@lain i consider him to be an opportunist from start to finish with his ungraceful death, killed by the very machine he helped build and maintain in a twist of irony. he imprisoned and killed million(s?), and 20 some years later released SOME who were still alive from all the purges. nothing gracious, nothing non-monstery, simply he did the worst of what was the maximum allowed and possible at whatever timeperiod. he is a representation, among hundreds of thousands, of the great machine of death, a cult follower in a cult made of the most evil and vile parts of mankind.

a machine that was on a self-destruct sequence either through the death of the leader, or through over-killing its own population. any redemption of such a high-level participant could only be believed if through his own hand he had murdered stalin. even if he wasnt a cartoon level pervert nor horrible man.

I think he was desperately trying to save face when he realized the old most-brutal regime's handbrake was pulled more suddenly than he expected. side note of interest: he only released people with less than 5 years of imprisonment in the gulag. most crime had a short gulag sentence, below 5 years. Political dissidence though, was usually much longer, and included permanent loss of rights as a human after release ('wolf's ticket', which is an interesting term that i like. today it's with the meaning of "bad luck charm, do not interact")