Following some dissent within ruling
communist parties
throughout the
Eastern Bloc
, especially after the 1948
Tito?Stalin split
,
[12]
[13]
several party
purges
occurred, with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries.
[12]
[14]
In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials.
[14]
These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by the
Kremlin
or even Stalin himself, as he had done in the earlier Moscow Trials.
[15]
Such high-ranking party show trials included those of
Koci Xoxe
in Albania and
Traicho Kostov
in Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested.
[13]
After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help.
[15]
In Romania,
Lucre?iu P?tr??canu
,
Ana Pauker
and
Vasile Luca
were arrested, with P?tr??canu being executed.
[14]
The Soviets generally directed show trial methods throughout the Eastern Bloc, including a procedure in which confessions and evidence from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means, including threatening to torture the witnesses' wives and children.
[16]
The higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him.
[16]
For the show trial of Hungarian Interior Minister
Janos Kadar
, who one year earlier had attempted to force a confession of Rajk in his show trial, regarding "Vladimir" the questioner of Kadar:
[16]
Vladimir had but one argument: blows. They had begun to beat Kadar. They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing. He had been writhing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived. The newcomer was Vladimir's father, Mihaly Farkas. Kadar was raised from the ground. Vladimir stepped close. Two henchmen pried Kadar's teeth apart, and the colonel, negligently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, urinated into his mouth.
The evidence was often not just non-existent but absurd, such as Hungarian
George Paloczi-Horvath
's party interrogators claiming "We knew all the time?we have it here in writing?that you met professor Szentgyorgyi not in
Istanbul
, but in
Constantinople
."
[17]
In another case, the Hungarian
AVH
secret police also condemned another party member as a Nazi accomplice with a document that had been previously displayed in a glass cabinet at the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of a
Gestapo
forgery.
[17]
The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance.
[17]
In the
Slansky trial
in
Czechoslovakia
, when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions, the better-rehearsed Slansky answered the one which should have been asked.
[17]
In 1946,
Dra?a Mihailovi?
and a number of other prominent figures of the
Chetnik movement
during World War II
were tried
for high treason and war crimes committed during WWII. The trial opened in the presence of about 60 foreign journalists. Mihailovi? and ten others (two in absentia) were sentenced to death by a firing squad; the others were convicted of penalties ranging from 18 months to 20 years in prison. In 2015, a Serbian court invalidated Mihailovi?'s conviction. The court held that it had been a
Communist
political show trial that was controlled by the government. The court concluded that Mihailovi? had not received a fair trial. Mihailovi? was, therefore, fully rehabilitated.
[18]
[19]
[20]
During 1946?1949, several well-publicized show trials were held in the
People's Republic of Slovenia
. First was the
Nagode Trial
in which 32 non-communist intellectuals were tried as spies, three of them sentenced to death. Second was a series of so-called
Dachau trials
in which 37 members of the Communist Party were sentenced, 15 of them to death.
Stalin's
NKVD
emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary
Matyas Rakosi
and his
AVH
head the way the show trial of Hungarian Minister of Interior
Laszlo Rajk
should go, and he was later executed.
[15]
The
Rajk trials
in Hungary led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia's parties that enemy agents had penetrated even high into party ranks, and when a puzzled
Rudolf Slansky
and
Klement Gottwald
inquired what they could do, Stalin's NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials.
First, these trials focused on people outside the
Czechoslovak Communist party
. General
Heliodor Pika
was arrested without a warrant in early May 1948 and accused of
espionage
and
high treason
,
[21]
damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union, and undermining the ability of the state to defend itself, Pika was not allowed to present a defence, and no witnesses were called. He was sentenced to death and hanged. During the
Prague Spring
of 1968, Pika's case was reopened at the request of Milan Pika (son of Heliodor) and the elder Pika's lawyer, and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Pika innocent of all charges.
[22]
Milada Horakova
, a
Czech
politician
focused on social issues and women's rights, who was jailed during the
German occupation
for her political activity,
[23]
was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horakova's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist,
Social Democrat
and
People's
parties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West. The trial of Horakova and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950
[24]
and the State's prosecutors were led by Dr.
Josef Urvalek
and included
Ludmila Bro?ova-Polednova
. The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horakova's defence of her political ideals.
[25]
Horakova was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Old?ich Pecl, and
Zavi? Kalandra
), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably
Albert Einstein
,
Winston Churchill
and
Eleanor Roosevelt
, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague's
Pankrac Prison
on 27 June 1950.
The trials then turned to the communist party itself (
Slansky trial
). In November 1952
Rudolf Slansky
and 13 other high-ranking Communist bureaucrats (Bed?ich Geminder, Ludvik Frejka, Josef Frank,
Vladimir Clementis
,
Bed?ich Reicin
, Karel ?vab,
Rudolf Margolius
,
Otto ?ling
,
Andre Simone
,
Artur London
, Vavro Hajd? and Ev?en Lobl), 10 of whom were Jews, were arrested and charged with being
Titoists
and
Zionists
, official
USSR
rhetoric having turned against
Zionism
. Party rhetoric asserted that Slansky was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communists
Jan ?verma
and
Julius Fu?ik
during World War II. The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952, in the Senate of the State Court, with the prosecutor being
Josef Urvalek
. It lasted eight days. It was notable for its strong
anti-Semitic
overtones.
[
citation needed
]
All were found guilty, with three being sentenced to life imprisonment while the rest were sentenced to death. Slansky was hanged at
Pankrac Prison
on 3 December 1952. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague.