Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

MERKULOV, VSEVOLD NIKOLAEVICH (1895–1953).Merkulov,

whose father was an army officer, received a strong scientific educa-

tion and served for a short time as a lieutenant in the Imperial Army.

After World War I, Merkulov taught in a school for the blind. He

joined the Chekain 1921 and rose quickly as a protégé of Lavrenty

Beria in the security service and the Communist Partyapparatus.

By 1938 he was one of Beria’s chief lieutenants. When Joseph Stalin

appointed Beria to head the NKVDin late 1938, Beria in turn ap-

pointed Merkulov to be his deputy to oversee counterintelligence

and foreign intelligence. In 1939–1940, he was placed in charge of

the sovietization of Polish territory.

In 1941 Stalin divided the NKVD. Merkulov was made chief of

the newly minted NKGB(People’s Commissariat for State Security)

and given responsibility for intelligence and counterintelligence. He

bares some responsibility for failing to provide Stalin with adequate

intelligence about Operation Barbarossa, the German plan to invade

the Soviet Union. Like Beria and other senior intelligence officers, he

refused to forward or confirm accurate intelligence reports of Ger-

man intentions. Nevertheless, Stalin was satisfied with his record as

a provider of intelligence on Germany and the Western Allies. Given

his university education, Merkulov was better prepared than previous

intelligence chiefs to direct operations to collect intelligence about

the Anglo-American nuclear weapons program, which the NKVD co-

denamed Enormoz.

Merkulov was promoted to general of the army in 1945 and made

the first minister of state security at the MGBthe next year. After

World War II, Merkulov held a series of important posts in the gov-

ernment, as Beria sought to expand his power in the waning years of

party leader Stalin’s power. In September 1953 Merkulov was ar-

rested. He was tried for treason with Beria in December of the same

year and executed immediately following the trial. Intelligent and ar-

ticulate, he is remembered in the memoirs of the period as the most

urbane and perhaps the least odious of Beria’s subordinates.

MESHIK, PAVEL YAKOLEVICH (1910–1953).One of Lavrenty

Beria’s men, Meshik served in a number of important roles in

Smershand then in Soviet-occupied Poland and Germany during

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