Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 175: “History will walk on bones. Let mine be useful.”

The chandelier above the Pillar Hall trembled slightly from the packed crowd below.

People sitting in rows.

Foreign press, Red Army officers, Party officials, and silent NKVD agents in civilian coats.

The temperature in the hall was warm, but no one moved to wipe their brow.

They were here to witness a script written by fear, performed by broken men.

On the raised platform beneath a massive photo of Lenin sat a panel of three judges.

In front of themva long bench where the sixteen defendants sat.

Among them were two men who had once walked beside Lenin himself.

Grigory Zinoviev former head of the Comintern, once second only to Lenin.

Lev Kamenev former Politburo member, intellectual, and revolutionary orator.

Now, both were pale, thin, and gaunt-eyed, their hands trembling just slightly as they sat behind a wooden rail.

To their right stood the man who would orchestrate their fall Andrei Vyshinsky, Chief Prosecutor of the USSR.

He rose.

"Comrades of the court," Vyshinsky began, his voice sharp.

"Today you see before you not men of principle, but the filthy dregs of counter-revolution, conspirators in league with foreign intelligence, saboteurs of industry, and traitors to the socialist homeland!"

His eyes swept across the hall.

"These men, these mad dogs of fascism, have conspired not only to undermine the Soviet state, but to murder our beloved leader, Comrade Stalin himself!"

Gasps rang in the room.

The interpreter’s whispers spilled quickly into the ears of foreign correspondents.

A British journalist leaned toward a French colleague. "This can’t be real."

The Frenchman muttered, "It’s real enough if the bullets are."

Vyshinsky’s voice thundered: "They plotted with Trotsky from afar! They poisoned our factories with accidents, sabotaged our railways with delays, whispered sedition in the ears of our workers!"

He turned to the bench. "They have already been judged by the people. This court is but the final rite."

He pointed a gloved hand toward Zinoviev.

"This man, once entrusted with the soul of international socialism, now conspires in shadow. What dignity remains in that hunched frame is dwarfed by his betrayal."

He turned to the judges. "We do not ask the court for mercy. We ask for cleansing. For clarity." freёweɓnovel.com

He slammed his hand on the podium.

"We ask for death."

The lead judge looked to Zinoviev.

"Do you confess your crimes?"

Zinoviev stood slowly.

He looked thinner than his photographs withered.

He removed his spectacles with a trembling hand.

"I confess," he said softly. "I confess to participating in a conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet government. I was recruited by agents of Trotsky. I failed Lenin’s legacy. I betrayed socialism."

The words were wooden, as though rehearsed in a dim cell.

There was no energy, no passion.

Only memorized lines.

A ripple moved through the audience.

Some scribbled notes.

Others simply stared.

One NKVD officer near the exit whispered, "He still thinks a confession means mercy."

Next came Kamenev.

He stood more slowly, voice barely above the hum of whispers.

"I too confess," he said, eyes down. "I acted with counter-revolutionaries. I gave safehouse and speech. I turned my words into daggers."

Vyshinsky pounced. "Who were your co-conspirators?"

Kamenev hesitated. Then answered.

"I met with Pyatakov. With Radek. I exchanged letters through Smirnov."

"Did you intend to kill Stalin?"

Kamenev closed his eyes.

"Yes."

"Say it clearly."

"I intended to kill Stalin," Kamenev said louder.

"I believed violence would change the course of the revolution."

His voice broke. "I was wrong."

Vyshinsky turned to the audience again.

"You hear their own words! No torture. No coercion. Only truth. Brutal, self-condemning truth!"

In a side gallery, Genrikh Yagoda, still head of the NKVD, shifted uneasily.

He had overseen the preparation of the trial but sensed now that his own usefulness had begun to fade.

Behind him, Nikolai Yezhov, newly promoted deputy, watched with expressionless focus.

Yagoda leaned slightly toward him and whispered, "It’s done. They’ve confessed."

Yezhov didn’t turn. "It’s only just begun."

On the third day of the trial, Ivan Bakayev, one of the lesser defendants, tried to salvage a shred of dignity.

"I did not plot murder," he said. "I criticized. I doubted. But I did not seek blood."

Vyshinsky sprang to his feet. "Now we see the squirming of the worm! Now we see truth mutate under cowardice!"

He turned to the court. "The court must remember intent and ideology are equal threats. To think disloyally is to act disloyally."

Bakayev’s voice faltered. "I... I return to my original statement."

In the press row, an American reporter scribbled in his notebook.

"Every word rehearsed. Every line performed. But the terror is not theater it is real."

On the fourth day, Stalin listened from his Kremlin study.

A closed receiver broadcast the trial in real-time.

A tray of untouched tea sat at his elbow.

Molotov entered mid-testimony.

"They’ve all confessed," he said.

Stalin nodded. "They should. They were guilty the moment I said they were."

Molotov hesitated. "Do you want mercy for any?"

"No," Stalin said. "We can’t plant new fields in poisoned soil."

He walked to the window and stared across the frozen rooftops.

"Let the world see what happens to scaffolding."

Later that afternoon, Vyshinsky called the final defendant, Sergey Mrachkovsky, to speak.

Mrachkovsky, limping from a supposed accident in prison, used the railing for balance.

"I am no longer the man who once fought in the civil war," he said. "I am no longer a believer in ideas that rot the soil of socialism."

"Did you conspire with foreign governments?" Vyshinsky asked.

"Yes."

"To murder Soviet leaders?"

"Yes."

"To sabotage the economy?"

"Yes."

Vyshinsky smiled thinly. "Then your service is now complete."

That evening, in a private chamber behind the courtroom, Yagoda poured two glasses of vodka and handed one to Yezhov.

"Do you think he’ll let them hang?"

Yezhov sipped, eyes unreadable. "There’s no rope in this revolution, only bullets."

Yagoda tried to laugh. "We’ve done the job. The people will understand."

"No," Yezhov said. "They’ll obey."

Yagoda stared at his reflection in the window, unaware that his own name had already appeared on another list.

On the final day, Zinoviev stood for his closing statement, his voice hoarse but strangely steady.

"I ask not for forgiveness but for erasure. May my death be more useful to the revolution than my life. I betrayed Lenin. I betrayed our cause. And I betrayed the people."

Kamenev added: "History will walk on bones. Let mine be useful."

The judge announced the verdict.

"For crimes against the Soviet state, for treason, terrorism, and conspiracy, all sixteen defendants are sentenced to death by firing squad. Sentence to be carried out immediately."

No outcry.

Only silence.

Outside, trucks waited in the slush.

The condemned were blindfolded and loaded in silence.

One foreign reporter, watching from a window, said, "It was theater."

His colleague replied, "And every seat was taken."

Inside the prison courtyard that night, Zinoviev and Kamenev stood before the wall.

The officer in charge checked his watch.

"Any last words?"

Zinoviev whispered, "I regret being too early for the truth."

Kamenev murmured, "And too late for the lie."

The officer raised his hand.

The rifles cracked.

And with that sound, the Great Purge had begun.