Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin(January 7, 1895 - February 3, 1955) - an employee of the Soviet state security agencies. Since 1945, Major General, in 1954 he was deprived of his rank and all awards. In 1926-1953 - head of the commandant's office of the OGPU-NKVD-MGB.
Blokhin's duties included organizing the execution of death sentences - executions. According to various estimates, during the years of service he personally shot from 10 to 15 thousand people.
During the years of Soviet power, information about Blokhin's activities was hidden from the public. After the publication of this information caused numerous responses in the press. In modern publications, often referred to as the executioner.
Biography
Born in the family of a poor peasant in the village of Gavrilovskoye near the city of Suzdal, Vladimir province. He worked as a shepherd in the village of Turovo, Yaroslavl province (1905-1910), as a bricklayer for contractors in Moscow (1910-1915).
In 1915, private, non-commissioned officer, platoon non-commissioned officer of the 3rd company of the 82nd Infantry Reserve Regiment. During the First World War, by 1917 he became a platoon senior non-commissioned officer; served as chairman of the company committee of the 218th Infantry Regiment. In 1918 he joined the Red Army and joined the RCP(b). He worked as an assistant to the head of the military registration and enlistment office, was a platoon commander.
In 1933 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, in 1937 - the Moscow Institute for Advanced Studies of Business Executives. In 1921-1952. made a career in the state security agencies:
- 1921 - went to work in the Cheka. Platoon commander of the 62nd battalion of the Cheka troops.
- 1926 - Commandant of the OGPU of the USSR.
- 1934 - Commandant of the administrative and economic department (AHU) of the NKVD of the USSR.
- 1946 - Head of the commandant department of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
- 1952 - Deputy head of the AHU - commandant of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
Vasily Blokhin led the execution team of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR back in 1924 - it was then that his signature appeared under the acts of sentences carried out. And he carried out his last execution on March 2, 1953 - three days before Stalin's death. He preferred to shoot from a German Walther PP pistol.
Despite the fact that he advanced to the post of commandant of the OGPU-NKVD and was a high-ranking employee under Yagoda, he continued to work under Yezhov and, despite this, under Beria he was not only not cleaned out and not repressed, but also received the rank of general. Along with Peter, Maggo is considered one of the most “effective” executioners - he personally shot many well-known convicts, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Ion Yakir, Uborevich, I. Smilga, L. Karakhan, Kviring, Chubar, A. Kosarev, Kosior, N. Yezhov, Frinovsky, Mikhail Koltsov, Isaac Babel, Vsevolod Meyerhold and others.
In 1940, he led the mass execution of interned Polish officers in the village. Copper near Tver. For participation in the operation to shoot the Poles, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (October 1940).
Shortly after Stalin's death, he was dismissed (04/02/1953) from the MGB for health reasons. The following year (11/23/1954) he was deprived of the rank of major general "as having discredited himself during his work in the bodies ... and unworthy of the high rank of general in connection with this." According to a medical report, Blokhin suffered from hypertension of the 3rd degree and died of a myocardial infarction, according to other sources, he shot himself.
He was buried at the Donskoy cemetery, not far from the mass grave of his victims. The monument and the grave of Vasily Blokhin are located right at the entrance to the Donskoy cemetery, on the left: plot number 1, alley 2.
- Captain of State Security (December 9, 1935)
- Major of State Security (March 14, 1940)
- Colonel of State Security (February 14, 1943)
- Commissioner of State Security (October 14, 1944)
- major general (July 9, 1945)
Stop putting ashes on your head. We should be proud of our heroes! Here is one of them, get acquainted (if anyone does not know): Major General of State Security Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin.
This valiant general served the Motherland without sparing his belly. But even more he did not spare the belly of another. Killing was not just a job, but a calling. It is believed that during the years of his "work" Vasily Blokhin personally shot from 10 thousand to 15 thousand people. Some researchers call even more terrible figures - up to 50 thousand people.
Blokhin was born in 1895 in the family of a poor peasant in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Vladimir province. In 1918 he joined the Red Army as an assistant to the head of the military registration and enlistment office, a platoon commander. In 1921, he went to work in the Cheka - the commander of a platoon of troops of the Cheka. Since 1926, the commandant of the OGPU-NKVD of the USSR. For almost 30 years he led executions in the NKVD-MGB-MVD. He personally shot many well-known convicts, including Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, Smilga, Karakhan, Kviring, Chubar, Kosarev, Eikhe, Kosior, Yezhov, Frinovsky, Mikhail Koltsov, Babel, Meyerhold. In the circle of close acquaintances, he loved to recall the details of executions, savoring the details.
For "heroic" deeds, the motherland awarded Vasily Mikhailovich with the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of the Patriotic War of the first degree, the Badge of Honor of the Cheka-GPU, and many medals. For long, impeccable service, he was awarded a Pobeda car, a personalized gold watch and personalized weapons. In 1953, he was dismissed from the MGB for health reasons, and in 1954 he was deprived of the rank of major general "as having discredited himself during his work in the bodies ... and unworthy of the high rank of general in connection with this."
But, the clouds had gathered over the head of the valiant general before.
At the beginning of 1939, when Beria was in full swing cleaning the NKVD from Yezhov’s cadres, material was received that commandant Blokhin was too close to the former secretary of the NKVD Bulanov, who was exposed as an enemy of the people. This was then seen as evidence of participation in their "conspiratorial plans".
Beria, having prepared a decree for the arrest of Blokhin, went to Stalin for sanction. However, to his surprise, he was refused. In 1953, Beria testified during the investigation: “JV Stalin did not agree with me, saying that such people should not be imprisoned, they are doing rough work. He immediately called the head of security N. S. Vlasik and asked him if Blokhin was involved in the execution of sentences and should he be arrested? Vlasik replied that he was participating and his assistant A. M. Rakov was participating with him, and spoke positively about Blokhin.
Beria, returning to his office, summoned Blokhin and the workers of the "special group" for a conversation. The People's Commissar reflected the results of the "educational" conversation on the resolution sent to the archive, which was never executed:
"Owls. secret. I summoned Blokhin and the leading officers of the commandant's office, to whom I informed some of the testimony against them. They promised to work hard and continue to be devoted to the party and Soviet power. February 20, 1939 L. Beria.
More to the question of Blokhin, Stalin did not return.
Eyewitnesses recalled that the process of execution itself gave Blokhin the highest pleasure. He prepared for executions like an experienced surgeon for a complex operation: he slowly put on a leather jacket, pulled gloves up to his elbows, busily straightened his long apron, famously pushed his cap with a long visor a little to one side and looked at himself with pleasure in the mirror. After that, he checked the weapon and went to "work". Of all the types of weapons, he preferred the German Walter, who was highly reliable and did not heat up much with "large amounts of work." It happened that during a working day Vasily Mikhailovich sent up to 200 people to the other world and at the same time felt great.
In 1940, Blokhin led the mass execution of captured Polish officers in the Ostashkov camp near Tver, where 6,300 people were killed. During the trip, Blokhin personally shot 600 people. In the same year he received his first military Order of the Red Banner. To execute the Poles in Kalinin, along with Blokhin, executioners Major of the NKVD Nikolai Sinegubov and brigade commander Mikhail Krivenko were sent from Moscow. Blokhin also brought two excavators with him from Moscow. One of them was an employee of the NKVD, a full-time gravedigger Antonov. The mass murder of Polish prisoners of war began on April 5, 1940. The Poles were taken to the NKVD building, where they were shot. The corpses were taken out by cars for 32 kilometers from Kalinin to the village of Mednoe, where ditches were dug out by an excavator for 6,300 people. In addition to Blokhin, about 30 people took part in the executions: Sinegubov, Krivenko, employees of the regional department of the NKVD Pavlov and Rubanov, prison guards and drivers.
On the first day, 343 people were brought to the execution. The executioners worked all night, but they failed to "execute" everyone in the dark and had to be shot after sunrise. Blokhin was ordered that in the future, 250 people be delivered to execution every day.
The head of the Kalinin regional department of the NKVD, Major General Dmitry Tokarev, testified during interrogation how Blokhin came into his office on the first day of executions and said:
"Well, let's go." We are going. And then I saw all this horror ... Blokhin pulled on his special clothes: a brown leather cap, a long brown leather apron, brown leather gloves with leggings above the elbows. It made a huge impression on me - I saw the executioner!
Tokarev's description of Blokhin corresponds in detail to the one that Teodor Gladkov cited in his book with reference to NKVD veterans:
“In the sewing workshop of the administrative and economic department of the NKVD, Blokhin was sewn to his order a long, floor-length, wide leather apron, a leather cap and leather gloves with bells - so as not to splatter clothes with blood.”
