Editing Great Purge (section)

===First and second Moscow trials===
[[File:Л. Д. Троцкий, Л. Б. Каменев и Г. Е. Зиновьев. Середина 1920-х годов.jpg|thumb|right|Bolshevik revolutionaries [[Leon Trotsky]], [[Lev Kamenev]], and [[Grigory Zinoviev]]]]

Between 1936 and 1938, three very large Moscow trials of former senior Communist Party leaders were held, in which they were accused of conspiring with fascist and capitalist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union and restore capitalism. These trials were highly publicized and extensively covered by the outside world, which was mesmerized by the spectacle of Lenin's closest associates confessing to most outrageous crimes and begging for death sentences:{{Original research inline|date=May 2021}}
* The first trial was of 16 members of the so-called "Trotskyite-Kamenevite-Zinovievite-Leftist-Counter-Revolutionary Bloc," held in August 1936,<ref>Rogovin (1998), pp. 17–18</ref> at which the chief defendants were [[Grigory Zinoviev]] and [[Lev Kamenev]], two of the most prominent former party leaders, who had indeed been members of a [[Bloc of Soviet Oppositions|Conspiratorial Bloc]] that opposed Stalin, although its activities were exaggerated.<ref name=":2"/> Among other accusations, they were incriminated with the assassination of Kirov and plotting to kill Stalin. After confessing to the charges, all were sentenced to death and executed.<ref name=":0">Rogovin (1998), pp. 36–38</ref>
* The second trial in January 1937 involved 17 lesser figures known as the "anti-Soviet Trotskyite-centre" which included [[Karl Radek]], [[Yuri Piatakov]] and [[Grigory Sokolnikov]], and were accused of plotting with Trotsky, who was said to be conspiring with Germany. Thirteen of the defendants were eventually executed by shooting and the rest received sentences in labor camps where they soon died.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=142}}
* There was also a secret trial before a military tribunal of a group of Red Army commanders, including [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], in June 1937.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=182}}

It is now known that the confessions were given only after great psychological pressure and torture had been applied to the defendants.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=121}} From the accounts of former [[OGPU]] officer [[Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov|Alexander Orlov]] and others, the methods used to extract the confessions are known: such tortures as repeated beatings, simulated drownings, making prisoners stand or go without sleep for days on end, and threats to arrest and execute the prisoners' families. For example, Kamenev's teenage son was arrested and charged with terrorism. After months of such interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.<ref name="Redman">{{cite journal|last=Redman|first=Joseph|title=The British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials|journal=Labour Review|date=March–April 1958|volume=3|issue=2|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/pearce/1958/03/trials.html}}</ref>

Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded, as a condition for "confessing", a direct guarantee from the Politburo that their lives and that of their families and followers would be spared. This offer was accepted, but when they were taken to the alleged Politburo meeting, only Stalin, [[Kliment Voroshilov]], and Yezhov were present. Stalin claimed that they were the "commission" authorized by the Politburo and gave assurances that death sentences would not be carried out. After the trial, Stalin not only broke his promise to spare the defendants, he had most of their relatives arrested and shot.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=87}}

====Dewey Commission====
{{Main|Dewey Commission}}

In May 1937, the '''Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials''', commonly known as the Dewey Commission, was set up in the United States by supporters of Trotsky, to establish the truth about the trials. The commission was headed by the noted American philosopher and educator [[John Dewey]]. Although the hearings were obviously conducted with a view to proving Trotsky's innocence, they brought to light evidence which established that some of the specific charges made at the trials could not be true.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|ref=none|p=137}}

For example, [[Georgy Pyatakov]] testified that he had flown to [[Oslo]] in December 1935 to "receive terrorist instructions" from Trotsky. The Dewey Commission established that no such flight had taken place.<ref>{{cite book|title=Not guilty : report of the Commission of Inquiry Into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials|last=Dewey|first=John|publisher=Sam Sloan and Ishi Press International|others=1859–1952|year=2008|isbn=978-0923891312|location=New York|pages=154–155|oclc=843206645}}</ref> Another defendant, [[Ivan N. Smirnov|Ivan Smirnov]], confessed to taking part in the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, at a time when he had already been in prison for a year.

The Dewey Commission later published its findings in a 422-page book titled ''Not Guilty''. Its conclusions asserted the innocence of all those condemned in the Moscow Trials. In its summary, the commission wrote:{{blockquote|Independent of extrinsic evidence, the Commission finds:
* That the conduct of the Moscow Trials was such as to convince any unprejudiced person that no attempt was made to ascertain the truth.
* That while confessions are necessarily entitled to the most serious consideration, the confessions themselves contain such inherent improbabilities as to convince the Commission that they do not represent the truth, irrespective of any means used to obtain them.
* That Trotsky never instructed any of the accused or witnesses in the Moscow trials to enter into agreements with foreign powers against the Soviet Union [and] that Trotsky never recommended, plotted, or attempted the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.}}

The commission concluded: "We therefore find the Moscow Trials to be frame-ups."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/dewey/index.htm|title=The Case of Leon Trotsky (Report of Dewey Commission – 1937)|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

====Implication of the Rightists====
In the second trial, [[Karl Radek]] testified that there was a "third organization separate from the cadres which had passed through [Trotsky's] school,"<ref name="ReferenceA">British Embassy Report: Viscount Chilston to Mr. Eden, 6 February 1937</ref> as well as "semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth-Trotskyites, people who helped us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us, people who from liberalism, from a Fronde against the Party, gave us this help."{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=164}}

By the "third organization," he meant the last remaining former opposition group called the [[Right Opposition|Rightists]], led by Bukharin, whom he implicated by saying:

{{blockquote|I feel guilty of one thing more: even after admitting my guilt and exposing the organisation, I stubbornly refused to give evidence about Bukharin. I knew that Bukharin's situation was just as hopeless as my own, because our guilt, if not juridically, then in essence, was the same. But we are close friends, and intellectual friendship is stronger than other friendships. I knew that Bukharin was in the same state of upheaval as myself. That is why I did not want to deliver him bound hand and foot to the People's Commissariat of Home Affairs. Just as in relation to our other cadres, I wanted Bukharin himself to lay down his arms.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>}}