Editing Great Purge (section)

====Bukharin's confession====
[[File:Bucharin.bra.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|[[Nikolai Bukharin]], Russian [[Bolshevik]] [[Russian Revolution|revolutionary]] executed in 1938]]

On the first day of trial, Krestinsky caused a sensation when he repudiated his written confession and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. However, he changed his plea the next day after "special measures", which dislocated his left shoulder among other things.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=352}}

[[Anastas Mikoyan]] and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured, but it is now known{{POV statement|date=May 2021}} that his interrogators were given the order "beating permitted", and were under great pressure to extract confession out of the "star" defendant. Bukharin initially held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down. But when he read his confession amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with a double team of interrogators.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|pp=364–335}}

Bukharin's confession in particular became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' and philosophical essay by [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]] in ''Humanism and Terror''. His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. One observer noted that after disproving several charges against him, Bukharin "proceeded to demolish or rather showed he could very easily demolish the whole case."<ref>Report by Viscount Chilston (British ambassador) to Viscount Halifax, No. 141, Moscow, 21 March 1938</ref> He continued by saying that "the confession of the accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence" in a trial that was based solely on confessions. He finished his last plea with the words:<ref>Tucker, Robert. "Block of Rights and Trotskyites." ''Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet''. pp. 667–668.</ref><blockquote>[T]he monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable especially in the new stage of struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all.</blockquote>[[Romain Rolland]] and others wrote to Stalin seeking clemency for Bukharin, but all the leading defendants were executed except Rakovsky and two others (who were killed in [[Medvedev Forest massacre|NKVD prisoner massacres]] in 1941). Despite the promise to spare his family, Bukharin's wife, [[Anna Larina]], was sent to a labor camp, but she survived to see her husband posthumously [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitated]] a half-century later by the Soviet state under [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] in 1988.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}