Stalin

by Edvard Radzinsky

  At the height of the Terror Yezhov would be portrayed on thousands of posters as a giant in whose hands enemies of the people writhed and breathed their last. In the Central Asian republics, poets regularly described him as the batyr (epic hero). The epic hero was in reality a tiny man, almost a dwarf, with a feeble voice.

  This was somehow symbolic.

  Like Zhdanov, Malenkov, and others whom the Boss would from now on co-opt to the highest offices, Yezhov was merely a pseudonym for Stalin himself, a pathetic puppet, there simply to carry out orders. All the thinking was done, all the decisions were made, by the Boss himself.

  While Yezhov familiarized himself with the way things were going, kept an eye on Yagoda, and gave him a prod when necessary, the Boss was drumming the plot of his thriller into the heads of his closest associates. And that is why afterward Bukharin said, “Two days after the murder Stalin sent for me and announced that the assassin, Nikolaev, was a Zinovievite.”

  Molotov understood at once the grandiose character of Stalin’s scheme. As he wrote, “Until 1937 we lived the whole time with opposition. After that—there were no more opposition groups! Stalin took the whole difficult business upon himself, but we helped.… Stalin wanted 1937 to be a continuation of the Revolution … in a complicated international situation.”

  A continuation of the Revolution necessary, it would be said, because the leaders had grown slack, bourgeois, degenerate. It was time to return to the old ideals, and open fire on degenerate cadres. This was made particularly important by Hitler’s menaces. For the Party, then, a continuation of the Revolution. And for those outside the Party? The end of the Revolution. The destruction of the Leninist old guard, associated in the minds of the people at large with October and the Red Terror.

  The newspapers were whipping up hysteria: new “terrorist outrages” were expected. Stalin returned to Moscow for “Brother Kirov’s” funeral. The ceremony took place in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Maria Svanidze recorded in her diary that on December 5, 1934,

  Tverskaya Street was closed, trucks and groups of Red army men stood at the corner, blocking the entrance to it.… Redens [head of the NKVD in Moscow, and Anna Alliluyeva’s husband] had us escorted to where the family and friends were standing. The hall was brilliantly lit, decorated with a profusion of plush banners and in the middle stood … a simple coffin, lined with red calico.… His face was a greenish yellow, his nose had become sharper.… Between the temple and cheekbone there was a bruise from his fall. His unhappy wife and sisters stood on the right of the coffin. His sisters are village schoolteachers and living out in the wilds they never even knew that their brother had become such a big man. They wrote to him when they saw his picture in the papers but could never get away to visit him … now they’ve seen him. The general public were excluded and admission to the hall was restricted to a small group of people.… We all felt the tension, we looked around apprehensively, wondering whether everybody had been properly checked, whether there was anybody who didn’t belong there, hoping that it all would go off without incident. J. [Joseph] took his stand by the dead man’s head, surrounded by his comrades-in-arms.… The floodlights were dimmed, the music stopped.… The sentries were ready to screw down the coffin lid. Joseph went up the steps of the catafalque … his face was sorrowful. He bent down and kissed the dead man’s forehead.… It was a heart-rending picture for anyone who knew how close they were.… Everyone in the hall was weeping. Through my own sobs I could hear men sobbing loudly. J. is suffering terribly. Pavel was with him at the dacha a day or two after Kirov’s death. They were sitting in the dining room together. J. rested his head on his hand (I’ve never seen him do that) and said “now I’m all alone in the world.” Pavel says it was so moving that he jumped up and kissed him. J. told Pavel that Kirov used to look after him like a child. After Nadya’s death Kirov had of course been closer to Joseph than anyone, he could approach him with simple affection and give him the warmth he was missing and peace of mind. We all feel too shy to drop in just to see him and have a chat.… I’m not shy myself, but Alyosha gets suspicious, and brings an element of jealousy into it, says he’s afraid he would be intruding, and J. doesn’t like women visiting him.

  Alyosha Svanidze, who knew his kinsman pretty well, evidently had misgivings and thought it best to keep his distance.

