The Menshevik Trial was one of the early

purges In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an ...

carried out by

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

in which 14 economists, who were former members of the Menshevik party, were put on trial and convicted for trying to re-establish their party as the "Union Bureau of the Mensheviks". It was held 1–8 March 1931 in the House of Unions. The presiding judge was Nikolay Shvernik.

Defendants

The defendants were: *

Boris Berlatsky Boris Markovich Berlatsky (1889–1937) was a senior official of the State Bank of the USSR. He was 41 when he was a defendant in 1931 Menshevik Trial, one of the first show trials in the Soviet Union. Berlatsky's "confession" included an account o ...

* Aleksandr Finn-Enotaevsky *

Abram Ginzburg Abram Moiseevich Ginzburg (; 1878–1937) was a Russian revolutionary and economist. He was a defendant at the 1931 Menshevik Trial. Ginzburg was born in Ilyino in Zapadnodvinsky District and died in Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk; , is the admi ...

* Vladimir Groman * Mikhail Yakubovich * Vladimir Ikov * Kirill Petunin *

Isaak Illich Rubin Isaak Illich Rubin (Russian language, Russian: Исаак Ильич Рубин; 12 June 1886 – 27 November 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet lawyer, Marxian economics , economist and scholar of Marx's work. His most important published work ...

* Vasili Sher * Aron Sokolovsky * Nikolai Sukhanov * Moisei Teitelbaum *

Ivan Volkov Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was the Bul ...

* Lazar Zalkind Six out of the fourteen defendants were Jews. It was suggested in Bundist circles that this large proportion of Jews among the accused had been specially arranged to organize feeling against the Jewish Socialists. This was denied by Stalin.

The trial

The defendants were accused of setting up the "All-Union Bureau of Mensheviks." Vladimir Groman gave a public testimony that he and

Vladimir Bazarov Vladimir Alexandrovich Bazarov (Russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович База́ров; 8 August O. S. 27 July">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 27 July1874 – 16 Septem ...

(who was not on trial) headed a counterrevolutionary group in

Gosplan The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( ), was the agency responsible for economic planning, central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Unio ...

, purportedly organized in 1923, which attempted at "influencing the economic policy of the Soviet authorities so as to hold the position of 1923–25." Groman, being a member of the Presidium of the Gosplan the star figure among the accused, damned himself and his colleagues with testimony that at Gosplan they had spent their time

Putting into the control figures and into the surveys of current business planning ideas and deliberately distorted appraisals antagonistic to the general Party line (lowering the rates of expansion of socialist construction, distorting the class approach, exaggerating the difficulties), stressing the signs of an impending catastrophe (Groman) or, what is close to this, assigning a negligible chance of success to the Party line directed toward the socialist attack (Bazarov, Gukhman) ...

Final day

On the final day, the prisoners confessed to the allegations. "In the last minutes before my death", one of them was quoted saying, "I will think with disgust of the evil I have wrought; evil for which not we, but foreign Menshevists and the

Second International The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties and Trade union, trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from mo ...

must share responsibility."

Nikolai Krylenko Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko (, ; 2 May 1885 – 29 July 1938) was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet politician, military commander, and jurist. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet law, Soviet legal system, rising to become Minis ...

, the Public Prosecutor, declared that Groman, Sher, Yakubovitch, Ginzburg, and Sukhanov were the principal leaders of the counter-revolutionary organization, and therefore, must suffer the death penalty. For the others he asked that they should be isolated "for long periods".

Verdict

At 9 March 1931, after deliberating for twenty-five hours, the court sentenced seven defendants to ten years' imprisonment. The seven other defendants were sentenced to different terms of imprisonment, ranging from five to eight years. Those who received the ten years' sentence were Groman, Sher, Sukhanov, Ginzburg, Jakobovich, Petunina, and Finn-Enotaevsky.

Reactions

Rafail Abramovich, a prominent Menshevik in exile in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, helped to mobilise Western socialist and labour support for the persecuted economists. At a rally in Berlin, organised by the

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together wi ...

, he denied there was an underground Menshevik organisation that existed in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

also commented on the trial, condemning both Stalin and the Mensheviks. However, Trotsky would later publicly regret these statements and his belief in the initial charges due to the previous obstruction from Groman to the proposed five-year plan and industrialisation.

Defendants

The trial

Final day

Verdict

Reactions

See also

Footnotes

Further reading