The Great Terror

On 27 January 1937, three days before the verdict was handed down, Pravda had printed a more suitable item: an idealized portrait of Yezhov with the information that he had been promoted to be General Commissar of State Security. In general, the press and “public” had mounted the usual violent campaign. When the verdict was announced, a crowd of 200,000 assembled in the Red Square, in a temperature of – 27° Celsius, to be harangued by Khrushchev and Shvernik, and to demonstrate spontaneously against the accused.¹⁴⁹

They carried banners demanding the immediate carrying-out of the death sentences—a demand readily acceded to by the authorities. The victims were fully rehabilitated just over fifty years later.

THE ORDZHONIKIDZE SUICIDE

Once again, the executions shocked the inner circles of the Party. This time, Stalin had to face an immediate threat of firm opposition from a colleague who could not easily be dismissed—Sergo Ordzhonikidze. He had been double-crossed. Personally involved in the negotiations before the Pyatakov Case, he had had Stalin’s assurance that Pyatakov would not be executed. According to a recent Soviet writer, Ordzhonikidze had already been shaken by the “Hotel Bristol” matter; Stalin had given him a promise to check such evidence. When Pyatakov was arrested, Stalin told Ordzhonikidze, “Pyatakov will not be executed.” After the trial, Yezhov told him, “Pyatalcov is alive”; Ordzhonikidze demanded a meeting with him, and this was promised. Yezhov then told him that Pyatakov was in a state of shock after the “trick played by the Norwegians.” But Ordzhonikidze can hardly have been put off for long.¹⁵⁰

He saw in all this a fatal precedent. It became clear that he would now carry on the fight against the Purge by every means at his disposal.

One account describes his behavior when he learned of the arrest of the head of one of the big trusts under his authority. He rang up Yezhov, called him a “filthy lickspittle,” and demanded the documents in the case instantly. He then phoned Stalin on the direct circuit. By this time he was trembling, and his eyes were bloodshot. He shouted, “Koba, why do you let the NKVD arrest my men without informing me?” After some reply from Stalin, he interrupted: “I demand that this authoritarianism cease! I am still a member of the Politburo! I am going to raise hell, Koba, if it’s the last thing I do before I die!”¹⁵¹

As usual, Stalin was not caught unprepared. In fact, though we usually think of the dispute between the two men about Pyatakov as a matter of Stalin wanting to get rid of Pyatakov and being willing to put up with trouble from Ordzhonikidze in the process, it seems equally plausible that Stalin fully intended the destruction of Pyatakov as a blow against Ordzhonikidze too and that the destruction of Ordzhonikidze was not simply a by-product of the Pyatakov Case, but something planned from the start. (As we have suggested, it was perhaps as a political signal of some sort that at that trial Muralov, while freely admitting plans to kill Molotov and others, firmly denied any plans against Ordzhonikidze.)¹⁵²

Ordzhonikidze’s elder brother, Papuliya, had already been arrested in November 1936, and was “shot after being tortured” on 9 or 10 February.¹⁵³ Stalin must therefore have been preparing to strike at his old colleague, but to have shown his hand only a short time before his final move.

Meanwhile in the Transcaucasus, NKVD operatives were working “to compel arrested people to give false testimonies against S. Ordzhonikidze.” This would have been meaningless after Ordzhonikidze’s death, and shows that Stalin was already preparing a dossier against his old friend. Similarly, former NKVD officers tried in November 1955 were charged with “collecting slanderous material” against him, and later of terrorist acts against members of his family and close friends in responsible posts.¹⁵⁴

It is also the case that most of Ordzhonikidze’s associates fell before or after his death, and that this is a reasonable indication of Stalin’s feelings. Among them was Gvaldiaria, Ordzhonikidze’s nephew, the head of the great Makeyevka iron foundry. The leaders of Soviet heavy industry followed: Gurevich (a leading figure in the metallurgical industries), Tochinsky, and many others. The top directors and industrialists, the men who had actually, under Pyatakov, created Stalin’s one real achievement, disappeared.

Ordzhonikidze himself was being increasingly harassed. Police officers

arrived at Ordzhonikidze’s flat with a search warrant. Humiliated and frantic with rage, Sergo spent the rest of the night trying to get through to Stalin on the telephone. As morning came he finally got through and heard the answer: “It is the sort of organ that is even liable to search my place. That is nothing extraordinary….”¹⁵⁵