Pavel Sudoplatov
Pavel Sudoplatov | |
---|---|
Head of the INO (Acting) | |
In office November 1938 – c. March 1939 | |
Preceded by | Zelman Passov |
Succeeded by | Vladimir Dekanozov |
Personal details | |
Born | Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov July 7, 1907 Ministry for State Security (Soviet Union) KGB Main Directorate of Intelligence Ministry of Internal Affairs |
Battles/wars | Russian Civil War Spanish Civil War World War II Cold War |
Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (Russian: Пáвел Aнатóльевич Cудоплáтов; Ukrainian: Павло́ Анато́лійович Судопла́тов, romanized: Pavlo Anatoliiovych Sudoplatov; July 7, 1907 – September 24, 1996)[1][2][3] 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 Armed Forces.[4]
Sudoplatov was involved in several major Soviet intelligence operations, including the assassination of
Early life and career
Sudoplatov was born in
Sudoplatov identified himself as Ukrainian.[10]
Functions in political police and intelligence apparatus
Sudoplatov was recruited into the Cheka in 1921, at the age of 14, and was promoted to the Secret Political Department (SPO) of the Ukrainian State Political Directorate (OGPU) in 1927.[6]
He transferred to the Soviet OGPU in 1933, moved to Moscow and after became an "illegal", operating under cover in a number of European countries.
Assassination of Yevhen Konovalets
On May 23, 1938 in
According to Sudoplatov, the order to assassinate Konovalets came directly from Joseph Stalin, who had personally told him: "This is not just an act of revenge, although Konovalets is an agent of German fascism. Our goal is to behead the movement of Ukrainian fascism on the eve of the war and force these "gangsters" to annihilate each other in a struggle for power."[6]: 23–24
After delivering the bomb to Konovalets, Sudoplatov calmly walked away and waited nearby to verify that it had successfully detonated.[6] He then walked to Rotterdam's railway station and boarded a train for Paris. Soon after, with the assistance of the NKVD, Sudoplatov was smuggled into the Second Spanish Republic, where he briefly served in combat against Francisco Franco's Nationalists.
His sudden disappearance made both the Dutch police and the OUN immediately suspect Sudoplatov of Konovalets' murder. Consequently, a photograph of Sudoplatov and Konovalets together was distributed to every OUN unit. According to Sudoplatov, "[i]n the 1940s, SMERSH [...] captured two guerilla fighters in Western Ukraine, one of whom had this photo of me on him. When asked why he was carrying it, he replied, "I have no idea why, but the order is if we find this man to liquidate him".[6]: 16
Near-purge
In the fall of 1938, he was made acting director of the Foreign Department of the
Assassination of Leon Trotsky
In March 1939, Stalin rehabilitated Sudoplatov, promoting him to deputy director of the Foreign Department, and placed him in charge of the assassination of Trotsky, which was carried out in August 1940.[5]
Sabotage
In June 1941, Sudoplatov was placed in charge of the NKVD's Administration for Special Tasks, the principal task of which was to carry out
Peace offer 1941
In late July 1941, under the orders of
"Department S" and atomic bomb
In February 1944, Beria allegedly named Sudoplatov to head the newly formed Department S, which, according to Sudoplatov, united both the army intelligence (GRU) and NKVD intelligence in an effort to aid and secure the Soviet atomic bomb project. Sudoplatov's exact role and contribution, as well as his claim that he "engineered the theft of atomic secrets from the United States with the aid of four eminent scientists"[5] is under discussion, since, according to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, Department S was established in September 1945, and Sudoplatov had limited access to the Soviet atomic effort from that time until October 1946 and did not have any access to foreign agents tasked with collecting the atomic intelligence.[9][14][15] In 1995, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) conducted an investigation and declared that it "is not in possession of any credible evidence that would suggest that Neils [sic] Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer, or Leo Szilard engaged in any espionage activity on behalf of any foreign power [...], the F.B.I. has classified information available that argues against the conclusions reached by the author of 'Special Tasks.' The F.B.I., therefore, considers such allegations to be unfounded".[16]
MGB
In the summer of 1946, Sudoplatov was removed from both posts, and in September he was placed in charge of another group at the newly renamed
