Stalin and His Hangmen

PENGUIN BOOKS

STALIN AND HIS HANGMEN

Donald Rayfield is Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary College (University of London). He is the author of a number of books, including
The Literature of Georgia: A History
and
Anton Chekhov: A Life
, and has written articles on a variety of topics, among them Russian and Georgian poetry, Stalin and Beria. He is currently leading a team compiling a Georgian – English dictionary.

Stalin and His Hangmen

An authoritative portrait of a tyrant and those who served him

DONALD RAYFIELD

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
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Published by Viking 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005
1

Copyright © Donald Rayfield, 2004
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Allen Knechtschaffenen
An alle Himmel schreib ich’s an,
die diesen Ball umspannen:
Nicht der Tyrann ist ein schimpflicher Mann,
aber der Knecht des Tyrannen
.

To All The Enslaved
I write it all over the heavens
That encompass our earthly sphere:
It’s not the tyrant we should abuse,
But the serf who works for the tyrant.

Christian Morgenstern

Contents

List of Illustrations

Chronology

Preface

ONE
* The Long Road to Power

Childhood and Family
–
Being Georgian
–
Stalin as a Thinker
–
Political Initiation
–
Prison and Exile
–
The Lone Sadist

TWO
* Stalin, Dzierżyński and the Cheka

Prelude to Power
–
Feliks Dzierżyński: the First Forty Years
–
The Extraordinary Commission
–
Poles, Latvians and Jews
–
The
Chekisty
as Intellectual and Organizer
–
Stalin and Dzierżyński in Tandem
–
From Cheka to State Political Directorate

THREE
*The Exquisite Inquisitor

A False Dawn
–
Viacheslav Menzhinsky’s Belated Rise
–
Repressing Peasants and Intellectuals
–
Control of the Church
–
Stalin’s Struggle for Sole Control
–
A New Role for OGPU

FOUR
* Stalin Solo

Clearing the Terrain
–
The First Show Trials
–
Bringing the Writers to Heel
–
Operations Abroad
–
Enslaving the Peasantry
–
The Peasantry: the Final Solution

FIVE
* Iagoda’s Rise

Towards Sole Dictatorship
–
Bringing Up a Guard Dog
–
The Trophy Writer
–
Fellow-Travellers Abroad and Dissent at Home
–
From Unity to Uniformity

SIX
* Murdering the Old Guard

The Killing of Sergei Kirov
–
Removing Zinoviev and Kamenev
–
Hitler’s Lessons
–
Women and Children
–
Pigs in the Parlour, Peacocks on Parade
–
Iagoda’s Fall
–
Monolithic Power

SEVEN
* The Ezhov Bloodbath

The Birth of the Great Terror
–
How the Hedgehog Got Its Prickles
–
Purging of the Guard
–
Targets for Extermination
–
The Last Show Trials
–
Disarming the Army
–
Martyrdom for Poets
–
Disposing of Ezhov

EIGHT
* The Rise of Lavrenti Beria

Why Beria?
–
Beria in the Caucasus
–
Beria as Satrap
–
Mopping Up after Ezhov
–
The Last of the Intellectuals
–
Ethnic Cleansing
–
The Katyn Massacres
–
Trotsky’s End

NINE
* Hangmen at War

‘Brothers, sisters!’
–
Beria Shares Power
–
Evacuation, Deportation and Genocide
–
Prisoners of War
–
Liberating Europe
–
The Scent of Freedom

TEN
* The Gratification of Cruelty

Senescence
–
Exploding the Bomb
–
Crushing the Last of the Literati
–
Jews and Cosmopolitans
–
Vengeance on Leningrad
–
Stalin’s End
–
Beria’s Hundred Days
–
The Hangmen’s End

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

List of Illustrations

SECTION ONE

1
. ‘Koba’ Stalin, police photograph, Baku, 1910

2
. Suren Spandaryan and Koba,
c.
1911

3
. Stalin with fellow exiles, Monastyrskoe (Siberia), July 1915

4
. Dzierżyński, Peterss and senior
chekisty
, 1918

5
. Dzierżyński’s funeral, 1926

6
. Menzhinsky with his first wife Iulia, his two daughters and his son Rudolf, Iaroslavl, 1904

7
. Menzhinsky in the Cheka,
c.
1919

8
. American Relief Agency clinic, Volga famine, 1921

9
. Stalin, Rykov, Zinoviev and Bukharin at dacha, 1924

10
. Sergei Kirov and Sergo Orjonikidze, north Caucasus, 1920

11
. Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, mid-1920s

12
. Delivering prisoners to the Lubianka, 1928

13
. Boris Savinkov, 1922

14
. Menzhinsky, 1925

15
. Menzhinsky’s funeral, 1934

16
. Stalin relaxing at dacha,
c.
1930

17
. Mayakovsky shortly after his suicide, 1930

18
. Pavel Dybenko and Aleksandra Kollontai with Dybenko’s sister and parents, 1918

SECTION TWO

19
. Genrikh Iagoda and Maxim Gorky, 1934

20
. Famine, Kharkov province, 1932

21
. Stalin and Voroshilov fishing, Abkhazia, 1933

22
. Stalin and his second wife Nadezhda Allilueva,
c.
1928

23
. Stalin, his daughter Svetlana and second son Vasili, 1936

24
. Stalin’s NKVD guards, Sukhum, 1933

25
. Molotov and his daughter Svetlana,
c.
1930

26
.
Leonid Nikolaev, killer of Sergei Kirov,
c.
1933

27
. OGPU boss Filipp Medved, White Sea canal, 1931

28
. Kirov in his coffin, December 1934

29
. Prisoners at work, White Sea canal, 1933

30
. Svirlag corrective labour camp, Leningrad province, 1936

31
. Judges at Menshevik trial, 1931

32
. Chief prosecutor in 1930s show trials Andrei Vyshinsky

33
. Faina Niurina, acting chief prosecutor of the Russian Federation in the 1930s

34
. Rykov and Bukharin on their way to trial, 1938

35
. Nikolai Ezhov with his brother Ivan

36
. Ezhov conferring with Stalin, 1937

37
. Ezhov and Orjonikidze at dacha, 1936

38
. Red Army leaders in the late 1920s

39
. Lazar Kaganovich, early 1930s

40
. Orjonikidze very shortly after his suicide or murder, February 1937

SECTION THREE

41
. Lavrenti Beria, mid-1920s

42
. Beria’s guards, chauffeurs and pimps Nadaraia and Sarkisov

43
. Caucasian party caucus 1935: Pilipe Makharadze, Mir-Jafar Bagirov, Beria

44
. The Beria and Lakoba families sailing, Black Sea, 1933

45
. Party conference 1935: Lakoba, Beria and, head of Armenian party Agasi Khanjian

46
. Lakoba’s funeral, January 1937

47
. Chief executioner at the Lubianka Vasili Blokhin, 1940s

48
. Meeting 1936: Khrushchiov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Stalin, Georgi Malenkov and others