February 18,1891
Tver region,Russian Empire
Artur Khristyanovich Artuzov (name at birth:Artur Eugene Leonard Fraucci) (Russian :Арту́рХристиа́новичАрту́зов (Фра́учи);18 February 1891 –21 August 1937) [1] was a leading figure in the Soviet international intelligence and counter-intelligence and security officer and spymaster of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s.
Artuzov's father was Italian-Swiss and employed as a cheesemaker;his mother was Estonian-Latvian. [2] Artuzov studied metallurgy at St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute. Since childhood he was familiar with the Bolshevik revolutionaries Nikolai Podvoisky and Mikhail Kedrov,who were the husbands of his mother's sisters.
He started distributing illegal revolutionary literature as a teenager in 1906. In May 1909 he graduated with a gold medal from the Novgorod classical men's gymnasium and entered the metallurgical department of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute,from which he graduated with honors in February 1917,after which he worked as a design engineer in the Metallurgical Bureau of Professor Vladimir Grum-Grzhimailo.
In August 1917,after returning from a business trip to Nizhny Tagil,he decided to leave the profession of a design engineer and began working in the Office for the Demobilization of the Army and Navy. In December 1917 he became a Bolshevik and after the Russian Revolution he joined the Communist Party. [3]
From December 1917 to March 1918 he worked as secretary of the Audit Commission of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs in Vologda and Arkhangelsk,and from March to August 1918 he was the head of the partisan detachment of conscripts on the Northern Front. Then he successively held the positions of head of the military information bureau of the Moscow Military District and head of the active part of the Military Control Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic.
In 1918 he joined the Red Army and fought against the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The following year he joined the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). [4] His uncle,Dr. Mikhail Kedrov,was an associate of Vladimir Lenin and was the head of the Cheka's "Special Department," which monitored the Red Army. [5] On July 18,1921,Artuzov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
In the 1920s,Artuzov headed the Cheka's counterintelligence arm,KRO. In 1925 he wrote an operational manual called ABC of Counterintelligence,which recommended using ideologically based operations. An example of this strategy was Operation Trust,which lasted from 1922 to 1927,a series of phony monarchist/counter-revolutionary front organizations that monitored the activities of genuine activists. [6]
Similarly,his Operation Syndicate-2 resulted in the arrest of Boris Savinkov,the head of the anti-Soviet emigrant organization "People's Union for the Defense of Motherland and Freedom". Another success of Artuzov was the arrest in 1925 of Sidney Reilly. Artuzov was the initiator and direct developer of Operation Tarantella.
Operation Trust was shut down in 1927,leading former Trust agent Alexander Kutepov to discover its true origins. Kutepov organized several terrorist operations inside the Soviet Union in retaliation,leading to Artuzov's dismissal in November. He was placed as second deputy assistant of the Secret Operations Directorate of OGPU,the Cheka's replacement,which was headed by Genrikh Yagoda,a protege of Joseph Stalin. [7] Artuzov,a consummate professional spy,often clashed with the less extensively trained Yagoda. [2]
Artuzov replaced Mikhail Trilisser as deputy head of the INO,the foreign intelligence directorate within OGPU,in October 1929. Trilisser had complained about Yagoda,his boss,at a Party meeting. Artuzov defended Yagoda and insisted that his senior position meant that he could only be held to account by the Party's Central Committee. Trilisser was dismissed and Artuzov promoted in his stead. [8]
Encouraged by the success of Operation Trust,Artuzov spearheaded Operation Tarantella in 1930. A deception campaign aimed against British foreign intelligence,"the operation's broad aim was to convince London that industrialisation of the Soviet Union was a huge success." [9]
Artuzov was promoted to head the INO in 1931. Among his priorities was development of training courses for operatives;this was especially important because the organization was moving away from operations conducted under diplomatic cover,in favor of "illegal" operations. [10]
During the command of Artuzov,the INO OGPU carried out dozens of operations,during which dozens of personnel and hundreds of agents were involved. An important aspect of the work of Soviet intelligence was the German work. Artuzov's employees created a network of agents that supplied the Soviet leadership with valuable information about the events that took place in the National Socialist Party of Germany,as well as about the activities of a number of state bodies and special services. During Artuzov's work in the Foreign Department of the OGPU,the famous illegal intelligence officers Fyodor Karin,Arnold Deutsch,Theodor Malli,Dmitry Bystroletov and others worked for Soviet intelligence.
