Leonid Mikhailovich Zakovsky is a well-known employee of the bodies of Soviet state security. He served as Commissioner of State Security of the first rank. He was a member of the special troika of the NKVD of the USSR. In this article, we will talk about the rise and collapse of his career.
early years
Leonid Mikhailovich Zakovsky was born on the territory of the Courland province in 1894. He was Latvian by nationality. In reality, his name at birth was Heinrich Ernestovich Stubis.
After graduating from two classes of the city school, he was expelled after being spotted at an anti-government demonstration on May 1. I went to work in copper-tin workshops. Since 1912, sailed on the ship "Kursk" as a stoker. Since 1914 he was a member of the Social Democratic Labor Party.
Anti-government activities
The Tsarist secret police closely watched Leonid Zakovsky. In 1913, he was arrested with his brother Fritz, but three days later released under police supervision.
In November of that year, he was again arrested. He was held in Libava and Mitava prison. The surviving protocols mentioned that the prisoner belongs to the group of anarchists and is considered politically unreliable. At the same time, he did not plead guilty. At the beginning of 1914 a sentence was passed. L. M. Zakovsky was sentenced to three years under police supervision in the Olonets province.
He was in exile until January 1917. After that, Leonid Mikhailovich Zakovsky in every possible way tried not to advertise his participation in anarchist organizations. Moreover, in the documents he indicated that he had completed secondary education, which was not true.
Life in Petrograd
From exile he came to Petrograd, where he settled, in every possible way evading mobilization. He was an active participant in revolutionary events.
After anti-government protests in July 1917, he went underground. In October, along with a detachment of sailors, he took part in the seizure of the telephone exchange. As a result, it became one of the nine Latvians whose participation in the October Revolution was documented.
Careers in State Security
A few months after the October Revolution, he joined the Cheka. In March he received the status of special commissioner on the Southern, Western and Eastern fronts. He led special forces, which were designed to suppress the uprisings in Saratov, Astrakhan, Kazan and some other areas.
Over time, Leonid Mikhailovich Zakovsky became the head of the Special Department of the Caspian-Caucasian Front, the information department in the Special Department of the Moscow Extraordinary Commission.
In the period from 1921 to 1925 he headed the Odessa and Podolsk State Departments of the GPU, was authorized by the State Political Administration for Moldova and Ukraine. Officially considered involved in the robbery and murder of defectors and the appropriation of smuggled goods. All this provoked a conflict with the direct Ukrainian leadership. He was brought to party responsibility, but he avoided any punishment by getting promoted and sent to Siberia.
Transfer to Siberia
Zakovsky’s career in state security continued as the plenipotentiary representative for Siberia and the head of the Special Department of the local military district. He arrived at the new duty station in 1926.
In 1928, he was responsible for the personal safety of Joseph Stalin when he arrived on a working trip to Siberia. It is considered one of the organizers of collectivization in these places. OGPU was responsible for the dispossession of the Siberian prosperous peasants.
In 1930, he led the government forces in a confrontation with the participants of the Muromtsev uprising. The following year, he took the initiative to send 40 thousand families of peasants. His idea was approved by senior management. Later, specific resettlement arrangements were developed. In 1933, another deportation took place, within the framework of which another 30 thousand families were expelled.
He was one of the initiators of the creation of the camp system in the Soviet Union, known as the Gulag. In 1928, as chairman, he headed the troika in the Siberian Territory, created for extrajudicial consideration of cases. In just two months, at the end of 1929 - the beginning of 1930, they received and parsed 156 cases. Almost a thousand people were convicted of them, 347 of them were sentenced to death.
During 1930, another 16.5 thousand people were convicted by the troika. Almost 5 thousand of them received death sentences. The rest are sent to camps and exile. Zakovsky himself issued instructions to the commandant’s office, ordering the convicts to be shot.
In the spring of 1932 he was transferred to Belarus to the same posts. Two years later, became the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs in the Belarusian Republic. On his account is the high-profile fabricated business of an espionage and rebel group.
Terror in two capitals
At the end of 1934, Zakovsky’s career in the NKVD went up under Henry Yagoda. He was appointed head of the Leningrad Directorate of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.
Investigated the killing of Kirov. In 1935, together with the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee, Andrei Zhdanov, he launched mass terror in the city on the Neva. Within a month, under his supervision, an operation was carried out to evict the so-called "former people." Almost 12 thousand former factory owners, nobles, landowners, priests and officers were among them.
At this time, he actively participated in the Stalinist repressions, was again part of the special troika. It is documented that Zakovsky personally participated in torture, interrogation and executions.
Job in Moscow
At the end of 1937 he became a deputy of the Supreme Council from the Leningrad Region. Soon he received a transfer to Moscow to the post of Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In parallel, he led the metropolitan NKVD department. He stayed at this post for only two months, but it was on these days that the peak of repression in the city came. From February 20 to March 28, when Zakovsky led the Moscow NKVD, the most mass executions of political prisoners were carried out.
Contemporaries say that at that time charges were brought against entire families. Death sentences were imposed even on minors and pregnant women. Zakovsky created a plan to detain at least one thousand "nationals" per month.
In February 1938, he took the initiative to review sentences against persons with limited working ability and persons with disabilities who were in Moscow and the Moscow Region. Zakovsky believed that these convicts should be sentenced to death.
He was among the organizers of the so-called Third Moscow process. This is the last of the high-profile public trials of a group of former party and government figures.
Arrest and death
In March 1938, Zakovsky himself became a victim of Stalinist repressions. He was removed from the post of head of the Moscow Directorate of the NKVD, transferred to the post of head of the Kamlesosplav Trust. But a month later he lost this job, was completely dismissed from the NKVD. He was accused of organizing a nationalist Latvian group in the NKVD, as well as of espionage in favor of Poland, Germany and England.
Zakovsky was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on August 29, 1938. After debunking the cult of personality, he was not rehabilitated.
He is mentioned in a letter to the Communist Party Central Committee to the party leadership, which noted that the installation of measures of physical influence yielded positive results, but they were ousted by some NKVD officers. Among them, Zakovsky is also mentioned.