Heads of Soviet foreign intelligence Vladimir Antonov. Unknown Peters

21.08.2019

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich

Assistant to political figure F. E. Dzerzhinsky

They used to say about him - “a faithful Leninist”, “a fiery revolutionary”. Then - “executioner”, “bloody security officer”. Any state has weapons - special services. Angels do not work in them, but even harsh accusations, when carefully studied, often turn out to be legends. Peters was one of the founders of the Cheka, the main intelligence service of Soviet Russia. Neither he nor his comrades had ever prepared for this role. But it quickly became clear that these amateurs and self-taught people from scratch created one of the strongest intelligence and counterintelligence services in the world. Are we interested, for example, in the inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle? Let's take an interest in Peters - he is also the creator of weapons.

Some remember him with hatred, others with admiration. The son of a Latvian farm laborer could become related to Churchill, become a London banker, and as a result created one of the strongest intelligence services in the world.

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich - famous security officer, deputy. Chairman of the Cheka F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Yakov Peters came from a simple peasant family, but he had a sharp mind, activity, faith in a better future for the country, an active life position and political situation, which developed at the beginning of the 20th century, made him prominent politician. At the age of 18 in 1904, he joined the Latvian SDLP and worked underground. Active participant in the revolution of 1905–1907. Later Yakov Peters is also involved in October revolution as a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Having devoted himself entirely to the cause of the fight against counter-revolution, spies, traitors and enemies, Yakov Khristoforovich became good friend and an ally of the main leaders of the Bolshevik Party - Stalin, Dzerzhinsky. His career grew rapidly. At the age of 32, having established himself well, J. Peters becomes an important person in the country, a man of whom the whole country is terribly afraid - in 1918 he becomes deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, right hand"Iron Felix" himself. Peters immediately plunged headlong into political life country and not a single high-profile case in the country was accomplished without his participation. He contributed to the discovery of the Lockhart-Reilly conspiracy, in 1918 he became one of the leaders in the liquidation of the left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion, and led the investigation into the high-profile case of Kaplan, a female revolutionary who attempted to assassinate Lenin. From 1920 to 1922 he headed the Cheka in Turkestan. After this, Yakov Peters was transferred to the OGPU, where he became the head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU from 1922. And last thing in his life was the chairmanship from 1930 to 1934 of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - MKK All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In 1909, Peters emigrated to Hamburg and from there to London. There he joined the communist club and the British socialist party. In December 1910, he was arrested by London police on charges of complicity in armed robbery and the murder of three policemen. While Peters was in pre-trial detention (Brixton Prison) in January 1911, his cousin and main suspect, the famous anarchist Fritz Dumniek, was killed. During the police storming of his house on Sydney Street, he offered armed resistance. This event became known as the Siege of Hounsditch. Soldiers of the Scottish Rifle Battalion also took part in the assault; machine guns and artillery pieces. The operation was personally led by Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary. After the house was completely burned, Churchill gave the order to begin mass arrests among Latvian Social Democrats and anarchists - it was announced that they were preparing a robbery jewelry store which was prevented. Hundreds of people were arrested, but for show trial four were selected: Yuri Duborv, Petr Rosen, Mina Gristis and Jacob Peters.

The investigation lasted almost six months. The evidence, right down to the model of this very jewelry store, which was allegedly undermined from house number 100 on Sydney Street, was presented with extraordinary care - 655 pages of the criminal case plus the testimony of the minister himself. But... the court could not prove anything. In May 1911, Peters, along with other Latvian emigrants, appeared in court, by which he was acquitted. Churchill ground his teeth. In addition, he was greatly tormented by the ridicule of his beloved cousin Claire Sheridan, who attended all court hearings. Sir Winston, in her opinion, looked quite pitiful at the trial. She really liked one of the suspects. It was Jacob Peters.

They started dating. Claire Sheridan studied at the London Academy of Art and planned to become a sculptor. She had interesting friends– journalists, artists, aspiring politicians. They went to parties together. At one of these parties, Claire noticed that Yakov suddenly lost interest in yet another political discussion. The reason for this was Claire’s friend - very young, quiet May, the daughter of a London banker. A month later, Jan Peters and May Freeman became husband and wife.

In May 1917 he returned to Russia, leaving behind his wife and four-year-old daughter. During the October Revolution of 1917, Peters was a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) (from October 29). He was also a delegate of II All-Russian Congress Soviets, elected member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

On December 7 (20), 1917, Yakov Peters was approved by the Council of People's Commissars as a member of the Board of the Military Extraordinary Commission, assistant to the chairman and treasurer of the Cheka. However, at that time Peters was not so confident in his abilities. For the only time in his life he doubted something. After his appointment as a member of the Cheka, he told his close friend Louise Reed that he had absolutely no idea how he could work in the new body - the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, something like the Committee of Public Safety, the punitive body of the Great Patriotic War. french revolution. He asked himself where to start. There was no experience, no specific plan of action, no money. But he was not alone. Together with him, the organization of the new body was established by Felix Dzerzhinsky, whom Lenin appointed chairman of the Cheka (although there were others who wanted to head new organ, but Lenin chose Dzerzhinsky, calling him a “proletarian Jacobin”). There were 23 people in total. However, these were people who were completely dedicated to their cause.

Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission Dzerzhinsky called those days “the dance of life and death.”. Is it necessary to talk again about how much blood was shed then – including innocent blood? But let’s remember once again about the wave of banditry that swept Russia at that time, about the countless nighttime murders and robberies on the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Someone had to end this. The Reds were merciless to their own political opponents, but they themselves did not expect mercy. The “First Call” of the Cheka really believed that it would be able to organize its work in such a way that the “principle of justice and law,” as a reliable foundation, would never be shaken by anyone. None of them were preparing to become guardians of the state, all previous life was precisely dedicated to its destruction. But... strangely, here, in the flames of war and rebellion, in a web of conspiracies, in the midst of devastation and collapse, one of the most active and skillful intelligence services of the 20th century was born.

Already in April 1918, Peters, together with Dzerzhinsky in Moscow, led an operation to eliminate armed anarchist detachments, and in the same month he was elected the first secretary of the party organization in the history of the Cheka. At the same time, he led the liquidation of B. Savinkov’s “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” in Moscow and Kazan.

On July 6, 1918, during an armed uprising of the left Social Revolutionaries, Peters, together with members of the Cheka board V.V. Fomin and I.N. Polukarov, replaced the guards of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets in the Bolshoi Theater with more reliable Latvian riflemen. On July 7, after the suppression of the rebellion and Dzerzhinsky’s resignation, Peters was appointed temporary chairman of the Cheka by a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars. On August 22, after Dzerzhinsky's return, Peters was confirmed as his deputy. In this capacity, he led the investigation into the case of Fanny Kaplan, who shot Lenin, and the operation of the so-called. “conspiracy of ambassadors”, including arrests and investigations. Yakov Peters insisted on the complete uncontrollability of the Cheka, which carries out “searches, arrests, executions, giving a report afterwards to the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.” But he was replaced as deputy chairman of the Cheka by I.K. Ksenofontov. Peters began working in the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal and headed the headquarters for the fight against counter-revolution in Moscow.

In May 1919, Peters was sent to Petrograd as the extraordinary commissar of the city and the front line “to cleanse the city of counter-revolutionary gangs” (with a mandate from the Defense Council of the RSFSR) and, at the proposal of the Petrograd Defense Committee, was appointed chief of staff of internal defense (then chief of internal defense) of the city... In fact he became the dictator of Petrograd, launching a campaign of mass bloody terror there. Peters personally led the general arrests and executions within the city; lists were drawn up (based on phone books) of former dignitaries, military officers, capitalists, nobles, etc. to be arrested. He gave orders to arrest the wives and adult family members of officers who had gone over to the side of the whites.

In August 1919, Peters was appointed commandant of the Kyiv fortified area and head of the garrison, until the Red Army abandoned the city. In October of the same year, Peters was already in Tula, becoming a member of the military council of the fortified area.

Abroad, Yakov Peters was called the most ruthless Bolshevik who killed thousands of people. On this occasion, in 1919, a correspondent for the London Daily Express newspaper asked Mrs. Peters for an interview, telling him that her husband, the chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, “spends all his time signing execution orders during the Moscow Terror.” May answered firmly and with dignity and showed letters from Russia. The article about this meeting was entitled: “The wife of the leader of terror. The Moscow chief of murderers as an ideal husband."

The article appeared on October 7, and two days later the same Daily Express described the consequences of the “white” terror in Moscow, the number of victims in the explosion in the premises of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, and attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders. “Among those killed is the famous red terrorist Jacob Peters.” Another six months later, in the spring of 1920, he was declared dead again - “killed in Rostov by Denikin’s men.” May received a marriage proposal that summer - she was already considered a widow.

May Peters did not dare to travel to her husband in frightening Russia. This was done by another woman - the English artist and sculptor Claire Sheridan. In the fall of 1920, she barely reached Bolshevik Moscow. Later, Churchill’s cousin would write about her visits to house no. and injustice must be destroyed, made revolutionaries out of these people. In achieving such a goal, people with refined minds endured long years prisons, deprivations of revolutions and wars, the unimaginable stress of everyday work... The ambitious people in Russia all remained on the other side of the barricade.”

Claire was on her way to the man she continued to love. But they were able to see each other only in the spring of 1921 in Tashkent. At this time, Peters was already the extraordinary commissioner in the Turkestan Republic (from July 1920, before that the plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus) and a member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik gangs of Dutov, Annenkov, Enver Pasha, as well as the destruction of the “accomplices” of the Basmachi. At the same time, he is establishing a systematic capture of English and French spies. And at the same time he selects and forms the first Soviet station for transfer to the Entente countries.

As already mentioned, Peters was personally responsible for numerous executions, executions of hostages, torture, confiscations, etc. Jacob Peters was one of the most odious figures in the Cheka, distinguished by extreme ruthlessness.

According to newspaper reports of that time, when representatives of Rostov-on-Don workers came to him, as the head of the city, and said that the workers were starving, Peters answered them: “Is this hunger when your Rostov garbage pits are chock-full of various garbage and leftovers? Here in Moscow the garbage pits are completely empty and clean - as if they have been licked - that's hunger for you!

