Zinovy Sverdlov

Zinovy Sverdlov was the younger brother of Yakov Sverdlov. Yakov and Zinovy were born into the same Jewish

family, the same parents. It might seem they shared one and the same hereditary predetermination, but, as if in mockery of that "predetermination," how differently they held their

values, and how differently their lives turned out. From the younger of the two — Yakov Sverdlov — grew one of

the leading figures of the areopagus of the October Revolution and one of Lenin's closest associates in building the Soviet state. He is a very well-known figure. But Zinovy… He is the one this account concerns. Zinovy Sverdlov was born in 1884 in Nizhny Novgorod, in the house of the engraver Movshev Sverdlov, next door to the house where Alexei Maximovich Gorky (Peshkov) was born and raised. The beginning of the hero's life is a difficult stretch for his biographer. Once a person reaches adulthood and begins to occupy a definite place in society, his life comes to be accompanied by documents and publications — a source of information far more reliable than the recollections of contemporaries. But before that there is none of this, only the murk of family and near-family myths and legends. Here is how Zinovy Peshkov appears in the memoirs of Stalin's secretary Bazhanov: "I make the acquaintance of the Sverdlov family. A very interesting family… The atmosphere in the house was revolutionary. But the eldest son, Zinovy, as the result of some complicated

inner turmoil, arrived at a deep inner crisis and broke both with revolutionary circles

and with his family, and with Judaism. His father cursed him with a solemn Jewish ritual curse. He was

adopted by Maxim Gorky, and Zinovy became Zinovy Peshkov." According to another version, matters unfolded somewhat differently. In this version, in 1902 Zinovy went to Arzamas to see Gorky, who was then serving internal exile there. In Gorky's house, where he was neighborly enough to be called Zina, he served as secretary. Around this time Gorky finished the play "The Lower Depths" and arranged a read-through with roles for Nemirovich-Danchenko, who had come specially from Moscow for the occasion. Zinovy was given the part of Vaska Pepel to read. The master liked his reading so much that he suggested Zinovy become an actor. But his faith stood as an obstacle to an acting career.

Gorky then proposed to adopt Zinovy by having him baptized. At his baptism he took the surname Peshkov and left Arzamas straight for Moscow, to master the craft of the stage under the supervision of Nemirovich-Danchenko. As for the paternal curse… the father is said to have regarded his son's act as betrayal. According to a third version, the baptism took place much earlier — in 1896 — and was linked to opportunities for education, which in tsarist Russia were extremely limited for persons of the Jewish faith.

The facts agree across all three versions, but their motives and connections differ somewhat. In old Sverdlov's family this subject was taboo; it was held that he had no eldest son. This baptism and curse are the darkest spot in the family's history. It is entirely possible that the parental curse played its psychological part — once he stepped onto the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre, Zinovy felt a monstrous and utterly inexplicable stiffness he had never known before. And this recurred again and again. In short, there was no more thought of an acting career. To this same period belongs his acquaintance with the Georgian princess Salomea Andronikova, with whom he fell in love and to whom he proposed to leave together for America. The princess laughed in his face. He did go to America all the same, took on any work there, however hard, and wrote in hope of success. But an American publisher, having paid the fee, threw the manuscript out the window, saying that out of respect for the father he would

not publish rubbish written by the son. Zinovy did go on to write and publish books in his life, and in their time they even enjoyed some success. Even so, America did not become the cradle of his literary talent; he returned to Europe and spent several years wandering, during which he not only earned his living but also met people and studied their languages. For a while he lived with Gorky on Capri, again as his secretary. The First World War found him in France, and without a moment's hesitation he enlisted in the Foreign Legion, of which the French themselves said: "The pride and glory of the French army — foreigners." On 9 May 1915, in the battle near Arras, private second class Zinovy Peshkov received a very severe wound.

The medics, judging him beyond hope, did not want to evacuate him from the battlefield, but a then-unknown French lieutenant named Charles de Gaulle insisted on his evacuation. Zinovy survived, losing his right arm in the process. Having shed blood for France, to which his whole remaining life would now be bound, he received French citizenship and the Croix de Guerre with palm. Lieutenant de Gaulle visited the wounded man in hospital, and a friendship grew between them. From this point on — quite possibly not without the intervention of his aristocratic friend — his dizzying diplomatic career begins. He took a large part in negotiations with the United States over their entry into the war on the side of the Entente. For his success in these negotiations, in 1917 he was awarded the Legion of Honour "for exceptional service to the allied countries."