  Entries in Stalin’s visitors’ book recommence after his return to Moscow, on December 3. For a whole month the NKVD chiefs were in and out of his office, all day and every day. Yezhov, the eye of the emperor, was always last to leave, usually in the dead of night.

  Nikolaev shortly confessed that he had killed Kirov on the instructions of a Trotskyist-Zinovievite group. He was then shot in a hurry.

  Kirov’s vile murderers were branded at innumerable public meetings. Zinoviev joined in at a meeting of the board of the Central Council of Cooperative Unions in Moscow, unsparingly abusing the “foul killers.” But on December 8 supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev in Leningrad were arrested and on December 16 Zinoviev and Kamenev themselves were arrested in Moscow.

  In the perestroika period a Politburo commission was set up “to further examine materials connected with the repressions which took place between 1930 and 1940 and at the beginning of the fifties.” The commission retrieved the hapless Zinoviev’s letters from the depths of secret archives.

  Within minutes of his arrest Zinoviev wrote a hysterical note to Stalin:

  It is now December 16. At 7:30 this evening Comrade Molchanov and a group of Chekists arrived at my apartment and carried out a search. I tell you, Comrade Stalin, honestly, that from the time of my return from Kustanai by order of the Central Committee, I have not taken a single step, spoken a single word, written a single line, or had a single thought which I need conceal from the Party, the Central Committee, and you personally.… I have had only one thought—how to earn the trust of the Central Committee and you personally, how to achieve my aim of being employed by you in the work there is to be done. I swear by all a Bolshevik holds sacred, I swear by Lenin’s memory … I implore you to believe my word of honor. I am shaken to the depths of my being.

  Yagoda sent this letter to Stalin. He did not reply. But I can imagine him reading it with a smile. “Shaken to the depths of my being”! Zinoviev would discover what it was really like to be shaken when he heard of the role assigned to him in Stalin’s thriller.

  Stalin knew that in starting with Zinoviev and Kamenev he could not possibly lose. He never for a moment doubted they would cave in. Zinoviev’s nickname was “Panic,” and Kamenev was weak in misfortune, a timid intellectual. They were the best possible candidates for what Stalin had in mind. But Yagoda let him down. He simply could not rid himself of his subconscious respect for former leaders. Yagoda and his interrogators were obviously handling Zinoviev and Kamenev with kid gloves, and the two men refused to admit responsibility for the murder.

  The year was drawing to a close. Less than two decades had gone by since the October coup, and some of its leaders could look back on it from their prison cells.

  From Maria Svanidze’s diary:

  21.12.34. We celebrated the Boss’s birthday. We gathered at the nearer dacha around 9. All the close friends were there (the Molotovs—both of them, Voroshilov—alone, Enukidze, Beria, Lakoba, Kalinin—alone, the Svanidze relatives—the Redens couple—and the Alliluyevs). We were at the table till 1 A.M., then the party got noisy. The Boss got out the gramophone and some records, wound it up himself.… We danced. He made the men partner the women and take a few turns. Then the Caucasians sang some doleful songs—the Boss took the lead with his light tenor.… Then J. said, “Let’s drink to Nadya.” My eyes are full of tears again as I write this, just as they were at that moment. Everybody rose and silently went up to J. His face was full of suffering. He has changed greatly after his two heavy losses. He has become gentler, kinder, more human. Till Nadya died he was unapproachable, a marble hero.… The Alliluyevs and the Redenses … th
e only one of that quartet you can talk to is Zhenya. She’s clever, a live wire, interested in everything. Pavel, Zhenya’s husband, is in my opinion deteriorating intellectually, he never reads anything, it’s no good trying to talk to him. Nyura [Anna Alliluyeva, Nadya’s sister] is obsessively kind, and intellectually null. Her spouse [Redens] is pompous, stupid, conceited, and bogged down in trivial chores.… Alyosha has been promoted—appointed Vice Chairman of the USSR State Bank.

  The grief-stricken Marble Hero had become gentler and kinder. He sang in his light tenor. He danced and made merry with them. And all the time he knew what was in store for them.

