The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Kaganovich and Molotov (impudent fellows they were, indeed!—paid no attention to Stalin’s opinion!)37 both called Bukharin a Fascist hireling and demanded that he be shot. And once again Bukharin’s spirits fell, and in his last days he began to compose his “Letter to the Future Central Committee.” Committed to memory and thereby preserved, it recently became known to the whole world. However, it did not shake the world to its foundations.38 For what were the last words this brilliant theoretician decided to hand down to future generations? Just one more cry of anguish and a plea to be restored to the Party.