Throughout Joseph Stalin’s time as the leader of the Soviet Union, scores of his population
and people would be executed by the NKVD the Soviet Secret Police.
The word purge is synonymous with the Soviet leader, and one of the largest onslaughts
was The Great Purge.
With this between 700,000 and 1 million people who were suspected of harbouring dissenting
thoughts and words against Stalin were executed or were sent to concentration camps known
as Gulags.
Stalin knew how to enforce his power and to strike fear into the hearts of the people,
but he would also turn on his closest friends and allies when he wanted to.
One man who was turned on was the man who was actually in charge of the NKVD and much
of the great purge, and he would not be exempt from the brutal wrath of Stalin.
Nikolai Yezhov was the one who organised the mass killings and arrests and also the torture
of people, but he would be erased from History by Stalin and he was also killed.
Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of Nikolai Yezhov, and remember to support
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Nikolai Yezhov was born on the 1st May 1895.
As would later claim he was a member of the proletariat, however he was actually from
a rather affluent Russian peasant family.
His father had a number of different jobs, and he even at one point ran a brothel which
brought extra income in for the Yezhovs.
But after his schooling had finished Nikolai worked as an assistant to a tailor and he
then joined the Imperial Russian Army.
However in 1917 he joined the Bolsheviks a few months before the October Revolution broke
out, and he fought for the Red Army during the Russian Civil war.
Inside of the military he continued to rise through the ranks, but he also then became
involved in local and regional politics.
He was involved in the local committees of the Communist Party, and he then became a
secretary before working in the accountancy department of the party.
He was skilled in this role and he became the Head of Department, before he was then
made the Deputy People’s Commissar of Agriculture.
It was clear that Nikolai Yezhov was a devoted communist, and he continued to rise through
the different positions, before he was elected to the central committee before he became
the secretary.
However in 1934, the Bolshevik Chief of Leningrad Sergei Kirov was murdered, and after this
Stalin then used the incident as a way to issue purges of his population and to rid
the land of anyone who dared to cast doubt about him.
Stalin viewed Nikolai Yezhov as someone who could ruthlessly carry out these bloody purges.
He began to point the finger at others for their dissent, and he then justified the purges
but he then became the Head of the NKVD.
These were the executioners who carried out the purges, and Yezhov then also was the People’s
Commissar for International affairs, and he was an ardent supporter of Stalin.
He was happy to reduce the political power of his opponents through purges and accusation,
but his first job as the head of the NKVD was to deal and investigate the former fallen
head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda.
Yezhov ordered a show trial, and he bugged out Yagoda’s office, and he was accused
of being a spy for the Germans.
The trial heard how Yagoda had allegedly tried to poison Stalin and Yezhov to take the top
job himself and to bring capitalism to the Soviet Union.
It was Yezhov himself who tortured Yagoda to try and get him to confess to crimes.
But Pagoda would be sentenced to death after Yezhov ordered his execution.
But then further purges were carried out across the Soviet Union to attack anyone who dared
to dissent against Stalin.
This took place during 1937 and 1938, and the NKVD led by Yezhov attacked huge sections
of the Soviet population.
Anyone who could be accused of dissenting was likely to be shot by a firing squad quickly
with very few questions asked.
Many politicians at this time feared the knock on the door from the NKVD, and Yezhov became
incredibly feared at this time and many of his opponents were greatly intimidated by
his power.
He also sent many people to the gulags, the concentration camps established inside of
the Soviet Union.
Also during the purge around half of the Soviet government officials and officers inside of
the military were stopped of their ranks and were imprisoned.
But scores were executed quickly and this destabilised the Soviet population, and ordinary
people found themselves accused wrongly of being disloyal to Stalin’s government, and
they then faced brutal interrogation and torture.
Many also lost their jobs and some were also of course falsely accused, and Yezhov would
later say, ‘There will be some innocent victims in this fight against Fascist agents.
We are launching a major attack on the enemy.
Let there be no resentment if we bump someone with an elbow.
Better than ten innocent people should suffer than one spy get away.
