Matvei Berman

Matvei Davidovich Berman (; April 10, 1898 – March 7, 1939) was a Soviet security officer and the head of the Gulag prison camp system from 1932 to 1937.

Biography

Berman was born in Andiranovka, Chita, Transbaikal Oblast, the son of a Jewish brickyard owner. He joined the Russian army and entered the military school in Irkutsk. He then became a cadet of the 25th Reserve infantry regiment. Berman joined the Bolsheviks in June 1917. In 1918 he joined the Red Army and was stationed in Tomsk. By June he was working in a propaganda unit. In August 1918, Berman joined the Cheka and was named chief of uyezd-level Cheka in the city of Glazov. From 1923 to 1924, he was the People's Commissar for State Security in the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He then led the OGPU in Central Asia. From February 1927 to October 1927 he was the chairman of the OGPU in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.

In November 1929 he helped develop the Gulag system of camps and became deputy chief of the Gulag in 1930. From June 9, 1932 to August 17, 1937, he was head of the Gulag. By 1935, by his own count, Berman was in charge of over 740,000 prisoners working on 15 major projects in the Gulag.

After the fall of Genrikh Yagoda, Berman continued to rise in the hierarchy of the NKVD, where he held the offices of head construction of the Moscow–Volga Canal and deputy head of the NKVD in 1936–1937.

Awards Honorary worker of the Cheka-GPU (V) (1924) Order of the Red Banner (1927) Order of Red Banner of Labor Uzbek SSR (1927) Honorary worker of the Cheka-GPU (XV) Order of Lenin (1933) Order of the Red Star (1937)