Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin
Василий Михайлович Блохин
1895–1955
Died 1955, cause disputed in the record
The executioner who served twenty-seven years under three chiefs
In April 1940, donning a leather butcher's apron and shoulder-length gloves, Blokhin personally shot about 7,000 Polish prisoners in the Kalinin NKVD basement over 28 nights — one every three minutes.
The Soviet executioner who headed the NKVD Kommandatura for 27 years, carrying out death sentences at the Lubyanka. Serving under Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria, he personally executed victims of the Great Terror and commanded the Kalinin execution team during the 1940 Katyn massacre.
Career Timeline
- 1926–1953Chief of the Kommandatura of the NKVD and MGB administrative directorate, de facto chief executioner
- 1937–1938Carried out and supervised executions during the Great Terror
- 1940Commanded the execution team at Kalinin during the Katyn operation
- 1953–1954Retired, then stripped of rank
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed Army soldier
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationExecutioner during Great Purge
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeThe executionerHe headed the Kommandatura that carried out death sentences in the Lubyanka's internal prison for twenty-seven years, personally shooting or supervising the shooting of the Moscow Trial defendants and much of the NKVD leadership that fell in 1938 and 1939.
The Katyn Massacre and the Kalinin Execution Operation
In April 1940, Stalin approved by secret order the execution of approximately 22,000 Polish officers, police, and intelligentsia captured after the Soviet invasion of Poland. Of these, roughly 7,000 prisoners held at the Ostashkov camp were transported to a specially constructed basement execution chamber at the NKVD headquarters in Kalinin (now Tver). The assignment was given directly to Blokhin.
Blokhin set an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night and engineered an efficient system. In a red-painted antechamber called the "Leninist room," prisoners were briefly identified, then handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. That room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing and a sloping concrete floor with a drain. Blokhin waited behind the door in his executioner's garb: a leather butcher's apron, leather cap, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Distrusting the reliability of the standard Soviet TT-30, he brought a briefcase full of his own German Walther Model 2 pistols. The use of a German weapon also provided plausible deniability if the bodies were ever discovered.
Prisoners were brought in one by one without trial, sentencing, or any formalities. Blokhin shot each once in the base of the skull. The work continued for ten hours each night, with Blokhin averaging one execution every three minutes. About 30 local NKVD agents handled escort, identification, body removal, and hosing down the blood. Bodies were loaded onto covered trucks and driven to the village of Mednoye, where 24–25 trenches were dug each night to dispose of that night's corpses. Blokhin provided vodka to all his men at the end of each shift.
Over 28 nights, Blokhin personally shot approximately 7,000 people: the most organized and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record. On April 27, 1940, he secretly received the Order of the Red Banner and a monthly pay bonus as a reward for his "skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks." The Soviet regime subsequently blamed the massacre on Nazi Germany, maintaining this position throughout the Cold War. In 1990, as part of Glasnost, Mikhail Gorbachev handed the Katyn files to the Polish government, officially confirming Stalin's responsibility and finally bringing Blokhin's role to light.