EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED DREITZER

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED DREITZER

The first to be examined at the evening session of August 19 is the accused Dreitzer. Dreitzer was one of the most prominent Trotskyites. He had been chief of Trotsky's bodyguard. Together with Trotsky, he had organized the counter-revolutionary demonstration on November 7, 1927. When Trotsky was in exile in Alma-Ata, Dreitzer organized the communications between Trotsky and the Moscow Trotskyite centre.

The accused Dreitzer states that the Trotskyite-Zinovievite underground organization was a stricly centralized and disciplined counter-revolutionary organization. Dreitzer categorically and emphatically denies that there could be any possibility of halfheartedness in the attitude of any one of the members of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite counter-revolutionary bloc towards terroristic activity.

"There could be no acting on one's own, no orchestra without a conductor among us," stated Dreitzer. "I am surprised at the assertions of Smirnov, who, according to his words, both knew and did not know, spoke and did not speak, acted and did not act. This is not true!"

Relating his terroristic activities in detail Dreitzer says that the Trotskyite section of the counter-revolutionary bloc had received instructions to resort to terrorism against the leaders of the Party and the government from abroad, from L. D. Trotsky, and here from I. N. Smirnov, Trotsky's deputy in the U.S.S.R.

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EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED EVDOKIMOV

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED EVDOKIMOV

Questioned by Comrade Ulrich, President of the Court, whether he confirms the testimony he gave at the preliminary examination, Evdokimov replies in the affirmative. After that Evdokimov answers a number of qestions put to him by Comrade Vyshinsky.

Vyshinsky: You were a member of the centre?

Evdokimov: Yes, I was.

Vyshinsky: Did you know that the centre was preparing assassinations of the leaders of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet Government?

Evdokimov: Yes.

Vyshinsky: Did you personally approve of the preparation of these assassinations?

Evdokimov: I agreed to them.

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EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED MRACHKOVSKY

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED MRACHKOVSKY

The accused Mrachkovsky was the man most in the confidence of Trotsky and personally closest to him. In the past he had occupied an important position in the army. From 1923 onwards he had carried on, in conjunction with Trotsky, Trotskyite anti-Soviet work. He had been a member of the leading centre of the underground Trotskyite terrorist organization, had worked under the personal direction of Trotsky, from whom he was receiving instructions through I. N. Smirnov as well as directly to organize terroristic acts against the leaders of the Party and the Government. Being one of the leaders of the counter-revolutionary Trotskyite underground organization, he, in 1932, had joined the united Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist centre together with I. N. Smirnov and V. A. Ter-Vaganyan.

Mrachkovsky relates in detail the history of the formation of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist centre. He says that on returning from exile in 1929 he only on paper admitted the correctness of the general line of the Party; actually, however, together with other former members of the opposition, he returned from exile with the perfidious intention of continuing the struggle against the Party. Asked by Comrade Vyshinsky to say definitely to whom he was referring, Mrachkovsky said that he, Mrachkovsky, and also I. N. Smirnov and Ter-Vaganyan, had jointly taken the firm decision to organize a further struggle against the Party. Mrachkovsky at the same time admits that this counter-revolutionary group had no political platform, that "the platform drawn up in the preceding period of 1925-27 was upset by the fact of correctness of the general line of the Party."

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Terroristic Acts Against Comrades Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

III. Organization by the United Trotskyite-Zinovievite Centre of Terroristic Acts Against Comrades Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Kossior, Orjonikidze and Postyshev

The materials of the investigation have established that the united Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist centre, after it had killed Comrade Kirov, did not confine itself to organizing the assassination of Comrade Stalin alone. The terrorist Trotskyite-Zinovievite centre simultaneously carried on work to organize assassinations of other leaders of the Party, namely, Comrades Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Kossior, Orjonikidze and Postyshev.

The accused Reingold testified that Zinoviev, while speaking of the necessity of assassinating Comrade Kirov as Comrade Stalin's closest assistant, added:

"It is not enough to fell the oak; all the young oaks growing around it must be felled too." (Vol. XXVII, p. 70.)

