As an office worker in Melitopol, he joined Komsomol (the Young Communist League) but was expelled in 1930 for attempted rape.

In December 1938, after Yezhov had been dismissed and replaced by Lavrenty Beria, Rodos was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and appointed Deputy Head of the NKVD Investigation Department.

One of the first prisoners interrogated by Rodos was a fellow officer, Pyotr Zubov, who was arrested for bungling an attempted coup against the King of Yugoslavia.

[10] In March 1940, after the Soviet invasion of Poland, Rodos was sent to direct the deportation of Poles from Lviv, for which he was promoted in 1941 to the rank of major.

During his closed trial, at which he was convicted of extracting confessions under torture, he was asked whether he knew what Isaac Babel did for a living.

The question arises whether a man with such an intellect could–by himself–have conducted his investigations in a manner proving the guilt of people such as Kosior and others.

We must say that at the Central Committee Presidium session he cynically declared: “I thought that I was executing the orders of the Party.”[12]Rodos was sentenced to death on February 26, one day after the speech.