The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  “We’ve known all about that for almost four years now. It’s all down here in our files. You’re quite right, it’s not so very important; you’ve got much more to confess than that.”

  “No, I have nothing else to confess.”

  “Where are those hundred and fifty drawings?” demanded Ryeznikov sharply. “What did you do with them? To whom did you sell them? And how much did you get for them? Or did you hand them over for idealistic motives, merely out of political hatred for the Soviet Government?”

  “Citizen Examiner,” I said deliberately, “your spy is not very clever. There weren’t a hundred and fifty drawings, but only eighty-five. As simple a trick as that was enough to trip him up.”

  Ryeznikov sprang to his feet in a fury, seized a heavy paperweight and flung it at my head. It just missed.

  “You scoundrel,” he screamed. “You professional spy and provocateur. You think you can trick the Soviet power.”

  He rang for the guard and continued to scream and rave at me until the man came.

  “Take this wretch away,” he ordered. “He poisons the air.” And to me: “The chief himself will deal with you. I’ve finished with you.” I followed the guard out in a daze.

  My condition in the two weeks that followed is difficult to describe. I suffered a complete nervous breakdown. It was impossible for me to do anything requiring the slightest concentration. If I wanted to pick up something I had to make several clumsy attempts before my hand finally closed around it. The co-ordination between directing brain and executing muscle was upset. My knees threatened to give way when I tried to walk and I had often to be supported by my companions. Prisoners are usually subject to a high degree of sexual irritability, but I had no sexual feelings of any kind whatever. I was quite convinced that I had lost my virility for good. I ate and slept badly, and when I was awake my thoughts wandered and it was quite impossible for me to analyze anything step by step and come to a logical conclusion. That centralization of all consciousness into one focal point which we normally term the ego had broken down. I was no longer a personality, no longer an integral psychic whole, but a mere incoherent bundle of unrelated parts which no longer obeyed a will that was in any case almost non-existent.

  For the first two days I sat or lay around in complete apathy and despair. I said no word to either of my companions. In that period Denin was taken away for good, but Rozhansky remained behind. He did his utmost for me. He was almost like a mother with a sick child, but we were unable to look into each other’s eyes. The situation became impossible and finally I summoned up enough courage to tell him what I thought. At first he denied that he had betrayed me, but then he struck his chest, flung his arms out wide and declared excitedly:

  “I consider it my duty to help the N.K.V.D. If I had done that I should be proud of it.”

  It was an indirect admission, and I pressed him no further. I was in utter despair. Later on when I had recovered a little I began to analyze my condition and look for the causes of my nervous breakdown. After all, Rozhansky had done nothing really dangerous. Why did I despair? The reason was that for three and a half months I had lived in the firm conviction that somehow or other my innocence would be made manifest and I should then be released. That conviction had given me strength and helped me to resist. Through Rozhansky it had now been made clear that the examiner was not interested in the truth and wanted fictitious self-accusations. If that were the case then I was really lost. They would never release a man who knew as much as I did now, particularly not to go abroad. This feeling of being hopelessly trapped paralyzed me. It was the old, old story of the weasel and the rabbit; whatever I did, I was lost. I thought of my next interrogation with horror. So far I had confessed nothing, but I felt now that my reason was about to break down. Thank God they were leaving me alone for a while. I had the impression that I was being kept under observation by the warder, the doctor and Rozhansky and that some consideration was being shown for my state. Six months later when the mass arrests began they had no time for such subtleties, but for the moment I still seemed to be of some importance to them.

  Looking back, I find my attitude to Rozhansky difficult to understand. I knew that he had betrayed me, that by devilish ingenuity he had wormed his way into my confidence and then exerted all his powers of suggestion and persuasion to undermine my will power and drive me into my misfortune. Despite that, I was simply incapable of living without him. The idea that he might be taken away filled me with anxiety. One day he was called out early in the morning “with things,” which meant that he would not return. I was in despair and I asked to see the doctor.

  “Citizen Doctor,” I said, “look at me. In my present condition I am just incapable of being alone. If I am left alone I shall commit suicide.”

  “I can’t decide things like that,” he replied. “It’s entirely a matter for the examiner. All I can do is to treat you medically. You must calm down.”

  “That’s just what I can’t do. I can’t stand solitary confinement again; not now. Please tell the examiner that.”

  The doctor was noncommittal, but apparently he did approach Ryeznikov, for half an hour later two warders came into my cell and searched me and my things with great care for anything with which I might have done myself harm. After that a warder looked through the spy-hole every few minutes. That evening Rozhansky was put’ back in my cell.

  I almost embraced him. Despite everything that had gone before, I felt no resentment toward him. On the contrary, I was sorry for him. I realized only too well what he must have been through before he fell as low as that. I looked at his worn, emaciated face and his thin, bony hands, and all anger left me. If he wanted to survive at all he had to go the way of least resistance and do whatever the G.P.U. told him to do. And what would he get for it? Perhaps a little extra food and a few cigarettes. That was an interesting point, which had not occurred to me before: he always had cigarettes. He was a chain smoker, and if he hadn’t a cigarette in his mouth he was nervous and ill at ease. And yet he never received a parcel from outside. There was probably no one who cared anything about his fate. But every week when the warder who brought the parcels came there was always a supply of cigarettes for Rozhansky.

  Gradually my condition improved, but I still couldn’t sleep properly. The night had always been a happy release, but now it became a recurring horror which came closer and closer as the evening drew on. Rozhansky did his best for me, and he did it with real kindness and sympathy. Even he, clever as he was, couldn’t play-act like that. And, in any case, there was no longer any particular reason why he should. In the night when I tossed and turned fitfully he would come over and sit on the edge of my bed and talk comfortingly to me. Sometimes he even succeeded in getting me off to sleep.

  I never referred to his treachery and we rarely spoke about the interrogation. He did his best to present my future in reasonably rosy colors, and sometimes he almost convinced me. This state of affairs lasted for about a fortnight and gradually my vitality returned until one day when it was hot in the cell I felt I should like to have some exercise and I again took part in the daily exercise.

  The day after that the prison governor came to the cell, took all particulars and ordered me to pack my things.

  “What do you think this means, Rozhansky?” I asked.

  “I expect they’re transferring you to the ordinary prison in Kholodnaya Gora. It’s the next stage. Goodby, Alexander Semyonovitch, and forgive me if you can. Believe me, I’ve grown very fond of you.”

  I embraced him and then the warder came to take me away.

  Down below they gave me my case and then I was taken alone in the prison van. Opposite me sat an armed G.P.U. man who refused to answer my questions. The journey lasted about ten minutes, and then, as Rozhansky had prophesied, I found myself in the central prison for the Kharkov district in the Kholodnaya Gora.

  CHAPTER 7—The “Conveyer”

  THE PRISON OF KHOLODNAYA GORA WAS SITUATED ON THE OU
TSKIRTS OF

  Kharkov. I had passed it daily on my way to the experimental station. From outside one could see prisoners clinging to the bars. They looked only half human and I shuddered instinctively at the sight of them. I don’t know now whether it was some half-buried fear, or shame that such things were possible in the land of socialism. In any case I was always glad when the car had passed the prison and I had no need to avert my gaze.

  The prison was an old one and had been built under the Tsar. Our van was first admitted through an iron gateway; then I had to get out and walk with my escort to a smaller door. A warder at this door then examined our papers and let us through. My escort took me to what I afterward learned was Block H, a T-shaped four-story building. Along the length of the “T” were fifty small cells, while the crosspiece contained twelve large cells. I was put into a small cell about thirteen by six feet. I think it was No. 37. In Tsarist days it had been a single cell, but now it contained sleeping accommodations for three. Against one wall were two iron bedsteads which could be folded up against it during the day, and on the opposite wall was another. ‘When the beds were down there was about a foot between them. The window was about a square yard and so high up in the wall that I had to get hold of the bars and draw myself up, or take a chair, to see out. There was one small cupboard and two chairs.

