History near and far
On the First Russian television channel showed the series "Furtseva". Many people liked the movie. The authors defined its genre as a historical melodrama. The film is artistic, and its creators fully used their right to speculation. They gave their interpretation of some very controversial facts related to the main character.
We are not going to analyze the series, it is not our task. Let's just say that the interest in the personality of Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva is quite large, and numerous responses on the Internet testify to this.
In 2011, the first full political biography of Furtseva, written by Leonid Mlechin, was published. It was published in the series “Life of Remarkable People” (see: L. Mlechin. Furtseva. M., “Young Guard”, 2011). The centenary of the birth of Ekaterina Alekseevna is dedicated to the documentary film by Leonid Mlechin “Ekaterina Furtseva. Woman in a man's game.
Ekaterina Furtseva climbed to such a height in power that no woman had reached either before her in the USSR, or after her in the Russian Federation. Even more - since the time of Catherine the Second, there has not been such a high-ranking lady in Russia. She was a secretary and a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU (in 1952-1966, that was the name of the Politburo). She was even firmly entrenched in the nickname Catherine the Third.
It should be noted that during the period of Gorbachev's perestroika, some historians and cultural figures portrayed Furtseva as an illiterate weaver and "cook" who seized power. She supposedly demonstrated that cooks should be kept in the kitchen, otherwise they would “break wood” in such a way that then the consequences of their management would be felt for many decades. However, then they went to the other extreme - they declared her an outstanding statesman who did so much for the development of culture that no one in Russia can compare with her in this respect. In our opinion, as always, the truth lies in the middle.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was born on December 7, 1910 in the city of Vyshny Volochek, Tver province, in a working-class family. Her father, in connection with the outbreak of the First World War, was mobilized into the army and died at the front. Mother worked as a weaver in a factory. Katya graduated from the seven-year school and the factory apprenticeship school (FZU), where she received the profession of a weaver. Since 1928, she worked as a weaver at the Bolshevichka factory in Vyshny Volochek. Even in the FZU, she showed herself as an active Komsomol member. At the factory, she was elected secretary of the Komsomol organization of the enterprise.
In 1929, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, a large group of Komsomol activists from industrial regions was sent to provide assistance to the rural areas of the Central Black Earth Region. Katya also got into this group. She was sent to the Kursk region. Here he was elected secretary of the Korenevsky district committee of the Komsomol. Collectivization had just begun, which Stalin declared a revolution in the countryside. The VLKSM was a reliable assistant to the party. Komsomol members often ran ahead of the party locomotive, driving the peasants to the collective farms, and were especially zealous in the fight against those peasants who were classified as rich, that is, kulaks. In 1930, Furtseva was accepted as a member of the Communist Party.
However, Catherine did not stay here for a long time. She was transferred to the Crimea. And now she is already the secretary of the Feodosia city committee of the Komsomol, then the head of the organizational department and a member of the bureau of the Crimean regional committee of the Komsomol. I often went to Koktebel, where the base of the first Soviet glider pilots was. She also became interested in gliding. And swimming. She was an excellent swimmer. In Koktebel, she met the future spacecraft designer S.P. Korolev. The regional committee of the party recommended her to the Aeroflot Higher Academic Courses, the lists of students of which were approved by the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. She studied at these courses in Leningrad for three years. After graduation, she was sent to the Saratov Aviation College as an assistant to the head of the political department for the Komsomol. Here she began an “official” romance with her boss P.I. Bitkov. And soon she married him.
In 1936, Bitkov was transferred to Moscow to the Aeroflot Political Directorate. Ekaterina was offered a job in the Central Committee of the Komsomol as an instructor in the student youth department.
On a Komsomol ticket, without a matriculation certificate, she entered the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology named after Lomonosov, from which she graduated in 1941. Received a degree in chemical engineering. She studied very mediocre, but excelled in social activities. She was elected the secretary of the party organization of the institute, entered the graduate school.
On the first day of the outbreak of World War II, Furtseva's husband went to the front, to the active army, or rather to the active aviation. Ekaterina Alekseevna was pregnant, expecting a child. Together with the institute, she was evacuated to Kuibyshev, where she worked as an instructor in the city party committee. In May 1942, she gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana. Only four months after the birth of the child, P. Bitkov's husband arrived on a visit and announced that he now had another woman and another family.
In August 1942, Furtseva returned to Moscow. In November of the same year, she was elected secretary of the Frunze district party committee for personnel. In the months remaining before the end of the year, she became the second secretary and then the first secretary of this district committee. She lived then in a small room with a child, mother and brother, who was a drinker and got into unpleasant stories in connection with this.
Ekaterina Furtseva was strongly promoted by Pyotr Boguslavsky, then the first secretary of the district committee, he helped her start a party career and move up the career ladder. They had a close relationship with Ekaterina Alekseevna. He helped her survive the bitterness of parting with her husband, whom Furtseva loved. However, the “office romance” ended unexpectedly with the fact that she replaced Boguslavsky as the first secretary of the Frunzensky district party committee. In her personal life, too, there have been changes. Catherine met Nikolai Firyubin, whom she later married. He was two years older, worked as a secretary of the Moscow regional committee of the CPSU (b). They began a close relationship, but Firyubin was married and had two children. So they carefully concealed their love, met secretly, but soon it ceased to be a secret for the party public. Nikolai Firyubin was handsome and enjoyed success with women. He filed for divorce only in 1951, however, even after that he married Ekaterina Alekseevna far from immediately. The Kremlin Olympus did not like divorces, especially when it came to major party functionaries.
Having become the first secretary of the Frunze district committee, Ekaterina Alekseevna worked hard and hard on herself. I saw my shortcomings, which I tried to eliminate. At first, she read the reports written for her by the instructors of the district committee haltingly, misinterpreting words, confusing stresses. She began to memorize the texts of performances by heart, rehearsed in front of a mirror, as she once memorized roles in a school drama club, since she had an excellent memory. As a result, her performances were emotional, even somewhat artistic, without a piece of paper. They differed from the speeches of many functionaries who read the reports, burying themselves in the written text and being afraid to take their eyes off it. In 1948, Furtseva graduated in absentia from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Furtseva enjoyed the favor and support of the then First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee and the City Party Committee, Georgy Popov. He said to Ekaterina Alekseevna: “The doors of my office are always open for you. Always ready to help you.” And she often came through those doors. In 1949, Stalin carried out another purge of the party apparatus. Popov was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who was recalled from Ukraine.
On January 21, 1949, at a solemn mourning meeting dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Lenin's death, N. Shvernik introduced Furtsev to Stalin. The chief honored her with a compliment.
In January 1950, Furtseva made a presentation at a meeting of party activists in the Frunzensky district in connection with the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On shortcomings in the work of Comrade. Popov, removed from the posts of the first secretary of the MK and MGK of the CPSU (b) ”and not sparing swear words, she furiously denounced her until recently“ talented leader and mentor ”. Khrushchev attended the Frunze district party conference, where he met Furtseva and fell in love with her. In 1950, he nominated her as the second secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. She oversaw issues of ideology, culture and science, as well as administrative bodies. Ekaterina Alekseevna now works under the direct supervision of Khrushchev, is his deputy for the leadership of party organizations in Moscow. They communicate almost daily. Nikita Sergeevich is satisfied with Furtseva's work.
When the “Leningrad affair” arose, Furtseva purged Leningraders from the party and Soviet apparatus and even in universities. At the same time, they also removed those who had previously been considered trusted people of Popov. The new broom cleaned out the old footage.
When the “doctors' case” arose, she organized its propaganda support in Moscow, gave instructions to hold rallies, meetings, and publish angry responses from workers. Two days after the publication of the TASS report about the arrest of doctors, Furtseva reported to Khrushchev about the demands of labor collectives: “These cannibals, who have lost all human appearance, must be thrown into molten metal ...” (see: Book of historical sensations. M., 1993).
After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev was elected First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Poorly educated, unable to write or read competently, he was, however, a cunning politician, a master of hardware games, who became adept at undercover fighting. He well mastered Stalin's thesis “cadres decide everything” and, having come to power, the first thing he began to place his people in key positions, whom he trusted.
March 29, 1954 Ekaterina Furtseva became the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU. Khrushchev directly subordinated the capital's city committee to the Central Committee of the CPSU. He appointed his own man as the “mistress” of Moscow.
The popular rumor that Khrushchev and Furtseva had a close relationship and therefore he promoted her higher and higher (even some of the apparatchiks thought so) is a myth. Its spread was also facilitated by the fact that Khrushchev sent Firyubin far away - first as an ambassador to Czechoslovakia, and then to Yugoslavia. Furtseva, of course, could not go with him. Nikita Sergeevich had enough of his wife. Yes, and she complained to her close friend at the moment of revelation that Nikita Sergeevich had not touched her for many years. He seemed to be so tired of hardware games that he had neither the strength nor the desire for sexual ones. It was hard for Soviet people to believe that a woman could reach such heights only thanks to her abilities, character, and practical mindset. However, Ekaterina Alekseevna owed her career primarily to herself. She had novels and a rather stormy personal life, but this did not have a big impact on her career.
Heading the Moscow city committee, becoming the "mistress of the capital", Ekaterina Alekseevna plunged into business. For example, with her support, the construction of a number of large medical centers began in Moscow. The construction of the Mossovet Theater, the operetta theater began, new cinemas appeared. The scale of housing and communal construction has expanded. In 1956-1960. was elected secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Occupying high party posts, she carefully monitored her appearance. She was tall and slim. Beautiful. Every day I did gymnastics, ran, played tennis. She dressed according to the latest fashion of that time with great taste. She was constantly advised by the artist Nadezhda Leger. Some models for her were already made by Vyacheslav Zaitsev. On November 7, 1955, on the day of the anniversary of the October Revolution, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU held the first big reception in the Kremlin. Furtseva came in a ball gown and waltzed with Voroshilov, Mikoyan and others.
At the famous Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Furtseva was the first to speak in the debate on Khrushchev's report. Kept on the podium freely. Unlike other speakers, she almost did not look into the text prepared in advance.
In June 1957, a serious internal party crisis arose in the leadership of the CPSU. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Molotov, and then Malenkov, disrupting the discussion of current routine matters, unexpectedly raised the question of Khrushchev's removal from the post of first secretary. He was accused of ignoring the Presidium of the Central Committee, economic illiteracy, a tendency to impulsive, ill-considered actions.
They were supported by Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Bulganin, Pervukhin and Saburov. Molotov and Malenkov's proposal to remove Khrushchev from the post of first secretary passed by seven votes to four. However, Nikita Sergeevich said: “I will not obey this decision. I was elected by the plenum of the Central Committee. Let's call him” (see: D. Volkogonov. Seven Leaders. Book One. M., AST publishing house, 1999).
Khrushchev's supporters - Zhukov, Brezhnev, Furtseva, the then chairman of the KGB Serov and others - managed to ensure the convening of the plenum. Members of the Central Committee were taken by military aircraft to Moscow. Khrushchev was saved, and his opponents were declared an "anti-Party group." Ekaterina Alekseevna took the liveliest part in this acute struggle for power. Maybe even played a key role.
RIA Novosti political observer Nikolai Troitsky, in his article on the centenary of the birth of Furtseva, cites an interesting and piquant fact related to this struggle. Near the meeting room of the Presidium of the Central Committee there was only a men's toilet. The women's one was in the other wing of the building, the round trip took about ten minutes. Absent during the meeting was risky. Furtseva managed to use this circumstance as well. She asked permission to leave for natural reasons and called for help from supporters of Nikita Khrushchev.
However, in the Presidium of the Central Committee, even after the expulsion of the “anti-Party group,” not everything was going smoothly. Khrushchev often undertook important actions without consulting anyone. In fact, he had all the power in his hands, and he often abused it.
In 1960, in a telephone conversation with Secretary of the Central Committee Aristov, Ekaterina Alekseevna spoke critically about Nikita Khrushchev, and he became aware of the content of their conversation. He got terribly angry.
In 1960, Furtseva was appointed Minister of Culture of the USSR and held this position until her death in 1974.
In October 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU was held. She became a member of the newly elected Central Committee. However, she was not elected a member of the Presidium and Secretary of the Central Committee. For Ekaterina Alekseevna, this was a terrible blow. So stubbornly climbed to the very top of power - and fly off from there. It was hard for her to come to terms with what had happened. Returning home after the meeting, she opened her veins. She lost a lot of blood, but the doctors saved her. As if in protest, she did not appear at the final meeting of the congress, provoking the wrath of Khrushchev. She was summoned for explanations to the Presidium of the Central Committee. What happened there, told the former secretary of the Central Committee N. Mukhitdinov, who was present at this meeting: “She could hardly speak from excitement and tears. Her husband Firyubin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was elected at this congress as a candidate member of the Central Committee, was also summoned. It turned out that he, too, was not present at the final meeting of the congress. Nikita Sergeevich severely scolded him. He said: "As a party worker in the past, as a husband, you had to show the will, the mind - not only to come to the congress yourself, but also to prevent the shameful actions of your wife." He apologized, expressed remorse…” (see N. Mukhitdinov. The River of Times. M, 1995).
Although, compared with the post of secretary of the Central Committee, the post of minister of culture meant a clear demotion in the Soviet and party hierarchy, but for Furtseva it became her finest hour. Many have forgotten her former high position, but everyone remembers her as the Minister of Culture. She has held this post for 14 years. There were other ministers of culture in Soviet history, for example Aleksandrov, Mikhailov, Demichev. But who remembers them? And everyone remembered Furtseva.
In culture and art, Ekaterina Alekseevna did not really understand. Moreover, she could not penetrate into the subtleties. But she greatly appreciated specialists, connoisseurs and always listened to their opinion, to their recommendations. Furtseva was sent by the party, and she always acted in her interests. But, we repeat, I listened to the experts, I used their advice. For example, the International Tchaikovsky Music Competition - the first prize for the American pianist Van Cliburn; International Film Festival in Moscow - Grand Prize of Federico Fellini for the film "Eight and a Half". She did this with the help of pianist Emil Gilels in the first case and film director Grigory Chukhrai in the second. But there were influential “patriots” who argued that the competition in Moscow meant that our Soviet people should be the winner.
