The article examines the role of lawyers during the first high-profile trial of the Ukrainian intellectual elite of the 1920s—the trial of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.” It analyzes the legislative changes that led to the dependence of defense attorneys on Party and state leadership. It demonstrates how lawyers became an integral part of the Soviet law enforcement and punitive-repressive system.
The source base for this study consists of materials from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, specifically, the transcripts of the “SVU” trial (volumes 174, 175, 176, 177, 179). A number of documents were published in the scholarly documentary edition “The Case of the ‘Union for the Liberation of Ukraine’: Unknown Documents and Facts” [1]. Personal impressions are contained in the memoirs of a witness to this trial, the Ukrainian writer Borys Antonenko-Davydovych [2].
The formation of the Soviet legal system in Ukraine in the 1920s–1930s is covered by legal historian Ihor Usenko [3]. The SVU trial has been the subject of several works by Ukrainian historian Yuriy Shapoval, based on a wide array of sources [4]. The situation of lawyers in the 1920s–1930s has been analyzed in publications by researcher Valeriia Husieva [5]. The role of lawyers in the trial of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” has not been studied in detail.
The origins of many modern problems are linked to the Soviet law enforcement and punitive-repressive system, whose victims numbered in the millions. During the period in question, on the one hand, so-called “class enemies” were methodically discredited and destroyed, and on the other, the moral laws on which the very idea of justice is based were nullified. In particular, these trends were quite clearly evident during the fabricated show trials of the 1920s–1930s, in which every participant became an actor in a horrifying performance that broke human lives. In this context, the role of lawyers—individuals who should have defended the accused in accordance with their ethical and professional duties—is interesting. However, the participants in these trials—both the defendants and the lawyers, who were predominantly intelligent, educated people—were driven into conditions where they were forced to be guided not by professional and ethical duties, but by coerced conformism.
The first among a series of other notorious show trials that set in motion the terrifying flywheel of Bolshevik repression was the trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (hereinafter—SVU). From March 9 to April 19, 1930, over a period of 42 days in Kharkiv, 45 prominent figures were tried, many of them participants in the Ukrainian national liberation movement. According to the indictment, which was read over three court sessions, the SVU existed in Ukraine from June 1926 to July 1929 and aimed to overthrow Soviet power in Ukraine by armed force with the support of foreign states and restore a capitalist order in the form of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. The SVU allegedly collaborated with the foreign Petliurist center, the government of the UPR, and its centers were declared to be the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (hereinafter—VUAN) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (hereinafter—UAPC). A component of the SVU was declared to be the Union of Ukrainian Youth (hereinafter—SUM), which was supposed to organize terror against all-Union and Ukrainian Party-Soviet leaders, although it consisted of only two people—students Mykola Pavlushkov and Borys Matushevsky. The SVU was called the successor to the counter-revolutionary center, the Brotherhood for Ukrainian Statehood (hereinafter—BUD), led by academician S. Yefremov, which in 1921–1922 supposedly carried out a nationwide uprising against Soviet power.
According to an additional investigation in 1989 and a study of the 240-volume criminal case file, there was no corpus delicti in the actions of all 45 trial participants, and such an organization never existed. On August 11, 1989, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR annulled the court decision in this case, closed it, and posthumously rehabilitated all members of the so-called SVU.
However, in 1937–1938, by the decision of extrajudicial bodies, 12 of the 45 convicts in the SVU case were shot, and 5 convicts, including S. Yefremov, died in places of detention. Academician S. Yefremov was initially sentenced to be shot, which was later commuted to 10 years of imprisonment [6]. After the trial, about 400 more participants of the “Yefremov underground” were arrested; their trials were closed, and in total, almost 30,000 people were processed in the “SVU” case [7]. Branches of this organization, besides Kyiv and Kharkiv, were “discovered” in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Chernihiv, Vinnytsia, and Mykolaiv.
The source base for this study consists of materials from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, specifically, the transcripts of the “SVU” trial (volumes 174, 175, 176, 177, 179). Published sources used include the memoirs of a witness to this trial, Ukrainian writer Borys Antonenko-Davydovych [8], and materials published in the scholarly documentary edition “The Case of the ‘Union for the Liberation of Ukraine’: Unknown Documents and Facts” [9]. Ukrainian historian Yuriy Shapoval has dedicated a number of publications to the study of the SVU trial [10]. The situation of lawyers in the 1920s–1930s is the subject of publications by researcher Valeriia Husieva [11]. The formation of the Soviet legal system and its ideological foundations have been studied, in particular, in the works of legal historian Ihor Usenko [12]. However, a detailed study dedicated to the role of lawyers in the SVU trial has not been realized.
The trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine was an attempt to give the massacre of the Ukrainian intelligentsia the appearance of “legality.” This operated within a legal field where the bodies of the court, the prosecutor’s office, state security, internal affairs, and correctional-labor institutions were turned into obedient instruments in the hands of the party-state elite. Notably, from 1925, the entire investigative apparatus was subordinate to the prosecutor’s office. According to the “Regulations on Prosecutorial Supervision,” the prosecutor’s office of the UkrSSR was headed by the People’s Commissar of Justice of the UkrSSR as the republic’s prosecutor. (…) Through party channels, all candidacies for prosecutorial positions were preliminarily reviewed by the Politburo, Orgburo, and Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U [13]. Therefore, “a debased, helpless court degenerated into a loyalist, cannibalistic instrument of party power” [14].
