Wrongly Convicted Database Record

 

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Mikhail Alexandrovic Chernov

 

Charge:

Counterrevolutionary Activities and Espionage

Sentence:

Death and Executed

Years Imprisoned:

Year Crime:

Year Convicted:

1938

Year Cleared:

1988

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Russian Federation

County or Region of Crime:

City of Crime:

Moscow

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Posthumously after Execution

Summary of Case:

"Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, Arkadi Pavlovich Rozengolts, Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov, Lev G. Levin, Khristian O. Rakovsky, Pavel P. Bulanov, lgnaty N. Kazakov, Venyamin A. Maximov-Dikovsky, and Pyotr P. Kryuchkov were all wrongly convicted on March 13, 1938 of the capital crimes of counterrevolutionary activities and of espionage during Stalin's "show trial" of 21 defendants that occurred from March 2 to March 13, 1938. All ten were sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad on March 15, 1938. Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was a member of the U.S.S.R's Politburo from 1924 to 1929, editor of Pravda, and perhaps the best known Communist theoretician after Lenin. Aleksei I. Rykov was a Politburo member during most of the 1920's and was allied with Bukharin in the Right Opposition against Stalin. Like Bukharin, he was dismissed from the Politburo in 1929. Arkady P. Rozengolts, a supporter of Trotsky, who served in a number of party and Government posts, including People's Commissar for Foreign Trade; Mikhail A. Chcrnov, who played a key role in the collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine and later served as People's Commissar for Agriculture; Lev G. Levin, a physician and department head at the Kremlin hospital; and Khristian O. Rakovsky, a Soviet ambassador to France and Britain and a Trotsky supporter. The other men listed by the commission were Pavel P. Bulanov, lgnaty N. Kazakov, V.A. Maximov-Dikovsky, and Pyotr P. Kryuchkov."

Conviction Caused By:

False confession coerced by the torture of his interrogators.

Innocence Proved By:

"On February 4, 1988 the USSR's Supreme Court posthumously vacated the March 13, 1938 conviictions of Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, Arkadi Pavlovich Rozengolts, Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov, Lev G. Levin, Khristian O. Rakovsky, Pavel P. Bulanov, lgnaty N. Kazakov, Venyamin A. Maximov-Dikovsky, and Pyotr P. Kryuchkov. The Court ruled that the defendant's convictions were obtained by prosecution abuses that included falsifying evidence and "admissions of guilt wrung from the accused through unlawful methods." The were also reinstated as members of the Communist Party. The Court acted based on a review of the cases by a Communist Party Commission."

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

White

Information Source 1:

"50 Years After His Execution, Soviet Panel Clears Bukharin, By Philip Taubman (Special to The New York Times), The New York Times, Feb 6, 1988, p. 1"

Information Location 1:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/06/world/50-years-after-his-execution-soviet-panel-clears-bukharin.html

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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org

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