Is it true that Pavlik Morozov was an informer?

In the 1930s, Pavlik Morozov became the first pioneer hero; in the 1980s, he turned into a traitor, and in the 2020s, he found himself on the verge of oblivion. We tried to figure out whether the boy committed an act for which he was first loudly praised, and then just as violently subverted.

According to the official version, in 1931 Pavlik Morozov, who was 12 years old at that time, exposed his fatherwho helped the kulaks. In addition, the boy informed the investigative authorities about neighbors and relatives who were hiding grain from the state. A year later, the teenager and his younger brother were killed. The boys' grandparents, their uncle and cousin were charged with the crime.

Journalist Pavel Solomein, based on the story of Pavlik Morozov, wrote the book “In the Kulak Nest” and sent it to Maxim Gorky. The famous writer drew attention to the plot and at the congress of the Writers' Union made a fiery speech dedicated to the memory of the boy. In the mid-1930s, the formation began cult of Pavlik Morozov: streets and squares were named in his honor, monuments were erected, articles and poems were dedicated to him. Throughout the Union, Pavlik Morozov had imitators - children reported to the OGPU about the misdeeds of their parents. In 1955, Morozov was awarded the title of Pioneer-Hero of the Soviet Union, he was included under No. 1 in the Book of Honor of the All-Union Pioneer Organization named after V.I. Lenin.

In the 1980s, during perestroika, the debunking of the established cult began. One of the important roles in its destruction was played by Yuri Druzhnikov’s book published in 1987 "Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov". The writer did not sympathize with his hero, so he presented him as a petty informer, who also had mental retardation. Pavlik Morozov turned into an anti-hero, whose name became synonymous with betrayal. In the 1990s, many monuments to the boy were demolished, and streets and squares were renamed.

By historical standards, Pavlik Morozov lived relatively recently, but it is difficult to establish whether he was a hero, a traitor, or a victim used by propaganda for its own purposes for two reasons. Firstly, there are no materials from the case of Father Morozov. It is believed that they burned down in a fire in 1950. Secondly, a new wave of interest in the boy’s story occurred in the 1980s–2000s, when the surviving witnesses were elderly. They could significantly adjust their memories taking into account information received after the fact, since the murder of Pavlik Morozov was widely covered in the press.

Troubled family history

It is known that Pavlik Morozov was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky urban district, Sverdlovsk region (at that time Tobolsk province). He was the eldest of five or four children. The boy’s father, Trofim Morozov, fought in the Red Army during the Civil War, and in peacetime was the chairman of the village village council. The family lived poorly. According to the recollections of those around him, the father of the family drank and beat his wife and children. At the end of the 1920s, he left the family; a property scandal broke out between his relatives and his ex-wife. Pavlik Morozov, as the eldest child in the family, took on part of his father's responsibilities. The boy went to school only at the age of 12.

Further events are closely related to the collectivization and dispossession taking place in the country. The duties of the chairman included finding kulaks and working with peasants to convince them to join the collective farm. In Gerasimovka at that time, not a single farm became part of the collective farm. The situation was tense, including because a special settlement was in the area more than 11,000 dispossessed peasants arrived. This is information with which all researchers more or less agree. Then the discrepancies begin.

In April 1930, Trofim Morozov wrote a statement asking relieve him of his duties as chairman. It is not known for certain whether he was fired or not. V. A. Kuchin in the book “On the history of the development and development of the Tavda region and the city of Tavda” cites the text of the statement and notes that there was no resolution on it. Therefore, it is unclear whether Trofim Morozov remained the head of the village council at the time of his arrest or worked in a general store, as other sources claim.

In November 1931, at the Tavda station, located 40 km from Gerasimovka, police special settler Zvorykin was detained. During the search, they found two blank forms with stamps from the Gerasimovsky Village Council. Such forms allowed people to leave exile and get a job in a factory or construction site. After this, Trofim Morozov was detained, who, according to the peasant, was selling certificates to special settlers.

However, according to the official version, Morozov was arrested after the denunciation of Pavlik’s son. At the end of 1931 or at the beginning of 1932, a show trial was held over his father in Gerasimovka, at which Pavlik made a fiery indictment speech. The father was sentenced to ten years for the fact that “being the chairman of the village council, he was friends with the kulaks, sheltered their farms from taxation, and after leaving the village council, he contributed to the escape of special settlers by selling documents.”

The murder of Pavlik Morozov and the investigation

Neither the trial nor the boy’s actions, if any, were mentioned in the press until the fall of 1932. The case ceased to be ordinary when Pavlik Morozov and his younger brother found stabbed to death on September 6, 1932. The boys' mother, Tatyana Morozova, suspected her husband's relatives. They were detained, and soon Danil’s cousin confessed to killing the children. The alleged motive was suspicion of denunciation: the family kept the gun illegally, and Pavel told the policeman about it. At that moment, revenge was considered the reason.

But soon to local investigators OGPU employees joined, the suspects' testimony changed several times - possibly under torture. The case began to acquire new details, and Pavel Morozov turned into a pioneer and activist who exposed the kulaks. Documents appeared according to which the boy reported hiding bread and stealing state grain. The final indictment read: “Pavel Morozov, being a pioneer throughout the current year, waged a devoted, active struggle against the class enemy, the kulaks and their subkulakists, spoke at public meetings, exposed kulak tricks and stated this repeatedly.”

It was the death of the teenager that attracted the attention of the press. First material published in a local newspaper in September under the headline “Kulak gang killed pioneer Morozov. Shoot the unbelted kulaks and kulak sympathizers.” And already in October, the boy’s story was published in Pionerskaya Pravda. It was the first to trace the connection between the father’s crime and the murder of Pavlik Morozov. There also appeared a fragment of a speech with which the boy allegedly spoke at his father’s trial: “I, uncle judge, speak not as a son, but as a pioneer! And I say: my father is betraying the cause of October!”

Through the efforts of newspapers, the murder of Pavlik Morozov was turned into a manifestation of kulak terror, and repressions began throughout the Union. The boy himself became a symbol of the fight against the fists, a man who “preferred spiritual kinship (with the party) over blood (with father)”.

Facts that raise doubts

There are several discrepancies in this matter that attract the attention of modern researchers. Firstly, it is not known for certain whether there was a pioneer organization and whether Paul was a member of it. The boy could consider himself a pioneer, like many peasant children, but it is unlikely that he knew well all the features of ideology. In addition, at the time of the murder, Pavlik was in second grade, and his high level of literacy, including political literacy, is questionable.

Secondly, the murder case itself was handled carelessly, involving not only witness statements, but also rumors. Some documents were not preserved, and some were falsified. A separate volume consists of letters and collective appeals demanding that the participants in the kulak conspiracy be sentenced to death. And the boy’s biography itself is largely based on artistic fiction: trying to fill in the gaps in his life story, the writers were not shy about speculation, which in later retellings was presented as facts.

Thirdly, there is no evidence that the boy reported his father's fraud. Trofim Morozov lived separately, relations with his family were hostile, so Pavel could hardly have known about his parent’s affairs. Most likely, he acted as a witness in the case already at the trial itself. Thus, the investigator in the case of the murder of the boys, E.V. Shepelev, wrote in the indictment that Pavel Morozov reported his father’s crimes. Already in 1989–1990, when journalists began re-investigating the case, the investigator said: “I can't understand why on earth I wrote all this, there is no evidence in the case that the boy contacted the investigative authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. I probably meant that Pavel gave evidence to the judge when Trofim was tried.”

Fourthly, the image of the boy as an informer was formed largely thanks to the book by Yuri Druzhnikov, which appeared in 1989. The writer, in search of texture, turned to works of art and used examples from the press to prove the central thesis that Pavlik was a traitor. Oxford University professor Catriona Kelly takes the opposite position. She researched the cult of the pioneer hero in the Soviet Union. And in his book "Comrade Pavlik. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Boy Hero“She came to the conclusion that the children died due to property disputes between relatives, and the ideological component was introduced from the outside, because Pavlik’s murder coincided with the beginning of repressions against the kulaks, which needed justification.

The main question

Did Pavlik Morozov inform on his father? Catriona Kelly provides a copy of the “denunciation” (spelling and punctuation preserved): “Morozov’s 12-year-old son, Pavel Trofimovich MOROZOV, the latter declares during interrogation of his mother: Uncle, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October. And in every possible way he helps the fist escape. I stood by him with all my might, not as a son, but as a pioneer. I ask that my father be held strictly accountable, because in the future he will not allow others to hide their kulak and clearly violate the party line, and I also add that my father is now appropriating kulak property, took the bed of Arsentiy Kulakanov’s kulak and wanted to take a haystack from him, but Kulakanov’s kulak did not give him the hay, but said it would be better for the treasury to take it.” 

But the authenticity of the document is in doubt: the copy is not dated, there are no indications of sources (for example, the father’s case number). This text appears not only in the case materials, but also in the party report. In some places it is referred to as a letter and in others as an oral statement in the cross-examination of his mother. Another oddity is that such a fact as the exposure of the collective farm chairman that he took bribes and issued false certificates should have become public knowledge at least at the local level in the summer or autumn of 1931. But there is nothing in the press about this case.

According to Catriona Kelly, the text of Pavlik’s denunciation was written after his death, either for a party report, or by order of the investigation. Of course, this is only a reasoned assumption by the researcher, and in theory it does not exclude the theory that the teenager dreamed of establishing order in Soviet society and resorted to intra-family denunciation. But there is no convincing evidence for this. 

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that Russia has never waged offensive wars?
2. Is it true that Ukrainian statehood was created by Vladimir Lenin?
3. During the Winter War, did the Finnish army have “cuckoo” snipers who shot from specially equipped positions in the trees?