Yakov and the OGPU (1)

Have you ever heard of a man named Stanislav Messing?

Anyone steeped in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would have caught the echo at once. He shared a name with Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski, the Grand Hetman who served King John III — and, more remotely, with Stanisław I Leszczyński, whose daughter married Louis XV of France.

And true to the pedigree of that name, Stanislav Messing was a Soviet citizen born in Poland.

In 1908 he joined the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. There he met Felix Dzerzhinsky, the present head of the OGPU, and Józef Unszlicht, one of the men who had founded the Cheka. The acquaintance ripened naturally into closeness, and after the Revolution Messing was appointed chairman of the Moscow Cheka.

Then, in November of 1921, Dzerzhinsky named him chairman of the Cheka in Petrograd — today's Leningrad. During his tenure Messing locked horns with Grigory Zinoviev in a running struggle for power, colliding with him at every turn.

After the Cheka was dissolved he became head of the Leningrad OGPU. By then the old feud with Zinoviev had hardened into a blood enmity, and Messing obstructed the man's every move.

I knew all of this. And so, with Mikoyan's help, I arranged a meeting with Messing — a chance to land a blow of my own against Zinoviev.

"So you're the Yakov Svanidze that Comrade Mikoyan mentioned?"

"Yes, Comrade Branch Chief. Yakov Svanidze, production supervisor of the 1st Innovative Technology Demonstration Factory, Department of Science and Technology, under the VSNH."

"I see... A pleasure, Yakov Iosifovich Svanidze."

He nodded and thrust out his hand. Our palms met with a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sharp clap.

Did I ever give Messing my patronymic?

"I am Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda."

"Yes, Mess—?!"

What?

Genrikh Yagoda...?

This wasn't Messing?

I was thoroughly thrown. Not only was Messing absent from a meeting arranged specifically with him — the man sitting across from me was someone I had never expected to see at all.

"I was under the impression that the Leningrad OGPU branch chief's name was Stanislav Messing..."

It was genuinely strange. In the original history Messing held the branch until 1929, then rose to head the INO OGPU — the foreign intelligence directorate that would one day become the First Chief Directorate of the KGB.

But this was 1925. Messing should have been alive and well and sitting in that chair. Somehow, he wasn't.

I forced the shock off my face and looked again at the man across from me.

He was lean, almost gaunt, with a long narrow face, rounded cheekbones, and cheeks that hollowed beneath them. Yagoda in 1925 ought to have been in his mid-thirties, yet the face in front of me looked as if it had only just crossed thirty. He had the air of a man in fragile health. His hair was black and abundant, swept back from the forehead without affectation, and he wore a thick broom of a mustache — apparently the fashion that had swept the age.

He was looking at me, too.

Yagoda had unusual eyes. Almost no fold to the lid; neither large nor small. At a glance he might have been any ordinary young Jewish man, the sort of face you would call unremarkable without a second thought. But the gaze behind those eyes was deep and still — the same look that had earned Sanada Masayuki his reputation, a man whose surface never told the truth of what lay underneath.

And that impression came not from what I knew of his historical career, but from the face sitting right in front of me.

"Did Comrade Mikoyan tell you that? A pity — that information is out of date. Comrade Messing was transferred to Moscow barely a month ago. The OGPU branch chief sitting in this chair now is myself. Genrikh Yagoda."

"...I see."

The original plan had been to talk with Messing and forge an alliance — or at least a working entente. Instead the man himself had been summoned to Moscow, and the figure across the desk was Genrikh Yagoda: the man who, in the original history, would become the first chief of the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, inheritor of the OGPU's authority. My scheme to court Messing had collapsed before it even began.

Is Yagoda with Zinoviev's faction at this point?

It was a reasonable suspicion. Messing had been virtually the only anti-Zinoviev figure left in Leningrad. Now he had been removed, and a new man sat as branch chief of the Leningrad OGPU. I had every reason to be on edge.

Even the OGPU has fallen to Zinoviev... This is going to be difficult.

"Yakov Svanidze."

He spoke my name and went on.

"You are, of late, the most closely watched man in Leningrad. Within the OGPU, at any rate."

"I am...?"

Yagoda nodded.

"In the past month alone, the Leningrad City Soviet has submitted thirty-five separate requests that we look into you. That makes you the individual against whom the most surveillance petitions have been filed since I took this post."

I was speechless. The Leningrad City Soviet...? Had Zinoviev's people moved first?

At this point I couldn't shake the feeling that he already knew exactly who I was.

Wait... why is Yagoda telling me all of this so freely?

I looked up into his eyes. His expression, his posture, his face — all of it said he was simply stating facts, nothing more.

"Judging by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your face, you already have some idea who's behind the City Soviet."

"Yes. As it happens, that's related to why I came to see you, Comrade Branch Chief."

"...Yes. I imagine it is."

Yagoda cocked his head to the right, propped his chin on his hand, and tapped the desk with two fingers. Then he stood and walked to the window.

"I'll say this now, so you needn't worry. I rejected every one of the City Soviet's requests."

He spoke with his back to me.

"You came here on Comrade Mikoyan's introduction, so you already know. The Leningrad OGPU and the City Soviet do not get along. A change of branch chief hasn't altered that. And of course, I didn't refuse them out of mere sentiment. The OGPU exists to arrest counterrevolutionaries. We are not the City Soviet's private detectives."

He had rejected the City Soviet's requests... Did that mean Yagoda, at least, was not in Zinoviev's camp?

"And... I'll be honest with you. With Comrade Mikoyan's authorization, and on my own authority as branch chief, I put a man on you."

Mikoyan's authorization...? What was this?

"...On me?"

"That's right. I was rather curious who Zinoviev was so obsessed with. For all I knew, you really might have been a counterrevolutionary."

"...I have not engaged in anything resembling counterrevolutionary activity."

"Yes. I'm well aware of that. Your meetings with former State Councillor Favorsky and Dr. Lebedev were all on account of that factory of yours, I take it."

So every move I've made has been watched.

A chill ran through me. How long had they been watching? And I found myself thinking again about the country I now lived in.

A paradise of communism. A utopia — or so the pamphlets claimed. What I was living in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a dictatorship caught in the long transition toward that ideal: a state that pursued stability through control rather than through freedom.

Yes. Let me be perfectly clear about this.

This was not the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union.

"And so, after placing you under surveillance, the conclusion I reached was..."

Yagoda turned and looked me full in the face.

...?

For a moment I thought I had misheard him.

Yagoda came back to the desk and drew a file from the drawer. It was thick — they had clearly done a thorough investigation. He flipped it open and began reading, tracing the lines with his finger.

Item by item, line by line, Yagoda read it out — and as he did, his voice began to thicken ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with anger.

"And yet, despite all that, the Leningrad Rubber Trust and the City Soviet, under the pretext of exports to America, issued a production plan several times the original target — and, as if that were not enough, restricted the allocation of benzene, a critical raw material..."

He slammed the file down on the desk.

"The Chairman of the Comintern — and he stoops to this, just to crush one young Party member. Ha! I can't stand to watch it. Listen to me, Comrade Svanidze!"

Yagoda's face had gone as red as a beet. The fingertips resting on the papers were trembling.

"You've had a hard time of it. I can see from these papers alone how hard you've had to grit your teeth to get this far. You don't have to wear that sad face in front of me!"

"...I honestly have no idea what to say to that."

Was Yagoda genuinely furious with Zinoviev? Or was this a performance?

Nothing in his manner let me be sure of either. And more than that — my head was a complete tangle.