In 1937-1938 the Soviet press praised him as a "Stalinist people's commissar," "honorary Chekist" and "wonderful, unbending Bolshevik." A year later, he was executed as a conspirator and enemy of the people. In popular memory, the General Commissioner of State Security Nikolai Yezhov remained a "bloody dwarf," an executioner and a pervert. But what was the real reason for his execution and defeat of the "Yezhovshchina"? Why did Stalin need to clean the "organs" for the second time in two years? Was there a real anti-Stalinist conspiracy in the bowels of the NKVD? And why, under Yezhov, repressions were carried out in various regions of the USSR with varying degrees of intensity - the leaders of some regions limited themselves to fulfilling Stalin's orders, while in others they showed "initiative," increasing the number of repressed by 10 or more times?