The Great Terror

Radek:

He was a member of the organization, and he did not come to talk about

the organization, but I took advantage of his visit to have this talk.

Vyshinsky:

So Putna came to you, having been sent by Tukhachevsky on official business having no bearing whatever on your affairs since he, Tukhachevsky, had no relations with them whatever?

Radek:

Tukhachevsky never had any relations whatever with them.

Vyshinsky:

He sent Putna on official business?

Radek:

Yes.

Vyshinsky:

And you took advantage of this in order to engage in your own particular affairs?

Radek:

Yes.

Vyshinsky:

Do I understand you correctly, that Putna had dealings with the members of your Trotskyite underground organization, and that your reference to Tukhachevsky was made in connection with the fact that Putna came on official business on Tukhachevsky’s orders?

Radek:

I confirm that, and I say that I never had and could not have had any dealings with Tukhachevsky connected with counter-revolutionary activities, because I knew Tukhachevsky’s attitude to the Party and the Government to be that of an absolutely devoted man.

⁴⁰

An experienced NKVD officer who read this at once remarked that Tukhachevsky was lost. Why, his wife asked, since Radek’s evidence so emphatically exculpated him? Since when, was the reply, had Tukhachevsky needed a character reference from Radek?⁴¹

The whole clumsy interchange must have been a set piece, doubtless dictated by Stalin himself, perhaps at Tukhachevsky’s own insistence after the earlier mention of his name. Typically, it gave the Marshal full satisfaction in a superficial sense. He could hardly ask for a plainer assertion of his loyalty and innocence. But at the same time, the idea had been launched. And when Vyshinsky in his final speech complained of the accused having confessed much, but not enough, of their criminal connections, the foundations were laid for further development in his direction as in others.

When Shmidt finally broke down under severe interrogation, his confession was apparently circulated in the upper levels of the Party. Yakir determined to check the charges. He insisted on seeing Shmidt in jail. Shmidt had become very gray and thin, seemed apathetic, and spoke listlessly. Yakir described him as looking “like a Martian,” a being from another planet. But when Yakir asked him if his confessions were true, Shmidt repudiated them. Yakir was not allowed to question him on the details, but had Shmidt write a note to Voroshilov denying all the accusations. Yakir took this to Voroshilov and told him that the charges were clearly false.

Yakir went back to Kiev well pleased with this result, but his pleasure did not last long. For soon after, Voroshilov rang him up and said that on the very next day Shmidt had reaffirmed his confessions, and wished to inform Voroshilov and Yakir that his early evidence was true.⁴² (Shmidt had given, or was shortly to give, evidence which was not to be circulated to Yakir and the other commanders, for it implicated Yakir himself. The Divisional Commander was required to confess that at Yakir’s instigation he had planned to raise his tank unit in revolt.)fn5

After all this, Yakir could not have believed in the accusations. And he is also reported as having said that those shot after the Pyatakov Trial were innocent.⁴³ It must have been clear to Stalin that Yakir was against the new purge. And his boldness in insisting on the interview with Shmidt shows him not lacking in undesirable courage.

On 3 March 1937, at the plenum itself, after the arrest of Rykov and Bukharin, Stalin spoke briefly about what harm “a few spies in the Red Army” could do. And Molotov “directly incited to the murder of the military cadres, accusing its participants of lack of desire to develop the struggle against ‘enemies of the people.’”⁴⁴

The crucial political victory of the Purge had been won at the plenum. The organizational basis for extending it was also now becoming adequate. It was in April that the NKVD, purged by Yezhov, became ready for further operations. It was “soon after the plenum” that “careerists and provocateurs in the organs of the NKVD fabricated a story ‘on the counter-revolutionary military fascist organization’ in the armed forces.”⁴⁵

Hitherto, Stalin’s victims had almost all been former members of the oppositions. This was, of course, true even of Bukharin and Rykov. Now, for the first time, Stalin was to begin a massive offensive against his own supporters everywhere.