Vyshinsky then tackled Bukharin directly, in an attempt to make him concede that the atmosphere in the Party had been so heated in 1918 that assassination would have been rational. Bukharin denied this, and again denied the evidence:
Vyshinsky:
But why do both former ‘Left’ Communists and ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries say so—everybody?
Bukharin:
No, not everybody: of two ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries, only one said it.
130
With a final “categorical denial,” Bukharin’s examination was over.
In the indictment, the cases of Yakovleva, Mantsev, Ossinsky, Kamkov, and Karelin are among those mentioned as being the subject of separate proceedings. The death dates of both Kamkov131 and Karelin132 are now given as 1938. We can presume that they were in fact executed for their alleged part in the plan to assassinate Lenin, and similarly with Ossinsky, sentenced in secret by the Military Collegium and shot on 1 September 1938.133 Yakovleva, whose evidence had been the most satisfactory, survived until 1941.134
THE DOCTOR-POISONERS
On the morning of 8 March, the most horrible and obscure of all the crimes alleged against the bloc were reached. Over the next two days, the system of alleged “medical murders” carried out directly under Yagoda’s orders was the main subject of examination.
The plan to charge the opposition with these medical murders seems to have been adopted soon after Yezhov took over the NKVD. Of the doctors concerned, as we shall see, Pletnev was already embroiled in the NKVD’s plans by December 1936. Pletnev’s hope “as late as 5 March” (1937)135 that the medical world would protect him presumably refers to the date of his arrest. Kryuchkov, Gorky’s secretary, also involved, was denounced (with other writers associated with Yagoda) on 17 May, but his date of arrest is now given as 5 October, with the arrest dates of others directly involved in the poison plots as Dr. Levin, 2 December; Maximov-Dikovsky (Kuibyshev’s secretary), 11 December; and Dr. Kazakov, 16 December—which may indicate that a final decision to go ahead with these charges was not made until a fairly late stage.136
There were four of these alleged murders. First, in May 1934, Menzhinsky, Yagoda’s predecessor as Head of the OGPU, had been killed by his favorite doctor, Kazakov, under instructions from Levin. Then, in the same month, Gorky’s son Maxim Peshkov had been killed by Levin and Pletnev. Next came Kuibyshev, killed by Levin and Pletnev; and finally Gorky himself, killed by Levin and Pletnev.
The sixty-eight-year-old Dr. Levin gave the first evidence. “He, together with Yagoda, was the organiser”137 of the medical killings. He had served in the Kremlin since 1920 “on the staff of the medical services of the NKVD.”138 Levin had worked for Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky, and Yagoda, which can certainly be taken as showing him not merely in the medical confidence of the OGPU–NKVD; as he said himself, he enjoyed “a definite recognition and confidence in me on the part of the head of” the OGPU.139 He also “had a feeling that I would perish with Yagoda.”140 In fact, he may be regarded as to some degree another of Yagoda’s NKVD circle, all of whom were to go to the execution cellars.fn2
Levin remarks, too, that he has “told the truth from the first day I entered prison.”141 If that is taken at its face value, it is so different from the attitudes of other non-Party accused that it indicates a high state of discipline vis-à-vis the NKVD.
Bukharin, in a brief cross-questioning of Dr. Levin, asked if he had not been a counter-revolutionary saboteur in 1918 after the Bolshevik seizure of power, as if this were a generally known fact.142 This question seems quite irrelevant—and indeed, if anything, damaging to the accused in general—but if we seek a special implication, it must be that Levin had been especially susceptible to NKVD blackmail and threats about his past.
Levin gave model evidence on the layout of the alleged crimes. As developed in his and the other testimony, it amounted (1) to getting Kazakov, Menzhinsky’s pet quack, to kill him by an overdose of his patent method, so that Yagoda could inherit the leadership of the OGPU; (2) to killing Peshkov by having Gorky’s secretary, Kryuchkov, get him drunk and leave him passed out on a garden bench in the cold (though it was May), and loosing Levin, Vinogradov, and Pletnev on him when he caught a chill; and (3) to arranging bonfires to affect Gorky’s weak lungs,fn3 and then taking him to see his granddaughters when they had colds, which he caught, thus also falling into the hands of Levin and Pletnev. Kuibyshev (4) had simply been given bad treatment for his heart, but had finally died for lack of medical attention, which, in the circumstances, it might have been thought, he was lucky to avoid.
Levin explained how Yagoda had recruited him in a highly plausible way, which brought a sigh even from the trained audience:
Levin:
He said: ‘Have in mind that you cannot help obeying me, you cannot get away from me. Once I place confidence in you with regard to this thing, once confidence is placed in you with regard to this matter, you must appreciate it and you must carry this out. You cannot tell anybody about it. Nobody will believe you. They will believe not you, but me. Have no doubts about this but go ahead and do it. You think it over, how you could do it, whose services you could enlist for this. I will call you in a few days.’ He reiterated that my refusal to carry this out would spell ruin for me and my family. I figured that I had no other way out, that I had to submit to him. Again, if you look at it retrospectively, if you look back at 1932 from today, when you consider how all-powerful Yagoda appeared to me, a non-Party person, then, of course, it was very difficult to evade his threats, his orders.
143
Kazakov was called to corroborate Levin’s story about Menzhinsky. Unlike Levin and Pletnev, Kazakov was not a doctor of reputation, though evidently honest in his eccentricities. He employed (as Bulanov was to remark) “very intricate drugs that were not only unknown to medicine, but not very well known to Kazakov himself.”
Menzhinsky had sworn by Kazakov’s “lysates” method. In Dr. Levin’s evidence, there is a sardonic description of “much talk of a miraculous medicine” produced by a Professor Schwartzman, who had earlier made a good impression on Menzhinsky, ending in disappointment: “Then there was another sensation, there was a lot of publicity about Ignaty Nikolaievich Kazakov and he (Menzhinsky) turned to Kazakov…. He was one of the small group of important people at that time who were under the impression that they were being helped by him a great deal.”144 There had even been a special meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars to discuss Kazakov’s method—one of several examples of the leadership’s tendency to swallow ideas rejected by specialists of the science in question.
Kazakov confirmed Levin’s evidence, and said he had been taken to see Yagoda personally, submitting out of fear on hearing the remark “If you make any attempt to disobey me, I shall find quick means of exterminating you.”145
Yagoda was now called. He looked very different from his old self. His hair seemed whiter, and his former jauntiness had gone.146 But he still showed a certain bitter energy. His evidence was extraordinary, and must be significant—even though he was to withdraw it later in the day.
Vyshinsky:
Accused Yagoda, did you instruct Levin to tell Kazakov that he would be asked to come and have a talk with you?
Yagoda:
The first time I saw this man was here.
Vyshinsky:
So you gave no such instructions to Levin?
Yagoda: