Surviving Young Guards. "Young Guard" - some facts. We must not forget about the main thing

The FSB Central Archive provided us with the opportunity to study Case No. 20056 - twenty-eight volumes of investigation materials on charges of policemen and German gendarmes in the massacre of the underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the Ukrainian city of Krasnodon in 1942.

Let us recall that the novel “The Young Guard,” which we have not re-read for a long time, tells in detail about these events. The writer Fadeev made a special trip to Krasnodon after his release and wrote an essay for Pravda, and then a book.

Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

After this, not only the dead, but even the surviving “Young Guards” no longer belonged to themselves, but to Fadeev. In 1951, at the insistence of the Central Committee, he introduced communist mentors into his book. Here and in real life, kilometers of dissertations were written about their role in the leadership of the Krasnodon youth underground. And not the writer from eyewitnesses, but real participants in the events began to ask the writer: what was the Young Guard really doing? Who led it? Who betrayed her? Fadeev replied: “I wrote a novel, not a story.”

The investigation was hot on the trail when not all the witnesses and accused had yet read the novel, which quickly became a classic. This means that in their memory and testimony, the well-known underground book heroes have not yet managed to replace the completely real boys and girls executed by the Krasnodon police.

The “Young Guard” was invented twice. First at the Krasnodon police. Then Alexander Fadeev. Before a criminal case was opened regarding the theft of New Year's gifts at a local bazaar, SUCH an underground youth organization that we have known about since childhood did not exist in Krasnodon.

Or did it still exist?

So, the facts.

FROM CASE MATERIALS No. 20056:
Valya Borts: “I joined the Young Guard through my school friend Seryozha Safonov, who introduced me to Sergei Tyulenin in August 1942. At that time the organization was small and was called the “Hammer” detachment. Took the oath.

The commander was Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar was Oleg Koshevoy, and the members of the headquarters were Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin and Ulyana Gromova. Later the headquarters increased to include Lyuba Shevtsova.”

Korostylev, engineer of the Krasnougol trust : “One day at the beginning of October 1942, I handed over a radio receiver to the Young Guard. The reports they recorded were multiplied and then distributed throughout the city.”

Valya Borts:“...On November 7, red flags were hung on the buildings of the coal directorate and the club of mine No. 5-bis. The labor exchange was burned, in which lists of Soviet citizens subject to deportation to Germany were kept. Shevtsova, Lukyanchenko and Tyulenin set fire to the labor exchange.”

That's all, perhaps. Of course, it is not for us to judge whether this is a lot or a little when it comes to life and death, but even the gendarmes and police officers involved in Case No. 20056, just three years after the Krasnodon events, had difficulty remembering the Young Guard. They were never able to say how many people it consisted of or what it actually did. At first, they didn’t even understand why, out of everything they managed to do during the war, the investigation was interested in this short episode with teenagers.

In fact, only twenty-five gendarmes were left to support the Ordnung of the Germans in the entire area. Then five more were seconded. They were led by a fifty-year-old German - the head of the gendarmerie Renatus, a member of the NSDAP since 1933. And for every thirty Germans in the area there were four hundred police officers. And the competition for a position in the police was such that they hired only on recommendation.

“On the facts of arson at the labor exchange and hanging flags,” the police reported the next day: eight people were arrested. The head of the gendarmerie without hesitation ordered everyone to be shot.

In the Case there is a mention of only one victim of police reporting - the daughter of the collective farm manager Kaseev, who admitted to hanging the flags. It is absolutely known that Kaseeva was never a “Young Guard” and is not on the list of heroes.

The “culprit” of posting leaflets was also found immediately. The wife of a coal directorate engineer was just solving family problems. And, in order to get rid of her husband, she reported to the police: there was an engineer here who was in contact with the partisans. The "poster" was miraculously saved by his neighbor next door, burgomaster Statsenko.

Where did the myth about a huge, branched underground organization that poses a terrible threat to the Germans come from?

On the night of December 25-26, 1942, near the Krasnodon district government building, a German car containing mail and New Year's gifts for German soldiers and officers was robbed.

The driver of the car reported this to the Krasnodon gendarmerie.

The head of the Krasnodon police, Solikovsky, gathered all the police, showed a pack of cigarettes of the same brand as the stolen ones, and ordered them to immediately go to the local bazaar and bring to the police anyone who would sell such cigarettes.

Soon, the translator Burgart and a German in civilian clothes walking with him through the bazaar managed to detain twelve-year-old Alexander Grinev (aka Puzyrev). The boy admitted that Evgeny Moshkov gave him the cigarettes. Eight boxes of cigarettes and cookies were found in Moshkov’s apartment.

So the head of the club Moshkov, head. string circle Tretyakevich and some others.

And then they took Olga Lyadskaya.

In fact, she was arrested completely by accident. They came to Tosa Mashchenko in search of the “robber” Valya Borts, who by that time was already walking towards the front line. The policeman liked Tosya's tablecloth and decided to take it with him. Under the tablecloth lay an unsent letter from Lyadskaya to her acquaintance Fyodor Izvarin.

She wrote that she did not want to go to Germany for “SLAVERY”. That's right: in quotes and in capital letters.

Investigator Zakharov promised to hang Lyadskaya at the market for her capital letters in quotation marks, if he did not immediately name others dissatisfied with the new order. She asked: who is already in the police? The investigator cheated and named Tosya Mashchenko, who had been released by him by that time. Then Lyadskaya showed that Mashchenko was unreliable.

The investigator didn't expect anything more. But Lyadskaya was hooked and named a couple more names - those she remembered from active Komsomol work before the war, who had nothing to do with the Young Guard.

FROM CASE MATERIALS No. 20056:
Lyadskaya:“I named the people whom I suspected of partisan activity: Kozyrev, Tretyakevich, Nikolaenko, because they once asked me if there were partisans on our farm and if I was helping them. And after Solikovsky threatened to beat me up, I betrayed Mashchenko’s friend Borts...”

And eighty more people.

Even according to post-war lists, there were about seventy members of the organization.

For a long time, in addition to Lyadskaya, the “Young Guard” Pocheptsov was considered an “official” traitor. Indeed, investigator Cherenkov recalls that Gennady Pocheptsov, the nephew of the former chief of the Krasnodon police, handed over the group in the village of Pervomaisky to Solikovsky and Zakharov in writing. And he issued the MG headquarters in this order: Tretyakevich (chief), Lukashev, Zemnukhov, Safonov and Koshevoy. He also named the commander of his “five” - Popov.

Brought to the police, Tosya Mashchenko admitted that she had distributed leaflets. And she extradited Tretyakevich, who had been extradited for the third time since the New Year.

Tretyakevich betrayed Shevtsov and began calling “Young Guards” entire villages.

