Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich. The ideal performer. The rise and fall of Nikolai Yezhov
At the beginning of 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
Kolya Yezhov’s childhood was not easy. He was born into a poor peasant family, received virtually no education, only graduated primary school in Mariampol. At the age of 11, he went to work and learn a trade in St. Petersburg. Lived with relatives. By official biography, Kolya worked at several factories, unofficially he was an apprentice to a shoemaker and a tailor. The craft was not easy for Yezhov. Even too much. At the age of 15, when he was still a shoemaker’s apprentice, he became addicted to sodomy. He devoted himself to this business until his death, but did not disdain female attention.
Didn't distinguish himself at the fronts
Nikolai Yezhov volunteered for the front in 1915. He really wanted fame and really wanted to follow orders, but Yezhov turned out to be a bad soldier. He was wounded and sent to the rear. Then he was completely declared unfit for military service due to vertically challenged. As the most literate of the soldiers, he was appointed clerk. In the Red Army, Yezhov also did not achieve any feats of arms. Sick and nervous, he was sent from the rank and file to be a census taker for the commissar of the base administration. An unsuccessful military career, however, would later play into Yezhov’s hands and become one of the reasons for Stalin’s favor towards him.
Napoleon complex
Stalin was short (1.73) and tried to form his inner circle from people no taller than himself. Yezhov in this regard was simply a godsend for Stalin. His height - 1.51 cm - very favorably showed the greatness of the leader. Short stature had long been Yezhov's curse. He was not taken seriously, he was kicked out of the army, half the world looked down on him. This developed an obvious “Napoleon complex” in Yezhov. He was not educated, but his intuition, reaching the level of animal instinct, helped him serve the one he should. He was the perfect performer. Like a dog that chooses only one master, he chose Joseph Stalin as his master. He served only him selflessly and almost literally “carried the owner’s bones.” The suppression of the “Napoleon complex” was also expressed in the fact that Nikolai Yezhov especially loved to conduct interrogations tall people, he was especially cruel to them.
Nikolai - keen eye
Yezhov was a “disposable” people’s commissar. Stalin used it for the “great terror” with the skill of a grandmaster. He needed a man who had not distinguished himself at the front, who did not have deep connections with the government elite, a man who was capable of currying favor with anything for the sake of desire, who was capable of not asking, but blindly fulfilling. At the parade in May 1937, Yezhov stood on the podium of the Mausoleum, surrounded by those against whom he had already filed volumes of criminal cases. At the grave with Lenin’s body, he stood with those whom he continued to call “comrades” and knew that “comrades” were actually dead. He smiled cheerfully and waved to the working Soviet people with his small but tenacious hand. In 1934, Yezhov and Yagoda were responsible for controlling the mood of the delegates at the XVII Congress. During the secret ballot, they vigilantly noted who the delegates were voting for. Yezhov compiled his lists of “unreliable” and “enemies of the people” with cannibalistic fanaticism.
"Yezhovshchina" and "Yagodinsky set"
Stalin entrusted the investigation into the murder of Kirov to Yezhov. Yezhov did his best. "Kirov Stream", at the foundation of which stood Zinoviev and Kamenev, accused of conspiracy, dragged thousands of people along with it. Just in 1935 from Leningrad and Leningrad region 39,660 people were evicted, 24,374 people were sentenced to various punishments. But that was only the beginning. Ahead was the “great terror,” during which, as historians like to put it, “the army was bled dry,” and often innocent people were sent in stages to camps without any possibility of returning. By the way, Stalin’s attack on the military was accompanied by a number of “distracting maneuvers.” On November 21, 1935, the title “Marshal” was introduced for the first time in the USSR Soviet Union", awarded to five top military leaders. During the purge, two of these five people were shot, and one died from torture during interrogation. WITH ordinary people Stalin and Yezhov did not use “feints”. Yezhov personally sent out orders to the regions, in which he called for increasing the limit for the “first” firing category. Yezhov not only signed orders, but also liked to be personally present during the execution. In March 1938, the sentence in the case of Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda and others was carried out. Yagoda was the last to be shot, and before that he and Bukharin were put on chairs and forced to watch the execution of the sentence. It is significant that Yezhov kept Yagoda’s things until the end of his days. The “Yagoda set” included a collection of pornographic photographs and films, the bullets with which Zinoviev and Kamenev were killed, as well as a rubber dildo...
Cuckold
Nikolai Yezhov was extremely cruel, but extremely cowardly. He sent thousands of people to camps and put thousands of people against the wall, but could not do anything to oppose those to whom his “master” was not indifferent. So, in 1938, Mikhail Sholokhov cohabited with complete impunity with Yezhov’s legal wife Sulamifya Solomonovna Khayutina (Faigenberg). Love meetings took place in Moscow hotel rooms and were monitored with special equipment. Printouts of records of intimate details regularly landed on the People's Commissar's desk. Yezhov could not stand it and ordered his wife to be poisoned. He chose not to get involved with Sholokhov.
