The original of Khrushchev’s speeches to the Soviet intelligentsia was found
HOW SCARED WE WERE!
One of the most powerful impressions of the Soviet intelligentsia were two meetings with Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, during which he dirty-mouthed music, painting and other arts, calling their creators “faggots.” Many myths and legends gave rise to these meetings. They entered folklore, the flesh and blood of the sixties as one of the darkest pages of the confrontation between Soviet power and Soviet cultural figures. The shocked intelligentsia, gathering in the kitchens, relayed eyewitness accounts from mouth to mouth, each of whom told how, standing among his frightened and depressed comrades, he boldly and truthfully answered the frenzied Khrushchev, thereby supporting the honor and dignity of the intelligentsia, which had been desecrated by the party. It was assumed that, dying, the party destroyed the transcripts of the terrible meetings. However, this turned out not to be the case…
What stunned me and took my breath away lay in front of me on the table in cardboard boxes. Deadly weapons of the past. “Are you opening them for me first?” – I asked the employee assigned to supervise me. “Yes,” he confirmed. I tensed up. The hunt for “it” has been too long. It started a long time ago, at the end of 1999.
In the past years, I have heard many times the story of my father-in-law, the founder of Soviet documentary cinema, David Dubinsky, about Khrushchev’s meetings with the Soviet intelligentsia. It was believed that no documentary sources of those meetings survived. Timid attempts to find something ended in failure. Only Andrei Voznesensky, with whose participation I was preparing a TV show, told me: “They are hiding them somewhere. Search.”
It’s easy to say. In all former party and non-party archives they answered me: “There is no such film.” One of the former employees of the Presidential Archive told me authoritatively that the film was erased immediately after the start of perestroika.
“For what?” – I was surprised. “Kompromat on the party,” he shrugged. “And some people have heard it recently,” I said, bluffing. “No one could hear her,” the archivist took the bait. “Why?” – “Because it was never shown to anyone.”
However, the “energy of delusion” pushed forward. I continued searching through the archives. When the line for the second time in a circle reached the Center for the Storage of Modern Documentation, I was informed that some documents on the topic that interested me had been found. I rushed to the archive. I was greeted by a high-ranking official. He said that the document itself did not exist. They only found a link to it: a card with the names of speakers written on it, starting with Khrushchev and ending with critics.
“However, we have a branch,” the archivist said thoughtfully after a pause. He named a city inaudibly. “I’ll inquire there.”
I went on vacation. I’m coming back. I’m calling. I can’t believe my ears. There really are films. But then the archivist sobers me up, saying that it is impossible to obtain the films.
It is necessary to send an “escort group”. But this cannot be done because the archive does not have the money for this.
Long negotiations follow, and finally everything is settled. Ten boxes of “specials.” films” arrive in Moscow. I am called into the archive, taken to a special office with antediluvian tape recorders, and shown films sealed with paper tape. These are old, GDR-made reels of magnetic tapes, recorded at a speed of nineteen meters per second.
The total duration of the recording is sixteen hours – two meetings of Khrushchev with the intelligentsia, stretching over a total of three days. Each reel is neatly printed with the names of the speakers and the date.
INSTEAD OF BACKSTORY
The first meeting took place on December 17, 1962 from 12 noon in the Reception House of the Central Committee of the Party. On that day, a “regular” taxi with a KGB driver was running between the Kievskaya metro station and the Lenin Hills. The fact that the driver was a decoy was revealed later.
The entire “officialdom” of that time was present at the meeting, diluted with fashionable “informals” – Solzhenitsyn, artists Nikonov and Zhutovsky, Yevtushenko and others. All those who arrived were gathered in the so-called dressing room of the Reception House. In one place one could immediately see Sergei Mikhalkov, the sculptor Vuchetich, the writer Sholokhov, the now forgotten Sofronov, Fedin, Ehrenburg, Tvardovsky, the famous film director Ivan Pyryev and many other seasoned, eminent and unrecognized. The form of the conversation was unexpected – a casual feast. Guests were seated at tables of six.
