Genrikh Yagoda
Genrikh Yagoda | |
---|---|
Генрих Ягода | |
OGPU chairman) | |
Succeeded by | Nikolai Yezhov |
People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs | |
In office 26 September 1936 – 5 April 1937 | |
Premier | Vyacheslav Molotov |
Preceded by | Alexei Rykov |
Succeeded by | Innokenti Khalepski |
Personal details | |
Born | Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda 7 November 1891 Rybinsk, Russian Empire |
Died | 15 March 1938 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | (aged 46)
Nationality | Soviet |
Political party | Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1937) |
Spouse | |
Signature | |
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (Russian: Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да,
Like many Soviet NKVD officers who conducted political repression, Yagoda himself ultimately became a victim of the Purge. He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in favor of
Early life
Yagoda was born in
There is another version of his early career, told in the memoirs of the former NKVD officer
Political career
After the October Revolution of 1917, Yagoda rose rapidly through the ranks of the Cheka (the predecessor of the OGPU and NKVD) to become the second deputy of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, in September 1923. After Dzerzhinsky's appointment as chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy in January 1924, Yagoda became the deputy chief and the real manager of the State Political Directorate (OGPU), as the chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky had little authority because of his serious illness. In 1924, he joined the USSR's head of government, Alexei Rykov on a ship tour of the Volga. An American journalist who was allowed to join them on the trip described Yagoda as "a spare, slightly-tanned, trim looking, youngish officer" adding that it was "difficult to associate terror with the affable and modest person".[5] By contrast, the chemist Vladimir Ipatieff met Yagoda briefly in Moscow in 1918 and later recorded that he had thought that "it was unusual for a young man in his early twenties to be so unpleasant. I felt then that it would be unlucky for me or anyone else ever to fall into his hands." When he saw him again in 1927, "his appearance had changed considerably: he had grown fatter and looked much older and very dignified and important."[6]
Though Yagoda appears to have known Joseph Stalin since 1918, when they were both stationed in Tsaritsyn during the civil war, "he was never Stalin's man".[7] When Stalin ordered that the Soviet Union's entire rural population were to be forced onto collective farms, Yagoda is reputed to have sympathised with Bukharin and Rykov, his opponents on the right of the communist party. Nikolai Bukharin claimed in a leaked private conversation in July 1928 that "Yagoda and Trilisser are with us", but once it became apparent that the right was losing the power struggle, Yagoda switched allegiance. In the contemptuous opinion of Bukharin's widow, Anna Larina, Yagoda "traded his personal views for the sake of his career" and degenerated into a "criminal" and a "miserable coward".[8]
Yagoda continued to be an effective head of the OGPU until July 1931, when the Old Bolshevik Ivan Akulov was appointed First Deputy Chairman, and Yagoda was demoted to the post of Second Deputy. Akulov was dismissed and Yagoda reinstated in October 1932, After Yagoda's fall, one of his former colleagues confessed: "We met Akulov with violent hostility ... the entire party organisation in the OGPU was devoted to sabotaging Akulov."[9] Stalin must have agreed to his reinstatement with ill grace, because four years later he accused the OGPU/NKVD of being four years behind in rooting out the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc, although Yagoda had been complicit in the execution of one of Trotsky's sympathisers, Yakov Blumkin, and in sending others to the GULAG, the system of forced labour created under his supervision.
Prior to 1929, the only labor camp in the USSR was the
Yagoda had founded a secret poison laboratory of OGPU that was at Stalin's disposal. It was later alleged during the later show-trial of Yagoda that his former NKVD boss, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, was slowly poisoned during two weeks by two assistants of Yagoda.[15] However, Menzhinsky was ill for several years before he died; this may have been a false testimony. Menhzinsky's death was followed one day later by the death of Max Peshkov, the son of Maxim Gorky, the doyen of Soviet literature. Yagoda had been cultivating Gorky as a potentially useful contact since 1928 and employed Gorky's secretary, Pyotr Kryuchkov, as a spy. "Whenever Gorky met Stalin or other members of the Politburo, Yagoda would visit Kryuchkov's flat afterward, demanding a full account of what had been said. He took to visiting public baths with Kryuchkov. One day in 1932, Yagoda handed his valuable spy $4,000 to buy a car."[16] He had developed an obsession with Max Peshkov's wife, Timosha, and visited her daily when she was newly widowed, though her mother denied that they were ever lovers.[17] According to Arkady Vaksberg and other researchers, Yagoda poisoned Maxim Gorky and his son on the orders of Joseph Stalin.[18]
NKVD Chief
On 10 July 1934, two months after Menzhinsky's death, Joseph Stalin appointed Yagoda
The
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 among 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 mismanagement of Kirov's assassination and his failure to fabricate "proofs" of ties between Kamenev and Zinoviev and the Okhrana (the tsarist security organization).[20] As one Soviet official put it, "The Boss forgets nothing."[21]
Another possible reason Stalin did not trust Yagoda was his failure to report the existence of the
"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-Zinovievite bloc. The GPU was four years late in this matter. All party heads and most of the NKVD agents in the region are talking about this."[22]
A day later, he was replaced by
Arrest, trial and execution
In March 1937, Yagoda was arrested on Stalin's orders. Yezhov announced Yagoda's arrest for diamond smuggling, corruption and working as a German agent since joining the party in 1917. Yezhov even blamed Yagoda for an attempt to assassinate him by sprinkling mercury around his office. He was accused of poisoning Maxim Gorky and his son. It was discovered that Yagoda's two Moscow apartments and his dacha contained, besides a large collection of female clothing and apparel, 3,904 pornographic photos, 11 pornographic films, 165 pornographically carved pipes and cigarette holders, one rubber dildo, the two bullets that killed Zinoviev and Kamenev and 549 books—some of which were trotskyist works.[25][26] Yezhov took over the apartments. He had spent four million rubles decorating his three homes, boasting that his garden had "2,000 orchids and roses".[27]
Yagoda was found guilty of
Yagoda was summarily shot after the trial.[31] During the execution, Yagoda and Bukharin were seated on chairs and forced to watch the execution of other sentenced to death, they were last to be shot. Before the execution Yagoda was also beaten by Izrail Dagin by the order of Yezhov.[32] In 1988, on the 50th anniversary of the trial, the Soviet authorities belatedly cleared all of the other 20 defendants of any criminal offence, admitting that the entire trial was built on false confessions. Yagoda was the only defendant not to be posthumously rehabilitated.
