Ryasnoi, Vasilii (1904–1995), a Party functionary, joined the NKVD Main State Security Directorate (GUGB) in 1937. Head of the Gorky Regional NKVD branch (1941–1943), commissar of the Ukrainian NKVD (1943–1946). First deputy NKVD commissar (1946), MVD deputy minister (1947–1952), MGB deputy minister (1952–1953), head of the Second Main MVD Directorate (Counterintelligence) (March–May 1953), head of the Moscow and Moscow Region MVD branch (1953–1956). In 1956, discharged from the MVD. Director of the construction of the Volga–Baltic Sea canal (1956–1958), head of a building department in a road-building company (1956–1988). Retired in 1988 (Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, pp. 153–154; Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria, p. 481).
Ryumin, Mikhail (1913–1954), deputy head of a division within a SMERSH department and then of the Third Main MGB Directorate (Military Counterintelligence) (1945–1947), then at the Department for Investigation of Especially Important Cases (1947–1951), head of this Department and deputy MGB minister (1951–1952). Fired on November 14, 1952, and arrested on March 17, 1953. Tried on June 2–7, 1954, and sentenced to death. Shot in July 1954 (Stolyarov, Palachi i zhertvy, pp. 41–43 and 203–204; Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria, p. 481).
Safonov, Grigory (1904–1973), deputy USSR chief (general) prosecutor (1939–1947), then general prosecutor (1948–1953) (Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria, p. 482).
Sakharov, Andrei (1921–1989), nuclear physicist and prominent human rights activist. Graduated from Moscow University (1942), and from 1945, at the Academy Physics Institute. Defended his doctoral thesis at age 26; academician at age 32. Recruited into the H-bomb program in 1948; at the secret institute Arzamas-16 (1950–1968). Together with academician Igor Tamm, developed the theoretical basis for controlled thermonuclear fusion. In 1961, opposed Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s plan to test a 100-megaton hydrogen bomb. In 1968, published in the West the essays Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom. In 1980, after his denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, exiled to the closed city of Gorky (now Nizhnii Novgorod) and deprived of his Hero of Socialist Labor awards. In 1984, Sakharov’s wife, Elena Bonner, was convicted of anti-Soviet activities and was also confined to Gorky. In December 1986, the Soviet government under Mikhail Gorbachev released Sakharov and Bonner and they returned to Moscow. In April 1989, elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies. Died on December 14, 1989, after Gorbachev, who presided the deputies’ meeting, interrupted Sakharov’s speech. Nobel Prize for Peace (1975).
Sanotsky, Vladimir (1890–?), toxicologist. Graduated from the Military-Medical Academy in Petrograd (1914). From 1925 onward, studied the mechanism of action of toxic substances and methods of treatment of injuries caused by such substances; worked on the pathology caused by radiation. Head of a laboratory, then deputy director, and finally director of the Institute of Pathology and Therapy of Intoxications (1934–1952). Corresponding member of the Medical Academy. Supported Mairanovsky.
Savchenko, Sergei (1904–1966), one of Khrushchev’s men. The Ukrainian NKGB/MGB minister (1934–1949), head of the First Main MGB Directorate and deputy MGB minister (1951–1953), deputy head of the Second Main Directorate (March–June 1953). Later transferred to the MVD/KGB Directorate of Construction Troops. In 1955, discharged to the Soviet army reserve “as not corresponding to his position” (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, pp. 371–372).
Sazykin, Nikolai (1910–1985) joined the regional NKVD branch in the city of Stalingrad in 1937. From 1938, in Moscow. NKVD/NKGB commissar of Moldavia (1941), head of the NKVD Third Special Department (1941–1943), head of the NKGB Second Directorate (Counterintelligence) (1943–1944), NKGB plenipotentiary in Estonia (1944–1945), deputy head of Department S (atomic bomb intelligence) of the NKVD/NKGB (1945–1947), assistant to deputy chairman of the USSR Supreme Council Lavrentii Beria (1947–1953). Head of the Fourth (Secret Political) MVD Directorate (1953), head of Special Courses at the Moscow School of High Education for Leading Cadres of the MVD/KGB (1953–1954). Dismissed from the KGB in 1954 because of “the facts discrediting the name of the KGB commanding officer.” Worked in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, i.e., of atomic energy (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, pp. 372–373).
Schmalhausen, Ivan (1884–1963), zoologist and evolutionist. Graduated from Kiev University (1907) and later professor at this university (1912, 1921–1941). Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1922) and director of its Zoological Institute in Kiev (1930–1941). Academician (1933) and director of the Academy Institute of Evolutionary Morphology in Moscow (1936–1948), chair of Moscow State University Department of Darwinism (1939–1948). Fired after Lysenko’s triumph in 1948. Senior researcher (1948–1955) and head (1955–1960) of the Embryology Laboratory at the Academy Institute of Zoology in Leningrad.
Schwarzman, Lev (1907–1953), journalist and then NKVD/MGB investigator. A secret informer of the OGPU/NKVD from 1930, joined the NKVD in 1937. Deputy head of the NKVD Investigation Department (from 1940). From the mid-1940s to early 1953, deputy head of the MGB Department for Investigation of Especially Important Cases. Worked as a pair with Vladimir Komarov. Arrested in 1953 after Beria’s fall, tried and shot on December 23, 1953 (Stolyarov, Palachi i zhertvy, pp. 28–31).
Sedov, Lev (or Leon) (1906–1938), the son of Leon Trotsky. Actively worked in the Left Opposition headed by his father, a Communist Party faction that tried to withstand Stalin’s rising power. In 1933 joined Trotsky in exile to Turkey, then followed him to Norway and Paris. Stayed in Paris after Trotsky left France for Mexico in 1937. In 1936, published a book in which he analyzed Stalin’s show trials of 1935–1936 (the English translation: Sedov, Leon, The Red Book on the Moscow Trial (London: New Park Publications, 1980). On February 16, 1938, died in a hospital in Paris a few days after an unsuccessful surgical operation. Possibly poisoned.
Semashko, Nikolai (1874–1949), physician and state figure. Commissar of health (1918–1930), later a teacher and a researcher. A member of the All-Union Central Executive Commission.
Semenov, Nikolai (1896–1986), physicist and chemist. Graduated from Petrograd University. At Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute (1920–1931), and from 1931, director of the new Leningrad Institute of Chemical Physics. Later this institute moved to Moscow. Academician (1932). In 1947, joined the Communist Party. Nobel Prize for chemistry (1956) for work on chain reactions performed in the 1920s–1930s (Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 451).
Serebryansky, Yakov (1892–1956; pseudonym of Yakov Bergman) joined the VCheKa in 1919. Worked in different countries as an agent and head of terrorist groups (1923–1937). Arrested in 1938 and condemned to death. Pardoned in 1941. From 1941 to 1945, worked in Sudoplatov’s department of the NKVD/NKGB (1941–1945), and again under Sudoplatov in the MVD (March–June 1953). Arrested in 1953 and on March 30, 1956, died during an interrogation in Butyrka Prison (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, pp. 380–381).