The Great Terror

Singleness of purpose became with him duplicity of action.

Karl Marx on Ivan III

AUTUMN MANEUVERS

The Zinoviev Trial, and particularly the executions, severely shook the “officer corps” of the Party—“those elements who, until recently, had considered themselves the sole possessors of the right to occupy themselves with politics.”¹ Everything had been arranged without consulting them. Nothing could now be done about the dead. A dangerous precedent had been successfully established.

Preparations for the next round were already at hand. N. I. Muralov, former Inspector-General of the Red Army, had been arrested on 17 April 1936. He had previously been working in Western Siberia. On 5 and 6 August² two more ex-Trotskyites from the same area—Y. N. Drobnis and M. S. Boguslavsky—were pulled in. These were distinguished old revolutionaries of the second rank.

Drobnis, a worker, a shoemaker, an active revolutionary at the age of fifteen who had served six years in a Tsarist prison, had survived three death sentences. From one of these, when captured and wounded by the Whites during the Civil War, he had escaped by a rare chance. He had later been a Secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee. The giant Muralov came from a poor toiling family and had joined workers’ circles in 1899 and the Party in 1905.³

He had had an extraordinary Civil War record. Boguslavsky, too, was a veteran of both the underground and the Civil War.

We have already noted the arrests of the more important figures of Sokolnikov (26 August) and Serebryakov (17 or 18 August),⁴ who were under interrogation soon after. Sokolnikov was already confessing, though “vaguely,” in August.⁵ And as Vyshinsky had said in his statement of 21 August, Bulcharin, Rykov, Pyatakov, Radek, and Uglanov were to be the subject of further investigation, with Tomsky, who had, however, escaped by suicide.

On 27 August, two days after the executions, most of the members of the Politburofn1 were in Moscow, including the Kiev-based Kossior and Postyshev. On the last day of the month, Molotov returned from leave.⁶

Apart from Mikoyan, the only full member not there was Stalin himself, who was still holidaying at Sochi, where he was to remain for several weeks. Yezhov, however, was in Moscow, and doubtless in touch with his superior.

Bukharin now wrote letters to the members of the Politburo and to Vyshinsky protesting his innocence, and followed them up on 1 September with a letter to Voroshilov in more personal terms, approving the executions and saying that perhaps even Tomsky had become involved with the opposition. Voroshilov answered curtly on 3 September, returning the letter and referring to Bukharin’s “disgusting” attacks on the Party leadership. Bukharin then wrote to him again, defending himself at some length, but got no reply.⁷

Over the next week or so, the Party leadership discussed the cases of the newly incriminated, and the revulsion felt seems to have shown itself in opposition to further persecution. To question the guilt of Zinoviev and Kamenev, or the conduct of the case, was now impossible, for they were proven traitors. But with Bukharin and Rykov, it was different. Moreover, they were popular in the country and in the Party in a way that Zinoviev and Co. had never been. And the suicide of Tomsky had evidently been a severe shock.

On 8 September 1936, Bukharin and Rykov were brought to a “confrontation” with Sokolnikov in the presence of Kaganovich, Yezhov, and Vyshinsky. Sokolnikov repeated the charges, but said he had no direct evidence and had heard of the Rightist involvement only from Kamenev. When the guards removed Sokolnikov, Kaganovich said to Bukharin that the testimony was all lies and that Bukharin should go back to his editorial offices and work tranquilly.⁸

On 10 September, in a small paragraph at the top of page 2, Pravda announced that the investigation into the charges against Rykov and Bukharin was being dropped, for lack of evidence. This reversal is said to have been made “under pressure of some members of the Politburo.”⁹

Politically, the exculpation is understandable. From a judicial point of view, it is fantastic. The accused in the Zinoviev Case had been sentenced to execution on their own evidence against themselves. But their evidence against Rykov and Bukharin was of exactly the same status, neither more nor less credible. It might be thought that this alone would have shown Western observers the meaninglessness of the whole trial. (Moreover, though the case against the two Rightists was suspended, it was not found necessary to make amends to their colleague Tomsky. Article 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR laid down penalties for provoking suicide by moral or physical persecution. It was not applied.)