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Nikolai Skoblin


Nikolai Skoblin (Russian: Николай Владимирович Скоблин; 1892–1938?) was a general in the White Russian army, a member of the expatriate Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and Soviet double agent who acted as a courier between Soviet and Nazi secret police organizations, the NKVD and Gestapo. He was husband to the singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya.

Skoblin was a cavalry officer in the Kornilov Division of the White Russian Army during the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. He was known for both bravery and cruelty. Red Army soldiers captured by Skoblin's men were hanged or shot on the spot. It is said he met his wife, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, during the war. The romantic version is that Skoblin captured her during a raid against the Red Army. Plevitskaya was a committed Bolshevik considered to be a great beauty, who had been traveling the front singing and entertaining Red Army troops.

Plevitkskaya used her considerable charms to seduce Skoblin and escape the gallows. Through her influence, Skoblin became a Bolshevik intelligence agent for the Cheka and later for the Soviet Union's NKVD.

Skoblin and his wife moved to Paris at the end of the Civil War. To outward appearances, Skoblin was an anti-communist White émigré. He soon became a leader in a White counterrevolutionary organization dedicated to overthrowing the Soviet government, the Russian All-Military Union (in Russian, Русский Обще Воинский Союз, or ROVS). The ROVS, a collection of former tsarist officers, constantly planned the fall of Joseph Stalin's government and the unlikely restoration of the Russian monarchy while it was engaged in petty rivalries and subterfuges. Skoblin penetrated the highest level in this group and became the intimate of General Yevgeny Miller, its leader. It was a testament to Skoblin's skill as an informer and intriguer that he would remain Miller's confidant despite repeated warnings that he was a double agent.


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