Army Commissars Bulin and Slavin are said to have given offense to Stalin by not putting their names down to speak against the accused. However, other officers, like the Central Committee members three months earlier, joined in the denunciations; Dybenko is reported vilifying Gamarnik.107
The “dossier” seems to have had its use in giving the limited Stalin–Yezhov circle a proper sense of outrage and urgency. And since we are told that Stalin used it “to instruct the judges to pass a death sentence on Tukhachevsky,”108 it is possible that they, or some of them, were shown or told about the document. But it received no official use. Stalin seems to have decided that he could after all manage without it, and that the well-tried system of confession could provide all the evidence needed. It would have been awkward even in a secret court if one of the officers could perhaps have exposed the fraud through some point which had escaped Yezhov’s notice. And good fakes though they doubtless were, they had not been planned with a full feeling for the nuances of Stalin’s technique.fn8
It seems clear, in any case, that “that quickfire court” found the accused guilty “on the basis of the verbal statements of Stalin at the Military Soviet” without the “dossier” being raised,109 even to substantiate the charges of recruitment by Nazi intelligence which were laid. (In the indictment in the Bukharin Trial, it is asserted that that case was based on
the materials not only of the present investigation, but also on the materials of the trials which have taken place in various parts of the U.S.S.R., and in particular the trial of the group of military conspirators, Tukhachevsky and others, who were convicted by a special session of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. on 11 June 1937.110
All the accused had eventually confessed under torture.
The interrogations continued right up to the morning of the trial, when Tukhachevsky was required to implicate Corps Commander Apanesenko and others. When Vyshinsky saw the accused, to complete the formalities (a process that took two to two and a half hours for the whole group), they admitted their guilt and made no complaints.111
Stalin, who was keeping direct personal control, saw Vyshinsky twice on 9 June, and, with Molotov, Kaganovich, and Yezhov, received Ulrikh on 11 June, doubtless to give final instructions.112 The membership of the court which tried the generals consisted, in addition to Ulrikh as Chairman, of Marshals Blyukher and Budenny, Army Commanders Shaposhnikov, Alksnis, Belov, Dybenko, and Kashirin,fn9 and Corps Commander Goryachev. Only the second and third survived the Purges.
When the court opened, Ulrikh stated the proceedings by asking, “Do you confess to the testimony which you gave at the NKVD interrogation?”
Although the defendants mostly confessed in general terms, only Primakov, who had been in prison for almost a year, admitted everything, and said that he had personally told the investigation of the names of more than seventy conspirators. Uborevich denied the charges, upon which the court had an hour’s break and then went on to the other accused. The rest admitted that they (and Gamarnik) had had conversations about replacing Voroshilov, though denying that these had any criminal intent. Putna admitted that he had had personal relations with I. I. Smirnov, and Feldman that he had had them with Pyatakov; but they seem to have denied that these connections were criminal.113
They were also charged with various military errors. Budenny, from the bench, attacked them for overemphasizing the role of the tanks at the expense of the cavalry.114
As to complicity with the Nazis, the court relied on the fact that several of the officers had had connections with Germany: Kork had been Military Attaché in Berlin; Yakir had lectured at the German General Staff Academy; and Tukhachevsky had negotiated on the Soviet assistance in rearming Germany—but, as he said, this was before Hitler’s coming to power.115 Yakir confessed in a general sense, but when asked to confirm certain points said he could not add to his written evidence. Harangued by Ulrikh to the effect that the German officer attached to him on his last visit to Berlin had recruited him for Hitler, Yakir denied direct implication in espionage. Tukhachevsky denied connections with Polish espionage agencies, and more generally said merely that perhaps some contacts “might be considered espionage.” Kork remained silent when the espionage charge was put to him. Uborevich said that he had not committed espionage.116
Another Soviet report says: “The court-martial was held behind closed doors…. Some witnesses’ statements, which coincide, say that Tukhachevsky, speaking to one of the accused, who was talking about his connections with Trotsky, said, ‘Have you been dreaming about all this?’”117
As usual, promises had been made to the accused that confession in court would save their lives.118 All were condemned to death.
The military “judges” clearly had no real say, and it is plausible that (as one account, based on a conversation with the Assistant Head of the NKVD Foreign Department, has it) their signatures were attached to the verdict after the executions at a conference with Yezhov.119 In any case, Stalin asked Yezhov how the members of the court had conducted themselves. Yezhov replied that apart from Ulrikh, only Budenny had cooperated enthusiastically, with the others almost silent. This angered Stalin.120
Rumors of the manner of the generals’ end were many and various: it is reported that they were shot, not in the cellars, but in the courtyard of the NKVD building at 11 Dzerzhinsky Street, during the daytime, with NKVD trucks being revved up to cover the sound of the shots.
Khrushchev tells us that “when Yakir was shot he exclaimed: ‘Long live the Party, long live Stalin!’ … When Stalin was told how Yakir had behaved before his death, he cursed Yakir.”121
Khrushchev reports this “long live Stalin!” as if it were a simple case of political devotion. But the generals were not really naive enough to believe that Stalin had no responsibility for their fate. Yakir was an old Communist, perfectly able to carry out political activity at the moment of death. And the program of support for Stalin, combined with condemnation of the NKVD, was already in existence. It was the line on which the maximum support for a program opposed to the Purge could be mobilized. It seems plausible to think that Yalcir may have been trying, in fact, to establish an anti-Yezhov “platform.”
But, at least equally compelling, we know he had thought of his family, and it was clearly not in their interests for him to utter words of defiance or abuse. He had made a last appeal for them. Two days before he was shot, he sent Voroshilov this letter:
To K. Ye. Voroshilov. I ask you, in memory of my many years of honest service in the Red Army in the past, to give instructions that my family, helpless and quite innocent, shall be looked after and given assistance. I have addressed the same plea to N. I. Yezhov.
Yakir, 9 June 1937.
On his copy, Voroshilov minuted, “In general I doubt the honesty of a dishonest person. K. Voroshilov. 10 June 1937.”122
Yakir’s attempt to save his family was unsuccessful. His wife, his “close companion for twenty years,” was at once exiled to Astrakhan with her son Peter, and their passports were confiscated. In the Volga town, they met the families of Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Gamarnik, and others. The boy’s grandfather had hidden the paper containing the charge against Yakir from the mother, and she only saw it when Uborevich’s wife showed it to her.
The papers published a faked letter from Mrs. Yakir repudiating her husband. She protested to the NKVD, which rebuffed her, but later told her in a threatening manner that it was willing to receive a withdrawal, though not necessarily to publish it.123