#menzhgoda

[milfstalin]

[milfstalin]

After a rather long break, I met him [Menzhinsky] one day. He had a young wife, a beautiful apartment and an “interesting” job in which he had finally found himself. He was happy. He was stronger, younger, more confident - and more real. He didn't talk about distracted topics anymore. He preferred to talk about his “work”.

He had a secretary with him. Small, skittish, obliging, with an energetic and ghastly face. Yagoda. Who he was, what he was, no one knew exactly. He was a part of that wave of new unknown people, which the revolution had spilled out into the state apparatus of Russia from the western part of the country, from the line of sedentarization. A Lithuanian or a Polish Jew. Like a craftsman by trade. But he married the niece of Sverdlov, Lenin's then all-powerful aide. That made him his own, a trusted man. Besides, he was so loyal, so attentive. When Menzhinsky got into the car, he wrapped him in a plaid like a dear child. He never allowed himself to sit next to him - he always snuggled up next to the chauffeur. If, however, he was seated inside the car, he did not sit upright, but sideways, on the edge.

Sverdlov, however, soon died. But Yagoda's star did not fade. On the contrary: out of respect for the memory of the late “leader”, he was promoted even more strongly. He gradually became Menzhinsky's closest assistant - and in fact the head of the Special Department. Without Yagoda, Menzhinsky would have become entangled in his huge apparatus. But Yagoda took the apparatus into his own hands, turned out to be an excellent organizer: he introduced a strict order everywhere, rationalized even the case of shootings. Menzhinsky could sit quietly in his office.

Menzhinsky later became deputy chairman of the VChK. Yagoda became the manager of affairs, the actual organizer of the entire apparatus of the political police. At the same time, he began to be used to restore order in other institutions. He was at one time manager of the People's Commissariat. Then - People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade. Hard, dry, taciturn, demanding both to himself and to others, persistent, neat - he, indeed, brought order - such that everyone around him began to groan and ran with complaints to Lenin, to the sovnarkom. Lenin listened, smiling. He, too, already knew Yagoda. Yagoda was needed.

Советские портреты - Сергей Дмитриевский (machine translated)

[milfstalin]

menzhgoda is a 17 year age gap vs yagorky is a 23 year age gap... but at least menzhinsky introduces the complication of dating your boss for toxicity points...