Nikolai Yezhov NKVD. Nikolai Yezhov

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1936-1938), General Commissioner of State Security (1937). One of the main organizers of mass repressions in the USSR. The year during which Yezhov was in office - 1937 - became a symbolic symbol of repression; This period itself began to be called the Yezhovshchina very early on.

Start of a career

From the workers. In 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party.

During the Civil War - military commissar of a number of Red Army units, where he served until 1921. After the end of the Civil War, he left for Turkestan for party work.

In 1922 - executive secretary of the regional committee of the Mari Party Autonomous region, secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee, then of the Kazakh regional party committee.

Since 1927 - on responsible work in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. He was distinguished, in the opinion of some, by his blind faith in Stalin; in the opinion of others, faith in Stalin was only a mask to gain the trust of the country's leadership, and to pursue his goals in higher positions. In addition, he was distinguished by his toughness of character. In 1930-1934, he headed the Distribution Department and the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, that is, he implements in practice personnel policy Stalin. Since 1934, Yezhov has been chairman of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Head of the NKVD

On October 1, 1936, Yezhov signed the first order from the NKVD on his assumption of duties as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

Like his predecessor G. G. Yagoda, state security agencies were also subordinate to Yezhov ( General Directorate GB - GUGB NKVD USSR), and the police, and auxiliary services such as the highway department and fire department.

In this post, Yezhov, in active collaboration with Stalin and usually on his direct instructions, was involved in coordinating and carrying 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 social expulsions. , organizational, and then national characteristics. These campaigns took on a systematic nature in the summer of 1937; they were preceded by preparatory repressions in the state security agencies themselves, which were “cleansed” of Yagoda’s employees. During this period, extrajudicial repressive bodies were used extremely widely: the so-called “special meetings (OSO)” and “NKVD troikas”). Under Yezhov, the state security organs began to depend on the party leadership much more than under Yagoda.

The wife of People's Commissar Yezhov was Evgenia (Sulamith) Solomonovna Khayutina. It is assumed that Mikhail Koltsov and Isaac Babel were lovers of Evgenia Solomonovna. Shortly before Yezhov's arrest, Khayutina committed suicide (poisoned herself). The adopted daughter of Yezhov and Khayutina, Natalia, after being placed in an orphanage in 1939, received her mother’s surname, under which she subsequently lived.

Under Yezhov, a series of high-profile trials against former management countries that ended in death sentences, especially the Second Moscow Trial (1937), the Military Trial (1937) and the Third Moscow Trial (1938). In his desk, Yezhov kept the bullets with which Zinoviev, Kamenev and others were shot; these bullets were subsequently seized during a search of his place.

Data on Yezhov’s activities in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence proper are ambiguous. According to many intelligence veterans, Yezhov was absolutely incompetent in these matters and devoted all his energy to identifying internal “enemies of the people.” On the other hand, under him, the NKVD authorities kidnapped General E.K. Miller in Paris (1937) and carried out a number of operations against Japan. In 1938, the head of the Far Eastern NKVD, Lyushkov, fled to Japan (this became one of the pretexts for Yezhov’s resignation).

Yezhov was considered one of the main “leaders”; his portraits were published in newspapers and were present at rallies. Boris Efimov’s poster “Hedgehog Gauntlets” became widely known, where the People’s Commissar takes into his hedgehog mittens a multi-headed snake, symbolizing the Trotskyists and Bukharinites. “The Ballad of People’s Commissar Yezhov” was published, signed in the name of the Kazakh akyn Dzhambul Dzhabayev (according to some sources, written by the “translator” Mark Tarlovsky).

