Talk:Nikolai Yezhov

Photo

why is this photo still being used for the article? it is clearly a photoshop made to have yezhov resemble obama. 100.2.164.102 (talk) 22:28, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Original Photo

In the original photo he looks small and there is a strange halo around him. Have the censors shrunk him and filled in gap to make Stalin look more imposing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.9.225 (talk) 21:18, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

This has probably be pored over by others with access to original negatives, but it's obviously an illustration, or at least a detailed tracing of a photographic print. The image of Yezhov has a peculiar halo. Was he added, and then removed? It would be fascinating to find the original negative, or negatives. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 19:51, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Did someone edit his picture (the one on the riht)

It looks a hell of a lot like President Obama. Is someone tryin to play a joke? The other pics online look NOTHING like Obama, and this one features dark black lips which aren't typical on Russians.

You daffodils!

Nikolai Yezhov is not the little guy on the right (who is an anonymous commissar), he is the big guy on the center (WHO IS NOT STALIN, HIS FACE WAS RETOUCHED ON THE SECOND PICTURE). I can't even think on how much time this was like this... --Fixman (talk) 02:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Erm...no, that's most definitely Yezhov next to Stalin and Molotov at the canal. Google image can give you several other pictures of the three of them if you'd like to corroborate. And please don't call other editors daffodils as it violates our policy. Thanks. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 11:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Did you know that Nikolai Yezhov actually looks like Barack Obama? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.62.60.106 (talk) 16:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is an intelligence issue, butthere is definitely a political bias issue at work on this page. The illustration that is supposedly Ezhov has been retouched with Barack Obama's face and does not look anything like actual photographs of Ezhov. That same immage floats around in an e-mail or supposed lokk-alikes. I would hope that such modifications made with the intent to malign would not be allowed. It would be just as easy to substitute Alfred E. Nueman for George W. Bush.Thezensurfer (talk) 12:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Reason for his death?

Now, I understand that in stalinist russia, someone in politics getting shot wasent that uncommon, and doesn't really need a reason. But it should be explained why this man fell from glory. And not only was replaced, but shot after. 76.179.164.79 (talk) 10:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

he confessed he is anti-soviet. What consequences did you expect? 178.70.214.201 (talk) 22:51, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Homosexuality

Is there any source for his homosexualtity? (I know..constant topic in all Wikis) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.136.131.1 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 9 October 2005

Simon Sebag-Montefiore's book documents it very well, with primary and secondary sources. He was actually bisexual. He would get men drunk and force them to fellate him, and would hold orgies.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.12.236.179 (talk • contribs) 22:44, 23 April 2006

I'd be interested to see more sources than just Simon Sebag-Montefiore. Because he's the kind of person that thought Mao: the Untold Story as a "excellent portrayal of reality", while the said work is obviously biased and contains various allegations unable to be sustained. Children of the dragon (talk) 12:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

If Simon Sebag-M applauded the book about Mao, then well done him. Sebag-M is an excellent historian and Mao was a murdering, evil tyrant. kentish 0710, 19 May 2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.151.15 (talk) 06:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree on Sebag-Montefiore. Reviews I have read of his work in academic journals routinely complain about this most of all. The accusations against Ezhov are hard to verify but are taken from NKVD interrogations and depositions after he was arrested in 1939. The best description of this is in Stalinist Confessions by Igal Halfin. Seth bernstein (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

In all wikis? Only english-speaking (mostly American) society (and wiki) is obsessed with one's homosexuality, others do not care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.40.17.17 (talk) 01:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The Spanish wiki has him as bisexual on the basis of documentation concerning his personal life.Radiohist (talk) 03:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Quote

Where does the Bukharin quote end? -Not Diablo 07:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Photo Removal

How the heck did they have the knowledge to do that back then, any other crap like that from stalin?

The photo with him in it looks fake to me. Might this photo removal thing be a hoax?

i guess you never heard about Photoshop? it was still in development betta then! ;) ... i was wondering same thing - how the hell they did it then!? psycho_NIX 08:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I would think that they drew in were he used to be or took a picture of the same exact place w/o Yezhov and somehow edited the photo by combining elements from both the photos. Yeah. Look closely at the river and buildings in the background. There are subtle differences between the two photos (aside from the missing Yezhov). In addition, this is not the only one to become a nonperson in Stalinist Russia. A huge number suffered a similar fate as him.Smaug99 (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a several step process, and it was performed by a team of specially trained artists that worked for the NKVD's propaganda department. There's a lot of details in a book called "The Commissar Vanishes", but I can't recall the author. This picture actually represents a particularly slick and time-consuming example. In many cases, they would simply send out agents with penknives to cut out the "unperson's" profile from a group photo they wished to keep. Especially group photos with Stalin and his generals, many of which ended up looking like swiss cheese, with only 2 or 3 faces still intact next to the ever smiling Papa Joe in the middle. The other option was to just have a show trial and condemn so-and-so as a traitor, in which case everyone who wanted to call themselves a good Stalinist would go down to the local library and scratch the offender out of the history books themselves with a key. This apparently happened quite a lot with Trotsky and Bukharin, who had their names and faces displayed glowingly in thousands of publications before being denounced. In those days of the Great Purge, anything that mentioned or showed officially condemned "unpersons" represented a likely condemnation as a right-sympathizer and a trip to the Gulag (or a bullet in the ear) if it was found in your possession. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 11:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Photo Alteration date?

Was the photo altered directly after the man's death or did the Stalinis regime wait a few years? Smaug99 (talk) 03:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC) I doubt the photo alteration technology was available in 1940. Norum 20:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The process is called retouching, and was a well developed art by the beginning of the twentieth century. Retouching could have been done on the print or in the negative (typical negatives of that era were much bigger than the modern 35 mm). If done on the print, there might be signs of the pigments used in the retouching process. If done on the negative, the only evidence in the print would be the absence of visible silver grains in the retouched area,however a soft focus enlargement would obscure the silver grains from the negative. A third process might be photo-montage - a separate print of Yezhov could have been cut out and glued in place next to Stalin. The retoucher would then work to obscure the the join, and the doctored print rephotographed to produce a negative with Yezhov in place.

There is more evidence of doctoring in the print that includes Yezhov than in the print without him. Yezov's shoulders and arms are surrounded by a kind of halo typical of the work of a less-than expert retoucher. Yezhoz also seems out of scale relative to the other people in the print, again point to his being added to the original photo rather than removed.24.69.25.223 (talk) 19:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Biased Phrasing

When presented, Yezhov received an "uproarious greeting". He stood, one observer wrote, "eyes cast down and a sheepish grin on his face, as if he wasn't sure he deserved such a rapturous reception". Comrade Stalin himself observed the scene from his private box. All of this merriment while a majority of the party's Central Committee were being condemned to death or prison as "enemies of the people".

The wording the the previously bolded text gives Russia an evil or dark skew.

yeah, I'm pretty sure Russia skewed themselves towards evil. 76.115.173.255 (talk) 14:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems biased through out. I just edited a couple of words that are clearly biased/opinion instead of subjective fact. ie He started screaming and otherwise acting cowardly. Shows a complete biased view. Caffeyw (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Wording straight from book

I'm noticing most of the article appears to be written directly from a book. I'm holding off till I read the actual book, but the wording just seems to indicate it came from the cited book with only minor if any changes.Caffeyw (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Expansion request for Decline and fall section

Echoing what someone noted above. Even though it is plausible that he fell out of favour for one reason or another and was subsequently humiliated and murdered, it isn't quite clear how exactly things went down. Are there at least any frequently cited rumours as to whose responsibility his demise was? And what exactly he did to upset the leadership, or what other political reasons may have played a role? user:Everyme 15:48, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I just finished a good biography on Yezhov. I'll make a bunch of edits here in the next week or so. In a nutshell, like everything and everyone else in Stalinist Russia, Yezhov rose and fell on Stalin's whim. He was given the job as Cheka Chief specifically because he was extremely brutal and suspicious, rather stupid, and lived only to please Joseph Stalin; Stalin had been using him as his personal purge-organizer/hatchetman for years before he made him NKVD Chief. Stalin wanted him to be the executor of his Great Purge because he knew Yezhov wouldn't spare a living soul if he could help it. After the purge was over, Stalin wanted to get rid of the bloody tools, if you will, and began trying to figure out ways to get rid of everyone who executed the Purge and could potentially embarass him or tar his legacy at a later date. In traditional Stalinist fashion, once Stalin decided he wanted one of his bureaucrats to die for whatever reason, they either got a show-trial and became a pariah (if they had propaganda value and were willing to confess), or they got a visit in the middle of the night and became an un-person, with their name no longer spoken and their face airbrushed out of pictures. Yagoda got the former treatment at Yezhov's hands, Yezhov got the latter treatment at Beria's hands. It was more or less standard practice for Stalin to periodically decide to kill the people who were closest to him for no readily apparent reason except to keep the terror level up. Also, Yezhov, always a rather considerable drunk, responded very badly when Beria was appointed his Deputy (and obvious successor). He became a round the clock drunk who rarely showed up for work, mostly because he saw the writing on the wall and realized he was already as good as dead. He had more than ample time to arrange to flee the country before he was arrested, but he was slavishly devoted to Stalin right up until the end (just like Yagoda) and was incapable of doing anything except be miserable that his idol had betrayed him and was going to execute him. The bit about Beria ordering him to be stripped and beaten before being shot is also true; it was precisely what Yezhov had ordered done to his predecessor Yagoda, who he had deliberately fabricated a treason case against, before he was shot. They were also shot by the same guy, Vasili Blokhin, just 2 years apart from each other. Like I said, Stalin liked fresh blood. Literally and figuratively.Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 10:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks a lot for your work! user:Everyme 11:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Galassi is putting in fake sources

After I twice reverted Galassi's extremely dubious insertion of references to Yezhov's father as a "gendarme" [1] [2] because that was unsourced, he inserted 'Алексей Павлюков, Ежов. Биография. — М.: «Захаров», 2007. — 576 с. — ISBN 978-5-8159-0686-0'.

However, GoogleBooks preview [3] shows that the book only has 574 pages. 24.47.118.12 (talk) 16:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The info is translated from the ru-wiki article, and the ref is copied from there. Read up on WP:GOODFAITH.--Galassi (talk) 19:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Please do not re-insert wrong information from another Wiki. Do your own research. It's super-dubious that a prominent NKVD chief's father could have been a gendarme, another Wiki is not reliable, and there is no p. 576. 24.47.118.12 (talk) 22:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yezhov's height

In the photo, Yezhov looks much shorter than Stalin. Yezhov seems to have been 4 foot 11 or 4 foot 10. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.20.175 (talk) 09:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

i lack expertise, but i think FeigenbErg is correct spelling (FeigenbUrg on this wp page)

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Yevgenia_Ezhova_%28nee_Feigenberg_1904-1938%29_with_child.jpg i suppose both spellings may have been used if the name was spelled in other than English alphabet?2z2z (talk) 00:40, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

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Change unperson to enemy of the people

The article has in third paragraph: By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political unperson.

It is unclear what "unperson" means. Most likely the author means enemy of the people (vrag naroda). The term has the explanation on Wikipedia.

I have corrected. If it is something else, please undo but define what you mean.

--Armenius vambery (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Daughter

Yezhov adopted one child, first named Yezhova then 'Natalia Khayutina'. 'Natasha' is a diminutive form of 'Natalia'. Matuko 21:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Ezhov.PNG

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Jewish/Vandalism

Someone is going around making unsourced claims that various NKVD secret police officials were Jews in what is obvious vandalism. This includes the Yezhov page. I feel action must be taken with.Wordbearer88 (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Who was that "someone"? Some of these people (probably not Yezhov) in fact were Jewish. However, this must be something significant in context of a page to deserve inclusion. My very best wishes (talk) 21:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't know who it is, they use IP edit. They added in that he was Jewish and could speak Yiddish with no additional citation. Until there's no actual evidence he's Jewish it's inaccurate to add such information. Check the logs yourself to see.Wordbearer88 (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

That's nonsense, of course, as Yezhov himself stated that he didn't speak Yiddish. While purging the NKVD of Jews, he actually complained that there were too many "Yiddish Speakers". Kogelev (talk) 06:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Same crap was added on Italian wiki. I removed that.--Galassi (talk) 00:59, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Just a reminder that Yezhov wasn't Jewish. The only (and literally the only) reference for it is Antony Polonsky's article. But the article itself provides no reference or source to back the claim that Yezhov was either ethnically or religiously Jewish. Unlike Stephen Kotkin (2017) who does provide reference to Yezhov's nationality and others. It's also not backed up by other materials, such as Yezhov's own interrogation protocols where he admits that he did not know Yiddish and spoke about Jews in the third person. He also mentioned that his father was from a Peasant Family.Kogelev (talk) 05:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion

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• The Commissar Vanishes 2.jpg
• Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin, with Nikolai Yezhov.jpg

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• Nikolai Yezhov conferring with Stalin.jpg

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• Yevgenia Ezhova (nee Feigenberg 1904-1938) with child.jpg

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Wasn’t Yezhov Jewish?

When Stalin replaced Yagoda in September 1936, he appointed another Jew, the more zealous Nikolai Yezhov.

Antony Polonsky, “Jews and Communism in the Soviet Union and Poland” [4]

177.44.211.7 (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn’t see that this subject was already addressed above.

177.44.211.7 (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)