Kocherginskii and the Northern Donetsk Railway NKVD

Jeffrey J. Rossman

What motivated rank-and-file NKVD officers to commit gross violations of socialist legality—to fabricate cases, torture suspects, coerce witnesses into giving false testimony—during the Great Terror? This question has not been asked as often as one might suppose given the wealth of research on perpetrator motivation in genocide studies—above all, in studies of the Holocaust.

Georgii Izrailovich Kocherginskii was born in Latvia in 1898.² He came from a humble background: his Jewish father worked in Riga lumber mills as a boat hookman, and his mother—who was either German or Estonian—tutored students in the German language and needlework.³ His parents were either divorced or never married, and Kocherginskii barely knew his father and stepfather.

Although Kocherginskii participated in a kruzhok (a study circle) organized by Ul’rikh for his pupils and came to know several members of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party (RSDRP), his studies occupied far more of his attention than politics. With the support of Leikht and Ul’rikh, Kocherginskii passed the equivalency examinations for the fifth and seventh classes of Realschule. Meanwhile, after two years of apprenticeship, he became an electrician at the Riga power station.⁵

Kocherginskii’s discipline, intelligence, and capacity to overcome setbacks came into relief in 1916, when he was arrested on suspicion of distributing revolutionary May Day pamphlets at the power station. Although he played no role in the incident, he lost his job. Frightened by the loss of his livelihood, Kocherginskii crammed for the entrance examination to the Riga Polytechnical Institute and, three weeks later, passed.⁶

Because Riga’s higher-education institutions had been evacuated during the war, Kocherginskii relocated to Moscow, where he pursued his studies and worked as a tutor and a mechanic at a match factory. At this juncture, Kocherginskii was on the path to a higher, if still modest, station in life. That trajectory was dramatically altered by the events of 1917. When the Old Regime collapsed, the Riga Polytechnical Institute closed and Kocherginskii returned to his position as an electrician at the Riga power station.

Little is known about Kocherginskii’s experiences during the civil war, though they must have been formative. He distinguished himself and acquired responsibilities that, in normal times, would have been beyond the reach of a young Jewish electrician from Latvia. Three years after leaving Riga as a rank-and-file soldier, Kocherginskii—at the age of twenty-three—served as deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Third Rifle Division of the Kharkov Military District.⁸ If nothing else, his work on the tribunal acclimated him to the experience of delivering summary justice to enemies of the Bolshevik regime: foreign agents, peasant anarchists, Ukrainian nationalists, counterrevolutionaries, and class enemies.

Aside from the responsibilities that he acquired in the Red Army, another indication of the distinction with which Kocherginskii served came on the day of his demobilization in 1921. Rather than being left to make his way in the country’s devastated economy, Kocherginskii was immediately hired by the Crimean Division of the Cheka.⁹ Thus began his seventeen-year career in the Soviet security police.

Like many successful Chekists, Kocherginskii served in a variety of administrative positions and was relocated periodically. After four years in Crimea, he spent two years in the Far East, where he was stationed in Vladivostok and at the OGPU residency in Manchuria. In 1927, he began a nine-year stint in the North Caucasus, where he held important posts in Krasnodar, Shakhty, Rostov, and Piatigorsk. These were volatile regions, and Kocherginskii’s assignments in the Operational and Special Divisions of the OGPU/NKVD placed him at the center of important operations against real and imagined enemies of Soviet power.¹⁰

That Kocherginskii was a Chekist who could be counted on to deal effectively with class enemies in high-priority regions was confirmed after Stalin elevated Ezhov to leadership of the NKVD in September 1936.

