The Accused

by Alexander Weissberg

  I had never believed in the possibility of the overthrow of German fascism without war, at least not in my generation. And therefore unconsciously I had always hoped for war, but I had never thought that Hitler would be fool enough to let himself get involved in one. Generally speaking, dictators are cowardly. They wage war only when there appears no great risk: the annexation of Austria, the seizure of the Sudeten areas, the occupation of Prague. Perhaps Hitler had not thought his invasion of Poland would lead to world war, despite the British guarantee. However, Great Britain and France had answered with a declaration of war, but the war was not waged with any great vigor, and during the eighteen days in which the Luftwaffe smothered the Polish Army not a French plane had bombed Germany. I feared that it would end in some sort of compromise.

  Stalin’s attitude seemed clear enough: he proposed to let the rest of Europe exhaust itself and then, with fresh and undamaged armies at his back, he could hope to have a big say in dictating the terms of peace. From the standpoint of Leninism there was no objection to this exploitation of the antagonisms in the capitalist camp, but what did surprise me later on was the attitude of the Soviet press. I could have understood neutrality with marked sympathy for the Western powers as obviously the more progressive of the two warring camps, but in fact official instructions had been issued to report the war sympathetically for the Germans. Great Britain and France were denounced as “plutocracies” that had launched an imperialist war of aggression against Germany. Goebbels himself might have inspired it.

  In my talks with the Bashkir I made the acquaintance of a new aspect of Soviet life. He described the country house he had been given by the government when he had been appointed People’s Commissar. It was the government of a very small Soviet Republic, but the same highly developed system of privileges existed, or, rather, the same highly developed system of corruption. The influential members of the Party I had known in Moscow in 1931 had lived modestly, but a year later there had been many privileges for certain social strata. For years there had been a maximum salary for Party members, and no one was allowed to receive more. For instance, the salary for my job in 1931 was 400 rubles a month, but as a member of the Party I had received only 280. This law had been passed in the early days of the Soviet state at Lenin’s insistence, in order to prevent the Party’s becoming a happy hunting ground for careerists. Party membership was to involve no material advantages; members of the Government were to be no better paid than ordinary skilled workers.

  The destruction of Soviet agriculture in the course of the enforced collectivization brought the great famine in the years 1930-33. At the same time a system developed in the villages which threatened the security of the state itself. Without a strictly disciplined repressive organization at his command Stalin would never have surmounted his difficulties. There would have been insurrections of hungry peasants and the trouble would have spread to the towns. The smooth functioning of the G.P.U. apparatus was therefore a question of life or death for the Government, and so it was decided that G.P.U. men should have special privileges; they were not to go hungry like the rest of the population, or they might join with the people and then the dictatorship would be overthrown.

  But Stalin did not stop at the G.P.U. He applied the same system to other branches of his apparatus. He needed engineers and technicians to carry out his industrialization, so they too were given special privileges.

  Authors and journalists were also privileged. It was their task to sing the praises of the dictator. Such work was frantically boring and dishonorable, but it was well paid. In this case it was personal vanity rather than fear that provoked Stalin’s generosity.

  The greatest privileges of all were reserved for the leaders of the Party and the state. The dictator’s own security depended on their loyalty. A conspiracy among them might lead to a successful palace revolution. Here Stalin spared no expense, and their material situation was vastly better than that of the statesmen of any other country, even the richest, although the people of the Soviet Union were wretchedly poor. I had observed the beginnings of this system of corruption. When I first came to the Soviet Union only the men right at the top, the members of the Politburo and the leading officials of the G.P.U., enjoyed any materially higher standard of living than others. But then came the perilous crisis of collectivization. First of all the maximum limit on the earnings of Party members was abolished. Then arrangements were made for leading officials of the Party and the G.P.U. to buy at special stores at specially low prices, with the result that their nominal earnings were increased as much as tenfold. They were given official cars and free places in the best sanatoria in the Crimea and the Caucasus. They ate the best food in special restaurants at low prices. But even all that was a mere nothing to what was to come later on.

  Bogutzky often told me of the life Kossior had led before his arrest.

  “But,” I objected, “a leading statesman must be freed from material worries. I see nothing wrong in the fact that a man like Kossior should earn six thousand rubles a month, while I, say, earn only a thousand.”

  “Say sixty thousand rubles a month perhaps, and even then you’ve mentioned only a part of the sum a man like that costs the state,” Bogutzky replied.

  At the time I was horrified at the suggestion, and I was sure that he was exaggerating. Bogutzky had a fierce puritannical strain in him. During the twenties he had been in favor of taking away the furniture and the carpets which had been confiscated at the time of the revolution from the former well-to-do. This furniture had been distributed by the town and village Soviets to Party members, workers, peasants and members of the Red Army who had distinguished themselves—but bureaucrats also came in for a share. Formally these goods were still the property of the state and merely loaned, but the law had fallen into abeyance and the goods were treated as the personal property of the people who had received them. Bogutzky’s idea was to realize the value of this property and set up a fund for a great relief action on behalf of the children. He set to work with the determination and persistence which had already brought him such success in other spheres, and he succeeded in getting all the necessary Party and governmental decisions passed. The holders of the furniture were then called upon either to surrender it or to make it their own property by means of purchase. There was bitter resistance, particularly from higher officials, and Bogutzky made many enemies—a thing which didn’t matter so much in those days.

