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Mikhail Frinovsky | |
|---|---|
Михаил Фриновский | |
 Mikhail Frinovsky in 1935 | |
| People’s Commissar for the Navy | |
| In office November 1938 – March 1939 | |
| Preceded by | Pyotr Smirnov |
| Succeeded by | Nikolai Kuznetsov |
| First DeputyPeople's Commissar for Internal Affairs and Director of theMain Directorate of State Security | |
| In office 15 April 1937 – 22 August 1938 | |
| Preceded by | Yakov Agranov |
| Succeeded by | Lavrentiy Beria |
| Chairman of theOGPU of theAzerbaijan SSR | |
| In office 6 August 1930 – 3 April 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Mir Jafar Baghirov |
| Succeeded by | Alexei Agrba |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky (1898-02-07)7 February 1898 |
| Died | 4 February 1940(1940-02-04) (aged 41) |
| Political party | All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Russian Empire (1916) Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1918–1922) Soviet Union (1922–1939) |
| Branch/service | Imperial Russian Army Red Army Cheka GPU OGPU GUGB NKVD |
| Years of service | 1916–1939 |
| Rank | Komandarm 1st rank |
Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky (Russian:Михаи́л Петро́вич Фрино́вский; 7 February 1898 – 4 February 1940) was aSovietsecret police official who served as a deputy head of theNKVD underNikolai Yezhov during theGreat Purge.
Frinovsky was a revolutionary during theRussian Revolution and rose through the ranks of theCheka andits successor agencies. Frinovsky was actively involved in the Great Purge and personally led themass arrests andexecutions of security and military officials across the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1938. Frinovsky was madePeople's Commissar of the Navy of the Soviet Union in 1938 when he was himself removed from power and purged along with Yezhov. Frinovsky was arrested in 1939 onconspiracy charges and executed in 1940.
Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky was born 7 February 1898 in the village ofNarovchat in thePenza Governorate of theRussian Empire, into aRussian family.[1] His father was a teacher and he studied in a religiousOrthodox school inKrasnoslobodsk prior toWorld War I.[2] In January 1916, Frinovsky volunteered for theImperial Russian Army, serving as asergeant in thecavalry until his desertion in August.[2] He subsequently joined ananarchist group and began working as anaccountant at a military hospital.[2]
In March 1917, during theFebruary Revolution, Frinovsky took part in the assassination of Major-General Mikhail Antonovich Bem, a distinguished army officer who was suppressing anti-war protests inPenza.[2] He was also active during theJuly Days inPetrograd. In September, he volunteered for theRed Guard inKhamovniki district ofMoscow. A month later, when theOctober Revolution occurred, the Red Guard unit under his command participated in storming of theKremlin during theMoscow Bolshevik Uprising. Frinovsky was severely wounded and spent months recovering at a hospital inLefortovo. Between March and July 1918, Frinovsky again returned to civilian life and worked as a deputy administrator of the Hodynskaya Clinic.
In July 1918, he joined theRussian Communist Party (b) and volunteered for theRed Army. Frinovsky was made acommissar of a combat unit and also head of the Special Section (the political supervisor and representative of theCheka, the Bolsheviksecret police) of the1st Cavalry Army.
In 1919, Frinovsky was transferred to the Cheka full time, and became a deputy of the Special Section for Moscow later in the year. In this capacity, he participated in many operations most vital for survival of the Bolshevik regime, including actions against anarchists and rebelmilitias inUkraine. From December 1919 until April 1920, Frinovsky served in the Special Section for theSouthern Front of the Red Army. In 1920, he was transferred to theSouth-Western Front, where he served as chief of the Special Section, and as deputy to the Chief of the Special Section of the 1st Cavalry Army. In 1921, Frinovsky was appointed the deputy of the Cheka of Ukraine. From 1922 to 1923, Frinovsky headed theKiev division of theGPU, the successor to the Cheka. From 23 June, he was also head of theOGPU (successor of the GPU) of the South-East.
In November 1923, Frinovsky was transferred to theNorthern Caucasus and given command of the OGPU's Special Section for theNorth Caucasus Military District. He was made responsible for border security along theBlack Sea coast in the region.
In July 1927, Frinovsky was transferred to Moscow, this time as aide to the commander of the Special Section for theMoscow Military District. In 1927, he completed high-command courses at theFrunze Military Academy. From 28 November 1928 until 1 September 1930, he served as the commissar of theSpecial Forces division assigned to theDzherzhinsky College of the OGPU.
On 1 September 1930, Frinovsky was promoted and made chairman of the OGPU of theAzerbaijan SSR.[3] In April 1933, he was again promoted and became the commander ofOGPU Border Guard, where he participated in theSoviet invasion of Xinjiang. From January to February 1934, he attended the17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as a delegate. On 11 July, Frinovsky was appointed head of Border andInternal Troops of theNKVD.
