teacher, Alexander began to study the works of Marx and Engels, and was fascinated by dialectics. After graduating from school in 1939 with honors, he entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History (other options were math and architecture). Among his fellow students were later well-known philosophers Arseny Gulyga, Igor Narsky, Dmitry Gorsky, Pavel Kopnin. The atmosphere at the institute, the forge of the "fighters of the ideological front", was heavy. Zinoviev was almost without funds, the meager scholarship was not enough, his father stopped helping him. As Pavel Fokin writes, Zinoviev was in a state of physical and nervous exhaustion. In search of an answer to the question of why the bright ideals of communism proclaimed were at variance with reality, Zinoviev thought about the figure of Stalin: "The Father of Nations" became the cause of the perversion of communist ideals. Early anti-Stalinism. War years According to the memoirs of Zinoviev, while still in school, he had the idea to kill Stalin, which he repeatedly discussed with close friends; The "plan" failed because they did not find a weapon. In Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History, at the next Komsomol meeting at the end of 1939, Zinoviev emotionally spoke about the troubles and injustices that took place in the village, openly criticized the personality cult of Stalin. Zinoviev was sent for a psychiatric examination, and then expelled from the Komsomol and Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. According to his memoirs, he was arrested and interrogated at the Lubyanka. Zinoviev recalled that the investigators were confident that someone had inspired his views to him, so they planned to let him go to reveal the entire anti-Soviet group. When transferred to one of the apartments of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Zinoviev managed to escape. He hid in different places: he left for Pakhtino for a while, then he wandered, and later returned to Moscow. At the end of 1940 he joined the Red Army to avoid persecution. In the military enlistment office he called himself "Zenoviev", saying that he had lost his passport. Subsequently, Zinoviev often returned to this story, including in his memoirs "The Confession of the Outcast", calling that year the "year of horror". This episode of the biography is in general terms mentioned in encyclopedic publications, its credibility is generally not questioned by biographers and commentators. Pavel Fokin pointed out that the