Stanislav Redens

Stanislav Redens
Станислав Реденс
Redens in 1931
People's Commissar of the Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR
In office 21 November 1938 – 20 January 1938
Preceded by	Lev Zalin
Succeeded by	Semyon Burdakov
Chairman of the OGPU under Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR
In office 25 July 1931 – 20 February 1933
Preceded by	Vsevolod Balitsky
Succeeded by	Vsevolod Balitsky
Chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Byelorussian SSR
In office 1 May 1931 – 1 June 1931
Preceded by	Grigory Rappaport
Succeeded by	German Matson
Personal details
Born	(1892-06-12)12 June 1892 Tykocin, Łomża Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	12 February 1940(1940-02-12) (aged 47) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1914–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1937)
Spouse	Anna Alliluyeva
Military service
Allegiance	Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Battles/wars	First World War Russian Civil War
Awards	Honorary Officer of State Security

Stanislav Frantsevich Redens (Russian: Станисла́в Фра́нцевич Ре́денс, Polish: Stanisław Redens; 17 May 1892 – 12 February 1940) was a Soviet NKVD official, one of those responsible for conducting mass repressions under Joseph Stalin. Redens was himself executed in 1940, after being arrested at the end of the Great Purge in 1938.

Early life

Born to a Polish worker's family in Tykocin in the Łomża Governorate of the Russian Empire, Redens received a limited education and began working in metallurgy in 1907. A Bolshevik since 1914, he was briefly mobilized into the army during World War I but was soon demobilized and returned to political activity in time for the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Career

Redens began to work for the newly established Cheka in 1918, amid the Russian Civil War. He was energetically involved in dekulakization in Ukraine, serving as the head of the Odessa Cheka. Redens held important positions in the Crimean GPU in 1922–1923.

Stanislav Redens in 1934. From left to right: Agranov, Yagoda, unknown, and Redens.

Though made a chief of the Transcaucasian GPU in 1928, Redens was gradually sidelined by his own deputy Lavrenty Beria. In 1931, he was appointed the OGPU head in the Byelorussian SSR and then in the Ukrainian SSR. During his tenure in Ukraine, Redens gained fame for crackdown on farmers, which contributed to the Holodomor, the starvation of millions of Ukrainians as part of a larger famine across the Soviet Union. In January 1933, he was recalled to Moscow and placed in charge of the NKVD units in the Moscow Oblast where Redens spearheaded purges following Sergey Kirov assassination in 1934.

Redens was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1937 and appointed as People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1938. He was arrested on charges of being a member of “Polish subversive-spying group” in November 1938. He was shot on 12 February 1940. He was rehabilitated under Nikita Khrushchev in 1961.

Personal life

Redens was married to Anna Sergeyevna Alliluyeva (1896–1964), sister of Stalin's second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, also an Old Bolshevik and former Cheka officer who spent 6 years in prison under Stalin. Their son, Vladimir Alliluyev (Redens) (born 1935), published, in 1995, his memoirs "Chronicle of a Family" which advocated Russia's return to Stalinism and was condemned by Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva.