James Bond of the Schneerson Family
Natan Michailovich Schneerson – the meteoric career of the spy – אוֹי מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ
I started looking at the town of Surazh because the three “purged” Schneersons were born there. Two brothers Natan Michailovich Schneerson and Abram Michailovich Schneerson and perhaps a cousin Yosif Solomonovich Schneerson. To confuse things, Surazh is mentioned alternatively in Chernigov or Bransk regions. Also called a Ukrainian town, while now on the Russian side of the Belarus border:
I then realized that the origin of this Schneerson family is in a different Surazh, the much smaller village in Belarus, in the Vitebsk region. Those Shtetls with identical names in different countries. Here is Surazh in northern Belarus:
UPDATE: Not going to change the post, but the origin of this family might be the Surazh near Bryansk. There was a Schneerson Rov there from the Nezhiner line.
רב העיירה הרב שניאור דובער שניאורסון, בנו של הרב הקדוש המהרי"ן מניעז'ין. Inconclusive. We don’t know.
If you follow the curvature of the current border, Surazh is to the north of Lyady. North of that Minsk / Moscow highway. While Lyady is just to the south of that (future?) highway:
Don’t know if Surazh is the same village that was called in Yiddish סיראטשין
Lyady Rebbe, Chaim Schneur Zalman Schneerson, the third son of Tzemach Tzedek had a son-in-law Levi Itzhok Guterman who was a son of the Radziminer Rebbe from the suburb of Warsaw. This man became a Chabad Rebbe in Sirachin. Here is what Beis Rabbi wrote about him:
Now let’s leave the geography and let me set up the scene of the crime, so to speak. Let's assume that the time of Tzemach Tzedek was “peak Chabad”. The brand is established, and facings no real competition in its geographic area. To the point that TT is able to tax the vast territories and grow the Chabad bank immensely (see Ilia Lurie’s book). Your classic taxation without representation. In return, just before the demographic bomb on the 19th century, TT throws all the political and financial resources on fighting the maskilim. He lobbies the government in an attempt to disrupt the enlightened, practical education for the vast Jewish populace of the Russian Empire.
Post TT split, I do not believe the new Chabad Rebbes understood how difficult it was to establish a new brand competing with each other plus competing with the already established brand, they never understood what it takes financially. In other words, they didn’t fully know what role money plays in running a Chabad (or Chassidic) business. All the sons of TT grew up with no financial worries, and they didn't know how difficult it was to split from the established mothership, build a new brand from scratch. Or perhaps when they established their courts in very small and poor villages, they underestimated the challenges.
Fast-forward two generations to the father of Natan Michailovich Schneerson (below), whose occupation is now described as "small trader or handicrafts man". The period of the exponential growth of the Jewish population, with no economic or political future, cruel inequality and institutional antisemitism. Suddenly Papa Schneerson is uprooting his mishpoche to Harbin, China at the same time as Jews of the Russian Empire escape to America. Now you have a whole generation of Schneerson's the same age as Natan Michailovich, bursting with the Schneerson talent, for whom communism or even Zionism sound like the only alternative to their economic and professional predicament. Even the well-to-do Schneersons of that generation are infected with the messianic fever.
And now to the point of this post:
Natan Michailovich Schneerson
Born in 1901 in Surazh [same age as Ramash]. The son of a small trader (according to other sources, the son of a handicrafts man).
He graduated from a primary school and gymnasium in Harbin, China [one has to assume he knew Chinese].
From April to July 1919 he was a member of the youth circle of "Poalei Zion". [April to July???]
In 1919-1920 he lived at the Manchuria station of the Chinese Eastern Railway (AKA Trans-Manchurian Railway), gave private lessons, then secretary of the Far Eastern Telegraph Agency [his entire early life and work evolved along the various stations of this railroad].
From August 1921 he served in the Joint State Political Directorate (ОГПУ) in Chita, then in Vladivostok.
In 1922, he joined the Communist Party.
From December 1925 he served in Khabarovsk.
Participant in the armed conflict with China, receives a medal – орден Красного Знамени [maybe this refers to Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 and appears out of order in the biography?].
From December 1925 to May 1926 — resident Soviet spy in Mukden (AKA Shenyang) China (under the guise of Vice-Consul of the USSR in Mukden).
Since October 1926 — Acting head of the Foreign Department of the Secret and Operational Directorate. [Soviet spy agency, Natan Michailovich Schneerson was 25 years old]
Since May 1927 — Head of the Foreign Department of the Secret and Operational Directorate.
From June 1930 to October 1931 — assistant chief and head of the Secret Service in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, then deputy Secret Service resident in Germany, worked under the cover of Press Secretary of the USSR mission in Berlin [the same time his cousin was in town].
From July 1934 he worked in the apparatus of NKVD.
November 3, 1936 — promoted to NKVD Major.
Since November 1936 — Assistant to the head of the intelligence of the NKVD.
Arrested on January 16, 1938, on charges of espionage and participation in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy in the organs of the NKVD.
Sentenced to be shot. The sentence was carried out on March 4, 1939.
His cremated ashes dumped into the same "Common Grave Number 1" at Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow with another two Schneersons, cousin from Surazh and the einikle of the מהרי"ד.
Rehabilitated on June 23, 1959, by the decision of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
P.S. I don’t rule out that both his brother and cousin arrested because of the relation to this prominent “enemy of the people”. In addition to Surazh, the all had a connection to Harbin, China.