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The purges escalated rapidly. Nikolai Yezhov, who replaced Genrikh Yagoda as head of the NKVD (the Soviet secret police), intensified the campaign against Bolshevik Party members, the upper echelons, and various groups labeled as "enemies of the state." In 1937 and 1938, an estimated 700,000 to 1.2 million individuals met their end through executions or imprisonment in brutal labor camps. The purges did not stop at political enemies; innocent civilians, peasants, and ethnic minorities, such as Poles, also faced annihilation.