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Assassination of Comrade S. M. Kirov

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

II. The United Trotskyite-Zinovievite Centre and the Assassination of Comrade S. M. Kirov

It was already established in the case of Nikolayev, Rumyantsev, Kotolynov and others shot by sentence of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. on the charge of murdering Comrade S. M. Kirov on December 1, that direct connections existed between the group of Zinovievites in Leningrad who committed the murder, and the accused Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bakayev, already convicted in the case of the so-called "Moscow centre."

At the present time, the investigating authorities are in possession of facts establishing beyond doubt that the murder of S. M. Kirov was kommitted in accordance with the decision of the united Trotskyite-Zinovievite centre.

This was admitted at the preliminary investigation by the majority of active members of various terrorist Trotskyite-Zinovievite groups, including the accused Zinoviev, Kamenev, Evdokimov, Bakayev, Mrachkovsky and others.

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The Trotskyite-Zinovievite United Terrorist Centre

Report of Court Proceedings

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre

Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.

August 19-24, 1936 (Moscow)

I. The Trotskyite-Zinovievite United Terrorist Centre

The testimonies of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Evdokimov, Mrachkovsky, Bakayev and a number of other accused in the present case, have established beyond doubt that the only motive for organizing the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc was thier striving to seize power at all costs, and that the sole and decisive means chosen for this purpose was the organization of terroristic acts against the most prominent leaders of the Party and the Government.

Lacking all support in the working class and the toiling masses of the people of the U.S.S.R., having lost all their ideological possessions, having no political program and imbued with bitter hatred toward the Socialist victories of our country, the leaders of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite counter-revolutionary bloc, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, sank definitively into the swamp of whiteguardism, joined forces and merged with the most inverterate enemies of the Soviet Power, and became the organizing force of the last remnants of the exploiting classis which had been routed in the U.S.S.R. In their desperation and hatred they resorted to the most despicable means of fighting the Soviet Government and the leaders of the C.P.S.U., namely, political assassinations.

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VYSHlNSKY’S SPEECH: MARCH 11, 1938

Comrades Judges, members of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. 

In proceeding to make my speech for the Prosecution in the present case, which constitutes an exceptional phenomenon of extraordinary public and political significance, I would like in the first place to direct your attention to certain distinguishing features of this case, to certain of its outstanding peculiarities. 

It is not for the first time that the Supreme Court of our country is examining a case involving gravest crimes directed against the well-being of our country, against our Socialist fatherland, the fatherland of the working people of the whole world. But I will hardly be mistaken if I say that this is the first time that our Court has had to examine a case like this, to examine a case of such crimes and such foul deeds as those that have passed at this trial before your eyes, before the eyes of the whole world, a case of such criminals as those you now see in the prisoners' dock. 

With every day and every hour that passed, as the Court investigation on the present case proceeded, it brought to light ever more of the horrors of the chain of shameful, unparalleled, monstrous crimes committed by the accused, the entire abominable chain of heinous deeds before which the base deeds of the most inveterate, vile, unbridled and despicable criminals fade and grow dim. · ·

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Murder of Kirov, Maxim Gorky, Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev and Plot against Lenin

From the Court Proceedings

Entertaining no hope of the overthrow of the Soviet system by means of espionage, wrecking, diversion, and kulak risings, the Right and Trotskyite conspirators, possessed with rage and hatred for the U.S.S.R., proceeded to make preparations for and to commit terrorist acts against leaders of the government and the C.P.S.U. The investigation has established the fact that by direct agreement with the Japanese and German intelligence services, and upon the instructions of enemy of the people L. TROTSKY, the "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites"; engineered and committed a number of terrorist acts against some of the finest people of our country.

The accused RYKOV explained the motives for the adoption of terrorist methods by the " bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" as follows:

"In view of the illegal and conspiratorial character of the counter-revolutionary organization of the Rights, -the absence of any kind of mass basis for its counter-revolutionary activities, and the absence of all hope of arriving at power in any other way, the adoption of terrorist methods and a palace coup detat, in the opinion of the Centre, held out some prospects" (Vol. I, p. 50.)

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FREE AND EQUAL DAUGHTERS IN THE STALIN FAMILY OF PEOPLES OF THE USSR.

N.V. Popova

..the victory of Socialism, the Bolshevik Party's policy towards women, the policy formulated by Lenin and Stalin have ensured women in the U.S.S.R. an equal economic and political status with men. And Soviet women have a .great share in the victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. In the course ·of our country's socialist development hundreds of thousands of women learned to manage ·public industry and to administer the state.

Here are some figures which eloquently testify to this- 1922 the First Congress of Soviets elected five women to the Central Executive Committee; fifteen years later, in December 1937, the people elected

227 women to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.; and on February 10, 1946 the number of women elected to the Supreme Soviet o f the U.S.S.R. was 277. Besides, more than 1,700 women are members of Supreme Soviets of Union and Autonomous Republics, and hundreds of thousands are members of local Soviets of Working People's Deputies.

The following are the fl.gums for the number of women members of government bodies as of February 1948: 277 in the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.,i. e., 20.7 % of the total number of members; 1,235,or 26.5 % , in Supreme Soviets of Union Republics; 503, or 29%, in Supreme Soviets of Autonomous Republics.

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SOVIET WOMEN-EQUAL BUILDERS OF THE SOCIALIST SOCIETY

N.V. Popova
WOMEN BEGIN TO TAKE AN ACTIVE PART IN GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORK

As a result of the victory of the proletarian revolution in the Soviet Republic "not a trace has been left of the laws that placed women in a subordinate position." V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 3rd Russ. ed., Vol. XXIV,P. 468.

The great charter of the October Revolution, the Declaration of Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People, heralded the genuine solution of the woman question. No party ever fought for the emancipation of women so consistently as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did and is doing now. "Not a single state, not even the most progressive republic, the most progressive democratic, bourgeois state, has granted women full equality. The Soviet Republic of Russia, on the other hand, promptly swept away all legislative traces of the inequality of women without exception and t one stroke ensured them full equality before the .law," said V. I. Lenin.""·Vol. XXV, p. 63.

No sooner was Soviet power established than all civil disabilities for women were abolished, and the Bolshevik Party set to work to draw working women and - peasant women into the administration of the country.

"We are not utopians," wrote Lenin just before the October Revolution. "We know that not every labourer or cook could at present undertake the administration of the :state. . . . We demand that the class-conscious workers and soldiers should conduct the training in. the business of state .administration, and that this should he begun immediately, i. e., that all the toilers, all the poor should begin to he trained to this business immediately."V. 1: Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. VI, Moscow 1935,p. 273.

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Fighting Druzhinas of 1905–07

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979)

Armed companies of workers, students, and democratic strata of the urban population, set up by the revolutionary parties of different political orientations during the 1905–07 Revolution. The first fighting druzhinasarose upon the initiative of the Bolsheviks soon after the Ninth of January, 1905 (Bloody Sunday) in St.Petersburg. They were subsequently formed in Riga, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Novorossiisk, Tiflis, Kharkov,Ekaterinoslav, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoiarsk, Irkutsk, Chita, and other cities. The organization of the fighting druzhinas was especially intensive between October and December 1905.

In Moscow the largest fighting druzhinas were at N. P. Shmit’s Furniture Factory (druzhina chief, metalworker M. S. Nikolaev), at the MiussyStreetcar Yard (chief, engineer M. P. Vinogradov; deputy chief, metalworker, P. M. Shchepetil’nikov), and at theMoscow-Kazan Railroad (chief, office worker D. M. Kotliarenko). In St. Petersburg the fighting druzhina of theNarva district was led by the Putilovo worker A. P. Serebrovskii, the druzhina at the Neva district (at the NevaShipbuilding Plant) by P. M. Tsabo and M. A. Gordeev-Bitner, and that at the Obukhovo Plant by E. P. Onufriev,among others. In Samara one of the leaders of the fighting druzhinas was P. I. Voevodin; in Ekaterinburg, F. F.Syromolotov; in Ufa, I. S. Iakutov; in Nikolaev, I. A. Chigrin; in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Shuia, I. N. Utkin and M.V. Frunze; in Tbilisi, Kamo (S. A. Ter-Petrosian), in Sormovo, P. S. Mochalov, and in Krasnoiarsk, K. V.Kuznetsov and others; in the Donbas, one fighting druzhina was headed by A. S. Grechnev. All these fighting druzhinas were led by Bolsheviks.

