DEKANOZOV, VLADIMIR GEORGEVICH (1898–1953). One of
the better educated of the early Chekists, Dekanozov attended school
in Baku in 1915–1916 with Lavrenty Beriaand Vsevold Merkulov,
for whom he later worked in state security. After serving in the secu-
rity police in Azerbaijan and Georgia, Dekanozov worked in Com-
munist Partyposts under Georgian party boss Beria in 1931–1938.
Beria brought Dekanozov with him to Moscow in November 1938,
where he served briefly as chief of counterintelligenceand then for-
eign intelligence. In May 1939 Dekanozov transferred to the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and served in Berlin as ambassador from Novem-
ber 1939 to the outbreak of war on 22 June 1941. Prior to Operation
Barbarossa, Dekanozov repeatedly if ineffectually warned Beria
about German preparations for war.
Following World War II, Dekanozov served as Beria’s man in a
number of critical positions. Following Joseph Stalin’s death in
March, Beria brought Dekanozov back into the security police and
assigned him to Georgia to coordinate internal security. Dekanozov
was arrested a week after Beria’s fall. He was tried with his longtime
mentor and executed with him on 23 December 1953. In 2000 the
Russian Supreme Court reversed the sentence to 25 years imprison-
ment, which allowed Dekanozov’s heirs to claim his estate.DEPORTATIONS. Prior to World War II, the NKVDexperimented
with the mass deportation of suspected peoples. In 1935, NKVD
Commissar Genrykh Yagodaordered the deportation of 40,000
Finns, Poles, and Germans from the Leningrad oblast as a reaction to
the murder of Sergei Kirov. Between May and October 1937,
172,000 Koreans living in the Soviet Far East were deported to Kaza-
khstan and Uzbekistan. The NKVD also moved several Polish settle-
ments in the Ukraine and Byelorussia in 1937 and 1938 as part of a
purge of Polish enemies.
During World War II, the NKVD deported to the gulagand inter-
nal exilemillions of Soviet citizens. Between 1939 and 1941, more
than 1 million Poles and 200,000 Balts were deported, 5 percent of
the population of the three Baltic republics. In August 1941, follow-
ing the outbreak of war, 1.2 million Soviet Germans, including all
600,000 German inhabitants of the Volga Autonomous Republic,DEPORTATIONS•6506-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 65