In February of this year, an article by the young Moscow historian Yaroslav Leontyev appeared in the Italian newspaper Corriere della sera, dedicated to an episode in the history of the communist movement in Italy and its connections with the Comintern and Moscow. The title of the article smacked of a mothball scandal: “Gramsci’s wife (we are talking about the founder and leader of the Italian Communist Party) was an agent of the Soviet secret services.”

Yaroslav Leontyev:

Formally, she was listed as a translator of the Central Department of the OGPU apparatus. What kind of reconnaissance missions she carried out here, as before, remains a mystery...

Vladimir Tolts:

Connections between foreign communists and Soviet intelligence services are not new (we talked about this two weeks ago). The question is: how are these connections being researched and proven today? This is what the program will discuss (using Leontiev’s article as an example).

The hero of today's program is the founder and leader of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, who was sentenced by the fascists to 20 years in prison in 1928; his wife is Yulia Apollonovna and a contemporary researcher of her biography, Russian historian Yaroslav Leontyev.

In the canonical biographies of Antonio Gramsci, writes Yaroslav Leontiev, the story of the Italian Marxist’s acquaintance with his future wife Julia Schucht is presented in a romantic light. In May 1922, Gramsci came to Moscow to participate in the work of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, but soon, falling ill with neurosis, he found himself in a sanatorium near Moscow, located in the famous holiday village of Serebryany Bor. Here he met the Schucht sisters.

The eldest of the sisters, Evgenia, who worked at the People's Commissariat of Education together with Nadezhda Krupskaya, was also treated at the sanatorium. Yulia Schucht, who was visiting her, was once walking in the garden and accidentally ran into a foreigner who addressed her in French. By his accent, she immediately recognized him as an Italian and answered him in Italian. The young people started talking and a love fire immediately flared up in Gramsci’s ardent southern heart.

Yaroslav Leontiev, appearing on the pages of an Italian newspaper as a “whistleblower” (and this, in my opinion, is not the best role for a historian), says...

Yaroslav Leontyev:

Alas, there are facts that allow us to doubt this beautiful legend. After it became known about Yulia Shukht’s collaboration with the intelligence services, the historian now has the right to ask the question: was their first meeting provoked?

Vladimir Tolts:

Well, let's ask ourselves this question too. But first, following the author of the article in "Corriere della sera", we will trace the genealogy of the young lady whom Leontiev considers an agent of the OGPU.

One of the first revolutionary acquaintances of 20-year-old Vladimir Lenin was a meeting with 30-year-old radical oppositionist Apollo Schucht. This Schucht, being the son of a general, became involved in anti-government propaganda among students of military and naval schools in St. Petersburg. By order of Emperor Alexander III, in the fall of 1887, he was exiled to Western Siberia under police supervision for three years. After serving his sentence, he settled in Samara, where he met young Volodya Ulyanov. In the spring of the following year they went to the capital together and maintained their acquaintance for several years. When Apollo Schucht, married to revolutionary Julia Hirschfeld, had a daughter, Anna, in 1893, her adoptive father at baptism was none other than the future leader of the Bolsheviks. A year later, the Schuchts went abroad and settled in Switzerland.

In 1896, in Geneva, the heroine of our program, Yulia Shukht, was born to them.

Yaroslav Leontyev:

Her parents continued to be active in opposition activities. The archives of the political police contain documents about the participation of Schucht’s mother in one of the demonstrations in April 1901. Russian emigrants, united with Italian monarchists and Swiss social democrats, used as a pretext the expulsion of an anarchist by the federal authorities and the police dispersal of student demonstrations in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kyiv. One of the organizers of the demonstration was, by the way, the “father” of Russian Marxism, Georgy Plekhanov. Radicals with red banners went to the Russian consulate, chanting “Down with the despot-tsar!” and "Long live free Russia!" According to police documents, before the arrival of Swiss law enforcement officers, demonstrators managed to tear the coat of arms from the consulate building, which was thrown into the waters of the Rhone. As a result of the investigation, in particular, it was established that 40-year-old Schucht participated in the demonstration. Several radicals were expelled from Switzerland, but she, as the mother of four children, the youngest of whom was 15 months old, was not affected by this measure. Subsequently, the elder Schucht joined the most radical group of political emigrants, anarchist-communists, who began publishing the newspaper “Bread and Freedom” in Geneva.

Vladimir Tolts:

Julia spent the first 8 years of her life with her parents in Geneva, then several years in France and 7 years in Italy. In 1915, she graduated from the Rome Conservatory in violin class and returned to Russia the following year. She settled in Moscow and began working as a music teacher. Julia greeted the revolution enthusiastically and even before the Bolsheviks came to power, in September 1917 she joined the RSDLP(b). In the same year, her father, Apollo Schucht, also became a member of the Leninist party. At first, Yulia worked in one of the youth party unions, from the beginning of 1919 - for several months - as secretary of the communist faction of the People's Commissariat of Education. Then she had to interrupt her party career in order to accompany her father, who went to work in the provinces. Living in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Yulia Shukht worked in small positions in the provincial department of public education and in the provincial party committee until the fall of 1923. The distance from Ivanovo-Voznesensk to Moscow allowed Yulia to visit the capital often. In mid-1922, Julia met Gramsci there.

Around the same time, a new apparatchik arrived to party work in Ivanovo-Voznesensk - Vladimir Degot, whom Yaroslav Leontyev introduces to us as the “Eminence Gray of the Italian Communists.”

Yaroslav Leontyev:

He was an old Bolshevik, with 18 years of party membership. Born in Odessa, into a poor Jewish family, he joined the Bolsheviks very young and, as a printing worker, helped them print illegal publications. Fleeing from police persecution, after the failure of a secret printing house, Degot emigrated to Paris, where he met the main leaders of the Bolsheviks - Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev. Party theorists gave lectures to emigrant workers - this circumstance gave Degty a reason to proudly call himself “Lenin’s student.” After spending one year in France, he returned to Odessa and became secretary of the Bolshevik organization. In 1910, Degot was arrested and then exiled to one of the Siberian provinces. From Siberia he managed to escape again to France, using documents that were sent by none other than Nadezhda Krupskaya. In July 1938, many years later, Degot, who held an influential position in the Stalinist nomenclature (by this time he had become a senior assistant prosecutor of the RSFSR), was now arrested by the NKVD right at work. The sanction for the arrest of a high-ranking employee of the prosecutor's office was given personally by Nikolai Yezhov. The motives for the arrest were, on the one hand, standard; on the other hand, they are unusual, even unique in their own way. So, Degot was accused, firstly, of having connections with Trotskyists and anarchists and, secondly, that thanks to him, Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy. In March 1940, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Degot to 10 years in the camps. In the fall of the same year, his 14-year-old pioneer son came to visit him at the camp in the village of Mezhog. Apparently, Degty had prepared in advance a draft letter addressed to the new union prosecutor Bochkov, which his son carefully copied in two copies in uneven childish handwriting. Probably, one copy was sent to the recipient, and the second was left with Degty’s son, who died in 1989.

Vladimir Tolts:

Here is part of the statement that relates to Italian events:

“In 1920, I was sent by the Communist International to work underground in Italy and France, as a representative of the Comintern, that is, by Lenin personally. Arriving in Italy, Rome, in January 1920, I found the following situation in Italy: the socialist party, which united hundreds of thousands of party members and millions belonging to trade unions, was led not by communists, but by reformists led by Turati. Party was called Socialist, not Communist, despite the fact that, under pressure from the masses, it entered the Communist International. The party united reformists and communists. The communist part was headed by Serrati, Bombacci, Genari and Gramsci.

Uprising after uprising of peasants, seizure of landowners' lands, burning of landowners' estates, strike after strike in industrial areas (Milan and Turin). Organization of factory committees, organization of the Red Guard. The slogans “Long live the dictatorship of the working class!”, “Long live Lenin!” were spontaneously put forward. At this time, the Socialist Party was busy putting out the fire of the revolution.

The first thing I proposed on behalf of the Communist International was to declare ourselves a Communist Party (this was before the Second Congress of the Comintern). The second is to exclude all reformists from the party who do not support the dictatorship of the working class and the seizure of power through an armed uprising of the worker-peasant masses under the leadership of the Communist Party. At this time, approximately in March 1920, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nitti invited the deputies of parliament (and there were 126 of them) from the Socialist Party to take part in the parliamentary coup; remove the king and declare a bourgeois republic, to which Turati and Serrati agreed.

The majority of parliament members were behind them. Bombacci and others objected and turned to me as a representative of the Comintern. I strongly objected to Serrati and others. He pointed out that Nitti, as a cunning bourgeois politician, wants to distract the revolutionary masses from the right path, throwing dust in their eyes by removing the king and declaring a republic. I pointed out that the question is about the seizure of power by the working class through class revolutionary struggle. My proposal was accepted by the majority of the Party Central Committee.

My proposals were subsequently fully approved by Lenin personally and the Congress of the Comintern, despite the objections of Serrati, who was subsequently expelled from the party by the Comintern at Lenin’s proposal.

