Serebryansky, Yakov Isaakovich (1892-1956)

An operative of the Soviet state security (GB) and Colonel of the GB, who ran a special group in the 1930s known as “Yasha’s group” or “Uncle Yasha’s group.”

Yakov Serebryansky was born in Minsk to the family of a watchman’s apprentice. In 1907, while a student of the city school, he joined a student cell of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which advocated terrorist actions. In 1909, he was arrested as a suspected accomplice in the assassination of the head of the Minsk prison. He was confined to jail in 1909-1910 and then exiled to the city of Vitebsk. Drafted into the army in 1912, Serebryansky fought as a soldier on the Russian Western front in World War I and later worked as an electrician in Baku. Following the Russian democratic revolution of February 1917, he joined the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus as a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (known as the es-er). Serebryansky moved to Moscow in the spring of 1920, where he joined the Cheka. In August 1921, he was discharged from the Cheka and worked at a newspaper. He was then arrested by the Cheka in December of that year as a member of the es-er party, but was soon released.

Serebryansky next joined the VCP (b) in October 1923. The following month he became an officer of OGPU foreign intelligence (INO) and was soon sent on an “illegal” mission to Palestine. In the Middle East, he managed to infiltrate the underground Zionist movement and recruited a group of descendants from Russian families to cooperate with the OGPU. These people became the basis of a special group which would later become known as “Yasha’s group.” From 1925 to 1928, Serebryansky served as an “illegal” resident of OGPU foreign intelligence in Belgium and France.

In April 1929, Serebryansky was appointed head of the first department of the INO (then “illegal” intelligence), while simultaneously remaining the head of his special group, which was directly subordinate only to the OGPU chairman. This group’s goal was to achieve “deep penetration” of strategic military installations by its agents – who would be activated in case of war – and to carry out subversive and terrorist operations in wartime.

In mid-1930, Serebryansky began building an autonomous agent network in various countries to conduct wartime intelligence activity. For this purpose, he went to the United States in 1932 and to France in 1934. In July 1934, he was appointed head of a special-purpose group (known in Russia as SGON – Special Group for Special Purposes) at the NKVD and was soon promoted to the rank of Major of the GB. In 1935 and1936, Serebryansky was posted in China and Japan. After the outbreak of the civil war in Spain, he took part in secret purchases of arms for the Republican Army. The special operations in which Serebryansky participated in the 1930s also include the seizure of part of the Trotskyite archive, the development of plans to kidnap Trotsky’s son, and many others.

In summer 1938, Serebryansky was recalled from France, and in November he was arrested in Moscow. Subjected to “intensive” interrogation methods, he pleaded guilty to the crimes he was charged with and implicated others in espionage on behalf of England and France, as well as in the preparation of terrorist acts against the Soviet leaders. On July 7, 1941, he was sentenced to death, and his wife was sentenced to 10 years in labor camps for her “failure to report about her husband’s enemy activities.” However, he was pardoned the next month and readmitted to both the party and the NKVD ranks – so he could join the anti-Nazi struggle. From 1941 to 1945, Serebryansky took part in a large number of intelligence operations behind the front lines and supervised intelligence and sabotage operations in Western and Eastern Europe.

In May 1946, Serebryansky was forced to retire. After Stalin’s death, he served briefly at the MVD central apparatus from May to July 1953, but was soon fired; he was arrested on October 8 on charges of participating in the conspiratorial activity of Lavrentii Beria. To substantiate the charges, his 1941 clemency was revoked and the old case against him was reopened, with the prospect of substituting a 25-year prison term for the death sentence. But on March 30, 1956, Serebryansky died in Butyrskaya Prison during an interrogation. His 1941 case was not closed until May 1971, when his death sentence was revoked. Serebryansky was rehabilitated posthumously, in 1996, by a special decree of President Yeltsyn, and his rights to his government awards were restored. These awards included two Orders of Lenin and two Orders of the Red Banner, as well as medals and honorary weapons. ¹