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List of US human experiments

2023-07-15T19:58:23Z

Premier Otto: Made the first section of this new article

Sections of this page have been copied from this [https://mronline.org/2023/06/24/dark-history-how-the-u-s-experimented-on-its-own-people/ article]

== Domestic ==

* [[The Tuskeegee Experiment]] was started in 1932 by The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, under the pretense of observing the symptoms of syphilis, which was deemed incurable at the time. In Macon County, Alabama, the study was conducted, wherein 600 Black men aged 25 and above were enrolled as participants. Among them, 399 men were diagnosed with syphilis, while 201 did not have the infection. Penicillin as a syphilis treatment became widely available in 1947, however the men in the study were never provided with this option throughout the remaining 25 years of the experiment.
* [[Ebb Cade]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-07-15T18:57:41Z

Premier Otto: Finished chapter 13

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

Khrushchev implies that Stalin failed to call any such Congress. The little that has been published so far from the former Soviet archives suggests that the Stalin leadership wished to all a Congress in 1947 or 1948, but that this suggestion was rejected by the Politburo for some reason that has not been disclosed. The proposal was made by Andrei Zhdanov, who was very close to Stalin. It is highly unlikely that Zhdanov would have made this proposal without Stalin's agreement.

Furthermore as a member of the Politburo Khrushchev would have been there to hear it! This makes the fact that Khrushchev does not actually '''State''', in so many words, that Stalin "refused" or "failed" to call a congress, significant: many in his audience may have been aware of the plan for an earlier conference. Nor did Khrushchev mention the war of 1941-45 or the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. If peacetime years only are counted, then a Congress in 1947 or 1948 would have been timely - Three '''peacetime''' years (1940-1, 1946, 1947) since the Eighteenth Party in 1939.

So once again Khrushchev was not being honest: a Congress was planned for 1947 or 1948, but was never held. Khrushchev must have known the details of this very interesting discussion, including the reasons for not calling the Congress. But he never alluded to the fact at all. Nor did he or any of his successors ever release the transcript of this and succeeding CC Plenums. It has not been released to date.

Khrushchev also made the following similar and equally false accusation:

"It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members."

Even Boris Nikolaevsky's note to the original ''New'' ''Leader'' edition of this speech recognized that this is a lie, though in his final sentence Nikolaevsky shows that he prefers to believe Khrushchev rather than Stalin era Soviet sources.

"If one were to trust official Soviet sources, this statement by Khrushchev would not be true: According to the collection, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums (published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute of the Party Central Committee in 1954), one Central Committee plenum was held during the war January 27, 1944), when it was decided to give the various Union Republics the right to have their own foreign ministries and it was also decided to replace the lnternationale by the new Soviet national anthem. But it is likely that Khrushchev is correct, that there was no Central Committee plenum in 1944 and a fraud was perpetrated: The plenum was announced as having occurred although it never had."

Wishful thinking on Nikolaevsky's part! For if Khrushchev lied here, where else might he have lied? The 1989 Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech acknowledges that these two Plena were scheduled, and that one of them rook place, though without pointing up the obvious conclusion - that Khrushchev had lied.

In October 1941 leading party members were at the front and at this, the most crucial time of the war. With the Nazi armies near Moscow, they could not be recalled for a CC meeting. And not only was there, in fact, a CC Plenum on January 27, 1944 - it was the Plenum at which the Soviet National Anthem was changed. Virtually everyone in Khrushchev's 1956 audience had to know this! Yet Khrushchev still said it! Perhaps this is best explained as one of Khrushchev's blunders. It was certainly one of many falsehoods in his speech that must have been obvious even at the time.

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===
Khrushchev:

" The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many party, Soviet and economic activists, who were branded in 1937-1938 as "enemies" were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmatized and, often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges - falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes. [ ... ] It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) ... The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, ie., decidedly more than a majority."

This statement is one of my three "Special Cases" for the following reason: Khrushchev implies that Stalin was responsible for something, but does not say precisely what. Nor does he make an explicit accusation. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no "revelation:' and nothing to expose.

However. Khrushchev's statement was certainly meant to imply that Stalin simply had all these Party members murdered. That implication is completely false, and it will be refuted in the present section of this essay. However, even though this implication was dearly intentional and is, as we shall see, false, Stalin is not '''explicitly''' accused of anything.

We now have the report of this commission, known as the Pospelov Commission," after Petr N. Pospelov, director of the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin and secretary of the Central Committee. An historian, Pospelov directed this commission and later wrote the first draft of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech." During Stalin's lifetime Pospelov's works were among the most flagrant examples of the "cult." He became a dose ally of Khrushchev's. Pospelov is considered to have been a very politically-biased historian. Given his position, it would be surprising if he had not been. Even if we knew nothing about him, however, the report that bears his name would suggest that this was the case.

The Pospelov Commission report does indeed conclude that many executed Party figures were innocent. '''But the evidence cited in the report does not demonstrate their innocence'''. The Commission simply '''declared''' them innocent. The whole structure of the report makes it clear that its purpose was to find Stalin guilty of massive repressions and to hush up any evidence that contradicted this foregone conclusion.

We also have the summary reports prepared for the "rehabilitations" of those leading Party figures repressed during the 1930s. Some of these reports were prepared before the Pospelov Report, and most of them were prepared afterwards. Edited and published by Alexandr N. lakovlev's "Memorial" fund, they include the Pospelov Report within them, but much other material too. "Memorial" is a very anti-communist organization extremely hostile to Stalin. It can be assumed that they would have included any and all evidence that tended to make Stalin look guilty of repressing innocent people.

In this section we cover me following matters:

• There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that a significant number of the high-ranking Party members whose repression is cited by Khrushchev appear to have been guilty after all! At the very least, there is sufficient evidence of their guilt that the short summaries of their cases given in the Pospelov Report are utterly insufficient to establish their innocence.

• Ezhov was responsible for fabricating cases against many Soviet citizens. It is possible that this includes a few of the Party members cited by Khrushchev. Ezhov confessed to doing this and was tried and executed for it (See the separate section 17 on Ezhov, below).

• Many, if not most, of the investigations that established the fact of fabrications of confessions and torture against those arrested, were done during Beria's tenure as head of the NKVD, after he replaced Ezhov in late 1938.

• Khrushchev initiated a coverup of the specific reasons for arrests, investigative and trial information, and executions of Central Committee members.

Khrushchev referred to the large per centage of the Central Committee elected at, and Delegates to, the 17th Party Congress in 1934 who were subsequently the victims of repression. As with the more detailed "accounting" of the CC delegates later published Khrushchev gives no details about when and why different delegates were arrested, tried, and many of them executed. His account gives the impression that his was done in an undifferentiated way by "Stalin." But Khrushchev knew better. We can be sure of that, because we have the "rehabilitation" reports, including the Pospelov Commission report. Their contents make clear that there were several different reasons for these arrests and executions.

According to the Commission,

• "Most" were innocent. That implies that some were not, although the Commission did not specify which were guilty, except for Ezhov.

• Some were falsely implicated by others. Both Eikhe and E.G. Evdokimov speak of falsely accusing others, including CC members, when they were beaten or otherwise tortured.

• Some were tortured into signing false confessions and accusations against others.

In addition the Commission emphasizes that Stalin was sent confessions and interrogations of many of those accused, which he then sent on to others on the Politburo. We know this is true, since a few of these have now been published.

Both Khrushchev and the Pospelov Commission try to blame Beria for repression as well as Ezhov. But their own facts - many gathered during Beria's investigation of NKVD crimes and excesses during Ezhov's tenure - and their own statistics, give the lie to this theory. The reality is that Beria '''put an end''' to the "Ezhovshchina".

The Pospelov Commission report lifts the curtain a tiny bit on what was really going on, while Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" keeps it all resolutely hidden. But neither during the existence of the USSR nor since 1991 have the relevant materials been made available to researchers. So the truth of what went on continues to be covered up. It is reasonable to surmise that this is so because such a study would tend to exculpate both Stalin and Beria, whom Khrushchev and Co. went to great lengths to blame for everything.

In fact Khrushchev himself was one of those most guilty of mass repression. We discussed this briefly in the previous chapter and cite documents as evidence in the Appendix.

In this chapter and the following one, we will examine the case of each of the repressed Party figures named by Khrushchev. In none of these cases did the "rehabilitation" materials, including the Pospelov Commission report, cite sufficient evidence to establish their innocence. In fact, in a number of cases the report itself admits the existence of contradictory evidence.

Since the end of the USSR and the very partial opening of former Soviet archives to a few researchers some evidence relating to the charges against the high Party officials mentioned by Khrushchev and discussed in the Pospelov Commission's report has come to light. The Russian government has refused to make public the full investigative materials about any of these figures. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these men were guilty. But the evidence available to us today demonstrates the utter inadequacy of the Pospelov Commission's conclusions that these men were innocent. The vast preponderance of evidence available to us today points towards their guilt.

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===
Khrushchev:

"On the evening of December 1, 1934 on Stalin's initiative (without the approval of the Political Bureau which was passed two days later, casually) ..."

This is a false statement. Khrushchev was complaining to the Party leadership that this law had been signed by the Governmental body - the Presidium of the TsiK - but '''not''' by the Politburo of the Party.

But the Soviet Constitution said nothing about the Politburo of the Party, and there was thus no reason for the Politburo to pass on this decision. It was signed by Kalinin and Enukidze, Chairman and Secretary of the Central Executive Committee respectively. Khrushchev gives no evidence that it was passed "on Stalin's initiative." Stalin wrote a note on the draft that he was "for publication." This means it had been submitted to him to ask him if he agreed with publishing it. Since it had been submitted to him, this draft at least cannot have come from him in the first place. The question of this decree is distorted in the 1989 official Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech, which states that it was not submitted for confirmation by a session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. No evidence is given in support of this statement. But even if this is so - what does it have to do with Stalin? He was not Chairman of the CEC. And it is irrelevant to our purpose anyway, as Khrushchev was not referring to ratification by the CEC at all. He was complaining that the Politburo - a Party organ - had not passed on it beforehand. But there was no need for it to do so.

The fact that Khrushchev complained Stalin had not sought approval by me Politburo for this decree supports the theory put forward by some researchers that one of Khrushchev's motives in attacking Stalin was Stalin's attempt to move the Party out of governing society and running the economy. This theory has been supported in various ways by researchers such as lurii Zhukov, Arch Getty, and Iurii Mukhin, as well as the author of this present work.

=== Khrushchev implies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===
Khrushchev:

"It must be asserted that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination. There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, Nikolaev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was to protect the person of Kirov. A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behavior but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist assigned to protect Kirov was being brought for an interrogation, on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car "accident" in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in order to cover the traces of the organizers of Kirov's killing."

In this passage Khrushchev implied, though without stating it overtly, that Stalin was involved in Kirov"s murder. As Arch Getty has pointed out, several Soviet and post-Soviet commissions tried to find evidence that Stalin was involve in Kirov's assassination, and all failed. In a longer discussion in The Road To Terror (141-7) Getty concludes that there is no evidence at present that Stalin had anything to do with Kirov's assassination. Sudoplatov too concluded there was no reason to suspect Stalin in this assassination.

Getty, along with most Russian researchers, believes that Stalin "framed" - fabricated a false case against - the Oppositionists who were tried, convicted, and executed for involvement in Kirov's assassination. But there is good evidence that they were not framed at all. For example, though only a tiny amount of the investigative material from the Kirov assassination is even open to researchers, and much less than that has been published, we have a partial transcript of an interrogation of Nikolaev, the assassin, in which he incriminates an underground Zinovievist group that included Kotolynov, and a partial interrogation of Kotolynov of the day '''before''' in which he accepts "political and moral responsibility" for the assassination of Kirov by Nikolaev.

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===
Khrushchev:

"Mass repressions grew tremendously from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and [Andrei) Zhdanov, dated from Sochi on September 25, 1936, was addressed to Kaganovich, Molotov and other members of the Political Bureau. The content of the telegram was as follows:

'We deem it absolutely necessary and urgent that Comrade Ezhov be nominated to the post of People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. Yagoda has definitely proved himself to be incapable of unmasking the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. The OGPU is four years behind in this matter. This is noted by all party workers and by the majority of the representatives of the NKVD.'

This Stalinist formulation that the "NKVD is four years behind" in applying mass repression and that there is a necessity for "catching up" with the neglected work directly pushed the NKVD workers on the path of mass arrests and executions."

Stalin's phrase did not refer to repression, much less mass repression, at all but to dissatisfaction with the investigation of the recently-discovered Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. Getty shows that the phrase "four years behind" must mean four years, not from the Riutin Platform but from discovery of the bloc of Rights and Trotskyites formed in 1932. That is, it showed suspicion of Iagoda. Thurston and Jansen and Petrov agree.

In fact, Khrushchev knew this too, but hid the fact in the "Secret Speech." The Pospelov-Aristov draft of Khrushchev's speech stated directly that the "four years" was since the formation of the bloc in 1932. (Doklad Khrushcheva, 125). Pospelov and Aristov introduced the words Naverstat' upushchennoe ("catch up what has been neglected<nowiki>''</nowiki>). But this was an invention of theirs. Stalin had not used these words.

Khrushchev picked up this expression, but omitted the fact that the "four years" was since the formation of the bloc. The Pospelov Report also omitted reference to the "bloc," interpreting the "four years" to mean the need for repression (Doklad Khrushcheva, 220). An important part of Khrushchev's and Pospelov's basic premise is that no bloc existed.

It's clear that the "neglected work" Stalin and Zhdanov meant in their telegram was the investigation of the Right-Trotskyite bloc and its involvement with representatives of foreign governments in planning a "palace coup" and with "terror" (terror = assassination, murder). Both Getty and prominent Trotskyist scholar Pierre Broue affirm that such a bloc really existed. Their studies in Trotsky's own archives at Harvard University, opened in 1980, prove this beyond doubt.

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenum ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]
<references />
[[Category:Library works by Grover Furr]]
[[Category:Library works about the Soviet Union]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-05-13T21:33:00Z

Premier Otto: added chapter 12

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

Khrushchev implies that Stalin failed to call any such Congress. The little that has been published so far from the former Soviet archives suggests that the Stalin leadership wished to all a Congress in 1947 or 1948, but that this suggestion was rejected by the Politburo for some reason that has not been disclosed. The proposal was made by Andrei Zhdanov, who was very close to Stalin. It is highly unlikely that Zhdanov would have made this proposal without Stalin's agreement.

Furthermore as a member of the Politburo Khrushchev would have been there to hear it! This makes the fact that Khrushchev does not actually '''State''', in so many words, that Stalin "refused" or "failed" to call a congress, significant: many in his audience may have been aware of the plan for an earlier conference. Nor did Khrushchev mention the war of 1941-45 or the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. If peacetime years only are counted, then a Congress in 1947 or 1948 would have been timely - Three '''peacetime''' years (1940-1, 1946, 1947) since the Eighteenth Party in 1939.

So once again Khrushchev was not being honest: a Congress was planned for 1947 or 1948, but was never held. Khrushchev must have known the details of this very interesting discussion, including the reasons for not calling the Congress. But he never alluded to the fact at all. Nor did he or any of his successors ever release the transcript of this and succeeding CC Plenums. It has not been released to date.

Khrushchev also made the following similar and equally false accusation:

"It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members."

Even Boris Nikolaevsky's note to the original ''New'' ''Leader'' edition of this speech recognized that this is a lie, though in his final sentence Nikolaevsky shows that he prefers to believe Khrushchev rather than Stalin era Soviet sources.

"If one were to trust official Soviet sources, this statement by Khrushchev would not be true: According to the collection, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums (published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute of the Party Central Committee in 1954), one Central Committee plenum was held during the war January 27, 1944), when it was decided to give the various Union Republics the right to have their own foreign ministries and it was also decided to replace the lnternationale by the new Soviet national anthem. But it is likely that Khrushchev is correct, that there was no Central Committee plenum in 1944 and a fraud was perpetrated: The plenum was announced as having occurred although it never had."

Wishful thinking on Nikolaevsky's part! For if Khrushchev lied here, where else might he have lied? The 1989 Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech acknowledges that these two Plena were scheduled, and that one of them rook place, though without pointing up the obvious conclusion - that Khrushchev had lied.

In October 1941 leading party members were at the front and at this, the most crucial time of the war. With the Nazi armies near Moscow, they could not be recalled for a CC meeting. And not only was there, in fact, a CC Plenum on January 27, 1944 - it was the Plenum at which the Soviet National Anthem was changed. Virtually everyone in Khrushchev's 1956 audience had to know this! Yet Khrushchev still said it! Perhaps this is best explained as one of Khrushchev's blunders. It was certainly one of many falsehoods in his speech that must have been obvious even at the time.

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===
Khrushchev:

" The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many party, Soviet and economic activists, who were branded in 1937-1938 as "enemies" were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmatized and, often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges - falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes. [ ... ] It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) ... The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, ie., decidedly more than a majority."

This statement is one of my three "Special Cases" for the following reason: Khrushchev implies that Stalin was responsible for something, but does not say precisely what. Nor does he make an explicit accusation. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no "revelation:' and nothing to expose.

However. Khrushchev's statement was certainly meant to imply that Stalin simply had all these Party members murdered. That implication is completely false, and it will be refuted in the present section of this essay. However, even though this implication was dearly intentional and is, as we shall see, false, Stalin is not '''explicitly''' accused of anything.

We now have the report of this commission, known as the Pospelov Commission," after Petr N. Pospelov, director of the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin and secretary of the Central Committee. An historian, Pospelov directed this commission and later wrote the first draft of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech." During Stalin's lifetime Pospelov's works were among the most flagrant examples of the "cult." He became a dose ally of Khrushchev's. Pospelov is considered to have been a very politically-biased historian. Given his position, it would be surprising if he had not been. Even if we knew nothing about him, however, the report that bears his name would suggest that this was the case.

The Pospelov Commission report does indeed conclude that many executed Party figures were innocent. '''But the evidence cited in the report does not demonstrate their innocence'''. The Commission simply '''declared''' them innocent. The whole structure of the report makes it clear that its purpose was to find Stalin guilty of massive repressions and to hush up any evidence that contradicted this foregone conclusion.

We also have the summary reports prepared for the "rehabilitations" of those leading Party figures repressed during the 1930s. Some of these reports were prepared before the Pospelov Report, and most of them were prepared afterwards. Edited and published by Alexandr N. lakovlev's "Memorial" fund, they include the Pospelov Report within them, but much other material too. "Memorial" is a very anti-communist organization extremely hostile to Stalin. It can be assumed that they would have included any and all evidence that tended to make Stalin look guilty of repressing innocent people.

In this section we cover me following matters:

• There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that a significant number of the high-ranking Party members whose repression is cited by Khrushchev appear to have been guilty after all! At the very least, there is sufficient evidence of their guilt that the short summaries of their cases given in the Pospelov Report are utterly insufficient to establish their innocence.

• Ezhov was responsible for fabricating cases against many Soviet citizens. It is possible that this includes a few of the Party members cited by Khrushchev. Ezhov confessed to doing this and was tried and executed for it (See the separate section 17 on Ezhov, below).

• Many, if not most, of the investigations that established the fact of fabrications of confessions and torture against those arrested, were done during Beria's tenure as head of the NKVD, after he replaced Ezhov in late 1938.

• Khrushchev initiated a coverup of the specific reasons for arrests, investigative and trial information, and executions of Central Committee members.

Khrushchev referred to the large per centage of the Central Committee elected at, and Delegates to, the 17th Party Congress in 1934 who were subsequently the victims of repression. As with the more detailed "accounting" of the CC delegates later published Khrushchev gives no details about when and why different delegates were arrested, tried, and many of them executed. His account gives the impression that his was done in an undifferentiated way by "Stalin." But Khrushchev knew better. We can be sure of that, because we have the "rehabilitation" reports, including the Pospelov Commission report. Their contents make clear that there were several different reasons for these arrests and executions.

According to the Commission,

• "Most" were innocent. That implies that some were not, although the Commission did not specify which were guilty, except for Ezhov.

• Some were falsely implicated by others. Both Eikhe and E.G. Evdokimov speak of falsely accusing others, including CC members, when they were beaten or otherwise tortured.

• Some were tortured into signing false confessions and accusations against others.

In addition the Commission emphasizes that Stalin was sent confessions and interrogations of many of those accused, which he then sent on to others on the Politburo. We know this is true, since a few of these have now been published.

Both Khrushchev and the Pospelov Commission try to blame Beria for repression as well as Ezhov. But their own facts - many gathered during Beria's investigation of NKVD crimes and excesses during Ezhov's tenure - and their own statistics, give the lie to this theory. The reality is that Beria '''put an end''' to the "Ezhovshchina".

The Pospelov Commission report lifts the curtain a tiny bit on what was really going on, while Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" keeps it all resolutely hidden. But neither during the existence of the USSR nor since 1991 have the relevant materials been made available to researchers. So the truth of what went on continues to be covered up. It is reasonable to surmise that this is so because such a study would tend to exculpate both Stalin and Beria, whom Khrushchev and Co. went to great lengths to blame for everything.

In fact Khrushchev himself was one of those most guilty of mass repression. We discussed this briefly in the previous chapter and cite documents as evidence in the Appendix.

In this chapter and the following one, we will examine the case of each of the repressed Party figures named by Khrushchev. In none of these cases did the "rehabilitation" materials, including the Pospelov Commission report, cite sufficient evidence to establish their innocence. In fact, in a number of cases the report itself admits the existence of contradictory evidence.

Since the end of the USSR and the very partial opening of former Soviet archives to a few researchers some evidence relating to the charges against the high Party officials mentioned by Khrushchev and discussed in the Pospelov Commission's report has come to light. The Russian government has refused to make public the full investigative materials about any of these figures. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these men were guilty. But the evidence available to us today demonstrates the utter inadequacy of the Pospelov Commission's conclusions that these men were innocent. The vast preponderance of evidence available to us today points towards their guilt.

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===
Khrushchev:

"On the evening of December 1, 1934 on Stalin's initiative (without the approval of the Political Bureau which was passed two days later, casually) ..."

This is a false statement. Khrushchev was complaining to the Party leadership that this law had been signed by the Governmental body - the Presidium of the TsiK - but '''not''' by the Politburo of the Party.

But the Soviet Constitution said nothing about the Politburo of the Party, and there was thus no reason for the Politburo to pass on this decision. It was signed by Kalinin and Enukidze, Chairman and Secretary of the Central Executive Committee respectively. Khrushchev gives no evidence that it was passed "on Stalin's initiative." Stalin wrote a note on the draft that he was "for publication." This means it had been submitted to him to ask him if he agreed with publishing it. Since it had been submitted to him, this draft at least cannot have come from him in the first place. The question of this decree is distorted in the 1989 official Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech, which states that it was not submitted for confirmation by a session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. No evidence is given in support of this statement. But even if this is so - what does it have to do with Stalin? He was not Chairman of the CEC. And it is irrelevant to our purpose anyway, as Khrushchev was not referring to ratification by the CEC at all. He was complaining that the Politburo - a Party organ - had not passed on it beforehand. But there was no need for it to do so.

The fact that Khrushchev complained Stalin had not sought approval by me Politburo for this decree supports the theory put forward by some researchers that one of Khrushchev's motives in attacking Stalin was Stalin's attempt to move the Party out of governing society and running the economy. This theory has been supported in various ways by researchers such as lurii Zhukov, Arch Getty, and Iurii Mukhin, as well as the author of this present work.

=== Khrushchev implies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===
Khrushchev:

"It must be asserted that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination. There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, Nikolaev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was to protect the person of Kirov. A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behavior but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist assigned to protect Kirov was being brought for an interrogation, on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car "accident" in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in order to cover the traces of the organizers of Kirov's killing."

In this passage Khrushchev implied, though without stating it overtly, that Stalin was involved in Kirov"s murder. As Arch Getty has pointed out, several Soviet and post-Soviet commissions tried to find evidence that Stalin was involve in Kirov's assassination, and all failed. In a longer discussion in The Road To Terror (141-7) Getty concludes that there is no evidence at present that Stalin had anything to do with Kirov's assassination. Sudoplatov too concluded there was no reason to suspect Stalin in this assassination.

