Yakov Agranov

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Yakov Agranov
First Deputy People's Commissar for Internal Affairs
In office July 1934 – April 1937
Preceded by	position established
Succeeded by	Mikhail Frinovsky
Personal details
Born	Yankel Samuilovich Sorenson (1893-10-12)12 October 1893 Checherskaya, Gomel Region, Belarus (then Mogilev Governorate, Russian Empire)
Died	1 August 1938(1938-08-01) (aged 44) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Awards	Order of the Red Banner (twice)
Military service
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Branch/service	NKVD
Years of service	1919–1938
Rank	Commissar of State Security 1st rank

Yakov Saulovich Agranov (Russian: Я́ков Сау́лович Агра́нов; born Yankel Samuilovich Sorenson; 12 October 1893 – 1 August 1938) was the first chief of the Soviet Main Directorate of State Security and a deputy of NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda. He is known as one of main organizers of Soviet political repressions and Stalinist show trials in the 1920s and 1930s. He fabricated the "Tagantsev conspiracy" case and the Moscow trials, including the Trial of the Twenty One and the Industrial Party Trial, as well as mass arrests and executions in Saint Petersburg during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.