From 1930 to 1937, Dvinsky, a Party functionary, was deputy head of the Secret Sector of the Central Committee, as Stalin’s secretariat was called.48 He was also Stalin’s personal secretary. While working in Rostov, Dvinsky remained very influential in Party circles: he was a Central Committee member and was still in direct contact with Stalin. In 1938, along with Abakumov’s predecessor German Lupekin, Dvinsky asked for the Politburo’s approval to execute 3,500 people and to sentence an additional 1,500 to ten or more years in labor camps. Earlier the Politburo had already ordered the execution of 5,000 people in the province as well as the sentencing of 8,000 to long-term imprisonment.49
In 1939, Dvinsky and Aleksandr Poskrebyshev, head of Stalin’s secretariat and Stalin’s personal secretary, wrote an obsequious article entitled The Teacher and Friend of Mankind for a book honoring Stalin’s sixtieth birthday.50 Therefore, in Rostov, Abakumov was working with one of Stalin’s most devoted personal confidants.
As usual, at first Abakumov was working as acting head of the Rostov Province NKVD branch. Three weeks after his appointment, on December 28, 1938, he was promoted to State Security Captain, two ranks above his previous rank of state security lieutenant.51 It was quite unusual to skip a rank, and this promotion meant that the NKVD leaders wanted to encourage the young appointee.
Five months later, in April 1939, Abakumov finally became head of the Rostov Province NKVD Directorate. Almost nothing is known about Abakumov’s activity in Rostov. During the Soviet–Finnish Winter War (December 1939–March 1940), Abakumov’s directorate managed to arrest a group of sixteen alleged Finnish spies, supposedly led by a local Gypsy.52 The case was obviously phony since Rostov-on-Don is nowhere near Finland and Finnish spies would hardly consent to being led by a Gypsy. It is difficult to imagine how NKVD investigators explained what these Finnish spies were doing in this southern area of Russia. Most likely they were arrested simply because they were of Finnish and Karelian ethnicity. From 1937–38, the NKVD arrested 11,066 Finns throughout the whole country, and of these, 9,078 were executed.
In his biography Abakumov proudly wrote: ‘While heading the Rostov UNKVD, I was elected a delegate of the 18th VKP(b) [Communist Party] Congress [in 1939].’53 To be a delegate of a Party Congress, the highest organ of the Communist Party, was considered extremely prestigious in Soviet society and Abakumov’s election could have happened only if Dvinsky was supporting him.
On March 14, 1940, the 31-year-old Abakumov was promoted to State Security Senior Major, equivalent to Major General in the army, in recognition of his ‘service eagerness and industriousness’—once again skipping a rank. This promotion is especially surprising because he had just been investigated in connection with the allegations of an informer. According to a secret report, in the late 1920s, before he joined the NKVD, Abakumov ‘was observed using anti-Semitic expressions’.54 But the report included even a more incriminating detaiclass="underline" in 1936 Abakumov had supposedly had an affair with the wife of a German citizen named Nauschitz, an alleged German spy.
Abakumov denied the affair. However, he admitted that ‘he was acquainted with a citizen-woman MATISON [names were always typed in caps in NKVD documents], whom he met twice at a business club in Moscow’.55 The NKVD investigation found that the woman’s first husband had been executed for counter revolutionary activity, and her second husband lived abroad. In fact, someone named Abram Matison, a former Soviet trade representative in Persia, was arrested in Moscow in June 1939. In February 1940, he was sentenced to death and executed.56
The investigation had no repercussions for Abakumov. On the contrary, soon after his promotion Abakumov received an important military award, the Order of the Red Banner.
Deputy NKVD Commissar
After the NKVD was divided into the NKVD and NKGB in February 1941, Beria called Abakumov back to Moscow. At this point it appears that Abakumov was in Beria’s favor, because on February 25, 1941, Abakumov was appointed deputy NKVD Commissar. This was quite a promotion for an NKVD officer whose previous position was as head of an important but provincial NKVD directorate. Abakumov was soon given an important assignment: to participate in the cleansing of the Baltic states in the spring of 1941.
After the NKVD/NKGB merger in July, Abakumov became head of the UOO. He was also promoted to state security Commissar of the third rank, equivalent to lieutenant general in the army. For the next two years Abakumov remained one of the most powerful men under Beria.
Many military counterintelligence officers admired Abakumov. Nikolai Mesyatsev, a former OO/SMERSH investigator, recalled in his memoirs:
Abakumov kept the members of the Central Apparatus of Special Departments [in Moscow] firmly in his hands. He was greatly feared. As the [OO] veterans said, he was tough and willful. He worked a lot and forced others to work a lot. I liked his appearance, it gained everyone’s favor.57
In another interview, Mesyatsev added: ‘[Abakumov] always talked about business calmly. He did not order anyone to stand at attention in front of him and invited [a visitor] to sit down.58
Sergei Fedoseev, another NKVD man, had a similar opinion: ‘It was easy to talk to him. Despite his high position and the authority he had at the highest level of power, he was an open person, and any worker in the NKVD could approach him, regardless of any disparity in rank. He could create a relaxed feeling during a conversation and, most important, give good professional advice and support you if necessary.’59
Abakumov differed from the other NKVD leaders in other ways as well. Unlike Beria, he had interests besides power and women. A contemporary wrote:
[Abakumov] liked, for instance, to walk on foot through Moscow (!) [all other Soviet leaders used heavily guarded cars]. He rarely used a car, and if he went by car, he usually drove it himself. One could see him at the skating rink at 28 Petrovka Street skating or, more frequently, standing in a crowd of ‘regular’ people and watching the skaters. At a stadium, where he used to go to support the Dinamo team [an NKVD soccer team], he also sat among ordinary people. Besides sport, he was interested in theatre… Interestingly, he liked classical music and used to go to concerts of symphonic and chamber orchestras.60
Another contemporary wrote more skeptically about Abakumov after the war:
He was very pushy and insistent, with abrupt and demanding manners toward subordinates. He liked to ‘mix’ with common people and to give money to poor old women. He also liked spicy Caucasian shashlik [a type of kebab] and Georgian wines, despite his kidney stones. He was… very well dressed… [and] was also an excellent driver and frequently drove a trophy white Fiat sports car.61
In February 1943, Abakumov was promoted to State Security Commissar of the 2nd Rank, an equivalent to Colonel General in the army. With his subsequent appointment as head of SMERSH in April that year, Abakumov became Beria’s equal. Maksim Kochegarov, a SMERSH subordinate close to Abakumov, later described his style of administration as SMERSH’s head: