Nikolay Gapich

Nikolay Ivanovich Gapich (1901–1964) was a Soviet military leader, Major General of the Signal Corps (June 4, 1940). Head of the Communications Department of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (1940–1941), he was repressed in 1941, released and rehabilitated in 1953.

Early life and Civil War Born on May 9, 1901, in the village of Novaya Alekseevka, Blagoveshchensky District, Amur Region, into a Russian peasant family. In 1916, he graduated from a two–year railway school, where he was educated as a telegraph operator, leading him to work on the railway as a telegraph operator–overseer.

Beginning in October 1936 he studied at the Academy of the General Staff of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. In June 1938, he graduated from the Academy, and remained there as a teacher in the Department of Operational Art, and received the title of associate professor of the Academy. According to the memoirs of the future Marshal of the Signal Corps Ivan Peresypkin, this happened during the report of Nikolai Gapich to Joseph Stalin on the state of communications in the troops. A few days later, he was appointed Chief of Communications of the Front of the Reserve Armies, arrived at the front, but did not manage to take office. The front was reorganized into the Reserve Front, and the new front commander, Georgy Zhukov, who arrived, appointed General Ivan Bulychev as the front commander, and Gapich as his deputy.

Gapich was arrested on August 6, 1941, following which he was subjected to a prolonged investigation. At first, he was accused of criminal leadership in the work of his administration, charging him with failing to supply the army with the required means of communication, neglecting the needs of the front and failing to establish uninterrupted communication with the fronts. The authorities then added the accusation of participation in a "military–fascist conspiracy".

After being subjected to torture, he denounced himself and admitted that since 1935 he was a member of an anti-Soviet organization in the Belarusian Military District headed by Ieronim Uborevich. Even later, accusations were added of working for Japanese intelligence during the Civil War.

Gapich subsequently retracted all confessions. In view of their complete absurdity, the charges of conspiracy and espionage were dropped from him. By order of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union on January 29, 1944, he was dismissed from the Red Army.

After spending 11 years in prison while under investigation, on August 26, 1952, he was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union to 10 years in a correctional labour camp under Article 193, paragraph 17. By the decree of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union of October 2, 1952, he was deprived of the military rank "Major General". To serve his sentence, he was sent to the city of Nizhneudinsk, Irkutsk Oblast, where he worked as a foreman in felling.

He was released in July 1953 and rehabilitated on July 28, 1953. On August 15 of the same year, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union canceled its decision to deprive Nikolay Gapich of his military rank, and he was reinstated in the Soviet Army. After being at the disposal of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, he was transferred to the reserve on October 21, 1953, for health reasons.

Military ranks Colonel (January 29, 1936); Brigade Commander (April 2, 1940); Major general (June 4, 1940).

Awards Order of Lenin (1953); Order of the Red Banner (1941); Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"