  I could imagine that such a stickler for revolutionary integrity would scourge any luxury at the top even more furiously than it deserved, but in my subsequent discussions with the Bashkir I was compelled to recognize that Bogutzky had not exaggerated. There was, for instance, a special fund with the noble object of “ameliorating the cultural situation of the workers,” but this was the fund which paid for the upkeep of the splendid villas of leading Soviet statesmen and officials. The villa was more or less luxurious and elegantly equipped and furnished, and had a larger or smaller staff of servants, etc., according to the position of its owner in the Soviet hierarchy.

  The Bashkir talked about these things without a word of criticism, and he was even indignant when I condemned them. He found everything quite in order and firmly believed that it was good socialism to privilege a small upper stratum while the mass of the people lived in indescribable penury and misery. It was impossible to argue with him. The point of view of the new Soviet bureaucracy was completely foreign to me. They still talked socialism, but their outlook had nothing whatever to do with socialism.

  The long period of undernourishment had greatly weakened me. I had grown very thin, but by a miracle I had remained well. Now, on the threshold of freedom, as I felt, my strength began to leave me, and, in particular, I began to cough. I wrote once again to the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, and once again I received no answer. As I had not been called out for interrogation in the Butyrka, there was no examiner to whom I could turn. In my desperation I took a desperate step. I wrote to the
prison governor:

  “Please arrange to have me called out for interrogation. I have been a remand prisoner now for nearly three years. I have no relatives in the Soviet Union who could send me the fifty rubles a prisoner is allowed to receive to supplement his rations. I have money to my credit in the Kharkov Savings Bank and I have repeatedly asked permission to be allowed to have some of it transferred to my prison account, but in vain. If this letter also remains unanswered, I shall be compelled to go on hunger strike in three days from now.”

  The same evening the governor himself came to my cell.

  “I have forwarded your letter,” he said, “and I hope you will soon be called out for interrogation, but I can do nothing about it myself. At the same time I strongly advise you not to go on hunger strike. It would be regarded as an anti-Soviet demonstration.”

  “It’s no use,” I replied. “I simply have no strength left to wait. The food here may be enough for a man who has physical reserves, but look at me, Citizen Governor: if a man has to stay in prison for long without being able to use the lavochka to supplement his rations then he must inevitably go under.”

  “You will get an answer, but you will get nothing by using such pressure as a hunger strike.”

  “I am not demanding any privileges. I am in a difficult situation only because there is no one to send me money. Must I starve on that account?”

  The governor went away, and at two-thirty in the morning I was called out for interrogation. The warder let me through a labyrinth of corridors, stairs and yards until finally we arrived in a large and elegantly furnished foyer. The floor was covered with a thick-pile carpet and there were comfortable leather armchairs along the walls. Leather-covered doors obviously gave on to offices. It looked like a waiting room in a big trust or bank in Western Europe. At one wall was a sort of reception desk, where a young G.P.U. man attended to a switchboard. Behind him were guards. From time to time a lamp lit up over one of the doors and then he would send off a guard to answer the summons.

  I was allowed to sit down in one of the armchairs. After a while the warder beckoned and I was taken through one of the leather-covered doors. It was a large airy room excellently furnished. Sitting at a desk to the left of the room was a high G.P.U. officer. The panel of his collar contained three or even four lozenges. Next to him sat a powerfully built young captain with fair hair, who invited me politely to take a seat in another leather armchair a little distance from the desk. The two then studied my dossier. After a while the high officer addressed me:

  “You have written to the People’s Commissar, and I have been instructed to deal with the matter. What do you want?”

  “Two things: I ask that my examination should at last be concluded, and second that I should be allowed to transfer money from my savings-bank account in Kharkov to my prison account here in order that I may supplement my prison rations from the lavochka.”

  “I see there are over twenty witnesses against you.”

  “The accusations against me are false. Any unprejudiced man who cares to read through the dossier can see they can’t possibly be true.”

  “Well, perhaps so, but that only complicates the matter as far as we are concerned: it means that we must have all these incriminating witnesses examined again to find out whether they still maintain their statements against you or are prepared to withdraw them. Now they are scattered about in camps all over the country. You must have patience.”

  “I am quite prepared to have patience, but unless I get more food I shall collapse altogether. I ask for permission to have some of the money in Kharkov transferred to my prison account.”

  “That would be rather complicated. Haven’t you any relative in Moscow who could send you money? We would get in touch with him.”

