What is the difference between berries and fruits: features and differences. Attitude to religion

In 1934-1936. He became one of the “founding fathers” of the Stalinist Gulag and the organizer of mass repressions of that period. During the years of the Great Terror, he himself was among the victims of the NKVD. Yagoda was accused of espionage and plotting a coup and was eventually shot.

early years

Heinrich Yagoda came from Polish Jews. His real name is Enoch Gershevich Yehuda. The revolutionary was born on November 19, 1891 in Rybinsk, a city located in the Yaroslavl province. Just a few months after the birth of the child, the family moved to Nizhny Novgorod.

Yagoda Genrikh Grigorievich was a relative of another famous Bolshevik - Yakov Sverdlov, being his second cousin. Their fathers worked as typographers and made seals and stamps that revolutionaries used to forge documents. Henry had five sisters and two brothers. His family lived poorly. Nevertheless, the boy (after another move) graduated from the Simbirsk gymnasium.

Bolsheviks of various calibers visited the Yagoda-Sverdlov printing house. For example, Nikolai Semashko, the future Leninist People's Commissar of Health, came there. Nizhny Novgorod was also the birthplace of Maxim Gorky (they became friends with Heinrich on the eve of the revolution).

"Owl"

The key event, after which the boy’s life radically changed, was the murder of his older brother Mikhail. In this sense, Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda was similar to Lenin. Mikhail was hacked to death by the Cossacks during the 1905 revolution. A sad fate awaited another brother, Leo. He was drafted into Kolchak's army, and in 1919 he was shot for participating in the uprising in his regiment. But it was the death of Mikhail, who accidentally found himself at the barricades, that made Henry a revolutionary.

Having matured, Yagoda, as an anarchist-communist, began to participate in illegal revolutionary activities. The Tsar's gendarmes nicknamed him "Owl" and "Lonely" (for his hunted and unsociable appearance).

In 1911, the revolutionary arrived in Moscow. On the instructions of his comrades, he was supposed to establish contacts with local like-minded people and help organize a bank robbery. Inexperienced in conspiracy, the future People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR fell into the hands of the police. In a sense, he was lucky. The suspicious young man was found with only false documents. As a Jew, by finding himself in Moscow without permission, he violated the law on the Pale of Settlement. Yagoda was tried and sentenced to two years of exile in Simbirsk.

In Petersburg

In 1913, in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, a broad political amnesty was declared in Russia. Thanks to her, Yagoda found himself free a little earlier than expected. The exile to Simbirsk ended, and the revolutionary had already legally moved to St. Petersburg. To do this, he formally renounced Judaism and converted to Orthodoxy (the Pale of Settlement operated on a confessional, not a national basis).

Yagoda Genrikh Grigorievich and religion had nothing in common. Nevertheless, according to the law, he did not have the right to be considered an atheist, and that was the only reason he transferred to the fold of the Orthodox Church.

In St. Petersburg, Yagoda met Nikolai Podvoisky, who after the revolution became the first people's commissar of the armed forces. Thanks to his help, the revolutionary began to work in the insurance department at Podvoisky, who was also the brother-in-law of security officers Arbuzov and Kedrov: he opened up a whole new world of possibilities for his protégé.

In 1915, Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda was drafted into the tsarist army, after which he went to the front of the First World War. He rose to the rank of corporal, but was wounded and soon demobilized. In 1916, Heinrich returned to Petrograd.

Revolution and the Cheka

After the February Revolution, Yagoda worked for the newspapers “Village Poor” and “Soldatskaya Pravda”. In the summer of 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party. Later he would lie that he joined them back in 1907, but this fiction was refuted by the research of historians.

During the October events, Yagoda was in the thick of events in Petrograd. In 1918, he began his career in the Cheka-OGPU. At first, the security officer worked in the military inspection. Then his relative Sverdlov and Dzerzhinsky transferred him to Moscow.

So Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda ended up in the Special Department. He was especially close to Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. When Dzerzhinsky died, the latter headed the Cheka-OGPU, and Yagoda became his deputy. Moreover, with the onset of the boss’s illness, the successful careerist began to actually manage the law enforcement agency.

Dubious earnings

Back in 1919-1920. Yagoda managed to work in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. There he established profitable cooperation with intelligence officer Alexander Lurie and began to earn commissions from foreign concessions. These two took everything that was bad for themselves. The fact was that the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade from its very foundation turned out to be closely connected with the Cheka. State security agencies confiscated valuables, and Lurie’s department sold this property abroad for foreign currency.

