Molotov Believe Tukhachevskii Was Guilty

Information keeps coming out about the events of the 1930s in the USSR and about Stalin. However, it doesn't fit the anti-Communist preconceptions of most historians, and so gets little publicity. This piece was sent to me by a friend.

This key passage in the Russian version of

F. Chueva
Sto sorok besed s MOLOTOVYM
(Moscow: Terra, 1991), p.413

does not appear in the French translation:

Félix Tchouev,
Conversations avec Molotov
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1995).

Keep this in mind when you read translations of texts.

(Molotov is being interviewed about the purges and trials):

"An atmosphere of extreme tension reigned during this period; it was necessary to act without mercy. I think that it was justified. If Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Rykov and Zinoviev had started up their opposition in wartime, there would have been an extremely difficult struggle; the number of victims would have been colossal. Colossal. The two sides would have been condemned to disaster. They had links that went right up to Hitler. That far. Trotsky had similar links, without doubt. Hitler was an adventurist, as was Trotsky, they had traits in common. And the rightists, Bukharin and Rykov, had links with them. And, of course, many of the military leaders."

Go to my article "New Light on Old Stories About Marshal Tukhachevskii". Also, see the materials cited above.