Bustrem, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Born in a large family of a forester. When he was three years old, his father died. First he studied at a parish school, then he entered the Arkhangelsk gymnasium. In the Fifth grade, he became a member of the teacher's gymnasium circle, which was focused on the study and discussion of semi-legal literature. The activities of this circle were directly related to the local colony of those exiled for political reasons. This led to unpleasant consequences for Vladimir Bustrem - in 1902 he was expelled from the gymnasium because of his political unreliability, despite the fact that he was expelled from the graduation class. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1903 he passed exams for the eighth grade in the gymnasium program as an external student and in the same year entered the Tomsk Technological Institute .

During his studies at the institute, Bustrem began to actively participate in student groups of a revolutionary nature, and soon became a member of the circle of social democrats. Several times participated in student strikes and demonstrations, which led to a professorial disciplinary court against Bustrem. In 1904, after the "purge" he returned to Arkhangelsk , where he was soon called up for military service and, as part of the unit, went to Novgorod . He served in the 22nd artillery brigade. He led an active circle activity, carried out various party tasks. The peak of his political activity occurred in May-June 1905. Nevertheless, after the July rally in 1905, he went underground. He lived in St. Petersburg in illegal positions, carried out revolutionary agitation among local troops, and later moved to Vologda .

The threat of arrest loomed over Bustrem's head, which prompted him to move to Sevastopol , which was authorized by the Central Committee of the RSDLP in the spring of 1906. There he was sent to serve in the Navy, where he continued his propaganda activities. He joined the Crimean Party Conference, which did not take place, as it was failed. But on November 16-22, 1906, as a representative from Sevastopol, he took part in the First Conference of the Party and Combat Organizations of the RSDLP in Tammerfors . After the conference, he remained in Finland , where he became a member of the central group of the military organization of the RSDLP. And again, he set about campaigning work in Vyborg and Helsingfors among the garrison soldiers.

1907 - the time of the illegal residence of Bustrem in Libau . Later he participated in the Fifth illegal London Congress of the RSDLP as an honorary delegate from the Libau Military Party Organization. After the congress, he participated in the meeting of the Latvian Social Democrats .

Finally, after returning to Russia, Bustrem was arrested in St. Petersburg. A year and a half spent in the " Crosses ". The trial ended on November 13, 1908: he was sentenced to 6 years of hard labor with Trilisser and Neumann, who also took part in the “Case of the combat organization of the RSDLP”. The three of them were serving their sentences in the Petersburg transit center, then Bustrem was sent “on stage” to the Vologda, and then to the Yaroslavl hard-labor prison. After this, misadventures continued, and Bustrem was transported to Eastern Siberia, to the village of Kochenga, Kirensky district, Irkutsk province . He spent the last two years of exile in Irkutsk , having worked in the statistics department, in the labor department of the Irkutsk Committee of the All-Russian Union of Cities, and finally tried his hand at the society of consumers of employees and workers of the Trans-Baikal Railway .

At the end of March, after the events of the February Revolution of 1917 he returned to Arkhangelsk, having served a hard labor term, he was immediately co-opted to the local Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, and was elected to the executive committee. At this time, he expressed political affinity for the unification of the Menshevik-internationalists, at the same time he was a member of the united organization of the RSDLP. From July 1917 to January 1918 Bustrem became chairman of the Arkhangelsk Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Deputies, and from February to September 1918 he became deputy chairman of the Arkhangelsk Provincial Executive Committee. From September 1918 to March 1920 - head of the statistical department of the Arkhangelsk provincial zemstvo. Joining the RCP (b) followed in February 1920, and in April of the same year he was transferred to Moscow to the post of deputy head of the scientific department of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).

August 1922 is coming, which brings its own corrections to the fate of Bustrem. Followed by the recommendation of Trilisser , according to which Bustrem was sent for further work to the INO OGPU . Soon thereafter, he was happy for his appointment to the post of legal resident in Berlin , which he held until 1925. His activity allowed him to engage in intensive recruitment of personnel from diplomatic missions, as well as from the German Foreign Ministry. These valuable sources of information helped Bustrem get copies of important letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to his missions in Warsaw , Istanbul and London , which, for example, talked about the supply of military materials from England to Poland , as well as important information about the prospects for the development of German-Polish relations.

By the beginning of 1926, the Soviet side had several sources in the police structures of Berlin, which quickly supplied information directly from the Berlin main police department. This information concerned the internal political state of the Weimar Republic, and also disclosed the situation in various parties and associations of Germany, including the NSDAP .

However, after debugging the mechanisms for supplying the necessary information, Bustrem returned to the USSR in December 1925. He was an assistant chief of the INO OGPU until 1929. In the period from January to June 1930 he was deputy chief of the Main Inspectorate of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR. In July, he was assigned as the ombudsman. July-September - working hours in the Caucasus (Veshensky district of the North Caucasus region). October-December - work in Voronezh .

In January 1931, he was dismissed from intelligence for health reasons. February-March 1931 - the post of head of the railway transport of Kuznetskstroy, and in June-November of the same year, Bustrem is determined as the representative of Kuznetskstroy in Leningrad. The following year, he works as deputy head of the MHI of the Executive Committee of the Comintern . Since July 1932 - Deputy Executive Editor of the penal servitude Publishing House. In April 1934, he became a freelance instructor of the MK VKP (b), and in this post he established cooperation with the Great Soviet Encyclopedia . The last bureaucratic position that he has held since February 1936 is the deputy director of the Research Institute of the North Economy.

He died on February 13, 1943. He was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery in Moscow. He was awarded the badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU” and military weapons from the OGPU Board.

• Antonov V.S., Karpov V.N. Secret informants of the Kremlin. Illegals. - M .: OLMA-PRESS Education , 2002. - 352 p. - (Dossier). - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-94849-019-X.