net and whose name later was removed without telling me anything about it; the same was also done with the leader of the reserve net, supposedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I wrote my name in, and then I was instructed to insert Mezhlauk[1]. There were other similar incidents.
". . . I am asking and begging you that you again examine my case, and this not for the purpose of sparing me but in order to unmask the vile provocation which, like a snake, wound itself around many persons in a great degree due to my meanness and criminal slander. I have never betrayed you or the party. I know that I perish because of vile and mean work of the enemies of the party and of the people, who fabricated the provocation against me."
It would appear that such an important declaration was worth an examination by the Central Committee. This, however, was not done, and the declaration was transmitted to Beria while the terrible maltreatment of the Political Bureau candidate, Comrade Eikhe, continued.
On February 2, 1940 Eikhe was brought before the court. Here he did not confess any guilt and said as follows:
"In all the so-called confessions of mine there is not one letter written by me with the exception of my signatures under the protocols, which were forced from me. I have made my confession under pressure from the investigative judge, who from the time of my arrest tormented me. After that I began to write all this nonsense. . . . The most important thing for me is to tell the court, the party and Stalin that I am not guilty. I have never been guilty of any conspiracy. I will die believing in the truth of party policy as I have believed in it during my whole life."
On February 4 Eikhe was shot. (Indignation in the hall.)
It has been definitely established now that Eikhe's case was fabricated; he has been posthumously rehabilitated.
Comrade Rudzutak[2], candidate-member of the Political Bureau, member of the party since 1905, who spent 10 years in a Tsarist hard-labor camp, completely retracted in court the confession which was forced from him. The protocol of the session of the Collegium of the Supreme Military Court contains the following statement by Rudzutak:
". . . The only plea which he places before the court is that the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) be informed that there is in the NKVD an as yet not liquidated center which is craftily
- ↑ Valeri I. Mezhlauk (1889–1938), a Bolshevik since 1917, worked in economic organizations (as chairman of the "Western Steel" trust mid others) and in 1936–37 was president of the State Planning Commission. He was arrested in 1937.
- ↑ Yan E. Rudzutak (1887–1940), son of an agricultural worker, n Bolshevik since 1905, ultimately a member of the Politburo. He was arrested in 1938.
thereafter engaged in economic work. In the mid-1930s, he was People's Commissar for Communications. He was arrested in 1937.
