This post is about investigators who conducted my criminal case and cases of other unfortunate employees of the Central Bank of USSR in 1930.

This post is about investigators who conducted my criminal case and cases of other unfortunate employees of the Central Bank of USSR in 1930.

We were convicted in the case of of the Social Democratic Union Bureau.
This post is about Yakov  Agranov.

Yakov Saulovich Agranov (born Yankel Samuilovich Sorenson; 1893 – 1938) was the first chief of Soviet Main Directorate of State Security and a deputy of NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda. He is known as one of main organizers of Soviet political repressions and Stalinist show trials in 1920s and 1930s. He fabricated the "Tagantsev conspiracy" case and Moscow trials, including Trial of the Twenty One and Industrial Party Trial, as well as mass arrests and executions in Saint Petersburg during Stalin'sGreat Purge.

Agranov was born in a Jewish shopkeeper's family in Checherskaya, a village in the Gomel province of the Russian Empire. In 1912 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party while working as a clerk and in 1915 joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He was arrested by the tsarist police in 1915 and exiled to Yenesei province.

In 1918, Agranov became secretary of Sovnarkom. At this time he was taking orders directly from Vladimir Lenin and Felix Dzerzhinsky. During this period Agranov was put in charge of compiling the lists of intellectuals for the forced exile of leading figures of Russian sciences and culture that were seen as the anti-Soviet element. Among those expelled were Nikolai Berdyaev and Nikolai Lossky.

In 1921, Agranov was the chief investigator who conducted the "Petrograd military organization", allegedly headed by Vladimir Tagantsev. Tagantsev was arrested and then tricked into giving names 300 "conspirators", who, he was told, would not be executed.^[1] in exchange for leniency for himself. The investigation ended with more than 85 persons being sentenced to death, including Tagantsev himself and the poet Nikolay Gumilyov. All concerned were promptly executed. When asked why he was so merciless, Agranov responded: "Seventy percent of Petrograd intellectuals were standing by one leg in the camp of our enemies. We had to burn that leg off".

Agranov also investigated the Kronstadt rebellion and the peasant uprising in Tambov region. At the end of his career he led the Trial of the Twenty One against the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, the “Promparty” and "Working Peasant Party " cases.

Agranov was also implicated in the suspicious suicide of Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1930. The poet shot himself from the gun given to him as a gift by Agranov who had an affair with Lilya Brik, a woman known as the muse of Mayakovsky.^[3]

Immediately after the assassination of Sergey Kirov in Leningrad in 1934, Agranov was entrusted with the organization of mass reprisals in the city. The interrogation sessions of Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky were conducted under his supervision.

The cynical motto "If there is no enemy, he should be created, denounced and punished" was attributed to Yakov Agranov. His career and life come to an end when in 1938 he himself was accused of being a Trotskyite sympathizer, arrested on 20 July 1938. 

Mr. Agranov   was recognized   by Military Collegium guilty  in:

He   was an active member of an illegal organization of SRs;
He   conducted espionage and terrorist activities;
He  created in the NKVD illegal anti-Soviet organization,
He  established contact with foreign center of the SRs; 
He was a spy and  established contact with the intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany.


  Mr. Agranov explained  that he bigan to  struggle against the Soviets  since the beginning of the October Revolution in 1917.

He was executed by firing squad as an "enemy of the people" (on 1 August 1938).

The Main Directorate of State Security ( Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti,  GUGB) was the name of the Soviet intelligence service, secret police from July 1934 to April 1943. It was run under the auspices of the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Its first head was first deputy of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs (then - Genrikh Yagoda), Commissar 1st rank of State Security Yakov Agranov.

Main Directorate of State Security evolved from the Joint State Political Directorate (or. OGPU). On February 3, 1941, the Special Sections (or. OO) of the GUGB-NKVD (responsible for counter-intelligence in the military) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was removed from the NKVD and renamed Peoples Commissariat of State Security orNKGB.Following the outbreak of World War II, the NKVD and NKGB were reunited on July 20, 1941 and counter-intelligence was returned to the NKVD in January 1942. In April 1943 it was again transferred to the Narkomat of Defence and Narkomat of the Navy, becoming SMERSH (from Smert' Shpionam or "Death to Spies"); at the same time, the GUGB was again separated from theNKVD as NKGB.

