1. Artur Khristyanovich Artuzov was a leading figure in the Soviet international intelligence and counter-intelligence and security officer and spymaster of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s.
14 Facts About Artur Artuzov
1. 2.
Artur Artuzov started distributing illegal revolutionary literature as a teenager in 1906.
3.
Artur Artuzov's 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.
4.
On July 18,1921, Artur Artuzov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
5.
Artur Artuzov was the initiator and direct developer of Operation Tarantella.
6.
Artur Artuzov was placed as second deputy assistant of the Secret Operations Directorate of OGPU, the Cheka's replacement, which was headed by Genrikh Yagoda, a protege of Joseph Stalin.
7.
Artur Artuzov replaced Mikhail Trilisser as deputy head of the INO, the foreign intelligence directorate within OGPU, in October 1929.
8.
Artur Artuzov defended Yagoda and insisted that his senior position meant that he could only be held to account by the Party's Central Committee.
9.
Artur Artuzov's employees created a network of agents that supplied the Soviet leadership with valuable information about the events that took place in the National Socialist Party of Germany, as well as about the activities of a number of state bodies and special services.
10.
Artur Artuzov stepped down as head of INO on May 21,1935, and was appointed deputy head of military intelligence, the GRU.
11.
In 1936, Artur Artuzov helped supervise Operation X, a program to arm the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
12.
Artur Artuzov was sacked on 11 January 1937, as the author of a draft telegram to the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang, who had kidnapped the nationalist leader and de facto ruler of China, Chiang Kai-shek, which urged the warlord to kill Chiang.
13.
Artur Artuzov was transferred to the archive department of the NKVD and commissioned to write a history of the organisation.
14.
Artur Artuzov's ashes were buried in the grave of unclaimed ashes No 1 of the crematorium of the Donskoy cemetery.