The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  “Do you really think Leipunsky is an enemy of the people?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” he replied, “and a very dangerous one too.”

  “Well, then, how is it he enjoys general respect, that he is constantly loaded with new honors, and he is a member of the Academy of Science, and so on?”

  “Many people wore the Order of Lenin on their breasts before we unmasked them as enemies of the people. More than once heads of whole industries have been decorated with the highest Soviet orders on the very day we arrested them.”

  I felt inclined to comment on the lack of liaison, but I thought better of it. He seemed to feel what I thought.

  “There’s nothing so very surprising about that,” he went on. “In the interests of our work we keep only our own immediate superiors informed of our discoveries, and our highest chief, the Commissar General for Public Security and Commissar for Internal Affairs, Comrade Nikolai Ivanovitch Yezhov, informs only Stalin. Thus it can sometimes happen unfortunately that a secret enemy of the people succeeds in deceiving the Soviet authorities and in collecting Orders and other distinctions before we finally lay him by the heels. And then, as you know, we don’t always arrest people at once. We keep them under observation so as to mop up the whole network later. In Leipunsky’s case we’re still waiting and watching.”

  “Citizen Examiner, I’ve no doubt you know your own business best, but if your tactic causes even the highest organs of the state to make mistakes about a man, how can you expect me to have seen through Leipunsky?”

  This question seemed to cause him some difficulty because he paused and thought for a moment or two before he replied.

  “You were Leipunsky’s accomplice. Either you were his right hand, or he was yours. As I say, we’re not quite sure which.”

  The situation was quite hopeless. The general tone of the interrogation grew sharper, and Ryeznikov became abusive again. Then he altered his tone again.

  “You’ve been complaining that I torment you,” he said, “that I don’t let you sleep, and so on. But in reality it’s you who are tormenting me. I’ve never had a prisoner like you before. You just don’t react normally. ‘Whether I use reason or logic or extra pressure, the result is the same. You’ve been three months in solitary confinement now. It would have driven some prisoners off their heads, but you don’t even complain.”

  Something struck me suddenly.

  “How can I complain?” I asked. “I might just as well complain that you locked me up in the first place.”

  “That’s different. The Prosecutor General sanctioned your arrest. But solitary confinement is an aggravation of the normal prison regime which is ordered by the departmental chief. For instance, you can write to Captain Tornuyev and ask to be transferred to a common cell if you like. He might agree to do so; in fact, if you were only to show a little good sense and stop sabotaging the examination he certainly would.”

  “I’ve never sabotaged the examination,” I replied. “I have never done anything more than protest my innocence, and surely I’m entitled to do that.”

  “That’s not my opinion, but in any case it’s up to you whether you write to the captain or not, though I can tell you that when I’m consulted, as I shall be, I shan’t raise any objection. Maybe solitary confinement makes it difficult for you to realize your situation.”

  “Very well, then,” I said. “I’ll write to him if you will give me pencil and paper.”

  He produced both and I wrote a short request to the captain to be transferred to a common cell. Then I was taken back to my cell.

  Three days later I was called out. There had been no interrogations in the meantime.

  “Captain Tornuyev has granted your application,” Ryeznikov informed me. “This evening you will be transferred to a cell with other prisoners. I must warn you not to conduct any counterrevolutionary discussions. If you do you’ll go back to solitary again and in addition you will have to answer for it before the courts. During the course of the interrogations you’ve said many things a prosecutor might consider violations of Article 10, Paragraph 54, of the Ukrainian Penal Code. You’d better get used to the fact that our laws apply to foreigners too.”

  He rang for the guard.

  The interrogation was over.

  CHAPTER 6—The Provocateur

  I COULD HARDLY CONTAIN MY DELIGHT AT THE NEWS. TO BE AMONG human beings again; to learn what was really going on here, and what was happening outside; to be able to discuss my case with others instead of brooding over it in a corner on my own! Every interrogation and every new incident-could subsequently be discussed with friends in the cell. It would be a tremendous alleviation of my lot.

