Genrikh Yagoda
Encyclopedia
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda , born Enokh Gershevich Ieguda , was a Soviet
state security official who served as director of the NKVD
, the Soviet Union's Stalin-era security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936. Appointed by Joseph Stalin
, Yagoda supervised the arrest, show trial, and execution of the Old Bolshevik
s Lev Kamenev
and Grigory Zinoviev
, events that manifested the beginnings of the Great Purge
.
Like many Soviet secret policemen of the 1930s, Yagoda was ultimately a victim of the Purge himself. He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in favor of Nikolai Yezhov
in 1936, and arrested in 1937. Charged with the standard crimes of wrecking
, espionage, Trotskyism
, and conspiracy, Yagoda was a defendant at the Trial of the Twenty-One, the last of the major Soviet show trial
s of the 1930s. Following his confession at the trial, Yagoda was found guilty and shot.
into a Jewish family. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1907. Contrary to the rumors invented by himself, Yagoda was never a pharmacist but in fact an apprentice engraver in Yakov Sverdlov
's father's workshop. Yagoda subsequently married Sverdlov's niece Ida Averbach which permitted him, after the October Revolution
of 1917, to be promoted through the ranks of the Cheka
(the NKVD's predecessor), becoming Felix Dzerzhinsky's second deputy in September 1923. After Dzerzhinsky's appointment as chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy in January 1924, Yagoda became the real manager of the Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie, as the deputy chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
had little authority because of his serious illness. The troika Grigory Zinoviev
-Lev Kamenev
-Joseph Stalin
wanted a symbolic direction represented by Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
and an effective direction represented by Yagoda who was neither a people's commissar
or a central committee member to ensure that the GPU remained loyal to the party. In 1931, Yagoda was demoted to second deputy chairman.
As deputy head of the GPU, Yagoda organized the building of the White Sea – Baltic Canal using forced labor from the Gulag
system at breakneck speed between 1931 and 1933 at the cost of huge casualties. For his contribution to the canal’s construction he was later awarded the Order of Lenin
. The construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal was also started under his watch but only completed after his fall by his successor Nikolai Yezhov
.
.
Yagoda may have been involved with the murder of his superior Menzhinsky, whom he was later accused of poisoning, and the popular Leningrad party director and Stalin opponent Sergei Kirov, who was assassinated in December 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev
.
Yagoda worked closely in conjunction with Andrei Vyshinsky in organizing the first Moscow Show Trial
, resulting in the successful prosecution and subsequent execution of former Soviet politicians Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev in August 1936, part of Stalin's Great Purge
. The Red Army
high command was not spared and its ranks were decimated by Yagoda as a precursor to the later more extensive purge
. More than a quarter of a million people were arrested during the 1934–1935 period and the Gulag system was vastly expanded under his stewardship, forced labor becoming a major factor in the Soviet economy.
Nevertheless, Stalin became increasingly disillusioned with Yagoda's performance. In the middle of 1936, Stalin received a report from Yagoda detailing the unfavorable public reaction abroad to the show trials and the growing sympathy amongst the Soviet population for the executed defendants. The report enraged Stalin, interpreting it as Yagoda's advice to stop the show trials and in particular to abandon the planned purge of Mikhail Tukhachevsky
, Marshal of the Soviet Union
and the former commander in chief of the Red Army. Stalin was already unhappy with Yagoda's services, mostly due to the mismanagement of Kirov's assassination and his failure to fabricate "proofs" of Kamenev's and Zinoniev's ties with the Okhrana.
On September 25, 1936, Stalin sent a telegram (co-signed by Andrei Zhdanov
) to the members of the Politburo
. The telegram read:
A day later, he was replaced by Yezhov, who managed the main purges during 1937–1938.
since joining the party in 1907. Yezhov even sprinkled mercury
around his office, then blamed it on Yagoda trying to assassinate him. Yagoda's two Moscow apartments and his dacha
contained 3,904 pornographic photos, 11 pornographic films, 165 pornographic pipes, one dildo
and the two bullets that killed Zinoviev
and Kamenev. Yezhov took over the apartments.
The charge of corruption at least was accurate. He had spent four million roubles decorating his three homes, boasting that his garden had '2,000 orchids and roses'.
During the trial of Radek and Piatakov (Trial of the Seventeen)
, Yagoda extracted confessions from the defendants, thus revealing inadvertently that the men did not have any political differences with Stalin, a fact the Soviet state prosecutor was unable to challenge. This infuriated Stalin, as it implied that he had eliminated the defendants solely to maintain his own political power. Yagoda had already earned Stalin's enmity eight years earlier, when he had expressed sympathy for Nikolai Bukharin
, whom Stalin had forced from power.
As one Soviet official put it, "The Boss forgets nothing." Yagoda was found guilty of treason
and conspiracy
against the Soviet government at the Trial of the Twenty One in March 1938. Solzhenitsyn
describes Yagoda as trusting in deliverance from Stalin even during the show trial itself:
Yagoda was shot soon after the trial as were 3,000 of his NKVD
supporters. His successor and former deputy Yezhov ordered the guards to strip Yagoda naked and beat him for added humiliation
just before his execution. Yezhov himself would suffer exactly the same treatment at the order of his successor and former deputy, Lavrenti Beria, before dying by the same executioner (NKVD Chief Executioner Vasili Blokhin
) just two years later.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
state security official who served as director of the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, the Soviet Union's Stalin-era security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936. Appointed by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Yagoda supervised the arrest, show trial, and execution of the Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik , also Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for those who were members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of whom were either tried and executed by the NKVD during Stalin era purges or died under suspicious...
s Lev Kamenev
Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....
and Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
, events that manifested the beginnings of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
.
Like many Soviet secret policemen of the 1930s, Yagoda was ultimately a victim of the Purge himself. He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in favor of Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
in 1936, and arrested in 1937. Charged with the standard crimes of wrecking
Wrecking (Soviet crime)
Wrecking , was a crime specified in the criminal code of the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. It is often translated as "sabotage"; however "wrecking" and "diversionist acts" and "counter-revolutionary sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of Article 58 , and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to...
, espionage, Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
, and conspiracy, Yagoda was a defendant at the Trial of the Twenty-One, the last of the major Soviet show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
s of the 1930s. Following his confession at the trial, Yagoda was found guilty and shot.
Early life and career
Yagoda was born in RybinskRybinsk
Rybinsk is the second largest city of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which lies at the confluence of the Volga and Sheksna Rivers. Population: It is served by Rybinsk Staroselye airport.-Early history:...
into a Jewish family. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1907. Contrary to the rumors invented by himself, Yagoda was never a pharmacist but in fact an apprentice engraver in Yakov Sverdlov
Yakov Sverdlov
Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov ; known under pseudonyms "Andrei", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov" — 16 March 1919) was a Bolshevik party leader and an official of the Russian Soviet Republic.-Early life:...
's father's workshop. Yagoda subsequently married Sverdlov's niece Ida Averbach which permitted him, after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
of 1917, to be promoted through the ranks of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
(the NKVD's predecessor), becoming Felix Dzerzhinsky's second deputy in September 1923. After Dzerzhinsky's appointment as chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy in January 1924, Yagoda became the real manager of the Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie, as the deputy chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky was a Polish-Russian revolutionary, a Soviet statesman and Party official who served as chairman of the OGPU from 1926 to 1934...
had little authority because of his serious illness. The troika Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
-Lev Kamenev
Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....
-Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
wanted a symbolic direction represented by Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky was a Polish-Russian revolutionary, a Soviet statesman and Party official who served as chairman of the OGPU from 1926 to 1934...
and an effective direction represented by Yagoda who was neither a people's commissar
Commissar
Commissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...
or a central committee member to ensure that the GPU remained loyal to the party. In 1931, Yagoda was demoted to second deputy chairman.
As deputy head of the GPU, Yagoda organized the building of the White Sea – Baltic Canal using forced labor from the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
system at breakneck speed between 1931 and 1933 at the cost of huge casualties. For his contribution to the canal’s construction he was later awarded the Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
. The construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal was also started under his watch but only completed after his fall by his successor Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
.
NKVD Chief
On July 10, 1934, two months after Menzhinsky's death, Joseph Stalin appointed Yagoda People's Commissar for Internal Affairs, a position that included oversight of regular as well as the secret police, the NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
.
Yagoda may have been involved with the murder of his superior Menzhinsky, whom he was later accused of poisoning, and the popular Leningrad party director and Stalin opponent Sergei Kirov, who was assassinated in December 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev
Leonid Nikolaev
Leonid Nikolaev was the assassin of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Communist Party.-Early life:...
.
Yagoda worked closely in conjunction with Andrei Vyshinsky in organizing the first Moscow Show Trial
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
, resulting in the successful prosecution and subsequent execution of former Soviet politicians Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev in August 1936, part of Stalin's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
. The Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
high command was not spared and its ranks were decimated by Yagoda as a precursor to the later more extensive purge
Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
The Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization was a 1937 secret trial of the high command of the Red Army, orchestrated by Joseph Stalin as part of the Great Purge.-Defendants:...
