As we know from history, most of those who sent nobles and members of the royal family to the guillotine in France during the Great Terror in the 18th century were subsequently executed themselves. There was even a catchphrase voiced by Justice Minister 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
According to the 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 his military 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 do not confirm this. 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 later, after suffering a serious illness and a slight injury, he was sent to the rear, and at the beginning of the 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 served on guards and 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. At the same time, he was included in the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party, which was supposed to carry out the “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 who were on vacation at that time sent a coded telegram to the capital addressed to Molotov, Kaganovich and the rest of the members of the Politburo 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 ceremonial 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 had been a story about the incredible career rise of a man who had barely graduated from 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 at the trial, Yezhov stated that he was beaten during the investigation, although he had 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. In order to destroy even the memory of his former comrade-in-arms, the party leadership decided to cremate his corpse.
After death
Nothing was reported about Yezhov’s trial or his execution. The only thing that an ordinary citizen of the Land of Soviets noticed was the return of the former name to 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.
The couple failed to produce their own child, but they adopted an 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 of the state apparatus of those years, who rose to power in the first years of the formation of the USSR and ended their lives in the same way as their victims.
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 from primary school in Mariampol. At the age of 11, he went to work and learn a trade in St. Petersburg. Lived with relatives. According to the official biography, Kolya worked at several factories; according to the unofficial biography, he was an apprentice to a shoemaker and 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 work. military service due to short stature. 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. In total, in 1935, 39,660 people were evicted from Leningrad and the Leningrad region, 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, for the first time in the USSR, the title “Marshal of the Soviet Union” was introduced, awarded to five senior military leaders. During the purge, two of these five people were shot, and one died from torture during interrogation. Stalin and Yezhov did not use “feints” with ordinary people. 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.
Nikolai Yezhov is one of the most sinister figures Soviet era. Under his leadership, full-scale purges began in the ranks of the party, which spread to civilians. In addition to repression, Yezhov also collaborated with Western intelligence, so he can rightfully be called a “Bandera man in NKVD uniform.” Yezhov’s legacy has not gone away: today our intelligence services still continue to cooperate with their overseas “colleagues” from the CIA, NSA and FBI, which turns them into open accomplices, hiding behind the mask of democracy and a phony excuse about the so-called. "partnership". For cooperation with Western (Nazi) intelligence, Yezhov was liquidated on February 4, 1940. One of Yezhov’s main “achievements” was the execution of the senior command staff of the Red Army, among whom was the most talented military leader M.N. Tukhachevsky. It was Tukhachevsky, in a dispute with Marshal Budyonny, who foresaw that future war will be a war of machines, while Budyonny argued that it will be a war of cavalry. The conflict between the two military leaders led to the fact that, by order of Yezhov, Tukhachevsky was “removed.” Stalin’s phrase that “personnel decide everything” was automatically crossed out by Yezhov, for which the NKVD chief himself paid in the most cruel and fair way. Today is his 120th birthday.
Accurate information about the parents of the NKVD chief has not been preserved. According to the deceased, he claimed that he was born in St. Petersburg, in the family of a Russian foundry worker. In the questionnaires for 1922 and 1924 he wrote: “I explain myself in Polish and Lithuanian.”
A. Pavlyukov, however, indicates in his biography of Nikolai Yezhov that his father was a native of the village of Volkhonshchino, Tula province, Ivan Yezhov, who served his military service in Lithuania in the musical team of the 111th Infantry Regiment, stationed in the Lithuanian city of Kovno. Having served his required term, he remained there for an extra term, married a local Lithuanian girl, and after retiring he moved to the neighboring Suwalki province (now the territory is partly part of Poland, partly part of Lithuania) and got a “job” in the zemstvo guard (police). At the time of Nikolai’s birth, the family, apparently, lived in the village of Veivery, Mariampol district of the said province (now Lithuania), and three years later, when the father received a promotion and was appointed zemstvo guard of the Mariampol city district, they moved to Mariampol. Here the boy studied at primary school for three years, and in 1906 he was sent to a relative in St. Petersburg to study tailoring.
He volunteered to join the army in June 1915, but a year later he was declared unfit for combat service due to weak anthropometric data (Yezhov’s height was only 1.5 meters; only Engelbert Dollfuss (148 cm), one of the Austrian chancellors, who was nicknamed Millimeternich and went down in history as the shortest politician in history). On August 14, Yezhov, ill and also slightly wounded, was sent to the rear. He was not in good health: even during his military service he was constantly sick. In general, as they would say today, Yezhov’s health is the health of a mattress.
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 for 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).
In July 1921, he married Antonina Titova, with whose help, after the wedding, he was transferred to Moscow to party work just 2 months later. Yezhov’s career took off rapidly:
1922, March - October - executive secretary of the Mari regional committee of the RCP (b), having gone on vacation in October 1922, Yezhov never returned.
1923, March - 1924 - executive secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee of the RCP (b), it is alleged that Valerian Kuibyshev sent him to Kazakhstan.
1924-1925 - head. organizational department of the Kyrgyz regional committee of the CPSU(b),
1925-1926 - deputy. Responsible Secretary of the Kazak Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, worked under the supervision of F.I. Goloshchekin.
The head of the Organizational and Preparatory Department, I.M. Moskvin, spoke of his subordinate as follows:
“I don’t know a more ideal worker than Yezhov. Or rather, not a worker, but a performer. Having entrusted something to him, you don’t have to check 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..."
Such a review served more as a warning than as praise, because Moskvin was far from a fool and he foresaw that people like Yezhov would sooner or later begin to abuse their powers and completely go beyond the control of the authorities. Yezhov was a typical labor fanatic rather than a conscientious worker, so it is not surprising that they ultimately got rid of him. As they say, “according to merit and honor.”
For a year he was Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR, and in November 1930 he returned to the Organizational and Preparatory Department as the head, taking the place of his former boss, who was transferred to the position of Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council. It was in November 1930 that Yezhov met Stalin.
Yezhov headed the organizational distribution department until 1934, implementing Stalin’s personnel policy in practice. In 1933-1934. Member of the Central Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for the “cleansing” of the party. At the 17th Party Congress, held in January-February 1934, 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.
At the end of 1934-1935. Yezhov, at the suggestion 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 instructed to take measures to open the Trotskyist center, identify an obviously undetected terrorist gang and personal Trotsky's role in this matter. 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.
Yezhovshchina: "Red Bandera"
The peak of mass repressions in the USSR, which covered all layers of Soviet society, occurred in 1937-1938. By this time, the formation of a totalitarian system was completed in the USSR. political system. Mass terror, which went down in history as the Yezhovshchina, was intended to complete the Soviet system. Unlike ordinary terror used by any dictatorship, totalitarian terror was directed not against open opponents of the government, but against loyal citizens. Fear and repression make all members of Soviet society defenseless against the ruthless machine of intimidation, deprive them of the ability to think and critically evaluate reality, turn everyone into “cogs” of a giant mechanism, developing base feelings of betrayal and denunciation. 
It was easy to guess what it was like ordinary people, victims of zombie NKVD officers who saw among the people the enemy hydra depicted in the above poster. The chief of the NKVD was exactly 6 years younger than Hitler, and the red NKVD terror was in no way inferior to the Gestapo, RSHA and SD terror. Today, both practices (Soviet and Nazi) have been adopted by American intelligence services, whose methods have long surpassed both Soviet and Nazi figures and represent the most monstrous interrogation methods in the entire history of mankind. So I wouldn’t be surprised if people in the West who have sobered up overseas begin to literally carry out lynchings against employees of their own special services. Let me remind you that the US population has 300 million guns in their hands and sooner or later they will start shooting, so you can be sure of the scale of the bloodbath overseas.
The “Great Terror” of 1937 was largely the price to pay for forced expansion constitutional rights citizens under the new Constitution, the elimination of categories of disenfranchised. In order to finally stabilize the regime, Stalin needed to atomize society, destroy the latent remnants of civil structures, and decisively uproot all dissent and independent interest groups. After the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin had reason to fear the growth of opposition sentiments. For him, the physical destruction of the intellectual-opposition part of the ruling elite was the only condition for the successful implementation of the reconstruction of society. At the same time, it was a way to get rid of the part of the party bureaucracy that had become bourgeois during the NEP years, an opportunity to attribute all the mistakes and failures of the authorities to it, as well as a way to rotate the party leadership in the absence of a democratic mechanism for its renewal. Undoubtedly, by giving the green light to the mass “purge,” Stalin and his circle hoped to eliminate any possibility of a “fifth column” arising in the country, due to the danger of the impending war.