In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU. Working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. Since 1930 he was a member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1930–1934 - Chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Here a completely different story and different work begins, far from the stands, shootouts and party discussions, and Peters, completely unknown to us, appears, who, according to his friend Alksnis (future commander of the USSR Air Force), shortly before Dzerzhinsky’s death gave him the word “never to let go of those invisible threads that protect the country no worse than armies and fortified borders.”

Member Central Committee party, the chairman of the Party Control Commission, Jacob Peters, did not sign secret directives in the thirties. Developers covert operations only in rare cases did they know whose ideas they were embodying. Only Stalin and a few other people knew...

Stalin always outwardly treated Peters well, spoke of him as “the last romantic of revolutionary battles.” At the 16th Congress, when everyone was trashing Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, he forgave him for his “energetic silence” regarding the “right-wing danger” and the development of the idea of mass control. It seems that he forgave even more – participation in Tukhachevsky’s “conspiracy.” Or didn't you forgive?

Arrested on November 26, 1937. On April 25, 1938, on charges of participation in a counter-revolutionary organization, the Supreme Court of the USSR Armed Forces sentenced him to capital punishment and was executed on the same day.

But there is a special story connected with the death of Jacob Peters. The official certificate received by his wife after his rehabilitation (Peters’s second wife, Antonina Zakharovna, died in 1986) stated the date of death as 1942. According to other documents, he was shot in 1938. This happened - people were shot before their death certificates were reported. However... At the very beginning of the war, in August 1941, Peters’ daughter May (from his first marriage with Maisie Freeman - she came to Russia in 1928, aged fifteen), who was then working at the English embassy, told Antonina Zakharovna Peters that “one comrade, who did not identify himself,” asked through the wife of the embassy employee to convey the following phrase to her: “Your father is alive and continues to work.”

Late in the evening of one of the last days of October 1942, an airplane delivered from the front-line zone the body of a murdered senior lieutenant, judging by his uniform, whose head and shoulders were wrapped in a leather jacket. Two military counterintelligence officers specially flew to the front for him. The body was ordered to be taken for an autopsy. The head of the department who gave the order said: “Don’t be surprised at anything.” Before the autopsy, an identification parade was held, to which only one person attended. A doctor and a third-rank NKVD commissar were also present during the identification. The counterintelligence officers who brought the murdered man to Moscow were in the next room. One of them left this certificate, in which two names appear - the one who came for the identification, and the one who lay in front of him on the anatomical table. The first one was called Stalin; the second - Peters.

After an inspection carried out by the Main military prosecutor's office Peters was rehabilitated on March 3, 1956 by the Supreme Commissariat of the USSR Armed Forces as an old revolutionary fighter for the happiness of mankind.

Biography:

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich – one of the heads of the bodies state security V Soviet Russia. Real name: Peters Jacob. Born on November 21, 1886 in the Brinken volost of the Gazenpot district of the Courland province (Latvia). Son of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he joined the Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). Conducted agitation among the peasants. He was arrested in 1907 and emigrated in 1909. Lived in London. In 1917, he returned to Russia, a member of the Central Committee of the SDLC, its representative in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), editor of the newspaper “Tsinya”. In October 1917, member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Since December 1917, member of the board of the Cheka, deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. From July 8 to August 22, 1918, he temporarily acted as chairman of the Cheka instead of the suspended F.E. Dzerzhinsky, and then until March 1919 he was deputy chairman of the Cheka. In May 1919, extraordinary commissioner in Petrograd. In 1920-22, plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Since 1922, head of the Eastern Department of the GPU. Since 1923, member of the OGPU board. In 1930 he was transferred from the OGPU to party work. In 1930–1934 was the chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1937 he commanded the Kremlin security. In 1937 he was arrested. On April 25, 1938, he was sentenced to death and executed on the same day in the basements of the Lubyanka. In 1956 he was posthumously rehabilitated.

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Jacob Peters, Jekabs Peterss

Date of birth: November 21, 1886
Place of birth: Courland province, Russian empire(now Skrunda region, Latvia)
Date of death: April 25, 1938 (age 51)
Place of death: Kommunarka
Occupation:
Deputy Chairman of the Cheka Felix Dzerzhinsky, interim. And. O. Chairman of the Cheka from July 7 to August 22, 1918

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters (Latvian. Jekabs Peters; November 21 (December 3), 1886, Brinken volost, Gazenpot district, Courland province (territory modern Latvia) - April 25, 1938) - professional revolutionary, one of the founders and first leaders of the Cheka. Shot in 1938 during the Great Terror, rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.
Had a sign Honorary worker VChK-GPU No. 2.

