The chandelier above the Pillar Hall trembled slightly from the packed crowd below.
People sitting in rows.
Foreign press, Red Army officers, Party officials, and silent NKVD agents in civilian coats.
The temperature in the hall was warm, but no one moved to wipe their brow.
They were here to witness a script written by fear, performed by broken men.
On the raised platform beneath a massive photo of Lenin sat a panel of three judges.
In front of themva long bench where the sixteen defendants sat.
Among them were two men who had once walked beside Lenin himself.
Grigory Zinoviev former head of the Comintern, once second only to Lenin.
Lev Kamenev former Politburo member, intellectual, and revolutionary orator.
Now, both were pale, thin, and gaunt-eyed, their hands trembling just slightly as they sat behind a wooden rail.
To their right stood the man who would orchestrate their fall Andrei Vyshinsky, Chief Prosecutor of the USSR.
He rose.