The last word and "photoshop"
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On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested with the participation of Beria and Malenkov in the latter’s office. The Yezhov case, according to Sudoplatov, was personally conducted by Beria and his closest associate Bogdan Kobulov. Yezhov was accused of preparing a coup. Yezhov knew very well how these things were done, so at the trial he did not make excuses, but only regretted that he had “not done enough work”: “I cleaned out 14,000 security officers. But my fault is that I didn’t clean them up enough. I had such a situation. I gave the task to one or another department head to interrogate the arrested person and at the same time thought to himself: today you are interrogating him, and tomorrow I will arrest you. I was surrounded by enemies of the people, my enemies. Everywhere I purged the security officers. I did not purify them only in Moscow , Leningrad and the North Caucasus. I considered them honest, but in reality it turned out that under my wing I was sheltering saboteurs, saboteurs, spies and other types of enemies of the people."
After Yezhov's death, they began to remove him from photographs with Stalin. So the death of the little villain helped the development of the art of retouching. Retouching history.
However, the leader was not completely confident that his dominant position was finally secured. Therefore, it was urgent to do what could establish absolute power, for example, to accelerate the thesis of 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 death.
Childhood and youth
Biographical information about Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov is extremely contradictory. What is known for certain is that the future People's Commissar was born on April 9 (May 1), 1895 in an ordinary family, in which he was raised with his brother and sister.
There is no reliable information about the parents of “Stalin’s 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 found his feet, got a job in the zemstvo guard. But, according to some information, Nikolai Ivanovich’s father was a janitor who cleaned the owner’s house.
Nikolai Yezhov - apprentice mechanic Kolya attended secondary school, but only managed to study for two or three years. Subsequently, Nikolai Ivanovich wrote “incomplete lower” in the “education” column. 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 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 caroused with the ladies.
A year later, the young man gave up sewing and got a job as a mechanic's apprentice. In the summer of 1915, Yezhov voluntarily joined the Russian Imperial Army. During his service, Nikolai Ivanovich did not distinguish himself with any merits, because he was transferred to a non-combatant battalion due to his height of 152 cm. Thanks to this physique, the dwarf Yezhov looked ridiculous even from the left flank.
Policy
In May 1917, Yezhov received a party card for the RCP (b). About further revolutionary activities People's Commissar biographers know nothing. Two years after the Bolshevik coup, Nikolai Ivanovich was drafted into the Red Army, where he served as a census taker at the radio formation base.
During his service, Yezhov showed himself to be an activist and quickly rose through the ranks: within six months, Nikolai Ivanovich rose to the rank of commissar of the radio school. Before becoming the Bloody Commissar, Yezhov went from secretary of the regional committee to 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 party apparatchik Ivan Moskvin, who in 1927 invited Yezhov to join his department as an instructor. Ivan Mikhailovich gave a positive description of his subordinate.
Indeed, Yezhov had a 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 doesn’t stop. And sometimes you have to keep an eye on him in order to stop him in time...”, Moskvitin shared his memories.
In November 1930, Nikolai Ivanovich met his master, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
NKVD
Until 1934, Nikolai Ivanovich was in charge of the organizational distribution department, and in 1933–1934 Yezhov was a member of the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for the “cleansing” of the party. He also held the positions of Chairman of the CPC and Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1934–1935, the politician, at the instigation of his master, participated in a murder case. It was no coincidence that Stalin sent Comrade Yezhov to Leningrad to understand the history of the death of Sergei Mironovich, because he no longer trusted his comrade.
Kirov's death was an occasion that Nikolai Yezhov and the leadership took advantage of: without any evidence, he 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 resulted in 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 sent an urgent telegram to the Central Committee with a request to appoint Yezhov to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.
Here, Nikolai Yezhov’s short stature came in handy, because Stalin surrounded himself with people whom he could look down on. If you believe the visitor log, then Yezhov appeared in the Secretary General’s office every day, and was only ahead of him in terms of frequency of visits.
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 only checked the boxes next to 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 those killed and kept them on his table as a trophy.
The years 1937–1938 marked the so-called Great Terror, the time when Stalin’s repressions reached their climax. This time is also called the “Yezhovshchina” thanks to the work of Stakhanov’s People’s Commissar, who replaced Genrikh Yagoda.
Supporters of Kamenev and Zinoviev, as well as “socially harmful elements” and criminals, were shot, but denunciations, contrary to popular belief, did not play a big role. Torture was also common, in which the People's Commissar personally participated.
Personal life
Yezhov was a secretive man, and many who knew about his character were afraid to establish close relationships with him, because Nikolai Ivanovich did not spare anyone - neither friends nor relatives. Even he fell into disgrace former bosses who gave Yezhov positive recommendations.
He also organized 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 buddies were later “declassified” as “enemies of the people.” Among other things, the People's Commissar sang well, but was unable to establish himself on the opera stage due to his physical disability.
As for his personal life, Nikolai Ivanovich’s first chosen one was Antonina Alekseevna Titova, and the second was Evgenia Solomonovna Yezhova, who allegedly committed suicide before her husband’s arrest. But, according to unconfirmed information, Nikolai Ivanovich himself poisoned his wife, fearing that her connection with the Trotskyists would be revealed. The People's Commissar did not have his own children. She was brought up in the Yezhov family stepdaughter Natalya Khayutina, who after the death of her parents was sent to an orphanage.
Death
The death of Nikolai Ivanovich was preceded by disgrace: after the denunciation (allegedly he was preparing a coup d'etat) against the People's Commissar was discussed by the government, Nikolai Ivanovich asked for resignation, blaming himself for having “cleaned up” an insufficient number of security officers, only 14 thousand people.
