Vadim Birstein - The Perversion of Knowledge

Sanotsky, Vladimir(1890–?), toxicologist. Graduated from the Military-Medical Academy in Petrograd (1914). From 1925 onward, studied the mechanism of action of toxic substances and methods of treatment of injuries caused by such substances; worked on the pathology caused by radiation. Head of a laboratory, then deputy director, and finally director of the Institute of Pathology and Therapy of Intoxications (1934–1952). Corresponding member of the Medical Academy. Supported Mairanovsky.

Savchenko, Sergei(1904–1966), one of Khrushchev’s men. The Ukrainian NKGB/MGB minister (1934–1949), head of the First Main MGB Directorate and deputy MGB minister (1951–1953), deputy head of the Second Main Directorate (March–June 1953). Later transferred to the MVD/KGB Directorate of Construction Troops. In 1955, discharged to the Soviet army reserve “as not corresponding to his position” (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 371–372).

Sazykin, Nikolai(1910–1985) joined the regional NKVD branch in the city of Stalingrad in 1937. From 1938, in Moscow. NKVD/NKGB commissar of Moldavia (1941), head of the NKVD Third Special Department (1941–1943), head of the NKGB Second Directorate (Counterintelligence) (1943–1944), NKGB plenipotentiary in Estonia (1944–1945), deputy head of Department S (atomic bomb intelligence) of the NKVD/NKGB (1945–1947), assistant to deputy chairman of the USSR Supreme Council Lavrentii Beria (1947–1953). Head of the Fourth (Secret Political) MVD Directorate (1953), head of Special Courses at the Moscow School of High Education for Leading Cadres of the MVD/KGB (1953–1954). Dismissed from the KGB in 1954 because of “the facts discrediting the name of the KGB commanding officer.” Worked in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, i.e., of atomic energy (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 372–373).

Schmalhausen, Ivan(1884–1963), zoologist and evolutionist. Graduated from Kiev University (1907) and later professor at this university (1912, 1921–1941). Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1922) and director of its Zoological Institute in Kiev (1930–1941). Academician (1933) and director of the Academy Institute of Evolutionary Morphology in Moscow (1936–1948), chair of Moscow State University Department of Darwinism (1939–1948). Fired after Lysenko’s triumph in 1948. Senior researcher (1948–1955) and head (1955–1960) of the Embryology Laboratory at the Academy Institute of Zoology in Leningrad.

Schwarzman, Lev(1907–1953), journalist and then NKVD/MGB investigator. A secret informer of the OGPU/NKVD from 1930, joined the NKVD in 1937. Deputy head of the NKVD Investigation Department (from 1940). From the mid-1940s to early 1953, deputy head of the MGB Department for Investigation of Especially Important Cases. Worked as a pair with Vladimir Komarov. Arrested in 1953 after Beria’s fall, tried and shot on December 23, 1953 (Stolyarov, Palachi i zhertvy , pp. 28–31).

Sedov, Lev(or Leon) (1906–1938), the son of Leon Trotsky. Actively worked in the Left Opposition headed by his father, a Communist Party faction that tried to withstand Stalin’s rising power. In 1933 joined Trotsky in exile to Turkey, then followed him to Norway and Paris. Stayed in Paris after Trotsky left France for Mexico in 1937. In 1936, published a book in which he analyzed Stalin’s show trials of 1935–1936 (the English translation: Sedov, Leon, The Red Book on the Moscow Trial (London: New Park Publications, 1980). On February 16, 1938, died in a hospital in Paris a few days after an unsuccessful surgical operation. Possibly poisoned.

Semashko, Nikolai(1874–1949), physician and state figure. Commissar of health (1918–1930), later a teacher and a researcher. A member of the All-Union Central Executive Commission.

Semenov, Nikolai(1896–1986), physicist and chemist. Graduated from Petrograd University. At Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute (1920–1931), and from 1931, director of the new Leningrad Institute of Chemical Physics. Later this institute moved to Moscow. Academician (1932). In 1947, joined the Communist Party. Nobel Prize for chemistry (1956) for work on chain reactions performed in the 1920s–1930s (Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb , p. 451).

Serebryansky, Yakov(1892–1956; pseudonym of Yakov Bergman) joined the VCheKa in 1919. Worked in different countries as an agent and head of terrorist groups (1923–1937). Arrested in 1938 and condemned to death. Pardoned in 1941. From 1941 to 1945, worked in Sudoplatov’s department of the NKVD/NKGB (1941–1945), and again under Sudoplatov in the MVD (March–June 1953). Arrested in 1953 and on March 30, 1956, died during an interrogation in Butyrka Prison (Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 380–381).

Serov, Ivan(1905–1990) joined the NKVD in 1939 in Moscow, then NKVD commissar of the Ukraine. First deputy NKGB commissar (1941), deputy commissar/minister of the NKVD/MVD (1941–1947), first deputy MVD minister (1947–1954), KGB chairman (1954–1958), then head of the Military Intelligence (GRU) (1958–1963). Unimportant high military positions (1963–1965) (Petrov, and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD , pp. 380–381).

Shalamov, Varlam(1907–1982), writer. A law student at Moscow University. Arrested in 1929, sentenced to 3 years in the infamous Solovki Camp. In 1937 arrested and sentenced again, spent 5 years in the most inhuman Kolyma camps. In 1943 received an additional 10-year term for “praising the efficiency of the German army” and describing the writer and Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin as a “classic of Russian literature.”

Shcherbakov, Aleksei(1901–1945), Party figure. Head of the Department of Culture and Education of the Central Committee (CC) (1935–1937), second secretary of Leningrad Regional Party Committee (1936–1937), first secretary in some regions of Siberia and the Ukraine (1937–1938), first secretary of the Moscow and Moscow Regional Committees and a secretary of the CC (1938–1945), head of the Sovinformburo and the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army (1941–1945), head of the Department of International Information of the CC (1943–1945), a candidate to the Politburo (1941–1945). According to the MGB-created version, was killed by the Jewish “doctors-killers” (Naumov and Sigachev, Lavrentii Beria , p. 498).

Shepilov, Dmitrii(1905–1995), jurist, economist, and Party figure. Party member from 1926. Graduated from Moscow University (1926) and from the Institute of Red Professors (1932). Deputy head (1935–1937), then head (1937–1940) of the Section of Agricultural Science in the Central Committee (CC), professor of Economics at the Higher Party School (a college for the Party elite) (1935–1941), head of the Directorate of Agitation and Propaganda of the CC (Agitprop) (1947–1953), member of the Presidium (i.e., the Politburo) and minister of foreign affairs (1956–1957). Dismissed from all posts by Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 (Krementsov, Stalinist Science , pp. 304–305).

Shirshov, Pyotr(1905–1953), oceanographer and state figure. From 1929, worked at the Academy Botanical Institute, then at the Academy Arctic Institute. Became famous in 1937–1938 after participating in the expedition of the drifting station Northen Pole. Awarded a Doctor of Sciences degree and a title of a Hero of the Soviet Union. Academician (1939). First deputy head of the Main North Marine Directorate (in charge of transportation of people and goods along the Arctic coast) (1939–1942), commissar/minister of the Marine Fleet (1942–1948). Personally responsible for transportation of prisoners by ships to the worst labor camp system, Dalstroi, in the Far East. In 1946, his own wife was arrested and perished in one of the Dalstroi camps. Director of the Academy Institute of Oceanology (1946–1953). After his death, this institute was named after him. A bay on Franz Josef Land and an underwater ridge in the Bering Sea also bear his name.