Nikolai Yezhov

Nikolai Yezhov
Николай Ежов
Yezhov in 1938
People's Commissar for Internal Affairs
In office
26 September 1936 – 25 November 1938[1]
PremierVyacheslav Molotov
Preceded byGenrikh Yagoda
Succeeded byLavrentiy Beria
Chairman of the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee
In office
1935–1939
Preceded byLazar Kaganovich
Succeeded byAndrey Andreyev
People's Commissar for Water Transport (NKVT)
In office
8 April 1938 – 9 April 1939
PremierVyacheslav Molotov
Preceded byNikolay Pakhomov
Succeeded byNone (position abolished)
Full member of the 17th Central Committee
In office
10 February 1934 – 3 March 1939
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)1 May 1895
St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died4 February 1940(1940-02-04) (aged 44)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Cause of deathExecution by shooting
CitizenshipSoviet
Political partyRussian/All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1917–1939)
Spouses
Antonia Titova
(m. 1919; div. 1930)
Yevgenia Feigenberg
(m. 1930; died 1938)
Children1 (adopted)
Signature
Nickname(s)Ежевика (Yezhevika; "Blackberry")[2]
Iron Hedgehog[3]
The Bloody Dwarf[4]
The Red Dwarf[4]

Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian: Николай Иванович Ежов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof]; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell from Stalin's favour and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.

  1. ^ Ministers of Internal Affairs Archived 22 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Ministry of the Russian Federation. accessed 17 July 2017
  2. ^ Sebag-Montefiore, Simon Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, chapter 21.
  3. ^ Service (2009), chapter 11.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Phillips2000 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).