The Northernmost Vineyard: A Mysterious Comintern Intelligence School Deep in Bashkiria

Even minus 30 degrees Celsius is quite tolerable here. the snow crunches invigoratingly, the lungs are filled with crystal clear air. this is because we are talking about an amazing place described by the formula “55/55” - the point where 55 degrees north latitude intersects 55 degrees east longitude. this place is deep in eurasia and, accordingly, has the classic continental climate. the air is dry; there is no wind. that is why it is easy to breathe here in winter, even during the coldest weather. In summer, on the contrary, the air is so sultry that the Bashkir village of Kushnarenkovo (where our story unfolds) boasts one of the northernmost vineyards on our planet.

According to old-timers, Georgy Dimitrov – the general Secretary of the Comintern, the future leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and a person of considerable importance in the world history – loved to wan- der around this vineyard, evidently reminded of his native southern lands. He had company: Finnish Communist leader Otto Kuusinen, future german Democratic Republic President Wilhelm Pieck and Chairman of the GDR State Council Walter Ulbricht, future co-founder of the Second Austrian Republic Johann koplenig and others.

What else, besides going for strolls, were they all doing in such a faraway place? In the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War and the 100th anniversary of the Foreign Division of the Cheka (Inostrannyi otdel VChk) – the forerunner of the Foreign

Intelligence Service (Sluzhba vneshney razvedki) – this article is an attempt to bring together the known fragments of information about the remarkable educational institution located in Kushnarenkovo during the war years – the Comintern military – political and intelligence-diversionary school, whose graduates were recruited both by the Comintern itself and by the Soviet intelligence services.

Teachers

A Book, published in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet times, put forward the following version: Comintern members, evacuated to Kushnarenkovo, “worked, studied, wrote books, prepared for the construction of a new life in their countries.”1 In this passage, let us focus on the word “studied” (especially since, even back in Soviet times, the book’s author, Bashkir researcher Yu. Uzikov, was allowed to mention, at least in passing, the fact that the course included military training).

the above top leaders of the Comintern were lecturers for the Comintern Specialized School, quartered on the premises of the local agricultural technical school. Certain sections of the Specialized School (Bulgarian, Italian, Spanish, German, etc.2) had some very notable teachers.

These included Paul Wendel (the post-war Minister of Public education of the gDR), Jacub Berman (future Deputy Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Poland), Rudolf Dölling (future ambassador of the GDR to the USSR), and Franz Honner (Minister of Internal Affairs of Austria after the war).

Let us proceed to identifying a number of graduates of this Comintern school. they are quite a diverse group.

Graduates

On the one hand, we are talking about people who played a notable role in the world history in the Cold War era, such as east German head of intelligence Markus Wolf3 and his 1971-1974 representative in Cuba Herbert Hentschke.4 Agustín gómez, the two-time USSR soccer Cup winner, was also a graduate. He led a parallel life as a “cladestine” member of the Spanish Communist Party, which is evident not only from the revealing publications in the media,5 but also from his personal file, examined by the author in the Comintern archives.6 Other graduates included Francine Fromont (a French woman, who later had a college and a street in Paris named after her, and for a good reason); future Deputy of the national Assembly of Czechoslovakia Rudolf Vetiška, and Wolfgang Leonhard – a future prominent anti-Soviet dissident, but, back then, still a faithful Leninist.

The latter, after his departure from the Socialist Bloc and no longer constrained by censors, left perhaps the most extensive memoirs about his studies in Kushnarenkovo. Thus, we know that the Comintern Specialized School was headed by Ruben Avramov Levi (“Mikhailov”), who later became the Minister of Culture of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. He had the following con- versation with Leonhard:

- As you know, this is the Comintern school. We will train personnel for differ- ent countries. Are you ready to work in germany?
- In germany? - All this was somewhat new to me, and I did not know what he meant. underground work? Work among german prisoners of war? Political work after the defeat of nazi germany?7

Indeed, the school leadership was also looking ahead into the post- war future. However, they already played historically significant roles during the wartime.

For example, Vetiška (the aforementioned Czechoslovak parliamentarian) was parachuted into his country from a Soviet plane in the winter of 1943, while Fromont was more than the first woman-paratrooper of the French Resistance.

