Precision Software Appli…tions Silver Collection 1/Precision Software Applications Silver Collection Volume One (PSM) (1993).iso/games/egavga/soviet.arj/B2BUKHAR.DOC

Text File | 1992-10-06 | 8KB | 156 lines

                           Kirov Murder and Purges

     The murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, set off a
chain of events that culminated in the Great Terror of the 1930s.
Kirov was a full member of the ruling Politburo, leader of the
Leningrad party apparatus, and an influential member of the
ruling elite.  His concern for the welfare of the workers in
Leningrad and his skill as an orator had earned him considerable
popularity.  Some party members had even approached him secretly
with the proposal that he take over as general secretary.
     It is doubtful that Kirov represented an immediate threat to
Stalin's predominance, but he did disagree with some of Stalin's
policies, and Stalin had begun to doubt the loyalty of members of
the Leningrad apparatus.  In need of a pretext for launching a
broad purge, Stalin evidently decided that murdering Kirov would
be expedient.  The murder was carried out by a young assassin
named Leonid Nikolaev.  Recent evidence has indicated that Stalin
and the NKVD planned the crime.
     Stalin then used the murder as an excuse for introducing
draconian laws against political crime and for conducting a
witch-hunt for alleged conspirators against Kirov.  Over the next
four-and-a-half years, millions of innocent party members and
others were arrested -- many of them for complicity in the vast
plot that supposedly lay behind the killing of Kirov.  From the
Soviet point of view, his murder was probably the crime of the
century because it paved the way for the Great Terror.  Stalin
never visited Leningrad again and directed one of his most
vicious post-War purges against the city -- Russia's historic
window to the West.



GRIGOR'EVA-KHATUNTSEV, Nikitina
[stenographer]
     ...
     BUKHARIN.  Let me relate to you how I explained this matter.
Comrade Mikoian says the following:  On the most basic question,
he, Bukharin, has differences of opinion with the party: In
essence, he stuck to his old positions.  This is untrue.  In no way
have I stuck to my previous positions -- not on industrialization,
not on collectivization, [and] not on village restructuring in
general.  But with regards to stimuli in agriculture, this question
was not clear to me until the matter came round to the legislation
on Soviet trade.  I consider the entire problem, as a whole, was
resolved after the introduction of laws on Soviet trade.  Prior to
this, this problem, very important but not all-embracing, was not
clear to me.  When this matter became pertinent to product turnover
in [illegible] and Soviet....

[intervening pages of transcript missing]

 KHATUNTSEV-VASIL'EVA, F-va
[stenographer]

     I would like to make one more remark.  Apparently Mikoian has
said: How, then, are you not responsible, as you say, for
[illegible] this whole "school" sits?  I do bear responsibility for
this.  But the question involves the degree of responsibility; it
is a matter of the quality of this responsibility.  During the
process of confrontation [and cross-examination], I told Kaganovich
that I am responsible for the death of Tomskii because, in 1928-29,
had I not headed up groups of rightists, it is possible that
Tomskii's fate might also have been different.  I bear
responsibility for this fact.  However, it is necessary to
establish the degree and nature of this responsibility.
Responsibility for what transpired with these youth over an
indefinite number of years qualitatively and quantitatively differs
from, let's say, the responsibility of a person who orders another
person to do something and that person carries out the order.  I am
not shifting responsibility from myself; more than anyone else, I
accept the gravity of this responsibility.  However, I would like
to say that the measure of responsibility, the characterization of
this responsibility, is absolutely specific in nature, and it
should be expressed as I have expressed it here.
            [intervening pages of transcript missing]

[...] two people?  This is an obvious lie.  How could Kulikov offer
two versions in answer to this absolutely and exceptionally
terrible question?  How could Sokol'nikov advance two ideas at the
same time?

     (VOICE:  Rozit, Slepkov, and others mention this).

     BUKHARIN:  In what regard about this?  If one speaks
"generally" in this way, nothing at all is said: It is the same as
when a student is asked where Moscow is on the map, and he
immediately covers the whole map with the palm of his hand.

     Regarding the Riutinskii platform.  It was presented by Ezhov
as one of the top-priority issues requiring deliberation.  This is
very understandable from the point of view of constructing an
indictment.  The Riutinskii platform (if you could prove that I
have any connection to it) would be a real treasure, because of its
concern with the most crucial moments in the struggle with Soviet
power, its concern with terror, and [illegible], etc., etc.  I
studied the vast number of pages of [material?] especially from the
angle of the Riutinskii platform.  Nonetheless, I feel that it is
necessary here to look closely at this matter which, after all, is
in testimony.  Astrov testifies that the authors were Rykov [...]

[intervening pages of transcript missing]

[...] Errio did not see; it is even there, they say, that I
maintained contact with Skrypnik (for a right-wing deviation, I
would have to be linked to the positions of Skrypnik); it has been
established, they say, that I stand for a democratic republic and,
at the same time, it is known that I spoke about it, let's say, at
an assembly, and a whole series of other things.  I cannot answer
all these questions separately, since it would require too much
time, so I'll take only the fundamental ones.

     I'd like to say a few words about terror.  Comrades, the
question of membership in the party seems to me simply to be naive:
if a person takes the terrorist point of view against the
leadership of the party, then the question as to whether he may be
a party member is a naive question.

     I have absolutely no relationship with terror, not by a single
word or thought.  When I hear these things, it seems to me that the
conversation concerns other people; perhaps I am sitting here and
hearing about another person.  I do not understand how I can be
charged with such an accusation; to me this is absolutely
incomprehensible [and] I look on this as "a sheep looking at new
gates" [i.e., I feel totally lost in foreign territory].

     POZERN:  These are not "new gates"--that's the problem.

     BUKHARIN:  To your way of thinking, perhaps they are not new
gates, but then I'm not a sheep either.[intervening pages of transcript missing]

ALTAEVA-PRIGORNAIA, Petrakova.
[stenographer]

     STALIN:  You should not and do not have the right to slander
yourself. This is a most criminal thing.

     MOLOTOV:  That which you have stated concerning the famine is
simply an anti-Soviet thing.

     VOICES FROM THE ROOM:  A counterrevolutionary thing!

     STALIN:  You must come around to our position.  Trotskii with
his disciples, Zinov'ev and Kamenev, at one time worked with Lenin,
and now these people have negotiated an agreement with Hitler.
After this, can we label such things as shocking?  Absolutely not.
After everything that has happened to these gentlemen, former
comrades, who have negotiated an agreement with Hitler, a sellout
of the USSR, there is nothing surprising in human affairs.
Everything has to be proven and not [just] replied to using
exclamation points and question marks.

     MOLOTOV: And anti-Soviet matters should not be engaged in.

     MOLOTOV: Let us call a recess, comrades.