Vyacheslav Menzhinsky

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Вячеслав Менжинский
Menzhinsky in 1926
Chairman of the OGPU
In office 30 July 1926 – 10 May 1934
Premier	Alexei Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov
Preceded by	Felix Dzerzhinsky
Succeeded by	Genrikh Yagoda
People's Commissar for Finance of the RSFSR
In office 30 October 1917 – 21 March 1918
Premier	Vladimir Lenin
Preceded by	Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov
Succeeded by	Isidore Gukovsky
Personal details
Born	Wiesław Rudolfowicz Mężyński (1874-08-31)31 August 1874 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	10 May 1934(1934-05-10) (aged 59) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Political party	RSDLP (1902–1903) RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1903–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1934)
Alma mater	Saint Petersburg State University

Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky (Russian: Вячесла́в Рудо́льфович Менжи́нский, Polish: Wiesław Rudolfowicz Mężyński; 31 August [O.S. 19 August] 1874 – 10 May 1934) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who served as chairman of the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union, from 1926 to 1934.

Born to Polish parents in Saint Petersburg, Menzhinsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902. He emigrated from Russia in 1907, and spent the next decade in Europe and the United States. After the 1917 February Revolution, he joined the Cheka in 1919, and in 1923 was promoted to its deputy under Felix Dzerzhinsky. After his death in 1926, Menzhinsky became head of the Cheka's successor, the OGPU. He worked to crush resistance in the countryside during Joseph Stalin's forced agricultural collectivization.