As we have already told on the pages of International Affairs, her landing took place in the context of the Ice Axe scheme, which was carried out not by the Comintern, but by the NKVD Military Intelligence Agency, with the help of the British sabotage and diversion service of the Special operations executive.8

The Stamps

It is Considered good form for professional historians to refer to an archival document. the material, quoted below, does not fit the usual rules. Can something, for which we cannot provide a citation in the “col- lection name, inventory number, file such and such” format, be considered an archival document?

On the other hand, we are talking about papers that have been properly yellowed by time. these materials, absolutely unknown to either domestic or world historiography, can be divided into two categories.

First, we have the memoirs of an anonymous Czechoslovak communist, a graduate of the Comintern Specialized School (given to the author by Guzel Khamitova, the director of the Kushnarenkovo Museum of History and Local Lore). We will return to them later.

Next, there are the books that the Comintern members, left for the library of the local agricultural technical school when leaving Kushnarenkovo in 1943 (the school is now a college; they were shown to me there by museum curator A.A. Volkova). the books bear a stamp “MOPR Resort no. 1.” MOPR (Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya pomoshchi bortsam revolutsii) stands for the International organization for Aid to the Fighters of the Revolution, a communist humanitarian organization created by the Comintern as a kind of communist analogue of the Red Cross – but what is the “Resort?!”

The River

The Mansion on the mountain, where the Comintern members were then housed, is the former country estate of the Topornin family and a dacha of tea merchant Gribushin, where Vladimir Lenin's aunt had served as a governess.9

Unfortunately, after the fire that happened here in the tumultuous nineties, only the walls remained from the former beauty. Donning a mandatory construction helmet and checking every second for the remnants of burned down beams that are apt to fall on one’s head, it is possible to look inside and see the staircase descending from the first floor to the basement. According to the long-time residents of the area, the basement used to house a shooting gallery. It can be said with confidence that no one could hear the shots – the solid brickwork stifled any sounds, ensuring the secrecy of the training process.

Books with the stamp of MOPR left by Comintern members in Kushnarenkovo.

From the top of the neighboring Devichya (Maiden) Mountain, it becomes evident just how concealed the educational institution located here was even in a literal visual sense. the memoirs of Markus Wolf tell us, “In the summer of 1942, we met far from Moscow, at the former Kushnarenkovo estate, picturesquely located [...] on the banks of the Belaya River, about sixty kilometers from Ufa, the capital of Bashkiria. one could only get there by the boat.”10 At the same time, the estate was not visible from the river. they had things to conceal and the means to do it.

Ciphers

The memoirs of M. Wolf were published after the unification of Germany, and the memoirs of V. Leonhard also reached the Russian read- er only in the new historical era. on the other hand, the name of another Kushnarenkovo graduate, “Soviet-Spaniard” soccer player Agustín Gómez was famous throughout the Soviet Union, and the fact that he went to the school was declassified during the Brezhnev years in his biography penned by Gennady Semar.

A document of fundamental importance in Gómez’ personal file in the Comintern archives is a pass issued by a police department of the Uzbek SSR. Gómez was evacuated there from Moscow at the beginning of the great Patriotic War. the travel pass is through Kuibyshev to Ufa. the purpose of the trip is indicated as “requested by Institute no. 301.”11

According to the seminal work the organizational Structure of the Comintern by G. Adibekov, E. Shakhnazarova and K. Shirinya, the institution, under the moniker “Institute no. 301,” first appears in Dimitrov's letter to V. Molotov, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, dated December 13, 1938. the letter conveyed that, going forward, the Comintern’s Communication Service will carry out all the supply and construction work under the name “Institute no. 301.”12 It might be worth clarifying that “the Communication Service” of the Comintern consisted of its couriers and intelligence service.

Let us now turn to the above-mentioned memoirs of an anonymous, but, judging by the context, absolutely real communist from Czechoslovakia.

The First “Clue”

The workers at the [Ufa] station showed us the direction. [...] We have to go to the very end, where a large building stands, marked as Institute no. 307 [that’s the number used in the text, but, as we shall see later, it is the same institution]. It wasn’t clear to us what it was. At first glance, it seemed to resemble a university. A comrade from the personnel department came, decorated with the “For Courage” medal, which made a great impression on me. [...] He asked if we had any idea where we were. We answered that we were in some kind of a Party school. then he informed us that we were in the Comintern Committee, which had been evacuated from Moscow. [...] We were helped by the fact that Comrade Gottwald was waiting for us. [...] then [...] we talked for a long time with Comrade Václav Kopecký.13

Let us turn again to the organizational Structure of the Comintern. According to this book, in 1942, the Comintern Communication Service included: “a) secretaries of the executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) (D. Ibárruri, K. gottwald, P. Togliatti); b) the secretariat; c) representatives of the Communist Parties (Italy – V. Bianco, Austria – J. Koplenig, Czechoslovakia – V. Kopecký).”14

So, both Gottwald and Kopecký, mentioned by the Czechoslovak communist (even if he made an error regarding the Institute’s number), appear on this list along with D. Ibárruri.

My first conclusion is that people like Gómez and an unnamed Czech were trained for as intelligence operatives. this statement is all the more justified, given that with the beginning of the war, the Communications Service was reorganized. Instead of permanent couriers, they began to use one-time couriers from among the persons selected for this purpose by the Communist Parties. It all fits together.

However, it is appropriate to remind that the memoirs of the Czechoslovak communist, which served as our “clue,” were found in the present Republic of Bashkortostan, and not in Ufa or Buzuluk (where the Czechoslovak battalion, which later became the foundation of the future Czechoslovak Corps, was formed), but in the archives of the former Kushnarenkovsky District Communist Party Committee.

The Second “Clue”

Let us give an answer to the riddle of the MOPR stamp found on the books left over from the Comintern Specialized School. the reason for this stamp is pretty obvious. V. Leonhard clearly indicates that, after his arrival in ufa, he received the referral to Kushnarenkovo from the MOPR. It is worth noting that the issue of providing financial assistance to the wife of Herman Kramer, another established Soviet intelligence officer and a participant of the Anglo-Soviet Ice Axe project, was resolved through the Bashkir regional committee of the MOPR.15

So, in this respect, everything fits together as well.

“The Roots”

Interestingly, the Specialized School in Kushnarenkovo is sometimes understood by contemporary Western historiography not as a newly created educational institution, but as the International Lenin School (Meshdunarodnaya leninskaya shkola) evacuated to Bashkiria. For example, this is the view espoused by Spanish researcher J. Rueda Laffond16 and Dublin City university Professor H. Sheehan.17 However, how should we then account for the fact that, according to the generally accepted version, the International Lenin School existed only in 1926- 1938?!

Initially, the idea to establish a school – the “top of the pyramid” of the international Marxist-Leninist education (or, more precisely, the “Bolshevization” of other Communist parties) – was approved by the 5th Congress of the Comintern (July-August 1924). According to the plan, the invitation to the International Lenin School was supposed to constitute a key step in one’s future party career.18 It was decided that the leading party officials of the German, English, American, Czechoslovak, Italian, French and other sections would teach there. the school grew rapidly. For example, British and Irish students initially studied with their colleagues from the united States and Canada in Sector “D,” but, in 1933, a separate Sector “e” was created for students from Britain, Ireland, Australia, and new Zealand.19 After 1931, about a hundred Latin Americans arrived in Moscow20 and so on.

Prominent figures of All-union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Comintern, such as Nikolai Bukharin and Bela Kun, became the first rectors of the International Lenin School. In general, this institution was very similar to the one created later in Kushnarenkovo (although, in Kushnarenkovo, the principle of bringing in truly iconic figures of the communist movement as teachers applied to the next “crop,” after Bukharin and Kuhn had already perished during the purges).

There are different views on how decisive studying at the International Lenin School was for furthering one’s party career. A typical example is the academic, but rather stormy, discussion about the number of School’s graduates in the governing bodies of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which recently took place among British and Irish researchers. Some believe that there were only a few such graduates, others talk about the mass nature of this phenomenon.21 As for the Latin American graduates of the International Lenin School, St. Petersburg researchers V. Kheifets and L. Kheifets have pointed out that very few of them have ever attained leadership roles in their parties.

Nevertheless, the selection process for the International Lenin School was rigorous. In order to qualify, a potential attendee had to be an activist with a party experience of at least a year, who demonstrated his commitment by organizing strikes or demonstrations, or, for example, labor union work. Students who had no working-class background had to take part in the party's struggle against opportunism. It has to be noted that meeting the criteria of “proletarian descent” was problematic. For example, among Latin Americans, proletariat comprised just over 25% of the students. the British students were said to have a “penchant for individualism, labor aristocracy and bourgeois culture,”22 and the views, with which they arrived from the British Isles, were characterized as “non- Marxist.”23 As far as we can tell, their intellectual baggage was deemed (in modern terms) in need of a “transfer to a cleaned medium.”

