Vasili Blokhin Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin ( January 7 , 1895 – February 3 , 1955 ) was a Soviet Major - General who served as the chief executioner of the Stalinist NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda , Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria ( after their respective falls from power , Yagoda and Yezhov were executed by Blokhin himself ) . Hand - picked for the position by Joseph Stalin in 1926 , Blokhin led a company of executioners that performed and supervised numerous mass executions during Stalin ' s reign , mostly during the Great Purge and World War II . He is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand , including his killing of about 7 , 000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940 , making him the most prolific official executioner in recorded world history . Forced into a retirement following the death of Stalin , Blokhin died in 1955 , officially by suicide . Early life and career . Blokhin , born into a peasant family on January 7 , 1895 , served in the Tsarist army of World War I , and joined the Soviet state security agency Cheka in March 1921 . Though records are scant , he was evidently noted for both his pugnaciousness and his mastery of what Joseph Stalin termed " chernaya rabota " — " black work " : assassinations , torture , intimidation , and executions conducted clandestinely . Once he gained Stalin ' s attention , he was quickly promoted and within six years was appointed the head of the purposely created " Kommandatura " Branch of the Administrative Executive Department of the NKVD . This branch was a company - sized element created by Stalin specifically for black work . Headquartered at the Lubyanka in Moscow , they were all approved by Stalin and took their orders directly from his hand , a fact that ensured the unit ' s longevity despite three bloody purges of the NKVD . As senior executioner , Blokhin ' s official title was that of commandant of the internal prison at the Lubyanka , which allowed him to perform his true job with a minimum of scrutiny and no official paperwork . Although most of the estimated 828 , 000 NKVD executions conducted in Stalin ' s lifetime were performed by local Chekists in concert with NKVD troika s , mass executions were overseen by specialist executioners from the " Kommandantura " . In addition to overseeing the mass operations , Blokhin also personally pulled the trigger on all of the individual high - profile executions conducted in the Soviet Union during his tenure , including those of the Old Bolshevik s condemned at the Moscow Show Trials , Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky ( condemned at a secret trial ) , and two of the three fallen NKVD Chiefs ( Yagoda in 1938 and Yezhov in 1940 ) he had once served under . He was awarded the Badge of Honor for his service in 1937 . Role in the Katyn massacre . Blokhin ' s most infamous act was the April 1940 execution by shooting of over 7 , 000 Polish prisoners interned in the Ostashkov prisoner of war camp , mostly military and police officers who had been captured following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 , as part of the extended Katyn massacre . ( The event ' s infamy also stems from the Stalin regime ' s orchestration of the murders and subsequent propaganda campaign in order to blame Nazi Germany for the massacres . In 1990 as part of Glasnost , Gorbachev gave the Polish government the files on the massacres at Katyn , Starobelsk and Kalinin ( now Tver ) , revealing Stalin ' s involvement ) . Based on the April 4 secret order from Stalin to NKVD Chief Lavrenti Beria ( as well as NKVD Order № 00485 , which still applied ) , the executions were carried out in 28 consecutive nights at the specially - constructed basement execution chamber at the NKVD headquarters in Kalinin , and were assigned , by name , directly to Blokhin , making him the official executioner of the NKVD . Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night , and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber — which had been painted red and was known as the " Leninist room " — for a brief and cursory positive identification , before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door . The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing , a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose , and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against . Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb : a leather butcher ' s apron , leather hat , and shoulder - length leather gloves . Then , without a hearing , the reading of a sentence or any other formalities , each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot them once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 . 25 ACP pistol . He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols , since he did not trust the reliability of the standard - issue Soviet TT - 30 for the frequent , heavy use he intended . The use of a German pocket pistol , which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents , also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later . An estimated 30 local NKVD agents , guards and drivers were pressed into service to escort prisoners to the basement , confirm identification , then remove the bodies and hose down the blood after each execution . Although some of the executions were carried out by Senior Lieutenant of State Security Andrei M . Rubanov , Blokhin was the primary executioner and , true to his reputation , liked to work continuously and rapidly without interruption . In keeping with NKVD policy and the overall " black " nature of the operation , the executions were conducted at night , starting at dark and continuing until just prior to dawn . The bodies were continuously loaded onto covered flat - bed trucks through a back door in the execution chamber and trucked , twice a night , to Mednoye , where Blokhin had arranged for a bulldozer and two NKVD drivers to dispose of bodies at an unfenced site . Each night , 24 – 25 trenches , measuring eight to ten meters ( 24 . 3 to 32 . 8 feet ) total , were dug to hold the night ' s corpses , and each trench was covered up before dawn . Petr Maggo gave detailed instructions to inexperienced executioners , saying : " The one who is getting shot , make sure his hands tied behind . Tell him to walk forward and follow him with a revolver in hand . Where necessary , command the " right " , " left " until you brought forth to the place where felled sawdust or sand . Point the gun at his neck and BAM ! And at the same time giving a strong kick in the butt . So there is no blood splatter and wife did not have to wash the shirt again . " But the description above Tokarev massacre of Polish officers by Kalinin , April 5 , 1940 : " Blokhin gave a signal , saying , " Well , let ' s go , let ' s get started . " Blokhin put his special clothes : brown leather hat , long leather coat , brown leather gloves with sleeves above the elbow . For me it was a huge experience - I saw the executioner . Blokhin led Roubanov people one by one , through the corridor , turned to the left , where there was a red room . Different propaganda posters were hung , was a plaster statue of Lenin . Red Room or Leninist room was a room the size of a 5 by 5 meters . It was the last time checked the identity of the prisoner , asking for his name and date of birth . Then noted in the list , there should be no errors . Finally , on the Polish officer or police handcuffed and recovered in the " execution chamber " . Here , life of the captured was ended by a shot in the back of the head . Experienced executioners shot in the neck , pointing the gun upwards . Then there was a possibility that the bullet will come through the eye or mouth . Then it will be just a little bit of blood , while a bullet shot in the head , resulting in profuse bleeding ( implies more than one liter of blood ) . And the killed were at least 250 per day . When all the prisoners Ostashkovo already been destroyed , Blokhin had arranged a farewell drink offerings for the people who have killed more than 6 , 300 people . Blokhin won an award in the amount of one month ' s salary . Someone was given as a premium premium revolver , bike , gramophone . Blokhin and his team worked without pause for ten hours each night , with Blokhin executing an average of one prisoner every three minutes . At the end of the night , Blokhin provided vodka to all his men . On April 27 , 1940 , Blokhin secretly received the Order of the Red Banner and a modest monthly pay premium as a reward from Joseph Stalin for his " skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks " . His count of 7 , 000 shot in 28 days remains the most organized and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record , and earned him the Guinness World Record for ' Most Prolific Executioner ' in 2010 . Retirement and death . Blokhin was forcibly retired in 1953 following Stalin ' s death that March , although his " irreproachable service " was publicly noted by Lavrenty Beria at the time of his departure . After Beria ' s fall from power in June of the same year , Blokhin ' s rank was stripped from him in the de - Stalinization campaigns of Nikita Khrushchev . He reportedly sank into alcoholism , went insane , and died February 3 , 1955 , with the official cause of death listed as " suicide " .