In his autobiography, compiled in 1928 upon joining the All-Union Society of Old Bolsheviks, Peters indicated that he was the son of a farm laborer, from the age of 8 he had to look for food and herd cattle from neighboring farmers, and from the age of 14 he began to work for hire from a neighboring landowner together with farm laborers. However, in 1917, Peters, in a conversation with American journalist Bessie Beatty, said that he was the son of a “gray baron” (as rich peasant landowners were called in the Baltic region) and his father had hired workers.
In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic workers' party.
During the Revolution of 1905-1907, according to the questionnaire, he campaigned among peasants and farm laborers. In March 1907 he was arrested. He was accused of attempting to kill the plant director during a strike, but was acquitted at the end of 1908 by the Riga Military Court.
In exile (1909-1917)
In 1909 he emigrated to Hamburg, and from there in 1910 in London: Fyodor Rothstein, who helped Russian communists who found themselves in London settle down, recalled that he had to “tinker” with Peters, who, having fled the persecution of the tsarist government, was without a penny of money, didn't know a word of English. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC), the British Socialist Party and the Latvian Communist Club.
23 December 1910 Arrested by London police on suspicion of involvement in the murder of police officers during an attempted robbery in Houndsditch on the night of 16-17 December. Peters stated that the robbers were led by his cousin Fritz Swars, but Peters himself did not kill anyone. Soon, on January 3, 1911, the famous “Siege of Sidney Street” took place, where several Latvian terrorists days they fired back at the police. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units; the operation on the ground was led by then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. Peters was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which in May 1911 he was acquitted by the court for lack of evidence.
After his release, he met with Claire Sheridan, Winston Churchill's cousin. However, “at one of the parties, Claire noticed that Jacob suddenly lost interest in another political discussion... The reason for this was Claire’s friend - very young, quiet May, the daughter of a London banker.” He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. Before the February Revolution, Peters occupied the position of manager of the import department of a large English trading company.
During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin.
Revolution of 1917
After February Revolution 1917 arrived through Murmansk to Petrograd. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). He worked among military units on the Northern Front, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the 12th Army in August-October 1917. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya”.
He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky.
In the October days of 1917, a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, a delegate to the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Prepared military units for the October Revolution.
Work in the Cheka-GPU
After the October Revolution, a member of the board and an assistant (essentially a deputy) to the chairman and treasurer. Since April 1918, he was the first secretary of the party organization in the history of the Cheka.
It is with his name that the formation of the image of the “Latvian face” of the Cheka is associated: “The fact that the second person in the department of “proletarian reprisals” became J. H. Peters, who widely attracted his comrades and fellow countrymen who went through the difficult school of the Social Democratic underground in the Baltic region, who had experience of conspiracy and participation in military squads of 1905-1907.”
He supervised the liquidation of B. Savinkov’s “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” in Moscow and Kazan.
He took part in uncovering the Lockhart conspiracy and led the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of 1918. Since the murder of Mirbach on July 6, 1918 was carried out with documents signed by Dzerzhinsky, he was temporarily removed from the post of chairman of the Cheka, and his place was taken by Jacob Peters, who formed a new board of the Cheka exclusively from communists. On August 22 (after Dzerzhinsky's return), Peters was confirmed as his deputy.
He led the investigation into the case of the Socialist-Revolutionary F. Kaplan who attempted to assassinate V.I. Lenin.
On January 9, 1919, J. Peters, participating in a meeting of the Presidium of the Cheka (in addition to him, M. Latsis, Ksenofontov and secretary Murnek were present), issued a resolution: “The verdict of the Cheka against persons of the former imperial pack is to be approved by reporting this to the Central Executive Committee.” According to this decree, the Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in Petrograd.
He worked at the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, since 1918 one of its three chairmen, who sat alternately.
In March 1919, he was replaced as deputy chairman of the Cheka by Ksenofontov, Ivan Ksenofontovich, and in the same month he was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area.
On June 11, 1919, J. Peters developed and sent out “instructions for conducting an inspection of Petrograd” to the regions. According to this instruction, each district was divided into sections in which a complete inspection of all residential and non-residential premises was carried out; the main purpose of the searches was to find weapons. The following were subject to detention during searches: all persons who had with them firearms without the appropriate permissions, except only the owners hunting rifles; deserters; unregistered citizens; persons who did not have residence permits at all; all former police officers up to and including police officers and all former gendarmerie officers and non-commissioned officers.
On June 14, an order was given to begin a thorough inspection of all suspicious places and buildings in the districts, churches of all religions, bell towers, attics, basements, sheds, warehouses and squares.
In July 1919, with the retreat of the White troops of the Northern Corps (later the North-Western Army) from Petrograd, the department of the head of the internal defense of Petrograd, headed by Peters, was abolished by the establishment of the RVS of the 7th Army, and in its place the department of the head of the Petrograd fortified district. Peters became commandant of the fortified area and a member of the Defense Committee.
In August 1919, Peters was appointed commandant of the Kyiv fortified area and head of the garrison. At this time Kyiv was attacked from different sides white army Denikin and Petliura's troops.
Unable to change anything militarily, Peters and Latsis began to take it out on the internal enemy<...>One morning the newspapers came out with an endlessly long, two-column, list of those executed. There were, I think, 127 people; The motive for the shooting was stated to be a hostile attitude towards Soviet power and sympathy for volunteers. In fact, as it turned out later, the board of the Cheka, strengthened by Peters, decided to carry out mass shooting and selected from the list of prisoners everyone against whom it was possible to expose at least something incriminating<...>the actual number of those executed was not limited to the list given in the newspapers. On the very last day before the departure of the Bolsheviks, the checks were shot without any accounting or control.
After the fall of Kyiv, Peters was a member of the Military Council in Tula.
In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissar of the North Caucasus railway.
In Turkestan
In 1920-1922, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan and head of the Tashkent Cheka. He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik formations of Dutov, Annenkov, and Enver Pasha.
In May 1921, he met in Tashkent an acquaintance from London, F.A. Rothstein, who was appointed plenipotentiary envoy to Persia and accompanied him to Persia with an armed detachment of security officers.
In the summer of 1921, by order of Peters, Prof. P.P. Sitkovsky and all the doctors of the Sitkovsky clinic on charges of sabotage. Peters decided to make the trial a show and he himself acted at the trial as a public prosecutor.
In Moscow
In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. The new department united the work of security officers in the Caucasus, Turkestan, Bashkir, Tatar and Crimean autonomous republics, Bukhara and Khiva people's republics. The new department was charged with developing materials from the foreign part of the INO from the countries of the East; the execution of operational tasks of the eastern department was mandatory for the INO. The branches in the Eastern Department were led by Peters' deputy Vladimir Styrne, Eichmans and Mikhail Kazas. While working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was also the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. His KGB stage of his biography formally ended here, although Peters continued to work in control bodies.
At the end of 1929, Peters led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Of the 259 academicians and corresponding members, 71 were expelled, mostly scientists in the humanities. Many of them were arrested in the so-called “Academic Case”. The investigation into this case lasted for more than a year. The OGPU accused 70-year-old academician S.F. Platonov and his associates of intending to overthrow Soviet power and form a Provisional Government with the subsequent restoration of the monarchy in Russia.
Since 1930, a member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NRKI, at the 12-16th party congresses he was elected a member of the Central Control Commission. In 1930-1934, chairman of the Moscow Control Commission (MCC) of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. at the 17th Congress he was elected a member of the CPC under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Arrested on November 27, 1937. Executed on April 25, 1938 at the Kommunarka training ground. March 3, 1956 The Supreme Commander of the USSR Armed Forces was rehabilitated.
Quotes
Lockhart: “I always warned you cannot trust people who arrived from Russia, no matter what surnames they bear, because there are Great chance that these people visited the offices of the Lubyanka... Under the yoke of the charm of their owners, I myself almost stayed in Moscow to begin the life of an ideological fighter against world capitalism... I never believed the ROWS. The old people there have lost their fighting spirit, and their children are entirely Peters’ agents.”
Essays
Peters Ya. Memories of work in the Cheka in the first year of the revolution // Proletarian Revolution. - 1924. - No. 10 (33). - P.5 - 32.

Links:
1. Tukhachevsky suppresses the Tambov uprising
2. Ismail Akhmedov: Kim Philby found me
3. Yagoda Genrikh (Enoch) Grigorievich (Gershenovich)
4. Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion in Moscow 1918
5.

Jacob Peters, whom we do not know

Elena SYANOVA
Some remember him with hatred, others with admiration. The son of a Latvian farm laborer could become related to Churchill, become a London banker, and as a result created one of the strongest intelligence services in the world.

Izvestia information: Janis Peters

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich (11/21(12/3/1886 - 4/25/1938), Soviet party and statesman. Born in Latvia into the family of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party (LSDLP). After the revolution of 1905-1907. - emigrant, lived in London. In the October days of 1917 - a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After the October Revolution - member of the board and deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Participated in uncovering the Lockhart-Reilly plot; one of the leaders in the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary revolt of 1918; led the investigation into the case of Fanny Kaplan, who attempted to assassinate Lenin. In 1920-1922. - representative of the Cheka in Turkestan. Since 1923 - member of the OGPU board. Repressed. Rehabilitated posthumously.

They used to say about him - “a faithful Leninist”, “a fiery revolutionary”. Then - “executioner”, “bloody security officer”. But let's put emotions aside. Any state has weapons - special services. Angels do not work in them, but even harsh accusations, when carefully studied, often turn out to be legends. Peters was one of the founders of the Cheka, the main intelligence service of Soviet Russia. Neither he nor his comrades had ever prepared for this role. But it quickly became clear that these amateurs and self-taught people from scratch created one of the strongest intelligence and counterintelligence services in the world. We are interested, for example, in the inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.” Let’s also take an interest in Peters - he is also the creator of weapons.

Uncle Bob's Confession

One foggy London evening in 1931, nineteen-year-old Cambridge student Harold Adrian Philby (his family name was Kim) once again listened with interest to the memories of his father’s close friend, whom he simply called “Uncle Bob” (we know him as Robert Bruce Lockhart), about life in Russia. Then he said: “I wish I could be there.”

Lockhart, the famous intelligence officer and socialite, smiled:

Yes, in Russia I walked on the edge, my boy. It was exciting, but also tiring. After all, I walked on the earth, and they... climbed towards the “radiant idea”, into the heavens! With such a steep climb, sometimes a second wind of the mind opens. If our intelligence services cooperated, I would send the current analysts from Secret Service to Peters for internship. That's who would be able to knock down their academic arrogance.

Young Philby had already heard about Peters. But today, for the first time, the cynic Lockhart so vividly, although not without irony, connected this name with serving the “radiant idea”, in which the “second wind of the mind” opens. Coming from Sir Robert, this sounded like a curious paradox and made me think. And I haven't forgotten...

