Vasily Blokhin - the main executioner of the USSR. Stalin's executioner: the victims of Vasily Blokhin 

The leader of the peoples personally chose him as the leader of the punishers - the so-called firing squad, which carried out the lion's share of the executions of that time.

Blokhin was born in 1895 near Suzdal in an ordinary peasant family. In 1914 he went to the front, and after the October Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks. In 1921, he ended up in the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, which was engaged in the search for spies and enemies of the people.

The authorities highly valued the future executioner. Reliable and efficient, Blokhin was fanatically devoted to his work. Not surprisingly, he moved up the stairs quite quickly. In the mid-1920s, Blokhin became the commandant of the Lubyanka inner prison, where he was allowed to work quite independently - without additional checks and the intervention of party organs.

Executioner #1

The execution of death sentences was within the competence of his subordinates, but Blokhin never denied himself the opportunity to execute the convict on his own. It was from his hand that some of the old members of the Communist Party fell, who turned out to be superfluous in the system built by Stalin. Blokhin also dealt with Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and also put a bullet in the back of the head of his two former bosses - People's Commissars of the NKVD Heinrich Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov. He carried out the death sentence for theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, publicist and journalist Mikhail Koltsov, and other figures of culture and art who fell under the inexorable rink of Stalinist repressions.

An indispensable companion of Blokhin and his comrades was vodka. According to some reports, the executioners threw a booze after almost every execution. As one of the members of Blokhin's team recalled, they literally got drunk until they lost consciousness. They justified the use of alcohol by the specifics of their work, primarily its psychological component. In addition, the executioners literally washed themselves with cologne, otherwise it was impossible to get rid of the persistent smell of gunpowder and blood. Nevertheless, "executioner No. 1" was proud of his work. For the "shock" service, the executioner received the rank of major of state security.

Katyn

Perhaps the blackest page in the biography of the executioner was the execution of Polish soldiers in Katyn in the spring of 1940. In a few months, Blokhin and his henchmen, according to some reports, destroyed about seven thousand people who were taken prisoner during the campaign of the Red Army in Poland.

The chief punisher of the USSR also determined the rate of executions - 300 people per night. Doomed to death, one by one, they were brought into a small, red-painted room, where their identity was established. Then they were taken to the next room, the walls of which were carefully soundproofed so that the cries of the unfortunate could not be heard outside. There was also a drain, where blood was washed off with water from a hose.

Blokhin tried outwardly to fully correspond to the work he was doing. His full uniform added a leather apron and shoulder-length gloves. The executioner pressed the doomed man against the wall and fired a shot from the German Walter. He did not trust the Soviet TT-30, believing it to be insufficiently reliable.

Major General

Surrounded by Stalin, they were well aware of the atrocities committed by Blokhin. Once, after Nikolai Yezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was removed from his post, the next head of the department, Lavrenty Beria, started a purge of personnel. The leadership of the People's Commissariat received a paper, from which it followed that the killer No. 1 was close to the former head of the NKVD, Heinrich Yagoda, and if so, then his reliability should be doubted.

Having collected all the necessary materials for authorizing the arrest of the executioner, Beria went to the leader of the peoples. However, to the surprise of the People's Commissar, he refused. Surprisingly, Stalin, for all his suspicion of those around him, was not at all embarrassed by the fact that people accustomed to shooting in the back of the head loomed in front of him. For some reason, he trusted them. As Beria later said, the leader of the peoples stood up for the executioner, saying that someone still had to do such work.

And Blokhin coped with a bang. In April 1940, he received the Order of the Red Banner and a solid cash prize. In July 1945, the executioner reaches the pinnacle of his career - he receives the rank of major general.

Sunset

Stalin did not allow Beria to destroy the punisher in 1939, but after the death of the leader of the peoples, he did not have patronage at the highest level. Having taken the post of Minister of the Interior after the redistribution of power, Beria hurries to get rid of Blokhin, who is too bloodied: he removes him from his post and sends him into retirement, along the way writing out gratitude for his service.

However, under the pressure of the beginning of de-Stalinization, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs himself could not resist: in June 1953, Beria was arrested and a few months later they were shot. The very next year, Blokhin was stripped of the rank of major general for "discrediting a high rank" during his service.

