[lbo-talk] Kremlin

[John E. Norem]

Joseph Stalin 
<http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=Joseph+Stalin> never had 
any problem finding willing executioners. Everyone from his Politburo 
colleagues to the secret-police rank and file dutifully carried out his 
wishes during the Great Terror of 1937-38, when approximately 700,000 
people were shot in assembly-line executions. It was a huge job, and no 
one was a more enthusiastic organizer than Nikolai Ezhov 
<http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=Nikolai+Ezhov>, the head 
of the NKVD, as the secret police was then called. But when, 
predictably, the killing frenzy began consuming the executioners 
themselves, Ezhov didn't go gracefully. "He started to hiccup, weep, and 
when he was conveyed to 'the place,' they had to drag him by the hands 
along the floor," a witness recalled. "He struggled and screamed terribly."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/90408