With God in Russia

by Walter J. Ciszek

  Two days passed, and nothing happened. On the morning of the third day, a young woman came to my cell. She greeted me pleasantly and asked, “Would you like some books to read, tovarisch?” She was the prison librarian. “What?” I said. “Oh, of course, of course!” “Fine, you can take out one book at a time and I’ll come back every week to exchange it if you like. If you finish the book sooner than that, you just tell the guard to let me know, and I’ll come and exchange the books. You don’t have to wait a whole week.”

  So began the period of what I referred to as my “doctorate” in the “University of Lubianka.” In the hopes of improving my Russian, I began to read Russian literature. I started with Tolstoy and read almost all his works. I established a new order of the day for myself; spiritual duties before noon, then read till dinnertime. Before dinner, I’d make my noonday examination of conscience and say the Angelus when the Kremlin clock chimed twelve. After the noon meal, I said my three sets of beads in Polish, Russian, and Latin, then went back to reading until it was time for the exercise period or the trip to the toilet. After supper, I’d say my evening prayers and hymns from memory, then back to the books again until it was time for bed.

  That was my daily order, and nobody bothered me for more than a year. Except for the occasional visits from the chief of the prison, and the weekly health inspection and examination for parasites, I saw no one but the guards. I became, in effect, a hermit, alone with my prayer and my books. I even found myself forgetting how to talk! Occasionally I was almost tongue-tied in talking to the doctor, or the warden on his infrequent visits.

  Besides the daily twenty-minute exercise period, I tried to keep myself active by polishing the floor twice a day. We were required to do this once a day at Lubianka in any event, but while many of the prisoners used to give it the proverbial lick and a promise, I used to really work at it, just for the sheer joy of being active. The floors at Lubianka were of good solid oak, which took a beautiful sheen. I’d dust the floor first with a soft rag, then rub in the wax, which came in big sticks, and afterward go over it with a heavy iron wrapped in cloth—and plenty of elbow grease—to polish it to a high shine.

  With all the time on my hands now, I also set about mending the clothes I had been wearing ever since I was arrested at Chusovoy. By now they were in bad shape. Needles, knives, or anything of the sort were strictly forbidden in prison, but I used to occasionally salvage some of the larger fishbones from the soup and sharpen them on the iron slats of the bed to make a serviceable needle. With that and my fingernails, I’d loosen one of the staples from the binding of the book I was reading, sharpen it on the bed, and use it to pierce a hole in the bone. Then I’d pull a thread out of my shirt or underwear or socks, and proceed to practice the profession of seamstress. The needle, naturally, would be taken away when it was found, especially at the general inspection held every two weeks. It says a good deal for the efficiency of the inspections at Lubianka that I was seldom able to conceal anything so small as a fishbone needle either in the room itself or on my person.

  So, during the four years of my “university education” at Lubianka, I stressed not only the spiritual side of life, but the physical side as well. Every day I took at least forty-five minutes of calisthenics to keep my body as active as my mind was with the books. I kept myself and my clothes as neat and clean as I could, my room spotless. I was determined through all this long, enforced idleness to remain human and mentally alert, and not to let the prison routine get me down. I was, as the saying went among the prisoners, “dumb but happy.” With rare exceptions, I knew nothing of the outside world, but I kept track of the time and the days, remembering all the feast days of the Church as best I could, celebrating them with special prayers that I remembered or made up.

  And I went at my course in Russian literature with a vengeance. Besides Tolstoy, I read Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Gogol, Leskov, and many of the works of Jack London, Dickens, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller—and even Quo Vadis—all in Russian. I also read quite a bit of Russian history and a brand new biography of Napoleon by Tarle, an old Russian historian, who wrote the book while he himself was in prison. The most striking feature of his book, as I remember it, was that all the religious episodes in Napoleon’s life—the coronation, the funeral service at his death, his marriages, and so forth—were not only omitted, but were not even hinted at. I marveled a bit at the feat. I also began to understand more clearly what was meant by rewriting history for the proletariat, and how it could be arranged that young people would hear nothing whatsoever of God.

