In February 1940 in the territory of the former summer residencehead of the OGPU Berry, converted into a firing range, there were gunshots. The verdict against the veteran of the revolutionary movement and the prominent Chekist Meer Abramovich Trilisser was carried out. How did his life develop, so tragically cut off behind the barbed wire of the OGPU secret object?
Trilisser Meer Abramovich was born on April 1, 1883year in Astrakhan, in a large family of a shoemaker who moved to this city from Odessa. Despite all the efforts of his father, the family did not have wealth, but nevertheless Meer and his elder brother David graduated from the city's real school and tried even to enter Odessa University, passing the external examinations for the course of the gymnasium.
But life prepared brothers completely differentuniversities. Failing in the exams, but having stayed for a while in Odessa, they soon joined the circles of revolutionary youth and joined the Social Democratic Party. Since that time, Meir Abramovich Trilisser takes the path of a professional revolutionary. Together with his brother he performs various party assignments both in Odessa itself and in many other cities, including Petersburg. With the outbreak of the First Russian Revolution, he manifests himself as the organizer of combat detachments.
When in July 1906 there was an uprising of soldiersand sailors in the fortress of Sveaborg near Finland, Meer took an active part in it, for which he was arrested, and later, by a military court decision, sent to serve his sentence in the Shlisselburg Fortress for a period of five years. At the end of this time, he is referred to under vowel supervision of the police in one of the remote villages of the Irkutsk province.
After the fall of the autocracy in February 1917Together with many exiles, Trilisser was also given freedom. Meer Abramovich moved to Irkutsk and within a few months edited the Social Democratic newspaper published there, and after the October revolution becomes a member of the Military Revolutionary Council of Siberia and moves to work in the Cheka. Becoming one of the leaders of this organization, he fought relentlessly against all those who were not ready to accept unconditionally the dictatorship of the new government.
In 1921 Trilisser Mikhail Abramovich (as withThis is often referred to in the documents of his name) is sent to conduct illegal work in the territory occupied at that time by the Japanese and the White Guards. In the context of the strictest secrecy, he creates an extensive intelligence network, thanks to which information on the enemy's actions was regularly received in Moscow, and after the defeat of the Japanese and the creation of the republic in the Far East, he becomes a commissar of the Amur Region and is a member of the committee of the republican state guard.
In the same year, an event occurred, from whicha completely new direction received his entire biography - Meir Abramovich Trilisser received an order from Dzerzhinsky to go to the foreign department of the Cheka and establish an external intelligence system. Its main task in those years was to identify the emigrant anti-Soviet organizations based abroad, to clarify their plans, and all their opposition, up to the physical elimination of the leaders.
In this direction Trilisser was deployedlarge - scale work. He managed to introduce his residents to almost all embassies, consulates and foreign trade missions. Recruitment of agents abroad was also conducted. To this end, he personally travels abroad and visits many European states. As a result, information about all intentions and active actions of the enemy came to the operational center, where she was personally received by Trilisser.
Meer Abramovich was so well informed,that even with the preparation of Boris Savinkov and Sidney Raili for the famous attempt on Soviet diplomats during the Genoa conference, he not only controlled each step, but even knew where and at what price they bought weapons. Such highly professional work helped put an end to the activities of many organizations hostile to our country.
In 1923, Trilisser was commissioned to createwithin the foreign department of the Cheka, a special service whose task was to carry out actions aimed at misinformation of the enemy. This new subdivision was to systematically introduce foreign special services into delusion about the state of affairs in the Armed Forces of the country, its defense industry and the apparatus of foreign policy. Of their operations today are well known such as "Trust" and "Syndicate".
In 1925 Trilisser creates in the subordinateto him the department is a unit for collecting information related to the economy of foreign countries and their scientific and technical developments. A year later a subdivision was formed, thanks to which the engineers of the Soviet design bureaus received at their disposal copies of technical documentation in the field of radio engineering, defense industry, engineering and chemistry.
Biographers of Trilisser agree that the peakHis career falls on the period 1926-1928. At this time, he, while holding the post of deputy chief of the OGPU, is also authorized under the Council of People's Commissars. Such responsible appointments were the result of a high evaluation of his work, given by F. Dzerzhinsky. At the same time Meer Abramovich does not stop his work in the Foreign Intelligence department.
In the following period, his activities went todecline. This is largely due to the difficulties artificially created by him during the campaign in the country to combat the Trotskyites. In addition, as an agent of the OGPU Agabekov, who fled to the West, testified in his memoirs, his career growth was stopped as a result of intrigues of the future head of the OGPU Yagoda, whose main competitor was Trilisser.
Meer Abramovich, nevertheless, continues to work in theas a member of the Central Control Commission of the CPSU (B.), combining several more posts with this. In 1930, followed by a series of failures among foreign agents controlled by Trilisser. Whether his fault or failure was the result of unforeseen circumstances is unknown, but his credibility was undermined. The head of the foreign department was not accused of betrayal, but his compliance with his position was questioned.
Nevertheless, until 1938, he remained in the apparatusCouncil of People's Commissars and carries out numerous assignments, connected both with questions of external intelligence, and with the control over the activity of a large number of Soviet party and economic organizations. In particular, it ensured the work of the structures engaged in the transfer of members of foreign Communist Parties to the CPSU (b).
Meer Abramovich Trilisser, biography, historythe life and death of which are in many respects typical of the party functionary of those years, became a victim of the system, to which he dedicated many years. His arrest coincided with the beginning of another wave of repression, called the “big purge”. The victims of this campaign were thousands of Communists, who infinitely believed Stalin. Among them were many veterans who went through the royal prisons and hard labor.
In November 1938, the investigation was initiatedabout the espionage and terrorist organization, allegedly created among the staff and leaders of the foreign department of the OGPU and the Comintern. Among others, Trilisser was arrested. He was accused of contact with the former Commissar of Internal Affairs G. Yagoda, who had once seen him as a rival, and by that time had already been executed as an enemy of the people. In addition, the case file indicated that Trilisser Mikhail (real name Meer Abramovich), taking advantage of his official position as an employee of the Comintern, deliberately planted Trotskyists, spies and provocateurs into the ranks of fraternal communist parties.
The Supreme Court found the guilt fully proven andsentenced him, as well as a number of persons involved in this case, to death. All those who were sentenced were shot on February 2, 1940, at the Kommunark shooting range specially designed for this purpose. Only after many years, when the main culprit of those bloody repressions — Stalin, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, was not reviewed, having reviewed the case, issued a resolution on rehabilitation.
Buried veteran of the revolutionary movement andprominent security officer in St. Petersburg, in one of the cemeteries of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, called the "Communist platform." On the gray granite obelisk carved: "Trilisser David Abramovich, 1884-1934." Currently, the streets in Astrakhan and Irkutsk bear his name.
Those who would like to learn more about lifethis extraordinary person may not be enough of the information provided by his brief biography. Meer Trilisser became the hero of many documentary works telling about his fate. The most interesting and informative of them is the book written by his widow, Olga Naumovna Johansson. It is called “The Road of Struggle: an Essay on the Life and Activities of M. A. Trilisser”.
