After that criticism he remained free overnight and was ar- rested the next morning. He was a tough little bantam rooster. He was short, and he always carried his head slightly thrown back, with a touch of aggressiveness. He tried to avoid surrendering his Party membership card, because no decision expelling him from the Party had been reached at the District Party Committee the night before. He also refused to give up his identification card as a deputy of the district soviet, since he had been elected by the people, and the District Executive Committee had not taken any decision depriving him of his deputy's immunity. But the police did not appreciate such formalities and overpowered him, and took them away by main force. They took him from the District Consumer Cooperative down the main street of Kady in broad daylight, and his young merchandise manager, a Komsomol mem- ber, saw him from the window of the District Party Committee headquarters. At that time not everyone, especially in the villages, because of their naïveté, had learned to keep quiet about what they thought. The merchandise manager shouted: "Look at those bastards! Now they've taken away my boss too!" Right then and there, without leaving the room, they expelled him from both the District Party Committee and from the Komsomol, and he slid down the well-known pathway into the bottomless pit.
Vlasov was arrested very late in comparison with the others who were charged in the same case. The case had been nearly completed without him, and it was in process of being set up as an open trial. They took him to the Ivanovo NKVD Internal Prison, but, since he was the last to be involved, he was not sub- jected to any heavy pressure. He was interrogated twice. There was no supporting testimony from witnesses. And the file of his interrogation was filled with summary reports of the District Con- sumer Cooperative and clips from the district newspaper. Vlasov was charged with: (1) initiating bread lines; (2) having an in- adequate minimum assortment of merchandise (just as though the unavailable merchandise existed somewhere else and someone had offered it to Kady) ; (3) procuring a surplus of salt (but this was the obligatory "mobilization" reserve: ever since ancient times people in Russia have been afraid of being without salt in the event of war).
At the end of September, the defendants were brought to Kady for public trial. It was not a short trip. (Remember how cheap the OSO's and the closed courts were!) From Ivanovo to Ki- neshma they went in a Stolypin railway car; then seventy miles from Kineshma to Kady in automobiles. There were more than ten cars, an unusual file along an old, deserted road, and one that aroused astonishment, fear, and the expectation of war in the villages. Klyugin, the Chief of the Special Secret Department of the Provincial NKVD for Counter-Revolutionary Organiza- tions, was responsible for the faultless organization of the whole trial and for terrifying the public with it. Their convoy consisted of forty guards from the reserves of the mounted police, and every day from September 24 to 27, with swords unsheathed and Naguan revolvers at the ready, they took the prisoners from the District NKVD to the still unfinished club building and back, through the village where they had until recently been the gov- ernment. Windows had already been installed in the club, but the stage had not yet been finished. There was no electricity. There was no electricity in Kady at all. After nightfall the court met by the light of kerosene lamps. The spectators were brought in from the collective farms in rotation. And all Kady crowded in as well. Not only did they sit on window sills and benches, but they stood packed in the aisles, seven hundred of them at a time. (Russians have always loved spectacles.) The forward benches were regularly reserved for Communists to provide the court with dependable support.
A Special Assize of the provincial court had been constituted, consisting of Deputy Chairman of the Provincial Court Shubin, who presided, and members Biche and Zaozerov. The provincial prosecutor Karasik, a graduate of Dorpat University, was in charge of the prosecution. And even though all the accused de- clined defense lawyers, a government lawyer was forced on them so that the case wouldn't be left without a prosecutor. The formal indictment, solemn, menacing, and lengthy, came down in essence to the charge that an underground Rightist Bukharinite group had existed in Kady District, which had been formed in Ivanovo (in other words, you could expect arrests in Ivanovo too), and had as its purpose the overthrow by wrecking of the Soviet gov- ernment in the village of Kady (and this was about the remotest boondock in all Russia the rightists could have found for a starting point! ).
