A Man from Talachyn Area Became a Moscow Agent. He Had a Week Left to Live

Soviet diplomat Vasil Bahavy was released after his identity and diplomatic passport were checked. Dzyamkoŭski was handcuffed and immediately taken for interrogation.

The documents were so secret that it was now imperative to find out as quickly as possible which of them Dzyamkoŭski had already managed to hand over to the USSR. The calendar showed July 11, 1931.

Piotr Dzyamkoŭski was 36 years old. He was born in 1895 in the village of Harbachova near Talachyn. And who knows if his poor Belarusian peasant childhood, likely a happy one, in what was then Mahilioŭshchyna, flashed before Piotr at the moment of his arrest.

Павялічыць

Dzyamkoŭski made a dazzling career in the Polish army: Major of the General Staff, a veteran of the war with the Bolsheviks, awarded crosses three times. And now he was pulled from a Soviet diplomat's car with secret documents in a folder.

Polish counter-intelligence had been waiting for this moment for almost two months. Planned, daily surveillance of Soviet diplomats in Warsaw yielded interesting information on May 20, 1931.

On one of Warsaw's central streets, a well-built man in a light suit entered a Soviet embassy car. The special services decided to find out who this companion of the Soviet diplomat was. The man was put under surveillance.

But he didn't particularly hide. Ten days later, the same man, but now in the uniform of a Polish army major, with a thick dark folder, got into the same Soviet embassy car. There's a lead!

Polish operatives urgently requested photographs of all majors serving in Warsaw. The unknown man was identified — Piotr Dzyamkoŭski, a Major of the General Staff, a hero of the war against the Bolsheviks. And most dangerously: he had access to the most secret documents of the Polish army.

Now counter-intelligence was interested in everything that could be learned about Dzyamkoŭski. Born in Belarus, in Harbachova, now Talachyn district of Vitebsk region, then Mahilioŭshchyna. In 1916, he volunteered for the Russian army, graduated from military school in Tbilisi, fought on the Austrian front, and studied gas warfare technologies. After Poland regained independence, he joined the Polish army and only continued to climb the career ladder. Higher Military School, rank of Major, finally, in 1930 — General Staff.

At first glance — the biography of a successful officer. They drew attention to the fact that Dzyamkoŭski's wife, Antanina Myadzvedzeva, was Russian. Nothing unusual, Polish lands had recently been part of the Russian Empire. But while trying to obtain permission for her relatives to leave the USSR, Dzyamkoŭski once appeared at the Soviet embassy in Warsaw.

There he met Vasil Bahavy, the deputy Soviet military attaché.

Today, knowing the circumstances of the case, one can say that Dzyamkoŭski himself sought contact with the Soviets.

"What must I do to rectify my past sins against the Soviet authorities and start working for them?" — Dzyamkoŭski intended to ask Bahavy. And he received the answer: no sacrifices are needed, it will be enough to perform a certain service in the military sphere.

Dzyamkoŭski began to hand over documents obtained from the Polish Army General Staff to Bahavy: intelligence data, meeting transcripts, army command schemes. Each time, Bahavy took the documents to the embassy, photographed them, and returned them to Dzyamkoŭski on the very same day.

The major did not take, demand, or ask for money for his services. During the interrogation on the day of his arrest, Piotr Dzyamkoŭski would say:

"If a communist revolution broke out, I would, without a doubt, side with the communists."

He mercilessly criticized the organization of military affairs in Poland, but admired the Red Army: "Everything there is logically connected, wisely structured, and prepared for wartime conditions."

Polish special services decided to arrest Dzyamkoŭski at his next meeting with the enemy.

And that day, as we already know, arrived on July 11, 1931. Operatives had been following Dzyamkoŭski since early morning. After work, he returned home with a tightly packed folder. After some time, he left the house in civilian clothes, also with a folder. He went to the Central Military Library, and two hours later, he left and returned by tram to the center of Warsaw. The folder was with him the whole time. At that moment, a Soviet embassy car with Vasil Bahavy at the wheel stopped nearby. Dzyamkoŭski jumped into the car. At that very second, two cars with Polish counter-intelligence operatives, who had been following both the Soviet car and Dzyamkoŭski, blocked the road.

The major's trial was extraordinary and swift — to sentence him to death. The lawyer appealed for a pardon to Polish President Ignacy Mościcki, but received a refusal the same day. On July 18, a week after his arrest, Piotr Dzyamkoŭski was shot.

The day before the execution, his wife, the Russian Antanina Myadzvedzeva, sent an appeal to the press, disavowing her husband:

“I completely and permanently dissociate myself from my husband, Major of the General Staff Piotr Dzyamkoŭski, due to the grave and disgraceful accusation brought against him.”

The Soviet diplomat-agent Vasil Bahavy practically immediately, in flight, departed via Danzig for Moscow. A grimace of fate — in 1937, he would be shot for espionage and counter-revolutionary activities.

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