After exhausting all the usual methods of torture, Molchanov set up a trap, following Yezhov’s instructions. They kept Reinhold quiet for a few days, and then, in the middle of the night, they suddenly took him out of bed and sent him to the interrogators with a false verdict from the special commission of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On this piece of paper, which bore the official seal, it was written that Isaac Reinhold had been sentenced to death by firing squad for his participation in the Tor-Di conspiracy and that his family had been sent into exile in Siberia.
Morchanov, an old acquaintance of Reinhold’s, then urged him to write a petition for clemency and send it directly to Yerevan, the secretary of the Party Central Committee. This way, he said, Yerev would order a postponement of the execution date and a review of the case. Reinhold followed his advice and immediately wrote a long application to Yegev.
The next night, Molchanov called Reinhold back and said that Yerev had read the application and was willing to order a reversal of the special commission’s decision, but on one condition: Reinhold must agree to help in the “uncovering the crimes of the Tor-Ti gang” investigation. This would leave Reinhold in charge of his own destiny. His refusal to confess, not wanting to harm Zinoviev and Kamenev, would naturally lead to an immediate execution, while his agreement to confess to everything the interrogation demanded would mean salvation. Molchanov was convinced that Reinhold, threatened with death and with his life on the line, would cling to the straw given by Yerov, but in fact Reinhold was much braver than Molchanov had expected. He also made a condition: he agreed to sign any confessions, whether they were slanderous or libelous, on the condition that they be made to him by the Chairman of the Party Central Committee, Yerov. The Party considered him innocent of any crime, and it was the interests of the Party that required his signature on these trumped-up charges. Molchanov warned him that any attempt to make a counter-claim might be seen as a refusal to accept Yezhov’s conditions, and that this would not end well. However, Reinhold stood his ground and refused to budge.
The next day, Molchanov reported Reinhold’s situation to Yagoda. Molchanov was anxious to get some incriminating evidence about Gaminev and Zinoviev, and was inclined to accept Reinhold’s conditions. But Yagoda was adamantly against it. He forbade Molchanov to “make a deal” with such an insignificant little man as Reinhold, convinced that if Reinhold were allowed to languish in death for any length of time, he would surrender without concessions.
But time waited for no one. Stalin waited impatiently for the results of the interrogation, but all the Ministry of the Interior had in its possession was a confession that could be used as evidence against the Trotskyist defendants, and it was signed by Ollie Berger, a spy of the Ministry of the Interior. Worse still, the confession contained no material that could jeopardize the reputation of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Therefore, urgent measures had to be taken to get the interrogation out of the dilemma.
Yerov finally intervened in the matter himself. He was amazed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs just kept on “going through the front door”. Yerev summoned Reinhold from prison and announced to him, in the name of the Central Committee, that Reinhold could prove his innocence and loyalty to the Party by helping the Ministry of Internal Affairs to expose Zinoviev and Kamenev. After this conversation, Reinhold’s behavior took a 180-degree turn. He had been a dead ringer for the interrogator Chertok, but now he was transformed into his most enthusiastic assistant. He signed whatever confessions the interrogation authorities asked him to sign, and even helped the interrogators modify their own false confessions.
Reinhold, in contrast to Olberg, did not even ask what sentence he might be sentenced to. He put everything on the character and conscience of Stalin and Yezhov. We will see below how much Reinhold helped the NKVD prepare for the fictitious trial. In court, he was not only the main weapon of the MVD, but also the right-hand man of Prosecutor General Vynensky. Among those who were used, Reinhold played a role far beyond that of Olivier Berger. As a foreigner and resident abroad, it was impossible for Oliberg to be a direct witness to the “hostile activities” of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other older party leaders. On the contrary, Reinhold, a senior cadre of the Soviet government, could have participated in secret talks with former opposition leaders.
Reinhold even signed an admission of guilt that, as a member of the Trotskyist organization, he had prepared to kill Stalin and had carried out “creative” criminal activities under the personal leadership of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bakaev. In addition, Reinhold testified that the killing of Kirov was planned by Zinoviev and Kamenev. The terror was not only directed against Stalin, but would endanger Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and other leaders as well.
His role as a “witness” was so great that the organizers of the trial farce decided to break with their earlier assumptions. His confession was not limited to the framing of Kamenev and Zinoviev. Now, the confessions signed by him involved almost all the old party members, who would all be brought to court in the future. At Yerov’s request, he also slandered the former head of the Soviet government, Likov, and the former Politburo members, Bukharin and Tomsky, as well as Ivan Smirnov, Mrachkovsky, and Par Vaganyan in his confession.
Reinhold’s cooperation with the leaders of the interrogation went so far that they forgot for a moment that he was also a defendant. As a result, a strange phenomenon appeared in Reinhold’s “testimonies,” which sounded as if they came not from an unrepentant terrorist, who until recently had deliberately killed Stalin, but from an indignant prosecutor. He indignantly described the so-called conspiracy in which he had been involved as “a counterrevolutionary group that would do anything to undermine the strength of the state and a gang of murderers.
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