Nikolay Muralov

Nikolay Ivanovich Muralov (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Мура́лов; 7 December 1877 – 1 February 1937) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader and military commander in Russia, who after 1923 became a member of the Left Opposition.

A personal friend of Leon Trotsky, Muralov was arrested in 1936 during the Great Terror and was a defendant in the so-called "Trial of the Seventeen" in January 1937, after which he was executed.

[1] His father had attended a classical gymnasium for six years and had been a volunteer in the Russian Army during the Crimean War, in the process earning Russia's highest military decoration, the Order of St. George, fourth class, for bravery.

[1] During the late 1890s Muralov was a volunteer in the Tsarist army, serving briefly in the Grenadier Regiment in Moscow before being dismissed for reserve duty at Taganrog.

[1] Muralov joined another underground Marxist circle at Serpukhov, Moscow Oblast, later that same year and became involved in the zemstvo movement.

[1] He remained in the city until the rebellion's suppression by the military in January 1906, participating further in the revolutionary movement in the Don region and at Taganrog, where he came to be regarded as a party specialist in agricultural affairs.

[1] Muralov was drafted into the military during World War I, serving in infantry and transport regiments until the outbreak of the February Revolution in 1917.

[1] After that time he became active as an organizer of the Bolshevik faction in the military, helping to establish the soldiers' section of the Moscow Soviet.

[2] He continued to work in Siberian agriculture, but refused to denounce either his friend Trotsky or his political past, gaining repute as the last of the leading Bolsheviks to have rejected such measures.

This trial, held over an eight-day period in January 1937, is best remembered for its lead defendants Iurii Piatakov and Karl Radek.

During his direct testimony answering the questions of prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky, Muralov indicated that he had declined to provide the confession demanded by the secret police until December 5, 1936 — eight months after his arrest.

"[5] Muralov claimed that he had coordinated the organization of small terrorist cells with several other defendants in the current trial, including Piatakov and Radek, and to have played a part in directly organizing an assassination attempt against Stalin's right-hand man, V.M.Molotov in which a car in which he was traveling was to intentionally be driven and rolled at high speed into a ravine.