Getty, along with most Russian researchers, believes that Stalin "framed" - fabricated a false case against - the Oppositionists who were tried, convicted, and executed for involvement in Kirov's assassination. But there is good evidence that they were not framed at all. For example, though only a tiny amount of the investigative material from the Kirov assassination is even open to researchers, and much less than that has been published, we have a partial transcript of an interrogation of Nikolaev, the assassin, in which he incriminates an underground Zinovievist group that included Kotolynov, and a partial interrogation of Kotolynov of the day '''before''' in which he accepts "political and moral responsibility" for the assassination of Kirov by Nikolaev.

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===
Khrushchev:

"

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenum ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-05-13T21:21:41Z

Premier Otto: Chapter 11

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

Khrushchev implies that Stalin failed to call any such Congress. The little that has been published so far from the former Soviet archives suggests that the Stalin leadership wished to all a Congress in 1947 or 1948, but that this suggestion was rejected by the Politburo for some reason that has not been disclosed. The proposal was made by Andrei Zhdanov, who was very close to Stalin. It is highly unlikely that Zhdanov would have made this proposal without Stalin's agreement.

Furthermore as a member of the Politburo Khrushchev would have been there to hear it! This makes the fact that Khrushchev does not actually '''State''', in so many words, that Stalin "refused" or "failed" to call a congress, significant: many in his audience may have been aware of the plan for an earlier conference. Nor did Khrushchev mention the war of 1941-45 or the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. If peacetime years only are counted, then a Congress in 1947 or 1948 would have been timely - Three '''peacetime''' years (1940-1, 1946, 1947) since the Eighteenth Party in 1939.

So once again Khrushchev was not being honest: a Congress was planned for 1947 or 1948, but was never held. Khrushchev must have known the details of this very interesting discussion, including the reasons for not calling the Congress. But he never alluded to the fact at all. Nor did he or any of his successors ever release the transcript of this and succeeding CC Plenums. It has not been released to date.

Khrushchev also made the following similar and equally false accusation:

"It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members."

Even Boris Nikolaevsky's note to the original ''New'' ''Leader'' edition of this speech recognized that this is a lie, though in his final sentence Nikolaevsky shows that he prefers to believe Khrushchev rather than Stalin era Soviet sources.

"If one were to trust official Soviet sources, this statement by Khrushchev would not be true: According to the collection, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums (published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute of the Party Central Committee in 1954), one Central Committee plenum was held during the war January 27, 1944), when it was decided to give the various Union Republics the right to have their own foreign ministries and it was also decided to replace the lnternationale by the new Soviet national anthem. But it is likely that Khrushchev is correct, that there was no Central Committee plenum in 1944 and a fraud was perpetrated: The plenum was announced as having occurred although it never had."

Wishful thinking on Nikolaevsky's part! For if Khrushchev lied here, where else might he have lied? The 1989 Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech acknowledges that these two Plena were scheduled, and that one of them rook place, though without pointing up the obvious conclusion - that Khrushchev had lied.

In October 1941 leading party members were at the front and at this, the most crucial time of the war. With the Nazi armies near Moscow, they could not be recalled for a CC meeting. And not only was there, in fact, a CC Plenum on January 27, 1944 - it was the Plenum at which the Soviet National Anthem was changed. Virtually everyone in Khrushchev's 1956 audience had to know this! Yet Khrushchev still said it! Perhaps this is best explained as one of Khrushchev's blunders. It was certainly one of many falsehoods in his speech that must have been obvious even at the time.

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===
Khrushchev:

" The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many party, Soviet and economic activists, who were branded in 1937-1938 as "enemies" were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmatized and, often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges - falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes. [ ... ] It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) ... The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, ie., decidedly more than a majority."

This statement is one of my three "Special Cases" for the following reason: Khrushchev implies that Stalin was responsible for something, but does not say precisely what. Nor does he make an explicit accusation. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no "revelation:' and nothing to expose.

However. Khrushchev's statement was certainly meant to imply that Stalin simply had all these Party members murdered. That implication is completely false, and it will be refuted in the present section of this essay. However, even though this implication was dearly intentional and is, as we shall see, false, Stalin is not '''explicitly''' accused of anything.

We now have the report of this commission, known as the Pospelov Commission," after Petr N. Pospelov, director of the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin and secretary of the Central Committee. An historian, Pospelov directed this commission and later wrote the first draft of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech." During Stalin's lifetime Pospelov's works were among the most flagrant examples of the "cult." He became a dose ally of Khrushchev's. Pospelov is considered to have been a very politically-biased historian. Given his position, it would be surprising if he had not been. Even if we knew nothing about him, however, the report that bears his name would suggest that this was the case.

The Pospelov Commission report does indeed conclude that many executed Party figures were innocent. But the evidence cited in the report does not demonstrate their innocence. The Commission simply declared them innocent. The whole structure of the report makes it clear that its purpose was to find Stalin guilty of massive repressions and to hush up any evidence that contradicted this foregone conclusion.

We also have the summary reports prepared for the "rehabilitations" of those leading Party figures repressed during the 1930s. Some of these reports were prepared before the Pospelov Report, and most of them were prepared afterwards. Edited and published by Alexandr N. lakovlev's "Memorial" fund, they include the Pospelov Report within them, but much other material too. "Memorial" is a very anti-communist organization extremely hostile to Stalin. It can be assumed that they would have included any and all evidence that tended to make Stalin look guilty of repressing innocent people.

In this section we cover me following matters:

• There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that a significant number of the high-ranking Party members whose repression is cited by Khrushchev appear to have been guilty after all! At the very least, there is sufficient evidence of their guilt that the short summaries of their cases given in the Pospelov Report are utterly insufficient to establish their innocence.

• Ezhov was responsible for fabricating cases against many Soviet citizens. It is possible that this includes a few of the Party members cited by Khrushchev. Ezhov confessed to doing this and was tried and executed for it (See the separate section 17 on Ezhov, below).

• Many, if not most, of the investigations that established the fact of fabrications of confessions and torture against those arrested, were done during Beria's tenure as head of the NKVD, after he replaced Ezhov in late 1938.

• Khrushchev initiated a coverup of the specific reasons for arrests, investigative and trial information, and executions of Central Committee members.

Khrushchev referred to the large per centage of the Central Committee elected at, and Delegates to, the 17th Party Congress in 1934 who were subsequently the victims of repression. As with the more detailed "accounting" of the CC delegates later published Khrushchev gives no details about when and why different delegates were arrested, tried, and many of them executed. His account gives the impression that his was done in an undifferentiated way by "Stalin." But Khrushchev knew better. We can be sure of that, because we have the "rehabilitation" reports, including the Pospelov Commission report. Their contents make clear that there were several different reasons for these arrests and executions.

According to the Commission,

• "Most" were innocent. That implies that some were not, although the Commission did not specify which were guilty, except for Ezhov.

• Some were falsely implicated by others. Both Eikhe and E.G. Evdokimov speak of falsely accusing others, including CC members, when they were beaten or otherwise tortured.

• Some were tortured into signing false confessions and accusations against others.

In addition the Commission emphasizes that Stalin was sent confessions and interrogations of many of those accused, which he then sent on to others on the Politburo. We know this is true, since a few of these have now been published.

Both Khrushchev and the Pospelov Commission try to blame Beria for repression as well as Ezhov. But their own facts - many gathered during Beria's investigation of NKVD crimes and excesses during Ezhov's tenure - and their own statistics, give the lie to this theory. The reality is that Beria put an end to the "Ezhovshchina".

The Pospelov Commission report lifts the curtain a tiny bit on what was really going on, while Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" keeps it all resolutely hidden. But neither during the existence of the USSR nor since 1991 have the relevant materials been made available to researchers. So the truth of what went on continues to be covered up. It is reasonable to surmise that this is so because such a study would tend to exculpate both Stalin and Beria, whom Khrushchev and Co. went to great lengths to blame for everything.

In fact Khrushchev himself was one of those most guilty of mass repression. We discussed this briefly in the previous chapter and cite documents as evidence in the Appendix.

In this chapter and the following one, we will examine the case of each of the repressed Party figures named by Khrushchev. In none of these cases did the "rehabilitation" materials, including the Pospelov Commission report, cite sufficient evidence to establish their innocence. In fact, in a number of cases the report itself admits the existence of contradictory evidence.

Since the end of the USSR and the very partial opening of former Soviet archives to a few researchers some evidence relating to the charges against the high Party officials mentioned by Khrushchev and discussed in the Pospelov Commission's report has come to light. The Russian government has refused to make public the full investigative materials about any of these figures. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these men were guilty. But the evidence available to us today demonstrates the utter inadequacy of the Pospelov Commission's conclusions that these men were innocent. The vast preponderance of evidence available to us today points towards their guilt.

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===
Khrushchev:

"On the evening of December 1, 1934 on Stalin's initiative (without the approval of the Political Bureau which was passed two days later, casually) ..."

This is a false statement. Khrushchev was complaining to the Party leadership that this law had been signed by the Governmental body - the Presidium of the TsiK - but not by the Politburo of the Party.

But the Soviet Constitution said nothing about the Politburo of the Party, and there was thus no reason for the Politburo to pass on this decision. It was signed by Kalinin and Enukidze, Chairman and Secretary of the Central Executive Committee respectively. Khrushchev gives no evidence that it was passed "on Stalin's initiative." Stalin wrote a note on the draft that he was "for publication." This means it had been submitted to him to ask him if he agreed with publishing it. Since it had been submitted to him, this draft at least cannot have come from him in the first place. The question of this decree is distorted in the 1989 official Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech, which states that it was not submitted for confirmation by a session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. No evidence is given in support of this statement. But even if this is so - what does it have to do with Stalin? He was not Chairman of the CEC. And it is irrelevant to our purpose anyway, as Khrushchev was not referring to ratification by the CEC at all. He was complaining that the Politburo - a Party organ - had not passed on it beforehand. But there was no need for it to do so.

The fact that Khrushchev complained Stalin had not sought approval by me Politburo for this decree supports the theory put forward by some researchers that one of Khrushchev's motives in attacking Stalin was Stalin's attempt to move the Party out of governing society and running the economy. This theory has been supported in various ways by researchers such as lurii Zhukov, Arch Getty, and Iurii Mukhin, as well as the author of this present work.

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-05-13T21:06:47Z

Premier Otto: added chapter 10

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

Khrushchev implies that Stalin failed to call any such Congress. The little that has been published so far from the former Soviet archives suggests that the Stalin leadership wished to all a Congress in 1947 or 1948, but that this suggestion was rejected by the Politburo for some reason that has not been disclosed. The proposal was made by Andrei Zhdanov, who was very close to Stalin. It is highly unlikely that Zhdanov would have made this proposal without Stalin's agreement.

Furthermore as a member of the Politburo Khrushchev would have been there to hear it! This makes the fact that Khrushchev does not actually '''State''', in so many words, that Stalin "refused" or "failed" to call a congress, significant: many in his audience may have been aware of the plan for an earlier conference. Nor did Khrushchev mention the war of 1941-45 or the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. If peacetime years only are counted, then a Congress in 1947 or 1948 would have been timely - Three '''peacetime''' years (1940-1, 1946, 1947) since the Eighteenth Party in 1939.

So once again Khrushchev was not being honest: a Congress was planned for 1947 or 1948, but was never held. Khrushchev must have known the details of this very interesting discussion, including the reasons for not calling the Congress. But he never alluded to the fact at all. Nor did he or any of his successors ever release the transcript of this and succeeding CC Plenums. It has not been released to date.

Khrushchev also made the following similar and equally false accusation:

"It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members."

Even Boris Nikolaevsky's note to the original ''New'' ''Leader'' edition of this speech recognized that this is a lie, though in his final sentence Nikolaevsky shows that he prefers to believe Khrushchev rather than Stalin era Soviet sources.

"If one were to trust official Soviet sources, this statement by Khrushchev would not be true: According to the collection, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums (published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute of the Party Central Committee in 1954), one Central Committee plenum was held during the war January 27, 1944), when it was decided to give the various Union Republics the right to have their own foreign ministries and it was also decided to replace the lnternationale by the new Soviet national anthem. But it is likely that Khrushchev is correct, that there was no Central Committee plenum in 1944 and a fraud was perpetrated: The plenum was announced as having occurred although it never had."

Wishful thinking on Nikolaevsky's part! For if Khrushchev lied here, where else might he have lied? The 1989 Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech acknowledges that these two Plena were scheduled, and that one of them rook place, though without pointing up the obvious conclusion - that Khrushchev had lied.

In October 1941 leading party members were at the front and at this, the most crucial time of the war. With the Nazi armies near Moscow, they could not be recalled for a CC meeting. And not only was there, in fact, a CC Plenum on January 27, 1944 - it was the Plenum at which the Soviet National Anthem was changed. Virtually everyone in Khrushchev's 1956 audience had to know this! Yet Khrushchev still said it! Perhaps this is best explained as one of Khrushchev's blunders. It was certainly one of many falsehoods in his speech that must have been obvious even at the time.

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===
Khrushchev:

" The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many party, Soviet and economic activists, who were branded in 1937-1938 as "enemies" were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists; they were only so stigmatized and, often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges - falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes. [ ... ] It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) ... The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, ie., decidedly more than a majority."

This statement is one of my three "Special Cases" for the following reason: Khrushchev implies that Stalin was responsible for something, but does not say precisely what. Nor does he make an explicit accusation. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no "revelation:' and nothing to expose.

However. Khrushchev's statement was certainly meant to imply that Stalin simply had all these Party members murdered. That implication is completely false, and it will be refuted in the present section of this essay. However, even though this implication was dearly intentional and is, as we shall see, false, Stalin is not '''explicitly''' accused of anything.

We now have the report of this commission, known as the Pospelov Commission," after Petr N. Pospelov, director of the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin and secretary of the Central Committee. An historian, Pospelov directed this commission and later wrote the first draft of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech." During Stalin's lifetime Pospelov's works were among the most flagrant examples of the "cult." He became a dose ally of Khrushchev's. Pospelov is considered to have been a very politically-biased historian. Given his position, it would be surprising if he had not been. Even if we knew nothing about him, however, the report that bears his name would suggest that this was the case.

The Pospelov Commission report does indeed conclude that many executed Party figures were innocent. But the evidence cited in the report does not demonstrate their innocence. The Commission simply declared them innocent. The whole structure of the report makes it clear that its purpose was to find Stalin guilty of massive repressions and to hush up any evidence that contradicted this foregone conclusion.

We also have the summary reports prepared for the "rehabilitations" of those leading Party figures repressed during the 1930s. Some of these reports were prepared before the Pospelov Report, and most of them were prepared afterwards. Edited and published by Alexandr N. lakovlev's "Memorial" fund, they include the Pospelov Report within them, but much other material too. "Memorial" is a very anti-communist organization extremely hostile to Stalin. It can be assumed that they would have included any and all evidence that tended to make Stalin look guilty of repressing innocent people.

In this section we cover me following matters:

• There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that a significant number of the high-ranking Party members whose repression is cited by Khrushchev appear to have been guilty after all! At the very least, there is sufficient evidence of their guilt that the short summaries of their cases given in the Pospelov Report are utterly insufficient to establish their innocence.

• Ezhov was responsible for fabricating cases against many Soviet citizens. It is possible that this includes a few of the Party members cited by Khrushchev. Ezhov confessed to doing this and was tried and executed for it (See the separate section 17 on Ezhov, below).

• Many, if not most, of the investigations that established the fact of fabrications of confessions and torture against those arrested, were done during Beria's tenure as head of the NKVD, after he replaced Ezhov in late 1938.

• Khrushchev initiated a coverup of the specific reasons for arrests, investigative and trial information, and executions of Central Committee members.

Khrushchev referred to the large per centage of the Central Committee elected at, and Delegates to, the 17th Party Congress in 1934 who were subsequently the victims of repression. As with the more detailed "accounting" of the CC delegates later published Khrushchev gives no details about when and why different delegates were arrested, tried, and many of them executed. His account gives the impression that his was done in an undifferentiated way by "Stalin." But Khrushchev knew better. We can be sure of that, because we have the "rehabilitation" reports, including the Pospelov Commission report. Their contents make clear that there were several different reasons for these arrests and executions.

According to the Commission,

• "Most" were innocent. That implies that some were not, although the Commission did not specify which were guilty, except for Ezhov.

• Some were falsely implicated by others. Both Eikhe and E.G. Evdokimov speak of falsely accusing others, including CC members, when they were beaten or otherwise tortured.

• Some were tortured into signing false confessions and accusations against others.

In addition the Commission emphasizes that Stalin was sent confessions and interrogations of many of those accused, which he then sent on to others on the Politburo. We know this is true, since a few of these have now been published.

Both Khrushchev and the Pospelov Commission try to blame Beria for repression as well as Ezhov. But their own facts - many gathered during Beria's investigation of NKVD crimes and excesses during Ezhov's tenure - and their own statistics, give the lie to this theory. The reality is that Beria put an end to the "Ezhovshchina".

The Pospelov Commission report lifts the curtain a tiny bit on what was really going on, while Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" keeps it all resolutely hidden. But neither during the existence of the USSR nor since 1991 have the relevant materials been made available to researchers. So the truth of what went on continues to be covered up. It is reasonable to surmise that this is so because such a study would tend to exculpate both Stalin and Beria, whom Khrushchev and Co. went to great lengths to blame for everything.

In fact Khrushchev himself was one of those most guilty of mass repression. We discussed this briefly in the previous chapter and cite documents as evidence in the Appendix.

In this chapter and the following one, we will examine the case of each of the repressed Party figures named by Khrushchev. In none of these cases did the "rehabilitation" materials, including the Pospelov Commission report, cite sufficient evidence to establish their innocence. In fact, in a number of cases the report itself admits the existence of contradictory evidence.

Since the end of the USSR and the very partial opening of former Soviet archives to a few researchers some evidence relating to the charges against the high Party officials mentioned by Khrushchev and discussed in the Pospelov Commission's report has come to light. The Russian government has refused to make public the full investigative materials about any of these figures. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these men were guilty. But the evidence available to us today demonstrates the utter inadequacy of the Pospelov Commission's conclusions that these men were innocent. The vast preponderance of evidence available to us today points towards their guilt.

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

George Orwell

2023-05-13T20:09:18Z

Premier Otto: Adding another citation

{{Infobox person|name=George Orwell|birth_name=Eric Arthur Blair|birth_date=25 June 1903|death_date=21 January 1950|birth_place=Motihari, [[Presidency of Fort William (1699–1947)|Bengal Province]], [[British Raj (1858–1947)|British India]]|death_place=London, England, [[UK]]|image=George Orwell.png}}

'''Eric Arthur Blair''' commonly known by his pen-name '''George Orwell''', was a prominent essayist and novelist, who called himself a '[[Democratic socialism|democratic socialist]]'. However, he was considered a [[Left-wing anticommunism|left wing anti-communist]] due to his [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] views<ref>{{News citation|journalist=[[Rainer Shea]]|title=Orwell’s 1984 is a paranoid piece of anti-communist propaganda|url=https://www.greanvillepost.com/2020/01/21/orwells-1984-is-a-paranoid-piece-of-anti-communist-propaganda/|newspaper=[[Greanville Post]]}}</ref> which led him to even collude with imperial Britain<ref>https://www.independent.co.uk/news/orwells-little-list-leaves-the-left-gasping-for-more-1328633.html</ref> in stark contrast to the anti-authoritarian virtues he claimed to espouse. Orwell was a member of the Indian Imperial Police in British-occupied [[Burma]] and worked for the British propaganda outlet [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]].<ref name=":0">{{News citation|author=[[Nikos Mottas]]|newspaper=[[In Defense of Communism]]|title=George Orwell, an anti-communist traitor|date=2022-07-18|url=http://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/george-orwell-anti-communist-traitor.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220718030847/http://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/george-orwell-anti-communist-traitor.html|archive-date=2022-07-18|retrieved=2022-07-18}}</ref>

== Prominent works ==

=== ''Homage to Catalonia'' ===
Orwell's first real seminal work was the 1938 ''Homage to Catalonia'', a memoir of his personal experience serving with the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[Workers' Party of Marxist Unification]] (POUM) in [[Anarchist Catalonia|Revolutionary Catalonia]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name=":0" /> Despite mostly an anarcho-communist region at the time, Orwell cites Revolutionary Catalonia as the basis for his hardline dedication to democratic socialism, as well as his self-proclaimed anti-authoritarianism. There is likely some ingenuousness in his words though, as the POUM was famously anti-Leninist and Orwell from this point forward dedicated most of his literary career to denouncing/"satirizing" Marxism-Leninism. It is to note that Orwell initially tried to get a trip to Spain through the [[Communist International|Comintern]]-organised [[International Brigades]]. However, [[Harry Pollitt]] rejected him due to his lack of understanding party politics and lack of anti-fascist convictions.<ref>{{Citation|author=Bill Alexander|year=1984|title=George Orwell and Spain|title-url=https://archive.org/details/GeorgeOrwellAndSpain}}</ref>

=== ''Animal Farm'' ===
''Animal Farm'' is a 1945 novella that is meant to be an allegory for the founding of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922-1991)|Soviet Union]] and [[Stalin]]'s rise to power. In the story, a farm of animals chase out their drunken owner and establish their own self-governing farm, only for a small group of pigs to effectively take all the power. Eventually, one particularly narcissistic pig named Napoleon sends guard dogs after the other pigs, making himself the undisputed ruler of the farm and oppressing his fellow animals into eventually acting just like humans. This is "supposed" to be an allegory for how Stalin lead the Soviet Union to effectively become a shadow of its former self—an authoritarian [[Capitalism|capitalist]] state just like its enemies—and to this day the book is one of the most famous and respected pieces of anti-communist fiction. This book helped solidify Orwell's identity as an anti-communist leftist, and is also arguably what gave significant rise to the "not real socialism" argument for [[Actually Existing Socialism|AES]].

The novella has had a permanent place on the curriculum of British schools since publication. Many study guides have been written to "help" students come to the "right" conclusion; that of anti-communism. These study guides, written to be succinct enough that they can be regurgitated on-demand by students, whose aim is not to seriously study the book but simply pass exams, exist to misinform students on [[Marxism]] and the [[Russian revolution]].<ref>{{News citation|author=[[Joti Brar]]|newspaper=[[Stalin Society]]|title=Anti-Communist Propagandist, Champion of Trotskyism and State Informer|date=2016-07-12|url=https://stalinsociety.net/?p=279}}</ref> Recent studies have discovered that the 1954 animated film adaptation was funded by the CIA to popularize falsehoods about Stalin and the Soviet Union<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=British Library|title=1954 film version of Animal Farm by Halas and Batchelor|url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/1954-film-version-of-animal-farm-by-halas-and-batchelor#:~:text=Animal%20Farm%20and%20the%20CIA&text=The%201954%20film%20version%20of,anti%2DSoviet%20Union%20propaganda%20strategy.|quote=The 1954 film version of Animal Farm was secretly funded by the American intelligence agency the CIA, who bought the rights from the writer’s widow, Sonia Orwell. The film was commissioned as part of their anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet Union propaganda strategy.}}</ref>

=== ''1984'' ===
1984 is a novel set in a dystopian vision of the United Kingdom (referred to as Airstrip One). The novel is a thinly veiled panegyric to the plight of [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]], who is represented in the novel by the character Emmanuel Goldstein. He is reviled by the ruling Ingsoc Party, which is supposed to be an allegory to [[Marxism-leninism|Stalinism]]. 1984 is influential in political spheres due to concepts such as ''[[Newspeak]]'' (phrases such as ''wrongthink'' are often used by the [[far-right]] today) as well as the popularization of the ideas of Big Brother ([[totalitarianism]]) and mass surveillance. After Orwell's death, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] created a government-funded film adaptation of the novel.<ref name=":0" />

== Criticism ==
Despite his anti-authoritarian virtues, Orwell composed lists of personalities noted to be sympathetic to the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]], the assigned comments reeking with homophobia and antisemitism.<ref>https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv4n1/orwell.htm</ref> This list was given to the British government and remained a secret until 1996.<ref name=":0" /> Orwell's allegorical criticisms of the Soviet Union were published during the Second World War, thereby providing propaganda against the USSR at a time where many socialists were defending it in the fight against [[fascism]].

