Henry Yagoda was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1934-1936. He became one of the "founding fathers" of the Stalinist Gulag and the organizer of mass repressions of that period. During the Great Terror, he himself was among the victims of the NKVD. The berry was accused of espionage and preparing a coup d'etat, and was eventually shot.
early years
Heinrich Jagoda came from Polish Jews. His real name is Enoch Gershevich Yehuda. The revolutionary was born on November 19, 1891 in Rybinsk - a city located in the Yaroslavl province. A few months after the birth of the child, the family moved to Nizhny Novgorod.
Berry Genrikh Grigoryevich was a relative of another famous Bolshevik - Yakov Sverdlov, being his second cousin. Their fathers worked as typographers and made stamps and stamps that the revolutionaries used to counterfeit documents. Henry had five sisters and two brothers. His family lived poorly. Nevertheless, the boy (after another move) graduated from the Simbirsk gymnasium.
In the Yagoda-Sverdlov printing house there were Bolsheviks of various calibers. For example, Nikolai Semashko, the future Leninist People’s Commissar of Health, went there. Nizhny Novgorod was also the birthplace of Maxim Gorky (they made friends with Henry on the eve of the revolution).
"Owl"
The key event, after which the boy’s life changed dramatically, was the murder of his older brother Mikhail. In this sense, Yagoda Genrikh Grigorievich was like Lenin. Mikhail was cut off by the Cossacks during the 1905 revolution. A sad fate awaited another brother, Leo. He was called up to join the army of Kolchak, and in 1919 he was shot for participating in the uprising in his regiment. But it was precisely the death of Mikhail, who accidentally found himself on the barricades, that made Henry a revolutionary.
Having matured, Yagoda as an anarchist-communist began to participate in illegal revolutionary activity. The royal gendarmes called him "Owl" and "Lonely" (for a hunted and unsociable appearance).
In 1911, the revolutionary arrived in Moscow. On the instructions of his comrades, he was to establish contacts with local like-minded people and help organize the bank robbery. Inexperienced in conspiracy, the future People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, fell into the hands of the police. In a sense, he was lucky. Only false documents were found in the suspicious young man. As a Jew, finding himself without permission in Moscow, he violated the law on the Pale of Settlement. The berry was tried and sentenced to a two-year exile in Simbirsk.
In Petersburg
In 1913, in honor of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, a broad political amnesty was declared. Thanks to her, Berry a little earlier laid out found himself at large. The exile to Simbirsk ended, and the revolutionary had already legally moved to St. Petersburg. To do this, he formally abandoned Judaism and converted to Orthodoxy (the Pale of Settlement acted on a confessional, not national, basis).
Berry Henry Grigoryevich and religion had nothing in common. Nevertheless, according to the law, he did not have the right to be considered an atheist and that is why he moved to the bosom of the Orthodox Church.
In St. Petersburg, Yagoda met Nikolai Podvoisky, who, after the revolution, became the first People's Commissar of the Armed Forces. Thanks to his help, the revolutionary began working in the insurance department at the Putilov factory. Podvoisky was also the brother-in-law of the Chekists Arbuzov and Kedrov: he opened to his protege a whole new world of possibilities.
In 1915, Yagoda Genrikh Grigoryevich was drafted into the tsarist army, after which he went to the front of the First World War. He rose to the rank of corporal, but was wounded and soon demobilized. In 1916, Henry returned to Petrograd.
Revolution and the Cheka
After the February Revolution, Yagoda worked in the newspapers The Village Poor and Soldier's Truth. In the summer of 1917, he joined the Bolshevik party. He will later lie that he joined them back in 1907, but this fabrication was refuted by the studies of historians.
During the October events, Yagoda was in the thick of things in Petrograd. In 1918, he began his career at the Cheka-OGPU. At first, the Chekist worked in the military inspection. Then a relative of Sverdlov and Dzerzhinsky transferred him to Moscow.
