Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky (, ; – 10 May 1934) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who served as chairman of the

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

, the

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

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 ...

, from 1926 to 1934. Born to Polish parents in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, Menzhinsky 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 1902. He emigrated from Russia in 1907, and spent the next decade in Europe and the United States. After the 1917

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 ...

, he joined the

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

in 1919, and in 1923 was promoted to its deputy under

Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (; ; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed Iron Felix (), was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first two Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka a ...

. After his death in 1926, Menzhinsky became head of the Cheka's successor, the OGPU. He worked to crush resistance in the countryside during

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 ...

's forced

agricultural collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-o ...

Early life

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, a member of the

Polish nobility The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...

, was born into an Orthodox Christian Polish-Russian family of teachers. His father was a Russified Pole and a history lecturer. His mother was a woman of letters who sympathised with the revolutionaries. His brother was a tsarist official, working for the Ministry of Finance. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at Saint Petersburg University in 1898, and practised law in

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. ...

, while dabbling in literature. He had a novel published in 1905. In February 1905, his young daughter died of a cerebral haemorrhage. The trauma ended his ten-year marriage, and he left Yaroslavl to join his unmarried sisters, Vera and Ludmila, who shared an apartment that was a popular meeting place for revolutionaries.

Political activism

Menzhinsky had joined the

(RSDLP) in 1902. 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 ...

, Vera Menzhinsky worked alongside

Nadezhda Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya ( rus, links=no, Надежда Константиновна Крупская, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvnə ˈkrupskəjə; – 27 February 1939) was a Russian revolutionary, politician and politic ...

Vladimir 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 ...

's wife, who was secretary of the

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, ...

faction of the RSDLP, while her brother joined the Bolshevik military organisation, until he was caught in a police raid in July 1906. He was released after two weeks in prison, after going on hunger strike, and emigrated. He lived in Belgium, Switzerland, France, United States, working in foreign branches of the RSDLP. When the Bolshevik faction split over the issue of whether to put up candidates for election to the

Duma A duma () is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were formed across Russia ...

. Menzhinsky joined the "boycottists", led by Lenin's rival,

Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...

, and joined the editorial board of their journal '' Vpered'', but when the Vpered faction split, Menzhinsky aligned himself with the self-proclaimed "Orthodox Marxists",

Grigory Aleksinsky Grigory Alekseyevich Aleksinsky (Russian: Григорий Алексеевич Алексинский; 16 September 1879 – 4 October 1967) was a prominent Russian Marxist activist, Social Democrat and Bolshevik who was elected to the Second Dum ...

and Mikhail Pokrovsky, rejecting the concept of proletarian culture developed by

and

Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (, born ''Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov''; – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Soviet People's Commissariat for Education, People's Commissar (minister) of Education, as well ...

. Writing in the Russian emigre journal, ''Our Echo'' in July 1910, Menzhinsky wrote:

Personality

Trotsky who knew Menzhinsky from when they were exiles, in 1920, left a scathing portrait of him: "The impression he made on me could best be described by saying that he made none at all. He seemed like a poor sketch for an unfinished portrait. Only now and then would an ingratiating smile or secret play of the eyes betray his eagerness from insignificance ... No-one took any notice of Menzhinsky, so quietly toiling away over his papers." He was master of more than 10 languages (including

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, Chinese, Turkish, and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, the last one learned especially in order to read works by

Omar Khayyám Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) ( Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar Khayyam (), was ...

Later life

After the

of 1917, Menzhinsky returned to Russia in the summer of that year and joined the Mezhraiontsy, an independent faction whose leading figure was

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 ...

who merged with 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, ...

in August 1917. A few days after the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

, he was appointed People's Commissar for Finance. His first act in this post was to drag a large sofa into his office, tacked a notice on it saying 'Commissariat of Finance', and lay down on it. Lenin came in and found him asleep. When officials at the Russian State Bank refused to recognise the new regime, Menzhinsky had the director and others arrested. According to G. von Schantz, Menzhinsky "personally conducted the wrecking of the Russian banks, a maneuver that deprived all opponents of

Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...

of their financial means of warfare." In April 1918, Menzhinsky was appointed Soviet consul general in Berlin, but in November, he was expelled, along with the Ambassador Adolph Ioffe. Posted to Ukraine, he joined

in 1919, and five years later became a deputy chairman of its successor, the

. After

's death in July 1926 Menzhinsky became the chairman of the OGPU. Menzhinsky played a great role in conducting the secret '' Trust'' and ''Sindikat-2'' counterintelligence operations, in the course of which leaders of large anti-Soviet centers abroad,

Boris Savinkov Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (; 31 January 1879 – 7 May 1925) was a Russian revolutionary, writer, and politician. As a leading figure in the Socialist Revolutionary Party's (SR) Combat Organization in the early 20th century, he was a key organ ...

and Sidney Reilly, were lured to the Soviet Union and arrested. Meanwhile, the Chekist, Menzhinsky was loyal to

, whose

personality cult A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an ideali ...

had already begun to form, coinciding with several important purges in 1930 to 1931.

Death

Menzhinsky spent his last years as an invalid, suffering from acute

angina Angina, also known as angina pectoris, is chest pain or pressure, usually caused by insufficient blood flow to the heart muscle (myocardium). It is most commonly a symptom of coronary artery disease. Angina is typically the result of parti ...

since the late 1920s, which rendered him incapable of physical exertion. He conducted the affairs of the OGPU while lying upon a couch in his office at the Lubyanka, but rarely interfered in the day-to-day operation of the GPU. Stalin tended to deal with his first deputy

Genrikh Yagoda Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936. A ...

, who essentially took over as head of the organization in all but name beginning in the late 1920s."Vyacheslav Menzhinsky" article on the Spartacus Educational website
Menzhinsky died on 10 May 1934, at the age of 59. When his successor, Yagoda, made his public confession under duress at the Moscow Trial of the Twenty One in 1938, Yagoda stated that he had poisoned Menzhinsky. In 1988, the Soviet authorities admitted that the entire trial was based on false confessions forced out of the defendants, but Yagoda was not rehabilitated. Menzhinsky was cremated and his ashes was buried in the

Kremlin Wall Necropolis The Kremlin Wall Necropolis is the former national cemetery of the Soviet Union, located in Red Square in Moscow beside the Moscow Kremlin Wall, Kremlin Wall. Burials there began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolsheviks who died during the Mosc ...

Gallery

References

External links

* ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

'' *
A Pince-nez Among Leather Jackets
a biography article at the FSB website
The German-Bolshevik Conspiracy, War Information Series No. 20, October 18, p. 9.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Menzhinsky, Vyacheslav 1874 births 1934 deaths Politicians from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Soviet people of Polish descent 20th-century Polish nobility Old Bolsheviks Members of the Central Committee of the 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Central Committee of the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) People's commissars and ministers of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Bolshevik finance Cheka chairmen Polish communists Nobility from the Russian Empire Politicide perpetrators Human subject research in Russia Saint Petersburg State University alumni Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis Cheka officers Unsolved deaths in Russia