He went on to denounce Trotsky and Trotskyism, and to point out that his evidence had been entirely satisfactory to the prosecution.
Rosengoltsfn5 rehearsed his revolutionary past, starting when, as a child of ten, he had hidden illegal literature. He made a reference to his children, and then ended by unexpectedly beginning to sing a well-known song about the USSR: “… I don’t know any other country where we can breathe so freely.” The NKVD men in the audience are reported jumping to their feet in case their intervention was needed. But Rosengolts then broke down and resumed his seat.203
Yagoda, too, “in low fear-ridden tones,”204 dwelt on his underground work for the Party, from the age of fourteen, and of such later services as “vast construction jobs—the canals” (that is, the forced-labor projects). He continued to oppose Vyshinsky on one point:
I am not a spy and have not been one. I think that in the definition of a spy or espionage we will not differ. But a fact is a fact. I had no direct connections with abroad, there are no instances of my directly handing over any information. I am not jesting when I say that if I had been a spy dozens of countries could have closed down their intelligence services—there would have been no need for them to maintain such a mass of spies as have now been caught in the Soviet Union.205
The doctors and secretaries pleaded Yagoda’s threats to them. Levin lapsed by referring to his great esteem for Gorky, and had to be called to order for “blasphemy.” Pletnev mentioned his medical work, adding that the NKVD had given him facilities to write a monograph; he had known nothing of the “bloc.” Bulanov criticized his fellow accused:
I think, perhaps I am mistaken, that some of them showed signs of wanting to deceive the Party even now, although each of them invariably began by saying that he fully and entirely shares responsibility, pleads guilty and is answerable. But this was a matter of form, general declarations. In a number of cases they tried to deny their guilt by pleading ignorance of some point.206
Bukharin’s speech, even more than Rykov’s, was a brilliant development of the line he had taken throughout. He admitted leadership of the “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites,” and accepted political responsibility for all the crimes. For instance:
I admit that I am responsible both politically and legally for the defeatist orientation, for it did dominate in the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’, although I affirm that personally I did not hold this position….
I further consider myself responsible both politically and legally for wrecking activities, although I personally do not remember having given directions about wrecking activities. I did not talk about this. I once spoke positively on this subject to Grinko. Even in my testimony I mentioned that I had once told Radek that I considered this method of struggle as not very expedient. Yet Citizen the State Prosecutor makes me out to be a leader of the wrecking activities.207
As Bukharin destroyed the prosecution case against him, “Vyshinsky, powerless to intervene, sat uneasily in his place, looking embarrassed and yawning ostentatiously.”208
While accepting group responsibility, Bukharin went on to deny that the group, as apart from the central “bloc” of politicians, existed:
Citizen the Prosecutor explained in the speech for the prosecution that the members of a gang of brigands might commit robberies in different places, but that they would nevertheless be responsible for each other. That is true, but in order to be a gang the members of the gang of brigands must know each other and be in more or less close contact with each other. Yet I first learnt the name of Sharangovich from the indictment, and I first saw him here in court. It was here that I first learnt about the existence of Maximov, I have never been acquainted with Pletnev, I have never been acquainted with Kazakov, I have never spoken about counter-revolutionary matters with Rosengolts, I have never spoken about it to Zelensky, I have never in my life spoken to Bulanov, and so on. Incidentally, even the Prosecutor did not ask me a single question about these people…. Consequently, the accused in this dock are not a group.209
The bloc had supposedly been formed in 1928, long before Hitler came to power: “How then can it be asserted that the bloc was organized on the instructions of fascist intelligence services?”
On espionage he took the same line: “Citizen the Prosecutor asserts that I was one of the major organizers of espionage, on a par with Rykov. What are the proofs? The testimony of Sharangovich, of whose existence I had not even heard until I read the indictment.”210 The prosecution had proved that he had met Khodzhayev and discussed politics, and taken this as proof of espionage contact. There was no logic here.
He went on similarly to “categorically deny my complicity in the assassination of Kirov, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky and Maxim Peshkov,”211 and in the 1918 case with Lenin:
As to the plan of physical extermination, I categorically deny it, and here the logic to which Citizen the State Prosecutor referred, namely, that forcible arrest implied physical extermination, will not help in the least. The Constituent Assembly was arrested, but nobody suffered physically. We arrested the faction of the ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries, yet not a single man of them suffered physically. The ‘Left’ Socialist-Revolutionaries arrested Dzerzhinsky, yet he did not suffer physically.212
He then remarked tellingly, “The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence.”213
Vyshinsky flushed at the words.
Thus Bukharin refuted the charges in detail. But he admitted them in general. He had been a counter-revolutionary conspirator in “this stinking underground life.” He had “degenerated” into an enemy of Socialism. He attacked Western commentators who had suggested that the confessions were not voluntary, and rejected the sympathy to be expected from Western Socialists. He was guilty of treason, the organization of kulak uprisings, the preparation of (unspecified) terrorist acts. He hoped that his execution would be “the last severe lesson” to those who had wavered in their support of the USSR and its leadership.214
At 9:25 P.M. on 12 March the court retired. It returned and pronounced verdict at 4:00 A.M. on 13 March. All the accused were found guilty on all charges. All were sentenced to death except for Pletnev, who got twenty-five years; Rakovsky, twenty years; and Bessonov, fifteen years. Pletnev was resentenced, this time to death, on 8 September 1941, and was shot on 11 September 1941, as were Rakovsky and Bessonov. Bessonov’s liquidation is reported to have occurred in Orel prison, where Spiridonova was also executed at this time; and perhaps it was there that this final winding up of the Bukharin Trial took place.215
An Old Bolshevik remarked that apart from the use of relatives as hostages, he saw the 1938 confessions as based on total lack of political hope. In addition, in spite of everything, Stalin had continued his promise not to execute the Bukharinites. They knew he had gone back on his word in most other cases, but “a little hope goes a long way in such circumstances.”
Bukharin, nevertheless, must have known that his own attitude in court, fulfilling the minimum requirements only, would cost him his life. He had said in court that he was “almost certain” he would be dead after the trial. He and Rykov, unlike Zinoviev and Kamenev, were ready for death. They are said to have died firmly defying their captors.216
In 1965, Bukharin’s “last letter” was published in the West.217 This was at a time when there was talk of an official rehabilitation of Bukharin and Rykov. And, in fact, they had at least been exculpated of spying and terrorism, though only at a fairly obscure conference of historians.218 And Ikramov, Krestinsky, Zelensky, Khodzhayev, and Grinko had actually been rehabilitated, making nonsense of the charges against the rest. However, full rehabilitation of the two principals did not come for another twenty-three years.