Serov Ivan Alexandrovich is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the NKVD and the KGB. He is accused of clearly executing the criminal orders of his leadership, deporting tens of thousands of representatives of "unreliable" nationalities, and he also "took the initiative" by recording among the enemies of the USSR the people with whom he wanted to reduce his personal scores. However, some researchers consider the approach to the study of history to be fundamentally erroneous in black and white.
early years
Serov Ivan was born in 1905 in the village of Afimskoye, Vologda province. His official biography indicates that the boy's parents were wealthy peasants. However, in the first post-war years, some representatives of the MGB leadership initiated an investigation and unsuccessfully tried to prove that Serov’s father served as a gendarme.
Ivan received his primary education in Kadnikov. In 1923, he graduated from high school and joined the Komsomol. The young activist was immediately elected a member of the volost executive committee and appointed head of the hut-reading room of the county political enlightenment.
Then he became chairman of the Zamosh village council and a candidate member of the RCP (b).
Military career
In 1925, Serov Ivan was drafted into the RKK and sent to study at the Leningrad Infantry School, where he studied until 1928. In the period of study joined the CPSU (b).
After receiving a certificate of completion of the infantry school, Serov was appointed a commander of the platoon to one of the regiments stationed in the North Caucasian Military District.
In 1931 he became a student of the Artillery courses in Leningrad, and then assumed the post of commander of a topographic battery. In March 1934, Serov was sent to Ukraine, where he served as an assistant chief of staff of the artillery regiment of the 24th Infantry Division.
A year later, a young promising commander was sent to study at the Military Engineering Academy, and in May 1936 he was transferred to the Military Academy. Frunze.
Career in the VD and state security agencies
At the end of the academy, Ivan Serov was sent to serve in the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Since February 1939, he held the position of head of the Main Workers 'and Peasants' Police, and in the summer he was transferred to work in the state security organs. Very soon, he was appointed deputy chief of the State Security Department of the NKVD of the USSR, which was then headed by V. Merkulov.
Serov’s further career was no less brilliant. In particular, in September 1939 he became Commissar of the VD of the Ukrainian SSR and took part in joining the territory of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union. Then the young man was elected a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. During this period, he met G.K. Zhukov, who at that time commanded the Kiev Special Military District.
During the Great Patriotic War
From the end of winter to July 1941, Serov served as deputy commissar of the state security of the USSR. Then he was deputy commissar of internal affairs of the Soviet Union (until 1947).
In addition, during the Great Patriotic War, Serov led the security of the rear of the Moscow zone and was a member of the USSR GKO committee on defense of the North Caucasus.
The following interesting facts of the biography of the deputy commissar of internal affairs of the Soviet Union relate to the period of 1941-1945:
- Serov is considered one of the main organizers of the partisan movement in the USSR occupied by the Nazis.
- He was appointed the leader of the "five", which in the event of the surrender of Moscow was supposed to destroy the most important mined objects, including the subway.
- By the decision of I. Stalin, Serov was to remain in the occupied capital as an underground resident of the NKVD.
- In the spring of 1942 he was sent to the Crimean Front, where he took part in hostilities.
- Serov participated in battles on the passes of the Greater Caucasus, during which he was wounded and shell-shocked, and then awarded the Order of Lenin.
- In August 1943, he organized a trip and accompanied I.V. Stalin to the front.
- In 1944, Serov became one of the main executors of the decree on the deportation of thousands of representatives of the indigenous nationalities of the North Caucasus.
- At the suggestion of Beria in early spring 1945 he was appointed adviser to the NKVD of the USSR under the Polish MOB.
- Serov Ivan was a direct participant in the capture of Berlin. In the German capital, he attended the signing ceremony of the surrender of Nazi Germany.
- For the Berlin operation he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
In the first post-war years
Since June 1945, Serov Ivan served in Germany as deputy chief commander of the Soviet military administration, as well as an authorized NKVD under the Group of Occupation Forces of the USSR.
A few months later he was appointed a member of the Special Committee on Jet Technology under the Council of Ministers, as part of which he played an important role in the search for German scientists involved in the creation of rockets during the war. Serov personally organized their export to the Soviet Union.
Career in the 1950s
In 1947-1954, General Ivan Serov served as first deputy minister of internal affairs of the USSR. During this period, the then head of the MGB, V. S. Abakumov, tried to hold him accountable. However, Serov was able to avoid arrest due to the personal intercession of Khrushchev. The latter appreciated him for his personal loyalty and saw in him “his” person in the state security system.
In 1952, Serov supervised the construction of the Volga-Don Canal. He was awarded the Order of Lenin for its commissioning at the precisely appointed time.
During the funeral of I. Stalin, the general led the headquarters for law enforcement in Moscow.
KGB Chairman General Ivan Serov
In March 1954, it became known about the creation of a new department. The first KGB chairman, Ivan Serov, zealously took up the fulfillment of his new duties. Among his “exploits” of this period, the bloody suppression of the Hungarian national uprising deserves special mention, for which he was awarded the Order of Kutuzov of the 1st degree.
As chairman of the KGB, Serov was also actively involved in the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist repressions as part of a company that began after Khrushchev’s famous speech that exposed Stalin’s personality cult.
Opal
The point in Serov’s brilliant career was put by the unexpected arrest of GRU Colonel O. Penkovsky, who was detained in the capital in October 1962. The investigation revealed that he worked for British and American intelligence. It also turned out that Penkovsky was going to be fired at the time, but Serov, who considered him a valuable specialist, came to his defense. In addition, it became known that the spy was a frequent guest in the house of the general and talked with his wife and daughter.
In February 1963, Serov was appointed assistant commander of the troops of the Turkestan Military District for military schools, which meant demotion, and a month later he was demoted to major general, depriving him of the Hero of the Soviet Union with the phrase "for dulling political vigilance."
After Khrushchev was removed from power, Serov had hope for the return of ranks and awards. To this end, in 1964, Ivan Alexandrovich wrote a statement to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which he complained that his 42-year-old service to the party and his homeland was crossed out due to a single mistake. The letter had the exact opposite effect: in the spring of next year he was expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed. The relevant documents said that such actions against Serov were caused, inter alia, by the use of “official position for personal purposes”.
In the following years, the disgraced general continued to make attempts to rehabilitate himself, but not one of the politicians who had succeeded as general secretary of the CPSU gave him this opportunity.
Death and Memoirs
In July 1990, I. A. Serov, after a long illness, died in the Krasnogorsk military hospital. He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Ilyinsky MO.
Even during the life of the general, it was known that he had been writing memoirs for a long time. In particular, the documents of 1971 were preserved, in which Yu. Andropov testifies to this. Most likely, Serov hoped to someday publish his notes in the USSR or abroad, in order to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public.
In 2012, the granddaughter of the former first head of the KGB informed the public that during the demolition of the garage wall in the grandfather's cottage, two suitcases with his memoirs were found.
Skeptics immediately appeared who claimed that the book of Ivan Serov was a falsification. This version was reinforced by the fact that no one saw its original, and the public was presented only with pages scanned by members of his family who are copyright holders of the memoirs.
Now you know who Ivan Serov is. The KGB of the USSR is a department whose activity is still shrouded in a veil of secrecy. To raise it to some extent allows the book "Notes from a suitcase", in which you can read a third of the volume of Serov's memoirs.