In a personal conversation with Comrade Lenin in the Kremlin in 1920, he not only approved of my behavior, but at his suggestion I was sent again to Italy and France, despite the objections of Bukharin and Bela Kun."

Vladimir Tolts:

Let's draw an intermediate balance: based on the documents and memories that Leontiev operates, it is clear that somewhere in the year 22, 26-year-old Yulia Shukht, living in Ivanovo-Voskresensk, met there with a party apparatchik who a year ago represented Moscow in Italy, and then fell asleep as a “Comintern agent” in France and is now continuing his party career in the Russian provincial wilderness. Such a career break and movement in space cannot be called a reward for successful service and a sign of trust. Around the same time, in Moscow, Julia met her future husband Gramsci.

Is it possible, like Leontyev, to assume that the first meeting of the future spouses was not accidental and, moreover, provoked by the authorities, of which Yulia subsequently became an employee? - You can, of course. You just need to be aware that this is not yet confirmed by documents. Is it possible to assume that the former representative of the Comintern in Italy, who was connected with the authorities through the nature of this activity, played a role in organizing this supposedly non-random meeting in Moscow? - That's also possible. (After all, from the history of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD and the services hostile to them, we know that the use of amorous relationships as a means of influence and collection of information is common for them.) But again, we must remember that all this is just an assumption that does not have documentary evidence for us. Question: what does Tar have to do with it? - will continue to require an answer.

To give credibility to his version of his (Degt’s) and the OGPU’s involvement in Yulia Shukht’s acquaintance with Gramsci, Yaroslav Leontyev appeals to the publications of Vladimir Degtya published in the USSR. They talk, in particular, about a conversation with Lenin that took place in December 1920. The hidden logic here is this: from Degtya’s memoirs it is clear how significant a role he played in the development of the Italian communist movement, which means he could not help but influence Julia Schucht’s meeting with Gramsci. Here's what's also noteworthy: Leontyev, according to his own remark, resorts to an approximate reconstruction of the conversation.

But, for example, I’ll quote: “ From Degty’s memoirs, published in the Soviet Union, one can reconstruct the approximate course of their conversation. Next, Degot had to tell Lenin about how he tried to influence the recently held congress of the Italian Socialist Party in Venice, calling for the creation of the Italian Soviet Socialist Republic, and how Serrati opposed the publication of the text of this appeal in Avanti. There is no doubt that Tar told his patron how Filippo Turati, Modiglian and other members of the reformists conspired with Nitti about the Republican coup, how Nicola Bombacci turned to him for advice.

Having gone back to Italy with Lenin’s approval, Tar immediately held a meeting with Gramsci and Bombacci, and then took part in the famous ISP congress in Livorno, at which a grandiose split occurred.”

Did you notice these turns of phrase from our historian: “Tar should have told Lenin”; “There is no doubt that Tar told his patron.” In fact, one can doubt that he did exactly what, in Leontyev’s opinion, he “should” have done, or rather, this is not in the memoirs interpreted by the historian; this is his guess, based on other information, used in the text of the article to confirm the significance of the role of Tar, both in the history of the Italian communist movement and in the romantic story of Gramsci’s acquaintance with Julia Schucht. According to this logic, to prove what you guess, each bast is in a line. But let us quote the article further:

“What a paradoxical fact! The false and demagogic Stalinist justice turned out to be right in accusing Degtya of indirectly helping Mussolini seize power. Indeed, in the Manifesto, with the adoption of which the creation of the PCI began, there was not a single word about the fascist threat. Degot and other representatives of the Comintern myopically did not notice this problem. Another paradox is that responsibility for the further development of events was placed on Degtya by polar political groups: for a long time Before the NKVD investigators, reformists (Modigliani), left socialists (Nenni), and Russian Mensheviks spoke about this in the emigrant Socialist Messenger.

Degot was in Rome until May 1921, living under the document of a merchant. He secretly led the first steps of the PCI until he received directives from Moscow to travel to Paris with a subsequent return to Russia. However, in Nice he was arrested and after some time expelled from France as an agent of the Comintern. Soon after his return to his homeland, the Kremlin sent Degty, along with other experienced party workers, to work in the provinces."

Vladimir Tolts:

Silvio Pons, director of the Gramsci Institute in Rome, who read Yaroslav Leontiev’s article, tells me:

Silvio Pons:

I think this is an interesting article. While it would certainly be better to know the depth of his documentation, sometimes I don't understand exactly what kind of documentation he used. And besides, it seems to me that there are some of his assessments that needed to be substantiated in more detail. For example, he says that Tar was in Rome until May 1921, he secretly led the first steps of the Italian Communist Party. - I don’t know, maybe he secretly led, but here it was necessary to find out where the author came from this conclusion.