Yagoda Genrikh Grigorievich, whose biography speaks of him as a deeply greedy and greedy person, in this sense was noticeably different from the principled Dzerzhinsky and Menzhinsky. Stalin liked the corruption of the security officer. When he was at the turn of the 20-30s. fought for sole power, he enlisted the support of Yagoda. Neither of them made a mistake. Yagoda bet on the man who eventually became a dictator, and Stalin, knowing about Yagoda’s fraudulent reputation, could now blackmail him, demanding loyalty.

Leader and People's Commissar

Despite the subordinate’s devotion to the Soviet leader, their relationship can hardly be called ideal. At the end of the 1920s, Stalin was generally quite cold towards Yagoda, since Yakov Sverdlov provided him with protection, and noticeable tension was felt between Sverdlov and Stalin, even to outsiders, since the time of the Turukhan exile. The security officer's papers to the boss were drawn up with caution, if not fear.

A serious problem for Yagoda after the establishment of the Stalinist dictatorship was his old friendship with Bukharin. He even mentioned the head of the OGPU as the only security officer who could be counted on in the fight against Stalin. At the same time, Yagoda was distinguished by his uncontrollability in carrying out orders, his hard work and the behavior of an executioner willing to commit any crime. Stalin found another equally energetic and efficient person in the NKVD only a few years later. It turned out to be Nikolai Yezhov. But in the early thirties, Stalin, of necessity, tolerated Yagoda and built work with him.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs

Yagoda lacked Menzhinsky's erudition and Dzerzhinsky's fanaticism. He himself once modestly called himself a “watchdog on a chain.” In friendly company, during heavy libations, he loved to clumsily recite poetry, but in his work he lacked creative talent. Yagoda's private letters were saturated with inexpressiveness and dryness. In the capital, he turned out to be an awkward provincial and always envied party leaders who were more polished and relaxed. But it was precisely such a person that Stalin put in charge of the security officers throughout the country for some time.

In 1934, a new NKVD was created, and the USSR People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Yagoda, also gained control of the Main Directorate of State Security. He headed an even more expanded repressive state machine, which Stalin was preparing for new campaigns to combat opponents of his regime.

In his new capacity, Yagoda began creating and organizing the work of the Gulag. For a short period of time, the Soviet Union was covered by a network of camps, which became the most important part of the Stalinist economic system and one of the engines of accelerated industrialization. Under the direct supervision of the People's Commissar, the main Gulag construction project of that time was carried out - the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. To cover the events correctly from an ideological point of view, Yagoda organized a trip there for Maxim Gorky. By the way, it was the People’s Commissar who contributed to the writer’s return to the USSR (before that he lived for several years on the Italian island of Capri).

Yagoda’s relationship with the writing workshop did not end there. As the head of the political police, he, of course, monitored the loyalty of the creative intelligentsia to the authorities. In addition, Yagoda’s wife was Ida Leonidovna Averbakh. Her brother Leopold was one of the most popular critics and writers of his time. Ida and Heinrich had one son - also Heinrich (or Garik, as he was called in the family). The boy was born in 1929. The People's Commissar loved the company of writers, musicians and artists. They drank good alcohol, communicated with beautiful women, that is, they led the lifestyle that the security officer himself dreamed of.

Yagoda also had professional failures. For example, it was he who allowed the former head of the tsarist police, Lopukhin, to go to France. He became a defector. In the 20s and 30s, the number of defectors grew steadily. Stalin was infuriated by literally every incident. He reproached Yagoda for inattention, even if the fugitive did not have any special knowledge and was an ordinary intellectual.

Danger Approaches

In 1935, Yagoda received a new title, which had never been awarded to anyone before. He was now known as the "Commissioner General of State Security". Such an exceptional privilege became a sign of special Stalinist favor.

The Soviet leader needed the services of the devoted head of the NKVD more than ever. The first Moscow trial took place in 1936. At this show trial, Stalin's longtime comrades in the Bolshevik party, Zinoviev and Kamenev, were tried.

Other revolutionaries who at one time worked directly with Lenin and did not regard their persecutor as an indisputable authority also came under the pressure of repression. One of these people was Mikhail Tomsky. He did not wait for the trial and committed suicide. In a note sent to Stalin, he mentioned Yagoda in the sense that he also belonged to the party opposition, which was then being massacred. The People's Commissar was in mortal danger.

Arrest

In the fall of 1936, Yagoda received a new appointment and became head of the People's Commissariat of Communications. The final blow against him was delayed. The disgrace turned into a long, painful wait. Although outwardly his removal from the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and appointment to another position seemed to be an episode of a successful career, Yagoda could hardly fail to understand where everything was going. Nevertheless, he did not dare refuse Stalin and agreed to a new job.

The disgraced security officer did not spend long at the People's Commissariat of Communications. Already at the beginning of 1937, he lost this post as well. Moreover, the hapless People's Commissar was expelled from its ranks by the CPSU(b). At the February plenum of the Central Committee, he was harshly criticized for the failure of his department.

On March 28, Yagoda was arrested by his own recent subordinates. The attack on yesterday's deprived of power was led by the new People's Commissar of the NKVD. These two, despite their own antagonism, became figures of the same rank in history. It was Yezhov and Yagoda who were the direct perpetrators of large-scale Stalinist repressions of the 1930s.

During a search, prohibited Trotskyist literature was found in the possession of the dismissed People's Commissar of Communications. Soon there followed accusations of espionage, preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin, and planning a coup. The investigation connected Yagoda with Trotsky, Rykov and Bukharin - the very people whose persecution he had recently actively contributed to. The conspiracy was described as "Trotskyist-fascist". The accusations were joined by Yagoda's long-term colleagues - Yakov Agranov, Semyon Firin, Leonid Zakovsky, Stanislav Redens, Fyodor Eichmans, etc. All of them characterized the defendant as an unworthy and limited person, contrasting him with the educated and principled Menzhinsky.

Yagoda’s wife was also subjected to repression. First of all, she was fired from her job at the prosecutor's office, and then arrested as a member of the family of an enemy of the people. Ida Averbakh, along with her son and mother, were exiled to Orenburg. Soon the woman was shot.

Among other things, Yagoda was accused of murdering Maxim Peshkov, the son of Maxim Gorky (in fact, he died of pneumonia). Allegedly, the massacre occurred for personal reasons. Yagoda was really in love with Nadezhda Peshkova, Maxim’s widow. The secretary of the main Soviet writer Pyotr Kryuchkov was also accused of murder.

Execution

The Yagoda case became part of one general third Moscow trial (officially it was called the Process of the anti-Soviet “right-Trotskyist bloc”). The public trial took place in the spring of 1938. It was accompanied by a major government propaganda campaign in the press. The newspapers published open letters from a variety of public and ordinary people, in which they branded traitors to the Motherland, offering to shoot them “like rabid dogs,” etc.

Yagoda asked (and the request was granted) that the issue of his relationship with Nadezhda Peshkova and the murder of Maxim Peshkov be considered separately at a closed meeting. Key episodes about espionage and treason were considered openly. Yagoda was interrogated by the prosecutor and state prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky, the main character in the Moscow trials.

On March 13, 1938, the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to death. Clinging to life, Yagoda wrote It was rejected. On March 15, the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs was shot. Unlike the other defendants in the trial, Yagoda was never rehabilitated.

Almost everyone loves fruits and berries. After all, they are so tasty and healthy! We admire the various fruits lying on the table: peaches, apples, pears, plums, apricots - and we don’t know which one to choose. We inhale the aroma of berries: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries - and our mouths water. And here is the watermelon... Is it really a berry too? What is the general difference between a fruit and a berry? Let's try to figure it out.

Definition

Fruit- a juicy fruit of a tree or shrub that can be eaten.

Berry– a juicy, fleshy fruit with a large number of seeds, a type of fruit.

Comparison

It turns out that in botany there is a term “fruit”, but the word “fruit” is not used at all. A fruit is a plant organ that is formed from the ovary of a flower and contains seeds (or one large seed inside), and it can be either edible or inedible. Therefore, fruits include cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, peaches, cherries, and even nuts. In botany, a berry is a type of multi-seeded fruit. In a botanical sense, berries include gooseberries, currants, potatoes, asparagus, banana, kiwi, watermelon, and even eggplant and tomato. At the same time, strawberries, wild strawberries, and rose hips are considered false berries in botany, since not only the ovary, but also the receptacle takes part in the development of the fruit.

