Rudolf Slansky(1901-1952)

The prosecution of Czechoslovakia's leading communist, Rudolf Slansky, who had been arrested in a purge ordered by Stalin, was among the most notorious show trials of the 20th century. For decades, events surrounding the revolutionary tribunal that resulted in the execution of Slansky, then General Secretary of the Czechoslovak party, and 10 other defendants was shrouded in mythology, because most visual and verbal evidence apparently lost to posterity. Film footage and audio recording of the 1952 trial was found in 2018. Hours of film and voice recordings, much of it mould-damaged, believed to cover most of the eight-day procedure were found stashed in metal and wooden boxes - along with millions of classified Czechoslovak Communist party documents - in the basement of a bankrupt former metal research business in Panenske Brezany, near Prague. The material, consisting of six hours of 35mm black-and-white film and 80 hours of audio, is now with the Czech National Film Archive, which is asking the government for an estimated 12m koruna (£410,000) to fund delicate restoration work that would make it fit for public viewing. Michal Bragant, the archive's chief executive, called the discovery "a great opportunity" because it would allow Czech archivists to compile a rare video depiction of Stalin-era show trials, very few of which have available long-form footage: "One day, when we can make it available for the public, you will be able to see the facial expressions, people's movements, the body language and the staged performances. Because this was nothing to do with due process. It was all rehearsed." [The Guardian, April 2018].