But however much gold Berzin sent back to Moscow, it was still never enough. Above all, the gold plan must not just be fulfilled, it must be overfulfilled; and during the Terror, Stalin came to the conclusion that Berzin had been “coddling” his prisoners. The powerful Dalstroi chief was lured to a meeting with a visiting NKVD delegation in Magadan, who promised further medals but arrested him on the airfield. Flown in handcuffs to Moscow, Eduard Berzin was executed in a basement of the Lubyanka. The “Berzin affair” resulted in the execution of several thousand of the Dalstroi apparat.
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