Alexander Maslennikov's name is well remembered by veterans of the socialist Revolution and Civil War. He was a Communist who devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. Maslennikov was one of those Bolshevik leaders who, in Lenin's words, "worked steadily and steadily among the proletarian masses, helping to develop their consciousness, their organization ,and their revolutionary self-activity." 1
Alexander Alexandrovich Maslennikov was born on June 10 (22), 1890 in St. Petersburg in the family of a native of the peasants, an employee of the Expedition for the preparation of state papers. His mother was a telegraph operator, but soon had to leave her job and devote herself to raising her children. After graduating from the secondary school, Alexander entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University in 1908. Even in his school years, he became acquainted with revolutionary literature, learned the life of working people and became friends with the workers of the Putilovsky plant, near which the Maslennikov house was located. In 1909, Alexander was accepted into the RSDLP (b) and plunged into party work with all his youthful passion, leading it in the 1st city district of St. Petersburg. Together with him, his classmates, revolutionary students V. A. Bystryansky, A.M. Nazaretyan, L. M. Karakhan, K. A. Mekhonoshin, Ya.Anvelt, and E. A. Pridvorov (the future poet Demyan Bedny) carried out great propaganda and organizational work both within the university and among the workers. Maslennikov and Bystryansky were then members of the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee. In the spring of 1910, almost the entire St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b) was arrested. Maslennikov, who remains at large, and a number of other comrades restore the committee. As its member, Maslennikov directs the school of propagandists organized by him, prepares leaflets.

But on the night of September 12, 1910, he was also arrested. A twenty-year-old boy is imprisoned in a solitary cell in a St. Petersburg house of pre-trial detention. The jailers did everything possible to prevent the prisoners from connecting with their friends, to dull their consciousness, to deprive them of the will to fight. But out of a thousand, only a few obeyed them. Others came out of prison even more spiritually strengthened and joined the revolutionary struggle with new energy. Political prisoners managed to create a library in predarilka with a large amount of fiction, scientific and even political literature. From the very first day of his solitary confinement, Maslennikov became an active reader of this library. In addition, prisoners have been granted the right to keep diaries in prison. Two of the four common notebooks of Alexander Maslennikov's diary have been preserved. They were kept as the most expensive relic for more than half a century by his brother Alexey and sisters Elizaveta Alexandrovna and Marina Alexandrovna Maslennikov. The diary of Alexander Maslennikov is a document of great power. Reading it, you see the spiritual growth of the young Bolshevik revolutionary, the richness of his soul, the extraordinary thirst for knowledge, you recognize his thoughts, doubts, dreams. Here are the lines from the diary::

"September 27. Don't be discouraged, Lisa (A. A. Maslennikov's sister - A. M.) advises me. I advise you to cheer up, too, Lisa... I personally, despite the terrible mood, do not lose heart. I have so many plans for the future that I don't have to be discouraged. I am terribly sorry that the plan that I drew up a long time ago could not be implemented. When everything was ready - fuck! "my arrest. I'm here, Liza, I mean my pedagogical plan, to organize evening courses. Do you understand? There are teachers (good forces), all young people, enthusiastic about the ideas of the best teachers in our country and abroad, who have not yet had time to close themselves in a case, like the vast majority of my teachers and yours...

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 20, p. 82.

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October 7. I went for questioning. I'm terribly tired. I won't write today. As of today, I have been charged under Article 102, namely, with belonging to the St. Petersburg Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers ' Party. For recreation, I will solve several problems.

October 14th. Thursday. He finished reading M. Berthelot's Science and Morality and Yves Delage's Heredity. In my opinion, I should read Darwin on heredity, and he gave me much more, and then the latest works, at least Gertvig. I'm in a surprisingly calm state right now. But something terrible was happening to me this afternoon. A fit of acute melancholy... I attribute this melancholy to the fact that I work too little. We need to work harder. I have powers that must be used for the benefit of humanity; I feel that I can do it, and therefore I must do it...

October 15th. Friday. Today is a wonderful day. The weather is amazing. Sun all day. But what do you have to do with it, Alexasha? What good is the weather to you? "A very large one. The mass of light is therefore more workable. And in general, light promotes work, invigorates a person. In short, I did a lot today, which I am very happy with.

