Zarubin, Vasily Mikhailovich

Youth

Born in the village of Panino, Bronnitsky district, Moscow province . His father, the conductor of the Moscow-Kurskaya station, was a member of the RSDLP ^{[2] [3]} . In total, in the family, in addition to Vasily, there were 12 children, two of whom subsequently also worked in state security agencies.

In 1903 - 1908 he studied at the 2-class school at the Moscow-Kursk Railway . He combined his studies with work in the partnership of V. Lyzhin.

He took part in the First World War . He fought on the Western Front. For anti-war agitation he was sent to a penal company, in which he was wounded. He finished the war as an ordinary .

In March 1917 he was elected a member of the regimental soldiers' committee. Since September of the same year, he worked as a clerk in the Volzhskaya Manufactory partnership in Moscow , and even later as an assistant storekeeper in a warehouse. In April 1918 he joined the RCP (b) .

In September 1918 he was sent to the Southern Front to serve in the Red Army . He held the posts of chief of equestrian communications, assistant chief of staff for the operational part of the 1st brigade of the 1st Moscow working division. In February 1920, he was appointed instructor-controller of the 24th VOKhR brigade of the Oryol sector, and in October - an assignment officer under the head of the 5th Internal Service Division ( VNUS ) in the city of Kozlov .

At the state security organs

When the internal service troops disbanded, he got into the organs of the Cheka . Since January 1921, he worked as an assistant to the speculative officer for combating speculation in the regional transport Cheka Center (Moscow), then as an authorized, deputy chief, head of the Special Operations Division of the Separate Road Transport Cheka and, concurrently, deputy head of the Separate Road Transport Cheka in Moscow.

In April 1922 he was transferred to the plenipotentiary representative of the GPU of the Far Eastern Military District , where he was appointed deputy head of the Special Division of the 17th Primorsky Corps in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk .

In September 1925 he was transferred to the apparatus of the INO OGPU . In 1925-1926 legal resident of the INO OGPU in Finland. He worked under the guise of attaché of the USSR embassy.

In 1927, Vasily Zarubin at illegal work in Denmark. Since 1929 in Moscow, in 1930 - assistant to the head of the 8th department of the OGOU INO. In March 1930, V. M. Zarubin was appointed an illegal resident of the NGO OGPU in France (Betty's pseudonym), where he traveled according to the documents of engineer Jan Kochek, a Slovak national, along with his second wife E. Yu. Zarubina (Gorskaya).

In December 1933 he was transferred by an illegal resident to Berlin. He conducted a number of valuable recruits, was the operator of a particularly important agent - the Gestapo employee Willy Lehman (“Breitenbach”). The valuable information received from him on the structure, personnel, operations of the RSHA, the Gestapo and the Abwehr, on the military construction and defense industry of Germany, as well as on its plans and intentions, was highly appreciated by the Center.

In 1940, Beria accused him and a group of other scouts of collaborating with the Gestapo , but Zarubin personally avoided the repression. Here is how the Soviet intelligence officer Vitaly Pavlov recalls this ^[4] :

Suddenly, behind the table, a small door silently opened, which I mistook for the closet door, and a man in pince-nez, familiar to us from the portraits, came out. It was Beria. He was accompanied by an assistant with a folder in his hands. Without greeting, the People's Commissar immediately set to work. Taking the list from the assistant, he began to name in turn the names of the employees who were sitting in front of him. His words were heard in grave silence loudly and distinctly, like clicks of a scourge.

- Zarubin!

One of the people sitting in front of the table got up and took a stand "at attention."

“Tell me,” the People’s Commissar continued to mint, “how did German intelligence recruit you?” How did you betray the homeland? Excited, but nevertheless firmly and sincerely, one of the most experienced illegal immigrants gave an answer, the meaning of which was that no one had recruited him, that he had not betrayed anyone and did nothing, but honestly carried out the tasks of the leadership. To this sounded menacingly indifferent:

- Sit down! We will understand your business.

In the spring of 1941, Zarubin was sent to China to restore contact with the German adviser Chiang Kai-shek , who in the past was one of the leaders of the assault troops in Germany (according to some reports, he was Walter Franz Maria Shtennes ). In conversations with Zarubin, the German said that he had accurate information about Hitler’s preparations for an attack on the USSR and named the date May – June.

In China, Zarubin worked as a deputy resident.

Together with I.A. Chichaev, he was negotiating with the British SIS mission on establishing cooperation in the fight against Hitler’s intelligence services.

In the fall of 1941, it was decided to send Zarubin a resident of the "legal" residency in the United States . Before leaving, he was received by Stalin.

Zarubin and his wife were in the United States until 1944. For the results achieved in his work in September 1944, he was awarded the title of Commissioner of State Security, and by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of July 9, 1945 - Major General.

Upon returning to his homeland, he was appointed deputy chief of foreign intelligence and at the same time - deputy chief of illegal intelligence. In these positions he worked until 1948, when he was transferred to the reserve for health reasons.

Retired

In subsequent years, Vasily Zarubin took part in the training of personnel for intelligence: he gave lectures on illegal work, wrote a textbook for a special educational institution at PSU KGB ^[5] .

He was buried at Kalitnikovsky cemetery .

• He was married to Olga Georgievna Zarubina (Naumova), whom she divorced in China (she remarried to Naum Eitingon ). Daughter from her first marriage - Zoya Vasilievna Zarubina (1920-2009), an employee of the Soviet state security agencies, intelligence officer, professor, and teacher at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. Great-grandson - Alexei Kozlov (born 1974), former CEO of Corfinance and assistant to the chairman of the Federation Council’s committee on international affairs, convicted in 2008 of fraud and attempted money laundering, author Butyrka blog .
• The second wife (1928) was a scout Elizabeth Yarievna Zarubina (nee Rosenzweig , 1900-1987). Their son - Pyotr Vasilyevich Zarubin (1932, Paris - March 19, 2017, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian scientist in the field of laser technology, doctor of technical sciences, professor.

He was awarded two Orders of Lenin , orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star , many medals.

• Stavinsky, Erwin . Nicks. Family residency. M .: OLMA-Press, 2003, ISBN 5-94849-451-9 .
• Biography on the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation .
• Zoya Voskresenskaya , Eduard Sharapov . The mystery of Zoe Voskresenskaya . M., Olma-Press, 1998, ISBN 5-87322-877-9 .
• Diagteriev K., Kolpakidi A. Foreign intelligence of the USSR . M .: Eksmo, 2009 .-- 736 p., ISBN 978-5-699-34180-1 .
• On the Spartacus educational free encyclopedia website.