Family
Yagoda's father, Grigori, the jeweller, who was aged 78 in 1938, wrote directly to Stalin disowning "our only surviving son" because of "his grave crimes". This contrition was not enough to save him, or his wife, from being arrested and dying in labour camps.[33] He had two brothers. One was killed during the suppression of the revolt in Sormovo in 1905; the other was shot for taking part in a mutiny in a regiment during the war with Germany. Their sister, Lilya, was arrested on 7 May 1937, and shot on 16 July. She was photographed before her execution, as was normal for condemned prisoners. That photograph was retrieved from KGB archives and published in the book Ordinary Citizens by David King.[34]
Yagoda's wife was Ida Averbakh, one of whose uncles, Yakov Sverdlov, was a prominent Bolshevik, and another, Zinovy Peshkov, was the adopted son of the writer Maxim Gorky. She was shot on 16 July 1938. Her brother, Leopold Averbakh, was shot in August 1937. Their father was also shot.[citation needed]
Honours and awards
- Order of Lenin
- Order of the Red Banner, twice (1927, 1930)
- RSFSR(1932)
Notes
- ISBN 0-75381-766-7.
- ^ See Yagoda's last plea at his trial in (1938). The Case of the Anti Soviet Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites, Verbatim Report. Moscow: People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R. p. 784.
- ISBN 978-5-457-26136-5.
- ^ Orlov, Alexander. The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes.
- ^ Reswick, William (1952). I Dreamt Revolution. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. p. 85.
- ^ Ipatieff, Vladimir (1946). The Life of a Chemist: Memoirs of Vladimir Ipatieff. Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press.
- ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 98.
- ISBN 0-04-440887-0.
- ^ Krivitsly, W.G. (1940). I Was Stalin's Agent. London: The Right Book Club. p. 170.
- ISBN 978-1-4008-8817-7.
- ^ Gulag, The Storm projects - The White Sea Canal, Gulag.eu. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
- ^ "Russia: Stalin's Mercy"; Time; 26 July 1937. Retrieved on 28 August 2011.
- ^ "Russia: Canal Heroes", Time; 14 August 1933. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
- ISBN 978-1-4008-8817-7.
- ^ The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life by Roman Brackman, Routledge, 2004, p.204–205.
- ISBN 978-1-59558-056-6.
- ^ McSmith. Fear and the Muse Kept Watch. p. 92.
- ISBN 1929631626
- ^ a b c Getty, J. Arch. Origins of the Great Purges. pp. 121–122 and 245–246.
- ^ Brackman, Roman., The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, London: Frank Cass Publishers (2001), p. 231.
- ^ Barmine, Alexander, One Who Survived, New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), pp. 295–296.
- ^ Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge, New York (1971), p. 174
- ^ Getty, J. Arch. Origins of the Great Purges. p. 264.
- ^ Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X.
- ^ Haslam, Jonathan. Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence. p. 37.
- ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 195.
- ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 85.
- ^ Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites'. Moscow: People's Commissariat of Justice of the USSR. 1938. pp. 573.
- ISBN 0-06-013914-5
- ^ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. (30 December 1973). "'The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956' Solzhenitsyn on Purge Trials of the 30's". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
- ^ "Лаврентия Берию в 1953 году расстрелял лично советский маршал". 24 June 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 224.
- ISBN 1-903427-150.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-698-17010-0.
- Kotkin, Stephen (2017). Stalin. (Vol. 2). Waiting for Hitler, 1928–1941. Penguin.
- ISBN 978-0-307-42793-9.
- Rayfield, Donald: Stalin und seine Henker. 2004
- Runes, Dagobert D.: Despotism, a Pictorial History of Tyranny. Philosophical Library 1963
- Н. В. Петров, К. В. Скоркин (N. W. Petrow, K.W. Skorkin): Кто руководил НКВД, 1934–1941 – Справочник. (Wer hatte die Regie im NKWD, 1934 bis 1941 – Verzeichnis); Swenja-Verlag 1999, ISBN 5-7870-0032-3 online
- А.Л. Литвин (A. L. Litwin): От анархо-коммунизма к ГУЛАГу: к биографии Генриха Ягоды (Über den Anarchokommunismus im Gulag: Mit einer Biografie von Genrich Jagoda) in 1917 год в судьбах России и мира. Октябрьская революция. (Das Jahr 1917 und die Schicksale Russlands und der Welt) S. 299–314, Institut für russische Geschichte РАН, Moskau 1998, ISBN 5805500078.
External links
- Media related to Genrikh Yagoda at Wikimedia Commons
- Newspaper clippings about Genrikh Yagoda in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW