Probably, in the second half of the 20th century there was no woman in our country who would have reached such political heights and made such an incredible career as Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva ....
Probably, in the second half of the 20th century there was no woman in our country 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 she was 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 World War I. 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 - among the stupefying rumble of looms, then early deafness and a meager pension. 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 does not stay long, 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 Komsomol work. Maybe sports. She is a good swimmer. Knows how to avoid 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, brave, correct. Of course she fell in love. Of course, in the pilot. His name was Petr Ivanovich Petkov.
At that time, “pilot” was an almost mystical word. 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 almost like a myth. Everything could be shared with the pilot - even love for Comrade Stalin.
Several photographs of Ekaterina Alekseevna with Peter Ivanovich have been preserved. Looking at the photo, you involuntarily think that her betrothed is a person 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 property. 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 price for exorbitant enthusiasm?
Pyotr Ivanovich is a 100% man, a practical person. He does not understand her passion for airplanes. At this time, they are sent to Saratov (to teach at the 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 war began, my 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 suddenly - a protracted news after 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 ... 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. I 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 found herself in a strange, conditional world of "liberated" political workers. Science was done away with forever.
Now they lived together: her mother, Svetlana and she. Ekaterina received a room in a two-room apartment near the Krasnoselskaya metro station. Like a party organizer. From the institute, where it becomes clearly cramped, 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 of an outlet. Communication with Boguslavsky gave her invaluable experience. 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 to ignore 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 a living god for the first and last time, but for his sharp eyes it was 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 Square, to the office of the second secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. A couple of months later, her faithful friend 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 came into close contact with Khrushchev. There were rumors about their romance. Immediately after Stalin's death, 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 specialist ?!”
Furtseva, until the end of her life, retained a respectful attitude towards professors and important old men, associate professors, whom she had seen in graduate school. The "specialist" knows more than she does, this conviction was very strong in her. And in her team, she - a former weaver - wanted to see just such people.
"Weaver, from the peasants." Thanks to this line in her biography, she ascended high. And the word "weaver" will accompany her all her life. Some will be respected, some will be disdainful.
But now the weaving factory is a thing of the past. Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva - First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee. Woman playing men's games. The moves in these games were different: swearing, and drinking, and a long relaxing feast - and all other accessories of male life. And in order to survive and, moreover, to win this game, she had to play by the "male" rules, without any discounts. Hence - and vodka, and a variety of barbaric ways to quickly 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 one 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 run far along the corridors, to another compartment, where there was a women's 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 it was the absence of a women's toilet that played a fantastic role in her life. Something like a magic wand for Cinderella, who in an instant 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 Stalin's death. Furtseva then held the post of secretary of the Central Committee and, according to her rank, had to attend 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 understood 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, the man who stirred up the Stalinist anthill - and suddenly trampled into the mud? Perhaps she did not lose the far-reaching consequences of her act, she simply reacted to the obvious injustice of the "terrible men." But how could she help? And then she "wanted to go out." It was a move from the women's game. She simply calculated that, as a representative of the "weaker" sex, she has the right to go 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 took a long time to run to the women's room, she had a formal reason to be absent for a long time, without arousing suspicion either in Malenkov or Kaganovich. She was released. Just like in the school game - "can I go out?".
And instead of the toilet, she rushed to her office to call those on whom it depended to prevent a new coup from happening.
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, begged the all-powerful generals to come to the meeting and prevent Nikita Sergeevich from being 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 - simply because their law enforcement agencies would not go against him.
Brezhnev did the same trick. He rushed to call 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 a number of other members of the Central Committee who supported Khrushchev arrived in the Kremlin. The meeting of the Presidium has not ended yet. They entered and announced that such paramount matters could not be decided in private, that everything had to be decided over again. 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 knew how and wanted to please 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 both of them 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 have given rise to many speculations. 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 single female minister.
Ekaterina Alekseevna was born on December 7, 1910. The family lived in the city of Vyshny Volochek (Tver region). Parents were workers, mother was a weaver, father died in World War I.
After seven years, Furtseva got a job at a weaving factory where her mother worked. At that time, Katya was 15.
Career
Furtseva became a Komsomol member and, thanks to her sharp mind, began to move quickly along the party line. She was sent to the Kursk region to help organize agriculture.
Soon she became secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol, she was transferred to Feodosia. Ekaterina received the post of secretary of the Komsomol city committee, having worked until 1933. During this period, she joined the party.
Later, Furtseva was sent to Leningrad for Aeroflot courses, where Katya met her love. The couple worked in Saratov, and then in the capital, where Furtseva was an instructor in the department of the Komsomol Central Committee.
During the war, Ekaterina was the secretary of the Kuibyshev city party committee, then she worked for 8 years in the district committee of the Frunzensky district, taking the post of 1st secretary. Her successes were noticed, in 1950 she received the post of secretary of the city committee.
In the next 12 years, Furtseva was a deputy of the Supreme Council, then she became the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1960, Ekaterina Alekseevna was appointed Minister of Culture, she worked in this post until the end of her life.
Later, Furtseva was accused of not understanding art, Ekaterina Alekseevna forbade a lot. She did not allow the Rolling Stones and the Beatles to give concerts in the USSR, she banned the play “Live” by Yury Lyubimov. Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya emigrated, they had to do this, because they helped Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
However, thanks to Furtseva, exhibitions of paintings by Fernand Léger, Svyatoslav Roerich, Marc Chagall, and the Dresden Gallery were organized. The concerts of Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, the Goodman Benny Orchestra were successful.
Weeks of Italian and French cinema were held in the capital. Furtseva allowed the artists to tour abroad. Several theaters were created, some of the theater institutions that had previously operated received new buildings.
Personal life
Furtseva's first husband is Peter Bitkov, a pilot. The marriage lasted 5 years, the couple had a daughter, Svetlana. Peter left Catherine because of another woman.
According to rumors, Furtseva had an affair with Boguslavsky Peter, secretary of the district committee. He helped Catherine to advance in the service. However, for the sake of Furtseva, Boguslavsky did not get divorced.
Later, Ekaterina Alekseevna married Firyubin Nikolai, a diplomat. However, the marriage was unhappy. For some time, the couple lived separately, Nikolai became ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Furtseva did not go with him.
After returning to the Union, the husband began to often cheat on his wife. His relationship with the daughter and mother of Ekaterina Alekseevna can be called tense. In recent years, Furtseva often relieved stress with alcohol.
The most senior woman in the USSR committed suicide out of desperation?
Ekaterina Furtseva, exactly 100 years old since her birth, is the only woman who has held the highest positions in our state. What brought the girl from Vyshny Volochok to the pinnacle of power? Outstanding personal qualities, chance, luck, sympathy of leaders for a beautiful woman? Ekaterina Alekseevna had to make her way in a society that did not encourage fast-moving women's careers. Furtseva is an exception.
She was the mistress of Moscow for several years, then took a place on the party Olympus - she became a member of the presidium and secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. At a turning point in the history of our country, she belonged to those few who determined the fate of our state.
On October 24, 1974, she suddenly passed away. Furtseva did not complain about her health, and death seemed unexpected and inexplicably early. She was a month short of sixty-four. In Moscow, they started talking about the fact that the Minister of Culture voluntarily passed away. In the family, the version of suicide was flatly rejected. However, the family was not very trusted. Because once Ekaterina Alekseevna has already opened her veins. This cheerful, major woman with a bright temperament and a strong character could not bear one thing - when she was rejected, both in her personal life and in her political life.
But why did she try to kill herself? What sad secret was making her unhappy? Leonid Mlechin devoted his new book to the dramatic fate of Furtseva, which is published by the Young Guard publishing house in the ZhZL series.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva (1910-1974), Minister of Culture of the USSR.
WEAVING CAREER
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was born in the city of Vyshny Volochok, Tver province. Her father, Alexei Gavrilovich, a metal worker, was drafted into the tsarist army as soon as the world war began, and died in the first battles. The loss of a father is a trauma that left an imprint on Ekaterina Alekseevna's entire future life. She was afraid of being abandoned, rejected, abandoned. Ekaterina Furtseva was highly dependent on relatives, friends, girlfriends and beloved men; she was always afraid to be alone.
Mother, Matrena Nikolaevna, never remarried. She raised her son and daughter alone. She was illiterate, but in Vyshny Volochek she enjoyed authority. Ekaterina Alekseevna inherited from her mother character, the ability to make decisions independently, and inner strength. And yet, a carefully hidden sense of helplessness remained in her forever.
In 1925 she graduated from the seven-year school and entered the school of factory apprenticeship, learned to be a weaver. At the age of fifteen, she began to work on the machine. She was given the nickname “weaver”, offensive for the future minister of culture. Ekaterina Alekseevna will always be remembered for working at the machine - and arrogantly contemptuously, although the need to start working early does not cause anything but respect and sympathy. Ekaterina Furtseva did not stand behind the machine for long. Komsomol changed her life.
Well-developed, athletic, Ekaterina Furtseva met the expectations of the era. True, the twenties and thirties were the time of puritanism. Sexuality is not a topic for discussion.
And she is unable to hide her femininity, the desire to love and be loved. So she will be torn between the desire not to yield to the stronger sex in anything and the unconscious desire to meet a real man, next to whom she will feel calm and secure.
For sixteen months she worked as secretary of the Korenevsky district committee of the Komsomol in the current Kursk region, then she accepted a new appointment and never returned to the village. Local historians claim that they have revealed the biggest secret of her personal life: on August 25, 1931, the Korenevsky village council registered her marriage with a local carpenter. But after three months the marriage broke up. Local historians hide the name of Furtseva's first husband.
PLUS PERSONAL HAPPINESS
In 1931, a promising worker was transferred to Feodosia as secretary of the Komsomol city committee. In Koktebel, she became interested in gliding and made sure that the regional committee of the party recommended her to the Aeroflot Higher Academic Courses. After the courses, Furtseva was sent to Saratov as an assistant to the head of the political department of the aviation technical school for the Komsomol.
But here her first great love came to her. She fell in love with the pilot Pyotr Ivanovich Bitkov, who served in Saratov. In the thirties, pilots, surrounded by a romantic halo, enjoyed particular success with women. Flight instructor Petr Bitkov, they say, was a prominent, interesting man. Ekaterina Alekseevna instinctively looked for a person who would serve as protection and support, capable of giving what she was deprived of in childhood and adolescence.
In 1936, Peter Bitkov was transferred to the political department of civil aviation, and the young family moved to Moscow. Furtseva was taken to the Central Committee of the Komsomol as an instructor in the student youth department, although she herself did not have a higher education and did not know student life. And in the thirty-seventh, they were sent to study at the Lomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. Ekaterina Alekseevna did not study well, because she immediately went along the social line. She was elected secretary of the institute's party committee. The chemical engineer Furtseva received a diploma of higher education in the forty-first year, on the eve of the war. She did not manage to work in her specialty.
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War for Furtseva turned out to be doubly tragic. Her husband went to the front in the very first days of the war. But he also left the family. They no longer lived together, although it was during the war that they had a long-awaited child.
Ekaterina Alekseevna dreamed of children, and became pregnant only in the thirty-second year, after eleven years of marriage. Like so much in Furtseva's life, the circumstances surrounding the birth of her daughter were overgrown with rumors and myths. It was rumored that it was not the husband who was the father of the child at all, which is why the offended Peter Bitkov left the family ...
They also say something else. Peter Ivanovich, as happened with many young men who went into the army, cut off from their wives for a long time, met another woman at the front, fell in love. He was reciprocated. And he started a new family. This is more like the truth, because Peter Ivanovich did not refuse his daughter, on the contrary, he retained paternal feelings for Svetlana until the end of his life.
THE MOST DIFFICULT YEARS
The collapse of the first marriage left a heavy scar. Furtseva will never be able to forget this. The young woman, fearing loneliness and uncertainty, was ready to get rid of the child. But her mother supported her: “We have been waiting for so many years. What, we won’t raise one child?” Leaving a child during those first war months, the most difficult and dangerous for Muscovites, was not an easy and courageous decision.
Pregnant Furtseva was evacuated to Kuibyshev (Samara), where the main people's commissariats and foreign embassies were located. The birth was successful. Ekaterina Alekseevna gave the girl her last name. They did not stay long in Kuibyshev. Unlike many other Muscovites who were not allowed to return to the city until the end of the war, Furtseva, a party worker, was expected in Moscow.
The forty-second year was memorable for Ekaterina Alekseevna in all respects. She had a daughter, Svetlana, and she was offered a new job. The growing young worker was noticed by the first secretary of the Frunze District Party Committee, Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky, and took him into his office. Thus began a successful party career Furtseva, which will lead her to the pinnacle of power.
Perhaps a successfully launched party career helped to cope with a personal drama. Furtseva developed a special relationship with the first secretary of the district committee, Boguslavsky. They say that he appreciated not only her business, but also feminine virtues. Young Furtseva was very good - bright, slender, with a stormy temperament. It is difficult to discuss what happened between Peter Vladimirovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna. This is not a story that is shared even with close people.
Office romances are like one another like two drops of water. The common work brought together and gave pleasure. But such a romance can hardly suit a woman. Years go by, and he is not going to leave his wife. A man is happy to have both a wife and a mistress. And women do not want to remain in this role forever. They need a real family. So, as a rule, office romances end as soon as a man and a woman stop working together ...
1961 Gagarin and Furtseva at a reception at the Ministry of Culture on the occasion of the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival with its guests - Italian actresses Gina Lollobrigida (left) and Marisa Merlini (second from right). Photo: RIA-news
FIRST SECRETARY
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva quickly learned the basic rules for achieving success in the party apparatus and advanced to the first roles. She replaced Boguslavsky as first secretary of the district committee. To prove her right to be the mistress of the district, she had to learn many of the habits and mannerisms of male leaders. She learned not to be shy in a male team, she was not embarrassed by jokes of a certain nature, she could drink decently and, if necessary, send a message to her mother.
At the same time, she did not forget that an attractive woman also has other means of influencing the male team. Organized, demanding, collected and efficient, Furtseva invariably fulfilled the promise. She was valued as a master of mass events. Whether it was about clearing the district apparatus of immigrants from the Northern capital in the midst of the gloomy "Leningrad case", or about propagandistic support for the equally shameful "doctors' case", Ekaterina Alekseevna invariably outstripped her fellow secretaries.