Thrown to the side of life and no longer needed by anyone, the 59-year-old executioner began to drink heavily, from time to time he had nervous breakdowns. A few months after being stripped of his general epaulettes, in February 1955, Blokhin died. The official reason is myocardial infarction, but there were rumors that the executioner shot himself. Thus Walter, with the help of which he took the lives of so many people.

In total, for the entire time of his “work”, he sent to the next world about 10 to 15 thousand people. The exact number of Blokhin's victims is still unknown. According to rumors, there were much more murders on the conscience of the punisher - from 20 to 50 thousand. Although, most likely, the last assumption is a great exaggeration.

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

Major General Vasily Blokhin served as the chief executioner of the Stalinist NKVD under the leadership of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenty Beria. Among his awards are the Order of the Badge of Honor (1937) and the Order of the Red Banner (1941). Chosen to this position by Joseph Stalin in 1926, Blokhin led a group of executioners, the so-called firing squad, which carried out most of the executions during Stalin's rule, the bulk of which occurred during the period of mass repressions of 1937-1938. It is believed that over the entire period of his work, Blokhin personally shot from 20 to 50 thousand people (different historians adhere to such numbers), which made him one of the most productive executioners in all of world history and one of the worst killers in the history of mankind. What are the May events of 1940 in Katyn worth, where 7,000 Polish prisoners of war were shot within 28 days. Blokhin was proud of the fact that he personally shot such famous people as Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Alexander Kosarev, Mikhail Koltsov, director Vsevolod Meyerhold, Nikolai Yezhov, writer Isaac Babel and many others.

What kind of person is this? Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was born in December 1895 into a peasant family in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Vladimir province. During the First World War he served in the tsarist army, and after the October Revolution he joined the party of Lenin and in March 1921 joined the Cheka. Despite the fact that records of this period of his activity are very scarce, Blokhin was undoubtedly noticed by the highest ranks for his diligence, fanatical devotion to the cause of the party and skill, which Stalin called "menial work." These were murders, torture, intimidation of those arrested - all of them were carried out under the heading "secret". Thus, having come under the close attention of the authorities for such vigorous activity, Blokhin began to advance quite quickly in the service, and in 1926 he was appointed head of the commandant's department of the Administrative and Economic Department of the NKVD. This department was part of a whole structure created by Stalin specifically for the execution of "dirty work".
The main department was located in Moscow on the Lubyanka; all its members were approved by Stalin himself and the orders came from him personally - this state of affairs guaranteed the durability of such a system, despite three bloody purges of the NKVD. The title of commandant of the internal prison on Lubyanka allowed Blokhin to carry out his work as an executioner, having a minimum of checks and without any official documents.

Blokhin preferred to personally pull the trigger on all the executions of prominent people that took place in the Soviet Union during his tenure, including the execution of old Bolsheviks convicted at the Moscow show trials; the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky, convicted in a closed trial; the execution of two former leaders of the NKVD - Yagoda (in 1938) and Yezhov (in 1940), under whose leadership he himself once worked. In 1937, Blokhin was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor for his service.
One of the most shameful events in Blokhin's biography was the mass execution of Polish prisoners of war, committed in Katyn in April-May 1940. Then 7,000 Polish officers were shot, captured by the Red Army during the invasion of Poland. According to Stalin's secret order of April 4 to the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, the sentence was carried out within 28 days, or more precisely, nights, in a basement specially built for this purpose at the headquarters of the NKVD, in Kalinin (now it is the city Tver), and was entrusted directly to Blokhin, which made him the official executioner of the People's Commissariat. Initially, Vasily Blokhin set the execution rate at 300 per night and even developed a system whereby prisoners were taken individually to a small red-painted room called the "Lenin Room" for quick identification before the prisoner was handcuffed. Following this, he was sent to the next room to carry out the sentence. This room was specially equipped for executions: walls upholstered for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and a hose for flushing and a firing wall for prisoners. Blokhin, in full uniform, over which was put on a butcher's leather apron, a cap and gloves reaching to the shoulder so as not to stain the uniform, pressed the prisoner against the wall and fired one shot from Walter into the base of the skull. He had a portfolio of his own Walther pistols, as Blokhin did not trust the reliability of the standard Soviet TT-30 due to frequent heavy use. The use of a German pistol, which was usually carried by Nazi intelligence officers, ensured not only uninterrupted operation, but also its non-involvement in executions, if suddenly the bodies were discovered later.
Between 20-30 local NKVD officers, guards and drivers, duties were assigned to escort prisoners to the basement for identification, as well as to rid the premises of bodies and wash blood after each execution. Although some of these executions were carried out by state security lieutenant Andrei Rubanov, Blokhin was the first executioner to once again confirm his reputation. In keeping with NKVD policy and the sinister nature of the whole operation, executions were carried out at night, beginning at dusk and ending before dawn. The initial set figure of 300 people per night was reduced by Blokhin to 250 after the very first night of executions; at the same time it was decided that the further operation would take place only in complete darkness. Through the back door that was in the death room, the bodies were taken out and loaded onto covered trucks with an installed platform for bulky cargo, which transported the dead twice a night to the village of Mednoye, where, by order of Blokhin, a bulldozer and two people disposed of the bodies in an unfenced area. Every night, 24-25 dug pits, 8 by 10 meters in size, were filled to the top with corpses, and by dawn they were all leveled to the ground. Blokhin and his team worked non-stop for 10 hours every night, it took them an average of three minutes to execute one prisoner. At the end of the night work, Blokhin gave out vodka to all men.