In April and May 1934,Artuzov worked with Stalin to subsume the Fourth intelligence directorate (military intelligence) into the INO,citing the recent collapse of the Fourth's HUMINT efforts. In the process of this transition—under which Artuzov was charged with reviving the Fourth's capabilities—he was made deputy director of the Fourth directorate while also staying on as head of the INO. Later that year,both organizations would become part of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB)—itself under the umbrella of NKVD,the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. [11]
According to Walter Krivitsky,who was working for Soviet military intelligence at the time,Artuzov accidentally angered Joseph Stalin at a meeting of the Politburo in June 1934,when they were discussing the possibility of an alliance with Poland against the rising threat from Nazi Germany. Artuzov correctly forecast that the Polish government would not consider the proposition. [12] Artuzov stepped down as head of INO on May 21,1935, [13] and was appointed deputy head of military intelligence,the GRU. This was one of several personnel changes following dismissal of the long-serving head of the GRU,Yan Karlovich Berzin,which may have reflected Stalin's anxiety about Nazi Germany and Japanese expansion.
In 1936,Artuzov helped supervise Operation X,a program to arm the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. [14]
Artuzov was sacked on 11 January 1937,as the author of a draft telegram to the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang,who had kidnapped the nationalist leader and de facto ruler of China,Chiang Kai-shek,which urged the warlord to kill Chiang. Mao Zedong,leader of the Chinese communists,wanted Chiang dead,to increase the chances of a communist victory in China,but Stalin's prime concern was to avoid a Japanese invasion of Siberia. He ordered Mao to secure Chiang's release. [15]
Artuzov was transferred to the archive department of the NKVD and commissioned to write a history of the organisation. [16] In March 1937,again according to Walter Krivitsky,he tried to save himself when the new head of the NKVD,Nikolai Yezhov,began a purge of officers associated with the former NKVD boss,Genrikh Yagoda,by denouncing both Yagoda and Abram Slutsky,Artuzov's successor as head of the Foreign Department. Slutsky retaliated by denouncing Artuzov. [17]
Artuzov was arrested on May 13,1937,charged with "espionage","terror","participation in a counter-revolutionary conspiratorial organization within the NKVD". On July 8,1937 he was dismissed from his position.
The investigation was led by Ya. A. Deich,head of the Secretariat of the NKVD. His execution was approved by Stalin,Stanisław Kosior,Vyacheslav Molotov,Lazar Kaganovich,and Kliment Voroshilov on August 20,1937;he was shot on August 21,1937. [18] His ashes were buried in the grave of unclaimed ashes No. 1 of the crematorium of the Donskoy cemetery.
On March 7,1956,he was posthumously rehabilitated by the All-Union Military Commission of the USSR.
Much of Artuzov's work developing Soviet human intelligence was undone by Stalin's purges of the NKVD during the Great Terror of 1936–1938,with more than half of the INO's operatives executed or sent to labor camps. [19]
The State Political Directorate,abbreviated as GPU,was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from February 1922 to November 1923. It was the immediate successor of the Cheka,and was replaced by the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU).
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda was a Soviet secret police official who served as director of the NKVD,the Soviet Union's security and intelligence agency,from 1934 to 1936. Appointed by Joseph Stalin,Yagoda supervised arrests,show trials,and executions of the Old Bolsheviks Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev,climactic events of the Great Purge. Yagoda also supervised construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal with Naftaly Frenkel,using penal labor from the gulag system,during which 12,000–25,000 laborers died.
