Iosif Stanislavovich Unshlikht (Jozef Unszlicht, 1879-1938) was a Polish revolutionary who became a senior Soviet security and military official. He served as deputy chairman of the Cheka and then the GPU in 1921-1923, alongside Felix Dzerzhinsky, and was involved in operations against Polish and emigre targets and in the Comintern’s covert work in Germany in 1923.

He went on to senior posts in the military apparatus, including deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, with responsibilities that touched military intelligence. He was arrested in 1937 during the Great Terror’s purge of Polish communists and shot in 1938.

Sources

• Leggett, George. The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police. Clarendon Press, 1981.
• Andrew, Christopher, and Oleg Gordievsky. KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. HarperCollins, 1990.

Summary entry. A fuller, document-based profile is in preparation.