Ivan Ilich Dolgikh (; 1904 – 1 October 1961) 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 ...

police officer, politician, and the head of the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

system of labour camps from 1951 to 1954.

Life and career

Born to a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

peasant family, in Livensky Uyezd of

Oryol Governorate Oryol Governorate () was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 to 1928. Its seat was in the city of Oryol. Administrative division Oryol Governorate consisted of t ...

, and educated at Moscow, Dolgikh joined the All-Union Communist Party (b) in 1931, and was appointed a lieutenant in 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 ...

Kharkiv Oblast Kharkiv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Kharkivshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the southeast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the southwest, Poltava Oblast to the w ...

in February 1936. According to former political prisoner Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko: Dolgikh was promoted to the rank of captain in November 1941, and appointed deputy head of the NKVD in

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

. In 1945, he was appointed head of the NKVD in Khabarovsk Krai. He was head of Gulag in 1951–54. In May 1954, he led the commission which opened negotiations with prisoners at the

Kengir Kengir (, ''Keñgır'') is a village in central Kazakhstan. During the Soviet era, a prison labor camp of the Steplag division of Gulag in Kazakhstan was set up adjacent to it. The camp, which was situated near the central-Kazakhstan city of Dz ...

labour camp, in Kazakhstan, who had revolted and taken control of the camp. Dolgikh conceded to some minor demands, including the transfer of prison guards who were particularly hated, whilst forbidding food or medicines to be shipped to the camp. The rebellion was violently suppressed (unarmed people including women were crushed by T-34 tanks caterpillars) in June 1954. In 1955–56, Dolgikh was an inspector at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1956,

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

denounced the crimes of the

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

era, in his

Secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" () was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 Februa ...

to the

20th Congress of the CPSU The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union () was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorsh ...

. Shortly afterward, Dolgikh was found guilty of 'flagrant violations of socialist law', sacked, stripped of his rank, and expelled from the Communist Party. Dolgikh died in 1961.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dolgikh, Ivan Illich 1904 births 1961 deaths People from Oryol Oblast People from Livensky Uyezd (Oryol Governorate) Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Third convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union People's commissars and ministers of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic Commissars 3rd Class of State Security Soviet lieutenant generals NKVD officers People of the KGB Gulag governors Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of the Red Star Kutafin Moscow State Law University alumni