The Great Terror

In the Party when the Secret Letter arrived, and among the public when the indictment came out, a sensation was caused by the omission from the list of those the conspirators were planning to kill of one important Soviet leader—Molotov. Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Kossior, Postyshev, and Zhdanov were named (the last three specifically as the targets of local terrorist branches in the Ukraine and Leningrad), but not the Soviet Premier. Right through the trial, the confessions gave the same listing, and it was repeated in Vyshinsky’s final speech for the prosecution. In Soviet conditions this was taken to mean, and without any doubt at all really meant, that Molotov was in disfavor. An NKVD defector account says that Stalin crossed Molotov’s name out of the early evidence (where it had naturally been included) with his own hand, and that Yagoda then instructed the interrogators not to bring it in again.⁹⁸ This story must be substantially true. Without a personal decision of Stalin’s, Molotov could not have been omitted.

There seem grounds for supposing that Molotov had in some way dragged his feet about the plan to destroy the Old Bolsheviks. And the episode lends at least some credence to the reports that in the discussions about the Ryutin Case in 1932 he had not wholeheartedly supported Stalin in calling for extreme measures. Thus from around May 1936 until the end of the trial in August, Molotov faced elimination. He went on his holiday under careful NKVD supervision.⁹⁹

Some weeks after the Zinoviev Trial, he seems to have returned to favor. His name was included as a target of the conspirators in the 1937 and 1938 Trials—even though this raised the anomaly that the later batches of conspirators had allegedly plotted with Zinoviev and Kamenev for this purpose, but Zinoviev and Kamenev had inexplicably omitted to confess it.

Stalin’s pressure had brought Molotov to heel. Henceforth, there were no reports of anything but enthusiastic complicity on his part in the Great Purge. Why Stalin saved him cannot be more than guessed at. He was, of course (or was to be after Ordzhonikidze’s removal), the only Old Bolshevik of any repute at all among Stalin’s ruling group.

Meanwhile, it was impossible for Molotov, or anyone else, to interfere with the trial, through they could hope that it would end merely with prison sentences.

THE TRIAL BEGINS

At ten minutes after midday on 19 August 1936, the trial opened before a session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in the little October Hall of the Trade Union House—chosen in preference to the huge Hall of Columns, which had been the scene of earlier show trials. A large, high, bright room, decorated rather floridly in the Russian nineteenth-century style with white Corinthian columns and light blue walls, it had formerly been one of the ballrooms of what was then the Nobles’ Club. In this small hall there was room for no more than 150-odd Soviet citizens and 30-odd foreign journalists and diplomats. The foreign audience was crucial to the show. Unanimously hostile criticism might have prevented further performances. Too many of these privileged witnesses allowed themselves to be taken in by an improbable plot and incredible details. The Soviet spectators were all selected by the NKVD and were, in fact, mainly NKVD clerks and officials.¹⁰⁰ Many officials of the Central Committee and the Government were not able to get in. Nor were relatives of the accused:

¹⁰¹

We are told of a later trial (Bukharin’s) that “the first five rows were occupied by members of the NKVD.”¹⁰² At such trials, we hear, the NKVD officers responsible for the accused sat “in front of” them.¹⁰³

This apparently means facing them closely, in the first row of the audience—we are definitely told this of one later accused.¹⁰⁴ This crowd is reported to have been under instructions to raise a commotion at a given signal, which might be necessary if any untoward outbreak from one of the prisoners took place.¹⁰⁵

The court commandant, in uniform tunic and breeches, and wearing the magenta hatband and collar tabs of the NKVD, called the court to order. Everyone stood, and the judges took their seats. Presiding was Ulrikh, a fat man, with dewlaps like a bloodhound and little pig eyes. His shaven head rose to a point. His neck bulged over the collar of his uniform. His voice was soft and oily. He had much experience in political cases.