Orlov Alexander Mikhailovich (Leib Lazarevich Feldbin), an employee of the USSR NKVD: biography

In 1952, the famous American magazine Life, published a series of articles that became a sensation. In them, the author, a former Soviet intelligence officer, and by that time a defector who secretly fled to the West - Igor Konstantinovich Berg - disclosed facts that testified to the crimes of the Stalin regime, which he knew, as they were called, from within, and to which he had most direct relation. Who is this man and what made him leave his homeland?

Youth future scout

His real name is Leib Lazarevich Feldbin. He was born on August 21, 1895 in a Jewish family, who lived in the town of Bobruisk in the Minsk province. So he would have lived all his life in this distant city from the capital, but in 1916, at the height of World War I, he received a summons and was forced to wear a soldier's overcoat. However, the frozen trenches of the advanced positions did not wait for the young Leib Feldbin, who served in the rear until the beginning of the February revolution.

Faintly oriented in the maelstrom of political trends that swept Russia after the fall of the autocracy, in February 1917 he joined the United Internationalists party, which was one of the creations of the then Social Democrats. But in the ranks of this organization he did not stay long - after being in the ranks of the Red Army on the fronts of the Civil War, Leib became a member of the RCP (b).

Lev Lazarevich - special department employee

Having learned from childhood the bitterness of poverty and the national humiliation engendered by the famous law on the Pale of Settlement for the Jews, he wholeheartedly believed in the lofty ideals that the Bolsheviks proclaimed the goal of their political activity. Leib was then only twenty-five years old, and with all his youthful fervor he rushed to fight those who, according to his ideological idols, prevented the onset of universal happiness.

In 1920, he became an employee of the Special Division of the 12th Army and took part in the disclosure and liquidation of counterrevolutionary organizations in Ukraine. For the outstanding in this case outstanding combat and organizational qualities, Leyba is appointed the next year commander of a special detachment. In the same period, he changes his name and surname, so that henceforth in all documents is listed as Lev Lazarevich Nikolsky.

The stages of official growth and study in Moscow

In 1921, the party sent Lev Lazarevich to Arkhangelsk, to manage the secret-operational part. Here, in a short time, he is appointed head of the intelligence and investigation department and authorized by the filtration of those whiteguard officers who were given the opportunity to leave Russia.

In the same year, Nikolsky as a promising worker and member of the RCP (b) receives a referral to study in Moscow, where the next four years he conducts as a student of the School of Law, established on the basis of the Moscow University. All this time in classrooms he combines with practical work in law enforcement agencies, and upon completion of his studies is credited with an employee of the economic department of the GPU, headed by his cousin Zinoviy Katznelson.

Foreign Intelligence Service

The career of scout Lev Lazarevich began in 1926, with enlistment in the staff of the foreign department of the OGPU. The specifics of future work forced him to continue living under an assumed name. From now on, his documents were: Orlov Alexander Mikhailovich. The former name and name were left only in the secret folders of the personnel department.

Having completed appropriate training and excellent knowledge of several foreign languages, he performs various tasks in many countries of Europe and America. In particular, it was Orlov who worked directly with Kim Philby, a senior British intelligence officer recruited by the Soviet special services. Thanks to Orlov, a whole network of agents working for the Soviet Union was created around him. This was the famous "Cambridge Group", which entered the world history of intelligence services.

Spanish gold

In 1936 a civil war broke out in Spain, and Orlov Alexander Mikhailovich is sent there to help the republican government as a specialist in internal security and counterintelligence. Here, with his participation, an operation was prepared and brilliantly carried out to transfer to the Soviet Union a large part of Spain's gold reserve, which resulted in 510 tons of precious metal in the Moscow safes, accounting for almost 73% of everything that the Spanish State Bank had. He also carried out many other tasks, which he gave the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

A difficult decision

In 1936, Stalin gives a push to the process that caused one of the darkest periods of Soviet history and known as the Great Terror. The country in those years was swept by a wave of mass repression, the victims of which in the overwhelming majority became innocent people. They also touched upon the political and military leadership. Many founders and veterans of the Cheka were removed from their posts, and later arrested and shot on obviously far-fetched charges. Among them there were many with whom Orlov began his service.

Alexander Mikhailovich knew perfectly well that sooner or later the same fate awaited him. Confidence in this was also reinforced by numerous reviews of diplomats working abroad in Moscow. They were ordered to come on official business, and were arrested along with family members right at the gangway of the plane. In February 1938, Orlov finally ripened the decision to break with the state, whose regime he considered criminal and representing a mortal danger for him and his family.

Forced flight

At this time, under very mysterious circumstances, the immediate head of Orlov, the head of the foreign department of the NKVD, Abram Slutsky, unexpectedly died, and SM Spigelglas was appointed in his place. On February 17, Alexander Mikhailovich received an order to meet him aboard the Soviet ship "Svir", who arrived in Antwerp. However, he had every reason to believe that, having risen on the ladder, he would be trapped.

At a meeting with his new boss, he never showed up. Instead, having taken his wife and daughter, and at the same time, sixty thousand dollars from the service fund, Orlov Alexander Mikhailovich secretly left for France, and from there he moved to Canada through Canada. In the Soviet Union, he had relatives. To protect them from possible repression associated with his escape, Orlov sent a letter to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In it, he warned that if the people close to him were injured, he would pass on to foreign services information about Soviet intelligence officers who worked in different countries of the world.

The reaction of the authorities

This threat, Orlov managed to protect only his family, who really did not touch in order to avoid the promised failures, but many espionage leaders suffered from his escape. Among them was Yakov Serebryansky, who was the head of a special operative group and directed the work of sixteen residents in several western states. He was arrested along with his wife and sentenced to death. Under unexplained circumstances, the verdict was not enforced, and the couple again found themselves at liberty, but it is difficult even to imagine what they had to endure.

Materials published by Orlov

Living in America under the name of Igor Konstantinovich Berg, Orlov published in the journal Life a series of articles, which have already been mentioned above. In them he described in detail those crimes of the communist regime, whose witness and compelled accomplice he was in the period of service in the NKVD. A great place in this publication was assigned to the role of Stalin in the lawlessness of the USSR.

Later, these materials were included in a book published in New York in 1953 and translated into many languages. The information contained in it was used by many researchers even before its publication in Russia in 1991. In the early sixties, another Orlov book was published, designed for a very definite circle of readers-in it he shared his experience of guerrilla warfare and the organization of a counterintelligence service.

Late invitation

While in America, Orlov had reason to fear the revenge of the Moscow authorities more than other Soviet defectors, because he knew many secrets of their special services. Living for many years under an assumed name and carefully concealing his address, the former scout remained out of reach for the NKVD, and subsequently the KGB.

Only in the mid-sixties Soviet agent Mikhail Feaktistov managed to establish his whereabouts. However, the times have changed, and the information that Orlov possessed has lost its relevance, therefore nothing much threatened his life. At the same time, Feaktistov visited the Orlovs' couple and handed over the invitation of the Soviet government to return to their homeland. They were guaranteed freedom, and Alexander Ivanovich also the return of the military rank along with all the rewards that he had.

Orlovs refused. They were already under seventy, to start anew in the country, from which they had become unaccustomed for many years, the old people did not want to. Alexander Ivanovich only asked to convey to the current leaders of the country that, despite numerous interrogations, the FBI did not receive from him any information about the agent networks created with his participation. Orlov said that he simply could not betray those who trusted him unconditionally and served the same idea before which he himself once worshiped.

After his death, which occurred on March 25, 1977, in the absence of heirs, a federal judge was instructed to seal and send to the archive all the documents of the deceased, including the manuscripts of the memoirs. They had to be kept there until 1999 and only after that could they become public.