The Kirov Murder and Soviet History by Matthew E. Lenoe

Author:Matthew E. Lenoe [Lenoe, Matthew E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-300-14242-6
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Trial of the Leningrad NKVD

Interrogations in the case of the Leningrad NKVD officers continued right up to the eve of the trial, January 22. Based on the post-Stalin testimony of Rosliakov, Fomin, and D. Sorokin, Medved’s brother-in-law, it seems that five of the senior officers (certainly including Medved, Fomin, and Zaporozhets), were not actually arrested until early January. Rosliakov saw Medved at Moscow Station in Leningrad just after midnight on December 3–4, as a special train departed with Kirov’s remains. He describes the former chief of the Leningrad NKVD as “under house arrest” at that time. Fomin testified in 1956 that he and the other “arrested” officers were sent from Leningrad to Moscow on December 10. On January 12 (in Sorokin’s account “early January”) the senior officers who were still nominally free were confined at NKVD headquarters on the Lubianka in quite comfortable conditions (Sorokin). They were subjected to renewed interrogations in preparation for their trial. Fomin claimed that Yagoda, his deputy G. E. Prokofev, Mironov, and Berdichevsky tutored the accused intensively, urging them to take the whole responsibility for failing to prevent Kirov’s murder on themselves, and to avoid any mention of the central NKVD. Yagoda aimed to script the entire trial beforehand. Sorokin, citing the words of Medved, confirms that Yagoda supervised the preparation of prisoners for the upcoming trial.65

Stalin probably discussed final plans for the trial with Yagoda, Akulov, Vyshinsky, and Ulrikh, who as chair of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court would again be presiding, early on the evening of January 17, 1935. On this date all five men, plus Kaganovich, Molotov, Kalinin, and Kuibyshev, met in Stalin’s office from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. Two days later G. E. Prokofev forwarded to Yagoda a draft of proposed sentences in the Leningrad NKVD trial, noting that Vyshinsky had not yet approved it. The final sentencing document, translated below, closely followed the draft, with the exception of the sections dealing with Kuzin, Khviiuzov, Maly, and Vinogradov, the driver and officers involved in Borisov’s death. Although the draft author noted that all four were “accused of … a negligent attitude towards the fulfillment of an operational order,” resulting in the truck accident, he also recommended that they be freed. Yagoda and Stalin ultimately approved this recommendation. None of the four stood trial. They were released by the end of the month, following a brief meeting with Agranov, who explained that the central NKVD had determined that Borisov had died in an auto accident.66

Sometime between January 19 and 22 Yagoda forwarded the proposed sentences to Stalin, after getting Vyshinsky to sign off on them. Stalin approved them.67

The trial took place on January 23. In the documents available for this book, there is no complete transcript of the proceedings, only excerpts and summaries of testimony. One of the issues Ulrikh focused on was Nikolaev’s October 15 detention and release. Medved asserted that there were standing orders “as a general rule” to search all detainees. Kotomin explained again the sequence of events on October 15 from his point of view.

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