Rykov:
I said more than that, I said that I personally organized terrorist groups. But you are asking me whether I knew of such aims through some third person.
Vyshinsky:
I am asking whether the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’ had any relation to the assassination of Comrade Kirov.
Rykov:
I have no information regarding the relation of the Rights or the Right part of the bloc to this assassination, and therefore I am convinced to this day that the assassination of Kirov was carried out by the Trotskyites without the knowledge of the Rights. Of course, I might not have known about it.
108
Vyshinsky, baffled, then called on Yagoda, who said that both Rykov and Bukharin were lying: Rykov had been present, with Yenukidze, at the meeting which had discussed the question. However, Yagoda now started to drop peculiar hints on his own:
Vyshinsky:
After this, did you personally take any measures to effect the assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov?
Yagoda:
I personally?
Vyshinsky:
Yes, as a member of the bloc.
Yagoda:
I gave instructions….
Vyshinsky:
To whom?
Yagoda:
To Zaporozhets in Leningrad. That is not quite how it was….
Vyshinsky:
And then you gave instructions not to place obstacles in the way of the murder of Sergei Mironovich Kirov?
Yagoda:
Yes, I did…. It was not like that.
Vyshinsky:
In a somewhat different form?
Yagoda:
It was not like that, but it is not important.
109
Vyshinsky hastily dropped the matter and started to question Bukharin about the allegation that he had intended to kill Lenin. Bukharin admitted that there had been a plan in 1918 to arrest Lenin, but when Vyshinsky asserted that this must mean to kill him, he pointed out that Dzerzhinsky had actually been arrested by Socialist Revolutionaries at the time, and not killed. Conceding that Stalin and Sverdlov, too, were to have been arrested, he added that “under no circumstances” were the three to have been killed. Vyshinsky postponed the question until witnesses were called.
Bukharin was then allowed to start to speak at length. Ulrikh told him to stick to his “criminal anti-Soviet activities,” but after ten or fifteen minutes he was still expounding a theory of the way Rightism inevitably led to the restoration of capitalism. Ulrikh interrupted to say he must not make his defense plea now.
Bukharin countered: “This is not my defense, it is my self-accusation. I have not said a single word in my defense…”110 Nor, strictly speaking, had he. And he now went on to admit that his program would have meant “a lapse into bourgeois-democratic freedom,” which (Vyshinsky pointed out, and he accepted) meant in effect “outright rabid fascism”!
Vyshinsky turned to espionage:
Vyshinsky:
Then why was it so easy for you to join a bloc which was engaged in espionage work?
Bukharin:
Concerning espionage work I know absolutely nothing.
Vyshinsky:
What do you mean, you don’t know?
Bukharin:
Just that.
Vyshinsky:
And what was the bloc engaged in?
Bukharin:
Two people testified here about espionage, Sharangovich and Ivanov, that is to say two
agents provocateurs.111
Here Bukharin was cleverly turning the trial’s tactics against its originators. Ivanov had, on his own evidence, been a Tsarist agent provocateur in the revolutionary movement—for a Bolshevik audience, no lower form of life, no more untrustworthy character, could exist. His evidence was automatically worthless. But at the same time, Bukharin was surely suggesting that he was still following the same trade, under different orders.
Vyshinsky now scored a point by turning to Rykov, who again admitted knowing that espionage was being conducted by the Byelorussian “national fascists,” and that “in my opinion, Bukharin also knew.” Bukharin simply retorted that he had not known. His connections with the Austrian police, which Vyshinsky raised, “consisted of my imprisonment in an Austrian fortress.”
Vyshinsky:
Accused Sharangovich, you were a Polish spy, although you have been in prison?
Sharangovich:
Yes, although I have been in prison.
Bukharin:
I have been in a Swedish prison, twice in a Russian prison, and in a German prison.
112
Bukharin went on to elaborate the negotiations for and the structure of the alleged “bloc,” from his conversation with Kamenev in 1928 on, with special attention to the Ryutin Platform. Again Ulrikh intervened, “So far you are still beating about the bush, you are saying nothing about your crimes.”
Bukharin spoke of the planned coup of 1935 by Yenukidze and Peterson—of which nothing had ever come. And, continuing his evidence at the next session, on the morning of 7 March, he developed this theme to include the Tukhachevsky group. (Vyshinsky here objected to his use of the term “palace coup.”) He admitted also sending insurrectionary organizers to the provinces, but denied all knowledge of their connection with White Guard and German fascist circles. Again there was a long tussle as Vyshinsky tried to get him to admit and Rykov to confirm that he knew of this. But this time, Rykov rallied and supported Bukharin’s point.
Rykov went on to deny knowing that Karakhan was a spy. And on the whole issue of negotiation with Germany, Bukharin admitted that Trotsky had spoken of ceding the Ukraine, but that he himself “did not consider Trotsky’s instructions as binding on me.” On Karakhan’s alleged negotiations:
Vyshinsky:
Did you endorse these negotiations?
Bukharin:
Or disavow? I did not disavow them; consequently I endorsed them.
Vyshinsky:
I ask you, did you endorse them, or not?
Bukharin:
I repeat, Citizen Prosecutor: since I did not disavow them, I consequently endorsed them.
Vyshinsky:
Consequently you endorsed them?
Bukharin:
If I did not disavow them, consequently I endorsed them.
Vyshinsky:
That’s what I am asking you: that is to say, you endorsed them?
Bukharin:
So then ‘consequently’ is the same as ‘that is to say’.
Vyshinsky:
What do you mean, ‘that is to say’?
Bukharin:
That is to say, I endorsed them.
Vyshinsky:
But you say that you learnt of this
post factum
.
Bukharin:
Yes, the one does not contradict the other in the slightest.
113
Vyshinsky again started to hammer at the espionage theme, raising with Rykov the matter of the Byelorussians. And now, for half an hour, came one of the most striking exchanges in the whole of the public trials:
Vyshinsky:
Isn’t this an espionage connection?
Rykov:
No.
Vyshinsky:
What kind of connection is it?
Rykov:
There was an espionage connection there, too.
Vyshinsky:
But was there an espionage connection maintained by a part of your organization with the Poles on your instructions?
Rykov: