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

8. American Relief Agency clinic, Volga famine, 1921

9. Left to right: Stalin, Rykov, Zinoviev, and Bukharin at the dacha, 1924

10. Sergei Kirov (left) and Sergo Orjonikidze, north Caucasus, 1920

11. Left to right: Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev (front), mid-1920s

12. Delivering prisoners to the Lubianka, 1928

13. Boris Savinkov, 1922

14. Menzhinsky, 1925

15. Menzhinsky’s funeral, 1934. To the right of the coffin stand Genrikh Iagoda, Menzhinsky’s second wife, Alla Semionovna, and Menzhinsky’s surviving sister, Vera

16. Stalin relaxing at the dacha, c. 1930

17. Mayakovsky, shortly after his suicide, 1930

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

19. Genrikh Iagoda and Maksim Gorky, 1934

20. Famine, Kharkov province, 1932

21. Stalin and Voroshilov fishing, Abkhazia, 1933. Left to right: Voroshilov, Stalin, unknown bare-chested figure, Beria

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

23. Right to left: 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 labor camp, Leningrad province, 1936

31. Judges at Menshevik trial, 1931

32. Andrei Vyshindky, chief prosecutor in the 1930s show trials

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

34. Rykov (front left) and Bukharin (center) on their way to trial, 1938

35. Nikolai Ezhov (right) with his brother, Ivan

36. Ezhov (left) conferring with Stalin, 1937

37. Ezhov and Orjonikidze at the dacha, 1936. Left to right: Ezhove’s foster daughter Natalia; Ezhov; Ezhov’s second wife, Evgeniia; Sergo Orjonikidze; Orjonikidze’s wife, Zinaida, and assistan, Semushkin

38. Red Army leaders in the late 1920s. Left to right: defense commissar Klim Voroshilov, Marshal Tukhachevsky, Nokolai Muralov, chief of staff Aleksandr Egorov

39. Lazar Kaganovich, early 1930s

40. Sergo Orjonikidze very shortly after his suicide or murder, February 1937. Left to right: his widow, Zinaida Orjonikidze, Molotov, Ezhov, Stalin, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, and Voroghilov

41. Lavrenti Beria, mid-1920s

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

43. Caucasian Party caucus, 1935. Left to right: Pilipe Makharadze, Mir-Jafar Bagirov, Beria

44. Sailing on the Black Sea, 1933. Left to right: Lakoba’s wife, Sarie; Nina Beria; Lavrenti Beria; Lakoba’s son, Rauf. On right, with her arm on the captain’s shoulder, Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana

45. Party conference, 1935: head of Abhkaz Party, Nestor Lakoba; Beria, head of Armenian Party, Agasi Khanjian

46. Lakoba’s funeral, January 1937. The message on the wreath reads “To our close friend Comrade Nestor from Nina and Lavrenti Beria.” Bottom: Nina and Lavrenti Beria

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

48. Meeting, 1936. Front row, left to right: Khrushchiov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Stalin; second row, first from left: Georgi Malenkov

49. Head of SMERSH Viktor Abakumov, c. 1946

50. Abakumov after his arrest, 1951

51. Latvians being deported to Siberia, 1946

52. Show trial of 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 (left) with Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels, 1946

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

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

c. Baron Pillar von Pilchau, last aristocrat in NKVD

d. Anatoli Esaulov, who interrogated Ezhov

e. Vsevolod Merkulov, physics graduate and Beria’s deputy

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

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

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

i. Iakov Agranov, NKVD’s specialist for intellectuals and associate of Mayakovsky

DONALD RAYFIELD is professor of Russian and Georgian at the University of London and the author of a number of books on Russian writers and intellectuals, including an acclaimed biography of Anton Chekhov.

Also by Donald Rayfield

Anton Chekhov: A Life

Understanding Chekhov:

A Critical Study of Chekhov’s Prose and Drama

The Literature of Georgia: A History

2005 Random House Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright © 2004 by Donald Rayfield

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.