The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  Meanwhile, Rykov, according to his daughter, “kept thinking and thinking”: “One day I entered the room and was startled by my father’s appearance. He was sitting by the window, his back to it, in a strange, unnatural pose—with his head tilted back, his hands crossed and pressed between his crossed legs, and a tear rolling down his cheek. I don’t think he even saw me, he was so engrossed in his thoughts. I could hear him saying, in a kind of drawn-out half whisper: ‘Surely Nikolai couldn’t really be mixed up with them, could he?’ I knew that ‘Nikolai’ stood for ‘Bukharin,’ and ‘they,’ for those whose trial had recently ended.”43

  On February 21, Bukharin stopped eating. According to Larina, within two days he had “turned pale and gaunt, with hollow cheeks and huge dark circles under his eyes.”

  Finally, he gave up and asked for a sip of water. This was a great moral blow to him: a full hunger strike meant abstaining not only from food, but also from water. I was so worried about N.I.’s condition that, to give him some strength, I secretly squeezed some orange juice into the water. N.I. took the glass from my hand, got a whiff of the orange juice, and flew into a rage. The glass with the life-giving liquid flew into the corner and broke.

  “You are trying to make me deceive the plenum! I won’t deceive the Party!” he shouted furiously. He had never talked to me that way.

  I poured him another glass of water, this time without the juice, but N.I. flatly refused to drink it.

  “I want to die! Let me die here, beside you!” he added in a weak voice.44

  He composed a letter “To the Future Generation of Party Leaders,” asked Anna to memorize it, and tested her several times to make sure she had it right. He was “lowering his head,” he wrote, “not before the proletarian sword, which must be ruthless but chaste,” but before “an infernal machine, which, probably employing medieval methods, had acquired enormous power.” The NKVD had become degenerate and could transform any Party member into a traitor. “If Stalin doubted himself for a second, the confirmation would follow immediately.” History, however, was on his side. Sooner or later, it was going to “wash the dirt” off his head. “Know, comrades, that on the banner that you will be carrying on your victorious march toward Communism, there is a drop of my blood!”45

  On the evening of February, 23 Bukharin and Rykov arrived at the Central Committee plenum devoted, in part, to the discussion of their case. According to Larina, Bukharin felt dizzy when he entered the room and sat down on the floor in the aisle. Ezhov opened the proceedings by announcing that Bukharin’s and Rykov’s participation in the counterrevolutionary terrorist conspiracy had been confirmed. The discussion that followed was a four-day scapegoating (pharmakos) ritual, in which the participants jeered, taunted, and ridiculed the selected victims, shouted and pointed fingers at them, called them “scum,” “fiends,” “beasts,” “snakes,” “vipers,” “fascists,” “renegades,” “vile cowards,” “spiteful cats,” and “puffed-up little frogs,” and demanded their immediate destruction and the cutting off of their “tentacles.” (In Russian, vreditel’, or “wrecker,” refers to pests and vermin, as well as saboteurs.) As the chairman of the Bashkirian Party Committee, Yakov Bykin (Berkovich), put it, “They must receive the same retribution as their accomplices, their friends from the first and second trials of the Trotskyites and Zinovievites. They must be destroyed in the same way as the Trotskyites, and those who are left alive should be kept in cages under lock and key rather than sent into exile. (Voice from the floor: That’s right.)”46

  Bukharin and Rykov responded in two different ways. One was to refute specific charges by providing alibis, pointing to inconsistencies, and denying knowledge of certain events and individuals. Such arguments—analogous to Bukharin’s “Comrade Stalin” letters—were rejected as irrelevant: the Central Committee plenum was not a tribunal and “lawyerly behavior” was not appropriate. “But what does it mean that this is not a tribunal?” asked Bukharin. “What is the meaning of such a statement? Aren’t people interpreting specific facts? Haven’t eyewitness accounts and factual testimonies been circulated? Yes, they have. Aren’t these factual testimonies influencing the minds of the comrades entrusted with judging and drawing conclusions? Yes, they are. (Voice from the floor: This is not a tribunal, this is the Party’s Central Committee.) I know that this is the Party’s Central Committee and not a revolutionary tribunal. But if the difference is only in name, then this is a tautology. What is the difference?” The difference, his judges told him, over and over again, was that his guilt was assumed and his job was to confess and repent, not to argue.47

  The second line of defense was the “dear Koba” appeal to the accusers’ humanity. As Bukharin said by way of explaining his hunger strike and his letter to the Politburo,

  Of course, if I am not a human being, then there is nothing to understand. But I believe that I am a human being, and I believe that I have the right to my psychological state, at this extremely difficult and painful moment in my life (Voices from the floor: What else did you expect?), at this extremely difficult time, of which I wrote. So there was no element of intimidation or ultimatum on my part. (Stalin: And your hunger strike?) I have not eaten (anything) for four days. I told you and wrote to you why, in desperation, I had resorted to this. I wrote to a narrow circle of people because, with such accusations as these being leveled at me, I cannot go on living.

  I cannot shoot myself with a revolver—because then people will say that I have killed myself in order to harm the Party, but if I die as if from a disease, then what do you have to lose? (Laughter. Voices from the floor: That’s blackmail! Voroshilov: What disgusting behavior! How can you say such a thing? It’s disgusting. Think about what you are saying.) But you must understand—it is hard for me to go on living. (Stalin: And for us, it’s easy? And it’s easy for us? Voroshilov: How do you like that: “I won’t shoot myself, but I’ll die”?) It is easy for you to talk about me this way. What do you have to lose? Because, if I am a wrecker, a son of a bitch, and so on, then why feel sorry for me? I am not asking for anything; I am simply giving you an idea of what I am thinking and feeling. If this causes any political harm, however miniscule, I will, of course, do whatever you tell me to (laughter). Why are you laughing? There is absolutely nothing funny about any of this.48

  According to Larina, “he came down from the podium and sat down on the floor again, this time not because he felt weak, but because he felt like an outcast.” When he came home that evening, he ate dinner—“out of respect for the plenum.”49

  The next session began with a special request from Bukharin:

  BUKHARIN. Comrades, I have a very short statement to make of the following nature. I would like to apologize to the Central Committee plenum for my ill-considered and politically harmful act of declaring a hunger strike.

  STALIN. That’s not enough!

  BUKHARIN. I can explain. I ask the plenum of the Central Committee to accept my apology because it is true that I did, in effect, present the Central Committee with a kind of ultimatum, and that ultimatum took the shape of this unusual step.

  KAGANOVICH. An anti-Soviet step.

  BUKHARIN. By doing this, I committed a very serious political error, which can only partially be mitigated by the fact that I found myself in an extremely agitated state. I am asking the Central Committee to excuse me and apologize sincerely for this truly unacceptable political step.

  STALIN. Excuse and forgive.

  BUKHARIN. Yes, yes, and forgive.

  STALIN. That’s better!

  MOLOTOV. Don’t you think that your so-called hunger strike may be seen by some comrades as an anti-Soviet act?

  KAMINSKY. That’s right, Bukharin, it has to be said.

  BUKHARIN. If some comrades see it that way … (Noise in the room. Voices from the floor: How else can it be seen? That’s the only way to see it.) But, comrades, this was not my subjective intention … …

  KAGANOVICH. According to Marxism, there is no wall separ
ating the subjective from the objective.50

  Kaganovich was right, and Bukharin knew it (and had argued the same point himself many times before). A sinful thought was a criminal act, and a criminal act was the embodiment of a sinful thought. Bukharin did not question that; what he was trying to do (because of his exceptionally difficult situation) was to preserve a distinction between himself as a human being and himself as a politician who had committed some very serious political errors—a distinction that corresponded to the one between Comrade Stalin and dear Koba:

  I was told that I was using some kind of cunning maneuver when I wrote to the Politburo and then to Comrade Stalin, in order to appeal to his kindness. (Stalin. I am not complaining.) I am saying this because this question has been raised and because I have heard many reproaches or semi-reproaches about the fact that I write to Comrade Stalin a little differently from the way I write to the Politburo. But, comrades, I do not think that it is a legitimate reproach and that I should be suspected of any particular cunning…. It seems to me that this practice began under Lenin. Whenever one of us wrote to Ilich, he would ask certain questions that he would not address to the Politburo, write about his doubts and hesitations, and so on. And no one ever saw this as any kind of clever ruse.51

