job's friends visit him

Job 2:11-13 International Standard Version

Job’s friends visit.

11  When Job’s three friends heard all these tragedies that happened to him, they each traveled from their home towns [ a ] to visit him. Eliphaz came from Teman, [ b ] Bildad came from Shuah, [ c ] and Zophar came from Naamath. [ d ] They met together and went to console and comfort him. 12  Observing him from a distance, at first they didn’t even recognize him, so they raised their voices and burst into tears. They each ripped their robes, threw ashes into the air on their heads, 13  and sat with Job [ e ] on the ground for a full week [ f ] without saying a word, since they could see the great extent of his anguish.

• Job 2:11 Lit. from his place
• Job 2:11 Lit. Eliphaz the Temanite ; i.e. from Teman in Edom, and so throughout the book
• Job 2:11 Lit. Bildad the Shuhite ; i.e. from Shuah, and so throughout the book
• Job 2:11 Lit. Zophar the Naamathite ; i.e. from Naamath in Arabia, and so throughout the book
• Job 2:13 Lit. him
• Job 2:13 Lit. for seven days and seven nights

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The Story of Job and His Friends

Daily devotional details.

When Job’s three friends… heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out… to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.  Job 2:11 (NIV)

Job had some friends who were worried about Job’s spiritual condition and so they came to comfort him in his loss. They should be commended for that.

These friends felt quite sure that Job’s suffering must be a direct consequence of some sin in his life, and they wanted him to come clean and tell them what it was.

But Job maintained his innocence. In Job 31, he goes through a catalogue of sins, and calls down judgments on himself if he has been guilty of any of them:

“If I have walked in falsehood (31:5), if my feet have turned from the path (31:7), if my heart has been enticed by a woman (31:9), if I have denied justice (31:13), if I have denied the desires of the poor (31:16), if I have kept my bread to myself (31:17), if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing (31:19), if I have raised my hand against the fatherless (31:21), if I have put my trust in gold (31:24), if I have rejoiced over my great wealth (31:25), if I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune (31:29), if I have concealed my sin (31:33), but I didn’t do these things!”

“If any of these things are true of me, then let briers come up instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley” (31:40). The words of Job are ended. The defense rests its case. What Job really wants is an audience with God. He’d like to ask God some questions.

Would you tend to agree with Job or his friends? Why?

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What We Learn from Job’s Three Friends

By Ron Bay, Jr. | Bio

The story of Job, from the Old Testament, is well known. He is the man who lost everything—family, wealth, health—and yet did not lose his faith in God. While in the midst of Job’s suffering, Job’s three friends came to pay him a visit. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.

How do I know they were friends of Job, besides the text telling me so? By their actions. From Job 2:11:

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place…and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him.”

So far, so good. And then, from v.12:

“…they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe, and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky.”

Again, so far, so good. And then from v.13:

“Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.”

From their actions, these men were not just friends, they were good friends.

Have you ever done this for a friend? Sat with them for seven days? Or has a friend done this for you when you were in pain and suffering? It seems that Job’s three friends were the ultimate model for the rest of us.

The Wrong Turn

So why do the names of these three men not resonate with us like the names of other Old Testament characters? The names Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar don’t have quite the ring to them as do Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And yet, these men spent seven days and seven nights, sitting on the ground with their friend. Such a great sacrifice.

Why then do these three men have such a bad reputation? The short answer is, they opened their mouths. I suppose seven days is a long time to hold one’s tongue. It seems Job’s friends felt they had all the answers. In their limited knowledge, his friends were convinced that Job wouldn’t have been in his awful predicament if not for something he’d done. Some hidden sin in his life.

“In their limited knowledge, his friends were convinced that Job wouldn’t have been in his awful predicament if not for something he’d done.”

The innocent don’t suffer, they said. God rewards the good, they said. If Job would only come clean and admit his sin he would be restored, they said. But even though their hearts were in the right place, not only were their words wrong—they were hurtful and discouraging.

Making the Same Mistake

I recall an incident from when I was a new Christian. At the time, I worked with a man named Sam. His biblical knowledge was impressive, always being quick with a Scripture quote. Being new in my faith and a biblical novice, I wanted to emulate him. Until the day he behaved much like Job’s three friends.

One day, when one of the women I worked with came to work visibly upset, it became known that she’d recently had a miscarriage. When Sam found out, he offered sympathy and condolences. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and offered to pray for her. So far, so good.

But then he did it. He made the same mistake as Job’s three friends. He opened his mouth. He told her that her miscarriage was due to some hidden sin in her life, and that she needed to confess.

“He told her that her miscarriage was due to some hidden sin in her life, and that she needed to confess.”

Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with the young lady and she stormed out of the room in tears. Not to be dissuaded by the negative results, Sam maintained his stance and insisted he’d given the correct counsel. So sure of himself. Sound familiar? The incident left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

So, where did Sam and Job’s three friends go wrong? Why was their counsel in error? Let’s go to Jesus for the answer.

Jesus on the Why Questions

Jesus answered the question of why bad things happen to innocent people on more than one occasion.

In John 9:2, referencing a man born blind, the Scripture says, “And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” A common assumption in those times.

“Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Much like the story of Job. On another occasion, in Luke 13:1-4, the disciples came to Jesus to report about some Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Jesus said,

“Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

“Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

And he added to his thoughts with this: “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

What’s Needed Most

Job’s friends, because they weren’t suffering like Job, became self-righteous in their words, assuming that, because they weren’t struck with Job’s calamities, they were therefore right before God. Jesus’ teachings from the Gospels of John and Luke put that notion to rest. We are all sinners, and we err when we assign life’s tragedies to something we’ve done to cause them. (For sure, some sin does lead to tragedy; a drunk driver killing someone in a car accident, for example. But the person killed by the drunk driver didn’t suffer that fate because of a hidden sin in their life.)

So, what’s the lesson for you and for me? Be a good friend. Like Job’s three friends, go to your friend in time of need, when they’re hurting, and sit with them. For seven days if that’s what it takes.

“Go to your friend in time of need, when they’re hurting, and sit with them.”

But be mindful of your words and careful when offering advice, for you might find yourself in the position of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (and Sam), who suffered God’s displeasure because they put themselves in God’s place. From Job 42:7: “And it came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.”

Sometimes the best counsel is no counsel at all. Sometimes all that is needed is your presence.

From AVoiceofOneCrying.wordpress.com . Used with permission. 

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Job 2:11-13

Job 2:11-13 amplified bible ( amp ).

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. When they looked from a distance and did not recognize him [because of his disfigurement], they raised their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe [in grief] and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky [in sorrow]. So they sat down on the ground with Job for seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

Job 2:11-13 The Message ( MSG )

Three of Job’s friends heard of all the trouble that had fallen on him. Each traveled from his own country—Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, Zophar from Naamath—and went together to Job to keep him company and comfort him. When they first caught sight of him, they couldn’t believe what they saw—they hardly recognized him! They cried out in lament, ripped their robes, and dumped dirt on their heads as a sign of their grief. Then they sat with him on the ground. Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, how deeply he was suffering.

Job 2:11-13 King James Version ( KJV )

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2:11-13 New American Standard Bible - NASB 1995 ( NASB1995 )

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

Job 2:11-13 New Century Version ( NCV )

Now Job had three friends: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. When these friends heard about Job’s troubles, they agreed to meet and visit him. They wanted to show their concern and to comfort him. They saw Job from far away, but he looked so different they almost didn’t recognize him. They began to cry loudly and tore their robes and put dirt on their heads to show how sad they were. Then they sat on the ground with Job seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how much he was suffering.

Job 2:11-13 American Standard Version ( ASV )

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to bemoan him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his robe, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2:11-13 New International Version ( NIV )

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Job 2:11-13 New King James Version ( NKJV )

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2:11-13 New Living Translation ( NLT )

When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.

Job 2:11-13 English Standard Version 2016 ( ESV )

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

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“Job’s Friends Visit Him,” Liahona , Aug. 2022.

Old Testament Art

Job’s Friends Visit Him

“When [Job’s friends] lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.

“So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.”

Job 2:12–13

The Patience of Job , by Harold Copping, Bridgeman Images

• Job’s Friends Accuse Him of Doing Evil (Job 4-23)

Regrettably, Job’s friends are not able to endure the mystery of his suffering, so they jump to conclusions about its source. The first of the three, Eliphaz, acknowledges that Job has been a source of strength to others (Job 4:3-4). But then he turns and puts the blame for Job’s suffering squarely on Job himself. “Think now,” he says, “who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:7-8). Job’s second friend, Bildad, says much the same. “See, God will not reject a blameless person nor take the hand of evildoers” (Job 8:20). The third friend, Zophar, repeats the refrain. “If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, do not let wickedness reside in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure, and will not fear.…Your life will be brighter than the noonday” (Job 11:14-15, 17).

Their reasoning is a syllogism. God sends calamities upon wicked people only. You have suffered a calamity. Therefore you must be wicked. Job himself avoids this false syllogism. But it is very commonly accepted by Christians. It is called a theology of divine retribution, and it assumes that God blesses those who are faithful to him and punishes those who sin. It is not entirely without biblical support. There are many cases in which God sends calamity as a punishment, as for example he did at Sodom (Genesis 19:1-29). Often, our experiences do bear out this theological position. In most situations, things turn out better when we follow God’s ways than when we forsake them. However, God does not always work that way. Jesus himself pointed out that disaster is not necessarily a sign of God’s judgment (Luke 13:4). In Job’s case, we know the theology of divine retribution is not true because God says that Job is a righteous man (Job 1:8, 2:3). Job’s friends’ devastating error is to apply a generalization to Job’s situation, without knowing what they’re talking about.

Anyone who has spent time with a suffering friend knows how hard it is to remain present without trying to give answers. It is excruciating to suffer silently with a friend who must rebuild life piece by piece, without any certainty about the outcome. Our instinct is to investigate what went wrong and identify a solution. Then we imagine we can help our friend eliminate the cause and get back to normal as soon as possible. Knowing the cause, we will at least know how to avoid the same fate ourselves. We would rather give a reason for the suffering — be it right, be it wrong — than to accept the mystery at the heart of suffering.

Job’s friends succumb to this temptation. It would be foolish to imagine that we would never do the same. How much harm have well-intentioned Christians caused by giving pious-sounding answers to suffering, even though we have no idea what we’re talking about? “It’s all for the best.” “It’s part of God’s plan.” “God never sends people more adversity than they can handle.” How arrogant to imagine we know God’s plan. How foolish to think we know the reason for anyone else’s suffering. We don’t even know the reason for our own suffering. It would be more truthful — and far more helpful — to admit, “I don’t know why this happened to you. No one should have to go through this.” If we can do this, and then remain present , we may become an agent of God’s compassion.

Job’s friends can’t lament with Job or even acknowledge that they lack a basis for judging him. They are hell-bent (literally, given Satan’s role) on defending God by placing the blame on Job. As the friends’ speeches continue, their rhetoric becomes increasingly hostile. Faced with the self-imposed choice of blaming Job or blaming God, they harden their hearts against their former friend. “There is no end to your iniquities,” says Eliphaz (Job 22:5), and then he invents some iniquities to charge against Job. “You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry” (Job 22:7). “You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the orphans you have crushed” (Job 22:9).

Zophar’s last speech observes that wicked persons will not enjoy their riches because God will make their stomachs “vomit them up again” (Job 20:15) and that “They will give back the fruit of their toil, and will not swallow it down; from the profit from their trading they will get no fruit of their enjoyment” (Job 20:18). This is an appropriate righting of the wicked’s wrongdoing, that “they have crushed and abandoned the poor, they have seized a house that they did not build” (Job 20:19). The reader knows this does not apply to Job. Why is Zophar so eager to blame Job? Are we sometimes too eager to follow in Zophar’s footsteps when our friends face failures in work and life?

The book of Job demands that we see ourselves in the faces of Job’s friends. We too — presumably — know right from wrong, and have some sense of God’s ways. But we do not know all of God’s ways as they apply in all times and places. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6).God’s ways are often a mystery beyond our understanding. Is it possible that we also are guilty of ignorant judgments against our friends and co-workers?

But it doesn’t have to be friends who accuse us. Unlike Job, most of us are quite ready to accuse ourselves. Anyone who has tasted failure has likely pondered, “What have I done to deserve this?” It’s natural, and not altogether incorrect. Sometimes out of sheer laziness, bad data or incompetence, we make poor decisions that cause us to fail at work. However, not all failures are the direct result of our own shortcomings. Many are the result of circumstances outside our control. Workplaces are complex, with many factors competing for our attention, many ambiguous situations, and many decisions where the outcomes are impossible to predict. How do we know whether we are following God’s ways all the time? How could we or anyone genuinely know whether our successes and failures are due to our own actions or to factors beyond our control? How could an outsider judge the rightness of our actions without knowing the intimate details of our situations? Indeed, how could we even judge ourselves, give the limits of our own knowledge?

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Table of Contents

• Introduction to Job
• Background and Outline (Job)
• Theology and Themes (Job)
• Prologue (Job 1-2)
• Job’s Prosperity Acknowledged as God’s Blessing (Job 1:1-12)
• God Allows Satan to Destroy Job’s Prosperity (Job 1:13-22)
• God Allows Satan to Destroy Job’s Health (Job 2:1-11)
• Job’s Friends Arrive to Comfort Him (Job 2:11-13)
• Job’s First Lament (Job 3)
• Job’s Friends Blame Job for the Calamity (Job 4-23)
• Job’s Friends Accuse Him of Abandoning God (Job 8-22)
• Job Pleads His Case to God (Job 5-13)
• Job’s Friends Try to Protect God (Job 22-23)
• Job’s Complaints Take on Special Significance for Our Work (Job 24)
• Wisdom Revealed (Job 28)
• Job’s Second Lament (Job 29-42)
• Job Falls into Nostalgia and Self-Justification (Job 29-30)
• Job’s Ethical Practices Apply to the Workplace (Job 31)
• Dialogue With Elihu (Job 32-37)
• God Appears (Job 38-42:9)
• Who Can Comprehend the Wisdom of God? (Job 38:4-42:6)
• God Denounces Job’s Friends (Job 42:7-9)
• Epilogue — Job’s Prosperity Restored (Job 42:7-17)
• Key Verses and Themes in Job

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Contributors: Timothy Johnson Adopted by the Theology of Work Project Board April 28, 2011. Rev. June 28, 2011.. Image by Used under license from Veer . Used by permission.

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Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Columbo Goes to the Guillotine

• Episode aired Feb 6, 1989

An egocentric psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick. An egocentric psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick. An egocentric psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick.

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Interrogations of Nikolai Ezhov, former People's Commissar for Internal Affairs.

Russian (original) text

Introduction

We do not know how many interrogations of Ezhov are in existence. All the prosecution materials concerning virtually all the important matters of the later 1930s in the USSR are still top-secret, kept in the Presidential Archives of the Russian Federation. I have simply translated those texts that have been published as of this date (July 2010).

I have compiled and translated these confessions from the following "semi-official" sources:

Briukhanov, Boris Borisovich, and Shoshkov, Evgenii Nikolaevich. Opravdaniiu ne podlezhit. Ezhov i Ezhovshchina 1936-1938 gg. Sankt-Peterburg: OOO "Petrovskii Fond" 1998. Polianskii, Aleksei. Ezhov. Istoriia «zheleznogo» stalinskogo narkoma. Moscow: «Veche», «Aria-AiF», 2001. Pavliukov, Aleksei. Ezhov. Biografiia . Moscow: Zakharov, 2007.

I term these sources "semi-official" since they are quoted unproblematically by all the anticommunist scholars. These scholars ignore them almost completely, and ignore their implications completely, but they do not consider the documents false.

In addition I have used these sources, which are more or less "official":

Lubianka. Stalin i NKVD – NKGB – GUKR «SMERSH». 1939 – mart 1946. Moscow: «Materik», 2006. Petrov, Nikita, and Iansen [Jansen], Mark. «Stalinskii pitomets» -- Nikolai Ezhov . Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2008.

A few remarks have been taken from other sources, mainly Vassilii Soima, Zapreshchennyi Stalin , Chast' 1. Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2001. Where possible I have checked the text with the versions online at http://perpetrator2004.narod.ru/ , "Documents of Soviet Power and of Soviet-Communist Terror", which has used the sources above.

Here I only present them in English translation for interested students. Naturally they must be studied. I’m doing that but I do not present my results here.

NOTE: We have one very important confession by Mikhail Frinovskii, Ezhov's Assistant Commissar -- that of April 11, 1939. Also published in the Lubianka volume cited above, I have put a translation of it online here.

It should be read in connection with Ezhov's confessions.

Grover Furr July 31 2010

____________________

Ezhov interrogation 04.18 – 04.20.39

According to Pavliukov, this is the 1st Ezhov confession in his file. QQ 519-520 & n. 481 p. 564. Summarized 520-521.

"Question: You have been arrested as a traitor to the party and an enemy of the people. The investigation possesses sufficient facts to expose you completely at the first attempt to conceal your crimes. We propose that you not wait to be exposed but proceed to confessions of your black traitorous work against the party and Soviet power. Answer: It is hard for one such as I, who only lately enjoyed the party’s trust, to confess to betrayal and treason. But now that I am faced with answering before the investigation for my crimes, I wish to be thoroughly frank and truthful. I am not the person the party took me for. Hiding behind a mask of party loyalty, for many years I have deceived and been two-faced while conducting a ferocious hidden struggle against the party and the Soviet State."

Summary of other parts of Ezhov’s statement.

"Ezhov started the history of his ‘fall into sin’ in 1921, when he worked in Tartaria and under the influence of anarcho-syndicalist ideas supposedly joined the local group of the ‘Workers’ Opposition.’ In the following years, the period of inner-party discussions of the 1930s, he also supposedly expressed differences in his political views with the general line of the party. However, the investigators showed no interest in digging so deeply into the garbage-heap of history, and they did not permit Ezhov to deviate long from the basic theme."

"Question: What is the point of this expansive story about these or those ‘political waverings’ of yours? As a long-time agent of foreign intelligence services you must confess about your direct espionage work. Talk about that! Answer: All right, I will go directly to the moment when my espionage ties were formed."

Summary continues:

"Ezhov related that he was drawn into espionage work by his friend F.M. Konar*, who had long been a Polish agent. Konar learned political news from Ezhov and gave them to his bosses in Poland and on one occasion told Ezhov about this and proposed that he volunteer to begin working for the Poles. Since Ezhov had in fact already become an informant of Polish intelligence, since he had transmitted to them via Konar many significant party and state secrets, he supposedly had no other choice than to agree with this proposal.

* F.M. Konar – An assistant Commissar of Agriculture, he was among those convicted and executed in March 1933 for sabotage in agriculture at the height of the serious famine. Konar had also been a friend of the poet Osip Mandel’shtam, according to his daughter Nadezhda (Memoirs).

___________

The Poles supposedly shared a part of the intelligence received from Ezhov with their allies the Germans, and so after a time an offer of collaboration from the latter was also made.

According to Ezhov Marshal A.I. Egorov, first assistant Commissar for Defense, acted as the middleman [between Ezhov and the Germans]. He met with Ezhov in the summer of 1937 and told him that he knew about the latter’s ties with the Poles, that he himself was a German spy who on orders from the German authorities had organized a group of conspirators in the Red Army, and that he had been given a directive to establish close working contact between his group and Ezhov.

Ezhov agreed with this proposal and promised to protect Egorov’s men from arrest."

______________________________

Ezhov interrogation 04.23.39 (04.24.39)

Quotes are same as beginning and end of Ezhov conf. dated April 24, 1939 in Petrov & Iansen, 365-6 and Pavliukov, 522-523.

Pavliukov says 10 pages in length. P&Ia cite same archive, different location, 4 pages in length.

Pavliukov – no sign this confession was forced, or even asked about this (522).

Petrov & Iansen, 365-6:

"I think it essential that I inform the investigation of a series of new facts concerning my moral-personal dissoluteness. I mean my longtime vice of homosexuality. This began in my early youth when I lived as an apprentice to a tailor. At about the age of 15 or 16 years I had a few instances of perverse sexual acts with other apprentices of my own age of the same tailor shop. This vice renewed itself in the old Tsarist army in frontline conditions. Aside from one chance contact with one of the solders of our company I had relations with a certain Filatov, my friend from Leningrad with whom we served in the same regiment. Our relations were "mutual", that is the "female" part was played first by one side, then by the other. Afterwards Filatov was killed at the front. In 1919 I was appointed commissar of the 2 nd base of radio-telegraph formations. My secretary was a certain Antoshin. I know that in 1937 he was still in Moscow and was working somewhere as chief of a radio station. He is an engineer radio technician. In 1919 I had mutual homosexual relations with this same Antoshin. In 1924 I was working in Semiplatinsk [now the city of Semei, Kazakhstan – GF]. My old friend Dement’ev went there with me. On several occasions in 1924 I had homosexual relations with him in which only I played the active role. [Ezhov apparently means Dement’ev played the "female" role. – GF] In 1925 in Orenburg I established homosexual relations with a certain Boiarskii, at that time the chairman of the Kazakh oblast’ trade union council. As far as I know he is now working as the director of an artistic theater in Moscow. Our relations were mutual. At that time he and I had just arrived in Orenburg and were living in the same hotel. Our relations were shot-lived, until the arrival of his wife, who arrived quickly. In the same year 1925 the capital of Kazakhstan was transferred from Orenburg to Kzyl-Orda, whence I also went to work. Soon F.I. Goloshchekin arrived there as the secretary of the regional [Party] committee (he is now employed as a chief arbiter). He arrived as a bachelor, without a wife, and I was also living as a bachelor. Before my departure for Moscow (for about 2 months) I had de facto moved into his apartment and often spent the night there. I quickly established homosexual relations with him as well, and they continued off and on until my departure. As with the others, our relations were mutual. In 1938 I had two instances of homosexual activity with Dement’ev, with whom I had also had relations in 1924, as I stated above. These relations were in Moscow in the autumn of 1938 in my apartment, after I had already been dismissed from the post of Commissar of Internal Affairs. Dement’ev lived with me at that time about two months. A little later, also in 1938, there occurred two instances of homosexual activity between myself and Konstantinov. I have known Konstantinov since 1918 in the army. He worked with me before 1921. Since 1921 we hardly saw each other at all. In 1938 on my invitation he began to visit me often at my apartment and two or three times he was at my dacha. He came twice with his wife; the other visits were without wives. He often stayed the night with me. As I have said above, at that time he and I had two instances of homosexual relations. Our relations were mutual. I should also say that during one of his visits to my apartment with his wife I also had sexual relations with her. All of this was accompanied, as a rule, with heavy drinking. I give this information to the investigation as an additional detail characterizing my moral dissolution. April 24, 1939. N. Ezhov.

_________________________

Ezhov interrogation of 04.26.1939 (published separately)

Ezhov’s April 26 1939 confession belongs here (from Lubianka )

_______________________________

Ezhov interrogation 04.30.39

Ezhov interrogation, Pavliukov 525-6 & n. 489 p. 564. Short Q from interrogation on 525-6.

Acc. to Pavliukov 526, Ezhov named 66 names of fellow conspirators in this one interrogation.

"The first stage of the investigation was completed on April 30, 1939. In the course of the interrogation that took place on that day Ezhov told about the method of recruiting his subordinates in the Cheka into the anti-Soviet conspiracy and about the basic direction of the sabotage work in the NKVD. This sabotage consisted in massive arrests without any basis, falsification of investigative materials, forgeries, and reprisals against undesirable elements."

Quotation (Pavliukov 525-6)

"All this was done in order to cause widespread dissatisfaction in the population with the leadership of the Party and the Soviet government and in that way to create the most favorable base for carrying out our conspiratorial plans."

Ezhov interrogation 05.05.1939

Pavliukov summarizes it 526. No QQ, no note.

"…at his interrogation of May 5 1939 Ezhov recounted the work of the ‘conspirators’ in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Here at that same time took place the beginning of the large-scale purge (after the removal of M.M. Litvinov, the director of the division of foreign political affairs). Therefore the theme of subversive activity in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs was especially timely in those days.

Ezhov stated that the goal of this activity was the creation of conditions for the victory of Germany and Japan in the inevitable war with the USSR. Specifically, they undertook attempts to create disagreements between the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek and the Soviet authorities, for the purpose, in the last analysis, of facilitating Japanese seizure of the Soviet Far East.

At the beginning of May 1939 confessions were obtained from several arrested NKVD employees concerning the fabrication, at Ezhov’s instruction, of the so-called mercury poisoning. Interrogated on this point Ezhov confirmed the fact of the falsification and explained that this initiative was undertaken with the goal of raising his authority even higher in the eyes of the country’s leadership."

________________________

Ezhov interrogation May 11 1939 by Kobulov

Long quotes in Polianskii 222-226. Acc to Polianskii, this is where Kuz’min’s report of Dec. 12 1938 about Sholokhov and Ezhova is located.

"It is not altogether clear why the closeness of these persons to Ezhova [Ezhov’s wife – GF] appeared suspicious to you. Ezhova’s closeness to these people was suspicious insofar as Babel, for example, as I knew, had written almost nothing during the past few years, circulating all the time in a suspicious Trotskyist milieu and, besides that, had close ties to a series of French writers who could by no means be considered among those who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Not to mention the fact that Babel demonstratively refused to write off his wife, who had been living in Paris for many years, but preferred to go to see her. Ezhova had a special friendship with Babel. I suspect – in truth, just on the basis of my personal observations – that there must have been ties of espionage between my wife and Babel. On what factual basis do you make this statement? I know from my wife’s own words that she had been acquainted with Babel since 1925. She always insisted that she had never had intimate relations with him. Their ties were limited to her desire to maintain an acquaintance with a talented, singular writer. Babel visited us at home a few times at her invitation, where, of course, I also made his acquaintance. I observed that in his relationship with my wife Babel was demanding and rude. I saw that my wife was simply afraid of him. I understood that this was not a question of my wife’s literary interests, but of something more serious. I excluded any intimate relations because I thought that Babel would hardly treat my wife with such rudeness when he knew what social position I occupied. To my questions to my wife whether she had the same kind of relations with Babel as she had with Kol’tsov she either remained silent or weakly denied it. I always supposed that with this indefinite answer she simply wished to hide from me her espionage ties with Babel, evidently not wishing to confide the numerous channels of this kind of relationship with me… What you have said about Babel is not a sufficient basis for suspecting him of taking part in espionage for England. Aren’t you just slandering Babel? I am not slandering him. Ezhova definitely never said that she was linked with Babel in her work for English intelligence. In this case I am only expressing that supposition, based upon my observation of the nature of the mutual relations between my wife and the writer Babel. What do you think in general about, shall we say, Ezhova’s friendship with cultural figures? This whole specific milieu of people who were tied with the interests of the Soviet people with very thin threads, could not fail to arouse my suspicions. What can you tell us about her relations with the writer Sholokhov? I seem to recall that, I think last spring, my wife told me that she had meet Sholokhov, who had come to Moscow and dropped in at the journal "SSSR na stroike". There was nothing surprising in this, Ezhova always tried to meet writers and never missed an opportunity to do so. I was very well informed about this. Good. And what did you do when you found out about the intimate relations between Ezhova and Sholokhov? I did not know anything about such relations; this is the first time I have heard about them. Don’t lie, Ezhov. In June and August of last year upon your instructions Alekhin arranged to monitor the letter "N" at the phone number of the Hotel "Nationale", where Sholokhov was staying. ____________ For Alekhin see http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto/biogr/gb13.htm ____________ I issued no such instructions. Ezhova may have showed up under the letter "N" solely by chance. But you did know that the intimate relations of Sholokhov with your wife were recorded. Here, take a look at this. [Here reads Kuz’min report of Dec. 12 1938, acc. to Polianskii 224-5] Do you admit that a few days after you received the transcript you brought it home and showed the document to your wife, and then berated her for betraying you? No such event happened. No one ever gave me this transcript of the intimate relations between Ezhov and Sholokhov, and in general I never showed my wife documents from my work and never told her what they contained. Of course you can deny this, Ezhov. But we have the confessions of Glikina, Ezhova’s close friend and a German spy, who is now arrested and is under investigation. Glikina confesses that Ezhova was beaten by you and complained to her and told her about everything. Therefore let me remind you that lying will not help you!" _____________

The following short extract from Ezhov's interrogation-confession of May 11, 1939 is printed in Viktor Fradkin, Delo Kol'tsova . Moscow: Vagrius / Mezhdunarodnyi Fond "Demokratiia", 2002. Published under the auspices of the "Memorial" society, there is every reason to believe that the documents reproduced in this volume are genuine.

Question: Besides Zinaida Glikina, whom you have already named, was anyone else connected with your wife Ezhova E.S. [Evgeniia Solomonovna - GF] in espionage work? Answer: I can only reply with more or less precise suppositions. After the journalist M. Kol'tsov arrived from Spain his friendship with my wife grew much stronger. This friendship was so close that my wife even visited him in the hospital when he was ill. Kol'tsov also worked in the commission -- or committee -- on foreign literature, that is, where Glikina also worked and, as far as I know, Kol'tsov obtained this job for Glikina upon Ezhova's recommendation. I became interested in the reasons for my wife's closeness with Kol'tsov and once asked her about this. My wife at first put me off with general phrases, but then said that this closeness was connected with her work. I asked her, with which work, the literary or the other, and she answered: "With both the first and the second." I understood that Ezhova was connected with Kol'tsov in her espionage work for England.

_____________________

Ezhov interrogation 05.17.39

Interrogation re: murder of Slutsky, organized by Ezhov. Pavliukov 527. No QQ, no note. See Pavliukov 531-2 on Frinovskii’s testimony at Ezhov’s trial on February 3, 1940, where Frinovskii discussed Slutsky’s murder.

"The interrogation of May 17 1939 was devoted to the circumstances surrounding the death of the former head of the Foreign division of the GUGB of the NKVD M. M. Slutsky. Ezhov informed us that the murder of Slutskii was organized according to his instructions, and was done because of the feat that Slutsky, whose arrest had become inevitable, might reveal during his interrogation the facts he knew about the criminal activity of the conspirators. "

_______________________

Ezhov interrogation 06.16.39 by Rodos, selections – Polianskii 230-233

"Do you confirm Kosior’s confessions about your collaboration in working for Polish intelligence? Where, when and what secret information did you transmit to Kosior, and whom else did you recruit for this work?" … Perhaps you did not know Radek and Piatakov well and did not receive any instructions from Trotsky through them? I never received any instructions from Trotsky from anybody. I knew Radek very poorly, I met him at Piatakov’s apartment a few times, but that was about ten years ago! Were you friends with Piatakov? Never. Mar'iasin, the president of the Gosbank, introduced us. We would get together for a drinking bout sometimes at his place, sometimes at Piatakov’s. And then I always got angry with Piatakov. All right, then. When was this? In 1930 or 1931, I can’t remember now. And what did you do with him? When he was drunk Piatakov often played the hooligan, made fun of those present. Once I was sitting next to him at the table. Piatakov quietly stuck me with a pin and then pretended that it was not he who had done it. A little while later he did it again even harder. I did not hold back and hit Piatakov in the face and split his lip. That evening I went away angry with him and never made it up with him and never had any doings with him at all. … You lie well, you bastard. Only I am not Piatakov, I won’t stick you with a pin, but I will force you to tell the truth. … I’ll tell you everything, don’t beat me. My guilt before the party and the people is so great that it’s senseless to justify myself."

Ezhov interrogation June 19 1939

No QQ. Re: nephews Viktor and Anatolii, and Mikhail Blinov, husband of his niece.

Pavliukov 528; 537.

Pavliukov 528:

"In particular, during the course of the interrogation of June 19 1939 Ezhov told about his conversations of a counterrevolutionary nature, which he supposedly had with his nephews Viktor and Anatolii, and also with the husband of his niece Mikhail Blinov. They supposedly agreed completely with his anti-Soviet views, and Viktor also shared, in Ezhov’s words, even his terrorist intentions, although he [Ezhov] never gave him any assignments of that nature."

Pavliukov, 537:

"As has already been mentioned earlier, during the course of the interrogation of June 19 1939 confessions were beaten out of Ezhov according to which Anatolii and Viktor shared his anti-Soviet views and even sympathized with his terrorist orientation. After that they went after his nephews in a serious way. They succeeded in breaking Anatolii first. He not only ‘confessed’ that he knew about Ezhov’s terrorist orientations but also stated that together with his brother Viktor he was read to do anything to help bring about these criminal plans."

[There is NO evidence that Ezhov beaten or tortured to get these confessions – only "supposed" by Pavliukov, 527 bot. - GF]

"As concerns confessions of a personal nature, to obtain some of them the investigators, probably, had to have recourse to the practice of interrogation "with partiality" [i.e. to beat Ezhov – GF]. Otherwise it is hard to understand now, for example, they were able to obtain from Ezhov confessions compromising his nearest relations."

Ezhov interrogation 06.21.39 by Rodos, fm Polianskii 235-238

- summarized by Pavliukov 527 bot.

"If you intend to lie again and make fun of the investigation, then we will not waste our time. I’d prefer to send you back to prison for a week or so to think it over."

Ezhov had already thought about the beginning of his dialog with the investigator and began to talk quickly:

"I admit that I was connected with Zhukovskii in espionage work for Germany since 1932. The fact that I tried to conceal that circumstance from the investigation can be explained only by my cowardice, which I showed at the beginning of the investigation when I tried to minimize my personal guilt, and since my espionage link with Zhukovskii concealed my even earlier ties with German intelligence, it was hard for me to speak [about them] at the first interrogation."

_____________

For Zhukovskii see http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto/biogr/gb169.htm

______________

"When did you become a German spy? I was recruited in 1930. In Germany, in Königsberg. How did you happen to be there? I was sent to Germany by the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture. In Germany I was well treated and shown every attention. The most assiduous attention I received from the prominent official of the Economic Ministry of Germany Artnau. Having been invited to his estate near Königsberg I spent the time happily enough, partaking excessively of alcoholic drinks. In Königsberg Artnau often paid the restaurant bills for me. I did not protest. All these circumstances made me feel close to Artnau and often without holding back I blurted out to him all kinds of secrets about the situation in the Soviet Union. Sometimes, when I was drunk, I was even more frank with Artnau and gave him to understand that I personally was not wholly in agreement with the Party’s line and with the existing Party leadership. Things got to the point that during one of the conversations I directly promised Artnau to discuss a series of questions in the government of the USSR concerning the purchase of livestock and agricultural machinery, in which Germany and Artnau were very much interested. And how did German intelligence recruit Zhukovsky? Did his recruitment take place through you? I established espionage ties with Zhukovskii in 1932 under the following circumstances. Zhukovskii was then working as assistant trade representative of the USSR in Germany. At that time I was the chairman of the Raspredotdel of the Central Committee of the Party. When he somehow found himself in Moscow Zhukovskii applied to me with the request to take him along to the negotiations. Before this I had not been acquainted with Zhukovskii and saw him for the first time in my office at the CC. I was astonished that Zhukovskii began to report to me about the situation in the Berlin trade representative office of the USSR concerning questions which had nothing to do with my position. I understood that the basic reason for Zhukovsky’s visiting me was, obviously, not to initiate me into the situation of the affairs of the office of the Soviet trade representative in Berlin but in something else entirely, about which he preferred to remain silent for the time being, awaiting my initiative. Not long before Zhukovsky’s arrival there arrived at the office of foreign groups, which at that time was also a part of the Raspredotdel of the CC of the Party and was under my supervision, there had arrived materials that characterized Zhukovskii in an extremely negative way. From these materials it was obvious that Zhukovskii had carried out a number of trade operations that had been unprofitable for the Commissariat of Foreign Trade. From these materials it was also obvious that in Berlin Zhukovskii was involved with the Trotskyists and spoke in their defense even at official Party gatherings of the Soviet colony. On that basis the Party organization of the Soviet colony insisted that Zhukovskii be recalled from Berlin. Knowing that these materials would have to come before me Zhukovskii obviously expected that I would be first to begin a talk with him concerning his further work abroad. After Zhukovskii had finished his report I reminded him about the failures in his work. Zhukovskii gave me his explanations and at the end of the conversation asked me my opinion as to whether he might continue his work in the office of the Soviet trade representative or be recalled to Moscow. I avoided any answer and promised to deal with the materials and report the results. At the same time I decided to transmit all the compromising materials on Zhukovskii to Berlin so that Artnau might be able to use them and to recruit Zhukovskii to collaboration with German intelligence. I considered Zhukovskii my man, and he unhesitatingly fulfilled all my assignments concerning espionage for Germany. Zhukovskii had the essential conditions of free access to all materials of the Commission of Party Control, and he made use of them whenever German intelligence demanded from him materials on this or that question. I also created for him in the NKVD such conditions that he was able to use for espionage work information through the secretariat of the NKVD on any questions.*

* Senior major of State Security Semion Borisovich Zhukovskii was shot on January 24, 1940. He has been rehabilitated (Polianskii, p. 393).

Ezhov confession 06.25.39 Rodos re poisons

- fm perpetrator2004 Yezhov1.doc; Soima; Polianskii 241-245.

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERROGATION OF N.I. EZHOV BY INVESTIGATOR RODOS ON JUNE 25 1939: "How did you use this NKVD laboratory in your espionage and conspiratorial activities?" asked Rodos, glancing at Kobulov who was sitting beside him. "ANSWER: I knew that such a laboratory existed and that Iagoda made use of it in his conspiratorial activities. But when I came to the NKVD Frinovskii explained to me that we could not do without the activities of this laboratory, and that it was necessary for our intelligence activities in the Foreign Division abroad. But I did not know anything about what they were doing. I did not even hear about all these experiments about which Zhukovskii spoke, probably Frinovskii allowed him all this. True, once – I don’t remember when – Frinovskii told me that Alekhin had in the laboratory some substance which, if a person ingested it, would cause death like that from a heart attack. Such a substance is essential when it’s necessary to eliminate enemies abroad. But it had to be tested to see whether it would leave traces on the organism that could be discovered by experts upon autopsy. Frinovskii said that they had a doctor who for this purpose needed to carry out research on the corps of a person who had died from this substance. The doctor needed to carry out experiments on three or four persons. What’s the difference how they die, poison is even easier than a bullet in the back of the head. Therefore I agreed, but I never heard anything more about this laboratory and about what they were doing there. QUESTION: Once again your answer is not to the point. Name the persons whom you liquidated in your espionage and conspiratorial activities by the use of the poisons which you received from this laboratory. ANSWER: I have no idea about these poisons, I have never seen them. KOBULOV: Ezhov is lying again, he thinks that somebody will believe him. We remind him that he gave the directive to poison Slutsky. Both Frinovskii and Alekhin have given testimony about this. Did you hear what we are asking you about? How did you organize the poisoning of Slutsky? – asked Rodos. Frinovskii actively spoke against Slutsky. He said that this was Iagoda’s man and that we could never trust him under any circumstances. But here Frinovskii does not view Slutskii at all in the way you do – Kobulov suddenly said. Slutskii head the INO (International section) and could have had access to information from abroad about your espionage links. You feared that and poisoned Slutskii after putting your own agent Shpigel’glas in his place. But you didn’t manage to cover your tracks. Shpigel’glas figured everything out, uncovered your whole band of spies. You had to take care of your agents in the INO and abroad in the most meticulous manner. Tell us in detail how you organized the murder of your wife Evgeniia Solomonovna Ezhova by means of poisoning. I did not organize such a poisoning. She died from a sedative, she drank a large dose. And here your chauffer confessed in the investigation that a day before Ezhova’s death you asked him to take chocolate candies and fruit to her in the hospital. You poisoned these products. Who gave you the poison? Zhukovsky? Alekhin? My wife died November 21. At that time both of them had already been arrested. And then, I don’t’ remember that I sent my chauffer to her with a present. KOBULOV: Don’t play the fool, Ezhov, we are not children here, and we will not believe that such a hardened bandit and spy as you are did not keep poison and did not know how to use it. I do not recall the exact date when I saw my wife in the hospital for the last time. Probably it was the 17 th or 18 th . She told me that she did not want to live, that in any case they would soon arrest her, that she felt there were serious crimes on her account. She asked me that I bring her some kind of poison the next time… Did you arrange your wife’s suicide? Yes. She knew a lot about my subversive activities, my accomplices, and my criminal plans. But I decided not to give her poison. I did not have any special poison. Normal poison I could of course obtain, but such a poisoning could have brought suspicion upon me, that I had put her to death myself or through accomplices, or simply had given her poison for suicide. I knew that a large dose of sedative could cause death. I told her that I did not have any poison, but I did have a very great deal of sedative. She understood everything. On the 20 th I took a box of chocolate candies and put a packet of Luminal in it. Then I put the box into a basket with grapes and apples and told my chauffer to take all this to the hospital. Of course I committed a serious crime, but she herself asked me about this. She wanted to end her life."

[Soima: "Earlier he had confirmed to Rodos that with the aid of poison Ezhov had put his wife to death.]

__________________________

Ezhov interrogation 06.29.39 by Rodos re Kedrov’s report

- fm Polianskii 250-252

Tell us about your espionage connections with the agent of German intelligence Mnatsakanov. I never had such connections with him. And if you think about it the right way. When did you become acquainted with him? That was, it seems, in 1935. I was going to Vienna for treatment together with my wife. Then I was already a secretary of the Central Committee and Slutskii had the task of security for our trip abroad. He, so to speak, attached this Mnatsakanov to me. He had been a consul or a vice-consul, had an automobile, and drove us around the town. Yee-es. And he drove you around so well that once you were Commissar you immediately dragged this villain to a leading post in the INO knowing that he was a German spy, that his wife was linked to Polish intelligence, and that his brother was an experienced Trotskyist provocateur! I didn’t know any of this. Slutskii had simply worked with him in Vienna, had a high opinion of him, and decided to take him into the INO apparatus. I supported Slutsky, not because I knew Mnatsakanov a bit. I did not spend much time on INO matters and completely relied on Slutskii in matters of cadre. So it turns out that it was Slutskii who is to blame. He foisted a German agent onto you, and you knew nothing about him. Is that the way things were? I do not wish to blame Slutskii for anything. He did not foist Mnatsakanov onto me. In my opinion I did not see this Mnatsakanov in the NKVD even once. In the INO at that time I only met with Slutskii about the work, sometimes with Shpigel’glas, and with Boris Berman. Why then did Mnatsakanov call you and ask you to intercede for him when they unmasked him and began to expel him from the Party? He could not have called me. I had a direct connection only with the heads of departments and their assistants. Who among them would even let Mnatsakanov near such a telephone, much less since they wanted to expel him from the Party. That is impossible. I remind you that he called at that time from Kedrov’s office. About Kedrov I know that he was just a simple worker in the INO. From his telephone it was also impossible to reach me.

That’s all, we are finished with lying. You have two days to think hard about your espionage work with Mnatsakanov, to remember all the details. And especially how you warned him in Duilov’s office not to give any confessions. If you continue to lie and mock me, I’ll have your head.

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Ezhov interrogation 07.02.39 by Rodos re Mnatsakanov

- fm Polianskii 252-260

When and how did Mnatsakanov enter into espionage relations with you? This was in 1935 when I went to Vienna for the second time to get treatment for my lung disease. You had been there before, when? In 1934, I was alone then, and the next time I went with my wife. I was treated the whole time by the famous Professor Norden. German intelligence summoned you to him, he was an agent of theirs? Not. The Kremlin medical directorate sent me to him. Many important workers and their wives were treated by him. He had been in Moscow several times, already in the 1920s. And Norden could hardly have been connected with German intelligence. I was told while still in Moscow that this professor was a monarchist and supporter of Franz-Josef and no lover of Hitler, that’s why he moved from Berlin to Vienna, so the fascists could not persecute him. And also, he is very old. Tell us about your first trip to Vienna, with whom did you meet there? In Vienna Slutskii met me. He had received a special directive about this from Iagoda. From Iagoda? That is interesting. Did you yourself ask Iagoda to do this? No. I did not talk with Iagoda about this. At that time I was an assistant department head in the CC and traveled to Austria under a false name. Therefore the CC gave a directive to Iagoda that he should take care of guaranteeing my security. Well, and who was it who took care of your security then, Mnatsakanov? No, then Mnatsakanov was not yet working in Vienna, I think. It was Slutskii himself who brought me to Norden at first, and then, twice, some collaborator of his. To be honest I do not remember his name and never met him again. And when did Mnatsakanov approach you? In 1935. He met Evgeniia Solomonovna and myself at the station and drove us to the plenipotentiary’s office to Slutsky. Then he took us to Norden and showed us the city. He was very polite and kind to us. I’ll bet. Did he connect with you by some code word in the name of German intelligence? No. He gave me a greeting from Artnau and I understood everything. Thereupon I communicated secret political information to him. What kind of information? I don’t remember exactly now, but in my opinion Mnatsakanov was interested in information about industry and about the weaponry of the Red Army. Not long before this I headed the industrial division of the CC, and I was very familiar with this information. Probably that’s why the Germans asked me such questions. He gave you tasks of a subversive and sabotage character? Yes, he did. But in general. What do you mean "in general"? At that time I had already become a secretary of the CC, head of the department of leading Party organs, chairman of the Party Control Commission, and chairman of the Commission on Foreign Assignments. German intelligence knew this very well, and I received from Mnatsakanov the task of performing sabotage while in these positions, of subverting Party work. Be more concrete. Well, how shall I say it? In my hands at that time was in fact all the work of reassigning of leading cadres. Choosing their activities, punishments, directing them for work abroad. So I did everything that a saboteur could do in such positionis. I directed to leading positions people who were weak in professional, political, and moral sense, people who could ruin production, undermine the fulfillment of the Five-Year Plan. To compromise the Party. In the Party Control Commission I managed things so as to cover-up and not disclose elements hostile to the Party, and to deprive of Party membership and shut out in every way those who were loyal to the Party. Abroad I tried to send those who would probably become spies or non-returnees. What a scoundrel you were anyway, Ezhov – hissed Rodos with pleasure through his teeth. Why, after that there is no place for you on this earth. I understand that I caused enormous harm to the Party and the country, I repent fully of my crimes and am ready to bear the punishment I deserve for them, -- said Ezhov, as if by rote, glancing in fear at the investigator. Were you familiar with Mnatsakanov’s wife, Erna Boshkovich? Yes, he introduced us to her in Vienna. Did you know that her first husband was a Polish spy and that she herself works for Polish intelligence? No. I did not even know that she had been married before Mnatsakanov. Did your wife meet with her alone? I seem to remember that not long before our departure Mnatsakanov and Boshkovich took her shopping, and at that time I was in the office of the trade representative. What do you think? Could Ezhova have established espionage connections with Boshkovich in Vienna? What information do you have about that? I have no information about that. Evgeniia and I never spoke about Boshkovich. She never told me anything about espionage connections either with her or with Mnatsakanov. That doesn’t mean that there were no such connections. It is already proven now that Ezhova was an English spy and you even confirmed this to the investigation. Tell us honestly, do you know about any meetings with Boshkovich after her arrival in Moscow? My wife told me almost nothing about her espionage work. But I concede that she might have had espionage connections with Boshkovich in Moscow, since the English and Polish intelligence services often work together. You called Mnatsakanov to Moscow specially in order through him to get into contact with the Gestapo. Did he ask you about this? Yes. Before my own departure from Vienna he expressed such a wish and I ordered Slutskii to have him recalled for work in the NKVD as soon as I became the Commissar. Did you conduct your conspiratorial contact with him in the NKVD building? Yes, we had that kind of contact right up until his exposure and arrest. ... What tasks did Mnatsakanov give you? Did you hand over to him secret NKVD information? He was not interested in secret NKVD information. In the leadership of the Commissariat on the level of heads of departments and their assistants were Gestapo agents. Then many of them were exposed, as was Mnatsakanov himself. These agents knew more detailed information than I did. So I told him about Politburo sessions, CC plenums, conversations with Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich and other leaders, related to him the contents of secret letters and telegrams of the Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars. You did good work. And why didn’t you rescue him when he fell? For he asked you to help him. There was nothing I could do because he was completely exposed and confessed his espionage work. Were you afraid that he would give you up? No. No one would have believed him. You are lying, Ezhov! We have evidence against you. When investigator Dulov was interrogating Mnatsakanov you went specially to his office and told your collaborator: "You are writing? Well, write, write." This meant you were warning him in this way that he should keep silent about you, and then arranged it so that he would be shot as quickly as possible. Wasn’t it like that? Yes, I remember what happened. I was afraid that Mnatsakanov would expose me as a German spy. I wanted him to be shot as quickly as possible, and I achieved that. On this occasion Rodos was satisfied with his suspect. His confessions fit into the plan that had been thought out in advance and covered many unclear points. He nodded to Ezhov, who had deserved a cigarette, to the packet lying on the table. While the former Commissar lit up Rodos took a copy of a typewritten text from a file. This was some kind of unrelated and unidentified communication from either a suspect or an interrogator, and perhaps just an excerpt from an anonymous denunciation. In the NKVD it was considered impermissible to take an interest in the source of operational information and, having received this paper from Kobulov, Rodos did not add any details to it. Someone had informed about an amorous contact between Ezhov and a certain Stefforn, a Czech and German female spy, that had taken place in 1934. Before this Rodos had read the text about three times but still did not understand who this Stefforn was – an NKVD collaborator, the wife of a colleague in the INO in Berlin, or both at the same time. Supposedly Ezhov had asked her to marry him but she had refused, and then regretted it. But soon she found herself a new husband, one Petrushev. When Stefforn was imprisoned for espionage Petrushev had asked Evgeniia Ezhova to intercede for her with her husband, but that did not help. That was all the information. Rodos thought. Ezhov had already named about ten German spies with whom he was working in Moscow, therefore the Czech woman Stefforn was hardly essential here. But she might have played a role in Ezhov’s moral dissolution, which was now very important. Did you know a woman named Stefforn? Perhaps. Remind me who she is. I will. She was your lover, a Czech whom you even wanted to marry, but she preferred somebody named Petrushev to you. Maybe that’s Elena Petrusheva, a friend of Evgeniia, they had met in Germany at the end of the 1930s. But… Tell me about her in detail. My wife told me that Lena’s father was a German Jew from Prague and her mother was either a Czech or a Pole. She was married to a Soviet citizen working abroad and lived with him for some time in Germany. Was this husband an employee of the INO of the OGPU? I don’t know, that wasn’t mentioned in the conversation. Sometime in 1930 she left him and went to Moscow. I don’t know the husband’s last name. Then she married Petrushev. I met them a couple of times, a respectable-looking man. He said that his father had been a well-known pre-Revolutionary photographer, the best one in Russia, and very rich. And Petrushev himself worked in some publishing house or other either as a photographer or, maybe, as an artist. The wife told me that he could draw very well, his pictures were hanging in their home. Don’t go off on me about pictures, stay with the main point of the question. Petrushev asked your wife to get you to help his wife Stefforn when she was arrested for espionage on behalf of Germany. Evgeniia Solomonovna never said anything about that to me. In general she and I agreed that she would not ask me about government employees and saboteurs who were under arrest. Once she did ask me to help the husband of a friend, who had been seized for sabotage in a factory, and I told her that I could not do that because my real activities might be uncovered and then we would both burn. Since that time she did not trouble me with such questions. Be that as it may, Ezhov. But you are avoiding the question about your amorous relations with this Stefforn, or Petrusheva. Tell me now about that. Elena was an interesting woman and she pleased me. She came to our apartment a few times – that was, it seems, at the end of 1934. With her there was another woman. We drank. When she and I were smoking together in another room I began to embrace her and wanted to arrange to meet at her apartment since she had said that her husband Petrushev was resting at a spa in Kislovodsk. I asked for her telephone number so I could call her the next day. But she said that they had no telephone. I remembered that my wife had called her at home. That meant that she did not want to get together with me. What, she didn’t work and sat at home all the time? As I remember she was a typist at home, but I might be mistaken. And what, you didn’t meet with her again. Was it really that hard to get her to go to bed? I didn’t try to do that again. After 1934 I didn’t see her again. Zhenia [= Evgeniia] did not invite her to our place any more. How so? Elena had unpleasant conversations with her, anti-Party, politically harmful. About the hunger in the Ukraine, where some of her relatives lived. No doubt she was trying to see how my wife would react to that. In addition Evgeniia heard from one of her friends that Petrusheva had gotten a little drunk and hinted to her that she was collaborating with the NKVD. Ezhov, there is no point in lying. We have information and evidence that you lived for a long time with this woman, wanted to leave your wife for her, gave her expensive gifts and told her state secrets when you were drunk. I don’t have the time to drag every word out of you. Today in this room you’ll be given a pencil and paper, and you write in detail about your grimy ties with this slut. And don’t forget to tell had your complete moral degeneration led to your becoming a spy and traitor. OK. And something else. For a long time you have been hiding your attraction to men, what’s called homosexuality. But this became known after you agreed to the shameful affair of citizen V. from the Commissariat of Water Transport in your apartment, and before that in V’s presence you amused yourself with his wife in bed. Do you understand how far you have fallen? You are simply a monster, Ezhov, a filthy person and a pervert. I’m disgusted to look at you. At that time I was very drunk… What’s that, justification? No, but I don’t remember anything, I woke up in the morning and they were no longer there. The chauffer then told me that he took them away at 3 a.m. I could have done anything at all then… I’m not interested in that. But we know that you told V. about your passion for homosexuality since childhood and that men could completely replace women for you. You should write in detailed when you became a homosexual and with whom you then became involved in this filthy business…

Ezhov interrogation 07.08.39 by Rodos

- fm Polianskii 262-268

"Tell us how and when you recruited Uspenskii in the espionage-sabotage organization in the NKVD that you had created. I turned my attention to Uspenskii already at the beginning of 1936. That was when he was still the assistant commandant of the Moscow Kremlin for internal security? Yes. Where did you find out about Uspenskii’s hostile anti-Soviet views. Did he express them to you himself? No. Veinshtok and Frinovskii told me about that. They knew him well and believed that he’d be very suitable for espionage work. Did you recruit Uspenskii personally? Yes. That was right after my arrival in the Commissariat. He quickly agreed and I told him that we needed our own men in the provinces. That was why I sent him to Western Siberia. What kinds of assignments did you given him then? He was supposed to recruit agents into our organization from among the Chekist cadre and to promote them to leading positionis so that they could seize power in the event of war or a coup. In November 1937 you sent Uspenskii a coded message with the following content: "If you think you are going to sit in Orenburg for five years, you are mistaken. Very soon, it seems, I will have to promote you to a more responsible post. What is the meaning of this message? At that time the leadership of our organization decided to move to active measures. There was a lot of evidence against Leplevskii and Zakovskii showing that they were spies and enemies of the people. It was impossible to hide such matters, and we had to get rid of these people, we couldn’t use them, they could cause everything to fail. We decided to replace them with Uspenskii and Litvin. I gave Uspenskii a coded message so that he would find out about his forthcoming departure from Orenburg and would switch all the sabotage-espionage work over to other people whom he had been able to recruit there. OK. And now tell us how you warned Uspenskii about the fact that they wanted to arrest him. Did Dagin tell you about the fact of Uspenskii's forthcoming arrest? Yes, I think it was he. He came to my office and told me about that. And didn’t he tell you that he had listened in on the telephone conversation between comrades Stalin and Khrushchev about Uspenskii? Yes, I remember that he told me about the telephone conversation about Uspenskii which he had listened in on, but he did not say that that was Stalin’s conversation. Dagin, on my instructions, listened in on all telephone conversations of the Politburo and immediately told me about them so that I would be up to date. After that you called Kiev and warned Uspenskii. What did you tell him? I said: ‘You are being recalled, your situation is bad.’ Something like that. I was afraid to send him a coded message, they could intercept it, since I had already lost trust and was under suspicion among the Party [leaders] as a hostile element. Did Dagin also tell you about the recall of Litvin from Leningrad? I did not know anything about the recall of Litvin to Moscow and did not warn him. There was no need to do so. Why was that? I had an agreement with him that in the event he was exposed he would commit suicide. Was that your order? No. In September of that year Litvin was in Moscow and used to come to my dacha. He told me that the arrival of Beria at the NKVD was the beginning of the end and soon we would all be arrested, since the Party was most likely aware about our plot. And he also said that he would not give himself up alive and that if they unexpectedly recalled him to Moscow he would shoot himself. That’s what happened. Did you support him in this intention? No. But I didn’t try to dissuade him either. That means that you admit that you de-facto gave your accomplice an order to commit suicide in the event of failure? Yes, that was de-facto the case. When did you include Litvin in your espionage work? That was in 1931, when I transferred him to Moscow. Why did he agree to become a spy? Already in the 1920s when I was getting together with Litvin I noticed his inexplicable relationship to Trotskyism. Openly he was not a supporter of Trotsky, but in his circle at that time there were many exposed Trotskyists and I think that in his inner being he had always been a Trotskyist. You wish to say that even then Litvin was a double-dealer? Yes. He was a double-dealer and, as later turned out, was a supporter of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist line. Therefore he willingly agreed to my proposal to become a German spy. I think because at that time the Left opposition had already suffered its final failure and Trotsky had been driven out of the USSR altogether. In 1933 Litvin upon your recommendation was named the chief of the cadre section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine. Was that done on the instruction of German intelligence? Yes, I received that instruction from Artnau. What directives about espionage did Litvin receive from you? These directives were of a subversive and sabotage nature. I asked him to appoint to leading positions people who could by their actions cause arouse the dissatisfaction of the population of the Ukraine, people who would carry out sabotage, ruin foodstuff and livestock, disrupt the fulfillment of industrial plans. These were hidden Right and Left Oppositionist, who also carried out assignments for Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov and other enemies. Litvin was included by you in the basic plan for sabotage that German intelligence gave you? Did you also take him into the NKVD upon the assignment of the fascists in order to organize there the espionage-conspiratorial organization? Yes, that’s how it was. When you came to work in the NKVD you also brought with you there another of your collaborators, Isaac Shapiro. * When was he recruited by you?

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* For Shapiro see http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/kto/biogr/gb537.htm

I had known Shapiro since 1930. He worked in the cadre section of the Commissariat of Agriculture in which I was a chief. He and I had a good friendship and I valued his zeal and literacy. And when Artnau recruited me and asked me to find people for espionage work I thought right away about Shapiro, who was personally devoted to me and it had always seemed to me that he did not like Soviet power very much and disapproved of the political line of the Party. Did Shapiro carry out sabotage activity in the Commissariat of Agriculture on your instruction? Yes, he did. But for a short time only. I decided to take him into the Central Committee, since there I needed people for subversive work. He knew that you were a German spy? Yes, I told him that together we would work for German intelligence, so as later to overthrow the government and come to power if there were a war with Germany. What assignments of yours did Shapiro carry out in the NKVD? He was de-facto my main assistant. Indeed I first appointed him the chief of the secretariat, and then made him also chief of the first special section. He had a lot of possibilities for sabotage in the NKVD and he carried out all my assignments of an espionage-subversive nature, both mine and Frinovskii's. And when Beria arrived at the NKVD he immediately found out that Shapiro was an enemy and arrested him in November of ’38. I know that. It would be better for you to tell me how you recruited Liushkov and how you helped him escape to Japan. I recruited Liushkov right after his return from Leningrad from the investigation of Kirov’s murder. At that time I was already secretary of the Central Committee and Liushkov knew that I was beginning to oversee the NKVD. Therefore, when I called him to my office and hinted that I had information about his ties with the Petliurovists during the civil war in the Ukraine and other incriminating facts, he was frightened and immediately agreed to work for me as a German-Japanese intelligence man. Did you really have that kind of information? No, I did not have. I made it all up in order to recruit Liushkov. But I guessed that he was a hostile element with a foul past, and turned out to be correct. Liushkov agreed to become a spy. How did you order Liushkov to flee to the Japanese? Ezhov thought for a few seconds. He could not think of a reason why Frinovskii, one of the leaders of the conspiratorial group in the NKVD, had suggested arresting his colleague Liushkov. But then he found a solution. Frinovskii often told me that he did not like Liushkov. He was cowardly and could betray us all at any moment. Upon our orders he was carrying out important espionage tasks for Japanese intelligence and knew a great deal about our subversive and sabotage work. Frinovskii said that we had to get rid of him, that means, kill him. And he told me that he would take care of that himself. I decided not to hinder him. Did Frinovskii say how he wanted to kill Liushkov? No. But I think that he wanted to arrest him first, and then in the inner prison to poison him or put him to death somehow. What a gang! And who warned Liushkov anyway about the danger? I don’t know. But Frinovskii wanted to appoint Gorbach from Novosibirsk to Liushkov’s place and recall the latter to Moscow, supposedly for a new job, but in reality to arrest him. Liushkov, most likely, found out that Gorbach was already on route to Khabarovsk, and fled across the border.

Ezhov ochnaia stavka w. Zhukovskii 07.21.39 – Rodos & Esaulov present

["ochnaia stavka" = "face-to-face confrontation"]

- Polianskii 269-272; B&S 138-139.

Do you know this man? Yes. Who is it? Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov. And you? Rodos asked Ezhov. Yes, that is Semion Borisovich Zhukovsky. Suspect Ezhov. Confirm your confessions concerning the conspiratorial, sabotage, and terrorist activities of the former assistant Commissar of the NKVD Zhukovsky, that you gave at the interrogation of July 17 of this year. Investigator: When did you become a German spy? Ezhov: I was recruited in 1930 in Germany, in Königsberg.

[Here Ezhov repeats word for word the confession included above in the section "Ezhov interrogation 06.21.39 by Rodos, fm Polianskii 235-238" ]

In Germany I was well treated and shown every attention. The most assiduous attention I received from the prominent official of the Economic Ministry of Germany Artnau. Having been invited to his estate near Königsberg I spent the time happily enough, partaking excessively of alcoholic drinks… (In Königsberg Artnau) often paid the restaurant bills for me… I did not protest… All these circumstances made me feel close to Artnau and often without holding back I blurted out to him all kinds of secrets about the situation in the Soviet Union… Sometimes, when I was drunk, I was even more frank with Artnau and gave him to understand that I personally was not wholly in agreement with the Party’s line and with the existing Party leadership. Things got to the point that during one of the conversations I directly promised Artnau to discuss a series of questions in the government of the USSR concerning the purchase of livestock and agricultural machinery, in which Germany and Artnau were very much interested….

[Here the source continues with new material, not printed earlier as a part of this confession.]

Since I knew about Zhukovsky’s cowardice and stubbornness I did not consider it necessary to keep him up to date about conspiratorial matters. I only introduced him fully to these matters in the Spring of 1938. Then he was appointed my assistant and headed the whole accounting of the NKVD and the GULAG. We conspirators had special plans about the GULAG about which I have given detailed confessions, and I decided to bring Zhukovskii up to date. By this time the people who could have exposed Zhukovskii along the lines of his Trotskyist and espionage connections were already condemned and the danger of Zhukovsky’s arrest had passed. I told Zhukovskii about the existence of the conspiracy in the NKVD, that the conspiratorial organization is connected with governmental circles of Germany, Poland, and Japan. I don’t remember exactly now, but I think that I told him about our desire to get into contact with the English. Then I told him about the leading members of the conspiratorial organization and about our plans, specifically about our terrorist plans… What assignments did you give Zhukovskii concerning the GULAG? The conspiratorial assignments concerning the GULAG that I gave to Zhukovskii consisted in this: we sent to work the GULAG a very great quantity of compromised people. We could not leave them in the operational work, but we kept them in the GULAG for the purpose of forming a sort of reserve for conspiracies in the case of a coup in the country. I assigned Zhukovskii to maintain these people, but not to connect himself with them along conspiratorial lines, but to carry out all conspiratorial assignments that came to the GULAG through these people… Investigator: Did you give these terrorist assignments to Zhukovskii at the time of his work in the section of operational technology? Did you talk with him about the terrorist tasks of the conspiracy. Ezhov: Yes, I talked to him. There were two variants of our plans. The first variant: in the case of war, when we proposed to carry out the arrests of the members of the government and their physical removal. And the second variant: if there were no war in the immediate future, then to get rid of the leadership of the Party and the government, especially Stalin and Molotov, by carrying out terrorist acts against them. I firmly remember that I told Zhukovskii about this after I had entrusted him with the existence of the conspiracy. Investigator: Suspect Zhukovsky, did you receive from Ezhov the criminal assignments about which he has just spoken? Zhukovsky: I did not receive any such criminal assignments and am hearing about terrorist tasks for the first time at this face-to-face confrontation. You have nothing else that you want to tell the investigation? [ asked Rodos to Zhukovskii and, having received a negative answer, pushed the button to call the guards to take them away.]

Ezhov interrogation 07.24.39 by Rodos, including a quotation from a Frinovskii interrogation

- Polianskii 272-275

Recently Frinovskii gave confessions about your terrorist activity. Now I shall read them to you: "When Zhukovskii was chief of the 12 th section, Ezhov gave him an assignment to develop poisons with the aim of using them in carrying out terrorist acts. Ezhov, speaking with Zhukovskii in my presence, said that it was necessary to work on the question of poisons that would work instantaneously, which could be used on people but without [leaving] visible traces of poisoning. Ezhov also clearly said that we needed these poisons for use within the country." Do you confirm his confession, Ezhov? I cannot confirm that. At one of the interrogations I said that I had no relation to this laboratory. Frinovskii and Zhukovskii took care of it. I did not give them any tasks concerning poisons and did not have any conversations about these poisons. Stop lying! You are incriminated not only by Frinovskii but by Zhukovsky, Alekhin and Dagin. You stood at the head of the conspiracy and gave directions to prepare poisons for the villainous murder of leaders of the Party and government. Here is some more of what Frinovskii confessed about this: "I must say that the open use of servants for a terrorist act was not essential, servants could be used secretly, because the laboratory and the preparation of products were in the hands of Barkan and Dagin, they could poison the products in advance, and the servant, not knowing the products were poisoned, could give them to the members of the Politburo. Ezhov gave Zhukovskii directives about the preparation of poisons, after he left the 12 th department Zhukovskii transmitted these directives to Alekhin, and I and Ezhov confirmed these directives more than once. In 1937 and 1938 there were several joint conversations in Ezhov’s office between myself, Ezhov, and Alekhin. We were constantly concerned with how to carry out this work in the laboratory. The point is that those poisons that were being developed in the laboratory had had some kind of taste or left traces of their use in the human organism. We set the task of developing in the laboratory poisons that would be without any taste, so that they could be used in wine, drink and food, without changing the taste and color of the food and the drink. We proposed to invent separately poisons of instantaneous and of delayed action, and also whose use would not cause any visible destruction in the human organizing so that it could not be determined by autopsy of the body of the person killed by poison that poisons had been used to murder him. What do you say to this? I seem to remember a few conversations with Frinovskii about poisons. But I do not remember that I gave him any directives about their preparation and use. But you will remember, think about it. I am convinced that the memory of traitors and scoundrels such as yourself is quickly restored in punitive cells and isolation cells. Everybody remembers after a few days. The use of poisons for the purpose of terror against the government was discussed by use, when our original plan of a coup d’état and seizure of power fell apart. Tell us about this in more detail. Already in the summer of last year [1938 – GF] our organization took the decision to organize a military coup on the 7 th of November. Who was present at this assembly and where did it take place? It took place at my dacha. Present were Frinovskii, Evdokimov, Dagin, Zhurbenko, Zhukovsky, and Nikolaev-Zhurid. That was, so to speak, the general staff of our subversive organization. Oh, I forgot, Litvin was also there, he was coming to Moscow at that time on official business. Did you call together this meeting specially so that your general staff of bandits could take part? Yes. The staff’s presence was essential, as the coup was to take place also in Leningrad and the staff was supposed to guarantee everything. It was for this purpose that you also moved Zhurbenko to be the head of the UNKVD for Moscow and Moscow oblast’, so that he could be there to guarantee your treasonous conspiracy? Yes, that is so. I specially appointed Zhurbenko to this position before Beria’s arrival in the NKVD. Continue. What did you discuss there at the dacha? We decided that the interior troops [of the NKVD – GF] that were in Moscow and were under the command of Frinovskii as first assistant to the Commissar would carry out the coup. As for him, he should prepare a fighting group that would annihilate the members of the government in attendance at the parade. Then we decided to confirm a final plan for the coup in September or October and to send around directive to our people in the republics and oblasts’ about what they should do on the seventh of November. And this meeting took place, who was present at it? There were only three of us: Frinovskii, Zhukovsky, and I. Either the end of September or the beginning of October we met in my office. And what did you discuss? At that time the possibilities of our organization had been seriously disrupted by the arrival of Beria in the NKVD. He replaced Frinovskii, and we could no longer use the internal troops. But why, he must have had his agents there? Yes, he did have his agents, but obviously Beria already had information about our conspiracy and arrested almost all of them in September. I could not prevent these arrests or I would have exposed myself. Then Frinovskii proposed that we put off the coup and take power by means of poisoning the members of the government and in the first place Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov. Their deaths would have immediately caused confusion in the country and we would have taken advantage of this and seized power. We calculated that we could then arrest all the people in the government and the NKVD who were unsuitable for us, and to claim that they were conspirators guilty in the deaths of the leaders. What low-lifes! What could have stopped you hoodlums? Frinovskii then said that Dagin would carry out the poisoning, and that Alekhin and Zhukovskii would give him the poisons. But it would be necessary to prepare the poisons, and we decided to carry out this terrorist act when the requisite poisons were collected. We agreed to meet when Dagin had the poisons and to put together a detailed plan for the coup. But Zhukovskii was unexpectedly arrested, a few days after this meeting, and after him Alekhin and Dagin, and I do not know whether or not Dagin received the poisons.

