The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  “Not. Leipunsky thought the N.K.V.D. had made a mistake in my case.”

  “Oho, he believes that, does he? Then it won’t be long perhaps before he believes that the official press was wrong. And then after that he’ll believe that the Soviet Government was wrong and that Piatakov and Radek and Zinoviev were not really fascist beasts! We represent the Soviet power, and whoever fights against us fights against the Soviet power.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The right answer would have been: “Everything you are doing here is a swindle. Piatakov, Radek, Zinoviev, Muralov and Bukharin were not counterrevolutionaries. You are swindlers and you are perverting the end of justice. When a man fights against you he is not fighting against the Soviet power at all, but for the eternal ideas of truth, liberty and justice, to which the Soviet power owes its origin in the great Russian Revolution.” But it was precisely this answer—the only correct one—that I was not in a position to give. To do so would have been regarded as open insurrection. I should have been taken down into some gloomy cellar and destroyed out of hand and my protest against these oppressors would have gone unheard. There was no open court for men who took that attitude.

  The miserable half-measures with which I had to defend myself sapped my courage and my confidence. If circumstances forced me to accept the official stigma of counterrevolutionary for Piatakov then it was only logical when Ryeznikov made an analogous deduction from Leipunsky’s support for the counterrevolutionary Weissberg. If Piatakov was a counterrevolutionary so was I. Leipunsky could not know and had no right to assume that Weissberg was not a counterrevolutionary if the G.P.U. said he was. Weissberg was officially a counterrevolutionary just as much as Piatakov, Zinoviev and the others. And if Leipunsky doubted it despite what the G.P.U. said, then he, too, was an enemy of the people. It was all horribly logical.

  I was not fighting for truth and justice. There was not the slightest chance or opportunity of doing that. I was fighting for my freedom and perhaps my life. I could fight only within the limits permitted by the G.P.U. Rozhansky’s campaigning, on the one hand, and the iron limits set to my possibilities of defense on the other, had broken my spirit even before the physical terror of the examination began.

  When I went back to my cell I was completely apathetic and I was already considering what “confessions” I could make to save myself.

  Rozhansky’s influence did the rest. When I look back I know perfectly well that I was not really convinced by Rozhansky, and that I never at any time believed that it was my Party duty to surrender. I was a coward and I had grown weak; that was all there was to it. In one thing, though, Rozhansky was right: the more I resisted the more exigent the demands of the examiner would become and the more serious his charges. At the moment it would probably be enough to confess to anti-Soviet agitation. In another couple of weeks Ryeznikov would probably have added sabotage. And after that espionage and diversion would come. He had hinted as much already. The idea of putting my name to a document in which I admitted being an agent of German fascism just filled me with horror. Anything but that, I thought. Agitation against the Soviet power was nothing; everyone outside the Soviet Union would understand that as agitation against the tyranny of Stalin. And as for terrorism, there were very many people in the Soviet Union, and not a few abroad, who would hug themselves with delight at the thought of an attempt on the life of the despot. To admit such things would bring me nothing but honor and a false halo as a martyr in the cause of human freedom. But espionage? That meant espionage for German fascism. And diversionary activity? That meant an attempt to knock the defensive weapons out of the hands of the Soviet Union in the event of a fascist attack. That was the blackest of crimes and could mean only ignominy.

  I began to consider how I could come to some sort of compromise with Ryeznikov. I could adopt a few of his formulations. I could accept the conflict in the Institute in his light instead of in mine. And I could admit that my speech in the German Workers’ Club was anti-Soviet agitation. They might be satisfied with that and close the case. They weren’t ever likely to admit they had arrested an innocent man. Thus if I insisted I was absolutely innocent they would never let me go. I should have to make concessions in minor matters.

  In one of the next interrogations Ryeznikov brought up the question of my speech in the German Workers’ Club, but only incidentally, and then he said something which filled me with deep misgiving.

  “We are getting more and more information about you. If you weren’t so obstinate you could speak to us frankly about many things. After all, we’re not inhuman. In that case you could probably explain away quite a lot of suspicious circumstances. As things stand we feel inclined to believe everything we hear against you, including the latest information, which seems clearly to point to the crime of espionage. No, Alexander Semyonovitch, there isn’t much more time. You’ll have to come clean pretty quickly or you’ll be lost. We shall just hand the completed case over to the special Troika and you’ll be sentenced to death in your absence and shot within twenty-four hours.”

  The thought was disagreeable, but at that time I did not fear a death sentence—that fear was to come later. However, the vague suspicion of espionage did disturb me. Was he referring to those blueprints? During the next few days I found it impossible to think of anything else. I couldn’t bring myself to discuss it with Rozhansky. We had become good friends, but there was still a last vestige of mistrust.

  Despite what Rozhansky said, I still couldn’t believe the G.P.U. really wanted me to confess fictitious crimes. I knew that very much of what he said was true, but I didn’t believe all of it. I knew that the leaders of the opposition had been compelled to make fictitious confessions, but at least the reason for that was clear enough: the authorities were unwilling to destroy them officially as political enemies of Stalin; they were first to be discredited in the eyes of the masses as German and Japanese spies. Although Stalin had not succeeded in this, nevertheless the accused had been humiliated and made to appear contemptible. They were certainly not German or Japanese spies—everyone knew it—but they had given way to the pressure of the tyrant and they had not even attempted to use the court as a tribune from which to denounce his tyranny. People in Russia did not yet know that heroism has a limit, that even old revolutionaries are men of flesh and blood.

  Thus although I knew perfectly well that the leaders of the opposition had been compelled to make false confessions, I did not realize that the G.P.U. was anxious to compel millions of politically unimportant people to do the same. I couldn’t see the sense of that. I represented no danger to the regime. For one thing, I was a foreigner. If I made myself a nuisance I could be deported at once. No, Rozhansky must be wrong; they must have some real suspicion against me. There was no other possible explanation. Perhaps it was the affair of the drawings after all?

  Perhaps it would be best if I made a clean breast of the whole thing. If I was right and Rozhansky was wrong, that would certainly be the best thing to do. On the other hand, if I were wrong and Rozhansky were right then I should hand myself over to the examiner entirely. What better material could he ask than the mysterious affair of the missing drawings?

  When I look back now the thing that impresses me most is the extent to which I had become affected by the spy scare of the G.P.U. The whole thing was ridiculous. The drawings were not in the least secret, despite the absurd precautions the Russians had taken about them. The Germans had more accurate ones themselves. Supposing I had left them abroad. Well, what of it? Was I supposed to have sold the Germans inferior Russian copies of their own blueprints? We were all mad, myself included. And yet I suffered three years of mental agony over those stupid drawings.{7}

  My chief trouble was that I couldn’t make up my mind what they wanted of me. Was I to be exposed as an oppositionist or denounced as a spy? Did they want to force an innocent man to make fictitious confessions, or did they want to clear up suspicions against a doubtful person?

  Gradually
I lost my original self-confidence. The persistent corroding influence of Rozhansky and the increasing pressure of the examiner combined to sap my powers of resistance. I hardly slept at all, and the time taken up in interrogations now amounted to between eighteen and twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and it always included the whole night. During the day I was not allowed to lie down. I could sit on my bed, but I was not allowed to lean back against the wall. If I dozed off I was immediately waked up and taken off for a further examination. The warder obviously had instructions to wake me the moment I nodded off and take me out for interrogation, because I often had to wait a very long time in Ryeznikov’s anteroom before I was taken in.

  Ryeznikov had apparently been promoted. He had a new office with an anteroom in which two assistants named Shalit and Weissband worked. There were no longer any discussions. Sometimes they shouted at me two at a time without interruption until my head began to spin. I confined myself to saying yes or no, chiefly no, and I made no attempt to explain anything. I felt with dismay that I shouldn’t be able to stand it much longer, and at the same time I thought with horror of the possibility of their progressively increasing their demands.

  I held out for a week. They no longer allowed me to go back to my cell. In between interrogations I was taken down to the cellars or into the washroom. People who have never been in prison rarely appreciate that a prisoner’s cell is his “home.” It disturbs and pains him to be dragged out of it, and the thought of changing cells is always highly disagreeable. Later on I was to live in cells which were terribly overcrowded, but even those terrible places were “home” to the prisoners, and they were always depressed and morally undone if they had to move. To be called out for an interrogation and then not allowed to go back to your cell is a horror and a misery whose nature it is almost impossible to convey to an ordinary man. Prisoners who had to sleep on a cement floor huddled up together, glad if they had enough room to stretch out in, still formed an attachment to their own particular “place” and they were in despair if anything happened to evict them from it.

  After a week of this banishment from “home” they let me go back. It was Sunday, when normally there were no interrogations. I saw Rozhansky’s face as soon as I came into the cell and I knew what I must look like. He was obviously shaken by my appearance. Even Denin showed me his sympathy. In the meantime my rations had been handed in as usual and they had saved me some bread. I was not hungry. I just flung myself fully clothed as I was onto the bed and went to sleep. Mercifully the warder made no attempt to interfere with me.

  That evening Rozhansky spoke to me again. He made no attempt to win me over to his political views. He just told me urgently that it was high time I gave way.

  “Your case reminds me of that of a Czech worker named Krofta,” he said. “He worked in a locomotive factory and he had been arrested under suspicion of espionage. I was with him in the Kholodnaya Gora for about three weeks. In the end he confessed to having done something or other at his work. I can’t tell you what it was because I don’t know anything at all about technical matters. In any case, once he confessed they let him sign the dvukhsotka and just deported him. He was taken to the frontier under escort and handed over to the Czech Consul in Shepetovka.”

  “What is the dvukhsotka?”

  “Paragraph 204 in the Ukrainian Penal Code, but the prisoners generally refer to it as the ‘Two hundred,’ or dvukhsotka.”

  “Yes, but what does it mean?”