. More than a quarter of a million people were arrested during the 1934–1935 period and the Gulag system was vastly expanded under his stewardship, forced labor becoming a major factor in the Soviet economy.
Nevertheless, Stalin became increasingly disillusioned with Yagoda's performance. In the middle of 1936, Stalin received a report from Yagoda detailing the unfavorable public reaction abroad to the show trials and the growing sympathy amongst the Soviet population for the executed defendants. The report enraged Stalin, interpreting it as Yagoda's advice to stop the show trials and in particular to abandon the planned purge of Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...
, Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
and the former commander in chief of the Red Army. Stalin was already unhappy with Yagoda's services, mostly due to the mismanagement of Kirov's assassination and his failure to fabricate "proofs" of Kamenev's and Zinoniev's ties with the Okhrana.
On September 25, 1936, Stalin sent a telegram (co-signed by Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician.-Life:Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks, becoming the All-Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934...
) to the members of the Politburo
Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...
. The telegram read:
"We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent that Comrade Yezhov be appointed to head the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Yagoda has obviously proved unequal to the task of exposing the Trotskyite-Zinonievite bloc. The GPU was four years late in this matter. All party heads and the most of the NKVD agents in the region are talking about this."
A day later, he was replaced by Yezhov, who managed the main purges during 1937–1938.
Disgrace
Initially Yagoda became People's Commissar for Post and Telecommunications. However in March 1937, he was arrested on Stalin's orders. Yezhov announced Yagoda's arrest for diamond smuggling, corruption and spying for GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
since joining the party in 1907. Yezhov even sprinkled mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
around his office, then blamed it on Yagoda trying to assassinate him. Yagoda's two Moscow apartments and his dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
contained 3,904 pornographic photos, 11 pornographic films, 165 pornographic pipes, one dildo
Dildo
A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for bodily penetration during masturbation or sex with partners.- Description and uses :...
and the two bullets that killed Zinoviev
Zinoviev
Zinoviev, Zinovyev, Zinovieff , or Zinovieva is a Russian surname and may refer to:* Aleksandr Zinovyev , a Russian logician, sociologist, writer, and satirist* Alexander S...
and Kamenev. Yezhov took over the apartments.
The charge of corruption at least was accurate. He had spent four million roubles decorating his three homes, boasting that his garden had '2,000 orchids and roses'.
During the trial of Radek and Piatakov (Trial of the Seventeen)
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
, Yagoda extracted confessions from the defendants, thus revealing inadvertently that the men did not have any political differences with Stalin, a fact the Soviet state prosecutor was unable to challenge. This infuriated Stalin, as it implied that he had eliminated the defendants solely to maintain his own political power. Yagoda had already earned Stalin's enmity eight years earlier, when he had expressed sympathy for Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
, whom Stalin had forced from power.
As one Soviet official put it, "The Boss forgets nothing." Yagoda was found guilty of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
against the Soviet government at the Trial of the Twenty One in March 1938. Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
describes Yagoda as trusting in deliverance from Stalin even during the show trial itself:
Just as though Stalin had been sitting right there in the hall, Yagoda confidently and insistently begged him directly for mercy: "I appeal to you! For you I built two greatWhite Sea-Baltic CanalThe White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal , often abbreviated to White Sea Canal is a ship canal in Russia opened on 2 August 1933. It connects the White Sea with Lake Onega, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. Until 1961, its original name was the Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal...
canals!" And a witness reports that at just that moment a match flared in the shadows behind a window on the second floor of the hall, apparently behind a muslin curtain, and, while it lasted, the outline of a pipe could be seen.
Yagoda was shot soon after the trial as were 3,000 of his NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
supporters. His successor and former deputy Yezhov ordered the guards to strip Yagoda naked and beat him for added humiliation
Humiliation
Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It can be brought about through bullying, intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have...
just before his execution. Yezhov himself would suffer exactly the same treatment at the order of his successor and former deputy, Lavrenti Beria, before dying by the same executioner (NKVD Chief Executioner Vasili Blokhin
Vasili Blokhin
Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin was a Soviet Major-General who served as the chief executioner of the Stalinist NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenty Beria...
) just two years later.
Honours and awards
- Order of LeninOrder of LeninThe Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
- Order of the Red BannerOrder of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
, twice (1927, 1930) - Order of the Red Banner of Labour of the RSFSR (1932)