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Mikhail Sergeyevich Kedrov (Russian: Михаи́л Сергеевич Кедров; 24 February O.S. 12 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>

O.S. 12 February1878 – 28 October 1941) was a Russians">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 ...

Soviet Union">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 ...

communist politician, an Old Bolshevik revolutionary, secret policeman and head of the military section of the

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

Early career

Mikhail Kedrov was born in Moscow, into a family in the lower ranks of the Russian nobility. He was expelled from Moscow University for his political activity in 1899, without having graduated. He moved to

Yaroslavl Yaroslavl (; , ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. ...

, where he studied law, 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 1901, and was arrested and deported to

Vologda Vologda (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the river Vologda (river), Vologda within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. Population: The city serves as ...

in 1902. He 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 split in the RSDLP in 1903, and donated the money he inherited from his father, approximately 100 thousand gold rubles. 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 ...

he organised workers' detachments in

Kostroma Kostroma (, ) is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267, ...

and supplied weapons for the armed rising in Moscow. After defeat of the revolution, he organised distribution of illegal Bolshevik literature, and ran a publishing house in St. Petersburg, until he was arrested. Released after two years in prison, he moved with his family to Switzerland in 1911, and studied at Lausanne and Berne universities. He returned to Russia in 1916, and was a military doctor in the Caucasus during the final part of the war between Russia and Turkey. At the time of the February Revolution, he was in northern Iran, where he helped organise a short-lived soviet. By the end of March 1917, he was in Petrograd (St Petersburg), where he joined the Bolsheviks' military organisation, and edited ''Soldatskaya Pravda.'' After 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 became member of the Collegium of the

People's Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English language, English transliteration of the Russian language, Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the pol ...

iat for War, and Military Commissar for Demobilisation. In May 1918 he was sent to the North as a commissar in 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 ...

to organise defence of Vologda against the

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

army.

Career in Cheka

In September 1918, Kedrov was appointed head of the military section of

, which was renamed the Special Section on 1 January 1919, after a merger with another department. In May 1920, after defeat of the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

in the north, Kedrov was appointed Cheka plenitpotentiary for the region, which included

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near its mouth into the White Sea. The city spreads for over along the ...

, Vologda, and the

Solovetsky Islands The Solovetsky Islands ( rus, Соловецкие острова, p=səlɐˈvʲetskʲɪj ɐstrɐˈva), or Solovki ( rus, Соловки, p=səlɐfˈkʲi), are an archipelago located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, Russia. As an administrati ...

, site of one of Russia's oldest monasteries. He ordered the closure of the monastery, expelled the monks, and created the first of the labour camps that formed what later became known as 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 ...

. He also set up an extermination camp at Kholmogory, near Arkhangelsk, for the mass executions of former White officers and others suspected of opposing the Bolshevik revolution. He was reportedly extremely cruel, even by the standards of the

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 ...

Donald Rayfield Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942, Oxford) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Jos ...

wrote that Kedrov "slaughter dschoolchildren and Army officers in northern Russia with such ruthlessness that he had to be taken into psychiatric care." Kedrov reportedly executed captured White Russian officers by loading them onto barges and sinking them. He was ultimately relieved of his post after preparing to massacre the population of

. On 5 April 1921, the chairman of the Arkhangelsk regional Cheka, Zinovi Katsnelson, reported to his superiors that: The number put to death during the reprisals overseen by Kedrov is estimated at many thousands.

Later career

Kedrov's career as a leading Chekist ended suddenly in 1921, when he was taken ill, and may have been temporarily confined to a psychiatric institution. After his discharge, he was posted to the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

, where, along with running the local branch of Cheka, he was given charge of the fishing industry. From 1924, he held relatively minor economic posts, except in 1927–31, when he ran

Red Sport International The International Association of Red Sports and Gymnastics Associations, commonly known as Red Sport International (RSI) or Sportintern was a Comintern-supported international sports organization established in July 1921. The RSI was established i ...

. In 1934, he was appointed director of the military sanitary institute.

