Stalin полностью

On January 13, 1935, a plebiscite took place in a small region on the western side of the Rhine known as the Saar, which the Versailles Treaty had taken from Germany and put under the League of Nations, stipulating such a vote after fifteen years. Some 445,000 Saarlanders, 90.35 percent, freely voted to join Germany under Nazi dictatorship rather than France or remain under the League. The French and British expected this removal of a German grievance to be followed by German compliance. Hitler perceived only a removal of restraint, and would exult that “blood is stronger than any document or mere paper. What ink has written will one day be blotted out in blood.” Large ethnic German populations resided in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and even the Soviet Union.¹⁷⁹

The Kirov documentary opened publicly on January 14.¹⁸⁰ The NKVD had been planning a second public trial of eight “Zinovievites” willing to incriminate themselves, with Draule testifying about their links to Nikolayev. In the event, she would be tried in camera, while several high-profile Zinovievites were added to the eight unknowns for a public trial, which took place January 15–16. The nineteen defendants, now headlined by Zinoviev himself, Kamenev, and Grigory Yevdokimov, were charged with fostering a “moral atmosphere” conducive to the terrorism that had resulted in Kirov’s death. They had been promised their lives if they fulfilled their party duty and publicly confessed. Zinoviev admitted that he’d had conversations with people whom the NKVD called the Leningrad Center, for example with Vladimir Levin back in 1932, during his work in livestock requisitions. Kamenev at first refused to go along with the canard that his private conversations signified participation in a so-called Moscow Center or had somehow inspired acts of terrorism.¹⁸¹ Yevdokimov confessed to having suggested that collectivization was a mad adventure, that the tempos of industrialization would turn the working class against the party, and that there was no party anymore, since Stalin had usurped its role.¹⁸² Zinoviev was sentenced to ten years, Yevdokimov to eight, Kamenev to five.¹⁸³

Pravda’s trial report (January 18, 1935) acknowledged that incitement of the Kirov murder by the Moscow Center had not been proven, but insisted that the Moscow Center had known about the “terrorist sentiments” of Nikolayev and his Leningrad Center. That same day, Stalin sent an explanatory letter to all party organizations, which accused the former Zinoviev opposition of “two-facedness,” equated them with “White Guard wreckers, spies, and provocateurs,” and deemed expulsion from the party insufficient: they needed to be imprisoned so they could no longer pursue sabotage. The circular excoriated the Zinoviev opposition’s concealment of its views in professions of loyalty, and blamed the NKVD for complacency. (“Is it that difficult for a Chekist to understand that a party card can be forged or stolen from its owner?”) The circular called for better teaching of party history, especially the foul deeds of the various oppositions, and instructed local party organizations to seek enemies among any party members who had ever expressed criticism of Stalin and his ruling group.¹⁸⁴ The NKVD distributed its own secret circular to branches explaining that Nikolayev’s long-existing “center” for terrorism had eluded the Leningrad NKVD because of the latter’s failure to heed Yagoda’s instructions to strengthen Kirov’s guard.¹⁸⁵

Three days later, regime favorites assembled for the anniversary of Lenin’s death.¹⁸⁶ Shumyatsky showed a new documentary about Lenin, to which was added the speaking footage from the Kirov documentary—the first time a recorded speech had been heard at the Bolshoi. “The whole hall at first went silent,” the cinema boss wrote, “then people could not contain themselves, and stormy applause, from the heart, eclipsed the inspiring speech of Mironych about the significance of Marxist-Leninist rearing.” When the sound parts ended and the silent parts resumed, the orchestra started playing but could not be heard. “The end of the film, with the appearance of I. V. Stalin, was drowned out in a stormy ovation.” Stalin had Shumyatsky summoned to the imperial box and “again reiterated the exceptional power of film.”¹⁸⁷