Konstantin Fyodorovich Lunev
Константин Фёдорович Лунёв
1907–1980
○ Natural death after illness retirement
A party cadre elevated into the security apparatus
In 1953, as First Deputy Minister, he sat on the Special Judicial Presence judging his former minister.
Konstantin Lunev was a party cadre from a textile-working background who moved from postwar Moscow party administration into the senior security apparatus. After Beria’s arrest in 1953, he became First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and represented the ministry on the Special Judicial Presence that tried its former chief. The role showed the MVD being subordinated to the Party’s political decision while also revealing a system in which party cadres were placed atop coercive institutions. Lunev later served as First Deputy Chairman of the KGB and acting head of the Kazakh KGB, retiring through illness in 1960.
Career Timeline
- 1922–1937Textile worker, trade-union and industrial administrator
- 1941–1946Moscow regional party instructor and city first secretary
- 1946–1953Moscow party official and administrative department head
- 1953.06–07Head of the MVD Ninth Directorate
- 1953–1954First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and member of the Beria Special Judicial Presence
- 1954–1959First Deputy Chairman of the KGB
- 1958–1959Acting KGB chairman and chairman of the Kazakh KGB
- 1961–1969Deputy director of an energy-engineering research institute, then pensioner