Before the executions, Blokhin forbade drinking vodka, but every bloody night ended with drunken feasts. Blokhin ordered crates of vodka. When all the Poles were destroyed, Blokhin arranged a farewell "banquet" for the executioners.
After Stalin's death, the executioner from the village of Gavrilovsky, Vladimir Region, was solemnly retired "for health reasons." He was deprived of the rank of Major General and the KGB pension. In a small Moscow courtyard, neighbors often saw an elderly man basking in the sun. Sometimes he played dominoes with the same pensioners and, it seems, was no different from them. And only sometimes, in rare moments of the game, when it was very unlucky with a stone, the pensioner's eyes became bloodshot, he became furious, and it seemed to his opponents that he was ready to kill them ... Those of them who knew about Vasily Mikhailovich's past life , instinctively retreated to a safe distance.
According to the medical report, Blokhin suffered from grade 3 hypertension. He died of a myocardial infarction, according to other sources, he shot himself. Ironically, he was buried at the Donskoy Cemetery, where the ashes of his cremated victims were poured into nameless pits. The cemetery watchman said that at night near the grave of Vasily Blokhin he often heard a muffled groan. But maybe it was just the wind...
In the late 1960s, the general rank and orders were returned to Blokhin ...
The Lubyanka execution sentences were carried out not as pompously as in the Middle Ages, but the executioners still hid their names and faces. And only at the end of the 20th century, the facts about these "fighters of the invisible front" were made public, who sent thousands and thousands of people to another world. But even among these monsters, the name of Vasily Blokhin stands apart.
Origin
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was born into the family of a poor peasant in 1895 in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Suzdal district, Ivanovo region. In childhood and adolescence, he was a shepherd, a bricklayer, and worked on his father's farm. On June 5, 1915, he was enlisted as a private in the 82nd Infantry Regiment in Vladimir, and rose to the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. He fought on the German front, was wounded. In 1918 he joined the Red Army, and soon became a member of the Communist Party.
Career
Since 1921, Vasily Blokhin was a deputy platoon commander in a special detachment under the Collegium of the Cheka. Since that time, his impetuous Chekist career begins.
In 1926 he was appointed to the post of commandant of the OGPU of the USSR. In 1934, Blokhin was the commandant of the administrative and economic department (AHU) of the NKVD of the USSR, in 1946 he was already the head of the commandant department of the administration of the MGB of the USSR. In 1952 Blokhin was appointed deputy head of the Academy of Arts, commandant of the USSR Ministry of State Security. Vasily Blokhin Was awarded the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of the Patriotic War I degree, the Red Banner of Labor, the Red Star, the Badge of Honor, as well as two badges of the Honorary Chekist and a gold watch.
Vasily Mikhailovich managed to study a little. In 1933 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, in 1937 - the Moscow Institute for Advanced Studies of Business Executives.
But, of course, Blokhin's main activity was not connected with either architecture or housekeeping.
Primary activity
Vasily Blokhin headed the firing squad of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR back in 1924. It was then that his signature appeared for the first time under the acts of executions. He carried out the last execution on March 2, 1953 - three days before Stalin's death.
According to various estimates, during the years of service, Vasily Blokhin personally shot from 10 to 15 thousand people. At the same time, he participated in the most high-profile executions. It was he who executed Tukhachevsky, Yezhov, Frinovsky, Koltsov, Babel, Meyerhold. He also led the mass execution of interned Polish officers near Tver.
Usually the condemned were brought to Varsonofevsky Lane, where Blokhin was waiting for them with a firing squad. However, sometimes the executioner had to travel to the place of execution in person. This was exactly the case with the interned Poles.
Specificity
A description of how Blokhin was preparing for the execution of the sentence has been preserved. He wore a leather cap, a long leather apron, and leather gloves to keep from getting bloodied. The precaution is very understandable. After all, Blokhin could "execute" up to two hundred people a day. For the excellent performance of his difficult duties, he was awarded an honorary weapon - a Mauser. But he preferred to work as a German "Walther", his body did not heat up so much.
Of course, Vasily Blokhin was not the only executioner of the NKVD. In official papers, they were listed as "commissioners for special assignments." The fate of these people was very different. Some retired prematurely due to mental illness, others simply drank too much. Very many themselves fell into the millstones of that system, the “cogs” of which they regularly served for the time being. According to the documents, Vasily Blokhin more than once had to shoot people who had recently been his colleagues and colleagues.
Moreover, he had to shoot the former bosses. Among those whom he "executed" were Yezhov and Yagoda.