For example, she “demanded from the institutions located in the region to fulfill socialist obligations by certain dates: by May 1, to invent a vaccine and completely eradicate cancer, by November 7 to release an effective drug against tuberculosis. Studying childhood measles? Work so that by the next bureau of the district committee there will be no measles ... ”
In the party leadership of those years, everyone was dogmatic. But Ekaterina Furtseva was sorely lacking in general culture and education, so her speeches on ideological topics made a particularly gloomy impression.
From July 28 to August 11, 1957, under the slogan “For Peace and Friendship”, the World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow, which became a huge event. There has never been such a wide and almost uncontrolled communication with foreigners. The various bosses, accustomed to living behind the Iron Curtain, were themselves frightened and frightened others.
On the eve of the festival, Ekaterina Furtseva warned Moscow officials:
There are rumors that infectious diseases will be brought in. So they started vaccinating. But there have already been four cases of some kind of injections made in stores, when a girl was standing in line for groceries, a man comes up, makes an injection in her hand ... The victims are in the hospital, their condition is good. This is done by enemies to create panic instead of triumph...
Furtseva's career was helped by major changes in the Moscow leadership, when Stalin returned Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev to Moscow and put him at the head of the capital. Among the secretaries of the city committee, he needed one woman. Nikita Sergeevich chose the energetic and businesslike Furtseva.
In the party apparatus, women were promoted with difficulty. It was believed that only strong men could cope with leadership work. At the plenum of the Central Committee on March 18, 1946, Stalin said: "The People's Commissar must be a beast." Putting Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov in charge of the oil industry, he asked him a question:
- What properties should a Soviet people's commissar have?
Baibakov began to list. The leader stopped him:
- The Soviet people's commissar needs, first of all, bullish nerves plus optimism.
Bullish nerves Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was clearly lacking. She was too emotional person.
THE MISTRESS OF THE CITY
A little over a year after Stalin's death, on May 26, 1954, Ekaterina Furtseva was approved as the first secretary of the city party committee. No woman before her had led such a large party organization. Ekaterina Alekseevna became the rightful mistress of a huge city.
There was nothing personal about Khrushchev towards Furtseva, no matter what they said then. The bed rarely played a decisive role in the career growth of a woman, perhaps because the party apparatus, as if on purpose, selected ladies who were not very attractive. Ekaterina Alekseevna was an exception in this sense.
“First of all, we saw in her a woman,” Valery Kharazov told me, at that time the secretary of the Stalin District Party Committee of Moscow, “tidy, looking after herself, amazingly dressed. Ekaterina Alekseevna made a strong impression on us, we admired her.
But unlike Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Khrushchev remained faithful to his wife and established exclusively business relations with persons of the opposite sex. By the way, he did no condescension to anyone and asked women the same way as men.
WEDDING WITH DOWRY
Service success was supplemented by finally found personal happiness. When Ekaterina Alekseevna worked in the Moscow party apparatus, she fell in love with a colleague secretary, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin. He was only two years older than her. He was considered capricious and spoiled by female attention.
Roman Furtseva and Firyubin was the subject of gossip in Moscow. In those days, divorce was not encouraged. A woman should play one role - a selfless wife and mother. Love is a negative concept. Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin was in no hurry to break with his former life, to leave his family. Ekaterina Alekseevna was worried, although most of all she tried not to show her weakness. In the house, her message that she was marrying Nikolai Firyubin was met, to put it mildly, without enthusiasm. His mother-in-law and stepdaughter immediately disliked him. Of course it was jealousy. Neither Matrena Nikolaevna nor Svetlana wanted to share Ekaterina Alekseevna with anyone.
As soon as Ekaterina Alekseevna and Nikolai Pavlovich began to live together, big politics intervened, interfering with their happiness. In the first days of May 1953, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked that party workers be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So the future chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, and Nikolai Firyubin, Furtseva's husband, became diplomats.
In January 1954 he was made ambassador to Czechoslovakia. The ambassador is always accompanied by his wife. She, among other things, plays an important role in the work of the mission, helps the ambassador in organizing receptions, and builds relationships with diplomats from other countries. But Ekaterina Alekseevna did not want to sacrifice her career and be satisfied with the role of a wife. She did not go with her husband to Prague. Given the special situation, the Central Committee allowed Firyubin to live alone, which was not allowed to other diplomats.
For marriage, a long separation is not good. Furtseva was worried, did not want to let her husband go for a long time. But it was impossible to refuse the embassy appointment. Of course, Nikolai Pavlovich would have preferred to see his wife nearby. But being married to Furtseva herself also flattered his pride. Ekaterina Alekseevna could definitely be called the first lady of the country, since the wives of state leaders remained in the shadows.
At the same time, in relations with his wife, Firyubin was confident or, as people in the know say, self-confidently. This is a characteristic of powerful and self-appreciating men, the desire to be the master in the family. He is used to his wife pleasing him. She appreciated her husband very much and wanted to maintain a good relationship. It seemed to her that making him happy was her goal. The world was not nice when her husband sulked at her.
Memorial plaque on house number 19 on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, where Ekaterina Furtseva lived.
MATRIARCHY, PATRIARCHY AND SECRETARIAT
The 20th Party Congress played a special role in the life of our country. For Ekaterina Furtseva, the congress turned out to be doubly important - she was elevated to the pinnacle of political power. Khrushchev made her secretary of the Central Committee and included her in the list of candidates for members of the presidium. In Soviet times, the significance of the secretariat of the Central Committee did not need to be explained to anyone. Once Stalin joked in a narrow circle:
- History is divided into three periods - matriarchy, patriarchy and secretariat ...
In practical life, no appointment of any importance was made apart from the secretariat of the Central Committee. Not a single ministry or department in the country could do anything without the prior consent of the secretariat of the Central Committee. The appearance of a woman in the top leadership of the country was an event. But not everyone liked the election of Ekaterina Alekseevna. It was a reflection of the era of male chauvinism ...
Nikita Sergeevich considered Furtseva his man and promoted. On June 29, 1957, he made Furtseva a full member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. It was a high-profile appointment. The next time a woman will join the Politburo is already under Gorbachev.
Khrushchev gave her a gift - he returned her husband to Ekaterina Alekseevna: Nikolai Firyubin was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Now nothing prevented Nikolai Pavlovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna from living together. At the 20th Congress, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. So she and Furtseva were the only married couple who attended the plenums of the Central Committee. Of course, Firyubin did not really like that his wife occupied a higher position. For a Soviet family, this was not typical.
CUT VEINS
Only three years Furtseva was at the pinnacle of power. On May 4, 1960, Nikita Sergeevich unexpectedly ordered the dismissal of several people from the post of Secretary of the Central Committee at once, including Ekaterina Alekseevna. She was appointed Minister of Culture. What was the reason for the mass purge of the top echelon of the party leadership? Why did Khrushchev disperse his closest aides in one day? He himself selected and nominated them ...
It is believed that the Chekists recorded the free conversations of several secretaries of the Central Committee, which they had in their rest rooms, drinking tea or stronger drinks. They did not say anything seditious, they only allowed themselves to critically evaluate the behavior of Nikita Sergeevich. There is another explanation. Khrushchev was an enthusiastic person. He could lift the employee he liked to a dizzying height, but, disappointed, with the same ease parted with a recent favorite and promoted a new one.
