Yezhov’s intimate who rose to deputy commissar and died under interrogation
Arrested in December 1938, he was dead under interrogation within a month, one of the five names Yezhov's own deposition listed as accomplices.
Born to a peasant family in Tambov province, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1918 and came up through military commissar and district administrative posts before working in the Moscow city administration. Under Yezhov he became chief of the NKVD Administrative-Economic Directorate in July 1937, was promoted within weeks to deputy commissar of internal affairs, and in December 1937 moved on to serve as People's Commissar of the Timber Industry until October 1938. He held the rank of major of state security and the Order of the Red Star, and was married to Yezhov's secretary Serafima Ryzhova. Arrested in December 1938 after Yezhov's fall, he was one of the names Yezhov's own deposition listed as members of his conspiratorial group. He died on 19 January 1939 under interrogation conducted with unlawful methods, and was rehabilitated in 1955.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1911–1925Military commissar and district administrative posts
- early 1930sAgricultural administration and Moscow city government
- 1937.07–08Chief, NKVD Administrative-Economic Directorate
- 1937.08–12Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
- 1937.12–1938.10People's Commissar of the Timber Industry
Related historical events
Military and Administrative Service in Morshansk and Bryansk, 1917–1926
Conscripted in 1911, Ryzhov served during the First World War as a clerk in the office of the Morshansk district military chief. By late 1917 he headed that office, and one biographical account states that he organized a Red Guard detachment in Morshansk at that time. After joining the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in July 1918, he was head of the mobilization department of the Morshansk district military commissariat in 1918–1919, district military commissar in 1919, and from August 1919 to March 1920 concurrently chairman of the district revolutionary committee. From March to June 1920 he was assistant to the Tambov provincial military commissar; Tambov province was that year the scene of a large peasant insurrection, but the biographical sources do not say what part he took in its suppression. From 1920 to 1925 he was Bryansk district military commissar and head of the Bryansk garrison, also described as Bryansk provincial military commissar, and from December 1922 to August 1923 concurrently deputy chairman of the Bryansk provincial executive committee. In 1925–1926 he headed the administration of the 37th Rifle Division at Bryansk and then the Bryansk territorial district command. In this period he completed the four-class Borisoglebsk city school (1906) and the refresher courses for senior command staff at the Frunze Red Army Military Academy (1926).