The Great Terror

Stalin roared with laughter, and Pauker gave a repeat performance. By this time, Stalin was almost helpless with laughing, and when Pauker brought in a new angle by raising his hands and crying, “Hear, Israel, our God is the only God!” Stalin choked with mirth and had to signal Pauker to stop the performance.⁵⁶

In fact, Stalin had good reason to be pleased with his secret policemen, who had their second production almost ready to go on. He now ordered pursuit of the line on which he had been blocked in the autumn. Bukharin and Rykov were to be implicated. At the end of December 1936, Radek’s evidence incriminating the Rightists in terrorism and other crimes was delivered to Bukharin, whose life now became a nightmare of denunciations and confrontations,⁵⁷ until, on 16 January 1937, his name appeared for the last time as editor of lzvestiya

.

A number of the Rightists under arrest, including Uglanov and V. V. Shmidt, did not give evidence against Bukharin before his own arrest. Some of his junior associates, however, were testifying to his plans for a “palace coup,” and their statements were sent to him.⁵⁸ Bukharin was then called in for several confrontations in the presence of the whole Politburo and Yezhov. First the prominent ex-Trotskyite Sosnovsky gave testimony that some money Bukharin had given him when he was in trouble was a conspiratorial payment.⁵⁹ Then came a confrontation with Pyatakov. Pyatakov is described as looking like a skeleton, and so weak that he could hardly stand. When he had confessed his membership in a counter-revolutionary center, implicating Bukharin, Ordzhonikidze asked him if his testimony was voluntary. He replied that it was.⁶⁰

The next confrontation was with Radek. Although pale, he was not in such a bad state as Pyatakov, and, unlike the lifelessness reported of the others, was “visibly agitated.” He confessed everything, on his own behalf and Bukharin’s, including a plot of theirs at lzvestiya to assassinate Stalin.⁶¹ Rykov, who had earlier been sent confessions implicating him made by his secretary Ekaterina Artemenko, also had “confrontations” with Sokolnikov, Pyatakov, and others.⁶²

Meanwhile, with the Bukharin–Rykov group thoroughly implicated, Stalin was fully prepared to face the resistance of his own “moderates” squarely.

The intervention against Postyshev in the Nikolayenko case was made formal by a decision of the All-Union Central Committee, dated 13 January 1937 (and unpublished at the time), attacking “unsatisfactory leadership” in the Kiev Party and faults in the Ukrainian Central Committee as a whole.⁶³

Postyshev expressed his resentment. As a result, Kaganovich was immediately sent to Kiev to straighten out the situation. In his capacity as Secretary of the Central Committee, he urgently convoked a plenum of the Kiev Provincial Party Committee.⁶⁴ On 16 January 1937 he had Postyshev replaced as First Secretary of the Kiev Provincial Committee, while leaving him his more important post. The official reason given was that Postyshev’s duties as Second Secretary of the Ukrainian Party were too demanding to allow him to hold the Kiev post as well. This was plainly false; indeed, when Khrushchev was appointed in 1938 to be First Secretary of the Ukrainian Party, he held the Kiev post as well without any difficulty arising.

So far, this was no more than one of Stalin’s typical first steps against a victim. Meanwhile, the preparations for the Pyatakov Trial were complete. First, however, the recalcitrant figures of Ryutin and others in like case were disposed of. On 10 January, he, Smilga, Zalutsky, Shatskin, and no doubt others were tried in camera

by the Military Collegium and shot.⁶⁵

THE PYATAKOV TRIAL

On 23 January 1937 another gruesome little pageant assembled among the florid columns of the October Hall. It was a bitterly cold day, and the hall was dark and gloomy. Just after midday, Ulrikh and Matulevich, with Divisional Military Jurist Rychkov in Nikitchenko’s old place, took their seats at the judges’ bench. Vyshinsky sat at his old table on the left. The NKVD soldiers were in their winter uniforms, with long coats and muffled helmets.

The men who filed into the dock were of a different sort from those of the previous August. Then, genuine rivals had been crushed. The new accused had presented no such obvious challenge. But they were quite impressive figures. Pyatakov had never been a member of the Politburo, but as we have seen he had long been one of the most prominent and able figures in the Party. Sokolnikov, former candidate member of the Politburo, was a most serious and respected politician. Serebryakov, former Secretary of the Central Committee, was also no negligible figure. And Radek was at least a widely known public person.