Nikolai Yezhov

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.

 References 

Category:1895 births
Category:1940 deaths
Category:Directors of Soviet intelligence agencies
Category:People from Saint Petersburg
Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Category:Police misconduct