  I was alone in this cell and I looked out of the window to get the lie of the place. The prison was surrounded by two concentric walls and the actual prison buildings were within the inner wall. The area between the inner and outer walls was given over to the guards and officials, who had small houses with vegetable gardens. In the evenings young girls and boys sat around playing harmonicas and dancing.

  I was once again alone, but now solitary confinement no longer oppressed me. I was recuperating and I was allowed to lie down even during the day, which was a great relief. After a few days another prisoner arrived. I have forgotten his name, but he was an old Social Revolutionary. He was a man of about fifty, but he looked not much more than thirty with his broad shoulders, his muscular body, his unlined face and his thick brown hair. He shook me firmly by the hand and asked how I was. To me it was almost comic, very much as though he had met on old acquaintance in a restaurant. I looked at him curiously. He had a broad forehead, fine eyes and a friendly face. He was a proletarian. Fine mechanics I think was his line. He had a great respect for culture, and he was very grateful to me for talking to him of foreign literature, art and history. He was quite resigned to his fate, but he was tremendously indignant because the examiner had used bad language and abused him. He was sometimes quite beside himself at the thought.

  “Just think, Alexander Semyonovitch: that man used foul language about my mother to me. After all, he’s not just any ordinary Tom, Dick or Harry. He’s a state official holding an important position. Really, such things shouldn’t happen.”

  His naïveté was quite touching. Later I realized that this use of bad language was not due to any looseness on the part of the examiners, but was quite deliberate. Its purpose during interrogations was to wound a man’s self-respect, to humiliate him, to rob him of his courage and undermine his powers of resistance.

  I asked this Social Revolutionary why he had been arrested, and he didn’t know. During the civil war he had fought in the Red Army. He had left the Social Revolutionary Party in 1907 at the time of his banishment to Siberia. Returning in 1913, he had taken no further part in politics until the actual revolution. After the civil war he had lived in Kharkov as a skilled worker.

  “Now and again old friends from the days of the revolution came to visit me,” he explained. “Perhaps that was why I was arrested.” “But that’s not a crime,” I said.

  “No,” he admitted, “but they probably thought we discussed dangerous things together. They’ve become very mistrustful, very mistrustful.”

  “What do you think will happen to you now?”

  “Oh, they’ll send me to Siberia, I suppose, but that won’t be so bad. I know the ropes. I was there for six years. In fact, if they give me free banishment I’ll stay there for good; I won’t come back even if they let me.”

  To me it was a most extraordinary thing: here was a man innocent of any crime and yet he found it the most natural thing in the world that he should be banished to Siberia. At first I thought with something like horror: Perhaps he’s another Rozhansky sent to demoralize me, but I soon felt reassured; this former Social Revolutionary was one of the most honest and decent men I have ever met.

  A few days later the door of the cell opened and in walked an old acquaintance, Professor Rashkov. I had first met him in 1931. He was a professor of sociology and he taught Marxism-Leninism at the Kharkov High School. He had joined the Communist Party in 1918, but before that he had been a Menshevik. That, no doubt, was why he was here. We greeted each other warmly and he told me the story of his arrest.

  “In earlier years I was summoned occasionally to the G.P.U. They were very friendly, asked me about my views and those of my friends. Everything was in order and I signed the usual depositions. Then I fell ill. In the winter I was in the hospital for several months. While I was there they summoned me again, but the doctor absolutely forbade me to get up so they told me to get in touch with them as soon as I came out. Of course, I did. I went to see them and was received by the same official, who treated me just as amiably as ever, took down an account of my life once again and asked me about my friends. Everything seemed all right, but it wasn’t. They arrested me. Two weeks after that the examination began. It’s still going on. But today they brought me here.”

