The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  The Communists hoped that the crisis would end in revolution, but the hesitant middle strata were driven into the camp of fascism and it ended in the victory of Hitler. Two years later Stalin realized at last what he had done. The powerful German working-class movement had ceased to exist. Hundreds of thousands of socialists and Communists had perished in Hitler’s prisons and concentration camps. And a new German Wehrmacht based on compulsory military service developed rapidly into a deadly threat to the Soviet Union. Only then did Stalin change his policy.

  The Seventh Congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1935 silently recognized the truth and adopted the very policy for which German right-wing Communists had been expelled, abused and denigrated three years before. I had never been a member of the right-wing opposition although I certainly shared its opinions, as, in fact, most Communists did. In 1931 Trotsky himself had written a brilliant polemic echoing the criticism of the right-wingers and demanding that the Party should support the Brüning Government and save the country from fascism even at the last moment. By that time no reasonable person any longer doubted that the official policy of the Party was leading to disaster. Only Stalin refused to see it.

  Were all those who had not forgotten these things—the famine, the destruction of the European working-class movement and the suppression of the last remnants of inner-Party democracy in Russia—now rotting in the prisons of the G.P.U.? Had the dictator set out to destroy all those who could ever rise up to remind him of his colossal blunders? It looked very much like it.

  But did we really ever intend to remind him of them? Wasn’t it truer to say that we had forgotten, or at least suppressed, their memory?

  We had suppressed all memory of the events of 1931-33, and we regarded what had happened then as a misfortune, but a misfortune in the same category as a natural catastrophe, an earthquake or a tidal wave. We had never thought that Stalin had deliberately brought about the deaths of ten million peasants. He had wanted to press on as quickly as possible with the collectivization policy and he had not foreseen the results. He wanted the victory of the revolution in Germany and he had not foreseen the victory of fascism. He had altered his course very late in the day, but at least he had altered it.

  After the good harvest of 1933 famine no longer stalked through the villages of Russia, and after the formation of the Popular Fronts in France and Spain the victorious advance of fascism seemed halted. At last the Party seemed to be going forward in the right direction. The former members of the opposition had not the slightest intention of resuscitating old strife. They devoted themselves to the work of construction while accepting Stalin’s absolutism as a necessary evil, and hoping that with the industrial development of the country, with the increase of general well-being and therefore the increase of general content, Stalin himself would gradually loosen the reins and that democracy would slowly return again, at least within the Party.

  There was no organized opposition throughout the length and breadth of the country. All that existed was this unspoken hope in all hearts. So why did the dictator suddenly have hundreds of thousands arrested in 1936? Why did he betray and sully the revolution by destroying the Old Guard of Bolshevism in those long-drawn-out series of trials? What danger threatened him? I could find no answer.

  It was not these general questions which now worried me. I had begun to realize that the danger to me personally was much greater than I had at first thought. I realized more and more that the G.P.U. proposed to destroy me as an opposition Communist and not as a foreign agent. So long as they charged me with Trotskyism the matter seemed comparatively harmless, but I really had sympathized with the ideas of Bukharin. If they sat in judgment on ideas then my future was black.

  At midnight the following clay I was taken to Ryeznikov for a further interrogation. Before him on his desk was a sheet of paper.

  “Today we want to get down some facts, Alexander Semyonovitch,” he said. “Now first of all, when did you first join the organization?”

  I knew perfectly well what he meant but I pretended to misunderstand him.

  “I actually joined the Communist Party on May I, 1927,” I said innocently, “but I had been working for the Communist Party within the ranks of Austrian Social Democracy for two years before that.”

  He looked at me for a moment to see if I was serious, and then he said irritably:

  “To the devil with your work in the Austrian Communist Party. I’m not particularly interested in how you camouflaged yourself. I want to know when you joined the illegal, counterrevolutionary Bukharinist organization and who recruited you.”

  I made no reply.

  “So you won’t talk, eh?”

  He began to use frightful language. I listened to it all with half an ear. Finally he stopped and asked me solemnly.:

  “Accused Weissberg, is it your intention to sabotage the examination? Are you refusing to make any statement?”

  “No, I do not propose to sabotage the examination and I am not refusing to make any statement, but I have already answered that question at least a dozen times and you already have my answer. I was never a member of any illegal, counterrevolutionary organization.”

  “Listen, I’ve got enough against you to close the examination, and pass on the material to the Military Tribunal. If I did, you’d be a dead man in less than a month.”

  “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. Why don’t you?”

  “Because although we already know a very great deal, we want to know everything. We know ninety per cent of your crimes perhaps, but you know one hundred per cent. We are not going to let you out of here until you’ve told me the remaining ten per cent.”

  “Why don’t you tell me finally what it is you think you know? Perhaps then I could show you that your suspicions are baseless.”

  “You are the accused; it’s you who’ve got to tell us. Our methods are different from capitalist methods. Because we don’t know everything we won’t tell you anything until we do. Now if you were to make a confession which contained the ninety per cent we already do know then we should believe that you really had capitulated.”

  “In that case my examination will never end at all, because there’s just nothing more to tell.”

