In 1936, Yagoda’s red luck reached its peak. In the spring he received the title of General Commissar of the State Security Committee, the equivalent of a marshal, and wore a special general’s uniform made for him. Stalin also gave him the highest honor: a suite of rooms in the Kremlin for him. This meant that Yagoda entered the highest center of power, to which only members of the Politburo were entitled.
There were several palaces, auditoriums and administrative buildings in the Kremlin, but no residences in the modern sense. Stalin and the other Politburo members all occupied a very small, pre-revolutionary room inside for servants. Although they had to go back to their residence in the suburbs every night, the “nouveau riche” considered it more prestigious to have a room in the Kremlin, even if it was small and narrow, than to live in a garden house outside the high walls of the Kremlin.
As if fearing that Stalin would retract his order, Yagoda moved into the Kremlin the next day, but, of course, the luxurious residence on Milyutin Street, which had been built especially for him, remained in his possession. Yagoda had a dacha in the suburbs near Ozersky Park, but no matter how hot it was, he went there only once a week, as if the dust and stifling heat of the city were more to his liking than the coolness of Ozersky Park. The fact that Yagoda became the new occupant of the Kremlin seemed like a major political event, which made the upper echelons talk about it. Of course, no one suspected anymore that a new star had appeared over the Kremlin.
A rumor also appeared in the NKVD that Stalin seemed to be so pleased with the surrender of Zinoviev and Kamenev that he said to Yagoda: “There should be a place for you in the Politburo.” This means that at the next party congress Yagoda will be a candidate for the Politburo.
I don’t know whether the “Fouchet” in this case realized that clouds were gathering over his head and that a storm was forming that would overwhelm him in a few months, but I know very well that Yagoda, although he met with Stalin every day, did not detect any signs in his eyes that would make him wary. On the contrary, Yagoda thought that the goal he had dreamed of was close at hand. In the past, the Politburo members had despised him and regarded him as a heretic; now, it seemed Time for them to curb their disdain and give him an equal footing.
Now, as if blown up, Yagoda was working with unprecedented vigor. He tried desperately to beautify the NKVD, to make it more glamorous in the eyes of outsiders. He ordered to speed up the excavation of the Moscow-Volga canal, hoping that the canal, which was built by the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the help of convicts, would eventually bear his name. This was motivated by his extraordinary vanity: he was determined to be equal to Kaganovich, after whom the Moscow Metro was named.
During these months, Yagoda showed a ridiculous amount of frivolity. He was busy all day dressing the personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in new uniforms with Gold and silver trim, and making regulations about the code of conduct and etiquette of the personnel of the Ministry. But as soon as the Ministry personnel were dressed in the new uniforms, he was dissatisfied and decided to make high class clothing for the senior officers of the Ministry; white wardrobe with gold trim, sky blue pants and lacquered leather shoes. Since lacquered leather shoes were not produced in the country, Yagoda ordered to import them from abroad. The main ornament of this high class uniform was supposed to be a small and compact gilded short sword, similar to the swords worn by officers of the pre-revolutionary Tsarist Navy.
Yagoda then ordered that the ceremonial changing of the guard of the Ministry of Internal Affairs should be solemn, with drums and Music, to attract attention, just like the changing of the guard of the Tsar’s Imperial Guard. Yagoda was interested in the internal regulations of the Tsar’s Praetorian Guard Corps, and in order to imitate them, he prescribed a series of new rules of conduct and etiquette. As a result of these cumbersome rules, comrades who were on equal terms yesterday, had to stand at attention and salute each other today when they met, living like mechanical little tin soldiers. The clash of heels, the gruff greetings, the respectful raising of hands, the concise and humble answers to questions from superiors, all these became the characteristics that a standard cheka must have.
All this was just the beginning of a series of innovations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Incidentally, the rigid hierarchy was also restored in the Red Army. This was done for the sole purpose of announcing to the Soviet people that the revolution, together with the promises that had excited the common people, was a thing of the past, and that the Stalinist system had taken complete control of the country, with a solidity that could only be compared to that of the Romanov dynasty, which had lasted for three hundred years.
It is not difficult to imagine how Yagoda felt when that unfaithful fate pulled him down from the pinnacle of power and threw him into the ghastly cell where thousands of innocent people had been tortured over the years. Once, while defending the dictatorship and faithfully implementing Stalin’s policy of terror, he was so proud of signing the verdicts of the innocent that he did not even care about their content. But now he himself was destined to die, like the countless victims he had killed.
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