During the interrogation, Yezhov was beaten almost to death. Nikolai Ivanovich was arrested and...
“I also have crimes for which I can be shot, and I will talk about them later, but I did not commit the crimes that were charged to me by the indictment in my case and I am not guilty of them ...,” said Nikolai Ivanovich in the last word at the trial.
On February 3, 1940, Yezhov was sentenced to death. Before his execution, the former People's Commissar sang “The Internationale” and, according to the recollections of the Lubyanka executioner Pyotr Frolov, cried. Streets, cities and villages were named in honor of Nikolai Ivanovich, removed documentaries. True, populated areas bore the name of the People's Commissar only from 1937 to 1939.
The “bloody dwarf” had no children in two marriages...
In August 1994, my wife and I accompanied last way our best friend- Professor, Lenin Prize laureate Mark Yuff, who devoted his entire life to the science of gyrocompasses. Cremation took place at the Donskoye Cemetery. On the way back, we noticed a rather pompous monument to a certain Evgenia Solomonovna Yezhova. Maybe it was the patronymic that stopped us? Who is she? Is it really the wife of that terrible Yezhov? What could have happened to the young woman who died on November 21, 1938, when Yezhov was still at the peak of power and fame?
None of those present could answer these questions. However, we live in years when the secrets of Stalin and his camarilla are gradually becoming public...
In September 1936, Stalin appointed his favorite Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov People's Commissar of Internal Affairs instead of Genrikh Yagoda, who was removed and later executed. All deputies of the former People's Commissar, as well as the heads of the main departments, received mandates on Central Committee letterhead and went to “check the political reliability of the relevant regional committees.” Naturally, none of them reached the destinations specified in the mandates. All of them were secretly disembarked from the carriages at the very first stations near Moscow and taken by car to prison. They were shot there without even opening criminal cases. Thus began timelessness, which, with the light hand of Robert Conquest, was later called the era of the Great Terror.
The idea of the extrajudicial destruction of potential opponents has been known since ancient times. Stalin only mastered it well and applied it widely in practice. Back in June 1935, in a conversation with Romain Rolland, Stalin said: “You ask why we don’t hold public trials of terrorist criminals? Let's take, for example, the case of Kirov's murder... The hundred people whom we shot did not have, from a legal point of view, a direct connection with Kirov's murderers... In order to prevent possible atrocities, we took upon ourselves the unpleasant duty of shooting these gentlemen. This is the logic of power. The authorities in such cases must be strong, strong and fearless. Otherwise, it is not power, and cannot be recognized as power. The French communards apparently did not understand this; they were too soft and indecisive, for which Karl Marx condemned them. That's why they lost. This is a lesson for us."
Reading the now declassified transcript of Stalin’s conversation with Rolland, made by translator Alexander Arosev, who was later repressed, one is surprised at many things. But two points are especially striking. Firstly, how could Rolland, a humanist, even a sympathizer of the USSR, listen sympathetically to Stalin’s cannibalistic reasoning about the need to introduce death penalty for children from the age of twelve? And, secondly, why did the writer, who seemed to want to learn as much as possible about the Soviet Union and its leader, speak almost all the time himself, leaving his interlocutor only pauses for short remarks? Apparently, he was in a hurry to charm him. Almost the same thing happened again two years later, during Lion Feuchtwanger’s visit to Moscow.
Nikolai Yezhov - portrait close up...
But let's return to Yezhov. Stalin looked closely at the people in his circle for a long time, looking for a replacement for the talkative and ambitious Yagoda, who was also connected family relations with the Sverdlov clan, hated by the leader. In Yezhov, he discerned, in addition to the hypertrophied diligence obvious to everyone, the hitherto unclaimed makings of an unreasoning executioner, ruthless, knowing no mercy, enjoying unlimited power over people. It was Stalin, this wonderful psychologist, who took the Skuratovs’ “bloody dwarf” as his baby. The height in Yezhov was 151 centimeters...
According to the dictionary of Jean Vronskaya and Vladimir Chuguev “Who is who in Russia and former USSR", "Yezhov was raised to the shield by Stalin special purpose create a bloodbath... According to those who knew him well, by the end of his reign he was completely dependent on drugs. Even in comparison with Yagoda, who, as they say, “shot with his own hands and enjoyed the spectacle”... Yezhov stands out as a bloody executioner, one of the most sinister figures of the Stalin era... Yezhov’s stunning crimes were fully investigated only after 1987.”
Interestingly, much is known today about his predecessor Yagoda. Almost everything is about Beria, who replaced the owner of the “iron fists”. And there is very little about Yezhov himself. Almost nothing - about a man who destroyed millions of his fellow citizens!
On the right is the smallest, but terribly efficient
The famous writer Lev Razgon, the husband of Oksana, the daughter of one of the prominent security officers Gleb Bokiy, who himself spent seventeen years in Stalin’s camps, later recalled: “Two times I had to sit at the table and drink vodka with the future “Iron Commissar”, whose name they soon began to frighten children and adults. Yezhov did not look like a ghoul at all. He was a small, thin man, always dressed in a wrinkled cheap suit and a blue satin shirt. He sat at the table, quiet, taciturn, slightly shy, drank little, did not get involved in the conversation, but only listened, slightly bowing his head.”
