Fluent in over ten languages (including Korean, Chinese, Turkish, and Persian, the last one learned especially in order to read works by Omar Khayyám), Menzhinsky was the second and last member of the Polish nobility among the Lubyanka's chiefs.
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Menzhinsky spent his last years as an invalid, suffering from acute angina since the late twenties, which rendered him incapable of physical exertion.
Vyacheslav Molotov | Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov | Vyacheslav von Plehve | Vyacheslav Vasilevsky | Vyacheslav Tikhonov | Vyacheslav Shokurov | Vyacheslav Menzhinsky | Vyacheslav Borisov | Vyacheslav | Vyacheslav Zaytsev | Vyacheslav Spesivtsev | Vyacheslav Rybakov | Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Kuznetsov | Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Ivanov | Vyacheslav Kyrylenko | Vyacheslav Klykov | Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet) | Vyacheslav Ivanov | Vyacheslav Butusov | Grand Duke Vyacheslav's monument in Pavlovsk. |
The troika Grigory Zinoviev-Lev Kamenev-Joseph Stalin wanted a symbolic direction represented by Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky and an effective direction represented by Yagoda who was neither a people's commissar nor a central committee member to ensure that the GPU remained loyal to the party.
A three person Collegium of the OGPU — consisting of GPU chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, his successor Genrikh Yagoda, and future People's Commissar of Internal Affairs V. A. Balitsky — formally decided the charges against Ryutin.