Eastern Approaches

by Fitzroy MacLean

  In Paris much of our information on the political situation had come to us from our social contacts with the people directly concerned, French politicians, journalists, civil servants and other public figures. As a Secretary of the Embassy, it had been one of my duties to keep in touch with all sorts and conditions of people, from the extreme Right to the extreme Left. Like all Frenchmen, nothing pleased them better than to be given an opportunity of expounding their views on the political situation. The only difficulty was to decide which views were worth listening to.

  In Moscow things were very different. Apart from routine dealings of the strictest formality with one or two frightened officials of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, whose attitude made it clear that they wished to have as little to do with us as possible, we had practically no contacts with Russians. Indeed, it was notoriously dangerous for Soviet citizens, even in the course of their official duties, to have any kind of dealings with foreigners, for by so doing, they were bound sooner or later to attract the attention of that ubiquitous organization, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or N.K.V.D.

  At first some exception was made for members of the theatrical profession, actors, actresses and ballerinas, a few of whom the Authorities allowed or possibly, for reasons of their own, even encouraged to cultivate foreign diplomats, and during the first weeks after my arrival I attended a number of parties, arranged by the younger, unattached members of the diplomatic corps, and attended by some of the lesser lights of the stage and ballet. But inevitably something of a blight was cast on these proceedings by the knowledge that the charming young lady with whom one was conversing so amicably would in an hour or two be sitting down to draft a report of everything one had said to her, or, if she was unlucky, might have been arrested and be already on her way to Siberia.

  Sometimes, with typical Russian hospitality and disregard for the consequences, our guests asked us to their homes, stuffy little bedrooms, which, owing to the housing shortage, they generally shared with their entire families and one or two complete strangers thrown in. On these occasions, the most elaborate precautions were taken. Any preliminary telephoning was done from public call boxes; a day was chosen when our host’s less reliable room-mates were likely to be out; the car was left two or three blocks away. It was probable, indeed certain, that the authorities knew all about it, but it was not advisable to draw unnecessary attention to what was going on and thus invite attention from a horde of amateur spies and informers.

  But, once the party had started and the vodka was circulating, all these troubles were soon forgotten; songs were sung, tears shed, healths drunk, glasses emptied and flung against the wall, more and more friends called in from neighbouring rooms to join in the fun, and all the paraphernalia of Slav charm and conviviality was brought into play. It was certainly not from any lack of inclination that the average Russian avoided contacts with foreigners. Indeed, if they had had their way, life would have been one long carousal. But soon even these rare excursions into Soviet society came to an end. Events took a turn which caused even the few Russians whom we knew to shun us like the plague.

  Two or three months after my arrival, an official at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs rang up one morning to give me the seemingly harmless message that there had been a last-minute change in the composition of the Soviet Delegation which was to attend the coronation of King George VI. Marshal Tukachevski, Chief of the Soviet General Staff and Deputy Commissar for Defence had, it appeared, a severe cold, and would be unable to go to England.

  We thought no more of it until a day or two later, when we read in the papers that the Marshal had been transferred from his position as Deputy People’s Commissar for Defence to a relatively unimportant command. His cold was evidently having a damaging effect on his military career.

  After that, things happened quickly. First, a brief communiqué was published announcing that Tukachevski and six or seven other Marshals or Generals of the Red Army had been charged with high treason and were on trial for their life. A second communiqué announced that they had made a full confession of their guilt and been sentenced to death. A third brought the news of their execution. Even by the Soviet public, hardened to such shocks, the news was received with consternation. Up to a few days before these men had been held up as heroes, as examples of every military and civic virtue. Their portraits, larger than life size, were still to be seen publicly exhibited all over Moscow, side by side with those of Stalin and the members of the Politbureau. Now these had to be removed hastily and surreptitiously.

  There was nothing new in the ‘liquidation’, as it was called, of public figures. For some years past numerous politicians and others had met with this fate, variously branded as ‘Trotskists’, ‘wreckers’, ‘Fascist spies’, ‘diversionists’ and so on; some after public trial, others as a result of what was known as an administrative measure.

  But now the tempo of the ‘purge’, as it was called, changed. The sudden execution as traitors, without any warning, of a large part of the Soviet High Command proved the signal for mass liquidations on an unprecedented scale, for a reign of terror which had no parallel since the Revolution. Gaining momentum as it went, the purge swept like a whirlwind through the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Government, the Civil Service, the intelligentsia, industry, even through the ranks of the dreaded Secret Police itself. No one was safe. The highest and the lowest alike were dragged from their beds at three in the morning to vanish for ever. Nor was the round-up confined to Moscow alone. Throughout the country, in every Republic of the Union, men who were well known to have fought and worked all their lives for the Party and the Revolution disappeared, either never to be heard of again or else to appear again in due course in court and confess that they were spies or wreckers or the agents of a foreign power. Every day in the papers there were long lists of prominent public figures who had been ‘unmasked’ as traitors, while yet other liquidations could be deduced from the announcements that new men had been appointed to important posts without any indication of what had happened to their predecessors.