Judging by the latest publications in the Russian historical press, Yezhov’s biography looks something like this. He was born May 1, 1895. Nothing is known for sure about his parents. According to some reports, his father was a janitor for the homeowner. Nikolai studied at school for two or three years. In the questionnaires he wrote: “incomplete inferior”! In 1910 he was apprenticed to a tailor. Researcher Boris Bryukhanov states: “When he was a tailor, Yezhov, as he later admitted, became addicted to sodomy from the age of fifteen and paid tribute to this hobby until the end of his life, although at the same time he showed considerable interest in female" A year later he joined the factory as a mechanic.
Yezhov served throughout the First World War in non-combatant units, most likely due to his short stature. After the reserve battalion in 1916, he was transferred to the artillery workshops of the Northern Front, which were stationed in Vitebsk. There, in May 1917, Yezhov joined the Bolsheviks. After a spontaneous demonstration tsarist army he became a mechanic in the workshops of the Vitebsk railway junction, and then moved to a glass factory near Vyshny Volochok. That's all of his work.
A rare photograph of young Yezhov without newspaper retouching
In May 1919, he was drafted into the Red Army, and he ended up at a radio formation base in Saratov, where radio specialists were trained. Here, apparently, his party membership played an important role. Despite his illiteracy, Yezhov was assigned as a clerk under the commissar of base management, and already in September he became commissar of the radio school, which was soon transferred, in connection with the offensive of Alexander Kolchak, to Kazan. A year and a half later, in April 1921, Yezhov was appointed commissar of the base.
Nikolai Ivanovich combined the performance of commissar duties with work in the propaganda industry of the Tatar regional committee of the RCP (b). Secretive and ambitious, he was already thinking about switching to party work. In addition, good connections appeared in Moscow. On February 20, 1922, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) recommended Yezhov for the post of secretary of the party organization of the Mari Autonomous Region. The door to the nomenklatura opened before him, he was introduced to the elite of party functionaries.
But, probably, he would have spent his entire life far from Moscow if not for his rare ability to make useful contacts. The person who liked Yezhov and who helped him move to the capital was Ivan Mikhailovich Moskvin, at that time the head of the Organizational and Preparatory Department of the Central Committee. This department, headed by Moskvin, was mainly engaged in introducing, wherever possible, people personally devoted to Stalin, while “romantic” revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and others - spent time in discussions about the ways of development of the state and the party. It was the party cadres selected by Moskin who subsequently provided Stalin with the necessary advantage in voting at any level.
Ivan Mikhailovich Moskvin, head of the Organizational and Preparatory Department of the Central Committee, was the first to warm up to Yezhov
The same Lev Razgon, who knew Moskvin closely, who became Oksana’s stepfather, talks in some detail about this peculiar person. A professional revolutionary, a Bolshevik since 1911, he was a participant in the famous meeting in the Petrograd organization on October 16, 1917, when the issue of an armed uprising was decided. He was elected a member of the Central Committee at the 12th Party Congress. His character was stern and difficult. Like many responsible workers of that time, he devoted himself entirely to “the cause,” showing integrity and firmness in defending his opinion.
So, choosing, like any great leader, “his” team, Moskvin, who worked for some time in the North-Western Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), remembered Yezhov. But he was in no hurry to take him under his wing; he obviously made inquiries through his own channels. Only a year and a half later, in July 1927, he took Yezhov into his department, first as an instructor, then as an assistant, then as a deputy.
The dispersal testifies: Moskvin's wife Sofya Alexandrovna held, as they say, open house, in which, despite the unsociable nature of her husband, the Bolshevik elite sometimes gathered. She treated Yezhov with special warmth. A former tuberculosis patient, he seemed to her unkempt and not fed. When Yezhov came to the Moskvins, Sofya Alexandrovna immediately began to treat him, affectionately saying: “Sparrow, eat this. You need to eat more, little sparrow...” She called this ghoul Sparrow!
Stalin’s Iron Guard did not erase “Sparrow”, but ground it into powder. Later...
However, he knew how to win over his colleagues and often sang soulful Russian songs in company. They said that once in Petrograd a professor at the conservatory listened to him and said: “You have a voice, but no school. This can be overcome. But your small stature is irresistible. In the opera, any partner will be head and shoulders taller than you. Sing like an amateur, sing in a choir - that’s where you belong.”
It is clear that it was not singing that endeared Moskvin to Yezhov, at least not only singing. Yezhov was irreplaceable in his own way. At any moment of the day or night he could give the leadership the necessary certificate on personnel issues. Yezhov tried very hard, he just went out of his way. He understood: if you don’t please Ivan Mikhailovich, they will drive you somewhere into the wilderness... During this period, Moskvin gave Yezhov in a private conversation the following characteristic: “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 watch him in order to stop him in time...”
While working in the Organizing and Preparatory Department, Yezhov began to catch the eye of Stalin, especially during the days of Moskvin’s absence or illness. After Moskvin left the Central Committee, Yezhov took his place. It was at that time that Stalin paid attention to him and made him the main executor of his Great Terror plan.
