People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Security, intelligence and policing 2
Affiliation(set)

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 40 Soviet Union state institutions 40 Belarus state institutions 5 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 4 Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 3 Belarusian Socialist Hramada 3 General Jewish Labour Bund 2 Poland state institutions 1

All 12 affiliations

Belarus

Belarus state institutions 5 Belarusian Socialist Hramada 3

International organizations

Comintern 1

Poland

Poland state institutions 1

Russia

Russian Empire state institutions 1 Russian White movement 1 Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 3 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1 General Jewish Labour Bund 2 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 4

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 40 Soviet Union state institutions 40
Position
Any Marxism and communism 2
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 2
Background(set)
Any Russia 3 Belarus 2
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

People of the Stalin era1929–1953 2
General Jewish Labour Bund Background: Belarus Clear all
GlossaryGeneral Jewish Labour Bund

Lev Nikolayevich Belsky

Лев Николаевич Бельский
Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism Soviet Union Belarus 1889–1941 ✕ Executed

The deputy commissar who ran the Soviet police

Dismissed from the OGPU in 1931 for protesting Yagoda's "Vesna" frame-up, he returned under Yezhov to organize the troikas of the Great Terror.

A Cheka veteran, he became chief of the Soviet militia in 1934 and Yezhov's deputy at the NKVD in 1936, where he organized the regional troikas that issued mass death sentences during the Great Terror. Arrested in 1939, he was shot in 1941 and has never been rehabilitated.

Career timeline
  • 1934–1936Chief of the Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia, NKVD
  • 1936–1938Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
  • 1938–1939First Deputy People's Commissar of Railways
  • 1939–1941Arrested, tried and executed

Israel Moiseyevich Leplevsky

Израиль Моисеевич Леплевский
Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism Soviet Union Belarus 1896–1938 ✕ Executed

The man who drove the Ukrainian mass operations to their peak

According to the testimony of GB Major Z.M. Ushakov, Leplevsky was so ruthless that even his own superior, Nikolai Yezhov, feared him.

A Chekist from Brest-Litovsk who headed the NKVD of Belorussia before taking charge in Ukraine, where he drove the mass operations of the Great Terror to their peak. One of Yezhov's closest lieutenants, he was among the first to be consumed by the machinery he had helped run.

Career timeline
  • 1934–1936People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Belorussian SSR
  • 1936–1937Chief of the Special Department, GUGB NKVD
  • 1937–1938People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian SSR
  • 1938Chief of the 6th Department, then of the 3rd Directorate (transport and communications), NKVD
  • 1938Arrested and executed