Yan (Ian) Karlovich Berzin (; ; real name Pēteris Ķuzis; – 29 July 1938) was a Latvian and Soviet

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

politician and military intelligence officer.

Biography

Ķuzis joined 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 ...

in 1905. According to his former subordinate,

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 ...

, Ķuzis led a guerrilla detachment in his native country of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

at the age of 16 during the

1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, and was wounded, caught, and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted because of his youth; after two years in prison, he was deported to Siberia, but escaped. Rearrested and sent back into exile in 1911, he escaped in 1914, and was a private in the Russian army until he deserted in 1916. Ķuzis joined the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

after the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, rising to the rank of general and chief of the Latvian Red Army. From December 1917, he operated in the apparatus of the

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

and became a principal organizer of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...

, credited with devising the system of taking and shooting hostagesSuvorov, Viktor (1984) ''Inside Soviet Military Intelligence'', New York: Macmillan to recover deserters, and to put down peasant rebellions in areas controlled by the Red Army. He was recognized by his superiors for his work in pursuing, arresting, and liquidating Russian sailors after the Bolshevik suppression of the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion () was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, Marines, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, ...

in March 1921. Promoted to head 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 ...

's Fourth Bureau (military intelligence), the

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

, he served from 1920 to 1935. Among his agents was the prominent German spy

Richard Sorge Richard Gustavovich Sorge (; 4 October 1895 – 7 November 1944) was a German-Russian journalist and GRU (Soviet Union), Soviet military intelligence officer who was active before and during World War II and worked undercover as a German journa ...

He was dismissed in 1935, and served for a year in the Far East. In September 1936, he was sent to Madrid, under the ''

nom de guerre A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war. In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...

'' Grishin, as chief military adviser to the Republican side 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 ...

. In November, he transferred to Valencia. On 8 June 1937, he was recalled to Moscow and was reappointed to his old post as head of military intelligence on 8 June 1937, after his successor Semyon Uritsky had come under suspicion, but on 1 August 1937, he too was dismissed, and was succeeded by A.M. Nikonov, who was also dismissed and arrested a few days later. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

as a part of the

Latvian Operation of the NKVD The ''Latvian Operation'' (, ) was a national operation of the NKVD against ethnic Latvians, Latvian nationals and persons otherwise affiliated with Latvia and/or Latvians in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1938 during the period of the Grea ...

, Berzin was arrested 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 ...

on 13 May 1938, and was shot on 29 July 1938. He was rehabilitated in 1956.

Other details

On 14 December 1948, Alexander Barmine, former

chargé d'affaires A (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador. The term is Frenc ...

at the Soviet embassy in Athens, Greece, advised

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

agents that Berzin informed him prior to Barmine's 1937 defection that

Owen Lattimore Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of '' Pac ...

, the head of the U.S. Office of War Information in the Pacific during World War II, was a Soviet agent. Berzin appears in the

Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...

decrypts under the code name "Starik" ( – "Old man").

References

External links

Visvaldis Mangulis, ''Latvia in the Wars of the 20th Century'', Chapter VII
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berzin, Yan 1889 births 1938 deaths People from Cēsis Municipality People from Riga county Bolsheviks Executive Committee of the Communist International Cheka officers GRU officers Russian military personnel of World War I Latvian people of the Spanish Civil War Soviet people of the Spanish Civil War Perpetrators of the Red Terror (Russia) Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of the Red Star Latvian Operation of the NKVD Great Purge victims from Latvia Soviet rehabilitations