Like Yagoda, Yezhov, shortly before his arrest, was removed from the NKVD to a less important post. Initially, he was appointed part-time People's Commissar water transport(NKVT): this position was related to his previous activities, since the network of canals served important means intercom countries providing state security, and was often erected by prisoners. After the denunciation against Yezhov filed by the head of the NKVD was discussed in the Politburo on November 19, 1938 Ivanovo region Zhuravlev, on November 23, Yezhov wrote a resignation letter to the Politburo and personally to Stalin. In the petition, Yezhov took responsibility for the activities of various enemies of the people who inadvertently infiltrated the authorities, as well as for the flight of a number of intelligence officers abroad, admitted that he “took a businesslike approach to the placement of personnel,” etc. Anticipating an imminent arrest, Yezhov asked Stalin “don’t touch my 70 year old mother.” At the same time, Yezhov summed up his activities as follows: “Despite all these great shortcomings and blunders in my work, I must say that under the daily leadership of the NKVD Central Committee I crushed my enemies great...”

On December 9, 1938, Pravda and Izvestia published next message: “Comrade Yezhov N.I. was relieved, according to his request, from the duties of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs with his resignation people's commissar water transport". His successor was L.P. Beria, who somewhat moderated the repressions (there was a temporary abandonment of “list” campaigns, the use of special meetings and troikas) and rehabilitated some of those repressed in 1936-1938. (as part of the so-called “smear campaign”).

Arrest and death

On April 10, 1939, People's Commissar of Water Transport Yezhov was arrested on charges of “leading a conspiratorial organization in the troops and bodies of the NKVD of the USSR, conducting espionage in favor of foreign intelligence services, preparing terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and state and an armed uprising against Soviet power" He was held in the Sukhanovskaya special prison of the NKVD of the USSR.

According to the indictment, “In preparing the coup d’etat, Yezhov, through his like-minded people in the conspiracy, prepared terrorist cadres, intending to put them into action at the first opportunity. Yezhov and his accomplices Frinovsky, Evdokimov and Dagin practically prepared a putsch for November 7, 1938, which, according to the plan of its inspirers, was to be expressed in committing terrorist actions against the leaders of the party and government during a demonstration on Red Square in Moscow." In addition, Yezhov was accused of sodomy, which was already prosecuted under Soviet laws (which, however, he also committed allegedly “acting for anti-Soviet and selfish purposes”).

During the investigation and trial, Yezhov rejected all accusations and admitted that his only mistake was that he “didn’t cleanse enough” the state security agencies of enemies of the people. IN last word At the trial, Yezhov stated: “At preliminary investigation I said that I was not a spy, I was not a terrorist, but they did not believe me and severely beat me. During the twenty-five years of my party life I honestly fought with enemies and destroyed enemies. I also have crimes for which I can be shot, and I will talk about them later, but I did not commit those crimes that were charged to me by the indictment in my case and I am not guilty of them... I do not deny that drunk, but I worked like an ox... If I wanted to produce terrorist attack over any member of the government, I would not recruit anyone for this purpose, but, using technology, I would commit this vile deed at any moment...” On February 3, 1940, Yezhov N.I. by the verdict of the Military Collegium Supreme Court The USSR was sentenced to an exceptional punishment - execution; the sentence was carried out the next day, February 4 of the same year.

From the memoirs of one of the executors of the sentence: “And now, in a half-asleep, or rather, half-fainting, state, Yezhov wandered towards that special room where Stalin’s “First Category” (execution) was carried out. ...He was told to take everything off. He didn't understand at first. Then he turned pale. He muttered something like: “But what about...” ... He hastily pulled off his tunic... to do this, he had to take his hands out of his trouser pockets, and his People's Commissar's riding breeches - without a belt and buttons - fell off... When one of the investigators swung at him, in order to hit, he plaintively asked: “Don’t!” Then many remembered how he tortured those under investigation in their offices, especially Satan at the sight of powerful, tall men (Yezhov’s height was 151 cm). The guard couldn't resist - he hit me with the butt of his gun. Yezhov collapsed... From his scream, everyone seemed to have broken free. He could not resist, and when he stood up, a trickle of blood flowed from his mouth. And he no longer resembled a living creature.”

