Yakir went back to Kiev well pleased with this result, but his pleasure did not last long. For soon after, Voroshilov rang him up and said that on the very next day Shmidt had reaffirmed his confessions, and wished to inform Voroshilov and Yakir that his early evidence was true.42 (Shmidt had given, or was shortly to give, evidence which was not to be circulated to Yakir and the other commanders, for it implicated Yakir himself. The Divisional Commander was required to confess that at Yakir’s instigation he had planned to raise his tank unit in revolt.)fn5
After all this, Yakir could not have believed in the accusations. And he is also reported as having said that those shot after the Pyatakov Trial were innocent.43 It must have been clear to Stalin that Yakir was against the new purge. And his boldness in insisting on the interview with Shmidt shows him not lacking in undesirable courage.
On 3 March 1937, at the plenum itself, after the arrest of Rykov and Bukharin, Stalin spoke briefly about what harm “a few spies in the Red Army” could do. And Molotov “directly incited to the murder of the military cadres, accusing its participants of lack of desire to develop the struggle against ‘enemies of the people.’”44
The crucial political victory of the Purge had been won at the plenum. The organizational basis for extending it was also now becoming adequate. It was in April that the NKVD, purged by Yezhov, became ready for further operations. It was “soon after the plenum” that “careerists and provocateurs in the organs of the NKVD fabricated a story ‘on the counter-revolutionary military fascist organization’ in the armed forces.”45
Hitherto, Stalin’s victims had almost all been former members of the oppositions. This was, of course, true even of Bukharin and Rykov. Now, for the first time, Stalin was to begin a massive offensive against his own supporters everywhere.
With the oppositionists, even Bukharin and Rykov, the Party elite may to some degree have felt that this was a sort of very rough justice after all—and justice had been rough in the Soviet Union for a long time. Or they may have been influenced to some extent by the notion that at least a potential alternative leadership was being dealt with. But if undoubtedly loyal followers of Stalin, men who had taken no part in opposition movements, were now to be destroyed, then no one was safe. And no principle was involved. In such circumstances, it was quite reasonable for Stalin to have thought that the Army leadership, whose representatives may have opposed even the Bukharin purge, or at any rate had only assented with obvious reluctance, might finally be driven into resistance. Stalin himself, in destroying the principle of political loyalty, would be undermining the restraints which had so held them. Thus it is natural enough that he should have planned his blow at the Army leadership to coincide exactly with the period when he was turning on his own insufficiently subservient followers.
Meanwhile, Stalin proceeded gradually. On Yagoda’s arrest on 3 April 1937, his post as Commissar of Communications was taken by Army Commander Khalepsky, Tukhachevsky’s tank expert—an absurd as well as a sinister transfer.
Corps Commander Gekker, Head of Red Army Foreign Liaison and thus a particularly sensitive figure in espionage charges, disappeared in April. During the same month, Corps Commander Garkavi, commanding the Urals Military District, was taken in. He was one of Yakir’s closest associates; in fact, they were married to sisters. Again, Yakir showed undesirable boldness, by going to see Voroshilov and eventually Stalin. Stalin soothed him, saying that serious charges against Garkavi had been made by those already under arrest, but that if he was innocent he would be released.46
On 28 April 1937 Pravda published a pointed call to the Red Army to master politics and to fight the internal, as well as the external, foe. This powerful, if oblique, blow was understood by the already shaken High Command.
At the May Day Parade, Tukhachevsky was the first to arrive on the tribune reserved for the Army leaders. He walked alone, with his thumbs in his belt, to the reviewing stand. Yegorov then took his position, but did not look at or salute his colleague. Gamarnik also joined the silent rank. A gloomy and icy atmosphere surrounded the soldiers. At the end of the Army parade, Tukhachevsky did not wait for the civilian march-past, but walked out of the Red Square.47
He had been nominated to attend the coronation of King George VI. On 21 April, Yezhov reported that the NKVD had learned of a plot by German and Polish agencies to commit a terrorist act against Tukhachevsky if he went to the coronation in London, and next day the Politburo decided to avoid this “serious danger” by not sending him.48 On 4 May, the British were told that for reasons of health Tukhachevsky would not now be able to go. Admiral Orlov took his place.
An officer who saw Tukhachevsky several times in May describes him as looking unusually gloomy after an interview with Voroshilov. A few days later, he went to see Voroshilov again. Voroshilov was cold and formal, and simply announced to him his removal from his post as Deputy Commissar of Defense and transfer to the Volga Military District, a backwoods command with three infantry divisions and assorted troops.
Tukhachevsky commented to a friend, “It is not so much a matter of Voroshilov as of Stalin.”49
This posting, and others, were made official on 10 and 11 May, in a series of shifts among the higher officers which gave the clearest evidence yet of Stalin’s animus. Gamarnik, as well as Tukhachevsky, was relieved of the position of Deputy Commissar of Defense. More deviously, Yakir was transferred from Kiev to Leningrad; unlike Tukhachevsky’s posting, this was not an obvious demotion. Nor were either of the two ignominiously rushed to their posts, remaining in Moscow and Kiev, respectively, until almost the end of the month.
At the same time, a decree (dated 8 May)50 restored the old system of “dual command,” with the powers of the political commissars being greatly increased relative to those of the fighting officers. The original powers of political commissars had been given them because the military specialists of the Civil War were mainly ex-Tsarist officers who were not regarded as trustworthy. The reimposition of the system on a Communist officer corps was an extraordinary demonstration of lack of trust in the new cadres. On 9 May, an “instruction” was put out calling for greater vigilance .51
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the net was closing. On 22 to 25 April 1937, Yagoda’s former Deputy, G. E. Prokofiev, and his former Head of the NKVD Special Department, M. I. Gay, who had interrogated Shmidt, were forced to give testimony about the criminal connections of Tukhachevsky and other officers with Yagoda. (Yagoda himself, at this stage, refused to confirm this.) On 27 April, A. I. Volovich, arrested Deputy Head (under Pauker) of the Operative Department, also implicated Tukhachevsky in a plot to seize power.52 Also in April, the interrogators were ordered to get evidence from Putna and Primakov against Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Feldman, and others.53
Frinovsky, Yezhov’s Deputy People’s Commissar in charge of State Security matters, now called in the Deputy Head of the Moscow Province NKVD, Radzivilovsky, and asked him if he had any important military men among his prisoners. Radzivilovsky said that he had a General Staff officer, Brigade Commander M. E. Medvedev, lately expelled from the Party and the Army for “Trotskyism.” Frinovsky said that a huge plot in the Red Army needed uncovering. Radzivilovsky obtained the necessary confession from Medvedev by “physical” means. On 8 May, he confessed that he had long been privy to a conspiracy in the central apparatus of the Red Army. Medvedev was brought before Frinovsky and Yezhov, and told them that his testimony was invented. Yezhov sent him back for further interrogation, after which he confirmed his earlier confession to Yezhov, who then forwarded it to the Central Committee.