"If the FSB shows these documents, the truth will be revealed."
For years, a Kemerovo resident has been suing the agency, trying to learn the truth about his great-grandfather. But time and again, he's been denied.
For over five years, Kemerovo resident Alexander Kotenkov has been trying to get the FSB Directorate for the Altai Krai to tell him the truth about the fate of his great-grandfather, the repressed peasant Ivan Gudkov. The heirs of the Chekists have refused to allow him access to the archives: sometimes citing the classified status, sometimes citing the deterioration of the documents, and sometimes even accusing Kotenkov of posing a threat to national security. The reason is likely that the case could shed light on the true causes of the Dobytinsky kulak uprising in the Altai Krai, organized by an employee. OGPU Fyodor Dobytin. "The FSB talks about continuity, about having a century-long history. And if that's the case, they're taking on all the evil committed over those years," comments the lawyer representing Kotenkov. NeMoskva reports on his family and the legal battles with the FSB, which have become his "life's work."
"My grandfather, Vasily Gudkov, my mother's father, was still alive. My brother and I would play under the table when the adults gathered and listen to their stories," Alexander Kotenkov recalls his childhood. "They all experienced dispossession; my grandfather himself served time in prison, and they often spoke of the difficult fate of my great-grandfather, Ivan Gudkov, whom the Cheka executed as a kulak and participant in the Dobytinsky Uprising. Even then, I gradually pieced together a chronology, but they didn't know much either... And when my mother died in 2017, I began looking through her documents and found a rehabilitation certificate. It seems like many years have passed, but I decided to find out the truth: what happened to my great-grandfather. The FSB is still resisting this, and I still don't know the true circumstances."
Class liquidation
Alexander Kotenkov was born and raised in Prokopyevsk in the Kemerovo region, but his maternal family descends from Altai peasants. As his relatives recounted, more than a hundred years ago, during the NEPIn the small village of Korobeynikovo near Ust-Pristan, his great-grandfather, Ivan Gudkov, and his large family took out a bank loan and began farming. They purchased tools and began cultivating a leased plot of land, hiring hired labor (a practice that, even in those days of relative economic freedom, was frowned upon by the Soviet government).
By the late 1920s, the state had rolled back the New Economic Policy, and relations with the so-called "kulaks," as the young government dismissively dubbed the farmers, changed dramatically.
"The authorities never treated the kulaks well—they always bought up their harvests for next to nothing. And when the New Economic Policy (NEP) finally ended, the question of collectivization arose. Well, those who had only a shovel might have joined the collective farm voluntarily, but those who still had some property, like my grandfather and great-grandfather, didn't welcome the news. Giving away all one's possessions to a collective farm was a dubious undertaking," Alexander Kotenkov argues.
As noted in the works of historians Yuri Bulygin, Nikolai Modorov, and others, the Altai foothills by the early 1930s were somewhat different from other regions of the young USSR. Many Russian peasants who developed these lands managed to establish thriving farms there as early as the late 19th century. Even after the Soviet seizure of power, the remoteness from large cities helped them maintain their traditional way of life for a time, while the favorable climate, abundant pastures, and forests made it possible to maintain large farmsteads, with dozens of members of the same family living together under one roof, according to the study. monographs historian Tatyana Shcheglova "The Village and Peasantry of the Altai Territory in the 20th Century."
Forced collectivization, demands for grain deliveries, and dispossession met with strong opposition and attempts at resistance in many families. Some peasants, unwilling to accept the new order, fled to the mountains or resettled in other regions. Among those who were unable or unwilling to leave their lands, the authorities launched a vigorous campaign to identify "elements hostile to Soviet power." An OGPU officer led this effort. Fedor (Frol) Dobytin, who later became the leader of the rebellion. One of the peasants he arrested and sentenced to exile was Kotenkov's great-grandfather, Ivan Gudkov.
The rebellious Chekist
Fyodor Dobytin came from a poor peasant family. He was born near PetropavlovskHe began serving in the OGPU in Novosibirsk, and in 1929 he was transferred to the Biysk District in Altai for operational work. A number of historical sources, including the materials of his wife's later interrogation (published in Research historian Vasily Grishaev), it is stated that he allegedly himself asked to be sent to where there were more kulaks, but it is not clear why: either he did not support the Soviet government, or he wanted to expose all the “unreliable” people in the area in one fell swoop.
On Dobytin's orders, police officers and village bailiffs arrested dozens of people and brought them to him for deportation decisions. When more than a hundred kulaks awaiting their fate had accumulated in the dungeons, the unthinkable happened: on March 10, 1930, an OGPU operative gathered them all in one room and proposed a mutiny.
“At about 2 a.m., Dobytin handed over to the most reliable ten revolvers, rifles, and one shotgun that he had, which had been confiscated from mudflow workers"And the crowd moved toward the police station. The OGPU officer had the right to enter the building unhindered at any time of day, so seizing the premises wasn't particularly difficult," historian Alexei Kobelev described the events in the newspaper "Golos Truda."