Nikolai Yezhov (far right) even voted with the leader
Having become People's Commissar, Yezhov did not forget his benefactor. On June 14, 1937, Moskvin was arrested on charges of involvement in the “counter-revolutionary Masonic organization United Labor Brotherhood.” Of course, there was no “brotherhood” in nature, but neither Yezhov nor Stalin were ever embarrassed by such trifles (the arrest of responsible workers of this level was not carried out without Stalin’s sanction). On November 27, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (Moskvin was never a military man!) sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on the same day. Naturally, the hospitable Sofya Alexandrovna, who fed the little sparrow, went into exile and went to the Lev Acceleration stage. Tragedy!
Ah, dear liberal Russian intelligentsia! All of us: the same Razgon, Evgenia Ginzburg, Yuri Dombrovsky and many, many others learned to perceive the Lenin-Stalinist terror as an incredible tragedy for the entire country only from the moment of their arrest, not earlier. They managed not to notice the mass executions of former tsarist officers, yesterday's doctors, engineers, and lawyers. Do not attach importance to the destruction of scientists and officials of Petrograd - they were loaded onto barges and drowned in the Gulf of Finland. Take for granted the execution of hostages taken from the families of entrepreneurs and merchants, as well as the persecution and extermination of up to the seventh generation of noble families of Russia. They found an excuse for everything: those were the tsar’s servants, those were white officers, and those were world-eating fists... And so on, until the blood began to flood our nests...
Meanwhile, for Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, everything seemed to be going as well as possible: he was “elected” secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, chairman of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee, member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern... In September 1936, he took the chair of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR and soon received the title of General Commissioner of State Security (in military terms - marshal). And besides, he had a new young, beautiful and charming wife - Evgenia Solomonovna.
And this is how he came to the People's Commissars...
They met when she was twenty-six years old, in Moscow, where Evgenia Solomonovna arrived after her second marriage to Alexei Gladun, a diplomat and journalist.
Nikolai Ivanovich himself was also married then. He got married in Kazan, while he was commissar of a radio school. His wife was Antonina Alekseevna Titova, two years younger than him, a former student at Kazan University, who joined the party in 1918 and worked as a technical secretary in one of the district committees. Together with Yezhov, she moved to Krasno-Kokshaysk (formerly Tsarevo-Kokshaysk, now Yoshkar-Ola), where Nikolai Ivanovich was transferred. Then she went with him to Semipalatinsk, and then, on her own, to study in Moscow, at the Agricultural Academy. Yezhov remained in Semipalatinsk for the time being and met his wife only during infrequent business trips to the capital. When he moved to Moscow, they began to live together and worked together in the Organizational and Preparatory Department.
And then Yezhov met Evgenia Solomonovna. His marriage broke up. In those years it was done quickly and easily. The consent of the other party was not required. It is interesting that after her divorce from Yezhov, Antonina Alekseevna completed graduate school in 1933, rose to become the head of a department at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Beet Farming, and even published the book “Organization of the work of units in beet-growing state farms” in 1940. In 1946, she took a meager pension due to illness, after which she lived for more than forty years and died in her ninety-second year of life in September 1988. She was not subjected to repression either during the Yezhovshchina or later.
People's Commissar Yezhov. Rare photo at 25 years old
Yezhov’s second wife, Evgenia Faigenberg, was born in Gomel into a large Jewish family. She was a very smart, precocious girl. I read a lot and was carried away in my dreams into the distant and necessarily significant future. She wrote poetry, studied music and dance. Having barely crossed the threshold of marriageable age, she got married, became Khayutina and moved to Odessa with her husband. There she became close to talented young people. Among her acquaintances were Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov, Valentin Kataev, Isaac Babel, with whom she maintained friendship in Moscow. For some time she worked at the famous newspaper Gudok. She soon separated from Khayutin, marrying Gladun, and then, as we already know, she became Yezhov’s wife.
Cheerful and sociable, she organized a salon, the guests of which were famous writers, poets, musicians, artists, entertainers, diplomats. Nikolai Ivanovich was indifferent to his wife’s artistic and other hobbies. As was customary then, he worked until late at night, while “Zhenechka” Yezhov accepted the frank advances of Isaac Babel, the author of the famous “Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories.” She was also noticed at Kremlin banquets, where she played music and danced. True (as it turned out during the investigation), at that time Yezhov himself joined intimate relationships with her friend, and at the same time, out of old habit, with this friend’s husband.
He was soon arrested ex-husband“Wives” Alexey Gladun. In the materials of his investigative case there is a record that it was he - through Evgenia Solomonovna! - recruited Yezhov into the “anti-Soviet organization.” Gladun, of course, was shot as a Trotskyist and a spy.
Second wife Evgenia Solomonovna and adopted daughter Natasha
Despite the fact that one or another person involved often “dropped out” from Evgenia Solomonovna’s circle, she never made any requests to her husband, knowing full well that it was hopeless. There is, however, one known exception. Writer Semyon Lipkin in his book “The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman” testifies that before the war Grossman fell in love with the wife of the writer Boris Guber, and she and her children moved in with him. When Guber was arrested, Olga Mikhailovna was soon arrested as well. Then Grossman wrote a letter to Yezhov, in which he indicated that Olga Mikhailovna was his wife, not Gubera, and therefore was not subject to arrest. It would seem that this goes without saying, but in 1937 only a very brave person would have dared to write such a letter to the chief executioner of the state. And, fortunately, the letter had an effect: after serving for about six months, Olga Mikhailovna was released. This, as they say, is by the way.