  I thought for a moment or two before replying. I had, as a matter of fact, a distant cousin in Moscow, and I wondered whether I could mention him without getting him into trouble—though if I did he would probably be frightened out of his life and refuse all contact with me in order to prove his own loyalty. And who could blame him? On the other hand, money was beginning to be a question of life or death for me.

  “I have no relatives, but I have one or two acquaintances who might be prepared to help me if they were sure they wouldn’t be branded as enemies of the people in consequence.”

  “If you give us their names and addresses we will explain to them that they have nothing to fear.”

  I still hesitated. For all his assurances, it was no light matter to establish the slightest connection between an enemy of the state and an innocent citizen. In the end I gave the name of an acquaintance who had once occupied a leading position, arguing that if he had not already been arrested he would be safe by this time.

  A few days later I was taken out of my cell, “with things,” and escorted in a prison van to the center of the town to the inner prison of the G.P.U., the notorious Lubyanka. Once again I became aware that Houtermanns was taken too. There I was handed over to a wardress who escorted me to the washroom. While I was having a bath my things were searched, then I was placed in a very small cell without a window. All it held was a bed, and the space between that and the wall was very narrow. At about midnight I was called out for interrogation. It was conducted by two young officers. The senior of the two looked at me curiously.

  “You’re in a bit of a state, Citizen,” and he indicated my dilapidated trousers.

  At that I turned round and showed them the rear view and they burst out laughing.

  “We’ll see that you get some different clothes. By the way, what are you in for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what were you arrested for?”

  Such questions at this time of day were a little too much. I had lost all fear and I answered bluntly:

  “You talk as though I’d arrested you instead of you me. You ought to know why you arrested me.”

  “No,” he replied, “we didn’t arrest you. It was the fellows in Kharkov who did that and they’re all themselves behind bars by now.”

  “Well, if you think I’m innocent, and I certainly am, why keep me here? Why not let me go straight away?”

  “Not so fast, Citizen. We are now engaged in preparing the whole dossier for the People’s Commissar to examine. He will decide. You must be patient.”

  “Citizen Examiner, I am quite prepared to be patient. I’m used to it by this time, but help me to get some of my money so that I can supplement my prison rations and not slowly starve to death as I’m doing at present.”

  “I’ll see what can be done about that, and now...”

  And now it began all over again. I had to tell the whole story from beginning to end. From time to time he consulted my dossier. Suddenly he interrupted me.

  “The physicists they’ve arrested in Kharkov! Unbelievable! And now the whole lot are sitting in our cells doing nothing.”

  He told me that Obremov was one of them. He had asked for certain scientific books and paper, and he had developed a new theory in his own field which was about to be published.

  I was away in all about two hours, and this time I was put into a cell with another prisoner, a man of about thirty. He was an official of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade. I was so taken up with my own affairs that I didn’t even question him about his. He told me that Marshal Yegorov was in the next cell.

  The following evening I was again called out, and the examiner wrote a comprehensive concluding deposition. It was not in the usual form of question and answer, but a general summary of my whole case. When he came to the charge of espionage I tried to explain how absurd the whole thing was, and pointed out that the matter with the drawings had a very harmless explanation. He interrupted me at once.

  “What do you take us for?” he demanded. “Idiots? Do you really think we think you’re a spy? What sort of spy could you be?”

  “Well, then, why don’t you let me free?” I asked, a trifle dazed.

  “
Don’t be in such a hurry. Your turn will come. We can’t just let you loose like that after all this time. The thing must be done in some sort of order.”

  “Citizen Examiner, I certainly have the impression that you are preparing to release me. Could you tell me whether I shall be allowed to stay here for a while or whether I shall be deported at once as my wife was?”

  I couldn’t get a direct answer to that.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “The People’s Commissar will settle everything. You’re not the only one, you know. We’ve got a lot like you here.”

  “And what about my money? I don’t want to die of starvation just before I’m released.”

  “I’ll see what can be done. Perhaps you won’t get your money but be put into a cell where you get better food. I can’t say yet.”

  It was news to me that there were, so to speak, privileged cells, and I didn’t believe him. I signed the record and then I was taken back to my cell. There I suffered a sudden fit of rage and began to hammer on the door. When the warder came I demanded a sheet of paper to write to the commandant. He brought me a piece of paper and I wrote a brief note declaring that I was unable to stand the starvation any longer, and that unless I was given money to buy food in the lavochka within two days I should refuse food altogether.

  A little later I was called to the commandant himself.

  “Hunger-striking is regarded as an anti-Soviet demonstration,” he declared. “You won’t get anywhere with such blackmail methods, I warn you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but, Citizen Commandant, I’ve exhausted all other channels.”

  My fellow prisoner was horrified when he heard about it.

  “How can you do such things!” he exclaimed. “They’ll use the severest measures against you.”

  “The idea doesn’t disturb me anymore.”

  The two days passed and when the warder brought the soup I refused it. Another two days after that—I had in the meantime not even drunk water—I was called out to the examiner.