Terentii Deribas

Deribas, Terentii Dmitrievich 

Born Mar. 28 (Apr. 9), 1883; died Aug. 22, 1939. Professional revolutionary, Cheka agent, and first-rank commissar of state security (1935). Member of the CPSU since 1903. The son of a peasant, he was born in the village of Onufrievka, in present-day Kirovograd Raion.

Deribas actively participated in the Revolution of 1905-07. He was arrested several times and exiled. During the October Revolution he was one of the leaders of the Bolshevik organization in Troitsk District, Orenburg Province. He commanded a detachment of workers fighting against the White Cossacks and White Czechs. From 1918 to 1919 he was head of the political section of his division and deputy head of the army’s political section. Sent to work in Cheka agencies in 1920, Deribas took part in suppressing the Kronstadt Rebellion and eliminating the Antonov Revolt (Antonovshchina). In 1929 he joined the Far East agencies of the Unified State Political Directorate and the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (OGPU-NKVD), and from 1931 to 1937 he was a member of the board of the OGPU. At the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934 he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). Deribas was awarded an Order of Lenin and two Orders of the Red Banner.