Ezhov interrogation 08.02.39 by Rodos

- Polianskii 275-280 (plain text); Briukhanov & Shoshkov 139-142 ( italics) ; in both of them ( underlined).

Tell us in detail about the sabotage activities that were carried out by you and your colleagues on the economic properties of the NKVD – said Rodos, preparing to write down the confessions. In addition to the large quantity of economic properties that had been under the direction of the NKVD under Iagoda and which had developed greatly during the years 1937-1938, that is Kolyma, Indigirka, Norilstroi and others, I succeeded in significantly increasing the economic activity of the NKVD by means of new properties. During these years I succeeded in carrying forth in the government the question about the transfer to the direction of the NKVD of many forest regions of the Commissariat of Forests, in connection with which the production program of the forest camps of the NKVD in the preparation and export of wood products in 1938 comprised almost half of the whole program of the Commissariat of Forests. Into the direction of the NKVD were transferred the construction of railroad lines that had the most important defense significance, such as the Baikal-Amur railway, the line from Ulan-Ude to Naushi, the Soroka-Pliasetskaia, the Ukhto-Pecherskaia line, and others. Among the purely defense-oriented properties I achieved the transfer under the direction of the NKVD of the construction of the Archangel shipbuilding factory and almost all the powder cellulose factories in Archangel, Solikamsk and other places, at the same time having organized the construction of ten smaller cellulose factories. On the initiative of the NKVD, on top of the programs confirmed by the government, the NKVD was given the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric station – the Kuibyshev hydro network.

Sabotage and mismanagement in the construction sites flourished with complete impunity. We managed to go over completely to questions of defense construction, achieving practical control over a significant part of it. This gave us the possibility in case of need in our conspiratorial goals to vary and carry out different subversive measures which could help accomplish the defeat of the USSR in wartime and our coming to power. …The greatest population of prisoners was the border regions of the far Eastern borders. Here it was very easy for us to take over different economic tasks of a defense nature because of the lack of workers. However the camps of the Far Eastern Region were situated not only near to the borders but we sent there mostly prisoners sentenced for espionage, diversion, terror and other more serious crimes, and we sent almost no so-called "ordinary" prisoners. In this way along the borders of the FER, in the direct rear of the Red Army was prepared the most active and embittered counterrevolutionary force, which we planned to use in the widest possible manner in case of complication or of war with the Japanese… A significant quantity of prisoners were concentrated on our western borders of Ukraine, Belorussia, the Leningrad oblast’, and the Karelian ASSR, especially in road construction. … The whole conspiratorial plan of the regime we created for the prisoners consisted in that the most privileged conditions were created for the prisoners sentenced for the most serious crimes (espionage and terrorism), since that was the qualified force that would often be used for directing the administrative and economic work in the camps. In their hands was concentrated also all the cultural and educational work of the prisoners. It is clear in what spirit they were educated. Finally the regime created in the camps often permitted the counterrevolutionary activity of the prisoners to continue with complete impunity. In the camps the work of the so-called 3 rd sections was so badly organized and the camps were guarded so poorly, that the prisoners had the possibility of creating their own counterrevolutionary groups in the camps and to associate with each other at will. Facts like this were many. The guard of the camps was extremely small, made up of unreliable people, the material situation of the soldiers and the command staff was very poor, and, finally, the prisoners themselves were used in many cases in the capacity of guards. As a result of a security organized like this there were many cases of mass escapes from the camps. We fought against this evil poorly and did so consciously, in the hopes that the escapees from the camps would continue their counterrevolutionary activity and would become a force that would spread all kinds of anti-Soviet agitation and rumors.

I achieved the transfer under the direction of the NKVD a series of working factors of the defense industry. The reason for that could not have been the use of the labor of prisoners, since among them were the Pavshinskii factory, the Tushinskii factory of aviation motor construction, and others. Besides that, the NKVD organized a series of new factories on its own initiative, which carried out defense production… What, do you think we called you here to report on behalf of the NKVD about the successful fulfillment of the Five-Year Plan! You are a bandit, a conspirator, a saboteur, a terrorist, and a traitor. Answer the question asked you to the point. Sabotage and mismanagement in the construction sites flourished with complete impunity. I’ll bet, with a Commissar like that. – said Rodos with a grimace, not stopping his note-taking. We managed to go over completely to questions of defense construction, achieving practical control over a significant part of it… Who is this "we"? Well, our conspiratorial organization. Myself, Zhukovsky, Frinovskii, and others. I have already named them all earlier. This gave our organization the possibility in case of need in our conspiratorial goals to vary and carry out different subversive measures which could help accomplish the defeat of the USSR in wartime and our coming to power. In which areas was the subversive activity of your organization mainly distributed? The greatest population of prisoners was the border regions of the far Eastern borders. Here it was very easy for us to take over different economic tasks of a defense nature because of the lack of workers. However the camps of the Far Eastern Region were situated not only near to the borders but we sent there mostly prisoners sentenced for espionage, diversion, terror and other more serious crimes, and we sent almost no so-called "ordinary" prisoners. In this way along the borders of the FER, in the direct rear of the Red Army was prepared the most active and embittered counterrevolutionary force, which we planned to use in the widest possible manner in case of complication or of war with the Japanese. Did you send Liushkov there specially. What assignments did you give him? At the beginning of 1937 Frinovskii and I conferred with each other and decided that we had to have our own man in the Far East, through whom we could maintain contact with Japanese intelligence. In the event of an attack by the Japanese he was to let the counterrevolutionaries out of the camps, seize with their help the stores of arms and military supplies, and then head terrorist-diversionist work in the rear of the Red Army. We thought about this and chose Liushkov for these purposes, whom I had already recruited to our organization in 1936. Then I transferred him from the Azovo-Chernomorskii region and made him the head of the NKVD in the Far Eastern Region. In which other areas did you create the same kind of espionage-diversionist centers? We also did this in the western borders of the USSR. A significant quantity of prisoners were concentrated on our western borders of Ukraine, Belorussia, the Leningrad oblast’, and the Karelian ASSR. In Leningrad oblast and Karelia Litvin was in charge for you, of course? Yes. I sent him there specially at the beginning of 1938 instead of Zakovskii, whom I could not fully trust. And in the Ukraine? There Uspenskii all the assignments, including contact with Polish and German intelligence. That is why I made him Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukraine. When was he recruited by you? At the beginning of 1937. He came to Moscow from Novosibirsk before he was appointed to the position of chief of the UNKVD for the Orenburg oblast. I knew that Uspenskii was anti-Soviet, anti-party, and for that reason he immediately agreed to work in our organization. In Belorussia you sent Boris Berman? Did you know that he was an old German agent? Yes. Artnau told me that Berman was working for German intelligence as soon as I became Commissar of Internal Affairs. He had been recruited at the beginning of the ‘thirties, when he was

[Soviet] resident in Germany. I immediately established espionage contact with him, then he was the assistant chief of the INO. In 1937 I specially sent him from our organization to Belorussia and made him Commissar of Internal Affairs. There he met with German agents and received assignments and instructions. That means your widespread espionage organization in the case of an attack on the USSR by Japan and Germany could seize power not only in Moscow but in border areas, opening the road to the invaders. Do I understand this correctly from your confessions? Yes. That was exactly what we had planned. It’s useless to deny such things. Tell me, was counterrevolutionary work carried on by your confederates in the camps for the purpose of establishing there bases for sabotage and anti-Soviet activity? In the camps the work of the so-called 3rd sections was so badly organized and the camps were guarded so poorly, that the prisoners had the possibility of creating their own counterrevolutionary groups in the camps and to associate with each other at will. Facts like this were many. The guard of the camps was extremely small, made up of unreliable people, the material situation of the soldiers and the command staff was very poor, and, finally, the prisoners themselves were used in many cases in the capacity of guards. As a result of a security organized like this there were many cases of mass escapes from the camps. We fought against this evil poorly and did so consciously, in the hopes that the escapees from the camps would continue their counterrevolutionary activity and would become a force that would spread all kinds of anti-Soviet agitation and rumors… [At that moment the telephone on Rodos’s table started to ring.]

I am leaving right away, I will be back at four o’clock for sure. We shall continue the interrogation tomorrow, and you remember what concretely sabotage work you carried out with your confederates in the economic properties of the NKVD.

Ezhov interrogation 08.03.39 by Rodos

Polianskii 280-284

"The overwhelming majority of the prisoners were so-called vicious "refusers", as a rule people who had not fulfilled the assigned norm of work, in connection with which these latter were deliberately extremely poorly provided, something we also did for sabotage purposes. This circumstance, and a series of other subversive measures of the conspiratorial organization caused the necessity of more and more prisoners being brought to Kolyma. The government every year devoted enormous expenses to the development of Kolyma, spending hundreds of millions of rubles. If these means had been rationally spent, the mining at the rich Kolyma sites could have been significantly mechanized. Mechanization would not only have reduced the necessity of holding a large quantity of prisoners in Kolyma and of bringing to them a huge amount of foodstuffs and other supplies, but would have increased the yield of metal and sharply lowered its cost. Meanwhile mechanization was slowed down by sabotage and all the extraction was based on muscle power alone. As a result already in 1938 more than 100,000 prisoners were brought to Kolyma. The whole area of Kolyma is rich not only in gold, but in many other ores. Specifically, in Kolyma there are huge supplies of coal and other forms of fuel. With any kind of careful economic approach to the matter it would have been possible without any difficulty to satisfy the demands of Kolyma with coal and even with oil without the costly transporting of them from the European part of the USSR. However the coal deposits of Kolyma are not exploited at all. In Kolyma it would unquestionably be possible to wholly cease the importation even of explosive materials and of the simplest equipment, which also is brought in every year in great quantities. For this purposes it would be necessary to build in Kolyma a very simple mechanical factory of modest size or, even better, workshops that could manufacture the simplest equipment and spare parts. Just as easily and quickly could and should be built in Kolyma an explosives factory of modest size, since almost all raw materials necessary for this exist there. Finally, in Kolyma the importation of foodstuffs could be significantly reduced. Such a possibility is completely obtainable for Kolyma, where meat, fish and even vegetable production could be developed. All this was deliberately ignored by us, and the supply of Kolyma was wholly laid upon the shoulders of the state. I have already said that the region of Kolyma together with the gold-bearing regions are rich also in a whole series of other rare ores. So, for example, there are rich industrial supplies of tin, antimony, copper, micas, and other ores. These extremely valuable ores that have enormous economic and defense significance are not worked at all or are extracted in tiny quantities, like tin, while in Kolyma there are all the possibilities of setting up the extraction of these ores at the same time as that of gold, the more so since the regions with these ores are nearby. It is clear that the parallel extraction of gold and of other valuable ores that are so territorially adjacent where, consequently, it would be possible to set up a unified, energetic, mechanical economic unit, and to reduce to a significant extent the cost of gold and of other rare metals. These questions we deliberately and as an act of sabotage ignored, and did not even present to the government. What role in this was played by the foreign intelligence services with which you were collaborating? They, of course, knew what we were doing and encouraged and supported our subversive work in every way. But as far as I know they did not specially give any assignments either to me or to their other agents, since, no doubt, they were certain that we ourselves knew where we should best carry out the sabotage. Name the concrete properties where sabotage was carried out according to your instructions. The construction of the Ukhto-Pechersk road has a decisive meaning for the development of the extraction of coal, oil, and other valuable products, without which the economic development of the Northern region as a whole is impossible. Meanwhile the construction of this road was retarded by us deliberately and in every way, under various pretexts and the resources allotted to it were spread over a large area of work and did not have any effect. The retardation in the construction of the Ukhto-Pechersk railroad is explained in the main by the lack of a satisfactory plan, which the Commissariat of Roads and Rails should present. The saboteurs in the GULAG and in the Commissariat of Roads and Rails with our support organized a never-ending dispute about the choice of the direction of the roads, which has been going on for a long time now, and the planning and even the exploratory works in many sectors have not been begun to this day. Finally, it was essential not to spread out our resources over a broad front of works, but to concentrate on the decisive sections for the export of production. And precisely the construction of the Ukhto-Pechersk line should have been strictly divided into several stages. In the first part should have been concentrated all the forces and resources to finish the construction of the Vorkuta-Abez’ section, for the purpose of exporting coal. But we hindered that, insofar as all decisions were mine. Further, the construction of the section from the oil-bearing areas of Ukhta to Kotel’nich should have been organized, and these works could have been fully developed from two directions, both from Kotel’nich and from Ukhta. Only in the final stage could have been finished those sections that unite the coal-rich Vorkuta areas with the oil-bearing Ukhta areas and that give in this way an outlet for coal and oil in two directions. But nothing of this was done because of our sabotage. What subversive, espionage and sabotage activity did you carry out in the GULAG itself? * We understood, that the expansion of the economic functions of the NKVD must express themselves in the worsening of our basic operative work. We proposed to widely use the system of camps so as to send there the compromised part of NKVD workers. There are not only drunkards, idlers and wastrels. Among them were people with a Trotskyist past, Rights who sympathized with Bukharin, and Iagoda’s people. De-facto they were all recruited by us since, in sending them to the GULAG, we were hinting to them that we had evidence against them that could be investigated at any moment. In this manner we created a special reserve of people read to carry out any conspiratorial task. But there were many anti-Soviet elements in the GULAG even without this. The conspiratorial leadership of the GULAG remained, for all practical purposes, unreplaced. At the time of my arrival in the NKVD the GULAG was headed by the conspirator of Iagoda’s group Matvei Berman, Boris Berman’s older brother. He had put together a large anti-Soviet group of people who occupied more or less responsible posts in the GULAG. Among these people were a great many Trotskyists, Zinovievists, Rights, and it was easy to attract them to our side after Berman left when the GULAG was headed by Ryzhov, a participant of the conspiracy recruited by men, who was sent to this work on my initiative in order to carry out sabotage assignments. And after his departure for the Commissariat of Forests, the GULAG was headed by the conspirator and spy Zhukovsky, who was connected with me and who was at the same time my assistant. In the summer of 1938 the Central Committee of the Party more than once pointed my attention to the fact that I was surrounded by suspicious people who had come with me to work in the NKVD. In the Central Committee the question of removing Tsesarskii was raised, it was proposed to me that I remove Shapiro, Zhukovsky, and Litvin from the work. That put me on my guard, inasmuch as all these men were my confederates, and that meant that something might be known to the Party about the conspiracy. In order to somehow conceal my anti-government activity I had to agree with the demands of the Central Committee and I decided to send Zhukovskii packing without any fuss, away to the countryside. I carried out this attempt but it did not succeed, since about that time Beria began to work and Zhukovsky, instead of going to the place I had assigned him as director of the Ridder polymetallic combine, was arrested."

__________________

* From this point on the text given in Polianskii here is given in B&S but attributed to Ezhov’s August 2 1939 interrogation.

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Ezhov August 4 1939 Confession (published separately)

Ezhov August 4 1939 Confession belongs here.

Ezhov ochnaia stavka with Bulatov 09.20.39

Pavliukov 528 – very brief discussion plus the two sentences quoted below.

Discussion: "There were also those who continued to offer resistance [to the investigation – GF]. For example, in the course of the face-to-face confrontation held on September 20 1939 with his former associate in the Central Committee apparatus D.A. Bulatov, the latter rejected all accusations directed against him and left the interrogation unbroken."

Ezhov interrogation 10.25.39 by Esaulov

Polianskii 285; 286-289.

"Listen", implored Ezhov, "What kind of spy am I? I have a ‘tail’ behind me at all times, my chauffer or a guard. What kind of a resident could I meet with? And no one recruited me in Germany in 1930. I have been lying a lot. And I lied about Slutsky. I did not give Frinovskii the assignment to poison him, and Alekhin and Zakovskii have nothing to do with it. Slutskii died by himself, from his heart. And lied about everything. You should not lie… … In various documents you stated contradictory and untrue information about yourself. The verification has proven this. Did you do this out of espionage and sabotage motives? Yes. I deliberately distorted my biography. I did this for careerist purposes, to be promoted in the Party. You thought up another biography for yourself not out of careerist, but out of provocateurist motives, in order to deceive the Party, to insinuate yourself into its leadership, and corrupt it from within by means of sabotage and espionage. Was that so? Yes. I did this out of sabotage and prevocational motives in order to struggle against the Party. Now let us move on to an explanation of those facts that you have deliberately distorted. In official documents you lied that you were born in Petrograd. No information about your birth in that city have been found. Where were you born in reality? ... I only know about the place I was born from my mother’s words, from memories of my early childhood. Mother said that I was born in the city of Mariampol, in the former Suval’sk guberniia of Lithuania. Afterwards I went to Petrograd. By means of the facts about my birth in Petrograd I wanted to portray myself in the guise of a deeply-rooted proletarian and old revolutionary. Did you also lie when you said your father was a worker? Yes, I also lied about this for the same reason. Who was your father in reality? My father, Ivan Ezhov, from near Tula by birth, was from a peasant family. Were they well-off? Yes. He served in the army, in a musical unit, as a senior musician in Mariampol. There he also married the servant girl of a choirmaster. What did your father do after demobilization? He was a forester and a switchman on the railroad. In a prerevolutionary Peterburg handbook an Ivan Ezhov is mentioned who was owner of a saloon. Was that your father? For a time my father owned a tea house. We have information that this tea house also served as a front for criminal activities. Is that so? Yes. It was in reality a house of assignation… A bordello. It was a bordello, and my father lived on the proceeds. When they shut down the tea house, he became a painter. Did he hire other workers? I don’t deny that in later years father had one or two hired workers and was something like a contractor. Did you also lie deliberately about working as a mechanic in Petrograd factories? I did this to pretty up my background. I worked very little as a mechanic, my main work was always the trade of tailor. And now tell us what your real nationality is. I have always considered myself a Russian and identify myself as such on official documents. I was born into a Russian peasant family. Aren’t you concealing your real nationality? After all, your mother was from Lithuania. In official documents my nationality is recorded more or less correctly. What does "more or less" mean? That means that my mother was born in Lithuania and therefore was a Lithuanian by nationality. In one of your [biographical] forms you wrote that you know both the Lithuanian and the Polish languages. Did your mother teach them to you? No. My mother and father knew Lithuanian, but never spoke it at home. I served in Vitebsk in the Tsarist army, and there were many Poles and Lithuanians. That’s where I learned a few words and sentences. But I do not know how to speak these languages and wrote on the form that I know them for prevocational purposes. The investigation possesses information that you know Yiddish. Why do you conceal this? I do not know Yiddish, if you do not count a few words and expressions that I learned from my acquaintances who were Jews. And here we have information that you often spoke Yiddish with your wife. That is some kind of mistake. I cannot speak Yiddish. Even my wife, in my opinion, knew Yiddish poorly and never spoke it with any Jewish people.

