ABSTRACT
On 23rd January, 1937, the trial opened of the participants in the 'anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre', in which the principal defendants were Radek, Pyatakov, Muralov, Serebryakov and Sokol'nikov. The naval command was re-organised, with the Baltic Fleet commander Admiral L. M. Galler taking over the post of the deputy commander of the Soviet naval forces from Ludri, who was appointed to the head of the Naval Academy. Galler's Chief of Staff in the Baltic Fleet, Zivkov, took over command of the fleet and one of the lecturers at the Naval Academy, I. S. Isakov, took up the post of Chief of Staff to the Baltic Fleet. The trial of Radek had brought with it the first substantial hint that a move against the military was being contemplated, transferring the hints and rumours set about beyond the Soviet frontiers into a situation developing within these borders.
