Marking NEP's slippery path: The Krasnoshchekov show trial

Russian Review

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 249-275

  Argenbright, Robert ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34248073908     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00226     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. For the Politbiuro's use of the term with respect to the case see RGASPI f. 17, op. 3, d. 388, l. 5
2. "K arestu A. M. Krasnoshchekova," Pravda, 3 October 1923
3. "Pochemu arestovan Krasnoshchekov?" Izvestiia, 3 October 1923
4. "Pochemu arestovan."
5. The most famous example is Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (New York, 1962)
6. Adele Lindenmeyer, "The First Soviet Political Trial: Countess Sofia Panina before the Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal," Russian Review 60 (October 2001): 505-25
7. Robert Conquest argues to the contrary: "The only important political trials in the period after the Civil War were those of the Ukrainian and the Moscow Social Revolutionary 'centres' in 1921 and 1922. ... From then until 1928 there were no great public trials." See his The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (New York, 1973), 730
8. Ronald Hingley is of the same opinion as Conquest. See his The Russian Secret Police: Muscovite, Imperial Russian, and Soviet Political Security Operations (New York, 1970), 149
9. Precedents for show trials can be traced back considerably farther into Russia's past; examples include Peter I's torture of rebellious strel'tsy and dramatic last-minute reprieves, such as that granted Dostoevsky. Nicholas I anticipated Stalin's cynical craftiness when he established agencies to punish the Decembrists that gave the appearance of independence from his personal influence, while actually serving at his command. See Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 1, From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I (Princeton, 1995), 275-78
10. So did the Provisional Government, when it established an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry into the activities of the Romanovs and their high officials. See Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, eds., Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, 1999), 19, 29
11. Marc Jansen, A Show Trial Under Lenin: The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Moscow, 1922 (The Hague, 1982), 186
12. Julie A. Cassiday, The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen (DeKalb, IL, 2000), 51-80
13. Elizabeth A. Wood, "The Trial of Lenin: Legitimating the Revolution through Political Theater, 1920-24," Russian Review 61 (April 2002): 235-48
14. Christy Jean Story, "In a Court of Law: The Revolutionary Tribunals in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1921" (Ph. D. diss., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1998)
15. Robert C. Tucker and Stephen F. Cohen, eds., The Great Purge Trial (New York, 1965), ix-x
16. Cassiday, Enemy on Trial, 51-109
17. Jansen, Show Trial, 195
18. Krasnoshchekov also refused to confess. Instead, he counterattacked with a "fine fighting" speech of ninety minutes' duration (Walter Duranty, "Soviet Opens Trial of Bank Executive," New York Times, 5 March 1924)
19. Robert Sharlet distinguishes between a "political trial," in which the accused defends him-/herself or has professional defenders, and the "political show trial," in which the defendant's confession is the focal point of the drama. See his "Stalinism and Soviet Legal Culture," in Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York, 1977), 166n.26. I fear that such a distinction obscures two crucial aspects of the first type of proceeding: first, that the accused's defense could not possibly succeed in winning an acquittal and, second, that the main purpose of the "trial" was to "show" the public something that was supposed to affect attitudes and behavior
20. Jane Burbank, "Lenin and the Law in Revolutionary Russia," Slavic Review 54 (Spring 1995): 23-44
21. See also Story, "Court of Law," 107, 151, 175
22. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 155, l. 4
23. E. A. Rees, State Control in Soviet Russia: The Rise and Fall of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, 1920-1934 (London, 1987), 35
24. Quoted in E. G. Gimpel'son, Formirovanie sovetskoi politicheskoi sistemy, 1917-1923 (Moscow, 1995), 172
25. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. r-374, op. 1, d. 8, ll. 66-67ob
26. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 544, l. 5
27. RGASPI f. 613, op. 1, d. 14, ll. 16-18
28. "Moscow Bank Head Will Be Tried Soon," New York Times, 23 November 1923
29. Simon Liberman, Building Lenin's Russia (Chicago, 1945), 183-84