The dispatch of the Mironov brigade signaled Moscow’s concern that Far Eastern and Siberian NKVD bosses would be unable to root out class enemies believed to be ensconced in the ranks of the nomenklatura, or party-state officialdom. When the Mironov brigade arrived in Khabarovsk on 23 April 1937, it launched a wave of arrests, including within the NKVD, and deployed so-called new methods that became a hallmark of the mass operations of 1937–1938—such as physical and psychological torture and the falsification of interrogation protocols—to identify and liquidate covert antisoviet terrorist networks.¹²

Judging from the frequency with which he later boasted about his participation in the Mironov brigade and cited it as justification for his actions, Kocherginskii was influenced by his experience in Khabarovsk, where he headed an investigative group that wrung espionage confessions from Far East NKVD leaders.¹³ Although Mironov himself came under suspicion and was arrested in June 1937,¹⁴ Kocherginskii confided to a colleague that he was indebted to Mironov because “he taught him well” during the time they spent together in Khabarovsk.¹⁵ When Kocherginskii left Moscow in November 1937 to assume leadership of the DTO NKVD of the Northern Donetsk Railway, he believed he had been chosen by Ezhov to achieve in Artemovsk what the Mironov brigade achieved in Khabarovsk—that is, to transform a compromised NKVD apparatus into an effective counterterrorist organization.

Fig. 7.1 G. I. Kocherginskii, from November 1937 to August 1938 head of the Northern Donetsk Railway NKVD sector (DTO NKVD). Photo from between 1934 and 1936. Personal archive of Vadym Zolotar’ov.

Although Kocherginskii was not close to Mironov, he had powerful protectors in the NKVD. These relationships illuminate the patronage networks in which Kocherginskii was ensconced and point to formative influences on his professional identity. Kocherginskii’s patrons were NKVD officials from humble, mostly Jewish, backgrounds who fulfilled critical leadership positions in Crimea and the North Caucasus during the 1920s and 1930s. The most important of these patrons was Izrail’ Dagin, who managed security for Soviet leaders from 1936 to 1938. As deputy chairman of the Crimean Cheka in 1921, Dagin hired Kocherginskii on the day he was demobilized from the Red Army. The two worked together for the next thirteen years, especially during the bloody collectivization campaign in the North Caucasus. According to Kocherginskii:

In DAGIN I always saw for myself the model of a Chekist-communist. Under the direction of DAGIN I began my Chekist career. In the North Caucasus I was nominated for the “Honorable Chekist” award, which I received in 1935. Dagin nominated me alone out of numerous NKVD deputy department heads to receive the rank of captain of national security.

Kocherginskii stayed in close touch with Dagin after the latter was transferred to Moscow, seeking his insight and advice.¹⁶

Kocherginskii’s other patron-protectors included: Aleksandr Radzivilovskii, under whom he served in Crimea; Moisei Gatov, under whom he served in the North Caucasus; and Grigorii Gorbach, with whom he worked closely in the Shakhty-Donetsk OGPU sector during the Great Famine.¹⁷ Gorbach, who hailed from Ukrainian peasant stock and distinguished himself under Ezhov as a particularly ruthless regional NKVD boss, thought so highly of Kocherginskii that he endeavored to recruit him on the eve of the mass operations to serve as his deputy in the NKVD’s Western Siberia Region Directorate.¹⁸

If Kocherginskii modeled himself on tough Chekists such as Dagin, Gorbach, and Mironov, he almost certainly was also motivated by fear.

Kocherginskii may also have been motivated to demonstrate his zeal as a result of a more concrete vulnerability: he grew up in Latvia and had close relatives who still lived in Riga. The NKVD’s mass operation against alleged spies for Latvia was launched on 30 November 1937 and extended by a Politburo decree of 31 January 1938.²⁰ In spring 1938, Kocherginskii recited his autobiography at a district party conference. When he mentioned his Latvian roots, delegates “became apprehensive, which to me was extremely unpleasant.” Meanwhile, Ukraine’s NKVD boss, Uspenskii, had ordered that NKVD ranks be purged of operatives with foreign ties. These events left Kocherginskii wondering if his days in the NKVD were numbered. He confessed his concerns in summer 1938 to Dagin, who assured him that there was no reason to panic.²¹

Kocherginskii arrived at the headquarters of the DTO NKVD of the Northern Donetsk Railway in Artemovsk, Ukraine, on November 15, 1937.²² As of the previous month, the DTO and its branch offices—these were situated at stations along the railway—had made 165 arrests as part of ongoing mass operations.²³ At his first DTO staff meeting, Kocherginskii underscored that he was not impressed by this figure. Boasting that he was an Old Bolshevik and experienced Chekist who had been dispatched personally by Ezhov “for the ‘strengthening’ of the DTO,” Kocherginskii notified subordinates that their shortcomings placed them in the camp of enemy “accomplices.” Demanding that confessions be secured within twenty-four hours rather than three to five days, he vowed to implement the special investigative methods that he had mastered in Khabarovsk, where he claimed to have personally arrested and executed Far East NKVD boss Deribas.²⁴