  I was so excited at the news that I was unable to touch my soup. I went to the window and looked out at the two trees: the one that was bare of leaves and yet full of sparrows, and the other that was full of leaves and yet for some reason was shunned by the birds. I felt so happy.

  And then suspicion arose in my mind. What was Ryeznikov’s aim? He was not doing it for my benefit. It occurred to me that he had brought the conversation round to the possibility of a transfer. Very carefully, almost accidentally. But the G.P.U. “didn’t believe in accidents.” Perhaps it would be a good thing to adopt their attitude. If Ryeznikov was now transferring me to a common cell, he had his reasons. The letter to Captain Tornuyev had probably been a blind. I felt quite sure that Ryeznikov could have ordered my transfer himself if he had wanted to. The fact that he thought a blind necessary was further cause for suspicion. Perhaps I should find a stool pigeon in the cell. The transfer no longer looked so favorable.

  Late that afternoon the vice-governor of the prison came to my cell with a warder. I was ordered to strip, and between them they very carefully searched my clothing. Then I was allowed to dress and pack my things. After that I was taken up to the next floor to a cell on the other side of the corridor. It proved to have much the same lay-out as my old cell. The windows looked out on to what I subsequently discovered was the main prison yard. There were three beds in the cell, and as I came in two men rose.

  The younger of the two was of medium height with very fair hair, a pock-marked face and the hands of a manual worker; and, in fact, he was an electrician. He made a rather unfavorable impression on me from the start, and I decided to be careful. His name was Denin.

  The other man was a striking personality, tall and sinewy, but a little bent, with an emaciated face, a high forehead, jet-black hair and burning eyes. I shook hands with him and told him my name. He held my hand for a moment or two and murmured: “Rozhansky.” Our eyes met and for a moment or two I was unable to look away, so compelling were his eyes. When he began to speak it was soon clear that his intellect did not belie his appearance.

  I answered in monosyllables. The great question in my mind was: Which one of them was the provocateur? I decided that in all probability it was Rozhansky.

  I put my things on the third bed and sat down. Rozhansky leaned against the wall and continued his interrupted conversation with Denin. He spoke for a long time, and gradually it grew dark in the cell. I remained silent and gave myself up to the feeling of calm which descended on me in the evenings, but my gaze was fixed on the dark silhouette near the window.

  Who did this man remind me of? That was how I had imagined the Florentine heretic Girolamo Savonarola. He made sweeping and yet rather angular gestures with his hand as he talked, and in his voice there was a suggestion of underlying fanaticism. He was telling Denin about the history of the French Convention. He spoke of Robespierre, and I had the impression that he deliberately gave the great tribune of the French Revolution the features of the man in the Kremlin who held us all prisoner here. I did not follow what he was saying very closely; I was too taken up with his impressive personality. And again I thought that if the man were dressed in the frock and hood of the monk instead of in his own shabby clothes the great Florentine heretic would be resurrected.

  At first the talk in th
e cell was cautious. None of us made any reference to his own case, but I learned a great deal about the political situation in the country and in the rest of the world. Rozhansky was one of the most highly educated men I have ever met. There were very few people in the Soviet Union with any thorough knowledge or appreciation of Western culture. And those who had were usually scientists or artists of the old school, or older Party members, though these latter usually looked at the West rather dogmatically through Marxist spectacles, and artistic and literary questions were generally outside their purview. Rozhansky was a Marxist too, but his interest was not confined to political and sociological questions. I was unable to mention any important English, French, German or Italian literary work he had not read. He was equally familiar with classic German philosophy, British political economy and French rationalism.

