Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian: Николай Иванович Ежов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof]; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge.

Yezhov was born either in Saint Petersburg, according to his official Soviet biography, or in southwest Lithuania (probably Veiveriai, Marijampolė or Kaunas).

He worked as a musician, railroad switchman, forest warden, head of a brothel, and as a housepainting contractor employing a couple of hired workers.

Nadezhda Mandelstam, who met Yezhov at Sukhum in the early thirties, did not perceive anything ominous in his manner or appearance; her impression of him was that of a "modest and rather agreeable person".

Yezhov oversaw falsified accusations in the Kirov murder case against opposition leaders Kamenev, Zinoviev, and their supporters.

[11] He was appointed People's Commissar for Internal Affairs (head of the NKVD) and a member of the Central Committee on 26 September 1936, following the dismissal of Genrikh Yagoda.

[13] Yezhov's first task from Stalin was to personally investigate and conduct prosecution of his long-time Chekist mentor Yagoda, which he did with remorseless zeal.

Watching him, I am frequently reminded of those evil boys from Rasteryayeva Street workshops, whose favorite form of entertainment was to light a piece of paper tied to the tail of a cat drenched with kerosene, and relish in watching the cat scamper down the street in maddening horror, unable to rid itself of the flames that are getting closer and closer.

In addition, a much greater number of ordinary Soviet citizens were accused (usually on flimsy or nonexistent evidence) of disloyalty or "wrecking" by local Chekist troikas and similarly punished to fill Stalin and Yezhov's arbitrary quotas for arrests and executions.

Yezhov also conducted a thorough purge of the security organs, both NKVD and GRU, removing and executing not only many officials who had been appointed by his predecessors Yagoda and Menzhinsky, but even his own appointees as well.

The Gulag population swelled by 685,201 under Yezhov, nearly tripling in size in just two years, with at least 140,000 of these prisoners (and likely many more) dying of malnutrition, exhaustion and the elements in the camps (or during transport to them).

During the Great Purge, acting on the orders from Stalin, he had accomplished liquidation of Old Bolsheviks and other potentially "disloyal elements" or "fifth columnists" within the Soviet military and government prior to the onset of war with Germany.

Stalin's penchant for periodically executing and replacing his primary lieutenants was well known to Yezhov, as he had previously been the man most directly responsible for orchestrating such actions.

Well acquainted with typical Stalinist bureaucratic precursors to eventual dismissal and arrest, Yezhov recognized Beria's increasing influence with Stalin as a sign that his downfall was imminent, and he plunged headlong into alcoholism and despair.

Already a heavy drinker, in the last weeks of his service, he reportedly was disconsolate, slovenly, and drunk nearly all of his waking hours, rarely bothering to show up to work.

As anticipated, Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, in a report dated November 11, sharply criticised the work and methods of the NKVD during Yezhov's tenure as chief, thus establishing the bureaucratic pretense necessary to remove him from power.

[21] Yezhov had told his wife, Yevgenia, on 18 September that he wanted a divorce, and she had begun writing increasingly despairing letters to Stalin, none of which was answered.

[23] At his own request, Yezhov was officially relieved of his post as the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs on 25 November, succeeded by Beria, who had been in complete control of the NKVD since the departure of Frinovsky on 8 September.

Stalin was evidently content to ignore Yezhov for several months, finally ordering Beria to denounce him at the annual Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

It would not do to make a fuss about the arrest of 'the leader’s favourite,' and Stalin had no desire to arouse public interest in NKVD activity and the circumstances of the conduct of the Great Terror.

"[27] A letter from Beria, Andreyev and Malenkov to Stalin, dated 29 January 1939, accused the NKVD of allowing "massive, unfounded arrests of completely innocent persons", and stated that the leadership of Yezhov "did not put a stop to this kind of arbitrariness and extremism ... but sometimes itself abetted it."

In his confession, Yezhov admitted to the standard litany of state crimes necessary to mark him as an "enemy of the people" prior to execution, including "wrecking", official incompetence, theft of government funds, and treasonous collaboration with German spies and saboteurs.

Apart from these political crimes, he was also accused of and confessed to a humiliating history of sexual promiscuity, including homosexuality, rumors that were later deemed true by some post-Soviet examinations of the case.

[33]After the secret trial, Yezhov was allowed to return to his cell; half an hour later, he was called back and told that he had been condemned to death.

[34] On 4 February 1940, Yezhov was shot by future KGB chairman Ivan Serov (or by Vasily Blokhin, in the presence of N. P. Afanasev, according to one book source[35]) in the basement of a small NKVD station on Varsonofevskii Lane (Varsonofyevskiy pereulok) in Moscow.

When Yezhov was arrested in 1939, he stated during his interrogation that he had many lovers, including Filipp Goloshchyokin, then party functionary in Kazakh ASSR, during the latter half of 1925, and that they had shared an apartment in Kyzylorda.