Surprisingly, constantly being dangerously close to people who were then accused of espionage, of creating secret organizations, of other terrible crimes against state power, Vasily Blokhin himself happily escaped repression. In 1939, Beria was preparing material on Blokhin, as a person too close to the former People's Commissar Yagoda. However, he did not receive Stalin's sanction for arrest. Apparently, good executioners were valuable.
collapse
After Stalin's death, Blokhin retired from the organs, with the rank of major general and with the official wording "for health reasons." Initially, he was assigned a very good pension in the amount of 3,150 rubles. However, already in 1954, when the so-called "de-Stalinization" began, Vasily Blokhin was deprived of his title, pension and all awards.
He died in 1955. The official cause of his death is myocardial infarction. There is, however, a version that he shot himself from the same award-winning Mauser. Vasily Blokhin was buried at the Donskoy cemetery. By a strange irony of fate, his grave is located very close to the mass grave of his victims.
The name of the permanent executioner of the Stalin era, Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, is widely known today. His signature affixed a huge number of acts stored in the archives of the Lubyanka on the execution of death sentences. For people not familiar with...
The name of the permanent executioner of the Stalin era, Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, is widely known today. His signature affixed a huge number of acts stored in the archives of the Lubyanka on the execution of death sentences.
People who were not privy to the intricacies of Blokhin's butcher's craft had to experience shock and awe when they happened to see him in action. One of the rare testimonies was left by the head of the UNKVD for the Kalinin region, Dmitry Tokarev. He spoke about the arrival in Kalinin in the spring of 1940 of a group of high-ranking NKVD workers led by Blokhin to execute the Poles held in the Ostashkov camp. When everything was ready for the first execution, Blokhin, as Tokarev said, went after him: “Well, let's go ...” We went, and then I saw all this horror ... Blokhin pulled on his special clothes: a brown leather cap, a long brown leather apron , leather brown gloves with leggings above the elbows. It made a huge impression on me - I saw the executioner! On the very first night, a team led by Blokhin shot 343 people. In the following days, Blokhin ordered that no more than 250 people be delivered to him for execution of the party. In the spring of 1940, under the leadership and with the direct participation of Blokhin, 6311 Polish prisoners of war were shot in Kalinin. It can be assumed that with such a "shock" action, he doubled his previous personal account of the executed.
In relation to Tokarev, who did not directly participate in the executions, Blokhin showed the condescending "nobility" of a professional executioner, who is aware that not everyone is capable of what he is capable of. Compiling a list of participants in the executions for bonuses, he included in it the head of the UNKVD Tokarev ...
Who was this man, whose hand carried out Stalin's arbitrariness?
The mean lines of his autobiography tell that he was born in 1895 in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Suzdal district, Ivanovo region, in the family of a poor peasant. From 1905, simultaneously with his studies, he worked as a shepherd, then as a bricklayer, and worked on his father's farm. On June 5, 1915, he was enlisted as a private in the 82nd Infantry Regiment in Vladimir, and rose to the rank of junior non-commissioned officer. From June 2, 1917, he was a senior non-commissioned officer of the 218th Gorbatov Infantry Regiment on the German front, was wounded, treated in a hospital in Polotsk until December 29, 1917. Then, until October 1918, remaining aloof from political storms, he worked as a peasant on his father's farm, and on October 25, 1918, he volunteered to serve in the Yanovsky volost military registration and enlistment office of the Suzdal region. Blokhin soon made his political choice - in April 1921 he joined the Communist Party and immediately, on May 25, 1921, was assigned to the 62nd battalion of the Cheka troops in Stavropol.
Now his KGB career is developing. From November 24, 1921, he was a platoon commander in a special-purpose detachment under the Board of the Cheka, from May 5, 1922, a platoon commander in the same place, from July 16, 1924, assistant commander of the 61st special-purpose division under the OGPU Board. On August 22, 1924, Blokhin was nominated for the post of commissar for special assignments of the Special Branch under the Collegium of the OGPU. Now, among other things, his duties include the execution of death sentences. Indeed, since the spring of 1925, Blokhin's signature has been regularly found under execution certificates. Maybe he would continue to be just one of the ordinary executioners, but suddenly a high vacancy opened up. On March 3, 1926, Blokhin was appointed temporary acting commandant of the OGPU (instead of the absent K.I. Weiss). And already on June 1, 1926, Blokhin was approved in this position.