  “Do you deny the discussions with Anders?”

  “No, I don’t, but there’s nothing in them to prove me a counterrevolutionary. It’s quite true I criticized the system of rationing staple goods, but since then the Soviet Government has itself abolished the rationing system, and I therefore can’t see why you should regard my criticism as counterrevolutionary.”

  “The ideas which prompted your criticism were counterrevolutionary and Bukharinist. You didn’t invent them yourself. You got them from your associates in the counterrevolutionary organization. For us ideas are much the same as smoke on the horizon is for the wanderer in the desert; it indicates the presence of human habitations. The utterance of a counterrevolutionary idea indicates the existence of a counterrevolutionary organization, There are no mere chance coincidences for us.”

  “At first you said I was some sort of foreign agent, a spy for some hostile power. Now you say I’m an oppositionist.”

  “Only a deliberate hypocrite or an idiot would fail to understand the connection. Have you followed the trials?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well then, did you read what Radek said about Bukharin?” “Yes.”

  “Do you know that Bukharin founded a third counterrevolutionary center that worked together with the Trotskyist center?”

  “No.”

  “These people admitted that their organization concentrated on diversion, terrorism, espionage and sabotage. The instructions were given by Trotsky. From 1931 on these people were no longer oppositionist; they were foreign agents. In our country socialism has been victorious under the leadership of Comrade Stalin. They couldn’t overthrow it on their own so they allied themselves with the fascist espionage centers.”

  I said not
hing. The whole rigmarole was sheer nonsense, but I couldn’t say so. Even saying nothing was dangerous.

  “Do you understand the connection now?” he demanded.

  “Not altogether,” I said hesitantly.

  “Well, when the Bukharinists issued the slogan for espionage and terrorism then, of course, every member of their organization became a terrorist and a spy for us. Now when we find you spreading Bukharinist ideas that shows us that you’re a member of the Bukharinist organization. In other words, you were a foreign agent. Is that clear?”

  My mind reeled. I could not protest against the distorted logic of his deductions without seriously endangering myself. All I could do was to deny that I had ever harbored Bukharinist ideas, and that was difficult.

  “Are you prepared to give away your organization to us or not?” “I don’t know anything about any organization.”

  “Alexander Semyonovitch, perhaps you’ve a wrong idea about illegal organizations in the Soviet Union....”

  While he went on speaking it struck me how blatantly he was contradicting himself: in one breath he asked me to give away my organization and in the next he suggested that I had no idea of what such an organization looked like. And that was really true: I hadn’t.

  “In our country,” he went on, “counterrevolutionary organizations with an elected chairman and proper membership cards and so on are impossible.”

  “Well, what is it actually then that you regard as a counterrevolutionary organization?” I asked cautiously.

  “Let me explain: if three of you are in a room together talking about something or other and a fourth man comes in and then you change the subject, you three belong to the organization and he doesn’t.”

  “But surely, for private reasons I can have secrets from my friends?”

  “When you hold political discussions then we don’t recognize private secrets any more. Good citizens of the Soviet Union have no reason to fear publicity.”

  Gradually I began to grasp why he was saying all this: he wanted to make it easy for me to admit being a member of a counterrevolutionary organization. If I accepted his definition of a counterrevolutionary organization then it would be an easy step to admit that my friends and I at the Institute had formed a counterrevolutionary organization, because it would certainly often have been embarrassing for us to have outside witnesses to our talks.

  Ryeznikov became more and more conciliatory and he talked with me until six o’clock in the morning about various matters in my past life abroad, some of them only very remotely connected with the matter in hand. I was very tired when I returned to my cell.

  The interrogation had made me think. I put the decisive questions to myself once again:

  Did they really suspect me and were they anxious to get at the truth?

  Or did they want me to make a fictitious confession as the accused in the show trials had done?

  And if they really suspected me, what did they suspect me of? Did they think I was an agent of the Gestapo or merely a member of the Communist opposition?

  Ryeznikov had presented the idea of membership of an illegal organization as a comparatively harmless matter, apparently in order to make me confess that I was a member. That seemed to suggest that all they wanted was a fictitious confession. But why? The answer that it was, after all, their job to discover illegal organizations was rather too simple. And, in any case, it didn’t explain why they had suddenly begun to arrest hundreds of thousands of people. Nothing had happened to explain that. There had been no crisis in the villages. There was no increased danger of war. In fact, things were going relatively well, certainly very much better than four years previously, and yet the mass arrests had begun only now.

  The next interrogation brought me no nearer to the solution of the mystery. Ryeznikov was very aggressive and acted as though he were firmly convinced of my guilt. He probed in particular for what he called my oppositionist connections abroad.

  “Did you know any Trotskyists or Bukharinists in Germany?”

  “I didn’t know a single Trotskyist, but I knew a lot of right-wingers.”

  “Tell me their names.”

  “There were too many of them.”

  “Tell me the names of those who were expelled from the Party, or at least the most important of them.”

  “Well, the most important of them whom I knew personally were Willi Stein and Karl Frank.”

  “Who was Willi Stein and when and where did you make his acquaintance?”

  “I was about fifteen when I first met Willi Stein. We were both students at the time. It was just after the 1918 revolution. Willi joined the Communists and soon began to play a big role. Subsequently he was elected to the Central Committee. After July 15, 1927, he came into opposition. In 1928 he was expelled. I went to Berlin myself in the following year and had no further contact with him.

  “Did you have anything to do with him after he was expelled from the Party?”

  “I met him occasionally in Vienna, Prague or Berlin. I was also friendly with his wife.”

  “So you admit having relations with an enemy of the Party?”

  “I met him very seldom and when I did we always argued. I thought he was wrong.”

  “Who gave you instructions to discuss things with him? Did you always report your discussions with him to the Party?”

  “No one gave me any such instruction and I never reported our talks. It wasn’t forbidden to talk to a former Party member.”

  “Don’t try to tell me fairy stories. I’m quite as well informed about foreign countries as you are. Are you lying to tell me that members of the Party were allowed to maintain illegal relations with enemies of the Party?”

  “They weren’t illegal. I met him from time to time in cafés. I argued in favor of my point of view, which was also that of the Party, and he argued in favor of his. For me he was just an old friend with whom I disagreed.”

  “That old friend of yours was a bitter and dangerous enemy of the Party, and now he’s openly a fascist.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. I’ve never heard that he went over to the Nazis.”

  Ryeznikov produced a bundle of green-covered folders.

  “These are the information bulletins we get every week about enemy activities abroad. The name of Willi Stein is often mentioned. He is one of the most dangerous enemies of the working class in the world.”

  “It’s news to me.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  At this point Ryeznikov used the familiar form of address, “thou,” which he had no right to do. It was a sign that the discussion was about to become unpleasant.

  “In the summer of 1935 in Prague.”

  “What!” he exclaimed. “Since you were in the Soviet Union you have maintained relations with the enemy! What material did you give him?”

  “None. We discussed whether the Italians really intended to go to war with Abyssinia or whether they were merely bluffing.”

  “What an innocent! He meets, by accident, of course, a dangerous enemy in Prague and they discuss Abyssinia! Who do you think’s going to believe that?”

  “I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t believe it.”

  “What were you doing in Prague?”

  “The Austrian Communist Party had its headquarters in Prague at that time. I wanted to get in touch with Ernst Fischer, who was a member of the Central Committee.”

  “What did you want him for?”

  “I wanted to leave the Soviet Union and I thought it would be best if the Central Committee of my own Party recalled me.”

  “So the Soviet Union was already getting too hot for you, eh? You thought we were already on your track.”

  “Not in the least, I didn’t know I had anything to fear. It was just that working under Davidovitch gave me no pleasure. I met with mistrust and obstruction wherever I turned, and I had had enough of it by that time. That’s all.”

  “Poor misunderstood lamb! So you were upset by mistr
ust! You were organizing an open revolt against the military work of the Institute, and you pretend to be surprised that we were mistrustful! We were fools; we ought to have arrested you there and then. The Institute would be in a different state today if we had.”

  I made no answer. If Ryeznikov intended to make something of the fact that I led the opposition against Davidovitch he would do it in his own good time.

  “Did Willi Stein give you any instructions in Prague?”

  “Of course he didn’t. He was in no position to give me orders.”

  “You’re not as stupid as all that; you know perfectly well what I mean. I want to know whether he gave you any counterrevolutionary instructions for espionage or sabotage in the Soviet Union. Did he give you any instructions for the carrying out of terrorist actions?”

  “For heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed. “I meet an old friend in a café and drink a cup of coffee with him and his wife, and then he gives me instructions for terrorism, espionage and I don’t know what else! Admittedly I don’t know much about such matters but surely that’s not the way they’re arranged?”

  “Don’t play the innocent with me. What instructions did Willi Stein give you when you returned to the Soviet Union? And what instructions did you pass on from him to others?’

  “Citizen Examiner, Willi Stein had no orders to give to me, and certainly not such orders. I squabbled with him about Abyssinia over a cup of coffee. That’s all. He had no letters he wanted to send into the Soviet Union, and if he had had I shouldn’t have taken them.”

  “We know better. Willi Stein was your chief in the counterrevolutionary Bukharinist organization. But we’ll return to that point later.”

  At the next interrogation, which took place the following day, it was Karl Frank’s turn. I first met Karl Frank in 1918. At that time I was still at school while he was already a doctor and a Communist. He made a very good impression on me. He was a very handsome fellow and he had an agreeable and engaging manner. The women loved him, of course, and he returned the compliment. However, he wasn’t merely a ladies’ man; he was a good comrade. Despite the fact that he held a high position in the Party, he was not really a political character at all. He resigned from the Party—I think it was in 1929—and in a most unusual fashion. He had not previously played any role in the opposition but suddenly he distributed leaflets among the delegates to the Party Congress in Wedding openly condemning the methods of the Central Committee. This was the period in which inner-Party democracy was being suppressed at Moscow’s orders. Karl Frank protested that oppositionist comrades were being expelled from the Party and denounced as counterrevolutionaries. He was himself expelled from the Party on the spot.