Mikhail Trilisser

Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser (; born Meier Abramovich Trilisser) (1 April 1883 – 2 February 1940), also known by the pseudonym Moskvin , was a chief of the Foreign Department of the Cheka, i.e. the State Political Directorate or GPU, and then the OGPU of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Later, he worked for the NKVD as a covert bureau chief and Comintern leader.

Background Trilisser was born Meier Abramovich Trilisser on April 1, 1883, in Astrakhan to a Jewish family, his father working as a shoemaker.

Career

Pre-revolution In 1901, Trilisser joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Odessa and was arrested in the same year for revolutionary activities. Trilisser was dismissed for attacking his boss, Genrikh Yagoda, behind his back at a Party meeting—a breach of protocol.

Trilisser was possibly associated with Georgy Chicherin. In Paris, Chicherin and Trilisser may have organized a Soviet subsidy for Nicholas Roerich's expeditions in Central Asia.

In 1930, Stalin had him transferred to the Workers and Peasants Inspection of the RSFSR as deputy commissar. and became head of its Department of International Relations (OMS), which handled subsidies to foreign communist parties. Trilisser adopted the pseudonym, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Moskvin. When Stalin queried this, his deputy Lazar Kaganovich explained that it was "because his surname is known as that of an NKVD functionary". Trilisser developed ciphers to disguise Communist activities. also described as a purge of the Comintern. He was executed on 2 February 1940.

In 1983, his character appears in the final episodes of Reilly, Ace of Spies, portrayed by an English actor Anthony Higgins.