The struggle against Trotskyites, especially after the trials started, has been especially accentuated in the press and in general during the whole six-month period. Yet the issue of the Trotskyites has not been discussed in all the organizations. The explanatory work has also been weak among the non-Party members. Our comrades in the factories frequently lacked courage to repulse the Trotskyist slander. [The effort to draw] concrete lessons is even worse. In Kovno, only Geraite [unknown] has been expelled, and that was done on the sly. Although there is an understanding among Party members that the Trotskyites and rotten liberals cannot be Party members, one notes doubts [among comrades] about how the Trotskyites managed to sink to fascism and why they confessed at the trial the way they did. 20

20 RGASPI, f. 495, op. 184, d. 24, 1937, File No. 1, incoming encrypted correspondence through the Communications Service, l. 153, received 9 February 1937, deciphered 10 February; Chase, Enemies, pp. 205–206.