First chief of Soviet foreign intelligence: eight months that laid the INO foundation
When Mogilevsky took over as the first INO chief in 1921, he inherited a handful of operatives and a shabby Moscow office. Eight months later, the first Soviet foreign intelligence residencies were planted across Europe and the Middle East.
Born to a Jewish merchant family in Pavlograd, he joined the RSDLP at eighteen and became a professional revolutionary. Arrested in 1904, he fled to Switzerland, met Lenin in Geneva, and joined the Bolshevik faction on Lenin's recommendation. In 1919 he was assigned to the Cheka, working in the Moscow Cheka and the Special Department. In August 1921 he became the first chief of the GPU Foreign Department (INO): the founding leadership of what would become the KGB First Chief Directorate and later the SVR. In 1922 he was transferred as GPU plenipotentiary and chairman for Transcaucasia, directing intelligence networks against Turkey and Iran and taking part in the suppression of the 1924 August Uprising in Georgia, for which he received the Order of the Red Banner. He died in March 1925 when his aircraft exploded in mid-air near Tiflis under circumstances that were never determined.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1902Joins Pavlograd organization of the RSDLP
- 1904Arrested; emigrates to Switzerland — meets Lenin in Geneva
- 1906–1916Returns to Russia; propaganda work in Yekaterinoslav; university studies; military service
- 1917Minsk RSDLP committee member; delegate to April Conference; October Revolution participant
- 1917–1919Justice organs in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow, Kiev; Revtribunal of 12th Army
- 1919–1920Moscow Cheka; liquidation of Left SR plot; Special Department plenipotentiary of GPU
- 1921–1922Chief of GPU Foreign Department (INO) — first head of Soviet foreign intelligence
- 1922–1925GPU Plenipotentiary and Chairman for Transcaucasia — intelligence vs. Turkey & Iran; suppression of 1924 August Uprising
Related historical events
Leading the INO and building its early foreign intelligence network
On 6 August 1921, Solomon Mogilevsky succeeded Yakov Davtyan as head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka)'s Foreign Department, the INO. The department continued foreign-intelligence work after the Cheka was reorganized as the State Political Directorate (GPU) in 1922. A major task during Mogilevsky's tenure was obtaining information on foreign governments' plans ahead of the Genoa Conference. In a retrospective account, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service says that the INO gathered information in preparation for the conference and intercepted correspondence during it that disclosed a plot against the Soviet delegation. The account also says that the INO and the Red Army's intelligence directorate established a joint legal residency in Berlin, which became a center of the security organs' intelligence work in Europe. In March 1922 Mogilevsky moved to the post of GPU plenipotentiary for Transcaucasia and chairman of the Transcaucasian Cheka. His tenure as INO chief was brief, but the department expanded its collection of political and military information abroad during this period.