  They did now. Lenin had been a two-in-one “synthesis,” and the person Bukharin used to share his hesitations with had been “Ilich,” not “Lenin.” Comrade Stalin was indivisible, and Bukharin admitted as much by not publicly mentioning the true addressee of his personal letters. There was no “Koba” anymore, and no “human understanding” distinct from Party vigilance. As Kaganovich put it, “at first glance it may appear simple: these are just people trying to defend themselves, Bukharin and Rykov are appealing to our human understanding—‘you must understand, as human beings, the position we are in,’ and so on, and so forth, but in fact, comrades, this constitutes—and I would like to stress this, in particular—this constitutes a new move by the enemy. (Voices from the floor: Exactly!)”52

  The chairman of the Sverdlovsk Party Committee, Ivan Kabakov, addressed Bukharin and Rykov directly:

  You have committed vile counterrevolutionary acts. You should have been in the dock answering for those acts long ago. And yet you come here with your soft little voices and tears in your eyes, weeping. For example, last night, Bukharin kept making comments and squeaking just like a mouse caught in a trap (laughter). His voice changed, and his expression changed, too, as if he had just emerged from a cave. Take a good look at him, members of the Central Committee, and see what a miserable person he is. (Postyshev: They really did live in caves at one point. Like some kind of monks!)53

  The plenum was not a tribunal. It was a ritual performance, and Bukharin was playing the wrong part—badly. As Molotov put it,

  He knows that Tomsky’s last card has been played (and lost), that everyone has understood the meaning of his suicide, and that no one feels sorry about Tomsky’s suicide. He sees that this isn’t going to work, so he comes up with a new trick. He’s like a tiny Jesus. Just look at him bobbing his head up and down, but then he forgets, and quits bobbing. He kept forgetting, and then he’d quit bobbing and be just fine, but whenever he’d remember, he’d start bobbing away again. (Postyshev. Like some kind of martyr.) …

  Two days had passed since he declared a hunger strike, but he gave a speech here saying: “I have been fasting for four days.” Didn’t he even read his own letter? What a comedian he is! Bukharin, the actor. A small-time provincial actor. Who is he trying to impress? It’s just a petty acting ploy. A comedy of a hunger strike. Is this the way real revolutionaries fast? This is the counterrevolutionary, Bukharin, after all. (Stalin. Do we have a record of how long he fasted?) They say he fasted for forty days and forty nights on the first day, for forty days and forty nights on the second day, and for forty days and forty nights on each day after that. This is the comedy of Bukharin’s hunger strike. We were all terrified, in complete despair. And now his hunger strike is over. He is not a hunger striker at all, but simply an actor, a small-time bit player, certainly, but an actor for all that. (Stalin. Why did he begin his hunger strike at midnight?) I think it’s because no one eats before bedtime: doctors don’t recommend it.

  Comrades, this whole hunger strike is a comical episode in our Party. Afterward, people will say: “That was a funny episode in the Party with Bukharin’s hunger strike.” Such is Bukharin’s role, a role to which he has sunk. But this is not art for art’s sake; this is part of the struggle against the Party. (Voices from the floor: Exactly!)54

  Anything that Bukharin and Rykov said or did short of a full confession was a struggle against the Party. As Yagoda, who had stage-managed the Zinoviev trial (and who used to be Rykov’s close friend), told them, “You have no more than two minutes to realize that you have been unmasked and that the only way out for you is to tell the plenum—right here, right now, and in great detail—about all of your criminal terrorist activity against the Party. But you cannot do this, since you continue to fight against us as enemies of the Party.”55

  They could not do it because they did not consider themselves guilty of criminal terrorist activity against the Party. Or rather, they considered themselves guilty objectively, in the sense of being politically responsible for the criminal terrorist activity carried out against the Party, but not subjectively, in the sense of participating in an attempt on the life of Comrade Stalin or the sale of Ukraine to Germany. One reason this line of defense did not work was that there was no wall separating the objective from the subjective. The other was that, according to the logic everyone seems to have accepted, Bukharin and Rykov had to be lying. They were not fighting for their lives yet (that would happen later, in the NKVD interrogation rooms); they were fighting for their Party membership. Party membership entailed the unconditional acceptance of Party decrees. The Party had decreed that the testimony of convicted terrorists was truthful:

  MOLOTOV. Is the testimony of the Trotskyites plausible? …

  BUKHARIN. When it comes to their accusations against me, it is not (laughter, noise in the hall). Why are you laughing, there is nothing funny about this.