Among Leninists it is commonly pointed out that Orwell was an unashamed supporter of [[Leon Trotsky]], and wholeheartedly believed in the idea that he was an innocent man wrongly persecuted by his fellow Bolsheviks. Being a democratic socialist, Orwell was obviously not a fan of revolution in general, which explains his general disdain for vanguard movements as a whole, and why he favored the more decentralized nature of Revolutionary Catalonia.

In his review of ''[[Mein Kampf]]'', released during the [[Second World War]], Orwell admitted that he did not dislike [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]].<ref name=":0" />

== References ==
<references />

Moscow trials

2023-05-06T23:33:05Z

Premier Otto: Made a link

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref>

J. Arch Getty's research also confirmed that some of the most famous defendants at the trials were in fact members of the bloc.

"Although Trotsky later denied that he had any communications with former followers in the USSR since his exile in 1929, it is clear that he did. In the first three months of 1932 he sent secret letters to former oppositionists Radek, Sokolnikov, Preobrazhenskii, and others. Although the contents of these letters are unknown it seems reasonable to believe that they involved an attempt to persuade the addresses to return to opposition."<ref>{{Citation|author=J. Arch Getty|year=1985|title=Origins of the great purges: the Soviet Communist Party reconsidered, 1933-1938|title-url=https://archive.org/details/originsofgreatpu0000gett/page/n7/mode/2up|page=119|lg=https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=EEB6DBF83D7B3A59D4A4A25B6E5A476C}}</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
[[Nikolai Yezhov]], a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===
[[Nikolai Bukharin]] (1888-1938)

[[Alexei Rykov]] (1881-1938)

[[Genrikh Yagoda]] (1891-1938)

[[Nikolai Krestinsky]] (1883-1938)

[[Khristian Rakovsky]] (1873-1941)

[[Arkady Rosengoltz]] (1889-1938)

[[Vladimir Ivanov]] (1893-1938)

[[Mikhail Chernov]] (1891-1938)

[[Grigori Grinko]] (1890-1938)

[[Issac Zelensky]] (1890-1938)

[[Sergei Bessonov]] (1892-1941)

[[Akmal Ikramov]] (1898-1938)

[[Faizulla Khodjayev]] (1896-1938)

[[Vasily Sharangovich]] (1897-1938)

[[Prokopy Zubarev]] (1885-1938)

[[Pavel Bulanov]] (1895-1938)

[[Lev Levin]] (1870-1938)

[[Dimitry Pletnev]] (1872-1941)

[[Ignaty Kazakov]] (1891-1938)

[[Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky]] (1900-1938)

[[Pyotr Kryuchkov]] (1889-1938)

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]
*[https://archive.org/details/reportofcourtpro0000piat/page/n1/mode/2up 1937 Trial]
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150911/page/n795/mode/2up 1938 Trial]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vqc76aS0Qg&t=1845s An overview of the trials]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-05-06T23:26:45Z

Premier Otto: Added a FinBol video in the Further reading section

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref>

J. Arch Getty's research also confirmed that some of the most famous defendants at the trials were in fact members of the bloc.

"Although Trotsky later denied that he had any communications with former followers in the USSR since his exile in 1929, it is clear that he did. In the first three months of 1932 he sent secret letters to former oppositionists Radek, Sokolnikov, Preobrazhenskii, and others. Although the contents of these letters are unknown it seems reasonable to believe that they involved an attempt to persuade the addresses to return to opposition."<ref>{{Citation|author=J. Arch Getty|year=1985|title=Origins of the great purges: the Soviet Communist Party reconsidered, 1933-1938|title-url=https://archive.org/details/originsofgreatpu0000gett/page/n7/mode/2up|page=119|lg=https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=EEB6DBF83D7B3A59D4A4A25B6E5A476C}}</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===
[[Nikolai Bukharin]] (1888-1938)

[[Alexei Rykov]] (1881-1938)

[[Genrikh Yagoda]] (1891-1938)

[[Nikolai Krestinsky]] (1883-1938)

[[Khristian Rakovsky]] (1873-1941)

[[Arkady Rosengoltz]] (1889-1938)

[[Vladimir Ivanov]] (1893-1938)

[[Mikhail Chernov]] (1891-1938)

[[Grigori Grinko]] (1890-1938)

[[Issac Zelensky]] (1890-1938)

[[Sergei Bessonov]] (1892-1941)

[[Akmal Ikramov]] (1898-1938)

[[Faizulla Khodjayev]] (1896-1938)

[[Vasily Sharangovich]] (1897-1938)

[[Prokopy Zubarev]] (1885-1938)

[[Pavel Bulanov]] (1895-1938)

[[Lev Levin]] (1870-1938)

[[Dimitry Pletnev]] (1872-1941)

[[Ignaty Kazakov]] (1891-1938)

[[Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky]] (1900-1938)

[[Pyotr Kryuchkov]] (1889-1938)

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]
*[https://archive.org/details/reportofcourtpro0000piat/page/n1/mode/2up 1937 Trial]
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150911/page/n795/mode/2up 1938 Trial]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vqc76aS0Qg&t=1845s An overview of the trials]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-05-06T23:12:08Z

Premier Otto: adding a quote from Getty and a citation

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref>

J. Arch Getty's research also confirmed that some of the most famous defendants at the trials were in fact members of the bloc.

"Although Trotsky later denied that he had any communications with former followers in the USSR since his exile in 1929, it is clear that he did. In the first three months of 1932 he sent secret letters to former oppositionists Radek, Sokolnikov, Preobrazhenskii, and others. Although the contents of these letters are unknown it seems reasonable to believe that they involved an attempt to persuade the addresses to return to opposition."<ref>{{Citation|author=J. Arch Getty|year=1985|title=Origins of the great purges: the Soviet Communist Party reconsidered, 1933-1938|title-url=https://archive.org/details/originsofgreatpu0000gett/page/n7/mode/2up|page=119|lg=https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=EEB6DBF83D7B3A59D4A4A25B6E5A476C}}</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===
[[Nikolai Bukharin]] (1888-1938)

[[Alexei Rykov]] (1881-1938)

[[Genrikh Yagoda]] (1891-1938)

[[Nikolai Krestinsky]] (1883-1938)

[[Khristian Rakovsky]] (1873-1941)

[[Arkady Rosengoltz]] (1889-1938)

[[Vladimir Ivanov]] (1893-1938)

[[Mikhail Chernov]] (1891-1938)

[[Grigori Grinko]] (1890-1938)

[[Issac Zelensky]] (1890-1938)

[[Sergei Bessonov]] (1892-1941)

[[Akmal Ikramov]] (1898-1938)

[[Faizulla Khodjayev]] (1896-1938)

[[Vasily Sharangovich]] (1897-1938)

[[Prokopy Zubarev]] (1885-1938)

[[Pavel Bulanov]] (1895-1938)

[[Lev Levin]] (1870-1938)

[[Dimitry Pletnev]] (1872-1941)

[[Ignaty Kazakov]] (1891-1938)

[[Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky]] (1900-1938)

[[Pyotr Kryuchkov]] (1889-1938)

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]
*[https://archive.org/details/reportofcourtpro0000piat/page/n1/mode/2up 1937 Trial]
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150911/page/n795/mode/2up 1938 Trial]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Grigory Zinoviev

2023-05-06T22:14:45Z

Premier Otto:

{{Infobox politician|name=Grigory Zinoviev|native_name=Григорий Зиновьев|image_size=200|birth_name=Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky|birth_date=23 September 1883|birth_place=Yelizavetgrad, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=25 August 1936|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Execution|political_orientation=[[Trotskyism]]|image=Grigory Zinoviev.png}}

'''Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev''' (23 September 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Soviet politician and [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]]. He opposed [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] as early as 1910<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks in the Period of the Stolypin Reaction. The Bolsheviks Constitute Themselves an Independent Marxist Party|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm}}</ref> and was executed in 1936 following the [[Moscow trials]].

== Early Life ==
Grigory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, in the [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russian Empire]] (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) to a family of jewish dairy farmers who educated him at home. He was also known to go by the name Hirsch Apfelbaum as a young man.

Zinoviev joined the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]] in 1901.

==Pre-revolution==
In January 1910, against Lenin's wishes, Zinoviev, [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]], and [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] convened a Plenum of the Central Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]]. Because many [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] members of the CC had been arrested, the Plenum passed some anti-[[Leninism|Leninist]] resolutions. Zinoviev disagreed with Lenin's decision to denounce [[otzovism]] and [[liquidationism]].<ref name=":0" />

At the 7th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in April 1917, Zinoviev opposed Lenin and called for the party to remain in the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] instead of forming [[Communist International (1919–1943)|a new international]]. In October 1917, Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]] and believed a [[proletarian revolution]] was not possible in Russia. Lenin then proposed to expel them from the party.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref>

==Post-revolution==
Just after the October Revolution, Zinoviev called for the formation of an all-socialist government that would include the deposed [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries|SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]].<ref name=":1" />

Zinoviev believed Russia was not developed enough to build [[socialism]]. Following the 14th Congress of the CPSU in 1925, he called a meeting of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the YCL, which refused to follow the Congress's decision promoting industrialization.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Transition to the Peaceful Work of Economic Restoration|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch09.htm}}</ref>

In 1926, [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and Zinoviev formed an [[Left Opposition|anti-Party bloc]] and rejected [[democratic centralism]]. The Central Committee expelled them from the party in November 1927.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Socialist Industrialization of the Country|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch10.htm}}</ref> Zinoviev organized the murder of [[Sergei Kirov]] in 1934.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Collectivization of Agriculture|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch11.htm}}</ref>

==References==
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]
[[Category:Revisionists]]
[[Category:Trotskyists]]
<references />

Apfelbaum

2023-05-06T22:11:45Z

Premier Otto: Zinoviev's birth name was not Apfelbaum however it was an alias so I corrected the text to reflect that

'''Apfelbaum''' is a [[German language|German]]-[[Judaism|Jewish]] surname, meaning "apple tree." Notable people with this surname include:

* [[Dawid Moryc Apfelbaum]], an alleged [[Republic of Poland (1918–1939)|Polish]] resistance fighter of the [[Second World War]]
* [[Grigory Zinoviev]], alias Hirsch Apfelbaum, a prominent [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet]] politician

== See also ==

* [[Apelbaum]]
* [[Appelbaum]]
* [[Applebaum]]
* [[Epel'baum]]

ProleWiki:Library/Archive

2023-05-06T21:59:49Z

Premier Otto: Fixed a syntax error

{{changetitle|''Library of ProleWiki''}}
Welcome to the ''Library of Prolewiki,'' a space for the collection of texts, articles and books relating to socialism. Previously, this was only for [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] works. But because It is important to understand the history of socialism, works that are non-Marxist or adversarial to socialism are now included. Dates for each work below are provided, and each section is separated by authors.

You can find the works of all [[:Category:Library works by Marxist-Leninists|Marxist-Leninist authors here]].
{{TOC limit|3}}
== ProleWiki Selected Works ==

# ''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' (Lenin's brief outline of Marxist philosophy.)
# ''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]'' (Marx and Engels' analysis of class struggle and an outline communist principles.)
# ''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]'' (Engels' series of questions and answers on the Marxist doctrine.)
# ''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]'' (Engels' response on the rejection of authority under a socialist state.)
# ''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' (Lenin's work on the state, its role in society and the necessity of a revolutionary movement.)

==Main works==
=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels===
[[:Category:Library works by Karl Marx|[Marx category page]]] [[:Category:Library works by Friedrich Engels|[Engels category page]]]
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Author
!Work
!Year
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right|Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right]]''
|1843
|-
|Marx
|[[Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844]]
|1844
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The holy family|The holy family]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Theses on Feuerbach|Theses on Feuerbach]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The German ideology|The German ideology]]''
|1846
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The poverty of philosophy|The poverty of philosophy]]''
|1847
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]''
|1847
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]''
|1848
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte|The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]''
|1852
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:A contribution to the critique of political economy|A contribution to the critique of political economy]]''
|1859
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Value, price and profit|Value, price and profit]]''
|1865
|-
|Marx
|[[Library:Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America|''Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln'']]
|1865
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Capital, vol. I|Capital, vol I]]''
|1867
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The civil war in France|The civil war in France]]''
|1871
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]''
|1872
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of the Gotha Program|Critique of the Gotha Program]]''
|1875
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Anti-Dühring|Anti-Dühring]]''
|1878
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Socialism: utopian and scientific|Socialism: utopian and scientific]]''
|1880
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The origin of the family, private property and the state|The origin of the family, private property and the state]]''
|1884
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy|Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy]]''
|1886
|-
|Marx & Engels
|[[Library:Marx & Engels letters|Marx & Engels letters]]
|1843–1895
|}

===Vladimir Lenin===
[[:Category:Library works by Vladimir Lenin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Concerning the state budget|Concerning the state budget]]'' '''(January 15th, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:What is to be done?|What is to be done?]]'' '''(February, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution|Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution]]'' '''(July, 1905)'''
*''[[Library:Materialism and empiriocriticism|Materialism and empiriocriticism]]'' '''(February, 1908)'''
*''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Backward Europe and Advanced Asia|Backward Europe and advanced Asia]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and Reformism|Marxism and Reformism]]'' '''(September, 1913)'''
*[[Library:The defeat of one’s own government in the imperialist war|The defeat of one's own government in the imperialist war]] '''(1915)'''
*''[[Library:Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism|Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism]]'' '''(June 1916)'''
*''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' '''(August, 1917)'''
*[[Library:A letter to American workingmen|''A letter to American workingmen'']] '''(August 20th, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky|The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky]]'' '''(November, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:"Left-wing" communism, an infantile disorder|“Left-wing” communism, an infantile disorder]]'' '''(May, 1920)'''

=== Joseph Stalin===
[[:Category:Library works by Joseph Stalin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Anarchism or socialism?|Anarchism or socialism?]]'' '''(January, 1907)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and the National Question|Marxism and the national question]]'' '''(March-May, 1913)'''
*''[[Library:The foundations of Leninism|The foundations of Leninism]]'' '''(April, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:Trotskyism or Leninism?|Trotskyism or Leninism?]]'' '''(November 19th, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:The International Character of the October Revolution|The International Character of the October Revolution]]'' '''(November 7th, 1927)'''
*''[[Library:Dialectical and historical materialism|Dialectical and historical materialism]]'' '''(September, 1938)'''
*''[[Library:History of the communist party of the Soviet Union|History of the communist party of the Soviet Union]]'' '''(October 1st, 1939)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and problems of linguistics|Marxism and problems of linguistics]]'' '''(June 2nd, 1950)'''
* ''[[Library:Economic problems of socialism in the USSR|Economic problems of socialism in the USSR]]'' '''(September, 1952)'''

=== Mao Zedong===
[[:Category:Library works by Mao Zedong|[Category page]]]
*[[Library:Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society|Analysis of the classes in Chinese society]] '''(March, 1926)'''
*[[Library:Oppose Book Worship|''Oppose book worship'']] '''(May, 1930)'''
*''[[Library:On guerrilla warfare|On guerrilla warfare]]'' '''(1937)'''
*[[Library:Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front|''Win the masses in their millions for the anti-Japanese national united front'']] '''(May 7th, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On practice|On practice]]'' '''(July, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On contradiction|On contradiction]]'' '''(August, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:Combat liberalism|Combat liberalism]]'' '''(September 7th, 1937)'''

=== Ho Chi Minh===
[[:Category:Library works by Ho Chi Minh|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:On revolutionary morality|''On revolutionary morality'']]'' '''(1958)'''

===Kim Il-sung===
[[:Category:Library works by Kim Il-Sung|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:For the establishment of a united party of the working masses|For the establishment of a united party of the working masses]]'' '''(1946)'''
*''[[Library:On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work|On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work]]'' '''(1955)'''
*''[[Library:Let us further strengthen the people’s government|Let us further strengthen the people’s government]]'' '''(1977)'''
*''[[Library:Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence|Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence]]'' '''(1992)'''

=== Clara Zetkin ===

* [[Library:Lenin on the women’s question|''Lenin on the women’s question'']]

==Complimentary works==

=== Deng Xiaoping ===
* ''[[Library:The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division|The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division]]'' '''(June 16th, 1941)'''
*''[[Library:A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years|A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years]]'' '''(January 26th, 1943)'''
*''[[Library:Report delivered at a conference on the press in Southwest China|Report Delivered At a Conference on the Press in Southwest China]]'' '''(May 16th, 1950)'''
*''[[Library:Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future|Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future]]'' '''(December 13th, 1978)'''
*''[[Library:To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces|To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces]]'' '''(May 5th, 1980)'''
*''[[Library:Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character|Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character]]'' '''(June 30th, 1984)'''

=== Grover Furr ===
*''[[Library:Khrushchev lied|Khrushchev lied]]''
*''[[The Moscow Trials as Evidence]]''
*''[[Blood Lies]]''

=== Kim Jong-un ===
* [[Library:Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee|''Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee'']]
*''[[Library:Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism|Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism]]''

=== Enver Hoxha ===
[<nowiki/>[[:Category:Library works by Enver Hoxha|Category page]]]

* ''[[Library:The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism|The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism]]'' '''(1968)'''
* ''[[Library:The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance|The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance]]'' '''(1969)'''
* ''[[Library:Theory and Practice of the Revolution|Theory and Practice of the Revolution]]'' '''(1977)'''
* [[Library:Imperialism and the Revolution|''Imperialism and the Revolution'']] '''(1979)'''
* ''[[Library:Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism|Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism]]'' '''(1980)'''
*''[[Library:With Stalin: Memoirs|With Stalin: Memoirs]]'' '''(1981)'''

=== Martin Luther King Jr. ===
* [[Library:Letter from Birmingham Jail|''Letter from Birmingham jail'']]

=== Domenico Losurdo===
* ''[[Library:Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism|Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism]]''

=== Rosa Luxemburg ===
* ''[[Library:Reform or Revolution|Reform or Revolution]]''
*''[[Library:The Accumulation of Capital|The Accumulation of Capital]]''

=== Carlos Marighella ===
* [[Library:Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla|''Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla'']]

=== Martin Nicolaus ===
* ''[[Library:Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR|Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR]]''

=== Michael Parenti ===

* ''[[Library:Blackshirts and Reds|Blackshirts and Reds]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''
* [[Library:Global Rollback After Communism|Global Rollback After Communism]]

=== Plekhanov ===
*''[[Library:Essays on the history of materialism|Essays on the history of materialism]]‎''
*''[[Library:Fundamental problems of marxism|Fundamental problems of marxism]]''

===Georges Politzer===
*''[[Library:Elementary principles of philosophy|Elementary principles of philosophy]]''
*''[[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy|Fundamental principles of philosophy]]''

===Xi Jinping===
*''[[Library:The governance of China|The governance of China]]''
*[[Library:Properly Understand the Major Theoretical and Practical Issues in China's Development|Properly understand the major theoretical and practical issues in china's development]] '''(December 8th, 2021)'''

=== Xu Hongzhi ===

* [[Library:Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics|Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics]]

==Interviews==

===Stalin===

*''[[Library:Stalin interview with H. G. Wells|Interview with H. G. Wells]]''
*''[[Library:Stalin interview with Emil Ludwig|Interview with Emil Ludwig]]''

=== Guzmán ===

* ''[[Library:Interview with Chairman Gonzalo|Interview with Chairman Gonzalo]]''

== Non-socialist works ==

=== Aimé Césaire ===

* ''[[Library:Discourse on Colonialism|Discourse on colonialism]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''

=== Department of Strategic Services (Provisional) ===

* [[Library:Simple Sabotage Field Manual|Simple Sabotage Field Manual]]

=== Thomas Paine ===

* ''[[Library:Common Sense|Common sense]]'' '''(1776)'''

==Transcripts==

===Podcasts===

*

===Videos===

==== FOX News ====

* [[Library:Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford|Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford]]

====Michael Parenti====

*''[[Library:There Are No Poor Countries|"There Are No Poor Countries"]]''
*[[Library:US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR|''US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR'']] (the famous 'Yellow Parenti' video)

==== Yanis Varoufakis ====
*''[[Library:Is capitalism devouring democracy?|Is capitalism devouring democracy?]]''

==Documents==

=== Soviet Union ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)|Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)]]''

=== Albania ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania|Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania]]''
*''[[Library:Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)|Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)]]''

===Brazil===
*''[[Library:Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party|Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party]]''

===China===
*''[[Library:The constitution of the Communist Party of China|The constitution of the Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China|The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era|Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era]]''

=== India ===

* ''[[Library:China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power|China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power]]''

=== United States ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States|Constitution of the Communist Party USA]]''
*[[Library:Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation|''Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation'']]
* [[Library:Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)|''Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)'']]
*''[[Library:Elections Won't Defeat Fascism, Only We Can|Elections Won’t Defeat Fascism, Only We Can]]''

== Study guides ==
Here's a category tree of our Study guides which include [[:Category:Film lists|Film lists]] and [[:Category:Reading lists|Reading lists]]<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Study guides</categorytree>
[[Category:Library]]

== Library Category Tree ==
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library</categorytree>

ProleWiki:Library/Archive

2023-05-06T21:58:21Z

Premier Otto: Added links for more uploads in the Grover Furr section

{{changetitle|''Library of ProleWiki''}}
Welcome to the ''Library of Prolewiki,'' a space for the collection of texts, articles and books relating to socialism. Previously, this was only for [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] works. But because It is important to understand the history of socialism, works that are non-Marxist or adversarial to socialism are now included. Dates for each work below are provided, and each section is separated by authors.

You can find the works of all [[:Category:Library works by Marxist-Leninists|Marxist-Leninist authors here]].
{{TOC limit|3}}
== ProleWiki Selected Works ==

# ''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' (Lenin's brief outline of Marxist philosophy.)
# ''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]'' (Marx and Engels' analysis of class struggle and an outline communist principles.)
# ''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]'' (Engels' series of questions and answers on the Marxist doctrine.)
# ''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]'' (Engels' response on the rejection of authority under a socialist state.)
# ''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' (Lenin's work on the state, its role in society and the necessity of a revolutionary movement.)