Siege of Hounsditch

A year before Kim Philby was born, on January 3, 1911, not far from his father’s mansion in the East End of London, an event occurred that later became known as the “Siege of Hounsditch.” 750 police surrounded the house - 100 Sydney Street. Soon the Londoners heard the sound of hurricane fire. The Scottish Guards with machine guns and artillery began to converge on the house. The Home Secretary himself, Sir Winston Churchill, led the fighting.

"Sotka" lasted for several hours and by evening was turned into flaming ruins. Firefighters found two corpses in them - Fritz Dumniek and Jan Votel (both Latvians). Churchill gave the order to begin mass arrests among Latvian social democrats and anarchists - it was announced that they were preparing a robbery of a jewelry store, which was prevented. Hundreds of people were arrested, but four were selected for the show trial, and among them was the twenty-five-year-old political emigrant Jan Peters (the deceased Dumniek was his cousin). The investigation lasted almost six months; evidence up to the model of this very jewelry store, under which the digging was allegedly carried out from the house - 100, was presented with extraordinary care - 655 pages of the criminal case plus the testimony of the minister himself. But... the court could not prove anything. Churchill ground his teeth. In addition, he was greatly tormented by the ridicule of his beloved cousin Claire Sheridan, who attended all court hearings. Sir Winston, in her opinion, looked quite pitiful at the trial. Churchill finally broke down:

You, baby, just fell in love with one of these young studs! Well, even if your shaggy “Karl Moor” is not guilty this time... that means he will still be guilty. Even the grave cannot correct people like him.

Jan Peters, Yuri Dubov, Peter Rosen and Minna Gristis were released. Rosen later recalled how a thin girl emerged from the crowd of reporters and “introduced herself and extended her hand to Ian. Both smiled at each other, as if they had known each other for many years.”

Banker's son-in-law

They started dating. Claire Sheridan studied at the London Academy of Art and planned to become a sculptor. She had interesting friends - journalists, artists, aspiring politicians. At one of the parties, Claire noticed that her “Karl Moor” suddenly lost interest in another political discussion... The reason for this was Claire’s friend - very young, quiet May, the daughter of a London banker.

A month later, Jan Peters and May Freeman became husband and wife.

Then, in one of his private letters, banker Freeman wrote:

“...My little Maisie is my wife... My son-in-law - a terrorist, anarchist and communist - escaped from a Latvian prison to end up in an English one in the “Hounsditch case”. God, how do you allow this?!. My daughter said, that they will live by their labor and refuse servants."

But after two years: “...I’m seriously thinking about my son-in-law in this matter. The guy has a bulldog’s grip. If we manage to completely straighten his brains, which, without a doubt, are created for a serious matter...”

The banker failed to “set his mind straight” - he failed to bourgeoisize his son-in-law. The winds of change began to blow more and more often from the continent. The war was running out of steam, in its death throes... The British brutally suppressed the Irish uprising; its leader Casement was publicly executed.

“When at the walls of the Tower the trumpeter announced the beginning of the execution and hundreds of Irishmen around me were crying and praying ... it was as if I saw Sir Roger’s gaze turned to me. “Look how I know how to die, you who once called yourself a revolutionary!” - said this look, Peters later recalled. “Shame for inaction and longing for my homeland - that’s what I could no longer bear.”

May 1, 1917 - last family photo as a keepsake: May's sad eyes, the smile of her four-year-old daughter in her father's arms - her dad promised her that they would come to him soon.

"Dance of Life and Death"

On May 6, Peters was already in Murmansk. Summer of the 17th - front line, rallies, meetings of Latvian riflemen... 650 speeches in 70 days.

"Latvia needs Europe, but Europe does not need us. I have firmly decided to be with Russia." These words were spoken by Peters American journalist John Reed in 1917. To Reed's wife Louise, who became a close friend, he (for the only time in his life!) complained that he had absolutely no idea how he could work in the new body - the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, something like the Committee of Public Safety, a punitive body during the Great French Revolution:

“On December 7, 1917, at a meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars, where the question of the fight against counter-revolution arose, there were those who wanted to head the Commission. But Lenin called Dzerzhinsky ... “a proletarian Jacobin.” Felix Edmundovich after the meeting sadly noted that if he is now Robespierre, then Peters is Saint-Just, apparently. But both of us are not laughing... Yesterday we were on Gorokhovaya. The house of the former mayor is empty, with broken windows. There are twenty-three of us, including typists and couriers. The entire “office” is in a thin folder. Dzerzhinsky; the whole “cash register” is in my leather jacket pocket. “Where to start?”

The chairman of the Extraordinary Commission, Dzerzhinsky, called those days “the dance of life and death.” Is it necessary to talk again about how much blood was shed then - including innocent blood? But let’s remember once again about the wave of banditry that swept Russia at that time, about the countless nighttime murders and robberies on the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Someone had to end this. The Red Robespierres and Saint-Justs were merciless towards their political opponents, but they themselves did not expect mercy. The “First Call” of the Cheka really believed that it would be able to organize its work in such a way that the “principle of justice and law” as a reliable foundation would never be shaken by anyone. None of them was preparing to become the guardian of the state; their entire previous life was devoted to its destruction. But... strangely, here, in an icy house, in the flames of war and rebellion, in a web of conspiracies, in the midst of devastation and collapse, one of the most active and skillful intelligence services of the twentieth century was born.