"Dobytin himself killed two police officers, broke into an armory, and began distributing rifles," says Alexander Kotenkov, who also read the historical reports. "He organized and led the uprising. My great-grandfather was also caught up in this rebellion, and all its participants met an unenviable fate."
According to the official version, by the evening of the first day, Fyodor Dobytin, citing injuries and the need to seek help in a neighboring village, fled. He was never seen again. On March 11, arriving OGPU units began liquidating and arresting the rebels; Ivan Gudkov was arrested that same day.
The remaining rebels, realizing the desperation of their situation, moved toward the Chinese border, but most were unable to escape—by the end of March 1930, they were routed by OGPU forces. According to archival data, 168 people were arrested, 75 of whom were subsequently executed.
"My great-grandfather was held in the NKVD building in Biysk, on the second floor. He managed to pass on two notes. In the second, he said he would be shot the next day," says Alexander Kotenkov.
April 15 by decree "special troika" Ivan Gudkov was executed. A memorial stone now stands at the site, bearing the inscription: "In memory of the innocent victims of the totalitarian regime, executed here, in the courtyard of the NKVD building. We swear never to forget!" The burial place of Gudkov and many other participants in the uprising is unknown.
According to one version of events, the Dobytin rebellion was orchestrated by OGPU officers themselves—to provoke and subsequently eliminate the bulk of the kulaks, who were bitterly opposed to Soviet power. Kotenkov says that after these events, Dobytin was allegedly seen at the Novosibirsk train station—perhaps he was legalized under a different name elsewhere.
By barge to Palochka
The surviving members of the Kotenkov family were exiled to the north of Tomsk province, to a village now known as Palochka.
"They were transported along the Ob River on a barge to the Narym region. My grandmother was pregnant, holding my three-year-old mother and another one-year-old daughter, my aunt, who died en route. Of the eleven children, three did not survive the exile," Alexander Kotenkov recounts the memories of his older relatives.
In terms of the number of victims, Palochka can be considered one of the most horrific places in Siberia, along with Nazino Island. In both, thousands of exiled families of the repressed perished within a few months from hunger, exhaustion, and disease: in 1931, 7800 people were brought to Palochka from the Altai region on barges; two years later, only seven hundred remained alive.
The staff of the Museum of Memory of the Dispossessed in Palochka—incidentally, the only one of its kind in Russia—have established that the repressed lived in dugouts, with almost no tools, modest belongings, and in dire poverty. As noted in the materials on the museum's website (currently only available in web archive), the mortality rate was so high that people were buried in mass graves; thousands of dumped bodies were discovered in pits and ditches on the outskirts of the village. After the collapse of the USSR, historians and search teams examined the burial sites, confirming that the bodies were those of the repressed who did not survive the forced resettlement.
Some, however, managed to escape. Among them was Alexander Kotenkov's grandfather. "We walked to the Altai region. Thanks to this, we are alive; our family lineage has continued!" Alexander Kotenkov told the Zarya Severa newspaper.
In 2022, Alexander Kotenkov secured the installation of a memorial cross at the burial site in memory of his repressed ancestors. His children, now living in St. Petersburg, and other relatives helped. The rector of the local church performed the funeral service. Representatives of the district administration attended the unveiling.
The memory of the Chekists is eternal
Despite the fact that Gudkov was rehabilitated for class-based repression, and the fact of the mass burial of Altai peasants forcibly resettled in Palochka is confirmed by the authorities, Alexander Kotenkov has been unable to obtain the truth about the fate of his great-grandfather, why he was convicted, and the location of his grave.
He first requested information on his repressed relatives from the State Archives in Barnaul. There, he was allowed to review all the documents except his great-grandfather's file. Since he had been rehabilitated as a dispossessed kulak, not as a participant in the uprising, his file, like that of others "executed," was placed in the FSB archives. "And there," Alexander says, "they didn't let me past the threshold."
At the beginning of the search, the descendant of the repressed persons managed to obtain only a brief certificate with information about who convicted Gudkov and under what article of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, along with the dates of his arrest and sentencing. In their refusals, the FSB Directorate for the Altai Territory cited The Triple Proposition and the Federal Law "On Rehabilitation." According to the agency, these laws grant the right to access the files of repressed relatives only if they were subsequently rehabilitated.
In 2019, after two years of unsuccessful pre-trial struggle and correspondence with the FSB Directorate for the Altai Krai, Alexander Kotenkov turned to the Memorial Human Rights Center for assistance. The lawyer who intervened in the situation drew attention to a similar case: that same year, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in its ruling on the case of actor Georgy Shakhet Found a similar denial of access to the archives of an unrehabilitated relative to be unlawful. Inspired by this precedent, Kotenkov decided to take legal action.
Secrecy on stream
In early 2020, Judge Denis Bykhun of the Central District Court of Barnaul partially granted Kotenkov's demands: he ruled the reference to the "Triple Statute" illegal and also concluded that, under the law, people can still access the files of unrehabilitated relatives. Representatives of the Altai Regional FSB appealed to the regional court and won, and now the plaintiff receives only dismissal decisions at all levels. The reasons for this are sometimes puzzling.
