Eastern Approaches (11 page)

There was an awkward pause. Even Ulrich, gross and self-assured, seemed momentarily taken aback. ‘But do you not,’ he asked, ‘confirm the admissions you made before coming into court?’

But Krestinski only went on repeating what he had said before. ‘I was never a Trotskist. I was never a member of the Rightist-Trotskist “Bloc”. I never committed a single crime.’

For the moment there was nothing to be done. Ulrich turned to the next prisoner.

‘Do you plead guilty to the crimes with which you are charged?’

‘Yes, I plead guilty.’

Then, when all the others had returned the prescribed answer, he announced briefly, ‘The court is adjourned for twenty minutes,’ and, followed by his two colleagues and by Vyshinski, left the room.

When, twenty minutes later, the hearing was resumed, Vyshinski immediately asked leave to begin the cross-examination of the prisoners with Bessonov, formerly the Counsellor of the Soviet Embassy at Berlin, a grim, grey-faced man, with the air of an automaton. The reason for this choice soon became clear. In an orderly, deliberate manner, as became the responsible Government servant he had once
been, Bessonov proceeded to describe in detail how, while in Germany, he had acted as the link between Trotski and Krestinski, how, in 1933, he had arranged an interview between Trotski and Krestinski, how Trotski and Krestinski together had plotted to betray the Soviet Union to the Germans.

With heavy sarcasm Vyshinski interrupted him to ask what, in view of all this, he thought of Krestinski’s claim that he was not a Trotskist. Bessonov smiled, but did not answer.

‘Why,’ Vyshinski asked, ‘are you smiling?’

‘Because,’ he replied, ‘it was Krestinski who denounced me as his contact with Trotski. If he had not volunteered that information, I should not be here now.’

And, for an instant, those watching had a glimpse of the meshes in which the accused had entangled themselves and each other before ever coming into court.

‘And now,’ said Vyshinski triumphantly, having piled up the evidence he required, ‘I have some questions to ask Krestinski.’ But still Krestinski did not weaken. Other prisoners were called and readily added their incriminating statements to those of Bessonov. Still he refused to admit his guilt; refused to admit that he had had a meeting with Trotski; refused to admit that he had sought to betray his country to the Germans.

Again Vyshinski reminded him of the admissions he had made at the preliminary examination. How, he asked him, did he account for these? The answer came back at once, devastating in its directness. ‘I was forced to make them. Besides, I knew that if I said then what I say now, my statement would never reach the Heads of the Party and of the Government.’ There was a shocked hush in court. Never before had such a thing been said in public.

The court adjourned for two hours. It resumed. Still Krestinski, looking more than ever like a small, bedraggled sparrow, steadfastly maintained his innocence. Vyshinski was beginning to look worried. After all, it was his responsibility to produce the desired results, and who could tell what would happen to him if he failed in his task?

Finally he gave up trying to break down Krestinski’s resistance and, leaving him, turned to his companions. Readily, eagerly, they admitted
their guilt. Cross-examining them, Vyshinski’s self-assurance returned There were no more discordant notes. It was like playing on a well-tuned instrument. Vyshinski looked happier. Late at night the court adjourned. The door at the end of the room was flung open and Ulrich and the other two judges marched out. Then someone opened the little side door and the prisoners filed through it, the guard closing in round them as they went. Back to their cells, back to the nightmare which had become their life.

Next day Vyshinski resumed his cross-examination of Krestinski. At once the change was obvious. After a little preliminary skirmishing and the production of further incriminating evidence, Vyshinski got down to the main point at issue. ‘Do you,’ he asked, ‘still persist in your refusal to confirm your previous declarations?’

‘No,’ came back the answer. ‘I confirm everything.’

‘What, then, was the meaning of the statement you made yesterday?’

‘Yesterday, influenced by a feeling of false shame, and by the atmosphere of the court, and by my state of health, I could not bring myself to tell the truth and admit my guilt before the world. Mechanically, I declared myself innocent. I now beg the court to take note of the statement which I now make to the effect that I admit my guilt, completely and unreservedly, under all the charges brought against me, and that I accept full responsibility for my criminal and treacherous behaviour.’

