Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov: Biographical Info

Copyright © 1998 by Hugo S. Cunningham
first posted 980803
minor change 001229

[Authorized Version]

Contents:

This head-shot of N.I. Yezhov was taken from a portrait in "Ogonyok", 1937, Issue #34, p. 3. The portrait commemorated the 20th anniversary of the security organs, Cheka-OGPU-NKVD, 20 Dec 1917-1937. For the full portrait, see "y-smfl.jpg."

Personal Data from NKVD folder:

YEZHOV, Nikolai Ivanovich:
DATE OF BIRTH: May 1, 1895.
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Moscow, the Kremlin.
PROFESSION AND SPECIALTY: Tailor and machinist.
PLACE OF SERVICE AND POSITION: USSR People's Commissar of Water Transport.
SOCIAL ORIGIN: Worker.
SOCIAL STATUS:

    (A) BEFORE THE REVOLUTION: Industrial worker. Tailor. Machinist.
    (B) AFTER THE REVOLUTION: Party-soviet worker.

EDUCATION: Unfinished elementary education.
PARTY MEMBERSHIP: Member of the VKP(b) from 1917.
CATEGORY OF MILITARY CLASSIFICATION: General Commissar of State Security.

    Source (slightly modified): Tsitriniak, Grigorii. "Yezhov’s Execution." Russian Law and Politics, Winter 1992-3, 31:46.
    Russian text © 1992 by "Literaturnaia Gazeta." "Rasstrel'noe delo Ezhova: Shtrikhi k portretu palacha," Literaturnaia gazeta, 1992, no. 7 (February 12), p.15. Literaturnaia gazeta is now an independent publication.

List of Offices Held

Ezhov, N.I.
Born 1895
Died 1939 [should be 1940]
Party membership 1917-39
Central Committee membership 1934-39
Politburo membership 1937-39

16 December 1929. Confirmed Deputy People's Commissar, People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Ref: Sobranie Zakonov i Rasporyazhenii SSSR, 1929, issue 51, decree 292.

16 November 1930. Dismissed/Resigned as Deputy People's Commissar, People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Ref: Sobranie Zakonov i Rasporyazhenii SSSR, 1930, issue 59, decree 376.

8 December 1931. Confirmed Member of Presidium, All-Union Council for Municipal Economy. Ref: Sobranie Zakonov i Rasporyazhenii SSSR, 1931, issue 22, decree 275.

26 September 1936. Appointed People's Commissar, People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Ref: Sobranie Zakonov i Rasporyazhenii SSSR, 1936, issue 28, decree 277.

26 November 1936. Appointed Member of Presidium, Central Executive Committee. Ref: Izvestiya, 26/11/36.

27 January 1937. Appointed General Commissar, State Security Forces of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Ref: Sobranie Zakonov i Rasporyazhenii SSSR, 1937, issue 9, decree 38.

19 January 1938. Appointed Member, Council of People's Commissars. Ref: Izvestiya, 20/01/1938.

21 August 1938. Confirmed People's Commissar, People's Commissariat of Water Transport. Ref: Izvestiya, 24/08/38.

    Source:
    Davies RW, Ilic MJ, Jenkins HP, Merridale C, and Wheatcroft SG; Soviet Government Officials, 1922-41: A Handlist; Centre for Russian and East European Studies (University of Birmingham); Birmingham England, 1989.

Testimonials by Other Comrades

"We deem it absolutely necessary and urgent that Comrade Yezhov be nominated to the post of People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. Yagoda had definitely proved himself to be incapable of unmasking the Trotsky-Zinovievite bloc. The OGPU is four years behind in this matter. This is noted by all Party workers and by the majority of the representatives of the NKVD."
--The Great Leader and Teacher, I.V. Stalin , with A.A. Zhdanov, telegram 25 Sep 1936

    Source: Khrushchov's Secret Speech (1956), as quoted in
    Robert Conquest, "The Great Terror: A Reassessment," Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1990); p. 138.

"Ya ne znayu bolee ideal'nogo rabotnika, chem Ezhov. Vernee, ne rabotnika, a ispolnitilya. Poruchiv emu chto-nibud', mozhno ne proveryat' i byt' uverennym: on vse sdelaet. U Ezhova est' tol'ko odin, pravda, suschestvennyj nedostatok: ne umeet ostanavlivat'sya. Byvayut takie situacii, kogda ... nado ostanovit'sya. Ezhov ne ostanavlivaetclya. I inogda prixoditsya sledit' za nim, choby vovremya ostanovit'." "I do not know a more ideal worker than Yezhov. More precisely, not a worker, but a fulfiller. Having assigned him something, it is possible not to check and be confident: he will do everything. Indeed, Yezhov has only one significant fault: he doesn't know how to stop. There are situations where ... it is best to stop. Yezhov doesn't stop. And sometimes one has to check on him, to stop him in time."
--Ivan Mikhailovich Moskvin, N.I. Yezhov's mentor 1927-1930
 A "firm and modest Party worker"
--V.M. Molotov
    Source: Edvard Radzinsky, "Stalin," Anchor Books/Doubleday, New York, 1996); pp. 430-2.

"Yezhov was quite a prominent worker... who had moved ahead, a very stubborn, tough worker."
-- V. M. Molotov

"I knew Yezhov for a long time. He made a good impression on me, he was an attentive person."
--N.S. Khrushchov

    Source: Tsitriniak, Grigorii. "Yezhov’s Execution." Russian Law and Politics, Winter 1992-3, 31:46.
    Russian text © 1992 by "Literaturnaia Gazeta." "Rasstrel'noe delo Ezhova: Shtrikhi k portretu palacha," "Literaturnaia Gazeta," 1992, no. 7 (February 12), p.15.

"Comrades! In two days, on 26 June, all voters in the Stalin constituency at Kiev will go to the polls and choose the first Ukrainian candidates for the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic... At the present time, now that we have uncovered the abominable machinations of the bourgeois nationalists ...who were plotting to sell the Ukraine, to sell the Ukrainians into slavery to the Polish magnates, the Polish capitalists, the German landowners, and the German capitalists, we know very well that you yourself, our Stalin, put forth your hand to clear the masks from the faces of the [traitors]. We thank you for it and greet the Bolshevik Party, we thank you and greet you, great Stalin, your best pupil, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, and all of you who by your Bolshevist actions have destroyed these vermin."
-- N.S. Khrushchov, quoted in Visti Tsentral'noho Vykonavcholho Komitetu SSSR of 25 June 1938, no. 144

    Source: Boris Levytsky. "The Uses of Terror: the Soviet Secret Police 1917-70." trans. H.A. Piehler. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1972.

"Learn the Stalin way to work from Comrade Yezhov, just as he learned, and will continue to learn, from Comrade Stalin himself. Comrade Yezhov has created in the NKVD a wonderful backbone of Chekists. He has trained them in true Bolshevik manner in the spirit of Dzerzhinsky and of our Party."
--A.I. Mikoyan, representing the Politburo at a celebration of the 20th anniverary of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD

    Source: "Pravda," 20 Dec 1937" as quoted by
    Roy Medvedev (translated by Harold Shukman). "All Stalin's Men: Six Who Carried Out the Bloody Policies," Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City NY, 1985; pp. 39-40.

Letters to Nikolai Ivanovich

[May 1937]
To Ezhov:
"One might think that prison for Beloborodov is a podium for reading speeches, statements which refer to the activities of all sorts of people but not to himself. Isn't it time to squeeze this gentleman and make him tell about his dirty deeds? Where is he, in prison or in a hotel?
I. St."
--The Great Leader and Teacher, I.V. Stalin

    Source: Boris Starkov, "Narkom Ezhov," an article in
    J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning editors, "Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives," Cambridge University Press, 1993; p. 29.

[undated]
"Dear Nikolai Ivanovich:
Lean hard on the people's commissar of light industry....Dig even deeper....Your L. Kaganovich."

[9 Sept (year not stated)]
"Greetings, dear Yezhov. There is bad talk making its rounds about you. Namely, that you are not sleeping, do not eat, and are avoiding other such delights. Let me tell you as a friend that, if you fall, you will put yourself, the Party, and all of us in an idiotic position. You should bear this in mind.... Yours, Sergo."
--Sergo Ordzhonikidze

"Koliushen'ka! I ask you very urgently, I insist that you check my whole life, all of me. I cannot reconcile myself with the idea that I am being suspected of double dealing, of crimes I did not commit."
--E.S. Yezhova, wife of N.I. Yezhov

    Source: Tsitriniak, Grigorii. "Yezhov’s Execution." Russian Law and Politics, Winter 1992-3, 31:46.
    Russian text © 1992 by "Literaturnaia Gazeta." "Rasstrel'noe delo Ezhova: Shtrikhi k portretu palacha," "Literaturnaia Gazeta," 1992, no. 7 (February 12), p.15.