Kocherginskii was true to his word. Within days of his arrival in Artemovsk, a wave of arrests struck white- and blue-collar railroad workers. To secure confessions to capital crimes such as sabotage and espionage, Kocherginskii implemented the Mironov brigade’s methods: systematic beating and serial interrogation of arrested individuals; the creation of special cells where those who refused to confess were made to stand for days without rest; and “editing” (falsification) of interrogation protocols. Although violations of Soviet criminal procedure occurred before Kocherginskii’s arrival in Artemovsk, they now became routine.²⁵ “Before his arrival... we didn’t have such interrogation practices,” testified DTO plenipotentiary Ivchenko. “From November 1937 through February 1938, beatings of arrested individuals became commonplace at DTO headquarters and district branch offices.”²⁶

Kocherginskii secured compliance with the new investigative paradigm using a variety of tactics. First, he led by example. Almost from the day of his arrival in Artemovsk, he burst into investigators’ offices and, if a confession had not been secured, he began to pummel the suspect. Sometimes he ordered investigators and arrested individuals to participate in these assaults. After repeatedly beating a suspect who refused to confess to being a member of a counterrevolutionary group, an exhausted Kocherginskii barked at a hapless investigator: “What, are you a guest here? Get beating!”²⁷ Although he never formally authorized wholesale beating of suspects—at some staff meetings, he carefully stated that “beatings” could only be employed with his or his deputy’s permission²⁸—Kocherginskii communicated his expectations by, for instance, telling subordinates who had just witnessed his handiwork: “This is how you interrogate and secure testimony.” According to deputy DTO chief Matveev: “Certainly, such a display untied the hands of investigators.”²⁹

Second, Kocherginskii issued directives that expedited investigations and all but invited investigators to falsify cases. While leading a mass operation in Debalt’sevo in January 1938, Kocherginskii announced that socially alien individuals could be arrested without evidence of antisoviet activity; circulated a copy of what he considered to be a model kulak confession and urged investigators to use it as a template; insisted that witnesses be chosen from among the ranks of reliable party members; demanded that “witness testimonies be sharp [rezkie] because all cases will go to the troika”; and made clear that nothing less than conviction and a death sentence were acceptable.³⁰

Furthermore, Kocherginskii gave explicit guidance when it came to securing witness testimony. Witnesses were told that the suspect had already been unmasked as an enemy of the regime and that the NKVD merely needed confirmation of the suspect’s “defeatism, terroristic intentions, and acute antisoviet agitation.” Reluctant witnesses were to be assured that they would not be summoned to court since all cases would be heard by an extrajudicial tribunal. Stubborn witnesses were to be told that they were “enemy accomplice[s]” whose refusal to cooperate with the NKVD’s “battle with enemies” would have devastating consequences.³¹

Kocherginskii legitimized his directives by invoking Moscow’s authority and created a sense of urgency by framing the mission in military terms. At more than one operational meeting with subordinates, he claimed that Ezhov had declared that Soviet proxy wars in Spain and China and the threat of attack by Germany and Japan required the USSR to purge the home front of—that is, execute—five million internal enemies in addition to the two million who had allegedly been executed in 1937.³² The unmasking of armed insurrectionary organizations in the Far East and Kazakhstan, he averred, further underscored the need for quick and decisive action.³³

Kocherginskii ridiculed and threatened subordinates who failed to produce results. Investigators who did not fulfill arrest quotas or secure confessions were singled out at staff meetings, accused of being enemy accomplices, and threatened with arrest and expulsion from the Party.³⁴ “By means of intimidation Kocherginskii compelled members of the Directorate of State Security (UGB) to carry out his... directives,” recalled Debal’tsevo plenipotentiary Guenok.³⁵ “Kocherginskii’s terrorization of employees was done in such a way that none of them could say anything,” testified Debal’tsevo plenipotentiary Khodarev. “Kocherginskii... declared: ‘I was sent from Moscow and have special powers. I do what I want, so carry out my orders and you can complain about me to People’s Commissar [Ezhov].’ ”³⁶