Frinovsky was one of the major beneficiaries of the first purge of the NKVD that followed dismissal of its head,Genrikh Yagoda. He had had some kind of falling out with Yagoda, but was on good terms with Yagoda's successorNikolai Yezhov. On 16 October 1936, Frinovsky was appointed Deputy Chairman of the NKVD, which made him third in seniority within the Soviet security apparatus. On 15 April 1937, he was promoted First Deputy Chairman of the NKVD, and head of the Chief Directorate of State Security. Now second in command to Yezhov, he was in charge of the interrogation of Yagoda, in whichJoseph Stalin took a personal interest.[4] He was jointly responsible with Yezhov for setting the quotas of arrests that were required, in accordance withNKVD Order No. 00447, in each part of the Soviet Union.
On 7 June 1937, Frinovsky led the squad of senior NKVD officers who descended on Kiev to facilitate arrest of the recently dismissed head of the Ukraine NKVD,Vsevolod Balitsky, and of Red Army officers suspected of being too closely linked to their former commander,Iona Yakir. On 17 February 1938, he supervised the murder of the head of the NKVD Foreign Department,Abram Slutsky, who waschloroformed and injected with lethal poison in Frinovsky's office.[5] On 28 April 1938, he signed thewarrant for the second arrest of the poetOsip Mandelstam, who died in aGulag.[6] On 17 June 1938, Frinovsky arrived inKhabarovsk in theFar East, in a special train carrying a large contingent of NKVD officers to supervisemass arrests of military and security personnel in the Far East. This purge resulted in execution of 16 senior NKVD officials, who were shot, andMarshal of the Soviet UnionVasily Blyukher, the commander of theFar Eastern Army.[7] While Frinovsky was in the Far East, Stalin proposed that he be appointedPeople's Commissar of the Navy, an apparent promotion, which was actually part of a manoeuvre to remove Yezhov. On 22 August 1938, it was announced that his replacement as First Deputy Chairman of the NKVD would beLavrentiy Beria. On 25 August, Frinovsky arrived back in Moscow and effectively ran the NKVD for a few days, while Beria was inGeorgia arranging who would take over from him there and Yezhov was in a state of drunken depression. He seized the opportunity to execute a group of former NKVD officers, includingLeonid Zakovsky and others, to prevent them giving evidence against him to Beria.[8]
On 8 September 1938, Frinovsky was namedPeople's Commissar for the Navy, and was sufficiently in favour to be among the guests at a lunch in theKremlin on the21st anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, at which Stalin and Beria were present, but Yezhov was excluded.[9] However, at theparty congress in March 1939, he was not elected to theCentral Committee (the most powerful body in the party) when one of his nominal juniors was. On March 16, he wrote to Stalin pleading to be dismissed because he knew nothing about running a navy, but he was in office, at least nominally.
On 6 April 1939, Frinovsky was arrested under the charge of "organizing aTrotskyist–Fascist conspiracy" within the NKVD and held atSukhanovo Prison.[10] On 12 April, his wife Nina and his 17-year-old son Oleg were also arrested. All three were included in a list of 346 people Beria submitted to Stalin on 16 January 1940, with a recommendation that they all be executed. Yezhov and the writerIsaac Babel were on the same death list. Oleg was executed on 21 January and Nina Frinovskaya on 3 February. It was standard procedure that the condemned were photographed prior to execution: the last pictures of Frinovsky's wife and son are in David King's book,Ordinary Citizens.[11]
On 4 February 1940, Frinovsky was shot and executed by firing squad, and his body wascremated at theDonskoye Cemetery. His grand apartment in Kropotkinskaya Street (now Prechistenka Street) in Khamovniki was given toEstonian SSR NKVD chief Veniamin Gulst. Frinovsky was neverpolitically rehabilitated after thedeath of Stalin in 1953 and the subsequentde-Stalinization process.
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 24, 1941 deprived of state awards and military rank.
In Moscow, Frinovsky occupied a 9-room apartment (Kropotkinskaya street, building 31, apt. 77), in which, after his arrest, the family of a high-ranking NKVD officer, Veniamin Gulst, moved in.[15]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy 1938–1939 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | People's Commissars for the Navy 1938–1939 | Succeeded by |
| People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs (1917–1934) |
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| People's Commissars for Defence (1934–1946) |
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| People's Commissars for the Navy (1937–1946) |
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| People's Commissar for the Armed Forces (1946) | ||
| Ministers of the Armed Forces (1946–1950) |
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| Minister of War (1950–1953) | ||
| Ministers of the Navy (1950–1953) |
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| Ministers of Defence (1953–1992) |
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