October 17th. Sunday... He began and finished reading "The Class Struggle in France from 1848 to 1850". A brilliant book that can be read in one sitting, and because of its richness of thought, its amazing ability to look at the root of things, and its excellent language, it is an outstanding book. No wonder I enjoyed reading it a second time as much as I did the first time.

December 9th. Thursday. Life wins everywhere. Life will win everything. Right. I finished reading Gorky's Troi. "Over the gray plain of the sea, the wind gathers clouds. Between the clouds and the sea, a Petrel flies proudly, like a black lightning bolt ... A storm! The storm is coming soon! It is the bold Petrel that soars proudly between the lightning above the roaring sea, and the prophet of victory shouts: Let the storm come harder!"

December 11th. Today ends 3 months of imprisonment. 91 days. The ominous figure increases, increases incessantly... After all, how much time I lost unproductively... Yes, I read a lot. That's right. But this is not enough. It comes out like a miser who saves money until death, and when death comes, he will only see the folly of the act... the miser saves up from stupidity, and I feel all the horror. How beautiful life is compared to death... It is good to live, then the soul is light, calm. You feel the power in yourself. You feel such a deep love for people. You get the confidence that love will really become the basis of life. And at the same time there is a desire, the spirit rises, the power to fulfill this desire..."

After serving about four months in a pre-trial detention center, Maslennikov was sent to Vologda. Soon he was transferred to Nikolsk, from where, as stated in the gendarme report, he disappeared in an unknown direction on December 4, 1911.2 While in Nikolsk, Maslennikov created a propaganda circle of exiles, lectured on political economy and the history of the party. For several months, with the help of his comrades and students in the circle, he prepared an escape. And now the time has come. Everything is ready. An agreement was reached with a local merchant who was going to Vologda to buy goods. By agreement with the organizers of the escape, the merchant released his clerk to a remote village to visit relatives, and took Maslennikov with him. Maslennikov got safely to Vologda, helped the merchant buy goods, and on the night before the merchant was supposed to return to Nikolsk, he left by train for Moscow. In Vologda, a new passport in the name of Monakhov was already waiting for him.

In the very first days of his stay in Moscow, Alexander had to visit Presnya, where, as a reminder of the armed uprising of 1905, the burnt ruins of the Schmit factory, one of the bastions of the defenders of Presnya, and the bullet-riddled railing of the Humpback Bridge, where the fierce battle of Presnya with the punishers took place, were still preserved. In the group of workers and women workers of the Prokhorovsky manufactory, with whom he conducted a conversation, there was one of the participants in this battle. Seeing Alexander off after the conversation, he told a lot of interesting and exciting things about the courage of his friends, showed the places of battles. Alexander's meetings with his comrades were repeatedly scheduled in the dining room of the Commercial Institute in Zamoskvorechye, where only recently, in November 1911, students clashed with the police. March 10, 1912 Maslennikov, surveillance

2 TsGAOR USSR, f. DP OO, op. 1910, ed. hr. 714, l. 26.

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After which the police had been following him for a long time, he was again arrested on one of the streets of Moscow by agents of the security department. And immediately after his arrest, a river of paper began to flow: requests to St. Petersburg, Vologda, drawing up questionnaires, various correspondence.

Let's take one of these documents, from which you can find out how much Maslennikov did in Moscow, being only three months free. "According to well-defined and carefully verified repeated instructions available in the Moscow Security Department, Alexander Maslennikov, a former student of the Imperial St. Petersburg University, who is now being arrested in Moscow, is one of the most active and serious representatives of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and is known in the underground environment as an exceptionally experienced propagandist, organizer and technician. Alexander Maslennikov settled here under an illegal name and took on the responsibility of independently restoring underground party work in the disorganized and previously non-functioning Central (urban) district of the local social Democratic organization of the RSDLP. Alexander Maslennikov began forming party cells among the workers of the carpentry and tailor shops, organized propaganda circles, organized unauthorized meetings of class-conscious workers who contacted him, popularized the party's platform among them, and, creating a special technical group, began reproducing propaganda "leaflets" of his own composition on the hectograph, in which he sought to use the most harsh and disrespectfully criminal form. to discredit the authority of the government authorities and, arousing discontent among the working class with the existing state system, called on the discontented to unite under the banner of the RSDLP, as the only reliable representative and defender of the proletariat fighting for its interests. " 3 Of great interest is the list of items seized during the search given in this document, including"...nine long strips of white paper, on which, partly in ink and partly in pencil, are written by the prisoner's hand, the following articles from the table of contents in the form of summaries, with statistical data attached: "The State of the Future", "The Professional International", "The Land of Ideals and the Philosophy of Marxism", "The Capitalist Class, Trade and Credit", "The Development of Factories after the Revolution". 61 years old", "Attitude of factories and handicrafts in Russia","Pig iron mining in different countries" 4 .

