Statement to the Krest’ianskaia Editors of Gazeta on the political banditry case of Nikolai Rudochenkov

I request representatives of Krest’ianskaia Gazeta to come to the site of the case, to investigate and impose their just and Proletarian show trial on the bandit Nikolai Stepanovich Rudochenkov, a former educator at a children’s home, and his concealers, like State Procurator and people’s investigator Comrade Kozopoliansky, people’s judge Comrade Vakatov, and the main culprit Comrade Vladimir Barvin, the principal of this school, in the case of an accusation against the Teacher and Komsomol member Galina Grigor’evna Mukhartova, who died a martyr’s death in the performance of her important duty at the hands of the scoundrel and bandit Nikolai Stepanovich Rudochenkov. The teacher and Komsomol member Galina Mukhartova, from a poor Proletarian kolkhoz family, twenty two years old, was in her fourth year of teaching at Elementary Secondary [incomplete secondary] Uspenskoe school in Kalinin Oblast under the Rzhev RIK and the Lunacharsky Village Soviet. This is how it happened. Starting at her job in September 1935, Galina Mukhartova to her great misfortune met this Rudochenkov, who was an Educator at the children’s home there, I don’t know who put him in his job. He is twenty four years old, a native of the City of Taganrog in the Azov-Black Sea Krai. And so from the very first days after they met, behaving like a hooligan and a boor, this Rudochenkov began to offer his love and did everything he could to persuade her to marry him. But Galina Grigor’evna Mukhartova, being an intelligent, modest girl, and foreseeing in Rudochenkov a dishonorable and good for nothing future husband, replied to all this by declining and put an end to any acquaintance with him. But Rudochenkov did not let up. As a natural hooligan, he did not let Mukhartova alone. He often burst into her room and inflicted all kinds of abuse and even beatings on her, which was confirmed in court by the witness and teacher Beryoznikova, her girlfriend, who lived in one room with her. Galina Mukhartova tried to complain about all these insolent acts to the school principal Vladimir Barvin and asked him to transfer her to another school, since Rudochenkov was not letting her have a life, but principal Barvin did not pay any attention to this, and meanwhile Rudochenkov started threatening to kill her unless she married him. Seeing that the situation was dangerous, Galina Mukhartova decided to personally go to the raion public-education department to complain about Rudochenkov. Upon finding out about this, Rudochenkov decided to take brutal revenge on her. So on 9 March 1936, while he was washing himself in the presence of principal Barvin’s wife [Barvina], Rudochenkov said, as Barvina herself recounted as a witness in court, that I have made a specific decision today, but she did not exactly understand what he was talking about, and Rudochenkov also said in the presence of the bookkeeper that we will have two dead bodies today. And so on 9 March at 9 a.m. 1936, when Galina Mukhartova was getting ready to go to class, Rudochenko suddenly entered her room and carried out his heinous plan. He heinously throttled and strangled her on the floor, since nobody saw her in the noose, and he said she had hanged herself, supposedly she had locked herself in, and when he found out that she had hanged herself he took a knife and chisel and, after prying open the door by himself with the chisel, cut down the towel from which Murkhartova was hanging, removed her from the noose and rushed to get the nurse Silanova, and after grabbing some medication, they ran to administer artificial respiration. When Silanova entered the room first, Mukhartova was lying on the floor, and the scoundrel also told Silanova that if she said anything I will kill you. Silanova herself confirmed this in court. And so, Representatives of Krest’ianskaia Gazeta, if Mukhartova locked herself in and hanged herself, did Rudochenkov have the right to enter the room alone and remove her from the noose, who personally threatened to kill her, and based on this, the murderer was obvious, and all that needed to be done was to use a just Proletarian Court against him. But things turned out differently, the Proletarian Court botched this case. On 11 April 1936 this case was considered in open session by the Rzhev People’s Court with Comrade Vakatov presiding and Comrade Kozopoliansky as State Procurator and Investigator, and it did not find us to be the injured parties, the mother Fedos’ia Gur’ianova and the brothers Aleksandr Mukhartov and Stepan Mukhartov. He did not allow us to speak in court. Mother was in court as a witness, but her words were a cry in the desert, and when I, Stepan Mukhartov, asked to speak, Comrade Vakatov fined me thirty rubles and ejected me from the courtroom. Comrade Kozopoliansky and Comrade Vakatov did everything they could to acquit Rudochenkov, in spite of the fact that he got confused in his testimony. They even coached him in the presence of the court about what to say and made it clear to him that they could acquit him. But thanks to Rudochenkov himself, who proved in everybody’s presence that Galina Mukhartova really did hang herself through me, I drove her to it and knew in advance that she would hang herself, and only for that reason was it impossible to acquit him and they gave him a four year term in labor colonies. They didn’t want to give us, the injured parties, a copy [of the court decision], but seeing that we insisted, they gave us a copy, but the murder was covered up with a suicide and therefore they committed a crime against the entire Proletarian community. In exchange for some wine they let down their class vigilance, and therefore, guided by your just court, as you applied your just court in 1935, I don’t know what month, against manager Fast of the rural consumer society and Police chief Kruzhkin, the murderers of rural correspondent Belyi, and therefore we ask representatives of Krest’ianskaia Gazeta not to send away our case to any procurator’s office, otherwise we will be victims just as our sister and daughter Galina Mukhartova died at our glorious post, in which she carried light and culture to the future young generation, and therefore we ask you from the bottom of our hearts to hear our voice and take control of and look into the political banditry case which we only entrust to you as the most honest and just Organ of Soviet rule and ask you to personally come to the site of the case and apply your Proletarian court and give the guilty parties what they deserve. This is what we sign our names to. Brother Stepan Mukhartov. Daughter Anastasia Mukhartova has signed for our illiterate mother Fedos’ia.

Our address: city of Rzhev, Kalinin Oblast, of the Rzhev RIK, under Lunacharsky Village Soviet, Yesipov Station, village of Vlasovo.