An administrator swept into the Leningrad purge
“I sincerely repent and ask you to give me the opportunity to atone,” he said in his final statement.
Filipp Mikheyev was a Soviet Communist Party functionary who, as administrative director of the Leningrad city and oblast committees, kept the party apparatus running through the war and after. Arrested in the Leningrad Affair in 1949, he was sentenced to ten years in 1950 and rehabilitated with his party status restored in 1954.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1902Born in Chernoyarovo, Tver Governorate
- 1923Studied at the Pskov Soviet Party school
- 1924–1926Served in the Red Army
- 1926Joined the Communist Party
- 1936–1940Deputy secretary and first secretary of the Detskoye Selo district party committee
- 1940–1949Administrative director of the Leningrad city and oblast party committees
- 1941–1944Participated in the defense of Leningrad
- 1950–1954Sentenced to ten years in the Leningrad Affair and rehabilitated in 1954
Related historical events
- 1941–1944Siege of LeningradLeningrad defense participantHe participated in the defense of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944.
- 1949–1950The Leningrad AffairOne of the nine at the central trialAdministrative director of the Leningrad Oblast and City Committees, sentenced to 10 years, showing how even housekeeping staff were swept into the purge.
In the dock of the Leningrad Affair
Mikheyev was one of the nine central defendants in the Leningrad Affair. Alongside Kuznetsov, Popkov, Voznesensky, Kapustin, Lazutin, Rodionov, Turko and Zakrzhevskaya, he was brought before the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court in the Leningrad House of Officers on 29–30 September 1950.
The trial was staged from the start. A letter from Abakumov and Vavilov to Stalin fixed the outcome in advance: six defendants were to be shot, while Mikheyev, Turko and Zakrzhevskaya were slated for long prison terms. The hearing ran without prosecution, defence or witnesses, before 100–150 party activists.
The charges against him were articles 58-1"a" (treason), 58-7 (sabotage) and 58-11 (participation in a counter-revolutionary organization) of the RSFSR Criminal Code. The indictment alleged 'sabotage' in the party and state apparatus and links to 'enemies of the party' such as Kuznetsov and Popkov. Its substance was fabricated: promoting 'drunkards and thieves', exalting Leningrad's 'special significance' while concealing Stalin's role, and usurping the credit for the city's defence.
In court he answered 'I admit it fully', and in his final word asked for a chance to atone. He served a ten-year sentence in Vladimir prison, held among German and Japanese generals. On 30 April 1954 the Military Collegium ruled that his confessions had been produced by 'illegal methods of investigation' by former MGB officers, and on 3 June 1954 his party status was restored.
A study by his sons Valery and Georgy Mikheyev, published in the journal Noveyshaya istoriya Rossii from the investigatory files, remains the most detailed record of his ordeal and that of his co-defendants.