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Lydia Stahl
Lydia Stahl (1885-?) was a Russian-born secret agent who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence in New York and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Early life Lydia Stahl was born Lydia Chkalova in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire, in 1885. Personal life Lydia Stahl obtained her last name when she married Boris Stahl, a Russian nobleman (baron). He later divorced her and emigrated to the United States with his new wife. Career In 1921, while a refugee in Finland she joined the Soviet secret service. Lydia Stahl had befriended the Finnish writer Hella Wuolijoki and was a regular visitor to her manor house Marlebäck in Iitti, Finland, which was a meeting place for leftist intellectuals and politicians. Through her relationship with Finnish communist politician Otto Kuusinen, she had also met the American radical, journalist John Reed, and maintained correspondence with him until Reed's death in 1920. During the 1920s, Lydia established a photography studio in Paris where she copied se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GRU (Soviet Union)
Main Intelligence Directorate ( rus, Главное разведывательное управление, Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə), abbreviated GRU ( rus, ГРУ, p=geeˈru), was the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Army General Staff of the Soviet Union until 1991. For a few months it was also the foreign military intelligence agency of the newly established Russian Federation until 7 May 1992 when it was dissolved and the Russian GRU took over its activities. History The GRU's first predecessor in Russia formed on October 21, 1918 by secret order under the sponsorship of Leon Trotsky (then the civilian leader of the Red Army), signed by Jukums Vācietis, the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army (RKKA), and by Ephraim Sklyansky, deputy to Trotsky; it was originally known as the Registration Directorate (''Registrupravlenie'', or RU). Semyon Aralov was its first head. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)
Main Intelligence Directorate ( rus, Главное разведывательное управление, Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə), abbreviated GRU ( rus, ГРУ, p=geeˈru), was the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Army General Staff of the Soviet Union until 1991. For a few months it was also the foreign military intelligence agency of the newly established Russian Federation until 7 May 1992 when it was dissolved and the GRU (Russian Federation), Russian GRU took over its activities. History The GRU's first predecessor in Russia formed on October 21, 1918 by secret order under the sponsorship of Leon Trotsky (then the civilian leader of the Red Army), signed by Jukums Vācietis, the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army (RKKA), and by Ephraim Sklyansky, deputy to Trotsky; it was originally known as the Registration Directorate (''Registrupravlenie'', or RU). Semyon Ara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1885 Births
Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 – The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant, on Mary Gartside. * January 17 – Mahdist War in Sudan – Battle of Abu Klea: British troops defeat Mahdist forces. * January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster. * January 24 – Irish rebels damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite. * January 26 – Mahdist War in Sudan: Troops loyal to Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum; British commander Charles George Gordon is killed. * February 5 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State, as a personal possession. * February 9 – The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii. * February 16 – Charles Dow publishes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arvid Jacobson
Arvid Werner Jacobson (November 12, 1904 – April 1, 1976) was a Finnish-American communist who spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Biography Jacobson's parents were Finnish immigrants from Lapua, Ostrobotnia. Jacobson was born in Covington, Michigan and was working as a high school teacher in Northville when, in the fall of 1932, he was recruited to work for the Soviet Military Intelligence by the Comintern agent "''Mrs. Morton''", a pseudonym of Aino Kuusinen, the wife of the Finnish communist leader Otto Wille Kuusinen. With his wife Sally, he traveled to New York, where the fledgling GRU agent Whittaker Chambers was assigned the task of meeting Jacobson and making a fitness report. Chambers advised against using Jacobson as an underground agent because of his truculent temperament and the fact that he was missing fingers on one hand. Nevertheless, the GRU sent him to Europe as part of an apparatus of Soviet agents, led by the wife of Alfred Tilton, that operated in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnish Americans
Finnish Americans ( fi, amerikansuomalaiset, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots from Finland or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population numbers a little bit more than 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Iron Range of northern Minnesota to work in the mining industry; much of the population in these regions remains of Finnish descent. History Some Finns, like the ancestors of John Morton, came to the Swedish colony of New Sweden, located in Delaware, that existed in the mid-17th century. In Russian America, Finns came to Sitka when it was New Archangel as workers. Arvid Adolf Etholén was the first Finnish governor of Russian America, and the Lutheran Church was built for Finns. Finns first started coming to the United States in large numbers in the late 19th century, and continued until the mid-20th century. However, there were some Finns in the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legion Of Honor
