History of the Communist Party USA the retiring head of the party, William Z. Foster, published a book entitled "Toward Soviet America", which laid out the Communist Party's plans for revolution and the building of a new socialist society based on the model of Soviet Russia. In that same year, Earl Browder became General Secretary of the Communist Party. At first, Browder moved the party closer to Soviet interests and helped to develop its secret apparatus or underground network. He also assisted in the recruitment of espionage sources and agents for the Soviet NKVD. Browder's own younger sister Margerite was an NKVD operative in Europe until
Mikhail Matveyev (NKVD officer) Mikhail Matveyev (NKVD officer) Mikhail Rodionovich Matveyev (1892-1971) (Михаил Родионович Матвеев) was a senior NKVD executioner, sent to begin the mass shootings at Sandarmokh in Karelia in the late 1930s. After completing two years of education at a village school, the young Matveyev moved to St Petersburg where he held various occupations: he was a doorman at an apartment block, for instance, before becoming in 1913 an assistant to a metal-worker at the Vulcan works. Following the 1917 February Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks and soon was serving as a Cheka executioner. In 1923 he took a few years away