Reinhold’s confession was forwarded to Stalin by Yagoda after careful examination by Milonov, head of the Economic Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and by Agranov. The next day, Stalin approved the materials. In his confession, Reinhold said that Zinoviev strongly advocated the killing of Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Serov. However, Stalin himself had crossed out Molotov’s name.
Yagoda did not dare to ask any questions, but instructed the head of the interrogation team not to mention Molotov’s name again when taking the defendants’ statements about the killing of party and state leaders. It was obvious that there was a rift between Stalin and Molotov, and that Molotov could disappear from the domestic political scene at any time, just as Stalin’s former favorite, Chairman Sizhov, had done. The staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs knew that Stalin was capable of anything. Today, he crossed Molotov off the list of victims the conspirators wanted to kill, and tomorrow he will be added to the list of participants in the conspiracy, saying that he deliberately killed “the leader.
Since this episode serves to illustrate that the Moscow Trials were an integral part of Stalin’s overall political conspiracy, I will devote a later chapter to exposing them.
Stalin also made a number of other corrections to Reinhold’s confession. Some of the corrections were decent, but more of the changes were so incoherent that the Interior Ministry leaders often couldn’t resist a sarcastic sneer or a whispered chuckle as they read them over and over again. For example, Reinhold explained in his confession that Zinoviev strongly advocated the killing of Stalin and Kirov, and Stalin, after reading the passage, appended a note: “Zinoviev claimed that it was not enough to cut down the big oak trees. The small oaks that grew around them had to be uprooted as well.
Later, state prosecutor Vyshinsky repeated this analogy in court twice in a colorful manner, to the delight of Stalin.
In another part of the confession, Reinhold insulted Gaminev for having argued so strongly for the necessity of terror. Stalin added here a sentence as if it were from Gammeneff himself. “Stalin’s rule is as hard as granite, so it is foolish to hope that this granite will crumble of its own accord. In other words, it is necessary to smash it.”
There was another weapon in the hands of the trial organizer, and that was Rihad Pikl. He was not an old party member, and the interrogation team needed this man only because he had served as head of the secretariat in Zinoviev. Yerov and Yagoda believed that this circumstance would certainly make Pickel’s confession that he had framed Zinoviev convincing.
I knew Picker very well. As a young man, he wrote some lyrical poems and later rewrote prose, and was a member of the Soviet Union Writers’ Association.
Pikel was active in the Civil War and was head of the political office of the Sixteenth Army. Like Reinhold, he had joined the opposition. But not for long, and after breaking with the opposition, he was never used again. Before his arrest, he was the manager and party secretary of the Moscow Chamber Theatre. Picker loved theater and was very satisfied with his work. He stayed away from political activities and spent all his spare time on artistic creation. At the same time, he had some affairs with young actresses from the troupe. In addition, he was a poker fan, and played cards mainly with the most important cadres of the Ministry of the Interior. The people in this circle loved him very much. They called him a poker player and a “sociable young man”. Moreover, he was warmly looked after by the wives of these men.
On Sundays, Pickerell often hung out at the suburban villas of these high-ranking Cheka workers, using their special cars and other amenities as he pleased. He spent the entire summer of 1931 at the villa of the head of the Moscow Region Internal Affairs Department, which was adjacent to the Stalin residence. Thanks to these friends of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he made two pleasant trips abroad. Once to Europe and once to South America.
Pikl’s friends were heartbroken for him when they learned that Yerev and Yagoda had decided to put him on trial as a defendant. They tried to plead for him. But to no avail. However, when Yagoda told them that Pickerill would not go to the camp to serve his sentence, they were not convinced that he had to be arrested. However, when Yagoda told them that Pickerel would not go to the camp to serve his sentence, they let the decision that he must be arrested slide. Yagoda didn’t mince words, and he was sent to work as a construction director at a large construction site under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.
Pickerill was terrified by the sudden arrest. However, despite his fragile nature, he resisted the interrogators’ attempts to force him to confess for a long time. Yagoda decided to turn to his own subordinates who had been associating with Pickerill, who were heads of various departments of the Ministry of the Interior, such as Guy, Shainin, and Ostrovsky, among others. So, from then on, the interrogation was like a family life to Picker, no one asked him in a fierce manner: “What’s your name, what’s your name? How long have you been in the opposition?” No one asked him to sit in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel and call them “investigator citizens”. He could just call them by their nicknames: “Mark”, “Shura”, “Josiah”. If he had put a deck of cards on the table, everything would have looked the same as it did before he was arrested, and he would have had a good time playing cards. However. Picker, who was sitting across from “Mark,” “Shura,” and “Josiah,” was, after all, the prisoner. They told him frankly that they could not get him out of prison because it was “the request from above,” but if he would help the Ministry of Internal Affairs by making his own confession against Zinoviev and Kamenev, they dared to vouch for him: they would not let him go to a concentration camp no matter what sentence the court sentenced him to, but would keep him there. He served his sentence “out of prison” to become the director of a large construction site on the Volga River.
Pikel gave in. He asked only that he be allowed to see Yagoda to confirm all these promises. Yagoda agreed to talk to Pickerel and very generously assured him that all the promises would be fulfilled. After this, he was transferred to Mironov’s staff, who prepared a confession for him and asked him to sign it. In Mironov’s office, he met with his old friend Reinhold, who was also sent by Mironov. In this way, Pickerill accepted the task of playing a part in the farce of the future trial.
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