But if I succeeded, what then? If I went home they would be after me at once. Should I go to Moscow? But who would give me shelter? All my friends were known to the G.P.U. and I had no right to endanger any of them. And strangers, even those who sympathized with me, would hand me over. Fear intimidated even the most courageous. They might even suspect a trap. I could try to get abroad. But the Soviet frontier was too closely guarded. Perhaps one in a million succeeded. Merely to appear anywhere near the frontier would mean immediate arrest.
For a moment I thought desperately of going to the Austrian Embassy in Moscow for protection, but immediately I dismissed the idea and felt rather ashamed of myself for even having harbored it. Party members would sooner go under than owe their safety to a capitalist government.
But what am I worrying so much about? I thought. I’m not a counterrevolutionary. Why should they want to arrest me? It was true that in my heart of hearts I hated Stalin’s tyranny over the Party and his ruthless suppression of freedom. But they couldn’t know what I felt about it. I had never expressed my views, not even to good friends. So why should they want to arrest me? But they had arrested Hans Strahler, and he was certainly just as pro-Soviet as I was. And yet after a few months in their hands he had “confessed” to being an agent of the Gestapo.
How the devil had that been possible? Strahler certainly was not and never had been an agent of the Gestapo. I would gladly have staked my head on that. Had they forced him to confess? But why should they have wanted to? Strahler was a capable and loyal engineer. The Soviet Union needed people like him. Fundamentally he was unpolitical, and he had never been in opposition to the Party line. He was devoted to his work and little else interested him. So why had they arrested him? And why had they forced him to say he was a spy? Of course, somehow they had forced the accused in the show trials to make such confessions, but that had been a settlement of accounts between the big men. Strahler and the other men of my acquaintance they had arrested were small men; they had nothing to do with high politics. And neither had I, though I was not unpolitical. The idea of individual freedom meant a lot to me, and I had thought deeply about the reasons which had caused the revolution to destroy liberty for revolutionaries as well as for the old ruling classes. But Strahler and the others were probably not much interested even in such questions. They did their work and they brought up their families. So why had they been arrested? And would the G.P.U. now arrest me and force me to make false confessions too? And would I break down after a while and sign everything as Strahler had done?
But perhaps it was all only a test of loyalty, and the arrested men would be released once their innocence was established? Surely they couldn’t be so insane as to destroy their own friends?
These and similar ideas went through my mind during the two hours I was kept waiting for Polevedsky. At last I saw him coming rapidly toward me, carrying a folder and a number of loose papers in his hand. Somehow he looked a trifle more sinister than before, and I felt a panic of fear rising in my heart. Resolutely I suppressed it. Whatever happened, I must keep calm. He unlocked the door of his room.
“Go in and sit down,” he said.
He carefully put his papers away, and then sat down at his desk looking straight at me for a moment or so in silence. Then he began in a raised voice:
“We demand that you should immediately make a full confession of your activities to undermine the Soviet Union.”
My mind began to work even before he had finished. What was my best tactic? To jump up and make a scene at the insult or to answer calmly? If I remained calm he might regard it as an unspoken confession of guilt. I decided to take the middle course.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“You came to our country to organize a treasonable conspiracy. We’ve had our eye on your nefarious work for years. And now we are going to give you a last chance: reveal everything, tell us the names of your agents and come over to our side.”
“You have no right to talk to me in that tone.”
“What tone we use toward you and how we treat you are a matter entirely for ourselves. Give me the information I want.”
“I am not a counterrevolutionary. On the contrary, I have worked loyally to help build up socialism.”
“We’ll deal with your professional work later. You used it as a cloak for your secret machinations.”
“Comrade Polevedsky...”
“I’m not your comrade.”
“Well, how am I to address you?”
“Citizen Examiner to you.”
“Am I here under examination, then? Am I arrested?”
“No. At least, not yet. It will depend on the result of our discussion. You are being offered a last chance. Come over to our side and work with us. It won’t be to your disadvantage.”
“I don’t even know what it is you’re talking about. I am a foreign Communist and I came to the Soviet Union to help build up socialism.”
“For years you have been the leader of secret underground work to undermine the basis of our reconstruction.”
“On the contrary, for years I have worked wholeheartedly to carry out the tasks entrusted to me by the Party and the Soviet Government.”
‘We don’t want to hear about that; it’s your counterrevolutionary activities we’re interested in. Tell us who gave you your instructions. Who sent you here? Who are your agents?”
“Citizen Examiner, you have no right to talk to me in this fashion. You can arrest me but as long as I am still a free man I will allow no one to talk to me like that without protest.”
He sprang to his feet angrily.
“In our cellars we’ll talk very differently to you. You don’t seem to realize the position you’re in. I don’t intend to argue with you. Give me concrete answers to my questions. Who sent you here?”
“The Supreme Economic Council of the Soviet Union invited me to come here to work as a physicist at the Kharkov Institute.”
“I’m not discussing your scientific work, I tell you. It’s your counterrevolutionary activity that interests me. For the last time, will you tell me the truth about it or not?”
“There’s absolutely nothing to tell.”
“I warn you against treating this matter lightly. You’re risking your freedom and your life itself.”
“Citizen Examiner, I’ve told you before, I don’t understand. Either you’re mistaking me for someone else or someone has falsely denounced me. What have you got against me?”
“I’ve told you already. You are the leader of an anti-Soviet group. And now I want to know the details of the conspiracy.”
“I am ready to tell you the smallest detail about my life. I have absolutely nothing to hide. Far from being an enemy of the Soviet Union, I am one of its warmest supporters.”
“You are an enemy of the Soviet Union, and you’ll soon admit it.” ‘Tell me at least what there is against me.”
“I have already told you.”
“No, all you’ve done is to bring forward a general charge with absolutely nothing to support it, a charge which is absolutely incredible to me. If you tell me what concrete facts you think you have against me, I shall be able to rebut the false denunciation.”
“Listen: we know the details of every day of your life, probably better than you do yourself. Throw down your arms, give up the struggle against the Soviet power, abandon your counterrevolutionary activity and confess everything so that we can clear up the whole network. Confess everything.”
“I’ve done nothing that I could confess.”
“I warn you again: you’re playing with fire.”
“Citizen Examiner, tell me what it is I am supposed to have done. Show me the material you have against me.”
“So long as you are not under arrest you can’t be shown the material. In any case, you know perfectly well what you have done and what you planned to do. You have got to tell us everything, and not the other way round. If y
ou confess, throw down your arms, sincerely regret your past and show you are honestly prepared to come over to our side, we’ll give you every chance.”
“I can’t say any more than I have already said. I worked for the Soviet Union, not against it. If you give me one concrete instance of a suspicious circumstance I’ll tell you everything I possibly can in order to clear the matter up. At the moment I can’t defend myself because I don’t know the concrete basis of the charges.”
“So you want to continue the struggle against us?”
“I have never waged any struggle against you.”
“You are not prepared to confess?”
“I have absolutely nothing to confess.’
“You refuse to assist the N.K.V.D. in its struggle against the enemies of the people?”
“I don’t know how I could help you.”
“That’s very simple: give us the names of your agents and the details of your network.”
“I know nothing about any such agents.”
At this point he altered his tone and became confidential.
“Alexander Semyonovitch, perhaps you don’t know the nature of our organization. This is not the Public Prosecutor’s Department. Even if we discover an offense we needn’t prosecute if we feel the man has repented.”
“That may be, but I’ve never done anything of that sort to repent.”
“Listen, Alexander Semyonovitch: a man sometimes does something against a friend and afterward he regrets it. The reasons can be very complicated. Perhaps you aren’t an inveterate enemy of the Soviet Union, but for some reason we don’t know you have got mixed up with our enemies, and now you probably think there’s no way back. You’re wrong. We’re prepared to help you.”
“I don’t understand a word you say and none of it seems to apply to me.”
“Alexander Semyonovitch, when a man has done a bad turn to a friend the very best thing he can do is to go to that friend and tell him the truth. Honest and open confession is the best way to re-establish good relations. You have acted badly toward our country, but we are prepared to forgive you. First of all, however, you must throw down your arms. Then we’ll help you. You could still help us a great deal.”
“I would willingly tell you if there were anything to tell.”
“Tell us all the details about your organization.”
“I have never belonged to any illegal organization.”
“So, you intend to continue the struggle?”
“I have never waged any struggle against you.”
He repeated the same sentence again and again, and I gave him the same answer each time. Afterwards I learned that this monotonous repetition was an essential part of their examining technique. This went on for about two hours and then he gave it up.
“Very well. Just as you like. You can’t say we haven’t given you a chance. Come with me.”
I followed him out and along a corridor to the large and airy room of his chief. On the wall opposite the door was a life-size portrait of Dzherzhinsky, the first head of the Cheka during the civil war period. At a T-shaped table sat a man in the uniform of a captain.
“Comrade Captain,” said Polevedsky, “here is the Accused Weissberg.”
Polevedsky’s chief looked up and smiled amiably, showing two gold teeth. He was a small slender man with lively eyes, an intelligent face and graceful movements. He looked like a Jew to me. I can’t remember his name any more, but it sounded something like Azak, and that is what for the sake of convenience I propose to call him.
“I’m glad to see you, Alexander Semyonovitch,” he said. “You’re an old acquaintance of ours.”
“That’s news to me, Comrade Captain,” I replied. I observed that he made no objection to my using the word “comrade.”
