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Home , Commissar, Lavrentiy Beria

Abakumov, Viktor (Sabran Razmi)

Biographical Profile - Viktor Semyenovich Abakumov (Виктор Семёнович Абакумов) Born - 24 April 1908 Ethnicity - Russian Field of Activity: Spouse: Married, but Name Unknown Children: Two, Names Unknown Died - 19 December 1954

Brief Biography Viktor Semyenovich Abakumov was a Security Official whom has had experience in many divisions of the 's Secret Police. He was born into a working class family in in 1908, where he attended the local school and ended his education at the age of 13. The earliest records of his activity disputably begins in either 1921 or 1922, when he joins the . Despite being only in his teens, he served in the 2 Special Task Moscow Brigade, which was disbanded in 1923, leaving him unemployed for a short period of time. Shortly after, he joins the Komsomols which marked the beginning of his rise through the ranks. From being a member of the secretariat and heading the Military Section of the Moscow Komsomols, Abakumov was recommended by the Party to join the NKVD, where he would be assigned to the . By 1941, he was appointed as a Deputy Commissar of the NKVD, working closely with Lavrentiy Beria. In 1946, Stalin appointed Abakumov as a Minister of State Security (MGB).

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In 1951, Mikhail Ryumin, an employee of the MGB bypassed Abakumov and reported directly to Stalin concerning the Doctors’ Plot. Abakumov was arrested on the charge of inaction and was not released after Stalin’s death, despite the unraveling of the Doctors’ Plot. Instead, Abakumov was tried for his role in the and executed for on 19th December 1954.

Biographical Analysis An interesting note about Viktor Abakumov was the way he had rose through the ranks of the Soviet state. There was nothing to suggest he was remarkable or outstanding in any way, or at least not by ways of intelligence or cunningness, yet he was appointed by Stalin himself to head the Ministry of State Security, which was essentially the NKVD with a rebranding. In 1932, a P.M. Shreider, an employee of the NKVD Economic Department, remarked that Abakumov was a compulsive womaniser, which he felt was his shortcoming of being a chekist, arranged for Abakumov’s dismissal from the Economic Department. Instead of dismissing Abakumov, Abakumov was instead assigned to the Gulag. This turn of events was attributed to Abakumov likely having friends in the higher echelons of the NKVD. There is no evidence yet that proves that Abakumov and Beria knew one another before Beria came to chair the position of the head of the NKVD in 1938. As far as the sources show, Abakumov was a mere operative of the Secret Political Department, which was headed by B.Z. Kobulov, who was one of Beria’s closest associates. Through this work relationship, and work as chief investigator of internal affairs such as the investigation of a P. Zubov, Abakumov’s meteoric rise through the ranks could be attributed to both connections to those in higher ranks. In 1939, Abakumov was heading the NKVD division in Rostov. In the period of 1940-41, Abakumov was called from Rostov and was appointed a Deputy Commissar, working under and closely with Beria. This drives the point further that Abakumov’s rise in ranks was likely to have been attributed to the right relations with the right people, and less to do with personal skill. However, that point will be discussed next. His advancement in rank did not go unrecognised, as he was one of 634 NKVD functionaries who was awarded with various citations, one of which was the ,in addition to being listed as one of 25 Senior Majors of State Security, which is equivalent to the rank Colonel in the Red Army. In 1945, he was the rank of General, making him a Colonel General. Outstandingly, he was the only Senior Major of State Security from the 1940 list to achieve the rank of Colonel General. What is interesting about this find, is that Abakumov’s efforts and rise in ranks did not go unnoticed, but there is barely any information on the reasons why he attained such awards, or why he deserved them. Obviously, he must have possessed a certain level of personal skill that have enabled him to be a recipient of such accolades. However, there is very little information on this. It could possibly be a result of him being ‘erased’ from history, similar to what had happened to Yezhov, after falling out of Stalin’s good graces.

As mentioned earlier by P.M. Shreider, Abakumov was a compulsive womaniser. General , the chief of the NKVD division in Berlin held a very low opinion of Abakumov, calling him a coward, which through his cowardly behaviour influenced his subordinates to follow suit, during the battle for Moscow in 1941. Serov mentioned that Abakumov, instead of participating in the battle of Moscow, he chose ‘girls of easy virtue and brought them to the Hotel Moskva’. Antony Beevor, in The Mystery of Olga Chekhova, commented that Abakumov was a sex addict, much like Beria, but was less likely to resort to rape. In addition to his sexual deviancy, he was fascinated with stage and film stars. These two worlds collided when he had arrested a General V.V. Kryukov, a cavalry commander, and soon had his wife Lydia Ruslanova, a singer brought in. When Lydia spurned Abakumov’s advances, Abakumov sent her straight to a Gulag labour camp. This shows that he was not withholding when it came to using his power for personal gain.

PRIMARY SOURCES

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By CLIFTON DANIEL Special to The New,York Times. 1954. "4 Security Aides Executed by Soviet as Beria Plotters." New York Times (1923-Current File), Dec 24, 1. http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.adelaide .edu.au/docview/113044765?accountid=8203.

SECONDARY SOURCES Applebaum, Anne. 2003. Gulag. New York: Doubleday. Beevor, Antony. 2004. The Mystery Of Olga Chekhova. New York: Viking. Chen, C. 2016. "Viktor Abakumov". WW2DB. http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=730. Haslam, Johnathan. 2015. Near And Distant Neighbours: A New History Of Soviet Intelligence. Oxford: OUP. Parrish, Michael. 1996. The Lesser Terror. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Pringle, Robert W. 2007. "SMERSH: Military Counterintelligence And Stalin's Control Of The USSR".International Journal Of Intelligence And Counterintelligence 21 (1): 122-134. doi:10.1080/08850600701651292. Staar, R. F. 2004. "'s Security Services". Mediterranean Quarterly 15 (1): 39-57. doi:10.1215/10474552-15-1-39.

Additional Information Parents - Father was an unskilled laborer (stoker), mother was a nurse and laundress. Having been in charge of the Leningrad Affair, he was responsible for the deaths of Nikolai Voznesensky and Alexei Kuznetsov.

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