MVD
In the spring of 1953, around the time of Stalin's death, Sudoplatov was appointed to head the yet-again renamed
Arrest, trial and imprisonment
After the fall of Lavrentiy Beria, Sudoplatov was arrested on August 21, 1953, as his alleged collaborator in crimes. He feigned madness to avoid being executed with Beria and so was tried only in 1958.[17] He was accused, among other things, of involvement with Grigory Mairanovsky's laboratory of death:
As established [during the court trial],
Beria and his accomplices committed terrible crimes against humanity: they tested deadly poisons, which caused agonizing death, on live humans. A special laboratory, which was established for experiments on the action of poisons on living humans, worked under the supervision of Sudoplatov and his deputy Eitingon from 1942 to 1946. They demanded he provide them only with poisons that had been tested on humans [...].[17]
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After serving the full term (he was housed with a number of Stalin's top assistants who were also imprisoned), he was duly released in August 1968.
Later life and memoirs
Sudoplatov worked for some time as a German and Ukrainian translator and also published, under the pen name "Anatoliy Andreev", three books based on his activities during World War II.
After an extensive letter writing campaign, including a publicity effort during the glasnost era of the late 1980s, he was finally rehabilitated and cleared of wrongdoing on 10 January 1992, after the December 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. In his memoirs, he wrote with bitterness about his rehabilitation:
The Soviet Union—to which I devoted every fiber of my being and for which I was willing to die; for which I averted my eyes from every brutality, finding justification in its transformation from a backward nation into a superpower; for which I spent long months on duty away from Emma and the children; whose mistakes cost me fifteen years of my life as a husband and father – was unwilling to admit its failure and take me back as a citizen. Only when there was no more Soviet Union, no more proud empire, was I reinstated and my name returned to its rightful place.
In 1994, Sudoplatov's autobiography,
Sudoplatov died on September 24, 1996
Honors and awards
On 1998,
Order of Lenin (30 April 1946) | |
Order of the Red Banner, thrice (13 November 1937, 16 June 1941, 3 November 1944) | |
Order of Suvorov, 2nd class (5 November 1944) | |
Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (24 February 1945) | |
Order of the Red Star, twice (26 April 1940, 20 September 1943) | |
Medal "To a Partisan of the Patriotic War", 1st class | |
Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" (1944) | |
Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" (1944) | |
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945) | |
Medal "For the Victory over Japan" (1945) | |
Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" (1948) | |
Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (1947) |
- Honorary State Security Officer (4 February 1942)
- Honored Worker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Legacy
- There are streets named after Sudoplatov in the city of Smolensk and the town of Gagarin. There is also a plaque honoring him in Smolensk.[23][24]
- In 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a monument to Sudoplatov was erected in the city of Melitopol. The occupation authorities also renamed the city's Dmytro Dontsov Street to Sudoplatov Street.[25][26]
- Later in 2022, pro-Russian collaborators in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast raised a militia named after Sudoplatov[27] and led by Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor whose son also plays a prominent role in the militia.[28][29]
References
- ^ a b c Vronskaya, Jeanne (29 September 1996). "Obituary: Pavel Sudaplatov". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
- ^ a b c Stout, David (28 September 1996). "Pavel Sudoplatov, 89, Dies; Top Soviet Spy Who Accused Oppenheimer". The New York Times. p. 1 13. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
- ^ a b c "PAVEL SUDOPLATOV, 89, DIES". The Washington Post. September 27, 1996. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
- ^ Судоплатов П.А. Спецоперации. Лубянка и Кремль 1930–1950 годы. — М.: ОЛМА-ПРЕСС, 1997.(in Russian)
- ^ a b c d Stout, David (September 28, 1996). "Pavel Sudoplatov, 89, Dies; Top Soviet Spy Who Accused Oppenheimer". The New York Times.
- ^ Little, Brown.
- ^ a b Trahair, R. C. S. Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004, pp. 392–393.
- ^ a b "Pavel A. Sudoplatov". Atomic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2021-09-17.
- ^ a b c "Atomic Spies?: The Implosion of the Sudoplatov Charges". Journal of the Federation of American Scientists. 47 (3). May 1994. Archived from the original on April 27, 2014.
- ISBN 978-5-87322-726-6.
Да, до 1992 года Украина не являлась полностью независимым государством, но я по-прежнему считаю себя украинцем — одним из тех, кто в какой-то мере способствовал созданию того положения, какое она приобрела в рамках Советского Союза.
- ISBN 0-465-00312-5.
- ^ "Archives show Stalin was ready to give Hitler Ukraine and the Baltics". Euromaidanpress.com. 20 June 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
- ^ Rees, Laurence (2021). Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War.
- ^ McMillan, P. J. Flimsy memoirs. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1994, July–August, pp. 30–33.
- ^ Leskov, Sergei. An unreliable witness. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1994, July–August, pp. 33–36
- ^ William J. Broad. F.B.I. Rejects An Account Of Treason. The New York Times, 3 May 1995.
- ^ ISBN 0-8133-4280-5
- ^ Time Magazine, April 25, 1994. Time magazine's managing editor James R. Gaines expressed regrets over his decision to publish nine-page excerpt from Sudoplatov's book on 25 April 1994 without consulting experts (Washington Post, 2 May 1995).
- ^ Mac-Neil/Lehrer News Hour, April 18, 1994.
- ^ Vladislav Zubok. Atomic espionage and its soviet "witnesses" Archived 2016-03-07 at the Wayback Machine. Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 50–53.
- ^ Thomas Powers. Were the Atomic Scientists Spies? The New York Review of Books, June 9, 1994.
- ^ "РУКОВОДИТЕЛИ ВНЕШНЕЙ РАЗВЕДКИ СТРАНЫ". archive.ph. Archived from the original on April 27, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
- ^ "Генерал-лейтенант Павел Анатольевич Судоплатов — легенда советской разведки". ndsmol.ru. 2019-07-05. Retrieved 2022-11-11.
- ^ "Памятник легендарному чекисту Павлу Судоплатову открыт на въезде в Смоленск". smolensk-i.ru. 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2022-11-11.
- ^ "В Мелитополе открыли памятник Павлу Судоплатову". RIA Novosti. 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2022-11-11.
- ^ "В Мелитополе переименовали улицу имени теоретика украинского национализма". RIA Novosti. 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2022-11-11.
- ^ "Russia 'Normalizing' Occupation Regime in Southern Ukraine (Part Two)". Jamestown.
- ^ "В Запорожье создали батальон в честь организатора убийства Льва Троцкого Павла Судоплатова - Газета.Ru | Новости". Газета.Ru (in Russian). 22 November 2022. Retrieved 2023-01-17.
- ^ Григорьев, Дмитрий (2022-11-23). "Батальон имени Судоплатова. Запорожцы встречают ВСУ с оружием в руках". AiF (in Russian). Retrieved 2023-01-17.
Further reading
- Symon Petliura, Yevhen Konovalets, Stepan Bandera – Three Leaders of Ukrainian Liberation Movement murdered by the Order of Moscow. Ukrainian Publishers Limited. 237, Liverpool Road, London, United Kingdom. 1962. (audiobook).
- ISBN 978-0-00-750374-2.
- Pavel Sudoplatov; Anatoli Sudoplatov; Jerrold L. Schecter; Leona P. Schecter (1994). Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-77352-2.
- Stechkin, Viktor. Pavel Sudoplatov – terminator Stalina. Moskva: Eksmo, 2005.