My participation in the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s.

This post is about my participation in one of the Moscow Show Trial in 1931. It was the Show Trial of fictional political party of Menshevik's.



The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of defendants. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice and also conducted for propaganda purposes. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.
Moscow Show Trials were a significant part of Joseph Stalin's political regime.

The authorities staged the actual trials meticulously. If defendants refused to "cooperate", i.e., to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimes, they did not go on public trial, but suffered execution nonetheless.
I showed an example of such behavior and I have not participated in this Show Trial in the Hall of Columns in Moscow in March 1931.



General view of the main building of Hall of Columns in downtown of Moscow in October 2013.
My conviction was overturned on 07 april 1936. This decision was made by

The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union. The Central Executive Committee was the highest governing body in the Soviet Union in the interim of the sessions of the Congress of Soviets, existed from 1922 until 1938,



I spent four years in terrible Verhneuralsky political prison of OGPU (KGB).
I had been discharged from the prison in 1934.
OGPU made ​​attempts to put me in jail again in 1937.
I was very afraid of going to jail again and I asked my friends to write letters on my behalf.

This is the letter which was written in 1937 in my defense by old revolutionary Mr. Konstantine Mironovich Tereshkovich is at the bottom.

I hereby certify that Mr. Adrian F. Timofeev has been an active worker of the revolution of 1905. I was in Lukyanovskaya prison in Kiev together with Mr. Adrian F. Timofeev in 1906-1907. He was elected as an elder of our prison. Mr. Adrian F. Timofeev was elected by the political prisoners for defending there rights and needs. Mr. Adrian F. Timofeev much help to us all, prisoners and political prisoners held in prison, before our sending to Siberia for hard labor and exile. Mr. Adrian F. Timofeev took part in the building of tunnel, which is dug for the escapes from prison.


I confirm that Mr. Timofeev was a dedicated fighter for the revolution and the interests of the working-class companion.
Konstantine Mironovich Tereshkovich ( November 24, 1937)
Street Address: Moscow, Russia, 16, 1st Neopalimovskiy lane.
Phone number: G-1-37-36