Nikolai Yezhov

Nikolai Yezhov

Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov (Russian: Никола́й Иванович Ежо́в) (May 1, 1895 – February 4, 1940) was the senior figure in the NKVD (the secret police of the Soviet Union) under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge in the 1930s. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" (Russian: Ежовщина, "the Yezhov era"), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became its victim. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940. By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political unperson. Among art historians he has the nickname, "The Vanishing Commissar" because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo.