Timofey Petrovich Samsonov (birth / family form Babiy; underground name “Foma”; 9 (21) May 1888 — 28 October 1955) was a Russian revolutionary, Cheka–OGPU official, Soviet party and administrative worker, film-production organiser, and author of the autobiographical narrative “Beyond the Law” (Vne zakona, 1933); father of Tatyana Timofeevna Krivosheina and husband of Eva Konstantinovna .
This page is built from the family notebook and documents and cross-checked against open reference works (see Open sources ). Wikipedia and Wikidata are navigation, not sole proof. Uncertain points are marked.
Young Timofey Petrovich. Studio Kapustinsky / Sheremetev, Moscow. Daughter’s note: “my dad.”
Album of certificates and portraits: Parents section · photo album .
Name and origin
| Public name | Timofey Petrovich Samsonov |
| Babiy | in the daughter’s notebook: “Samsonov (Babiy)”; on the family chart; in reference works as birth or parallel surname |
| “Foma” | underground nickname (notebook / Sovetskaya Moldaviya 1988 cutting; handbooks) — not a civil given name |
| Birth | 9 (21) May 1888, village Mikhayleny / Mikhaylyany, Khotyn uyezd, Bessarabia (notebook; matches open bios) |
| Death | 28 October 1955, Moscow (daughter’s account; bust plaque 1888–1955; Novodevichy — per chart) |
| Background | peasant family; early hardship and farm labour (family and reference tradition) |
Education (handbooks, consistent with the family centenary sketch): rural primary school; Khotyn district school (c. 1906); study at the Khotyn real school.
Revolution and imprisonment (1906–1914)
From 1906 — Social-Democratic circle in Khotyn; arrest September 1906, Khotyn prison, release on bail (family 1988 cutting; handbooks). From 1907 — among anarchist-communists, nickname “Foma”; flying detachment “Destroy and Build” (reference tradition; family cutting evaluates the tactics carefully). Prisons 1907–1910 (Khotyn, Kamianets-Podilskyi, etc.); meeting G. I. Kotovsky in Khotyn prison — family/reference tradition, no separate archival act on this site. May 1909 (Odessa, per handbooks): sentence to prison and Siberian exile. Alexandrovsky hard-labour central — family photograph captioned that father was held there in summer 1910:
Alexandrovsky Central. Album note: “Father was imprisoned here in the summer of 1910.”
Exile in Kirensk uyezd (carpenter, stevedore, mine labour — handbooks); Bodaybo, then Vladivostok — family and reference route, without publishing precise addresses.
Emigration and Britain (1915–1917)
Reference line: escape via China — Japan — India — Algeria — Spain to England; Liverpool, dock labour; transport union; “Union of Russian Seamen”; anarchist-communist activity.
Family document: Expulsion Order, 1917 — Liverpool Police Court 7 April 1917, Whitehall 28 September 1917; name forms Tomofi Sainsanov / Samsonov, also Michael Nemchinoff (aliases need cross-check).
British Expulsion Order (Aliens Act 1905). Family archive.
1917–1923: Chelyabinsk, front, Cheka
Return via Arkhangelsk (handbooks: arrest and dispatch to the Urals). Chelyabinsk: labour exchange, Soviet, railway union (handbooks; Chelyabinsk encyclopedia card — external, site availability uneven).
Civil War: registration / military control, then Special Department of the 3rd Army on the Eastern Front; Moscow gubernia Cheka; Registration Directorate of the Field Staff of the RVSR (dates ± months by handbook).
1920–1923: head of the Secret Department of the Cheka → GPU → OGPU (core of the “security service” layer in family memory and handbooks).
16 January 1919: F. E. Dzerzhinsky presents comrade T. P. Samsonov with his personal Colt No. 75350.
Family caption: “F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Belenky, Papa” (papa on the right).
Entry into the RCP(b) — 1919 (handbooks; family cutting links a 19 Feb 1919 Pravda letter by anarchist-communist staff of the 3rd Army).
Party and economic work (1923–1935)
| Period (reference) | Role |
|---|---|
| 1923–1924 | deputy head, Belarus–Baltic Railway |
| 1924–1927 | audit department, VSNKh |
| 1927–1935 | administrator of affairs of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) |
| 1932–1934 | also head of the CC Accounting Department |
The “administrator of affairs of the Central Committee…” wording around 1931 appears in the daughter’s notebook (ch. 03 ) and in handbooks; ch. 02 has an uncertain “TsIK[?]…” reading. The career table uses aligned handbooks plus family memory, not a personnel-file extract.
Film and the Comintern (c. 1934/35–1938)
- Mezhrabpomfilm — director (handbooks c. 1934/35–1936; daughter confirms directorship, ch. 08 ).
- Executive Committee of the Comintern — administrator of affairs (c. 1936–1938, handbooks).
1938–1940: removal / arrest
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Handbooks / Wikipedia | arrested 1938, not convicted, released 1940 |
| Daughter’s notebook (ch. 08) | 1938 — removed from work, months without a post, life “under a sword of Damocles,” loss of some privileges; later work via the Moscow Party committee (some wording uncertain) |
War and publishing (1941–1955)
Reference line (details differ by edition):
- 1941–1942 — director of the Moscow prosthetic factory (wartime production in some accounts);
- 1942–1944/45 — All-Union Book Chamber, Glavlit;
- 1945–1955 — Gospolitizdat (classics of Marxism-Leninism / personnel — handbook wording).
Family memory: illness 1954–1955, hospital, “Kratovo” sanatorium, death 28 October 1955 (ch. 10 , 18/19 family chapters ).
Bust: “Timofey Petrovich Samsonov, 1888–1955.” Native village / family memory; daughter’s verses on the leaf.
Family
- Wife — Eva (Evdokia) Konstantinovna (née Morozova; 1900–1981).
- Children (notebook): Evgenia (Genya) — daughter from the father’s first marriage, raised by Eva; Timofey Timofeevich (Tyoma) ; Tatyana .
- House on the Embankment (from 1931): settlement commission, flat — ch. 02–03 , Serafimovich Street , Tatyana’s 2011 KP interview (daughter’s memory only).
See Father and mother .
Awards and badges
| Item | On this site / in the family | Reference tradition |
|---|---|---|
| Order of the Red Banner | VTsIK diploma , Kalinin | often 16 Jul 1921 |
| GPU / “Honoured worker” badge | GPU collegium form | V No. 21 (1922), XV (1932) in Wikipedia; family form number needs separate check |
| Colt 1919 | Dzerzhinsky certificate | personal revolver of the Cheka chairman |
| Mauser 1927 | in Wikipedia; no family form on the site | not asserted without a document |
| Medals | “two medals” in Wikipedia | without family forms — not listed as established |
Order of the Red Banner diploma. Family archive.
GPU badge form. Family archive.
“Beyond the Law” and publications
- Samsonov, T. P. Vne zakona [Beyond the Law]: [autobiographical narrative]. — Moscow: Moscow Writers’ Partnership, 1933. — 215 pp. Bibliography fixed in Wikipedia and handbooks; full text is not copied onto this site.
- Pravda piece “On Dzerzhinsky” (date from album caption 20 Jul 1929) — card .
- Notebook holds a cutting from Sovetskaya Moldaviya, 21 May 1988 for the centenary (ch. 05 ).
Timeline (compressed)
| Year / period | Event | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 9(21) May 1888 | Birth, Mikhayleny | notebook; handbooks |
| 1906–1914 | RSDLP → anarchists; prisons; Alexandrovsky Central; exile | notebook + handbooks; album 1910 |
| 1915–1917 | Emigration; Liverpool; expulsion | 1917 document + handbooks |
| 1917–1919 | Chelyabinsk; 3rd Army; Moscow Cheka | handbooks |
| 1919–1923 | Secret Department Cheka–OGPU; Colt | documents + handbooks |
| 1927–1935 | Administrator of affairs of the CC | handbooks; notebook |
| c. 1935–1938 | Mezhrabpomfilm; Comintern | handbooks; ch. 08 |
| 1938–1940 | Removal / arrest (see caution) | handbooks + notebook |
| 1941–1955 | Factory, publishing houses | handbooks |
| 28 Oct 1955 | Death, Moscow | notebook; bust 1888–1955 |
In Tatyana’s notebook
Daughter’s voice: ch. 02 , 05 , 08 , 10 . Character, dacha, film, 1937–38, illness and death — family testimony, not a personnel file.
Open sources
Reference / navigation (secondary):
- Wikipedia EN · Wikipedia RU (fuller chronology) · Wikidata Q16694245
- CPSU history handbook (knowbysight) — database / secondary
- History of Everyday Life — secondary; header typo “1988–1955”
- Hrono (Wayback) — secondary
- Alexander Yakovlev Archive — secondary; some editions death 1956 (conflict)
- Print: Arkhiv VChK (2007), pp. 702–703; Alekseev/Kolpakidi/Kochik (2012), p. 687; Kuchkov/Plekhanov (2008), p. 110 — academic/reference (pages via Wikipedia bibliography; full volumes not stored here)
Family: notebook; documents ; album ; KP 2011 .
Conflicts and open questions
- Death 1955 vs 1956 — family + bust + Wikipedia/Hrono: 1955; knowbysight/some dictionaries: 1956. Public: 28 Oct 1955.
- el-history “1988–1955” — obvious birth-year typo.
- 1938 — arrest (handbooks) vs removal (notebook): both layers shown.
- Rehabilitation — not confirmed by a document on this site.
- EN Wikipedia is short and partly muddles roles; chronology prefers RU handbooks + family.
- Father’s first marriage (Genya’s mother) — in the notebook; no full page for the first wife.
See also: Parents — album spread · Eva Konstantinovna · Tatyana · Timeline · People