Vasily Blokhin | |
|---|---|
| Василий Блохин | |
| Chief Executioner and Commander Kommandatura Branch Main Administrative-Economic Department,Moscow OblastPeople's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) | |
| In office 1926–1953 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin 19 January [O.S. 7 January] 1895 |
| Died | 3 February 1955(1955-02-03) (aged 60) |
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1921–1953) |
| Awards | Order of Lenin |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Russian Empire Soviet Union |
| Branch/service | Imperial Russian Army Soviet Army |
| Rank | Major general |
| Battles/wars | World War I World War II |
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (Russian:Васи́лий Миха́йлович Блохи́н; 19 January [O.S. 7 January] 1895 – 3 February 1955) was aSovietsecret police official who served as the chiefexecutioner of theNKVD under the administrations ofGenrikh Yagoda,Nikolay Yezhov andLavrentiy Beria.
Blokhin was selected for the position byJoseph Stalin in 1926 and led a company of executioners that performed and supervisednumerous mass killings in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign, mostly during theGreat Purge andEastern Front of World War II.[1] Blokhin is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand, including his killing of about 7,000Polish prisoners of war during theKatyn massacre in spring 1940, making him the most prolific official executioner in recorded world history.[1][2][3] Blokhin was forced into retirement in 1953 after thedeath of Stalin and condemned duringde-Stalinization shortly before his death in 1955.
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was born on 7 January 1895 inGavrilovskoye,Vladimir Governorate into aRussianpeasant family.[4] He worked as ashepherd inYaroslavl Governorate from 1905 to 1910 before becoming abricklayer inMoscow. Blokhin served in theImperial Russian Army duringWorld War I, rising to rank of anon-commissioned officer despite his young age. After theFebruary Revolution, he was elected the chairman of theArmy Committee for the 218th Infantry Regiment. He returned home to help his father before joining theRed Army in October 1918.
Blokhin was married to Natalia Aleksandrovna Blokhina (1901–1967), and had a son, Nikolai Vasilievich Baranov (1916–1998).[5]
Blokhin joined theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and theCheka (the Bolsheviksecurity agency) in March 1921.[6] He was soon appointed aplatoon commander in the military wing of the Cheka andits successor agencies. Though records are scant, he was evidently noted for both his pugnacity and his mastery of whatJoseph Stalin termedchernaya rabota ("wetwork", or literally, "black work"):assassinations,torture, intimidation, andexecutions conducted clandestinely. Once he gained Stalin's attention, Blokhin was quickly promoted and within six years was appointed the head of the purposefully createdKommandatura Branch of the Administrative Executive Department of theNKVD.[6] This branch was acompany-sized element created by Stalin specifically for wetwork.[7] Headquartered at theLubyanka inMoscow, its members were all approved by Stalin and took their orders directly from him, which ensured the unit's longevity despite three bloody purges of the NKVD.
Blokhin, as chief executioner of the NKVD, had the official title ofcommandant of the internal prison at the Lubyanka, which allowed him to carry out his duties with a minimum of scrutiny and no official paperwork.[8] Although most of the estimated 828,000[1] NKVD executions conducted in Stalin's lifetime were performed by local agents in concert withNKVD troikas, mass executions were overseen by specialist executioners from theKommandantura. In addition to overseeing the mass executions, Blokhin is reported to have personally pulled the trigger in all of the individual high-profile executions conducted in theSoviet Union during his tenure,[6] including those of theOld Bolsheviks, such asGrigoriy Zinoviev,Lev Kamenev andNikolai Bukharin, who were convicted at theMoscow Trials between 1936 and 1938;Marshal of the Soviet UnionMikhail Tukhachevsky, who was convicted in asecret trial in 1937; and the two NKVD directors condemned to death by Stalin in 1938 and 1940 respectively,Genrikh Yagoda andNikolai Yezhov, both of whom he had once served under. Blokhin himself was spared by Stalin during theGreat Purge due to a positive reference from the head of Stalin's personal security,Nikolai Vlasik, as well as his involvement in the NKVD's wetwork. He was awarded theBadge of Honour for his service in 1937.[9]
Blokhin's most infamous act was the April 1940execution by shooting of about 7,000Polish prisoners interned in theprisoner of war camp inOstashkov, located in theKatyn forest. The majority were military and police officers who had been captured following theSoviet invasion of Poland in 1939.[10] The event's infamy stems in part from the Stalin regime's ordering of the murders, and the subsequentAllied propaganda campaign which blamedNazi Germany for the massacres in order to preserve cohesion between the USSR and other allied nations.
In 1990,Mikhail Gorbachev gave the Polish government the files on the massacres at Katyn,Starobilsk andKalinin (now Tver) as part ofGlasnost, revealing Stalin's involvement.[11] Based on the 4 April secret order from Stalin to NKVD ChiefLavrentiy Beria as well asNKVD Order No. 00485, which still applied, the executions were carried out over 28 consecutive nights at the specially constructed basement execution chamber at the NKVD headquarters in Kalinin, and were assigned, by name, directly to Blokhin, making him the official executioner of the NKVD.[12]
Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night, and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a smallantechamber — which had been painted red and was known as the "Leninist room" — for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls forsoundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher'sapron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a GermanWalther Model 2.25 ACP pistol.[13][14][15] He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue SovietTT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also providedplausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.[16]
An estimated 30 local NKVD agents, guards and drivers were pressed into service to escort prisoners to the basement, confirm identification, then remove the bodies and hose down the blood after each execution. Although some of the executions were carried out by Senior Lieutenant of State Security Andrei Rubanov, Blokhin was the primary executioner and, true to his reputation, liked to work continuously and rapidly without interruption.[14] In keeping with NKVD policy and the overall "wet" nature of the operation, the executions were conducted at night, starting at dark and continuing until just prior todawn. The bodies were continuously loaded onto coveredflat-bed trucks through a back door in the execution chamber and trucked, twice a night, to the nearby village ofMednoye. Blokhin had arranged for abulldozer and two NKVD drivers to dispose of bodies at an unfenced site. Each night, 24–25 trenches were dug, measuring 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) in length, to hold that night's corpses, and each trench was covered over before dawn.[17]
Blokhin and his team worked without pause for 10 hours each night, with Blokhin himself executing an average of one prisoner every three minutes.[2] At the end of the night, he providedvodka to all his men.[18] On 27 April 1940, Blokhin secretly received theOrder of the Red Banner and a modest monthly pay premium as a reward from Stalin for his "skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks".[19][20] His tally of 7,000 shot in 28 days remains the most organised and protractedmass murder by a single individual on record, and caused him being named theGuinness World Record holder for "Most Prolific Executioner" in 2010.[2][3]
Blokhin wasforcibly retired from the NKVD following thedeath of Stalin in March 1953, officially due to poor health. He was one of the many Stalinist figures removed from power by the new leadership, but his "irreproachable service" was publicly noted by Beria at the time of his departure.[9] In November 1954, Blokhin's rank ofmajor general was stripped from him in thede-Stalinization campaigns ofNikita Khrushchev, who deemed him unworthy of carrying the rank of a general due to his involvement in the mass executions. Blokhin, already analcoholic andmentally unstable, died on 3 February 1955 at the age of 60.[21] The official cause of death was listed assuicide; however, his personnel files recorded that he died due to aheart attack.[15][22][23][24]
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