Tsanava, Lavrentii (1900–1955) joined the local CheKa branch in Georgia in 1921. At the Georgian Regional OGPU in Tbilisi (1930–1933), then at different state positions in Georgia (1933–1937). NKVD commissar of Belorussia (1938–1941). Head of the NKVD Special Departments at different fronts (1941–1943), NKVD/MGB commissar/minister of Belorussia (1943–1951), head of the Second MGB Main Directorate and deputy MGB minister (1951–1952). Dismissed on February 15, 1952, and arrested on April 4, 1953, as a co-organizer of the assassination of Solomon Mikhoels. Died in prison on October 12, 1955 (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, pp. 431–432).
Tsitsin, Nikolai (1898–1980), botanist. Member of the Agricultural Academy (VASKhNIL) (1932). Director of the Siberian Institute of Cereal Industry (1934–1938), of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV) in Moscow (1938–1949; 1953–1957), vice president of the VASKhNIL (1938–1948), director of the Academy Main Botanical Garden in Moscow (1945–1980). Elected academician in 1939 together with Trofim Lysenko. Did not support Trofim Lysenko in 1947–1948. As retaliation, dismissed from the VSKhV directorship and as vice president of the VASKhNIL. President of the International Association of Botanical Gardens and the Fourteenth International Genetics Congress. Joined the Party in 1938. Deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Twice Hero of Socialist Labor, Stalin and Lenin Prizes, seven Lenin Orders.
Tulaikov, Nikolai (1875–1938), agronomist. Academician (1932). Director of the Saratov Institute of Grain Farming, head of the Scientific Committee of the Commissariat of Agriculture (from 1917). Lenin Prize (1929). Arrested with some of his colleagues in 1937 after Trofim Lysenko and one of his cronies, Vsevolod Stoletov, proclaimed Tulaikov “a saboteur” and a campaign of public meetings followed. Tried and shot on January 20, 1938.
Ulrich, Vasilii (1889–1951), military prosecutor. In the early 1920s, chairman of the Military Tribunal of the Internal Security (OGPU) Troops. Chairman of the Military Collegium (MC) of the USSR Supreme Court (1926–1948). The number of victims sentenced to death at the MC meetings presided by Ulrich is countless: Between October 1, 1936, and September 30, 1938, alone, 30,514 persons were condemned to death and an additional 5,000 persons were sentenced to various terms in labor camps. Dismissed in 1948 and assigned to the Military Law Academy (Parrish, The Lesser Terror, pp. 205–207).
Unshlikht, Iosif (1879–1938), one of the founders of the VCheKa in 1917. In 1919, participated in the short-lived Government of the Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia, and in 1920, in a similar Polish government. Deputy chairman of the VCheKa/OGPU (1921–1923), in charge of military intelligence (1923–1925), deputy commissar of defense and deputy chairman of the USSR Military Council (1925–1930), deputy chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Council of Deputies (VSNKh) (1930–1933), then at different high positions in the Soviet government (1933–1937). A candidate to the Central Committee (1925–1937). Arrested on June 11, 1937, tried on July 28, 1938, and shot on July 29, 1938 (Leggett, The CHEKA, pp. 271–273; Kolpakidi, Aleksandr, and Dimitrii Prokhorov, Imperia GRU: Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi voennoi razvedki [The GRU Empire: Essays on the History of the Russian Military Intelligence] [Moscow: Olma-Press, 2000], vol. 2, pp. 423–424 [in Russian]; Yeremina and Roginsky, Rastrel’nye spiski, p. 411).
Vannikov, Boris (1897–1962), state figure. Joined the Communist Party in 1919. Deputy commissar (1937–1939), then commissar (1939–1941) of defense industry. Arrested (June–August 1941). Deputy commissar of defense industry again (1941), commissar of armaments (1942–1946), deputy chair of the Special Committee and head of the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers (in charge of the A- and H-bomb projects) (1945–1953), first deputy minister of medium machine building (i.e., of atomic industry) (1953–1958). Hero of Socialist Labor (1942, 1949, 1954) (Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria, p. 433).
Vavilov, Nikolai (1887–1943), botanist and geneticist. Graduated from Moscow Agricultural Institute (1911). Director of the Institute of Applied Botany (1924–1929), the Plant Breeding Institute (VIR) (1930–1940), and the Academy Institute of Genetics (1933–1940). Member of the Ukrainian and the USSR Academies (1929). President (1929–1935), and then, from 1935–1938, vice president of the Agricultural Academy (VASKhNIL) (1953–1938), president of the All-Union Geographical Society (1931–1940). Member of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Council of Deputies (VSNKh) (1926–1935). Published more than 350 original papers and monographs in different languages. Discovered the law of homologous series in hereditary variation and centers of origin of cultivated plants. Arrested in 1940 because of his long-term stand against Trofim Lysenko. Sentenced to death on July 9, 1941; not executed. On July 26, 1941, the death penalty was commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment in labor camps. Died in the city of Saratov, in Saratov Prison on January 26, 1943.
Vavilov, Sergei (1891–1951), physicist, the younger brother of Nikolai Vavilov. Graduated from Moscow University (1914), became professor there and head of the Physics Department at the Institute of Physics and Biophysics (1918–1932), director of the Academy Physics Institute (from 1932), scientific deputy director of the Academy Optical Institute. Academician (1932). President of the academy (1945–1951). According to Andrei Sakharov’s memoirs (p. 77), Vavilov accepted the post of president because he had been informed that Trofim Lysenko and Andrei Vyshinsky were the other candidates for this position.
Vernadsky, Vladimir (1863–1945), the founder of geochemistry and biogeochemistry. Developed the biosphere theory (the total mass of living organisms that process and recycle the energy and nutrients available from the environment). Graduated from St. Petersburg University (1885). Professor at Moscow University (1890–1911). Ordinary academician (1912). Active member of the Constitutional Democrats Party and a minister in the Provisional Government in 1917. Escaped arrest by the Bolsheviks by moving to the Ukraine and Crimea. Back to Moscow in 1921, then abroad (1922–1926). After his return, founded several laboratories and institutes. From 1927, directed the Academy Biogeochemical Laboratory (in Leningrad).
Vinogradov, Vladimir (1882–1964), therapist. In 1937, as an expert, confirmed the indictment against his teacher, Professor Dmitrii Pletnev. In 1944, elected to the Medical Academy. In 1951, chief therapist at the Kremlin Hospital, chair of a department at the First Moscow Medical Institute, head of the Electrocardiography Department at the Institute of Therapy of the Medical Academy, and editor in chief of the journal Terapevticheskii arkhiv [Therapist’s Archive]. In 1953, one of the main victims of the Doctors’ Plot case (Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria, p. 434).