Among those who faced the fate of security officer Jan Peters at that time was Robert Bruce Lockhart. Among those to whom Lockhart later told about Peters was Kim Philby - this has already been mentioned. Many years later it will become clear: Kim Philby, one of the leaders of British intelligence, has been working for Soviet intelligence for a long time. It’s strange sometimes everything in life comes in a loop.

In 1919, a correspondent for the London Daily Express newspaper asked Mrs. Peters for an interview, telling him that her husband, the chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, "spends all his time signing execution orders during the Moscow Terror." May answered firmly and with dignity and showed letters from Russia. The article about this meeting was entitled: "The wife of the leader of terror. The Moscow boss of murderers as an ideal husband."

The article appeared on October 7, and two days later the same Daily Express described the consequences of the “white” terror in Moscow, the number of victims in the explosion in the premises of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders... “Among those killed was the famous red terrorist Jan Peters." Another six months later, in the spring of 1920, he was declared dead again - “killed in Rostov by Denikin’s men.” May received a marriage proposal that summer - she was already considered a widow.

May Peters did not dare to travel to her husband in Russia, which frightens her. This was done by another woman - the English artist and sculptor Claire Sheridan. In the fall of 1920, she barely reached Bolshevik Moscow. Later, Churchill’s cousin would write about her visits to the house - 11 on Lubyanka, about meetings with Dzerzhinsky, whose sculptural portrait she sculpted, with other leaders of the Cheka and the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: “It is not at all the ambition that drives our politicians, but the conviction that evil and injustice must be destroyed, made revolutionaries out of these people. In pursuit of such a goal, people with a refined mind endured long years of prison, hardships of revolutions and wars, unimaginable stress of everyday work... The ambitious people in Russia all remained on the other side of the barricade.”

Claire was on her way to the man she continued to love. But they were able to see each other only in the spring of 1921 in Tashkent. Peters, the extraordinary commissioner in the Turkestan Republic, leads operations to combat atamans like Dutov and Annenkov, the Basmachis, and organizes a systematic capture of English and French spies. And at the same time he selects and forms the first Soviet station for transfer to the Entente countries.

"Their children are all Peters agents"

Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of the Party Control Commission Jacob Peters did not sign secret directives in the thirties. The developers of covert operations only rarely knew whose ideas they were embodying. Only Stalin and a few other people knew...

In the comments to his memoirs, Lockhart wrote:

“I have always warned that you cannot trust people who arrived from Russia, no matter what surnames they bear, since there is a high probability that these people visited the offices of the Lubyanka... Under the yoke of the charm of their owners, I myself almost stayed in Moscow to begin the life of an ideological fighter against world capitalism." And further: “I never believed the ROWS. The old people there have lost their fighting fervor, and their children are entirely Peters’ agents.”

This was written when “Peters’ agents” had already done their job.

EMRO - The Russian All-Military Union, which had branches all over the world, was preparing sabotage against Bolshevik Russia. Already in 1922, sons and relatives of White Guard officers and leaders of the union began to appear in Europe, “escaping” from Russia to their fathers. Young people with big names immediately received favorable attention foreign intelligence services. When the shadow of fascism began to creep over Europe, it was they who formed the basis, the support of the Soviet station, carried out and prepared a number of brilliant operations... and almost everyone died as a result of “turning a bull in a china shop” - this is how Peters bitterly assessed what happened in 1937.

Stalin outwardly always had a great attitude towards Peters, speaking of him as “the last romantic of revolutionary battles.” At the 16th Congress, when everyone was trashing Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, he forgave him for his “energetic silence” regarding the “right-wing danger” and the “persistent” development of the idea of mass control. It seems that he forgave even more - participation in Tukhachevsky’s “conspiracy.” Or didn't you forgive?

The death of Peters is a special story. In the official certificate received by his wife after his rehabilitation (Peters’ second wife Antonina Zakharovna died in 1986), the date of death is 1942. According to other documents, he was shot in 1938. This happened - people were shot earlier than their death certificates reported. However...

The last riddle

At the very beginning of the war, in August 1941, Peters’ daughter May (she came to Russia in 1928, aged fifteen), who was then working at the British embassy, told Antonina Zakharovna Peters that “one comrade who did not identify himself”, through the wife of an embassy employee asked me to convey to her the following phrase: “Your father is alive and continues to work.”

That he was alive - that's what everyone hoped for. But “he continues to work.” Peters was arrested in front of his son and wife; she well remembered how one of the searchers crushed the Order of the Red Banner with the heel of his boot...

However, there is another testimony of a comrade who also “did not identify himself.” It is not documented, so we will consider this story only a version - although something prevents me from calling it a fairy tale.

"Fantastic times are born fantastic legends, but this creativity is always accurate, selective and fair, since it is accountable to History itself." John Reed.

Izvestia information: Claire Sheridan

Sculptor, writer, political journalist. Cousin Winston Churchill. File on Claire Sheridan English secret Service declassified last year. It turned out that, according to the British, Claire Sheridan was an agent Soviet intelligence, to whom she conveyed the contents of conversations with her famous relative. The dossier says that on instructions from Soviet intelligence, Sheridan worked in Constantinople and Algeria. From Sheridan's personal letters intercepted by the intelligence services, it turned out that she traveled to Nazi Germany and participated in meetings chaired by Hitler. She was the mistress of Ismet Bey, who opposed British policies in India. The list of her other lovers includes French generals and major politicians. At the same time, Claire herself claimed that she helped British intelligence collect dossiers on Soviet leaders, in particular on Lev Kamenev.

Churchill was ashamed of his uncontrollable niece and did not free her from intelligence surveillance.

Izvestia information: Robert Bruce Lockhart

In 1918, British Ambassador to Soviet Russia. Key person anti-Bolshevik "conspiracy of ambassadors". The investigation into his case was led by Peters. Expelled from the country. Returning to England, Lockhart became a journalist. With the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the political intelligence department of the British Foreign Office. Lockhart, traditionally considered in the Soviet Union as the personification of world imperialism, maintained excellent personal relations with Soviet diplomats, objectively did a lot to strengthen Anglo-Soviet relations and always treated Russia with sympathy.

Izvestia information: Kim Philby

Soviet super intelligence officer, head of the famous "Cambridge Five". The position he held before coming under suspicion in 1951 was the representative of British intelligence at the CIA and FBI in Washington (equated to the position of deputy chief of the British Intelligence Service). His work, according to the CIA leadership, led to the fact that “all Western intelligence efforts in the period from 1944 to 1951 were ineffective. It would be better if we did nothing at all.” In 1963 he fled to the USSR, died in Moscow in 1988.

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters - November 21 (December 3) 1886 - April 25, 1938) - terrorist, creator of the Soviet repressive body (VChK), which became the most important intelligence service of Soviet Russia, high-ranking official. Born in the Brinken volost of the Gazenpot district of the Courland province (the territory of modern Latvia) in the family of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party (LSDRP). During the Revolution of 1905-1907, according to the questionnaire, he campaigned among peasants and farm laborers. In March 1907 he was arrested. He was accused of attempting to kill the plant director during a strike, but was acquitted at the end of 1908 by the Riga Military Court. After the revolution of 1905-1907. emigrated and lived in London. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). Member of the British Socialist Party. In December 1910, he took part in the murder of English policemen, after which he held the famous “siege on Sydney Street” with a group of militants. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units and artillery; the operation on the spot was commanded by the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. In the case of the “Siege on Sydney Street” he was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which he was acquitted by the court. He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin. After the February Revolution of 1917, he came to Petrograd through Murmansk. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). Conducted work among military units on the Northern Front. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating along with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya”. He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky. In the October days of 1917 - a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Prepared military units for the October Revolution. After the October Revolution - member of the board and deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He took part in uncovering the Lockhart conspiracy and led the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of 1918. He led the investigation into the case of the Socialist-Revolutionary F. Kaplan who attempted to assassinate V.I. Lenin. In March 1919 he was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area. After Yudenich's retreat, in August 1919 he was appointed commandant of the fortified area in Kyiv, and after the fall of Kyiv - a member of the Military Council in Tula. In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissioner of the North Caucasus Railway. In 1920-1922, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan. He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik formations of Dutov, Annenkov, and Enver Pasha. In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. Working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. His KGB career this ended. At the end of 1929, he led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and took part in the fabrication of the “academic case.” Since 1930 - member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NRKI. In 1930-1934 - Chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Arrested on November 27, 1937. Shot on April 25, 1938. In 1956 he was posthumously completely rehabilitated.

Born in the Brinken volost of the Gazenpot district of the Courland province (the territory of modern Latvia) in the family of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party (LSDLP). During the Revolution of 1905-1907, according to the questionnaire, he campaigned among peasants and farm laborers. In March 1907 he was arrested. He was accused of attempting to kill the plant director during a strike, but was acquitted at the end of 1908 by the Riga Military Court. After the revolution of 1905-1907. emigrated and lived in London. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). Member of the British Socialist Party. In December 1910, he took part in the murder of English policemen, after which he held the famous “siege on Sydney Street” with a group of militants. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units and artillery; the operation on the spot was commanded by the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. In the case of the “Siege on Sydney Street” he was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which he was acquitted by the court. He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin. After the February Revolution of 1917, he came to Petrograd through Murmansk. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). Conducted work among military units on the Northern Front. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya”. He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky. In the October days of 1917, he was a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Prepared military units for the October Revolution. After the October Revolution - member of the board and deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He took part in uncovering the Lockhart conspiracy and led the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of 1918. He led the investigation into the case of the Socialist-Revolutionary F. Kaplan who attempted to assassinate V.I. Lenin. In March 1919 he was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area. After Yudenich's retreat, in August 1919 he was appointed commandant of the fortified area in Kyiv, and after the fall of Kyiv - a member of the Military Council in Tula. In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissioner of the North Caucasus Railway. In 1920-1922, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan. He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik formations of Dutov, Annenkov, and Enver Pasha. In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. Working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. His KGB career ended there. At the end of 1929, he led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and took part in the fabrication of the “academic case.” Since 1930 - member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NRKI. In 1930-1934 - Chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Arrested on November 27, 1937. Shot on April 25, 1938. In 1956 he was posthumously completely rehabilitated.