==Main works==
=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels===
[[:Category:Library works by Karl Marx|[Marx category page]]] [[:Category:Library works by Friedrich Engels|[Engels category page]]]
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Author
!Work
!Year
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right|Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right]]''
|1843
|-
|Marx
|[[Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844]]
|1844
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The holy family|The holy family]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Theses on Feuerbach|Theses on Feuerbach]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The German ideology|The German ideology]]''
|1846
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The poverty of philosophy|The poverty of philosophy]]''
|1847
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]''
|1847
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]''
|1848
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte|The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]''
|1852
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:A contribution to the critique of political economy|A contribution to the critique of political economy]]''
|1859
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Value, price and profit|Value, price and profit]]''
|1865
|-
|Marx
|[[Library:Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America|''Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln'']]
|1865
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Capital, vol. I|Capital, vol I]]''
|1867
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The civil war in France|The civil war in France]]''
|1871
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]''
|1872
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of the Gotha Program|Critique of the Gotha Program]]''
|1875
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Anti-Dühring|Anti-Dühring]]''
|1878
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Socialism: utopian and scientific|Socialism: utopian and scientific]]''
|1880
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The origin of the family, private property and the state|The origin of the family, private property and the state]]''
|1884
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy|Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy]]''
|1886
|-
|Marx & Engels
|[[Library:Marx & Engels letters|Marx & Engels letters]]
|1843–1895
|}

===Vladimir Lenin===
[[:Category:Library works by Vladimir Lenin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Concerning the state budget|Concerning the state budget]]'' '''(January 15th, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:What is to be done?|What is to be done?]]'' '''(February, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution|Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution]]'' '''(July, 1905)'''
*''[[Library:Materialism and empiriocriticism|Materialism and empiriocriticism]]'' '''(February, 1908)'''
*''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Backward Europe and Advanced Asia|Backward Europe and advanced Asia]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and Reformism|Marxism and Reformism]]'' '''(September, 1913)'''
*[[Library:The defeat of one’s own government in the imperialist war|The defeat of one's own government in the imperialist war]] '''(1915)'''
*''[[Library:Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism|Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism]]'' '''(June 1916)'''
*''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' '''(August, 1917)'''
*[[Library:A letter to American workingmen|''A letter to American workingmen'']] '''(August 20th, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky|The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky]]'' '''(November, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:"Left-wing" communism, an infantile disorder|“Left-wing” communism, an infantile disorder]]'' '''(May, 1920)'''

=== Joseph Stalin===
[[:Category:Library works by Joseph Stalin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Anarchism or socialism?|Anarchism or socialism?]]'' '''(January, 1907)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and the National Question|Marxism and the national question]]'' '''(March-May, 1913)'''
*''[[Library:The foundations of Leninism|The foundations of Leninism]]'' '''(April, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:Trotskyism or Leninism?|Trotskyism or Leninism?]]'' '''(November 19th, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:The International Character of the October Revolution|The International Character of the October Revolution]]'' '''(November 7th, 1927)'''
*''[[Library:Dialectical and historical materialism|Dialectical and historical materialism]]'' '''(September, 1938)'''
*''[[Library:History of the communist party of the Soviet Union|History of the communist party of the Soviet Union]]'' '''(October 1st, 1939)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and problems of linguistics|Marxism and problems of linguistics]]'' '''(June 2nd, 1950)'''
* ''[[Library:Economic problems of socialism in the USSR|Economic problems of socialism in the USSR]]'' '''(September, 1952)'''

=== Mao Zedong===
[[:Category:Library works by Mao Zedong|[Category page]]]
*[[Library:Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society|Analysis of the classes in Chinese society]] '''(March, 1926)'''
*[[Library:Oppose Book Worship|''Oppose book worship'']] '''(May, 1930)'''
*''[[Library:On guerrilla warfare|On guerrilla warfare]]'' '''(1937)'''
*[[Library:Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front|''Win the masses in their millions for the anti-Japanese national united front'']] '''(May 7th, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On practice|On practice]]'' '''(July, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On contradiction|On contradiction]]'' '''(August, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:Combat liberalism|Combat liberalism]]'' '''(September 7th, 1937)'''

=== Ho Chi Minh===
[[:Category:Library works by Ho Chi Minh|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:On revolutionary morality|''On revolutionary morality'']]'' '''(1958)'''

===Kim Il-sung===
[[:Category:Library works by Kim Il-Sung|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:For the establishment of a united party of the working masses|For the establishment of a united party of the working masses]]'' '''(1946)'''
*''[[Library:On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work|On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work]]'' '''(1955)'''
*''[[Library:Let us further strengthen the people’s government|Let us further strengthen the people’s government]]'' '''(1977)'''
*''[[Library:Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence|Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence]]'' '''(1992)'''

=== Clara Zetkin ===

* [[Library:Lenin on the women’s question|''Lenin on the women’s question'']]

==Complimentary works==

=== Deng Xiaoping ===
* ''[[Library:The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division|The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division]]'' '''(June 16th, 1941)'''
*''[[Library:A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years|A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years]]'' '''(January 26th, 1943)'''
*''[[Library:Report delivered at a conference on the press in Southwest China|Report Delivered At a Conference on the Press in Southwest China]]'' '''(May 16th, 1950)'''
*''[[Library:Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future|Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future]]'' '''(December 13th, 1978)'''
*''[[Library:To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces|To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces]]'' '''(May 5th, 1980)'''
*''[[Library:Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character|Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character]]'' '''(June 30th, 1984)'''

=== Grover Furr ===
*''[[Library:Khrushchev lied|Khrushchev lied]]''
*[[Library:The Moscow Trials as Evidence]]
*[[Library:Blood Lies]]

=== Kim Jong-un ===
* [[Library:Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee|''Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee'']]
*''[[Library:Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism|Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism]]''

=== Enver Hoxha ===
[<nowiki/>[[:Category:Library works by Enver Hoxha|Category page]]]

* ''[[Library:The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism|The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism]]'' '''(1968)'''
* ''[[Library:The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance|The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance]]'' '''(1969)'''
* ''[[Library:Theory and Practice of the Revolution|Theory and Practice of the Revolution]]'' '''(1977)'''
* [[Library:Imperialism and the Revolution|''Imperialism and the Revolution'']] '''(1979)'''
* ''[[Library:Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism|Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism]]'' '''(1980)'''
*''[[Library:With Stalin: Memoirs|With Stalin: Memoirs]]'' '''(1981)'''

=== Martin Luther King Jr. ===
* [[Library:Letter from Birmingham Jail|''Letter from Birmingham jail'']]

=== Domenico Losurdo===
* ''[[Library:Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism|Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism]]''

=== Rosa Luxemburg ===
* ''[[Library:Reform or Revolution|Reform or Revolution]]''
*''[[Library:The Accumulation of Capital|The Accumulation of Capital]]''

=== Carlos Marighella ===
* [[Library:Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla|''Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla'']]

=== Martin Nicolaus ===
* ''[[Library:Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR|Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR]]''

=== Michael Parenti ===

* ''[[Library:Blackshirts and Reds|Blackshirts and Reds]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''
* [[Library:Global Rollback After Communism|Global Rollback After Communism]]

=== Plekhanov ===
*''[[Library:Essays on the history of materialism|Essays on the history of materialism]]‎''
*''[[Library:Fundamental problems of marxism|Fundamental problems of marxism]]''

===Georges Politzer===
*''[[Library:Elementary principles of philosophy|Elementary principles of philosophy]]''
*''[[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy|Fundamental principles of philosophy]]''

===Xi Jinping===
*''[[Library:The governance of China|The governance of China]]''
*[[Library:Properly Understand the Major Theoretical and Practical Issues in China's Development|Properly understand the major theoretical and practical issues in china's development]] '''(December 8th, 2021)'''

=== Xu Hongzhi ===

* [[Library:Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics|Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics]]

==Interviews==

===Stalin===

*''[[Library:Stalin interview with H. G. Wells|Interview with H. G. Wells]]''
*''[[Library:Stalin interview with Emil Ludwig|Interview with Emil Ludwig]]''

=== Guzmán ===

* ''[[Library:Interview with Chairman Gonzalo|Interview with Chairman Gonzalo]]''

== Non-socialist works ==

=== Aimé Césaire ===

* ''[[Library:Discourse on Colonialism|Discourse on colonialism]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''

=== Department of Strategic Services (Provisional) ===

* [[Library:Simple Sabotage Field Manual|Simple Sabotage Field Manual]]

=== Thomas Paine ===

* ''[[Library:Common Sense|Common sense]]'' '''(1776)'''

==Transcripts==

===Podcasts===

*

===Videos===

==== FOX News ====

* [[Library:Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford|Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford]]

====Michael Parenti====

*''[[Library:There Are No Poor Countries|"There Are No Poor Countries"]]''
*[[Library:US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR|''US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR'']] (the famous 'Yellow Parenti' video)

==== Yanis Varoufakis ====
*''[[Library:Is capitalism devouring democracy?|Is capitalism devouring democracy?]]''

==Documents==

=== Soviet Union ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)|Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)]]''

=== Albania ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania|Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania]]''
*''[[Library:Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)|Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)]]''

===Brazil===
*''[[Library:Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party|Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party]]''

===China===
*''[[Library:The constitution of the Communist Party of China|The constitution of the Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China|The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era|Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era]]''

=== India ===

* ''[[Library:China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power|China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power]]''

=== United States ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States|Constitution of the Communist Party USA]]''
*[[Library:Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation|''Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation'']]
* [[Library:Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)|''Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)'']]
*''[[Library:Elections Won't Defeat Fascism, Only We Can|Elections Won’t Defeat Fascism, Only We Can]]''

== Study guides ==
Here's a category tree of our Study guides which include [[:Category:Film lists|Film lists]] and [[:Category:Reading lists|Reading lists]]<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Study guides</categorytree>
[[Category:Library]]

== Library Category Tree ==
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library</categorytree>

ProleWiki:Library/Archive

2023-05-06T21:56:29Z

Premier Otto:

{{changetitle|''Library of ProleWiki''}}
Welcome to the ''Library of Prolewiki,'' a space for the collection of texts, articles and books relating to socialism. Previously, this was only for [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] works. But because It is important to understand the history of socialism, works that are non-Marxist or adversarial to socialism are now included. Dates for each work below are provided, and each section is separated by authors.

You can find the works of all [[:Category:Library works by Marxist-Leninists|Marxist-Leninist authors here]].
{{TOC limit|3}}
== ProleWiki Selected Works ==

# ''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' (Lenin's brief outline of Marxist philosophy.)
# ''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]'' (Marx and Engels' analysis of class struggle and an outline communist principles.)
# ''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]'' (Engels' series of questions and answers on the Marxist doctrine.)
# ''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]'' (Engels' response on the rejection of authority under a socialist state.)
# ''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' (Lenin's work on the state, its role in society and the necessity of a revolutionary movement.)

==Main works==
=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels===
[[:Category:Library works by Karl Marx|[Marx category page]]] [[:Category:Library works by Friedrich Engels|[Engels category page]]]
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Author
!Work
!Year
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right|Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right]]''
|1843
|-
|Marx
|[[Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844]]
|1844
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The holy family|The holy family]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Theses on Feuerbach|Theses on Feuerbach]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The German ideology|The German ideology]]''
|1846
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The poverty of philosophy|The poverty of philosophy]]''
|1847
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]''
|1847
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]''
|1848
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte|The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]''
|1852
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:A contribution to the critique of political economy|A contribution to the critique of political economy]]''
|1859
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Value, price and profit|Value, price and profit]]''
|1865
|-
|Marx
|[[Library:Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America|''Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln'']]
|1865
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Capital, vol. I|Capital, vol I]]''
|1867
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The civil war in France|The civil war in France]]''
|1871
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]''
|1872
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of the Gotha Program|Critique of the Gotha Program]]''
|1875
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Anti-Dühring|Anti-Dühring]]''
|1878
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Socialism: utopian and scientific|Socialism: utopian and scientific]]''
|1880
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The origin of the family, private property and the state|The origin of the family, private property and the state]]''
|1884
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy|Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy]]''
|1886
|-
|Marx & Engels
|[[Library:Marx & Engels letters|Marx & Engels letters]]
|1843–1895
|}

===Vladimir Lenin===
[[:Category:Library works by Vladimir Lenin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Concerning the state budget|Concerning the state budget]]'' '''(January 15th, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:What is to be done?|What is to be done?]]'' '''(February, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution|Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution]]'' '''(July, 1905)'''
*''[[Library:Materialism and empiriocriticism|Materialism and empiriocriticism]]'' '''(February, 1908)'''
*''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Backward Europe and Advanced Asia|Backward Europe and advanced Asia]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and Reformism|Marxism and Reformism]]'' '''(September, 1913)'''
*[[Library:The defeat of one’s own government in the imperialist war|The defeat of one's own government in the imperialist war]] '''(1915)'''
*''[[Library:Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism|Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism]]'' '''(June 1916)'''
*''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' '''(August, 1917)'''
*[[Library:A letter to American workingmen|''A letter to American workingmen'']] '''(August 20th, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky|The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky]]'' '''(November, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:"Left-wing" communism, an infantile disorder|“Left-wing” communism, an infantile disorder]]'' '''(May, 1920)'''

=== Joseph Stalin===
[[:Category:Library works by Joseph Stalin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Anarchism or socialism?|Anarchism or socialism?]]'' '''(January, 1907)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and the National Question|Marxism and the national question]]'' '''(March-May, 1913)'''
*''[[Library:The foundations of Leninism|The foundations of Leninism]]'' '''(April, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:Trotskyism or Leninism?|Trotskyism or Leninism?]]'' '''(November 19th, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:The International Character of the October Revolution|The International Character of the October Revolution]]'' '''(November 7th, 1927)'''
*''[[Library:Dialectical and historical materialism|Dialectical and historical materialism]]'' '''(September, 1938)'''
*''[[Library:History of the communist party of the Soviet Union|History of the communist party of the Soviet Union]]'' '''(October 1st, 1939)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and problems of linguistics|Marxism and problems of linguistics]]'' '''(June 2nd, 1950)'''
* ''[[Library:Economic problems of socialism in the USSR|Economic problems of socialism in the USSR]]'' '''(September, 1952)'''

=== Mao Zedong===
[[:Category:Library works by Mao Zedong|[Category page]]]
*[[Library:Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society|Analysis of the classes in Chinese society]] '''(March, 1926)'''
*[[Library:Oppose Book Worship|''Oppose book worship'']] '''(May, 1930)'''
*''[[Library:On guerrilla warfare|On guerrilla warfare]]'' '''(1937)'''
*[[Library:Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front|''Win the masses in their millions for the anti-Japanese national united front'']] '''(May 7th, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On practice|On practice]]'' '''(July, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On contradiction|On contradiction]]'' '''(August, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:Combat liberalism|Combat liberalism]]'' '''(September 7th, 1937)'''

=== Ho Chi Minh===
[[:Category:Library works by Ho Chi Minh|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:On revolutionary morality|''On revolutionary morality'']]'' '''(1958)'''

===Kim Il-sung===
[[:Category:Library works by Kim Il-Sung|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:For the establishment of a united party of the working masses|For the establishment of a united party of the working masses]]'' '''(1946)'''
*''[[Library:On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work|On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work]]'' '''(1955)'''
*''[[Library:Let us further strengthen the people’s government|Let us further strengthen the people’s government]]'' '''(1977)'''
*''[[Library:Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence|Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence]]'' '''(1992)'''

=== Clara Zetkin ===

* [[Library:Lenin on the women’s question|''Lenin on the women’s question'']]

==Complimentary works==

=== Deng Xiaoping ===
* ''[[Library:The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division|The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division]]'' '''(June 16th, 1941)'''
*''[[Library:A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years|A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years]]'' '''(January 26th, 1943)'''
*''[[Library:Report delivered at a conference on the press in Southwest China|Report Delivered At a Conference on the Press in Southwest China]]'' '''(May 16th, 1950)'''
*''[[Library:Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future|Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future]]'' '''(December 13th, 1978)'''
*''[[Library:To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces|To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces]]'' '''(May 5th, 1980)'''
*''[[Library:Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character|Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character]]'' '''(June 30th, 1984)'''

=== Grover Furr ===
*''[[Library:Khrushchev lied|Khrushchev lied]]''
*[[The Moscow Trials as Evidence]]
*[[Blood Lies]]

=== Kim Jong-un ===
* [[Library:Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee|''Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee'']]
*''[[Library:Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism|Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism]]''

=== Enver Hoxha ===
[<nowiki/>[[:Category:Library works by Enver Hoxha|Category page]]]

* ''[[Library:The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism|The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism]]'' '''(1968)'''
* ''[[Library:The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance|The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance]]'' '''(1969)'''
* ''[[Library:Theory and Practice of the Revolution|Theory and Practice of the Revolution]]'' '''(1977)'''
* [[Library:Imperialism and the Revolution|''Imperialism and the Revolution'']] '''(1979)'''
* ''[[Library:Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism|Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism]]'' '''(1980)'''
*''[[Library:With Stalin: Memoirs|With Stalin: Memoirs]]'' '''(1981)'''

=== Martin Luther King Jr. ===
* [[Library:Letter from Birmingham Jail|''Letter from Birmingham jail'']]

=== Domenico Losurdo===
* ''[[Library:Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism|Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism]]''

=== Rosa Luxemburg ===
* ''[[Library:Reform or Revolution|Reform or Revolution]]''
*''[[Library:The Accumulation of Capital|The Accumulation of Capital]]''

=== Carlos Marighella ===
* [[Library:Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla|''Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla'']]

=== Martin Nicolaus ===
* ''[[Library:Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR|Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR]]''

=== Michael Parenti ===

* ''[[Library:Blackshirts and Reds|Blackshirts and Reds]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''
* [[Library:Global Rollback After Communism|Global Rollback After Communism]]

=== Plekhanov ===
*''[[Library:Essays on the history of materialism|Essays on the history of materialism]]‎''
*''[[Library:Fundamental problems of marxism|Fundamental problems of marxism]]''

===Georges Politzer===
*''[[Library:Elementary principles of philosophy|Elementary principles of philosophy]]''
*''[[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy|Fundamental principles of philosophy]]''

===Xi Jinping===
*''[[Library:The governance of China|The governance of China]]''
*[[Library:Properly Understand the Major Theoretical and Practical Issues in China's Development|Properly understand the major theoretical and practical issues in china's development]] '''(December 8th, 2021)'''

=== Xu Hongzhi ===

* [[Library:Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics|Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics]]

==Interviews==

===Stalin===

*''[[Library:Stalin interview with H. G. Wells|Interview with H. G. Wells]]''
*''[[Library:Stalin interview with Emil Ludwig|Interview with Emil Ludwig]]''

=== Guzmán ===

* ''[[Library:Interview with Chairman Gonzalo|Interview with Chairman Gonzalo]]''

== Non-socialist works ==

=== Aimé Césaire ===

* ''[[Library:Discourse on Colonialism|Discourse on colonialism]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''

=== Department of Strategic Services (Provisional) ===

* [[Library:Simple Sabotage Field Manual|Simple Sabotage Field Manual]]

=== Thomas Paine ===

* ''[[Library:Common Sense|Common sense]]'' '''(1776)'''

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* [[Library:Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford|Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford]]

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*''[[Library:There Are No Poor Countries|"There Are No Poor Countries"]]''
*[[Library:US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR|''US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR'']] (the famous 'Yellow Parenti' video)

==== Yanis Varoufakis ====
*''[[Library:Is capitalism devouring democracy?|Is capitalism devouring democracy?]]''

==Documents==

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* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)|Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)]]''

=== Albania ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania|Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania]]''
*''[[Library:Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)|Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)]]''

===Brazil===
*''[[Library:Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party|Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party]]''

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*''[[Library:The constitution of the Communist Party of China|The constitution of the Communist Party of China]]''
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*''[[Library:Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era|Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era]]''

=== India ===

* ''[[Library:China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power|China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power]]''

=== United States ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States|Constitution of the Communist Party USA]]''
*[[Library:Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation|''Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation'']]
* [[Library:Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)|''Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)'']]
*''[[Library:Elections Won't Defeat Fascism, Only We Can|Elections Won’t Defeat Fascism, Only We Can]]''

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Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-05-06T21:10:32Z

Premier Otto: Finished uploading chapter 2

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

Khrushchev implies that Stalin failed to call any such Congress. The little that has been published so far from the former Soviet archives suggests that the Stalin leadership wished to all a Congress in 1947 or 1948, but that this suggestion was rejected by the Politburo for some reason that has not been disclosed. The proposal was made by Andrei Zhdanov, who was very close to Stalin. It is highly unlikely that Zhdanov would have made this proposal without Stalin's agreement.

Furthermore as a member of the Politburo Khrushchev would have been there to hear it! This makes the fact that Khrushchev does not actually '''State''', in so many words, that Stalin "refused" or "failed" to call a congress, significant: many in his audience may have been aware of the plan for an earlier conference. Nor did Khrushchev mention the war of 1941-45 or the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40. If peacetime years only are counted, then a Congress in 1947 or 1948 would have been timely - Three '''peacetime''' years (1940-1, 1946, 1947) since the Eighteenth Party in 1939.

So once again Khrushchev was not being honest: a Congress was planned for 1947 or 1948, but was never held. Khrushchev must have known the details of this very interesting discussion, including the reasons for not calling the Congress. But he never alluded to the fact at all. Nor did he or any of his successors ever release the transcript of this and succeeding CC Plenums. It has not been released to date.

Khrushchev also made the following similar and equally false accusation:

"It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members."

Even Boris Nikolaevsky's note to the original ''New'' ''Leader'' edition of this speech recognized that this is a lie, though in his final sentence Nikolaevsky shows that he prefers to believe Khrushchev rather than Stalin era Soviet sources.

"If one were to trust official Soviet sources, this statement by Khrushchev would not be true: According to the collection, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums (published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute of the Party Central Committee in 1954), one Central Committee plenum was held during the war January 27, 1944), when it was decided to give the various Union Republics the right to have their own foreign ministries and it was also decided to replace the lnternationale by the new Soviet national anthem. But it is likely that Khrushchev is correct, that there was no Central Committee plenum in 1944 and a fraud was perpetrated: The plenum was announced as having occurred although it never had."

Wishful thinking on Nikolaevsky's part! For if Khrushchev lied here, where else might he have lied? The 1989 Russian edition of Khrushchev's Speech acknowledges that these two Plena were scheduled, and that one of them rook place, though without pointing up the obvious conclusion - that Khrushchev had lied.

In October 1941 leading party members were at the front and at this, the most crucial time of the war. With the Nazi armies near Moscow, they could not be recalled for a CC meeting. And not only was there, in fact, a CC Plenum on January 27, 1944 - it was the Plenum at which the Soviet National Anthem was changed. Virtually everyone in Khrushchev's 1956 audience had to know this! Yet Khrushchev still said it! Perhaps this is best explained as one of Khrushchev's blunders. It was certainly one of many falsehoods in his speech that must have been obvious even at the tune.