GUGB heads. By the end of 1937 GUGB was the most powerful and influential organ in NKVD structure. GUGB departments (or Sections) dealt with - intelligence, internal security, counter-intelligence, protection of government and secret communications.

First chief of GUGB was Yakov Agranov, Commissar 1st rank of State Security and first deputy of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Next chief of GUGB from April 15, 1937 to September 8, 1938 was komkor Mikhail Frinovsky, he was succeeded by Lavrenty Beria, then just promoted to Commissar 1st rank of State Security. When Beria become People's Commissar of Internal Affairs (head of NKVD), Commissar 3rd rank of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov become his first deputy and new and last head of GUGB.

Between 1934 and 1941, Main Directorate of State Security went through several organizational changes. In January 1935 in GUGB structure there were nine departments -

(head of GUGB) – Commissar 1st rank of State Security  Yakov Agranov

1. Operational Department – Karl Pauker (headed by)

2. Special Department – Gleb Bokii

3. Department of Economics - (ЭКО/EKO) – Lev Mironov

4. Special Department - (OO) – Mark Gay

5. Secret Political Department - (СПО/SPO) – Georgy Molchanov

6. Foreign Department - (ИНО/INO) – Artur Artuzov

7. Department of Transport - (ТО) – Vladimir Kichkin

8. Department of Information and Statistic - (УСО/USO) – Yakov Genkin

9. Staff Department - (OK) – Yakov Weynschtok

By the end of 1937 People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov, in his order #00362 had change the departments number from nine to twelve.

(head of GUGB) – komkor Mikhail Frinovsky

• Department 1 [Protection of Government] – Israel Dagin

• Department 2 [Operative] – Ans Zalpeter

• Department 3 [counter-intelligence] (КРО/KRO) – Aleksandr Minayev-Cikanovich

• Department 4 [Secret Political] (СПО/SPO) – Mikhail Litvin

• Department 5 [Special] (OO) – Nikolai Nikolaev- Zhuryd

• Department 6 [Transport] (TO) – Mikhail Volkov

• Department 7 [Foreign (Intelligence)] (ИНО/INO) —Abram Slutsky

• Department 8 [Records and Statistic] (УСО/USO) – Vladimir Cesarsky

• Department 9 [Special (codes)] (OO) – Isaak Shapiro

• Department 10 [Prison] – Yakov Weynschtok

• Department 11 [Maritime Transportation] (ВО/WO) – Victor Yrcev

• Department 12 [Technical and Operational] (OOT) – Semyen Zhukovsky

After Lavrenty Beria took over Frinovsky place as a GUGB head, in September 1938, GUGB when through another organizational change -

(head of GUGB) – Commissar 1st rank of State Security Lavrenty Beria

• Department 1 - [Protection of Government] – Nikolai Vlasik

• Department 2 - [Secret Political] – Pyotr Fedotov

• Department 3 - [counter-intelligence] –

• Department 4 - [Special] —

• Department 5 - [Foreign (Intelligence)] – Pavel Fitin

• Department 6 - [Codes] –

• GUGB Investigating Section —

GUGB Ranks.The GUGB had a unique system of ranks, a blend of position-rank system used in the army and personal ranks used in Militsiya; the rank insignia was also very distinct. Even though insignia introduced in 1937 followed the Red Army collar patch patterns, it assigned them very different ranks for GUGB and Internal Troops/political/specialist branches, with GUGB rank placed at least one grade higher than a similar army equivalent. 

When GUGB and Militsiya ranks were replaced with military ranks and insignia in February 1943, Major to Sergeant ranks were aligned with Colonel to Junior Lieutenant, and Senior Major and up were replaced with various degrees of Commissar. In 1945, General Commissar Lavrentiy Beria received the rank of the Marshal of the Soviet Union, and other GUGB Commissars received the ranks from Generals of the Army to Major General.

The ranks of GUGB used in 1937-1943 are as follows:

General Commissar of State Security

Commissar 1st rank of State Security

Commissar 2nd rank of State Security

Commissar 3rd rank of State Security

Senior Major of State Security

Major of State Security

Captain of State Security

Senior Lieutenant of State Security

Lieutenant of State Security

Junior Lieutenant of State Security

Sergeant of State Security,Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Eastern Bloc politics