Yevgenia Ginzburg - Persecution

Persecution

Following the assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov on December 1, 1934, Ginzburg, like many communists (see the Great Purge), was accused of participating in a "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist group," this one led by Professor N. N. El'vov and concentrated in the editorial board of the newspaper Krasnaya Tatariia (Red Tataria) where she was employed. After a long fight to keep her party card, she was expelled from the party, officially excluded on February 8, 1937. Then, on February 15, 1937, she was arrested, accused of engaging in counter-revolutionary activity in El'vov's group and concealing this activity. Because she was a party member throughout this alleged activity, she was also accused of "playing a double game.". From the day of her arrest, and unlike most of those around her, she forcefully denied the NKVD's accusations and never accepted any role in the supposed "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization."As recorded in her initial interrogation, when asked whether she recognized her guilt, she responded "I do not acknowledge it. I have not engaged in any Trotskyist struggle with the party. I have not been a member of a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization." '

Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July, sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor," and his property confiscated under Articles 58-7 and 11 of the RSFSR Penal Code.