But Evgenia Solomonovna Yezhova began without visible reasons get sick. Her cheerfulness disappeared, she stopped appearing at Kremlin feasts. The alluring light of her literary salon went out. In May, she resigned from the editorial office of the magazine “USSR in Construction,” where she was deputy editor, and fell into a painful depression. At the end of October, Yezhov placed her in a sanatorium named after Vorovsky near Moscow. The entire medical city of Moscow was brought to its feet. The best doctors were on duty at the patient's bedside. But, without spending even a month in the sanatorium, Evgenia Solomonovna died. And - amazing! - the autopsy report states: “The cause of death is luminal poisoning.” Where are the doctors, nurses, caregivers? What happened - suicide or murder? There is no one to answer: who would dare to delve into the family affairs of a “bloody dwarf”?
Most of all, little Natasha, the adopted daughter of the Yezhovs, grieved the death of Evgenia Solomonovna. He did not have his own children from either his first or second marriage. In 1935, the Yezhovs adopted a three-year-old girl taken from one of the orphanages. She lived with them for only four years. After Evgenia’s death, a nanny looked after her, and when Yezhov was arrested, Natasha was again sent to Orphanage, to Penza. An amendment was made to her documents: Natalia Nikolaevna Ezhova became Natalia Ivanovna Khayutina. In Penza she studied at a vocational school, worked at a watch factory, then graduated music school accordion class and went to the Magadan region to teach music to children and adults. She still seems to live in the Far East.
Little Natasha Khayutina, happy adopted daughter
Babel was arrested when Yezhov was already under investigation. It is clear that the operational material preceding his arrest was prepared with the knowledge of not only Yezhov, but also Stalin himself: Babel was too prominent a figure. The verdict reads: “Being organizationally connected in anti-Soviet activities with the wife of the enemy of the people, Yezhova-Gladun-Khayutina-Faigenberg, the latter Babel was involved in anti-Soviet activities, sharing the goals and objectives of this anti-Soviet organization, including terrorist acts... against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government." Babel was shot on January 27, 1940 (according to other sources - March 17, 1941).
Yezhov was arrested on April 10, 1939 and immediately transported to Sukhanovskaya prison - a torture branch of the famous Lefortovo prison. No materials have yet appeared about the progress and methods of investigation in his case, but it is known that his dossier contains a strange note from Evgenia, which he kept since his death: “Kolushenka! I beg you, I insist, to check my whole life, all of me... I cannot come to terms with the idea that I am suspected of double-dealing, of some crimes that were not committed.”
They began to suspect her of reprehensible connections when Yezhov was still in power. Most likely, it was Stalin’s people, preparing incriminating evidence against Yezhov, who were developing a version of getting to his wife, connected with their acquaintance with many people who had already been shot based on fabricated materials. That's where the depression and this panic note come from. Apparently, realizing that she would not be left alone, she decided to commit suicide...
Daughter of People's Commissar Yezhov Natalya Khayutina with a portrait of her adoptive father
...From a recent message from Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Kuleshov: “...During a search in Yezhov’s office, two flattened revolver bullets, wrapped in pieces of paper with the inscriptions “Kamenev” and “Zinoviev”, were found in the safe. Apparently, the bullets were taken from the bodies of those who were shot.”...
On February 2, 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Yezhov to death. The sentence was carried out two days later...
Semyon BELENKY, “Notes on Jewish history”
People's Commissar Yezhov - biography
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 water transport THE USSR. The era of his leadership of the punitive authorities went down in history under the name “Yezhovshchina.”
Origin. early years
Nikolai - was born in St. Petersburg into the family of a foundry worker in 1895. His father came from the Tula province (the village of Volokhonshchino near Plavsk), but ended up in military service to Lithuania, married a Lithuanian woman 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 place of birth was the Suwalki province (on the border of Lithuania and Poland).
He graduated from the 1st grade of primary school, later, in 1927, he 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, mechanic, and worker at a bed factory and at the Putilov plant.
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, serving in the 3rd reserve infantry regiment and in the 5th artillery workshops of the Northern Front. 1917, May - joined the RSDLP (b) (Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
1917, November - Yezhov commands a Red Guard detachment, and in 1918 - 1919 heads the communist club at the Volotin plant. Also in 1919, he joined the Red Army and served as secretary of the party committee of the military subdistrict in Saratov. During the Civil War, Yezhov was a military commissar of several Red Army units.
1921 - Ezhoav is transferred to party work. 1921, July - Nikolai Ivanovich married Marxist Antonina Titova. For his “intransigence” towards the party opposition, he was quickly promoted through the ranks.
1922, March - he holds the position of secretary of the Mari regional committee of the RCP (b), and from October he becomes secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee, then head of the department of the Tatar regional committee, secretary of the Kazakh regional committee of the CPSU (b).
Meanwhile in the area Central Asia Basmachism arose - national movement, opposed to Soviet power. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov led the suppression of the Basmachi movement in Kazakhstan.
Soldier Nikolai Yezhov (right) in Vitebsk. 1916
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 rose rather quickly: 1927 - 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, and 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 Cleansing the Party, and in 1935 he becomes secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
In the “Letter of an Old Bolshevik” (1936), written by Boris Nikolaevsky, there is a description of Yezhov as he was in those days:
For 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 as the terror-stricken animal rushed down the street, desperately but in vain trying to escape the approaching fire. I have no doubt that Yezhov amused himself in this way as a child, and that he continues to do something similar now.
