ARALOV, Simon Ivanovich: 18.12.1880 - 22.5.1969.
He was born in Moscow to rich merchant parents and educated to follow his father's profession. In 1905 he joined the Tsar's army and served in WWI as a major in military intelligence. A participant in the October Revolution he was one of the creators of the Tcheka. In January 1918 he became chief of the Operational Department of the Moscow military district. Rapidly promoted, in October 1918 he became the first chief of military intelligence until July 1920. In 1920 he moved down to chief of intelligence, 12th Army, and then regained ground commanding intelligence of the S.W. front. After 1921 he was a deputy of the chief of military intelligence, working in Turkey, Latvia and Lithuania as undercover ambassador and later was responsible for setting up residencies in the United States, Germany and Japan. In 1937, dismissed from all posts, he was employed as a deputy director of the Literature Museum. Arrested in 1938, he spent three years under interrogation. In 1941 he was serving as a private in a penal battalion. Four years later, he was a colonel, and when the war was over he was taken back into the GRU. Then, arrested in 1946, he spent ten years in a concentration camp. On his liberation he was immediately appointed deputy to the chief of the GRU. In 1957 he was again dismissed in the Zhukov/ Shtemyenko purge, but lived quietly until his death.
STIGGA, Oskar Ansovich: 1894 - 29.7.38.
Born in Latvia, he served in WWI and became a communist after the Revolution, and a leader of the Red Latvian Riflemen. He engaged in suppressing counterrevolutionaries in Moscow and became a private bodyguard of Lenin. In October 1918 he was a deputy of the chief of military intelligence and immediately moved as an illegal into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. In 1919 he became chief of intelligence of the Western front, and in August 1920 became chief of military intelligence. Reduced to deputy status after 1922, he travelled extensively as an illegal to create new networks until his recall to Moscow in 1938, when he was shot.
NIKONOV, A.M. (Nikonson): ? - 29.7.38.
It remains uncertain whether this was his real name or simply a party pseudonym like Lenin, Stalin, Trotski, Zinoviev and others. His date of birth is unknown. He was chief of military intelligence after Stigga, but it is not known whether Berzin took over from him or from another, so far unidentified, chief of military intelligence. He too was executed in the great terror of 1938.
2nd Grade Army Commissar BERZIN, Yan Karlovich (real name Kyuzis Peteris): 13.11.1889 - 29.7.38.
Born in Latvia, Berzin joined the Social-Democratic Party in 1904. He was conscripted into the army in the First World War but deserted and went underground. He took part in the October Revolution and afterwards he worked in the central apparatus of the NKVD and in the NKVD in Latvia. One of the main organisers of the 'Red Terror', he initiated the hostages system. He was also a fervent supporter of the establishment of a communist dictatorship in Latvia and one of the organisers and leaders of the Latvian Red Army (subsequently the 15th Army). He was head of a special department of this army and played a part in the suppression of the Russian sailors' mutiny at Kronstadt. He particularly distinguished himself in the course of the pursuit and liquidation of captured sailors. >From April 1921 he was Deputy Head of Intelligence Directorate (GRU) but, from his first days in military intelligence, he was, de facto, its head. With effect from March 1924 he became its head legally as well. He was one of the most talented, industrious and successful heads of intelligence, the creator of the most powerful and successful intelligence organisations in existence anywhere. He personally recruited and ran the most outstanding intelligence officers - Yakov Mrachkovski (Gorev), Moshe Milstein (Mikhail M), Ruth and Rolf Werner, Richard Sorge, Lev Manevich, Sandor Rado, Karl Ramm, Aino Kuusinen, Ignati Reis and the most eminent intelligence officer of the 20th century, Konstantin Efremov. In 1936 Berzin transferred the Soviet military intelligence command post from Moscow to Madrid, where he carried out his most notable recruitments while he was working under cover, officially designated as chief military adviser to the Republican Government. In order to sustain this cover story his deputies Uritski and Unshlikht carried out his duties in Moscow. On returning from Spain he continued to lead military intelligence. On 13 May 1938 he was arrested and on 29 July he was shot.
UNSHLIKHT, losif Stanislavovich: 19.12.1879 - 29.7.1938. An hereditary Polish nobleman and an active member of the Polish (left-wing) Social-Democratic Party, he was one of the leaders of the October Revolution. Immediately after the revolution he became a member of the NKVD college. He began the policy of state terror before Dzerzhinsky, and at one time he was considered by Soviet historians as the 'first founder of the Tcheka' at the same time as Dzerzhinsky was considered the 'chief founder of the Tcheka'. A fervent supporter of the establishment of communism in Poland, in 1920 he was a member of the 'Polish Revolutionary Government'. From 1921-23 he was deputy chairman of the All-Russian Tcheka and one of the fathers of the 'Red Terror". From 1923 he was deputy head of the registration directorate (GRU). In the interests of cover he constantly filled responsible posts in the Soviet Government and the Red Army. He travelled abroad several times with false documents to organise illegal work in Poland, Lithuania and Germany. In 1935-36 during Berzin's absence he carried out the duties of chief of the GRU although he remained in fact only deputy to Berzin. He was shot with Berzin in the cellar of the 'Hotel Metropole' in Moscow.
Corps Commander URITSKI, Solomon Petrovich: 1895-1937 was chief of the GRU during Berzin's absence. He was shot in the first wave of the Terror.
Commissar-General of State Security EZHOV, Nikolai Ivanovich: 1895-1940. A petty official who only joined the Bolsheviks when it became clear that they had won, he occupied insignificant party posts in the provinces, but from 1927 Ezhov was in Stalin's personal secretariat. In 1930 he was in charge of the Central Committee Personnel Department and in 1935 Party Secretary, controller of NKVD work. In 1936 he became Peoples' Commissar for Internal Affairs and Commissar-General for State Security. In 1937-38 there began under his leadership the 'great purge' which started as a purge of the NKVD and was then extended to the army, the party and the entire country. On 29 July 1938 there was a repeat purge of the GRU and, having liquidated the whole of the leadership and the operational staff, he took over its control, thus establishing a monopoly of secret activities in the state. From this moment on it would be impossible for the activites of the GRU and NKVD to be subject to reciprocal checking. However, the monopoly alarmed Stalin and 29 July saw the beginning of Ezhov's downfall. In October he was removed from his post. He was arrested in January 1939 and liquidated after atrocious torture. According to unconfirmed data, he was buried alive at the NKVD sanatorium at Sukhanovo.
One of the bloodiest careers in the history of mankind. Ezhov was the shortest serving Chief of the GRU and suffered the most painful death. The date of his death has not been established with certainty; there are grounds for thinking it could have been on 4 June 1940. There are also grounds for believing that Ivan Serov, a future chief of the GRU, played a personal part in Ezhov's death.
Lieut-General of Aviation PROSKUROV, Ivan losifovich: ? - 5.7.1940. An outstanding Soviet intelligence officer and fighter pilot, he combined both these professions simultaneously. In 1937-38 he served as a Soviet Military Adviser in Spain. He took part in air battles and shot down several enemy aircraft. At the same time he carried out a series of first-class recruitments amongst internationalists of many countries and assured a regular flow of military and military-technical intelligence. On his return from Spain he became chief of the GRU, a post he occupied from the end of 1938 to July 1940. He openly came out against the pact with Hitler. On the 4 July 1940 he was arrested, and the following day shot without trial.