“June 24, 1940. Sorry, my relatives, that I could not call on you. Frankly speaking, I left time for this, but the guys from my factory who invited me to...
"June 24, 40 Sorry, my family, that I could not call on you. I speak frankly, and I left time for this, but the guys from my factory who invited me to the meeting literally bombarded me with questions. They wanted to know everything about our difficult war. There was so much lively interest in their questions that I had no choice but to answer and answer. So it took all the time, I could not call on you. Don't be offended. And I can’t resort to your help, mom, to get an extra dismissal. And how will I then look into the eyes of my comrades, who, from the moment they entered the school, did not see their relatives at all. To be frank, these frequent absences to speak to various audiences do not particularly please me either. All this interferes with work. But on the other hand, one must also understand people who want to know who the Nazis are. Now it is very important: to reveal the bestial appearance of these scum of humanity.”
"July 28, 40 My dears! Finally got around to writing to you. I couldn't do it before, I was very busy. We even have classes on Sundays. And it is right. It is necessary to prepare for the war against fascism, as the Russians say, without fools. Our weather is still disgusting. On July 14, a real catastrophe happened here. On the lake, not far from us, people were swimming. And suddenly a hurricane of terrible strength rose with a downpour. Several people drowned. How many events have happened in the world. What a pity that our Spain is so far away. It is difficult for a person without a homeland. I don't know if I can break out to you next Sunday. And you, Amaya, if you can, come with your friends to us. My comrades, believe me, will be very pleased with your visit. I know that you will get to the air parade, and I envy you terribly. Your Ruben.
After graduating from college, Lieutenant Ibarruri was sent for further service in the Moscow Proletarian Division. He commanded first a platoon, then a company. On the third day of the Great Patriotic War, Ruben and his company were sent to the Western Special Military District, where they fought the enemy. For six hours in a row, his company held the bridge on the Berezina River. There he was wounded.
Komsomol ticket of Ruben Ibarruri
“8.07.41 Eagle. Hospital. My dears! I hope you have received my first letter. Now I am writing to you from the hospital in Orel. I was wounded by a fragment of a shell in my hand - do not be afraid - I am not dying, and my fingers are already working. I feel good. The most offensive thing is that I had to leave the front, and my main desire is to strangle these reptiles as soon as possible. It is a great pride for me that I can fight in the ranks of the great and invincible Soviet Army. I am deeply convinced that the Nazis will break their teeth here, because (I wrote to you about this before) every Soviet person is a Bolshevik at heart. I know, mother, that you work very hard there, because our task is the destruction of fascism at the front, and yours is to raise the peoples of the whole world to defend the USSR. Give my regards to all the comrades who work with you. I kiss you all. Ruben."
For that battle on the Berezina River, Senior Lieutenant Ibarruri was already awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Presenting the high award to the Spaniard, Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, said: “We always believed you, and you fought as befits an anti-fascist warrior. The Soviet people will always remember the exploits of our class brothers. Ruben then spent almost a year in the rear. The executive committee of the Comintern, where he then served, was evacuated to Kuibyshev. And then Ruben again went to the front ...
"12. 08.42 Dear Mom! I don't know if you received my letter. I am writing again. Getting ready for battles. We do a lot. I eat melons and watermelons every day. Mom, when you write to Amaya, tell her friends from the orphanage (at that time my sister was again in the Ivanovo orphanage, and Dolores returned to Moscow) hello and my address. Your Ruben.
There are many testimonies of the participants in the Battle of Stalingrad, his fellow soldiers in the 100th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 35th Guards Rifle Division about the last battle of Captain Ruben Ibarruri.
Here is how the feat of the Spaniard N.I. Afanasiev: “To ensure the deployment of parts of the division, General V.A. Glazkov ordered the commander of the 100th Guards Rifle Regiment to move forward a detachment consisting of a rifle battalion, reinforced by a machine-gun company. The first battalion of the guard of captain N.S. Lustina, reinforced by the machine-gun company of the guards of Captain Ruben Ibarruri, son of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, Dolores Ibarruri, on the evening of August 22, 1942, moved towards the enemy with a forced march. A few hours of travel, and already on the horizon the first buildings, sheds, vegetable gardens of the railway siding that covered the Kotluban station. Fulfilling the plan previously outlined by the company commander, the machine gunners of the guard, senior lieutenant M. V. Leonenko, closed the enemy’s exit to the steppe. A fight ensued. Machine gunners of the guard lieutenant A.T. Nemenko destroyed the enemy's combat cover taken by surprise. Two soldiers captured by scouts gave valuable information: at that time, 16 tanks, an infantry battalion and a sapper company were supposed to move towards the Kotluban station. “Excellent work, comrade of the guard captain,” remarked the commander of the battalion N.S., who approached Ruben. Lustin. - Your next task, - the battalion commander continued, - is to knock out the Nazis from the warehouse and other outbuildings of the railway siding. Advance along the railway and try to cover the siding from the north, and we will hit them from the south.
