Leonid Khrushchev: biography and photos

Khrushchev's rule (1953-1964) is the only period in Soviet history that people remember with kind words. The hero of the article is the son of Leonid Khrushchev, whose biography is still a matter of dispute among historian scholars who have not come to a common opinion.

Parents

It is known for certain that the young man was born in the territory of modern Donbass - in the village of metallurgists Yuzovka, three days after the October Revolution. Date of birth - 10/11/1917. He was the youngest son of Nikita Sergeyevich and Euphrosyne Ivanovna Khrushchev (nee Pisarev). 7.02.1914 in the documents of the Nikolayev Church of Bahmut Uyezd (Rutchenkovskiy mine) there is a record of their official registration of marriage. Before the release of Nikita Sergeyevich on retirement, this union will be the only documented document.

Efrosinya was one of the five daughters of the owner of the house, who at that time "messed up" Khrushchev. Leonid almost never remembered his father when he was a child. In 1918, he went to the Civil War for the Bolsheviks, and his wife - in the Kursk province, to his parents. In 1920, she died of typhus, leaving her husband Julia's daughter in 1915. And son. A photo of a woman can be seen in the article below. For Nikita Sergeyevich, it was a hard blow, from which he would recover only after 4 years, creating a new family.

Childhood

The children stayed with their grandparents until their father took them to him. His party career went vigorously, and in 1931 Khrushchev moved to Moscow. Yulia, with his new wife, Nikita Sergeyevich, Nina Kukharchuk, had good relations, which can not be said about Leonid. He grew up virtually on the street, being left to himself. After graduating from seven classes, entered the FZU, in 17 he started working at the plant.

Leonid Khrushchev enjoyed great success with women. By the age of twenty, he had already left two cohabitants, one with a child in his arms. Both were Jewish. With Rosalia Traivas, an actress, he even signed, but his father pointedly tore up his marriage certificate. Esther Etinger, the daughter of an aircraft designer, in 1935 gave birth to his son Yuri, who spent his whole life bearing the patronymic and surname of Leonid Khrushchev. Father a year earlier was appointed First Secretary of the CIM, which gave his son new opportunities.

"Youth is in the sky!"

Stalin's appeal to aviation had an effect on the "golden youth" of his time. Sons of the first persons studied in the VVA them. Zhukovsky. It was very honorable, they were equal. With his education, Leonid Khrushchev could not qualify for Zhukovka, but went to the school of pilots of the Guards for Peace (Balashov). After graduating in 1937, he was enrolled in the academy, but did not sit at the desk. In 1939 he voluntarily joined the Red Army, continuing his studies at the EVASH (the aviation school of the city of Engels).

During the Soviet-Finnish war, he volunteered for the front, flying on the Ar-2 bombers. The commander of air division gave an excellent description of the lieutenant who took part in the bombing of the Mannerheim Line.

Myth one - first conviction

In 1938, his father (NS Khrushchev) was transferred to Ukraine, where he went with an increase. A year later, Leonid married the pilot of the Moscow flying club Lyubov Sizykh, and in January 1940, the daughter of Julia was born. The wife resembled the character of her husband: an intrepid parachutist, famously managing a motorcycle. He, too, was bold and even reckless. I was able to cross the bridge supports from one bank of the Dnieper to another. The young woman already had a child, but this did not stop Nikita Sergeyevich from accepting the choice of his son.

It was in those years, according to Sergo Beria's recollections, Leonid Khrushchev-the son of Nikita Khrushchev-who contacted criminals. The gang was engaged in robbery and was exposed on the eve of the war. Many were shot, and the son of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Ukraine's Communist Party allegedly received 10 years in prison. Thus was born the first myth, which does not find any documentary confirmation. In the personal file of L. Khrushchev, which is kept in the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Podolsk), in the original of the autobiography, there is no mention of a previous conviction.