There are no publications about the arrest and execution of Yezhov in Soviet newspapers there was no - he “disappeared” without explanation to the people. The only external sign of Yezhov’s fall was the renaming of the newly named city of Yezhov-Cherkessk to Cherkessk in 1939.

In 1998, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Russian Federation recognized N.I. Ezhov as not subject to rehabilitation.

In 1937, the Soviet Union was literally overwhelmed by repression. The 20th anniversary of the punitive authorities was celebrated - after all, on December 20, 1917, the Russian Extraordinary Commission was formed. A report on this matter was made in Bolshoi Theater future Kremlin centenarian Anastas Mikoyan. The report was unforgettably titled: “Every citizen is an employee of the NKVD.” The practice of everyday denunciation was introduced into the minds and consciousness. Denunciation was considered the norm. And Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, who became the helm of the NKVD, is just a pawn in that terrible game for absolute power that Stalin was then leading.

Biography and activities of Nikolai Yezhov

Nikolai Yezhov was born on April 19, 1895 according to the old style. According to some reports, his father was a janitor for the homeowner. He studied at school for only two or three years. Subsequently, when filling out questionnaires, Yezhov wrote in the “education” column - “incomplete lower.” In 1910, the teenager was sent to be trained by a tailor. He did not like the craft, but from the age of fifteen, as Yezhov himself admitted in the dungeons of the institution that he himself had recently headed, he became addicted to sodomy. Yezhov paid tribute to this hobby until the end of his life. At the same time, he showed interest in female. One did not interfere with the other. There was something to repent of, as well as something to be proud of.

A year later, the boy broke up with the tailor and entered the factory as a mechanic's apprentice. Later, like many of his peers, he was drafted into the Russian imperial army. First world war I found him in provincial provincial Vitebsk. It seemed that fate itself was giving the little one a chance an ambitious person distinguish yourself. However, Yezhov is very soon transferred from the reserve battalion to a non-combatant team. The reason is banal and simple - with his height of 151 cm, he looks bad even on the left flank.

Yezhov worked in artillery workshops, where his revolutionary activity, which official biographers loved to write about. However, historians have not been able to find any clear evidence of this activity. Yezhov joined the Bolshevik Party in May 1917. So what if it's early? He did not wait and was not cautious, like others - he accepted new government immediately and unconditionally. After spontaneous demobilization from tsarist army For some time, traces of Yezhov are lost.

A year and a half of his biography is a “dark time” for historians. In April 1919, he was drafted again - this time into the Red Army. But again he ends up not at the front or even in an artillery unit, but to the position of census taker under the commissar. Despite his illiteracy, he managed to establish himself as an activist, and soon received a promotion. Six months later, Yezhov became commissar of the radio school. Nothing heroic about civil war, thus, fate did not have in store for him.

His short stature did not allow him to become a real soldier. He also became an obstacle to an opera career, although Yezhov sang beautifully. Nikolai Ivanovich had a phenomenal memory - he remembered a lot by heart and firmly. Stalin's entourage was dominated by short people (how can one not recall known string Mandelstam: “And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders”) and Yezhov, as they say, came to court. At a certain period, Yezhov became the closest person to Stalin. He visited the Master's office every day and for a long time.

Stalin needed a man without merit to the revolution and not associated with the highest echelon of power. Yezhov was perfect. It was tested back in history with the death of Kirov in December 1934. With the hands of Yezhov, Stalin dealt with Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was a rehearsal for future great repressions. Yezhov replaced Genrikh Yagoda as Minister of Internal Affairs. He's at the peak of his career. In his hands are the fates of hundreds of thousands of those sentenced to death. The army was beheaded. Many famous military leaders led by .

Everything human gradually burned out in Yezhov. He never tried to protect anyone. Soon this man turned into a heavy alcoholic and pederast. At the same time, he knew how to be charming and to please women; after flows of blood, he easily switched to everyday life. He and his wife, Evgenia Ivanovna Khayutina, did not have children, so they adopted three-year-old Natasha. There was an art salon in the Yezhov house; Babel, Koltsov, singers and musicians often visited.

