Mikhail Ryumin
KGB officer (1913-1954)
Mikhail Dmitrievich Ryumin Михаил Дмитриевич Рюмин (1 September 1913 – 22 July 1954) was a Soviet security officer and deputy head of the Soviet MGB (Ministry of State Security) who engineered the "Doctors' Plot" in 1952–1953. After the death of Joseph Stalin (March 1953), his successors dismissed the case and had Ryumin arrested and executed.
Biography
Early career
Ryumin was born in Bolshoye Kaban'ye (Большое Кабанье), in southwest Siberia. Reputedly, his family were wealthy farmers, his brother and sister were convicted thieves, and his father in law fought against the Bolsheviks in the White Army commanded by Admiral Kolchak. Despite his background, he survived the wholesale arrests of 'kulaks' instigated by Josif Stalin. Around 1931, he was working as bookkeeper on a collective farm in the Urals. His next break came after Nikolai Yezhov ordered the mass arrest of NKVD officers suspected of loyalty to his predecessor, Genrikh Yagoda in 1937, when Ryumin joined the NKVD as a bookkeeper. He worked for SMERSH during the war. In 1948, he was transferred to the Department for Specially Important Cases, within the MGB.
Ryumin personally tortured prisoners in the Sukhanovo Prison, and appears to have enjoyed doing it. His victims included a young American, Alexander Dolgun who was arrested in Moscow in 1948, but later released and deported.
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