On April 27, 1940, Blokhin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in secrecy, as well as a modest monthly bonus as an award from Joseph Stalin for his "skill and organization of effectively carried out special tasks." 7,000 shot in 28 days is still one of the most organized and prolonged mass murders committed by a single person.
After Stalin's death, Blokhin was forcibly dismissed, although his "irreproachable service" was publicly commended by Lavrenty Beria at the time of his resignation. After the fall of Beria's power (June 1953), Blokhin was stripped of his title during the de-Stalinization organized by Nikita Khrushchev. According to reports, Blokhin fell into alcoholism, eventually went crazy and died in February 1955. The official cause of his death is suicide, although a slightly different cause appeared in the sources - myocardial infarction.

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin is a Chekist, an employee of the organs, better known by the nickname "chief executioner". Blokhin's personality is known to the whole world, because the employee's reputation is distinguished by terrible deeds and terrible work activities. In addition, Blokhin is known not only for his cruelty and love of bloodshed, but also for how many innocent lives the head of the NKVD of the USSR personally ruined. More on this later in the article.

Biography of General Vasily Blokhin

Even in his youth, Vasily had to work to help his family survive. Vasily Blokhin earned money both as a shepherd and as a bricklayer.

revolutionary unrest

In 1915, Blokhin became a private in the tsarist army. Soon he received the rank of non-commissioned officer of the reserve infantry regiment.

By 1917, Vasily Blokhin rose to the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. During the First World War, Vasily served as chairman of the company committee of the 218th infantry regiment.

Already in 1918, Vasily Blokhin officially transferred to the Red Army of the Russian Communist Party, taking the side of the Bolsheviks. At that time, the Bolshevik Party gained enormous size and was one of the most massive on the world level.

After joining the ranks of the Red Army, Vasily Blokhin holds the position of assistant to the authorities of the military commissariat, and also works as a platoon commander in the service.

Education

In 1933, Vasily Blokhin graduated from the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Moscow.

In 1937, Vasily improves his qualifications in the profession of "builder" in Moscow, but does not work in his specialty.

Government job

Vasily Blokhin manages to build his career in government. Most of his work activity Vasily works in the state security agencies.

It was from 1921 that he began his work in the NKVD of the USSR.

The first step in career advancement was for Blokhin to work in the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage. It was there that Vasily began public work, becoming the commander of the 62nd battalion.

Five years later, Vasily Blokhin begins work at the United State Political Administration of the Soviet Union.

After working in the position for almost ten years, Blokhin gets a place in the administrative economic department, which was led by the NKVD of the USSR.

Work in security agencies

Already in 1946, Vasily became the head of the commandant department of the USSR Ministry of State Security. In 1952, in addition to his work in the Ministry of State Security, Blokhin also became the commandant in the administrative and economic department.

creepy job

It was Blokhin who in 1924 led the firing squad working for the OGPU. In the acts that confirmed the execution of the death sentence, Blokhin's signature flashes everywhere.