The circle of suspects expanded so much that Chief Solikovsky even managed to get the son of burgomaster Statsenko into the police force. And, judging by the post-war testimony of the pope, Zhora told everything he knew about his friends whispering behind their backs. His father rescued him, just like the engineer who had been arrested “for leaflets” before. By the way, he also came running and reported that Oleg Koshevoy’s radio was being listened to illegally in his apartment.

Indeed, the “Young Guard” Gennady Pocheptsov, who after the war was made “an official traitor to the Young Guard,” betrayed on his own initiative. But he no longer told Solikovsky anything new.

The documents mention the Chinese Yakov Ka-Fu as a traitor to the Young Guard. Investigator Zakharov told investigator Orlov already in Italy, at the very end of the war, that this Chinese man betrayed the organization. The post-war investigation was able to establish only one thing: Yakov could have been offended by the Soviet government, because before the war he was removed from work due to his poor knowledge of the Russian language.

Imagine how the offended Chinese Ka-Fu betrayed the underground organization. How he answered the investigators' questions in detail - probably on his fingers. It is strange that the list of “Young Guards” did not include, if not all of China, then at least the entire Krasnodon region “Shanghai”.

For decades there has been a debate about how the real history of the Young Guard differs from that written by Fadeev. It turns out that the argument was pointless. Case

No. 20056 that the book embellished not life, but a myth already created before the writer. At first, the exploits of the youth underground were multiplied by the Krasnodon police themselves.

For what? Let's not forget that the Krasnodon police did not fall from the moon and did not come from the Third Reich. To report to your superiors, uncovering an ordinary robbery is much less significant than an entire underground organization. And once opened, it was not difficult for the former Soviets to believe in it. For former Soviets - on both sides of the front.

But all this was just the prehistory of the Young Guard. The story begins only now.

FROM CASE MATERIALS No. 20056:
Maria Borts:“...When I entered the office, Solikovsky was sitting at the table. In front of him lay a set of whips: thick, thin, wide, belts with lead tips. Vanya Zemnukhov, mutilated beyond recognition, stood by the sofa. His eyes were red, his eyelids were very inflamed. There are abrasions and bruises on the face. All of Vanya’s clothes were covered in blood, the shirt on his back was stuck to his body, and blood was seeping through it.”

Nina Zemnukhova:“From a resident of Krasnodon, Lensky Rafail Vasilyevich, who was kept in the same cell with Vanya, I learned that the executioners took Vanya, naked, into the police yard and beat him in the snow until he lost consciousness.

... Zhenya Moshkov was taken to the Kamenka River, frozen in an ice hole and then thawed in a stove in a nearby hut, after which they were again taken to the police for interrogation...

...Volodya Osmukhin had a bone broken in his arm, and every time during interrogation they twisted his broken arm..."

Tyulenina (Sergei's mother):“On the third day after my arrest, I was summoned for questioning where Seryozha was. Solikovsky, Zakharov and Cherenkov forced me to strip naked, and then beat me with whips until I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, in my presence they began to burn Seryozha’s right hand wound with a hot rod. The fingers were placed under the doors and squeezed until completely dead. Needles were driven under the nails and hung on ropes. The air in the room where the torture was carried out was filled with the smell of burnt meat.

...In the cells, policeman Avsetsin did not give us water for whole days in order to at least slightly moisten the blood that had dried in our mouth and throat.”

Cherenkov (police investigator):“I conducted a confrontation between Gromova, Ivanikhina and Zemnukhov. At that moment, Solikovsky and his wife entered the office. Having laid Gromova and Ivanikhin on the floor, I began to beat them. Solikovsky, egged on by his wife, snatched the whip from my hands and began to deal with the arrested himself.

... Since the prison cells were filled with young people, many, like Olga Ivantsova’s mother, were simply lying around in the corridor.”

Maria Borts:“...Solikovsky, Zakharov, Davidenko forced the girls to strip naked, and then they began to mock them, accompanied by beatings.Sometimes this was done in the presence of Solikovsky’s wife, who usually sat on the sofa and burst into laughter.

...Ulya Gromova was hung up by her braids... Her chest was trampled under boots.

...Policeman Bautkin beat Popov with a whip and forced him to lick up the blood that splashed on the wall with his tongue.”

In 1948, Sergei Gerasimov filmed his film “The Young Guard”. The whole city gathered to film the scene of the execution of underground workers at the mine. And Krasnodon roared loudly when the actor playing Oleg Koshevoy, Alexander Ivanov, was the first to go to the pit... It is unlikely that, knowing that Koshevoy was not shot at the mine, they would have cried less.

The decision to execute at mine No. 5-bis was made by the police chief Solikovsky and burgomaster Statsenko. The place was checked, Krasnodon residents had already been shot there.

According to the Case, the “Young Guards” were taken to execution in four stages. The first time, on January 13, there were thirteen girls in a truck, with six Jews attached to them. First, the Jews were shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5-bis. And then the girls started shouting that they were not guilty of anything. The police began to lift and tie the girls' dresses over their heads. And some were thrown into the mine alive.

The next day, sixteen more people were taken to the mine on three carts, including Moshkov and Popov.

Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine alive because he managed to grab police investigator Zakharov and tried to drag him along with him. So decide for yourself what Viktor Tretyakevich really was like, about whom not a single writer wrote a single line for twenty years after his execution.

The third time - on January 15 - seven girls and five boys were taken out on two carts. And for the last time, in early February, Tyulenin and four others were taken out on one cart. Then the execution almost fell through. Kovalev and Grigorenko managed to untie each other's hands. Grigorenko was killed by the translator Burgart, and Kovalev was only wounded - then they found his coat, pierced by a bullet. The rest were hastily shot and thrown into the mine.

For almost a week, Oleg Koshevoy hid from persecution in the villages, dressed in a woman’s dress. Then he lay down for three days - under a bed in a relative’s apartment.

Koshevoy thought that the Krasnodon police were looking for him as a commissar of the Young Guard. In fact, he was caught as a participant in the robbery of a car with New Year's gifts. But they took me for neither one nor the other - simply because in the front-line zone they grabbed and searched all the young people.

Koshevoy was taken to the Rovno district gendarmerie to investigator Orlov. Oleg knew: this is the same Ivan Orlov who once called in for questioning and raped the teacher. And the Germans even had to “meet the population halfway” and remove Orlov from Krasnodon here, to Rovenki.

Koshevoy shouted to Orlov: I am an underground commissar! But the investigator didn’t listen about the Young Guard: how could real partisans pretend to be so stupid? But the young man irritated the investigator so much that during six days of interrogation Oleg turned gray.

The Germans from the firing squad testified about how Koshevoy died. They hardly remembered how, during breakfast, the chief of the gendarmerie Fromme came into the dining room and said: hurry up, there is work. As usual, they took the prisoners into the forest, divided them into two parties, and placed them facing the pits...

