Alexander Petrovich Ulanovsky (aka Ulrich, William Berman, Nathan Sherman) (1895-1968?) was the chief illegal rezident for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in the United States from 1931 until 1934. Emblem of GRU spetsnaz GRU is the English transliteration of the Russian acronym ГРУ, which stands for Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние (Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie), meaning Main Intelligence Directorate. ...

Born into a Jewish family in the Ukraine, Ulanovsky joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party as a youth. Arrested by the Tsarist Okhrana for radical activity, he was deported to Siberia where he was confined to the same camp as Joseph Stalin. While in exile, he stole Stalin's fur coat and made a daring escape. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs, or Essaires; Партия социалистов-революционеров (ПСР), эсеры in Russian) were a... The Okhrannoye otdeleniye (Russian: , meaning Security Section or Security Station), also the Okhrana or Tsarist Okhranka in Western sources, or diminutive Okhranka by those dissatisfied with the tsarist regime, was a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in late 1800s... Siberian Federal District (darker red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) Udachnaya pipe Siberia (Russian: , Sibir; Tatar: ) is a vast region of Russia constituting almost all of Northern Asia. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314...

Following the October Revolution, Ulanovsky enlisted in the Red Army and served as the commander of an armored train during the Civil War. He fought in the Ukraine and the Crimea against both the Whites and the peasant army of the anarchist Nestor Makhno. After the war he joined Soviet military intelligence and served as a secret agent in Argentina and Shanghai. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Combatants Red Army (Bolsheviks) White Army (Monarchists, SRs, Anti-Communists) Green Army (Peasants and Nationalists) Black Army (Anarchists) United States of America Commanders Leon Trotsky Mikhail Tukhachevsky Semyon Budyonny Lavr Kornilov, Alexander Kolchak, Anton Denikin, Pyotr Wrangel Alexander Antonov, Nikifor Grigoriev Nestor Makhno Strength 5,427,273 (peak) +1,000... Motto: Процветание в единстве - Prosperity in unity Anthem: Нивы и горы твои волшебны, Родина - Your fields and mounts are wonderful, Motherland Capital Simferopol Largest cities Simferopol, Eupatoria, Kerch, Theodosia, Yalta Official language Ukrainian. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Nestor Makhno. ... Shanghai (Chinese: ; pinyin:  ; Shanghainese: ), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of the Peoples Republic of China and the eighth largest in the world. ...

Together with his wife Nadezhda, Ulanovsky came to America on the maiden voyage of The Bremen in 1931. His mission was to take over the GRU apparatus assembled by his predecessor, Manfred Stern, who was moving on to China. Some of the known members of the group were Lydia Stahl, Robert Gordon Switz, Leon Minster, Robert Osman, Joshua Tamer, and Whittaker Chambers. In his memoir, Witness, Chamber's provided an inside view of the workings of the apparatus and a deferential portrait of Ulanovsky, whom he called "the only Russian who was ever to become my close friend." However, the spy Hede Massing who also knew Ulanovsky at this time, under the alias Bill Berman, wrote in her memoir that he was a "confused and inept man" and "one of the least ambitious and offensive of the crew of Russian agents with whom I had to deal." This group's principle activity was securing patent applications, blueprints, and technical manuals which they would pack into a large crate and ship to the Soviet Union. After Robert Osman was arrested while spying on the U.S. military installation in Panama, Ulanovsky was recalled. Manfred Stern (aka Emilio Kléber, Lazar Stern, Moishe Stern, Mark Zilbert) (1896-1954) was a member of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU). ... Lydia Stahl (1890- ) was a secret agent who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in New York and Paris. ... Joshua Tamer was an American member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) who was involved in espionage on behalf of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in the early 1930s for the network which Whittaker Chambers worked with. ... Whittaker Chambers, 1948 Jay Vivian (David Whittaker) Chambers (April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer and editor. ... From A Counterintelligence Reader [1]: Hede Massing, an Austrian-born Soviet intelligence operative who served in the United States in the 1930s . ...

The Danish police arrested Ulanovsky, operating under the alias Nathan Sherman, in Copenhagen in 1935, after a search of his hotel room turned up codes, money, and multiple passports. Two other Americans, George Mink and Leon Josephson, were also arrested. Ulanovsky claimed they were Jewish anti-facists fighting against Hitler, but the police had information that proved they were operating a Soviet espionage ring, possibly obtained from the Gestapo. The Danes held a secret trial and Ulanovsky was convicted of spying and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. He was later deported to the Soviet Union. Leon Josephson was an American attorney and longtime Communist who aided the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in their false-passport operation on behalf of Soviet intellignece in the 1930s. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The   (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; Secret State Police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ...

Remarkably, Ulanovsky survived the Great Purge. In 1948 he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in the Gulag for anarchist tendancies. To no avail, he wrote to Stalin begging for leniency and apologizing for the earlier theft of his coat. Upon his release, Ulanovsky became a dissident and he died in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s. The Great Purge (Russian: , transliterated Bolshaya chistka) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the late 1930s. ... Gulag ( , Russian: ) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: // Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp... A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively opposes an established opinion, policy, or structure. ...

Sources

• Whittaker Chambers, Witness, Random House, 1952.
• Hede Massing, This Deception, Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1941.
• Sam Tenenhaus, Whittaker Chambers, Random House, 1997.
• Maya and Nadezhda Ulanovskaya, Istoriya Odnoi Semyi (One Family's Story), Chalidze Publications, 1982.
• Louis Waldman, Labor Lawyer, E.P. Dutton, 1944.