Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky (; 7 February 1898 – 4 February 1940) served as a deputy head of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
in the years of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
and, along with
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...
, was responsible for setting in motion the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
.
Biography
Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky was born in 1898 to a teacher
in the village of
Narovchat in the
Penza Governorate
Penza Governorate (russian: Пензенская губерния) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and Russian SFSR, located in the Volga Region. It existed from 1796 to 1797 and again from 1801 to 1928; it ...
of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. He was of
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
ethnicity. Prior to
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he studied in a religious
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
school. In January 1916, Frinovsky volunteered for the army. He served as a
sergeant
Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...
in the cavalry until his desertion in August the same year.
[ He joined an anarchist group and took part in assassination of Major-General M. A Bem in 1917.][
In March 1917, Frinovsky began working as an accountant in ]Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. In September, he volunteered for the Red Guard
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
. The unit under his command participated in storming of the Kremlin
The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
, during which Frinovsky was severely wounded.
Between March and July 1918, Frinovsky again returned to civilian life and worked as a deputy administrator of the Hodynskaya Clinic. In July 1918, he joined the Russian Communist Party (b) and volunteered for the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
. Frinovsky was made a commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
of a combat unit and also head of the Special Section (the political supervisor and representative of the secret police, ChK) of the 1st Cavalry Army __NOTOC__
The 1st Cavalry Army (russian: Первая конная армия, Pervaya konnaya armiya) was a prominent Red Army military formation. It was also known as "Budyonny's Cavalry Army" or simply as ''Konarmia'' (Кона́рмия, "Horse ...
.
In 1919, Frinovsky was transferred to the VChK. Later in the year, he became a deputy of the Special Section for the Moscow ChK. In this capacity, he participated in many operations most vital for survival of the Bolshevik regime, including actions against anarchists, as well as destruction of anarchist and rebel militias in the Ukraine.
From December 1919 until April 1920, Frinovsky served in the Special Section for the Southern Front. In 1920, he was transferred to the South-Western Front, where he served as chief of the Special Section, and as deputy to the Chief of the Special Section of the 1st Cavalry Army. Between 1921–1922, he was the deputy to the Chief of the Ukrainian ChK.
From 1922 to 1923, Frinovsky headed the administrative division of the Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
. From 23 June he was also head of the OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...
of the South-East.
In November 1923, Mikhail Frinovsky was transferred to the Northern Caucasus
The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...
and given command of the Special Section for the region. In January 1926, he became head of GPU forces.
In July 1927, Frinovsky was again transferred to Moscow, this time as aide to the commander of the Special Section for the region. In 1927, he completed high-command courses at the Frunze Military Academy
The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (russian: Военная академия имени М. В. Фрунзе), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (rus ...
. From 28 November 1928 until 1 September 1930 he served as the commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
of the Special Forces division assigned to the Dzerjinsky College of the OGPU USSR.
On 1 September 1930 Mikhail Frinovsky was promoted and made chairman of the GPU of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
. In April 1933, he was again promoted and became the commander of OGPU Border Guard. On 10 July 1934 Frinovsky became head of Border and Internal Troops for the NKVD.
Great Purges
Frinovsky was one of the major beneficiaries of the first purge of the NKVD that followed dismissal of its head, Genrikh Yagoda
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda ( rus, Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director ...
. He had had some kind of falling out with Yagoda, but was on good terms with Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...
, Yagoda's successor. On 16 October 1936 Frinovsky was appointed Deputy Chairman of the NKVD, which made him third in seniority within the security apparatus at the start of the great purge. On 15 April 1937 he was promoted First Deputy Chairman of the NKVD, and head of the Chief Directorate of State Security. Now second in command to Yezhov, he was in charge of the interrogation of Yagoda, in which Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
took a personal interest. He was jointly responsible with Yezhov for setting the quotas of arrests that were required in each part of the Soviet Union, and in drawing up the 383 lists submitted for Stalin's approval, containing 44,000 names of people who were to be arrested, of whom 39,000 were to be executed.
He led the squad of senior NKVD officers who descended on Kiev on 7 June 1937 to facilitate arrest of the recently dismissed head of the Ukraine NKVD, Vsevolod Balitsky
Vsevolod Apollonovych Balytsky ( uk, Всеволод Аполлонович Балицький; russian: Всеволод Аполлонович Балицкий; 27 November 1892 – 27 November 1937) was a Soviet official, Commissar of Sta ...
, and of Red Army officers suspected of being too closely linked to their former commander, Iona Yakir
Iona Emmanuilovich Yakir (russian: Ио́на Эммануи́лович Яки́р; 3 August 1896 – 12 June 1937) was a Red Army commander and one of the world's major military reformers between World War I and World War II. He was an ear ...
. On 17 February 1938 he supervised the murder of the head of the NKVD Foreign Department, Abram Slutsky
Abram Aronovich Slutsky (russian: Абра́м Аро́нович Слу́цкий) (July 1898 – 17 February 1938, Moscow) was a Soviet intelligence officer who headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service ( INO), then part of the NKVD, fr ...
, who was chloroformed and injected with lethal poison in Frinovsky's office. On 28 April 1938 he signed the warrant for the second arrest of the poet Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam ( rus, Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, p=ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acm ...
, who died in the gulag. On 17 June 1938 he arrived in Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk ( rus, Хабaровск, a=Хабаровск.ogg, r=Habárovsk, p=xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China ...
