Vadim Birstein - The Perversion of Knowledge

Ignatiev, Semyon(1904–1983), Party and MGB figure, from 1937–1950, in different Party positions. Head of the Department of the Party, Trade Unions and Komsomol [Communist Youth] Cadres of the Central Committee (CC) (1950–1952) and, simultaneously, MGB minister (1951–1953). Also a member of the Presidium (Politburo) (1952–1953) and from March–April 1953, secretary of the CC. Later in different regional Party positions. Resigned in 1960 (Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria , p. 448).

Ioffe, Abram(1880–1960), physicist. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Technological Institute (1902), at the laboratory of Wilhelm Roentgen (the discoverer of X-rays) in Munich. From 1906, at the Polytechnic Institute in St. Petersburg. Corresponding member (1918), academician (1920). Director of the Physical-Technical Institute in Petrograd/Leningrad (1923–1950). Vice president of the academy (1932–1960), and secretary academician of its Physics Division (1942–1945). Took part in the Soviet atomic project. In 1942, joined the Communist Party. Hero of Socialist Labor (1955).

Kaganovich, Lazar(1893–1991), Party figure. Joined the Party in 1911. Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) (1924–1925 and 1928–1939), and a Politburo member (1926–1929 and 1930–1957). First secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee (1925–1928 and 1947), first secretary of the Moscow Committee (1930–1935), commissar of transportation (1935–1944), member of the State Committee of Defense (1942–1945). Deputy chairman (1944–1953), and first deputy chairman (1953–1957) of the Council of Commissars/Ministers. In 1957 dismissed from the CC; director of a small local plant (1957–1961).

Kapitsa, Pyotr(1894–1984), physicist. Graduated from Petrograd Polytechnical Institute (1919). At Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge University, England) (1921–1934). Corresponding member (1929), academician (1939). In 1934 was forced to stay in the Soviet Union. Director of the Academy Institute of Physical Problems (1935–1946 and 1955–1984). From 1946–1954, under house arrest because of his opposition to Lavrentii Beria and refusal to participate in the Soviet A-bomb project. Stalin Prize (1941 and 1943), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945). Nobel Prize for physics (1978).

Karpechenko, Georgii(1899–1941), plant geneticist and cytogeneticist, studied the role of ploidy (the increase in chromosome number by doubling) in plant speciation and evolution. Organizer and head of the Genetics Laboratory within the All-Union Plant Breeding Institute (VIR) (1925–1941). From 1929–1931, at several American laboratories, including Thomas H. Morgan’s at Columbia University (New York). In 1932, organized the Plant Genetics Department at Leningrad University. Arrested on February 17, 1941, tried together with Nikolai Vavilov and Leonid Govorov on July 7, 1941, and shot on July 28, 1941. Rehabilitated in 1956.

Karpinsky, Aleksandr(1847–1936), “the father” of Russian geology. Graduated from St. Petersburg Corpus of Mining Engineers (later the Mining Institute) (1866), then professor there (until 1896). Director of the Geological Committee in St. Petersburg (1885–1903). Academician (1886). The first elected (not appointed) president of the academy (1916–1936). In 1929, tried to resign after the OGPU cleansed the academy of 781 employees allegedly connected with the “Monarchist Plot.”

Kartashov, Sergei(1914–1979), colonel, head of the Fourth Department of the MGB Third Directorate (Military Counterintelligence) (1946–1948). Transferred to Budapest as an adviser to the Hungarian Security Service (AVH) (1948). Later, until his retirement in 1967, a consultant to the head of the First KGB Directorate (Intelligence).

Khariton, Yulii(1904–), physicist, graduated from St. Petersburg Polytech-nicalInstitute, then received Ph. D. from Cambridge (1926–1928). Returned to Leningrad, organized and headed a laboratory to study explosives at the Leningrad Institute of Chemical Physics. Important research on nuclear chain reactions (1939–1941). Scientific director of the secret institute Arzamas-16 (1946–1992). Academician (1953). In 1956 joined the Communist Party. Hero of Socialist Labor (1949, 1951, and 1954).

Khrushchev, Nikita(1894–1971), first secretary of the Communist Party (1953–1964) and premier of the Soviet Union (1958–1964). Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1918. Started his career in the Ukraine (1925), in Moscow from 1931; second secretary (1933), then first secretary of the Moscow City and Moscow Regional Committees (1935–1938). Member of the Central Committee (from 1934), Politburo member (1939–1964). First secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party (1938–1941, 1944–1949). During World War II, a political adviser to the Red (Soviet) Army. First secretary of Moscow City Committee again (from 1949). In charge of agriculture as a Politburo member until 1951. In September 1953, replaced Malenkov (Stalin’s heir) as first Party secretary. In 1954, reduced Stalin’s security system to a small committee (KGB) under the USSR Council of Ministers. In 1955, removed Malenkov from premiership. In 1956, during the Twentieth Party Congress, delivered a speech about political crimes during the years of Stalin’s regime; millions of political prisoners were released. On October 14, 1964, dismissed as Party first secretary and chairman of the Council of Ministers by his protégé and deputy, Leonid Brezhnev.

Kobulov, Amayak(1906–1955), at various high positions within the Georgian OGPU/NKVD (1927–1938). First deputy NKVD commissar of the Ukraine (1938–1939), then adviser at the Soviet Legation in Berlin (1938–1941), NKGB/NKVD commissar of Uzbekistan (1941–1945). First deputy head of the Main NKVD/MVD Directorate of Prisoners of War (1945–1951). First deputy head of the Gulag (1951–1953) and also deputy head of NKVD/NKGB Department S (atomic intelligence) (1946–1953). Arrested on June 27, 1953, condemned to death on October 1, 1954, and shot on February 26, 1955. Not rehabilitated (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 233–234).

Kobulov, Bogdan(1904–1953), the elder brother of Amayak, from 1922 in the Georgian CheKa. In 1938, deputy commissar of State Security of Georgia; transferred to Moscow. Head of the NKVD Investigation Department (1938–1939), head of the Main Economic Directorate (GEU) (1939–1941), deputy NKGB/NKVD commissar (1941–1945), deputy head of the Main Directorate of the Soviet Property Abroad (Germany) (1946–1953), first deputy MVD minister (March–May 1953). Arrested and tried along with Beria, Merkulov, and Dekanozov, condemned to death and shot on December 23, 1953. Not rehabilitated (Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka , p. 148; Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 234–235).

Kolchak, Aleksandr(1870–1920), Russian admiral and Arctic explorer. The leader of the White movement in Siberia (1918–1920). In November 1918, pronounced supreme ruler of all Russia in the city of Omsk. In January 1920, after the defeat of his army, interrogated for nine days by Bolshevik investigators and executed by a firing squad. (Luckett, Richard, The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War [New York: Viking Press, 1971], pp. 213–228, 343–347; Lincoln, W. Bruce, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War [New York: Touchstone Book, 1989], pp. 19, 230–269).

Koltsov, Nikolai(1872–1940), prominent zoologist and geneticist, and an outspoken critic of Lysenko. Graduated from Moscow University (1894), then professor there (1895–1911). Also professor at the High Educational School for Women (1903–1918). In Germany, France, and Italy (1897–1900; 1902–1903). Corresponding member (1915), member of the Agricultural Academy (VASKhNIL) (1929). Organized (1917) and directed the Institute of Experimental Biology. In 1939, removed from all posts. Died on December 2, 1940, of a heart attack; the same day his wife committed suicide.