"An atmosphere of extreme tension reigned during this period; it was necessary to act without mercy. I think that it was justified. If Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Rykov and Zinoviev had started up their opposition in wartime, there would have been an extremely difficult struggle; the number of victims would have been colossal. Colossal. The two sides would have been condemned to disaster. They had links that went right up to Hitler. That far. Trotsky had similar links, without doubt. Hitler was an adventurist, as was Trotsky, they had traits in common. And the rightists, Bukharin and Rykov, had links with them. And, of course, many of the military leaders."
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RevolutionariesPoliticians from the Soviet UnionMarxistsCommunist Party of the Soviet Union membersMinisters of Russia and the Soviet Union
Original Language: English
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Sources
Interview with Vyacheslav Molotov. Quote from Ludo Martens's Another view of Stalin, pp. 177. Original quote from the Russian version of F. Chueva Sto sorok besed s MOLOTOVYM (Moscow: Terra, 1991), p. 413 (The quote does not appear in the French translation: FĂ©lix Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995).) The quote can also be found here
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grigory_Zinoviev
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Grigory Zinoviev
1917 – 1926
Grigory Zinoviev (23 September 1883 {11 September O.S.} – 25 August 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, chair of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (1917-1926), and chair of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (1919-1926). Born in 1883 in Elisavetgrad (today known as Kropyvnytskyi in Ukraine) in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire, Zinoviev lacked formal education but began working as a teacher at 15. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Lab
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