The prosecutor petitioned the court to have Stavrov's testi- mony, given before his death in prison, read to the court and accepted as evidence. In fact, the whole charge against the group was based on Stavrov's evidence. The court agreed to include the testimony of the deceased, just as if he were alive. (With the advantage, however, that none of the defendants could refute it.)
But darkest Kady did not appreciate these scholarly fine points. It waited to see what came next. The testimony of Stavrov, who had been killed under interrogation, was read to the court and once again became part of the record. The questioning of the defendants began—and immediately there was chaos. All of them repudiated the testimony they had given during the interrogation.
It is not clear how, in such an event, things would have been arranged in the October Hall of the House of the Unions in Mos- cow—but here, at any rate, it was decided shamelessly to continue. The judge rebuked the defendants: How could you have given different testimony during the interrogation? Univer, very weak, replied in a barely audible voice: "As a Communist I cannot, in a public trial, describe the interrogation methods of the NKVD." (Now there was a model for the Bukharin trial! Now that's what keeps them together! More than anything else, . they are worried that people might think ill of the Party. Their judges had long since stopped worrying about that.)
During the recess, Klyugin visited the cells of the defendants. He said to Vlasov: "You've heard how Smirnov and Univer played the whore, the bastards? You've got to admit your guilt and tell the whole truth!" "The truth and nothing but the truth," willingly agreed Vlasov, who had not yet weakened. "The truth and nothing but the truth that you are every bit as bad as the German Fascists!" Klyugin flew into a rage: "Listen here, you whore, you'll pay with your blood!"
[Your own blood, too, is going to flow soon, Klyugin! Caught in the Yezhov gang of gaybisty, Klyugin will have his throat cut by the stool pigeon Gubaidulin.]
From that moment Vlasov was pushed forward from a back seat among the defendants to a leading role in the trial—as the ideological leader of the group.
The crowd jamming the aisles grew interested whenever the court fearlessly broke into questions about bread lines—about things that touched everyone present to the quick. (And, of course, bread had been put on unrestricted sale just before the trial, and there were no bread lines that day.) A question to the accused Smirnov: "Did you know about the bread lines in the district?" "Yes, of course. They stretched from the store itself right up to the building of the District Party Committee." "And what did you do about them?" Notwithstanding the tortures he had endured, Smirnov had preserved his resounding voice and tranquil righteousness. This broad-shouldered man with a simple face and light-brown hair answered slowly, and the whole hall heard every word he said: "Since all appeals to organizations in the provincial capital had failed, I instructed Vlasov to write a report to Comrade Stalin." "And why didn't you write it?" (They hadn't yet known about it! They had certainly missed that one!) "We did write it, and I sent it by courier directly to the Central Committee, bypassing the provincial leaders. A copy was kept in the District Committee files."
The whole courtroom held its breath. The court itself was in a commotion. They shouldn't have continued questioning, but nonetheless someone asked: "And what happened?"
And, indeed, that question was on the lips of everyone in the courtroom: "What happened?"
Smirnov did not sob, did not groan over the death of his ideal (and that's what was missing in the Moscow trials!). He replied loudly and calmly:
"Nothing. There was no answer."
And his tired v
oice seemed to say: Well, that, in fact, was just what I expected.
There was no answer. From the Father and Teacher there was no answer! The public trial had already reached its zenith! It had already shown the masses the black heart of the Cannibal! And the trial could have been called off right then and there. But, oh no, they didn't have sense enough for that, or tact enough for that, and they kept rubbing away at the befouled spot for three more days.
The prosecutor raised a hue and cry: Double-dealing! That's what it was. They engaged in wrecking with one hand and with the other they dared write Comrade Stalin. And they even ex- pected a reply from him. Let the defendant Vlasov tell us how he pulled off such a nightmarish piece of wrecking that he stopped the sale of flour and the baking of rye bread in the district center.