Vladimir Tolts:

So, what happened next - the word to Yaroslav Leontyev.

Yaroslav Leontyev:

Everything that happened then is covered in thick darkness and one can only guess in what political kitchen and which chefs kneaded the dough in order to bake the wedding cake for Antonio and Julia. Only the beginning of the mystery can be unmistakably guessed: Vladimir Degot was the first to tell Yulia Schucht in detail about all the latest events in Italy and about Gramsci, whom he called his friend. What a strange coincidence in the theory of mathematical probability: the person most knowledgeable about the shadow history of the creation of the IKP, having found himself working in a small provincial town, accidentally became the direct boss of the future mother of Gramsci’s children. One more circumstance cannot be overlooked: both Degot and the entire Shukht family were constantly in the field of view of the new revolutionary Demiurge (as he was semi-officially called in the party press), Vladimir Lenin. For example, the following fact is known: in November 1920, Lenin ordered the appointment of Yulia’s brother Viktor Shukht as a diplomatic courier. Of course, it cannot be considered one hundred percent that Julia’s meeting with Gramsci was staged from beginning to end. But there are too many mysterious coincidences in this whole story.

Vladimir Tolts:

We talked with Professor Silvio Pons about this too...

Silvio Pons:

I would like to divide between different questions. The first question is whether the meeting between Julia and Gramsci was accidental or not when Gramsci was in Moscow? - Of course, Yulia’s role in the OGPU means that we may need to change our minds about this. On the other hand, it should be noted that we know very little about her role, after all, and it is difficult to say that in 1922, when Gramsci met with her, he was already a paramount figure, although he was of course very important already in the Italian Communist Party... But why it was necessary to take such measures against him, such a form of control over him, is difficult to say. Maybe this arose later, from the year 24, for example.

It must be borne in mind that the most important figure when Gramsci was in prison was already Julia’s sister Tatiana, who had certain connections with Gramsci; Julia was already in Moscow and fell ill. Julia's influence at this time was not direct; she could only connect with Gramsci through her sister or in writing.

Vladimir Tolts:

In our conversation with Silvio Pons, we again and again returned to the topic, weakly, in our common opinion, documented and logically argued by Leontiev, to the role of Vladimir Degt, both in Gramsci’s acquaintance with Julia, and to his activities and significance in the creation of the communist movement in Italy.

Silvio Pons:

I can say very little about this, because I do not know these documents that Leontyev saw. What I can say is that I have a feeling that there is an overestimation of this man, although, of course, he was an important person, I have no doubt about it, but it is difficult to say that he was the only person who from Moscow had influence on Italian socialism and communism, in my opinion this is an exaggeration, this is too much.

I wanted to say one thing about this: it seems to me very strange and very unreal that, as I can see from Leontiev's article, the name of Medeo Bordigo, who was in fact the most important leader, the leader of the Communist Party since 21, the founder of the Communist Party, is never mentioned. He represented the radical line against which both Gramsci and his group had fought and could only win since 1924-25. It seems to me very strange in fact that Bordigo is never mentioned, because of this many doubts arise about this document.

Vladimir Tolts:

In November 1923, as Yaroslav Leontiev tells us, Gramsci left Russia to meet his glory and tragedy. In the same month, Yulia Shukht was transferred to party work in Moscow. Less than a year later, Gramsci became a deputy and General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party. Julia also experienced important changes: in August 24, her first son, Delio, was born, and in December she was enrolled in a new job as an employee of the main Soviet intelligence service - the OGPU (United State Political Directorate), headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky. A year later, Julia comes to Rome and lives there with her sisters Tatyana and Eugenia on Via Trapani. Gramsci met the youngest of the sisters, Tatiana Shukht, who had lived in Rome before, in the summer of 1924. Leontyev can confirm this circumstance with the documents he found.

But what tasks of the OGPU Gramsci’s wife was supposed to carry out, and to what extent her husband and sisters were aware of this - here, Leontyev writes, “there are still more questions than answers.”

Yaroslav Leontyev:

But the main thing is known: Yulia Shukht officially remained an agent of the Lubyanka until August 1930. It is also known that around this time she became mentally ill and was ill until her death in July 1980. Evgenia Shukht, who published “Letters from Prison” in Moscow in 1957, wrote in the preface of the book about Yulia: “Following a strong nervous shock, a long period of severe nervous illness began, which continues to this day.”

