Artur Artuzov

In 1918 he joined the Red Army and fought against the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The following year he joined the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (Cheka).[4] His uncle, Dr. Mikhail Kedrov, was an associate of Vladimir Lenin and was the head of the Cheka's "Special Department," which monitored the Red Army.[5]

In the 1920s, Artuzov headed the Cheka's counterintelligence arm, KRO. In 1925 he wrote an operational manual called ABC of Counterintelligence, which recommended the use of ideologically based operations. An example of this strategy was Operation Trust, a series of phony monarchist/counter-revolutionary front organizations that monitored the activities of genuine activists.[6]

Operation Trust was shut down in 1927, leading former Trust agent Alexander Kutepov to discover its true origins. Kutepov organized several terrorist operations inside the Soviet Union in retaliation, leading to Artuzov's dismissal in November. He was placed as second deputy assistant of the OGPU's (the Cheka's replacement) Secret Operations Directorate, which was headed by Genrikh Yagoda, a protege of Joseph Stalin.[7] Artuzov, a consummate professional spy, often clashed with the less extensively trained Yagoda.[2]

Artuzov replaced Mikhail Trilisser as deputy head of the INO—the foreign intelligence directorate—in October 1929. Trilisser had complained about Yagoda, his boss, at a Party meeting. Artuzov defended Yagoda and insisted that his senior position meant that he could only be held to account by the Party's Central Committee. Trilisser was dismissed and Artuzov promoted in his stead.[8]

Encouraged by the success of Operation Trust, Artuzov spearheaded Operation Tarantella in 1930. A deception campaign aimed against British foreign intelligence, "the operation's broad aim was to convince London that the industralisation of the Soviet Union was a huge success."[9]

Artuzov was promoted to head the INO in 1931. Among his priorities was the development of training courses for operatives; this was especially important because the organization was moving away from operations conducted under diplomatic cover, in favor of "illegal" operations.[10]

In April and May 1934, Artuzov worked with Stalin to subsume the Fourth intelligence directorate (military intelligence) into the INO, citing the recent collapse of the Fourth's HUMINT efforts. In the process of this transition—under which Artuzov was charged with reviving the Fourth's capabilities—he was made deputy director of the Fourth directorate while also staying on as head of the INO. Later that year, both organizations would become part of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB)—itself under the umbrella of NKVD, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.[11] According to Walter Krivitsky, who was working for Soviet military intelligence at the time, Artuzov accidentally angered Josif Stalin at a meeting of the Politburo in June 1934, when they were discussing the possibility of an alliance with Poland against the rising threat from Nazi Germany. Artuzov correctly forecast that the Polish government would not consider the proposition.[12] Artuzov stepped down as head of INO on May 21, 1935,[13] and was appointed deputy head of military intelligence, the GRU. This was one of several personnel changes following the dismissal of the long-serving head of the GRU, Yan Karlovich Berzin, which may have reflected Stalin's anxiety about Nazi Germany and Japanese expansion.

Artuzov was sacked on 11 January 1937, as the author of a draft telegram to the Chinese warlord Chang Hsueh-Liang, who had kidnapped the nationalist leader and de facto ruler of China, Chiang Kai-shek, which urged the warlord to kill Chiang. Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese communists, wanted Chiang dead, to increase the chances of a communist victory in China, but Stalin's prime concern was to avoid a Japanese invasion of Siberia. He ordered Mao to secure Chiang's release.[14]

Artuzov was transferred to the archive department of the NKVD and commissioned to write a history of the organisation.[15] In March 1937, again according to Walter Krivitsky, he tried to save himself when the new head of the NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov began a purge of officers associated with the former NKVD boss Genrikh Yagoda, by denouncing both Yagoda and Abram Slutsky, Artuzov's successor as head of the Foreign Department. Slutsky retaliated by denouncing Artuzov.[16] Artuzov was arrested on 13 May and shot on August 21, 1937.[17] He was rehabilitated in 1956.