Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin is a peculiar case of anthropomorphic mammal. Although bipedal and bearing a human form, he was much worse than the lions of Nero that I killed with hunger. Born in 1895 or according to other sources in 1887 in the small town of Szysztál, it is unknown how he grew up and in which family. During World War I he enlisted in the Russian tsarist army, but 1921 found him in the Communist Party and the infamous VChK (Cheka).
From there he began his murderous action gaining Stalin's attention ever since. When Stalin took over the reins of the USSR he did not forget the "talented" killer Blokhin and placed him in command of the special detachment of executioners of the NKVD (successor to the Cheka). The Special Detachment had company strength and was based in Lubyanka, Moscow. The Detachment received orders mainly from Stalin himself.
Initially, the Detachment was not involved in the 828,000 executions-murders that were committed during the "reign" of the great "father" that some still admire in Greece... (as others admire the murderer Hitler). He was active mainly during the Moscow farce trials with Blokhin murdering with his own hands all the top former officials of the CPSU that Stalin wanted to get rid of as well as the worthy marshal Tukhashevsky whom the "father" considered a threat.
It is worth noting that Blokhin, on the orders of his boss, killed two of his junior former bosses Yakoda and Yezhov, both "commissars of internal affairs" who did the dirty work for Stalin in 1936-40 and were then useless. For his "exceptional" action, Blokhin was decorated by Stalin in 1937! However, Stalin's chief assassin would show his "talent" a little later, in April 1940 in Katyn.
Katin... the indelible mark
After the Soviet invasion, on September 17, 1939, of the soul-bleeding Poland and its division with the other chief murderer, Hitler, Stalin decided to get rid of the Polish officers, but also scientists and senior administrative officials and in general those Poles he considered a threat Soviet rule in Polish territories occupied by the USSR. This is how the order was given to kill over 14,000 Poles, mostly officers – a large number of them reservists – held since 1939 in three Soviet concentration camps.
Blokhin was tasked with "liquidating" the 7,000 Poles held in the Kozelsk camp, southwest of Moscow. The innocent victims were taken from the camp to Smolensk and from there in groups to the Katyn forest, west of the city. The killings were carried out under Stalin's Order 00485. Blochin set her "norm" of 300 murders per 24 hours and got to work. The Poles were taken to a small room where they confirmed their details. Then, the unsuspecting were taken to another soundproof room where Blokhin's men tied their hands and held them while the executioner Blokhin, wearing a long leather apron, large leather gloves and a leather hat, so as not to be stained with blood , he was shooting them in the neck with a German Walther Model 2 pistol.
The reason why he chose a German pistol was twofold. First he chose it because it was reliable and it could withstand the hard use it expected and secondly it could be a cover and shift the blame to the Germans , as it has been for years. After the victims were murdered, they were transported in trucks to the forest and buried in 10m long mass graves. about. Blokhin "worked" relentlessly for 10 hours every night, from sunset to just before sunrise. For his action, on April 27, 1940, Stalin awarded him the Red Banner, one of the highest in the USSR!
In a period of 28 nights he had single-handedly murdered 7,000 innocent people setting and still holding the world record for mass murder by a… shall we say, “human”. He had "managed" to kill a man every 3 minutes of the hour at the rate of a machine! The horrific crime at Katyn was discovered by accident in 1943 when the Germans of another criminal, Hitler, found the mass graves. Then Soviet propaganda attributed the crime to the Germans and the Western Allies embraced this view for the sake of the alliance. But the Poles knew. But no one listened to them then. After their country became a puppet of the USSR and no one dared to speak and stay alive for long. It was not until 1990 that Mikhail Gorbachev handed over to Poland the files on the massacres in Katyn, Starobilsk and Kalinin.
Blokhin was however promoted to lieutenant general and remained in his position until 1953 when Stalin rid the Earth of his presence. Losing the support of the "boss" Blokhin fell out of favor after the fall of the infamous Lavrenty Beria in June 1953. Blokhin fell victim to Krutsov's "de-Stalinization" - not so white a dove either - and lost rank and his position. Blokhin became an alcoholic and in 1955 he committed suicide... out of remorse or sadness at losing his privileges?
The "hero" Blokhin.