Having sent forward a group of scouts, company commander Ruben Ibarruri deployed the unit into battle formation. The machine gunners quickly took up their starting position for the attack. The data received from the prisoners was confirmed. After evaluating them, Ruben Ibarruri ordered Nikitin's scout group to disable at least some of the tanks, and also to try to destroy the crews if they left the vehicles.
By two o'clock in the morning on August 23, the guards were in the hands of the guards. In this battle, Captain R. Ibarruri was again wounded in the arm. Having cut the sleeve of his tunic with a knife, he bandaged himself, abandoning the medical battalion. Fortunately, the wound was light, and Ruben Ibarruri continued to lead the fight. At three o'clock in the morning on August 23, the main forces of the regiment approached and replaced the machine-gun company of R. Ibarruri. Tired, exhausted by the night battle, the machine gunners advanced in a forced march to the area of the Vlasovka farm and took up defense there. An hour later, a group of German tanks and a dozen motorcyclists showed up.
Prepare grenades and Molotov cocktails! Pass along the chain: machine gunners cut off the infantry from the tanks! Don't shoot without my command! ordered Captain Ibarruri.
... In this battle, Ruben was seriously wounded in the stomach. The bleeding company commander was found at the machine gun of the guard by senior sergeant I.S. Timoshenko and carried him off the battlefield. For which he was awarded the medal "For Courage".
From the memoirs of a nurse in the military hospital of the Middle Akhtuba G.P. Panshina: “The head of the hospital instructed me to stay near Ruben Ibarruri all the time. His condition was extremely grave. The face is pale, breathing is irregular, rapid and shallow: hypovolemia from loss of blood. The doctor said: "If he does not immediately receive blood, he will die."
Then I offered to take how much blood I need for Ruben - the group is suitable. The doctor thanked me and gave me a direct transfusion. Reuben's health improved a little. He smiled and whispered, “Thank you very much, little sister. Now I have two sisters - Amaya and Galya ... ". And on the night of September 3-4, he died - peritonitis "...
Relatives and friends of Ruben at his grave. Left - sister Amaya
By order of the commander of the Stalingrad Front dated October 22, 1942 No. 53 / N, Ruben Ibarruri was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner. Later he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The remains of the captain's guard were transferred from Srednyaya Akhtuba to Stalingrad (Volgograd) and buried on the Square of the Fallen Fighters. A joint monument to Volgograd citizen Major V.G. Kamenshchikov, captains X.F. Fattyakhutdinov and Ruben Ibarruri. A street in the city of Lipetsk and a minor planet under No. 2423 - Ibarruri are named after him.
Monument on the Square of the Fallen Fighters in Volgograd
Rub?n (Ruiz) Ib?rruri was born on January 9, 1920 in Spain in the family of the future leader of the Communist Party of Spain, Dolores Ibarruri, and a socialist miner, one of the founders of the CPI, Julián Ruiz. Basque by origin. In 1935, after the arrest of his mother, he left with other children for the USSR. He entered the Moscow Automobile Plant as an apprentice.
In the USSR, he lived and was brought up in the family of the old Bolsheviks O. B. and P. N. Lepeshinsky, laying the foundation for a long family tradition to take up children who found themselves without parents. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Ruben went to fight as part of the Spanish International Brigades. At the end of the war he returned to the USSR.
In the Great Patriotic War
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, Ruben Ibarruri from the first days. Lieutenant Ibarruri took the first battle near the city of Borisov. Covering the retreat of the regiment, Ruben Ibarruri and his soldiers held the bridge over the Berezina River for six hours. When the last machine gun of the unit was destroyed, Ruben Ibarruri, with a group of surviving machine gunners, armed with grenades, rushed to attack the German tanks. In that battle he was wounded. For this fight, Ruben Ibarruri was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In the summer of 1942, commanding a machine-gun company, he showed exceptional courage. On August 23, a German tank grouping broke through in the area of the Kotluban station (section Ilovlya - Gumrak of the Stalingrad railway) and threatened to cut off Stalingrad from the main grouping of Soviet troops. The 35th Guards Division was advanced to meet the enemy. Since the main parts of the division were still on the march, a rifle battalion and a machine-gun company were advanced to the station area. For about a day, the detachment held back the enemy advance. At dawn on August 24, German troops went on the attack. During the battle, the battalion commander was killed, and Ruben Ibarruri took command. First, the Germans were stopped by heavy fire from a machine-gun company and a battalion, and then Ruben Ibarruri raised the soldiers in a counterattack and drove the enemy back. The Germans left about 100 corpses of their soldiers and officers, guns, mortars and other weapons on the battlefield. In this battle, Ruben Ibarruri was seriously wounded. He was evacuated across the Volga, but on September 4, 1942 he died in a hospital.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to him by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Union of the USSR on August 22, 1956.
