To the Central Committee of the Party

I am writing you, old party members, and I think you will pay attention to all of the actions by our NKVD. Is it really possible that you haven’t heard yet about all the horrors that are going on in our provincial cities, where horrors in the literal sense of the word are taking place, so that it is even hard to believe that we live in a "land of joys." After all, we are living at happy time, yet our NKVD is perpetrating total outrages. For some reason lately they have begun to arrest only old party members, who have acquitted themselves well among the people, have worked in conformity with the party line honestly and conscientiously, have not had any party penalties, have a party service record of twenty to twenty five years apiece behind them, and suddenly are made enemies of the people in just fifteen or twenty days. How are we to take this, either he is an enemy of the people, or the enemies of the people got him out of the way because he was interfering with them. But his arrest sets off a whole series of sufferings: the family is immediately evicted from its apartment, and persecution of the children and all kinds of other abuse begin. But in point of fact their father is the most honest worker, he carried out all party tasks conscientiously, the people know him as the most honest worker, but our NKVD doesn’t take any of this into account.

Comrades, you would do better to pay attention to what is going on in our NKVD and check whether an enemy of the people hasn’t wormed his way in there or whether a kulak hasn’t taken cover there and is doing all sorts of vile things there in order to undermine Soviet power.

I am writing on behalf of a hundred women, who have shed rivers of tears, who call a Soviet prison a "wall of tears," where young investigators try to advance themselves and supposedly display their vigilance by abusing people who have been arrested--it’s awful even to think about--for what? They also abuse the arrested men’s wives if a wife comes to an investigator and asks what his crime is, you will get the answer, he is an enemy of the people, for which he will be punished, but what act he committed, they don’t say--it’s a secret. Yes, we, women of the Soviet Union, demand of the authorities that our husbands be tried in open court, so that we know that our husbands are really enemies of the people and then we will be able to rip them out of our hearts and break off with them forever. But after all, it is not being done this way, but somehow it is all secret: neither he nor his family nor his acquaintances know what he is being tried for. We women ask, why? If our husbands are guilty, why aren’t they being tried in open court? After all, at one time the Industrial Party and the Trotskyite-Bukharin Party were tried in open court, after all, there was an opportunity to name them plainly: skunks, vermin, lowlifes, that’s what you get, don’t encroach on our country. But they have begun to try our poor husbands in secret, so that nobody knows. Yes, we women have no faith in this court: all of the charges that are being pinned on them are nothing more than malicious slander, just in order to get ahead at work and display their vigilance. These are lies, we don’t have as many enemies as our young investigators are making just in order to protect their own skins. All these little boys have been produced, but now they are abusing the people too much. You should see what is going on and hear all of the horrors that are taking place outside our prisons, when a hundred women all have the same words on their lips: for what? We wouldn’t take pity if he were guilty--if he’s guilty, then put him on trial, but so that we also know what he is guilty of.

Comrades, old Communists, remember that our husbands are old party members too and worked just like you for the benefit of their state and loved their homeland and what are these young boys trying to pin on them. And when you talk to candidates for party membership, they are happy they didn’t get into the party, because party members are now being persecuted--that is why applications to the party have slowed to such a trickle.

The women are writing to our dear Stalin, to Yezhov and Vyshinsky but apparently none of these letters are getting there. They are obviously being destroyed in the localities, so that is why I have decided to turn to old party members. I hope that you will pay attention, since you are not guaranteed protection from these horrors either. But after all, the best people are leaving the party, people who once defended their country and shed blood alongside Lenin and come from workers themselves and their fathers are workers, in short, they are from the most proletarian family, and became people only thanks to Soviet rule, and suddenly they have become enemies of the people. It’s not true! It’s a lie! Sometimes I feel like shouting out in public, they are no enemies of the people, but he is being made an enemy of the people by the scoundrels, the lowlifes, who want to get ahead and receive the title of vigilant, or rather pseudovigilant.

Pay close attention to the provincial bodies of the NKVD, since the provinces has always known how to bend the resolutions of the party and the government. That is the way it has turned out in our province.

Pay attention to the cries and moans of the weeping women, who are shedding tears and waiting in vain for your protection from the center. A thousand women are stretching out their arms to you, help us, save us! Don’t let us shed tears in vain!