Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940

by Nikita Petrov, Marc Jansen

Release Date: 05 April, 2002

Edition: Paperback

Price:

More Info

Interesting account of a thimble-sized tyrant

Not much is known about Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Ezhov, depending on how you like to write it), and until more archival material becomes available years from now, this book is likely to be the best consolidated source available on Yagoda's successor as Nachalnik NKVD.

The authors thankfully didn't spend too much time speculating and postulating on Yezhov's early life (for which there isn't much documentation). They focused much of the book on the early 1930's through Yezhov's downfall at the end of the decade, as I'd expected and hoped for. There are some interesting facts and accounts of Yezhov's formative adult years, but the authors, for the sake of accuracy and at the expense of novelistic character construction, devoted most of their concise book to studying the five foot one inch murderer from the time he gained prominence in the NKVD and Party apparatus.

The book deals with the Great Purge very comprehensively, detailing the categorized method with which the Politburo leadership decided to either kill or deport millions of people in the name of counter-sabotage, counterterrorism, counter-espionage, and the usual charge of affiliation to a Zinoviev-Trotsky conspiracy. The authors remind us that this human tragedy wasn't confined to Communist Party, Soviet military, intelligence, or police circles...it extended to "national operations": the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Koreans, Chinese, Estonians, Latvians, Germans, Poles, and rehabilitated kulaks returning from exile. The arbitrary nature with which all of these people were slaughtered or uprooted shows what can happen when a country's judiciary is co-opted by a gang of rabid criminals and sadists.

A minor detraction to this book is its perfunctory prose. If you don't find the Stalin years fascinating, you might find yourself struggling through certain clunky areas in the book. The authors never fail to delude one with names, i.e: regional Party or NKVD chiefs, Yezhov's deputies and subordinates, and certain fellows with whom the Chief had more than a drinking relationship. These details are great for the afficionado, but I assume they would overwhelm the casual reader.

I started reading this book with the central question: was Yezhov simply a malleable bishop of General Secretary Stalin, or was he a murderer without conscience, put to practical use by the terror of Tiflis? I finished the book without answering the question. This in no way detracts from the value of this work, as I learned a great deal; it simply proves there are a great many things about Yezhov that we don't yet know, and probably won't learn in many years, if ever. Lest I equivocate, my own conclusion of Yezhov is that he was a pusillanimous killer who betrayed and murdered far too many persons to ever be shown the light of historical rehabilitation. That said, Stalin is by far the most malign of these criminals, and after reading this book, it is not inconceivable to think that many of Yezhov's crimes were committed with the child-like hope of pleasing Uncle Iosif. One doesn't become chief of the NKVD without sacrificing all morals and human decency. Just ask Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, and Beria.

BG

Authoritative book in English on Stalin's bloody servant

Jansen and Petrov's biography tells everything worthwhile likely to be known about N. I. Yezhov, Commissar of the NKVD (Stalin's secret police) during the Great Purge of 1936-38. It also summarizes the mechanics and motivation of the Purge itself, using extensive Russian-language sources emerging since 1988.

In some ways Yezhov was more a pathetic than an evil character, unfortunately falling under the spell of a brilliant but evil man. Good-natured and helpful before getting drawn into Stalin's work of repression, Yezhov would degenerate into a torturer and murderer, incapable of distinguishing true from imaginary charges.

The book is a bit dry in places, but that is a hazard of the subject: relatively little "human" detail is known about Yezhov. (Aleksei Polyansky's Russian-language biography tried to get around this problem by inventing dialogue.) Yezhov and his close associates were nearly all liquidated in 1939-1940; those who survived knew they should keep silent. Indeed, apart from some generic execration, Yezhov would remain taboo until the age of Glasnost' (1988), 48 years after his death.