And again the link. Now - to the Tobolsk province. But with the second exile, the same thing happened as with the first, only here, in the village of Ashlyksky, Tobolsk district, Maslennikov stayed even less: only 25 days. The police report stated: "arrived in Ashlykskoe on December 13, 1912, disappeared on January 7, 1913." 5 A few months of work in Rostov, then arrest and exile in Narym and escape from there. Work in the Donbass, organization of a strike at the Yuryevsky plant, and again exile at the end of 1914 to the Turukhansky region. Here, in the village of Mikhailovsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov, S. S. Spandaryan served their exile, and I. V. Stalin and G. I. Petrovsky came here. Communication with comrades who had extensive experience in revolutionary work gave Maslennikov a lot. He was preparing himself for new fights. The February bourgeois-democratic revolution brought freedom to the prisoners of tsarism. Maslennikov becomes a commissar of the Turukhansk region, organizes the sending of his comrades to European Russia, and then he goes to Samara, where his wife S. V. Khorosheina lived. In Samara, Maslennikov quickly became known as one of the workers ' favorite speakers. He performed almost daily, and sometimes several times a day in workshops, factory yards, city squares, and workers ' clubs. With finances, " the Bolsheviks were not very good at this time, and often paid lectures were arranged to replenish the cash register. Maslennikov's name was often mentioned in their ads. Here is one of these announcements: "The Samara Central Election Commission of the RSDLP is organizing a lecture-rally on the theme "Revolution, counter-revolution and urban self-government" on Tuesday, July 4, at 8 pm in the Triumph Theater. Dokl. T. Maslennikov " 6 . In his speeches and reports, Maslennikov denounced the Provisional Government and the compromise parties, and called on the working people to rally around the Bolshevik Party.-

3 Ibid., op. 1912, units hr. 286, ll, 17 vol. - 18 vol.

4 Ibid., l. 18.

5 Ibid., l. 33.

6 "Privolzhskaya pravda", 2. VII. 1917.

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"The Proletariat and the revolutionary democracy must know," he said after the events of July in Petrograd, " that the bourgeoisie, in the person of the leaders of revolutionary social-democracy, has slandered the entire party of the proletariat."7
Maslennikov attached great importance to the printed word in the struggle for the masses. As a member of the editorial board of the Bolshevik newspaper Privolzhskaya Pravda, he actively participated in its work. After the July days of 1917, the forces of the counter-revolution, having begun to persecute the Bolsheviks, at the same time attacked all the progressive strata of the people in general. It was necessary to explain to the broad masses of the working people the meaning of the events taking place, to expose the enemies of the revolution and their insidious plans. Maslennikov solved this problem with perseverance, passion and journalistic skill in his articles. One of his first newspaper editorials, entitled "A New Attack on the Revolutionary Front," appeared on July 23, 1917. Describing the situation in the country, Maslennikov wrote that "on the front of the revolution, the enemy continues to use on a large scale the suffocating gases of slander and slander", and the petty-bourgeois parties, who are lackeys to the bourgeoisie and landlords, "in the smoke of victorious patriotism" take the gimmick inside the coalition government for the creative growth of the revolution. All this shows, Maslennikov concludes in his article, that reaction must be fought not in words within the four walls of ministerial offices, but " in the villages, in factories and factories, as a whole, against all the landlords and capitalists, for all power."

