In spite of Smirnov’s recalcitrance, the political preparation for the case could now go forward. On 14 January 1936 there had been a ruling from the Central Committee that all members should turn in their Party documents for new ones, with a view to screening unworthy members. Now, on 29 July, a top-secret letter of the Central Committee was sent out to Provincial, Territory, Republican, City, and District Committees. It quoted confessions, some of them dated as late as 25 July, by Zinoviev, Kamenev, Mrachkovsky, Bakaev, Pikel, Dreitzer, BermanYurin, N. Lurye, M. Lurye, and Reingold—but not Smirnov—among those who were to appear in court, together with Karev, Motorin, Esterman, Kuklin, and others to be implicated but not produced. The picture presented was of a detailed array of assassinations planned by the Trotskyite–Zinovievite bloc, to be carried out by numbers of named accomplices, and in particular the Kirov murder. In some respects, it gave a fuller account than that of the official publication of the trial itself.84 The letter also pointed out that several of those now under arrest had, in spite of all previous measures, managed to keep their Party cards, though “all boundaries have been obliterated” between “spies, provocateurs, White Guards, kulaks” and “the Trotskyites and Zinovievites.” It called for a renewal of “revolutionary vigilance,” and asserted firmly the main duty of the Party membership in the forthcoming period: “The inalienable quality of every Bolshevik under present conditions should be the ability to recognize an enemy of the Party, no matter how well he may be masked.”85
On receiving the circular, local officials began a further round of feverish delation. The First Secretary of Kozelsk rayon, for example, wrote to the Provincial Committee denouncing not only local inhabitants, but also people he had met in previous posts and now thought suspicious, commenting in each case, “It is possible that up to this time he has not been unmasked.”86
This was, in fact, the political preparation of the Party branches throughout the country for the campaign about to be launched, in connection with the Zinoviev Trial, against all the enemies of the General Secretary. As one result, even longer lists of anti-Soviet elements than those already in existence were compiled everywhere, and the mass Purge began to get under way.
Meanwhile Smirnov, incriminated in the Secret Letter, was still giving trouble. A Soviet periodical has lately printed excerpts from Smirnov’s NKVD interrogations. He denied that his alleged “organization” existed. When told that he had sent out directives through his mother when in prison in 1935, he replied, “A lie.” He admitted that he had (evidently in 1932) received a letter from Trotsky, and had answered it. Trotsky had written about the rise of Fascism, and Smirnov had written back about the situation in the Soviet Union, and nothing more.87
Further pressure was brought on Smirnov through his former wife, Aleksandra Safonova, also implicated. She was brought to a “confrontation” with him in Gay’s office, where she pleaded with him to go to trial. Since Kamenev and Zinoviev had already confessed, she is also said to have argued, it would be best for him to stick with them and go to public trial, in which case there would be no question of shooting them.88 Safonova had accepted the argument that the opposition must “disarm” when Yezhov, as Secretary of the Central Committee, had told her that her evidence was needed by the Party, and she followed instructions. She now said that in 1930 and 1931 Smirnov, Ter-Vaganyan, Mrachkovsky, and she had formed a “Trotskyite Center” with terrorist aims; that Trotsky had sent directives with that purpose; and that Smirnov had spoken in their home of the need to kill Stalin.
Smirnov replied, as before, that he had met Trotsky’s son in Berlin and had exchanged letters with Trotsky, but that there had never been any terrorist plans, and that no “Center” ever existed.
Safonova then said, “You, Ivan Nikitich, want to hide in the bushes. You don’t want to disarm.” Smirnov answered, “Oh, Shura, Shura. I want to die at peace.”89
Smirnov seems also to have been “confronted” with Zinoviev, who said he was confessing and argued in favor of Smirnov doing so too. Zinoviev said that he really believed that his admissions would open the way to his returning to the Party, and that Stalin—whom he referred to by his old Party nickname of Kobawas at present the focus of the Party’s will, and would come to a compromise with the opposition, since in practice he could not do without the “Lenin guard” in the long run. Smirnov replied that, on the contrary, it was obvious that the Politburo wanted the physical annihilation of the opposition; otherwise there was no point in the case.90
The interrogator told Smirnov that it was useless for him to resist, as there were plenty of witnesses against him. And, moreover, it was not only Smirnov but his family too that would suffer—as the assassin Nikolayev’s had suffered. Smirnov knew nothing of the arrest of his family and took this simply to be a disgusting threat by the interrogator. But shortly afterward, on his way to an interrogation, he saw his daughter Olga at the other end of the corridor, held by two guards. She is reported later in prison. (Her mother, Smirnov’s wife Varvara, was sent to a women’s camp at Kotlas and was shot in the camp in April or May 1938, during a mass execution of 1,300 undesirables. However, his former wife, Safonova, who had testified against him, remained alive but imprisoned, until 1958, when she described her testimony as “ninety percent lies.”)91
Under all these pressures, Smirnov finally gave way, but he would only consent to make a partial confession. This would not have been accepted from anyone else, but time was getting short and Stalin wanted Smirnov in the trial at all costs. Smirnov also managed to have Safonova removed from the list of defendants, and she only appeared as a “witness.” All this rankled with Stalin, and Yagoda and Mironov were later charged with having shielded Smirnov.92 By 5 August,fn3 Smirnov was well into his confession. Even now, a final decision on who would appear in the trial had not been taken. On 7 August, Vyshinsky presented a formal indictment of twelve named accused. Stalin corrected some of the phraseology, and added “Lurye” twice, upon which the two Luryes were included. The revised indictment, presented to Stalin on 10 August, thus had fourteen names. He then added those of Ter-Vaganyan and Evdokimov. Neither had been mentioned in the Secret Letter of 29 July; Evdokimov had not even been questioned about the case: he is said to have been treated with particular brutality, in view, doubtless, of the short notice.93 On 11 August, the official orders for holding the trial were given by the Central Executive Committee, and the final indictment is dated 14 August. On the same day, Ter-Vaganyan, who had vaguely admitted the existence of the “Center” on 16 July, was making a full confession.
The last confessions were eased, and the earlier ones fortified, on 11 August by a decree which (going back, to some extent, on that of 1 December 1934) reestablished public hearings and the use of lawyers, and allowed appeals from the accused for three days after the sentence.94 The timing of this decree is decisive. While clearly intended to strengthen the accused’s hope that a reprieve would be granted, it was also designed, of course, to put the same idea about among the apprehensive Party membership. These included some of the interrogators themselves. It seems that reassurances that no death sentences would be carried out were believed by, for example, Boris Berman, and that this led him to quite sincere advice to Ter-Vaganyan that the best course open to him was to surrender.95 And with the publication of the indictment on 15 August, it was at last necessary to take such measures as would best put the case over to the Party as a whole. The preparatory work had been done in great secrecy. There was no preliminary discussion in the Politburo. “The trial came as a complete surprise not only for the rank and file of Party workers but also to members of the Central Committee and some members of the Politburo,” in the sense that they were only informed about it when the Secret Letter of 29 July reached them.96