You can talk and write a lot about how much good and useful Ekaterina Alekseevna did. She was always remembered with a kind word by such outstanding artists as Svyatoslav Richter, Oleg Efremov, Maya Plisetskaya and many others. How can I not remember the Taganka Theater, which she helped open, and the Sovremennik Theater, which she did not allow to be closed.
Furtseva made, for example, a contribution to the creation of the legendary comedy by Leonid Gaidai “Prisoner of the Caucasus”. Vladimir Etush told: “When the film “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was completed, then unexpectedly, at the first viewing of the picture in the studio, the secretary of the party organization caught the similarity between the names of the hero (Saakhov) and his own. After all, he is Sakov. His conclusion was categorical: “We must re-voice!”. Saved the situation Yuri Nikulin, who went to the Minister of Culture. Furtseva saw him in the waiting room and asked: “What fate? Come on in." To which Nikulin said: “You see, Ekaterina Alekseevna, because of petty ambitions, some people want to disrupt the production plan of the film studio, they didn’t like the surname - and immediately let’s re-voice it. Enormous public money can go down the drain at the whim of a single person. Furtseva grabbed the telephone receiver and barked at all not in a feminine way. “What kind of idiocy is this?” At the other end of the wire they answered: “What are you, what are you, no one raised the question.”
Although, of course, there was something else - rude reprimands, prohibitions and even persecution. We are not going to idealize the Soviet Minister of Culture Furtseva. She served the party and acted in full accordance with its ideology and policies. It could not have been otherwise. And yet, few of the leaders of the Soviet leadership were honored with such bright memories from outstanding cultural figures who were far from the political situation. The writer and art critic Vitaly Vulf said well about Furtseva: “All her struggle for the purity of ideology now looks dubious and insipid, and the originality of character and human talent, the ability to command and be understood seem to be a rare value in the current rational, cold and selfish world, from where he disappeared the most direct spirit of love for art, with which nature endowed Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva.
Of course, far from all cultural figures, she left warm memories. For example, Galina Vishnevskaya spoke sharply negatively about her.
In the last years of her life, Furtseva became indifferent to alcohol. There were disagreements in the family, she often quarreled with her husband.
Ekaterina Alekseevna died on October 24, 1974 from heart failure. That was the official message. There is a version that she returned in the evening from a banquet in honor of the anniversary of the Maly Theater and took potassium cyanide. The daughter categorically denies this version. She was found dead in her own apartment on Alexei Tolstoy Street. However, there is still no definite answer as to how and why this woman died, perhaps the most amazing woman of the Soviet era. She was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Furtseva's husband, Nikolai Firyubin, shortly after her death, married Cleopatra Gogoleva, the widow of the former secretary of the Moscow regional party committee, Alexander Gogolev. Cleopatra, despite her royal name, never held any posts, but she was much younger than Furtseva. They lived in neighboring dachas.
Iosif TELMAN, Candidate of Historical Sciences
Few people will believe that a provincial woman with a seven-grade education and a past as a weaver can become the Minister of Culture. And in the meantime, it happened. When asked what qualities a Soviet leader should have, Stalin replied: "Bull nerves plus optimism." Ekaterina Furtseva, who also became the only woman in the Presidium of the Central Committee, in addition to these two, had more: beauty and the ability to preserve femininity.
This combination of masculine qualities and boundless charm will be decisive in her fate. It is this that will bring Furtseva fantastic professional success, and in return it will completely devastate her personal life.
MALVINA WITH SOVIET HARDENING
Raisa Gorbacheva is considered to be the style icon of the Soviet beau monde. Ekaterina Furtseva was in no way inferior to the wife of the last General Secretary of the Central Committee. Elegantly dressed, in shoes, even if it’s raining outside, with a chignon on her head (this hairstyle will be copied by the people, jokingly calling it “Furtseva for the poor”). And, of course, with a smile. She loved the perfume "Arpezh", dressed at Vyacheslav Zaitsev and even managed to get things from Lanvin. A minister with the appearance of Malvina - that's what Ekaterina Alekseevna was called on the sidelines of the ministries.
In London, the British osteopath and artist by vocation, Stephen Ward, even presented a portrait of a woman minister in memory of a 15-minute acquaintance. Ward had a passion for surrounding himself with beautiful women, and this could not be felt in his artistic moods. In the portrait - Ekaterina Alekseevna, but clearly younger than her 52 years. And not a statesman, but a flirtatious lady of the far from puritanical times of the Soviet Union.
In her native Vyshny Volochek, a city in the Tula province, Katya completed her seven-year plan. Immediately after school, I began to work on the machine. At the age of 20, she joined the party, a year later she went to Feodosia as secretary of the city committee of the Komsomol, and from there to Leningrad. Further - on the rise: acquaintance with Stalin, Khrushchev, in 1954 she was the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee, and in 1957 she was already a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. She was Minister of Culture for 14 years, and most will remember her in this position. Career takeoff for Ekaterina Furtseva will be membership in the Politburo.
The fact that in Soviet times high-ranking positions were occupied by "their own" was not a secret - Stalin's expression about cadres is alive to this day. Ekaterina Furtseva was no exception here. While Molotov and Malenkov were inciting others to move Khrushchev, she, absent herself to "get out", called the generals from her personal office and begged them to come and thwart the imminent coup. Through her efforts, members of the Central Committee were summoned to the capital as if on military alert: by military aircraft. This ensured a happy outcome of the plenum for Khrushchev, and for Furtseva herself - the patronage of the Secretary General. She could not even imagine that three years later, having lost her place, she would cut her veins. The desperate gesture of the former member of the Central Committee, Furtseva's attempt to commit suicide, Khrushchev called menopause, and in 1960 he appointed Ekaterina Alekseevna as Minister of Culture. In the 70s, envious people began to systematically survive it. Furtseva was almost expelled from the party. Sensing a change in mood in the party, Ekaterina Alekseevna liked to repeat: "Whatever happens, whatever they say about me, I will die a minister." And the post of minister will remain with her until her death.
SECRETARIAT TIME
Once Stalin joked in a narrow circle: "History is divided into three periods - matriarchy, patriarchy and secretariat ...". The period of the secretariat was associated with the name of Ekaterina Furtseva. While still the secretary of the Moscow city committee, she took control of the construction at Luzhniki, reconstructed the VDNKh complex, and launched the construction of Khrushchev. It was thanks to workaholism and the inexhaustible energy of Furtseva that it became possible to resettle millions of residents of communal apartments in separate, albeit small-sized, apartments that seemed like a real paradise to people.
At the height of the Cold War, this woman helped Van Cliburn to award the First Prize of the International P.I. Tchaikovsky, resumed the Moscow International Film Festival, thanks to personal connections in the art world, returned the legacy of the Roerichs to the Soviet Union.
THE MISTRESS OF MOSCOW
They didn’t talk about the “mistress” of Moscow. There were rumors about her stormy personal life and numerous patrons, an affair with Khrushchev, and gaps in education and a not too broad outlook became the subject of evil anecdotes. From time to time, Furtseva really "drifted". She could, for example, demand that a cancer vaccine be invented by May 1, and a drug against tuberculosis be released by November 7. What she lacked in general knowledge, she more than made up for in perseverance. Her instructions were to be carried out implicitly and on time. And they were fulfilled. The pace of housing construction in Moscow stunned even the advanced Western European countries. In the shortest possible time, a stadium was erected in Luzhniki - on the very spot where there used to be a huge pit with a dump.
The building materials industry minister, Pavel Yudin, said: "I wouldn't be a minister if I didn't support the leader of the communists in Moscow, and I wouldn't be a man if I let down such a charming woman."
Why was Ekaterina Furtseva removed from the Politburo? With the appointment of her first secretary, Khrushchev began his "corn epic"; there are opinions that Ekaterina Alekseevna had the courage to criticize the Secretary General and paid the price for it. Someone believes that Khrushchev periodically removed people who did not meet his expectations, and he did not hesitate to say about the first secretary: “a fool.” Somewhere she really lacked intelligence, somewhere she lacked tact, but Ekaterina Furtseva will stay in the position of Minister of Culture for 14 (!) Years. Firewood during this time will break a lot, but it will do much more useful.
… THIS IS THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE
Many probably remember the Soviet joke about the laundry. For those who do not know, he owes his appearance to Ekaterina Furtseva. Not being a hostage to party guidelines, having become a minister, she immediately made it clear what party leadership is. At its meetings, which were traditionally held on Mondays, employees of the Ministry of Culture gathered as if for execution. We knew: we would not pass the separation. The minister scolded the deputies and heads of departments so that they left the office as if from a bathhouse - red and with swollen eyelids; but she was kind to her subordinates.
Her unbridled ardor touched transformations. How selflessly she participated in the persecution of Pasternak, banned Rostropovich and censored the exhibition of avant-garde artists in the Manezh, so she brought the works of Sorin and Benois to the country, favored Zykina, Magomayev, Vishnevskaya, did not allow Oleg Efremov, to whom she had platonic feelings, to fall into disgrace. His performance "Bolsheviks" was banned by censorship, but with the permission of Ekaterina Alekseevna, it was staged in Sovremennik for half a year and even went on tour to Bulgaria, where it was an incredible success.
ALL GODDESSES ARE LIKE GRABGUES…
Furtseva was not devoid of artistry. Valery Zolotukhin, for example, caught Maretskaya’s school in her oratorical manner: “If I didn’t know that it was Furtseva who was going bankrupt in the hall, I would have thought of Vera Petrovna - the same affectionate, aspirated intonations, absolutely the same emotional turmoil, bordering on rudeness, and then again languor in the voice - you are my dear ... ". Furtseva was not favored at the Taganka Theater. Andrei Voznesensky wrote in one of her visits: “All goddesses are like toadstools in front of women from Taganka!” This inscription flaunted across the only plastered wall in Yuri Lyubimov's office. Ekaterina Alekseevna felt negative moods towards herself, but as a minister she did not win back on the offenders, and if she forbade anything, it was because she could not do otherwise. No matter what they said, there was much more human in it than party.
PERSONAL TRAGEDY
When they say that Ekaterina Furtseva died of a heart attack, it's hard to believe. Apparently, her long-standing attempt to commit suicide leaves an imprint. Adored by fans, successful, she was terribly lonely in her personal life. She divorced her first husband, pilot Peter Bitkov, after he found out that his daughter Svetlana was not his own. For 18 years she lived in a marriage with diplomat Nikolai Firyubin. Firyubin, apparently, used Ekaterina Alekseevna in career interests. He always felt his secondary nature and in his old age often repeated: "It's bad to be a grandfather, but it's even worse to be a grandmother's husband." Ekaterina Alekseevna tried to please Firyubin in everything and continued to live with him, even knowing about his young mistress and constant betrayals.
It was important for Ekaterina Furtseva to keep her face. It seemed to her that many of her entourage were waiting for a manifestation of weakness on her part, and she tried with all her might not to show it. Upon learning of her exclusion from the Politburo, she tried to open her veins, but then she was saved. Presumably, on the day of her death, she was supposed to find out that she was being removed from the post of minister and sent to retire, and Firyubin was leaving the family. In a close circle, they talked about her unhappy affair with the director of La Scala, Antonio Ghiringeli - another injury - and even about alcohol abuse.
Versions of her death were different. The fact that the minister decided to take her own life and took a sip of potassium cyanide is perhaps the most common. But there were those who admitted that Furtseva had a heart attack. One way or another, acute heart failure remains the official version. “Bull nerves” and “optimism”, which never failed Ekaterina Furtseva at work, turned out to be treacherously powerless in her personal life.
How is the rating calculated?◊ The rating is calculated based on the points accrued in the last week
◊ Points are awarded for:
⇒ visiting pages dedicated to the star
⇒ vote for a star
⇒ star commenting
Biography, life story of Furtseva Ekaterina Alekseevna
Furtseva Ekaterina Alekseevna - Soviet state and party leader. Minister of Culture of the USSR.
Childhood and youth
Ekaterina was born in the small town of Vyshny Volochek (Tver province) on November 24 (December 7 according to the new style), 1910. Her father Alexei Gavrilovich, a worker, died at the front in 1914. The girl was raised by her mother Matrena Nikolaevna, a worker in a weaving factory.
In 1924, Ekaterina Furtseva joined the youth communist organization of the Komsomol. In 1928, the girl graduated from high school and got a job at the same spinning and weaving factory where her mother worked. Furtseva spent two years within the walls of this factory, after which she seriously took up Komsomol work.
In 1930, twenty-year-old Catherine was accepted as a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From that moment until 1933, the girl worked first as a secretary of the Korenevsky district committee of the Komsomol of the Kursk region, then as a secretary of the Feodosia city committee of the Komsomol.
In 1933, the daughter of a simple worker, brought up without a father, became a student at the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. In parallel, the girl held the posts of secretary of the Komsomol committee of the institute and an employee of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Komsomol.
Career
In 1937, a year before graduation, Ekaterina Furtseva was appointed secretary of the party organization of the university. Ekaterina worked in this position until 1941. After that, for a year she was the secretary of the Kuibyshev City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, then for 8 years she worked first as the second, and then the first secretary of the Frunze District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in Moscow.
From 1950 to 1954, Ekaterina Alekseevna was the second secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU. In 1952, a woman was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (subsequently re-elected several times - in 1961, 1966 and 1971). From 1954 and for 3 years, Ekaterina served as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. In parallel, in 1950-1962, Furtseva was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
CONTINUED BELOW
In 1956, Ekaterina Furtseva was elected a candidate member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. In the same year, she became secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, having worked in this post for 4 years. In 1957 she became a member of the Presidium, in 1961 her powers were removed from her.
