The NKID press chief who under torture never testified against Litvinov
The son of Parvus, born in Dresden, he worked from 1922 in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and on the foreign desk of Izvestia, served as first secretary of the Berlin embassy and headed the NKID press department in 1937–1939. Arrested in May 1939 just after Litvinov's dismissal, he was beaten in Beria's office and held in Sukhanovka prison but gave no false testimony; in 1941 he was sentenced to ten years and exile. Rehabilitated in 1955, he became a dissident publicist close to Andrei Sakharov and left the party in protest in 1979. He wrote the memoirs Catastrophe and Second Birth and A Way Out of the Labyrinth.
Also known as: Evgeny Gelfand · Yevgeny Gnedin
Activities and affiliations
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1922–1939
Soviet Union state institutionsForeign affairsMain
Diplomacy and international organization -
1931–1979
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Diplomacy and international organization
Career Timeline
- 1922–1930NKID: head of the trade-policy subsection, senior desk officer for Germany
- 1927–1935.02Deputy head of the foreign department of Izvestia
- 1935.02–1937.06First secretary of the Soviet embassy in Berlin
- 1937.06–1939.05Head of the NKID press department
- 1939.05Arrested; held in Sukhanovka prison (1940–1941)
- 1941Sentenced to ten years and permanent exile
- 1955.10Rehabilitated and restored to the party
- 1979Left the CPSU in protest