Just arrested, Yagoda live like a frightened beast, in any case can not get used to the cage. He went around the cell endlessly, neither ate nor slept, and kept talking to himself. The newly appointed People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs Yerev was alerted to this situation and sent a doctor.
Yerev was worried that Yagoda would lose his mind, because that would be extremely detrimental to the farce of the upcoming trial. In order to stabilize his predecessor, Yezhov asked Slutsky, the head of the Foreign Service, who had not been removed at that Time, to visit Yagoda frequently. Slutsky’s visits made Yagoda very happy. Slutsky, who was the best actor, seemed to feel compassion for Yagoda, and even shed a few tears. But he still did not forget to remember every word of Yagoda, so that he could report to Yezhov. Yagoda knew, of course, that Slutsky’s visit was in no way intended, but this seemed to be of no importance. Yagoda believed only one thing; Slutsky was also worried about his future; if Slutsky’s current boss was still him, Yagoda, instead of Yerov, Slutsky would certainly feel much safer; Slutsky must have preferred to visit Yerov in this prison ……
Yagoda talked about everything in front of Slutsky. He told him frankly about the desperate situation he was in, and complained bitterly that Yerov had in a few months destroyed the powerful machine of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for which he, Yagoda, had devoted fifteen years of his Life.
One evening, when the routine visit had ended and Slutsky was about to leave, Yagoda suddenly said to him.
“When you write your report to Yezhov, could you send me this message: It seems that God exists after all!”
“What do you mean by that?” Slutsky was a bit flustered, because Yagoda had unceremoniously mentioned “writing a report to Yerev”.
“It’s simple,” Yagoda explained, both seriously and jokingly: “I served faithfully and Stalin gave me only a commendation and nothing else; I should have been punished most severely by God for breaking his commandments repeatedly. Now, if you look at my downfall, you will naturally be able to judge whether God is, or is not, present ……”
Chapter 22 “Medical Murder”: The Death of Gorky
Some foreign critics have repeatedly questioned why the dozen or so well-organized terrorist groups mentioned repeatedly in the First and Second Moscow Trials all committed only the same terrorist act – the assassination of Kirov. This very difficult question was finally answered by Stalin at the Third Moscow Trial.
Stalin knew in his heart that this question had hit the nail on the head. It was too unconvincing that a single murder had given rise to a series of trials of such a magnitude. Since it was no longer possible to evade the question, he, Stalin, had to accept the challenge and answer it. But how? By the new myths he forced into the mouths of the defendants in the third trial.
To answer the challenge as he should, Stalin would first have to name all the other prominent leaders killed by the conspirators. But where can we find these victims? You know, in the past twenty years, only one murder case has been reported to the public, the much-talked-about Kirov assassination. In such a situation, even those who have carefully studied the activities of Stalin’s cunning brain could not have thought that he would find a more suitable “candidate” than Kirov. Let’s see how Stalin solved this problem and how he brought it to court.
Between 1934 and 1936, a number of prominent figures died in the Soviet Union. The most famous of them were Gubishev, a member of the Politburo, and Mininsky, the head of the General State Political Security Service. Also dying in this period were the famous Writer A. M. Gorky and his son Maxim Peshkov. Stalin actually decided to make a big deal out of the natural deaths of these four men. Admittedly, Gorky was not a member of the government, much less the Politburo, but it was precisely this that Stalin wanted to portray as a victim of terrorism, for it would have stirred up the people’s anger against the accused even more.
However, it was not an easy task to realize this plan, even for the powerful Stalin. The biggest obstacle was that the deaths of the four men had been reported in great detail in the Soviet press, and the identification materials written by their treating doctors had been published. Thus, it was already known to the nation that Gubishev and Minsky had been suffering from angina pectoris for many years, and that both had died of sudden heart attacks. In June 1936, when the sixty-eight-year-old Gorky was critically ill, the government ordered that his condition be communicated to the nation twice a day. Moreover, it had long been known that Gorky had contracted tuberculosis since he was a teenager. The autopsy showed that only one third of his lungs were working properly.
Recent Comments