Leonid Kuzmich Solovyov

Leonid Kuzmich Solovyov was born in March 1910 in the village of Urlapovo, Shipunovsky District, Altai Krai, to a family of farmers. He completed his secondary education, graduating from a nine-year school in Barnaul. His work record listed "first-grade teacher" under "occupation."

He began his career at the age of eighteen as a bailiff in the Barnaul district court, then worked as an investigator in the district prosecutor's office. In January 1933, his Cheka career began, first as an authorized representative of the economic department of the Barnaul

He served as the OGPU operations officer, and two years later, at the OGPU Plenipotentiary Representative Office for the West Siberian Territory, where he handled operational work and headed a section, then the third department, of the State Security Directorate of the NKVD Directorate for the Novosibirsk Region. He also served for a time as deputy of the Stalin City NKVD Department in Kuzbass. In 1937, he was awarded the NKVD Honorary Worker's Badge "For Relentless Struggle Against Counterrevolution," and two years later, he was admitted to the Communist Party.

In August 1941, with the rank of lieutenant of state security, L.K. Solovyov became the head of the Tomsk city department of the NKVD. This was the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, its most difficult months, marked by bloody battles and the continued retreat of Soviet troops along the entire front. At the same time, an unprecedented evacuation of hundreds of industrial enterprises and institutions deep into the country began, many of which ended up in Tomsk. The NKVD city department and its head devoted great attention to the placement of the evacuated factories, and together with the party, soviet, and economic bodies of Tomsk, they facilitated their rapid

construction, development, and commissioning. It is no coincidence that one of L.K. Solovyov's first speeches at the plenum of the Tomsk City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in November 1941 was entirely devoted to the work of the city's industrial enterprises. This same topic was also raised in his speech at a meeting of the city's party activists held at the end of January 1942. By that time, many evacuated factories had already begun producing military products. Local enterprises also reoriented themselves to meet the needs of the front. L.K. Solovyov drew attention to the need for increased vigilance,

He cited instances of theft and poor security at military factories. By the summer of 1942, according to L.K. Solovyov, spy rings had been uncovered in Tomsk and individual spies neutralized. The lack of access to NKVD documents from those years makes it difficult to definitively determine the identity of the aforementioned "spies" and "spy rings." At the same time, it is known that approximately 1,500 innocent residents of the Tomsk region were repressed during the war, later rehabilitated. It is most likely among them that we should look for the very "spies" neutralized under Solovyov's watchful eye. However, the capture of genuine spies also cannot be ruled out.

Another matter was the fight against crime, the level of which in Tomsk was "dangerously high" during the first years of the war. This was due both to the city's growing population due to evacuees, refugees, and street children, as well as to the economic difficulties of the wartime hardships and the acute shortage of basic necessities. Furthermore, Tomsk's criminal underworld was swelled by various criminal elements flocking to the rear. They were confronted by the small Tomsk police force, weakened by constant mobilizations. In the first years of the war, the police failed to

to have any serious impact on the crime situation in the city, despite the efforts of the NKVD.

In April 1943, the NKVD was divided into three departments: the NKGB, the Military Counterintelligence Service (SMERSH), and the NKVD. During this reorganization, L.K. Solovyov was transferred to the newly created Directorate of the People's Commissariat of State Security for Novosibirsk Oblast. A year later, he was seconded to work in the western regions of the country liberated from the enemy. There, he held the positions of deputy chief and chief of the NKGB department of the Moldavian SSR for the city of Chisinau, and headed the "O" department of the MGB of Moldova. Subsequently, after completing the operational leadership courses at the Higher School of the MGB of the USSR in 1948, L.K. Solovyov served for five years as deputy chief of the MGB Directorate for the Chelyabinsk Oblast, and then as deputy chief of the UMVD and deputy chief of the Militia Department of the UMVD. In February 1951, he was promoted to colonel. By order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs dated March 11, 1958, L.K. Solovyov was dismissed “for discrediting reasons.”

Source: Larkov N., Chernova I. Police masters, commissars, chiefs (Heads of law enforcement agencies of the Tomsk province, district and region in the XIX-XX centuries) Tomsk.-1999.P. 145-147.