Moscow trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of the "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
For the project by Milo Rau, see The Moscow Trials.
The defendants were Old Bolshevik Party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with imperialist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capitalism. Several prominent figures (such as Andrei Bubnov, Alexander Beloborodov, Nikolai Yezhov) were sentenced to death during the Stalin era outside these trials.
The Moscow trials led to the execution of many of the defendants. The trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge, a campaign to rid the party of current or prior opposition, including Trotskyists and leading Bolshevik cadre members from the time of the Russian Revolution or earlier, who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's mismanagement of the economy.[1]: xvii Stalin's rapid industrialization during the period of the First five-year plan and the brutality of the forced agricultural collectivization had led to an acute economic and political crisis in 1928–1933, which led to the worsened conditions of Soviet workers and peasants. Stalin was acutely conscious of this fact and took steps to prevent it taking the form of an opposition inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to his increasingly totalitarian rule.[1]: xvii
Background[edit]
Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and Joseph Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate in early 1923[2] after Vladimir Lenin had become incapacitated from a stroke. In the context of the series of defeats of communist revolutions abroad (crucially the German revolutions of 1919, but also later the Chinese Revolution of 1927), which left the Russian Revolution increasingly isolated in a backward country, the triumvirate was able to effect the marginalization of Leon Trotsky in an internal party political conflict over the issue of Stalin's theory of Socialism in One Country. It was Trotsky who most clearly represented the wing of the CPSU leadership which claimed that the survival of the revolution depended on the spread of communism to the advanced European economies, especially Germany. This was expressed in his theory of permanent revolution.[3] A few years later, Zinoviev and Kamenev joined the United Front in an alliance with Trotsky which favored Trotskyism and opposed Stalin specifically.[1]: 24 Consequently, Stalin allied with Nikolai Bukharin and defeated Trotsky in a power struggle. Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929 and Kamenev and Zinoviev temporarily lost their membership in the Communist Party.
In 1932 Zinoviev and Kamenev were found to be complicit in the Ryutin Affair and again were temporarily expelled from the Communist Party. At this time, they entered in contact with Trotskyists in the USSR and again joined Trotsky against Stalin, this time in secret. They then formed a bloc of opposition with the Trotskyists, along with some rightists. Ivan Smirnov, also a defendant at the first Moscow Trial, was one of the Trotskyists' leaders.[4] Pierre Broué and a number of historians assumed that the opposition was dissolved after the arrest of Smirnov and Ryutin. However, some documents found after Broué's search showed that the Underground Left Opposition stayed active even in prison, in fact, the prisons became their centers of activities.[5] In December 1934, Sergei Kirov was assassinated and, subsequently 15 defendants were found guilty of direct, or indirect, involvement in the crime and were executed.[6] Zinoviev and Kamenev were found to be morally complicit in Kirov's murder and were sentenced to prison terms of ten and five years, respectively.[7] Both Kamenev and Zinoviev had been secretly tried in 1935 but it appears that Stalin decided that, with suitable confessions, their fate could be used for propaganda purposes. Genrikh Yagoda oversaw the interrogation proceedings.
The "Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center"[edit]
Conspiracy and investigation[edit]
In December 1935, the original case surrounding Zinoviev began to widen into what was called the "Trotsky-Zinoviev Center".[1]: 2–4 Stalin allegedly received reports that correspondence from Trotsky was found among the possessions of one of those arrested in the widened probe.[1]: 2
Consequently, Stalin stressed the importance of the investigation and ordered Nikolai Yezhov to take over the case and ascertain whether Trotsky was involved.[1]: 2 State Security Commissar of the 2nd Class Georgy Molchanov, a chief of the Secret-political department of the NKVD Main Directory of State Security (a predecessor of KGB), played a key role in the investigation.[8]
The central office of the NKVD that was headed by Genrikh Yagoda was shocked when it was learned that Yezhov (at that time a mere party functionary)[a][8] had discovered the conspiracy,[8] because the NKVD had no connection to the case.[8] In June 1936, Yagoda reiterated his belief to Stalin that there was no link between Trotsky and Zinoviev, but Stalin promptly rebuked him.[1]: 5 This would have led to the inevitable conclusion about the unprofessionalism of the NKVD leaders who completely missed the existence of the conspiratorial Trotskyist center.[8] Bewilderment was strengthened by the fact that both Zinoviev and Kamenev for a long time were under constant operational surveillance and after the murder of Kirov were held in custody.[8]
The basis of the scenario was laid in confessions, extracted under torture, from three of the arrested. One was NKVD agent Valentin Olberg who taught at the Gorky Pedagogic Institute. The others were Soviet statesmen and former members of the internal Party opposition, Isaac Rejngold and Richard Pikel.[8] Firmly believing in the mythical conspiracy, Rejngold executed the Party task with which he thought himself to be entrusted.[8] The confessions present the standard items of supposed conspiratorial activities: the murder of Kirov; preparations to assassinate the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party; and the readiness to seize power in the USSR in order to "restore capitalism".[8]
In July 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev were brought to Moscow from an unspecified prison.[1]: 5 When interrogated they denied being part of any Trotsky-led conspiracy.[1]: 6–7 Yezhov appealed to Zinoviev's and Kamenev's devotion to the Soviet Union as old Bolsheviks and advised them that Trotsky was fomenting anti-Soviet sentiment amongst the proletariat in the world.[1]: 7–8 Throughout spring and summer of 1936 the investigators were requesting from the arrested "to lay down arms in front of the party" exerting a continuous pressure on them.[8] Furthermore, this loss of support, in the event of a war with Germany or Japan, could have disastrous ramifications for the Soviet Union.[1]: 7–8 To Kamenev specifically, Yezhov showed him evidence that his son was subject to an investigation that could result in his son's execution.[1]: 8
According to one witness, at the beginning of the summer the central heating was turned on in Zinoviev's and Kamenev's cells. This was very unpleasant for both prisoners but particularly for Zinoviev, who was asthmatic and could not tolerate the artificially increased temperatures.[8]
Finally the exhausted prisoners agreed to a deal with Stalin who promised them, on behalf of the Politburo, their lives in exchange for participation in the anti-Trotskyist spectacle.[8] Kamenev and Zinoviev agreed to confess on condition that they receive a direct guarantee from the entire Politburo that their lives and those of their families and followers would be spared.[1]: 8 When they were taken to the supposed Politburo meeting, they were met by only Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov.[1]: 8 Stalin explained that they were the "commission" authorized by the Politburo, and Stalin agreed to their conditions in order to gain their desired confessions.[1]: 9 After that the future defendants were given some medical treatment.[8]
In film[edit]
The trials are mentioned in the 1939 film Ninotchka, where, when asked about news from Russia, the title character tells Soviet agents in Paris that "The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians." The trials are also portrayed in the 1943 American pro-Soviet propaganda film Mission to Moscow, where the purges are shown as an attempt by Stalin to rid his country of pro-Axis "fifth columnists".[41] Some "fifth columnists" are described in the film as acting on behalf of Germany and Japan. The film "defends the purges, complete with a quarter-hour dedicated to arguing that Leon Trotsky was a Nazi agent".[42] In the film, former U.S. ambassador to Russia Joseph E. Davies proclaims at the end of the trial scene: "Based on twenty years' trial practice, I'd be inclined to believe these confessions."[43]