The last execution that Blokhin committed was on March 2, 1953. This happened three days before Stalin's death.

Speaking about the commandant of the MGB of the USSR, we can say that his preferences in weapons for execution fell on the "Walter PP" - a German pistol, distinguished by its caliber and lightness.

A strange set of circumstances

Blokhin repeatedly put forward his candidacy for the post of commandant. In addition, Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin enjoyed the respect of Heinrich Yagoda. For many years, Vasily worked under Nikolai Yezhov.

Given all these facts, it remains strange why Vasily Blokhin was not repressed and purged under Lavrenty Beria. In addition, Blokhin even received the rank of general. Why and how this happened remains a mystery to historians throughout Russia.

executions

Today, the personality of Vasily Blokhin is always associated with the personality of Peter Maggo - both civil servants have shown themselves to be extremely effective executioners.

With his own hand and on his own, he carried out a huge number of death sentences. Today we can say that Vasily Blokhin was the chief executioner of the NKVD, because he has an incalculable amount of blood of innocent people on his hands.

Among his victims are very famous names - Tukhachevsky, Smilga, Karakhan, Yezhov, Frinovsky and many others.

Leadership position

In 1940, Blokhin became the head of a large-scale mass execution of Polish officers, which is better known as the Katyn execution, which was carried out in a small village near Tver.

For his direct participation in this execution, Blokhin received many awards, among which one can name the Order of the Red Banner.

death of the executioner

Executioner Vasily Blokhin was fired from the Ministry of State Security on the same day he carried out his last execution.

A year after the dismissal from the bodies of the chief executioner of the NKVD, Blokhin was deprived of all military ranks and merits, explaining that he had compromised himself and was not worthy of such great honors.

Speaking of death, Major General Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin died in 1955. According to the official version, the executioner suffered from heart disease and died as a result of a heart attack. Historians also say that Blokhin did not survive such a strong humiliation of his dignity and shot himself with his own hands.

The main Soviet executioner was buried where, not far from his burial, there are mass graves of those who fell under the execution of Blokhin.

At the very entrance to the cemetery, you can see a monument to Blokhin, and next to it - his grave.

Words about the executioner

The most striking statement that was published in the press about the personality and activities of the chief executioner of the NKVD, Vasily Blokhin, was a quote from Tokarev, known as Major General of the UNKVD, who told how horrified he experienced when he saw how the chief executioner of the entire Soviet Union puts on special clothes intended for the death penalty.

In many newspapers, already in the years after the collapse of the USSR, a lot of information was printed about what was hidden from the public. One of these topics was the activities of the Chekists, thanks to which a huge number of people died, both guilty and not.

The activities and position of Blokhin also did not pass by, because, according to some reports, it is known that the executioner personally shot more than ten thousand people. Some sources indicate that the victims numbered up to fifteen thousand, others - up to fifty. To this day, this figure is still inaccurate. However, the fact that Blokhin could shoot up to two hundred people a day has a solid foundation today.

If we talk about the personality of Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, then it must be said that his activities were hidden from the public for a very long time, out of fear that people, having learned about all the horrors that occurred under the leadership of the Soviets of the USSR, would raise a huge rebellion and not only overthrow the government, but also will personally deal with everyone who took any part in this.

Already in the post-Soviet years, many documents from the archives began to surface in the press, many bodies that existed in the 90s of the last century began to sort out cases that raised great doubts about their veracity and accuracy. The Blokhin case was not the only high-profile case that was hushed up and kept in the strictest confidence for a very long time.

However, now that the identity and activities of Vasily Blokhin have been revealed, the only thing that people can do is accept all these terrible events that have been happening for too long as a story that can no longer be avoided.

In addition, speaking of the "dark deeds" of the Soviets, it is important that not only the hands of Blokhin destroyed many both guilty and innocent people who could leave their bright mark on history. On a par with Blokhin is also the personality of Peter Maggo, who is also considered a "Soviet executioner"; Yakov Agranov, because of whose devotion to the USSR a huge number of talented writers and poets were killed.

Books about his activities

Many authors were not afraid of the consequences and wrote entire works that talked about the "work" of the executioner. Today they are available to all readers, but not everyone can take up reading. Not everyone can indifferently read about the horrors that the executioner was capable of, killing thirty to forty people per shift.

Vasily Mikhailovich never used someone else's weapons for execution. He always had a small suitcase with him, in which several German pistols were kept.

For the execution, a separate basement was built, which did not let out sound from the room. No gunshots or screams could be heard outside. In addition, the concrete floor was initially specially poured at an angle so that after the execution, the blood of the victims would not remain a puddle that would have to be cleaned up, but would flow into a separate drain.

One of the members of the firing squad spoke of the cruelty with which Blokhin carried out executions. According to this member, the victim was held tightly by the hands so that the condemned to death could not move, while the executioner himself took aim and shot at the head. This happened daily after the death sentence took effect.

According to some reports, it is known that every day Vasily committed a huge number of executions. It was easier for him to shoot a man within three minutes.

Vasily Blokhin initially set himself the goal of shooting up to three hundred people in one shift.

In 2010, Blokhin's name appeared in the Guinness Book of Records. The section on Vasily was called "The Most Prolific Executioner". The “merit” for which the name of the executioner got into this rating was a record - seven thousand lives in twenty-eight years.

When Nikita Khrushchev came to power, Blokhin lost all his many awards. This was due to the fact that Khrushchev began the process of exposing and removing the cult of personality from the Soviet Union. In addition to the fact that the new representative deprived many military awards, a new stage of change began in Russia, which changed the life of the entire Russian people.

For a long time, very little was known about the Katyn massacre. The Soviet Union refused to take responsibility for the huge number of deaths. And only in the 90s of the last century, the authorities of the USSR began to admit the idea that, perhaps, part of the blame falls on them.

After the death of Stalin, Vasily Blokhin was removed as far as possible from the work of state bodies. His acquaintances said that after his dismissal, the executioner began to suffer from alcoholism, which prompted the "master of his craft" to commit suicide.

During his service in the state bodies of the USSR, Blokhin was constantly promoted in positions and ranks for his "productive and fruitful work."

Despite the fact that Blokhin was deprived of all the awards, which were far from numerous, at the end of the 60s of the last century, the personality of the executioner was nevertheless posthumously rehabilitated and the awards returned to the Blokhin family.

Despite the fact that Blokhin worked for a long time, he himself executed the execution of this famous figure of the Soviet Union.

When Vasily Blokhin compiled lists of those who “need to be eliminated” and those who “pose a real threat to the power of the Soviet Union,” he included more than 300 names, among which was the name of Marshal Dmitry Tokarev. Despite the fact that Blokhin himself spoke of “a loyal attitude to the activities and words of Tokarev about himself,” the marshal was one of the first who was going to be shot by Vasily.

Some sources say that Blokhin’s choice of weapons for his “work” fell on German pistols, not only because they were comfortable and withstood heavy loads, but also because if at least something about the executioner’s activities were found out among ordinary citizens, it was an opportunity to throw off all the blame, thereby blaming the German soldiers for what was happening.

Families headed by executioners did not, as a rule, see their husbands and fathers. When the executioners returned home, most often they were drunk. Many of the executioners could not stand such work and went crazy. In many families, they did not even suspect that the head of the family is "the arbiter of human destiny." It is possible that the family of Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin also remained in the dark, like many others.

Blokhin himself every day after the end of the shift drank vodka and treated his colleagues and accomplices.

Every night, to replace Blokhin, 25 so-called trenches were dug, which were up to fifteen meters long. This was done so that the corpses of the executed victims could be removed away from prying eyes.

During the Katyn massacre, Blokhin personally destroyed more than twenty thousand Polish officers. After that, he was awarded "For labor organization and active execution of special assignments."

Despite the fact that thousands of people could not find peace after death, Vasily was buried as an ordinary person and recently a beautiful marble monument appeared on his grave. Apparently, for the relatives of the executioner, it does not matter at all that the bodies of all those people who were killed by the hands of Chekist Vasily Blokhin were burned in the crematorium nearby, and their ashes are scattered over nameless graves literally three hundred meters from the grave of their killer.