But they clearly remembered that after the volley one gray-haired boy did not fall into the hole, but remained lying on the edge. He turned his head and simply looked in their direction. Gendarme Drewitz could not stand it, he approached and shot him in the back of the head with a rifle.

For the Germans, neither the name of Oleg Koshevoy nor the “Young Guard” existed. But even a few years after the war, they did not forget the look of the gray-haired boy lying on the edge of the pit...

After the liberation of Krasnodon, on March 1, 1943, forty-nine corpses of the dead were placed in coffins and transported to the park named after. Komsomol. It snowed, immediately turning into mud. The funeral lasted from morning until late evening.

In 1949, Lyadskaya asked to be given the opportunity to independently complete the 10th grade program, because she had been in prison since the age of seventeen. Olga Lyadskaya was rehabilitated in the mid-nineties on the grounds that she was not a member of the Young Guard youth Komsomol organization, and therefore could not extradite her.

In 1960, Viktor Tretyakevich was included in the lists of the “Young Guard” and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

The editors express their gratitude to the leadership of the Central Election Commission of the FSB.

share:

I arrived in Krasnodon on the morning of May 8 to meet several good people there and discuss humanitarian matters. But the realities of Novorossiya made their own adjustments, namely, there was a global drop in communications. Neither local nor Russian numbers were called from approximately five in the evening on May 7th until noon on the 8th. At least it was at 5 pm on the 7th that I started calling alonso_kexano , but couldn't get through.
On the 8th I met Vera, who was coming from Moscow, in Krasnodon odinokiy_orc , which carried banners for the May 9th parade in Stakhanov and vitamins for the grandfather-veteran. We didn’t have time to agree on the exact meeting place, so I spent some time running circles around Krasnodon, trying to find some way to get through. However, we successfully met at the bus station. To connect with e_m_rogov , with whom it was also planned to meet and devirtualize, there was no possibility. So we went to the Young Guard Museum, and then walked to Mine No. 5, the same one where the Young Guards were executed.

Krasnodon is the first large settlement after the border. Now he is relatively in the rear. But all the same, war is war, and the comparative prosperity of Krasnodon does not mean at all that people there are not afraid of war or do not experience problems due to the lack of salaries and pensions. The museum staff works enthusiastically without receiving a salary. Our guide mentioned that she was afraid of air bombing; according to her, it was much worse than even artillery.
The impressive Red Banner flies over the city's central square.

It is huge, and, judging by the clearly visible seams, I believe it is self-sewn. In general, in Novorossiya before May 9 there were a considerable number of red banners. Apparently, when it is not possible to raise the Victory Banner, they simply hang out a red banner. However, as my friend Roman from Stakhanov said, “we miss you here without the red banners.” They symbolize not only Victory, but are also associated with the good times of the USSR for Donbass, when the region prospered and was part of a single power with the RSFSR.

Museum and surroundings

In front of the Young Guard Museum we came across the house of Oleg Koshevoy

Memorial plaque

Busts of the Young Guards

We walked along the alley with monuments to them and Fadeev, who wrote the novel

And we went to the museum itself

There I photographed an exhibition of children's drawings for May 9th

Here is a whole allegory of the history of the Second World War being reshaped in a living way.

And here the child drew more from the stories of his brother or father than from his grandfather or great-grandfather. What can you do, they also had to fight, defending their native land

The inscription is in Ukrainian, as the children of the Russian Krasnodon were taught in schools in Ukraine, and this did not stop the local authorities from sending the drawing to the exhibition

The museum itself, despite the war, is open. Although the collections were packed in case of need to evacuate.
Parents of Young Guards

I was especially interested in the portrait of the Knight of St. George - the father of Ulyana Gromova

Prehistory. The lands of the modern LPR are the Cossack region, the territory of the Don Army

The first mines in Krasnodon, their life and the revolution of 1917

Life in a mining town in the 30s. Stakhanov movement

Childhood

Komsomol tickets?

School years of the future Young Guard

School essay

War

Especially for tarkhil photographed medical instruments

Field radio

Workers of Krasnodon who tried to sabotage work for Germany, and were brutally executed for this by punitive forces (they were buried alive in the ground), which some future Young Guards witnessed

Camps and work in Germany, where residents of Krasnodon were taken

Life during the occupation

Young guard

Oath. According to the guide, the Krasnodon militia slightly altered the text to suit modern realities, and pronounced it as an oath.

Arson by the Young Guard of the Labor Exchange building, which saved many people from being deported to Germany

Banners raised in Krasnodon on the anniversary of the Great October Revolution

An amateur club where the Young Guards held their meetings

Preserved surroundings and costumes

Dress by Lyubov Shevtsova

Suicide letters

Arrest

On the left is a photograph of a prison (or rather, not even an adequate prison, but a bathhouse adapted for it, not really heated, and in January, when the Young Guards were arrested, extremely uncomfortable)

Camera

Interrogation room, or rather torture room

The noose is presented because one of the tortures was to simulate hanging. A man was hanged, he began to choke, he was taken down, brought to his senses, asked to confess, and the procedure was repeated as a result of his refusal.

Lyuba Shevtsova, one of the last Young Guards was shot. They wanted to execute her with a bullet in the back of the head, but she didn’t want to kneel, so they shot her in the face

Mine No. 5 is the place of execution of the main group. Personal items by which relatives identified the dead children

On September 13, 1943, the honorary title of Heroes of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to young defenders of the Motherland, members of the underground organization "Young guard", which launched its activities in the German-occupied city of Krasnodon. Later, after the War, streets, organizations, ships will be named after them, many books will be written about them, and films will be made.

They were not even 20 years old, the youngest of them - Oleg Koshevoy - was only 16, when they began their fight against the German conquerors of their hometown. In the fall of 1942, the children of miners united into an underground Komsomol organization called the Young Guard.

Oleg Koshevoy’s poem, written during the occupation, can be called his personal manifesto:

It’s hard for me!.. Everywhere you look
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish
Everywhere the hated form is before me,
Esses badge with a death's head.

I decided that it was impossible to live like that!
Look at the torment and suffer yourself.
We must hurry, before it’s too late,
Destroy the enemy behind lines.

I decided so and I will do it!
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear
A beautiful Soviet country.