  One other book I read at this time made a similar impression on me. It was a large and lavish study of the Orthodox Church in Russia, published on the occasion of the election of a new patriarch “of Moscow and all Russia,” Metropolitan Sergius, the first patriarch since 1925. Perhaps the idea was to combat German propaganda about the suppression of religion in the Soviet Union. The book was filled with color photographs of the churches, the rich ikons, and the famous art of Oriental liturgy.

  At the end of the book, however, was an essay, purportedly written by a member of the Orthodox hierarchy, which was an outright attack on Fascism written in such a way as to arouse hate and revenge. The piece so shocked me when I read it that I was sure it couldn’t be authentic. I simply couldn’t reconcile the ideal of the priestly vocation and a priest’s training in the central theme of Christianity—“Little children, love one another”—with the hatemongering in that essay. It was an awful blow to me.

  As my grasp of Russian improved, I was devouring books at the rate of almost one a day. I read constantly, but though I had no glasses, my eyes never bothered me in the slightest. At the librarian’s suggestion, I also read the philosophical encyclopedia of Lenin. In it I found a striking simple definition of Communism, which I memorized. One day later on, when the interrogator and I were sparring informally, between the tense periods of questions and answers, I quoted him Lenin’s definition of the ideal Communist state. He looked at me blankly for a moment, then broke into a grin. “Ah,” he said, “but when? Certainly not in my lifetime or yours, and probably not for a hundred years, if ever.” And with an airy wave of his hand he dismissed the whole thing.

  Aside from the weekly medical checkups and routine inspections of the cell, I was not bothered at all during the period—except by hunger. Actually, after the verdict had been given, my rations were increased. I now got the standard prison-camp ration—600 grams of bread in the morning, a half liter of soup at noon, and a bowl of kasha at night—and sometimes even a piece of herring or potato. Technically, I was not a prisoner of Lubianka now; I was a prison-camp “detainee.” As a result, I was getting more food than ever before, but for some reason or other I found myself thinking about food more than ever, too.

  Sometimes, while I’d be walking up and down reading a book, I’d fall to thinking about dinner or supper. I’d become nervous, listening for the clock to chime, trying to figure how long it might be until mealtime. I simply couldn’t shake the thought. The more I’d try to concentrate on the book or think of something else, the more it seemed to focus my attention on how hungry I was. The only solution was to do something active—in my case that usually meant polishing the floor—and to do it so vigorously and methodically I’d forget the passage of time and the thought of food.

  Suddenly, after a year and two months, I was called out unexpectedly one morning and led to the interrogation section. I was disgusted. The thought of further interrogations, when I had thought they were all over, was completely repugnant. Moreover, I was growing used to my hermit’s routine; I resented this invasion of my privacy.

  This was a different interrogator, a mild-mannered man of about forty-five, with dark brown hair and square features, dressed in civilian clothes. He was pleasant enough, but intense; he always struck me as something of a driver. After the initial psychological tension and repugnance which I always felt at the start of such sessions, I was completely indifferent. I answ
ered “yes” or “no” to his questions almost mechanically.

  He became annoyed and said, “You can do better than that! Do I have to drag everything out of you?” “What’s the use?” I said. “You know everything I have to say. It’s all written down in the transcript I signed. The trial is over; I signed the verdict, so what’s the use?” “Well,” he said, “it’s useful to us; this isn’t an interrogation strictly speaking, but simply an attempt to get some supplementary information.” Still, he began all over again with the old story; it was quite obvious that “supplementary information” just meant they felt I was still hiding something.

  Sometimes, he’d take a different tack and try to argue about religion, bringing out all the atheistic arguments. I wasn’t interested in arguing; I knew at bottom he wasn’t really interested in the arguments either. I tried to cut him off one day by saying, “Look, we have the faith to guide us; what have you got? Nothing!” “Oh, but we have our ideals, too,” he said. “We have a goal we’re striving for and an ideal we believe in. Not the faith, but something else.” It was useless to argue with him; I felt he was just goading me to talk, and I said so.

