- (April 19, 1895 - February 4, 1940, Moscow, USSR) - Soviet party and statesman, general commissar of state security (since January 28, 1937, January 24, 1941 deprived of his rank).
In 1911, Nikolai Yezhov worked as an apprentice locksmith at the Putilov factory in St. Petersburg. In 1913, he left St. Petersburg and spent some time with his parents in the Suwalki province, and then in search of work he lived in other places, and even abroad, in Tilsit (East Prussia). In June 1915, he volunteered for the army. On August 14, Yezhov, who fell ill and was also slightly wounded, was sent to the rear. In early June 1916, Yezhov, declared unfit for military service due to his very small stature (151 cm), was sent to the rear artillery workshop in Vitebsk.
EZHOV N. (right) Vitebsk 1916. RGASPI.
From August 1918 he worked at a glass factory in Vyshny Volochek. In April 1919, he was called up for service in the Red Army, sent to the Saratov base of radio formations (later - the 2nd Kazan base), where he first served as a private, and then as a scribe under the commissar of the base management. In October 1919, he took the post of commissar of the school where radio specialists were trained, in April 1921 he became the commissar of the base, at the same time he was elected deputy head of the propaganda department of the Tatar regional committee of the RCP (b).
Ezhov N.I. On right. Kazan. 1921 RGASPI. In July 1921 he married Antonina Titova.
On February 10, 1922, he was appointed executive secretary of the Mari regional party committee. From March 1923 to 1924 - Executive Secretary of the Semipalatinsk Provincial Committee of the RCP (b). From 1924 to 1925 - head of the organizational department of the Kirghiz Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. 1925-1926 - Deputy Executive Secretary of the Kazak Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Delegate to the XIV Party Congress (December 1925). In February 1926, he became the head of the Organizing Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From February 1927 he was an instructor in the Orgraspredotdel until 1929. From 1929 to 1930 - Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture of the USSR. From November 1930 to 1934 he was the head of the Orgraspredotdel. In November 1930, Yezhov met Stalin. In 1933-1934. He is a member of the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the “purge” of the party. In January-February 1934, at the 17th Party Congress, Yezhov headed the credentials committee. In February 1934, he was elected a member of the Central Committee, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee and deputy chairman of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From February 1935 - Chairman of the CPC, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Yezhov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Stalin go to the parade of athletes on Red Square. June 30, 1935 (RGAKFD) In 1934-1935, at the suggestion of Stalin, Yezhov, in fact, led the investigation into the murder of Kirov and the Kremlin case, linking them to the activities of former oppositionists - Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky. As the historian O. V. Khlevnyuk testifies, on this basis Yezhov actually entered into a conspiracy against the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the NKVD Yagoda and his supporters with one of Yagoda's deputies Ya. S. Agranov, so, in 1936, Agranov at a meeting in the NKVD reported:
Yezhov summoned me to his dacha. It must be said that this meeting was of a conspiratorial nature. Yezhov conveyed Stalin's instructions about the mistakes made by the investigation into the case of the Trotskyist center, and instructed to take measures to open the Trotskyist center, to reveal the obviously undiscovered terrorist gang and Trotsky's personal role in this case. Yezhov put the question in such a way that either he himself would convene an operational meeting, or I would intervene in this matter. Yezhov's instructions were specific and gave the correct starting thread for the disclosure of the case.
On September 26, 1936, he was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, replacing Genrikh Yagoda in this post. On October 1, 1936, Yezhov signed the first order for the NKVD on his entry into the duties of People's Commissar. Yezhov also obeyed the authorities state security(GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR), and the police, and auxiliary services, such as highways and fire departments. In his new post, Yezhov coordinated and carried out repressions against persons suspected of anti-Soviet activities, espionage (Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR), "purges" in the party, mass arrests and deportations for social, organizational, and then nationality. These campaigns took on a systematic character from the summer of 1937, they were preceded by preparatory repressions in the state security agencies themselves, which were “cleansed” of Yagoda’s employees.
Shkiryatov, Yezhov and Frinovsky on their way to Red Square. May 1, 1938 (RGAKFD) 
Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin and Yezhov on the Moscow-Volga canal, Yakhroma. April 22, 1937 (RGAKFD) On March 2, 1937, in a report at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he sharply criticized his subordinates, pointing out failures in intelligence and investigative work. The plenum approved the report and instructed Yezhov to restore order in the organs of the NKVD. Of the state security officers from October 1, 1936 to August 15, 1938, 2273 people were arrested, of which 1862 were arrested for "counter-revolutionary crimes". »
Presentation of the Order of Lenin to Yezhov. July 27, 1937 (Pravda. 1937. July 28) On July 30, 1937, the order of the NKVD No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements" was signed.
PERSONAL SIGNATURE OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS N.I. EZHOV For the accelerated consideration of thousands of cases, extrajudicial repressive bodies, the so-called. "Commission of the NKVD of the USSR and the Prosecutor of the USSR" (Ezhov himself was a part of it) and the troika of the NKVD of the USSR at the level of republics and regions.
From January 1937 to August 1938, Yezhov sent about 15,000 special messages to Stalin with reports on arrests, punitive operations, requests for authorization of certain repressive actions, with protocols of interrogations. Thus, he sent more than 20 documents per day, in many cases quite extensive. As follows from the journal of records of visitors to Stalin's office, in 1937-1938 Yezhov visited the leader almost 290 times and spent a total of more than 850 hours with him. It was a kind of record: more often than Yezhov, only Molotov appeared in Stalin's office.
Yezhov played an important role in the political and physical destruction of the so-called. "Leninist guard". Under him, former members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Yan Rudzutak, Stanislav Kosior, Vlas Chubar, Pavel Postyshev, Robert Eikhe were repressed, a number of high-profile trials were held against former members of the country's leadership that ended in death sentences, especially the Second Moscow Trial (January 1937 ), The Case of the Military (June 1937) and the Third Moscow Trial (March 1938). In his work table, Yezhov kept the bullets with which Zinoviev, Kamenev and others were shot; these bullets were later seized during a search of his house. During the repressions, he personally took part in torture.
A kind of cult of Yezhov became widespread as a man who mercilessly destroys "enemies". In 1937-1938. Yezhov is one of the most powerful Soviet leaders, in fact the fourth person in the country after Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov. Portraits of Yezhov were published in newspapers and were present at rallies. Poems were composed and posters with "hedgehogs" were drawn.
A variant of the poster by B. Efimov "Ezhov's mittens". July 1937 
Yezhov on the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum. May 1, 1938 (Archive of the NIPTs "Memorial") In August 1938, Lavrenty Beria was appointed Yezhov's first deputy for the NKVD and head of the Main Directorate of State Security.
On November 19, 1938, the Politburo received a denunciation of Yezhov, filed by the head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region, V.P. Zhuravlev. On November 23, Yezhov wrote to the Politburo and personally to Stalin a letter of resignation, in which he pleaded responsible for the wrecking activities of various "enemies of the people" who had inadvertently infiltrated the NKVD and the prosecutor's office. He took the blame for the flight of a number of intelligence officers and just employees of the NKVD abroad (in 1938, the plenipotentiary of the NKVD for the Far Eastern Territory, Genrikh Lyushkov, fled to Japan, at the same time, the head of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, A. I. Uspensky, disappeared in an unknown direction, etc.). d.); admitted that he "approached the placement of personnel in a businesslike manner," etc. Anticipating an imminent arrest, Yezhov asked Stalin "not to touch my 70-year-old old mother." At the same time, Yezhov summed up his activities as follows: "Despite all these big shortcomings and blunders in my work, I must say that under the daily leadership of the Central Committee of the NKVD, I defeated the enemies great ...". December 9, 1938 Yezhov N.I. People's Commissar water transport. On January 21, 1939, Yezhov attended a solemn meeting dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Lenin's death, but was not elected a delegate to the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b). On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested with the participation of Beria and Malenkov in the latter's office. He was held in the Sukhanovskaya special prison of the NKVD of the USSR.
On April 24, 1939, Yezhov wrote a statement confessing to his homosexual relationships. According to the statement, he treated these connections as a vice.
February 3, 1940 Nikolai Yezhov by the verdict of the Military Collegium Supreme Court The USSR was sentenced to "an exceptional measure of punishment" - execution; the sentence was carried out the next day, February 4, in the building of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
In 1988, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR refused to rehabilitate Yezhov.
Order of Lenin - "for outstanding success in leading the bodies of the NKVD in carrying out government tasks" (July 1937)
Jubilee medal "XX years of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army" (02/22/1938)
Breastplate "Honorary Chekist".
Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia).
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 24, 1941, he was deprived state awards USSR and special rank
EVIDENCE OF GUILT :
Minutes of the Commission of the NKVD of the USSR No. 49 dated January 14, 1938, based on the documents provided from the UNKVD of the Novosibirsk Region - 234 people were convicted, 232 of them were shot, two were sentenced to 10 years in labor camps. Of these, 31 people are residents of the Talovsky village council.
On February 4, 1940, Nikolai Yezhov was shot. The "Iron People's Commissar", who was also called the "bloody dwarf", he became the ideal executor of Stalin's will, but he himself was "played out" in a cruel political game ...
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (born April 19 (May 1), 1895 - February 4, 1940) - Soviet statesman and party leader, head of the Stalinist NKVD, member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, candidate for members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, People's Commissar for Water Transport of the USSR. The era of his leadership of the punitive organs went down in history under the name "Yezhovshchina".
Nikolay - was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a foundry worker in 1895. His father was a native of the Tula province (the village of Volokhonshchino near Plavsk), but when he got into military service in Lithuania, he married a Lithuanian and stayed there. According to the official Soviet biography, N.I. Yezhov was born in St. Petersburg, but, according to archival data, it is more likely that his birthplace was the Suwalki province (on the border of Lithuania and Poland).
He graduated from the 1st grade of elementary school, later, in 1927, attended courses in Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and from the age of 14 he worked as a tailor's apprentice, locksmith, worker at a bed factory and at the Putilov factory.
1915 - Yezhov was drafted into the army, and a year later he was fired due to injury. At the end of 1916, he returned to the front, served in the 3rd reserve infantry regiment and in the 5th artillery workshops of the Northern Front. 1917, May - joined the RSDLP (b) (the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
1917, November - Yezhov commands the Red Guard detachment, and in 1918 - 1919 he heads the communist club at the Volotin factory. Also in 1919, he joined the Red Army, served as secretary of the party committee of the military subdistrict in Saratov. During civil war Yezhov was the military commissar of several Red Army units.
1921 - Ezhoav is transferred to party work. July 1921 - Nikolai Ivanovich married a Marxist Antonina Titova. For "intransigence" to the party opposition, he began to quickly move up the career ladder.
1922, March - he holds the post of secretary of the Mari regional committee of the RCP (b), and since October he becomes the secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee, then head of the department of the Tatar regional committee, secretary of the Kazakh regional committee of the VKP (b).
Meanwhile in the area Central Asia Basmachism arose - a national movement that opposed Soviet power. Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich led the suppression of the Basmachi in Kazakhstan.
Soldier Nikolai Yezhov (right) in Vitebsk. 1916
1927 - Nikolai Yezhov is transferred to Moscow. During the internal party struggle of the 1920s and 1930s, he always supported Stalin and was now rewarded for this. He went up rather quickly: in 1927 - he became deputy head of the accounting and distribution department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in 1929 - 1930 - People's Commissar of Agriculture of the Soviet Union, took part in collectivization and dispossession. 1930, November - he is the head of the distribution department, the personnel department, the industrial department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
1934 - Stalin appoints Yezhov chairman of the Central Commission for the purge of the party, and in 1935 he becomes secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
In the "Letter of an Old Bolshevik" (1936), written by Boris Nikolaevsky, there is a description of Yezhov as he was in those days:
In all my long life, I have never met such a repulsive person as Yezhov. When I look at him, I remember the nasty boys from Rasteryaeva Street, whose favorite pastime was to tie a piece of paper soaked in kerosene to the tail of a cat, set it on fire, and then watch with delight how the terrified animal would run down the street, desperately, but in vain trying to escape from the approaching fire. I have no doubt that in childhood Yezhov amused himself in this way, and that he continues to do something similar now.
Yezhov was short (151 cm.) Those who knew about his inclinations towards sadism called him among themselves the Poison Dwarf or Bloody Dwarf.
The turning point in the life of Nikolai Ivanovich was the assassination of the communist governor of Leningrad, Kirov. Stalin used this assassination as an excuse to strengthen political repression, and he made Yezhov their main guide. Nikolai Ivanovich actually began to head the investigation into the murder of Kirov and helped fabricate accusations of involvement in him of the former leaders of the party opposition - Kamenev, Zinoviev and others. The Bloody Dwarf was present at the execution of Zinoviev and Kamenev, and he kept the bullets with which they were shot as souvenirs.
When Yezhov was brilliantly able to cope with this task, Stalin elevated him even more.
1936, September 26 - after being removed from his post, Yezhov becomes the head of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and a member of the Central Committee. Such an appointment, at first glance, could not imply an increase in terror: unlike Yagoda, Yezhov was not closely connected with the "organs". Yagoda fell out of favor because he hesitated to repress the old Bolsheviks, which the leader wanted to strengthen. But for Yezhov, who had only recently risen, the defeat of the old Bolshevik cadres and the destruction of Yagoda himself - Stalin's potential or imagined enemies - did not present personal difficulties. Nikolai Ivanovich was personally devoted to the Leader of the Peoples, and not to Bolshevism and not to the NKVD bodies. Just such a candidate was needed at that time by Stalin.
At the direction of Stalin, the new people's commissar carried out a purge of Yagoda's henchmen - almost all of them were arrested and shot. During the years when Yezhov headed the NKVD (1936-1938), the Great Stalinist purge reached its climax. 50-75% members of the Supreme Council and officers Soviet army were removed from their posts, ended up in prisons, Gulag camps or were executed. "Enemies of the people", suspected of counter-revolutionary activities, and simply "inconvenient" for the leader of the people were ruthlessly destroyed. In order to pass a death sentence, the corresponding record of the investigator was sufficient.
As a result of the purges, people who had considerable work experience were shot or sent to camps - those who could at least slightly normalize the situation in the state. For example, repression among the military was very painful during the Great Patriotic War: among the high military command there were almost no those who had practical experience in organizing and conducting hostilities.
Under the tireless guidance of N.I. Yezhov, a lot of cases were fabricated, the largest falsified political show trials were held.
Many ordinary Soviet citizens were accused (usually based on far-fetched and non-existent "evidence") of treason or "sabotage". The “troikas” who passed sentences on the ground were equal to the arbitrary numbers of executions and imprisonments that descended from above by Stalin and Yezhov. The People's Commissar knew that most of the accusations against his victims were false, but human life had no value for him. The Blood Dwarf spoke openly:
There will be innocent victims in this fight against fascist agents. We are conducting a big offensive against the enemy, and let them not be offended if we hit someone with our elbow. Better to let dozens of innocents suffer than let one spy through. They cut the forest - the chips fly.
Yezhov faced the fate of his predecessor Yagoda. 1939 - he was arrested on the denunciation of the head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region V.P. Zhuravlev. The charges against him included the preparation of terrorist attacks against Stalin and homosexuality. Fearing torture, during interrogation, the former People's Commissar pleaded guilty on all counts
1940, February 2 - the former People's Commissar was judged in a closed meeting by the Military Collegium, chaired by Vasily Ulrich. Yezhov, like his predecessor, Yagoda, swore his love for Stalin to the end. He denied being a spy, terrorist, and conspirator, saying he "prefers death to lies." He began to assert that his previous confessions had been forced out by torture (“they used severe beatings on me”). He admitted that his only mistake was that he “cleaned little” the state security organs from “enemies of the people”:
I purged 14,000 Chekists, but my great fault lies in the fact that I purged them a little… I won’t deny that I drank, but I worked like an ox… If I wanted to carry out a terrorist act against one of the members of the government, I would not recruit anyone for this purpose, but, using technology, I would commit this heinous deed at any moment.
In conclusion, he said that he would die with the name of Stalin on his lips.
After the court session, Yezhov was taken to a cell, and half an hour later he was summoned again to announce his death sentence. Hearing him, Yezhov went limp and fainted, but the guards managed to catch him and led him out of the room. The request for mercy was denied, and Poison Dwarf fell into hysterics and weeping. When he was again led out of the room, he broke free from the hands of the guards and yelled.
1940, February 4 - Yezhov was shot by the future chairman of the KGB, Ivan Serov (according to another version, Chekist Blokhin). They were shot in the basement of a small NKVD station in Varsonofevsky Lane (Moscow). This basement had sloping floors to drain and wash away the blood. Such floors were made in accordance with the previous instructions of the Bloody Dwarf himself. For the execution of the former People's Commissar, they did not use the main NKVD death chamber in the basements of the Lubyanka, to guarantee complete secrecy.
