To Stalin

To Stalin Top Secret Summaries Of The most important testimonies Of Those arrested 1937‐ 1938

A summary of the most important testimonies of those arrested by the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR for February 8, 1938

Archive: AP RF. F. 3. Op. 24. D. 404. L. 138‐148

13 February 1938

SECRETARY of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) comrade STALIN

I am sending you a summary of the most important testimonies of the arrested GUGB NKVD of the USSR for February 8, 1938. [one]

Peopleʹs Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Peopleʹs Commissar for

State Security (EZHOV) [2]

Top secret

For the 4th DEPARTMENT

1. HAKOBYAN, former instructor of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). Interrogated by GATOV, BARTOSHEVICH.

He testified that he was a member of the anti‐Soviet organization of the right.

The establishment of organizational ties with the right was preceded by his practical sabotage activities in the Kirov region, which he carried out, sharing the platform of the right even before he entered the counter‐revolutionary organization.

As specific acts of sabotage carried out by the organization of the rightwingers in the Kirov region, and later in the Kirov region, AKOPYAN cites the following:

1) disruption of crop rotations.

2) disruption of the flax harvesting plan in 1935‐36.

3) disruption of urban public utility and industrial construction in Kirov.

4) artificial creation of grain difficulties in the region.

5) disruption of the Stakhanov movement.

In his testimony, AKOPYAN dwells in detail on the fact that the participants in the organization of the right in the Kirov region, including him, using his leading position in the party organization, carried out the practice of indiscriminate exclusion from the party of honest communists in order to preserve the Trotskyist and right cadres that were available. in the Kirov regional party organization.

In his testimony, HAKOBYAN describes in detail the forms and methods, as well as the consequences of all these sabotage acts, stating that they were carried out with the aim of artificially revealing discontent among the population with the partyʹs policies.

As active participants in the anti‐Soviet organization of the right in the Kirov region, AKOPYAN named: DUBINSKY ‐ head. agricultural department of the Regional Committee, BELKOVICH ‐ head. Department of Soviet Trade, IVANOVA ‐ Head. KrayZU, and others. [3]

2. KHITAROV ‐ Secretary of the Chelyabinsk Regional Committee of the CPSU (b). Interrogated: GERZON. [4]

In addition, he showed that the participants in the anti‐Soviet Trotskyist spy organization in Magnitogorsk were: SHUBNIKOV ‐ head. the department of propaganda and agitation of the City Committee; SAVELIEV S. ‐ Secretary of the Kirovsky District

Committee; S. SUKHAREVA ‐ Secretary of the Ordzhonikidzovsky District Committee; A. I. KARYAEV ‐ newspaper editor; N. LARIN ‐ Secretary of the Stalin District Committee, and A.Z.BERMAN ‐ 2nd Secretary of the Magnitogorsk City Committee.

KHITAROV also testified about the wrecking system of the work of the members of the anti‐Soviet organization in the party bodies, about the contamination of the party apparatus by alien decomposed people and the collapse of the work of public organizations.

For the 5th DEPARTMENT

1. GRUZDUP ‐ deputy. early Military Transport Academy of the Red

Army. Interrogated: MALYSHEV, KRIVOSHEEV.

Previously confessed to his participation in the Latvian fascist organization and espionage activities in favor of the Latvian intelligence, he additionally testified that he was also a member of an anti‐Soviet organization operating on the railways of the Soviet Union, created by the former head of the RKKA Military Communications Department ‐ APPOGOY (convicted) and the head of the Mobotse NKPS POPOVICH (arrested). This organization was an integral part of the military‐fascist conspiracy in the Red Army and had the task of disrupting the work of transport in peacetime and organizing the disruption of military transport in wartime through acts of sabotage, artificially creating traffic jams on the most important directions, train crashes, etc.

The personnel of the conspiratorial organization in transport, of which the GRUZDUP was a member, was drawn mainly from army workers of military communications who worked in transport.

The GRUZDUP was recruited into an anti‐Soviet military conspiracy in the summer of 1935 by the former head of the Mobile Department of the NKPS POPOVICH, with whom he was in close relations and repeatedly talked about anti‐Soviet topics.