  Rashkov was a Jew and he was particularly devoted to the Soviet power on account of its nationality policy, which allowed the Jews to live in peace. As far as I could judge, there really was no anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. The Jews were regarded as just another minority group.

  Before the war and the revolution the situation of the Jews in Russia had been very different. The Orthodox Church and the Tsarist Government had deliberately fostered anti-Semitism, and the Government’s discriminatory policy had filled the Ukrainian and Polish towns with Jews. Lenin’s internationalism in the first years of the revolution had almost entirely abolished anti-Semitism among the Russian people. The official prohibition of all forms of anti-Semitism and the just treatment of the formerly oppressed national minorities had worked wonders.

  Before I went to the Soviet Union I had not believed it possible to uproot such a foul thing as racial hatred merely by administrative measures. I thought it would require something more than the mere prohibition of anti-Semitic agitation to put a stop to anti-Semitism. But I had overlooked the fact that real anti-Semites are few and far between; the others merely follow their lead like sheep. If the few active and determined anti-Semites are stopped, then racial hatred soon ceases, and so it was in Soviet Russia.

  I often discussed racial difficulties with Rashkov, and once I told him about an incident at the Institute. A nineteen-year-old girl named Semyonova, employed as a draftsman, had remarked to a colleague: “There goes Pliskin with his Haika.” Pliskin was a Jewish foreman in the Institute workshops, and the “Haika” was his wife. Now, “Haika” is a Ukrainian term of contempt for a Jewess, and Semyonova’s colleague reported the remark to the union.

  The vehemence of the reaction astounded me. A general meeting of the Institute employees was called. There were several hundred employees and only a very few were Jews, certainly not more than ten. The meeting unanimously decided to expel the girl from the union. This meant she would lose her job and be unable to find another one anywhere in European Russia, except perhaps as an unskilled worker. I had come in rather late, unfortunately, but when I heard what had happened I asked for the floor.

  “Comrades,” I began, “I know Comrade Semyonova well. She is a good worker. She denies having made the offensive remark, but even if we find it proved, does it deserve such very harsh punishment? Consider; the girl is only nineteen; do you really think s
he is beyond redemption at that age? Surely we can influence her and bring her to abandon such ideas. On the other hand, if she is severely punished she may, from sheer resentment, be reinforced in her attitude. I therefore propose that the decision should be reconsidered.”

  A lively discussion followed in which some of the Communists present opposed me, but in the end the meeting did withdraw its decision and contented itself with a severe rebuke.

  I was very satisfied with the result, but the next day I was called into the Party office by Komarov. As Party Secretary he was my superior; personally we were good friends.

  “Alex,” he said, “your attitude in the meeting yesterday was frankly hostile to the Party and definitely anti-Semitic. The way you defended Semyonova was pure anti-Semitism.”

  I was astounded. “But first of all I didn’t defend her attitude at all,” I protested, “and secondly it’s perfect nonsense to accuse me of anti-Semitism; I’m a Jew myself.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing. There are plenty of Jewish anti-Semites.”

  “Do you really think that what Semyonova said was beyond all forgiveness, that we must thrust a young creature, who is obviously capable of improvement, right out of the community? Because that’s what it would have amounted to. That was going much too far, and, therefore, I said so.”

  “Alex, you don’t understand. Open anti-Semitism is illegal in the Soviet Union, and therefore the class enemy uses indirect methods and whispering propaganda. Such apparently unimportant utterances indicate a deep-rooted hostile ideology. The Party must nip them in the bud at once. Or do you think we ought to wait until the old shouts, ‘Bettye Yevreyev; spassaitye Rossiu,’{8} sound again in the streets of Kharkov?”

  Komarov’s attitude was typical of the dominant ideology of the Party in the nationality question. He had no particular interest in the Jewish problem as such; for him it was merely part of the general problem of establishing harmonious relations between nations living together in the same territory.