According to the statements of the prominent Chekist P. Sudoplatov, when Yezhov was led to the execution, he sang the Internationale.
Yezhov's body was immediately cremated, and the ashes were thrown into a common grave at the Moscow Donskoy cemetery. The shooting was not officially reported. The Commissar simply quietly disappeared. Even in the late 1940s, some believed that the former People's Commissar was in a lunatic asylum.
In the decision on the case of Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR (1998) stated that “as a result of the operations that were carried out by the NKVD in accordance with the orders of Yezhov, only in 1937-1938 more than 1.5 million citizens, about half of them were shot.” The number of prisoners in the Gulag for 2 years of "Yezhovshchina" has increased almost three times. At least 140,000 of them (perhaps many more) died over the years from hunger, cold and overwork in the camps or on the way to them.
Pinning the label “Yezhovshchina” on the repressions, the propagandists tried to entirely shift the blame for them from Stalin to Yezhov. But, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, the Bloody Dwarf was, rather, a doll, an executor of Stalin's will, but it simply could not be otherwise.
However, the leader did not have complete confidence that his dominant position was finally fixed. Therefore, it was urgent to do what could establish absolute power, for example, to accelerate the thesis of the class struggle. The head of the NKVD, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, instantly acquired the nickname Bloody Commissar, because with his light hand many people were doomed to perish.
Biographical information about Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov is extremely contradictory. It is only known for certain that the future People's Commissar was born on April 9 (May 1), 1895 in an ordinary family in which he was brought up with his brother and sister.
There is no reliable information about the parents of the “Stalinist pet”. According to one version, the father of the party leader Ivan Yezhov was a foundry worker, according to another, the head of the family served in Lithuania, where he married a local girl, and then, having risen to his feet, got a job in the Zemstvo guard. But, according to some reports, Nikolai Ivanovich's father was a janitor who cleaned at the owner's house.
Nikolai Yezhov - locksmith's apprentice Kolya visited general education school but managed to study for only two or three years. Subsequently, Nikolai Ivanovich in the column "education" wrote "unfinished lower". But, despite this, Nikolai was a literate person and rarely made spelling and punctuation errors in his letters.
After school, in 1910, Yezhov went to a relative in the city on the Neva in order to learn tailoring. Nikolai Ivanovich did not like this craft, but he recalled how, as a 15-year-old teenager, he became addicted to homosexual pleasures, but Yezhov also reveled with ladies.
A year later, the young man gave up sewing and got a job as an apprentice locksmith. In the summer of 1915, Yezhov voluntarily went to the Russian Imperial army. During his service, Nikolai Ivanovich did not distinguish himself by any merit, because he was transferred to a non-combatant battalion because of his height of 152 cm. Thanks to this physique, the dwarf Yezhov looked ridiculous even from the left flank.
In May 1917, Yezhov received a party card from the RCP(b). Biographers do not know anything about the further revolutionary activities of the people's commissar. Two years after the Bolshevik coup, Nikolai Ivanovich was drafted into the Red Army, where he served as a census taker at the radio base.
During the service, Yezhov proved himself an activist and quickly rose through the ranks: six months later, Nikolai Ivanovich rose to the rank of commissioner of the radio school. Before becoming a Bloody Commissar, Yezhov went from the secretary of the regional committee to the head of the organizational and distribution department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
In the winter of 1925, Nikolai Ivanovich met the party apparatchik Ivan Moskvin, who in 1927 invited Yezhov to his department as an instructor. Ivan Mikhailovich gave positive reference to his subordinate.
Indeed, Yezhov had phenomenal memory and the expressed wishes of the leadership never went unnoticed. Nikolai Ivanovich obeyed unquestioningly, but he had a significant drawback - the politician did not know how to stop.
“Sometimes there are situations when it is impossible to do something, you have to stop. Yezhov - does not stop. And sometimes you have to follow him in order to stop him in time ... ”, Moskvitin shared his memories.
In November 1930, Nikolai Ivanovich met his master, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
Until 1934, Nikolai Ivanovich was in charge of the organizational department, and in 1933-1934 Yezhov was a member of the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the "purge" of the party. He also served as chairman of the CPC and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In 1934–1935, the politician, at the suggestion of his master, took part in a murder case. It was not by chance that Stalin sent Comrade Yezhov to Leningrad to investigate the history of the death of Sergei Mironovich, because he no longer trusted his comrade.
Kirov's death was a pretext used by Nikolai Yezhov and the leadership: he, having no evidence, declared Zinoviev and Kamenev criminals. This gave impetus to the Kirov Stream, a rehearsal for large-scale Stalinist repressions.
The fact is that after what happened to Sergei Mironovich, the government announced the "final eradication of all enemies of the working class", which was followed by mass political arrests.
Yezhov worked as the leader needed. Therefore, it is not surprising that on September 25, 1936, while on vacation in Sochi, Stalin was sent to the Central Committee urgent telegram with a request to appoint Yezhov to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.
Here, the small growth of Nikolai Yezhov came in handy, because Stalin surrounded himself with people who could be looked down upon. If you believe the visitor's log book, then Yezhov appeared in the Secretary General's office every day, and in terms of frequency of visits he was only ahead of him.
Nikolai Yezhov on the podium (right) According to rumors, Nikolai Ivanovich brought lists of people doomed to death to Stalin's office, and the leader put a tick only in front of familiar names. Consequently, the deaths of hundreds and tens of thousands of people were on the conscience of the People's Commissar.
It is known that Nikolai Ivanovich personally observed the execution of Zinoviev and Kamenev. And then he pulled out bullets from the corpses, which he signed with the names of the dead and kept them on his desk as a trophy.
In 1937-1938, the so-called Great Terror, which went down in history, fell on the time when Stalinist repressions reached their climax. Also, this time is called "Yezhovshchina" due to the work of the Stakhanov People's Commissar, who replaced Heinrich Yagoda.
Supporters of Kamenev and Zinoviev, as well as "socially harmful elements" and criminals, fell under the executions, but denunciations, contrary to popular belief, did not play a big role. Torture was also common, in which the people's commissar personally participated.
Yezhov was a secretive person, and many who knew about his character were afraid to start close relations with him, because Nikolai Ivanovich did not spare anyone - neither friends nor relatives. Even he fell under disgrace former bosses who gave Yezhov positive recommendations.
He also arranged drinking parties and orgies, in which both men and women participated. Therefore, it is believed that Nikolai Ivanovich was not gay, but bisexual. Often, Yezhov's former drinking companions were later "declassified" as "enemies of the people." Among other things, the people's commissar sang well, but could not establish himself on the opera stage because of his handicap.
As for his personal life, the first chosen one of Nikolai Ivanovich was Antonina Alekseevna Titova, and the second was Evgenia Solomonovna Yezhova, who allegedly committed suicide before her husband was arrested. But, according to unconfirmed information, Nikolai Ivanovich himself poisoned his wife, fearing that her connection with the Trotskyists would be revealed. The Commissar had no children of his own. The Yezhov family brought up an adopted daughter, Natalia Khayutina, who, after the death of her parents, was sent to an orphanage.
The death of Nikolai Ivanovich was preceded by disgrace: after the denunciation (allegedly he was preparing a coup d'état) against the People's Commissar was discussed by the government, Nikolai Ivanovich asked for his resignation, blaming himself for having "cleaned up" an insufficient number of Chekists, only 14 thousand people.
During the interrogation, Yezhov was beaten almost to death. Nikolai Ivanovich was arrested and.
“I also have such crimes for which I can be shot, and I will talk about them later, but I did not commit those crimes that I was charged with indictment in my case and I am not guilty of them ...”, said Nikolai Ivanovich in the last word in court.
February 3, 1940 Yezhov was sentenced to death. Before the execution, the former People's Commissar sang the "Internationale" and, according to the memoirs of the executioner from Lubyanka, Pyotr Frolov, wept. In honor of Nikolai Ivanovich, streets, cities and villages were named, documentaries were shot. True, the name of the people's commissar of the settlements was only from 1937 to 1939.
bolivar_s wrote in January 2nd, 2018People's Commissar Yezhov - biography. NKVD - "Yezhovshchina"
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (born April 19 (May 1), 1895 - February 4, 1940) - Soviet statesman and party leader, head of the Stalinist NKVD, member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, candidate for members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, People's Commissar for Water Transport of the USSR. The era of his leadership of the punitive organs went down in history under the name "Yezhovshchina".