30. Hiroaki Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas: A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s-1990s (New York, 1998), 143
31. George Easter has illuminated the vital importance of stazh in his Reconstructing the State: Personal Networks and Elite Identity in Soviet Russia (New York, 2000); 10-16, 53-58
32. RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 15, ll. 16-17
33. For two examples see New York Times, 19 and 23 November, 1924
34. Simon Liberman, himself a persecuted specialist, mentioned a wave of "exemplary trials" (Building Lenin's Russia, 183-84)
35. On the Soviet fear of "contamination" see Oleg Kharkhordin, The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices (Berkeley, 1999), 123-40
36. In Sex in Public: The Incarnation of Early Soviet Ideology (Princeton, 1999), 12-16, Eric Naimen argues convincingly that utopians necessarily fear contamination
37. Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 1917-1991 (London, 1992), 88-114
38. Vladimir Brovkin, Russia after Lenin: Politics, Culture and Society (London, 1998), 174-79
39. Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 128-32
40. I. B. Orlov, Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika: Istoriia, opyt, problemy (Moscow, 1999), 151-55
41. For an example involving the Moscow party committee's selection of managers see Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Moskvy (TsGAODM) f. 3, op. 4, d. 20, l. 54
42. N. Valentinov (Vol'sky), The New Economic Policy and the Party Crisis After the Death of Lenin (Stanford, 1971), 95
43. Concerning the party ethics campaign, Eric Naimen notes that with it the TsKK "formally declared members' personal lives to be the Party's concern" (Sex in Public, 92)
44. The Politbiuro approved the general outline of the TsKK's plan for the campaign on 11 October 1923 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 387, l. 4)
45. For a collection of documents concerning the campaign see Partiinaia etika: Dokumenty i materialy diskussii 20-x godov (Moscow, 1989)
46. TsGAODM, f. 3, op. 4, d. 38, ll. 1-53
47. Valentinov (Vol'skii) confirms that in summer 1923, Piatakov ordered the trusts and syndicates to seek high profits (New Economic Policy, 81)
48. TsGAODM, ll. 15-16
49. This speech was excerpted and discussed in Moshe Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle (New York, 1968), 18-19
50. RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 21, ll. 80-81
51. Rees, State Control, 244
52. For a draft of a law, from the latter half of 1923, making directors responsible for everything related to their enterprises see GARF, f. r-374, op. 1, d. 8, l. 142
53. RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 21, ll. 89-89ob
54. "K protsessu Krasnoshchekova," Izvestiia, 24 February 1924
55. GARF, f. r-1005, op. la, d. 600, ll. 74-76
56. RGASPI, f. 17, op.84, d. 624, ll. 4-15
57. "Bureaucratic left" follows the usage by Andrea Graziosi, who cites Deutscher. Graziosi's discussion of Piatakov's contribution to NEP's evolution is very helpful. See Graziosi, "'Building the First System of State Industry in History': Piatakov's Vesenkha and the Crisis of the NEP, 1923-1926," Cahiers du Monde russe et soviètique 32 (October-December 1991): 539-80
58. "Partiia na - cheku," Pravda, 11 March 1924
59. B. I. Mukhachev, "Prezident respubliki," Dal'nii Vostok, 1990, no. 4:138
60. RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 20, l. 65
61. Mukhachev, Krasnoshchekov, 188
62. Valentinov, New Economic Policy, 73
63. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv, f. 4, op. 7, d. 13, l. 9
64. B. I. Mukhachev, Krasnoshchekov, 13-16
65. Luella Krasnoshchekova, "Iz vospominanii ob ottse i sem'e," Dal'nii Vostok, 1990, no. 4:138-49
66. See also Canfield F. Smith, "Krasnoshchekov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich," in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, ed. Joseph L. Wieczynski, vol. 18 (Gulf Breeze, FL, 1980), 41-46
67. H. V. V. Fay, "The President of the Far Eastern Republic," Asia 21 (October 1921): 876-94
68. idem, "Prezident respubliki," 136-38
69. Krasnoshchekova, "Iz vospominanii," 145
70. and Smith, "Krasnoshchekov," 44
71. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (PSS), 5th ed., vol. 54 (Moscow, 1965), 106
72. Mukhachev, "Prezident," 138
73. Lenin, PSS 54:219
74. A. M. Krasnoshchekov, Finansirovanie promyshlennosti (Materialy k doklady chlena Prezidiuma Vesenkha A. M. Krasnoshchekova na s''ezde Prombiuro 26 iiulia 1922 g.) (Moscow, 1922), 5-6
75. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 580, ll. 8-9
76. GARF, f. r-374, op. 7, d. 52, ll. 18-18ob
77. "Pochemu arestovan." For different figures, which however also indicate rapid growth in the banks assets, see GARF, f. r-374, op. 7, d. 109, l. 1