“Yes, I know you don’t know me, Alexander Semyonovitch, but I know you very well. Your affairs interested me a long time before I felt compelled to invite you to come here.”
“I don’t understand why.”
He smiled again, this time rather sarcastically.
“Listen, Alexander Semyonovitch, you’re an intelligent man and you could be of very great assistance to us.”
“I fail to see in what way.”
“And yet it’s all very simple: you just decide that in future you’ll do for us what you’ve been doing for other people, that’s all.”
“Comrade Captain, for at least three hours I’ve been trying to convince the Citizen Examiner here that I don’t know what he’s talking about. Will you at least tell me what there is against me? Then I should be able to answer and dissipate all suspicion.”
“It isn’t a question of suspicion. We know your work to undermine our construction from beginning to end.”
“Then let me see the proofs.”
“You’ll see them soon enough if you’re arrested, but we don’t want to have to arrest you at all. If you enter our service now your offenses against us will be forgotten and a big career will be opened up. Your material situation will be much improved, too.”
“I don’t want my material situation improved. I’m quite well satisfied as I am. I like my work and I don’t want to give it up. But for about a year now I have been the victim of spiteful attacks which in all probability came indirectly from your people.”
“We don’t want to discuss your work now. The question is: Will you or will you not confess?”
“And I tell you again that I have absolutely nothing to confess.”
“You are an enemy of the people, of the Soviet Union, and of the Soviet Government. You are carrying on underground work on behalf of a foreign power.”
At that I lost my patience and jumped up.
“Citizen Captain, that is monstrous. You have no right to talk to me in that fashion.”
It was his turn to get angry and he almost shouted at me:
“It’s not for you to say what’s to be done here. If anyone has a right to raise his voice it’s me. You seem to forget where you are.”
He sat down again, picked up a piece of paper and went on in a calmer voice:
“With whom were you in touch in the N Apparatus?”
I had no idea what the N Apparatus was, and I don’t know even to this day.{4} I assumed that it was the German intelligence service.
“I’ve never even heard of such a thing,” I replied.
The captain looked questioningly at Polevedsky, who flung up his hands in despair and looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. If I had denied all knowledge of my name he couldn’t have looked more astonished. Today, twelve years afterward, having gone through all the phases of the Great Purge and having become thoroughly acquainted with the workings of G.P.U., I still don’t know what that strange little scene in Captain Azak’s office meant. In their hearts both these G.P.U. men knew perfectly well that I was innocent of all their charges. They knew that I was a loyal supporter of the Soviet Union and not a foreign spy. And yet both of them felt that in the presence of the other they must pretend that they believed in the truth of what they said. They played up to each other and apparently hoped it would persuade me to make a fictitious confession.
“Alexander Semyonovitch, that won’t do, you know” he said. “You must talk.”
“I can’t say more than I’ve already said.”
“Listen: we haven’t decided what to do with you yet. You’re not under arrest. If we were in the slightest doubt as to your guilt we shouldn’t have invited you to come here today; we should have continued to watch you. Now we’re going to give you one more chance. Go home now and come back here the day after tomorrow. That will give you time to think it over. I’m sure you’ll see the wisdom of cooperating with us. That will be all for now.”
And turning to Polevedsky he ordered:
“Settle the necessary formalities with Citizen Weissberg.”
Polevedsky and I went out together and walked back to his room, where he made another but rather half-hearted attempt to convince me.
/> “All right,” he said finally. “Think it over. If you take my advice you’ll do what Captain Azak says. You’ll never get better terms. Obstinacy can only make matters worse.”
Then he handed me a typewritten slip for signature, which read:
“I, the undersigned, declare that I am aware that it is my duty in law not to reveal to any third party anything that has happened at today’s interrogation. I am also aware that any breach of this obligation represents a breach of state secrets and is punishable according to Paragraph...with a term of imprisonment of five years.”
I signed.
“Come again the day after tomorrow at one o’clock in the morning. Give me your propusk.”
I handed it to him and he signed it and returned it.
“You can go now.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I had practically given up hope of getting out of the place a free man. I hurried down the stairs, gave up my propusk to the guard and found myself on the street again. The whole affair had shaken me deeply, but for the moment I felt only the tremendous relief and joy of the animal let out of its cage. The idea of returning weighed on me, but at least I had forty-eight hours of freedom in which to think, and perhaps to act.
It was almost four o’clock when I got home. My friend Marcel opened the door. He and his wife Lena and their child lived in my flat.
“What’s the matter, Alex?” he asked in concern. “You look terrible.”
“Something’s happened,” I said, “but I can’t tell you what.” “But why not?” he asked. “Where were you?”
“I can’t tell you. Get me something to drink, that’s all.”
I went into the dining room. Lena was there and for her one look was enough. She realized instinctively what had happened.
“What did they do to you?” she asked.
The Accused Page 5