Russia / Soviet Union: Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (1895–1940), head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the 'Moscow Trials' and the most severe period of Stalin's Great Purge

Nikolai Yezhov's time in charge is sometimes known as the 'Yezhovshchina' ('the Yezhov era'), a term coined during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s. After presiding over mass arrests and executions during the Great Purge, Yezhov became a victim of it himself. He was arrested, confessed under torture to a range of anti-Soviet activity, and was executed in 1940.

By the beginning of World War II, his status within the Soviet Union became that of a political non-person. Among art historians, he has the nickname 'The Vanishing Commissar' because after his execution, his likeness was retouched out of an official press photo; he is among the best known examples of the Soviet press making someone who had fallen out of favor 'disappear'.

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Pictures From History