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Leaflet August 1917

August 27, 1917

The counter-revolution is approaching Petrograd. The traitor of the revolution, the enemy of the people of Kornilov, leads to Petrograd troops deceived by him. The entire bourgeoisie, led by the Cadet Party, which has constantly slandered workers and soldiers, now welcomes the traitor and traitor and is ready to applaud with all his heart the way Kornilov will heat the streets of Petrograd with the blood of workers and revolutionary soldiers, how he will crush the hands of dark, deceived people proletarian, peasant and soldier revolution.

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The Constitution (Basic Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - January 31, 1924

The Constitution (Basic Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (approved by the II Congress of Soviets of the USSR of January 31, 1924)

Back to Section one.

Section two. 

Contract

The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (Ukrainian SSR), the Belarusian Socialist Soviet Republic (BSSR) and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (ZSFSR - the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia and the Soviet Socialist Socialist Republican Republic. unite in one union state - the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics".

Chapter I. Subjects of authority of the supreme organs of authority of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Articles 1 and 2)

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THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF THE USSR ADOPTED - 1924

January 31, 1924

In December 1922 , the I Congress of Soviets of the USSR approved the Declaration and the Treaty on the formation of the USSR. The Treaty on the formation of the USSR proclaimed that 4 independent Soviet socialist republics: the RSFSR (Russia), the Ukrainian SSR (Ukraine), the BSSR (Belarus) and the ZSFSR (the Transcaucasus) - in order to strengthen Soviet power on a voluntary and equal basis, form a single union state. The treaty provided for the organization of all-Union state authorities and in general terms determined their competence. 

January 31 , 1924 II Congress of Soviets of the USSR unanimously approved the first Constitution of the USSR and completed the constitutional design of a single Soviet state. 

The 1924 Constitution was entirely devoted to the principles of building the world's first socialist union multiethnic state on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It legislated the full legal equality of all the peoples of the USSR and their sovereignty. The State Flag, the Coat of Arms and the capital of the USSR were approved. 

The approval and change of the basic principles of the Constitution were in the exclusive competence of the Congress of Councils of the USSR. The Union Republic retained the right to secede from the Union; its territory could be changed only with its consent. Established a single union citizenship. The Union’s exclusive jurisdiction included: external relations and trade; decisions on issues of war and peace; organization and leadership of the armed forces; general management and planning of the economy and budget; development of the fundamentals of legislation (all-union justice).

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Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

M. O. Malyshev, PhD in Law

Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

4 January 1918. (December 221917.) The Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “on convening January 8 (January 21 1918.) III Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and January 15 (January 28) - III Congress of Peasants' Deputies. one

Three days before the opening of the Congress of Soviets, the Constituent Assembly was to meet, 2 with which the hopes of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie were tied to overthrow the young power of the Soviets and restore the capitalist order. To this end, the counter-revolutionary Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly organized a plot with the center in Petrograd. 3 With the money of foreign embassies, the Social Revolutionaries created a terrorist organization in Petrograd and on January 1 (14)1918. made a villainous attempt on V.I. Lenin. 4

To suppress the conspiracy, the Soviet government formed a military headquarters, which included Sverdlov, Podvoisky, Uritzky, Bonch-Bruyevich. 5 The Petrograd Soviet and the Emergency Commission for the Preservation of Order in the capital called upon the working people to fight against the provocation of the enemies of the Soviet government. 6

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Declaration Of Rights Of The Working And Exploited People

Lenin

3 January, 1918 

4 January, 1929 in Pravda No. 2 and Izvestia No. 2. 

Collected Works, Volume 26

The Constituent Assembly resolves:

I. 1. Russia is hereby proclaimed a Republic of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. All power, centrally and locally, is vested in these Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is established on the principle of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics.