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-05-06T20:49:40Z

Premier Otto: adding citations

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? '''What else might he have blurred?''' At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. '''Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions'''. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech".<ref>Aimermakher, I., V.JU. Afiani, et al. cds. Doklad Khruscheva o Kul'te Lichnosti Stalina na XX s<nowiki>''</nowiki>ezdt KPSS. Dokumenty. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002. (hereafter Doklad Khruscheva) Razdel IV, Dok. No. 3, p. 610. The editors of this official volume note that the letter must be dated on or after February 25; that is, they relate it to Khrushchev's Speech, which was delivered the same day. Another possibility is that Sedova's letter was written in response to Mikoian's speech to the Congress on February 16. A facsimile of Sedova's letter to the Presidium of the 20th Party Congress is at http:/ I chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/ sedovaltr022856.jpg </ref> The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.<ref>V. A. Sakharov, <nowiki>''</nowiki>Politicheskoe zaveshchanie<nowiki>''</nowiki> V.I. Lenina: real'nost' istorii i mify politiki. Moscow: lzdatel'stvo MGU (Moscow State University), 2003. </ref>

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Moscow trials

2023-05-04T23:32:20Z

Premier Otto: /* Bukharin-Rykov Trial */Adding links for defendants of third trial

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===
[[Nikolai Bukharin]] (1888-1938)

[[Alexei Rykov]] (1881-1938)

[[Genrikh Yagoda]] (1891-1938)

[[Nikolai Krestinsky]] (1883-1938)

[[Khristian Rakovsky]] (1873-1941)

[[Arkady Rosengoltz]] (1889-1938)

[[Vladimir Ivanov]] (1893-1938)

[[Mikhail Chernov]] (1891-1938)

[[Grigori Grinko]] (1890-1938)

[[Issac Zelensky]] (1890-1938)

[[Sergei Bessonov]] (1892-1941)

[[Akmal Ikramov]] (1898-1938)

[[Faizulla Khodjayev]] (1896-1938)

[[Vasily Sharangovich]] (1897-1938)

[[Prokopy Zubarev]] (1885-1938)

[[Pavel Bulanov]] (1895-1938)

[[Lev Levin]] (1870-1938)

[[Dimitry Pletnev]] (1872-1941)

[[Ignaty Kazakov]] (1891-1938)

[[Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky]] (1900-1938)

[[Pyotr Kryuchkov]] (1889-1938)

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]
*[https://archive.org/details/reportofcourtpro0000piat/page/n1/mode/2up 1937 Trial]
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150911/page/n795/mode/2up 1938 Trial]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Great Leap Forward

2023-04-25T18:24:09Z

Premier Otto: Adding a video on the subject

[[File:Great Leap Forward poster.png|thumb|Poster of [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] visiting a homemade steel furnace during the Great Leap Forward]]
The '''Great Leap Forward''' (Simplified Chinese: 大跃进; Pinyin: Dà yuèjìn) was an economic and social campaign in China during the [[Five-year plans of China#Second Plan (1958–1962)|Second Five-Year Plan]]. During the Great Leap Forward, [[Peasantry|peasants]], who had already [[Collectivization|collectivized]] land, joined large communes of thousands of people. They tried to produce steel in small rural foundries, also known as [[backyard furnace|backyard steel furnaces]]. Mao admitted that policy errors occurred and took responsibility for them, but [[Imperial core|Western]] claims of mass starvation are widely exaggerated.<ref>[https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/mao-responsibility-great-leap-forward-1959/ MAO ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (1959)]</ref>

== Famine ==
Western sources often claim that the largest famine in history took place during the Great Leap Forward. Official Chinese documents released after Mao's death put the death toll at 16.5 million, which may be exaggerated, while [[Bourgeois media|bourgeois]] sources claim that 30 or even 38 million people died. Other sources such as The China Quarterly (a CIA funded outlet) claim 50-60 million died. <ref>{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=U.S. state agencies have provided assistance to those with a negative attitude to Maoism (and communism in general) throughout the post-war period. For example, the veteran historian of Maoism Roderick MacFarquhar edited The China Quarterly in the 1960s. This magazine published allegations about massive famine deaths that have been quoted ever since. It later emerged that this journal received money from a CIA front organisation, as MacFarquhar admitted in a recent letter to The London Review of Books. (Roderick MacFarquhar states that he did not know the money was coming from the CIA while he was editing The China Quarterly.)}}</ref>

Mao spoke on the subject of over-enthusiasm in the Great Leap Forward at the Wuchang Conference saying

"In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi, wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths." <ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/#en22|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi [in 1955-Joseph Ball], wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths.22

Then in a few sentences later Mao says: “As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths?”}}</ref>

A few moments later Mao continues "As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths? ” <ref name=":0" />

It is true that agricultural production decreased in five years between 1949-1978 due to “natural calamities and mistakes in the work.” However, during 1949-1978 the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.<ref>Guo Shutian ‘China’s Food Supply and Demand Situation and International Trade’ in ''Can China Feed Itself? Chinese Scholars on China’s Food Issue.'' Beijing Foreign Languages Press 2004.</ref>

== Industrial Growth ==
In 1952 industry was 36% of gross value of national output in China. By 1975 industry was 72% and agriculture was 28%. It is quite obvious that Mao’s supposedly disastrous socialist economic policies paved the way for the rapid economic and industrial development of [[Reform and Opening Up]].<ref>M. Meissner, ''The Deng Xiaoping Era. An Enquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994'', Hill and Wray 1996.</ref>

Official Chinese statistics show that after the end of the Leap in 1962, industrial output value had doubled; the gross value of agricultural products increased by 35 percent; steel production in 1962 was between 10.6 million tons or 12 million tons; investment in capital construction rose to 40 percent from 35 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period; the investment in capital construction was doubled; and the average income of workers and farmers increased by up to 30 percent.<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=AE8zAQAAIAAJ People's Republic of China Yearbook]''. Vol. 29. Xinhua Publishing House. 2009. p. 340. <q>The 2nd Five-Year Plan (1958–1962)</q> </ref> Additionally, there was significant capital construction (especially in iron, steel, mining and textile enterprises) that ultimately contributed greatly to China's industrialization.<ref>Joseph, William A. (1986). "A Tragedy of Good Intentions: Post-Mao Views of the Great Leap Forward". ''Modern China''. '''12''' (4): 419–457. doi:10.1177/009770048601200401. ISSN 0097-7004. JSTOR 189257. S2CID 145481585.</ref>

Heavy industry grew a great deal in this period too. Developments such as the establishment of the Taching oil field during the Great Leap Forward provided a great boost to the development of heavy industry. A massive oil field was developed in China.12 This was developed after 1960 using indigenous techniques, rather than Soviet or western techniques. (Specifically the workers used pressure from below to help extract the oil. They did not rely on constructing a multitude of derricks, as is the usual practice in oil fields).<ref>W. Burchett with R. Alley ''China: the Quality of Life.'' Penguin, 1976.</ref>

== More Reading/Videos ==
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw8VEwHUlJs Raymond Lotta Talking about the Great Leap Foward]

== References ==
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of China]]

Great Leap Forward

2023-04-25T18:17:12Z

Premier Otto: adding another citation and moving a quote

[[File:Great Leap Forward poster.png|thumb|Poster of [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] visiting a homemade steel furnace during the Great Leap Forward]]
The '''Great Leap Forward''' (Simplified Chinese: 大跃进; Pinyin: Dà yuèjìn) was an economic and social campaign in China during the [[Five-year plans of China#Second Plan (1958–1962)|Second Five-Year Plan]]. During the Great Leap Forward, [[Peasantry|peasants]], who had already [[Collectivization|collectivized]] land, joined large communes of thousands of people. They tried to produce steel in small rural foundries, also known as [[backyard furnace|backyard steel furnaces]]. Mao admitted that policy errors occurred and took responsibility for them, but [[Imperial core|Western]] claims of mass starvation are widely exaggerated.<ref>[https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/mao-responsibility-great-leap-forward-1959/ MAO ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (1959)]</ref>

== Famine ==
Western sources often claim that the largest famine in history took place during the Great Leap Forward. Official Chinese documents released after Mao's death put the death toll at 16.5 million, which may be exaggerated, while [[Bourgeois media|bourgeois]] sources claim that 30 or even 38 million people died. Other sources such as The China Quarterly (a CIA funded outlet) claim 50-60 million died. <ref>{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=U.S. state agencies have provided assistance to those with a negative attitude to Maoism (and communism in general) throughout the post-war period. For example, the veteran historian of Maoism Roderick MacFarquhar edited The China Quarterly in the 1960s. This magazine published allegations about massive famine deaths that have been quoted ever since. It later emerged that this journal received money from a CIA front organisation, as MacFarquhar admitted in a recent letter to The London Review of Books. (Roderick MacFarquhar states that he did not know the money was coming from the CIA while he was editing The China Quarterly.)}}</ref>

Mao spoke on the subject of over-enthusiasm in the Great Leap Forward at the Wuchang Conference saying

"In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi, wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths." <ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/#en22|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi [in 1955-Joseph Ball], wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths.22

Then in a few sentences later Mao says: “As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths?”}}</ref>

A few moments later Mao continues "As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths? ” <ref name=":0" />

It is true that agricultural production decreased in five years between 1949-1978 due to “natural calamities and mistakes in the work.” However, during 1949-1978 the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.<ref>Guo Shutian ‘China’s Food Supply and Demand Situation and International Trade’ in ''Can China Feed Itself? Chinese Scholars on China’s Food Issue.'' Beijing Foreign Languages Press 2004.</ref>

== Industrial Growth ==
In 1952 industry was 36% of gross value of national output in China. By 1975 industry was 72% and agriculture was 28%. It is quite obvious that Mao’s supposedly disastrous socialist economic policies paved the way for the rapid economic and industrial development of [[Reform and Opening Up]].<ref>M. Meissner, ''The Deng Xiaoping Era. An Enquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994'', Hill and Wray 1996.</ref>

Official Chinese statistics show that after the end of the Leap in 1962, industrial output value had doubled; the gross value of agricultural products increased by 35 percent; steel production in 1962 was between 10.6 million tons or 12 million tons; investment in capital construction rose to 40 percent from 35 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period; the investment in capital construction was doubled; and the average income of workers and farmers increased by up to 30 percent.<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=AE8zAQAAIAAJ People's Republic of China Yearbook]''. Vol. 29. Xinhua Publishing House. 2009. p. 340. <q>The 2nd Five-Year Plan (1958–1962)</q> </ref> Additionally, there was significant capital construction (especially in iron, steel, mining and textile enterprises) that ultimately contributed greatly to China's industrialization.<ref>Joseph, William A. (1986). "A Tragedy of Good Intentions: Post-Mao Views of the Great Leap Forward". ''Modern China''. '''12''' (4): 419–457. doi:10.1177/009770048601200401. ISSN 0097-7004. JSTOR 189257. S2CID 145481585.</ref>

Heavy industry grew a great deal in this period too. Developments such as the establishment of the Taching oil field during the Great Leap Forward provided a great boost to the development of heavy industry. A massive oil field was developed in China.12 This was developed after 1960 using indigenous techniques, rather than Soviet or western techniques. (Specifically the workers used pressure from below to help extract the oil. They did not rely on constructing a multitude of derricks, as is the usual practice in oil fields).<ref>W. Burchett with R. Alley ''China: the Quality of Life.'' Penguin, 1976.</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of China]]

Louise Thompson

2023-04-25T18:09:00Z

Premier Otto: Adding links

[[File:Young pic.png|frame|right|Louise Thompson]]
'''Louise Alone Thompson''' (September 9, 1901 – August 27, 1999) was an African-American feminist and prominent [[Communist Party of the United States of America|Communist Party USA]] member. She is noted as an early formulator of feminist [[intersectionality]] theory, as a leader in the movement to free the [[Scottsboro Boys]] in the 1930s, and as a writer and social figure in the [[Harlem Renaissance]] of the 1920s and '30s. She married CPUSA member William L Patterson and was thereafter often referred to as Louise Thompson Patterson.

==Early life==
Louise was born in Chicago, USA in 1901. According to Erik S McDuffie (p 63), "She grew up poor in small, racist towns across the West Coast before settling by the advent of World War I in Oakland, California with her mother, Lulu Brown Toles. Her poor, single mother cooked for white families, sensitizing Louise early to the arduous travails of black women." She managed to attend the University of California and graduated with a B.S. degree in commerce in May 1923.<ref>Louise Thompson Patterson FBI file.</ref> Hearing [[W.E.B. DuBois]] give a guest lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, and meeting him afterward, was a pivotal experience for Louise; she determined at this time to dedicate her life to fighting for racial equality.<ref>Erik S McDuffie, p 63.</ref> That great scholar of the African diaspora remained a mentor of Louise's for many years.

After graduating from U.C. Berkeley, Louise taught briefly at the Branch Normal College for Colored People in Pine Bluffs, Arkansas. Then in 1926 she began teaching business administration at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. According to Erik S McDuffie, she "suffocated under the racial conservativism of these institutions" (64). The cultural scholar William J Maxwell tells us that at Hampton she "supported a student strike against the puritanical heritage of alumnus Booker T Washington." He continues to say: "Nineteen twenty-eight found Thompson fleeing the school along with its most energetic strikers. Confirming the idea that black college rebellions of the era provided a talent reserve for the New Negro movement, she went straight to New York City."<ref>William J Maxwell 1999, p 142.</ref> Erik S McDuffie thinks she had already gone to New York City in 1927, at least for a visit.
In New York she met for a second time her future husband William L Patterson, who she had already met in California. In 1927 he had recently joined the CPUSA; Louise, however was not yet a communist.

In her early days in New York, Louise received a sociology grant from the Urban League and a stipend from the literary patron Charlotte Mason. She found Charlotte overbearing, however, and soon renounced her support. Later, Louise would write that during this period she acquired a "distaste and hatred of white philanthropy."<ref>William J Maxwell 1999, p 143.</ref> Louise helped convince Langston Hughes to stop taking Charlotte's money also.

At the urging of William L Patterson, she read Karl Marx's ''Capital'' in 1927 or 1928.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 64.</ref>

By the early 1930s, Louise had become a "central figure" (Erik S McD, 64) in the African-American cultural blossoming in New York called the Harlem Renaissance. She associated with leading Harlem intellectuals such as Aaron Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and Langston Hughes, who became a close friend. In 1928 she married Wallace Thurman, a novelist; she soon discovered that he was gay, and they separated, but they remained formally married until his death in 1934.

Through her friends YWCA official Sue Elvie Bailey (Thurman), and Marion Cuthbert, a poet, Louise obtained in 1930 a position as a research assistant in the Congregational Education Service, a reform organization "composed mostly of affluent white liberals" (Erik S McD, 65).
[[File:With langston.png|frame|left|Louise with Langston Hughes on their way to Russia to film ''Black and White'']]

==USSR trip==
In 1932, a Black CPUSA leader, [[James Ford]] returned from [[Soviet Union|Russia]] to recruit cast members for ''Black and White'', a film to be made in the Soviet Union about US race relations. He invited Louise to organize the cast and she accepted. Louise formed a Co-Operating Committee for Production of a Soviet Film on Negro Life, corresponded with the Soviet organizers, and recruited most of the actors for the film.

In June 1932, Louise led a party of 22 Americans to the Soviet Union to participate in the making of the film.
As it was for many African Americans who went to the Soviet Union, living in the young Socialist country was a transformative experience for Louise. Erik S McDuffie says that "from the moment" she arrived in the Soviet Union, she "felt a euphoric sense of personal freedom from American racism".<ref>2011, p 66.</ref>

Although the Soviets cancelled the ''Black and White'' film project in August 1932 in response to diplomatic pressure from the US; Louise, Langston Hughes, and many of the other cast members accepted a Soviet invitation to stay in the country a while and travel. Their itinerary included Soviet Central Asia, where they came to see themselves and comrades there as part of a transnational, multiracial community struggling against capitalism and [[imperialism]]. On 5 October they released an enthusiastic public statement from Buxara, Uzbekistan, about the revolution's achievements there.

After the troupe returned to US soil,
Louise said she "preferred Russia to living in America."<ref>Mark Naison, ''Communists in Harlem During the Depression'', 1983 reprint, p 74, cited in William J Maxwell 1999, p 142.
</ref>
And in a 1987 interview she recalled: "Because of what I had seen in the Soviet Union I was ready ... to make a change. A leap."<ref>Erik s McDuffie 2011, p 74, quoting Louise Thompson Patterson papers, interview, 14 May 1987.</ref>

Louise joined the [[International Labor Defense]] in 1933.
She was the principal organizer of the "Free the Scottsboro Boys March" in Washington DC, USA, which took place on 8 May 1933.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 59.</ref>

Immediately after returning from the USSR, Louise resigned from the Congregational Education Service. Erik S McDuffie says she did so out of "frustration with white liberalism."<ref>Erik S McDuffie, p 75.</ref>

==CPUSA==
Louise joined the Communist Party USA shortly after the Scottsboro Boys march, probably later the same year (1933).<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 59.</ref> From 1933 until 1948 Louise was employed in a CPUSA-aligned organization called the [[International Workers Order]] (ILO). Her main activities there were cultural outreach and union desegegation.<ref>William J Maxwell 1999, p 143.</ref>

Due largely to her USSR travels and her role in the Scottsboro defense, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called her "the leading colored woman in the Communist movement in this country," in its magazine ''The Crisis'' in 1934.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 59; William J Maxwell 1999, p 143; William J cites Louise Thompson, "Southern", p 327.</ref>

Louise embraced the "New Woman" ideal of the 1920s, and embodied an ethos of independent Black womanhood.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 64.</ref>

Her lifestyle in the 1920s and 1930s has been described as "bohemian".<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 9.</ref>

The freedom that she experienced during her visit to the Soviet Union in 1932 helped Louise "cultivate her public persona as a sexually liberated woman.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 68.</ref>

Louise was one of the first to conceptualize and describe the ''[[Triple oppression|triple exploitation]]'' of Afroamerican working-class women. In a 1936 essay, "Toward a Brighter Dawn", she used that term for the simultaneous racial, class, and gender discrimination that these women suffer. The idea was elaborated in CPUSA writings in the following decades, especially by Claudia Jones. It is the basis of the modern feminist concept of [[intersectionality]].

===Scottsboro===
Louise was an important figure in the international campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, nine Black young men falsely convicted of raping two White women aboard a train in Alabama, USA in 1931. The case became internationally notorious as an example of Southern-US jim crow misjustice, with groups around the world rallying to the cause of the unfortunate young men, eight of whom faced the death sentence. In the US, the defense effort was led by the [[International Labor Defense]], a Communist Party legal aid auxillary which obtained top-flight legal counsel for the young men. Other CPUSA organizations, as well as the NAACP were involved in the publicity side of the campaign.

Louise Thompson addressed one of the first large Scottsboro benefits in Harlem, which occurred in 1932 at the Rockland Palace. Sets by the Cab Calloway orchestra bookended her fiery speech.<ref>William J Maxwell 1999, p 143.</ref> During the ''Black and White'' tour in the Soviet Union, she also spoke at Scottsboro rallies there. Back in the United States, she joined the National Conference for the Defense of Political Prisoners in 1933, and was "the driving force" (Erik S McDuffie: 75) in organizing the ''Free the Scottsboro Boys March'' on Washington DC, USA, 8 May 1933. Five thousand people took part in the March and it drew national media coverage. Erik S McDuffie calls it "the first major protest for racial equality in Washington," and says it "presaged future marches on the capital for civil rights."<ref>P 75.</ref>

With the Revend Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Louise organized large Scottsboro rallies in Harlem Churches.

In 1934, campaigning in Birmingham, Alabama, Louise found herself imprisoned in the same courthouse as the Scottsboro Boys themselves, after being picked up in a police raid of a leftist friend's house. She was held for several weeks without trial and then released. Her article "My Southern Terror" in the November 1934 edition of the NAACP's magazine, ''The Crisis'', describes that experience.

The Scottsboro Boys eventually went free, the last being Haywood Patterson who escaped in 1950 to the state of Michigan, where the Governor refused to extradite him.

===Party relations===
In 1937, Louise published an article in the CPUSA's ''Party Organizer'', called "Negro Women in Our Party". It addressed the issue of Black-White romantic unions between Party members, which was causing some controversy. The problem was that many Black women in the Party felt that Black male CPUSA members had too great a tendency to seek sexual relations with White women leftists, leaving Black women leftists unbefreinded. A CPUSA group in Harlem led by [[Grace P Campbell|Grace Campbell]] would the next year go as far as to call for a ban on Black-White marriages within the Party for this reason.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 120.</ref> Louise's 1937 article has been summarized by Erik S McDuffie (2011, p 19):
<blockquote style="font-size:100%">
Marking the first time this volatile issue was discussed in a Party publication, the article appreciated how the personal and political intersected, with devastating implications for black women. Thompson identified Communist Party social events as a key site of interracial sexual tension, emphasizing how black women often felt like "wallflowers" at social events because no one asked them to dance. "These are the things," she wrote, "that hold a lot of Negro women back from the Party. They are not so political, but they do mean a great deal." For these reasons, black women did not "feel that they fit in, they [did] not feel as much a part of it as even ... Negro men comrades." Thompson's comments implied that black men felt more at home in the Party than black women in part because [they] had sexual access to white women. Urging Communists to devise a more "personal," "human approach" when dealing Recruiting African American women, she stressed that their recruitment into the CPUSA was "essential to [the Party's] Negro work."
</blockquote>

[[File:Louise Thompson in Berlin.jpg|thumb|left|216px|Louise in Berlin, Germany, 1960]]
Considering its policy of interracialism, the Party could hardly ban Black-White marriages. But it made some efforts to smoothe the troubled waters of intermember mating. For example, [[Theodore Basset]] began teaching White male Communists how to dance, because many of them felt unskilled in this area and were afraid to dance with African American women at party socials.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 122.</ref>

Louise was affiliated with the [[League for Women Shoppers]] in 1938.

Louise married William L Patterson in September 1940. They "forged a lifetime partnership based on gender egalitarianism."<ref>Erik S McDuffie, p 149.</ref>

In the 1950s Louise and the young poet and actor [[Beulah Richardson]] led an important feminist group called the [[Sojourners for Truth and Justice]]. The two women composed the group's Anthem in October-November 1951.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 160.</ref>

===Sojourners for Truth and Justice===
In late 1951, Louise met a young poet Beulah Richardson, whose poem "A Black Woman Speaks of White Womanhood, of White Supremacy, of Peace" had been a "smash hit in the Communist Left"<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011.</ref> that summer. The two women became friends and founded that year a Black left feminist group called the [[Sojourners for Truth and Justice]]. The group was named after 19th century African American writer Sojourner Truth. Although the group lasted less than two years, it was a trail blazer in terms of the positions it took, and in being the first Communist-associated organization in the United States to be founded and led by Black women.

The Sojourners' founding manifesto, "A Call to Negro Women", was written by Beulah and Louise in New York City in 1951, and the group had its inaugural convention in Washington DC from 29 September through 1 October that year. The convention was held in the meeting hall of the Cafeteria Workers Union, a predominantly Black female, left-leaning, CIO-affiliated union. The convention was attended by 132 women from 15 States. They wasted no time before going into action. The same day their inaugural convention ended, sixty of them rushed the doors of the Civil Rights section of the Department of Justice in Washington, demanding to see Attorney General J Howard McGrath. They had a message for him deploring the treatment of racialized people in the US.

The Sojourners didn't get to see J Howard McGrath, but were listened to politely for a few minutes by a Black justice department official, Maceo Hubbard. "Sir, we are here to speak our greivances. Our men are lynched, beaten, shot, deprived of jobs, and, on top of it all, forced to becom a part of a Jim Crow army and go thousands of miles [to] Korea to carry out war to other colored peoples," said tenant's rights organizer and Sojourner Angie Dickerson on behalf of the group. Maceo Hubbard promised to convey the Sojourner's message to the Attorney General but they never got a reply.

The Sojourners pressed on with their activism in the following months, campaigning for the freedom of Rosa Lee Ingram, and of W Alphaeus Hunton. And they called for an end to US government persecution of WEB DuBois and Paul Robeson. Their themes were human rights, Black equality, peace, and international solidarity.

The Sojourners went well ahead of other groups of their time in linking domestic US women's and minority-rights (race) concerns to the broader international context of colonialism and imperialism, and to issues of socioeconomic class.

The feminist scholar Carole Boyce Davies has written that in addressing these intersecting issues, and in reaching out to women of other cultures in international solidarity, the Sojourners also went beyond "narrow gendered formulations" which sometimes confined the White liberal, "mainstream" US feminism of the 1970s.<ref>Carole Boyce Davies, ''Left of Karl Marx'', p 83; quoted in Erik S McDuffie, p 83.</ref>

The Sojourners signed the ''We Charge Genocide'' petition against the US delivered to the United Nations by William L Patterson in late 1951 on behalf of the Civil Rights Congress.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 176.</ref>

And they demonstrated, along side the [[Council of African Affairs]], against South African apartheid, approving the CAA's declaration that "the struggle of black women in America for freedom and justice is unthinkable as many hundreds of millions of their sisters in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia are degraded and enslaved by the same pattern of racist oppression which we strive to abolish in our own land."<ref>In Erik S McDuffie 2011, pp 178-9.</ref>

They communicated with members of the African National Congress (ANC) inside South Africa, who warmly responded, thanking them for having "made it possible the link [between African American and African women] we have always wished for [on] this side of the world."<ref>ANC Women's League official Bertha Mkize to Sojourners, 20 April 1952, in Louise Thompson Patterson Papers, 2002, box 13, folder 4; quoted in Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 179.</ref>

Louise and Sojourner [[Charlotta Bass]] co-wrote letters to feminists in the Global South saying that Black American women's freedom was "inextricably linked" to that of their sisters in South Africa, and that freedom movements led by "colored women in Africa, Asia, and in these United States must lead to the complete emancipation of women throughout the world."<ref>Letters to Miss Baila Page and to Minna T Sioga, both 5 April 1952, in Louise Thompson Patterson Papers 2002, box 13, folder 4; in Erik S McDuffie.</ref>

The early demise of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice was caused partly by concerns in the CPUSA that the group was not racially integrated, and therefore a manifestation of racial separatism which the Party opposed on principle. The major cause of the Sojourners' demise, though, was cold-war era domestic repression in the United States.<ref>"While the CPUSA's cool response to the Sojourners contributed to its demise, McCarthyism was the key factor in shutting down the organization" (Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 183.)
</ref>
According to Erik S McDuffie, "Government informants riddled the group, enabling the FBI to accumulate more than 450 pages of surveillance files in little more than one year."<ref>2011, p 183.</ref> The state also targeted members individually. In April 1951, Charlotta Bass had her passport seized by the Justice Department, and that same month Louise was forced to testify in New York State court about her political activities. At least for Louise, the harassment was familiar; she had been heavily surveilled by the FBI since the early 1930s if not before. Some of the FBI files on Louise can be viewed for free at [[#Other works|archive.org]].

Besides direct state repression, the cold-war atmosphere also harmed the Sojourners indirectly in that formerly friendly parties were now afraid to work with them. The NAACP, for example, had frequently co-operated with CPUSA people before World War II; but now the NAACP barred Communists and this prevented the Sojourners from participating in civil rights campaigns such as those led by Ella Baker, president of the New York NAACP.

By the end of 1952, the Sojourners no longer functioned as a group.

According to FBI surveillance files, Louise was on the [[Communist Party Central Committee| Central Committee]] of the CPUSA in 1937 and re-elected to it in 1938 at the 10th National Convention.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Louise continued to mentor young Black militants. The New York [[Black Panther Party | Black Panther]] leadership, and the CPUSA's Black Liberation Committee, which had many youthful members as well as old hands, met regularly in Louise and William's Harlem apartment.<ref>Erik S McDuffie 2011, p 201.</ref>

==Works by Louise Thompson==
* 1968. "With Langston Hughes in the U.S.S.R.", ''Freedomways'' 8.2 (Spring 1968), pp 152-8.

==Other works==
* Erik S McDuffie, 2011. ''Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism.''
* Spartacus.edu "Louise Thompson". Accessed 2016.
* United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louise Thompson Patterson [https://archive.org/stream/LouiseThompsonPattersonFBIFile/Louise%20Thompson%20Patterson%20001#page/n49/mode/2up files]
* Willam J Maxwell, 1999. ''New Negro, Old Left''

==Notes==
<references/>

[[Category:Feminists]] [[Category:Black left feminism]]

Georgy Pyatakov

2023-04-25T17:39:30Z

Premier Otto: adding subsections

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Georgy Pyatakov|native_name=Юрій П'ятаков|image_size=200|birth_date=18 August 1890|birth_place=Horodyshche, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=30 January 1937|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Execution|nationality=Ukrainian|political_orientation=[[Trotskyism]]|image=Pyatakov.png}}

'''Georgy (Yuri) Leonidovich Pyatakov''' (18 August 1890 – 30 January 1937) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician. In 1917, he and [[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]] took a chauvinist stance on the national question and rejected [[self-determination]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref> He was executed in 1937 for involvement in [[Counterrevolution|counterrevolutionary]] sabotage.<ref name=":0223">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The Great Purge|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=125}}</ref>

== Early Life ==
Georgy Pyatakov was born 18 August 1890, in Horodyshche in the [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russian Empire]]. He joined the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]] in 1910.

== Death ==
Pyatakov was put on trial in 1937 as part of the [[Moscow trials]], he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

== References ==
[[Category:Russian Marxists]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T17:25:50Z

Premier Otto: Finished the defendant list along with some sources for reading

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===
[[Nikolai Bukharin]] (1888-1938)

Alexei Rykov (1881-1938)

Genrikh Yagoda (1891-1938)

Nikolai Krestinsky (1883-1938)

Khristian Rakovsky (1873-1941)

Arkady Rosengoltz (1889-1938)

Vladimir Ivanov (1893-1938)

Mikhail Chernov (1891-1938)

Grigori Grinko (1890-1938)

Issac Zelensky (1890-1938)

Sergei Bessonov (1892-1941)

Akmal Ikramov (1898-1938)

Faizulla Khodjayev (1896-1938)

Vasily Sharangovich (1897-1938)

Prokopy Zubarev (1885-1938)

Pavel Bulanov (1895-1938)

Lev Levin (1870-1938)

Dimitry Pletnev (1872-1941)

Ignaty Kazakov (1891-1938)

Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky (1900-1938)

Pyotr Kryuchkov (1889-1938)

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]
*[https://archive.org/details/reportofcourtpro0000piat/page/n1/mode/2up 1937 Trial]
*[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.150911/page/n795/mode/2up 1938 Trial]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Vyacheslav Molotov

2023-04-25T16:54:24Z

Premier Otto: added birth name

{{Infobox politician|name=Vyacheslav Molotov|native_name=Вячеслав Молотов|image_size=200|birth_name=Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin|nationality=Russian|political_orientation=Marxism-Leninism|political_party=[[RSDLP]] (1906–1918) [[CPSU]] (1918–1961)|image=Molotov.png|political_line=[[Anti-revisionism]] [[Marxism–Leninism]]|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_date=8 November 1986|birth_date=9 March 1890|birth_place=Kukarka, [[Russian Empire]]}}

'''Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov,''' birth name '''Skryabin''' (9 March 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet [[Revolution|revolutionary]], diplomat, and politician. He was the last surviving major participant in the [[October Revolution]] at the time of his death in 1986. Shortly before his death, he criticized the [[Revisionism|revisionist]] policies of Foreign Minister [[Eduard Shevardnadze]].<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[In Defense of Communism]]|title=A story about Molotov's last days|date=2021-11-08|url=http://www.idcommunism.com/2021/11/a-story-about-molotovs-last-days.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220615002357/http://www.idcommunism.com/2021/11/a-story-about-molotovs-last-days.html|archive-date=2022-06-15|retrieved=2022-10-25}}</ref>

== Political career ==
Molotov, [[Georgy Malenkov|Malenkov]], [[Lazar Kaganovich|Kaganovich]], and [[Kliment Voroshilov|Voroshilov]] opposed [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]]'s [[Secret Speech]] and attempted to remove him from power in 1957. Their [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] group controlled seven of 11 seats on the Presidium, but the Central Committee removed them from leadership positions.<ref name=":03">{{Citation|author=Roger Keeran, Thomas Kenny|year=2010|title=Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union|chapter=Two Trends in Soviet Politics|page=27–32|pdf=https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceaj5ucph44bjwyhlhsbycckr3ts76zbucn2hbrea32tltcd4s5ekg?filename=Roger%20Keeran_%20Thomas%20Kenny%20-%20Socialism%20Betrayed_%20Behind%20the%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union-iUniverse.com%20%282010%29.pdf|publisher=iUniverse.com|isbn=9781450241717}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Communists]]
[[Category:Revolutionaries]]
<references />
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]
[[Category:Marxist-Leninists]]
[[Category:Bolsheviks]]
[[Category:Russian Marxists]]
[[Category:Russians by descent]]

Lazar Kaganovich

2023-04-25T16:49:37Z

Premier Otto: modified the header to include lifespan

{{Infobox politician|name=Lazar Kaganovich|native_name=Ла́зарь Кагано́вич|image_size=200|birth_date=22 November 1893|birth_place=Kabany, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=25 July 1991 (aged 98)|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|political_party=[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]|image=Kaganovich.png}}

'''Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich''' (22 November 1893 - 25 July 1991) was a [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet]] politician and the last-living Old Bolshevik, who died a mere five months before the [[overthrow of the Soviet Union]] in July 1991.

== Political career ==
During the [[October Revolution]], the Central Committee assigned Kaganovich along with many other Bolsheviks to direct the revolution in the countryside.<ref>{{Citation|author=Joseph Stalin|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref>

During the [[Russian Civil War]], Kaganovich led the struggle against [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] forces in [[Central Asia]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Joseph Stalin|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Transition to the Peaceful Work of Economic Restoration|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch09.htm}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Bolsheviks]]
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]

Sergo Orjonikidze

2023-04-25T16:45:43Z

Premier Otto:

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Sergo Orjonikidze|native_name=სერგო კონსტანტინეს ძე ორჯონიკიძე|image_size=200|birthname=Grigol Konstantines dze Ordzhonikidze|birth_date=24 October 1886|birth_place=Ghoresha, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=18 February 1937|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Suicide|nationality=Georgian|political_orientation=[[Marxism–Leninism]]|political_party=[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]|image=Sergo Ordzhonikidze.png}}

'''Sergo Konstantinovich Orjonikidze,''' born '''Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze''' (24 October 1886 – 18 February 1937) was a Georgian Bolshevik and close ally of [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]. He served as People's Commissar of Heavy Industry from 1932 to 1937 and followed a policy of re-educating [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] technical specialists. He committed suicide in 1937 after his assistant [[Pyatakov]] was found guilty of widespread sabotage and wrecking.<ref name=":0223">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The Great Purge|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=125}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Bolsheviks]]

Sergo Orjonikidze

2023-04-25T16:45:04Z

Premier Otto: added birth name

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Sergo Orjonikidze|native_name=სერგო კონსტანტინეს ძე ორჯონიკიძე|image_size=200|birthname=Grigol Konstantines dze Ordzhonikidze|birth_date=24 October 1886|birth_place=Ghoresha, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=18 February 1937|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Suicide|nationality=Georgian|political_orientation=[[Marxism–Leninism]]|political_party=[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]|image=Sergo Ordzhonikidze.png}}

'''Sergo Konstantinovich Orjonikidze''' Born '''Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze''' (24 October 1886 – 18 February 1937) was a Georgian Bolshevik and close ally of [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]. He served as People's Commissar of Heavy Industry from 1932 to 1937 and followed a policy of re-educating [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] technical specialists. He committed suicide in 1937 after his assistant [[Pyatakov]] was found guilty of widespread sabotage and wrecking.<ref name=":0223">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The Great Purge|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=125}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Bolsheviks]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T16:41:25Z

Premier Otto:

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Leon Trotsky]] and his son [[Lev Sedov]] were also tried and found guilty in absentia

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Party for Socialism and Liberation

2023-04-25T16:33:28Z

Premier Otto: added acronym

{{Infobox political party|name=Party for Socialism and Liberation|logo=PSL.png|founded=June 2004|newspaper=''[[Liberation News]]''|political_orientation=[[Marxism–Leninism]] [[Anti-imperialism]]|website=https://pslweb.org}}{{Communist parties}}
The '''Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)''' is a [[Marxist-Leninist]] political party in the [[United States of America|United States]] founded in June 2004 after a split from the [[Workers World Party]]. Their platform is closely related to the broader [[The ANSWER Coalition|ANSWER Coalition]]. The PSL has funded numerous movements within [[the ANSWER Coalition]] including the movement to liberate [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]] from [[United States imperialism|Statesian imperialism]].<ref>An article from the [https://www.answercoalition.org/actions_nationwide_to_demand_u_s_hands_off_cuba Answer Coalition] depicting their stance on Cuba, sponsored by the PSL</ref> The PSL held its first congress in February 2010 in Los Angeles, California.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Ian Thompson|newspaper=[[Liberation News]]|title=PSL’s First National Congress strengthens the struggle for socialism|date=2010-02-22|url=https://www.liberationnews.org/10-02-22-psls-first-national-congress-st-html/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714145018/https://www.liberationnews.org/10-02-22-psls-first-national-congress-st-html/|archive-date=2019-07-14|retrieved=2022-08-08}}</ref>

== History ==
At its founding in 2004, the PSL held a two-part congress to establish publications and a party structure. Between 2004 and 2010, it held regular conventions that were open to all members to elect party leadership between conventions. In 2010, the party held its first delegated congress and adopted its constitution and program. The PSL held a second congress in 2013.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Liberation News]]|title=Building democratic centralism: stages of Party growth and internal development|date=2014-07-31|url=https://www.liberationnews.org/building-democratic-centralism-stages-party-growth-internal-development/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116082555/https://www.liberationnews.org/building-democratic-centralism-stages-party-growth-internal-development/|archive-date=2021-01-16|retrieved=2022-12-25}}</ref>

== Program ==

=== Anti-imperialism ===
The PSL supports immediate independence and reparations for [[Puerto Rico]] with freedom of travel between Puerto Rico and the United States. It also supports self-determination and potential independence of [[American Samoa]], [[Guam]], the [[Virgin Islands of the United States|Virgin Islands]], the [[Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands|Mariana Islands]], and indigenous nations on the U.S. mainland.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|newspaper=Party for Socialism and Liberation|title=Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation|date=2010|url=https://pslweb.org/program/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220615034341/https://pslweb.org/program/|archive-date=2022-06-15|retrieved=2022-06-18}}</ref>

=== Social benefits ===
The PSL advocates for a 30-hour work week, up to two years of paid parental leave, a minimum of one month of paid vacation and 12 paid holidays. It also supports universal citizenship for everyone living in the United States, free education from preschool to college, and reducing housing costs to 10% of total income or less.<ref name=":0" />

== Chapters ==
Contact information of the following PSL chapters is available on the party website.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=Party for Socialism and Liberation|title=Contact us|url=https://www2.pslweb.org/contact|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707094332/https://www2.pslweb.org/contact|archive-date=2022-07-07|retrieved=2022-07-28}}</ref> This list is organized by region of the United States.

=== Midwest ===

* Champaign–Urbana
* Chicago
* Cleveland
* Detroit
* Indianapolis
* Lexington
* Miami Valley
* Milwaukee
* Springfield

=== Northeast ===

* Albany
* Baltimore
* Boston
* Chester County, Pennsylvania
* Finger Lakes
* Lancaster
* New Haven
* New Paltz
* New York City
* Philadelphia
* Pittsburgh
* Southern New Hampshire
* Syracuse
* Washington, D.C.

=== Plains ===

* Albuquerque
* Dallas
* Denver
* Houston
* San Antonio

=== Southeast ===

* Asheville
* Atlanta
* Birmingham
* Central Gulf Coast
* Columbia
* Raleigh–Durham
* Sarasota
* Tampa

=== West ===

* Anchorage
* Boise/Pocatello
* Kennewick–Pasco–Richland
* Los Angeles
* Phoenix
* Portland
* Sacramento
* Salt Lake City
* San Diego
* San Francisco
* San Jose
* Seattle

== Publications ==
The party's main publication is the monthly paper ''[[Liberation News]]'',<ref>https://www.liberationnews.org</ref> which replaced a quarterly magazine, ''Socialism and Liberation''.<ref>[https://www.liberationnews.org/07-06-05-socialism-liberation-magazine-is-html/ "Socialism and Liberation magazine is changing"]. June 5, 2007. January 7, 2018.</ref> The PSL also publishes ''Breaking the Chains: A Socialist Perspective on Women's Liberation,'' a quarterly socialist and [[Feminism|feminist]] magazine,<ref>{{News citation|journalist=|date=|title=About Breaking the Chains|url=https://www.breakingthechainsmag.org/about/|newspaper=Breaking the Chains|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=2022-01-03}}</ref> and ''Reds In Ed'', a monthly newsletter initiated by teachers who are members of the PSL.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=|date=2020-03-13|title=Reds In Ed program|url=https://redsined.org/the-reds-in-ed-program/|newspaper=Reds in Ed|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=2022-01-02}}</ref> Additionally, the PSL publishes ''Liberation School'', which publishes longer-form analysis, Party documents, interviews, and educational resources including study guides, curricula, and video and audio courses.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=|date=2022-01-02|title=Our mission|url=https://liberationschool.org/about/|newspaper=Liberation School|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=2022-01-02}}</ref>

== Controversies ==
Some controversies of the PSL have arisen in recent years as its prominence grows in the public eye<ref>[https://medium.com/@dotcommunism/psls-brian-becker-loud-clear-radio-and-right-wing-entryism-349cf6f29aa4 Medium Article surrounding the actions of Brian Becker (with its own citations)]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/yT5vp#selection-42.0-42.1 Writings of a PSL member who was allegedly abused by Steven Powers]</ref> and while no political organization is completely without fault, these controversies must also be viewed within the context that communist parties in the US are regularly targeted by intelligence agencies for sabotage, as demonstrated by the FBI's [[COINTELPRO]] operation.

The PSL has been accused of being cult-like.<ref>[https://medium.com/@jacobscb/documentation-of-corruption-institutional-bigotry-and-high-control-group-cult-like-behavior-in-6afa65b8072e Medium post that is a directory of various accounts of PSL's bad behavior.]</ref>

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Communist parties]]
[[Category:Statesian communist parties]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T16:26:31Z

Premier Otto:

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Georgy Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Georgy Pyatakov

2023-04-25T16:22:00Z

Premier Otto: added alias

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T16:18:59Z

Premier Otto: Adding defendants for second trial

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===
[[Yuri Pyatakov]] (1890-1937)

[[Grigori Sokolnikov]] (1888-1939)

[[Karl Radek]] (1885-1939)

[[Leonid Serebryakov]] (1888-1937)

[[Yakov Livshitz]] (1896-1937)

[[Nikolai Muralov]] (1877-1937)

[[Yakov Drobnis]] (1891-1937)

[[Mikhail Boguslavsky]] (1886-1937)

[[Ivan Knyazev]] (1893-1937)

[[Stanislav Rataichak]] (1894-1937)

[[Boris Norkin]] (1895-1937)

[[Alexei Shestov]] (1896-1937)

[[Mikhail Stroilov]] (1899-1941)

[[Yosif Turok]] (1900-1937)

[[Ivan Hrasche]] (1886-1937)

[[Gavriil Pushin]] (1896-1937)

[[Valentin Arnold]] (1894-1941)

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T15:39:13Z

Premier Otto: Adding links and lifespans for defendants of first trial

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
[[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Lev Kamenev]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Grigory Evdokimov]] (1884 - 1936)

[[Ivan Bakayev]] (1887 - 1936)

[[Sergei Mrachkovsky]] (1883 - 1936)

[[Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan]] (1893 - 1936)

[[Ivan Smirnov]] (1880 - 1936)

[[Ephim Dreitzer]] (1894 - 1936)

[[Isak Reingold]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Richard Pickel]] (1896 - 1936)

[[Eduard Holtzman]] (1882 - 1936)

[[Fritz David]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Valentine Olberg]] (1907 - 1936)

[[Konon Berman-Yurin]] (1901 - 1936)

[[Moissei Lurye]] (1897 - 1936)

[[Nathan Lurye]] (1901 - 1936)

===Pytakov-Radek Trial===

===Bukharin-Rykov Trial===

==Further reading==

*[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T15:15:34Z

Premier Otto: fixing a grammer mistake

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
Grigory Zinoviev

Lev Kamenev

Grigory Evdokimov

Ivan Bakayev

Sergei Mrachkovsky

Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan

Ivan Smirnov

Ephim Dreitzer

Isak Reingold

Richard Pickel

Eduard Holtzman

Fritz David

Valentine Olberg

Konon Berman-Yurin

Moissei Lurye

Nathan Lurye

=== Pytakov-Radek Trial ===

=== Bukharin-Rykov Trial ===

== Further reading ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T15:14:07Z

Premier Otto: /* Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial */

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
Grigory Zinoviev [[Grigory Zinoviev]]

Lev Kamenev

Grigory Evdokimov

Ivan Bakayev

Sergei Mrachkovsky

Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan

Ivan Smirnov

Ephim Dreitzer

Isak Reingold

Richard Pickel

Eduard Holtzman

Fritz David

Valentine Olberg

Konon Berman-Yurin

Moissei Lurye

Nathan Lurye

=== Pytakov-Radek Trial ===

=== Bukharin-Rykov Trial ===

== Further reading ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T14:30:13Z

Premier Otto: Adding list of defendants and new subsections

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
Grigory Zinoviev

Lev Kamenev

Grigory Evdokimov

Ivan Bakayev

Sergei Mrachkovsky

Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan

Ivan Smirnov

Ephim Dreitzer

Isak Reingold

Richard Pickel

Eduard Holtzman

Fritz David

Valentine Olberg

Konon Berman-Yurin

Moissei Lurye

Nathan Lurye

=== Pytakov-Radek Trial ===

=== Bukharin-Rykov Trial ===

== Further reading ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

Moscow trials

2023-04-25T13:58:38Z

Premier Otto: Adding new subsection

The '''Moscow trials''' were a series of trials held in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] and members of the [[Right Opposition]] who were carrying out acts of sabotage and assassination.

== Background ==

There were three Moscow Trials,<ref name=":0">[https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/index.htm The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre; Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.]</ref> including:<blockquote>
# the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center ([[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]]-[[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center ([[Yuriy Pyatakov|Pyatakov]]-[[Karl Radek|Radek]] Trial; 1937)
# the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" ([[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]-[[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)
</blockquote>There were five Soviet officials assassinated by the bloc:<blockquote>
*[[Kirov|Sergei Kirov]]
* [[Maxim Gorky]]
* [[Maxim Peshkov]]
* [[Valerian Kuibyshev]]
* [[Vyacheslav Menzhinsky]]
</blockquote>The defendants of these were [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the [[RSFSR]] Penal Code with conspiring with the [[Imperial core|Western powers]] to assassinate [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore [[capitalism]].<ref name=":0" /> These trials would later be characterized as show trials, mostly from a lack of assertiveness to preserve any of the documents that would allegedly prove their legitimacy.

In the first trial, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center, all 16 of the defendants were executed for crimes against the Soviet state. Before their executions they gave deeply political reasons for how they had become [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionaries]]. The trials would be notable for their public aspect, and for the thousands of pages of confessions they would spawn.

=== Murder of Sergei Kirov ===
In December 1934 Sergei Mironovich Kirov, First Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Leningrad oblast (province) and city entered the Smolny institute, headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

Kirov mounted the stairs and walked along the corridor of the third floor towards his office. Leonid Vasil'evich Nikolaev, an unemployed former Party member, was standing in the hallway. Nikolaev allowed Kirov to pass by then rushed towards him from behind, took out a pistol, and shot Kirov in the back of the skull. Nikolaev then tried to shoot himself in the head but missed and fell faint on the floor a few feet from Kirov's body.

Nikolaev was seized on the spot.

Before a week was out Nikolaev had admitted that he was part of a conspiracy by a clandestine group of Party members opposed to Joseph Stalin and favouring Grigorii Zinoviev, Leningrad First Secretary before Kirov.

[[People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs|NKVD]] investigators now turned their attention to this group. Interrogations of these Nikolaev had named, and then persons named by those men, led to a number of partial and full confessions.

Three weeks after the murder fourteen men were indicted for conspiracy to kill Kirov.

The large significance of the Kirov murder unfolded only gradually during the next three years.

The threads that bound the Kirov conspirators to Zinoviev and Kamenev, followed up by the NKVD investigators led to the three Moscow Trials

* the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, or the "Trial of the Sixteen;" 1936);
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov-Radek Trial; 1937); and
* the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" (Bukharin-Rykov Trial, or "Trial of the Twenty-One;" 1938)

This last trial in turn led to the "[[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|Ezhovshchina]]" during which some hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, most certainly innocent, were arrested and executed, while many others imprisoned.<ref>{{Cite book|Book=The Murder Of Sergei Kirov|Page=1-2|Year=2013|Author=Grover Furr}}</ref>

Bourgeois propagandists during this period would assert that Stalin had Kirov killed<ref>Robert Conquest, Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1 Jan. 1989.

The author contends that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937 and 1938

It should be noted that Conquest worked for British intelligence in an Anti-Communist division titled the IRD. The IRDs mission was to as part of its remit "to collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications"</ref> to then proceed with the so-called "Show trials" then the Ezhovshchina.

However, there have been three studies on the Kirov murder by Kirilina,<ref>Alla Alekseevna Kirilina, L'Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d'un stalinien (1888-1934) </ref> Matthew Lennoe,<ref>Matthew Lennoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Jun. 2010 </ref> and [[Grover Furr]].<ref>Grover Furr, The Murder of Sergei Kirov: History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, 2015</ref>

Both Kirilina and Lennoe come to the conclusion Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman. Lennoes work is an interesting piece because he spends an introduction over a number of pages assuring us he is an anti-Communist and an anti-Stalinist and how much he hates socialism before asserting his conclusion - that Stalin did not kill Kirov.

In this we see the emotionally charged atmosphere of Soviet studies and how historians have to be ideologically "pure" before providing the conclusions of their research, whilst Grover Furr's study shows how flimsy their work is and how he was part of a clandestine group of terrorists.

== Trials ==
The defining reasons for a number of the Trotskyists seeking to collaborate with the [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi]] and [[German Reich (1933–1945)|German]] governments was due to their defeatism in the prospect of war. The Trotskyites did not believe the Soviet Union could win a war against [[Nazism|German fascism]]. Under this context, they were hoping to collaborate with the Germans and [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] to aid the destruction of the Soviet Union and the downfall of Stalin with the end result of a Soviet Union rump state with [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukraine]] and some of Russia's eastern territories and the establishment of a Trotskyist government.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, P.240</ref>

This is perhaps best expressed by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]:<blockquote>"A military defeat threatens the social basis of the Soviet Union for the same reason that these bases require in peaceful times a bureaucracy and a monopoly of foreign trade – that is, because of their weakness.

Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: '''If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong.''' If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, [[imperialism]] will sweep away the regime which issued from the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October revolution]]."<ref>Leon Trotsky, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch08.htm Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 8]</ref></blockquote>And Sokolnikov

'''"we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'.<ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, Page 240</ref><blockquote>In January, 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and several other associates of theirs were brought to trial on the charge of complicity in the murder of Kirov. They were acquitted of such complicity, but it was established that they had set up a counter- revolutionary organization, the activities of which encouraged the terrorist group at Leningrad, and that moreover they were aware of the latter's existence. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to ten years' and five years' imprisonment respectively. Then, in the late spring of 1936, a series of arrests of Nazi agents and Trotskyist conspirators revealed the existence of a much wider organization - a central terrorist committee which included, not only Zinoviev and Kamenev, but several leading Trotskyists. Preliminary investigations and evidence given at their trial (in August, 1936) revealed that, through Germans who had been sent to the U.S.S.R. by Trotsky himself, the organization was in close contact with the German Gestapo. Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were sentenced to be shot.

Within the next two weeks a number of other outstanding Trotskyists - Pyatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov and Yagoda, head of the people's Commissariat for the Interior -were also under arrest, as a result of confessions which the Zinoviev- Kamenev group had made. They were put on trial in January, 1937. The revelations which they made, and their confessions in Court, showed that, after pretending for so long that they were animated by concern for the Soviet people, on the contrary their policy had been one of complete subordination to the plans of Hitler. The organization of wrecking on the railways and in the coalfields, at important chemical works and power stations, in agriculture and livestock breeding, was revealed to be only subsidiary to their main purpose. This was to call in outside assistance - from the German and Japanese intelligence services - to redress the balance when their efforts inside the U.S.S.R. were failing. In the words of Sokolnikov (who had been Ambassador in Great Britain at one time), ''''we considered that Fascism was the most organized form of capitalism, that it would triumph and seize Europe and stifle us. It was better therefore to come to terms with it'''<nowiki/>'. These terms included territorial concessions in the Ukraine and the Far East, and economic concessions to German industrialists, in return for large-scale subversive activities in the event of war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and for the establishment of a Trotskyist Government after a German victory.

It is worth noting that, as a well-known American journalist who attended the trial wrote later, 'the impression held widely abroad that the defendants all told the same story, that they were abject and grovelling, that they behaved like sheep in the executioner's pen, isn't quite correct. They argued stubbornly with the prosecutor; in the main they told only what they were forced to tell'. Radek in his final evidence said, 'For two and a half months I compelled the examining official, by interrogating me and by confronting me with the testimony of the other accused, to open up all the cards to me, so that I could see who had confessed, who had not confessed and what each had confessed.' Nearly all the foreign diplomats in Moscow who had attended the trial, as U.S. Ambassador Davies reported to Secretary Hull on February 17th, 37, were convinced with him that the defendants were guilty. The Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the conspiracy to be shot, while Radek, Sokolnikov and others who had played a minor part were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

In May, 1937, yet another group of conspirators, whose existence had been revealed in the course of investigating evidence secured during the previous trial, was arrested. This consisted of two Deputy People's Commissars for Defence, Tukhachevsky and Garmarnik, and several other generals. They were brought to trial before a court-martial consisting of the highest military leaders of the U.S.S.R., and charged with espionage for the intelligence service of a country 'which is carrying on an unfriendly policy towards the U.S.S.R.' Later it was revealed that Tukhachevsky and his associates had reached the same point in their dealings with Germany as the Trotskyites primarily '''because they believed that there was no power on earth with a strength comparable with that of Germany, and that it was necessary to come to terms with her and with Japan.''' For this purpose they plotted a military coup - although the problem-had been how to find the rank and file for Such an enterprise as the seizure of Government buildings and the killing of Soviet leaders. On this, in fact, it broke down; and their trial in June, 1937, led to their conviction and execution.

There was yet one further group which was to be dealt with before the danger from within could be thought eliminated. It was announced in May that the Right-wing leaders Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were under suspicion of treason, as a result of evidence during the earlier trials. The first two were arrested, while Tomsky committed suicide. Other well-known Trotskyists were also taken into, custody during the year - Rosengoltz (a former associate of Trotsky in the War Department, later representative in London and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade), Rakovsky (former pre-1914 associate of Trotsky, later head of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and later still Ambassador in London), Krestinsky (formerly one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party, and later People's Commissar for Finance and Ambassador in Berlin), and several others. But the trial of this final group was not to be held until March, 1938.

Abroad, these trials aroused volumes of speculation, invention and abuse : abuse so sharp, indeed, that it was commonly regarded among ordinary Soviet citizens, as those who met them in these years could testify, as the most convincing proof that the Soviet Government had really struck a crushing blow at plans which had been hatched outside its borders, and that those who were responsible for the hatching were squealing. Be that as it may, the general verdict in the U.S.S.R. was well reflected in the remark of Stalin, at the XVII F Congress of the C.P.S.U. in March, 1939: ''''To listen to these foreign drivellers, one would think that if the spies, murderers and wreckers had been left at liberty to wreck, murder and spy without let or hindrance, the Soviet organizations would have been far sounder and stronger'''.'

It is an open secret that, in the course of the investigations during these years, particularly in 1937, there were large numbers of arrests among suspected persons in responsible positions. Foreign journalists and diplomats, accustomed to judge of the strength of a regime by the fortunes of persons in authority, were quick to interpret these arrests as indicating and intensifying a profound lack of confidence. In reality the uncertainty did not exist among the broad mass of the population; and even among those small sections of the intelligentsia where gossip and the consciousness of past waverings caused misgivings, these began to be allayed from 1938 onwards, when large numbers of those who had been under investigation began to be released and returned to their normal occupations. <ref>Andrew Rothstein, A History Of The U.S.S.R, 1950, P.240-243</ref></blockquote>

== Evidence the trials were legitimate ==

=== Trotsky Harvard Archive ===
In 1939, 1940 and 1953 Leon Trotsky's archives were sold and transferred to Harvard University. Trotsky stipulated that the personal section remain closed until 40 years after his death.<ref>Professor Grover Furr, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, 2015, ISBN 9781722842123, P.21</ref>

After the archives were opened a Trotskyist historian, Pierre Broue, began to study its contents. Pierre Broue and his team began to discover that Trotsky had deliberately lied in his published works.

First they found evidence that the Bloc of Oppositionists and others had really existed. The activities of this Bloc were the major allegation in all three of the Moscow Trials. Trotsky and his son Sedov always denied that any such bloc had existed and claimed it was an invention Stalin. <blockquote>Sedov’s letter in invisible ink reveals that the following groups existed: the Trotskyist Group in the USSR (“Our Group”), the Zinovievists, the group of I.N. Smirnov, the Sten–Lominadze Group, the “Safar(ov)–Tarkhan(ov) Group, the “right-wingers” and the “liberals”. Of course, not all of these participated in the “bloc”, but all of them knew of its existence and, according to Sedov, had contacts with it. (Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980)<ref>{{Cite web|Website=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|Author=Pierre Broue|Title=The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin
in the USSR in 1932}}</ref> </blockquote>

==== '''Trotsky and the slogan "Get Rid of Stalin"''' ====
The correspondence between Trotsky and Sedov between October and December 1932 the period of the “bloc” constitutes an extraordinary set of documents. They enable us to follow almost from day to day the efforts of Trotsky to cling as closely as possible to what was really happening in the Soviet Union, and to grasp the full significance of the “bloc”, the cement of which precisely was hostility to Stalin, and the desire to drive him out of the General Secretary’s position.
Trotsky opened the discussion about whether the slogan, “Get Rid of Stalin”, was appropriate on 17 October. “Get Rid of Stalin”, he wrote, “is correct in a well-defined, concrete sense”, but contrary to the “allies” and the “right-wingers”, he did not think it an appropriate one. In fact, he wrote that this slogan would not be dangerous “if we were strong”. But did it not risk being supported by the ''émigrés'', by the Mensheviks and by the “internal Thermidoreans”? He went on: “It is always possible that in a few months Stalin will be obliged to defend himself against the Thermidorean pressure, and that we shall be obliged to support him momentarily”. Indeed, “this stage is not yet past and, consequently, this slogan does not correspond to the needs of the movement”. <ref>Pierre Broue, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html The “Bloc” of the Oppositions against Stalin], 1980</ref>

During the 1980s, J. Arch Getty was also examining the Trotsky Harvard archive and discovered the existence of a Bloc. <blockquote>“It is clear, then, that Trotsky did have a clandestine organization inside the USSR in this period and that he maintained communication with it. It is equally clear that a united oppositional bloc was formed in 1932” J. Arch Getty <ref>(Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938)</ref></blockquote>In Pierre Broues Party Opposition of Stalin his conclusion was as follows: <blockquote>One might suppose that I disagree with Professor Getty on every aspect of that important question. That is not true. I think that, in fact an in the last analysis, we are very close in our conclusions. I think that the new data concerning the "Opposition bloc," the organization of two Communist blocs of Oppositions, the attempt to unify the Communist Opposition, definitely destroys all the legends and preconceived ideas about an all-mighty, blood-thirsty, machiavelian Stalin. The Soviet Union in the thirties was passing through a serious economic and political crisis. '''Stalin was more and more isolated and many people, including some from the ranks of privileged bureaucracy of which he was only the best expression and the unifier, began to think about the necessity of getting rid of him. The Moscow Trials were not a gratuitous crime committed in cold blood, but a counter-stroke in a conflict which was really, as Trotskii wrote, "a preventative civil war."'''<ref>Pierre Broue, Party Opposition to Stalin (1930-1932) and the First Moscow Trial, 1990</ref></blockquote>

=== Colonel Alksnis and the Tukachevsky transcript ===
The grandson of an officer (Colonel Alksnis) who was executed in the purge and always had believed he was innocent read the transcript of his Grandfathers in 2000.

Colonel Alksnis was a Colonel in the Russian army and could be trusted to read it in the reading room. Which was classified under Kruschev and remained so until 2018 to the public. His grandfather was linked to Tukhachevsky. Despite being an anti-Stalinist from an early age (as he believed his grandfather had been wrongly executed) after reading the Transcript he came away convinced Tukhachevksy, his grandfather, and the rest of the officers were guilty.<blockquote>“My grandfather and Tukhachevsky were friends. And grandfather was on the judicial panel that judged both Tukhachevsky and Eideman. My interest in this case became even stronger after the well-known publications of procuror Viktorov, who wrote that Iakov Alksnis was very active at the trial, harrassed the accused. . . . But in the trial transcript everything was just the opposite. Grandfather only asked two or three questions during the entire trial. But the strangest thing is the behavior of the accused. Newspaper accounts claim that all the defendants denied their guilt completely. But according to the transcript they fully admitted their guilt. I realize that an admission of guilt itself can be the result of torture. But in the transcript it was something else entirely: a huge amount of detail, long dialogues, accusations of one another, a mass of precision. It’s simply impossible to stage-manage something like this. . . . I know nothing about the nature of the conspiracy. But of the fact that there really did exist a conspiracy within the [[Workers' and Peasants' Red Army|Red Army]] and that Tukhachevsky participated in it I am completely convinced today.”</blockquote>–Colonel Alksnis (Elementy, 2000)<blockquote>I carefully watched the next entry in the video blog of the President of the Russian Federation dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions “The memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victories.” Honestly, I was extremely disappointed, because I expected a more responsible and balanced speech by the president on this issue.

For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. '''My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.'''

'''Therefore, our family always had anti-Stalinist sentiments and, accordingly, I was an anti-Stalinist.'''

When perestroika began, he eagerly read all the publications of those years, exposing the crimes of Stalin and his entourage.

In 1989, I was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR and after some time I sent an official deputy request to the then Chairman of the [[Committee for State Security|KGB]] of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov with a request to acquaint me with the documents relating to my grandfather.

In particular, I asked to show me his criminal case and the materials of the trial of M. Tukhachevsky, since my grandfather was part of the Special Judicial Presence, which sentenced Tukhachevsky and other military leaders to death.

I was particularly interested in the materials of the trial of a group of military leaders led by Tukhachevsky, since M. Tukhachevsky and Robert Eideman (chairman of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR), who were shot by the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence, were close friends of my grandfather, and they were almost friends with Robert Eideman not since childhood. And for me it was not clear how my grandfather could sentence his friends to death.

After a while I was invited to the Lubyanka and two volumes were placed in front of me. The first is the grandfather’s criminal case, and the second is a transcript of the trial of a group of military men led by Tukhachevsky. I was allowed to make the necessary statements.

I was immediately struck that in the criminal case there were extremely few documents. Grandfather was arrested on November 23, 1937, and shot on July 29, 1938, i.e. He spent 8 months in Lefortovo. And while in the case there were only three or four protocols of interrogations, and almost all of these protocols were about nothing.

For example, one multi-page protocol was devoted to organizing the repair of aircraft of the Air Force. Moreover, the protocol is very detailed, as it seemed to me, the answers to the investigator’s questions were simply rewritten from the governing documents of those years on the organization of aircraft repair.

I was surprised that three days after the arrest, my grandfather wrote a handwritten note in the name of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]], about his readiness to give sincere testimonies about his counter-revolutionary activities, but there were no traces of these sincere testimonies in the criminal case.

Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

'''After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.'''

I left the KGB building on Lubyanka in great dismay.

'''Firstly, I realized that my grandfather’s criminal case was “cleaned up” and some very important documents were removed from it. Obviously, these documents were seized during the Khrushchev thaw during the rehabilitation of the grandfather.'''

'''Secondly, there was still a “conspiracy of the military” in the Red Army.'''

And then the events related to the collapse of the Soviet Union began, and I was not up to the “business of days gone by.”

My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

'''So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.'''

'''And so I have no faith in the current fighters with Stalin.'''

Please note that more than 70 years have passed since those tragic events, but the archives of those years are still closed. Instead of archival documents, we are forced to read Solzhenitsyn and other detractors of Stalin. And what prevents to open archives? What prevents to open materials on the Katyn case? What prevents to open materials on the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact? What prevents to publish the transcript of the trial of Tukhachevsky?

So IM has something to hide.

And if so, then they do not have the right to condemn Stalin and his time.

Let THEY open the archives and give people the opportunity to give an assessment to those great and tragic times.<ref>[https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/ Diplomatic Post, The Moscow Trials: Colonel Viktor Alksnis Read The Tukhachevsky Transcript And Came Away Convinced He Was Guilty, 01/11/2009,] </ref></blockquote>

== Involvement of Yezhov ==
Nikolai Yezhov, a known Nazi spy<ref>Kudrinskikh, A. ''Nikolai Yezhov: Bloody dwarf'' </ref> who would later be executed for treason in 1940 and served as a functionary of the NKVD during the time of the trials and would later serve as head of the intelligence agency,<ref>On the appointment of Comrade N. I. YEZHOV as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR ([http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/y-appt-eng.html Read on CyberUSSR])</ref> was assigned to handle the gathering of information that would prove or disprove the involvement of various defendants in various plots, and there are many suspicions that Yezhov may have used the trial as his first opportunity for sabotage.

== List of Defendants ==

=== Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial ===
Grigory Zinoviev

Lev Kamenev

Grigory Evdokimov

Ivan Bakayev

Sergei Mrachkovsky

Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan

Ivan Smirnov

Ephim Dreitzer

Isak Reingold

Richard Pickel

Eduard Holtzman

Fritz David

Valentine Olberg

== Further reading ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/law/1936/moscow-trials/ Court Proceedings (MIA)]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Articles needing cleaning up]]
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]

ProleWiki:Library/Archive

2023-04-25T13:36:43Z

Premier Otto: Adding 2 more texts to the Grover Furr section

{{changetitle|''Library of ProleWiki''}}
Welcome to the ''Library of Prolewiki,'' a space for the collection of texts, articles and books relating to socialism. Previously, this was only for [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] works. But because It is important to understand the history of socialism, works that are non-Marxist or adversarial to socialism are now included. Dates for each work below are provided, and each section is separated by authors.

You can find the works of all [[:Category:Library works by Marxist-Leninists|Marxist-Leninist authors here]].
{{TOC limit|3}}
== ProleWiki Selected Works ==

# ''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' (Lenin's brief outline of Marxist philosophy.)
# ''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]'' (Marx and Engels' analysis of class struggle and an outline communist principles.)
# ''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]'' (Engels' series of questions and answers on the Marxist doctrine.)
# ''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]'' (Engels' response on the rejection of authority under a socialist state.)
# ''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' (Lenin's work on the state, its role in society and the necessity of a revolutionary movement.)

==Main works==
=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels===
[[:Category:Library works by Karl Marx|[Marx category page]]] [[:Category:Library works by Friedrich Engels|[Engels category page]]]
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Author
!Work
!Year
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right|Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right]]''
|1843
|-
|Marx
|[[Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844]]
|1844
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The holy family|The holy family]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Theses on Feuerbach|Theses on Feuerbach]]''
|1845
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:The German ideology|The German ideology]]''
|1846
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The poverty of philosophy|The poverty of philosophy]]''
|1847
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The principles of communism|The principles of communism]]''
|1847
|-
|Marx & Engels
|''[[Library:Manifesto of the communist party|Manifesto of the communist party]]''
|1848
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte|The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]''
|1852
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:A contribution to the critique of political economy|A contribution to the critique of political economy]]''
|1859
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Value, price and profit|Value, price and profit]]''
|1865
|-
|Marx
|[[Library:Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America|''Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln'']]
|1865
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Capital, vol. I|Capital, vol I]]''
|1867
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:The civil war in France|The civil war in France]]''
|1871
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:On authority|On authority]]''
|1872
|-
|Marx
|''[[Library:Critique of the Gotha Program|Critique of the Gotha Program]]''
|1875
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Anti-Dühring|Anti-Dühring]]''
|1878
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Socialism: utopian and scientific|Socialism: utopian and scientific]]''
|1880
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:The origin of the family, private property and the state|The origin of the family, private property and the state]]''
|1884
|-
|Engels
|''[[Library:Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy|Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy]]''
|1886
|-
|Marx & Engels
|[[Library:Marx & Engels letters|Marx & Engels letters]]
|1843–1895
|}

===Vladimir Lenin===
[[:Category:Library works by Vladimir Lenin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Concerning the state budget|Concerning the state budget]]'' '''(January 15th, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:What is to be done?|What is to be done?]]'' '''(February, 1902)'''
*''[[Library:Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution|Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution]]'' '''(July, 1905)'''
*''[[Library:Materialism and empiriocriticism|Materialism and empiriocriticism]]'' '''(February, 1908)'''
*''[[Library:The three sources and three component parts of Marxism|The three sources and three component parts of Marxism]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Backward Europe and Advanced Asia|Backward Europe and advanced Asia]]'' '''(1913)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and Reformism|Marxism and Reformism]]'' '''(September, 1913)'''
*[[Library:The defeat of one’s own government in the imperialist war|The defeat of one's own government in the imperialist war]] '''(1915)'''
*''[[Library:Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism|Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism]]'' '''(June 1916)'''
*''[[Library:The state and revolution|The state and revolution]]'' '''(August, 1917)'''
*[[Library:A letter to American workingmen|''A letter to American workingmen'']] '''(August 20th, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky|The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky]]'' '''(November, 1918)'''
*''[[Library:"Left-wing" communism, an infantile disorder|“Left-wing” communism, an infantile disorder]]'' '''(May, 1920)'''

=== Joseph Stalin===
[[:Category:Library works by Joseph Stalin|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:Anarchism or socialism?|Anarchism or socialism?]]'' '''(January, 1907)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and the National Question|Marxism and the national question]]'' '''(March-May, 1913)'''
*''[[Library:The foundations of Leninism|The foundations of Leninism]]'' '''(April, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:Trotskyism or Leninism?|Trotskyism or Leninism?]]'' '''(November 19th, 1924)'''
*''[[Library:The International Character of the October Revolution|The International Character of the October Revolution]]'' '''(November 7th, 1927)'''
*''[[Library:Dialectical and historical materialism|Dialectical and historical materialism]]'' '''(September, 1938)'''
*''[[Library:History of the communist party of the Soviet Union|History of the communist party of the Soviet Union]]'' '''(October 1st, 1939)'''
*''[[Library:Marxism and problems of linguistics|Marxism and problems of linguistics]]'' '''(June 2nd, 1950)'''
* ''[[Library:Economic problems of socialism in the USSR|Economic problems of socialism in the USSR]]'' '''(September, 1952)'''

=== Mao Zedong===
[[:Category:Library works by Mao Zedong|[Category page]]]
*[[Library:Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society|Analysis of the classes in Chinese society]] '''(March, 1926)'''
*[[Library:Oppose Book Worship|''Oppose book worship'']] '''(May, 1930)'''
*''[[Library:On guerrilla warfare|On guerrilla warfare]]'' '''(1937)'''
*[[Library:Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front|''Win the masses in their millions for the anti-Japanese national united front'']] '''(May 7th, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On practice|On practice]]'' '''(July, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:On contradiction|On contradiction]]'' '''(August, 1937)'''
*''[[Library:Combat liberalism|Combat liberalism]]'' '''(September 7th, 1937)'''

=== Ho Chi Minh===
[[:Category:Library works by Ho Chi Minh|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:On revolutionary morality|''On revolutionary morality'']]'' '''(1958)'''

===Kim Il-sung===
[[:Category:Library works by Kim Il-Sung|[Category page]]]
*''[[Library:For the establishment of a united party of the working masses|For the establishment of a united party of the working masses]]'' '''(1946)'''
*''[[Library:On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work|On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work]]'' '''(1955)'''
*''[[Library:Let us further strengthen the people’s government|Let us further strengthen the people’s government]]'' '''(1977)'''
*''[[Library:Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence|Enhancing the role of the masses of the people is the guarantee for victory in the cause of independence]]'' '''(1992)'''

=== Clara Zetkin ===

* [[Library:Lenin on the women’s question|''Lenin on the women’s question'']]

==Complimentary works==

=== Deng Xiaoping ===
* ''[[Library:The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division|The Principles, Tasks and Orientation for Cultural Work in the 129th Division]]'' '''(June 16th, 1941)'''
*''[[Library:A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years|A General Account of the Struggle Against the Enemy Over the Past Five Years]]'' '''(January 26th, 1943)'''
*''[[Library:Report delivered at a conference on the press in Southwest China|Report Delivered At a Conference on the Press in Southwest China]]'' '''(May 16th, 1950)'''
*''[[Library:Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future|Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future]]'' '''(December 13th, 1978)'''
*''[[Library:To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces|To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces]]'' '''(May 5th, 1980)'''
*''[[Library:Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character|Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character]]'' '''(June 30th, 1984)'''

=== Grover Furr ===
*''[[Library:Khrushchev lied|Khrushchev lied]]''
*The Moscow Trials as Evidence
*Blood Lies

=== Kim Jong-un ===
* [[Library:Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee|''Report to the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of the Central Committee'']]
*''[[Library:Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism|Fundamentals of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism]]''

=== Enver Hoxha ===
[<nowiki/>[[:Category:Library works by Enver Hoxha|Category page]]]

* ''[[Library:The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism|The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism]]'' '''(1968)'''
* ''[[Library:The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance|The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance]]'' '''(1969)'''
* ''[[Library:Theory and Practice of the Revolution|Theory and Practice of the Revolution]]'' '''(1977)'''
* [[Library:Imperialism and the Revolution|''Imperialism and the Revolution'']] '''(1979)'''
* ''[[Library:Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism|Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism]]'' '''(1980)'''
*''[[Library:With Stalin: Memoirs|With Stalin: Memoirs]]'' '''(1981)'''

=== Martin Luther King Jr. ===
* [[Library:Letter from Birmingham Jail|''Letter from Birmingham jail'']]

=== Domenico Losurdo===
* ''[[Library:Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism|Has China turned to capitalism? — Reflections on the transition from capitalism to socialism]]''

=== Rosa Luxemburg ===
* ''[[Library:Reform or Revolution|Reform or Revolution]]''
*''[[Library:The Accumulation of Capital|The Accumulation of Capital]]''

=== Carlos Marighella ===
* [[Library:Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla|''Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla'']]

=== Martin Nicolaus ===
* ''[[Library:Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR|Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR]]''

=== Michael Parenti ===

* ''[[Library:Blackshirts and Reds|Blackshirts and Reds]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''
* [[Library:Global Rollback After Communism|Global Rollback After Communism]]

=== Plekhanov ===
*''[[Library:Essays on the history of materialism|Essays on the history of materialism]]‎''
*''[[Library:Fundamental problems of marxism|Fundamental problems of marxism]]''

===Georges Politzer===
*''[[Library:Elementary principles of philosophy|Elementary principles of philosophy]]''
*''[[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy|Fundamental principles of philosophy]]''

===Xi Jinping===
*''[[Library:The governance of China|The governance of China]]''
*[[Library:Properly Understand the Major Theoretical and Practical Issues in China's Development|Properly understand the major theoretical and practical issues in china's development]] '''(December 8th, 2021)'''

=== Xu Hongzhi ===

* [[Library:Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics|Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics]]

==Interviews==

===Stalin===

*''[[Library:Stalin interview with H. G. Wells|Interview with H. G. Wells]]''
*''[[Library:Stalin interview with Emil Ludwig|Interview with Emil Ludwig]]''

=== Guzmán ===

* ''[[Library:Interview with Chairman Gonzalo|Interview with Chairman Gonzalo]]''

== Non-socialist works ==

=== Aimé Césaire ===

* ''[[Library:Discourse on Colonialism|Discourse on colonialism]]'' '''(Incomplete)'''

=== Department of Strategic Services (Provisional) ===

* [[Library:Simple Sabotage Field Manual|Simple Sabotage Field Manual]]

=== Thomas Paine ===

* ''[[Library:Common Sense|Common sense]]'' '''(1776)'''

==Transcripts==

===Podcasts===

*

===Videos===

==== FOX News ====

* [[Library:Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford|Interview with r/AntiWork's Doreen Ford]]

====Michael Parenti====

*''[[Library:There Are No Poor Countries|"There Are No Poor Countries"]]''
*[[Library:US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR|''US Interventionism, the Third World, and the USSR'']] (the famous 'Yellow Parenti' video)

==== Yanis Varoufakis ====
*''[[Library:Is capitalism devouring democracy?|Is capitalism devouring democracy?]]''

