Abakumov's deputy interrogator who beat prisoners and fabricated protocols in the Leningrad Affair
After his arrest he testified: 'I went to Leningrad with ten other investigators… Before we left, Abakumov warned me sternly: Zhdanov's name must not be mentioned at the trial. You'll answer with your head.'
A career security officer who joined the NKVD in 1938 and rose to deputy head of the MGB Section for Investigating Specially Important Cases with the rank of colonel. As Abakumov's chief enforcer in the Leningrad Affair, he personally beat prisoners, authorized and directed the falsification of interrogation protocols by his subordinate Arseny Putintsev, and rehearsed defendants before trial to ensure they repeated their false confessions in court. Arrested alongside Abakumov in 1951, he was tried after Stalin's death for fabricating the Leningrad case, sentenced to death, and shot at Levashovo in December 1954; he has never been rehabilitated.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1938Joined the NKVD
- ~1948–1951Deputy head, MGB Section for Investigating Specially Important Cases (Colonel)
- 1949–1950Directed protocol falsification, beatings, and trial rehearsals in the Leningrad Affair investigation
- 1951.07Arrested alongside Abakumov
- 1954.12Sentenced to death and shot
Related historical events
The 1954 Leningrad trial
In December 1954 in Leningrad, Vladimir Komarov stood trial before a visiting session of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court alongside Viktor Abakumov, Leonid Leonov, and other State Security Ministry officials. Komarov, arrested on 26 July 1951, was tried in connection with the investigation of the Leningrad Affair, which was officially found to have been fabricated by Abakumov and his subordinates. A 1990 collection of memoirs and documents places the fabrication of the case and coercive investigations of the defendants at the center of the 1954 proceedings. The Military Collegium sentenced Komarov to death, and he was shot on 19 December 1954. His trial and punishment were separate from the judicial review and rehabilitation of the victims of the Leningrad Affair.