People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Social movements and organizing 1
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 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 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 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 11 Moldova 3 Latvia 2 Armenia 1 Belarus 1
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

People of the Stalin era1929–1953 1
Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Background: Belarus Clear all
GlossaryParty of Left Socialist Revolutionaries

Naum Isaakovich Eitingon

Наум Исаакович Эйтингон
Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism Soviet Union Belarus 1899–1981 ○ Natural causes, Moscow

The NKVD's master of covert action: from Trotsky's assassination to Soviet atomic espionage

On 20 August 1940 in Coyoacán, Eitingon and Caridad Mercader waited in separate cars while Mercader struck Trotsky, and fled when Mercader was detained.

Born into a Jewish family in Shklov, Belarus, he survived a pogrom as a child, joined the SRs in 1917, switched to the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, and rose through the Gomel Cheka. As an OGPU Foreign Department operative he ran undercover missions in China, Turkey, and Western Europe; during the Spanish Civil War he was Orlov's deputy and directed the transfer of Republican gold to the USSR. In 1940 he and Sudoplatov designed the operation that killed Trotsky, and in the German-Soviet war he masterminded strategic deception operations behind enemy lines as deputy head of the 4th Directorate. After the war he oversaw atomic intelligence as deputy head of Department S, but was arrested in 1951 and served twelve years; released in 1964, he worked as a publishing-house editor until his death of natural causes in Moscow in 1981, and was rehabilitated posthumously in 1992.

Career timeline
  • 1917–1919Joined SR Party; worker and cooperative organizer in Mogilev; joined RCP(b) 1919
  • 1920–1924Gomel Cheka — deputy head of secret-operations; wounded fighting Savinkov; graduated Military Academy Eastern Dept
  • 1925–1930OGPU Foreign Dept — covert ops in China and Turkey; vice-consul, Harbin
  • 1930–1936OGPU Special Operations — assistant to Serebryansky; head of INO illegal operations section
  • 1936–1939Spanish Civil War — deputy NKVD resident (Gen. Kotov); Republican gold transfer to USSR
  • 1940Co-directed Operation Duck with Sudoplatov — Trotsky's assassination in Mexico
  • 1941–1945Deputy head, 4th NKVD Directorate — ran deception ops Monastery and Berezino
  • 1945–1951Deputy head, Dept. S — atomic intelligence; operations against anti-Soviet partisans
  • 1951–1964Arrested in MGB 'Zionist conspiracy' case, 12 years; briefly reinstated by Beria 1953, rearrested
  • 1964–1981Released; senior editor at publishing house; posthumously rehabilitated 1992