For more than a year, Furtseva remained a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, the highest authority in the country. But at the XXII Congress, she was not included in the Presidium of the Central Committee. This was a terrible blow for her. Furtseva and Firyubin did not come to the evening session of the congress. Ekaterina Alekseevna tried to die.
“Having drunk heavily with grief,” writes Sergey Khrushchev, “and Ekaterina Alekseevna abused alcohol, she tried to open her veins. But the hand trembled, and the suicide failed. Perhaps she was not going to part with her life, but simply, as a woman, she tried in this way to attract attention to herself, to arouse sympathy, but her act had the opposite effect.
Yes, there were few ready and able to sympathize ...
Ekaterina Alekseevna painfully perceived the loss of the attributes of her former life. But most of all she was worried, thinking about how people around her rejoiced at her fall and gloated ... As for morals in the political elite, she was not mistaken.
What makes major politicians like Furtseva commit suicide? Somehow, all this does not fit with the appearance of these people, resolute, tough, capable of overcoming any obstacles. As a rule, such people are able to withstand any stress. But there are other factors at work as well. It is unlikely that we are able to understand what was the last straw for each of them.
BETWEEN HAMMER AND ANVIL
Furtseva was almost the only person in the country's leadership who was sincerely interested in cultural exchange with other states, in that our masters went on tour abroad, and foreign singers, musicians, artists came to the Soviet Union, brought exhibitions from the best world museums .
Foreign tours were extremely beneficial to the state, outstanding masters, after returning home, handed over large sums in foreign currency to the treasury. Therefore, the Ministry of Culture, at least for departmental reasons, was a supporter of the tour. And the party apparatus and the state security system believed that it was better not to let anyone out anywhere. Worthy to go to other countries considered only themselves.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva discovered the world with pleasure. Even for the secretary of the Central Committee, the trip was rare. The Minister of Culture, on the other hand, had to travel the world due to her direct duties. Abroad, a woman minister invariably aroused great interest.
In the hands of the Minister of Culture was considerable power. But every decision was fraught with a threat to a career. The ideological situation in the country, the atmosphere of prohibitions practically put an end to everything that seemed like a dangerous deviation from the general line. The system was such that it was in Furtseva’s interests to ban, not allow, because a director or artist would get praise for a successful performance. And for the "mistakes" to answer her.
There were many who wanted to ban it, but no one wanted to take responsibility and allow it. Sometimes she went against censorship, took responsibility for herself. But more often she had to - or wanted to - prevent the appearance on the stage of what was considered unlawful. And not much was allowed.
But Ekaterina Alekseevna was not a big face. In addition to party attitudes, she was often guided by personal likes and dislikes. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, the chief director of the Sovremennik Theater, Oleg Nikolayevich Yefremov, staged Mikhail Filippovich Shatrov's play Bolsheviks. The censor banned it. The Minister of Culture allowed the performance.
Six months - an unprecedented deal! The play was performed without the permission of the censors. There is not a single empty seat in the auditorium of Sovremennik. Furtseva was not afraid and did not retreat. The play was allowed.
Furtseva and Sophia Loren.
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A GRANDMA'S HUSBAND?
How did all this happen? Why was there talk that Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was being removed from the post of minister, what awaited her bleak retirement life - and maybe even a lonely retirement life, since not only her political career was collapsing, but also her relationship with her husband?
Neither by age nor by mood, she was not going to leave at all. Probably, I could not even imagine myself in retirement. But it looks like her ministerial days were numbered. And she did not have to rely on the mercy of her party comrades. There are no real human relations in the political world, there is a merciless struggle for power or for the illusion of power.
It is said that she herself could be cruel and merciless. I got used to the role of the arbiter of fate and to power over people. It is strange that she was not dubbed the "Iron Lady". Although this concept itself was born later, after Furtseva's departure from life. Yes, she was not iron! She was perhaps too sensitive.
Already not at a young age, Ekaterina Alekseevna continued to excite the male imagination. There was an undoubted erotic motive in the desire to serve the minister. Society admired her strength, but yearned to see traces of carefully hidden female weakness.
Ekaterina Furtseva was friends with Lyudmila Zykina. They assured that at the dacha of the singer the minister drank heavily. At the table, when they asked what to pour for her, Ekaterina Alekseevna answered the same way:
- I'm always with men, I drink vodka.
In 1972, her mother, Matrena Nikolaevna, died. For Ekaterina Alekseevna it was a blow. She depended on her mother, needed her constant approval. They say that girls marry their fathers, that is, they instinctively look for a man with familiar character traits. Furtseva, perhaps, married her mother! Her mother forced her to live at a frantic pace: do not allow yourself to rest and relax, move from good to better. The relationship with her husband was the same. She needed his affection. I understood with my mind that I was not able to please him in everything, but I tried. It turned out that the only way to make him be gentle was to guess and fulfill all his desires ...
Her friends knew that her heart was restless. She said that no one understands her, that she is lonely and no one needs her. It must be understood that she meant her husband. How true are these accusations? Nikolai Pavlovich himself did not talk about his relationship with Ekaterina Alekseevna. At least in public. He died before journalists had the opportunity to ask personal questions.
LONELINESS OF A WOUNDED SOUL
Furtseva started building her own dacha and asked “subordinate institutions” for help. There were a lot of people who wanted to help the minister with building materials and labor. At the same time, one of the initiates wrote a denunciation: Furtseva, violating state discipline and party ethics, acquired building materials at the Bolshoi Theater at reduced prices.
The case was examined by the highest inquisition - the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was led by the former head of Soviet Latvia, a member of the Politburo, Arvid Yanovich Pelshe. Personal property was considered an anti-Party affair. Therefore, the leaders of the country circumvented this ban and built dachas in the name of relatives and friends. Furtseva acted imprudently, writing down the cottage in her name.
Ekaterina Alekseevna admitted that she made a gross mistake, she handed over the cottage. She was returned twenty-five thousand rubles. She put them on a book and wrote a will in favor of her daughter. But they decided to retire her anyway. And she said to her friend:
“No matter what happens, no matter what they say about me, I will die a minister.
And so it happened...
Now it’s impossible to find out what exactly happened on the late evening of October 24, when Furtseva returned home. She and Firyubin lived on Alexei Tolstoy Street. They say that it was on that day that it became known that a pension awaited her, and Nikolai Pavlovich met another woman. Ekaterina Alekseevna could not stand the double blow. The dreary life of a pensioner abandoned by her husband was not for her ...
Probably, many times she mentally wondered if she could live without a job and without a husband? Emotionally, she was completely dependent on her position in society, on how others looked at her. And, of course, from my husband! Loneliness seemed the most terrible. She could not even think of breaking up with him and starting over with another person.
It is not so easy to find peace for a wounded soul. How to return from the depths of misfortune to normal life? This is a mystical journey. Feelings and fears experienced in childhood remain forever and return again and again, especially when we are unable to cope with our problems. She probably understood that the loss of her father was all a long time ago, but some part of the brain still perceives the world as if she was still a little girl left without a dad. The fear of being abandoned made it impossible for her to see things realistically.
After midnight, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin called Svetlana:
- Mom is no more.