After GRUZDUP was recruited into the conspiracy, Popovich offered him from among the listeners graduates from the Military Transport Academy, who could be involved in the conspiracy and used for sabotage work in transport. Some of them were to be recruited by the GRUZDUP, while the other part was to be recruited by POPOVICH before their appointment to work.

For this purpose, GRUZDUPOM recruited the following students of the 1935 edition into the military organization in transport: * 1) LISICHKIN ‐ appointed by the head of the operation service

g. d. in Chelyabinsk, now the head of the railway named after Voroshilov (not arrested).

2) KOTIK ‐ currently works as deputy head of the central roads department of the NKPS traffic service department (not arrested).

3) SHCHERBAKOV ‐ worked as commandant of the railway station. section of the station Gomel (arrested).

4) IVANOV ‐ works as the head of the North Caucasus Railway (not arrested).

5) PAVLOV ‐ an inspector‐dispatcher on one of the roads in the south (not arrested); * [5]

The recruitment of these persons by GRUZDUP was carried out after he became convinced of their anti‐Soviet sentiments.

All those recruited by GRUZDUP, after their appointment to work in the NKPS, were transferred to POPOVICH for communication, with the exception of SHCHERBAKOV, who was later associated with APPOGA.

From POPOVICH GRUZDUPU it is known that of the students of the

Academy named by POPOVICH, the following were recruited:

1) ROZANOV ‐ works in the NKPS mobile department.

2) ANTONOV ‐ brigade commander of a special railway d. buildings in the DVK.

3) VERBITSKY ‐ worked as Deputy Head of the Operations Service of the former Catherine Railway. etc..

4) KOTLYAROV ‐ head of the maintenance department in the city. Makhachkala.

5) A. ANDREEV ‐ Head of the Moscow‐Donbass Railway (all, except for Rozanov, were not arrested).

From POPOVICH and other members of the organization GRUZDUPU it is known that they are carrying out a lot of sabotage and sabotage work on the railways.

In 1935, VERBITSKY informed GRUZDUP that, on the instructions of POPOVICH and APPOGA, he organized on the former Catherine railway. several train crashes, including the crash of a military train carrying explosives (mines) to the DCK, causing great destruction with human casualties.

In 1936, SHCHERBAKOV told GRUZDUP that he took part in organizing the crash of a military train at the station. Gomel, who followed with the Red Army during the BVO maneuvers.

As a result of this crash, there were many casualties.

Rozanov, during his meetings with GRUZDUP, said that he was doing a lot of subversive work on the main highway of the Far Eastern railways. He succeeded in doing this due to the fact that he was subordinate to several operational regiments located on this highway. A large number of crashes were organized there.

From POPOVICH GRUZDUPU it is known that LISICHKIN,

ANDREEV and IVANOV are performing his tasks in sabotage activities successfully. LISICHKIN disrupted a number of large‐scale national economic transportations. ANDREEV worsened the carrying capacity of the road, and it cannot cope with the tasks set. In the same state of affairs with IVANOV on the North Caucasian railway. POPOVICH told GRUZDUP that in the most important areas of the mobilization work of the NKPS he had assigned ʺhisʺ people who were working in transport in such a way as to contribute to the defeat of the Soviet Union in the coming war.

The anti‐Soviet activities at the Military Transport Academy GRUZDUPOM were carried out jointly with the participants in the military‐fascist conspiracy of KUNI ‐ the head of the academyʹs training department (arrested), and DMITRIEV (convicted) ‐ the head of the faculty recruited by APPOGA and, on his instructions, established contact with GRUZDUP.

Anti‐Soviet activities were carried out by them in the field of reducing the quality of training of students of the Academy. To this end, the deployment of the profiling laboratories and rooms most necessary for the academy was deliberately slowed down, spending the allocated funds on the deployment of classrooms and laboratories that are not relevant for the academy.

The sabotage was also carried out in the preparation of curricula, staffing the student body, etc.

2. VYSOTSKY IV, former editor of the Military Publishing House , lieutenant colonel. Interrogated: LORKISH, ELK.

He gave initial testimony that from 1927 to the day of his arrest he was a member of the officer‐monarchist organization, into which he was recruited by the former general of the tsarist army SMYSLOVSKY.