Berries

But in the everyday sense, a berry, as a rule, is called any small, juicy, round and brightly colored fruit without seeds (seeds are possible), with sweet or sour-sweet pulp, regardless of its botanical classification. Therefore, berries in the “popular” consciousness are berries themselves (such as gooseberries, currants), and false berries (strawberries, strawberries, rose hips), and drupes (raspberries, cherries, cherries). The key role is played by the size of the fruit: a person can take a berry with just two fingers (squeezing it between the thumb and forefinger), and what is called a fruit is taken with the whole hand or at least three fingers (using the thumb). The berries are eaten by pouring a handful into the mouth at once or by placing one whole thing at a time. They bite off a piece of the fruit or cut it with a knife. Also, according to the “folk”, “naive” classification, there is an idea that fruits grow on trees, and berries can be found on bushes or a little lower - on herbaceous plants. True, rowan in this case should not grow on a tree, but native speakers no longer think about this. A misunderstanding also arises with cherries: the popular consciousness classifies them as berries, but at the same time they grow on a tree, and in size (unlike the same rowan) they are closer to small fruits.

Another difference between a fruit and a berry is that mainly only the fruits of garden, cultivated plants are called fruits, and berries are equally cultivated and wild fruits (everyone knows about wild berries, but no one knows about “forest fruits”) heard). Berries are divided into edible and poisonous (remember, for example, wolf berries), but fruits are not a priori poisonous.

Conclusions website

1. According to the botanical classification, there are fruits and their subspecies - berries. For a botanist, a berry is a fruit in which both the seeds and the pulp have developed from the same ovary (that is, it is equally a grape and a tomato). But in the popular, everyday consciousness there are fruits and berries that differ mainly in size. Due to its size, the fruit can only be picked up with a few fingers; the berry can be “grabbed” with two fingers. Pieces are taken from the fruit. The whole berry can be placed in your mouth.
2. According to the “folk” classification, fruits grow mainly on trees, berries can be found on shrubs and herbaceous plants.
3. Fruits are mainly the fruits of garden and cultivated plants; berries can be both garden and wild.
4. The berries are both edible and poisonous. All fruits are considered edible.
5. A fruit usually has a seed inside, a berry has many seeds inside or outside.

One of the main leaders of the Soviet state security agencies (VChK, OGPU, NKVD), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1934-1936).

Carier start

Born in Rybinsk into a Jewish family of a craftsman. Before the revolution, he lived in Nizhny Novgorod, where he met Ya. M. Sverdlov and married his niece Ida. Yagoda’s acquaintance with Maxim Gorky dates back to the pre-revolutionary years, with whom they later maintained friendly relations (Gorky called him “Yagodka”).

In 1904-1905 he participated in the work of an underground printing house. In 1907 he joined the RSDLP. In 1911 he was exiled for 2 years. Participant of the October Revolution in Petrograd.

OGPU-NKVD

Since the early 1930s, deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda actually headed this institution due to the illness of V. R. Menzhinsky, and after his death (1934) he became chairman of the OGPU. In the same year (in July) the NKVD of the USSR was formed. Both the new People's Commissariat and the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) were headed by Yagoda.

Under the leadership of Yagoda, the Gulag was established and the network of Soviet labor camps increased, and the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal began using prisoners. To cover this construction site, Yagoda and the leadership of the Gulag attracted prominent writers, led by Gorky, who for the first time in Russian history glorified slave labor.

He actively participated in organizing trials of the “murderers” S.M. Kirov, “The Kremlin Case”, etc.

In 1935, Yagoda was the first to be awarded the title of “Commissar General of State Security.” In August 1936, the first Moscow show trial against Kamenev, Zinoviev and others took place. But already in September Yagoda was removed to the post of People's Commissar of Communications, and on April 4, 1937 he was arrested.

Attitude to religion

Quote from Solzhenitsyn’s book “The Gulag Archipelago”:

An eyewitness (from Gorky’s entourage, who was close to Yagoda at that time) says: on Yagoda’s estate near Moscow there were icons in the dressing room - specifically so that Yagoda and his comrades, having undressed, shot at them with revolvers, and then went to wash...

Yagoda trial

In February 1938, Yagoda appeared before the Third Moscow Trial as one of the main defendants. To the charge of espionage he replied: “No, I do not plead guilty to that. If I were a spy, I assure you that dozens of states would be forced to disband their intelligence services.”

