Trial and Death
In 1937 the NKVD accused Yakir for participating in the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization and being a Nazi agent. Yakir maintained his innocence, both in correspondence to Joseph Stalin and at his trial, but Stalin wrote on his letter: "Rascal and prostitute". Kliment Voroshilov and Vyacheslav Molotov added: "A perfectly accurate definition". Lazar Kaganovich wrote: "The only punishment for the scoundrel, riffraff and whore is death penalty". Yakir was executed together with Tukhachevsky, and several other Soviet officers, immediately after the trial on June 11, 1937. His wife was subsequently arrested and executed, as were several of his relatives. His son, then fourteen years old, was arrested shortly after his father's execution and spent a number of years in prison camps. Yakir's military writings were banned.
Read more about this topic: Iona Yakir
Famous quotes containing the words trial and, trial and/or death:
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
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“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
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“Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
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