For his participation in the officer‐monarchist organization, VYSOTSKY in 1931 was sentenced to 10 years in a concentration camp.

In 1934, VYSOTSKY was released ahead of schedule, returned to Moscow and rejoined the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Defense. After his release from the concentration camp, VYSOTSKY established contact with the leading members of the officer‐monarchist organization SVETCHIN, LIGNAU, VERKHOVSKY A.I. and LUKIRSKY (all arrested except VERKHOVSKY).

VYSOTSKY showed that in recent years the officer‐monarchist organization carried out subversive work aimed at weakening the defensive power of the Soviet Union, in order to defeat the Red Army in a future war and overthrow Soviet power.

VYSOTSKY had an assignment from Svechin and LIGNAU to carry out sabotage work in the field of publishing a Soviet military encyclopedia.

VYSOTSKY names a number of members of the officer‐monarchist organization, a significant part of whom have been arrested. Those who have not been arrested are identified for arrest.

3. GURVICH, former head of the research institute of technical communications of the Red Army, brigade engineer. Interrogated by:

POLISHCHUK, SHCHERBAKOV.

He showed that in 1928, the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), he was sent to a group of communists for underground work in Germany, headed by ROSE, now the head of the militarized guard of the Civil Air Fleet (not arrested), personally associated with TROTSKY.

While in Berlin, GURVICH contacted his brother GURVICH Mendel (recently he was in the USSR, was arrested), a student at one of the technical schools, and through him he met the German intelligence officer ZILNER Alfred, who recruited him for espionage work against the USSR.

Meeting with TSILNER, GURVICH A.I. informed the latter in detail about the uprising being prepared by the Central Committee of the KKE, about the communists who had arrived from the USSR to help the Central Committee of the KKE, etc.

In 1925, the Intelligence Directorate GURVICH was sent to assistant. resident in the United States, and his appointment was insisted on by the newly appointed resident in America KOTLOVRAKOV (arrested), who in 1923 was also in a group of Russian communists in Germany and was familiar with him.

On the way to America in Berlin A.I. through his brother, he contacted ZILNER, whom he informed about the state of communications of the Red Army, where he worked before being sent to America, about the communications inspection headed by SINYAVSKY (arrested), about further prospects for the development of communications, etc.

He told ZILNER that he was going to America as an assistant to the resident of KOTLOV‐RAKOV.

ZILNER warned GURVICH that KOTLOV‐RAKOV was also connected with German intelligence and they would need to work in close contact.

In New York, in the process of working with KOTLOV‐RAKOV, the latter told GURVICH that he knew about his connections with German intelligence.

In 1927, GURVICH and KOTLOV‐RAKOV were recalled from America to the Soviet Union, and on the way to Berlin, GURVICH had a meeting with ZILNER.

Soon GURVICH Intelligence was sent to China (Shanghai) to work as a resident and to organize secret radio stations of the RU. He went to China through Germany‐America‐Canada.

In Berlin, at a meeting with ZILNER, GURVICH informed him of his assignment to China and the nature of the assignments he had received and received from ZILNER a report to a certain LURIE, who was working as a commercial agent in the Shanghai port, to whom he was supposed to transfer spy materials.

Upon arrival in Shanghai, GURVICH established contact with LURIE, to whom he later transmitted spy information.

In Shanghai, GURVICH, as a resident of RU, used as an agent an employee of the Chinese intelligence service DEKROS, who was simultaneously an agent of Japanese intelligence and recruited GURVICH to work for the Japanese.

GURVICH informed DEKROS about the work of the Chinese Eastern Railway, informed him about the location of the secret radio stations of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

In 1929, DEKROS, at the request of GURVICH, was given permission to enter the USSR, where he was soon exposed as a Japanese spy and shot.

Head of the Secretariat of the NKVD of the USSR Art. Major of State Security

(SHAPIRO)

[1] On the first page there is Stalinʹs note ʺNBʺ.

[2] Signature of Deputy Peopleʹs Commissar of Internal Affairs Frinovsky.

[3] The names are underlined by Stalin., [4] There is a note of Stalin

ʺNBʺ., [5] * ‐ * On the left margin there is Stalinʹs mark ʺxʺ.