Family

Kedrov's wife, Olga Didrikil, was one of three sisters, all with links to the Bolsheviks. Nina Didrikil married

Nikolai Podvoisky Nikolai Ilyich Podvoisky (; ; 16 February Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S. 4 February1880 – 28 July 1948) was a Russian Bolsheviks">Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet Union">Soviet statesman and the first People's Co ...

, who played a pivotal role in the October Revolution. Olga's other sister, Augusta, was the mother of the chekist,

Artur Artuzov Artur Khristyanovich Artuzov (name at birth: Artur Eugene Leonard Fraucci) ( (); 18 February 1891 – 21 August 1937) was a leading figure in the Soviet international intelligence and counter-intelligence and security officer and spymaster of the ...

. The Kedrovs had three sons. One, Bonifaty, achieved distinction as an academic. Another, Yury, took his own life when a teenager. The third son, Igor, was a Chekist, who was "one of the most vicious of the interrogators" who prepared the great Moscow show trials of 1936 and 1937, by forcing confessions out of old Bolsheviks such as

Grigori Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolshevik, Zinoviev was a close associate of Vladimir Lenin prior to 1917 and a leadi ...

and Karl Radek. In a tribute to father and son, published in ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

,'' Igor was described as a handsome, intelligent youth who loved music, but Elizabeth Poretsky, widow of a murdered agent

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)" ...

remembered him as a "pimpled youth with a stupid expression", and a fellow NKVD officer, Alexander Orlov believed that he and his father were both mentally ill. He later remarried. His second wife, Rebekka Plastinina, assisted him in conducting the mass executions in 1920 in the northern region, where she was known as the 'female executioner'.

Arrest and Execution

In February or March of 1939, Mikhail and Igor Kedrov jointly signed a letter to Stalin, denouncing

Lavrentiy 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 ...

, the recently appointed head of the NKVD. The older Kedrov had reputedly conducted an investigation in the Azerbaijan branch of Cheka in 1921, and had concluded that Beria was a British agent – a charge that was revived after Beria's arrest, years later. Igor Kedrov was arrested, and shot in January 1940. Mikhail Kedrov was arrested in April 1939. From prison, he wrote a letter to the Politburo member, Andrei Andreyev: Brought in front of a Military Collegium he was – very unusually – acquitted, but was still in custody after the German invasion of the USSR. He was evacuated from Moscow on Beria's instructions, and taken with other prisoners to a village in Kuibyshev (

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

), and shot on 28 October 1941.

Posthumous reputation

Soviet leader

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 ...

had decided to denounce crimes committed by the secret police during Stalin's time, but needed to retain the support of Cheka's successor organisation, the KGB. Khrushchev had ordered the execution of Beria, and therefore had a motive for stressing Beria's role in the repression. Kedrov consequently suited his purpose, as a former Chekist who was not implicated in the purges of the 1930s and whose murder could be attributed to Beria personally. The extract from Kedrov's letter to Andreyev, quoted above, was read out by Khrushchev during his famous

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 Party Congress of the Soviet communist party in 1956. Khrushchev's renewed campaign against the neo-Stalinists was accompanied by a detailed account of Kedrov's and Beria's mutual enmity, in ''Leningradskaya Pravda'', 25 February 1964. He was profiled again in ''Izvestya'', 7 November 1970, and there was a 90th birthday tribute in ''Pravda'' 24 February 1978, when postage stamps were issued in his honour. Streets were named after him in Arkhangelsk, Moscow and

Kotlas Kotlas () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Northern Dvina and Vychegda Rivers. Population: Kotlas is the third-largest town of Arkhangelsk Oblast in terms of p ...

. A whole page of ''Pravda'' was devoted to Mikhail and Igor Kedrov, 17 February 1989. A petition calling for Kedrov Street in Arkhangelsk to be renamed was blocked by the authorities in 2016.)

Honours and awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kedrov, Mikhail 1878 births 1941 deaths Cheka officers Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Executed mass murderers Perpetrators of the Red Terror (Russia) Great Purge victims from Russia Old Bolsheviks Soviet executioners People executed by the Soviet Union by firing squad People of the Russian Civil War Politicians from Moscow Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution of 1905 Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Torturers Inmates of Sukhanovo Prison