At dawn on March 13, the court announced the verdict: the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to death. The last attempt to save life was a petition for pardon, in which Yagoda wrote: “My guilt before my Motherland is great. Not redeeming her in any way. It's hard to die. I am on my knees before all the people and the party and ask you to have mercy on me and spare my life.” The Central Executive Committee of the USSR rejected the request. The sentence was carried out in the basement of a house on Lubyanka, where Yagoda had recently felt like a master...

He stood out among the other defendants in at least three ways:

Some of the accusations against Yagoda (killing his predecessor Menzhinsky, Gorky's son M.A. Peshkov, or even Gorky himself) by unacceptable methods of treatment were quite possibly true;

Yagoda, the only one convicted at this trial, was never rehabilitated either in 1988 or later.

Personal life

Yagoda’s personal life was scandalous. He was credited with relationships with many women, including Maxim Peshkov’s wife, Nadezhda. At the trial, Yagoda stated that his participation in the murder of Maxim Peshkov was due to personal reasons, and he did not give detailed testimony on this matter, even in a closed hearing. Yagoda's wife, Ida Averbakh, was a deputy prosecutor of the city of Moscow and was also repressed.

Yagoda was a lover of art and antiques, as well as luxury goods, sometimes quite specific.

1. Soviet money 22997 rubles. 59 kopecks, including a savings book for 6180 rubles. 59 kopecks

2. Various wines - 1229 bottles. Most of them are made abroad - 1897, 1900 and 1902.

3. Collection of pornographic photographs - 3904 pieces.

4. Pornographic films - 11 pcs.

5. Various foreign cigarettes, Egyptian, Turkish - 11075 pcs.

29. Foreign silk and fildepers stockings - 130 pairs

92. Different revolvers - 19

102. Collection of smoking pipes and mouthpieces (ivory, amber, etc.), most of them pornographic - 165

105. Rubber artificial penis - 1

121. Various antique products - 270

127. Grand piano, piano - 3

128. Typewriter - 1

129. K.-r. Trotskyist, fascist literature - 542

Biography

early years

After receiving secondary education, he worked as a statistician.

The Yagoda family was related to the Sverdlov family. Yagoda's father, Gershen Filippovich, was a cousin of Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov, father of Yakov Sverdlov, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod. Subsequently, Yagoda married Ida Leonidovna Averbakh (daughter of Yakov Sverdlov’s sister Sofia Mikhailovna), his second cousin. They had a son, Garik (1929-2003).

Soon after Heinrich's birth, the family moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where his father worked as an apprentice for printers. While living in Nizhny Novgorod, Yagoda met Yakov Sverdlov.

The family was also associated with the Social Democrats. In 1904, Gershen Yagoda agreed to have an underground printing house of the Nizhny Novgorod Committee of the RSDLP in his apartment. Young Heinrich participated in the work of this underground printing house.

Moscow, arrest. Exile to Simbirsk (1912-1913)

In the summer of 1912, 20-year-old Genrikh Yagoda was detained in Moscow: as a Jew, he had no right to live in Moscow and settled there with his sister Rosa, a member of the anarchist party, using a false passport issued in the name of a certain Galushkin. He was exposed “in criminal relations with persons belonging to revolutionary organizations.” The gendarmes noted that the young man had the intention of converting to Orthodoxy and getting a job in the old capital. The court sentenced him to two years of exile in Simbirsk, where his grandfather, watchmaker Gabriel Lvovich Masin-Zon, had his own home.

Soon after arriving in Simbirsk, the exiled Yagoda submitted a petition to the Simbirsk governor Klyucharev, asking for a transfer to his parents in Nizhny Novgorod. Motivating the request, Yagoda wrote: “I have no personal income in Simbirsk and need a family environment due to my extremely painful condition...”. The governor ignored the request.

St. Petersburg (1913-1917)

In 1930, one of Yagoda’s deputies, Trilisser, an old party member who served ten years in the tsarist penal servitude, on his own initiative undertook research into the biography of his boss. Yagoda’s autobiography, written at the request of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, turned out to be false. Yagoda wrote that he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1907, was sent into exile by the tsarist government in 1911, and subsequently took an active part in the October Revolution. Almost all of this was untrue. In fact, Yagoda joined the party only in the summer of 1917, and before that he had nothing in common with the Bolsheviks.

In 1915, Genrikh Yagoda was drafted into the army and sent to the battlefields of the First World War. He rose to the rank of corporal in the 20th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Army Corps. In the fall of 1916 he was wounded and was soon demobilized. Returned to Petrograd.

Yagoda's acquaintance with Maxim Gorky dates back to the pre-revolutionary years, with whom they later maintained friendly relations.

Revolution and activity in the Cheka-OGPU

In 1917, he collaborated in the newspaper “Soldatskaya Pravda” (the newspaper was published from April 15 (28), 1917 to March 6, 1918. In July it was closed by the Provisional Government).

From 1918 he worked in the Petrograd Cheka. In 1918-1919 - employee of the Higher Military Inspectorate of the Red Army. In 1919, he was noticed by Ya. M. Sverdlov and F. E. Dzerzhinsky and transferred to Moscow. In 1919-1920 - member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade. From the end of 1919 to the end of 1920, the manager of the affairs of the Special Department of the Cheka, the order of appointment was signed by I. P. Pavlunovsky. Since 1920, a member of the Presidium of the Cheka, then a member of the board of the GPU. Since September 1923 - second deputy chairman of the OGPU. With the death of Dzerzhinsky in July 1926, the OGPU was headed by Menzhinsky, who until that time held the post of first deputy chairman and was the head of the Secret Operations Directorate - in the latter position he was replaced in July 1927 by Yagoda. Due to the illness of the OGPU chairman V.R. Menzhinsky, Yagoda actually headed this institution. According to A. Kolpakidi, with the resignation of I. A. Akulov from the post of first deputy chairman of the OGPU, this position remained vacant and the deputy chairman G. G. Yagoda began to play the leading role.

In 1930-1934 he was a candidate member of the Central Committee, and since 1934 - a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In the internal party struggle he supported I.V. Stalin. He led the defeat of anti-Stalin demonstrations in October 1927.

On August 4, 1933, Yagoda was awarded the Order of Lenin (for leading the construction of the White Sea Canal).

At the beginning of 1933, he took part in the development of a case about sabotage in the system of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR, and about a spy and sabotage organization working for Japan (about 100 agricultural specialists were arrested in the pest case, led by Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture F.M. Konar and A. M. Markevich, as well as the Deputy People's Commissar of State Farms of the USSR M. M. Wolf. At the trial, 14 defendants recanted their testimony. However, 40 people were sentenced to death, the rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Of the 23 defendants in the case. 21 people were sentenced to death for espionage). Some time later, A. M. Markevich wrote a statement from the camp addressed to Stalin, Molotov and USSR Prosecutor I. A. Akulov, where he pointed out the illegal methods of conducting the investigation:

Yagoda abruptly interrupted me: “Don’t forget that you are under interrogation. You are not the deputy here. People's Commissar Don’t you think that in a month we will apologize to you and say that we were mistaken? Since the Central Committee agreed to your arrest, it means that we have given completely comprehensive and convincing evidence of your guilt.” All the investigators in my case only sought a confession of guilt, and rejected all objective evidence of my innocence.

At the same time, a statement addressed to the head of the complaints bureau of the Soviet Control Commission, M. I. Ulyanova, was sent by A. G. Revis, one of the two unexecuted defendants in the case of espionage for Japan. He also reported on illegal methods of conducting the investigation. A Politburo commission formed on September 15, 1934 to study both statements (and consisting of Kaganovich, Kuibyshev and Akulov) concluded that the statements were true. She, in addition, identified other cases of violation of the law by the OGPU and NKVD: torture of those arrested and fabrication of cases. The commission prepared a draft resolution that provided eradication of illegal methods of investigation; Punishment of the perpetrators and review of the cases of Revis and Markevich. The murder of Kirov prevented the adoption of this project.

Head of the NKVD

In July 1934, the NKVD of the USSR was formed. Both the new People's Commissariat and its most important component, the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB), were headed by Genrikh Yagoda.

The head of the Secret Political Department of the NKVD, G. A. Molchanov, later testified about Yagoda’s mood at that moment:

In 1934, Yagoda repeatedly pointed out to me the need for a more liberal course in our punitive policy. For example, I remember the conversation we had in the summer of 1934 at the Dynamo water station. In this conversation, Yagoda directly told me that it was time, perhaps, to stop shooting people.

