Alexander Ulanovsky
Encyclopedia
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GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
), who was rezident the United States from 1931 until 1934 and later, with his family, prisoner in the Soviet gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
.
Background
Born into a Jewish family in Kishinev, (BessarabiaBessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
), as Izrail Khaykelevich Ulanovsky, he joined the anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
as a young man. In 1907, his family moved to Kerch
Kerch
Kerch is a city on the Kerch Peninsula of eastern Crimea, an important industrial, transport and tourist centre of Ukraine. Kerch, founded 2600 years ago, is considered as one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine.-Ancient times:...
, (Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
). Arrested for radical activity, he was deported to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, where he was confined to the same village as Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. While in exile, he made a daring escape and "on his way out" entered Stalin's flat and took his fur coat, as was customary among fellow-exiles in such a situation.
Russian Revolution
Following the October RevolutionOctober Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Ulanovsky returned to Russia and enlisted in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. He served as the deputy-commander of an armored train (under anarchist revolutionary Anatoli Zhelezniakov) and took part in fighting against White armies
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
. After the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, he joined Soviet military intelligence and served as a secret agent in, among other places, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
.
America
Together with his wife Nadezhda, Ulanovsky came to America on the maiden voyage of the SS Bremen in 1931. His mission was to take over the GRU (military intelligence) apparatus assembled by his predecessor, Manfred SternManfred Stern
Manfred Stern was a member of the GRU, Soviet military intelligence. He served as a spy in the United States, as a military advisor in China, and gained fame under his nom de guerre as General Kléber, leader of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.- Early life :He was born into...
, who was moving on to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Some of the known members of the group were Lydia Stahl
Lydia Stahl
Lydia Stahl was a secret agent who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence in New York and Paris.She was born Lydia Chkalov in Rostov, in the south of Russia, in 1890. Once the wife of a Tsarist officer, she later married Baron Stahl, a Baltic nobleman, and emigrated to the United States where...
, Robert Gordon Switz, Leon Minster, Robert Osman, Joshua Tamer, and Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
.
In his memoirs, Witness, Chambers provided an insider's view of the workings of the apparatus and a deferential portrait of Ulanovsky, whom he called "the only Russian who was ever to become my close friend."
The spy Hede Massing
Hede Massing
Hede Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War II, she defected from the Soviet underground...
also knew Ulanovsky at this time under the alias "William Joseph Berman" ("Bill Berman"—also "Felik" and "the Long Man"). In her memoirs, she picked up on his anarchist tendencies without understanding where they came from. Thus, she describes as a "nice enough man," a "simple man," and "one of the least ambitious and offensive" Russian agents she ever knew, but also "but "confused and inept." When Massing mentions that Ulanovsky had told her he was not her boss and that they were "both waiting for the boss, she implies that he ranked closely to her. Clearly, however, Ulanovsky meant not that "the" (their) boss but that "her" boss was coming (Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin was the chief illegal rezident and director of the espionage operations of the Soviet Union in the United States from 1933 to 1934...
). Despite all this, she notes, "But one thing he did know expertly. This was conspiracy."
The group's principal activity was securing patent applications, blueprints, and technical manuals which they would pack into a large crate and ship to the Soviet Union. Ulanovsky returned to Europe after the failure of several GRU operations, notably a bungled scheme to counterfeit U.S. currency and the arrest of Robert Osman in Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
on espionage charges. An NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
illegal, Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin was the chief illegal rezident and director of the espionage operations of the Soviet Union in the United States from 1933 to 1934...
, came to America and took control of GRU operations in 1934.
Europe
Ulanovsky resurfaced in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1935, operating under the alias Nathan Sherman and acting as the head of a Soviet espionage ring that collected military information on Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The Danish police arrested Ulanovsky and two Americans, Leon Josephson and George Mink, following a search of their hotel room which turned up codes, money, and multiple passports. The motive for the search was a charge of rape against Mink by a chambermaid. Ulanovsky claimed they were Jewish anti-fascists acting on their own, but the police produced information, possibly obtained from the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, that proved they were working for Soviet intelligence. The Danes held a secret trial and convicted Ulanovsky of spying and sentenced him to eighteen months in prison. He was later deported to the Soviet Union. (Josephson returned to America and worked as a lawyer representing Socialist clients of the Café Society
Café Society
Café society was the collective description for the so-called "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London beginning in the late 19th century...
. Mink went to Spain where he served as an NKVD assassin during the Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and then disappeared from the historical record.)
Gulag
Remarkably, Ulanovsky survived the Great PurgeGreat Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
. In 1948, his wife Nadezhda was arrested. To no avail, he wrote Stalin a letter recalling their days in Tsarist exile, with assurances that his wife was a loyal Soviet citizen. He was arrested in 1949 as a former anarchist and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. They were both released under Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
. In the 60s they were close to dissident circles in Moscow. Ulanovsky died in 1970 and his wife – in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1983.
See also
- Whittaker ChambersWhittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
. - Hede MassingHede MassingHede Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War II, she defected from the Soviet underground...
- Valentin MarkinValentin MarkinValentin Markin was the chief illegal rezident and director of the espionage operations of the Soviet Union in the United States from 1933 to 1934...
- Richard SorgeRichard SorgeRichard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
- Ignace Reiss
Sources
- Hede Massing, This Deception, Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1951.
- Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers, Random House, 1997.
- Maya and Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, Istoriya Odnoi Semyi (One Family's Story), Chalidze PublicationsValery ChalidzeValery Chalidze is a Georgian-American author, publisher, and the former Soviet dissident and human rights activist.Chalidze was born in Moscow...
, 1982. - Louis Waldman, Labor Lawyer, E.P. Dutton, 1944.
- Улановские Надежда и Майя: История одной семьи. С.-Петербург : Инапресс, 2005.