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, it has been retained (with occasional slight alterations) by all later French governments and regimes. The order's motto is ' ("Honour and Fatherland"); its seat is the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur next to the Musée d'Orsay, on the left bank of the Seine in Paris. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction: ' (Knight), ' (Officer), ' (Commander), ' (Grand Officer) and ' (Grand Cross). History Consulate During the French Revolution, all of the French orders of chivalry were abolished and replaced with Weapons of Honour. It was the wish of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, to create a reward to commend civilians and soldiers. From this wish was instituted a , a body of men that was not an order of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of The Navy (France)
The Ministry of the Navy (french: Ministère de la Marine) was a section of the French government – apart from the Ministry of War – that was in charge of the French navy and colonies. The ministry combined the administration of the navy, the colonies like New France and seaborne trade helping for example the French East India Company. A widely held view at the time was that for states to be powerful, wealthy and prestigious, colonies in the New World need to be maintained for their consequent trade. The maintenance of colonies through naval operations not only served to improve the stature of the state, but was also helpful in destroying their European rivals in North America. After the Second World War, the Ministry of the Navy was merged with the War Ministry, absorbing the role of the Minister of the Navy and Colonies, with a Minister of National Defence directing the entire military French forces. Creation and history Since the 16th century, the Secretary of State o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Gordon Switz
Robert Gordon Switz (born 1904) was a "wealthy American who converted to communism" and served as spy for Soviet Military Intelligence ("GRU"). Background Robert Gordon Switz was born in 1904 in East Orange, New Jersey, the son of Theodore Switz, a naturalized Russian, and Genevieve Switz. He attended Mercersburg Academy but did not go to college. Instead, in 1922, he shipped out as seaman to Germany, which he toured. Career Switz went abroad again to France, where he obtained an airplane pilot's license, then trained at Roosevelt Field (airport) on Long Island. Some time during the 1920s, Switz joined the Communist Party USA and then the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) in the early 1930s. In New York, they worked in a network that included Lydia Stahl and Paulne Jacobson-Levine (later recounted in the 1952 memoir of Whittaker Chambers ). In early 1933, Switz was involved in turning an American soldier, Robert Osman, stationed in Panama Canal Zone, via a " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Tilton
Alfred Tilton or Alfred Matisovich Tyltyn (russian: Альфред Матисович Тылтынь, lv, Alfrēds Tiltiņš; 4 March 1897 – 11 February 1942) was the head of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in the United States in the late 1920s. He is best remembered for having recruited Latvian-American communist Nicholas Dozenberg to work for the GRU late in 1927. Early life Alfred Tilton was born on 4 March 1897, in Mežotne parish, Latvia, then part of the Russian empire. Tilton was the son of peasants of ethnic Latvian descent."Al'fred Matisovich Tyltyn'," Khronos website, Hrono.ru/ (In Russian). Retrieved 23 August 2010. A well-educated individual, Tilton eventually learned Russian, German, French, and English as well as his native Latvian. Education Tilto ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Military Intelligence
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ции, r=Glavnoje upravlenije General'nyy shtab Vooruzhonnykh sil Rossiyskoy Federatsii, p=ˈɡlavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate,( rus, Гла́вное разве́дывательное управле́ние, r=Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye) and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU, rus, ГРУ, p=ɡiˈru is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The GRU controls the military intelligence service and Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River (Russia), Don River, from the Sea of Azov, directly north of the North Caucasus. The southwestern suburbs of the city lie above the Don river delta. Rostov-on-Don has a population of over one million people, and is an important cultural centre of Southern Russia. History Early history From ancient times, the area around the mouth of the Don River has held cultural and commercial importance. Ancient indigenous inhabitants included the Scythians, Scythian and Sarmatians, Sarmatian tribes. It was the site of Tanais, colonies in antiquity, an ancient Greek colony, Gazaria (Genoese colonies), Fort Tana under the Genoa, Genoese, and Azov#Fortress of Azov, Fort Azak in the time of the Ottoman Empire. In 1749, a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Reed (journalist)
John "Jack" Silas Reed (October 22, 1887 – October 17, 1920) was an American journalist, poet, and communist activist. Reed first gained prominence as a war correspondent during the Mexican Revolution for '' Metropolitan'' and World War I for ''The Masses''. He is best known for his coverage of the October Revolution in Petrograd, Russia, which he wrote about in his 1919 book ''Ten Days That Shook the World''. Reed supported the Soviet takeover of Russia, even briefly taking up arms to join the Red Guards in 1918. He hoped for a similar Communist revolution in the United States, and co-founded the short-lived Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. He died in Moscow of spotted typhus in 1920. At the time of his death he may have soured on the Soviet leadership, but he was given a hero's burial by the Soviet Union, and is one of only three Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Early life John Silas Reed was born on October 22, 1887, in his maternal grandparents' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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