Dmitry Uspensky is an exemplary lieutenant colonel of the internal service, the head of many camp units. His achievement list very impressive, and the work is marked with orders. But many people know Uspensky under the nicknames “amateur executioner”, “Solovetsky Napoleon”, “artist”. What did the exemplary security officer do to deserve them?

Parricide

Dmitry Vladimirovich Uspensky was born in 1902 into the family of a priest. On the threshold of the revolution, he realized that with such a biography he would not have to expect anything good from the Soviet authorities - questionnaires, persecution, exile - and found a way out of the situation - he killed his own father and explained his act by class hatred. Murder due to such strong ideological convictions at that time was not considered the most severe form of crime, so Uspensky was sentenced to 10 years. He was released a year later, and the conviction was subsequently annulled.

“Amateur executioner” in Solovki

In 1920, Uspensky began serving in the Cheka, and in 1927 he was sent to the Solovetsky special-purpose camp. There he quickly took over the post of head of the educational department. But in fact, his activities had nothing to do with education and enlightenment. He was a real camp executioner not according to job description, but at will. Uspensky was not obliged to engage in executions and did it, as he himself said, “out of love for art.” For this, he became the owner of the nickname “amateur executioner.”

Participation in executions

The head of the educational department of the Solovetsky camp took part in executions many times. Three episodes became the most famous. On the night of October 28-29, 1929, Uspensky himself took part in a mass execution that killed 400 people. His action was highly appreciated by the leadership; he almost immediately received the position of head of the Solovetsky branch of USLON.

In 1930, shortly after his promotion, Uspensky took the initiative to shoot devout peasants from Siberia and the Volga region. Through his sincere efforts, 148 name-slavers were killed.

On June 20, 1931, an “amateur executioner” dealt with a disabled woman, anarchist Evgenia Yaroslavskaya-Marcon. The reason for the execution was the accusation leveled against her by Uspensky that she was “preparing an assassination attempt on him.” During the shot, she attempted to escape, and Uspensky missed. Then he caught up with the woman, hit her with the hilt of a revolver and, falling unconscious, trampled on her until she died.

"Solovetsky Napoleon"

During his service on Solovki, Uspensky acquired another nickname - “Solovetsky Napoleon”. And there were several reasons for this. Firstly, like his great prototype, Dmitry Vladimirovich was a controversial figure - on the one hand, a monster and an unprincipled killer, on the other, a competent leader who, in spite of everything, pursued his tough policy and received only praise from senior management for his exemplary service . His big plans, unscrupulous actions and absolute ruthlessness were also reflected in this nickname, which was awarded to him by prisoners and subordinates. Some eyewitnesses also claimed that Dmitry Uspensky had some similarities with the great and terrible Bonaparte.

Camp permissiveness

Occupying a leadership position in the camp, Uspensky did whatever he wanted: he drank, committed outrages and carried out his own judgment on the prisoners. He forced women into cohabitation. His actions received wide publicity after forcing Natalia Andreeva to be close to him. Since this case was not the only one, in 1932 Dmitry Uspensky came under investigation. But the first deputy people's commissar of the OGPU, G. G. Yagoda, who had a good disposition towards the “amateur executioner,” stopped the case. The injured woman was released, and Uspensky was forced to take her as his wife. As a wedding gift, Uspensky received from Yagoda an appointment to the post of head of the Belbaltlag. From that moment on, he became the manager of the lives and destinies of a huge number of “builders of communism” who erected the White Sea Canal.

As for his wife, she escaped at the first opportunity, but her husband, gifted with power, took revenge on her - she was arrested again and sentenced to 8 years in the camps.

Service in Belbaltlag

Having taken a leadership position in the new camp, Uspensky did not change his usual behavior. The nickname “Solovetsky Napoleon” merged so firmly with Uspensky’s personality that it “wandered” from camp to camp. In Belbaltlag, he continues to show cruelty, participating in various types of punishments. The only thing, after the legal precedent, is that he became more careful in his relations with female prisoners.

"The Artist" in Dmitlag

In 1936-1937, Uspensky headed Dmitlag - one of largest concentration camps in the Gulag system. Here his behavior took on a new scale - he shifted many of the reprisals onto his assistants and subordinates, and besides, there were so many who were suitable for the role of potential victims that it was not impossible to deal with everyone personally.

Dmitry Vladimirovich’s favorite “entertainment” here was the execution of young attractive women. He did this in a sophisticated manner. Before the executions, Ouspensky forced women to pose naked, making pencil sketches. Because of this hobby, he earned another nickname - “the artist.”

End of career

After Nikolai Yezhov, People's Commissar of the NKVD, was removed from his post, the fate of people like Uspensky was determined: they were led to execution. And here Uspensky was luckier than others - after a conversation with the security officer Vlodzimirsky, he was “exiled” to Naryan-Mar, tasked with leading the Polarlag.

It is interesting that here he parted with his “arts” and excesses. According to contemporaries, Uspensky received a warning: one such trick would lead to execution. This change of tactics proves that the reason for his atrocities was not his convictions or mental deviations, but impunity and permissiveness.

Subsequently, Dmitry Uspensky held leadership positions in various camps in remote corners of the country. His career includes Sevpechlag, Perevallag, Nizhamurlag, Sakhalinlag.

In 1952, he was fired from the Ministry of State Security, and on March 17, 1953, Uspensky was sent into retirement, awarded the title “Personal Pensioner of Union Significance.” The executioner lived a long life and died of natural causes in 1989.

On the same topic:

Dmitry Uspensky: what made him become an executioner “Solovetsky Napoleon”: how the “amateur executioner” Dmitry Uspensky ended his days

Characteristic types and fates of executioners

“By not punishing, not even blaming the villains, we are not just protecting their insignificant old age - we are thereby tearing out all the foundations of justice from under new generations.”

A. I. Solzhenitsyn

Many cruel and bloody executioners left their mark on Soviet Russia. History has preserved the names of many of them. Viktor Vygodsky’s work “Crimes without Punishment” gives the names of about 10 thousand executioners and their accomplices. Studying the documents of the Special Investigation Commission gives an answer to the question from what source were the personnel of the first Cheka executioners drawn. Let us quote a fragment from the summary of documents “On the atrocities and lawlessness of the Bolsheviks” (No. 53434, November 17, 1919, Rostov-on-Don). “...On April 6, 1918, in the city of Yeisk, the Bolsheviks arrested Mr. Rudenko for a toast in honor of General Kornilov, starved him in solitary confinement, stripped him, searched him, and only three months later he was released for payment of 1,000 rubles. According to his testimony, on May 4, an Extraordinary Commission of 40 scoundrels arrived there and on the same day shot 10 prisoners, 70 officers, 1 priest and others who were traveling home from the Caucasus. They killed like robbers...According to information reported by Mr. Rudenko, the detachment of Red Army soldiers from Yeisk and the Bolsheviks included the detachment's commissar, Fedka Mitskevich, a convict who served 8 years in prison for counterfeiting credit cards; Khomyakov, a sailor who spent 12 years in hard labor for the murder of a family in Vladivostok; detachment commissioner nicknamed or named Zhloba, surname unknown; Counterintelligence Commissioner Kolosov, without a nose, sentenced to eight years of hard labor for the murder of a girl; Kolesnikov, member of the Yeisk Council - a famous thief; Voronin, who was in Yeisk prison for stabbing; Gotarov, son of the famous Yeisk thief; Vasiliev, sailor, assistant commissar of the flotilla, convict; 6 members of the Extraordinary Commission are convicts who served 8-10 years of hard labor for participating in the “Steppe Devils” gang.”