  During the next three years, I was called out for these “supplementary information” sessions at irregular intervals. They proved as fruitless as always, and I resented them more each time. The atmosphere between myself and the interrogator was one of complete distrust, in any event. After Sedov, I trusted no one; on the other hand, the interrogator wouldn’t believe me. In fact, he told me plainly on several occasions I must have an oath of some sort, a special vow to the Pope, or maybe even the “seal of confession,” which prevented me from telling him everything. That much, he said, was obvious from my refusal to co-operate with him. “Ridiculous!” I said. “However, since I can’t convince you of my honesty, go ahead and think whatever you want. If you can’t take me at face value, I couldn’t care less what you think!”

  Sometimes he’d come in with a list of names: cardinals, bishops, and ecclesiastics. “What do you know about so-and-so?” he’d ask. “Nothing. It’s the first time I ever heard of him.” “Weren’t you in Rome?” “Yes, but I never met him. Is he in Rome?” One day he gave me a book to read while I sat in his office; it was church history with a Communist vengeance, full of scandals about fifteenth-century cardinals. “That’s what we want,” he said. “Now, write out what you know about these people.” With that he handed me the list of cardinals, bishops, and other churchmen. I took the list and wrote what little I knew about the names I recognized. When I had finished, he ripped it up. “What are you trying to do,” he said, “make a fool of me?”

  Another time he questioned me for hours about the Russicum and its people. Many of the names were new to me. Of the men I recognized, I told him what I knew: “He’s a good religious. He’s very zealous. He teaches a good course in Russian history. He has a fine voice.” The interrogator would be furious. “You know that’s not what we want to know!” “I’m sorry, but that’s the only sort of thing I know.” Several times he asked me about Metropolitan Shepticki; I tried to convince him of the truth, that I had only met the man twice. To all these questions, I answered very civilly what I knew. For the rest, though, I told him frankly I wasn’t going to make up stories to suit him.

  From time to time during these sessions, he’d come up with a “proposition.” Wanda Vasilevski was forming an army to fight on the Eastern Front. A lot of Poles were enlisting in that army to fight against the Germans, he said, and they needed chaplains. He asked if I would like to join. I knew Wanda was a Communist; I didn’t think the Communists would be too concerned about chaplains—unless there was some hitch. “Not interested,” I said. “No thanks.” “Well,” he said, “you think it over; if you change your mind, remember the proposition still holds.”

  The next time he called me, though, he had a variation on the theme. Instead of joining Wanda’s army, he suggested I might like to join Anders’ Army in England, an army of Free Poles being formed to fight on the proposed second front. I shook my head. “No deal,” I said.

  “Deal?” he said. “Nobody said anything about a deal.” “Now look,” I said, “I didn’t come into this prison yesterday. I’m under a fifteen-year sentence of hard labor which you’d have to cancel to send me to England, or else you’d expect me to be somehow serving that term in Anders’ Army. If you made a mistake with your verdict and are trying to get rid of me, just release me. Otherwise, I’m simply not going to play any games for you people.”

  After that, he was always coming up with different proposals. One time he offered me a Russian parish if I would break with the Pope who, he said, was on the side of the Fascists, Mussolini and Hitler, and obviously playing politics. He wanted me to deliver a radio address to that effect on a certain date. “Ridiculous!” I said. “For two years,” he said, “you’ve been trying to convince us you came to Russia only to minister to the people. Here’s your opportunity.” “Some opportunity,” I said, “at that price!” “Well, I just don’t understand you,” he said. “Of course you don’t understand me,” I said. “That’s obvious. You never have understood me. But I’ve been around here long enough to understand what you’re driving at. I’m not interested in any deals. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

  He wouldn’t give up. Another time he proposed that I go to Rome to arrange a concordat between the Pope and the Soviet Union. I laughed. “Who’s going to authorize me?” I said. “Oh, we’ll fix that up,” he said. First of all, though, they wanted me to take courses in radio and telegraph. “What for?” I asked. “Why, to send us news from Rome!” he said. I laughed again, and cut him short. He kept bringing up the subject again from time to time, but I told him I wouldn’t even discuss it.

  Only once during this whole period did I see Sedov again. I was taken to his room one morning and found him nervous and preoccupied. He told me to go back and take a bath, that I’d be given a clean shirt and trousers—I was to have a personal interview with Beria. I was stunned. Sedov was even more anxious about it, though, than I was. He himself didn’t know what it was about. He warned me not to say anything that wasn’t in the complete transcript I had signed.

  So after I had washed and put on the clean clothes Sedov sent down, the guard led me back through the corridors, up a flight of stairs, and through a row of antechambers until finally we stood in a large, richly furnished room with heavy red drapes and a massive, polished-mahogany desk. There was no one in the room when we arrived. I waited nervously and, in all honesty, quite anxiously for my meeting with the all-powerful head of the secret police. When the curtains parted, however, it was not Beria who entered. It was one of his assistants, a solidly built man in his fifties with gray hair and a solemn, impassive face, dressed in a trimly tailored uniform. He apologized for the fact that Beria himself had been called away suddenly to a meeting in the Kremlin.

  It soon developed that our meeting had little to do with me personally. There was a Polish bishop in England, previously a chaplain to the Polish Army, who had come to Russia with some British commission to observe the conduct of the war and the condition of the people in the territories recaptured from the Germans. On his return to England, the bishop had written a book, or perhaps an article, in which he stated that 100,000 Poles had died in a camp somewhere in Russia, or maybe it was in the Russian occupation zone. The U.S.S.R. denied it, and was worried about the effect this might have on the wartime alliance.

  The situation was not particularly clear to me, nor was Beria’s aide helpful in describing it. He was much more interested in finding out what I knew about the incident or any details I could supply—especially about the bishop. In the Kremlin’s view, it must have been a serious situation to prompt this interrogation by the very top echelon of the NKGB, but I couldn’t give him any information whatsoever. It was the first I had even heard of either the charge or the incident, and I had never met the bishop. When Beria’s aide was at last convinced of that, he cut our meeting
short. I was led back to my cell, startled and puzzled, but I never heard another word about it.

  By the spring of 1943, the food in the prison began to get worse and worse because of the war. Occasionally the food situation came up in my conversations with the interrogator—in a most unpleasant way. He would remind me that thousands were being killed at the front and millions more were starving at home; then he’d conclude his little recital by adding, “We have been too lenient with you. Our people are suffering terribly and here you are, an enemy of the people, having it easy in prison, fed, clothed, and doing nothing to help us or to justify such treatment.” When, at the very end, I was called in to sign a final document certifying the close of my interrogation, he said to me with an unbelieving shake of his head and a deep sigh, “I don’t know how you are still alive.”

  IN RESIDENCE AT BUTIRKA

  IN JUNE 1944, I was transferred to Butirka, another Moscow prison. As always, the move was sudden, unexpected—and unexplained. One day, while I was reading in my cell, I heard a lot of movement in the prison corridors and out in the courtyard. I was curious, of course, but had long ago given up trying to figure out what went on at Lubianka. Suddenly the guard was at my door telling me to pack my things. Since I had recently signed a document officially closing my period of interrogation, the thought at once crossed my mind that I was leaving for the prison camps.

  As the guard led me out the door, I saw a crowd of war prisoners in uniform clogging the corridors. The guard immediately pushed me back inside the cell and told me to wait; I wasn’t supposed to see them. An hour or so later, the guard returned. He led me down an altogether different set of corridors into the basement, then out to a waiting prison van. The van was already crowded with other prisoners, and as soon as I entered, we drove off.

  I asked my companions where we were going, but no one knew. We drove about half an hour before we stopped. We could hear the guard talking to someone; the van moved forward perhaps 150 yards and stopped again. “Ah,” said one of the prisoners, “another prison. We stopped at a gate to show our pass and now we’ll either get some company or be unloaded.” The doors opened and we were ordered out. The guards led us down into a basement corridor for the usual prison processing. “Butirka, by God!” said one of the oldtimers.