The information about the International Lenin School’s curriculum is rather contradictory. In general, the students studied philosophy, political economy, and history, but the range of topics was endless. For comparison, a student from Czechoslovakia, recalling his studies in Kushnarenkovo, wrote, “the topics covered the history of individual states, the international labor movement, military strategy and tactics, modern military technology, clandestine work, philosophy, psychology, history, military affairs, etc.”24

More can be said on the subject of similarities between the International Lenin School and the Specialized School in Kushnarenkovo. Both programs included sports, to the extent that, of course, differed from ordinary physical education. Researcher Efim Khoviv from the Urals region, who prepared the most detailed biography of Albert Hoessler, a Red orchestra radio operator and an International Lenin School graduate, established that Hoessler participated in athletics, handball, football, volleyball, and cross-country skiing. Similarly, in Kushnarenkovo, the students were awakened in the morning by a shrill bell, and proceeded to physical exercises, gymnastics, exercises on the horizontal bar, running, and jumping.

According to V. Kheifets and L. Kheifets, the last set of students to enter the International Lenin School, for instance, from the legal Communist Parties of Latin America, was selected in 1936. Professor Sheehan from Ireland believes that the school still continued its work in later years, but only with “illegals” from Latin American and other communist parties.

It is significant, however, that, once the war began, the Kushnarenkovo School enrolled no students from either the united States or from Latin America (considered the “backyard” of the U.S.). there also was nobody from Britain or its empire. that is, Moscow did not plan anything against its allies (at least not through this school).

Other Specialized Schools?

It is known from other sources that “the liquidation of Specialized Schools began in the summer of 1936, and, by 1938, all educational institutions of the Comintern, including those who trained specialists for underground work, were closed.”25 on the other hand, on the last day of August 1940, Dimitrov approached the Central Committee Secretariat of the All-union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) with the idea of merging School no. 15 (which, as it turns out, still included a number of Spanish students), and the courses where, as it turns out, Chinese comrades were also continuing their studies. Dimitrov’s proposal seems to imply a school for “party political training.”26 However, who do we find on the list of candidates for admission? We see Czechoslovak paratrooper Deputy R. Vetiška, who later “surfaced” in the same old Kushnarenkovo. the list also included, for example, the following Austrians: “Konrad” (a future participant in the Anglo-Soviet Ice Axe scheme) and Franz Löschl27 (a future member of the Whiskey party in the same intelligence scheme).

Everything changed with the beginning of the great Patriotic War.

The authors of the official History of Russian Foreign Intelligence write:

In dacha villages near Moscow, military intelligence schools were created, where groups of the Comintern members underwent training before being dropped behind the enemy lines. In ordinary, unremarkable village huts [...] Czechs, Poles, Austrians, Germans had the opportunity – of course, separately from each other in order to maintain secrecy – to speak their native language and to read their literature.28

It was in the Moscow Region that the Specialized Comintern School, which later moved to Kushnarenkovo, was originally placed. Researcher V. Polosin from Bashkortostan believes that, in October 1941, the school in Bashkiria was not created from scratch, but rather the previously existing structure was evacuated to Kushnarenkovo.

The Fundamentals

Prior to physical exercises, the morning in Kushnarenkovo began with the group leaders reporting “briefly, almost in a military manner, about the personnel,” and everyone stood at attention. Leonhard noted,

We had to learn in the shortest time possible [...] handling of hand grenades and mortar launchers, dismantling and assembling revolvers, rifles, light and heavy machine guns with the utmost speed. [...] to prepare for future underground work, we were taught how to handle [...] explosives and [...] and taught the “conspiratorial technique,” so that we could carry out our subversive activities behind the enemy lines for as long as possible and not be exposed.29

As the author was told in the Kushnarenkovo museum, the school also taught the radio techniques and radio propaganda, the organization of the partisan movement, and, as the most exotic subject, even jiu-jitsu. the memoirs of a Czechoslovak communist say, “I had to study, run, exercise, shoot, box, and dance. A special jazz orchestra played at the dances.”30

We will return to dancing a bit later, but, for now, let us add a few more descriptive touches on the subject of the ideology. the Kushnarenkovo School allowed a very broad and, to some extent, even free-thinking, if not liberal, view of the dogmas that could have previously seemed untouchable. M. Wolf recalled, “We learned from competent persons some of the changeable history of the labor movement and the Comintern, hitherto unknown to us. the analysis of the reasons for Hitler's coming to power and the Communists' own mistakes, undertaken by the 7th Congress of the Comintern, gave us a lot of instructive and memorable lessons for the future.”31

