Sergey Mikhailovich Spigelglas or Spiegelglass or Shpigelglas () (29 April 1897 – 29 January 1941) was the acting head of the
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
foreign intelligence service and then part of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
,
from February to June 1938.
Spigelglas was born into the family of a
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
bookkeeper in
Mosty, in present-day
Hrodna Voblast,
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
. After graduating from
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
Technical High School, he entered the law school at
Moscow University
Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...
. In 1917, he was drafted into the Russian Army and served as an ensign in the 42nd reserve regiment. Following the
October Revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
, he joined the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
, and because of his facility with languages—he spoke French, Polish, German, and Russian—he became a member of the Foreign Department. In 1926, he was stationed in
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
, perhaps reporting to
Yakov Blumkin
Yakov Grigoryevich Blumkin (; 12 March 1900 – 3 November 1929) was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary, a Bolshevik, and an agent of the Cheka and the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU).
Early life
Blumkin was born into a Jewish sho ...
, where he conducted active intelligence work against
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
In 1930, Spigelglas became the chief undercover agent of the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
, later the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. As a cover for his operations, he worked as the bourgeois proprietor of a fish store near the Boulevard Montmartre. Spigelglas's main task was spying on the
White Russian and
Trotskyist
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
organizations in Paris, where he controlled the penetration agents
Mark Zborowski
Mark Zborowski (27 January 1908 – 30 April 1990) (AKA "Marc" Zborowski or Etienne) was an anthropologist and an NKVD agent ( Venona codenames TULIP and KANT and
Roland Abbiate. He successfully recruited the double agent
Nikolai Skoblin and his wife
Nadezhda Plevitskaya
Nadezhda Vasilievna Plevitskaya (; (Ви́нникова); 1 October 1940) was a popular female Russian folk singer. Following the Russian Civil War, she lived in exile and was later recruited by the NKVD.
Early life and career
Plevitskay ...
.
Spigelglas returned to Moscow, where he trained new agents in counterintelligence and acted as deputy director of the Foreign Department reporting to
Abram Slutsky
Abram Aronovich Slutsky (; July 1898 – 17 February 1938) was a Soviet intelligence officer who headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service ( INO), then part of the NKVD, from May 1935 to 17 February 1938, when he was allegedly poisoned.
...
. His particular forte was the ''liternoye'' (top secret) or liquidation operation. He engineered the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist
Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Mykhailovych Konovalets (; 14 June 1891 – 23 May 1938) was a Ukrainian military commander and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. A veteran of the First World War and the Ukrainian War of Independence, he is best kn ...
in Rotterdam in May 1938, the execution of the defector
Ignace Reiss
Ignace Reiss (1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky,"
"Ignatz Reiss,"
"Ludwig,"
"Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt,"
"Steff Brandt,"
Nathan Poreckij,
and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)" ...
in Switzerland in September 1937 and the kidnapping of the leader of the
Russian All-Military Union
The Russian All-Military Union (, abbreviated РОВС, ROVS) is a White movement organization that was founded by White Army General Pyotr Wrangel in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on 1 September 1924. It was initially headquartered ...
(ROVS), General
Evgenii Miller, in France in September 1937. It has also been suggested that he was the mastermind of the murder and decapitation of the Trotskyist leader of the
Fourth International
The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third Inte ...
,
Rudolf Klement, in France in July 1938 and of the murder of the defector
Georges Agabekov in France in 1937. When Slutsky died in February 1938, poisoned by the order of
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Николай Иванович Ежов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet Chekism, secret police official under Joseph Stalin who ...
, Spigelglas became the acting director of foreign intelligence.
The head of the NKVD,
Lavrenti Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria ka, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია} ''Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria'' ( – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph ...
, had Spigelglas arrested seven months later, on November 2, 1938. He was held in
Lefortovo prison and attempted a hunger strike which failed once his jailers began a regimen of intravenous feeding. After "strong pressure," a euphemism for torture, he began to make a confession in May 1939, and a tribunal convicted him of treachery on November 28, 1940. (In his confession, Spigelglas claimed that
Lev Sedov
Lev Lvovich Sedov (, also known as Leon Sedov; 24 February 1906 – 16 February 1938) was a Russian writer and the first son of politician and revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his second wife, Natalia Sedova. Sedov was born when his father was in ...
had died of natural causes, not the victim of NKVD foul play.) Spigelglas was executed on January 29, 1941.
Historical opinion on Spigelglas is divided. Some, following the lead of
Alexander Orlov, portray him as a "careerist" ready to liquidate dozens of honest people to advance himself, a man who could disingenuously claim that the deaths of those he murdered were necessary in the Bolshevik's struggle against their enemies. Others, following
Pavel Sudoplatov
Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (; ; July 7, 1907 – September 24, 1996) was a senior Soviet official in the intelligence services of the former Soviet Union whose career spanned over 34 years in the different intelligence branches of the Soviet A ...
, believe him to be polite, business-like, intelligent and patriotic. The Russian government rehabilitated him in 1991.
Further reading
*John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, ''Deadly Illusions'', Crown, 1993
*
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; birth name ''Samuel Gershevich Ginsberg,'' Самуил Гершевич Гинзберг, June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet military i ...
, ''In Stalin's Secret Service'', Enigma Books, 2000
*Alexander Orlov, ''The March of Time'', St. Ermins Press, 2004.
*Pavel Sudoplatov, ''Special Tasks'', Little, Brown and Company, 1994.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spigelglas, Sergey
1897 births
1941 deaths
People from Masty, Belarus
People from Grodnensky Uyezd
Jews from the Russian Empire
Belarusian Jews
Soviet Jews
Jewish socialists
Cheka
NKVD officers
Russian military personnel of World War I
Jews executed by the Soviet Union
Great Purge victims from Belarus
Majors of State Security