Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him

The previous year, at a sanatorium in Sochi, Ezhov had met a woman any man working for Stalin should have avoided like the plague. Evgenia Feigenberg was not just Jewish and twice married; her present husband, Aleksei Gladun, a Moscow editor, had lived in America until 1920, and the couple had worked in the London embassy in 1927. Evgenia was only a typist but she had literary connections that fascinated Nick the Bookman: she had been and would be again Isaak Babel’s mistress. Gladun later testified: “He was hopelessly infatuated with her and wouldn’t leave her room. . . . My wife explained to me that Ezhov was a rising star and that it was to her advantage to be with him, not me. . . .” The Ezhovs divorced and Nikolai married Evgenia in 1931. The divorce saved Antonina’s life—she died at the age of ninety-one—but not Gladun’s. Evgenia became editor of The USSR on the Building Site, and in Moscow the new couple moved to Strastnoi (Passion) Boulevard.

In November 1930 Ezhov got Moskvin’s job and was for the first time closeted with Stalin. In autumn 1932 he had six such meetings; by 1933 they were occurring at roughly fortnightly intervals. Stalin directed Ezhov “to take a special interest in strengthening and increasing the personnel of OGPU’s regional apparatus as part of the drive to consolidate collective farms and drive out the kulaks.”⁶ By then Ezhov ran the commission for purging the party, organizing checks on documents and past records, which threw out nearly half a million members or one eighth of the party. He combined many functions in the party’s Orgburo, supervising OGPU and heavy industry, and placing party cadres. The more Stalin railed at old Bolsheviks for their “arrogance as grandees who have grown too big for their boots,” the more he promoted younger acolytes whose indebtedness to him compensated for their lack of Bolshevik credentials.

By the early 1930s Stalin was expressing avuncular concern for the young protégé. He called Ezhov Ezhevichka (little blackberry). Lavrenti Beria, taking Stalin’s cue, called Ezhov Iozhik (little hedgehog). In August 1934 Ezhov’s health worsened. Stalin sent him first to Berlin, then to an Austrian spa for treatment. The Austrian doctors diagnosed a stomach disease and Stalin had Kaganovich send them a telegram asking them “to refrain from operating on Ezhov unless there is an urgent need to.” ⁷ Stalin telegraphed the Soviet embassy in Berlin: “I ask you very much to pay attention to Ezhov: he is seriously ill, he underestimates the seriousness of his situation. Give him help and surround him with care. Bear in mind that he is a good man and a most valuable worker. I shall be grateful if you regularly inform the Central Committee of the progress of his treatment. Stalin.” Ezhov’s symptoms persisted, and in 1935 Stalin wrote to him, “You must take leave as soon as possible—to one of the spas in the USSR or abroad, as you wish, or as the doctors say. Go on leave as soon as possible, if you don’t want me to raise a scandal about it.” As a result the Politburo allowed Ezhov and Evgenia two months’ leave and 3,000 gold rubles for treatment abroad.⁸ Ezhov was treated, as were several of the Soviet elite, by Dr. Carl von Noorden, who had only recently fled from Germany to Vienna. Nobody else in Stalin’s circle, not even Molotov, caused Stalin so much concern as Ezhov.

After May 10, 1934, with Menzhinsky dead and Iagoda in sole charge of OGPU, Stalin considered it imperative to subordinate OGPU and then the NKVD to his own men. Kaganovich and Ezhov found fault with Iagoda’s every action and, worse, his every failure to act. Ezhov went behind Iagoda’s back to his underlings Iakov Agranov and Efim Evdokimov, and reported in withering terms to the Politburo on the state of the NKVD. Ezhov’s devastating reports doomed Iagoda. They ensured that within months Ezhov would move from overseeing the NKVD to full control, with a remit to purge it as no Soviet institution had yet been purged.

Purging of the Guard

The white bread is spread thick with caviar, The tears are hotter than boiling water. Hangmen also get sad. People, have pity for hangmen! Hangmen have a very bad time at night, If hangmen dream of hangmen, and as in real life, but even harder Hangmen hit hangmen across their mugs.

Aleksandr Galich, “Dance Song”