Speaking at the plenum of the Central Committee in June 1937, Yezhov argued that “there is a clandestine underground, the country is on the verge of a new Civil War, and only the state security agencies under the wise leadership of I.V. Stalin are able to prevent it.” A few weeks later, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposed to local secretaries of party organizations to register all kulaks and criminals who had returned to their homeland, and to immediately arrest and shoot the most hostile of them “in the order of administratively conducting their cases through troikas.” Following this, the country’s top leadership demanded that within five days the composition of the “troikas” be submitted to the Central Committee, as well as the number of people to be shot and deported. Usually the “troika” included the secretary of the party committee, the head of the NKVD board and the prosecutor. All territories and regions received orders indicating how many people they should arrest. Those arrested were divided into two categories: the first was immediately shot, the second was imprisoned for 8-10 years in prison or a camp. But since the end of August, local leaders have been demanding that the Central Committee increase the limits on repression. As a result, for the first category alone, the limit was increased from 259,450 people by another 22.5 thousand. The numerous actions carried out in 1937-1938 do not at all indicate the spontaneous nature of the “Great Terror”. by the NKVD authorities: the arrest of all Germans who worked at the country's defense factories, the mass expulsion of “unreliable elements” from the border areas, numerous trials in the center and locally.
Kazakh poet Dzhambul Dzhabayev dedicated one of his poems to People's Commissar Yezhov:
"In the flash of lightning you became familiar to us,
Yezhov, a keen-eyed and intelligent People's Commissar.
Great Lenin's words of wisdom
Raised the hero Yezhov for battle."
If the poet had known what kind of dog Stalin unleashed in the ranks of the NKVD, then perhaps he would not have written such praise. Almost 1.5 million people fell under Yezhov’s machine.
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 on social, organizational, and then national grounds. 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. 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 assignments.” "
In addition, lists of high-ranking “enemies of the people” were compiled to be tried by a military tribunal. The verdict was announced in advance - execution. Yezhov sent these execution lists to Stalin, Molotov and other members of the Politburo for approval. Only on December 12, 1938, Stalin and Molotov authorized the execution of 3,167 people. By the beginning of 1938, Stalin apparently already believed that Yezhov had completed his task (especially since the process of mass repressions began to get out of the control of its creator; having unleashed total terror in the country, the government itself was under attack). The signal to end mass repressions was the resolution of the Central Committee and the government “On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigations.” It spoke of “the major shortcomings and distortions in the work of the NKVD bodies.” The resolution eliminated the “troikas” and required arrests to be made only with the approval of a court or prosecutor. Stalin shifted responsibility for all the “excesses and mistakes” onto Yezhov and his people. On November 25, 1938, L.P. Beria was appointed the new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. The new head of the NKVD begins his activities with amnesties. Yezhov was accused of “treasonous, espionage views, connections with Polish and German intelligence and hostile USSR ruling circles Poland, Germany, England and Japan,” in the conspiracy and preparation of the coup d’etat scheduled for November 7, 1938. On February 4, 1940, by the verdict of the military board of the Supreme Court, he was shot. After Stalin’s go-ahead, some of the most zealous party functionaries in the center and locally, who, like P.P. Postyshev, were still thirsting for big blood, were also shot.
MESSAGE OF L. P. BERIA TO I. V. STALIN ABOUT N. I. YEZHOV WITH THE ATTACHMENT OF THE INTERROGATION PROTOCOL
April 27, 1939 No. 1268/6 Top Secret Comrade STALIN
At the same time, I am sending you the protocol of Yezhov’s interrogation dated April 26, 1939. The interrogation continues.
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. Beria
PROTOCOL OF THE INTERROGATION OF ARRESTED NIKOLAY IVANOVICH YEZHOV
dated April 26, 1939
EZHOV N.I., born in 1895, native of the mountains. Leningrad, former member of the CPSU(b) since 1917. Before his arrest - People's Commissar of Water Transport.
QUESTION: During the previous interrogation, you testified that for ten years you carried out espionage work in favor of Poland. However, you hid a number of your spy connections. The investigation requires truthful and comprehensive testimony from you on this issue.
ANSWER: I must admit that, having given truthful testimony about my espionage work in favor of Poland, I actually hid my espionage connection with the Germans from the investigation.
QUESTION: For what purposes did you try to divert the investigation from your espionage connection with the Germans?
ANSWER: I did not want to show during the investigation about my direct espionage connection with the Germans, especially since my cooperation with German intelligence is not limited to only espionage work on the instructions of German intelligence, I organized an anti-Soviet conspiracy and prepared coup d'etat through terrorist acts against party and government leaders.
QUESTION: Tell me about all your spy connections that you tried to hide from the investigation, and the circumstances of your recruitment.
ANSWER: I was recruited as an agent of German intelligence in 1934 under the following circumstances: in the summer of 1934 I was sent abroad for treatment to Vienna to Professor NORDEN...
QUESTION: Who recruited you?
ANSWER: I was recruited to cooperate with German intelligence by Dr. ENGLER, who is NORDEN's senior assistant.
ANSWER: After completing the recruitment, I asked ENGLER to inform me with whom and how I would be associated. ENGLER replied that he himself was an employee of German military intelligence.
QUESTION: What tasks did ENGLER give you after being recruited?
ANSWER: First of all, ENGLER gave me the task to provide all possible assistance in quickly resolving the issue of his invitation to Moscow. I promised ENGLER to take measures depending on me to speed up this issue.
QUESTION: Did you transfer any information to ENGLER for German intelligence that was a specially protected state secret of the Soviet Union?
ANSWER: During my direct contact with ENGLER in Vienna, and then in Bad Gastein (radioactive water resort in Austria), where he came twice to contact me, I informed ENGLER only about the general situation of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, in which he was especially interested.
QUESTION: You are avoiding a direct answer. The investigation is interested in the question: what espionage information was passed on by you to ENGLER?
ANSWER: Within the limits of what I knew from memory, I told ENGLER everything about the state of the weapons and combat effectiveness of the Red Army, especially emphasizing the most bottlenecks in the combat effectiveness of the Red Army. I told ENGLER that the Red Army is very behind in artillery, both in the quality of artillery weapons and in quantity, and is significantly inferior to the artillery weapons of advanced capitalist countries.
Referring to the general economic situation in the USSR, I told ENGLER about the difficulties of collective farm construction and major problems in the industrialization of the country, especially focusing on the slow development of newly built enterprises. I illustrated this using the example of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, where by the time production began, a significant part of the valuable equipment had already been disabled. Consequently, I told Engler, the successes in the field of industrialization of the USSR are doubtful.
I further informed ENGLER of the enormous disproportion in the growth of certain branches of industry, which greatly affected the general economic situation of the country. I especially emphasized the lag of a group of non-ferrous metals and special alloys, which are hindering the development of the combat capability of the Red Army.
QUESTION: Where did your appearances take place?
ANSWER: In all cases when I needed to convey certain spy information, meetings took place in my apartment. A Thai man came to me under the guise of checking on my health.
QUESTION: What spy work assignments did you receive from the THAI?
ANSWER: According to THAITS, ENGLER was interested mainly in secret information about the armament of the Red Army and all data on the state of the defense capability of the USSR. I then headed the industrial department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and at the same time was deputy chairman of the Party Control Commission, which I actually led.
There was a military group in the Party Control Commission, headed by N. KUIBYSHEV. The work of the group and its materials were of a strictly secret nature, and therefore the group was subordinate to me. The materials that were compiled by the CPC military group on the condition or examination of one or another type of troops and weapons were sent only to the Defense Committee and to me. As a rule, I periodically took all these documents with me to the apartment and during the visit to the THAI I handed them over to him. short term, after which he returned them to me.
I know that the Thai took photographs of most of these notes and passed them on according to their ownership.
QUESTION: Did he tell you about this?
ANSWER: Yes, one day I asked how and where he transmits the information he receives from me. TAITS told me that he passes this information in photographic form to a certain person at the German embassy, who already forwards these photographs to German intelligence.
QUESTION: How did he get into the German embassy?
ANSWER: In addition to his main work in the Kremlin Medical Administration, doctor TAITZ also served the employees of the German embassy in Moscow.
QUESTION: Do you remember the nature of the information that you conveyed to the Thai?
ANSWER: Yes, I remember.
QUESTION: Be specific.
ANSWER: During my relationship with Dr. TAITZ, I handed over a large number of memos and certificates on issues of weapons, clothing and food supplies, the moral and political state and combat training of the Red Army. These materials provided a comprehensive digital and factual description of one or another type of troops, types of weapons and the state of military districts.
During the same time, I conveyed to THAI information about the progress and shortcomings of the rearmament of military aviation, about the slow introduction of new, more advanced models of aircraft, about the accident rate of military aircraft, the flight training plan and tactical and technical data characterizing the quality and quantity of aircraft engines we produce and airplanes.
In addition, through THAI, I transmitted to German intelligence the data available in the CPC on the state of the tank weapons of the Red Army. I drew the attention of the Germans to the poor quality of Soviet armor and the lack of organization of switching tanks to a diesel engine instead of the aircraft engine used at that time.
Further, I provided TAITS with comprehensive data on the largest shortcomings in the field of clothing and food supplies and storage facilities of the Red Army. On these issues, by the way, a special meeting was held at the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the decision of which I also brought to the attention of German intelligence.
The materials I reported gave a clear picture of the situation in this important branch of military economy. From them it was clear that at the very beginning of the war the Red Army would face serious difficulties.
I handed over similar materials to TAITS about the state of the chemical, small arms, and engineering weapons of the Red Army, in addition, separate materials characterizing the state of combat training and the political and moral state of the Leningrad and Belorussian units. Volga and Central Asian military districts, which were surveyed by the CCP.
ANSWER: ENGLER came into my room and said: “I want to examine you,” and then he informed me that HAMMERSTEIN was supposed to meet with me.
My meeting with HAMMERSTEIN was organized by ENGLER under the guise of a joint walk with ENGLER in the Merano park. In one of the gazebos, as if by chance, we met HAMMERSTEIN, to whom ENGLER introduced me, after which the three of us continued our walk.
HAMMERSTEIN stated at the beginning of the conversation: “We are very grateful for all the services you provide us.” He stated that he was pleased with the information that the Germans received from me. But, said Hammerstein, all this is nonsense! The position you occupy in the USSR is such that we cannot be satisfied with the information you convey. You are faced with other tasks of a political nature.
QUESTION: What are these “political” tasks?
ANSWER: HAMMERSTEIN, knowing that I had already been elected secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, said: “You have the opportunity not only to inform us, but also to influence the policy of the Soviet government.”
Further, HAMMERSTEIN informed me about the very serious, in his words, connections that the Germans have in the circles of the high command of the Red Army, and informed me about the existence of several military conspiratorial groups in the Soviet Union.
HAMMERSTEIN told me that a number of major military workers are dissatisfied with the current situation in the USSR and set as their goal a change in the domestic and international policies of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet government with its current policy, continued HAMMERSTEIN, will inevitably lead the USSR to a military clash with the capitalist states, whereas this could be completely avoided if the Soviet Union, by making concessions, could “get used to” the European system.
Since HAMMERSTEIN did not speak Russian, I, through ENGLER, who played the role of translator, asked him how serious were the connections between the leadership circles of Germany and representatives of the high command of the Red Army.
HAMMERSTEIN replied: “Various circles of your military are connected with us. They have the same goal, but apparently they have different points of view and cannot agree with each other, despite our categorical demand.”
QUESTION: What tasks did Hammerstein give you?
ANSWER: HAMMERSTEIN suggested that I contact these military circles, and first of all with EGOROV. He stated that he knows EGOROVA very well as one of the largest and most influential figures among that part of the military conspirators who understand that without the German army, without a strong agreement with Germany, it will not be possible to change the political system in the USSR in the desired direction.
HAMMERSTEIN invited me, through EGOROV, to be aware of all conspiratorial affairs and to influence the conspiratorial groups existing in the Red Army towards their rapprochement with Germany, while simultaneously taking all measures to “unite” them. “Your position as secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks will help you with this,” said HAMMERSTEIN.
At this point, HAMMERSTEIN said goodbye, warning that he would have several more meetings with me.
QUESTION: On behalf of whom did Hammerstein speak to you?
ANSWER: From Reichswehr circles in Germany. The fact is that even before Hitler came to power, an opinion was created about HAMMERSTEIN as a supporter of rapprochement between the German army and the Red Army. In 1936-1937 HAMMERSTEIN was removed from direct work in the Reichswehr, but since he had connections among the military workers of the USSR more than other German generals, he was entrusted with the conduct of the so-called. "Russian affairs".
QUESTION: Did you have any further meetings with HAMMERSTEIN?
ANSWER: Yes, I had three more meetings with HAMMERSTEIN. At the second meeting, HAMMERSTEIN was interested in the details related to the murder of S. M. KIROV, and the seriousness of the influence of the Trotskyists, Zinovievites and the right in the CPSU (b).
I gave him comprehensive information, in particular, I noted the fact that there is now confusion among the security officers and that Yagoda’s position has been shaken in connection with the murder of KIROV. At the same time, HAMMERSTEIN said: “It would be very good if you managed to take the post of YAGODA.”
I smiled, answering that “it’s not up to me.”
My third conversation with the German general concerned the conspiratorial work of the military in the USSR, since HAMMERSTEIN was less interested in civilian affairs.
The fourth and last meeting with HAMMERSTEIN took place in a cafe...
QUESTION: The investigation finds that you continue to stand in enemy positions and behave insincerely. This means that you:
1.
You are silent about your connections with Polish intelligence after 1937.
2.
You remain silent on the issue of your espionage work in favor of Germany.
3.
You name either the dead or official employees of foreign embassies as persons involved in your conspiratorial and espionage work.
4.
You are hiding the people who, together with you, led the treacherous work of organizing a counter-revolutionary coup in the USSR.
“Death frees a person from all problems. No person, no problem” (I. Stalin)
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. He was kept in the Sukhanovskaya special prison of the NKVD of the USSR. On April 24, 1939, he wrote a note admitting his homosexual orientation. According to her, he treated her like a vice.
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 plans of its inspirers, was to be expressed in the commission of terrorist acts 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 (the indictment stated that Yezhov committed acts of sodomy “acting for anti-Soviet and selfish purposes”).
During the investigation and trial, Yezhov rejected all accusations and admitted his only mistake was that he “did little to cleanse” the state security agencies of “enemies of the people”:
“I cleared out 14,000 security officers, but my great fault is that I didn’t clear them enough.”
From Yezhov’s last words:
“During the 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. For 25 years of my party life, I honestly fought with enemies and destroyed enemies. I also have such crimes as for which I can be shot, and I will talk about them later, but I did not commit those crimes that were charged with the indictment in my case and am not guilty of them... I do not deny that I was drunk, but I worked like an ox... If If I wanted to carry out a terrorist act against 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, 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. According to Sudoplatov, “When he was led to execution, he sang “The Internationale”.” Before being shot, he shouted: “Long live Stalin!” The corpse was cremated at the Donskoy crematorium.
Photo caption: “no person, no problem”
Nevertheless, until Stalin's death, terror remained an indispensable attribute of the Soviet system. Very indicative in this regard is the note sent by the leader to the plant in Kovrov during the Finnish campaign with a threat to shoot “all the scoundrels who have settled in the plant if the production of a new disk for the Degtyarev assault rifle is not established there within three days.”
The “Great Terror” achieved the goals that were largely intuitively assigned to it by the Stalinist leadership. More than 500 thousand new workers were promoted to leadership positions, and there was a redistribution of power from the hands of the old guard to the hands of Stalin’s promoters, who were infinitely loyal to their leader. At the same time, mass repressions had a detrimental effect on all aspects of the life of Soviet society, primarily on the economy and defense capability of the country. During the “Great Terror” many leading designers, engineers, and technicians were arrested and destroyed. Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence were destroyed. In the country, in the period from 1937 to 1940, the production of tractors, cars, and other complex equipment was reduced. In fact, the country was divided into two large camps: those who were free and who were not affected by repression, and those who were in camps or were relatives of those convicted. In percentage terms, the second group was more numerous.
Marshal of the USSR A.M. Vasilevsky later recalled: 
“Without 1937, there might not have been a war at all in 1941. The fact that Hitler decided to start a war... had a big role in assessing the extent of the defeat of military personnel that occurred in our country.”
It seems that not only Vasilevsky was right, but also Tukhachevsky, who foresaw the war of machines. The defeat of military personnel led to the fact that the Red Army received a powerful weather response in Finland, losing about 200 thousand of its people in the harsh Finnish winter.
M.N. Tukhachevsky.
Tukhachevsky case
The Tukhachevsky case is the case of an “anti-Soviet Trotskyist military organization” - a case of trumped-up charges against a group of senior Soviet military leaders accused of organizing a military conspiracy to seize power. It became the beginning of mass repressions in the Red Army.
The accused belonged to a group of senior Soviet military leaders who negatively assessed the activities of K. E. Voroshilov as People's Commissar of Defense. They believed that in conditions of the USSR preparing for a big war, Voroshilov’s incompetence was negatively affecting the process of technical and structural modernization of the Red Army.
A similar case was developed by the OGPU back in 1930: it was alleged that a group of major military leaders led by Tukhachevsky was preparing to seize power and assassinate Stalin (testimony was obtained from the arrested teachers of the Military Academy Kakurin and Troitsky). But Stalin did not give him a chance. In mid-October of the same year, Tukhachevsky was confronted with Kakurin and Troitsky; Tukhachevsky was found innocent.
One of the first repressed military men was Guy G.D., who was arrested in 1935 for drunkenly saying in a private conversation that “Stalin must be removed, he will be removed anyway.” He was soon arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to 5 years in the camps, but when transferred to the Yaroslavl prison on October 22, 1935, he escaped. To capture him, the NKVD mobilized up to several thousand security officers, Komsomol members and collective farmers to create a continuous ring with a radius of 100 kilometers; two days later Guy was caught.
In June 1937, a trial also took place of a group of senior officers of the Red Army, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the so-called. "The Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Military Organization." The defendants were charged with planning a military coup on May 15, 1937.
By a ruling dated January 31, 1957 (Definition number 4n-0280/57 of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR), all defendants were acquitted and rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti. The new decision was based on data that the confessions of the defendants, on which the conviction was based, were obtained using torture, beatings and other “criminal methods of investigation.” The Definition, in particular, states: “ Military Collegium The Supreme Court of the USSR, having studied the materials of the case and additional verification, considers it indisputably established that the criminal case against Tukhachevsky, Kork, Yakir and others on charges of anti-Soviet activity was falsified.”
This is how the life of one of the bloody figures of the Stalin era, Nikolai Yezhov, ended. In 1998, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Russian Federation recognized Nikolai Yezhov as not subject to rehabilitation:
“Yezhov... organized a number of murders of people he disliked, including his wife E. S. Yezhova, who could expose his treacherous activities.
Yezhov... provoked aggravation of relations between the USSR and friendly countries and tried to speed up military clashes between the USSR and Japan.
As a result of operations carried out by NKVD officers in accordance with Yezhov’s orders, only in 1937-1938. Over 1.5 million citizens were subjected to repression, about half of them were shot."
Summing up the analysis of Yezhov’s personality and Yezhovism, it is worth noting that history tends to repeat itself. Stalin was against any cooperation with foreign intelligence services initially and, noticing Yezhov’s anti-state activities in time, removed him. And the fact that our intelligence services still maintain a dialogue with American intelligence services (and even undergo training in the USA) completely discredits them in the eyes of their people and turns them not into guards of order, but into the most ordinary accomplices, ready to do anything to protect their overseas the owner and his interests. One dead man (whose name I will not mention) once said these golden words:
“When the state becomes a criminal, the right to be a judge belongs to EVERY citizen.”
So God forbid us from Bandera’s men in uniform and their overseas shepherds, and we will cope with our troubles without outside help.
"The past years of the red dictatorship have passed,
The prisoners' figures disappeared into the past.
Only the wanderer-wind remembers by name
Those who were taken away in Stolypin's carriages.
He flies around the world and cries about it,
He composed a moaning song about the torment of the dead.
And, being born somewhere, her echo wanders,
The memory of the fallen is stirring in our souls...
Red terror..."
The prerequisites for the “Great Terror” include the murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1. On December 1, 1934, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution “On amendments to the existing criminal procedural codes of the union republics” with the following content:
Make the following changes to the current criminal procedural codes of the union republics for the investigation and consideration of cases of terrorist organizations and terrorist acts against employees of the Soviet government:
1. The investigation in these cases should be completed within no more than ten days;
2. The indictment must be served on the accused one day before the hearing of the case in court;
3. Hear cases without the participation of the parties;
4. Cassation appeals against sentences, as well as filing petitions for pardon, should not be allowed;
5. A sentence of capital punishment shall be carried out immediately after the verdict is passed. Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on December 1, 1934
During the investigation of the murder of Kirov, Stalin ordered the development of the “Zinoviev trail”, accusing G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev and their supporters of the murder of Kirov. A few days later, arrests of former supporters of the Zinoviev opposition began, and on December 16, Kamenev and Zinoviev themselves were arrested. On December 28-29, 14 people directly accused of organizing the murder were sentenced to death. The verdict stated that they were all “active participants in the Zinoviev anti-Soviet group in Leningrad”, and subsequently in an “underground terrorist counter-revolutionary group” led by the so-called “Leningrad Center”. On January 9, at a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR in the criminal case of the “Leningrad counter-revolutionary Zinoviev group of Safarov, Zalutsky and others,” 77 people were convicted. On January 16, 19 defendants in the case of the so-called “Moscow Center”, led by Zinoviev and Kamenev, were convicted. All these cases were grossly fabricated.
Over the next few years, Stalin used Kirov's murder as a pretext for the final reprisal of former political opponents who led or participated in various opposition movements in the party in the 1920s. All of them were destroyed on charges of terrorist activities.
In a closed letter from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, “Lessons from the events associated with the villainous murder of Comrade. Kirov”, prepared and sent to the localities in January 1935, in addition to bringing repeated charges against Kamenev and Zinoviev for leading the “Leningrad” and “Moscow centers”, which were “essentially a disguised form of the White Guard organization”, Stalin also reminded about other “anti-party groups ”, existing in the history of the CPSU (b) - “Trotskyists”, “democratic centralists”, “workers’ opposition”, “right-wing deviationists”, etc. This letter on the ground should have been considered as a direct instruction to action.
In the period 1936-1938, three large open trials took place against former senior functionaries of the Communist Party who were associated with the Trotskyist or right-wing opposition in the 1920s. Abroad they were called “Moscow Trials”.
The defendants, who were tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, were accused of collaborating with Western intelligence services with the aim of assassinating Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dissolving the USSR and restoring capitalism, as well as organizing sabotage in various sectors of the economy for the same purpose.
- The first Moscow trial of 16 members of the so-called “Trotskyist-Zinoviev Terrorist Center” took place in August 1936. The main defendants were Zinoviev and Kamenev. Among other charges, they were charged with the murder of Kirov and conspiracy to assassinate Stalin.
- The second trial (the case of the “Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center”) in January 1937 took place over 17 smaller functionaries, such as Karl Radek, Yuri Pyatakov and Grigory Sokolnikov. 13 people were shot, the rest were sent to camps, where they soon died.
- The third trial in March 1938 took place over 21 members of the so-called “Right-Trotskyist bloc”. The main accused were Nikolai Bukharin, the former head of the Comintern, also the former chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Alexei Rykov, Christian Rakovsky, Nikolai Krestinsky and Genrikh Yagoda - the organizer of the first Moscow trial. All but three of the accused were executed. Rakovsky, Bessonov and Pletnev were also shot in 1941 without trial.
A number of Western observers at that time believed that the guilt of the convicted was certainly proven. They all confessed, the trial was open, and there was no clear evidence of torture or drugging. The German writer Leon Feuchtwanger, who was present at the Second Moscow Trial, wrote:
|
The people who stood before the court could in no way be considered tortured, desperate creatures. The accused themselves were sleek, well-dressed men with relaxed manners. They were drinking tea, newspapers were sticking out of their pockets... general appearance it sounded more like a discussion... conducted in the conversational tone of educated people. It seemed as if the accused, the prosecutor and the judges were all passionate about the same, I almost said sporting, interest in finding out with the maximum degree of accuracy everything that happened. If a director had been assigned to stage this trial, he would probably have needed many years and many rehearsals to achieve such teamwork from the accused..." |
Later, the prevailing point of view became that the accused were subjected to psychological pressure and confessions were extracted by force.
In May 1937, Trotsky's supporters founded the Dewey Commission in the United States. At the Moscow trials, Georgy Pyatakov testified that in December 1935 he flew to Oslo to “receive terrorist instructions” from Trotsky. The commission argued that, according to the testimony of the airfield personnel, no foreign aircraft landed there on that day. Another defendant, Ivan Smirnov, admitted that he took part in the murder of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, although at that time he had already been in prison for a year.
On July 2, 1937, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to send the following telegram to the secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics:
“It has been noticed that most of the former kulaks and criminals, expelled at one time from different regions to the northern and Siberian regions, and then after the expiration period, returned to their regions, are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both in collective farms and state farms, and in transport and in some industries.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks invites all secretaries of regional and territorial organizations and all regional, territorial and republican representatives of the NKVD to register all kulaks and criminals who returned to their homeland so that the most hostile of them would be immediately arrested and shot as part of their administrative execution. cases through troikas, and the remaining less active, but still hostile elements would be rewritten and sent to the districts on the instructions of the NKVD.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposes to submit to the Central Committee within five days the composition of the troikas, as well as the number of those subject to execution, as well as the number of those subject to deportation.” The telegram was signed by Stalin.
On July 16, 1937, a meeting was held between Yezhov and the heads of regional NKVD departments to discuss issues related to the upcoming operation. There is evidence of individual participants in the investigative cases against People's Commissar N.I. Ezhov and his deputy M.P. Frinovsky - testimony of S.N. Mironov (head of the NKVD for the West Siberian Territory), A.I. Uspensky (People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR), and N.V. Kondakov (People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR) and others. S.N. Mironov testified: “Yezhov gave a general operational-political directive, and Frinovsky, in development of it, worked on the “operational limit” with each head of the department (see: Central Archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Arch. No. N-15301. T. 7. L. 33), that is, the number of persons subject to repression in a particular region of the USSR. S.N. Mironov, in a statement addressed to L.P. Beria, wrote: “... in the process of reporting to Yezhov in July, I told him that such massive, broad operations on district and city assets... are risky, since, along with actual members of a counter-revolutionary organization, they very unconvincingly indicate the involvement of a number of individuals. Yezhov answered me: “Why don’t you arrest them? We won’t work for you, put them in prison, and then you’ll figure out who there won’t be evidence for, then weed them out. Act more boldly, I have already told you many times.” At the same time, he told me that in some cases, if necessary, “with your permission, department heads can use and physical methods impact"" (see: Central Asia of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Arch. No. N-15301. T. 7. L. 35-36). Former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Armenia N.V. Kondakov, with reference to his former head of the Yaroslavl department of the NKVD A.M. Ershov testified: “Yezhov made the following expression: “If during this operation an extra thousand people are shot, there will be no harm in that at all. Therefore, one should not be particularly shy about arrests” (CA FSB RF F Zoe Op 6 D 4 L 207). “Heads of departments,” A.I. showed. Uspensky, - trying to outdo each other, reported on the gigantic numbers of those arrested. Yezhov’s speech at this meeting boiled down to the directive “Strike, smash indiscriminately.” Yezhov directly stated, he continued, that in connection with the defeat of the enemies, some innocent people would also be destroyed , but that this is inevitable” (CA FSB RF F Zoe Op 6 D 3 L 410). To Uspensky’s question what to do with arrested 70- and 80-year-old old people, Yezhov answered “If he can stand on his feet, shoot” (CA FSB RF F Zoe On 6 D 3 L 410).