The War Begins

From the first day of the war, like the other "Kremlin lieutenants" - the brothers Mikoyan, Yakov Dzhugashvili, Timur Frunze, Vasily Stalin, the son of Nikita Sergeyevich goes to the front. The first two months the regiment flew without cover, losing most of its pilots. The German aces, who passed flight practice in Europe, were opposed by yesterday's graduates of schools, who first sat at the helm.

Among them stood already experienced and fearless Khrushchev. Leonid fought in the 134th Air Regiment (46th Division), having completed only 27 sorties in July. Having completed the task of destroying the bridge across the Western Dvina River, it was submitted to a combat award. Get the Order of the Red Banner at the beginning of the war - it was a real rarity. On January 9, 1942, his plane was hit and got into neutral territory. The crew was rescued, but the pilot was seriously wounded. As a result of an open fracture, the bone broke through the boot, and the hospital was preparing for an operation to amputate the legs.

Treatment in Kuibyshev

For a young man, life without heaven was impossible. Eyewitnesses say that he, threatening doctors with a pistol, demanded that they abandon the operation. Two months I lay in bed, but the young organism coped. Lameness due to the fact that one leg is slightly shorter than the other, will remain with him until the end of days. The pilot was sent to Kuibyshev, where the best luminaries of medicine were evacuated. Here lived a family. Nikita Sergeyevich personally came from the front to visit his wounded son, to whom he treated with special tenderness.

Leonid Khrushchev was in the same room with Ruben Ibarruri. In the hospital he met Stepan Mikoyan, who became the main eyewitness of his Kuibyshev period of life. According to Mikoyan, the wounded pilots often drank, were friends with the dancers of the Bolshoi Theater, evacuated to the city. At the end of the rehabilitation were mixed up in a drunken story with a tragic ending.

Myth two: the second conviction

At one of the parties the young people staged a real game of Russian roulette. The naval officer, who learned that Leonid Khrushchev was shooting brilliantly, suggested that he get from a pistol into a bottle on his head. The shooter struck the neck. The sailor did not like it, and he forced the pilot to repeat the attraction. The second shot Khrushchev fell directly into the forehead, killing the officer. Stepan Mikoyan tells this story from other people's words, not being an eyewitness to what is happening. That his brother had some kind of dubious story was also said by his sister Rada Adzhubei.

In the memoirs of the opponents of NS Khrushchev (all of them appeared after his death), it is said that Nikita Sergeyevich personally begged Stalin for forgiveness for his son. But he was still condemned for 8 years with the serving of punishment at the front.

Was it or was not?

No journalistic investigation of this fact was successful. There is no documentary evidence. Rumors about the incident are so different that it is impossible to draw any conclusions. All subsequent events violate the logic of making the pilot any punishment, because in the fall of 1942 he goes not to the penal battalion, but to retraining, retraining to the pilot-fighter. In November, passes the exam with an assessment of "good", receives under his command the link and epaulettes of the senior lieutenant. Moreover, he comes to the army with a weapon, which, if convicted, would have been withdrawn.

Leonid Khrushchev, whose biography is now the subject of close study, continued to fight in the 18th Air Regiment, having relocated to the maneuverable Yak-7. Got practice, driving the aircraft from the military plant to the front. Specialists say that the pilot needs time to master new equipment, and he did not have it during the war years.

The events of March 11, 1943

There is information that Khrushchev was transferred to the Army Headquarters, but he refused. The sky was his vocation. During the service he made 172 sorties, but only 32 - on the fighter (the raid was only 4 hours and 27 minutes). 11. 03. 1943 two aircraft flew to the Zhizdra area for reconnaissance of troops. In the pair he was a wingman. At the place of the presenter - Art. Lieutenant Zamorin, who became the main witness of the events of the historic battle, from which the son of a prominent party leader was not destined to return.

The fighters met the four Fokkers, who attacked Soviet pilots in pairs. The commander of the link returned from the combat mission on the damaged fighter. The mystery of the death of Leonid Khrushchev is related to two circumstances: changes in I. Zamorin's testimony and the inability to find the remains of the Yak-7 aircraft because of the swampy terrain and air battle over the enemy territory.

Ivan Zamorin's testimony

The first report was written by the senior lieutenant after visiting the headquarters of the regiment. In it he pointed out: pursuing the "Fokker", released from view the plane of L. Khrushchev. I saw only how he went into a tailspin, rushing to the ground. Later the partisans organized searches for the remains of the aircraft, which were unsuccessful. First, my father was told that the eldest son was missing. A month later, on the night of April 12, Stalin personally expressed his condolences to his companion, noting that there was no more hope. In June, my father received for his son the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree (posthumously).

In the 80 years, rumors began spreading about how Leonid Khrushchev got to the Germans. He supposedly remained alive and was captured, becoming a traitor. Rumors have appeared before, so after the resignation of Khrushchev , an investigation was conducted into the death of the pilot (investigator Tokarev SI), during which no evidence of his betrayal was found. Zamorin, however, changed his testimony, stating that the slave had saved him by throwing his Yak-7 against the fire attack of the Fokker. The plane actually disintegrated in the air. He explained his previous report: the regiment command was afraid of responsibility for not saving the son of a high-ranking official, so they preferred to present him as missing.

The version of betrayal

Military journalist I. Stadnyuk, historians G. Kumanyov, N. Dobriukha, writer F. Chuev and some others adhere to the version that Leonid Khrushchev was shot. They allude to the fact that N. Khrushchev destroyed his son's documents during his reign. Referring to the testimony of the NKVD generals (V. Udilov), Molotov, Beria's son, they describe the picture as the pilot managed to catapult, having fallen into enemy captivity. There he began to give testimony that undermined the security of the country. Stalin ordered a special group of SMERSH to steal the traitor. The operation was successful, and Khrushchev's son was taken to Moscow.

Father begged forgiveness on his knees, but Stalin relied on the decision of members of the Politburo, who sentenced the traitor to death. It was carried out. This explains the hatred of NS Khrushchev to members of the Central Committee: Beria is being shot, the Shcherbakovsky district of Moscow is renamed, and Kaganovich, Molotov and Malenkov are sent into exile. Indirect confirmation of the version can serve as the arrest of Lubov Sizyh in 1943 and sending her to the camps on charges of espionage. Later it turned out that these two events are not related to each other.

Official version

Confident, persistent and cheerful, the 25-year-old became hostage to the confrontation between Nikita Khrushchev, the main author of the "thaw" of the 1960s, and the NKVD generals, who did everything to blacken the name of the former First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Drawing an analogy with the fate of Yakov Dzhugashvili, who was taken prisoner to the Germans, after the capture of the son of a high politician, the reaction of the fascists: propaganda leaflets, radio broadcasts, and any hype would have to be expected. But there are no sources from the German side, confirming the presence of the pilot in captivity.

There are also stories that killed Leonid Khrushchev. His execution is described in different ways by "eyewitnesses," while Metrostroi's employees found fragments of the Yak-7 aircraft, by the number coinciding with the fighter of Art. Lieutenant. Data about this are stored in the archives of Podolsk. On the communal grave of the city of Zhizdra the name of Khrushchev is mentioned, which gives grounds to talk about his burial in the area of death.

Afterword

The betrayal of a young pilot is not believed by his relatives and those who personally knew him. The son of Yuri and granddaughter Nina demanded a public refutation of the information given in many publications without reference to any documents. Direct command, combat comrades, including the aircraft Yak-7, give the most flattering characteristics to the pilot: Leonid Nikitovich Khrushchev was a brave and fearless man. He was eager to fight, not hiding behind the backs of his comrades, and the report of I. Zamorin is an additional confirmation of this. The reputation of the hero is more important than the pursuit of cheap sensations. Conducting additional research is a matter of honor for historian scholars, who must put the final point in spreading conjectures and rumors.