Even V. Leonhard, who later turned against the Soviet regime, nevertheless admitted that the atmosphere in Kushnarenkovo was different from ordinary Soviet educational institutions. For example, he testified regarding the Bulgarian head of a school, “Mikhailov [...] did not give the impression of a major official or a school principal. He had no ready-made questions and answers.”32 Wolf's friend Helmut added, “I got the impression that the entire program of training, discussions of individual problems, and independent study assignments of the sources (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, August Bebel, Franz Mehring and others) [...] stimulated reflection and making one’s own conclusions to facilitate future work and decision-making in certain situations.”33

As far as we understand, the school also addressed problems that could be characterized as moral and psychological. For example, according to Wolf, “a question was posed at one of the seminars, of how an undercover agent, introduced into the Wehrmacht, should act if he was included in a firing squad. A hard question of conscience.”34

Conspiring and Deciphering

The departure of two Comintern convoys from the Kazansky Railway Station in Moscow to the capital of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic took place in October 1941. Most often, in connection with the third International, Bashkiria is remembered in academic publications and in the media because Ufa was the place, from which the Comintern radio station was broadcasting in 18 languages. By the way, I saw that the entrance to the Ufa post office still contains a well that opens the way to the collector, along which ran a cable connecting the post office (where the radio studio was located) to the area outside the city (where a radio field was quickly set up).

However, g. Dimitrov arrived in Ufa from Kuibyshev only on December 20, and the apparatus of the executive Committee of the Communist International in Ufa was headed by P. Togliatti. on October 23, 1941, Dimitrov wrote to him, “take measures from the very beginning so that our institution appears to exist in Ufa for the purpose of organizing radio broadcasting, and not as an ECCI. It is inappropriate to dis- close the move of our institution from Moscow to Ufa.”35

In theory, the arrival to Kushnarenkovo should have been shrouded in even greater secrecy. However, it is probably obvious to everyone that keeping a secret in such a small place was simply impossible. At first, it was announced that the children daycare center of the Caoutchouc (natural rubber) Research Institute, evacuated to kushnarenkovo, had been liquidated due to the parents moving to other districts. Immediately after- ward, 52 Comintern staff members and their families were housed in Kushnarenkovo itself, and additional 178 staff members and their families were moved into the houses of the collective farmers of the Izmurzinsky Village Council in the Kushnarenkovsky District “for communal living.”36

The Comintern members arrived in Kushnarenkovo on the night of October 26, 1941 on several trucks. Alexander Yemelyanovich Saliy, the Deputy Chairman of the District Council executive Committee, was meeting and assigning housing to everyone. the local employees of the technical school were given a vague explanation that the newcomers were the students of the technical School no. 1 from Moscow (although the village already had a technical school with this number).

Of course, Kushnarenkovo locals soon understood who their lodgers were. the Czechoslovak communist writes in his memoirs, “When it got warmer, we often discussed when the ice drift would start. [...] It all happened one night. the watchman announced an emergency. everyone ran out into the yard and watched cautiously with admiration. A great noise of breaking ice was coming from the river. [...] People went to the stormy river with lamps, hooks, axes, and dynamite.”37 naturally, they met the locals. the locals, of course, noticed the accent, in case they hadn’t already understood what was going on.

Paul Wendel recalled how the Comintern members helped the local collective farm “Bolshevik” with harvesting. Village resident E.A. Muromtsev proudly told the story how he, as a 14-year-old teenager, was given a high-responsibility task to carry drinking water in a barrel to a threshing floor where the foreigners worked.

Moreover, kushnarenkovo had an airfield, where a branch of the Ufa parachute and gliding club operated. Future spies used it for training in landing of the airborne troops. In addition, leaders of the international communist movement, such as “la Pasionaria” Ibárruri, whom the Soviet people instantly recognized, were landing on the same airfield.

The Spaniards

Ibárruri flew to Kushnarenkovo to visit not only her fellow party members, but also her family. V. Leonhard recalled that on the third day of his stay at the Comintern School, he saw a Spanish girl of exceptional beauty, whose face seemed familiar to him. It seemed that she knew him too. It was Amaya Ibárruri, a daughter of Dolores Ibárruri. Here her name was Maya Ruiz. once again, the cover was not very well thought out, since Ruiz was the name of Ibárruri's husband.

