Viktor Semenovich Abakumov is an odious and controversial figure in the inner circle of Joseph Stalin. The rapid career of a military official still raises many questions and provokes heated discussions today. How an ordinary Chekist with four classes of education managed in a matter of years to head the punitive department of the country, whose name millions of Soviet citizens were afraid to pronounce, is a mystery.

The future head of SMERSH was born in April 1908 in Moscow and was brought up in a poor, semi-literate family, where his father worked as a hospital laborer: a cleaner, later a stoker. In pre-revolutionary times, my mother worked as a seamstress, and after the October events of 1917, as a laundress in a hospital.

Victor did not have to pore over textbooks: according to personal data, he studied for 3 years at the city school, but in the official biography written by Abakumov before the elections to the Supreme Council, there is the number 4.

At the end of the winter of 1921, Viktor Abakumov became a volunteer in the Moscow brigade of special forces, where he served as an orderly until the end of 1923. For two years, the young man was interrupted by odd jobs - he worked as a laborer and a loader.

At the beginning of 1925, a 17-year-old guy was taken to the Moscow Promsoyuz as a packer. After 2 years, Abakumov was entrusted with protecting military-industrial enterprises. The young man joined the ranks of the Komsomol and a year later, in 1928, he was accepted as a packer in the warehouses of the Central Union.

Viktor Abakumov felt the effect of the "social lift" in 1930, after joining the ranks of the Communist Party. The young party member was "picked up" by the campaign to nominate workers to the Soviet apparatus: through the trade union line, 22-year-old Abakumov was appointed deputy head of the trade and parcel office of the People's Commissariat of Trade and secretary of the Komsomol cell.

Six months later, Viktor Abakumov was transferred to lead the cell of the Komsomol members of the press stamping plant, where he was elected secretary. Another year - and the young Komsomol leader is in charge of the military department of the district committee of the Komsomol in Zamoskvorechye.

An invisible hand was rapidly moving Viktor Abakumov to the very top. After a year of work in the Zamoskvoretsky district committee of the Komsomol, in January 1932, Abakumov was taken to practice in the economic department of the OGPU of the Moscow region. Six months later, the trainee rose to the rank of authorized department, another six months - and the young Chekist found himself in the central apparatus of the OGPU (later the NKVD).

The rapid career rise was interrupted in the summer of 1934: Viktor Abakumov was "exiled" to the Gulag. True, not as a prisoner, but as an operative of the security department of the main administration of the camps. According to rumors, 26-year-old Abakumov was so carried away by the foxtrot and women that he forgot about the service.

But the “exile” for the “foxtrot” (as his colleagues called him behind his back) lasted only 3 years: in 1937, the zealous employee was encouraged: Abakumov was awarded the rank of junior lieutenant of state security. From that moment on, there are no obstacles in the way of career growth of the Chekist. In 1938, Nikolai Abakumov was a lieutenant of the State Security Service and assistant to the head of the secret political department.

In this post, strength and physical endurance came in handy: during interrogations, the lieutenant does not spare the arrested. The diligence of the young KGBist was noticed by the head of the secret political department, Bogdan Kobulov. "Kobulich", as he is called, is not only a master of torture investigation, but also the right hand of Lavrenty Beria.

His praise and recommendation for Viktor Abakumov came in handy: in December 1938, Abakumov, bypassing the stage, was awarded the rank of captain of state security and entrusted to lead the UNKVD of the Rostov region. In 1940, Viktor Abakumov was a senior major.

Lavrenty Beria valued diligent and devoted people, among whom was Abakumov. For this, in February 1941, Lavrenty Pavlovich took him as his deputy, and as soon as the war began, he appointed him head of military counterintelligence. In the summer, Viktor Abakumov received the rank of commissioner of the State Security Service of the 3rd rank, which in the army was equal to the rank of lieutenant general.

In the spring of 1943, after the reorganization, the military counterintelligence was removed from the subordination of Beria. Now the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence (SMERSH) reports to Stalin, and Viktor Abakumov is a frequent guest in the main Kremlin office.

In the field of attention of the head of the main department of counterintelligence Abakumov is the military elite, which is being monitored for a ripening conspiracy. In this field, the zealous leader of SMERSH is approached and treated kindly by Iosif Vissarionovich. Wiretapping, surveillance, collection of compromising materials on Marshal Georgy Zhukov, generals Grigory Kulik, Vasily Gordov (both shot) and many others are the direct duties of Viktor Abakumov.