  On a lower level, one could only observe disappearances and draw the obvious conclusion. The Embassy porter went out for a walk and never came back; our cook went; so did one of the chauffeurs. The officials at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs became more inaccessible than ever. They found themselves in a particularly unenviable situation. Contacts with foreigners were notoriously fatal; Tukachevski, it was thought, had been shot for alleged contacts with the German General Staff. Yet it was their duty to see foreigners. If they refused, they were clearly neglecting their duty, or else had a guilty conscience. If, on the other hand, they continued to see foreigners, someone sooner or later was bound to accuse them of betraying State Secrets or plotting the overthrow of the Soviet regime. Theirs was an unhealthy occupation. One after another they disappeared. Their successors were paralysed with fear, for the turn-over was very rapid.

  One would ring up and ask to speak to Comrade Ivanov. ‘He is sick,’ an unfamiliar voice would reply nervously, ‘he is busy; he has gone for a walk.’ ‘And who,’ one would ask, ‘is doing his work?’ ‘For the time being,’ the voice would reply unhappily, ‘I am — Comrade Maximov.’ ‘May I come and see you, Mr. Maximov?’ one would inquire. ‘It is very difficult,’ would come the evasive answer, ‘I also am very busy.’

  Next time, if one could remember his name, one would ring up Mr. Maximov. And once more there would be the increasingly familiar answer: ‘He is sick; he is busy; he has gone for a walk.’ ‘For the time being, I am replacing him.’ And the chances were that that would be the last that one would hear of Comrade Maximov.

  There was much speculation as to the amount of truth in the charges brought against those purged and as to the exact numbers involved. Theories on the subject varied. One thing was certain: that a great many people took advantage of the purge to get rid of their personal enemies and rivals. If you wanted a man’s job or his r
oom or his wife, you denounced him as a Trotskist or a British spy, and the chances were that he would disappear. The N.K.V.D. were working overtime. There was no time to go into details. Besides, the spirit of competition had entered into it. The great thing, if you were a conscientious official, was to get more convictions to your credit than the next man. Soon the dangers of this excessive zeal and widespread delation were realized and steps were taken to discourage unjustified denunciations. This process was known as ‘purging the purgers’ and gave excellent opportunities for working off old scores. The fun became faster and more furious.

  Fear hung over the city like a mist, seeping in everywhere. Everyone lived in terror of everyone else. Agents of the N.K.V.D. were everywhere. Every day one could read in the papers commendations of soldiers who had denounced their officers, children who had ‘unmasked’ their fathers. No one could be trusted. No one was safe.

  Not long after the liquidation of Tukachevski and the others, the Soviet Government gave an official reception in honour of some visiting celebrity. It was attended by the Diplomatic Corps and by what was left of the Soviet High Command.

  Never have I seen men look more uneasy than those Generals and Admirals, many of whom must have been close friends and associates of the dead men. They were appalled at being in the same room with foreigners; that was the most dangerous thing of all. Whenever they saw foreign naval and military attachés coming in their direction, they sidled hurriedly away. Nor were they inclined for conversation with each other or with the important figures from the political world who were also attending the party. It was impossible to say nowadays who might or might not be a traitor, or who might not, on the strength of some chance remark, denounce you as one yourself. And so they stood about in doorways and in corners by themselves, their faces a greenish-yellowish grey above their stiff uniform collars and rows of medals.

  After the elaborate supper, served on the Tsar’s gold plate, still resplendent with the Imperial Cipher, a band played fox-trots and rumbas. But the feeling of impending doom could not be dispelled so easily. Even Litvinov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, his rotund figure encased in irreproachable evening dress, looked uneasy, as he trotted round the room, his shapely adopted daughter clasped tightly to him.

  And so by force of circumstances the foreigners in Moscow, diplomats and journalists for the most part, were thrown back more and more on their own company. Night after night we would put on our white ties and go and dine at one or other Embassy or Legation, sitting next to the same people, discussing the same topics. It was a highly artificial existence, but one that had its compensations, for, amongst the two or three hundred people who made up Moscow’s entire foreign colony, there were a great many who were well worth knowing and the ghetto-like conditions under which we lived drew us closer together than would have been the case elsewhere.

  For our knowledge of what was going on about us in the country in which we were living, we relied on the columns of the Soviet press, often surprisingly revealing; on rumours, for the most part of dubious value; on such information as one could glean from the little incidents of everyday life; and on what one could see for oneself as one plodded in one’s heavy snow boots along the streets of Moscow.

  This was often the most valuable source of all. From a tour of the poorly stocked shops, where long shabbily dressed queues of depressed-looking people waited for hours, often vainly, in the hope of obtaining the bare necessities of life, and from a comparison of prices and wage rates, it was possible to form a not inaccurate idea of Soviet standards of living. It was possible, too, by comparing these and other known data concerning industrial production to hazard a guess at the principal motive underlying Soviet economic policy: namely determination to build up heavy industry and thus at all costs make the country strong and self-supporting and ready for war.

