A Kuznetsov appointee to the Yaroslavl obkom who was sentenced to 15 years instead of death in the Leningrad Affair
"He beat me in the face and head, and when I fell, kicked me in the stomach… Then I saw the doctor with a syringe. I was terrified and signed two protocols at once."
A Belarusian-born party official who rose through Leningrad factories and the party apparatus to head the Yaroslavl Oblast Committee (1946–1949), one of the regional cadres Alexei Kuznetsov placed across the RSFSR after the war. Tried with the six central defendants in the Leningrad Affair on 29–30 September 1950, he was sentenced to 15 years instead of death; beaten into a false confession by MGB interrogators, he was released and rehabilitated in 1954 and lived quietly until 1994.
Career Timeline
- 1926–1937Glass factory worker → engineer-economist, planning-production dept head, 'Proletary' factory, Leningrad
- 1937–1940Director, 'Proletary' factory, Leningrad
- 1940–1944Cadres secretary → 1st secretary, Krasnogvardeysky District Committee, Leningrad
- 1944–1945Secretary, Leningrad Oblast Committee VKP(b)
- 1945–19462nd secretary, Leningrad Oblast Committee VKP(b)
- 1946–19491st secretary, Yaroslavl Oblast Committee VKP(b); deputy, USSR Supreme Soviet
- 1949–1954Leningrad Affair: dismissed, arrested, sentenced to 15 years (beaten into false confession by MGB)
- 1954–1956Deputy chairman, Kustanay Oblast Executive Committee
- 1956–Deputy chairman, Leningrad Oblast Planning Committee → personal pensioner of union significance