The words were reeled off like a well-learnt lesson. The night had not been wasted.

‘You may sit down,’ said Ulrich, in his soft, oily voice, and Krestinski slid back on to his seat with a look almost of relief. Vyshinski straightened his tie. The situation was saved.

The cross-examination of the prisoners continued. First came several of the smaller fry. The principle followed was clear enough. It was intended that by their admissions they should give a general picture of the activities of the alleged ‘bloc’ and, incidentally, thoroughly incriminate its leaders. Bessonov had played his part by describing the connection of the ‘bloc’ with Trotski and with the Germans. Grinko, a Ukrainian, revealed the existence of a terrorist organization in the
Ukraine, working under orders from the ‘bloc’. Chernov, a former People’s Commissar for Agriculture, confessed that, under instructions from Bukharin and Rykov, he had, in the hope of causing unrest, deliberately persecuted the medium peasants and, in order to diminish the country’s resources, arranged for the destruction of tens of thousands of pigs and horses. Several other prisoners followed his example, admitting to agricultural sabotage on a vast scale. One, Zelenski, a former Chairman of the State Planning Board, admitted to having put nails and powdered glass in the butter supplies and on one occasion in 1936 destroyed fifty truck-loads of eggs.

At this startling revelation a grunt of rage and horror rose from the audience. Now they knew what was the matter with the butter, and why there were never any eggs. Deliberate sabotage was somehow a much more satisfactory solution than carelessness or inefficiency. Besides, Zelenski had also admitted that he had been in contact with a sinister foreigner, a politician, a member of the British Labour Party, a certain Mr. A. V. Alexander, who had encouraged him in his fell designs. No wonder that he had put ground glass in the butter. And nails! What a warning, too, to have nothing to do with foreigners, even though they masqueraded as Socialists.

More and more, as the hearing went on, attention became focused on the ‘bloc’s’ connection with foreign governments and intelligence services. Nor were the Germans the only villains. Equally prominent was the role allotted to the British Secret Service. On this subject Rakovski, a venerable-looking old gentleman with a long white beard and a fine record as a revolutionary, who had formerly served as Soviet Representative in London, was a particularly fruitful source of information. In great detail he described how he himself had been ‘recruited’ over dinner at a little restaurant in Oxford Street. Then he declared that Trotski himself had been a British agent ever since 1926. Two more self-confessed British agents were Ivanov and Rosengolts, who, under instructions from Bukharin, had sold good timber to the British at ridiculously low prices in order to gain British support for their own fell designs. Faisullah Khojayev, for his part, declared that, being well aware of British designs on Central Asia, he had endeavoured to find a British agent in Tajikstan with whom to establish
contact, but had not been successful. Looking up at this juncture, I caught Vyshinski’s eye and found him regarding me with a significant smile, as though to say: ‘You slipped up that time.’

When the court adjourned one of the Secretaries at the German Embassy walked over to where I was sitting. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘They don’t seem to like you any more than they do us. Or perhaps it is that we are getting more popular!’ and he laughed. The following year this same German was to play a not unimportant part in the negotiations for the Soviet-German Pact.

Bit by bit, as one confession succeeded another, the fantastic structure took shape. Each prisoner incriminated his fellows and was in turn incriminated by them. Readily, glibly, they dwelt on their crimes and on those of their companions, enlarged on them, embroidered them, elaborated them. There was no attempt to evade responsibility. On the contrary, they often argued among themselves as to who had played the more important part, each claiming the honour for himself. Some displayed considerable narrative powers; of some it might almost have been said that they were eloquent. These were men in full possession of their faculties; the statements they made were closely reasoned and delivered, for the most part, with every appearance of spontaneity. It was unthinkable that what they said had simply been learnt by heart beforehand and was now being delivered under the influence of some drug or hypnotic spell.

