Stalin's brother-in-law who chaired the Moscow troika
Arriving in Crimea on 19 January 1921, Redens set up independent city Chekas in Simferopol, Sevastopol, and Kerch, each with the right to pass death sentences, reporting directly to him. These bodies carried out the mass purges of remaining Wrangel forces and 'class enemies.'
A Pole from Łomża, Redens joined the Cheka in 1918 and, as chairman of the Crimean Cheka during the Civil War, directed mass reprisals against the remnants of Wrangel's army. He became Stalin's brother-in-law through marriage to Anna Alliluyeva, sister of Stalin's second wife Nadezhda. As head of the NKVD directorate for Moscow Region from 1933, he oversaw security in the capital and, during the Great Terror, chaired the Moscow troika under NKVD Order No. 00447, presiding over mass death sentences carried out at Butovo and Kommunarka. Arrested in late 1938 on charges of spying for Poland, he was shot in February 1940.
Career Timeline
- 1920–1921Chairman of the Crimean Cheka
- 1928–1931OGPU plenipotentiary representative for the Transcaucasian SFSR
- 1931–1933OGPU plenipotentiary representative for the Ukrainian SSR
- 1933–1938Chief of the NKVD Directorate for Moscow Region
- 1937–1938Chairman of the Moscow region troika
- 1938People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Kazakh SSR
- 1938–1940Arrested, tried and executed
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionChairman of the Crimean ChekaAs chairman of the Crimean Cheka in 1920 he directed the mass reprisals against Wrangel's surrendered forces. He later became Stalin's brother-in-law, and was shot in 1940.
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationHead of NKVD of Moscow Oblast
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeChairman of the Moscow region troikaHe chaired the Moscow region troika under Order No. 00447 from July 1937, presiding over mass death sentences carried out at Butovo and Kommunarka. Stalin's brother-in-law, he was nonetheless arrested in 1938 and shot in 1940.
Fall and Posthumous Reckoning
In January 1938 Redens was demoted from chief of the Moscow Region NKVD to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR, and on 21 November 1938 he was arrested. The charges were paradoxical: spying for Polish intelligence (Article 58-1a) and, simultaneously, being part of an 'anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization' that carried out mass unfounded arrests and executions of party and Soviet cadres. During preliminary investigation and in court, Redens admitted to the indiscriminate repression but denied the espionage charge. On 21 January 1940 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to death; he was shot on 12 February 1940.
In 1957 his widow Anna Alliluyeva petitioned for his rehabilitation and was refused. In 1961, after her renewed appeal and on Nikita Khrushchev's direct order, the Military Collegium posthumously rehabilitated Redens. However, an additional review by the USSR Procuracy in 1988–89 concluded that Redens had indeed fabricated criminal cases and directed mass illegal repressions, making his rehabilitation unfounded. But since 27 years had passed since the decision, there was no legal mechanism to reverse it. Redens thus remains in history as both an executor of Stalinist state violence and a victim of the system he served.