The head of SMERSH received the first Order of the Red Banner in 1940. During the war, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov of the 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star and 6 medals were added to the award.

The Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree, was awarded to Viktor Abakumov for his work on the eviction of the Ingush and Chechen population, and for the repressions and deportations in Prussia and Poland, he was awarded the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree. In 1945, Viktor Semenovich - Colonel General, at the zenith of fame and favorite of the leader. The following year, Stalin approved a new structure for the Ministry of State Security, replacing Minister Vsevolod Merkulov with Abakumov.

Stalin wanted to see at the head of the ministry a person who was devoted and intimidating to everyone, including the top of the Politburo. Viktor Abakumov met the criteria: the head of the Cheka (as Stalin called the MGB) was feared and hated. Contemporaries of the chief "Chekist" recalled that he enjoyed the atmosphere of fear, general suspicion and self-importance. Abakumov liked to brag that the information obtained by the MGB put an end to the careers, and even the lives of officials of the highest echelon of power.

Historians and researchers are sure that the murder of the People's Artist of the USSR Solomon Mikhoels is on the conscience of Viktor Abakumov. This "Chekist No. 1" later admitted during interrogation, saying that Joseph Stalin ordered the liquidation of Mikhoels by the MGB forces, staging an accident.

Torture and brutal beatings of prisoners were carried out not only by subordinates, but also by Abakumov himself. But in the 1950s, the pendulum swung the other way: Viktor Abakumov fell out of favor with the leader. Party workers were introduced into the collegium of the MGB, which meant distrust of the Chekist elite.

Stalin finally alienated Abakumov after returning from vacation in December 1951. The last time Viktor Stepanovich crossed the threshold of the leader was in April 1951, a day after he was removed from his ministerial post.

Abakumov was arrested on the denunciation of MGB senior investigator M. Ryumin. Ryumin claimed that his boss did not report to the Central Committee about the failures of counterintelligence work in Germany, where uranium ore was mined at the Wismuth factories. He also lost his vigilance and released the arrested cardiologist Yakov Etinger, who could have told the MGB about the "pest doctors". Russian by nationality, Abakumov was accused of a Zionist conspiracy.

In July 1951, the Politburo accused Abakumov of "deceiving the Party". On July 12, the former head of the MGB was arrested. In February 1952, Stalin ordered that the case of yesterday's favorite be transferred from the prosecutor's office to the MGB. Former subordinates tortured the ex-chief with particular zeal: Viktor Abakumov experienced the entire "range" of torture, including being in a cell with artificial cold.

In March 1952, yesterday's all-powerful head of SMERSH and the MGB, after being tortured in the Lefortovo prison, could hardly stand on his feet. But Viktor Abakumov did not admit his guilt, the investigation moved slowly. He was transferred to Butyrka prison. The handcuffs to the prisoner were not removed.

Stalin was interested in the progress of the investigation in the "doctors' case" and the case of Abakumov-Shvartsman, expressing irritation with the slow progress of the investigation. In February 1953, under pressure from the Secretary General, Minister of State Security Ignatiev proposed to consider the case at the Military Collegium without involving defense and prosecution and to sentence those under investigation to death.

Stalin's death did not cause Abakumov to be pardoned. Malenkov and Molotov remembered old grievances. Beria did not pull Abakumov out of the dungeons: he was concerned about his own salvation.

A number of historians consider the accusations leveled against General Abakumov to be far-fetched. And the former Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov wrote in his memoirs that Viktor Abakumov, having endured incredible suffering and torture, denied the “conspiracy of doctors”, thanks to which the arrested were released in the spring of 1953.

They returned to the case of Viktor Abakumov in the spring of 1954 after the execution of Beria, classifying him as part of the “Beria gang”. He was tried in the Leningrad District House of Officers with five other prisoners. Abakumov was accused of unfounded arrests, the use of criminal methods of investigation and the falsification of investigative files. Five employees of the secretariat were accused of concealing the complaints of those arrested. Abakumov was sentenced to death.

The sentence was executed on December 19, 1954 at the Levashovskaya Pustosha, the former NKVD firing range near Leningrad.