Soviet judge (1889?1951)
Vasiliy Vasilievich Ulrikh
(
Russian
:
Василий Васильевич Ульрих
; 13 July 1889 – 7 May 1951) was a senior judge of the
Soviet Union
during most of the regime of
Joseph Stalin
. Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at many of the major
show trials
of the
Great Purges
in the
Soviet Union
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Vasili Ulrikh was born in
Riga
,
Latvia
, then a part of the
Russian Empire
. His father was a Latvian revolutionary of German descent, and his mother was a Russian noblewoman. Because of their open involvement in revolutionary activity, the entire family was sentenced to a five-year period of
internal exile
in
Irkutsk
, Siberia.
In 1910, young Ulrikh returned to his native Riga and began to study at the Riga Polytechnical Institute. He joined the
Bolshevik
faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
in the same year.
He graduated in 1914, and with the beginning of
World War I
he was sent to the front as an officer.
After the
Bolshevik Revolution
,
Leon Trotsky
secured him entrance into the
Cheka
. Ulrikh subsequently served on a number of military tribunals, and came to the attention of Stalin, who apparently liked the efficient way in which he carried out his duties and his terse, even laconic style of reporting these tribunals' actions.
Career
[
edit
]
In 1926, Ulrikh became Chairman of the
Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR
. It was in this capacity that he handed down the sentences of the
Great Purge
. Ulrikh sentenced
Zinoviev
,
Kamenev
,
Bukharin
,
Tukhachevsky
,
Rodzaevsky
,
Beloborodov
,
Yezhov
and many others. He attended the executions of many of these men, and occasionally performed executions himself.
[1]
Ulrikh personally executed
Yan Karlovich Berzin
, former head of Red Army Intelligence Directorate, later called
GRU
.
[2]
During
World War II
, Ulrikh continued to hand down death sentences to people accused of
sabotage
and
defeatism
. He was also the chief judge during the
Trial of the Sixteen
leaders of the
Polish Secret State
and
Home Army
in 1945.
After the conclusion of the war, Ulrikh presided over a number of the early trials of the
Zhdanovshchina
.
In 1948, a number of top judges, including Ulrikh, were removed from their positions for severe drawbacks in the judicial system, including corruption and what were classified as political errors.
[3]
Ulrikh was subsequently reassigned to be the course director at the
Military Law Academy
. He died of a
heart attack
on May 7, 1951, and was buried in the
Novodevichy Cemetery
in
Moscow
.
Opinions
[
edit
]
Anton Antonov-Ovseenko
labeled him a "uniformed toad with watery eyes."
[4]
Otto Tief
, the last acting prime minister of Estonia before Soviet occupation, described Ulrikh as "a youthful, round-faced and plump blond man in a general's uniform, with a gentle smile on his face."
[5]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Nikita Pietrow,
Psy Stalina
, (Warszawa 2012: Demart), page. 218 (Russian original:
Пaлaчи. Oни выплняли ?ака?ы Сталина
, 2011).
- ^
Vadim Bristein SMERSH: Stalin's Secret Weapon, Soviet counterintelligence in ww2 page 65
- ^
?Члены Верховного суда брали взятки“
("Members of the Superior Court Took Bribes") magazine ≪Коммерсантъ Власть≫, no. 31 (785), August 11, 2008
- ^
Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko,
The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny
(New York City, N.Y.: Harper Colophon, 1983), page 83.
- ^
"Из воспоминаний и заметок о 1939-1969 ::: Тииф О. - Из воспоминаний и заметок о 1939-1969 ::: Тииф Отто ::: Воспоминания о ГУЛАГе :: База данных :: Авторы и тексты"
. 2018-08-12. Archived from
the original
on 2018-08-12
. Retrieved
2024-02-25
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]