Secret History of Stalin’s Purge (72)

The Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Prague had long established an intelligence network among the local Trotskyist groups. Slutsky, after some careful research, chose a Trotskyist as his victim. The man’s name was Anton Grillevich, a leader of a German Trotskyist group that had reached Czechoslovakia because of persecution by Hitler. The head of the intelligence station of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, through the hands of an old friend of Grelevich, a member of the Czech Communist Party, slipped a packet of forged information into the former’s briefcase. Among the information were films of military plans for the German occupation of the Sudetenland, a stack of fake documents and some spy tools such as invisible ink. Immediately afterwards, the Czech police received a phone call from an anonymous person who reported Grillevich as a dangerous German spy. Believing that the Czech police, like the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, reacted quickly to such denunciations, Slutsky immediately informed Yezhov that the spy information had been successfully inserted into the briefcase of the German Trotskyist leader, Grillevich, and that the police were waiting for his arrest. Slutsky even did the necessary work so that the “friendly press” could quickly publish the scandalous story about the German Trotskyist organization acting as Hitler’s spy to the world.

Every morning, Slutsky went to the Soviet Embassy in Prague and waited for the staff of the intelligence station to find news of Grillevich’s arrest in the day’s newspapers. However, he waited and waited, but never saw the news that was supposed to appear. After waiting for a few days, Slutsky sent a “denunciation” to the Czech Ministry of the Interior and the General Staff of the Wehrmacht. But many days passed, and Grillevich was still “at large”, unaware that a powerful force was trying to play with his fate.

From Moscow, Yerev was tired of waiting. He sent several letters asking about it, and later sent an urgent telegram saying that “Ivan Vassilyevich” wanted to know how the operation had turned out. Not ten leaders in the whole “agency” knew who Ivan Vassilievich was. This was an alias that Yerev had given to Stalin for top secret purposes. The reason for this alias was obvious, because it was the name of one of Stalin’s most admired tsars, namely Ivan the Terrible.

Slutsky was amazed that the Czech police did not react to such overwhelming evidence of espionage that he had “handed over” to them! He became angry and went around in the office of the chief of the intelligence station, cursing the Czech police for their negligence and negligence and that they should all be fired.

“These drunks!” He scolded, “If you had told them that the Grillevich family was hiding bootleg wine, they would have run like hell. But they don’t listen to such political cases, like blind fucking cats.”

Moscow’s repeated questions, and especially Stalin’s own “concern” about the matter, made Slutsky anxious. He had another idea: to warn the head of the Czech police by telephone that Anton Grillevich, a German spy, was “planning to escape from the country.” However, this did not work either.

The angry Slutsky left Prague and went to Paris. He was accompanied by his assistant Palgin and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Czechoslovakia, Fulmanov. The three stayed at a hotel not far from the Soviet Embassy in France. When registering, Slutsky used Chernigovsky (the same last name on his passport). In Paris, Slutsky sent a letter to Grillevich to Prague, written in German, with the words “left for collection” on the envelope. The letter contained clear traces of hidden ink: if it had been opened and examined, it would have been immediately obvious that it was a letter of espionage instructions. At the same time, another anonymous call was made to the Czech police, saying that Anton Grillevich would receive a suspicious letter from abroad in the next few days, and informing which post office the letter would be “waiting for”.

This time, the Czech police remained silent. Slutsky did not want to return to Moscow empty-handed, and he expected that the Czechs would eventually arrest Grilevich. So he decided to go to Spain, presumably to let the fires of the Spanish Civil War add a touch of bravery to his unsuccessful errand. On his way back to Paris from Valencia, he bragged about his bravery to everyone; showing them a piece of shrapnel and saying that the bomb had exploded only two steps away from him. He stayed in Paris for a few more days, busy buying gifts for his superiors and a pipe for Stalin. By the time he returned to Moscow, it was the end of February.

Slutsky came to visit me both before and after his trip to Spain. I was attending the surgical hospital of Professor Berger in Paris. He told me that the newly appointed NKVD Commissar Yerev had brought more than 300 people from the Central Committee in order to “mix sand” with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that he had formed several special action groups under his direct command. These teams were to go abroad with false passports and carry out assassinations of Trotskyist leaders abroad, as well as other important tasks directly ordered by Stalin.

For several months the Czechoslovak authorities did not touch Grillevich. It was not until June 1937 that he was finally arrested. When the police searched his apartment, they found the “spy information” planted by the NKVD agents. Later I learned that in order to hasten Grillevich’s arrest, the Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Prague, at the behest of Moscow, had sent someone to assassinate a high-ranking Prague police officer. Despite this, Grilevich was freed after only a few months in prison.

