, then the Soviet people today, even in material terms, would live at least four times richer than they live today.

This is not very difficult to figure out. According to the Russian Statistical Yearbook, in 1990 Soviet Russia 148 million people lived, and the gross domestic product was 1102 billion US dollars (the number is underestimated, but let's take it - official!). Per capita of the Soviet population of Soviet Russia there were 7,446 dollars. And in South Korea in the same 1990 - $5,917. That is, the average citizen of the RSFSR was 26% richer than the average South Korean. And in 1993, the average per capita gross product of Russia being robbed by the “fifth column” was $1,243 - six times lower than in 1990, and already six times lower than in South Korea in 1993! According to CIA data (now inflated), in 1999 Russia’s gross per capita product was $4,200, and South Korea– 13,300. If Russia had remained Soviet and part of the USSR, then there is no reason to believe that the 1990 ratio would have changed significantly not in favor of the USSR. That is, today the average Russian citizen’s per capita gross domestic product would be a quarter higher than that of South Korea, or within $16,000, which is four times more than today’s $4,200. I hope it’s clear why in no country They don’t like the “fifth column”?

And before World War II, the government of the USSR was truly popular and, naturally, could not allow the existence of a “fifth column” in the USSR with impunity. American Ambassador to the USSR in 1937-1938. Joseph W. Davis, after the German attack on the USSR, wrote in his diary (July 7, 1941): “...Today we know, thanks to the efforts of the FBI, that Hitler's organs operated everywhere, even in the United States and South America. The German entry into Prague was accompanied by active support from Gehlen's military organizations. The same thing happened in Norway (Quisling), Slovakia (Tiso), Belgium (Degrell)... However, we do not see anything similar in Russia. “Where are Hitler’s Russian accomplices?” - they often ask me. “They were shot,” I answer. Only now are you beginning to realize how far-sighted the Soviet government acted during the years of purges.”.

Alas, Davis over-praises the Soviet government: yes, the “fifth column” was defeated, but they did not have time to completely destroy it by the beginning of the war. The most powerful damage to defense capability was subsequently caused by the forgiven future Marshal Meretskov, who grossly distorted the mobilization plan of the USSR, and therefore the Red Army entered the war with a lack of vehicles, divisional artillery, etc. The pre-war leaders of the Air Force left the Red Army aviation without radio communications and, accordingly, without established methods control of aviation in combat. Traitor, commander Western Front, General Pavlov and his headquarters exposed three divisions to the Germans in Brest, did not bring the front troops into combat readiness, which predetermined the heaviest losses of Soviet troops in the direction of the main attack of the Germans in 1941. The losses of the Soviet people from the sabotage of these “fifth column” fighters must be in millions of people.

Major General of the Wehrmacht and SS Brigadefuehrer B.V. Kaminsky with soldiers of the Russian People's Liberation Army.

We can also recall minor figures. I already wrote above about the engineer Kaminsky, who created an SS brigade for the Germans, which “distinguished itself” during the storming of Warsaw in 1944. But before the war, Kaminsky was identified as a member of the “fifth column” and was even imprisoned, but not for long - he was released before the war. Estimate how many thousands of killed Soviet soldiers and Poles this “humaneness” of the Soviet court cost the USSR and Poland. How much more humane it would have been for the Soviet people to destroy Kaminsky and his volunteers before the war, and not when the Germans had already armed them.

In the USSR, members of the “fifth column” were searched for and neutralized, of course, continuously, starting from the Civil War. The capital punishment for state crimes in the USSR had two categories: the first was execution, the second was deportation abroad. For a long time, right up to the beginning of the 30s, they tried to expel the “fifth column” abroad.

But then the outspoken enemy of the USSR, Hitler, came to power in Germany, and the expulsion of the “fifth column” abroad began to take the form of mobilization for Hitler foreign legions. Members of the “fifth column” began to be imprisoned, and when in 1936-1937. the top of the “fifth column” tried to carry out a coup with the goal of subsequently dismembering the USSR, then the top was destroyed and carried out what American Ambassador Davis named "cleaning" countries. The Soviet government could not help but understand that with so many “fifth column generals” convicted in open trials in Moscow, there must have been tens of thousands of officers and soldiers of the army of traitors in the country.

This is how this army was liquidated. Neither the people's courts nor the military tribunals, whose reliability due to their large numbers could not be verified, were entrusted with the repression of the “fifth column”. Special courts were created from people whose honesty and decency, it would seem, could be trusted. These courts consisted of three people and were called troikas. The troika was staffed by the highest leaders of the republic or region in which it was created. At first, the members of the troika, judging by some data, were appointed personally, but they necessarily included the secretary of the regional committee and the head of the NKVD, and then their composition was determined in the form of positions: the chairman was the head of the NKVD department of the region (People's Commissar of the Republic); members are the first secretary of the regional committee (Central Committee of the republic) of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor of the region (republic). The troikas were asked to review the cases available to the NKVD against persons suspected of belonging to the “fifth column” and to convict them. At the same time, by order of the People's Commissar of the Internal Affairs N. Yezhov, the troikas were limited in repression by the maximum number of members of the “fifth column”, above which they had no right to condemn, and by the approximate number of traitors whom the troikas had the right to condemn to death.