78. GARF, f. r-1005, op. 1a, d. 595, ll. 217-19ob
79. Easter, Reconstructing, 48-58
80. Ann and Samuel Charters, I Love: The Story of Vladimir Malakovsky and Lili Brik (New York, 1979), 187, 249-51
81. Nadezhda A. Joffe, Back in Time: My Life, My Fate, My Epoch (Oak Park, MI, 1995), 35-36
82. For example, see Duranty, "Soviet Opens Trial."
83. L. Krasnoshchekova, "Iz vospominanii," 146
84. There is not a consensus on the translation of Vozdushnyi pirog. "Meringue" was suggested to me in personal correspondence by Elena A. Krasnostchekova. She is supported by O. S. Akhmanova, ed., Russian-English Dictionary (Moscow, 1992): 85
85. Also found were "The Soufflé," in Konstantin Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theater, 1905-1932, ed. Leslie Milne, trans. Roxane Permar, (New York, 1988), 118
86. and "The Airy Pie," in Ellendea Proffer, Bulgakov: Life and Work (Ann Arbor, 1984), 228
87. Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theater, 119
88. This originally was suggested to me in personal correspondence by Elena A. Krasnostchekova. See also Proffer, Bulgakov, 229
89. Smith, "Krasnoshchekov"
90. Lenin, PSS 54:106, 132-33, 219
91. See also Samuel N. Harper, "Soviet Bank Policy" (letter to the editor), New York Times, 7 November 1923
92. Mukhachev, Krasnoshchekov, 146, 162, 182
93. Walter Duranty, "Soviet Convicts Krasnotchekoff," New York Times, 10 March 1924
94. E. H. Carr, A History of Soviet Russia. The Interregnum: 1923-1924 (New York, 1954), 22-23n.2
95. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 443, ll. 4, 19-20
96. Orlov, Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika, 62
97. On this question, my position is closer to Robert Service than to Moshe Lewin. See Service, Lenin: A Political Life, vol. 3, The Iron Ring (Bloomington, 1995): 291-303
98. and Lewin, Last Struggle, 129-41
99. This is thoroughly discussed in Rees, State Control, 39-65
100. Elena Rozmirovich, Rabkrin Collegium member and Old Bolshevik, dissented sharply from the new policy (RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 12, ll. 23-23ob.)
101. This much at least appears to be fully in accordance with Lenin's perspective in late 1921 and 1922. Nevertheless, by March 1923 still over half of the expenditures of state industry were covered by the budget. See N. S. Simonov, "Sovetskaia finansovaia politika v usloviiakh NEPa (1921-1927)," Istoriia SSSR 5 (September 1990): 45-46
102. Steven Fraser, Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (New York, 1991), 40-177
103. Steve Fraser, "The 'New Unionism' and the 'New Economic Policy,'" in Work, Community and Power: The Experience of Labor in Europe and America, 1900-1925, ed. James E. Cronin and Carmen Sirianni (Philadelphia, 1983): 173-96
104. Fraser, Labor, 185-88
105. However, the GPU evidently was interested only in the payment of $2000 to Aleksandr and $600 to Iakov for services rendered (GARF, f. r-1005, op. 1a, d. 596, l. 78)
106. GARF, f. r-1005, op. 1a, d. 595, ll. 584-584ob
107. The department kept the personal data on party members that were used in making appointments or transfers. See Graeme Gill, The Origins of the Stalinist Political System (Cambridge, England, 1990), 70, 78-81
108. Simonov, "Finansovaia politika," 56
109. This would have been compatible with "feasible socialism," as described by Alec Nove in his The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London, 1983), 207-10
110. Bukharin later theorized a role for the market and a relationship with the peasantry that would have been compatible, but he also advocated "socialism in one country." See Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (New York, 1973), 160-201
111. I suspect it was Kalinin, partly because Kalinin and his wife had become close personal friends with Krasnoshchev's first wife (Mukhachev, Krasnoshchekov, 158, 207)
112. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 2, l. 59
113. One of the crops which Krasnoshchekov worked to develop appears to have real prospects in American agriculture today. See Paul Skillicorn and Rebecca Torres, "Kenaf: A New Farmer-Driven Solution to Eastern Carolina's Agricultural Crisis," North Carolina Geograper 8 (2000): 67-74
114. Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1998, no. 4:99
115. L. Krasnoshchekova, "Iz vospominanii," 147-49