The 'North Caucasian' deputy commissar who shot himself at the peak of his career
He took his own life on 8 July 1937, yet the obituary in «Grozny Worker» announced that he had died 'after a brief illness, of heart failure.'
A 'North Caucasian' Chekist who began in the counterintelligence section of the Ukrainian Cheka alongside Nikolaev-Zhurid and Dagin, and followed Yevdokimov to the North Caucasus in 1923. In the summer of 1936 he succeeded Karutsky as head of the West Siberian NKVD, and within months was called up to the Moscow apparatus, heading the GUGB secret-political and then counterintelligence departments and rising to deputy commissar of internal affairs. Named in the awards decree of 2 July 1937, he shot himself days later, a death Naumov singles out as coming while his career was still rising.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1919–1923Officer of the Ukrainian Cheka counterintelligence section
- 1923–1936OGPU and NKVD in the North Caucasus, in Yevdokimov's group
- 1936Head of the West Siberian NKVD
- 1936–1937Head of the GUGB Secret Political Department
- 1937Deputy commissar of internal affairs; head of counterintelligence
- 1937Shot himself days after being decorated
The West Siberian investigation and promotion in Moscow
Appointed head of the West Siberian NKVD in July 1936, Kursky arrested the management of the Tsentralnaya mine in the Kuzbass on sabotage charges after an explosion there on 23 September. The investigation announced the discovery of an alleged Trotskyist organization in West Siberia; some of those arrested appeared first as defendants at the Novosibirsk trial in November 1936 and then at the January 1937 Moscow trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center. Biographical accounts describe the sabotage case as fabricated and the trials as staged. In November 1936 Kursky was transferred to Moscow to head the NKVD Main Directorate of State Security's Secret Political Department. In April 1937 he became a deputy people's commissar for internal affairs and head of its First Department. In June he moved to head the Third (Counterintelligence) Department, and on 2 July received the Order of Lenin. He died by suicide on 8 July. A public obituary at the time reported that he had died of illness, a statement that differed from the reported circumstances of his death.