  In my talks with him my hunger for the creations of science and artistic imagination was satisfied once again. It was not merely that prison had cut me off from the cultural life of Europe and America; even before that my work, particularly since I had been engaged on organizational and technical tasks rather than scientific ones, had left me little time for reading. Modem literature was difficult to obtain, and Soviet literature was already under dictatorial control. Now and again I had dipped into the Russian classics, but not often. And at the end of the day I was usually too tired to go to a theater, though the theater in Russia was still exceptionally good. Now in my discussions with Rozhansky I returned to the loves of my youth. We discussed the great figures of the Renaissance or perhaps Shakespeare. Ideas flashed to and fro between us like the ball at a tennis tournament, and we enjoyed every shrewd stroke. In those days with Rozhansky I was mentally refreshed.

  He had no money and there was no one to see him in food from outside so I shared mine with him.

  At first we hardly mentioned our personal affairs; we were too taken up with the general problems and interests of mankind. And the examiner left me in peace for a whole week. After a few days both Denin and Rozhansky seemed to gain confidence, and they both told me their stories. Denin’s was simple. He was not a Party member, and the general difficulties had sometimes provoked him to make imprudent remarks: the bread was of poor quality, and it was difficult to get dripping to spread on it. Rations were too small, and so on. In short, “grumbling and grousing,” but it came within the meaning of Article lo, Paragraph 54, of the Soviet Penal Code against counterrevolutionary agitation, and good friends had brought his remarks to the notice of the G.P.U. The fact that there was very good cause for men like Denin to grumble—bread cost fifty times as much on the free market in the spring of 1933 as it had cost in the spring of 1927 before the beginning of enforced collectivization, while wages had risen only about sixty per cent—had nothing to do with it. Even the mention of known facts when their mention did not suit the authorities was regarded by the G.P.U. as counterrevolutionary agitation. It was not allowed to say that, for example, footwear had formerly been of better quality despite the fact that a pair of shoes would fall to pieces after about two months’ wear. The G.P.U. did not judge from the standpoint of the truth of a statement, but from its tendency. As I had opportunity to observe in hundreds of cases later, the accused men made no attempt to protest against such a violation of the ends of justice and they confined their defense in most cases to a denial that they had said the incriminating words. They were so thoroughly imbued with the dialectics of the G.P.U. that they were quite convinced that anyone who praised the former quality of footwear had in fact committed the crime of counterrevolutionary agitation.

  Rozhansky’s case was, as might have been expected, altogether more complicated. He was a Rumanian revolutionary of long standing. He had been arrested during the drive against the Rumanian Communists in the twenties, and he had held out against all the tortures of the Siguranza. After serving his term he had succeeded in escaping to the Soviet Union. At first he had played a considerable role in the Party, and for a time he had even been a political instructor in the Kharkov G.P.U., so that he knew well the inner mechanism of the Soviet secret police. But in the years 1925-27 he had shown some sympathy with the Trotsky opposition. After its liquidation he had gradually been demoted, until in the end he was in charge of the personnel supervision of a Kharkov trust. The next stage was his arrest.

  I was never able to discover exactly what he was charged with. He was not very explicit on the point, and he never claimed to be innocent. It seemed to refer chiefly to discussions, or to discussions about other discussions. It was impossible to put your finger on any concrete accusation—not that that surprised me. However, Rozhansky made no complaint and his attitude was that of a man utterly dedicated to the cause of the Party, the Soviet Government and socialism. Even in prison he defended every action of the Soviet authorities. When we finally came to discuss my case he asked calmly:

  “How much have you admitted?”

  “I haven’t admitted anything; there’s nothing to admit.”

  “You don’t understand me,” he returned patiently. “I mean what part of the indictment have you accepted?”

  “None of it. I keep telling you, I’m absolutely innocent.”

  They both laughed and Denin intervened. “Who’s guilty here? Am I guilty perhaps?”

  “I don’t understand you,” I said to Denin. “Do you mean that you have acknowledged false charges?”

  “Of course I have. What else can you do? You’ve got to be guilty if you’re ever to have any chance of getting out again.”

