247. In Feb. 1938, the NKVD received a report from Mark Zborowski out of Paris that had Trotsky’s son Sedov once more stating, while reading a newspaper, that “‘the whole regime in the USSR rests upon Stalin and it would be enough to kill him so that it would come crashing down.’ He returned to and underscored many times the necessity of killing comrade Stalin.” Volkogonov, Trotskii, II: 198 (citing Arkhiv INO OGPU-NKVD, f. 31660, d. 9067, t. 1, l.140a-140v). See also Volkogonov, Trotsky, 378–80. See also Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 82–3; Serge, “Leon Sedov,” 203–7; Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 469–70 (quoting Spiegelglass interrogation). Supposedly in 1937, the NKVD’s Yakov Serebryansky had been tasked with kidnapping Lev Sedov without commotion on a Paris street and transferring him alive to Moscow, leaving no trace of the operation (and not informing the Paris intelligence station). Instead, Sedov suddenly died. This story appears to be given in an effort to deny Soviet intelligence’s involvement in Sedov’s death. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 83–4.
248. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 73 (Feb. 18, 1938). A Communist Youth League member appears to have written Stalin seeking redress after having been fired for failing to affirm that socialism in the Soviet Union had won “final victory” (preserving the country against repeat foreign intervention to restore capitalism). Stalin wrote back, agreeing with the fired petitioner, in a lengthy letter he had printed in Pravda (Feb. 14, 1938): “Since we do not live on an island but in a ‘system of states,’ a considerable number of which are hostile to the land of socialism, creating a danger of intervention and restoration, we say openly and honestly that the victory of socialism in our country is not yet final.” Tucker, “The Emergence of Stalin’s Foreign Policy,” 570.
249. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 608 (citing Pascua’s personal notes of Kremlin meeting of Feb. 26, 1938. AHN-Madrid. Diversos. M. Pascua, Leg. 2, Exp. 6).
250. Danilov et al., Tragediia Sovetskoi derevni, V/i: 452, 486; Ellman, “Soviet 1937 Provincial Show Trials” (the order dated to Aug. 3, 1937, right as the “kulak” operation was unfolding); Ellman, “Soviet 1937–1938 Provincial Show Trials Revisited.” See also RGASPI, 558, op. 11, d. 57, l. 57; Izvestiia, June 10, 1992: 7.
251. Gupta, Ryutin Platform. On the difficulties involved in staging fabricated trials, see Lih, “Melodrama and the Myth,” 178–207 (esp. 202).
252. “O dele tak nazyvaemogo ‘soiuza marksistov-lenintsev’,” 112–5 (Nov. 1, 1936).
253. Conquest, Great Terror: Reassessment, 23; and Tucker and Cohen, Great Purge Trial, 348. Vyshinsky, claiming to be quoting the defendant Sokolnikov, noted on Jan. 28, 1937, in his statement to the court that “as for the lines of the program, as far back as 1932 the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites and the Rightists all agreed in the main on a program, which was characterized as the program of the Rightists. This was the so-called Ryutin Platform; to a large extent, as far back as 1932, it expressed the program policy common to all three groups.” Report of Court Proceedings, 489.
254. Bukharin, Tiuremnye rukopisi. Four letters are dated between April 15, 1937, and Dec. 10, 1937. In the latter, Bukharin wrote: “I thought about what was taking place, and came up with the following conception: There is some kind of grand, bold political idea of a general purge a) in connection with a prewar time; b) in connection with a transition to democracy. This purge encompasses a) the guilty b) the suspicious and c) the potential-suspicious.” Bukharin also wrote that he had dreamt Nadya Alliluyeva—in whose room he had been living—was still alive and had promised to get Stalin to release him. Stalin circulated the letters to the other politburo members, who wrote across them, “The letter of a criminal,” “A criminal farce,” “A typical Bukharin lie.” Murin, “Prosti menia, Koba . . .’: neizvestnoe pis’mo N. Bukharina,” 23 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 427, l. 13–8); “‘No ia to znaia, chtoty prov’: pis’mo N. I. Bukharina I. V. Staliny iz vnutrennei t’iurmy NKVD,” 56 (d. 301, l. 127, 128); 56–8; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 556–62. See also Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 78–9; and Fel’shtinskii, Razgovory s Bukharinym, 114–5. In late Feb. 1938, on the eve of the trial, Yezhov lied to Bukharin that his life would be spared: Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 365 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 589, l. 108). Bukharin’s last communication with Stalin came March 13, 1938 (a futile appeal of his death sentence). Larina was arrested and sent to the Tomsk camp for wives of traitors and enemies (she would survive).
