Document 48

Memorandum from A. Stetsky on counterrevolutioinary attitudes among students in Rybinsk, March 1935

RGASPI, f. 17, op., 114, d. 695, ll. 75-77. Typed original.

Concerning Manifestations of C[ounter]-R[evolutionary] Sentiments among Students of the Aviation Institute and [Aviation] Technical College in Rybinsk

In accordance with instructions from the Bureau of KPK I was dispatched to Rybinsk to verify the report sent by the secretary of the party's Rybinsk GK (Gorodskoi Komitet [City Committee]), Comrade Kostiukov, to Comrade Kaganovich, disclosing that a number of persons in the Rybinsk Aviation Institute and Aviation Technical College had expressed counterrevolutionary and terrorist sentiments. There I acquainted myself with all the materials [involved], questioned Director Dushinov, the leaders of the Institute's party organizations, and student party and Komsomol members connected with the facts reported by Comrade Kostiukov. I talked at length with Comrade Kostiukov and his deputy, Ortenberg, GK officials, NKVD Commissioner Comrade Ivashchenko, and also with Plant No. 26's party organizer, Comrade Kozlov, the immediate supervisor of the Institute's party organizations.

As a result of acquainting myself with the situation there, the following became clear: At the Aviation Institute among the students (about 750 in all) it was revealed that two, Nekrasov and Voronov, carry on counterrevolutionary conversations with their classmates. Nekrasov is the son of an Orel railroad office worker. He is a member of the Komsomol. He was reared in kulak surroundings: his mother is from a kulak family, one uncle is a dispossessed kulak. A year or two ago Nekrasov also expressed counterrevolutionary views to Komsomol members he was living with. About the building of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, he said, for example,"they built the Canal on human bones." This is the language of the enemy. In connection with the murder of Comrade Kirov he began to make vile comments about how "it wasn't worth risking anybody's life to kill Kirov. The main leaders, not the accessories, need to be killed." As a result of statements like this he was exposed by students who were Party and Komsomol members as early as December 1934.

The second, Voronov, is the son of a specialist, his year of birth 1912, a member of the Komsomol, originally from the Azov-Black Sea Krai. In Voronov too counterrevolutionary sentiments manifested themselves a long time ago. He was expelled from an institute in Novocherkassk. He refused to take part in a day of voluntary labor (subbotnik) and was a blatant individualist who refused to participate in community work. Voronov too after 1 December made comments about the murder of Comrade Kirov that were out-and-out counterrevolutionary. He said: "In my opinion [it] was poorly organized. They bungled the whole business. But this won't be the end of the matter." Students who were Komsomol members argued with Voronov, but they did not unmask him completely, and only after 1 December when he revealed himself more clearly did they tell the NKVD about him.

A third manifestation of counterrevolutionary sentiments came to light at the Aviation Technical College. This case concerns a student at the College named Gruzdev. Gruzdev is a Komsomol member, born in 1915, the son of a kulak, from Kovrov Raion. Once again, Gruzdev expressed counterrevolutionary sentiments long before to a group of Komsomol members he lived with in a dormitory, and, until recently, these Komsomol members likewise listened silently to his counterrevolutionary comments and did not refute them. . . .

The first conclusion to be drawn from this is that in the party and Komsomol organization of both the Institute and the Technical College, the party and mass educational work has been extremely poorly organized; party and Komsomol members were not equipped with a proper understanding of party objectives nor prepared to be vigilant and uncompromising. The work of the party education network was extremely weakly organized. As a result, when party and Komsomol members heard direct attacks and speeches by the enemy, they did not go on the offensive, did not seize the counterrevolutionary by the hand. I conversed with these Komsomol members, and now they understand their political negligence and curse themselves for their lack of vigilance. Special attention must be paid to the political education of Komsomol members. The importance of this is evident from the following: only eleven out of the 450 students at the Aviation Technical College are Party members, three hundred are Komsomol members. In the Institute, out of 750 students, 120 are Party members and four hundred Komsomol members. Meanwhile, work with them is badly organized. I happened to be present when leaders of Komsomol study groups were being quizzed, and few had any conception of the party's fight against the Zinoviev and Trotskyite influences, against the rightists.