Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Skoblin was removed from the command of the Kornilovtsy in 1923, by General P. N. Wrangel, but was restored to that position in 1929 by General A. P. Kutepov, when the latter became head of ROVS. It has been suggested that it was under the influence of his allegedly avaricious wife, the famous singer Nadezhda Plevitskaia (who also worked for the Soviets), that in September 1930 he entered the service of the NKVD. In that capacity, as a member of the “Inner Line,” he was involved in the planting of false documents with the Gestapo that led eventually to the downfall of Marshall M. N. Tukhachevskii. He also played a leading role, in September 1937, in the kidnapping by the NKVD of the successor to Kutepov as head of ROVS, General E. K. Miller. When his treachery was uncovered (Miller had left documents with General P. A. Kusonskii, to be opened in the case of his death or disappearance, that revealed his own suspicions about Skoblin’s trustworthiness), Skoblin fled, probably to Spain. There are no reliable accounts of his subsequent fate; some have suggested that Skoblin was poisoned on a Soviet ship en route to Odessa, others, that he was killed in Spain by the NKVD agent Alexander Orlov. In his memoirs (The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes, 1954), Orlov suggests that Skoblin was taken to Leningrad. It may be telling, however, that in an otherwise sensational memoir (Special Tasks, 1994), the Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov wrote that Skoblin died in a bombing raid in Barcelona. The fate of his wife is slightly better established: she was arrested, tried by a French court, and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for her part in the abduction of General Miller, and she died in prison at Rennes on 5 October 1940, possibly of a heart attack (although the precise cause of her death remains unconfirmed). The story of Plevitskaia and Skoblin was fictionalized by Vladimir Nabokov (who had known Plevitskaia in Berlin) in his English-language story “The Assistant Producer” (1943). It also formed the basis of Eric Rohmer’s feature film Triple Agent (2004).

Skoropadskii, Pavel (pavlo) Petrovich (3 May 1873–26 April 1945). Colonel (6 December 1906), major general (6 December 1912), lieutenant general (12 September 1915). The Hetman of the Ukrainian State of 1918, P. P. Skoropadskii was born at Wiesbaden (in what was then the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau) into a wealthy Cossack family, but grew up on his father’s estates in Poltava and Chernigov gubernii. He was a graduate of the Corps of Pages (1893), and having entered military service with His Majesty’s Cavalry Guards on 15 August 1891, fought in the Russo–Japanese War as commander of the 2nd Chita Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Host. Having won a gold sword of honor for his exploits, he subsequently became an aide-de-camp to Nicholas II (from 1905), and from April 1911 led a cavalry regiment of the tsar’s House Guards. In the First World War, he rose to the command of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division (from 2 April 1916), and from 22 January 1917 was commander of the 34th Army Corps, stationed in Ukraine.