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One by one each of the 16 popped up in the box and cried: "I admit the charge against myself." Asked Prosecutor Vishinsky: "Did you, Zinoviev, organize the Terrorists?" "Yes." "Did you plot the death of Kirov?"— "Yes." "Did you organize the plan to kill Stalin?" "Yes. I am guilty of every charge in the indictment." A few minutes later two other prisoners became tangled in argument with each other as both were rapidly confessing. A third prisoner named Bakayev, a bearded figure in a khaki blouse, arose and loudly interrupted, "I know that Zinoviev ordered his own secretary to kill Stalin!" Said Zinoviev: "I acknowledge that." "The secretary," breathlessly continued Bakayev, "instead of killing Stalin killed himself!" Lecture by Kamenev, With the air of a professor addressing pupils of none too great intelligence and striving to make everything crystal clear, Prisoner Kamenev made his confession at such length that his lecture was interrupted four times by the changing of the soldiers guarding the prisoners' box. Gist of Kam-enev's confession was that Stalin's old enemy Leon Trotsky (ne Bronstein), who now lives exiled in Norway, had provided the brains, Kamenev and Zinoviev had supplied the intrigue in Communist Party circles inside Russia, and most of the other prisoners had handled the money, forged papers and weapons which at every attempt had failed to slay Dictator Stalin. In case this academic presentation in a two-hour address should go over the heads of millions of Russians striving to comprehend in their cities, towns and villages, Prosecutor Vishinsky, showing marked deference to a once great Party figure who was Lenin's friend and is Trotsky's brother-in-law, interrupted Prisoner Kamenev with the simple question: "Were you a bloodthirsty enemy of the Government?" Replied Kamenev readily: "Yes, I was." Kamenev and Zinoviev, although confessing by the yard to the greatest crimes possible in Russia, split hairs and quarreled violently before the Court over such fine points as whether Kamenev had "meant" to write an article such as Zinoviev actually wrote for Soviet newsorgans excoriating the assassins of Kirov.
"You did mean to write it!" cried Zinoviev.
Snorted Kamenev: "I did not! I had no intention of writing an article." "I admit that I was the one with the greatest guilt in Kirov's death," went on Zinoviev, gradually getting into better & better voice until at last he thrust the microphone impulsively away from him and burst into the full-throated oratory of his younger days as Bomb Boy. The basso-profundo keynote of Zinoviev's confession came as he boomed: "I went all the way from party power to counterrevolution and terrorism and actually to Fascism! For Trotskyism plus terrorism is Fascism! I abandoned Karl Marx." Arabian Nights. In his dispatch the next afternoon United Press Correspondent Norman Deuel cabled a broad, revealing hint as to the nature of the trial which he managed to get past Soviet censors: "Unexpected histrionic ability by minor members of the cast robbed the stars of their spotlight today."