II. Its fundamental aim being to abolish all exploitation of man by man, to completely eliminate the division of society into classes, to mercilessly crush the resistance of the exploiters, to establish a socialist organisation of society and to achieve the victory of socialism in all countries, the Constituent Assembly further resolves:

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ADOPTED CONSTITUTION - 1936

December 5, 1936

In the fall of 1935 , the USSR Central Executive Committee created a Constitutional Commission chaired by I. V. Stalin and 12 subcommissions to develop a new version of the USSR Constitution, which should reflect the ideas of the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union. 

On June 12 , 1936 , the draft Constitution was published and discussed for half a year at all levels - from workers' meetings at enterprises to republican Congresses of Soviets. More than half of the adult population of the country participated in the discussion, the commission received 154 thousand proposals, amendments, additions. The drafting committee adopted 47 amendments and additions to more than 30 articles. 

On December 5 , 1936 , the VIII Extraordinary Congress of Soviets adopted a new Constitution of the USSR. 

The constitution consisted of 13 chapters and 146 articles. The document declared that the political basis of the USSR is made up of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies, who own all the power in the country. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR, elected for 4 years, became the supreme body of state power in the USSR , and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR became the Supreme Council of the USSR during the breaks between its sessions. The government of the country - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR - was the highest executive body accountable to the Supreme Council and its Presidium.

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Constitution of the RSFSR - 1918

Adopted by the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets

10 July 1918

PREAMBLE

The Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People, approved by the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets in January 1918, together with the constitution of the Soviet Republic approved by the Fifth Congress, make up the single fundamental law of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

This fundamental law becomes effective from the moment of its publication in final form in Izvestia Vserossiiskogo Tsentralnogo Ispolnitelnogo Komiteta. It shall be published by all local organs of Soviet government and prominently displayed in all Soviet institutions.

The Fifth Congress instructs the People's Commissariat for Public Education to introduce in all schools and other educational establishments of the Russian Republic, without exception, the study of the basic provisions of the present constitution, as well as their explanation and interpretation.

Part One: Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People (read Lenin on the deceleration)

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Lenin—Organiser of the Victorious October Uprising

First published in the Soviet newspaper Krasnaya Gazeta, November 6, 1927, for the tenth anniversary of the revolution.

By Nikolai Podvoisky

….The evening of October 17 has remained firmly fixed in my memory After a meeting in one of the regiments I hurried to the Smolny Institute The long corridors of the gigantic vaulted building resounded to the trample of many feet. Soldiers' grey greatcoats, the black jackets and smocks of the Red Guards, the dark pea-jackets of sailors with machine-gun belts strapped round them and bristling with hand-grenades, armed men everywhere—such was the picture presented by the Smolny. At the entrance were two quick-firing guns, between them and on their flanks stood machine-guns.

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POLITICAL ECONOMY - SOCIAL OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

Part III : THE SOCIALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION

B. THE SOCIALIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM

CHAPTER XXVIII : SOCIAL OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION

— THE FOUNDATION OF THE PRODUCTION RELATIONS OF SOCIALISM

The Socialist System of National Economy and Socialist Property

The economic basis of socialist society is the socialist system of national economy and socialist ownership of the means of production, which have been consolidated by elimination of the capitalist economic system, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the eradication of exploitation of man by man.

Exposing the concoctions of the apologists of capitalism who asserted that the programme of scientific Communism was a programme for abolishing property altogether, Marx and Engels wrote: “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally but the abolition of bourgeois property." (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Marx and Engels, Selected Works,1948, vol. I, p. 21.) No society is conceivable without the predominance of a historically determined form of property. In eliminating the private ownership of the means of production, the proletarian revolution sets up socialist ownership of the means of production in its place.

In socialist society the means of production have ceased to be capital, that is, to be a means of exploitation. In socialist society there are no longer classes with a monopoly of property in the means of production arid classes deprived of property in the means of production. In the conditions of socialism the means of production are social property. The main elements in the production process-labour-power and the means of production—are here united on a new basis, that of large-scale socialist production in both town and country. Since the means of production have ceased to be capital, there is no longer a division of accumulated labour into constant and variable capital under socialism. The whole mass of accumulated labour in society, that is, the whole mass of the means of production and the means of consumption, at the disposal of society for further production, serves the interests of the people and cannot provide a basis for exploitation. “In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer." (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1950, vol. I, p. 22.).

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