The second group of Soviet intelligence officer defectors includes eight individuals who escaped the deadliest purge in Soviet history, known as the Great Purge and labelled colloquially in the Soviet Union as the Yezhovshchinaafter Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov, the People's Commissar of State Security from 1936 to 1938. Six of the eight defectors in this group broke with the Soviet Union within a twelve-month period in 1937 and 1938. The remaining two defected in 1940, after the purge had subsided, but were directly influenced by their colleagues’ executions and continuing fear for their own lives. All of these defectors began as loyal Bolshevik revolutionaries; they proved themselves in the civil war, and their careers flourished into the 1930s. Unlike the defectors in the previous chapter, they remained loyal while Stalin took control of the Soviet government. But their perseverance was finally tested when the Great Purge took the lives of many of their colleagues and threatened to liquidate them and their families.

Personal Backgrounds

These eight individuals shared many experiences that ultimately led to their decisions to break with the Soviet regime despite the dangers inherent in such a decision. Yezhovshchina-era defectors’ age and rank distinguished them from other chronological groups. They represented the old guard of the VChK/GPU/ OGPU/NKVD and Razvedupr. All but one were born in the decade between 1895 and 1904. Most had served in the civil war and became intelligence officers during Lenin's lifetime, and had served for fifteen or more years when they defected. They averaged over thirty-seven years old at the time of their defection, and six were senior officers. Most were contemporaries of Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda and Yezhov, successive OGPU and NKVD chiefs, and several worked directly with INO chief Abram Aronovich Slutskiy. Lyushkov, for example, was the most senior intelligence officer to defect in Soviet history, having commanded NKVD operations in two different regions. While this rank brought privileges, it also brought risks; as the Great Purge eliminated many senior NKVD officers, their associates, including these defectors, were immediately brought under suspicion.