Alexander Ivanovich Uspensky

Alexander Ivanovich Uspensky (1938)

Alexander Ivanovich Uspensky ( Russian Александр Иванович Успенский ., Scientific transliteration Aleksandr Ivanovich Uspensky * February 14 ^jul. / 27. February  1902 ^greg. In Werchni Suchodol, Ujesd alexin ; † 28 January 1940 in Moscow ) was a high-ranking leader of the Cheka , the GPU and the NKVD . He was both a perpetrator and, in some respects, a victim of the " Great Terror ".

Life

Uspenski was born in the village of Verkhni Suchodol in Ujesd Alexin in the Tula governorate, the son of a forest official. He attended paid Orthodox schools for a few years and made a career during the Russian Civil War . In 1918/19 he was still a secretary on the “Committee for the Poor” in his hometown, but in 1919/20 he was already the commander of the police in Ujesd Alexin. In August 1920 he finally switched to the Cheka . In connection with this, he became a member of the Communist Party in September of the same year . In the following years the Ujesd (later Rajon ) Alexin Uspenskis remained the primary field of activity before he was appointed commander of the GPU in the Urals Economic Department in March 1927 . On September 27, 1931, he took up the same position in Moscow Oblast . There he acted from November 27, 1932 to May 14, 1933 as the representative of the local GPU representative. Uspenski then became head of the administration of the NKVD in 1934 . From then on, mass arrests took place in Moscow under his direction. Uspenski's career reached a new high on February 19, 1935 when he was appointed deputy commander of the Kremlin Inner Guard. A year later (February 25, 1936) he became deputy commander of the NKVD in Western Siberia and, on March 16, 1937, finally head of the NKVD in Orenburg . In those years he was the driving force behind the state reprisals in these areas. From that year he was also a member of the Supreme Soviet .

Uspensky already knew Nikita Khrushchev from the days of his activity in the capital . On January 25, 1938, Uspensky was appointed commissioner for internal affairs in Ukraine , where Khrushchev was also active as party leader. During this time, Uspenski arranged for about 36,000 people to be arrested. According to Khrushchev's memories, Uspensky showered those responsible in Moscow with reports of numerous “ enemies of the people ”. But during the time of the " Great Terror ", Uspenski himself came into the line of fire. In the autumn of 1938 he was summoned to Moscow. Assuming that he would be arrested there, Uspenski faked his own suicide (drowning in the Dnepr ) on November 14, 1938 and fled to the Ural Mountains. However, he was tracked down and arrested in Miass on April 15, 1939. On January 27, 1940, he was sentenced to death. Shortly afterwards the sentence was carried out. Unlike many other senior officials and officers, Uspensky was not later rehabilitated.

literature

• Н.В.Петров / К.В.Скоркин: Кто руководил НКВД 1934–1941 , Москва 1999 ( Ger . NV Petrov / KV Skorkin: Who led the NKVD 1934–1941 ). ISBN 5-7870-0032-3
• К.А. Залесский: Империя Сталина - Биографический энциклопедический словарь , Москва 2000 (German KA Zalesskij: Stalin's Empire. Biographical Encyclopedia ) ISBN 5-7838-0716-8