Semyon Ignatyev
Encyclopedia
Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev, also spelled Ignatyev ' onMouseout='HidePop("34186")' href="/topics/Karlivka">Karlivka
Karlivka
Karlivka is a city in Poltava Oblast, Ukraine. Population is 17,995 . Until the 1950s the city was known as Karlovka.-See Also:* Karlivka...

 – 27 November 1983 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

) was a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 politician.

Ignatiev, the son of a peasant,
an engineer, joined the Communist Party in 1926. For most of his career, he was a discreet regional apparatchik
Apparatchik
Apparatchik is a Russian colloquial term for a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party or government; i.e., an agent of the governmental or party "apparat" that held any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management...

, serving as Party Secretary in Buryat ASSR, Bashkir ASSR, Byelorussian SSR
Byelorussian SSR
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...

 and finally Uzbek SSR
Uzbek SSR
The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Uzbek SSR for short, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union since its creation in 1924...

. He was called to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 in 1950. 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...

 wanted Ignatiev to counter the influence of Lavrenti Beria and Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...

, the two leading officials of the secret police at the time.

In 1951, he was chosen by Stalin to replace Abakumov as the Minister of the MGB of the USSR. During his tenure as head of the secret police, Ignatiev investigated the Doctors' Plot
Doctors' plot
The Doctors' plot was the most dramatic anti-Jewish episode in the Soviet Union during Joseph Stalin's regime, involving the "unmasking" of a group of prominent Moscow doctors, predominantly Jews, as conspiratorial assassins of Soviet leaders...

 and helped propagating antisemitism in the Soviet Union, acting on Stalin's direct orders.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...

 from 1952 until 1961. He also briefly served as a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee (previously named Politburo) in the final months before Stalin's demise.

Immediately after the Soviet leader's death, Ignatiev lost most of his power, as Beria absorbed the MGB into his MVD on 5 March 1953. Ignatiev was sent back to Bashkir ASSR and ended his political career as the Party Secretary in Tatar ASSR, before retiring in 1960.

Unlike Beria and Abakumov, who were executed in 1953, Ignatiev ultimately became Stalin's only head of secret police to enjoy a peaceful death. He died in 1983 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Moscow, Russia. It is next to the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. It should not be confused with the Novodevichy Cemetery in Saint Petersburg....

in Moscow, along with many members of the Soviet elite.

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