History Lesson: Meet Nikolai Yezhov

"and every spirit that does not confess that[a] Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world."
1 John 4:3

 We know this post seems off-topic, but if readers indulge us it will make sense shortly.

During the purges of the 1930's, Nikolai Yeshov was Joseph Stalin's primary hatchet man:

As a devout Stalinist and not a member of the organs of state security, Yezhov was just the man Stalin needed to intensify the terror and rid Stalin of potential opponents. Yezhov's first task from Stalin was to personally investigate and conduct the prosecution of his long-time Chekist mentor Yagoda, which he did with remorseless zeal. Ordered by Stalin to create a suitably grandiose plot for Yagoda's show trial, Yezhov ordered the NKVD to sprinkle mercury on the curtains of his office so that the physical evidence could be collected and used to support the charge that Yagoda was a German spy, sent to assassinate Yezhov and Stalin with poison and restore capitalism. [Emphasis Added]

From ExecutedToday.com:

From late 1936, when he eliminated his predecessor Genrikh Yagoda (later executed, of course), until his own fall from power in at the end of 1938, Yezhov presided over the apex of Stalinist terror, averaging hundreds of political killings daily — perhaps north of 600,000 for the two-year period, plus a like number disappeared into the Gulag’s freezers. (Just browse this here site’s ’1937′ tag for a taste.)

From Cyber USSR:

A complete nonentity, whose name, during the brief period of his administration, evoked horror throughout the entire country and entered history in the word "Ezhovshchina" [a curiously bland term, perhaps "the Yezhov thing" --HSC]. He was raised to power by Stalin for the specific purpose of setting up a bloodbath. In the Soviet press, he was called the "Iron Commissar," but among the people he was named the "bloody dwarf." [Ezhov was only 154 cm tall, about 5'1". Two other famous Russians of comparably short height were Nikita Khrushchev and Alexander Pushkin --HSC] According to those who knew him well, toward the end of his administration, he was totally dependent on narcotics.

More on the Poisoned (or bloody) dwarf:



Yeshov later fell from grace (hard), which was its own story, but for our purposes it's important to remember that he was Stalin's chosen agent for digging up dirt on enemies of the state.