Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries
The Bolshevik Central Committee had confirmed the verdict for the SR defendants to be executed but only on the condition they refused to abandon armed struggles in relation to "conspiratorial, terrorist, and espionage activities".
On November 7, 1917 (October 25 Old Style), the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (bolsheviks), supported by a militant faction of the PSR, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Left SRs), launched a coup d'état, seizing government power.
[3] This put the majority of the PSR, retrospectively known as the "Right Socialist Revolutionaries," in direct political conflict with V. I. Lenin and the new Soviet regime, going so far as to attempt to form a counter-government and backing a new uprising in the first days after the revolution, without success.
[4] The Bolshevik government, together with their Left SR allies and a small number of Menshevik-Internationalists, rapidly consolidated power.
The PSR placed its hopes upon elections to the Constituent Assembly, a national parliament initially supported by all anti-tsarist parties.
[2] Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders had no intention of surrendering power to this new body, however, and the Constituent Assembly was dispersed by force on January 5, 1918, having met only one day.
[5] No immediate armed response from the PSR followed,[5] though the organization had previously, like its Narodnik forefathers, engaged in terrorism against the tsarist regime.
Then on August 30, 1918, PSR member Fanny Kaplan fired three shots at Lenin, gravely wounding him, while elsewhere an assassin met with greater success, killing head of the Petrograd Cheka Moisei Uritsky.
[6] The Bolsheviks responded with a "Red Terror," taking hostages and engaging in summary executions of their enemies.
[7] Top leader Viktor Chernov went into hiding and stayed ahead of the authorities but was finally forced into emigration in 1920, where he would serve as the PSR's official foreign representative.
[10] The shattered party was deemed to have insufficient forces to have a credible chance at overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and sought not to play into the hands of those seeking a right wing restoration and therefore ceased to fight, going so far as to denounce the Tambov Rebellion of 1921 as a "semi-banditry movement.
[24] In an effort to calm waters with the Western socialists, Comintern delegates made additional broad guarantees, which included the right of all counsels chosen by the defendants to be admitted, a promise that the trial would be held in public, and a guarantee that no death penalties would be imposed.
[28] This list of ten was accepted by the Comintern early in May but suffered attrition when the three SRs and several others dropping out for assorted reasons.
[30] Prior to April 1, 1922, investigation of the PSR leadership was conducted by the Cheka and its institutional successor, the State Political Directorate (Russian: Государственное политическое управление, GPU).
[32] The trial was slated to begin barely more than one week later, on June 1,[32] allowing precious little time for preparation of a defense.
[32] Allegations included the conduct of armed struggle against the Soviet state, having organized murderous terrorist actions and raids, and having committed treason through contract with hostile foreign powers.
[32] The PSR was held to be largely responsible for several peasant uprisings which erupted in 1920, including revolts in Tambov province, Siberia, and the Black Sea region, and with having been in communication with mutinous sailors involved in the Kronstadt rebellion.
[35] The defendants were charge with having violated a new Penal Code which went into effect only on June 1, 1922 — that is, after the alleged counterrevolutionary crimes had been committed.
[37] After arriving in Moscow on May 25 — greeted at the train station by a hostile demonstration of thousands — the four foreign counsels were allowed to meet the 22 potential defendants in prison almost daily to prepare a defense.
[41] Ludovic-Oscar Frossard of France and Bohumír Šmeral were additionally named by ECCI as prosecution "political experts" and potential trial witnesses.
[43] Several days were spent fighting over procedure, with the PSR leaders and their Western defenders indicating that the court did not meet the criteria of impartiality agreed upon by the Comintern and the two Socialist internationals.
[46] In addition, the defense was frequently prohibited from speaking when desired and was subjected to a steady avalanche of jeering and attempts at intimidation by the public spectators.
[48] It was only on June 19, following a 24-hour hunger strike, that the Western socialists were granted departure documents and allowed to leave Soviet Russia.
[49] A massive throng estimated variously at from 150,000 to 300,000 people marched through Red Square, led by members of the Soviet court.
[50] Speaking from the platform to the assembled crowd, Piatakov promised the demonstrators that the court would defend "the interests and the peace of the working class" and deliver punishment to counterrevolutionaries which was "righteous and severe.
[51] Orators gathered at various points on Red Square delivered similar messages to the congregating marchers.
[52] One popular placard was a large cutout of Émile Vandervelde with string-operated arms and legs, which gesticulated wildly in time to the martial music being played by a marching band.
"[56] This demand was summarily rejected by Piatakov and the tribunal, which emphasized its "revolutionary conception of proletarian law.
[57] Prosecutor Krylenko objected strenuously to the mass resignation of defense counsel, asserting that it was a "public law obligation" for these attorneys to stay on the case.
