Documents in the notebook

From Tatyana Timofeevna’s notebook “Our genealogy: the Samsonovs”. First person. [?] = unclear.

Type: collage on squared paper (album page).

Elements of the page

1. Upper left — photocopy / imprint of a certificate (the same as more fully on p. 075):

CERTIFICATE

1919, 16 January issued to Comrade Samsonov T. P. in that by me
there has been given him for carrying my personal revolver of the “Colt” system
No. 75350, which I certify:

chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission:
[signature] F. Dzerzhinsky

2. Upper right — portrait of F. E. Dzerzhinsky (photo); next to it partly visible printed biographical text about Samsonov (full text — on p. 079).

3. Center — handwritten insert:

Insert.
From meetings with I. V. Stalin.

Kislovodsk. 1923. I. V. came to
Kislovodsk for treatment.

“At the end of his treatment I. V.
made me a proposal to en-
ter his service as secretary in
the Apparatus of the CC. To this I replied
that since Comrade Dzerzhinsky
has confidence in me and I
have long worked under his lead-
ership, before answering
I should like to consult
with him on this question. I. V.,
smiling, said: ‘Well then,
consult and tell me.’
(Father remained with Dz.)

1927. Father appointed Administrator
      of the CC of the VKP(b). It happened
      that Father met I. V. in
      the House of Unions. They greeted each other,
      and I. V. said: ‘I know you are a firm
      manager. We need such a one
      in the Apparatus of the CC.’”

1928. Bottom — crop/fragment of another photograph (man’s suit, lapel with a badge); no text.

1929. Right — edges of other pasted sheets/photographs (partly cover the grid).

Type: photograph (no handwritten text on the face).

Black-and-white portrait of a bald middle-aged/older man in a dark suit, white shirt and dark necktie; on the lapel — a badge (order/breast badge, round). Light background.
[Verso of this photograph — p. 074. By the album’s context and the inscription on the verso — T. P. Samsonov; the image agrees with Father’s portrait on other pages.]

Type: verso of the photograph (p. 073). Manuscript in red ink + pencil notes.
Text on the verso oriented diagonally/at an angle to the edges of the card.

Red ink (dedication)

To a respected person
[and friend?] from a kind heart
about F. E. Dzerzhinsky
With respect
T. P. Samsonov
25/VI – 47

[Second line: confidently read as “… from a kind heart”; beginning of the line disputed — “and friend” / “person”; a repeat of “person” after the first line is less natural, hence “and friend?” with a mark.]

Pencil

• 4/10
• 9/12 06 – 1/XII
  [catalogue / archival / inventory marks; purpose of decoding unknown]

Stains (brownish) on the cardboard — no text.

Type: album page — handwritten heading + pasted documents.

Handwritten heading (blue/violet ink)

Certificate issued to Father
by Dzerzhinsky F. E.

Main certificate (typescript / printed form, pre-reform orthography)

In the upper right corner of the form: N – 15

CERTIFICATE

1919, 16 January issued to Comrade Samsonov T. P. in that by me
there has been given him for carrying my personal revolver of the “Colt” system
No. 75350, which I certify:

chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission:
[handwritten signature] F. Dzerzhinsky

Lower left

Another (smaller) imprint/photo of the same “Certificate” (the same text of 16.I.1919, Dzerzhinsky’s signature).

Lower right — document / card “From the Collegium of the GPU”

Printed text (partial):

From the Collegium of the GPU

The honorary
title of chekist
requires
vigilance,
resoluteness
and courage.

Handwritten address (right):

To Comrade
Samsonov
Timofey
Petrovich
[for?] outstanding struggle
against counter-revolution

Below: “breast badge for” + round seal (GPU / related agency; on the imprint letters like “G.P.U.” / “NKVD” are visible — not all readable)
“Chairman of the GPU” + signature [Menzhinsky? / illegible]

Type: newspaper clipping, pasted in; above — handwritten reference.

Handwritten note (above the clipping)

(Pravda 1929
20 July)

[The date agrees with the 3rd anniversary of F. E. Dzerzhinsky’s death (20.VII.1926) and the phrase in the text “he perished already three years ago.”]

Printed text of the clipping

On Dzerzhinsky.

Although Dzerzhinsky per-
ished already three years ago, somehow it is hard
to get used to the thought that he
is indeed no longer among us. And
that is understandable. Dzerzhinsky, on the instruc-
tion of our party and of Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin himself, carried out such enormous
difficult practical revolutionary
tasks as were within the power only of
a revolutionary giant, which the
first chekist was. To his
lot fell the hardest work of
strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat in
our country.

Both as head of the Cheka and as
head of our national econo-
my Dzerzhinsky everywhere developed an im-
mense working tempo and work. He resembled
a gigantic machine that inces-
santly hummed, lived under itself and scat-
tered everything that stood in the way of
the development of the proletarian revolution in our
country, that hindered our success-
ful socialist construction.

Anyone great who had the happiness to work
beside the late Dzerzhinsky remembers
with what heat and fury he fell
upon those comrades who even
to any degree raised the ques-
tion of non-fulfillment of party directives,
[for carrying out / in carrying out?] [them / in?] [capitalism / ?].
I remember how at one of the meetings of the Colle-
gium of the Cheka, it seems in 1921, someone
of the comrades hinted that the CC
on one question, in this com-
rade’s view, had taken a hasty decision. Dzer-
zhinsky so dressed down this comrade
that the latter did not know where to put himself. In con-
clusion Dzerzhinsky declared that he
would not permit conversations about annulling decisions
of the Party CC to be raised
at the Collegium of the Cheka. Since the matter concerned one
of the military questions, it is clear that the de-
cision of the Party CC had to be
carried out without reservation. And it was car-
ried out. This devotion of Dzerzhins-
ky in carrying out party decisions showed
itself also in his last speech at
the July plenum of the CC of 1926, when
like a lion he threw himself upon the Trotskyist-
opposition demagogues who tried
to weaken the monolith, unity and steadi-
ness of that party of which Dzerzhinsky
was a faithful son.

Our enemies portrayed Dzerzhins-
ky as a hard-hearted, bloodthirsty
sadist, whereas among many
old and young chekists one did not
meet people so responsive to
human suffering. But
class hatred for the enemies of the working
class, capitalists, landowners and their
henchmen sat so deeply in
Dzerzhinsky that he with all his being as a revo-
lutionary-Bolshevik ruthlessly de-
alt with those who hindered the work-
ing people from freeing themselves from the yoke of capital and na-
[tionalism? / onslaught?]. Dzerzhinsky also possessed great
magnanimity. I remember how once one of
the former railwaymen obtained [the right?] to im-
personate[?] Dzerzhinsky and demanded
at the Cheka garage a car as for the chair-
man of the Cheka. They sent him a car, but as
a result the false chairman found him-
self in the Cheka before Dzerzhinsky him-
self. The blackmailer trembled like an aspen
leaf. Dzerzhinsky calmly approached
him and jokingly said: “So it is you
who thought that Dzerzhinsky — eh?” The poor
blackmailer begged for mercy, pointing
to his proletarian origin.
Dzerzhinsky forgave him and at once
released him. Subsequently this rail-
wayman reformed and became an honest work-
er.

A special trait of character of this
enormous revolutionary-Bolshevik
was that in all the difficulties
that arose in the work he quickly found
ways out. In the period of the civil war
[…]
[…] in the struggle with political counter-intelli-
gence there were so many hard
moments when workers toiled almost
losing their way, having no possibility
of getting on the track of enemies who every-
where dug against us. In such cases
we went to Dzerzhinsky and, following his
advice and directions, successfully repelled
the intrigues of our numerous enemies.
I remember, on the day of the 25th anniversary of re-
volutionary Marxist [?] and
the late Marchlewski told in
a circle of close friends such an episode from
Dzerzhinsky’s underground work. In War-
saw two gendarmes burst[?] into
the flat of the wanted Dzerzhins-
ky and were to arrest him. They
ran in with a search. Dzerzhinsky dashed
out, not keeping to the door. Quickly he
slipped out the door, clicked the key and
locked the gendarmes in the room. Thus
he saved himself from arrest.

