THE RED TERROR
VISHNIAK, MARK
The Red Terror Part 4 — Yezhov and the NKVD By Mark Vishniak This It th* fourth in Mark Viihnlak*s atUhorUative sertes of fir* asUcJLm on tho Bolihovlk terror machino. In previous...
...By universal...
...Bubnov, the People's Commissar for Education, was - most enthusiastic about the huge can* vas...
...ture was exhibited at the Union- of Soviet Artists, and Party officials gave, their hearty approval...
...He did it by'turning his wrath on YezhoV and pinning, for the benefit ef public consumption, all the responsibility for the terror on him...
...Sometimes after Kirov was murdered, he painted a huge oil' painting which' he called, to please the authorities: "Stalin'and VorosbiloiA at: Kirov's Grave...
...Mikhailov was told' that this picture waste be reproduced, and shortly, after.1 wards, it was taken away to...
...had known suffering from, childhood...
...He never returned and never was seen or heard of again...
...Next he shot Marshall Tukhachevsky and the whole supreme command of the Red Army...
...Jftukaot so in our land t. r they are respected and enjoy tho well-earned love of tho Soviet people...
...Double-crossing became an everyday occurence...
...In capitalist countries the State-Security administration is\thorougbly hated by xhi people...
...By the 30's the half-illiterate Cheklst was a secretary, of the Central Committee of the\ AH-ynipn Communist Party i and...
...He was examined under torture, was put in an* underground cell and spent five days and five nights sitting on a chair...
...And Yagoda, who staged the first show trials" of old Bolsheviks with such vigor, became a defendant himself at the third trial, staged with no less success by Yezhov...
...Fortune seemed to.be smiling on Mikhailov...
...He was mercilessly beaten, his face bashed in and his hair pulled out...
...MonsMosky and Yagoda, who beaded tho th* Cheka, the CPU...
...The pic...
...THE SUMMER OF 1937 marked the high tide of Yezhov's blind teror...
...He,was poor and...
...The most fantastic denunciations became extremely common...
...Quite unexpectedly, however, instead of sending him the reproduction and prints - of his picture, the* Party cell summoned Mikhailov and showed him a photograph of his painting in which the stunned artist saw that his figures of Stalin and Voroshilov were embraced by a delicately drawn skeleton...
...Vishniak has t<M...
...r; It was a fine piece of work...
...people "withdrawn," i. e. 3.9...
...He macie speeches extolling the NKVD, whose, nefarious activities were painted in a high moral light: "There is no other country in the world where tho organs of State Security and - espionage would .nave such close ties with the people, would so clearly reflect their interests and would so closely watch over, their interests...
...In Moscow some time ago, there was »a very gifted painter named Mikhailov...
...He was one of the most active participants in the October uprising...
...Boris, biographer of Stalin an* hood of two socrot pallet organizations, tho MVD and tho MOB...
...Yezhov "worked" principally with a "nagan" (revolver of' Belgian Nagant system) for special Cheka detachments...
...Yezhov began his career with a purge of the NKVD...
...Reporting* to the people's Commissar Yezhov chief of the Northern Caucasus NKVD, Dagin writes on August 10,1937 (file 120/A) as follows: "the number of people's enemies of Northern Caucasus which have been withdrawn reached 80 thousands," which amounts to about %%, but "that number is not definitive, the preparation is still going on...
...In some regions the percentage reached 5% and in some others it fell to 2...
...During his reign, Yezhov was referred to almost like Stalin—"our hero, our father, who destroyed the viper nests...
...Past services rendered, however great, saved no one from death and posthumous defamation as a , traitor, agent provocateur and fascist...
...N«a*week tho •muMttl h**zotian conclude* tho series with tho story of I*T««nr...
...no one was,sure of his fate...
...i • DURING THE CIVIL WAR...
...political reliability...
...The People's Commissar for Education, Bubnov, was himself arrested soon thereafter...