Awards
- Medal "Gold Star" of the Hero of the Soviet Union (August 26, 1956)
- The order of Lenin
- Order of the Red Banner
Memory
- Ruben Ibarruri street in the city of Lipetsk
- Monument to R. Ibarruri, Kh. F. Fattyakhutdinov and V. G. Kamenshchikov on the Alley of Heroes in Volgograd (architect Efim Levitan)
- Minor planet Ibarruri (2423 Ibarruri).
- Feature film Stalingrad (1989), directed by Yuri Ozerov. The role of Ruben Ibarruri was played by Fernando Allende, an American actor, a native of Mexico.
About the Hero of the Soviet Union Rubene Ibarruri We know more than in our native Spain. After all, he died on Stalingrad land and was buried on the Square of the Fallen Fighters. Local historian Tamara Bashlykova recently opened several new pages about the life and death of the commander of the machine-gun company Ibarruri, wounded near Kotluban. Newspaper "AiF" - "NP" continued the investigation she had begun and found people who claim that the Spaniard was buried three times, and he inflicted a mortal wound on himself.
Tamara Bashlykova works at the Volga Institute of Economics, Pedagogics and Law. Rector is here Galina Ushamirskaya. Her father, Fedor Parashchuk, fought with Ruben in the same company, they also wounded them on the same day - August 24, 1942, when ours put a hundred enemy soldiers and prevented German tanks from breaking through to Stalingrad. After the war, Parashchuk became head of the Archeda station and wrote to the leader of the Spanish Communists, Dolores Ibarruri, about how her son fought. Fedor was invited to Spain, he refused.
- What kind of shisha was it to go to? - surprised Ushamirskaya. - And who would give a passport to a person with clearance number one?
Part of the memories of the "top secret" Parashchuk published in the regional newspaper in 1985. Here is a paragraph about how Ruben was found after the fight near Kotluban: “Grievously wounded in the stomach, he, with a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, lay facing the enemy and was unconscious.” Director of the Sredneakhtuba Museum Nadezhda Abazova concludes that the Spaniard died of hara-kiri:
- He was wounded in the back and was afraid of being captured, so he ripped open his stomach. Why else would you have a knife in your hand? The character was rabid, and the wound corresponded.
Ruben died in one of the hospitals that served almost all public buildings. Tatiana Volkova, chairman of the regional council of veterans, showed a memorial plaque on the building of the budget and financial policy committee - the former cinema. The inscription says that Ruben Ruiz Ibarruri spent his last days here.
Volkova is sure that it was impossible to save Ruben with a stab wound in his stomach: there were no medicines, there was only one doctor for the whole village, and that one was for children. One of those who spent the last days and hours with Ruben was nurse Maria Tkacheva. She said that at that time two people were in the hospital: a Russian pilot and a Spaniard. Medical assistance was limited to bandages, but Ibarruri only moaned when he lost consciousness. He liked to take Masha by the hand and look out the window - he really liked the view. Especially the bottomless sky, like in Spain. Both officers died on the third of September, they were buried together at night.
Until now, everyone has unanimously claimed that Ruben was buried immediately in the park in front of the district committee of the party. Tatyana Volkova she even showed the place: in 1948, when she was seven years old, the remains of the Hero were transported from here to the Square of the Fallen Fighters. The story is continued by Claudia Frolenkova from Volzhsky. Her father served in Srednyaya Akhtuba in the NKVD before the war, died there and was buried in the local cemetery. By 1942, she graduated from the seven-year plan and remembers everything to the smallest detail. According to her, Ruben was lying in the cinema, where he died. They were buried in the cemetery. At night, no one saw.
“Not far was my father’s grave, I kept passing by, I saw a wooden pyramid with an inscription that Ruben Ibarruri lies here,” Klavdia Ivanovna recalls.
The first time he was reburied, the elderly woman is sure, before the arrival of his mother. She also remembers this in detail:
That day I was walking to the store past the cinema. I see a crowd of people in front of the district committee. Komsomol members stood in the guard of honor. On the ferry from Stalingrad, the first secretary of the regional committee, Chuyanov, Dolores Ibarruri, in black, with her daughter Amaya in a red dress, sailed. Mom approached the grave and fell on it, her hair scattered over the flowers. We went to the first secretary Sharov to remember.
The director of the Sredneakhtubinsky Museum believes that the elderly woman is confusing something. At that time there was no one to carry the dead to the cemetery - there were so many of them. They were buried in a mass grave in the center of the village, now there is a memorial.
Ten pre-conscripts opened the grave. The exhumation was led by Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Kirillov. He lives in Volzhsky and for the first time decided to tell our newspaper how it really was:
- First, he was buried in a common cemetery, everyone knew this before, and only then - in the square in front of the district committee. It was poorly preserved, everything was black. The remains were transferred to a zinc coffin and taken away in a district committee car to Stalingrad.
But all this is no longer important. The main thing is that the Spaniard hero was respected in our country during his lifetime - he is loved even now.
