Teplyakov Alexey G.,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
M.P. Schrader’s Memories “Life of the Officer of Secret Police” (Part 2)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2019-6-17
The second part of extensive memories of the prominent security officer M.P. Shreyder (1902–1978) “Life of the officer of secret police” is published. The new part of Schrader's memoirs dates back to the early 1920s, when the author moved from Belarus to Moscow. Mikhail Shreyder worked in many regions of the country, was close to some large security officers. He remembered a set of episodes from concrete work of Cheka-OGPU-NKVD concerning political opponents and criminal elements, as well as everyday life of leadership team of Stalin’s secret police. Other valuable party of these memoirs – a large number of portraits of functionaries of state security. Many of them have left no traces in the records remaining. His memoirs are characterized by a high degree of objectivity, they contain a lot of data on mercenary and office crimes of security officers. At the same time the author quite often criticizes also own acts. Shreyder's memoirs are written in typical Soviet language, but have literary advantages and are deprived of edification. Some episodes from “Life of the officer of secret police” have been confirmed with some recent documentary publications. Rather full option of memoirs of Shreyder will allow to cover in a new way many events of the Soviet era and will provide substantial assistance to historians. The second part of the published text relates mainly to the work of Schrader in the apparatus of the Moscow Provincial Department of the GPU 1922–1923.
Publishing: 30/12/2019
How to cite: Teplyakov A.G. M.P. Schrader’s Memories “Life of the Officer of Secret Police” (Part 2) // Historical Courier, 2019, No 6 (8). P. 214–227. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2019/ISTKURIER-2019-6-17.pdf
Links: Issue 6 2019
Keywords: Secret departments of GPU; Moscow; Shreyder; Dzerzhinsky; Menzhinsky; Deribas