In 1960, Ekaterina Furtseva was appointed Minister of Culture of the USSR. Furtseva held this honorary post for 14 years, until her death. Thanks to her, many theaters received new premises, magnificent creative festivals (music, cinema, ballet, and so on) began to be held in the USSR, museums and monuments appeared. Furtseva successfully combined the work of the minister with the duties of a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (since 1966).
Despite the fact that Ekaterina Alekseevna did a lot for the development of the culture of the USSR, many artists of that time noted the excessive severity of the minister. So, Furtseva was not very well versed in modern trends in painting, theater and music, and sometimes forbade even very highly artistic works to be displayed. Due to Furtseva's personal dislike for rock music, the planned concerts and did not take place in the USSR.
A family
The first husband of Ekaterina Furtseva was the pilot Pyotr Ivanovich Bitkov. They got married in 1935. In 1942, the couple had a daughter, Svetlana. In 1944, Catherine and Peter divorced. It is generally accepted that their marriage broke up due to the fact that Bitkov met another woman. However, in fact, the reason for their breakup lies elsewhere ... For 7 years of marriage, Catherine, passionately dreaming of having a baby, could not get pregnant from Peter. When Bitkov went to the front, she took a lover solely for the sake of him impregnating her. When Petr Ivanovich returned home, Sveta was already 4 months old. At first, Bitkov did not suspect about the deception, but one day, not without the help of their neighbor, the truth surfaced. The legend that it was Bitkov who found himself another, and not Furtseva behind her husband, who was fighting for the freedom of the motherland, allowed herself to become pregnant from an outsider, the couple composed in order not to humiliate the brave pilot in the eyes of the public.
While working in the Frunze District Committee, Ekaterina Furtseva began an affair with the secretary of this organization, Pyotr Boguslavsky. Their relationship ended when Peter was removed from office. He did not want to spoil the reputation of the woman he truly loved.
In 1956, Furtseva became the wife of diplomat Nikolai Firyubin. Already married, Catherine fell passionately in love with the passionate Italian Antonio Giringelli, director of the La Scala theater.
mysterious death
On the night of October 24-25, 1974, Ekaterina Furtseva died. The official cause of death is acute heart failure. But it is widely believed that Furtseva killed herself. In recent years, the minister has felt terribly lonely, and the day of October 24 turned out to be especially unpleasant for her - she ran into problems at work, quarreled with her husband, saw how happy her daughter was away from her. Apparently, the protracted depression and the nebula of the future forced Furtseva to say goodbye to life.
* The stepdaughter of Ekaterina Alekseevna is sure that she had a tendency to suicide from her youth
* The heiress of a loud surname forgave her beloved husband of infidelity
* The son-in-law of the daughter of the Minister of Culture of the USSR was detained with icons at the border
40 years ago, Ekaterina FURTSEVA, the only woman in the top leadership of the USSR, passed away. For the last 13 years of her life, she served as Minister of Culture. Legends and myths still circulate around the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna. Columnist Natalia KORNEEVA, author of the book “Men's Games by Ekaterina Furtseva. Political melodrama, ”the daughter of Ekaterina Alekseevna Svetlana knew the last six years of her life. This story is about how the heiress of a high-ranking mother lived before and after her death.
Ekaterina Furtseva died on the night of October 25, 1974 under unclear circumstances. She was 63 years old. The night before, the Ministry of Culture, which she headed, received a telegram from the USSR Embassy in the Netherlands with a message about the sudden death of the famous violinist David Oistrakh. Ekaterina Alekseevna recently sent him to speak at talks on easing international tension.
Oistrakh was ill - his attending physician categorically objected to the trip. Furtseva insisted. The chair of the minister was already shaking under her, and she decided to show her will. Perhaps this telegram was the last straw. Furtseva ordered her assistant Tanya to prepare a letter addressed to a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU Alexei Kosygin with a request to be allowed to bury the musician at the Novodevichy cemetery, not suspecting that she herself would be there in three days.
Returning at about ten in the evening from Kosygin, Ekaterina Alekseevna gave Tanya a letter for execution, changed clothes in the rest room and went home, warning her daughter Sveta by phone that she was going to go to bed early.
When Furtseva's husband, diplomat and party leader Nikolai Firyubin, returned from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs late in the evening, he found his wife dead. Svetlana lived separately from her mother and was almost the last to know about her death.
When I was collecting material for the book, I found Margarita, Firyubin's daughter from her first marriage, abroad, and she assured that her stepmother had committed suicide by opening her veins.
Rita, according to her, arrived at the apartment of her father and Furtseva just at the moment when the body of Ekaterina Alekseevna was carried out, covered with a bloody sheet.
Svetlana did not believe in her mother's suicide:
- She could not leave us with Marinka (granddaughter. - N.K.)!
Sveta received a conclusion in her hands that death was due to acute heart failure.
But Margarita Firyubina believed that Furtseva had a tendency to suicide from her youth and that she committed suicide on the third attempt. About the previous one, when she opened her veins, is now known. This happened after Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev removed Furtseva from the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee in 1961. It was the collapse of her dizzying party career. She was miraculously rescued...
The sudden death of the Minister of Culture was officially hushed up. There was a short report in the newspaper, and her name was immediately consigned to oblivion. But rumors circulated in Moscow about Furtseva's suicide.
Clothesline - yes on the back
I met my daughter Svetlana Furtseva in the late 90s, when she returned from Spain, where she had lived for almost ten years. Arriving in Moscow, Svetlana wanted to establish a foundation named after her mother with the aim of reviving culture and helping the actors of the Soviet theater and cinema. She held evenings in memory of Furtseva, achieved the installation of a memorial plaque on the house near the Central Telegraph on Tverskaya, where they once lived.
Now Sveta has settled outside the city, in a house built by the architect Leonid Aranauskas. It was he who designed the dacha in Zhukovka for Ekaterina Alekseevna, who was taken away from her with a scandal.
In those days, party leaders lived in government dachas. Of course, they also built their own, but out of harm's way they recorded them on relatives. When Furtseva was denounced, the Party Control Committee seized her with a stranglehold. As soon as the dacha was confiscated, there were rumors that someone from the Politburo liked this house. Until the end of her days, Svetlana did not leave the thought of returning the property in Zhukovka, but she could not do anything.
Furtseva's daughter told me more than once how she and her mother lived at state facilities. First in the village of Zavety Ilyich, then in Pushkino. But the dacha in the same Zhukovka turned out to be surprisingly chic when Furtseva became the first secretary of the CPSU MGK in 1954. Then she was given the house of Stalin's son, Vasily, whom Khrushchev ordered to arrest after the death of the "father of the peoples".
The gingerbread house, as Svetlana shared with me, she immediately liked. Imported furniture sets made up a beautiful interior. Crockery - old Saxon services "Blue swords". Sauna, greenhouses, a garage with Vasily's sports foreign car, stables, but no horses. And a cinema. Sveta already saw the film Gone with the Wind, which we all watched only during the years of perestroika.