Popular courage and resolution, as
everyone knows, did not leave Dzerzhinsky
also later, already in the October pe-
riod, in deciding questions of enormous
revolutionary and state signifi-
cance.

Take at least those difficulties that
stood before our country in re-
storing industry after
the imperialist and civil wars.
Having received as a legacy a ruined na-
tional economy, our impoverished
country had by its own forces,
surrounded by the barbed wire of block-
ade, to restore industry and
transport. Human
efforts were needed in order to develop the work
of reconstructing our national econ-
omy on new socialist princi-
ples. Dzerzhinsky — at the head of the VSNKh
of the USSR. Carefully studying the needs of in-
dustry, he leads the economic
leading cadres, and through them all
the working masses, along the path of restora-
tion and reconstruction of the national econ-
omy. For this work colos-
sal means are required. They must be found. Here
too the exceptional qual-
ities of Dzerzhinsky show themselves. The revolutionary or-
gan of the VSNKh of the USSR is given a directive to
build its work on the revision of indus-
trial institutions and enterprises not from
formal principles but in essence,
by recovering materials and money lying
dead, by seizing non-
liquid values, by fighting tendencies
of certain economic managers who
divert enormous industrial funds
to needs not directly related
to it, and so on, and so forth. Work on
raising labor productivity,
the struggle for a regime of economy, for simplifying
and rationalizing the industrial ad-
ministrative apparatus, and so on, and so forth,
also belong among the most important ser-
vices of Dzerzhinsky in raising and re-
organizing our national social-
ist economy.

Especially clearly he devoted himself to the question
of the struggle with private-capitalist
elements in our country. In one of
his numerous notes before
us, the revolutionary workers of the VSNKh,
Dzerzhinsky set the task of watchfully
observing that our economic
organs not fall into the paws of private
traders, into the paws of nepmen. Dzerzhinsky under
all conditions always remained on the gen-
eral Leninist line of our par-
ty, courageously fought for it and glo-
riously perished for the party in the struggle with the disor-
ganizers-Trotskyists.

SAMSONOV.

[Small newspaper type; individual words and column joins on the photograph are blurred — places with [?] and […] were not reconstructed for sense beyond the readable.]

Type: photo on an album sheet + handwritten caption above.

Manuscript (above the photo)

The prison in Liverpool
where Father sat for a speech
at an anti-war meeting.

Photo

Black-and-white image of a prison / government building behind a high stone wall; a long block with chimneys/stacks, a row of windows. Foreground — dark grass/earth.
The photo is pasted onto paper with a serrated (scalloped) upper edge.

Type: photographs; no handwritten text.

Two adjacent black-and-white shots (a spread / two frames) of prison or government blocks behind brick/stone walls; chimneys, roofs, long walls.
[By the context of p. 077 — continuation of views of the prison in Liverpool (or of the same complex); there is no separate caption on this page.]

The lower part of the sheet is empty.

Type: album collage page (certificate, portraits, group photo, captions).

Upper left

Again an imprint of the Certificate of 16.I.1919 (revolver “Colt” No. 75350, signature of F. Dzerzhinsky) — the same document as on p. 072 / 075.

Upper right

Portrait of a bald man (Dzerzhinsky / or the same type of portrait as on 072) + printed biographical insert:

SAMSONOV Timofey
Petrovich, member of the VKP(b)
since 1919, awarded the Or-
der of the Red Ban-
ner, director of the society
“Mezhrabpomfilm.” E-
lected a member of the Moscow So-
viet a second time (Dzer-
zhinsky district.)

Center left

Portrait photo: a man in a dark hat (papakha/fur) and a dark buttoned jacket/gymnastyorka — T. P. Samsonov (Father).

Manuscript to the right of the portrait

Administrator
of the CC of the VKP(b)
(1927 – 1934)

[Last digit of the end year: on the photograph reads as 1934; if in doubt — 193[4?].]

Bottom — group photo

A meeting at a long table; about ten men.
Arrow and caption to the right: ← Papa (points to a figure nearer the right edge of the table).

Manuscript under the group photo

Collegium of the Cheka
In the center: F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky

Persons

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