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The Moscow Trial: It’S Meaning and Importance [April 1938] 1 Starobin: The Moscow Trial: It’s Meaning and Importance [April 1938] 1 The Moscow Trial: Its Meaning and Importance. by Joseph Starobin Published in Young Communist Review [New York], v. 3, no. 2 (April 1938), pp. 16-19. The fourth of the Moscow trials since the assassina- tion of Sergei Kirov in December 1934 is now concluded. Eighteen of the defendants were executed, the three remaining received sentences of imprisonment.† The editors of the capitalist press chewed many a pencil to find new arguments against the Soviet Re- public. Leon Trotsky proved very helpful with his me- lange of fantasy and falsehood. Not to be outdone, Eugene Lyons contributed his own twopence of “as- signments in myopia.” The press attempted to dismiss the trial as proof of the “moral and intellectual collapse of Com- munism,” but Richard Whitney spoiled the pie by filing his own petition of collapse the next morning, proving, no doubt, the unquestionable “moral and intellectual stability of capitalism.” But Hitler, no less scru- pulous than Whitney, shoved the headlines on the trial to the back page by his invasion of Austria. That is where we found the New York Times correspondent’s [Walter Duranty’s] dispatch of the 14th of March, in which he confesses, †- Reference is to the so-called “Case of the Anti-Soviet ‘Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’” held in Moscow from March 2-13, 1938. Defendants included Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Genrikh Iagoda, Nikolai Krestinsky, Khristian Rakovsky, Grigorii Grinko, and others. The group was, according to the widely disseminated (edited) transcript of the trial, charged with “treason to the country, espionage, committing acts of diversion, terrorism, wrecking, undermining the military power of the USSR, and of provoking a military attack of foreign states upon the USSR.” The case was prosecuted by Andrei Vyshinsky with V.V. Ulrich presiding. Rakovsky and two lesser defendants were sent to the GULag; none survived. 1 2 Starobin: The Moscow Trial: It’s Meaning and Importance [April 1938] “after witnessing two of the three public trials and reading can hire a smart lawyer to bamboozle the judges and [and] studying the testimony of the other, this writer is now the jury, and in utter disregard of the testimony, free well convinced that in the main outline, the cases were well founded even though established in ways strange to our his client. ideas of justice.” Especially in treason cases, the procedure of the Russian court is established by continental law. As Once and for all, this trial has shattered the elabo- Joshua Kunitz points out in his article in The New rate baloney about torture of the defendants. All the Masses for March 22, 1938, Article III, Section 3, of fantastic speculations about some enormous super- the American Constitution “deems open confession show, in which the defendants were elaborately in court sufficient to convict a man on charge of trea- coached, compelled to uniform confessions by some son.” The law says exactly: “No person shall be con- drug of obscure molecular composition, are now gone victed of treason unless on the testimony of two wit- with the wind. nesses as to the same overt act, or on confession in Anyone who reads the trial testimony will ob- open court.” serve that the witnesses did not testify willingly. They wrangled, fought, made fine distinctions, argued, • • • • • pleaded, and cast reflections on one another, because even rats will fight when they are concerned. The Daily Worker and its affiliated newspapers Some seemed to be telling the truth, eager to in Chicago and San Francisco gave full trail reports. have the ugly story vomited; Together with Joshua Kunitz’s others were sullen, bitter, excellent articles in The New treacherous to the end. Masses, and Earl Browder’s The integrity of the trial profound speech at the New procedure emerges beyond York Hippodrome, reprinted question. The defendants in The Daily Worker of March confessed because they 19th [1938], very few consid- were guilty; because they erations on the trial have been were at the end of their rope; left unexplored. because the facts marshaled Nevertheless, there are against them by the preliminary many people who do not yet investigation were indisputable. understand even the el- But the problem of trial ementary facts about procedure is secondary matter. the trials. There is nothing peculiar Some of these about Soviet judicial are liberals, who try processes. The Bukhar- hard to find new ways in-Trotsky conspirators to maintain their persistent had the full right to de- misunderstanding of the nature fend themselves in their own right, and by official le- of the Soviet Union. And numbers of people, with gal defense. They did defend themselves. They made whom we cooperate on many domestic issues, are still long speeches, attempting to find some hairbreadth troubled. on which to plead for mercy. They engaged in lengthy The trials should therefore serve as an educa- philosophical orations, between cups of tea, enjoying tional opportunity to hammer home certain funda- the complete freedom of the court. There is nothing mental facts about Russian history, as well as to pre- peculiarly Russian about this except maybe for the tea. pare ourselves for problems that are bound to arise in On the other hand, the Soviet Union does not the stormy years ahead. permit the hypocrisy which is prevalent in bourgeois First of all, it should be stressed again and again courts, whereby a defendant who is obviously guilty that the Soviet Union is the first and only socialist coun- Starobin: The Moscow Trial: It’s Meaning and Importance [April 1938] 3 try, the harbinger of a new day for humanity. It is en- Men like Iagoda, the former head of the OGPU, whose circled by the capitalist world, which is in the throes skillful treachery accounts for the fact that the plot of a final crisis. We live in a period when one system was uncovered so slowly, and piecemeal. But it is the of life is giving way, in fierce and uncompromising fact that they occupied such high places which makes battle, to a higher and more equitable form of human their crime so onerous, and accounts for the swift and organization. We live in a perpetual war, in which capi- unremitting character of Soviet justice. talism uses all methods, fair or foul, to maintain itself. This is such a simple truth that many people, • • • • • especially in our American democracy, sometimes for- get it, particularly in our progressive atmosphere. Sta- We cannot discuss the issues here, nor go into lin pointed out in his Mastering Bolshevism that even the pros and cons of the debate which the Russian the Russian comrades seem to have developed illusions masses decided against the plotters. Nor can we pause in this respect.† on the psychological aspects of their decay and treach- ery, though this may be interesting and even help to • • • • • make the whole affair intelligible to many people who do not think politically. The second problem, which we can hardly dis- Personal vanity, individual corruption, ambition, cuss at length, is the fact that all the defendants had self-delusion, all played a part in motivating the con- long histories of theoretical and practical disagreement spiracy. But the cardinal fact is that their political pro- with the Russian Party and the Russian masses. Ku- gram reduced itself to one thing: opposition to the nitz calls them the “Old Non-Bolsheviks.” Despite doz- construction of Socialism, efforts to restore capital- ens of instances of theoretical or personal instability, ism, even at the cost of dismembering the Soviet Re- before and during the Revolution, Lenin forgave them public and destroying its achievements. Although these time and again because, as he put it, they committed men came to their positions from different paths, with separate self-justification and make-believes to conceal mistakes which we now recall with reluctance. Why with the true meaning of their action, it all boiled down to reluctance? Because without special need it is wrong to recall such mistakes as have been fully rectified. simple counterrevolution, in cahoots with foreign na- tions. But if Lenin was lenient with them, the party Many newspapers weep crocodile tears over the under Stalin’s leadership was more so. When the dis- “weakening” which the Soviet Union has undergone cussion of the fundamental issues between Trotskyism as a result of the exposure of this network of conspira- and Leninism really emerged after Lenin’s death, it cies. This is poppycock. It is true that for our move- continued not for weeks, not for months, but for years. ment these trials may create educational problems, but After Trotskyism was discredited, the Trotskyists as these problems are overcome, our movement will crawled back into the Party, and were accepted, by be strengthened and clarified. Central Committee under Stalin’s leadership. They But it is unrealistic to imagine that Hitler or were all given high posts of journalistic and diplomatic Chamberlain are now guiding their course of action responsibility. They were completely trusted. because they think Russia reveals “internal weakness.” Whereupon the conspirators reformed their The wise and calculating diplomats of the reactionary ranks, maneuvering their own men into high places. and fascist wing think in terms of brass tacks. The †- Reference is to Stalin’s speech to the Feb.-March 1937 joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), an event which marked a move of the state and its secret police to ultra-violent interlude known as the Ezhovshchina. The original title of the pamphlet edition of Stalin’s speech better captures the flavor of his remarks: Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double-Dealers.
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