Open conspiracy
History This edition is a bit like a detective. The Bukharin process was open, including to the Western press; Part of his materials were printed in ours. But the matter is so voluminous and complex (the 21 people accused of it), that until now it is a white spot for the general public. Although the hypothesis that the process was fabricated was the most popular, and the Yakovlev commission all those convicted on it, with the exception of Berry, were justified in 1989 year. But on the basis of what - nobody recognized that again.
And in 38, after the trial was completed, the verdict of the 18-central “coprocessors” was shot, his transcript was reproduced and sent to the NKVD offices of the country for review. However, then our secretaries published a circular: to return all numbered copies to the center, and to destroy them at remote points.
But there was a brave man who kept his copy - and already in old age he told his grandson about his act. Saying, foreseeing that our crossover story would eventually oblige, he decided to preserve the whole truth for posterity. And he bequeathed: if there is a chance, to publish this extremely frank document of the epoch, which our grandson did already in our time. But trusting Alikhanov to this edition, the cost of which he assumed, he asked to keep quiet about the print run about him. As a result of all these precautions, the book came out under such a name that does not say too much - in order not to light up in advance where it is not necessary.
Now about her. Even its bulkiness and shorthand accuracy, which has preserved even the manner of speech of the participants in the process, give the reader the opportunity to feel its true atmosphere. And, comparing the masses of testimony, arguments, try, taking the place of an impartial judge, to decide what is true and what is not.
The process is presided over by the chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, the army warrior Ulrich. State prosecutor - USSR Prosecutor Vyshinsky. Among the defendants are top state and party leaders: Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, Krestinsky, Ikramov and others. They are accused of “forming a conspiratorial group, a“ right-Trotsky bloc, ”whose goal was to spy, sabotage, sabotage, undermine the military power of the USSR and detach Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asian republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and overthrow the existing state system ... That is, almost literally what happened 55 years later - and this, of course, causes the book a lively interest.
In addition, doctors Levin, Kazakov and others tied to the block through Yagoda are charged with bringing Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky and his son Maxim Peshkov to death. In addition, the head of the OGPU-NKVD Yagoda is an attempt to poison his successor Yezhov with mercury vapor and organize the murder of Kirov.
Although the process is ultimately headed by Ulrich, in fact the entire judicial investigation is conducted, and very thoroughly, by Vyshinsky alone. A man of colossal pressure, brutal memory, not missing a single detail from the darkness of the details of each of the accused, an outstanding polemicist. The latter is best seen from his constant clashes with his main and, perhaps, the only opponent trying to fight back - Bukharin.
“VYSHINSKY: I am not asking at all about the conversation, but about this conversation. BUKHARIN: In Hegel’s Logic the word “this” is considered the most difficult ... VYSHINSKY: I ask the court to explain to the accused Bukharin that he is not a philosopher here, but a criminal, and it is useful for him to refrain from Hegelian philosophy to say, it would be better for Hegel’s philosophy ...
BUKHARIN: He said “should,” but the meaning of these words is not “golden,” but “myussen.” VYSHINSKY: You leave your philosophy. Must in Russian - it means should. BUKHARIN: "Must" has two meanings in Russian. VYSHINSKY: And we want to have one value here. BUKHARIN: You like it, and I have the right to disagree ... VYSHINSKY: You are used to negotiating with the Germans in their language, and here we speak Russian ... "
And Vyshinsky with his “proletarian directness”, although not by simplicity, in these duels, sometimes for whole pages, every now and then prevails, not allowing the enemy to translate the game into the field of his favorite sophistry. The former comrade-in-arms of Bukharin Yakovlev, a witness according to the plan of Lenin’s arrest in 1918, draws this style well: “He spoke about it in passing, enveloping it with a number of confusing and unnecessary theoretical arguments, as he likes to do it; like a cocoon, he wrapped this thought in the sum of lengthy arguments. ”
Of course, behind Vyshinsky's back is the full power of the punitive vehicle. But Bukharin does not enter the duel with her, realizing that "I may not be alive and even almost sure of that." His whole line on the court, in some places ascending to the most dramatic pathos, has one surprising goal: to morally justify himself for “such things” recognized by him for which “you can shoot ten times.” This duality of position - yes, sinful is terrible, but let me show the whole height of the errors that have thrown into the criminal pool - and does not give him victory over the destructive interpretation of his personality by Vyshinsky:
“Bukharin sabotage, sabotage, espionage organizes, and he looks humble, quiet, almost holy, and it seems that the humble words of Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky“ Holy cause, brothers! ” from the mouth of Nikolai Ivanovich. This is the height of monstrous hypocrisy, treachery, Jesuitism and inhuman meanness. ”
There are no words, the cruel ferment of time here, as in the other catch phrase of Vyshinsky, born on the same process: “Crush the damned bastard!” - shows a lot. But the picture of the crime, which for ten days from a lot of confessions, denials and cross-examination interrogates the iron prosecutor into the world, is terrible.
