manufacturing cases, which forces innocent persons to confess; there is no opportunity to prove one's non-participation in crimes to which the confessions of various persons testify. The investigative methods are such that they force people to lie and to slander entirely innocent persons in addition to those who already stand accused. He asks the Court that he be allowed to inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) about all this in writing. He assures the Court that he personally had never any evil designs in regard to the policy of our party because he had always agreed with the party policy pertaining to all spheres of economic and cultural activity."
This declaration of Rudzutak was ignored, despite the fact that Rudzutak was in his time the chief of the Central Control Commission, which was called into being in accordance with Lenin's concept for the purpose of fighting for party unity. In this manner fell the chief of this highly authoritative party organ, a victim of brutal willfulness; he was not even called before the Central Committee's Political Bureau because Stalin did not want to talk to him. Sentence was pronounced on him in 20 minutes and he was shot. (Indignation in the hall.)
After careful examination of the case in 1955, it was established that the accusation against Rudzutak was false and that it was based on slanderous materials. Rudzutak has been rehabilitated posthumously.
The way in which the former NKVD workers manufactured various fictitious "anti-Soviet centers" and "blocs" with the help of provocatory methods is seen from the confession of Comrade Rozenblum, party member since 1906, who was arrested in 1937 by the Leningrad NKVD.
During the examination in 1955 of the Komarov case[1] Rozenblum revealed the following fact: When Rozenblum was arrested in 1937, he was subjected to terrible torture during which he was ordered to confess false information concerning himself and other persons. He was then brought to the office of Zakovsky[2], who offered him freedom on condition that he make before the court a false confession fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD concerning "sabotage, espionage and diversion in a terroristic center in Leningrad." (Movement in the hall.) With unbelievable cynicism, Zakovsky told about the vile "mechanism" for the crafty creation of fabricated "anti-Soviet plots."
"In order to illustrate it to me," stated Rozenblum, "Zakovsky gave me
- ↑ Nikolai P. Komarov (1886–1937), a worker, a Bolshevik since 1909, and one of Kirov's closest collaborators. Until 1930, he was chairman of the Leningrad Provincial Executive Committee, and later a member of the presidium of the Supreme Council for the National Economy. A member of the Party Central Committee since 1923, he was arrested in 1937.
- ↑ Leonid Zakovsky, one of the most prominent figures in the Yezhovshchina, was chief first of the Leningrad section (1934–38) and then of the Moscow section of the NKVD. He was notorious for his merciless employment of torture followed by execution. After Yezhov's removal and Beria's rise to power, Zakovsky was arrested and disappeared.