On July 31, 1937, Yezhov signed NKVD Order No. 0447, approved by the Politburo, “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements.”
It said:
“Investigation materials in cases of anti-Soviet formations establish that a significant number of former kulaks settled in the village, previously repressed, hiding from repression, fleeing from camps, exile and labor settlements. Many formerly repressed churchmen and sectarians, former active participants in anti-Soviet armed uprisings, settled. Remained almost untouched in the village, significant cadres of anti-Soviet political parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Dashnaks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists, etc.), as well as cadres of former active participants in bandit uprisings, whites, punitive forces, repatriates, etc. Some of the elements listed above, having left from villages to cities, penetrated into industrial enterprises, transport and construction. In addition, in the villages and cities there are still significant numbers of criminals - cattle thieves, repeat thieves, robbers and others who have served their sentences, escaped from places of imprisonment and are hiding from repression. The inadequacy of the fight against these criminal contingents has created conditions of impunity for them, conducive to their criminal activities. As has been established, all these anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both on collective and state farms, and in transport and in some areas of industry. The state security agencies are faced with the task of most mercilessly defeating this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements, protecting the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary machinations and, finally, once and for all putting an end to their vile subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state... 1. CONTINGENTS SUBJECT REPRESSIONS. 1. Former kulaks who returned after serving their sentences and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive activities. 2. Former kulaks who fled from camps or labor settlements, as well as kulaks who fled from dispossession and are engaged in anti-Soviet activities. 3. Former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of rebel, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations, who served their sentences, fled from repression or escaped from prison and resumed their anti-Soviet criminal activities. 4. Members of anti-Soviet parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists and Dashnaks), former whites, gendarmes, officials, punishers, bandits, bandits, ferrymen, re-emigrants who fled from repression, escaped from places of imprisonment and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet activities. 5. The most hostile and active participants in the currently liquidated Cossack-White Guard insurgent organizations, fascist, terrorist and spy-sabotage counter-revolutionary formations have been exposed by investigative and verified intelligence materials. Elements of this category who are currently in custody, the investigation of whose cases have been completed, but the cases have not yet been examined by the judicial authorities, are also subject to repression. 6. The most active anti-Soviet elements are former kulaks, punitive forces, bandits, whites, sectarian activists, churchmen and others, who are now held in prisons, camps, labor camps and colonies and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there. 7. Criminals (bandits, robbers, repeat thieves, professional smugglers, repeat offenders, cattle thieves) engaged in criminal activities and associated with the criminal environment. Elements of this category who are currently in custody, the investigation of whose cases have been completed, but the cases have not yet been examined by the judicial authorities, are also subject to repression. 8. Criminal elements located in camps and labor settlements and conducting criminal activities in them. 9. All the above-mentioned contingents currently located in the countryside - on collective farms, state farms, agricultural enterprises and in the city - in industrial and commercial enterprises, transport, in Soviet institutions and in construction are subject to repression. II. ABOUT PUNISHMENT MEASURES FOR THOSE WHO ARE REPRESSED AND THE NUMBER OF THOSE SUBJECT TO REPRESSION. 1. All repressed kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements are divided into two categories: a) the first category includes all the most hostile of the elements listed above. They are subject to immediate arrest and, upon consideration of their cases in troikas, to EXECUTE. b) the second category includes all other less active, but still hostile elements. They are subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps for a term of 8 to 10 years, and the most malicious and socially dangerous of them are subject to imprisonment for the same terms in prisons as determined by the troika.
Troikas considered cases in the absence of the accused, dozens of cases at each meeting. According to the recollections of former security officer M.P. Schrader, who worked in senior positions in the NKVD system until 1938 and was then arrested, the order of work of the “troika” in the Ivanovo region was as follows: a summons was drawn up, or a so-called “album”, on each page of which The first name, patronymic, last name, year of birth and the committed “crime” of the arrested person were listed. After which the head of the regional department of the NKVD wrote a large letter “P” on each page with a red pencil and signed it, which meant “execution”. The sentence was carried out that same evening or at night. Usually the next day the pages of the “album-agenda” were signed by other members of the troika.
The minutes of the troika's meeting were sent to the heads of the NKVD operational groups to carry out the sentences. The order established that sentences under the “first category” are carried out in places and in an order at the direction of the People's Commissars of Internal Affairs, heads of regional departments and departments of the NKVD with the obligatory complete secrecy of the time and place of execution of the sentence.
Some of the repressions were carried out against people who had already been convicted and were in camps. For them, “first category” limits were allocated, and triplets were also formed.
In order to fulfill and exceed the established plans for repression, the NKVD authorities arrested and transferred to the troikas the cases of people of various professions and social origins.
The heads of the NKVD, having received an allocation for the arrest of several thousand people, were faced with the need to arrest hundreds and thousands of people at once. And since all these arrests had to be given some semblance of legality, the NKVD employees began to invent all kinds of insurrectionary, right-wing Trotskyist, spy-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage and similar organizations, “centers”, “blocs” and simply groups.
According to the materials of investigative cases of that time, in almost all territories, regions and republics there were widely branched “right-wing Trotskyist spy-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage” organizations and centers and, as a rule, these “organizations” or “centers” were headed by the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees or the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics.
Thus, in the former Western region, the head of the “counter-revolutionary organization of the right” was the first secretary of the regional committee, I. P. Rumyantsev; in Tatarstan, the “leader of the right-wing Trotskyist nationalist bloc” was the former first secretary of the regional committee, A. K. Lepa; the leader of the “anti-Soviet terrorist organization of the right” in Chelyabinsk region was the first secretary of the regional committee K.V. Ryndin, etc.
Request from the secretary of the Kirov regional committee Rodina to increase the limit for the “first category” by 300 people, and the “second category” by 1000 people, instructions from I.V. Stalin in red pencil: “Increase the limit for the first category not by 300, but by 500 people, but by second category - for 800 people"
In the Novosibirsk region, the “Siberian POV Committee”, “Novosibirsk Trotskyist Organization in the Red Army”, “Novosibirsk Trotskyist Terrorist Center”, “Novosibirsk Fascist National Socialist Party of Germany”, “Novosibirsk Latvian National Socialist Fascist Organization” and others were “opened” 33 “anti-Soviet” organizations and groups.
The NKVD of the Tajik SSR allegedly uncovered a counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organization. Her connections extended to the right-Trotskyist center, Iran, Afghanistan, Japan, England and Germany and the counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organization of the Uzbek SSR.
The leadership of this organization consisted of 4 former secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Tajikistan, 2 former chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars, 2 former chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the republic, 12 people's commissars and 1 head of republican organizations, almost all heads. departments of the Central Committee, 18 secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan Communist Party (b) of Tajikistan, chairmen and deputy. chairmen of district executive committees, writers, military and other party and Soviet workers.
The NKVD for the Sverdlovsk region “opened” the so-called “Ural insurgent headquarters - the organ of the bloc of rightists, Trotskyists, Socialist Revolutionaries, churchmen and EMRO agents”, led by the secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee I.D. Kabakov, a member of the CPSU since 1914. This headquarters allegedly united 200 military-style units, 15 rebel organizations and 56 groups.
In the Kyiv region, by December 1937, 87 rebel-sabotage, terrorist organizations and 365 rebel-sabotage sabotage groups had been “opened”.
Only at one Moscow aircraft factory No. 24 in 1937, 5 espionage, terrorist and sabotage groups were “opened” and liquidated, with a total number of 50 people (“right-wing Trotskyist” group and groups allegedly associated with German, Japanese, French and Latvian intelligence services). At the same time, it was indicated that “The plant is to this day clogged with anti-Soviet, socially alien and suspicious elements for espionage and sabotage. The existing count of these elements, according to official data alone, reaches 1000 people.”
In total, within the framework of the “kulak operation” alone, 818 thousand people were sentenced by troikas, of which 436 thousand people were sentenced to execution.
A significant category of those repressed were clergy. In 1937, 136,900 Orthodox clergy were arrested, of which 85,300 were shot; in 1938, 28,300 were arrested and 21,500 were executed. Thousands of Catholic, Islamic, Jewish clergy and clergy of other faiths were also shot.
On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, “police troikas” were formed, which had the right to sentence “socially dangerous elements” to exile or prison terms of 3-5 years without trial. These troikas handed down various sentences to 400 thousand people during the period 1937-1938. The category of persons in question included repeat criminals and buyers of stolen goods.
At the beginning of 1938, the cases of disabled people sentenced to 8-10 years in camps under various articles were reviewed by a troika in Moscow and the Moscow region, which sentenced them to capital punishment, since they could not be used as labor.