, in the Far East, in a special train carrying a large contingent of NKVD officers, to supervise mass arrests of military and security personnel in the Far East, including 16 senior NKVD officials, who were shot, and the commander of the Far Eastern Army
The Far Eastern Army was a military formation of Cossack and White rebel units in the Far East (20 February 1920 – 12 September 1921), formed by the former ataman of the Trans–Baikal Cossack Army, Lieutenant General Grigory Semyonov from thr ...
, Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union (russian: Маршал Советского Союза, Marshal sovetskogo soyuza, ) was the highest military rank of the Soviet Union.
The rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union was created in 1935 and abolished in 19 ...
Vasily Blyukher
Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher ( rus, Васи́лий Константи́нович Блю́хер, Vasiliy Konstantinovich Blyukher; 1 December 1889 – 9 November 1938) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Earl ...
.
While Frinovsky was in the Far East, Stalin proposed that he be appointed People's Commissar for the Navy, an apparent promotion, which was actually part of a manoeuvre to remove Yezhov. On 22 August 1938 it was announced that his replacement as First Deputy Chairman of the NKVD would be Lavrenti Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
. Frinovsky arrived back in Moscow on 25 August and for a few days he effectively ran the NKVD, while Beria was in Georgia arranging who would take over from him there and Yezhov was in a state of drunken depression. He seized the opportunity to have a group of former NKVD officers, including Leonid Zakovsky and Sergei Naumovich Mironov
Sergius is a male given name of Ancient Roman origin after the name of the Latin ''gens'' Sergia or Sergii of regal and republican ages. It is a common Christian name, in honor of Saint Sergius, or in Russia, of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, and ...
, shot, to prevent them giving evidence against him to Beria.
On 8 September 1938 he was named People's Commissar for the Navy, and was sufficiently in favour to be among the guests at a lunch in the Kremlin on the 21st anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, at which Stalin and Beria were present, but Yezhov was excluded, but at the party congress in March 1939, he was not elected to the Central Committee, when one of his nominal juniors was. He wrote to Stalin on March 16, pleading to be dismissed because he knew nothing about running a navy, but he was in office, at least nominally, until his arrest on 6 April 1939.
On 12 April his wife, Nina, and son, Oleg, were also arrested. All three were included in a list of 346 people Beria submitted to Stalin on 16 January 1940, with a recommendation that they all be shot. Yezhov and the writer Isaac Babel
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel (russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель, p=ˈbabʲɪlʲ; – 27 January 1940) was a Russian writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of ''Red Cavalry'' ...
were on the same death list. Oleg Frinovsky, who was 17, was executed on 21 January and Nina Frinovskaya on 3 February. It was standard procedure that the condemned were photographed prior to execution: the last pictures of Frinovsky's wife and son are in David King, ''Ordinary Citizens.'' Mikhail Frinovsky was shot and executed by firing squad on 4 February, 1940.
Awards
* Order of Lenin (February 14, 1936)
* three orders of the Red Banner (1924, 20.12.1932, 3.02.1935)
* Order of the Red Star (July 22, 1937)
* medal "XX years of the RSCA" (February 22, 1938)
* Order of the Red Banner of the Mongolian People's Republic (October 25, 1937)
* Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Azerbaijan SSR (March 4, 1931)
* Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the ZRFSR (March 7, 1932)
* Badge "Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU (V)" (1925)
* Badge "Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU (XV)" (May 26, 1933)
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 24, 1941 deprived of state awards and military rank.
Family
* Brother – Frinovsky Georgy Petrovich (1908–1942) – from January 1937 he served as chief of staff, from October 7, 1937 commander of the 225th escort regiment; supervised the escort of prisoners of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp to the places of execution, major of state security.
* Wife – Frinovskaya Nina Stepanovna (1903, Ryazan – February 3, 1940) - Russian, non-partisan, higher education, graduate student of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Arrested April 12, 1939. February 2, 1940 on charges of "concealing the criminal counter-revolutionary activities of enemies of the people" (that is, her own husband and son), the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR was sentenced to death. Shot on February 3, 1940. Rehabilitated by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR on January 12, 1966.
* Son – Frinovsky Oleg Mikhailovich (1922, Kharkov – January 21, 1940, Moscow) – member of the Komsomol, unfinished secondary education, student of the 10th grade of the 2nd Moscow special artillery school. Arrested April 12, 1939. On January 21, 1940, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on charges of participating in a "counter-revolutionary youth group". Shot on the same day. Rehabilitated by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR on January 12, 1966.
In Moscow, Frinovsky occupied a 9-room apartment (Kropotkinskaya street, building 31, apt. 77), in which, after his arrest, the family of a high-ranking NKVD officer, Veniamin Gulst, moved in.[А. Колесниченко «Пьяный Вася, секреты Черчиля и золотой „Вальтер“». — АиФ № 31, 2–8 августа 2017, с. 36–37]
See also
*Commanders of the border troops USSR and RF
Commanders (in chief) – in the meaning of chief, commander, commanding general, supreme commander, or manager, etc. – of the border troops and organs of state security of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR and the Russian Federation, ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frinovsky, Mikhail
1898 births
1940 deaths
Cheka officers
NKVD officers
People from Penza Oblast
People from Narovchatsky Uyezd
Bolsheviks
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
First convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
Russian military personnel of World War I
Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War
Great Purge perpetrators
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner
Great Purge victims from Russia