Vyacheslav Menzhinsky

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Вячеслав Менжинский
Menzhinsky in 1926
Chairman of the OGPU
In office
30 July 1926 – 10 May 1934
PremierAlexei Rykov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Preceded byFelix Dzerzhinsky
Succeeded byGenrikh Yagoda
People's Commissar for Finance of the RSFSR
In office
30 October 1917 – 21 March 1918
PremierVladimir Lenin
Preceded byIvan Skvortsov-Stepanov
Succeeded byIsidore Gukovsky
Personal details
Born
Wiesław Rudolfowicz Mężyński

(1874-08-31)31 August 1874
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died10 May 1934(1934-05-10) (aged 59)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting placeKremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Political partyRSDLP (1902–1903)
RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1903–1918)
Russian Communist Party (1918–1934)
Alma materSaint Petersburg State University

Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky (Russian: Вячесла́в Рудо́льфович Менжи́нский, Polish: Wiesław Rudolfowicz Mężyński; 31 August [O.S. 19 August] 1874 – 10 May 1934) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who served as chairman of the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union, from 1926 to 1934.

Born to Polish parents in Saint Petersburg, Menzhinsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902. He emigrated from Russia in 1907, and spent the next decade in Europe and the United States. After the 1917 February Revolution, he joined the Cheka in 1919, and in 1923 was promoted to its deputy under Felix Dzerzhinsky. After his death in 1926, Menzhinsky became head of the Cheka's successor, the OGPU. He worked to crush resistance in the countryside during Joseph Stalin's forced agricultural collectivization.