The Spaniards constituted the most numerous “community” of 30-40 people in the Specialized Comintern School. Who else, besides Amaya Ruiz Ibárruri and Agustín Gómez, can we identify?

We can learn from art books that, at that time, Kushnarenkovo was a home for Alberto Sanchez, a Spanish refugee artist. the library card in one of the books left behind by the Comintern members carries the name Echevarria. this name might indicate a socialist mechanic by the name of Jose A. Echevarria, who came to the USSR in 1935, or Catalina Echevarria Goldiano, a schoolteacher. Most likely, however, the person in question is Agapito Echevarria, a professional military man. other Spanish autographs on the library cards included “Espejo” and “Navarro.” In the latter case, it is likely that the person in question was Roberto Ugarte, who got the pseudonym “Rafael Navarro” back in the 1930s. Another known Spanish alumnus of Kushnarenkovo was Manuel Liaz Vela (1924-1997).

These were the people, whom the Czechoslovak communist described as follows: “When the Spanish comrades showed the bullfight, they looked to me like children at play. nobody saw in them the captains, colonels and generals from the Civil War, who, until recently, were defending Madrid.”38

Those born at that time in Kushnarenkovo include Amaya Lacasa, who later translated The Master and Margarita into Spanish.

However, as we can see, so far our list of identified names contains only a few entries, although it is possible that about a dozen of Spanish and South American candidates for enrollment in the School, mentioned by Dimitrov in his letter to the Central Committee Secretariat of All- union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of July 31, 1940, also moved to Kushnarenkovo.39

The Poles

The history of the restoration of the Polish Communist Party, unambiguously disbanded by the Comintern decision in 1938, is also associated with Kushnarenkovo.

When, in the summer of 1941, a group to rebuild the party, led by Marceli Nowotko and Paweł Finder, was created in Moscow, a landing directly to the Rzeczpospolita was being prepared in Kushnarenkovo. the aforementioned A.E. Saliy said that two or three quiet young men in camouflage coats would get into a sleigh; they had very serious, focused faces.

Specifically, Kushnarenkovo graduate Jakub Aleksandrowicz landed with a walkie-talkie near the city of Biala Podlaska on January 5, 1942. He managed to create an underground intelligence organization in the Lublin and Podlasie areas, which transmitted information about the com- position and movement of German units and weapons as well as obtained valuable information about the state of the Axis troops in Italy and France, the state of affairs in Germany and the development of the latest air defense systems. Later, he led a partisan detachment that was part of the Armia Ludowa formed by the Polish Workers' Party. Armia Ludowa was engaged in attacks against the railways and the institutions of the German administration and in freeing prisoners. Jakub Aleksandrowicz died in December 1943 during a clash with an Armia Krajowa group.

Kushnarenkovo's graduate Antoni Alster, the future Minister of Public Security in the People's Republic of Poland, was dispatched as an interpreter to the guerillas.

The Germans

There were three groups whose schooling was in German: the group of Germans proper, the Sudetenland group, and the Austrian group. the existence of the latter group indicates that long before the question of the restoration of independent Austria was first raised at the “Big Three” meeting in Tehran, the USSR proceeded from the assumption that this was the way to go.

However, let us discuss the German group separately. As for its grad- uates, Sepp (Josef) and Rudi Güpner were among a group of five sent through Poland in 1943. They were surrounded, and three agents, including the Güpners, were killed.

In April 1943, another graduate of the Specialized School was trans- ported to germany through Poland. Johann Fridrikhovich Weingart (a.k.a. Jozef Johannovich Manes or Sepl) was an employee of the Fourth Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters, i.e. of the Soviet military intelligence). His task was to establish contact with the Red orchestra. Sepl operated in Berlin. It was discovered that a radio game was being played by the Abwehr from his radio station. the Center realized this and stopped contact.

In October 1943, Theodor Winter and Katja (Käthe) Niederkirchner were parachuted into Germany, and Heinrich Könen was dropped in November. However, H. Könen was arrested at Ilse Stoebe's apartment (where the gestapo set up an ambush after the arrest of this legendary spy, known as “Alta”). K. Niederkirchner fell into the hands of the gestapo and was executed in the Ravensbrück concentration camp in September 1944, and t. Winter was detained and executed by the gestapo in the summer of 1944.