...Yet the Caucasus' population amounts to 7 percent of Russia's entire population...
...As he was in dire need,,he decided to extricate himself by painting a picture which would, as it were, serve as a passport of...
...and th* OQPU...
...He had had only a public school education and was permeated with social and class jealousies, and'full of hatred for all those Who werO intellectually above him...
...Through the whole Caucasus there were 422,000...
...stories of DtershlriakT...
...1937...
...Lenin's hyprocitical idea of "correcting the offenders though labor" was abandoned...
...When-Yagoda fell into, disgrace, Yezhov succeeded him and became the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs, i.e., head, of the entire police system of the Soviet Union...
...By a decree of June 14, 1997 the Soviet Government ordered the central and local organs of NKVD to carry out an original plan—a unique one in the annals of criminology, namely—to arrest 3% of the total population...
...In previous artictes...
...the kidmTpping in Spain of the son of the, Menshevik leader, Abramovich...
...Vishinsky, who is a star of the Yezhov period, as he was also in Yagoda's overlordship, denounced Lenin's idea (without mentioning Lenin's name, of course) as "flatly sentimental" and declared: "Punishment cannot be reduced to education, and let us'not pretend that prisons arc not different from schools...
...His specialanlmus was always reserved for the Russian intelligentsia...
...said Yoshov on Juno 27...
...Marshals and generals of the Red Army, prune ministers and ambassadors, members of the- Politburo ond favorite friends of Lenin himself— att perished...
...The assassination in Lausanne of Ignace Reis, a collaborator of the NKVD who tried to escape its net...
...these and other acts were the work of Yezhov...
...a member of the Central Control Commission of the Party...
...even Molotov was in the background (Pra»da, April 30, 1937...
...a responsible editor of the Big Soviet Encyclopedia, wherein he wrote a huge article on the History of the All-Union Communist Party...
...The-homely-looking, pint-sized Yezhov had a shrieking voice and large ears...
...A* few days later the dumfounded Mikhailov was called to NKVD headquarters on Lubianka Street for examination...
...Approximately 325 NKVD people were either shot or sent to prison...
...He disappeared forever in one of the isolated prisons for higher members of the Communist Party...
...boundaries of the Soviet Union...
...oi that year, the poshdi (leaders) were inspecting sluice No, 3 of the Volga'ljtoscow Canal built by slave-labor, Yezhov was already in the front ranks, next to Stalin and' Voroshilov...
...It was even rumored that he had been a fbesprizornv" (homeless child) before he got to tha Putilov factory...
...the kidnapping of the white general Miller in Paris...
...On December 8, 1939, Prowdo and, Izvestia curtly announced the removal of Yezhov "in accordance toith his own request...
...Yezhov's hand reached out beyond the...
...BETWEEN THE YAOODA REGIME .and the current reign of Beria was a two-year period, 1937-1938, the period of "Yernovschlha...
...Chable was also arrested in connection with this monstrous affair...
...In March, 1985, he became chairman of that all-powerful Commission...
...the building of the Central Committee of the Party...
...When- in April...
...testimony, these were the maddest years" of the Red Terror...
...For special services,, he was awarded the extra title of Commissar General for State Security...
...Unfortunately he had "bad antecedents4', being of non-proletarian origins...
...Maurice Chable, a Russian painter with a French name, who miraculously escaped death and is now in Paris, recently told of one such incident, which had tremendous ramifications, and which is typical of thousands more of similar frame-ups...
...and a bearer of many Soviet orders...
...a former head of the Political Division of the Red Army...
...After that many painters were arrested...
...Yezhov.not only fought and exterminated "enemies" of the Soviet power...
...He was taken oft stage as quickly as he used to dispose others...
...Summarizing his experiences, Chable writes: "The whole nation was thrown into such a state of neurosis, that the radiant father of peoples on feeling the public pulse realized that the time had come to make his next Machiavellian-move...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 21