==Documents==

=== Soviet Union ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)|Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936)]]''

=== Albania ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania|Constitution of the Party of Labour of Albania]]''
*''[[Library:Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)|Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976)]]''

===Brazil===
*''[[Library:Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party|Congresses of Brazilian Communist Party]]''

===China===
*''[[Library:The constitution of the Communist Party of China|The constitution of the Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China|The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China]]''
*''[[Library:Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era|Chinese and Russian Joint Statement on the New Era]]''

=== India ===

* ''[[Library:China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power|China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power]]''

=== United States ===

* ''[[Library:Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States|Constitution of the Communist Party USA]]''
*[[Library:Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation|''Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation'']]
* [[Library:Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)|''Founding statement of the United Workers' Party (Organizing Committee)'']]
*''[[Library:Elections Won't Defeat Fascism, Only We Can|Elections Won’t Defeat Fascism, Only We Can]]''

== Study guides ==
Here's a category tree of our Study guides which include [[:Category:Film lists|Film lists]] and [[:Category:Reading lists|Reading lists]]<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Study guides</categorytree>
[[Category:Library]]

== Library Category Tree ==
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library</categorytree>

Great Leap Forward

2023-04-24T00:54:29Z

Premier Otto: Adding references and quotes

[[File:Great Leap Forward poster.png|thumb|Poster of [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] visiting a homemade steel furnace during the Great Leap Forward]]
The '''Great Leap Forward''' (Simplified Chinese: 大跃进; Pinyin: Dà yuèjìn) was an economic and social campaign in China during the [[Five-year plans of China#Second Plan (1958–1962)|Second Five-Year Plan]]. During the Great Leap Forward, [[Peasantry|peasants]], who had already [[Collectivization|collectivized]] land, joined large communes of thousands of people. They tried to produce steel in small rural foundries, also known as [[backyard furnace|backyard steel furnaces]]. Mao admitted that policy errors occurred and took responsibility for them, but [[Imperial core|Western]] claims of mass starvation are widely exaggerated.<ref>[https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/mao-responsibility-great-leap-forward-1959/ MAO ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (1959)]</ref>

== Famine ==
Western sources often claim that the largest famine in history took place during the Great Leap Forward. Official Chinese documents released after Mao's death put the death toll at 16.5 million, which may be exaggerated, while [[Bourgeois media|bourgeois]] sources claim that 30 or even 38 million people died. Other sources such as The China Quarterly (a CIA funded outlet) claim 50-60 million died. <ref>{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=U.S. state agencies have provided assistance to those with a negative attitude to Maoism (and communism in general) throughout the post-war period. For example, the veteran historian of Maoism Roderick MacFarquhar edited The China Quarterly in the 1960s. This magazine published allegations about massive famine deaths that have been quoted ever since. It later emerged that this journal received money from a CIA front organisation, as MacFarquhar admitted in a recent letter to The London Review of Books. (Roderick MacFarquhar states that he did not know the money was coming from the CIA while he was editing The China Quarterly.)}}</ref>

It is true that agricultural production decreased in five years between 1949-1978 due to “natural calamities and mistakes in the work.” However, during 1949-1978 the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.<ref>Guo Shutian ‘China’s Food Supply and Demand Situation and International Trade’ in ''Can China Feed Itself? Chinese Scholars on China’s Food Issue.'' Beijing Foreign Languages Press 2004.</ref>

Mao even spoke on the subject of over-enthusiasm in the Great Leap Forward at the Wuchang Conference saying

"In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi, wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths." <ref>{{Web citation|author=Joseph Ball|newspaper=Monthly Review|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|date=2006-09-21|url=https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/#en22|retrieved=2023-04-23|quote=In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi [in 1955-Joseph Ball], wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths.22

Then in a few sentences later Mao says: “As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths?”}}</ref>

== Industrial Growth ==
In 1952 industry was 36% of gross value of national output in China. By 1975 industry was 72% and agriculture was 28%. It is quite obvious that Mao’s supposedly disastrous socialist economic policies paved the way for the rapid economic and industrial development of [[Reform and Opening Up]].<ref>M. Meissner, ''The Deng Xiaoping Era. An Enquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism, 1978-1994'', Hill and Wray 1996.</ref>

Official Chinese statistics show that after the end of the Leap in 1962, industrial output value had doubled; the gross value of agricultural products increased by 35 percent; steel production in 1962 was between 10.6 million tons or 12 million tons; investment in capital construction rose to 40 percent from 35 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period; the investment in capital construction was doubled; and the average income of workers and farmers increased by up to 30 percent.<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=AE8zAQAAIAAJ People's Republic of China Yearbook]''. Vol. 29. Xinhua Publishing House. 2009. p. 340. <q>The 2nd Five-Year Plan (1958–1962)</q> </ref> Additionally, there was significant capital construction (especially in iron, steel, mining and textile enterprises) that ultimately contributed greatly to China's industrialization.<ref>Joseph, William A. (1986). "A Tragedy of Good Intentions: Post-Mao Views of the Great Leap Forward". ''Modern China''. '''12''' (4): 419–457. doi:10.1177/009770048601200401. ISSN 0097-7004. JSTOR 189257. S2CID 145481585.</ref>

Heavy industry grew a great deal in this period too. Developments such as the establishment of the Taching oil field during the Great Leap Forward provided a great boost to the development of heavy industry. A massive oil field was developed in China.12 This was developed after 1960 using indigenous techniques, rather than Soviet or western techniques. (Specifically the workers used pressure from below to help extract the oil. They did not rely on constructing a multitude of derricks, as is the usual practice in oil fields).<ref>W. Burchett with R. Alley ''China: the Quality of Life.'' Penguin, 1976.</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Debunking myths]]
[[Category:History of China]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-24T00:18:33Z

Premier Otto: Adding references

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary. <ref>The full text of Khrushchev's speech is available online at: http: // chss.montclair.edu/ english/ furr/ research/kl/ speech.html </ref>

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.<ref>Khrushchev, Nikita S. The New leader. The Crimes of the Stalin Era. Introduction by Anatol Shub, note by Boris Nikolaevsky. New York: The New Leader, 1962.</ref> During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? What else might he have blurred? At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech). <ref>A few examples here: It was Beria, not Khrushchev. who released many prisoners, though not "millions". as Taubman claims. The "thaw<nowiki>''</nowiki> he celebrates had begun during the last Stalin years. Khrushchev '''limited''' it to "Rightist", anti-Stalin material only. Stalin had tried to retire in October 1952, but the 19th Party Congress had refused to permit it. Taubman claims Khrushchev said he was "not involved" in the repressions, yet Khrushchev had not responded to Stalin's urgings. but had '''taken the initiative''', demanding higher "quotas" for repressions than the Stalin leadership wanted. Taubman claims "Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity." It would be more accurate to say the opposite: Khrushchev appears more like a thug and murderer.</ref>

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult''</nowiki> around him. <ref>See the quotations for Chapter 1 in Appendix 1 for a long list of quotations of Stalin showing his opposition to the "cult" around him.</ref> Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress,<ref>lkramov was rehabilitated on june 3, 1957. reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. Febral' 1956 - nachalo 80-kh godov. Moskva: "Materik" , 2003. (hereafter RKEB 2), 851. See also http:/ /www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/chapter5.htm</ref> Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech". The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly '''against''' punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did '''not''' do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-23T22:57:34Z

Premier Otto: 2 more subchapters added

== Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech" ==
The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", delivered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' William Taubman, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary.

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of ''The'' ''New'' ''Leader'' in 1962.2 During my reading I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:<blockquote>Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.</blockquote>Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:<blockquote>This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.</blockquote>I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magisterial work Origins of the Great Purges<blockquote>Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? What else might he have blurred? At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)</blockquote>So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from formerly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might discover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verification, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taubman's own ''New'' ''York'' ''Times'' Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech).

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate acceptance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a paradigm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympathy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that suspiciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evidence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary documents available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Internet myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladimir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by readers.

== The cult and Lenin's "testament" ==

=== The cult ===
Khrushchev:<blockquote>"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."</blockquote>This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality<nowiki>'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin'</nowiki>s death.

Yet Khrushchev does not '''specifically''' state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki>. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single ''truthful'' example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

==== Stalin's Opposition to the Cult ====
Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin<nowiki>'s assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult'' around him. Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin'</nowiki>s opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir ''Stalin.'' ''Kak Ya Evo Znal'' ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by [[Akakii Mgeladze]], a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

==== Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953 ====
Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult<nowiki>''</nowiki> to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

==== July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult" ====
At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

==== Who Fostered the "Cult"? ====
A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ''ochnye slavki'' (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for ''Izvestiya'' to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic ''Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva'' ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of ''lzvestiya'', subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

==== Khrushchev and Mikoian ====
Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

=== Lenin's "testament" ===
Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about <nowiki>''</nowiki>Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech". The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

== Collegiality "trampled" ==

=== "Collegiality" in work ===
At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

=== Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him ===
"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

'''There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin'''. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

=== Mass repressions generally ===
Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov<nowiki>'s predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov'</nowiki>s repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

=== <nowiki>''</nowiki>Enemy of the people" ===
Khrushchev:

"Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people." This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. 'This concept "enemy of the people" actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one's views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase ''l'ennemi du peuple'' was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter ''L' Ami du peuple'' in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A ''locus classicus'' for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian ''Vrag Naroda -'' occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

=== Zinoviev and Kamenev ===
Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

We now have a few of Zinoviev's, Kamenev's, and Bukharin's pre-trial interrogations from the Volkogonov Papers, in which all mutually. accuse one another - that is, all their confessions are mutually reinforcing, and consistent with their testimony at trial.

We also possess their appeals for clemency to the Supreme Court, which they wrote after their sentencing. In them they again reaffirm their guilt. Even the Rehabilitation report on them published in 1989, though heavily edited, contains suggestions of their guilt, for in it Zinoviev twice states that he is "no longer" an "enemy."

Sentencing Zinoviev and Kamenev, among others, to be shot for treason was not arbitrary if they were guilty, as all the evidence at our disposal at present suggests. We may assume Khrushchev had no evidence of their innocence, or he surely would have had it released Therefore, we have every reason to conclude that Khrushchev lied hypocritically when he deplored Zinoviev's and Kamenev's fates.

=== Trotskyites ===
Khrushchev:

"Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? "

In a speech to the February-March 1937 Plenum on March 3, Stalin did refer to Trotskyites in very hostile terms. But he did not advocate persecuting them. 'While stressing the need for renewed vigilance Stalin also proposed the establishment of special ideological courses for all leading party workers. That is, Stalin saw the problem of Trotskyism as a result of a low level of political understanding among Bolsheviks.

Meanwhile at the same Plenum, in his concluding speech on March 5, Stalin argued strongly against punishing everyone who had ever been a Trotskyist, and called for "an individual, differentiated approach." This is precisely what Khrushchev, in the "Secret Speech," claimed that Stalin did not do. So Khrushchev advocated exactly what Stalin advocated at the Feb.-March 1937 Plenum, while denying that Stalin did this. The parallel between Khrushchev's and Stalin's speeches are so close that Khrushchev may in fact have copied this passage out of Stalin's very speech!

There's a great deal of documentary evidence that Trotsky and his supporters were involved in anti-Soviet conspiracies, including with the Nazis. Full documentation must await a separate study,26 but General Pavel A. Sudoplatov's claim together with some Nazi documentation showing that Sudoplatov was telling the truth, is cited in Appendix 1 at this point.

=== Stalin neglected party ===
"Whereas. during the first few years after Lenin's death, Party congresses and Central Committee plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began initially to abuse his power. these principles were violated This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party congresses, years during which our party and our country had experienced so many important events? "

== Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party ==

=== Reference to "a party commission under the control of the Central Committee Presidium"; fabrication of materials during repressions ===

=== December 1, 1934 "directive" signed by Enukidze ===

=== Khrushchev pmplies Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder ===

=== Stalin's and Zhdanov's telegram to the Politburo of September 25 1936 ===

=== Stalin's report at the February-March 1937 CC Plenun ===

=== "Many members questioned mass repression", especially Pavel Postyshev ===

== The "cases" against party members and related questions ==

=== Eikhe ===

=== Ezhov ===

=== Rudzutak ===

=== Rozenblium ===

=== Kabakov ===

=== S.V. Kossior ===

=== V. Ia. Chubar' ===

=== P.P. Postyshev ===

=== A.V. Kosarev ===

=== The lists ===

=== Resolutions of the January 1938 CC Plenum ===

=== <nowiki>''Beria'</nowiki>s gang" ===

=== "Torture telegram" ===

=== Rodos tortured Chubar' and Kosior on Beria's orders ===

== Stalin and the war ==

=== Stalin didn't heed warnings about war ===

=== Vorontsov's Letter ===

=== German soldier ===

=== Commanders killed ===

=== Stalin<nowiki>'s ''</nowiki>demoralization" after the beginning of the war ===

=== Stalin a bad commander ===

=== Khar'kov 1942 ===

=== Stalin planned military operations on a globe ===

=== Stalin downgraded Zhukov ===

== Of plots and affairs ==

=== Deportations of nationalities ===

=== The Leningrad affair ===

=== The Mingrelian affair ===

=== Yugoslavia ===

=== The doctors' plot ===

== Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes" ==

=== Beria ===

=== Kaminsky accuses Beria of working with the Mussavat ===

=== Kartvelishvili ===

=== Kedrov ===

=== Ordzhonikidze's brother ===

== Ideology and culture ==

=== Stalin, short biography ===

=== The 'short course' ===

=== Stalin signed order for monument to himself on July 2, 1951 ===

=== The palace of soviets ===

=== The Lenin Prize ===

== Stalin's last years in power ==

=== Stalin suggested huge tax increase on Kolkhozes ===

=== Stalin insulted Postyshev ===

=== "Disorganization" of Politburo work ===

=== Stalin suspected Voroshilov an <nowiki>''</nowiki>English agent" ===

=== Andreev ===

=== Molotov ===

=== Mikoian ===

=== Expansion of the Presidium ===

== A typology of prevarication ==

=== A typology of Khrushchev's prevarication ===

=== Exposing lie is not the same as establishing the truth ===

=== Historical vs. judicial evidence ===

=== Torture and the historical problems related to it ===

=== A typology of Khrushchevian prevarication ===

=== The "revelations" ===

=== The typology ===

== The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified ==

=== Rehabilitations ===

=== Falsified rehabilitations ===

=== Conclusion ===

== The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's ==

=== Deception ===

=== Why did Khrushchev attack Stalin? ===

=== The Khrushchev conspiracy? ===

=== Aleksandr S. Shcherbakov ===

=== Implications: The influence on Soviet society ===

=== Political Implications ===

=== Trotsky ===

=== Unresolved weaknesses in the Soviet system of socialism ===

== Sources ==

* [https://ia902707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf PDF version] with copyable text (optical character recognition)
[[Category:Library]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-15T19:49:53Z

Premier Otto: Adding more subchapters along with grammer edits

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-15T18:11:28Z

Premier Otto: Adding more subchapters along with grammer edits

Grigory Zinoviev

2023-04-10T02:12:25Z

Premier Otto: Added links to page

{{Infobox politician|name=Grigory Zinoviev|native_name=Григорий Зиновьев|image_size=200|birth_name=Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky|birth_date=23 September 1883|birth_place=Yelizavetgrad, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=25 August 1936|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Execution|political_orientation=[[Trotskyism]]|image=Grigory Zinoviev.png}}

'''Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev''' (23 September 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Soviet politician and [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]]. He opposed [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] as early as 1910<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks in the Period of the Stolypin Reaction. The Bolsheviks Constitute Themselves an Independent Marxist Party|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm}}</ref> and was executed in 1936 following the [[Moscow trials]].

== Early Life ==
Grigory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, in the [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russian Empire]] (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) to a family of jewish dairy farmers who educated him at home.

Zinoviev joined the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]] in 1901.

==Pre-revolution==
In January 1910, against Lenin's wishes, Zinoviev, [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]], and [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] convened a Plenum of the Central Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]]. Because many [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] members of the CC had been arrested, the Plenum passed some anti-[[Leninism|Leninist]] resolutions. Zinoviev disagreed with Lenin's decision to denounce [[otzovism]] and [[liquidationism]].<ref name=":0" />

At the 7th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in April 1917, Zinoviev opposed Lenin and called for the party to remain in the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] instead of forming [[Communist International (1919–1943)|a new international]]. In October 1917, Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]] and believed a [[proletarian revolution]] was not possible in Russia. Lenin then proposed to expel them from the party.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref>

==Post-revolution==
Just after the October Revolution, Zinoviev called for the formation of an all-socialist government that would include the deposed [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries|SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]].<ref name=":1" />

Zinoviev believed Russia was not developed enough to build [[socialism]]. Following the 14th Congress of the CPSU in 1925, he called a meeting of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the YCL, which refused to follow the Congress's decision promoting industrialization.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Transition to the Peaceful Work of Economic Restoration|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch09.htm}}</ref>

In 1926, [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and Zinoviev formed an [[Left Opposition|anti-Party bloc]] and rejected [[democratic centralism]]. The Central Committee expelled them from the party in November 1927.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Socialist Industrialization of the Country|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch10.htm}}</ref> Zinoviev organized the murder of [[Sergei Kirov]] in 1934.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Collectivization of Agriculture|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch11.htm}}</ref>

==References==
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]
[[Category:Revisionists]]
[[Category:Trotskyists]]
<references />

Grigory Zinoviev

2023-04-10T02:03:35Z

Premier Otto: More details in the early life section

{{Infobox politician|name=Grigory Zinoviev|native_name=Григорий Зиновьев|image_size=200|birth_name=Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky|birth_date=23 September 1883|birth_place=Yelizavetgrad, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=25 August 1936|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Execution|political_orientation=[[Trotskyism]]|image=Grigory Zinoviev.png}}

'''Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev''' (23 September 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Soviet politician and [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]]. He opposed [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] as early as 1910<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks in the Period of the Stolypin Reaction. The Bolsheviks Constitute Themselves an Independent Marxist Party|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm}}</ref> and was executed in 1936 following the [[Moscow trials]].

== Early Life ==
Grigory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, in the Russian Empire (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) to a family of jewish dairy farmers who educated him at home.

Zinoviev joined the RSDLP in 1901.

== Pre-revolution ==
In January 1910, against Lenin's wishes, Zinoviev, [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]], and [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] convened a Plenum of the Central Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]]. Because many [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] members of the CC had been arrested, the Plenum passed some anti-[[Leninism|Leninist]] resolutions. Zinoviev disagreed with Lenin's decision to denounce [[otzovism]] and [[liquidationism]].<ref name=":0" />

At the 7th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in April 1917, Zinoviev opposed Lenin and called for the party to remain in the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] instead of forming [[Communist International (1919–1943)|a new international]]. In October 1917, Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]] and believed a [[proletarian revolution]] was not possible in Russia. Lenin then proposed to expel them from the party.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref>

== Post-revolution ==
Just after the October Revolution, Zinoviev called for the formation of an all-socialist government that would include the deposed [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries|SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]].<ref name=":1" />

Zinoviev believed Russia was not developed enough to build [[socialism]]. Following the 14th Congress of the CPSU in 1925, he called a meeting of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the YCL, which refused to follow the Congress's decision promoting industrialization.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Transition to the Peaceful Work of Economic Restoration|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch09.htm}}</ref>

In 1926, [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and Zinoviev formed an [[Left Opposition|anti-Party bloc]] and rejected [[democratic centralism]]. The Central Committee expelled them from the party in November 1927.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Socialist Industrialization of the Country|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch10.htm}}</ref> Zinoviev organized the murder of [[Sergei Kirov]] in 1934.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Collectivization of Agriculture|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch11.htm}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]
[[Category:Revisionists]]
[[Category:Trotskyists]]

Grigory Zinoviev

2023-04-10T01:45:27Z

Premier Otto: Added early life section

{{Infobox politician|name=Grigory Zinoviev|native_name=Григорий Зиновьев|image_size=200|birth_name=Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky|birth_date=23 September 1883|birth_place=Yelizavetgrad, [[Russian Empire]]|death_date=25 August 1936|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Execution|political_orientation=[[Trotskyism]]|image=Grigory Zinoviev.png}}

'''Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev''' (23 September 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Soviet politician and [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]]. He opposed [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] as early as 1910<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks in the Period of the Stolypin Reaction. The Bolsheviks Constitute Themselves an Independent Marxist Party|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm}}</ref> and was executed in 1936 following the [[Moscow trials]].

== Early Life ==
Grigory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, in the Russian Empire (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine).

== Pre-revolution ==
In January 1910, against Lenin's wishes, Zinoviev, [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]], and [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]] convened a Plenum of the Central Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]]. Because many [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] members of the CC had been arrested, the Plenum passed some anti-[[Leninism|Leninist]] resolutions. Zinoviev disagreed with Lenin's decision to denounce [[otzovism]] and [[liquidationism]].<ref name=":0" />

At the 7th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in April 1917, Zinoviev opposed Lenin and called for the party to remain in the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] instead of forming [[Communist International (1919–1943)|a new international]]. In October 1917, Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]] and believed a [[proletarian revolution]] was not possible in Russia. Lenin then proposed to expel them from the party.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Preparation and Realization of the October Socialist Revolution|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm}}</ref>

== Post-revolution ==
Just after the October Revolution, Zinoviev called for the formation of an all-socialist government that would include the deposed [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries|SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]].<ref name=":1" />

Zinoviev believed Russia was not developed enough to build [[socialism]]. Following the 14th Congress of the CPSU in 1925, he called a meeting of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the YCL, which refused to follow the Congress's decision promoting industrialization.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Period of Transition to the Peaceful Work of Economic Restoration|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch09.htm}}</ref>

In 1926, [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and Zinoviev formed an [[Left Opposition|anti-Party bloc]] and rejected [[democratic centralism]]. The Central Committee expelled them from the party in November 1927.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Socialist Industrialization of the Country|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch10.htm}}</ref> Zinoviev organized the murder of [[Sergei Kirov]] in 1934.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Collectivization of Agriculture|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch11.htm}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]
[[Category:Revisionists]]
[[Category:Trotskyists]]

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-10T01:31:20Z

Premier Otto: Added the chapter on "Lenin's testament"

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-10T00:16:36Z

Premier Otto: fixing copy-paste errors

Library:Khrushchev lied

2023-04-09T23:13:31Z

Premier Otto: Fixed some grammer errors