During the SVU trial, the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) was declared its core, which as a result underwent a total purge, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAPC) also came under attack. Consequently, on January 28–29, 1930, an Extraordinary Orthodox Council was convened in Kyiv at which the UAPC ceased to exist as a counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet organization. In February 1930, the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council (VPTsR) announced its dissolution. Priests and faithful of the UAPC were arrested, exiled, and shot in the 1930s. These are just some of the consequences of the SVU trial.
The central figure of the trial was made to be Academician Serhiy Yefremov, who, as was constantly emphasized in court, came from the clergy. He first received a theological education and then graduated from the law faculty of Kyiv University, but devoted himself to the field of literature. He was an academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (from 1919), vice-president of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1923–1928), and the author of a significant body of scholarly work in both literary criticism and publicism. In the Central Rada, he headed the Secretariat for National Affairs. After the establishment of Soviet power, S. Yefremov did not emigrate, although he understood that he was taking a great risk.
In 1923–1924, in the fabricated case of the “Center of Action,” Serhiy Yefremov supported the accused, especially the president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, M. Vasylenko. His integrity, rather critical attitude towards the communists, and considerable authority led to persecution, organized by party bodies together with the GPU, the culmination of which was the trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.
Serhiy Yefremov’s arrest took place on July 21, 1929. At first, he categorically denied the charges against him, but on September 10, he wrote a confession that in 1926 he founded the counter-revolutionary organization SVU and until 1929 directed its activities. “This was a huge victory for Solomon Solomonovich Bruk,” writes historian Yu. Shapoval, “the ‘senior authorized representative for Ukrainian counter-revolution.’ Bruk masterfully worked on the academician, convincing him to take on non-existent sins in order to protect new generations of Ukrainians, primarily scientists and writers, from repression” [15]. Investigator Solomon Bruk, as another SVU participant Borys Matushevsky recalls, repeated during interrogations: “We need to bring the Ukrainian intelligentsia to its knees, that is our task—and it will be fulfilled; those we cannot bring to their knees—we will shoot!” [16]. However, soon, in 1938, investigator Solomon Bruk, accused of counter-revolutionary activity, would take his own life.
Together with Serhiy Yefremov, his own brother Petro, who worked as a professor at the Dnipropetrovsk Institute of Public Education, and his nephew, student Mykola Pavlushkov, were convicted. Serhiy Yefremov and Mykola Pavlushkov became key figures in this process, as the indictment was based on their testimony. The latter revealed the hiding place where Academician Yefremov kept his diary, the contents of which became the only evidence of his critical attitude toward Soviet power and everything that was happening in society. S. Yefremov’s nephew also revealed his “Achilles’ heel”—his love for Onysia Durdukivska, who was the sister of his friend and a close relative, and the academician signed the confession.
As one of the leaders of the “counter-revolution,” Andriy Nikovsky—a linguist and literary critic, one of the authors of the dictionary of the living Ukrainian language, deputy chairman of the Central Rada, and also minister of foreign affairs of the UPR émigré government in Poland—was considered in the SVU trial. He was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment.
In addition, a so-called “medical section” of the SVU was fabricated. On January 2, 1930, a Stalinist coded telegram arrived, which gave clear instructions on this matter: “We think here that the trial should expose not only the insurrectionary and terrorist activities of the accused, but also the medical tricks aimed at murdering responsible workers. (…) Our request is to coordinate the plan for conducting the case in court with Moscow” [17].
The famous physician Arkadiy Barbara, an assistant to the renowned scientist-therapist M. Strazhesko, was made the head of the “medical section.” During the liberation struggle, A. Barbara was the Minister of Health in the government of Hetman P. Skoropadsky; during the Denikin occupation, he headed the Red Cross. A. Barbara’s patients included high-ranking Soviet officials, among them the secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, P. Liubchenko, who acted as a public prosecutor in the SVU trial. The doctor signed a confession because investigator S. Bruk and the aforementioned P. Liubchenko assured him that this was the only way to receive a “light” punishment. In one of the reports on A. O. Barbara, we read: “Barbara, together with Udovenko, Pidhaietsky, and others, is an active member of the SVU. Having seized control of the Presidium of the VUAN, he turned it into a center for the SVU. He carried out counter-revolutionary activities under the directives of the SVU… He selected and trained young cadres of doctors for the countryside for counter-revolutionary propaganda and preparation for an armed uprising against Soviet power… Having developed a plan for his counter-revolutionary activities, he gave instructions to doctors during the treatment of sick communists not to provide them with assistance, as a method of medical terror” [18].
A few years later, Panas Liubchenko himself would become a victim of the Bolshevik regime, but he also played a fatal role in the fate of S. Yefremov. The academician recalled a conversation between them in his diary, which took place on September 30, 1926, in the foyer of the Ivan Franko Theater in Kyiv. The academician reacted sharply to P. Liubchenko’s remark that he “was not working” in the press, noting: “I am a man of old views, with old prejudices. Thus, I think that no… work is possible without freedom of speech. Neither state, nor political, nor cultural. And as long as you stand on your position—of not letting those who think differently speak—I will not appear in the press, because I believe there is no press, only official publications” [19]. These words did not escape P. Liubchenko’s attention. However, a few years later, at the August plenum of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U in 1937, P. Liubchenko would be accused of leading a counter-revolutionary nationalist organization in Ukraine. Under the influence of this, during a break in the plenum, he went home, shot his wife, and committed suicide. In 1965, P. Liubchenko was posthumously rehabilitated.
According to contemporaries, the trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine itself resembled a spectacle and took place in the Kharkiv Opera (it was popularly called: “the SVU opera—music by the GPU”). It was tried by a specially appointed panel of the Criminal Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR, with Antin Prykhodko as chairman, and Ivan Sokoliansky and Hryhoriy Volkov as members. There was also a substitute member of the Collegium. Antin Prykhodko and Ivan Sokoliansky had never been judges [20]. Those who wished could come and watch the public execution of authoritative, intelligent, nationally conscious individuals who had been broken and who, under psychological pressure, blackmail, and fear, confessed their guilt and accused others. This terrifying, demoralizing performance had its directors, actors, and audience. The arrested at that time were not yet subjected to torture, but as the case materials show, they were exhausted by interrogations, including night ones, for several shifts in a row. Testimonies of an informant who was planted in the cell where academician S. Yefremov was held have been preserved. “The latter returned from interrogations confused and crushed. This was a different Yefremov. He explained that new confessions were being demanded of him, and most importantly—details. ‘Then don’t write!’ his cellmate sympathized. ‘How can I not write,’ replied Yefremov, ‘I gave my word’” [21].
Reports on the court proceedings were published daily in the newspapers. Thus the press became an obedient tool of the Bolshevik system, an effective way to shape public opinion and manipulate the consciousness of society. Show discussions of the trial were held in labor collectives, and every day phonograms came from Moscow—giving instructions on how to manage the court process.
The trial finally “broke” and demoralized many of the defendants. According to the memoirs of the writer and translator B. Antonenko-Davydovych, the director of an exemplary Ukrainian labor school and a friend of S. Yefremov, V. Durdukivsky, held up very poorly during the court sessions: “Volodymyr Durdukivsky hastily, almost at a run, approached the lectern from which all the defendants answered. It was impossible to recognize in this physically unstrung and spiritually crushed pathetic figure the former triumphant at the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Ukrainian school! His legs were buckling, his hands were trembling, his head was shaking, and his lips were babbling some nonsensical repentance, while his eyes constantly looked at one point. As it later turned out, Durdukivsky, as if hypnotized, was looking at his investigator Bruk, who was sitting nearby and did not take his eyes off him, ensuring that his bald pupil repeated word for word in court what Bruk had rehearsed with him many times in the last days of the investigation, when the skilled and strict investigator managed to turn a man into some kind of humanoid protoplasm.
“It was disgusting to watch and listen to Durdukivsky’s tearful answers to the questions of the prosecutors and the presiding judge, but at the same time it was wild to hear Yefremov’s short answers during the intervals of Durdukivsky’s interrogation, when Yefremov confirmed the interrogatee’s admission of belonging to the SVU and participating in its counter-revolutionary preparations for an uprising, terror, and other phantasmagorias, which Durdukivsky repeated like a parrot, with memorized phrases” [22].
Lawyers participated in the trial, in accordance with procedure. According to their professional and ethical duties, these individuals were supposed to ensure the defense of the accused, uphold their interests, and be an equal party to the prosecution in the trial process. However, in their activities, the lawyers were limited by the resolution of the People’s Commissariat of Justice (NKYu) of the UkrSSR “On the Reorganization of the Bar Associations” of September 12, 1928, according to which, for optimal control over lawyers, a compulsory transition was made only to the collective organization of labor in legal consultation offices, which were managed by the NKYu. The work of private law offices was eliminated. Thus, lawyers became dependent on the authorities and the political climate. In such a context, the defense attorneys had no opportunity to fully influence the course of the trial. They only managed to question some aspects of their clients’ guilt and, on the whole, supported the prosecution.
In addition, the late 1920s saw mass purges among the representatives of the bar in the UkrSSR. Well-educated, intelligent lawyers who had received their education and formed in the pre-revolutionary period were being pushed out by representatives of a new generation, raised as zealous supporters of Bolshevism. According to statistics cited by researcher V. Husieva, in 1921–1922, out of 168 legal representatives whose records were received by the People’s Commissariat of Justice, only one was a farmer (0.1%), two worked in the trade and industrial sector, 38 were employees (more than 1/5), and 106 belonged to the liberal professions. Notably, out of 168 people, only 3 were communists, which is only 1.8% of their total number [23].
Purges of lawyers began in late 1923 and early 1924, but it was not possible to launch them immediately as planned. Only in October 1928 did the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the UkrSSR begin a purge on a republic-wide scale. According to instruction No. 133 of September 29, 1928, it was to be carried out by involving representatives of the courts, prosecutor’s office, and public organizations. Out of 3,197 lawyers, 442 people (13.84%) did not pass the purge. Notably, 407 of them were employees, 31 were peasants, and 4 were workers [24]. The People’s Commissariat of Justice of the UkrSSR called this check the first step toward improving the bar associations, which must be continued, as it was necessary to identify and remove those individuals who did not meet the criteria set for a Soviet lawyer.
It is noteworthy that one of the defendants in the SVU trial was a former sworn attorney, a member of the Central Rada and the bar association, Zinoviy Morhulis. It is known that he was born in 1880 in the village of Pohreby, Tetiiv district, Kyiv province, belonged to the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, and from 1917 was a member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Federalists. From 1917 to 1918, he was a deputy of the Kyiv provincial commissar of the Ukrainian Central Rada, and from 1918 he was a legal counsel for the Kyiv district of waterways, and from 1918 to 1919 he was the Kyiv provincial commissar. Under Soviet rule, he was a research fellow at the VUAN, a legal counsel for “Molocharsoiuz.” On April 19, 1930, he was sentenced in the “SVU” case to 3 years of imprisonment and died in exile [25].
The names of the defense lawyers who participated in the SVU trial are known: Ratner, Vilensky, Pukhtinsky, Grodzinsky, Ryvlin, Obukhovsky, Potapov, Vynohradsky, Volkomyrsky, Voznesenska, Kovalivska, Yurovytsky, and Shats. All of them emphasized that the guilt of their clients was undeniable and that they deserved to be in the dock. The lawyers tried in every way to emphasize their solidarity with the prosecution, stressing that the SVU was a counter-revolutionary organization that was uncovered in time and therefore did not manage to cause serious harm to Soviet power. In addition, all the participants confessed their guilt.
As is known, in totalitarian jurisprudence, a confession of guilt by the defendants was an iron-clad argument. Thanks to the infamous Prosecutor General of the USSR, Andrei Vyshinsky, who would later lead the resonant repressive show trials of the 1930s, this argument would become a classic, actively and hypertrophically exploited by the Soviet repressive machine: “Confession is the queen of evidence.” Therefore, confessions of guilt were “beaten out” both figuratively and literally. A confessed guilt was not questioned, as is the practice today.
There is information on how confessions were “beaten out” in the SVU case in the memoirs of the writer B. Antonenko-Davydovych, who recounts a conversation with a participant in this trial, the linguist and author of the “Moscow-Ukrainian Dictionary” Viktor Dubrovsky. The latter initially categorically denied his involvement in the SVU, but soon he was shown the testimony of S. Yefremov, and then A. Nikovsky, which mentioned his involvement. One of the tea parties at S. Yefremov’s was presented as a founding meeting at which it was decided to create the SVU. Investigator S. Bruk gave an ultimatum: “Do you really consider yourself smarter than Yefremov and Nikovsky? So choose: either you admit that you were at the founding meeting of the SVU and became its member, and then you will go through a trial where they will give you three years at most (there are no special crimes against you), or you will continue to be so stubborn—and then we will pass you through a resolution of the OGPU collegium, where your fate will be incomparably sadder…” After this, Dubrovsky agreed to become a member of the SVU and allowed the investigator to formalize the matter accordingly [26]. As a result, he received “three years of imprisonment in the Yaroslavl political isolator, where all those convicted for the SVU were sent, after which he found himself in exile in Alma-Ata, where he worked in a low position in the local sugar trust” [27]. However, in 1937, during the so-called “Yezhovshchina” (repressions under the leadership of People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs N.I. Yezhov), he was arrested again and his subsequent fate is unknown.
Regarding S. Yefremov’s confession of guilt, not only the investigator S. Bruk, but also his lawyer S. Ratner played a role. This is mentioned in the memoirs of writer B. Antonenko-Davydovych: “Yefremov made a ‘deal’ with the GPU and his own conscience… I cannot claim that this fact was true, but a rumor spread that somewhere in the middle of the trial Yefremov suddenly had an epiphany and declared to his defense attorney Ratner: ‘Right now I will publicly declare that all my testimony during the investigation and in court is false: there was no and is no SVU.’ Defense attorney Ratner rushed with all his strength to persuade and beg Yefremov not to do this, so as not to bring a terrible drama not only upon himself, but also upon many other people. Yefremov submitted and again began to play the role of the commandant of the SVU fortress, which, in Ratner’s figurative expression, had raised the white flag of surrender even before the first salvo of the prosecutor’s batteries” [28]. Incidentally, lawyer S. B. Ratner himself later became a victim of repression. It is known that he was a lawyer in the fabricated case of the Kyiv regional center of action regarding the accusation of the scientific intelligentsia of counter-revolutionary activity. As researcher V. Husieva notes: “According to the indictment in the criminal case, S.B. Ratner was suspected of committing a crime under Art. 54-6 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR, namely espionage for a foreign state. It was allegedly established that S.B. Ratner had close ties with the German consul Stefani, by whom he was recruited, and was an agent of German intelligence since 1925, transmitting espionage information about the mood of the population, the material living conditions of certain social strata of the population, about changes in legislation in the USSR, and other data. He ‘confessed’ his guilt. The case was heard by a special troika of the NKVD in the Kyiv region on 10/24/1938; the lawyer was sentenced to be shot and his property confiscated. The sentence was carried out on 02/04/1938” [29].
During the SVU trial, S. Ratner stated in his lengthy speech that in his 27-year career, including 10 years in a Soviet court and 17 under the tsarist regime, he had never handled such a case: “Everything set forth on these pages of the indictment seemed too staggering to me. And when I began to personally verify all of it, I became convinced that the very voluminous indictment did not even state everything from the vivid and striking material that is present in the investigative proceedings of this case. (…) A characteristic feature of this case is that almost without exception, all the accused wrote their testimony in their own hands” [30].
It was on the voluntary confession of the crime by the accused that all the lawyers placed special emphasis. Lawyer S. Ratner emphasized that the two voluminous volumes of S. Yefremov’s case contained no less voluminous conclusions of “counter-revolutionary activity,” compiled by the defendant on 125 typewritten pages. The lawyer also highlighted the volume of the other defendants’ cases—47 volumes, although each volume consisted of several parts, so altogether there were over 60 volumes. S. Ratner stressed that this was a voluntary confession, laid out by the defendants in detail and at length, and therefore their guilt was not in doubt, as well as the fact that they all consciously chose the path of “counter-revolutionary activity” and therefore quite logically ended up in the dock [31].
