Institutional founder of Soviet military intelligence
Atatürk personally ordered Aralov's bronze figure placed on Istanbul's Taksim Square Republic Monument — the only Soviet diplomat on the monument — in gratitude for the aid Soviet Russia gave during the Turkish War of Independence.
Institutional founder of Soviet military intelligence: first head of the Red Army Registration Directorate (future GRU) in 1918, he built the foundations of Bolshevik strategic intelligence. A member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and a founding member of the Cheka, he helped construct the Red Army alongside Trotsky. After the Civil War he served as Soviet plenipotentiary to Lithuania, Turkey, Latvia, and China; his bronze figure stands on Istanbul's Taksim Square Republic Monument, placed at Atatürk's personal request for Soviet aid during Turkey's war of independence. Purged from intelligence in 1937, he volunteered for the front at 60 and served as trophy chief of the 33rd Army through WWII.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1902Joined RSDLP and Imperial Russian Army
- 1914–1917Served in WWI, rose to staff-captain; awarded 5 battle orders
- 1918.1Head of Operations, Moscow Military District; founding member of Cheka
- 1918.9–1919.7Member, Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic
- 1918.11–1919.6First head, Registration Directorate (future GRU) of the Red Army
- 1919–1920Member, RVS of 12th Army, 14th Army, South-Western Front
- 1921–1927Plenipotentiary to Lithuania, Turkey, Latvia, and China
- 1927–1937Presidium of VSNKh; head of State Insurance
- 1938–1941Deputy director, State Literature Museum
- 1941–1945Volunteered at 60; trophy department chief, 33rd Army
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Harbin rising organiserAt the Harbin front in 1905, he agitated among soldiers and prepared an armed rising.
- 1914–1918First World WarRussian Army officer in the warHe served as a Russian officer in the East Prussian operation during the First World War.
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionArmy committee memberAfter the February Revolution, he was elected in turn to the regimental, divisional and Third Army committees.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionDelegate to the Second Congress of SovietsIn autumn 1917, he was a delegate to the Second Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionFirst head of the Red Army Registration Directorate (forerunner of the GRU)Appointed first head of the Registration Directorate in November 1918, he laid the foundations of Soviet military intelligence. As a member of the Republic's Revolutionary Military Council he helped build the Red Army, and was also a founding member of the Cheka.
- 1937–1938The Great Purgeintelligence officer
Front service and army revolutionary activity, 1902-1917
Aralov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902 and that same year enlisted as a volunteer in the 3rd Grenadier Regiment in Moscow to discharge his military service. After a year of active duty he was transferred to the reserve as a non-commissioned officer and in November 1903 was promoted to ensign of reserve army infantry. Recalled in the spring of 1905, he was posted with the 2nd Grenadier Regiment to the front at Harbin in Manchuria, where during the revolution of 1905 he agitated among the soldiers and prepared an armed rising; when the plan was uncovered he deserted, evaded arrest and returned illegally to Moscow. According to some authors he was sentenced to death at that time. In Moscow he joined the party's military organization, organized under the leadership of Yaroslavsky and Zemlyachka, and soon after the defeat of the December 1905 rising he set up a cache of weapons left over from former members of the workers' fighting squads, together with revolutionary literature, in his own apartment. After the first revolution was defeated he withdrew from revolutionary activity for a time, studying from 1908 at the Moscow Commercial Institute, working as a bookkeeper at the State Bank, and marrying Sofya Flerina, the daughter of a Moscow priest; from 1907 he also worked as an instructor at a reformatory for juvenile offenders. Mobilized again in July 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War, he took part in the East Prussian operation, was encircled and fought his way out, then served in the 114th Infantry Regiment, temporarily commanded a company in 1915 and by the end of 1916 had been promoted to staff captain and commanded a company. By his own account in his autobiography he took part in more than twenty engagements and received five battle orders, and some records place him from February 1917 as senior adjutant of the staff of the 174th Infantry Division of the 20th Army Corps, 3rd Army, on the South-Western Front. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was an active Menshevik, elected successively to his regimental, divisional and then 3rd Army committees, and published articles in the 3rd Army newspaper Voice of the 3rd Army between May and December 1917, the best known being "Traitors of the Revolution". A member of the Pre-Parliament and a delegate to the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, in the autumn of 1917 he was appointed assistant commander of the 114th Infantry Regiment, by then withdrawn to Helsingfors in Finland, and was demobilized in January 1918. Sources differ on whether he was a Menshevik internationalist or a Menshevik defencist in this period.