predecessor successor birth_name birth_place death_date death_place children party office birth_date order term_start spouse signature article_title term_end name
genrikh yagoda nikolay pakhomov lavrentiy beria none-position abolished nikolai ivanovich yezhov st. petersburg , russian empire 4 february 1940 moscow , russian sfsr , soviet union natasha yezhova natalia khayutina -lrb- adopted -rrb- communist party of the soviet union candidate 17th secretariat member of the 17th politburo member of the 1 may 1895 people for internal affairs people 's commissar for water transport 's commissar for state security people 's commissar 27 12 october 1937 1 february 1935 january 1937 26 september 1936 6 april 1938 antonia 1930-1938 ; her death -rrb- 1 child titova -lrb- 1919-1930 -rrb- , yevgenia feigenberg -lrb- nikolai yezhov signature 1938.png nikolai yezhov
 25 22 march 1939 21 march 1939 november 1938 27 january 1937 9 april 1939 nikolai yezhov
nikolai yezhov

nikolai ivanovich yezhov or ezhov -lrb- , ; may 1 , 1895 -- february 4 , 1940 -rrb- was a soviet secret police official under joseph stalin .
he was head of the nkvd from 1936 to 1938 , during the most deadly period of stalin 's great purge .
his time in office is known as the '' `` yezhovshchina '' '' -lrb- -rrb- , a term coined during the de-stalinization campaign of the 1950s .
after presiding over mass arrests and executions during the great purge , yezhov became a victim of it himself .
he was arrested , confessed under torture to a range of anti-soviet activity , and was executed in 1940 .
by the beginning of world war ii , his status within the soviet union became that of a political unperson .
