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Letter from Dimitrov and Manuilsky to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Beria requesting a review of E. O. Valter's case, with enclosed letter from Valter

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By Dimitrov, Georgi Dimitrovich Manuilsky, Dmitri Zakharovich (Zakharievich) Valter, Elena Osipovna

Enemies Within the Gates?: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939

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Document 54

Letter from Dimitrov and Manuilsky to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Beria requesting a review of E. O. Valter's case, with enclosed letter from Valter, 25 June 1940.

The letter was sent on 25 June 1940, according to a handwritten note on the letter by Dimitrov's secretary, A. Stern.

RGASPI, f. 495, op. 73, d. 107, II. 5–7. Original in Russian. Dimitrov and Manuilsky's letter is typewritten with handwritten notations and signatures. Valter's letter, sent-from exile, is handwritten in violet ink.

Top secret. Dear Comrade Beria.

In October 1938, Valter, Elena Osipovna, a worker in the Secretariat of the general secretary of the ECCI, was arrested by NKVD organs.

She had worked in the ECCI apparatus for four years, from the time the Secretariat was formed. [She] invested a lot of work and energy in coordinating and organizing the work of the newly created Secretariat. During her time on the job, she showed herself to be a conscientious worker and loyal to the cause of the party and Soviet power.

Considering that a mistake has been committed regarding Valter, E. O., we ask [you] to reexamine her case.

Enclosure: Copy of a letter from Valter, E. O.

Information from the ECCI Cadres Department about Valter.

c. Dimitrov

c. Manuilsky

Page 346

Moscow, 25 June 1940.

Sent on 25/6—40

in parcel No. 125

Stern.

Enclosure: The letter from the arrested ECCI worker E. O. Valter to G. Dimitrov asking to reexamine her case.

[25 June 1940]

To the General Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Comintern

G. M. Dimitrov.

By the decision of the Special Council [OSO]

OSO—Russian abbreviation of Osoboe soveschanie, Special Council of the NKVD, an extra-judicial organ that existed in the NKVD between 10 July 1934 and 1 September 1953. The OSO had the power to sentence people to corrective labor camps and to exile and deport individuals considered “socially dangerous.” The OSO was chaired by the people's commissar; its members consisted of his deputies, the head of the NKVD of the Russian Federation, the head of the Main Board of the Worker-Peasant Militia (police), and the people's commissar of internal affairs of the republic in which the criminal case was originated. The state prosecutor of the USSR or his deputy had to be present at OSO meetings.

of 17 January 1940, I was exiled for three years to Krasnoiarsk region [in accordance] with the formulation “For participating in an anti-Soviet organization.” This decision completely devastated me because it is incomprehensible to me to this day.

Georgy Mikhailovich, I have written you from jail in detail about what I was accused of and that in May 1937 I was slandered by Müller (Melnikov). From the very first day of my arrest, it was clear to me that I was slandered, that I was slandered by enemies to whom I was a hindrance in y[our] Secretariat. They knew perfectly well what kind of confidence I enjoyed, and of course they were interested in having their own person in that job. No wonder they decided to get rid of me by using whatever slander possible. For fifteen and a half months I sat defamed in the Butyrskaia prison. However, despite my physical indisposition, I tried to keep up my morale with the deep belief that the investigation would uncover the truth, that I would be rehabilitated and would return to family, to work, and to a normal life. So much harder for me was the blow when I learned about the “Oso” decision. Today the question of rehabilitating myself is the question of my future life, the question of a normal life for my family and my only child, before whom I am really guilty because I was giving all of myself to work and very often it was not possible to give the required attention to the child.

