Nikolai Vladimirovich Skoblin (; 9 June 1892 – 1938?) was a general in the White Russian army, a senior operative in the émigré

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

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'') and a recruited Soviet spy, who acted as an intermediary between 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 ...

and the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

in the Tukhachevsky affair and was instrumental in the abduction of the ROVS chairman Gen

Yevgeny Miller Yevgeny-Ludvig Karlovich Miller (; – 11 May 1939) was a Russian general of Baltic German descent and one of the leaders of the anti-communist White Army during the Russian Civil War. After the civil war, he lived in exile in France. Kidnapped b ...

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 ...

in 1937. He was married to the Russian singer

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 ...

. A number of important details about his cooperation with the

USSR 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 ...

′s intelligence agencies as well as exact circumstances of his death have remained controversial and contested.

Early life and Russian Civil War

Skoblin was a cavalry officer in

Lavr Kornilov Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (, ; – 13 April 1918) was a Russian military intelligence officer, explorer, and general in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I. He served as Supreme Commander of the Russian Army and as the military leade ...

′s Division of the White Russian Army during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, 1918–1920. It is believed that he met his wife, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, during the war. Plevitskaya was a committed

Bolshevik 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, ...

considered to be a great beauty, who had been traveling the front singing and entertaining Red Army troops. On 26 March 1920, aged 26, as the commander of the Kornilov Division within the Russian Army (under the command of Gen

Pyotr Wrangel Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (, ; ; 25 April 1928), also known by his nickname the Black Baron, was a Russian military officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the final phase of the Russian Civil War, he was c ...

) he became Major General. After Wrangel's army defeat in November 1920, he evacuated to the

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

, later moved to Bulgaria.

In exile

When in Bulgaria, in 1923, he was relieved of the position of commander of the Kornilov regiment (formed in the Gallipoli on the basis of the Kornilov Division's evacuees). Skoblin and his wife moved to

, where in 1929 he was reinstated as commander of Kornilov regiment by Gen Alexander Kutepov, chairman of the

(''ROVS''). Nikolai Skoblin and his wife were recruited to the

OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...

by his former regimental comrade in Paris in September 1930 and received code name Farmer.Lukes, Igor, ''Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Beneš in the 1930s'', Oxford University Press (1996), , 978-0-19-510267-3, p. 95. Skoblin was meanwhile gaining importance in the ''ROVS''′ ranks and in 1935 he headed up the ''ROVS''′ counter-intelligence branch, the Inner Line.″Оснивање белогвардејских тајних служби: Из тајних архива УДБЕ: РУСКА ЕМИГРАЦИЈА У ЈУГОСЛАВИЈИ 1918–1941.″ // ''

Politika ( sr-Cyrl, Политика, lit=Politics) is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans. Publishing and ownership is publ ...

'', 13 December 2017, p. 18. Plevitskaja

Nikolai Skoblin played a key role in the joint operation by

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

against Soviet Marshal

Mikhail Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...

, who, along with other senior Red Army commanders, was tried and executed on orders from

Joseph 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 ...

in 1937. Skoblin contacted

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

who manufactured documents about Tukhachevsky being a German spy, which were transferred to the Soviet top leadership by Skoblin.Schwartz, Stephen. (January 24, 1988)
Intellectuals and Assassins - Annals of Stalin's Killerati
''New York Times''. This story was originally uncovered by Soviet intelligence defector

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 his 1939 book ''In Stalin's Secret Service'';

Walter Schellenberg Walter Friedrich Schellenberg (16 January 1910 – 31 March 1952) was a German Schutzstaffel, SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) and ...

in his memoirs published in 1956 wrote about Germany's intentional denunciation of Tukhachevsky, with

Edvard Beneš Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1939 to 1948. During the first six years of his second stint, he led the Czec ...

being used a channel of this disinformation passed to Stalin. On 22 September 1937, Skoblin, operating under the direction of deputy chief of Soviet foreign intelligence Sergey Spigelglas, lured the ROVS chairman

into an NKVD safe apartment for a meeting with two supposedly German officers. In reality, they were Soviet intelligence officers, Shpigelglas and NKVD Paris ''

rezident A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 'r ...