The worst operations were in Ukraine - the worst of all was carried out in Ukraine. In other areas it is worse, in others it is better, and overall the quality is worse. In terms of quantity, the limits were met and exceeded, a lot was shot and a lot was imprisoned, and in general, if you take it, it brought enormous benefits, but if you take the quality, the level and see whether the blow was aimed, whether we really crushed the counter-revolution here - I must say that no...
If you take the contingent, it is more than sufficient, but you know the head, the organizers, the top, that’s the task. To remove the asset - the cream, the organizing beginning, which organizes, the leader. Is this done or not? - Of course not. Take this, I don’t remember which of my comrades reported to me, when they began to carry out a new accounting, it turns out that 7 or 8 archimandrites are still alive, 20 or 25 archimandrites are working at work, then all sorts of monks to hell. What does all this show? Why weren't these people shot long ago? After all, this is not something like that, as they say, but an archimandrite after all. (Laughter.) These are the organizers, tomorrow he will start planning something...
So they shot half a thousand and calmed down, but now, when they come up with a new count, they say, oh, my God, we have to do it again. What is the guarantee that in a month you won’t again find yourself in a position where you will have to take the same amount...
The role of propaganda and denunciations during the period of mass repressions of 1937-1938
Official propaganda played an important role in the mechanism of terror. Meetings where they denounced “Trotskyist-Bukharin scum” were held in work collectives, in institutes, and in schools. In 1937, the 20th anniversary of the state security organs was celebrated, each pioneer camp sought to be given the name of Yezhov.
The head of the Leningrad NKVD, Zakovsky, wrote in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper: “We recently received a statement from one worker that he was suspicious (although he does not have the facts) that the accountant is the daughter of a priest. They checked: it turned out that she was an enemy of the people. Therefore, one should not be embarrassed by the lack of facts; our authorities will check any statement, find out, and sort it out.”
Torture
Officially, torture of those arrested was permitted in 1937 with the sanction of Stalin.
When in 1939 local party bodies demanded the removal and trial of NKVD officers who participated in torture, Stalin sent the following telegram to the party bodies and NKVD bodies in which he gave a theoretical justification for torture:
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party learned that the secretaries of the regional committees, checking the employees of the NKVD, blamed them for using physical force on those arrested as something criminal. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party explains that the use of physical force in the practice of the NKVD has been allowed since 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party. It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use physical force against representatives of the socialist proletariat, and they use it in the ugliest forms. The question is why socialist intelligence should be more humane in relation to the inveterate agents of the bourgeoisie, the sworn enemies of the working class and collective farmers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party believes that the method of physical coercion must be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party demands from the secretaries of regional committees, district committees, and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties that when checking NKVD workers, they are guided by this explanation.
I. V. Stalin (Pyatnitsky V. I. “Osip Pyatnitsky and the Comintern on the scales of history”, Mn.: Harvest, 2004)
The head of the Department of State Security of the NKVD of the BSSR, Sotnikov, wrote in his explanation: “Approximately from September 1937, all those arrested during interrogations were beaten... There was a competition among the investigators to see who could “split” the most. This directive came from Berman (former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Belarus), who at one of the meetings of the People's Commissariat investigators said: “Leningrad and Ukraine give out one album every day, and we must do this, and for this, each investigator must give at least one revelation in day" [cases of espionage were considered not by troikas, but by "twos", consisting of Yezhov and Vyshinsky, which considered them on the basis of the so-called albums - lists of the accused indicating their last names, first names, patronymics and other identifying data, summary the charges brought and the investigation's proposals regarding the verdict].
Beating those arrested and torture, reaching the point of sadism, became the main methods of interrogation. It was considered shameful if the investigator did not have a single confession per day.
In the People's Commissariat there was continuous moaning and screaming, which could be heard a block away from the People's Commissariat. This is where the investigative department was particularly different.” (Yezhov Archive, inventory No. 13).
Former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia Goglidze, who together with Beria led the development of terror in Georgia, testified at his trial in 1953.
Chairman: Did you receive instructions from Beria in 1937 about mass beatings of those arrested and how did you carry out these instructions?
Goglidze: Mass beatings of those arrested began in the spring of 1937. At that time, Beria, returning from Moscow, suggested that I summon to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia all the heads of the city, district, regional NKVD and people's commissars of internal affairs of the autonomous union republics. When everyone arrived, Beria gathered us in the Central Committee building and made a report to those gathered. In his report, Beria noted that the NKVD of Georgia is fighting poorly against enemies, they are conducting investigations slowly, and enemies of the people are walking the streets. At the same time, Beria stated that if those arrested do not give the necessary testimony, they should be beaten. After this, the NKVD of Georgia began mass beatings of those arrested...
Chairman: Did Beria give instructions to beat people before execution?
Goglidze: Beria gave such instructions... Beria gave instructions to beat people before execution... (Dzhanibekyan V. G., “Provocateurs and the secret police”, M., Veche, 2005)
Thus, almost all Poles living on the territory of the USSR, as well as people of other nationalities who had any connection with Poland and the Poles, territorially or personally, were subject to repression. Under this order, 103,489 people were convicted, including 84,471 people sentenced to death. . According to other data, 139,835 were convicted, including 111,091 people sentenced to death. This is the most massive national operation of the NKVD within the framework of the Great Terror.
- August 17, 1937 - order to conduct a “Romanian operation” against emigrants and defectors from Romania to Moldova and Ukraine. 8292 people were convicted, including 5439 people sentenced to death.
- November 30, 1937 - NKVD directive on carrying out an operation against defectors from Latvia, activists of Latvian clubs and societies. 21,300 people were convicted, of which 16,575 people. shot.
- December 11, 1937 - NKVD directive on the operation against the Greeks. 12,557 people were convicted, of which 10,545 people sentenced to death.
- December 14, 1937 - NKVD directive on the extension of repression along the “Latvian line” to Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, and Bulgarians. 9,735 people were convicted along the “Estonian line”, including 7,998 people sentenced to death; 11,066 people were convicted along the “Finnish line”, of which 9,078 people were sentenced to death;
- January 29, 1938 - NKVD directive on the “Iranian operation”. 13,297 people were convicted, of whom 2,046 were sentenced to death.
- February 1, 1938 - NKVD directive on a “national operation” against the Bulgarians and Macedonians.
- February 16, 1938 - NKVD directive on arrests along the “Afghan line.” 1,557 people were convicted, of which 366 were sentenced to death.
- March 23, 1938 - Politburo resolution on clearing the defense industry of persons belonging to nationalities against whom repression is being carried out.
- June 24, 1938 - directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense on the dismissal from the Red Army of military personnel of nationalities not represented on the territory of the USSR.
According to these and other documents, the following were subject to repression: Germans, Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Finns, Norwegians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Pashtuns, Macedonians, Greeks, Persians, Mingrelians, Laks, Kurds, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Karelians and etc.
In 1937, the deportation of Koreans and Chinese from the Far East was carried out. The following were appointed to lead this action: the head of the Gulag and the NKVD department for the resettlement of people M. D. Berman, the NKVD plenipotentiary representative for the Far East G. S. Lyushkov, deputy. the head of the Gulag I.I. Pliner and all of Lyushkov’s deputies and assistants. According to the recollections of Koreans who survived the deportation, people were forcibly driven into wagons and trucks and transported to Kazakhstan for a week; during the journey, people died from hunger, dirt, disease, bullying, bad conditions at all. Koreans and Chinese were deported to camps in Kazakhstan, the Southern Urals, Altai and Kyrgyzstan.
“...During the mass operations of 1937-1938. for the seizure of Poles, Latvians, Germans and other nationalities,” the former chairman of the troika for Moscow and the Moscow region, M.I. Semenov, testified during interrogation, “the arrests were made without the presence of incriminating materials.” A. O. Postel, the former head of the 3rd department of the 3rd department of the NKVD in Moscow and the Moscow region, testified: “Entire families were arrested and shot, including completely illiterate women, minors and even pregnant women, and everyone, like spies, was taken to death... only because they are “nationals...” The plan launched by Zakovsky was 1000-1200 “nationals” per month.
So, for example, at the beginning of 1938, an operational group headed by the assistant head of the NKVD of the Irkutsk region, B.P. Kulvets, went to the Bodaibinsky district of the Irkutsk region.
NKVD officer Komov testified: “On the very first day of Kulvets’s arrival, up to 500 people were arrested. The arrests were made exclusively on national and social characteristics, without the presence of absolutely any incriminating materials.
As a rule, the Chinese and Koreans were arrested without exception, and everyone who could move was taken from the kulak villages.” (The Kulvets case, vol. I, pp. 150-153).
The testimony of NKVD officer Turlov states this: “The entire operational staff, at the request of Kulvets, submitted their records. I gave Kulvets a list of persons foreign origin, for approximately 600 people. There were Chinese, Koreans, Germans, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Finns, Magyars, Estonians, etc.
The arrest was made on the basis of these lists...
The arrests of Chinese and Koreans were especially ugly. They were raided throughout the city of Bodaibo, their apartments were set up, people were sent for arrest with the intention of arresting all Chinese and Koreans without exception...
In March, Kulvets, coming to the office where Butakov and I were sitting, said: you reported to me that you had arrested all the Chinese. Today I was walking down the street and saw two Chinese and suggested arresting them.” (The Kulvets case, vol. I, pp. 156).