Vlasov, the bantam rooster, didn't have to be asked to rise—he had already jumped up, and he shouted resoundingly through the hall:
"I agree to give a full answer to the court, but on condition that you, the prosecutor, Karasik, leave the accuser's rostrum and sit down here next to me!" It was incomprehensible. Noise, shout- ing. Call them to order! What was going on?
Having gotten the floor with this maneuver, Vlasov explained willingly.
"The prohibitions on selling flour and baking rye bread were instituted by a decree of the Provincial Executive Committee. One of the permanent members of its presidium is Provincial Prose- cutor Karasik. If that's wrecking, then why didn't you veto it as prosecutor? That means you were a wrecker even before I was!"
The prosecutor choked. It was a swift, well-placed blow. The court was also at a loss. The judge mumbled.
"If necessary [?] we will try the prosecutor too. But today we are trying you."
(Two truths: it all depends on your rank.)
"I demand that he be removed from the prosecutor's rostrum," insisted the indefatigable, irrepressible Vlasov.
Recess.
Now, in terms of indoctrinating the masses, just what sig- nificance could such a trial have?
But they kept on and on. After questioning the defendants they began to question the witnesses. The bookkeeper N.
"What do you know about Vlasov's wrecking activities?"
"Nothing."
"How can that be?"
"I was in the witnesses' room and I didn't hear what was said in here."
"You don't have to hear! Many documents passed through your hands. You couldn't help but know."
"The documents were all in proper order."
"But here is a stack of district newspapers, and even there they were writing about Vlasov's wrecking activities. And you claim you don't know anything?"
"Well, go ask the people who wrote the articles."
Then there was the manager of the bread store.
"Tell me, does the Soviet government have much bread?"
(Well, now! Just how could you answer that? Who was going to say: "I didn't count it"?)
"A lot."
"Why are there bread lines at your store?"
"I don't know."
"Who was in charge?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? Who was in charge of your store?"
"Vasily Grigoryevich."
"What the devil! What do you mean calling him Vasily Gri- goryevich? Defendant Vlasov! That means he was in charge."
The witness fell silent.
The judge of the court dictated to the stenographer: "The answer: 'As a consequence of the wrecking activity of Vlasov, bread lines resulted, notwithstanding the Soviet government's enormous stocks of bread.' "
Repressing his own fears, the prosecutor delivered a long and angry speech. The defense lawyer for the most part defended only himself, emphasizing that the interests of the Motherland were as dear to him as they were to any honest citizen.
In his final words to the court, Smirnov asked for nothing and expressed no repentance for anything. Insofar as we can recon- struct it now, he was a firm person and too forthright to have lasted through 1937.
When Saburov begged that his life be spared—"not for me, but for my little children"—-Vlasov, out of vexation, pulled him back by the jacket: "You're a fool."
Vlasov himself did not fail to take advantage of his last chance to talk back impudently.
"I consider you not a court but actors pretending to be a court in a stage farce where roles have already been written for you. You are engaged in a repulsive provocation on the part of the NKVD. You are going to sentence me to be shot no matter what I say. I believe one thing only: the time will come when you will be here in my place."
[Generally speaking, he was wrong just on this one point.]
The court spent from 7 P.M. to 1 A.M. composing the verdict, and all the while the kerosene lamps were burning in the hall, and the defendants sat beneath drawn sabers, and there was a hum of conversation among the spectators who had not left.
And just as it took them a long time to compose the verdict, it took them a long time to read it, piling up on top of one an- other all kinds of fantastic wrecking activities, contacts, and plans. Smirnov, Univer, Saburov, and Vlasov were sentenced to be shot; two others to ten years; one to eight years. In addition, the verdict of the court led to the exposure of an additional wrecking organi- zation in the Komsomol in Kady (whose members were, of course, immediately arrested. Remember the young merchandise man- ager?). And of a center of underground organizations in Ivanovo, which was, of course, in its turn, subordinate to Moscow. (One more nail in Bukharin's coffin.)
