To Comrade Yezhov.

Which Mikhailov? They didn't even ask his first name and patronymic... Fine investigators, these. What matters to us is not the past activity of Yakovlev and Sokolovskaya, but their wrecking and espionage work in the last year, the last months of 1937. We also need to know why both of these scoundrels traveled abroad almost every year.

I. Stalin

Lubyanka. Stalin i Glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD. Pp. 398-399.

AP RF. F. 3. Op. 24. D. 324. L. 93-96.

Note:

Yezhov forwarded to Stalin a statement by the former director of Mosfilm, E. Sokolovskaya, the wife of the previously arrested Ya.A. Yakovlev. Sokolovskaya wrote in part: "In connection with the arrest of my husband Yakovlev, Ya.A., with whom I lived since 1921, I have decided to tell everything I know about Yakovlev's struggle against the party, which he waged over the course of many years.

Yakovlev has been a Trotskyist since 1923. Already then, in 1923, he took an active part in the struggle against the party on Trotsky's side...

...Active participants in this underground organization together with Yakovlev were Vareikis and Bauman. Among the participants of this organization, grouped around Yakovlev, I know of Mikhailov, Reingold, Tsylko, and others...

...My guilt is compounded by the fact that after the exposure of Gamarnik, Yakir, Popov N.N., who were connected by counter-revolutionary work with Yakovlev, Bauman, Vareikis, I could not find in myself the courage to tear myself away from this counter-revolutionary filth, to come to the party and expose this gang of enemies of the party and people."