ABSTRACT
In 1988 all victims of the “Moscow trials”—the official “enemies of the people”—were rehabilitated by the USSR Supreme Court. Included were those who had been convicted without trial or in truncated, simplified proceedings. In addition, documents that shed a very different light on the nature of Communist terror, dating back almost to the day of the October Revolution, began to be released from secret archives. Massive and exceedingly cruel terror became the norm, requiring no justification. But the way was paved for it by revolutionary romantics of the “incorruptible Maximilian” stripe. One of the pillars of this “Leninist guard” was Nikolai Krylenko. Krylenko took an active part in storming the Winter Palace on the day of the Revolution. Meanwhile Krylenko was advancing the idea of the independence of judges and their subordination only to the law. In 1927 Krylenko came out in favor of reform of the Criminal Procedural Code.
