I gave my guests a stern ticking-off. I told them that over the last three or four months the Soviet authorities had established the existence of a large terrorist conspiracy against our Party leaders, beginning with Comrade Stalin. It is being organized and financed by the German ‘Nazis’. Its agents are Russian White Guards and all those dissatisfied little groups which exist inside the USSR. The White Guards secretly cross the border in Poland, Latvia and Finland with the assistance of the authorities of the listed countries and, once in the USSR, enter into contact with conspirators of Soviet citizenship. Recent months have seen a series of attempts on the lives of Comrades Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Postyshev,

Pavel Petrovich Postyshev, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, 1925–37.

Balitsky,

Vsevolod Apollonovich Balitsky, people’s commissar for home affairs in Ukraine, 1924–30 and 1934–37.

and others. Fortunately, such attempts have as yet proved unsuccessful, thanks to the vigilance of the NKVD. The plotters got lucky with Kirov. The death of Kirov was striking proof of the gravity of the terrorist threat. In such a situation, the Soviet government had no choice but to take tough measures against the plotters – not only those who were guilty of Kirov’s death, but all those arrested at various times and in various places in recent months in connection with terrorism. We couldn’t try the terrorists publicly without risking serious complications with Germany and other states, who would undoubtedly have been implicated in this case. We haven’t forgotten the Metro-Vickers affair. We have only just witnessed a conflict between Hungary and Yugoslavia as a result of the protection extended by the Hungarian government to the terrorists who assassinated King Alexander and Barthou. Our policy is a policy of peace. We do not want to jeopardize peace on account of the machinations of terrorists who are in the pocket of the Nazis. Hence the necessity and legitimacy of the ‘secret trials’. By killing our leaders and creating the impression that the Soviet regime is weak and barely able to contain the indignation of the masses, the Nazis aim to prevent, or at least to hamper, the rapid normalization of relations between the USSR and Western states, and in particular the process of rapprochement between the USSR and France. It is, of course, a desperate resort, but the situation of the German Nazis is indeed desperate. They are attempting, in other words, to obstruct the consolidation of peace and to assist the unleashing of war. The Soviet government would have failed in its duties before the peoples of the USSR and before the workers of the world had it not taken severe measures against the warmongers. It is a hard and unpleasant thing to shoot 80–100 people, but it is still better than to risk the lives of millions of workers and peasants on the battlefield. Moreover, one should never forget the words of Mirabeau,

Comte de Mirabeau, prominent figure in the period of the French Revolution, favouring a constitutional monarchy.

who said, some 140 years ago, that revolution cannot be made with lavender oil.

The Coles did not object. To put it bluntly, they had no case to argue. They just asked me questions and confided their doubts and bewilderment. They were particularly troubled by the question: what were these executions? A return to the ‘red terror’ of the past or an isolated exceptional act of passing significance? I reassured them, saying that the ‘new course’ launched this spring is not being revised. The ‘new course’ continues. The measures taken against the terrorists represented an exceptional event brought about by exceptional circumstances. With the passing of these circumstances, the measures which they had begotten would also fall into disuse.

By the end of our conversation the Coles had cheered up. They promised to inform all the signatories of the Declaration of the 43 about the content of our talk.