During his three decades in power, Stalin micromanaged the secu-
rity services, paying particular attention to personnel appointments
and assignments. To ensure the loyalty of the leaders of the service,
he used as his watchdog the Special Departmentwithin the Com-
munist Party Central Committee. Using information from this de-
partment, he frequently reorganized and purged the security service.
Stalin encouraged security officers to write to him with their com-
plaints and denunciations of colleagues and superiors. Stalin replaced
and executed senior officers for rumors of immorality and financial
impropriety as well as political subversion.
Beginning in the early 1930s, Stalin urged the party leadership to
use the secret police against dissidentsinside the party. Following
the murder of Sergei Kirovon 1 December 1934, Stalin ordered the
institution of draconian laws and then moved to replace Genrykh
Yagodawith Nikolai Yezhovas chief of the NKVD. Yezhov brutally
used the NKVD against all real and potential dissident elements in
the party and Soviet society. In 1937 and 1938, more than 1.5 million
Soviet citizens were arrested for counterrevolutionary crimes; more
than 650,000 were executed. Stalin oversaw the preparation of cases
against Old Bolsheviks in the Moscow Trials. When one Old Bol-
shevik refused to confess, Stalin told his interrogator to ask the pris-
oner “how much does the Soviet Union weigh,” implying that no one
could withstand the physical and psychological pressure the NKVD
could produce. Stalin took a personal interest in the victims of the
purge. He signed 362 death lists in 1937–1938, which included the
names of 39,000 condemned men and women. Only on a few rare oc-
casions did he exercise clemency and pardon someone.
When Stalin sensed the purge had gone too far, he brought
Lavrenty Beria, a trusted official from Georgia, to command the se-
curity service. From 1938 to Stalin’s death, Beria controlled the in-
telligence and security organs of the Soviet government from posi-
tions in the government and the party Central Committee. Stalin kept
Beria close; the security generalissimo was a constant guest at
Stalin’s late-night dinners and visited him when Stalin vacationed in
the Caucasus.
Stalin used the NKVD to collect information on all senior mem-
bers of the party, military, and police leadership. His chief body-
guard, Nikolai Vlasik, collected information on members of the lead-252 •STALIN, JOSEPH VISSARONOVICH (1878–1953)06-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 252