The Great Terror

The rank and file of the February–March waverers had been crushed. But the senior figures involved were still in positions in the highest leadership. Until they, and any others who had shown restiveness or independence, could be eradicated, there was a flaw, a weak spot, in the structure of autocracy. They were not, like Zinoviev and Bukharin, men long removed from the centers of power, or even, like Pyatakov, men long relegated to second-rank positions in the Government and Party. It is true that they constituted a minority and that—except for Kossior’s and (previously) Postyshev’s control of the Ukrainian machine—they had little grip on any true instruments of power. They nevertheless represented a higher potential of trouble than their predecessors. The one serious combination which, Stalin may have thought, remained was a combination of a group of “moderate” leaders with the Army. Nor was the striking down of the Army leaders in June 1937 entirely conclusive. Other commanders survived who could conceivably give trouble. In any case, Stalin proceeded with his usual combination of gradualness and ruthlessness.

But first, certain technical moves were called for. Since the decree of August 1936, people had been making a nuisance of themselves by complaining that their snap trials and executions were illegal. At any rate, on 14 September a decree was issued to introduce “simplified trial procedures,” in cases under Articles 58 (vii), 58 (viii), and 58 (ix) of the Criminal Code. It forbade appeals and also petitions for clemency, the right to which had been restored in 1936 with the object of deceiving Zinoviev and Co. More interesting still, the new decree “eliminated publicity in court trials.”¹⁵⁶

There are some obvious anomalies: in the first place, many trials must already have been held without any, or any effective, public attendance; second, the Bukharin Trial, with its vast publicity, was yet to come. Still, however we take the decree, it may perhaps reflect some sort of decision by Stalin to bring public trials to an end as soon as the one then in hand was over. It is sometimes argued that the partial failure of the Bukharin Trial itself led to the dropping of any further court proceedings. This decree shows that the decision may have been taken earlier. It is indeed true that the Bukharin Case seems to have been giving Yezhov a good deal of trouble. While Pyatakov and Radek were ready for open court in four months, nine months had already passed since Bukharin’s and Rykov’s arrest, and they were not to be adequately prepared for another three or four months yet. However, the plans for the Bukharin Trial were now, as we shall see, reaching the stage at which all possible ingredients had been established—assassination, medical murder, industrial and agricultural sabotage, espionage, bourgeois nationalism, and treason. Each trial so far had added crimes to the roster, but after this there would be no further lesson to rub in.

On 2 October came a law increasing the maximum term of imprisonment from ten to twenty-five years.¹⁵⁷

And a short plenum on 11–12 October celebrated the end of overt opposition by electing Yezhov a candidate member of the Politburo. At the same time, twenty-four members and candidates were expelled.¹⁵⁸

This plenum also saw the fall of a prominent figure in circumstances even more high-handed than had previously been noted.

The People’s Commissar for Education, Andrei Bubnov, was one of the most prominent of all Old Bolsheviks. He had been a delegate to the 1907 Congress, a candidate member of the Central Committee in 1912, and a member of the original Political Bureau, which existed for a short time in November 1917. With Pyatakov, he had organized the Communist revolt in the Ukraine in August 1918. A Democratic Centralist in the early days, he had switched to Stalin’s side as early as 1923, rigorously purging faction in the Army, and had served loyally ever since. At the October plenum, he went with his Ukrainian opposite number as Education Commissar, Zatonsky, to the Central Committee building, but, on showing their Central Committee membership cards, they were told by the NKVD officer on duty that they could not be admitted without further documents which had not been issued to them. Bubnov went back to his Ministry and worked late. At midnight, his secretary came in trembling and told him that the radio had just announced his removal for inability to cope with his duties. The next day, he handed over to the transient Tyurkin,¹⁵⁹ and was arrested in December.¹⁶⁰