After Kirov’s murder there was an extensive purge of the Leningrad party, which was Kirov’s power base. Stalin was determined that all the old Bolsheviks would be ‘unasked’ and so began the grotesque show trials. The trials were used as a form of propaganda to show the Soviet Union and the party members that whoever they were, no matter how powerful, if they had been found wanting in their support of the party then they would become Stalin’s next targets. The man Stalin chose to carry out the trails was Vyshinsky.
First show trial:
Kamenev and Zinoviev (and 14 others) had been arrested and put on a smaller trail in January 1935; however by August 1936 they were taken from prison and put on a very public show trial. After giving testimonies accepting their guilt they were sentenced and the very next day executed. Following this the thousands accused of being Trotskyites were also taken and sentenced.
Second show trial: January 1937, Karl Radek (a well-known Trotskyite) and Pyatakov, a deputy in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry became the next victims, and after going through the same process of the previous show trial they too were found guilty and executed.
The third and final show trial: By now the party members understood the pattern of the show trails, if they were chosen they were condemned men. And so the show trial which took place in March 1938 was one of the most dramatic trials as it involved key figures, Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda (the former head of NKVD). Bukharin was able to give a more spirited testimony but in the end he and 20 others were all shot within the hour.
Many will ask why they confessed, and the answer is really very simple. They were willing to die as long as they could negotiate that their families would be spared, but perhaps a more disturbing truth is that they also understood that their deaths would hopefully aid Stalin in establishing socialism, and goal which every communist shared.
It must also be remembered however that although evidence was clearly forged, eg a man accused was in prison when he was supposed to have committed an offence, many on both the inside and outside of the Soviet Union believed the defendants guilty.
by
revisionnut (student)
