Nikolai Yezhov
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People's Commissar of Internal Affairs (NKVD), 1936-1938 · Soviet Union
On the regime page: Soviet Union under Stalin
6 quotes, oldest first. Filter with other speakers.
Content note: Dismisses additional executions as of little importance. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“if during this operation an extra thousand people will be shot, that is not such a big deal.”
English: Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, in Stalin's Loyal Executioner (Hoover Institution Press, 2002). Original-language text not found.
Jansen and Petrov report that regional NKVD chiefs, including A. I. Uspensky, later recalled Yezhov giving instructions of this kind at the July 1937 conference before the operation began. Their account is based on testimony given in 1939 to investigators.
Remark reported by NKVD officials who attended the conference of regional NKVD chiefs on the launch of order 00447, July 1937, in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), pp. 84-85 (Chapter "The Great Terror") Source
Content note: Orders arrests before evidence is sorted. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“Why don’t you arrest them? We are not going to work for you, imprison them, and then sort it out afterward, dropping those against whom there is no evidence. Act more boldly, I have already told you repeatedly.”
English: Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, in Stalin's Loyal Executioner (Hoover Institution Press, 2002). Original-language text not found.
Mironov had said the evidence against some of the people arrested in a reported "Rightist-Trotskyist bloc" was unconvincing. Jansen and Petrov add that Yezhov also approved "physical methods of influencing" in some cases.
Yezhov's reply to the Western Siberian NKVD chief Sergei Mironov at the conference on order 00447, July 1937, in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), p. 85 Source
Content note: Order to arrest and shoot people without trial. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“The first category includes the most dangerous and most hostile of the above listed elements. They should be immediately arrested and after examination of their cases by troikas are—to be shot.”
Original (Russian)
к первой категории относятся все наиболее враждебные из перечисленных выше элементов. Они подлежат немедленному аресту и, по рассмотрении их дел на тройках — РАССТРЕЛУ.
English: Paul R. Gregory, in Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Hoover Institution Press, 2008)
Secret order signed by Yezhov, following a Politburo decision of 2 July 1937, setting quotas for arrests and executions across Soviet regions. The order set a first-category quota for execution and a second category for camps; a total of 75,950 executions was the original figure.
NKVD operational order no. 00447, "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements", 30 July 1937, section II.1(a); English in Paul R. Gregory, Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2008), ch. 5, p. 51; Russian text as published by Memorial (memo.ru/history/document/0447.htm) Source
Content note: Order launching a mass arrest and execution campaign. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“In connection with this, I order: to begin in all republics, regions and provinces operations for the repression of former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals on August 5, 1937.”
Original (Russian)
В соответствии с этим ПРИКАЗЫВАЮ — С 5 АВГУСТА 1937 ГОДА ВО ВСЕХ РЕСПУБЛИКАХ, КРАЯХ и ОБЛАСТЯХ НАЧАТЬ ОПЕРАЦИЮ ПО РЕПРЕССИРОВАНИЮ БЫВШИХ КУЛАКОВ, АКТИВНЫХ АНТИСОВЕТСКИХ ЭЛЕМЕНТОВ и УГОЛОВНИКОВ.
English: Paul R. Gregory, in Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Hoover Institution Press, 2008)
The order's operative sentence, directing NKVD heads in every republic, region and province to start the mass operation on 5 August 1937 (later dates for Central Asia and the Far East). The Russian text is in capitals in the published copy.
NKVD operational order no. 00447, 30 July 1937, operative paragraph; English in Paul R. Gregory, Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2008), ch. 5, p. 49; Russian text as published by Memorial (memo.ru/history/document/0447.htm) Source
Content note: Encourages over-arrest. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“better too far than not far enough.”
English: Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, in Stalin's Loyal Executioner (Hoover Institution Press, 2002). Original-language text not found.
Jansen and Petrov write that Yezhov told the new Smolensk NKVD chief he could obtain any quota he needed: "Purge your apparatus, and imprison whomever you should". Regions had by then begun to exhaust and exceed their quotas.
Yezhov to A. A. Nasedkin, October 1937, in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), p. 89 (quoted also as an epigraph) Source
Content note: Boasts of purging the secret police. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“I purged 14,000 Chekists, but my enormous guilt lies in the fact that I purged so few of them.”
Original (Russian)
Я почистил 14 000 чекистов. Но огромная моя вина заключается в том, что я мало их почистил.
English: Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, in Stalin's Loyal Executioner (Hoover Institution Press, 2002)
Yezhov addressed the court after denying the charge of espionage and conspiracy and saying his earlier confessions had been obtained under torture. He was sentenced to death. Jansen and Petrov place his execution that night; other sources give 4 February.
Yezhov's closing statement at his trial, 2 February 1940 (abridged), in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov, Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), pp. 187-188; Russian as printed in the Rodina article "Nikolai Ezhov: Proshu ne repressirovat moikh rodstvennikov" (rodina-history.ru, 5 June 2017), which prints the abridged statement Source
Often attributed, not verified
These words circulate under Nikolai Yezhov’s name but could not be traced to a source. They are listed so readers can check them, not as Nikolai Yezhov’s words.
“Better that ten innocent people should suffer than one spy get away.”
Jansen and Petrov (Stalin's Loyal Executioner, Hoover Institution Press, 2002, note to pp. 85-90, and in the text at p. 202) give the sentence from Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge, who is "probably citing oral sources". No archival document or transcript was located. The same endnote reports it with "When you cut down the forest, woodchips fly." A related remark about "an extra thousand" shot in July 1937 is included as a separate secondary-sourced quote.