In the center of the hall there was a table set for Khrushchev and his retinue.
Khrushchev’s speech is often confusing and, when transcribed verbatim, makes no sense. According to director Vladimir Naumov, who was present at the meeting, on the presidium table there were decanters of vodka, which the guests mistakenly took for clean water.
Ilyichev, then head. Department of the Central Committee for Culture, started talking about jazz. Khrushchev responded to his remark.
Khrushchev: “Let all jazz lovers excuse me, but if you have your own opinion, then don’t deprive me of my feelings, my opinions, my tastes.” I don’t like this music! I don’t understand! I don’t understand! (Breathes heavily.) Everyone should play their own musical instrument. And you say that this is an orchestra? And I will say: no – it will be a cacophony. (Screams.) It will be jazz, jazz!!! Comrade Polyansky, you see how young he is sitting. He told me that he recently had a family celebration. He gave his daughter away in marriage. And so, he says, the young people came together for the wedding. One student came to this wedding as an invitee and brought the newlyweds a gift.
“Here,” he says, “is the picture.” I, says Polyansky, looked at this picture and asked: “What is this? What is shown here? – “What, don’t you see what this is?! It’s a lemon.” – “How so? There’s no lemon here,” Polyansky replies. “Do you have to have it be round? – says the student. “Here’s a lemon—the yellow stripe in this picture.” Comrades, if this is an image of a lemon, if this is a painting, then a newborn child is also already an artist. Is this a lemon?!!
Well, comrades, is this painting??? Comrades!!! But I don’t understand, comrades, this is it, comrades. Here is a sculpture of the Unknown. Is this a sculpture? Excuse me, I talked with them, and when I watched it, I asked them: “Listen, you, comrades, are you real men? Are you not homosexuals, excuse me? – I say. “This is pederasty in art, not art.” So why, I say, do pederasts get ten years, but that’s what the order should be? Why? (Applause.) If the public judges this as a crime, then it concerns these two types. And this is more than that! because he creates, and he wants to influence the public, so to speak. He is not doing this for himself, not to decorate his home. We are called to be Noahs and take everything into the Ark. I don’t know if Noah really took everything pure and impure. I think Noah was not a stupid person and probably didn’t take it. This was made up. Probably didn’t take it. A? What are you saying?
Shouts from the audience: “He took it.”
Khrushchev: – Did you take it? (Laughs. Laughs for a long time. Silent.) I once, two or three years ago, visited these artists when I came to these innovative artists at the Manege. There, too, a rather decent young man exhibited his painting and called it “Self-Portrait.” What is his last name? (Ilyichev, sitting next to him, tells him, he didn’t hear.) Zhutkovsky? (They prompt again.) Oh, no, Zhutovsky. What a surname!
So I wanted, excuse me for being a little rude, I wanted to take two self-portraits, put them side by side, and, I said, they were prepared for me. Get me a piece of cardboard and cut a hole there. If this hole is superimposed on the self-portrait of this Zhutkovsky or Zhukovsky, and so that you move four meters away, and ask you what part of the person’s body is depicted, then ninety-five percent will be wrong.
Some will say “face” and some will say something else. Because the similarity with this other one is complete. And this is painting?!!
Let’s give this comrade here. (Boris Zhutovsky is sitting in the hall at this time.) You (referring to the artists whom he vilifies) can argue, you may not like it – the manner, the handwriting of the artist are subtleties and disputes between artists. But a simple person should see that this (referring to the portrait) is a normal person, a beautiful person. What is required from an artist is pleasantness. (Coughs.) Comrade Yevtushenko, so to speak, became the defender of this trend in art. I don’t know, maybe I don’t understand it. But I’m a neutral person. Life, so to speak, taught me to fight like this. That’s why I occupy a position where I cannot occupy a neutral position. I liked Vinnichenko’s story “Pinya”. It shows a Jew in prison. There was a group in prison, and among these arrested there was an anarchist, such a daring one, you know. Heroic man. And suddenly this Jew Pinya, such a completely downtrodden, modest little man – but from the point of view of an anarchist, a completely helpless person – comes into the cell. To prove in practice the worthlessness of the authorities and the correctness of the views of the anarchists, Pinya was elected headman. And when he became the headman, he began to decide who should take out the bucket. And when this camera decided to escape and they made a tunnel, who should run through the hole first? And they cast lots – the anarchist was the first to have the honor of fleeing, and he refused. And then Pinya said: “I am the headman, I am the first.” Like this!
And I am also Pinya. I am the secretary of the Central Committee. Therefore, I have no right to be neutral. That’s why I’m going with you. (Applause.)
Now this Unknown has exposed something unknown. And he thinks that he is now famous.
These sculptors, in my opinion, are mediums. So he wrote, sculpted, created, but we walk around and don’t understand: what is this? Therefore: we are to blame. (Long, long pause. The hall fell silent.) If these “unknown comrades” had become known comrades and created their own Central Committee, you probably would not have invited us to this meeting. And we invited you!!! (Prolonged applause.)
(Forty minutes later.)
One of the functionaries takes the microphone: “Comrade Yevtushenko has the floor.” Someone sitting at the same table with him whispers: “Who is this?” “I think it’s probably a film director. Yes, a film director.”
(He is corrected by the poet.)
Yevtushenko: – I was driving here, to this house, in a taxi. When I told the driver that I needed a house, there, on Mosfilmovskaya, he said: “Yeah, you’re going to visit the government.” – “How do you know that?” – I asked him. “Well,” he says, “I already gave one a lift today, a writer. He told me that today the question is being decided whether you will write the truth or not.” I ask the driver: “What did you answer to that?” He told me: “Well, whatever,” he answered what I thought. There can’t be a fight in our art.” (Applause.) I would like to tell you a little about my last meeting with Fidel Castro. This happened just when Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was being escorted out of Cuba, and Fidel really did not want to let him out of Cuba, because the Cubans considered Anastas one of their own. From the airfield I immediately came to Fidel, and we talked for four hours. Thank God I know some Spanish. He asked me: “Tell me, what do you think, Khrushchev could not have made that same report at the Twentieth Congress?”
I thought and told him: “You see, he, of course, could not help but do this. But sooner or later this would happen anyway. Or it could have happened, just a little later.” And then Fidel thought about it, paused and answered, as if thinking out loud: “This is a huge feat. In such a difficult situation, to say such terrible things to people. How much faith do you have to have in the people to say this.” “You know,” I say, “we all understand what a great feat our party, our government and Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev personally accomplished, what a huge act of trust in their people. And now, you yourself know that it is impossible to compare today’s time with any stage in the development of our state (and so on in the same spirit).”
(We are talking about the work of the Unknown again.)
Khrushchev (interrupts the speaker, throws a remark): – Let’s ask, does this evoke any feeling? I don’t know who consumes how much. This Unknown is quite famous, if you count how much he costs the state. Here. (Pause. Someone whispers something to him.)
Khrushchev yells to the Unknown: “My dear, do you know how much a miner has to work to extract such an amount of copper?” You know? No, you don’t. And I know. Because he was a miner himself.
Did this fall from the sky? So I tell Comrade Shelepin, he now has party-state control: “Check where the copper comes from. Maybe the Union of Artists is irrationally distributing the received copper?
(After 29 minutes the conversation turns to jazz again.)
Khrushchev (interrupts the speaker and makes a remark): – I don’t want to offend the blacks. But, in my opinion, this music is Negro. I’m talking about jazz… Huh?.. What?.. When American jazz was performing, I sat with the American Ambassador Thompson. I looked and told him: “This is Negro music.” I don’t want to judge her. Every nation has its own traditions, and, apparently, they were born with it, they are used to it, they like it. But I was born in a Russian village. I was brought up on Russian music, folk music. Therefore, I am pleased to hear when Solovyov-Sedov’s songs are sung, although he is not Sedoy, but Solovyov. I like songs by other composers and poets. I love listening to Comrade Yevtushenko’s song “Do the Russians Want War,” although there is some controversy there. But, in general, the writing is good and the music is good. I love listening to this… what’s her name… my friend, so to speak, beyond his age, Andrei Malyshko, wrote “Rushnichok”. And I have never felt so good. I wish I could listen to her all the time.