In August 1944, another group of German anti-fascists parachuted into Poland; among them were the Kushnarenkovo graduates Rudolf Giptner and Josef Giffer. they operated in the Radomsko-Lublinets area. In November 1944, the Nazis tracked down the spy radio station in the Pavunkov area. Giffer and Giptner refused to surrender and fought to the last bullet. Both were captured. R. Giptner was executed on November 28, 1944, and J. Giffer, in 1945.

Family Ties

It is impossible to overlook the fact that the Comintern leaders were ready to sacrifice even their relatives.

take D. Ibárruri's children. Here is what an anonymous Czechoslovak student recalled, “the first to dance were young beautiful Spanish women, including Maya, the daughter of Dolores Ibárruri. She was thin, with black hair, blue eyes and skin as white as snow. She was then 18 years old and the most intelligent and temperamental among the rest. She was bored sometimes. In those moments, she remembered her brother, who had recently died as a Red Army volunteer at the front.”40 this was true not only for the Spaniards. Tito's son was also in Kushnarenkovo. the aforementioned t. Winter was W. Pieck's son-in-law; g. Könen was the nephew of B. Könen, the deputy head of the German Section of the Specialized School.

However, these losses also led to certain conclusions. According to M. Wolf, the fate of the deceased graduates “saved our lives to some extent. We understood that there was no point in sending our graduates directly deep behind the enemy lines to Germany.”41 As a result, most of the students were focused on working with prisoners of war and on the radio. they went to their countries when the war was already over.

For example, P. Wendel's wife, a Specialized School graduate Helen Berg (1906-2006), also known as “Lene Neckar” and “Lene Ring,” eventually joined the Central Committee of the east German Communist Party. In 1958-1971, she was the GDR representative in the Prague-based Problems of Peace and Socialism magazine, and, after the unification of Germany, was a member of the Council of elders of the newly formed Party of Democratic Socialism.

The End of Operation Kushnarenkovo?

The specialized school in Kushnarenkovo was disbanded following the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943 (although in personal conversations with the author, the museum personnel in Kushnarenkovo expressed the opinion that the school had been relocated to the Kiev area).

What else should be borne in mind? In addition to the Austrian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Romanian, and Sudeten sections, Kushnarenkovo also had a separate korean section (which was hidden even from the insiders, since Korea was part of Japan, and Tokyo and Moscow maintained neutrality until 1945).

In other words, there is still a lot that remains to be added to the his- tory of the Specialized School in Kushnarenkovo.

___________________
NOTES

1 Uzikov Yu.A. Gvardeitsy planety. Kominternovtsy v Bashkirii, ufa: Bashkirskoye knizhnoye Izdatel'stvo, 1978, p. 82.

2 Leonhard, Wolfgang. Revolyutsiya Otvergaet Svoikh Detey, London: overseas Publications Interchange Ltd, 1984 // https://royallib.com/book/Leonhard_volfgang/ revolyutsiya_otvergaet_svoih_detey.html (accessed on August 24, 2019); Mardanov M.kh. “komintern v Bashkirii v gody vtoroy mirovoy voyny i organizatsiya dvizheniya Soprotivleniya,” Rol' dvizheniya Soprotivleniya v osvobozhdenii Yevropy ot natsizma: Materialy “kruglogo stola,” posvyashchonnogo 100-letiyu Kominterna i 80-letiyu soz- daniya natsional'no-osvoboditel'nogo antifashistskogo dvizheniya / M.kh. Mardanov, V.V. Latypova, R.S. Bakayev. eds. ufa: Inesh, 2018, p. 22.

3 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495, Inventory no. 221, File no. 2160, Sheet no. 31.

4 Adams, Jefferson. Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence, https://epdf.pub/his- torical-dictionary-of-german-intelligence-historical-dictionaries-of-intellig.html (accessed on August 15, 2019).

5 Petrov Yu. “‘krasnaya Ploshchad' Agustina gomesa,” Futbol. 1995. No48; Chaush'yan S. “Bask s sovetskoy dushoy. Agustin gomes – pervyi naturalizovannyi igrok SSSR,” Argumenty i fakty. 11. 02.2016; kostyukov n. “Viva, Stalin!” On sbezhal iz Ispanii, popal v “Torpedo” i stal sovetskim shpionom, https://lenta.ru/articles/2018/08/15/ussr_spain/ (accessed on July 17, 2019); Gómez el futbolista vasco de la URSS. october 14, 2015 // http://euskalherriasozialista.blogspot.com/2015/10/gomez-el-futbolista-vasco-de-la- urss.html (accessed on July 24, 2019); Moñino L.J. De “niños de la guerra a estrellas de la uRSS Ruperto Sagasti y Agustín gómez triunfaron en el fútbol soviético tras su exilio durante la guerra Civil. un amigo suyo relata su vida en Moscú,” El País. June 28, 2018.

