Iosif Grigulevich - Secret Agent

Secret Agent

In the late 1930s, Grigulevich was sent to Spain to monitor the activities of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), during the course of the civil war in that country. Grigulevich worked under NKVD general Alexander Orlov, using the code names MAKS and FELIPE, and organized so-called "mobile groups" that killed, among other actual and suspected Trotskyists, POUM leader Andrés Nin. In this mission Grigulevich apparently collaborated with the assassin Vittorio Vidali, known in Spain as "Comandante Carlos Contreras."

Grigulevich was summoned to Moscow in 1938. In January 1940 was sent to Mexico, under the code name "Yuzek," to take part in the first, unsuccessful attempt on the life of Leon Trotsky, again in collaboration with Vittorio Vidali. Later, Grigulevich was sent to Argentina under the code name "Artur", where he remained during World War II and organized anti-Nazi sabotage operations. He married a Mexican woman named Laura Araujo Aguilar, who was also a Soviet secret agent, operating under the code name LUIZA.