Ryumin, Mikhail

(1913–1954)

   Ryumin began his career in the NKVD working on massive forced labor projects. During World War II, he served in military counterintelligence and was transferred to Moscow as an interrogator. Facing personal ruin because of a security lapse, he denounced his boss, Viktor Abakumov, as an enemy in a letter to Joseph Stalin. Ryumin apparently told Stalin that Abakumov was not pursuing the search for traitors inside the party with zeal. Following Abakumov’s arrest, Ryumin was given responsibility for cases of critical importance to Stalin as chief of the Department of Interrogation of Specially Important Cases. He served as de facto deputy chief of the MGB as a lieutenant general of state security in 1952, investigating the Doctor’s Plot, torturing doctors suspected of ties to Western intelligence. Stalin’s creature, Ryumin was used by the Soviet leader to create a case that would implicate the senior Communist Party leadership and pave the way for a purge. He was arrested immediately following Stalin’s death in March 1953, made a full confession, and was executed after a secret trial.