However, according to the lawyer, Academician S. Yefremov could not be considered an anti-Semite: “based on all the data we have, it is completely impossible to say that the defendant Yefremov is an anti-Semite” [32]. Emphasis was also placed on the fact that the scholarly level of S. Yefremov should be preserved, since he “can be extremely useful for the same working people against whom he conducted his subversive work. The defendant Yefremov can be used to the maximum extent in his scientific field” [33]. And the most important thing that lawyer S. Ratner emphasized was that Academician S. Yefremov had fully confessed his guilt [34]. In this regard, he recalled examples from other political trials in which he had participated, where the defendants did not confess their guilt, yet Soviet justice showed humanity and treated them leniently.
Regarding S. Yefremov’s diary, which was considered the main argument of the prosecution, the lawyer emphasized that it contained a lot of “philistinism,” but the academician “did not say a single word in the diary about the work of BUD, or the work of SVU, or the counter-revolutionary activities that he, along with others, carried out. (…) So, comrades judges, I believe that this diary is not a reflection of Yefremov’s soul and cannot characterize him in any way” [35].
The lawyer emphasized the psychological state in which Academician S. Yefremov found himself during the trial: “For him, physical death is perhaps more acceptable, perhaps would have been easier than this worldwide shame, than this complete prostration, this full admission of his political bankruptcy” [36].
In the scientist’s defense, the lawyer pointed to the duality of his soul: “it is this duality, these deviations, this split of the soul, that led him astray, and under the influence of these inclinations, he appears as the active and very serious counter-revolutionary figure that we see him as here in the present trial” [37]. As for the terrorist activities of the SVU, lawyer S. Ratner insisted that it “did not occupy such an urgent position” [38]. At the same time, he stressed: “the red thread running through this whole case is their sabotage, but this sabotage could have been dangerous and could have been particularly serious if circumstances had been favorable for them, which, fortunately for the proletariat, did not happen. (…) In the present trial, you are judging and will condemn all of Ukrainian nationalism” [39].
The very fact that the participants of the trial were prominent figures of the Ukrainian national liberation movement, nationally conscious, in the context of the lawyers’ speeches, sounded like a logical reason for the defendants becoming enemies and, consequently, ending up in the dock, and what Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalism” could lead to in general.
Regarding the accusation of nationalism, during the defense, lawyer S. Ratner emphasized that the members of the SVU in their work had become too carried away with the national element, which “soon turned into national chauvinism, soon manifested itself in the form of national romanticism, which Ukrainian national figures became extremely infatuated with, and in the end, this infatuation with national romanticism had to lead them to where it led them” [40]. Lawyer Obukhovsky somewhat expanded the horizons of the consequences of “national romanticism”: “I have already said, and it has been pointed out before me, that a noticeable thread in this process is national romanticism, but this romanticism is also composed of something, something lies at its basis. (…) But the most serious, most important thing that made it possible to rally counter-revolutionary Ukrainian forces around this national romanticism was the question of Ukraine’s colonial development” [41]. The lawyer then cited figures that testified to Ukraine’s prosperity within the USSR in both the economy and cultural development, emphasizing the erroneousness of the defendants’ judgments.
Since the emphasis on being carried away by national romanticism was interpreted by the lawyers as an extenuating circumstance, it drew a sharp barrage of criticism from the prosecutor, and in response, the defenders began to justify themselves to the prosecutor. Lawyer Ryvlin took the floor, and his speech is an eloquent testimony to the role assigned to the defense in the SVU trial: “We could still allow that the prosecution would not share our point of view on the factual circumstances relating to individual defendants and would object to us on them, but we did not expect objections on political topics. And we did not expect them because there are and cannot be any principled political disagreements between the prosecution and the defense in this case, and we stated this in our speeches. But, perhaps, in the heat of polemics, in the heat of the adversarial struggle that is characteristic of an adversarial process, maybe one of the defenders, maybe one of the fellow defenders, let slip such a phrase, that the driving force of the SVU, of all the crimes committed by the accused in the present case, was national romanticism. If this was said, we have the courage to admit that it was a mistake. We all stand here on the principles of class struggle. We understand perfectly well that the present case, the crimes committed by the accused, were caused by class struggle. And we have stood on these class positions from the very beginning, and we will remain on these class positions now.
“I must say, however, that the national romanticism that the comrade prosecutor attacked, sounded in the speeches of some defenders in a somewhat different aspect than it appears to the comrade prosecutor. When some defenders spoke of national romanticism, they were only approaching an explanation of the psychology of many of the accused in the present case; they meant to say that in the minds of the accused, as it seemed to them, the driving force of their actions was national romanticism. But this, of course, does not mean that objectively national romanticism was the driving force of this case and the crimes of the defendants” [42]. In reality, according to the lawyer, the defendants “were fulfilling the social order of the bourgeoisie (…) behind their backs stood the NEPmen and the kulaks, that they were their ideologists, representing their interests” [43].
The following words of lawyer Ryvlin are revealing: “And our considerations about the social danger of this case we received from you, comrade prosecutor, when you declared to us from this rostrum that the power of the Soviet state and the repentance of the accused give the prosecution the opportunity not to insist on the death penalty. (…) the defense thinks least of all of artificially diminishing the social danger of the present case…” [44]. Thus, under such conditions, the role of lawyers took on tragicomic features. Writer B. Antonenko-Davydovych left such an impression: “This is not an ordinary composition of the republic’s Supreme Court, but a specially selected and well-thought-out one, which is meant to prove that the traitors of the Ukrainian people are being judged by the Ukrainian people themselves in the person of representatives of the intelligentsia, peasantry, and workers” [45]. Thus, the lawyers, contrary to their duties, actually supported the prosecution.
Alongside this, the defenders still tried to find arguments that would somewhat mitigate the guilt of the defendants. Thus, for example, lawyer Potapov defended the writer Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska—the daughter of the luminary of Ukrainian literature and theater Mykhailo Starytsky, and niece of the composer Mykola Lysenko. The writer, as well as her husband Oleksandr Cherniakhivsky, was arrested on January 14, 1930. The interrogations were conducted in the prison on Kholodna Hora in Kharkiv. According to the verdict of a special panel of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR of April 19, 1930, L. Starytska-Cherniakhivska was accused of being a member of the SVU center from 1926 to 1929 and of conducting leading organizational activities in accordance with the organization’s program and tasks, as well as maintaining contact between the SVU center and representatives of some capitalist states.
Lawyer Potapov was one of the few defenders who spoke in Ukrainian. He emphasized that there were three “unclear points” in her case: the vagueness of the testimony regarding the motives for her involvement in the SVU center, the discrepancy in testimony regarding the composition of the group she led—the so-called “fiver”—and also “the discrepancy in Durdukivsky’s testimony regarding Starytska-Cherniakhivska’s participation in meetings—compel me to conclude that the fact of the accusation which says that she conducted leading organizational work in the SVU center—is not proven. Nor has the connection with foreign countries been proven in court. Here in court, the confessions of both Yefremov and Nikovsky fully confirm that she was not given such assignments, and besides, in all the case materials we did not find a single hint that she did anything in this direction. Yefremov had close ties with foreign countries even before the founding of the SVU and himself received letters from abroad and sent them there. Why would he then need Starytska-Cherniakhivska’s help? I think that this accusation is also not proven” [46].
However, these arguments were rejected, and according to the court’s decision, the writer L. Starytska-Cherniakhivska was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment with a 3-year restriction of rights. On June 4, 1930, L. Starytska-Cherniakhivska was released from custody, and the sentence was changed to a suspended one; she was exiled to the city of Stalino (now Donetsk). In 1936–1941, she lived in Kyiv. On July 20, 1941, when battles with the Germans were raging at the walls of Kyiv, NKVD officers conducted a search of Liudmyla Mykhailivna’s apartment, confiscated her passport and a folder with correspondence. Together with her sister Oksana Mykhailivna Steshenko, Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska was taken by truck to Kharkiv. Here she was accused of anti-Soviet activity and taken under convoy in a so-called “calf car” to Kazakhstan. However, on the way, the 73-year-old writer died, and the exact date of her death and place of burial are unknown.
Lawyer Ryvlin also tried to mitigate the charges against doctor A. Barbara, emphasizing that his “criminal” intentions were only talk that was never realized. The defender mentioned that during the Polish intervention, the defendant was the commissar of a hospital, “but to his credit, it must be said that it was thanks to Barbara and other comrades that 3,000 Red Army soldiers, left in Kyiv after the retreat of the Red Army, were declared civilian patients, and thanks to this, none of them suffered. The defense submitted the relevant materials to the court….” Therefore, “Not with long isolation, but with a very short one, can Barbara be made an honest Soviet doctor. I ask the court for this.” However, the materials submitted by the court defense disappeared and were never mentioned again. As a result, A. Barbara received eight years in labor camps and three years of exile. However, in October 1938, he was executed for allegedly continuing “counter-revolutionary activity” in the concentration camp [47].
Defending the author of the “History of Ukrainian Sounds,” linguist Vsevolod Hantsov, lawyer Yurovytsky managed to question the content of the accusation and even the defendant’s confession: “Having reviewed all the materials, the confessions of other defendants, and his trip abroad, I must say that there are no concrete facts regarding the popularization of SVU ideas among the relevant groups and sabotage in scientific work in Hantsov’s case. He calls himself a fascist, said he was supposedly a pogromist, but, comrades, when there are no facts, when there are no victims, then these are things (…) considerations that never went beyond the limits of his thoughts (…)” [48]. According to the lawyer’s reasoning, the defendant made these things up to have a proper appearance in the company of counter-revolutionaries, and later admitted it as his fault.
Since Academician S. Yefremov was made the key figure during the trial, some lawyers, defending their clients, pointed out that their defendants were victims who, having succumbed to the authority of the famous scientist, consequently took the path of counter-revolution. Thus, lawyer Obukhovsky, defending his client, the local historian and translator Otamanovsky, noted that the academician for him “played a fateful role, as for many other Ukrainian intellectuals. And this fateful role of Yefremov, under whose influence such persons came to the ranks of active counter-revolution, who would never have slid into counter-revolutionary work without an external push” [49].
It is characteristic that lawyers, when questioning the defendants, began by clarifying their worldview and the worldview of those about whom they testified. In this way, the idea was proven that the defendants were carriers of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism, did not accept the achievements of Soviet power, and therefore became enemies of the Soviet system and its values. Throughout the entire trial, special emphasis was placed on the social background of each defendant, and the so-called “class approach” was demonstrated.
Thus, an interesting argument for the defense of the defendant Lahuta, who represented the Mykolaiv branch of the SVU, was defined by lawyer Yurovytsky as the fact that “Lahuta, due to his social environment, could not have been a counter-revolutionary; he has an illiterate peasant mother and a boilermaker father” [50]. Lawyer Obukhovsky said the following about his client: “speaking of Kholodnyi, the prosecutor did not forget to mention that he is the son of a gymnasium director, but why did he forget to say, speaking of Dubrovsky, that he is the son of a peasant and the son of a serf” [51].
