Grigory Sokolnikov

Grigory Sokolnikov

Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (born Hirsch Brilliant or Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant; 1888–1939) was a Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician.

Quotes

• Sokolnikov: Or they would utilise us, if we became simply an appendage of German Fascism, which would utilise us and then throw us away like a dirty rag, we would be condemned, disgraced and proved to be utter nonentities.
  Vyshinsky: And did you expect any other fate than to be utilised by Fascism and then thrown away like a useless rag?
  Sokolnikov: Of course. If we had counted only on such an end we ought to have liquidated the bloc completely.
  Vyshinsky: You thought you could retain some independence?
  Sokolnikov: I am saying what we thought at that time. We figured that we had certain chances. Where did we see them? We saw them in the play of international contradictions. We considered that, let us say, complete sway in the Soviet Union could never be established by German Fascism because it would encounter the objections of other imperialist rivals, that certain international conflicts might occur, that we could rely on other forces which would not be interested in strengthening Fascism.
  • Dialogue between state prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky and Sokolnikov during his trial. Quote from Harpal Brar's Trotskyism or Leninism?, pp. 270.