Moscow Trials 1936 worth a read

Politics and religion
1

http://art-bin.com/art/omoscowtoc.html

So I tried to post this to Twitter last night, but just couldn’t find a way to make it work in that medium. So I will post it here and hope the extra space lets it breathe a bit.

If you have a mind, just go ahead and dip into any random part of these proceedings. It is tediously long so I wouldn’t recommend trying to read the whole thing, just read any sample.

Then hold it and roll it around in your mind, while at the same time thinking about today’s politics in your country. I think you might gain something from it. Or you just might cry, and that’s ok as well.

If you want to go in fresh without my incoming opinion hanging over your own good judgement now is a good time.

Ok, so for me. I got these things:

First, as always when I read on Stalinism or any totalitarian state , I came away with a profound gratitude for growing in a free country (the UK) and living in one most of my life (the USA). Then came the one two punch of : “this is what a real political witchunt looks like” then “this is what a real dictatorship looks like.”

Then I thought about my own politics and wondered if my party, or fellow travellers started down this path , when would I say “wait, no, this is wrong!” or would I at all?

I also teared up a little bit. They were all shot of course, but I wasnt crying entirely for them, these were to a man people who gleefully called for or spilt the blood of others during the revolution. But I was crying at something else. A record of what can happen when the peaceful transfer of political power is destroyed? Humanity in the 20th century? I really don’t know, but I felt it.

Anyway, I have no answers, but I found the text of these long dead men gave me something as I read them last night. I have read summaries before, but there is something different in reading the unabridged text. I hope you also gain something from it, if not then thanks for reading this far.

3

Hey thanks for reading. No it wasnt really about anything. I guess I thought of it as a kind of mirror for my own views, or just something to think about. Nothing more really. I specifically didnt want to tell people how to think about it. just a document of something.

But anyways, thank you for reading , I really didnt have much of a point beyond “hey I read this and it made me think, but I am not sure if it will be of value to you, but just in case , here it is.” Kind of thing. Which is pretty nebulous and weak I admit. But there it is :)

4

See, this is why you never represent yourself in court. But seriously, what really disturbs me are parts like this:

Vyshinsky: What appraisal should be given of the articles and statements you wrote in 1933, in which you expressed loyalty to the Party? Deception?
Kamenev: No, worse than deception.
Vyshinsky: Perfidy?
Kamenev: Worse.
Vyshinsky: Worse than deception, worse than perfidy - find the word. Treason?
Kamenev: You have found it.

I find it terrifying to know that I could not only be killed, but I could be made to ask for it.

5

Yeah its a nightmare :( One thing that has emerged with the opening of Stalins archive is at least some of the defendants were not only tortured in between sessions if they had deviated from the lines given to them but also others were simply lied to and told they would be spared if they plead guilty and implicated the others. Of course then afterwards they were all just bundled away and shot regardless.

6

I started to read some of it but had to stop. It’s really hard to read, even as you say @Rod_Humble, that these were men who had called for the blood of others, it’s still pretty darn horrific when the machinery of the state is used by a single individual to massacre all who may be suspected of being unloyal or possible rivals.