Читаем The Great Terror полностью

I have no more questions to put to Bukharin.

¹¹⁹

The court adjourned on that note. The Prosecutor had been defeated.

When the session resumed, Bukharin listed his contacts with émigré Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the concessions to be made to Germany. He again went out of his way to deny espionage, and say that the military conspirators had spoken to Tomsky of “opening the front” in case of war, but he had disapproved:

Vyshinsky:

And did you talk to Karakhan about opening the front?

Bukharin:

Karakhan said that the Germans were demanding a military alliance with Germany.

Vyshinsky:

And are the gates closed to an ally?

Bukharin:

Karakhan gave me an answer to this question.

Vyshinsky:

That the gates are closed to an ally?

Bukharin:

No.

Vyshinsky:

That means to open the gates?

Bukharin:

Pardon me, there was no alliance yet.

Vyshinsky:

But there were expectations, plans?

Bukharin:

Well, just now the Soviet Union has an alliance with France, but that does not mean that it opens the Soviet frontiers.

¹²⁰

Vyshinsky now went on to the crime with which Bukharin alone of those on trial was charged—the plan to assassinate Lenin in 1918. The prosecution produced three prominent Left Communists of that period, Yakovleva, Mantsev, and Ossinsky—the last (originally Prince Obolensky) still a candidate member of the Central Committee elected in 1934.

At the time, Varvara Yakovleva, a candidate member of the small 1917 Central Committee, had been the more prominent, and with Bukharin, Pyatakov, and V. M. Smirnov had resigned when the decision to accept the Peace of Brest-Litovsk had been taken.

She now fully confirmed Vyshinsky’s story. Bukharin had no difficulty in showing that the alleged illegal activities of early 1918 were not illegal at all, and that in fact the Leftists, with the Trotskyites then roughly aligned with them, held a majority and hoped to enforce their views through ordinary Party channels. After this majority had been lost, he admitted, conversations had taken place with a view to arresting Lenin and forming a new government. (Bukharin had indeed thought of arresting Lenin for twenty-four hours with a view to making it easier to change the Government, and had given the whole story as long ago as 1924.)¹²¹

There had also been conversations with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who had dropped out of the Soviet Government on the peace issue. What Bukharin denied was that there had been any sort of plan to kill Lenin or complicity with the Socialist Revolutionaries. He went on to point out that many who had been Left Communists at the time—including Kuibyshev and Menzhinsky—were not for that reason now regarded as enemies. He was ruled out of order. A series of points—including the fact that he had been wounded by a bomb thrown by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries at a time when he was now charged with conspiring with them—were similarly ruled on.

Mantsev’s evidence followed the same lines, and Ossinsky gave a rather more restricted account, omitting certain points against Bukharin. Bukharin denied the evidence about the assassination plan, and twice hinted strongly at the reason for the witnesses’ attitude:

Vyshinsky:

Consequently, you assert that Mantsev’s testimony in this part and the testimony of witness Yakovleva are false?

Bukharin:

Yes, I do.

Vyshinsky:

How do you explain the fact that they are not telling the truth?

Bukharin:

You had better ask them about it.

¹²²

And later on:

Vyshinsky:

You must somehow explain the fact that three of your former accomplices are speaking against you.

Bukharin:

You see, I have neither sufficient material nor the psychological requisites to clear up this question.

Vyshinsky:

You cannot explain.

Bukharin:

Not that I cannot, I simply refuse to explain.

¹²³