Tag #155929 - Interview #78231 (yakov voloshyn)

I worked for the 'Proletarskaya Pravda'. Starting in 1935 work became more and more difficult. There were arrests [during the so-called Great Terror] 12 reaching their height in 1937. They lasted until the beginning of Word War II. The situation was troublesome in the editorial office. Chief editors were often replaced: every two weeks or two months. When a new chief editor was appointed the previous one was declared an enemy of the people 13. And we were just surprised that he had managed to disguise himself so skillfully; we didn't suspect anything wrong. We didn't have any doubts. We were raised to have faith in the justice of the Party and Stalin and believed everything that was said on their behalf. People were obsessed with the mania of searching for and denouncing 'enemies of the people'. The whole thing was escalating and became scary. Some things might have been called funny if they hadn't been so frightful.

Visitors often came to the editorial office to report on facts that they believed were significant and worth publishing. Ten to eleven-year-old children came to show pieces of newspaper sheets saying that one could recognize the beard of Trotsky 14, who was declared an 'enemy' or the glasses of Zinoviev 15, an 'enemy' executed a short time earlier. They thought the owners of these pieces were supporters of 'enemies of the people' and demanded to take them to court.