Origin. early years
Nikolai - was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a foundry worker in 1895. His father was a native of the Tula province (the village of Volokhonshchino near Plavsk), but when he got into military service in Lithuania, he married a Lithuanian and stayed there. According to the official Soviet biography, N.I. Yezhov was born in St. Petersburg, but, according to archival data, it is more likely that his birthplace was the Suwalki province (on the border of Lithuania and Poland).
He graduated from the 1st grade of elementary school, later, in 1927, attended courses in Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and from the age of 14 he worked as a tailor's apprentice, locksmith, worker at a bed factory and at the Putilov factory.
Service. Party career
1915 - Yezhov was drafted into the army, and a year later he was fired due to injury. At the end of 1916, he returned to the front, served in the 3rd reserve infantry regiment and in the 5th artillery workshops of the Northern Front. 1917, May - joined the RSDLP (b) (the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
1917, November - Yezhov commands the Red Guard detachment, and in 1918 - 1919 he heads the communist club at the Volotin plant. Also in 1919, he joined the Red Army, served as secretary of the party committee of the military subdistrict in Saratov. During the Civil War, Yezhov was the military commissar of several Red Army units.
1921 - Ezhoav is transferred to party work. July 1921 - Nikolai Ivanovich married a Marxist Antonina Titova. For "intransigence" to the party opposition, he began to quickly move up the career ladder.
1922, March - he holds the post of secretary of the Mari regional committee of the RCP (b), and since October he becomes the secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee, then head of the department of the Tatar regional committee, secretary of the Kazakh regional committee of the VKP (b).
In the meantime, Basmachism arose in Central Asia - a national movement that opposed the Soviet regime. Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich led the suppression of the Basmachi in Kazakhstan.
Transfer to Moscow
1927 - Nikolai Yezhov is transferred to Moscow. During the internal party struggle of the 1920s and 1930s, he always supported Stalin and was now rewarded for this. He quickly went up: in 1927 - he became deputy head of the accounting and distribution department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in 1929 - 1930 - People's Commissar of Agriculture of the Soviet Union, took part in collectivization and dispossession. 1930, November - he is the head of the distribution department, the personnel department, the industrial department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
1934 - Stalin appoints Yezhov chairman of the Central Commission for the purge of the party, and in 1935 he becomes secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
In the "Letter of an Old Bolshevik" (1936), written by Boris Nikolaevsky, there is a description of Yezhov as he was in those days:
In all my long life, I have never met such a repulsive person as Yezhov. When I look at him, I remember the nasty boys from Rasteryaeva Street, whose favorite pastime was to tie a piece of paper soaked in kerosene to the tail of a cat, set it on fire, and then watch with delight how the terrified animal would run down the street, desperately, but in vain trying to escape from the approaching fire. I have no doubt that in childhood Yezhov amused himself in this way, and that he continues to do something similar now.
Yezhov was short (151 cm). Those who knew about his inclinations towards sadism called him among themselves the Poison Dwarf or the Bloody Dwarf.
"Yezhovshchina"
The turning point in the life of Nikolai Ivanovich was the assassination of the communist governor of Leningrad, Kirov. Stalin used this murder as a pretext for intensifying political repressions, and he made Yezhov their main conductor. Nikolai Ivanovich actually began to head the investigation into the murder of Kirov and helped fabricate accusations of involvement in him of the former leaders of the party opposition - Kamenev, Zinoviev and others. The Bloody Dwarf was present at the execution of Zinoviev and Kamenev, and he kept the bullets with which they were shot as souvenirs.
When Yezhov was brilliantly able to cope with this task, Stalin elevated him even more.
1936, September 26 - after the removal of Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda from his post, Yezhov becomes the head of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and a member of the Central Committee. Such an appointment, at first glance, could not imply an increase in terror: unlike Yagoda, Yezhov was not closely connected with the "organs". Yagoda fell out of favor because he hesitated to repress the old Bolsheviks, which the leader wanted to strengthen. But for Yezhov, who had only recently risen, the defeat of the old Bolshevik cadres and the destruction of Yagoda himself - Stalin's potential or imagined enemies - did not present personal difficulties. Nikolai Ivanovich was personally devoted to the Leader of the Peoples, and not to Bolshevism and not to the NKVD bodies. Just such a candidate was needed at that time by Stalin.
At the direction of Stalin, the new people's commissar carried out a purge of Yagoda's henchmen - almost all of them were arrested and shot. During the years when Yezhov headed the NKVD (1936-1938), the Great Stalinist purge reached its climax. 50-75% of the members of the Supreme Council and officers of the Soviet army were removed from their posts, ended up in prisons, Gulag camps or were executed. "Enemies of the people", suspected of counter-revolutionary activities, and simply "inconvenient" for the leader of the people were ruthlessly destroyed. In order to pass a death sentence, the corresponding record of the investigator was sufficient.
As a result of the purges, people who had considerable work experience were shot or sent to camps - those who could at least slightly normalize the situation in the state. For example, the repressions among the military were very painful during the Great Patriotic War: among the high military command there were almost no those who had practical experience in organizing and conducting hostilities.
Under the tireless guidance of N.I. Yezhov, a lot of cases were fabricated, the largest falsified political show trials were held.
Many ordinary Soviet citizens were accused (usually based on far-fetched and non-existent "evidence") of treason or "sabotage". The “troikas” who passed sentences on the ground were equal to the arbitrary numbers of executions and imprisonments that descended from above by Stalin and Yezhov. The People's Commissar knew that most of the accusations against his victims were false, but human life had no value for him. The Blood Dwarf spoke openly:
There will be innocent victims in this fight against fascist agents. We are conducting a big offensive against the enemy, and let them not be offended if we hit someone with our elbow. Better to let dozens of innocents suffer than let one spy through. They cut the forest - the chips fly.
Arrest
Yezhov faced the fate of his predecessor Yagoda. 1939 - he was arrested on the denunciation of the head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region V.P. Zhuravlev. The charges against him included the preparation of terrorist attacks against Stalin and homosexuality. Fearing torture, during interrogation, the former People's Commissar pleaded guilty on all counts
1940, February 2 - the former People's Commissar was judged in a closed meeting by the Military Collegium, chaired by Vasily Ulrich. Yezhov, like his predecessor, Yagoda, swore his love for Stalin to the end. He denied being a spy, terrorist, and conspirator, saying he "prefers death to lies." He began to assert that his previous confessions had been forced out by torture (“they used severe beatings on me”). He admitted that his only mistake was that he “cleaned little” the state security organs from “enemies of the people”:
I purged 14,000 Chekists, but my great fault lies in the fact that I purged them a little… I won’t deny that I drank, but I worked like an ox… If I wanted to carry out a terrorist act against one of the members of the government, I would not recruit anyone for this purpose, but, using technology, I would commit this heinous deed at any moment.
In conclusion, he said that he would die with the name of Stalin on his lips.
After the court session, Yezhov was taken to a cell, and half an hour later he was summoned again to announce his death sentence. Hearing him, Yezhov went limp and fainted, but the guards managed to catch him and led him out of the room. The request for mercy was denied, and Poison Dwarf fell into hysterics and weeping. When he was again led out of the room, he broke free from the hands of the guards and yelled.
execution
1940, February 4 - Yezhov was shot by the future chairman of the KGB, Ivan Serov (according to another version, Chekist Blokhin). They were shot in the basement of a small NKVD station in Varsonofevsky Lane (Moscow). This basement had sloping floors to drain and wash away the blood. Such floors were made in accordance with the previous instructions of the Bloody Dwarf himself. For the execution of the former People's Commissar, they did not use the main NKVD death chamber in the basements of the Lubyanka, to guarantee complete secrecy.
According to the statements of the prominent Chekist P. Sudoplatov, when Yezhov was led to the execution, he sang the Internationale.
Yezhov's body was immediately cremated, and the ashes were thrown into a common grave at the Moscow Donskoy cemetery. The shooting was not officially reported. The Commissar simply quietly disappeared. Even in the late 1940s, some believed that the former People's Commissar was in a lunatic asylum.
After death
In the decision on the case of Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR (1998) stated that “as a result of the operations that were carried out by the NKVD in accordance with the orders of Yezhov, only in 1937-1938 more than 1.5 million citizens, about half of them were shot.” The number of prisoners in the Gulag for 2 years of "Yezhovshchina" has increased almost three times. At least 140,000 of them (perhaps many more) died over the years from hunger, cold and overwork in the camps or on the way to them.
Pinning the label “Yezhovshchina” on the repressions, the propagandists tried to entirely shift the blame for them from Stalin to Yezhov. But, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, the Bloody Dwarf was, rather, a doll, an executor of Stalin's will, but it simply could not be otherwise.