When you chop wood, chips fly.’
With this he was saying that innocent people would suffer for him to successfully purge
the population, and that it was justified that innocent people would go to their deaths
for the greater good of the Soviet Union.
Over 1 million people were arrested and around 700,000 were shot after being accused of treason
and crimes against the Soviet state.
Whilst he was in power as the Chief of the NKVD, the populations of the gulag systems
also grew massively, and another 140,000 people would die inside these camps from the lack
of food, exhaustion and treatment they encountered.
Yezhov though was almost as powerful and as feared as Stalin, and this was very dangerous
for him.
Because of this he also found himself purged, and executed.
Throughout his time in power, he had exterminated the old bolsheviks and other parts of society
which were considered unruly as the Second World War was about to break out.
However Yezhov was being used by Stalin and when he deemed him to have done his job, he
cast him aside.
Stalin at this time favoured Lavrentiy Beria, and he was appointed Yezhov’s deputy, but
it would be Beria’s job to deal with his boss.
Yezhov had ordered Beria’s arrest during the Great Purge, but Stalin spared him and
he referred to Beria as ‘his himmler,’ praising his efficiency.
But then Beria would become the new Chief of the NKVD, and Yezhov was ousted from power.
He knew that he would be executed, and he became a drunk and in this final days he was
predictably criticised publicly by Stalin.
Stalin gave reasons for Yezhov’s removal from power, and many of the agents of his
went into hiding to save their lives.
Nikolai Yezhov then informed his wife he wanted a divorce, and he was then officially sacked
from the NKVD on the 25th November 1938 with Beria succeeding him in ultimate power.
Stalin did not know what to do with Yezhov to begin with, but then Beria spoke out against
him at the annual conference of the Supreme Soviet.
The following year he was arrested and was taken to prison.
His arrest was done in complete secrecy, and was done away from the eyes of the public
and also it was kept quiet from the NKVD as Beria worried some officers may be loyal to
him.
Nikolai Yezhov was brought in for interrogation and he was tortured and he then admitted to
having been an enemy of the people.
He was the man who had been part of thousands of these interrogations and he knew he would
be soon executed.
He claimed that he had stolen government money and that he had collaborated with the Gestapo,
and he also admitted he was incompetent at his job.
Then a closed trial happened, and at this he claimed his love for Stalin, and he claimed
he had been tortured to admit the charges that he was being found guilty of.
He said when he would die that the final words he would utter would be Stalin’s name, but
he knew what was coming his way.
He was taken out the court room briefly for 30 minutes and then the guilty verdict and
death sentence was passed, and for this the once powerful Chief of Stalin’s Secret Police
was dragged out of the courtroom kicking and screaming.
He wept for his life, but days after he was condemned to die he would be executed.
Yezhov was moved to a basement room inside of a small NKVD station in Moscow.
It’s likely Yezhov may have designed his own execution chamber during his time in power,
and it had been purpose built.
The room had a sloped floor that would allow blood to trickle down to a drain, and it had
been built in a way that made it easy to clean after executions.
These chambers were made to make sure the Great Purge was carried out efficiently and
effectively.
But Yezhov’s exeucution occurred in complete secrecy.
He was lined up in the small room, and then an executioner stood behind him with his weapon
ready.
It’s believed that the executioner was either infamous executioner Vasily Blohkin, or the
future KGB chairman Ivan Serve.
However Yezhov with a bullet to the brain was executed quickly, and the chamber was
then cleaned down before his body was then dragged out of the building and was swiftly
cremated.
His execution remained a secret for many years, and most Soviets believed that he had been
sent to an asylum for his alcoholism.
But Nikolai Yezhov was the brutal and ruthless Chief of Stalin’s NKVD who was repsonisble
for the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
He oversaw the Great Purge, but he would later become known as ‘The vanishing Commissar,’
as Stalin ordered press photographs of him to be altered so that he was not shown in
them.
He was turned on by Stalin, and his execution was in line with the thousands that his death
squads oversaw, and it was planned by Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria who wanted him dead.
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