Nikolai Bukharin - Execution

Execution

Among other intercessors, the French author and Nobel laureate Romain Rolland wrote to Stalin seeking clemency, arguing that "an intellect like that of Bukharin is a treasure for his country." He compared Bukharin's situation to that of the great chemist Antoine Lavoisier who was guillotined during the French Revolution: "We in France, the most ardent revolutionaries... still profoundly grieve and regret what we did.... I beg you to show clemency." He had earlier written to Stalin in 1937, "For the sake of Gorky I am asking you for mercy, even if he may be guilty of something," to which Stalin noted: "We must not respond." Bukharin was executed on 15 March 1938, but the announcement of his death was overshadowed by the Nazi Anschluss of Austria.

'Koba, why do you need me to die?' (Russian: Коба, зачем тебе нужна моя смерть?) Bukharin wrote in a note to Stalin just before his execution. ("Koba" was Stalin's revolutionary pseudonym, and Bukharin's use of it was a sign of how close the two had once been. The note was found still in Stalin's desk after his death in 1953.)

Despite the promise to spare his family, Bukharin's wife, Anna Larina, was sent to a labor camp, but she survived to see her husband officially rehabilitated by the Soviet state under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988.