An interrogator convicted of falsifying cases and torturing prisoners
Even after Stalin's death he did not escape punishment: in 1958 the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to fifteen years for falsifying cases and torturing prisoners, and he served the term to the last day.
Born in Brest-Litovsk to a Russified family of French descent, he joined the OGPU in 1931. As an NKVD interrogator during the Great Terror he handled the cases of Deputy Foreign Commissar Krestinsky, the Comintern officials Pyatnitsky and Knorin, and the Estonian communist Anvelt, beating confessions out of them. In wartime he led operational departments, served on missions to Tuva, Mongolia and Xinjiang, and rose to lieutenant-general in 1945. Dismissed in 1955 and stripped of his rank, he was arrested in 1957 and sentenced in 1958 to fifteen years for falsifying cases and torturing prisoners. He served the full term, was released in 1972, and died in Moscow in 1990, unrehabilitated.
Career Timeline
- 1931–1937OGPU and NKVD counterintelligence officer
- 1937–1940NKVD interrogator; assistant head in counterintelligence
- 1940–1941Head of an investigative department; assignment in Greece
- 1942–1946Wartime operational chief; missions to Tuva, Mongolia and Xinjiang
- 1946–1955MGB and KGB officer; adviser in China
- 1955–1957Dismissed and stripped of rank
- 1957–1972Arrested; fifteen years in prison
Related historical events
The Record of the Interrogation Rooms and the Courtroom of 1958
Langfang is a name that shows how "confessions" were manufactured in the NKVD interrogation rooms of the Great Terror. The cases of Deputy Foreign Commissar Nikolai Krestinsky, the Comintern officials Osip Pyatnitsky and Wilhelm Knorin, and the Estonian communist Jaan Anvelt passed through his hands, and the beatings by which he extracted confessions later became the grounds of his own conviction.
Unlike his Yezhov-era superiors, he survived. In wartime he led operational departments and served on missions to Tuva, Mongolia and Xinjiang; he received the rank of lieutenant-general in 1945 and worked as an adviser in China in 1953 and 1954. In 1946 he attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest.
The reckoning came after Stalin's death. Dismissed in 1955 and stripped of his rank the following year, he was arrested in April 1957, and in September 1958 the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to fifteen years for falsifying criminal cases and torturing prisoners. He is one of the few Stalin-era interrogators who were convicted and actually served time. Released in 1972 after the full term, he lived in Moscow until his death in 1990, unrehabilitated.