Interference from Above
The Nikolaev UNKVD did not function in a vacuum. The Chekists justified their energetic measures in the struggle with the supposed Trotskyite sabotage organization by referring to, among other things, orders and directives from above, in the first instance from Moscow.
In addition, highly placed state security officers from Moscow and Kiev visited Nikolaev on inspection tours. They were especially interested in the state of the shipbuilding plants and issued concomitant orders.On 17 June 1938, all NKVD administrations received a coded telegram from the Deputy All-Union People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, Mikhail Frinovskii, which confirmed that “notwithstanding the liquidation of the main nests of enemies (the Right-Trotskyite, espionage-sabotage, and other counterrevolutionary formations) at a host of the most important defense plants that play a decisive role in the technological armament of the Red Army, during the first five months of 1938 these factories have systematically failed to fulfill government orders.”20 As an example, the telegram named—alongside a whole host of other enterprises of military significance producing aviation motors, artillery, and explosives—the Andre Marty Shipbuilding Plant, No. 198, which fulfilled only 58 percent of its orders under the plan for delivering ships to the Soviet fleet.21 In Frinovskii’s unambiguous appraisal, “Such criminally disgraceful work by defense plants in supplying the Red Army [was to be] unacceptable henceforward.”
The overall explanation given by Frinovskii for the deplorable state of affairs came down to “contamination, beginning with the suspicious and ending with the clearly antisoviet elements, representing a fertile ground for all manner of enemy formations.” As far as the NKVD administrations were concerned, Frinovskii pinpointed the following: first, the absence of “a serious, systematic struggle with the consequences of wrecking [or sabotage],” which was caused by previously liquidated Trotskyite groups; second, unsatisfactory organization of the struggle with the remains of not-yet fully destroyed “enemy formations,” primarily with “lower-level sabotage organizations”; third, a lack of “measures for the struggle for a total purge” of enemy elements from enterprises; and, finally, insufficient “operational enterprise-level measures directed at rendering practical aid to the plants in fulfilling production plans.”22 In the wake of this criticism, the deputy people’s commissar required remedying all indicated shortcomings before the end of July 1938, that is, within six weeks, with reports to him on work completed every fifteen days.
During the investigation and their trial, the former personnel of the Nikolaev UNKVD, including Karamyshev, Trushkin (the head of the Secret Political Department), and his deputy, Mikhail Vasil’evich Garbuzov, referred to this telegram from Frinovskii as justification for the arrests that they had carried out in July 1938 at the shipbuilding plants. Trushkin specifically referenced the third point of Frinovskii’s demands.23 That point read: “In all investigations and agent dossiers, again review all unmasked but not-yet repressed enemies so as to implement their arrest in the next few days.”24
It was the implementation of this demand that led to the arrest of L. P. Fomin, who since 1933 had held the post of head of the hull-fabrication shop, which had burned down in the fire. Trushkin declared to the investigators, “On the basis of this telegram from Frinovskii and at the suggestion of Karamyshev, a report on Fomin was drawn up.”25
After this, Karamyshev got the approval of the first secretary of the Nikolaev Oblast Party Committee, P. I. Starygin, and of I. F. Tevosian, the first deputy to the All-Union People’s Commissar of Defense Industry, who was then on an inspection tour in Nikolaev. In his own turn, Garbuzov declared to the investigation that the visit by Tevosian led to numerous arrests among the engineers. Garbuzov’s testimony about the direct involvement of Tevosian in the “case of the engineers” was confirmed by Trushkin. The signature of the deputy people’s commissar is present on the reports related to a host of shipbuilding plant personnel included in the case. These personnel were arrested, however, even before the major fire.26
On 16 July 1938, a month after the Frinovskii telegram, Nikolaev was visited by Ukrainian republic People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Aleksandr Uspenskii. He took part in an operational meeting attended by the entire operational staff of the UNKVD apparatus, as well as their counterparts at the town and district levels.
The meeting was prepared by a brigade led by the head of the Third Department of the Ukrainian republic NKVD in cooperation with the local UNKVD, which was sent specially to Nikolaev three days before Uspenskii’s arrival. In his report on the conduct of the meeting, Uspenskii noted that Chekists had uncovered subversive actions by Japanese, English, and German intelligence in the harbor and on the wharves and, moreover, that in plant No. 200 subversion was supposedly carried out through the plant’s director, Shcherbina, who was immediately arrested. According to the NKVD agents, Shcherbina also was a member of the right-Trotskyite organization, among whose members Uspenskii named Starodubtsev, the former chief witness in the case of the fire on the wharves. Uspenskii was especially disturbed that the wharf was undefended against attack by enemy submarines.27The interest of the higher NKVD organs in the situation at the Nikolaev shipbuilding plants heated up still further due to the fire that occurred two weeks later. The orders from Frinovskii clearly had arrived too late, and the visits by Uspenskii and Tevosian did not achieve the desired results. As a result, the republic NKVD took direct part in the “discovery” of the roles of Trotskyite sabotage groups in the arson on the wharf. An aircraft was quickly dispatched from Kiev to Nikolaev carrying a brigade from the Seventh Department of the Ukrainian republic NKVD, which was responsible for the state of affairs at defense industry enterprises. The brigade was headed by the director of the department, A. M. Zlobinskii. He came with NKVD personnel well proven in the task of “operational service” to Soviet industrial enterprises; many of them would go on to future careers connected to this area of NKVD activity.28 They included A. G. Nazarenko, head of the First Special Department (Accounting-Registration) of the Ukrainian republic NKVD; Z. A. Novak, operational plenipotentiary of the Tenth Section of the Third Department (Counterintelligence) of the republic NKVD since April 1938; and the operational plenipotentiaries of the Third Department of the republic NKVD P.
K. Pugach and A. E. Rudnyi. Even Moscow got involved in investigating the fire, requiring an increase in the pace of the investigation. According to the testimony of Trushkin, a telegram from the center containing an order to this effect was sent through procuracy channels.29It is perfectly obvious that even before the fire at the shipbuilding plant, the Nikolaev UNKVD was under significant pressure from above, as a result of which NKVD personnel attempted to remedy their own personal oversights in liquidating “the Trotskyite sabotage group,” as if this would result in a substantive increase in the productivity of the wharves. In operational terms, they carried out all orders from their superiors in Kiev and Moscow. Yet they could not prevent the fire at plant No. 200, which would result in an upsurge of arrests.