  MOLOTOV, When it comes to their testimony against themselves, is it plausible?

  BUKHARIN. Yes, it is.56

  If all the testimony was truthful by definition, how could Bukharin and Rykov be the only exception? Or, as Rykov put it, “How can I prove anything? It is clear that my political confession cannot be relied upon. How else, by what other means, can I prove anything?”57

  The answer was that the plenum was not a tribunal. The choice, as Stalin presented it, was clear. “There are people who give truthful testimony, even when it is terrible testimony, in order to completely wash off the dirt that has stuck to them. And then there are those people who do not give truthful testimony because they have become attached to the dirt that has stuck to them and do not want to part with it.” Did this mean that Rykov had no choice but to confess to something he had not done? “It is completely clear to me now,” he said, “that I will be treated better if I just confess, it is clear to me, and that all my sufferings will be over, at whatever cost, as long as there is some sort of resolution.”58

  No, he did not have that choice. “What is clear?” asked Postyshev from the floor. “What sufferings? He is posing as a martyr now.” The real martyrs were the people who had to put up with Bukharin’s and Rykov’s recalcitrance. “Radek, that scum of the earth,” said the Gosplan chairman, Valery Mezhlauk, “had found the courage to say that it was he who was torturing his interrogator, not the other way around. I would like to say that no one is torturing you, but you are torturing us in the most unacceptable, despicable way. (Voices from the floor: That’s right! That’s right!) For many, many years, you have been torturing the Party, and it is only because of Comrade Stalin’s angelic patience that we have not torn you apart politically for your vile terrorist activity.” Comrade Stalin had been wise to let the investigation run its cours
e, but now that there was no doubt about Bukharin’s and Rykov’s guilt, all they had to say was: “I am a viper, and I ask the Soviet state to destroy me as a viper. (Voice from the floor: That’s right!)”59

  ■ ■ ■

  How many more vipers were there in the Central Committee? The peculiar feature of the plenum’s logic was that it applied to everyone. As Bukharin had written in his “Letter to the Future Generation of Party Leaders,” “if Stalin doubted himself for a second, confirmation would follow immediately.” He was wrong about Stalin: Stalin was the sacred foundation on which the entire logic was built. He was also wrong about “immediately”: Bykin, Postyshev, and Mezhlauk, among others, would not be revealed as vipers for almost a year. But he was right about the connection between self-doubt and confirmation: the fact that everyone, except for Comrade Stalin, had sinned against the Party at some point, in thought or in deed, meant that everyone, except for Comrade Stalin, was objectively responsible for the criminal terrorist activity against the Party (and doomed irreparably as a result of any publicly issued accusation). One of the most prominent accusers, the former NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda, became the accused four days later, as part of the fifth item on the plenum’s agenda (“The Lessons of the Wrecking, Sabotage, and Espionage of the Japanese-German-Trotskyite Agents within the NKVD”). Another person who found himself drifting from one category to the other was Osinsky. Toward the end of the evening session on February 25, Molotov, who chaired the event, was introducing the next speaker when he was suddenly interrupted by First Secretary of Ukraine Stanislav Kosior:

  MOLOTOV. The next speaker is Comrade Zhukov.

  KOSIOR. Hasn’t Osinsky signed up to speak?

  VOICES FROM THE FLOOR. Is Osinsky going to speak?

  KOSIOR. Comrade Molotov, people would like to know. Is Osinsky going to speak?

  MOLOTOV. He hasn’t signed up yet.

  POSTYSHEV. He has been silent for a long time.