Vivid evidence of the ongoing operation is the report of Kulvets himself addressed to the head of the NKVD, which says: “German intelligence - I’m doing poorly on this line. True, the Schwartz residency has been exposed... but the Germans must take more serious matters. I'll try to dig it up. Finnish - yes. Czechoslavak - yes. For the complete collection I can’t find the Italian and the French...
The Chinese picked up all of them. Only the old people remained, although some of them, 7 people, are exposed as spies and smugglers.
I don't think it's worth wasting time on them. They are too decrepit. I took the most vigorous ones.” (The Kulvets case, vol. I, pp. 192).
Those arrested were beaten and testimonies against other persons were extorted from them. Based on these testimonies, without any verification, new mass arrests were made.
About how the investigation was conducted, witness Gritskikh testified: “Kulvets introduced new method consequences, that is, the so-called “persistence”. About 100-150 people were herded into one room, they were all placed facing the wall and were not allowed to sit down or sleep for several days until the arrested persons gave evidence.
There, among the arrested, there was a table and writing materials. Those who wished to testify wrote themselves, after which they were allowed to sleep.” (The Kulvets case, vol. I, pp. 142-143).
Along with the use of physical coercion against those arrested, gross falsification of investigative documents was practiced. The following testimony of Turlov is characteristic in this regard: “The situation was even worse with the interrogation of the Chinese, Koreans and other nationalities, whose mass and total arrests were made in March 1938. Most of these nationalities did not speak Russian. There were no translators, the protocols were also written without the presence of the accused, since they did not understand anything...” (The Kulvets Case, vol. I, pp. 157).
“Only today, March 10th, I received a decision for 157 people. We dug 4 holes. We had to carry out blasting work due to permafrost. He allocated 6 people for the upcoming operation. I will carry out the execution of the sentences myself. I will not and cannot trust anyone. Due to off-road conditions, it can be transported on small 3-4 seater sleighs. I chose 6 sleds. We will shoot ourselves, carry them ourselves, and so on. You will have to make 7-8 flights. It will take up a lot of time, but I don’t risk singling out any more people. So far everything is quiet. I’ll report on the results.”
“No matter what the typists read, I am not writing to you in print. According to the Troika’s decisions, the operation was carried out on only 115 people, since the pits are adapted for no more than 100 people.” “The operation was carried out with enormous difficulties. I will give you more details when I report in person. So far everything is quiet and the prison doesn’t even know. This is explained by the fact that before the operation he carried out a number of measures to ensure the safety of the operation. I will also report on them during my personal report.”
From August 25, 1937, when the first album was signed, and until November 15, 1938, in “album order” and by Special Troikas for all national operations, cases of 346,713 people were considered, of which 335,513 people were convicted, including In total, 247,157 people were sentenced to death, that is, 73.66% of the total number of convicts.
Some Soviet diplomats, military attaches and intelligence officers recalled to the USSR realized that they would be arrested and preferred to remain abroad. Among them were employees of the INO NKVD Ignatius Reiss, A. M. Orlov, V. G. Krivitsky, diplomat F. F. Raskolnikov. The most a shining example This was the flight to Japan of the NKVD plenipotentiary representative for the Far East, Genrikh Lyushkov, who, when he was in the Khabarovsk Territory, was asked to return to Moscow for a promotion.
In 1937-1941, the NKVD carried out a number of murders of these “defectors” abroad: Reiss was killed in 1937 and Krivitsky died in 1941 under unclear circumstances. Raskolnikov died in 1939, also under unknown circumstances. Perhaps he was poisoned. Relatives and assistants of L. D. Trotsky were also killed: in the summer of 1938, under unknown circumstances, his son died in France; in the same country in August 1938, his former secretary Rudolf Clement suddenly disappeared without a trace, after some time Clement’s body was found on the banks of the Seine River in the bushes, all brutally chopped up and cut up.
In 1936, in connection with the outbreak of the civil war in Spain, NKVD officers arrived there under the guise of anti-fascists. In fact, on the orders of the leadership of the USSR, they carried out a number of provocations there, as well as numerous murders of Trotskyists - people who fought against Franco and wanted to make a revolution in Spain. Thousands of anti-fascists and civilians died. This action was led by General P. A. Sudoplatov, intelligence resident, and later defector A. M. Orlov, journalist M. E. Koltsov and deputy. Head of the INO NKVD S. M. Shpigelglas. Sudoplatov in his memoirs called it a “war between communists.”
Terror in Gulag camps and special prisons
NKVD Order No. 00447 of July 31, 1937 provided, among other things, for the review by troikas of cases of convicts already in Gulag camps and prisons (prisons special purpose). According to the decisions of the troikas, about 8 thousand prisoners of the Kolyma camps, over 8 thousand prisoners of Dmitrovlag, 1825 prisoners of the Solovetsky special purpose prison, thousands of prisoners of the Kazakh camps were shot. For many, by decision of the troikas and the Special Meeting, their terms of imprisonment were extended.
The end of the great terror
By September 1938, the main task of the Great Terror was completed. Terror has already begun to threaten the new generation of party-chekist leaders who emerged during the terror. In July-September, a mass shooting of previously arrested party functionaries, communists, military leaders, NKVD employees, intellectuals and other citizens was carried out; this was the beginning of the end of terror. In October 1938, all extrajudicial sentencing bodies were dissolved (with the exception of the Special Meeting under the NKVD, since it received greater powers after Beria joined the NKVD, including the imposition of death sentences).
In December 1938, like Yagoda, Yezhov was transferred to a less important People's Commissariat and took the post of People's Commissar of Water Transport. In March 1939, Yezhov was removed from the post of Chairman of the CPC as an “ideologically alien element.” Beria, who was the organizer of the mass terror of 1937-1938, was appointed in his place. in Georgia and Transcaucasia, and then was appointed first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs.
On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested on charges of collaborating with foreign intelligence services, organizing a fascist conspiracy in the NKVD and preparing an armed uprising against Soviet power, Yezhov was also accused of homosexuality (this accusation was completely true, since at the trial he admitted only this). On February 4, 1940, he was shot.
The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus P.K. Ponomarenko demanded from the head of the republican NKVD Nasedkin - which he later reported in writing to the new head of the NKVD of the USSR Beria - to remove from official duties all employees who took part in the beatings of those arrested. But this idea had to be abandoned: Nasedkin explained to the First Secretary of the Central Committee that “if you go along this path, then 80 percent of the entire apparatus of the NKVD of the BSSR must be removed from work and put on trial.”
The removal of Yezhov did not mean the end of terror; the flywheel worked with unrelenting force.
Top secret. “On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigation”
The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee note that during 1937-1938, under the leadership of the party, the NKVD bodies did a lot of work to defeat enemies and cleanse the USSR of numerous espionage, terrorist, sabotage and sabotage cadres from Trotskyists, Bukharinists, Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists, White Guards, fugitives kulaks and criminals, who represent a serious support for the foreign intelligence services of Japan, Germany, Poland, England and France.
At the same time, the NKVD carried out a lot of work to defeat the espionage and sabotage structure of foreign intelligence services, which were transferred to the USSR in large numbers from behind the cordon under the guise of the so-called. emigrants and defectors from Poles, Romanians, Finns, Germans, Estonians and others. Clearing the country of sabotage groups and spy personnel played a positive role in ensuring further successes of socialist construction.
However, one should not think that this is the end of the matter of cleaning the USSR from spies, saboteurs, terrorists, and saboteurs. The task now is to continue the merciless struggle against all enemies of the USSR, to organize this work with the help of more modern and reliable methods. This is all the more necessary because the massive operations to defeat and uproot the Trotskyist-Bukharin bandits, carried out by the NKVD in 1937-1938 with a simplified investigation and trial, could not but lead to a number of major shortcomings and perversions, to the inhibition of the exposure of the enemies of the people.
Moreover, enemies of the people and spies of foreign intelligence services, who made their way into the NKVD, both in the center and elsewhere, continued to carry out their subversive work in every possible way...
November 17, by resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars. (Pyatnitsky V.I. “Osip Pyatnitsky and the Comintern on the scales of history”, Mn.: Harvest, 2004)
Moreover, in 1939-1941 massive operations were carried out against a number of nations in Belarus, Ukraine and in 1940-1941 in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Information about the fate of those executed
Order of the NKVD of the USSR No. 00515 of 1939 ordered that in response to requests from relatives about the fate of one or another executed person, they should answer that he was sentenced to 10 years in forced labor camps without the right of correspondence and transfers. In the fall of 1945, the order was adjusted - the applicants were now told that their relatives had died in prison.
Family members of the repressed
The famous phrase “The son is not responsible for his father” was uttered by Stalin in December 1935. At a meeting in Moscow of advanced combine operators with the party leadership, one of them, the Bashkir collective farmer Gilba, said: “Although I am the son of a kulak, I will honestly fight for the cause of the workers and peasants and for building socialism,” to which Stalin said: “The son is not responsible for his father.”