“BUKHARIN: I answer as one of the leaders, not the switchman of the counter-revolutionary organization. VYSHINSKY: What goals did this organization pursue? BUKHARIN: It pursued the main goal of restoring capitalist relations in the USSR. VYSHINSKY: With the help of? BUKHARIN: In particular, with the help of the war, which stood prognostically in perspective. VYSHINSKY: On terms? BUKHARIN: If you put all the dots above the "i", on the terms of the dismemberment of the USSR ".
The ideological origins of the conspiracy to overthrow the Stalinist elite, Bukharin explains:
"In 1928, I myself gave a formula regarding the military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry ... We began with a shrug of shoulders, with irony, and then with bitterness to look at our huge, gigantically growing factories, like some voracious monsters that take away the means of consumption from the masses ... "
And already at the beginning of the 30's, a “contact block” was formed, controlled by Bukharin, Pyatakov, Radek, Rykov and Tomsky, and from Troitsky - from abroad. The coup was first conceived in the wake of mass protests inside the country. But when the hope for them did not come true, the emphasis shifted to “opening the borders” for foreign interventionists who would put the bloc leaders on power in the Kremlin for helping them. Trotsky and Karakhan, a Soviet diplomat, conspirator, negotiated on this matter with Nazi Germany:
“BUKHARIN: In the summer of 1934, Radek told me that Trotsky had promised the Germans a number of territorial concessions, including Ukraine. If I remember correctly, there were also territorial concessions to Japan ... "
The Tukhachevsky military group was supposed to open the front:
“KRESTINSKY: In one of the conversations he (Tukhachevsky. - A. R.) named several people on whom he relies: Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Eideman. Then he raised the question of speeding up the coup ... The coup was timed to coincide with the German attack on the Soviet Union ... ”
But since the conspirators saw an increase in patriotic sentiment in the country, they also prepared such a Jesuit move. Transfer the blame for the intervention on the current government and “bring to justice the perpetrators of the defeat at the front. This will give us the opportunity to carry along the masses by playing with patriotic slogans. ”
However, the intervention that was expected by the Bukharinites in the thirty-seventh did not happen, and then the last bet remained - on the “palace coup”:
“BUKHARIN: The strength of the conspiracy is Yenukidze plus Yagoda's forces, their organization in the Kremlin and the NKVD, and Yenukidze managed to recruit the former Kremlin commandant Peterson ... ROSENGOLTZ: Tukhachevsky indicated the time limit, assuming that until May 15 (1937, Mr .. - A.R. .) he will manage to carry out this coup ... One of the options is the opportunity for a group of military to gather in his apartment, penetrate the Kremlin, seize the Kremlin telephone exchange and kill the leaders ... "
In pursuance of the main task of seizing power, the bloc conducted extensive work both within the USSR and abroad. Relations were established with the intelligence services of Germany, France, Japan, Poland, which provided money for the foreign, Trotskyist part of the bloc:
“KRESTINSKY (diplomat, then Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs - A. R.): Trotsky suggested that I should offer the Sect (the Reichswehr general - A. R.) to provide Trotsky with a systematic cash subsidy ... If the Sect asks for his services areas of espionage, then this should and can be done. I put the question before the Sect, called the amount 250 of thousands of marks in gold a year. The sect agreed ... "
But besides that, Trotsky still had a fair amount of feed from the USSR:
“ROSENGOLTZ: I was Commissar of Foreign Trade, and with my sanction 15 thousand pounds were transferred to Trotsky, then 10 thousand pounds were transferred ... According to Exportles from 1933, 300 thousand dollars ... GRINKO (Narkomfin - A. R.): I helped Krestinsky to use currency funds that accumulated on exchange rate differences abroad and which he needed to finance the Trotskyists ... The Bukharin formula was given to hit the Soviet government with the Soviet ruble. The work tended to undermine financial discipline and the possibility of using public funds for the purposes of conspiracy ... Zelensky (chairman of the Central European Union. —A.R.), By directives of the “right-Trotsky bloc”, imported a large mass of goods to non-fertile areas, and sent less goods to productive areas which created a glut in some areas and a commodity need for others. ”
In the same actions to arouse discontent of the masses and in preparation for separation from the USSR, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus Sharangovich, the leaders of Uzbekistan Ikramov and Khodjaev abundantly admit. The vocabulary of the latter is quite remarkable:
“KHODJAEV: Although it seemed to me that I had outlived nationalism, this was not enough ... VYSHINSKY: So, maneuvered? KHODJAEV: He was in a frantic mood, he exploded ... After that, we filed a statement that we were wrong, we did wrong, that we agreed to pursue the party line. VYSHINSKY: Maneuvered the second time? KHODJAEV: For the second time he ousted ... "
Then the organizer of political assassinations Yagoda is ominously attached to this ominously - the exact opposite of the ideological leader Bukharin. It is felt that Bukharin, in the inferno of betrayal, pushed political ambitions more than anything: to prove to the dead Lenin and the living Stalin that his, Bukharin, line of development of the country is more faithful and fruitful. Hence his concern not only with the seizure of power, but with all the following:
“GRINKO: He pointed out that since the policy prevails in this case, sabotage should be allowed; on the other hand, the establishment of broad economic ties with the capitalist world will provide an opportunity to make up for the losses that will be. "
But on the way to an ambitious goal, as Bukharin completely capitulated in his last word, "the bare logic of the struggle was accompanied by a rebirth of ideas, a rebirth of ourselves, which led us to a camp very close in its attitudes to kulak Praetorian fascism."
Quite a different thing was Yagoda. Although he says “not to soften his guilt, but only in the interest of establishing the truth that some accused’s attempts to present me as a professional terrorist are wrong” and “that none of these (terrorist — AR) acts I committed without the directive of the "center-right bloc", "it is difficult to believe. The very first murder imputed to him - Gorky's son Max in the 1934 year - generally had a purely personal motive, as he confessed elsewhere. Namely: love affair with the murdered wife.
Further. He then organized the murder of his chief Menzhinsky in order to head the OGPU after him, allegedly ordered him to Enukidze, by the time of the trial he was already deceased. But none of the "coprocessors" confirms this. Rather, it seems that to ruin the boss, who was already breathing incense from the disease, Yagoda was pushed by a purely selfish interest: to seize the chair promised to him until the whirlpool of events gave birth to another applicant.
In the murder of Kirov in the same 34, Berry recognizes himself only as an accomplice:
“Yenukidze insisted that I did not put obstacles in the way ... Zaporozhets (Leningrad Chekist - A. R.) informed me that Nikolayev was detained by the NKVD and had a revolver and Kirov’s route, Nikolayev was (by order of Yagoda - A. R.) released. After that Kirov was killed by this Nikolayev. ”
The motives for this murder from the process are unclear, but Gorky says a lot and in detail. The Bukharinites feared that the world prestige of Gorky, who stood a mountain behind Stalin, would prevent them, after the "palace coup", to put on the toes of the deliverers of the fatherland. The old man will begin to trumpet the whole world for what is it - and spoil this with their victorious mass.
With the motive according to Ezhov, it is also clear. In 36, he oversaw the Kirov investigation from the Central Committee, was close to the truth, and then took Yagoda’s post at all. And he, freeing the office, ordered his secretary Bulanov to spray mercury there:
“BULANOV: I prepared large bottles of this solution and handed them over to Savolainen. Sprayed one of the spray. I remember it was a big metal bottle with a big pear. He was in Berry's lavatory, an overseas sprinkler. ”
Pictures, equal in strength to Shakespeare's Macbeth, come from descriptions of how Yagoda pulled doctors into his mind:
"VYSHINSKY: Berry puts forward a cunning thought: to achieve death, as he says, from a disease ... To slip a weakened organism into an infection ... to help not the patient, but the infection, and thus bring the patient to the grave."
And now, playing devils skillfully and diversely on foul human strings, Yagoda turns the Kremlin's Kremlin into a kind of detachment of "murderers with a guarantee of non-exposure":
“LEVIN: He gave me a very valuable gift: he gave me a dacha near Moscow ... He let me know at customs that I could be let in from abroad without inspection. I brought things to my wife, to the wives of my sons ... He told me: Max is not only a worthless person, but also has a harmful effect on his father. He further said: do you know which institution’s head speaks to you? I am responsible for the life and work of Alexei Maksimovich, and therefore, since you need to eliminate his son, you should not stop at this sacrifice ... You cannot tell anyone about this. Nobody will believe you. Not you, but they will believe me. ”
And at first smeared with insidious gifts, and then intimidated to death, Dr. Levin attaches his hand to the death of Max and Menzhinsky. But after that, his soul does not let go to repentance, and even deeper, as he says, “into satanic dance”:
"LEVIN: Yagoda said:" Well, now you have committed these crimes, you are completely in my hands and must go to a much more serious and important (Gorky’s murder. - A. R.) ... And you will reap the benefits when the new government comes ... "
Both Dr. Levin and Pletnev, under the guise of Gorky Kryuchkov’s secretary, prescribe the classics of deliberately perverse treatment, which takes him to the grave. Another luminary, Dr. Kazakov, rests on self-esteem, which does not leave him in court:
“KAZAKOV: I still have to say that they didn’t even give the concluding word at congresses ... I’m not given the final word, for the first time in the history of medicine! .. You ask why I didn’t report it (help Levin in the murder Menzhinsky - A. R.) Soviet organs? I have to say - motives of vile fear. And the second point: in the medical unit were most of the doctors - my scientific opponents. I thought maybe the moment would come when Yagoda would be able to stop them. VYSHINSKY: As a reward for your crime? KAZAKOV: Yes ... VYSHINSKY: Did the Soviet state give you an institute? KAZAKOV: But typing my works ... VYSHINSKY: The government cannot order your works. And I ask you, was the institute given? COSSACKS: Was. VYSHINSKY: The best in the Union? COSSACKS: The best ... "
Kryuchkovu, who knows about each animal, Berry chooses such a key:
“KRYUCHKOV: I was wasting Gorky's money, using his full confidence. And this made me addicted to Yagoda ... Yagoda said that Alexey Maksimovich could die soon, the son of Max will remain the manager of the literary heritage. You are accustomed, Yagoda said, to live well, but you will remain in the house in the role of a sitter. ”
And Kryuchkov, not holding out against the insidious pressure, at first helps to send Max to the next world, then his father. At the same time, the extraordinary magnitude of evil does promise him an extraordinary dividend:
“KRYUCHKOV: I will remain a man to whom Gorky’s great literary heritage can pass, which will in the future give me the means and independent position ...”