Statements by N.I. Yezhov

"We must train Chekists now, so that this becomes a closely-welded, closed caste which will unconditionally fulfill my orders and be faithful to me, just as I am faithful to Comrade Stalin."
--N.I. Yezhov, addressing the students at the Dzerzhinsky Academy

    Source: Boris Starkov, "Narkom Ezhov," an article in
    J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning editors, "Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives," Cambridge University Press, 1993; p. 33.

"The first one I exposed was Sosnovskii, the Polish spy. Iagoda and Menzhinskii raised a fuss on this account and, instead of arresting him, sent him to work in the provinces. I arrested Sosnovskii the first chance I had. I then exposed Mironov and others, but Iagoda hindered me in this. That is the way things were before I came to work in the organs of the Cheka."

"I... began my work by getting rid of the Polish spies who had wormed their way into all sections of the organs of the Cheka. Soviet intelligence was in their hands."

"I purged 14,000 Chekists. But my great fault was that I did not purge enough of them. I was in the following situation. I gave an assignment to some official of the department to interrogate a person who had been arrested. And, at the same time, I was thinking "you interrogate him today and tomorrow I will arrest you." I was surrounded by enemies of the people, my enemies were everywhere, and I purged the Chekists. It was only in Moscow, Leningrad, and in the northern Caucasus that I did not purge them. I thought they were clean, but actually what happened was that I was harboring diversionary agents, saboteurs, spies, and other kinds of enemies of the people under my own roof."

When chairman of the administration of the USSR State Bank L.E. Mar'iasin "was arrested, he resisted giving testimony for a long time, and then I gave the order to knock Mar'iasin about a bit."

    Source: Tsitriniak, Grigorii. "Yezhov’s Execution." Russian Law and Politics, Winter 1992-3, 31:46.
    Russian text © 1992 by "Literaturnaia G azeta." "Rasstrel'noe delo Ezhova: Shtrikhi k portretu palacha," "Literaturnaia Gazeta," 1992, no. 7 (February 12), p.15.

Written Works

Books

    N.I. Yezhov, "From Factionalism to Open Counterrevolution," (unpublished manuscript), ca. 1935.

    In this theoretical work, N.I. Yezhov unmasked the terrorist inclinations of the leaders of the Right and Trotsky-Zinovievist oppositions. He drafted it in consultation with the Great Leader and Teacher, some of Whose handwritten corrections are visible on earlier versions.

    The manuscript, currently in the Archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU, has been shown to a handful of scholars. So far, however, it has not been declassified. Some believe an agreement may be negotiated for its publication by a progressive firm in Germany.

      A strong link has existed between the Zinovievists and the Trotskyists throughout this entire period. The Trotskyists and the Zinovievists regularly inform each other about their activities. There is no doubt that the Trotskyists were aware of the terrorist side of the activities of the Zinovievist organization as well, the testimony of individual Zinovievists during the investigation of the Kirov murder and during the consequent arrests of Zinovievists and Trotskyists establish that the latter have also taken the path to terrorism.
      --N.I. Yezhov, "From Factionalism to Open Counterrevolution"

        Source: Boris Starkov, "Narkom Ezhov," an article in
        J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning editors, "Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives," Cambridge University Press, 1993; pp. 24-25.

Reports

    In the light of the latest testimony of those arrested, the role of the rightists appears quite different. Having become familiar with the materials of previous investigations into the case of the rightists, Uglanov, Riutin, Eismont, Slepkov, and others, I have come to think that we did not dig down far enough at that time. In the light of this, I have instructed that some of the rights arrested in the last year be called back. We called back Kulikov who was convicted in the Nevskii case and Lugov. Their preliminary interrogation has yielded extraordinarily intriguing material about the activities of the rightists. We will send you the examination records in a few days. In any case, there is every reason to suppose that we will be able to discover a lot of new things and that the rightists will look different to us, including Rykov, Bukharin, Uglanov, Schmidt, et al.
    --letter by N.I. Yezhov to I.V. Stalin

      Source: Boris Starkov, "Narkom Ezhov," an article in
      J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning editors, "Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives," Cambridge University Press, 1993; pp. 28-29.

Counterrevolutionary version

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