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Vasily Blokhin
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (russian: Васи́лий Миха́йлович Блохи́н; 7 January 1895 – 3 February 1955) was a Soviet and Russian major general who served as the chief executioner of the NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria. Hand-picked for the position by Joseph Stalin in 1926, Blokhin led a company of executioners that performed and supervised numerous mass killings during Stalin's reign, mostly during the Great Purge and World War II. He is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand, including his killing of about 7,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940,Parrish 1996, p. 324.Montefiore 2005, pp. 197–8, 332–4. making him the most prolific official executioner in recorded world history.Glenday, pp. 284–5. Blokhin was forced into retirement following the death of Stalin, and he died in 1955. Early life and career Blokhin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated as VChK ( rus, ВЧК, p=vɛ tɕe ˈka), and commonly known as Cheka ( rus, Чека, p=tɕɪˈka; from the initialism russian: ЧК, ChK, label=none), was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations. Established on December 5 ( Old Style) 1917 by the Sovnarkom, it came under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat-turned-Bolshevik. By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in the RSFSR at the oblast, guberniya, raion, uyezd, and volost levels. Ostensibly set up to protect the revolution from reactionary forces, i.e., "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie and members of the clergy, it soon became the repression tool against all political opponents of the communist regime. At the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Premier of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a Collective leadership in the Soviet Union, collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninism, Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism. Born to a poor family in Gori, Georgia, Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia (country), Georgia), Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against " Trotskyists" and members of " Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the time the three Moscow trials were given extravagant titles: # the "Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center" (or Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Sixteen', August 1936); # the "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" (or Pyatakov- Radek Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Seventeen', January 1937); and # the " Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites"" (or the Bukharin- Rykov Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Twenty-One', March 1938). The defendants were Old Bolshevik Party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with Imperialist powers to assassinate Stali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Many Old Bolsheviks became leading politicians and bureaucrats in the Soviet Union and the ruling Communist Party. Most died over the years from natural causes, but a number were removed from power or executed in the late 1930s, as a result of the Great Purge by Joseph Stalin. Overview Definition Initially, the term "Old Bolshevik" (ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik'') referred to Bolsheviks who joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party before 1905. On February 13, 1922, under the chairmanship of the Old Bolshevik historian Mikhail Olminsky, the Society of Old Bolsheviks (Общество старых большевиков) at the Istpart (Commission on the Study ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NKVD Troika
NKVD troika or Special troika (russian: особая тройка, osobaya troyka), in Soviet history, were the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD which would later be the beginning of the KGB) made up of three officials who issued sentences to people after simplified, speedy investigations and without a public and fair trial. The three members were judge and jury, though they themselves did not carry out the sentences they dealt. These commissions were employed as instruments of extrajudicial punishment introduced to supplement the Soviet legal system with a means for quick and secret execution or imprisonment. It began as an institution of the Cheka, then later became prominent again in the NKVD, when it was used during the Great Purge to execute many hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens. Defendants in the Troika's proceeding were typically not entitled to legal aid or the presumption of innocence. Convictions usually did not include information about the act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lubyanka Building
The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947. It was previously the national headquarters of the KGB. Soviet hammer and sickles can be seen on the building's facade. Description The Lubyanka building is home to the Lubyanka prison, the headquarters of the Border Guard Service, a KGB museum, and a subsection of the FSB. Part of the prison was turned into a prison museum, but a special authorization is required for visits. The lower floors are made of granite with emblazoned Soviet crests. History Origins The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as the headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company (''Rossiya Insurance Company'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wetwork
Wetwork ( rus, мокрое дело, mokroye delo) is a euphemism for murder or assassination that alludes to spilling blood. The expression and the similar ''wet job'', ''wet affair'', or ''wet operation'' are all calques of Russian terms for such activities and can be traced to criminal slang from at least the 19th century and originally meant robbery that involved murder, or spilling blood. The operations are reputed to have been handled by the CIA and by the KGB's SpecBureau 13 (Spets Byuro 13), known as the "Department of Wet Affairs" ('). See also * Black operation * Liquidate Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redist ... References External links * {{Espionage Illegal occupations Murder Euphemisms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific Ocean, Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in Genocides in history (World War I through World War II), genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the Spanish flu, 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising French Third Republic, France, Russia, and British Empire, Britain) and the Triple A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Army consisted of more than 900,000 regular soldiers and nearly 250,000 irregulars (mostly Cossacks). Precursors: Regiments of the New Order Russian tsars before Peter the Great maintained professional hereditary musketeer corps known as ''streltsy''. These were originally raised by Ivan the Terrible; originally an effective force, they had become highly unreliable and undisciplined. In times of war the armed forces were augmented by peasants. The regiments of the new order, or regiments of the foreign order (''Полки нового строя'' or ''Полки иноземного строя'', ''Polki novovo (inozemnovo) stroya''), was the Russian term that was used to describe military units that were formed in the Tsardom of Rus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death And State Funeral Of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin, second leader of the Soviet Union, died on 5 March 1953 at his Kuntsevo Dacha at the age of 74, after suffering a stroke. He was given a state funeral in Moscow on 9 March, with four days of national mourning declared. The day of the funeral, hundreds or thousands of citizens present in the area to pay their respects died in a human crush. Stalin's body was embalmed and interred in Lenin's and Stalin's Mausoleum until 1961, when it was moved to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The members of Stalin's inner circle in charge of organizing his funeral were Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. Illness and death Stalin's health deteriorated towards the end of World War II. He had atherosclerosis as a result of heavy smoking, a mild stroke around the time of the Victory Parade in May 1945, and a severe heart attack in October 1945. The last three days of Stalin's life have been described in detail, first in the official Soviet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katyn Massacre
The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by German forces. The massacre was initiated in NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to Joseph Stalin to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, which was secretly approved by the Soviet Politburo led by Stalin. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland, regardless of heritage or ethnicity. The majority of Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism. The population of self-declared Poles in Poland is estimated at 37,394,000 out of an overall population of 38,512,000 (based on the 2011 census), of whom 36,522,000 declared Polish alone. A wide-ranging Polish diaspora (the '' Polonia'') exists throughout Europe, the Americas, and in Australasia. Today, the largest urban concentrations of Poles are within the Warsaw and Silesian metropolitan areas. Ethnic Poles are considered to be the descendants of the ancient West Slavic Lechites and other tribes that inh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
