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

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Is it not clear that he had grown used to his ordained role? And one more public trial took place. And they shot one more batch of defendants. And yet they continued to be merciful to Bukharin. They had not taken Bukharin. At the beginning of February, 1937, he decided to go on a hunger strike at home, in order to force the Central Committee to hold a hearing and clear him of the charges against him. He announced it in a letter to “Dear Koba,” and he honestly went through with it too. Then a Plenum of the Central Committee was convened with the following agenda: (1) the crimes of the Rightist Center; (2) the anti-Party conduct of Comrade Bukharin, as evidenced by his hunger strike.