The Great Terror полностью

An Old Bolshevik remarked that apart from the use of relatives as hostages, he saw the 1938 confessions as based on total lack of political hope. In addition, in spite of everything, Stalin had continued his promise not to execute the Bukharinites. They knew he had gone back on his word in most other cases, but “a little hope goes a long way in such circumstances.”

Bukharin, nevertheless, must have known that his own attitude in court, fulfilling the minimum requirements only, would cost him his life. He had said in court that he was “almost certain” he would be dead after the trial. He and Rykov, unlike Zinoviev and Kamenev, were ready for death. They are said to have died firmly defying their captors.²¹⁶

In 1965, Bukharin’s “last letter” was published in the West.²¹⁷ This was at a time when there was talk of an official rehabilitation of Bukharin and Rykov. And, in fact, they had at least been exculpated of spying and terrorism, though only at a fairly obscure conference of historians.²¹⁸ And Ikramov, Krestinsky, Zelensky, Khodzhayev, and Grinko had actually been rehabilitated, making nonsense of the charges against the rest. However, full rehabilitation of the two principals did not come for another twenty-three years.

The “last letter” appeals to future leaders of the Party and denounces the NKVD and its use of the “pathological suspiciousness” of Stalin. This “hellish machine” can transform any Party member into a “terrorist” or “spy.” He was not guilty, would cheerfully have died for Lenin, loved Kirov, and had done nothing against Stalin. He had had no connection with Ryutin’s or Uglanov’s illegal struggle.

Bukharin’s wife, Anna Larina, was arrested soon after the trial. She is reported spending six months in a small cell permanently ankle-deep in cold water, but survived to serve eighteen years in labor camp and exile. Their small son was brought up by Anna’s sister and for twenty years knew nothing of his parenthood.²¹⁹ It was Anna Larina who, in the final days before Bukharin’s arrest, had learned his “letter” by heart; it was finally published in Moscow in 1988.

Bukharin’s crippled first wife, Nadezhda, had written to Stalin several times asserting his innocence, and turned in her Party card after his arrest. She was arrested in April 1938, and her surgical corset taken from her so that she was in continual pain. However, she refused to confess. She was interrogated at intervals until March 1940, when she was shot. Her brothers, brother-in-law, and other relatives were also arrested and were shot, died in prison, or disappeared in camps.²²⁰

Bukharin’s daughter by his second marriage, Svetlana, had been left at liberty when he was arrested. At the end of the year, she was encouraged to write, and sketch, for an article in Pionerskaya pravda, which appeared on 28 December 1937. She later interpreted this as being a method of showing her father that the family was not being persecuted, but that if he gave further trouble, this unspoken bargain might be changed. She and her mother in fact were not arrested until later. She herself was convicted without an indictment: “is adequately convicted in being Bukharin’s daughter.”²²¹

Ikramov’s wife and his four brothers were shot, and his elder son was arrested (Ikramov himself was informed of all this while in jail). His younger son, Kamil, ten years old at the time of the trial, was only arrested in 1943.²²²

Yagoda’s wife is reported in camp, though she was eventually shot, while two sisters and his mother seem to have died in camps as wel1.²²³ Ivanov’s wife is reported in camp,²²⁴ and the wives of Rakovsky and Ossinsky in the Butyrka.²²⁵ Rykov’s wife was also in the Butyrka, in 1937, anxious and ignorant of her husband’s fate.²²⁶ She did not survive, and their daughter was sentenced to eight years in camp “to be used only for general labor,”²²⁷ and in the event served twenty years. During 1938 at least, Bukharin’s father and Rosengolts’s wife are said not even to have been arrested²²⁸ As for the family of Tomsky, who had sensibly predeceased the other “conspirators”: his two elder sons were arrested and shot; his wife and youngest son were imprisoned.²²⁹

During the whole period of the trial, from the announcement on 28 February 1938 that it would take place until the actual executions, the papers had, of course, been full of the demands of workers’ meetings that no pity be shown to the “foul band of murderers and spies.” Leaders and articles rubbed it in. A Conference on Physiological Problems at the Academy of Sciences passed a resolution of thanks to the NKVD. The folk “poet” Dzhambul produced his usual verse contribution to Pravda, “Annihilate.” The verdict of the court was received with many expressions of public joy.