After the solemn words "To be shot!" the judges paused for applause. But the mood in the hall was so gloomy, with the sighs and tears of people who had no connection with the defendants, and the screams and swooning of their relatives, that no applause was to be heard even from the first two benches, where the Party members were sitting. This, indeed, was totally improper. "Oh, good Lord, what have you done?" someone in the hall shouted at the members of the court. Univer's wife dissolved in tears. In the half-darkness, the crowd began to stir. Vlasov shouted at the front benches:
"Come on, you bastards, why aren't you clapping? Some Communists you are!"
The political commissar of the guards platoon ran up to him and shoved his revolver in his face. Vlasov reached out to grab the revolver, but a policeman ran up and pushed back his political commissar, who had been guilty of a blunder. The chief of the convoy gave the command: "Arms at the ready!" And thirty police carbines and the pistols of the local NKVD men were aimed at the defendants and at the crowd. (It seemed at the time as though the crowd would rush forward to free the defendants.)
The hall was lit only by a few kerosene lamps, and the semi-darkness heightened the general confusion and fear. The crowd, finally convinced, not so much by the trial as by the carbines now leveled at it, pushed in a panic against the doors and windows. The wood cracked and broke; glass tinkled. Univer's wife, in a dead faint, was almost trampled to death and was left lying beneath the chairs until morning.
And there never was any applause.
[One little note on eight-year-old Zoya Vlasova. She loved her father intensely. She could no longer go to school. (They teased her: "Your papa is a wrecker!" She would get in a fight: "My papa is good!") She lived only one year after the trial. Up to then she had never been ill. During that year she did not once smile; she went about with head hung low, and the old women prophesied: "She keeps looking at the earth; she is going to die soon." She died of inflammation of the brain, and as she was dying she kept calling out: "Where is my papa? Give me my papa!" When we count up the millions of those who perished in the camps, we forget to multiply them by two, by three.]
And not only couldn't the condemned prisoners be shot then and there, but they had to be kept under even stricter guard, because now they really had nothing at all to lose, and they had to be taken to the provincial capital for execution.
They managed to cope with the first problem—sending them off by night to the NKVD along the main str
eet—by having each condemned man guarded by five men. One of the guards carried a lantern. One went ahead with a pistol at the ready. Two held the condemned prisoner by the arms and kept their pistols in their free hands. The fifth brought up the rear, with his pistol pointed at the condemned man's back.
The rest of the police were ranged in formation in order to prevent any attack by the crowd.
Every reasonable man will now agree that the NKVD could never have carried out its great assignment if they had fussed about with open trials.
And that is why public political trials never really put down roots in our country.
Chapter 11
The Supreme Measure
Capital punishment has had an up-and-down history in Russia. In the Code of the Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich Romanov there were fifty crimes for which capital punishment could be imposed. By the time of the Military Statutes of Peter the Great there were two hundred. Yet the Empress Elizabeth, while she did not repeal those laws authorizing capital punishment, never once resorted to it. They say that when she ascended the throne she swore an oath never to execute anyone—and for all twenty years of her reign she kept that oath. She fought the Seven Years' War! Yet she still got along without capital punishment. It was an astound- ing record in the mid-eighteenth century—fifty years before the guillotine of the Jacobins. True, we have taught ourselves to ridicule all our past; we never acknowledge a good deed or a good intention in our history. And one can very easily blacken Eliza- beth's reputation too; she replaced capital punishment with flog- ging with the knout; tearing out nostrils; branding with the word "thief; and eternal exile in Siberia. But let us also say something on behalf of the Empress: how could she have changed things more radically than she did in contravention of the social concepts of her time? And perhaps the prisoner condemned to death today would voluntarily consent to that whole complex of punishments if only the sun would continue to shine on him; but we, in our humanitarianism, don't offer him that chance. And perhaps the reader will come to feel in the course of this book that twenty or even ten years in our camps are harder to bear than were the punishments of Elizabeth?
The Gulag Archipelago Page 52