The operations chief who guarded Stalin
At a December 1936 Cheka dinner, Pauker reenacted Zinoviev's execution: dragged to his knees by two comrades, he begged 'For God's sake, call Comrade Stalin!' — and Stalin roared with laughter.
A Jewish hairdresser and make-up artist from Lemberg, Pauker served as chief of the OGPU/NKVD Operations Department and Stalin's personal bodyguard, directing arrests and executions during the Great Purge. Stalin trusted him intimately. Yet in 1937 he was arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate the leader and shot.
Career Timeline
- 1922–1923Deputy chief of the OGPU Operations Department
- 1923–1936Chief of the OGPU and NKVD Operations Department
- 1924–1937Chief of Stalin's personal security
- 1936–1937Chief of the 1st Department, GUGB NKVD
- 1937Arrested and executed
Related historical events
Relationship with Stalin
From 1924, Pauker held the most intimate security post in the Soviet leadership: chief of Stalin's personal security. A former hairdresser and make-up artist, he became the only person Stalin ever trusted to shave him. No one else was permitted to hold a blade to Stalin's neck.
Pauker studied Stalin's habits and tastes with meticulous care. According to Alexander Orlov, he noticed that Stalin wanted to appear taller and devised special boots with extra-high heels partially concealed inside the shaft; he also ordered Stalin's greatcoats to reach the ankle. Stalin rewarded him with two cars, a Cadillac and a Lincoln, and Pauker became a conduit for scarce goods and delicacies flowing to Politburo members.
He also served as Stalin's court jester. With his repertoire of accents, especially Jewish impersonations, and his rotund frame squeezed into elaborate OGPU uniforms, Pauker led the Kremlin drinking sessions and invariably played Ded Moroz (Father Frost) at Kremlin children's Christmas parties. Stalin's son Vasily wrote him letters asking for ink; Stalin's niece Kira Alliluyeva recalled that "Pauker was great fun. He liked children like all Jews and did not have a high opinion of himself."
All this trust and intimacy shattered in April 1937, when Pauker was arrested on charges of plotting to assassinate Stalin. Stalin later reflected: "How loyal Pauker had seemed... and yet, when I did not appoint him to replace Yagoda, he immediately went over to the Trotskyists." On 14 August 1937, by an 'special procedure' order signed by Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov, and Yezhov, Pauker was shot in the basement of the Lubyanka.