the murder was presented by the soviet press as a conspiracy of "fascist white radicals", in spite of the fact that vorovsky represented the bolsheviks in italy and after his death benito mussolini was one of those sending condolences. the trial of conradi and polunin was held in geneva and quickly turned into a trial of the whole bolshevik movement, with conradi widely supported by many white émigrés and russian activists in exile, including ivan bunin, ivan shmelyov and dmitry merezhkovsky.