  The New Year had arrived, and still Yagoda had not succeeded in linking Kamenev and Zinoviev with Kirov’s murder. The first version of the case for the prosecution is in the Presidents Archive. It was drawn up on January 13, 1935. It states that Zinoviev and Kamenev had not admitted their guilt. But suddenly, on that very same day, Zinoviev wrote a “statement to the investigators”:

  The time allowed for the investigation is running out … and I want to disarm myself completely.… After the Fifteenth and especially after the Sixteenth Congress I told myself on many occasions that I should leave it at that … the Central Committee and Comrade Stalin had been shown to be right about everything … but when fresh difficulties arose I started vacillating again: 1932 provides a vivid example—I have described the events of that year in detail in my depositions.… Subjectively I had no wish to harm the Party and the working class. But I became in effect the mouthpiece of the forces which sought to disrupt the building of socialism in the USSR. [Objectively he admits that he is an “enemy.”] My speech at the Seventeenth Congress was meant sincerely … but in reality two souls still lived within me.… We proved unable to submit fully to the Party, to merge with it completely … we continued to look backward and to live in a stifling atmosphere of our own … our whole situation condemned us to … duplicity.… I asserted under investigation that from 1929 “no center for former Zinovievites” had existed in Moscow. My thought was that you couldn’t really call it a center, it was just Zinoviev plus Kamenev plus one or two others, but in actual fact it was a center since Zinoviev’s former followers, or what was left of them, refused to merge fully with the Party and looked to that handful of people for leadership. My former adherents always voted for the Party line, but among themselves they went on talking in a criminal way that was hostile to the Party and to the state, so whether we wanted it or not, we remained in actual fact one of the centers of struggle against the Party and its great work … and the center’s role was of course anti-Party and counterrevolutionary.… From the first interrogation onward I was outraged to find myself confused with the wretches who had sunk so low as to murder Kirov.… But facts are stubborn things, and when I learned (from the newspapers) all the facts set out in the indictment I had to acknowledge the moral and political responsibility of the former Leningrad opposition, and myself personally, for the crime committed.… After my return from banishment in 1933 I was criminally negligent in that I did not expose to the Party all the people involved in tentative conspiracies against it.… I am full of repentance, the most fervent repentance.… I am ready to do all I can to help the investigation.… I am naming … all those whom I remember as former participants in the anti-Party struggle … and I will continue doing so to the end, mindful of the fact that this is my duty. I can only say that if I had the opportunity to do penance before the whole people it would be a great relief to me.… Let others learn from my grievous example what deviation from the Party path means, and where it can lead.… January 13, 1935.

  Kamenev, too, began by denying everything, but the next day, January 14, suddenly admitted that a central Zinovievite directorate had existed and remained active up to and throughout 1932.

  Something crucial must have happened to make both former leaders capitulate on the same day. Someone had succeeded where Yagoda and his investigators had failed. It is not hard to guess who that someone was. There are no entries in Stalin’s visitors’ book from January 11 to 17. He obviously had visitors of a variety best not recorded. They—Kamenev and Zinoviev—were brought before him. They spent the whole week bargaining. He could of course show them proofs of their secret meetings with his enemies. And he did what Yagoda had not been clever enough to do. He got them to admit their moral and political responsibility for Kirov’s murder, and to betray their supporters. In return he evidently promised to pardon them—soon—but demanded an act of contrition before the whole people. Hence Zinoviev’s plea “to do penance before the whole people.”

  Zinoviev, however, had not yet realized what he would have to do public penance for. The plot was only just beginning to unfold and it is doubtful whether anyone could have guessed the fantastic denouement the author had in mind.

  On January 16, 1935, Zinoviev was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, Kamenev to five. The former leaders were now known as the “Moscow Center” of the conspiracy. The members of the Leningrad Zinovievite group were tried simultaneously. One of them was Georgi Safarov, who would say whatever the investigators required against his former friends. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 1935. In 1942, Safarov, one of those mainly responsible for the execution without trial of the imperial family, would be shot without trial himself.

