In 1938 Fitzroy Maclean was one of the foreign diplomats allowed to witness Stalin’s show trials of Nikolai Bukharin, a former Secretary-General of the Communist International, the leading theorist of the Party, Genrihk Yagoda, the feared head of the secret police N.V.K.D and a dozen other comparatively lesser officials. He described what took place in his unforgettable memoir, EASTERN APPROACHES.
The trial is held in a pre-revolutionary ballroom, but rough wooden benches dragged onto the elegant floor make it appear more like a classroom. The “proletarian aristocrats” occupy the benches: “people who could be counted on to place the correct interpretation on what they saw and heard, to benefit from the lessons and, for that matter, the warnings which it might contain.”
The audience and the officers of the court stand. The accused are led out. Maclean describes Bukharin “with his pale complexion and little beard, strangely like Lenin as I had seen him in his glass coffin.” As the salient detail of the brutal Yagoda, he picks out his little toothbrush mustache. Ulrich, the President of the court, notorious for pronouncing the death sentence on enemies of the state, arrives, Maclean noting, “His little pig’s eyes darted here and there, from the prisoners to the crowd and back again.” Ulrich asks the people to be seated.
Vyshinski, the public prosecutor, who has the air of a prosperous stockbroker, begins. He knows what is expected of him and is a master of his craft of exposing and convicting the State’s enemies. With a few hiccups, the trial proceeds as planned. The accused have been prepared. They know their lines. They are aware of the penalty for deviating from the script.
Maclean explains: “The prisoners were charged, collectively and individually, with every conceivable crime: high treason, murder, attempted murder, espionage, and all kinds of sabotage. With diabolical ingenuity they had plotted to wreck industry and agriculture; to assassinate Stalin and the other Soviet leaders; to overthrow the Soviet regime with the help of foreign powers; to dismember the Soviet Union for the benefit of their capitalist allies and finally to seize power themselves and restore capitalism in what was left of their country.” One official has the temerity to plead innocent—a hiccup. The court adjourns until the next day. The official returns and admits guilt. Yagoda, who of all the accused would have been most familiar with the persuasive techniques used in the backroom, puts up a fuss. There is a recess. When he makes his reappearance, Maclean says that whereas before Yagoda seemed merely a broken man, now he is a crushed man.
The public prosecutor Vyshinski is keenly aware of the need for compelling theater. But then, so is Bukharin, and as the Party theorist, his craft involves the command of ideas and words. According to Vyshinski, Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin “belonged to the role of arch-fiend in this grim pantomime. He had been behind every villainy.” Nothing was too low or vile. Among his crimes were “poisoning Soviet hogs, slaughtering Soviet stallions, slipping powdered glass into the workers’ butter.” Et cetera. While building his case with witnesses on the stand, Vyshinski turns to Bukharin to sneer or to elicit the appropriate shameful admission of guilt.
Bukharin, however, can’t help toying with the prosecutor and improvising with the script: “Even when he admitted the crimes with which he was charged, he had an awkward way of qualifying his admissions, of qualifying them in such a way as largely to invalidate them, of slipping in little asides which made complete nonsense of them.”
Worse: “At times he actually seemed to be making fun of him (Vyshinski), and even the good Party men in the audience caught themselves laughing at his sallies.” When pressed, Bukharin “forthwith announced that he accepted entire responsibility for any and every misdeed which might have been committed by the ‘bloc’, whether he had had any knowledge of it or not.” Not quite what they want. When accused of sabotaging Stalin’s agricultural programs, Bukharin cheerfully agrees and goes on to explain in detail the reasons why the programs were flawed. Again not quite what they want. The back and forth continues with Vyshinski losing most of the exchanges.
At the trial’s end, Bukharin, uncowed and in full possession of his senses, stands before the court and admits his guilt. Maclean paraphrases Bukharin’s confession: “He would not keep them much longer. He was speaking, probably, for the last time in his life. Why had he admitted his guilt? In prison, he had had time to look back over his past, and he had asked himself this question: If I die, what shall I be dying for? It was then that he had found himself looking into a black abyss, and had realized that, if he died unrepentant, there would be no cause left to him to die for. And, if, on the other hand, he were by some extraordinary chance to be spared, there would, without repentance, be nothing left for him to live for. He would be an enemy of the people, an outcast, cut off from humanity. It was then that all the positive qualities of the Soviet Fatherland came back to him more forcibly than ever, and it had been this that in the end disarmed him completely and caused him to bow the knee before the Party and the Country. His repentance and confession represented the moral triumph of the Soviet Union over yet another of its opponents.”
What was Bukharin dying for? On the edge of the abyss, he has a choice: admit that the condemnation of him, the Party’s leading theorist, is the greatest proof of the corruption of the system which had been his life’s work to create and support, or declare that his condemnation and his repentance were a moral triumph of the system. Maclean doesn’t believe that Bukharin has been broken physically or psychologically. Nor do I, but in untethering the morality of the system from the difference between truth and lies, he has been broken intellectually. As he faces the firing squad or the noose, does the thought occur to him that he helped make the lie executing him? Bukharin deserved to die in despair for being one of the architects of a system that murdered millions. In most photos of Bukharin, however, he sports a cheerful smile. I do not think it was beyond him to die with that smile.
Stalin’s great purge killed an estimated 600,000. They are still discovering mass graves.
urt stand. The accused are led out. Maclean describes Bukharin “with his pale complexion and little beard, strangely like Lenin as I had seen him in his glass coffin.” He picks out as the salient detail of the brutal Yagoda his little toothbrush moustache. Ulrich, the President of the court, notorious for pronouncing the death sentence on enemies of the state, arrives, Maclean noting, “His little pig’s eyes darted here and there, from the prisoners to the crowd and back again.” Ulrich asks the people to be seated.
Vyshinski, the public prosecutor, who has the air of a prosperous stockbroker, begins. He knows what is expected of him and is a master of his craft of exposing and convicting the State's enemies. With a few hiccups, the trial proceeds as planned. The accused have been prepared. They know their lines. They are aware of the penalty for deviating from the script.
Maclean explains: “The prisoners were charged, collectively and individually, with every conceivable crime: high treason, murder, attempted murder, espionage and all kinds of sabotage. With diabolical ingenuity they had plotted to wreck industry and agriculture; to assassinate Stalin and the other Soviet leaders; to overthrow the Soviet regime with the help of foreign powers; to dismember the Soviet Union for the benefit of their capitalist allies and finally to seize power themselves and restore capitalism in what was left of their country.” One official has the temerity to plead innocent. A hiccup. The court adjourns until the next day. The official returns and admits guilt. Yagoda, who of all the accused would have been most familiar with the persuasive techniques used in the backroom, puts up a fuss. There is a recess. When he makes his reappearance, Maclean says that whereas before Yagoda seemed merely broken man, now he is a crushed man.
Genrikh Yagoda
The public prosecutor Vyshinski is keenly aware of the need for compelling theater. But then so is Bukharin, and as the Party theorist his craft involves the command of ideas and words. According to Vyshinski, to Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin “belonged the role of arch-fiend in this grim pantomime. He had been behind every villainy.” Nothing was too low or vile. Among his crimes were “poisoning Soviet hogs, slaughtering Soviet stallions, slipping powdered glass into the workers’ butter.” Et cetera. While building his case with witnesses on the stand, Vyshinski turns to Bukharin to sneer or to elicit the appropriate shameful admission of guilt.
Bukharin, however, can’t help toying with the prosecutor and improvising with the script: “Even when he admitted the crimes with which he was charged, he had an awkward way of qualifying his admissions, of qualifying them in such a way as largely to invalidate them, of slipping in little asides which made complete nonsense of them.”
Worse: “At times he actually seemed to be making fun of him (Vyshinski), and even the good Party men in the audience caught themselves laughing at his sallies.” When pressed, Bukharin “forthwith announced that he accepted entire responsibility for any and every misdeed which might have been committed by the ‘bloc’, whether he had had any knowledge of it or not.” Not quite what they wanted. When accused of sabotaging Stalin’s agricultural programs, Bukharin cheerfully agrees and goes on to explain in detail the reasons why the programs were flawed. Again not quite what they wanted. The back and forth continues with Vyshinski losing most of the exchanges.
At the end of the trial, Bukharin, to all appearances uncowed and in full possessions of his senses, stands before the court and admits his guilt. Maclean paraphrases Bukharin’s confession: “He would not keep them much longer. He was speaking, probably, for the last time in his life. Why had he admitted his guilt? In prison, he had had time to look back over his past, and he had asked himself this question: If I die, what shall I be dying for? It was then that he had found himself looking into a black abyss, and had realized that, if he died unrepentant, there would be no cause left to him to die for. And, if, on the other hand, he were by some extraordinary chance to be spared, there would, without repentance, be nothing left for him to live for. He would be an enemy of the people, an outcast, cut off from humanity. It was then that all the positive qualities of the Soviet Fatherland came back to him more forcibly than ever, and it had been this that in the end disarmed him completely and caused him to bow the knee before the Party and the Country. His repentance and confession represented the moral triumph of the Soviet Union over yet another of its opponents.”
What was Bukharin dying for? On the edge of the abyss he had a choice: admit that the condemnation of him, the Party’s leading theorist, was the greatest proof of the corruption of the system which had been his life’s work to create and support, or declare that his condemnation and his repentance were a moral triumph of the system. Maclean doesn’t believe that Bukharin had been broken physically or psychologically. Nor do I, but in untethering the morality of the system from the difference between truth and lies, he had been broken intellectually. As he faced the firing squad or the noose, did the thought occur to him that he helped make the lie that was executing him? Bukharin deserved to die in despair for being one of the architects of a system that murdered millions. In most photos of Bukharin, however, he sports a cheerful smile. I do not think it was beyond him to die with that smile.
Stalin’s great purge killed an estimated 600,000. They are still discovering mass graves.