After the death of her mother, she immediately felt that everything around her was changing.
- The cap flew off my head, - she sighed, - and life stood up in all its reality. Svetlana, according to her, was helped by two things to survive: a happy marriage and, most importantly, education in the spirit of Soviet morality received from Ekaterina Alekseevna. “Don’t move your chair,” her mother reprimanded her, “people live downstairs.”
When Sveta, after graduating from Moscow State University, came to work at the Novosti Press Agency, the daughter of the writer Valentin Kataev, Zhenya, who was friends with her, was surprised that the heiress Furtseva did not have a car.
But what kind of passenger car is there, if a high-ranking mother even forbade Svetlana to wear sunglasses that quickly became fashionable, noting that this was a bad form and a sign of bourgeoisness. And grandmother Matryona, the mother of Ekaterina Alekseevna, a semi-literate village woman, under whose supervision Sveta grew up, acted even cooler. She, for example, could not stand her granddaughter's girlfriends in trousers and scolded them, not embarrassed in expressions. And when the grown-up Sveta began to walk late in the summer at the dacha, Matrena once guarded her and retreated lower back with a clothesline.
However, some of Minister Furtseva's entourage considered these methods of education necessary for Sveta. They called her eccentric and spoiled. But, having entered the circle of her friends, I personally did not notice anything like that.
Inept matchmaker
Of course, Svetlana tried to lead the country lifestyle that she had long been accustomed to. In her large three-level village house, comfort and hospitality reigned. The architect Aranauskas, who was already under 90, often visited Sveta. Surprisingly sweet, intelligent, knowledgeable person. I wondered if he remembered the dacha in Zhukovka, which he designed for Ekaterina Alekseevna. And the architect immediately drew a plan of that house, modest by today's standards.
Sveta, by the way, was very funny pimping. Once it occurred to her that, since Leonid Semenovich is a widower, I could make him a couple. A friend, quite sincerely, was going to arrange my personal life, saying:
- You'll be behind him like a stone wall. He will fix your apartment.
One day I arrive at a dinner party, and a stranger is sitting on the sofa in the living room. While Svetlana was busy in the kitchen, the man got up and introduced himself:
- Count Witte.
And when Sveta again began to advise me not to lose sight of the elderly architect Aranauskas, I had to remark with a smile:
- In my opinion, the count suits me better.
“Fool,” Svetlana interrupted me. - With your devastation, you need not a count, but an architect!
Leonid Semenovich sometimes drove me home from Svetlana in his thirty-year-old Zhiguli. With all the intelligence and respectable age behind the wheel, Aranauskas turned into Schumacher. So drove along the Rublevsky Hills that I was dying of fear: the car was shaking.
Once I asked:
- Leonid Semenovich, why don't you buy a new car?
- What for? - He answered phlegmatically. - This one goes.
Brezhnev was a toastmaster
Svetlana was an excellent cook, but if funds allowed, she kept a housekeeper. A lot of things from Ekaterina Alekseevna remained in the house: furniture, paintings, vases, books, a white piano - and this created the feeling that Furtseva Sr. was here. Especially when Sveta and I sat at dusk in the fireplace room and talked about her.
She was tormented by guilt. Svetlana did not get along all her life with her stepfather, her mother's second husband, Firyubin, but one day she confessed to me:
- But Nikolai Pavlovich was a good person. I ruined my mom's life.
Svetalana often remembered her late husband. It was a love marriage, although Igor Kochnov, by her own admission, was not faithful to her. Nevertheless, Svetlana spoke only good things about him and missed him very much. Igor died of a heart attack in 1988.
The first husband of Svetlana was the son of a member of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Frol Kozlov - Oleg. She jumped out for him at the age of 17, because she dreamed of independence. After all, when her mother was at the top of the party and they lived on Granovsky Street, they were served by servants from the 9th KGB Directorate. In addition to the control of the special services, my mother's and grandmother's hedgehogs were very burdensome. But I wanted freedom.
Once Svetlana fell in love with a foreigner during a business trip abroad with her mother. But she ended the relationship in the bud. Then Svetlana decided to slip away in marriage at the first opportunity. However, she miscalculated and again fell behind a high fence into the mansion of a party leader, where there was exactly the same control.
Her father-in-law, Frol Kozlov, was burdened by his relationship with Furtseva. As Olga, the sister of Svetlana's first husband, told me, my father did not even go to meet the young people from the registry office. But two weeks later, he nevertheless threw a wedding banquet for them at his state dacha. The celebration was attended by Mikoyan, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev was even a toastmaster.
In this marriage, a daughter, Marina, was born, but this did not save her from divorce. Svetlana met the main love of her life - the same Igor Kochnov. He even adopted a baby. And Oleg Kozlov died young: they say he drank.
The fund established by Svetlana lay on its side. Sveta lacked organizational skills, but she did not quit what she started. She wanted to leave the business to her girls.
Marina grew up, also became a mother - she gave birth to Katya. When the little girl turned three, a large family headed by Svetlana decided to go abroad. First to Germany, then to Spain. It was the idea of Marina's husband, a dentist. Sveta sold the apartment, rented out the house and, together with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, went to a new life. But there was an unpleasant incident at the border. At the dentist, when examining luggage, they found icons. Svetlana had to raise all her connections in order to save her son-in-law from arrest. Perhaps this shock gave impetus to a terrible illness that soon overtook my friend ...
Ekarerina Furceva Career: Politician
Birth: Russia Vyshny Volochek, 12/7/1910 - 10/25
Ekaterina Furtseva - Soviet state and party leader. First Secretary of the MGK CPSU from 1954 to 1957. Member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1957 to 1961. Minister of Culture of the USSR from 1960 to 1974. She was born on December 7, 1910.
Probably, in the second half of the 20th century in our country there was no woman who would have reached such political heights and made such an incredible career as Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva. She was the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, and for almost fourteen years - the Minister of Culture of the USSR.
She was born on December 7, 1910 in a village near Vyshny Volochok. Mother Matrena Nikolaevna worked at a weaving factory. Father died in the First World War. Katya graduated from the seven-year school, at the age of fifteen she entered the weaving factory where her mother worked. It seems that everything was predetermined: thirty years in a branch of hell - in the middle of the stupefying thunder of looms, followed by early deafness and a meager pension payment. But Katya is waiting for a different fate. At the age of twenty, the factory girl joined the party. Soon the first party task follows: she is sent to the Kursk region to raise agriculture. But there she lingers for a short time, she is "thrown" to the Komsomol-party work in Feodosia.
Katya Furtseva could have stayed in the South. Get old under the southern scorching sun. Find a spouse. But something prevents you from focusing on your personal life. Maybe the Komsomol service. Maybe sports. She is a good swimmer. Knows how to shy away from undercurrents, harmful influences. She is noticed, summoned to the city committee of the Komsomol and offered a new Komsomol ticket. From the blessed South, she is sent to the North, to the very heart of the revolution, to the capital of October, to Leningrad. At the Higher Courses of Civil Aeroflot.