Comrade Polyansky told me here… This type of musical art was discussed at his wedding. And also some young man says, well, he simply speaks the truth: “We, he says, have lost the melody.” He is already saying: “We are the people.” That means he speaks for the people, for society, that it has lost its melody. That’s why jazz is allowed to develop now. (Pause.) Maybe this is unfashionable, old-fashioned… But I am an old-regime man… I like to listen to Oistrakh play the violin. Why should we now go and adopt jazz music? They will say that this is an innovation.
What is the name of this dance then?.. Whistling or whistling? Twist? Well, what is this?!! They say there is a sect – the shakers. Yes, yes, there is one. Shakers!!! I know this from the works of the security officers. They are doing this. I didn’t see them (the shakers), but they (the security officers) reported to me what kind of section this was… They say that’s how they dance there!!! That is, to the point of frenzy, you understand. Then they fall, you know. And this is a dance?!!
Why should we give up our folk dance? I am, so to speak, a wandering person due to my position in the party. I’m not even talking about Russians, Ukrainians. Take Uzbeks, Kazakhs, any people – their dance is smooth and beautiful. And this, listen, this is indecent!!!
Make such gestures with certain parts of the body!!! This is indecent in society. And this is new?!! I think, comrades, let’s still stand up for the old days. Yes, for old times’ sake. So as not to succumb to this decadence. Damn, I don’t know what words to use here.
Stalin once came up to me and asked: “What is your last name?” What?! Pull your ear! He asks me what my last name is! Me, a member of the Politburo! I say: “Before that there was Khrushchev. I don’t know who I am now.” I stood next to Yezhov, and we talked together before the Politburo meeting. “No,” Stalin tells me, “you are not Khrushchev, you are so-and-so, ending in “sky.” You are Pole.” What should I say to this? “I’m from Ukraine,” I answer, “check me out!!!”
But Stalin himself protected me. “This,” he says, “Yezhov came up with everything about you.” Yezhov says: “I didn’t invent this.” “You were drunk,” Stalin tells him, “he told Malenkov, and Malenkov told me.”
Do you see how it was during the cult of personality? It’s good that Stalin believed that I was not a Pole!!! (Applause…)
“Our artists are like spies… They draw themselves, and then they don’t understand what they drew.” So they encrypted it like this… And they come together… drop by drop… like a whole stream. And they say that they are our friends. We have such friends… Beria, Yezhov, Yagoda – they are all birds of a feather… Therefore, we must take care… have an organ. The sword of our socialist state must be sharp. I will repeat this again, as I already said. We have enemies, that’s a fact. We have the strongest capitalist countries, and it would be wrong not to monitor their agents… there is no need to think that we are so kind… The sword must be kept sharp against enemies, and so that it is not directed against one’s own people. I am a man of the old regime. (Laughter in the audience.) I saw the gendarme for the first time, my comrades know, I told them about it when I was twenty-four years old. There were no gendarmes at the mines, we had a policeman – the Cossack Klintsov, who went and drank with the miners. There was no one there except the police officers, and they kept order, and now in each district there is a head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and also an intelligence officer… And there is not enough to restore order. We need to restore order, but not go too far, we need to give people work according to their abilities.
We recently celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of this artist – Leonardo da Vinci. The Politburo adopted a resolution to celebrate five hundred years. The term is considerable, because the artist deserves it. Just look at his paintings… he’s Italian, I’ve never been to Italy, but I look and everything is clear. Why? Because I painted with my soul. And we have? We will make the right decisions now, but if we squint and pretend that we don’t notice how artists are organizing provocations under a mask right next door, then no smart resolution will help…
(Voices from the audience: “That’s right.”)