Such statements by Yagoda reflected the general course of the ruling elite towards introducing repression within the framework of the law. Voroshilov and Kaganovich spoke similarly then.

Under the leadership of Yagoda, the Gulag was established and the network of Soviet forced labor camps was expanded, and the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal by prisoners began. 36 prominent writers, led by Maxim Gorky, were involved in covering this construction site.

Yagoda officially bore the title of “the first initiator, organizer and ideological leader of the socialist industry of the taiga and the North.” In honor of Yagoda’s services in organizing camp construction, a special monument was even erected at the last lock of the White Sea-Baltic Canal in the form of a thirty-meter five-pointed star, inside of which was a giant bronze bust of Yagoda.

According to the American historian Richard Spence, Yagoda managed to organize illegal supplies of timber from the Gulag to Canada, the profits from which went to his Swiss account, which remains unclaimed to this day (2014).

Arrest

A survey of members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks from 31.03 - 01.04.37

Approve the following proposal of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks:

In view of the discovery of anti-state and criminal crimes by the People's Commissar of Communications G. G. Yagoda, committed when he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, it is considered necessary to expel him from the party and the Central Committee and authorize his arrest.

Initially, Yagoda was accused of committing “anti-state and criminal crimes,” then also of “connections with Trotsky, Bukharin and Rykov, organizing a Trotskyist-fascist conspiracy in the NKVD, preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin and Yezhov, preparing a coup and intervention.” Yagoda was opposed by his main associates Ya. S. Agranov, L. M. Zakovsky, S. G. Firin, S. F. Redens, F. I. Eichmans, Z. B. Katsnelson, I. M. Leplevsky and others. Interrogation protocol of April 28, 1937.

His wife Ida Averbakh was dismissed from the prosecutor’s office and on June 9, 1937, arrested “as a member of the family of a convicted person by the NKVD of the USSR.” Together with her mother and seven-year-old son, she was sent into exile to Orenburg for a period of five years.

"Timosha" Peshkova was the widow of Maxim Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov. Yagoda and Gorky's secretary P.P. Kryuchkov were charged with the murder of Gorky's son (as well as Gorky himself). When Yagoda pleaded guilty to this, he claimed that he did it for “personal reasons” - falling in love with Timosha.

Trial

Denial of rehabilitation and the opinion of human rights activists

The head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseny Roginsky expressed agreement with the court's decision. In his opinion, someone who himself has committed crimes against justice cannot be rehabilitated. At the same time, Roginsky noted that the charges brought against Yagoda during the trial were false, and pointed out that independent researchers do not have access to the criminal case in which Yagoda was convicted:

For some reason and according to our established practice, researchers are not allowed to study the cases of unrehabilitated persons. It's outrageous. And this does not allow us to give a complete objective assessment of the Supreme Court’s decision on Yagoda.

After the conviction of G. G. Yagoda, on June 20, 1937, his parents and sisters were exiled to Astrakhan for a period of 5 years. On May 8, 1938, they were sentenced to 8 years in forced labor camps. His father died in custody in Vorkuta, his mother in the North-Eastern Correctional Labor camp. Sisters: Rozalia Grigorievna Shokhor-Yagoda (1890, Simbirsk - 1950), after serving her prison term, she was in exile in Kolyma for another 5 years; Taisiya Grigorievna Yagoda-Mordvinkina (1895-?), after liberation on October 29, 1949, she was deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory; Esfir Grigoryevna Yagoda-Znamenskaya (1896, Simbirsk - 1938), was sentenced to death on June 16, 1938; Frida Grigoryevna Fridlyand-Yagoda (1899-?), after being released from the camp (1949), was re-sentenced to 10 years in labor camp; Liliya Grigorievna Yagoda (1902, Nizhny Novgorod - 1938), was sentenced to death on June 16, 1938.

Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda(real name - Enon Gershonovich(or Enoch Gershenovich) Yehuda; November 7 (20), 1891, Rybinsk - March 15, 1938, Moscow) - Soviet statesman and political figure, one of the main leaders of the Soviet state security agencies (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1934-1936) .

early years

In the internal party struggle he supported I.V. Stalin. He led the defeat of anti-Stalin demonstrations in October 1927. One of the organizers of dispossession. He led the suppression of uprisings of peasants dissatisfied with the dispossession of kulaks in the Volga region, Ukraine, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, etc. During the suppression, he used the most brutal methods (mass executions, deportations of entire villages to concentration camps).