The Bolsheviks paid special attention at that time to the work among the soldiers of the Samara garrison. On September 12, 1917, at a meeting of the military organization consisting of 150 Bolshevik soldiers and officers, Maslennikov was elected chairman of the bureau of the military organization. While in this position, he fought with even greater energy to rally the masses of soldiers around the Communist Party. After one of his speeches to the workers of the Pipe Factory, a resolution was adopted at a rally stating that the way out of the country's difficult situation was "a new revolutionary explosion of the broad masses of workers, soldiers and peasants, an explosion of revolution, which alone is capable of creating a firm revolutionary government."8 The ways to fight for such power were indicated in the documents of the Bolshevik Party, and Maslennikov tirelessly propagated these documents. The military organization led by him started issuing leaflets and pamphlets, and one of the first such pamphlets was a small collection of party documents. The preface to this pamphlet, signed "Bureau of Military Organization", stated: "The poorest peasantry and the mass of soldiers are beginning to take a closer look at the party of the working class, the party of the Bolsheviks, and they are beginning to understand that land, peace, and freedom can be achieved only by decisive measures, only by the decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie waged by the Bolsheviks."9
The Samara Bolsheviks were among the first to raise the banner of October in the Volga region and establish the power of the Soviets. Elected to the Constituent Assembly and a delegate to the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Maslennikov left for Petrograd at the end of December 1917, where he first saw and heard V. I. Lenin, participated in the work of the Congress of Soviets, and was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR. Maslennikov then worked for the Supreme Economic Council for several months, then was sent back to Samara by the decision of the Central Committee. Here, having become a member of the provincial committee of the RCP(b), he headed the agitation work and took part in the struggle for the consolidation of Soviet power. On May 17-18, 1918, an anarchist mutiny broke out in Samara. At the head of the communist squad, Maslennikov stormed one of their bastions-the Filimonova 10 hotel .

On May 25, 1918, the Balochs rebelled against the Soviet government. They took, in particular, Syzran, and in early June captured Lipyagi and found themselves 20 versts from Samara. At that time, there were some voices about leaving the city without a fight: there were no forces to defend themselves. Maslennikov categorically rejected these proposals and vigorously set about mobilizing the few resources available. And when the enemy

7 "Privolzhskaya pravda", 24. VII. 1917.

8 F. G. Popov. Annals of Revolutionary Events in the Samara Province, Kuibyshev, 1969, p. 520.

9 " Decisions of the Conference of 25-29 April 1917 and the 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democrats. The Bolshevik Workers ' Party." Publication of the military organization attached to the Samara Committee of the RSDLP (b). Samara. 1917, p. 2.

10 See "October in Samara". Kuibyshev, 1957, p. 105.

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Nevertheless, he broke into Samara, he led a group of comrades who took up the defense in the "Club of Communists" and ensured the evacuation of the main forces of the defenders of the city. M. S. Sablina, the red Nurse of Mercy, who was at the Communist Club at that time, recalls this tragic moment: "The shelling was getting worse. Our losses were great. And now a difficult moment has come when we, the Communists, had to make the decision to surrender to the enemy. Comrade Maslennikov, a member of the Samara Committee of Bolsheviks, bore the moral burden of this seemingly impossible task. He was known as a firm Bolshevik. But it was he who, taking into account the whole situation, was the first to understand that surrender to the Czechs is now the only chance to save us from being torn to pieces by the brutal bourgeoisie. This was necessary in order to save some comrades for further struggle. " 11
Maslennikov, commissar of the Samara Railway Vavilov and other captured comrades were sent to Siberia in a "death train". While the train was waiting at Omsk station, the prisoners were allowed to wash their clothes and swim in the Irtysh River accompanied by guards. Several female employees were invited to do the laundry. Maslennikov and his comrades decided to use the opportunity to organize an escape. To do this, first of all, it was necessary to establish contact with the local underground. Maslennikov made an agreement with one of the employees, and she agreed to send the note to the address. It said :" We are Samaritans-suicide bombers, 8 people out of 15 Red Guards, captured unarmed and thrown into a"prison on wheels". Seven soldiers were tortured and shot by the White Guards on the way. They brought us to Omsk station and hold us. Our eight survivors obtained permission to go swimming in the Irtysh River accompanied by escorts. There is an island where we undress and warm up. Send a boat to the island with a boatman, clothes and other things that are necessary in such a case. " 12 This note was delivered to its destination on the same day. The prisoners were informed that they were ready to carry out their plan and set a time for their escape. But the unexpected happened. The day before the agreed time, the suicide bombers were transferred to the barracks of the concentration camp. Having learned about this, the Omsk underground workers again established contact with the prisoners and received a new message from them: "We are in the camps, save us... they are shooting us! One of them had already been executed last night. We are taken to the bathhouse, where we can escape through the window. Help with everything you need " 13 .