Georgy Mikhailovich, I know for sure that before the party, before Soviet power, before the ECCI leadership, my conscience is clear. I also know and firmly believe that I spent the best and most conscious years of my life in the ranks of the party and lived exclusively for the interests of the party. I also know for sure that throughout all the nineteen years of my membership in the party, wherever I was, whatever work was assigned to me, I always remained, first of all, a party member, and that my private life could serve as an example for many, many rank-and-file party members. My private life has always been of the least importance to me. All this is extremely easy to verify: there are real people, honest people; and I need only the truth. Only the truth is needed to reestablish my good name. I want to return to the trust of the party because I do not know why was I deprived

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of all that I cherished, of all what I was proud of, of all I lived for. I do not know why I brought tragedy to my family, to my child who, in his eleven years, has known so much grief. [I do not know] why my life is so ruined. I do want and I am trying to understand why have I been, though temporarily, deprived of trust, and for what. But no matter how long I think about it, I feel no [guilt]. Therefore only sharp pain is left, and it grows from day to day.

Throughout the investigation, nothing specific was said about the anti-Soviet organization of which I was presumably a part, nor about my activities in this organization. I have not seen anyone but the investigators, although I wrote to the head of the investigation department and to the prosecutor overseeing my case asking [them] to inform me about the essence of the accusations. On 8 July, at the time of signing [the papers] concluding the investigation, I looked through my case. There was nothing but the indirect statement of what he heard from Abramov, nothing but the slanders of the bandit Müller; there could be nothing but the enemies' slanders. My grief can only make happy my “well-wishers,” who are probably still plentiful in the apparatus and who hated to know that I had an opportunity to signal you personally about detected abnormalities in the apparatus, which I did [as I] considered it my duty, the duty of a party member. And, in my opinion, there were plenty of abnormalities. I know perfectly well that Mikhail Abramovich [Moskvin] and Andreev, and undoubtedly others, disliked me for this. No matter how hard it is for me, I still deeply believe in and wait for the question of my innocence to be reexamined soon and for my being rehabilitated, since I have never been a part of an anti-Soviet organization and never knew about the existence of such an organization in the ECCI apparatus. Only the investigative organs can help me in my rehabilitation; therefore, first of all, I sent People's Commissar L. P. Beria a statement on 20 March. During the investigation, I did not want to bother him with my case, and only a year later did I request [information] about my child, and received a prompt reply. Now I consider it my duty to address him first, because this was the decision of the NKVD's Special Council. I also wrote to the State Procurator. It is very important now for me to establish the fact of my losing the keys to the safe in 1936, because this served as the basis for Müller's slander. But you knew about this fact, as did the commissars and the former warden Davydov, who received orders to call [repairmen] from the factory to fix the lock. For those fifteen-twenty minutes when I was in the Kremlin cafeteria, Bashmakov M. Z. occupied my desk. Immediately after that, the loss of the keys was discovered. I took the second set of keys from you and moved the documents to another safe. In the lower drawer there were greeting cards sent to you during the Leipzig trial, but there was nothing secret in them. It is very easy to examine all of my work in your Secretariat during the entire four years, since I left everything in exemplary order. I tried to and did work efficiently

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all the time before leaving for vacation in Kislovodsk, although I did not know that I would never return to work and that in my absence some of my “friends” would do me such a “favor.” It is easy to examine my work in the Cadres Department, since I came there when there was no department yet, there was [only] a sector with a few workers. There are still people who remember me from then. I have rendered no special services to the revolution, and the only thing that can rehabilitate me is the truth about me, about my work and life as a party member.

In the final account, I will be rehabilitated completely, even if it happens after my death. I need it for my child, for my family; but I, too, want to live, to work as loyally for the party as I have worked, I want to bring up my child myself. No temporary moral blows will change me for the worse. I was, I am, and I will be, until the end of my life, the same loyal party member that I have always been, that the party brought me up to be. Enemies can slander me, but nobody will ever be able to make an enemy of me. I know this as surely as I know that my conscience is clear.

E. Valter.

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleLetter from Dimitrov and Manuilsky to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Beria requesting a review of E. O. Valter's case, with enclosed letter from Valter

AuthorDimitrov, Georgi Dimitrovich; Manuilsky, Dmitri Zakharovich (Zakharievich); Valter, Elena Osipovna

RecipientBeria, Lavrenty Pavlovich; Dimitrov, Georgi Dimitrovich

RepositoryRGASPI

ID #f.495, op.73, d.107, ll.5-7

DescriptionN/A

Date1940 Jun 25

AOC VolumeEnemies Within the Gates?: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939

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