Vsevolod Balitsky

Vsevolod Apollonovych Balytsky (Ukrainian: Всеволод Аполлонович Балицький; Russian: Всеволод Аполлонович Балицкий; 27 November 1892 – 27 November 1937) was a Soviet official, Commissar of State Security 1st Class (equivalent to Four-star General) of the NKVD and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Vsevolod Balytsky
Всеволод Балицький
People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of Ukraine (NKVS)
In office 15 July 1934 – 11 May 1937
Preceded by	None. NKVS of Ukraine was created on 13 July 1934 by NKVD decree № 001
Succeeded by	Izrail Leplevsky
Far Eastern Commander of the NKVD
In office April 1937 – July 1937
Preceded by	Terenty Deribas
Succeeded by	Genrikh Lyushkov
Personal details
Born	Vsevolod Apollonovych Balytsky (1892-11-27)November 27, 1892 Verkhnodniprovsk, Katerynoslav Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	November 27, 1937(1937-11-27) (aged 45) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1915–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1937)
Military service
Rank

Balytsky was born in Verkhnodniprovsk, Yekaterinoslav Governorate in to the family of a Ukrainian clerk. Initially a Menshevik, he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1915.

He directed the NKVD of Ukraine during the Great Famine. He blamed the famine on sabotage by the Polish Military Organization and its Ukrainian collaborators; in reality, the Polish Military Organization had been dissolved in 1921 after the Polish–Soviet War, and the remaining Polish spies in Soviet Ukraine were uninvolved in the famine. This story was used as a pretext for the NKVD's deportation of many ethnic Poles from eastern Ukraine to Kazakhstan in the summer of 1936. In 1937, NKVD chief Nikolay Yezhov used it as a pretext first for a purge of Poles from the NKVD and then for a broader ethnic cleansing of Poles in the Soviet Union; he attacked Balytsky for not being vigilant enough against the supposed threat of the Polish Military Organization.[1]

On 11 May 1937, Balytsky was transferred to the Far East, becoming Commander of the NKVD; his deputy, Izrail Leplevsky, replaced him as leader of the Ukrainian NKVD.[1]

During the Great Purge he was arrested on 7 July 1937, on charges of spying for Poland.[1] Later, on 27 November 1937 — his 45th birthday — he was sentenced to death and shot the same day in Moscow, then buried at Kommunarka.