Alongside this, the lawyers also tried in every way to guide the defendants to highlight their guilt, cunningly leading them to specify circumstances that did not mitigate, but on the contrary, emphasized the defendants’ guilt. Thus, according to the transcript of the court session, lawyer Kovalska asked questions to the defendant Zalisky in such a way as to create a certain impression of him: “Tell me, accused Zalisky, what influences did you have in your family environment during your childhood, were there strong Ukrainian national influences?”, “Tell me, please, how did you relate to the Ukrainian national question during the February Revolution, did it resolve your national sympathies and place you in the thick of national public work” [52].
Overall, the role of lawyers in the SVU trial was predictable; they did not really influence the fate of the defendants, since the goal was not to defend the interests of the clients, but to create the illusion of a defense. It should be emphasized that under conditions of constant pressure and periodic “purges,” the defenders were intimidated, unable to act as an independent party equal to the prosecution in the trial process. This led to a profanation of the lawyer’s role, inconsistent with the functions he was meant to perform by definition. The totalitarian system imposed a specific totalitarian jurisprudence, and lawyers became pocket tools of the totalitarian regime, which used them, like other participants, for greater persuasiveness of the trial. Since society was built on such principles for about 70 years, overcoming these consequences is one of the most important and difficult tasks of our time.
1. Prystaiko V.I., Shapoval Yu.I. Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”: nevidomi dokumenty i fakty [The Case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”: Unknown Documents and Facts]. Scholarly documentary edition. - K: Intel, 1995. - 448 pp.
2. Spohady Antonenka-Davydovycha pro SVU [Memoirs of Antonenko-Davydovych about the SVU]. [Electronic resource] – Access mode: http://www.litjarmarok.in.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=32&limit=1&limitstart=3
3. Pravova ideolohiia i pravo Ukrainy na etapi stanovlennia totalitarnoho rezhymu (1929–1941) [Legal Ideology and Law of Ukraine at the Stage of Formation of the Totalitarian Regime (1929–1941)] / Usenko I. B., Myronenko O. M., Chekhovych V. A. et al.; Ed. O. M. Myronenko, I. B. Usenko. – K.: V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2001. - 220 pp.
4. Shapoval Yu.I. Liudyna i systema: Shtrykhy do portretu totalitarnoi doby v Ukraini [Man and the System: Sketches for a Portrait of the Totalitarian Era in Ukraine] / Yu.I. Shapoval. – K.: Institute of National Relations and Political Science of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1994. – 270 pp.; Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11; ; Shapoval Yu.I. Inshyi Serhii Yefremov [The Other Serhiy Yefremov] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Dzerkalo tyzhnia. – 2006. – October 6.
5. Husieva V.P. Shchodo pytannia provedennia chystok sered predstavnykiv advokatury v USRR u 1919–1929 rokakh [On the Issue of Conducting Purges among Representatives of the Bar in the UkrSSR in 1919–1929] / V.P. Husieva // Visnyk Akademii advokatury Ukrainy. – 2013. – Part 2(27); Husieva V.P. Advokaty–zhertvy politychnykh represii kintsia 30 rokiv XX stolittia (zasudzheni za spivpratsiu z nimetskym konsulstvom u m. Kyievi) [Lawyers–Victims of Political Repressions of the late 1930s (Convicted for Collaboration with the German Consulate in Kyiv)] / V.P. Husieva // Advokatura Ukrainy: istoriia ta suchasnist: materialy Vseukrainskoho kruhloho stolu [The Bar of Ukraine: History and Modernity: materials of the All-Ukrainian round table]. – Kyiv; Ternopil: V. Hnatiuk TNPU, 2013.
6. Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11.
7. Popovych M.V. Narys istorii kultury Ukrainy [An Outline of the History of Ukrainian Culture] / M.V. Popovych. – K.: “ArtEk”, 1999. – p. 582.
8. Spohady Antonenka-Davydovycha pro SVU [Memoirs of Antonenko-Davydovych about the SVU]. [Electronic resource] – Access mode: http://www.litjarmarok.in.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=32&limit=1&limitstart=3
9. Prystaiko V.I, Shapoval Yu.I. Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”: nevidomi dokumenty i fakty [The Case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”: Unknown Documents and Facts]. Scholarly documentary edition. - K: Intel, 1995. - 448 pp.
10. Shapoval Yu.I. Liudyna i systema: Shtrykhy do portretu totalitarnoi doby v Ukraini [Man and the System: Sketches for a Portrait of the Totalitarian Era in Ukraine] / Yu.I. Shapoval. – K.: Institute of National Relations and Political Science of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1994. – 270 pp.; Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11; ; Shapoval Yu.I. Inshyi Serhii Yefremov [The Other Serhiy Yefremov] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Dzerkalo tyzhnia. – 2006. – October 6.
11. Husieva V.P. Shchodo pytannia provedennia chystok sered predstavnykiv advokatury v USRR u 1919–1929 rokakh [On the Issue of Conducting Purges among Representatives of the Bar in the UkrSSR in 1919–1929] / V.P. Husieva // Visnyk Akademii advokatury Ukrainy. – 2013. – Part 2(27); Husieva V.P. Advokaty–zhertvy politychnykh represii kintsia 30 rokiv XX stolittia (zasudzheni za spivpratsiu z nimetskym konsulstvom u m. Kyievi) [Lawyers–Victims of Political Repressions of the late 1930s (Convicted for Collaboration with the German Consulate in Kyiv)] / V.P. Husieva // Advokatura Ukrainy: istoriia ta suchasnist: materialy Vseukrainskoho kruhloho stolu [The Bar of Ukraine: History and Modernity: materials of the All-Ukrainian round table]. – Kyiv; Ternopil: V. Hnatiuk TNPU, 2013.