NKVD Order No. 00447 dated July 31, 1937 established that, in accordance with this order, family members of the repressed who are “capable of active anti-Soviet actions”, with a special decision of the troika, are subject to placement in camps or labor settlements. Families of persons “repressed under the first category” who lived in the border strip were subject to resettlement outside the border strip within the republics, territories and regions, and those living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog and in the Sochi regions , Gagra and Sukhumi - were subject to eviction from these points to other areas of their choice, with the exception of border areas.
Date of Birth: 19.04.1895
Citizenship: Russia
At first, the biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was no different from the biography of a typical worker at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. He was born in 1895 in St. Petersburg. At the age of 14 he began working in various factories. His education did not exceed primary school. Since March 1917, after the February Revolution, Yezhov joined the Bolshevik Party and participated in the revolutionary events in Petrograd.
During the Civil War, Yezhov was a 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 - secretary of the Semipalatinsk provincial committee, then of the Kazakh regional party committee.
Since 1927 - in responsible work in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Not brilliant in education or intellect, he was distinguished by his blind faith in Stalin and rigidity of character.
During the most difficult period in the life of the village - during collectivization - in 1929-1930 Yezhov worked as Deputy People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR, being directly involved in the policy of extermination of the peasantry. 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 put into practice all of Stalin’s personnel plans. Apparently, successfully, since high positions rained down on him as if from a cornucopia.
Yezhov also had a hand in the fates of his predecessor’s closest friends: his first assistant, the old security officer Prokofiev, Lurie, Ostrovsky, Feldman, Baron Steiger (Yagoda’s confidant.)
He shot some without any preamble, threw others into prison in order to force them to play a role in the process that he was preparing... In total, 325 Yagoda security officers were shot or put in an internal prison. Yezhov is implacable: he is absolutely devoid of nerves.
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. His rise continues. In January 1937, Yezhov, like Yagoda and then Beria, was awarded the title of General Commissioner of State Security, in the same month he was confirmed as an honorary Red Army soldier of the 13th Alma-Ata motorized mechanized regiment. July 16, 1937, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee makes a decision on renaming the city of Sulimov, Ordzhonikidze Territory, into the city of Yezhovo-Cherkessk, and the next day M. Kalinin and A. Gorkin signed a resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, which announced the awarding of N. I. Yezhov with the Order of Lenin - for outstanding successes in the leadership of the NKVD to carry out government tasks. On February 16, 1938, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on assigning the school for improving the command staff of the border and internal troops of the NKVD named after N. I. Yezhov, etc.
Having come to leadership, Yezhov paid a lot of attention to strengthening the NKVD. Let's look at just a few documents. On September 28, 1938, he signed the order “On the results of an inspection of the work of the workers’ and peasants’ militia of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” It stated that the inspection revealed a number of flagrant violations and ignorance of orders and directives of the NKVD of the USSR, which in practice led to the collapse of the work of the police, clogging of personnel, rampant robbers, thieves and hooligans. The head of the department, Aitov, instead of organizing the fight against crime, was engaged in fraud. Over eight months of 1937, 212 robberies occurred in Kazan, but the reports show only 154 (it seems to be written about today, although many years have passed since that time).
“The stabbing hooligans in Kazan have become so rampant that the movement of citizens around the city becomes dangerous as evening falls. A number of public places, in particular Leninsky Garden, Bauman Street and others, are under the control of hooligan bandits... Instead of arresting hooligans, fines were imposed , but even fines were not collected... Impunity for criminals gave rise to political banditry... The leadership of the police created complete irresponsibility and impunity in the apparatus... The most important areas of police work are in a state of collapse."
The measures outlined in the order were fully consistent with the spirit of the times. It was ordered that the head of the police department and the head of the political department, as well as nine other employees, be removed from work, immediately arrested and brought to trial, and penalties were imposed on a number of employees. And the order ended: “To the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, captain of state security, Comrade Mikhailov, within two months, bring the police of the Tatar SSR into a combat-ready state and report to me. Yezhov.” The whole People's Commissar here is businesslike, domineering, tough.
This is what he looks like according to other documents. Thus, he reproaches the prisons of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR for a weak regime and announces a top secret “Regulation” on the procedure for strengthening it in order to completely isolate those under investigation from the outside world and from those arrested in other cells, as well as on strict adherence to internal regulations .
Punishment measures for “hooligan prisoners in GUGB prisons” were also determined. For offensive verbal and written statements by prisoners or offensive antics (spitting, swearing, attempts to insult by action), it was envisaged that they would be transferred to a stricter prison, the application of a stricter regime, imprisonment in a punishment cell for up to 20 days, and trial. Thus, in an order dated February 8, 1937, Yezhov orders that the following “convicts held in GUGB prisons be brought to trial: different terms conclusions that sent me offensive statements in connection with the introduction of a new prison regime and the process: Karsanidze Sh. A., Smirnova V. M., Kuzmina V. V., Satanevich V. M., Kotolynova P. I., Stroganova D. I. ., Goldberg R.M., Margolina-Segal G.G., Petunina K.G., Petrova A.P. Put in a punishment cell for 20 days Kopytova G.S., Gagua A.N., Aleksidze V.I. , Karabaki A. G., Gevorkyan A. E., Purtseladze A. P., Vashchina-Kalyugu K. P., Vanyana G. A., Isabekyan A. A., Japaridze V. N., Ber A. A. ".
Like this. NKVD workers could do everything - even killing people with impunity or driving them to suicide, but God forbid, if a prisoner begins to somehow defend his dignity - he immediately becomes a hooligan element.
In another order, sent to the localities in order to guide and intimidate operational workers, Yezhov accuses the head of the special department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the 6th Infantry Oryol Division, State Security Lieutenant B.I. Shirin, of the fact that “until now, according to the counter-revolutionary element located in division, a full operational strike was not carried out." And the measure is the same - “for the collapse of operational work, the lack of fight against counter-revolution, for communication with the enemies of the people - arrest and put on trial.”
On March 14, 1938, the arrested Pechek A.Kh. was taken for interrogation from the Ukhtomsky district police department of the Moscow region, who died as a result of beatings. As later interrogated by district department officers, the arrested man was punched and kicked in the body, while he was supported so that he would not fall. The order to beat all those arrested who pleaded guilty to counter-revolutionary activities was given to his workers by the head of the district branch of the NKVD G.D. Malyshev, and he received it from above. In this district department alone, between January and March 1938, such methods were used on approximately 40-50 arrestees.
In the NKVD of the Moscow region, investigators, using physical coercion during the investigation against the arrested management employees of the Stalin Automobile Plant, turned their testimony about production problems and errors that took place at the plant into deliberate acts of sabotage. NKVD workers proclaimed that there was an extensive right-wing Trotskyist organization at the plant, although in fact there was none there.
On November 1, 1936, the People's Commissar issues a special order. It said that by a decree of the party and government of November 9-13, 1931, the state trust Dalstroy was entrusted with the task of developing one of the most remote outskirts of the Union - Kolyma.
The obsequious all-Union headman, whose wife was also sent to the camp, in his department with his assistants only conveyor-signed lists of members of the USSR Central Executive Committee - “enemies”: June 13 - for 6 people, July 14 - for 2 people, July 31 - for 14, August 13 - for 25, August 26 - for 12, August 28 - for 7, September 11 - for 8, September 29 - for 19.1 October 7 - for 16 people and on and on. This is how the chosen ones of the people were melodiously and consistently destroyed.
In Gorky, at the automobile plant, a non-party blacksmith, nominating the same Yezhov as a deputy, said:
“It is impossible to list all the revolutionary exploits of Comrade Yezhov. The most remarkable feat of Nikolai Ivanovich is the defeat of the Japanese-German Trotskyist-Bukharin spies, saboteurs, murderers who wanted to drown the Soviet people in blood... They were overtaken by the sword of revolution - the faithful guardian of the dictatorship of the working class - NKVD, led by Comrade Yezhov."
The Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1956-1960, N.P. Dudorov, in his memoirs, reports that in June 1937, Yezhov presented lists of 3,170 political prisoners for execution. On the same day, the lists were approved by Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich. There were many such lists.
On December 9, 1938, Pravda and Izvestia published the following message: “Comrade N. I. Yezhov, according to his request, was relieved of his duties as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, leaving him as People's Commissar of Water Transport.
Comrade was approved as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. L.P. Beria".
According to A. Antonov-Ovseenko, Yezhov, as People's Commissar of Water Transport, became a heavy drunkard, who "did not appear at work every day, usually late. During meetings, he rolled bread balls or diligently designed paper doves."
On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested on charges of leading a conspiratorial organization in the troops and bodies of the NKVD of the USSR, of conducting espionage in favor of foreign intelligence services, of preparing terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and state and an armed uprising against Soviet power. In short, all the terminology that he so often used was now applied to him.
N. I. Ezhov rejected at trial all the accusations against him about anti-party activities, espionage, etc., which he admitted during the preliminary investigation. At the same time, Yezhov said that “there are also crimes for which I can be shot. I cleaned up 14 thousand security officers. But my great fault is that I didn’t clean up enough of them. I cleaned up security officers everywhere. I just didn’t clean them up.” "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."
By the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on February 3, 1940, N. I. Yezhov was sentenced to an exceptional punishment; the sentence was carried out the next day, February 4 of the same year.