However, the trouble was that the members of the “fifth column” were rarely workers or peasants, because all traitors are, as a rule, people thirsting for power, fame or money, which again gives power. Members of the “fifth column” settled in the party, judicial, prosecutorial and investigative bodies, i.e. the situation was exactly the same as today in Russia. And the members of the troikas were largely composed of the “fifth column”. As a result, a fairly large number of members of the “fifth column” managed to escape the repressions, but instead they were convicted by troikas large number either innocent or those who should not have been repressed. When the USSR government realized this and when it finally put L. Beria at the head of the NKVD, the troikas were abolished, and criminal cases were brought against many members of these troikas, which ended in the execution of these judges. By the way, the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, N. Khrushchev, was trying to become a member of this troika, but for some reason he was not included, perhaps due to being busy. Since under Beria almost all members of the Moscow troikas were shot, it is, of course, a pity that Khrushchev was not among them. Without Khrushchev, the history of the USSR would have been different, brighter. But let's get back to the topic.

First we would need to estimate the number of those who fell under repression, but this is not easy to do. The fact is that when during the years of perestroika the “fifth column” destroyed the USSR, it stated that 40 and 60 million were shot during the “years of repression,” i.e. in 1937-1938. Therefore, the Goebbelsites give scattered figures from the archives, in pieces, so that it is impossible to present the overall picture. So, for example, in 1997, even the Memorial society - combat detachment“fifth column” - the figures of repressions were given not for the entire USSR and not even for the entire RSFSR, but only for some regions and republics. But, having found the population of these regions in other sources, I made the appropriate calculations and found that on average less than two people out of a thousand people were planned to be subjected to repression, of which less than 5 people out of ten thousand were to be shot. Recalculated for the entire USSR, these numbers look like approximately 340 thousand repressed, of which about 80 thousand were shot.

As I just wrote above, the “fifth column” numbering approximately 94 thousand people was repressed in Great Britain, and with the population of Great Britain at that time being 47 million, this also amounts to 2 people per 1000 inhabitants. In the United States, with a population of 140 million, this number is less than 1, but one must understand that neither the United States nor Great Britain experienced the upheavals associated with the Civil War and the socialization of the earth on the eve, and there, of course, there were fewer potentially evil opponents.

There are two more points to consider. Order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov No. 00447 of July 30, 1937, setting the number of members of the “fifth column” subject to repression, demanded: "3. The approved figures are indicative only. However, the people's commissars of the republican NKVD and the heads of the regional and regional departments of the NKVD do not have the right to independently exceed them. Any independent increases in numbers are not allowed.

In cases where the situation requires an increase in the approved figures, the people's commissars of the republican NKVD and the heads of the regional and regional departments of the NKVD are obliged to submit to me the appropriate motivated petitions.".

And such petitions were submitted and granted. In addition, at the same time, the country was being cleansed of German, Polish and Japanese intelligence and sabotage networks: Germans, Poles and Harbin residents suspected of membership in the “fifth column” were arrested. Therefore, the actual number of those repressed must be greater than expected in Yezhov’s original order.

But what exactly the final figures were, the current “fifth column” is still hiding. I already had to make an estimate based on data (possibly exaggerated) reported by the former burgomaster of Smolensk under the Germans, Menshagin. Extrapolating the data from the Smolensk region to the entire USSR, we get the total number of repressed people in the country at 960 thousand people. Of which about 240 thousand were shot (if the proportion specified in Yezhov’s order was preserved). This figure is also confirmed by extrapolation from Moscow and the Moscow region, in which the number of the repressed “fifth column” was set in the order at 35,000 people, and this is more than 10% of all those repressed according to Soviet Union. In total, from 1935 to 1953, 27,508 people were shot in Moscow and the Moscow region (some from other places in the USSR); in 1937-1938. – 20,675 people. If we extrapolate this number to the entire USSR, it turns out that from 1935 to 1953 about 270 thousand people were shot in the USSR, and in 1937-1938. approximately 210 thousand.

It should be added that in the USA and England, the repressed members of the “fifth column” also included citizens of the enemy’s nationality. In the USSR, such people were not put in either camps or prisons - they were simply resettled to the East. You have already seen that this is exactly what they did with the families of Polish officers when Poland declared war on the USSR - they were not put into camps like the Boer families, but, after spending a fair amount of money, they were resettled. The result was a result that was quite offensive for Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and many other peoples of the USSR. It was these peoples who bore the brunt of the war with the Germans on their shoulders; more than 26 million of them died at the fronts and under occupation; it happened to them in 1941-1945. a terrible demographic failure that reverberated forty years later. And at this time, Soviet Germans multiplied in Altai and Kazakhstan. And if in 1939 there were 1.2 million of them in the USSR, then already in 1959 there was a third more - 1.6 million.

And finally, the result of the purges is interesting. Since it is difficult to express it in numbers for traitors and traitors in the “fifth column,” let’s make a comparison for criminals. On July 10, 1937, Khrushchev reported to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks that 33,436 criminals were registered in Moscow and the Moscow region, the most dangerous of whom were also repressed along with the “fifth column.” Khrushchev asked to repress 11,772 people out of the total mass of criminals, of whom he asked to shoot 6,000. I do not know what the Central Committee decided, since in Yezhov’s subsequent order of July 25, Khrushchev was allowed to repress only 35,000 people, of which no more than 5,000 would be shot. Regardless, the outcome of such a fight against criminality is interesting.

In 1998, in Russia, with a population of about 140 million, 64,545 people were killed and 81,565 were injured as a result of crimes.

Three years later, Colonel General L. Ivashov reported: “... last year, 2001, 83 thousand people died as a result of murders, tens of thousands died later in hospitals after attempts on their lives, about 70 thousand disappeared without a trace”.

And in 1940 (after the “purge” of 1937-1938), with a population of 190 million people in the USSR, there were only 6,549 murders. If today we repeat the repressions of 1937 and achieve the indicators of 1940, then only in terms of criminal crime the population decline will be more than compensated in 5 years by preserving the lives of decent people. But the theft and destruction of Russia will still be stopped, and this is also a lot.

What else is important for you, the readers in the position of judges, to note and remember. If in the USA and Great Britain repressions were carried out indiscriminately - since the grandfather was Japanese, that means he was sent to a camp until the end of the war - then in the USSR not a single person was sent to either a camp or to the wall without a thorough assessment of his personal danger to society. No one was imprisoned or shot just because he was a Pole, that he was an officer and that he was German. From Khrushchev’s appeal to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, you saw that not all criminals were targeted for repression, but only those about whom the NKVD had information that they had not repented. At the very least, both the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the People's Commissar of the NKVD N. Yezhov in their orders demanded a careful consideration of the degree of danger of each person suspected of belonging to the “fifth column”. By order of Yezhov No. 00447 of July 30, 1937, former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of rebel, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations, who had served their sentences, fled from repressions or escaped from places of imprisonment and resumed their criminal activities, were subject to repression. Members of anti-Soviet parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Musavatists, Ittihadists and Dashnaks), former whites, gendarmes, officials, punitive forces, bandits, bandits, ferrymen, re-emigrants who fled from repression, escaped from places of detention and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet activities. The most hostile and active participants in the Cossack-White Guard insurgent organizations, fascist, terrorist and spy-sabotage counter-revolutionary formations that were being liquidated at that time were exposed by investigative and verified intelligence materials. The most active anti-Soviet elements were former kulaks, punitive forces, bandits, whites, sectarian activists, churchmen and others, who were then kept in prisons, camps, labor camps and colonies and continued to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there. Criminals (bandits, robbers, repeat thieves, professional smugglers, repeat offenders, cattle thieves) engaged in criminal activities and associated with the criminal environment.

The fourth section of the order read: "1. An investigative case is opened for each arrested person or group of arrested persons. During the investigation, all criminal connections of the arrested person must be revealed.

2. At the end of the investigation, the case is sent to the troika for consideration.

The following are attached to the case: an arrest warrant, a search report, materials seized during the search, personal documents, a questionnaire of the arrested person, intelligence records, an interrogation report and a short indictment.”.

The rest of the orders, in meaning, repeated order No. 00447, however, they also required thorough investigative work and careful consideration of cases in troikas, or at a Special Meeting of the NKVD, or at commissions consisting of the head of the regional or republican NKVD and the prosecutor of the region or republic .

Let's say, carrying out Yezhov's order No. 00485 of August 11, 1937 on the liquidation of the Polish espionage and sabotage network, NKVD workers arrested the future Marshal of the USSR, and then division commander, K.K. Rokossovsky, a Pole by nationality. This order prescribed: “Simultaneously with the deployment of the arrest operation, begin investigative work... Select a special group of workers to conduct the investigation”. Investigators of this special group conducted an investigation for more than two years, trying to confirm the previous slander, but found no evidence of Rokossovsky’s involvement in the “fifth column”, and he was released without trial, reinstated in rank and position with compensation for the time spent in prison of all kinds the monetary and clothing allowances due to him.

This should be noted: During repressions, Moscow always demanded careful consideration of individual guilt and never gave sweeping orders. On the ground, both investigators and judges, in order to distinguish themselves or with hostile intentions, could approach the matter formally or deliberately repress the innocent. There were enough such investigators and judges, and they were later shot along with their boss, People’s Commissar of the NKVD N. Yezhov, but the USSR government prohibited a formal approach to the fate of people, so no such documents could come from it. I ask you to note this because in the future, when examining the forgeries concocted by the Goebbels brigade, it will help us.