BulgákovMaster and Margarita; Capítulo 13 Yagoda had been removed as head of the NKVD in 1936 and - supposedly fearing implication in the murder of Kirov (in 1934) - he had ordered his secretary Pavel Petrovich Bulanov (1936-1938) to spray the walls of the office of his successor Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (1895-1940) with poison. Yagoda and Bulanov were sentenced to be shot. Bulgakov understood all the farce of the fabricated charges, and Yagoda and Bulanov join the ranks of the imaginary poisoners at the ball. Of course Yagoda's name could not be mentioned in print after his removal.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/king-commissar.htmlThe state prosecutor of the time was the universally loathed and feared Andrei Yanuarievich Vyshinsky. Vyshinsky plumbed new depths of cruelty in the late 1930s, when he willingly acted as Stalin's mouthpiece in the three notorious Moscow show trials. At these trials he had many of the "Old Bolsheviks"--those who had created the Revolution that he never took part in--put to death. False confessions to ridiculous charges were extracted from the defendants by sadistic interrogators. Independent defense counsel was unheard of. Confession was sufficient to convict.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050524205653/http://harikumar.brinkster.net/MLRB/MLRB13-KIROV.HTM
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However, as the defendant Pavel BULANOV* testified at the 1938 treason trial, Zaporozhets had ordered him to be released:
"I recall that . . . several days before the assassination of Kirov, the guard detained Nicolayev . . . and a notebook and revolver were found in his portfolio, but that Zaporozhets released him in time."
(Pavel Bulanov: Testimony at 1938 Treason Trial (March 1938), in: Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites' (hereafter listed as 'Trial' (1938)); Moscow; 1938; p. 558).
https://web.archive.org/web/20050524205653/http://harikumar.brinkster.net/MLRB/MLRB13-KIROV.HTM The Murder of Borisov (1934)
A vital witness in the case was clearly the head of Kirov's personal bodyguard, a man named BORISOV:
"Accounts are agreed that Borisov was devoted to Kirov".
(Robert Conquest (1989): op. cit.; p. 42).
Late in the morning of 2 December, in response to a request from Leningrad NKVD headquarters, Borisov was driven to the Smolny:
"Zaporozhets, being alarmed by this and fearing that Borisov would betray those who stood behind Nikolayev, decided to kill Borisov. Zaporozhetz so arranged it that an accident occurred to the automobile which took Borisov to the Smolny, Borisov was killed in the accident, and in this way they got rid of a dangerous witness."
(Pavel Bulanov: Testimony at 1938 Treason Trial, in: 'Trial' (1938); op. cit.; p. 558-59).
https://web.archive.org/web/20050524205653/http://harikumar.brinkster.net/MLRB/MLRB13-KIROV.HTM It was now revealed that Cenrikh Yagoda, who had held the post of People's Commissar for Internal Affairs (in charge of the NKVD) from July 1934 to September 1936, had been a leading member of the conspiracy. Yagoda's secretary, Pavel Bulanov, testified that:
"In the early part of 1936 . . . Yagoda . . . said that he had known that an attempt on S. M. Kirov was being prepared, that he had a reliable man in Leningrad who was inititiated into everything, Zaporozhets, Assistant Chief of the Leningrad Regional Administration of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and that he had so arranged matters as to facilitate the assassination of Kirov by Nikolayev. . . . The whole affair was nearly exposed when, several days before the assassination of Kiroy, the guard detained Nikolayev by mistake, and a notebook and revolver were found in his portfilio, but . . . Zaporozhets released him in time".
('Report' (1938): op. cit.; p. 558).
https://web.archive.org/web/20050524205653/http://harikumar.brinkster.net/MLRB/MLRB13-KIROV.HTM
Bulanov also testified that Yagoda and Zaporozhets had arranged the murder of Kirov's bodyguard, Borisov:
"Yagoda further told me that . . . when members of the government came to Leningrad and summoned this Borisov to the Smolny to interrogate him as a witness in connection with the assassination of Kirov, Zaporozhets, being alarmed by this and fearing that Borisov would betray those who stood behind Nikolayev, decided to kill Borisoy. On Yagoda's instructions, Zaporozhets arranged it that an accident occurred to the automobile which took Borisov to the Smolny. Borisov was killed in the accident, and in this way they got rid of a dangerous witness".
('Report' (1938): ibid.; p. 558-59).