Since the early 1930s, deputy Chairman of the OGPU. Yagoda actually headed this institution due to the illness of V. R. Menzhinsky.

Head of the NKVD

In July 1934, the NKVD of the USSR was formed. Both the new People's Commissariat and the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) were headed by Yagoda.

Under the leadership of Yagoda, the Gulag was established and the network of Soviet forced labor camps was expanded, and the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal by prisoners began. Yagoda and the Gulag leadership attracted prominent writers, led by Maxim Gorky, to cover this construction site.

He officially bore the title of “the first initiator, organizer and ideological leader of the socialist industry of the taiga and the North.” In honor of Yagoda’s services in organizing camp construction, a special monument was even erected at the last lock of the White Sea-Baltic Canal in the form of a thirty-meter five-pointed star, inside of which was a giant bronze bust of Yagoda.

He actively participated in organizing trials of the “murderers” of S. M. Kirov, the “Kremlin case”, etc.

In 1935, Yagoda was the first to be awarded the title of “Commissar General of State Security.” In August 1936, the First Moscow show trial against Kamenev and Zinoviev took place. Personally participated in their execution. In September 1936, he was removed from the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and appointed People's Commissar of Communications. In April 1937, he was also removed from this post and expelled from the CPSU(b).

Arrest

On April 5, 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD “due to the discovery of anti-state and criminal crimes.”

A survey of members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks from 31.03 - 01.04.37

About Yagoda. Approve the following proposal of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks:

In view of the discovery of anti-state and criminal crimes by the People's Commissar of Communications G. G. Yagoda, committed when he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, it is considered necessary to expel him from the party and the Central Committee and authorize his arrest.

During the search of Yagoda, according to the protocol, films, postcards, photographs of a pornographic nature, a rubber artificial penis (strapon), Trotskyist literature, etc. were found. Also two flattened bullets with which Zinoviev and Kamenev were killed, with inscriptions. All this was taken over by the new People's Commissar of the NKVD N.I. Yezhov, it was confiscated during his arrest. Initially, Yagoda was accused of committing “anti-state and criminal crimes”, then he was also accused of “connections with Trotsky, Bukharin and Rykov, organizing a Trotskyist-fascist conspiracy in the NKVD, preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin and Yezhov, preparing a coup and intervention.” Yagoda was opposed by his main associates Ya. S. Agranov, L. M. Zakovsky, S. G. Firin, S. F. Redens, F. I. Eichmans, Z. B. Katsnelson, I. M. Leplevsky and others.

In a letter from A. Kh. Artuzov to N. I. Yezhov in 1937, Yagoda was assessed as a limited person, unworthy in all respects of the posts he held in the OGPU. In character, in intellectual strength, in culture, in education, in knowledge of Marxism, Yagoda is the antipode of V. R. Menzhinsky.

B. I. Gudz

Trial

In February 1938, Yagoda appeared at the Third Moscow Trial as one of the main defendants. To the charge of espionage he replied: “No, I do not plead guilty to that. If I were a spy, I assure you that dozens of states would be forced to disband their intelligence services.”

At dawn on March 13, the court announced the verdict: the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to death. The last attempt to save life was a petition for pardon, in which Yagoda wrote: “My guilt before my Motherland is great. Not redeeming her in any way. It's hard to die. I am on my knees before all the people and the party and ask you to have mercy on me and spare my life.” The Central Executive Committee of the USSR rejected the request. Shot on March 15 in the Lubyanka prison of the NKVD.

He stood out among the other defendants in at least three ways:

• Yagoda was shot separately from the other accused; there are no documents about his burial place.
• Yagoda, the only one convicted at this trial, was not rehabilitated either under Khrushchev or later. The reason was his participation in the repressions.
• Some of the charges brought against Yagoda, for example, participation in the murder of Kirov and the poisoning of Maxim Gorky, may have been true.

Awards

Notes

Literature

• Rayfield D. Stalin and his henchmen / author's. lane from English, extended and additional - M.: New Literary Review, 2008. - 576 p. - ISBN 978-5-86793-651-8. - Ch. 5. The rise of Yagoda (pp. 221−267); Ch. 6. Dealing with the old guard (pp. 268−314).

Template:Heads of bodies of the State Security Service of the USSR

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