Elza Grundman

Grundman, El’za Iakovlevna 

Born May 4 (16), 1891; died Mar. 30, 1931, in Moscow. Active participant in the revolutionary movement and figure in the state security agencies. Member of the CPSU from 1906.

Born into the family of a Latvian hired hand in Courland, Grundman joined the revolutionary movement in 1905. She was arrested four times and imprisoned, and she took part in the October Armed Uprising of 1917 and the storming of the Winter Palace. In 1918, Grundman was commissar of special detachments of the Third Army on the Eastern Front. From 1919 she was in Moscow as second secretary of a municipal district party committee. In June 1919, on an assignment from the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik), Grundman did practical work for the Cheka in Moscow, and she was involved in suppressing a number of counterrevolutionary conspiracies and organizations. From 1920 she served in the Special Department of the All-Russian Cheka of the Southwestern Front and later in agencies of the All-Ukrainian Cheka and the Unified State Political Directorate (OGPU) of the Northern Caucasus. Beginning in 1930 she held a position of responsibility in the central OGPU organization. Grundman was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.