I Confess: The Power of Confession: Episode 4 (Radio 3)

I Confess: The Power of the Confession looks at the history of confessions, which links the legal world of Cicero to our own. In Episode four, Dr Iain Lauchlan of Edinburgh University explores the Moscow show trials of 1938. 'This is not my defence,' said Nikolai Bukharin as The Party tried him for his life, 'this is my self-accusation'. He then produced a confession in some ways worthy of Isobel Gowdie the witch. It began with the standard demonology of communism - being in league with Trotsky, plotting from the very start to usurp power from Lenin. But then it soared into the realms of global conspiracy hatched by Fascists and Zionists in league with French, Japanese and British intelligence. Freemasons, Lawrence of Arabia and the tsarist secret police were even included in the plot. Why? What on earth was to be gained by this farrago? Dr Lauchlan explores these questions, and aks 'Whose confession were they really? '