The fate of his predecessor Karl Weiss was unenviable. The order of the OGPU No. 131/47 dated July 5, 1926, signed by Yagoda, spoke about the reasons for his removal from office and conviction: isolation on charges of having relations with employees of foreign missions, obvious spies. According to the established data available in the case, Weiss is characterized as completely decomposed, having lost any understanding of the responsibility that lay on him as a Chekist and Communard, and did not stop at the fact of extreme discrediting of the United State Political Administration, of which he was an employee.
Unlike Weiss, Blokhin behaved correctly and worked incessantly as commandant for many years until his retirement.
While at work in the OGPU, Blokhin passed the tests externally to the technical college in 1932, he graduated from the 3rd year of the construction department at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Engineering and Technical Workers. But that was where his education ended.
The firing squad, or “special group,” as it was called in the documents, operated under the leadership of Blokhin, was formed from employees of different units. In the late 1920s - early 1930s, there were employees of a special department at the Collegium of the OGPU, which was engaged in the protection of Soviet leaders and Stalin personally. That is, they combined the work of protecting the leaders with participation in the regular executions of "enemies of the people." In the staff of the central apparatus of the OGPU, they were listed as "commissars for special assignments": A.P. Rogov, I.F. Yusis, F.I. Sotnikov, R.M. Gabalin, A.K. Chernov, P.P. Pakaln, Ya.F. Rodovanskiy. Another part of the performers served in the commandant's office of the OGPU. This is Blokhin himself, as well as P.I. Mago and V.I. Shigalev. Later, the "special group" included I.I. Shigalev (brother of V.I. Shigalev), P.A. Yakovlev (head of the government garage, then head of the auto department of the OGPU), I.I. Antonov, A.D. Dmitriev, A.M. Emelyanov, E.A. Mach, I.I. Feldman, D.E. Semenikhin.
The fate of the executioners was not easy. They were rarely seen in families, and when they came after a nightly "work", they were most often drunk. Yes, and how not to drink with such a villainous occupation. It is not surprising that the performers died early, before the deadline, or went crazy. Grigory Khrustalev died a natural death - in October 1930; Ivan Yusis - in 1931; Peter Mago - in 1941; Vasily Shigalev - in 1942, and his brother Ivan Shigalev - in 1945. Many retired, having received disability due to schizophrenia, like Alexander Emelyanov, or neuropsychiatric illness, like Ernst Mach.
But the repressions did not bypass the executioners themselves. Some of them fell into the hands of Blokhin - they were taken to the execution room already as a victim. So in 1937, Grigory Golov, Petr Pakaln, Ferdinand Sotnikov were shot. I wonder what Blokhin and Mago felt when they shot their former comrades?
The executioners were especially nervous about some of the condemned, who at the time of execution were glorifying Stalin. Heading a group of executioners who carried out the decisions of the “troika” of the NKVD of the Moscow Region in 1937-1938, Isai Berg, being arrested, testified that he received strict instructions from his superiors “not to allow such phenomena in the future” and among the workers of the special group of the NKVD “to raise mood, try to prove to them that the people they shoot are the enemy.” Although Berg immediately admitted: "We shot a lot of innocent people."
Berg became famous for the fact that with his direct participation in the Moscow NKVD, a “gas chamber” machine was created in which the condemned were killed by exhaust gas. In part, this saved the nerves of the Moscow executioners. They loaded the living in the Taganskaya or Butyrka prisons - in Butovo they unloaded the dead, and that was all the work. And no praises to Stalin. Berg himself explained to the investigation that without such an improvement, "it was impossible to carry out such a large number of executions."
And in the central group of executioners under the leadership of Blokhin, they ordered "to carry out educational work among those sentenced to death, so that at such an inopportune moment they do not sully the name of the leader."
In 1937-1938, Blokhin participated in the most high-profile executions. He commanded the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and high-ranking military men sentenced with him. The USSR Prosecutor Vyshinsky and Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Ulrich were present at the execution. Sometimes the "iron people's commissar" Yezhov himself indulged in his presence. Under him, the execution action took on the features of an artistic production. In the autumn of 1937: "Before the execution of his friend in the past, Yakovlev, Yezhov put him next to him - to watch the execution of the sentence." Yakovlev, standing next to Yezhov, turned to him with the following words: “Nikolai Ivanovich! I can see in your eyes that you pity me. Yezhov did not answer, but was visibly embarrassed and immediately ordered Yakovlev to be shot.
An equally memorable scene played out when, in March 1938, the sentence was carried out in the case of Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda and other convicts at the demonstration “Trial of the right-wing Trotskyist bloc”. Yagoda was the last to be shot, and before that he and Bukharin were put on chairs and forced to watch how the sentence was carried out against other convicts. Yezhov was present and, most likely, was the author of such a sophisticated undertaking. Moreover, before the execution, Yezhov ordered the head of the Kremlin guard, Dagin, to beat the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Yagoda: "Come on, give him for all of us." At the same time, the execution of Bulanov's drinking buddy upset Yezhov, and he even ordered to give him cognac first.
It's amazing how many of his former colleagues, and even the bosses, whom he used to look in the mouth, were shot by Blokhin. Proximity to the exposed leadership of the NKVD could cost him his own life. But Stalin appreciated reliable "performers", and for some reason he was not afraid that they, accustomed to shooting in the back of the head, constantly loom behind him as a guard.
At the beginning of 1939, when Beria was in full swing cleaning the NKVD from Yezhov’s cadres, material was received that commandant Blokhin was too close to the former secretary of the NKVD Bulanov, and even to the most executed drug commissar Yagoda. This was then seen as evidence of participation in their "conspiratorial plans". Beria, having prepared a decree for the arrest of Blokhin, went to Stalin for sanction. However, to his surprise, he was refused. In 1953, Beria testified during the investigation: “I.V. Stalin did not agree, saying that such people should not be imprisoned, they are doing rough work. Immediately he called the head of security N.S. Vlasik and asked him if Blokhin was involved in the execution of sentences and should he be arrested? Vlasik replied that he was participating and his assistant A.M. was participating with him. Rakov, and spoke positively about Blokhin.
Beria, returning to his office, summoned Blokhin and the workers of the "special group" for a conversation. The People's Commissar reflected the results of the "educational" conversation on a decree sent to the archive, which was never executed: "Owls. secret. I summoned Blokhin and the leading officers of the commandant's office, to whom I informed some of the testimony against them. They promised to work hard and continue to be devoted to the party and Soviet power. February 20, 1939 L. Beria. More to the question of Blokhin, Stalin did not return.
Usually, the condemned were brought to the place of execution in Varsonofevsky Lane, where Blokhin and his team were waiting for them. But sometimes Blokhin himself had to go for the victim. This was the case in 1940, when it was necessary to bring a former candidate member of the Politburo, Robert Eikhe, sentenced to VMN, from Sukhanovskaya prison to be shot. Immediately before being sent to execution, he was severely beaten in Beria’s office in the Sukhanovskaya prison: “Eikhe’s eye was knocked out during the beating and leaked out. After the beating, when Beria was convinced that he could not get any confession of espionage from Eikhe, he ordered him to be taken away to be shot. And on February 6, 1940, Blokhin had the honor of shooting Yezhov himself.
The management appreciated Blokhin. He quickly rose in ranks: in 1935 he was a captain of the State Security Service, in 1940 he was a major of the State Security Service, in 1943 he was a colonel of the State Security Service, in 1944 he was a commissar of the State Security Service, and in July 1945 he received the rank of major general. He was also generously showered with state awards: the Order of Lenin (1945), three Orders of the Red Banner (1940, 1944, 1949), Orders of the Patriotic War, I degree (1945), the Red Banner of Labor (1943), the Red Star (1936), the Badge of Honor "(1937), as well as two badges of the "Honorary Chekist" and a gold watch. He was also awarded an honorary weapon - a Mauser, although he preferred to shoot from a German "Walter" (it did not heat up so much).
When Blokhin was 20 years old as commandant, he was awarded the M-20 (Victory) car. It is noteworthy that Blokhin and his henchmen from the “special group” were usually generously rewarded not after, but before serious execution campaigns were carried out. According to various estimates, the total number of people shot personally by Blokhin for all the years of his service at the Lubyanka is at least 10-15 thousand people.
Immediately after Stalin's death and Beria's second coming to the leadership of the "organs", Blokhin was retired. Former commandant Blokhin, by order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 107 of April 2, 1953, was dismissed due to illness with a declaration of gratitude for 34 years of "impeccable service" in the bodies of the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD of the USSR. As Beria explained, Blokhin was relieved of his post as "staying too long" - there was such a bureaucratic term that denoted a long stay of an employee in the same position and the loss of proper activity and work efficiency. Although, as we know, Blokhin's work was just not sedentary at all, and he pretty much lost his health on it.
So, in 1953, Blokhin was solemnly escorted to a well-deserved rest. After the death of the dictator, the need for his services disappeared. No, of course, the new commandant who replaced him, Colonel D.V. Brovkin did not risk being left without “night work” at all, it was just that its scale immediately became not the same. Although the former victims were replaced by those who had previously repaired the court and reprisals themselves: under the new post-Stalinist leadership, they began to execute the former henchmen of Beria and Abakumov. Their cases were actively investigated, and it turned out that in retirement Blokhin also has no peace. He frequented for interrogations at the Prosecutor General's Office. During the investigation of the case of Beria and his closest henchmen, truly invaluable knowledge of the former commandant was needed. After all, he was the executor of all the most important executions. And yet Blokhin was not included as an accused, although he was the perpetrator of criminal acts. Probably, they decided: after all, this is just an executioner, he was following orders. This is his job and nothing personal.
After his dismissal, Blokhin was granted a pension of 3,150 rubles for 36 years of service in the authorities. However, after the deprivation of the general rank on November 23, 1954, the payment of a pension from the KGB was discontinued. It is not clear whether he managed to get a regular old-age pension. According to the medical report, Blokhin suffered from hypertension of the 3rd degree and died on February 3, 1955 from a myocardial infarction.
Ironically, Blokhin was buried in the same place where the ashes of most of his victims rest - at the Donskoy cemetery. Although the bodies of the executed were burned here in the crematorium and the ashes were poured into unmarked common pits, a new beautiful tombstone with a portrait has recently appeared on Blokhin's grave. Don't forget!
Many Chekists served the Motherland, not sparing their lives. But at the same time, many did not spare the belly of someone else. Killing was not just their job, but a calling. And the first name on this list is Vasily Blokhin, the chief executioner of the state security agencies for many years.
20 thousand ruined human lives - this is the result of a long career in the NKVD-MGB-KGB bodies, a native of the Vladimir province, Vasily Blokhin. Some historians estimate the number of his victims at 15-17 thousand, which, however, does not make this number less terrible. His first signature on the execution lists appeared in 1924.
Serious attitude to work
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was born in 1895 in the family of a poor peasant. He joined the Chekists in 1921. He immediately began to be appointed commissar for special assignments of the special department under the board of the OGPU. The duties of this department included executions. So Blokhin became an executioner and killed people until the end of his career. He carried out his last execution a few days before his death in March 1953.
He destroyed people in the cramped rooms of the basement of a Moscow building at the crossroads of the Great Lubyanka and Varsonofevsky Lane. The punitive Soviet service was then housed there. Thick walls without windows reliably muffled both the cries of the doomed and the sounds of gunshots. The writer Mikhail Osorgin, who miraculously escaped execution, recalled how the basements of the Lubyanka looked like in 1919: “The floor is lined with tiled tiles. At the entrance - a balcony where there is a guard. The balcony surrounds the pit, where the descent is by a winding staircase and where 70 people lie down, on the bunk, on the floor, on a polished large table, and two inside the table are waiting for their fate. Fate - bullets.
In the GPU-NKVD, Vasily Blokhin served under the leadership of the "enemy of the people" Heinrich Yagoda, then enjoyed the favor of Nikolai Yezhov. When Lavrenty Beria came to power, Blokhin avoided internal purges and even moved up the corporate ladder.
Moreover, he was an executioner with a higher education (unlike many illiterate "colleagues" in the craft). Without interruption from the main work, he managed to graduate from the Moscow Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering. 
Eyewitnesses recall that Vasily Blokhin approached executions scrupulously and decisively. Each time he put on a special leather uniform: a long apron, high chrome boots and a cap. He always shot when he was sober, which was very different from most other performers who quickly drank themselves drunk or ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Before being shot, he liked to relax: drink tea, read a book about horses, solve a crossword puzzle, and only then...
List of victims
Blokhin participated in the executions of many famous figures. He considered the pistol of the "Walter" system to be his favorite "tool" - it did not overheat so much during firing. From this weapon, he personally shot a bullet in the back of the head of the repressed Soviet military leaders Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Iona Yakir and Ieronim Uborevich. To party leaders Ivar Smilga, Lev Karakhan, Emmanuil Kviring and Stanislav Kosior. Writers Mikhail Koltsov and Isaac Babel, playwright Vsevolod Meyerhold. And also - to their former bosses and patrons, Heinrich Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov.