In the end, Yezhov was appointed People's Commissar of Water Transport, and he was replaced by. On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested. Shortly before this, Yezhov’s wife shot herself - probably in anticipation inevitable outcome. Yezhov was accused of both abuse of office and immoral lifestyle. He himself, while admitting all the charges, regretted that he was not merciless enough towards the enemies of the people and could have shot several times more than he was allowed. Executed on February 4, 1940 by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

• They say that before his death, Yezhov was stripped naked and beaten mercilessly, and then shot at his lifeless body. They surrounded him in those last minutes investigators and supervisors - those who were in awe of him when Yezhov was the all-powerful People's Commissar. A terrible and inglorious end...

As we know from history, most of those who sent nobles and members to France royal family to the guillotine during the Great Terror in the 18th century, and were subsequently executed themselves. There was even catchphrase, voiced by the Minister of Justice Danton, which he said before he was beheaded: "The revolution devours its children."

History repeated itself in the years when, with one stroke of the pen, yesterday's executioner could end up on the same prison bunks or be shot without trial, like those whom he himself sent to death.

A striking example of this is Nikolai Yezhov, Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The reliability of many pages of his biography is questioned by historians, because there are many dark spots in it.

Parents

By official version, Nikolai Yezhov was born in 1895 in St. Petersburg, into a working-class family.

At the same time, there is an opinion that the father of the People's Commissar was Ivan Yezhov, who was a native of the village. Volkhonshchino (Tula province) and served conscript service in Lithuania. There he met a local girl, whom he soon married, deciding not to return to his homeland. After demobilization, the Yezhov family moved to the Suwalki province, and Ivan got a job in the police.

Childhood

At the time of Kolya’s birth, his parents most likely lived in one of the villages of Mariampolsky district (now the territory of Lithuania). Three years later, the boy’s father was appointed zemstvo guard of the district city district. This circumstance was the reason that the family moved to Mariampol, where Kolya studied for 3 years at primary school.

Considering their son sufficiently educated, in 1906 his parents sent him to a relative in St. Petersburg, where he was supposed to master the tailoring craft.

Youth

Although the biography of Nikolai Yezhov states that until 1911 he worked as a mechanic’s apprentice. However archival documents this is not confirmed. What is known for certain is that in 1913 the young man returned to his parents in the Suwalki province, and then wandered around in search of work. At the same time, he even lived in Tilsit (Germany) for some time.

In the summer of 1915, Nikolai Yezhov volunteered to join the army. After training in the 76th Infantry Battalion, he was sent to the Northwestern Front.

Two months after the transfer serious illness and a slight wound, he was sent to the rear, and in the early summer of 1916 Nikolai Yezhov, whose height was only 1 m 51 cm, was declared unfit for combat service. For this reason, he was sent to the rear workshop in Vitebsk, where he went on guard and in detachments, and soon, as the most literate of the soldiers, he was appointed clerk.

In the fall of 1917, Nikolai Yezhov was hospitalized, and returning to his unit only at the beginning of 1918, he was dismissed due to illness for 6 months. He again went to his parents, who at that time lived in the Tver province. Since August of the same year, Yezhov began working at a glass factory, which was located in Vyshny Volochyok.

Beginning of party career

In a questionnaire filled out by Yezhov himself in the early 1920s, he indicated that he joined the RSDLP in May 1917. However, after some time he began to claim that he had done this back in March 1917. At the same time, according to the testimony of some members of the Vitebsk city organization of the RSDLP, Yezhov joined its ranks only on August 3.

In April 1919, he was called up to serve in the Red Army and sent to the radio formation base in Saratov. There he first served as a private, and then as a scribe under the command. In October of the same year, Nikolai Yezhov took the position of commissar of the base where radio specialists were trained, and in the spring of 1921 he was appointed commissar of the base and elected deputy head of the propaganda department of the Tatar regional committee of the RCP.

At party work in the capital

In July 1921, Nikolai Yezhov registered his marriage with A. Titova. Soon after the wedding, the newlywed went to Moscow and managed to get her husband transferred there as well.