  I looked questioningly at Rozhansky.

  “Tell me, Alexander Semyonovitch,” he asked, “how long have you been here?”

  “Just over three months.”

  “And you’re still so naïve?”

  “Maybe, but I just don’t understand what my naïveté has got to do with my innocence.”

  “Alexander Semyonovitch,” said Rozhansky, “do you really think any of us are guilty of the crimes they charge us with? And yet both Denin and I have confessed to almost everything.”

  “That’s just what I don’t understand. Why did you do it?” Rozhansky exchanged glances with Denin and shook his head as though I were hopeless.

  “Now listen, Comrade Rozhansky,” I begged. “You tell me what’s going on here. Why do men like Denin and you confess to things you haven’t done?”

  “Do you mean to say no one’s told you?”

  “I’ve been in solitary confinement until now.”

  “Of course. I’d forgotten that. Well, listen: I consider it to be my Party duty to make whatever confessions the examiner requires.”

  “Either you’re mad or I am, Rozhansky. Why should your Party duty require you to make false confessions?”

  “How long have you been in the Soviet Union, Alexander Semyonovitch?”

  “Six years.”

  “Six years. That’s quite a time. You’re a member of the Party and you still use bourgeois concepts such as truth and lies though they’re devoid of all sense when applied to Soviet conditions. However, that’s your business and everyone is responsible in the last resort to his own conscience. The only thing that astonishes me is that the examiner has been prepared to tolerate your attitude up to now.”

  “What else could he do? I just refused to sign anything which wasn’t true.”

  Both of them stared at me in honest astonishment.

  “Alexander Semyonovitch,” observed Rozhansky, “I don’t know how the examiners treat foreigners, but a Soviet citizen would not have been three months in prison without confessing.”

  “But I’ve nothing to confess.”

  “You talk like a child. Which of us has anything to confess if it comes to that? But there are certain political necessities and the Party has the right to demand that Party members should recognize them.”

  I felt my head going round. Had I at last come face to face with the attitude that had been so utterly incomprehensible to me in the great trials? At first I wondered whether Rozhan
sky was lying to provoke me, but when I looked him straight in the face I saw that he was clearly in earnest.

  “Comrade Rozhansky, do you really think it can ever be the duty of a comrade to sign things which simply aren’t true?”

  “I believe it the duty of every Communist to subordinate himself to the necessities of the political struggle at all stages.”

  “That’s too general. Tell me simply why I should confess I’m a spy when I’m nothing of the sort. And tell me how it would benefit the Party.”

  “You needn’t say you’re a spy. From all you’ve told me the examiner doesn’t want you to, but you find out just what he does want, and then you must confess it and make it unnecessary for him to turn you into a spy.”

  “I’m sorry, but that sounds absolute lunacy to me. I just have no other word to describe it.”

  “Then don’t let’s talk about it, Alexander Semyonovitch. As I say, there’s only one thing that puzzles me: why the examiner has tolerated your attitude up to now.”

  “What else could he do if I refuse to tell lies?”

  “Alexander Semyonovitch, you’re just being silly. If he’s really determined you’ll give way within a week or two like everyone else and you’ll confess just whatever he wants you to confess. If you’re wise you’ll come to an arrangement with him beforehand and avoid all the unpleasantness. I’ve been in prison a long time now, but I’ve never come across a case like yours before.”

  He fell silent, and he was really angry, as though I had done him some injury. I must be in a lunatic asylum, I thought. Here are innocent men and they willingly confess whatever they’re asked to confess. And they don’t merely defend Soviet society—I did that too—but they even defend the repressive measures against themselves.

  The abrupt end of the discussion caused a certain constraint. My subsequent experiences showed me that a prison cell is a very sensitive organism. Its atmosphere is determined by the spirit of the most depressed man in it. One disagreeable prisoner can make the lives of a score of others a misery.