Although Yagoda has made a variety of significant achievements for Stalin, his main “value” lies in the fact that he has brutally persecuted Stalin’s political opponents and is bent on wiping out the remaining opposition and Lenin’s old Praetorian Guard from the face of the earth.
Yagoda, despite his power, was the only person who would not have raised Stalin’s alarm. Stalin knew that even if Yagoda wanted to organize the opposition against him, no one in the party would go with him, because he was not like the other Politburo members: he had killed thousands of old Bolsheviks at Stalin’s behest, and the bones of the latter had long since blocked forever the path to his union with the old Praetorian Guard. Even among the members of the Politburo and the members of the government who were close to Stalin, Yagoda could not find allies, for they hated him with the same passion.
Seeing how much Stalin valued Yagoda, who had little revolutionary experience, and even authorized him to interfere in the affairs of the People’s Commissariats at will, the old revolutionaries in charge of these departments could not fail to see this. Voroshilov especially hated the internal affairs organs set up by Yagoda to monitor the army, and dared to persistently sing against these “secret agents”. People’s Commissar for Transport and Roads Kaganovich was furious with Yagoda because of the interference of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Transport Bureau in his work. The Politburo members in charge of industry and commerce were equally indignant, because the Economic Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs often went to their enterprises to investigate cases of corruption and theft, which brought them into disrepute.
The big shots who followed Stalin were also bitter against Yagoda because the latter had placed thousands of secret informants in the departments under their charge, so that Yagoda could gather enough facts to discredit them at any Time, while they felt that they were always in a glass envelope and that their every move was clearly visible, in addition to leaving the “personal bodyguards” Yagoda had sent for them “personal bodyguard”, they could not move a step.
However, all this is exactly what Stalin needed. In this case, Yagoda could never be involved in any group of Politburo members, and if a scheming group emerged in the Central Committee, Yagoda and his powerful Interior Ministry would have no trouble destroying it. The most important thing for a dictator who was always afraid of losing his power was to find someone as reliable as Yagoda to take charge of security and protection.
In general, Stalin and Yagoda used each other. It was an alliance in which no third party was allowed to get involved. Astonishing secrets and terrible crimes, the hatred of the people, tied these two men together in a deadly bond. Yagoda was Stalin’s most loyal watchdog, and he defended his own vested interests while fighting for Stalin.
In 1930, one of Yagoda’s deputies, Trilichel, an old party member who had been imprisoned by the Tsar for ten years, quietly did some research into the history of his top lieutenant. He discovered that Yagoda had falsified his history when he filled out the party forms required by the Central Organization Department: Yagoda said he had joined the Bolshevik Party in 1907, had been exiled by the Tsarist government in 1911, and had later actively participated in the October Revolution; in fact, Yagoda had joined the party only in 1917, and before that he had nothing to do with the revolution. This means that Yagoda deceived the Party. Trilichel went to see Stalin and presented his findings. However, it was not Yagoda but Trilichel who was unlucky with this investigation; he was thrown out of Moscow by Stalin, while Yagoda continued to rise to great heights. However, it must not be assumed that Trilichel really offended Stalin by this action. On the contrary, Stalin was very satisfied and happy about it, because he had a “handle” on Yagoda, and one that the latter never intended to put in his “bag of materials”. Stalin never liked to surround himself with honest and opinionated revolutionaries, but only with people who had “scars” that he could use to blackmail them when necessary.
There was a period when the members of the Politburo (they should remember this well) were determined to come out publicly against Yagoda. They tried to persuade Stalin to get rid of Yagoda and to appoint a member of the Politburo as a People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs. For example, as far as I know, Kaganovich in 1932 expressed his eagerness to be appointed to this post. But Stalin refused to give this position to a member of the Politburo. You know, this position was the most powerful propeller of his dictatorship. He wanted to master this machine alone, to turn it into a weapon blindly subservient to him, a knife capable of stabbing any member of the Central Committee or even the Politburo at the critical moment.
To make Stalin dislike Yagoda, Kaganovich and other Politburo members tried to convince Stalin that Yagoda was the “Fouchet” of the Russian Revolution. They were referring to Joseph Fouchet, the notorious chief of police during the French Revolution. This man had served the French Revolution, the ruling cabinet, Napoleon, and Louis XVIII in succession, but was not faithful to any of these systems. Kaganovich thought that this historical comparison should arouse Stalin’s antipathy to Yagoda and prompt him to make up his mind to get rid of him. Incidentally, Kaganovich also gave Yagoda the nickname “Fouchet”. At that time, a Russian translation of the famous novel “Joseph Fouchet” by the talented Writer Stefan Zweig was published in Moscow. The novel created a great reaction in the Kremlin, and even attracted the attention of Stalin. Yagoda knew that Kaganovich had called him “Fouchet”, and despite his annoyance, he had to try to improve his relations with Kaganovich by repeatedly trying to please him, but with little success.
Yagoda had a disgustingly smug smile on his face for three or four months before he was abruptly removed from the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (he was transferred to the People’s Commissariat for Post and Telecommunications, but was arrested immediately afterwards). I still can’t forget his ugly and unbearable attitude. Not only did he not sense that danger was imminent, but he was extremely smug, as he had been in the summer of 1936. He had just presented Stalin with an inestimable gift: the conclusion of the pre-trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev and many other close Lenin comrades.
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