It seems that by these killings Yagoda wanted, plus everything, to obtain for himself some special capital and weight among the conspirators, aiming in the future for the main post in the country:
“BULANOV: He was fond of Hitler, said that his book“ My Struggle ”was really worthwhile ... He emphasized that Hitler had gotten out of such non-commissioned officers into such people ... He said that Bukharin would be as good as Goebbels for him ... He, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, was such a secretary like Goebbels, and with a completely obedient Central Committee, will govern as he pleases. ”
In any case, one, it seems, Yagoda managed to achieve real. The conspirators indicate now and then that went abroad, where they contacted with agents of foreign intelligence services, for treatment. Although our medicine, with a lot of glorious names since pre-revolutionary times, was no worse than Western. But one feels that knowing about the tricks of the present owner of the Kremlin Sanupra, the patients assigned to him simply were in panic afraid to go there.
The same caution caused the conspirators and their second security official - Tukhachevsky:
“BUKHARIN: Since we are talking about a military coup, the specific weight of the military group will be unusually large, and from here a peculiar Bonapartist danger may arise. But the Bonapartists, I, in particular, had in mind Tukhachevsky, first of all dealt with their allies ... I always in conversations called Tukhachevsky "a potential Napoleon," and it is known how Napoleon dealt with the so-called ideologues. "
Now, finally, the main thing: how much can you trust the confessions of the participants in the process? For there is a version that they were simply tortured in dungeons to indiscriminate self-incrimination. But the transcript hardly leaves the likelihood that two dozen people, most thoroughly interrogated by Vyshinsky, took upon themselves the slander written by someone.
First, in order to compose and link such darkness of factual, psychological, lexical details, a whole brigade of shakespeare dedicated to all the details of geopolitics would be needed. The preliminary investigation was conducted by Sheinin, later known for his “Notes of the Investigator”. But in those of his “Notes” devoted to every kind of everyday life, it didn’t spend the night even a tenth of the depth and drama of collisions that surfaced on the court, which, most likely, life itself could create.
But even if we allow a play written by someone’s hand, it should have been brilliantly played out in front of Western viewers by those whose reward for success was quite clear from the fate of Tukhachevsky’s convicted group a little earlier. And the conspirators are revolutionaries hardened by royal prisons, whose break is not just a spit. Yes, and because of their activity, the struggle for each fact in court, the lengthy reasoning that goes into whole lectures for Bukharin, it is not visible that they should be ironed until they are completely forgotten.
“BUKHARIN: By chance, Feuchtwanger's book came to me from the prison library ... It made a great impression on me ... PLETNEV: I received more than 20 books from my library in four languages. I managed to write a monograph in prison ... "
So Pletnev in his last word wants to show that he has already begun to atone for his guilt by serving his native science. But both comments are touches to how the coprocessors were kept in captivity. And why did they recognize many things, although by no means everything they were accused of, one of them explained as follows:
“BULANOV: ... Do not hesitate here, in the dock, to drown your accomplice, to sell with giblets and legs in order to wriggle out for one thousandth of a second yourself ...”
And, of course, it is difficult not to correlate the recognition of the Bukharinites in their preparation for “opening the front” to what actually happened in the forty-first, when the Germans, the main allies and the recipients of the secret information of the traitors, broke free in the USSR.
It is hard not to draw a parallel with the recent history, when the collapse of the USSR took place exactly as Bukharin and Trotsky thought. But at the end of 30, an attempt to dismember the country was brutally suppressed. At the end of the 80-x and the beginning of the 90-x that state cruelty did not even smell close. Nevertheless, all the terrible cruelty, as it were, is inscrutable, contrary to all the slogans, one more humane than the other, poured out. Only in the first place on those for whom everything was allegedly committed: for millions of refugees, hungry, homeless, killed in ethnic fights and so on.
That is Stalin's cruelty, frankly, under the slogan “Crush the bastard!” - or the cruelty of a liberal hypocritical - but the cruelty in the end is all the same.
And still involuntarily arising after reading the whole effect. Already after the fact, knowing how many millions of lives the treacherous “opening of the front” cost, I want, against everything that had been committed, to mentally throw a reproach to Stalin not in exaggeration in the fight against adversaries ready for everything, but in undefeated!
This impression, apparently, made this era of democracy and publicity even more closed this officially not declassified process to this day. But how, without having understood authentically in the past, it is possible to build authentically the future?
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