Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

At first Gottwald was reluctant to have Slánský arrested—the two of them had worked closely together in purging their colleagues over the past three years and if the General Secretary was implicated, Gottwald himself might be next. But the Soviets insisted, presenting forged evidence linking Slánský to the CIA, and Gottwald gave way. On November 23rd 1951 Slánský was arrested; in the days that followed prominent Jewish Communists still at liberty followed him into prison. The security services now set themselves the task of extracting confessions and ‘evidence’ from their many prisoners in order to construct a major case against Slánský and his collaborators. Thanks to a certain amount of resistance by their victims (notably the former General Secretary himself) even in the face of barbaric torture, this task took them the best part of a year. Finally, by September 1952, the indictment was completed. The text of the confessions, the indictment, the predetermined sentences and the script of the trial were then sent to Moscow for Stalin’s personal approval. Back in Prague a ‘dress rehearsal’ of the full trial was conducted—and tape-recorded. This was to provide an alternative text for ‘live transmission’ in the unlikely event that one of the defendants retracted his confession in open court, like Kostov. It was not needed. The trial lasted from November 20th to November 27th 1952. It followed well-established