Heroes of the Young Guard

Today, the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarding orders to members of the Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, which operated during the German occupation in the Voroshilovgrad region, are being published. The miners' children - members of the underground organization "Young Guard" - showed themselves to be selfless patriots of the fatherland, forever inscribing their names in the history of the sacred struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi occupiers.
Neither cruel terror nor inhuman torture could stop young patriots in their desire to fight with all their might for the liberation of the Motherland from the yoke of hated foreigners. They decided to fully fulfill their duty to their homeland. In the name of fulfilling their duty, most of them died the death of heroes.
In the dark autumn nights of 1942, the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was created. It was headed by a 16-year-old boy Oleg Koshevoy. His immediate assistants in organizing the underground struggle against the Germans were 17-year-old Sergei Tyulenin, 19-year-old Ivan Zemnukhov, 18-year-old Ulyana Gromova and 18-year-old Lyubov Shevtsova. They united around themselves the best representatives of the mining youth. Acting boldly, courageously, and cunningly, members of the Young Guard soon became a threat to the Germans. Leaflets and slogans appeared at the doors of the German commandant's office. On the anniversary of the October Revolution in the city of Krasnodon, red flags made from the Nazi banner stolen from the German club were raised on the building of the Voroshilov school, on the highest tree in the park, on the hospital building. Several dozen German soldiers and officers were killed by members of the underground organization led by Oleg Koshev. Through their efforts, the escape of Soviet prisoners of war was organized. When the Germans tried to send the city's youth to forced labor in Germany, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades set fire to the labor exchange building and thereby disrupted the German event. Each of these feats required enormous courage, perseverance, endurance, and composure. However, the glorious representatives of the Soviet youth found enough strength in themselves to skillfully and prudently resist the enemy and inflict cruel, devastating blows on him.
When the Germans managed to uncover the underground organization and arrest its participants, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades endured inhuman torture, but did not give up, did not lose heart, and with the great fearlessness of true patriots accepted martyrdom. They fought and struggled like heroes, and went to their graves as heroes!
Before joining the underground organization “Young Guard,” each of the young people took a sacred oath: “I swear to take merciless revenge for the burned and devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of 30 miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation. If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades. Blood for blood, death for death!
Oleg Koshevoy and his friends fulfilled their oath to the end. They died, but their names will shine in eternal glory. The youth of our country will learn from them the great and noble art of fighting for the holy ideals of freedom, for the happiness of the fatherland. The youth of all countries enslaved by the German occupiers will learn about their immortal feat, and this will give them new strength to accomplish feats in the name of liberation from oppression.
The people that give birth to such sons and daughters as Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova are invincible. All the strength of our people was reflected in these young people, who absorbed the heroic traditions of their Motherland and did not disgrace their native land in times of difficult trials. Glory to them!
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya, the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. She raised a hero, she blessed him to accomplish high and noble deeds - glory to her!
The Germans came to our land as uninvited guests, but here they encountered a great people, filled with unshakable courage and readiness to defend their fatherland with boundless fury and anger. Young Oleg Koshevoy is a vivid symbol of the patriotism of our people.
The blood of heroes was not shed in vain. They contributed their share to the common great cause of defeating the Nazi occupiers. The Red Army is driving the Germans to the west, liberating Ukraine from them.
Sleep well, Oleg Koshevoy! We will bring the victory that you and your comrades fought for to the end. We will mark the road to our victory with enemy corpses. We will avenge your martyrdom to the full extent of our wrath. And the sun will forever shine over our Motherland and our people will live in glory and greatness, being an example of courage, courage, valor and devotion to duty for all humanity!

During the six months that the organization existed, the boys and girls managed to do a lot in the fight against the Nazis. Komsomol members on their own were able to assemble a primitive printing house, where they printed not only leaflets and small posters, but also temporary Komsomol tickets.

The occupiers felt like they were on a powder keg in the occupied city. Soviet leaflets appeared again and again on the walls of houses and at the doors of the German commandant’s office.

The children received information for the leaflets by listening to a tube radio at Oleg Koshevoy’s home, which, due to the lack of electricity, was connected to a special device. The latest news was briefly recorded and then leaflets were compiled, which informed the population weekly about events at the front, in the Soviet rear and in the world, and reports from the Sovinformburo. Even rumors were used to spread information.

Other sources were also used as leaflets. So one night Lyuba Shevtsova made her way into the post office building and, destroying letters from German soldiers and officers, stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were in Germany. The letters, which had not yet been censored, were distributed throughout the city as leaflets telling about the horrors of German penal servitude. As a result, the recruitment of those wishing to go to Germany carried out by the Nazi authorities was disrupted.

Before the printing house was organized, leaflets were written by hand and distributed by all participants in the youth underground. The city was conditionally divided into sections, which were assigned to specific members of the organization. According to an unspoken rule, leaflets were placed in places where they would be read by as many people as possible: a market, a water supply system, a hand mill. The guys usually went in groups of two - a guy and a girl, so as not to arouse suspicion. Sometimes they gathered in groups and, pretending to be young people having fun, scattered leaflets. And Oleg Koshevoy, wearing a white bandage on his sleeve (the distinctive sign of the police), scattered leaflets in the park at night.

Also, thanks to the underground workers, loaded vehicles kept disappearing in the city, and machine guns, pistols and cartridges were disappearing from German soldiers.

The Young Guards did not forget about the arrested communists. With money from a financial fund formed from Komsomol membership fees, food was purchased and secretly transported to Gestapo dungeons.

The Young Guards freed more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp and organized the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital. Also, about 2,000 people were rescued after Komsomol members set fire to the labor exchange building, where lists of citizens intended to be sent to Germany were kept.

Along with subversive activities, Komsomol members also prepared for the celebration of the next anniversary of the October Revolution: red flags were sewn from white pillowcases painted red, red scarves, and even from the German banner. On the night of November 7, when a strong wind was blowing and raining, forcing police patrols to hide, the Young Guards were able to freely attach flags with ropes to the pipes on all buildings. On the building of the regional consumer union, Lyuba Shevtsova and Tosya Mashchenko attached a pole to the ceiling, dismantling the tiles, and Georgy Shcherbakov and Alexander Shishchenko were able to hang flags on the hospital and on the highest tree in the park.

The German traps cunningly placed to catch the underground fighters remained empty. Police found proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found hanged in abandoned mine adits.

The organization was preparing for a decisive armed attack.

Despite the intelligence network organized by the Young Guard, the Germans still managed to uncover the underground. Arrests began. Only a few managed to get to the Red Army units. The rest were imprisoned by the occupation authorities. The Young Guard had to endure inhuman torture in the last days of their lives. Those of them who did not die after torture were thrown alive by the Germans into the pit of an abandoned mine.

District police investigator M.E. Kuleshov, who was in charge of the Young Guard case and was arrested after the liberation of Donbass, said during interrogations that during torture, the eyes of the arrested Young Guards were gouged out, their breasts and genitals were cut out, and they were beaten half to death with whips.