Kocherginskii used threats to silence voices of dissent, such as when a subordinate objected to an arbitrary arrest quota or raised doubts about a suspect’s guilt or the veracity of a confession.³⁷ “Kocherginskii uniformly terrorized the employees of DTO headquarters and district branch offices,” recalled deputy DTO boss Konstantin Matveev. “From his first days on the job... he presented himself as a person whom nobody should contradict and whose actions were beyond reproach.”³⁸ Plenipotentiary Ivchenko echoed the point: “Kocherginskii created an oppressive atmosphere and employees were afraid to go to his office if any of them started having doubts as to the guilt of any of the arrested individuals.”³⁹ Any investigator who concluded that a suspect should be released was derided as “a liberal,” “an opportunist,” or “an enemy accomplice.”⁴⁰ Soon after deputy DTO chief Matveev reported to Stalino Oblast UNKVD chief Sokolinskii about mass beatings at the DTO, Kocherginskii summoned Matveev to his office and declared: “I don’t understand this behavior. You don’t understand Bolshevism.”⁴¹ Informed that DTO division chief Timoshek doubted the veracity of a suspect’s confession, Kocherginskii “pointedly” told him: “You don’t have a good mindset.”⁴²

Fear was a powerful motivator. “Kocherginskii placed most of the DTO and district branch office employees in a position that required unquestioning fulfillment of his orders in order to avoid abuse,” recalled Matveev, “and many were frightened by his threats” of dismissal and arrest.⁴³ According to Timoshek, whom Kocherginskii singled out for abuse at a staff meeting for failing to procure a confession: “Under the conditions Kocherginskii created, some employees resorted to outright crime”—that is, to wholesale fabrication of cases.⁴⁴ Investigator Nikolai Kuznetsov, who was convicted alongside Kocherginskii, admitted that he began to fabricate cases after hearing Kocherginskii threaten to arrest investigators Khodarev and Bondarchuk, who had missed their quotas.⁴⁵ Plenipotentiary Aronovich gave a compelling account of the atmosphere in Debal’tsevo during the January 1938 mass operation:

While running the operation in Debal’tsevo, Kocherginskii uniformly terrorized us and obscenely cursed everyone. His attitude toward his co-workers was terrifying, and none of us was safe from either arrest or the most frightening insults. It’s impossible to convey in words what he did with us in both group and individual meetings. His behavior couldn’t have been more vile. Worst of all is that he capitalized on Comrade Ezhov’s name....

Naturally, the operational staff carried out Kocherginskii’s directives and didn’t take a critical look at the fate of arrested individuals—whether they were guilty or not—but snatched everyone they came upon who’d been identified as “enemies” by one person or another.⁴⁶

An equally vivid description of Kocherginskii during the Debalt’sevo operation was offered by plenipotentiary Fadeev: “Kocherginskii came across as some sort of animal, attacking his co-workers and throwing fists, lobbing all kinds of undeserved insults at them, calling them enemies of the people, and threatening to have them thrown into the basement.”⁴⁷

DTO sub-division chiefs were both recipients and conveyers of Kocherginskii’s threats. At a January 1938 assembly to discuss forthcoming mass operations, Kocherginskii announced that all Germans, Poles, Latvians, Greeks, and former kulaks were to be arrested as spies. The absence of compromising information against such individuals was to be no barrier to arrest because, Kocherginskii asserted, documents in Moscow proved their guilt. When district branch office chiefs Zaloznyi and Sin’ko protested that many such individuals held vital positions at train stations, Kocherginskii barked in reply: “You’re harboring spies rather than looking for them.... If I discover... after this operation that a German or Pole is employed at one îr another junction,... I’ll arrest and interrogate you... instead of them.” Noted the head of the DTO’s second department, Omel’chenko: “After this mass lawlessness broke out: [there were] unlawful arrests without either a shred of compromising material or the procurator’s sanction.”⁴⁸

