Getting no further with this, Vyshinsky called two new witnesses—the old Socialist Revolutionaries Boris Kamkov and Vladimir Karelin. They were in “neat blue suits,” their faces “grey and corpse-like.”124 They had been in prison for years. An even more important Socialist Revolutionary, Maria Spiridonova, was implicated with her comrades.125 She had been arrested on 8 February 1937, with twelve other former Left Socialist Revolutionaries, in Ufa, where they were living in exile. They were first accused of terrorist plots against the Bashkir Communist leadership. But then the whole of that leadership was itself arrested, and charges of plotting against Stalin and Voroshilov were substituted. On 25 December 1937 they were sentenced on these and other charges by the Military Collegium to various terms of imprisonment—in Spiridonova’s case, twenty-five years—the charges now including setting up a “center” to unite all opposition parties, preparing peasant uprisings, and so on. After a hunger strike, she was held in isolation, finally in Ore1.126 But she seems to have refused to cooperate in the present trial.
Kamkov had apparently been released during the 1920s, but was back in prison no later than 1933.127 Kamkov now said that he understood from others that Bukharin had been informed of Socialist Revolutionary intentions, but he could not himself testify to this directly. He denied that there was any “joint decision” by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and Left Communists. Vyshinsky again became flustered at the firm attitude of the old revolutionist, and when Bukharin tried to ask a question, he burst out with “I request the accused Bukharin not to interfere in my interrogation. I am restraining myself enough, and I request my opponent to restrain himself….”128 Kamkov again denied the point. Vyshinsky abandoned the witness without putting the point about Lenin’s assassination.
Karelin was more amenable, and confirmed the plan to kill Lenin. He also brought in an entirely separate action—the genuine attempted assassination of Lenin on 30 August 1918 by the freelance
Bukharin denied the whole thing:
Ossinsky spoke on the subject.
Ossinsky said that he could say nothing about me.
129
Vyshinsky then tackled Bukharin directly, in an attempt to make him concede that the atmosphere in the Party had been so heated in 1918 that assassination would have been rational. Bukharin denied this, and again denied the evidence:
But why do both former ‘Left’ Communists and ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries say so—everybody?
No, not everybody: of two ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries, only one said it.
130
With a final “categorical denial,” Bukharin’s examination was over.
In the indictment, the cases of Yakovleva, Mantsev, Ossinsky, Kamkov, and Karelin are among those mentioned as being the subject of separate proceedings. The death dates of both Kamkov131 and Karelin132 are now given as 1938. We can presume that they were in fact executed for their alleged part in the plan to assassinate Lenin, and similarly with Ossinsky, sentenced in secret by the Military Collegium and shot on 1 September 1938.133 Yakovleva, whose evidence had been the most satisfactory, survived until 1941.134
THE DOCTOR-POISONERS
On the morning of 8 March, the most horrible and obscure of all the crimes alleged against the bloc were reached. Over the next two days, the system of alleged “medical murders” carried out directly under Yagoda’s orders was the main subject of examination.
The plan to charge the opposition with these medical murders seems to have been adopted soon after Yezhov took over the NKVD. Of the doctors concerned, as we shall see, Pletnev was already embroiled in the NKVD’s plans by December 1936. Pletnev’s hope “as late as 5 March” (1937)135 that the medical world would protect him presumably refers to the date of his arrest. Kryuchkov, Gorky’s secretary, also involved, was denounced (with other writers associated with Yagoda) on 17 May, but his date of arrest is now given as 5 October, with the arrest dates of others directly involved in the poison plots as Dr. Levin, 2 December; Maximov-Dikovsky (Kuibyshev’s secretary), 11 December; and Dr. Kazakov, 16 December—which may indicate that a final decision to go ahead with these charges was not made until a fairly late stage.136
