Early Life and Military Career
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. In 1923 (when he was 18) he joined the Red Army, shortly after the end of the Russian Civil War; in 1926, he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and graduated from the Artillery Officers School of Leningrad in 1928. A major step in his career as a Red Army officer was the attendance of Higher Academic Courses in the prestigious Frunze Military Academy from which he graduated in 1939. Later that year, he entered the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), in a major capacity.
Serov was able to survive the Great Purge, and in 1937, was tasked as the executioner of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, along with other leading Red Army figures. Viktor Suvorov claims that Serov had a responsibility in the deposition and execution of Nikolai Yezhov.
Read more about this topic: Ivan Serov
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