Returning to his post at Kaganovich station, Sin’ko flatly told his men “not to come back without incriminating testimony.” When plenipotentiary Kushvid pressed for the release of a suspect against whom there was no evidence, Sin’ko reprimanded him: “You don’t know how to work and are being soft on the enemy.”⁴⁹ After witnessing this encounter, plenipotentiary Voronin and others felt they had no choice but to falsify interrogation protocols. “Not wanting to earn the title ‘the enemies’ patron saint,’ ” explained Voronin, “I was compelled to act this way... even though I knew it was a crime.”⁵⁰ Likewise, Krasnyi Liman station plenipotentiary Al’bert Rozenberg falsified witness and defendant testimony after repeatedly being ordered by station chief Matveev “to obtain compromising material about these people by any means necessary.”⁵¹

If fear was a powerful motivator, so too was positive reinforcement. Investigators who produced confessions quickly were singled out by Kocherginskii for praise and material benefits.⁵² “Kocherginskii always made an example” of investigators who fulfilled daily confession quotas, according to DTO plenipotentiary Ivchenko, even though “to complete this [task] honorably was physically impossible.”⁵³ When DTO assistant head Antonenko called Kocherginskii during a staff meeting at Debal’tsevo during the January 1938 mass operation and reported on his success as leader of the operation at Krasnyi Liman station, Kocherginskii put down the phone and announced: “See, this is how to work: in one day... Antonenko broke twenty-eight individuals!” Picking up the phone again, Kocherginskii told Antonenko: “I’ll kiss your ass for this!”⁵⁴ When the Debal’tsevo mass operation ended, Kocherginskii held a banquet at the apartment of district branch office chief Ignatov and bestowed awards on each of his investigators.⁵⁵

Kocherginskii employed a version of socialist competition to increase pressure on subordinates during mass operations. When Sin’ko called Kocherginskii to report that Kaganovich station had arrested one hundred individuals, Kocherginskii (misleadingly) claimed that in Debal’tsevo they had arrested five times as many. Sin’ko promptly sent his men back into the field to make another hundred arrests.⁵⁶ Assistant DTO chief Antonenko likewise maintained pressure on station chiefs by telling them that they were falling behind in the race to procure confessions.⁵⁷

Although Kocherginskii’s subordinates rarely were told explicitly to violate criminal procedure, orders issued by Kocherginskii played an important role in creating the context in which mass violations of socialist legality occurred. Nomenklatura suspects whose cases should have been sent to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court were intentionally dispatched to the oblast troika, apparently because Kocherginskii feared cases of severely beaten suspects were more likely to collapse if sent to Moscow for trial.⁵⁸ Arrest quotas issued on the eve of the January 1938 mass operation were based on the size of each station and the number of employees therein rather than on compromising materials.⁵⁹ During mass operations, Kocherginskii insisted that all cases be formulated so as to result in a death sentence and circulated a template confession that investigators drew upon in drafting interrogation protocols.⁶⁰ Kocherginskii also ordered the creation of special holding cells (otstoiniki) where suspects who refused to confess were made to stand with their face against the wall until they agreed to sign a confession.⁶¹ While in Debal’tsevo during the January 1938 mass operation, Kocherginskii told investigators not to release witnesses until they gave incriminating testimony and declared that arrested individuals “weren’t eligible for release.”⁶²

Summarizing Kocherginskii’s culpability for the mass violations of criminal procedure that occurred during the January 1938 mass operations, the chairman of the Military Tribunal that convicted Kocherginskii, P. F. Gur’ev, wrote in an analysis of Kocherginskii’s appeal to the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court: “While Kocherginskii didn’t give direct orders to falsify cases, he created all the conditions for this to occur, such as by demanding thirty-three cases in three days..., praising those who stood out for speedy ‘creation’ and ‘cracking’ of cases, setting up the otstoiniki, and threatening operatives for the slightest delay.”⁶³ Endeavoring to further isolate what might be called “the Kocherginskii factor,” Gur’ev added: “Force was applied less often when Kocherginskii was absent. This is clear from the files of the judicial and preliminary investigations.”⁶⁴

