General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov (Russian: Иван Александрович Серов, August 13, 1905 – July 1, 1990) was the head of KGB between 1954 and 1958, a as well as head of GRU between 1958 and 1963. He was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria, and was to play a major role in the political intrigues after Stalin's death. He also helped establish a variety of secret police forces in Eastern Europe after the rise of the Iron Curtain.
Serov w...
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General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov (Russian: Иван Александрович Серов, August 13, 1905 – July 1, 1990) was the head of KGB between 1954 and 1958, a as well as head of GRU between 1958 and 1963. He was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria, and was to play a major role in the political intrigues after Stalin's death. He also helped establish a variety of secret police forces in Eastern Europe after the rise of the Iron Curtain.
Serov was born on August 13, 1905, in Afimskoe, a village in the Vologda province of the Russian Empire. Major changes in Russia occurred during his childhood, culminating in the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917. At the age of 18, in 1923, he enlisted in the Red Army, a short time after the Russian Civil War; from 1924 to 1925, he acted as the village mayor in Afimskoe. In 1926, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Two years later, at 23, Serov graduated from the Military Technical College of Leningrad. Serov went on to attend the...
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