12. Pravova ideolohiia i pravo Ukrainy na etapi stanovlennia totalitarnoho rezhymu (1929–1941) [Legal Ideology and Law of Ukraine at the Stage of Formation of the Totalitarian Regime (1929–1941)] / Usenko I. B., Myronenko O. M., Chekhovych V. A. et al.; Ed. O. M. Myronenko, I. B. Usenko. – K.: V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2001.
13. Pravova ideolohiia i pravo Ukrainy na etapi stanovlennia totalitarnoho rezhymu (1929–1941) [Legal Ideology and Law of Ukraine at the Stage of Formation of the Totalitarian Regime (1929–1941)] / Usenko I. B., Myronenko O. M., Chekhovych V. A. et al.; Ed. O. M. Myronenko, I. B. Usenko. – K.: V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2001. – p. 175.
14 Ibid. – p. 174.
15. Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11.
16. Ibid.
17. Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11.
18. Prystaiko V.I, Shapoval Yu.I. Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”: nevidomi dokumenty i fakty [The Case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”: Unknown Documents and Facts] / V.I. Prystaiko, Yu.I. Shapoval. – K.: "Intel", 1995. – p. 58.
19. Shapoval Yu.I. Inshyi Serhii Yefremov [The Other Serhiy Yefremov] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Dzerkalo tyzhnia. – 2006. – October 6.
20. Prystaiko V.I, Shapoval Yu.I. Sprava “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy”: nevidomi dokumenty i fakty [The Case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”: Unknown Documents and Facts] / V.I. Prystaiko, Yu.I. Shapoval. – K.: "Intel", 1995. – p. 50.
21. Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo nedeli. – 2005. – March 11.
22. Spohady Antonenka-Davydovycha pro SVU [Memoirs of Antonenko-Davydovych about the SVU]. [Electronic resource] – Access mode: http://www.litjarmarok.in.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=32&limit=1&limitstart=3. – p. 5.
23. Husieva V.P. Shchodo pytannia provedennia chystok sered predstavnykiv advokatury v USRR u 1919–1929 rokakh [On the Issue of Conducting Purges among Representatives of the Bar in the UkrSSR in 1919–1929] / V.P. Husieva // Visnyk Akademii advokatury Ukrainy. – 2013. – Part 2(27). – p. 92.
24. Ibid. – p. 95.
25. Reabilitovani istoriieiu. Kyivska oblast. Knyha druha [Rehabilitated by History. Kyiv Oblast. Book Two]. – K.: Osnova, 2007. – p. 867.
26. Spohady Antonenka-Davydovycha pro SVU [Memoirs of Antonenko-Davydovych about the SVU]. [Electronic resource] – Access mode: http://www.litjarmarok.in.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=32&limit=1&limitstart=3
27. Ibid.
28. Shapoval Yu.I. Liudyna i systema: Shtrykhy do portretu totalitarnoi doby v Ukraini [Man and the System: Sketches for a Portrait of the Totalitarian Era in Ukraine] / Yu.I. Shapoval. – K.: Institute of National Relations and Political Science of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1994. – p. 7.
29. Husieva V.P. Advokaty–zhertvy politychnykh represii kintsia 30 rokiv XX stolittia (zasudzheni za spivpratsiu z nimetskym konsulstvom u m. Kyievi) [Lawyers–Victims of Political Repressions of the late 1930s (Convicted for Collaboration with the German Consulate in Kyiv)] / V.P. Husieva // Advokatura Ukrainy: istoriia ta suchasnist: materialy Vseukrainskoho kruhloho stolu [The Bar of Ukraine: History and Modernity: materials of the All-Ukrainian round table]. – Kyiv; Ternopil: V. Hnatiuk TNPU, 2013. – p. 80.
30. Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (hereinafter – GDA SBU). – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folios 1–2.
31. Ibid. – Folios 254–255.
32. Ibid. – Folio 44.
33. Ibid. – Folio 50.
34. Ibid.
35. GDA SBU. – Case 215471 FP. – Vol. 4. – Folio 43.
36. GDA SBU. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folio 50.
37. Ibid. – Folio 39.
38. GDA SBU. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folio 37.
39. GDA SBU. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folios 21–22.
40. Ibid. – Folio 12.
41. GDA SBU. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 187. – Folio 68.
42. Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine. – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folios 123–124.
43. Ibid. – Folio 124.
44. Ibid. – Folios 124–125.
45. Spohady Antonenka-Davydovycha pro SVU [Memoirs of Antonenko-Davydovych about the SVU]. [Electronic resource] – Access mode: http://www.litjarmarok.in.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=32&limit=1&limitstart=3 – p. 4.
46. GDA SBU. – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folio 30.
47. Shapoval Yu.I. Teatralnaya istoriya. 75 let nazad, v 1930-m, sostoyalsya sudebnyi protsess v dele “Spilky vyzvolennia Ukrainy” – SVU [A Theatrical Story. 75 years ago, in 1930, the trial in the case of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” – SVU took place] / Yu.I. Shapoval // Zerkalo tyzhnia. – 2005. – March 11.
48. GDA SBU. – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 186. – Folio 24.
49. GDA SBU. – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 187. – Folio 6.
50. Ibid. – Folio 37.
51. Ibid. – Folio 100.
52. GDA SBU. – Personal archive 215471. – Case 67098 FP. – Vol. 179. – Folio 29.