Editing Nikolai Bukharin (section)

== Trial ==
[[File:RykovBucharin.JPG|thumb|300px|Bukharin and Rykov, shortly before the trial in 1938.]]
Stalin was for a long time undecided on Bukharin and [[Georgy Pyatakov]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Nove|first=Alec|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eJSPkgEACAAJ|title=The Stalin Phenomenon|date=1993|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|isbn=978-0-297-82108-3|page=150|language=en}}</ref> After receiving [[Nikolay Yezhov]]'s written evidence denouncing Bukharin, Stalin declined to sanction his arrest. After the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other leftist [[Old Bolshevik|Old Bolsheviks]] in 1936, Bukharin and Rykov were arrested on 27 February 1937 following a plenum of the Central Committee, and were charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. Photostatic evidence shows that Stalin's first impulse was to simply exile Bukharin, without sending him to trial.<ref name=":2" /> In the end, Bukharin was killed, but according to historian [[Alec Nove]], "the road to his demise was not a straight one".<ref name=":2"/>

Bukharin was tried in the [[Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites"|Trial of the Twenty One]] on 2–13 March 1938 during the [[Great Purge]], along with ex-premier Alexei Rykov, [[Christian Rakovsky]], [[Nikolai Krestinsky]], Genrikh Yagoda, and 16 other defendants alleged to belong to the so-called "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites". In a trial meant to be the culmination of previous [[Moscow trials|show trials]], it was alleged that Bukharin and others sought to assassinate Lenin and Stalin from 1918, murder [[Maxim Gorky]] by poison, partition the Soviet Union and hand out her territories to Germany, Japan, and Great Britain.

[[File:Приговор Бухарину 1937.JPG|thumb|left|The verdict at the Trial of the Twenty-One.]]

Even more than earlier Moscow show trials, Bukharin's trial horrified many previously sympathetic observers as they watched allegations levelled against someone who had been so close to Stalin and Lenin. For some prominent Communists such as [[Bertram Wolfe]], [[Jay Lovestone]], [[Arthur Koestler]], and [[Heinrich Brandler]], the Bukharin trial marked their final break with Communism and even eventually turned the first three into passionate anti-Communists.<ref>Bertram David Wolfe, "Breaking with Communism", p. 10; [[Arthur Koestler]], ''Darkness at Noon'', p. 258.</ref>

Bukharin wrote letters to Stalin while imprisoned, attempting without success to negotiate his innocence in the case of the alleged crimes, his eventual execution, and his hoped for release. 

{{Blockquote|If I'm to receive the death sentence, then I implore you beforehand, I entreat you, by all that you hold dear, not to have me shot. Let me drink poison in my cell instead (let me have morphine so that I can fall asleep and never wake up). For me, this point is extremely important. I don't know what words I should summon up in order to entreat you to grant me this as an act of charity. After all, politically, it won't really matter, and, besides, no one will know a thing about it. But let me spend my last moments as I wish. Have pity on me!<ref>Bukharin's Letter to Stalin, 10 December 1937</ref>}}

In his letter of 10 December 1937, Bukharin suggests becoming Stalin's tool against Trotsky, but there's no evidence Stalin ever seriously considered Bukharin's offer.

{{Blockquote|If, contrary to expectation, my life is to be spared, I would like to request (though I would first have to discuss it with my wife) the following:

*) that I be exiled to America for x number of years. My arguments are: I would myself wage a campaign [in favour] of the trials, I would wage a mortal war against Trotsky, I would win over large segments of the wavering intelligentsia, I would in effect become Anti-Trotsky and would carry out this mission in a big way and, indeed, with much zeal. You could send an expert security officer [chekist] with me and, as added insurance, you could detain my wife here for six months until I have proven that I am really punching Trotsky and Company in the nose, etc.

*) But if there is the slightest doubt in your mind, then exile me to a camp in Pechora or Kolyma, even for 25 years. I could set up there the following: a university, a museum of local culture, technical stations and so on, institutes, a painting gallery, an ethnographic museum, a zoological and botanical museum, a camp newspaper and journal.<ref>J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, ''The Road to Terror "Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939"''</ref>}}

While [[Anastas Mikoyan]] and [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured and his letters from prison do not give the suggestion that he was tortured, it is also known that his interrogators were given the order: "beating permitted".{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} Bukharin held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down.<ref>Orlando Figes, ''Revolutionary Russia, 1891–1991'', Pelican Books, 2014, p. 273.</ref> 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.<ref>Robert Conquest, ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment'', pp. 364–65.</ref><ref>[[Helen Rappaport]], ''Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion'' (1999) p 31.</ref>

Bukharin's confession and his motivation became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' and a philosophical essay by [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]] in ''Humanism and Terror''. His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to the "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what was in the written confession and refuse to go any further.

There are several interpretations of Bukharin's motivations (besides being coerced) in the trial. Koestler and others viewed it as a true believer's last service to the Party (while preserving the little amount of personal honor left) whereas Bukharin biographer Stephen Cohen and Robert Tucker saw traces of [[Aesopian language]], with which Bukharin sought to turn the tables into an anti-trial of Stalinism (while keeping his part of the bargain to save his family). While his letters to Stalin – he wrote 34 very emotional and desperate letters tearfully protesting his innocence and professing his loyalty – suggest a complete capitulation and acceptance of his role in the trial, it contrasts with his actual conduct in the trial. Bukharin himself speaks of his "peculiar duality of mind" in his last plea, which led to "semi-paralysis of the will" and Hegelian "[[unhappy consciousness]]", which likely stemmed not only from his knowledge of the ruinous reality of Stalinism (although of course he could not say so in the trial) but also of the impending threat of fascism.<ref>Stephen J. Lee, ''Stalin and the Soviet Union'' (2005) p. 33.</ref>

The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for the "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. After disproving several charges against him (one observer noted that he "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>) and 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 solely based on confessions, he finished his last plea with the words:

{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;the 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.<ref>Robert Tucker, ''Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Block of Rights and Trotskyites"'', pp. 667–68.</ref>}}

The state prosecutor, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], characterized Bukharin as an "accursed [[crossbreed]] of fox and pig" who supposedly committed a "whole nightmare of vile crimes".

While in prison, he wrote at least four book-length manuscripts including a lyrical autobiographical novel, ''How It All Began'', a philosophical treatise, ''Philosophical Arabesques'', a collection of poems, and ''Socialism and Its Culture'' – all of which were found in Stalin's archive and published in the 1990s.