On December 20, 1937, many NKVD officers were awarded on the day of the 20th anniversary of the Cheka in the Soviet Union.

Ten of them received the highest award - the Order of Lenin.

Here's their fate:

1. Boris Berman was shot in 1939.

2. Vasily Karutsky was shot in 1938.

3. Efim Krivets was shot in 1940.

4. Herman Lupekin was shot in 1940.

5. David Sokolinsky was shot in 1940.

6. Nikolai Fyodorov was shot in 1949.

7. Pavel Chistov was captured by the Germans in 1941, collaborated with them, sat in camps until 1945, then in Soviet camps until 1955.

8. Konstantin Valukhin was shot in 1940.

9. Grigory Khorkhorin died under investigation in prison in 1939.

10. Dmitry Dmitriev was shot in 1939.

Not much later would came the purges of Stalin’s ranks which would ultimately become problematic when he needed capable officers in his war against Hitler.

 His paranoia and rage also led to the persecution to the genocide of the Polish people who lived within the Soviet Union, leading to the murders of up to 150 - 200 thousand people simply for being Polish.

 This, a genocide years before the German Holocaust.