Alexander Abramov-Mirov (19 October 1895 – 25 November 1937) was a

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 ...

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

communications officer A communications officer is a naval line officer responsible for supervising operation and maintenance of a warship's signal flags, signal lamps, and radio transmitters and receivers. The communications officer is usually responsible for encrypti ...

and

intelligence agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ''e ...

. Believed by those in charge to be insufficiently distanced from

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, with whom he had worked closely in the past, he was condemned to death on 25 November 1937 and shot the next day. His wife suffered the same fate on 8 February 1938.

Names

His first name is sometimes given as Jakob, possibly reflecting a career in espionage and the resulting necessity to use more than one name.

Life

Alexander Lasarevich Abramov was born in

Šiauliai Šiauliai ( ; ) is a city in northern Lithuania, the List of cities in Lithuania, country's fourth largest city and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, sixth largest city in the Baltic States, with a population of 112 581 in 202 ...

, an industrial and commercial city in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, which at that time of his birth had already been incorporated within the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

for approximately a century. His father was a Jewish merchant. He was educated in Germany. As a child he was strongly influenced by his elder brothers who were members of the Jewish Labour Union. However, it was a different left-wing movement that he himself joined in 1916, becoming a member of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

and, within it, the Bolshevik faction. The next year he took part in the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

and in the longer lasting

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 ...

of 1917. In 1921 he took part in the

Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution. After the collapse ...

: at the direction of one of the Bolshevik leaders,

, from 1920 Abramov was organising the Soviets' so-called "German brigade" on the western front. The next year he embarked on a diplomatic career, appointed Second Secretary at the Soviet embassy in Berlin, with responsibilities in the press department. The reality of his responsibilities, not entirely reflected in his official title, was his work as a key official of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI / ИККИ), the controlling authority of the Communist International (Comintern). He was in charge of the Berlin information hub of the International Liaison Department (''Отдел международной связи'' / ОМС / OMS), which focused on collecting and collating foreign intelligence from across central Europe. He was responsible for the transfers and distribution of Comintern funds and instructions, as well as for the printing of documents. Including assistants and couriers, during his time in Berlin he controlled a staff of 25. It appears to have been in 1926 that he relocated and took over leadership of the OMS at its Moscow headquarters, in succession to

Osip Piatnitsky Osip Aaronovitch Piatnitsky (; ; born Iosif Oriolovich Tarshis; – 29 July 1938) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. Piatnitsky is best remembered as head of the International Department of the Communist International during the ...

(who nevertheless continued to play a leading role in the Intelligence department of the

ECCI The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ - for ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI, established by the Fo ...

). Abramov remained in this post for nearly ten years, personally responsible for a wide range of "technical" espionage and communications tasks in the Comintern. Contemporaries later remembered him as a friendly, competent, and loyal comrade. After the seventh Comintern World Congress which took place in 1935, Abramov was increasingly edged out of positions of influence within the

. In September 1936 he was transferred to the Intelligence Section of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, where he took the title "Assistant Chief of the 4th Intelligence General Staff Control", which involved leadership of Soviet military intelligence in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, an unfolding situation in which the Soviet leadership took a close and active interest. In the end, like most OMS workers, he became a victim of the Great Terror/Purge. He was arrested on 21 May 1937 by 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 ...

, which imputed to him a central role in the (almost certainly fictitious) "Anti-Comintern Block", which was said to have destroyed the

from the inside.Bayerlein, Bernhard H.; Huber, Peter (Hrsg.): Protokolle des Terrors. Teil II. A. L. Abramov-Mirov und V. G. Knorin in Verhörprotokollen des KGB. Aus dem Russischen übersetzt von Olaf Kirchner. In: The International Newsletter of Historical Studies on Comintern, Communism and Stalinism 4/5 (1997/98), 9–13, p. 216–229. Among the various accusations, it was said that he had used the OMS to channel money to

Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, who had fallen foul of Stalin some years earlier but was, at this stage, still alive and living in exile while trying to hide from Soviet agents. During his interrogation, Abramov was probably badly tortured, since like many others similarly treated in this purge, he signed a "confession" which imputed guilt to his former co-workers. It was also recorded that he had implicated his former boss,

. On 25 November 1937 it was determined by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the

Soviet Union 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 ...

that he had led the Trotskyist terror organisation within the Comintern, and also worked for the German Intelligence services. The death sentence was carried out by shooting on 26 November 1937. The same court rehabilitated him on 18 January 1958.

Family

Alexander Lasarevich married Elena Germanovna Mirova (born

Saratov Saratov ( , ; , ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the List of cities and tow ...

, 1899). During the Spanish Civil War, she worked as a correspondent in Spain for the Russian News Agency (TASS). She was shot on 8 February 1938, like her husband a victim of the Great Terror/Purge.

Names

Life

Family

References

Further reading