There is an even more convincing evidence of this, a postcard sent from Espoo to her son by Thank you Dova Trotskaya on the day she left Denmark. The postcard was postmarked by the post office: “Espoo, December 3, 1932. Sheldova Tolotskaya wrote sadly that she and her son would not see each other again before they left. She concluded, “I still hope for a miracle that will allow me to see you here.
Stalin was furious when the Danish newspapers reported that the Hotel “Bristol” in Copenhagen had ceased to exist. How did you come up with such a hotel? I should say that they met at the station. The station can’t be torn down!”
Stalin ordered Yagoda to investigate and find out which Interior Ministry personnel had been so careless as to discredit the entire trial, and asked Yagoda to submit the list. With a glimmer of hope of reversing the defeat, Yagoda immediately sent an experienced staff member of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior to Copenhagen to observe if the Ministry of the Interior could do something there to wash away the shame, or even to make up for such a humiliating scandal. But the staff member went home empty-handed. Many of those involved were baffled. How in the world could the Ministry of the Interior choose a non-existent “Hotel Bristol” for such an important case? You know, there are so many restaurants in Copenhagen, it’s hard to choose! A special investigation, conducted at Stalin’s request, cleared up the whole story.
When Goltzmann finally agreed to sign everything that was forced upon him under torture, the organizers of the trial farce asked their men to choose a place where Goltzmann could meet with Serdov, and this place had to be convenient for getting to Trotsky’s house.
Yezhov decided that the most suitable place was a hotel. But the choice of which hotel in Copenhagen would be determined by the materials provided by the First Bureau of the Ministry of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, since the so-called First Bureau was dedicated to the collection of foreign intelligence. However, Morchanov, the head of the Ministry of the Interior’s Secret Service, who was in charge of trial preparation and “technical support” for the trial, did not think it prudent to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly for the name of the hotel in Copenhagen. He knew that the name of the hotel would soon come up in the trial, and that the Foreign Ministry staff would probably figure out what it was about. But Morchanov was too clever for his own good this time. He ordered his secretary to call the First Bureau of the Foreign Ministry and ask them to provide him with the names of several hotels in Oslo and Copenhagen. He did this in order to give the First Bureau the false impression that the hotels were for the purpose of accommodating important Interior Ministry personnel sent to Scandinavia.
Morchanov’s secretary did so. However, when he printed out the list of hotels he had obtained for his boss, he failed to distinguish which hotels were in Oslo. He failed to distinguish which hotels were in Oslo and which were in Copenhagen, thus making a fatal mistake that jeopardized the entire trial. Morchanov, however, chose the “Bristol”. In fact, the hotel existed, but it was in Oslo, not in Copenhagen.
How could Goltzmann know this, even though he admitted to having contacted Trotsky and signed the confession?
Chapter 4: The Interrogation Machine
Previously, I have confined myself to recounting briefly some of the official materials of the investigation and the trials, and have focused my attention on those episodes that shed light on the essence of the Moscow trials. The reader should now be led to the background of the farce of these trials, where, step by step, the reader will see how the biggest multi-screen fraud in the history of mankind was concocted, and how Stalin and his thugs transformed a group of outstanding revolutionary fighters and leaders into obedient puppets, performing one puppet show after another.
In early 1936, Molchanov called a special meeting of nearly forty prominent “organ” workers. Among the attendees were the heads of the most important bureaus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and their deputies.
Morchanov announced to them that a huge conspiracy had been discovered. A huge conspiracy group, headed by Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other opposition leaders, had been discovered. The conspiracy had been operating in secret for several years, and terrorist cells had been set up in almost every major city. The goal of the conspiracy was to kill Stalin and all Politburo members. Then seize state power. After giving a brief description of the features and size of the conspiracy groups that were uncovered, Molchanov conveyed to the participants of the meeting the fact that the conspiracy was a secret group of the people of internal affairs. He also conveyed to the participants the order of the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Yagoda that all the participants, except the chief and deputy chiefs of the bureaus, were to leave their posts and be assigned to the secret political bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to carry out interrogation work. He emphasized that Stalin would personally supervise the progress of the investigation, and that Central Secretary Yezhov would be Stalin’s assistant, assisting him in supervising the investigation. In this way, when this task of great responsibility was entrusted to the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the interrogators were asked to work on the investigation. The interrogators were asked to always remember that they were both a Cheka and a party member in the course of their work.
Morchanov unmistakably warned the participants. Stalin and the Politburo confirmed that all the accusations against the leaders of the conspiracy were true, so the task of every interrogator was only to obtain a full confession from the accused. If the conspirators deny their guilt by claiming that they were not at the scene of the crime, the investigators must ignore them, because they are in prison, but they are trying to give orders to terrorist organizations outside. Such things have become commonplace.
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