The Menshevik Trial was one of the early purges carried out by

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

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 Nikolai Mikhailovich Shvernik (russian: Никола́й Миха́йлович Шве́рник, – 24 December 1970) was a Soviet politician who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 19 March 1946 until 15 March 1 ...

Defendants

The defendants were: * Boris Berlatsky * Aleksandr Finn-Enotaevsky * Abram Ginzburg * Vladimir Groman * Mikhail Yakubovich * Vladimir Ikov * Kirill Petunin * Isaak Illich Rubin * Vasili Sher * Aron Sokolovsky * Nikolai Sukhanov *

Moisei Teitelbaum Moisei ( hu, Majszin) is a commune in Maramureș County, Maramureș, Romania. Composed of a single village, Moisei, it is one of the oldest communes in Maramureș County, first attested in 1213. This place is well known for the monastery near the ...

* Ivan Volkov * 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 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._27_July.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and Ne ...

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

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

, 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 made confessions of their "crimes". "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 (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...

must share responsibility."

Nikolai Krylenko Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko ( rus, Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко, p=krɨˈlʲenkə; May 2, 1885 – July 29, 1938) was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet politician. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet ...

, 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 and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, helped to mobilise Western socialist and labour support for the persecuted economists. At a rally in Berlin, organised by the SPD, he denied there was an underground Menshevik organisation that existed in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

also commented on the trial, condemning both Stalin and the Mensheviks.

The Trial of the Russian Mensheviks; The Real Disposition of the Figures on the Political Scene
'' The Militant'', Vol. IV No. 8, 15 April 1931, p. 3. via the ''Leon Trotsky Internet Archive'' ( marxists.org)

Defendants

The trial

Final day

Verdict

Reactions

See also

Footnotes

Further reading