During the years of the Russian Civil War, Peshkov served as part of the French diplomatic mission in Moscow. There are two versions of how the brothers Zinovy and Yakov met. According to one of them, Zinovy refused to shake

Yakov's hand. According to the other — it was Yakov who refused to shake his. During these years, which for Russia coincided with the years of revolution and civil war, Zinovy carried out diplomatic assignments for the French government not only in Moscow, but also in Romania, in China, in Japan, in Manchuria, in Siberia. He readily made the acquaintance of various people — Denikin, Wrangel, Kolchak, figures of the Chinese revolution — everyone whom the fate of a diplomat brought across his path. He would return to them throughout his life, he would meet Mao Zedong, and it was thanks to his diplomatic persistence that the day would come

when France, among the first countries, established diplomatic relations with Mao's government. In Moscow, Zinovy learned that Salomea Andronikova, who had come to see her gravely ill father, had been arrested and sentenced to be shot. His own attempts to save her did not succeed. Then a telegram went to Gorky in Italy: "Father, call Lenin, Trotsky, Karl Marx, the devil himself, only save

Salomea Andronikova from the Kharkov prison." Gorky called — and saved her. Zinovy returned to Paris with her, proposed, and learned that she had already been engaged for many years to a childhood friend. In this matter luck was not with him. But it was Salomea who later became the chief keeper of his memory, though the carelessness of a great-granddaughter did considerable damage to the manuscript of her memoirs (she was carrying the manuscript to a publisher on a motorcycle and lost a large

part of it). Twice more in his life Zinovy Peshkov returned to service in the Foreign Legion, not counting the loss of his arm as a serious obstacle to it, and steadily advancing through the ranks of a military career. This was in 1921-1926 and in 1937-1940. This last period also brought him a great sorrow: his daughter, having married a Soviet diplomat, went with her husband to the USSR. Both were arrested and both perished in the dungeons of Sverdlovsk. By then neither Maxim Gorky nor anyone else he might have called was still alive. Metropolitan Evlogy, who visited Morocco (where the Foreign Legion was then stationed) for the consecration of an Orthodox church in 1932, described his impressions thus: "Life is hard for the legionnaires.

They are fed decently, but they often suffer thirst, and painfully so. It can be so unbearable that the soldiers kill horses and drink their blood. Radio comes to the rescue: through it they send word that water must be delivered at once; a plane flies over and drops blocks of ice. It happens that the ice lands not among the legionnaires but falls into the enemy's camp. There was one case

when an officer could not bear such a "miss" and shot himself. For a march of 25-30 versts one is supposed to take

two flasks of water: one for oneself, the other for the common pot. God forbid anyone touch this "communal" flask — they would be beaten half to death. At the halt a fire is lit and the water brought for common use is poured into the pot. The long-awaited hour of food and rest arrives. But it's not to be! Suddenly, like devils, Arabs swoop down… They must be fought off. The skirmish lasts 10-15 minutes, but everything is lost: the pot is overturned… Exhausted, the men sit hungry, foul curses ring out in every language. The officer commands: "A glass of rum each!" At once the mood changes — merriment, laughter, songs… And yet death waits close by: around

the bivouac sentries are posted, five or six men with a junior officer; Arabs in their white burnooses creep up unnoticed like snakes and, it happens, cut down all the sentries with curved knives…" The end of Colonel Peshkov's service in the Foreign Legion coincided with the start of the Second World War. He refused to accept France's capitulation and to carry out the orders of his collaborationist commander. For this he was seized and sentenced by a military tribunal to be shot. While awaiting execution he managed to strike a bargain with the sentry and trade Gorky's gift — a gold watch engraved "To son Zina Peshkov, from father Maxim Gorky" — for a grenade. And before

the final moment of his life could arrive, clutching the grenade in his one remaining hand and pulling the pin with his teeth, he rushed at the commander and took him hostage. He ordered himself put into a car and driven to the airfield. Seizing an aircraft, still holding

the same grenade, Peshkov ordered the pilot to set a course for Gibraltar, seat of the Committee of National Salvation — the government of France in exile. There Peshkov met again with his old comrade-in-arms — Charles de Gaulle, to whom he also brought another old friend — Princess Vicki Obolensky, the future heroine of the French Resistance. By the end of the war Zinovy already held the rank of brigadier general — the highest military rank in France — an honor no foreigner had ever attained before him or since, and a great many decorations, of which he asked to have only his first soldier's medal and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour placed in his coffin. He served as France's ambassador first to China, then to Japan. There were rumors of his working for Soviet intelligence. It is unlikely these rest on any serious grounds. It is true, however,

that in the memoirs of A. S. Panyushkin, the Soviet resident in Beijing during the Second World War,

it is noted that important information on Japan's stance regarding the opening of a second front against the USSR was received from Z. Peshkov, ambassador of republican France in Chongqing. But no conclusion of "cooperation with Soviet intelligence" can be drawn from this — France's and the USSR's strategic interests coincided during those years. A hero of several wars, a full general of France, holder of fifty of its government decorations, one of the founders of the Resistance, a man of letters, a friend of Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon, who called his life "one of the strangest biographies of this senseless world," he died suddenly, without illness, in 1966 at the venerable age of 82.

Salomea Andronikova placed in the breast pocket of his general's uniform his favorite photograph of Maxim Gorky. His funeral at the Russian cemetery in the Paris suburb of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, where the flower of the Russian empire, the White movement, and Russian culture lie buried, turned into a grand demonstration of respect from France and the French. A French regiment escorted his coffin and rendered him the last military honors. General Peshkov's coffin was buried, as he had wished in life, at the foot of Princess Obolensky's grave. On the gravestone, in full accordance with his will, is written:

"Zinovy Peshkov, legionnaire." (c) http://newrezume.org/news/2015-05-02-8744