'' Kislov.″Помирљивост према политичким партијама: Из тајних архива УДБЕ: РУСКА ЕМИГРАЦИЈА У ЈУГОСЛАВИЈИ 1918–1941.″ // ''

'', 12 December 2017, p. 21. Miller was drugged and smuggled aboard a Soviet ship in

Le Havre Le Havre is a major port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy (administrative region), Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the Seine, river Seine on the English Channel, Channe ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, where he was tortured and finally executed on 11 May 1939. (Copies of letters written by Miller, while he was imprisoned in Moscow, are in the

Dmitri Volkogonov Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (; 22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department. After research in secret Soviet archives (both be ...

papers at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

.) However, the NKVD's plan to have Skoblin promoted to presidency of the ROVS was thwarted, as Miller had been suspicious about Skoblin and the meeting, therefore he left behind a note with details of the meeting to be opened if he failed to return.

Death

There is no reliable information about the circumstances of Skoblin's death. According to

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 ...

, Skoblin, aided by Soviet intelligence officer Leiba Feldbin (Orlov), escaped to

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and died in Republican-held

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

during a bombing raid. Plevitskaya was put on trial and convicted by the French authorities as an accomplice to the kidnapping and presumed murder of Miller. She died in prison in 1940.

In the media

Skoblin's and Plevitskaya's story was fictionalized by

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

, who had known Plevitskaya in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, in his first English language story, "The Assistant Producer", in January 1943. It was also the basis of the French movie '' Triple Agent'' (2004) directed by

Éric Rohmer Jean Marie Maurice Schérer or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer, known as Éric Rohmer (; 21 March 192011 January 2010), was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and teacher. Rohmer was the last of the Post-war, p ...

. The Miller abduction and Skoblin's relationship with Max Eitingon was the subject of a rancorous squabble between

Stephen Schwartz Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written hit musicals such as ''Godspell'' (1971), ''Pippin (musical), Pippin'' (1972), and ...

and

Theodore Draper Theodore H. Draper (September 11, 1912 – February 21, 2006) was an American historian and political writer. Draper is best known for the 14 books he completed during his life, including work regarded as seminal on the formative period of the Am ...

in the pages of the

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

in April 1988. In addition, the kidnapping of General Miller is also fictionalized in

Nikita Mikhalkov Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov (; born 21 October 1945) is a Russian filmmaker and actor. He made his directorial debut with the Red Western film ''At Home Among Strangers'' (1974) after appearing in a series of films, including the romantic com ...

's award-winning film ''

Burnt by the Sun ''Burnt by the Sun'' (, Transliteration, translit. ''Utomlyonnye solntsem'', literally "wearied by the sun") is a 1994 Russian drama film starring, directed, written, and produced by Nikita Mikhalkov and co-written by Azerbaijani screenwrite ...

''. In the film the character known as "Mitya" ( Oleg Menshikov) is a former White Army officer turned NKVD agent. Posing as a pianist in Paris, Mitya is described as having delivered eight White Generals to the NKVD. All are described as having been kidnapped, returned to Moscow and shot without trial. One of the generals is given the name "Weiner."

Notes and citations

References

Books

* *Victor Alexandrov, ''The Tukhachevsky Affair'', Prentice-Hall, 1963. ASIN B0006D5JSY *John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, ''Deadly Illusions'', Crown, 1993 * Wilhelm Hoettl,'' The Secret Front'', Frederick A. Praeger, 1954 ASIN B0007EFR8Y ; Enigma Books (September 1, 2003) *Igor Lukes, ''Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler'', Oxford University Press, 1996 *

, ''In Stalin's Secret Service'', Enigma Books, 2000 *Alexander Orlov, ''The March of Time'', St. Ermins Press, 2004. *Walter Schellenberg, ''The Labyrinth'', Harper and Bros, 1956. *Pavel Sudoplatov, ''Special Tasks'', Little, Brown and Company, 1994. *Ally Hauptmann-Gurski, ''La Plevitskaya'', Author's Publication, 2011 edition (2006 out of print)

External links

НИКОЛАЙ СКОБЛИН (1893–1937)
// ''100 великих разведчиков'' by Igor Damaskin. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Skoblin, Nikolai 1892 births 1938 deaths People from Nizhyn People from Chernigov Governorate Russian military personnel of World War I White movement generals Russian All-Military Union members Soviet spies NKVD officers People killed in the Spanish Civil War Deaths by German airstrikes