  “It lays down the procedure for closing an examination. The examiner has to lay all the material in the case before the accused: his own depositions, the records of any confrontations, the written evidence against him, and any other documentary evidence in the case. The prisoner can then read through everything and make a final deposition.”

  I thought over what he said for a while and something or other about it disturbed me, but I was far too exhausted to formulate my fears clearly.

  “You must realize, Alexander Semyonovitch, that even if the N.K.V.D. intends to release or deport someone they demand some small confession of guilt beforehand. After all, you can’t expect them to admit they’ve arrested an innocent man, particularly when he’s a foreigner. It might provoke a diplomatic incident or the man might demand compensation. The N.K.V.D. guards itself against anything of that kind by the dvukhsotka.”

  I must have been very near the end of my tether or I should have been suspicious. I should certainly have wondered how Rozhansky came to know the details of the Krofta case so intimately. How could he know what happened after the conclusion of the examination? How could he know the man had crossed the frontier at Shepetovka?

  Denin joined in the discussion. He, too, could see no other way out for me but to make a fictitious confession. The two discussed my case from every angle while I sat dejected on my bed. The thought of going back again for interrogation was horrifying. I was ripe for capitulation.

  I can clearly remember the mental process which preceded my collapse. I wanted to compromise with the examiner, but I found it difficult to overcome the habit of long years during which I had regarded my personal integrity as ranking over everything else in the world. I was despairingly searching for some psychological justification of my weakness and Rozhansky offered it in the idea that I was subordinating myself to Party discipline. But I wasn’t deceived. My real motive was fear; I hadn’t enough courage to hold out. I was afraid of the consequences if I did. When I adopted Rozhansky’s ideas of Party duty, Party discipline, loyalty to the cause of the revolution, and so on, it was merely to rationalize my own weakness. His ideas soothed my jagged nerves despite the fact that I knew in my heart of hearts they were false. This, no doubt, is the peace the heretic finds when, exhausted with the struggle, he returns to the bosom of the mother church. I had decided to surrender.

  The next time I was called out for interrogation I began:

  “Citizen Examiner, if it will help the cause of the revolution in any way I will sign whatever you want me to sign.”

  But to my surprise it was Ryeznikov’s turn not to understand. “What do you mean, Weissberg?”

  “I mean you can write down whatever you like. I’ll sign it.”

  “Well!” he exclaimed, “so you’re trying a little provocation now, are you? Please understand that it’s the truth I want, and nothing but the truth. I don’t want lies.”

  I was at a complete loss.

  “But, Citizen Examiner,” I stammered in despair, “if it’s the truth you want then the truth is that I’ve never done a thing against the Soviet Union.”

  At that he grew abusive again, and a stream of curses and obscenities poured out. He seemed furious.

  “I thought you were coming to your senses finally,” he declared, “but instead of capitulating you’re trying a little fascist provocation. Get back to your cell. This is really the limit.”

  He broke off the interrogation. When I told Rozhansky what had happened he was angry too.

  “You’re mad, Alexander Semyonovitch,” he exclaimed. “How can you expect Ryeznikov to accept a confession you say is a complete invention? Of course they want inventions, but they don’t want to be told openly that they are inventions. They won’t admit that even to themselves. An examiner who admitted the fictitious nature of the confessions he obtained, even to a colleague, would be shot out of hand the following morning. You know the Hans Andersen story of the King without any clothes; all the courtiers pretend that the naked King is wearing the most magnificent garments and one tries to outdo the other. It’s the same with them. After all, none of them wants to end up on a sandheap with the back of his head blown off. You’ve got to make your fictitious confession as though it were true, and the examiner’s got to be able to pretend to believe in it, otherwise the whole thing’s no good.”

  He was very persuasive and yet I found it difficult to believe him. And how difficult others are going to find it to believe me! The whole juridical apparatus of a big power functioned in the
web of a monstrous and seemingly pointless lie.

  I was unhappy because even my moral surrender had not brought me peace, but at least a hope again rose that they really did want the truth. In that case then somehow and at some time they must finally become convinced of my innocence and release me. Once again I thought of the blueprints. Perhaps they were the cause of my misfortune. I wanted to ask Rozhansky for advice, but a last vestige of mistrust restrained me.

  The next day Rozhansky was called out for an interrogation. That was a surprise for everyone. His examination was already concluded. He had signed the dvukhsotka six months previously and now he was waiting to be informed of his sentence. He was back in about an hour. We were very curious, but he was strangely reticent.

  “I had to confirm the statement of a Moscow comrade,” he said briefly. “It dated from 1931 and it was only indirectly connected with my case.”

  That night he urged me almost vehemently to make my peace with the examiner. I was too exhausted to put up much opposition. The next day Ryeznikov began to discuss my colleagues at the Institute again. He drew up statements which tended to suggest an anti-Soviet attitude on their part. I continued to make reservations, such as:

  “Well, if you look at it like that then of course Leipunsky’s attitude can be regarded as anti-Soviet.”

  Ryeznikov ignored my wretched little fig leaf and put the thing down naked. I signed. It was my first real fall from grace. Having achieved that, he went further.