Nikolai Yezhov

Nikolai Yezhov
Николай Иванович Ежов
People's Commissar for Water Transport
In office 8 April 1938 – 9 April 1939
Preceded by	Nikolay Pakhomov
Succeeded by	None (position abolished)
People's Commissar for Internal Affairs
In office 26 September 1936 – 25 November 1938
Preceded by	Genrikh Yagoda
Succeeded by	Lavrentiy Beria
People's Commissar for State Security
In office 27 January 1937 – 25 November 1938
Candidate member of the 17th Politburo
In office 12 October 1937 – 3 March 1939
Member of the 17th Secretariat
In office 1 February 1935 – 3 March 1939
Personal details
Born	Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (1895-05-01)May 1, 1895 St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	February 4, 1940(1940-02-04) (aged 44) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Citizenship	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Spouse(s)	Antonia Titova (1919-1930) Yevgenia Feigenberg (1930-1938; her death; 1 child)
Children	Natalia Nikolaevna Yezhova, later Natalia Khayutina (adopted)
Signature
Nickname(s)	Russian: Ежевика (Blackberry) Iron Hedgehog

Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian : Николай Иванович Ежов : May 1, 1895 in St Petersburg, Russian Empire – February 4, 1940 in Moscow, RSFSR, Soviet Union) was the leader of the Soviet secret police (the NKVD). He worked for Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938, during the Great Purge.

Yezhov was born on May 1, 1895 in the Russian Empire. His exact birthplace is uncertain. It may have been in St Petersburg, Russia, or in the Lithuanian cities of Veiveriai, Marijampolė, or Kaunas in Imperial Russia.

Career

Yezhov joined the Bolsheviks in April 1917, led by Vladimir Lenin a few months before the October Revolution. He was known as a determined loyalist of Joseph Stalin. In 1935 he wrote a paper in which he argued that political opposition must eventually lead to violence and terrorism. This became part of the ideology behind the Purges.

He became head of the NKVD in early 1937, after the dismissal of Genrikh Yagoda. Under Yezhov, the purges reached their worst. Around half of Soviet political and military leaders were exiled or shot, along with hundreds of thousands of others suspected of disloyalty or wrecking.

Arrest & execution

Eventually, in November 1938, Stalin dismissed Yezhov from his post and demoted him to the post of Commissar of Water Transport.

Less than a year later, Yezhov was arrested and put on trial for excesses committed during the Purges. In his defence, Yezhov said that he regretted only that he had not punished enough counter-revolutionaries.

Yezhov was found guilty and was probably executed secretly in 1940.