Yagoda, Genrikh Grigor’evich (1891-1938)

Soviet government and Communist party leader who was head of the OGPU from 1934 to 1936.

Yagoda was born Yenokh Gershonovich Ieguda in the town of Rybinsk in 1891, to the family of a craftsman – his father was either a pharmacist or a watchmaker. After finishing high school, he worked as either a statistician or a pharmacist, according to different accounts. He joined the revolutionary movement at a young age and, in 1904-1905, worked at an underground print shop. In 1907, he joined the RSDRP, and, in 1911, was sent into exile for his participation in revolutionary work in Moscow. In 1913, he returned from exile and went to St. Petersburg, the Russian capital. In 1915, he was drafted into the Russian Army and, in 1917, joined the Bolshevik military organization. He took part in both the February revolution and the October Bolshevik rebellion in St. Petersburg in 1917.

In 1918 and 1919, Yagoda was a member of the Supreme Military Inspection of the RKKA on the Southern and Eastern fronts of the Russian Civil War. In 1919, he became a member of the Board of the People’s Commissariat (Narcomat) of Foreign Trade. Beginning in 1920, he was also a member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Emergency Commission (commonly known as VeCheka). From 1924 to 1935, Yagoda was deputy chairman of the Cheka successor agency, OGPU, and in 1927 he was awarded the Red Banner Order.

From 1934 to 1936, Yagoda was the chairman of OGPU and also the People’s Commissar (Narcom) for Internal Affairs (NKVD), in addition to being a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (then known as VCP (b)). From 1935 on, he held the rank of Commissar General of State Security (GB), which was equivalent to the military rank of Marshall. Yagoda oversaw the preparations for the first Moscow political trial (1936) and took an active part in launching Stalin’s “Great Terror.” He also supervised the OGPU foreign intelligence network and tried to bring the military intelligence service under the control of OGPU.

In September 1936, however, Yagoda was demoted on charges of “being unfit for the task of exposing the Trotskyite-Zinoviev block.” He was succeeded by Nickolai Ezhov. Yagoda was arrested on April 3, 1937 and charged with many crimes – from counterrevolutionary Trotskyite activity and espionage to the “medicinal assassinations” of prominent Soviet leaders. He pleaded guilty to all charges except espionage, stating: “Had I been a spy, then dozens of nations of the world would have to disband their intelligence services.” In March 1938, Yagoda became one of the chief defendants in the Moscow “anti-Soviet right wing Trotskyite” trial, and was sentenced to death and executed. He was the only defendant in that trial who was not eventually rehabilitated. ¹