In the capital, Yezhov began to quickly advance in his career. In particular, after a few months he was sent to the Mari regional party committee as an executive secretary.

• executive secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee;
• head of the organizational department of the Kyrgyz regional committee;
• Deputy Executive Secretary of the Kazak Regional Committee;
• instructor of the organizational department of the Central Committee.

According to management, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was an ideal performer, but had a significant drawback - he did not know how to stop, even in situations where nothing could be done.

Having worked in the Central Committee until 1929, he held the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR for 12 months, and then returned to the organizational distribution department as head.

"Purges"

Nikolai Yezhov was in charge of the organizational distribution department until 1934. Then he was included in Central Commission The CPSU, which was supposed to carry out a “cleansing” of the party, and from February 1935 he was elected chairman of the CPC and secretary of the Central Committee.

From 1934 to 1935, Yezhov, on behalf of Stalin, headed the commission on the Kremlin case and the investigation into the murder of Kirov. It was he who linked them with the activities of Zinoviev, Trotsky and Kamenev, actually entering into a conspiracy with Agranov against the chief of the last People's Commissar of the NKVD, Yagoda.

New appointment

In September 1936, I. Stalin and those who were on vacation at that time sent a coded telegram to the capital addressed to Molotov, Kaganovich and the rest of the Politburo members of the Central Committee. In it, they demanded that Yezhov be appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, leaving him with Agranov as his deputy.

Of course, the order was carried out immediately, and already at the beginning of October 1936, Nikolai Yezhov signed the first order for his department about taking office.

Yezhov Nikolai - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs

Like G. Yagoda, state security agencies and the police, as well as auxiliary services, for example, fire departments and highways, were subordinate to him.

In his new post, Nikolai Yezhov was involved in organizing repressions against persons suspected of espionage or anti-Soviet activities, “purges” in the party, mass arrests, and expulsions on social, national and organizational grounds.

In particular, after the plenum of the Central Committee in March 1937 instructed him to restore order in the NKVD, 2,273 employees of this department were arrested. In addition, it was under Yezhov that orders began to be issued to local NKVD bodies, indicating the number of unreliable citizens subject to arrest, execution, deportation or imprisonment in prisons and camps.

For these “exploits” Yezhov was awarded. Also, one of his merits can be attributed to the destruction of the old guard of revolutionaries, who knew the unsightly details of the biographies of many of the top officials of the state.

On April 8, 1938, Yezhov was appointed concurrently People's Commissar of Water Transport, and a few months later the posts of first deputy for the NKVD and head of the Main Directorate of State Security were taken by Lavrentiy Beria.

Opal

In November, the Politburo of the Communist Party discussed a denunciation against Nikolai Yezhov, which was signed by the head of the Ivanovo department of the NKVD. A few days later, the People's Commissar submitted his resignation, in which he admitted his responsibility for the sabotage activities of the “enemies” who, through his oversight, penetrated the prosecutor’s office and the NKVD.

Anticipating his imminent arrest, in a letter to the leader of the peoples, he asked not to touch his “seventy-year-old old mother” and concluded his message with the words that he “rubbed the enemies great.”

In December 1938, Izvestia and Pravda published a report that Yezhov, in accordance with his request, was relieved of his duties as head of the NKVD, but retained the post of People's Commissar of Water Transport. His successor was Lavrentiy Beria, who began his activities in a new position with the arrests of people close to Yezhov in the NKVD, courts and prosecutor's office.

On the day of the 15th anniversary of the death of V.I. Lenin, N. Ezhov in last time attended an important event of national importance- a solemn meeting dedicated to this sad anniversary. However, then an event followed that directly indicated that the clouds of anger of the leader of the people were gathering over him even more than before - he was not elected as a delegate to the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Arrest

In April 1939, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, whose biography until that moment was a story about the incredible career takeoff a person who barely graduated primary school, was taken into custody. The arrest took place in Malenkov’s office, with the participation of Beria, who was appointed to lead the investigation into his case. From there he was sent to the Sukhanovsky special prison of the NKVD of the USSR.

After 2 weeks, Yezhov wrote a note in which he admitted that he was homosexual. Subsequently, it was used as evidence that he committed unnatural things for selfish and anti-Soviet purposes.

However, the main thing that was blamed on him was the preparation of a coup d'etat and terrorist cadres, which were supposed to be used to commit assassinations on members of the party and government on November 7 on Red Square, during a workers' demonstration.

Sentence and execution

Nikolai Yezhov, whose photo is presented in the article, denied all the charges brought against him and called his only mistake his insufficient zeal in “cleansing” the state security agencies.

In his last word on trial Yezhov stated that he was beaten during the investigation, although he honestly fought and destroyed the enemies of the people for 25 years. In addition, he said that if he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack against one of the government members, he did not need to recruit anyone, he could simply use the appropriate equipment.

On February 3, 1940, the former People's Commissar was sentenced to death. The execution took place the next day. According to the testimony of those who accompanied him in the last minutes of his life, before the execution he sang “The Internationale”. Nikolai Yezhov's death occurred instantly. To destroy even the memory of former comrade, the party leadership decided to cremate his corpse.

After death

Nothing was reported about Yezhov's trial or his execution. The only thing that the ordinary citizen of the Land of Soviets noticed was the return former name the city of Cherkessk, as well as the disappearance of images of the former People's Commissar from group photographs.

In 1998, Nikolai Yezhov was declared not subject to rehabilitation by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The following facts were cited as arguments:

• Yezhov organized a series of murders of persons who were displeasing to him personally;
• he took the life of his wife because she could expose his illegal activities, and did everything to pass off this crime as an act of suicide;
• As a result of operations carried out in accordance with the orders of Nikolai Yezhov, over one and a half million citizens were repressed.

Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich: personal life

As already mentioned, the first wife of the executed People's Commissar was Antonina Titova (1897-1988). The couple divorced in 1930 and had no children.

Yezhov met his second wife, Evgenia (Sulamith) Solomonovna, when she was still married to diplomat and journalist Alexei Gladun. The young woman soon divorced and became the wife of a promising party functionary.

Bring into existence own child The couple did not succeed, but they adopted the orphan. The girl's name was Natalya, and after the suicide of her adoptive mother, which occurred shortly before Yezhov's arrest and execution, she ended up in an orphanage.

Now you know who Nikolai Yezhov was, whose biography was quite typical for many employees state apparatus those years who seized power in the first years of the formation of the USSR and ended their lives in the same way as their victims.

On February 4, 1940, Nikolai Yezhov was shot. The “Iron People's Commissar”, who was also called the “bloody dwarf”, became the ideal executor of Stalin’s will, but was himself “played out” in a cruel political game...

Another Shoemaker's Apprentice

Didn't distinguish himself at the fronts

Napoleon complex

Nikolai - keen eye

“Yezhovshchina” and “Yagodinsky set”

Cuckold

Last word

The “Iron Commissar” was sentenced to death at the time of his appointment to a high position

“Yezhovshchina” is a biting word in Soviet style that appeared in the domestic press in 1939. The same people who two years earlier sang the praises of the “Iron Commissar” began to hoot contemptuously as they escorted him to trial and execution. The best of the bunch Nikolai Yezhov, personally tortured the former boss, extracting confessions of treason from him.

What happened? Why Joseph Stalin(and without him such decisions were not made) gave the order to destroy a man who fought his enemies more fiercely than anyone else?

Executioner instead of a businessman

To understand why Stalin needed Yezhov at all, it is necessary to understand who was the predecessor Nikolai Ivanovich and where did this predecessor go?

Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda headed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs from the creation of the department in 1934, and before that for several years he was the de facto leader of the OGPU ( formal head Management Vyacheslav Menzhinsky recent years I practically never got out of bed in my life). Member of the RSDLP since 1907, faithful comrade, unbending revolutionary, friend Dzerzhinsky and Menzhinsky, it was he who stood at the beginning of what is now called mass repression. No, even before that the times were by no means vegetarian, but Yagoda put the fight against undesirable elements not only on a mass basis, but also on a commercial basis. The Main Directorate of Camps, the Gulag, is a masterpiece of Yagoda’s thought: from the ordinary penal colonies and death camps, he built a thoughtful production system, which became a vital part of the Soviet economy.

Yagoda’s methods of work did not suit many party members; they objected to his appointment to the highest police position, but the murder Sergei Kirov in December 1934 everything was written off: the flywheel of repression was launched. The most high-profile case of Yagoda’s time was the defeat of the “opposition Zinoviev - Kameneva": the bullets that were used to shoot these former leaders Soviet state, Yagoda kept it as a keepsake. Subsequently, Yagoda took on the “criminal group Bukharin - Rykova”, but only managed to start the case: a little later he would be shot as a member of the same “criminal group”.

At the same time, Yagoda himself was opposed to executions: he treated those arrested with the diligence of a good owner. In his view, the punitive and correctional system should have worked for the good of the country, and not wasted human material. The White Sea Canal, for the construction of which Yagoda received the Order of Lenin with the help of prisoners, was distinguished by a relatively soft (by Soviet standards) regime; there were still methods of rewarding prisoners, preferential credits for the term; the convict workers who performed best even received state awards. There is no doubt that in the West Yagoda would have become a major businessman; even from the USSR, according to some sources, he managed to organize the illegal supply of timber to the USA with payment credited to his Swiss account.

Of course, the businessman could not complete Stalin's task - the liquidation of an entire generation of Bolsheviks in order to begin building a system with clean slate. Therefore, the executioner came to replace him.

Great Terror

Almost all members of the Stalinist elite were people of extremely short stature (the 165-centimeter Yagoda remained one of the tallest in that government), but Yezhov stood out even among them: 151 centimeters! The lack of physical data, however, did not prevent him from having incredible performance. One of the leaders of the young Yezhov wrote in the early 1930s:

“I don’t know a more ideal worker than Yezhov. Or rather, not a worker, but a performer. Having entrusted him with something, you don’t have to check it and be sure that he will do everything. Yezhov has only one, albeit significant, drawback: he does not know how to stop. Sometimes there are situations when it is impossible to do something, you need to stop. Yezhov doesn’t stop. And sometimes you have to keep an eye on him in order to stop him in time.”

In 1936, Yagoda was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Communications. Stalin then wrote to his Politburo comrades:

“We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent matter appointment of comrade Yezhov was appointed to the post of People's Commissar. Yagoda clearly was not up to the task of exposing the Trotskyist-Zinovievist bloc of the OGPU; he was 4 years late in this matter. All party workers and most regional representatives of the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs talk about this.”

The most terrible years in the history of the USSR. Unlike Yagoda, who, apparently, did not even personally participate in the torture, Nikolai Yezhov made the beatings routine; investigators who were not diligent enough became victims themselves. Mass repression went from September 1936 to October 1938.

Having settled into his new position, Yezhov became man No. 3 in Soviet hierarchy- was closer to the leader only Vyacheslav Molotov. For 1937-1938 Yezhov entered Stalin's office 290 times - and average duration The meeting lasted almost three hours. This, by the way, is the answer to those who believe that Stalin “knew nothing” about torture and repression. It was impossible not to know: for example, at the beginning of 1935, 37 people in the USSR had the title of state security commissars - they occupied high positions, they were feared and considered omnipotent, the appointment of each of them was personally approved by Stalin. Two of these 37 survived until the spring of 1940.

At the same time, a second wave of repressions took place against the kulaks (by that time they had long since existed), as well as purges in national republics and autonomy. In general, during Yezhov’s work at the head of the People’s Commissariat, 681,692 people were shot on political charges alone, and even more were sentenced to long prison terms.

The most famous victims of this period (besides the security officers themselves, among whom the most brutal purges took place) were military leaders Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Jonah Yakir, Vasily Blucher, Pavel Dybenko, physicist, economist Nikolay Kondratyev, poets Sergey Klychkov, Osip Mandelstam, Pavel Vasiliev, Vladimir Narbut, director Vsevolod Meyerhold and many, many others. Miraculously, those who would become the pride of the nation survived: Sergey Korolev, Lev Gumilev, Nikolay Zabolotsky… The absolute uselessness of these victims and the inadequacy of the initiators of terror today do not raise any doubts. normal person I simply would not, and could not, organize something like this: this is where the “ideal executor” Yezhov came in handy.

A real personality cult of Yezhov was organized in the USSR. They wrote about him school essays and ceremonial portraits were dedicated to him labor feats and ceremonial feasts. Kazakh poet Dzhambul wrote:

... The enemy snake breed has been revealed
Through the eyes of Yezhov - through the eyes of the people.
Yezhov waylaid all the poisonous snakes
And smoked the reptiles out of their holes and dens.
The entire scorpion breed was destroyed
By the hands of Yezhov - by the hands of the people.
And Lenin's order, burning with fire,
Was given to you, Stalin's faithful People's Commissar.
You are a sword, drawn calmly and menacingly,
The fire that scorched the nests of snakes,
You are a bullet for all scorpions and snakes,
You are the eye of a country that is clearer than a diamond...

In April 1938, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov received the post of People's Commissar of Water Transport, which, as in the case of "People's Commissar of Communications" Yagoda, became a signal of imminent disgrace.

Scapegoat

What happened, why did Stalin lose faith in the “eye clearer than a diamond”? In 1941, a year after the execution " iron people's commissar", the "father of nations" will say:

“Yezhov is a bastard! A decomposed man. You call him at the People's Commissariat - they say: he left for the Central Committee. You call the Central Committee and they say: he left for work. You send him to his house - it turns out he’s lying dead drunk on his bed. He killed many innocents. We shot him for this.”

Of course, Stalin was cunning, and 850 hours of his meetings with Yezhov over a year and a half are true evidence of this. Stalin did not have any sudden disappointment in Yezhov. Nikolai Ivanovich was initially chosen as a disposable tool for the dirtiest work, for which other figures of that time were of little use.

Overwhelmed by complexes, envious of all men of normal height, Yezhov became exactly the person Stalin needed to first carry out repressions and then shift all responsibility for them. It seems that already at the time of Yezhov’s appointment, Stalin knew that after “ acute phase» repression will replace it Lavrenty Beria, who will work with a pacified, submissive contingent.

In November 1938, Nikolai Yezhov, who was still at large and even headed two people's commissariats, wrote a denunciation against himself to the Politburo, where he admitted responsibility for sabotage activities in the NKVD and the prosecutor's office, and his inability to interfere. Two days later, this peculiar resignation letter was accepted: just as Yezhov had baited Yagoda, Beria organized an attack on Yezhov himself. Yezhov remained People's Commissar of Water Transport, but everything was already clear: on April 10 he was arrested in his office Georgy Malenkov- By interesting coincidence, the most good-natured, liberal member of the Stalinist guard.

IN Soviet press revelations of “excesses” appeared - Yezhov was declared a member of a Trotskyist group that destroyed the old Bolsheviks and prepared terrorist acts.

As was expected at that time, sexual motives were added to the accusations of sabotage and espionage: Yagoda was found with a rubber phallus and pornographic cards, and Yezhov committed, as they now say, coming out: he admitted his non-traditional orientation.

And their last words at the trial were somewhat similar. When the prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky asked: “What do you regret, spy and criminal Yagoda?”, he replied: “I’m very sorry... I’m very sorry that when I could have done it, I didn’t shoot you all.” And Yezhov bitterly stated: “I cleaned up 14,000 security officers, but my great fault is that I didn’t clean up enough of them.”