Gendin Semyon Grigoryevich (1902, Dvinsk, Vitebsk Governorate – 23 February 1939) – intelligence officer.
Semyon Gendin was born into the family of a dental surgeon. Completed five classes of gymnasium in Moscow (1918). Member of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1918. In 1920, graduated from the Moscow Artillery Command Courses. Studied at the Higher Military-Chemical Courses of the Red Army in 1921. Served in the Red Army from 1918 to 1921; participant in the Civil War on the Petrograd and Caucasian fronts – platoon and battery commander, assistant artillery chief of the Novorossiysk fortified district.
From 1921, served in the Cheka: investigator with the Moscow Cheka, assistant head of the 6th and 7th departments of the Counterintelligence Directorate of the OGPU (1923–25), head of the 7th department (1925). Participated in the “Syndicate-2” operation and the investigation of B.V. Savinkov’s case; awarded a commendation by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1924).
In 1925, appointed deputy head of the 6th department of the OGPU’s Counterintelligence Directorate. From 1926 to 1929, served as deputy head of the Counterintelligence Directorate of the GPU of the Byelorussian SSR and the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU in the Western Region.
From 1929, Semyon Gendin held posts at the OGPU central office: head of the 7th (1929–30), 9th, and 110th departments of the Counterintelligence Directorate (1930); special assignments officer in the Special Department of the OGPU (1930–31); assistant head of the 1st and 2nd departments of the Special Department (1931–33); head of the 2nd department of the Special Department (1933–34). In 1934–35, served as head of the 4th department of the Special Department of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and from 1935–36, also assistant head of the same department. Attained the rank of Senior Major of State Security (1936).
From September 1936 to April 1937 – head of the NKVD Directorate of the Western Region and concurrently deputy head of the Special Department of the Belorussian Military District. From April to September 1937 – deputy head of the 4th Department (Special Department for Political Security, SPO) of the GUGB of the NKVD.
From September 1937 to October 1938 – acting head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. Member of the Military Council of the USSR People’s Commissariat for Defence.
Semyon Gendin was decorated with the Order of Lenin (1937), two Orders of the Red Banner (1927, 1938), two “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU” badges, a ceremonial weapon, and the medal “20 Years of the Red Army.”
Arrested on 22 October 1938. Executed by order of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 23 February 1939. Posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.
His brother, Konstantin Grigoryevich Gendin, also worked for the OGPU-NKVD as an officer in the Secret-Political Department of the central apparatus. Arrested in 1939, released, and later went missing at the front.