The Ukrainian MVD chief whose warning to Khrushchev, after Beria threatened to make him 'camp dust,' triggered Beria's arrest
Beria called him and said: "We shall expel you from the organs, arrest you, and let you rot in the camps — we will grind you to powder, turn you into camp dust."
A Soviet security officer who rose from border guard to Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, and who led Ukraine's partisan headquarters during the Great Patriotic War, commanding over 300,000 partisans. After the war he directed the suppression of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in western Ukraine, overseeing mass arrests and deportations. Demoted by Lavrentiy Beria to Lviv oblast police chief after Stalin's death, he warned Nikita Khrushchev in June 1953 that Beria was building the MVD into an independent power centre outside Party control; Beria's threat to turn him into 'camp dust' and this warning together became the decisive trigger for the conspiracy to arrest Beria.
Career Timeline
- 1941–1946Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian SSR
- 1942–1945Chief, Ukrainian Staff of the Partisan Movement
- 1946–1953Minister of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian SSR
- 1953.03–06Chief, Lviv Oblast MVD Directorate
- 1953–1956Minister of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian SSR (reinstated)
- 1956–1957Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, USSR; Chief, Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops