Stalin read the transcript of Khudyakov’s interrogation, and on December 29, he instructed the Politburo to dismiss Shakhurin from his post. Shakhurin was accused of looting for bringing in seven cars from Germany, and Stalin soon ordered Abakumov to arrest Shakhurin on charges of building defective planes. On April 4, 1946, Abakumov’s operatives arrested Shakhurin. The arrests of the other members of the so-called ‘Aviators Case,’ whose names Khudyakov was forced to mention under torture, continued through April (Appendix I, see http://www.smershbook.com). As a result, Aleksandr Repin (Chief Engineer of the Air Force and Novikov’s deputy); Nikolai Seleznyov (who during the war headed the Main Directorate of the Air Force in charge of ordering military equipment); Nikolai Shimanov (a member of the Air Force Military Council); and two administrators at the Personnel Directorate of the Central Committee, A. V. Budnikov (head of the department that managed the building of airplanes) and G. M. Grigoryan (head of the department that managed the manufacture of airplane motors), ended up in Lubyanka Prison.35
On April 11, Stalin sent a letter to the Politburo members and the newly appointed heads of the military aviation industry, accusing Shakhurin and the other arrestees of accepting, during the war, newly built military planes that had defects in exchange for being rewarded for having a high number of new planes in the air force. The letter ended with the statement: ‘Front pilots helped us to discover this affair. The guilty have already been arrested—Shakhurin, Repin, and Seleznyov, as well as a member of the Air Force Military Council, Shimanov. Testimonies of the arrested are attached. Secretary of the Central Committee J. Stalin.’36 In fact, there were no ‘front pilots’ except Vasilii Stalin, who complained to his father about Novikov, while the attached ‘testimonies’ had been falsified by Abakumov’s investigators and signed by the arrestees under torture. In support of Stalin’s accusations, a special commission headed by Nikolai Bulganin concluded that the air force had accepted and used newly built military planes that had defects.
On April 22, 1946, a group of SMERSH operatives arrived in Novikov’s apartment. This was the last arrest Abakumov made as head of SMERSH. Novikov’s daughter Svetlana recalled:
Abakumov himself showed up during the search [of the apartment]. Behaving like the owner of the apartment, he went through all rooms, inspecting the whole interior. Apparently, he wanted to take something. He came up to the radio-record player machine, the most advanced technological achievement of the time. He put a record on the player and listened to the music, then stepped back. Obviously, he did not like the machine: the sound was not good, and the machine did not look great. He did not look at us [Novikov’s family members]; we were useless to him. He strolled through the rooms one more time and left, clearly dissatisfied.37
It was common that while arresting a person and searching his room or apartment, security officers grabbed some valuables for themselves. After Novikov had been arrested, Vasilii Stalin took Novikov’s dacha (country house). Novikov and all the arrested generals were deprived of their military ranks and awards.
Abakumov put Aleksandr Leonov, head of the GUKR’s Investigation Department, and two of his ruthless deputies, Mikhail Likhachev and Vladimir Komarov, in charge of the investigation. Additionally, Aleksandr Chernov, head of SMERSH’s Secretariat, and his deputy Yakov Broverman, wrote falsified interrogation transcripts. Likhachev quickly reduced Novikov to ‘a state of physical and moral depression.’38 Another arrestee, Aleksandr Repin, later described Likhachev’s methods: ‘From the first day of my arrest I was deprived of sleep. I was interrogated day and night… After two or three days of this regime… I was reduced to a state where I would give any testimony to stop this torture.’39
Later Novikov told his daughter that he was interrogated during the nights until 5 a.m.40 Then he was forced to have a drink laced with a sleeping drug. A mere hour later, at 6 a.m., all prisoners, including Novikov, were forced to get up. This treatment continued from April 22–30 and from May 4–8.
But even during that hour between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. Novikov was not able to sleep normally, because a 500-watt light bulb was left constantly on in the cell. Prisoners were forbidden to turn over onto their bellies and hide from the light. After spending six years in prisons, for the rest of his life Novikov always covered his face with a handkerchief before going to sleep.
Soon the real target of the case was revealed: Marshal Zhukov. Abakumov personally forced Novikov to sign a false statement implicating Zhukov.41 A letter from Novikov to Beria, dated April 2, 1953, describes this document:
In a state of deep depression, and exhausted by interrogations that continued without interruption for sleep or rest, I signed a protocol [transcript] of my interrogation, concocted by investigator Likhachev, in which I admitted being guilty of everything I was accused of…
During the investigation Abakumov interrogated me several times. Investigator Likhachev was always present. Abakumov cursed me using unprintable swear words, abused my human dignity, threatened to shoot me, to arrest my family, and so forth…
In the presence of investigator Likhachev he said I had to sign a statement addressed to I. V. Stalin that was already written and typed…
Likhachev gave me pages to sign, one by one… The statement, as I remember it, said that I had conducted criminal actions while working in the Air Force… Then it presented various lies that implicated Malenkov, a Central Committee Politburo member, Marshal Zhukov, and Serov, deputy Interior Minister, as facts that I supposedly knew.42
The mention of Malenkov in the statement was no accident, as the case was part of Stalin’s complicated game to reduce Malenkov’s power because of his GKO coalition with Beria since 1944.43
The statement that Likhachev forced Novikov to sign also included a paragraph about Vasilii Stalin:
Zhukov… supposedly takes care of Vasilii Stalin like a father. However, the reality is different. Recently, before my arrest, I was in Zhukov’s office. I told him that, apparently, Vasilii Stalin would soon be appointed Inspector of the Air Force. I said I didn’t like this appointment and also said other bad things about Vasilii. As we were alone, Zhukov immediately responded with unprintable swearing and other disgusting remarks about Vasilii Stalin, much worse than anything I said.44
Later in Likhachev’s office, Novikov ‘was given some typed material… and forced to rewrite it by hand, which took between five and seven hours.’45 This way the concocted transcript would look like Novikov’s ‘personal testimony,’ and could be presented to Stalin.
Like Novikov, Shakhurin and Shimanov were also reduced to ‘a state of physical and moral depression.’ Shimanov’s real ‘guilt’ may have been his participation in the Air Force Military Council meeting that dismissed Vasilii Stalin in May 1943. Abakumov forced Shakhurin and Shimanov to sign false statements addressed to Stalin. Stalin ordered copies of all statements and interrogation transcripts to be sent to every Politburo member. Thus a trap for Zhukov was set up.
On March 1, 1946, the Council of Commissars approved Vasilii Stalin’s promotion to Major General. Vyacheslav Molotov personally called Vasilii during the night to congratulate him. However, Vasilii was so drunk that at first he could not understand the news.
The same month Stalin summoned Zhukov to Moscow, where he was appointed commander in chief of the Ground Troops, as well as deputy Defense Minister. Army General Vasilii Sokolovsky, his deputy in Germany, succeeded Zhukov as Commander of GSOVG. Pavel Zelenin continued as head of the Counterintelligence Directorate of GSOVG.