The characteristic image of the executioner of the first years of Soviet power is described in the work of Alexei Teplyakov “Siberia: the procedure for executing death sentences in the 1920-1930s,” where the author cites the memoirs of the former assistant to the OGPU commissioner Spiridon Kartashov, who retired early due to his illness. seizures of epilepsy: “I had hatred, but at first I didn’t know how to kill, I learned. During the Civil War I served in CHON. We caught deserters from the Red Army in the forests and shot them on the spot. Once they caught two white officers, and after the execution I was ordered to trample them on horseback to see if they were dead. One was alive, and I finished him off...I personally shot thirty-seven people, big number sent to camps. I know how to kill people without a shot being heard. The secret is this: I force the mouth to open and shoot (there) closely. I just feel warm blood, like cologne, but I can’t hear a sound. I know how to do this - kill. If it weren’t for the seizures, I wouldn’t have retired so early.” From the great variety of executioners of all categories and ranks who have become famous, it is difficult to single out the most “worthy” and “deserved”, that is, the most bloody, because almost all Cheka employees were involved in executions. Among ordinary performers, Stepan Afanasyevich Saenko (1886–1973) can be named as a reference.

Former convict Sayenko in 1919 served as commander of the commandant platoon of the Kharkov check, then commandant of the Cheka and a concentration camp under the Cheka. Historian S.P. Melgunov notes that, despite the fact that it was dubbed a “camp for bourgeois” by the Kharkov Soviet authorities, its prisoners were representatives of all classes and especially peasants. The camp was located in the former building of the Kharkov convict prison (20). It was at this time that Sayenko committed most of the atrocities attributed to him. The photographs of corpses taken in the courtyard of the Kharkov Cheka after the liberation of the city by the Whites are stunning. The executioners used brutal torture, including cutting off the genitals, scalping and removing gloves from the hands. The Cheka had a Chinese company, whose “fighters” tortured those arrested during interrogations and shot the doomed. Every day from 40 to 50 people were shot, and in last days(before the arrival of the Volunteer Army in Kharkov in June 1919), the intensity of executions increased. According to rough estimates, the Bolsheviks shot over 1,000 people in Kharkov.

Fate was more favorable to Sayenko than to other executioners. From 1924 until his retirement, he headed a number of enterprises in Kharkov, and while retired, he often told pioneers and Komsomol members in schools about the heroic struggle of the Bolsheviks for the happiness of the working people. The same executioners as Sayenko were in numerous Kyiv, Odessa and other Chekas. In Odessa, the chief executioner Vikhman was shot by his colleagues themselves “for sadism.” It is difficult to even imagine the appearance and deeds of this faithful Leninist (21: 181,301). The staff executioner of the Odessa Gubernia Cheka, V.I., was also a colorful personality. Yakovlev. For his services in the executioner field, he was appointed chairman of the Odessa provincial Cheka, but he worked in this position for only a month - from the end of July to the end of August 1920. However, even in such a short period of time, he went down in the history of Odessa by shooting his own father, considering him "counter-revolutionary" His mother, having learned about this, hanged herself (22:21).

No less difficult is the task of choosing the “most worthy” executioner of a higher rank. From the large “iron cohort” of Dzerzhinsky’s associates, individuals such as Latsis, Atarbekov, Kedrov and Redens clearly stand out. One of the most terrible executioners who flooded Ukraine with blood was a prominent figure of the Cheka-OGPU, the head of the All-Ukrainian Cheka, Latvian Martyn Ivanovich Latsis (real name - Jan Fridrikhovich Sudrabs) (1988–1938). Contemporaries point to Latsis's great personal cruelty. This assessment is confirmed both by materials collected by the Denikin commission, which investigated the actions of the All-Ukrainian Cheka, and by a number of sayings and actions of Latsis himself. Latsis wrote in the newspaper “Red Sword”: “For us there are no, and cannot be, the old principles of morality and “humanity” invented by the bourgeoisie for the oppression and exploitation of the “lower classes.” Our morality is new, our humanity is absolute, for it rests on the bright ideal of the destruction of all oppression and violence. Everything is allowed to us, for we were the first in the world to raise the sword not in the name of enslavement and oppression of anyone, but in the name of emancipation from oppression and slavery of all... The sacrifices we demand are saving sacrifices, sacrifices that pave the way to the Bright Kingdom of Labor and Freedom and Truth. Blood? Let it be blood, if only it can be used to paint scarlet the grey-white-black standard of the old robber world. For only the complete irrevocable death of this world will save us from the revival of the old jackals, those jackals with whom we end, end, end, and cannot end once and for all...” (23). To the words of Latsis, we can only add that in 1918 alone, the Cheka destroyed 3.3–4.9 times in Russia more people than “bloody tsarism” for 90 years (10,000-15,000 versus 3,015 people). Latsis was shot by his colleagues on the orders of the leader on March 20, 1938 and, as usual, rehabilitated.

No less odious a figure than Latsis was Georgy Aleksandrovich Atarbekov (born Atarbekyan) (1892–1925), a participant in the struggle for Soviet power in the North Caucasus. In 1918, he was deputy chairman of the North Caucasian Cheka, head of the Special Department of the Caspian-Caucasian Front. In 1919 - chairman of the Cheka in Astrakhan, then head of the Special Department and chairman of the tribunal on the Southern Front. In 1920, he was the head of the Special Department of the 9th Army, authorized by the Cheka for the Kuban-Black Sea region, authorized by the Cheka in Baku. Since 1921 - Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Northern Regions of Armenia, People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs of Transcaucasia. In the fall of 1918, Atarbekov, as chairman of the Cheka in Pyatigorsk, with a detachment of security officers, cut down hostages with swords, among whom were about 50 honored generals and colonels, while General N.V. The executioner personally stabbed Ruzsky with a dagger. There, in a mass grave, two months earlier, the last Kuban commissioned infantry general, Mikhail Pavlovich Babych, ended his life. The executioners, led by Atarbekov, broke the arms and legs of the 74-year-old ataman and buried him half-dead in the ground at the foot of Mount Mashuk...

During the retreat from Armavir, Atarbekov shot several thousand Georgians in the KGB basements - officers, doctors, nurses returning to their homeland after the war. When a White Guard detachment approached Yekaterinodar, he ordered the execution of about two thousand prisoners, most of whom were not guilty of anything. At the end of 1918, he appeared in Astrakhan and headed the Special Department of the Caspian-Caucasian Front. Political Commissar of the Intelligence Department of the Front Headquarters K.Ya. Grasis noted “dissatisfaction with the existing government of the local, especially Kalmyk and Kyrgyz population, generated by unheard-of violence and mockery of the commissars.” The workers went on strike, and one of them escalated into an uprising, which was brutally suppressed by the Cheka. Up to 2 thousand people aged 25 to 42 were shot. Some of the rebels were drowned by executioners under the leadership of “iron Gevork” from barges in the Volga.

Atarbekov shot the rebels with his own hands. The cruelty of the security officer, who said that he obeyed only Kirov, knew no limits and gave rise to legends. Surrounded by bodyguards of his fellow countrymen, he terrified the civilian population. The arbitrariness of the “iron Gevork,” who was compared to the “eastern king,” became so scandalous that, at the ultimatum of the Shock Communist Company, headed by the Bolshevik Aristov, he was removed from office. A resolution on this was adopted at the end of July 1919, and on September 4 of the same year he was taken under escort to Moscow. A special commission of the Party Central Committee established “the criminality of Atarbekov and other employees of the Astrakhan Special Department.” The security officer was saved from punishment by his patrons - Kamo, Ordzhonikidze and Stalin: they not only acquitted, but also promoted Atarbekov to his position (24). “Iron Gevork” died in a plane crash in Tbilisi.

The fate of the security officer Kedrov is also characteristic of the executioners of the Lenin-Stalin era. The revolution revealed the dark depths of the social underworld and brought to the surface many monsters, a significant part of which ended up in the ranks of the “armed detachment of the party” - the Cheka. Here they could give free rein to their sadistic tendencies with impunity, sending many human souls into oblivion. One of these monsters was the first head of the Special Department of the Cheka, Mikhail Sergeevich Kedrov. In a study about Dzerzhinsky, Roman Gul wrote: “In 1919, Dzerzhinsky sent Dr. M.S. Kedrov to pacify the North of Russia.” As the plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka for the Arkhangelsk, Vologda and North Dvina provinces, the half-crazed sadist Kedrov began to turn the North of Russia to communism. Due to the frozen sea and lack of roads, the white command was unable to organize evacuation. Only 2,500 people managed to leave the country, and more than 20,000 were captured. The first massacres of prisoners occurred immediately after the surrender of units of the White Army. Thus, out of a detachment of one and a half thousand officers who tried to leave Arkhangelsk for Murmansk on foot, more than 800 were shot almost immediately. This happened on February 28, 1920. The remaining prisoners of war were placed in a concentration camp established in Arkhangelsk, where they began to systematically exterminate. It was then that Kedrov acted as the organizer of the first Soviet concentration camps.