Here it is important to note this metamorphosis: from the “OGPU employee” that Julia became in 1924, Gramsci’s wife turns into a “Lubyanka agent” in Leontiev’s text. But did this transformation actually happen? If the author of the article in "Corriere della sera" has documentary evidence that Julia has become an agent? To this question of mine, the St. Petersburg historian Alexander Kolpakidi, who was involved in the affairs of the OGPU and the Comintern, thoughtfully answered me: “I don’t remember that it took place in intelligence matters.” Well, the author of the article, Yaroslav Leontiev, clarifies...

Yaroslav Leontyev:

New searches in the archives not only confirmed information about Yulia Shukht’s service in political intelligence, but also made it possible to clarify her status. Formally, she was listed as a translator of the Foreign Department of the Central Apparatus of the OGPU, after Gramsci returned to Italy, as a result of his election to parliament, the newly minted employee of the INO, together with her son Delio, her father and sister Eugenia, came to Rome. For a year, Yulia Shukht worked at the Soviet embassy. What kind of reconnaissance missions she carried out here, as before, remains a mystery. Reports on its activities, of course, should have been preserved, but not in the Soviet party archives, but in the Archive of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Alas, this service is in no hurry to open its doors wide to historians.

Vladimir Tolts:

Often closed archives are a common misfortune for researchers of the still unfinished Soviet history. Their other problem is a violation of the logic of research, associated with the desire to speculate on what has not been read. Yaroslav Leontyev's article is, in my opinion, a good example of this: without documenting the main thesis contained in the title (Yulia Shukht is an intelligence agent), he invites us to guess about the intelligence missions that she could carry out.

I asked Yaroslav: does he feel the features of his composition that I noted?

Yaroslav Leontyev:

Naturally, I understand that everything I have stated on the basis of very indirect sources is nothing more than a version, an attempt at reconstruction, in no way claiming to be categorical. I admit that everything could have been a little different or even completely different. Let’s assume that mister chance really intervened in Gramsci’s acquaintance with Julia, and the figure of Tar is too demonized by me. After all, at the Institute of History and Archives I was taught how to criticize historical sources. And yet I rely on my intuition, and, if you like, on the archival sense of smell, and they rarely let me down. Well, perhaps the last thing - to some extent I perceive the history of my publication and the resonance that it caused in Italy, and now this is also a fact of historiography, so I am inclined to evaluate it to some extent as a provocation. Maybe now the doors of the archives of the special services will open a little, the thoughts of historians will stir, and together we will be able to reconstruct authentic history.

Vladimir Tolts:

Research (and researchers) of the recent past have another problem, which I encountered while analyzing the Italian article by Yaroslav Leontiev. Strange as it may sound today, their (studies and researchers’) inescapable partisanship, one-sided involvement in events that the historian should study, in the words of Tacitus, “without anger and partiality.” It was precisely this, this partisanship, that did not allow some opponents of Leontyev’s version to speak in our program: some do not want a public discussion of an unpleasant subject, others are afraid that it will be even more difficult for them with archival materials. Gramsci's son Delio also refused to speak on this topic. (Can you imagine Pushkin’s descendants who refuse to speak publicly about their glorious ancestor and his wife?) But it is precisely this same partisanship that leads to the logical errors of Yaroslav Leontyev in his article: now it is generally accepted to assert what was previously prohibited: the notorious “organs” are a waste, and therefore, to prove this obvious, and therefore three-kopeck, in general, thesis, everything is permitted on any material.

In conclusion, a few words about the fate of the heroes of this program:

Antonio Gramsci, sentenced by the fascists in '28 to 20 years in prison (later this term was reduced to 10 years), was terribly ill in prison and in '37, three days after the end of his prison term, he died in a Roman hospital. His wife Yulia, who had suffered from a severe nervous disorder since the early 1930s, successfully withstood two party cleanings and was retired from the mid-1936s. During Khrushchev's rule, she, as an old communist, was given a personal one; under Brezhnev, he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and the medal “For Valiant Labor” in honor of the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth.

Vladimir Degot from Ivanovo-Voznesensk, who reached the high post of senior assistant prosecutor of the RSFSR, a year after the death of Gramsci, was, as already mentioned, arrested on charges of assisting Mussolini and disappeared in the camps.

Together with them, the remaining unsolved and completed story of which they were a part goes into oblivion. Our interest in it is weakening, but it is still not worth galvanizing it with speculation, “provocations” and politicized speculation.