So Yagoda Genrikh Grigorievich got into the Special Department. He was especially close to Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. When Dzerzhinsky died, the latter headed the Cheka-OGPU, and Yagoda became his deputy. Moreover, with the onset of the boss’s illness, a successful careerist began to actually manage the power department.
Doubtful earnings
Back in 1919-1920 Berry managed to work in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade. There, he established a profitable cooperation with special services officer Alexander Lurie and began to earn commissions from foreign concessions. These two took away everything that lay bad. The fact was that the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade from its very founding turned out to be closely connected with the Cheka. The state security bodies confiscated the values, and the Lurie department sold this good abroad for currency.
Berry Genrikh Grigorievich, whose biography speaks of him as a deeply greedy and greedy person, in this sense noticeably differed from the principal Dzerzhinsky and Menzhinsky. The corruption of the Chekist liked Stalin. When he was at the turn of the 20-30s. fought for sole power, he enlisted the support of Berry. Neither one failed. Yagoda put on a person who eventually became a dictator, and Stalin, knowing about Yagoda's fraudulent reputation, could now blackmail him, demanding loyalty.
Leader and Commissar
Despite the loyalty of the subordinate to the Soviet leader, their relationship can hardly be called ideal. In the late 1920s, Stalin was generally quite cold towards Yagoda, since Yakov Sverdlov provided protection for him, and noticeable tension was felt between Sverdlov and Stalin even from the time of the Turukhan exile. The security officer’s papers were drawn up with caution, if not fear.
A serious problem for Yagoda after the establishment of the Stalinist dictatorship was his old friendship with Bukharin. He even mentioned the head of the OGPU as the only security officer to count on in the fight against Stalin. At the same time, Yagoda was distinguished by an uncontrollability in the execution of orders, industriousness and behavior of the executioner who agreed to any crime. Stalin found another equally energetic and executive person in the NKVD only a few years later. It turned out to be Nikolai Yezhov. But in the early thirties, Stalin out of necessity endured Yagoda and built up work with him.
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
Berry lacked the erudition of Menzhinsky and Dzerzhinsky fanaticism. He himself once modestly called himself a "watchdog on a chain." In a friendly company, during heavy libations, he loved to clumsily recite poems, but in his work he lacked creative talent. Private letters Berries were saturated with inexpressiveness and dryness. In the capital, he turned out to be an awkward provincial and always envied the party leaders, who were distinguished by greater gloss and emancipation. But it was precisely such a person that Stalin set for some time to lead the Chekists of the whole country.
In 1934, a new People's Commissariat of the NKVD was created, and the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Yagoda also gained control of the Main Directorate of State Security. He led the even-growing repressive state machine, which Stalin was preparing for new campaigns to combat opponents of his regime.
In a new capacity, Yagoda took up the creation and organization of the work of the Gulag. For a short time, the Soviet Union covered a network of camps, which became an important part of the Stalinist economic system and one of the engines of forced industrialization. Under the direct supervision of the People's Commissar, the main Gulag construction of that time was carried out - the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. For the correct coverage of the events from the ideological point of view, Yagoda organized a trip there by Maxim Gorky. By the way, it was the People’s Commissar who contributed to the writer’s return to the USSR (before that he had lived on the Italian island of Capri for several years).
This relationship Berries with the writing shop did not end there. As the head of the political police, he certainly monitored the loyalty of the creative intelligentsia to power. In addition, the wife of Yagoda was Ida Leonidovna Averbakh. Her brother Leopold was one of the most popular critics and writers of his time. Ida and Henry had one son - also Henry (or Garik, as he was called in the family). The boy was born in 1929. The People's Commissar loved the company of writers, musicians and artists. They drank good alcohol, talked with beautiful women, that is, they led the lifestyle that the security officer himself dreamed about.
Berries also experienced professional setbacks. For example, it was he who allowed the former head of the tsarist police Lopukhin to go to France. He became a defector. In the 20-30s, the number of defectors steadily grew. Stalin literally infuriated every case. He reproached Yagoda for inattention, even if the fugitive did not possess any special knowledge and was an ordinary intellectual.