In his autobiography, located in his personal file, he wrote: “1919. Since January, Chairman of the Special Department of the All-Russian Cheka...Member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Part-time member of the NKVD board, head of the camps will force the work of the Republic... 1920. Since May, plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka for the Arkhangelsk, Vologda and North Dvina provinces. Member of the NKVD board, organizer of the Kholmogory, Pertominsky, Solovetsky camps.” “The concentration camps created by Kedrov were not intended for the temporary detention of those arrested or for serving their sentences. In essence, they were extermination camps, which predated the Nazi death factories by decades” (25).

The most terrible was the Kholmogory concentration camp. It was here, according to numerous testimonies of contemporaries and surviving documents, that mass executions took place. The executions were carried out by order and with the personal participation of Kedrov. Having assembled a party of 1,200 officers in Arkhangelsk, the head of the Special Department loaded them onto two barges, and when they arrived in Kholmogory, he ordered them to open fire with machine guns. In total, up to 600 people died as a result of this barbaric action. In the Kholmogory concentration camp alone, and in January-February 1921 alone, 11,000 people were killed. Executions continued in March and April. Thus, by order of Dzerzhinsky, over 400 officers and generals were executed in the Kholmogory region.

Along with the KGB bullets, prisoners were killed in large numbers by disease, hunger and cold. Even now, human bones and skulls are found in Kholmogory. In July 2010 on site mass death thousands of people a memorial cross was erected. On the orders of Kedrov and his wife, the “executioner in a skirt” Rebekka Plastinina (Maisel), the civilian population was also exterminated: sisters of mercy, priests, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, as well as peasants, whose sympathies were in the North in the years Civil War were mostly on the side of the whites. As eyewitnesses recalled, in Arkhangelsk there were many executions of children aged 12–16 years.

Many contemporaries who personally knew Mikhail Kedrov and his son Igor noted mental deviations in the behavior of both security officers. Mental disorders, apparently, were characteristic of the Kedrov family. It is known that Mikhail’s older brother also died mentally ill in a Kostroma psychiatric hospital. Facts indicating mental abnormalities during the investigative actions of Igor Kedrov and his father are cited in his book by the defector Orlov, who personally knew both of them (26). The appointment of Beria as head of the KGB department did not bode well for Kedrov. The fact is that in 1921, while checking the work of the Cheka in the Caucasus, Mikhail Sergeevich identified numerous violations on the part of Beria, who was at that time the chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka. Kedrov sent a memo on this matter to Dzerzhinsky, but thanks to the intercession of Mikoyan, Ordzhonikidze and Stalin, the matter did not develop.

Fearing revenge from Beria, Kedrov decided to be proactive and advised his son Igor, who worked in the NKVD, and his colleague and friend Vladimir Golubev to write and take to Stalin’s reception a letter, which reported on the alleged discovery of a conspiracy in the state security agencies, headed by Beria. A copy of the letter was given to Matvey Shkiryatov, deputy chairman of the Party Control Commission. The result of this action was the arrest and execution of Kedrov Jr. and his comrade. Having learned about the arrest of his son, Kedrov personally addressed the leader with a letter, in which he recalled his long-standing note addressed to Dzerzhinsky, as well as that “the NKVD seeks to isolate itself from the party,” and Beria deliberately destroys “the best party and military personnel” on the eve of the war. personnel" (27). As a result, Kedrov was arrested and held for a long time in the Lefortovo prison of the NKVD, where his colleagues beat him to confess to hostile activities, but did not admit guilt. At the trial on July 9, 1941, by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, composed of the presiding military lawyer M.G. Romanychev, military lawyer of the 1st rank A.A. Cheptsova, V.V. Bukanov, he was acquitted. Despite the acquittal, L.P. Beria gave instructions not to release Kedrov from prison. On October 27, 1941, Kedrov, on the personal order of Beria, along with other arrestees, was sent to the prison of the city of Kuibyshev and on October 28, 1941, he was shot there. In 1953 he was rehabilitated.

In 1956, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, during his report on Stalin’s personality cult, Khrushchev read a letter from Kedrov from prison: “From the gloomy cell of the Lefortovo prison, I appeal to you for help. Hear the cry of horror, do not pass by, intercede, help destroy the nightmare of interrogations, expose the mistake. I suffer innocently. Believe me. Time will show. I am not an agent provocateur of the tsarist secret police, not a spy, not a member of an anti-Soviet organization, which is what I am accused of, based on slanderous statements. And I have never committed any other crimes against the Party and the Motherland. I am an unsullied old Bolshevik, who honestly fought (for almost) 40 years in the ranks of the Party for the good and happiness of the people..... Now I, a 62-year-old old man, are threatened by investigators with even more severe and cruel and humiliating measures of physical coercion. They are no longer able to realize their mistake and admit the illegality and inadmissibility of their actions towards me. They seek justification for them by portraying me as the worst enemy who will not disarm and insisting on increased repression. But let the Party know that I am innocent and no measures will be able to turn the loyal son of the Party, devoted to it to the grave of his life, into an enemy. But I have no choice. I am powerless to avert the impending new, heavy blows. However, there is a limit to everything. I'm completely exhausted. Health is undermined, strength and energy are running out, and the end is approaching. To die in a Soviet prison with the stigma of a despicable traitor and traitor to the Motherland - what could be more terrible for an honest person. Horrible! Boundless bitterness and pain squeeze the heart with a spasm. No no! This won't happen, it shouldn't happen, I scream. And the Party, and the Soviet government, and People's Commissar L.P. Beria will not allow that cruel, irreparable injustice to happen. I am convinced that with a calm, impartial investigation, without disgusting swearing, without anger, without terrible bullying, the groundlessness of the accusations will be easily established. I deeply believe that truth and justice will prevail. I believe, I believe." It would be interesting to know: before the execution, did this faithful Leninist remember the thousands of lives he ruined?

A thick bloody trail also remained behind Stalin’s brother-in-law (husband of Nadezhda Alliluyeva’s sister, Stalin’s second wife), Pole Stanislav Frantsevich Redens (1892–1940). He worked in the Cheka since 1918 - as an investigator, secretary of the Presidium of the Cheka, and secretary of Dzerzhinsky. In 1919–1924 in leadership work in the Odessa GubChK. After Odessa, a thick bloody trail behind his “brother-in-law” remained in Kyiv, Kharkov, Crimea, Transcaucasia, Belarus, Moscow and the Moscow region and Kazakhstan, where he held senior positions in the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD. From June 1924 to 1926, he again worked as assistant to the chairman and secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR under Dzerzhinsky. Redens was one of the organizers of dispossession in Ukraine, mass terror in Moscow and the Moscow region, and repressions in the Red Army in 1937–1938. He headed the Moscow regional “troika” of the NKVD and repressions in Kazakhstan. His career was interrupted by his “brother-in-law” Stalin. In November 1938, Redens was arrested, and on January 21, 1940, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and executed on the same day. At the preliminary investigation and at the trial, Redens admitted the facts of his use of unjustified repression against many Soviet citizens.

In the process of evolution by the mid-1930s. the authorities bred a special breed of servicemen - loyal to the leader, constrained by the strictest discipline, inspired by the bright idea of ​​​​establishing a “paradise” on earth according to the Soviet model. They believed that to achieve this noble goal, absolutely all means are good. When selecting executioners, the leader and his henchmen preferred people who were uneducated and illiterate. It was calmer with them, especially at the upper echelons of power. Of the 46 People's Commissars of Internal Affairs and their deputies, only 15 studied at universities, and some limited themselves to primary education. Of the 175 names taken at random from the central office of the NKVD, the level of education was indicated for 121 security officers. Of these from higher education it turned out to be 9, and with the initial one - 77 people. On the ground, the picture is completely depressing (28: 230).

Almost all the heads of the central apparatus and regional leaders of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD began their path to the top of the pyramid from its lower steps, with “rough” work in the Cheka-OGPU. Characteristic in this regard is the career of Viktor Semenovich Abakumov (1908–1954), who by 1932 had a 4th grade education at a city school and experience working as an orderly, a packer and a worker in “various temporary and auxiliary” jobs. From 1932 to 1941, Abakumov went from a trainee in the OGPU of the Moscow region to the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the head of the Directorate of Special Departments of the NKVD of the USSR. From April 1943 to 1946, Colonel General Abakumov was the head of the Main Counterintelligence Directorate of SMERSH and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 he was the Minister of State Security of the USSR. While moving up the career ladder, from December 1938, Abakumov worked as acting chief, and after being confirmed in office from April 27, 1939 to 1941, as head of the NKVD department for the Rostov region and led the organization of mass repressions there. Possessing great physical strength, he sometimes personally brutally beat those under investigation (29).

The leader highly appreciated the merits of his henchmen: nice apartments(including due to the eviction of repressed families), salaries are five to ten times higher than the national average, orders and medals, high ranks. Lavrenty Beria became Marshal Soviet Union and equaled in rank Georgy Zhukov. Vsevolod Merkulov became the general of the army, key person repressive apparatus. The leader awarded the title of Colonel General to seven of Beria’s henchmen: Viktor Abakumov, Sergei Kruglov, Ivan Serov, Bogdan Kobulov, Vasily Chernyshev, Sergei Goglidze and Karp Pavlov. The executioner in a judge's robe Vasily Ulrich became Colonel General of Justice. Among the fifty lieutenant generals there are such eminent executioners as Vlodzimirsky, Gvishiani, Kobulov, Mamulov, Milshtein, Nasedkin, Raikhman, Rapava and Sudoplatov. The rank of major general was earned by Trotsky's murderer Naum Eitingon and the country's chief executioner Vasily Blokhin. The leader also awarded the high rank of lieutenant general to his personal cook, childhood playmate Alexander Egnatashvili (30: 346).

Egnatashvili ensured “food security” for the leader. He was responsible for food quality and was Stalin's personal taster. Surrounded by the leader, Egnatashvili received the nickname Rabbit. He was always next to Stalin, no matter where he was. Rabbit was also responsible for large banquets in the Kremlin, which were given in honor of foreign guests - for example, Ribbentrop in 1939 or Churchill in 1942 - and private dinners at Stalin's dachas for members of the Politburo. He himself participated in dinners in a narrow circle. The NKVD authorities arrested and shot the wife of Alexander Yegnatoshvili, a German by origin, but Rabbit continued to taste the dictator’s food. Subordinate to Egnatashvili, an experienced and trusted chef worked at one of Stalin’s dachas, who at one time served Rasputin and Lenin, and now Stalin. This was the grandfather of President Vladimir Putin, Spiridon Ivanovich Putin. Running in the 2000s. to become president, Putin proudly spoke about this fact from the history of his family, but noted that his grandfather, while remaining a loyal security officer, did not reveal a single secret of his outstanding career until the very end.

The leader was wise and knew that witnesses to crimes must be removed in time. He also understood that executions were the only way to keep people mad from human blood in their hands. Otherwise, they can rush at the owner, just as a pack of wolves rushes at the leader, sensing weakness in him. Therefore, periodically the leader’s henchmen were destroyed and replaced with new ones. Genrikh Yagoda was executed, and then his former deputies Agranov and Prokofiev and the heads of leading departments Artuzov, Bokiy, Gai, Shanin, Mironov, Molchanov, Pauker and others were shot. Yagoda’s successor, General Commissioner of State Security and head of the NKVD, Yezhov, having fulfilled the leader’s plans, was also executed on his orders. And, as usual, members of the “Yezhov gang” were executed next, which included Frinovsky, Zakovsky, Berman, Dagin, Nikolaev-Zhurid, Evdokimov, Radzivilovsky and many other executioners.

The brilliant career of the next Minister of State Security, Abakumov, also ended tragically. In July 1951, he was arrested on charges of high treason, a Zionist conspiracy in the MGB, and attempts to prevent the development of the “Doctors' Case.” He pleaded not guilty and was shot on December 19, 1954 in the Levashovsky forest.

Next on this bloody conveyor belt, already a different leader, N.S. Khrushchev, one of the main organizers was appointed Stalin's repressions, Marshal of the Soviet Union, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and at the same time Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria. He was a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1934–1953), a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939–1946), a member of the Politburo (1946–1953), a member State Committee Defense of the USSR (1941–1944) and deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee (1944–1945) and was part of I.V. Stalin’s inner circle. Oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation nuclear weapons and rocket technology. Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Stalin Prize, awarded five Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, Order of Suvorov 1st degree and other awards. June 26, 1953 L.P. Beria was arrested on charges of espionage, conspiracy to seize power, moral corruption, abuse of power and organizing illegal repressions. According to official information, on December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I.S. Koneva. Beria was sentenced to death and executed on the same day (a few hours before the execution of the other convicts in his case) in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, the first shot at Beria was allegedly fired from his personal weapon by Colonel General (soon Marshal of the Soviet Union) P.F. Batitsky (31). Beria's body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery (according to other statements, Beria's ashes were scattered over the Moscow River) (32).

According to Beria's son Sergo, his father was killed without trial on June 26, 1953 in his house on Malonikitskaya Street in Moscow (33: 384). On December 23, 1953, “members of the Beria gang” were shot: Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, Dekanozov and Vlodzimirsky. Among those executed in the Beria case was Army General Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov. He was part of Beria's inner circle and worked with him since the early 1920s. and enjoyed his personal trust. His Chekist career under the leadership of Beria began in September 1921 in the position of assistant commissioner, and then commissioner and senior commissioner of the economic department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia. Unlike the version of voluntary admission of a nobleman and tsarist officer Merkulov to serve in the Cheka, there is information about his forced involvement in cooperation as an informant “for white officers” (34). Merkulov in 1938–1941 headed the GUGB NKVD of the USSR, in 1941 and 1943–1946. - Minister of State Security and in 1950–1953. - Minister of State Control of the USSR. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on March 5, 1940, he headed the “troika” of the NKVD, which decided on death sentences for interned Polish citizens (35). On September 18, 1953, Merkulov was arrested in connection with the Beria case and was in solitary confinement in Butyrka. On December 23, 1953 he was shot at 21:20. He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery. By the ruling of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated May 29, 2002, Beria and Merkulov were recognized as not subject to rehabilitation.

Punishment overtook almost all the executioners. Some of them, before their well-deserved reckoning, remembered God. According to security officer Orlov, after Yagoda’s arrest, Yezhov, fearing that Yagoda would lose his mind and be unsuitable for the court performance, asked the head of the Foreign Directorate of the NKVD, Slutsky, to visit Yagoda in his cell from time to time. Yagoda did not hide in front of Slutsky. He openly outlined to him his hopeless situation and bitterly complained that Yezhov would, in a few months, destroy such a wonderful machine as the NKVD, which he had to work on for fifteen years to create. During one of these meetings, one evening, when Slutsky was about to leave, Yagoda told him: “You can write in your report to Yezhov that I say: “Probably God does exist after all!”” “What is it?” - Slutsky asked in surprise, slightly taken aback by the tactless mention of the “report to Yezhov.” “Very simple,” Yagoda answered, either seriously or jokingly. - From Stalin I deserved nothing but gratitude for my faithful service; I had to deserve the most severe punishment from God for breaking his commandments a thousand times. Now look where I am and judge for yourself: there is a God or not...” (36:169).

At the end of November 1954, it was officially announced that one of the organizers of Stalin’s repressions, Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, died suddenly of a heart attack in New York on November 22, 1954 (37). Vyshinsky's corpse was cremated, and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall. However, information has now appeared on the website of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation that he committed suicide (38). The news of Stalin's death caught Vyshinsky in New York. He went to the funeral and returned to New York to once again head the Soviet delegation to the UN. When news of Beria's execution arrived in New York, Vyshinsky realized that both his career and life were hanging by a thread. People who observed him then at the UN unanimously noted that Vyshinsky immediately faded, aged, and somehow weakened his recent aggressive manner of speech. This was especially striking in the autumn months of 1954. “Vyshinsky was poisoned” - under this title the newspaper “Russian Thought” published an article in France on April 24, 1956. “According to strictly secret data available to CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, the main delegate of the USSR to the UN, did not die of his own death on November 22, 1954, but was poisoned by a specially sent agent from Moscow. At the end of October or beginning of November he was summoned to Moscow “to present a report and receive new instructions.” Vyshinsky himself more than once practiced this kind of “challenge” of diplomats and was well aware of what was threatening him. Under various pretexts, he delayed his departure to Moscow - and did not go. It is believed that Vyshinsky was preparing to become a defector and ask American government about granting him asylum as a political emigrant. Then, on November 19, 1954, a special MGB agent arrived from Moscow to New York with a diplomatic passport and poisoned Vyshinsky. On November 22 at 9.15 am, the Soviet delegation officially announced that Vyshinsky had died suddenly at breakfast from a heart attack indoors Soviet mission UN, located at 680 Park Avenue. No outsiders - diplomats, journalists, police officers - were allowed into the mission premises. The death certificate for Vyshinsky was signed by “Dr. Alexei Kossov,” the official physician of the Soviet embassy in Washington and the Soviet UN delegation in New York.

At the same time, a conflict arose between the American police authorities, who did not want to recognize the act drawn up by “Doctor Alexei Kossov,” who did not have a license to practice medicine in the state of New York, and the Soviet delegation. The police also wanted to examine Vyshinsky's body, but they were not allowed. On the morning of November 23, Vyshinsky’s corpse was taken by special plane to Moscow. An agent with a diplomatic passport, who had arrived from Moscow four days earlier, and the embassy “Doctor Kossov,” who never returned to America, flew away with him.

Thus, of the entire “iron” cohort of Bolshevik-Leninists, only Colonel General of Justice Vasily Ulrich died a natural death. One of the main perpetrators of Stalin's repressions in the post of Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR died in 1951 from a myocardial infarction. Buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. The fate of executioners at the republican and regional level can be traced through the example of the fate of the leaders of the NKVD “troikas” in the “repression of the kulak-criminal element.” At the end of October 1937, People's Commissar Yezhov sent a letter to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks addressed to Stalin with a request to approve the chairmen of special “troikas” for 16 republics and regions “in view of the changes that have occurred in the personnel of the leadership of the republican people’s commissariats and regional departments.” At the Politburo meeting on November 2, 1937, the new 16 chairmen of the “troikas” were approved (Minutes No. 55, paragraph 76). It was signed by Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich. Mikoyan, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Chubar and Andreev voted “for” (apparently by poll). Sixteen punitive forces began work at the height of the repression, and through their efforts tens of thousands of people were killed. How did their sinful path end?

Nasedkin Aleksey Alekseevich (1897-01/26/1940) - Major of the State Security Service, Smolensk region. Arrested on December 20, 1938. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Deitch Yakov Abramovich (1898-09/27/1938) - GB Commissioner of the III rank, Rostov region. Arrested on March 29, 1938. Died in prison during the investigation. Not rehabilitated; Zhuravlev Viktor Pavlovich (1902-01.12.1946) - senior major of the State Security Service, Kuibyshev region. Committed suicide; Grechukhin Dmitry Dmitrievich (1903-02/23/1939) - GB major, Krasnoyarsk region. Arrested on December 3, 1938. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Khvorostyan Viktor Vasilievich (1903-06/21/1939) - major GB, Armenian SSR. Arrested in February 1939. Died in Butyrka prison. Not rehabilitated; Apresyan Derenik Zakharovich (1899-02.22.1939) - Major GB, Uzbek SSR Arrested in November 1938. In February 1939, convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to military service. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Zagvozdin Nikolai Andreevich (1898-01/21/1940) - senior major of the GB, Tajik SSR Arrested on February 9, 1939. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Mikhelson Arthur Ivanovich (1898–1939) - GB major (1937), Crimean ASSR. Arrested in December 1938. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Mikhailov Vasily Ivanovich (1901-02/02/1940) - captain of the GB, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Arrested in January 1939. On February 1, 1940, sentenced to VMN. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Medvedev Alexander Alexandrovich (1900-06/25/1940) - captain of the GB, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Arrested in January 1939. Sentenced to VMN. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Tkachev Vasily Alekseevich (1896-11/18/1941) - colonel, Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. On June 26, 1941 he was sentenced to VMN. Shot; Karnaukh Nazar Vasilievich (1900 - after 1955) - captain of the GB (1937), Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. On May 14, 1939 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Released early due to illness on July 7, 1954. Not rehabilitated; Mirkin Semyon Zakharovich (1901–1940) - employee of state security agencies, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Shot in 1940. Not rehabilitated; Ivanov Nikita Ivanovich (1900-01/21/1940) - major GB, Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Arrested on January 7, 1939. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Lotsmanov Ivan Petrovich (1903-01/26/1940) - colonel, Kirghiz SSR. Arrested in 1939. On January 25, 1940, sentenced to VMN. Shot. Not rehabilitated; Volodzko Pavel Vasilievich (1888–1951) - Major of the State Security Service, Alma-Ata region. Arrested in 1938. Sentenced to 15 years in prison. Died in a forced labor camp.

Thus, out of sixteen selected executioners, eleven were shot, two died in prison, one committed suicide, one died in the camp and only one survived after 15 years of imprisonment in the camps. This is Stalin’s gratitude for their hard “work”. In fairness, it should be noted that in the NKVD there were employees who, although passively, resisted lawlessness. Such people were rare, but they did exist. Among them can be named Salyn Eduard Petrovich (1894-26 August 1938), head of the NKVD Directorate for the Omsk Region. By a Politburo resolution of July 2, 1937, signed by Stalin, he was approved as the head of the “troika” for “rooting out” enemies in the Omsk region. The same decree ordered that 479 people in the region be shot and 1,959 people deported. And although the number of repressed people in the region was lower than in neighboring regions, Salyn tried to protest this decision. Chekist Mikhail Shrader described what was happening this way: “I declare with all responsibility,” Salyn said calmly and decisively, “that in the Omsk region there are not such a number of enemies of the people and Trotskyists. And in general, I consider it completely unacceptable to pre-determine the number of people to be arrested and shot. - This is the first enemy who revealed himself! - Yezhov shouted, abruptly cutting off Salyn. And he immediately called the commandant, ordering Salyn’s arrest. The rest of the meeting participants were completely depressed by everything that had happened, and no one else dared to object to Yezhov.” Salyn was arrested on August 10, 1937. Shot (39); (40:42).

The head of the NKVD department for the Far Eastern Territory, Terenty Dmitrievich Deribas, also refused to make arrests based on falsified testimony. Arrested on charges of “espionage, sympathy for Trotskyism and organizing a number of conspiracies in the NKVD and the Red Army,” on July 28, 1938, he was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on the same day at the Kommunarka training ground (41). It is also known about investigator Glebov, who “began to pressure Yakir into refusing to testify.” Glebov was removed from further participation in the investigation and subsequently shot. We also know about security officers who, not wanting to follow the criminal path, committed suicide. This is how Yezhov’s deputy Kursky and the heads of the regional NKVD departments Karutsky, Kapustin and Volkov passed away. In 1936, the secretary of the Gorlovka city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, V.Ya. Furer, committed suicide. (1904–1936), who “created” Nikita Izotov and Alexei Stakhanov and organized great advertising for them. In a letter to Stalin, he wrote that he was deciding to commit suicide because he could not come to terms with the arrests and executions of innocent people. According to Khrushchev, when discussing Fuhrer’s letter, Stalin said: “The Fuhrer shot himself, this worthless man. He took it upon himself to characterize the members of the Politburo, wrote all sorts of flattering words addressed to the members of the Politburo. It was he who was disguised. He is a Trotskyist and like-minded person of Livshits. I called you to tell you about this. He is a dishonest man and should not be pitied. He shot himself in order to deceive the party for the last time before his death by suicide and put it in a stupid position” (42). Peace be upon them! However, the reason for the death of most of them was not resistance to the criminal regime, but Stalin’s planned “purges,” when layer by layer some security officers were destroyed, and others took their place.

