The Third Show Trial 1938• The Trial of the 21

• Principal defendants Bukharin, Rykov and Kretinsky.

• Yagoda, who organised the earlier show trials was also accused.

• Charged with spying and sabotage and attempting to murder Stalin.

• All crimes were committed on the ‘instructions’ of Trotsky.

• As with the other trials – the defendants were tortured and forced to make ‘prepared’ confessions.

• Bukharin initially pleaded innocence and then guilty to no particular charge. He was repeatedly tortured and eventually caved in when the lives of his wife and infant son were threatened.

• All the accused were executed immediately.

• Bukharin’s wife spent 20 years in a Gulag.

• She wrote a powerful and moving account of the Show Trials that was published in 1988.

• His son grew up in orphanages. Yuri Larin only found out who his father was in 1956.

The Third Show Trial 1938