  The wave of mass arrests continued over the winter months and throughout the spring of 1935. People outside the Party somewhat humorously described this as the “Kirov stream.” Two of Koba’s old acquaintances from 1917, the erstwhile young leaders of the Petrograd Bolsheviks, Zalutsky and Shlyapnikov, were among those arrested. Both were shown Safarov’s testimony that they had “carried on illegal work against the Party.” Shlyapnikov was given five years. But kind Joseph commuted his prison sentence to banishment to Astrakhan. Shlyapnikov still had a part to play: the Boss had thought up a suitable role for him in the thriller.

  As spring came to an end Kamenev and Zinoviev looked forward to the customary change in their fortunes. For Kamenev change was in fact not long delayed, but it was not at all the one he had expected.

  That carefree Lothario and aficionado of the Bolshoi ballerinas, Avel Enukidze, started grumbling about the arrest of Kamenev and Zinoviev. Avel, secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, was a close friend of the Boss. But he was also an old Bolshevik, completely tied to the old Party, which now had to disappear. So friend Avel was written into the plot of the thriller. What is more, he was—the Boss had a sense of humor—linked with Kamenev, whom he had tried to defend. In June 1935 Yezhov presented a report to the Central Committee “on the Secretariat of the Central Executive Committee and Comrade A. Enukidze.” It appeared that because of Enukidze’s criminal negligence several terrorist groups were active within the confines of the Kremlin itself. People were horrified to read the staggering news of plots to assassinate their Leader. Kamenev was declared to be the immediate organizer of an assassination attempt. The conspiracy had allied Trotsky and Zinoviev with monarchists who had wormed their way into the Kremlin thanks to Enukidze’s slackness. Certain garrulous witnesses of events surrounding Nadya’s death were added to the list of conspirators. Thus, Alekxei Sinelobov, the Kremlin commandant’s aide, was shot and his sister was jailed for four years. This was also when the Kremlin cleaner Korchagina was sentenced for “spreading defamatory rumors about government leaders.” Neither she nor Sinelobova returned from the camps. Yagoda added to the “terrorist group” Kamenev’s brother Nikolai Rozenfeld and his wife, who worked in the Kremlin library. Also, Trotsky’s son Sergei Sedov. For the “Kremlin affair” Kamenev was given an additional five years, so he was now Zinoviev’s equal, while Rozenfeld and his wife each got ten years, and Sergei Sedov five. Other “terrorists” included Kamenev’s wife, Olga Davidovna. She had once lived in the Kremlin and she was Trotsky’s sister—ideally suited, in short, for a part in the conspiracy story. Altogether 110 people were sentenced to various terms of imprison
ment. Avel Yenukidze, Stalin’s friend for many years, and the godfather of his deceased wife, Nadya, was expelled from the Party because of his “political and moral degeneracy,” in the words of a Central Committee resolution dated June 7, 1935. The scale of things to come was already foreshadowed in the Kremlin affair.

  From Maria Svanidze’s diary: “I firmly believe that we are advancing toward a great and radiant future.… Avel has received the punishment he deserved.… This nest of treachery and filth terrified me. Now all is light again, all the evil has been swept away … and everything will get better and better.”

  He was, indeed, methodically working on that bright future, in which Maria too would meet her end. That same spring, in April 1935, a new law was promulgated: children twelve and older were to pay the same penalties for their crimes as adults. Up to and including the death penalty. So during future trials his victims would have not just themselves but their posterity to think about.

  Meanwhile, arrests were becoming less frequent. There were no public trials. People had been expecting something on the scale of the Red Terror, and after the mighty thunderclaps in the press they were rather disappointed. Things were settling down in the same old boring rut. Before long Gorky was making a nuisance of himself with pleas for Kamenev’s release. The Boss had fooled them all again. They supposed that the show was over, whereas the curtain had only just risen. The main events in his great work of imagination were all in the future.

  That spring was marked by a new entertainment for the people, one which overshadowed the punishment of the old leaders. The Moscow Metro was opened, another token for all to see of what the future paradise held. Those magnificent underground palaces were intended to show the toilers what sort of homes their children would live in under communism.