Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser-Moskvin ' onMouseout='HidePop("4769")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Jew">Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish born Meier Abramovich Trilisser; 1 April 1883,
AstrakhanAstrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea. Population: 502,800 ; 504,501 ; 509,210 .-Medieval history:Astrakhan' is situated in the Volga Delta, rich...
- 1940) was a Soviet OGPU chief of the Foreign Department of the
ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
and the OGPU.
Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser-Moskvin ' onMouseout='HidePop("4769")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Jew">Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish born Meier Abramovich Trilisser; 1 April 1883,
AstrakhanAstrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea. Population: 502,800 ; 504,501 ; 509,210 .-Medieval history:Astrakhan' is situated in the Volga Delta, rich...
- 1940) was a Soviet OGPU chief of the Foreign Department of the
ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
and the OGPU. Later, he worked for the
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
as a covert bureau chief and
CominternThe Comintern was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow in March 1919...
leader.
Career
From 1921, Trilisser worked in the foreign intelligence department of the Soviet secret police, from its inception as part of the
ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
. In 1922, Trilisser was named head of the foreign department of the new State Political Directorate (GPU), (later, the OGPU). In October 1929, he was ousted from the foreign department of the OGPU, and was replaced by
Artur ArtuzovArtur Khristyanovich Artuzov Артур Христианович Артузов , headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service INO, part of OGPU, later the NKVD, from August 1931 to May 1935. He was arrested on May 13, 1937 as part of the "Plot of the Generals." His execution took place on August 21, 1937....
.
In 1935, Trilisser was assigned to work as a covert
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
bureau chief under the guise of a
CominternThe Comintern was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow in March 1919...
leader, using the name
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Moskvin. Trilisser was assigned various tasks while overseeing the Comintern, including the recruitment of OGPU (later,
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
) agents overseas and the kidnapping or assassination of various Soviet emigres, Comintern members, and other 'enemies of the people'. Another of Trilisser's tasks was to recruit Soviet covert couriers to supply funds, training, and political support to various overseas communist movements deemed sympathetic to the Soviet Union. In the United States, Trilisser provided Soviet visas for couriers sent to supply funds to a number of American left-wing trade unions, African-American worker organizations, and communist movements, including the CPUSA. In January 1938, at the specific request and recommendation of
Earl BrowderEarl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, head of the Communist Party of the United States, Trilisser gave
Max BedachtMax Bedacht Sr. was a German-born American revolutionary socialist politician and journalist who helped establish the Communist Party of America.-Biography:...
, an American Communist Party activist and former unsuccessful New York Senate candidate, a Soviet visa and employment as a courier supplying funds to the CPUSA and other communist front organizations. Bedacht soon began traveling between the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union as a courier, using his official cover as an international delegate for the American Communist Party.
Arrested in 1938 during the
Great PurgeGreat Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of...
on fabricated charges, he was executed in 1940. He was posthumously rehabilitated during the period of Destalinization.
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