Khrushchev: “I myself know what is right… Here we are taking the situation to the point of absurdity… “Artist,” they tell me. So what if he’s an artist? How is he better than a simple worker? “You have to get into the position – nature.” What happens, comrades? Here he stands, like Napoleon, on the bank of the river, with his arms crossed, and past him on the river, I’m sorry, shit is floating, and we have to look at it. And you call this art… No, if we allow this to happen, then we are not communists. You can’t do this… We need to create conditions, we need to raise working conditions…
Meeting with the intelligentsia on March 7, 1963 in the Kremlin. Invitees were admitted through the gate to the left of the Mausoleum. Many young people who received an invitation to the Kremlin for the first time were escorted to the gate by their frightened wives.
The blue Sverdlovsk domed hall rustled, filling with nylon shirts, which were then in fashion. Among the guests were mainly party officials with wary inclusions of creative intelligentsia. There are six hundred people in total.
The podium for the speakers stood with its back to the presidium table almost end to end and just below the “lordly” table, behind which stood: Khrushchev, Suslov, Kosygin, Brezhnev, Kozlov, Polyansky, Ilyichev and others. Wanda Vasilevskaya was the first to speak. In her speech, she attacked Aksenov and Voznesensky.
Khrushchev: “Perhaps, if Comrade Voznesensky is here, ask him to speak?”
Voice: “Yes, Comrade Voznesensky was recorded in the debate.”
Voice: “Here he comes”…
(Long pause.)
Voznesensky: This podium is very high for me, and therefore I will talk about the most important thing for me. Like my favorite poet, my teacher, Vladimir Mayakovsky, I am not a member of the Communist Party. But how…
Khrushchev (interrupts): – This is not valor!..
Voznesensky: – But also like my teacher Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikita Sergeevich…
Khrushchev (interrupts): – This is not valor, Comrade Voznesensky. Why do you advertise that you are not a party member? And I am proud that I am a party member and will die a party member! (Stormy applause for five minutes.)
Khrushchev (yells, imitating): “I’m not a party member.” Let’s erase! Let’s erase! He’s not a dick! Fight like that! We can fight! We have gunpowder! Do you represent our people or do you disgrace our people?..
Voznesensky: Nikita Sergeevich, forgive me…
Khrushchev (interrupts): – I cannot calmly listen to the sycophants of our enemies. I can not! (Applause.) I can’t listen to the agents. You say that I’m clamping down? I am first and foremost the Secretary General. First of all, I am a person, first of all, I am a citizen of the Soviet Union! (Ascending.) I am a worker of my class, I am a friend of my people, I am their fighter and I will fight against all evil spirits!!!
We created the conditions, but this does not mean that we created the conditions for anti-Soviet propaganda!!! We will never give our enemies free rein. Never!!! Never!!! (Applause.) Look what you are, you understand! “I’m not a party member!” Look what you are! He wants us to create some kind of non-party party. No, you are a party member. Just not the party I’m a member of. Comrades, this is a question of historical struggle, therefore, you know, there is no place for liberalism here, Mr. Voznesensky.
Voznesensky: – Uh, I-I… Nikita Sergeevich, forgive me…
Khrushchev: There are still agents standing here. There are two young men looking rather skeptically. And when they applauded Voznesensky, their noses were stuck in too. What are they? I don’t know. One wears glasses, the other sits without glasses.
Voznesensky: – Nikita Sergeevich, forgive me, I wrote my speech, and I… Here it is written here. I didn’t finish it, the first phrases (reads): – As my favorite poet, I am not a member of the Communist Party, but, like Vladimir Mayakovsky, I cannot imagine my life, my poetry and every word I say without communism.
Khrushchev (interrupts, yells): – Lies! Lie!
Voznesensky: This is not a lie.
Khrushchev: – Lies, lies, lies!!! As Vanda Lvovna said (we are talking about an interview with a Polish newspaper given by Voznesensky), this is slander against the party. A son cannot slander his mother, he cannot. (Prolonged applause.) You want to lull us into thinking that you are, so to speak, a non-partisan in a party position.
Voznesensky: No, no.
Khrushchev (interrupts): – No, that’s enough. You can say that now there is no longer a thaw or frost – but frost. Yes, for such people there will be the most severe frosts. (Prolonged applause.) We are not the ones who were in Petőfi’s club, but we are the ones who helped defeat the Hungarians. (Applause.)
Voznesensky: – Nikita Sergeevich, I… What I said… is true. And this is confirmed by every word I write…
Khrushchev: “We judge not by words, but by deeds.” And your case speaks of an anti-party position. He talks about anti-Sovietism. Therefore you are not our friend.
Voznesensky: Nikita Sergeevich, I don’t have anything anti-Soviet…
Khrushchev: “And what Vanda Lvovna said, is it all Soviet?”
Voznesensky: — The Polish journalist was waiting for me to say that our generation doesn’t care about the generation of our fathers. And I said that there are no age generations that oppose one another. I said that there are generations, like horizontal layers – one follows another, but they do not oppose each other. In every generation there are wonderful people, revolutionary people. (He taps his hand on the podium, as if setting a rhythm, so as not to lose track.) As they say now in the West…
Khrushchev: – If you were more modest, you would say to the Polish journalist: “Dear friend, we have more experienced people who can answer your question…” And you begin to determine, you know, the milk has not dried yet. (Applause.) He will teach. Wait a little longer. We will retrain you again! And you will say thank you!
Voznesensky: — I always call Mayakovsky my teacher.
Khrushchev (interrupts): – And this happens, it happens, another time you’ll say it for background. Look what a Pasternak you have found! We suggested to Pasternak that he leave. Do you want to get your passport tomorrow? Want to?! And go, go to your damn grandmother.
Voznesensky: Nikita Sergeevich…
Khrushchev (not listening): – Go, go there!!! (Applause.) Do you want to get your passport today? We’ll give it to you right away! I will say. I have the right to do this! And leave!
Voznesensky: – I am a Russian person…
Khrushchev (even more excited): – Not all Russians are those who were born on Russian soil. Many of those who were born on foreign soil became more Russian than you. Look what you are, you understand!!! They think that Stalin died, and that means everything is possible… So you, that means… Yes, you are slaves! Slaves! Because if you weren’t slaves, you wouldn’t behave like that. As this Ehrenburg says, he sat with his mouth shut, silent, and when Stalin died, he blabbed. No, gentlemen, this will not happen!!! (Applause.)
Now we will look at Comrade Voznesensky, his behavior and listen to those young people. So you look, and you look, bespectacled.
I don’t know who they are. We’ll listen to you. Come on, come here. Here’s one, here’s another sitting next to you.
Ilyichev’s voice: “Aksenov is sitting next to me.”
Khrushchev: – And who is that?
Ilyichev: – This is Golitsyn, the artist.
Khrushchev: “Let’s get Golitsyn here.” We were familiar with your namesake. Please. After Voznesensky.
Artist Korin (addressed to Golitsyn): “We came to the Kremlin. How he dressed! Look at him in a red shirt, how embarrassing!”
Voznesensky (continues): – Nikita Sergeevich, what I just heard is scary for me. I repeat: I cannot imagine my life without the Soviet Union. I can’t imagine my life…
Khrushchev: Are you with us or against us? We have no other way. We want to know who is with us and who is against us. (Applause.) No thaw. Either summer or frost.
Voznesensky: – Nikita Sergeevich, I had… I feel it, especially now. I had nervous breakdowns, just like during this Polish interview. My content is my poetry. In each of my poems… Nikita Sergeevich, allow me to read my poems.
Khrushchev: – This is your business, read it.
Voznesensky: – I will read the American poems “Sequoia Lenin”.
(Voznesensky reads poetry… You can clearly hear how he, probably in excitement, knocks over a glass that is standing on the podium, and it, clinking disgustingly, breaks the reigning silence. This is an accompaniment to a storm of emotions.)
Sixteen hours of historical anecdote…
Dmitry MINCHENOK
Photos used in the material: From the Ogonyok archive
Magazine “Ogonyok” No. 8 dated 03.03.2002, p. 5