After the executioner was fired, he, as a soldier, was paid a pension, which was already quite large in those years - more than three thousand rubles a month. However, already in 1954, the pension was no longer paid, since Vasily lost all his ranks. Whether the executioner managed to draw up documents for a simple old-age pension remains an unknown fact in his biography.

General conclusion

Speaking about everything that the Soviet government hid, we understand that it remains in doubt whether everything is known now. Undoubtedly, much is hidden from people today. From what we know at the moment, we still cannot say whether there were things even more terrible than the activities of Soviet executioners. This narrow enlightenment on this issue does not give us any authority to say anything specific about the history of our country. Stalin's personality cult leads to a huge number of mysteries and secrets that we may never know.

But the fact that information about such personalities as Blokhin came out and is available to everyone today suggests that not everything was as good as people from the Soviet Union say today. However, with what Russian history contains, we can only reconcile ourselves: it is impossible to correct what has been done, this is the past, which for a long time will be a wound for the Russian people, who have suffered great losses from their compatriots.

It is impossible to denigrate the personality of Joseph Stalin, because it was he who carried out many changes in Russia that could develop the country and increase its authority at the world level. However, his paranoia and fear of betrayal became the basis for such terrible events and huge losses within the country.

In addition, the fact that the Soviet government was looking for any way to throw all the blame on Germany, shows the system of doing business in the Soviet Union is not the best. The policy that dominated those years involved the impossibility of telling the truth about what really happened behind the curtain.

Even for the citizens themselves, everything seemed wonderful from the outside: the growth of the economy, the decline in unemployment, a large selection of domestic goods, affordable housing - all this was able to hide the internal politics that had been carefully hidden for many years.

The most terrible thing is that this happened in Russia and it was considered normal, even though already in the Soviet years there were certain social norms that rejected murder as something normal.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (January 7, 1895 - February 3, 1955) - an employee of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-MGB of the USSR. Major General since 1945, stripped of his rank in 1954. 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, this information caused numerous responses in the press, the authors of which often call Blokhin the "executioner".

early years

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).

1915 - private, non-commissioned officer, platoon non-commissioned officer of the 3rd company of the 82nd infantry reserve regiment.
1917 - platoon senior non-commissioned officer, acting chairman of the company committee of the 218th infantry regiment.
1918 - joined the Red Army. He worked as an assistant to the head of the military registration and enlistment office, was a platoon commander. Member of the CPSU (b).

Education

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 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. 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, personally shot about 700 Poles ("Katyn execution"). For participation in the operation to shoot the Poles, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (October 1940).

On November 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.

Press reviews

In the post-Soviet years, when the veil of secrecy over the activities of the special services was lifted, numerous publications appeared in the media about the activities of V. M. Blokhin, calling him an "executioner." For example, in the Sovershenno Sekretno newspaper he is described as follows: “Vasily Blokhin is the chief executioner of the NKVD, a ‘record holder’: they believe that during the years of his ‘work’ he personally shot from 10,000 to 50,000 people! Could "execute" 200 people in a day ... "

The former head of the Kalinin NKVD, Major General Dmitry Tokarev, described this work as follows: “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!

Biography of Blokhin on the site "Pseudology"
A. Rosenblum. Profession - executioner, rank - general
N. Petrov. "Even the dogs shied away from us." // Novaya Gazeta, special issue "Pravda GULAG" dated 07/07/2008 No. 6 (6).
N. Petrov. "The Man in the Leather Apron" // Novaya Gazeta, special issue "Pravda GULAG" dated 02.08.2010 No. 10 (31).
V. Voronov. "Executioner in a leather apron." // Top secret, No. 3/250 dated 03/2010.
Stalin's executioners-record holders

Blokhin was the first executioner to once again confirm his reputation. In keeping with NKVD policy and the sinister nature of the whole operation, the executions were carried out at night - starting at dusk and ending before dawn. The initial set figure of 300 people per night was reduced by Blokhin to 250 after the very first night of executions; at the same time it was decided that the further operation would take place only in complete darkness. Through the back door in the death room, the bodies were taken out and loaded onto covered trucks with an installed platform for bulky cargo, which transported the dead twice a night to the village of Mednoye, where, by order of Blokhin, a bulldozer and two people disposed of the bodies in an unfenced area. Every night, 24-25 dug pits, 8 by 10 meters in size, were filled to the top with corpses, and by dawn they were all leveled to the ground. Blokhin and his team worked non-stop for 10 hours every night, taking an average of three minutes to execute one prisoner. At the end of the night work, Blokhin gave out vodka to all men.

On April 27, 1940, Blokhin, in secrecy, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, as well as a modest monthly bonus as an award from Joseph Stalin for his "skill and organization of effectively carried out special tasks." 7,000 shot in 28 days is still one of the most organized and prolonged mass murders committed by a single person.

After Stalin's death, Blokhin was forcibly dismissed, although his "irreproachable service" was publicly commended by Lavrenty Beria at the time of his resignation. After the fall of Beria's power (June 1953), Blokhin was stripped of his rank during the de-Stalinization organized by Nikita Khrushchev. According to reports, Blokhin fell into alcoholism, eventually went crazy and died in February 1955. The official cause of his death is suicide, although a slightly different cause appeared in the sources - myocardial infarction.

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10 most effective executioners in history, biography

The purpose of this article is to dot all the "i" - to find out the true reason for the death of the Soviet executioner-record holder VASILY MIKHAILOVICH BLOKHIN by his FULL NAME year.

Watch in advance "Logicology - about the fate of man".

Consider the FULL NAME code tables. \If there is a shift in numbers and letters on your screen, adjust the image scale\.

2 14 29 51 61 75 78 79 97 107 119 129 139 152 162 184 185 195 207 222 225 235 259
B L O H I N V A S I L I Y M I H A Y L O V I C
259 257 245 230 208 198 184 181 180 162 152 140 130 120 107 97 75 74 64 52 37 34 24

3 4 22 32 44 54 64 77 87 109 110 120 132 147 150 160 184 186 198 213 235 245 259
V A S I L I Y M I KH A Y L O V I C B L O K H I N
259 256 255 237 227 215 205 195 182 172 150 149 139 127 112 109 99 75 73 61 46 24 14

BLOKHIN VASILY MIKHAILOVICH \u003d 259 \u003d 132-LEAVING LIFE + 127-FROM HEART \ a\.

259 \u003d 201-FROM MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION + 58-FROM IN / infarction ... \.

The reader will find the numbers 201 and 58 in the upper table if the code of the letter "L" equal to 12 is divided by 2: 12: 2 = 6.

195 + 6 = 201 = FROM MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION; 52 + 6 \u003d 58 \u003d FROM IN\farkta...\.

259 = 166-MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION + 93-INFARCTION.

The numbers 166 and 93 are in the bottom table. The code of the letter "H", equal to 24, can be represented as follows: 24 \u003d 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 \u003d 6 + 18.

160-MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION \ yes \ + 6 \u003d 166 \u003d MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION. 75 + 18 = 93 = HEART.

259 \u003d 120-END OF LIFE + 139-HEART INFARCTION \ tsa \.

259 \u003d 213-\ 120-END OF LIFE + 93-INFARCTION / + 46-HEART \ tsa \.

DATE OF DEATH code: 02/3/1955. This is \u003d 3 + 02 + 19 + 55 \u003d 79 \u003d FROM INF \ arcta \.

79 = FROM INF \ arcta \
______________________________________
181 = 130-TERMINATION + 51-LIFE

181 - 79 = 102 = DEATH.

Code of the full DATE OF DEATH = 188-THIRD FEBRUARY + 74-INFARK\ t \-\ 19 + 55 \- (code of the YEAR OF DEATH) \u003d 262.

262 = PASSED FROM A HEART HEART.

Code for the number of full YEARS OF LIFE = SIXTY = 177 = END FROM INFARTION \ ta \.

Since there are no numbers in the tables that directly show the code for the number of full YEARS OF LIFE, the following methods are applicable:

Method one:

152 = ...TEN
______________________
120 = END OF LIFE

Method two: it was SIXTY-ONE year...

We read in the bottom lines of the tables: 64 = ...ERVY; 99 = ...T FIRST; 149 = ...SAT FIRST; 208 = ...TEN AND FIRST; 257 = SIXTY FIRST.

Look at the column in the top table:

14 \u003d M \ iocardium \
____________________________________
257 = SIXTY FIRST = DIED FROM MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION