13 October 1939.

TO THE ROSTOKINSKII DISTRICT COMMITTEE OF THE VKP(b).

Boris A. Starkov, “The Trial That Was Not Held,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46, no. 8 (1994), 1301. Starkov argues that Kun was one of a group of former Comintern leaders, among them Pyatnitsky and Knorin, who were slated for a fourth Moscow show trial. Although the evidence presented in his article does show how confessions were extracted and cases compiled, the evidence that a trial of those engaged in an anti-Comintern conspiracy was planned is circumstantial. But as we shall see, Kun's, Pyatnitsky's, and Knorin's opposition to the Popular Front policy and Dimitrov's leadership played a significant role in their arrests.

com. Perutskaia.

You asked me about the role of the Party Bureau and previously the party committee in helping the Comintern Executive Committee leadership to verify the workers of the ECCI apparatus and to purge it of politically suspicious individuals, double-dealers, [political] degenerates, provocateurs, spies, and saboteurs. I briefly informed you about what we had done in this area. You asked me to give [you] a written [report], which I am doing.

First of all, I have to note that I have worked without interruption as a leader of the party organization—deputy secretary after 1934 and secretary after May 1935—until now. Therefore, I am responsible for the situation in the organization, its purging of enemies of the people, of agents of Trotskyist-Zinovievite and Bukharinist bandits, and saboteurs, and you have the right to ask what I, the Party Committee and the Party Bureau have done in this area. Before answering your question, it is necessary to remind [you] that the workers of the Comintern apparatus were, at some point, selected by the now exposed worst enemies of the people—Zinoviev, Trotsky, Bukharin, Pyatnitsky, Knorin, and many other enemies. The assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov, [who was] beloved by the people, by the ignoble scum of society [and] the appeal by our Leninist-Stalinist CC VKP(b) and the leader of our party, com. Stalin, to raise revolutionary vigilance, to examine our ranks, and to purge them of double-dealers shook us out of our philistine lethargy, from our blind trust, and showed [us] what had to be done. There was a lot to be seriously done in our organization. Enemies who had been working for years cleverly disguised themselves and played a double game, occupied the most responsible positions, protected the conspirators, and supported each other. Under these conditions, work was extremely difficult, but we did not lose our heads when faced with these challenges. Guided by Stalin's compass, raising our revolutionary vigilance and relentlessness toward the enemies of the people, working energetically to verify our organization and the workers of its apparatus, we exposed many enemies of the people in the ECCI apparatus. I do not mean to claim that we managed to expose everybody and that we made no mistakes. We did make mistakes, and we were far from exposing everybody. Many were arrested with party cards in their pockets. However, it would not be an exaggeration to say that great cleansing work has been done. Who conducted it? The members of our organization who to the end remained faithful to the cause of our party, to com. Stalin, led by the party committee—Kotelnikov, Blagoeva, Reshetov, Krylova, Miller, with the assistance of cc. Dimitrov and Manuilsky.

In order to be specific, let us look at the facts that prove that we conducted serious work to purge our party organization and the ECCI apparatus of many enemies of the people.

1. MAGYAR —an experienced double-dealer and a vicious enemy of the people was exposed by us and arrested by the NKVD organs. See my reports on the party organization of the former Eastern Secretariat of December 1934 and of the general party meeting of 28 December 1934 (there is a verbatim report), where Magyar was exposed and expelled from the party. Based on my report, the district party committee confirmed his expulsion, and he was arrested while leaving [the building].

2. SINANI —(Saklava) [Georgy Borisovich Sinani (Skalov)] a White Guard officer, an organizer of terrorist groups composed of White officers [who sought] to murder the leaders of the party and the government. We exposed him and he was arrested by NKVD organs in 1935 before the Seventh [Comintern] Congress. See the materials of the party committee and the general party meeting. This enemy had been decorated with a medal and, according to the position which he then occupied, he would have been placed near the Presidium at the Seventh Congress. However, he was exposed before he could realize his foul plans.

3. Fritz David —(he was not a VKP(b) member). A base agent of the bandits Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, whose bloody hands were stretching toward the heart and the brain of the party, the working class, toward the Central Committee of our party and its leader, com. Stalin. He worked in the ECCI apparatus, preparing himself and waiting for the moment to carry out his bloody, ignoble plan.

On 9 July 1935, on the eve of the Seventh Congress, I interrogated this bandit for more than two hours, and everything was documented. It was revealed then that this active Menshevik was arrested in 1919 by the ChK [Cheka], and in 1926, he left for Germany in order to infiltrate the Communist Party and from there to begin his career. He succeeded in this. The stenographic reports were sent to the Secretariat and to the NKVD. Thus we helped the NKVD organs to expose him.

4. HEINRICH (SÜSSKIND) (a non-VKP(b) member)—by a resolution of the party committee of 11 January 1935, we exposed him as a double-dealer and secured his expulsion from the ranks of the fraternal Communist Party of Germany, his removal from the apparatus, and, later, his arrest by NKVD organs.

5. During the verification and the exchange of party documents, with our active participation [the following] were purged from the party and later arrested (as can be seen from the documents): Mironov, Kuchumov, Brann Lotta, Racyborski, Liao, Kim Semen, Li Wangshu, Badulescu, Berger.

6. During the same period in 1935 and in 1936, the party committee examined several cases of former members of fraternal Communist Parties as they were exposed, and thus we helped the NKVD organs to purge them from the apparatus, and they were arrested: Ander, Zaurland, Schroeder, Martha-Moritz, Licht, Yugenfeld [Betty Schenfeld], Veil, Kalzan. (The materials can be seen here and in the NKVD.) This is still not a complete list.

7. All the work of the party committee and the party organization to verify its ranks and purge them of enemies of the people during the verification and the exchange of party documents did not suffice to expose many double-dealers, provocateurs, and subversives, who still remained in the ranks of our party organization even after the verification and the exchange of party documents.

Beginning in spring 1937 and in 1938 the party committee and the party organization began to actively verify their ranks and purge them of enemies of the people. We failed to expose many who had been arrested with party cards. Here are some results of the purging of the party organization in this period: a.) former party members arrested by the NKVD whose cases were not reviewed by the party committee—24. b.) Arrested after their expulsion from the party ranks—28. c.) Arrested after incurring party penalties and [our] giving materials to NKVD organs—27.

1. On direct orders from com. Dimitrov and c. Manuilsky, it became a routine in the apparatus of the Comintern Executive Committee that the party committee reviewed personal cases of the former members of the International Control Commission and representatives of some Communist Parties.

We dealt with the cases of the former members of the ICC—Walecki, Grzegorzewski, Iskrov. They were expelled from the party and later arrested. We gave our recommendations to the ECCI leadership and the NKVD about the former ICC members—Angaretis and Anvelt—[and] about their removal from their jobs. They were arrested.

We dealt with the cases of the former representatives of the Communist Parties—Saln [Salna], Krumin, Stein—and expelled them from the party. They were later arrested.

On c. Dimitrov's direct orders, we reviewed the cases of the former KIM secretaries Yanitsky and Massie. We gave our materials to the leadership of the ECCI and the NKVD, they were removed from [their] jobs, and Yanitsky was later arrested.

We based our decisions on the facts, and we realized the tremendous responsibility. We did not try to protect ourselves, but at the same time we did not always recognize and expose the double-dealers.

In this document I am not dwelling on the work of the party committee (now the party bureau) in that period, on how we helped the ECCI leadership in selecting workers for the ECCI apparatus and in verifying and removing certain workers for political reasons or their performance. I suppose that what is shown here is sufficient to say that we did not stand on the sidelines during this most important political undertaking.