Questions for the Interrogation Record of Ya.A. Yakovlev (after October 18, 1937)

1) Did he know about Vareikis's service in the tsarist Okhrana.
2) His opinion of Mikhailov from Voronezh and his participation in a counter-revolutionary organization.
3) His connection with Trotsky (saw him personally in 1935 or 1934).
4) How did he intend to use MOPR? Whom from MOPR did he use?
5) Take Yakovlev's wife in hand: he is a conspirator and she must tell everything. Ask her about Stasova, Kirsanova, and other close acquaintances of hers.

Lubyanka. Stalin i Glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD. P. 396.
AP RF. F. 3. Op. 24. D. 324. L. 98-99.

Note:
Yakovlev (Epshtein), Ya.A. -- party member since 1913. From 1926 -- deputy People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate. In 1929-1934 -- People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR. From April 1934 -- head of the Agricultural Department of the CC. From 1936 -- first deputy chairman of the Committee of Party Control under the CC VKP(b). In July-August 1937, he served as acting first secretary of the CC CP(b) of Belorussia.

Stalin was acquainted with the record of Yakovlev's interrogation of October 15-17 (partially published in: Lubyanka. Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD. Pp. 387-395). During the interrogation, Yakovlev categorically denied the charges of connection with the tsarist Okhrana, but gave a detailed account of his factional Trotskyist activity, both before and after Trotsky's deportation. Acknowledging the existence in the USSR of an underground Trotskyist organization, as well as the existence of a military conspiracy, Yakovlev named the most active participants -- Vareikis, Popov, Gamarnik, Yagoda, Tukhachevsky...