The Industrial Party Trial (November 25 – December 7, 1930) (Russian: Процесс Промпартии, Trial of the Prompartiya) was a show trial in which several Soviet scientists and economists were accused and convicted of plotting a coup against the government of the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Krylenko, deputy People's Commissar (minister) of Justice, assistant Prosecutor General of the RSFSR and a prominent Bolshevik, prosecuted the case. The presiding judge was Andrey Vyshinsky, later Krylenko's opponent who became famous as the prosecutor at the Moscow Trials in 1936-1938.
The defendants were a group of notable Soviet economists and engineers, including Leonid Ramzin, Osadchy (Осадчий), Charnovsky (Чарновский), Fedotov (Федотов), Larichev (Ларичев), Ochkin (Очкин), Sitnin, Kalinnikov, and Kupryanov. They stood accused of having formed an anti-Soviet "Union of Engineers’ Organisations" or Prompartiya ("Industrial Party") and of having tried to wreck the Soviet industry and transport in 1926-1930.
In a related development, a number of prominent members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Yevgeny Tarle, Sergei Platonov, Nikolay Likhachov, Sergei Bakhrushin, etc.) were arrested in 1930. They were mentioned during the "Industrial Party" trial as co-conspirators. However, no subsequent trial took place and they were quietly exiled to remote areas of the country for a few years.
Read more about Industrial Party Trial: Accusations Against The "wreckers", Verdict and Follow-up
Famous quotes containing the words industrial, party and/or trial:
“... men and women are not yet free.... The slavery of greed endures. Little child workers, the hope of the future, are sacrificed to industry. Young men are sent out by the billion to die for profits.... We must destroy industrial slavery and build industrial democracy.... The people everywhere must come into possession of the earth [second, third, and fourth ellipses in source].”
—Sara Bard Field (1882–1974)
“The party of God and the party of Literature have more in common than either will admit; their texts may conflict, but their bigotries coincide. Both insist on being the sole custodians of the true word and its only interpreters.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)
“Looks like we got a trial ahead of us. But it’s not the first time. We’ve had to go it alone before, and we’ll have to go it alone again. We’re tough. We’ve had to be tough ever since Brother Brigham led our people across the plain. Well, they survived and I dang it, we’ll, well, we’ll survive too. Now put out your fires and get to your wagons.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)