In his public statements, Pollitt was loyal to the Soviet Union and to CPSU General Secretary Joseph Stalin. He was a defender of the Moscow Trials in which Stalin murdered or otherwise disposed of his political and military opponents. In the "Daily Worker" of 12 March 1936 Pollitt told the world that "the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress". The article was illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov, himself shortly to vanish and his photographs airbrushed from history by NKVD archivists.