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School in the Twenties
of what is now Leningradskiy Prospect between the Dynamo and Aeroport metro
stations was an excellent route. On Sundays it was filled with Moscow’s cross-country
skiing elite.The rare cabs and automobiles were no obstacle.
Schoolboys did not shy away from politics, particularly the noisy campaign over
the struggle with Trotskyism.
It was the autumn of 1927. At that time, a fierce battle was going on between
the Stalinists and the Trotskyite opposition. On 7 November, returning from a
demonstration on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution,
we witnessed an attempt by Trotsky supporters to make a speech on
Mokhovaya Street. They hung out a portrait of Trotsky on the building of the
Central Executive Committee (TsIK), where the Kalinin reception room was
located. 12 Zinoviyev was giving a speech from the fourth floor balcony. Suddenly,
soldiers appeared on the balcony and began to tear down the portrait of Trotsky
with long poles. The crowd below broke into a rage. You could not tell who
outnumbered whom, the Trotsky supporters or their opponents. A column of
Trotskyite university students emerged from the gates of Moscow State University
(MGU) singing the “Internationale.” 13 On the street a brawl broke out; in the
melee it was difficult to determine who was fighting for whom.
The next day our class, 7A, had a lively discussion about ways to fight Trotskyites
entrenched in the school. During recess, shouting “beat the Trotskyites,” we fought
with the neighboring class, 7B.Their defenses were ready.The following slogan was
inscribed on the blackboard:“Shoot the kulak, the NEPman, and the bureaucrat!” 14
We were met with shouts of “Opportunists, traitors!”After a slight brawl we agreed
to conduct our discussions in a more civilized manner.
by the time we had reached the sixth grade, groups had been formed according
to interests. I struck up a friendship with Sergey Losyakov and Slava Kutovoy
that would last for many years. It all started with each of us trying to prove his
superiority in mastering the art of ham radio and his erudition in those fields of
science not included in our school program. Sergey surpassed Slava and me in his
mastery of Einstein’s theory of relativity and Freud’s psychoanalysis.To talk freely
and solder circuits we usually met at Losyakov’s two-room apartment on the broad
Kondratyevskiy Lane, near Belorusskiy train station. Sergey was the only son of a
single mother. His father had abandoned the family when Sergey was six years old.
His mother worked in a railroad accounts department. She managed to make ends
meet, though with difficulty, and was completely devoted to her son. Of the three
of us, only Sergey had his own separate room.
12. TsIK—Tsentralnyy Ispolnitelnyy Komitet.
13. MGU—Moskovskiy Gosudarstvennyi Universitet.
14. Kulak was a derisive term used to refer to wealthy peasants after the Revolution.“NEPmen” were those
traders and businessmen who benefited most from the mixed socialist-capitalist policies of the NEP era in the
1920s.The term, like kulak, had strong pejorative connotations when used by those who supported the Bolsheviks.
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