The First Main Directorateof the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities by providing for the training and management of covert agents,intelligence collection administration,and the acquisition of foreign and domestic political,scientific and technical intelligence for the Soviet Union.
There were a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the October Revolution,created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20,1917,was called "Cheka" (ЧК). Officers were referred to as "chekists",a name that is still informally applied to people under the Federal Security Service of Russia,the KGB's successor in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The Main Directorate of State Security was the name of the Soviet Union's most important security body within the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) USSR. At the time of its existence,which was from July 10,1934 to February 3,1941,the GUGB reflected exactly the Secret Operational Directorate within OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars,which operated within OGPU structure from 1923 to 1931/32. An intelligence service and secret police from July 1934 to February 1941,it was run under the auspices of the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Its first head was first deputy of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs,Commissioner 1st rank of State Security Yakov Agranov.
Operation Trust was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) of the Soviet Union. The operation,which was set up by GPU's predecessor Cheka,ran from 1921 to 1926,set up a fake anti-Bolshevik resistance organization,"Monarchist Union of Central Russia",MUCR,in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks. The created front company was called the Moscow Municipal Credit Association.
Yakov Grigoryevich Blumkin was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary,a Bolshevik,and an agent of the Cheka and the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU).
Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser,also known by the pseudonym Moskvin,was a chief of the Foreign Department of the Cheka,i.e. the State Political Directorate or GPU,and then the OGPU of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Later,he worked for the NKVD as a covert bureau chief and Comintern leader.
Abram Aronovich Slutsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service (INO),then part of the NKVD,from May 1935 to 17 February 1938,when he was allegedly poisoned.
Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky was a Soviet secret police official who served as a deputy head of the NKVD under Nikolai Yezhov during the Great Purge.
Nahum Isaakovich Eitingon,also known as Leonid Aleksandrovich Eitingon,was a Soviet intelligence officer,who gained prominence through his involvement in several NKVD operations,including the assassination of Leon Trotsky,the orchestration of partisan movements during World War II,and atomic espionage. He has been described by Yevgeny Kiselyov as one of the organisers and managers of the state terrorism system under Joseph Stalin and later a victim thereof. He may have been a great-cousin of Max Eitingon,though this has been disputed.
The OMS,also known in English as the International Liaison Department (1921–1939),was "the most secret department" of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. It has also been translated as the Illegal Liaison Section and Foreign Liaison Department.
Matvei Davidovich Berman was a Soviet security officer and head of the Gulag Soviet prison camp system from 1932 to 1937.
Vsevolod Apollonovich Balitsky was a Soviet official,Commissar of State Security 1st Class of the NKVD and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The Joint State Political Directorate,abbreviated as OGPU,was the secret police of the Soviet Union from November 1923 to July 1934,succeeding the State Political Directorate (GPU). Responsible to the Council of People's Commissars,the OGPU was headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky until 1926,then by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky until replaced by the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) within the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs,abbreviated as NKVD,was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police organization,and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security functions. The NKVD is known for carrying out political repression and the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin,as well as counterintelligence and other operations on the Eastern Front of World War II. The head of the NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936,Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938,Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946,and Sergei Kruglov in 1946.
Yefim Georgievich Yevdokimov was a Soviet politician and member of the Cheka and OGPU. He was a key figure in the Red Terror,the Great Purge and dekulakization that saw millions of people executed and deported.
Main Intelligence Directorate,abbreviated GRU,was the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces until 1991. For a few months it was also the foreign military intelligence agency of the newly established Russian Federation until 7 May 1992 when it was dissolved and the Russian GRU took over its activities.
Yakov Isaakovich Serebryansky was an agent of the Soviet security who created the first Soviet spy network in Palestine,and conducted special operations including the kidnapping and murder in Paris of a former Russian General Alexander Kutepov.
Roman Alexandrovich Pilar was a Soviet security and intelligence officer.
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