July 1928. Nikolai Bukharin rose to contradict Stalin at every point. Stalin’s extraordinary measures had caused grain output to plummet wherever they had been implemented. Eventually they resulted in a famine that would cost 6-7 million lives, but the immediate effect was unrest among the peasants. The kulak — Stalin’s favorite scapegoat — was not to blame. The popular leader Lenin had dubbed the “Golden Boy of the Revolution” concluded:
BUKHARIN: “We must immediately remove extraordinary measures which were historically justified and correctly enacted. They have outlived their time. But we now face a wave of mass unrest. There have been some 150 different uprisings throughout the union and dozens of terrorist acts [he described them]. Middle peasants are deserting to the camp of the kulaks. … We were victorious in gaining Soviet power, but we can also lose it.”
Stalin’s stooge Lazar Kaganovich, party head where much of the Ukrainian unrest occurred, protested that the Bolshevik leader was exaggerating.
BUKHARIN: I could cite still more such examples given at the Central Committee plenum of Ukraine.
KAGANOVICH: There were other speeches there. You should cite them as well.
VOICE FROM THE CROWD, A BUKHARIN ALLY: And the former general secretary of Ukraine, Comrade Kaganovich, comes here and doesn’t say anything about this?
KAGANOVICH: Give me two hours like Comrade Bukharin, and I will tell you all and cite speeches.
BUKHARIN: When Lenin encountered panic-mongers, he said they must be shot to maintain a united front. But he never said that we should keep quiet about facts. … I don’t know whom I am contradicting. I only know that I learned about this widespread peasant unrest yesterday.
“Almost without exception, readers, including my editor, came independently to the conclusion that their story would make a great film — a kind of Darkness at Noon/Zhivago combination,” Paul Gregory told me. “I sent the book to two producers, both of whom read the book and concluded it should be a movie. An appealing feature for filmmakers is that at least two of the roles — Anna and Stalin — would be exceptional roles for major actors. Their concern, however, was that Hollywood was not financing ‘good’ films these days and was only interested in sequels, comic books, and special effects. They felt it would either have to be made as an independent film or by cable TV concerns like HBO or SHO.”
The reason for the astonishing transcripts, said Paul, is the emergency of a huge amount of formerly secret documents, released from the Soviet archives beginning in the early 1990s; many exist on microfilm at the Hoover Institition, where Paul Gregory did his research. They include the transcripts of Central Committee plenums (like the excerpt above), stenograms of the Politburo, transcripts of interrogations, correspondence. (Irma Kudrova’s compelling Death of a Poet also made use of new documents — I reviewed it here.)
“This story is non-fiction fiction. It seems too good a story to be real,” he said. “I have ten years of experience and could not have written this book without that ten years. I may have been the only one with sufficient patience to make my way through all these records. I would classify among the more important finds the original transcript of Bukharin’s last statement to the court with Stalin’s edits in pencil, the official record of the carrying out of his execution, his ‘hunger strike’ speech before the Central Committee in February of 1937, his arrest warrant.”
Not new is his final letter to his beloved wife, Anna Larina, which she received 50 years late. Neither of them ever lost faith in the revolution that executed Bukharin in 1938.
Dear Sweet Annushka, My Darling!
I write to you on the eve of my trial…with a special purpose, which I emphasize three times over: no matter what you read, no matter what you hear, no matter how horrible these things may be, no matter what might be said about me or what I might say–endure everything courageously and calmly. Prepare the family. Help all of them. I fear for you and the others, but most about you.
Don’t feel malice about anything. Remember that the great cause of the USSR lives on, and this is the most important thing. Personal fates are transitory and wretched by comparison. A great ordeal awaits you. I beg you, my dearest, muster all your strength, tighten all the strings of your heart, but don’t allow them to break…. Regardless of what happens and no matter what the outcome of the trial, I will see you afterwards, and I will be able to kiss your hands.
Good-bye my darling, Your Kol’ka
January 15, 1938