People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Security, intelligence and policing 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Soviet Unionstate 1

All 2 affiliations

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Soviet Unionstate 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 328 Ukraine 34 Belarus 18 Georgia 15 Latvia 11 Poland 11 Armenia 10 Lithuania 7 Germany 5 Azerbaijan 4 Estonia 3 Turkey 2 Czechia 1 France 1 Hungary 1 Japan 1 Korea 1 Moldova 1 Uzbekistan 1
Era(set)
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 1 People of the Stalin era1929–1953 1

People of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era

The Revolution and the Napoleonic era1774–1830 46

People of the wider world

The age of the Internationals and empires1820–1917 21 The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 44 The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 9 Scholars of this history1892–현재 3
Background: France People of the Stalin era 1929–1953 Clear all

Alexander Ivanovich Langfang

Александр Иванович Лангфанг
Soviet Union Soviet communism Soviet Union France 1907–1990 ○ Natural causes

An interrogator convicted of falsifying cases and torturing prisoners

Even after Stalin's death he did not escape punishment: in 1958 the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to fifteen years for falsifying cases and torturing prisoners, and he served the term to the last day.

Born in Brest-Litovsk to a Russified family of French descent, he joined the OGPU in 1931. As an NKVD interrogator during the Great Terror he handled the cases of Deputy Foreign Commissar Krestinsky, the Comintern officials Pyatnitsky and Knorin, and the Estonian communist Anvelt, beating confessions out of them. In wartime he led operational departments, served on missions to Tuva, Mongolia and Xinjiang, and rose to lieutenant-general in 1945. Dismissed in 1955 and stripped of his rank, he was arrested in 1957 and sentenced in 1958 to fifteen years for falsifying cases and torturing prisoners. He served the full term, was released in 1972, and died in Moscow in 1990, unrehabilitated.

Career timeline
  • 1931–1937OGPU and NKVD counterintelligence officer
  • 1937–1940NKVD interrogator; assistant head in counterintelligence
  • 1940–1941Head of an investigative department; assignment in Greece
  • 1942–1946Wartime operational chief; missions to Tuva, Mongolia and Xinjiang
  • 1946–1955MGB and KGB officer; adviser in China
  • 1955–1957Dismissed and stripped of rank
  • 1957–1972Arrested; fifteen years in prison