When the daughter and her husband arrived, the resuscitation team was still in the apartment. The doctor tried to calm Svetlana:
“Even if it happened in the hospital, the doctors would not be able to help.
The diagnosis is acute heart failure. But in Moscow there was talk that she again decided to commit suicide. And this time the attempt was successful.
Her first husband, Pyotr Ivanovich Bitkov, told his daughter at the funeral that he loved only Ekaterina Alekseevna all his life. He briefly survived Furtseva. Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin went to Cleopatra Gogoleva, the widow of Alexander Vasilyevich Gogolev, the late secretary of the Moscow regional party committee. They lived in neighboring dachas. Cleopatra Gogoleva, whom her acquaintances called Claire, was much younger than Furtseva.
Over the years, Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva is being talked about better and better. The bad is forgotten. There are memories of a living and sincere person.
The most senior woman in the USSR committed suicide out of desperation?
Ekaterina Furtseva, exactly 100 years old since her birth, is the only woman who has held the highest positions in our state. What brought the girl from Vyshny Volochok to the pinnacle of power? Outstanding personal qualities, chance, luck, sympathy of leaders for a beautiful woman? Ekaterina Alekseevna had to make her way in a society that did not encourage fast-moving women's careers. Furtseva is an exception. She was the mistress of Moscow for several years, then took a place on the party Olympus - she became a member of the presidium and secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee.
At a turning point in the history of our country, she belonged to those few who determined the fate of our state.
... On October 24, 1974, she suddenly passed away. Furtseva did not complain about her health, and death seemed unexpected and inexplicably early. She was a month short of sixty-four. In Moscow, they started talking about the fact that the Minister of Culture voluntarily passed away. In the family, the version of suicide was flatly rejected. However, the family was not very trusted. Because once Ekaterina Alekseevna has already opened her veins. This cheerful, major woman with a bright temperament and a strong character could not bear one thing - when she was rejected, both in her personal life and in the political ...
…But why did she try to kill herself? What sad secret was making her unhappy? Leonid Mlechin dedicated his new book in the ZhZL series to the dramatic fate of Furtseva.
Weaving career. Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was born in the city of Vyshny Volochok, Tver province. Her father, Alexei Gavrilovich, a metal worker, was drafted into the tsarist army as soon as the world war began, and died in the first battles. The loss of a father is a trauma that left an imprint on Ekaterina Alekseevna's entire future life. She was afraid of being abandoned, rejected, abandoned. Ekaterina Furtseva was highly dependent on relatives, friends, girlfriends and beloved men; she was always afraid to be alone.
Mother, Matrena Nikolaevna, never remarried. She raised her son and daughter alone. She was illiterate, but in Vyshny Volochek she enjoyed authority. Ekaterina Alekseevna inherited from her mother character, the ability to make decisions independently, and inner strength. And yet, a carefully hidden sense of helplessness remained in her forever.
In 1925 she graduated from the seven-year school and entered the school of factory apprenticeship, learned to be a weaver. At the age of fifteen, she began to work on the machine. She was given the nickname “weaver”, offensive for the future minister of culture. Ekaterina Alekseevna will always be remembered for working at the machine - and arrogantly contemptuously, although the need to start working early does not cause anything but respect and sympathy. Ekaterina Furtseva did not stand behind the machine for long. Komsomol changed her life.
Well-developed, athletic, Ekaterina Furtseva met the expectations of the era. True, the twenties and thirties were the time of puritanism. Sexuality is not a topic for discussion.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva (1910-1974), Minister of Culture of the USSR
And she is unable to hide her femininity, the desire to love and be loved. So she will be torn between the desire not to yield to the stronger sex in anything and the unconscious desire to meet a real man, next to whom she will feel calm and secure.
For sixteen months she worked as secretary of the Korenevsky district committee of the Komsomol in the current Kursk region, then she accepted a new appointment and never returned to the village. Local historians claim that they have revealed the biggest secret of her personal life: on August 25, 1931, the Korenevsky village council registered her marriage with a local carpenter. But after three months the marriage broke up. Local historians hide the name of Furtseva's first husband ...
Plus personal happiness. In 1931, a promising worker was transferred to Feodosia as secretary of the Komsomol city committee. In Koktebel, she became interested in gliding and made sure that the regional committee of the party recommended her to the Aeroflot Higher Academic Courses. After the courses, Furtseva was sent to Saratov as an assistant to the head of the political department of the aviation technical school for the Komsomol.
But here her first great love came to her. She fell in love with the pilot Pyotr Ivanovich Bitkov, who served in Saratov. In the thirties, pilots, surrounded by a romantic halo, enjoyed particular success with women. Flight instructor Petr Bitkov, they say, was a prominent, interesting man. Ekaterina Alekseevna instinctively looked for a person who would serve as protection and support, capable of giving what she was deprived of in childhood and adolescence.
In 1936, Peter Bitkov was transferred to the political department of civil aviation, and the young family moved to Moscow. Furtseva was taken to the Central Committee of the Komsomol as an instructor in the student youth department, although she herself did not have a higher education and did not know student life. And in the thirty-seventh, they were sent to study at the Lomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. Ekaterina Alekseevna did not study well, because she immediately went along the social line. She was elected secretary of the institute's party committee. The chemical engineer Furtseva received a diploma of higher education in the forty-first year, on the eve of the war. She did not manage to work in her specialty.
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War for Furtseva turned out to be doubly tragic. Her husband went to the front in the very first days of the war. But he also left the family. They no longer lived together, although it was during the war that they had a long-awaited child.
Ekaterina Alekseevna dreamed of children, and became pregnant only in the thirty-second year, after eleven years of marriage. Like so much in Furtseva's life, the circumstances surrounding the birth of her daughter were overgrown with rumors and myths. It was rumored that it was not the husband who was the father of the child at all, which is why the offended Peter Bitkov left the family ...
They also say something else. Peter Ivanovich, as happened with many young men who went into the army, cut off from their wives for a long time, met another woman at the front, fell in love. He was reciprocated. And he started a new family. This is more like the truth, because Peter Ivanovich did not refuse his daughter, on the contrary, he retained paternal feelings for Svetlana until the end of his life.
The most difficult years. The collapse of the first marriage left a heavy scar. Furtseva will never be able to forget this. The young woman, fearing loneliness and uncertainty, was ready to get rid of the child. But her mother supported her: “We have been waiting for so many years. What, we won’t raise one child?” Leaving a child during those first war months, the most difficult and dangerous for Muscovites, was not an easy and courageous decision.
Pregnant Furtseva was evacuated to Kuibyshev (Samara), where the main people's commissariats and foreign embassies were located. The birth was successful. Ekaterina Alekseevna gave the girl her last name. They did not stay long in Kuibyshev. Unlike many other Muscovites who were not allowed to return to the city until the end of the war, Furtseva, a party worker, was expected in Moscow.
The forty-second year was memorable for Ekaterina Alekseevna in all respects. She had a daughter, Svetlana, and she was offered a new job. The growing young worker was noticed by the first secretary of the Frunze District Party Committee, Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky, and took him into his office. Thus began a successful party career Furtseva, which will lead her to the pinnacle of power.