6 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495, Inventory no. 221, File no. 2160, Sheet no. 31.

7 Leonhard, Wolfgang. Revolyutsiya otvergaet svoikh detey...

8 See: Brilev S., O‘ Konnor B. “ ‘nelegaly’ naoborot. Mnogolikaya frantsuzhenka” Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn'. 2018. no. 6.

9 Brilev S. An Amazing Discovery About the Comintern. episode in the Vesti v Subbotu show on Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 tV Channels, February 17, 2019, https://www.vesti.ru/videos/show/vid/788760

10 Wolf, Markus, “Druzya ne umirayut,” https://bookscafe.net/book/volf_markus- druzya_ne_umirayut-150013.html (accessed on August 14, 2019).

11 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495. Inventory no. 221, File no. 2160, Sheet no. 31.

12 Adibekov g.M., Shakhnazarova e.n., Shirinya k.k. Organizatsionnaya struktura Kominterna. 1919-1943. M., 1997, pp. 245-246.

13 Correspondence with g. khamitova, director of Municipal budget institution of culture “kushnarenkovo Museum of History and Local Lore”

14 Adibekov g.M., Shakhnazarova e.n., Shirinya k.k. Organizatsionnaya struktura Kominterna...

15 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495, Inventory no. 205, File no 6933, Sheet no 8.

16 Rueda, Laffond J.C. “Fábricas de comunistas: escuelas de partido y estrategias orgáni- cas en los años treinta,” Historia y Política. No40. 2018, pp. 269, 288.

17 Sheehan, Helena. The International Lenin School https://web.archive.org/web/ 20160323000328/ http://www.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/hms13ils.pdf (accessed on August 19, 2019).

18 Studer, Brigitte. The Transnational World of the Cominternians, https://doi.org/10.1057 /9781137510297 / (accessed on August 19, 2019).

19 Campbell, Alan; McIlroy, John; McLoughlin, Barry; Halstead, John. The International Lenin School: A Response to Cohen and Morgan, https://www.researchgate.net/publica- tion/31011103_the_International_Lenin_School_A_Response_to_Cohen_and_Morgan (accessed on August 18, 2019).

20 Kheifets V.L., Kheifets L.S. Komintern i Latinskaya Amerika. Lyudi, struktury, resheniya. Moscow: Politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2019, p. 665.

21 Murphy J.T. “the First Year of the Lenin School,” Communist International. Vol. 4. no. 14. (Sept. 20, 1927), p. 267.

22 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 531, Inventory no. 1, File no. 171, Sheet no. 27.

23 Ibid.

24 Correspondence with g. khamitova...

25 Linder I.B., Churkin S.A. Krasnaya pautina. Tayny razvedki Kominterna. 1919-1943. Moscow: RIPoL klassik, 2005, p. 619.

26 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495, Inventory no. 73, File no. 84. Sheets no. 1-2.

27 Ibid.

28 “Komintern i razvedka” Istoriya rossiyskoy vneshney razvedki: V chetyrekh tomakh. Vol. IV. 1941-1945. Ocherki. Moscow, 2014, p 320.

29 Wolf, Markus. Igra na chuzhom pole. 30 let vo glave razvedki, https://bookscafe.net/ A Comintern Intelligence School in Bashkiria 227 book/volf_markus-igra_na_chuzhom_pole_30_let_vo_glave_razvedki-216758.html (accessed on August 14, 2019).

30 Correspondence with g. khamitova...

31 Wolf, Markus. “Druzya ne umirayut”...

32 Leonhard, Wolfgang, Revolyutsiya otvergaet svoikh detey...

33 Wolf, Markus, “Druzya ne umirayut”...

34 Ibid.

35 Adibekov g.M., Shakhnazarova e.n., Shirinya k.k. Organizatsionnaya struktura Kominterna...

36 Ibid.

37 Correspondence with g. khamitova...

38 Ibid.

39 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RgASPI). Fund no. 495. Inventory no. 73. File no. 84. Sheets no. 22-24.

40 Correspondence with g. khamitova...

41 Interview of M. Wolf to Bashkortostan public tV and Radio Company in 2004 and the Respublika Bashkortostan newspaper on July 29, 2004