On 28 July, Yezhov sent Stalin a list of 138 names, asking for permission to execute them. Stalin and Molotov signed, “Shoot all 138.”10 Thereupon, on 27 to 29 July, and after the weekend on 1 August, there took place in secret by far the largest massacre of the leadership in the whole period. We have already noted the twenty-four known military victims (see here). In addition, at least twenty-two leading political, diplomatic, and cultural names can be identified. They included Rudzutak, formerly full member and more recently candidate member of the Politburo; V. I. Mezhlauk; Pyatnitsky; Rukhimovich; Knorin; Stetsky; M. I. Frumkin, who had been the leading Rightist spokesman in the late 1920s; Ya. A. Yakovlev; and Krylenlco. V. M. Kirshon, a playwright with strong political connections, was among the other victims. In every case we can trace, they were “tried” by the Military Collegium. How the military and political elements in the supposed plot were melded is not clear, but (for example) the civilian Rudzutak was directly linked to the Army figure Berzin, as a Latvian spy, as was Army Commander Alksnis, who was “savagely beaten” by a special team.11
Rudzutak pleaded his innocence. He had made a confession, but now retracted it and asked that
the Party Central Committee be informed that there is in the NKVD an as yet not liquidated center which is craftily manufacturing cases, which forces innocent persons to confess; there is no opportunity to prove one’s non-participation in crimes to which the confessions of various persons testify. The investigative methods are such that they force people to lie and to slander entirely innocent persons in addition to those who already stand accused. He asks the court that he be allowed to inform the Party Central Committee of all this in writing. He assures the court that he personally never had any evil designs in regard to the policy of our Party because he had always agreed with the Party policy pertaining to all spheres of economic and cultural activity.12
However, “sentence was pronounced on him in twenty minutes and he was shot.” The charges included espionage for Germany.13
Krylenko’s trial also lasted twenty minutes, and the protocol ran to nineteen lines only.14 Twenty minutes was also the time taken by the trial of M. E. Mikhailov, Provincial Secretary of Voronezh.15 Pyatnitsky (who had been severely beaten by the NKVD officer Langfang, undergoing eighteen torture sessions and suffering broken ribs, internal injuries, and a lacerated face)16 was accused of espionage for Japan and other countries in addition to having been a Tsarist police agent.17
We can trace a few relatives of the accused: Rudzutak’s wife was sent to labor camp;18 his brother is reported to have emigrated to America and taken the name Rogers, but to have returned in the early 1930s at the invitation of his then-powerful relation; he and his wife are reported shot, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Senta, arrested and sentenced to death for espionage for the United States, but reprieved and sent to the Vorkuta camps.19 Yakovlev’s wife is reported sentenced to death.20 Rukhimovich’s young daughter Elena was jailed in 1939 (together with the daughters of Shlyapnikov’s ally, Medvedev; of Lomov; of Smilga; and of Krestinsky) for having formed an “anti-Soviet group.”21 Unshlikht’s sister, Stefanie Brun, got eight years;22 Mezhlauk’s first wife also got an eight-year sentence and died of dysentery in a transit camp in the Far East.23
This case marks a turning point in the Purge. There were to be no more public trials of Party figures. But it is also interesting because it comes at the moment when Stalin was beginning to show distrust of Yezhov.
Yezhov had been appointed People’s Commissar for Water Transport (in addition to his NKVD Commissariat, Secretaryship of the Central Committee, and membership on the Executive Committee of the Comintern) on 8 April 1938. This is often thought of as the beginning of his decline. But in fact his new Commissariat’s main component was the Soviet Merchant Marine, an important Secret Police area from both the security and the intelligence points of view. He seldom went to the Water Transport Commissariat, leaving the NKVD veteran E. G. Evdokimov in charge. Others from the NKVD now ran the Timber Industry and Communications Commissariats. And on the same day as Yezhov’s new appointment, Kaganovich took over Railways in addition to Heavy Industry; but one of Yezhov’s Deputy Commissars in the NKVD, L. N. Bel’ski, became First Deputy People’s Commissar of Railways, with the Head of the NKVD Transport Department, M. A. Volkov, as another Deputy Commissar, and other NKVD officers in posts there. In addition, several NKVD men now took over as Provincial Party Secretaries. All in all, Yezhov’s power seemed strongly on the increase.
However, this now began to change.