Katya's first time in a big city, in a European capital. How many people! How many new acquaintances - all in protective tunics, all young, daring, correct. Of course she fell in love. Of course, in the pilot. His name was Petr Ivanovich Petkov.
At that time, "pilot" was a word almost mystical. The pilots are not people, but "Stalin's falcons". The pilot is irresistible, like Don Juan. To be married to a pilot meant to keep up with the times. Live without a small myth. It was not forbidden to share everything with the pilot - moreover, love for Comrade Stalin.
Few photographs of Ekaterina Alekseevna with Pyotr Ivanovich have been preserved. Looking at the photo, you inadvertently think that her betrothed is a gentleman who is used to standing in the center. Leader by nature. This is probably why Ekaterina Alekseevna seems like a gray mouse nearby.
It was generally her remarkable quality. Being next to men, with any of them, she knew how to set off his dignity, leaving herself in the shadows. And the stamp of humility on her face is also striking. Exhausted. Maybe the cost for exorbitant enthusiasm?
Pyotr Ivanovich is a 100% man, a utilitarian uncle. He does not realize her passion for airplanes. At this time, they are sent to Saratov (to teach at an aviation technical school), then to Moscow. Here Furtseva becomes an instructor in the student department in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Komsomol. A year later, she was sent on a Komsomol ticket to the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. The future process engineer plunges headlong into Komsomol work. It can be seen that the petty-bourgeois life is not for her.
The battle began, the husband was mobilized. She was left alone, with her mother, whom by that time she had discharged to Moscow. Lectures, labs, cards, rations... Landmines are exploding in Moscow, she, along with everyone else, is on duty on the roof, extinguishing incendiary bombs - saving the capital. And like a devil from a snuffbox - a protracted news following a meeting with her husband: she is pregnant.
Svetlana was born in May 1942. Only four months after the birth of her daughter, her husband came on a visit. And ... he announced that he had been living with another for a long time.
Disappointment followed disappointment. Ekaterina graduated from the institute and stopped in indecision. For the first time in my life, I didn't know where to go. But there was no need to go anywhere. You just had to wait. As a political activist, she was offered to enter graduate school, after a year and a half she was elected a party organizer of the institute. She got into the outlandish, perfect conventional world of "liberated" political workers. Science was done for good.
Now they lived together: her mother, Svetlana and she. Ekaterina got a room in a two-room apartment near the Krasnoselskaya metro station. Like a party organizer. From the institute, where it becomes directly narrow for her, she is sent to work in the Frunzensky district committee of the party.
Furtseva's immediate superior - the first secretary of the district committee - was Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky. She developed a special relationship with him. An office romance is something like an outlet. Communication with Boguslavsky gave her an invaluable skill. It was then that she began to comprehend the laws of the male game, the rules of which include a male feast, a salty word, and dubious jokes. She learned not to notice it.
In 1949, during a party concert backstage at the Bolshoi Theater, Nikolai Shvernik gave her an audience with the Boss. Stalin liked her. She saw the living god for the fundamental and final time, but for his sharp eye - that's enough. In December 1949, she speaks at an expanded plenum of the city party committee, where, harshly criticizing herself, she talks about the district committee's shortcomings. Purely feminine. A little masochistic. Next to the men becomes a wise shadow. It seems without any intention. And they notice her. The meeting with Stalin gave its result.
In early 1950, she moved to a building on Staraya Ploshchad, to the office of the Second Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. A couple of months later, her faithful comrade Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky fell victim to the struggle against cosmopolitanism - he was removed from all posts and expelled from the party. The novel ended by itself.
From 1950 to 1954, Furtseva collided side by side with Khrushchev. There were rumors about their romance. Immediately after this death of Stalin, she became the first secretary of the city party committee. Now all of Moscow was under her command. She made a strong impression on Khrushchev: both by the fact that she spoke at meetings without a piece of paper, and by the fact that she was not afraid to confess and repent of imaginary sins, and by the fact that she was a "specialist." It was her favorite word. When meeting new people, the first thing she asked was: "Are you a master?!"
Until the end of her life, Furtseva retained a respectful attitude towards professors and important old docents, whom she had seen in graduate school. The "specialist" knows more than she does, this conviction was extremely strong in her. And in her team, she - a former weaver - wanted to see exactly such people.
"Weaver, from the peasants." Thanks to this line in her biography, she ascended uplifted. And the word "weaver" will accompany her throughout her life. Someone will activate respect, someone - neglect.
But at the moment, the weaving factory is a thing of the past. Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva - initial secretary of the Moscow city committee. Woman playing men's games. The moves in these games were different: mate, and drinking, and a long relaxing feast - and all other accessories of male life. And in order to survive and, moreover, to overcome in this game, she had to play by the "male" rules, without any discounts. Hence - both bitter and various barbaric ways to briskly put yourself in order. Hence the fatigue on the face.
The problems of the only woman in the men's camp are sometimes absurd. For example, a household item is a toilet. Next to the room where the Politburo (then the Presidium of the Central Committee) met, there was only a single toilet - a men's one. During a long meeting, the men ran there, like boys, in turn. Ekaterina Alekseevna, if she could not stand it, had to hurry away along the corridors, to another compartment, where there was a ladies' toilet. And during the time that the person was not in the office, anything could happen.
It never occurred to any of the members and candidate members of the Politburo that Ekaterina Alekseevna could have such physiological problems.
Although once exactly the absence of a female toilet played a fantastic image in her life. Something like a magic wand for Cinderella, who in a single moment turned an ordinary member of the Central Committee of the party into a powerful member of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
This happened after the death of Stalin. Furtseva then held the post of secretary of the Central Committee and, according to her rank, was supposed to be present at a narrow private gathering of members of the Presidium of the Central Committee. "Mother" Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov gathered to bring down another "mother" - Nikita.
Furtseva, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov, and the other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee sat in a stuffy room next to Stalin's former office. Ekaterina Alekseevna immediately realized where the scales were leaning. Most members of the Presidium voted against Khrushchev. And then the inexplicable happened. She decided to oppose the apparent injustice. How is it possible, a man, the one that stirred up the Stalinist anthill - and suddenly and unexpectedly trampled into the mud? Perhaps she did not lose the far-reaching consequences of her act, she reacted without fuss to the obvious injustice of the "terrible men." But how could she help? And then she "wanted to leave." It was a move from the women's game. She easily calculated that, as an agent of the "weaker" sex, she had the right to get out at least once during the meeting, no matter how archival it may be, "to send natural needs." And the men, her potential opponents, pecked. Since there was only a men's toilet nearby, and it was necessary to rush to the ladies' one for a long time, she had a formal excuse to be absent for a long time, without arousing suspicion either in Malenkov or Kaganovich. She was released. Just like in the school game - "allowed to get out?".
And instead of the toilet, she rushed to her office to ring those who depended on not handing a new coup to happen.
A phone call of this kind could be taken as a provocation. It could have occurred to anyone with whom she spoke: Malenkov or Kaganovich was standing next to the caller and listening to how powerful generals were going to throw him off.
But the one who would later be called Great Catherine, passionately, almost hysterically, implored the all-powerful generals to come to the meeting and not assume that Nikita Sergeevich was removed from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee. And persuaded. In minutes. Almost all of those whom she called said that they would come and support Nikita Sergeevich - it is not difficult because their law enforcement agencies will not go against him.
Brezhnev did the same trick. He rushed to ring the Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov. And when he returned, Molotov, Kaganovich and Pervukhin sat down next to him in turn, everyone was interested in where he was wandering. To which Brezhnev replied that he had a sudden breakdown and he sat in the restroom.
Zhukov, Ignatov and another line of Central Committee members supporting Khrushchev arrived in the Kremlin. The meeting of the Presidium has not ended yet. They entered and announced that such archival matters could not be dared in private, that everything had to be re-settled. Khrushchev was suddenly raised and seated on the throne.
It was a happy time for Furtseva. And not only in public life. While still working as a secretary in the Moscow City Party Committee, she met Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin, one of her subordinates.
Nikolay Firyubin was a professional diplomat. He spoke English and French: His former colleague Nikolai Mesyatsev described him as follows: "He could and wanted to be liked by women."
He was a short, slender brown-haired man with a thoroughbred, expressive face. Men did not like him because of his arrogance. For those who knew them both well, it was amazing how such different people could come together.
She herself did not really realize that "it" happened. She was drawn to Firyubin. It was impossible to fight it.
Their secret meetings gave rise to a lot of speculation. Everyone in the Central Committee of the party, from the secretaries to the secretaries of the Central Committee, discussed Furtseva's reckless trips to Firyubin. It was a local sexual revolution at the level of a specially taken female minister.
Outwardly, she behaved inappropriately. At every opportunity, she flew to him in Prague, after that to Belgrade, where he was transferred as an ambassador. All this was in front of everyone, but she was not going to hide. It flattered him. Moreover, they did not notice how smoothly their craving grew into a game called Romeo and Juliet.
Firyubin was looking for an excuse to break off a long-standing marriage, threatened to renounce everything, but E. A. did not ask him for anything, did not demand anything, and, perhaps, because of something she attracted.
Five years later, when he returned to Moscow and became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, they signed. And only then E.A. realized how wrong she was. But it was impossible to change anything.
Khrushchev did not forget what he owed her. Soon, Ekaterina Alekseevna was introduced to the Presidium of the Central Committee and overnight turned from a party Cinderella into a party Queen.
Khrushchev's gratitude, although in general, was not eternal. What initially served a good purpose - the telephone, the second time played against, Ekaterina Alekseevna herself.
It was 1960, the second half of Khrushchev's reign. Many were dissatisfied with them. Including Furtseva. This discontent was vented on steam. Just washing the bones. Once, in a telephone conversation, Furtseva "walked" on Nikita Sergeevich. The next day he read the transcript of her private conversation with Aristov, a member of the Central Committee. His reaction was lightning fast. At the next, extraordinary, plenum of the Presidium, Ekaterina Alekseevna was removed from the post of secretary.
And the overheard conversation was, of course, only an excuse for Khrushchev. The one who saw you weak cannot be your favorite for a long time. And Furtseva was just in this position.
Her reaction was as open-hearted and sincere as Khrushchev's "trip". On the same day, she came home, ordered not to let anyone in, went to the bath and opened her veins. But she didn't want to die. That is why she did not cancel the meeting with one of her friends, who was assigned the image of an angel-savior.
And this girlfriend played her image. There was astonishment at the silence behind the door, followed by a lack of understanding. Then fear. Then - a call to the special services and a collision with a special brigade, which broke the gate and found Ekaterina Alekseevna bleeding.
But Khrushchev did not respond to that very "cry of the soul". The next day, at a meeting of the expanded composition of the Central Committee of the party, of which Furtseva remained a member, he, laughing wryly, explained to the party members that E. A. had a banal menopause and should not be directed to this attention. E. A. diligently conveyed these words. She bit her lip and realized: the second time women's games in a company that plays only men's games do not work. And shut herself up. It was 1961.
The procedure for removal from power was worked out to the smallest detail. No one burst into the office, defiantly did not turn off the phone. The renunciation of power was marked by silence. They suddenly stopped greeting you, and most importantly, the turntable fell silent. It was easy to turn it off.
A month later, a notice came that Furtseva was appointed Minister of Culture. And exactly then, all over the country, the clique, which had stuck to it for a long time, went for a walk - Catherine the Great.
She considered tens of thousands of cultural workers in Moscow and the Moscow region to be her team. And another three or four million ordinary "army of cultural agents" throughout the USSR: modest librarians, museum scientists, arrogant employees of theaters and film studios, etc. All this armed forces called her Great Catherine - who knows, with sarcasm, with admiration?
But analogies with the Russian tsarina arose not only among the subjects of her "empire". Furtseva's working office was decorated with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, with a laconic inscription: "Catherine from Elizabeth." There was a fairy tale that, after talking with Furtseva for 30 minutes, the queen turned to her with a request: “Catherine, don’t call me Your Highness, just call my friend Elizabeth.
The Danish Queen Margrethe once said that she would like to do the same for her country as Furtseva did for hers.
After being expelled from the Presidium of the Central Committee, she began to drink. I drank to the full, but not ugly. Getting drunk, she complained about her fate, about the men who left her, cursed them for what the world was worth.
Everything fell out of hand. In work - a series of triumphs and stupidities. According to her note addressed to Suslov, the Taganka Theater was established, and at the same time, with her light hand, the reviling of abstract artists took place in the Manege. With her blessing, Shatrov's play Bolsheviks went to Sovremennik. It was she who initiated the construction of a sports complex in Luzhniki and a new building for the choreographic school.
Personal existence ... Everything ended with Firyubin. She didn't get divorced, but she didn't love either. Became closed. It revived, perhaps, only during noisy feasts, with a glass of good wine. In recent years, this tendency has been already noticeable to everyone. Her daughter Svetlana gave birth to Marishka, the granddaughter of Ekaterina Alekseevna. Svetlana and her husband really wanted to have a dacha at their disposal. Furtseva did not want to create it, but under pressure from her daughter, she turned to the Bolshoi Theater - there it was allowed to get building materials for a penny. The deputy director of the Bolshoi Theater for construction helped her, and then a brawl broke out. She received a reprimand, barely flew out of the party.
Furtseva has been alone for the last two years. Almost no one had been to her house, Firyubin had an affair on the side, and she knew about it ...
At night, from October 24 to October 25, 1974, a bell rang in the apartment of Svetlana Furtseva on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin, her mother's husband, called. He cried. "Ekaterina Alekseevna is no more."
Also read the biographies of famous people:
Ekarerina Sienskaya
She saw her spiritual calling in active work aimed at reforming the church and at establishing peace in divided Italy.
Ekaterina Zelenko Ekarerina Zelenko
In one of the sorties in July 1941, a group of bombers under her command in the area of the city of Propoisk destroyed 45 tanks, 20..