The Soviet trade representative who sent Republican Spain's gold to Moscow
Stashevsky proposed to finance minister Negrín the idea of opening 'a current account in gold' in Moscow, and persuaded him it could be used to buy arms and raw materials.
A Soviet intelligence officer and trade official from the SDKPiL. He ran the joint INO–GRU residency in Berlin as one of the key figures of early Soviet military intelligence, later headed Torgsin and served in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade before being posted to Republican Spain as trade representative in 1936. In Spain he negotiated arms sales and managed the financial side of Operation X; he has been identified as the man who persuaded Juan Negrín to deposit the Bank of Spain's gold reserves in Moscow. Recalled in June 1937 and shot two months later, he was rehabilitated in 1956.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1921–1924Head of the joint INO–GRU residency in Berlin
- 1925–1926Board member, Sovtorgflot
- 1926–1932Deputy chairman, Pushnotorg and Soyuzpushnina
- 1932–1934Chairman, Torgsin
- 1934–1937Head of Glavpushnina, People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade
- 1936–1937USSR trade representative in Spain
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionWestern Front intelligence chiefFrom November 1919 to December 1920, he headed intelligence departments on the Western Front.
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarSoviet trade representative handling gold transfersAs Soviet trade representative in Republican Spain from 1936 to 1937, he negotiated arms sales and managed the financial side of Operation X, including the gold transfer arrangements; he was recalled to Moscow and executed during the Great Purge.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeSoviet official executed in the Great PurgeRecalled in June 1937, he was shot two months later.
Revolutionary work and the Berlin residency, 1905-1924
Stashevsky's family name was originally Hirszfeld, and he also worked under the names Verkhovsky and Stepanov. After passing gymnasium examinations for four grades externally, he joined the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) in 1905, then lived in emigration from 1908 to 1918, working as a fur dyer in factories in Paris (1909-1914) and London (1914-1917). He was fluent in German, French, English and Polish.
In 1918 he moved to Soviet Russia and joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Assigned by the "revolutionary government of Lithuania," he worked in Dvinsk, Vilno and Kovno, where he was arrested by the Germans and deported across the demarcation line. After finishing the Lefortovo school for Red commanders (May 1918 to January 1919), he served as a partisan detachment commander, as military commissar of a brigade of the 4th Rifle Division, and as commissar of that division. From November 1919 to April 1920 he headed the agent section of the political department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front, and from April to December 1920 he headed the registration (intelligence) department of that front's staff under the name Artur Karlovich Verkhovsky.
From January 1921 he directed the Berlin center of the Razvedupr under cover, while officially serving as secretary of the RSFSR trade mission. The Berlin center he led was a core base of early Soviet military intelligence, and in this period Stashevsky was among the first military intelligence officers awarded the Order of the Red Banner. That Western European experience underlay the way he later ran foreign outposts after he moved into the trade and foreign-exchange field.