Gordon Boris Moiseevich (1896, Dvinsk, Vitebsk Governorate – 21 August 1937) — intelligence officer.
Boris Gordon was born into the family of a tannery worker. In 1911, after completing seven years of trade school, he worked as an accountant. In autumn 1915, he was conscripted into the army as a private. From March 1917, he was a member of the Jewish Workers’ Party Poale Zion. He joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1918.
He worked in Tambov as head of the provincial department for nationalities and concurrently in the sub-department for national minorities within the provincial education department. During Mamontov's cavalry raid, he took part in the defence of Yelets and was subsequently assigned to the Yelets Cheka. He worked first as a junior, then senior investigator, and took part in the suppression of kulak uprisings.
In June 1920, he was transferred to the Oryol Provincial Cheka as commissioner for combating speculation and official crimes. He served on the board of the regional transport Cheka, as head of the secret-operational department, and as deputy chairman of the provincial Cheka.
In July 1921, he was assigned to the Turkestan branch of the Cheka, serving as head of the secret-operational department and deputy chairman of the regional Cheka in Verny (Semirechye Region). He was then transferred to Tashkent as head of the secret-operational department and deputy chairman of the Cheka of the Turkestan ASSR.
From May 1923, Boris Gordon served as head of the investigation department and, concurrently, head of the secret-operational and Eastern departments of the OGPU’s authorised representative office for Central Asia. He was also a member of the People’s Commissariat of Justice board, and head of the information department of the Council of People’s Commissars, the Central Executive Committee, and the Economic Council of the Turkestan ASSR.
In December 1924, he was recalled to Moscow and appointed head of the Arkhangelsk Provincial OGPU Department. In 1927–28, he headed the Kursk Provincial Department, and from 1928 served as deputy authorised representative of the OGPU for the Central Black Earth Region. In 1930–31, he was head of the secret-operational directorate of the OGPU's Moscow region representation. In 1932, he worked as business manager of the Moscow Committee of the VKP(b) and studied at the Institute of Red Professors of World Economy and World Politics.
From 1933, he served in the Foreign Department (INO) of the OGPU. In December 1934, he was appointed legal resident of the INO in Berlin (codenames: “Rudolf”, “Gustav”), officially posted as attaché and later Second Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Germany. There, he recruited several valuable assets for Soviet intelligence, including Dr Arvid Harnack (“The Corsican”), a senior official at the Ministry of Economics who later led the underground anti-fascist group “Red Orchestra”.
In May 1937, Boris Gordon was recalled to the USSR.
He was awarded the badge “Honorary Worker of the VChK–GPU,” a commendation from the OGPU Collegium, and a personalised Mauser pistol engraved with “For the ruthless struggle against counter-revolution”.
On 20 June 1937 Boris Gordon was arrested. On 21 August 1937, he was sentenced to death by a commission comprising the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor of the USSR, and the Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court on charges of espionage and “association with the enemy of the people Artuzov.” He was executed on the same day.
Rehabilitated in 1967.