Thus, following the consideration of the first claim, it suddenly emerged that the case was classified, although no one had initially reported this.
"It's a complicated story. Initially, all such cases were kept secret," explains the lawyer representing Alexander Kotenkov (she requested anonymity). "When they were transferred to the FSB Archives, they had to undergo a sifting and selection process to determine whether they would remain classified or not. It so happened that all such cases were automatically classified as state secrets, and by default, they are kept secret."
The lawyer had to appeal to a special commission to declassify Ivan Gudkov's case. This happened fairly quickly, but to no avail. Courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected Kotenkov's case on the grounds that the case remained classified and continued to cite the "Triple Provision." The plaintiff sought clarification from the Constitutional Court, which also refused, but instead issued a ruling with so-called "positive content": it stated that the Law on Rehabilitation was not applicable to this case and that general provisions should be applied. This was precisely what the lawyer had insisted on from the start.
In 2021, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation found no violation of Kotenkov's rights in the actions of the FSB Directorate for the Altai Krai, stating that his right to receive information was allegedly exercised through the receipt of the aforementioned short report.
Threat to national security
Alexander Kotenkov, with the promising ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, reapplied to the Central District Court of Barnaul. However, the same judge, Denis Bykhun, who partially upheld the plaintiff's claims in the first case, this time rejected them entirely.
Upon receiving the full text of the decision, Kotenkov and his lawyer were shocked: one of the arguments cited was cooperation with Memorial. For example, an investigator with the Altai Krai FSB Directorate presented the court with a document stating that information about the search for Kotenkov, his interactions with the FSB, and the court proceedings were being posted on the organization's website. These publications "contain the opinion that the actions of the Altai Krai FSB Directorate are illegal," which "contributes to the formation of a negative information base about the activities of law enforcement agencies."
Judge Bykhun not only found the FSB operative's statement admissible and relevant as evidence. His ruling stated that, by law, grounds for denying a citizen access to state secrets may be "the discovery, as a result of verification activities, of the citizen's actions that pose a threat to the security of the Russian Federation."
"The first time, this judge sided with us. And then, perhaps, they explained something to him briefly and that was it. And now, every time, the FSB looks for a new reason in court to deny us," says Alexander Kotenkov. "Either some new document has appeared about the statute of limitations, or the Altai Regional Court says the archival documents about my great-grandfather are outdated and impossible to access. Then they even said there are a lot of names in there that I shouldn't know—but I'm not interested in them anyway..."
Responsibility for evil
The decision does not specify the nature of the "threat to Russian Federation security" declared by the FSB Directorate for the Altai Krai. The reason for the agency's fundamental reluctance to disclose information about this case is also unclear.
The great-grandson of the repressed man himself has some theories on this matter. These theories partially echo the opinions of some historians—for example, Vasily Grishaev's suggestion that the uprising may have been provoked by the authorities.
"There's a belief that if the FSB does release these documents, the truth about the Dobytinsky Uprising will be revealed, revealing whether it was 'party policy,' whether the rebellion was instigated from above," says Alexander Kotenkov. "One might assume the FSB is hiding the truth. I don't know the truth, but that's my guess. The policy back then was like Sharikov's in 'Heart of a Dog: 'Take everything and divide it up.' And I'd add: 'And shoot the dissatisfied.' Perhaps that's what happened: they compiled lists for dispossession, confiscated and divided up the property, and those who were dissatisfied were shot."
As Kotenkov's lawyer explains, refusing to disclose information is the agency's general practice in such cases.
"They talk about continuity at the FSB, about how they have a century-long history. And if that's true, then they're taking on not only the good that's been done over those years, but also the evil," the interviewee muses. "Besides, I think there's fear: in other cases, they've indicated that disclosing certain information could sow social discord and hostility. That is, if you give people information, they'll think poorly of the FSB, the NKVD, the OGPU, and the KGB."
The Struggle for Memory
At the end of September 2024, the Eighth Cassation Court in Kemerovo issued another failure Based on the lawsuit filed by Alexander Kotenkov. The grounds are already listed in the reasoning: the remaining classified information on the names of other participants in the uprising and the deterioration of the documents.
Kotenkov admits that many people tell him that legal action is futile. But he still refuses to give in. It's clear from our conversations that searching for information about his executed great-grandfather has become his life's work.
Next up is a complaint to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The plaintiff's representative also intends to submit documents to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. They will attempt to challenge the "Triple Provision" and the courts' interpretation of the law.
In early October, six descendants of the Gudkov family visited the village of Palochka, the final resting place of their ancestors. Alexander Kotenkov and his relatives tidied up the area around the memorial cross and took a commemorative photo. The cross near the ravine, now a mass grave, also bears the name of the executed great-grandfather. Even after almost a century, this memory remains a struggle.
