In my career as a revolutionary, which began when I was 17, I have faced death many times, and now, at my age, after the many years I have lived, I am not afraid to die, Ginsburg, the only Jew whose death has been demanded by Krylenko, the State Prosecutor, in the big Nenshevik trial here, said this afternoon in addressing the court, in what he said might prove to be his last speech.
But it is hard to die branded as a traitor to the working-class, he went on. It is hard to die when the sentence has been handed down by a proletarian court. I am not one of those who repent, he went on, only in order to sin again. I have given my testimony freely, without pressure or compulsion, because I am convinced of the wrongness of what I have been doing. The progress of the Soviet regime in the direction of Socialism has convinced me of the wrongness of the pessimism which is fostered by Menshevism and the Second International, and of the rightness of the course taken by the Communist leadership.
If the proletarian court sees fit to grant me my life, he concluded his speech, I shall devote the rest of my days to expiating my mistakes and the crimes against the Proletariat of which I am guilty, and which I regret from the depths of my heart.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
