| Father | Mother | Spouse | Children | Sources | File Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| no information | no information | no information | no information |
Grigori Tsygutkin Wild Field |
2026 |
Born ca. 1918.
An agricultural laborer at the Nadezhnyoye colony, 19 years old in 1937, when accused of Trotskyism and imprisoned, but released to fight in the war.
This is recounted by Grigori Tsygutkin in his memoir. For context: collectivization began in the colony in 1931. The anti-Trotskyite crusade got under way nationally (and in Nadezhnoye) in 1937.
Tsygutkin:
Yes, 1937 was a bumper year, but it was also the year when "enemies of the people" appeared among Soviet people. ... The first in our colony to be declared a "Trotskyist" was the secretary of the collective farm's Komsomol organisation (we already had a collective farm), Velvel Svirsky. It was a shock! How can a young, 19-year-old, semi-literate collective farmer become a "Trotskyist"? But, as they said then, "they don't take you for nothing..." And Velvl was sent down for 10 years. What happened to him afterwards? In 1941, when the Germans were already near Moscow, they began to take volunteers for the front from the camps with such sentences. Velvl, by then Volodya, agreed, and he was taken to a training centre: a few months of training and off to the front. And imagine, he was wounded several times, and for his wounds, as one who "had shed blood", his conviction was lifted. I saw him after the war, very aged; he was then just over forty. This is what he told me: "A Komsomol girl of our colony, Lyubka Masleeva, very much wanted to take his place and become secretary of the Komsomol organisation, and, as was the custom then, she 'informed' the proper authorities that Velvl had not proclaimed a toast (in Yiddish) at a Komsomol meeting to the 'great teacher and leader of all times and peoples', haver Stalin." That was enough. And Velvl was sent off to "sunny" Magadan. He learned this "news" at the time his conviction was lifted.And afterward:
...At the height of the "Trotskyism" frenzy I was just over 10, [more likely, about 13] and I could not understand what kind of "Trotskyist" Velvl Svirsky was. He had finished only 4 classes in Yiddish, spoke Russian badly, and, as they said then, "had twisted oxen's tails all his life"; what kind of "Trotskyist" was he?