During the execution of especially fanatical Stalinists who fell under the rink of repression, unpleasant situations arose. Some of them (for example, Tukhachevsky) shouted loudly before his death: “Glory to Comrade Stalin!”, which demoralized the executioners. The Kremlin accidentally found out about this and ordered Blokhin to carry out educational work with his subordinates before the executions. Raise their spirits, prove that the people they shoot at are real enemies.
In 1940, Vasily Blokhin led the mass execution of Polish officers in the village of Mednoye near Kalinin (now Tver). At the same time, he personally shot almost 700 people. For which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. One of his subordinates, the former head of the NKVD for the Kalinin region, Dmitry Tokarev, recalled how everything happened then: “Blokhin gave a signal, saying:“ Well, let's go, let's start. Blokhin put down his special clothes: a brown leather hat, a long leather coat, brown leather gloves with leggings above the elbow. For me it was a great impression - I saw the executioner ... "
To execute the Poles in Kalinin, together with Blokhin, NKVD major Nikolai Sinegubov and deputy head of the Main Directorate of the NKVD escort troops, brigade commander Mikhail Krivenko were sent from Moscow. And in order to bury the corpses, Blokhin specially 
brought two excavators from Moscow, one of them was an employee of the NKVD, actually a full-time gravedigger, by the name of Antonov.
One of the performers who worked under Blokhin, by the name of Emelyanov, recalled: “Vodka, of course, they drank until they lost consciousness. Whatever you say, but the robot was not easy. They were so tired that they could barely stand on their feet. And washed with cologne to the waist. Otherwise, do not get rid of the smell of blood and gunpowder. Even the dogs shied away from us, and if they barked, then from afar.
Personal pension
Another excerpt from the memoirs of Dmitry Tokarev about the execution of the Poles in 1940: “Blokhin and Rubanov brought people one by one through the corridor, turned left, where the “red room” was located. Various propaganda posters hung, there was a plaster statue of Lenin. The "Red Room" or "Lenin Room" was 5 by 5 meters in size. Here the prisoner's identity was checked for the last time, asking for his name and date of birth. Then marked in the list so that there was no mistake. Finally, a Polish officer or policeman was handcuffed and taken to the "execution chamber". Here the prisoner's life ended with a shot in the back of the head. Experienced executioners shot in the neck, holding the barrel obliquely up. Then there was a chance that the bullet would come out through the eye or mouth. Then there will be only a little blood, while a bullet shot in the back of the head leads to extensive bleeding (more than one liter of blood flows out) And at least 250 people were killed a day. the doors to the courtyard where the truck was waiting. The bodies of the cars were washed every day from fragments of the brain and blood. The corpses (25-30 for each car) were covered with a tarpaulin, which at the end of the "operation" Blokhin ordered to be burned. The bodies thrown into cars were transported to common trenches in the forest ... "
After the destruction of the prisoners (about 6300 people), Vasily Blokhin and his assistants organized a farewell party. The most "hard-working" were marked with valuable gifts - a bicycle, a gramophone, personalized weapons. Blokhin himself received a bonus in the amount of a monthly salary. 
Today, speaking of Stalinist repressions, most often only the Gulag system is remembered. However, he was only part of the repressive machine. Hundreds of thousands of people simply did not get to the Gulag, ending their journey in execution rooms or at firing ranges. Most of the death sentences during the years of great terror were carried out right in Moscow, after brief interrogations, imprisonment in the Lubyanka, and an early extrajudicial verdict of the "troika". Therefore, the executioners of the NKVD also operated mainly in the capital. Their circle was very limited - for the whole of Moscow there were only 10-15 people.
Their small number was explained not so much by the fact that it is difficult to find a person to perform such duties, but by high requirements. A real executioner had to have a stable psyche, the professional skills of a killer, possess secrecy (even the closest relatives of the executioners did not know what their work in the NKVD consisted of) and extreme devotion to the cause.
Many performers died quite early. Others retired, having received a disability with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. After the death of Stalin and Beria, the star of Vasily Blokhin also went out. He was stripped of the rank of major general and all eight orders with which he was awarded. They also took away a personal pension of 3,150 rubles.
In 1955, at the age of 60, the executioner Blokhin passed away. According to one version, he died of a heart attack, according to another, he shot himself. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. In the same place, in places of honor, some other Stalinist executioners are buried. In the late 1960s, during the Brezhnev stagnation, Blokhin was posthumously returned the titles and orders, in fact, rehabilitated. The whole truth about his deeds came to light only in the 1990s.
Victor Volynsky
