Yes.
Vyshinsky:
Were there cases when members of your organization connected with the butter business threw glass into the butter?
Zelensky:
There were cases when glass was thrown into the butter.
Vyshinsky:
Were there cases when your accomplices, fellow participants in the criminal plot against the Soviet power and the Soviet people, threw nails into the butter?
Zelensky:
There were.
Vyshinsky:
For what purpose? to make it ‘tastier’?
Zelensky:
That is clear.
Vyshinsky:
Well, that is organized wrecking and diversive activities. Do you admit that you are guilty of this?
Zelensky:
I do….
In addition to his vaguely unsatisfactory and undignified style of reply, Zelensky balked at a major question:
Vyshinsky:
Did you take part in the wrecking, diversive, terrorist and espionage work of this bloc?
Zelensky:
I did take part in wrecking and diversive work.
Vyshinsky:
About espionage work you so far say nothing?
Zelensky:
(No reply.)
Vyshinsky:
Do you answer for all the criminal activities of the bloc?
Zelensky:
I do.
—this last a weak ploy by Vyshinsky.
Zelensky did, however, admit contact with A. V. Alexander, the British Labour and Cooperative leader, with whom he had discussed the possibilities of a Rightist Government in Russia.
Ikramov’s examination, which we have already covered, came next. When he had finished, first Bessonov was again questioned. He gave evidence of connections with Socialist Revolutionary émigrés, with Trotsky, and with the Nazis.
BUKHARIN IN DOCK
And now, at last, the main subject of the trial was brought to questioning. Vyshinsky started his duel with Bukharin.
After his arrest, Bukharin had been confronted with Radek, who, however, had qualified his evidence against him, saying that Bukharin had objected to the degree of Trotsky’s commitment to the Germans,98 and refusing to confirm some of the more vicious charges.99 In The Great Terror, I wrote that Bukharin had not been tortured. This was based on general report, though also on a definite statement by Mikoyan after Stalin’s death.100 From recent Soviet articles, it does not appear to be true. Perhaps Frinovsky’s order “beating permitted,” with which the investigation of the case “started,”101 was not applied in its full vigor. But we are now told that, though Bukharin held out for three months, threats to his wife and infant son, combined with “methods of physical influence,” wore him down, and he now wrote to Stalin, “Dear friend, if it is necessary for the Party, I will go to trial as you wish.”102 At interrogations on 1 and 28 June 1937, he confessed that the Ryutin Platform expressed his own views and that many others shared them, including Rykov and Tomsky, but also Uglanov, Rudzutak, Antipov, Lomov, Unshklikht, and others.103 It is reported that he now agreed, in a long talk with Yezhov and Voroshilov—as “representatives of the Politburo”—to confess to all the charges, including that of having planned to assassinate Lenin.
But when, two days later, his confession, amended and corrected by Stalin personally, had been given to him to sign, he was so shocked that he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with a double team of interrogators. He finally agreed once more to testify, but refused to say that he had planned Lenin’s death.104 One of the charges brought against him in court, that of espionage, was not raised at all during his interrogation. It was doubtless felt that he was unlikely to agree to it, so it now was sprung on him for the first time at the trial.105
He had evidently decided on his tactics after considering the earlier cases. His confession, like Rykov’s, avoided admitting direct complicity in any of the worst overt acts, but accepted general responsibility. Anything less would have doubtless led to his omission from the trial and the execution of his wife. As it was, Vyshinsky threatened to stop his evidence.
Before Vyshinsky could speak, Bukharin asked the court to allow him to present his case “freely” and to dwell on the ideological stand of the “bloc.” Vyshinsky at once asked for the request to be denied, as limiting the legal rights of the prosecution. Bukharin then said that he confirmed his evidence at the preliminary inquiry. He then made his carefully phrased acceptance of guilt:
I plead guilty to being one of the outstanding leaders of this ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’. Consequently, I plead guilty to what directly follows from this, the sum total of crimes committed by this counter-revolutionary organization, irrespective of whether or not I knew of, whether or not I took a direct part in, any particular act.106
He had, he admitted, planned the forcible overthrow of the Soviet power, and “with the help of a war which prognostically was in prospect,” relied on the help of foreign States to which territorial concessions would be made.
Vyshinsky:
And also by means of weakening the defensive power?
Bukharin:
You see, this question was not discussed, at least not in my presence.
As to wrecking, “the orientation on wrecking was adopted.” But again, when a concrete question was put:
Vyshinsky:
As you see from the trial, the circumstances were concrete enough. Did you and Khodzhayev discuss the fact that too little wrecking was being done, and being done badly?
Bukharin:
About accelerating wrecking there was no talk.
107
Bukharin then admitted that the bloc stood for the assassination of the leadership. Vyshinsky immediately asked whether the Kirov murder had been committed on the instructions of the bloc.
Bukharin:
I do not know.
Vyshinsky:
I ask you, was this assassination committed with the knowledge and on the instructions of the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’?
Bukharin:
And I repeat that I do not know, Citizen Prosecutor.
Vyshinsky:
You did not know about this specifically in relation to the assassination of S. M. Kirov?
Bukharin:
Not specifically, but …
Vyshinsky:
Permit me to question the accused Rykov.
The President:
You may.
Vyshinsky:
Accused Rykov, what do you know about the assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov?
Rykov:
I know nothing about the participation of the Rights or the Right part of the bloc in the assassination of Kirov.
Vyshinsky:
In general, were you aware of the preparations for terrorist acts, for the assassination of members of the Party and the Government?
Rykov:
As one of the leaders of the Right part of this bloc, I took part in the organization of a number of terrorist groups and in preparations for terrorist acts. As I have said in my testimony, I do not know of a single decision of the Right centre, through which I was related with the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’, about the actual commission of assassinations….
Vyshinsky:
About the actual commission. So. Do you know that one of the aims of the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’ was to organize and commit terrorist acts against leaders of the Party and Government?