Krestinsky went into his splendid record in the Party, starting as an eighteenyear-old boy in 1901, his leadership in Bolshevik underground organizations, his many arrests, his work as Lenin’s “organizational assistant.” He made the telling point, “I consider it necessary to stress the fact that I had absolutely no knowledge of the terrorist acts enumerated in the second section of the indictment, and that I learnt about them only when I was handed a copy of the indictment,”196 and went on to explain his retraction as due in part to the fact that “it seemed to me easier to die than to give the world the idea that I was even a remote accessory to the murder of Gorky, about which I actually knew nothing.”197
Rykov, trembling and livid, made a sound defense. He admitted his general guilt, and then added:
… But the State Prosecutor has charged me with something in which I had no direct part, and which I cannot admit. He has charged me with adopting a decision, or with giving directions for the murder of Kirov, Kuibyshev, Menzhinsky, Gorky and Peshkov….
The evidence brought against me in this connection has been set forth here in detail; it is based upon the statements of Yagoda, who refers to Yenukidze. Nothing more incriminating was brought against me at the trial….
The assassination of Kirov has formed the subject of two trials. Both the direct perpetrators and the organizers and leaders of this assassination have appeared in court. I do not recall that my name was mentioned then.198
He went on to rub in one extremely telling point. When it came to the alleged attempt on Lenin of twenty years previously, the prosecution had produced eyewitnesses, there were confrontations, and in fact direct evidence.
Why then, on the question of my participation in the assassination of five most important political figures, should a decision be taken on the basis of indirect evidence?
This, it seems to me, would be incorrect. At any rate, I deny any charge of my participation in these five assassinations.199
Until his arrest, he had believed that Gorky had died a natural death. It was only at the trial itself that he had “first learnt of such members of our counter-revolutionary organization as Ivanov.”200
He concluded with a formal plea of guilty—“This responsibility of mine of course transcends all the discrepancies which still remain regarding certain facts and certain details”—and called on any surviving Rightists to “disarm.”201
Rakovsky said:
I confess to all my crimes. What would it matter for the substance of the case if I should attempt to establish here before you the fact that I learned of many of the crimes, and of the most appalling crimes of the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’ here in court, and that it was here that I first met some of the participants?202
He went on to denounce Trotsky and Trotskyism, and to point out that his evidence had been entirely satisfactory to the prosecution.
Rosengoltsfn5 rehearsed his revolutionary past, starting when, as a child of ten, he had hidden illegal literature. He made a reference to his children, and then ended by unexpectedly beginning to sing a well-known song about the USSR: “… I don’t know any other country where we can breathe so freely.” The NKVD men in the audience are reported jumping to their feet in case their intervention was needed. But Rosengolts then broke down and resumed his seat.203
Yagoda, too, “in low fear-ridden tones,”204 dwelt on his underground work for the Party, from the age of fourteen, and of such later services as “vast construction jobs—the canals” (that is, the forced-labor projects). He continued to oppose Vyshinsky on one point:
I am not a spy and have not been one. I think that in the definition of a spy or espionage we will not differ. But a fact is a fact. I had no direct connections with abroad, there are no instances of my directly handing over any information. I am not jesting when I say that if I had been a spy dozens of countries could have closed down their intelligence services—there would have been no need for them to maintain such a mass of spies as have now been caught in the Soviet Union.205
The doctors and secretaries pleaded Yagoda’s threats to them. Levin lapsed by referring to his great esteem for Gorky, and had to be called to order for “blasphemy.” Pletnev mentioned his medical work, adding that the NKVD had given him facilities to write a monograph; he had known nothing of the “bloc.” Bulanov criticized his fellow accused:
I think, perhaps I am mistaken, that some of them showed signs of wanting to deceive the Party even now, although each of them invariably began by saying that he fully and entirely shares responsibility, pleads guilty and is answerable. But this was a matter of form, general declarations. In a number of cases they tried to deny their guilt by pleading ignorance of some point.206
