Nikolai Fedorenko Biography

But more than half a century ago, he was known primarily as a person who translated the super -secret negotiations of two people who possessed, perhaps, the greatest power in recent history, the Secretary General of Stalin and the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. On the rights of an old friend, student and colleagues, I visited Nikolai Trofimovich now he lives in the Bulgarian city of Velingrad with his wife, a professor of international relations.

From our meetings, this exclusive interview was born. Nikolai Trofimovich, you have not just seen the living "leaders" closely. You heard and understood their speech, and not a “ceremonial”, intended for the masses, but everyday, which few people manage to eavesdrop. What memories of you as a translator and linguist have remained in this regard? Stalin spoke slowly, quietly and very confident.

He clearly withstand pauses and was never distracted to the side: he led the conversation so that the audience created a very defined picture of events. In addition, he had a subtle hearing, during negotiations he caught even someone else's whisper. Mao Zedong, on the contrary, spoke quickly, as if he was afraid that Stalin would not listen to him. He actively used aphorisms, winged sayings from Chinese classics.

In general, he was extremely widely erudite, although he graduated from just a pedagogical person. At first, using the information received through the Comintern channels, Stalin considered Mao a peasant leader who, like a radish, "from above - red, inside - white." Chan Kayshi at that time seemed more reliable. But gradually, Stalin saw in Mao a real "helmsman" with an iron grip.

I then participated in negotiations with Chan Kayshi and saw how they began to quickly put it into the background, turning into an “enemy of the Chinese people”. The arrival of Mao to Moscow in December G. for Mao Stalin was a “block”, a thin analyst, a great artist and director of political action. But, by magnifying Stalin, he exalted himself, preparing himself for the role of the successor - even if only in the Far East, and then who knows?

Later it seemed to me that Stalin began to be afraid of the fact that Mao, who led revolutionary processes in a huge country, will someday be a member of the “teacher of all time” or even somewhere to push him to the background.

Apparently, having received the news of the death of Stalin, Mao decided that his "star hour" had come. He did not come to the funeral in Moscow, stayed in Beijing. They talked about his ill health, but, most likely, the real reason was different: Mao was preparing to become in place of the leader of the international communist and national liberation movement. He did not take part in the discussion of specific issues, but followed others - both their words and gestures.

With special suspicion, Beria treated those who were in foreign languages, because here he could not control what was discussed. At work breakfasts and "smoke breaks" with the participation of members of the Politburo Beria, the role was assigned to the first to pour drinks into glasses and fuepers. Only one Stalin poured himself, explaining this by the fact that he knew his measure and in which the ratio is mixed with red and white wine.

Then Beria was the first to say a toast - it is clear for whom. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai always with pleasure drained glasses to the bottom. Stalin drank one or two sips. It was an excellent played performance. Stalin acted as a screenwriter and director, and Beria was either a conducting stick, or a police club. But subsequent conversations moved to the "small" Stalin cottage in Kuntsevo.

Usually they walked from 10 p.m. to 2 - 3 in the morning. The agenda - or, rather, the "summons of the night" - as such. But the most severe will, the most severe discipline of Stalin, jerked over everything. He led everything. It seemed that he was following even the entry of snacks on the service table. It happened like this. The corner door of the hall opened, a waitress with a silver tray in her hands came out of it.

She showed dishes to Stalin, he nodded his head approvingly, and then at a certain, only a well -known moment he offered to try to taste the treat. Although, to be honest, Outwardly, Stalin looked in his clothes and with his smoking pipe with an ordinary elderly Georgian, something like the owner of a sensible shop. But he, like Mao, was endowed with hypnotic power, some kind of demonic sovereign.

During the negotiations in the country, he walked almost all the time behind the sitting, and it seemed to everyone that the leader was watching him. After Moscow, Mao expressed a desire to visit Leningrad - he dreamed of looking at the Baltic Sea. And along this sea he fled trot, he liked it so much. And behind him, the whole retinue and translators fled the trot.

Can you imagine a spectacle? There was such a case. Once, in a near dacha after the next night "vigil" suddenly someone was jerking me, I take it and say:-Comrade Stalin, in my opinion, we write in the entire press and in the reports incorrectly, we write Mao Zedong through "e", but we should do it through the "e". I sincerely believed that according to the rules of the Russian language you need to write this way.The next day I call Satyukov and hear: - Of course, of course, Comrade Fedorenko!

You are right, Comrade Fedorenko! Mao Zedong is always now - you always hear! There were times. This is something - one of my Kremlin acquaintances told me the following story: "A call on the Kremlin phone is heard. I picked up the phone and hear: - This is Stalin. I do not understand, I ask:" Who else? What other Stalin? Since then I have a nervous tick for life. " What impressions of the same "translation" point of view did you have about the leaders of the post -Stalin era?

Translating his tongue, stuffed with proverbs and sayings, was not easy - one "Kuzkina mother" is worth it! But the character itself changed the translator still worked with maximum return, but already without a constant feeling of fear. Bulganin treated the translator, as something inanimate - a stool, a chair, a table. Voroshilov saw in him the likeness of a scammer.

And Gromyko is a clock mechanism that allows you to delay the time, then to say “no” to the next partner in negotiations. In general, among partocraces, knowledge of foreign languages ​​was never considered a dignity. The ending follows.