And yet what they said, the actual contents of their statements, seemed to bear no relation to reality. The fabric that was being built up was fantastic beyond belief. The history of the ‘bloc’, as a ‘bloc’, did not, it appeared, go back much beyond 1932 or 1933, when the Right-wing Diversionists under Bukharin and Rykov had joined forces with the Trotskists, with Yagoda, and with the dissident elements in the Red Army, under Marshal Tukachevski, in a kind of counter-revolutionary coalition for the purpose of overthrowing the Soviet regime by force. But the personal history of every one of the accused was taken back to his early youth in an attempt to show that not one of them had been anything but a traitor from the start. Faisullah Khojayev, who was famous for his part in the Soviet Revolution in Central Asia, and who, while still in his twenties, had been President, first of the People’s
Republic of Bokhara and then, since its formation in 1925, of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, announced that he had in fact been a clandestine ‘bourgeois nationalist’ ever since 1918; that his aim throughout had been to overthrow the local Soviet regime and set up an independent Central Asian State under British influence; that, with this object in view, he had deliberately sabotaged agriculture in order to cause discontent amongst the native population; and that for twenty years his apparent loyalty to Moscow had been no more than a blind. When in 1933 and again in 1936 Bukharin had visited Central Asia and got into touch with him, the Rightists had found a ready recruit.

The counter-revolutionary activities of some of the prisoners were traced back to before the Revolution. With the greatest readiness, they admitted that they had been Tsarist police spies and
agents provocateurs
, masquerading as revolutionaries. One such case afforded an opportunity for a dramatic interlude, which, though in itself unimportant, afforded an interesting illustration of Vyshinski’s technique as a stage manager.

In the course of his interrogation Zubarev, a relatively unimportant prisoner, against whom the main charge preferred was one of recent agricultural wrecking in the Urals, admitted incidentally that he had in 1908 been enrolled as a police spy by the Chief of Police of the little town of Kotelnich, a certain Vassiliev. In return for betraying his fellow revolutionaries to the Imperial Police, he had, he said, on two occasions received from Vassiliev payments of thirty silver roubles. (‘Twice as much as Judas,’ commented Vyshinski in a loud aside, which was greeted with sniggers by the crowd.)

Zubarev’s admission gave Vyshinski his cue. He turned to Ulrich. ‘Perhaps,’ he said casually, ‘you will allow me to call Vassiliev as a witness for purposes of verification.’

At once there was a buzz of surprise and excitement in the court. How could Vyshinski call as a witness a man who had been a police officer under the Tsar thirty years ago? Surely he could not still be alive? And even if by a miracle he had survived the Revolution, and the Civil War, and the Famine and the Purge, how had it been possible to find him? It was like bringing back a ghost. It was as though he had offered to produce in court Peter the Great or Ivan the Terrible.

But Ulrich had given his consent and an usher had been dispatched to fetch the witness. Heads turned and necks craned; all eyes were fixed on the entrance.

The doors opened and up the middle of the room tottered step by step a frail little old man, his skin so shrivelled and yellow as to resemble parchment, his sunken features dominated by an enormous pair of moustaches carefully waxed to a point and sticking out on either side. If the powers that be had wanted to symbolize a grotesque and long-dead past, they could have chosen no better means than this faded military ghost. Shakily, he made his way up the whole length of the court-room, between the serried rows of benches; made his way unaccompanied, for this was no prisoner to be guarded, but a free man, enjoying the liberty accorded him by a merciful, forgiving Government.

As he went, the audience followed him with puzzled eyes. How were they to react? Should they register disgust at the sight of this vile old man, this survival from a hated past? Or delight at the victory which the regime had won over such vermin? Or admiration at the ingenuity displayed in producing him? This was something outside their experience.

Anxiously they looked at Ulrich and Vyshinski to see how they were taking it. Both were discreetly grinning. At once all doubts vanished. They might have known. This was a comedy turn. Soon the court-room was echoing with obedient laughter.

Amid guffaws the old man reached the witness box. Silence fell on the crowd. What was coming next? Ulrich asked him his name. In a high, piping squeak he answered: Vassiliev, Dmitri Nikolaievich. The creature could speak. It was too good to be true. The guffaws burst out afresh. Ulrich was at his most genial. His fat frame shaking with half-suppressed mirth, he signalled to the crowd to be quiet and let him get on with his cross-questioning. ‘Just leave it to me, boys,’ his gestures seemed to say, ‘there’s plenty more fun to come.’