The interrogator who beat a confession out of Tukhachevsky, and spoke of beating only once it was his turn
Under his own interrogation he admitted: “I personally had to beat enemies of the party in Lefortovo, and elsewhere, but I never understood the suffering experienced by those being beaten.” The men beating him as he said it worked for the same service.
Born in 1895 in Kiev Governorate to a Jewish carpenter's family, Ushakov left school at thirteen and joined the Kiev Cheka in 1920, spending fourteen years in Ukraine. In January 1937 he came to Moscow as assistant head of the Special Department of the GUGB. That spring he was lead investigator in the fabricated ‘military-fascist conspiracy’ case against the Red Army, manufacturing the confessions of Tukhachevsky, Yakir and Uborevich. He conducted Tukhachevsky's first interrogation on 25 May 1937 and beat him so severely that blood marked the protocol. In 1938 he tortured Robert Eikhe by working on ribs that had not yet healed. Arrested at Khabarovsk in September 1938, he was shot on 26 January 1940 and has never been rehabilitated.
Career Timeline
- 1920Kiev Cheka
- 1935–1936Deputy head, Special Department, NKVD Byelorussian SSR
- 1937.01Assistant head, Special Department, GUGB NKVD
- 1937Lead investigator, the ‘military-fascist conspiracy’ case
- 1937.09Major of State Security
- 1938.09Arrested at Khabarovsk
- 1940.01Sentenced to death by the Military Collegium, shot
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionCheka service
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationNKVD interrogator
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeLead investigator in the 'military-fascist conspiracy' caseAs assistant head of the GUGB Special Department in spring 1937, he served as lead interrogator in the fabricated case against Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich and other senior Red Army commanders. He personally beat Tukhachevsky until he signed a confession, leaving bloodstains on the protocol, and later tortured Robert Eikhe by working on his unhealed ribs. Arrested in 1938 and shot; never rehabilitated.
The Tukhachevsky Interrogation and Fabrication of the 'Military-Fascist Conspiracy'
In the spring of 1937, Ushakov was the lead investigator in the NKVD's fabricated case of a 'military-fascist conspiracy within the Red Army.' The first arrestee was Komkor Dmitry Shmidt, whom Ushakov interrogated to extract testimony implicating Kiev Military District commander Iona Yakir. When Marshal Tukhachevsky was arrested on 22 May 1937, Ushakov took over as chief interrogator.
At the first interrogation on 25 May, Ushakov beat Tukhachevsky into confessing. Blood stains were left on the signed confession protocol. The document was used as the key evidence of guilt even though Tukhachevsky retracted his confession at the special trial. Ushakov used the same methods to extract confessions from Komandarm 1st rank Yakir, Komandarm 1st rank Ieronim Uborevich, Komandarm 2nd rank August Kork, and other senior commanders. Their confessions contradicted one another, but the NKVD assembled them as proof of a 'military-fascist centre.'
Ushakov's interrogations extended beyond the military. In the spring of 1938, he handled cases against top party leaders including Politburo members Vlas Chubar and Stanislav Kosior, and Politburo candidate member Pavel Postyshev. After Robert Eikhe was arrested in April 1938, Ushakov forced a confession by concentrating his beatings on Eikhe's ribs, which had not yet healed. Eikhe later described the torture in detail in a letter to Stalin.
Ushakov's method combined physical violence with psychological coercion. He made arrested commanders internalise the political label of 'enemy of the party' and manipulated their residual loyalty into accepting a false confession as 'a final service to the party.' This technique became typical of NKVD investigative practice under Yezhov, merging physical torture with political indoctrination.
In the summer of 1938 Ushakov was dispatched to the Far East as part of a special GUGB brigade led by Frinovsky and was arrested in Khabarovsk on 5 September. After his arrest, he was himself severely beaten in the Secret-Political Department of the Kiev NKVD, then transferred to Moscow and held in Sukhanovka Prison. Under his own interrogation, he admitted to fabricating cases against Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Feldman, and others, and to using illegal methods. It was established that testimony implicating Yan Gamarnik in the 'military conspiracy' had been obtained by unlawful means in order to disguise the true cause of Gamarnik's suicide.
On 21 January 1940 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to death; he was shot on 26 January. His remains were buried in Common Grave No. 1 of the Donskoy Cemetery crematorium. Unlike many other victims of the Great Purge, Ushakov has never been rehabilitated: on the grounds of his 'active participation in fabricating a series of investigative cases and the use of impermissible methods of investigation.'