Ezhov protocol of end of investigation 02.01.40

Pavliukov, 529, Polianskii 290, say this was presented by Esaulov.

B&S 144-145, and Soima says it was Sergienko.

Text identical in Polianskii & Soima; very close to this in B&S.

No text in Pavliukov.

1. Was the leader of an anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization in the armed forces and the organs of the NKVD. 2. Betrayed his fatherland by carrying out espionage work in the service of Polish, German, Japanese, and English intelligence services. 3. Toward the goal of seizing power in the USSR prepared an armed uprising and the commission of terrorist acts against leaders of the Party and the government. 4. Undertook subversive, sabotage work in Soviet and Party apparatuses. 5. For adventurist and careerist goals created a case about an imaginary "mercury" poisoning of himself, organized the murder of a series of persons who were inconvenient to him and who could have exposed his treasonous work, and had sexual relations with men (homosexuality).

Pavliukov 529:

"The last interrogation took place on January 31 [1940], and on the very next day the assistant chief of the investigative section of the NKVD of the USSR A.A. Esaulov composed a protocol of the conclusion of the investigation. Ezhov was given for his perusal 12 volumes of his criminal case. He read through it and declared that he confirmed all the confessions given by him at the preliminary investigation, and that he had no additions to make."

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Ezhov’s Concluding Statement at Trial (published separately)

A transcript obviously exists, but it is still secret.

Transcript of Ezhov’s final words at trial belongs here.

The following is from Pavliukov, 531-532:

"Then the protocol concerning the conclusion of the investigation was announced, in which Ezhov had confirmed the truth of his confessions with his own signature. Ezhov stated that at that moment he had not retracted these confessions, but that he was retracting them now. He had no connections with any intelligence services, had not planned any terrorist act on Red Square on November 7 1938, and had never taken part in any conspiratorial activity.

It was necessary for the court, setting aside its preliminary intention to do without witnesses, to call into the courtroom one of them, Ezhov’s former assistant M. P. Frinovskii. That same day he too was supposed to appear in court and probably was somewhere nearby.

Frinovskii stated that soon after his appointment as Commissar of Internal Affairs Ezhov had recruited him into the conspiratorial organization in the NKVD organized by himself. At first they prevented the exposure of the participants of the Right-Trotskyite bloc as much as possible, and at the end of 1937 they set to the creation of a terrorist group within the NKVD.

Besides that Frinovskii discussed the falsification, in accordance with Ezhov’s directives, of the so-called mercury poisoning, the murder on Ezhov’s order of the chief of the Foreign Division of the GUGB of the NKVD A. A. Slutsky, and of the poisoning by Ezhov of his own wife.

In answer to the questions of the chairman V.V. Ul’rikh Ezhov called everything Frinovskii said to be vicious slander. He did not poison his wife and did not send her luminal, and in relation to Slutskii had had a directive from "directive organs" not to arrest him but to get rid of him by another means, "as otherwise our whole foreign intelligence service would have fled". The need to get rid of Slutskii was dictated, in Ezhov’s words, by the fact that there were very weighty confessions of the former assistant commissar for internal affairs Ia. S. Agranov.

Ezhov continued that he did not take part in the anti-Soviet conspiracy together with Frinovskii. Evdokimov, Dagin, and the other persons whom he had named in his confessions as participants in the conspiracy were in fact not such, or in any case he did not know anything about that."

Comments on Ezhov’s last words from Briukhanov & Shoshkov, 153:

"Reading ‘the Last word’ it is impossible not to notice that Ezhov said nothing about the essence of the accusations leveled against him. He rejected them all, but spoke mainly about his services in exposing "enemies and spies of various types and intelligence services" while stating at the same time he had "such crimes for which I could be shot", promising to discuss them, but admitted guilt only in that he "did not purge enough" enemies.

Ezhov denied his participation in a secret organization directed against the Party and the government, saying that, on the contrary, he had taken all measures to expose the conspirators who had murdered S.M. Kirov. But was there a conspiracy in the organs of the NKVD? Or did those 14 thousand NKVD men whom Ezhov purged act individually – each one on his own?

Judging from the transcript [of Ezhov’s trial] such a question was not raised at the trial: Everything was clear to the court as it was. The "sincere confessions" in his "Last word" did not ring true. Ezhov was careful to avoid any sharp corners. He even distorted the episode that had already figured in the trial of Bukharin, Rykov and the others, concerning the falsification of a terrorist act against himself. As it turned out the "terrorist act" was planned and executed – if we can even use that word in this case – by Ezhov and by the former chief of the counter-revolutionary section Nikolaev in order to increase the authority of the "iron commissar." Having consulted with specialists about the conditions for mercury poisoning Nikolaev had rubbed mercury into the upholstery of the soft furniture in Ezhov’s office and submitted a piece of cloth for laboratory analysis. In the "terrorist act" they blamed NKVD man Savolainen, on whom a vial of mercury was planted. After the necessary "working over" Savolainen confessed to everything.

And Ezhov’s attempt to deny the accusation about dissolution in his morals and private life, to convince the court that he was supposedly loved for his modesty and honesty.

As a whole the ‘Last word’ creates an impression of something not thought through, rambling, incomplete, and dishonest. And yet Ezhov, in essence, had nothing to lose. He could have spoken more frankly."

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Utah man declined $100K offer to travel to Congo on 'security job' that was covert coup attempt

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The friend of a prominent Congolese opposition leader’s son said he turned down a six-figure offer to travel there from the U.S. as part of the family’s security detail in what turned out to be a failed coup attempt.

Marcel Malanga, the 21-year-old son of eccentric coup leader Christian Malanga, was detained by Congolese forces Sunday morning, along with a former classmate from their hometown of West Jordan, Utah, after his father was killed in a shootout while resisting arrest. His high school football teammate, Tyler Thompson , 21, was one of two other Americans arrested after an ill-fated attack on the presidential palace in Kinshasa.

Six people were dead and dozens arrested, including the three Americans, following that attack and another on the residence of a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi , the Congolese army spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, said.

Daniel Gonzalez, a former teammate of the two Utah residents caught up in the foiled coup, told The Associated Press that Marcel had offered him $50,000 to $100,000 to spend four months in Congo as a security guard for his politician father. The 22-year-old FedEx worker strongly considered it, but said it lacked concrete details. He ultimately declined so he could spend the summer with his girlfriend.

“I feel really sad for Tyler and Marcel but, at the end of the day, I can just be grateful that I didn’t go because I would be stuck in the same scary situation,” Gonzalez said.

Marcel's lucrative offer to Gonzalez sheds light on how he might have enticed Thompson to come along on what his stepmother, Miranda, said was supposed to be a vacation.

It was one of many propositions the coup leader’s American son made to former football teammates in what many described as a desperate effort to bring someone with him to Congo. He pitched the trip to some as a family vacation and still to others as a service trip to build wells in drought-stricken communities.

Although it's unclear whether Thompson was offered money, multiple teammates told the AP that he had alluded to such incentives, telling one friend that the trip could be a “big financial opportunity."

Thompson's family insists he's a political pawn who was dragged into an international conflict under false pretenses. They've had no direct communication with their son since the coup and are worried for his safety, his stepmother said.

Marcel's mother, Brittney Sawyer, said her son is innocent and had followed his father.

Christian Malanga, the slain leader of the Congolese opposition political party, considered himself president of a shadow government in exile, which he called the “New Zaire." He described himself on his website as a refugee who settled in Salt Lake City with his family in the 1990s, pursuing business opportunities in gold mining and used car sales before eventually moving back to Congo to fight for political reforms.

While campaigning for the Congolese Parliament, he claimed he was jailed and endured torturous beatings. He later published a manifesto detailing plans to reform Congo’s security services and described his movement as an effort to organize fellow emigres against the “current Congolese dictatorship government regime.”

“Marcel was pretty secretive about his dad. He didn’t even know him well until he spent last summer in Africa,” Gonzalez said. “There’s no way Marcel had any idea what he’d be getting us into or he never would’ve offered. He’s one of the best friends a person could have.”

In the early hours Sunday, Christian Malanga began livestreaming video on social media from inside the palace. He is seen with his armed son, who hastily pulls a neck gaiter over his face, looking around wide-eyed. Congo officials have not commented on how the attackers were able to get inside.

Gonzalez, of Herriman, Utah, said he had communicated with Marcel about the financial offer over Snapchat, in messages that have since disappeared, in the months leading up to the coup attempt. He was shocked to learn how the trip played out.

Marcel had told Gonzalez that his father was letting him hire a friend so he would have company during his summer abroad. He seemed excited to be able to offer such a substantial amount of money to a close friend who needed it, Gonzalez explained.

The Malangas had promised on-the-job training, full coverage of travel expenses and the chance to explore a new part of the world while making an income, he said. Marcel insisted repeatedly that it was safe, but didn't share details about his father's background.

Neither Gonzalez nor his mother thought the trip would be unsafe, he said, despite the U.S. State Department strongly discouraging travel to Congo — but he turned it down when his girlfriend asked him not to leave for four months.

He later saw private Snapchat videos filmed by Marcel that showed Thompson looking frightened as armed Congolese soldiers surrounded their vehicle. In Gonzalez's final Snapchat exchange with his friend before their capture, he asked whether Thompson was OK and urged them to stay safe.

Marcel assured him that they were.

Other former football teammates, including Luke Barbee and Jaden Lalor, had heard different pitches about the trip and wondered why Marcel seemed so desperate to bring someone along. Neither could fathom their friends' possible involvement in a violent attack.

“I consider Marcel a brother to me and Tyler a friend, and I truly believe Marcel's father must have pressured them for his own wants,” Lalor said. “I just want them back safely.”

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I visited my son in college for the first time and noticed he'd changed. College was helping him become his true self.

• When I visited my son in college for the first time, his voice sounded different — higher.
• I realized my son had been lowering his voice to fit in with the conservative South.
• My openly gay son was finally able to become his true self in college.

My son, Caleb, was thrilled when he was accepted into the musical-theater program at the University of Michigan in April 2020, but I wasn't sure it was the right place for him. Both the out-of-state tuition and the long winters seemed less than ideal for a boy who'd spent his whole life in Georgia.

He was adamant, though, that attending one of the top programs in the country would be life-changing . I'd never been to Ann Arbor, but once he committed, I was a mom on a mission to find winter gear that would keep him warm and safe. I bought him a huge insulated down parka and prayed he wouldn't freeze to death.

I tried to anticipate the challenges Caleb would face as he started college , but I wasn't expecting him to change.

I noticed a surprising change in Caleb when I first visited him at college

The first time I visited my son in Michigan, two months after he started classes , I offered to take some of his friends out for dinner. He'd recently been paired with a senior buddy named Jack to help guide him during his freshman year . Caleb texted Jack, and we met for dinner downtown at a local pub. It was cold, windy, and dark outside.

As we waited for our drinks, I asked Jack about himself, though I'd already mildly stalked him on Instagram. He was a smart and generous young man who knew a lot about the industry and the program. He was also more out than most gay men we knew in the South.

As they were discussing a new instructor in the music department, Caleb said, "She seems really lovely." I turned and stared at him. I didn't think I'd ever heard Caleb use the word "lovely." He said it so softly and without self-consciousness — I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.

Why did his voice sound weird? It wasn't his accent; I could still hear Georgia. I realized his voice sounded slightly higher than I remembered, but why would his voice change in college?

What I was hearing was my son's real voice

He'd been lowering his voice throughout high school, booming from the stage as John Proctor and with his friends as they debated college football.

Caleb came out when he was a sophomore in high school. I doubt he ever consciously thought, "If I lower my voice, I'll be less obviously gay. I'll be safer that way." But a deeper voice helped him blend in, kept him safe, and made it possible for him to pass as straight when necessary. A deeper voice gave him some cover.

I did my best to anticipate what he might need by enrolling him in a high school with a good fine-arts program, but it was still in the middle of cotton fields in rural Georgia.

Now that Caleb wasn't the only boy in dance classes or the only gay kid at church, the bass in his voice had faded. He'd shed it like a winter coat in spring. There was a new lightness to him.

It wasn't that Caleb's voice had suddenly changed — it was that I was hearing his real, unguarded voice for the first time. His "let's talk about Broadway shows all day long" voice. His "this is me" voice. His "I'm safe now" voice. His "I got out of the South" voice. His "I'm not going back there" voice.

I hadn't realized the ways he'd been shape-shifting to fit in where we lived.

Caleb found his people quickly in college

I was so happy for Caleb that he'd found his people. But they weren't us, his little family back in Georgia. His place wasn't where we lived.

There's so much to love about the South: the fireflies and the peaches and the brilliant night sky; the daily rhythm of family, festivals, and small-town living; the wide-open spaces and accents that sound like honey. None of that matters, though, if it isn't safe for you to be your full self at home.

Over the next few years at college, Caleb's confidence grew. His clothes got tighter, and his shorts got shorter. He participated in Pride parades and dated cute guys. His voice was the change that started it all.

I'm haunted still that I didn't hear my son's true voice until he left home.

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A summer of discontent is looming in Sonoma County, as Measure J sets the stage for an old story: animal activists vs. large-scale poultry and cattle ranching.

Mill Valley resident brings people together through his heartfelt art projects

A Mill Valley man known for his public art projects that bring his neighbors together is being honored for providing gifts to his community.

Bay Area Bridge Builders

Young parents graduate together at San Jose State University

Two graduate students at San Jose State University will celebrate completing their master's degrees together on Wednesday - and they'll be accompanied by their infant daughter.

Bay Area woman speaks about historic swim to Farallon Islands

A California woman recently made history by completing the punishing swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallones, a treacherous journey through the freezing cold, shark-infested waters - all without a wet-suit.

San Francisco Carnaval to honor and celebrate indigenous cultures this year

As Carnaval 2024 approaches, the Mission district community is celebrating this year's theme "Honoring Your Indigenous Roots."

Latest Stories

Children at San Bruno school sickened after accidental release of pepper spray, tear gas at nearby jail

A release of tear gas and pepper spray during a training exercise at the San Francisco County Jail in San Bruno on Tuesday led to students at a nearby elementary school to become sick, officials said.

California bill targeting social media addiction in teens passes State Senate

In a bipartisan vote, the California State Senate approved a bill from a Bay Area lawmaker aimed at targeting social media addiction among children and teens.

Panera's Charged Lemonade cited in lawsuit over teen's cardiac arrest

Panera faces another lawsuit over a highly caffeinated beverage that the restaurant chain said it would phase out.

San Mateo teen uses AI to develop website connecting people to mental health service

A high school junior from San Mateo has created a platform she created to help people of all ages access mental health resources powered by artificial intelligence.

California volunteers needed for study aimed at better understanding cancer among Black women

A landmark study just kicked off with the goal of answering why Black women have a much higher mortality rate when it comes to cancer. It just launched last week and they need volunteers in California to help.

Bay Area Crime

Man convicted of molesting girl on S.F. Muni train as passengers did nothing

A man was convicted of molesting a 16-year-old girl on a Muni train, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office said Friday.

San Joaquin County program gaining momentum to crack down on retail theft. Here's how it works

A program in San Joaquin County is gaining momentum and you might see some interesting billboards pop up this summer letting retail thieves know they will be prosecuted.

Our Stories Define Us

Oakland Unified copes with shocking rise in district's homeless student population

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oakland Unified School District has seen an alarming spike in the number of unhoused students in the school system who deal with a host of challenges far beyond what most children face.

• Nov 28, 2023

VR 360 View: Meteorologist Jessica Burch takes flight with the Blue Angels

Meteorologist and CBS News Bay Area's resident pilot Lt. Jessica Burch got a treat during Fleet Week, taking to the skies with one of the Blue Angels.

• Oct 13, 2023

VR 360 View: Devastating wildfire compels family to adopt a new lifestyle among the Redwoods

A Bay Area man discovered his devastating loss left him with a new opportunity to rethink how he lives -- follow his journey in virtual reality, 360-degree video.

• Mar 8, 2023

Study: Colorectal cancer patients could skip harsh radiation therapy

A groundbreaking medical study involving the UCSF Medical Center has shown some colorectal cancer patients can safely skip radiation treatment and enjoy a potentially higher quality of life.

• Aug 18, 2023

VR 360 View: The high-stakes world of San Francisco's bar pilots

Every day, San Francisco bar pilot Captain Zach Kellerman goes through what might just be the world's most dangerous commute.

• May 24, 2023

Worldwide alert warns of violence against LGBTQ community

While the State Department bulletin is meant for overseas travel, there is concern of a domestic threat from ISIS, two sources told CBS News.

Bay Area political leaders Hope Wood, Peggy Moore killed in SoCal crash

Two prominent Bay Area political figures died Friday night when the pickup they were in collided with a car in rural San Diego County.

California sues Rocklin Unified School District over "discriminatory" gender notification policy

A Northern California school district is being sued by the state over allegations the district failed to carry out corrective actions in a controversial gender notification policy adopted last summer.

12% of LGBTQ youth attempted suicide last year, nationwide survey says

More than a third of LGBTQ young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, the survey found.

Venerable San Francisco LGBTQ bar the Stud reopens at new location

One of San Francisco's oldest LGBTQ bars, on Saturday the Stud re-opened it's doors for the first time in four years at a new location.

Latest Galleries

Aurora borealis seen from Marin County

The northern lights were visible in the Bay Area thanks to a powerful geomagnetic storm.

Photos: Funk-metal super group Infectious Grooves headlines rare Bay Area show

Long-dormant Suicidal Tendencies side project Infectious Grooves featuring current Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo played a ferocious set for fans at the UC Theatre in Berkeley Saturday.

Photos: Green Day headlines San Francisco's famed Fillmore for global climate concert

Bay Area pop-punk heroes Green Day played an intimate show at the Fillmore in San Francisco Tuesday for a UN-backed global climate concert.

Photos: Bruce Springsteen delivers marathon set for packed Chase Center in San Francisco

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played the first of two long-delayed, sold-out concerts at San Francisco's Chase Center Thursday, delivering an epic 29-song set.

Photos: Soul band the Black Pumas headline sold-out show at Fox Theater

Austin-bred band the Black Pumas brought their mix of soul, jazz funk and simmering R&B to the Fox Theatre in Oakland for a packed, sold-out show on Feb. 8.

San Francisco maker nonprofit Humanmade working to bounce back from fire

A first-of-its-kind San Francisco program that trains the next generation of makers is closed temporarily because of a fire, but Its founder is working to safely reopen as soon as possible.

Teaching about ocean history, preservation a decades-long mission for Pacifica educator

A Pacifica woman is being recognized for leading an annual ocean education program at a coastal school for over 30 years.

Japantown rebounds with help from San Francisco native's community district

A San Francisco native is helping keep alive the city's historic Japantown, one of only three left in the U.S.

Peninsula man cuts short his career to help homeless people put best face forward

A Redwood City man changed his career path - from running Stanford's Digital Language Lab to going to beauty school - so he could serve his community in a way that's more meaningful to him.

Students Rising Above

Students Rising Above scholar recalls growing up with undocumented immigrant parents

It's hard enough to graduate from one of the most prestigious schools in the country when you're the first in your family to go to college. Imagine doing that while you're also trying to protect your parents from being deported?

Hard-working student shoulders a load working while attending Ivy League college

Some students who are the first in their families to go to college face the challenge of balancing a rigorous academic load while still working to help support their family back home.

College student gives back to program that changed his life

A onetime pupil has now become a student advisor, giving back after years of mentorship led him to success.

• Dec 1, 2023

San Rafael student sees the world, but remembers his roots

Police departments all over the country are having a hard time finding new officers, but one Bay Area student is criss-crossing the world while preparing for a career in law enforcement here at home.

• Nov 3, 2023

Santa Rosa college graduate multi-tasking her way to a master's degree, law school

When most people graduate from college, they tend to focus on one job. But this month's Students Rising Above scholar is currently juggling multiple workplace assignments.

• Oct 5, 2023

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• Tours to Russia
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Rusmania • Deep into Russia

Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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My coworker and I bonded over how much we hated our job. We were in relationships with other people but fell in love anyway.

• Liv Arnold met her now-husband at work after they bonded over how much they hated their job.
• Even though they were dating other people, they started hanging out a lot after work. 
• Once they broke up with their partners, Liv started dating her now-husband.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Liv Arnold, a 29-year-old who met her husband at work. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Tim and I met 12 years ago when we were both working for one of Australia's "big four" banks. We were on the same team and sat next to each other. We bonded over the fact that we both really, really hated our job. We fantasized about quitting together.

Nevertheless, we both stayed on that team for a year before moving to other roles in the company. Our job was in the home loans team and we had the same manager. We hated it because we were expected to sell a product — home loans — to customers who couldn't necessarily afford it. It was the worst kind of sales job. But our shared sense of humor got each other through it.

We started as coworkers and then became friends, and now, we have been a couple for 11 years.

We bonded in and out of the office

We'd play silly games to distract ourselves from the awfulness. One was called "Would you rather?" We'd ask each other things like: "Would you rather eat a newborn baby or get a sexually transmitted disease ?" It was really stupid stuff, but we'd giggle when we should've been working.

We had the same group of office friends , but they were flaky. We'd arrange dinners, movies, or after-work drinks. But one by one, they'd all bail at the last minute, leaving just Tim and me. Tim proved to me then that he was reliable; he'd show up when he said he would. And so would I.

Often it was just Tim and I alone — even though we both were in relationships at the time. I initially saw Tim just as a friend. I didn't have any romantic hopes or ideas for the first few months.

Related stories

But then Tim's relationship ended. He discovered his partner was having an affair. Meanwhile, I was in a long-distance relationship . We saw each other about once a month, but neither of us wanted to move for the other. So we knew it wasn't right.

I didn't break up with my boyfriend till the following year. During that time, Tim and I were strictly just friends and colleagues; there was no affair.

Even though we sat next to each other, we'd started messaging each other on the instant messaging service at work so we could discreetly send each other jokes and make each other laugh, making the day go quicker. Colleagues started making jokes that maybe something was going on between us.

But then we started dating for real

Valentine's Day was around the corner. We'd all planned to go out, but, yet again, all our friends canceled as usual. So it was just Tim and me again. We were having drinks, and Tim got pretty drunk. I realized he had feelings.

We finally got together and continued to work on the same team, sitting next to each other for another four months. When we told our colleagues we were dating, they thought we were joking. We had to convince them we were serious.

The senior managers said they could see it coming a mile away and were really happy for us, even congratulating us.

We've been together ever since

Now, I'm a copywriter and author. I write romance novels about office romances. I guess I have some experience there. Tim thinks the charming heroes in my books are based on him, but they're not at all.

We've been together for 11 years and got married in 2016. Tim has a new job at an energy company. I don't worry about him meeting someone else at work, as we have a lot of trust.

Office romances are common. My advice is to go for it. As we worked for a big bank, I at least knew Tim had cleared a police check, extensive background checks, and a credit check. So I knew he wasn't a criminal or bankrupt. That's a good start if you ask me. You don't get those reassurances on Tinder.

• Main content

Rudy Giuliani Launches Absurd Grift as Legal Woes Threaten to Bury Him

Things are not going well for poor rudy..

If you’ve ever wanted to share a cup of steaming Rudy with your favorite second cousin , now you can. Rudy Giuliani—once dubbed “America’s Mayor” and now bankrupt and embroiled in lawsuits —has gone the way of seemingly all right-wing grifters: hocking a personally branded line of coffee.

“I’ve moved at a fast pace, and have had many different roles in life,” a quote attributed to the perennially sued former mayor reads. “But the one constant thing has been a good cup of coffee, which is now proven to have health benefits,” the quote reads—because it wouldn’t be a proper conservative grift without fantastically vague claims of “health benefits.”

Offering three varieties of beans to avoid debtors’ prison—“bold,” decaf, and “morning”—the two-pound bags, all named “Rudy,” with Giuliani’s face prominently displayed, sell for $29.99 a pop. According to Whoxy, a domain-registrar lookup tool, Giuliani’s coffee site was registered March 26, just two days before he told a judge he can’t sell his $3.5 million condo because he needs it for his main grift: podcasting.

https://t.co/9ZXtDxyWdg https://t.co/BdgkwOMiKC — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) May 14, 2024

Strapped for cash and hoping to percolate some excitement for his desperate new venture, Giuliani is offering the first 100 orders the opportunity to snag an A.I.-designed bag signed by the Mussolini of Manhattan himself.

Conservative figures—not including tax, shipping, or cost of the product and branding—estimate Giuliani would need to sell 4,934,978.33 bags of “Rudy” to square up with the $148 million judgment against him stemming from baseless claims he made against two Georgia poll workers in 2020. That doesn’t include any of his other legal fees or pending civil cases against him. For those, he’ll need a hope and a prayer. Or he’ll start selling Rudy-themed Bibles .

Watch: Mike Johnson Fumbles When Asked Why GOP Is Defunding the Police

The house speaker couldn’t explain why his own party is cutting the budget for law enforcement..

In a press conference Wednesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was caught off-guard by a reporter’s question about police funds being cut in a proposed Republican budget.

“We’ve heard a lot this week about Democrats supporting ‘defund the police.’ The Republican Study Committee budget cuts the main federal grant program that local departments use to hire officers. How is that not proposing to defund the police?” the reporter asked during an event set up for “Police Week.”

Johnson replied that he hadn’t looked into it, but replied that “there’s lots of nuances.” Despite admitting he hadn’t examined the budget closely, he went on to claim that funding for law enforcement increased in other areas.

“That’s a central theme of what we believe. It’s part of our worldview, it’s part of our party platform, and it will always be consistent,”Johnson said, asserting that Democrats were guilty of pushing “defund the police” policies in the past, resulting in higher crime rates today.

Reporter to Mike Johnson at “Police Week” presser: “We’ve heard a lot...about Dems supporting ‘defund the police.’ The Republican Study Committee budget cuts the main federal grant program that local depts use to hire officers. How is that not proposing to defund the police?” pic.twitter.com/wh15ykW1GC — The Recount (@therecount) May 15, 2024

It’s telling that Johnson wasn’t able to refute the reporter. The Republican Study Committee’s proposed budget does cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program, which has provided over $20 billion to more than 13,000 different police departments since its creation in the 1990s, something Democrats have not hesitated to point out .

It’s not the first time that the GOP has proposed cutting federal spending on law enforcement; it did the same thing in its debt limit budget bill last year . And ever since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol seeking to overturn the 2020 election results, Republicans have attacked Capitol police as well as federal law enforcement for prosecuting those responsible for the riots that day. Republicans have even missed a deadline to install a plaque in Congress honoring those who defended the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riots, which was supposed to be installed by March 2023.

Democrats still have a tough job ahead to convince voters that they are the better choices when it comes to crime and law enforcement, as, despite lower crime rates, polls show that most Americans rate crime as a very serious issue, and police unions have endorsed Trump.

Watch: Trump Just Made the Cringiest Campaign Ad Ever

The republicans who showed up to support trump at his hush-money trial joined in..

Donald Trump’s latest fundraising venture is a little atypical for a presidential candidate.

Trump and five of his far-right allies set up shop Tuesday in a room at the New York City courthouse where the real estate mogul is being tried for 34 felony charges related to hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

It was another way for Trump—who owes nearly half a billion dollars in damages in his other legal battles and allegedly stiffed his former employees, including Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars—to save some cash on a filming location. But realistically, the low-budget ad could have been shot practically anywhere, especially considering that the court granted two days off this week from a criminal trial that legally requires Trump’s attendance.

Instead, biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, RNC co-chair Lara Trump , and Eric Trump joined two Republican representatives, all matched and color-coordinated in their blue suits and red ties, attempting to portray Trump as a candidate unjustly locked in the courthouse.

“We’re here in court with President Trump standing with him, but we need you to stand with him too,” said Florida Representative Byron Donalds, incorrectly referring to the GOP nominee as president. “These Democrats are nuts, and they must be defeated.”

“Anything you can give would make a world of difference; we are here fighting the good fight,” said Lara Trump, before Trump slowly shuffled behind the entourage. “They cannot win. We need your help to make America great again.” 

Fundraising ad shot in the courthouse today at Trump’s trial with Trump and Members of Congress. Trump makes his appearance at the end. pic.twitter.com/FHcFNaNN6G — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 15, 2024

The crowd joins a growing cohort of conservative leaders who have stopped to brown-nose Trump amid his criminal trials. On Tuesday, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott each paid visits, the day after  Senators J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville stopped by.

A majority of Trump’s high-profile attendees have refused to provide direct answers in recent weeks when questioned about whether they’ll accept the November election results. Scott, for his part, refused six times to give his answer on the issue during an interview on Meet the Press. The show of loyalty is a significant rejection of the rule of law in favor of power in Trump’s potential administration—and it’s especially poignant in the face of his first criminal trial.

MAGA Candidate Draws Outrage After Bizarre “Weak and Gay” Video

Missouri republican candidate valentina gomez posted a ridiculous video message to voters..

In a ridiculous, low-budget video published to social media, a Missouri Republican candidate warned voters to not be “weak and gay.”

Valentina Gomez, who is running for secretary of state in Missouri, posted the video of her jogging down an empty suburban street in an ill-fitting ballistic vest.

“In America, you can be anything you want, so don’t be weak and gay,” she said. “Stay fucking hard.”

🚨Don’t be weak and gay🚨August 6th is the day we take Missouri back from these corrupt politicians. @Cobratate @TateTheTalisman 🔥MAGA pic.twitter.com/sKoY650Dmw — Valentina Gomez (@ValentinaForSOS) May 13, 2024

Gomez, who is 24, previously published a video depicting herself using a flamethrower to burn books, harkening back to book burnings common in Nazi Germany against literature deemed “un-German.”

Gomez’s videos appear to be an attempt to provoke attention for her campaign, where she is facing off against seven other candidates for secretary of state. Missouri has been increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ+ youth, banning some gender-affirming care for minors in 2023. That same year, 43 anti-trans bills were introduced to the state Senate, according to Trans Legislation Tracker, an independent tool kit. Only three of the bills introduced were passed, including a ban on trans youth participating in sports based on their gender identity.

Gomez’s “weak and gay” video has so far racked up over two million views, with many commenters making fun of Gomez for the video. While Gomez is running a patently Christofascist campaign, it’s unclear whether she would make exceptions for people to be either weak or gay—or how her fixation on hating queer people relates to the job duties of secretary of state.

Oops! Trump Spotted Outside the Courtroom Editing Stooges’ Speeches

Donald trump has been caught using an obvious ploy to circumvent the gag order in his hush-money trial..

Donald Trump has had some of his political cronies show up at his hush-money trial. And it turns out he has been editing what they would say on his behalf, a seemingly obvious violation of his gag order .

One of the journalists covering the trial says the former president was “editing” and “making notations” to the speeches his allies made outside of the courtroom Tuesday.

“In court yesterday, actually, I was sitting close enough that I could actually look over Trump’s shoulder and see what he was reading. At one point he was actually reading the quotes that these individuals were—and going through and making notations with a pen on the paper,” New York magazine contributing editor Andrew Rice said on MSNBC Tuesday.

“While Michael Cohen was testifying against him, he was actually going and going through and annotating and editing the quotes that these people were going to say,” Rice added.

This roundabout effort by pro-Trump surrogates to try and get around the gag order was also noticed by his former White House communications director Michael Dubke.

“They have the ability to say the things that Donald Trump has been wanting to say but has basically been struck down 10 times for saying,” Dubke said on CNN Tuesday. “So this is one way to get around the gag order.”

Trump seemed to be careful not to say he was directing anyone to speak on his behalf, dodging a reporter’s direct question about it Tuesday. However, it was plainly obvious to observers that something was going on when Speaker of the House Mike Johnson attempted to defend Trump by discrediting the legitimacy of the judicial branch and even attacking Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter.

Speaker Mike Johnson is outside Trump's trial offering a stream of lies pic.twitter.com/LpCpqturFI — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2024

Trump’s gag order prohibits him not only from attacking court staff, jurors, prosecutors, witnesses, or their families but also from directing others to do so on his behalf. Trump’s actions yesterday would seem to be a new violation. The former president has already been fined $10,000 for violating the order and has been warned that new ones would send him to prison.

Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime by using Cohen to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair before the 2016 election. The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Nikki Haley Doing Shockingly Well for Someone Who’s Not Even Running

Haley had strong showings in the nebraska, maryland, and west virginia primaries..

Donald Trump is still facing some lingering opposition in his Republican primaries around the nation, all stemming from holdouts for a candidate who threw in the towel months ago: Nikki Haley.

Three states saw diversions away from Trump’s name on the primary ticket Tuesday. In Maryland, Haley still managed to pull 20 percent—a fifth of the GOP vote in the Old Line State. She also garnered 18 percent of the vote in Nebraska, and 9.4 percent of the vote in West Virginia. And the numbers aren’t just a fluke; they’re a trend. Earlier this month, Haley nabbed 21 percent of the Republican vote in Indiana, as well as 16.6 percent in Pennsylvania’s GOP presidential primary.

Ultimately, the staunch holdouts are a warning sign for Trump’s campaign. Haley has yet to endorse Trump for president. On her exit from the race on March 6, Haley skirted endorsing the former reality TV star like his other contenders did. Instead, the former U.N. ambassador said it’s up to Trump to “earn” the support of all Republican and independent voters—a critical task that he has not yet seemed to accomplish.

Haley’s brand of politics has formed an intraparty buttress against a growing wave of Trumpism in the Republican Party. Now those holdouts are being courted by an unlikely source: the Democratic Party. When Haley pulled out of the race, President Joe Biden extended an olive branch to her stranded voters, pushing a message of unity with the moderate conservative demographic.

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” Biden said in a statement in March. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”

Blabbering Donald Trump Agrees to Debate Biden on These Terms

It looks we’ll be getting a biden-trump debate this election after all..

