The Modern Inquisition. Hugo Dewar 1953
I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith. I curse and detest the said errors and heresies... that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not the centre of the same, and that it does move. — Galileo, 1633
I voluntarily admit that I have committed the acts I am charged with according to the penal code of the state. — Cardinal Mindszenty, 1949
Lines are being drawn between devotion to justice and adherence to a faction, between fair play and a love of darkness that is reactionary in effect no matter what banner it flaunts. — John Dewey
In the years 1936-38 there took place in Russia a series of trials involving a staggeringly large number of leading political figures and Red Army and Navy chiefs. The scope of these trials, and the charges brought against the defendants, astounded all observers; but even more bewildering was the fact that all the accused who were tried in public pleaded guilty, did their utmost to get themselves convicted and used the dock as a platform to extol the virtues of Stalin and the glories of the regime against which they had allegedly plotted.
Since the extension of Soviet power to a large area of Eastern Europe, the world has again witnessed a spate of these ‘confession’ trials, involving such diverse personalities as Mindszenty, head of the Catholic Church in Hungary; the Communist leaders Rajk in Hungary, Kostov in Bulgaria, Sling in Czechoslovakia; the American, Vogeler, and the Britisher, Sanders, employees of Standard Electric, in Hungary; the leader of the Agrarian Union in Bulgaria, Petkov; and a host of others.
In spite of the wealth of evidence that has accumulated on the methods used to obtain these so-called confessions, an air of mystery still clings to them. Thus after the Sanders-Vogeler trial The Times could write that ‘the particular method of coercion or persuasion used on these occasions is unknown and speculations about it are fruitless’, and the Daily Herald agrees that ‘we cannot know with any certainty the means employed’. The persistence of this uncertainty is due only to the fact that the available evidence is scattered, has been examined by very few people, and so far assembled by no one. The purpose of this book is to piece together the evidence that has accumulated over the years, and thereby present a categoric answer to the question: ‘How are the confessions obtained?’ At the same time the aims served by these show trials will be demonstrated. This involves an historical survey of the major trials from their inception in Russia to their latest manifestation in Czechoslovakia. It is a record not simply of man’s inhumanity to man, but also of a fraud so colossal, perpetrated with such brazen assurance on so wide a scale, and supported by such powerful interests, that by comparison the Inquisition of the Dark Ages pales into insignificance. Without question this is one of the most extraordinary phenomena of the modern age.
In addition to the evidence of those who have undergone interrogation there is the testimony of Soviet agents who broke with Stalin, the abundant material of the trials themselves, and the evidence contributed by the political aims avowedly pursued through the medium of these trials. While it may justly be argued that the testimony of one or two people affords no proof of the systematic employment of inquisitorial methods to obtain confessions, all the detailed evidence, drawn from many sources independent of each other, is irrefutable and conclusive.
As the three Moscow Trials, from which we have quoted at considerable length, took place many years ago, and will consequently be unknown to many readers, it is necessary to give some indication of the main accused and the charges brought against them.
These three great trials took place on 19-24 August 1936; 23-30 January 1937; and 2-13 March 1938. The principal accused in the first trial were GE Zinoviev, LB Kamenev, SV Mrachkovsky, GE Yevdokimov, IN Smirnov, IP Bakayev, VA Ter-Vaganyan and EA Dreitzer. In the second they were YL Pyatakov, KB Radek, GY Sokolnikov, LP Serebriakov and NI Muralov. In the third they were NI Bukharin, AI Rykov, NN Krestinsky, KG Rakovsky and GG Yagoda. To appreciate the astonishment caused by the trial of these men one must know something of their backgrounds, the roles they played in the Russian revolutionary movement and the establishment of Soviet power.
Grigori Zinoviev was a close collaborator of Lenin in exile; a collection of articles by the two was published in 1921 by the Communist International (hereafter referred to as the Comintern). He was elected President of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) at its First Congress in 1919, and held this post for many years; he was a member of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau (Politbureau), the highest party organ; he was also Chairman of the Leningrad Soviet. Zinoviev was executed at the age of 52, after thirty-five years’ service in the revolutionary movement. Kamenev was also 52 years old when executed, and had spent thirty years in the movement. A close colleague of Lenin, he had been Vice-Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, a member of the Central Committee and Politbureau, and Chairman of the Moscow Soviet. Up to 1934 he was head of the Academia Publishing House in Russia.
Mrachkovsky, aged 53 at the time of his execution, had spent his life in the service of revolution, had been an outstanding leader of fighting detachments defending Siberia and the Far East during the Civil War. Yevdokimov, aged 52, member of the Central Committee and Organisation Bureau (Orgbureau), a Secretary of the Central Committee, and the orator at Lenin’s funeral on behalf of the Leningrad organisation. Smirnov, one of the founders of the Red Army, fought with Trotsky at the battle of Sviashsk, a foundation member of the party and a People’s Commissar; imprisoned in 1932 till his trial in 1936; executed at the age of 56. Bakayev, famous as a military man risen from the ranks of the workers, a member of the Central Control Commission and the Leningrad Soviet; shot, at the age of 49. Ter-Vaganyan, leader of the Communist Party of the Armenian SSR, editor of the review Under the Banner of Marxism; in prison from 1932 to his trial in 1936; shot at the age of 43. Dreitzer, officer in the Red Army during the Civil War, twice decorated with the Order of the Red Flag; shot as a traitor at the age of 42.
Pyatakov had been an anarchist in his youth, imprisoned and deported under Tsarism. Early adhered to Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party; a leader of the movement in the Ukraine; a member of the Central Committee from the first days of the Republic; a director of the State Bank; deputy People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry; Rykov’s deputy on the Supreme Economic Council in the 1920s. Radek, in the revolutionary movement from the age of 14; leading figure of the Comintern in Lenin’s time and Secretary of its Executive Committee in 1920; a leader in the German Communist Party; arrested in Germany, 15 February 1919; released December and returned to Russia. He was a member of Trotsky’s ‘Left Opposition’, was expelled from the party at the end of 1927; capitulated to Stalin in 1929 and was reinstated in 1930, working on Izvestia. He was arrested after the first trial and sentenced to ten years in 1937, but his subsequent fate is unknown.
Sokolnikov collaborated with Lenin in drawing up the programme of the party in 1917. He had been a Bolshevik since 1905, when he participated in the uprising of that year. Arrested in 1907 and deported, he escaped in 1909 and was in emigration till 1917. A member of the Moscow Committee, he was Chairman of the Soviet Peace Delegation at Brest Litovsk, and signed the treaty of that name — demonstratively, without reading its terms; Assistant Commissar of Finance, 1921; Commissar of Finance, 1922; Deputy Chairman, State Planning Commission, 1926; Ambassador to Great Britain, 1929; member of the Central Committee, 1917-19, 1922-30; Assistant Commissar of Foreign Affairs in 1934. He received a sentence of ten years at his trial, but nothing has been heard of him since.
Born in 1890, Serebriakov started work as a metal-worker at the age of nine, joined the revolutionary movement in 1904, was arrested in 1905. He became a ‘professional revolutionary’ in 1909, was arrested and exiled to Narym in 1912 and escaped in 1914, returning to Moscow; rearrested and sent back to Narym till his term of exile expired in 1916. After the Revolution Serebriakov held high posts in the movement, among them that of Secretary to the Central Committee. He was expelled from the party when Stalin triumphed in 1927, capitulated in 1929 and was reinstated in 1930, after which he served in various high posts, the last being that of Assistant Commissar of Communications. Sentenced to death at the age of 50.
Muralov, born in 1877, was one of the oldest Bolsheviks, with a legendary record of heroism in the Civil War. Commandant of the Moscow Military District, and member of the Central Control Commission, he was expelled from the party in 1927 and exiled to Western Siberia; shot at the age of 59.
Bukharin, in Lenin’s words ‘the favourite of the party’, was a member of the Central Committee at the time of his arrest. A former President of the Comintern (after Zinoviev’s fall from favour in 1927), he was the author of the Programme of the Communist International, and editor of Pravda. From 1923 to 1927 he collaborated closely with Stalin in the fight against the Left Opposition, but after the victory Stalin turned against his former ally. He was relieved of his posts in 1929, and expelled from the Politbureau in 1933, but served on Izvestia until his arrest; executed by Stalin after thirty years of service in the revolutionary movement.
Rakovsky was born in Bulgaria and became a leader in the Bulgarian and Rumanian revolutionary Socialist movements. Imprisoned by the Rumanian government during the First World War, he was liberated by Russian frontier troops and joined the Bolsheviks. He was one of the founders of the Comintern and head of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic; later becoming Soviet Ambassador to England, then France. He spoke six languages fluently and had a reading knowledge of several others. Expelled from the party in 1927 and exiled to a remote region of Siberia, he did not capitulate until 1934. Stalin then sent him on a mission to Japan, and his sojourn there later served as a basis for the charge of espionage relations with the Japanese. He was shot after almost fifty years of service in the revolutionary cause.
Krestinsky, a lawyer by profession, and an Old Bolshevik like all the others, was the General Secretary of the party prior to Stalin’s assumption of that post. He was for a time People’s Commissar of Finance and Ambassador to Berlin. Rykov was President of the Soviet of People’s Commissars after Lenin’s death and had spent nearly forty years in the movement when he was shot as a traitor.
Finally there is Yagoda, also an old Bolshevik, briefly sympathetic to the Right Opposition (Bukharin, Rykov) in 1928, but essentially a GPU man; one-time lord and master of the vastest slave-labour camps in the world, decorated for construction of the Baltic White Sea Canal, close confidant of Stalin when he schemed to break his opponents and make himself dictator; People’s Commissar for the Interior, member of the Central Committee and chief organiser of the first two Moscow Trials.
Other accused were Communists of long standing but internationally less well known and others of dubious background. An indication of the types involved in the latter category is obtained from the fact that one of them, a certain Arnold, was Molotov’s chauffeur, a man who had allegedly changed his name and nationality many times before entering Russia. Chauffeurs of high Soviet dignitaries are always chosen with great care from among meticulously vetted GPU personnel.
Before giving an indication of the charges laid against these men, it is well to note the government representative opposed to them in the person of the State Prosecutor, Andrei Vyshinsky.
Vyshinsky was born in 1883 and joined the Russian Social Democratic Party at the age of 19. He was sentenced to imprisonment in 1907. Up to 1920 he adhered to the Mensheviks, opposing the Bolsheviks (according to Victor Serge he was involved in sabotage of the food administration in the Ukraine in 1918), but in that year he climbed on the bandwagon, exhibiting the far-sighted shrewdness that appears to have never since deserted him. From 1920 to 1923 he was on the staff of the Commissariat for Food Supply; from 1923 to 1925 he was Attorney General of the Russian Soviet Federated Republics; from 1925 to 1927, Professor of Jurisprudence at Moscow University, then Commissar for Justice, President of the Court in the Industrial Party Trial, 1930, Public Prosecutor in the Metro-Vickers Trial of 1933, and in the Moscow Trials of 1936-38. He has latterly made a reputation for himself as Russia’s chief spokesman in the sphere of international diplomacy.
The accused, whose records we have briefly sketched above, were charged with many crimes, including sabotage, assassination, murder by poisoning, and espionage. It will be sufficient to give some extracts from the indictment in the third Moscow Trial to show the general nature of the charges in all three trials:
Indictment in the case of NI Bukharin, AI Rykov, GC Yagoda, NN Krestinsky, KG Rakovsky, etc..., accused of having on the instructions of the intelligence services of foreign states hostile to the Soviet Union formed a conspiratorial group named the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyists’ with the object of espionage on behalf of foreign states, wrecking, diversionist and terrorist activities, undermining the military power of the USSR, dismembering the USSR and severing from it the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Central Asiatic Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Maritime Region of the Far East for the benefit of the aforementioned foreign states, and lastly, with the object of overthrowing the Socialist social and state system existing in the USSR and of restoring capitalism, of restoring the power of the bourgeoisie...
Thus the accused NN Krestinsky, on the direct instructions of enemy of the people Trotsky, entered into treasonable connections with the German intelligence service in 1921...
The accused KG Rakovsky, one of Trotsky’s most intimate and particularly trusted men, has been an agent of the British intelligence service since 1924, and of the Japanese intelligence service since 1934...
The investigation has established the fact that by direct agreement with the Japanese and German intelligence services... the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyists’ engineered and committed a number of terrorist acts against some of the finest people of our country...
The investigation has established that the vile assassination of SM Kirov... was... committed in pursuance of a decision of the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyists...
As the materials of the investigation show, Bukharin and other conspirators aimed at frustrating the Brest-Litovsk Peace, overthrowing the Soviet government, arresting and murdering VI Lenin, JV Stalin and YM Sverdlov... (From the Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet ‘Bloc of Rights and Trotskyists’ (Moscow, 1938), pp 5-35)
This report will hereafter be referred to as Trial III; The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre, Moscow, 1936, will be referred to as Trial I, and The Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre, Moscow, 1937, will be quoted as Trial II.
The indictment in all the three trials covers essentially the same ground, the only difference being that there is a progressive accumulation of crimes, the colours of which become more and more fantastically lurid. In the last trial, for instance, four of the Kremlin physicians enter into the plot (one of them was absent from the court-room; presumably he was not fit for trial). They are accused of poisoning the People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry, Kuibyshev; the head of the OGPU, Menzhinsky; and the author Maxim Gorky. These crimes were allegedly carried out on the instructions of Yagoda, who was virtual chief of the GPU even when Menzhinsky, the actual head, was alive. (Menzhinsky had been a severely stricken man for years before his death and his occupation of the post was purely nominal.)
The murder of SM Kirov, referred to in the indictment, has been dealt with by the author in Assassins at Large (Alan Wingate, 1951), where the interested reader will find a detailed analysis of this mysterious affair. Here it is sufficient to note that some hundreds of people — none of whom had the remotest connection with the crime — were executed in retaliation for this one death.
The reader will now appreciate the effect of these trials on world public opinion. Outside of the USSR not a single commentator independent of the Russian authorities and competent to pass an opinion on these matters could be found to credit these charges and accept the ‘evidence’ against almost the entire General Staff of the Russian Revolution of 1917. And to add to the general amazement and incredulity there were the accusations against almost all the top-ranking officers of the Red Army and Navy. Tried in secret on charges of espionage relations with foreign powers, conspiracy to overthrow the regime and dismember the country, the heroes of the revolutionary era were hurried away to the place of execution. The élite of an entire generation was wiped out.
In spite, however, of a widespread disbelief in the genuineness of these ‘confession’ trials, the problem of how the accused were induced to plead guilty remained a matter of more or less vague speculation. The most widely accepted theory, advanced by Arthur Koestler in his Darkness at Noon, even if it could be accepted as valid for a particular type of accused, did not offer a solution for all the known cases, even before the export of these trials to Eastern Europe. With the extension of these trials to the European scene it became apparent — from such comments as we have quoted at the beginning of this foreword — that Koestler’s explanation had not provided the definitive answer. But the evidence set forth in the following pages leaves no room for doubt about the technique by means of which confessions can be extorted from all manner of opponents or heretics, no matter if they are Old Bolsheviks, Catholics, Protestants, leaders of peasant parties, technicians, scientific workers, or what have you.