  To this end everything was sacrificed, the interests of the individual consumer first of all, an exception only being made in the case of those engaged on work of national importance, who, for the good of their health and as a reward for their services, were allowed special privileges. This, it appeared, was the official explanation of the life of luxury led by the Soviet aristocracy — the People’s Commissars, the Generals and the high bureaucrats — of whom we occasionally caught glimpses driving in magnificent cars to and from their country estates or entertaining blonde young ladies to champagne under the gold chandeliers of the Hotel Metropole. But theirs, though a merry life, was usually a short one too, for, though all were in danger, the tallest were usually the first to fall — a thought which, I suspect, consoled many of the humbler members of the community for much of what they had to put up with.

  It was not until May Day, after I had been in Moscow for a couple of months, that I first saw Stalin.

  Holding at that time no official position save that of Secretary General of the Communist Party, he did not attend the state receptions to which foreign diplomats were invited. Nor would he receive Foreign Ambassadors. Sometimes our own Ambassador, Lord Chilston, after a long, inconclusive and exasperating interview with Litvinov, then Commissar for Foreign Affairs, would demand to see him, more as a joke than anything. Litvinov’s chubby little hands would spread themselves in an appeasing gesture, while his round bespectacled face arranged itself in an apologetic smile. ‘I am very sorry,’ he would say in that fluent but guttural English which he had learnt as a refugee in London before the Revolution, when his name had been variously Finkelstein, Wallach, or just plain Mr. Harris, ‘I am very sorry indeed. But Mr. Stalin, he is just a private gentleman, and he does not like to see foreigners. He leaves that to me.’ And Mr. Litvinov’s tubby little body would shake with laughter.

  But at least twice a year Stalin would appear in public, on May 1st and November 7th, when, standing on Lenin’s tomb, he would take the salute at ceremonial parades of the Red Army. And then there wat no doubt about the position he occupied, however unofficial it mighs be. Unobtrusively, he would emerge from a little side door in the Kremlin wall, followed by the other members of the supreme Politbureau of the Party, and, clambering up to the top of the Mausoleum, would take up his position a little in front of the others, looking out over the great expanse of the Red Square, a squat Asiatic figure in a peaked cap and drab semi-military greatcoat: narrow eyes close set under heavy brows, the downward sweep of his moustache ponderous beneath a hawk-like nose, his expression alternating between benignity and bored inscrutability. Infantry, cavalry, tanks would sweep past while fighters and bombers roared overhead. Every now and then he would raise his hand, palm outstretched, with a little gesture that was at once a friendly wave, a benediction and a salute. But most of the time he would chat affably to those around him, while they, for their part, grinned nervously and moved uneasily from one foot to the other, forgetting the parade and the high office they held and everything else in their mingled joy and terror at being spoken to by him.

  From time to time there would be loud bursts of cheering: cheers for Stalin; cheers for the infantry, rank upon rank of goose-stepping automatons; cheers for the Cossacks galloping past in their traditional uniform; cheers for the heavy tanks, thundering and rattling at full speed across the cobbles; especially loud cheers for the Special Security Troops of the N.K.V.D. in their smart royal-blue and scarlet caps.

  At first it did not occur to me to look and see who was cheering. When I did, the answer was not immediately apparent. For the first time, I realized that, except for the Diplomatic Corps, clustered in an unenthusiastic group round the foot of the mausoleum, and some heavily guarded school-children about a quarter of a mile away on the far side of the square, there was no one there to cheer. All round the Red Square stretched a grim, silent line of security troops, blocking the entrances, extending into the neighbouring streets and down to the river, perched on the roofs of the surrounding houses. Nowhere in sight was there anyone who looked like a member of the general public.

  It was then that I grasped that th
e cheering was potted, synthetic cheering, issuing from loudspeakers, discreetly sited at the four corners of the square and conveniently obviating the need for unhygienic, insecure spectators. Only later did the ‘toiling masses’ make their appearance, in the form of a ‘Spontaneous Workers’ Demonstration’, consisting of two or three columns of ordinary Soviet citizens, who were marched past at a brisk trot, freely interspersed with Security Troops. Not content with keeping an eye on the marchers, these lost no opportunity of urging the laggards among them to walk faster and cheer louder. But the cheers that came from them were poor, half-hearted, half-starved cheers, not like the full-throated roars that issued from the loudspeakers.

  Living in Moscow, even under the conditions to which we were condemned, one could in a few months find out more about the real character of the Soviet Union than one could hope to learn by reading all the books that were ever written on the subject.

  But I, for one, had not altogether given up hope of seeing Soviet life at rather closer quarters; nor had I for a moment abandoned the idea of somehow or another getting to Central Asia. With the melting of the snows, I started to draw up a plan of campaign.

  Chapter III

  Casting About

  ONE thing was quite certain. I should not get permission from the Soviet Government to travel in Central Asia. The older residents among the diplomats laughed at the idea of my even applying for it. The whole of Turkestan had long been a forbidden zone and now, with the spy-scare and purge at their height, steps were being taken to restrict the movement of foreigners even in other parts of the Union. In short, if I went at all, I should have to go unofficially. The question was whether or not, if I travelled without permission, I should succeed in evading the vigilance of the N.K.V.D.