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

32. Andrei Vyshinsky, chief prosecutor in 1930s show trials

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. Vasili Blokhin, chief executioner at the Lubianka, 1940s

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

49. Head of SMERSH Viktor Abakumov, c. 1946

50. Abakumov after his arrest, 1951

51. Latvians being deported to Siberia, 1946

52. Show trial, 1938

53. Vsevolod Meierkhold

54. Meierkhold and a portrait of his wife, Zinaida Raikh

55. Charlatan biologist Trofim Lysenko, late 1930s

56. Geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, Lysenko’s victim, late 1930s

57. Marina Tsvetaeva and her daughter, Ariadna, 1925

58. Nuclear physicist Piotr Kapitsa with the Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels, 1946

59. Nine NKVD men:

Leonid Zakovsky (Stubis), head of Leningrad NKVD, 1937

Genrikh Liushkov, head of secret political section, defected to Japan in 1938

Baron Romuald Pillar von Pilchau, last aristocrat in NKVD

Anatoli Esaulov, who interrogated Ezhov

Vsevolod Merkulov, physics graduate and Beria’s deputy

Akvsenti Rapava, head of Georgian NKVD, after his second arrest, 1953

Bogdan Kobulov, Beria’s associate and NKVD representative in East Germany

General Vlasik, chief of Stalin’s household and tutor to his children, after his arrest, 1952

Iakov Agranov, NKVD specialist for intellectuals and associate of Mayakovsky

Illustration Acknowledgments

Except where indicated in the following list, all the photographs are reproduced courtesy of the David King Archive, London.

3. from Ostrovsky, Aleksandr, Kto stoial za spinoi Stalina, St. Petersburg, Neva, 2002

13. from Litvin, A. L. et al. (eds.), Boris Savinkov na Lubianke. Dokumenty

18. from Kollontai, A. M., Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, Moscow, Academia, 2001

21, 24, 44, 45, 46. from Lakoba Archive, Hoover Institute, Stanford, California, courtesy of Memed Jikhashvili

25. from Chuev, Feliks, Molotov: poluderzhavnyi vlastelin, Moscow, Olma, 2002

26, 27, 28. from Kirilina, Alla, Neizvestnyi Kirov, St. Petersburg, Neva, 2001

33. from Zviagintsev, A. G., Orlov Iu. G., Raspiatye revoliutsiei: rossiiskie i sovetskie prokurory, 1922–36, Moscow, ROSSPÈN, 1998

35. from Memorial Society, Moscow

39. from Stalin i Kaganovich: perepiska, 1931–6 gg, Moscow, ROSSPÈN, 2001

41, 43, 59 a, b, e, g, h. from Antonov-Ovseenko, A., Beriia, Moscow, AST, 1999

42, 50, 51, 59f. from Stoliarov, Kirill, Igry v pravosudie,

Moscow, Olma, 2000

47. from Petrov, N. V., Skorkin, K. V., Kto rukovodil NKVD 1934–41: spravochnik, Moscow, Zven’ia, 1999

48. from Gusliarov, Evgeni, Stalin v zhizni, Moscow, Olma, 2003

55, 56. from Rokitianskii, Ia. G., Vavilov, Iu., N., Goncharov, V. A., Sud palacha. Nikolai Vivilov, v zastenkakh NKVD, Moscow, Academia, 1999

57. from Andreev A. F. (ed.), Kapitsa, Tamm, Semionov v ocherkakh i pis’makh, Moscow, Vagrius, 1998

58. from Marina Tsvetaeva, a Pictorial Biography, Ann Arbor, USA, 1980

CHRONOLOGY

PREFACE

Everything might have come right in the course of time. Russian life could have been pulled into order. . . . What bitch woke up Lenin? Who couldn’t bear the child sleeping? There is no precise answer to this question. . . . Anyway, he himself probably didn’t know, although his supply of vengeance never dried up. . . . And spiteful in his failure, he immediately started a revolution for all, so that nobody escaped punishment. And our fathers followed him to Golgothas with banners and songs. . . . In Russia you mustn’t wake anybody.

Naum Korzhavin