Perhaps a successfully launched party career helped to cope with a personal drama. Furtseva developed a special relationship with the first secretary of the district committee, Boguslavsky. They say that he appreciated not only her business, but also feminine virtues. Young Furtseva was very good - bright, slender, with a stormy temperament. It is difficult to discuss what happened between Peter Vladimirovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna. This is not a story that is shared even with close people.
Office romances are like one another like two drops of water. The common work brought together and gave pleasure. But such a romance can hardly suit a woman. Years go by, and he is not going to leave his wife. A man is happy to have both a wife and a mistress. And women do not want to remain in this role forever. They need a real family. So, as a rule, office romances end as soon as a man and a woman stop working together ...
1961 Gagarin and Furtseva at a reception at the Ministry of Culture on the occasion of the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival with its guests, Italian actresses Gina Lollobrigida (left) and Marisa Merlini (second from right). Photo: RIA-news
First Secretary. Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva quickly learned the basic rules for achieving success in the party apparatus and advanced to the first roles. She replaced Boguslavsky as first secretary of the district committee. To prove her right to be the mistress of the district, she had to learn many of the habits and mannerisms of male leaders. She learned not to be shy in a male team, she was not embarrassed by jokes of a certain nature, she could drink decently and, if necessary, send a message to her mother.
At the same time, she did not forget that an attractive woman also has other means of influencing the male team. Organized, demanding, collected and efficient, Furtseva invariably fulfilled the promise. She was valued as a master of mass events. Whether it was about clearing the district apparatus of immigrants from the Northern capital in the midst of the gloomy "Leningrad case", or about propagandistic support for the equally shameful "doctors' case", Ekaterina Alekseevna invariably outstripped her fellow secretaries.
For example, she “demanded the institutions located in the region to fulfill socialist obligations by certain dates: by May 1, to invent a vaccine and completely eradicate cancer, by November 7 to release an effective drug against tuberculosis. Studying childhood measles? Work in such a way that there will be no measles by the next bureau of the district committee ... "
In the party leadership of those years, everyone was dogmatic. But Ekaterina Furtseva was sorely lacking in general culture and education, so her speeches on ideological topics made a particularly gloomy impression.
From July 28 to August 11, 1957, under the slogan "For Peace and Friendship", the World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow, which became a huge event. There has never been such a wide and almost uncontrolled communication with foreigners. The various bosses, accustomed to living behind the Iron Curtain, were themselves frightened and frightened others.
On the eve of the festival, Ekaterina Furtseva warned Moscow officials: “There are rumors that infectious diseases will be brought in. So they started vaccinating. But there have already been four cases of some kind of injections made in stores, when a girl was standing in line for groceries, a man comes up, makes an injection in her hand ... The victims are in the hospital, their condition is good. This is done by the enemies in order to create panic instead of triumph”…
Furtseva's career was helped by major changes in the Moscow leadership, when Stalin returned Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev to Moscow and put him at the head of the capital. Among the secretaries of the city committee, he needed one woman. Nikita Sergeevich chose the energetic and businesslike Furtseva.
In the party apparatus, women were promoted with difficulty. It was believed that only strong men could cope with leadership work. At the plenum of the Central Committee on March 18, 1946, Stalin said: "The People's Commissar must be a beast." Putting Nikolai Konstantinovich Baibakov in charge of the oil industry, he asked him the question: "What properties should a Soviet people's commissar have"? Baibakov began to list. The leader stopped him: "The Soviet people's commissar needs, first of all, bullish nerves plus optimism" ...
... Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva clearly lacked bullish nerves. She was too emotional person...
Mistress of the city.A little over a year after Stalin's death, on May 26, 1954, Ekaterina Furtseva was approved as the first secretary of the city party committee. No woman before her had led such a large party organization. Ekaterina Alekseevna became the rightful mistress of a huge city.
There was nothing personal about Khrushchev towards Furtseva, no matter what they said then. The bed rarely played a decisive role in the career growth of a woman, perhaps because the party apparatus, as if on purpose, selected ladies who were not very attractive. Ekaterina Alekseevna was an exception in this sense. “First of all, we saw in her a woman,” Valery Kharazov told me, at that time the secretary of the Stalinist district committee of the Moscow party, “tidy, looking after herself, amazingly dressed. Ekaterina Alekseevna made a strong impression on us, we admired her.”
But unlike Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Khrushchev remained faithful to his wife and established exclusively business relations with persons of the opposite sex. By the way, he did no condescension to anyone and asked women the same way as men.
Wedding with dowry. Service success was supplemented by finally found personal happiness. When Ekaterina Alekseevna worked in the Moscow party apparatus, she fell in love with a colleague secretary, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin. He was only two years older than her. He was considered capricious and spoiled by female attention.
Roman Furtseva and Firyubin was the subject of gossip in Moscow. In those days, divorce was not encouraged. A woman should play one role - a selfless wife and mother. Love is a negative concept. Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin was in no hurry to break with his former life, to leave his family. Ekaterina Alekseevna was worried, although most of all she tried not to show her weakness. In the house, her message that she was marrying Nikolai Firyubin was met, to put it mildly, without enthusiasm. His mother-in-law and stepdaughter immediately disliked him. Of course it was jealousy. Neither Matrena Nikolaevna nor Svetlana wanted to share Ekaterina Alekseevna with anyone.
As soon as Ekaterina Alekseevna and Nikolai Pavlovich began to live together, big politics intervened, interfering with their happiness. In the first days of May 1953, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked that party workers be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So the future chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, and Nikolai Firyubin, Furtseva's husband, became diplomats.
In January 1954 he was made ambassador to Czechoslovakia. The ambassador is always accompanied by his wife. She, among other things, plays an important role in the work of the mission, helps the ambassador in organizing receptions, and builds relationships with diplomats from other countries. But Ekaterina Alekseevna did not want to sacrifice her career and be satisfied with the role of a wife. She did not go with her husband to Prague. Given the special situation, the Central Committee allowed Firyubin to live alone, which was not allowed to other diplomats.
For marriage, a long separation is not good. Furtseva was worried, did not want to let her husband go for a long time. But it was impossible to refuse the embassy appointment. Of course, Nikolai Pavlovich would have preferred to see his wife nearby. But being married to Furtseva herself also flattered his pride. Ekaterina Alekseevna could definitely be called the first lady of the country, since the wives of state leaders remained in the shadows.
At the same time, in relations with his wife, Firyubin was confident or, as people in the know say, self-confidently. This is typical for powerful and self-appreciating men, the desire to be the master in the family. He is used to his wife pleasing him. She appreciated her husband very much and wanted to maintain a good relationship. It seemed to her that making him happy was her goal. The world was not nice when her husband sulked at her.
Memorial plaque on house No. 19 on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, where Ekaterina Furtseva lived
MAtriarchy, patriarchy and secretariat. The 20th Party Congress played a special role in the life of our country. For Ekaterina Furtseva, the congress turned out to be doubly important - she was elevated to the pinnacle of political power. Khrushchev made her secretary of the Central Committee and included her in the list of candidates for members of the presidium. In Soviet times, the significance of the secretariat of the Central Committee did not need to be explained to anyone. Once Stalin joked in a narrow circle: "History is divided into three periods - matriarchy, patriarchy and secretariat" ...
In practical life, no appointment of any importance was made apart from the secretariat of the Central Committee. Not a single ministry or department in the country could do anything without the prior consent of the secretariat of the Central Committee. The appearance of a woman in the top leadership of the country was an event. But not everyone liked the election of Ekaterina Alekseevna. It was a reflection of the era of male chauvinism ...
Nikita Sergeevich considered Furtseva his man and promoted. On June 29, 1957, he made Furtseva a full member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. It was a high-profile appointment. The next time a woman will join the Politburo under Gorbachev ...
Khrushchev gave her a gift - he returned her husband to Ekaterina Alekseevna: Nikolai Firyubin was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Now nothing prevented Nikolai Pavlovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna from living together. At the 20th Congress, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. So she and Furtseva were the only married couple who attended the plenums of the Central Committee. Of course, Firyubin did not really like that his wife occupied a higher position. For a Soviet family, this was atypical ...
Severed veins. Only three years Furtseva was at the pinnacle of power. On May 4, 1960, Nikita Sergeevich unexpectedly ordered the dismissal of several people from the post of Secretary of the Central Committee at once, including Ekaterina Alekseevna. She was appointed Minister of Culture. What was the reason for the mass purge of the top echelon of the party leadership? Why did Khrushchev disperse his closest aides in one day? He himself selected and nominated them ...
It is believed that the Chekists recorded the free conversations of several secretaries of the Central Committee, which they had in their rest rooms, drinking tea or stronger drinks. They did not say anything seditious, they only allowed themselves to critically evaluate the behavior of Nikita Sergeevich. There is another explanation. Khrushchev was an enthusiastic person. He could lift the employee he liked to a dizzying height, but, disappointed, with the same ease parted with a recent favorite and promoted a new one.
For more than a year, Furtseva remained a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, the highest authority in the country. But at the XXII Congress, she was not included in the Presidium of the Central Committee. This was a terrible blow for her. Furtseva and Firyubin did not come to the evening session of the congress. Ekaterina Alekseevna tried to die. “Having drunk heavily with grief,” writes Sergey Khrushchev, “and Ekaterina Alekseevna abused alcohol, she tried to open her veins. But the hand trembled, and the suicide failed. Perhaps she was not going to part with her life, but simply, as a woman, she tried in this way to attract attention to herself, to arouse sympathy, but her act had the opposite effect. Yes, there were few ready and able to sympathize ...
Ekaterina Alekseevna painfully perceived the loss of the attributes of her former life. But most of all she was worried, thinking about how people around her rejoiced at her fall and gloated ... As for morals in the political elite, she was not mistaken.
What makes major politicians like Furtseva commit suicide? Somehow, all this does not fit with the appearance of these people, resolute, tough, capable of overcoming any obstacles. As a rule, such people are able to withstand any stress. But there are other factors at work as well. It is unlikely that we are able to understand what was the last straw for each of them ...
Between the hammer and the anvil. Furtseva was almost the only person in the country's leadership who was sincerely interested in cultural exchange with other states, in that our masters went on tour abroad, and foreign singers, musicians, artists came to the Soviet Union, brought exhibitions from the best world museums .
Foreign tours were extremely beneficial to the state, outstanding masters, after returning home, handed over large sums in foreign currency to the treasury. Therefore, the Ministry of Culture, at least for departmental reasons, was a supporter of the tour. And the party apparatus and the state security system believed that it was better not to let anyone out anywhere. Worthy to go to other countries considered only themselves.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva discovered the world with pleasure. Even for the secretary of the Central Committee, the trip was rare. The Minister of Culture, on the other hand, had to travel the world due to her direct duties. Abroad, a woman minister invariably aroused great interest.
In the hands of the Minister of Culture was considerable power. But every decision was fraught with a threat to a career. The ideological situation in the country, the atmosphere of prohibitions practically put an end to everything that seemed like a dangerous deviation from the general line. The system was such that it was in Furtseva’s interests to ban, not allow, because a director or artist would get praise for a successful performance. And for the "mistakes" to answer her.
There were many who wanted to ban it, but no one wanted to take responsibility and allow it. Sometimes she went against censorship, took responsibility for herself. But more often she had to - or wanted to - prevent the appearance on the stage of what was considered unlawful. And not much was allowed.
But Ekaterina Alekseevna was not a big face. In addition to party attitudes, she was often guided by personal likes and dislikes. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, the chief director of the Sovremennik Theater, Oleg Nikolayevich Yefremov, staged Mikhail Filippovich Shatrov's play Bolsheviks. The censor banned it. The Minister of Culture allowed the performance. Six months - an unprecedented deal! The play was performed without the permission of the censors. There is not a single empty seat in the auditorium of Sovremennik. Furtseva was not afraid and did not retreat. The play was allowed...
Furtseva and Sophia Loren
What is it like to be your grandmother's husband? How did all this happen? Why was there talk that Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was being removed from the post of minister, what awaited her bleak retirement life - and maybe even a lonely retirement life, since not only her political career was collapsing, but also her relationship with her husband?
Neither by age nor by mood, she was not going to leave at all. Probably, I could not even imagine myself in retirement. But it looks like her ministerial days were numbered. And she did not have to rely on the mercy of her party comrades. There are no real human relations in the political world, there is a merciless struggle for power or for the illusion of power.
It is said that she herself could be cruel and merciless. I got used to the role of the arbiter of fate and to power over people. It is strange that she was not dubbed the "Iron Lady". Although this concept itself was born later, after Furtseva's departure from life. Yes, she was not iron! She was perhaps too sensitive.
Already not at a young age, Ekaterina Alekseevna continued to excite the male imagination. There was an undoubted erotic motive in the desire to serve the minister. Society admired her strength, but yearned to see traces of carefully hidden female weakness.
Ekaterina Furtseva was friends with Lyudmila Zykina. They assured that at the dacha of the singer the minister drank heavily. At the table, when they asked what to pour for her, Ekaterina Alekseevna answered the same way: “I am always with men, I drink vodka.”
In 1972, her mother, Matrena Nikolaevna, died. For Ekaterina Alekseevna it was a blow. She depended on her mother, needed her constant approval. They say that girls marry their fathers, that is, they instinctively look for a man with familiar character traits. Furtseva, perhaps, married her mother! Her mother forced her to live at a frantic pace: do not allow yourself to rest and relax, move from good to better. The relationship with her husband was the same. She needed his affection. I understood with my mind that I was not able to please him in everything, but I tried. It turned out that the only way to make him be gentle was to guess and fulfill all his desires ...
Her friends knew that her heart was restless. She said that no one understands her, that she is lonely and no one needs her. It must be understood that she meant her husband. How true are these accusations? Nikolai Pavlovich himself did not talk about his relationship with Ekaterina Alekseevna. At least in public. He died before journalists had the opportunity to ask personal questions ...
The loneliness of a wounded soul. Furtseva started building her own dacha and asked “subordinate institutions” for help. There were a lot of people who wanted to help the minister with building materials and labor. At the same time, one of the initiates wrote a denunciation: Furtseva, violating state discipline and party ethics, acquired building materials at the Bolshoi Theater at reduced prices.
The case was examined by the highest inquisition - the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was led by the former head of Soviet Latvia, a member of the Politburo, Arvid Yanovich Pelshe. Personal property was considered an anti-Party affair. Therefore, the leaders of the country circumvented this ban and built dachas in the name of relatives and friends. Furtseva acted imprudently, writing down the cottage in her name.
Ekaterina Alekseevna admitted that she made a gross mistake, she handed over the cottage. She was returned twenty-five thousand rubles. She put them on a book and wrote a will in favor of her daughter. But they decided to retire her anyway. And she said to her friend: “No matter what happens, no matter what they say about me, I will die a minister.” And so it happened...
... Now it’s impossible to find out what exactly happened on the late evening of October 24, when Furtseva returned home. She and Firyubin lived on Alexei Tolstoy Street. They say that it was on that day that it became known that a pension awaited her, and Nikolai Pavlovich met another woman. Ekaterina Alekseevna could not stand the double blow. The dreary life of a pensioner abandoned by her husband was not for her ...
... Probably, many times she mentally wondered if she could live without work and without a husband? Emotionally, she was completely dependent on her position in society, on how others looked at her. And, of course, from my husband! Loneliness seemed the most terrible. She could not even think of breaking up with him and starting over with another person.
It is not so easy to find peace for a wounded soul. How to return from the depths of misfortune to normal life? This is a mystical journey. Feelings and fears experienced in childhood remain forever and return again and again, especially when we are unable to cope with our problems. She probably understood that the loss of her father was all a long time ago, but some part of the brain still perceives the world as if she was still a little girl left without a dad. The fear of being abandoned made it impossible for her to see things realistically.
After midnight, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin called Svetlana: “Mom is no more” ...
When the daughter and her husband arrived, the resuscitation team was still in the apartment. The doctor tried to calm Svetlana: "Even if it happened in the hospital, the doctors could not help." The diagnosis is acute heart failure. But in Moscow there was talk that she again decided to commit suicide. And this time it was a success...
... Her first husband, Peter Ivanovich Bitkov, told his daughter at the funeral that he loved only Ekaterina Alekseevna all his life. He briefly survived Furtseva. Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin went to Cleopatra Gogoleva, the widow of Alexander Vasilyevich Gogolev, the late secretary of the Moscow regional party committee. They lived in neighboring dachas. Cleopatra Gogoleva, whom her friends called Clara, was much younger than Furtseva ...
... Over the years, Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva is being talked about better and better. The bad is forgotten. There are memories of a living and sincere person ...
Leonid MLECHIN, Moskovsky Komsomolets
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 Komsomol work. Maybe sports. She is a good swimmer. Knows how to avoid 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, brave, correct. Of course she fell in love. Of course, in the pilot. His name was Petr Ivanovich Petkov.
At that time, "pilot" was an almost mystical word. 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 almost like a myth. Everything could be shared with the pilot - even love for Comrade Stalin.
Several photographs of Ekaterina Alekseevna with Peter Ivanovich have been preserved. Looking at the photo, you involuntarily think that her betrothed is a person 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 property. 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 price for exorbitant enthusiasm?
Pyotr Ivanovich is a 100% man, a practical person. He does not understand her passion for airplanes. At this time, they were sent to Saratov (to teach at the 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 war began, my 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 suddenly - a protracted news after 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 ... announced that he had been living with another for a long time.
Best of the day
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. I 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 found herself in a strange, conditional world of "liberated" political workers. Science was done away with forever.
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 clearly cramped, 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. Office romance - something like an outlet. Communication with Boguslavsky gave her invaluable experience. 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 to ignore 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 a living god for the first and last time, but for his sharp eyes it was 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 Square, to the office of the second secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. A couple of months later, her faithful friend 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 came into close contact with Khrushchev. There were rumors about their romance. Immediately after Stalin's death, 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 an expert?!"
Furtseva, until the end of her life, retained a respectful attitude towards professors and important old men, associate professors, whom she had seen in graduate school. The "specialist" knows more than she, this conviction was very strong in her. And in her team, she - a former weaver - wanted to see just such people.
"Weaver, from the peasants." Thanks to this line in her biography, she ascended high. And the word "weaver" will accompany her all her life. Someone will cause respect, someone - neglect.
But now the weaving factory is a thing of the past. Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva - First 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 win this game, she had to play by the "male" rules, without any discounts. Hence - and vodka, and a variety of barbaric ways to quickly 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 one 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 run far along the corridors, to another compartment, where there was a women's 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 it was the absence of a women's toilet that played a fantastic role in her life. Something like a magic wand for Cinderella, who in an instant 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 Stalin's death. Furtseva then held the post of secretary of the Central Committee and, according to her rank, had to attend 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 understood 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 can it be, the man who stirred up the Stalinist anthill - and suddenly trampled into the mud? Perhaps she did not lose the far-reaching consequences of her act, she simply reacted 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 simply calculated that, as a representative of the "weaker" sex, she has the right to go 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 took a long time to run to the women's room, she had a formal reason to be absent for a long time, without arousing suspicion either in Malenkov or Kaganovich. She was released. Just like in the school game - "can I go out?".
And instead of the toilet, she rushed to her office to call those on whom it depended to prevent a new coup from happening.
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, begged the all-powerful generals to come to the meeting and prevent Nikita Sergeevich from being 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 - simply because their law enforcement agencies would not go against him.
Brezhnev did the same trick. He rushed to call 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 a number of other members of the Central Committee who supported Khrushchev arrived in the Kremlin. The meeting of the Presidium has not ended yet. They entered and announced that such paramount matters could not be decided in private, that everything had to be decided over again. 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 knew how and wanted to please 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 both of them 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 have given rise to many speculations. 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 single female minister.
Outwardly, she behaved inappropriately. At every opportunity, she flew to him in Prague, then to Belgrade, where he was transferred as an ambassador. All this was in front of everyone, but she was not going to hide. It obviously flattered him. They did not even notice how smoothly their passion grew into a game called Romeo and Juliet.
Firyubin was looking for a reason to break off his previous marriage, threatened to renounce everything, but E. A. did not ask him for anything, did not demand anything, and, perhaps, therefore attracted him with something.
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 no longer possible 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, however, was not eternal. The fact that the first time served a good service - 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 long. 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, lay down in 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 role of an angel-savior.
And this friend played her part. There was surprise at the silence outside the door, then bewilderment. Then fear. Then - a call to the special services and the arrival of a special team, which broke the door and found Ekaterina Alekseevna bleeding.
But Khrushchev did not respond to this "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 pay attention to it. E. A. carefully 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. She was simply turned off.
A month later, a message came that Furtseva was appointed Minister of Culture. And it was then that the nickname that stuck to her for a long time began to walk all over the country - 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, impudent employees of theaters and film studios, etc. All this army 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 office was decorated with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, with a laconic inscription: "Catherine from Elizabeth." There was a legend that, after talking with Furtseva for half an hour, the queen turned to her with a request: “Catherine, don’t call me Your Highness, just call me Comrade 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 a lot, 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 life ... It's all over 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. Furtseva did not want to build it, but under pressure from her daughter, she turned to the Bolshoi Theater - there you could buy building materials for a penny. The deputy director of the Bolshoi Theater for construction helped her, and then a scandal erupted. She was reprimanded, almost 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 ...
On the night of October 24-25, 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."
Source of information: Anton Pototsky, "Cult of Personalities" magazine, September/October 1999.
