Slánský trials
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The Slánský trials (officially Proces s protistátním spikleneckým centrem Rudolfa Slánského meaning "Trial of anti-state conspiracy centered around Rudolf Slánský") were a series of show trials against elements of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) who were thought to have adopted the line of the maverick Yugoslav leader Josip Tito[1]. On November 20, 1952, Rudolf Slánský, General Secretary of the KSČ, and 13 other Communist leaders or bureaucrats (11 of them Jews) were accused of participating in a Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy and convicted: 11 were executed and 3 sentenced to life imprisonment.
The trials were the result of a split within the Communist leadership on the degree to which the state should emulate the Soviet Union, and were part of a Stalin-inspired purge of "disloyal" elements in the national Communist parties in Central Europe, as well as an anti-semitic purge of Jews from the leadership of Communist parties.[citation needed] Klement Gottwald, president of Czechoslovakia and leader of the Communist Party, feared being purged, and decided to sacrifice Slánský, a long term collaborator and personal friend who was the second-in-command of the party.[citation needed] The others were picked to convey a clear threat to different groups in the state bureaucracy. A couple of them were brutal sadists conveniently added for a more realistic show.[citation needed]
Those put on trial confessed to all crimes (possibly under duress or after torture) and were sentenced to punishment. Slánský attempted suicide while in prison. The people of Czechoslovakia signed petitions asking for death for the alleged traitors.[citation needed] The harsh treatment given to those on trial was a way of showing that the Communist Party would stop at nothing and that potential dissidents could expect no mercy.[citation needed]
After Stalin's death in March 1953, the harshness of the persecutions slowly decreased, and the victims of the trials quietly received amnesty one by one, including those who had survived the Prague Trials. Later, the official historiography of the Communist Party was rather quiet on the trials, vaguely putting blame on errors that happened as a result of a "cult of personality".
[edit] Media
The Slánský trials were dramatised in the 1970 film L'Aveu ("The Confession"), directed by Costa-Gavras and starring Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. The film was based on the book of the same name by Artur London, who was a survivor of the trials.
The Slánský trials are a key element of the book Under a Cruel Star: A life in Prague 1941-1968 (ISBN 0841913773). A memoir by Heda Margolius Kovaly, the book follows the life of a Jewish woman, starting with her escape from a concentration camp during World War II, up until her escape from Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968. Kovaly's husband, Rudolph Margolius, a fellow Holocaust survivor, was one of the eleven men executed during the Slánský trials.