Danger approaching
In 1935, Yagoda received a new title, which until then had not been assigned to anyone. Now he was known as the "Commissioner General of State Security." Such an exclusive privilege became a sign of special Stalinist mercy.
The Soviet leader just as never needed the services of a devoted head of the NKVD. In 1936, the first Moscow process took place. At this show trial, long-standing associates of Stalin were judged by the party of the Bolsheviks Zinoviev and Kamenev.
Other revolutionaries, who at one time worked directly with Lenin and did not regard their persecutor as an indisputable authority, also came under the press of repressions. One of these people was Mikhail Tomsky. He did not wait for the trial and committed suicide. In a note sent to Stalin, he mentioned Yagoda in the sense that he also belonged to the party opposition, which was then punished. The People's Commissar was in mortal danger.
Arrest
In the fall of 1936, Yagoda received a new appointment and became the head of the People’s Commissariat of Communications. The last blow to him was postponed. Opala turned into a long agonizing wait. Although outwardly the removal from the post of People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs and appointment to another post seemed to be like an episode of a successful career, Yagoda could hardly help but understand what was going on. Nevertheless, he did not dare to refuse Stalin and agreed to a new job.
In the People’s Commissariat of Communications, the disgraced Chekist stayed a little. Already in early 1937, he lost this post. Moreover, the unlucky People’s Commissar expelled VKP (b) from her ranks. At the February plenum of the Central Committee, he was harshly criticized for the failure of his department.
On March 28, Yagoda was arrested by his recent subordinates. The attack on yesterday’s godless celestial leader was led by the new People’s Commissar of the NKVD Nikolai Yezhov. These two, despite their own antagonism, have become figures of the same series for history. It was Yezhov and Yagoda who were the direct executors of the large-scale Stalinist repressions of the 1930s.
During the search, the dismissed People’s Commissar of Communications discovered forbidden Trotskyist literature. Soon followed by charges of espionage, preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin, planning a coup. The investigation connected Yagoda with Trotsky, Rykov and Bukharin - those very people whom he had recently actively contributed to the persecution. The conspiracy was described as "Trotskyist-fascist." The accusations were joined by Yagoda’s long-term colleagues — Yakov Agranov, Semyon Firin, Leonid Zakovsky, Stanislav Redens, Fedor Eichmans, etc. All of them characterized the person under investigation as unworthy and limited, and opposed him to the educated and principled Menzhinsky.
Wife Berries also suffered repression. First of all, she was fired from her job at the prosecutor’s office, and then she was arrested as a family member of an enemy of the people. Ida Averbach, together with his son and mother, was exiled to Orenburg. Soon the woman was shot.
Among other things, Yagoda was accused of the murder of Maxim Peshkov, the son of Maxim Gorky (in fact, he died of pneumonia). Allegedly, the violence occurred for personal reasons. The berry really was in love with Nadezhda Peshkova - the widow of Maxim. The murder was also blamed on the secretary of the main Soviet writer Pyotr Kryuchkov.
Execution
The Yagoda affair became part of one general third Moscow process (officially it was called the Process of the anti-Soviet “right-Trotskyist bloc”). A public court was held in the spring of 1938. It was accompanied by a major state propaganda campaign in the press. The newspapers published open letters of a wide variety of public and ordinary people, in which they branded the traitors of the motherland, offering to shoot “like mad dogs”, etc.
Yagoda asked (and the request was granted) that the question of his relationship with Nadezhda Peshkova and the assassination of Maxim Peshkov be considered separately in a closed session. Key episodes of espionage and treason were considered openly. Berry was interrogated by the prosecutor and state prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky - the main protagonist of the Moscow processes.
March 13, 1938 the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to death. Clinging to life, Berry wrote a petition for clemency. It was rejected. On March 15, the former people's commissar of internal affairs was shot. Unlike other persons involved in the process, Berry was never rehabilitated.