After discussing this note, the underground committee rejected the proposed escape plan and proposed its own. One of the Communists worked at the White Guards ' headquarters and managed to get a few passes there. The transfer of passes was entrusted to sisters Kristina and Elsa Kozak, experienced conspirators. Here is how Christina Kozak-Larose describes this episode in her memoirs: "We were opened by a young officer, whom I addressed in German with an explanation of the motives of our visit. I flattered his "democracy" as much as I could and asked him to arrange a meeting with the Latvian prisoner. I arranged the young Czech in such a way that he called Steshe (one of Maslennikov's associates) and allowed me to talk to him. We "got emotional", I resorted to a handkerchief and, together with the latter, surreptitiously slipped him 4 passes to leave the camp and 3 passes for the right to move around the city around the clock, as well as an address-turnout. So three more Samara Bolsheviks were saved-Maslennikov, Vavilov ("Lesnoy"), Steshe " 14 . From the very first days of their release, the Samaritans actively joined the work of the Omsk underground organization. At that time (September 1918) the second city underground conference was being prepared. It took place in a Country Grove. Maslennikov made a report "On the international and domestic situation" and was elected chairman of the Omsk City Underground Committee of the RCP (b). The communists of the Omsk underground were carefully preparing for an armed uprising scheduled for December 1918. Even at the 1st citywide party conference in August 1918, the Military Revolutionary Headquarters, the Red Cross, and the Technical Department were established under the City Committee of the RCP (b). The city was divided into five districts, each of which had leadership centers. A. A. Maslennikov was assigned to carry out general management of training

11 "Volga", 1957, N 15, p. 191.

12 A. F. Palashnikov. Monuments and memorials of Omsk and the Omsk region. Omsk, 1967, pp. 111-112.

13 Ibid., p. 122.

14 "In the fire of revolution and civil war". Collection of memoirs. Omsk, 1959, p. 148.

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uprisings. It was also allocated by the head of the 1st district (the territory of the city on the right bank of the Omi River). The task of the insurgents of this area was to capture the fortress where the commandant's office and the headquarters of the Kolchak army were located, release prisoners from prison, and help the 2nd district seize Kolchak's headquarters and the building of its Council of Ministers .15
The uprising began successfully, the prison was captured, the railway workers of Kulomzino station fought with Kolchak for more than a day, but the forces were unequal. The uprising failed, and on April 2, 1919, the Kolchakists managed to arrest Maslennikov and his comrades. They were tortured for two weeks, but not a word was spoken by the courageous Communists. On the eve of the execution, they managed to send a farewell letter to freedom, full of cheerfulness and faith in the victory of the cause for which loyal soldiers of the Communist Party fought and gave their lives. These are the final lines of that letter: "Believing in the victory of the proletarian revolution, we die all the more easily because we feel that we are not in debt to our comrades. We gave everything we could to serve the great ideal, and even life is the most precious thing. ...Long live the power of the Soviets! Long live the world socialist revolution!"16. On April 18, the heroes were shot.

No one knows where Maslennikov's grave is. No one can tell you about the last minutes of his life. But the Soviet people will not forget his contribution to the victory of the socialist revolution. The largest factory in Kuibyshev and a street in Omsk are named after him; his name is preserved in the memory of those who are learning to build a life following the example of the glorious generation of the Lenin Guard.

15 See A. F. Palashnikov. Op. ed., p. 127.

16 " Letters of Glory and immortality. 1905-1920 years". Moscow, 1964, p. 126.

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