“Make my day, pal.”

Biden and Trump, both presumptive presidential nominees, are trading barbs like two creaky prizefighters offering to debate one another, giving a glimpse into the type of back and forth voters can expect ahead of the general election in November.

The latest banter battle comes on the heels of Biden formally notifying the Commission on Presidential Debates that he won’t participate in its scheduled debates slated for later in the fall. Biden instead challenged Trump to two debates, in June and September—and surprisingly, Trump seems to have accepted.

Side-stepping tradition, Biden’s campaign chose the dates to account for early voting and to compensate for what they claim is the commission’s inability to enforce traditional debate rules in 2020, according to reporting by CNN. This shift follows the Republican National Committee’s breakaway from committee-run debates two years ago.

In a video posted to his social media accounts, Biden pointed out Trump’s prior refusal to participate in all Republican presidential candidate debates and how it contrasts with his desire to debate Biden now, insinuating that Trump is simply afraid to debate.

Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024

On Truth Social, Trump quickly accepted the offer, and suggested they schedule more than just two debates and a “very large venue” for “excitement purposes.”

“Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!’” Trump wrote .

“Let’s pick the day, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” said Biden, a nod to the ongoing hush-money trial against Trump, which breaks each Wednesday.

In his video challenge to Trump, Biden noted that he won their past debates in 2020, reflected by polling data. In response, Trump posted to Truth Social that “ Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced,” which says very little considering he’s avoided every debate since 2020.

Shortly after issuing his public offer to debate Trump in June and September, Biden announced receiving an offer from CNN, an outlet Trump is notoriously hostile toward, to debate on June 27. “Over to you, Donald,” Biden said. “As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.”

Trump accepted soon after: “I’ll be there,” Trump told Fox News, adding that he’s “looking forward to being in beautiful Atlanta.”

CNN confirmed that Trump has accepted the debate invite. The debate will be held in its Atlanta studios with no audience present, a rarity in presidential debates.

Since this morning’s challenge and June debate offer, Trump and Biden have both accepted a second debate hosted by ABC News on September 10.

This story has been updated.

Republican Congressman Joins Lindsey Graham in Calls to Nuke Gaza

“nuke gaza” is quickly becoming the new normal for the gop..

Representative Greg Murphy joined his fellow Republicans in suggesting that  Israel could use nuclear weapons in its already brutal war on Gaza.

Speaking to Chris Salcedo on Newsmax Tuesday afternoon, the North Carolina congressman compared the situation to Japan and the United States during World War II.

“If you look at what imperial Japan did to the United States, we came back and said basically you’re going to have to unconditionally surrender, and when they didn’t, we had to drop the two atomic bombs on them,” Murphy said. “This is where Israel has every single right in the world to press this conflict further.”

GOP Rep. Greg Murphy echoes Lindsey Graham in suggesting Israel would be justified in nuking Gaza pic.twitter.com/ju3DKjxeVd — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2024

The congressman’s extreme rhetoric follows that of Senator Lindsey Graham, who on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday similarly suggested Israel could drop nuclear bombs on Gaza.

“When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by the bombing [of] Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki with nuclear weapons,” Graham said. “That was the right decision.”

He added, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can’t afford to lose.”

Graham and Murphy aren’t the first in Congress to suggest nuking the besieged Palestinian territory, though, as Representative Tim Walberg, another Republican, suggested that “it should be like Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” at a town hall meeting in late March.

Nuking aside, much of Gaza has already been reduced to rubble by Israel’s bombing campaign, which has killed more than 35,000 people, including at least 14,500 children. One wonders what would be enough for Republicans (and some Democrats ) to recognize a genocide and humanitarian catastrophe enabled by the policies they help to enact, and do the right thing themselves. Instead, they seem to be more upset at the college students who are trying to do something.

Trump’s Idiot Lawyers Blew a Major Chance to Question Michael Cohen

It’s unclear if they achieved anything while cross-examining the star hush-money trial witness..

The first day of cross-examination against arguably the most consequential witness in Donald Trump’s hush-money case resulted in … practically no results for the GOP presidential nominee’s legal defense.

Over the course of several hours on Tuesday, Trump’s attorneys badgered Cohen about his juvenile social media posts —including calling his old boss a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain”—and whether Cohen hoped that his sentence would be reduced in exchange for cooperation in the trial. But legal experts didn’t feel that the cross was very effective at positing a new or reformed narrative that would help their client or have any sway with the jury whatsoever.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin wrote that the cross-examination had “not accomplished much” beyond showing that Cohen is still a wealthy individual who has made money off books he’s written about Trump, that his opinion of Trump had changed after he was sentenced in December 2018, and that he’s thrown a bevy of insults at Trump.

Unfortunately for Trump’s defense, none of that was news.

“We’re likely just over 15 minutes from the end of … today, and I’m still unsure what the defense gained from the start of the cross, if anything,” wrote Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien. “No checks, no business records, no alternate theories of the case presented.”

Ultimately, the effort was a startling contrast to a prosecution team that started the morning by arriving with a cartful of documents, ready to burst into action.

The trial will resume on Thursday, though even that opportunity to continue developing a defense out of Cohen’s testimony will be cut short by a preapproved appointment for a juror, ending the trial slightly early at 4 p.m.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Newly Released January 6 Tapes Destroy MAGA Republicans’ Biggest Lie

The new january 6 footage blows up another popular right-wing conspiracy theory..

House Republicans have inadvertently debunked one of their biggest lies about January 6—that the police opened the doors of the Capitol building so the rioters outside could enter.

Journalist Jamie Dupree on Tuesday posted footage from inside the main doors of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, showing rioters not only breaching the doors but also pushing past police officers.

Courtesy of House Republicans, I went to watch 3 more hours of Jan. 6 security tapes from the Capitol today. The tapes show the biggest lie about Jan. 6 is that the cops 'opened the doors' to let Trump supporters in. That did not happen. pic.twitter.com/Fa1eaPvJ7l — Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) May 14, 2024

In November, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced that most of the security footage from that day would be released to the public. He may not have considered how much of it might debunk the stories he and other Republicans have been telling in an attempt to minimize the events of that day. Just last month, Johnson claimed that innocent Americans were just “walking through the building.”

Republican politicians have touted numerous conspiracy theories about January 6, from claiming that the secretary of the Army delayed calling the National Guard in order to get a job with the Biden administration, to saying that fake Trump supporters arrived in Washington, D.C., on “ ghost buses .” Trump was also caught on tape saying he could have stopped the riots—when in reality, he wanted to join them. Many in the GOP still believe that the federal government instigated the whole thing.

This latest discovery still may not convince die-hard Trump supporters, who ignore the fact that many January 6 defendants say that they were there on Trump’s orders. At the very least, though, there is now video proof against one of the many January 6 conspiracy theories.

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Sergei Ryakhovsky

The balashikha ripper, the hippopotamus,   active for 6 years (1988-1993) in russia, confirmed victims, possible victims.

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Sergei Ryakhovsky (Sergei Vasilyevich Ryakhovsky) a Soviet-Russian serial killer known as the Balashikha Ripper and The Hippopotamus. Ryakhovsky was convicted for the killing of nineteen people in the Moscow area between 1988 and 1993. Ryakhovsky's mainly stabbed or strangulated his victims, he mutilated some bodies, mainly in the genital area. Allegedly Ryakhovsky carried out necrophilic acts on his victims and stole their belongings. Ryakhovsky standing 6’5" tall and weighting 286 pounds, gaining him the nickname, The Hippo. Sergei Ryakhovsky died on January 21st 2005 from untreated tuberculosis while serving his life sentence in prison.

Sergei Ryakhovsky Serial Killer Profile

Serial Killer Sergei Ryakhovsky (aka) the Balashikha Ripper, The Hippopotamus, was active for 6 years between 1988-1993 , known to have ( 19 confirmed / 19 possible ) victims. This serial killer was active in the following countries: Russia

Sergei Ryakhovsky was born on December 29th 1962 in Balashikha, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union. He had a physically defect. During his education he had academic, social or discipline problems including being teased or picked on.

Sergei Ryakhovsky a necrophile male citizen of Russia.

Prior to his spree he had killed, commited crimes, and served time in jail.

In 1988 (Age 25/26) Sergei Ryakhovsky started his killing spree, during his crimes as a serial killer he was known to rob, commit acts of necrophilia , torture , strangle , rape , mutilate, and murder his victims.

He was arrested on April 13th 1993 (Age 30), sentenced to death by firing squad at a maximum-security penal colony in Solikamsk, Perm Oblast, Russia. He was convicted on charges of murder and other possible charges during his lifetime.

Sergei Ryakhovsky died on January 21st 2005 (Age 42), cause of death: natural causes, untreated tuberculosis at a maximum-security penal colony in Solikamsk, Perm Oblast, Russia.

Profile Completeness: 62%

Sergei Ryakhovsky has been listed on Killer.Cloud since November of 2016 and was last updated 4 years ago.

Sergei Ryakhovsky a known:

( 651 killers ) serial killer.

The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events. Serial Killer as defined by the FBI at the 2005 symposium.

( 308 killers ) RAPIST

Rape is usually defined as having sexual intercourse with a person who does not want to, or cannot consent.

( 60 killers ) NECROPHILIAC

Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia, is a sexual attraction or sexual act involving corpses. Serial Killer Necrophiliacs have been known to have sex with the body of their victim(s).

( 89 killers ) TORTURER

Torture is when someone puts another person in pain. This pain may be physical or psychological. Tourturers touture their victims.

( 251 killers ) STRANGLER

Strangulation is death by compressing the neck until the supply of oxygen is cut off. Stranglers kill by Strangulation.

Sergei Ryakhovsky Serial Killer Profile:

Updated: 2019-06-30 collected by killer.cloud, 8 timeline events of serial killer sergei ryakhovsky.

The 8 dates listed below represent a timeline of the life and crimes of serial killer Sergei Ryakhovsky. A complete collection of serial killer events can be found on our Serial Killer Timeline .

Back to top Serial Killers Active During

The following serial killers were active during the same time span as Sergei Ryakhovsky (1988-1993).

Thomas Dillon 5 Victims during 18 Years

Lesley warren 4 victims during 4 years, john martin crawford 4 victims during 12 years, francisco garcia escalero 11 victims during 8 years, serial killers by active year, books that mention sergei ryakhovsky.

Kevin Smith

Serial killer stranglers.

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Sergey Kuznetsov

Butterfly skin.

Geraldine Fagan

Believing in russia.

Danny Schäfer

Freedom of religion or belief. anti-sect move....

100 of the Most Famous Serial Killers of All...

Stanley M. Burgess

The new international dictionary of pentecost....

External References

• Sergei Ryakhovsky on en.wikipedia.org , Retrieved on Sep 18, 2018 .
• Juan Ignacio Blanco , Sergei Vasilyevich RYAKHOVSKY on murderpedia.org , Retrieved on Sep 18, 2018 .
• Q372816 on www.wikidata.org , Retrieved on Oct 9, 2018 .

Sergei Ryakhovsky is included in the following pages on Killer.Cloud the Serial Killer Database

• #3 of 45[ Page 1 ] of Serial Killers with birthdays in December
• #10 of 60[ Page 1 ] of Serial Killer Necrophiliacs sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #10 of 29[ Page 1 ] of Serial Killers active in Russia
• #10 of 55[ Page 1 ] of Capricorn Serial Killers sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #11 of 89[ Page 1 ] of Serial Killer Torturers sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #27 of 250[ Page 2 ] of Serial Killer Stranglers sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #35 of 307[ Page 3 ] of Serial Killer Rapist sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #63 of 651[ Page 5 ] of serial killers sorted by Confirmed Victims
• #264 of 651[ Page 18 ] of serial killers sorted by Years Active
• #381 of 651[ Page 26 ] of serial killers sorted by Profile Completeness
• #516 of 651[ Page 35 ] of the A-Z List of Serial Killers

Trump rallies in the South Bronx as he seeks to win over Black and Hispanic voters

Donald Trump drew one of the most diverse rally crowds of his political career on Thursday when he made a pilgrimage to a New York borough that rejected him by a whopping 68 points in 2020 .

Winning New York state is the longest of long shots for the former president, while pulling out a victory in the Bronx is inconceivable. But trends that were apparent Thursday at Trump’s rally there echoed broader themes of the campaign that have Democrats nervous headed into the fall: that a small but potentially powerful share of Black and Hispanic Americans, particularly younger voters, may break from President Joe Biden and vote for Trump or a third party or stay home.

See more images from the rally here.

NBC News spoke with nearly a dozen Bronx voters ahead of Trump’s speech, many of whom were not there to either attend his rally or a counterprotest. While some expressed disdain for him or said they felt he was crazy, others voiced appreciation for elements of his presidency — like the stimulus checks sent out during the Covid pandemic that bore his name — and said they saw no issue with his making an appearance in the Bronx. 

Carolina de la Cruz, a Bronx resident who owns and operates a day care center, was taking some of her kids through Crotona Park on Thursday afternoon to, as she said, help them connect with nature and participate in “tree-hugging.” She was unaware that Trump was set to deliver an address in the park later that evening until she asked a police officer about the increased patrol.

No problem, she said. De la Cruz said that though she identified as a Democrat, she voted for Trump in 2020 and planned to vote for him this fall, too. 

“We definitely need a change,” she said, adding that her neighborhood has become more chaotic in recent years and that other friends and family members who were repelled by Trump’s language and approach are now saying “we need” him back. 

“They’re forgetting what he said, and they’re more focused on what he was doing in power,” she said.

What’s more, some voters expressed frustration over the influx of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border, particularly those being relocated to New York City, where they say there has been a strain on social services.

Roberto M., a Bronx resident who attended Trump’s rally after work and declined to give his full name, described himself as a moderate and said he was keeping an open mind ahead of the fall and wanted to hear what Trump had to say. He said he voted for Biden in 2020.

“A lot of people are considering giving him an opportunity,” he said, adding: “I’m all about social justice and people coming here to better their lives. But I feel like in this administration there’s been a lack of control with the influx of individuals that are coming here, especially in New York, where we’re seeing a lot of budget cuts due to trying to accommodate some people to get services.” 

The rally was a rare midweek campaign event for Trump, as he has been in court four days a week in Manhattan for his criminal trial, which is coming to a close . A verdict could come as soon as next week. 

The South Bronx rally was framed as an effort to reach out to minority voters, and the crowd was much more diverse than those at traditional Trump events. As is the case with other Trump rallies, however, many of the attendees were not from the area where the event took place. 

In an event that lasted more than an hour, Trump spoke at length about his business career in New York, railed against Biden’s economic and immigration policies and painted the city, his longtime home, as an apocalyptic dystopia that only he can save.

“As soon as I get back into the Oval Office, I’m going to pick up the phone, I’m going to call your mayor and your governor, and I’m going to say, ‘This is President Trump, and I want to come back and help,” he said, adding he would make the people of New York “very, very happy.”

At various points, chants of “build the wall” and “send them back” broke out when Trump was discussing immigration, including when he said Black and Hispanic Americans were facing the biggest negative consequences of undocumented immigrants’ entering the country.

His pledges included taking “back our parks” and renovating the entire New York City subway system — promising to “make it beautiful again.” 

Many members of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, one of the more Trump-friendly demographics in the city, were in attendance Thursday. When some Jewish attendees began chanting for the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, Trump said: “Many of the hostages that you’re waiting for, and everybody’s waiting for, are dead. And it’s a horrible thing.”

After he repeated the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged against him and that, had it not been, the war between Israel and Hamas would not have happened, Trump seemed to call on some of the chanters to pipe down.

“OK, that’s enough. I know you’re on our side. But it’s enough,” he said, adding, “It’s a rough situation.”

He then leaned into a lengthy monologue about how to achieve personal success.

Earlier, a series of warmup speakers introduced Trump, including Ruben Diaz Sr., a conservative Democratic former City Council member and former state senator, who said, “Donald Trump is welcome here in the Bronx.”

Democrats and Trump’s critics were quick to push back against the Bronx rally, with the Biden campaign even pre-empting it by releasing two ads aimed at “challenging Trump’s baseless claims about his accomplishments for the Black community” that are running in battleground states. The ads point to past anti-Black rhetoric and Trump’s effort to lead the so-called birther movement against former President Barack Obama, among other points. 

In a statement, Janiyah Thomas, the Trump campaign’s director of Black media, said the effort was “another cheap attempt from the Biden campaign to gaslight Black voters” that “fails to address Biden’s terrible policies that are hurting our community.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents the district in Congress, tweeted that the event “may be IN the South Bronx but it is not OF the South Bronx. Bluntly put, the Trump transplants are much whiter than the locals of the South Bronx, which is almost entirely Latino and Black.”

The Rev. Kirsten John Foy, president and CEO of The Arc of Justice, said while taking part in a counterprotest outside the rally that the idea that Trump is making inroads with communities of color was “a false narrative.”

“They’re pointing to polls that have questionable methodology,” Foy said. “They’re saying that Trump is increasing his support among Blacks and among Latinos, and we just see no evidence of that on the ground. As a matter of fact, people who were passing by wanted to know why we were here, and we told them why, and they decided to stay and join us, because nobody who is authentically from the Bronx is willing to co-sign hatred and xenophobia and misogyny and all of the things that this guy represents.”

Tim Rios, a Bronx resident who was walking through Crotona Park hours before Trump’s address, said, however, that he found no problem with Trump’s coming to address his community.

“I don’t think he was that bad of a president,” Rios said, noting the stimulus payments that went out under Trump while adding that some of the concerns people had about him were overhyped. “Biden’s in right now, and what’s going on? Nothing different.”

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News.