Yezhov was short (151 cm). Those who knew about his sadistic tendencies called him among themselves the Poisonous Dwarf or Bloody Dwarf.
"Yezhovshchina"
The turning point in the life of Nikolai Ivanovich was the murder of the communist governor of Leningrad, Kirov. Stalin used this murder as a pretext 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 to fabricate charges of involvement in it former leaders 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 able to brilliantly cope with this task, Stalin elevated him even more.
1936, September 26 - after being removed from his post, Yezhov becomes 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 “authorities”. Yagoda fell out of favor because he was slow in repressing the old Bolsheviks, whom 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 - potential or imaginary enemies of Stalin - did not present any personal difficulties. Nikolai Ivanovich was personally devoted to the Leader of the People, and not to Bolshevism and not to the NKVD. It was just such a candidate that Stalin needed at that time.
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), Stalin's Great Purge reached its climax. 50-75% of members 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 people simply “inconvenient” for the leader were mercilessly destroyed. In order to impose 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 imprisoned in camps - those who could at least slightly normalize the situation in the state. For example, repressions among the military had a very painful effect during the Great Patriotic War: among the high military command there were almost no people left who had practical experience organization and conduct of combat operations.
Under the tireless leadership of N.I. Yezhov, many cases were fabricated, the largest falsified show political trials were held.
Lots of ordinary Soviet citizens was accused (usually based on flimsy and non-existent “evidence”) of treason or “sabotage.” The “troika” who passed sentences on the ground were based on arbitrary numbers of executions and prison sentences, who 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 Bloody Dwarf spoke openly:
In this fight against fascist agents there will be innocent victims. We are conducting a major offensive against the enemy, and let them not be offended if we hit someone with our elbow. It is better to let dozens of innocents suffer than to miss one spy. The forest is being cut down and the chips are flying.
Arrest
Yezhov faced the same fate as his predecessor Yagoda. 1939 - he was arrested following a denunciation by the head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region V.P. Zhuravleva. The charges against him included preparing terrorist attacks against Stalin and homosexuality. Fearing torture, during interrogation the former People's Commissar pleaded guilty to all counts.
1940, February 2 - the former People's Commissar was tried in a closed session by the Military Board chaired by Vasily Ulrich. Yezhov, like his predecessor, Yagoda, swore his love for Stalin to the end. He denied being a spy, terrorist or conspirator, saying he "preferred death to lies." He began to claim that his previous confessions were extracted by torture (“they used severe beatings on me”). He admitted that his only mistake was that he did not “cleanse” the state security agencies enough of “enemies of the people”:
I cleared out 14 thousand security officers, but my huge fault is that I didn’t clear them enough... I won’t deny that I was drunk, but I worked like an ox... If I wanted to produce terrorist attack over one of the members of the government, I would not recruit anyone for this purpose, but, using technology, I would commit this vile deed at any moment.
In conclusion, he said that he would die with the name of Stalin on his lips.
After the court hearing, Yezhov was taken to his cell, and half an hour later he was called again to announce his death sentence. Hearing him, Yezhov went limp and fainted, but the guards managed to catch him and took him out of the room. The request for clemency was rejected, and the Poison Dwarf became hysterical and crying. As he was led out of the room again, he struggled against the guards' hands and screamed.
Execution
1940, February 4 - Yezhov was shot by the future KGB chairman Ivan Serov (according to another version, security officer Blokhin). They were shot in the basement of a small NKVD station in Varsonofevsky Lane (Moscow). This basement had sloping floors to allow blood to drain and wash away. 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 death chamber of the NKVD in the basements of the Lubyanka, to guarantee complete secrecy.
According to the statements of the prominent security officer P. Sudoplatov, when Yezhov was led to execution, he sang “The Internationale”.
Yezhov’s body was immediately cremated, and the ashes were thrown into a common grave at the Moscow Donskoye Cemetery. The shooting was not officially reported. The People's Commissar simply quietly disappeared. Even in the late 1940s, some believed that the former People's Commissar was in a madhouse.
After death
The ruling in the case of Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR (1998) stated that “as a result of the operations that were carried out by NKVD officers in accordance with Yezhov’s orders, more than 1.5 million citizens, about half of them were shot.” The number of Gulag prisoners increased almost threefold during the 2 years of the Yezhovshchina. At least 140 thousand of them (and possibly much more) died over the years from hunger, cold and overwork in the camps or on the way to them.
Having attached the label “Yezhovshchina” to the repressions, propagandists tried to shift the blame for them entirely from Stalin to Yezhov. But, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, the Bloody Dwarf was, rather, a doll, an executor of Stalin’s will, and it simply could not have been any other way.
- (April 19, 1895 - February 4, 1940, Moscow, USSR) - Soviet party and statesman, General Commissioner of State Security (since January 28, 1937, January 24, 1941, deprived of the title).
In 1911, Nikolai Yezhov worked as a mechanic's apprentice at the Putilov plant 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, lived in other places, and even abroad, in Tilsit ( East Prussia). In June 1915, he volunteered to join the army. On August 14, Yezhov, ill and also slightly wounded, was sent to the rear. At the beginning of June 1916, Yezhov, declared unfit for combat service due to his very short 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 Volochyok. In April 1919, he was called up to serve in the Red Army and was sent to the Saratov radio base (later the 2nd Kazan base), where he first served as a private and then as a census taker under the commissar of the base administration. In October 1919, he took the position of commissar of the school where radio specialists were trained, in April 1921 he became commissar of the base, and at the same time 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 Kyrgyz regional committee of the CPSU (b). 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 Organizational and Preparatory Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From February 1927, he was an instructor in the Orgration Department until 1929. From 1929 to 1930 - Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR. From November 1930 to 1934, head of the Organizational and Preparatory Department. In November 1930, Yezhov met Stalin. In 1933-1934. Member of the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for the “cleansing” 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, Yezhov, at the instigation of Stalin, actually headed the investigation into the murder of Kirov and the Kremlin case, linking them with the activities of former oppositionists - Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky. As 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 reported at a meeting in the NKVD:
 “Yezhov called me to his dacha. It must be said that this meeting was of a conspiratorial nature. Yezhov conveyed Stalin’s instructions on the mistakes made by the investigation in the case of the Trotskyist center, and ordered measures to be taken to open the Trotskyist center, to reveal the clearly undiscovered terrorist gang and Trotsky’s personal role in this case. Yezhov posed the question in such a way that either he himself would convene an operational meeting, or I should intervene in this matter. Yezhov’s instructions were specific and provided the correct starting point for solving 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 from the NKVD on his assumption of duties as People's Commissar. The state security agencies (GUGB NKVD USSR), the police, and auxiliary services, such as departments, were subordinate to Yezhov. highways and fire department. In his new post, Yezhov 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 expulsions for social, organizational, and then on a national basis. 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.
Shkiryatov, Yezhov and Frinovsky on the way to Red Square. May 1, 1938 (RGAKFD) 
Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin and Yezhov on the Moscow - Volga, Yakhroma canal. 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 NKVD. Of the state security employees, from October 1, 1936 to August 15, 1938, 2,273 people were arrested, of which 1,862 were arrested for “counter-revolutionary crimes.” On July 17, 1937, Yezhov was awarded the Order of Lenin “for outstanding success in leading the NKVD bodies in carrying out government tasks »
Presentation of the Order of Lenin to Yezhov. July 27, 1937 (Pravda. 1937. July 28) On July 30, 1937, NKVD Order No. 00447 “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements” was signed.
PERSONAL SIGNATURE OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS N.I. EZHOV To expedite the consideration of thousands of cases, extrajudicial repressive bodies, the so-called, were used. “Commission of the NKVD of the USSR and the prosecutor of the USSR” (it included Yezhov himself) and the troika of the NKVD of the USSR at the level of republics and regions.
From January 1937 to August 1938, Yezhov sent Stalin about 15,000 special messages with reports of arrests, punitive operations, requests for authorization of certain repressive actions, and interrogation reports. Thus, he sent more than 20 documents a day, in many cases quite extensive. As follows from the log 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. This was a kind of record: only Molotov appeared in Stalin’s office more often than Yezhov.
Yezhov played 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, Jan Rudzutak, Stanislav Kosior, Vlas Chubar, Pavel Postyshev, Robert Eiche, were repressed; a number of high-profile trials were carried out against former members of the country's leadership, ending in death sentences, especially the Second Moscow Trial (January 1937 ), the Military Case (June 1937) and the Third Moscow Trial (March 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. During the repressions, he personally took part in torture.
A kind of cult of Yezhov as a man who mercilessly destroys “enemies” has become widespread. 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 “iron gloves” were drawn.
Variant of the poster by B. Efimov “Yezhov’s Mittens”. July 1937 
Yezhov on the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum. May 1, 1938 (Archive of the NIPC “Memorial”) In August 1938, Lavrentiy Beria was appointed Yezhov's first deputy in the NKVD and head of the Main Directorate of State Security.
On November 19, 1938, the Politburo received a denunciation against Yezhov, filed by the head of the NKVD department for the Ivanovo region, V.P. Zhuravlev. On November 23, Yezhov wrote a resignation letter to the Politburo and personally to Stalin, in which he admitted himself to be responsible for the sabotage 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 simply NKVD employees abroad (in 1938, the NKVD plenipotentiary representative 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 “took a businesslike approach to the placement of personnel,” etc. Anticipating an imminent arrest, Yezhov asked Stalin “not to 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 the enemies great...”. On December 9, 1938, N. I. Yezhov was relieved of his duties as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, leaving him as People's Commissar of Water Transport. On January 21, 1939, Yezhov attended a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Lenin’s death, but was not elected as 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 admitting his homosexual relationships. According to the statement, he treated these relationships as a vice.
On February 3, 1940, Nikolai Yezhov was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR 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 Supreme Court The USSR refused to rehabilitate Yezhov
Order of Lenin - “for outstanding success in leading the NKVD bodies in carrying out government tasks” (July 1937)
Jubilee medal "XX years of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army" (02/22/1938)
Badge "Honorary Security Officer".
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 of state awards of the USSR and a special title
EVIDENCE OF GUILTY :
Protocol of the NKVD Commission of the USSR No. 49 dated January 14, 1938, based on documents provided from the NKVD 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.