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The name of the permanent executioner of the Stalin era, Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, is heard today. His signature is attached to a huge number of acts on the execution of execution sentences stored in the Lubyanka archives. For people not privy to...

The name of the permanent executioner of the Stalin era, Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, is heard today. His signature is attached to a huge number of acts on the execution of execution sentences stored in the Lubyanka archives.

People not privy to the intricacies of Blokhin’s executioner’s craft had to experience shock and awe when they saw him in action. One of the rare testimonies was left by the head of the NKVD for the Kalinin region, Dmitry Tokarev. He spoke about the arrival in Kalinin in the spring of 1940 of a group of high-ranking NKVD workers led by Blokhin to shoot the Poles held in the Ostashkov camp. When everything was ready for the start of the first execution, Blokhin, as Tokarev said, came after him: “Well, let’s go...” We went, and then I saw all this horror... Blokhin put on his special clothes: a brown leather cap, a long brown leather apron , brown leather gloves with cuffs above the elbows. It made a huge impression on me - I saw the executioner!” On the first night, the team led by Blokhin shot 343 people. In the following days, Blokhin ordered that no more than 250 people be delivered to him for execution. In the spring of 1940, under the leadership and with the direct participation of Blokhin, 6,311 Polish prisoners of war were shot in Kalinin. It can be assumed that with such a “shock” action he doubled his previous personal count of those executed.

In relation to Tokarev, who was not directly involved in the executions, Blokhin showed the condescending “nobility” of a professional executioner, aware that not everyone is capable of what he is capable of. When compiling a list of participants in the executions for bonuses, he included the head of the NKVD Tokarev in it...

Who was this man, whose hand carried out Stalin’s tyranny?

The meager lines of his autobiography tell us that he was born in 1895 in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Suzdal district, Ivanovo region, into the family of a poor peasant. From 1905, while studying, he worked as a shepherd, then as a mason, and also worked on his father’s farm. On June 5, 1915, he enlisted as a private in the 82nd Infantry Regiment in Vladimir and rose to the rank of junior non-commissioned officer. From June 2, 1917 - senior non-commissioned officer of the 218th Gorbatovsky infantry regiment on the German front, was wounded, was treated in a hospital in Polotsk until December 29, 1917. Then, until October 1918, remaining aloof from political storms, he worked as a peasant on his father’s farm, and on October 25, 1918, he volunteered to serve in the Yanovsky volost military registration and enlistment office of the Suzdal region. Soon Blokhin made his own political choice- in April 1921 he joined communist party and immediately, on May 25, 1921, he was assigned to the 62nd battalion of the Cheka troops in Stavropol.

Now his KGB career is developing. From November 24, 1921, he was a platoon deputy commander in a special-purpose detachment at the Collegium of the Cheka, from May 5, 1922, a platoon commander there, and from July 16, 1924, assistant commander of the 61st special-purpose division at the OGPU Collegium. On August 22, 1924, Blokhin was promoted to the post of Commissioner of Special Assignments of the Special Branch of the OGPU Collegium. Now, among other things, his responsibilities include carrying out execution sentences. And indeed, since the spring of 1925, Blokhin’s signature is regularly found under execution certificates. Perhaps he would have continued to be just one of the ordinary executioners, but a high vacancy suddenly opened up. On March 3, 1926, Blokhin was appointed acting commandant of the OGPU (instead of the absent K.I. Weiss). And already on June 1, 1926, Blokhin was confirmed in this position.

The fate of his predecessor Karl Weiss was unenviable. OGPU Order No. 131/47 dated July 5, 1926, signed by Yagoda, stated the reasons for his removal from office and conviction: “On May 31, 1926, by a resolution of the OGPU Collegium, the Commandant of the Cheka/OGPU Weiss Karl Ivanovich was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment with severe isolation on charges of relations with employees of foreign missions, obvious spies. Based on the established data available in the case, Weiss is characterized as completely decomposed, having lost all understanding of the responsibility that lay on him as a security officer and communard, and did not stop in the face of the fact of extreme discrediting of the United State Political Administration, of which he was an employee.”

Unlike Weiss, Blokhin behaved correctly and worked continuously as commandant for many years until his retirement.

While at work at the OGPU, Blokhin passed his college tests as an external student in 1932, and completed 3 years of the construction department at the Institute for Advanced Training of Engineering and Technical Workers. But that was where his education ended.

The firing squad, or “special group,” as it was called in the documents, operating under the leadership of Blokhin, was formed from employees of different units. In the late 1920s - early 1930s, there were employees of a special department at the OGPU Collegium, which was responsible for protecting Soviet leaders and Stalin personally. That is, they combined the work of protecting the leaders with participation in regular executions of “enemies of the people.” In the staff of the central apparatus of the OGPU they were listed as “commissars for special assignments”: A.P. Rogov, I.F. Yusis, F.I. Sotnikov, R.M. Gabalin, A.K. Chernov, P.P. Pakaln, J.F. Rodovansky. Another part of the performers served in the OGPU commandant's office. This is Blokhin himself, as well as P.I. Mago and V.I. Shigalev. Later, the “special group” included I.I. Shigalev (brother of V.I. Shigalev), P.A. Yakovlev (head of the government garage, then head of the OGPU automobile department), I.I. Antonov, A.D. Dmitriev, A.M. Emelyanov, E.A. Mach, I.I. Feldman, D.E. Semenikhin.

The fate of the executioners was not easy. They were seen quite rarely in families, and when they came after night “work”, they were most often drunk. And how can you not drink while doing such a villainous activity? It is not surprising that the performers died early, before their time, or went crazy. Grigory Khrustalev died a natural death - in October 1930; Ivan Yusis - in 1931; Peter Mago - in 1941; Vasily Shigalev - in 1942, and his brother Ivan Shigalev - in 1945. Many retired due to disability due to schizophrenia, like Alexander Emelyanov, or a neuropsychiatric illness, like Ernst Mach.

But the repressions did not spare the executioners themselves. Some of them fell into the hands of Blokhin - they were taken to the execution room as victims. So in 1937, Grigory Golov, Petr Pakaln, Ferdinand Sotnikov were shot. I wonder what Blokhin and Mago felt when they shot their former comrades?

Particularly unnerving to the executioners were certain condemned prisoners who glorified Stalin at the time of execution. Heading a group of executioners who carried out the decisions of the “troika” of the NKVD of the Moscow region in 1937-1938, Isai Berg, being arrested, testified that he received strict instructions from his superiors to “not allow such phenomena in the future” and among the employees of the NKVD special group to “raise mood, try to prove to them that the people they are shooting are enemies.” Although Berg immediately admitted: “We shot a lot of innocent people.”

Berg became famous for the fact that with his direct participation in the Moscow NKVD, a “gas chamber” machine was created, in which the condemned were killed by exhaust gas. In part, this saved the nerves of the Moscow executioners. They loaded the living into the Taganskaya or Butyrskaya prisons - they unloaded the dead into Butovo, and all the work. And no praise to Stalin. Berg himself explained to the investigation that without such an improvement, “it would have been impossible to carry out such a large number of executions.”

And in the central group of executioners under the leadership of Blokhin, they were ordered to “carry out educational work among those sentenced to death so that at such an inopportune moment they would not sully the name of the leader.”

In 1937-1938, Blokhin took part in the most notorious executions. He commanded the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and high-ranking military officers sentenced along with him. Present at the execution were USSR Prosecutor Vyshinsky and Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Ulrich. Sometimes the “iron commissar” Yezhov himself indulged in his presence. Under him, the execution took on the features of an artistic production. In the fall of 1937: “Before the execution of his former friend Yakovlev, Yezhov placed him next to him to watch the execution of the sentence.” Yakovlev, standing next to Yezhov, addressed him with the following words: “Nikolai Ivanovich! I see in your eyes that you feel sorry for me.” Yezhov did not answer, but was noticeably embarrassed and immediately ordered Yakovlev to be shot.

An equally memorable scene took place when, in March 1938, the sentence in the case of Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda and other convicts was carried out at the demonstration “Trial of the Right-Trotskyist Bloc.” Yagoda was the last to be shot, and before that he and Bukharin were put on chairs and forced to watch as the sentence was carried out against other convicts. Yezhov was present and, most likely, was the author of such a sophisticated undertaking. Moreover, before the execution, Yezhov ordered the head of the Kremlin security Dagin to beat the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yagoda: “Come on, give it to him for all of us.” At the same time, the shooting of Bulanov’s drinking companion upset Yezhov, and he even ordered that he be given cognac first.

It's amazing how many of our own former colleagues, and the bosses, whom he had previously stared into the mouth, were shot by Blokhin. Closeness to the exposed leadership of the NKVD could cost him his own life. But Stalin valued reliable “performers,” and for some reason he was not afraid that they, accustomed to shooting in the back of the head, constantly loomed behind him as security.

At the beginning of 1939, when Beria was in full force purging the NKVD of Yezhov’s cadres, material was received that Commandant Blokhin was too close to the former NKVD secretary Bulanov, and even to the executed People’s Commissar Yagoda himself. At the time, this was seen as evidence of participation in their “conspiratorial plans.” Beria, having prepared a decree for the arrest of Blokhin, went to Stalin for permission. However, to my surprise, I was refused. In 1953, Beria testified during the investigation: “I.V. is with me. Stalin did not agree, saying that there is no need to imprison such people, they do menial work. He immediately called the head of security N.S. Vlasik and asked him if Blokhin was involved in the execution of sentences and whether he should be arrested? Vlasik replied that he was participating and his assistant A.M. was participating with him. Rakov, and spoke positively about Blokhin.”

Beria, returning to his office, summoned Blokhin and the workers of the “special group” for a conversation. The People's Commissar reflected the results of the “educational” conversation in a decree sent to the archives that was never executed: “Sov. secret. I summoned Blokhin and the leading employees of the commandant's office, to whom I reported some of the testimony against them. They promised to work hard and continue to be devoted to the party and Soviet power. February 20, 1939 L. Beria.” Stalin did not return to the question of Blokhin again.

Usually the condemned were brought to the place of execution in Varsonofevsky Lane, where Blokhin and his team were waiting for them. But sometimes Blokhin himself had to go after the victim. This happened in 1940, when it was necessary to deliver former candidate member of the Politburo Robert Eiche, sentenced to VMN, from Sukhanovskaya prison to execution. Immediately before being sent to be executed, he was brutally beaten in Beria’s office in the Sukhanovskaya prison: “During the beating, Eikhe’s eye was knocked out and leaking out. After the beating, when Beria was convinced that he could not get any confession of espionage from Eikhe, he ordered him to be taken away to be shot.” And on February 6, 1940, Blokhin had the honor of shooting People’s Commissar Yezhov himself.

The management valued Blokhin. He quickly rose in rank: in 1935 - GB captain, in 1940 - GB major, in 1943 - GB colonel, in 1944 - GB commissar, and in July 1945 received the rank of major general. He was also generously showered with state awards: the Order of Lenin (1945), three Orders of the Red Banner (1940, 1944, 1949), Patriotic War I degree (1945), Red Banner of Labor (1943), Red Star (1936), “Badge of Honor” (1937), as well as two “Honorary Security Officer” badges and a gold watch. He was also awarded an honorary weapon - a Mauser, although he preferred to shoot with a German Walther (it didn’t get so hot).

When Blokhin’s tenure as commandant turned 20, he was awarded a bonus a passenger car"M-20" ("Victory"). It is noteworthy that Blokhin and his henchmen from the “special group” were usually generously rewarded not after, but before, serious execution campaigns. According to various estimates, the total number of people shot personally by Blokhin over all the years of his service at Lubyanka is at least 10-15 thousand people.

Immediately after Stalin’s death and Beria’s second rise to leadership of the “organs,” Blokhin was sent into retirement. Former commandant Blokhin, by order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 107 of April 2, 1953, was dismissed due to illness with a declaration of gratitude for 34 years of “impeccable service” in the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD of the USSR. As Beria explained, Blokhin was relieved of his position as “overstaying his time” - there was a bureaucratic term that denoted a long stay of an employee in the same position and the loss of proper activity and work efficiency. Although, as we know, Blokhin’s work was not sedentary at all, and his health suffered greatly from it.

So, in 1953, Blokhin was solemnly escorted to his well-deserved rest. After the death of the dictator, the need for his services disappeared. No, of course, the new commandant who replaced him, Colonel D.V. Brovkin did not risk being left without “night work” at all, it’s just that its scale immediately became not the same. Although the former victims were replaced by those who had previously carried out trials and reprisals themselves: under the new post-Stalin leadership, former henchmen of Beria and Abakumov began to be executed. Their cases were actively investigated, and it turned out that Blokhin also had no peace in retirement. He frequently attended interrogations in General Prosecutor's Office. During the investigation of the case of Beria and his closest henchmen, the truly invaluable knowledge of the former commandant was needed. After all, he was the performer of all the most important executions. And yet Blokhin was not included as a defendant, although he was the perpetrator of criminal acts. They probably decided: after all, this was just an executioner, carrying out orders. This is his job, and nothing personal.

After his dismissal, Blokhin was awarded a pension of 3,150 rubles for 36 years of service in the authorities. However, after the deprivation of the rank of general on November 23, 1954, the payment of pensions from the KGB was stopped. It is not clear whether he managed to obtain a regular old-age pension. According to a medical report, Blokhin suffered from grade 3 hypertension and died on February 3, 1955 from a myocardial infarction.

Ironically, Blokhin was buried in the same place where the ashes of most of his victims rest - at the Donskoye Cemetery. Although the bodies of those executed were burned here in the crematorium and the ashes were poured into nameless common pits, but a new beautiful tombstone with a portrait recently appeared on Blokhin’s grave. Don't forget!

On July 10, 1934, by resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs - NKVD - was formed. Perhaps one of the bloodiest organizations in history, only one word is firmly attached to them - execution.
Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing that the NKVD officers also caught real criminals, but they were also in charge of intelligence, counterintelligence and even public utilities. They were the “sword of the proletariat” that shed rivers of blood.
Many, of course, can say that they were only tools and carried out orders, but real sadists and butchers also served in the ranks of the organization. Let's remember them.

Vasily Blokhin

He was a true professional in his field, he personally sent about 20,000 people to the next world. From the very beginning of his career until its end, he was the permanent commander of the executions; it was Blokhin who was the one who shot the Poles at Katyn, where the death sentence was imposed on about 5,000 prisoners.

After service, Blokhin received many different awards and was a respected man with a bonus of 3,150 rubles. After Beria's arrest, he was stripped of all ranks, awards and pensions with the rank of major general. Died of a heart attack in 1955.

Sardion Nadaraya

Being a fellow countryman of Beria, Nadaraya built a fast and excellent career. After 11 years of service, he was appointed head of the internal prison of the NKVD in the Georgian SSR. He became famous for his ability to “extract” the necessary information from prisoners. He is responsible for about 10,000 deaths.

The peak of his career was his appointment to the position of head of Beria’s personal security. In addition to carrying out orders, his tasks also included delivering women for Lavrenty Pavlovich, who, as you know, could simply point his finger at a passing woman and then Nadaraya would begin the hunt for the victim. In 1955, he was sentenced to 10 years, which he served and died in old age in his homeland in Georgia.

Peter Maggo

A classic example of a man in his place. The insane sadist, after serving in the punitive detachments, was given control of the internal prison of the NKVD, where, despite his rank and position, he continued to participate in executions, sometimes falling into a semi-insane state.


He tried to perfect the art of execution, teaching new executioners how to properly take out prisoners, how to shoot correctly so as not to stain their clothes. He was awarded the “Honorary Security Officer” badge, the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin. He died in 1941 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Vasily and Ivan Shigalev

A unique case of two brothers in the ranks of the NKVD. Vasily was an ideal performer who coped with assignments of any complexity. He was so valuable that the authorities did not even pay attention to the denunciation of him, and then such a piece of paper was enough for execution.


The younger brother was less efficient, but also had a brilliant career and received even more awards. He has a medal “For the Defense of Moscow”, although he did not kill a single German, but he shot thousands of his own.

Alexander Emelyanov

The lieutenant colonel was dismissed from service due to schizophrenia. The disease developed due to “high-quality performance of work.” According to him, in order not to go crazy, the NKVD soldiers drank vodka like damned people, and in order to wash off the smell of blood they had to wash themselves with cologne

Ernest Much

A Latvian shepherd who became an NKVD employee for special assignments. 26 years of service for Mach were also not in vain; he was fired due to mental disorder. But before then he managed to train more than a dozen new executioners.


You can distort history as much as you like, but it will be impossible to erase the blood of thousands of innocent souls from the hands of these people and the entire NKVD. The NKVD did a lot in order to gain exclusively black glory for itself.
Well, it’s not even worth trying to justify their actions, allegedly they were only following orders and so on. That Eichmann also said something similar in Jerusalem, but somehow it didn’t help him.

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In the 1930s, the state punitive system was in dire need of people who, in the full sense of the word, were ready to do anything. Under orders to carry out mass executions, to extract the necessary testimony - not every person is capable of this. And therefore the executioners of the NKVD were very valued, they lived in special conditions, their position was even considered honorable. On the conscience of such perpetrators are tens of thousands of people killed, often sentenced to death on trumped-up charges.

"Death machine"

The NKVD acted according to a well-established scheme. Based on the information conveyed to the investigators, a case was opened, which in the vast majority of cases became the basis for the death penalty. The worst thing is that the relatives were not informed about the executions - they were informed that their relative was sentenced to 10 years in prison without the right to correspondence or transfers. This was the order, and since 1945 they began to report that the prisoner died of natural causes in prison.

They were deprived of their lives by executioners, those who directly carried out the orders of the highest authorities. Most executions took place in Moscow, immediately after interrogations or a short period of serving the sentence. That's why most of Stalin's executioners lived in the capital. Interestingly, there were not many of them - about two dozen. And all because not everyone could withstand such work, the executioners had to have a stable psyche, excellent professional data, be able to maintain strict secrecy and be devoted to their work and leadership.

No matter how creepy it may sound, many of them even enjoyed this process. Some strived for quantitative records, considering each new victim a separate professional achievement, some came up with sophisticated methods to stand out from their colleagues, and others carefully prepared for each murder, creating special rituals, special uniforms or choosing a specific type of weapon.

Vasily Blokhin - a general who personally shot about 20 thousand people

This man became the absolute record holder in terms of quantity. He was the permanent commander of the execution squads, receiving this position at the beginning of his career and relinquishing it only upon his retirement. Vasily Mikhailovich became a rare exception among executioners - he was able to live to old age with a relatively good condition health. He always approached his work responsibly—followed safety precautions and did not drink alcohol. I always wore a special uniform to prevent blood from getting on exposed areas of my body.

He also prepared himself emotionally for execution - each time he calmly drank a cup of strong tea and leafed through books about horses. It was Blokhin who was the leader of the mass execution of Poles in Katyn. There, the executioner personally took the lives of more than 700 people. He also shot his former colleagues who were arrested in connection with the Solovetsky stage executions.

During his lifetime, he received many awards for his dedicated work, had honor and respect among his colleagues, and received a special pension in the amount of 3,150 rubles, when the average salary was 700 rubles. After Beria’s arrest, the major general was stripped of his rank, orders, and that same pension. There is a version that it was after these shocks that Blokhin had a heart attack. He died in 1955 and was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery, not far from the mass grave of his victims.

Sardion Nadaraya - “universal soldier”

He has about 10 thousand killed. Being a fellow countryman of Beria, the Georgian Nadaraya quickly built his career. After 11 years of service, he already headed the internal prison of the NKVD of the Georgian SSR. Sardion Nikolaevich personally supervised the interrogations, using brutal methods. He personally beat, tortured and shot prisoners. Nadaraya became famous for his ability to extract from prisoners the testimony necessary for the NKVD - self-incrimination and fictitious accusations, slander precisely against those who were being developed by the security forces.

Sardion Nadaraya, left.

The highest point of career growth was the appointment of Sardion Nikolaevich as chief of Lavrentiy Beria’s personal security. In this position, he carried out all the orders of his superior. One of his tasks was to find and deliver women for comfort, and Beria’s choice was unpredictable - he could point to a lady on the street, the wives of high-ranking military officers, actresses and singers, or choose one of those who wrote him written requests on work issues . Nadaraya and his colleagues tracked them, went to their addresses, caught them on the street and brought them to their leader.

After the arrest of Beria, Nadaraya was taken into development by the special services. He was accused of pimping, and all his actions as head of the Georgian NKVD were recalled. In 1955, he received 10 years of imprisonment with confiscation, served the entire term and lived out his old age in Georgia.

Peter Maggo - executioner who considered execution an art

Latvian Maggo is also on the list of record holders - he took the lives of more than 10 thousand prisoners. One of the most effective executioners of the NKVD carried out executions throughout his years of service. Having successfully worked in the punitive squad, Maggo became the head of the internal prison. As a leader, Pyotr Ivanovich had the right not to take personal part in the executions, but he did this because he liked the process. Killing people, he often became inspired and fell into semi-oblivion. There is a known case when, having shot convicts, Maggo began to force his colleague Popov to undress and stand against the wall, because he could not recognize him, being in a very excited state.

Sadist and maniac Peter Maggo.

He considered execution to be a special art and loved to train novice executioners, telling them how to properly take prisoners to the execution site and what actions to take during execution so as not to be splashed with blood. At the same time, he always improved his work if he received comments from his superiors. For example, he carried out educational work with prisoners so that before their death they would never pronounce the name of the leader.

Maggo's awards include the "Honorary Security Officer" badge, two Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin. In 1940 he was dismissed from the NKVD. The love for strong alcohol, which appeared over the years of work, led him to cirrhosis of the liver, from which Maggo eventually died in 1941.

Such small paper meant inevitable death.

Vasily and Ivan Shigalev - family devotion to a common cause

The Shigalevs are very famous personalities, this was the only case where relatives were so-called employees for special assignments. Vasily was an ideal performer, valued by his superiors - he flawlessly completed tasks of any complexity. His personality is also notable for the fact that he is the only one who was reported on by his own colleagues. The denunciation accused Shigalev of having connections with an enemy of the people. Such a report at that time was enough for execution, but the authorities left it without consequences, because they did not want to lose such a valuable employee. After this, Vasily began to carry out his work as an executioner even more zealously, was awarded the title of honorary security officer and the Order of the Badge of Honor, and became a holder of several military orders. The executioner was so careful that his signature was not found in any of the documents in the archives.

Ivan was less cunning, nevertheless, he climbed the career ladder just as quickly, and received even more awards for his service. The lieutenant colonel had the Order of Lenin and even the medal “For the Defense of Moscow,” although he did not kill a single German. But he has hundreds, if not thousands, of executed compatriots. The brothers confidently walked over the corpses, striving for new titles and awards. Both died at a fairly young age - Vasily passed away in 1942, Ivan passed away in 1945 (according to some sources, 1946).

Alexander Emelyanov - dismissed due to illness associated exclusively with long-term work in the authorities

This is exactly the wording that appears in the order for the dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Emelyanov. While performing his work efficiently, Alexander Emelyanovich eventually became a schizophrenic. He spoke more than once about the complexity of his work, because of which he “drank until he lost consciousness,” because otherwise it was impossible not to go crazy. According to him, the executioners “washed themselves with cologne to the waist.” Because this was the only way to get rid of the persistent smell of blood. Even the dogs did not bark at Emelyanov and his colleagues, they shied away and avoided them.

Ernest Much – who developed a neuropsychic illness

A Latvian shepherd, who later became a prison guard, and then an NKVD employee to carry out special instructions. Much was an exemplary executioner - a minimum of emotions, a maximum of accuracy and streamlined actions. The major faithfully served his favorite cause for 26 years. Having retired from the work of an executioner, he enjoyed training young NKVD officers - passing on his wealth of experience.

The execution sentences were not in vain - at the end of his career, Ernest Ansovich was dismissed from service due to developing mental illness.

The general directs the execution.