Yagoda's secretary who staged the Moscow trials and became a defendant himself
Born in Insar, Penza province, the son of a forest warden, he got a job in a Red Guard office in 1917 with Frinovsky's help and served in the Cheka from 1921. In 1929 he directed the secret transfer of the exiled Trotsky from Alma-Ata to Odessa and his deportation from the USSR. As secretary of the OGPU collegium and of the NKVD, and executive secretary of the Special Board, he became Yagoda's confidant, and at the 1936 Zinoviev-Kamenev trial he rehearsed each defendant's testimony. Dismissed in March 1937 and arrested, he gave detailed testimony against Yagoda at the third Moscow trial and was shot on 15 March 1938.
Activities and affiliations
- Security, intelligence and policing · Soviet Union