“Even if you don’t care about your own life,” Yerev continued, “then you can’t really care about the fate of thousands of members of the opposition that you dragged into the mud pit, can you? You know that the lives of those people are in your hands as much as your personal lives.”
“You have put a noose around my neck not once,” said Zinoviev, “but now you are going to tighten it. Your aim is to kill Lenin’s Praetorian Guard and all those who have fought for the revolution. For this, you will be judged by history!”
He paused to catch his breath, then said again in a weak voice.
“Tell Stalin that I refuse to ……”
In order to convince Zinoviev and to let him know that the NKVD had enough confessions to frame him, Yezhov decided to confront Zinoviev with several of the accused who had made such confessions.
The first person called to confront him was Pikor, Genoviev’s former secretary. The confrontation was a complete failure. Pikel lost his self-control and did not dare to repeat in front of Zinoviev the false confession he had agreed to and signed only a short time before. The interrogator had to help Pikor by reading out his written confessions and asking him if he stood by them. But Picker could not squeeze out a single word, but merely nodded his head. Zinoviev then asked him to tell the truth in his conscience.
The interrogator, fearing that Pickle might retract his confession, hurriedly interrupted the confrontation. After this incident, Yagoda ordered that no more confrontations between Zinoviev and Kamenev and other defendants would be allowed. Yagoda feared that Denoviev and Kamenev would “destroy” those who had succumbed to the pressure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Yerev, having met with a nail in the coffin in front of Zinoviev, planned to convince Kamenev. The content of his conversation with Kamenev was much the same as the one with Zinoviev. However, in this conversation, Yerev focused on exploiting Kamenev’s longing for his children and, at the same time, fully exercised Stalin’s threat that, as a last resort, the “organ” must put Kamenev’s son on trial in his father’s place. Then he had the latest confession of Reinhold read out to Kamenev, who confessed that he had followed Stalin and Voroshilov’s car together with Kamenev’s son near Dzhekintsov on the Mozai highway.
Kamenev was thunderstruck. He stood up and shouted at Yerov, calling him a manipulator who had infiltrated the party and a gravedigger of the revolution …… He was so angry that he gasped and collapsed helplessly in his chair. Yerov, with a fierce look on his face, turned and left the office, leaving Kamenev alone with Mironov.
Kamenev put his hands on his chest, panting hard, but when Mironov suggested calling a doctor, he refused, “You see, this is the real Hot Moon coup,” he said under his breath. “The French revolution has taught us a lesson that we are not good at accepting. We didn’t know how to defend the revolution from the coup d’état. That was our main fault, and for it history will judge us.”
Those organizers of the trial who eventually drove Zinoviev and Kamenev to their knees had taken all necessary measures to prevent them from committing suicide. In the cells where they were imprisoned, there were also some agents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who posed as arrested oppositionists. These agents vigilantly monitored their movements and kept the interrogation leaders informed of their moods and every word they said.
To make their torture even more brutal, Yagoda ordered the heating in the cell to be turned on, not caring that it was already summer and that it was suffocatingly hot without it. The agents inside left the cell from time to time, as if to be interrogated, but in fact to report to the head of the surveillance, and to escape the unbearable heat, to catch their breath and refresh themselves. As soon as they stepped through the doorway of the interrogation room, they hurriedly took off their sweat-soaked clothes and pounced on the cold drinks prepared for them.
There was a poorly educated, silly-looking agent. Later, he talked about his experience of playing a prisoner in Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s cells.
“What do they want from me,” he always complained after closing the cell door with a bang, “the interrogators say I’m a Trotskyist, but I’ve never been in the opposition? I’m an illiterate worker, I don’t know anything about politics. I have a wife and children at home. Why are they doing this to me? What are they going to do to me?”
“Zinoviev never answered anyone’s questions,” the agent continued, “and basically didn’t say a word. Only once did I find him staring at me like a hungry wolf. Kamenev’s attitude was different. He sympathized with me and said that the NKVD was not interested in people like me and that I would be released after a short time in prison. Kamenev was such a good interlocutor that he asked me about my daughter, gave me his own candy, and if I refused, he insisted until I took it.”
Zinoviev had asthma, and the intense heat made him suffer enough. Soon his illness worsened: bouts of pain began to develop in his liver. He rolled around on the floor and called straight to his guards to ask Kushnir. Kushner was a prison doctor and could give him a shot and send him to the prison hospital. But Kushnir always said that he had no right to do anything without Yagoda’s permission. His role was limited to prescribing medicine to Zinoviev. But Zinoviev’s condition became worse after taking these medicines. In short, Stalin really used every means in order to completely break down the resistance of Zinoviev and force him to confess all his sins. Of course, Kushnir also had to keep an eye on Zinoviev in case he died in prison.
In fact, even if he died, Zinoviev could not escape the more tragic fate that Stalin had prepared for him.
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