19 August

The first Moscow show trial of 16 members of the so called ‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre,’ began today in 1936. Defendants included Grigory Zinoviev, Sergei Mrachkovsky and Lev Kamenev. All were accused of forming a terrorist organisation with the purpose of killing Joseph Stalin. All confessed and all were shot despite the lack of evidence from the prosecution.

‘It is very hard to bear when, by the whole course of one’s crime, one finds oneself in the position of an enemy, of a fascist being tried by a proletarian court. In such a moment it would of course be hypocrisy if I did not say one thing: I would like to have the opportunity of exerting every effort to fill the abyss, the chasm, which separates me from my former comrades.’
Ter-Vaganyan