From the memoirs of Vera Alexandrovna Ivanikhin, sister of Lily and Tony Ivanikhin:

“... In December 1942, Seryozha Tyulenev, Valya Borts, Vitya Tretyakevich, Zhenya Moshkov, Oleg Koshevoy, Vanya Zimnukhov and other guys took everything out of a German car that was parked “... They tortured me terribly - they put me on the stove, forced me under my nails needles, carved stars into the skin. And, in the end, they executed them - they threw them alive into shaft No. 5. Behind them, dynamite, sleepers, and trolleys flew into the mine. My older sister Nina, a physician by training, subsequently treated the sisters’ bodies herself and saw with her own eyes that there were no bullet holes, but only the hair remained alive. Relatives recognized the heroes only by special signs and clothing. It was all creepy."

Brave underground fighters

In the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, the Germans felt like they were on a volcano. Everything was seething around. Soviet leaflets appeared on the walls of houses every now and then, and red flags fluttered on the roofs. Loaded vehicles disappeared, as if grain warehouses were catching fire like gunpowder. Soldiers and officers lost machine guns, revolvers, and cartridges.
Someone acted very boldly, smartly and deftly. The cleverly placed German traps remained empty. There was no end to the German fury. They scoured the alleys, houses, and attics in vain. And the grain warehouses caught fire again. The police found the proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found murdered in abandoned mine adits.
On the night of December 5-6, the labor exchange building caught fire. The lists of people to be sent to Germany were lost in the fire. Thousands of residents, who were awaiting with horror the black day when they would be taken into captivity, took heart. The fire infuriated the occupiers. Special agents were called from Voroshilovgrad. But the traces were mysteriously lost in the crooked streets of the mining town. In which house do those who set fire to the labor exchange live? There was hatred under every roof. The special agents spent a lot of effort, but they left with nothing.
The underground Komsomol organization acted more and more widely and boldly. Insolence has become a habit. The experience of conspiracy accumulated, combat skills became a profession.
Quite a bit of time has passed since that memorable September day when the first organizational meeting took place at number 6 on Sadovaya Street in the apartment of Oleg Koshevoy. There were thirty young people here who knew each other from their school years, from working together in the Komsomol, and from fighting the Germans. They decided to call the organization “Young Guard”. The headquarters included: Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova and others. Oleg was appointed commissar and elected secretary of the Komsomol organization.
There was no experience of underground work, there was no knowledge, there was only an ineradicable, burning hatred of the occupiers and a passionate love for the Motherland. Despite the danger that threatened the Komsomol members, the organization grew quickly. More than a hundred people joined the Young Guard. Each took an oath of allegiance to the common cause, the text of which was written by Vanya Zemnukhov and Oleg Koshevoy.
We started with leaflets. At this time, the Germans began recruiting those who wanted to go to Germany. Leaflets appeared on telegraph poles and fences, exposing the horrors of fascist hard labor. The recruitment failed. Only three people agreed to go to Germany.
They installed a primitive radio at Oleg’s house and listened to the “latest news.” A short record of the latest news was distributed in the form of leaflets.
With the expansion of the underground organization, its “five”, created for conspiracy, appeared in nearby villages. They published their own leaflets there. Now the underground fighters had four radios.
Komsomol members also created their own primitive printing house. They collected letters from the fire of the district newspaper building. We made the frame for selecting the font ourselves. The printing house printed not only leaflets. Temporary Komsomol tickets were also issued there, on which it was written: “Valid for the duration of the Patriotic War.” Komsomol tickets were issued to newly admitted members of the organization.
The Komsomol organization disrupted literally all the activities of the occupation authorities. The Germans failed neither the first, so-called “voluntary” recruitment, nor the second, when they wanted to forcibly take all the residents of Krasnodon they selected to Germany.
As soon as the Germans began to prepare to export grain to Germany, the underground, on instructions from the headquarters, set fire to grain stacks and warehouses, and infected some of the grain with mites.
The Germans requisitioned livestock from the surrounding population and drove it in a large herd of 500 heads to their rear. Komsomol members attacked the guards, killed them, and drove the cattle into the steppe.
So every initiative of the Germans was thwarted by someone’s invisible, powerful hand.
The most senior among the staff members was Ivan Zemnukhov. He was nineteen years old. The youngest was the commissar. Oleg Koshevoy was born in 1926. But both of them acted like mature, experienced people, seasoned in secret work.
Oleg Koshevoy was the brains of the entire organization. He acted wisely and slowly. True, sometimes youthful enthusiasm took over, and then he participated, despite the prohibition of the headquarters, in the most risky and daring operations. Either with a box of matches in his pocket, he sets huge stacks on fire under the very noses of the police, then, wearing a policeman’s bandage or taking advantage of the darkness of the night, he pastes leaflets on gendarmerie and police buildings.
But these enterprises are not reckless. Having put on a policeman's bandage and going out at night, Oleg knew the password. Oleg planted his agents in the villages and villages of the region. Which carried out only his personal instructions. He received regular information about everything that was happening in the area. Moreover, Oleg also had his own people in the police. Two members of the organization worked there as police officers.
In this way, the plans and intentions of the police authorities became known to the headquarters in advance, and the underground could quickly take their countermeasures.
Oleg also created the organization’s monetary fund. It was compiled using monthly 15-ruble membership fees. In addition, if necessary, members of the organization paid one-time contributions. This money was used to provide assistance to the needy families of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. These funds were used to purchase food to send parcels to Soviet people languishing in a German prison. Products were also given to prisoners of war who were in the concentration camp.
Each operation, be it an attack on a passenger car, when the Young Guards exterminated three German officers, or the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital, was developed by the headquarters under the leadership of Oleg Koshevoy in every detail and detail.
Sergei Tyulenin conducted all dangerous combat operations. He carried out the most risky missions and was known as a fearless fighter. He personally killed ten fascists. It was he who set fire to the labor exchange building, hung red flags, and led a group of guys who attacked the guards of the herd that the Germans were driving away to Germany. The Young Guard was preparing for an open armed offensive, and Sergei Tyulenin led the group to collect weapons and ammunition. In three months, they collected and stole 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15 thousand cartridges, pistols, and explosives from the Germans and Romanians on the former battlefields.
On instructions from the headquarters, Lyuba Shevtsova traveled to Voroshilovgrad to establish contact with the underground. She's been there several times. At the same time, she showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage. She told German officers that she was the daughter of a major industrialist. Lyuba stole important documents and obtained secret information.
One night, on instructions from headquarters, Lyuba snuck into the post office building, destroyed all the letters from German soldiers and officers, and stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were at work in Germany. These letters, not yet censored, were distributed throughout the city like leaflets on the second day.
In the hands of Ivan Zemnukhov, appearances, passwords, and direct communication with agents were concentrated. Thanks to the skilful methods of conspiracy of the Komsomol members, the Germans could not get on the trail of the organization for more than five months.
Ulyana Gromova participated in the development of all operations. She got her girls jobs in various German institutions. Through them she carried out numerous acts of sabotage.
She also organized assistance to the families of Red Army soldiers and tortured miners, the transfer of parcels to prison, and the escape of Soviet prisoners of war. The Young Guards liberated more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp.
The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the organization. In the dungeons of the Gestapo, young men and women were tortured in the most brutal ways. The executioners repeatedly threw a noose around Lyuba Shevtsova’s neck and hung her from the ceiling. She was beaten until she lost consciousness. But the brutal torture of the executioners did not break the will of the young patriot. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie department. There Lyuba was tortured using more sophisticated methods: they drove needles under her nails, cut a star on her back, and burned her with a hot iron.
The Germans subjected other young patriots to the same terrible torture and inhuman torment. But they did not extract a single word of recognition from the lips of the Komsomol members. The Germans threw the tortured, bloodied, half-dead Komsomol members into the shaft of an old mine.
Immortal is the feat of the Young Guards! Their fearless and irreconcilable struggle against the German occupiers, their legendary courage will shine for centuries as a symbol of love for their motherland!
A. Erivansky