The “excesses” that occurred under Kocherginskii at the DTO NKVD of the Northern Donetsk Railway sector generated a stream of complaints from victims, their relatives, and Kocherginskii’s subordinates to regional and central offices of the NKVD and state procurator.⁶⁵ These complaints triggered investigations by central NKVD officials in March and June 1938.⁶⁶ Although the investigations confirmed that “excesses”—including fabrication of cases, falsification of testimony, and physical and psychological torture—had occurred systematically under Kocherginskii, Ezhov did not move against him until being repeatedly pressured by USSR General Procurator Andrei Vyshinskii to do so.⁶⁷

Per Ezhov’s order, Kocherginskii was arrested on 20 August 1938 while on a trip to Moscow.⁶⁸ During the next five months, he was interrogated thirty-nine times while being held at Lefortovo prison.⁶⁹ Accused of being a Trotskyist counterrevolutionary who endeavored to discredit Soviet power by authorizing systematic violations of socialist legality, Kocherginskii insisted on his loyalty to Soviet power but conceded that excesses had occurred even as he blamed them on scheming, untrustworthy subordinates.⁷⁰ The investigation continued after Kocherginskii was sent under armed guard to Stalino, where the oblast UNKVD combined his case with that of five of his former subordinates.⁷¹ Consistent with similar prosecutions at this time, the accusation of counterrevolutionary activity was dropped. On 20 March 1939 and consistent with the November 1938 directive, the defendants were indicted under Article 206-17 of the Ukraine SSR Criminal Code for gross violations of socialist legality.⁷² A three-day trial in June 1939 before the Kharkov District NKVD Military Tribunal ended with a guilty verdict, prison sentences ranging from three to five years for Kocherginskii’s former subordinates, and a death sentence for Kocherginskii.⁷³ Three days after his appeal to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Soviet USSR was denied, Kocherginskii was executed.⁷⁴

The Kocherginskii case reveals the extent to which situational factors—above all, fear of punishment and a desire for approbation—motivated rank-and-file NKVD operatives during the Great Terror. This is not to say that ideology did not play an important role. Kocherginskii had no doubt that millions of class enemies threatened the existence of the USSR and needed to be eliminated prior to the outbreak of war. His experience delivering summary justice as a member of the Kharkov Revolutionary Tribunal during the civil war and as an NKVD official during the collectivization campaign in the North Caucasus, as well as his experience unmasking high-level terrorist plots as a member of the Mironov brigade in the Far East, primed him to accept the notion that the enemy was omnipresent, masked, and dangerous. Yet even Kocherginskii himself was motivated during the Great Terror by situational factors—in particular, an awareness that he had been denounced earlier as a Trotskyite and that his ties to Latvia made him vulnerable to internal NKVD purges. Based on the evidence that emerged during the investigation and trial of Kocherginskii for “gross violations of socialist legality,” it is clear that situational factors were a major factor in motivating rank-and-file NKVD operatives to engage in blatant violations of criminal procedure, including wholesale fabrication of cases, torture of suspects, and coercion of witnesses. Kocherginskii motivated his subordinates by heaping praise on those who fulfilled impossible quotas and, more important, by creating a climate of terror within the DTO NKVD. Notes

For a notable exception, see Lynne Viola, Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 316.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 20, 23.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 24, 40.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 41, 40 zv, 23.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 23–24 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 25.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 25 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 25 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 43.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 43–43 zv.; http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb327.htm.

Elena Nikolaevna Chernolutskaia, “Prikaz NKVD No. 00447 ‘ob operatsii po repressirovaniiu... antisovetskikh elementov.’ Dal’nii Vostok, 1937–1938 gg,” Rossiia i ATR 3 (2005): 56.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 246.

http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb327.htm.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 103–4

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 44. Dagin was arrested three months after Kocherginskii while still serving as head of security for Soviet leaders. Capital lettering is in the original. http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb129.htm.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 43, 44. Radzivilovskii was arrested less than a month after Kocherginskii while serving as a division chief in the NKVD’s Transportation and Communications Directorate. http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb406.htm. Gatov was arrested four months after Kocherginskii while serving as a division chief in the NKVD’s Main Economic Directorate. http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb94.htm.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 43. On Gorbach, see Chernolutskaia, “Prikaz NKVD No. 00447,” 58; and http://www.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb107.htm. Gorbach was arrested three months after Kocherginskii while serving as head of the NKVD’s Far East-Khabarovsk Region Directorate.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 44–44 zv, 2.

“Statisticheskie itogi ‘Bol’shogo terrora,” http://www.memo.ru/history/y1937/hronika1936_1939/xronika.html#y1.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 1, 44–45. Kocherginskii lost contact with his mother and sister after leaving Riga in 1918. They spent years trying to track him down, and finally located him in 1934. After receiving a postcard from his mother, Kocherginskii replied that he was well and explained that he could not write again. Later that year, Kocherginskii met his sister for two hours at the Kursk train station in Moscow after she notified him that she would be visiting the USSR as part of a workers’ delegation. Kocherginskii received permission from superiors before replying to his mother’s postcard and traveling to Moscow for the rendezvous with his sister. Other than these two instances, Kocherginskii had no contact with his relatives in Latvia. HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 25 zv–28.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 228.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 277–81.

HDA SBU f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 246–47, 159–160.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 3, 82, 90, 107ob.; tom 5, ark. 120 zv, 161, 164, 171–73, 215.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 82.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 83–84.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 112–13; tom 5, ark. 227, 321; tom 3, ark. 161.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 107 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 151; tom 3, ark. 98, 86, 80, 135. According to plenipotentiary Khodarev, the model kulak confession said: “I’m a kulak, I used fake documents to get a job in transportation, and I’ve carried out the following acts of wrecking and sabotage at the railroad.” HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 80–81.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 50–55.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 139, 47, 286; tom 5, ark. 144; tom 3, ark. 103, 248, 110.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 286, 110 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 106–7, 246–48, 159–60, 162, 51; tom 1, ark. 150.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 304.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 79.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 99–100, 102, 85, 110.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 106.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 85.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 98–100.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 109.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 102.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 106, 107. See also HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 215.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 101.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 150.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 145 zv, 146. Aronovich also criticized his immediate superior, Debal’tsevo district branch office chief Ignatov, for uncritically fulfilling Kocherginskii’s directives during the mass operation and failing to set a good example for his subordinates. HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 146 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 150–51. See also HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 43.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 165–66.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 154.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 154–154 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 102. To reiterate an important point, none of the rank-and-file investigators who fabricated cases did so in response to a direct order. Rather, they fabricated cases in an effort to avoid humiliation and punishment and also, it seems, to secure the approbation of superiors. See, for example, HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 103.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 171, 101; tom 5, ark. 324 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 88. During the height of the Debal’tsevo mass operation, Kocherginskii demanded that investigators secure from three to seven confessions each day. See also HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 101–2.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 170.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 174.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 153.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 175–76.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 90–91.

HDA SBU f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 130 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 135, 88–89, 97–98; tom 5, ark. 322ob.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 186; tom 5, ark. 131. Kocherginskii first learned how to use otstoiniki to procure confessions while serving on the Mironov brigade. HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 322 zv. Due to the shortage of manpower, Kocherginskii mobilized unvetted Communists and Komsomols to guard prisoners in these cells, which resulted in rumors of their existence spreading among the general population. This represented a breach of NKVD secrecy norms.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 323.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 367 zv.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 367. Though obviously self-serving, it is worth noting the testimony of Debal’tsevo district branch office chief Ignatov: “[Our] employees didn’t beat arrested individuals prior to Kocherginskii’s arrival in Debal’tsevo.” HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 181 zv.

See, for example, HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 4, ark. 1–3, 9, 11, 13–16, 20–25, 57–60, 61, 63–66, 75–76 zv, 80–80 zv, 82–87 zv, 89–90 zv, 92–95, 164–66. Efforts by the local procurator to investigate complaints referred from the central procurator’s office were rebuffed by Kocherginskii with the backing of his superiors in Moscow. HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 4, ark. 61.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 4, ark. 63.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 4, ark. 63–68, 133, 135–42. Vyshinskii urged Ezhov to investigate Kocherginskii and the myriad complaints against him on 21 June 1938, 22 July 1938, and 10 August 1938. HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 4, ark.3, 61.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 4–5.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 19a.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 1, ark. 29–29 zv; tom 5, ark. 226–29.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 3, ark. 301; tom 5, ark. 5.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 294, 302–6

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 337–41.

HDA SBU, f. 5, op. 1, spr. 67988, tom 5, ark. 373, 382.