Although he spent a few months in jail, it was nothing compared to the Czech Communist who planted the evidence on his behalf on the orders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose fate was much more tragic. Fumanov, the head of the intelligence station, sent the Czech to the Soviet Union because he was afraid that Grillevich would guess who had planted the evidence and find out who was behind the “friend”. The poor Czech Communist arrived in Moscow at the height of a bloody “purge” in which hundreds of foreign Communists were also arrested. A few months later, the Czech Communist, who had come to the Soviet Union as a “guest”, decided to return home and asked to leave the country. But… The reply from his superiors was that he should stay and become a citizen of the Soviet Union. This frightened him: obviously, he did not want to accept the fate of many other foreign communists. So he decided to seek protection from the Czechoslovak consulate in the Soviet Union, however, he was arrested outside the gates before he could cross into the consulate.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Prague had long established an intelligence network among the local Trotskyist groups. Slutsky, after some careful research, chose a Trotskyist as his victim. The man’s name was Anton Grillevich, a leader of a German Trotskyist group that had reached Czechoslovakia because of persecution by Hitler. The head of the intelligence station of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, through the hands of an old friend of Grelevich, a member of the Czech Communist Party, slipped a packet of forged information into the former’s briefcase. Among the information were films of military plans for the German occupation of the Sudetenland, a stack of fake documents and some spy tools such as invisible ink. Immediately afterwards, the Czech police received a phone call from an anonymous person who reported Grillevich as a dangerous German spy. Believing that the Czech police, like the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, reacted quickly to such denunciations, Slutsky immediately informed Yezhov that the spy information had been successfully inserted into the briefcase of the German Trotskyist leader, Grillevich, and that the police were waiting for his arrest. Slutsky even did the necessary work so that the “friendly press” could quickly publish the scandalous story about the German Trotskyist organization acting as Hitler’s spy to the world.

Every morning, Slutsky went to the Soviet Embassy in Prague and waited for the staff of the intelligence station to find news of Grillevich’s arrest in the day’s newspapers. However, he waited and waited, but never saw the news that was supposed to appear. After waiting for a few days, Slutsky sent a “denunciation” to the Czech Ministry of the Interior and the General Staff of the Wehrmacht. But many days passed, and Grillevich was still “at large”, unaware that a powerful force was trying to play with his fate.

From Moscow, Yerev was tired of waiting. He sent several letters asking about it, and later sent an urgent telegram saying that “Ivan Vassilyevich” wanted to know how the operation had turned out. Not ten leaders in the whole “agency” knew who Ivan Vassilievich was. This was an alias that Yerev had given to Stalin for top secret purposes. The reason for this alias was obvious, because it was the name of one of Stalin’s most admired tsars, namely Ivan the Terrible.

Slutsky was amazed that the Czech police did not react to such overwhelming evidence of espionage that he had “handed over” to them! He became angry and went around in the office of the chief of the intelligence station, cursing the Czech police for their negligence and negligence and that they should all be fired.

“These drunks!” He scolded, “If you had told them that the Grillevich family was hiding bootleg wine, they would have run like hell. But they don’t listen to such political cases, like blind fucking cats.”

Moscow’s repeated questions, and especially Stalin’s own “concern” about the matter, made Slutsky anxious. He had another idea: to warn the head of the Czech police by telephone that Anton Grillevich, a German spy, was “planning to escape from the country.” However, this did not work either.

The angry Slutsky left Prague and went to Paris. He was accompanied by his assistant Palgin and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Czechoslovakia, Fulmanov. The three stayed at a hotel not far from the Soviet Embassy in France. When registering, Slutsky used Chernigovsky (the same last name on his passport). In Paris, Slutsky sent a letter to Grillevich to Prague, written in German, with the words “left for collection” on the envelope. The letter contained clear traces of hidden ink: if it had been opened and examined, it would have been immediately obvious that it was a letter of espionage instructions. At the same time, another anonymous call was made to the Czech police, saying that Anton Grillevich would receive a suspicious letter from abroad in the next few days, and informing which post office the letter would be “waiting for”.

This time, the Czech police remained silent. Slutsky did not want to return to Moscow empty-handed, and he expected that the Czechs would eventually arrest Grilevich. So he decided to go to Spain, presumably to let the fires of the Spanish Civil War add a touch of bravery to his unsuccessful errand. On his way back to Paris from Valencia, he bragged about his bravery to everyone; showing them a piece of shrapnel and saying that the bomb had exploded only two steps away from him. He stayed in Paris for a few more days, busy buying gifts for his superiors and a pipe for Stalin. By the time he returned to Moscow, it was the end of February.

Slutsky came to visit me both before and after his trip to Spain. I was attending the surgical hospital of Professor Berger in Paris. He told me that the newly appointed NKVD Commissar Yerev had brought more than 300 people from the Central Committee in order to “mix sand” with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that he had formed several special action groups under his direct command. These teams were to go abroad with false passports and carry out assassinations of Trotskyist leaders abroad, as well as other important tasks directly ordered by Stalin.

For several months the Czechoslovak authorities did not touch Grillevich. It was not until June 1937 that he was finally arrested. When the police searched his apartment, they found the “spy information” planted by the NKVD agents. Later I learned that in order to hasten Grillevich’s arrest, the Ministry of Internal Affairs intelligence station in Prague, at the behest of Moscow, had sent someone to assassinate a high-ranking Prague police officer. Despite this, Grilevich was freed after only a few months in prison.

Although he spent a few months in jail, it was nothing compared to the Czech Communist who planted the evidence on his behalf on the orders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose fate was much more tragic. Fumanov, the head of the intelligence station, sent the Czech to the Soviet Union because he was afraid that Grillevich would guess who had planted the evidence and find out who was behind the “friend”. The poor Czech Communist arrived in Moscow at the height of a bloody “purge” in which hundreds of foreign Communists were also arrested. A few months later, the Czech Communist, who had come to the Soviet Union as a “guest”, decided to return home and asked to leave the country. But… The reply from his superiors was that he should stay and become a citizen of the Soviet Union. This frightened him: obviously, he did not want to accept the fate of many other foreign communists. So he decided to seek protection from the Czechoslovak consulate in the Soviet Union, however, he was arrested outside the gates before he could cross into the consulate.