This time, three members of Lenin’s Politburo stood in the dock—Bukharin, Rykov, and Krestinsky. With them were the legendary Rakovsky, leader of the Balkan and Ukrainian revolutionary movements, and the sinister figure of Yagoda, the Secret Police personified, looking right and left with a certain rat-like vitality. A group of the most senior officials of the Stalinist state who had for many years served it uncritically formed the bulk of the accused: Rosengolts, Ivanov, Chernov, and Grinko—all People’s Commissars until the previous year; Zelensky, Head of the Cooperatives; and Sharangovich, First Secretary in Byelorussia. For the first time, two Asians, the Uzbek leaders Khodzhayev and Ikramov, denounced the previous year for bourgeois nationalism, took their places beside the European accused. These main political accused were supplemented by five minor figures: Bessonov, who had worked in the Soviet Trade Delegation in Berlin; Zubarev, an official of the Agriculture Commissariat; and the former secretaries of Yagoda, of Kuibyshev, and of Maxim Gorky. Last, by a fearful innovation, there were three men far from public life, the doctors Pletnev, Levin, and Kazakov—the first two highly distinguished in their field and the oldest men in dock (sixty-six and sixty-eight, respectively).
The indictment was a comprehensive one—of espionage, wrecking, undermining Soviet military power, provoking a military attack on the USSR, plotting the dismemberment of the USSR, and overthrowing the social system in favor of a return to capitalism. For these purposes, the accused had assembled this vast conspiracy of Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Rightists, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, and “bourgeois nationalists” from the whole Soviet periphery. They had been in close cooperation with the military plotters. A number of them had been spies of Germany, Britain, Japan, and Poland since the early 1920s. Several of them had been Tsarist agents in the revolutionary movement. Wrecking had been committed in industry, agriculture, trade, and finance.
On the terror side, they had been responsible for the assassination of Kirov, which Yagoda had facilitated through Zaporozhets. But in addition, they had caused the deaths of Kuibyshev and of Maxim Gorky, hitherto regarded as natural (and of the former OGPU chief, Menzhinsky, and of Gorky’s son Peshkov into the bargain). This had been done by medical murder. Yagoda was also charged with an attempt to poison Yezhov. And a variety of the more usual fruitless plans to assassinate Stalin and other leaders were also alleged.
A brand-new charge, against Bukharin alone of those in dock, was of having plotted to seize power in 1918 and to murder Lenin and Stalin at the same time.
We are now told that when, “thirteen months later,” Frinovsky was himself interrogated, he recounted how he had “prepared” witnesses in this trial, and then brought them before Yezhov, who warned them not to change their stories in the public trial; if at any point before then they retracted, they were returned to interrogation. (But this 1939 confession by Frinovsky was not thought to necessitate any revising of the 1938 verdict.)8 We also learn that rehearsals were held, and a recent Soviet document tells us how “Yezhov more than once talked with Rykov, Bukharin, Bulanov, and assured each of them that they would not be shot.” To Bukharin, he said, “Conduct yourself well in the trial—I will promise you they will not shoot you.”9
Once again Ulrikh presided, assisted by Matulevich and a new junior figure, Yevlev. And once again, Vyshinsky conducted the prosecution. Only the three doctors had defense counsel, and they were represented by two of the same lawyers who had done their bit for the prosecution in the same roles in the Pyatakov Trial.
A CONFESSION WITHDRAWN
The first sensation of the trial came almost at once, when the accused were asked their pleas. These were all the usual “guilty,” until Krestinsky was reached.
Krestinsky, “a pale, seedy, dim little figure, his steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his beaky nose,”10 replied firmly to Ulrikh:
I plead not guilty. I am not a Trotskyite. I was never a member of the bloc of Rights and Trotskyites, of whose existence I was not aware. Nor have I committed any of the crimes with which I personally am charged, in particular I plead not guilty to the charge of having had connections with the German intelligence service.
Do you corroborate the confession you made at the preliminary investigation?
Yes, at the preliminary investigation I confessed, but I have never been a Trotskyite.
I repeat the question, do you plead guilty?
Before my arrest I was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (bolsheviks) and I remain one now.