Glory to the sons of the Komsomol!

You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents
As soon as the light is illuminated by rays of glory.
In the deep darkness the Soviet sun
stood behind their young shoulders.
For the happiness of Donbass they endured
and hunger, and torture, and cold, and torment,
and they passed sentence on the Germans
and lowered their stern hand.
Neither the rattle of torture nor the cunning of detection
The enemies failed to break the Komsomol members!
An immortal spark appeared in the darkness,
and explosions thundered across Donbass again.
And they parted with life fearlessly,
they died with simple words,
they remained deep underground
captured city by its owners.
No one saw their fire and overnight stay
in the gloomy darkness of the German rear,
but the feat of Ulyana, the heroism of Oleg
Motherland saw and illuminated.
You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents,
they will never be forgotten by us,
immortal glory, like the eternal sun,
rises, shining, over their names.
Semyon Kirsanov

This is how heroes die

The “Young Guard” was preparing to realize its cherished dream - a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon garrison of the Germans.
The vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the youth.
As soon as the arrests of the Young Guard began, the headquarters gave the order to all members of the Young Guard to leave and make their way to the Red Army units. But, unfortunately, it was already too late. Only 7 people managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkevich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the Young Guard were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground fighters were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them deviated from their oath. The German executioners went crazy, beating and torturing the Young Guards for 3, 3 hours straight. But the executioners could not break the spirit and iron will of the young patriots.
The Gestapo beat Sergei Tyulenin several times a day with whips made of electrical wires, broke his fingers, and drove a hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought the mother, a 58-year-old woman. In front of Sergei, they stripped her and began to torture her.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarino. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time for execution was coming. In their last hour they were also strong in spirit. A member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
- The last order from headquarters... The last order... we will be taken to execution. We will be led through the city streets. We will sing Ilyich’s favorite song...
Exhausted and mutilated, young heroes left prison on their final journey. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back. Shura Bondareva - with cut off breasts. Volodya Osmukhin's right hand was cut off.
The Young Guards walked on their last journey with their heads held high. Their song sang solemnly and sadly:
“Tormented by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death,
In the fight for the workers' cause
You put your head down honestly..."
The executioners threw them alive into a fifty-meter pit in the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And watching him rinse in the wind, the residents again remembered the Young Guards. Hundreds of people headed to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. Above one of the walls is a heart pierced by an arrow. There are four surnames in the heart: “Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina.” And above all the inscriptions, across the entire width of the bloody wall, there is an inscription: “Death to the German occupiers!”
This is how the glorious students of the Komsomol, young heroes whose feat will survive centuries, lived, fought and died for their fatherland.

“Long live our liberator - the Red Army!”

One of the Young Guard leaflets
“Read it and pass it on to your friend.
Comrades Krasnodon residents!
The long-awaited hour of our liberation from the yoke of Hitler's bandits is approaching. The troops of the Southwestern Front have broken through the defense line. On November 25, our units, having taken the capital Morozovskaya, advanced 45 kilometers.
The movement of our troops to the west continues rapidly. The Germans are running in panic, throwing down their weapons! The enemy, retreating, robs the population, taking food and clothing.
Comrades! Hide everything you can so that Hitler’s robbers don’t get it. Sabotage the orders of the German command, do not succumb to false German propaganda.
Death to the German occupiers!
Long live our liberator - the Red Army!
Long live the free Soviet homeland!
"Young guard".

Over the course of 6 months, the Young Guard issued more than 30 leaflets in Krasnodon alone, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.

After the liberation, city residents preserved the memory of the brave young men and women who fought the German regime, and the domestic press made their feat known to all Soviet citizens. Sergey Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova became symbols of youth patriotism.

Komsomol members of Krasnodon

No! Our youth cannot be killed
And don't put him on his knees!
She lives and will live
Just as the great Lenin taught.

For honor, for truth, for the people,
Who is more honest than anyone in the world,
She will go to the scaffold
He will proudly meet any torture.

And even death will not win
Her daring living, -
It will shine brightly over the world
Star of Oleg Koshevoy.

And it will be pure beauty
Call for a feat from the best of the best
For the cause of the Holy Motherland.
For what Stalin teaches us.

No! Torture will not make us tremble!
Scarlet banners are immortal,
Where are such youth?
Like Komsomol members of Krasnodon!

“Young Guard”: but still young people were killed

The FSB Central Archive provided us with the opportunity to study Case No. 20056 - twenty-eight volumes of investigation materials on charges of police officers and German gendarmes in the massacre of the underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the Ukrainian city of Krasnodon in 1942. Let us recall that the novel “The Young Guard,” which we have not re-read for a long time, tells in detail about these events. The writer Alexander Fadeev made a special trip to Krasnodon after his release and wrote an essay for Pravda, and then a book. With the same name.

Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

One of the Young Guard leaflets

Or did it still exist? So, the facts.

From the materials of case No. 20056: Valya Borts:“I joined the Young Guard through my school friend Seryozha Safonov, who introduced me to Sergei Tyulenin in August 1942. At that time the organization was small and was called the “Hammer” detachment. Took the oath. The commander was Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar was Oleg Koshevoy, and the members of the headquarters were Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin and Ulyana Gromova. Later the headquarters increased to include Lyuba Shevtsova.”

Korostylev, engineer of the Krasnougol trust:“One day at the beginning of October 1942, I handed over a radio receiver to the Young Guards. The reports they recorded were multiplied and then distributed throughout the city.”

Valya Borts:“...On November 7, red flags were hung on the buildings of the coal directorate and the club of mine No. 5-bis. The labor exchange was burned, in which lists of Soviet citizens subject to deportation to Germany were kept. Shevtsova, Lukyanchenko and Tyulenin set fire to the labor exchange.”

Krasnodon police building where prisoners were kept

That's all, perhaps. Of course, it is not for us to judge whether this is a lot or a little when it comes to life and death, but even the gendarmes and police officers involved in Case No. 20056, just three years after the Krasnodon events, had difficulty remembering the Young Guard. They were never able to say how many people it consisted of, or what it actually did. At first, they didn’t even understand why, out of everything they managed to do during the war, the investigation was interested in this short episode with teenagers.

“On the facts of arson at the labor exchange and hanging flags,” the police reported the next day: eight people were arrested. The head of the gendarmerie, without hesitation, ordered everyone to be shot.

Alexander Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard”

Where did the myth about a huge, branched underground organization that poses a terrible threat to the Germans come from?

On the night of December 25-26, 1942, near the Krasnodon district government building, a German car containing mail and New Year's gifts for German soldiers and officers was robbed. The driver of the car reported this to the Krasnodon gendarmerie.

And then they took Olga Lyadskaya. In fact, she was arrested completely by accident. They came to Tosa Mashchenko in search of the “robber” Valya Borts, who by that time was already walking towards the front line. The policeman liked Tosya's tablecloth and decided to take it with him. Under the tablecloth lay an unsent letter from Lyadskaya to her acquaintance Fyodor Izvarin. She wrote that she did not want to go to Germany for “SLAVERY”. That's right: in quotes and in capital letters.

Olga Lyadskaya (in the center) was also called a traitor, although she could not betray anyone

From the materials of case No. 20056: Lyadskaya:“I named the people whom I suspected of partisan activity: Kozyrev, Tretyakevich, Nikolaenko, because they once asked me if there were partisans on our farm and if I was helping them. And after Solikovsky threatened to beat me up, I betrayed Mashchenko’s friend Borts...” And eighty more people. Even according to post-war lists, there were about seventy members of the organization...

Brought to the police, Tosya Mashchenko admitted that she had distributed leaflets. And she extradited Tretyakevich, who had been extradited for the third time since the New Year. Tretyakevich betrayed Shevtsov and began calling “Young Guards” entire villages.

Sergei Tyulenin is one of the most reckless “Young Guards”

For decades there has been a debate about how the real history of the Young Guard differs from that written by Fadeev. It turns out that the argument was pointless. Case No. 20056 is about the fact that the book embellished not life, but a myth already created before the writer. At first, the exploits of the youth underground were multiplied by the Krasnodon police themselves.

Viktor Tretyakevich was first labeled a traitor

For what? Let's not forget that the Krasnodon policemen did not fall from the moon and did not come from the Third Reich. To report to your superiors, uncovering an ordinary robbery is much less significant than an entire underground organization. And once opened, it was not difficult for the former Soviets to believe in it. For former Soviets - on both sides of the front.

But all this was just the prehistory of the Young Guard. The story begins only now.

From the materials of case No. 20056: Maria Borts:“...When I entered the office, Solikovsky was sitting at the table. In front of him lay a set of whips: thick, thin, wide, belts with lead tips. Vanya Zemnukhov, mutilated beyond recognition, stood by the sofa. His eyes were red, his eyelids were very inflamed. There are abrasions and bruises on the face. All of Vanya’s clothes were covered in blood, the shirt on his back was stuck to his body, and blood was seeping through it.”

Nina Zemnukhova:“From a resident of Krasnodon, Lensky Rafail Vasilyevich, who was kept in the same cell with Vanya, I learned that the executioners took Vanya, naked, into the police yard and beat him in the snow until he lost consciousness.

Zhenya Moshkov was taken to the Kamenka River, frozen in an ice hole and then thawed in a nearby hut in an oven, after which they were again taken to the police for interrogation... Volodya Osmukhin had a bone broken in his arm, and every time during interrogation his broken arm was twisted...”

Ulyana Gromova

Tyulenina (Sergei's mother):“On the third day after my arrest, I was summoned for questioning where Seryozha was. Solikovsky, Zakharov and Cherenkov forced me to strip naked, and then beat me with whips until I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, in my presence they began to burn Seryozha’s right hand wound with a hot rod. The fingers were placed under the doors and squeezed until completely dead. Needles were driven under the nails and hung on ropes. The air in the room where the torture was carried out was filled with the smell of burnt meat. ...In the cells, policeman Avsetsin did not give us water for whole days in order to at least slightly moisten the blood that had dried in our mouth and throat.”

Cherenkov (police investigator): “I conducted a confrontation between Gromova, Ivanikhina and Zemnukhov. At that moment, Solikovsky and his wife entered the office. Having laid Gromova and Ivanikhin on the floor, I began to beat them. Solikovsky, egged on by his wife, snatched the whip from my hands and began to deal with the arrested himself. ...Since the prison cells were filled with young people, many, like Olga Ivantsova’s mother, were simply lying around in the corridor.”

Maria Borts:“...Solikovsky, Zakharov, Davidenko forced the girls to strip naked, and then they began to mock them, accompanied by beatings. Sometimes this was done in the presence of Solikovsky’s wife, who usually sat on the sofa and burst into laughter. ...Ulya Gromova was hung up by her braids... Her chest was trampled under boots. ...Policeman Bautkin beat Popov with a whip and forced him to lick up the blood that splashed on the wall with his tongue.”

Suicide note from Uli Gromova

The decision to execute at mine No. 5-bis was made by the police chief Solikovsky and burgomaster Statsenko. The place was checked, Krasnodon residents had already been shot there.

The next day, sixteen more people were taken to the mine on three carts, including Moshkov and Popov.

Place of execution of the “Young Guards”

For almost a week, Oleg Koshevoy hid from persecution in the villages, dressed in a woman’s dress. Then he lay down for three days - under a bed in a relative’s apartment. Koshevoy thought that the Krasnodon police were looking for him as a commissar of the Young Guard. In fact, he was caught as a participant in the robbery of a car with New Year's gifts. But they took him for neither one nor the other - simply because in the front-line zone they grabbed and searched all the young people...

The executioners remembered the look of the gray-haired boy Oleg Koshevoy forever

...Koshevoy was taken to the Rivne district gendarmerie to investigator Orlov. Oleg knew: this is the same Ivan Orlov who once called in for questioning and raped the teacher. And the Germans even had to “meet the population halfway” and remove Orlov from Krasnodon here, to Rovenki.

But they clearly remembered that after the volley one gray-haired boy did not fall into the hole, but remained lying on the edge. He turned his head and simply looked in their direction. Gendarme Drewitz could not stand it, he came up and shot him in the back of the head with a rifle...

Monument to the “Young Guards” in Krasnodon

In 1960, Viktor Tretyakevich was included in the lists of the “Young Guard” and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree...

The editors express their gratitude to the leadership of the Central Election Commission of the FSB.

Eric SHUR, "Top Secret"

During the Great Patriotic War, many underground organizations operated in the Soviet territories occupied by Germany and fought the Nazis. One of these organizations worked in Krasnodon. It consisted not of experienced military personnel, but of boys and girls who were barely 18 years old. The youngest member of the Young Guard at that time was only 14.

What did the Young Guard do?

Sergei Tyulenin started it all. After the city was occupied by German troops in July 1942, he single-handedly began collecting weapons for fighters, posting anti-fascist leaflets, helping the Red Army resist the enemy. A little later, he assembled a whole detachment, and already on September 30, 1942, the organization consisted of more than 50 people, led by the chief of staff, Ivan Zemnukhov.

Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Ivan Turkenich and others also became members of the Komsomol group.

Young Guards carried out sabotage in the electromechanical workshops of the city. On the night of November 7, 1942, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Young Guards hoisted eight red flags on the tallest buildings in the city of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages.

On the night of December 5-6, 1942, on the Constitution Day of the USSR, Young Guards set fire to the building of the German labor exchange (people dubbed it the “black exchange”), where lists of people (with addresses and completed work cards) intended to be stolen for forced labor were kept. work to Nazi Germany, thereby about two thousand boys and girls from the Krasnodon region were saved from forced deportation.

The Young Guards were also preparing to stage an armed uprising in Krasnodon in order to defeat the German garrison and join the advancing units of the Red Army. However, shortly before the planned uprising, the organization was discovered.

On January 1, 1943, three Young Guard members were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov - the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization.

On the same day, the remaining members of the headquarters urgently gathered and made a decision: all Young Guards should immediately leave the city, and the leaders should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. One of them, who was a member of the group in the village of Pervomaika, Gennady Pocheptsov, upon learning about the arrests, chickened out and wrote a statement to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

Massacre

One of the jailers, the defector Lukyanov, who was later convicted, said: “There was a continuous groan in the police, as during the entire interrogation the arrested people were beaten. They lost consciousness, but they were brought to their senses and beaten again. At times it was terrible for me to watch this torment.”
They were shot in January 1943. 57 Young Guards. The Germans never obtained any “sincere confessions” from Krasnodon schoolchildren. This was perhaps the most powerful moment, for the sake of which the entire novel was written.

Viktor Tretyakevich - “the first traitor”

The Young Guards were arrested and sent to prison, where they were subjected to severe torture. Viktor Tretyakevich, the organization's commissioner, was treated with particular cruelty. His body was mutilated beyond recognition. Hence the rumors that it was Tretyakevich, unable to withstand the torture, who betrayed the rest of the guys. Trying to establish the identity of the traitor, the investigative authorities accepted this version. And only a few years later, on the basis of declassified documents, the traitor was identified; it turned out to be not Tretyakevich at all. However, at that time the charge against him was not dropped. This will happen only 16 years later, when the authorities arrest Vasily Podtynny, who participated in torture. During interrogation, he admitted that Tretyakevich had indeed been slandered. Despite the most severe torture, Tretyakevich stood firm and did not betray anyone. He was rehabilitated only in 1960, awarded a posthumous order.

However, at the same time, the Komsomol Central Committee adopted a very strange closed resolution: “There is no point in stirring up the history of the Young Guard, redoing it in accordance with some facts that have become known recently. We believe that it is inappropriate to revise the history of the Young Guard when appearing in the press, lectures, or reports. Fadeev’s novel was published in our country in 22 languages and in 16 languages of foreign countries... Millions of young men and women are and will be educated on the history of the Young Guard. Based on this, we believe that new facts that contradict the novel “The Young Guard” should not be made public.

Who is the traitor?

At the beginning of the 2000s, the Security Service of Ukraine for the Lugansk region declassified some materials on the Young Guard case. As it turned out, back in 1943, a certain Mikhail Kuleshov was detained by the army counterintelligence SMERSH. When the city was occupied by the Nazis, he offered them his cooperation and soon took up the position of field police investigator. It was Kuleshov who led the investigation into the Young Guard case. Judging by his testimony, the real reason for the failure of the underground was the betrayal of the Young Guard Georgy Pocheptsov. When the news arrived that three Young Guards had been arrested, Pocheptsov confessed everything to his stepfather, who worked closely with the German administration. He convinced him to confess to the police. During the first interrogations, he confirmed the authorship of the applicant and his affiliation with the underground Komsomol organization operating in Krasnodon, named the goals and objectives of the underground activities, and indicated the location of storage of weapons and ammunition hidden in the Gundorov mine N18.

As Kuleshov testified during an interrogation by SMERSH on March 15, 1943: “Pocheptsov said that he was indeed a member of an underground Komsomol organization existing in Krasnodon and its environs. He named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Zemnukhov, Safonov, Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself was a member of the Pervomaisk organization, the leader of which was Anatoly Popov, and before that Glavan.” The next day, Pocheptsov was again taken to the police and interrogated. On the same day, he was confronted with Moshkov and Popov, whose interrogations were accompanied by brutal beatings and cruel torture. Pocheptsov confirmed his previous testimony and named all members of the organization known to him.

From January 5 to January 11, 1943, based on the denunciation and testimony of Pocheptsov, most of the Young Guards were arrested. This was shown by the former deputy chief of the Krasnodon police, V. Podtyny, who was arrested in 1959. The traitor himself was released and was not arrested until the liberation of Krasnodon by Soviet troops. Thus, the information of a secret nature that Pocheptsov had and which became known to the police turned out to be enough to eliminate the Komsomol-youth underground. This is how the organization was discovered, having existed for less than six months.

After the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Pocheptsov, Gromov (Pocheptsov’s stepfather) and Kuleshov were recognized as traitors to the Motherland and, according to the verdict of the USSR military tribunal, were shot on September 19, 1943. However, the public learned about the real traitors for an unknown reason many years later.

Was there no betrayal?

At the end of the 1990s, one of the surviving Young Guard members, Vasily Levashov, in an interview with one of the well-known newspapers, said that the Germans got on the trail of the Young Guard by accident - due to poor conspiracy. There was supposedly no betrayal. At the end of December 1942, Young Guards robbed a truck loaded with Christmas gifts for the Germans. This was witnessed by a 12-year-old boy who received a pack of cigarettes from members of the organization for his silence. With these cigarettes, the boy fell into the hands of the police and told about the robbery of the car.

On January 1, 1943, three Young Guards who participated in the theft of Christmas gifts were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov. Without knowing it, the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization. During interrogations, the guys were silent, but during a search in Moshkov’s house, the Germans accidentally discovered a list of 70 members of the Young Guard. This list became the reason for mass arrests and torture.

It must be admitted that Levashov’s “revelations” have not yet been confirmed.