Part I, Chapter 45, The End of the Monstrous Dwarf Summary and Analysis

In Part I, Chapter 45, through the next year, time clouds together for Ginzburg. This she attributes to lack of clean air and sickness. But she remembers the day when the regulations are changed. The former Commissar-General's name, Yezhov, had been pasted over. Apparently, he had fallen himself. 1939 rolls around, and Ginzburg can't sleep as she considers the prospect that Yezhov and others are imprisoned.

The purge reaches a new height. Stalin's own circles are being picked for possible connections to counterrevolutionary activity, evidenced by the arrest of Yezhov, who had overseen the entire purge thus far. That Yexhov should have contributed to his own demise is an exciting thought to the prisoners. Even more exciting is the thought that Yezhov and the other cruel leaders...