Industrial Party Trial

Nikolai Krylenko, deputy People's Commissar (minister) of Justice, assistant Prosecutor General of the RSFSR and a prominent Bolshevik, prosecuted the case.

The defendants were a group of notable Soviet economists and engineers, including Leonid Ramzin, Peter Osadchy, Nikolai Charnovsky, Alexander Fedotov, Victor Larichev, Vladimir Ochkin, Ksenofont Sitnin, Ivan Kalinnikov, and Sergei Kupriyanov.

The plot was supposedly hatched by emigre Russian industrialists in Paris, and allegedly involved the governments of France, England and some smaller countries like Latvia and Estonia.

Upon the arrival of the invasion forces the defendants would sabotage Soviet industry and create chaos in the transportation networks (charges of this kind were to become standard in later show trials of the 1930s).

The prosecution stated that "the Industrial Party consisted of the top old engineering-technical intelligentsia, of major specialists and professors, who held privileged positions during the capitalist regime".

Leonid Ramzin testifies during the trial, "confessing" to ultimately false accusations.
A Soviet poster showing the 'Prompartiya' unmasked as spies and wreckers led by Western imperialists.