Yakov Agranov
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Yakov Samuilovich Agranov (born Sorenson; 1893—1938) — prominent member of the Cheka, forerunner of the Soviet KGB. Was born in Jewish family in Checherskaja village, Gomel province of Russian Empire. In 1912 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and in 1915 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1918 Yakov Agranov became secretary of Sovnarkom. At this time he was taking orders directly from Vladimir Lenin and Felix Dzerzhinsky. At this period Agranov was in charge of forced emigration of notable figures of Russian science and culture as potentially anti-Soviet elements (among expelled were Nikolai Berdyaev and Nikolai Lossky).
Since 1919 until his death he was prominent member of Cheka (KGB). Yakov Agranov was Genrikh Yagoda's deputy during Stalin's Great Purge. In 1921 Agranov was chief investigator of the “Petrograd militant organization” headed by Professor Tagantsev. The investigation ended with conviction to death of more than 85 persons, including poet Nikolay Gumilyov. It is believed that most people were framed-up and there were little substance in this affair. They all were promptly executed. Agranov also investigated Kronstadt rebellion and the peasant uprising in Tambov region. At the end of his career he was fabricating cases for the Trial of the Twenty One, Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization and later mythical “Promparty” and “Working Peasant Party ” cases.
The suspicious “suicide” of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1930 is also connected with Agranov. Immediately after the assassination of Sergey Kirov in Leningrad in 1934, Agranov was entrusted with the organization of mass reprisals in the city. The interrogation sessions of Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky were conducted under his supervision. The cynical motto “If there is no enemy, he should be created, denounced and punished” was attributed to Yakov Agranov. His career and life come to an end when in 1938 he himself was accused of being Trotskyism sympathizer and executed by firing squad as an “enemy of the people”.
